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FROM THE LIBRARY OF REV. LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON, D. D.
BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO
THE LIBRARY OF
PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
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WRITINGS
ROBERT C. ^S A N D S,
PROSE AND VERSE.
A MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
SECOND EDITION.
NEW-YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF-STREffT 1835.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1835,
By Harper & Brothers,
In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York.
MEMOIR %
ROBERT C. SANDS.
Robert C. Sands was born in the city of New- York, May 1 1th, 1799. He was the son of Comfort Sands, for many years an eminent merchant of that city, who had, during the war of the Revolution, and especially in its early and most doubtful stages, distinguished himself for his zealous and active support of American Independence, and who outliving all his colleagues and fellow-labourers in that cause, is, after the lapse of fifty-nine years, the sole survivor of the New- York Committee of Public Safety, and of the Convention which declared the independence of the State of New- York, and framed its first constitution.
Young Sands was remarkable at an uncommonly early age for great quickness of apprehension and facility in acquiring know- ledge. In this instance, as in many similar ones, the influence of his mother's mind, information, and tastes, was very marked in' the early development of her son's intellect, and the exciting in him an ardent thirst for knowledge and love of reading. He began the study of Latin at the age of seven. Some time after he removed with his father's family to Newark, New-Jersey ; now a large, populous, and thriving town, but at that time remarkable as being one of the most beautiful and quiet villages of our land. There he pursued classical studies under the instruction of Mr. Findlay. He appears to have been singularly fortunate in meet- ing with such a teacher, for classical instruction was at that time at a very low ebb throughout the country. With a few very honourable exceptions (and those chiefly in the larger cities), this occupation was in the hands of young men, who looked to it only for a temporary support, and who, as they were imperfectly ac-
4 MEMOIR OF
(3[uainted with the languages themselves, and wholly ignorant of their delicacies and beauties, could not teach what they did not know, and made no attempt to give their pupils a better in- struction than they had received themselves. But Sands always gratefully acknowledged the high merit of Mr. Findlay, who, as he frequently remarked, early succeeded in inspiring him with a comprehension of the beauties of Virgil, and a relish for his poetry, which he never lost. The ^neid was always after- ward his refreshment when wearied by severer studies ; and to the last day of his life it was a common practice with him, whenever he wished to kindle his imagination, or excite that intel- lectual glow congenial to eloquent composition, to animate his mind by the harmonious verses of the Mantuan poet.
He was afterward placed under the care of the late Rev. P. M. Whelpley, subsequently pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in New- York, by whom he was prepared for college. He was admitted into the Sophomore Class of Columbia College, New- York, in October, 1812. This college had long been distin- guished for sound and accurate instruction in the dead lan- guages ; but just before Sands's entrance, its course of study had been remodelled and improved, and its discipline and instruction had received a fresh and vigorous impulse from the talent and learning of Dr. Mason, who had been elected provost the year before. Classical learning, in particular, was carried much further than had been heretofore usual in the academic institutions of America ; and the Grecian poets, tragedians, and orators were taught not merely as the authorities of language, but as models of thought and style. Sands was fortunate here not only in his teachers, but in the companions of his studies. Among these were several young men of high promise, and especially his intimate and beloved friend the late James Eastburn, afterward a clergy- man of the Protestant Episcopal Church, a youth of great moral excellence as well as of a most fertile and highly-cultivated mind. Several years after, in some unpublished verses. Sands alluding to this early literary friendship, thus addressed his friend : —
E'en then that chastened purity of soul Became the destined sacerdotal stole ; E'en then example checked my wider range, ' Which precept vainly strove, I fear, to change.
ROBERT C. SANDS. 5
Under such advantages and with such a companion he con- tinued to pursue, with unflagging zeal, the study of the languages and authors of antiquity, especially the poets, whom he read with a deep and fine feeling for their beauties. The other branches of collegiate study, and particularly the mathematics, of which a very full and accurate course was taught, were mastered by him with the same ease and facility as his more favourite literary studies. But he seems never to have recurred to those studies in after-life, nor did they furnish him with many topics of illustration or of argument in his wrhings, so that the facility with which he mastered the academic course, seems rather an evidence of general capacity than of any inclination or taste for mathematical or physical studies.
In his second collegiate year (the junior or third of the aca- demic course), he set on foot, in conjunction with his friend East- burn and some other young associates, a literary periodical, en- titled " The Moralist," which, however, lived only through a single number. Not discouraged by this failure, the same assa- ciates shortly after established a second and similar work, which was entitled, " Academic Recreations," and published in neatly- printed duodecimo numbers. The contents were entirely literary or classical, and though of course bearing sufficient evidence of the youth of their authors, yet did credit to their scholarship and taste. It lived only to the end of the year ; Mr. Sands having contributed a large proportion both in prose and verse.
He was graduated A.B. in 1815, and soon after began the study of law in the office of David B. Ogden, a distinguished and elo- quent advocate of the city of New- York. He entered upon his new course of study with an ardour and lively curiosity not very common among young law-students, who have ever been " smit with the love of sacred song," or familiar with the delights of ele- gant literature. His legal studies, however, were regular and even profound. His law reading was extensive and laborious, and he became not only well acquainted with the more practical professional knowledge, but soon acquired a relish for the ab- struse doctrines and subtle reasonings of the ancient common-law, which, if he did not quite esteem as the perfection of human rea» son, he yet throughout life regarded with a certain filial reverence, that scarcely permitted him to feel much charity for what he
6 MEMOIR OF
deemed the heresies of codification and reform. He frequently expressed such opinions, generally in jocose language, but always with a sober meaning. Thus, for instance, in a whimsical mis- cellaneous essay of his on various temporary subjects of the day, written after his admission to the bar: — "Why cannot I too uplift my testimony on the fertile topic of codification, and legislate for the whole New Continent ? Because, oh my judg- ment, thou knowest that half of the smaller fry, who sing chorus to Jeremy Bentham, have not yet found out what the meaning of codification is ; and never could nor can explain what they want. And, moreover, had these same Solons, who are the men and with whom wisdom will die, been born under the Old Testament dis- pensation, and raised in the Land of Promise, they would have been equally uproarious for codifying the moral law, and appoint- ing a committee to revise Deuteronomy and Leviticus."
He was not stimulated in his legal studies merely by an indis- criminate curiosity and blind reverence for antiquity. His aspira- tions for professional distinction were noble and generous. In some verses, written about this period, not unlike in thought and feeling to the celebrated Lawyer's Farewell to his Muse of Sir William Blackstone, and perhaps suggested by it, he says, — -
Farewell, delusive dreams ! I ask not now
The wreath that crowns the immortal poet's brow,
Bought with a lingering pang of hope deferred,
While glad success in his cold urn interred,
Wakes not her taper's trembling brilliancy.
Till on his vision bursts eternity ! ■
Far other prospects open on me now,
Wild wastes and mountains bleak with rugged brow, —
A mazy path that time hath ever strewed
With tangled weeds, and many a bramble rude ;
Where patient toil alone the end can win,
This journey ever seeming to begin.
But, oh ! how glorious is the meed obtained,
By honest labour and by virtue gained.
Who would not mount to live in deathless fame,
And link his own with Tally's honoured name ;
A prouder boast than conquered armies tell,
Or vanquish'd realms, a victor's praise that swell.
The arddur with which he pursued his legal studies, and the
ROBERT C. SANDS. 7
feeling which animated him in them, are strongly shown in a passage of a letter to a friend, written in 1817.
" I am now making an abstract of Coke upon Littleton, and da actually feel as much interested in it as I once was in Henry IV, Certainly there is no study in which those two grand faculties of intellect, reason and memory, are so much exercised as law. Venerable name ! Pettifoggers have trod in its temple and sullied its Parian marble, and knaves have wove their filmy cobwebs around its walls, but the statues of Cicero and Hortensius, of Montesquieu, Coke, Hale, Blackstone, and Hamilton, are tower- ing in all their dignity, and the mighty fabric rears its majestic head the prop and the glory of the earth."
Still he found time for the study of the classics, and in company with two or three friends, read several of the most difficult of the Greek authors, most exactly and critically. His love of compo- sition, which he himself termed " his mental mania," continued to grow upon him. He wrote on all subjects and far all pur- poses ; and in addition to essays, verses, &;c., on topics of his own choice, volunteered to write orations for the commencement displays of young graduates, verses for young lovers, and even sermons for young divines. Several of the latter, written in an animated and perhaps florid style, were much admired, when de- livered in the pulpit with good emphasis and discretion, to congre- gations who little suspected to whom they were indebted for their edification. One of them, at least, has been printed under the name of the clergyman by whom it was delivered.* In 1817 he published a poem, which he had begun and in great part written four years before. It was called " The Bridal of Vaumond," and was a metrical romance, in the irregular measure of Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel, and founded on the same legend of the transformation of a decrepit and miserable wretch into a youthful hero, by compact with the infernal powers, which forms the groundwork of Byron's Deformed-Transformed. I know not whether both of these poems do not owe their origin to Pickers- gill's spirited Romance of the Three Brothers, published some
* Lest from the previous mention of the intimacy between^ands and the Rev. James Eastbum, any reader should suppose that he was the clergy- man alluded to, it is due to his memory to say, that he would never resort to his friend or any one else for such aid.
8 MEMOIR Of
years before, a book that seems never to have much attracted public attention. The Bridal of Vaumond was harshly criticized in a re- view of some reputation and ability, then published in New-York ; and whether from this cause or from the defects consequent upon the author's immaturity of mind, coupled with the then very general indifference to American literature, it sunk into oblivion. It bears, however, strong marks of talent and learning. The facility of its versification, the command of poetical language and imagery, the brilliancy of many of its conceptions, occasionally, and the daring wildness of its fancy, gave promise of greater things. But the author, after the first feelings of disappointment were passed, seemed willing to let it die as a juvenile production; and never referred to this early publication, in conversation, but with apparent dislike.*
I am not certain whether it is to this, or to some of his still earlier wrhings, that he alludes in one of his manuscripts, when he says, —
And naw when two short years have brought the cure
That checks the mental mania premature,
And shows how oft, when most I wished to rise.
My grovelling muse was furthest from the skies ;
Still do I deem the public scorn unjust,
That gave my labours to unclassic dust.
it was during the period of these studies that he and three of his friends, of as many different professions, formed an associa- tion, of a somewhat remarkable character, under the name of the Literary Confederacy. The number was limited to four; and they bound themselves solemnly to preserve a friendly communi- cation in all the vicissitudes of life, and to endeavour, by all proper means, to advance their mutual and individual interest, to advise each other on every subject, and to receive with good temper the tebuke or admonition which might thus be given. They pro- posed to unite, from time to time, in literary publications, covenant- ing solemnly that no matter hostile to the great principles of reli- gion or morals should be published by any member. They stipu- lated that whenever any two or more members should be whhin two miles of each other for any length of time exceeding a week,
* It Ras, on this account, been omitted in the present collection.
ROBERT C. SANDS, 9
they should meet together. This compact of friendship was most faithfully kept to the time of Mr. Sands's death, though the primary and purely literary objects of it were gradually given up as other cares and duties engrossed the attention of its members. In the first years of its existence* the Confederacy contributed largely to several literary and critical journals, besides publishing in one of the daily papers of the city a series of essays, under the title of the Neologist, and another under the title of the Amphilo- gist, which attracted much attention, and were very widely circu- lated and republished in the newspapers of the day. Mr. Sands wrote a large portion of these, both in prose and verse.
His friend Eastburn had now removed to Bristol, Rhode-Island, when, after for some time studying divinity under the direction of the Rt. Rev. Bishop Griswold, he took orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church, and soon after settled at Onancock, on the eastern shore of Virginia. A regular and frequent correspond- ence was kept up between these friends ; and the letters that happen to have been preserved, are filled with the evidence of their literary industry, zeal, and ardour. Mr. Eastburn had undertaken a new metrical version of the Psalms, which the pressure of his clerical duties and his untimely death prevented him from ever completing. Sands was led by his general literary curiosity as well as by his intimacy whh Eastburn, to acquire some knowledge of the Hebrew. It was not very profound, but it induced and enabled him to try his hand too at the same translation ; and he from time to time sent his friend a psalm paraphrased in verse.
The following extracts from one of his letters to his friend, in 1819, relating to this subject, as well as his other studies, are very characteristic.
" Touching the Psalms of David by J. W, Eastburn (Taylor's Sermons by Dr. Johnson), I am sincerely glad that you have set at them vigorously ; and only hope that the indispensable prelude of Hebrew, and symphony of commentators, may not drown the melody they accompany. An English version of the Psalms, fahhful, yet free ; close, yet evangelical ; poetical, but devotional ; is unquestionably a desideratum : and if one of ourOonfederacy could accomplish it, it would certainly be the most durable monu- ment that we can desire to perpetuate our remembrance. It
B
10 MEMOIR OF
would be hard to produce a more enviable immortality that? Watts enjoys, who is known by heart by so many Christians, and whose words, the vehicle of their most sensible devotion, are sounded so often in the most majestic of human temples. To produce the best possible paraphrase of the Songs of Israel, the poet should undoubtedly have in his eyes the whole map of the Holy Land, geographical and political ; be familiar with the Jewish history, manners, and ritual ; and then, feeling as a Chris- tian, proceed to spiritualize his theme : remembering always that his only task is to correct the Hebrew future into the Christian present tense; and that he is unjustifiable in omitting a single allusion, since everything was typical. By-the-way, the Hebrew language was singularly adapted lo the state of the people, who had themselves no present tense ; who, deep in the shadow of the past, seem to have flitted on the scene, as if in a pre-existent state ; called up by the divine magician, like the images of the future on the clouded mirror of the wizard ; and all whose institu- tions were only promises of their more glorious metempsychosis. Now, O Posthumus Terentianus, since we are willing to concede to the Deacon of Onancock a certain portion of imagination, and know from many specimens of his perseverance that the said deacon has considerable industry, we see no reason to doubt his capacity of executing the aforementioned version, on the plan and principles aforesaid. I am convinced that the process of para- phrase may be conducted mechanically. (If that term may be applied to the mind. As for the mere rhyme, we all know that it comes to you, of course !)
* * * * * # * •
" We read Herodotus (in whose style of digression — as we are all creatures of imitation — this epistle is composed), from one to half-past two every day, as a change from poetry. We shall finisii Clio this week, when we shall probably attack ^schyhis again. I believe I wrote you that we had finished the translation of Prometheus. I am now translating the Orestes of Euripides. When we commence reading the Greek tragedians, with our heads full of modern poetry, we are most pleased with the wildness^ imnaturality, and verboscncss of TEschylus. I use these qualify- ing words not in a bad sense, for iEschylus has method in his madness, sublimity and consistency in his fables, and beautiful,
ROBERT C. SANDS. 11
-OT rather admirable felicity in his compound epithets. I venerate him as much as Parson Adams did, and should be sorry to com- pare him with modern plagiarists. But I must confess, after read- ing the Orestes, Hecuba, Alcestis, and Cyclops, the admirable tenderness, simplicity, keeping of character, nature (and, perhaps more than all, the facility with which he is read) of Euripides, have made me a convert to his admirers. I do not like Sopho- cles. It may, however, arise from a vitiation of taste. I move that the Confederacy make it one of their objects to effect transla- tions of the chef-d'oeuvres of the Greek tragedians.
" You say you can give us dissertations on Hebrew poetry and oriental manners : I wish you would. It would add still more to the variety of our papers, and promote their reputation for scholar- ship. Could not you write a tale, and lay the scene in Judea ? You can so easily find a plot in the Bible or Josephus, that you can soon finish one ; or else take any fable, and the oriental
costume will give it an original air."
*******
But amid their severer studies and their literary amusements, the two young friends were engaged in a bolder and more sus- tained poetical enterprise. This was a romantic poem, founded on the History of Philip, the celebrated Sachem of the Pequods, the brave and almost successful leader of the great Indian wars against the New-England colonists in 1675 and 1676. It was planned by Eastburn during his residence at Bristol, Rhode-Island, . in the vicinity of Mount Hope, the ancient capital of the Pequod race, where, and in the neighbourhood of which, the scene is laid. In the year following, when he visited New- York, the plan of the proposed story was drawn up in conjunction. " We had then," said Sands, " read nothing on the subject ; and our plot was formed from a hasty glance into a few pages of Hubbard's Narrative. After Mr. Eastburn's return to Bristol, the poem was written, accord- ing to the parts severally assigned ; and transmitted, reciprocally, in the course of correspondence. It was commenced in November, 1817, and finished before the summer of 1818; except the con- cluding stanzas of the sixth canto, which were added after Mr. Eastburn left Bristol. As the fable was defective from our ignorance of the subject, tlie execution was also from the -same cause, and the hasty mode of composition, in every respect, im-
12 MEMOIR OF
perfect. Mr. Eastburn was then preparing to take orders ; and his studies, with that view, engrossed his attention. He was or- dained in October, 1818. Between that time and the period of his going to Accomack county, in Virginia, whence he had re- ceived an invitation to take charge of a congregation, he tran- scribed the first two cantos of this poem, with but few material variations, from the first collating copy. The labours of his min- istry left him no time even for his most delightful amusement. ^e had made no further progress in the correction of the work when he returned to New- York, in July, 1819. His health was then so much impaired, that writing of any kind was too great a labour. He had packed up the manuscripts, intending to finish his second copy in Santa Cruz, whither it was recommended to him to go, as the last resource, to recruit his exhausted con- stitution." He died on the fourth day of his passage, December 3d, 1819.
The work thus left imperfect, was revised, arranged, and com^ pleted, with many additions by Sands. It was introduced by a Proem^ in which the surviving poet mourned, in noble and touchr jng strains, the accomplished friend of his youth, with whom
began the love
Of sacred song ; the wont, in golden dreams,
Mid classic realms of splendours past to rove, O'er haunted steep, and by immortal streams : —
Where the blue wave, with sparkling bosom gleams Round shores, the mind's eternal heritage,
For ever lit by memory's twilight beams; Where the proud dead that live in storied page
Beckon, with awful port, to glory^s earlier age ; •>»
^nd with whom he had essayed to
evoke the plumed chieftains brave,
And bid their martial hosts arise again,
;. Where Narraganset's tides roll by their grave,
And Haup's romantic steeps are piled above the wave.
This Proem as a whole is beautiful ; and our language has, I think, few passages of more genuine and more exquisite poetry than the first four and the six concluding stanzas. They have a sobered and subdued intensity of feeling, carrying with it the conviction 6f truth and reality, wliile at the same time they
ROBERT C. SANDS. 1^
glow with an opulent splendour of language and allusion, not un- worthy of the learned imagination of Milton himself.
The poem was published under the title of Yamoyden, at New- York in 1820.
It unquestionably shows some marks of the youth of its au- thors, besides some other imperfections arising from the mode of its composition, which could not fail to prove a serious impedi- ment to a clear connexion of the plot, and a vivid and congruous conception of all the characters. Yet it has high merit in vari- ous ways. Its descriptions of natural scenery are alike accurate and beautiful. Its style is flexible, flowing, and poetical. The language, more especially in Sands's part of the work, is enriched by an evident familiarity with Comus, and the minor poems of Milton ; perhaps leaning a little too much to a fondness for more unusual archaisms of construction and phrase not always worth reviving. The poem is rich throughout with historical and anti- quarian knowledge of Indian history and tradition ; and every thing in the customs, manners, superstitions, and story of the aborigines of New-England, that could be applied to poetical purposes, is used with skill, judgment, and taste. Such is the power with which some of the almost repulsively horrible imagery of the savage superstitions is used, that the author of an admirable and most eloquent review of Yamoyden, in the North American Review, does not hesitate to say of it, " We do not remember any thing finer of the semi-infernal kind, except Shakspeare's witches. We are at a loss how to praise this part of the poem sufliciently to satisfy ourselves, without seeming extravagant» We think we see in it proof of an imagination equal to a story of the class of the Vampire, or the Monk, which should make those horrible fictions seem almost nursery tales."*
The publication of this poem gave Mr. Sands great literary reputation throughout the United States, to which the review that has just been quoted aided not a little. He became personally known to many distinguished literary men, and in a visit to Boston, in particular, received many and most flattering attentions, in
* North American Review, No. XII. p. 466. The concldtling pages of the Review, in which the fitness of our early American history for the pur- poses of poetical and romantic faction are pointed out, are splendidly eloqiient.
14 MEMOIR OF
spite of a harsh allusion in Yamoyden to the modern theology of Harvard University.
In 1820, he was admitted to the bar, and opened an office in the city of New- York. He entered upon his professional career, as has been said, filled with high hopes and an ardent love of the learning of the law. These were sufiiciently strong to induce him to decline an ofi'er of honourable employment in another walk, which would appear to have been more adapted to his taste or acquirements. A great effort had been made to resus- citate Dickenson College, at Carlisle, Penn., a respectable semi- nary of learning, that had been depressed by various adverse circumstances. The legislature of Pennsylvania had granted a liberal allowance for the salaries of several professors for a term .of years. Dr. Mason, of New- York, was chosen president, and invited to select his own body of professors. He selected Sands, then just of age, to fill the chair of Belles Letters. After a short consideration he declined the office, and Dr. Mason, who was anxious to compose his academic corps of young men, as well as of men of talents, then solicited him to select a substitute from among his literary companions. But he was not destined to the success at the bar that his young ambition had pictured to him in such brilliant colours, and which in truth his talents and love of the profession seemed to authorize him to expect. His first attempt as an advocate, without being a failure, fell far short of his own proposed standard and expectations. It evidently disheartened him, and though he still pursued the business of an attorney and his legal studies, he made no renewed attempt of any consequence ^before a court or jury, and after a few years gradually withdrew from the profession to other pursuits. Why and how this hap- pened is not easy to explain or even to conjecture. He had not that degree of pecuniary independence which so often proves the bane of young professional men, and he had long looked to the law for the means of support, independence, and distinction. He was not impeded by that fastidious dislike to the law as a study so often experienced by the literary, the speculative, and the philo^ sophical. He had habits of great and intense industry ; and though this industry was somewhat irregular, this arose mainly from the nature of his pursuits and occupations, and would have been corre'cted by the routine of professional labour. He had
HOBERT C. SANDS. 15
already a considerable stock of law learning, which he did not lose in leaving the bar. He had great command of language, fertility of thought, power of illustration, and a playful, original, and over- flowing humour, which might have been turned to great efl'ect in extemporary eloquence. He had a singularly shrewd and quick observation of character ; and while he was somewhat averse to metaphysical reasoning, was laborious and acute in the investi- gation and discussion of facts. With all this, nothing but a reso- lute will appears to have been wanting to have secured him a highly respectable standing at the bar, perhaps, (for of this it is impossible to speak with confidence of any one), to have enrolled his among the illustrious names of the law, with the Mans- fields, Erskines, and Hamiltons, whose forensic glories had once fired his young imagination. While he was still loitering at the bar, and attending to some practice as an attorney, he continued his law reading, and renewed and extended his acquaintance with the poets of antiquity. Thus he acquired an intimacy, such as professors might have envied, with the Greek language and lite* rature, and especially with " the lofty grave tragedians," whom he used to praise with Milton, as " teachers best of moral prudence." He retained to his death his youthful preference for Euripides, whom he used to call an English poet, born in ancient Greece, having, as he once said in conversation, " more of every thing that touches the sympathies of the modern reader than; any other ancient." His admiration of iEschylus, that great master of the noble, the sublime, the pathetic, constantly increased with every perusal. In grandeur and magnificence of conception he thought him peerless, and said that there needed little study of what he had left to be convinced that even his own rich and flexi-' ble language was insufficient to supply the exuberant demands of his imagination. To this cause he imputed the difficulties found in his choruses and more poetical passages. " As with Shaks- peare, expression sunk under the weight of his thoughts, or received from him a power which the same words never had before."* He had early learned French, and was familiar with
* These opinions Sands has put in the mouth of Mr. Jefferson in his Ghosts on the Stage, originally published in the Talisman. As that article, from the air of truth it bears, may hereafter be referred to as wholly authen- tic, and furnishing the actual conversation of Mr. Jefferson, it is proper to state, that it is a mixture of truth and invention. Every thing relating to tho
16 i^itiMom o*-
its copious and elegant literature ; but he never much admired iu and in his multifarious literary conversation and authorship, rarely quoted or alluded to a French author, except merely for facts. He now acquired the Italian, and read carefully and with great admiration all its great writers, from Dante to Alfieri. Those who knew the peculiar character of Sands's mind, and how rapidly his fancy rambled from the imaginative to the ludi-» crous, would naturally suppose that Ariosto and his school of wild sportive romance and capricious humour, must have been his favourite reading in this rich literature. It is rather a curious fact that this seems not to have been the case. He doubtless read those poets with much pleasure, but neither alluded to nor quoted them in his writings or conversation, nor translated or imi- tated them, as he frequently did the graver and more chastened strains of the Italian Muse. His translations and imitations of Politian, Monti, and Metastasio attest how fully he entered into their spirit. Some time after he acquired the Spanish language very critically, and after studying its more celebrated writers, read very largely all the Spanish historians and documents he could procure touching American history. In order to complete his acquaintance with the cognate modern languages of Latin origin, he some years later acquired the Portuguese, and read such of its authors as he could procure.
In 1822 and 1823 he wrote many articles for the Literary Review, a monthly periodical then published in New- York, which received great increase of reputation from his contributions. These were written in conjunction with his friends of the Literary Confederacy, or at least were submitted to their revision, and bore, as did the contributions of the other members, the signature of L. C. They were very multifarious ; and as many of them, though bearing his marked characteristics of style and thought, were either careless productions or on temporary subjects, a selection only of them has been preserved in the present collection of his works. In the winter of 182.3-4, he and his friends of the Confed- eracy published seven numbers of a sort of mock-magazine, en- personal habits of the philosophic statesman, the curious particulars respect- ing his studies, Hterary tastes, his books, and even his compiled edition of ^schylus, are literally true ; the conversation and critical opinions put m his mouth are a ptoetical license.
ROBERT C. SANDS. 17
titled the St. Tammany Magazine. Here he gave the reins to his most extravagant and happiest humour, indulging in parody, burlesque, and grotesque satire, thrown off in the gayest mood and with the greatest rapidity, but as good-natured as satire and parody could well be. In May, 1824, the Atlantic Magazine was established in New- York, and placed under his charge. At the end of six months he gave up this work ; but when it changed its name and somewhat its character, and became the New-York Review, he was re-engaged as an editor, and assisted in conduct- ing it until 1827. He had now become an author by profession, and looked to his pen for support, as heretofore for fame or for amusement. When, therefore, an offer of a liberal salary was made him as an assistant editor of the New-York Commercial Advertiser, a long established and well-known daily evening paper, published in the city of New- York, he accepted it, and continued his connexion with that journal until his death.
His daily task of political or literary discussion was far from giving him sufhcient literary employment. His mind over- flowed in all directions into other journals, even some of different political opinions from those which he supported. Some one has termed the famous Shakspearian commentator Steevens " the Pucl^ of literature." Sands had like him something of a propensity for innocent and playful literary mischief. It was his sport to excite public curiosity by giving extracts highly spiced with fashionable allusions and satire, " from the forth-coming novel ;" which novel in truth, was, and is yet -.o be written ; or else to entice some un- happy wight into a literary or historical newspaper discussion, then to combat him anonymously, or under the mask of a brother editor, to overwhelm him with history, facts, quotations, and authorities, all manufactured for the occasion ; in short, like Shakspeare's " merry wanderer of the night," to lead his unsuspecting victim around " through bog, through bush, through brier." One instance of this sportive propensity occurred in relation to a controversy about the material of the Grecian crown of victory, which arose during the excitement in favour of Grecian liberty some years ago. Several in- genious young men, fresh from their college studies, had exhausted all the learning they could procure on this grave qu"festion, either from their own acquaintance with antiquity, or at second hand from Lempriere, Potter, Barthelemi, or the more erudite Paschalis
C
28 MEMOIR OF
de Corona ; till Sands grew tired of seeing so much scholarship wasted, and ended the controversy by an essay filled with excel- lent learning, all fabricated by himself for the occasion, and resting mainly on a passage of Pausanias, quoted in the original Greek, for which it is in vain to look in any edition of that author, ancient or modern.
He had also other and graver employments. In 1828, some enterprising printers proposed to supply South America with Spanish books suited for that market, and printed in New- York. Among the works selected for this purpose were the original letters of Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico. No good Life of Cortes then existing in the English or Spanish language. Sands was employed by the publishers to prepare one, which was to be translated into Spanish, and prefixed to the edition.
It was not in his nature to content himself with such materials as the common English or French books furnished him, even though graced with the authority of names great in literature. The following extracts from letters to a friend then at Washington, are given, not so much for the history of the particular subject to which they relate, as indicative of the accuracy and research he was accustomed to bestow on every study that seriously attracted his attention.
February 10, 1828. White, Gallaher, and White, of this city, are republishing, for the market of Mexico, the letters of Cortes to Charles V. I have undertaken to write a biographical notice of the Conquistador, with such reflections on his character and career as may be summarily suggested by the accounts of conflicting historians and the state of his age. I am very much troubled for want of books. I have read Robertson and Clavigero together, and am getting through De Solis. I want Guevara, Bern. Diaz del Castillo, and Her- rera, the two former especially, as the latter is only a com- piler. I found the second and third letters of Cortes in the N. Y. Society Library, edited by an old fool of an archbishop of Mexico, in 1770. The archbishop's notes and commentaries are of no value. As you had occasion to look through several of the old writers, in relation to Las Casas, perhaps you may remember having seei^ or had possession of some or all of these three I have mentioned as desired by me. You would do me a great kindness
ROBERT C. SANDS. 19
tf you oan put me in the way of finding them. A friend of Mr. Tick- nor has written to him for me, to ascertain whether he has them. I have barely two months to write the notice in, which must also be translated into Spanish in that time. If I find 1 can make any thing useful or interesting out of the subject, I will not throw away the chips, but make an English Life of Cortes out of it. I beg the archbishop's pardon for calling him an old fool ut supra, for he gives the most philosophical solution of the peopling of America I ever heard, and throws Carver, Judge Boudinot, and Washing- ton Irving, to say nothing of the learned explorers of the subject, completely into the shade. I translate him literally for your edification, as it is easier to do so than to copy his obsolete or- thography. " There is no use," quoth the most illustrious Lord Don Francisco Antonio Lorenzano, " there is no use," says he, "in fatiguing yourself about the ancestors of these people ; for, from the tower of Babel, people straggled all over the world ; and clear up to the north pole, no end has been found to land in this America. Therefore, at this day, it is a useless question kow they came by sea,; because by land they might come frohi other parts of the world, and nobody can assert the contrary because the end of New Spain has never been found at the north."
