16 MEMORIES AND COINCIDENCES.
MEMORIES AND COINCIDENCES.
~]\ /T OST people are pleasantly affected, even though there be ^**- a tinge of sadness, when, in mature years or advanced life, they meet with persons or incidents that have an intimate connection with the first thoughts of their childhood Or the associations d>f their youth.
The writer's first recollections of a book, other than the ponderous Bible of the grandfather, Watts' hymns and the almanac that hung by a loop over the fire-place, was one, to us, very mysterious and perplexing, as it absorbed the atten- tion for maivy da}~s of a sister, a little our senior, making her thoughtful and uncommunicative, and depriving us of our principal social comfort. One evening when she had pored long and silently over the book, my father said to her, "Come, it is time you were abed." She dropped one hand and untied one shoe, not raising her eyes from the book and making no further progress towards retiring. After awhile he repeated his admonition, when she untied the other shoe in the same listless manner, but kept on reading page after page. At last he said in a quiet wa}- to our mother, "What on earth is that child reading?" "Oh," she replied, "she is reading about Bobbins and Riley, who were cast away on the desert of Sahara." The mental photograph is dim, and we do not remember if she went to bed at all. One warm summer's day, after she had finished the book, she took us to a shady grove by the roadside, where there was a small spring of cold water bubbling up into a little basin in the earth, which would hold, perhaps, two quarts, and where we both la}r down and drank heartily, but the little fountain seemed to be just as full
MEMORIES AND COINCIDENCES. 17
as before. She said, " Bobbins could drink all the water in that spring at once.v "I don't know Robbins," I said. Then she told us of the wonderful book she had been reading — of an ocean, ships, sailors, winds, wrecks — of a great desert, Arabs; and lastl}' of the terrible hunger and thirst of two men, Robbins and Rile3*. One night we awoke with a burning thirst, and our mother brought a cup of water, which we com- pletely drained, when she assured us we should not be thirsty any more, for we had drank enough for Robbins and Riley both. When large enough to carry the " drink " in the hay field, men would say, " Huny up, boy, for we're dryer than Robbins." For manj- years the tale of Robbins was read in families and told at school, and the sufferings of Robbins be- came the proverbial standard for excessive hunger and thirst. A few years since, and more than forty years after what we have related, and when we had supposed that the hero of the narrative had passed away, even, perhaps, before we had heard the story, we read one evening in the Plain Dealer an extended and interesting obituary of Mr. Jason Robbing, of Solon, in which we were surprised and gratified to learn that the hero from childhood, and of the mysterious book, had lived for many years in that peaceful and romantic town, a prominent citizen and magistrate, and the father of sons and daughters who revered him in life and lamented him in death. We could hardly have been more astonished had we been told that the re-animated form of Daniel Defoe had shaken off the one hundred and fifty years mortuary dust of Bunhill Fields, and was discussing with Swift, and Addison, and Pope, at the London Coffee House, the merits of the Tattler and Spectator, and the virtues of Queen Anne, and that Robinson Crusoe had " sold out " on Juan Fernandez, and was cultivating Catawba grapes on Kelly's Island.
A few summers afterward we visited the ancient homestead among the green hills of New England, drank at the same little spring where we heard the story forty-five years before,
BANCROFT
LIBRARY
<•
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
MEN AND EVENTS
OF
HALF A GENTTJEY.
BY
FREDERICK T. WALLACE.
CLEVELAND:
EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION. 1882.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1882, &
FREDERICK T. WALLACE, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
BANCROFT LIBRARY
PREFACE.
CHOULD any reader of this book deem the author to have presumed too much on the public consideration, or to have mistaken the historical and literary tastes of a read- ing people, his apology is that he has been tempted by the over-indulgence of the public journals of Cleveland, and some of New York, Boston and Chicago, which have, during a series of years, published most of the papers herein, besides having put the writer off his guard of modesty by each asking in pleasing terms for more copy.
He confesses, nevertheless, something akin to parental feel- ing for his scattered children of the brain, remembering the \ happiness or sadness attendant upon their birth ; and there- fore he has called the little wanderers home, wiped their sun-
browned faces, combed their matted and dishevelled locks,
and in some instances set on a patch of new cloth where they seemed somewhat thread-bare, or a little out at the knees or elbows, to make them a trifle more presentable among the few surviving neighbors who saw most of them when they first toddled, and their father was young and hopeful — cherish- ing, withal, a parental hope that a new and cultured genera- tion may discover something in their forms and faces, and <_J respectful manners, not wholly unattractive, though they be not among the prettiest and best dressed of literary children. Furthermore, an abiding attachment for the beautiful city X and its generous people has prompted the author to an effort ^£ to awaken, in the minds of a few appreciative friends, pleas- £E ant recollections of local events, and to recall a few among LLJ the man}' names of those who have contributed to make up ^ the record of the eventful history of our city and country, cov- ering a period of half a century.
Cleveland, 1882. F. T. W.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
1. After Twenty Five Years 1
2. Memories and Coincidences 16
3. Our Travelers and Writers 29
4. Webster's Spelling-Book "Uncovered" 52
5. Tea Drinking and Tales of a Grandmother 60
6. Science, Literature and Law 66
7. The Iberian and the Gaul 73
8. The American Lakes 78
9. The Two Doctors 83
10. The Death of Douglas 88
11. The Riddle Banquet 91
12. Major Lyman C. Thayer 94
13. The Celestial Embassador 98
14. The Japanese Embassy 101
15. In Memoriam — Morse 104
16. The Cause 107
17. Eighteen Hundred Seventy one 108
18. Col. Miller and the Sword of Byron 110
19. A Legend of Damascus 115
20. General Mosby and Speaker Blaine 119
21. War, Avarice and Peculation 124
22. The Sword of Spain 128
23. The National Land System 131
24. The Year of Centennials 135
25. The Millennial of Iceland 138
26. The Press and the Cardiff Giants 141
27. Obliterating the Landmarks 145
28. National Reform and Primary Meetings 148
29. Recollections of the Hawaiian Chancellor *. 152
IV CONTENDS.
PAGE
30. Reunion of the Originals 155
31. Our Guests of the Ssengerfest 158
32. Truth at Last and by a Woman 161
33. Ancient Egyptian Beer Gardens 167
v 34. Mentor and the Mecca of the Mormons 170
35. Exposition of Marital Products 174
36. The Past and the Future 177
37. Humor and its Uses 181
38. Cuyahoga in Congress 187
39. Lafayette and the Heroes of 1812 190
40. The Staff of Steel 195
41. Reflections 196
42. Riverside Dedicatory 197
43. Memorial Tree-Planting 201
44. The Dead Children 203
45. Livingstone — Stanley 205
46. A Marmion of the Nile 207
47. Viaduct Reflections 208
48. The Dead Astronomer 213
49. South Side Park Dedicatory 215
50. The Cow in Court 221
51. Sherlock J. Andrews — A Memory and a Tear 226
52. Questions Answered 230
53. Recollections of Adelaide Phillips 233
54. Cleveland Bar Banquet 237
55. Sanitary Regulations of Pekin 243
56. Garrison — Phillips — Andrew 248
57. Agrippina and Lucretia — A Parallel 254
58. Music and its Influences 261
59. Atlantis and America — Myths vs. Realities 287
60. Recollections of Webster and Choate 303
61. The Kidd Letter. . . 324
AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.
TN 1854 the writer for the first time looked into the old •*• court house in Cleveland, then standing where now are the rustic bridge, the fountain, and the pond, in the south- west corner of the Park. Samuel Starkweather was judge of the court of Common Pleas, James D. Cleveland was clerk of the court, Miller M. Spangler was sheriff, David L. Wight- man was his deputy, and afterwards his successor in office, and Samuel Williamson was prosecuting attorney. J. W. Gra}r was postmaster, and the venerable Patrick Farley was, as he had been for many years and continued many years longer to be, the faithful and responsible custodian of the Government mail bags. Jabez W. Fitch was United States marshal, -Robert Parks was collector of customs, D. W. Cross and F. X. Byerly were deputy collectors, E. L. Day was cashier, and Morris Jackson was inspector. George C. Dodge, with natural proclivities to honesty, was county treasurer, and William Fuller, still young enough to vote, was auditor. Pierce was president, William 'Medill was acting governor, Governor Reuben Wood, the tall "Cuyahoga Chief," having- been appointed consul to Valparaiso, and Hemy H. Dodge was engineer of the Public Works. Abner C. Brownell was mayor, and Richard C. Parsons was president of the council. The venerable Captain Bartlett, from old Marblehead, Mas- sachusetts, was city clerk, auditor and treasurer, the duties of which he performed for a long series of years, to his own credit and the public satisfaction, at a salar}^ for the three responsibilities less than a clerk now gets in either office, and 1
2 AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.
yet he was serene and happy, courteous and obliging. Andrew A. Freese was superintendent of the public schools. The stal- wart Michael Gallagher wore the cockade, bright buttons and star, the insignia of the awe-inspiring office of city marshal. J. H. Harris and George A. Benedict were editors of the Herald, J. W. Gray was editor of the Plain Dealer, and John C. Vaughn was editor of the Leader, soon, however, succeeded by George Bradburn. The Academy of Music was under the management of John A. Ellsler, a gentleman of remarkable versatility, of dramatic talent, and a comedian unrivalled upon the stage, save possibly by Warren, of the Boston Museum, and who still holds his high place in public favor and in personal regard.
That year, 1854, Ohio Cit}' was annexed. The commis- sioners were Hiram V. Willson, Franklin T. Backus and Charles L. Rhodes. Mr. Rhodes alone survives. The others departed life in the order of their signatures to the articles of annexation. The Water Works were not, though the pipes were being cast and trenches dug, and Superior street was a dismal sort of corduroy plank-highway, asphalted with a good honest coat of deep black mud. The leading lawyers and firms were then as they had been for many years, and the survivors of whom still remain with some changes, Willson, Wade & Wade; Bishop, Backus & Noble (J. P. Bishop subsequently judge of Common Pleas) ; Spalding and Par- sons ; Bolton, Kelley & Griswold ; Prentiss, Prentiss & New- ton ; Paine and Tilden (Robert F. Paine afterwards elected judge of the Common Pleas, and Tilden probate judge) ; Mason and Estep ; Andrews, Foot & Hoyt ; Case & Fitch ; Williamson and Riddle ; Willey anxi Carey ; Otis and Sears ; Wyman and Thayer ; Axtell and Prentiss ; Wood and Abbey ; Fitch and Grannis ; Keith and Coon ; Mueller and Ritter ; Linde and Castle ; Palmer and Dennis ; Husband and Davison; Horace Foote, Charles Stetson, Bushnell White, Edward Hessenmueller, Joseph Adams, S. E. Adams,
AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 3
John Crowell, Hiram Griswold, William Slade, William Col- lins, Merrill Barlow, R. D. Noble, Charles L. Fish, John W. Heisley, James M. Coffinberry (since judge of the court of Common Pleas), B. R. Beavis, R. G. Hunt, William Robison, D. W. Gage, A. T. Slade, J. J. Elwell (author of a work on medical jurisprudence), and a }Tear or two subsequent per- haps. J. Edwards Ingersoll, J. H. Rhodes, F. J. Dickman, W. S. Kerruish, Wm. J. Boardman, G. E. Herrick, W. C. McFar- land, L. A. Russell, A. T. Brinsmade, W. W. Andrews, and O. M. Barber, E. T. Hamilton, James M. Jones and S. E. Williamson (now judges of the court of Common Pleas). Horace Foote and Samuel B. Prentiss each served fifteen years on the bench of the Common Pleas with eminence for legal learning, judicial fairness and personal honor. Increase of the judicial force in recent years gave J. H. McMath, Darius Cadwell and Henry McKinney to the Common Pleas bench.
Since then more than twenty of those named, with many more subsequent members of the bar, have been called to a higher court. Ranney, clear, powerful, and eminent as a jurist, no older apparently to-day than then, and good for twenty years more, was then on the Supreme bench. Willson was early made judge of the United States District court ; F. W. Green clerk thereof ; Lewis Dibble cried the non-suits and defaults therein, entertained the bar with good anecdotes and choice quotations from Byron, which he knew by heart, while our ancient Caledonian friend, Alexander Mclntosh, beautified and adorned the city with trees and flowers. Time has touched lightly the two last even unto this day. Twenty-five years ago Richard Hilliard was the grave and stately leading wholesale merchant on Water street, and building his lofty mansion on St. Clair street, too soon to be exchanged for a grave and a monument. Of the other prominent merchants of that period, who are still in business substantially as then, we can recall only the names and firms
AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.
of Morgan & Root, Alcott & Horton, E. I. Baldwin, Root &. Whitelaw, Babcock & Hurd, L. F. & S. Burgess, R, T. Lyonr J. B. Smith, William Bingham, William Edwards, General James Barnett, S. S. Lyon, E. L. Dodd, William T. Smith, Joseph Marchand, Joseph Richards and John A. Vincent. Edmund Clark then daily visited his bank, watched the currency, separated the doubtful and depreciated from 'the good, and kept the circulation healthy. Three score years and ten were measured unto him. The venerable Melanc- thon Barnett, without suspension for a day, smoked the inevitable pipe of peace in the sanctum of the Merchant's Bank, gave the directors and officers thereof the benefit of his financial wisdom, gained in his long and eventful life and varied experiences, and kept through troubled times of fluctuation and panic his favorite institution safe tmd sound. Ninety years was given unto him before he was gathered to his fathers. Leonard Case lived where now stands the postoffice, and the "Ark" rested hard by with its "family," all sons, and more numerous than that which survived the flood. But the venerable patriarch and William Case, his noble first born, soon hastened away. Nathan Perry then came in daily "from the distant "farm." himself driving the handsome baj'S with the brass mounted harness —but he too has gone, preceded by his son, the lamented Oliver Perry, whose beautiful monumental urn testifies of the place of his repose in the old Erie Cemetery family grounds.. And now the Ridge with its grateful shade and sloping lawn has become a line of palaces, and the lowlands are covered with the homes of the people. Levi Johnson then looked after his large real estate interests, encouraged the despond- ing party and cherished the memory of General Jackson, and now the sod covers him. Thomas Jones, the father of a fam- ily of talented sons and bright daughters, under whose auspices was erected the Perry statue in the Park, and who made more monuments for the city's dead than any other
AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 0
Artist in marble, was then active in business, and generous and kind in word and deed, notably to young men who came to the city as strangers to make it their permanent abode. Now a fitting monument marks his honored grave. Then the venerable Dr. Aiken was minister, without a colleague, at the First Church ; Eells at the Second ; Bittinger on the Avenue, and Thome on the West Side — Dr. James A. Bowles was Tector of Trinity ; Claxton of St. Paul's ; Perry of Grace, and Burton of St. John's. Brown was minister of the Round Church on Wood street ; White at Plymouth ; Hill at St. Clair Street Methodist ; J. Hyatt Smith (now member of Congress), at the Erie Street Baptist, and Amadeus Rappe was Catholic Bishop of Cleveland. Of physicians, Dr. Jacob Delamater was still seen in his ancient one-horse chaise, ven- erated for his long and faithful services, the father of the medical profession. Professor Jared P. Kirtland was the renowned scientist — the Agassiz of the West — searching the mysteries of the whole arcana of nature, and reading the manuscripts of God in the structure and life of man, animal and insect ; the order of planetary development and the C}Tcles thereof; ever}' flower of the earth, and every gem of the sea being to him a revelation and mental delight. He now rests, near the ancient homestead, on a plateau over- looking an inland sea, beneath the ample foliage of trees planted by his own hands, and the zephyrs that play around his hallowed grave are fragrant with the balm of a thousand flowers, natives of other lands and skies, naturalized and domesticated under the influence of his gentle touch and thoughtful care. The elder Gushing was eminent as a medi- cal practitioner, and Ackley was the renowned surgeon. Gar- lick had not then won fame, though experimenting in the artificial fecundation of the ova of the fish, while now he is recognized and acknowledged as the first demonstrator of the practicability of artificial fish culture, and the progenitor of that now extensive industry, in the United States. The elder
6 AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.
Dr. Wheeler was then prominent and active, and Proctor Thayer and Elisha Sterling were young and skillful surgeons. J. P. Ross was landlord of the Weddell House, Angier of the " Angier House " (now Kennard), and A. P. Winslow was the popular proprietor of the American House. T. P. Handy,. Cleveland's earliest, most eminent financier, honorable, cour- teous and friendly, was devoted to the management of the Commercial Bank, while Dan P. Eells "(now its president) was the accomplished cashier thereof. H. B. Hurlbut was. cashier of the Bank of Commerce. Judge Kellej^ was the head and front of the Merchant's Bank, and Dr. Lemuel Wick was financial physician of the City Bank, while Mr. E.. B. Hale was then, as now, the head of an extensive and reputable banking firm, and H. B. Wick was the head and principal capitalist of probably the oldest private banking house of the city. The old Canal Bank had passed into history. The Forest City Bank, with the late Mr. Stanle}' as cashier, was located on the South side of Superior street, flourished for a brief season, and became extinct. Mygatt and Brown were private bankers on Bank street, and Brock- way, Wasson and Everett were also private bankers, but the associated names soon after disappeared to rise in part in the flourishing house of Everett, Weddell and Company, which now exists, having maintained a high and honorable position for more than twenty years — Dr. Azariah Everett being the efficient head thereof, and in the meantime developing street railroads from pioneer infancy to great financial success. Gleason F. Lewis was then perspiring in the sunshine of banking and brokering, soon extending his labors into pen- sion agency — published "The Old Soldier's Friend" — did a prosperous business in that line for several years, finally becoming a purchaser of College and other land scrip of Ohio and other States at nominal rates, acquiring thereby fabulous- acres of the national domain, and making himself "fore- handed." Now he buys and sells railroad lines. Unassum-
AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 7
ing in his deportment towards his less fortunate acquaintan- ces, his voice in greeting rings out to them in the same high key as to the most financially favored. He is recognized on 'Change, and of all men, by the inevitable basket suspended on his left arm — supposed to contain contracts, coupons, currency, or — a conundrum. Mr. Samuel H. Mather, the father of the Society for Savings, watched at its cradle, and more than thirty years of personal devotion to his financial offspring has developed it into a protecting Hercules.
It was the week following the October election, when Ohio by eight}T thousand majority had condemned the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the passage of the Nebraska bill, electing all or nearly every Congressman on the issues against those measures. Edward Wade had been elected to Congress for the Cleveland district. Daniel R. Tilden had just been elected for the first time judge of probate, without a white hair on his head, and to which office he has been re- elected every time since, and until now there is not one of those raven locks left to tell the tale of the political triumphs of his early manhood. Genial personal qualities have en- abled him to hold his place in the regard of a generous people, while his cotemporaries in public office have, many of them, been compelled annually to strike their tents, and some', possibly, have " stole away."
Those were beautiful fall days, such as are peculiar to the West, and the happy gentleman of the then triumph- ant party read the election returns with great joy and jubi- lant hilarity, and uttered prophesies that the Democratic party in Ohio would never rise to its feet again, at least for twenty-five years. The prophetic vision was almost perfect, and the prediction would, perhaps, have been literally ful- filled had not the shade of William Allen "rose up" in the nick of time, to the astonishment alike of the prophets and the Democrats.
Joel Scranton then held the suzerainty of considerable
AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.
"bottom" on the Cuyahoga river and in the valley of Walworth run, including the forest-covered bluffs and dells bordering thereon, then naked territory, but now wholly occupied by railroads and great manufacturing industries, while the veteran pioneer of the "flats" rests within the narrow strip alotted unto man. Silas S. Stone was then, as he had been for many years, the ruling sovereign in real estate enterprises — auto- crat of all the rushes on either side of the Cu3^ahoga from the "Ox bow" south "as the crow flies" — and about as far. A wholesale dealer, never a peddler, yet he never underrated the merits of the humble lot-peddler, or disparaged his goods. A gentleman of fine personal presence, in the prime of his manhood, with a mind capacious and far-seeing, with a prophetic faith in the ultimate business destiny of the marshy meadows of the valley, he has for more than thirty years earned greater financial burdens through panics and commercial disasters than any other citizen, and until the full- ness of time, when his prophecies have become realities, and the prophet himself a millionnaire. Philo Scovill and Benja- min Harrington, then active and enterprising citizens, wealthy and popular landlords in the city's infancy, have since followed each other to the tomb. Norman C. Bald- win, real estate proprietor and man of general business, and of large possessions, was ever a marked person upon the streets, and booted and spurred and mounted upon a spirited steed, imposing and majestic as Bismarck himself, daily dashed along the streets in those years, and 'does so still, with indefi- nite years in prospect. Timothy P. Spencer, an early journalist, postmaster, politician and general business man, of rare intelli- gence, enterprise and of active habits, was then, as ever, a pleasant and friendly patron and adviser of young men, and though the last twenty years have whitened his locks, he is still active, and his greeting is as cheery and the pressure of his hand as ardent as in the olden time. Charles AVinslow was wont to come over the valley, greet his old friends of
AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.
forty years, say pleasant things, and extend in social civility his silver snuff-box to young and old alike, then he stepped behind the veil. Daniel P. Rhodes was then lord of the realms of iron and coal, cheerful and neighborly, with strong proclivities for blooded horses, regulated by practical sense and gentleman!}' tastes ; then he departed and the social vacancy has never been filled. Sanford and Howard were then conducting their extensive and prosperous printing- house on Superior street, and which remained a few years longer, and until some time after the war broke out, when Colonel W. H. Hay ward led a hundred day's regiment to the protection of the national capital, and General" A. S. Sanford devoted his patriotic energies and military accomplishments to the drilling and disciplining of a company of home guards, .a branch of volunteer military service deemed important in Northern border cities in view of an anticipated attack by way of the Dominion of Canada, a government with which the United States were at peace. It was styled the Cleve- land Citizens Corps. Unpatriotic wags called it the "Rock- ing Chair Guards.'' It was a large company composed of the elite of the city — prominent business men who felt they could not leave their business and families for distant ser- vice, bankers, financiers, railroad magnates, lawyers, doctors, and patriotic young gentlemen of leisure, and mercantile accountants, who preferred to serve their country in the ranks of the C. C. C. for their respect for its gallant and -accomplished commander, and the recognized respectability of each member of the company. It was doubtless the best disciplined company of the kind in the State. Hardee's tactics were at the tongue's end of ever}T member. The}" could " fall in," " dress " to the right and left with equal facility, " march," " echelon," " present arms," " carry " and •" port " • — " load," " prime " and " fire " (their canes), " double ^quick," "deploy," "halt" and " stand at ease." For perfec- tion of execution of the last two orders they were unrivalled.
10 AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.
All professed to be desirous of being called to the front, but by reason of some strange oversight or studied neglect on the part of the Governor, or Secretar}' of War, the company was compelled to forego honor and reputation which they had hoped to win at the cannon's mouth, and each member remained of necesshy listless and depressed in the bosom of his beloved family unwounded, unpensioned and unsung — each burdened with the consciousness that he must go down to his grave unrecognized, unknelled and unknown in the military annals of his country.
Cleveland for many years has been a center of telegraphy, being the residence of the President of the Western Union Company and many accomplished electricians, inventors, and operators. During the war it was the military telegraphic head-quarters, and in the parlor of his elegant mansion on Euclid avenue, Telegraph General-in-Chief Anson Stager was- the earliest recipient of news from the seat of war, and the triumphs and defeats in the bloody struggles and carnage were often known to a few immediate neighbors and friends a few seconds before even the Secretary of War.
Amasa Stone and Stillman Witt, more or less associated, were then distinguished as the first railroad magnates of our city and the whole Northwest, having laid the foundation of their vast fortunes in enterprises centering here. Mr. Witt passed away a few years since, lamented by all for his sterling qualities, and mourned in humble households by many who had learned something of the good and generous impulses of a heart that beat beneath a countenance that to strangers- often seemed solemn and sad. Mr. Stone survives, retired somewhat from that excess of devotion which in former days he was wont to bestow upon vast enterprises, and is making the evening of his life serene in the furnishing of comfortable and cheerful homes for aged and indigent women, and in the endowment of the Adelbert College of the Western Reserve University.
AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 11
Jacob Perkins was then a gentleman devoted to great busi- ness enterprises, and largely devoted for a time to the building of the Mahoning railroad, and a large real estate proprietor in Northern Ohio and in the city, one of the agreeable and social kind of wealthy gentlemen so pleasant to know. He was called to an untimely grave, considering his years and useful- ness; leaving behind him, happily, an admirable and worthy son, Mr. Jacob B. Perkins, as the inheritor of his vast estate, and many of his father's mental characteristics, good senser modesty, and friendliness of spirit.
Mr. Joseph Perkins, devoted to the care of his great finan- cial interests, was then, and ever since, largely occupied in religious and social affairs, the moral welfare of youth, and the good of his fellow men. Courteous, gentle and friendly in his intercourse with all, he is recognized throughout the State, no less than at home, for his humane and active efforts in the promotion and improvement of public and charitable institutions.
Twenty years ago Elias Sims was an enterprising and ener- getic business man, a friend, co-operator with, and sometimes partner of Daniel P. Rhodes in great real estate enterprises, at Rocky River and elsewhere. A large municipal contractor for many years, with his great vessels and powerful machinery he dredged the Cuyahoga river and made it a deep, extensive and ample harbor for the shipping of the lakes, and the " Old River Bed " practicable for extensive coal and iron docks and ship-yards. In later years he has been more especially a street railroad magnate and capitalist. Competition and rivalry in great business enterprises still keeps on the alert his active person and mind, but detracts nothing from his vivacious- spirit and kindly impulses. Happy in his surroundings, the gloom that most often shadows his countenance comes from contemplating his great social loss in the death of his cher- ished comrade and friend, the genial Rhodes.
Soldiers of the Revolutionary war long since passed awayr
12 AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.
.and the last link is broken that connected the present genera- tion with the military events of one hundred years, ago. The death a few years since of a venerable citizen, James M. Hughes, possibly, and so far as we know, severed our city's representative connection with the last war with England — and our war with Mexico, of 1 846, has but a single survivor and living representative of the one and only company enlisted in Cleveland when it was but a village. Captain Jacob Wei- denkopf is the last of the heroes of Chapultepec. His com- rades, many of them, found graves at Vera Cruz, Jalapa, National Bridge, and Chapultepec, where in that heroic ser- vice Scott and Taylor, Pierce and Gushing, Seymour and Burnside won military fame and political prestige, and the gallant Colonel Ransom, of Vermont, fell pierced in the fore- head by a shot in scaling the last fortress of the ancient Aztec capital. Eighteen only of the Cleveland company of ninety- one men, of which John S. Perry was captain, and which were of the gallant Colonel George W. Morgan's regiment, returned to their Northern homes, and the}* only to find early but hon- ored and peaceful graves among their kindred. The home of our surviving hero, when he enlisted, was on the corner of ISeneca and Frankfort streets, where now stands the Plain Dealer building, and whei'e his father kept " Weidenkopf Hall," him- self a Bavarian soldier, but serving France under the great Napoleon, who made the armies of conquered States and Nations "fall in." He served in the Peninsular campaign in 1809, and was of those who fired the "random guns" at dead of night, when Sir John Moore was hastily buried. Captain Weidenkopf, in view of his military experience, for many years thereafter, had a sort of prestige in local military affairs, and in gunnery on public and patriotic occasions, such as Fourth of July and Washington's Birthday, and among the first things we remember to have read in the Plain Dealer, nearly thirty years ago, was a pleasant editorial paragraph to the effect that Capt. Weidenkopf would on the 22d Feb'y fire
AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 1
a National salute — ending in one of J. W. Gray's rollicksome expressions — " Fire-away Weidenkopf ! "
It will probably be not far from the year 1930 when the historian of Cleveland will record the death of the last surviv- ing soldier of the great Civil war. Let us therefore revere the memory of our brave and patriotic soldiers of all our earlier wars, and cherish the memory and keep green the graves of those who fell, and honor the survivors of all who participated in the last sad conflict, and won triumphant vic- tory and peace to our beloved countiy.
"Sergeant" La Rue will be pleasantly recalled to the mem- ory of many as an eccentric and vivacious little Frenchman, who supplied offices with "patent" kindling-wood, delivered from a basket carried on his arm ; propounded conundrums- to lawyers, boasted of his exploits at Lundy's Lane and Chippewa, and especially of his heroism in assisting in carry- ing General Scott wounded from the field. He was wont on the Fourth of July, and on occasions of reunions of the vet- erans of the last war with England, to appear in full regi- mentals, with brilliant epaulets, and crowned with a Napoleon chapeau, much too large for his cranium, but made to fit by supplementing his diminutive phrenological bumps with an ample bandanna handkerchief. He was happy in being invariably saluted as " Sergeant " — lived affectionately with a daughter till the last tattoo beat, and he turned in to sleep his last sleep, from which neither ear-piercing fife, nor roll of drum, nor tramp of battalions shall awake him to glory again.
In 1854 Erastus Corning had not finished the Ship Canal around the Sault Saint Mary, and vessels of the lower lakes were strangers to the waters of Lake Superior ; since then they have traversed a thousand miles to the northwest, and the copper and iron mines of the Upper Peninsula have paid trib- ute to our harbor. Iron industries we had none, save possibly Renton's small establishment on the lake shore, while now under the genius and practical talent of the late Henry Chis-
14 AFTER TWENTY-FIVE -YEARS.
holm and his associates, Cleveland has become a Birmingham, and man}T of her citizens thereby have become capitalists. Petroleum was then unheard of, save in the mythical legends of the "eternal fires of Baku," on the shores of the Caspian Sea, whose burning gas wells have perpetually blazed and burned, since fire was known to man, on the slopes of the mountains of Caucasus. But the idea of boring into the earth for oil, either in Pennsylvania or Ohio, and supplying the remotest corners of the earth with light, would then have seemed as visionar}" as boring for milk, and supplying the world with butter and cheese. But what a history in our own city. Valueless valleys and narrow ravines, which, but for the discovery of petroleum, would never have been any- thing but waste places, Golgothas and Gehennas, within the municipality, have proved wonderfully adapted to the newly developed industry, which, under the management of great practical talent and financial ability, has culminated in the first monopoly of the world, and the development of a race of millionnaires.
The veteran building contractor, W. J. Warner, who in his early years laid the foundation and erected at Burlington the stately edifice of the University of Vermont, had not yet built the Government building on the Park, and the United States Courts were held in Hoffman Block, and the Post Office was an itinerant institution oscillating from street to street, as uncertain of definite locality for any considerable length of time as the life of political administrations or the official tenure of the postmaster. Street railroads were then unheard of, and steam fire engines were unknown. No ship had ever weighed anchor in our harbor for European ports. Within the twenty-five years Field laid the first Atlantic cable, and Cleveland celebrated the event by a grand illumination, and her journals uttered rhapsodies. The telephone, which Sir Wm. Thompson pronounced the marvel of marvels, though but an institution of j^esterday, is
AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 15
in all business houses and in maii3T homes, and along its mystic and wiry channel man answers unto man from out of the realms of space, as spirit answers unto spirit from out of the vasty deep. And as though science was impatient at our longer groping in municipal darkness she has inspired her distinguished devotee to display unto man the last great wonder of the world. Obedient unto her command Charles F. Brush has set electric meteors in the sky.
And now from 17,000 in 1854 Cleveland has become a city of nearly 200,000 inhabitants, with vast wealth, great in- dustries, and wonderful enterprises. How much history and what wondrous events are crowded into the two decades. The rebellion of the Sepoys of India, Jesse Brown, the Slogan of the Highlanders, and the relief of Lucknow. The emancipation of the Russian serf, the. allied armies of Balak- lava and Sebastopol. Magenta, Solferino and the Quadrilat- eral. Garibaldi, Count Cavour and united Italy. Civil war and emancipation in the United States. Napoleon and Sedan, Paris and the Commune, Von Moltke, Bismarck, William and the German Empire. Political revolution in the Twentieth Congressional district of Ohio, and thunder in the Fifth ward of Cleveland. The days of the prophecy are fulfilled. The record of twenty-five years is closed. Open the new books.
16 MEMORIES AND COINCIDENCES.
MEMORIES AND COINCIDENCES.
1\ VT OST people are pleasantly affected, even though there be ^**- a tinge of sadness, when, in mature years or advanced life, they meet with persons or incidents that have an intimate connection with the first thoughts of their childhood Or the associations of their youth.
The writers first recollections of a book, other than the ponderous Bible of the grandfather, Watts' l^mns and the almanac that hung by a loop over the fire-place, was one, to us, very mysterious and perplexing, as it absorbed the atten- tion for mam- da}*s of a sister, a little our senior, making her thoughtful and uncommunicative, and depriving us of our principal social comfort. One evening when she had pored long and silently over the book, m}* father said to her, "Come, it is time you were abed/' She dropped one hand and untied one shoe, not raising her eyes from the book and making no further progress towards retiring. After awhile he repeated his admonition, when she untied the other shoe in the same listless manner, but kept on reading page after page. At last he said in a quiet wa}' to our mother, "What on earth is that child reading?" '-'Oh," she replied, "she is reading about Robbins and Rile}', who were cast away on the desert of Sahara." The mental photograph is dim, and we do not remember if she went to bed at all. One warm summer's day, after she had finished the book, she took us to a shad}' grove by the roadside, where there was a small spring of cold water bubbling up into a little basin in the earth, which would hold, perhaps, two quarts, and where we both lay down and drank heartily, but the little fountain seemed to be just as full
MEMORIES AND COINCIDENCES. 17
as before. She said, " Bobbins could drink all the water in that spring at once." "I don't know Robbins," I said. Then she told us of the wonderful book she had been reading — of an ocean, ships, sailors, winds, wrecks — of a great desert, Arabs; and lastl}* of the terrible hunger and thirst of two men, Robbins and Rile}'. One night we awoke with a burning thirst, and our mother brought a cup of water, which we com- pletely drained, when she assured us we should not be thirsty any more, for we had drank enough for Robbins and Riley both. When large enough to carry the " drink " in the hay field, men would sa}', " Hurry up, bo}*, for we're dryer than Robbins." For many years the tale of Robbins was read in families and told at school, and the sufferings of Robbins be- came the proverbial standard for excessive hunger and thirst. A few years since, and more than forty years after what we have related, and when we had supposed that the hero of the narrative had passed awa}-, even, perhaps, before we had heard the story, we read one evening in the Plain Dealer an extended and interesting obituary of Mr. Jason Robbing of Solon, in which we were surprised and gratified to learn that the hero from childhood, and of the mysterious book, had lived for many years in that peaceful and romantic town, a prominent citizen and magistrate, and the father of sons and daughters who revered him in life and lamented him in death. We could hardly have been more astonished had we been told that the re-animated form of Daniel Defoe had shaken off the one hundred and fifty years mortuary dust of Bunhill Fields, and was discussing with Swift, and Addison, and Pope, at the London Coffee House, the merits of the Tattler and Spectator, and the virtues of Queen Anne, and that Robinson Crusoe had " sold out " on Juan Fernandez, and was cultivating Catawba grapes on Kelly's Island.
A few summers afterward we visited the ancient homestead among the green hills of New England, drank at the same little spring where we heard the story forty-five years before,
9
18 MEMORIES AND COINCIDENCES.
and named it " Bobbins' Spring." As no element in nature or constituent particle in the eternal circuit and transmutation is ever lost, we could not but reflect upon the possibility that some infinitesimal drop of the very wave that had lashed the wreck of the sailor, had been drawn up in the water spout of the torid zone and wafted in fleecy clouds to the cooler regions of the North, to fall in rain upon the mountains, to perculate through the soil, and, bubbling up in the little spring, had quenched the thirst of the haymaker who claimed to have been dryer than Bobbins.
Cotemporaneously with the same early events, and for how many years before we do not know, there was sung, by young and old alike, probably the first humorous lyric in this coun- try that had become universal, if not national —
Old Grimes is dead, that good old man,
We ne'er shall see him more ; He used to wear a long blue coat,
All buttoned down before.
What "Auld Lang Syne " is to the Scot in social and frater- nal sentiment, "Old Grimes" is to the children, at least of America, in quiet humor.
We do not remember what has been written regarding the time and occasion of its production, but of late we have been inclined to believe there must have been in Providence Plan- tations some good old man whose name the genial author, probabty without premeditation, made celebrated. Simple in its structure and rhythm, it has been the foundation and super- structure of endless parodies, more or less amusing, and so much so, that we do not feel quite sure that we even know the original in its purity, for children used to sing:
Old Grimes' wife makes butter and cheese;
Old Grimes he drinks the whey. There came a North wind from the South,
And blew old Grimes away.
MEMORIES AND COINCIDENCES. 19
Whatever might have been the excellent industry of Mrs. Grimes, or the taste and habits of the old gentleman in the matter of the "whey," it is hardly to be presumed that the most facetious and rollicksome humorist would seriously record the "taking off" by any such counter currents.
The writer remembers to have been one of several children who constituted a "crowner's quest," sitting upon the body of a most worthy speckled hen, which to our sorrow we had found dead. That she did not die "honestly in her bed" was apparent. That it was a case of suicide we did not believe, for she had been a cheerful and happy hen, never gloomy or dyspeptic, and, besides, her head was "level." That it was a case of hen slaughter, by some person "to the jury unknown," we agreed. The foreman, a girl of nine years, whose head was full of the rlryme and rhythm of Old Grimes, drew up the verdict in the following form, " to wit "-
"Somebody 's killed our speckled hen,
We wish they'd let her be, She used to lay two eggs a day,
And Sundays she laid three."
It is questionable whether the last two lines were original with our foreman. Hens of late years have, in the same met- rical style, been credited with the like wonderful fecundity, and, as the jury did not publish their verdict in the journals of that day, those two lines must have had a prior existence. Evidently a case of infringement of copyright or plagiarism. The true verdict is compiled in the first two lines, as it was not the province of the jury to pass encomiums upon the de- ceased, or "seek her merits to disclose." Learned ornitholo- gists and hen fanciers do not agree upon the deposit of more than one egg a day, and would reject unanimously the state- ment of the third egg on Sunday. The idea undoubtedly arose from the circumstance that, unbeknown to the jurors, two or more "strong-minded" and "advanced" hens, imbued
20 M K. M OKIES AND COINCIDENCES.
with Fourierism and French philosophy, had essayed to dem- onstrate the utility and practicability of a co-operative hen's nest.
But to whatever trivial uses the rhyme or rhythm might have been put, the true and original Old Grimes was affec- tionatel}T regarded, and will be pleasing!}' remembered by all.
Some few years since there lived and died in Cleveland an aged and venerable gentleman. Judge Greene. lie had lived his last quiet and peaceful years with a daughter, the wife of a clergyman and pastor of one of the churches of Cleveland, in the enjoyment of a rich and extensive library, and sur- rounded by many treasures of art and souvenirs, the accumu- lation of many years of cultured and scholarly taste. He was undoubtedly a graduate of Brown University, was a distin- guished member of the Rhode Island bar and a Judge of that State in earlier }'ears, and a cotemporary at the bar and neighbor of Tristam Burgess, the impulsive and vehe- ment orator, whose towering bald head and Roman nose obtained for him the sobriquet of the " bald eagle," and the first of Northern statesmen who, in Congress, in addition to the graceful elegance of classic speech, dealt at times in the ringing coin of sarcasm and invective — who pictured the desolation of New England when, in a certain contingency, the fox would lurk among the ruins of her habitations, the bittern would cry in her streets, and the owl make her silent and gloomy abode upon the altars of the sanctuary. And who, in reference to the same picture, uttered the well remem- bered tkHodie, hodie, delenda est Carthago''- — who, pointing his finger at the arrogant and bitter John Randolph, said he thanked his God that He had ordained by an inexorable law in nature that monster cannot propagate monster — otherwise this world would become a pandemonium and a howling wilderness of sin.
Judge Greene was the author of -Old Grimes/' We did not know of his residence here until the announcement of his
MEMORIES AND COINCIDENCES. 21
death ; and the silent and unknown tear of a stranger was dropped to the memor}- of the genial author of the first humorous lyric of our lisping childhood.
When, more than a generation since, the children of New England graduated from the easy lessons to " hard reading " in the standard school reader of the " first class/' they found among the selections of poetry a sweet and affecting poem of Mrs. Emma C. Embury, descriptive of the sad calamity of a Mrs. Blake, of Arlington, Vermont, who perished in a snow- storm in going from a neighbor's house to her home, on foot and alone, except her infant child. It was one of those sud- den and terribly cold northeast storms that come down from Baffin's Bay and the home of the iceberg, and sweep with irresistible fury over the Green Mountains.
"O God,'' she cried, in accents wild, " If I must perish, save my child ! "
So folding the baby more tenderly, if possible, to her bosom, she sank down to die. Pursuit was hastily made for her, but she was reached only to answer her prayer for her •child. Removing the snow and unfolding her mantle,
The babe looked up and sweetly smiled.
There are but few people who read poetry unfamiliar with those lines, and we have seen some pretty old children read them with trembling voice and tearful eyes.
It was one of the most pleasant surprises of our life, when, but a few years since, we learned that the "babe," whose sweet smile in the snowy tomb the gifted poetess has made immortal as the spirit of the mother, was a lady of Cleveland, and her brother a member of Congress for the Medina district.
As early as about 1830 there was a celebrated revivalist preacher laboring ostensibly for the conversion of souls in the cities and large villages of New England by the name of Burchard, of very forcible and effective oratorical powers, but
22 MEMORIES AND COINCIDENCES.
somewhat arbitrary and dictatorial in his spirit, excessively extravagant of expression, and eccentric in his methods of winning souls. Many stories were afloat among the people in advance of his coming, of what he said and did in other places. Among them was an incident which occurred in a village of New Hampshire. The meeting house was full beyond its capacity for seating the congregation. Deacon Studley was present, with his large family and some friends, in his own pew, among them his tall son a little under twenty years of age. To accommodate others with a seat the son stood up leaning against a pillar in the pew supporting the gallery. The minister not appreciating the lack of seats had ordered all standing to sit down which, after a time, by hook or crook they succeeded in doing, except the deacon's tall son who still maintained his good standing in the church, of which he was a member, by partially covering himself in the shade of the friendly post, and in no manner discommod- ing others of the audience. In the midst of a terrific dis- course the eye of Burchard caught the tall form of the young man, and supposing doubtless that his standing was in contemptuous disregard of his request, and an exhibition of sinful depravity which nothing but a clerical thunderbolt could adequately rebuke, stopped, and pointing his finger at young Studley, cried out in terrific tones — " Sit down there, you stack-pole of h — 11 ! " Amid the sensation, and the humiliation of the deacon's family and friends, the young man disappeared from the offended sight of the erratic speaker, and the eccentric evangelist continued in more gentle and less personal terms to address other sinners. Religious people generally doubted this story, considering it as an emanation from some irreligious and scandalous source. Many who mischievously told it to the annoyance of good people, themselves questioned its truth ; the whole tenor and spirit of the story being so unclerical and shocking to every- body.
MEMORIES AND COINCIDENCES. 23
Of late years a very pleasant gentleman of considerably past sixty years, yet tall and erect, Mr. F. G. Studley, has been an officer in attendance upon the sessions of our county courts. Happening one day to enquire of him as to the place of his nativity, he named a town of New Hampshire. In alluding to many events, and relating some anecdotes of the times and men of that State, he asked me if I remem- bered, or ever heard of a famous religious exhorter, or preacher, Burchard ? I told him that although he had held meetings near my home in Vermont, when I was a small lad,. I had never seen him, but that I could remember the public excitement caused by his preaching, and many strange stories related of him in my neighborhood. Mr. Studley then told me of the incident above related, particularly and minutely, and concluded by saying, " The story is literally true. I was present and heard it — and there are reasons for my memory to be clear and vivid on the subject — I am my- self the veritable 'stack-pole.'" From that moment we felt that our acquaintance with Mr. Studley, instead of being of only a few years, extended over a period of more than forty..
During the last years of the war there came to our door an old man who had seen eighty years, and solicited the sawing of a pile of wood. He was as tall as General Scott, and had a head that balanced on his shoulders as handsomely as the- great head of the Chief Justice of the United States. His fine features, white beard and pleasant eye, secured the job.. We felt a little unhappy that so old a man should be necessi- tated to saw wood. But " his eye was not dimmed nor his- natural force abated," and he seemed very cheerful. Upon conversation he proved to be a Franco-German of Alsacer born under the shadow of Strasburg cathedral. The French and German tongues were alike "mother" to him, and he- could command English enough to communicate very welL He asked earnestly about the progress of the war, in which he seemed to take a deep and sympathetic interest for so old
24 MEMORIES AND ('< )l Nt'lDENCES.
a man. We, b}' degrees. began to take special delight in telling him the news, which at that time was coming quite rapid!}' and of a favorable diameter, noticing the peculiar effect it had upon him. He seemed to have a nervous solici- tude for our army on account of its being as he expressed it, "in the enemy's country." We told him of Sherman and his army — of Chattanooga and the "Battle above the Clouds." He seemed to snuff the battle from afar, and would start up like an old war horse at the sound of a bugle. While he was at work the news came of the taking and burning of Atlanta. We hastened to tell the old man. He dropped his saw, raised both hands above his head, and with face upturned, and a countenance like the Seer in the Warning of Lochiel, when
The sunset of life gave him mystical lore, And coming events cast their shadows before,
gave a cry as of fearful forebodings, >k Moscow. Moscow!" He seemed to see a vision of disaster and retreat. With a modest}' characteristic of the true soldier, which we found him to be, he had never said a word about his own history and experiences, but we think he wanted to talk of the events of his early manhood, and hoped we would ask him some question to open the wa}'. But as we did not happen to, he modestly held out to us his left hand, the first and second fingers of which were lapped inward at the second joint, and were stiff and shrunken, and the palm having a scar passing quite across the whole width. We had noticed that he did not grasp the top of the saw frame, but guided it b}~ bearing upon it with the ball of his thumb. " How did that hap- pen ? " we asked. " La lance," he replied. " The lance ? " we repeated, supposing it the result of some unskillful sur- gical operation. "La lance de le Cosaque," he added. Seeing we were puzzled to resolve his meaning, he caught a broom handle, and "rallying on the reserve " of his English, made a
MEMORIES AND COINCIDENCES. 25
feint as with the harpoon, saying : <k Spear, spear, Cossack's spear ! " The scales fell from our e}^es. " Were you a soldier in the campaign of Russia ? " we asked. " Yah, oui, yes," was his tripple response ; and he fairly danced for jo}' that the ice had been broken. A series of questions and answers developed the fact that he had been one of the Great Napo- leon's grenadiers. He raised his hand more than a foot above his head to show the height of the bear skin cap, in which he must have looked as formidable as the first-born of the sons of Anak.
He had witnessed the destruction of the seven thousand in crossing the Vistula, swollen by the melting snows of the Carpathian mountains. Had fought the passage of the Dnieper at Smolenske, and had passed with his life through the battle of Borodino. Had seen the Kremlin and gazed on the flames of burning Moscow. Then the fatal retreat — the snow, the icy rivers, the cold and hunger ; and more fearful than all, the Cossacks — the terrible black horse cavahy of the Don and the Volga. When one day it fell to the lot of his regiment to protect the rear, the Cossacks made a dash, and he was selected by one horseman as a victim for the lance, but the stalwart grenadier in the desperation of the moment, and with the instincts of self-preservation, clutched the sharp blade of the spear with his left hand, and barely diverting it from his breast, with his bayonetted gun in his powerful right hand unhorsed the Cossack. We asked him the fate of his antagonist. He looked as if one had asked him a secret, and with a subdued voice he said regretfully, '•I left him dead in the snow — war is very bad." We felt glad that he had saved his own life, even with a ruined hand, onl}- reflecting sadly upon the possibilit}' that children had been made fatherless and a wife a widow in the Steppes of Astrakhan.
The more were we interested in this recital from the cir- cumstance that in our school days we had written of
26 MEMORIES AND COINCIDENCES.
Russia's winter, bleak and drear,
When Frenchmen felt the Cossack's spear —
and were gratified in the confirmation of our historical allu- sion of man}* years ago by a living witness.
His description of the emaciated condition of the remnant of that great army of invasion that survived the retreat,, resulting from mental anxiety in addition to their labors and privations, which is confirmed by history, reminded us of the phantom march and echelon of the skeletons in the weird lines of Bishop Arthur Cleveland Coxe, which we have not. read for more than thirty years :
" March, march, march — Earth groans as they tread, Each carries a skull going down to the dead ; Every stride, every stamp, every footfall is bolder, 'Tis a skeleton's tramp with a skull on his shoulder. What, ho ! How they tread with their high tossing head, That clay covered bone going down to the dead."
We became much attached to the gentle old soldier, for we found in him one of the last witnesses of a wonderful history.
He had touched the visor of his cap in salute when Bert- rand, Ney, Soult and Murat, the hero of the waving plume, had dashed along the line, and presented arms when the Emperor, "grand, gloomy and peculiar," had passed in review their serried ranks. He had seen the Hundred Days with their promises and their disasters ; had sighed over Elba and sorrowed over St. Helena ; had lived to see France reclaim the hallowed dust from the rockj- tomb in the sea, and had joined with her chivalry in the last honors to- the ashes of a NAME.
" Napoleon comes, but Moscow's spires Have ceased to glow with hostile fires ;
No spirit in a whisper deep,
Proclaims it where the Cffisars sleep,
Or sighs from column, tower or dome, A name that once was feared in Rome :
MEMORIES AND COINCIDENCES. 2T
For life and power have passed away, And he is here a King of Clay."
After a time we had the pleasure of telling him of the " March to the Sea," and finally of the culmination of the mighty struggle in Lee's surrender to General Grant. The old man wept for joy, and said, Seigneur, tu laisses maintenant oiler ton serviteur en paix ! " — " Lord, now let thou thy servant depart in peace."
One day more wood came, but the old man came not. In the evening we went far out on one of the long avenues or the beautiful city to call for him ; but he had made his last bivouac, the tattoo had beat, the camp fires were extinguished, and the soldier of Borodino, Crispin, the grenadier, had gone to join his great captain and meet his God.
Recently there died in Cleveland General Donald McLeod, having just completed the one hundred and first year of his age. We do not know how one whose career was so distin- guished and eventful in foreign lands, should have passed the evening of his life, and found his grave in our city, except that it was the home of sons and daughters. Born in Scot- land, educated at the university, a school fellow of Lord Byron, an officer in the British Army, serving in many wars and in many countries, notably at Lundy's Lane, at Waterloo,, where he was wounded, and in the series of battles in the Peninsular Campaign, ending with the battle at Corunna, overlooking the Bay of Biscay, and the harbor from which sailed the Duke of Medina Sidonia, and the Invincible Armada in 1588, and where he was with Sir John Moore when he was killed in 1809, and participated in that houi of gloom when they buried him at dead of night, exposed to the random guns of the foe, without funeral note or farewell shot. Young, gallant, and sympathetic, and possessing a secret of the hero's heart, McLeod sighed for the sadness of one in the house of the Statesman Pitt, whose hopes the
28 .MKMOR1KS ANT) COINCIDENCES.
events of that night would blast forever. The beautiful and accomplished niece of the statesman upon the receipt of the news of the fate of her lover, forsook the society of the British court., and retired beyond European civilization. Possessed of wealth she built a stately mansion on a spur of Mt. Lebanon in Asia, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, and where, until her death not many years since, she held a hospitable court, was visited by distinguished Europeans and Americans, among the latter General Cass, and where she was held in worshipful veneration by the Saracens, and saluted by them as the second Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra. Such was Lad}' Hester Stanhope, the affianced of Sir John Moore.
The boys of to-day who read at school Wolfe's memorable stanzas — '-The Burial of Sir John Moore," will feel a pride that the bones of Donald McLeod, his comrade and friend, find fitting rest within the Forest City. Conscious that a patriot and hero rests within our gates, we feel something of the spirit of resignation poetically expressed by the German poet Mueller, father of the Sanskrit scholar, Max Mueller, when the Suliote-Greek hero, Marko Bozzaris, who fell in the midnight attack upon the Turkish camp at Karpinisi, was entombed at Missolonghi —
" Open wide, proud Missolonghi, Open wide thy portals high ; Where repose the bones of heroes, Teach us cheerfully to die."
OUR TRAVELERS AND WRITERS.
OUR TRAVELERS AND WRITERS.
R the last ten years Cleveland has unquestionably furnished its full quota of American citizens who have annually visited P]urope. Among the very large number who have crossed the Atlantic, doubtless many have under- taken the journe}r for the reason that it was deemed a pleasurable fashion to visit at least London and Paris. Others who had made a good thing on the rise of acre prop- erty, and believe that the contracts which they held for sheep pastures ten miles out, were destined soon to become West Ends, Islingtons, or at least Bois de Bolognes, to a city whose area and circumference already dwarf the cities of Aflred and Charlemagne to the most insignificant of rotten boroughs, carpet-bag over to take a run of the streets and saloons of modern towns, because they feel in good condition and can go and come for the price of a lot on Tinker's Creek or at Five Mile Lock, one per cent, down and the balance in ninety-nine annual instalments, secured by mortgage on the premises. Others still go for the reason they are able to and find a harmless pleasure in imitating the movements of persons of superior consideration. Such undertake the tour of Europe with precisely the same incentive, and with something of the confusion of ideas of Alderman Shodd3T, who had heard his daughter speak of the parvenus, and thinking that meant peo- ple of culture and high social position, to whom he felt he must be akin, by virtue of the wealth he had suddenly acquired by his army contracts, and noticing in his paper a paragraph to the effect that society at Saratoga was that sea- son to have a predominence of New York parvenus, many of
30 OUR TRAVELERS AND WRITERS.
whom had already arrived there, he concluded that the aristocratic habitues of that old time fashionable resort had suddenly closed their Madison Square and Fifth avenue homes and gone thither, remarked to his wife and daughter that they had better be getting ready, for many of the parvenus had gone already. The daughter said to her mother she did wish father wouldn't try to use French words.
Persons of like aspirations of the alderman are apt to return from abroad afflicted with the tones and accents of the London cockney, affect 'alf and 'alf and think ale can be made in no other country because they have no 'ops and T'ams water, or with a horizontal waxed moustache, and so oblivious of their vernacular that they don't remember the name of potatoes, which they had loved in their boyhood with a little salt, and make unpleasant nasal utterances about pomme de terre. But such traveled profundity is less amus- ing than that exhibited by the wise men of the village over the boy's spurious Latin, which he had carved on the rind of the large yellow vegetable which had grown in the cornfield : ITI SAP UMP KIN. The parson said it looked like rather inelegant Latin, but he could not declare the interpretation thereof. The old allopathic physician said it was bastard Latin and most probably a copy of a prescription of the new homoeopathic doctor who had recently come to town. The village lawyer and the new fashionable tailor agreed with each other, after a thorough analysis of the sentence, that it must be old Law latin, but of a period long subsequent to the Conquest and so corrupted by Norman French that they could make nothing of it. The}^ were all astonished at the waggish young Daniel who had witnessed the perplexity of the Magi of the neighborhood, when he came forward and triumphantly declared the writing — It is a pumpkin !
Of those whose purposes in traveling were merely imita- tive or aimless, our city's record is tolerabty clean and will compare advantageously with any other American city in the
OUR TRAVELERS AND WRITERS. 31
number of persons of sense and refinement who in recent j^ears have traveled, whose experience abroad was to them- . selves an intellectual pleasure, and which they kindly and generously shared with their less favored friends at home and the public by their instructive and interesting letters. Of ;some of the earlier ones we still retain a pleasant recollection. The first we recall were the letters of Flora (Miss Payne), published in the Herald, wherein we followed her with excit- ing interest through London and the British Museum, through Paris and the Louvre, to the Rhine, to Berlin, to Mt Blanc, to Vienna, down the Danube, where, on board the rsteamer, she met and conversed with the great French advo- cate, the late M. Berry, then on his way to Constantinople to speak in a case before the high tribunal of the Sultan. With the enthusiasm of his youth he told her of his case and the points of his brief, which she restated with the clear- ness and technical precision of an old legal practitioner, although herself a very young lady. From Constantinople we sailed in imagination with her through the Dardanelles and JEgean, to Athens and the Acropolis. Here she wrote with the wisdom of an old Greek, and perhaps with some- thing of the spirit with which Aspasia conversed with Socrates and Pericles. Afterwards we heard from her at Rome and the Vatican, then at Pompeii, and lastly at ancient Italica, Grenada and Seville, in Spain. Rarely, if ever, have there been written by a lady letters of travels more instruc- tive and admirable.
Then we remember the letters of H. S. S. (Stevens), initials long familiar to Clevelanders. Those to which we now refer were written from Brazil and Spain. The latter we recall most vividly because they awakened in us early mem- ories of Irving and the Alhambra ; the Hall of the Aben- •cerages and the Fountain of the Lions ; of Andalusia and •Grenada ; of Boabdil and the Moors ; of Isabella and •Columbus. These letters are, perhaps, extant in book form
32 OUR TRAVELERS AND WRITERS.
and will be readable when their intelligent author shall have made his last " transfer."
Later still came from Europe the letters of Myra (Mrs. A. W. Fairbanks), and while we are conscious that we missed the perusal of several of them, the few we did read impressed us with the sensible observations of the writer, her happy selection of topics which seemed always to be the very sub- jects about which one wished her to discourse, and concern- ing which she communicated to her admiring readers in a style so un affected and unpretentious as to lend to her letters the charm of gracefulness.
The readers of the Plain Dealer for man}' years have been familiar with the significant (though not sacred) initials of J. H. 8. (Sargent), who has favored us with letters from Europe and almost everywhere else, but more recently from the Pacific Coast. No letters are read more carefully and thoughtfully than his. Every vein of his dry, quiet humor, which is so agreeable in his manner, is watched to secure the valuable nugget of information which is sure to turn up in every paragraph. Wherever he goes on the surface of the earth he carries in his eye, compass, chain and theodolite ; can tell in an instant where to cut and where to fill and the cost thereof ; can talk intelligently of mines and minerals, improve a city or tell the best place to build a new one ; observe the times and seasons, and tell the courses of the stars and put it all on paper without a superfluous word.
The most recent of our travelers and writers is Col. Wm. Perry Fogg, whose line has diverged somewhat from ordinary paths. First a journey round the world, the record of which was published in the Cleveland Leader, and subsequently published in a book, illustrated, covering Japan, China, India and Egypt, in which he gave the clearest view of the actual looks and aspects of those countries, cities and peoples of any American writer* Being in Pekin at the time Mr. Seward and his "retinue were there, with him and his part}'
OUR TRAVELERS AND WRITERS. 33
Col. Togg visited and inspected a section of the Great Wall. Recently he has indited Oriental epistles from the banks of the " fourth" river, which at an early day served to water the Garden of Eden. Bab}'lon, Bagdad and Nineveh have been, perhaps, the most interesting localities in his journey, and about which he has written in a manner both entertaining to his readers and abundantly creditable to himself. Such of his letters as we have read seem quite as interesting as those of Ba}Tard Taylor, on kindred subjects, or John L. Stevens from Arabia Petra and Yucatan of an earlier day, so far at least as literary merit is of any importance, and where facts alone are sufficient to absorb the undivided attention of the reader.
Public improvement seems to have been for some time wholly suspended by the city government of Bab}Tlon. It is rather dull times there now. Business property is not sale- able, and they have ceased to annex the adjoining villages. The Babylonian city treasurer has for a long time been unable to negotiate a single street improvement bond, and the coupons on the last loan of Sennacharib, to prosecute the war against Jerusalem, went to protest long ago. Still the souvenirs which Col. Fogg brings from that once prosperous city are of surpassing interest. Bricks like those of Babel, of which he has brought home fine specimens, with the in- variable cuniform inscription stamped thereon, could not be made for ten dollars a thousand. We felt old age crawling over us when, one day, we for a brief moment held in our hand a silver coin struck, perhaps, the very }~ear when the Persian interfered to prevent the election of Belshazzar for a third term — possibly one of the pieces paid Daniel for the interpretation of a certain important writing in an un- known tongue. The able financier of the Second National Bank, and city treasurer, is wearing as a fob a seal with strange devices, which possibly was worn by Nebuchad- nezzar when he abdicated his throne to become the most 3
34 OUR TRAVELERS AND WRITERS.
renowned granger of antiquity. It is intimated that there is a book in press, which is to be rich in new and striking illustrations of these ancient ruins. " Arabistan, the Land of the Arabian Nights," will surprise and delight the friends of the author.
Leonard Case, Jr., was among the earliest of our citizens who travelled abroad. He visited Europe in 1856, but never published any portion of the elaborate, critical and voluminous journal which he kept. His appreciative mind, close and crit- ical observations of institutions, ancient and modern, and his knowledge of the languages of Europe and the literature of the world, increased among his intimate friends the charm of his companionship. But for his eminent financial independ- ence and the constant care of extensive interests, he would possibty have been a renowned professor of mathematics in Yale or Harvard. A promoter of learning, and the founder of institutions thereof, he was besides a gentleman of more than ordinary literary genius, and the evidences of which he has left behind, need but an editor to make a delightful, interest- ing and instructive book. The versatility of his genius has heretofore been manifested to other than his social intimates in at least two published literary performances, which we- recall from the memory of a past pleasure. The first was a legend of chivalry entitled, "Treasure Trove" — a poem- occupying several pages in the Atlantic Monthly as early, perhaps, as about 1860, since published separately and hand- somely illustrated. Excellent in versification it is, moreover, rich and delightful in humor, and equal to the best' produc- tions of Holmes, and in many respects surpasses the rollicking vein which made James Russell Lowell popular and famous. The second is a little poetic gem entitled, "Rondonella" the swallow — a rendering of the Italian of Tomasso Grossi's Marco Visconte — the same whereon Bryant and others have exercised their practiced art ; a comparision of which, some years since, was made by the Cleveland Herald, by publish-
OUR TRAVELERS AND WRITERS. 35
ing the original and three translations. The conclusion of competent judges was, that if Bryant had developed the whole spirit and soul of the Italian, Mr. Case had surpassed it by a new poem on the same subject. Every line of his awakens the mind to contemplation, and fills the heart and soul with a sweet sadness.
Our venerable and honored citizen, Harvey Rice, should have the first place in our regard as the father of literary productions, as he is the recognized father of the laws which are the foundation of the public school system of the State, under and by virtue of which thousands have obtained their common school education, and in many instances have been inspired thereby to avail themselves of the higher branches of learning, and ultimately to become honored graduates of our own colleges, and those of other States. Born in the same vicinity where Bryant first opened his eyes upon the world and the beauties of romantic and poetic nature, graduated at the same institution, and cherished by the same Alma Mater as the author of Thanatopsis, he has been, even amidst the toils and struggles of pioneer life, a student, poet and philosopher, recognized no less abroad than at home in the productions of his pen. While Mr. Rice's mind has ever been in harmony with the philosophy and literary tastes of Bryant, whom he deems the first and most renowned of American poets, there is much in his form and features, grave aspects, but genial and charming social intercourse, which suggests the beloved Whittier, the Quaker poet of the Merri- mack. We remember man}r years ago his attractive little volume, " Mount Vernon and other Poems," which from time to time has been followed by essays, originally contributed to magazines, and finally published in neat and handsome volumes covering such themes as, " Nature and its Lessons," " Woman and her Sphere," " Education and its Errors," " America and her Future," " Life and its Aspirations." More recently he has written and published a very interest-
36 OUR TRAVELERS AND WRITERS.
ing volume entitled, " Incidents of Pioneer Life in the Early Settlement of the Connecticut Western Reserve." He still remains to look back upon an active, successful and honored life of more than eighty years.
David W. Cross, the Isaac Walton of the West, has illus- trated in a neat little volume the mysteries of angling in the murky streams of Ohio, and the bright waters and rivers of the upper lakes, and the gunner's art as practiced in the marshes of Lake Erie, and in the wilds and woods of Michigan. Duck, deer and fish, captivated with his work, each in their accustomed and fashionable season, give the author and his friends an annual reception and banquet.
We venture the freedom to remark that Mr. John Hay is a citizen of municipal adoption, " with all that that implies/' which is, that such adoption of the man implies a tacit con- sent to a claim laid by the people to an interest in his intel- lectual estate and literary property'.
There is a long list of heirs and legatees in our harbors and upon our rivers and lakes, as also upon the foot-boards of the fiery giants that glide over the tracks of steel, that center in our city and span the continent, in the last will and testament and humane resolve of " Jim Bludso ; " and " Little Breeches " has been and ever will be the prototj'pe of a thou- sand and one little Gabes in our city and elsewhere, whose white "milk teeth" and precocious spirit, in disaster or death, have awakened the mind of a rustic and pioneer father to a belief in God and angels, though unable, from lack of comprehension, "to go much on the prophets." These little border-land poems are a smile and a tear — lessons of life — teaching us of human affections under humble condi- tions ; that though
Skins may differ, still affection Dwells in white and black the same.
We had rather be equal to the authorship of these poems than to the grandest expressions of Byron, inspired by
OUR TRAVELERS AND WRITERS. 37
Athens and the Isles of Greece, where "burning Sappho loved and sung." An official residence at Madrid at an eventful period of the government of Spain enabled him to give us, in " Castilian Days," a series of pleasant papers — pictures of the Spain of to-da}', with back-ground glimpses of its his- toric glories, not the least attractive and impressive of which is " The Cradle and Grave of Cervantes."
Captain P. Gr. Watmough, by reason especially of his long service in the navy of the United States, has traversed more oceans and seas, and is familiar with more continents, countries and cities of the globe than an}^ other citizen ; and his opportunities, observations and experiences constitute a fund from which his vivacious and genial spirit, and personal accomplishments, can, if he will, evolve one of the most readable of books. He will continue amenable to the charge of neglect of duty until he furnishes his friends, and the public, " The Outward and Inward Experiences of the Life of a Naval Officer." For two or three years last past Captain Watmough has resided in England, and spent some time upon the continent, dividing his time somewhat between business and pleasure ; but now that he has returned to his elegant home and the serenity of domestic life, we most respectfully solicit his early devotion to a narrative of nautical experiences and naval history.
Constance Fennimore Woolson is a writer of good repute and stands high in public regard for her many papers con- tributed to the Atlantic Monthly and other magazines, and though some }Tears have elapsed since she was a very young lady in Cleveland societ}T, and now living in Europe, she is remembered and cherished as a daughter of the late Mr. C. J. Woolson, long and well known in business circles and eminent for his intelligence, rare wit and genial humor, and many other social attractions.
Levi F. Bauder, seeking mental relaxation from figures, wanders off into archaeology, dwells among the mound build-
38 OUR TRAVELERS AND WRITERS.
ers for a season, and amuses himself and delights his friends in " Passing Poetic Fancies," of which he has given us a modest little volume :
" Gone are the oak-woods, in whose prime The Aztec Druids reared their mounds — Whose dense shade formed, in later time, The fierce Algonquins' hunting grounds; "-
Until we found the little book we did not know the author of " Chanticleer," which has chimed in our ears for a decade, having read it many years ago in a New Year's Salutation of the newsboys.
" Bird of the Dawn, whose bugle notes Awake the echoes of the morn, Whose clarion on the crisp air floats, And heralds forth a new day born ; —
-:•:- # v -:•:- ;•:- •* *
The eagle, caged, will sulk and cower; From snow the lions shrink in fear, But neither bars, nor frost, nor shower, Appall the heart of Chanticleer ! "
Mr. Bander is purely American in his literary tastes, as he never illustrates by ancient classical allusions, nor uses a simile found elsewhere in nature than between the two oceans.