February 12, 1828. ** Since I wrote you, I have seen the catalogue of books offered to Congress. Some of the manuscripts are forgeries, beyond all question, as any sensible person who has looked into the thing can see. But among the books and manuscripts, there is all that the heart of man could desire (excepting B. Diaz del Castillo, which I do not find) in writing on the conquest of Mexico. I cannot, of course, see any of them ; but I will be obliged to you if you will be good enough to send me the cata- logue, as soon as you have leisure. It is numbered Report No. 37. I believe the City Library has received their copy through you. If the manuscripts and books which are offered are ori- ginals, they are, in a certain sense, invaluable. There are docu- ments which the historiographers of the kings of Spain and Eng- land searched for in vain through all Europe and Am'erica. Par e^emple, there are the whole six letters of Cortes. I dpn't believe it — that is, I don't believe they are the letters of Cortes i
20 MEMOIR OF
but I would travel to Washington afoot if my engagements would permit it, to ascertain the fact. I do not understand from the report where these books are to be found, but take it for granted they are in Colombia."
He was fortunately relieved from any difficulty arising from the M^ant of materials, by finding in the library of the N. Y. Histori- cal Society a very choice collection of original Spanish authorities, which afforded him all that he desired. His manuscript was translated into Spanish by Manuel Dominguez, a learned Spaniard, advantageously known to his reading countrymen by other excel- lent versions from the English. It was prefixed to the letters of Cortes, and a large edition printed, while the original remained in manuscript until the present collection of Mr. Sands's writings. Thus his work had the singular fortune of being read throughout Spanish America, in another language, while it was totally un- known in its own country and native tongue.
Soon after completing this piece of literary labour, he became accidentally engaged in another undertaking, which afforded him much amusement and gratification. The fashion of decorated literary annuals, which the English and French had borrowed some years before from the Literary Almanacs, so long the favour- ites of Germany, had reached the United States, and the booksellers in the principal cities were ambitiously vying with each other in the Souvenirs, Tokens, and other beautifully printed and tastefully adorned yearly volumes. Mr. Bliss, a worthy bookseller of New- York, and an old especial favourite with Mr. Sands, desirous to try his fortune in the same way, pressed Mr. Sands to undertake the editorship of an annual volume of this sort. This he at first declined ; but it happened, that in conversation with two friends, the writer of this memoir and Mr. W. C. Bryant, a regret was expressed that the old fashion of Queen Anne's time, of pub- lishing volumes of miscellanies by two or three authors together, had gone out of date. They had the advantage, it was said, over our ordinary magazines, of being more select and distinctive in the characters and subjects, and yet did not impose upon the authors the toil or responsibility of a regular and separate work. In this way Pope and Swift had published their minor pieces, as had t)\\\er writers of that day, of no small merit and fame. One of the party p'roposed to publish a little volume of their own mis-
ROBERT C. SANDS. 21
cellanies, in humble imitation of the English wits of the last century. It occurred to Sands to combine this idea with the form and decoration of the annual. The materials of a volume were hastily prepared, amid other occupations of the several authors, without any view to profit, and more for amusement than reputa- tion ; the kindness of several artists, with whom Sands was in habits of intimacy, furnished some respectable embellishments, and thus a volume which, with the exception of two short poetical contributions, was wholly written by Mr. Sands and his two friends above named, was published with the title of the Talisman, and under the name and character of an imaginary author, Fran- cis Herbert, Esq. It was favourably received, and on the urgent solicitation of the publisher, a second volume was as hastily pre- pared in the following year, by the same persons, decorated with engravings very creditable to the state of the arts among us, from spirited designs of Weir and Inman. The third year, the ambi- tion of the publisher soared higher, all the artists of New-York were enlisted, double the quantity of literary matter was required, and the industry and ready fertility of Sands were redoubled. The public still gave a favourable reception. But the excitement and amusement it had afforded its authors now flagged, its prim- itive character of a joint miscellany began to be lost, in conse- quence of its style of decoration and publication, in that of the mere annual, and Mr. Herbert was suffered to die a natural death, as many better men of the same unreal family had done before him, from the time of Isaac Bickerstaff downwards. Sands always retained a great affection for his memory, and sometimes lamented the destruction (to use his own phrase) "of the individ» uality of Mr. Herbert ; triajuncla in uno^ which," said he, in one of his letters, "still floats in my mind not as a reminiscence or as fiction, but as a present idea." Of this publication about one* fourth was entirely from Sands's pen, and about as much more was his joint work with one or other of his friends. This, as the reader must have already remarked, was a very favourite mode of authorship with him. He composed with amazing ease and rapidity, and delighting as he always did in the work of com- position, it gave him additional pleasure to make it a Social enjoy- ment. He had this peculiarity, ihat the presence of others, in which most authors find a restraint upon the free course of their
22 MEMOIR OF
thoughts and fancies, was to him a source of inspiration and ex- chement. This was peculiarly visible in gay or humorous writing. In social compositions of this nature, his talent for ludi- crous description and character and incident, rioted and revelled, so that it generally became more the business of his coadjutor to chasten and sober his thick-coming fancies, than to furnish any thing like an equal contingent of thought or invention.
This joint-slock authorship, of which Sands was so fond, — not the simply putting together in one whole, parts prepared sepa- rately, nor the correcting and enriching by a second hand the rough materials of the first author, but the literally writing in company, — was common among the old English dramatists, but has few other examples in literary history. The joint labours of Beaumont and Fletcher are familiar to all. To these may be added a joint work of Ben Jonson with Chapman, others of Webster with Marston, and of Massinger with Middleton, with Dekker, and with Field. The Memoirs of Scriblerus had the same sort of origin. It is not easy to enlarge this list very much. Indeed for the purpose of such association it is necessary that one at least of the authors should possess Sands's unhesitating and rapid fluency of written style, and his singular power of seizing the ideas and images of his friend and assimilating them perfectly to his own.
In his own opinion, the volumes of the Talisman contained the best of his writings. The grave part of his contributions, and the poetical, are wholly his own ; so too is the sly and subdued humours of the " Simple Tale." His " Dream of Papantzin," a poem, the fruits of his researches into Mexican history, is remark- able for the religious solemnity of the thoughts, the magnificence of the imagery, and the flow of the versification ; for he had (I quote the opinion of an American author, whose exquisite poetry already constitutes an acknowledged, as they will an enduring por- tion of classical English literature),* " he had an ear for poetic measure, cultivated by the study of the varied and flexible rhythm of the ancient classics, by the reading of the old poets of our own language, and by the critical examination of the versification
* Mr. Bryant, in a brief but excellent sketch of Sands's life and character, in the Knickerbocker Magazine for January, 1833, to which this memoir owes much. '
ROBERT C. SANDS. 28
adopted in the several modern languages with which he was familiar. By those who consider metrical harmony as identical with monotony, who think Milton did not understand the harmony of blank verse, and charge Spenser with ignorance of the art of versification, because he wrote
Unweeting of the perilous wandering ways —
Sands may be said to have had a bad ear ; but the fact was, that he understood how to roughen his verse wiih skill, and to vary its modulation."
The Talisman was reissued two or three years afterward by the first publisher, in its originally intended form, as " Miscellanies by G. C. Verplanck, W. C. Bryant, and Robert C. Sands," with a preface by Mr. Sands. Some of the most considerable of his contributions to the collection were reprinted in England in various forms, among the rest as part of Miss Mitford's selection of American Tales.
In the course of the publication of these volumes, an incident occurred which Sands always spoke of with so much interest and pleasure that it should not be omitted here. The volumes were very accurately as well as beautifully printed. Before the sheets of the second volume had reached the binder, and of course long before they could have fallen under the eye of any regular edi- torial critic. Sands was surprised to find a review of the book in the Mirror, a well known and widely circulating literary journal. It was written with great s})rightliness of thought, and elegance of style, and in the most friendly spirit. On inquiring for the name of his good-natured and able critic. Sands was surprised to learn that he was a young journeyman printer in the oflice, the compos- itor who had himself set up the whole of the manuscript, and who knew the book only in that way. This was William Cox, who shortly after became a regular contributor to American periodical literature, and has since gained an enviable literary reputation by his Crayon Sketches, a series of essays, lull of originality, pleas- antry and wit, alternately reminding the reader of the poetical eloquence of Hazlitt, and the quaint humour and eccentric tastes of Charles Lamb.
Sands's next literary employment was the publication of a new Life of the famous Paul Jones, from original letters and printed
24 ME3I0IR Of
and manuscript materials furnished him by a niece of the com- modore. He at first meditated an entirely original work, as attractive and discursive as he could make it ; but various circum- stances limited him in great part to compilation and correction of the materials furnished him, or, as he termed it in one of his letters, in his accustomed quaintness of phrase, " upsetting some English duodecimos, together with all the manuscripts, into an American octavo, without worrying his brains much about the matter." This he did with his usual facility of composition ; but he did great injustice to his own overflowing fertility of thought in supposing that he could restrain himself to mere compilation. In spite of the author's own intention, there will be found, scattered through- out the volume, ingenious though rapid investigations of doubtful or disputed facts, and some passages of animated and patriotic eloquence. This biography was printed in 1831, in a closely printed octavo, and is doubtless the best and most authentic nar- rative of the life of this gallant, chivalrous, and erratic father of the A-merican navy. For the reasons already intimated, as well as because the copyright is the property of the relations of Paul Jones, it does not form a part of the present collection of Mr. Sands's writings.
In the close of the year 1832, a work entitled "Tales of the Glauber Spa," was published in New- York. This was a series of original tales, grave and gay, by different American authors, Messrs. Bryant, Paulding, Leggett, and Miss Sedgwick. To this collection Sands contributed the introduction, which is deeply tinged with his peculiarity of humour ; and two of the tales, the one humorous, the other grave. The latter, Boyuca, was another fruit of his Spanish American studies, being founded on the ro- mantic story of the adventurer Ponce de Leon's search for the fabled fountain that covdd restore youth and perpetuate life — a search which, as is well known, led to the discovery of Florida. This tale has a wonderful fulness and familiarity of character, incident, and allusion, and a vividness of imagery and description that give it an air of perfect though picturesque reality, strangely contrasting with the wildness of the narrative. The striking and singularly beautiful effect thus produced, was well described by a friend, who compared it to the recollection of some strange but vivid dream.
ROBERT C. SANDS. 25
His last finished composition was a little poem entitled " The Dead of 1832," which appeared anonymously in the paper he was connected with, a few days only before his own death. By one of those strange coincidences that so often occur to perplex human reason with suggestions which our philosophy can neither admit nor refute, he selected for his subject the triumphs of Death and Time over the illustrious men who had been gathered to their graves in the year then just ending — Goethe, and Cuvier, and Spurzheim, and Walter Scott ; Champollion, who read the mystic lore of the Pharaohs ; Crabbe, the poet of poverty ; Bentham, the philosopher of legislation ; Adam Clarke, the meek and learned hierarch of Methodism ; the young Napoleon, " the heir of glory ;'* and Charles Carroll, the long-lived survivor of
— The brave who perilled all To make an infant empire free ;
a crowd of the wise and great, whom he who thus mourned them was himself destined to join within the few remaining days of the same year.
Mr. Sands, just before his death, had engaged to furnish an article on Esquimaux Literature^ for the first number of the Knick- erbacker Magazine, then just established by a young literary friend. He had consulted, for this purpose, all the common books con- taining any thing which related to that singular race of people ; and on the sixteenth of December had procured a history of Greenland, by David Crantz, a German missionary, who, in the year 1761, was sent to Greenland by the United Brethren, and resided there a twelvemonth, for the express purpose of com- piling a description of the country, and whose work is full of curious and minute information respecting those frozen lati- tudes and their inhabitants. He immediately gave himself, with his usual intense application, to the perusal of this book, in order to fill his mind with ideas of the Esquimaux modes of life, their traditions and mythology. He had already finished an introduction to the article, which was a review of an imaginary book of translations from the Esquimaux language, and had writ- ten two fragments, which he intended for supposed specimens of Greenland poetry. After another interval of close reading, he again, on the 17th of December, about four o'clock in the after-
D
26 MEMOIR OF
noon, sat down to the work of composition. He merely wrote with a pencil the following line, suggested probably by some topic in the Greenland mythology,
O think not my spirit among you abides,
when he was suddenly struck with the disease which removed' his own spirit from its material dwelling. Below this line, on the original manuscript, M'ere observed, after his death, several irreg- ular pencil marks, extending nearly across the page, as if traced by a hand that moved in darkness, or no longer obeyed the impulse of the will. He rose, opened the door, and attempted to pass out of the room, but fell on the threshold. On being assisted to his chamber, and placed on the bed, he was observed to raise his powerless right arm with the other, and looking at it, to shed tears. It was soon discovered that the disorder was an apoj)lectic stroke ; he shortly after relapsed into a lethargy, from which he never awoke, and in less than four hours from the attack expired with- out a struggle.
Mr. Sands was never married. He lived with his father's family, always either in or near the city of New- York, and during the last eight or nine years of his life, at Hoboken, on the Jersey shore of the Hudson, opposite the city, to which his daily avoca- tions regularly called him. He was exceedingly attached to his home and its domestic enjoyments, as well as the quiet of his study. Yet his w^ere, by no means, the life and habits of the mere man of books. He had at different periods of his life mixed widely in society, and in all ranks, where he observed character and manners with a " spirit learned in human dealings," noting and treasuring up the odd, the singular, and the fantastical, in inci- dent and character, as well as the natural workings of feelings, passions, and sympathies, under all the varied forms of artificial society, from the circles of wealth and fashion, down to the for- lorn culprits of the inferior criminal courts.
Social in his temperament, he enjoyed the acquaintance and high esteem of the eZtVeof the scholars, and men of talents of all classes, and especially the artists of New- York and its vicinity. With these his conversation was full of sprightliness and information ; and the whimsical and lively wit, the odd and sometimes grotesque humours,, that came into his mind unsought, heightened as they
ROBERT C. SANDS« 27
were by quaint combinations of language, quite peculiar to him- self, made him as entertaining as his learning and originality of thought did an instructive companion. His warmth and kindness of disposition attracted and strongly attached to him many inti- mate friends, whom he loved with an unwavering constancy and affection. He was peculiarly kind to those in an inferior station, and seemed to study to make up by gentleness and generosity for the hardships and inequalities of fortune. His affections and charities extended yet further ; for, to borrow his own words — " Time has more baleful colleagues than disease and death. There are some whom we have once loved, and who yet live, marked by shame for her own, upon whom the dread sentence of disgrace has been passed, and the world's charity excludes them from ' fire and water.' The herd pass by, and the stricken deer must go weep in its covert, good for nothing but the moralities of some melancholy Jaques, but dead to the world and its sympa- thies."— He spoke from his own experience, for Sands's diversi- fied associations and pursuits had numbered such unfortunates among his acquaintance ; and for these, in their wants or their dis- grace, his heart and his purse were always open, his counsel and his active assistance as much at their command as in their brightest days of youth and hope.
Next to conversation and tho observation of human character, his favourite recreation was in rural rambles and amusements. He was exceedingly near-sighted from his childhood, and it was not until his sixteenth year, when he obtained glasses fitted for his sight, that he ever saw the stars, — a view which he used to describe as having filled him with the sublimest emotions. The knowledge of this imperfection of vision often gave the writer of this memoir occasion of surprise, when in their rambles or excursions together, he has remarked the intense delight that Sands received from the beauties of nature, and the graphic ac- curacy with which he observed and described alike their grander and more distant outlines, and their minute and more delicate features. His power of attention and habits of observation sup- plied the defects of the material organ.
The reader has already been made acquainted in-part with his singular and varied acquirements. In ancient and modern litera- ture, and languages, he had few equals, probably in our country
28 MEMOIR OV
no superior. He read familiarly the Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese authors. All the treasures of English literature, in the broadest sense of the word, were stored in his memory, from Chaucer to Charles Lamb, from Cudworth to O'Keefe. He had a general and more than elementary ac- quaintance with the mathematical and physical sciences, but for these branches of knowledge he felt little curiosity or interest. He held and maintained with Johnson, that the knowledge of external nature is not the great or the frequent business of the human mind, — that we have perpetual occasion for those princi- ples of moral truth, and materials of reasoning or illustration, which are supplied by poets, orators, and historians, but are chymists or geometricians only accidentally or occasionally. He had laid a deep foundation of law learning in his youth, and though he abandoned the profession, he never quite gave up his legal reading. He was, therefore, probably as sound a lawyer as can be made without the actual and continued practice of the pro- fession. His reverence for the law, and love of its peculiar learn- ing and reasoning, led him to an extreme of prejudice against all reform or melioration of the system. He admired and defended even those narrow and inconvenient entrances which the ingenious and apologetic Blackstone himself allows to be found among the spacious apartments of the ancient castle of English common law. He had, also, something of the same sort of dislike against the metaphysics of political economy, a study he never relished and never did justice to. He frequently main- tained that it was not entitled to the honour of being called a science, and that " all the trash about values, and wealth, and reproductive industry was not of the slightest practical use." There was scarce any other part of knowledge which had not at some time excited his curiosity, and more or less engaged his attention. Hence his mind was stored with an immense mass of miscellaneous information; such as, if it is not learn- ing, is often found much more useful. He had read extensively, though irregularly, in divinity and ecclesiastical history; and had settled his opinions on most of the contested points of theological discussion. His opinions seemed in general to be those of Taylor, Barrow, and the old divines of that school in the Church of Eng- land, which, however, he held with great moderation.
ROBERT C. SANDS. 39
He reverenced religion, and all good and moral influences, wherever he found them to exist.
His large stores of learning and of practical information on men and things, could not have been accumulated without great activity and versatility of mind, and these he evinced in all his pursuits ; for he possessed the power of vigorously directing the faculties of his mind to any chosen object of study, inquiry, or speculation. His fancy was surprisingly fruitful of original and striking com- binations of ideas ; and if his peculiar vein of humour had any fault, it was that of excessive and unrestrained exuberance. But he had none of that bitterness of spirit, or keenness of sarcasm which frequently give edge to satire. His indulgence in the laughable sprung from the love of the laugh itself. He had no touch whatever of the sneering misanthropy, or the contemptuous hatred for folly which have so often lent their savage inspiration to comic and satiric talent His humour, as it overflowed in his conversation and letters, even more than in his written compositions, ran somewhat in the whimsically broad vein of Rabelais, (though quite free from his grossness) delighting like him to mix the topics and language of learning with the humours and phrases of humble or even of vulgar life.
It strikes me as a remarkable circumstance (whether common to him with any other learned wits, I cannot say) that with this buoyancy of imagination, this constitutional tendency to the jocose or the whimsical, all his favourite studies and literary recreations were of a very grave cast. He had early read most of the witty and comic authors of note, but rarely recurred to them in after life. When fatigued with business or literary labour, he did not, as one might have expected, refresh himself with Swift or Smol- let ; admire the chivalrous fancies and noble horsemanship of La Mancha's knight, or " laugh and shake in Rabelais' easy chair ;" but he returned with ever fresh delight to hold communion with ancient sages and scholars, or else,
entranced to hear,
O'er battle fields the epic thunders roll ; Or list where tragic wail upon the ear, Through Argive palaces shrill echoing stole.* ,
* Yaraoyden. . ^
30 MEMOIR OF ROBERT C. SANDS.
So, too, all his deliberately selected subjects of composition were of a serious nature, generally demanding grave reading and re- search. His pleasantry was all spontaneous, unpremeditated, unbidden. Nor were his laughable associations ever applied to subjects worthy of higher thoughts, for quick as he was in his perception of the ridiculous, he was equally sensitive to all that is beautiful in nature, or grand and elevating in sentiment.
The collection of his miscellaneous writings, now published, will enable the reader to judge of his ability in imbodying and expressing such thoughts, although both in kind and in quantity they give but an imperfect idea either of his genius and accom- plishments, or his readiness, fertility, and industry ; not in quantity, as they form but a portion of his writings ; the selection being con- fined to his original literary compositions and his poetical transla- tions ; and of course excluding his writings on political subjects and passing events, and his numerous reviews and other publica- tions of a temporary character. Nor in kind can they be con- sidered otherwise than as indications of what he might have done had his life been prolonged. Most of the great works of litera- ture were written at a later period of life than that at which Sands died. All of his, too, were composed with singular rapidity, and most of thein published without the opportunity of correction X)r revision.
Still, such as they are, they show their author to have possessed the rare combination of humour and eloquence, of learning and originality, and prove that he made no false estimate of his own genius when in '* the young delighted strains" of his Yamoyden, he expressed the confidence of his power rightly to invoke the jnuse, and to descry some of her nobler visions.*
* Proem to Yamoyden.
CONTENTS
OF
THE FIRST VOLUME,
Page
Historical Notice of Hernan Cortes, Conqueror of Mexico 1
Domestic Literature ^ . ^ . 101
Isaac; a Type of the Redeemer 117
The Caio-Gracco of Monti .137
The Garden of Venus 155
Yamoyden; a Tale of the Wars of King Philip . . . . 161i
HISTORICAL NOTICE
OF
HERNAN CORTES,
CONQUEROR OF MEXICO.
VOL. I. A
[The " Historical Notice of Gortes" was written at the in- stance of the publishers of an edition of his Letters in their original language, which appeared in the city of New-York in 1828. It was translated into Spanish by Manuel Dominguez, author of an excellent version of " The Vicar of Wakefield," and prefixed to the Letters, of which a large edition was printed and extensively circulated in Mexico, South America, and the Spanish West Indies. In compiling the " Historical Notice," the old Spanish historians, a considerable collection of whose works Mr. Sands fortunately met with in the library of the New- York His- torical Society, were carefully consuhed. The slight notice taken of some events in the Life of Cortes is accounted for by the fact that the Memoir was intended as an Introduction to his Letters, in which those events were fully related.]
HISTORICAL NOTICE
OF
HERNAN CORTES,
CONQUEROR OF MEXICO.
The publishers of the Letters of Cortes, contained in this volume, supposed that a brief account of the individual who is, in fact, the hero of the historical tragedy which they record, and who has unquestionably represented himself therein as the author and director of all its events, would form an acceptable, and to many readers, a useful introduc- tion, to his own narrative of the Conquest of Mexico.
In this supposition they are certainly correct ; for, be- sides the necessity of connecting thesel etters together so as to make them intelligible, by supplying references to the preceding and intermediate links in the chain of events, it is proper that the reader should have some means of estimat- ing the real character of the man who led this handful of Spaniards triuuiphantly into the capital of a powerful and populous empire, and reduced it into complete subjection to a far distant kingdom, and who, in these his despatches, claims to himself the merit of originating every important scheme which led to such astonishing results. It would be also proper, that he who reads these letters should have an opportunity of ascertaining their truth, by comparing, throughout, the testimony of contemporary narrators ; and of judging how far the Conquestador was himself misled and mistaken, in certain particulars ; supposing him to have written only what he believed to be correct, whether mat- ter of fact, or of opinion.
4 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
But while the limits of an introductory notice are alto- gether too narrow for such a perpetual commentary, neither the time nor materials for reference allowed to the writer of this introduction, are sufficient to enable him to attempt the task at present. All he can furnish is such a general outline of the life and character of Cortes, as may be gleaned from a rapid inspection of the pages of general history. To the antiquarian, and to him who has investigated the subject, with access to the authorities, and in a philosophical spirit, such a meager sketch must be nearly valueless ; un- less indeed, as sometimes happens, some idea may accident- ally be suggested, which may throw light on his inquiry, in exploring the mass of his materials. To those, however, who have never read, or have forgotten the prominent events in the life of the conqueror of Mexico, this summary notice may perhaps prove neither useless nor uninteresting.
Hernan Cortes was born at Medellin, a small town in Estremadura, in the year 1485. He was the son of Martin Cortes de Minroy, and Doria Catalina Pizarro Altimezano. He was thus descended from four of the most illustrious and ancient families of his native city. Their fortunes had, however, decayed ; and the parents of Cortes were by no means in opulent circumstances. It was necessary th?it he should be educated for some profession ; and that of the law was selected by his relations. At the age of fourteen, he was sent to the university of Salamanca, in which he remained two years. Of his brief academic career we are unable to mention any incidents : but he undoubtedly found the monotony of a scholastic life too tedious for his active and ambitious disposition. We find him returning to his father's house, and declaring his intention to follow the pro- fession of arms.
He was to have joined a reinforcement of troops, which sailed from Naples to assist the great captain Gonsalvo de Cordoba, in Italy, then the theatre of war and of chivalry ;
IIERNAN CORTES. 5
but he was detained by a serious indisposition. The super- stitious and the fataUst would dwell upon this incident, in connexion with others of a like nature, which afterward occurred ; as indicating a direct and palpable interference of Providence, in preserving him for the end to which he was ordained. It may also be amusing to those who, ac- cording to the phraseology of the day, are the admirers of singular coincidences, to note this detention, in connexion with the others, by which the immediate intentions of Cortes were defeated : since, if they had not been so obstructed, it is probable that he would never have bound Montezuma in chains, or caused Guatemozin to be hung.
There was another great field just opened to the ambi- tion, curiosity, and cupidity of the adventurers of those days, — the newly discovered world beyond the Atlantic. No notion, even general, had yet been entertained of its extent, or of its proportion and relation to the rest of the known world. It was as yet associated with visions of oriental splendour, conjured up by the exaggerations of Italian, Por- tuguese, and English voyagers to Asia, on which were superinduced the delusions and hyperboles of the followers of Columbus. Independently of romance, however, the actual value of the discovery, as contributing to the glory and the power of the Spanish crown, was (as subsequent events have proved, with relation to the whole continent of America, by whatsoever nation its different parts have been colonized) entirely overrated.
To this new world the views of the young Cortes were next directed ; and he was to have accompanied his kins- man Ovando, when the latter embarked for Hispaniola, or Hayti, of which island he was appointed governor in 1502. An affair of gallantry, however, again procrastinated the departure of Cortes from Spain. In the act of scaling the window of a lady's apartment, he fell from the summit of an ancient wall ; and received so much injury thatlie was un- able to join the expedition. He was of an amorous tempe-
6 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
rament, and the impetuosity of his character in this, as in other respects, hurried him often into difficulties which his presence of mind and good fortune enabled him to surmount.
We have no means of relating any other particulars of his life, during the period which elapsed between his quit- ting the university, and his embarkation for Hispaniola in 1504, in the twentieth year of his age. A brief notice of the then existing extent of the Spanish discoveries in Ame- rica seems here to be necessary.
Columbus, in 1492, after visiting several of the Bahama Islands, discovered Cuba, where he made no settlement ; but having coasted among the adjacent islands, arrived at Hayti in December of the same year. Circumstances compelled him to leav^e about forty of his crew on the northern coast of this island, at a place which he called La Navidad ; all of whom perished, by their own fatuity, be- fore the return of any of their countrymen.
CJolumbus returned to Spain ; and a papal grant gave to the crown of Castile a right to the newly discovered territo- ries, without latitude or longitude, metes or bounds; or rather, with as accurate a description and idea of them, as the ancient geographers had when they described the Hy- perborean regions. But it was a right, which, as sanc- tioned by religion, is better than any other nation has been able to estabUsh, to its possessions in America. For if they found it on the sanctity of contracts, their own laws deny to the aborigines the capacity of making a contract on equal terms with their own civilized citizens : if on that of con- quest, they will be found to have invaded the countries they subdued without provocation, and to have trampled on all national rights, national laws, and human sympathy. It was in the necessary course of things, that the strong should prevail against the weak. The power of superior know- ledge, mental and mechanical, produced its natural and un- avoidable results. These remarks are not now impertinent ; as, wrth them, we despatch, on the threshold, several per-
HERNAN CORTES. 7
plexing questions, connected with our subject. Libraries have been most unprofitably written, to justify what, on abstract principles, is unjustifiable, — the usurpations which have ensued, in the natural order of events, ever since the patriarchal age. But in estimating the character of an indi- vidual of any age, we are to judge of him, not by our own lights, but by the spirit of that age, and by the consonance of his actions with his own professions of faith, in its received dogmas or opinions.
In his second voyage, after touching at several of the An- tilles, Columbus revisited Hispaniola, and found the fort which he had erected entirely demolished, while the men whom he had left in it had all fallen victims to their own rashness and cupidity. About ten leagues to the east of the site of the fortress was founded the first Christian city in the New World ; to which the admiral gave the name of Isabella. In 1495 the general war broke out between the settlers and the islanders ; the former of whom were so reduced in numbers by diseases and di&solute living, that they were only able to take the field with two hundred and twenty men. A terrible slaughter of the natives ensued; tbey were reduced to subjection, and a tax, too heavy for them to pay, was the origin of the subsequent system of repar- timientos, by which this once populous and fertile island was, even before the death of the great admiral, nearly depopulated. Previous to the conflict just referred to, Columbus had coasted along the islands of Jamaica and Cuba, but no settlement was yet made in either of them. Fortresses were now erected in different parts of His- paniola, to enforce the subjection of the natives. The colony was recruited in numbers by the arrival of Aguado, who was sent with equivocal powers and instructions to ex- amine into the causes of existing dissensions. His conduct, and the mischievous representations made by the enemies of Columbus at the Spanish court, induced tlie latter to return to Spain in 1496, leaving his brother Bartholomew adelantado in his absence. On his third voyage, in 1498,
8 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
the admiral touched at Trinidad, and at several points on the coast of Cumana and Paria ; which, however, he had no idea were part of the continent, so long the object of his search. During his absence a fort had been erected by the adelantado, which was subsequently called St. Domingo, and was the origin of the present city of that name. A chain of military posts had been estabHshed between it and the ill-fated city of Isabella. The indignation excited among the natives by a judgment consigning a number of them to the flames for heresy, and by individual outrages committed on their women, led to a formidable insurrec- tion, which was quelled by the activity and courage of Don Bartholomew ; but left the elements of hatred and discord rankling and fermenting. Francis Roldan, whom the ad- miral had appointed chief justice during his absence, and who had long been jealous of the glory acquired by the distinguished Genoese brothers, and bore with impatience the power superior to his own, exercised by a foreigner, secretly raised a strong party among the disaffected colo- nists at Isabella, who at length openly mutinied, and retired under Roldan, as their leader, to the province of Zaragua. Here they were reinforced by new emigrants, the sweep- ings of the Spanish jails, who arrived in three caravels, de- spatched by Columbus from the Canaries, and who deserted their commanders at the instigation of Roldan. This leader commenced intriguing with the caciques around him, and a general conspiracy was formed against the adelantado. The latter, however, having discovered the plot, and having received a strong reinforcement of troops and provisions from Spain, marched against the insurgents. The native chieftains, concerned in the insurrection, fled to the moun- tain fastnesses of Ciguay, whence they made descents into the plains on the straggling parties of the Spaniards and the villages of the natives who preserved their allegiance. The adelantado, with a determined body of followers, penetrated into the wilds, and scaled the lieights occupied by the enemy, and finally captured Guariones, the most
HERNAN CORTES.
redoubtable of the insurgents. He spared his life, and his generosity proved politic.
Roldan, however, and his turbulent follow^ers maintained their attitude of defiance in Zaragua; and the admiral, after rejoining his brother at St. Domingo, found it expe- dient to adopt temporizing measures with this bold and reckless insurgent. The island was now divided into dis- tricts, in each of which the Indians were compelled to cul- tivate a certain portion of ground for the benefit of the Spaniards to whom it was allotted ; which proved a heavier burthen than that imposed by the previous tax. Each party transmitted to Spain his own statement of the case ; and, unfortunately, that of Roldan received most credit at court.
In the succeeding year, Alonzo de Ojeda, who had accompanied Columbus in his second voyage, sailed for the New World, coasted along the shores of Paria, and pro- ceeded farther west along the main than the admiral had done. A Florentine merchant, named Amerigo Vespucci, accompanied the expedition. His history of the voyage, as is well known, procured for him the glory of giving his own name to the new continent. The coast was also explored in the same year by other adventurers, but no settlements were made.
Ojeda's commission to make discoveries was regarded by the admiral as an infringement of his rights. The con- duct of this adventurer was calculated to increase this jealousy. On his return to Spain he touched at Hispaniola, and avoided an interview with Columbus, after promising to visit him at St. Domingo. So far from performing it, he colleagued with the discontented faction of Roldan on the coast of Zaragua, and espoused the cause of the most refractory. Quarrels and bloodshed ensued ; but Ojeda retired on board of his ships at the approach of Roldan, who now affected a zeal in support of the gove'Vnment and for the preservation of order. Some skirmishing ensued
VOL. I. B
10 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
between these crafty leaders ; and Ojeda, after committing several depredations, returned to Spain with a drove of the miserable natives, captured either in Hispaniola or Porta Rico, whom he sold as slaves in the market of Cadiz.
The malecontents, originally headed by Roldan, now resisting the authority he exercised, in pursuance of his hollow pacification with the admiral, engaged together with some of the natives in another revolt, w^hich was put down with many executions, and caused the chains of the abori- gines to be drawn yet tighter. While the affairs of th& island were thus throw^n into confusion, the enemies of Columbus at court were persevering, and but too successful^ in their machinations against him. At their head was Fonseca, Bishop of Badajoz, and minister of Indian affairs- ;' notorious as the consistent persecutor of all the truly great discoverers of the age, and subsequently the enemy of Cortes.
The idle, the disappointed, and the profligate, who returned to Spain from Hispaniola, v/ere loud in their abuse of the admiral and his brothers ; and the senseless clamour of these vagabonds, most of whom ought long before to have expiated their offences against the existing laws and society in the galleys or on the gibbet, proved far more potential than the representations made at long intervals by letters from Columbus ; than the timid vindication attempted by his friends ; or the feeling of gratitude for his serviceSy through which the glory and value of the discovery had attached to the crown. But the most serious difficulty was, that the expected gold had not been found. Only enough had been transmitted home to whet the appetite of those who had made advances to promote the discovery ; while the necessities of the colony created a perpetual drain on the treasury of Ferdinand.
Such was, in brief, the state of the affairs of the New World and its illustrious discoverer at the commencement of thi3 sixteenth century. We should not omit to add.
HERXAN CORTES. H
however, that Queen Isabella, the uniform friend of humanity, was displeased with the course pursued by Columbus, in sending out at several times cargoes of the natives to be sold as slaves. The admiral was induced to take this measure from mixed reasons of policy and piety (we speak of the piety of the age), of which it is not our present business to discuss the sufficiency. The result of all these circumstances was, that Francis de Bobadilla was sent to Hispaniola, with dangerous powers confided to him, which he abused ; and Columbus with his brothers returned in chains to the court of Ferdinand and Isabella. This indignity was never practically atoned for during the life of the admiral, although kind words were said to him on the removal of his fetters, and Bobadilla was degraded. In his stead, Nicholas de Ovando, a knight of the military order of Alcantara, commander of Lares, was appointed governor of Hispaniola.
In the first year of this century, the coast of Brazil was accidentally discovered by Pedro Alvarez Cabral, a Portu- guese, who steered westward to avoid the dangers of the winds and calms prevalent along the coast of Africa. In the year following, the coast of Paria and that of Terra Fir- ma were explored by Spanish adventurers, among whom was Ojeda, in company with Amerigo Vespucci. In con- sequence of the reports of these explorers, vast expectations were raised in the mind of Ferdinand, of the wealth of the new countries to be attached to his dominions.
When Ovando arrived in Hispaniola in 1501, the policy pursued by Bobadilla, which was to make himself as popu- lar as possible among the Spaniards during his temporary administration, had produced a much larger revenue to the erown, but had, at the same time, thinned the numbers of the persecuted natives, and reduced the miserable remnant to despair. The provisions contained in Ovando's commis- sion (whose government was to extend over the. islands of Terra Firma), though humanely intended by Isabella to
12 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
meliorate the condition of the Indians, did not virtually have that effect. A permission to compel them to work in the mines, for the royal service, and to engage them as hired labourers, gave a latitude for abuse and oppression which defeated the benevolent views of the queen. Ovando car- ried with him twenty-five hundred individuals, many of them of high respectability. This was the largest body that had yet emigrated to the New World. Bobadilla, Roldan, and the ringleaders of his mutineers were com- manded to leave the island. By a singular retribution, they, together with the prominent enemies of Columbus and op- pressors of the Indians, perished in a storm, with an im- mense amount of ill-gotten treasure, in the spring of 1502 ; when a part of the fleet which had accompanied Ovando set out on its return for Spain, in contempt of the predic- tions of the great admiral, who had then arrived in distress off St. Domingo, in the prosecution of his fourth voyage, and was inhospitably denied admission into the harbour of the governor. Among those who were lost in this hurri- cane was the unfortunate cacique Guariones, who had been detained as a prisoner since his capture by Bartholomew Columbus.
Columbus and the adelantado proceeded on their voyage, in search of the supposed passage to the Indies which the former conjectured to exist near the isthmus of Darien. In a small island near the southern coast of Cuba, they met with some Indians, probably from Yucatan, whose informa- tion, if it had been correctly understood, or properly appre- ciated by the admiral, might have led him to the discovery of Mexico, and of the Southern Ocean ; a glory reserved for others. Variable winds and currents detained him for forty days, in the greatest distress, along the northern coast of Honduras, until doubling Cape Gracios a Dios, he ran along the Mosquito-shore to the province of Veragua. The inviting aspect of the country, and the specimens of gold which he found, induced him to attempt a settlement upon
IIERNAN CORTES. 13
the river called Belen. It was commenced accordingly, and eighty men selected to remain, under the command of Bartholomew. The jealousy of the neighbouring caciques however baffled the design, and a melancholy and bloody conflict with the natives ensued. Such of the garrison as were not destroyed were got off from the inhospitable coast with great difficulty. After abandoning one of his shattered barks at Porto Bello (a place which still retains the name he gave it), the admiral proceeded with the only remaining two, in a crazy condition, and crowded with discontented crews, as far as the gulf of Darien. Thence steering north- ward, after an unparalleled series of disasters, he finally ran his wrecks aground, in a harbour in the island of Jamaica, now called Don Christopher's Cove. From thence, two of his boldest and most enterprising followers undertook to convey an account of the situation of the crews to the gov- ernor of Hispaniola. They accomplished their voyage in two misshapen canoes, and spent eight months fruitlessly in soliciting Ovando for assistance. During this period those tliey had left behind suffered every extreme of danger and misery. A large party of them mutinied, and wandered into the interior of the island, committing depredations and enormities which roused the natives to vengeance. The admiral, with those who were faithful to him, were block- aded in the fortress they formed from their broken vessels, and ail supplies cut off from them. His unbroken fortitude sustained him in these exigencies, and enabled him to exer- cise a control over his followers ; when a small vessel, des- patched by the suspicious Ovando, arrived to crown his vexation, not to relieve the sufferers, but to spy out their condition. He conciliated the natives, and the adelantado chastised the mutineers ; who submitted, after losing some of their leaders and many of their body. At length the long looked-for ships arrived, and Columbus with his men were conveyed to St. Domingo in August, 1504. He returned to Spain under every circumstance of mortification and
14 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
disappointment ; and in less than two years thereafter ter- minated his career. His patroness Isabella died in Novem- ber, 1504.
Meantime, though the colony of Hispaniola was assum- ing a more regular form, a thousand of those who had ac- companied Ovando had perished from the diseases of the climate and their dissolute habits. Hunger, oppression, and the sword had swept off several hundred thousand of the natives since the first discovery. The last independent dis- trict, that of Higuey, had been laid waste, in consequence of an insurrection of the cacique and his people. The inhab- itants were hunted down like wild beasts ; and the last of the five sovereign princes of Hayti was hanged at St. Do- mingo by order of Ovando. The original settlement at Isabella was at this time nearly abandoned, and soon after totally deserted. Superstition made its ruins objects of ter- ror ; and frightful stories were circulated in after times, of rows of ghostly hidalgos met in its streets by those who had the temerity to visit them.
This brief recapitulation may give a general idea of the state of the Spanish possessions in America at the time of the arrival of Hernan Cortes in Hispaniola, in 1504, with recommendations to the governor, to whom he was related.
Cortes met with a most flattering reception from Ovando, and soon ingratiated himself into the favour of the governor and of the colonists generally. He was intimate in the fam- ily of the former, under his immediate patronage, and en- trusted by him in several posts both of honour and profit. He remained in the island of Hispaniola until the year 1510. What we are able to learn of his private life during this period amounts to little more than has been mentioned. We can only glance at the prominent events which took place, as connected with the progress of discovery during that time.
The restrictions as to the employment of the Indians im- posed, principally through the benevolent interposition of
HERN AN CORTES. 15
Isabella, and which Ovando was induced to enforce, not from humanity (for he was treacherous to his own countrymen, and insensible to the sufferings of his heathen subjects), but from fear of being superseded in his authority, had disheart- ened the settlers ; on whose constitutional laziness was superinduced the disappointment of their fantastic expecta- tions of picking up ingots by stooping for them, and the effects of a climate to which they were unaccustomed. The gov- ernor, to save the colony from ruin, was obliged to relax his instructions, and allow a compulsory mode of enforcing the labour of the Indians, with a diminution of the fractional part of the proceeds of the mines payable to the crown. This temporary encouragement of the settlers led to a resist- ance on the part of the poor natives, whose yoke had been somewhat tightened, and to a consequent war, if it be entitled to that name, in which some actions were ascribed to Ovando, apparently of a horrible character, but- which it is not our province now to examine or to pass upon. The result was, that the Indians were reduced to abject servitude, and that a compensation for their enforced tasks was no longer theoretically promised. While they perished, however, like dogs, or rather like animals far less esteemed, gold was produced in larger quantities, and new adventurers were drawn to the island. Large fortunes were accumulated, and many of them as quickly dissipated. New towns were built, and industry directed into other channels, by which agricultural labour rendered a regular return. The governor, from policy, was impartial in his administration. Ferdinand was pleased with the remit- tances he received ; and his existing relations with the pow- ers of the Old World, now enabled him to turn his attention more particularly to his new acquisitions. He established a board of trade, and an ecclesiastical government for Ame- rica; reserving to the crown of Spain a monopoly of the commerce, and a right of presentation to the benefices of the New World,
16 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
But the Indians, as we have said before, were setdly reduced in number. By a necessarily vague estimate, the population of Hispaniola at the time of its discovery has been reckoned at a million. On the authority of Columbus it was stated at 1,200,000. But in 1506, when there was little difficulty in taking a census, the number was only 60,000.
This remnant diminished so rapidly that in 1508 Ovando obtained permission to import the inhabitants of the Luca- yos islands, with 40,000 of whom the wretched servile pop- ulation of Hispaniola was recruited. While gold was obtained in that country in sufficient quantities, the spirit of discovery was inactive. With the difficulty of working the mines, from want of labourers, the appetite for new con- quests revived. Juan Ponce De Leon, by permission of Ovando, explored the island of Porto Rico, and established a settlement there. The island was reduced to subjection in a few years ; and its native population vanished with rapidity. In 1508 also, Juan Diaz de Solis and Vincent Yanez Pinson, a captain in the first voyage of Columbus, sailed to the island of Guiana, and standing to the west, dis- covered Yucatan. Sebastian De Ocampo circumnavigated Cuba, now for the first time ascertained with certainty to be an island.
In 1509 Ovando was recalled, and Don Diego Columbus, the son of the admiral, having obtained a decision in his favour, in his famous lawsuit with the crown, was invested with the gubernatorial power of Hispaniola. With him came a great accession of inhabitants of high rank and character.
In a second voyage, prosecuted during the year, by Solis and Pinzon, new discoveries were made of the vast distance to which the continent stretched southwardly. For the first time, serious intentions began to be entertained of making a permanent settlement on the main. Alonzo de Ojeda and Diego de Nicuesa both formed designs of making new con-
HliR.NAX CORTiiS. J1
quests on the continent. The former we have already mentioned, as having made two voyages of discovery. He had acquired by them reputation but no profit. Nicuesa was a man of large fortune in Hispaniola. Ferdinand en* couraged both enterprises ; appointed Ojeda governor of the region extending from Cape de Vela to the gulf of Da- rien ; and Nicuesa of that stretching thence to Cape Gra- cios a Dios. Their commission was drawn up with great care and formaUty ; and empowered them, in case the natives would not embrace the Catholic faith and submit to the authority of the Spanish crown, to attack them with fire and sword, and reduce them to unmitigated slavery. More than a thousand men accompanied these two adv^en* turers in their small fleets. Among those of the number who were afterward most distinguished, were Vasco Nunez de Balboa and Francis Pizarro.
Hernan Cortes had engaged warmly in this project from its commencement. But on this occasion, as on a former one, it seemed that his hour had not arrived. He was seized with a severe indisposition at St. Domingo before the sailing of the fleet ; and thus prevented from joining, and probably perishing, in the most unfortunate expedition ever yet attempted by the Spaniards in the New World.
The adventurers met with a resistance wholly unex- pected, from the warlike and numerous tribes whose country they entered. The natives were ferocious and implacable, as well as bold and hardy. Their arrows were dipped in a mortal poison. In addition to their enmity, which could neither be overcome by conciliation nor the terrors of the Spanish arms, tempests and accidents destroyed most of the vessels of the fleet ; the diseases of the climate swept off hundreds, and famine came, with every misery, the concep- tion of which fills the mind with horrors. Though twice reinforced, by far the greater number of those who had embarked in this expedition perished. A feeble colony at
VOL. I. C
18 HISTORICiiL NOTICE OF
Santa Maria la Antigua, under the command of Balboa, alone remained upon the continent.
The conquest of the island of Cuba was next projected by Don Diego Columbus ; and unintimidated by the disas- trous result of Ojeda's undertaking, many of the chief men of Hispaniola engaged with avidity in the new enterprise, lago Velasquez, a companion of the admiral in his second voyage, a man of courage, prudence, and wealth, was appointed to command in the expedition, in which only three hundred men accompanied him ; among these was Cortes.
The conquest of Cuba was easily effected. The natives were of an indolent and peaceful character ; unprepared for resistance ; and terrified by the fate which had attended all opposition to the Spaniards, as far as their experience- went, or their information extended. A bold chieftain named Hatuey confronted the invaders at their first landing, which he endeavoured to prevent ; but his men were routed with some slaughter, and he himself made captive, and committed to the flames as a rebel. No further warlike demonstrations were made by the islanders, and Velasquez founded San- tiago, called by his own christian-name, and assumed the undisturbed sway of Cuba, as the lieutenant of Diego Columbus.
In this conquest, and during a period of eight years which followed, there was no scope for the development of the extraordinary abilities of Cortes. He was however distin- guished in many critical and dangerous circumstances for his bravery, promptitude, and self-possession. He had learned to curb the impetuosity of his natural disposition ; though his appetite for pleasure often led him to overstep the bounds of prudence, and was in fact never subdued during his life. His frank and manly bearing, and the fasci- nation of his manner, rendered him a general favourite with both sexes. He always, says Solis, spoke well of the absent ; and was lively and discreet in his conversation. While be
HERNAN CORTES. 19
easily obtained the regard and reverence of his inferiors, by the possession of these personal advantages, his sound judg- ment and quickness in applying the resources of his mind, in cases of emergency, secured to him the respect of his equals. He was accomplished in all the martial exercises of that age, and enjoyed a constitution which seemed un- conquerable by dissipation, fatigue, exposure in all climates, or mental anxiety. In this respect he had the advantage of the great admiral ; who, though his spirit never bowed or broke, was subject to attacks of lingering and wasting sick- ness. That Cortes, though liberal to his companions, was naturally avaricious, and loved the acquisition and accumu- lation of money for its own sake, seems to be true to a cer- tain extent. This passion is not inconsistent with the pos- session of fearless courage, the love of pleasure or the love of glory, nor with a lavish expenditure for the gratification of those desires. The history of the great achievements of Cortes shows that in his own case it never interfered with policy, or stopped the march of his vast conquests. In person he is described as being of good stature, well proportioned, robust and active. His countenance was agreeable, and the expression of his eyes vivacious and amorous. His chest was prominent, and his beard strong and black.
The high spirit of Cortes, and his indiscretion in matters of gallantry, involved him in several private difficulties in Cuba, notwithstanding his general popularity. He had several dissensions with the governor Velasquez, some of which were of a violent character. An intrigue with a lady of noble blood. Dona Catalina Suarez de Pacheco, involved him in considerable embarrassment. Velasquez interfered, and kept him prisoner until a marriage was celebrated between the parties, after which the governor became the friend and patron of Cortes, who obtained, in consequence of this reconciliation, a valuable grant of land and Indians ; together with the place of alcalde,-in the town of Santiago — a high dignity at that day, conferred only on persons of the most estimation. Notwithstanding this
20 IIISTOIIICAL NOTICE OF
friendship, there can be little doubt that the remembrance of former quarrels stimulated the enmity of Velasquez at a subsequent period.
Whatever details or private anecdotes of the life of Cortes, during this time, may be collected at this day, if it were possible to introduce them in this brief notice, the writer has no means of ascertaining. It is essential, however, to refer to the evenis which happened in the progress of dis- covery, up to the time when Cortes was called upon to assume that independent command for which his natural abilities and his experience had fitted him.
In 1512, Juan Ponce de Leon, who had subdued and settled Porto Rico, made another voyage of discovery ; in which, after touching at several of the Lucayo and Bahama Isles, he stood to the south-west, and coasted along the beautiful region to which he gave the name of Florida. He made no settlement, and returned to Porto Rico through the gulf now known as that of Florida. One of the objects of his voyage was to discover a fountain in one of the Lucayo islands, the waters of which, accord- ing to a romantic tradition of the natives of Porto Rico, had the virtue of renewing youth and vigour. This fable was well suited to captivate the imagination in that age, when alchymy, astrology, magic, and diabolism were believed in ; because they were denounced by the church, and by which their supposed or self-deluded votaries w^ere punished with fire and fagots. Let us thank God that we live in an age in which such superstitions are exploded ; but with humility, since subsequent generations will probably laugh at us, whether Catholic or Protestant, for similar instances of creduliiy.
Balboa, who remained governor of the small colony at Santa Maria, on the Isthmus of Darien, had collected speci- mens of gold by negotiation and by force from the neigh- bouring caciques. From one of them he learned that at the distance of six days' journey to the south he would discover -another great ocean, near which was a region
HERNAN CORTES. 21
abounding in that nnetal. Balboa immediately conjectured that this was the sea which the admiral had sought for in vain, as opening a communication with the Indies. He exerted himself to the utmost in procuring recruits for his expedi- tion from Hispaniola, and in September, 1513, with a hun- dred and ninety men and a thousand Indians, set out on his journey of discovery. After nearly a month spent in a toilsome march through the mountainous barrier of the isthmus, in which a severe rencounter took place with a ferocious native chief, Balboa first saw the great Southern Ocean from a mountain near Panama. Here he collected gold and pearls, and obtained information of a vague charac- ter as to the situation and wealth of the region to the south. He was unable, with the forces and supplies which he then had with him, to attempt the discovery. After four months' absence he returned to Santa Maria with more treasure than had been acquired in any former single expedition by the Spaniards, and with high hopes of reaping at some period the full profits of a discovery, of which he had the glory. Francisco Pizarro, the future conqueror of the country in question, attended and mainly assisted him in this enterprise.
Balboa's hopes were destined to be overthrown, chiefly, as historians agree in believing, through the same influence which was successfully exerted against all the distinguished discoverers of the age. Bishop Fonseca procured the appointment of Pedrarias Davila, as governor of Darien ; the election of Balboa to that office by his companions having never been confirmed by the king. Pedrarias arrived with twelve hundred soldiers ; superseded Balboa in his functions ; instituted a formal inquiry into his pro- ceedings and conduct while acting under Nicuesa and sub- sequently; and imposed upon him a heavy fine, the pay- ment of which exhausted his fortune. Disease carried off* many of the followers of Pedrarias. Six hundred men perished in one month. Those who retained their vigour were engaged in extorting gold and levying contributions,
22 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
until the whole isthmus, to the lake of Nicaragua, was made desolate. The result of the different representations made on the subject to Ferdinand was, that Balboa was appointed adelantado of the countries upon the South Sea ; without, however, allowing any compensation for the injus- tice which had been done him. The quarrels in this small colony at this time were so numerous, that it was computed that every man had, on an average, forty lawsuits on hand. The dissensions between Pedrarias and Balboa were seem- ingly ended, in 1516, by the marriage of the latter with a daughter of the former. The different conflicts with the natives, and visits to the South Sea for the purpose of find- ing pearls, which occurred in the intermediate time, can only be alluded to in this notice. The arrival of six hun- dred Spaniards from Cuba, with other reinforcements, enabled the leaders to push on successive enterprises with vigour, from which they returned to Darien loaded with gold, pearls, and slaves. The Bishop of Darien, however, interfered in behalf of the latter, and forbade their exporta- tion, which he denounced as unlawful. His opposition led to much quarrelling on the isthmus. Gaspar de Morales and Francisco Pizarro particularly distinguished themselves in the excursions to which we have referred. In 1517, Balboa had succeeded in finishing four small brigantines in the Islands of Pearls. In these, with three hundred men, he proposed to sail towards Peru, and communicated his intention to Pedrarias by letter. His messengers proved treacherous, and insinuated many things tojiis disadvantage. Pedrarias w^as filled with jealousy and rage. He sent a despatch to Balboa, requesting his presence at Ada, under pretence that he had some necessary instructions to give him as to his voyage ; and subsequently, to enforce his attendance, sent an order to Francisco Pizarro to arrest him, and an arm.ed force to take him wherever he might be found. Balboa, however, on receipt of the letter of Pedra- rias, left the island of Tortuga, and repairing to Ada, met Pizarro on his mission with boldness and confidence. He
HERNAN CORTES. 23
found Pedrarias now implacable. The command of the king to the latter, to treat his rival with respect and assist him in his enterprises, his jealousy of Balboa's superior talents, and his fear of being eclipsed by him in power, renown, and influence, combined with the remembrance of past feuds, had wrought up the governor's dislike to fury, Balboa was arrested and tried for disloyalty to the king, and an intention to rebel against the governor. The charges against him were preposterous ; and the Licentiate Espinosa refused to pass sentence without the written order of Pedrarias. This was not delayed; and notwithstanding the intercession of the whole colony, he was beheaded as a traitor. Fonseca protected Pedrarias at court. He was continued in power, and obtained leave to remove the colony to Panama.
While these events were passing on the isthmus, many others of importance, as connected with the projects of dis- covery, occurred in Hispaniola. Don Diego Columbus had met with many difficulties and much opposition in his administration. He was vexed with the appointments which had been made, by which territories and islands had been assigned to others, without respect to his claim as viceroy, under the compact with his father, and by virtue of the decree of the court to which he had referred his rights. He had been unable to meliorate the condition of the remaining Indians in the islands ; and was obliged from necessity to suffer the system of the repartimientos to con- tinue unmodified. His prerogative of distributing these slaves was taken from him, and conferred on Rodrigo Albuquerque. A faction was arrayed against him and all his measures, at the head of which was Miguel Pasamonte, the king's treasurer. Owing to their misrepresentations, a court called the Royal Audience was established, in 1510, in St. Domingo ; to which an appeal was allowed in all cases from the sentence of the admiral. Even the subjuga- tion of Cuba, agreeable as the news of that event was to
S4 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
the king, did not lead him to adopt a more Uberal policy towards the governor. In 1512, Don Bartholomew Colum- bus was sent out, who still retained the nominal office of adelantado. He bore instructions, directing the labour of the natives to be reduced ; and that negro slaves should be procured from Guinea to assist them. Under these cir- cumstances, Don Diego asked and obtained permission to repair to court, and left Hispaniola in April, 1515; the adelantado and vice queen (as she was called in the island by courtesy) remaining. He was received with a great show of respect, but soon involved again in litigating his disputed claims to the share of profit belonging to him, from the provinces discovered by his father during his fourth voyage, in which he had coasted, as we have mentioned, along the region to which the name of Castilla del Oro had been given. Don Diego's uncle, the adelantado, died soon after his departure from Hispaniola.
In the month of October, 1515, Juan Diaz de Solis, before mentioned, sailed from Spain with the command of two ves- sels. The expenses of this expedition were defrayed by Ferdinand, who was incited by the contemporary discoveries of the Portuguese, and believed, on the authority of the geographers of the day, that the Molucca and Spice Islands might be found most readily by a western route. The experienced navigator who conducted this enterprise, stood along the coast of South America, with several variations of reckoning from the north of the line, until he arrived at and entered the mouth ot the great river La Plata, which he at first supposed to be a strait opening into the Indian Ocean. He ascended the river, and was slain, with several of his crew, by the natives, at a short distance from the spot where he landed. He was, says Herrera, a more famous pilot than captain. His ships returned to Spain, no further discovery having been effected.
A highly interesting and curious topic for investigation is suggested here by the chronicles of the period. We allude
HERNAN CORTES. 25
to the ineffectual and mistaken efforts, made by Bartholo- mew de Las Casas (a Dominican sent out with Columbus on his second voyage), in behalf of the natives. With this, however, we have nothing to do in this place. While Las Casas was pleading, as he supposed the cause of the abori- gines in Spain, in 1516, king Ferdinand died, and his grand^ son, Charles of Austria, became the heir of his possessions. The policy of Ferdinand has been considered narrow; and so it was. But his reign was marked by some of the most illustrious events recorded in history, which happened under his auspices. In his domestic relations, no fault is ascribed to him ; and if he was not worthy of Isabella as his consort, he paid to her that decent respect which affords primary evidence that he estimated duly her virtues and her worth. As to his jealousy of those who conquered foreign countries, or governed them in his name, all history proves that the feelings of mother countries for their colonies, are not ma- ternal, but those of a stepmother ; and the event has hith- erto uniformly shown, that our incipient jealousy was not without foundation. The branch will fall off when the tree can no longer support its weight. Gratitude is not hered- itary ; and colonies will not long consent to be taxed for the benefit of what is to them a foreign country. The whole philosophy of this matter is comprised in the simple 6^5 «v- 3-^&)7rcfj Tre^vxoTi of old Xcnophou. Such has been the expe- rience of the past ; and such, if we were paid for prophesy- ing, we might predict will be that of the future.
The Cardinal Ximenes, after the death of Ferdinand, and before the arrival of Charles the Fifth, acting as regent, entertained the application of Las Casas, and sent to His- paniola a deputation of three friars, a lawyer, and Las Casas himself, with discretionary powers both as to the condition of the Indians and the administration of justice. Those powers were used with wisdom ; and the commissioners found it necessary to tolerate the evils which the^^ could not remedy. Las Casas returned to Spain in disgust. He was
VOL. I. D
26 HISTUKICAL NOTICE OF
an amiable enthusiast; and yet was anxious for making captives of the natives of Guinea, that the bodies of the remaining miserable remnant of Indians might be preserved alive a little longer, and a few of their souls rescued from spiritual jeopardy. It is not our province to give an account of the projects of Bartholomew Las Casas, which terminated in an unsuccessful attempt to colonize Cumana. We shall now follow, in an unbroken series, the course of events which led to the conquest of Mexico.