It was a pleasant surprise to the writer, when, but a few years since, he learned that Mr. J. H. A. Bone, the grave and sedate literary editor of the Cleveland Herald, way back in 1848 to 1853, knew the narrow and crooked streets, short cuts and by-paths of Boston, and was a familiar spirit with the wits and wags of the " Carpet-Bag," Shillaber, " Mrs. Partington"; Halpin, "Miles O'Reilly"; Hazewell, Moore, Wil- liam S. Robinson, " Warrington," and others, and oo-operated with them in that well-remembered facetious journal, when " Ensign Jehial Stebbings " was its candidate for the presi- dency, only a little later than when " Hosea Biglow," James
OUR TRAVELERS AND WRITERS. 39
Russell Lowell, said, " They didn't know everything down in Judee," and laid out the bolting politician of Middlesex, by declaring how
" John P. Robinson. He
Says he won't vote for Governor B." /
Mr. Bone, in addition to his valuable journalistic labors, has found time to contribute many papers of a high order to the Atlantic Monthly and other magazines, and is regarded as an authority in Elisabethan and general literature. He is, besides, reputed to luxuriate in the largest and richest private library in the city, where he is wont to entertain and delight a choice circle of devoted and appreciative friends.
More, doubtless, than any other Cleveland lady, Mrs. Rebecca Davis Rickoff may be regarded as a professional litterateur. A daughter of the late Professor William M. Davis, the successor of Mitchel as director of the Cincinnati Observatory, she obtained that thorough culture, which it was the pride of a considerate father, more bountiful than many, to bestow upon his beloved and cherished daughters. Sev- eral years since this lady won an enviable regard in social and literary circles, not only for the many meritorious pro- ductions of her pen, but also for the beauty and grace of her public readings.
Later years she has been a devoted and successful author, largely in the line of educational books, finely illustrated, which rank highly in the estimation of educators, and have endeared her name to the hearts of thousands of the youth- ful generation, few only of whom will ever see the bright countenance of the enthusiastic author, who has contributed so abundantly to their mental progress and school-day delights.
Mrs. Rlckoff 's essays upon educational subjects have been numerous, and have had a wide circulation in the journals of the country. Among them are noted "Object and Language Lessons," "Moral Training," and especially, in 1876,
40 OUR TRAVELERS AND WRITERS.
thetic Culture," a theme which, by her nature and culture, she was preeminently qualified to illustrate, and which won her distinguished consideration as a literary artist.
Without pretension, and doubtless as a mode of felicitous expression of exalted conceptions and delicate sentiments, for which plain prose is inadequate and impotent, she. has from time to time allowed us a glimpse of the resources of the poetic elements of her gifted nature, as beautifully expressed in a "Prayer in Lent," "The Vagabond's Prayer," "Dawn," and
THE BROOK IN THE HOLLOW.
The brook in the hollow
Hath waked from its sleep, And under the rushes doth creep and creep;
Then, over the pebbles
So smooth and brown, Goes merrily dancing, dancing down.
Now, shouting with laughter,
It leaps o'er the rock, Awaking the echoes its mirth to mock ;
While over the borders,
So rugged and steep, The dainty anemones peep and peep.
Then out of the shadow
And into the sun, All bubbling with pleasure, the glad waves run ;
Now broader and deeper
It moves with ease, And murmurs of peace to the scented breeze.
The dear birds drink
Of its waters bright ; The fond stars sleep on its breast at night,
Now quiet, as grieving
The hills to forsake, It glides under lily-pads into the lake.
OUR TRAVELERS AND WRITERS. 41
Mr. Charles C. Baldwin, amid very active professional labors, has found time and had the taste to make extensive and valuable researches into the antiquities of Northern Ohio, and has written several interesting monographs touching the mysterious mounds, so impressive and suggestive of the pres- ence of a race of men of constructive intelligence and great power upon our soil many thousand years before the race we now call primeval and indiginous ; but more especially of the Indian tribes whose locality was upon the borders of Lake Erie. Not the least interesting, however, of Mr. Baldwin's pamphlets, written for the Western Reserve Historical Society, of which he is an active and efficient member, we recall to mind one illustrated by a series of maps, made by the French Jesuits, showing the locality of the several tribes of Indians, river system, portages, etc., and demonstrating the wonderful familiarity of the French voyayeurs, and the government of France, with the whole of our territory, from the Lake to the Beau reviere, nearly three hundred years ago.
Among our professional journalists there are many gentle- men of fine abilities and cultivated tastes, who, while devoted to daily papers, more or less political, which they assist to conduct in a spirited and creditable manner, have from time to time given evidence of finer and more exalted thoughts than their daily duties called them to express. Of such we take the liberty to allude to Mr. J. H. Kennedjr, of the Cleve- land Herald, whose ability and industry in the line of journal- istic service has been noted, and whose amenities have ever prompted him to be just, and even pleasantly generous, when he might have been severe. He has in the last few years scattered along quietly, and often anonymously, in the col- umns of his paper, little gems of thought clothed with such delicate expression as to be worthy of a less ephemeral pub- lication. From among many of which we are conscious, we especially remark the following sad and tender poetic ex-
42 OUR TRAVELERS AND WRITERS.
pressions, which we submit as evidence in justification of .these remarks :
NEAR THE SHADOW.
Unshaken in my faith I said, " O friend, The darkest nights of grief soon pass. You bend Beneath the burden now, but light will come !" I meant no hurt ; and could not read the dumb Unanswering look that on his face lay dead — Nor even guess that meaning left unread.
Not then. But later — there beside the nest Wherein my little one reposed — the rest Of untried faith was broken up and blurred. I read the bitter meaning then. I heard The mocking lightness in my former speech ; And learned that I, untaught, could never teach The broken soul in depths bevond my reach.
For then there came an inner voice that cried, •"O shallow sympathy ! O untouched pride, That never mourned a loss; that never beat In helpless stress against the storm ! O feet, That never stood upon a dim-lit shore, Where tiny barks set sail to land no more ! •O parent soul, that never felt a loss, How little reck ye of your brother's cross!"
I measured, then, some portion of the gloom That filled his soul. I sought the darkened room "Wherein the treasure he had lost was laid Beneath a cross of roses. "I have made A closer call on death !" I said, " have met His prophet messenger, through paths that yet His presence does not darken. There is space In that for sympathy !"
And by the face
That met my look — through coming tears to each — ' I read, in words more eloquent than speecli : ~tlThe soul by sorrow taught, alone can teach /"
OUR TRAVELERS AND WRITERS. 43
" Glances on the Wing at Foreign Lands," by Rev. James JVL Hoyt, in 1871, is an interesting little volume that did not need the prefatory apology of being written for his own chil- dren and published by friends. The instinctive modesty and .good sense of the gentleman is too well appreciated to require an excuse for imparting any information he might acquire in .a few months of recreation and observation in foreign lands. His is a most cheerful little book, and the author possesses in his nature and culture that happ}T combination of legal and clerical discipline and taste which selects and discourses upon living realities and the subjects which are uppermost in the minds of readers of ancient and modern classical literature and history. England, Scotland and Ireland, France, Ger- many and Switzerland were the lands of which he took a bird's- eye view on speed}7" intellectual wings. The beauty of the cultivated landscape of. the old world was easy to take in, and •comprehended at a glance ; but his observations, often minute and specific, of museun\s of antiquities, of Druidical or Phoe- nician and Roman remains in temple, tower or cromlech, and of the houses remaining, where once lived, and the graves and monuments that mark the resting place of the historic dead, with which even intelligent readers are but dimty familiar, possess a fascinating interest for the reality which he has thrown around them by his personal visit to each. What startling reality to be told that the house of Milton, in which he wrote Paradise Lost, has been condemned, appropriated and removed, to make way for the track of the Northern Railway! He has made the graves of Milton, Defoe, and the many renowned tenants of Bunhill Fields as familiar as the tombs of distinguished dead in our own cemeteries; and the grave of Knox and the monuments of Scott and Chalmers fresh in our memories, and by his visit thereto, has awakened a renewed interest in the ancient Judicial Hall where non-suits, ;and defaults, and decrees of robbed chancellors were entered by the same hand that delighted a generation in The Lady of the
44 OUR TRAVELERS AND WRITERS.
Lake. Mr. Ho}Tt has given new impressions and more vivid realities of York, the ancient Emboracum, once a shrine of Serapis, before Christian basilica, or church; illustrious as the birth-place of Constantine, and the spot from which he started on that wonderful career which changed the face of the world — which gave a pontiff to Rome in the person of Adrian IV., and where peasants of adjacent villages show to- day on cottage floors mosaic pavements that bear witness to the luxury and refinement of the age of Roman dominion which passed awa}* in the wreck of Isurium. The pinions of our tourist were happily folded on the dome of London's St. Paul long enough to contemplate the genius of Sir Christo- pher Wren and the glories of the great Church of the primate of England, and a thousand years of pontifical supremacy. It would be interesting to know, but about which our hasty traveler is silent, if in addition thereto he contemplated that still remoter age when the Phoenician and the Greek were settled on the banks of the Thames, and a temple of Diana stood upon the identical ground on which was built the sec- ond Christian Church, and above which now stands the dome and towers of the most renowned Church of modern Europe. Mr. Hoyt has demonstrated, even in his too brief notes, that he is not only a genial and happy traveler, but that he has that cultured liberality which enables him to read with ex- pressed pleasure Tyndall's Recreations in the Alps, subject only to that legitimate and candid criticism, becoming a cleri- cal gentleman, for the author's failure to recognize in the Hebrew Jehovah his own conception of the Author of the Universe.
Some years since Mrs. A. B. Halliwell, a musical artist endeared to Clevelanders for her professional charities, made a visit to the old world, taking the high northern route, and entering Scotland by the Clyde. She visited Edinburgh, the lakes and mountains, made famous by Scott's Lady of the Lake, and the homes of the English poets, London,
OUR TRAVELERS AND WRITERS. 45
Manchester and York ; Ireland and the Lakes of Killarney, and ultimately Paris ; concerning all of which she wrote .admirable letters to the Cleveland Herald. She gave an impressive description of the Giant's Causeway, as also of York and its great cathedral. She was in London, and .attended the concerts of all the famous artists of the world, when they met there in musical rivalry in the spring and early summer of 1872, each receiving in turn the applause of the elite of the high social and musical society of the metrop- olis— Patti, Nilsson, Lucca, Parepa Rosa, Miramon, Albani ; ;Senors Stalo, Nicholini, Sims Reeves and others, each of whom in turn seemed to enjo}' a triumph — the divine face, form and voice of Patti, however, winning the popular verdict, she was crowned Queen of Song.
Mr. Hiram Garretson, long devoted to mercantile affairs and banking, sought relief from overwork and an impaired constitution in European travel, and having been appointed United States Commissioner to the World's Fair at Vienna, he entered upon the delicate but arduous duties of the posi- tion, and by his superior business capacity, tact and address, brought order out of the confusion into which the American exhibitors had been thrown by unforeseen contingencies, and the lack of space and accommodations provided by the Austrian government. His personal no less than his official presence redounded largely to the ultimate success of the American department. He received the grateful acknowledgment of Americans, and won the admiration of Austrian officials, the exhibitors of other countries, and foreigners general^. He remained until the close of the exposition, when he came home, but did not long survive his return.
Colonel Charles Whittlesey has been a too voluminous writer to even name his books, pamphlets or themes. It is enough to say that nature constituted him a naturalist, geol- ogist, antiquarian, historian, and a practical man in the every •day affairs of life. He has rendered in his long and active
46 OUR TRAVELERS AND WRITERS.
life great public service, and has been largely instrumental im conferring commercial wealth and prosperity upon the city by his early scientific and geological discoveries and develop- ments — preeminently in the coal fields of Ohio, and in the copper and iron regions of Lake Superior. Meteorology r variations of lake levels, tidal waves and oscillations have had his learned consideration. His researches and writings touching the prehistoric people of America, and especially or Ohio, have resulted not only in making the mound builder a reality, but almost in giving him a literature. The last blessing which the great scientist can confer upon his appre- ciative friends and the generations to come, will lie in the direction of proper provisions for the gathering together of all his unedited notes and writings for publication, complete and in more accessible form.
Much is said and written about workingmen, and but little about workingwomen, }-et we apprehend that if the latter were marshalled in companies, regiments and brigades, the workingmen would find themselves matched, not only upon many fields of general industoy, but by an invincible army upon the world's broad field of literary industry and intellec- tual labor. The silence which prevails touching woman's work, possibly comes of the same spirit which possessed the humble Hibernian politician, to whom was exhibited a beau- tiful and highly polished piece of mechanism, and was told that it would perform the labor of many men, and do more
perfect work, but whose only expressed gratification was
"It can't vote." Sarah K. Bolton is one of the many women who works with the constant and untiring devotion of a bird gathering material for its nest. The Catherine Beecher school of Hartford, the historical Charter Oak, the broad Connecticut and the beautiful vale of the Farmington, Talcott mountain and its ancient tower, and the poetic halo around the home of Lydia H. Sigourney, inspired her to the author- ship of a volume of poems, published by the Appleton'sr
OUR TRAVELERS AND WRITERS. 47"
before she was sixteen years old. Untiring in her activity, and constant in her devotion to the moral welfare of society, she has been the efficient secretary of the Woman's Christian Association, and a writer of monographs upon temperance and kindred subjects, and for three years was one of the editors of the Congregationalist of Boston, a journal of wide circulation and great influence. She visited Europe in 1878, and again in 1881, traveling through Great Britain, Ireland, France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Germany — writing the while for Boston and New York magazines, and leading journals East and West. She is now preparing two volumes for the press. Mrs. Bolton is a cheerful lady who always faces the sunshine of life, and whose philosophic maxim is, that the desire and ability to do any ennobling work in life confers the right upon man and woman alike.
For literary and social industry few, if any, surpass Mrs. W. A. Ingham. A woman of liberal culture, generous spirit, and withal practical business talent, she was the first lady to read an essay before a Cleveland public audience, being the occasion of the organization of the Woman's Foreign Mission- ary Society of the M. E. Church, in 1870.- Temperance work, friendliness to the lowly, and the happiness of children are among her labors and delights, of which her neat and tidy "Pearl Street Inn," and her thousand constituents abundant- ly and happily testify. Mrs. Ingham has travelled with her husband quite extensively in Europe, and her letters from across the water, as also from Florida, were admirable. Over the nom de plume of "Anne Hathaway" she is illus- trating, in a series of very readable and instructive papers, "Woman's Work in Cleveland and Northern Ohio," con- tributed to the Cleveland Leader. Mrs. Sadie W. Ingham is a woman of culture — has a classical education, and is noted for her happy facility in definite and clearly expressed thought. Her essay entitled, "Our Girls," read before the International Convention of Woman's Christian Associations..
48 OUR TRAVELERS AND WRITERS.
at St. Louis, in 1881, won for her many pleasant acquaintan- ces, ^.and an extended fame. She is the efficient and beloved secretary of the Woman's Christian Association of Cleveland, and the editor of its paper, " The Earnest Worker." Miss Emma Janes has endeared her name to many, other than her personal acquaintances, by her entertaining and charming letters from California, published in the Cleveland Herald. .She is the Washington Correspondent for leading journals in New York and California.
Mr. Charles E. Bolton, who graduated at Amherst College .and came to Cleveland in 1865, while among the youngest and latest of our travelers and writers, has excelled all his pre- decessors and cotemporaries in having crossed the Atlantic some eight or ten t'imes. Not all, however, for mere pleasure, but in the interests of a great manufacturing establishment, of which he is the manifest life, a corporation with a soul, and the wondrous packing machine that does everything that a merchant, grocer or manufacturer with a retinue of clerks and a whole platoon of employes can do, but talk and vote, .and which will pack a whole barrel of ground coffee, or any similar product in shapely pound packages in the twinkling of an eye, as by the fiat of an intelligence superior to man. This famous machine, of which he is largely the inventor, at least of many of its most important parts and improvements, has called him to visit all parts of Europe, including Russia and Turke}\ He was at the Paris ex- position in 1878, and the Electrical exposition there in 1881, besides making the general tour of the continent with his wife and manly son, Master Charlie Bolton, in 1878. Mr. Bolton has been a ver}- creditable representative of Cleveland abroad, having by reason of his bright intelligence and admirable address access to good society and all reform- ator}^ associations and institutions — could speak at Dr. New- man Hall's church, at the great gatherings in the halls of London and Birmingham — hold parle}T with and perplex
OUR TRAVELERS AND AVRITERS. 49
with questions the consummate platform controversialist and orator Bradlaugh, and win the applause of an English audience on their proverbial sentiment of justice and fair pUry in public discussions. He has also been a prolific and valuable correspondent and writer for American jour- nals and magazines. Mr. Bolton's last social achievement is recognized and acknowledged in the conception, organiza- tion and triumphant success of the Cleveland Educational Bureau.
Mr. George W. Howe and S. T. Everett have each found pleasure and won financial triumphs of late }'ears among the financiers and business men of London, and profited in health and spirit by visits to Paris and elsewhere in the old world. George F. Marshall long since made the tour of England, German}* and France — the results of his observations he .communicated in a free and lively, and often in a pleasantly facetious style to home journals. Mr. Marshall in former years was a prolific magazine writer, notably for the old "Knickerbocker," and has written several pamphlets and monographs upon historical and other subjects. A few years since he published a very neat and attractive little volume of Original Prayers, adapted to special occasions and emergen- cies in life — admirably composed and forcibly expressed petitions — but their availabilit}T and use, we fear, were •sadly and lamentably restricted, owing solely to the •circumstance that the author, very singularly, secured a copyright of his work. J. W. Walton has been a thoughtful observer and writer upon English local history, scenery and institutions. Mr. J. M. Curtiss has traveled with intelligent appreciation and an eye to the beauty of landscape, in England, Scotland, Switzerland and France, the beneficial results of which he has eminently illustrated in the ^selection and adornment of 'Riverside, and of which the municipality has availed in his appointment as Park Com- missioner. John Erwin and Arthur Hughes, venerable gen-
50 OUR TRAVELERS AND WRITERS.
tlemen of leisure and fortune, had the commendable curiosity and practical good sense to add Rome, Egypt, Palestine,, Greece and Russia to the list of countries visited by them. Mr. M. C. Younglove some years since extended his travels to Rome and subsequently to Egypt, where he was called to mourn the death of his son under the shadow of the great pyramid. Richard C. Parsons has several times visited Europe, and happily has been inspired to dwell upon Rome,, her history, her monuments and her ruins, of which, in his. letters thence, and later in public addresses, he has given us pleasant and instructive comments. Mr. Edwin Cowles, while United States Commissioner to the Paris exposition, contributed to his journal a series of papers, the results of his observations, careful and critical, of exceeding interest to its readers, touching that renowned enterprise, as also much relating to the famous battle ground on the plains of Bel- gium, and the institutions, peoples, and the social status and industrial and commercial condition and advancement of modern Europe. Mr. John Shelley has so often broken the monotony of his elegant ease and leisure, and visited Eng- land and the continent, that it would seem that the Atlantic is to him but a fair sized navigable stream of water running from pole to pole, and a Cunarder but a commodious and comfortable ferry-boat by which to cross it. Ex-Mayor Payne sought health in the waters of Baden-Baden and Bohemia, and in the breezes of Switzerland, and the cheerful- ness of his spirits was restored only to be saddened in the death of a cherished brother who had sought with him the- same boon, but found it not.
Mr. and Mrs. W. J. Gordon have spent much time in Europe of late j^ears, and where, in Belgium, their accom- plished daughter, the late Madame la Vicomtesse Alphonse Vilain XIV., married, lived and died, profoundly mourned by husband and parents, and lamented by innumerable Ameri- can friends who call her to memory for her mental superior!-
OUR TRAVELERS AND WRITERS. 51
ty, and the beauty and grace of her childhood and maiden years.
The residence of Miss Florence Wyman in England for a few years past has been made agreeably manifest through the columns of our public journals, in many contributions, vigor- ous, spirited and instructive, covering a variety of historical, literary and social topics. The latest contribution to litera- ture by a Clevelander, of which we are advised, is the volume of Miss Cadwell, daughter of Judge Darius Cadwell, entitled "Number Seventeen," a romance of the lakes, which is com- mended highly by those who have had the pleasure of its perusal. It certainly has won for her respectful consideration as a lady of literary accomplishments.
Mr. H. B. Payne, Judge Rufus P. Ranney, Judge Daniel R. Tilden, and Mr. George Willey, avoiding the deep and rolling waters of the Atlantic and its towering and frowning icebergs, have ranged the interior of the Continent for pleasant recrea- tion and vivifying airs, from the valley of the Saskatchawan and the waters of the Winnipeg in the Dominion of Canada to the City of Mexico ; but those who would learn something of their pleasures and delights must seek therefor in a per- sonal interview, and find their reward in the charm of the conversation and narrative of each.
A trip to Europe has become no longer a novelt}'. The business man is missed for a few weeks, and when again we meet him on the street we are not surprised to learn from him that, instead of having been indulging in the surf at New- port or Cape May, he is just in by the last steamer from Liverpool. Judges and lawyers are now wont to utilize their vacation in a carpet-bag run from John O'Groat's House to Land's-end, or by a trip up the Rhine and down the Danube, and are back in season for the next term of court. Verily, the world of mankind is on the wing, and the girdle of the electric wizard goes the circuit of the earth in forty minutes.
52 WEBSTER'S SPELLING-BOOK UNCOVERED.
WEBSTER'S SPELLING-BOOK "UNCOVERED."
~\ \ 7E have read with exceeding interest the account of the * * meeting of the old pioneers in Summit count}'. Ohio, and the Edgerton famil}' reunion in Ro3~alton. in 1873. Such .associations and reunions touch a sympathetic chord in the hearts of thousands far beyond the locality where they trans- pire. There is a sublimity in the thought of a venerable band of fathers and mothers, standing upon the verge of the grnve. and holding up in their hands the ancient household gods, the treasures and keepsakes of their long and eventful journey of life, to the wonder, admiration and love of their children and friends, and waving, as it were, a kind and cheerful farewell to three generations behind them. Long may the children of the West hold in sacred remembrance and veneration the old pioneers !
But it was in the following paragraph that the writer here- of found special delight in the discovery there developed, not failing to appreciate the humorous reflections and slight sar- casm of the reporter :
"We looked into Xoah Webster's spelling-book, forty-six years old, and pitied the boy in the apple tree, who resisted grass and kind words, and wondered if he grew to manhood and still holds a high place, from which he must needs be pelted with stones before he will come down from his stealing place."
We have ceased to be surprised at modern discoveries. Forty years ago La}'ard uncovered Nineveh and astonished the world. The tablets of the royal library of Assyria have been found and translated. The tombs of Egypt long since
WEBSTER'S SPELLING-BOOK UNCOVERED. 53
gave back the Book of the Dead. And now the book of Noah has been uncovered in the summit of Ohio's backbone ; and Cadmus has come again !
The old spelling-book now brought to light seems to be an edition of 1827. The one in which the handsome blonde school mistress, in the pink dress, first pointed out to . the writer, with her scissors suspended from her zone by a steel chain, the wonderful twenty-six letters, was at least three years older. Although we have not seen it for more than forty years, its pages and lessons are quite vivid in memory. The well trodden path from Ab to monosyllables, which the big bo}' persisted in calling ''Molly Sinables," is not yet quite grassed over. There was a frontispiece in the early edition, a Grecian temple upon a lofty acropolis, with " Knowledge " inscribed upon a broad frieze above its Doric columns, and surmounted by a dome arid spire, upon which was a vane, with the legend " Fame ; " signif}Ting, perhaps, that knowledge is substantial, but that fame has something of the fickleness of the wind. A flight of steps led to the temple, up which a youth was going with a book in hand (the veritable spelling- book, we thought), to recite, no doubt, the "Abbrevations " A. B. ; LL. D. ; I. H. S., Jesu Homine Salvator. The first lesson droned out by little bo}Ts and girls was, " No-man-may-put- off-the-law-of-God." .
It was a proud da}' with the little class when they got over to " Baker," which was a kind of haven where they cast anchor for a while and looked back over the voyage, turned over a few leaves ahead to take a peep at the lessons yet to come, containing the hard words that had such an awful lot of " sinables " in them. It is hardly to be doubted that the Hon. Sidney Edgerton felt more pride in getting to " Baker " than to the governorship of a Territory. There was an audible smile when the smallest boy read how the virtue in the stones made the }Toung saucebox hasten down from the tree and beg the old man's puddin' ! So cool a demand for
54 WEBSTER'S SPELLING-BOOK UNCOVERED.
pudding, under the circumstances, had no precedent, but it evinced in the lad remarkable proclivities to statesmanship. Doubtless the milkmaid still laments her catastrophe, and sighs over disappointed hopes for the green dress. We con- fess to some lingering of sympathy for her, and wish she had ou\j waited a few days for the chickens to hatch before she counted them. The fox in the brambles ma}' yet be tor- mented with flies.
The law}*er and farmer are doubtless in consultation as they were forty-eight years ago. It would be interesting to know who was the artist that made those illustrations. Perhaps it was the grandfather of Nast. Whoever he ma}r have been, we think he found the original of his stately old lawyer, with ruffled shirt, short breeches and great shoe buck- les, sitting erectly in his high back office chair, either in the person of Zephania Swift, or David Dagget, Connecticut's two great lawyers of the old school, though neither of them had many "If 's and If 's" or reservations in their opinions. There was one more picture, the title, story, or " moral " of which cannot now be recalled ; but it represented a man " up a tree," another prostrate with his face to the ground, pretending to be dead, and a bear was snuffing at his head to ascertain if so be he was. Probably one of ^Esop's fables.
The last reading lesson was a few verses of the grand old Hebrew injunction — " Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them." It is possible this cop}r of Webster's spelling-book is the only one extant, and it should be preserved for the generations to come. We had rather possess it than all the islands of the sea. Several years ago we made inquiry for it in the old school district, but it was not to be found. A few only had seen it face to face. A new generation had arisen who knew not Webster. We inquired for the little blue-eyed girl who kept hers so neat and free from dosf's ears and thumb marks for
WEBSTER'S SPELLING-BOOK UNCOVERED. 55
several summers, thinking surely we should find it with her, Ibut the answer came — " Dead forty years ! "
One day (1825), when the little class had got well into the long *words, school didn't " keep/' There was a commotion, extra- ordinary, in the usually quiet streets of the pleasant village of Waterbury, Vermont. Coaches and four and coaches and six dashed around the sign post in front of the village tavern (there were no '"hotels" or Chouses'' in the country then, nor was it so large as Mr. Weddell's tavern in Cleveland), and a great multitude of people uttered a joyous exclamation, "Wel- •come, La Fayette ! " Too young to realize its significance.
A few weeks afterward, away beyond the Potomac, three thousand mounted men of Virginia flanked three sides of the lawn in front of Montecello. A veneiable and infirm man •came out the door with head uncovered, and, unattended, shuffled along down the central walk to welcome a guest. The same moment the guest, tall and stately, left his carriage, -alike unattended, to meet his host. Upon their near approach in the center of that hollow square the first with voice tremu- lous with emotion exclaimed, "Ah, La Fayette ! " The other responded, "Ah, Jefferson ! " And the statesman and the soldier rushed into each other's embrace and cried like chil- dren— and Montecello rang with applause.
The next year occurred the most wonderful coincidence in liistory, in the death of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, two ex-Presidents, the joint authors of the Declaration of Independence, and, save Washington, the foremost names in the annals of America, on the Fourth of July, 1826, just fifty years from the date of that immortal paper.
Then Ezra Butler, of Waterbury, farmer, Baptist minister, .and statesman, was Governor of Vermont. Governor Paul Dillingham was then a handsome young lawyer, possessed of forensic abilities of a high order, whose eye is not yet dimmed, nor his natural force abated, nor has eighty years whitened a lock of his raven hair. Henry F. Janes, dark,
56 WEBSTER'S SPELLING-BOOK UNCOVERED.
solemn and profound, was his formidable opponent, and the first if not the only man elected to Congress on the issues engendered b}r the anti-Masonic whirlwind. Matthew Hale Carpenter, after- wards Mr. Dillingham's son-in-law, was then a lad conning his lessons in the famous spelling-book, in an adjoining town, while- the State -he was destined to represent in the United States Senate was a wilderness untraversed save by the indiginous- Indian. Henry M. Rice, late IT. S. Senator of Minnesota, well known to man}' Cleveland gentlemen, who by him have been led to fortunes on the shores and islands of Lake Superior,, was but a little later an accomplished clerk and accountant in the principal village store. Affable and kindly, he would compromise with rustic boys and give each a handful of rai- sins if they would cease to pick the dry codfish or to purloin the maple sugar. Col. Jonathan P. Miller had then just returned from Athens and the isles of Greece, full of inspira- tion and Greek fire, while Samuel Prentiss, father of our Judge S. B. Prentiss, was Vermont's most distinguished U. S. Semi- tor, and profound lawyer. Col. L' Evaque (Anglicized Le Vake), the high-spirited Frenchman and sturcty patriot, who came in the same ship, as one of the suite of La Fayette, and served through the Revolution, and settled upon the bounty land granted him by Government in the adjoining town of Bolton, which for many years he represented in the Legis- lature, unhappily was not present at Waterbury to greet again his great compatriot and leader, having died just before the arrival of La Fayette ; but the great Frenchman did honor to the memory of his countryman, compatriot and early friend by calling at his late residence at Bolton on his way to Burlington, known for many years after as the "Old Le Vake Place," a stage tavern, before railroads, located upon a broad and beautiful meadow, through which flows the Winooski, under the frowning cliff of Ricker mountain that rears its almost perpendicular Southern front of two thousand feet in majestic defiance to the loftier Camel's*
WEBSTER'S SPELLING-BOOK UNCOVERED. 57"
Hump beyond the river. At Burlington La Fa}rette partici- pated in the ceremonies of laying the corner-stone of the University of Vermont, and Mr. W. J. Warner, of Cleveland, then a young mason, whose craft Mr. Choate once dignified and exalted, when he characterized a mason as " a beautifier and an adorner of cities," prepared the foundation and corner- stone, and with his own hand spread the mortar, while La Fayette touched the rope by which the stone with its legend' was lowered to its place.
And as if coincidences would never cease, two grandsons of Colonel Le Vake, born, upon that old homestead, George J.. and W. C. Le Vake, are reputable citizens and prominent business men of Cleveland, inheritors of the patriotic spirit, and who preserve manj- of the old legends and stories related of their distinguished grandfather. Four sons of Col. Le Vake- were officers in the war of 1812 — one was upon General Scott's staff, and one subsequently lost his life in the Mexican war. A more remarkable coincidence still, connecting Cleveland withr the historic past, and especially with the visit of La Faj'ette in 1825, is the fact that his private coach, made in Paris, brought with him in his ship, and in which he made the tour of the countr}T, is still in existence, intact and perfect, save the bright colors of its rich upholstery, which time and dust have faded and dimmed. This coach is owned by Mr. Clinton French, of Cleveland, a native of Barre, Vermont, and a lineal descendant of William French, of Westminster, Vermont, whose blood, with Daniel Houghton's, was the first shed in the Revolution, March 13th, 1775, to whose memory and honor the State erected a monument in 1875. Mr. French is a devoted collector of antiques, especially in the line of books, documents and historical souvenirs, and the coach of La Fayette is but one of the many valuable and costl}T treas- ures of his cabinet of wonders and curiosities. It is an elaborately wrought and highty finished carriage of the style of the Napoleonic period and of the first empire. Too heavy
.58 WEBSTER'S spELLiNG-BOok UNCOVERED.
ibr ordinary service with a single pair of horses — four horse power being requisite for facilit}' of movement — it has •escaped common use, and consequently it is in a good state of preservation and but little worn. It is well housed and •cared for by its owner. Retired upon its historic dignity and fame, it never appears upon the streets except in processions on rare occasions of national rejoicing or public sorrow.
Cotemporaneous with Webster's spelling-book in the schools was the geography of Rev. Jedidiah Morse, of Cam- bridge, Mass., father of the late Samuel F. B. Morse, so justly celebrated in the annals of telegraphy. It was afterwards superseded by that of Woodbridge, which in time gave way to Olney or Mitchell. Too young to have knowledge of the text, we were indulged only with an occasional look at the pictures, among which were the great geysers of Iceland, the salt mines of Cracow, the volcano in the sea, and a glimpse of the mighty "mountains of the moon," away in those mys- tic regions,
Where they dive for alligators, mock the hairy-faced baboon, Worship mighty Mumbo Jumbo in the mountains of the moon.
One illustration haunted children for many years. It rep- resented scenes in Polynesia, where the cannibal butcher of Papua kept his shambles and dealt out to his customers, -according to their tastes or social rank, or, perhaps, ability to pay, choice steaks, the flesh of the hapless missionary, or pie meat or shanks for a stew from the body of the unfortunate sailor. Quarters and best cuts were temptingly displayed on hooks or hung up to dry, "jerked," and feet and fingers were ^arranged like pig's feet upon modern marble counters, and heads could be seen for such as liked them. It was by no means a cheerful picture.
It would have been cheering to the heart of the venerable ^clergyman and geographer could he have had a vision of that bright and then not distant future, when the genius of that
WEBSTER'S SPELLING-BOOK UNCOVERED. 59
:son should enable him to sit in his library in New York and .hold converse with every civilized nation of the world. But it is ordained unto young men to see visions of the future, .and unto old men to dream dreams of the past.
It has been said that the last thoughts of a dying old man .are of his infancy and the face of his mother. Something akin to that comes to one who has passed the middle age of life, when, 'contemplating the few books he has read, he finds the Mecca of his heart still farther back in the humble little school house, with all its cherished associations connected with the primary book of Noah Webster.
60 TEA DRINKING AND TALES OF A GRANDMOTHER.
TEA DRINKING AND TALES OF A GRANDMOTHER,
E one hundredth anniversary of a historical event rarely comes but once in the lifetime of an individual, and it is (pleasing to notice that the ladies of the Cleveland Dorcas Society, imbued with a spirit of the old Revolutionary patriotism, purpose to celebrate the first centennial of the renowned Boston Tea Party of 1773.
A hundred years hence, when the census shall credit the- beautiful city with a million of people, the ladies of Cleve- land will celebrate the virtues and heroic devotion of the noble men and women whose names are embalmed in the his- toric record of the great Sanitar}^ Fair of the Civil War, and wonder that their ancestors could have done such mighty works ; and the antiquarian will search among the moss covered tombstones at Lakeview, Woodland and Riverside for the names now familiar to us, and find his reward in reverent delight if, happily, he shall be enabled to decipher and slowly spell out the name of Mother Rouse.
The writer has felt a charm in the old Revolutionary his- tor}^ ever since when, nearly fifty years ago, he climbed up in a chair, and took a look into his grandmother's tall chest of drawers. It contained a sword, a cocked hat, Washington's Farewell Address and a strong smell, not of tea, but of pipe and tobacco. A little rummaging brought to view a pair of silver knee buckles, which holding up, we solicited of the old lad}' to know if we might have them. Turning her wrinkled but handsome face towards us, she said, " No ; for your grandfather wore them the first time he came to see me.'r What he came to see her for, we did not consider much then..
TEA DRINKING AND TALES OF A GRANDMOTHER. 61
Though not learned like the '; Autocrat of the Breakfast 'Table/' our grandmother was, nevertheless, a most popular *queen of the tea-table. Her simulated gravity and graceful manipulations, when she would "turn up a cup " and delight a bevy of marriageable young ladies concerning their " pros- pects/' were admirable at the age of eighty years. Her tea- table discourses were wont to be of the events of which Boston was the early theatre ; the massacre ; the destruction of the tea ; the stirring speeches in u town meeting ; " the watchwords, and the " alarum " guns ; the flight of the royal Governor Gage and the sale of his furniture and plate (pewter) ; the resolution of the women to sacrifice their lives by dispensing with the luxury of tea; Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill ; the political animosities of Whigs and Tories of Boston and the provincial towns ; the return to England of -such royalists as were able, and the sullen acceptance of the situation by others ; and the thousand other incidents that impress the mind of the cotemporary, and which we so much wish to learn, but about which subsequently written history is silent.
She dispensed on rare occasions delicious bits of gossip, but only in confidence fifty }-ears after the war, and only to discreet ladies who would not repeat it, about the " sacrifices " made by the women as a war measure, in abstaining from tea. Living only a few hours' ride from Boston with an aunt, whose husband was a Puritan deacon and captain of the "minute men" in his town, and whose square farm house was a center for military news and movements, she knew all the signs and signals of the patriots, heard and saw much and lived in con- stant expectation of the signal guns. In the spring of 1775 some Boston ladies of " quality " paid Captain Joselyn and his wife a visit. The}^ wore " hoops " of great diameter, and elaborately puffed hair that would have delighted Madame Pompadour. The dinner table was laid with the service of pewter plate which Captain Joselyn had purchased at the
62 TEA DRINKING AND TALES OF A GRANDMOTHER.
sale of Governor Gage's household effects, a portion of whiclu was the outfit of the niece, when after the war, she married the soldier with the silver knee buckles, and which bore the stamp of the British crown and the initial " G." The captain came in from the field, powdered his queue and dressed for dinner. He was a " spruce n man. George III. and Lord North suffered in reputation at that dinner. The ladies- made good report of their sisters in Boston in resisting tyranny by abstaining from tea and their determination never to yield, though the}- suffered greatly. Not observing the- merry twinkle in their eyes as they looked at Mrs. Joselyn, the deacon gravely remarked that the Lord would crown such resistance to tyranny with success. Dinner over and the- deacon away in the field, about four o'clock, in an upper room behind the great stone chimney, cheerful ladies sipped delici- ous green tea, while Thankful (that was grandma's name)- " stood sentry " to give warning of the approach of any per- son, and especially of Deacon Joselyn. Here they sipped and related how Mrs. Adams, Mrs. Otis, Mrs. Robert Treat Paine,, and other wives of distinguished patriots used to meet to sympathize and " suffer " at their respective houses ; and how it was conceded without reservation that Mrs. John Hancock gave delightful parties, at which tea was served, in her elegant stone mansion on Beacon street, overlooking the Puritan city and the green slopes of Bunker Hill. Her hus- band being a great merchant, it was believed she had been made the consignee of several chests of the delicious leaves to enable the generous lady to relieve extreme cases of suf- fering after the passage of the anti-tea resolution. In the height of their enjoyment three successive guns boomed on Dorchester heights ,- and' before their reverberations had died1 away, three quick discharges of musketry rattled in the vil- lage. The long expected alarm had come. The first told that a detachment of the British army were filing out on; the Lexington road.. The second, the rally of the minute'
TEA DRINKING AND TALES OF A GRANDMOTHER. 6£
men. Almost simultaneously with the home signal a mounted man in " regimentals " dashed up to the door and demanded, " Where is Captain Joselyn ? rr The sentinel of* the tea party, although she well understood the signal gun,, yet in her fright she imagined that somebody knew about the ladies behind the chimney, and, unable to speak, she pointed the messenger in the direction where the captain was then coming, having already unyoked the oxen and, like Cincin- natus, left the plow in the furrow. In a short time Captain Joselyn and the minute men were on the march to Concord,, and the maiden sentinel was " thankful that it was not any worse."
In those days "minister meetings" were often held at Deacon Joselyn's, for which it was necessar}* to make extra- ordinary preparations. Unlike the advanced Christian civil- ization of our day it was deemed indispensable upon such occasions for the deacon, whose house was honored with the assembly to furnish some "sperits," and as "Old Jamaica" was the recognized article for persons of "quality," it was necessary to go to Boston for it, nothing but an inferior article, called " new," being obtainable at the village store. At these meet- ings were discussed everything pertaining to the sacred order- and their several fields of labor : theology, discipline, educa- tion, not forgetting politics and the patriotic cause. They were wont to be less austere than when moving among their- several parishioners, were very genial and social, enlivening the meeting with good stories, capital jokes and with witty repartee.
There was once a sad occurrence. Two reverend brothers became unduly excited in the- argument of some* important point, and losing their equanimity, exchanged' unclerical remarks, and, not letting their wrath go down with the sun, separated without a brotherly salutation, to the astonishment of the deacon's family and the humiliation of" the rest of the brethren. But the ample cloak of our grand-
•64 TEA DRINKING AND TALES OF A GRANDMOTHER.
another's charity was spread OA'er the erring brothers when she said, " They were very godly men. but Deacon Joselyn's •old Jamaica was dreadful strong.''
When in after years she entertained her grandchildren, she would sometimes remind them that the}- were eating off ,,a plate that came from the " shelf" of the last royal governor ; but her pork and beans had a delicious relish, which they af- fectionately attributed to a more interesting source than the British crown, or St. George and the dragon, emblazoned in .the center of her great pewter dinner platter.
The intended celebration would be a fine occasion to bring out and familiarize the present generation with the old pa- triotic literature. Let Cleveland's fine readers and sweet .singers assist to enliven the tea sipping with the " Liberty Tree," "The Battle of the Kegs," by the old Philadelphia patriot, Hopkinson.; and "Hail Columbia/' by his distin- guished son, Judge Hopkinson: Key's "Star Spangled Uanner," and not forgetting Perry's victory :
" Ye tars of Columbia, give ear to my story, Who fought with brave Perry where cannons did roar;
Your valor has gained you an immortal glory,
And a fame that shall last you when time is no more."
If no grandeur is found in that verse, try this :
"Says Perry, Those rascals intend for to drown us — Fight on, my brave boys, you never need fear;
And with his own coat he did stop up the boat,
And away through sulphur and smoke he did steer."
"For to drown" may seem a little quaint, but it is good old English, if not Oriental — "What went ye out for to see ?'' The lads of our youth, who never saw the printed text, and cared only for the substance, which they got from tradition, ;used to render one line thus —
** And with his -old coat he did plug up the boat."
TEA DRINKING AND TALES OF A GRANDMOTHER. 65
The " Battle Hjmn of the Republic," by the learned and graceful Julia Ward Howe, will, of course, not be omitted.
There are many grand passages in the quaint, old litera- ture, that a good reader can develop with stirring effect. We know that the great artists in music, whose tastes and powers are cultivated to the strains of the great masters, do not indulge much in the tyrics of the people. But these old songs of the fathers, at least once in a hundred years, are as good for patriotism as prayer is for the soul.
We remember, in the days of the Sepoy rebellion, to have read in the London Times some sneering remarks of an army correspondent about the trivial pastimes of the Highland regiments the night of their last bivouac on the bank of the Ganges, on their march to the relief of Lucknow, because they whiled away some sleepless hours by singing "Bonny Doon" and " Mary's Dream "-
"The moon had climbed the highest hill That rises o'er the source of Dee, And from its eastern summit shed Her silver light on tower and tree."
We felt something of pity for the man whose soul was not gifted to appreciate the most felicitous of Scotland's lyrics upon the sultry plains of Hindostan. But when, in the be- leagured city, the practiced ear of the Scotch lassie, Jessie Brown, heard, in advance of all others, the distant notes of the bagpipe, and, frantic with joy, ran with streaming hair through the streets of Lucknow crying, "The Campbells are coming ! Dinna ye hear the slogan ?" the English women and children had no criticisms for the songs of the Highlanders, or the •crazy notes of the bagpipe.
Success to the celebration ; let it be an occasion
"That will ne'er be forgot By those who were there, And those who were not."
66 SCIENCE, LITERATURE AND LAW.
SCIENCE, LITERATURE AND LAW.
R several years we have passed through the hall of the great Case Library building and noticed a sign upon one of the doors, bearing the legend "Kirtland Society." Never having seen any one pass in or out at that door, we had sup- posed it the private club room of a few amateur scientists, admiring disciples, perhaps, of the Venerable and famous naturalist whose widely known and honored name they had placed upon their door to give dignity to their occasional meetings and pleasant discussions of the flora, fauna, and fos- sils of the rock, or to lend grace to an entomological discus- sion of the genus and characteristics of some newly captured member of the Arachnida family, a microscopic examination of an atom, a molecule, the spectrum analysis of the sun, or a ray from a remoter star.
Within a few days a friend has loaned us a pamphlet en- titled : Proceedings of the Cleveland Academy of Natural Science, 1845 to 1859 ; also the papers of the Kirtland So- ciety, and in addition thereto has not only turned the key and initiated us into the society's working room, but also into that wondrous world of nature and art in that larger room, which before we knew not of, two flights of stairs above — the Hall of Natural Science — the heaven of the taxidermist, the con- chologist, and the geologist, where the fossil mammoth reptile and fish of the remoter geological cycles, and the bird of later ages and modern plumage, rest quietly and silently side by side, as the lamb and the lion shall yet lie down together in peace.
The rare, costly and admirably classified objects in the
SCIENCE, LITERATURE AND LAAV. 67
Kirtland Society's Museum would delight alike the shade of Audubon, the spirit of Lyell, and the soul of Agassiz. But why should these innumerable specimens, culled from the great storehouse of Nature, classified and arranged with ex- act scientific knowledge and artistic skill be doomed to a place so inaccessible and remote ? The catacombs of Borne, the temples of Denderah, and the tombs in the honey-combed rocks of the Upper Nile, are about as well known to our citi- zens as is the hiding-place of the museum of the Kirtland Society. That " upper-room " in Jerusalem could hardly have been less known to the chief priests than is the room which contains these invaluable treasures of natural science, to the people of Cleveland.
But, thanks to our thoughtful friend, we are not as ignorant now as before. We have read through the twenty-four years' proceedings of the Academy, and the papers of the Kirtland Society, with benefit and delight. Never wholly unconscious that Cleveland could justly claim a goodly number of edu- cated men and devoted workers in the departments of science, yet we never knew till now the full merit of our city's claim to public attention in this respect. No one of common intel- ligence could fail to know much of Professor Kirtland, the Nestor of naturalists, and something of the circle of accom- plished minds of which he has so long been the center. How- ever, until we read the learned papers of the Academy and Kirtland Society, we did not know how broad were the several fields of science which had been worked, how numerous had been the laborers in our midst, nor the wealth and splendor of the harvest. After reading the papers of Col. Whittlesey and Prof. Newberry on the coal fields of Ohio, one would almost expect to hear that after the winter's supply had been fur- nished for the grate, the tasteful lady would adorn her center table with a silver basket of bituminous coal and a microscope, and indulge her instinctive love of flowers in the stud}7 of the fossil flora of Ohio.
68 SCIENCE, LITERATURE AND LAW.
From the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows on the wall, in every department of botany, a new and awakened in- terest is inspired by the fascinating paper of Prof. J. Lang Cassels upon the mosses found in the vicinity of Cleveland. Our veneration for the ancient church or ancestral home, upon whose walls mosses creep and ivy twines, surpasses our ad- miration for the latest structure, however elegant, and " the moss-covered bucket" has a place in the affections which can never be supplanted by the most expensive water- works or the most approved pattern of a pump. Moss is the garment which nature supplies to protect the earth from exposure in barren places, the aged tree from northern blasts, and the man- tle of oblivion which she draws over the patriarch of the for- est when he falls to the earth. We were surprised at the suc- cess in developing and exhibiting the rare and exquisite beauties of that delicate and infinitesimal plant, attained by the eminent professor in his illustrated paper read before the Academy.
If one would know the ocean, its origin and phenomena, the lecture of Prof. Jehu Brainard is ingenious and plausible in theory, and develops the subject very fully, even to the ut- most extent compatible with the present state of geological knowledge. His chemical analysis of Berea sandstone is an interesting exposure of the chemical secrets, in pursuance of whose inexorable law nature deposited her surplus resources in the safe and reliable Bank of Berea, from which are now being issued such enormous amounts of gritty bullion and circular grindstone coin without embarrassment or inflation. Anticipating by millions of years the ultimate needs of man, Nature established at Amherst a sinking fund, wherein was deposited and solidified her purest dust, to be in after ages checked out in amplest amounts for the beautifying and adorning of distant cities. Central Park, New York, checks largety against this deposit. Cleveland is now testing the resources of the Amherst Sinking Fund by heavy drafts to
SCIENCE, LITERATURE AND LAW. 69
build a viaduct that shall span the chasm, which had no ex- istence when the rocky foundations of Amherst were laid.
Not the least among the interesting contributions is a valu- able one to meteorological knowledge, so fully developed in these later years by telegraphic and governmental aid, in the paper of Mr. G. A. Hyde, showing the use of the barometer and thermometer in indicating the approach of storms, where- in we think he is entitled to rank as an intelligent observer of the upper elements, and as a pioneer in the study and inter- pretation of the laws which govern the once mysterious phenomena of storms.
The sacred record declares the genesis of animated nature to have come in obedience to the fiat of the Creator, who in the same breath decreed for every creature upon earth, as the law of its life, that each should reproduce after its kind, and the fishes of the sea, and every living creature which the waters brought forth abundantly, after its kind. To man, the highest type of animated creation, has been given dominion over the lesser forms, and the universal field has been assigned to him for the exercise of his genius and powers, for the development and perfection of the wonderful works of the Divine Creator. The ancient laws of consanguinity were insti- tuted for the preservation and development of the human race. Hybridization, or crossing, has been discovered in the experience of man to improve the blood and quality of the horse no less than of the cattle upon a thousand hills. The fishes of the sea, and the living creatures which the waters have brought forth so abundantly in the long ages past, have been less subjected to the observation and control of man than the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, for their realm is the ocean, the rivers and the lakes, and man can ex- ist therein to know their ways and habits, no more than a slave can breathe the air of England.
In the field of piscatorial observation and practical scientific knowledge, Cleveland, now and for all coming time, may
70 SCIENCE, LITERATURE AND LAW.
cherish with pride the pages in the Acadenr^'s record of pro- ceedings which contain the enunciation of the practicability and elucidation of the process of the artificial propagation and cultivation of fish. Twentj^-one }Tears ago (1854) not only his colleagues and cotemporaries in kindred studies, but readers of natural history and reflective minds generally, were surprised and delighted in the perusal of the first paper upon the subject ever read in America by one who had practically demonstrated its possibilit}' and predicted the benefits to the present and to future generations — Dr. Theodatus Garlick.
Having the aid of no hints or suggestions but such as he was enabled to obtain from the practical fishermen of the Moselle, Remy and Gehin, and the paper of M. Coste before the French Academy, and with no American predecessor, as Morse had an electric precursor in a Franklin, he is the first of his line in this branch of natural science — the artificial fe- cundation and development of the ova of the fish. This paper of Dr. Garlick, followed by a small book which he was neces- sitated to write as a general answer to the queries propounded to him in innumerable letters from all parts of the country, was itself an egg of wonderful fecundity from which has been hatched a "school" of fish commissioners in nearly every State, whose labors have already resulted in stocking the ex- hausted rivers and ponds in most of the older States, and more than justifying his modest prediction therein, that " the immense advantages resulting from this discovery, particu- larly in countries abounding in such a variety and extent of inland waters as our own, can hardly be estimated."
The department of Ichthyology in the Kirtland Society's Museum has been extensively and beautifully illustrated by the skillful hand in plastic art of Dr. Elisha Sterling, who has produced in almost living semblance a great variety of the most rare and renowned fishes of our inland waters, from Lake Superior to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The same eminent surgeon, who studied under Yelpeau in the college of France,
SCIENCE, LITERATURE AND LAW. 71
and listened to lectures on public hygiene by Magendie, in rubber boots and coat, in the sewers and subterranean canals of Paris, has also contributed largely to the department of Ornithology, having been an enthusiastic taxidermist from his boyhood. The value of the material supplied by Dr- Sterling to the Kirtland Museum and the Cleveland Histori- cal Society, which is another highly interesting and important institution of which the people seem to know much less than they should, can hardly be estimated, and in some respects, especially in relics and souvenirs of the late war, can they hardly be measured for quantity, and always of the most unique specimens.
It seems as though the rich in material, but scattered and diversified scientific and historical institutions and libraries of Cleveland ought to be gathered under one roof and brought into conditions of accessibility and public observation ; and where could an increased public interest in such treasures be better ob- tained and more securely held than by their concentration, if not consolidation, in our new and elegant city hall ? If by possibility some one shall ask what all the study and toil of our thinkers and workers in natural science has amounted to, and of what intrinsic value has it been to them or to us, the answer may be truthfully made that from the labors of these men and their coadjutors in the same fields, has come in no small de- gree the growth and commercial prosperity of our city. The copper and iron mines of Lake Superior have been searched out and their qualities made known by them. The coal of Ohio has been studied and analyzed so that a bushel of the best kind for domestic use, for the manufacturer, and for gas, may be as readily known to the purchaser as a bushel of the best kind of potatoes. The great stone quarries of our neighborhood have been brought to light and their merits made known to the architect and builder by the geologist and chemist. Fishes have been made to swarm in the once ex- hausted and depopulated rivers and cheapened the food of
72 SCIENCE, LITERATURE AND LAW.
the people. They have elevated the thoughts and cheered the hearts of thousands by an increase of knowledge, the great source of mental power and manly independence. The influence of our local scientists has culminated in the Kirt- land School, which, with thoughtful care and public con- sideration is probably destined to be the successor of that which was famous at Penikese while Agassiz lived. It already contributes to such social advantages and pleasures as are derived from the presence, even temporarily, among our people, of eminent professors and instructors such as are recognized in the persons of Brooks, Comstock and Tuttle.
While many of the pioneers in natural science have passed away, a few happily remain to salute the dawn of a more brilliant future, when, possessing the Kirtland and Histor- ical Societies, the Case School of Applied Science, the Adel- bert College of the Western Reserve University, each sustained by the munificent endowments of generous and judicious citizens, and the recently established Law College, Cleveland shall be celebrated not alone for its beauty tuid commercial and industrial enterprise, but renowned in the ages to come as the seat of science, literature and law. Already she holds within her embrace the first astronomical mathematician of the present generation. Professor John N. Stockwell, the head of the Case School of Applied Science, has been for a decade famous among the savants and scientists of America and Europe, no less for his own wonderful origi- nal planetary problems than for his revision and correction of the great and hitherto standard astronomical computations of La Grange and Leverriere.
If, as beautifully expressed by Oersted, "The laws of Nature are the thoughts of God," man's noblest aspirations will find highest gratification in reading what is still unread in the wonderful manuscripts of the Creator — Earth, Air and Light.
THE IBERIAN AND THE GAUL. 73
THE IBERIAN AND THE GAUL.
T X 7"HEN, in 1869, Samuel S. Cox stood within the court of * * the Alhambra, inspired by the historical associations of centuries, and addressed an assembly of the soldiers and citizens of Spain upon those certain unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and the republic be- yond the Atlantic, he probably little thought that in less than five years Spain would charge her most eminent historian and statesman, Emilio Castelar, with the exalted duty of drafting a constitution for a free and confederate government based upon the model of the United States.
Three hundred and seventy-seven years before, Boabdil, re- tiring before the united armies of Aragon and Castile, marched out the southern gate and made his last sad biv- ouac on the snowy mountains overlooking Grenada and the lovely valley of the Guadalquiver, forever to be perpetuated as " The last sigh of the Moor ; " then passing beyond the Mediterranean, Ferdinand and Isabella reigned in Andalusia and held their court in the palace of the Alhambra.
As the Roman general ran the plowshare [over Mount Zion, in token that the temple should never again be rebuilt, and
Babarossa
Would not halt
At Milan's ashes sown with salt,
so Ferdinand closed up with solid masonry the rarched por- tal from out which the Moors had sallied in token that they should never more return. In the beautiful spring of 1492, Columbus witnessed the evacuation of the Moors, and then and there in the gilded audience hall of the Alhambra, on
74 THE IBERIAN AND THE GAUL.
bended knee, sought the royal patronage for his momentous enterprise upon the untraversed western ocean.
While there is much to hope and little to expect for free government in Europe, there is to-day more prospect of realiz- ing something approximating thereto in Spain than in France. Amadeus, who came through Prim's betrayal of the republi- can cause which he had partially espoused, even so long before as when he kissed his sword in salute of Isabella, discovered it, and had the grace to acknowledge it by his abdication. Thiers, between the representatives of the dynasty and the legitimatists in an Assembly — itself a usurpation — never had a reliable majority for either the president or the republic. He foresaw the end and resigned. The end has come, though not explicitly proclaimed. The marshal who but lately lost an emperor and an empire and surrendered an army, is now the head of a nominal republic^ the very name of which he despises, and which, with a Bonapartist ministry, he but tem- porarily holds for the advent of Napoleon IV. and a regency.
The wonderful result of the election in May (1872) that re- turned to the Spanish Cortes 310 ministerial federalists against 30 monarchists, besides 48 independent and radical republicans, indicates a greater degree of personal independence and intel- lectual freedom than most persons supposed to exist in that ancient and austere monarchy. But Spanish royalty has long been of the most inferior type in Europe, and the divine right of kings has apparently become an idea cherished only in the minds of the simple, and Bourbon royalty to rank only with chivalry after the satire of Cervantes.
The federal constitution, if once fairly launched with a president, a congress and a supreme court, with fifteen depart- ments organized as States, each with its governor, legislature and courts, based on universal suffrage, the bond of Union will be formed, which alone can preserve the republic and defy alike the heirs of Isabella and Don Carlos.
Spain is more favorably situated geographically for the trial
THE IBERIAN AND THE GAUL. 75
of republican government than France. Shut off from the rest of Europe by the formidable barrier of the Pyrenees, her .people are more indifferent to fashion and courts, and her ambitious men expect less at the hands of royalty than in France or elsewhere on the continent. Her departments are less in number and much larger in extent, generally, than in France ; permitting of more exact equalization in representa- tion. Besides she has learned and able men in abundance ; and what is quite noteworthy, her most accomplished states- men seem very much in earnest for the success of the republic and the advancement of constitutional liberty.
The mind can be pleasantly amused in contemplating the possibility that a similarity of institutions may yet prompt us to look with anxiety for the election returns from the three great Spanish States of Estremadura, Catalonia and Andalusia, as we do now for like results from Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York ; and to regard Andorra, in the Pyrenees, like Ver- mont, as the star that never sets ; and that we shall read with interest the speeches of the great senators of Spain, and be edified with the remarks of the member from La Mancha, Don Quixote's old district, who will speak for "buncombe." But the perfection of political sympathy with kindred insti- tutions will have attained its fullness when our orators shall be invited to assist at a hickory pole raising at Salamanca, or to address in mass meeting the "tanners" of Toledo. But woe to the Hidalgo who shall aspire to a seat in Congress by seeking to make subservient to his political interests the national "bull fight."
It is sorrowful to reflect that the Marseillaise and the songs of Beranger must be sung only in strange lands ; but the admin- istration of Thiers has passed into history, soon to be remem- bered only as an interregnum between the imperial captive of Sedan and the boy who, at a prudent distance, " stood his first fire." France is never settled — she oscillates between glory and shame ; and there is a suspicion in the minds
76 THE IBERIAN AND THE GAUL.
of the most sober and thoughtful of the practicability or desirableness of any government other than the absolute, since the tigers of the n>st revolution cut off the heads of Marie Antoinette and the beautiful Madame Roland.
Unlike our own country, either now or at the period of our revolution, the politics of France, as indeed all Europe, is in the main ecclesiastical, and such issues are for all time, and can never be settled either by the ballot or the sword ; and, unhappily, the two great hierarchies, no less than the kings, alike regard a republican government as an abomination.
Popular government has some true and able friends ; and the publicists of France write abry thereon, but their disciples and followers are too frequently egotists and impracticables, who, when such a government is in their hands, load it with Fourierism and fraternity, and charge it with the unbearable burden of supplying every human want, besides spending- money for holidays. A government whose president is simply an executive of the laws, is to them incomprehensible and less desirable than anarchy. The mass of the rural popula- tion take no more interest in the government than they do in the cyclones in the sun. The merchants of Marseilles and the shopkeepers of Paris, the silk manufacturers of the Rhone, the makers of porcelain and the artists in Grobelin tapestry prefer the empire. And fashion, born of luxurious courts, and worshiping the Montespans, the Pompadours,, and the dames du lac, and flourishing upon the treasury of royalty, looks with disdain upon the sobriety and economy of a republic. What French woman, or American for that mat- ter, covets the surplus garments of a president's wife ? There is poetry and romance in the robes of Eugenie, but neither in Madame Thiers' "best gown."
Finally, the great sovereigns of Europe, those divinely favored gentlemen who inherit governments and peoples like lands and chattels, and talk of "my government" and "my family," and even the thousand and one little kings and
THE IBERIAN AND THE GAUL. 77
kinglets, now fortunately absorbed to some extent in the German empire, and which Castelar so neatly characterizes as " the relics of the middle ages, ignes fatui in the graveyard of history," all ignore the inalienable rights of man, and make their constant and perpetual protest against constitu- tional freedom.
And now Liberty drops a tear upon the tomb of LaFayette, .and Count Armand and retires beyond the Pyrenees.*
When Washington was in his cradle, a boy of Aragon was playing on the banks of the Ebro, who, in another generation, became the minister of Charles III., and the friend of the American colonies ; and as such joined France in the treaty of Paris, recognizing the independence of the United States. Sympathizing with Spain in her grandest aspirations, the grandsons of the Revolution will remember with gratitude the name of Aranda.
* The writer has been forced by later events to modify his estimate of the comparative adaptability of France and Spain for republican government, and tenders his resignation of the office of political prophet for the two countries.
78 THE AMERICAN LAKES.
THE AMERICAN LAKES.
T3 E SIDE NTS in New England who never have made a *-^- tour of the American Lakes, or looked upon a map with special reference to the length and amplitude of these waters, can have but a faint, if any, true conception of the magnitude of these inland seas, the extent of their commercial marine, nor of the destiny that awaits the cities of the lakes, when these waters have borne the commerce of the western hemi- sphere as many hundred years as the Mediterranean Sea has that of the eastern thousands.
The maritime commerce of the lakes, American and British, is equal to the whole maritime commerce of the world at the time when the universally acknowledged codes of maritime law were established, and is not surpassed in amount of ton- nage, in the character of its ships and steamers, nor in the quantity and value of cargo, by that of the Mediterranean at the present time.
Here is a commerce which requires the application, and to which is administered, by the American admiralty courts, the same principles and rules adopted and applied by the com- mercial nations of antiquity, and recognized and enforced by the present. To the business of these waters are applied the principles of the laws of Oleron and Wisby, ages after Oleron has ceased to be, and the ships of the Baltic have failed to find harbor at Wisby. The commerce of the lakes is not yet twenty 'years old, and has therefore been confined to what is regarded as a coasting trade ; but now enterprise is about pushing our vessels out at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, on European voyages, and which alread}T have been found a&
THE AMERICAN LAKES. 79
practicable and speedy as any made from the Black and Mediterranean Seas to London or St. Petersburg.
Was it ever suggested to your mind, the striking parallel there is between the Mediterranean Sea and its connecting- waters, its ancient cities and its commerce, and the great lakes of our continent, their cities and their commerce? History and the map shows the former to be the type of what the latter are, and are yet to be. Whoever will turn his eyes to Mercator's map will observe that the two great seas occupy a geographical position in the center of their respec- tive hemispheres, each having its source or head far in the interior, each making its current towards, and finding its out- let in, the Atlantic, and each having its Pillar of Hercules in a Gibraltar and a Quebec. The track of the commerce of the first is in a line from east to west, taking the overland trade from the Tigris and Euphrates, seeking a mart in Europe, while the course of the second is from west to east, bringing the products of the great valley of the Mississippi and Mis- souri for a like Atlantic mart.
The parallel is not lost, but is equally apparent in the loca- tion and characteristics of the cities. The ancient commer- cial city of Tyre, at the head of the Mediterranean, backed by the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, whose waters hasten on to the Persian Gulf, finds an exact counterpart, in every particular, in the modern commercial city of Chicago, with two mightier rivers in her rear, taking a like southern direc- tion, and paying their tribute of waters to a far deeper and more expansive gulf. A city whose history may never be written in the glittering figures of Oriental poetry, but though, scarce twenty years of her commercial existence have passed away, she is pregnant with great and important facts for an Anglo-Saxon pen. When she shall have arrived to a tenth of the age of her great prototype, her granite and marble columns, in their firm and upright position, will attest the grandeur and prosperity of her citizens, and ages must pass
SO THE AMERICAN LAKES.
^ before they will be found in the bottom of the sea, memorials of her departed glory. And so fortunate in her position is our modern Tyre, that for a thousand }'ears no Alexander can build a rival city, transfer her commerce and reduce her, in the fulfillment of the denunciations of a prophet, to " a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea."
If the capital of the Turkish empire, by its position upon the Bosphorus, commands the entrance to the Black Sea and the commerce of the Levant, how like in all respects is the •city of Detroit, variant hardly a degree in latitude from the former city, situated upon a no less important strait, com- manding the entrance to a Superior sea, and participating in .and enjoying the commerce of all the lakes.
Cleveland, from her position on Lake Erie, and her com- mercial importance, not less then for her intrinsic beauty as a cit}r, may not inaptl}' be styled the Venice of the Lakes. Though Buffalo may exceed her in the amount of her trans- shipments, yet the actual local productive commerce of this •city, taking into consideration the vast coal trade, her fleet of steamers in the copper and iron transport and the trade of Lake Superior, more than one thousand miles distant to the northwest, together with her shipments of flour and grain, her packing interests, her iron foundries and her copper smelt- ing works, all tending to augment her commercial importance, entitles her merchants, importers and shippers, to introduce and perform, on the waters of old Erie, the ancient ceremony of "wedding the Adriatic."
The coal trade of Cleveland is second only to that of Phila- delphia. Extensive wharves and other arrangements are now (1856) being made by E. K. Collins & Co., of the European line of steamers, for shipment of coal from this port to Boston, by wa}T of the St. Lawrence and the Gulf, for the supply of his steamers. The growth of this city has been great within the last ten years, having now upwards of 50,000 people, and is
THE AMERICAN LAKES. 81
steadily advancing in population and increasing in number of the more elegant and costly buildings, both public and private. Among the former of which, now in progress, is the custom house, post office, and Unit.d States court rooms; the latter being made necessary to the establishment, by Congress, of the northern judicial district of Ohio, and fixing terms of the U. S. circuit and district courts here. This is within the cir- cuit of Judge McLean. The division of the State caused the necessity for the appointment of a judge for the northern district, and President Pierce and the Senate gave and con- firmed the appointment to Hon. Hiram V. Willson, a distin- guished lawj'er of the Cleveland bar. Judge Willson has now been upon the bench of the U. S. district court nearly two years, and the bar and the public attest the wisdom of the appointment. A new district upon these commercial waters, with the admiralty jurisdiction of the court but recently extended, by legislation and judicial construction, to maritime cases upon the lakes, immediately produced many cases involving nice and complicated questions of admiralty- law and practice. In the decisions he has made and the opinions he has pronounced, he has manifested that prompt- ness and legal acumen and research, that has at once stamped him as a judge of first-rate ability. In person he reminds one strikingly of the late Judge Levi Woodbury, of the U. S. supreme court, being large in -person, with a massive head and dark countenance. His court has the quiet air and becoming dignity of the law tribunals of the United States and of Massachusetts, contrasting greatly with some of our State courts in this respect. Judge Willson is destined to fame, especially as an admiralty judge, no less extended than that of a Ware or a Belts.
My observation thus far, in Ohio, has not been favorable to
the election of judges by the people. And the opinion is
very general that judicial elections should, at all events, be
separate and distinct from the ordinary political canvass.
6
THE AMERICAN LAKES.
But low salaries and short tenure has, undoubted!}-, more to do with running the judicial office into the ground, than has the matter of time and manner of election. Good judges in our State are the exception to the rule, the salaries being far too small to command that talent and learning which would be acceptable to the people of New England for judicial position. One of the most marked exceptions is that of Judge Kufus P. Ranney, of the supreme court of our State, who, in the short term of five years, has given character and tone to the judicial history of the State. He is yet a young man, and if the tenure of his office was for life, or even for ten years, his fame as a profound lawyer and judge would extend beyond his own State, and his opinions command a respect, wherever read, equal to those of Chief Justice Shaw. There is a prophecy that he is destined, in the not distant future, to be called to the supreme bench of the United States.
The foregoing was correspondence of the Boston Post in 1856.