In 1517, a hundred and ten adventurers in Cuba, who had for two or three years been looking out for settlements, elected as their captain a rich hidalgo, named Francisco Hernandez de Cordova, determining to set out on a voyage of discovery. They bought two vessels of considerable burthen, and obtained a third on credit from the governor Velasquez. Most of these men had served under Pedra- rias in Darien. Among them went Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who has left a plain and unvarnished narrative of this and the subsequent expeditions. According to him, the fleet sailed from Agaruco, a small port on the north part of the island, passed St. Antonio, and in twenty-one days reached Cape Cotoche, the eastern point of the peninsula of Yuca- tan. Here they w^ere invited on shore by the natives (whom they found far superior in dress and equipments to the other savages they had seen), with a show of friendship. They were led into an ambush and fiercely attacked. Hav- ing beaten off" the assailants, they left the coast carrying oif two prisoners and some gold ornaments. They found build- ings of lime and stone, and other indications of the progress in civilization made by these Indians. Cordova sailed from thence to the westward, and arrived at Campeachy, and subsequently at a town some leagues beyond, called Pon- tonchan, situated at the mouth of a river. It contained buildings of lime and stone, and was surrounded by fields of maize. The adventurers could not account for one cir- cumstance which was afterward explained. The natives
HERNAN CORTES. 27
of Campeachy and Pontonchan, in the imperfect intercourse they had with them, frequently pointed to the east, and uttered the word "Castillan." Cordova landed all his troops, to procure a supply of fresh water. His appre- hensions of an attack were justified by the event. An immense number of the warriors surrounded the Spaniards, and killed about fifty of them. They continually cried out " Al Calachiom." or " shoot at the captain ;" and though he escaped with life, he received twelve arrows. The shat- tered remnant of the expedition retreated with difliculty to their ships. Their wounds were exceedingly painful ; and only one soldier had escaped unhurt. They were com- pelled to leave their water-casks behind ; and sufl^ered the extremity of thirst. They were dissatisfied with their pilot Alaminos, who persisted in his original creed, that this land was not part of a continent. He steered for Florida, the coast of which he had visited before in his voyage with Ponce de Leon. Here they obtained freshwater, at the expense of another rencounter with the natives. Exhausted with fatigue and suffering, they arrived at Puerto de Carenas, now called Havana. Cordova died soon after.
Notwithstanding the disasters attending this voyage, the accounts brought to Cuba of the houses and wealth of the countries visited, and the gold ornaments carried off from plundered temples, were irresistible excitements to another attempt at settlement. A new armament of four ships was fitted out, two of which were purchased by Velasquez. The command was given to Juan de Grijalva, a relation of his, who had an estate in Cuba, and was a man of approved conduct and valour. The rendezvous was at Matanzas, whence the fleet sailed in April, 1518, carrying two hundred and forty volunteers. In ten days they passed the point called St. Antonio, whence they were driven by the currents to the island of Cozumel. Alaminos was also the pilot in this expedition. Here the natives fled from them, and would not be persuaded to any intercourse by their overtures.
28 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
Pursuing the route taken by Cordova, they effected a land- ing at Pontonchan (or Champoton), with the loss of three soldiers and half their number wounded. The natives met them with great fury, and in formidable numbers. They finally fled, but had removed all their effects from the town. After a stay of four days there, Grijalva pursued his voyage westwardly, examining the coast, until he arrived at the mouth of the river called Tabasco by the natives, but to which his own name was given. The houses and villages scattered along the coast, were magnified into palaces and cities by the imagination of the adventurers; and the name of New-Spain was given to the country with universal consent. The natives at Tabasco were prepared for resist- ance ; but, on overtures of amity being made through the interpreters, entered into a friendly traflic, though they treated with contempt a proposition to submit to the autho- rity of the king. They produced as a present some toys of gold, of no great value ; but intimated that it was to be found at the west, in abundance. They frequently- repeated the words " Mexico and Culua," which were not then understood by the Spaniards. Grijalva pro- ceeded hence to the province since known by the name of Guaxaca ; and here for the first time, from the signs of the natives, w^hose language the interpreters did not understand, the adventurers heard of a powerful monarch named Montezuma (or Motenczoma), and learned that he was the sovereign of the country. He had received in- formation of the result of Cordova's expedition, and seems to have been apprized thus early of the designs of the in- vaders. At any rate, he was aware that gold was the great object of their search. An ancient prophesy had declared that men from the west would come to conquer his coun- try ; and the accounts he received, and the painted repre- sentations made by his agents, and transmitted to his court, had awakened undoubtedly his superstitious but well- grounded fears, that his dynasty was about to pass away.
IIERNAN CORTES. 29
It may admit of a question, whether he was privy to the resistance heretofore offered to the Spaniards on the coast of New-Spain. The presumption to be drawn from the whole tenor of his subsequent temporising conduct is, that he was not. His emissaries first made communications from him to the followers of Grijalva at the mouth of a river, which the latter named Vanderas, from the white banners waved by these ambassadors, as a signal of invita- tion. On landing, they were received with the honours paid to the gods. Incense was presented to them, with an abun- dance of the provisions belonging to that region, such as fowls, bread, pines, and sapotes. In exchange for glass beads and European trinkets, a quantity of gold was also obtained, equivalent in value to fifteen thousand pesos. Grijalva was treated with the greatest respect, and took possession of the country (with ceremonies of course un- intelligible to the Indians), as the representative of Velas- quez, and in the name of the king. After six days' delay he visited several islands farther along the coast, in some of which bloody evidences were found of the cruel rites of the natives' religion, in the relics of human victims, which had been sacrificed in their temples and round the altars of their misshapen divinities. That such an exhibition should fill the adventurers with disgust, and confirm them in the creed of the age, that it was lawful to captivate and slay these pagans for the good of their souls, can be easily con- ceived. Such, at a much later period, was the belief, and such was the practice of the grave puritans who colonized New England, where the custom of offering human sacri- fices was unknown ; and this reflection will chastise the natural indignation of every sensible man, in reading the accounts of the myriads subsequently slaughtered, under the pretext of proselyting the survivors. From a misap- prehension of the pronunciation of an Indian word, the name of St. John de Uhia w^as given to one of -the islands. Thence Grijalva despatched one of his ofiicers to Velasquez,
30 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
with an account of his discoveries. The governor had been, in the mean time, extremely uneasy about the fate of the expedition, and was highly gratified upon the arrival of the messenger, Pedro de Alvarado. Grijalva proceeded to the province of Panuco, and in a river called " De Canoas," from the circumstance which occurred there, his smallest ship was attacked, while at anchor, by ten canoes filled with Indians, who succeeded in cutting the cable, but were re- pulsed with some loss. Grijalva, who was not destined to prosecute this discovery, then judged it most prudent to re- turn to Cuba. Bernal Diaz says, however, that the com- mander wished to make a permanent settlement, but was overruled by his officers, who represented the lateness of the season and the want of provisions as insuperable objec- tions to remaining. From this, the largest and most en- couraging voyage yet made by the adventurers in America, the ships returned to St. Jago, in October. It was now known that Yucatan was not an island ; and that the conti- nent stretched many hundred miles in a direction not before explored — Velasquez was inflated with joy. He enter- tained the hope of slighting with impunity the rights of Don Diego Columbus (as his own were afterward disregarded by Cortes), and despatched his chaplain, Benito Martinez, to Castile, with letters to his patron, Bishop Fonseca, and other powerful men, requesting them to obtain for him a commission to procure gold, and to make such settlements as he might deem expedient, in any region of the New World. This he obtained ; and Martinez also brought him back a commission of adelantado of Cuba. Before his arrival, however, Velasquez had been preparing a powerful armament in anticipation.
Here, before taking up the expedition of Cortes in an un- broken connexion, it seems better to make such few remarks on the then existing extent of the discoveries in America, and some other particulars, as our limits allow. All the West Indian islands had been descried, and the most im-
HERNAN CORTES, 31
portant of them visited. The Spaniards at different times had visited the main from the coast of Florida to the 35th degree of south latitude. The English, in the mean time, had sailed from Labrador to Florida ; and the Portuguese Lad visited the same region in exploring a north-western passage to India. Of Mexico, Peru, and the countries south of the parallel of latitude mentioned, nothing was yet known with certainty. The question which has produced so much wild and visionary discussion, of how this continent was originally peopled, is answered with a deal of simplicity, by the Archbishop of Mexico, who edited the letters of Cortes in 1770, from which imprint they have been now repub- lished. He says : — " Es en vano fatigarse, sobre sus as- cendientes ; pues de la Torre de Babel, se estendieron las gentes por todo el mundo : y assi por el polo arctico, no se ha descubierto fin a la tierra en esta America ; por lo que hoy es inutil la question de como vinieron por mar, pues por la tierra pudieron venir de las otras partes del mundo ; porque ninguno puede asegurar lo contrario, pues por el norte de Nueva-Espana no se ha hallado el termino."* The archbishop is probably more than half right. Good sense concurs with the traditions of the Mexicans and those of some of the Indian tribes to the north, in assigning the north- eastern part of Asia as the quarter from which the ances- tors of most of these nations probably entered this continent. At the same time, there are strong evidences of its having been reached at several periods from other quarters, in both of its divisions. And unless the poem of Ercilla is a pure creation of his brain, and the history of the Abbe Molina more apocryphal than than that of Herodotus, there were
* " It is vain to fatigue ourselves respecting the question who were their ancestors, since from the tower of Babel the nations spread them- selves over the whole world; and towards the arctic pole no end has been discovered to the land in this America ; wherefore the question is useless how they came by sea, since ihey could come by land from the other parts of the world. No one can affirm the contrary, for to the north of New-Spain no termination has been found."
32 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
too many points in the Araiicanian mythology correspond-^ ing with those of the Egyptian, to warrant us in setting them down under the head of " singular coincidences." But whether stray vessels were, in distant ages, carried quite across the Atlantic (a fact not exceedingly improbable), or whether the Polynesian islands are the vestiges of some mighty convulsion of nature, are points which the ingenuity of man does not seem likely to elucidate. The traditions of the Mexicans, with whom alone we have to do, were briefly and in substance as alluded to below. It is to be observed, that the story rests for its basis on the reports of traditions merely ; for most of the pictures on cotton cloths, skins, and the bark of trees, on which this half-civilized people had chronicled the supposed events of their history, were destroyed after the conquest by ecclesiastical author- ity, under a notion that they were connected with magic and diaboUsm.* Several writers, however, of that period, both Mexican and Spanish, immediately wrote down the supposed contents of the pictures thus destroyed. These traditions, illustrated by the pictures, purport that the coun- try called New-Spain by the conquerors, was named, in ancient days, Anahuac, or a region cerea del agua or near the water. This name was originally given to the valley of Mexico, and afterward extended to the circumjacent terri- tories. The traditions of five of the nations who settled in this district concur in stating, what we have before men- tioned, that their ancestors came from the north. Gigantic relics of bones found in supposed places of sepulture, whether they were those of men or animals, prove nothing •which at present merits consideration. According to their chronological records, as made out by modern Europeans,
* Of those preserved, some found their way to France and some to Eng- land, by the fortune of war some are at Vienna. The tribute roll published in the original edition of Archbishop Lorenzana's publication, has not been engraved for this work. One specimen of the Mexican hieroglyphics has been copied from the illustrations of Clavigero's History.
HERNAN CORTES. 33
a people called the Tolteques emigrated from a distant land, to the north-east of the Mexican valley, in the year of re- demption 550. After a pilgrimage nearly thrice as long as that of the ancient Israelites, they founded a city at about fifty miles distance from the site of the future Mexico. This city is commemorated as the most ancient in Ana- huac, and one of the most celebrated in Mexican history. The monarchy of these Tolteques lasted from the year 667 of the vulgar era, during 384 years ; vv^hen famine and pestilence drove nearly the whole nation into different parts of the continent. Some went to Yucatan, others to Guate- mala ; and a few remained in what had been the kingdom of Tula, scattering over the valley of Mexico. These Tol- teques were an agricultural people. They melted and wrought gold ; and they kept the calendar as correctly as was done after its regulation in the time of Julius Csesar* Such is an abstract of their annals. Credat Judceus ap- pella. About a hundred years after the dispersion of the Tolteques, the Chichimecos, a half-tamed and half-civilized people, governed by immediate chieftains, a nobility, and a sovereign, after the feudal, or rather patriarchal fashion, left their settlements at the north, and established themselves at Terrayuca, six miles from the site of Mexico. They con- tracted alliances with some of the remaining Tolteques, and learned their arts and sciences. A few years afterward other tribes descended into Anahuac, from regions border- ing on those whence the Chichimecos had emigrated. The greatest of these was the nation Acolhua, whose three princes married three princesses of the Chichimecos. The royal residence was indifferently at Terrayuca and Tez- cuco. The entire kingdom soon assumed the name of Acol- huacan, though many of the Chichimecos, retaining their ancient savage habits, mingled more or less with the Otomites, a fierce and warlike nation, beyond the mountains to the north-west, who w^arred on the now civilized occu- pants of the plains below. The dynasty of the Chichimese
VOL. I. E
34 lasToiiicAL AOTici: of
kings lasted in unbroken descent through six monarch?, until the commencement of the fifteenth century ; after which two usurpers succeeded to the throne of Acolhuacan. There was a nominal succession of five other sovereigns, with whose reign the history of Mexico and that of the conquest is blended. We shall not particularize the other hordes who are said to have subsequently arrived in Ana- huac. It is sufficient to mention the names of the principal branches of the same family, who severally emigrated from the province of Aztlan. These were, in the order of their arrival, the Xoquimilches, Chalmeques, Tepaneques, Col- huis, Tlahuiques, Tlascaleses, or Tlastaltecas, and the Mex- icans. All historians agree that these were of the same great family. They arrived at different periods in the val- ley of Mexico ; and we shall have occasion to advert to most of them. The Tlascalese claim some notice before we sketch the outline of the Mexican history. These peo- ple at first established themselves on the eastern shore of the Lake of Tezcuco, where they were obliged to maintain themselves as hunters, not having a sufficient extent of land to follow the quiet pursuits of agriculture. Their neigh- bours took up arms to drive them from the soil ; and these western Ishmaelites defended themselves with the valour of desperation. Though victorious, they felt the necessity of a removal, and divided into two bands, one going in a north- ern and the other in a southern direction. Both divisions laid the foundations of several villages and cities in their routes. The most formidable and respectable part of the nation, however, still wandered and lingered in the neigh- bourhood of the lake, and wars ensued, which terminated in the settlement of the Tlascalese about forty miles or up- wards to the east of the lake, under a republican form of government, which they had preserved at the time of the invasion.
The Mexicans are, historically, the most important of the sevfen tribes we have referred to ; and we shall briefly
IIERjV^AN CORTES. 35
follow Clavigero in his synopsis of their annals. They, with the others, are said to have emigated from Aztlan, a country whose locality is altogether apocryphal. It was to the north of the Gulf of California ; so that there is room enough for imagination to rove in. They commenced their wanderings in the year 1160 of the vulgar era, and omens, auguries, and prophecies are said to have occasioned and directed their journey, exactly resembling those which illustrated the voyage of ^Eneas to Italy. Whether iEneas did or did not find and colonize Italy may admit of much doubt ; but the Mexicans certainly settled in Anahuac. We shall not follow their route, of which traces were left in their monuments and temples. From Culiacan, on the eastern shore of the Gulf of California, the seven tribes travelled many days together towards the east. At Chico- moztoc, six of them left the Mexicans, and proceeded in their journyings towards Anahuac. After a nine years' sojourning in those parts, the Mexicans, passing probably through Michuacan, arrived at Tula, at which place a dif- ference is said to have arisen, which divided them into two parties, whose subsequent separation we shall notice. The course of their progress was circuitous ; but, as they fol- lowed the path indicated by the low grounds, it is not to be wondered at. In 1216, A. D., they arrived at Tzompanco, in the valley of Mexico, and about twenty miles north from the lake, where an alliance was formed between one of their princesses and the son of the chief of the country, from which union descended the kings of Mexico. After a seven years' sojourn in Tzompanco, the emigrants wandered to Tizajocan, where a son was born to their new ally the Prince Ithuicatl. They formed other alliances in this region, but the opposition of a chief of the Chichimecos compelled them, in 1245, to take refuge in the heights, within two miles westward of the site of their destined city. After passing seventeen years in this district, in a constant state of warfare with their savage neighbours,
36 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
they took possession of a group of small islands at the southern extremity of the Lake of Mexico ; living for fifty- two years in a state of nakedness and wretchedness, on iish, aquatic fowl, insects, and roots. Either by force or by their own consent they then passed into Colhuacan, and became, in 1314, the vassals of the Colhuis, whose territory lay to the north, north-east, and east of the lake. After several years, a war arose between these people and the Joquimilques their neighbours, who dwelt at the south side of the lake ; in which war the new subjects of the Colhuis, the Mexicans, assisted them vigorously. But they cele* brated their victory with human sacrifices ; and shocked the feelings of their protectors so much by these and other practices, that they had permission, or rather received orders, to depart. After some farther wanderings, they arrived at the spot where they founded their city. They found a tree (nopal) growing out of a rock, with an eagle upon it, which induced them to give to the country, and subsequently to the city, the name of Tenochtitlan. The origin of the name Megico is much disputed. Clavigero says, it is derived from the appellation of the Mars of their mythology and their tutelary god, and signifies the place Megitliy or Huitzilopochtli. To this god they built a rude temple when they commenced their settlement, and conse- crated it by sacrificing a human victim, one of the Colhuis, This was in the year 1325. They were again driven to fishing and hunting on the lake by necessity ; and, by the product of their labours, and such barter as they could make with their neighbours, supported themselves in a miserable condition for thirteen years. In 1338, the quarrel among them, to which we have before alluded, and which had remained unforgotten, terminated in a division of the pation ; a portion of them removing to an island of the lake to the northward, subsequently known as Tlatelolco, as the emigrants were also subsequently called Tlatelolques. About the time when the division occurred, the city of
IIERNAN CORTES. 37
Mexico was divided into four quarters, each dedicated to a tutelary god. The government was oligarchical, or managed by a few nobles, until 1352, when the want of an energetic executive and the example of their neighbours, led them to establish a monarchy. Their first monarch, Acamapichtzin was elected, as it should seem, by some twenty chieftains or nobles. There is a confusion among historians as to his genealogy. Here we enter upon a rapid survey of the Mexican dynasty ; and it must be borne in mind that their early annals, vague and often unintelligible as we find them, relate to an extent of territory no greater than that of the Romans, when they first domesticated themselves on their seven little hillocks. The first king, after fruitless attempts to intermarry with the families of the other princes around him, effected an alliance with the daughter of the chief of Coatlichan, whose territory lay some seventy miles west of Mexico, and who was a descendant of one of the three princes Acolhuis, The Tlatelolques, in imitation of their brethren, and in a spirit of rivalry, also established a monarchy. They, as well as the Mexicans from whom they had separated, were dwelling within the territory of the king of the Tepaneques, which they acknowledged by paying him a small tribute. This monarch, who was also styled king of Azcapozalco, and whose capital was Tlacopan, now Tacuba, at the request of the Tlatelolques, gave them one of his sons to reign over them ; and by their representations was induced to increase the burthens of their rivals and co-descendants, the Mexi- cans, to a most onerous degree. Hitherto they had paid, annually, a certain quantity of the fish and aquatic birds which they took in the lake and its vicinity. They were now required to render in tribute a double quantity ; in addition to which they were to furnish many thousand bundles of willow and fir twigs, to be planted in the high- ways and gardens of Azcapozalco, and to bring to the court of the monarch a floating garden, planted with every variety
38 ITISTOmCAL NOTICE OF
of the vegetable productions of Anahuac. With this and the subsequently increased exactions the Mexicans com- plied from necessity. The habit of industry thus enforced, no doubt, contributed to produce their subsequent wealth and influence. This oppression continued for fifty years. Their first king reigned for thirty-seven ; and their limits, during his time, extended solely to those of the city — a miserable village of cabins, made of reeds and mud. He died in 1389, and the chieftains elected in his stead his son Huitzilihuitl.
This king, the second of the dynasty, obtained by the sup- plication of the Mexican ambassadors the daughter of the reigning monarch of the Tepaneques in marriage. Tezo- zomoc then ruled in Azcapozalco. He was a crafty and, apparently, a far-sighted chief. His youngest son Majtla- ton, fearing that the issue of this marriage might succeed to his paternal throne, had the infant son of the Mexican king assassinated a few years afterward. At this time the Mexicans distinguished themselves, and acquired honour and power by assisting, in conjunction with the Tepaneques, their neighbours the Acolhuis, in putting down the rebellion of a vassal chieftain, who had stirred up to his assistance the tribes of the north-east of the lake. From this period the Mexicans seem to have advanced rapidly; forming alli- ances with their neighbours, attending to the pursuits of agriculture, and multiplying the number of their barks and floating gardens on the lake. The king of Acolhuacan died about the year 1402, and the ambitious views of the sove- reign of Azcapozalco soon developed themselves. He enlisted in his projects the Mexicans and Tlatelolques ; stirred up many of the chiefs of the Acolhuis to revolt ; and a long war ensued, which was temporarily quieted, after some years, by the king of the Tepaneques hypocritically suing for peace.
In 1409 the third Mexican monarch, Quimalpopoca, ascended the throne, a brother of the preceding monarch,
lIEUNAiN CORTES.
39
on whose demise he was elected by the nobles. At this time the law of succession seems to have been either par- ticularly recognised, or originally established ; by which brothers of a deceased monarch were first eligible, and, in case of their being dead, nephews. The Caribees of the West India islands had a rule somewhat similar ; but for which they assigned a better natural reason. They made the children of the uterine sisters of their chiefs capable of suc- ceeding him ; because they were certain of being at least half right in preserving the blood royal. This third Mexi- can monarch w^as the most unfortunate of the dynasty, before the arrival of the Spaniards, as the incidents of his reign will show. The king of the Acolhuis was driven by the intrigues of his neighbours into the adjacent mountains, where he w^andered in a state sometimes bordering on starvation. He was treacherously slain by the emissaries of his enemy in 1410, leaving the prince Nezahualcojotl his heir, whose mother was a daughter of the first king of Mexico. The king of the Tepaneques, Tezozomoc, re- warded his allies, by giving to the Mexicans the city of Tezcuco, and to the Tlatelolques that of Huejotla, a few miles to the south, to be held by them as his tributaries. He placed the other cities of Acolhuacan under the govern- ment of his own ofiicers. The Mexicans notwithstanding acknowledged the claims of the hereditary prince, the grand- son of their monarch, and favoured them as far as they were able to do. Their hatred of Tezozomoc was aug- mented by new exactions, levied on them and the cognate family of the Chichimecos. Tezozomoc terminated his mortal career in 1422, nominating his oldest son as his successor. It must be borne in mind that his court was but four miles distant from that of Mexico, and, the princes were in the frequent habit of visiting each other. Majtla- ton, already mentioned, the youngest son of the deceased king Tezozomoc, soon found a pretext for assassinating his eldest brother at a banquet; and was also successful. in
40 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
causing the Mexican king to be forcibly arrested in his owri city, and thrown into a wooden prison in Azcapozalco, after having so far insulted and oppressed him that he was about to immolate himself to his gods, after the custom of his ancestry. The captive monarch was visited in his durance by his nephew the hereditary prince of the Acolhuis, whom Majtlaton, called the tyrant, did not see fit to destroy. By his uncle's advice, the prince privately withdrew from immediate danger ; and the third monarch of the Mexican line, left to the solitude of his prison, put an end to his own life in 1423, as is said, by hanging himself with his girdle. Some border wars were waged during his reign, not spe- cially commemorated in history. A hot search ensued, by order of the tyrant, for the prince of Acolcuahan, who had many hair-breadth escapes, until he took refuge in the little republic of Tlascala ; where he was well received, and soon collected around him several princes, either declared ene- mies of Majtlaton, or his discontented tributaries.
Meantime the fourth Mexican king was elected by the suffrage of those nobles who were entitled to choose the sove- reign. This was Itzcoatl, a natural son of the first and brother of the two preceding kings. A good understanding immediately took place between him and the Prince Neza- hualcoyotl,w^ho succeeded in chastising severely the people of Tezcuco, the capital of his hereditary dominions, for their adherence to the tyrant, while his allies reduced to subjec- tion the two other principal tow^ns. Motenczoma Ilhuicacu- ina, son of the third king of Mexico, general of the army, and one of the most illustrious men in their annals, now entered on the scene of action. We have no space for a detail of the particular instances of his valour and singular escapes from the perils into w4iich his spirit of enterprise led him. The hostile intentions of Majtlaton towards Mexico were no longer disguised, and the prince repaired to that city, where a union was agreed upon for its defence, of its troops and those of Tezcuco. The Mexicans regarded
HEilNAN CORTES. 41
the approachiDg contest with the greatest alarm. The intrepidity and eloquence of Motenczoma,, however, roused them to action, He undertook in person an embassy to Majtlaton, received and returned his defiance, and mar- shalled the forces of his countrymen for the exigency. At this period, it is probable that two of the causeways, at least, had been constructed ; to wit, those of Tacuba and Tepeyacac ; though they were undoubtedly much improved afterward. The patient toil requisite to make them at all passable marks an advanced stage in the system of govern- ment. In two battles under their valiant leader, the Mexi- cans routed the Tepaneques, entered their capital, and slew the usurper Majtlaton. Most of the nation submitted to the victors, now lords instead of being tributaries ; and con- quered lands were distributed between Motenczoma and the warriors who had most distinguished themselves in the conflict. The Mexican king, with a due regard to justice, and to prove his gratitude for the assistance he had received^ restored Prince Nezahualcoyotl to the throne of his paternal ancestors, monarchs of the Chichimecos, and put him in possession of Tezcuco. He was also assisted in quelling the opposition of several chieftains, and the allied armies separated with songs of triumph and much booty. The Tlascalese had been very serviceable in this war. The armies of the Mexicans and Acolhuis did not however pause in their career of victory ; but subjected the adjacent tribes who had given cause of provocation, to the distance of about thirty miles south-west from Mexico. It should have been mentioned that before the battles with the tyrant, the Mexican populace, in a solemn meeting, pledged themselves to support the authority of the nobles, and of the king chosen by them, in case of victory ; to be their tributaries, labour in their fields, and follow them in their wars. After the success of his arms, the Mexican king, from a sense of jus- tice, or from motives of policy, conferred on the grandson of Tezozomoc the title of king of Tlacopan (or Tacuba),
VOL. I. F
42 IIISTOKICAL NOTICE OF
investing him with the government of part of the country subject to his forefathers, including the district of Mazahu- acan, extending to the mountains north-west of the lake. A triple alliance was thus formed between the three power- ful princes of Mexico, Tacuba, and Acolhuacan ; the two latter, however, being bound to render aid in case of war to the former, and to yield up to him by far the greatest proportion of the spoil. They were each to have a voice, as honorary electors, in ratifying the choice of every Mexi- can monarch, to be made by four of the Mexican nobles, who were recognised as being invested with that privilege. The Mexicans reciprocally covenanted to aid their tributa- ries and allies. Here v/e arrive at the first great landing- place in the history of their advances to vast power and domination. This alliance, formed with great solemnity in 1426, remained unbroken for a century. During the ten remaining years of the reign of the fourth king of Mexico, the tribes at the south of the lake, to the distance of thirty miles or more, were subdued, and agreed to pay him tribute. In his time the capital was much increased. Buildings of stone and mortar, and temples were erected. His obsequies were celebrated with much pomp.
The general Motenczoma I. was elected his successor, being, as we have mentioned, his nephew, and son of the sec- ond king, Huitzilihuitl. Before his coronation, either in compliance with old precedents, or to create a new and barbarous one, he set out on an expedition to procure prison- ers, by whose sacrifice his coronation might be solemnized. An ancient cause of oflfence was found against the Chal- queses, a tribe between the lake and the mountains to the south-east. Many of them were taken captives ; and Mo- tenczoma was crowned with all the ceremonies of barbaric pomp. The horde of Chalco soon after retaliated the sacri- fice of his people, by putting to death five nobles of Mexico and Tezcuco, who fell into his hands. He caused their bodies to be dried and salted, and placed them in his hall
HERMAN CORTEK. 43
to support the pine torches with which it was illuminated. In consequence of this outrage, Motenczoma with his allies attacked the Chalqueses both by land and water ; sacked their city, and executed their chief. A great quantity of booty was obtained in this war. Soon after the Tlate- lolques, whose inveterate jealousy of their kindred nation remained unabated, and between whom and the Mexicans no intercourse took place except clandestinely, meditated putting themselves at the head of a general conspiracy to overthrow the power of Motenczoma. He anticipated their designs by attacking them ; killed their sovereign, and compelled them to accept a king of his own nomination. In the first nine years of this monarch's reign, he extended his conquests more than 150 miles south and south-west of his capital, and subjected to his dominion the extensive province of Cohuixco. In the tenth year, or 1446, the lake became swollen with excessive rains, and the city of Mexico was inun- dated ; many houses were destroyed, and the streets were- rendered impassable except by boats. To prevent a recur- rence of this calamity, a most laborious work was under- taken and accomplished. A dike was constructed to keep out the waters, nine miles in length and sixty-six in breadth. It was composed of stakes, driven down in parallel rows, the intermediate space being filled with stones and earth. In this work all the allies and neighbouring tributaries assisted. The princes set the example to their subjects by toihng themselves in its construction. As the water was in some places very deep, ingenuity must have supplied mechanical contrivances to overcome the difficulty. This dike was not entirely sufficient to prevent partial inunda- tions ; but was exceedingly useful to the city. Another calamity soon visited it. Untimely frosts and a want of seasonable rains occasioned a failure of the crops for four successive years ; and in 1452 the wants of the people could not be satisfied. The magnates threw open to them-their own granaries, but the supply was inadequate to the necessity.
44 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
In this strait, Motenczoma allowed his subjects to sell them- selves as servants to other nations. Many of them died of exhaustion on their way, and many never returned to their own country. The body of the people supported themselves as their ancestors had done, by hunting and fishing. In 1454 an abundant crop of maize, vegetables, and fruits, restored them to comfort. This famine, like all the difficulties with which this people had to struggle, increased their greatness in its ultimate tendency. It strengthened the hands of the government ; led to prudent calculations against the recurrence of a similar evil, and to an apportionment of tribute among the nations from whom it was exacted, by which the capital was always supplied with provisions sufficient for any ordinary emergency. Wilh returning prosperity, the warlike Motenczoma was soon led to take up arms again. His subjects having been ill-treated, his couriers detained, and the travelling Mexican merchants despoiled by the people to the south-east and east of his kingdom, pretexts for war were found, and readily embraced. In a few years he reduced to subjection the principal towns in the large districts of Mixtecapan and Mazatlan ; pushing his conquests in both directions near to the Gulf of Mexico and to the coast of the Pacific. In 1457, with a powerful army of all his confederates and depend- ants, he waged war on the people of Cuetlachtlan, or Cotasta, whose country lay on the gulf. They formed an alliance with the three martial republics of Tlascala, Cholula, and Huejotzingo, whose territories lay between them and the lake. But the fortune of Motenczoma prevailed. The province of Cuetlachtlan was subdued ; and six thousand captives were sacrificed at the dedication of a new Mex^ ican temple, destined to preserve the bones of victims. After this signal victory, celebrated in Mexican song, Mo^ tenczoma rewarded his ally the king of Tlatelolco, by giving him in marriage his cousin, the sister of the three succeed-, ing monarchs. A rebellion of the people of Chalco at this
HERNAN CORTES. 45
time was punislied with terrible severity ; the yoke of their servitude was made heavier ; and their district was appor- tioned to the principal captains who had signalized them- selves in the war. New conquests followed in rapid succession. The dominions of Motenczoma, at the time of his death, 1464, extended eastward to the Mexican Gulf; south-eastward to the centre of Mixtecapan ; in a southern dii'ection 150 miles, to Chilapan ; and west and north to the mountains which enclose the valley. His garrisons were placed in every tributary region. This king is celebrated for his civil, as well as his military talents. The ceremonial of his court was regulated with great nicety in all its details ; his penal code was rigidly enforced, he built many new temples and established new rites, all of them stained with blood, according to the atrocious super- stitions of the people ; and while his authority was respected with awe and fear, he was personally beloved with an idol- atrous reverence. His obsequies were celebrated with a pomp corresponding to his dignity.
Ajayacatl, his successor, and the sixth of the dynasty, was, as were his two brothers, who succeeded him on the Mexican throne, son of Tezozomoc, by the princess Mat- lalatzin, his own niece, and daughter of Itzcoatl, the fourth Mexican king. He made an expedition to Tehuantepec, on the Pacific Ocean, four hundred miles south-east of the lake ; took many prisoners ; and extended his conquest to Coa- tulco, a maritime town beyond. He returned with booty and with prisoners, who were sacrificed at his coronation. He suppressed rebellions, and strengthened his power within the limits of his predecessor's domain. In 1469 and 1470, the kings of Tacuba and Tezcuco, so long the firm allies of Mexico, died at advanced ages. The latter (Nezahual- coy oil) was one of the most renowned heroes in that age and country. Undaunted and enterprising in war ; severe and inflexible in the administration of justice ; benevolent to his poorer subjects even to beneficence ; ingenious him-
46 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
self in the useful and ornamental arts, and their liberal patron ; enlightened as to religion, and believing in one true God only, while he tolerated from necessity the super- stitions of his subjects ; endowed with a fine imagination, which gave vent to itself in his poetical compositions, not in celebrating in barbaric strains the mere gests of warriors in battle, but in aspirations to the invisible fountain of exist- ence, in hymns to the Omnipotent, and in elegies on the instability of human grandeur ; — such is the character ascribed to the Lord of Acolhuacan. The story of his romantic fortunes in youth, and of his splendid reign after his restoration to his rights, seems to be not altogether apoc- ryphal. The most memorable event in the reign of the sixth Mexican king, was the conquest of the Tlatelolques ; whom his predecessor was either unable or unwilling to re- duce to actual dependency. We have mentioned that Mo- tenczoma I. dictated to them the choice of their king, to whom he subsequently gave his cousin in marriage. This unfortu- nate lady was badly treated by her husband, and gave regular notice of his plots against her countrymen to the Mexicans. A brief but sanguinary contest terminated in the entire subjection of the Tlatelolques. Their king was slain ; their city made a suburb of Mexico, and a heavy tribute imposed upon them. Their confederates were severely punished. The sixth king of Mexico subsequently extended the bound- aries of his empire to the west as far as the kingdom of Michuacan, and reduced the people south of that country to his subjection. He died in 1477, leaving many sons ; one of whom was the celebrated and unfortunate Motenc- zoma II.
He was succeeded by his elder brother, Tizoc, whose reign was less illustrious than that of any of his predeces- sors. He made, however, farther conquests to the south during the five years of his administration. He is said to have been taken off by poison, administered through the malice of a discontented tributary chieftain.
4'
HEllNAN CORTES. 47
The eighth king, brother of his two predecessors, was named Ahuitzotl, who had Hke them proved his mihtary talents by conducting the armies of the kingdom and its alUes to victory. He was crowned with much pomp, after completing the great temple ; having in the intermediate time captivated many prisoners, who were sacrificed at the ceremony. The number mentioned by historians (more than 60,000) is altogether incredible. This king was engaged in a constant succession of wars and conquests until 1496, when the triumph of his arms received a severe check from the people of Atlixo, whose city, though not more than thirty miles from the south-east corner of the lake, yet preserved its independence, as did that of Huexot- zinco, a few miles to the north. In 1498, Mexico was again inundated in consequence of the king's obstinacy in persisting to introduce by a canal the waters of a well in Coyoacan into the lake. In the two last years of his reign, a famous Mexican general, Tliltolotl, marched with his vic- torious troops as far as Guatemala, more than nine hundred miles south-east of the capital. At the time of the death of Ahuitzotl in 1502, the Mexican dominions were nearly as extensive as they w^ere when the Spaniards invaded them.
Motenczoma II. was elected his successor. He was, as we have mentioned, son of the sixth king ;* and had not only distinguished himself as general of the armies, but also in a sacerdotal and civil capacity. He was grave, dignified, aristocratic in his feelings, and withal inclined to be super- stitious. When his election was announced to him, he re- tired into the temple, declaring himself unworthy of the honour. Perhaps his reluctance w^as not altogether affected. He had perhaps good sense enough to know the vacilla- tion of purpose to which his mind seems to have been con- stitutionally subject ; and may have conscientiously shrunk
* Llorenzana says, he was the son of the first Motenczon>R. We have followed Clavigero, who adopts the statement made by the greatest number of chroniclers.
48 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
from the responsibility of controlling a great empire, whose component provinces were heterogeneous, and many of whose vassals were restless under the yoke. The king of Acolhuacan congratulated him and the people over whom he was to rule, in a speech to which he was for some time unable to reply, being overcome by his feelings even to shedding tears. They were prophetic of his misfortunes. The Atliqueses, who had rebelled in the last reign, were selected as the subjects to supply victims for the barbarous rites of the coronation. He returned from an incursion into their province with many prisoners. The ceremonies were splendid, and attracted to Mexico the Tlascales from the east, and the Michicuaneses from the west, who, by the new monarch's commands, were treated with princely hos- pitality. Dances, sports, theatrical representations, and illuminations, enlivened the capital for a long period. Tri- bute poured in from every subjugated tribe. The wealth of the crown and of the nobles was displayed with profusion. Such was the commencement of his unfortunate reign. He soon gave offence by displacing all such officers of his court as were of plebeian origin ; whom the wisdom of his pre- decessors had selected for their ability, without reference to the dignity of their ancestry. Six hundred tributary princes or nobles discharged the offices of his palace, and the number of women connected with the establishment was as great. His passion for the sex was extravagant, but has no doubt been exaggerated. But without anticipating further the particulars which Cortes has himself given, or describing the magnificence of his regal establishment, it is sufficient to say, that boundless luxury and uncontrolled power produced on him their invariable effects. Though of a naturally amiable and mild temperament, pride, supersti- tion and rigour predominated in his administration. The Tlascaleses, whose stubborn little republic had never paid tribute to the Mexicans, had fortified the circuit of their small territory with ditches and forts. Mexican garrisons
HERN AN CORTES. 49
were posted around them ; and they were precluded from carrying on any regular traffic with their neighbours. They built their famous wall, six miles in length, in consequence of the threats of the Mexicans. Shut up thus in their im- pregnable barriers, they experienced one great evil, the want of salt, which their soil did not supply. The small prov- inces between them and the lake, jealous of their preserv- ing an independence which they had lost, attacked them in this reign, and were driven back discomfited, to ask sup- port from Motenczoma. The king despatched an army to their assistance, under the command of his eldest son, which was routed by the Tlascaleses with the loss of the general. Either the Mexicans were unable, with all their power, to subdue this democracy, which existed in defiance of them, at only sixty miles' distance from the capital, or, as some writers have supposed, they were willing to permit them to remain, in an attitude always half-belligerent, in order to have the means of exercising their armies in prac^ tical warfare, and obtaining victims for their gods. The former is by far the most probable supposition. Revolts took place in the more remote provinces, between the time of Motenczoma's accession and 1508. They were not suppressed without many losses, which disheartened the nation. The crops failed, and a famine drove many into exile. A comet appeared, which excited their superstitious terrors ; and the king of Acolhuacan, renowned for his wisdom and skill in astrology, announced, as is said, impend- ing calamities, from the arrival of a strange people. Very probably he did predict misfortunes; and it is equally prob- able that something had already been heard of the settle-* ment of the Spaniards in the Isthmus; and it is very possi- ble that news had been received of their other expeditions to the main. A wizard, employed by Motenczoma, gave him a reply not more favourable than the royal astronomer had done. It is also very likely, that there were in reality some traditionary predictions to a similar eflect ; for such have
VOL. I. G
50 IIISTOIUCAL NOTICE OF
been current among all nations ; and when any thing hap- pens to which they can be made to apply, the legend becomes a prophecy. There is also a romantic story, but which is palpably a pure invention of that age, about a trance into which a sister of Motenczoma (who was afterward con- verted to Christianity) was thrown at this period ; in which the coming of the believers in the true God was revealed to her. Other phenomena followed. The towers of the great temple took fire, and strange shapes were seen in the air, &c. Similar portents are gravely recorded by the histo- rians of the settlement of New-England. They happened also in the most interesting epochs of Roman and Jewish history, according to poets and annalists. A melancholy presentiment of impending evils sunk deeply into the mind of Motenczoma. His generals, however, were still success- ful in quelling the troubles of revolting tributaries ; and in 1512 his dominions were extended some distance to the north. The king of Acolhuacan died, or resigned in 1516. Dissensions arose between his sons. One of them, Caca- matzin, ascended the throne. Ihtiljochitl, the other, agreed to accept a large portion of the paternal possessions in lieu of that dignity. He kept an army in motion, and defied the authority of the Mexican king.
Here we shall pause, and carry this outline of the Mexi- can dynasty no further. It is obvious that the empire was full of the elements of discord. Some small territories remained independent and always hostile, within its bound- aries. Most of the tributary provinces were only kept in seeming subjection by terrors arising from former punish- ments, and the propinquity of Mexican garrisons. Had there been no disaffection to the government of Motenc- zoma, and had the resistance to the Spanish arms been hearty and unanimous, it seems altogether improbable that the small armies of Cortes, even with all their discipline, and the superstitious dread of their arrival in their favour, would ever have made their way within sight of the capital.
HERNAN CORTES. 51
The form of the Mexican political system is said by most modern writers to have resembled the feudal, and they em- ploy terms in speaking of it, borrowed from those apper- taining to the latter. But it certainly has but a vague re- semblance to the constitutions of the northern conquerors; and was made more on a small scale, like that of the Roman empire, with its dependent kingdoms and provinces. The population of the country was very dense ; but we shall not attempt to estimate its probable amount ; as to which all the authorities differ. The nations in the vicinity of the lake were exceedingly procreative. The number of children borne by the wives and concubines of some of the kings, as reported, is almost incredible. The poorer class, how- ever, who constituted the great majority of the people, were unable to maintain large families. Agriculture depended on the natural fertility of the soil. They had no beasts of burthen subjected to the yoke. In the handicrafts culti- vated by the artisans, the division of labour was carried to some extent. The priests and principal warriors were selected from the numerous progeny of the kings and the large body of the nobility. It is not our province to enter into more minute details of the state of this country, which Velasquez was preparing an armament to explore.
The governor of Cuba, not waiting, as we have men- tioned, for the return of his messengers from Spain, had collected a fleet of ten vessels, in addition to those which had returned with Grijalva. He expended twenty thousand ducats from his own resources, in getting up this armament. He was involved in great perplexity in choosing a captain- general of sufficient talents and energy to conduct the enter- prise, and who would at the same time be true to his (the governor's) interest.* His own proceedings had taught
* The dilemma of Velasquez is well expressed by Solis, who says that l).e was endeavouring to find a man de muchocorazon y de poco esgpiritu. The English historian, Robertson, paraphrases the remark, as he does whole pages of the work of Solis, without giving credit to his original. ^
52 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
him to be jealous of entrusting power to others ; and the event was precisely what he anticipated and dreaded. The common voice was in favour of Grijalva ; but as Velasquez remained irresolute, many competitors urged their preten- sions. It is said that the governor offered the command to Beltazar Bermudez, a native of Cuellar, where he was born himself: but that Bermudez was disposed to exact condi- tions, which occasioned his angry dismissal. Antonio Ve- lasquez Borrego, and Bernardine Velasquez, relations of the governor, were also prominent candidates ; but the soldiers and volunteers were generally opposed to the appointment of either of them. In this juncture, Amador de Lares, royal treasurer in Cuba, and Andres de Duero, private sec- retary to the governor, urged upon him the nomination of Hernan Cortes. The treasurer is recorded to have been a man of great subtlety and business talents, who had filled several important stations without knowing how to read or write. Cortes was very intimate with him ; and it was currently reported at the time, that, by an arrangement between them, the treasurer was to share in the profits of the expedition. It is natural to suppose that neither his in- tercession nor that of the secretary was purely disinterested. Their representations were effectual ; and Cortes receiv^ed an ample commission, drawn by the secretary, to make discoveries, to traffic with the natives and obtain gold, as captain-general of the armada, under Velasquez* It is proper to mention that the powers assumed by the governor, in granting this instrument, were not actually granted to him until the 13th of November, when a capitulation was signed with his agent by Fonseca, at Barcelona. This was only five days before Cortes sailed. When the appoint- ^nent was made public, it of course did not give satisfaction to the friends and dependants of the rejected candidates. On a Sunday, as Velasquez was going to church, with Cortes walking by his side, one Cervantes, a licensed buflfoon, cried out, " Friend Diego, you have made a rare choice ! How
HERNAN CORTES. 53
soon will you want to send another fleet after Cortes ?" The relatives of Velasquez were assiduous in insinuating to him the doubts and suspicions which he ought to entertain of a man at once popular and ambitious ; who, as they urged, made frankness and liberality a cloak for deceit and cupidity ; and who only smothered the resentment he enter- tained at having been formerly coerced and imprisoned, until he could take full revenge. These suggestions gained upon the mind of the governor daily, as the time for the departure of the fleet drew nearer. Meantime Cortes assumed the state belonging to his oflice ; with his military attire, and the other ensigns of his dignity. He erected a magnificent standard of gold and velvet before his own door ; with the royal arms and the sign of the cross em- broidered upon it, and with the motto in Latin, " Brothers, let us follow the cross, for with it we shall conquer." He had little difficulty in obtaining volunteers. The fame of the enterprise drew around him the most active and valiant men of the island. It was, however, necessary for him to provide arms, munitions, horses, and provisions, to a consid- erable amount, at his own outlay ; and his private means were very scanty. He had two thousand pesos in the hands of Andrea Duero ; and he borrowed four thousand more from two of his friends. Captain Bernal Diaz mentions that he had been extravagant in maintaining the state and appearance of himself and his wife ; by which the income of his property had bceen wasted. The difficulties he had gone through to obtain the lady, no doubt operated on his pride, and induced him to run into unnecessary and impru- dent expenses in his domestic display. Three hundred vol- unteers soon joined his standard in St. Jago. Many of these were personal adherents of the governor; and among them was Diego de Ordas, his first major-domo, said to have been specially commissioned to act as a spy on ths actions of Cortes. Captain Bernal Diaz, as we have before mentioned, with many of the former adventurers under Grijalva, went
54 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
to seek his fortune on his own account. Without giving a catalogue of all who were subsequently distinguished, who joined Cortes before his final departure from the island, we shall only mention the names of Pedro de Alvarado, Cristo- val de Olid, and Gonzalo de Sandoval, all of which belong to history. The two first met with a violent death on the field of the conquest ; the last, v/ho always remained faith- ful to the fortunes of Cortes, died at a premature age, in Andalusia, while accompanying the conqueror to court. The preparations of Cortes being now nearly completed, the reluctance on the part of the governor to intrust him with the armament grew stronger. Herrera says that Ve- lasquez determined to revoke the commission, and commu- nicated his intention to the secretary and treasurer, who gave timely intimation of it to Cortes ; and that the latter departed from the port at night, without the ceremony of taking leave. This story, with its other embellishments, as compiled by that worthy and laborious annalist, is improb- able on its face, and is contradicted by Bernal Diaz, an eye- witness. According to him, Cortes certainly departed in great haste. Devolving on his wife the charge of procuring what supplies remained wanting, he warned all who had enlisted to be on board the vessels at a certain hour ; which summons being complied with, he repaired, with the secre- tary and treasurer to the governor's house, to receive his final commands. On the ensuing morning, the 18th of No- vember, 1518, he set sail. The governor accompanied him to his ship, in seeming amity. As the fleet was to touch at other ports in the island, and remain there for some time, there can be little doubt that Velasquez preferred postpon- ing any open rupture with the leader of so many brave and impatient men, all, except his own creatures, uneasy to de- part. He was deficient in moral energy if not in courage ; aud the want of sufficient confidence in himself, the con- sciousness of which deterred him from undertaking in per- son the glorious enterprise in which Cortes was now embark-
HERNAN CORTES. 65
ing, necessarily Jed him to hate any Heutenant whose success must throw his own pretensions into the shade. What he dared not do himself, he meditated doing by deputy ; and reckoned upon having Cortes sent back to St. Jago as a prisoner, upon some frivolous pretext, before the fleet left Cuba. How absurd his pohcy was, is manifest from what followed.
The fleet arrived in a few days at Trinidad. Cortes had several particular friends in this town, who gave him a hearty reception. Here he again erected his standard, and made a proclamation inviting volunteers. He was joined by many cavaliers of good birth, who contributed from their estates provisions and other necessaries, and by a hundred soldiers from Trinidad and the town of Santa Spiritu. It was difficult to obtain horses ; and those which could be procured were bought at a dear price. A vessel arriving with a cargo of provisions, the owner enrolled himself under Cortes, who bought the ship and her lading on credit. The enemies of Cortes at St. Jago continued to work upon the mind of Velesqucz ; and even employed a crazy astro- loger named Juan Millan to predict the revenge which the captain-general would take for former grudges. They hinted at a secret treaty between him and the secretary and treasurer ; and urged his abrupt departure, as an evidence of what his future course would be. Velasquez may have been glad to listen to these suggestions by way of finding pretexts for what he desired to do. At any rate, his indecision was brought to a close, and he despatched two confidential persons to Trinidad with orders to Fran- cisco Verdugo, the alcalde mayor of that town, who was his brother-in-law, to divest Cortes of his command, and take from his control the fleet and troops, announcing that he had been superseded, and that Visco Porcallo had been appointed in his stead. Diego de Ordas, and the immediate friends and connexions of the governor, received private orders to the same effect. But Cortes was not unprepared
56 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
for this message. He had a large and well-appointed body of men around him, eager to serve under him, and sufficient to overawe the few who were attached to the governor's interest, or might be inclined to respect his authority. Cortes chose, however, to put in requisition his talents of persuasion. Diego de Ordaz was induced by him to represent to the alcalde the danger of attempting to exe- cute the order by force. Verdugo had good sense enough himself to see the folly of such a measure, even if he had been inclined to carry it into effect. This he communicated by letter to the governor, as did also Diego de Ordaz and others. Cortes wrote to him too, in a courteous and sub- missive strain, expressing his attachment to him and his interests, and his surprise at the steps he had taken; entreat- ing him not to listen to the calumnies of his rivals, or to the ravings of a madman. One of the messengers who had brought the order, returned with these despatches. The other remained and enrolled himself under Cortes. We have no right to suppose that Cortes did not intend to keep strict faith with Velasquez at the time when he received his appointment. But after all the jealousy and doubts of his fidelity, which had been so poorly disguised, and this attempt to take from him all participation in an enterprise in which he had invested all his property, and to further which he had pledged his credit to the uttermost, and involved his friends and their fortunes with him, it is not to be supposed that he felt conscientiously scrupulous as to the rights of the governor.
He now gave orders for the fleet to sail to the Havana. The smiths of Trinidad were busily employed in the inter- mediate time in making arrow heads for the cross-bows, and other necessary implements. They accompanied the expedi- tion. Pedro de Alvarado, with fifty men under his command, proceeded to the Havana by land, in order to take the horses there, and receive some expected volunteers. Juan de Es- cal^nte sailed to that port in the vessel under his command.
HERNAN CORTES* 57
by a northern route ; while Cortes with the fleet took the southern direction. Alvarado and Escalante arrived safely, as did all the other ships of ihe fleet, except that in which Cortes had embarked. This vessel parted from the others during the night after they sailed, and had not since been seen. For seven days the adventurers remained in great anxiety, fearing that the missing ship had been lost on the shoals called the Gardens. A proposition was made and agitated to elect a new commander* Diego de Ordaz urged this measure very strenuously ; expecting, it is said, that the choice would fall on him, on account of his enjoying the confidence of the governor. But on the eighth day, Cortes arrived. The ship, which was one of the heaviest burthen, had in fact struck upon a shoal, and been got off by lightening her cargo. The captain-general and his forces were received with distinguished honour and hospitality by Pedro Barba, lieutenant of Velasquez at the Havana. At his house Cortes took up his quarters ; displayed his stand- ard before the. door, and beat up for volunteers. Many gentlemen and soldiers joined him. Finding that Diego de Ordaz had manifested sym.ptoms of a want of attachment to his interests, and that his presence might prove dangerous under existing circumstances, he despatched him in one of the barks to Guanicano, a small settlement round Cape An- ton, directing him to procure provisions there, of bread and bacon, and wait until the arrival of the fleet, or till further orders. He then caused his artillery to be drawn on shore and put in order ; the arms and equipments to be inspected, and the horses to be examined and taken care of. He exer- cised the soldiers every day with great diligence, in the man- agement of their arms and in all the military evolutions ; regulated his own family, and enforced the strictest disci- pline. The neighbouring country yielded abundance of cotton ; and the soldiers provided themselves wkh jackets of that material ; which, being well quilted between pieces of linen cloth, was said to be a more eflectual defence
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58 lilsTOiUCAL NOTICE OF
against the arrows of the Indians than the ordinary kind of armour. When these preparations were nearly completed, a messenger named Garnica arrived at the Havana, bear- ing peremptory despatches from the governor to his lieu- tenant Pedro Barba, commanding him to arrest Cortes and send him to St. Jago under a strong guard ; and to detain the fleet and forces until further orders. Letters were also brought of the same purport, to Diego de Ordaz and Velas- quez de Leon, entreating them to assist in carrying the order into eflect. The former, as we have mentioned, had been previously sent away. Solis, and those who have followed him, are in error in saying that it was afterward. Cortes was apprized of the object of Garnica's mission as soon as the governor, if not before him ; for the messenger brought with him letters from a friar of the order of Mercy, to the chaplain of the expedition, Bartolome de Olmedo, of the same order ; and it is supposed that the secretary and treas- urer also took occasion to give timely notice of the tidings. Cortes communicated the intelligence to his officers and men. A great tumult ensued, and they all vowed to support their captain-general, in defiance of the governor and his lieutenant. Velasquez de Leon himself was dissatisfied with the mandate, and took the same side with the troops. In the midst of their indignation, Pedro Barba came among them, and assured them he had no intention of offering to enforce his instructions. The messenger returned with documents similar to those sent back from Trinidad on a like occasion, the lieutenant assuring the governor that any attempt to arrest Cortes would only occasion the town to be sacked, and its inhabitants to be carried off* in the fleet. Cortes also wrote as before, professing his devotion to Ve- lasquez, and regretting that his enemies should so misrepre- sent his motives and actions. But it is obvious that he thenceforth considered himself absolved from the tie of obe- dience to the capricious governor. What respect he may have meant to pay to the rights of the latter in the vessels
HERNAN CORTES. 69
and property which he had purchased in the first instance at his own expense, and in the profits of the expedition according to the agreement between them, he probably left to be developed by circumstances — as we shall also do.
Not deeming it prudent to delay his departure longer, the whole fleet sailed on the ensuing day, being the 10th of Feb- ruary, 1519, for the island of Cozumel. The experienced Alaminos acted as chief pilot, in which capacity he had sailed before with Cordova and Grijalva. A solemn mass was celebrated before departing ; and St. Peter, whom Cortes had always invoked as the patron of his undertakings, was named as presiding over the destinies of the armada. The armament consisted of eleven vessels, the largest of 100 tons, three of from 70 to 80 tons, and the rest of smaller size and without decks. On board were five hundred and eight soldiers, and a hundred and nine seamen and artizans. Each ship contained a company under the command of its captain, who commanded the vessel at sea, and the com- pany on shore. Only thirteen soldiers were armed with muskets, and thirty-two with cross-bows ; the rest had swords and spears. The train of artillery consisted of ten small field-pieces and four falconets. There were also six- teen horses, and some fierce dogs of Spanish breed. With the past experience of their countrymen in their adventures on the main, this force seems entirely inadequate to effect the objects they had in view. Could they have known the actual power of the Mexican empire, it must have seemed to themselves a most Quixotic enterprise to undertake its subjection. The disparity between their force and that which might have opposed them, is infinitely greater than we can find a parallel for in all history, taking it as it is handed down to us. Had the twelfth Charles of Sweden over- turned the throne of the czars, the seeming disproportion between cause and effect would not have been greater than that exhibited in the instance of Cortes and Motenczoma, the relative resources of each party being fairly weighed, according to the evidence left upon record.