THE TWO DOCTORS. 83
THE TWO DOCTORS.
r I AHE interest with which we have read a single article in the August number of the Atlantic Monthly (1858), prompts us to call the attention of those to it whose misfortune it has been not to have seen and read it. Allusion is here made to the article entitled "Farming Life in New England," at- tributed to the brilliant pen of Dr. J. G. Holland, of Spring- field, Massachusetts, who is hastening on to the just celebrity of one of the most interesting and fascinating writers in New England. He is certainty destined not only to a glorious and undying fame as a poet and essayist, but his name and memory is to be loved in every American home. There is a little " editorial " which our eye has occasionally met, going the rounds of the newspapers and credited to the Springfield Republican, entitled the " Little Tin Pail," the noble thoughts and sentiments of which called up to our recollection the Hamlet form and finely chiseled features of Springfield's most accomplished doctor. It seemed to be flung off as the result of his observations and reflections upon meeting the thrifty and cheerful mechanic on his way to his daily task, bearing in his hand the well known little tin pail, containing the plain and wholesome fare for the day's dinner, with not unlikely a choice and delicate little titbit stowed away in some of its compartments and recesses by the hand of the good and gen- erous wife, to delight and surprise him, and to remind him of the love that awaited his return at the close of the day. The New England mechanic who reads those gems of thought will contribute a tear of gratitude to the noble author for his
84 THE TWO DOCTORS.
kind reflections, though he may be wholly unconscious who it is that has so quietly and so gently touched his heart.
But it was of the article in the monthly that we started to speak. " Farming life in New England " is pregnant with living and glowing facts and home truths, expressed in a clear, terse and exceedingly attractive style. It furnishes a series of pictures of the life and habits of the farmers as a class, not only of New England, but elsewhere, and especially of the household and home, its arrangements and appoint- ments, which are in effect and in truth an illustrated key to the influences and motives which prompt the brightest and best of New England boys to forsake the old homestead and farm and to seek other employments in life, even such as in- volve harder and more constant work ! Demonstrating in fac^ that it is not hard work which the young man seeks to avoid, but that the secret of his dissatisfaction with the home, the farm, and its attractions, lies in the isolation of the farmer's life, its unattractiveness, and the utter destitution of refined sociability. That man will work harder and endure and suffer more for a better st}Tle of individual and social life. Every boy and man of keen sensibilities has felt and realized the truth of every line penned by this able contributor, but never has the philosophy of those motives and feelings been so well illustrated as in these pages. The condition of the mother, her cares and burdens in the farm home, is, by the learned doctor, treated with surpassing interest, and in a manner that will start the slumbering sensibilities of the world to consciousness. He answers the pertinent inquiry, if the mother in the farm house is ever regarded as a sacred be- ing, by exclaiming : — " Look at her hands ! Look at her face ! Is it more important to raise fine colts than fine men and women ? To expect a farmer's life and a farmer's home to be attractive when the mother is a drudge, and secures less consideration than the pets of the stall, is to expect impossi- bilities."
THE TWO DOCTORS. 85
if
Is there a farmer's daughter, who, if she will disclose the unspeakable things of her heart, will say the following is not true ? " The boys are not the only members of the farmer's family that flee from the farmer's life. The most intelligent and most enterprising of the farmer's daughters become school teachers, or tenders of shops, or factory girls. They contemn the calling of their fathers and will, nine times in tenr marry a mechanic in preference to a farmer. They know that marrying a farmer is a serious business. They remem- ber their worn-out mothers. They thoroughly understand that the vow that binds them in marriage to a farmer, seals them to a severe and homely service that will end only in death."
The emancipation of the New England farmer from this condition of things, it is maintained, must come of new ideas rather than new implements ; that it is the mind and not the soil from which must start the process of regeneration. " The proprietor of that soil should be the true New England gentle- man. His house should be the home of hospitality, the em- bodiment of solid comfort and liberal taste, the theatre of an exalted family life, which should be the master and not the servant of labor, and the central sun of a bright and happy social atmosphere. When this standard shall be reached there will be no fear for New England agriculture. The noblest race of men and women the sun ever shone upon, will cultivate these valleys and build their dwellings upon these hills ; and they will cling to a life which blesses them with health, plenty and individual development, and social progress and happiness. This of what the farmer's life may be and should be ; and if it ever rises to this in New England,, neither prairie nor savanna can entice her children away ; and waste land will become as scarce, at least, as vacant lots in Paradise."
We trust the publishers, will, after the edition is sold, let up the " cop37right " break and permit the article to trundle
86 THE TWO DOCTORS.
through the daily and weekly journals of .the country till it shall have been universally read. Its truths are of concern to thousands ; and the father will be thankful for the sugges- tions, and the mother and the daughter and the son will bless the author for their utterance.
There is another doctor who is recognized as the " Auto- crat " in the pages of this monthly. The name of Oliver Wendell Holmes is a charm and a joy in the household of every cultivated family in New England. His papers display the rich treasures of a highly gifted, cultivated and genial mind. While they overrun with mirth - and dignified fun, every sentiment is suggestive of some philosophic truth and "points a moral or adorns a tale." It requires some brains and a little cultivation to full}' compass the deep meaning of an occasional utterance, and the uncultivated young man or woman who delights in New York Ledger story literature, probably would not find interest here. The article in the September number, attributed to this gifted man, not only sustains the character of its predecessors for richness, raci- ness and interest ; but, in the utterance of the great thoughts of an immortal soul, this far exceeds that of any former number.
We cannot help quoting, in confirmation of the last remark, from the " Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," the comparison of Nature as she manifests herself in mountains and in the sea. There is a ponderous magnificence in the concluding sentence that almost starts the soul from its socket.
" But this difference there is : you can domesticate moun- tains, but the sea is ferce naturce. * The sea remembers nothing. It is feline. It licks your feet — its huge flanks purr very pleasantly for you ; but it will crack your bones and eat you for all that, and wipe the crimson foam from its jaws as if nothing had happened. The mountains give their lost children berries and water ; the sea mocks their thirst and lets them die. The mountains have a grand, stupid, loveable
THE TWO DOCTORS. 87
tranquillity ; the sea has a fascinating, treacherous intelligence. The mountains lie about like huge ruminants, their broad backs awful to look upon, but safe to handle. The sea smooths its silver scales until you cannot see their joints — but their shin- ing is that of a snake's belly, after all. In deeper suggestive- ness I find as great a difference. The mountain dwarfs man- kind and foreshortens the processions of its long generations. The sea drowns out humanit}T and time : it has no sympathy with either, for it belongs to eternity, and of that it sings its monotonous song forever and ever.
" Yet I should love to have a little box by the sea shore. I should love to gaze out on the feline element from a front window of my own, just as I should love to look out on a caged panther, and see it stretch its shining length, and then curl over and lap its smooth sides, and by-and-by begin to lash itself into rage and show its white teeth and spring at its bars, and howl and cry of its mad, but to me harmless fury. And then, — to look at it with the inward eye, — who does not Jove to shuffle off time and its concerns, and at intervals to forget who is president and who is governor, what race he be- longs to, what language he speaks, which golden-headed nail of the firmament his planetary system is hung upon, and listen to the great liquid metronome as it beats its solemn measure, steadily swinging when the solo or duet of human life began, and to swing just as steadily after the human •chorus has died out, and man is a fossil on its shores ? "
88 THE DEATH OF DOUGLAS.
THE DEATH OF DOUGLAS.
OINCE the memorable " twenty-fourth of October," when ^ all that was mortal of the great Webster was no more, no public man or private citizen has passed from earth to his- final rest, whose fame is more fully and justly acknowledged, and for whose loss there is such general and universal sorrow. The grief pervades every heart from the counsellors of State to the humblest of the people. The departments of govern- ment put on the emblems of mourning, and the humble toilers in shop and field tearfully declare they " cannot work to-day, for Douglas is dead."
There was always a charm about the mind and person of Mr. Douglas that no other man in America possessed ; and a magic in his name, even the sound of which awakened the echoes like the pibroch in the Highlands. Yet till his death we did not realize how much we loved him, nor how the peo- ple relied on his great intellect to devise the way to bring back peace to our country, restore the union and preserve the constitution.
There is to our mind a wonderful parallel between Mr. Douglas and Mr. Webster, in all that appertains to their early life, personal history, intellectual characteristics, and public career, and especially so in the vicissitudes as well as triumphs of public life — public censure as well as public applause. They were both the type of a class of men peculiar to this country, self-dependent and self-reliant, winning their success by their own mental energy, unaided by fortune or family prestige. The Senate of the United States was the field of their intellectual dominion alike. Providence allotted, how-
THE DEATH OF DOUGLAS. 89
ever, to Mr. Webster twenty years more of life to accomplish the plenitude of his fame than to the illustrious Douglas. The authorities of Boston, whose people had worshiped Mr. Webster as a god, barred the doors of Faneuil Hall against him on his return there after his celebrated speech in the Sen- ate upon the measures of 1850. But his reception there in 1853, when he came home to die, was a triumph, and the portals of the Cradle of Liberty, "on golden hinges turning," as he expressed it, opened to him.
How like was the reception of Mr. Douglas at Chicago on his return there, after the passage of his measures relating to the territories in 1854, when interrupted by a frenzied popu- lace. And then, again, how alike in all respects his last recep- tion by that city and people, when he, alas ! also came home to die, and that death hastened by that last great speech he was forced to make to those neighbors and friends whose idol he was.
His last speeches, too, like those of Mr. Webster, were delivered while on a triumphal march from a field of intellec- tual conquest, where for twenty years he had battled for his country, and more recently in such a conflict as the world had never before witnessed — a conflict single-handed and alone with a hostile Senate and a traitorous Cabinet, seeking alike his own and his country's destruction. But now all is over, and the great Douglas sleeps the sleep that knows no waking. He has been permitted to die at home, within the borders of his own beloved Illinois, surrounded by family and friends. In the prime of life, but in the fullness of his fame, he has passed from among the living, having died the fore- most statesman of his time, and the heart of the nation throbs heavily at the portal of his tomb.
Webster reposes by the side of that majestic ocean which he loved so well. Douglas' ashes find fitting rest in Cottage Grove, upon the shore of that great inland sea whose mysteri- ous "oscillations" but typify the pulsating heart of a great
DO THE DEATH OF DOUGLAS.
nation as it bends over his tomb. A thousand years hence, and so long as civilization shall hold her dominion along the shores of these lakes, and commerce follows her ancient channels, the sailor will lower his flag, and the bell of the steamer will toll as they pass the sacred spot where sleeps the great Douglas.
THE RIDDLE BANQUET. 91
THE RIDDLE BANQUET *
TV /T UCH pleasure is afforded me in the opportunity to -LV.1 testif}^ my personal regard for our distinguished fellow- •citizen, and to participate with his personal friends and neigh- bors in the festivities which are here and now (1863) celebrated in his honor.
It ever has been an impulse of my nature, when the asperi- ties of a political campaign, peculiar to our institutions, have ended, as with me they ever do, alike with defeat or with suc- cess, to rejoice in the personal advancement and honorable career of political opponents, and especially those who are of my immediate neighbors and personal friends.
I had much more of pleasure than I ever had opportunity to express, when two years ago the gentleman who presides here to-night (Colonel R. C. Parsons) was called by the presi- dent to serve his government and care for the commercial interests of his countrymen, as their consul, awa}T beyond the equator, in that great Spanish- American empire of Brazil, which looks out upon the Southern Cross and rejoices in the enlightened reign of Dom Pedro.
I shared the general satisfaction of all our people when the Hon. D. K. Cartter was made minister to Bolivia, and subse- quently, when, after honorable and valuable service to the country abroad, he was made a judge of the Federal court in the District of Columbia. I felt exceedingly kind towards the president when at a later period he called for the services
* The Cleveland Bar gave Hon. A. G. Riddle a banquet at the Kennard House prior to his departure as consul to Cuba.
92 THE RIDDLE BANQUET.
of another of our citizens (Hon. Win. Slade) and sent himr also consul, to France, to the pleasant city of Nice, in a cozy corner of that empire, where he can look out upon the dark but genial and classic waters of the Mediterranean, and where soft Sicilian winds may bring repose to a saddened and afflicted heart.
And now, when Cleveland's " third consul," in the person of him whom we this evening delight to honor, is about to be ordered to service in the great Spanish province of Cuba, though not to command armies like the consuls of Rome, I take much more than ordinary pride — I am gratified that a position so honorable has been conferred upon the first advo- cate of the Cleveland bar — upon one who bore himself mod- estly, sustained himself not only well, but handsomely, upon the floor of Congress, and more than all, who " did the State some service." And whatever of diversity of opinion there may be among men arising from the diversit}' of political aspects in which opinions are formed, I take upon myself to say, that, in my judgment, the brief congressional career of our friend had the merit of enlivening the halls of legislation, and of bringing to the knowledge of the country the fact that Ohio had a Nineteenth Congressional district, and that it was ably represented — facts which for ten years before had been consigned to the oblivion of the "lost arts."
And now, gentlemen, as I am, as I always have been, out in the cold, I intend to complain a little of the president. I can afford to expose myself better than you can, as the president expects many of the gentlemen present to take and subscribe to his new "iron-clad" oath. I am not quite satisfied with this appointment, although I am here to do it honor. It does not come up to that rare standard indicated by that very novel expression, "the right man in the right place." I concede our friend to be the right man, but Cuba is not quite, I humbly submit, the right place. The president should have appointed him minister to Spain. It was due to his talents and public
THE RIDDLE BANQUET. 93
services — and how infinitely more appropriate than the appoint- ment of the present unhappy and erratic embassador to the Spanish court. Who of us would not prefer our government to be represented at the court of St. Petersburg by our honor- able fellow-citizen, rather than by a Simon Cameron or a rest- less, vacillating and discontented Cassius M. Clay ?
With but few exceptions Ohio has always been ably repre- sented in the Senate of the United States, and no State in the Union has had more able and distinguished representatives on the floor of the House, through all administrations ; yet for some singular reason, or none at all, the highest positions in the representation of the country abroad, have been assumed and secured by other States.
There is not within my personal or historical recollection a single instance where Ohio has had a first or even a second class mission to a European court. The best ever done for Ohio in former times, was to give her the Brazilian mission, and later, Mr. Corwin, in his old age, has been consigned to the itinerant court of Mexico. But, generally, Ohio men are turned out to grass in South America, getting only the mis- sions to the little mountain republics of Bolivia, Chili, Ven- ezuela and Equador, while Massachusetts in her modesty only takes the court of St. James, and about one-quarter of the globe, in the mission to China.
While I may be personally satisfied with this state of things, I have only reminded you thereof, so that you may, if you desire, call the attention of the next administration of Mr. Lincoln, or Mr. Chase to the injustice done our great State in this respect.
I beg leave to submit as a sentiment : " The State of Ohio ; the intelligence of her people and her patriotic devotion to the Union entitle her to an equal consideration by the execu- tive in the diplomatic service of the nation."
94 MAJOR LYMAN C. THAYER.
MAJOR LYMAN C. THAYER;
1\/T R. PRESIDENT— If it would not be deemed obtrusive. *•**• after the remarks already made, I would like to add a word of respect to the honor and in memory of our brother. I first met him in 1845, at the Berkshire County Bar in Mas- sachusetts, where we were about the same time admitted. We at that time not unfrequently congratulated ourselves and took a considerable degree of pride in the fact that we had started professional life in that grand romantic old county, made famous for her Dwights, her Sedgwicks, her Sumners, her Bishops, and her Fields. A weakness, pardonable, per- haps, to the hopeful ambition of youth.
The characteristics of Mr. Thayer were ever the same : energy, activity and enthusiasm. He seemed to have busi- ness the very day he wras admitted. Tried his case well to the jury, was often before legislative committees at Boston, and was not timid in arguing cases in error before Chief Jus- tice Shaw and the court in bane, to do which was thought to require, in a young man, considerable ability and nerve. In politics he started out a Democrat, and as such he went into the great coalition movement which resulted in making the political fortunes of Banks, Boutwell and Wilson, if nothing more. He was alwaj^s interested, while practising law, in pub- lic enterprises, and with equal enthusiasm would try cases, prospect for an iron ore bed, open a marble quarry, or demon- strate, by figures and statistics, the practicability and value of the Hoosac Tunnel. In 1852 he emigrated to Cleveland, and
* Kemarks at a meeting of the Cleveland Bar.
MAJOR LYMAN C. THAYER. 95-
his name came back to me through the papers as a prominent actor and a friend of the Lake Shore Railroad lines in the "War of the Guages" at Erie.
In 1855, ten years from the time we first met, the course of events brought me to this city, and it was from him then, at my first looking in upon the court and bar, in the Old Court House in the Square, that I received my first and pleasant im- pressions of the Cleveland Bar.
I had hardly learned the streets of this city, much less knew its men, when he, after a day's consideration and an evening to arrange his satchel, whizzed off by rail and steamer, across the Isthmus, to California. The Golden Gate was passed, and San Francisco, in a very brief time, was explored and its suburbs visited ; the Sierra Nevada mountains were approached. He possessed himself of much knowledge of the great gold fields and other mineral regions ; learned much about men and a little of almost everything. Having avoided the horrors of Deadman's Bar, and escaped the pestilence of Fever River, he again coasted the continent and returned home after a lapse of only a few months, and was as ready the next morning after his return to try a case in court as if he had, all the months before, been preparing it.
Scarcely had his wings rested from his flight to the Pacific Ocean, when, as suddenly and with as little note of prepara- tion, he took a Collins or a Cunarder and steamed for Liver- pool. A suit was impending, wherein he was the active and efficient junior counsel upon the one side, involving the mys- teries of the alliance of coal, and iron, and fire — the elements which are destined to make the city of his adoption rich and renowned. He had enthusiasm and a genius for the investiga- tion, and he sought evidence in the laboratories of Birmingham and Leeds, — among the iron-mongers of England, whose an- cestors for three hundred years had been iron-mongers also, — and of the blear-eyed and swarthy vulcans of those ancient
96 MAJOR LYMAN C. THAYER.
and renowned forges. He seemed to feel like one at the great Furnace of St. Voltivolde.
Great is Coal, the swarthy hearth-king ! Great is Iron, the dusky earth-king ! Though black as Ethiops, they command All enterprise on sea and land.
Coming home again, he for a brief space pursues the or- dinary routine of business, until the period of that gloomy winter of our nation's discontent, the shocking and cruel re- bellion of 1861, when we find his eager and restless spirit rushing to the service of his country, collecting a regiment of cavalry and leading them to the plains of Kansas ; and later a similar regiment into the department of the Cumberland.
The great crime against civilization, and the cruelties per- petrated against the border people by those in armed rebel- lion against the national authority, having their cause and incentive, either immediate or remote, as he believed, in the institution of slavery, had their effect upon the quick and sus- ceptible mind of Major Thayer, as they have had upon many ; firing his brain with that frenzy of poetic justice, which possessed the soul of Whittier, seven years before, in contem- plating the massacre of Southern Kansas, and which found expression in the final stanza of " Le Marais du Cygne "-
Henceforth to the sunset,
Unchecked on her way, Shall Liberty follow
The march of the day.
I have ever regarded his peculiar temperament and mental characteristics with a curious interest. That bright, quick, dark eye always betrayed the restlessness of his soul, and though his death is thought to have been sudden, it was not wholly unexpected to me, for their late peculiar brilliancy had more than once suggested to me the thought that the unquiet
MAJOR LYMAN C. THAYER. 97
spirit within was adjusting its light and brilliant robes for its upward flight.
His spirit now floats upon the great cerulean ocean, and though his departure fills me with more than ordinary sadness, the memory of our friend is pleasant.
98 THE CELESTIAL EMBASSADOR.
THE CELESTIAL EMBASSADOR.
r I ^HE acceptance by Anson Burlingame, our late minister ^ resident at the court of the empire of China, as embas- sador of the great Mongolian kingdom to all the Western Powers (1868) presupposes his resignation as American min- ister, as the constitution does not permit persons holding office under our government to accept and hold positions under foreign governments.
But little is known by the public generally of the treaties and official intercourse between our government and China, or of the services performed by our minister during his six years' residence in that country, but it is fair to presume that his official intercourse and services have been such as to ad- vance the commercial interests of the United States, and to have won the especial confidence and regard of the emperor and authorities of that singular and exclusive' nation. It would seem that the Chinese like our government and are pleased with the persons who have thus far represented us, commencing with Caleb Gushing, under the administration of John Tyler, followed by Alexander H. Everett, brother of the celebrated Edward Everett, and lastly by Mr. Burlingame — and, singular to remark, all Massachusetts men, living within a stone's throw of each other at the "Hub."
The great energy of character, adroitness and fascinating personal presence of Mr. Gushing, of whom it wras said by Wendell Phillips, that his death would be like the burning of the Alexandrian library, who broke the ice of Chinese diplo- macy, and received the first invitation to dine on "bird's nest" and "dog," must have charmed the stolid and sus-
THE CELESTIAL EMBASSADOR. 99
picious Celestials. It was certainly suitable that he should be succeeded by the calm, dignified and scholastic Everett, to impress them with the high and substantial character of Americans.
The great field thus opened by Mr. Burlingame's predeces- sors, and national intercourse firmly established between America and China, enabled him to reap rich diplomatic laurels in the Flowery Kingdom. Mr. Burlingame, personally and socially, was by no means an unworthy successor of his distinguished predecessors, for he has fine talents, is handsome in person, and is gallant and open-hearted, and would easily win the confidence of all the Celestials, from the brother of the sun to the humblest chopsticks in the rural regions of the Chinese wall. But whatever service he may have done this country in smoothing the ways of American commerce at Shanghai, Canton, or the waters of the Yellow sea, he has attained the highest and most important position known in diplomatic history. To be at this time an embassador from the great empire of Oriental Asia to all the powers of Europe and the United States is an enviable distinction, and we are pleased that, of all the diplomats, resident at the Celestial court, an American was deemed most worthy of that special mark of confidence and distinguished honor.
The ancient highways of commerce and national and con- tinental intercourse have been reversed in these latter days, and the first Celestial embassador travels east, by way of San Francisco and the United States, to the courts of the western powers to which he has been accredited. The route of the Indian ocean, the Red sea and the Mediterranean has ceased to be the shortest cut from Eastern China to Europe and the United States. When the Pacific railroad is completed the Chinese will be at our door.
It has occurred to us that, as there is now a vacancy in the mission to China, the appointment should for once be given to some gentleman from the West. We have no recollection
100 THE CELESTIAL EMBASSADOR.
that a first-class mission to the Old World has ever been ten- dered to a western man, except the solitary instance of Gen. Cass, many years since. New England, we think, is unduly pressed into the diplomatic service, and her sons ought to have a little rest. Just look at Massachusetts : Adams at St. James, and, until recently, Motley at Prussia, and Burlin- game at China. John P. Hale, of N. H., is sweating and suffering at the court of Spain. Marsh, of Vermont, in Italy. New York has now France and Russia in the persons of Dix and Bancroft.
The West has no respectable mission. Western men, and especially Ohio men, are generally turned out to grass in the little mountain republics of South America. There is, how- ever, no probability of an Ohio man ever being minister to China, for the president has late!}' been making search in this State for material for the mission to Equador, or some such place, and has been unable to find the talent and accomplish- ment for that rural court of cattle hides and Peruvian bark, except in the person of Hon. Thomas Ford. This mission will probably be given him if he can be spared from his pres- ent position at Washington. Let the witty and genial Tom pay tribute to Neptune and grapple with the equator by all means.
THE JAPANESE EMBASSY. 101
N
THE JAPANESE EMBASSY.
OW o'er Pacific's placid main, Comes Iwakura and his train, From where the sun, with radiant smile, Salutes great Niphon's lordly isle, And peerless Fusi casts its shadow O'er the realm of the Mikado ; Whose sovereign will and high behest Seek wisdom of the nations West ; Wherein alone he shows at least, There still are wise men in the East.
The poet, musing in the gloom, By Judah's children's wayside tomb, Was wont to sing the sad refrain, "Dead nations never rise again."* But a nation old and dormant lain, By quickening spirit 's born again. 'T is wondrous grand, these guests of State, Steaming through the Golden Gate ; But not the first upon our shore, The saffron race have been before ; And let not fancy judgment cheat, History doth itself repeat.
Before the illustrious Genoese Plowed the phosphorescent seas,
* Longfellow's "Hebrew Graves."
102 THE JAPANESE EMBASSY.
Or Thorfinn did the savans mock. With Runic lines on Dighton rock ; Or Vikings built the mystic mill, To grace the grounds on Newport hill (Leaving Fashion to build a race, Knowing 'twould be a watering place), Embassadors to our shores were sent, From out the mysterious Orient.
On Central Asia's verdant sods, Where once convened in " Masque" the gods ; Beyond the Punjaub's rivers five. Where swarmed the ancient Aryan hive, The ethnologist's piercing ken Discerns the Mongol race of men, Who spreading eastward far and free, From Thibet to the Yellow Sea ; And o'er Corea's strait and strand, To fair Cipango, lovely land. Where rivers pure have icy fountain, — A crystal cave in the Peerless Mountain,* Where they became, as time did lapse, Primogenitors of the Japs.
The first of nomads, ill at ease, Some longed for lands beyond the seas ; — On circling islands, peak and ridge, They crossed the great Aleutian bridge, Where Alaska's sands outstretched to trace First footprints of the human race. O'er the lone Continent they spread, With naught to hinder, none to dread, — And thus the primal sires came in. Of Inca, Aztec, Algonquin.
*Fusi-Yama — Peerless Mountain.
THE JAPANESE EMBASSY. 103
The earth itself is very old ; The ages that o'er man have rolled By history never have been told. See ruined cities, temples, towers, Throughout this glorious land of ours ; Wondrous Palenque puzzles man, In camwood forest, Yucatan. For monuments seek not in vain — Behold the tumuli of the plain !
When the old embassadors came, Their " reception" was rather tame ; No President — no Speaker Blaine,* No Pullman cars — no lightning train ; No cities great — no grand " Revere," To furnish forth good Yankee cheer ; No genial poet, no Concord sage — The wit and wisdom of an age. When Holmes and Emerson grace the treat, History doth not itself repeat.f
*A reception was given the embassy in the Hall of the House o.f Representatives, Washington.
tA banquet was given the Japanese party at the Revere House — Boston — at which many distinguished citizens assisted.
104 IN MEMORIAM MORSE.
IN MEMORIAM— MORSE.
T T is reserved to but few of the great benefactors of the hu- man race to live out the whole period of the ancient allotted time, and to personally know the full extent of their own just fame and the public appreciation of the labors of their lives.
Who would not rejoice, had it been in the order of nature, to permit the fair-faced boy Watt to live to see with his own clear eyes the full development of that power which was des- tined to change the face of the world, which he discovered in the bubbling evaporations of his mother's tea kettle in the dear old Scottish home ; to have lived to see the locomotive speed from London to Edinburgh ; to traverse continents ; to skirt the spurs of the Alps and plunge through the heart of Mont Cenis ; to have beheld the leviathan that revolves the mighty shafts of the Great Eastern and turns the dark and turbid waters of the Mersey into foam.
What American would not feel a glow of gratitude in his heart if the sad, perplexed and poverty-hampered Robert Ful- ton was here, even now among us, in a serene and satisfied old age, to behold the development and perfection of the ideas born of his brain sixty years ago ; to have seen the steam fleets of the ocean — the great Cunarders bearing the names of continents and empires ; to behold the argonautic fleets of the American Lakes, the flanges of whose screws disturb the cold deep waters of our hyperborean Euxine for a thousand miles to the northwest ; to know that the little "Robert Fulton " of his paternity, that first rippled the waters of his own beauti- ful Hudson, was the father of a race of giant steamers, to-day
IN MEMORIAM — MORSE. 105
gliding over all the great rivers of the world ; the Mississippi, the Amazon, the Nile, the Danube, the sacred Ganges and the wonderful rivers of China ; that the Turcoman and Tartar are as familiar with steamers upon the once mysterious Caspian Sea, as citizens upon the borders of our own lakes ; to feel the pride that comes of unselfishness and magnanimity in the reflection that his conceptions and genius had resulted not only in conferring a lasting benefit to the world, but in achieving the fortunes and renown of the Lloyds and Lairds of England, and the Aspinwalls, the Vanderbilts and Drews of America, who are but eminent examples of many ?
It is a subject for profoundest gratitude that Heaven so bounteously lengthened out the life of Samuel F. B. Morse, the Nestor of Inventors, that he was enabled to realize, in a genial and happy old age, the full measure of earthly honors and fame.
The invention of the Electric Telegraph ; the subduing of the most subtle element in nature, least understood in his early day, to the uses of man ; consigning thought of time and distance to the realms of forgotten things in the diplo- matic and commercial intercourse of the world, must rank, as it now does, for a hundred generations, as the highest achieve- ment of the genius of man — answering fully and affirmatively the inquiry propounded to the man of Uz from out of the whirlwind : " Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee : l Here we are ? ' ' More wonderful and abiding than Karnak or the Pyramids, it will remain for the uses of man when Macaulay's traveler from New Zealand shall stand upon the broken arch of London bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's.
He has given unto nations to speak to nations in a breath, and unto man to hold converse with man in the extremes of the earth as in a parlor. And to the merchant of San Francisco, who sends westward to Calcutta his ship, to be advised of her arrival, by wa}r of London and New York, the
106 IN MEMORIAM — MORSE.
instant her master drops anchor among the crocodiles in the Hoogly of the Ganges. Fortunate above most men of genius in his colleagues and coadjutors, he found in such men as Cornell, and Wade, and Field, and their associates, the faith, the talent and energetic devotion, which stretched the wires over continents and under oceans, resulting, even beyond their expectations or hopes, in princety fortunes and the honors that come of great enterprises well achieved, and which they wear so gracefully and so well. His genius •created a new department of industry, and called into an attractive service, in every civilized country, an accomplished class of men — electricians, inventors, operators — second only in extent to the great railroad corps of America and Europe.
It was fitting that he should have had the rare felicity of living to see a great city adorn the brow of her adopted child in the erection of his own graceful statue. And it was a beautiful conception, thoughtfully and wisely executed in that last great tableau which gave the people their final view of the great electrician, as he himself was about to pass •"within the veil," when he was selected to unfold the silken banner and point them to the statue of him who drew down lightnings from heaven.
Beautiful above all, that he had so lived towards man and God that, when the summons came, he could go as one who " wraps the drapery of his couch about him and lies down to pleasant dreams."
THE CAUSE. 107
THE CAUSE/
T
HE summer sun's unwonted glare Disturbed the elemental air ; And counter winds dark clouds threw back, And zig-zag lightning flew the track ; The thunder's crash in circles ran, Like Prussian siege-guns round Sedan. The wire's fleet messenger seemed distressed, As child no more loy father blest, And "calling" at the electric stand, It missed one fond, caressing hand. In a vision sweet, we asked one night, Of the majestic Borean light, The cause of this commotion rare, In the upper regions of the air. Aurora said, advancing high Her gorgeous banner 'gainst the sky : " If you the cause would know aright, Gro ask the Lightning in its flight — An answer quickly it will write." The Telegraph's low whisper said, The electric master, Morse, is dead !
* The summer of 1872, following the death of Professor Morse, was noted for unusual meteorological phenomena, telegraphic disturban- ces and terrific thunder, preceded by intensely vivid and fearfully destructive lightning, throughout the United States and Europe.
108 EIGHTEEN HUNDRED SEVENTY-ONE.
EIGHTEEN HUNDRED SEVENTY-ONE.
W
E note the year's disasters dire, That came of water, steam and fire ; How iron giants on tracks of steel, Crushed life and hopes beneath the wheel. Events that followed fast and faster, Of the Westfield's great disaster ; Of tears that flow and hearts that break For dearest dead that ne'er shall wake From fair Chautauqua's silver lake.*
A wail from the land where Lincoln sleeps ! And man and child and woman weeps. A thrilling click ! and along the wires, Proclaims the messenger that never tires, How fire swooped up like snow in flakes, And swept the Venice of the Lakes. Oh, woe supreme ! Oh, horrors dread ! Chicago's wealthy daughters cry for bread ! Another click ! a message hurled In " forty minutes " round the world ! From Europe's kings and kaisers' hearts, From Riga and Odessa's marts, From Rocky Mountain's sloping side, Wh^re richest valleys stretch in pride, To meet the broad Pacific's tide ; Wherever smoke of cottage curled, A strange sad cry the tempest whirled —
* Death of Mr. Dan P. Eells' daughter, and her teacher, from steam- boat disaster.
EIGHTEEN HUNDRED SEVENTY-ONE. 109
Pood ! food ! for the Granary of the World ! This lesson's taught which soothes the smart ; When the fiend of fire lets fly his dart, The human race has a single heart. Still the cry goes up from every State — The modern Tyre is "desolate ! "
And quickly speeds the tale of woe,
Prom Manistee and Peshtigo.
Bleak Norway's sons in manhood's prime,
Left the long shadows of their native pine
For the genial land of the corn and wine ;
And blue-eyed daughters from that Eden
Where sang the Nightingale of Sweden,
And Linnaeus, boy, 'mid garden bowers,
Found delight and fame among the flowers,
And Teutons brave from castled Rhine,
Where in childhood's home beneath the vine
The}^ listened to the legends weird
Of the costal cave of Rossenbeard ; *
'Mid classic art had revelled oft
In pictured halls of Dusseldorf ;
And loved and sung in happy glee
In Thuringia's dells — by Zuyder Zee ;
And Belgia's sons, whose feet had trod
The delta plain — the sacred sod,
The field of Mars that France went through —
Agincourt, Cressy, Waterloo ;
All braved the iceberg, crossed the main,
To die by fire on a western plain !
Amid the ruin and desolation dire,
Shall lighted souls, with aspirations higher,
Scoff the Zeus of the Greek — the Persian's god of Fire ?
* Frederick Barbarossa, Redbeard, Emperor of the ancient German Empire, died in Asia in the Crusade, A. D. 1190.
110 COL. MILLER AND THE SWORD OF BYRON.
COL. MILLER AND THE SWORD OF BYRON.
TN his admirable history of the "Rise and Fall of the Slave •*• Power in America," Henry Wilson has rescued from oblivion and embalmed, in the pages of permanent history, the names of many noble men and women whose lives went out in the early days of the great thirty years' conflict, leav- ing to others the dangers and honors of the field, and the glories of the victory which culminated in the Proclamation of Emancipation.
One of the many of 'whom the historian has made honor- able mention, is Jonathan P. Miller, of Vermont. His voice had been heard in behalf of the enslaved and of freedom of speech even before Garrison had passed the ordeal of the Boston mob, or Lovejoy had been hunted like a partridge on the mountain, and his children made fatherless and his wife a widow. The writer knew him personally forty years ago, as a boy may know a man. Dressed in a semi-Quaker garb, his slightly rotund form and fine personal presence reminded one of the old picture of William Penn, in the Philadelphia treaty, under the great elm tree. Generous, sympathetic to human sorrows, he had, besides, a healthy hate of tyranny and its manifold wrongs, and was as chivalrous as Bayard,, and, like him, without fear and without reproach. Mrs. Stowe said of Wendell Phillips that he could meet scorn with superior scorn. Col. Miller could oppose the wrath of a mob with superior wrath. A writer in his own beautiful valley of the Winooski suggests the influence that inspired his soul :
COL. MILLER AND THE SWORD OF BYRON. Ill
Beareth the mountain-breeze a spell ? Aye, tyrants long have known it well ; The home of Hofer— that of Tell,
The land of loch and glen, Bear witness that, from cliff and crag, Streams first and last the freeman's flag,
And mountains nurture men.
When, in 1821, the Greeks declared their independence, and took up arms against the Sultan of Turkey, Miller was a student in the University of Vermont, and, in common with all Americans, sympathized with the Hellenic cause; and when, in 1823, the news came of the fall of the brave leader of the Suliotes, in the midnight attack upon the Turkish camp at Karpinisi, and Fitz Green Halleck electrified the country with his "Marco Bozzaris," so familiar to all for fifty years, the soul of Miller was fired.
At midnight, in his guarded tent,
The Turk was dreaming of the hour When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,
Should tremble at his power.
A cry came over the sea for food and clothing for Greek mothers and children. The public response was prompt and generous ; ships were laden, and Miller was selected as one to- accompany Dr. Samuel G. Howe to Greece, in charge of the supplies. Dr. Howe, then a young surgeon of Boston, of most chivalrous spirit and marked abilities, after accomplish- ing his special mission, not only rendered important services to the Greek army professionally, but fought personally against Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt and the armies of the Sultan, and had the honor of being a prisoner of war in a Turkish fortress in the Island of Crete.
*•*•**#*##*•** Miller, having successfully fulfilled his mission, and ren- dered, other noble service to freedom, left Missolonghi, in Western Greece, which had been his depot and headquarters.,
112 COL. MILLER AND THE SWORD OF BYRON.
and visited Athens; stood upon Mars Hill, where Pericles, Demosthenes, and Paul, had spoken might}' words in olden time ; conversed with the lady immortalized as " Maid of Athens ; " visited the pass of Thermopylae, and the historic battle-field where
The mountains look on Marathon, Marathon on the sea.
Such visits were less common then than now. Lord Byron, who had finished the wanderings of Childe Harold, and had drawn the sword for
The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece, Where burning Sappho loved and sunjr,
had died at Missolonghi in 1824. and Miller became possessed of many souvenirs of the noble poet, and among them his sword.
While at Athens, Madame Miltiades became known to him. She belonged to one of the historic families, and her husband, who had been an officer in the patriot army, and had fallen with Bozzaris in the early part of the war, was conceded to have been a lineal descendant of the renowned Miltiades of Marathon. Being thus widowed, her children fatherless, and the family fortunes ruined by the spoliations of the Turks and the calamities of war, she consented to the adoption by Col. Miller and another American gentleman, of her two handsome, dark-e}'ed boys, of the respective ages of about five and seven years.
It may seem a little surprising that name and blood should be traced and acknowledged in a family for more than twenty- three hundred years ; but the roots of the ancestral tree run deeper into the soil of history in Athens and Rome than in our new country. There they are traced through the whole period of authentic history, and lost only in the mythical regions of untold time. Florence has still the name and
COL. MILLER AND THE SWORD OF BYRON. 113
Tblood of the Vespucii, and not many years since the ancient house was represented here in the person of Madame Ves- pucia, who came to visit the land named for her ancestor Americus, nearly four hundred years ago. The Duchess D'Abrantes, Madame Junot, the wife of Napoleon's great officer, was a Comnenes, whose family records united her house with the Byzantine Emperor of that name, and his more celebrated relative, the historian Anna Comnena, cotem- porary with the first Crusade.
Col. Miller brought home the two boys, adopting the younger, Luke — the older one eventually going to his new home in New York. The brothers were both well cared for, and educated for business — the older becoming, in time, a merchant in New York, and the other a banker in a Western State. Some time after his return from Greece, Miller mar- ried a lad}^ of fortune, and devoted his rather brief life to the law, at the Montpelier bar, and to the cares of a large estate. Had he lived he would have been prominent in his •State and in the political affairs of the country, as events were shaped some years after his death ; but, while he lived, his opinions and sentiments were too far in advance of his time to be adopted by either of the two great political parties then existing.
The writer remembers, when a lad, to have been one day with the little Greek boy in Col. Miller's library, where he was showing some gentlemen the souvenirs of his Greek mission, among them the sword of Byron, and some Greek manu- scripts, ancient and modern. While the gentlemen were examining the documents, the little boy took up the sword, and drawing it from the scabbard, brandished it over me. But the strength of his little arm not being equal to the weight of the weapon, it descended in dangerous proximity to my head, which alarmed the Colonel, and he arose and gently took it from his hand, saying : " My son, it is written that he who taketh the sword shall perish by the sword."
114 COL. MILLER AND THE SWORD OF BYRON.
Extreme youth, and the fright consequent upon the danger- ous proceeding, did not permit of any sentiment arising from the thought that the sword of Byron had been waved over my head by one who bore the name, and in whose veins coursed the blood of Miltiades of Marathon.
A few days after the burning of Chicago, the writer received from a lady, near Col. Miller's old home, a letter reciting some incidents of that terrible calamity, with the following con- clusion : " Mrs. K., whom you may remember as the daughter of Col. Miller, saved from her elegant residence only a box of plate, the shawl she threw over her head, and the sword of Byron ! " Not a bad outfit for a lady compelled to fly in her night-dress. I am glad she saved the sword that Greece need before this age goes by.
" I was in Athens on a bright day close, And heard the wail that round her temples rose : ' Byron is dead,'— the worshipped, the deplored ! I seemed to hear the falling of a sword, A paean closing on a broken chord, And England's lyre slept with its fallen lord."
A LEGEND OF DAMASCUS. 115
A LEGEND OF DAMASCUS.
HP HE melting snows on Hermon's crest -*• Go' trickling down its eastern slope, And in the valley distant far Is born Abana and Pharpar, Whose waters glide through reed and brake. Seeking El Margi's lonely lake.
The streams now born of mountain rill, So pure and gentle, clear and still, Had virtues once for human ill, — Those winding threads of silver sheen, Had beauties rare as e'er were seen. The leprous Naaman, stern and brave, Disdained the seer's advice, to lave, In sacred Jordan's dusky wave ; Declared his native waters still Better than all of Israel.
Within that beauteous S}Trian vale, Along an old and ancient trail, Where meek-eyed camels westward sent, First bore the gems of Orient ; And Persians grave, from Ispahan, Were wont to rest the caravan, And smoke the pipe of fragrant balm ; 'Neath cooling shade of lordly palm, Stands old Damascus — antique town, Hoary with age and great renown.
116 A LEGEND OF DAMASCUS.
Within its pondrous western gate, Just beside " the street called straight," Hard by a brook within a gorge, Once stood a grim and dusky forge, Where keenest sabre first was made, — The world-renowned Damascus blade.
Of subtile temper, proved by ring. And a quick elastic spring ; Arching true as serpent's joint. Point to hilt and hilt to point ; 'T would with a twang, as back it flew, Come straight again as arrow true ; Then tossing upward in the air, The kerchief of some lady fair, Of finest threads of gossamer, With edge as keen as Sheffield razor, Before the Court and ever}T gazer, A knight, without an effort vain, Would cut the fabric clean in twain !
An Eastern legend doth relate,* How Syria's king, within the gate, Commanded Vulcan, nothing bate In finest steel or cutler's skill, But prompt obey his sovereign will. To make a sword for service great, Worthy of his royal state.
In naught of duty could he swerve, But trembling in his every nerve, He wrought a blade of beauteous curve — Made hilt and guard and handle grand,
* Wendell Phillips in "Lost Arts."
A LEGEND OF DAMASCUS. 117
Fitting for the royal hand. One single act, fame to acquire, 'T was placed to temper in the fire. That moment, anxious most of all, The foe came thundering 'gainst the wall ; The king rushed in with furious ire, And caught the sabre from the fire ; And gleaming hot, in grand array, Flourished the weapon in the fray.
The affrighted Vulcan stood dismayed, Because of the untemper'd blade ; Expecting naught in anxious dread, But loss of fame and loss of head. Exulting, soon the king returned, Proclaimed the victory he had earned ; Declared, on faith of royal word, The mystic virtues of the sword. And thus 'twas found by chemists rare, That steel is tempered by the air.
This ancient sword to both allied, First Bower and Justice typified ; When Solomon, in all his glory, Sat first in judgment — heard the story, And the humble mother's cry ; And Evidence did Truth defy, — "Bring me a sword," said Israel's king, And quickly they the sword did bring ; And thus invoked the goddess smiled On the true mother of the child ; And ever since whate'er avails, She holds the Sceptre with the Scales.
When lovely Esther led the van, In the palace of Shushan,
118 A LEGEND OF DAMASCUS.
Pleading for her Hebrew race, With her beauteous form and face, Winning Ahasuerus' grace ; The symbol of that mighty Po'wer That swept from Ethiope to Indus ; The sceptre held out to the maid, Was a golden-hilt Damascus blade.
But a shadow dark rests on its fame, It ne'er was drawn in Freedom's name ; And turbaned Turk hath with it smote The patriot Crete and Suliote ; And^all the world deplores the loss — It held the Crescent 'gainst the Cross.
GENERAL MOSBY AND SPEAKER ELAINE. 119
GENERAL MOSBY AND SPEAKER ELAINE.
13 Y the courtesy of the Speaker, Mosby, the guerrilla, the partisan chief, the franc, tireur of the late war, has been honored with a seat upon the floor of the national House of Representatives.
The writer hereof feels disinclined to begrudge the famous chieftain whatever of honor he may conceive it to be to him to meet face to face the representatives of the people, or to cant at the gracious courtesies of Mr. Speaker Blaine. In fact we rather feel kindly toward this once terrible and dreaded guerrilla for giving us about three-quarters of an hour to get out of his way.
In the month of May, 1864, came the news of the second great conflict in the "Wilderness," and the deplorable loss •sustained by the Ohio regiments. Immediately upon the receipt thereof the writer received an order from Governor Brough to accompany several citizens to that field to look especially after, and to supply, as far as possible, the temporary wants of our wounded men, and for that purpose to draw upon the State agent at Washington for whatever might be deemed necessary.
We reached Fredericksburg on the 16th of May at sunset. It had been a ruined and riddled city since the great contest and final repulse of Burnside. A bright, full moon looked down upon a ruined city, untenanted by its original inhabi- tants and unoccupied, except by seven thousand wounded Union soldiers, lying upon the floors of gloomy tobacco warehouses, churches, banking houses, law offices, and in the parlors and halls of the forsaken mansions of late opulent
120 GENERAL MOSBY AND SPEAKER ELAINE.
and distinguished families. Ambulances from the Wilder- ness, seven to ten miles distant, which had kept up their steady and continuous train from the first day of the battle, had not ceased to come each with its two wounded and mangled men, and our first night was one of strange and mingled experiences and lasting impressions. Being there in pursuance of our mission, we visited these various buildings to relieve, comfort and assist Ohio's wounded men. One scene we here note : In going into the Fredericksburg Bank Building, which had been dismantled of its counters and desks, and disrobed of all the paraphernalia of the money changers, and those who in former days were wont to discount the paper given in payment for men, women and children, as well as cotton and tobacco, we saw a stately woman with fine head and distinguished features, moving among rows of men stretched upon the floor, some armless, some legless, others with shattered limbs or mangled bodies, contused heads or lacerated breasts, who seemed to be not only president, cashier, teller and capital of the bank, but surgeon, nurse, steward, comforter, friend, sanitary commission and soldiers' aid society combined in a single person. That woman was Mrs. Jane Gr. Swisshelm, so well known as one of the noblest and best of women, and one of the ablest and most interest- ing writers of the day. No one can tell how thoroughly she was appreciated by those to whom she ministered. She inspired those who saw her there with the most profound respect and reverence.
In a few days a fleet of transports came up the river, and all these seven thousand men were placed on board, destined for the hospital in Washington. Then the army base was changed and Fredericksburg was abandoned. Our mission was thus concluded. Ten miles south of Fredericksburg, between the Ny and the Po, with Spottsylvania Court House in sight on the right and Essex Junction on the left, rested for a day the great army of the Potomac. The writer on a
GENERAL MOSBY AND SPEAKER ELAINE. 121
sultry morning started, in company with Dr. Elisha Sterling, of Cleveland, without pass or protection, and on foot, for head-quarters. It was a risky undertaking, but to be within ten miles and not make an effort to see some portion of the great army, the thought was not to be tolerated. Hundreds of army wagons were filing across the plains, but heavily loaded — no chance to ride. New regiments were constant^ moving to the front, but we were alone, not belonging to any established organization. We Had hardly got beyond the limits of the town before we were "interviewed" at the point of a baj^onet. The doctor talked knives, saws, lint, bandages, and we were permicted to pass on, reaching the rear of the army about 3 o'clock p. m. We passed without challenge or molestation the quarters of General Grant, whom we saw smoking in front of his tent, erected just on the edge of a forest. An observatory, about forty feet high, built of fence rails, stood in the open field near by, upon which officers were making observations with the glass and communicating with the little man with the cigar.
Here, upon a broad plain, slightly descending towards a stream, we saw about forty thousand of the center of that mighty army whose wings extended many miles to right and left. They stood at that moment motionless, with their bright guns glistening in the sun. Hardly had we compre- hended this grand spectacle, when the dull, heavy sound "of cannon was heard in our rear, and apparently on the ground we had but recently passed over alone. Instantly several thousand of the army before us deployed to the right, and then passed over at a rapid march in the direction of the cannonading, and soon passed beyond our observation. Can- non boomed till dark. Mosby had made a dash and seized the supply train at a point in the road over which we had but just come less than an hour before. That night the ambulances brought in several hundred wounded men — fifteen hundred had been killed ; but things were on so large a scale that the
122 GENERAL MOSBY AND SPEAKER ELAINE.
little episode was only alluded to as a little skirmish with Mosby. That was a night spent in the field hospital, sad, solemn and dreadful. A large corps of surgeons worked all night at the amputating table, and legs and arms, feet and hands, severed from their bodies, strewed the ground. One young and handsome officer, captain of a company of the Boston heavy artillery, as he was lifted to the surgeon's table for the amputation of a dangling arm or shattered leg, said, as he was about to inhale the chloroform, "My God, and my mother, do you know that I have come to this ? "
Had we been less than an hour later on the road and in company with the train which we had preceded, the same fate or worse might have been ours.
Dr. Sterling lent his skillful surgical aid to the field sur- geons, which was gracefully accepted by them, and appointed the writer upon his personal staff, with the imaginary rank of assistant surgeon, with the pay of a corporal of militia in time of peace. My duties consisted principally in aiding, as gently as I could, in lifting mangled men to the operating table, and when the anaesthetics had produced unconscious- ness, and the surgeon had severed an arm or a leg, to lay the naked and ghastly limb upon the rapidly increasing pile, and after the wounded part had been dressed, as gently to lay away upon the cold dewy grass what remained of a once physically perfect man, and cover him with a blanket to await reaction and — the future.
Towards morning, the dreadful work of the night having been accomplished, we availed ourselves of the generous hospitality of an ambulance driver from Maine to stretch our limbs and sleep awhile, if possible, upon the bloody floor and pillows of his covered ambulance, while he, wrapped in his blanket, lay on the ground between the wheels. Sleep came promptly to our exhausted natures, but it was fragrant of the blood of the wounded and the dead. But we lay like warriors taking our rest with gory mantles around us.
GENERAL MOSBY AND SPEAKER ELAINE. 123
Earl}' in the day we returned to Fredericksburg over the same route we had come the day previous. When we reached the valley of the Nj7 the carcasses of dead horses, shattered and dismantled army wagons, trunks of trees splintered and shivered by shot and shell, as by lightning from the clouds, and their green limbs scattered along the way, the earth furrowed in places as by the plow, enabled us to realize something of the desperation of the conflict of the evening before, the awful hazard of our reckless enterprise and the narrowness of our escape. However, we congratulated our- selves that we had, on the whole, " done the State some service," and although we were not in the actual engagement of arms, yet the hour of conflict had been so ordained from on high, that the goddess of history, if she thought us worthy of mention as military heroes, could not do otherwise, in truth, than to record, for the pride of our friends and the admiration of posterity, that so far from being willfully and cowardly too laggard and late for the battle, we were in fact nearly an hour too early. At all events, if the lady of his- tory did not mistake and record us as sutlers, we should be content without even " honorable mention " in the pon- derous tomes of her history of the civil war.
I felt gratified that the chief had seen fit not to permit his scouts and pickets to disturb the two lone travelers (whom they must have seen, as we had glimpses of them in an open field behind a piece of woods, but innocent of their character), but cared more for the government stores in the coming train, for which they were on the lookout. I am still much obliged ; take a seat on the " floor," General Mosby.
124 AVAR, AVARICE AND PECULATION.
WAR, AVARICE AND PECULATION.
HPHE gentle and sensitive poet Whittier bemoaned the ^ calamities of the late civil war less for the loss of life in the field than for the deaths that would supervene in the decade following its close, resulting from the relaxation of the high mental and nervous tension to which the nation had been wrought and held during the clash of arms ; asserting that the extra percentage over the ordinary death rate in the ten years following the war would largely exceed the thou- sands slain in battle. To the careful observer of the mighty swath which death has mown among the statesmen who directed the war, and the officers and soldiers who survived a hundred bloody fields, together with the sudden breaking up and wiping out in early life of whole families since its close, this prediction has undoubtedly proved true.
But the calamities engendered of war are not alone death ; the}r extend far be}Tond in time and place into domestic, social and business relations of life. War comes ordinarily in defense of home, country or religion, but of whatever it brings in its train innumerable evils, not the least of which are avarice, plunder and peculation.
When Peter the Hermit preached the Crusade among the princes and feudal lords of Europe, there were ready at hand a class of thrifty financial gentlemen, whose business engage- ments were so pressing, they could not enlist personally in the holy war, and too prudent to invest in the Holy Sepulchre Bonds, yet who were ready to take a mortgage or deed abso- lute of baronial and feudal estates, at very elastic rates of interest, to enable the chivalrous proprietors thereof to make
WAR, AVARICE AND PECULATION. 125
a 'formidable appearance under the walls of Jerusalem. Venice reared her marble palaces, enlarged her canals and built the Rialto and St. Marks from the proceeds of her very advantageous naval contracts for the transportation of the Crusaders to the empire of Saladin. The mailed knights failed to recover the sacred tomb, but the " bloated " bond- holders of the Middle Ages failed not to hold their broad estates.
When our civil war broke out, so unfamiliar were the people with the subject of war, that not one in a hundred thousand could guess the cost of putting a regiment in the field. Few. only could comprehend the magnitude of a million of dollars, but when money came to be printed by indefinite millions, financial education commenced, and the whole country became pupils in the noble science of finance. A few venerable old gentlemen who had hoarded a stocking of gold, just to surprise their heirs and executors, swapped it for greenbacks at $250 and graduated as nabobs. But the first great eye- opener to wealth through patronage and spoils was when the Government gave into the hands of a brother of a New York Senator the purchasing of a navy and rewarded him with a commission of $80,000 for purchasing a few hulks rotting at the New York docks, which any business man would have done for $1,000. Then came the plunder of New Orleans and the shipment of bullion and spoons to Massachusetts on private account. A few such elementary lessons soon enabled the aptest financial scholars to practice the art of sudden and easy wealth. Soon officials in charge of the people's money in New York patterned after the war style of doing business and helped themselves and a few friends into a condition of forehandedness. Some of them by reason thereof have been enabled to travel in foreign countries, while others, though equally in good financial health, are detained near home, "owing to circumstances over which they have no control."
It has been said, persons have been known who got a com-
126 WAR, AVARICE AND PECULATION.
fortable living and laid up a little money by minding their own business. But $50,000,000 have been made by seven well dressed men in a single venture by profound silence alone, except putting a little salt upon tails of Congressmen. Members were so indignant when they found the peoples' money had not been more equitably distributed by the seven Mobilier gentlemen, they raised the president's salary instanter to $50,000 a year, and took $5,000 each themselves as a slight remuneration for the mental suffering they had endured the year before.
Railroad management has partaken largely of the demoral- ized financiering engendered in the calamities of war. If a broker uses half a million of railroad funds deposited with him, and does not find it for his interest to honor a check for the amount, it is of but little moment, perhaps the company will annoy him a little by declining to make any more deposits in his broker's shop, but they will exhaust their ingenuity in running down a Pan Handle conductor, who declares himself now and then a small dividend or passes his wife or mother over the road.
Despite the denunciations of the press and the indignation of bondholders, the Fisks who can steal a railroad, and the lawyer who can secrete it, and the judge who can pocket its coupons and stocks, are heroes in financial circles where rail- road and steamship companies elect directors and presidents so thoroughly illiterate as to be unable to write a note to their mistress, or tell if a Panama steamer would land passengers at Kamtscatka, be in danger of icebergs in the Caribbean Sea, or cross Darien by the Straits of Magellan.
Cities are afflicted from the like general causes. The good Shepherd of Washington does not lay down his life for his sheep, but goes for the fleece and often the pelt. Cleveland may be an exception, if so it comes of having so much buried treasure — such weight of bullion in iron pipe. True, we give $498 each for a dozen or so of five hundred barrel reservoirs,.
WAR, AVARICE AND PECULATION. 127
and think ourselves more fortunate than many other munici- palities if the contractor fulfils his obligation by sinking a hogshead or a potash kettle.
But however business may be conducted or general finances managed at home or elsewhere, Cleveland may be congratu- lated and take to herself just pride in the management of her Sinking Fund, which, in the hands of able and honest com- missioners, in twenty years has augmented from $361,377.52 to $2,700,000, with a nominal annual expense of only about $600. England, the land of faithful trusts, cannot match such an instance of ability and fidelity.
128 THE SWORD OF SPAIN.
THE SWORD OF SPAIN.
DY Tagus' stream in grand old Spain, Whose rushing waters meet the main. Where Lisbon was by earthquake lain, " Remembered well by all alive In seventeen hundred fifty-five " (Which doth remind us, by the way, Was the very year and very day Of " The Deacon's wonderful one horse shay)," Stands old Toledo, wall and tower, — Iberian, Roman, Goth and Moor ; And here that magic wand is made, The gleaming bright Toledo blade.
'T was known by warriors, kings and sages, In th' dark and distant Middle Ages, — A vision of its great renown, Made Moor to wander up and down, Through the snowy mountain town, With wail as sad as her of Rama, — "Woe is me, woe is me, Alhama !"
By years of strife and bloody wars, It took Grenada from the Moors, — In great Alhambra's stately halls, It flashed along its gilded walls, Where dark-eyed children, Moorish scions, Played round the Fountain of the Lions, And watched the glib and chattering rooks, Euilding their nests in cozy nooks ;
THE SWORD OF SPAIN. 129
And saw the little fledglings try From peak and battlements to fly ; And drowsy bat at evening flit Around the roof that sheltered it.
It followed close on Boabdil, When bivouac'd on Nevada's hill ; Where looking back with sigh and sorrow, He saw the Xenil and the Duaro ; Waved last adieu with manly tears, To the land they loved eight hundred years. Hidalgo grand and lowly poor, Call it " The last sigh of the Moor."
In Fourteen Hundred Ninety-Three, 'Neath grateful shade of orange tree, Along the banks of sweetest river, The dear, delightful Guadalquiver ; By Seville's tower amid the throng, Perhaps was heard this little song :
In the little bay of Palos by the sea, The Pinta and the Nina swinging free,
Columbus felt an aid
In the bright Toledo blade, As he looked out over the lea.
The Pinta and the Nina, breezes free,
With their prows pointing to the western lea,
Danced by the shores
Of the beautiful Azores, On their way to the Sargasso Sea.
In the wondrous New World, flag unfurled, The Pinta and the Nina, once again, 9
130 THE SWORD OF SPAIN.
Danced by the shores Of the beautiful Azores, To their home on the Spanish main.
In mountain pass, by marshy brake, By Titicaca's sacred lake, The mail-clad Spaniard with it slew The peaceful Inca of Peru. The dreadful scourge and cruel foe, Of ancient Aztec — Mexico ; O'er hecatombs beneath its walls, It revelled in Moritezuma's halls. In monarch's hands, without contrition, It sustained the awful Inquisition : And cruel deeds the blood to freeze, B}T Torquemada, Ximenes.
The " clouded " land its prowess sought, When Egypt the great Corsican fought : — 'Twas drawn by valorous sons of Cids, At the battle of the Pyramids ; And wielded well by Mamalukes, The stalwart sons of Edom's dukes.
But a nobler service hath it done, Than mitraelleuse or needle-gun ; It hath, 'mid dirge and solemn gloom, And drooping banner, sable plume, Waved honors o'er Cervante's tomb.
THE NATIONAL LAND SYSTEM. 131
THE NATIONAL LAND SYSTEM.
TN that gem of historical literature, "Prophetic Voices," *• the last contribution of Charles Sumner to the reading ivorld, is a letter of David Hartley, British Commissioner to Paris, to his government in 1785, when Franklin and Adams were commissioners of the Colonial Congress, which is of peculiar interest now after the lapse of nearly one hundred years, as it discloses the plan and scheme of our early states- men concerning the disposition of the public domain and the liquidation of the obligations incurred by the war of the revolution.
It is interesting as showing not only the great foresight of our fathers, but of the clear, bright intelligence and prophetic vision of an English statesman one hundred years ago, con- cerning a country and a continent which he had never seen, and between which and him lay an ocean three thousand miles wide. It is also of remarkable interest as showing how accurate were the prophetic views, based of course upon an accurate knowledge of the state of social and political institutions, and the wants and aspirations of the unlanded millions of Europe, upon the subject of emigration from the old feudal world to the new continent and the free and generous government of the United States.
The American commissioners exhibited in Paris a map of the continent, in which the land, ceded by the definitive treaty of 1783, was divided by parallels of latitude and longitude into fourteen new States, exclusive of the original thirteen. That certainly was a magnificent scheme of " allotment," beside which the operations of Joseph in Egypt wane, and
132 THE NATIONAL LAND SYSTEM.
the glory of our modern " acre " dividers is eclipsed. This- was the beginning of maps and allotments in the United States. It was, moreover, the conception and first develop- ment of the idea of our great national system regarding the public lands. The original plan was a wise and beneficent one — sale and settlement, and the proceeds applied to the extinguishment of the public debt. It has only been per- verted and abused b}T gratuities and squanderings in these latter days. But let us note the comprehensive views of David Hartley : " The whole project, in its full extent, would take many years in its execution, and therefore it must be far beyond the present race of men to say, ' This shall be so.' Nevertheless, those who have the first care of this New World will probably give it such directions and inherent influences as may guide and control its course and revolutions for ages to come. But these plans, being beyond the reach of man to predestinate, are likewise beyond the reach of comment or speculation, to say what may or may not be pos- sible, or to predict what events may hereafter be produced by time, climates, soils, adjoining nations, or by the unwieldy magnitude of empire, and the future population of millions superadded to millions. The sources of the Mississippi may be unknown, the lines of longitude and latitude may be extended into unexplored regions, and the plan of this new creation may be sketched out by a presumptuous compass, if all its intermediate uses and functions were to be suspended until the final and precise accomplishment, without failure or deviation, of this unbounded plan. But this is not the case ; the immediate objects in view are limited and precise ; they are prudent of thought, and within the scope of human power to measure out and execute. The principle indeed is indefinite, and will be left to the test of future ages to deter- mine its duration or extent."
He suggests to his government that the councils which produced these plans had wiser and more sedate views than
THE NATIONAL LAND SYSTEM. 133
merely the amusement of drawing meridians of ambition and high thoughts. " There appear to me to be two solid and rational objects in view : the first is, by the sale of the lands contiguous to the present States, to extinguish the pres- ent national debt which, I understand, might be discharged for about twelve millions sterling." Under the second point he holds up "an unparalleled phenomenon in the political world," suggesting that as soon as the national debt is dis- charged the Confederate Republic will appear in a new character, as proprietor of lands, either for sale or to let upon rents, while other nations may be struggling under taxation, with debts too enormous to discharge. " Here will be a nation possessed of a new and unheard of financial organ of stupendous magnitude, and in process of time of unmeasured value, thrown into their lap as a fortuitous superfluity and almost without being sought for."
It is surprising with what clearness this Englishman fore- sees the great tide of emigration. The temptations of fertile soils and temperate climates, land to be purchased at a trifling consideration, which may be possessed in freedom, together with natural and civil rights, with no qualifications but to become settlers, without distinction of country or persons, will cause "the European peasant, who toils for his scanty sustenance in penury, wretchedness and servitude, to eagerly fly to this] asylum for free and industrious labor." "The Congress has now opened to all the world a sale, of landed settlements, where the liberty and property of each individual is to be consigned to his own custody and defence.
"The Congress has arranged its offers in the most invit- ing and artful terms, and lest individual peasants and laborers should not have means of removing themselves, it throws out inducements to moneyed adventurers to purchase and to undertake the settlement by commission and agency, without personal residence, by stipulating that the land of proprietors, toeing absentees, shall not be higher taxed than the land of
134 THE NATIONAL LAND SYSTEM.
residents. This will quicken the sale of lands, which is its object." Such was the beginning and such were the views of a foresighted and friendly Englishman nearly one hundred years ago of the land system of the government. We still have a few lots left.
THE YEAR OF CENTENNIALS. 135
THE YEAR OF CENTENNIALS.
PHIS year of 1874 marks a centennial period which •*• awakens wonderful historical memories not to be sur- passed, but only to reach their climax in that grander cen- tennial which the nation anticipates in 1876.
Iceland celebrates this year the one-thousandth year of her political existence in the icy waters of the Arctic Sea. The great chemists of our country have just concluded their important reunion at Northumberland, Pa,, in honor of Preistley, the philosopher and discoverer of oxygen, August 1, 1774. While the great chemist was analyzing the elements, the patriots and statesmen of the American colonies were anatyzing the powers of governments and the rights of man. The tea had been emptied in Boston harbor a few months before. Franklin wrote from London that he hoped compen- sation would be made to the East India company therefor. The grand old patriot, Gadsden, of South Carolina, wrote., "Don't pay for an ounce of the damned tea." They didn't pay. Then came England's retaliation. The Boston Port Bill was moved in Parliament March 14th. It passed May 3d, and received the royal assent on the 20th. On the 1st of June it took effect, and General Gage and an armed fleet came to enforce it. The spirit of union which animated the people of all the colonies, South as well as North, is refreshing to read in these latter days. A letter from South Carolina to the Boston Committee of Correspondence said : " One soul animates three millions of brave Americans, though extended over a long trail of three thousand miles. If they (the ministers) ever subdue New England — may God forbid — that
136 THE YEAR OF CENTENNIALS.
instant the evil genius Tyranny will begin to stalk over these premises with gigantic strides." One hundred years ago this month regiments of soldiers from famous battle fields of Europe were in Boston. The}' filled Castle William in the harbor, swarmed at Fort Hill, and guarded the royal governor at Salem. Thirty ships of war were in the harbor. Then began the grand uprising of the people, determined to die or be free. Then came the donation committees, the aid socie- ties and sanitary fairs of those days, to feed and clothe the distressed people of Boston. It is good to read at this day the noble letters of condolence and sympathy addressed to them by every colony, urging them to perseverance and praying that they might be endowed with fortitude. New Hampshire patriots wrote : " We look on the cause in which you are engaged as a common cause, and that we and our posterity are equally interested with you in the event." They make a contribution and say : " What 3^011 herewith receive comes not from the opulent, but mostly from indus- trious yeomanry. This is considered not as a gift or an act of charity, but of justice — a small part of what we are in duty bound to communicate to those truly noble and patriotic advocates of American freedom, who are bravely standing in a gap between us and slaver}', and defending a whole conti- nent, and gloriously struggling for the cause of liberty." Connecticut wrote : " This (contribution) we consider the first payment of a large debt we owe you, and shall be ready to repeat it from time to time, as long as your necessity and our abilit}r shall continue." New York wrote: "We want language to express our abhorrence of this additional act of tyranny to America," New Jersey, Maryland and each of the Southern Colonies wrote in the same glowing and patriotic terms, and each making their contribution to the common •cause.
In the light of late events we read with astonishment the grand outburst of patriotic, sentiment in South Carolina : " Be
THE YEAR OF CENTENNIALS. 137
•comforted, ye oppressed Bostonians ! and exult, ye Northern votaries of liberty ! that the sacred rays of freedom, which used to beam from you on us, are now reverberated with double efficac}' back upon yourselves, from your weaker sister, Carolina, who stands foremost in her resolution to sacrifice her all in your defense."
Oh, for a renewal of the spirit of the revolutionary days ! Let the dead past bury its dead ; and let the future inter- course and friendship between all parts of our country partake something of the spirit which inspired our grandfathers in 1774.
138 THE MILLENNIAL OF ICELAND.
THE MILLENNIAL OF ICELAND.