00 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
Pedro de Alvarado was directed to proceed with the ship commanded by him to Guanicanico, to join Diego de Ordaz, and w^ait with him at Cape St. Anton, for the arrival of the admiral and the rest of the fleet. A tempest arose during the night subsequent to its setting sail, which rendered it necessary for the vessels to part company. Pedro de Alva- rado, a faithful soldier, but a landsman, left the control of the vessel to his pilot, who, contrary to the instructions of Cortes, proceeded to Cozumel, where the ship arrived two days before the others. Alvarado's company marched to the town of Cozumel, which they found deserted by the natives. Proceeding further, they saw the people flying from their approach ; and, entering their settlements, they found some fowls and other provisions, w^ith idols, utensils, and rude ornaments of debased gold. Returning with this miserable booty, they took captive two males and a female, who had wandered from their tribe. Cortes arrived with the fleet, including the ship of Diego de Ordaz, with which he had fallen in ; and was extremely incensed, not only at the neglect of his orders, but at the unauthorized inroad into the country. He ordered the pilot Camacho to be put in irons, and solemnly reprimanded Alvarado for his imprudence and assumption of authority, in what he had done. It was his wish and policy to proceed by pacific measures, while they could accomplish his object ; and this first disobedience of orders certainly called for a more severe example, had it been possible to hold the bonds of discipline as tight, at so early a period of the enterprise, and among such a high- spirited band of adventurers, as the nature of the service required. He ordered the property to be restored through the captives whom he released ; and the interpreter, Mel- chor (an Indian captured in Cordova's expedition), was directed to tell them to call back their fugitive countrymen, with assurances that they would not be harmed. Presents of beads and trinkets, and a shirt to each of them, satisfied them so well, that on their representation the chief of the place with the inhabitants returned the next day, and a most
HERPfAN CORTES. 61
amicable intercourse and commerce ensued between them and the Spaniards. Cortes, while at Cozumel, gave an- other specimen of the sort of discipline he meant to enforce, by causing seven sailors to be severely flogged, who had been detected in stealing bacon. The whole forces here passed muster and were inspected, with their equipments. Solis, after the manner of the ancient historians, makes a good speech for Cortes on this occasion, which might per- haps have been delivered to advantage ; but which is in a style very different from that of the conqueror, as we find it in the following letters. It is a handsome speech, never- theless. Before departing from Cozumel, Cortes had the good fortune to acquire a valuable auxiliary, in the follow- ing way. Having heard from those who sailed with Cor- dova, that the Indians of Cotoche, the northern point of Yucatan, frequently made use of the word Castillan, a cir- cumstance for which the Spaniards could not account, he questioned the native chiefs upon the subject, and was informed by some of the natives who were travelling for the purpose of barter, that there were two Spaniards at a place about four leagues from Cotoche whom they had seen and conversed with a few days before. Cortes immediately despatched two light vessels well manned, under the com- mand of Diego de Ordaz, with letters to his countrymen and beads to pay for their redemption. The Indians who gave the information went along ; and the letters in two days were delivered to Jeronimo de Aguilar, one of the captives. He had been ordained a deacon in the church ; and was wrecked eight years before, with seventeen others, while going from Darien to St. Domingo. They took to their boats, and were driven by the current on the coast of Yucatan, where they were made prisoners, and some of them sacrificed. Disease and ill-usage had carried oft^ all the others except Aguilar and a man named Guerrero, who had married and adopted the Indian mode of living. The latter refused to leave his wife and children ; but Aguilar
62 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
joyfully received the messengers, and his Indian master accepted the proffered ransom. His deliverance, however, came near being defeated ; for Ordaz having waited during eight days according to his orders, and hearing nothing of the messengers, returned to Cozumel, much to the vexation of Cortes. When the fleet put back, from a cause here- after to be mentioned, Aguilar crossed the gulf in a boat, with the Indian messengers, and was taken on board. His complexion had become so altered, and his habits were so like those of the natives, that his countrymen at first could not distinguish him. He was squalid and nearly naked ; but had preserved the tatters of a book of prayers, which were tied under his shoulders. He proved of essential and indeed indispensable service, having learned in Yucatan the lengua Maya, currently spoken in those countries, by which he was enabled to act as interpreter. While at Coz- umel, Cortes took a step calculated to affront the natives, which seems, at first, inconsistent with his reproof of Alva^ rado. He attended with many of his followers at a reli- gious ceremony of the natives, performed in one of the rude temples of the island, decorated with uncouth and grotesque images. An old priest ascended to the summit of the tem- ple, and harangued to the Indians. Cortes, after a few brief inquiries from Melchor as to the purport of the sermon, interrupted the ceremonies, and expostulated with those offi- ciating, and with the audience, on the folly of their idolatry. Through the medium of an interpreter, and under the excite- ment of the moment, his exposition of the merits of his own creed must have been truly edifying. The Indians, however, are said to have replied, in a spirit of philosophic reasoning, at least as profound as that of Jean Jaques Rousseau, that their ancestors had always observed this religious ritual, and lived comfortably under it : adding, that if they pros- trated their temples, the gods of the violated sanctuaries would forsake and destroy them. By way of showing them what their gods were worth, Cortes directed his foU
ilEHNAN CORTES. 63
lowers to tumble them from their elevations, and break them to pieces. Indian masons were procured to build with stone and mortar an extemporary altar and chapel. The cross and an image of the Virgin were erected ; and mass was performed ; to which the Indians listened with great decorum and gravity. Cortes was no hypocrite. He be- lieved in the efficacy of the symbols and sacraments of his church, even among these pagans, who only saw one figure, strange to them, substituted for others with which they were familiar. We cannot, without distorting historical evidence, and avoiding the plain conclusions of good sense and com- mon reason, believe that the indignation of the conqueror at the sight of idolatrous worship in temples stained with human sacrifices, was affected, and assumed for pohtic pur- poses. His plain policy was to conciliate the natives and win their confidence ; leaving them, at the same time, under a due sense of the puissance of Spanish valour and disci- pline, and of the extraordinary engines of destruction which could be used against them. And this policy he uniformly followed. The abrupt prostration of temples and images was impolitic, and prompted by sheer enthusiasm. And yet there is no point on which the memory of Hernan Cortes has been more assailed, by writers of different creeds, and of no creed at all, than this. In his whole career as a con- queror, he was a persevering Iconoclast ; and, as will be seen from his letters, resistance often ensued on the part of the Indians, which led to the shedding of blood. Let us therefore despatch this reproach against him here, as we think may be done, with brevity. The rigid and the liberal Catholic will justify or find an apology for his zeal. He was superstitious ; but the wisest and greatest of men have laboured under the same excess or weakness of feeling, whichsoever it may be, or ought to be termed. Pious Protestants must not throw the first or the last or any stone at Cortes, for they will be referred to the history of their own doings ; from the burning of Servetus by John
04 HISTOUICAL NOTICE OF
Calvin, to the shooting of poor Indians like wild beasts irl swamps and morasses, as " pestilent here Lies ;" the roasting of poor Quakers and Baptists as schismatics; and the hang- ing and drowning of poor crazy old women as witches, by the enlightened puritan settlers in New-England, if the philanthropist who disregards sects, in his love for the whole family of man, be disposed to censure Cortes on this score, it is a sufficient answer to him to say, that, on the most moderate estimate, a thousand mangled carcasses of human victims had been every year precipitated down the steps of some of these temples, which the zeal of Cortes purified with fire and sword, or levelled to their foundations. There was therefore an immense saving of human life effected. We mean to employ no sophistry in these suggestions, but only to meet the several vituperators of Cortes with their own weapons. He believed that his cause was good ; and he certainly meant to make it such, by success, whether it was so or was not.
The fleet sailed from Cozumel in the beginning of March, but were obliged to return for a day or two to repair some damages done to the ship of Juan de Escalante, which con- tained the bread. By this fortunate circumstance, as we have before mentioned, the deacon Aguilar was enabled to join the expedition. Few incidents occurred in this voyage to Tabasco. The fleet arrived at the mouth of the river of Grijalva on the 13th day of March. The smaller vessels and boats only could ascend the river ; and in these the troops proceeded to the level and marshy shore, disembark- ing about a league from the town. The borders of the stream were filled with canoes containing armed Indians ; and a numerous body, computed at 12,000 warriors, had assembled at the town of Tabasco. Their demonstrations were hostile ; and they replied to the overtures of Cortes, made through Aguilar, by threatening death to all who should attempt to approach their capital. It subsequently appearejl that the neighbouring nations had taunted them as
HERNAN COIITES. 65
cowards, for their amicable treatment of Grijalva ; and that they had collected their forces and those of their allies en masse, being determined to repel their visiters. Cortes made his dispositions accordingly. Dividing the artillery, muskets^ and cross-bows among the vessels, he directed Alonzo de Avila to march with a hundred men, by a narrow road leading from the point of Calmares, as the first place of disembarkation was called by the Spaniards, towards the town; The main body proceeded in the vessels to the shore near it; and De Avila had instructions, when he heard the firing of artillery, to attack the place on one side, while Cortes was to assault it on the other. This was carried into effect the next morning, after celebrating mass. As the vessels approached the shore they were surrounded by a countless number of canoes, filled with armed Indians, shouting defiance, and sounding their trumpets, horns, and rude timbrels. Cortes again caused it to be made known to them, through the formality of a royal notary, that he came only for a supply of wood and water ; and that they must be responsible for the consequences of any violence they might offer. The Indians, in reply, gave with their drums, signals for an attack, closed upon the Spaniards, and discharged their arrows and lances. The Spaniards fought up to the middle in water ; and were embarrassed in their progress by the deep mud on the shore, in which Cortes left one of his buskins. Attaining the firm land, they drove the enemy before them, who fell behind a circular stockade. They were successively driven from this and the other bar- ricades and defences of their town. De Avila came up at an opportune moment, having been retarded in his march by marshes and other obstacles. The Indians retreated in good order, parting the enemy ; but were compelled at length to evacuate the last disputed post, which was a court in the centre of the town, containing some large buildings and temples, in which they had collected their effects. Here the Spaniards halted, and Cortes, drawing his sword, took
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66 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
possession of the country for his majesty, with a ceremony of his own device, declaring himself ready to defend it, with the arms he then brandished, against all who should deny the royal claim. No mention being made of Velasquez, or his rights, in this chivalric flourish, the partisans of the governor murmured in secret at the omission. In this affair fourteen Spaniards were wounded, and eighteen Indians left dead on the field. On the next day the interpreter Melchor was missing, having deserted during the night, leaving his clothes behind him. He joined the Indians ; and by his representation of the small number of the invaders, induced them to persevere in opposing them. It is said that he was afterward sacrificed, in revenge for the discomfiture and slaughter which his counsels occasioned. Cortes sent out two bodies, of a hundred men each, to reconnoitre the country for two leagues round the post. They were attacked on all sides by large bodies of warriors, and com- pelled to retreat, with the loss of two men killed, and eleven wounded. Those who remained in the town were In the mean time fiercely assailed ; and a prisoner who was taken that day informed Cortes, that by Melchor's advice, he would be attacked both by day and by night. He was sent to his countrymen with an amicable mes- sage ; but never returned. In addition to those wounded, a number of the most active young men in the Span- ish force were unfit for service, from a debilitating sick- ness. Cortes sent the invalids on board the ships. He brought the horses on shore, and assigning them to the most skilful riders among his officers and soldiers, took the com- mand of the small body in person. On the 25th of March the whole force sallied from the town ; and in the plains of Centla, distant about a league, they met the army of the Indians, covering the ground as far as the eye could reach, well appointed according to their military fashion, and ad- vancing with great fury. Seventy soldiers were wounded by the fir^t discharge of their missiles. They closed up, and
HERNAN CORTES. 67
fought hand to hand, yielding very little ground at any time during the engagement. Whenever a cannon was fired they raised a deafening shout, closing their dense masses around the range of the ball, and throwing up dust into the air, to conceal the loss they had sustained. At length, Cortes, who had made a circuit for the purpose, suddenly attacked them with the cavalry in the rear. Not expecting this assault, and bent only on fighting those in front, a com- plete route soon ensued. The horsemen rode through them as they pleased ; and the information Melchor had given does not appear to have removed the terror which the sight of these strange animals naturally inspired. Thanks were given, under a grove of trees on the field of battle, to God and the Virgin, for the victory. A town was afterward built on the spot, called Santa Maria de Victoria, in honour of the day, which was that of our T>ady, and of the occa- sion. This town was deserted during the middle of the last century. The Spaniards bound up their wounds and those of the horses, using the fat of Indians for ointment. Two of their number only were killed in the battle. They found on the field upwards of eight hundred of the enemy dead or dying. Five prisoners were taken, two of whom seemed to be principal men. Cortes treated them kindly, and sent them, with presents of beads and trinkets, to their countrymen. The result was, that after some little nego- tiation, in which Cortes preserved a poHtic show of anger, to enhance the value of the peace he was desirous to estab- lish, the principal chiefs of the vicinity waited on Cortes with great humility. They approached him with the rev- erence they paid to their gods, throwing up incense from their censers ; endeavoured to assign excuses for the hostile reception they had given him, and besought him to receive them into his friendship. They brought presents of gold, wrought in the form of different animals and objects, with mantles of cotton and feathers. Their most acceptable offering seems, however, to have been twenty female slaves,
t>8 HISTORICAL NOTICE OP
whom the Spaniards were well content to take. Among them was the celebrated Dona Marina, as she was called afterward, at her baptism, or malintzin, as it was pro- nounced by the Mexicans. She was a native of Painala, in the Mexican province of Coatzacualco. Her father was a great chief; but having left her mother a widow, the latter intermarried with another tributary noble, by whom she had a son. In order that the whole inheritance might devolve upon him, the daughter was sold to certain merchants who came from the vicinity of Tabasco, and it was given out that she had died. She was brought up among the Tabas- queses, and understood, in addition to her native Mexican tongue, the lengua Maya, spoken in Yucatan and Tabasco, Her quick intelligence enabled her to acquire, in a short time, a sufficient knowledge of the Spanish to act as inter- preter, with the aid of Aguilar. She is described as a very handsome, high-spirited woman. She remained through life constant in her fidelity to the Spaniards and in her per- sonal attachment to Cortes. The important services she was able to render are recorded by him. After the baptism of herself and her companions on the ensuing day, Cortes gave one of them to each of his captains. Dona Marina was presented to Alonzo Puertocarrero. When he went to Old Castile, not long after, Cortes took her to himself, and she had a son by him. Much romance is mixed with her subsequent history, to which we shall pay no attention. What has been stated, and may be mentioned in its proper place of this interesting woman, is vouched for by Bernal Diaz with the solemnity of an abjuration and an amen. Cortes remained five days after this baptism, which accom- panied other religious rites, at Tabasco. The chieftains acknowledged the king of Castile as their sovereign, and were exhorted to maintain their allegiance. A supply of provisions being obtained, the fleet sailed for St. Juan de Ulua, on the morning after Palm Sunday, and arrived at that port on the evening of Holy Thursday. As they sailed
HERNAN CORTES. 69
along the coast, those who had accompanied Grijalva pointed out to Cortes the rivers, mountains, and points of land to which they had given magnificent names on their former voyage. Cortes encouraged their enthusiasm ; praying for the fortune in arms of the Paladin Rolan, with which, and with such soldiers as he commanded, he assured them he would conduct the enterprise to glorious results.
As the fleet, having arrived off San Juan de Ulua, was passing between the islands and the shore, two large canoes or piraguas were seen approaching, which advanced near the admiral's ship without any signs of timidity. The Indians within them began addressing the Spaniards in a language which was new to them, and which their inter- preter, Aguilar, did not understand. Doria Marina, how- ever, did. They spoke in the Mexican tongue ; and she communicated the purport of what they said to Aguilar, in the language of Yucatan, who again rendered it into Spanish. Cortes was so overjoyed at possessing even this circuitous means of conferring with the Indians, that he considered it a visible interposition of Providence in his favour. The Indians were received on board, and stated that they were sent by the governor, a servant of the great Motenczoma, to inquire whither they were bound, and to supply them with any provisions or necessaries of which they might be in want. The story of some of the old writers, that the advance of the fleet was perceived from the distant mountains of Tochtlan and Mictlan, and com- municated to the capital by means of the couriers, in time for an order to arrive from court to the governor, before Cortes entered the harbour, is utterly incredible, on account of the distance of the places asunder. But it is by no means doubtful, that the governor of Motenczoma had general instructions how to act in case of the arrival of the Spaniards, which was anticipated with so niuch panic. Cortes received these messengers with great courtesy, made them a present of cut glass and other toys, and entertained
70 HISTORICAL NOTICE OP
them with European wines. He informed them that he came in perfect amity, to visit the people of the country, and traffic with them for its productions ; with which answer they returned to the governor. On the ensuing day, the cavalry, infantry, and artillery were disembarked ; tempo- rary barracks constructed on the sandy soil of the coast, and an altar erected. In this labour they were materially assisted by the natives, who brought hatchets with which they cut stakes, which they drove into the ground, and erected huts with great dexterity and rapidity. They took particular pains with that designed for Cortes. They also brought cotton cloths to shelter the Spaniards from the sun, and presents of gold, fowls, bread, and fruit. They gave information that the governor would wait in person upon Cortes : and it was gathered from them, that this country was a recent acquisition of the Mexican empire ; that the General Teuhtile was extending his conquests with a large force, while the civil government was entrusted to Cuitalpitoc, who had a large retinue of officers and servants with him. Accordingly, on the day of the feast of the Resurrection, these nobles visited Cortes with great state, accompanied by a long train of followers, bearing loads of provisions, and baskets containing presents. Cortes re- ceived them with much ceremony, surrounded by his prin- cipal captains. They made three several obeisances, after which he advanced to meet them ; and, conducting them with great gravity to the principal barrack, mass was per- formed. He directed the interpreters to communicate to them, that this religious office was a proper preliminary to entering upon business, and to entreat Providence for a happy issue to their conference. We shall refer with all possible brevity to the events which ensued between this period and that at which the narrative by Cortes himself commences. They are related with few variations in all the common popular works. Cortes, after mass had been said, ^and the ambassadors or governors had partaken of ji
HERNAN CORTES. 71
banquet with him, informed them that he came from a great king, whose court was far distant beyond the sea, and who had heard of the fame of their monarch Motenczoma. That he was commissioned by him to wait on Motenczoma, whom he must see, as he had matters of importance to dis- close to him. Teuhtile, upon hearing this, is said to have expressed very plainly his surprise that Cortes, who had just touched the shore, should talk of seeing the distant and powerful emperor. He, however, begged him to accept a present of gold, wrought in different fashions, with speci- mens of the richest manufactures of the country, and said that he would immediately cause his desire to be commu- nicated to Motenczoma. A number of native painters were present, who took copies of what most struck them in the camp, and, as is said, accurate likenesses of the counte-' nances of Cortes and several of his attendants. These were sent to Mexico with some trifling presents, the best Cortes had to offer. Motenczoma's panic increased with the tidings brought by his couriers. In the weakness of his judgment he sought to win the Spaniards from their pur- pose by richer presents, which only whetted their curiosity, ambition, and cupidity. They were brought, after a lapse of only seven days, to the encampment. A train of a hun- dred men carried them, and deposited them on cotton cloths at the feet of Cortes, whom the ambassadors approached with salutations of the deepest reverence, touching the earth with their hands, and kissing them, and fumigating him with their vessels of incense. The purport of their answer was, that Motenczoma would rejoice to see their emperor,- and entertain friendly relations with him ; but that the jour- ney to his court was attended with difficulties ; lay over bad roads beset by enemies ; and that he did not wish the Spaniards to attempt it. Cortes received this message with placidity ; accepted the magnificent present with grateful acknowledgments, and gave the ambassadors such speci- mens of European manufacture as he could spare. He
72 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
then reiterated his purpose, and his request that he might visit the monarch in his capital ; stating that he 1 ad come from a vast distance over the ocean with this principal object, and that the king his master would be grievously offended, should he return without effecting it. The ambassadors, after in vain remonstrating against this determination, repaired a second time to court ; and after a lapse of some days, again returned from the infatuated sovereign with the richest presents he could command ; but with a posi- tive notice that all conference as to further intercourse with Mexico must cease. He had consulted his gods with daily sacrifices of human victims ; and the answers of his priests corroborated the suggestions of his own terrors. Instead of taking active measures to drive the invaders from his shores, he remained trembling in his capital and collecting his forces around it ; leaving the distant and dissatisfied provinces on the gulf open to the intrigues of the strangers. When this last reply was delivered to Cortes, after politely thanking the ambassadors for the gifts they brought, he turned to some of his followers and observed, " Truly, this is a great and rich monarch ; by God's blessing we must see him." He caused the Mexican nobles and their train to be enlightened by a lecture from Fra. Bartolome, on the Catholic faith and its ordinances ; and they were pre- sented by the latter with an image of the Virgin, with the infant Jesus in her arms. On the morning following this performance, all the Mexicans were found to have departed from the vicinity of the encampment, and no traces of them were to be discovered.
We must now consider Cortes as having taken an independent stand. Though the commission to Velas- quez had not arrived when he left Cuba, and though his own, on being examined narrowly by those who had sup- posed him invested with plenary powers, directed him to return after procuring as m.uch gold as he could, he was now professedly attempting conquests, as the direct
HERNAN CORTES. 73
lieutenant of the King of Spain, and bent on subjecting Motenczoma to his allegiance, though he had not yet openly avowed that object to the natives.
There were much greater difficulties in his way, in the accomplishment of his grand aim, than the smallness of his own force, and the greatness of that of the Mexican empire. The friends of Velasquez conceived that his rights were entirely neglected ; despaired of gaining further advantages at present ; and were resolute in requiring that the fleet should return. Even before the last visit of the ambassa- dors, Cuitalpitoc, who remained near the Spaniards, to superintend the supplying them with provisions (and, no doubt, to watch their proceedings narrowly also), had relaxed very much in his efibrts to procure them food* The few Indians who occasionally brought fowls to barter for trinkets and toys had learned to demand a much higher price for them ; and the officers and soldiers subsisted principally on such fish as could be procured by the mari- ners, whom they paid for their services with such bits of gold as fell to their share, or were obtained by barter. As the scarcity of food continued to increase, this mode of purchasing- it became more general ; and the party of Velasquez contended loudly that this manner of disbursing the gold was a violation of the contract, by which it was to be thrown into a common stock, under care of a treasurer, and divided ; rendering his stipulated share to the governor of Cuba. Cortes, who knew that the wants of the many must prevail over the murmurs of a few, affected to yield to the justice of these representations ; observing that he had winked at what seemed a necessary infraction of the agreement ; but if the troops could procure food in any other way, he would be better content. He accordingly appointed a treasurer. Soon after the intercourse between the Spaniards and Mexicans was broken off (how many days after does not appear with certainty), five Indians arrived at the camp from Cempoxla, a neighbouring to>vn,
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74 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
in the province of Totonaca. Three of them understood the Mexican language ; and on their being brought to Cortes, intimated that they had been sent by their cacique, who was desirous of cultivating the acquaintance of such brave strangers, but had been afraid of approaching him, as he was a tributary of Motenczoma, of whose power he stood in awe. Highly gratified by this prospect of acquir- ing allies, Cortes dismissed the messengers with presents, and assurances that he would soon visit their chief; and if he had even hesitated, as to a fixed perseverance in his enterprise, the present prospect of support from the natives themselves confirmed him in his purpose. It w as expedient, however, to let his conduct seem to grow naturally out of circumstances, if possible ; and he contrived so admirably to give to the measures which were taken the air of being enforced by the exigency of the case and the will of the majority, that it is impossible to prove the contrary from the facts, as transmitted to us, by the fair rules of moral evidence. But we are not disposed to give Cortes the negative credit of merely availinghimself of favourable cir- cumstances. He had the talent and the fortitude to con- trol them, when apparently adverse ; to design and to exe- cute what seemed to be the result of contingent causes not under his influence. Whether he is to be esteemed as a good or a bad man must depend on an impartial considera- tion of his actions, separately, and then in the aggregate. As to his relations with his own government at this crisis, it is sufficient to repeat what we have said, that the perse- cution of Velasquez, who had granted a commission without authority, absolved Cortes from any other obligation to him than the moral one of restoring his property ; and to add, that the Emperor Charles V., in whose name Cortes professed to act, sanctioned and applauded his proceedings on the receipt of his despatches. Leaving these remarks to be applied to the subsequent facts, we shall state them as they occurred, without borrowing from others, or conjee-
IIERNAN CORTES. 75
turing for ourselves the motives of any party to the transactions.
Francisco de Montejo, proceeding in two small vessels along the coast, inquest of a more suitable site for a colony, returned after ten or twelve days, recommending a place called Quiabislan or Quiahuitztla, at about twelve leagues' distance. Thither Cortes determined to advance ; but the clamour of those who wished to return, stimulated by the friends of Velasquez, became so loud, that he was com- pelled to assent, or to seem to assent, to their demands. He professed himself ready to return. It was then that those who were bent on pursuing the conquest, with the leading men, among whom he had no doubt a confidential understand- ing, came to him and solemnly demanded to be led on by him, " in the service of God and his majesty," requesting him to assume the independent command, which they were willing to confer on him, and uphold him in exercising. After a little decent affectation of reluctance, Cortes ac- cepted the proposition, and expressed himself, in animated terms, ready to conduct them to wealth and glory. The principal men were summoned to attend at an extraordinary meeting, and elected a council and magistrates, in whom the government of the colony was to be vested. At the first meeting of this assembly Cortes requested to be admitted. He entered with a respectful and reverential air ; and addressed the members at much length, and with much art. He stated that he considered their body as now represent- ing the dignity and authority of the crown ; that the com- mission he held from the Governor of Cuba was a defective one, and perhaps invalid : that he therefore desired to re- sign it, leaving it to their wisdom to elect a fitting com- mander, whom he was willing to follow, and to carry a pike under, as a common soldier. He then laid the com- mission from Velasquez on the table ; kissed his truncheon, and delivered it to the chief magistrate, and wit-hdrew. He had no reason to doubt what would be the result of the
76 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
deliberations of the council. His resignation was accepted ; and he was appointed captain-general and supreme magis- trate. His commission was ordered to be made out as in his majesty's name. Among the other provisions of this arrangement, that which Bernal Diaz speaks of as the worst, was the power given him to draw for himself one-fifth of all the gold which might be collected, after deducting his majesty's proportion. This privilege, which he exercised to its full extent, led to disputes and litigation afterward ; but it enabled him to preserve the attachment of his followers, by actual donations or by promises, which he seemed to have the means of fulfilling. He now, as the representative of royalty, took on himself corresponding state, and ap- pointed his officers and household. The new town was named Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz. The partisans of Ve- lasquez, who had witnessed these proceedings, without being able to stop their progress, declared that they would no longer remain under the command of Cortes, but would return to Cuba. The general replied, that it was not his wish to detain them against their inchnations. Some of them, however, being turbulent, and not pacified with this declaration, he caused five to be arrested, and put in irons ; a measure of severity justified by the exigency of the case, whether he was sincere or not in his profession. He de- tached a hundred men, principally of the faction of Velas^ quez (whom it was politic thus to find employment for, and to prevent from breeding sedition), into the adjacent coun- try, to procure provisions. Of these they obtained an abundance, doing no other injury, by command of the gen- eral, to the inhabitants. They paid, however, no equiva- lent for them, and brought some prisoners back with them, for detaining whom they had no pretence. Gold secretly distributed, fair promises, and flattering advances won over those who had clamoured about returning, to silence, if not to allegiance. The five prisoners were released, and Cortes determined to proceed to Cempoalla, in compliance vvdth the
HERNAN CORTES. 77
chief's invitation. Quiabislan lay in the same route where he contemplated establishing a settlement. The vessels proceeded along the coast for that port, while the army- marched in good order, and with every precaution, towards Cempoalla. They had reason to doubt the faith of the To- tonaques, and they were entering provinces tributary to the Mexican emperor, contrary to his will. At three miles' distance from Cempoalla they were met by an embassy, consisting of twenty principal men, who brought a present of the fruits of the country, and a greeting from the cacique, who excused himself for not attending in person, on account of his being exceedingly fat and unwieldy. The town was large, and contained many handsome buildings. The Span- iards were hospitably received and entertained. A present of gold was made to them, amounting in value to a thousand dollars. The fat cacique enumerated to Cortes the wrongs and grievances his people sustained under the tyranny of Motenczoma ; the excessive tribute he exacted ; and his requiring their daughters for his lust, and their sons to sac- rifice to his lust. Cortes extolled to him the power and grandeur of his own monarch, and the valour of his fol- lowers, who, he said, did not fear this great emperor. He professed himself willing to assist the cacique, and insinuated that one of the objects of his mission was to redress griev- ances and put down oppression.
He proceeded the next day to Quiahuitztla, to meet his vessels ; four hundred Indians carrying the baggage and pro- visions of the army. On entering the town, which was for- tified, and situated on a rock of difficult ascent, none of the inhabitants appeared, until the Spaniards approached the central part, in which the temples had been erected. Fifteen persons, in rich mantles, then advanced to meet Cortes, fumigated him with incense, and accounted for the absence of the townspeople, from their timidity. The fat cacique followed Cortes at a slower pace, and in several interviews with him and the chiefs of the town, the complaints against
78 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
Motenczoma's cruelty were renewed. Cortes was much pleased with the situation of the place, and determined to establish there a fortified settlement, which purpose he acted upon immediately. Huts were commenced, with such cir- cumvallations as were sufficient to protect the occupants from assault by an Indian army. The people of Cempoalla and Quiahuitztla cheerfully lent their aid in constructing them; and Cortes set an example of diligence by working in person.
Just after the arrival of the Spaniards in this place, and while conferences were going on relative to the Mexican territory, news was brought, which threw the natives into consternation, of the arrival of five collectors of tribute for Motenczoma. These dignitaries were received with great pomp, and escorted to their lodgings by the principal per- sons. In passing the quarters of Cortes, they did not deign to cast a look on the Spaniards ; but, having commanded the caciques to attend them, reprimanded them for receiving and entertaining the strangers, contrary to the will of the emperor. To expiate the oflTence, they demanded twenty men and women, to be sacrificed to the gods. Cortes, on being informed of these circumstances, through Dona Ma- rina, advised the caciques instantly to seize and incarcerate the collectors, and hold them in durance until it could be ascertained whether Motenczoma sanctioned their exac- tions, promising to protect them in adopting the measure. The proposal was received with trepidation. Like the Mo- hawks of North America, these Mexican envoys (confident from the terror which the remembrance of former chastise- ments and the name of their nation inspired) appeared among the tributary nations unaccompanied by any armed force ; and their advent occasioned such fearful submission as might attend that of an avenging or malignant divinity. But the presence of the Spaniards, or perhaps the awe felt for them, fortified the wavering caciques. The five messen- gers were seized, and fastened in a sort of pillory, made
HERNAN CORTES. 79
of transverse staves and collars, in which they could not change their position ; and one of them, who made strenu- ous resistance, was compelled by blows to submit.
The Totonaques had thus passed the Rubicon ; and with a spirit congenial to their savage habits and suddenly ac- quired audacity, proposed to sacrifice the prisoners. To prevent them from so doing, Cortes took them into his own custody, and placed them under the guard of his own soldiers. He had not yet committed himself so far with these people as to pledge himself to support them against the Mexicans, if they would shake off their yoke. His policy was more far-sighted ; and the measures he adopted in this crisis proved the extent of his sagacity. Consist- ency alone, however, forbade his countenancing this sacri- fice ; for the main ground he had taken in urging the chiefs to resist the demand of the collectors was, that the sacri- fice of human beings to idols was an abomination, in the code of that true faith which he came, among other objects, to invite them to accept.