1 \ 7E once stopped for a moment to admire a ponderous * * block of elaborately chiseled stone, about to be elevated to its place in one of the modern elegant structures with which Cleveland is now being adorned, and were emboldened to ask the man of the mallet and chisel his views as to the time when the sediment had fully accumulated under the waters, which time had eventually hardened into such pure, beautiful and creamy stone, so useful to man and so happily adapted to aid the architect in beautifying and adorning a city. He expressed his opinion that it was a good while ago, perhaps five or six hundred years. He was a bright, intelli- gent carver in stone, but without the reflections of a Hugh Miller. When we modestly asked him if he did not think that six million years would come a trifle nearer the exact period, he smilingly confounded us with the suggestion that it was onl}r six thousand years since the world was made L We felt the reproof something as did the social English antiquarian, riding upon the box with the stage driver, who remarked to the nlan of the ribbons and whip, in passing Stonehenge, that those monoliths and dolmans were erected/ by the Druids more than two thousand years ago. The driver replied that it could not be possible, "for," said he, "it is only 1870 now !" Our artist in stone seemed content with any geological period that antedated Pease's survey of Cleveland and the Buffalo Land Company.
This is but quite a common feeling. The thoughts and reflections of most persons are limited to the period of the Christian era and are altogether, or nearly so, oblivious of the
THE MILLENNIAL OF ICELAND.
prior ages. In contemplating the history of our own country, how man}' of us have a feeling that the toils and struggles of English men and women and their descendants are confined within that centennial period which we are about to celebrate. Who reads or thinks much of Colonial history — the dim and shadowy one hundred and fifty years from the landing on Plymouth rock to the " glittering generalities " of 1776 ? Who thinks of that still earlier period of a hundred and twenty-eight years, when there was known neither Plymouth nor Jamestown, during which time DeSoto found a grave in the Mississippi ; Cortez despoiled the Empire of Monte- zuma, and the mail-clad Pizaro slew the Peruvian Inca and possessed himself of temples as rich in golden vessels as Jerusalem, and an empire that was cotemporaneous with that of the Pharaohs ?
But while the people of the United States are contemplating the grandeur and glory of their one hundred years of national existence, and preparing to make the one hundredth memor- able in history, how little do they think of the descendants of the Eriks, the Hengists and the Horsas, and the Vikings of the Baltic, and those who migrated with Ingolf, the Norwegian, in Anno Domini 874, and made their lonely home in the long twilight under the Arctic Circle in Iceland ? The Danish Puritans of the ninth century — England was but the Heptarchy — two hundred years before that renowned real estate gentleman, William the Conqueror, cut up the British island into about 60,000 lots and sold them out to persons of quality and standing in his army — the grandest land "opera- tion " since Joseph bought up all the arable lands in Egypt.
When the Danes went to Iceland, Charlemagne was affect- ing the consequences of the ancient Roman emperors, and scholars from Hibernia were teaching the imperial household of Gaul ; Germany was not, and France was not, as now. The Caliphs ruled in Spain, and their empire stretched from Gibraltar to the Ganges. The Turk was not yet in Europe
140 THE MILLENNIAL OF ICELAND.
by five hundred years, and four hundred years before the Tartars established the empire of the Khan in Russia.
Here in this hyperborean island for a thousand years have lived and loved the peaceful and gentle descendants of the earl}r Scandinavian. Here schools flourished, and poets have written the Edda and Sagas. Here under the bright aurora boys and girls study their geography and pity the poor children in the United States, who have to go to school in a summer's heat indicated by 90 degrees of the thermometer ; who have such short nights for sleep, and only three months in the whole }Tear to slide down hill and snow ball. Here sit gentle old ladies with tidy caps and aprons, knitting stock- ings during the long Arctic winter and teaching their grand- children the catechism of the Church, the wisdom of the sagas and the mythological legends of Wodan and of Thor. Here, four hundred years before Columbus was born, these hardy and enterprising people built ships that sailed into the Medi- terranean and along the coast of Africa ; attempted the colonization of New England, the evidence of which exists in the Icelandic histories, in the Runic inscription upon Dighton rock and the mysterious stone structure which now curiously attracts the summer tourists at Newport.
This year the pleasant inhabitants of Iceland celebrate their millennial. We congratulate them on the long life of their State, and we not only invite them to come and see us celebrate in 1876, but we invite their descendants to meet our descendants in celebrating the one thousandth anniversary of the American Independence, Anno Domini 2776. Had we the loose change of a Yanderbilt, we would charter a steamer and invite our Cleveland friends to the Geysers and to Hecla, to the bright Auroras of the Arctic, and to the Icelandic millennial of 1874.
THE PRESS AND THE CARDIFF GIANTS. 141
THE PRESS AND THE CARDIFF GIANTS.
R a hundred and fifty years the American press ha& been struggling and winning its way against political and ecclesiastical authorities, and the avarice, malice or desire of notoriety of private persons, to its present position of independence and power.
As early as 1720 the Colonial Assembly at Philadelphia, surrounded with the royal insignia of George III., summoned before them the editor and printer of one of the very first papers published in the Quaker City, and admonished him for his audacity in expressing editorially the hope and expectation that that body " will find some effectual remedy to revive the dying credit of this Province and restore us to our former happiness ;" and warning him never to publish anything more relative to the affairs of any of the colonies. In modern days such an expression would be regarded as moderate and humbly touching the state of the country and government ; in fact, we should now think the expression lacked vim and spirit if found in the money article of a commercial paper ; but the editor of that day offended the dignity of authority in offering his personal advice, rather than, as now understood, expressing the sentiments of the people. Perhaps in this case the Assembly thought the editor had an eye to " inflation," and. meant more green- backs, hence this early veto upon the liberty of the press..
A printer boy in the office of this same paper got to trying his hand at writing, when out of copy, and put into type his own composition which was in substance, " that firmness of mind and public spirit are requisite to the
142 THE PRESS AND THE CARDIFF GIANTS.
friends of liberty, that this greatly proceeds from a just way of thinking, that we are not born for ourselves alone, nor for our private advantage, but likewise, and principally, for the good of others and of civil society — such principles animated the Romans, Cato and others, and that it was impossible to be thought great or good without being a patriot, and none could pretend to courage, gallantry and greatness of mind without being first of all possessed with a public spirit and love of their country." These noble and patriotic sentiments being published just before a Colonial election, the royal governor and council were, so affected that they ordered the editor's arrest and commitment to prison, and bound him over to the court.
The earl}' journalists in Boston were anno}'ed by Mather and other ecclesiastics, who constantly represented to the general court the evil tendencies of the journals of that day, and that bigoted body could easily find that the journals in question had " affronted His Majesty's government," if they could find nothing detrimental to morals or religion therein, and so order that the paper must be no longer printed by its proprietor and founder.
The high-handed and arbitrary disposition of British subjects and equally dictatorial bigots of New England against the freedom of the press to comment upon or to often give the legitimate and ordinary news of the day, touching the government or the church, manifested itself in 1722, when a pirate vessel appeared off Block Island, which was pursued and captured b}' the enterprising authorities of Rhode Island; .an account of which was communicated by letter from New- port to the Boston Courant, and intimating therein negligence on the part of the Colonial authorities of Massachusetts Bay in not having pursued and captured the marauding ship. This paragraph so wounded the dignity of the governor and •council, that Franklin, the editor, was committed to prison to atone for the affront to His Majesty's government in New
THE PRESS AND THE CARDIFF GIANTS. 143
England. The various and numerous orders in council, regarding newspapers of enterprise and spirit of a hundred and fifty years ago, indicate that those journals were far in advance of the spirit of the age in which the}7 had their origin.
The first action against a newspaper for libel on this conti- nent was in New York in 1734, when Washington was in his cradle and Rip Van Dam was the great merchant and, for a time, acting governor of the Province. It was not the good and genial Governor Rip Van Dam that embarked in this iirst libel suit, but his immediate successor, William Crosby, Captain General and Governor-in-Chief of New York and New Jersey, Vice Admiral and Colonel in His Majesty's army &c. The Journal was the newspaper, and J. Peter Zenger was the offending editor. The specific libel complained of was in substance that " the people of this city (New York) and province think, as matters now stand, that their liberties and properties are precarious, and that slavery is likely to be entailed on them and their posterity, if some past things be not amended."
Zenger was in jail, with only the liberty to speak to his wife and friends through a hole in the door — but his paper went on more popular than ever. The number containing the libel was ordered to be burnt by the common hangman, and the mayor and magistrates were directed to be present. The corporation refused to attend, and the Provincial Assembly also declined to join in this crusade against the press. The friends of Zenger engaged Andrew Hamilton, Philadelphia's great lawyer of that day, for the defense. On trial the printing was confessed. Proof of the truth thereof was offered, but which the court rejected, and Hamilton then proceeded to make that celebrated argument which wrought in time the overthrow of the old English judge made law of libel. Hamilton's speech, which is extant after a hundred and forty years, is said to equal that of Erskine in 1792, in
144 THE PRESS AND THE CARDIFF GIANTS.
the great libel suit of Thomas Paine for the publication of the "Rights of Man" in London. The court charged the jury that the words were libelous, but the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. The excitement was great. Hamilton was given a splendid entertainment and presented with the freedom of the city by the Common Council, " for the remark- able service done by him to the city and the colour by his learning and generous defense of the rights of mankind and the liberty of the press." Thus ended the first and most celebrated libel suit in America.
Since libel suits have been within the control of the jury, as to the law as well as the fact, they have not been quite as interesting to aspiring men and soldiers of fortune as in the early days. As a means of obtaining large sums of money they have long since failed to be a success. 1 Authors like Charles Reade sometimes resort to such suits as an ad- vertisement for a novel, affecting injury at the hand of some critic. Thus they get a poor novel read to a jury, discussed by clever counsel and the case published in the newspapers^ and then the whole object has been accomplished.
Count Johannes, a hair-brained attorney-at-law in New York, who was a sort of monomaniac upon the subject of titles, blood and ancestry, used the courts to vindicate his title of " Count," when the papers had intimated that such a title in this country was of no account. Encouraged by the example of the count, the Cardiff Giant, by its next friend, the showman, has brought suit against the Boston Herald to vindicate its paternit}* and determine whether the giant was chiseled by ] Chicago artists, or the community has been chiseled by the giant.
OBLITERATING THE LANDMARKS. 145
OBLITERATING THE LANDMARKS.
D things pass away, and all things become new. The last wooden building on Superior street is (1874) being razed to the ground to make way for another of those hand- some structures writh which the good taste of our architects have, in the last few years, embellished and adorned our goodly and beautiful city.
When contrasted with the substantial and elegant struct- ures of modern days, the old " City Building " has been to many for a long time an eyesore ; but to a few now living, who were familiar with a former generation of business men, the dismantling and demolition of that venerable old land- mark will awaken a train of pleasant and melancholy reflec- tions of the past. The despised old building was once the pride of the infant city. It was built nearly forty years ago, when Wheeler Bartram was an enterprising man with high hopes of the future greatness of the city ; when Scranton owned the broad and naked " bottom," now docked and wharfed and occupied with the industries of a great com- mercial and manufacturing city ; when Case, Perry, Dodge, Weddell and Scovill owned and lived upon great farms in the country, and Captain Johnson was going down upon the lakes in ships and doing business upon great waters ; when the streets echoed to the tread of James S. Clark, the. mighty man of enterprise and energy and the Mogul of real estate men.
The old City Building was a cotemporary of the two brick buildings on the corners of Ontario and Prospect streets, now alike valuable and venerable for their antiquity, and which, 10
146 OBLITERATING THE LANDMARKS.
for many years, were the only brick buildings ' on Ontario street. Three or four buildings of the same age and class, now or lately standing on Detroit street, near Pearl, were all likewise the result of the high hopes and enthusiasm of the men of '36, of whom James S. Clark was king.
Within the last twenty }Tears the City Building and lot " 79," extending from Superior street across Long, Cham- plain, Michigan and Canal streets and the Ohio canal to the river, have been more especially associated with the names of the late Edmund Clark and Richard Hilliard — one the grave but genial banker of the old Cleveland Insurance Company ; the other for many years esteemed as one of the wisest and most enterprising of business men, and admired as a dignified and stately merchant of the old school. Had Mr. Hilliard's life been spared a few years longer, the old City Building would have long since made way for a structure worthy of his name.
Allusion to the old and famous real estate men of 1836, brings to mind a tale that has been told us by their surviving cotemporaries. It was the sagacious judgment and prophecy of those men, and whose faith was made manifest by their investment upon Ontario and Detroit streets, that those points were destined in time to be choice and valuable busi- ness and trading centres, and the intervening valley was to be the seat of great industries in all the future of the city. They judged well, and were only a little in advance of the age in their investments.
There was, perhaps, in those days some rivalry of enterprise between the two sister cities, but which has long since passed away, and business relations and social intercourse are as that of one great and consolidated city, whose people are solicitous for nothing in the future so much as for some better facilities for daily intercourse — some bridge to that almost impassable gulf which nature has placed in the midst of a people whose aspirations are alike, and whose interests are one and in-
OBLITERATING THE LANDMARKS. 147
separable — that valley and shadow of death to the traveler by night or by day.
The first great public enterprise of the city government should be in the line of utility — in the conserving, and con- solidating the common and mutual interests of the people — and nothing will so much unite and inspire our citizens as that facility which will enable them to pass from plateau to plateau upon a broad way and high level above that dreaded valle}'.
Even at the expense of a million dollars it would be remu- nerative by increased general values, besides being of inestima- ble benefit and convenience to every citizen. To one bare- footed such a sum of course looks large ; but when we con- template that the cost of such a desirable improvement is within the means of man}' of our citizens individually, the enormity of the sum is wonderfulljT lessened. In fact several gentlemen could be named who could build five bridges across that might}' gulf and still preserve their reputation of being " forehanded."
City halls and lake side parks are necessary, and to be desired ; but roads and bridges are the first essential to a full enjoyment by all the people of such necessaries and luxuries. Boulevard Euclid is an inspiration that comes of wealth and travel and cultured taste, intimately associated with the visible charms which nature has so abundantly lavished upon that delightful avenue. But if the city first embarks in carrying coals to Newcastle, or in painting the lily, it will tend to postpone a work of the first necessity.
The work which is destined to effect "a more perfect union " of this people should not be too long delayed. And if this great enterprise could be entrusted to the manage- ment of a board of gentlemen, such as built the water works or manage the sinking fund of the city, the people need not have any fear for squandered money or burdensome taxation.
148 NATIONAL REFORM AND PRIMARY MEETINGS.
NATIONAL REFORM AND PRIMARY MEETINGS.
TN the September number of Old and New (1874) the editor, -*• in several columns devoted to comments upon college com- mencement addresses, seems to approximate somewhat closely towards demonstrating the actual existence of that rather limited and very close corporation, by some heretofore charitably believed to be wholly mythical, which the literary New Yorker has been wont to denominate the Boston Mutual Admiration Society.
If such an institution exists, having its honors of member- ship limited, like the French Academy, to fort}*, it is veiy desirable and quite justifiable, in filling a vacancy from among the fresh graduates of Harvard, that the young man of common circumstances and moderate social consideration, who may " aspire to the honor of being the equal of men of letters," be ignored and the thirty-nine white balls of the sitting members be dropped for the candidate for the vacant chair who inherits the nobler qualifications of ancestry and blood. The pleasant and patronizing member of the Amer- ican Academy of Mutual Admiration deigns to give, in his excellent magazine, the meagre compliment of a dozen lines to Dr. Peabody's elaborate baccalaureate on the tri-lingual inscription on the Cross — Hebrew, Greek, Latin — and to the interesting discourse of Dr. Gould, upon his astronomical labors in South America, the editorial consideration of a less number. Dr. Means' thoughtful paper upon the comparative philosophy and theory of government found in Plato, Comte and Mill with those of Christianit}*, at Bowdoin, is bareh* alluded to ; and General Walker's bold address upon the
NATIONAL REFORM AND PRIMARY MEETINGS. 149
subject of wages, at Amherst, awakens only an admiring smile of three lines. Not so, however, the class oration of young Mr. Richard H. Dana, 3d, to whose commonplace one whole column of extracted paragraphs is given, with a prelim- inar}T flourish reminding the world that the grandfather of the young graduate is the venerable Richard H. Dana, who still lives, " surrounded Iry honor, love and troops of friends"- the same gentleman who fifty years ago retired among the classic shades of Harvard, dignified, but cold to a world that loved " Thanatopsis " more than the " Buccaneers."
If by any possibilit}- the }Toung gentleman shall hereafter be led to question the divine afflatus in the grandfather, he may still find a just and noble aspiration in the reflection, and a high incentive to a future professional career, when he is assured by his friend that he is the son of his father — " who, as an athletic youngster, set the boys of a generation ago crazy by describing the hardships of ' Two Years before the Mast,' and at the same time opened the Golden Gate of San Francisco to the reading world — is pulling loyall}' at his oar, serving the public- and the State in the hard work of a leading lawyer in Boston, and who is just now chairman of the executive committee of overseers of Harvard College."
The extracts given, disclose the burden of Mr. Dana's class oration to be an elaboration of some remarks of Mr. Tom Hughes concerning the duty of men of high culture to take greater interest in public affairs. Mr. Dana bemoans that "it is only too true that too many educated men do hold back from public life ; that they do not attend the polls and nominating meetings as they ought." This startling asser- tion may possiblj* be true as to some of the Southern States and a few remote districts "out West"; but in Cambridge, where this young man resides, and where he is resolved to " attend the polls and nominating meetings" in furtherance of what he calls " a national reform," it does not seem to be the case. Had he not been for the last few years so absorbed in
150 NATIONAL REFORM AND PRIMARY MEETINGS.
the Greek and Roman classics, in his preparation to attend the polls, he might have noticed that Mr. Butler, representa- tive in Congress for the Cambridge district, who is one of the " educated men," a graduate of Bowdoin. is very prompt to attend the nominating meetings, and so is his friend, Collector Simmons, though as to the state of his culture we are not advised ; but we feel sure General Butler would not bestow upon him the light of his saintly countenance, if the Collector did not attend promptly "the polls and the nominating meetings." Then, too, consider another of the educated menr a professor at Dartmouth and a political economist, our servant Senator — — , how he thrives, he lies not, neither
does he steal ; yet Solomon, in his best financial condition, had not so much Credit Mobilier stock and back pay in the vaults of the temple as he. Mr. Dana doubtless takes too gloomy a view of the state of culture in Congress and educa- tion at the polls.
While Mr. Dana has unquestionably inherited very fine tal- ents, and proved himself an excellent student and an honored graduate of the most venerable college in our country, it is nevertheless difficult to observe any such remarkable wisdom in his class performance as to mark him as being superior to a thousand other students who graduate every year. As a sensible gentleman, which, without doubt, he is, he must feel that his admiring friend has given him, in comparison with venerable scholars, an undue amount of space in the editorial columns of the Old and New, making it painfully manifest that with the writer thereof social considerations outweighed the merits of Mr. Dana's literary performance. The subject upon which Mr. Dana discourses has been one of common discussion in the public press, especially since the people became alarmed at the general corruption and lack of fidelity in public servants, incident to the moral evils engendered by the civil war, and particularly since the late congressional investigations and the developments resulting therefrom ;
NATIONAL REFORM AND PRIMARY MEETINGS. 151
while the arguments and suggestions of Mr. Dana are by no means new or superior in thought and style to the thousand and one newspaper articles upon the same subject, nor loy far so elaborate and interesting as Prof. Moses Coit Tyler's papers on the same subject a year or two since in the New York Independent. There is not, it is believed, any diversity of opinion as to the duty of educated men to take an interest in public affairs and to attend the nominating meetings, and if any gentleman in Cambridge has heretofore been indifferent to his duties, he cannot do better than to attend, at an early day, the primary meetings in the Essex congressional district. The opportunity will soon present itself for young Mr. Dana, and all his educated friends, to rebuke Gen. Butler for his sarcastic sneer, on the occasion of a former canvass, when he ignored the young gentleman's father, Richard H. Dana, Jr., as an opposing candidate, who had been nominated by a convention of anti-Butler men composed of the educated, most wealthy and aristocratic Republicans of that famous old district, declaring that the Democratic candidate was his (Butler's) only competitor. The force of the sneer will be appreciated when it is remembered that the number of Democratic voters in that district are hardly worth the counting.
And now that young Mr. Dana has determined his mission to be national reform, and resolved to accomplish it by attending the polls and nominating meetings, starting in life as he does with the happy advantages of education, exalted social position, fortified in his spirit with a just pride that poetry and law are the traditions of his house, nothing will retard his future progress if he will but melt the icebergs in his inherited blood by the infusion of a little warmth, mingle in genuine sympathy and cordiality with the people, and they may place him in the councils of the nation, where they have never yet placed his father, though a civilian of the highest order and the first advocate of the Boston bar since Rufus Choate.
152 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE HAWAIIAN CHANCELLOR.
RECOLLECTIONS OF THE HAWAIIAN CHANCELLOR.
TN the winter of 1847-8, there was a pleasant and genial •*• gentleman, whose home was the United States Hotel in Boston, who was a native of that city, but for several years had been a practicing lawyer in the State of Maine and at one time Speaker of the House of Representatives of that State. He was rather under the medium size, but had a remarkably fine personal presence, dignified, but very kind and friendly in his manners. There was a charm about him on account of his quiet and affable social intercourse. He warmed his feet at the anthracite grate and looked seriously into the bright burning coals as if he saw therein nations, peoples, continents and the islands of the sea, and talked pleasantly of politics and ' the affairs of the world gen- erally. Would the Democrats nominate Cass or Wood- bury ? The Democrats in the Massachusetts Legislature had pronounced for the latter. Would the Whigs nominate Webster or General Ta}rlor, were the common place inquiries of the day, in which he took a thoughtful interest. Some- times Rufus Choate would drop in and hold an animated chat with the vivacious but reflective gentleman, and his sad and sorrowful eyes would dilate and sparkle at some witty remark of his friend, and then he would hasten on to the opening of the court and the trial of some great case. Then the bright little man would come into the Legislative hall and cosily chat with Banks. Boutwell, Burlingame and Wilson, and then off he would go. We met him at the levee of the Speaker of the House, Francis B. Crowningshield, and noted the kindly deference to him b}' Gov. Briggs and Abbott Lawrence, before
RECOLLECTIONS OF THE HAWAIIAN CHANCELLOR. 153
President Taylor had made him Minister to England, and B. W. Crowningshield, the venerable Secretary of the Navy tinder Madison. This marked and attractive personage was Elisha H. Allen, now and for many years the Chancellor of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
One day the news came of the arrival of a Boston ship from the Pacific Ocean, and revealed the discovery of gold at Slitter's Mill in California. Then came the evening paper with the particulars, and Allen was mounted upon the table in the great reading room of the hotel, and read to the densely packed room the strange and startling intelligence of the wonderful discover}'. In a few days the city was active with excited and eager people. Ships were laden at the docks with merchandise for that almost unheard-of coast, even before the county became aroused. Allen became at once a seer, a prophet and an oracle. Instantly he seemed to be perfectly intelligent about the Rocky Mountains, the slopes and valleys of the Pacific coast, and prophesied grand things for that distant region, all of which and more have been fulfilled. He pointed out to us the routes by the Horn, Darien, Tehauntepec and overland by Texas and Santa Fe, and explained how easy it was to go ; told us of the Golden Gate and San Diego, where Rickard H. Dana, Jr., carried hides on his back when he was getting the experience and material for his " Two Years Before the Mast."
While the gold excitement was growing more and more intense, in came a steamer from Liverpool with the exciting intelligence of the fall of the throne of Louis Philippe, his escape and the institution of the French republic with Lamartine as President and Ledru Rollin as the great leader of the people. Allen was again pressed to mount the table and read the news and comments upon the startling events in Paris, which he did with great enthusiasm and spirit.
A few years afterwards we heard of Elisha H. Allen as a lawyer and politician in San Francisco. Still later we had an
154 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE HAWAIIAN CHANCELLOR.
indefinite and indistinct intimation of his presence in Honolulu. Subsequently we heard of him as Attorney Gen- eral or chief legal adviser of the king, and later still Chief Justice and finally Chancellor of the kingdom of Hawaii. We have heard something of his great personal popularity with the king and the people; of his judicial services and his preparation of a code of laws and its adoption by the king and his final promotion to the Chancellorship of the king- dom. From our knowledge and recollection of him we can see how naturally this has all come to pass. He had just the qualifications, the personal qualities and the genial spirit to make a king or an emperor, whether of France or of the Cannibal Islands, freeze to him as a good reliable, honest and genial soul, learned in the law and clear as the sun, and one who sees far into the future of peoples, races and institu- tions. A few months ago the Chancellor arrived at Wash- ington as the diplomatic representative of the Hawaiian king- dom, and now (1874) he is followed by the king himself. What is up we do not know, but doubtless something more in reciprocity and commercial treaties.
REUNION OF THE ORIGINALS. 155
REUNION OF THE ORIGINALS.
" I "HE surviving officers of the Revolution had their society •*• of the Cincinnatus, and the heroes of Bunker Hill, Brandywine and Yorktown were wont to hold their reunions on ever3r succeeding anniversary of the Declaration ; recount their trials and struggles, their deeds of heroism and bravery ; fight over again the old battles, and shouldering the crutch showed how fields were won.
Within more recent memory the veterans of 1812 have had their celebrations and conventions, and told the present gener- ation the story of Lundy's Lane and Chippewa ; of Scott and Brown and McNeil ; of Plattsburg and McDonough ; of Perry and Lake Erie. And now (1874) the surviving remnants of the original Abolitionists, after a lapse of nearly ten years from the close of their great thirty years' conflict with slavery, have recently held a four day's reunion in Chicago, in which hardy, tough, but humane and noble old men with white beards and bald heads, and gentle old ladies in caps and spectacles, have greeted old, long and widely separated comrades and compatriots in the cause, laughed and shed tears of joy together; recounted their early trials and struggles in behalf of humanity and an enslaved race ; sorrowed over the memory of insolent and murderous mobs ; told of the early indifference and opposition of the churches, and the contumely and contempt of the two great political parties for their persons and their cause, and rejoiced in prayer and praise and song for the final triumph of the slave, culminating in the Proclamation of Emancipation.
The occasions are always interesting when old historic
156 REUNION OF THE ORIGINALS.
veterans of hard fought fields, whether soldiers of a war, pioneers of a new country, or the originators of a new code, moral or political, meet to show their scars and rejoice in the victory for the right. The memory of struggles, hardships and personal sacrifices, in the day of triumph, is rather pleasant. The event was one of exceeding interest, attested })y the constant daily attendance of the principal and most intelligent people of the city.
While we have a little lingering regard for the memoiy of "Webster and Choate, Clay and Calhoun, Ewing and Berrien, Silas Wright and Stephen A. Douglas, and other statesmen of the early days of the Republic, we cannot think with some that all of virtue, wisdom and statesmanship was confined to the circle of the old abolitionists. Nevertheless we are not unhappy, and think they are entitled to a jubilee. It seems a little odd to read an account of an abolition convention, where a hundred may have spoken or read a paper, and find not once the names of Garrison, Phillips or Abby Kelley Foster among the participants. Mr. Garrison could not be there, but Oliver Johnson's paper on the Nestor of the aboli- tionists was very readable and interesting. Dr. Edward Beecher's on the martyred Lovejoy and Mr. Birney's on Mr. Bailey, editor of the National Era, were among the best. The paper of A. G. Riddle on Joshua R. Giddings was an admirable one, treating the subject uniquely and quite out of the stereotyped biographical style, drawing not only a vivid picture of the dreaming and thinking youth, chopping in the maple forests of Ohio, milking the cows and turning the grindstone, and suffering all the visitations of a Yankee boy ; but also the brave defender of the right of petition — the •coadjutor of Adams and Hale — the Ajax of the old Congress, and making the history of the Joshua of the Abolitionists hardly less interesting than the story of him before whom Jericho fell and at whose command the sun stood still on Gibeon and the moon in the valley of Ajalon.
REUNION OF THE ORIGINALS.
15T
Now that the great war is over, and the old veterans have passed and are passing away, the asperities engendered of political rivalries and adverse opinions becoming lessened by the departure alike of enemies and friends, such a view and commentary as we find in Mr. Riddle's tribute will tend to a. higher and more generous appreciation of the life and labors of the old Abolition statesman of the Reserve.
There are links in the chain of history. What if one had been broken ? Trivial circumstances have sometimes choked up the stream of histor}' and changed the current of the per- petually flowing river. How differently history would have been written, had the multitude of Jerusalem demanded the release of other than Barabbas ! But for beef and ale in the stomach of Elizabeth, the death warrant of Mary would not have been signed. Had no hostile gun been fired on Fort Sumter, the old Slavery and Abolition conflict would be as vigorous and "irrepressible" now as in the days of Kansas and Lecompton. No " bull against the comet " would have been promulgated, and the veterans of the thirt}^ years' war against slavery would have had no such reunion as of late, and no historical relics to exhibit in the rusty and broken manacles of the slave. Virtue has its reward. Prayer is good, but even in the conflict of ages between freedom and slavery the Lord is on the side of the heaviest battalions.
158 OUR GUESTS OF THE S^NGERFEST.
OUR GUESTS OF THE S^ENGERFEST.
A \7 HO are they and whence did they come? The great * Caesar knew their ancestors, when he met the Nervii in the gloomy forests of Belgia, when the well equipped legions of Rome would have lost their eagles but for the personal prowess of the world's great command- er. He knew them as allied soldiers at Pharsalia, when the renowned Batavian cavalry decided the fortunes of the field, making his rival an exile in Egypt and himself emperor and heir of the world. They are the descendants of the heroes of the Nibelungenlied, the Homer of the Teutonic race. They are the inheritors of the valor of Conrad, and the Hohen- zollern — of Barbarossa, whose blood, impetuous as the Berserker,
"Would not halt At Milan's ashes sown with salt."
They are the men of the needle gun,
" Who held the Frank in grip of steel, 'Twixt red Sedan and Vionville.
They came from the dales and valleys of the Schwarz mountains and the sources of the Rhine — from the slopes of the Carpathians and the tributaries of the upper Danube ; from the Waal and the Scheldt ; from the stormy coasts of the Baltic and the lowlands of the Zuyder Zee. They are the representatives of all the kingdoms, principalities and States of the German empire, where they were once the deni- zens of walled cities, gray with age and older than the ruined castles of the Rhine, where the arts and sciences flourished,
OUR GUESTS OF THE SyENGERFEST. 159
and types were set, and books were printed, when America was yet an undiscovered forest. All are readers, many are scholars, graduates of universities that were renowned four hundred years before the humble foundations of Harvard and Yale were laid. Among them are clergymen, lawyers, physi- cians, historians, Egyptologists — readers of the cuniform in- scriptions— and to whom the Vedas and the Sanskrit are as readable as the vernacular of the fatherland ; and the subtle philosophies of Kant, Spinoza and Hegel are only light read- ing.
These educated, reflecting Germans, imbued with ideas of individuality and personal independence, despising the arti- ficial distinctions and shams engrafted upon society and government in the fatherland, could not deferentially salute their intellectual inferiors — the petty kings and princes, inheritors of government antl feudal castles — whom Castelar so aptly characterizes as "relics of the Middle Ages, ignesfatui in the graveA'ard of history," and are now free citizens of America, distributed over this broad land and taking just and equal rank in social life, and as freemen, politicians and statesmen under the Constitution. With the art and taste cultivated in the schools of Germany they are by education universally adepts in vocal and instrumental music, and have brought with them not only the sad, weird strains of Auber and the rich elaborations of the French Rossini, but the more wonderful and elaborate combinations of the Mendelssohns, the Von Webers and Beethovens — the world's great German masters of musical composition. Being here, and the music in them, it must come out. No German can die with all his music in him.
It is a noble virtue and a highly commendable quality of the German heart and mind, that, while devoted to the land of their adoption, they keep in loved remembrance the father- land ; dwelling upon her history ; rejoicing with pride in her .advancement and her victories ; cherishing her poetr}^ and
160 OUR GUESTS OF THE S^NGERFEST.
legendary lore, and still delighting in the weird folk-lore of the Harz Mountains — Kyffhaeuser — and the ravens flitting around the old imperial knight in the crystal cave of Rossen- beard.
We have reasons, historical as well as personal, to give a generous welcome and greeting to our guests to-day. Prussia disciplined the army of the Revolution by her Von Steuben. The friendly and liberal Netherlander gave an asylum to the English exiles and early colonists, who found homes and friends for }~ears in the cities of the Dikes, Ley den, Amster- dam, Rotterdam and Delft Haven ; and many merchants and burghers of those renowned old cities came also, and New York was made famous for her Knickerbockers, Ten Broecks, Van Rensselaers and Van Dams ; and the Highlands of the beautiful Hudson, classical in the legend of Rip Van Winkle !
A generous government and -people extends a welcome alike to every nation, kindred and tongue beyond the Atlantic. But to-day, here and now (1874), Cleveland puts on her best attire, hangs out her banners, opens her heart, and extends her hand to her German guests, and to the sweet singers of the Nineteenth North American Saengerfest..
TRUTH AT LAST AND BY A WOMAN. 161
TRUTH AT LAST AND BY A WOMAN.
T T AIL historic truth ! For eighteen years the cohorts of " political falsehood, mounted upon cantankerous nags, booted and spurred, with visors of brass and breastplates of boar-skins, have trampled and crushed to the earth honest historic truth. Occasionally an unmailed knight of the press has sallied out and made a dash for the rescue, but only to be unhorsed and trampled in the dust. Falsehood in tatters of malignity, leprous and on crutches, will travel faster and reach more believing ears than truth in robes of light on electric wires.
It is sad to contemplate the vast number of people, other- wise not only intelligent, but whose reading is careful and whose minds are critical, who believe with the sincerity with which the Christian believes in the advent and the resurrec- tion, that the late Chief Justice Taney personally held the opinion, and judicially declared in the case of Dred Scott as being law, that the negro race " had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." It has ever seemed to be con- ceded by his cotemporaries and by history, that Judge Taney was not only not a monster in his nature, nor a tyrant in his character and disposition ; but as a lawyer, a judge and a man he possessed the same noble attributes and high sense of personal and professional honor characteristic of his great cotemporaries of the American bar ; the patience, gentleness, judicial fairness and learning of his renowned predecessor, Marshall ; as religiously conscientious as Ellsworth, and as pure in his private and official life as the late lamented Chase, 11
162 TRUTH AT LAST AND BY A WOMAN.
while he was as much (and no more) a political abolitionist as the present able but modest and unpretentious Chief Justice Waite.
In the last decade of the thirty years' conflict between freedom and slavery, so white was the heat, so aroused and persistent was the antagonism, that a judicial recognition of the constitution and laws which had tolerated and maintained slavery for more than two generations, sustained by the arguments of great lawyers from the days of Prudence Crandall to Anthony Burns, by statesmen of all the early political parties ; which never before had made a ripple of public agitation when a human being had been consigned to slavery under its provisions, and for which there was no remed}' save the impossible one of amending the constitution or obliterating the institutions of slavery by revolution and war. Judge Taney's name was suddenly loaded with oppro- brium, and an avenging spirit followed him into the grave and blackened his memory. Qualities of heart and mind were attributed to him which he never possessed, and a truth in history which he stated in illustration of the sentiment England and every civilized nation of Europe entertained more than a century before, regarding an unfortunate race, and man's inhumanity to man in every age and country, was cruelty and wantonly bruited over the land as the personal and judicial sentiments of the Chief Justice and his pro- nounced law in the case. When " Christian statesmen " have been admonished of their disingenuousness, as they have been a thousand times, the result has been nothing but a reiteration of the perverted history. Perhaps the most remarkable instance of this unmanly distortion of truth was when Mr. Sumner made his angry philippic in opposition to the resolution for placing the marble bust of the Chief Justice in its appropriate nitch in the Supreme Court room — the only instance probabl}' in which his intensity of feeling so far overcame his cultured mind and critical regard for historical
TRUTH AT LAST AND BY A WOMAN. 163
exactness as to suffer him to indorse by the utterance of his lips the stale perversions of the stump.
And now, after the Chief Justice has lain in his grave for ten years, comes a noble woman from out the ranks of those who have ever execrated his memory, and reads the words of the Dred Scott decision and speaks the truth concerning — "What did the Chief Justice say ?" This woman is Gail Hamilton, who disdains political or clerical quibbles, and who often confounds orthodox brethren with uncrackable nuts. She speaks through the New York Independent, whose seven editorial divines and innumerable D. D.'s and scholarly contributors have done quite as much to unjustly prejudice the public mind against the living, and the memory of the dead judge as all the other metropolitan journals put togeth- er. Although we have quoted the language of the court so many times, it seems necessary to do so now to make the judgment and comments of the able and truthful woman more fully appreciated. The words are these :
" It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence and when the Con- stitution of the United States was framed and adopted. But the public history of every European .nation displaj's it in a manner too plain to be mistaken. They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. This opinion was at
that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race. And in no nation was this opinion
more firmly fixed or more uniformly acted upon than by the English Government and English people. * * * * The
164 TRUTH AT LAST AND BY A WOMAN.
opinion thus entertained and acted upon in England was naturally impressed upon the colonies the}T founded on this side of the Atlantic. We refer to these historical facts for the purpose of showing the fixed opinions concerning that race upon which the statesmen of that da}r spoke and acted." Gail Hamilton comments thereon as follows : "Do not the heartlessness, the recklessness, the indiffer- ence to human and to constitutional rights, to civil and moral laws, which were supposed to characterize the wicked Chief Justice and to inspire his decision — do they not faint grad- uall}' and disappear before these simple, deliberate, and far from heartless words ? We find that he is not pronouncing his opinion as to the present status of the negro ; but present- ing what was his status a hundred years ago and what had been his status a hundred years before. So far from asserting that the negro has now no rights which the white man is bound to respect, he implies a change of opinion so great, that it is difficult now for us even to believe that the contrary opinion ever prevailed. So far from cruelly sealing the doom of these hopeless Pariahs, he speaks of it repeatedly with sensibility and compassion. I do not say that his decisions were not swayed by passion or prejudice, or power ; but the language is calm and judicial, and the negro is never referred to but in such terms of respectful pity, sympathy, and recog- nition of manhood as befit the dignity of the supreme bench. I think it could have been only the high wrought, yes, and the justly, effectively and divinely* wrought indignation of the hour and the cause which wrested these words from their real significance and turned them not only into a mighty engine of war, but also into a weapon destructive of the peace and fair fame of their original fabricator. Slavery was a crime and an evil too great to be exaggerated. No wrath against it could wax overhot ; yet sometimes the flame leaped out and devoured other than its meet and proper fuel.
|n Describing the condition of the
TRUTH AT LAST AND BY A WOMAN. 165
negro at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, I cannot see that the Chief Justice pronounced or meant to pronounce his doom for all future ages, or to view with entire satisfac- tion his fate in the present age. In the great conflict then upon us he took the losing side. He failed to see through a glass darkly what other men saw clearly. Words that to others seemed luminous and elastic, seemed to him gloomy and iron bound. But there is nothing to show that he did this from dishonorable motives or in an inhuman manner. It is sad enough that his name is recorded among those who gave to slavery its last support, and gave it while the sun of freedom was risen so high that every figure was brought out into full view, and every action was visible to a watching and resolute world. It is less sad than unjust that he should bear the reproach of words that he did not speak and senti- ments that he did not feel."
It has been said that this unjustifiable and unmanly perversion of the words of the court was first made by Mr. Seward to intensify the " irrepressible conflict." Whether this ma}^ or may not be true, the editor of his works has had the weakness to assert that the court " expressed the opinion that free colored persons whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves 'had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.' " The Chief Justice felt keenly the wrong done him by this allegation, the fabrication of which he attributed to Mr. Seward, and is understood to have said if Mr. Seward were elected President he would never administer to him the oath of office. Judge Taney was not a person of jealous disposition, or one who talked at random, and he doubtless knew very well who it was that either in public speech or in private conversation first inflicted the great injustice. Concerning which Gail Hamilton says : " If this were true, it would reflect no discredit on the Chief Justice ; but on the contrary, it indicates a sensibility which we at the North have been little inclined to attribute to him."
16G TRUTH AT LAST AND BY A WOMAN.
The end of the nineteenth century and the centennial of the nation are near at hand. Statesmen of a generation are mostly gone. The great dominant party has filled its mission and is disintegrating. Old men are genial and mellow. Truth prevails, and Gail Hamilton is the goddess of history.
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN BEER GARDENS. 167
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN BEER GARDENS.
TT is claimed by those who decipher and translate the hiero- gtyphics upon the walls, and monoliths scattered among the ruins of antiquit}', that evidence exists indicating that the Egyptians had knowledge of and practiced the art of making lager beer, such as is known and used in Europe and America at the present day. If the Champolions and Belzonis are correct, it was doubtless a valuable and comforting beverage to the army of architects, contractors and laborers employed }>y Sesostris in erecting the pyramids, chiseling the sphinx, digging the canals and building the labyrinths. It is not im- possible that Joseph might have furnished the maltsters and brewers of On and Pelusium with grain, of which at one time he had the monopoly, and controlled the market during a por- tion of his Premiership. Possib^ the brothers who came down from Hebron to purchase grain for the eastern market, and were surprised to find that the person who made a corner in grain was their brother, drank lager beer with Joseph drawn from the deep cool vaults in the king's palace, and likely out of the same cup that was mischievously put into lit- tle Ben's sack. It is believed that Joseph's personal graces and great popularity, in a measure, were due to the circumstance that he drank nothing stronger than lager beer, but having, through sheer literan' modest}', declined to write a treatise elucidating the popular game of draw poker at the solicitation of Mrs. General Potiphar, the court influence was withdrawn from him, and he failed of a third term. The next adminis- tration knew him not. They wouldn't even "give the old man a chance."
168 ANCIENT EGYPTIAN BEER GARDENS.
When Moses was a boy, the pet of Miss Pharaoh, lager was the popular court drink. Rameses the Great always laid in his stock from the breweries of Thebes and Karnak, as it was deemed a better article on account of the purity of the upper over the lower Nile water. The long and sanguinary war be- tween Memphis and Thebes, not unlikely grew out of an at- tempt of the brewers of the Delta to impose a prohibitory tariff on the upper Nile beer. A compromise of the beer question was eventually effected, and the two dynasties were consoli- dated.
The supposed temple at Karnak, whose ruins are still the wonder of the world, is now understood to have been the royal lager beer hall, and the Colossi and avenues of sphinxes but the embellishments of the grandest "garden" of anti- quit}^. This hall and garden, antedating by thousands of years the great-grandfather of the German Gambrinus, would prob- ably to-day have been intact and in as good a state of preser- vation as the p3rramids, had it not been for old Cambyses, the great Persian destroyer. He destroyed every malt house and brewery throughout the land, caused real estate to feel the effect of his Adair law, and thus fulfilled the prophetic denun- ciations, and a "cloud" came over Egypt. The brewers of the Nile fled to the Danube and the Rhine, and their descend- ants made beer for Attila the Hun and his veterans, and Bar- barossa and the berserkers.
The social custom of drinking the mild and genial lager is of great antiquity among the German people, from the em- peror to the peasantln times of peace, and from Von Moltke to the drummer boy in times of war. The great guns who thundered theology in the Church drank a little lager for the stomach's sake. Calvin moderated his harsh and dogmatic spirit occasionally by a slight draft of Geneva beer, but his ill treatment of Servetus and his gloomy forebodings respecting the salvation of infants prevailed continually over its cheer- ing influences. Martin Luther stuck to his lager, and was
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN BEER GARDENS. 169
greatly sustained thereby in his great conflict against the old ecclesiastical powers, and he was encouraged and comforted through the Reformation by men and women whose daily beverage was the national cordial.
The old antipathies to the German habits and customs which formerl}' prevailed in this country are giving way by degrees, and clergymen and philanthropists now testify their preferences for the social customs and habits of the German people over those of the whisky drinking native. Mr. Joseph Hatton, the best of English writers on societ}r and institutions in the United States, in his recent book entitled, " To-day in America, " in a chapter on Chicago, where he attended the great race in which "Maud S." eclipsed "St. Julian," says: "Wine, lager beer and Apollinaris water were the liquors mostly consumed at the bar on the stand. On an English course brandy and whisk}' would have been the chief drinks, modified by a little soda water. I have often said that lager beer is the salvation of America from a temperance point of view. I did not see a drunken man at the Chicago races. Our constant consumption of spirits and strong beer in Eng- land gives us an overwhelming percentage of drunkenness on holiday occasions compared with similar affairs in the United States. I am often told the difference belongs to climatic con- ditions. I do not believe it. America used to intoxicate herself quite as much as England before lager beer became the popular and general drink of the country." The Rev. Robert Collyer discoures pleasantly and approvingly to the Germans of Chicago upon the German American gardens, and the last article which Gerritt Smith wrote was for the Chicago Advance, in which he took strong ground against prohibiting German lager beer gardens. He said : " Let me here remark that, whether lager be or be not intoxicating, I would not have the government array itself against German beer gar- dens." The reason he gave was that it was a social custom and enjoyment of the Germans.
170 MENTOR AND THE MECCA OF THE MORMONS.
MENTOR AND THE MECCA OF THE MORMONS.
"^PO avoid the monotonous inanities of a desolate and dreary Sunday, incident to the life of the undomesticated Clevelander, I made on a Saturday in June, 1875, a pilgrim- age to the richest and loveliest farming town in Northern Ohio. Taking the Lake Shore train east about half past four in the afternoon, without any very definite idea of where I should go, or where I should get off, I gave the go-by to such well- known and pleasant stations as Glenville, Colamer, Euclid and Willoughby, and might have gone on to the old Giddings district had not the genial conductor, about three miles west of Painesville, opened the door and shouted "Mentor!" at which every brakeman on the train echoed the same shiboleth, and indicated to me, by a very significant look and gesture, that it was his intention to let me off, which he did, at that pleasant little station. Finding myself standing on a plat- form without any political planks in it, and having no hand- book to instruct me which was the best hotel, I sought shel- ter at the hospitable home of a sturdy farmer, whose name was, as I then supposed, the only one I knew in the town which I had then entered for the first time in my life. I found the latch string on the outside, and the master of a substantial brick mansion, embowered among stately pines, sycamores and locusts, and the lord of a hundred and twenty- live acres, unsurpassed for quality of soil and unmatched for the beauty of its undulations, clear streams, scattered trees of elm, butternut and walnut, extensive orchards, and a twenty- acre park of primeval forest trees — welcomed us with some- thing like the spirit of a Rhoderick I)hu :
MENTOR AND THE MECCA OF THE MORMONS. 171
" Come sit ye down and with us share A farmer's couch and a farmer's fare."
Upwards of fifty acres of William Heisley's farm is covered with wheat, r}Te, oats, corn and potatoes, all remarkably ad- vanced and flourishing for the season. Two span of horses, a large flock of sheep with lambs, and a herd of sixteen choice- bred heifers, together with "Bismarck" the bull, Prince of New Jersey, constitute the -elements from which the enter- prising proprietor is destined to win fame and fortune as the breeder of " noble bloods."
Other Cleveland gentlemen have spied out the beauty of the homes and the fatness of the Mentor farms. Col. G-. F. Lewis, George H. Kidney and others have lately purchased very rich looking places. Dr. J. P. Robison is the lord of many acres here, cheerful and neighborly, and has great de- light in that his once proteye, General James A. Garfield, is his neighbor. While all the highways, byways, and cross streets in this wonderful farming town seem to show equally fine farms and tasteful homes, yet the main avenue through the town, from east to west, more especially reminds one of a continuation of our own Euclid avenue. This avenue is a sort of continuous village, and the historical interest of the town concentrates along the old turnpike which our New England fathers traveled, and by which they settled when from fifty to seventy years ago they came to "The 'Hio."
Before De Witt Clinton and the Erie canal, before canvas was spread to the breeze above Niagara, before Fulton's in- vention enlivened the waters of Lake Erie with floating pal- aces, and the harbors of the lakes were alive with screw pro- pellers and sidewheel steamers, the yellow coach of four and six sped along this old highway, and the crack of the coach- man's whip and blast from his bugle awakened more echoes and more women and children to. enthusiasm and delight than the scream of the whistle and the thunderous roll of the fiery giant that to-day plunges along the railway a few rods
172 MENTOR AND THE MECCA OF THE MORMONS.
distant from the ancient thoroughfare. Here the old veterans lived that voted for Adams and Jefferson and Madison, heard the thunder of Perry's guns, and rejoiced in the results of the war of 1812. Boys born on this fine old street found graves at Monterey, Vera Cruz and Chapultepec in 1846, and scores of them lie in unrecognized but honored graves, from the Beautiful river to the sea, slain to save their country.
Here, too, in 1835, the zealous and fiery G-randison Newell organized his platoon of kindred spirits, and upon the thresh- old of a Christian church stoned Orson Pratt, the disciple of the prophet of Mormon and priest of the church of Latter Day Saints, of Kirtland. Here Joseph, whose surname was Smith, and Hirum, his brother, were wont to be seen, and the scrip and shin-plasters, wild-cat and red-dog — the greenbacks of the First Holy National Bank of Mormon — were wont to circulate, under misgivings and protests, till the fullness of time, when all mismanaged banks, sacred and profane alike, must burst.
We spoke with at least two elderly gentlemen who were present, and, perhaps, who held the garments of those who stoned the prophets of Mormon with second-hand eggs. But ideas, faith — wise or foolish — will not down at stones or eggs. Pharaoh's chariot lies in the Red Sea. The dens of the wild beasts are choked up and the arches of the Coliseum have crumbled, but the Church still lives. The platoon of Mentor egg sharpshooters are mostly in their graves, but the Mor- mons are a nation unto themselves, and successfully clef}* the government and laws of the United States.
Being only four miles from the first temple of the Latter Day Saints, I could not forego the convenient opportunity to visit the Kirtland temple. So about four o'clock Sunday the handsome bays were harnessed, and in half an hour we had glided over the smooth hill roads to one of the most romantic villages I have ever seen in Ohio. If I do not accept the philosophy or cherish the faith of the Latter Da}r Saints, I
MENTOR AND THE MECCA OF THE MORMONS. 173
certainly admire the good taste in the selection of the site of their first temple. The building itself is very large, but by no means handsome. It seems to be an architectural cross between an old Connecticut Presbyterian meeting house and a Rhode Island cotton factory. It stands upon a high bluff on the west bank of a branch of the Chagrin river, facing the rising sun. It overlooks other lesser mounts and deep val- leys, like those around Jerusalem. The principal one, lying on the east, is as delightful as the vale of Avoca, where the bright waters meet. It is the valley of Jehoshaphat to the modern temple builders, and the beautiful stream that mean- ders through its fine meadows is to this valley what the sweet gliding Kidron is in the legends of the dark-eyed and scat- tered children of Judah.
The shades of a lovely evening were approaching, the " low- ing herd were winding o'er the lea, and drowsy tinklings lulled the distant fold," and we took our departure from this serene and quiet place.
The good people of Kirtland, whose hearts are cheered and gladdened by a dearer and more ancient faith, should, never- theless, cherish this old temple as a land mark in the proces- sions of the generations. Preserve it. Utilize it as a town house, and three thousand years hence, when the English lan- guage shall be laid beside the Latin, Greek and Sanskrit as dead, learned professors and enthusiastic students will come to the ruins of the temple of Mormon to try to divine some- thing of the old faith, and to decipher and translate the legend and inscription upon the tablet above its portals.
174 EXPOSITION OF MARITAL PRODUCTS.
EXPOSITION OF MARITAL PRODUCTS.
JV/T OTHERS and Fathers, Ladies and Gentlemen : More •*'*'*• than twenty years ago I attended the first National Fair ever held in the United States. It was at Springfield, Mass., and was under the management of a gentleman well known in this city, Mr. George M. Atwater. Assembled there were the Governors of many States, and it was not a baby show either. Among those who were introduced and made brief addresses on the day set apart for such exercises was the genial and witty Governor Colby, of New Hampshire. He said as he had been introduced as a Governor he was much embarrassed, and felt it his duty to explain that in his State they did not elect their ablest men for Governors ; they sent such, he said, to Congress, and took only very ordinary men for Governors. I feel inclined to explain to this audience that the managers of this beautiful exposition had made strenuous efforts to obtain one of three prominent and circum- spect bachelors of this city to perform the pleasant service to which I have been invited, but they all, of one accord, began to make excuse. The first, a physician, had a hypochondriac patient that required a change of treatment, and he could not come. The second had a viaduct contract with " mill- ions in it," which "he must needs attend to and fulfill, and he begged to be excused. The third and last had been elected to Congress "with all that that implies," and he therefore could not come. So the managers have been com- pelled to place in this position one less adapted to the requirements of the occasion.
To me this scene is peasant, but it inspires me with no-
EXPOSITION OP MARITAL PRODUCTS. 175-
mirth or humor, but rather soberness and reflection, and hence I anticipate your disappointment as I feel the managers' one great mistake. I rejoice that the people have a way of punishing wealthy and accomplished bachelors who neglect the one great social duty. It is severe, and it is often hard for them to bear. If our indignation is terribly aroused we set him up as a candidate for the Presidency, and then knock him down with a Returning Board. If our prejudices are not very strong on account of his many redeeming qualities, we send him to Congress for two years, and if he returns without having married some beautiful blonde Countess of Coupons in the Treasury Department, we will probably send him back for two years more.
That pleasant and affectionate poet, Dr. Holland, has writ- ten many lines which have touched the hearts of mothers in every land. Among them we find his sweetest of Christmas carols :
" There is a song in the air ! There is a star in the sky ! , There is a mother's deep praj^er,
And a baby's low cry !" *#*•*#
Then there is
" Cheek or chin, knuckle or knee, Where shall the baby's dimple be?" •fc # •& * * *
And
"Who can tell what, a baby thinks? Who can follow the gossamer links
By which the Manakin feels his way Out from the shore of the great unknown, Blind and wailing and alone,
Into the light of day?''
But a more sublime mystery than the possible thought of an infant is that touching life itself, the spirit which, for
176 EXPOSITION OF MARITAL PRODUCTS.
the want of more definite terms, has been beautifully expressed as the breath of God. It was a mystery in the valley of the Euphrates ; it was a mystery when the beautiful Aspasia listened to the wisdom of Socrates ; it is a mystery to the savans of modern days, and will continue a mystery more mysterious than the oscillations of the ocean, when time shall lapse, and man shall be a fossil on its shore. The secret and invisible forces in nature, evety day being revealed in the progress of science, still fall short of a revelation of the principle of life. The wonderful forces of electricit}T, as manifested in the telegraph, have not, it is said, been yet half revealed. We have felt the power of a woman's tear, but until recently told by a distinguished citizen and telegraph projector, we did not know that there was power in a woman's tear sufficient to force an electric current through the Atlantic cable strong enough to communicate a message — and yet the principle of life is unexplained. If I was inclined to idolatry I would bow m}Tself in adoration before the noble woman who has passed through the great crisis, and has risked her life to bestow happiness upon man. To those noble matrons who have so proudly and affectionately contributed to the success of this fascinating and delightful exhibition of the babies of the period, I tender my profoundest respect, and assure them that each devoted mother may feel the pride of Cornelia, the daughter of Scipio Africanus, who, when the rich Campanian lad}^ asked to inspect her jewels, pointed to her children, saying, " These are my jewels and ornaments."
THE PAST AND THE FUTURE. 177
THE PAST AND THE FUTURE.
EWAKD, Chase, Sumner — the great triumvirs — are dead. The party they created and led is apparently disintegrat- ing and dissolving, while the name and fame of each is still fresh in our memories ; while the garlands are unwithered on their caskets, and before the first green grass has been clipped on their graves. What is man ? What is fame, and what are parties ? They but make up the processions of the generations, and the pall of oblivion soon covers them all.
It seems but a brief time since, when a lad, we were puzzled and perplexed' by the bitter and acrimonious spirit engendered in families and pervading school districts and country neigh- borhoods through political anti-masonry. The breezes that blew from the State of New York more than forty years ago, wafted the name of William H. Seward over the green hills of New England. The names of his celebrated coadjutors, Francis Granger, whose stately for/m and silver gray locks in later years were not unfamiliar upon the streets of Cleveland, and Thurlow Weed, were noised abroad upon the same winds. Then they were ambitious young politicans, bound to make unto themselves a name, to raise the dead Morgan or breathe the breath of life into a new party.
We have known something in later years of the strange and senseless bitterness and animosit3T, which too often mars the honorable rivalry of partisans and statesmen, but nothing ever held a candle to anti-masonry for downright neighbor- hood quarrels and social " unpleasantness." But the tree bore golden apples for those who planted it. It proved the stepping-stone to statesmanship for Mr. Seward. It made 12
178 THE PAST AND THE FUTURK.
Granger a cabinet minister, and Weed a celebrated journalist. Wealth also followed fast upon the heels of fame and over- took them all.
Twenty years after our juvenile happiness was, for a season, destroyed by these early anti-masonic statesmen, before they had become "silver grays," we heard in Boston the first mutterings which eventually culminated in first the division, and then the dissolution of the proud and historical Whig party. The wedges that rifted the rock were such words as " conscience " and " cotton," bandied between two eminent gentlemen of that party, Otis P. Lord and Edward L. Keyes, in a discussion in the Massachusetts Legislature in 1848. The Whig party was then in the zenith of its splendor. Webster had not pronounced a presidential nomination " not fit to be made ;" Choate had not then written " glittering generalities " nor carried the flag and "kept step to the music of the Union " in the Buchanan campaign ; Clay, Crittenden, Mangum, Berrien, Ewing and Corwin, with others alike eminent, were contributing each his part to make the Senate of the United States the most renowned deliberative body in the world.
These innocent words, "conscience" and "cotton," in a single legislative session augmented in force and significance till they became, between members of the Whig party, the keenest and most pungent terms of irony and ridicule. About this time a dozen gentlemen of the " conscience " wing invited an equal number of members of the humble Democratic minority to meet Charles Sumner at a private supper at George Young's, the Delmonico's of Boston. Then and there, for the first time in political history, did men of opposite parties meet socialty, exchange sentiments and compare views looking to ultimate joint political action in the State.
Mr. Sumner's distinctions at that time were only social and scholarly. Politically he was only an earnest and pronounced enemy to slavery. Around the table sat Sumner, Boutwell,
THE PAST AND THE FUTURE. 179
Banks, Burlingame, Wilson, Andrew, Win. S. Robinson, Edward L. Keyes and Frank W. Bird, the latter the promoter of the celebrated Bird Club of later years.
The impression the writer obtained at that time of Mr. Sumner was that of an earnest and honest man, who felt that the slavery question overshadowed all other subjects. He would compromise and waive the whole category of political questions save one. Democrats must repent and be saved from the one great national sin. His subsequent career as a statesman illustrated his singleness and sincerity of purpose: The seed sown around that social board, at first no larger than a mustard seed, grew to a tree, and politicians and statesmen lodged in the branches thereof. It resulted at least in making the political fortunes of Boutwell, Banks and Wilson, and in less than three }^ears placed Sumner in the vacant chair of Webster, and ultimately made Burlingame Minister to China, and afterwards Chinese Embassador to the four Western Powers.
Afterwards we were not unfamiliar with the brilliant career of Ohio's distinguished Senator and great financial secreta^ during the war — and especially did we appreciate his prestige and power in the well remembered campaign when he can- vassed the State for governor. It was a severe and hotly contested struggle, fought against one who was his peer in such a field, and from whom the future Chief Justice barely escaped with the flag.
Had one man, whom a generous and forgiving party have since honored with the highest marks of their confidence in later years, made but a single speech for the Democratic candidate for governor in 1857, but which he neglected to do, the biographies of many men would be differently written.
But what of the future ? What are the questions which are to develop the statesmen yet to come ? The old ones are mostly in their graves. Fame is fickle and satisfies the soul of none. Mrs. Hemans, in addressing the shade of Fame,
180 THE PAST AND THE FUTURE.
said : "Where shall the lone one turn or flee ? — Not unto theer not to thee !"
" If thus that gifted one could sing,
While bending o'er her country's lyre, When Fame had breathed on every string,
And changed it to a golden wire, That quivered 'neath her gentlest touch,
And glittered in her fancy's beams, Then Fame no suerdon is for such,
And fills no place in statesman's dreams."
HUMOR AND ITS USES. 181
HUMOR AND ITS USES.
" A RTEMUS Ward" commenced his career as a humorist '**' in the columns of the Plain Dealer. We well remember the first little blind note which he wrote, ostensibly from Pittsburgh, but actually in the editorial sanctum, saying to the editor that he was on his way to Cleveland with his " show of snaix and moral wax works," and requesting the editor of the Plain Dealer to give him a good notice in its •columns, adding that he would have all his show bills printed at its establishment, and further holding out the glittering and tickling inducement to its proprietor — " You tickle me, and I will scratch your back." This odd little letter was the seed from which grew all that series of letters, so grave and earnest, so eccentric, facetious and rollicking, which enlivened the columns of the Plain Dealer for several years and made their author a celebrity at home, and gave him a pleasant recognition, not onty among the wits and humorists, but the litterateurs, publicists and statesmen of England.
The name of Charles F. Browne is handsomely embalmed, in elaborate papers in the great London Quarterlies, as hold- ing the highest place among American humorists. Grave and stately writers upon science and philosophy like Mill, Darwin and Tyndall, enliven their pages with quaint humor which had its birth in the sparkling brain of our facetious countryman. Lecturers in the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford give piquancy and attractiveness to learned discourses by illustrations drawn from the same source. Disraeli, Derby and Russell have often paid the tribute of their appreciation of American humor in parliamentary dis-
182 HUMOR AND ITS USES.
cussions, involving the budget or the government of India, bjr their own facetious sallies, modestly covered by an " as Artemus Ward would say."
We all remember those acrimonious and exacting political years just prior to the war, when "Bleeding Kansas," John " Candlebox " and the Lecompton Constitution were the daily newspaper themes. It was in those years that Mr. Ward was showing his " snaix and great moral wax works " through the country, and making himself the protot}rpe of Barnum, adding letters and literature to his attractive calling. It was also the years when many people were greatly interested in the phenomena of spiritual manifestations, and the wonderful works wrought through the medium of the Fox girls, and when many good people believed, as they still do, that a mediumistic telegraph had been established between the living and the dead, between time and eternity, and were annoyed by a class of long haired vagabond philosophers who brought the subject into disrepute by associating it with free love doctrines and practices. Artemus gave such attention to this class of characters, "who devoured honest people's beef barrels," that they soon ceased to " investigate " in regions where the Plain Dealer was read.
Perhaps the first realizing sense which the public took of the practical value of Artemus' ridicule, was when he " exhibited " at Berlin Heights, where a society of reputed free lovers most did congregate, and where the fat lady of some three hundred pounds tonnage rushed to embrace him at the door of his tent, when he was taking tickets, declaring that she had at last found her " affinity " for whom she had yearned all her life. Mr. Ward repulsed her, saying that she had made a mistake, that he was a married man and that his wife, Betsy Jane, was living in Baldwinsville, Indiana, and that he was the father of " twins, twins, madam — and I am happy to say they look like me." She cried out, asking if his bowels had never yearned for her in the long years, and
HUMOR AND ITS USES. 183
he coldly replied, " Not a bowel, not a yearn." The Berlin Heights letter was regarded as one of his best. It did more to make the "affinity" nonsense ridiculous than the argu- ments of a thousand logicians or the combined influence of a legion of doctors of divinity.
Mr. Ward made an imaginary visit to Montreal when the Prince of Wales was there, and was admitted to an audience. They became mutually interested in each other. The show- man was so frank as to say to the Prince, " Albert Edward, you soot me." He gave the Prince a free pass to see the snaix and intimated that he should compliment his mother, the Queen, and her husband in the same way when he visited the old country with his moral wax works. Inquired earnestly as to the state of his mother's health, and gave the Prince a nudge with his elbow and asked him if "the old man continued to take his ale regular."
In the first year of the war Artemus attempted to make a tour of the Confederacy. He was so pronounced in his Union sentiments, that the Confederates undertook to break up his show and confiscate his property. Anticipating the possibility of some such trouble, Mr. Ward had taken the precaution and incurred the expense, very judiciously, of adding to his zoological department a "young but very healthy tiger" — the same "little cuss" that bit off the show- man's thumb. When the fire-eaters began to tear down the tent, Artemus Ward drew the bars of the cage and let loose the tiger. There was a sudden retreat, and not in very good order. After about half an hour the tiger returned, like the dove to the Ark, " with a well selected assortment of seats of pantaloons in his mouth." The result was, according to the showman, " they did not confisticate him muchly."
Mr. Ward's patriotic expressions touching the rebellion contain very keen irony, and they were universally appre- ciated at the time, for they happily illustrated a kind of humbug patriotism which was rather too familiar during the
184 HUMOR AND ITS USES.
war, and his utterances have since been flung into the faces of selfish and pretended patriots in Europe. He announced that he was so determined in favor of putting down the Rebellion, that he was willing to sacrifice all his wife's rela- tions*
When the showman found the " Head Center " at Delmoni- "co's at midnight, indulging in cold duck and a bottle of green seal, and proposed to the patriot that if there was another bottle of green seal in the house, he had no objection to suffer with him in the cause of down-trodden Ireland, the bubble burst and servant girls ceased to contribute of their earnings to support valiant dead-beats who proposed to sink the British navy with a single sloop.
Whether Artemus Ward had any plan or purpose in direct- ing his sallies of wit and ridicule, or whether it so happened merely from the circumstances that natural and common topics presented a vulnerable and ludicrous side, which his facetious disposition could not refrain from noting in his journalistic career, is not very clear ; but certainty it is true that his ever overflowing humor had the merit of utility. It made his readers laugh, which is good in itself, and made glaringly apparent many humbugs and follies, that otherwise might have had a longer and more successful career.
The character of showman which he assumed was unique ; he imitated no predecessor in that character. He was enabled thereby to remove himself from the sameness and common place of the office, and " exhibit " in Canada, Berlin Heights, or Mississippi in the same week, spend Sunday "in the bosom " of his imaginary family at Baldwinsville, Indiana, adore Betsey Jane, dandle the " twins," and come up to the Plain Dealer fresh and bright for the next week's work.
Artemus Ward's books had the misfortune of being cheaply and poorly illustrated by some one who seemed to have no just appreciation of the wit and humor of the writer, or conception of the character of the shrewd and jolly showman.
HUMOR AND ITS USES. 185
The best delineation of the exhibitor of moral wax works was a portrait drawn by Mr. George Hoyt some fifteen years ago, who was then, as now, connected with the Plain Dealer, and which for many years graced its sanctum. It should have a place in the historical rooms beside the skull of the mastodon or the Rosetta stone. The same gentleman made illustrations complete for the first book, which, had they not unfortunately been lost on their way to New York, would have given "Artemus Ward His Book" an artistic interest, and our pleasant artist who sketched them a reputation, in that line, as meritorious as that of Nast.
There was much more in the mind of Charles F. Browne than wit and humor. He could write and talk seriously and well: After he had been drawn into that rich burlesque •" lecturing," which proved to be quite as taking and much more profitable, he remarked to the writer, after the great ovation that was given him at the Academy of Music, that .he- felt a sadness and sort of personal humiliation, when he reflected that one who had no claims upon the public regard for services in the higher walks of literature or art, and who had only made an effort in the performance of his daily journalistic duties, to amuse the people and make them cheerful, should be greeted and honored, not only at his own home in Cleveland, but everywhere else, with audiences as refined and cultured, and vastly more numerous, than those that delighted to listen to the classic Everett or the graceful Phillips.
Neither war, pestilence nor famine can eradicate our love for fun and genial humor, but it should be so utilized and directed as to make it contribute to the alleviation of the world's three great calamities, war, pestilence, and famine ; and therefore, perhaps, our fun-loving friends will not deem it obtrusive to suggest that when another eight hundred "healthy" young gentlemen are prompted to make up the .generous purse of four hundred dollars for a "wooden
186 HUMOR AND ITS USES.
lecture," they so utilize and direct the proceeds that it may find its way into the treasury of the noble Bethel, the reticule of the Dorcas ladies or the cabins of the suffering Nebraska, pioneers.
CUYAHOGA IN CONGRESS. 187
CUYAHOGA IN CONGRESS.