He now played a double game with the prisoners and the caciques. He caused two of the former to be liberated in the middle of the night, and brought to his quarters. He asked them, as if ignorant of the matter, whence they came,- and why they had been imprisoned. On their replying, he told them he had not been apprized of the meaning of the proceedings ; ordered food to be brought to them, and re- quested them to assure their sovereign that he wished ardently to cultivate his friendship. He then sent them off clandestinely in a boat, in which they were transported to a point on the shore, beyond the district of Cempoalla. In the morning, when the chiefs discovered their escape, Cortes pretended to be much incensed at the negligence of his guards, whom he reprimanded ; and directed that, for better security, the other three collectors should be confined on board of his vessels. There, however, they were imme- diately set at large, with a promise to send them on their
80 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
way home as soon as it could be done with safety. The caciques, now finding that Motenczoma would speedily be informed of the bold steps they had taken, expressed their apprehensions of the result to Cortes. He assured them that he had the power to support them, and enforced his assertions by a display of the military skill of his troops, and the novel exhibitions of their cavalry, artillery, and arms. The caciques entered into a stipulation to support him with all their powers, and declared allegiance to the crown of Spain, with the solemnities used on such occasions, before Diego de Godey, a royal notary. Proclamation to this eflfect was made through the province, and the chiefs from the neighbouring mountains came to Quiahuitztla in rapid succession, to accede to the measure, and consult as to those which it might be expedient to adopt in conse- quence. The erection of the town to which the name of Vera Cruz was transferred went on with rapidity. It was determined upon to commence the march towards Mexico with the allied forces, as soon as the post should be estab- lished, and the preparations completed. The site of the town was at the foot of the mountain Quiahuitztla, two miles north of Cempoalla, and half a league from the former place, lying between it and the sea. In the mean time Motenc- zoma had been duly informed by his active couriers of the advance of the Spaniards to Cempoalla, and is said to have formed a determination to set out against them in person, at the head of a large army, when the arrival of his two col* lectors, released by Cortes, gave him another opportunity to attempt to procrastinate, by his infatuated system of diplo- macy, the dangers which he so obviously apprehended. Two of his nephews, accompanied by four old noblemen as their counsellors, were despatched to the Spanish camp on a peaceful mission, with a present worth some two thousand dollars. While they were directed to thank Cortes for having liberated the two tax-gatherers, and to state that, in consequence of this act of civility, hostile measures had
HERNAN CORTES. 81
been suspended, they were also instructed to complain of his presence among the rebeUious tributaries of Motenczoma, which encouraged them to disobedience ; and to repeat the old story, about the difficulties of the journey to Mexico, and the unwillingness of the emperor to encourage any further advance into his territories. Cortes replied in the evasive manner he had employed before ; complained of the departure of Teuhtile and his coadjutor Cuitlalpitoc, as a violation of the rites of hospitality ; professed his friendship for the emperor, as an evidence of which he delivered to the ambassadors the three collectors who had been taken care of on board his ships, and sent a present of some worthless and glittering baubles ; and renewed the assertion of his in- tention to proceed to the capital, to confer in person with Motenczoma. With such consolation as the ambassadors received from this response, thoy returned to their master ; while the Totonaques, who had been anxiously observant of the conferences, became confirmed in entertaining more exalted ideas of the intelligence and power of their new allies, who treated so familiarly the immediate representa- tives of the dreaded Mexican executive. They gave to the Spaniards, in common parlance, the name of Teules, or divinities. This reverential admiration was confirmed by what seems to have been a sort of experiment of the Span- ish faith or puissance, by the caciques. They waited on Cortes, and informed him that he had now a fair opportu- nity to prove his sincere friendship for them, by reducing a Mexican garrison in Zimpacingo, a place distant two days' journey, who were daily committing hostilities, nnd making incursions into their territory. Cortes complied with the request without hesitation, and marched with four hundred of his own men and two thousand of his allies to the town of Cimpacingo. On arriving there he found that the Mexican garrison had retired on the arrest of Motenczoma's envoys ; and that there was a feud between the people of this dis- ti'ict and his allies, arising from an old dispute about bound-
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32 KfSTOllICAL I^OTICE OF
aries, which had indviced the caciques to make a misrepre- sentation to him. He had an opportunity, which he did not fail to embrace, of reconciling the parties, preserving both as his friends, and bringing the people of Cimpacingo under allegiance. By way of atonement for the d uplicity to which he had been accessary, the fat cacique brought seven young women to Cortes for the captains of his army, and his niece, who was very ugly, but was proprietor of several towns, as a present for Cortes himself The general determined to avail himself of his present advantage to effect a change in the religious worship of the people. He told the chief that the Spaniards could not accept these women in their unbap- tized and heathen estate ; and explained to him at length the leading tenets of the Catholic faith. The cacique, with the principal chiefs and priests, protested that they could not and dared not abandon the worship of their gods after their own manner. Cortes became enraged, and getting his men under arms, proceeded to the great temple, which was smeared with the blood of human sacrifices. The priests called out upon the people to defend their altars, and a body of warriors were advancing to attack the Spaniards, when Cortes directed the fat cacique and six other chiefs and priests to be seized, and announced that if a single missile was discharged they should be put to instant death. The soldiers then, after some expostulation on the part of the priests, mounted the steps of the temple, and hurled the idols down them, by which they were broken to pieces. As the thunder did not fall at this desecration, and their gods were destroyed, the tumult v/as soon appeased ; and the priests themselves assisted in throwing the fragments into the flames. The temple was cleansed and the walls new plastered. An altar was erected in it, and mass performed. An old soldier, named Juan de Torres de Cordova, who was lame, volunteered to remain as its guardian ; and did so, after the departure of the Spaniards. The eight women were baptized, and Cortes took the cacique's ugly niece by
HERNAN CORTES. 83
the hand. The others were also taken by the different captains, Puertocarrero being again fortunate enough to get the handsomest. As these were all daughters of men of distinction, the alHance with the Totonaques was more effectually cemented by this ceremony. On returning to Villa Rica, Cortes found a vessel from Cuba arrived in the harbour, on board of which came Luis Marin, an able officer, with ten soldiers and two horses, who joined the army. From them information was received that Velas- quez had obtained from old Spain authority to trade and colonize in the New World, with the rank of adelantado of Cuba ; on learning which his partisans were much elated. Cortes was also informed that the governor threatened ven- geance more loudly than ever against him. He found it necessary therefore to state his own case to his sovereign ; for which purpose a vessel was prepared immediately, and Alonzo Puertocarrero and Francisco de Montejo were named agents to carry the despatches to Castile. But being aware that a mere pompous description of the wealth of the country, and of the merit of himself and his followers, would meet with little consideration if unaccompanied with visible evidence of a substantial nature, he determined to transmit to Spain all the gold which had been obtained in his expedition. He exercised his wonderful address so effect- ually, with the co-operation of Diego de Ordaz and Fran- cisco de Montejo, who had great influence with the army, that the soldiers consented without murmuring to relinquish their shares in the treasure which they had won with so much toil and danger. It was the richest present yet sent from the New World. The contents of this first despatch of Cortes are not known, except so far as he recapitulated them in the beginning of the second Relacion. Robertson mentions that he made diligent search for it, in Spain and Germany, without success. The council of Vera Cruz, to- gether with some of the soldiers who were most anxious for the colonization of New-Spain under Cortes as captain-gen-
84 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
eral, also wrote to the Spanish monarch, detailing the par- ticulars of their conquests, professing their devotion to his service and that of the church, and soliciting the emperor not to yield to the suggestions of the bishop of Burgos, the patron of Velasquez. In order to invahdate the claims of the latter, they represented the armaments under Cordova and Grijalva as having been fitted out by the adventurers who engaged in the expeditions, and not by the governor ; and laboured to depreciate the services of those command- ers. They contended that the sole object of Velasquez was barter, and not conquest ; and pretended that Cortes had defrayed the greatest part of the expense of fitting out the armament. They gave some account of what they had seen and heard of the Mexican customs and institutions ; and described particularly the horrible human sacrifices which they had witnessed. They subjoined a catalogue and description of the presents sent to the emperor. Such is the substance of this letter, from an authenticated copy which Robertson obtained from Vienna. Bernal Diaz says, that Cortes requested permission to read this document, and that, having done so, he expressed himself satisfied with all but two articles ; in which his own share of the treasure, and the names of the preceding discoverers, were men- tioned. He adds, that when Cortes desired these parts might be suppressed, there were not wanting persons to tell him that the emperor ought to know the whole truth. But as the main object of that part relating to the former dis- coverers was to sophisticate the truth, it is evident that Bernal Diaz misunderstood the matter at the time, or that his recollections were imperfect.
The vessel which bore these despatches sailed on the 26th day of July, 1519, with express instructions to proceed directly to Seville. But these were directly violated. Puertocarrero being sick, Montejo compelled the pilot, Ala- minos, to touch at the Havana, on pretext of getting pro^ visions from his estate ; and, as soon as the ship cast anchor.
HERNAN CORTES. 85
he sent a sailor on shore with letters for Velasquez. The messenger, as he went through the island, proclaimed every- where what had happened. The governor, in great rage, sent two armed vessels in search of that which bore the des- patches of Cortes ; but they returned to St. Jago, with the unwelcome tidings that she was far advanced in her voyage to Europe.
Cortes now becomes his own historian ; and it is not our province to pursue the narrative further. As a statement of facts, all historians agree that his letters to the emperor are entitled to the fullest credit. There were too many jealous eyewitnesses of every transaction which he records, for him to venture any material misrepresentations. He no doubt frequently exaggerated the numbers of the Indian armies which he encountered. There is, however, no rea- son to suppose that this was done wilfully. The difficulty of making any correct estimate in such cases is too obvious to need dwelling upon ; and the discrepancy between all the writers is so great, that little positive faith can be given to any one statement. As to the motives assigned by Cortes for his actions, they seem, in general, to be fairly stated. The severity of his discipline was required from his perilous position ; and if he had not treated the rebellious or treach- erous chiefs who had become subjects of Spain with the same rigour, his own soldiers would not have submitted to the sternness of his rule. There are some particular in- stances of cruelty which stained his reputation ; to which we shall advert.
The second Relacion is dated from Villa Segura, Octo- ber 30th, 1520. It relates the history of the conquest from the 15th August, 1519, when Cortes began his march from Cempoalla, to his retreat to Tlascala, accomplished with dis- aster and loss. This period comprehends more vicissitudes, and is more full of interesting events, than any other in the life of Cortes; and, it maybe added, than any of equal length in the life of any man. The second Relacion,. as
8d HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
Cortes mentions in the commencement of the third, was not, in fact, despatched from New-Spain until the 5th of March, 1521 ; owing to contrary winds, the loss of his vessels, and inopportune occurrences.
In his third Relacion, which is dated May 15th, 1522, from the city of Guyoacan, he recapitulates some of the events narrated in the conclusion of the second ; and com- mencing with his departure from Tepeaca (or Villa Se- gura, a name which it retained but for a short time), he relates what transpired between that date and the rebuild- ing of Mexico, and arrival of Christoval de Tapia, which took place a few weeks subsequently. The final conquest of the great city of Mexico was effected on the 13th of August, 1521. Between this date and that of the letter, there occurred a circumstance, omitted by Cortes, which ought to be referred to. This was the torturing of Quauh- temotzin. The fact that this is not mentioned by Cortes shows either that he was ashamed of not having been able to prevent it, or had no plausible excuse to assign for per- mitting it. The former and more charitable conclusion will be formed, if we take the testimony of Bernal Diaz as good ; and he is at least an unprejudiced witness ; for in his ac- count of the subsequent fate of this unfortunate monarch, he is not sparing of epithets expressive of his indignation. The cruelty of the application of torture by fire, to extort an important confession, which it was supposed the subject had the power to make, cannot be urged against Cortes in particular ; such being the common practice in the criminal jurisprudence of the age. But if he had wantonly, or even willingly, inflicted it on so illustrious a prisoner, whom he had just received, according to his own account (which is confirmed by all others), with so much kindness and re- spect, it would have left a blot on his memory through all succeeding ages. And such has been, in effect, the impres- sion generally produced wherever the story of the conquest has been read. The young and the old, shuddering with
HERNAN CORTES. 87
detestation at this base, and horrible, and cowardly piece of cruelty, have cursed Cortes in their hearts, with a generous but undeliberated indignation. It is by no means evident that he could have prevented this enormity. His authority was submitted to in seasons of peril, because the rigour of his measures was felt to be essential to the general welfare. But an army, flushed with triumph, after so terrible and procrastinated a siege as that of Mexico, expecting to be rewarded with the discovery of treasures which would make every private man rich ; and disappointed by real- izing only a pittance, which would not, according to the rates of prices at the time, and on the spot, pay for a mus- ket ; such an army might naturally ascribe the refusal of their leader to extort, in a mode not strange to them, inform- ation relative to immense sums of gold supposed to be se- creted, either to an affectation of humanity or to a design to defraud them. Without more comment, however, we proceed to the facts, not as stated by the apologists of Cortes,, but as they may be gleaned from the concurrent narratives. From what the Spaniards had seen of the treasures of Motenczoma on their former occupation of the capital, it was supposed that a quantity of gold of great value must still remain. Being disappointed in their expectations, as has been mentioned, many accused Cortes, without hesita- tion, of having secreted part of the spoil for his own use^ Others alleged that the officers of the crown were con* cerned in the transaction, and had a good understanding with the general. They threatened openly to forward their complaints to the king. The royal officers harassed Cortes with entreaties that he would adopt measures to exculpate them from suspicion. The general demand was, that Quauh- temotzin should be made to reveal where he had deposited what remained of the treasures accumulated by the Mexi- can monarchs. A report was current that he had thrown the most valuable portion of them into the lake,/our days before his capture. Cortes resisted the proposition with
88 HISTORICAL NOTICE OS'
decided marks cf disapprobation. The king's officers prd-^ tested that tiiey had seen no more gold than what had been produced, amounting, when mehed and run into bars, to only 380,000 crowns in value. The malecontents, and those in particular vv^ho were inimical to Cortes, represented to the treasurer Alderete, that Cortes wished to cheat both the crown and the soldiers. Under these circumstances Cortes left the degraded monarch to be dealt with by the ferocious conquerors. Quauhtemotzin and one of his favourite friends (or, according to Bernal Diaz, the king of Tacuba or Tlacopan) were subjected to the torture, by anointing their feet with oil, and exposing them to fire, according to the practice of the Inquisition. Under this treatment the companion of the monarch expired, casting in his last and extreme agony an imploring look at his lord ; who is said to have asked him reproachfully, " Am I reposing on a bed of roses ?" or to have observed, as Herrera with more probability records it, that " Tampoco el estaba en deleite." Cortes then insisted upon the release of Quauh- temotzin, to whom he caused every attention to be paid ; declaring that he would never have permitted such an in- dignity had it not been for the importunity and threats of the treasurer Juan de Alderete, a creature of the bishop of Burgos. It is but reasonable to suppose that some feehng of respect for one who had been monarch of so great an em- pire, and much more, the obvious policy of keeping him alive and in their power, restrained the tormentors of Quauh- temotzin in applying the question. He was, however, made incurably lame. Bernal Diaz speaks of confessions extorted from him and the prince of Tlacopan ; but he is unsupported by other writers ; at any rate, no additional gold was found in consequence of the proceeding. Such seems to be an impartial representation of this affair.
In the third Relacion Cortes states the manner in which the object of the mission of Tapia was evaded. Through the intrigues of the bishop of Burgos, this gentleman had
HERNAN CORTES. 89
received a commission, empowering him to arrest Cortes, fconfiscate his effects, institute a strict scrutiny into his con- duct, and transmit to the Council of the Indies, of which Fonseca was president, the result of his inquiries. But he had neither talents, health, nor fortitude to execute the task, if it had been possible so to do, as he soon found out him- self. Intimidation and bribery were so successfully em- ployed that he sailed, after a short time, for St. Domingo. His coming rendered the transmission of the third Rela- cion necessary. The arrival of the messengers which carried it to Spain, with the specimens of Mexican wealth and ingenuity which they had in charge, created a great sensation. The internal commotions of Spain were quieted. Its cabinet had leisure to consider the importance of their foreign acquisitions ; and though, from the discovery by Co- lumbus to the present day, when Spain is the most con- temptible power in Europe, which preserves the shadow of a legitimate king, the management of these possessions has been only a series of blunders, there seems to have been some sense in the measures adopted at this timci Over* looking whatever was irregular in the assumption of author- ity by Cortes, and disregarding the representations of the bishop of Burgos, Charles V. appointed Cortes captain- general and governor of New-Spain.
The fourth Carta de Relacion is dated Mexico, October 1 5th, 1524. It contains a narrative of the manner in which the provinces of New-Spain submitted, voluntarily or by compulsion, to the Spaniards, with the results of the expeditions to the Pacific Ocean. Cortes, like the great admiral, looked towards the discoveries in that direction with better information, but not less sanguine hopes. One event in this period requires notice, as it has given rise to one of the heaviest charges against Cortes, as a monster of cruelty. This is, the burning alive of many unfortunate prisoners at Panuco, narrated in the twelfth section of the letter. It has been asserted by some historians, that sixty
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chiefs and four hundred nobles were burnt to death by San- doval, with the approbation of Cortes, on this occasion, and that their relations and countrymen were compelled to witness the cruelty. From a consideration of the sentence in which Cortes himself speaks of this matter, we should be induced to believe that some oversight had occurred, either in his own manuscript, or in the first print from it. He says, " Senores y personal principales se prendieron hasta cuatro cientos, sin otra gente baja, a los cuales todos, digo a los principales, quemaron por justicia," &c. We are left at a loss, from this statement, to know how many principal men were burnt. It is a little singular that Robertson, who professes to follow Cortes himself, as to matters of fact, in his note to that part of his history relating to this transac- tion, should have made the statement mentioned above. It is evident that he did not read, or did not understand, the passage we have quoted. He admits that the statement of B. de las Casas is a manifest exaggeration. Bernal Diaz says nothing about the burning. Gomara seems to have spoken of it as an act of faith ; and to have been desirous of giving to it the pomp and ceremony of a religious exercise, by lugging in the ^^elatives of the parties who suffered, of whom we hear nothing in other contemporary writers. We can only, therefore, follow Herrera, who had the best authorities before him, with no motives for sophisticating the truth, as to the number of individuals who were put to death by burning. According to him, the lex talionis was followed. According to him, the soldiers of Garay, scatter- ing from Santistevan, by the orders of Diego de Ocampo, committed excesses which drew upon them the vengeance of the Indians, who killed and ate four hundred Castilians ; and subsequently burnt in one night, in Tercetuco, fifty infantry and fifteen horse, setting fire to the buildings in which they were quartered, and giving them no opportunity of escape. Sandoval arrived at Santistevan barely in time to rescue the surviving Spaniards from death by hunger, or
HERNAN CORTES. 91
inability to resist the enemy. Finding conciliatory mea- sures with the natives ineffectual, he divided his force into three parts, and pursued them with fire and sword. Hav- ing captured a number of lords and inferior people, corres- ponding with that mentioned by Cortes, they were con- demned by regular process of law to be burnt. Bat on communicating the sentence to Cortes, he directed that thirty of the principal offenders only should suffer, in the presence of the others, whose property should be given to their heirs ; and that the rest should be pardoned, on taking the oath of allegiance to the crown of Castile and Leon. The alleged cruelty of this action, so far as Cortes is con- cerned, may be tested by taking a parallel case. What general, in the present day, would have the hardihood to pardon those who had been sentenced by a court-martial to death, in a moment of extreme peril, when a terrible exam- ple was necessary, and a whole army was clamorous for the infliction of the penalty ? There is one more action of Cortes, subsequent in point of time to the date of his fourth letter to the emperor, which demands notice. It is that which an apologist for his life would most desire to omit, or pass over without commentary. During Lent, in 1525, the unfortunate Quauhtemotzin, who had long followed Cortes, like a captive in the train of a victor, though his former subjects still retained for him the personal reverence felt by the Mexicans for their monarchs, was ignominiously hanged, together with the caciques of Tezcuco and Tlaco- pan. In the course of the expedition of Cortes to Hondu- ras, in search of the armament under Francisco de las Casas, whom he had sent to chastise Christoval de Olid, in a region with which he was utterly unacquainted, with en- emies around him, and treachery in his camp, and with an army who were actually in a starving condition, Cortes found himself, after all his conquests, on the brink of de- struction, and in jeopardy of losing ingloriously the fruits of his perseverance and valour. He had left the city of Mexico
92 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
under the charge of those in whose fideUty hehad good reason to believe he could not confide under adverse cir- cumstances. He had taken with him the dethroned mon- arch and the chiefs who shared his fate, to prevent an insur- rection in the capital during his absence, and to secure the assistance of the Mexicans who accompanied his march. At the crisis we have spoken of, Metztlhicahtlin, a confidant of the princess, disclosed to Cortes a plot which seems to have been concerted with some deliberation, and with a par- tial prospect of success. It was, to take advantage of the Spaniards in their helplessness and necessity, to cut them all off", to make a common cause with all the natives, and having destroyed Cortes and his immediate force, to return to Mexico and exterminate the Spaniards remaining there^ and restore Quauhtemotzin to the throne of his ancestors. It would have been nobly resolved on the part of the con- spirators, if they had had the power and courage to effect, and the wit to conceal it until the ripe moment. It could not have prevented the subjection of Mexico and its depend- encies, but it might have proved fatal to Cortes, and to his title of Conquestador. The Mexicans devoted to their king exceeded in number 3000 armed men, being as twenty to one of the Spaniards. The plan of the conspirators was to fall on the Spaniards at some difficult pass, or the passage of some river. The ten persons who were first privately arrested and separately examined agreed in the main facts, charging the three princes with being the heads of the con- spiracy ; with a mean protestation that they themselves had only been passive in its formation. A legal inquisition was instituted, according to the forms of the times, and after a few days the princes were executed. Bernal Diaz men? tions only Quauhtemotzin and his cousin the prince of Ta- cuba or Tlacopan ; and he was an eyewitness, though his memory may have failed him. Other authorities include the prince of Tezcuco. The victims died professing their belief in Christianity (so far as they could understand what
HEKNAN CORTES. 93
its tenets were). Before he was executed, the king turned to Cortes and said, " Malintzin ! now I find what your false words and promises have ended in — my death ! I might better have perished by my own dagger, than have intrusted myself to you, in my city of Mexico. Why do you thus unjustly take my life ? May God demand of you this innocent blood !" Quauhtemotzin admitted on his examination that he had been aware of the existence of the .conspiracy ; but denied that he had given it his sanction. Thus perished the last of the Mexican monarchs. History weeps over his fate. The plea of stern and rigid necessity, coolly considered, will justify Cortes in permitting the sen- tence passed upon Quauhtemotzin to be carried into execu- tion. But it is a plea which does not appeal to the heart, at the distance of three centuries ; and we should only waste words in attempting to enforce it. The facts have been fairly stated. Cortes and his victim have been long since called to an account, before a tribunal which recognises no Jiuman distinctions. The former considered the latter as his inferior, because he did not understand how to make gunpowder, navigate by the compass, and say his prayers in Latin, according to the breviary. So did all the coun- trymen of Cortes. We live in a more enlightened age ; but equal absurdities are extant. It is a matter of history that the execution of Quauhtemotzin long preyed on the mind of Cortes, and haunted it alike in scenes of peril and difficulty, and in the repose after triumph. Alexander was far less pardonable for the murder of Clytus ; and yet seems to have entertained less remorse on account of it. All con- querors have committed excesses, the victims of which con- tinue to rise up before the imagination of the authors of their calamity. Cortes, like the others, was followed by his Eumenides.
The expedition to Honduras occupied Cortes^two years. In the course of it he marched three thousand miles, through a rugged and thinly inhabited country, enduring every pri-
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vation incident to such a service. It has been truly re- marked that the story of what he underwent and overcame has no parallel in the history of the Old World ; and that though no splendid victory or discovery illustrated this cam- paign, he exhibited more personal resolution, mental and physical endurance, and stern perseverance in his purpose, than in any other period of his brilliant and blood-stained history.
It was during this expedition, when passing through Guazacualco, Cortes summoned the neighbouring chiefs to meet him, that the mother of Dona Marina and her son by her second husband came among the rest, obedient to the summons, and expecting punishment for the treatment Ma- rina had met with in her infancy. Bernal Diaz mentions this interesting interview, for the truth of which he solemnly vouches. He says that the likeness between the mother and daughter was very striking. The latter assured both her relations that she forgave them, as her mother had been ignorant in what she did ; and she herself had benefited greatly by being sold into bondage ; having been converted to Christianity, borne a son to Cortes, and become the wife of a cavalier named Juan Xaramillo, who had recently mar- ried her. Few well attested historical incidents have a more romantic character than this possesses. Dofia Ma- rina was unquestionably a very extraordinary woman. The value of her services, her intelligence, and her personal attractions seem at one time to have excited strongly the regard of Cortes, who at all times treated her with respect. Their connexion has been a subject for fiction ; and many apocryphal and invented circumstances have been super- induced on the integrity of history, all tending to increase the odium sought to be thrown on the memory of Cortes. Such inventions are immoral. They sophisticate the record of past events, at all times embarrassed by conflict- ing testimony ; and the great cause of truth suffers from
HERNAN CORTES. 95
them material detriment.* Before he set out on this expe- dition, Dona Catalina, whom he had married in Cuba, ar- rived in New-Spain, and was escorted to Mexico, where, after three months, she died of an asthma. B. Diaz inti- mates that her coming was unacceptable to Cortes, who, however, received her with great ceremony and public tes- timonials of rejoicing.
On his return from Honduras, by the way of Truxillo, he was broken down in health and spirits. The deputies he had appointed in Mexico had circulated the rumour that he was dead, and credit had been given to it both in New and Old Spain. They found, however, that he was not only alive, but able to assert his rights. A more formidable obstacle to his pretensions presented itself in the arrival of Ponce de Leon, who had arrived with a commission super- seding him in his authority, with power to examine into all his transactions, and, if expedient, to seize his person and send him prisoner to Castile. Ponce de Leon, however^ died a few days after his arrival. But Cortes felt that he enjoyed only the dangerous semblance of authority. He was surrounded by spies ; and every vessel that sailed for Spain bore misrepresentations of his conduct and motives, or exaggerations of his acts. In 1527 a new commission of inquiry into his proceedings was issued, with plenary powers vested in those to whom its execution was intrusted. Cortes was strongly advised by the most daring or reckless of his immediate counsellors to renounce his allegiance, and assume the absolute and independent command of New- Spain. To this advice he had the prudence or loyalty not to listen. But not choosing to submit to a trial by strangers, in the land which had been the scene of his victories and his dominion, he determined to repair to Castile, and to plead his cause before the emperor in person. He had been
* Among this class may be enumerated Jicotencal, an histoijcal romance, written with considerable talent and spirit, and published in Philadelphia^ in 1826.
96 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF
insulted by an order requiring his expulsion from Mexico J issued at the instigation of the veedor and factor, on their release from prison, in which they had been detained since his return from Honduras. He seems to have treated them with deserved contempt. He carried with him to Spain many of the curiosities and natural productions of the coun- try, and bullion and jewels to a large amount. It appears that his private pecuniary resources were great ; as he after- ward agreed to give a portion with his daughter of a hun- dred thousand pesos. Whether the charges made against him by his enemies, of defrauding the king and his followers of their shares of the gold, had any foundation in truth, cannot now be determined. There is no direct evidence of the fact. But it was to the complaints made by the royal treasurer in Mexico that the necessity of his voyage to Spain was mainly owing. He was received in his native land in a manner worthy of so great a conqueror. The order of St, Jago, and the title of Marquis of the Valley of Guaxaca, or Oajaca, were conferred on him, with the grant of an extensive territory in New-Spain. The empe^ ror not only treated him with respect in public, but paid him private and highly honourable marks of attention. After the departure of the emperor to Flanders, Cortes married a noble lady, Juana Ramirez de Arellano and Zufiiga, daughter of the Count de Aguilar, niece of the Duke of Bejar, from whom descei*ded the successors of his title. During his absence, his enemies in Mexico were ex- ceedingly active in lodging complaints against him before the court of royal audience, the members of which had arrived there ; and his brother-in-law Juan de Xuares was brought forward to demand justice for the murder of his sister Dona Catalina, the first wife of Cortes. This charge was believed by none but his enemies. She died from the effects of the climate. Two of the oidores, attached to the court of royal audience, died shortly after their arrival ; and B. Diaz very justly remarks, that it was well for Cortes that
HERNAX CORTES. 97
-he was absent at the time, or he would have been addilion- ^lly inculpated as the author of their deaths.
Cortes arrived in Old Spain in December, 1527, and returned in 1530, with new titles, but with diminished authority. His request to be reinstated in his former power had been coldly, rather summarily, refused. He was, indeed, named captain-general, and admiral of the South Seas, which gave him the highest military rank, with license to make further discoveries. Some difficulty and litigation arose from the construction of his grant of lands. He left the city of Mexico, as we may suppose, in some disgust, and established his residence at a place on his estate named Cuernavaca. He now turned his attention to the project which had occupied his thoughts before, of finding a passage between the North and South Seas, either by an examination of the Isthmus of Darien, or by sailing north along the coast of Florida. He sent out an expe^ dition of two ships from Acapulco, in 1532. One of them returned ; the commander reporting that he had been com^ pelled to do so by a mutiny. The other was never heard of. He sent two other vessels afterward to look for the missing ship, and to search for pearl islands. This expe- dition, from the misconduct of one of the pilots, proved still more calamitous. Cortes then determined to go in person. He had three ships ready to launch in Tehuantepec, and when his intentions were known, numbers volunteered to follow him. He sailed in May, 1536. This expedition, which resulted in the discovery of California, proved most calamitous. Distress and famine carried off numbers of the soldiers in the island then called Santa Cruz, and subse^ quently La Paz. His vessels were driven into unknown and dangerous parts of the sea, and he was again reported as being dead in Mexico. In consequence of the rumour, his wife sent out two vessels in quest of him, with despatches, w^hich induced him to return in the beginning of the year 1 537. He soon after sent three ships out for
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the lieutenant whom he had left in California, Francisco de Ulloa, who returned to the port of Acapulco. The private expense sustained by Cortes in this barren voyage of dis- covery is stated by Lorenzana to have been 200,000 ducats* Another unprofitable attempt was made subsequently by Cortes, to get news of the ship lost in his first venture ; and Bernal Diaz says, he heard him declare that he had lost altogether above three hundred thousand crow^ns by his South Sea expeditions. In consequence of his losses, his lawsuits, and difficulties with the authorities in New-Spain, he sailed again for Castile in 1540. His reception was as different from the former as the course of worldly events would induce the most ordinary prophet to anticipate. He returned from the failure of his recent projects a dis- appointed adventurer. Pizarro, in the mean time, had made new and dazzling discoveries in Peru. Cortes was received at court wdth cold kindness by the emperor, and experienced in consequence from the ministers that vexa- tious and insulting treatment which is the lot of those who are no longer fit for further services, and urge claims for those they have rendered on the gratitude of governments. He joined the armament which was conducted against Algiers, in 1541, by Charles V., and which met with so many disasters. His eldest son and his son by Dona Marina accompanied him. They were in one of the vessels which were stranded, and reached the shore with difficulty. Among the other vexations and disappointments which befell Cortes after his second return to Spain, it would appear that the breaking off* a treaty of marriage between his daughter and the son of the Marquis of Astorga affected him much. His health, which was infirm, declined rapidly after this occurrence. He died on the 2d of December, 1547, and was buried with great funeral ceremony in the chapel of the Dukes of Medina Sidonia. In pursuance of directions given in his will, his remains were afterward
HERNAN CORTES. 99
removed to New-Spain, and now rest in the city which he destroyed and regenerated.
Besides the letters in Lorenzana's collection, the sixth Relacion by him, written after his Honduras expedition, was discovered about fifty years ago. It would be desirable that this, with five other unpublished letters, and his memo- rials to the emperor, should be pubUshed in connexion with the three now republished. They exist, with many valu- able historical evidences relative to the conquest, in collec- tions made recently in Spain.