T70RTY years ago John W. Allen was elected the first rep- resentative in Congress resident in this count}*, a politi- cal friend and admirer of Clay and Webster in the days of their great achievements, and of the splendor of their renown. The honor was conferred not only for his ability, but in recog- nition of his enterprise as a pioneer citizen in all the interests, industries and railroad enterprises through which the infant city hoped for prosperit3r, and which, by reason of his labors, eventually resulted.
The memorable campaign of 1840 brought out as the next representative the learned and brilliant advocate, Sherlock J. Andrews, a true representative then, as to-day, of a people who appreciate intellectual gifts, and admire the possessor of Christian graces.
Edward Wade came to the front in 1854, when the exigen- cies of the times cemented the union of the anti-slavery men, and the disbanded and ruptured elements of the Whig party with the free-soil party, in opposition to the repeal of the Missouri compromise resolutions of 1820, and the Kansas and Nebraska acts. He was a man of more than ordinary ability, and was honored for his devotion to the cause of personal lib- erty and human rights.
Albert Gr. Riddle entered Congress at the opening of the civil war in 1861. A young and accomplished advocate, ar- dent in his nature, honest in purpose, friendly and kind. Left us at the end of his term for a field where able lawyers are wont to congregate, and where he has won competency
188 CUYAHOGA IN CONGRESS.
.and distinction among the Cushings and the Blacks, and holds what he has won.
The demands of the district, in the most gloomy period of the rebellion, called for a jurist and statesman in the person of Rufus P. Spalding. How ably and satisfactorily he served the people may be found in scanning the votes of his repeated reflections, and in the folios of the Congressional record. Learned in the law, and imbued with the principles of the ^arly statesmen of the republic, he was often equal to the ris- ing above party considerations ; and with the sternness of an autocrat and the dignity of a gentleman, he could always com- mand or lead.
Richard C. Parsons was elected in 1872. He had been carefully educated and trained for political life, and possessed, in an unusual degree, the qualifications necessary for success as a member of the House of Representatives. He exercised a wide personal and political influence in that body, and his term of service was of the most valuable character to his con- stituents. To his well directed labors Cleveland owes her magnificent harbor of refuge, the establishment of the life saving service, the transfer of the Marine Hospital to her citi- zens, and other important legislation in the advancement of her interests. He was unanimously renominated in the fall of 1874, but with his entire part}' ticket in the district was de- feated. While his political opponents contributed with zeal- ous energy to the defeat of his party, and Mr. Parsons as its congressional candidate, they were, nevertheless, not unmind- ful of his eminent public services and personal merits, his social amenities and cultivated tastes.
Two years ago (1874) the district, by a majority of nearly three thousand, called Henry B. Payne to a seat in Congress. In that act they sought and obtained ability of the first order, and integrity unquestioned. No man who gave a vote for him has had occasion for regret. Forty years of intellectual life and active duties as a citizen have made him known of all
CUYAHOGA IN CONGRESS. 189*
men at home. How well the judgment of the district has been approved by the best representatives at the National Capital can best be told by those who have had observation of the estimate in which he was there held. From the moment of taking his seat, to the close of his term, no other in the House or Senate has commanded a more marked and distin- guished personal recognition. The first men of the nation were daily gathered around him, seeking his opinions and ex- changing civilities.
Amos Townsend succeeded to the representation in 1876, and is now, 1882, serving his third term in. Congress. Mr. Townsend is . a business man of practical sense and good judgment, and by reason thereof, together with gentlemanly deportment, unassuming manners, and faithful attention to the interests of his district, has been able to retain, by large majorities, prestige with and the continued confidence and support of his party. The appropriations which he has suc- ceeded in securing for harbor improvements, and the enlarge- ment of the Custom House and Post Office, are doubtless the most permanent and manifest monuments of his respectable, and honorable public career.
190 LAFAYETTE AND THE HEROES OF 1812.
LAFAYETTE AND THE HEROES OF 1812.
" The summer day was near its close, When thousands caught the wild huzza,
And rushed upon their crimson foes At Lundy's Lane and Chippewa.
When Scott and Brown their laurels gained, McNiel, as bright a wreath was thine —
And aged men shall tell again,
Around the winter evening's fire, How flashed their steel at Lundy's Lane
Above the waves of blood and ire."
A MONG the many personal and historical incidents which "**• Mr. Thurlow Weed has revived and illustrated b}T his contributions to the press in recent years, none have served so much to awaken the dim and shadowy remembrances of men and women now on the down hill of life, and at the same time to give to the younger generation a vivid and pleasing reality of the history of the past, than the account given by him, some year or two since, of the visit of LaFayette to this country after a lapse of more than forty years from the time when, in his early manhood, he left his delightful chateau at La Grange, and his beautiful young wife, to aid our grand- fathers in establishing Constitutional liberty in this land.
Mr. Weed, then a young man, was one of the committee of reception for New York, among wThom were Morgan Lewis, Nicholas Fish, Philip Van Cortland, Simon De Witt, Henry A. Livingston, Philip Hamilton and others.
General LaFayette reached New York on the 15th of August,
LAFAYETTE AND THE HEROES OF 1812. 191
1824, in the packet ship Cadmus, accompanied by his son, George Washington LaFa}Tette, and his secretary.
No person ever landed on our shores, and probably never will again, who awakened in the hearts of the people such in- tense and generous emotions as did LaFayette. A series of honors and festivities of the metropolis culminated in a grand fete at Castle Garden on the evening of his departure for Albany.
The steamer James Kent, chartered by the cit}~, received the distinguished guest to convey him up the beautiful Hud- son. No steamer ever bore in her cabins, and on her decks, so many historical names of the Empire State and so many of the elite of the city as on that occasion. Among the ladies were Mrs. General Lewis, granddaughter of General Wash- ington, Mrs. Hamilton, widow of Alexander Hamilton and daughter of General Philip Schuyler, and Miss Frances Wright, of England.
"Welcome, LaFayette !" was the shout of greeting from the people lining the banks the whole distance. A dinner was given him at Clermont, the manor house of Chancellor Liv- ingston, of Revolutionar}^ memory, the home of General Mor- gan Lewis. In the evening there was a grand ball, which was opened by General LaFa3'ette, who no less reverentially, than gracefully led out the venerable and blind widow of Gen- eral Montgomery — who fell in the assault at Quebec in 1775 — amid the wildest enthusiasm of all present. Here beautiful women had for partners the Livingstons, the Van Nesses, the Suydams, and the Van Rensselaers, and graceful and charming young ladies, the flower of the classic Hudson, whirled in the dance with Colonel Huger, of South Carolina, who rescued LaFayette from his prison at Olmutz, and famous old lawyers like Elisha Williams and Ambrose L. Jordan.
But the grand military reception of LaFayette was at West Point. Here the General was received at the wharf by Col- onel Thayer, and escorted by the cadets to his marquee, where
192 LAFAYETTE AND THE HEROES OF 1812.
they paid him the marching salute, after which he proceeded to the marquee of Generals Brown and Scott, where he was presented to the ladies and partook of refreshments. Then followed dinner in the mess room of the cadets. Colonel Thaj^er and Major Worth presided at either end of the table. General LaFayette and General Scott were seated on the right, and General Brown and Colonel Varick on the left of the President. Over the head of La Fayette was a large eagle, holding in his beak a streamer bearing the legend, "Septem- ber 6, 1777," and " Yorktown," grasped by his talons.
"At the review of the cadets," says Mr. Weed, " Generals Brown and Scott, in full uniform, with tall plumes in their chapeaux, stood by General La Fayfette. The three, each tow- ering more than six feet in height, made a magnificent tab- leau."
And now, after a lapse of fifty years, not only that group of stalwart chieftans, but the giant McNiel, "kin of the Scot- tish Bruce," the compeer of Brown and Scott, and perhaps all of that grand assemblage have gone down to the tomb, leav- ing Mr. Weed alone to tell the tale to the present generation.
While the pen of Mr. Weed discloses the outward semblance of the historical characters of that day. the pen of one of the heroes of history, even when emplo}'ed in writing a fraternal note, cannot fail to be of interest to the public who at this time seek to know something of the domestic and personal history of the heroes of 1776 and of 1812.
The writer is permitted, though with family delicacy and reluctance, to contribute an item from the pen of Major Gen- eral Brown, being a letter addressed to his brother, Colonel Joseph W. Brown, of Brownsville, the family seat, in Jefferson county, N. Y., in 1824, a few months before the arrival of La Fayette. Col. Brown, to whom the letter is addressed, is now (1876) 82 years old, and a resident of Cleveland. Fifty years have cancelled the political privacy of the note. It is written in pencil, as was the custom of Gen. Brown, except in official
LAFAYETTE AND THE HEROES OF 1812. 193
papers, and is as bright and distinct as if written yesterday, so carefully has it been preserved. It is as follows :
H. Q. W., Feb. llth, 1824.
My Dear Brother : I am at a loss to know what to say on the subject of your emigration to the West. It is to me a try- ing question, so much so, that I believe I had better say noth- ing. Mr. Kirby has given you my ideas, better, perhaps, than I could do it nryself.
The judge has advised me of your taking possession of my house. As he found it best to leave it, I am content with the arrangement. I onl}- ask, and I do it with much confidence, that you will, during your stay, endeavor to preserve the premises. I cannot say that I shall be there again, but be my person where it ma}T, my mind will very often pass over those grounds. The lilac bushes near the office were designed for my yard, and as they are a hardy bush, and to my taste a very handsome one, I should be pleased to hear that they were growing as. I had designed.
The Congressional caucus will not display much strength — not more than seventy members will attend. This caucus is considered as hostile to the Administration of the country. All the other candidates are agreed in principle, and a little time will now determine which of them will be preferred by those who agree with them in principle. There is no matter of chance in this business. The people will, I trust in God, have their choice. The rank and file I have always found honest, and after long reflection, as in the case of the choice of a President, very, very safe. If they should ultimately settle down upon General Jackson, the country would be safe, as the Government would be very wisely administered by the best men it contained. Pennsylvania is divided between Cal- houn and Jackson, and the man that gains that State, for rea- sons I cannot now explain, will find himself standing upon very solid ground, and if New York does not hold up Mr. 13
194 LAFAYETTE AND THE HEROES OF 1812.
Adams, he must fall and leave the champion of Pennsylvania master of the field.
Remember, I write in confidence on these subjects. Re- member that I think of my mother with deep solicitude — take care of her so far as it may depend upon you.
Present my regards to your wife and all that is yours, and Believe me ever yours,
Jac. Brown. Col. J. Brown.
Judge Kirby alluded to was the son of the Middletown Kirby, compiler of the earliest decisions of tli3 Connecticut Courts. Kirby's Reports are among the antiquities of Ameri- can law.
The letter, as will be noted, was written at the militar}" head-quarters at Washington, in the last year of the second term of President Monroe, "the era of good feeling," before the revival of political acrimony engendered in after years, and when society at the national capital was presided over by the handsome and accomplished Mrs. Monroe, and the pres- ence of Mrs. Hamilton and Mrs. Madison were still not unfa- miliar in the gallery of the Senate chamber.
We confess to admiration for the- military hero, Who is men- tally and morally so nobly constituted that the calamities of war and the carnage of the battle-Held oblterate no filial sen- timent nor dampen the ardor of his solicitude for a mother ; who cherishes the old homestead, and hopes for the continued flowering and fragrance of the lihic planted there by his own hand.
THE STAFF OF STEEL. 195
THE STAFF OF STEEL*
HP HE banner that a hundred years
* Has waved above our good ship's keel, Uplield by oak or mast of pine,
Now proudly floats from staff of steel.
Another hundred years shall pass
And test the Nation's power and weal ;
But still that emblem shall endure And wave above that staff of steel.
The boy to-day shall grow a man,
And children's children pride shall feel.
As year by year they see the flag Above that stately staff of steel.
Soon Lakeview, Woodland, Riverside,
Will keep the graves where kindred kneel, —
Of all who now salute the stars
That wave above that staff of steel.
And in remoter ages still,
The Antiquary's worthy zeal Will note the tombs and mural stones
Of those who gave that staff of steel.
* The graceful flag-staff of Bessemer steel, the first of the kind ever erected, was the gift of the late lamented Henry Chisholm, on behalf of the Cleveland Rolling Mill Co. It was placed in position in Monumental Park under the auspices of David Price and James Pannel, and from which, with due ceremonies, Mayor N. P. Payne unfurled the natioriel emblem, July 4th, 1876.
196 REFLECTIONS.
REFLECTIONS,
A MIDST the public sorrow for the death of Judge Samuel **• Starkweather, July 5, 1876, and sympathy for his family, there is withal a pleasant reflection, bordering upon satisfac- tion, that his life had been so bounteously lengthened out that his appreciating eye was permitted to witness the auspicious dawn and happy close of the nation's great Centennial day.
When, on the early morning of the Fourth, with the rising sun breaking through the mists, casting the rainbow of prom- ise on the Western sky, Mayor Nathan Perry Payne unfurled from the new steel flag-staff the emblem of a hundred years, how little was it thought that the next succeeding day he would drop that flag, for the first time in the opening century,, to a half mast, in honor of the memory of an official prede- cessor.
In the opening of this new century, as in the beginning of a new year, doubtless there are but few who have not made the mental inquiiy — Who of us will be first called to lie down in death ? The ancient record is familiar to all — " Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." But the time and the order of our going it is best, doubtless, that it is unwritten and unannounced. Of the late departed, whose life had been long and honored of his fellow men, although we lament him, yet we are inclined to cherish the thought that his death, the first among us at the opening of the second century of the country, which he had loved and served so well, was but a distinction conferred — a promotion to a higher sphere and more exalted service.
RIVERSIDE DEDICATORY. 197
RIVERSIDE DEDICATORY.
O TANDING upon this field, now and forever to be conse- crated to the dead, and to be adorned and made attractive for the living, we are inclined to search the records of the past for an example.
It is pleasing to find, in the history of man, an early and touching instance of that forethought and taste which impelled the Father of the Faithful to select and purchase the field of Machpelah, with the trees and the cave, as the place for the burial of his dead and the resting-place of his posterity. " Bury me not, I pray thee," said Jacob, " bury me not in Eg}rpt, but I will lie with my fathers. And thou shalt carry me out of Eg}^pt and bury me in their burying- place. There they buried Abraham, and Sarah, his wife ; there they buried Isaac, and Rebecca, his wife, and there I buried Leah."
These are but natural expressions of human feeling ; instinct, a spiritual impulse, surpassing belief and disdaining question. It is a sentiment possessed bty every nation, tribe and human being. Love of country and to be buried with our kindred are the ruling passions and the last expressed •desires of the human soul.
A few years since, a young man, with his wife and little two year old boy, left the green hills of New England to make their home upon the great prairie of Illinois. One night the Angel of Death hovered over the new home, and spread his sable mantle over the child. Where they should make his grave was a sad question. The grave of one little child upon the boundless prairie would be loneliness itself — a flower
198 RIVERSIDE DEDICATORY.
dropt in the middle of the ocean. Besides they were not permanently settled, and could not brook the thought of forsaking the grave of their child. The spiritual impulse came to their relief. Taking up the little coffin, they jour- neyed back to New England and buried their first-born beside the graves of the grandfather and grandmother, in the old churchyard. Then, with saddened but peaceful hearts, they returned, gathered up the little garments and playthings, to be cherished as sorrowful mementos, and made their new home beyond the Mississippi.
Who shall scoff at the nations that inherit, in common with ours, one of the noblest impulses of the human heart ? Let the bones of Joseph be carried up out of Egypt ; let the Chinaman return to the tomb of his ancestors in the valleys of the great rivers ; let the dead student from Japan be tenderly carried back to rest under the shadow of the Peerless Mountain, and let the children of America hold in sacred remembrance and veneration the fields and sepulchres where their forefathers and kindred sleep.
In the presence of those here assembled it would be super- fluous to dwell upon the features of attractive loveliness of this field for the place of sepulchre, or to commend the enlight- ened judgment and admirable taste of the gentlemen of the association who selected and purchased it, and under whose charge this important enterprise now is ; for, in my judgment,, it requires no stretch of the imagination to conceive that upon that third day of the creation, when the waters were gathered together unto one place and the dry land appeared, and Grod saw that it was good, the appreciating eye of Deity, looking out from the windows of heaven, first rested upon the landscape of Riverside.
A plateau overlooking a winding river, in a valley hollowed out in remote ages by the surges of an inland sea ; ravines which were once estuaries, but now woody dells, with copious springs for lakelets and fountains, and a rock of wonderful
RIVERSIDE DEDICATORY. 199
proportions, but foreign to its present bed, having migrated hither from its home in the Arctic mountains when Time was young — in the day when "God stood and measured the earth, and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow."
There are sermons in stones to those who can read them. Oh, if that granite boulder, standing solitary and alone in the valley, could be endowed with the gift and power of utter- ance— could rise up and cry out — the mystery of creation would be solved. The elder Herschel, when asked by his son what, in his opinion, was the oldest thing in the world, picked up a pebble, saying, " There, my child, is the oldest of all the things that I certainly know." When visitors shall get bewildered in the windings and turnings in the ravines of Riverside, and shall come upon the great boulder to which allusion is here made, they may know thereby that they are hard by the chapel on the plateau — in the Dell of the Rock. .
This delightful abode of the dead will in all coming time be anticipated by the living with cheerful resignation, and all who hope to rest here will be inspired to so live toward man and God that, when the summons comes, each will lie down in death " as one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him and lies down to pleasant dreams."
Probably all great cities have some special points of attraction, either of parks, avenues or cemeteries. Cleveland is favored in all, but in none wJll there be in all time so much of individual and municipal pride as in Lakeview and River- side. It is no disparagement to their colleagues and coad- jutors to say that J. H. Wade and J. M. Curtiss are especially recognized as the projectors of the respective enterprises, and for their forethought and cultured taste, generations to come will honor their memory.
It is among the sadly pleasant memories of my life that I saw the Old Man Eloquent laid in his granite vault at Quincy; that I have stood at the tomb of Webster by the side of the:
200 RIVERSIDE DEDICATORY.
great ocean which he loved so well ; have lingered among the primeval trees at Mount Auburn which shade the mortal remains of the matchless Choate ; have lamented Douglas while standing by his ashes at Cottage Grove ; and have dropped a S3Tmpathetic tear upon the grave of Lincoln in the heart of the great prairie ; but among all the cherished places of the dead I know of none where the aspects of nature combine in greater variety or present more exquisite beauties than your own chosen Riverside.
In expressing our admiration of that modern taste mani- fested in adorning the homes of the dead, we should not forget our kindred who sleep in the cheerless village church}Tard, or on the barren and neglected knoll by the country waj'side. They are intimately associated with the earliest sorrows of childhood and the bereavements of maturer years. They are sacred as places consecrated to our early dead — shrines to which we make pilgrimages in after years, when all in the old neighborhood have forgotten us.
The scholar may revisit his Alma plater in the venerable halls of Yale or in the classic shades of Harvard ; he may strive to awaken youthful associations with Livy and Virgil ; he may read anew ^Escliylus and Xenophon, and reflect upon the pages of Thucydides ; but the sacred stone of the Caaba. the Mecca of the heart, lies further back, in the dear associa- tions connected with the lonely and >neglected graveyard, where the forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
MEMORIAL TREE PLANTING. 201
MEMORIAL TREE PLANTING.
A large number of citizens who had been assigned places in the several groups and on the avenue in Riverside, for the planting of trees, but who could not for various reasons be present on the occa- sion of Gov. Hayes' visit, assembled, Nov. 27, 1876, of their own motion and without previous announcement, and performed that pleasant service. Among them were Messrs. Harvey Rice, J. H. Wade, Joseph Turney, S. T. Everett, John Tod, William Edwards, J. C. Weideman, Rev. J. C. White, and G. H. Foster.
The first tree planted was Mr. J, H. Wade's, on the right of the eastern terminus of the avenue, and that of J. M. Curtiss directly opposite, being planted by the respective gentlemen. On the com- pletion of this ceremony the President, Mr. Barber, called upon F. T. Wallace, Esq., to explain the purpose and design of the Association in the position of these two trees. — [Cleveland Leader.]
TV/I R, Wallace said, " I will state so briefly as not to embar- rass or hinder in the work before us, that in the planting of these two trees at the eastern terminus of this broad and beautiful avenue the tasteful gentlemen of the Association seek to represent, in a degree, what the sculptor might more manifestly express to the common eye in marble. If emblem- ized by statues instead of trees, the legend on the pedestal on the left might read :
" Riverside, introducing the Nestor of Lakeview to the denizens of the avenue."
It is sought in this ceremony to typify and perpetuate the mutual interests and kindly relations existing between two kindred institutions.
The tree on the right represents the older institution — the grandeur and glory of Lakeview — and will be recognized and known in all coming time as the " Wade Tree."
202 MEMORIAL TREE PLANTING.^
The tree upon the left represents one who bears the same relation to the younger institution, with its bright prospects and hopes, and will be known as the " Curtiss Tree."
In planting the tree on the right, the Riverside Association deem it fitting to express their especial pleasure that a tree should be planted in these grounds and upon this avenue b}' a citizen who is recognized, above all others, as the father of Lakeview, and the beautifier and adorner of the parks and public grounds of our city. The man whose public recog- nition is that of one of the great telegraphic quadrilateral of this continent and the world, embraced in the names of Morse, Cornell, Wade and Field.
To Jephthah H. Wade more than to any man, living or dead, is due the great network of telegraph wires spreading ' over this continent and reaching to the Golden Gate. He surveyed the inhospitable coast of Alaska to Behring Strait. He induced the Czar of Russia to co-operate with him in survey- ing the dreary coasts of Kamtschatka and the Valley of the Amoor River in Eastern Asia, for telegraphic communication with America and St. Petersburg, to be utilized in the event of the impracticability of the then contemplated Atlantic cable to which the energies of Field were directed, and only retired when that great wonder was achieved.
When that good, gray head, which has withstood the storms of many winters, shall bow in death, and shall be laid to rest in his own beautiful Lakeview, the telegraph in San Francisco, St. Petersburg and Calcutta, will send its click in sympathetic response to the sorrows of the Riverside Association, and for the inestimable loss sustained by neighbors and friends, and to the municipality which he honored and of which he was- the pride.
THE DEAD CHILDREN. 203
THE DEAD CHILDREN.
T T is but a few years since that the members of every house- hold in the land scanned with expectant anxiety the tele- graphic columns of the press for the minute details of battles along the Mississippi, beyond the Potomac, in the Wilderness, and upon the high places of the Sunny South. The total of the slain in the hundred battles made wives widows, and chil- dren fatherless, in every town, parish and city in the United States. Yet so great were the country's demands, and so high the resolve of those who fell, and no less those who mourned a husband or a father, that domestic grief was, in a, degree, assuaged, and consolation found in patriotic devotion and the public honors paid the dead.
As distance enhances the beauties of the landscape, so the remoteness of a foreign war deadens the public sensibilities to its horrors and calamities. Of the dead and wounded in the icy gorges of the Balkan Mountains and at Plevna, we hardly give a thought. We only look to ascertain who has won in the bloody contest. Scarcely a thought, much less is a tear bestowed upon the wife and child of the dead Osmanlian, nor do we realize the sorrows of the Russian household high up in the long shadows of the Arctic circle, or the sad lamenta- tions of the Cossack widow and her children on the bleak plains of Astrachan and the Ukraine.
But it is the calamities of common life which touch the heart with deepest grief, and no event of late has aroused so much of sympathy and sorrow as the fatal event which befell the toiling women and children in the Barclay street toy fac- tory, New York. The Christmas season of 1877 will be sad-
"204 THE DEAD CHILDREN.
dened by the reflections of every child in the country that nearly two hundred persons, mostly little girls and boys, who were toiling in the great factory, night and day, to earn their own subsistence, and probably also that of an impoverished father and mother, should be crushed and burned to death, and that, too, while working to make other children happy in the coming holidays.
Industry is a necessity for all, and good even for children in a suitable place and in a moderate degree ; but the packing of them in great five-story buildings, with steam engines in the basement, is to subject them to too great hazard of life and limb.
When in the early morning we meet a man with a tin pail on his way to his daily task, we feel a thankfulness that he has something to do. When the next is a young girl, tidily but thinly clad, drawing her frail mantle closer around her to keep out the cold wind, making her way to the store, shop or factory, it is hard to tell which sentiment prevails ; whether gladness that she has the opportunity to work, or sadness that her own and her family necessities drive her out into the too early and frosty morning air.
But it is when we see the little boy or girl, the mere child, €ompelled to tread and toil in the great mills and factories, rung in at six in the morning and rung out at six at night, subjected to cheerless and hopeless toil, with overseers to the right of them, overseers to the left of them, steam engines under them rattling and thundering, our spirit revolts, and we deplore the fact that the inhumanit}' of some men makes countless children mourn.
LIVINGSTONE STANLEY.
205
LIVINGSTONE — STANLEY.
"\ 7[ THEN Livingstone had been lost to the world for six * ^ years in Equatorial Africa, reported and believed even by Sir Roderick Murchinson and the London Geographical So- ciety to be dead, it was reserved to the enterprise of an American journal to seek the lost traveler, and, if alive, to supply his possible needs. This was accomplished through the brave and intrepid Stanley. No higher testimonial of the magnificence of his achievement could have been bestowed upon him, as a commissioner of the press, than was un- wittingly conferred by a disbelief for a time, even in the most intelligent circles, both in his narrative and its possibilities. Time, however, justified all his statements. Livingstone de- termined to remain two years longer to finish the exploration and find, if possible, the fountains of the Nile, well known to the Egyptian and the Greek when Herodotus wrote, but afterwards lost to the student of geography for two thousand years.
Stanley was the last American or English friend seen by Livingstone, and he died just upon the eve of his triumph, doubtless with blessings on his lips for Stanley, and hoping for his ultimate return to take up and carry on the struggle in the jungles, and finally to win the conquest of the ages.
No sooner was the death of the great explorer ascertained than Stanley, under the patronage of the New York Herald and the London Telegraph, was " on " to the Fountains. Now he has just been greeted in Rome for the light he has shed upon a subject which once occupied the thoughts of her em- perors ; for that which Nero once sent his centurions in search,.
206 LIVINGSTONE STANLEY.
but which they sought in vain ; for the newly discovered fountains of the Nile which Julius Caesar said he would will- ingly lay down the sword if he could only have the glory of their discovery. But it has been reserved to Stanley to reap the honors once coveted by the Imperial Caesars, while Paris and London are awaiting to confer upon the Joshua of mod- ern discovery the rewards which, but for his death, would have been bestowed upon Livingstone, the Moses of the Upper Nile.
A MARMION OF THE NILE. 207
A MARMION OF THE NILE.
OIR Roderick's* dead — and yet awhile ^ One seeks the sources of the Nile, Beyond where Speke and Baker led, Whom Science mourned as lover dead, To drink the triumph of the press At the fountains of Herodotus.
.By lone N}~anza's waters deep The bold explorer yet may sleep ; And when a thousand years expire, And Afric's muse shall wake the lyre, And sing- a nation great and free, From Orient wave to Western sea ; And legends weird shall then recite Of the primeval Troglodite ; And gentle eyes with tears shall start For the slave boy with the broken heart ; f When the elm that guards St. Fillan's spring No more at Beltane buds shall bring, And border wars remembered not, And Marmion shall be forgot, Then will the cry, "On, Stanley, on!" Be " the last words " of Livingstone.
*Murchison.
tDr. Livingstone's letter to Mr. Bennett: "They (slave captives) evidently die of broken-heartedness. I saw others perish, particularly a very fine boy ten or twelve years of age. When asked where he felt ill, he put his hand correctly and exactly over his heart. He was kindly earned, and, as he breathed out his soul, was laid gently by the side of the path.
208 VIADUCT REFLECTIONS.
VIADUCT REFLECTIONS.
PHE interest with which I have watched the progress of the grand structure, whose completion is now celebrated, has vivified my consciousness of the reality that it has been given unto us to live in a culminating age.
We have seen the bubbling teakettle of Watt assume the form and habiliments of the locomotive and speed from London to Edinburg. We have seen it traverse the American continent from the Bay of Fundy to the Golden Gate. We have seen the fieiy giant whiz over Europe and plunge through the heart of Mont Cenis. We have watched its progress for five hundred miles along the western bank of the Nile, destined to find its ultimate station at the fountains of Herodotus.
We have become so familiarized to modern discoveries since Layard uncovered Nineveh, forty years ago, and carried the winged bulls which guarded the portals of the temples and palaces of Ninus to the British Museum, that we fail to be astonished when Cesnola opens up buried Kittim and brings to our shores from ancient Cyprus the treasures of Phoenician art.
So surfeited have become our antiquarian and aesthetic tastes, that we are almost as indifferent to the fact that the palace of Priam has been found upon the site of ancient Troy, or that a hundred men are to-day delving with pick and spade among the prostrate and buried columns and Corinthian capitals of the temple of Diana of the Ephesians, as we are to the announcement of a new silver mine in Nevada, or the opening up of a hundred barrel well in the oil regions.
VIADUCT REFLECTIONS. 209
We are dazed and bewildered when the tablets of the Assyrian library are recovered, and the cuniform inscriptions are translated by Rawlinson and George Smith, to find that the Hebrew record of the deluge is but the transcription of a record of a legend still more Oriental, antedating both Moses and Abraham by thousands of j^ears.
Babylonian bricks, stamped with the trade mark of Nebu- chadnezzar, brought home (not in their hats) by learned and accomplished Oriental travelers,, awaken but momentary reflections. Tiles, mosaics from the ruins of Shushan, the palace, over which Ahasuerus strode, awaken no slumbering emotions, though once graced by the touch of the sandals of Esther. Incredulous we are possibly to the startling enuncia- tion that Schliemann has recovered the sword and shield of Agamemnon, and proved the once mythical hero of the Homeric tale as truly an historical character as Csesarr Napoleon, Wellington or Grant.
Within our memory the lightning which Franklin seduced from the clouds has been harnessed by Morse for the service of man, and for more than thirty years has been driven by Cornell, our own Wade, and Cyrus W. Field over continents and under oceans, and is yet the fleetest nag ever put upon the course.
The possibilities of engineering and triumphs of the engineer have been great in all ages, and the lofty and expanding arches of the Cleveland Viaduct attest the science and skill of our own engineers in a work which has no supe- rior of its kind.
It is fitting that the completion of this great work should be celebrated, and the names of such as have been prominently identified with the enterprise be perpetuated in our public journals, to be read not only now, but so long as the English language shall endure.
How interesting it would be on this occasion if we had a copy of the Memphian Morning Herald, containing an account 14
210 VIADUCT REFLECTIONS.
of that sublime celebration on the completion of the great pyramid — when Cheops was " turned over " to the Pharaoh by the contractor ; to learn the names of the architect and engineer ; to read the address of the Mayor of Memphis, and get a few statistics of its cost, and a definite statement of its purposes by the editor-in-chief.
How delightful would be a copy of the Theban Morning Leader, containing the ceremonies at the unveiling of the statue of Memnon ; the completion of the avenue of colossal Sphinxes leading to the great temple at Karnak, together with a report of the inauguration, at Aboo Simbel, of the six Sitting Colossi, sixty feet in stature, sculptured in the moun- tain of rock facing the Nile, including an interview, on the spot, of Rameses the Great, by its commissioner, touching his desires or expectations for a third term.
How instructive to the students of history, had there been preserved in the vaults of the Tabularium the earlier consec- utive volumes of the Roman Plain Dealer, established, doubtless, in the reign of Tarquin the Proud ; what light it would shed upon the venerable temple of Jupiter and the Forum ; what knowledge we should get of the debates in council between the South and Northsiders concerning the bridges of the Tiber and the toll ordinances ; how fascinating to read therein the triumphal return of the consuls and emperors with their legions, loaded down with the spoons and spoils of subjugated provinces ; or of the military display on the completion of the Coliseum ; the banquet in the evening and the speech of the editor ; the completion of the Appian Way, or the arched aqueducts across the Campagna, and from the springs in the hills of Janiculum for the supply of the Eternal City. All this, and much more, would be found in the columns of that enterprising journal had it survived the fall of the empire.
So will it be in ages to conie an agreeable retrospect, when
VIADUCT REFLECTIONS. 211
the pages of our now living journals shall be consulted for a history of the happy event which we now and here celebrate.
And now, what of the future of the lofty arches and pon- derous masonry of the Cleveland Viaduct ? How long will it endure ? These are questions, not of immediate importance to us, but only incitives to reflection concerning the eternity of the future as of the past.
It will remain intact and perfect for the service of many generations, undisturbed by the elements, if only earthquakes shall deal gently with it, and until the next glacial period set down in the calendar of the mathematician and astronomer at about a million of years hence. If more exactness of time is demanded, I refer all inquiring minds to Cleveland's emi- nent mathematician, to whom the Mecanique Celeste of Laplace is attractive reading, and whose name is familiar to the astronomers of Europe and the savants of the French Academy. The wide and remote fields of mathematical calculations of Mr. John N. Stockwell are best known to the few whose researches are influenced or 'affected by a compari- son with his deductions.
His elaborate memoir in the eighteenth volume of the Smithsonian Contribution to Knowledge, dealing with the secular variations of the elements of the orbits of planets, has made him an authority among astronomers and mathemati- cians. Therein he has confirmed the calculations of La Grange and Leverrier, rectifying, however, so far as the influence of Neptune affects results, in the calculations of the former, which were made before that planet was discovered and consequently not considered.
The influence which Jupiter and other celestial gallants have exercised over our mother Earth, subjecting her to suspicion of " eccentricity " in her character and habits, even from her first appearance in the society of the universe, has in recent years been discovered and in her eccentricities noted with some surprise, if not alarm. It is averred that more
212 VIADUCT REFLECTIONS.
than once, even within a few millions of years, influenced thereto by heavenly affinities, she has tripped beyond the line of propriety in the giddy waltz along the plane of the celestial ecliptic, till, in her frenzy, perhaps in her frantic despair, she had donned the Borean ice-cap and snowy mantle, freezing and crushing all that had life — and is likely to do so again in a million of years. In recent years it has been discovered that distant Neptune is another of her old affinities, and their conduct is being watched that, happily, we may migrate before the advent of the returning cj'cle of ice.
Not intending to excite alarm as to the future of our city, or to affect the present value of the commercial marine, of which this is the home port, or to create a panic in real estate, yet I feel impelled to suggest a remote probability. When, a few years since, Tyndall visited Niagara, he con- firmed the prior estimates of geologists as to the time occupied by the waters in excavating the seven-miles' chasm below and reaching the present falls as about thirty thousand years. The same process of erosion for another like period will open the way through its rocky boundary, and Lake Erie will be drained, and a vast prairie take its place, traversed in its center by a river which will receive the Cuyahoga forty miles from its present mouth. Then the Viaduct arches, the breakwater, the Government pier and the crib will be visited by the antiquarian on the borders of a vast plain.
But let us not borrow trouble. Our splendid Viaduct will serve through abundant }'ears and prove a bond of union and a blessing to the municipal^ and to the descendants for ages of a generous and magnanimous people.
THE DEAD ASTRONOMER. 213
THE DEAD ASTRONOMER.
A S I have gazed for the last few pleasant evenings (1878) *^^ upon the glorious heavens, and stood in contemplative .amazement in the presence of Jupiter as he arose above the Eastern horizon, I have felt that the mighty and brilliant star •was itself looking out from the wondrous depths of space and searching for some human being with mind capacious and in- telligent, with which to hold mysterious but delightful com- munion.
The announcement in the morning journals of the death of Professor William M. Davis impresses me with a semblance of truth in my reveries and imaginations. Among those who have contributed to make Cleveland attractive as a place of permanent residence to others devoted to scientific researches .and literary and educational pursuits, the name of Professor Davis will be borne in pleasant memory: In such quiet con- templation has he lived among us, that doubtless many fail to remember that Professor Davis succeeded General Mitchell in the charge of the Cincinnati Observatory, when he went to the war, and there nightly, for seven years, surveyed the heavens and sounded the star depths, devising in the time a hew system of curvatures for acromatic lenses for telescopes, himself making a large object glass on that principle, the su- periority of which was attested.
A social and genial gentleman, this venerable astronomer, while resident among us, often contributed to the delight, not only of those of kindred tastes and pursuits, but to the unini- tiated he was wont to open to their broader vision, through Ms great telescope, the beauties of Pleiades and Orion, and
214 THE DEAD ASTRONOMER.
bring forth to their wondrous gaze Mazzaroth in his season, and guide, for a moment, Arcturus and his sons.
It is to our city's honor that when but recently the moons of Mars were first announced, Mr. Davis discovered, even from the imperfect data then given, that one of them would rise in the West and set in the East, and published an article describ- ing what phenomena might be seen by an observer on Mars. About a month thereafter Richard A. Proctor published his paper, stating the same fact.
Although three score }Tears and ten, his astronomical eye was not dimmed nor his scientific force abated, and until his lamented death he was delving among the stars and contem- plating the Alpha of worlds. No longer ago than last month (July, 1878,) there appeared in the Popular Science Monthly a profound paper from his pen discoursing of the Formation of Nebulae.
SOUTH SIDE PARK DEDICATORY. 215
SOUTH SIDE PARK— DEDICATORY.
TV j\ Y Friends : — It is pleasing to me to be enabled to par- ticipate with you in celebrating, here and now, this one hundred and third anniversary of our^National Independence, and the first year of the emancipation of " Pelton Park, a pri- vate park," from the thraldom of judicial tribunals and legal controversy, and its permanent establishment as a public park, forever to delight the eye and grace the South Side of this municipality.
, To accomplish the happy triumphs of this hour you have passed through the battles of legal warfare for a period longer than that of the bloody civil war, or the seven years struggle of the Revolution. But happily while you have friends whom you would reward with your gratitude, you have no enemies to exult over, much less to punish. The controversies in which you have participated,, both in the courts and in the council, burdened with Vmxious solicitude to secure this inestimable prize to yourselves and your posterit}^, were after all but as ephemeral as the storm cloud that for a moment obscures the sun, making its effulgence to seem the more glorious to the sons and daughters of men after the storm has passed.
Such controversies and anxieties are, however, but the com- mon incidents of this busy life. But they are as nothing compared to the crushing affliction of the father and mother whose beautiful boy is brought home mortally wounded by an innocent playmate ; nothing as compared with that blinding shadow that rests upon the soul of that still young and beau- tiful empress mother in exile, at the mournful intelligence that
216 SOUTH SIDE PARK DEDICATORY.
the youthful prince of an Imperial line, the only and beloved son of his mother, and she a widow, has fallen in death in the jungles of Africa. Absolutely as nothing to him, or her whose earty friends are dead or distant, and who is destined to live a weary and aimless life, burdened, possibly, with an unspeakable sorrow, and go down to the grave with a broken heart. Let the dead past bury its dead. After the felicita- tions of this day let every man present return to his home re- solved more than ever to love his wife and his children and his neighbor as himself, and happiness will henceforth abide around this lovely park, and peace will dwell in every habita- tion upon this delightful plateau.
"Peace hath her triumphs no less renowned than war." Nearly twenty years ago I looked into this park and sur- rounding lands, where then was to be seen but here and there an ancient farm house of some early settler, now covered with the homes of a teeming and industrious population. The lower plateau to the south wras then for a time a Champ de Mars, — the rendezvous of the legions of the North, — the place of preparation and discipline for renowned conflicts upon Southern fields. There bivouacked for a season the heroes of Shiloh and the Wilderness, and those who marched with Sher- man to the sea. There the tattoo beat at night, and the reveille awoke the incipient soldier from his sweet dream of wife and children to the coming realities of dreadful war. But now triumphant peace has covered that famous camp of the civil war with the homes of men, arid children play and the roses of summer bloom where once bright bayonets glis- tened in the sun, and battalions wheeled in airy echelon over the plain. .
This to me is enchanted ground. The vast plain on which we stand, including the bluffs which have their outlook over yonder valley traversed by the winding river, was once, I con- ceive, the cultivated field and garden of the Mound Builders. When were they here ? Many times have the trees grown
SOUTH SIDE PARK DEDICATORY. 217
and decayed since they were here, and the stately forests which now cover the site of their earthworks we call prime- val. And who were they ? They were the subjects of an Em- pire which in the zenith of its splendor embraced the entire Western Hemisphere, whose capital was in Peru, and what is now Ohio, dotted with the remains of their mysterious struc- tures, was but one of its remote northern provinces, ruled over, doubtless, by a satrap or governor sent from th e Impe- rial Capital. A perusal of Colonel Charles Whittlesey's learned and interesting papers on the Mound Builders of Ohio, leads me to believe that the official residence of the Governor of that ancient people was either at Circleville or Newark, where now are found their most extensive monu- ments. Columbus, as a capital or official residence, seems not to have been considered by the Mound Builders. I doubt not there were in that early day aspiring gentlemen who coveted the appointment of Governor to this northern province, both for the honor and the opportunity of enriching themselves in the copper mining business of Lake Superior, a branch of in- dustry early developed by that people on this continent. But that was a long time ago. Few desire to be Governor of Ohio now, — our statesmen prefer to be President.
But to be serious. I believe in the legend of the lost At- lantis— the island of Plato — the garden of the Hesperides — the islands of the Blessed — the Elysian fields of Greek my- thology— the land of the true and original Olympus, beyond the pillars of Hercules, "in the Ocean beyond Africa," on the borders of the then known world to the Egyptian, Phoeni- cian and later Greek, "where the sun shone when it had ceased to shine on Greece" — where the mighty Atlas, a real personage and king, ruled and figuratively "upheld the heavens" — in a word, the great empire island of Atlantis in the midst of the Atlantic Ocean, larger than England, whose character, government and colonial dominion is a modern du- plicate of Atlantis and a happ}r illustration of its pre-historic
218 SOUTH SIDE PARK DEDICATORY.
prototype — the Eden of the human race, where dawned and developed civilization, and from whose shores colonies were planted in Peru and Mexico, and along the shores of the Med- iterranean in the ages long before Egypt was Egypt, or Greece was Greece. A nation of agriculture and arts ; a nation of ships and commerce when Poseidon (Neptune) was admiral of the seas, whose barbed trident typified his triple dominion in the ocean surrounding Atlantis, and the waters of its widely separated colonies of Egypt and Peru — the island which, ac- cording to Plato, fortified by the legends of widely separated peoples of antiquity, and demonstrated by the irresistible proofs of modern scientific, archaeological and philological re- search, was " overwhelmed by violent earthquakes and floods, disappeared and was sunk beneath the sea." The Azores, with their volcanic peaks of 8,000 feet, still retaining in their bo- som their ancient fires, are all that remains above the waves to mark the site of the first and mightiest empire of the world. So remote is its antiquity that the names of its kings, heroes and heroines, who were as human as ourselves, became, after the lapse of ages, the gods and goddesses of mythology. The names and deeds of the Atlanteans are the basis of and underlie the whole category of the mythical legends conceived in the ages of the unlettered infancy and simplicity of peoples^ tribes and nations from Gibraltar to the Ganges.
To the geologist this hemisphere is no longer the New World. The peaks of the Andes and Cordilleras pointed high toward the heavens, when' the Himalayas and the Alps were yet submerged in the waters of the globe. The archaeologist discovers in Peru the monuments of an empire coeval with Egypt, the ruins of whose temples and palaces of elaborately chiseled stone are unsurpassed, and whose highways of two thousand miles in length, cut in the rock along snowy moun- tain sides, and arched viaducts across valle3rs, equal in aston- ishment the pyramids and the wall of China. The Mound Builder was settled upon the banks of the Cuyahoga before
SOUTH SIDE PARK DEDICATORY. 219
the captivity of Jndah ; before the train of Esther swept through the palace of Ahasuerus ; before that little unpleas- antness between the Prime Minister of Pharaoh and Mrs. General Potiphar, and long before Moses made any " mis- takes. "
Then, after a cycle, came the red man and pitched his wig- wam upon these grounds, but bringing with him no tradition- ary legends of the Mound Builder. Two hundred years ago where we now stand, Christianit}r was taught him by the French missionaries, and from here were written letters, now extant in the archives of France, to Madame Maintenon, the wife of Louis XIV.. descriptive of the Indians, the forests and rivers upon the borders of Lake Erie, and the first description or mention on paper of the wonderful Falls, over which are discharged the blue waters of this magnificent chain of lakes.
Less than a year ago I was told by an intelligent gentle- man, since deceased, who lived here in 1833, that when offi- cers of the U. S. Army were on their way to Washington with the Indian warrior Black Hawk, a day was spent here to en- able their captive to launch a canoe and glide up to one of the bluffs just above here to a locality which he pointed out as the exact place where the wigwam stood in which he was born, and the grave of his mother. That locality, as described to me, is the high bluff and plateau where the river ap- proaches nearest on the south side of and included within Riverside Cemetery grounds. I asked my informant if the savage evinced any emotion, common to civilized man under like circumstances. He said: "Yes, every manifestation but tears ; the nervous excitement, the expanding chest, the quivering lips." Every phase of humanity was exalted, in my estimation, when I heard that the Napoleon of a savage em- pire could turn aside from his journey, to visit the scenes of his forest childhood and a wild mother's grave.
And now indulge me in congratulating my West and South Side friends in that your lines have fallen in pleasant places.
220 SOUTH SIDE PARK DEDICATORY.
You are enabled, in this year of grace, to tread high above the once dreaded valley over arches which will endure forever. This park, more ample than the renowned Academic groves under whose foliage Pericles, beloved of the beautiful Aspasia, was wont to listen to the wisdom of Socrates, will yield you and your children its grateful shade while you live ; and, when life's journey is ended, birds will forever make melody above your rest in the delightful dells of Riverside.
THE COW IN COURT. 221
THE COW IN COURT.
Facetious pundils— Remarkable legal correspondence. The letters herewith printed, concerning the celebrated cow case, which has divided the agitation of the world with the Tichborne claimant case and the Newburgh coon hunt, will be studied with profound interest. We commend the authorities cited to the careful scrutinj' of the reader. The importance of this correspondence can best be appre- ciated when it is considered that one dollar and fifty cents, pound fees, inspired the great legal struggle. — [Cleveland Plain Dealer.]
Dec. 2, 1879.
TV /T ESSRS. S. and H.— The soul of thy servant is sad in *•*•*• view of the discovery this day, that you have thus far neglected to file a petition in the great appeal case of Stoneman against City of Cleveland, impleaded with our Bohemian- American citizen, M. Nimick, keeper of our muni- cipal pound, in and for the fourteenth ward ; said proceed- ings being a sort of zoological habeas corpus, or action of replevin of two romantic and festive animals, commonly called cows, arrested and imprisoned, having been caught in the very act of running at large and browsing in a neighbor's corn-field, within the walls of the city, contrary to the ordi- nances, aggravated, moreover, by the circumstance that the offence was on the Sabbath-day, commonly called Sunday, when the owner of the field, with his man-servants and his maid-servants, and all his household, had gone up into the high places to worship.
Now, gentlemen, be ye hereby notified that unless, without further delay, you take the proper legal steps to prosecute your suit, by. filing your petition, the defendants will resort to the statutory remedy in such case made and provided,.
222 THE COW IN COURT.
greatly, I doubt not, to the professional humiliation of }Tour honorable firm and to the cost of your client.
Respectfully, F. T. W.
Dec. 3, 1879.
F. T. W., ESQ. Sir : — Had we not seen the signature, or had you omitted it entirely from the letter or " call " you addressed to us, and which we found on our desk last evening, we should nevertheless have divined that none other but yourself could have penned it, and one reason is that it fairly breathed classics (bucolics ?). In that letter you call our attention to the now become famous cow-pound case of Stoneman vs. the City of Cleveland, in which case }TOU appeared on behalf of the city and so ably defended. In order to designate the case more clearly you mention the fact that it is a replevin case. These two features or elements at once brought to our mind the full history of that remarkable and intricate case, and although it involves a fine and nice question of law, we yet feel that its appeal by you was done ignorant of the care and research of the learned J. P. who decided the case — and of course decided it in our favor — and had j'ou known of the study and care he gave to the question, }~ou could not and wrould not have taken a single step further. Sir, we are reliably informed that said J. P. consulted the following authorities, which are all in point (for us) as he says, viz. : Bracton, Britton, Fleta, Littleton, Sir Edward Coke, Sir William Blackstone ; also the Tractatus Tractatum ; Du Moulinis commentarii in " priores tres Titulos consuetudinis Parisiensis " and the more modern treatises of Monsieur Germain Antoine Gyotte and Monsieur Herve. He found no authorities in your favor. Mark that ! After divulging these facts to you we do not doubt but that you will at once withdraw the case and files from the custody of the clerk, abandon all further litigation and thereby save yourself from an ignominious defeat in this case.
THE COW IN COURT. 223
Should you still persist in your course, then we shall be compelled to file our petition in accordance with the statute in such case made and provided. Nevertheless, for remind- ing us of our duty in this regard, please accept our warmest thanks, and believe us when we say that no one, it seems to us, can excel }TOU in extending courtesies to your fellow members of the bar. It is truly a pleasure to meet and do business on that basis.
Respectfully yours, S. & H.
Dec. 5th, 1879.
Messrs. S. & H. : — I have your pleasant and graceful response to my note, touching the status of the pleadings in our cow case, and would, in view of }*our generous personal allusion, gladly rest without reply, but for the air of triumph that pervades each and every line of your note. This my spirit can not brook. That you succeeded before the Justice of the Peace is most true. That I was beaten on the author- ities }TOU quote is quite likely, as they are the most pertinent you could cite, but that they were the result of the researches of the magistrate I deny. I venture that those several authorities and more can be found on your own voluminous brief furnished to his honor after trial, after decision reserved, and after I had left the Presence. Gentlemen, you are alto- gether too modest in crediting so much learning to the court. It is apparent to me that you stuffed that Justice of the Peace with the spiced mince-meats of the Albany Law School till he was as plump as a bologna sausage. I recognize in jour collation of learned authorities the happ3T results of the curriculum of two renowned institutions of learning — Oberlin College and University of Michigan. But your " instances " are altogether too modern, to sa}^ nothing of the wisdom of your " saws."
I care not for the customs of Paris, or the institutions of Romulus. My reliance in this case is upon the Gentoo laws,
224 THE COW IN COURT.
administered by our Aryan forefathers in the valleys of the Punjaub and on the slopes of the Himalayas in Central Asiar seven thousand years ago, embalmed in the Sanskrit language, before Rome was ; before the Slav trod the steppes of Astra- khan and the valley of the lower Danube ; before the Teuton planted grapes upon the banks of the Rhine, and when busy England was a forest ; in fact, before the honorable and venerable Daniel R. Tilden assumed the ermine of judicial office.
Should your client insist upon going on with this case (against your advice as I shall believe), then your legal ingenuity will be taxed to avoid the force of the Gentoo statute, which provides as follows :
" If any man hath laid up hay in a garden, or any other place, to feed his own cattle, and another person's cow, or buffalo, or horse, or camel, or elephant, or any other animal, should eat that hay, or should eat the crop upon any man's ground, or should go into any man's house, or garden, or tilled land, upon such fault, that person has power to catch and bind (impound) the aforesaid animals, and may also slightly beat them."
See Gentoo Code or Ordinations of the Pundits, Persian- Sanskrit translation by commission of learned Pundits (law- yers), by command of Warren Hastings, Governor General of Hindoostan, page 201. London 1776. In library of Bushnell White, Esq., Pundit. See also Bertsch Untersuchungen iiber cfas Nibeliingenlied, p. 184. Vienna, 1865. Likewise peruse in extenso, Examen important de Milord Bolingbroke ou le Tombeau du Fanatisme. Par. M. Voltaire. GEuvres Completes, Tome Vingtiemo, p. 104, Paris, 1860. Especially, Absence of Caloric in Icebergs Accounted for. By A. Nony- mous, p. 550. Boston, 1879. A fascinating work, just out. The God Apis, or Egyptian Worship of the Cow's Husband. Vide Book of the Dead. Consult John Erwin, Esq., Egypt- ologist. Last, but not least, notice " Comparative Analysis.
THE COW IN COURT. 225
of Cow's, Gamers and Tartar Mare's Milk and Test of Oleo- margarine Butter," by Conrad Beck, Superintendent of, Markets, Cleveland, Ohio. Advance sheets of work in press. Whatever may be the result of this suit in the higher courts, I trust that next summer your client will refrain from letting his cows, buffalo, Bactrian camel, or elephant run at large to the despoliation of neighboring gardens and corn- fields in violation of the Gentoo law.
Respectfully, F. T. W.
15
226 SHERLOCK J. ATS7DREWS
SHERLOCK J. ANDREWS— A MEMORY AND A TEAR.
TT is finished. The public journals have pronounced a tri- umphant verdict upon a life of eighty years. The bar and the courts have co-operated in making up the most beautiful and appreciative summary of the characteristics and labors of a life that has ever been placed upon our judicial records.
Br}'ant expressed a poetic desire to die in June. But here, in midwinter's discontent, nature seemed m sympathy when Andrews was laid to rest. Who ever saw such a day? It was the poetry of winter. The earth covered with a mantle of new snow, pure as the spirit departed. The air still and suggestive of April. The trees, seemingly conscious of an eventful day, had arrayed themselves in loveliest robes, glis- tening in the sun, still as death itself, save when some tiny twig, under the influence of the sun, would drop its burden of pearls and diamonds, and mournfully tremble as we all have witnessed the quivering lips of the honored dead.
Recognizing that it is the province of the peers of the legal profession, and especially of the early cotemporaries and per- sonal intimates of him we mourn, to speak the fitting words of grief and praise which crowd upon the tongue for utterance, I deem it my privilege only to express my exceeding gratifi- cation, not alone for the appropriate resolutions, but especi- ally for the just and noble sentiments, and the many felicitous and sympathetic expressions of a generous and appreciative bar. Nevertheless, as none among us can tire of hearing Aristides called the Just, I crave the indulgence of a memory and a tear.
A MEMORY AND A TEAR. 227
In 1854, for the first time, I looked into the old court house on the Public Square. Sherlock J. Andrews, with a green silk shade over his eyes, the dome of his handsome head tow- ering above it, was sitting at the trial table. James Mason was associated with him, while the alert and impetuous Ed- ward Wade was their competitor. I had heard of the fame of Judge Andrews in New England. I lingered to hear his ad- dress to the jury. It is unnecessary to say it proved a de- light. It had been among the pleasant memories of early manhood that I had heard Mr. Webster at the bar, and on many occasions had witnessed the forensic displays of the matchless Choate, and from the moment to which I allude I felt that Judge Andrews was one of the three foremost advo- cates of our time. Twenty-five years have not modified that estimate. He was the just pride of the legal profession, as he was the recognized head and father of the Cleveland Bar.
Nature laid the foundation for a perfect man, and culture crowned creation in our lamented friend. We see in our in- verted vision a retiring and decorous student, conning his Virgil and cooling his fair brow beneath the elms of Yale. A spectator in that temple of Themis where he acquired by .observation, and obtained as by natural selection, his perfect model of professional and judicial decorum, even before he was admitted within its distinguished circles. There in his native county he looked upon and listened to such lawyers as Zephania Swift, David Dagget, Roger M. Sherman, Roger S. Baldwin, Ralph I. Ingersoll, Dennis Kimberly and William W. Boardman, who preeminently graced and adorned the law •during his student days. Such culture and graces he brought to a Western village, and which have served as a guide and an inspiration to every educated young lawyer of the Cleve- land Bar for fifty years.
We are led to reflect that the amenities of Judge Andrews' mind are attributable in no small degree to that taste for .science and philosophy which he acquired by his early asso-
228 SHERLOCK J. ANDREWS —
elation with the elder Silliman, and which came near losing him to the law. Had chemistry triumphed, we should have had a distinguished professor instead of a renowned advocate. But enough of science and love of nature remained with him through life to grace his spirit with that same happy gentle- ness which were the distinguishing characteristics of Hum- boldt, Arago, Agassiz, and our own Kirtland. Reverential love, which pervades the minds of all classes of men, pays tribute to such. When the armed mob of Berlin sacked the private residences of eminent citizens, they thundered a£ the door of Humboldt, not knowing who lived there. The vener- able occupant appeared at the door. They demanded his name. The answer, Von Humboldt. They saluted him, and turning, shouted, "This is Yon Humboldt's house; let it alone."
" Lift not the spear against the Muse's bower.
The great Emathian conquerer bid spare The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower
Went to the ground. And the repeated air Of sad Electra's poet had the power
To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare."
It is only within the last few }^ears that the writer has ap- preciated Judge Andrews as a reader of the literature of science. He watched the progress of astronomical and geo- logical science silently and quietly, but with a deeper interest than many knew. Not manj^ weeks since, in one of those brief and pleasant interviews he was wont to give to those who sought him, I was startled at his wonderful conception of the eternity of the past. In discussing, however, the probable time when the coal deposits of Ohio were formed and stored in the rock, we alluded to an eminent scientist and popular writer, who gave the lapse of ages past as "countless millions of geological cycles." The Judge, with inimitable facetious- ness, said he had himself regarded it as being a good while ago, but he had never been able to fix the time with such
A MEMORY AND A TEAR. 229
exactness. He had withal a beautiful and not altogether po- etic conception of the wonderful plateau upon which our city is built, and over which its broad avenues are laid, as being alike the graveyard of the mastodon and the mound builder. It is only when such men die that we seriously reflect upon immortality. It is then that the divinity stirring within us points out an hereafter and intimates eternity to man. Is the spirit of our great friend with Virgil and Dante and Milton, "wandering in the meads of Asphodel"? Has it saluted kindred spirits in Burke, Sheridan and Choate ? Has he greeted Silliman, Agassiz and Kirtland ? Has he been rec- ognized by Aiken and Goodrich, and led up to more effulgent light ? Has he embraced the dearly beloved that have gone before him ? As silence is ever the answer, we can only say, Hail and farewell.
f
230 QUESTIONS ANSWERED.
QUESTIONS ANSWERED/
PHE thoughts of a man of the past can be of no moment to the men of the present. The event, however, of General Garfield's nomination for the Presidency (1880), leads me to reflect that I have participated in a humble way in all the Presidential contests since the memorable campaign of ' Tippecanoe and Tyler too,' of which this is the fortieth anni- versary. It was the men of Ohio who gave inspiration to that National canvass, furnishing as they did the first Presi- dential candidate from the now powerful Northwest., I look upon the result of the Chicago Convention as indicating the possibilit}T of saving his party yet a while from disintegration. The name of General Garfield, in my judgment, furnishes better assurance for the future of his party than could that of any of the distinguished gentlemen who so long and so persistently divided the consideration of the Convention, His nomination, however, I attribute more to the bright halo around his head when he uttered that judicious and admir- able speech in the Convention, than to his record in war or his services in the councils of the Nation, however good the- one or eminent the other.
My convictions have ever been that political parties do themselves most honor and the country the highest service, in the contingency of success, when they bestow the presi- dential candidacy upon their best specimens of manhood and statesmanship. I feel in a spirit to congratulate our local
* Answers to interrogations of the Cleveland Herald on its receipt of the news of General Garfield's nomination for the Presidency by the Chicago convention, June, 1880.
QUESTIONS ANSWERED. 231
Republican friends on the nomination of General Garfield, for therein I recognize a healthy rebuke alike to the retainers of stolid political aspirants and the admirers of iceberg states- manship. With a severity of partisanship, born of the vicis- situdes of war, and twenty years of political domination, aggravated by the prejudices of a rural constituency and of an exacting majority in the halls of Congress, he has, never- theless, evinced talents, equal with the peers of the Senate ; and possessing, as happily he does, genial and generous impulses, he has within him the potency and promise for broader views in a more exalted station.
I am not in consultation with live men, and possess no knowledge of Democratic views or plans. I think only my own thoughts and am inspired only by my own reflections. The Republican party should now be considered by the Cin- cinnati Convention as a new and formidable ship of war sailing into an unfortified harbor, and sending a menacing and defiant shot across the bows of the old Democratic ship, dismantled and laid up for twenty years in dry dock, which goes booming and crashing among the planks and timbers in the old political navy yard. They should float her again, trim her sails, furnish her a new admiral, summon her gallant crew, and give her to the political storm. That convention, if wise, will name its brightest and ablest man, from whatso- ever State he may hail. They surely will not call him ' from Appomattox.' They cannot call him from a divided Demo- cratic State. They will be forced of necessitj^ to take him from Ohio, that he may contest, inch by inch, the ground of his distinguished competitor. There is but one man in the United States, and that is an Ohio man, who can contest this State with possibilities in his favor, against the Republican nominee, and that is he who, more than twenty years ago, when accepting the Democratic nomination for Governor, at a time when his party was in a minority of nearly eighty thousand, said : " In the battle in which we are engaged I ask
232 QUESTIONS ANSWERED.
no Democrat to go where I am not first found, bearing the standard which you have placed in my hands." And the subsequent great Secretary of the Treasury during the war barely succeeded in the contest by less than a thousand votes. It is the Ohio Democrat who, when elected to Congress by a majority of nearly three thousand, in a district whose Repub- lican majority is ordinarily from five thousand to seven thousand, said : " If life is spared I will return to you at the end of my term with hand and heart as undefiled as when I left you" — and kept the faith. It is an Ohio man who for thirty years has stood higher in business and financial circles, and among the statesmen and politicians of the Empire State, than any other Western man, and who can take the vote of her united Democracy. It is the Ohio man who is admired of his party in Illinois for his labors in behalf of Stephen A. Douglas, with whom, in their youth, he divided his last hundred dollars to enable the "little giant" to reach the soil of the Prairie State. With such an Ohio man the Democracy of the State and Nation will be inspired to noble and honor- able efforts, and the spirit of the two honorable champions will be as the clash and clang of intellectual scimetars. In such an event Ohio may be set down at least as among the most doubtful of doubtful States.
The Fire Lands have given to the country a President ; so it may be given unto the Reserve to furnish another, be he Republican or Democrat. As Judea was once the battle- ground between the Pharaohs of the Nile and the monarchs of the Euphrates, so will be Ohio between mightier hosts in the coming campaign. Should the Republican Pharaohs triumph, let them take the spoil. If, however, the Demo- cratic Cambyses should swoop down and overturn the statue of vocal Memnon (at Mentor) and prostrate the temples of Republican Thebes, no "cloud" would come over the land, though the worshipers of the political Isis and Osiris might mourn over the fallen columns.
RECOLLECTIONS OF ADELAIDE PHILLIPS. 233
RECOLLECTIONS OF ADELAIDE PHILLIPS.
^PHE advent of Adelaide Phillips at the Cleveland Opera House the past week, has awakened in the mind of the writer pleasant memories of more than thirty }^ears. The month of February, 1848, developed events of exciting interest in the city of Boston, and of vast import to this county and to Europe. Field had not yet spanned the Atlantic with his cable, nor had Wade stretched his electric wires over the continent to the Golden Gate. Almost at the same moment two vessels arrived in the harbor of Boston. One from "around the Horn," the other a Cunarder from Liverpool. The first told of the discovery of Gold at Sutler's mill in California, the second of the fall of the throne of Louis Philippe, the elevation of Lamertine as Provisional President, and Ledru Rollin as the first statesman of the French Re- public.
The remains of John Quincy Adams laid in state at Faneuil Hall, Everett pronounced a famous oration, the Governor and Council and the whole body of the Senate and House of Representatives of Massachusetts, then in session, followed the dead statesman to his tomb in Quincy.
The French revolution, however, was the dominant theme. Orators aired their vocabularies over "1776" and "1789." Theaters took advantage of the new outburst of patriotism, and the scenes of Paris were dramatized and played with unabated interest daring the winter. Boston then had its National, Haymarket and Federal street theaters, good as theaters in general, as also its Athenaeum and its Adelphi, which two latter represented the extremes of society — the
234 RECOLLECTIONS OF ADELAIDE PHILLIPS.
elite of Boston opera goers and the free and easy patron of the cheap Comique. But as all these, however respectable, were nevertheless regarded as sinful institutions by many good people in Boston, and more especially so by the sedate people of the surrounding towns, there had at a time arisen a want of some " truly good " place of public entertainment for this class of the communit}^. Moses Kimball, a wit, a wag, a sober man and eminent citizen, a member of the Legislature more times than any other man, the Barnum of Boston, had been raised up under Providence to supply a great necessity r and which he did through his elegant structure, known as the Boston Museum. It was a museum in reality, supplied with the curiosities of the world, from the mummy, abstracted from the rocky tombs of the Upper Nile, to the What-do-ye-call-it ? half human and half fish, created by Yankee ingenuity, and from the fossil elephant of Siberia to the stuffed skin of the striped squirrel of the New England corn-field.
But above and beyond the long corridors of the Museum proper was an immense auditorium, with gallery above gallery, looking for all the world just like a wicked and gilded theater. Here were wont to assemble nightly hundreds of people, who under no circumstances could have been enticed into a theater, " so-called." Country clergymen, recognized by the spotless white choker of that day, accompanied b}T wife and daughter, were among the patrons as often as they came to Boston to attend a "minister's meeting." Here appeared nightl}7 as respectable a class of actors as ever delineated and illustrated the best' works of Shakespeare's immortal genius, or enacted the richest and choicest farces, or displayed the most gorgeous spectacular Oriental scenes, from Aladdin's Lamp to the Enchanted Horse. Here have arisen stars that have shone in tragedy, comedy and opera, in every theater of America and Europe.
The old Museum stock company of that day was, among others, composed of William H. Smith, manager ; Warren,.
RECOLLECTIONS OF ADELAIDE PHILLIPS. 235-
the matchless comedian, whose saddest look and most serious utterances were responded to by vast audiences with bursts- of irrepressible laughter ; Mrs. Barrett, the handsome and dashing Lady Gay Spanker of London Assurance, even at the age of sixty years ; Mrs. Judah, the terrible MagMerriles; the sweet-faced Miss Gann, whose career was but too brief, being but a few months a wife, died under the hands of her physician before she had looked upon the face of her babe, and went to an honored grave ; last, but not least, little Adelaide Phillips, a sweet and precocious child, the Cinderella of the Glass Slipper, and the beloved pet of every good man and woman of Boston. The pla3~-writers of the Museum did not let the grass grow under their feet till they had placed upon the boards in dramatized form the stirring events of the French revolution of 1848.
In imitation of the Legislative Assembly of France to address members as "citizen," it became for the time a pleasantry in the Massachusetts Legislature, as well as among acquaintances outside, to address each other as " citizen." One day the genial and friendly Anson Burlin- game said to the writer, " Citizen, go with me to-night to the Museum and see the new drama, < The Fall of the Throne of Louis Philippe.' " Gladly accepting, I went. Humbly anti- cipating only an ordinary seat, I was surprised when the future Embassador from China to the Western Powers led me into a private box, where were already two of his personal friends, Charles Sumner and John A. Andrew, each then distinguished, but not famous. The writer looked out upon an audience among whom sat many who to-day are known of all intelligent men. There were Quinc}rs, Shaws, Appletons, Whipple and Richard H. Dana, Jr., the dark and mystic face of Rufus Choate, the lordly presence of Wendell Phillips, the handsome bald head and bright spectacles of William Lloyd Garrison, the dark and cold face of George S. Boutwell, the grave but gallant N. P. Banks, the bald head and sinister
236 RECOLLECTIONS OF ADELAIDE PHILLIPS.
eyes of Benjamin F. Butler, Wm. S. Robinson, the " Warring- ton " of the Springfield Republican, and last but not least, Henry Wilson and Frank W. Bird, the latter the organizer of the celebrated Bird Club of the civil war.
It was here for the first time that we saw Adelaide Phillips, a child in appearance — possibly she had entered her " teens." Her part on this occasion, which has impressed me for a life- time, was the singing of the " Marsellaise," for which her clear, ringing, but sympathetic voice seemed far be}'ond her years. It was the first time I had ever heard it from a "professional," and it has ever since seemed to me that if its famous author, Rouget DeLisle, could have heard her render- ing of his stirring words, his bones would have leaped for joy in his coffin.
Then for thirty years I heard that voice no more till a few evenings since at the Opera House. The tenement of her still glorious spirit seems but slightly affected by time. The ease, the dignity and the grace of the child yet remains in the honorable and beloved woman. The same peculiarly sweet smile that played over her face in youth remains to adorn and grace her maturer years. Those who saw her in childhood, and knew her good repute and personal worth, can readily appreciate how that she could become in time the 'protege of the alike famous and good Jenny Lind.
But while Time's effacing fingers have passed lightly over the face of Adelaide Phillips, we cannot but reflect upon the historic events that have transpired since her Marsellaise first sounded in our ears — the Republic of 1848, followed by the coup d'etat • the dynasty of Napoleon Third, succeeded by the Republic of 1871 ; the civil war in the United States, the Emancipation Proclamation, the freedom of the Russian serf, the unification of Italy, the re-discovery of the sources of the Nile, the Suez Canal, the Pacific rail- road, the Brush electric light in Cleveland, and DeLesseps at the Isthmus of Panama.
CLEVELAND BAR BANQUET. 237
CLEVELAND BAR BANQUET.
HHHIS (1880) has been preeminently a winter of banquets, and -*• yet not a good winter for banquets either. The accom- plished sons of Amherst,' Williams, Yale, and Hudson, resi- dents of this city, have held delightful reunions, tasted deli- cious viands, and moistened their lips at the classic fountains of their youth. I have observed them all at a regretful dis- tance, and have read their speeches with pleasure, oblivious of typographical errors. It was with satisfaction that I dis- covered no such blunder of the types as many years ago oc- curred in the printed address of an alumnus of Harvard, whose name is forgotton ; but I am sure it was neither Mr. Sumner nor Richard H. Dana, who concluded his very pleas- ing address by expressing the hope that they might again and often return and drink at the classic fountain of their Alma. Mater. But the printer's devil made mischief with the types,, and the gentleman had the humiliation the next morning to read that he had indulged the anticipation that they should often return to drink at the classic fountain of Alum Water !
This social reunion of the Cleveland Bar surpasses all, in that it comprises, in addition to such as only graduated at the "people's college," nearly all who participated in the late fes- tivities, augmented by scholarly representations of Oberlin, Ann Arbor, Antioch, Grambier, Buchtel, Berea, and " Univer- sity Heights," many of whom, when their biographies shall be written, in the midst of a political, or at the close of an honor- able and perhaps distinguished professional career, may be surprised to learn therefrom that they too, like the typical American statesman, were not only born of " poor but honest
238 CLEVELAND BAR BANQUET.
parents," but also, that each took the "first honors of his class."
As there were feasts before Belshazzar's, and warriors be- fore Agamemnon, so banquets were an institution of the Cleveland Bar before the civil war. We remember to have participated at a banquet at the Angier House, given by the Cleveland Bar to the bar of the Northern district of Ohio, then in attendance on the United States District Court, soon after the accession of Judge Willson, the first judge of that court. It was a memorable occasion, being honored by the presence of Judge Willson and most of the prominent lawyers of Northern Ohio. Waite, Morton, then United States District Attorne}^ ; George W. McCook, then late Attorney General of Ohio ; the eccentric and witty Tom Ford, afterwards Lieuten- ant Governor ; the genial and silver-tongued orator, Judge Starkweather ; Judge Andrews, George Rex, George Bliss, Backus, Bolton, Kelley, Collins, Palmer, and Albert T. Shule. many of whom made speeches, and all of whom, except the distinguished Chief Justice of the United States, have made their final argument, taken their last exceptions, and gone to & higher court.
President Lincoln, like Douglas, had many acquaintances in the city, and early in his administration manifested a warm side for the Cleveland Bar— appointing David K. Cartter, Minister to Bolivia ; Richard C. Parsons, Consul to Brazil ; William Slade, Consul to France, and Albert G. Riddle, Con- sul to Cuba. The bar had slumbered under its honors, but when, in 1863, Riddle was made third consul, gentlemen were aroused to a sjense of Presidential recognition, and as he had been a distinguished advocate and member of Congress, and had done the State some service, the bar gave him a parting banquet at the Kennard House worthy of the place, the occa- sion, and the man.
There never has been a good administration for diplomats .and consuls here since. The Pharaohs that have arisen since
CLEVELAND BAR BANQUET. 239
have known no legal Joseph among us. President Grant's face was ever averted, save in the single instance when he appointed Mr. A. G. Colwell Consul to Italy, near the ancient Brundusium on the Adriatic, and Mr. Hayes has chilled the hearts of our brethren of the bar with seemingly studied neg- lect. But we feel encouraged, in behalf of our professional friends, now that we are to have a President who is to the manor born, who has walked in our midst and can call by name numerous members of the bar, between whom and him- self there has long been something of intimacy, political and personal, and which must ultimately bear fruit.
It can hardly be doubted that the Cleveland Bar has been mentally passed in review by the famed man of Mentor, and possibly with a tinge of regret that some of its members, whom it is known he holds in high personal regard, are not of his own political household, that he might offer the Premier- ship to one, and the Supreme Bench to another. As it is, how- ever, the President, after he shall have selected his Cabinet, and smoothed the ruffled front of his late great competitors and rivals, will be inclined to turn to the Cleveland Bar for at least one plenipotentiary, perhaps one or two ministers resi dent at European courts, or diplomats at South American re- publics. Of consulships there will doubtless be severa awarded to the Reserve, and if the mantle of civil service shall hang as loosely as heretofore, something handsome may be in store for gentlemen of the bar who do not desire to reside abroad, in positions of honor and profit at home. But the scepter of Ohio shall depart from the Treasury, and the Secre- taryship shall be given to another State.
Dining, as observed in literary and political" circles in Eng- land, is in this country a lost art. Something of it, however, is preserved and cultivated in the State of New York. With all its severe party discipline and protracted controversies, its Silver Grays, Freesoilers, Hunkers, Barnburners, Irvings and Tammanys, the Empire State has ever possessed the best
240 CLEVELAND BAR BANQUET.
types of political leadership and statesmen of any in the- Union. Politics there is a quasi science, cultivated and pro- moted by social intercourse between gentlemen of opposing parties, made possible and facilitated by the advantage of a great commercial center, where leading men from every part of the State are wont to gather at frequent intervals and ex- change opinions and civilities.
Country readers of metropolitan journals twenty years and more ago, whose scripture was the editorials of the Tribune, the Times, the World, and the Albany Evening Journal, wherein were excoriated and criticised the managers of the Central Railroad, the Albany Regency, canal managers, mem- bers of the Legislature and of Congress, would have lost con- fidence in editorial sincerity had the}' known that only the day before, perhaps, Thurlow Weed, Horace Greeley, Henry J. Raymond, William 'H. Seward and General Dix were dining together, at Delmonico's, with Manton Marble, Dean Rich- mond, Erastus Corning, Horatio Seymour, Peter Cagger and Fernando Wood.
In the early days of Cleveland journalism, whoever heard of J. A. Harris, George A. Benedict, George Bradburn and J. W. Gray, with their respective political intimates, dining to- gether ? A thing wholly incompatible in view of the political asperities of their time. We pray for editorial reform in this behalf, and when John C. Keffer, Edwin Cowles and Wm. W. Armstrong and their political friends shall socially enjoy their duck and toast at either of our great hotels, may we be there to see.
Ohio, unlike New York, has no commercial center, and consequent!}" but little or no social intercourse. Not wanting in able statesmen in both parties, yet as regards each other their sympathies are sometimes not apparently broad and catholic, but circumscribed to a contracted horizon, which each views as did Rasselas the mountains surrounding the Ab}^s- sinian Valley, deeming all beyond enemies. When and where
CLEVELAND BAR BANQUET. 241
do our statesmen greet each other and dine together, not an- nually, but once in a decade even ? Who has knowledge that Secretary Sherman and Judge Ranney, Senator Thurman and Judge Taft, Mr. H. B. Payne and Stanley Mathews, Senator Pendleton and Governor Foster have socially sat together at meat in twenty years ? It would be unreasonable, perhaps, to suppose that gentlemen residing so far apart as the remote limits of this great State would dine together as often as New Yorkers, or that Senator Thurman should be expected to send Mr. Payne a cordial invitation to dine with him during the ballotings of a National Democratic Convention. There is, however, a time for everything, saith the preacher, and Ohio statesmen ought to dine together sometime, if it is not till next day.
Great political events have followed banquets, and great disasters have come to men from the neglect thereof. There was a little miniature banquet given at George Young's, the Delmonico's of Boston in 1848, the host whereof was Charles Sumner. Plates were laid for only about twenty persons , among the few were Henry Wilson, Anson Burlingame, George S. Boutwell, N. P. Banks, John A. Andrew, Edward L. Keyes, William S. Robinson and Frank W. Bird, the ge- nius of the celebrated "Bird Club " of later years. It was in the days when the Whig party began to develop two wings, " Cotton and Conscience," and the Democratic party was in- conveniently small. At this dinner were conceived the incip- ient plans which resulted in the coalition which eventually gathered power sufficient to make Democratic Governors of Boutwell and Banks, place Sumner in the Senatorial chair of Webster, Wilson Senator and Vice President, and Burlingame Minister to China, and ultimately embassador from the great Oriental Empire to the four great Western Powers. It was a good banquet, " omnia vidi par vaque pars fui."
The amenities which come of the social banquets of the Cleveland Bar, graced by the presence of wives and daughters, 16
242 CLEVELAND BAR -BANQUET.
cannot but enhance the qualifications which come of the learning of the schools and the master}' of the law, and further prepare the prospective diplomat for the official and social position which now, in all probability, awaits him at foreign courts.
SANITARY REGULATIONS OF PEKIN. 243
SANITARY REGULATIONS OF PEKIN.
A few }Tears since, in making some researches concerning the sewerage system of cities, ancient and modern, for use in a case then pending in our courts, involving, as I thought, our entire sewerage system, planned, adopted and constructed by authority of statute law more than twenty years ago, having main outlets into the lake, the river, Wai- worth and Kingsbury runs, I accidentally met with a quaint but very interesting volume of the last century, which, among many other things, disclosed the unique but efficient system of disposing of " night-soil and garbage," as adopted .and practiced in the ancient capital of Genghis Khan.
In 1793 the British Government sent its first embassy to China. A numerous retinue of attaches, scientific men and artists accompanied the embassador, and the noble ship of British Oak, splendidly equipped and stored with every conceivable article of English manufacture most desirable for presents to the Emperor and his court, and the moguls and mandarins of the provinces, sailed around Africa into the Indian Ocean, and thence into the Yellow Sea and the Gulf of Pe-chi-li, dropping anchor before Tien-tsin, where they disembarked, and were received by high Chinese officials and conducted with great pomp and much ceremony to the Capital not many miles distant. After much time spent in official intercourse at the Court of the Empire, the embassy was conducted through many provinces, from Mantchooria, north of the great wall, and south through the whole six hundred miles of the Grand Canal, from the great Hoang-Ho to and across the mightier Yang-tse-Kiang, to Hang- Chow,
244 SANITARY REGULATIONS OF PEKIN.
its southern terminus. After spending several months as the guests of the Empire, and at its cost of several hundred thousand pounds, the embassy departed, laden with equally rich and costly presents from the Emperor to the English King.
History does not enlighten us concerning the possible financial controversies among the statesmen of China, as to whether the enormous expense of this official entertainment should be defrayed by the Imperial exchequer or be liquidated by draft on the Pekin Municipal Sinking Fund.
A journal was kept of this royal embassy by its most learned and accomplished secretary, and I doubt if any modern work on China furnishes so full and minute information touching the personnel of the Emperor and his Court, the laws, customs and ceremonies, institutions, public and private,, commerce and industries of this oldest civilization of the world. The observations of the official historian upon the subject of the cleanliness of the imperial capital were so novel and interesting, that I copied a portion of one chapter, which I now give for the consideration of the learned doctors of our own Sanitary Board, struggling as the}r are, in these dog days, with defaulting contractors and stenches that smell to heaven. The record runs thus :
" Although Pekin cannot boast, like ancient Rome or modern London, of the conveniences of common sewers to carry off the dirt and dregs that must necessarily accumu- late in large cities, yet it enjoys one important advantage, which is rarely found in capitals out of England : No kind of filth or nastiness, creating offensive smells, is thrown out into the streets, a piece of cleanliness that perhaps ma}^ be attributed rather to the scarcity and value of manure than to the exertions of the police officers. Each family has a large earthen jar, into which is carefully collected everything that may be used as manure ; when the jar is full, there is no difficulty of converting the contents into money, or exchang-
SANITARY REGULATIONS OF PEKIN. 245
ing it for vegetables. The same small boxed carts with one wheel, which supply the city with vegetables, invariably return to the gardens with a load of this liquid manure.
" Between the palace of Yuen-min-yuen (the country residence of Ta-whang-tee, the mighty Emperor) and Pekin, I have met many hundreds of these carts. They are generally dragged by one person and pushed by another ; and they leave upon the road an odor that continues without inter- mission for many miles. Thus, though the city is cleared of its filth, it seldom loses its fragrance. In fact, a constant disgusting odor remains in and about all the houses the whole day long, from the fermentation of the heterogeneous mixture kept above ground, which in our great cities is carried off in drains. To counteract these offensive smells they make use of a variety of perfumes and strongly scented woods and compositions.
" The medical gentlemen of China are not quite so inge- nious, as we are told the faculty in Madrid were about the middle of the last century, when the inhabitants were directed by royal proclamation to build proper places of retirement in their houses, instead of emptying their nocturnal machines out of the windows into the streets. The inhabitants, it seems, of the latter city, took it into their heads to consider this order as a great affront and a direct violation of the rights of citizenship, but the doctors were the most strenuous opposers of the measure, having no doubt very cogent reasons for wishing the continuance of the practice. They assured the inhabitants that if human excrement was no longer to be suffered to accumulate as usual in the streets, where it might attract the putrescent particles floating in the air, these noxious vapors would find their way into the human body, and pestilential sickness would be the inevitable consequen- ces r
Our municipal sanitary board may possibly gather some consolation in noting the sanitary customs of Pekin, at least
246 SANITARY REGULATIONS OP PEKIN.
to the extent that upon the failure of a night-soil contractor they can fall back upon the Oriental wheelbarrow plan, when it will be further only necessary to make a judicious appro- priation for " perfumes and strongly-scented woods " to mitigate any lingering odors along the streets offensive to the inhabitants.
Whatever diversity of views may be entertained by any portion of the medical faculty in this country, touching obscure and profound questions of science relating to public health, we take it for granted that the majorit}- of the learned medical profession, and of our own Sanitary Board especially, do not hold to the theory of the Spanish doctors, above cited, concerning the attraction and affinity of such earthy solids for floating putrescent particles and noxious vapors, at least to the extent of sanitary purification and perfection of the air.
Heretofore we have considered chemistry as the chief corner-stone and absolute foundation of all science pertaining to the material universe, and that so many men had become masters thereof, that the laws of chemistry applicable to common things were settled, and well understood to profes- sors at least, if not to laymen. But since we have heard experts testify that an ordinarily pure native brook, having in its course injected into it the black, obnoxious, liquid dregs and acids of a paper mill, its waters, by chemical analy- sis, were found to be purer below than above the point of alleged pollution, or that half a dozen sickening stenches emanating from soap boiling and rancid fat rendering estab- lishments and glue factories, which well-defined stenches being severally capable of turning the human stomach inside out, and when combined, powerful enough to throw a dray horse, on being analyzed and each particular gas dignified with a fanciful, technical name, have been singly pronounced health- ful, and collectively declared harmless ; or, when ice ponds, bordered by privies as plentiful as siege guns around Sedan,,
SANITARY REGULATIONS OF PEKIN. 247
retain their primeval purity, if not thereby absolutely enhanced in value in the estimation of medical men and chemical professors, where a man of ordinar}T instincts would as soon think that a raft of sawlogs in a mill pond would be frozen out as that the solid and liquid contents of a privy would be eliminated from an ice pond by the congealing of its waters, we cannot but reflect upon the possibility that the medical faculty of Madrid were, after all, learned, honest and correct in their sanitary theories, and were justified in protest- ing against the arbitrary and oppressive mandate of the king of Spain.
248 GARRISON — PHILLIPS — ANDREW.
GARRISON — PHILLIPS — ANDREW.
HPHE death of William Lloyd Garrison awakens a memory of more than forty j'ears. In our bo}Thood we remember to have read of the event of 1835 ; how in Boston he was as- sailed in the Temple on Tremont street, and led through that once aristocratic avenue by an exasperated mob of " gentle- men of wealth and respectability," with a rope around his neck, past Park Street Church and its ancient cemeter3T, called the " Granary," where venerable elms shade alike the ashes of Governor John Winthrop and his compeers of Colo- nial times and the tombs of Hancock, Paul Revere, and War- ren of Revolutionary renown, to the Common upon which faced in that day the stately mansions and elegant residences of the elite of New England — the Otises, Quinceys, Appletons, Searses, Everetts and the Ticknors, including also the homes of those who represented the majesty and splendor of the forum in the persons of Webster and Choate.
The impression upon a youthful mind, made by such an ex- citing scene transpiring in staid and wealthy Boston, together with the almost universal condemnation, by the Church and both the Whig and Democratic parties, of the "Abolition ag- itator," then and for man}' years afterward, was that one who had justly deserved and received from indignant gentlemen such extraordinary consideration and treatment, could be no other than a bold, bad and dangerous man. Thus prejudice and error usurp the vacant mind till knowledge long in exile assumes its throne. It was not until 1848 that we attained to somewhat of a truer conception and higher estimate of the man whose name and fame is revered and cherished through-
GARRISON PHILLIPS ANDREW. 249
•out the civilized world as the green sods of spring are now placed on his grave.
In the Massachusetts Legislature of that }'ear a special committee was appointed to consider the subject of abolish- ing the death penalty which had been numerously petitioned for. The chairman of that committee was Francis W. Bird, a thoughtful, scholarly gentleman of business, of attractive so- cial qualities, and who subsequently during the war was the founder of the celebrated " Bird Club," where the best minds •of New England were wont to meet, and in which were con- ceived and matured and from which emanated many of the most important measures for the conduct and prosecution of the war, embodied in the laws of Congress and enforced b}r the administration of President Lincoln.
The writer was the youngest member of the committee, as also of the Legislature. As it was the custom to give the friends and opponents of a measure an opportunity to be heard through their advocate, the occasion was thus happily presented for acquiring a knowledge of the three celebrated characters whose names are placed at the head of this paper.
John A. Andrew, then a brilliant young advocate of the Boston bar, afterward the renowned War Governor of the State, learned alike in the history of legislation and the juris- prudence of living and dead nations, commented upon the statutes of Moses and the laws and ordinances of the Hebrew Commonwealth ; compared the Septuagint and Vulgate with the version of King James, touching the ancient law of "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," and "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed," with the same happy facility that he would have considered and elucidated modern statutes. He maintained the proposition that the "Thus saith the Lord " of the Hebrew scriptures was but the oriental style of enactment peculiar to a primitive people, who believed Governments to be an emanation from the Jehovah of the Hebrews, and that the expression was simply equiva-
250 GARRISON — PHILLIPS — ANDREW.
lent to the " Be it enacted " of modern legislation. Finally he affirmed his conviction that those ancient and venerable stat- utes were not only obsolete, but were in fact repealed in the new dispensation of the Man of Calvary. His address is re- called after the lapse of thirty years as that of a richly culti- vated mind, and his manner as modest, genial and attractive. Time and occasion developed the man into the great War Governor of Massachusetts, the cotemporary of his renowned compeers in like position, Buckingham, Curtin, Tod, Brough and Morton.
Then stepped forth from the large audience in the Hall of the House of Representatives, where I had not before observed him, Wendell Phillips, and pleasantly remarked that he had a few considerations to submit, if it was the pleasure of the committee to listen further after the address of his young friend. It had seemed as though there could be but little more, if an}Tthing, said after the first speaker, but Mr. Phillips occupied at least an hour, the shortest and most delightful hour of my life. He had been famous as the best public speaker of New England from 1836, when in his comparative youth he astonished and bewildered the Boston of nearly fifty years ago, alike by his magnificent utterances and his awful and unprecedented audacity in replying in Faneuil Hall to a speech of Boston's political autocrat and Massachusetts' great Attorney General, Austin, on some early and incipient question touching slavery. His was not like a speech, or a sermon, nor yet after the manner and style of the forensic orator ; it was rather conversation, talk — delightful, beautiful, fascinating, convincing. Hardly a gesture, even to the movement of a finger, but standing square on his feet and opening his lips, all of dignity of person, or wealth of mind that God has ever bestowed upon man, was made manifest in his words and presence. Wendell Phillips in person and manners was then and ever since has been my beau ideal of the true English lord. Born to wealth,
GARRISON — PHILLIPS ANDREW. 251
ancient family and high social position, he is nevertheless as innocent of sham aristocracy as the humblest citizen, and is one of the most approachable, friendly and lovable of men. We have sought much to find a real live native-born aristo- crat, but have never yet succeeded. He has been pointed out to us man}7 times in many cities. We have interviewed him and studied him with the philosophical interest of a Darwin, but generally, when we came to know him person- ally, the aristocrat had retired like the gods of a primitive people before the light of civilization. We have sought the- man in prejudice, and have retired from his presence with admiration for his qualities of mind and heart. The true American aristocrat, so-called, is like the true English lord ,- the chances are thej^ both have brains, they may have great wealth ; if they have the first, the second don't spoil them ; but the man of wealth without sense, assuming above his- fellow men, is but a dromedary in the desert, loaded with treasure.
As Wendell Phillips never had a precursor, so his mantle will fall upon the shoulders of no successor. He is the first and last of his line. His place in his country's history is unique. With the most brilliant mental endowmentsr graced by the highest culture, still his marble bust will fill no niche in the temple beside Webster, Choate and Benjamin R. Curtiss as a great lawyer ; neither will he be embalmed in history as an American statesman, though possessed of all the qualities which that term implies ; yet his name will be illustrious in the ages to come as orator, philanthropist, and' critic of statesmen.
As the first shall be last and the last first, so G-arrison was the last to address the committee. His name had been so long a byword of contempt in two great political parties, and as that of a demon in churches of New England, that I had supposed him a very old man, possibly a cotemporary of Gibbon, if not of Voltaire, and I could hardly credit my senses-
252 GARRISON PHILLIPS ANDREW.
when I was assured he was no other than the terrible icono- clast who broke the idols of slavery in political and ecclesias- tical temples, and sacrificed himself, with a few grim and restless followers, upon the black and gloomy altar of the despised Moloch of Abolition.
A slight and delicately constructed person, of probably not more than forty-five years of age, plainly and neatly clad in Iblack, of scholarly and rather clerical aspect, with a smooth, shapely bald head, such as artists of the Middle Ages repre- sented on canvas as the ideal Apostle Paul ; a countenance earnest but pleasant, and an eye that beamed through glisten- ing gold spectacles and rested upon one with something of that sweetness of expression that a loving parent would bestow upon a cherished daughter or manly son. His manner was gentleness itself — calm, unruffled, dispassionate. Logical, argumentative and earnest, he bandied no epithets, seemed never to notice insults, sneers, missiles, or stale eggs, hurled at him by "gentlemen" or ruffians in the crowd on other occasions, but accepted such with a smile, occasionally return- ing a left-handed compliment to his disturbers for using the only arguments which could be made in their cause. His power lay in the clearness of his statements, simplicity of his style in the construction of his utterances, sincerity and earnestness of his convictions and the singleness of his purpose ; whatever his theme, his read}' command of the most appropriate expressions and their directness of applica- tion, and the force with which he sent home his logical propositions, winged no less with irony and sarcasm than beauty of illustration. Words from his lips were as unerring as shots from a Berdan rifle. In all his severest utterances, however, he seemed in his personal action and manner, no less than mentally, without passion. He had the serenity of aspect under all circumstances of one conscious of the right for which even a mob of angry men had no terrors. Many men have changed their opinions touching the personality
GARRISON — PHILLIPS — ANDREW. 253
of Garrison on seeing him and hearing him. His life and labors were but a single link in the chain of historical events which resulted in emancipation, but his was the first and most important link in a chain which was thirty j^ears in construction, and which, happily, he lived to see Lincoln weld the last in the renowned Proclamation.
The mutual regard and friendly relations which existed between Garrison and Phillips have ever been a subject of pleasant comment by their admirers, confirmed to the public mind doubtless by that happy prophecy of Phillips, when he said of Garrison that while his name would be illustrious in history his statue would never be erected, for the sculptor could not find marble white enough !
One of the most pleasant sallies of wit of which, as reform- ers, Garrison and Phillips were the subjects in the earty days, was that of a lady of Boston whose guests they both were. She said they were dissatisfied not only with institutions and society as they existed, but also with man as created, so they had essayed a new creation, and sought to paraphrase the ancient record so that their fiat would run thus : " And Garrison said to Phillips, Go to now, let us make man anew in our image, after our likeness. So Garrison and Phillips moulded a few in their image, in the image of Garrison and Phillips moulded they them ; male and female moulded they them ; and Garrison and Phillips looked upon them and saw that they were good ; better than the original ; and it was so."
Of the famous trio who so unexpectedly came to our youthful personal knowledge, Wendell Phillips alone remains. Three decades of intellectual conflict have increased their fame among men. The early memory of them remains to us a pleasure. When the last shall go, an electric light will have been extinguished. The Pharos will no longer light the Midland Sea.
254 AGRIPPINA AND LUCRETIA —
AGRIPPINA AND LUCRETIA— A PARALLEL.
TN the reign of Tiberius, Germanicus ruled in Asia and ^ commanded the Imperial Legions. In the midst of his career, popular in his administration and beloved for his private virtues, he was assassinated by poison, administered by the hands of a woman, instigated thereto by Piso, a mili- tary rival, who at the same time approached the Asiatic •capital, Antioch, with an insurgent army before Germanicus was .yet dead. Choate, in his felicitous rendering of the Latin of Tacitus, tells the story of a tragedy which now, after the lapse of nearly two thousand years, history has repeated, forming in all essential incidents a most remarkable parallel. Germanicus, upon his martyr-bed, said : " If my threshold is to be besieged, if my blood is to be poured out under the •eye of my enemies, what will befall my most wretched wife ? what my children, yet infants ? Piso thinks poison too slow !" Germanicus at first, for a brief space, was elevated to the hope of recovery, but soon perceived that his end was approaching ; and with wearied frame then addressed the friends who stood around him : " If I were yielding to a decree of nature, I might justly grieve for the ordination even of the gods who snatch me away from parents, children, country, by a premature departure in my season of youth. But now, intercepted violently and suddenly by the crime of Piso and Plancina, I leave my last prayers in your hearts. Tell my father and my brother by what afflictions torn asunder, by what treachery circumvented, I close my most unhappy life, and by the most inglorious death. If there are those in whom my earlier hopes my kindred blood awakened
A PARALLEL. 255
an interest ; if there are any in whom, while living, I moved an emotion of envy, they will weep that he, once shining the survivor of so many wars, has fallen by the fraud of woman. There will be allowed you opportunity of preferring a com- plaint to the Senate, and of invoking the laws. It is not the chief office of friendship to stand looking after the departed with listless sorrow, but to remember his wishes and to perform his injunctions. Even strangers will weep for Germanicus. You will vindicate him, if it were himself rather than his conspicuous fortune, which you loved and cherished. Show the people of Rome the granddaughter of Augustus, my wife ; enumerate m}- six children. Sympath}* will enlist itself with the accusers ; and they who may only pretend that their crimes were commanded by a higher will shall not be believed, or shall not be held guiltless." Then turning to his wife he entreated her by his memory, by their •common children, to suppress all vehemence of resentment, to resign her spirit to her cruel fortune when she should return to the city, to avoid by emulation of power exasper- ating those above her in the State. Within a brief space afterward he died, to the profound sorrow of the province and of the countries round it. Foreign nations and kings mourned for him. Such had been his courtesy to his subjects of the province ; such his clememry toward his enemies ; such reverence did his countenance and speech alike conciliate, that while he preserved and displayed the grandeur and •dignity of the highest estate, he escaped envy and the accusation of arrogance.
His funeral was celebrated by praises and by the memory and rehearsal of his virtues. Some there were who drew a parallel between him in respect of form and of age, the kind of death, the general region in which he died, and the traits and fortune of Alexander the Great. Each of them, it was called to mind, was of dignified and graceful person, and •each, not much past the thirtieth year of life, died by treach-
256 AGRIPPINA AND LUCRETIA —
ery of his countrymen in foreign lands. But Germanicus was gentle toward his friends, temperate in his pleasures, the husband of one wife, the father of legitimate children only. Nor was he, they urged, less a warrior, although characterized by less rashness. His body, before it was burned, was exposed in the forum of Antioch, which was the place assigned for funeral ceremonies. Agrippina, although faint from sorrow and sickness, yet unable to endure delay, ascended the fleet with the ashes of Germanicus with her children, attended by universal commiseration that a woman, the highest in nobility, but yesterday the wife of a most illustrious marriage, accustomed to be seen, surrounded, thronged, admired and congratulated, should now be bearing away the ashes of the dead in her bosom ; anxious for herself; her exposure to fortune multiplied and heightened by the sad possession of so many children.
Undelayed by a winter's sea, Agrippina pursues her voyage, and is borne to the island of Corcyra, opposite to the Calabrian shore. There, violent by grief, and untaught and unknowing how to endure, she passed a few duA^s in a struggle to compose herself. Meantime the news of her approach having preceded her, the more intimate of the friends of Germanicus and the greater number of those who had borne military office under him, and crowds of persons unknown, rushed to Brundusium, the nearest port and the safest harbor to which she might come. And now that the fleet is first dimly discerned far at sea, the harbor, and all the adjacent shore nearest the water, and not these alone, but walls and roofs of houses, even the remotest, from which a glimpse could be gained, are thronged by a sorrowing multitude. They inquire often, one of another, whether they should receive her, as she descends from her ship, with silence, or with uttered expressions of feeling. Nor had they determined which would most befit the time, when the fleet slowly entered the port, not gliding to that joyful stroke of the oar-
A PARALLEL. 257
with which the sailor, his voyage ending, comes to land, but with the manner in all things and with the aspects of mourn- ing. And when Agrippina with her two children, bearing the urn of the dead, had descended from the ship and fixed her eyes sadly on the ground, one general equal sob burst forth from all that vast multitude, nor could you distinguish by the degree or the form of sorrow, strangers from near friends, nor man from woman ; except that those in the train of Agrippina, exhausted by long-indulgent grief, were less passionate and vehement than those more recent in their expression of it who thus came forth to meet them.
The Emperor had sent two Pretorian cohorts to attend the arrival and approach of Agrippina, and had also issued a decree that the Apulians, the Campanians, and the magis- trates of Calabria should perform the last offices to the memory of his son. The ashes, therefore, were borne forward •on the shoulders of tribunes and centurions ; before them moved along standards un decorated, and fasces inverted ; and as the procession passed through successive colonies, the people clad in black, and the Equites in their robes of State, as the means of the region might supply, burned garments, odors, and such things else as used to honor the burial of the dead. Even they, whose cities the procession did not pass through, came out to meet it, and offering sacrifices, and erecting altars to the gods of the dead, attested their sorrow by tears and united wailing. Drusus had advanced as far as Terracina with his brother Claudius, and with those children of Germanicus who had remained at Rome. The Consuls Marcus Valerius and Caius Aurelius, the Senate and the great body of the people thronged the way ; without order of procession or arrangement, each man by himself weeping unrestrained — the sorrow of the heart, not the service of adulation. It does not appear that the mother of Gernian- icus performed any conspicuous part in the service of the day, while the names of many other kinsmen of the deceased 17
258 AGRIPPINA AND LUCRETIA —
are recorded. Whether she was prevented by ill health, or,, overdone by grief, could not endure to look upon that spec- tacle of so great calamity, we may not know.
On the day on which the remains were borne to the tomb of Augustus, there reigned at times a desolate silence, and at times it was disturbed by sounds of sorrow. The streets were filled ; funeral torches gleamed in Campus Martins ; and there were soldiers in arms ; there were magistrates without the badges of office ; the people by tribes ; and from all lips there burst forth the frequent cry so unrestrained and loud, that they might seem to have forgotten that they had a master, "The Republic is fallen — there is no more hope." Nothing, however, could surpass the enthusiastic sentiments which appeared kindled toward Agrippina. All saluted her as the grace of the State ; the one in whose veins alone ran the blood of Augustus ; the sole surviving speci- men of the old, noble, Roman matronage ; and lifting their eyes toward heaven, they prayed that her children might be happy, and might be spared the malice of their enemies. So general and overwhelming was the public grief, that the Emperor sought to soothe the sorrows and renew the hopes of the people of Rome by putting forth an admonitory edict. "Many illustrious Romans," it bore, "had died for the Republic ; but the funeral of no one had been solemnized by so passionate a public sorrow. This was creditable to all, if it were submitted to some degree of moderation, for that excess of sorrow which might become an humble house or an incon- siderable city, were unsuitable to princes and an imperial people. For recent affliction, sorrow, and the solaces of grief indulged, were fit ; but now, at length, the mind ought to be brought back to firmness again ; as once Julius, bereaved of his only daughter ; as Augustus, his grandsons torn from him, suppressed all signs of gloom. Nor is there need of remembering earlier examples ; how often, with constancy, has the Roman people borne the slaughter of armies ; the
A PARALLEL. 259
death of generals. Noble families, from their foundations, overthrown and perished. Great men die. The republic is eternal."
A few thousand years hence, when the English language shall be dead, and human lips no more utter its accents, scholars will render the history of some Tacitus of the Nine- teenth Century into a possibly universal language, evolved out of the tongue of an island tribe in some yet untraversed ocean, which shall tell the story of the return to the city of the American Lucretia, weeping over the casket holding the remains of her husband, greater in office and more exalted in the State than the husband of Agrippina, and lamented by more nations and peoples than Germanicus knew. How the Queen of England and Empress of India laid her chaplet of flowers upon his bier, and spoke words of consolation to the widow's heart as woman alone can speak to woman. How sovereigns of Europe expressed by electric messengers their profoundest sentiments of sympathy and sorrow. How prayers were offered in the mosques of the Sultan. How they wept at the doors of Arab tents upon the sultry sands of Arabia, as they wept for him who died at Azan. How cities of the Nile contributed sympathetic balm of lotus flowers. How on the appointed day for universal prayer the people reverently bowed in temple, sj^nagogue and church, from China and Japan ; from the Orient to the Occident, from the Arctic Circle to the Republics beyond the Equator.
And above all, how Ministers of State, Judges of Courts, Senators and Representatives in Congress, Generals of the Army and Admirals of the Navy, Governors of States and Statesmen of the Republic, guarded the honored dead to final rest in the beautiful necropolis on the shores of an inland sea. How, when the faithful wife, weary and heavily veiled, descended from the sable car of the long funeral train and delivered her precious burden to official and friendly hands in the Northern Metropolis, thousands of the people stood in
260 AGRIPPINA AND LUCRETIA — A PARALLEL.
oppressive silence, and white-haired men and women mingled their tears with the maiden and the child, and offered their silent prayers for the grief-stricken widow and her children, and for the mother of the distinguished dead — for the vener- able mother of our Germanicus was within the gates of the city. How the great dead was mourned in our Campus Martius ; how his great deeds and noble virtues were re- counted and the choicest expressions of his public utterances were repeated ; and finally how, when all was ended, the people strived for something of solace and consolation in his own most appropriate and assuring words — "God reigns, and the Government at Washington still lives."
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MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES.'
\\ 7HAT the wonderful electric light is to the eye, music is to the soul of man. It is an element in nature no less than light, air, electricity and the warmth of the sun. It is manifest in the thunder, in the sighing of the winds in the forests, the surge of the ocean dashing upon its rocky shore, the cry of the beasts of the field and the birds of the air ; and every sound of the human voice, whether of pleasure or pain, that is wafted upon the waves of the air, and touching the ear, is thus communicated to the human soul, inspiring or depressing the spirit of man. Its human manifestation com- menced with the moaning of the first infant in the cradle, sup- plemented by the twitter of the first bird perched upon the tree in the garden of the primeval world, the first lamb that bleated upon the slopes of the mountains in Central Asia, and the first fierce battle-cry of rude nomadic tribes contending for ground on which to pitch their tents or pasturage for their flocks.
Music, as a practised art, is as old as humanity itself. It is pre-historic, and its beginnings are lost in the myths and mysteries of the origin and history of the human race, and will never be known until the beginnings of races, tribes and nations shall have been discovered and made known by the laborious and searching ethnologist. No wild tribe has yet been found on the face of the globe that does not possess something of music in its nature, and practices it either in
* Written for the Cleveland Educational Bureau.
262 MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES.
voice or by instrument, however rude, discordant, or even offensive it may be to cultivated ears.
The legends of a people often contain a germ of true his- tory. The most ancient legend touching the history of music is more than five thousand years old, and has come down to us from China. It relates that at that early period the Chi- nese musical scale consisted of five primal tones only. These were conceived to be symbolical of the five elements of na- ture— earth, metal, wood, fire and water. Early respect and reverence for imperial rule led the court musicians to dignify their profession by a national svmbo'ization representative of the Emperor, the minister, the people, affairs of State, the body politic. All this, of course, was fancy and complimen- tary, but it had the happy result of securing government influ- ence in advancing the art. In process of time, as the art developed, new tones were conceived and added by different authors, without reference to former standard musical rules, •whereby confusion arose in musical matters at the Imperial €ourt, and the Emperor took the subject in hand with a determination to establish music on a basis of sound princi- ples and fixed laws. To that end, the Emperor Hoang-Ti ordered Ling-Lun, the greatest musician of his time, to bring order out of confusion and establish music on a new and per- manent foundation. So Ling-Lun, like some modern philoso- phers and original scientific investigators, resorted to original sources to ascertain the number of musical notes and the key- note of nature. He left the capital and the abodes of men, and sought the highest mountain in Central Asia, where the great Hoang-Ho takes its rise. While ascending a lofty peak, he suddenly felt his feet refusing their support. He sat down and soon fell into a deep reverie. There appeared to him Pung-Hoang, the wonderful double-bird, which appears to man only on rare occasions, and for the especial purpose of benefiting mankind in general. The male Fung sang six tones, and the female Hoang six others, and the deepest tone
MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES.. 263
produced by Fung was Kung, the great tone — earth and em- peror in the symbolized scale. Now the waters of the Hoang-Ho, rushing by, likewise intoned the Kung, and Ling- Lun's own voice, when speaking, was in unison with it. So Ling-Lun recognized it as the root-tone, whence all others had sprung. He then returned to the capital, and elab- orated his new system. To the great fundamental tone, the generator of all others, Kung, were added other tones called helpers and supporters, for by their aid the circle of the fifths and fourths was effected. The double bird had sung twelve notes. These formed the twelve semitones of the octave. Those intoned by Fung were considered perfect, while the others were imperfect. This was in accordance with Chinese philosophy, which divided things into perfect and imperfect, and held that each thing perfect had a counter- part in something imperfect ; like the relation in which man stood to woman, heaven to earth, the sun to the moon. The twelve semitones were also S3Tmbolical of the twelve moons of the year. Taking their premises, that each mode was a mani- festation of some principle, as materialized in the elements of the State, so also as materialized in an element in nature, the Chinese had a complete and logical theory explaining the power of music over the emotions. They believed that each tone and each mode impressed itself, according to its charac- ter, directly on the mind, without the intervention of thought ; that music acted in a primary manner, acted as much upon the person ignorant of its deep signification as upon the phi- losopher. The ancient Chinese, moreover, held music in high estimation in consequence of their theory. Whatever may have been the state of musical knowledge and art in China in the earlier times, as compared with that of Western nations to-day, or in the intervening ages, its influence upon Emperor and people had been such, that it is recorded that one of the sayings of Confucius, two thousand years later, was: "De- sire ye to know whether a land is well governed, and its peo-
264 MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES.
pie have good morals ? Hear its music." Another philoso- pher of the empire asserts, that whoever understands music well, is capable of governing. Fo-Hi himself was the inventor of an instrument, the Kin. A number of emperors were skilled musicians and composers ; several are portrayed as performing on the same instrument.
The less poetic and more practical, if not more scientific Egyptians symbolized music with the whole cosmos, the uni- verse, or planetary system as understood by them in the earlier ages of that country. They compared the seven tones of the diatonic scale to the seven planets. This was at least a sublime idea. It pervaded all that subsequent time which to us is known as historical antiquity of Eg}*pt, also the mid- dle ages, and there are even traces of it in recent times — the idea of the harmony of the spheres. Music was no longer, as in the remoter East, merely a manifestation of terrestrial forces, symbolical of terrestrial governments ; it came to be considered a manifestation of the celestial, of spirit which regulates the universe. Harmony was no longer restricted to- the earth ; it came to be the ruling principle of nature. The gods were the means through which the knowledge of music was imparted to man. Osiris invented the flute ; Isis, the sacred songs. The seven tones of the Egyptian scale were deemed manifestations of the principle which produced the seven planets, endowed by the Greater with motion, and which were then supposed to revolve around the stationary earth — Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Sun and Moon. Herschel and Neptune were then unknown. Being something of astronomical mathematicians, they conceived the ratio between the lowest tone and the highest to be the same as between Saturn, the most distant known planet, and the Moon, the nearest. These ideas are all set forth and illustrated in ancient Egyptian books, two of which, devoted to music alone, have come down to us. They ascribed path- ological virtues to music, designating it as physic for the soul.
MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES. 265
It is possible that the old Egyptians had even a more sub- lime conception of music in its relation to the celestial orbs than we are wont to concede to them, as involved in the ex- pression, "harmony of the spheres." Egypt and Chaldea pos- sessed the primeval knowledge of astronomy — the order and movement not only of the planets of the solar system, but also of the myriad stars and the great constellations of the zodiac. Motion was their most significant manifestation. Motion is the generator of tone-music, whether of the voice or instrument, or other terrestrial phenomena. Music thus being the resultant of terrestrial motion, how natural to the ancient philosopher, hardly less than poet and musician, to conceive that the celestial spheres, in their wonderful orbital velocity, should produce upon the ear of the Creator, and pos- sibly upon the spirits of the ancient gods and the souls of the dead Egyptian, harmony not unlike that of earth, but more glorious and grand, even as the heavens are above the earth. May not Moses, or Pythagoras the Greek, both of whom were priests of the temples, learned in all the knowledge of the Egyptians, of which music was not the least even in the days of the first, have conceived that the music of earth was but the echo of the harp of the universe, whose strings were planetary orbits, set in vibratory motion by the breath of the Perfect Master, Deity himself, in the morning of creation ? This, of course, is a mental conception which the limited capacity of man can never demonstrate as truth. So smoothly run the planets in their mighty courses round the sun, that man cannot physically appreciate the slightest mo- tion ; and nothing but his knowledge of mathematical astron- omy demonstrates the fact that the earth on which he lives shoots through space with a velocity of one thousand two hundred miles a minute; Venus a little faster, and Mercury one thousand eight hundred miles a minute ; yea, that during this hour's entertainment, the earth has been hurled through space seventy-two thousand miles. Such motion may evolve
"266 MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES.
music, grand and harmonious to an Infinite Mind in the realms of outer space. Thus, the " Music of the Spheres," •" Celestial Harmony," while treated as the expression of an -ancient poetic fancy, ma}' nevertheless have a basis of philo- sophic truth in the unsolvable mysteries of the Divine Archi- tect of Nature.
How much of music, as we understand the art, the old Egyptians knew and practised, may be inferred from the sacred Hebrew record. The foreign people who went out from the Delta of the Nile, in the great exodus fifteen hun- dred years before our era, after four hundred years' residence, were skilled in the music of song, the harp and the timbrel, and all other instruments known to the Egyptian. That words were written in the form of song, or Oriental poetic prose, and music composed to emphasize and inspire the same, somewhat in the modern style of our musical authors, is appar- ent from the delineations upon the walls of temples and tombs, of musical instruments, and even concerts of artistes in the courts of the Pharaohs, celebrating praises to Isis and Osiris, or events of war and conquest. That the Hebrews there resi- dent had become equally skilled with the native Egyptians, is unquestionably demonstrated in even the brief outline of the sacred record wherein is disclosed the theme, the ascription of praise and a few of the words of the first and sublimest Ora- torio of antiquity, The Triumph of the Red Sea,
The celebration of national events in modern times is prin- cipally by the speeches of orators and statesmen ; in antiquity, "by music. The speech of Paul at Mars Hill, the grandest oration of later times, cast into the shade the orations of Demosthenes, Pericles and Cicero of earlier ages, but is no fuller recorded or better known to-day than is the burden of the triumphal song of Moses. The event which the Hebrews celebrated was by music, the most natural and expressive out- burst of the soul in praise to God for national deliverance. Orations and speeches, like those of modern times, would
MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES. 267
have been tame, inexpressive, and would not in that day have been reported so as to have been transmitted to subsequent -ages. But music lives when speech is lost.
The Oratorio of the Red Sea was no ephemeral or hasty affair. Preparation was made, and time was set for the national celebration. The great theme was written, and nobler strains of music were composed than ever had sounded in Egyptian temple, or wafted around sphinx or pyramid. The singers were selected, and the instruments determined. When the time arrived and all was in readiness, and the great audience of Israel were seated, the curtain was raised, and Moses, the leader of men and the master of music, appeared upon the stage and voiced the wonderful composition con- tained in the fifteenth chapter of Exodus, chorused by the audience : " I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously ; the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, and He is my salva- tion ; He is my God. and I will exalt Him. Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath He cast into the sea ; his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea. The depths have covered them ; they sank into the bottom as a stone. With the blast of Thy nostrils the waters were gathered together ; the flood stood upright as a heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea."
In the next act appeared the first and most renowned prima donna of history, the beautiful daughter of Israel, Miriam, the prophetess, and the accomplished sister of the leading star. With timbrel in hand, she was followed by a great choir of women, also with timbrels, and Miriam struck the note : " Sing ye to the Lord, for He hath triumphed glor- iously ; the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea."
Such are the dim outlines of the first great concert of the world. History is silent touching the reception of the re- nowned singers, or the applause with which they were greeted, the bouquets that were showered down upon the graceful
268 MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES.
Miriam, or other demonstrations of professional regard ; but a sensible mind cannot deem it as treating lightly the sacred record, when it is considered that humanity is substantially the same in all ages. Had we the libretto of the occasion, with the names of the singers, or a copy of the Migdol Daily Tribune of the next morning after the Oratorio of the Tri- umph of the Red Sea, the present and the remote past would doubtless seem not very much unlike. The reporters might be relied upon for an exact and impartial account, while proba- bly the Pharaohonic editor would have an editorial character- izing the concert as a failure, and the ascription of praise to the God of the Hebrews as but an insult to Apis and the sacred Crocodile.
Egypt was the educator of Greece, and in the process of time music was wafted to the shores of the ^Egean Sea. Here it underwent a new nomenclature, and its principles were symbolized with the gods and goddesses of the mythical age, until in later times the philosophers, Pythagoras, Aristotle and others sought its principles in nature. The ultimate result was, that all is number and harmon}T. Numbers are the guides and preservers of the harmony of the universe. They define form, order and the laws of things. In them is con- tained the real being of all things that exist. All numbers are repetitions of the first ten. The ten spring from unit}^ which is therefore the origin of all things. The great num- ber is the number four, for if added to the first three, pro- duces ten, the limit and consummation of the fundamental numbers. In the number one, the point is contained ; in two, the line ; in three, the superfices j but in four — the first square — is the defining of all bodies. This is therefore the root of nature. Numbers are the . spiritual essence of music. What we hear in the vibrations of a material are numbers. In the motion of the heavenly bodies we see numbers. Music and the celestial bodies are therefore closely related to each other. Ratios in the length of strings, were^ discovered by
MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES. 269
Pythagoras, or by the Egyptians. All things, whether seen or heard, were numbers and harmony. "Therefore," says the Greek, " it is the business of music not only to preside over the voice and musical instruments, but even to harmonize all things contained in the universe." God organized all nature according to the laws of harmony, was a tenet of the Greek. The lyre was considered a symbol of the cosmos. The heav- enly bodies were musical instruments sounding forth melo- dies of indescribable sublimity. The laws of harmony were the same laws that built and preserved the universe. In con- sequence of this sublime conception, the practice of music was enjoined as a highly virtuous and especially meritorious action, "for music," said Pythagoras, "purifies the soul." Another philosopher held that " the soul is a tension of the body ; and that, as vibrations are produced on strings, so the emotions manifested themselves by producing vibrations on the body — the soul acting as tension."
The course of music, like the emigration of peoples and the star of empire, was westward. From the rise of Christianity, through the dark and gloomy thousand years known as the Middle Ages, and until about the fifteenth century, music in Western Europe was principally under the control of the ecclesiastics, and utilized almost exclusively in the service of the Church.
As the ancients beheld in music manifestations of the same causes that produced the elements or planets, so the scholas- tics and monks, to show equal wisdom with the Egyptian and Greek philosophers, also symbolized the principles of music, but wholly referred the same to scriptural typifications, rather than to those of nature. The relation to what was termed the plagal and authentic modes they conceived such typical of the chariot wheel within a wheel, described in the vision of Ezekiel. Music was a symbol of the Church, in that it was composed of many parts. It was cosmical and human ; so the Bible was divided into two Testaments. There were three
270 MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES.
classes of musical instruments : so of course they corres- ponded to Faith, Hope and Charity. A composition is com- posed of a first, middle and final part ; wonderfully, it was sup- posed or pretended, significant of the Trinity. And so the monks continued to symbolize ad infinitum, outdoing all heathen antiquity in the matter of the symbolization of music. It is not recorded that the monks compared it with, and extolled it as physic either for body or soul ; but with their never-ending extent of inapt and illogical symbolization, physic suggests itself.
The first record of a singing school is that of one estab- lished in Rome by Pope Sylvester, A. D. 330. The kind of music taught is unknown, but limited, doubtless, to the cus- toms of the Church, and adapted to hymns and chants.
Seventy years afterwards, St. Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, took an interest in the culture of music, and arranged the four diatonic scales, known as "The Authentic Mode," composed himself new hymns and chants, and organized a fine choir in his own church at Milan. The Authorized Mode did service for about two hundred years, till it became deteri- orated or unfashionable ; when Gregory the Great (590), dur- ing his pontificate, undertook the work of musical reformation and improvement, and it is said, restored to Church song that solemnity of character which it had gradually lost. The modes he established are known as the "_ Gregorian Modes." He established a school, at which his system and the order of the Church service were systematically taught. The S3'stem founded by this prelate became universal in Christian coun- tries, and schools were established in principal dioceses, but not so much success was met as anticipated, owing to the un- tutored condition of the people, who in that age were rude to the extreme.
Two hundred years later, the Emperor Charlemagne (800) founded music schools at Metz and other towns, and placed them under Italian singers of note. Alcuin, a British eccle-
MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES. 271
siastic, an accomplished teacher of the Gregorian system, was employed by the Emperor as Principal in these schools. The interest which Charlemagne took in this enterprise established the Gregorian system throughout Europe. ,
Musical notes were but dots and scratches until about the year 1050, when Guido of Arezzo added two lines to the staff, and invented the terms ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, sa, which are sub- stantially as known to the student of music to-day. There had ever been a necessity for having the musical lan- guage expressed by fixed and invariable signs. This made the language of music universal — the Englishman, French- man, German and Italian, who did not know enough of each other's language to exchange salutations, could thenceforth sing and play from the same printed or written music in harmony. This great discovery and revolution in musical notation was evolved out of the first syllables of the little Latin hymn of St. John the Baptist, a special and determined character being assigned to each. The hymn is composed as follows :
Ut queant laxis JResonare fibris MiTSi gestorum .Famuli tuorum •SoZve pulluti iabii rectum •Sanctae Johannes.
Ut was afterwards changed to do, and sa for si, by some acknowledged musical authority, as being more euphonious, but otherwise the same little syllables have done the world a service and held their place for eight hundred years.
Notwithstanding music as a cultivated art was appropriated chiefly to the uses of the ecclesiastics in the long and gloomy period of more than a thousand years in Western Europe, there was, nevertheless, a kind of native music and song.
272 MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES.
among the untutored, and even the most rude and uncivilized of the people. The Scandinavian of the frozen North, the ancient Briton, the Caledonian Highlander, the primitive Welsh, the Hibernian, the Basque of the Pj'renees, the Gaul and the Teuton, had their primitive poets, scalds and sagas, who composed or improvised of love and war, and entertained their families or friends in their rude huts, or crowds in the villages and incipient cities, with singing or droning recita- tions more or less melodious. Such was the secular music.
After the Crusades of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, which had exhausted in a measure the fanaticism, bigotry and intolerance of the age, and more than decimated the people of Europe in a war with the Saracens of Palestine, there was a new birth of poetry and song. Superstition had vanished under the realities of the sword of Saladin. Those who lived to return had learned something of the wisdom of the world, and were happy to see the hills and vales of France once more, even as beggars, where once they had been princes and owners of great estates. Fascinated by the graceful and ornate songs of the Orientals, which they had learned, they imitated them, and introduced into France a new melod}' and a new song. Thus came the Troubadours and Minstrels with their songs of glory, tenderness and love.
" Gaily the Troubadour touched his guitar, As he was hastening home from the war, Singing, from Palestine hither I come, Lady love, lady love, welcome me home."
The art of the Troubadours was entitled the gaie science, and to the idea of gaiety a noble meaning was attached. Gaiety, or joy, was a state of mind regarded as corresponding with that of religious grace. The end of their profession was the service of religion, honor and woman in deed and in song. One of their mottoes was : " My soul to God, my life for the king, my heart for my lady, my honor for myself."
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The most famous of the Troubadours, or Wandering Min- strels, was Adam de la Hale, about 1280, who wrote songs in three-part harmony, the melodies of which would be ac- counted agreeable even in the present day. They were not unlike the popular " Folk-Songs " of Southern France and Northern Spain, as still sung b}^ the rural population in those provinces. As in those early times, Church music was in the hands of ecclesiastics, so these Troubadours were the chier composers of secular music. In France, the songs of the peo- ple were the chanson ; in Germany, the Lied ; in England, the song and the glee ; in Italy, the frottole, villotte, canzonet. The folk-song of the Swedes, Poles and Hungarians have been introduced to the world, and proven to be quaintly orig- inal and very beautiful. Among the folk-songs of the Scotch are many which are judged to antedate the Christian religion,, whose form, it is believed, can be traced back to the Phrygian and Dorian Greek ; such as l( My Boy Tammie," " Roy's Wife of Aldivallach," " Reel of Tulloch," and even " Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled." From the old Bards of Erin and Scotia, of the days when " The harp that once through Tara's halls its soul of music shed," to that which Scott invoked in the " Lady of the Lake," " Harp of the North that mouldering long hast hung on the witch-elm that guards St. Fillan's spring," have descended to us nearly all those strains of mel- ody so familiar, so dear to the heart, and so awakening to the emotions, not only to the native, but to the American people who are by descent the inheritors of the spirit, poetry and song of the old races of the North. Ossian's " Invocation to the Sun," from out the cold, bleak mountains of the North, still awes us by its grandeur, and " The Pibroch that thrilled in Glen Fruin," to-day inspires the Highland regiment alike in the jungles of Africa and upon the sultry plains of India.
About 1502, Ottavio Petrucci invented the means of print- ing music by movable metal types. Through this most im- portant invention of printing musical works, their cost was 18
274 MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES.
much lessened, and the music-loving public was enabled to possess the recognized works of the best composers.
It is claimed that music schools for strictly ecclesiastical music were established at Canterbu^, the seat of the first Church established by the Roman Pontiff, and still the seat of the Protestant Primacy of England, as early as 825, and that later in the same century the Great Alfred, whom the old chronicles credit with being himself an excellent musician, founded a professorship at Oxford. The improved Gregorian music remained in use, in connection with the offices of Relig- ion, until the dawn of that revolution inaugurated in Ger- many, known in history as the Reformation ; when its leaders, differing materially in their opinions of the manner in which the Art of Music was to be rendered most effective to their objective ends, a complete change was felt in the music of the Church. The great leader of the Reformation, Luther, in his attack upon the Church of Rome, though bold and uncom- promising, nevertheless, as he had been taught music, and had formed a high opinion of its influence for good upon the human heart, instead of abolishing the good in music from his new form of worship, he made it his business and highest aim to encourage its cultivation as an eminently Christian art, and for that purpose adopted a religious service in Ger- man to the ancient and grand music of the Roman Mass ; and introduced a variety of hymns and Psalms into the Church — some of the best of which he is said to be the author. John Calvin, the great cotemporary of Luther, is credited with doing a similar work for France and Switzerland, and for the like purpose.
The progress of the Reformation may possibly be attributed quite as much to the new and melodious tunes adapted to the venerable psalms and hymns as to any material change in orthodox theology ; for a cotemporary of Luther — an adher- ent of the old Church — complained, it is said, that "the whole of Germany was singing itself into the Lutheran doctrine."
MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES. 275
Such items of theological history are here used, however, only as showing what wonderful influence has ever been attributed to music in all great events in past ages. That music has a place in all histories is ever written and talked about.
The poetry of the Reformation, wedded to music worthy of it, was treasured in the hearts and homes of the faithful, from the mountains of Switzerland to the shores of the Baltic, and from the banks of the Rhine to those of the Vistula and Dan- ube. In addition to the German sacred songs, a number of hymns, translated from the older poets of Bohemia, were greatly prized in the land of Luther. The Church songs in use among the Germans and Bohemians were the old Hymns and Sequences. The Psalms, so dear to the fathers of the Church, and which, in earlier ages, formed the true liturgy and hymn-book of the people, were not yet recalled by the new Church to their old place of honor in the service of the sanctuary. To the Reformers remained the duty of solving the question of a Service of Praise, and the possible revival of the love of the early Christian Church for the Psalms of David.
In England, as in Germany, the object of the Reformers toeing to purify religion from whatever was corrupt, retaining all that was good ; choral music was preserved, particularly in the Cathedrals and Collegiate Churches. Henry VIII. (1521), a devotee of music, in connection with his Minister, Cardinal Woolse}7, preserved the Choral Service in its most perfect and solemn forms ; and schools for music, connected with all the Cathedrals, were sustained.
In the reign of Elizabeth, from 1558, the Papacy was abol- ished, with all the usages of the Romish Church, and the English Church was established. For nearly a century from this time, continual changes in the government, civil war, and the consequent disregard of the arts and higher forms of edu- cation, allowed the taste for, and the cultivation of music to be neglected. It was indeed banished from the Churches, and
276 MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES.
in a great degree from private families. By an ordinance made in 1644, organs in churches and chapels were taken down, and an infuriated populace demolished these instru- ments. At the succession and during the reign of Charles II., the clergy were returned to the station and property of the Church of which they had been despoiled, and music as an art rose again.
From 1500 to 1545, under the great Italian masters, the art of music, as employed in the service of the Catholic Church at Rome and elsewhere, progressed till it found its culminating point in the advent of Palestrina, who was regarded as the model composer of the noble style of Church music. By idealizing, in the sense of the Catholic Church, its mystic religious life, by ennobling, enriching and purifying its inward contents, he perfected the organism of his art. The musical drama, or opera, as it was afterwards called, was at this time the center of attraction for the talent and genius of some of the most able musicians of the century ; and owing to the fact of its increasing popularity, as also affording a more abundant remuneration for the labors of the composer, Church music began to be neglected, save by those inspired souls who felt themselves particularly chosen to advance sacred art. Pales- trina, however, remained true to the traditions of the systems of the ecclesiastical modes, and was ever afterward recog- nized as the saviour of Church Music.
The gradual and successful development of the musical drama had a marked effect upon the growth of music in the Church. The old ecclesiastical keys were gradually trans- formed into the more modern system of tonality, and eventu- ally the whole character of musical composition was changed, although, for more than a century, the successors of Palestrina adhered to the art principles of their great master. Most of the composers, both Italian and German, up to the, beginning of the eighteenth century, were successful in the musical drama, as well as in the music of the Church, and up to that
MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES. 277
time they had maintained a visible line of demarkation between the two distinct types of composition. At the com- mencement of the eighteenth century the form of the drama per musica, or opera, was distinctly felt in the mass, hymn, psalm, and other Church music, and the old tradition of a strict church style was banished from the mind of the com- poser.
There were four distinct schools in Italy, that of Rome, the Neapolitan, the Venetian, and the Bolognese. At Rome, Allegri, Agrostini and Carrissimi followed the traditions of Palestrina. Gregorio Allegri, a singer and composer in the Pope's Chapel at Rome, 1629, composed the Miserere, which for more than a hundred and fifty years was performed, on Wednesday and Friday during Passion-week, in the Papal chapel. This Miserere is in appearance of a simple form, con- sisting of two alternate choruses, one in four parts and the other in five parts, the two being brought to simultaneous concord at the last verse of the hymn. The effect produced by the composition is in a great measure due to a peculiar traditional manner of rendering with regard to the expression, and frequent changes of light and shade, enhanced by the mystery of the rites belonging to this service. The Pope and Conclave are all prostrate upon the ground ; the candles of the chapel and the torches of the balustrade are extinguished one by one ; when in darkness the two choirs unite in the last verse, the chapel master beating the time slower and slower, the singers diminish, or rather extinguish the harmony to a perfect point, where words fall far short of expressing the overpoweringly solemn, melting effect of these dying tones, telling in mystic cadence of the passion of Christ.
The great composers of the mass, which is the musical ser- vice of the Church of Rome, are Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Hummel, Cherubini, who have employed all the depth and ten- derness of melody and richest harmony in this kind of com- position.
278 MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES.
The invention of the Oratorio, which is a species of musical drama consisting of airs, recitations, duets, trios and choruses, is commonly ascribed to St. Philip who founded in Rome, in 1540, the congregation of the Oratory (or are — to pray). This ecclesiastic, wishing to distract the attention of his parish- ioners from the theatre — the mania for which often kept them from their religious duties — formed the idea of having Sacred Interludes written by a poet, set to the music of able com- posers, and performed by the most celebrated singers. The experiment succeeded ; crowds were attracted to the concerts, which took the name of Oratorios, from the Church of the Oratory, where they were performed. The great names iden- tified with this important school of music are Carrissimi (1580), Jeptha and Jonah are his best known works. Henrich Schultz (1585) is styled the father of German Oratorio. He wrote The Passion Story of the Resurrection, and Seven Last Words. Hosanna to the Son of David, is a composition of an Englishman, Gibbons (1625).
Henry Purcell, organist of Westminster Abbey, 1677, was styled " the greatest English musical genius." He wrote the Te Deum and Jubilate, performed at St. Paul's Cathedral, besides many operas. William Croft (1727) wrote the Oratorio Solo- mon. John Sebastian Bach (1750) was a prolific German writer of Oratorios. Hsendel (1759) is the author of many celebrated works, among which are the Messiah, Samson and Belshazzar. Haydn composed a large number of symphonies, operas, masses, concerts, quartettes and trios and other instrumental works. At the age of 66 he produced the great Oratorio of The Creation. This work produced a profound impression at the final performance, which took place at Vienna. The fame of The Creation spread through Europe ; in England it ha& long been second only to The Messiah in popular favor.
In Opera, Gluck, Mozart and Beethoven are the great names in German musical history ; Gluck (1787), whose first opera was Artaxerxes, produced in Milan. It was followed
MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES. 279
by Clytemnestra and Demetrio. He visited England and pro- duced Caduta del Giganti and Artamene at the Haymarket. Mozart in 1770 produced his Opera Mitridate ; next La Finta Geardiniera and Idomeneo. Don Giovanni is his most cele- brated operatic work, while his Requiem holds a high place in the public regard. Beethoven's Mount of Olives is the most celebrated of his Oratorios, but his works are numerous. Since the above great names have come Hummel, a pupil of Mozart, Spohr of Brunswick, whose Oratorio, The Last Judg- ment and Calvary, are best known in this country. Karl Von Weber (1786 to 1826) opens upon the musical world with his opera Der Freischuetz, followed by Oberon for the English stage, and Euryanthe. Weber's works are very popular to-day. Franz Schubert ('97 to '28), wrote Hagar's Lament, Rosamond and Miriam's Battle Song. Jacob Myerbeer ('94 to '64) produced the Huguenots, L'Africane, Jephtha's Daugh- ter, Margherita d' Anjou, and Robert le Diable, all of which are alive, popular and familiar to all. Felix Mendelssohn- Bartholdy's (1809 to 1847) last great work was the Elijah, composed for and produced at the Birmingham Festival of 1846.
Robert Schumann (1810 to 1856) composed Paradise and The Peri, a setting to music of Moore's Lalla Rookh, an opera Genevieve, Manfred and the Pilgrimage of the Rose. Auber (1782 to 1871), for many years director of the Paris Conservatoire, devoted, was the author of Fra Diavolo and numerous other works. Rossini (1792 to 1868) produced, for the Carnival at Rome in the year 1816, the Barbiere di Sivig- lia and Moses in Egypt. His great cotemporaries were Bel- lini, who composed Norma and La Somnambula ; Donizetti, author of Lucrezia Borgia, Lucia di Lammermoor, Don Pas- quale, and the Daughter of the Regiment. Gounod stands at the head of French composers of the present day. His Co- temporaries are Ambrose Thoreau, Flotow and Offenbach, the latter the composer of La Grande Duchess, Barbe Blue, etc.
280 MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES.
Joseph Verdi is unrivalled among the Italians. He is the author of II Trovatore, Erani, etc.
Richard Wagner (b. 1813) has of late years been the sub- ject of bitter controversy among musicians. He is the author of Tannhauser's Lohengrin; and his last great contribution to the "music of the future," is the Der Ring der Nibelungen. His methods are becoming better understood, and the Hun- garian, Liszt, is among his strongest advocates.
These names are only a few of the many hundreds of great and distinguished names in modern music, either as com- posers or executors of renowned compositions, whether for the voice or instrument. Of the noted artists who are most familiar to the present generation, may be mentioned Mario, Malibran, Grisi, Jenny Lind, Garcia, Alboni, Albani, Cam- panini, Anna Louise Gary, Kellogg, Lucca, Nilsson, Adeline Patti, Carlotta Patti, Parepa-Rosa, Piccolomini, Adelaide Phillips, Sontag, Titiens, Emma Abbott, Mrs. Seguin, Maria Roze, Minnie Houck and Hilbron.
A marvelous power has been attributed to music in all ages of the world. It was the source of a multitude of fables in which exaggeration and imagination played a chief part. But whatever the stories, and however improbable they may be, they nevertheless bear witness to the importance of music and its power of fascination.
That Orpheus tamed wild beasts by the bewitching tones of his flute is not strange or remarkably wonderful, for music is resorted to daily by tamers of animals in caravans peram- bulating the country for the instruction and delight of the ris- ing generation. And it is told of a Northern lady who spends her winters in Florida, that she possesses the fascinating gift of calling around her a variety of beautiful birds of the for- est, some of which will perch upon her head and shoulders and flutter at her feet, captivated by her sweet voice and gen- tleness of spirit. But if Amphion erected the wall of Grecian Thebes by means of his songs, it must doubtless be taken in
MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES. 281
:a modern sense. The fact probably is that the city in its infanc}' had not resources equal to so great a municipal un- dertaking ; so Amphion, who was a splendid musician and a public-spirited person, as good musicians are with us, to meet the financial exigencies of the city, gave a series of concerts which were so popular, that gentlemen and ladies of wealth and musical tastes approved and patronized them, and thus the walls of the Thebes were erected.
Bunker Hill Monument remained untouched for years after the foundation was laid, for want of funds, and until an im- petus was given to the enterprise by a celebrated artist, the wealth of whose accomplishments were coined into money, and the proceeds of her entertainments generously contributed for the pa3rment of the toiling men in the granite quarries at Quincy.
Plato said no change could be made in music without a similar one being made in the State. And Aristotle con- trasted the musical race of Arcadia for gentleness of manners with the country of the unmusical Cynetes.
The Emperor Nero, concerning whom history charges that he toyed with music in a moment of dire calamity, was reputed a good musical artist, having studied under Greek masters. The old story has been handed down by historians as truth, each writer aggravating the case by some additional particulars, no matter how obtained. The real facts doubt- less were, that on the evening when the fire broke out, there was a music soiree at the Emperor's palace, at which were in attendance a select circle of Roman artists ; that when the bells sounded the alarm, the Emperor and company were in the midst of a rehearsal of some grand piece of musical com- position, and did not suspend execution till the final bar was closed. The concert then would have broken up had not the Prefect (the Mayor of Rome) come in haste to the palace to notify the Emperor, and quiet the fears of the imperial court and the guests of the evening, that there was not occasion for
282 MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES.
alarm. So the Emperor bid his guests remain the balance of the evening, and he condescended to favor the company with a violin solo. His enemies, possibly availing themselves of some such circumstance, exaggerated them, and history has perpetuated an error. It is safe to conclude that the enemies of Nero had no respect for musical art, and could not appre- ciate the civilities of his court in remaining with his company of distinguished artists instead of dismissing them.
According to the most ancient traditions, the bagpipe ha» always been the favorite instrument of the Scotch, since it was first introduced into the country at a very remote period by the Norwegians. The larger one figures in their battles, funeral processions, weddings and other great occasions ; the smaller sized one is devoted to dancing music. Certain mar- tial airs, called pibrochs, produce the same effect upon the na- tives of the Highlands as the sound of trumpets does on their chargers, and sometimes even wonders are performed almost equal to those attributed to the music of ancient Greece, for which we have Gibbon, the historian, as authority.
It is related that at the battle of Quebec, in 1768, while the British troops were retreating in disorder, the Commander complained to a staff officer of Eraser's regiment, of the bad behavior of his corps. "Sir," replied the latter with some warmth, "you made a great mistake in forbidding bagpipes to be played ; nothing animates the Highlanders to such a degree, at the hour of battle ; even now they might be useful.'' "Let them play as much as you please," answered the Com- mander, "if that can recall-the soldiers to their duty." The musicians received an order to play the favorite martial air of the Highlanders ; as soon as the latter heard the familiar tones they paused in their flight and returned with alacrity to their post.
Only last month (Dec. 1881), His Royal Highness, the Duke of Edinburgh, presiding at a soiree of the directors of .the Athenaeum at Free Trade Hall, Manchester, England, for
MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES. 283-
the advancement of musical science, in his admirable address,, reported in the Manchester Times, happily illustrates the in- fluence of music. His Royal Highness said : " There is the resolution which music can infuse into a body of soldiers,, who can have their fatigue lightened and their step quickened even by the simple notes of the drum and fife, and who, by the martial sound of the ' War March,' may be animated to face the greatest dangers. I might mention the remarkable effects of music on the inhabitants of mountainous countries. Cer- tain tunes are, I believe, prohibited in the Highland regi- ments, because of the intense longing for home which they produce in the men on foreign service. The same is the case with the Swiss, and this desperate desire for home, excited and aggravated by the national music of the country, has even been classified as a distinct disease under the name of nostalgia."
During the Sepoy rebellion, in India, an army correspond- ent of the London Times made some depreciating remarks touching what he seemed to consider the trivial pastimes and amusements of the Highland regiments, on the night of their last bivouac on the banks of the Ganges, on their march to the relief of Lucknow, because they whiled away some sleep- less hours by singing "Bonny Don" and "Mary's Dream."
" The moon had climbed the highest hill
That rises o'er the source of Dee, And from its eastern summit shed
Her silver light on tower and tree."
Something of pity should be awarded the man whose soul was not gifted to appreciate the most felicitous of Scotland's lyrics and its sweet and plaintive melody, upon the sultry plains of Hindostan. But when, in the beleaguered cit}^, the practiced ear of the Scotch lassie, Jesse Brown, heard in ad- vance of all others the distant notes of the bagpipe, and, fran- tic with joy, ran with streaming hair through the streets of
"284 MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES.
Lucknow, crying, " The Campbells are coming ! — Dinna ye hear the slogan ? " English women and children in the be- leaguered city had no criticisms for the songs of the High- landers, or the wild and piercing notes of the bagpipe.
It is related, in a note to one of Walter Scott's novels, that in the Peninsular war, Sir E}Tre Coste, appreciating the attach- ment which the Highlander feels for the music of his native country, gave them fifty pounds after the battle of Porto Nuovo with which to buy bagpipes, as a token of his satisfac- tion with their conduct on that day.
The national songs of a people, the music and melody of which are so blended with the sentiment, that the effect upon the heart and mind is nearly the same whether words or tune are heard, inspire the soul like the sight of the flag. What would be our county, what England, or what France, if the spirit of the national songs were eradicated from the hearts of the people? When "The Star-Spangled Banner" shall no longer inspire the patriotic heart with enthusiasm and de- light, the Republic will have fallen. When " Rule Britannia " shall no longer be sung in the land of Victoria, the dominion of England will have ceased in the four quarters of the globe ; and when the Marsellaise shall be forgotten by her gallant sons, France will have become Cossack indeed.
It is a gratifying evidence of the civilization and culture of nations when people manifest an international spirit to that degree which enables them to appreciate and cherish the na- tional songs of each other. This has long been done between America, England and France. And now we can add to the list of courteous nations the great German Empire. It is related in the Boston Musical Herald, of January, 1881, that •"Miss Emma Thursby sang at Baden-Baden a few weeks since, and the audience included the Emperor and Empress of Germany, the Grand Duke and Duchess of Baden, the €rown Prince of Germany, and the Princess and a large num-
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ber of the nobility. There were several encores, in which the Emperor and Empress heartily joined. When called out at the close of the concert, she sang " The Star-Spangled Ban- ner," and the Emperor is said to have pronounced it the finest national ode he had ever listened to."
" Peace hath her triumphs no less renowned than war," and music is the harbinger of peace. The musical artist is to be the future diplomatist. Music is destined to banish war. The mission of music and her artists is destined to grand results, not only in the culture of the people, but in the paci- fication of nations.
In contemplating the grandeur and glory of the works of the great masters of music, we should not, however, forget the sweet songs of childhood and the cradle. Song is cultivated from the cradle, and mother is the ever-remembered teacher. Some one has said that the last thoughts of a dying old man are of his mother's face and voice, when she sang to him in infancy. So the song and its melody once learned from the lips of a mother abides to the end. Let us cherish the national melodies and songs.
Music being a science, discovered in and evolved from nat- ure, must be developed and illustrated by its great devotees and learned masters like the other sciences. It should not be charged as a disparagement to the general intelligence of the great mass of the people, that they are not adepts in its pro- found mysteries, and skilled in the illustration of its wonder- ful harmonies, like the great masters and artists of our time. Music ranks with Astronomy, but how many of all whom we are pleased to call learned or appreciative, of both men and women, who take delight in contemplating the starry heavens, comprehend mathematical Astronomy ? How many among them delight in the perusal of the Mecanique Celeste of La Place, the computations of Lagrange and Leverriere, or our own Stockwell's voluminous and famous problems of the sec-
286 MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCES.
ular variations of the orbits of planets ? Yet how few there are who do not find the highest gratification when some tune- ful master like Richard A. Proctor touches the strings of the Astronomical harp of the universe, and makes even mathe- matics melodious.
ATLANTIS AND AMERICA MYTHS VS. REALITIES. 287
ATLANTIS AND AMERICA— MYTHS versus REALITIES.
PHE lost Atlantis of the ancients is to archaeologists, eth- nologists, linguists snd scholars no longer a myth. Its former existence and absolute reality is more firmly estab- lished than was even the idea of a continent beyond the At- lantic, prophesied, intimated and believed by geographers and poets of the nations along the shores of the Mediterranean four hundred years ago, and which inspired Columbus to his momentous undertaking. The evidence which has been de- veloped in the last fifty years, and indeed more especially within the last ten, collated from many sources, and arrayed in many volumes, is irresistible and conclusive, that the island of Plato was a reality and not a myth.
The most ample and admirable compilation of evidence illustrating the subject, of recent date, is comprised in the work of Ignatius Donnelly. If anything in remote and pre- historic times, touching continents, islands, peoples, govern- ments and religions, has ever been convincingly established by unquestioned remains of remote antiquity, preserved in the earth, or in its waters, fossilized in the rock, or? engraved upon stone traced by the ethnologist and archaeologist in the bones, implements or structures of man, or by the linguist in his language and hieroglyphics, then this author has lifted the veil of mythical antiquitjr and established the proposition that there once existed in the Atlantic Ocean, opposite Spain and Africa, an island larger than England, known to the ancient world as Atlantis, of which the peaks of the Azores are all that remain. That this island, described by Plato 400 years before Christ, based on information transmitted by
288 ATLANTIS AND AMERICA —
Solon, who visited Egypt and received knowledge thereof from the lips of scholars and priests who kept the records of the temples and pyramids, is not fable, as has been long sup- posed, but veritable history. That from its shores colonies were planted in Europe and on this continent. That it was the true Antediluvian world, the Eden of the human race, and from which came the traditions of all nations. That the gods and goddesses of the ancient Greeks, the Phoenicians, the Hindoos and Scandinavians were but the kings, queens and heroes of Atlantis, and that the acts attributed to them in mythology are a confused recollection of very remote histori- cal events. That Egypt and Peru were the oldest colonies of Atlantis, whose religions were sun-worship — evidenced by their respective monumental remains, which are alike temples and pyramids. And finally that Atlantis perished in a terri- ble convulsion of nature, in which the whole island sunk in the ocean with all its inhabitants — save possibly some who escaped in ships — the tidings of which have survived to our own times, and form the flood and deluge legends of both the old and new worlds.
That the story of Atlantis was for thousands of years regarded as a fable proves nothing, for the legends of the buried cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were deemed myths, and spoken of as "the fabulous cities." Nor for more than 2000 years did the world credit the account of Herodo- tus of the ancient civilization of Chaldea and Egypt, and of the fountains of the Nile, now recently rediscovered, having been lost to the knowledge of the world, not only through the entire period of Roman history, but also that dismal thousand years of ecclesiastical domination, known as the dark ages. Who but till recently believed that Pharaoh Necho's expedi- tion circumnavigated Africa and anticipated Vasquez de Gama in his discovery of the Cape of Good Hope by more than 2000 years ? Who of us to-day, but for our veneration for the Hebrew record, could realize the fact that Solomon
MYTHS VERSUS REALITIES. 289
built ships at Ezion Geber at the head of the Red Sea, under the shadow of Mount Sinai, that made voyages to our now British India, and returned laden with sandal-wood, peacocks, and apes, collected on the coast of the Decaan and from the island of Ceylon — or that in ages long before Solomon, in the infancy of the first monarchy of the Euphrates, before Baby- lon and Nineveh, a merchant marine floated on the Persian Gulf, whose keels plowed the waters of China and Japan and the islands of the sea ?
Figures are impotent to impress upon the mind a con- sciousness of great periods of past time. We look upon the mounds of Ohio and the Mississippi Valley, or travel through the dense and almost impenetrable forests of Central and South America, and suddenly come upon a broad and well paved road, but over which in places trees have grown for centuries. Following on, the traveler comes to a vast city built of stone — splendid places and aqueducts — an immense but deserted city, whose magnificent palaces of beautiful sculpturing are inhabited only by poisonous serpents and wild and savage beasts — streets once so much traveled as to have worn hollows in the hard stones, are now trodden only by the simple and unreflecting Indian. Of this deserted home of a lost race, the traveler asks, " Who and When ? " and silence is the only answer.
The sturdy worker in the copper mines of Lake Superior, finding both himself and his vein of copper growing poorer day by day, determines to seek a more paying claim in the as yet unexplored portion of the copper country. He gathers his kit of tools together and starts, and, after many hard hours travel over a wild and rugged country, finds a region with abundant signs of copper, and where seemingly no hu- man foot has trod since Creation's dawn. He strikes a rich vein and goes steadily to work digging and blasting his way to richer portions, when suddenly, right in the richest part, he finds his lead cut off by what looks to his experienced eye 19
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marvelously like a mining shaft. Amazedly he begins to clear out of the pit the fallen earth and debris of ages, and the daylight thus let in reveals to his astonished gaze an im- mense mass of copper raised some distance from the original bottom of the pit on a platform of logs, while at his feet lie a number of strange stone and copper implements — some thin and sharp like knives and hatchets, others huge and blunt like mauls and hammers — all being left in such a manner as though the workmen had but just gone to dinner, and might be back at any moment. Bewildered, he ascends to the sur- face and looks about him. He sees mounds that from their positions are evidently formed from the refuse of the pit, but these mounds are covered with gigantic trees, evidently the growth of centuries ; and, looking still closer, he sees that these trees are fed from the decayed ruins of trees still older — trees that have sprung up, flourished, grown old, and died since this pit was dug and these mounds were raised. The more he thinks of the vast ages that have elapsed since this pit was dug, that mass of copper quarried and raised, the more confused he becomes — his mind cannot grasp this im- mensity of time. Who were these miners but the colonists of Peru and Mexico, who were themselves the colonists of the lost Atlanteans ?
But what did Plato sa}^? "Among the great deeds of Athens, of which recollection is preserved in our books, there is one that should be placed above all others. Our books tell us that the Athenians destroyed an arnry that came across the Atlantic Sea, and insolently invaded Europe and Asia, for this sea was then navigable ; and beyond the straits, where you place the pillars of Hercules, was an immense island, larger than Asia (Minor) and Lybia combined. From this island one could pass easily to other islands, and thence to the continent be3Tond. The sea on either side of the strait resembled a harbor with a narrow entrance, but there is a veritable sea, and the land which surrounds it is a veritable
MYTHS VERSUS REALITIES. 291
continent. On this island of Atlantis there reigned three kings with great and marvelous power. They had under their domain the whole of Atlantis, several of ocher islands, and part of the continent. At one time their power ex- tended into Europe as far as Tyrrhenia, and uniting their whole force they sought to destroy our country at a blowr but their defeat stopped the invasion, and gave entire freedom to the country on this side of the Pillars of Hercules. After- wards, in one day and one fatal night, there came mighty earthquakes and inundations that ingulfed that warlike peo- ple. Atlantis disappeared, and then the sea became inaccessi- ble on account of the vast quantity of mud that the ingulfed island left in its place."
Such a catastrophe is not improbable, for vast lands have gone down under the waters within historic times. The power of the mysterious earthquake is surpassing great. That of Lisbon, so late as 1755, wiping out a city and sixty thou- sand people, was felt from Quebec to Calcutta. The memory of the calamities of nations exist forever, transmitted in the legends of the people. Should England be ingulfed in like manner, the legend would go down to the last man existing on the face of the earth, even though every written or printed record of its former existence should be obliterated at the same time from the archives of every nation on the globe.
We have changed our views somewhat, touching the state of geographical knowledge in Europe 400 years ago concern- ing a continent, and islands west of the Pillars of Hercules, since in our boyhood we were told of the wonderful philo- sophic wisdom which could make an egg balance itself on the little end, and the singular inspiration which impelled the enthusiastic Genoese to solicit at the Court of Ferdinand and Isabella three little ships, that he might go sailing over the Atlantic in search of another continent, and were led by the histories of that day to believe that all the world but Chris-
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topher Columbus looked upon his mission and enterprise as visionary and vain. Such views of history, then quite uni- versal, were impressed upon our dawning mind, even hard by Dighton Rock and its Runic inscriptions, and the old Scandi- navian mill of the tenth century, now so interesting to the antiquary and the summer tourist at Newport.
Later years the glimmerings of history discovered in the poems and Sagas of Iceland have, in some degree, dispelled the illusion, and it is now pretty well understood and be- lieved that, four hundred years before Columbus, the rude and hardy sailors of the higher latitudes of Europe had made voyages to New Foundland and the islands and coasts of what are now Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and attempted col- onization there. It is perhaps no more surprising that those early Icelandic colonies, upon a bleak coast and in a dense forest, were dissipated and destroyed by the ancestors of King Philip, than that some of the English colonies, five hun- dred years later, should have been swept from Roanoke Island and the coast of Virginia by the savage ancestors of Pocahontas. What became of Virginia Dare, the first-born white child in the Old Dominion ? And what became of the children that saw erected and played around that mysterious structure at Newport ? Such questions are as yet unanswer- able, and will be solved only when the fate of the mound builder shall be disclosed. The impression now prevails that in 1492, and for many years prior thereto, it was firmly believed in Italy and Spain, between which countries and the remotest North there was, and had been for centuries, as full and free intercourse, commercial and otherwise, as prevails between the Northern and Southern nationalities of Europe to-day, that the form of the earth was rotund, and that there were lands, countries and peoples on the opposite side of the globe, and, in fact, that land had been discovered beyond the Atlantic by the old sea kings of the North.
Ships and sailors had been historically known in the wa-
MYTHS VERSUS REALITIES. 293
ters of the Mediterranean since the reign of Hiram and the misfortunes of Jonah. The ships of Solomon had plowed the Red Sea and the waters of the Indian Ocean. The Phreni- cians had passed beyond the Pillars of Hercules to the Azores and the tin mines of Britain. Rome had great navies, and Paul had known the horrors of a shipwreck. Such history was as familiar in the days of Columbus as to-day, to say nothing of the legends which attributed to Hans the Carthagenian the circumnavigation of Africa. It is hardly to be doubted that, for ages prior to Columbus, there was much thought and reflection among men concern- ing the globe upon which they lived, and the probabilities of future discoveries of land in the remote seas, as people now have regarding the possibility of finding new islands in the ocean or an open polar sea beyond the ice mountains of the North. Wilk's discovery of an Antarctic Continent, though less important than the discover}7 of America, was rather astonishing at the time, considering that every civilized nation had circumnavigated the globe for hundreds of years, but were till then ignorant of the existence of that valueless territory. Yet nations were as great, learning .was as univer- sal, arts were as flourishing just before as just after that event. We had all our hackneyed themes to boast of — the nineteenth century — railroads, the telegraph — and yet were ignorant of the existense of an Antarctic Continent. When in the reign of Augustus the Greek Strabo wrote the geogra- phy of the world, including his cosmography, suggesting the possibility of a direct passage from Spain to India, he de- clared doubtless nothing more than the general belief of his scholarly cotemporaries, when he wrote: " There may be in the same temperate zone two, and indeed more inhabited lands, especially near Thinae or Athens, prolonged into the Atlantic Ocean."
This was fifteen hundred years before Columbus. Is it probable, as we have been led to believe, that Columbus was
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the first man inspired with grand geographical ideas ? But all such questions, which heretofore may have been set- tled in the minds of careful readers and critical scholars, are now answered for the general reader by the research of many modern historians and scholars.
So interesting and wonderful are some of the voices of an- tiquity, and so directly do they point to the discovery of America, that we cannot refrain from referring to a few of the more significant predictions and utterances. The Roman poet Seneca seems to have been the first to point the index finger to an undiscovered world. Young classical readers will pardon us in transcribing the original words of the ancient poet, as it may be a pleasure to compare them with the trans- lation of Archbishop Whatety : —
" * * * * venient annis Secula seris quibus Ocean us Vincula rerum taxet, et ingens Pateat tellus, Tiphys que novos Detegat orbes, nee sit terris Ultima Thule."
Bacon pronounced these words a prophecy of America. How very like such a prophecy may be judged by the Arch- bishop's translation : " There shall come a time in later ages, when ocean shall relax his chains and a vast continent appear, and a pilot shall find new worlds, and Thule shall be no more earth's bound."
The Statesman Fox alluded to the prophecy in Seneca's •" Medea " as being " curious indeed." Irving adopted this verse as a motto on the title page to his " Life of Columbus." There are copies of it extant, said to be in the undoubted handwriting of Columbus ; one in a letter to Queen Isabella, which is one of the most precious autographs in the world.
In the centuries between Strabo and Columbus, many writers had shadowed forth prophetic conceptions concern-
MYTHS VERSUS REALITIES. 295
ing other and undiscovered lands and countries. The Italian poet, Petrarca, writes :
"Of far off nations is a world remote."
But the fullest, most direct and interesting of all the so- oalled prophecies concerning a country beyond the Pillars of Hercules, our modern Gibraltar, is that of another Italian, Pulci, who died five years before Columbus sailed, so that he was not aided by the suggestions of Columbus or any other gentleman seeking to get a contract from Ferdinand and Isa- bella to furnish to Spain a new continent, with all the modern improvements on the shortest notice, but the visions of a thoughtful and philosophic, as well as practical mind, whose advanced years gave him " mystical lore," and before whose mind was cast the shadow of coming events : —
" Know that this theory is false : his bark The daring mariner shall urge far o'er The western wave, a smooth and level plain, Albeit the earth is fashioned like a wheel. . Man was in ancient days of grosser mould, And Hercules might blush to learn how far Beyond the limits, he had vainly set, The dullest sea boat soon shall wing her way ;
Men shall descry another hemisphere,
Since to one common center all things tend ;
So earth, by curious mystery divine,
Well balanced, hangs amidst the starry spheres.
At our Antipodes are cities, States,
And thronged empires ne'er dreamed of yore.
But see, the sun speeds on his western path
To glad the nations with expected light."
Our own historian, Prescott, was the first to call attention to this remarkable prophetic testimony, and the two verses here transcribed are his own translation. Was there ever a prophecy so suddenly and so completely fulfilled ? In less
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than five years from the death of the poet-prophet, Columbus- descried another hemisphere. In less than thirty years cities, States and empires were found at the Antipodes, and Cortez despoiled the empire of Montezuma, and the mail-clad Pizarro slew the Peruvian Inca and possessed himself of temples as rich in golden vessels as Jerusalem, and an empire cotem- poraneous with that of the Pharaohs. These prophecies, if properly so-called, unlike the mystic and figurative utterances of the prophets of Israel, need no interpretation and explana- tion by commentators learned in the Hebrew and Syriac tongues. The ancient prophets gave no utterances which seem so positive and distinct, save perhaps in those denunci- ations which foretold the "cloud" which should come over Egypt, and her utter desolation, and the destruction which should come upon commercial Tyre, and make her but " the place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea." The period of sacred prophecy ceased with the dawn of the new dispensation. The oracles which gave doubtful and deceptive responses to Grecian and Roman generals, ceased to be con- sulted when modern history began. It is apparent, we think, to common understanding, that what are here called prophe- cies concerning another continent, other cities, States and em- pires at the Antipodes, were but the conceptions of intelligent minds, based upon common reasonings and the deductions of history and past experience. Milton expressed the idea fully when he wrote :
"That old experience doth attain To something like prophetic strain."
The ancient prophecies, which foretold another world be- yond the Pillars of Hercules, were, to the mind of Columbus and the geographers of his day, associated with the CathajT of the Orient, with its fragrant balms and spices, with which Europe had long been familiar, not only by her ships through the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, but by her caravans from the
MYTHS VERSUS REALITIES. 297
Indies and from Central Asia. Embassadors from Rome and Constantinople had paid court to Zenghis Khan on the very grounds where the army of Russia is to-day subduing Kiva and other modern Tartar kingdoms. Marco Paulo and his mercantile uncles had been familiar in the courts of the Em- peror of China, and the Chinese traveler Kiouen-Thsang, in the seventh century, had made his way over the snowy paths of the Himalayas, twenty-three thousand feet high, to visit Hindostan and learn the religion of Buddha, and carry back the elaborate cultus of the devotees to the calm and reflective disciples of Confucius. The silks of China, and the crape of Canton, adorned the persons of beautiful princesses and stately matrons. The Chinese fire-crackers and the gorgeous paper lanterns were as familiar in Europe in the days of Co- lumbus, as they are now to our juvenile patriots, or to suc- cessful politicians who assemble to celebrate over favorable election returns.
In the earliest years of the Colonial settlements, English poets like Chapman, Herbert and Cowley, and New Eng- landers like Morrill, Ward and the conscientious Judge Sewell, who tried and condemned the Salem witches, but who lived to groan in spirit for his judicial errors, and Thomas Brown, in the reign of Charles II., predicted their growth, power and civilization ; and a little later still, about 1726, in the reign of George I., the good Bishop Berkley, who had among his witty and learned friends Addison, Swift and Poper conceived the project of educating the Aborigines of America^ and converting them to Christianity, by a college to be erected in the " Summer Islands," otherwise called the "Isles of Bermuda." The Ministers of State endorsed the enterprise, and promised him twenty thousand pounds to promote what the King called " so pious an undertaking." Inspired with the grandest emotions, and looking into the future like the prophets of old, he wrote that truly prophetic poem, the last verse of which is so familiar to Americans : —
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" Westward the course of Empire takes its way ;
The first four acts already passed. The fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last."
Turning away from his home and deanery, and refusing a mitre offered him by the Queen, he set sail for Rhode Island, •" which lay nearest to Bermuda," according to the geograph- ical inexactness of that day, where he arrived in January, 1729. Newport, at that time, contained some six thousand inhabitants, and, according to the bishop's quaint description, was one of the " most flourishing places in America for biz- ness." The pretensions of the Dutch settlement of New Am- sterdam to rival Newport as a great commercial city, was one of the jokes of the day among the shippers and West India traders of Newport. Bishop Berkley settled on a farm on this beautiful island, which he describes in his letters as "pleasantly laid out in hills and vales and rising grounds, with plenty of excellent springs and fine rivulets, and many delightful landscapes of rocks and promontories and adjacent lands. It is pretty and pleasantly situated. I was never more surprised than at the first sight of the town and its harbor."
Here the good bishop lived nearty three years, waiting for the king's ministers to send the mone}^ to build the Indian college. The money did not come, and the bishop was admonished by his experience of the folly of putting faith in princes. He preached in Newport, and meditated there, if he •did not compose, "The Minute Philosopher." Bestowing upon Yale College, then but a few years old, eight hundred volumes, and leaving an infant son buried in the churchyard of Trinity, he returned to England.
How few, of all who are familiar with the verse which declares " the course of empire," realize that one hundred and fifty years ago its famous author was a dweller in our own fashionable Newport, delighting in the beauty of its land-
MYTHS VERSUS REALITIES. 299
scapes, preaching to its people and weeping at the grave of his infant son. That little grave in Trinity churchyard should be the Mecca of every visitor to that lovely island, and the shrine of every American who delights to repeat the prophetic words of Berkley, to whom Pope ascribed " every virtue under heaven."
Passing over, as we must, the prophetic utterances of the men of the Revolutionary period, like Franklin, Jefferson and Adams, as well as English statesmen and writers of the same period, like Walpole, Hartley, Adam Smith, Canning and others, we note but a single name, though all are rich in prophecies, the accomplished Oriental scholar, Sir William Jones, whose well-known ode, it is said, was inspired by his sympathy with the American cause : —
What constitutes a State?
Not high-raised battlement on labored mound, Thick wall or moated gate ;
No. Men, high-minded men, Men, who their duties know and knowing dare maintain ;
Prevent the long-aimed blow, And crush the tyrant while they rend the chains ;
These constitute a State.
Being so near our Centennial, we will not pass over what the plow-boy poet, Burns, said in a letter in 1788, where he prophetically alludes to American Independence : " I will not, I cannot, enter into the merits of the cause, but I dare say the American Congress, in 1776, will be allowed to be as able and as enlightened as the English Convention was in 1688 ; and that their posterity will celebrate the centenary of their deliverance from us, as duly and sincerely as we do ours from the oppressive measures of the house of Stuart."
Of all who have written interestingly and prophetically concerning America, none have done so more pleasantly and hopefulty than French statesmen and publicists, near the period of our Revolution and afterwards. The Marquis
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Montcalm, who fell on the heights of Quebec, in the same battle with his great antagonist, Wolfe, in 1759, just on the eve of the battle wrote to the French Minister : " They (the English) are in a condition to give us battle, which I cannot refuse, and which I cannot hope to gain. The event must decide. But of one thing be certain, that I probabl}" shall not survive the loss of the Colony." This was a sad forbod- ing of the fate of Canada and his own. He had the year pre- vious written : " That these informations, which I every day receive, confirm me in my opinion that England will one day lose her colonies on the American Continent." A prophecy fulfilled in less than twenty years.
The Duke of Choisuil, a brilliant French diplomatist, and a man of great intelligence and foresight, as early as 1763, fore- saw the separation of America from England. The Abbe Raynal said : " The new hemisphere must some day detach itself from the old. Europe may some day find its masters in its children." Galiani, in a letter to Madame d'Epinay, in 1776, wrote : " That the epoch had come of the total fall of Europe, and of transmigration to America. All here turns into rottenness — religion, laws, arts, sciences — all hastens to renew itself in America. I have preached it for more than twenty years, and I have constantly seen my prophecies come to pass." He pleasantly and playfully adds : " Therefore do- not buy your house in the Chausee d'Antin ; you must buy it in Philadelphia." De Tocqueville, the publicist, with whom Mr. Sumner was personally acquainted and had invited in his castle home in Normandy, had faith in American institutions, and foresaw the future greatness of this country : " The Americans of the United States, whatever they do, will be- come one of the greatest people on the earth ; they will cover with their off-shoots almost all North America. The conti- nent which they inhabit is their domain ; it cannot escape them." Count Aranda, the Spanish statesman and diplomat- ist, is perhaps the least known in this country of all our for-
MYTHS VERSUS REALITIES. 301
•eign friends in the days of the Revolution. He was the min- ister of the Spanish king at the court of Paris, and joined with France in the treaty acknowledging the independence of the United States. He was an admirable character. In a private letter to his sovereign, he advised him that the Fed- eral Republic was " born a pigmy, but the day will come when it will be a giant, even a colossus, formidable in these coun- tries."
There is one other prophecy, so sad and solemn that we cannot resist the temptation to reproduce it here, as it is by no means familiar to general readers. It is from Alaman, the historian of Mexico. It is his valedictory, and in it he consigns the present races of his country to oblivion : " Mex- ico will be, without doubt, a land of prosperity from its nat- ural advantages, but it will not be so for the races which now inhabit it. As it seemed the destiny of the people who established themselves therein at different epochs to perish from the face of it, leaving hardly a memory of their exist- ence ; even as the nation which built the edifices of Palenque, and those which we admire in the peninsula of Yucatan, was destroyed without its being known what it was or how it dis- appeared ; even as the Toltecs perished at the hands of barbar- ous tribes coming from the North, no record remaining but the pyramids of Cholulu and Teotihuacan ; and finally, even as the ancient Mexican fell beneath the power of the Span- iards, the country gaining infinitely by this change of domin- ion, but its ancient masters being overthrown ; so likewise its present inhabitants shall be ruined and hardly obtain the compassion they have merited, and the Mexican nation of our days shall have applied to it what a celebrated Latin poet said of the most famous personages of Roman history — stat magni nominis umbra — nothing more remains than the shadow of a name illustrious in another time." And so the prophetic historian of Mexico leaves wide the door for " Man- ifest Destinv."
302 ATLANTIS AND AMERICA MYTHS VS. REALITIES.
The star of empire is ever westward. The utterances of the prophets are being fulfilled. Egypt held within her tem- ples the knowledge of Atlantis, the geographers and poets of Greece and Rome foreshadowed America, and the statesmen of Europe predicted the ultimate grandeur of the colonies, and the glorious destiny of the United States. The Rosetta Stone has been uncovered, and the key that unlocks the ob- livion of the Mound Builders has been found.
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RECOLLECTIONS OF WEBSTER AND CHOATE.
A WAY in the mountain forests of Vermont, in the cold •^^ and dreary winter of 1830, the name of Daniel Webster was first impressed upon my boyish understanding. The oc- casion was the reading, one evening, to my father, by an elder sister, by the light of a tallow candle, before the great stone fire-place of blazing wood, from the fresh and damp columns of The Vermont Watchman and State Gazette, of which Ezekiel P. Walton, the first, was editor and proprietor, the celebrated reply of Webster to Hayne. Too young to appreciate the occasion, the subject, or the man, the indelible and lasting impression of the scene was made more upon my heart than upon my mind, lay reason of the quivering lips and tears of admiration of my father. I afterwards became to know that such was invariably his mode of manifesting his approval and delight, when noble thoughts were expressed in forcible and eloquent words. I was for the time, however, agonized for what I supposed was a source of sorrow and distress to my father ; and it was some years before I discovered, as I subse- quently did, when in maturer years I read the speech, and found the cause of his tears in the power of a great argu- ment, and the splendor of the diction of a renowned speech, for which he had no words potent enough to express his un- bounded admiration — though I remember him to have said, at the conclusion of the reading — -'Webster is the greatest man in America ! "
In the summer of the same year was the celebrated trial of the two brothers Knapp, charged with one Crowningshield, who suicided in jail, with the murder of Capt. Joseph White, a.
304 RECOLLECTIONS OF WEBSTER AND CHOATE.
wealthy citizen, at Salem, Massachusetts, in which case Mr. Webster was retained by the friends of the murdered man to assist the prosecuting attorney, and in which he made that celebrated and memorable argument to the jury, the perora- tion of which became early incorporated into the reading books for schools and in works on elocution, as an inimitable specimen of American oratory. In this way did we read him for a few seasons, and as years advanced us to the shady side of boyhood, we began to read annually his speeches in Con- gress, and occasionally getting glimpses of steel engravings which illustrated the grandeur of his head and face, it being many years before the wonders of photography had been dis- covered, and long before the people obtained instruction and delight in the elaborately illustrated journals of later days. Then as years of manhood approached, and the fulness of his great mental powers was reached, and his fame had risen to its zenith, we had, probably, the like and no better concep- tion of the great statesman than rural people in general who had never seen and heard him. Young men of the rural dis- trict who had read and, perhaps, committed to memory, for school and academic exercises, the peroration of the Salem murder address to the jury, and pondered upon expressions therein, like "the grim visage of Moloch," " murder will out," and " suicide is confession " — the discourse on the simultane- ous death of Adams and Jefferson — the reply to Hayne — the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, and the Bunker Hill monu- ment address, ever aspired to the felicity, which would come, as they thought, in beholding and hearing the great Ameri- can statesman. The boon was granted to many during his long public career — yet we have heard not a few intelligent and some prominent citizens of more than one city and State, as long ago as when he was laid in his tomb, lament that it had never fallen to their happy lot to hear or look upon the godlike Webster.
Eighteen years elapsed from the time when I was a child,
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and my father, in his exuberant admiration of the statesman's reply to Hayne, pronounced him the greatest man in America, before the writer had the gratification of seeing and hearing Mr. Webster. It was Mr. Webster's custom, established from the time of his election as Senator of the United States for Massachusetts, to annually pay in person his respects to the Legislature, at some time when at home from Washington, and to drop in upon the body quietly and unannounced, and sit for a short time on the elevated area in front of the Speaker, and, facing the assembly, attentively listen to its proceedings. His presence, however, never escaped immedi- ate notice. Business was generally disposed of ve^ quickly, .and then some member would move a recess, to enable mem- bers to pay their respects personally to Mr. Webster. The time was generally devoted to hand shaking ; all or nearly every member availing himself of the honor, each being intro- duced by name by the Speaker, and the greeting was most cordial and graceful.
It was at the legislative session of 1848 that the writer first saw Mr. Webster, when, in pursuance of his long ob- served custom, he paid his annual visit. He came in one morning with a personal friend, one of the Boston members, and was conducted to a chair upon the dais in front of the Speaker. So quietly had he come that but few eyes other than th.e Speaker, Mr. Francis B. Crowningshield, had observed him. He probably had anticipated the call. The Speaker and Mr. Webster greeted each other by a bow of Tecognition, when the latter seated himself facing the body of the House. No sooner had he raised his great eyes and turned his solemn countenance to survey the body, than he was recognized by nearly every member, and "Webster" was soon whispered from the lips of all. A few moments time were devoted ostensibly to the disposition of business on the table, but more in reality for the purpose of giving the •distinguished visitor a little time to rest, after ascending the 20
306 RECOLLECTIONS OF WEBSTER AND CHOATE.
long flights of steps from Beacon street to the great hall. At a suitable moment some member made a motion to take a recess, to enable the members to pay their respects to Dan- iel Webster. An hour or more was spent in a personal intro- duction, by the Speaker, of every member, the visitor taking each by the hand, and it was surprising how many he had some knowledge of, whom he had never seen, and seeming to have some acquaintance in every town or district who, per- haps, had been a member in other years, about whom he would inquire of the member, and send some pleasant word or his personal regards, and to all he gave a generous and fatherly greeting. We remember one gentleman some fifty years old, who was wholly unknown, but of whose name, when announced, Mr. Webster said : " That name has been familiar to me from my bo}*hood." The member said : " I am grati- fied to know you. remember the name, for the great pride of my life has been that I was born in the same town where Dan- iel Webster was born — Salisbury, New Hampshire — my
father was , whose farm joined your father's, but I was
born after you left." This statement broke up the fountain of affection and memory. Mr. Webster grasped him by both hands — his chin quivered, and the tears from his great ox eyes trickled down his face, and he stood looking at him for a moment unable to utter a word : recovering himself a little,
he said : " Grod bless you, the son of , my father's good
neighbor and life-long friend." It was an affecting scene and a grand spectacle. The balance of the hand shaking being con- cluded the members took their seats, and Mr. Webster thanked them for the opportunit}^ granted him of taking them by the hand. Being invited to extend his remarks, he made a brief address upon general topics reviewed the labors of Con- gress, then- in session, up to that time the diplomatic relations with foreign governments, and the state of public affairs gen- erally all in the most plain, simple and unaffected style ; but it was like holding the mirror up to nature — the picture
RECOLLECTIONS OF WEBSTER AND CHOATE. 307
was perfect and apparent to the eye and understanding. Then he bade them farewell and retired. As he passed slowly up the aisle, the members rose to their feet and stood in silence till he had passed into the corridors. Olympian Jove !
"The heavens attentive trembled as he spoke."
A few days afterwards, and while he was remaining in the city, he was retained to address a Legislative Committee, which had under consideration the application of parties whose scheme involved the filling of some portion of Boston harbor and thereby to create territory for building, railroad and other purposes, but which also involved the destruction of some ancient docks, wharves and landing places, and the extension of the dock lines further into the harbor. The pro- ject was earnestly protested against by the commercial and shipping interest. Mr. Webster represented the " solid men of Boston " in opposition to the grant of power. The com- mittee met in the great hall of the House of Representatives one afternoon to hear counsel upon either side, but, more especially, at that session to listen to Mr. Webster. The meeting of the committee had been announced in the morning papers, and when the members thereof had assembled, the Legislative Hall was crowded with representatives and other spectators, nearly half of whom were ladies — the wives and daughters of senators, representatives and of distinguished Bostonians. This last portion of the audience I believe to be peculiarly a Boston characteristic. I have never seen the like anywhere else. Thirty ^years ago it was a pleasant cus- tom, exhibiting commendable taste and evincing high mental status, when ladies, by their presence, paid deference to emi- nent statesmen, advocates and orators in legislative halls, in the courts and on the platform. Whenever the occasion was announced in advance, that Webster, Choate, Phillips, Ran- toul, Dana or Andrew were to speak, they were invariably
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honored by hundreds of the elite of the ladies of the city — the beaut}r, grace and culture of Boston.
Mr. Webster addressed the committee slowly, gravely, solemnl}'. He was depressed with sadness of heart, as the remains of his second son, Major Edward Webster, who fell in the service of his country in the war with Mexico, were ex- pected to arrive in a few days, being then enroute from that country; and his beloved daughter Julia, Mrs. Appleton, being hard by the door of death from consumption. His speech embraced a general running history of ships, harbors, and the commercial marine of cities of Europe and America, and especially the policy of the State and the merchants of Boston, touching expenditures and improvements to enlarge the area and increase the depth of the waters in the harbor. His statements were clear, strong and convincing — nothing of embellishment, or anything simulating what is ordinarily called eloquence — but plain, sensible business talk — so clear and explicit in both ideas and words, that a bright boy listening thereto could for a long time thereafter restate the points of his argument of an hour's length, and almost in his identical words, so thoroughly did he impress the understanding of his hearers. So sad were the circumstances under which he spoke, that we can recall but a single remark that brought a smile to any countenance. Complimenting the old merchants of Boston, and those who went down to the sea in ships, that did business in great waters, whom he knew when he came to Boston a generation before, he said it was their policy, and the policy of Massachusetts then, to preserve, protect, widen and deepen the ancient, renowned and historical harbor, to meet the necessities and keep pace with the growing and ad- vancing commerce of the city, the commonwealth and of New England— and standing, if possible, a little more erect, and with a countenance expressive of mingled earnestness and pleasantry, he said in conclusion, " Gentlemen, if such is not the policy of Massachusetts now, then I will go back to New
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Hampshire." Had any other than Mr. Webster made a simi- lar remark, there would have seemed nothing therein particu- larly noteworthy, or to create a smile, but when coming from the great idol of Massachusetts, who had lived in and loved and served the State for 33 years, the foremost statesman of the country, this single pleasantry and only facetious utter- ance could not fail of creating among the great audience of ladies and gentlemen an audible smile, softened, if not wholly subdued, by the graceful waving of handkerchiefs.
In a few days the sad opportunity was afforded us of con- stituting one of a great assembly of people that attended the funeral ceremonies from the residence of Mr. Paige, Mr. Web- ster's brother-in-law, on Summer street, and at the venerable ancient Church on the corner of the same street and the Com- mon, in the vaults of which the remains of Major Webster were temporarily placed to await the completion of the family tomb at Marshfield. Here we saw the great statesman — the affectionate father — bowed in parental sorrow, and tears drop unbidden from that wonderfully noble and godlike counte- nance. It seemed like tears from the statue of Jupiter.
We never saw Mr. Webster but once afterwards, and that was at Springfield, where he dined at the Massasoit House, and was met and greeted by George Ashmun, for whom Mr. Webster had special regard for his once very marked friendly service on the floor of Congress. He was then on his way from Washington to Boston in company with Mr. Paige and a com- mittee which bore the resolutions and the invitation of his friends for his final reception and speech in Fanueil Hall, when its doors were unbarred and, on " golden hinges turn- ing," were flung wide open to her guest by the hand and heart of Boston, as they were wont to be in the days of glory, dominion and power of the Whig party. It was our last look upon the renowned American statesman — the last view of that majestic form — that matchless dome — the last look into those great round sad eyes — that wonderful and ever to be
310 RECOLLECTIONS OF WEBSTER AND CHOATE.
remembered countenance of Daniel Webster, familiar in living realit}7 to three generations, and transmitted to the fourth in perfect semblance and accuracy in the copies of a hundred artists.
While we have in a later and more appreciative day read the great legal arguments — public and literary orations and addresses — diplomatic correspondence and State papers of Mr. Webster, and contemplated them and his sublime character as lawyer, statesman, diplomat and man, we have, if possible, a greater admiration for the grandeur of the individual man — his great heart, generous impulses and affectionate spirit, than for all else. His love of the memory of his father, mother, brothers and sisters, surpasses all. It is a cold, un- sympathetic and unappreciative heart and mind that . can read without emotion of his tears of gratitude and sadness no less, when in the bleak and snowy New Hampshire winter, a lad, his father in his embarrassed condition announced his purpose of making the sacrifice to give him a collegiate edu- cation— his affectionate regard for his brother Ezekiel, who was yet toiling on the granite farm, but subsequently famous lawyer — those dear sisters who came to such early graves — that noble mother who sacrificed so much for her children — the old farm in Salisbury — the elm tree by the well — " the old oaken bucket" that hung therein — the neighbors of his father — the boys with whom he played — the old teachers he remembered and wrote to and placed in position when he was famous and in power, equal, if they do not surpass, in our estimation, those qualities of statesmanship possessed by him when, 52 years ago, my father tearfully pronounced him the greatest man in America.
After the lapse of three decades, we are more and more impressed with the beauty of that opening paragraph in Choate's eulogy delivered at his Alma Mater, which some one pronounced the most felicitous in the English language : "It would be a strange neglect of a beautiful and approved cus-
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torn of the schools of learning, and of one of the most appro- priate of the offices of literature, if the college in which the intellectual life of Daniel Webster began, and to which his name imparts charm and illustration, should give no formal expression to her grief in the common sorrow ; if she should not draw near, of the most sad, in the procession of the be- reaved, to the tomb at the sea, nor find, in all her classic shades, one affectionate and grateful leaf to set in the garland with which they have bound the brow of her child, the mightiest departed. Others mourn and praise him by his more distant and more general titles to fame and remem- brance ; his supremacy of intellect, his statesmanship of so many years, his eloquence of reason and of the heart, his love of country, incorruptible, conscientious, and ruling every hour and act ; that greatness combined of genius, of character, of manner, of place, of achievement, which was just now among us, and is not, and yet lives still and evermore. You come, his cherished mother, to own a closer tie, to indulge one emo- tion more personal and more fond, — grief and exultation con- tending for mastery, as in the bosom of the desolated parent, whose tears could not hinder him from exclaiming, 'I would not exchange my dead son for any living one of Christen- dom.' "
The same }-ear that first dawned upon our mind from per- sonal observation the living reality of Daniel Webster, opened up to us a knowledge of his great compeer, Rufus Choate. Dimly had his name been impressed upon our mind since the time he had been associated as junior counsel with the former in the great Salem murder case, and for the nearly thirty years before, when he had been a member of Congress for the Northeast district, elected over Benj. W. Crowningshield, who had been Secretary of the Navy under Madison and Mon roe, and more recently as Senator of the United States, but more than all for his fame as a lawyer and advocate — the most exalted, save Webster alone, known to the American
312 RECOLLECTIONS OF WEBSTER AND CHOATE.
Bar. Often, during the winter of 1848, we listened to him with delight in great cases before Judge Levi Woodbury of the United States Circuit Court, and Judge Sprague in the Admiralty Court for the Boston district, discussing questions- arising under the constitution, the patent laws, or questions of admiralty, touching jettison in marine calamities, colliding- of ships upon the seas, adjustment of losses, liability upon, bottomry bond, salvage, the power of masters and the rights and duties of sailors, and all who go down to the sea in ships- and do business upon the great waters.
We remember most vividly the case in which he defended the master of an East Indiaman who, on his return home, was charged by some of his crew, among whom scurvy had appeared, with gross neglect in not having laid in suitable food, especially vegetables, and particularly onions, as a pre- ventive of that malady. The master's defence was that such were not available at the Cape of Good Hope, the only port at which they touched between Singapore and Boston. The sailors replied that the captain could have obtained onions at the island of St. Helena, which he past without stopping. The grandeur of Choate's poetic sentiments, and the exultation of his emotions, was apparent in his response to the suggestion of negligence of this point. " What," said he, "negligence imputed to the master of an East Indiaman? freighted with the silks and spices of the Orient, because, when passing the grave of Napoleon — the Tomb of the Rock — he was contemplating the mighty dead, instead of conjuring up in his mind an antiscorbutic ! "
During the legislative session of 1848, in Boston, Mr. Choate was much engaged before committees, mostly for or against railroad projects ; but it was in the Rhode Island boundary case that we recall him most vividly. This was a case of great public interest, which had been pending in the Supreme Court at Washington, and otherwise in local contro- versy in the Legislatures of the respective States. The case
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itself had become historical, as the evidence itself was docu- mentary and historical. The latest presentation of the con- troversy was the report of the joint Commission, establishing the true line. Massachusetts citizens, who had thereby been suddenly thrown into Rhode Island, protested against the report. A hearing was had touching the manner in which the commissioners had done their work and the merits thereof. Mr. Choate, who with Mr. Webster had argued the case for Massachusetts at Washington, was employed by the unhappy citizens. He was assisted by Fletcher Webster. The legislative committee, to whom the subject was referred, held its sessions in the Senate Chamber. After the testimony was in, which occupied many days, and arguments of several eminent counsel had been made without attracting more than ordinary interest, it was announced that Mr. Choate would address the committee the next day in opposition to the report of the commissioners. Nothing, apparently, could be less attractive than the discussion of a boundary line, yet at the hour the Senate Chamber was crowded, and among the audience was an unprecedented number of the nlost distin- guished ladies of Boston, who were provided with eligible seats by the thoughtful and attentive Sergeant-at-arms.
It proved one of the most interesting entertainments ever listened to. Mr. Choate was in good spirits and his happiest mood. The question was largely historical, running back into early colonial times, from the days of Roger Williams and the Providence Plantations. State sovereignty was mag- nified. Every item and scrap of history, documentary and general, was at the tongue's end of the wonderful advocate. The other side had quoted from Hugh Peter's History of Connecticut, which seemed against him. Historians, it is be- lieved, have never held that work in high regard for accuracy. Choate complimented counsel for their research, and said the gentlemen on the other side would have done still better if they had relied on Gulliver's travels in Lilliput and Brobdi-
314 RECOLLECTIONS OF WEBSTER AND CHOATE.
nag ! It had been argued that Massachusetts had lost her right to claim a certain other line by her negligence and laches, when Rhode Island had asserted her right over, and had included within her jurisdiction some portions of terri- tory now set to that State by the commissioners. At this point Choate's eyes flashed — his chest heaved — his lips quiv- ered— his countenance alternated from marble whiteness to ebony — running his fingers nervously through his fine, black matted hair, moist with perspiration, he burst out with one of those grand explosions, peculiar to himself and inimitable, saying, " Massachusetts negligent ! Massachusetts guilty of laches! Where was Massachusetts in 1745? She was not at home — her sons were away on distant service of the colony- serving the mother country — obeying the orders of the minis- tr}- of Great Britain and the commands of the generals of her armies — aye, drawing cannon across the miry marshes around Louisburg in distant Nova Scotia ! No advantage can be taken of a sovereign State in the enforced and patriotic absence of her sons." These words seem tame when written, but the electric battery that shot them forth, the occasion and grandeur of the theme, and the oratorical splendor of the man are all required for due appreciation of the effect of such utterances.
It was in this same address that he perpetrated that ex- quisite exaggeration, when he paraphrased the description of the monuments which the commissioners had fixed to indi- cate the line of the two States. " Beginning, etc. — thence to an angle on the easterly side Of Watuppa Pond, thence across said pond to the two rocks on the westerly side of said pond and near thereto, thence westerly to the buttonwood tree, in the village of Fall River, etc., etc." Commenting on this description, he said in his most facetious manner, turning to the commissioners who were present — "A boundary line between sovereign States described by a couple of stones near a pond, and a buttonwood sapling in a village ! The honor-
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able commissioners might as well have defined it as starting from a blue jay on a fence, thence to a sapling, thence to an annual plant, thence to a hive of bees in swarming time, and thence to a thousand foxes with fire brands tied to their tails ! " This outburst of humor was inimitable and delight- ful. It was music, wealth, dignity and grace when uttered by the matchless orator, and it was appreciated and enjoyed by the commissioners themselves, no less than by the committee and the splendid audience that witnessed the rich entertain- ment. This sally of witty ridicule of the recorded labors of the eminent commissioners, bestowed upon the grave subject of the boundary line of sovereign States, came nearest creat- ing loud laughter of any remark we ever heard him utter. While there was no end of the line of witty sayings, humorous expressions, captivating repartSs, and graceful play upon words, all delightful, pleasing and memorable, and which passed as currency, not only among gentlemen of the Bar, but ever to be remembered and repeated by his auditors, yet such was ever the stateliness and dignity of his st}'le and manner, such the purity of his taste, and such his imperial grace, that the playfulness of his spirit and the exuberance of his fanciful conceits rarely, if ever, caused a loud, certainly never a boisterous, laugh. The idea imparted generally was so delicate as to cause merely a smile, while the subject was one for pleasant reflection, ever to be retained in memory to be told for the edification and delight of others. Of the great and inexhaustible fund of rich and memorable anecdotes of Choate, but few comparatively are found in his biography, or elsewhere in print, but they are among the legendary treasures of the New England Bar to-day, rehearsed and admired as when the}T came fresh and sparkling from his lips during the forty years of his professional life and personal renown.
No one has ever been able to communicate to another any intelligent or definite idea of either how Mr. Choate looked
316 RECOLLECTIONS OF WEBSTER AND CHOATE.
in person, or the manner and style of his oratory. Words are all lost and meaningless in such an effort. As no other ever spoke like him, so none other ever looked like him — conse- quently there never was anybody in any town or city with whom an approximate comparison could be made. When Webster and Choate, Dix and Dickinson, Clay, Benton,. Ewing, Corwin, Calhoun, Mangum and Berrien and others made the United States Senate the most august and renowned deliberative body in the world, somebody could be found in most any city or State who resembled in some degree some senator except Choate. None could be found who resembled him. His type was Oriental. He looked no more like an American than did Disraeli like the typical Englishman. He seemed to be born of the poetical union of the " Palm and the Pine." One might judge his mother to have been a dark eyed princess of India, and his father a chief from the high plateaus of the Caucasus.
There seemed to be contending elements in his blood striv- ing for the mastery to give expression to his countenance. His face in later life was finely wrinkled, giving it the appear- ance of a slightly browned baked apple. According to his emotions was the changeableness of his complexion. At times his forehead would be white as marble and his lower face very dark. At other times his lips would be livid, and his ears white to transparency, while his forehead would become dark and frowning as a storm cloud. His eye was dark, beautiful and sad.
Regarding Mr. Choate's style of expression, whether at the legal forum, before court or jury, in his written addresses on public occasions, or before learned societies and institutions, he has been the subject of a variety of criticism, especially for what has been denominated his long and involved sen- tences. The most just and competent doubtless is by his friend and most admirable biographer, Professor Brown, of Dartmouth, who says, "His style has sometimes been
RECOLLECTIONS OF WEBSTER AND CHOATE. 317
criticised by those who have forgotten that his speeches were meant for hearers rather than for readers, and that a mind of such extraordinary affluence and vigor will, of necessity, in many respects, be a law unto itself. He was, however, quite aware that a style of greater simplicity and severity would be necessary for a writer, and this, probably, was one thing that prevented him from entering seriously on those literary labors which were evidently, at one time, an object of real interest." Another subtle and thoughtful critic in an elaborate analyzation of Mr. Choate's style says, •" He had words, and he used them in rich abundance ; but if you examine even the most sounding of his long sentences, you find in them no redundant words. Each of the several members is made up of such words, and of such only, as were needed for the perfect expression of the thought — nor was it in that cumulative power by which one idea, image, or argument, is piled upon another, so as to make up an overwhelming mass. He had this power in a remark- able degree ; but so had many others — perhaps almost all great orators. Cicero has left some splendid examples of it. It was rather the result of the peculiar logical structure of his mind ; for in him logic and rhetoric were not separate departments, but one living process. He instinctively strove to present an idea, a .thought, in its perfect completeness — the thought, the whole thought, and nothing but the thought; so to present it that there would be no need of adding to his statement of it, subtracting from it, or in any way modifying it after it was once made."
Delighted in our younger days with his speech, and unable to comprehend his wonderful mental powers and endow- ments, or to analyze his sentences, or to conceive how such exuberance of fancy, wealth of learning, and grandeur of sentiment, could be crowded into a single sentence, yet we were conscious that there was at times an alarming distance .and seemingly an impassable gulf between the substantive
318 RECOLLECTIONS OF WEBSTER AND CHOATE.
and predicate, yet so triumphantly would he span it, so rich and perfect would be the structure, that not a single word or expression could be eliminated without destroying the per- fect beauty of the intellectual edifice. Some of his sentences occupy a page, but not a line can be erased without marring its perfection.
Mr. Choate was not only a wonderfully brilliant advocate, holding spell-bound juries and audiences, but he was, more- over, a great and profound lawyer, who captivated learned and grave judges by his surpassing analysis, logic, and felicitous illustration. To those whose minds were better adapted to appreciate him in both fields of legal labor and high service, he was, if possible, still more highly estimated for his exalted capacity and power in the elucidation of legal principles before the great tribunal of the supreme court. His vast energies, constant and unremitting labors, and unbounded research in the antiquities of jurisprudence, the brilliancy of his imagination and his facility of speech made him no less a formidable competitor before courts than before juries. He was a Cuvier in the law — could take a single bone of the law, abstracted from the tomb of dead nations, and reconstruct the perfect skeleton, clothe it with muscle and nerve, and breathing into its nostrils his own breath of life, present it to the court a living realit}T. He was a Max Miiller, tracing the origins of nations and peoples, and their institutions, in the roots of words and in the maxims of dim and forgotten law — a Lyell in the legal world, in his knowledge of its cycles of time and the order of creation — could brush away its drift of sands, clay, shales and gravels, and lay bare the primeval foundation and bed- rock of both the civil and the common law.
His was, withal, one of those broad and noble minds charac- teristic of the really great men and eminent lawyers who never conceive of a rival, certainly never among younger lawyers. He never disparaged the merits of any professional
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brother, but would find and make apology for his failure. He never assumed as his own wisdom derived from his associates in the trial of a case. If a young or junior coun- sel ever whispered to him a suggestion, or reminded him of a point of testimony or law during an argument, he would thank him and give him the full benefit thereof, and more, by saying to the court or jmy — my learned brother — or, my more thoughtful young associate, suggests, or reminds me so and so, and clothe the thought, however crude, in the most admirable dress, and present it as a vital matter, and as though it would have escaped him but for his associate — thus always pleasantly and cheerfully magnifying the wis- dom of his colleague. He was the delight of young prac- titioners whom, if he saw one embarrassed by or involved in a tangle with the court, or troubled about the admissibili- ty of testimony, or lacking in fullness in some point of his argument to the jury, he would contrive quietly to whisper in his ear some suggestion, authorit}7, or mode of relief — thus, and by all, was he loved and admired as a father, brother and friend. He took worthy young lawyers to his heart on unaffected social and professional equality, and always gave them countenance, encouragement and inspiration.
Many are the court house and bar anecdotes related of Mr. Choate, touching his wonderful vocabulary «f choice and appropriate words, technical and otherwise, so useful and necessarj7 in expressing his ideas arid in the illustration of many themes. He seemed to collect words for profes- sional use as a professor in a college would collect choice and appropriate books, and classify them upon his shelves, or as an artist or skilled mechanic would obtain useful and beautiful tools adapted to his occupation. Knowing his habit in this respect, gentlemen would frequently say, "Mr. Choate, I have discovered a new word for you." Thanking his thoughtful friend, he would likely remark, "That word is timely — I have use for it." Perhaps a week
320 RECOLLECTIONS OF WEBSTER AND CHOATE.
or a month afterward, when the gentleman had forgotten the pleasantly, Mr. Choate would, to his surprise, use it in addressing court or jury, and in the most natural and felicitous manner, never failing, however, to turn to the contributor, and graciously nod his acknowledgment.
When the late Isaac O. Barnes, of New Hampshire, was United States Marshal for the Eastern Circuit, attendant upon Judge Levi Woodbury's court at Boston in 1848, being a brother-in-law of the judge — a gentleman of some literary accomplishments, and a great admirer and close observer of Mr. Choate's style and language, he related to the writer the following anecdote.
Mr. Choate had the habit common to the profession of depreciating the Weight, value, or lack of testimony upon a given point by the use of several expressions, such as — there is no evidence — not a syllable — not a word — not a particle — not an iota — not a scintilla. One day, when the great forensic orator had run through with much vehemence this formula of depreciating terms, and had demolished his adversary, Barnes said to him, "Choate, you might have ground that testimony a little finer — why didn't you add— 'not ajspicule ?' that is smaller than scintilla."
Some time afterwards, when the marshal had forgotten all his own facetiousness, Mr. Choate was addressing the jury with great earnestness, and having a like occasion to use some or all the several depreciatory expressions, which he did, and to the full extent, winding up with expressive emphasis — "No, gentlemen, not even a spicule" — and turn- ing to Barnes, said in an undertone, " Mr. Marshal, is that fine enough ? "
When, some thirty years ago, the great publishing house of George and Charles Merriam, of Springfield, Massachu- setts, undertook the publishing of Webster's Dictionary, and issued an enlarged and illustrated edition, which was said to embrace some two or three thousand more words than any
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other dictionary extant, the subject was one day incidentally alluded to in the Supreme Court room at Boston. The grave and solemn Chief Justice Shaw, overhearing the remark of a gentleman of the Bar, but not quite understanding the full import of the conversation, and perhaps supposing the refer- ence was to some new legal treatise, citing a large number of •cases not before found in the American and English reports, said, " What work is that yon are speaking of, Mr. Attor- ney ? " " The new edition of Webster, your honor, with 3000 new words.'' The Chief, without a smile on his severe and awful countenance, said, in a kind of confidential undertone, " Don't tell Mr. Choate of it." Such was the coin pleasantly tendered to Mr. Choate by the bench and Bar of Boston, in exchange for his prolific issue of intellectual bonds and green- backs.
It is one of the curiosities of literature that mam', if not nearly all, famous expressions used by modern statesmen, philosophers, or scholars, are often of great antiquit}', and have been merely adopted as felicitous and appropriate ex- pressions for some special occasion by eminent personages to whom later generations attribute originality and authorship. Such is the history of the familiar American political expres- sion "masterly inactivity." Within the last generation Mr. Cal- houn has been considered the author of, or at least credited with, the authorship of the phrase ; but it was used by John Randolph much earlier, and is incorporated in the speeches of that eccentric statesman as though he was the inventor and pat- entee. Mr. Randolph had doubtless early found it in the speeches of Sir James Mclntosh, who had said, "The commons, faithful to their system, remained in a wise and masterly inac- tivity." So with man}' others, and especially concerning that most celebrated expression "glittering generalities," which be- came famous as the political criticism of Mr. Choate of the Declaration of Independence, in his letter to the Whigs of Maine in 1856. That famous expression came in this wise : Mr. 21
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Choate, in December, 1849, delivered in Providence, R. I.y his celebrated lecture entitled " Mental culture, the true local policy of New England." It was reviewed in the columns ol the Providence Daily Journal, a day or two thereafter, at con- siderable length, and in appreciative terms and admirable spirit, by Mr. Franklin J. Dickman, of Cleveland, then a young lawyer of the Rhode Island Bar, and lately United States Dis- trict Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, saying there- in in conclusion : " We fear that the glittering generalities have fallen upon the ear like the 'exquisite music of a dream,' and have not produced that deep conviction and stimulated to that increased mental activity in which consists the true local policy of New England." Mr. Choate noted carefully opinions expressed in public journals, especially touching his discourses before literary societies and learned bodies, and pleased with the terms and spirit of the Provi- dence reviewer and critic, and knowing him as one of the scholarly gentlemen who had entertained him there, " glitter- ing generalities " captivated his fancy, and he adopted the ex- pression and availed himself of its service on a momentous public occasion, and thereby gave immortalit}^ to the words of his friendly reviewer and critic.
The peculiarly felicitous remarks of Richard H. Dana, at a meeting of the Boston Bar, soon after the death of Mr. Choate, express, by reason of his singularly significant and happy illustration, the sentiments entertained for his memory by the peers of the law, there and elsewhere, no less than those of the distinguished lawyer and publicist who spoke the words, — "Sir, I speak for myself — I have no right to speak for others, but I can truly say, without exaggeration, taking for the moment a simile from that element which he loved as much as I love it, though it rose against his life at last, that in his presence I felt like the master of a small coasting vessel that hugs the shore, that has run up under the lee to speak a great homeward bound Indiaman, freighted
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with silks and precious stones, spices and costly fabrics, with sky-sails and studding-sails spread to the breeze, with the nation's flag at her mast-head, navigated by the mysterious science of the fixed stars, and not unprepared with weapons of defence, her decks peopled with men in strange costumes, speaking of strange climes and distant lands. All loved him, especially the young. He stood before us an example of em- inence in science, in erudition, in genius, in taste, — in honor, in generosity, in humanit}', — in every liberal sentiment, and every liberal accomplishment."
324 THE KIDD LETTER.
THE KIDD LETTER.
A BOUT midwaj^ between Springfield and Worcester, ^* Massachusetts, is the pleasant, romantic and historical town of Palmer. It was organized by special act of the Colonial Assembty in 1752. The tract of land anciently called the "Elbows," from the form of its southern river boundary, was purchased of a tribe of Indians, the last east of the Connecticut river, once the warriors of King Philip, about 1730. The deed was executed by Chief Nassowanno to sundry persons, called, in the subsequent records of the town, the "Original Proprietors of the Elbows." The proprie- tors were largely Scotch. A junction of three considerable rivers, the Chicopee, the Ware, and the Swift is made within and near its western border — each furnishing extensive water power, which, for fifty years or more, has been utilized for immense cotton factories and other industries. The Chicopee has its source in the backbone of the State, near Worcester, and courses directly west to the Connecticut river, just above Springfield. The fountains of the Ware are in the northeast, and fed by the western watershed of Wachusett, the highest mountain of the State, so celebrated nearly a hun- dred years ago, that Albert Gallatine, the young and scholarly Swiss emigrant and subsequent able financier and ultimate Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, though born under the morning shadow of Mount Blanc, made a journey of 70 miles from Boston, soon after he landed, to stand upon its summit and survey a portion of five of the New England States. The third and last, Swift river, comes directly from the north, its two main fountains being in the towns of
THE KIDD LETTER. 325
Patersham and Pelham, the latter the birth place and home of the once notorious Stephen Burroughs, the eccentric ex- horter, pious fraud, confidence man, dead beat, and dare devil of three generations ago.
Palmer is so situated, and having such manufacturing facilities, that several large and enterprising villages are em- braced within its limits. Besides the depot village, which in later years is recognized by the name of the town, there is the Old Center, Thorndike, Duckville, Three Rivers, Sedgwick, and Blanchardville. The geological formation and topo- graphical features of the town are incitives to study and reflection — they are unique and attractive. The central ridge of highlands, in the forks between the Chicopee and Ware rivers, terminates in the eastern part of the town, in a bold, lofty and precipitous cliff several hundred feet in height above the two rivers. Its base is granite, but topped out in the highest part with thousands upon thousands of erratic rocks and bowlders, piled and tumbled in wild confusion, the wreck of an ancient world — a might}' morain of the glacial ages ; and all originally covered with a dense primeval forest. Upon the spurs and along the north side of this lofty ridge, at the foot of which runs the Ware river, was the trail of the Indian during unknown ages, between the Atlantic coast and the Connecticut river, thence to the Stockbridge tribes, the Mohawks, and the Five Nations of central New York. Then over this high and dry old Indian trail, from 1630 a hundred years, was the route between the Plymouth and Massachu- setts Bay Colonies and the settlements at Deerfield, Spring- field, Windsor and Hartford in the valley of the Connecticut river. Then from 1730 to Revolutionary times, as towns be- came partially settled along this line, from the great valley to Worcester and Boston, it became the cleared and ulti- mately worked highway, and over which detachments of the defeated army of Burgoyne marched from Saratoga to Boston, the record of which is certified at frequent intervals by heaps
326 THE KIDD LETTER.
of stone marking the burial place of a British soldier, who, exhausted unto death, dropped out of the ranks and made his last sad bivouac in the lonely forest by the side of the mountain road. Afterwards came the age of the turnpike and stage line, still keeping the ancient route from point to point over the ridges and elevated places, and along which, from 1789 till about 1840, the yellow coach of four and six sped across these hills carrying passengers, and the mails, the news of the wars of Europe, the fall of dynasties, the battles of Austerlitz, Lodi, Waterloo — of Elba, St. Helena and the Tomb of the Rock — of the Presidential elections from Wash- ington to Harrison — all this was pondered and repeated along this venerable highway, where now neither the crack of the coachman's whip nor the blasts of his bugle echo in its soli- tudes.
Lastl}r come steam and iron, modern engineering and elec- tricity, which swept into oblivion all former systems and modes of travel, transport and communication. Then the mountain towns and routes were forsaken, and the valleys and lowlands became not only the route of the locomotive, but also the highways for local travel, the mail and the tele- graph, and the sites of modern cities and villages ; leaving to solitude and desolation the ancient highways and homes of our forefathers upon the high places of the land.
It was the happ}' fortune of the writer to reside in this grand old historical town from 1848 to 1854, and man3r were the contemplative walks and pleasant drives over long abandoned portions of its ancient highwa}', grown up with grass and arched over by stately trees, and to search its records of by-gone times and learn its early history. Here by its most ancient "Inn," known in later days as "the old Sedgwick tavern," before which stood, 70 years ago, the inevitable sign post, with its swinging painted sign of the chained lion, which greeted the eye of the wear}' traveler of the olden time, from the distant hills on either side, with assurance of gener-
THE KIDD LETTER. 327
ous hospitality, good entertainment for man and beast — hay and oats for horses, and a good supper, a mug of flip and a clean bed for the traveler. Here rebellious Daniel Shays and his men halted on their way to Springfield, and here also rested General Lincoln and the State militia for a moment on their march in pursuit of the insurgents. At this old tavern, nearly a hundred }~ears ago, was overtaken and cap- tured " Lightfoot," the comrade of " Thunderbolt," notorious and dreaded road agents — highwaymen — once as much the terror of the New England traveler and the people of the lonely settlements as the James brothers of recent days upon our Western plains, and whose daring and dreadful deeds rural people related to their children more than sixty years ago.
While the famous Mecklenburg Declaration of Indepen- dence, of May 20, 1775, is a subject of doubt and uncertainty in the estimation of historians to-day, as it was deemed a myth and canard by both Adams and Jefferson, as evidenced by their correspondence in ]819, when the apocryphal docu- ment was first printed, the town of Palmer has the honor of having spread upon its records, of the date of June 17, 1775, the very day of the battle of Bunker Hill, but of which event the citizens could that day have had no knowledge, being nearly a hundred miles therefrom, a Declaration of Indepen- dence, in the form of resolutions, wherein the}' assert the " inalienable rights," the duty of the Congress to declare the same, and pledging themselves to its support, almost in the identical language of the Declaration -of Independence, passed by the Congress more than a j-ear later. If Mecklenburg did not anticipate the Congress, certain!}- Palmer did. It is a most curious and interesting record, showing beyond question that the sentiments in our now famous Declaration had been well understood, and its words familiar and almost common expressions of the people. The citizens of Palmer, even then and there, pledged their lives, fortunes and their honor, to
328 THE K1DD LETTER,
the maintenance of their Declaration of Independence, the very day Warren fell, wholly unconscious of the conflict of arms.
But of what significance, now and here, is the history of a Massachusetts town — the description of granite hills — of dis- placed rocks, and bowlders from disintegrated Arctic moun- tains— of abandoned highways ?
"Crags, knolls and mounds confusedly hurled — The fragments of an earlier world."
It is to illustrate by time, place, geography and topography of the country, incidents and surroundings, the probabilities concerning, if not to convince the reader of the historical truth involved in the following narrative. This, and nothing more :
One morning in February, 1849, rather exciting word was brought into the depot village on the Boston and Albany rail- road, that a singular and remarkable document or letter had been found by the side of " The Old Road," on the farm of one Samuel Shaw, by his son and his cousin, the son of a Dr. Gardiner Shaw, two young men, one about twenty, the other perhaps eighteen years old, who had been out the day before with their dog in pursuit of rabbits. Having run one under a shelving ledge of rocks, they sought to dislodge him by en- larging the apperture, so that the dog might enter, or, if prac- ticable, to draw him forth with the hand. Removing a loose stone, one of the }'oung men thrusting in his arm, his hand came in contact with a small glass bottle, or rather, perhaps, a large vial. Drawing it forth, and seeing that it contained a roll of paper, they became very much excited and curious to learn what, if anything, was written thereon. The vial was her- metically sealed with a cork made of sheet lead, closely and tightly pressed in, with a cap of the same material over all, and wound tight around the neck by a small wire or cord, somewhat after the manner in which sea-faring persons prepare
THE KIDD LETTER. 329*
communications to be thrown overboard in time of distress,, hoping the same may be washed upon some distant coast. Going to the house on the side, and nearest the highest part of the rocky mountain heretofore described, and not many rods from the place of their find, the}* uncorked the vial and attempted to withdraw the paper, but the scroll having loosened from its coil after its insertion through the small neck, filling it full, they found it impracticable to obtain the paper intact, and were necessitated to break the glass- There were two pieces of paper in the vial ; the outer one bore merely a postscript, but upon the inner one there was. written what follows :
To John Bailey, Esq., New York :
Sir — I fear we are in a bad situation, we are taken for pirates, and you must come to Boston as soon as you get this ; there is no one here I can depend on — the man who brings this to you cannot read it, he knows nothing what is in it — you must come as soon as you get it, or I may not see you before I am carried to England. If I do not see you I will tell you where the money is, for we have a plenty of that if it will do any good. It is buried on Conant's Island, in Boston Harbor, dn the northwest corner of the island in two chests, containing from fifteen to twenty thousand pounds sterling, in money, jewels and diamonds. They are buried about four feet deep with a flat stone on them, and a pile of stones near by. There is no one that knows where it is but me now living, as Dick Jones and I hid it when part of our men were in Boston and the rest were asleep one night — it is about sixty rods up the side hill. I want to see you before we are carried to Old England, if possible — if not, you must get all the witnesses in my favor, and the best of counsel ta help you. I want you to see Col. Slaughter and John Nichols and James Bayard and Capt. Houson and Edward Teach, and all that can do me any good ; say nothing to them
330 THE KIDD LETTER.
about the money or that I have wrote to you. You know my old friends in New York, and who will help me. That Moore scrape is the worst part of my case. I think my interest with Lord Bellamont. and my- two commissions and some French papers I have with me, and my men running away to the pirates to Culiford, and other things are in my favor. All may be safe yet ; they think I have got money buried down at Plymouth or that wa}- somewhere, they don't think it is so near Boston ; but they shan't have my money and life too ; don't fail to come to me as soon as you get this.
I enquired the best way by land to New York, and told him to go to Worcester and then to Quabog, an Indian town where Maj. Willard fought the Indians ; there is a pond and a stream leading to Connecticut river, and down to Hart- ford by water to New York, and to give this to you himself. Say nothing to him about me or that you ever saw me — but come without fail, or, if I am gone to England, be there as soon as possible. Secure the money and diamonds before you come, as my money will do a great good for us — it will buy a great many great people and all the, poor I want in my favor. Keep dark in New Y7ork, sa}T nothing to an}1 but my friends — don't fail to be in Boston before I am carried to England, as I can tell you more than I can write, and better what I want. I told the man that brings this to you, if he met with any trouble or was taken by the Indians, to hide his papers in some safe place where he can find them if he got away. I will put them in the glass, for if he should get them wet or anything should happen to him they will be safe. I •can't think of anything more to write now. but will tell you all when you come. They keep me well and are kind to me here. This is from your friend
Robert Kidd.
Boston, 1700-1.
N. B. — Come soon, without fail, and I will tell you more and all about the money. It is on Conant's Island, about
THE KIDD LETTER. 331
three miles down the Harbor of Boston — they don't think it is so near to Boston ; but }^ou must keep dark here — say nothing to &T\J one here about me till }^ou sea,
R. Kidd.
Although the bitterest cold day of the winter, and snow more than two feet deep, and much drifted across the hills, the writer availed himself of an invitation, and a seat in a well-robed sleigh, and visited the highest mountain farm house in the town — the home of Mr. Samuel Shaw — a quiet, honest, and every way respectable citizen. We arrived at the house about noon, and found some twenty or more persons already there, having come mostl}' from the villages in the valleys from three to five miles distant, to see the remark- able curiosity. All the circumstances relating to the finding were recounted by the two }roung men, and repeated to every new visitor. That lonely farm house never before opened its door to so many visitors. Prominent citizens, born in the town, were there for the first time. There upon the table lay the broken glass — the cork and cap of sheet lead, and the two sheets of long but rather narrow, unruled, cap paper ; the lat- ter coarse and of a dingy white color, and bore the stamp of the English crown, plain!}- to be recognized when held up to the light. The writing was what would be called old English commercial style, "a. fair round hand," like unto that of the commander of the Pinafore. No one who saw that letter doubted of its antiquity and genuineness ; that it was found by the boys as described, and that it had lain in the silence of the cave of the mountain for 150 years. For weeks the house of Mr. Shaw was besieged by visitors, and until the family became so much embarrassed thereby that the docu- ment was finally sealed up and deposited in a bank for safe keeping.
The spring of 1849 was the period at which the California fever was at its height, and men were leaving the country
332 THE KIDD LETTER.
towns no less than cities by the hundreds for the Golden Gate. Among the large number, which left Palmer for that distant coast, were the two young men who had found the Kidd let- ter. Thinking some question might possibly arise concerning it in their absence, or doubt be expressed touching the truth of their oft repeated statements of the circumstances of the finding of that letter, the}T thought it important and prudent to leave behind them a more solemn statement of the facts, and to that end applied to the writer to draw up their respective formal affidavits, rehearsing and setting forth particularly and minutely every fact and circumstance connected therewith, which was accordingly done, and which they subscribed and made solemn oath to before a magistrate, and, leaving the same with their respective fathers, departed for California. Whether they ever returned, the writer is not advised. About the same time, but a little later in the spring or early summer, Mr. Samuel Shaw, the father, for the first time in his life, made a trip to Boston, and visited the islands in the harbor, and especially the one anciently called Conant's, but now Governor's Island. He found, however, on inquiry and from local history, that there had been, even in recent years, much change in the shores of most of those islands, and especially the one of particular interest to him from the allu- sions thereto in the latety found letter — that more than sixty rods of the northwest corner of the island indicated in the letter as the place where two chests of treasure had been buried had, in the long interval of 150 years, been washed away by the tide — in fact, he was told by a resident on the island that more than thirty rods had been swept away from the same cause within the then last thirty years — that the government was then building a sea wall to protect that part of the island from further erosion by the tides.
Nothing so much impresses the mind with the reality of the past as an ancient manuscript, document or letter, bear- ing the autograph of its author, and the time and place of its
THE KIDD LETTER, 333
writing or execution. The original document itself, or its reproduction in print, indicates as much, and often more, than a dozen pages of elaboration of the historian. In the document one sees history — without it, history is but imagi- nation— faith, based on confidence, reposed in the historian and his researches in the public archives. This letter of the once good subject of the king of England — trusted and faithful master in the Commercial Marine — the commissioned commander of a ship privateering against the public enemies of England, preying upon the Dutch East India Company's ships in the Indian Ocean, and the galleons of Spain, freighted with the gold of Peru and the treasures of Potosi and Mexico, and ultimately the most dreaded pirate of the ;seas, brings to light unfamiliar names, and awakens the present generation to a knowledge of the long forgotten time when Boston and New York were compared for size and com- mercial importance with Newport, Rhode IslancJ, to the full measure of which the latter aspired, and whose early land speculators and Indian traders prophesied their ultimate .attainment.
There can be no doubt of the genuineness of the Kidd let- ter, and that it was found near the ancient highway in the town of Palmer, Mass., as before related, for the absolute honesty and sincerity of the two young men is not to be -questioned ; besides there was not a person in the town, nor Tvithin a hundred miles of it, possessed of the specific colonial historical information of a hundred and fifty years previous, who could, or would undertake to perpetrate a fraud and imposition by the manufacture of such a docu- ment, nor a person living on earth who would select such a place for its concealment with any hope or expectation that at ;some indefinite time thereafter a rabbit and dog, supplemented by two young hunters, in a cold and cheerless winter's day, upon the side of a desolate and lonely mountain, would bring it forth to astonish and deceive an honest and intelligent
334 THE KIDD LETTER.
community. But, though undisputed and undoubted at the- time by hundreds of gentlemen who visited the place and examined and read the paper, let us notice some of its pecu- liarities and the internal evidences of the genuineness of the letter. First, its enclosure in glass and sealing is after the manner of a seaman : its peculiar date, 1700-1, indicating,, though the month and da}^ was omitted, that it was at the point of the annual period, when, under the "old style," it would be 1700, and under the "new style" 1701, and the character of the handwriting. The whole tenor of the com- munication — specific — peculiar — solicitous — anxious — j ust such a letter as such a character would be likely to write under like circumstances, and just such as the facts of his- tory will show to have existed at the moment, and prior and subsequent thereto. Then, again, the names of persons therein alluded to — some known to history, others not — like- wise the nanies of Indian localities and battle grounds in the description of the ancient route from Boston to New York.
John Baile}T, Esq., to whom the letter is addressed, is un- known at present, it not appearing in any history of New York of those early times. Col. Henry Slaughter, or Sloughter as now printed, was Governor of New York by commission of King William, from Aug., 1689, to July, 1691. John Nichols, Esq., was doubtless a lawyer, and brother or son of William Nicolls, member of Governor Slaughter's council, and at one time charged with complicity with pirates ; and James Bayard, whose name does not appear in the his- tory of New York, was likewise, probably, of the family of Col. Nicholas Bayard, also a member of the council under several Governors between 1689 and 1700, a prominent poli- tician and a man of great energy and talent, and charged in the political asperities of the time of acquiring wealth by his- interests in piratical ships. Capt. Houson, or Hewson, was doubtless a retired sea rover, and Edward Teach, afterwards a known pirate, and whose testimony might be useful to Kidd.
THE KIDD LETTER. 335
Finally the description of the route given the earner of the let- ter. Who, after 1 50 years, would attempt to deceive by de- scribing an Indian trail forgotten by five generations, or even recall to mind the fact that Maj. Willard fought the warriors of King Philip at Quabog, some ten miles east of Palmer, the name alone being preserved to later generations only by the pond and the Quabog Seminary in the town of Warren ? Finally Lord Bellamont, or Bellomont. He had been a cour- tier and created an Earl by King William. He had been treasurer and receiver-general for Queen Mary, and a confi- dential friend of the king, and was esteemed the most hon- est, as well as able, man about the court. The little town of New York, with its great harbor and deep rivers, was the ren- dezvous no less of pirates than privateers, and Bellomont was appointed Governor as being the most likely to suppress piracy. He arrived in New York in the spring of 1698. His jurisdiction embraced likewise the New England colonies, so that he alternated between Boston and New York, going over land, by the route heretofore described, accompanied by a retinue of officials and Lady Bellomont, all on horseback, very imposing, and making a sensation in the few incipient towns and villages through which the royal cavalcade passed.
Since piracy has for long years been swept from the seas in every part of the globe by long-ranged guns and ships pro- pelled by steam, it has become a sort of dim and forgotten history, and it is difficult at this day to appreciate the dis- turbed condition of commerce 200 years ago, or to realize that the little Dutch village on the tip end of Manhattan Island, then but recently transferred from Holland to England, now the commercial emporium of the continent, was, from 1680 to 1700, not only the rendezvous of pirates, but also of priva- teers,— licensed pirates — authorized by governments to prey upon the commerce of those countries at war ; that the scandal of the times charged not only governor, council and
336 THE KIDD LETTER.
officials, but mercantile houses with being interested in the profits of, and protecting pirates, and that their wives and daughters luxuriated in the silks and diamonds of the Orient, plundered from the merchantmen in the straits of Madagas- car. The one lone minister of the Gospel of the Dutch Church, Domine Selyns, in 1696, wrote to Holland — "Morals have much degenerated, and evil practices have been intro- duced by strangers and privateersmen. Our calamities spring from the bottomless pool of heaven-high sins, foreign, but nevertheless without the suspicion of foreigners. Money increases, high houses are built, and land is made in the ivater."
Piracy had long been in existence. It was, moreover, in- directly encouraged by all European governments in that in time of war they could annoy the commerce of the enem}' without trouble or expense by licensing practical piracy. Pri- vate armed vessels sometimes licensed, often unlicensed, roved the seas and robbed and plundered at pleasure. Man}T of these free-sailors held commissions from the King of Eng- land to annoy France. Presently the ships of all nations were seized, plundered, and sunk or burned, not excepting those of Great Britain herself.
The little incipient city of New York, its great harbor, its rivers and creeks, sheltered b}' primeval forests, furnished the best facilities for fitting out privateering crafts, was the natural place for rendezvous on this continent, and the very Ibest place to secrete or sell the goods and treasures obtained in such nefarious enterprises. We are apt to think the country in later years has had some experience, even if the people do not seem to have gained a great amount of practi- cal wisdom as the result ; but early colonial New York had an experience strikingly parallel with our own. Land grab- bing by court favorites, holding their grants from the king, •of lordly manors, from twenty to forty miles square, on the Hudson or Long Island, subject only to the Indian title,
THE KIDD LETTER. 337
which was readily .quit-claimed for a few gallons of rum and a basket full of small trinkets — the whole of Manhattan Island, some 20,000 acres, having been purchased by Gov- ernor Peter Minuet, for the Dutch West India Company, for twenty -four dollars worth of beads and baubles only about fifty years before — privateering, protecting pirates, and mer- chandising in their plunder, was the food and stimulant for politics and scandal during a portion of the infancy of our modern commercial emporium. Tweedism, Credit-Mobilier, railroad subsidies, salan- grab, and star route " contracts " of recent times had counterpart and parallel in colonial New York just prior to the year 1700.
Piracy, politics, and scandal culminatod under the admin- istration of Governor Fletcher, prior to the arrival of Bello- mont in 1698. Fletcher was accused of conspiracy with pirates — having encouraged and protected them, and profited thereby. He had commissioned sea captains to raise men and act as privateers against the French — he had accepted bonds, and promised protection. Subsequently he was called to account by the Lords of Trade, but he succeeded for a time in denying to their satisfaction that he had ever aided known pirates. But later, when some of the most high- handed sea-robbers, such as Tew and others, had been over- taken by government, commissions and other papers were found establishing the Governor's complicity in their crimes. Tew was a dashing young fellow, agreeable, companionable, with considerable education and not a few personal accom- plishments, and it had been early noticed that when Capt. Tew was in port he was entertained, dined and wined, by some of the great traders and the lords of manors, at their great manor houses in the forests up the Hudson, at Morriseana, be}rond Spuyten Duyvil Creek, and upon Long Island, and in " Breckelin " heights and banks opposite the city. It was in proof that Capt. Tew, at one of his visits, had presented the Governor with a curious and costly watch, and rumoi 22
338 THE KIDD LETTER.
had it, though not quite proved, that Mrs. Fletcher and her two handsome daughters had received, at the hands of the fas- cinating pirate, valuable jewels. Tew subsequently went to the Indian Ocean, where, harboring himself with others- among the creeks of Madagascar, " he plundered and mur- dered till humanity refuses to blot the pages of history with his deeds." Governor Fletcher, admitting of necessity the social entertaining of the pirate and the attentions bestowed upon him by his wife and daughters, justified under the pious plea that his object had been to convert Capt. Tew from the error of his ways, and especially to reclaim him from the " vile habit of swearing " ! No sooner was Governor Fletcher implicated than some of the wealthiest, and hitherto most respectable citizens of New York were accused of sharing in the spoils of ocean robbery. Every new development seemed to justify the suspicion. The remarkable influx of strangers, the increasing quantity of rich goods exposed for sale, the rapid erection of expensive buildings, and the free circulation of Oriental gold pieces, pointed in the same direc- tion. It was further claimed that Governor Fletcher had received large sums of money for protecting pirates, whenever they chose to land in New York to dispose of their spoils ; that one pirate had given him a ship, which he had sold for 8,000 pounds. It was, moreover, among the scandals of the times, currently reported that the great merchant-vessels of New York, which went to Madagascar for negroes, bought goods of the pirates, and that the owners of those vessels had money interest in the pirate vessels. William Nicolls, before mentioned, was charged with having been Fletcher's chief broker in the matter of protections, and the place of rendez- vous where he had often held interviews with piratical cap- tains on Long Island shores, was confidently pointed out to Governor Bellomont when he arrived.
The English government became aroused, but not until ocean commerce was nearly destroyed, nor, in fact, until the
THE KIDD LETTER. 339
pirates had destroyed some ships of the Mogul in the Indian Ocean, one in particular that he was sending laden with presents to Mecca. Among the first acts of King William was to send Vice-Admiral John Neville, with an armed fleet, to protect the galleons of Spain (then England's ally) against the French cruisers. After convoying some home- ward-bound merchant vessels to a certain latitude, he pro- ceeded with his fleet to the West Indies ; but the jealous Spanish governor at Havana refused to accept the proffered protection of the galleons, and he steered to Virginia. It is said, upon the authority of records in the archives of Spain, that these galleons had treasure to the amount of 50,000,000 Spanish dollars — the richest fleet of the age — and that the reason for the refusal to put them under the protection of a British fleet was the jealousy of the Spaniards. They would not permit a representative of England to have absolute control of so rich a fleet, and of the place of the greatest importance in the West Indies, which would have been the case had Admiral Neville been admitted into the harbor.
Vice-Admiral Neville was a descendant of Gilbert de Neville, who was admiral of the fleet of William the Con- queror, 1066. Soon after his arrival in Hampton Roads he died, Aug., 1697, and was buried at Hampton, Virginia, and black marble tablets, with inscriptions and his coat of arms engraved thereon, mark his resting place unto this day. The inscription reads thus : " Here lies ye body of John Neville, Esq., Vice-Admiral of His Majesty's fleet, and Com- mander-in-Chief of ye squadron cruising in the West Indies, who died on board ye Cambridge, ye 17 day of August, 1697, in ye ninth year of ye reign of King William ye Third, aged 57 years." So, after the lapse of 180 years, it comes to light that while Hampton, Virginia, holds the ashes of the renowned Vice-Admiral of England, Palmer, Massachusetts, has held during the long period, in the cave of the mountain,
340. THE KIDD LETTER.
»
the written record of his more generally remembered, but less worthy cotemporary, Robert Kidd.
As the corsairs in the Indian Ocean were known to that Eastern Monarch to be Englishmen, as, in fact, were nearly all pirates in those as well as the Atlantic waters, he had given notice of his intention to take reprisals for damages, and the English government found it necessary to send a man-of-war to the East to put a stop to the English piracy there. But Parliament had already so appropriated the nation's funds, that there was no money for the purpose. Whereupon the King himself proposed to his counsellors that they should make it a private undertaking, and to that end subscribed 3,000 pounds himself, and Lord Somers and the Earls of Oxford, Rumne}', and Bellomont, who had at this time been appointed governor but had not yet been com- missioned, with Robert Livingston, who was at the English Court at that time, the necessary balance. Then they cast about for a competent commander, and an energetic business man to put the enterprise into operation. Livingston intro- duced Capt. Kidd to Lord Bellomont, and recommended him as a fit man to command the expedition. Livingston said Kidd had sailed a packet from New York to London for some years, was known to be honorable and brave, had been in the Eastern seas, and knew the haunts and habits of the pirates in those waters, and was ready to untertake the service. He was accordingly employed, and was commissioned by the Admiralty to act against the French, and another commission was given him under the Great Seal, dated January 26, 1696, authorizing him to apprehend all pirates wherever he should find them, and bring them to trial. Livingston entered into bonds with Capt. Kidd to Bellomont, to account strictly for all prizes secured. The commission recites Kidd's powers as Lord High Admiral of England, and his office as a private- man-of-war, and his ship, for the time being, the Adventure Among the names of pirates specially cited in the
THE KIDD LETTER. 341
commission for Kidd to seize, are the festive Capt. Tew, so gallant to Mrs. Fletcher and her lovely daughters, and Capt. Thomas Walker, whom we suspect to be the very person whose name for 180 years has been linked in partnership with his Satanic Majesty in the not unfamiliar expression, "the Devil and Tom Walker." They, the terrors of the sea, become the legends and myths of a people ages after the orig- inal significance is lost. It was stipulated among the sub- scribers to the fund, and provided for in a grant under the Great Seal, that all property taken from the pirates should vest in the parties at whose cost the vessel was fitted out, the king to receive one-tenth of the proceeds.
Kidd set sail in the spring of 1696, under very brilliant auspices. He stopped in New York and shipped ninety additional men, and in July put to sea on his fatal mission. The undertaking was in itself innocent and meritorious; but the sequel — how, instead of suppressing piracy, he became the prince of pirates, and nearly involved, not only the Lords of Trade, but even the king of England himself, in the blackest of charges — is well known. The subject was dis- cussed by commercial men and the people until, in the House of Commons, it was voted as highly criminal, and but for energetic action on the part of a few, would have condemned its projectors forever.
From the days of Columbus and Vespucius, Vasquez de Gama and Magellan — from the Cabots to Henry Hudson — through all the times of English discovery and colonization — from Capt. John Smith, of Pocahontas fame, to Kidd, and the opening of the eighteenth century, the commanders of the merchant marine of England, no less than her Raleighs, Penns and Baltimores, patentees of mighty domains, and chiefs of colonizing enterprises in America, and her com- manders of ships of war, and her Admirals of the seas, were men of education and often of accomplishments. They were of the best houses and homes of England. They were men
342 THE KIDD LETTER.
of enterprise, inspired by the wealth of the Indias, of Mexico and Peru, whose highways were the oceans. Kidd himself was no ordinary man. He was born in London, about the time of the great fire in 1666, and was probably a little over thirty years of age when he received his commission from King William. He was an attractive and cultivated man, who had already held commercial responsibilities and com- mands in the Eastern seas, and of packets between the West Indies, London and New York. He had a comfortable and pleasant home on Liberty street, New York, besides other houses and lots, as it appears that Attorney General Bough- ton, in 1702, wrote the Lords of Trade for permission to occupy " one of Captain Kidd's vacant dwellings ; " indicat- ing rather desirable property. He had also a wife, beautiful, accomplished, and of the highest respectability. She was Sarah Oort, the widow of one of his fellow-officers ; they were married in 1691, and, at the time of his departure for the Eastern Ocean in pursuance of the royal commission, they had one charming little daughter. He was an intimate of Robert Livingston, the first lord of the manor of 160,000 acres of the finest land on the banks of the Hudson, in the midst of scenery unsurpassed — of Van Rensselaer — of Schuyler — of Governor Sloughter and his successors — Graham, Actorney General, and all the great merchants and manor lords. He was, like Livingston, an opponent of the corrupt administra- tion of Governor Fletcher, and doubtless accompanied Liv- ingston to England to secure the removal of that official, and which resulted in Bellomont as his successor, and likewise the commission of Kidd for the suppression of the pirates.
Kidd had been gone on his mission to the Eastern ocean two years when Lord Bellomont arrived in New York, in the spring of 1698. He was accompanied by Lady Bellomont and a retinue. A pretentious dinner was given him by the cor- poration, at which one hundred and fifty persons assisted —
THE KIDD LETTER. 343
the bill of fare embracing every imaginable viand and game from beef to sausage, and from venison to duck, with pastry and puddings, and the choicest of wines — such as would astonish the patrons of Delmonico to-day. History records Bellomont as a genuine nobleman — a master of the art of politeness, who knew how to make even the commonest man or woman feel that they were the objects of his special regard — of attractive, commanding presence, large-sized, somewhat above the ordinary height, with finely-shaped and well-poised head, a face stamped with iron firmness, dark, magnetic, kindly, expressive eyes, and small, soft white hands. He was, withal, very humorous, and an admirable story teller, and enjoyed a hearty laugh, like most persons who are not afflicted in mind, body, or estate. He bore him- self with becoming dignity, and was greatly admired for the ease and grace exhibited in his equestrian exercises. He dressed with elegance and good taste, and his table was filled with the choicest of viands, and it was served with as much ceremonj7 as the king's own. His equipage was magnificent. His coach and six threw up the dust of the unpaved streets to the delight and pride of loyal Englishmen, and the astonishment of the Dutch burgers, and the descend- ants of Wouter Van Twiller and the children of Rip Van Dam. He was sixty-two years of age, but looked much younger. Lady Bellomont was still quite youthful, having been married at the age of twelve. She was an elegant woman, and he was very fond and proud of her. The lead- ing New York families gave a series of stately dinner parties, and the first few weeks of their American life were more pleasant than any which came afterwards.
Bellomont's administration was a brief and unhappy one. He had been accustomed to see power constantly associated with pomp, and could not realize that the substance existed unless the people were dazzled by the trappings. His mind was upright, and he had a desire for justice, but he was not
344 THE KIDD LETTER.
a good judge of men — was hasty and impulsive, and often acted upon hearing one side of a ease — was soon swept into the whirlpool of colonial politics, and, as was soon found, he had the backing of neither part}- . Sincerely he undertook the reformation of the city and province. He listened to exag- gerated complaints, and impulsively acted without proof. He had his suspicions of the great merchants, of which he made no secret, for he saw too much Arabian gold and rich East India goods for either honest or healthful trade, and he set about searching for the hidden pools of corruption. He soon found that the great landed lords, who represented the aristocracy, were in sympathy with the merchants — and worse still the members of his council were reticent, and even indif- ferent to the measures he proposed ; that some, or all, of them almost daily conferred with the deposed Governor Fletcher, who had not yet sailed for England. He caused the seizure of ships and goods which caused great commotion among the merchants. Some of his agents and officers were so much in sympathy with the merchants that goods, diamonds, and other rich treasures, were suffered to be taken from the ships by the merchants and secreted after seizure. Bellomont was indignant, but the merchants were wrath}', and almost raised a mutiny over the governor's proceedings. He wrote to the Lords of Trade, May 9, 1698 : " Colonel Nicolls ought to be sent with Colonel Fletcher a criminal prisoner to England for trial, but the gentlemen of the council are tender of him, as he is connected by marriage to several of them, and I am prevailed upon to accept £2,000 for his appearance here when demanded. He is a man of good sense and knowledge of the law, but has been a great instrument and contriver of unjust and corrupt practices."
Soon Bellomont discovered that the merchants had exten- sively signed petitions to the king for his recall. He was specially indignant towards Colonel Bayard, of the council, therefor, and removed him with others from the council,
THE KIDD LETTER. 345
charging them with giving protection to pirates — giving credence to the rumor that a beautiful diamond, worn by Mrs. Bayard, was one which the pirates had taken from an Arabian princess, and was the price paid to Bayard for ob- taining the murderer's protection — that Minvielle, another of the dismissed members, possessed a large box of Arabian gold pieces, obtained in a similar manner. At this time it had become known, both in New York and England, that Captain Kidd had raised the black flag of piracy in the Indian Ocean, and Bayard hurled back to the Governor the charge not only of conspiracy with pirates, but partnership in that fatal enterprise. This was a severe blow to Bello- mont, as he could not deny his connection with its inception and organization, though under the legitimate name and object of a privateer. Livingston, who was surety for Kidd and a subscriber to the fund, was appointed to the council by the Governor, and this gave force to Bayard's charge. Bellomont wrote to the king : "I am obliged to stand upon my own legs, my assistants hinder me, the people oppose me, and the merchants threaten me. It is, indeed, uphill work." Bellomont further succeeded in making himself obnoxious to the landed aristocracy. He believed that much of their wealth had been dishonorably obtained. The enormous landed estates were detrimental, in his judgement, to the prosperity of the colony. Men of small means could not get a foothold in the province. Every acre of government land had been granted away to feudal lords, in many instances in tracts from twenty to forty miles square. This he deemed a fatal policy, and he leveled a blow at the great landlords by an attempt to break all existing grants by a bill to pro- hibit any one person from holding more than one thou- sand acres. This was too much for the lords of the province — the gentlemen of tenantry and negro slaves, of gilded trap- pings, coats of arms, and coaches-and-six — and terrific oppo- sition from this quarter, no less than from the merchantsr
346 THE KIDD LETTER.
together with the gout, made the governor's official life in New York one of unhappiness.
As Bellomont was also Governor of Massachusetts, he was thankful when the time came for him to attend to that part of his commission. So, in 1699, accompanied by Lady Bello- mont and a large retinue, he made the overland journev to Boston, where he was well received, and remained a year and •enjoyed official honors and a peaceful life.
The literature of piracy is not very interesting reading, and for nearly one hundred and fifty years, and until in modern days, when old colonial records have been brought to light .and published by antiquarian societies, but little was known of Captain Kidd, and that only such as came down by means of legends embalmed in the old songs, rehearsed by rural lads before the era of the " dime novel." But now as much is known of Kidd and his career as of Warren Hastings, and his plunderings of the Rahjas and Nabobs of India, disclosed in the speeches of Burke and Sheridan in the great impeach- ment case of thirteen years' duration. Kidd, upon leaving New York, operated for considerable time along the southern •coast, in the line of the West India commerce, and did much useful service in protecting the same, made reprisals, for which his services were acknowledged b}' the Colonial Assem- Tbly of New York in voting him £250. Then, business becoming dull in that quarter, he sailed to the Cape de Verd Islands, and finally to Madagascar, the great rendezvous of pirates. Contrary to his expectation he found no pirates there at the time, all being out in search of spoil, so he made for the coast of Malabar. While cruising near the island of Johanna, between Malabar and Madagascar, he met several India ships richly laden, but these he passed without violence, though he might have captured them with little trouble. 'Thus far he had proved faithful to the trust imposed in him, but finding his success not equal to his anticipations, and that his men were getting tired of spending their time with-
THE KJDD LETTER. 347
-out any remuneration, and possibly troubled with forebodings of disappointment to the subscribers to the enterprise, he resolved to change his measures and reap a harvest one way if he could not another. The apparent difference between privateering and piracy being so slight, and the dangers and hazards of the service being exactly alike, his men readily fell in with the purposes he then disclosed to them. He then sailed to an island near the mouth of the Red Sea, his designs, being upon the Mocha fleet, but finding the same under. a convoy of two English and Dutch men-of-war, he was obliged to make his retreat. Having commenced an un- lawful career, he resolved to go on, whatever might be the •consequences. The better, however, to retain his good rep- utation at home, and to deceive those with whom he might •chance to meet upon the seas, he changed his name from William to Robert Kidd— by the latter name he was ever afterwards known among his accomplices, both by sea and land. This also is in accordance with the old ballad —
"My name was Robert Kidd, as I sailed."
His depredations extended from the Eastern Ocean, back and along the Atlantic coast of South America, through the Bahamas and the whole West Indies. His piracy became so alarming that Parliament was moved to inquire into the com- mission that was given him, and the persons who fitted him •out. These proceedings so irritated the projectors and sub- scribers, that the king, who was one of the number, was induced to issue a proclamation, offering full pardon to all such pirates as should voluntarily surrender themselves before the last day of April, 1699 — limited, however, to cer- tain latitudes and longitudes, and excepting Avery and Kidd. This proclamation was issued Dec. 8, 1698. Several men-of- ivar were sent out with commissions to extend the king's pardon to such as would willingly surrender, and to bring in all others. None of these, however, fell in with Captain Kidd.
348 THE KIDD LETTER.
Meantime the ship of Kidd was being filled with costly spoil — bags of gold and silver. He captured some Indian ships, richly laden with* gold dust and ivory — French and Moorish vessels — and a Spanish vessel from which he took ten bags of Spanish silver coin, besides rich dry goods and provisions — the ships were stripped of their sails, cordage, etc., and then burnt. At one of the Dutch spice islands he learned that news had reached England concerning his opera- tions and that several men-of-war had been sent out to take him. On receiving this information he sailed for New York. He had not probably been informed of the king's proclamation, for had he known of his being excepted in it, he would not have run the risk of a return. But relyftig upon his interest with Bellomont and other subscribers, he doubtless thought they would be able to convince the Crown that his career had been but that of legal piracy or privateering. When he returned from the East, he had, probably, more valuable spoil than ever fell to the lot of any other pirate, ancient or modern, on sea or land. His gains in about three years have, probably, never been surpassed by any gentleman in Wall street.
On his homeward bound passage he made the West India islands, where he left one ship loaded with treasure, which he had run into a secure and lonely ba}r, to await ultimate events, and with another sailed for the New Eng- land coast. Avoiding both New York and Boston till he could learn something of the disposition of the authorities, and probably to confer with those who had fitted out his original ship, he ran into a small bay off Gardiner's island at the Eastern end of Long Island Sound, where he buried a chest of gold, silver and precious stones. Mr. Gardiner was entrusted by Kidd with the secret of this deposit, and he personally, if not his men, enjoyed the hospitalities of the Gardiner house, in return for which he made presents to Mrs. Gardiner, among which was a piece of gold cloth of con-
THE KIDD LETTER. 349
,-siderable value, a part of which is said to be still in existence, .and in as good condition as when presented to Mrs. Gardiner. This is the island famous as the feudal estate of the family -of which John Gardiner, with whom Kidd made a special .deposit, was the third lord of the manor, and which, in the land grabbing times before alluded to, the first lord obtained of the Indians for the consideration of " one black dog, one gun, some powder and shot, and a few Dutch blankets — all of the value of $25," — or one dollar more than was paid for Manhattan island a little before. Land, evidently, was even then rising in value in the estimation of chiefs and squaws — the latter, probably, had become sharp, and would not relin- quish their right of dower at former prices.
From this island in the spring of 1699, Kidd com- municated to Governor Bellomont, then officially residing in Boston, and received such encouragement as to induce him to come to Boston. He arrived in the harbor about the first of May, and anchored near the island then called Conant's, now Governor's. He went to the city, conferred with Bel- lomont, and getting a history of the Governor's troubled administration in New York, and finding him cramped and troubled by charges of complicity with pirates and the especial patron of the Adventure Galley, and the community excited concerning him, though not yet arrested, he left the city for a time, went back to his ship, buried his treasure on the island and disposed of what goods he could to persons along the coast, and finalty scuttled or burned the ship. He came back to Boston, living very quietly and undisturbed for a short season and until the council ordered his arrest and imprisonment July 3d, 1699. Kidd was confined in jail in Boston a year and a half, waiting for an armed ship which Bellomont had sent for to take him to England. Several of his crew were subsequently found, arrested and tried.
Among the papers of Kidd, seized at the time of his . arrest, was found an account of the treasures deposited on
350 THE KIDD LETTER.
Gardiner's Island. Bellomont and his council appointed" commissioners who went to the island and secured it. Gardi- ner delivered the treasure. He asked for a receipt, which the commissioners gave him. As old documents are most con- vincing of the reality of past transactions, and as " Kidd and his money " has become a by- word indicative of doubt and distrust, we here transcribe an honest old document, still in the government archives of Massachusetts : " A true ac- count of all such gold, silver, jewels and merchandise, late in the possession of Captain William Kidd, which had been seized and secured by us, pursuant to an order from his Excellency, Kichard, Earl of Bellamont, bearing date, July 7, 1699: Received the 17th instant of Mr. John Gardiner, viz :
No. 1. One bag of gold dust 63f ounces.
" 2. One bag of corned gold 11
And one of silver 124 "
" 3. One bag of dust-gold 24f "
" 4. One bag of silver rings and sundry
precious stones 4J "
" 5. One bag of unpolished stones
" 6. One piece of crystal, cornelian rings,
two agates, two amethysts. " 7. One bag of silver buttons and lamps. " 8. One bag of broken silver
" 9. One bag of gold bars 353£ "
" 10. One do 238£ "
" 11. One bag of dust-gold 59£ "
" 12. One bag of silver bars 309 "
Samuel Sewall, Nathaniel Byfield, Jeremiah Dummer, Andrew Belcher, Commissioners.
Familiar old colonial names — the same Judge Sewall who tried the witches of Salem — indicted under the statute of Moses — "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." At the time of Kidd's arrest he was lodging at the principal hotel in
THE KIDD LETTER. 351
Boston, the same where Bellomont had partaken of the hospitalities of the authorities and citizens on his arrival. Mrs. Kidd was with him. Whether she came direct from New York, or had visited him during his stay at Gardiner's island, does not appear. Doubtless she had come to remain for a long time, as she brought her plate and other things of highest value. She suffered the indignity, at the hands of the officers, in having her trunks broken open and her valuables seized. Some time after her husband's imprisonment she addressed Governor Bellomont as follows : " To His Excellency, the Governor of New England :
My Lord, I desire your favor, that I may be admitted to< go into the prison where Capt. Kidd is confined, for he is my lawful husband ; therefore I desire your lordship's permis- sion.
BOSTON, July, 1699. Jane S. Kidd."
Concerning the indignities offered her in the seizure of her trunks, she communicates with the governor in the following terms :
" To His Excellency, the Governor of New England :
My Lord, when I came from New York, I brought to Boston all my silver plates, knives and forks, spoons and bowls, which have all been taken from me, and which were never my husbands. The}^ were given to me on my wedding day as my dowry, I desire your lordship's favor that they may be returned to me.
BOSTON, July 25th, 1699. Jane S. Kidd."
It is probable, though no mention seems to be made in the council records of the fact, that her private propert}^ was returned to her. Doubtless she remained with her husband during his long imprisonment, awaiting the arrival of an armed vessel to take him to England for trial, when it is recorded that Mrs. Kidd and her daughter returned to New York and lived in the strictest seclusion.
352 THE KIDD LETTER.
After the departure of Kidd for England in January, 1701, Bellomont returned to New York, where he had a renewed attack of his old malady, the gout, of which he died on the 5th of March. Thus ended his unhappy labors at the age of sixty -five. Governors of States, and Collectors of the ports of Boston and New York, think their duties are very arduous in keeping their party in good health and spirits, drawing and receipting for their salary, or in making their moieties out of the plundered importing merchant, but the governor- ship of a province 200 years ago was far from being a bed of roses.
Kidd arrived in England the same month that Bellomont -died. Before Kidd's departure from Boston. Livingston -came on and had some pretty earnest interviews with Bel- lomont, touching the ultimatum of their original enter- prise. He demanded of the governor the bond which he, Livingston, had executed to Bellomont personally in behalf •of Kidd, which was probably surrendered, as the reputation of both being involved in the public scandal an indemnity bond between partners in privateering was of small considera- tion, with prosecutions and impeachments in prospect. Kidd was indicted both for piracj' and the murder of his gunner, William Moore. He was convicted of both and executed in May, 1701. His sentence was unjust in the matter of Moore, for his death was only the result of a blow given in sudden quarrel ; and in the other case, he was deprived of all his papers, which were in the hands of Bellomont, and his trial was forced on in such manner as to indicate that guilty or not guilty of piracy, a victim must be found to quiet the public mind and save the fame of, the king, the lords and <earls, who were subscribers to the privateering enterprise, if not partners in all that resulted therefrom. There was a •Col. Hewson, who testified in Kidd's behalf, giving him a good reputation — recounting and declaring to the court that he had served under his command, and had been with
THE KIDD LETTER. 353
him in two engagements against the French under du Cass. This witness would seem to be and no doubt was the identical Capt. Houson mentioned in the Palmer Kidd letter. There are some old legends still existing in Warren, Mass., — the ancient Quabog. One to the effect that a negro, one of Kidd's company, named James Marks, died there about the year 1802, at the advanced age of 115 3rears, who was twelve }Tears old when Kidd was arrested in Boston, and that, owing to his tender years, he was spared by the officers of justice — another, that some thirty years ago there lived an old man, who recollected hearing his father say that a man once stopped at his house, a tavern that stood in the Western part of Warren, several days, and made search in that vicinity for a letter, which, he said, he once attempted to carry in a bottle from Boston to New York, and which he concealed among some rocks, somewhere in the region of an Indian town called Quabog. But legend or no legend con- firmatory of the authenticity of the Kidd letter in surround- ing places, the facts of history recently uncovered and brought to light — corresponding in time, circumstances, and names — not found in any histo^ in 1849, and since that time discovered — all point with an unerring index finger to this letter as being written by Kidd, after he had long been confined in Boston, in the last days of 1700, when he was daily expecting to be transported. If not Kidd's letter — then the perpetrator of the fraud knew the secrets of unsearched records — was inspired — a writing medium — or he had a devM.
23
ADDENDA.
The name of D. P. Foster, Esq., should have appeared in the note on page 195, he having contributed to the interest of the occasion therein referred to, by presenting the city of Cleveland with a new and elegant national flag in appropriate and felicitous terms, which was gracefully accepted by the mayor, as appears of municipal record.
INDEX.
Ackley, Surgeon 5
Adams, John, death of 55
Adams, Charles Francis, min- ister to England 100
Adams, John Quincy 56, 233
Adams Jarvis M 2
Adams, Joseph 2
Adams, Mrs. John 62
Adams, Samuel E 2
Adelbert College 10
After Twenty-Five Years... 1—15
Agassiz, Prof. 72, 228
Angier 6
Agrippina and Lucretia — A
parallel 254-260
Aiken, Reverend 5
Alaman, historian of Mexico 301
Alcott, Leverett 4
Allen, Elisha H. Hawaiian
minister 153
Allen, John W 187
Allen, Gov. William 7
American Lakes 78
Ancient Egyptian Beer Gar- dens 167
Ancient Highway, Boston
to New York— 325
Andrew, Gov. John A. 179,
235, 241, 249 Andrews, Sherlock J. 2, 187,
226, 238
Andrews, W. W 3
Anecdotes of Choate 312
Antoinette, Marie 76
Appleton, Mrs., Webster's
daughter 308
Arago 228
Aranda 77, 300
Armand, Count 77
Armstrong, W. W 240
Ashmun, Geo 309
Atlantic Cable 14
Atlantis, island of Plato, 217, 287
Atwater, George M 174
Autocrat of the Breakfast
Table 86
Austin, Atty. Genl. of Mass. 250 Axtell, lawyer 2
Babcock, Mr., old firm 4
Backus, Franklin T 2, 238
Bailey, Ed. National Era 156*
Baldwin, C. C., historical
researches 41
Baldwin, E. 1 4
Baldwin, Norman C 8
Bankers and Brokers 6
Bancroft, Geo. — minister to
England 100
Banks, N. P. 94, 152, 178, 235, 241 Banquet, The Cleveland Bar 237
Banquet, The Riddle 91
Barber, Judge G. M 3
Barber, Josiah 201
Barlow, Merrill.. 3
Barnett, General 4
Barnett, Melanchton 4
Barnes, Isaac 0., U. S. Mar- shall—anecdote 300
Barrett, Mrs. — dramatic ar- tist 235
Bartram, Wheeler 145
Bauder, Levi F 37
Beavis, B. R 3
Beecher, Dr. Edward 156
Beck, Conrad 225
356
INDEX.
Bench and Bar..... 2
Bellomont, Governor 335
Bellomont, Lady 342
Benedict, Geo. A 2
Bennett, James Gordon —
Livingstone's letter to 207
Benton, senator 316
Berkley, Bishop 297
Beranger, Songs of. 75
Berrien, senator 156, 178, 316
Bingham, William 4
Bird, Frank W 179, 241, 249
Birney, Mr 156
Bittenger, Rev.. 5
Bishop, Judge J. P 1
Black Hawk 219
Blaine, Speaker 103, 119
Bliss, George 238
Boardman, W. J 3
Boardman, William W 227
Bolton, C. E 48
Bolton, Sarah K. — author.... 46
Bolton, Judge Thomas 238
Bone, J. H. A 38
Boutwell, Geo. S 94, 152,
178, 235, 241
Bowles, Dr. James A 5
Bradburn, George— editor. 2, 240
Brooks, Prof 72
Brinsmade, A. T 3
Brough, Gov. John 250
Brown, Rev 5
Brown, General Jacob 55, 192
Brown, General Joseph W... 192 Brown, Professor, Dartmouth 316 Browne, Charles F.— "Arte-
mus Ward" 181
Brownell, A. C 1
Brush, Charles F 15
Burchard, Rev 21
Buckingham, Gov 250
Burgess, L. F. & S 4
Burgess, Tristam 20
Burlingame, Anson — minis- ter to China, etc. ..98, 152,
178, 235, 241
Burns, Robert 299
Burroughs, Stephen 325
Butler, B. F 150, 236
Butler, Gov. Ezra 55
Byerly, F. X ..................... 1
Byron, Lord— The Sword of.. 113
Cable, Atlantic .................. 14
Cadwell, Judge Darius ....... 3, 51
Cadwell, Miss — author ........ 51
Cagger, Peter .................... 240
Calhoun, John C ..... 156, 316, 321
Cameron, Simon ................ 93
Carey, John- E .................. 2
Carpenter, Matthew Hale ..... 56
Canter, Judge D. K ........ 91, 238
Case, Leonard ................ 4, 45
Case, Leonard, Jr ............ 2, 34
Case, William.... ................ 4
Case School of Applied
Science .......................... 72
Cass, General ................. 28, 152
Cassells, Prof J. Lang ......... 68
Castle, M. S ...................... 2
Castelar, Emelio ................ 73
Celebrated Composers of
Opera ........................... 278
Celestial Harmony .............. 266
Cervantes ........................ 74
Cesnola ........................... 208
Chase, Salmon P ...... 93, 178, 316
Chicago, burning of ..... 108, 114
China, musical legends of.. ... 262
Chisholm, Henry ............ 13, 195
Choate, Rufus...57, 152, 156,
178, 200, 227, 235/237, 248
252, 254, 311
Clark, Edmund ............... 4, 146
Clark, James S .................. 145
Clay, Cassius M ................ 93
Clay, Henry ........... 156, 178, 316
Claxton. Rev ..................... 5
Cleveland Bar Banquet ........ 237
Cleveland, James D ............ 1
Cleveland Law College ........ 72
Cleveland Sinking Fund ...... 127
Coach of Lafayette ............ 57
Coffinberry, Judge James M. 3 Colby, Gov;, of New Hamp-
shire ............................ 174
Collier, Rev. Robert ........... 169
Collins, E. K. — European
steamers ......................... 80
INDEX.
357
Collins, Wm 3, 238
Colwell, Albert G.— consul... 239
Comstock, Prof 72
"Conscience and Cotton,".... 241
Coon, John 2
Cornell, Ezra 206, 209
Corning, Erastus 13, 240
Cortland, Philip Van 190
Corwin, Thomas 93, 178, 316
Cowles, Edwin 50, 240
Cox, Samuel S 73
Coxe, Bishop 26
Crittenden, John J., senator 178
Crispin, the grenadier 27
Cross, D. W 1, 36
Crowell, John 3
Crowningshield, Speaker 152, 305 Crowningshield, Benj. W. ... 311 Crusades and the Trouba- dours 272
Curtiss, Governor 358
Curtiss, Benj. R 251
Curtiss, James M 49, 199, 201
Gushing, Dr. Erastus 5
Gushing, Caleb — minister to
China 98
Cuyahoga in Congress 187
Dagget, David 54, 227
Damascus, A Legend of...... 115
Dana, Richard H 149
Dana, Richard H., Jr 151,
153, 235, 237, 322
Dana, Richard H., 3d 149
Davis, Prof. William M...39, 213
Davison, Robert A 2
Day, E. L 1
Deacon Joselyn's "Old Ja- maica" 64
Delamater, Dr. Jacob 5
Dewitt, Simon 190
Dennis, R. B 2
Dibble, Lewis 3
Dickinson, Daniel S 316
Dickman, Franklin J 3, 322
Dillingham, Governor Paul.. 55 Dix, John A., minister.. .100,
-240, 316
Dodge, Samuel 145
Dodge, George C 1
Dodge, Henry H 1
Donnelly, Ignatius, author... 287
Dodd, E. L 4
Douglas, S. A. ..88, 156, 200, 232 Duke of Edinburgh, patron
of musical art .. .. 282
Edgertonfc Gov. Sidney 53
Edwards, William 4, 201
Eells, Dan P 6, 108
Eells, Rev. 5
Eighteen Hundred Seventy- One.... .*.. 108
Electric Light 15
Election in Spain, 1872 74
Ellsler, John A 2
Elsworth, Chief Justice 61
Elwell, J. J., author 3
Embury, Emma C 21
English Statesmen, prophet- ic views of America... 297, 299
Erwin, John 49, 224
Estep, E. J 2
Everett, Alexander H., min- ister to China 98
Everett, Dr. Azariah, banker 6
Everett, Edward 98, 233
Everett, S. T., financier.. .49, 201
Everett, Weddell & Co 6
Ewing, Thomas 56, 178, 316
F
Fairbanks, Mrs. A. W 32
Famous Composers of the
Mass 277
Farley, Patrick, mail service. 1 Field, Cyrus W... 14, 106,209; 233
Fish, C.'L 3
Fish, Hamilton 190
Fitch, Jabez W 1, 2
Fitch, James 2
Fletcher, Governor, his ad- ministration 337
Fogg, Wm. Perry, author 32
Foot, John A... .'. 2
Foote, Judge Horace 2, 3
Ford, Thomas 100, 238
Foster, Abbey Kelley 156
BANCROFT LIBRARY
358
INDEX.
Foster, D. P 354
Foster, Geo. H 201
Foster, Governor Charles 241
Freese, Andrew 1
French, Clinton 57
Fuller. William... 1
Gadsden, revolutionary pa-
triot ...................... ". ....... 135
Gape, D. W ...................... 3
Gage, Governor ................. 62
Gallagher, M., city marshall.. 1 Gallatin, Albert ................. 324
Gann, Miss, of the Boston
Museum ........................ 235
Gardiner's Island, treasure
deposited by Kidd ........... 343
Gardiner, John, confided in
by Kidd ........................ 343
Garfield, James A ......... 171, 230
Garretson, Hiram, U. S.
Commissioner to Vienna... 45 Garrison, William Lloyd ......
156, i235, 248 Garlick, Dr. Theodatus, arti-
ficial fish culture .......... 5, 70
Gentoo Law ...................... 224
German Masters of Musical
Composition .. ............... 278
Giddings, Joshua R ............ 156
" Glittering Generalities,"
origin of expression .......... 321
Gordon, W. J .................... 50
Goodrich, Rev. Dr ............ 221)
Gould, Dr., astronomer ........ 148
Granger, Francis ............... 177
Grannis, John C ................. 2
Gray, J. W., editor Plain
Dealer ................. 1, 2, 13, 240
Greeley, Horace ................ 240
Green, F. W .................... 3
Greene, Judge, author of
"Old Grimes." ................ 20
Griswold, Hiram ................ 3
Griswold, S. 0 .................... 2
Guido of Arezo .................. 271
Hale, E. B., banker ............ 6
Hale, John P., minister to
Spain 100, 156
Halleck, Fitz Green Ill
Halliwell, Mrs. A. B 44
Hamilton, Mrs. Alexander...
191, 194
Hamilton, Andrew 143
Hamilton, Judge K T 3
Hamilton, Gail 163
Hamilton, Philip 190
Hancock, Mrs. John 62
Handy, T. P... 6
Harrington, Benjamin 8
Harris, J. A., editor 2, 240
Hartley, David 131
Hastings, Warren 224
Hatton, Joseph 169
Ha}*, John 36
Hayes, Governor 201
Hayne. Robert Y 305
Hayward, Col. W. H 9
Heislev, William 162
Heisley, John W 3
Herrick, G. E 3
Hessenmueller, Judge Ed- ward 2
Hill, Rev. Moses 5
Billiard, Richard 3, 146
Historical Society 71
Holland, J. G 183, 175
Holmes, Oliver Wendell 86
Hopkinson, " Battle of the
Kegs" .. 64
Hopkinson, Judge, " Hail
Columbia" 54
Howe, George W 49
Howe, Julia Ward 65
Howe, Dr. Samuel G Ill
Hoyt, George 185
Hoyt, James M 2, 143
Huger, Col 191
Humboldt, Yon.. 228
Humor and its Uses 228
Hunt, R. G 3
Hurd, Mr., old firm 4
Husband, Attorney 2
Hughes, Arthur 49
Hughes, James M 12
Hurlbut, H. B., banker 6
Hyde, George A. 69
INDEX.
359
Ingersoll, J. Edwards 3
Ingham, Mrs. W. A 47
Ingham, Mrs. Sadie W 47
In Memoriain — Morse 104
Irving, Washington... •. 294
Italian Composers 277
Iwakura — Japanese Embassy 101 J
Jackson, Morris 1
Janes, Emma 48
Janes, Henry F 55
Jefferson and Lafayette,
meeting of 55
Johannes, "Count," 144
Johnson, Levi 4, 145
Johnson, Oliver 156
Jones, Judge James M 3
Jones, Thomas 4
Jones, Sir William 399
Jordan, Ambrose L 191
Judah, Mrs., actress 235
Joselyn, Captain of the
"Minute Men." 62
It
Keith, M. R 2
Keffer, John C., editor 240
Kennedy, J. H 41
Kelley, Judge 6
Kelley, Moses '. 238
Kemiish, W. S 3
Keyes, Edward -L...178, 179, 241
Kidd Letter, The 324, 353
Kidd, Robert.... 340
Kidney, George H 171
Kimball, Moses 234
Kimberly, Dennis .• 227
Kirby. Judge 194
Kirtland, Prof. Jared P. ...5, 228
Kirtland Society 66
Kirtland, town and temple... 172
Lafayette, meeting with Jef- ferson 55, 190
Lafayette, George Washing- ton 191
Lakes, The American 78
Lamartine ....................... 153
La Rue, Sarjjeant ............... 13
Land Grabbing, Colonial
times ............................ 336
Lawrence, Abbott ............... 152
Laws of Oleron and Wisby. .. 78 Layard ........................... 208
LeVake, Colonel, compatriot
of Lafayette ................... 56
LeVake, W. C ..................... 56
LeVake, Geo. J .................. 56
Lewis, Col. G. F ............... 6, 171
Lewis, General Morgan ........ 190
Lewis, Mrs. General ........... 191
" Lightfoot" and "Thunder-
bolt," .................... ...... 327
Lincoln, President ......... 93, 200
Livingston, Henry A .......... 190
Livingston, Robert, relations
with Capt. Kidd .............. 340
Livingstone, Dr .................. 205
Lord, OtisP ................ ...... 178
Lowell, James Russell ..... 34, 39
Lucretia, Agrippina and — a
parallel ........................ 254
Lynde, G. W ..................... 2
Lyon, R. T ....................... 4
Lyon, S. S ........................ 4
Madison, Mrs ..................... 194
Maintenon, Madame ............ 219
Mangum, Senator ......... 178, 316
Marble, Manton ................. 240
Marchand, Joseph .............. 4
Marseillaise, The ................ 75
Marsh, Geo. P., minister ...... 100
Marshall, Chief Justice ........ 161
Marshall, Geo. F ................ 49
Mason, James... ............... 2, 227
Mather, Samuel H .............. 7
Mathews, Stanley ............... 241
Me Cook, Geo. W., Attorney General ....................... 238
McFarland, W. C ............... 3
McKinney, Judge Henry ..... 3
Mclntosh, Alexander ......... 3
Mclntosh, Sir James ........... 321
McLean, Judge .................. 81
McLeod, General Donald ..... 27
360
INDEX.
McMath, Judge J. H 3
McNeil, General .: 155
Mecklenburg Declaration of
Independence 327
Means, Dr 148
Medill, Governor William... 1 Memories and Coincidences 16 Mentor and Mecca of the
Mormons 170
Merriam, Geo. and Charles,
publishers 320
Migdol Daily Tribune 268
Miller, Col. J. P., sword of
Byron.. 56, 110
Miller, Luke Miltiades, the
Greek 113
Miriam, first prima donna... 267
Minuet, Peter 337
Montgomery, Mrs. General .. 191 Morse, Rev. Jedidiah, geog- rapher 58
Morse, S. F. B 58, 105, 107
Monroe, Mrs 194
Morgan, Col. Geo. W 12
Morton, Governor 250
Morton, U. S. Attorney 23S
Mosby, General 119
Mueller, Jacob 2
Murchison, Sir Roderick 205
Miiller Max 28
Music and its lnfluences..261-285 Mygatt & Brown, bankers.... 6
IV
National Reform and Pri- mary Meetings 148-151
National Songs 284
Newell, Grandison, war with
the Mormons 172
Newberry, Professor..... (»7
Newton, John T 3
Nero's Fiddling 281
New York in 1696, privateer- ing and piracy 336
Neville, Vice Admiral of Eng. 339
Noble, Charles W 2
Noble, R. D 3
Noted Musical Artists 280
o
Obliterating the Land Marks 145
Oersted 72
Ohio City Annexed 2
"Old Grimes," 18
Old Merchants. .. 4
Opera, Great Composers »278
Otis, W. S. C 2
Otis Mrs. James 62
Our Guests of the Sangerfest 158 Our Travelers and Writers,
29—51
Paige, Mr 309
Paine, Judge R. F ' '2.
Paine, Mrs. Robert Treat 62
Paine, Thomas 144
Palmer, Charles W 2
Palmer, Mass., ancient high- way in ... 327
Pannel, James 195-
Parks, Robert 1
Parsons, R. C...1, 50, 91, 188, 228
Patriotic Literature 64
Payne, Henry B 51, 188, 241
Payne, Miss Flora 31
Payne, Nathan P 50, 195, 196
Peabody, Dr 148
Pekin, Sanitar}* Regulations
of. 243
Pendleton, Senator 241
Perkins, Jacob 11
Perkins, Jacob B 11
Perkins, Joseph 11
Pcrrv, Commodore 155-
Perry, John S., Mexican War 12
Perry, Nathan 4, 145
Perry, Oliver... 4
Petroleum 14
Philippe, Louis 153, 233
Phillips, Adelaide 233
Phillips, Wendell 98, 110,
156, 235, 250
Pratt, Orson, Mormon 172
Prentiss, Samuel, Senator.... 56
Prentiss, Judge S. B 2, 3, 56
Prentiss, Loren 2
Prescott, historian 295
Price, David 195
Priestl}', philosopher 135
Proctor, Richard A 214, 286-
INDEX.
361
Prophecies of a Continent.... 293 Pulci, Visions of. ................ 295
Questions Answered
Randolph, John .............. 20,
Ranney, Rufus P... 3, 51, 82, Rappe, Bishop ..................
Rawlinson ........................
Raymond, Henry J ...........
Reade, Charles, author ........
Recollections of the Hawai-
ian Chancellor ...............
Recollections of Adelaide
Phillips ........................
Recollections of Webster and
Choate ..................... 302
Reunion of the Originals .....
Revere, Paul ....................
Rex, George ...................
Rhodes, Charles L ..............
Rhodes, Daniel P ...............
Rhodes, J. H .....................
Rhode Island Boundary Case Rice, Harvey, author.!. ...35,
Rice, Henry M., senator .....
Richards, Joseph ...............
Richmond, Dean ...............
Rickoff, Rebecca D .............
Riddle, A. G ...... 2, 156, 187,
Ritter, Louis. ......... . ..........
Robbins, Jason ..................
Robison, Dr. J. P ......... ......
Robison, William ...............
Robinson, Wm. S , " War-
rington ............... 179, 536,
Roland, Madame ...............
Rollin, Ledru .............. 153
Ross, J. P ..........................
Root, Morgan and ..............
Root and Whitelaw ............
Rouse, Mother ..................
Russell, L. A .....................
230
321
241
5
209 240 144
152
233
323 155
248
238 2 9 3
312
201
56
4
240 39
238
2
17
171 3
241
76
233
6
4
4
60
3
Sanford, Gen. A. S 9
Sargent, J. H 32
Science. Literature and Law
66—72
Schliemann 209
Scott, Winfield .155, 190
Scott, Dred, decision 163.
Scranton, Joel 7
Sears, Theodore C*. 2
Selyns, Domine, sin in New
York, 336
Seward, Wm. H 165, 177, 190
Sepoy Rebellion 283
Seymour, Horatio 240
Shaw, Chief Justice. ..82, 94, 321
Shaw, Dr. Gardiner 328
Shaw, Samuel 328
Shay's Rebellion., 327
Shelley, John 50
Sherman, John 241
Sherman, Roger M 227
Sigourney, Lydia H 46
Silliman, 'Professor 228-
Sims, Elias 11
Slade, A. T 238
Slade, William 3, 92, 238
Smith, George 209
Smith, Garrett 169
Smith, J. Hyatt 5
Smiths, Joseph and Hirum,
prophets 172
Smith, J. B..... 4
Smith, William T 4
Smith, Wm. H, manager 234
South Side Park, dedicatory 215
Spangler, M. M 1
Spalding. R. P 2, 188
Spencer, T. P 8
Sprague, Judge 312.
Stager, Gen. Anson 10
Stanhope, Lady Hester 28-
Stanley, Cashier.. 6
Stanley, H. M., explorer 205, 207 Starkweather, Samuel 1, 196, 23£
Steam Fire Engines 14
Sterling, Dr. E 6, 121
Stevens, H. S 31
Stetson, Charles 2'
Stockwell, Prof. John N
72, 211, 285
Stone, Amasa 10
Stone, Silas S 8
Street Railroads 14
Studley, F. G 23-
362
INDEX.
Snmner, Charles 31, 162,
177, 178, 241
Swift, Zephania 54, 227
Swisshelm, Jane G 120
Taft, Judge 241
Taney, Chief Justice 161
Taylor, General 152
Telephone 14
Thayer, Colonel 192
Thayer, Dr. Proctor L fi
Thayer, Major L. C 2, 94
The Cause 107
The Cow in Court, pundit
correspondence 221
The Celestial Embassador... 98
The Dead Children 203
The Japanese Embassy 101
The Millennium of Iceland... 188 The National Land System.. 131 The Press and the Cardiff
Giants 141
The Past and the Future 177
The Riddle Banquet 91
The Staff of Steel 195
The Sword of Spain 128
The Two Doctors 83
The Year of Centennials 1H5
Thiers, President 74
Thiers, Madame 76
Thome, Rev 5
Thomson, Sir William 14
Thurman, Senator 241
Ttmreby, Miss Emma 284
Tilden,"Judge Daniel R,7, 51, 224
Tod, Governor 250
Tod, John 201
Townsend, Amos 189
Turney, Joseph 201
Tuttle, Prof. 72
Triumph of the Red Sea 266
Truth at last, and by a Wom- an 161
Tj-ler, Moses Coit 151
Tyndall 212
Van Dam, Rip 343
Tan Twiller, Wouter 343
Varick, Colonel., ............... 192
Vaughn, John C ................. 2
Viaduct Reflections ............ 208
Vilain XIV, Madame la Vi- comtesse ....................... 50
Vincent, John A ................. 4
Wade, Edward ............. 187, 227
Wade, James, Jr ............... 2
Wade, J. H ...... 106, 199, 201,
209, 233 Wagner, Richard ............... 250
Waite, Chief Justice ...... 162, 238
Ward, Artemus .................. 181
"War of the Guages," ......... 95
War, Avarice, and Peculation 124 Walton, E. P., editor ........... 303
Walton, J. W .................... 49
Warner, W. J ............... 14, 57
Warren, of Bunker Hill ....... 248
Warren, commedian ........... 2
Waterworks ..................... 2
Watmough, P. G ............... 37
Webster, Daniel. 88, 89, 152,
156,178, 199,227, 248,251, 303 Webster, Maj. Edward ......... 308
Webster, Fletcher ............... 313
Webster's Spelling-book ...... 52
Weed, Thurlow......l77, 190, 240
Weideman, J. C ................. 201
Weidenkopf, Jacob ............ 12
Weddell. P. M ....... ............ 145
Weddeli's "Tavern," ........... 55
Whately, Arch Bishop ......... 294
Wheeler, Dr ...................... 6
White, Bushnell ............... 2, 224
White, Rev ....................... 5
White. Rev. J. C ............... 201
Whittlesey, Charles ......... 45, 217
Whittier, J. G ............... 96, 124
Wick, H. B. ..................... 6
Wick, Dr. Lemuel .............. 6
Wightman, D" L ................. 1
Willey, George ................. 2, 50
Williams, Elisha ................. 191
Williamson, Samuel ............ 1
Williamson, Judge S. E ....... 3
Willson, Judge H. V. 2, 3, 81, 238 Wilson, Henry... 94, 152, 178, 241
INDEX.
363
IVinslow, Charles 8
Winslow, A. P 6
Winthrop, Gov. John 248
Witt, Stillman 10
Wood, Fernando, 240
Wood, Gov. Reuben 1, 2
Woodbury, Judge 81, 152, 312
Woolsoti, Constance Fenni-
more 137
Worth, Major 192
Wright, Mrs. Frances, of
England 191
Wright, Silas .................... 156
Wyman, Florence .............. 51
Wyman, Geo. H ................. 2
Younglove, M. C ................ 50
Young's, the Delmonico's of Boston ......................... 178
Zenger, Peter J., prosecu- tion of. v 143
.; .