All conquerors are the " scourges of God," and Cortes was one of the number. It has not been sought in this Notice to justify his actions ; but simply to offer what may be suggested in palliation of some of them. Heroes have all had their foibles and their vices ; and so essential does a certain portion of them seem in the composition of their character, that they are gratuitously given to them by all the great epic poets. Try Cortes by a comparison with other great conquerors, and it will appear that while few of them have rivalled his exploits, many have left darker stains on their reputation, admitting of no palliation. The charge of cruelty is the heaviest Which has been made against him. Bernal Diaz mentions, that on one occasion, when he was called on to sign a severe sentence, he gave a deep sigh, and exclaimed, " How happy is he who is not able to write, and is thereby prevented from signing the death-warrants of men !" This may have been affected ; but it may also have been natural. The charge of pecula- tion, as we have remarked, is not proved. In indomitable perseverance in the accomplishment of whatever he under- took, Cortes is unequalled in history. No difficulty diverted him from pursuing his steadfast purpose ; and, like Scipio, in stumbling he took possession of the soil. He was fond of humming an old ditty, —
Ailelante mi sobrino, Y no creais en agueros.
100 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF HERNAN CORTES.
He assumed great splendour, as the king's representa- tive ; but his magnificence was regulated by good taste, which rejected every thing gaudy or fantastic. He was proud of the single nam.e, which he had made known over all Europe, and was better pleased with hearing himself spoken of as Cortes than as captain-general. As Cortes, he is known in the farthest regions by those who never heard of the Marquis of the Valley.
June 29fli, 1828.
DOMESTIC LITERATURE.
DOMESTIC LITERATURE.
Materiam dat locus ipse,! — Ovid,
To the Editor of the Atlantic Magatine.
A WRITER in the first number of the Atlantic Magazine, whom, though coinciding with him in the main, I shall take the liberty of flatly contradicting in some of his positions, has asserted that the history, superstitions, and natural and moral features of our country are inadequate for the pur- poses of poetry and fiction.
That, as he says, * our national associations are few,'* I am willing to concede ; but I insist that the local associa- tions are many, and of deep interest. Some of them, too, are beginning to assume the rust of antiquity. They have arrived at a respectable old age, being quite beyond the memory of living men, and therefore affording scope for im- agination ; while they are not, on the other hand, so hidden in the shadows of past days as to lose the charm of per- sonal interest.
The writer goes on to say, — ' Of the mummery of abo- riginal superstition little can be learned, and of that little it seems that nothing can be made ; of traditionary history we have hardly any that is of a romantic character.' Both of these propositions I beg leave most cordially to deny. I
* Vide page 21 of the Magazine.
104 DOMESTIC LITERATURE.
admit that the 'belief in witchcraft' will not afford naaterlals for romance equal to those with which the once far- spread dominion of judicial astrology has supplied modern roman- cers. I deny that the grand and beautiful works of nature absolutely require historical associations to render them fit themes for the imagination ; an inference which the writer referred to seems disposed to make in his essay.
On all these things, in their order, I propose to make a few comments, which must necessarily be desultory, and, I fear, trite ; premising, that I was led to them by two works just published,* which, with several others that have re- cently appeared, and many, we hope, that are to follow, do and will, of themselves, sufficiently refute any dogmas, pre- dicated on abstract reasoning, that assert the impossibility of creating a literature purely domestic. The pamphlet enti- tled ' Letters from Fort Braddock' is full of excellent hints for an historical and descriptive novel. Little more can be said of it, as it is merely a sketch, a skeleton of a story ; although some of the parts are very finely sustained. The * Sketch of Connecticut' will, I presume, be reviewed at some length, in this magazine. I shall therefore only re- mark here, that it seems written in a very chaste style, and bears internal evidence of being the production of a lady. I may, however, be mistaken.
The ideals of the Indian character have been drawn in the sweetest of modern poems, Gertrude of Wyoming ; in which its attributes of the cool and calculating courage of man, united to the passive bravery of the nobler animals ; the knowledge assimilated to instinct which the red men seem to have borrowed from the irrational inhabitants of their for- ests ; their reserve ; their acquired suppression of passion, which yet runs in quick and silent currents, beneath the ex-
* Letters found in the Ruins of Fort Braddock, including an interesting American Tale. O. Wilder & Jas. M. Campbell, 1824.
Sketch of Connecticut, forty years since. Hartford. Oliver Cooke & Sons, 1824. pp. 278.
DOMESTIC LITERATURE. 105
ternal ice ; their adherence to a promise made ; their faith in ancestral superstitions ; their predominant and inextin- guishable lust of revenge, — are all imbodied in the charac- ter of Outalissi, and exhibited in poetry as chaste as it is noble, as mellifluous as it is graphic.
As monumental brass unchanged his look, A stoic of the woods, a man without a tear.
The character of the Oneida chief is a pure poetical ab- straction. That of Mohegan, in the Pioneers, is drawn by one who observes accurately, and describes what he sees faithfully. He chose to introduce his Indian into a picture of still life ; for which posterity will name him with grati- tude, long after all the puffing, quack reviewing, and tea- table criticism of the day has vanished and evaporated.
In the Letters from Fort Braddock, before referred to, Weshop, an Indian, is introduced, with very good effect, by the author. In his rapid narrative, he has thrown out this character in fine relief. Weshop is despatched with letters, from the friend of an unfortunate person, confined under a charge of murder, to the governor and council of New- York. Fleet and silent as one of his own arrows, the mes- senger leaves his employer, and appears in his forest garb among the abodes of civilized and mercenary men. He delivers neither credentials nor letter, but appears before the council in the character of an ambassador, for whom he is mistaken. He is lodged under the same roof with him whom he came to rescue ; and, at the dead of night, opens his prison doors, points out the path to liberty, and through rivers, rapids, forests, morasses, and the apparently track- less wilderness, conducts him in safety to the bosom of his friend, by means which, though apparently incredible, well authenticated accounts compel us to recognise as natural.
" For then The bow-string of my spirit was not slack ; When, spite of woods, and floods, and ambush'd men, I bore thee like the quiver on my back, VOL. I. O
106 DOMESTIC LITERATURE,
Fleet as the whirlwind hurries on the rack ; Nor foemen then, nor cougar's conch I fear'd, For I was strong as mountain cataract : And dost thou not remember how we cheer'd Upon the last hill-top, when white men's huts appear'd ?**
There is not, at present, spirit enough in the country to publish a new edition of Brockden Brown's novels. We prefer paying for English magazines, that inform us what he wrote about, to possessing his works ; of which, it seems, we can only find out the merit when some transatlantic critic, having exhausted all other topics, thinks fit to wan- der even to our literature for a subject to eke out his col- umns. From my recollections, however, I think he makes little use of the aborigines in his tales ; although he might indubitably have found among them materials peculiarly suited to the character of his genius ; which loved a tale of wild and singular events, produced by extraordinary hallu- cinations of the mind, rather than by unusual combinations of place and circumstance ; and preferred, for the creation of its romance, thegothic and grotesque delineations of some mental or moral obhquity, to all the machinery of inquisi- tions, castles, or dungeons.
The ceremonies and customs of the different Indian tribes of this continent have been, in many instances, minutely described : and as, though generally similar, they vary with the differences of origin and climate, as materially as those of civilized nations, they offer different resources to the writer of fiction ; so, also, their fabulous legends and religious superstitions have a great variety of character. While, in the north, they point to hyperborean cold and the regions of darkness, or to boundless plains and lakes, where the spirit expatiates untired, in chasing the phantom elk, or buffalo, or beaver ; in the south the imagination reposes on sunny isles and sparkling waters, graceful women and rav- ishing music. ' Of the mummery of aboriginal superstition,' one' may learn as much as he pleases, by reading the ac-
DOMESTIC LITERATURE. 107
counts of those who have examined the subject ; and he may make as much use of it as he is able. The creative faculty is wanting ; not the materials to be wrought upon. If scenes of unparalleled torture and indefatigable endur- ance, persevering vengeance, and unfailing friendship, hair- breadth escapes, and sudden ambush, — if the horrors of gloomy forests and unexplored caverns, tenanted by the most terrible of banditti, — if faith in wild predictions, and entire submission of the soul to the power of ancient legends and visionary prophecies, are useful to the poet or romancer, here they may be found in abundance and endless variety. The former might even discover the hint of an epic, in some of the traditions belonging to this continent. For instance, when the fathers of the Lenape, according to their own account, crossed the Mississippi, from the west, and after great battles gradually exterminated from the soil the gigantic race by whom it was occupied, and who had reared the towers and forts and towns of which vestiges are still remaining, full scope is given to the indulgence of an imagi- nation, capable of constructing an heroic poem. It would, to be sure, want the charm of national association or inter- est; still it would point to the institutions and character of the principal tribes, who were our immediate predecessors, as occupants of the country we possess ; with whose more recent history we are, or may be, in some degree, familiar. That the facts are meager, and the tradition imperfect, is true ; but there is therefore more room for invention ; and there are no records or vouchers to contradict what might be invented. The appliances and means for illustration, de- scription, and machinery are ample and numerous. And the difficulties of such an undertaking cannot be stated as an objection ; for no epic, since Homer's, has been com- posed without great labour ; though it may be an easy matter to indite an entertaining poetical history in blank verse, like Madoc. Had the Paradise Lost never been
108 DOMESTIC LITERATURE.
written, who would have thought the fall of man a fit sub- ject for an epic poem ?
But we are disposed to go much further, and to assert, that the pure and abstract elements of poetry are to be found in the conceptions and notionsof someof our aborigines, if we are to give credit to those who have related them. Their mythology, so to speak, if less gorgeous and sublime, is more refined and less ridiculous than that of the Hindoos. The latter worship their million images, without associating with their adoration of the uncouth idol the idea of the original personification which it was intended to indicate ; while the natives of this continent had a spirit or genius, as the cause of every natural effect, and personified every moral influence. And if we combine the various attributes said to be ascribed by them to the Spirit of Dreams, we might even be led to believe that they worshipped the crea- tive power of intellect, and invoked the faculty of pure im- agination. Poetry and prophecy are identified by all rude nations, as they were by the American Indians. He who would employ their machinery, in verse, needs not intro- duce barbarous names, insusceptible of being euphonised ; but may employ, directly, the personification and its attri- butes ; and, in so doing, speak the universally intelligible language of poetry. An exhaustless mine, too, of metaphor and simile is open in the fancies and habits of these natives ; the wonders, phenomena, curiosities, and productions of the country, but yet as little employed. The perception of these belongs only to the original mind ; and, it seems, some sacred bard is yet to arise among us, in whose hand shall be the hazel wand, at whose bidding the fountains of domes- tic poetry are to flow, freshly and purely, from our own native soil. The altar and the sacrifice are prepared for the rite, which is to propitiate Nature, to inspire her votary with the divine afflatus ; — the priest alone is wanting.
Southey's ' Songs of the North American Indians' pos- sess.very few beauties. He manufactures his prose and
DOMESTIC LITERATURE. 109
poetry too much on the same principles. Moore has been much happier in employing a few traditions and local asso- ciations, which he met with in this country ; and a few of his beautiful sono:s mig-ht be mentioned, as evidence in
O CD '
favour of their fitness for the purposes of modern poetry.
The next position of the writer on whom I have been commenting is, " that of traditionary history we have hardly any that is of a romantic character." To prove the con- trary, we should be obliged to enter a field entirely too wide to be surveyed in our present limits. We can only refer to an article in the third volume of the North Ameri- can Review, page 480, enumerating many of the materials for romance writing, in the History of the Settlers of New- England. Let the writer read the few pages there devoted to this topic, and recant this ohiter dictum, at his leisure. The reviewer hazards, however, one prediction, which has been, perhaps, already contradicted. " Whoever," sayg he (page 484), " in this country first attains the rank of a first-rate writer of fiction, w^e venture to predict will lay his scene here." The author of the Spy (which is another instance in point, as being partly founded upon tradition), commenced his career in our own state. It remains to be seen whether he will find the eastern soil as congenial to his powers as our own. Unquestionably, the history of New-England is more prolific in romantic incident, and pic- turesque variety of characters and conflicting principles, than that of any other part of the United States. The accounts of them, too, are numerous, and were written at the time of their occurrence, by those who were part of what they saw, and described it graphically and minutely. Their narra- tives, in the language of their times, in every size, from the ponderous folios of Cotton Mather, to the modest pamphlet of his relation Increase, are precisely the auxiliaries desid- erated by the compiler of romance, who would bof row their power from the Muses, of giving to his inventions a resem- blance to reality, and exhibiting ' truth severe, by fairy fic- tion dress'd.'
110 DOMESTIC LITERATURE.
"iSfitv rj-'ivSea noWu \iytiv trv^ioityiv o'jioXa
We seek, almost hopelessly, for such materials, elsewhere throughout the country ; but must resort to oral tradition, or the pages of some general history, which presents no living pictures of men or their manners.
As adminicles of testimony, on this point, I again refer to the works noticed at the commencement of this article. Captain Mason and Captain Kyd, the murder of Miss M'Rae and the abortive attempt to seize Arnold in his quar- ters, with several other names and incidents of peculiar interest, are happily introduced by these authors ; suffi- ciently so, at least, to show what might be made of them, in a more elaborate effort.
Themes for the ludicrous, as a part of the province of fiction, are also abundant in the records and remembrances . of our past history, and in the former and present state of society in different parts of our country. It is hardly ne- cessary to mention as illustrations, M'Fingal and Knicker- bocker, Rip Van Winkle, the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, &LC. I ought, perhaps, to adduce the Long Finne, also, as an example. But I candidly confess, that having asked many times ' what it was meant to demonstrate,' and hav- ing never received a satisfactory answer, I have not yet spent my judgment upon its perusal. These instances show what may be done ; but it is obvious that much more remains unattempted. Nothing like the different kinds of humour, applied to the description of character, in the nov- els of Fielding, Smollet, or the author of Waverley, has yet been elicited here ; where the variety of character and cir- cumstances is so great, and in some respects so novel. The ground is scarcely broken. If some enterprising Yankee, who has fought his way through the world, would only communicate all his adventures, from the time he left the in- terior of Connecticut, ' with a light heart and a thin pair of breeches,' until he became a substantial man and at ease in
DOMESTIC LITERATURE. Ill
his possessions, — and would intrust his manuscript to some ingenious and accomplished writer, who might recast and embellish it,— to such a one, for instance, as dramatized Captain Riley's Narrative, — we have no doubt he might draw tears, both of laughter and sentiment, from all who could read English.
The history of witchcraft, to which the writer in this magazine alludes, might be employed for the purposes of either comic or tragic romance, though more adapted to the latter. A great deal was written on the subject at the time it was in vogue, which would abundantly supply the wants of the novelist. The persecutions also of the Quakers and Baptists, and, indeed, of all who differed from themselves, by the sturdy Calvinists, who came over the water to en- joy that liberty of conscience which they would allow to no one else, are minutely detailed, and might be used with effect in fiction.
The writer next inquires, " without the traditionary asso- ciations connected with the strong features of nature in the Old World, what could be made of them ?" Seeming to im- ply, that the sublime and picturesque, grand and beautiful scenery of our own country, which is unconnected wUh legendary lore, affords no subjects on which the imagina- tion may dwell with delight. In the first place, as we have before stated, associations are not wanting ; and in the next, we would ask, after the classical remembrances, which are common to all the enlightened nations of Christendom, what associations have we with most of the mountains, riv- ers, and lakes which have been sung in modern verse. We have surely a better acquaintance here with our own High- lands, than with Skiddaw, Schehralion, or any other hill in Scotland. But we read and relish the descriptive poetry of Scott, solely for its own excellence. Can we not admire a beautiful landscape, without knowing from what country it is copied? Wherein, indeed, would we be wiser for the information, if we had never seen, and never heard of the
112 DOMESTIC LITERATURE.
original? And need we name Thomson, Beattie, Cowper, Wordswortli, and many other examples, to show that de- scriptive poetry can be created, without the scene deriving additional interest from history or tradition, or without, in truth, having any names, capable of being introduced into poetry ? What associations have we with the Cumberland lakes ? What kind of a name for a romantic river is Dud- don, which has, nevertheless, been taught to meander through many very pleasing sonnets ? Or how many per- sons, except in those sonnets, ever heard of such a stream ? For sound, it cannot compare with Hudson ; and the latter, by-the-way, through all its majestic course, is connected with many associations for those who know how to feel and employ them.
I do not, however, in denying these positions of this cor- respondent, intend, in any manner, to controvert the general doctrine for which he contends, that the extensive range of modern literature demands, in a writer who would acquire any permanent celebrity, a liberal acquaintance with the past history and present state of the literary world. I have no manner of respect for some stmnp philosophers of our own, who have seriously proposed that the importation of foreign books should be prohibited. The opposite system, however, may be carried too far. To go over all the ground that is behind would be the labour of a life : to keep even pace with all the different authors who are now shedding their lights of different lustre over Europe would be impossible. Every fair in Germany, every annual cata- logue published in England, presents us with almost a new library. But the scholar here, who would dedicate his time and talents to contributing to the establishment of a national literature, which should be characterized by simplicity and strength, must begin by making himself famihar with the manner of the ancient models, and of the founders of modern literature. The ornate, overloaded, obviously arti- ficial, and often dissolute style of the lighter literature of
DOMESTIC LITERATURE. 113
the day, with its endless redundance, useless verbiage, and unmeaning allusions, affords no precedent for our primitial classics. It ought not to, and it is pleasant to observe that it does not, suit the genius of our nation ; for those vv^riters v^ho have been most successful among ourselves have been most distinguished for cultivated simplicity. The affected parade of superficial acquirements, and the actual posses- sion of sound and general knowledge, are not easily con- founded. It may be feared, however, that the foppish and ambitiously quaint style of some English Magazines, which circulate freely among us, may have a pernicious effect, in corrupting the taste of many, particularly the young.
Let it be also observed, in passing, that though we have nothing yet which we can call, without hyperbole, national literature, much is to be learned respecting our country with which a national writer, without wishing to become an antiquarian, ought to be acquainted, if he would not be thought shamefully ignorant. Surely, anything relating to our continent, from Greenland to Cape Horn, is more interesting to an American than the family history of some obscure chieftain, accounts of the crude superstitions of barbarians with whom we have no associations, or memoirs on the obsolete customs of some tribe which has longest remained out of the pale of civilization ; with all which the presses of modern times have been groaning.
I contend, too, strenuously, for a point which it scarcely seems necessary to urge, that a writer of talents among our own people should devote his abilities and apply his acquirements to subjects of domestic interest ; exclusively so, so far forth as his opportunities admit. Why should we do what others have done well before, and be content, at best, but with the praise of successful imitation ? If an accomplished American travels, and records his adven- tures, and the feelings to which they gave birth, what can he say of the vestiges of antiquity which he visits, which has not been suggested before ? He can, however, com-
VOL. I. P
114 DOMESTIC LITERATURE.
pare what he sees abroad with what he left at home, and communicate for the benefit of his countrymen the result of such comparison, whether in their favour or against them. Is the historian to repeat the thrice-told tale of another people, when our own annals are imperfectly- recorded ? Is the political philosopher to be for ever per- plexed with the concerns of Europe, her rotten dynasties, conflicting interests, and complicated finance, without turn- ing to our own unparalleled institutions, on which no feudal system or fungous hierarchy ever operated with their un- natural influences ; which have no ancient evils to remedy, but need only beware of the introduction of errors ? It should be his task to detect the appearance, and warn against the result, of such admissions ; to point out the proper modes of applying the powerful energies and resources of our young empire for the good of present and future generations. Is the poet to take up the burthen of a strain, with which the hills and groves of Europe have been vocal for ages, when nature, in her unpolluted simplicity and grandeur, invites him to the festival of imaginative feeling, in the bosom of her ancient solitudes ? Is the novelist to describe manners which he can glean only from books, when our own are before him, undepicted, though rich in all the materials of satire, description, and romance ? Can the painter or sculptor (if any such we should have) find no symmetry in the vanishing forms of our aborigines ; no historical incident which might live on the canvass ; no worthy whose reverend image should be perpetuated in enduring marble ?
The literature of a nation is its common property, and one of the strongest bonds of common feeling. More par- ticularly does it become so when the subject is domestic. The fame of an author who is universally admired is part of the inheritance of every individual citizen of his country. He adds another ligament to the ties which bind a people together ; and in so doing, although the immediate object
DOMESTIC LITERATURE. 115
of his efforts may have only been to amuse his readers, he becomes the benefactor of his country.
With such reservations and comments, I willingly con- cede to the v^riter on " modern literature" the necessity of studying foreign examples ; and devoutly wish that the prosecution of native literature may be conducted on prin- ciples as liberal as those he espouses. I hope, too, that he will comply with a promise, which he is so well able to per- form, of lending his hand to the good work himself. Illus- tration on such a subject is better than theory.
I cannot conclude an article on domestic literature, with- out expressing the joy with which every intelligent observer of the signs of the times must mark the present indications of rapid advancement. As has been recently well observed by an elegant writer, we have no cause to blush, if our national pride rests as much on just anticipations as on our recollections of what has been. With the promise held, forth by the spirit of domestic improvement, which seems now spreading wide through our country in every depart- ment, we may soon expect an era when the taunts of foreign criticism will be hushed ; when apology will not be neces- sary, and recrimination will be idle ; when we may point as proudly to the imperishable labours of genius in the fields of literature, as we now do to the discoveries of our philosophers, the inventions of our mechanists, or the triumphs of our arms.
ISAAC;
A TYPE OF THE REDEEMER.
[This version of one of the Sacred Operas of Metastasio was published in the Talisman for the year 1&28, with the following note by Mr. Sands : —
'* In the following translation I have endeavoured to adhere as closely as possible to the text of the original, and of the English version of the Scriptures, where the author has quoted or alluded to them. Some passages, which seemed least essential in pre- serving the unity of the design, have been omitted."]
ISAAC;
A TYPE OF THE REDEEMER.
PART FIRST.
ABRAHAM. ISAAC.
Ab. No more, my son ; now more than half the night O'er us, forgetful of the hours, and held In sweet discourse, hath pass'd. Thee the desire Of knowledge, me the love to see thee thus Hang on my lips attentive, hath so long Beguiled from sleep. Dear Isaac, to thy couch. Now ask not further. To their wonted rest Give we our weary limbs. Some other time. What yet remains I will in full recount.
Is. Whene'er, O father, thou resum'st the tale, In its miraculous order, of thy life, Such pleasing wonder wraps my spirit round, I feel no sense of weariness, nor wish For rest. My being I forget : with thee Borne on through each event, beside thee ever I could assert myself to be. When first. Obedient to the call of the Most High, Thy native soil forsaking, I with thee
120 ISAAC.
Leave the Chaldean plains : in woods and hills
Of Charran and of Palestine, with thee
A stranger I sojourn. And when there comes
A famine in that land, and thou dost rove
Far, seeking food, I journey on with thee
To Gerar and to Egypt, shuddering still
At thine and at my mother's perilous way.
When on the kings overthrown thou setf st thy foot,
Conqueror, near Jordan's double-founted source,
I follow thy victorious steps. But when
Thou dost disclose the promises of God,
The Covenant stablished 'twixt Him and thee, —
With the dread presence overwhelmed, I hear
The Deep Voice of Jehovah ; and my heart
Is filled with sacred awe.
Ah, Those promises Of the Eternal now unfold in thee. And in thy seed shall be fulfilled. This land Wherein thou wanderest as a stranger now. From Nilus to Euphrates, shall to them Be subject.
Is. Then my issue —
Ah. Than the stars, And than the sands, shall be more numerous. Them Will the Most High declare his chosen race, Will make them kings and princes of the earth ; And all that dwell therein, that yet shall come, Through the long future, shall be blest in us.
Is. What glory, fortune, happiness ! ^ Ah. Ah ! my son.
Let not such glory dazzle thee ! Our joy Is often sinful, when beneath it hid. Pride, like a serpent, creeps into the heart. And turns to poison the best gifts of Heaven.
Is. I feel my soul from such contagion free. I feel — but I may be deceived ; for who
ISAAC. 121
Knows thoroughly his own heart ? Thou didst not speak Thus undesignedly. Thou makest me tremble.
Ab. (O holy fear of God, the true beginning Of wisdom !) Be thoiT quieted, my son, Thy father warns thee, but accuses not. Go — such as now thou art, God keep thee still.
Abraham, alone. Oh ! how, and in what language, bounteous God, For all thy mercies shall I render thanks ? Great was thy goodness which vouchsafed to me A son when old, and stricken far in age, But such a son, depository meet Of my o'erflowing tenderness, — my hope, — The dear prop of my many years, — Oh ! this. This is a gift — But whence this sudden light That pours its blaze around ? Does the sun bring The flood of day so soon ? Ah no ! the sun Hath not such living splendour in his beams. I know the glorious rays — I feel who comes !
The Angel appears.
Angel. Abraham ! Abraham !
Ah. Behold I am here.
Angel. Hearken to the commandment which I bring From the Everlasting God. Take now thy son, Thine only son, Isaac, whom thou so lovest, And get thee with him to Moriah. There, His blood being shed, offer thou up the lad For a burnt- offering, on that mountain's top Which He shall show thee, by a certain sign.
Thine innocent child, in thy late years. Vouchsafed by heaven to thy desires,
Whom love so just, so strong endears, God at thy hand requires ;
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122 ISAAC.
Requires thine offspring's blood to flow^
Beneatii thy sacrificing knife, Requires the priest to strike the blow,
Who gave the victim life.
Abraham, alone. Eternal God ! how sudden thy command ! How terrible its purport. 'Tis thy will That I should slay my son ; and thou art pleased Even in thine awful message to rehearse The exceeding value of the gift recalled ; Repeating all the namics that can awake The tenderest yearnings towards the thing I lose. But Thou commandest it : It is enough. I bow my forehead to the dust. I adore Thine awful mandate. I will shed his blood — But Isaac dead — my hopes — where then are they ? Runs not the promise counter to the command % No ! for Thou canst not lie, and I am bound To hearken and obey. To doubt is sin ; 'Tis sin to search thy ways, past finding out. My God ! I do obey, believe, and hope. But in this terrible strait, be Thou my help, Oh Lord ! behold me ready for the work I must perform and will.
But who can tell ? When I must strike the blow — his pleading looks My heart may agitate — my hand may tremble, Unless Thou giv'st me strength. I am a man^ I am a father. Thou, Lord, knowest all. What ho ! within !
Abraham. Servants. Ah. Wake Isaac from his sleep. Saddle an ass ; call two of the young men To follow me. — But let not Sarah hear,
ISAAC. 123
Nor break her slumbers. Yet unknown to her
Be the dread secret. Let me spare her yet
A mother's agony. Too soon — Oh God 1 {
She comes. How shall I speak ?
Abraham. Sarah.
Sar, So long before The dawn, is Abraham forth ? What care anew —
Ab. Sarah, I am bound to offer up to God The blood of a pure victmi. I go forth To cut dry branches from the neighbouring wood. To kindle on the altar. Stay me not- Farewell !
Sar. May I not bear thee company ?
Ab. Not this time. Let it please thee to remain.
Sar. And have I walked with thee so many years, Partner in all thy joys, and all thy griefs, And must I in thy pious offices Partake no longer ?
Ab. (Just is the reproof. She should not be defrauded of her part In this great sacrifice. She must know all.)
Sar. (What hath he to unfold ?)
Ab. Beloved wife. Tell me, — in present memory dost thou bear The unnumbered mercies God hath showered upon us ?
Sar. Ah ! how can I forget them ?
Ab. Art thou grateful ?
Sar. He knows my heart.
Ab. But should he ask from thee To give some difficult proof of gratitude, Most trying to the heart ?
Sar. Content I were To meet all dangers, to lay down my life. Ab. And if he should demand thy son ? Sar. Isaac !
124 ISAAC.
Ab. Even Isaac.
Sar. Alas ! though it might cost the pangs of death- Unto the hand which gave, I would restore The precious gift.
Ab. Then, Sarah, be it so. Restore him. God requires it.
Sar. Ha!
Ab. Even so. I must offer up the lad a sacrifice To Him. Such his behest ; and absolute Was the commandment.
Sar. Abraham ! sayest thou ? Thy words amaze me. Can it be His will Our son should die, so dear to Him, — His own Peculiar gift — who was to be the sire Of many and mighty nations? How? and why?
Ab. It hath not pleased the Almighty to reveal His purposes. A mandate from His lips Issued, 'tis ours in silence to obey, Not reason of its cause.
Sar. And Isaac then Full soon —
Ab. Must on the altar yield his life.
Sar. The father too himself —
Ab. The father too With his own hand must offer him. Oh wife ! If in the merit of this sacrifice Thou wouldst partake, let thy free will attend In this great action. But no further now A yearning mother's presence I invite, Nor can permit. Farewell ! From Isaac hide The secret — 'tis from me that he must learn — Alas ! thou weepest. Be firm ! if thou art willing, And in thy will art strongly resolute, God ever merciful will with his grace Help thee, and afterward for righteousness
ISAAC. 125
It shall be accounted to thee. Ponder this, That better than ourselves can know, He knows Whatever is good for us, whate'er is ill. Wealth, honour, length of days, and progeny, Are all His gifts ; nor, rendering unto Him That which Himself bestowed, is man bereaved.
Let peace o'er thy sad bosom move.
And teach thy spirit to obey ; Dearer to God the task shall prove.
Than any victim thou couldst slay.
Another's blood we only pay. For tribute when the victim dies ;
We render up, when we obey, The Will, a nobler sacrifice.
Sarah, alone.
Yet then, a little while —
Miserable, afflicted, sorrow-stricken mother,
Mother no longer shall I be ? That bosom,.
That seat of truth — upon the altar-stone
Transpierced, must all its innocent blood be shed ?
Already in my soul I feel the edge
Of that dividing knife. Eternal Father,
Accept with favour all my anguish ! Here
In this sad heart the sacrifice begins.
Nor less the sacrifice of grief, perchance,
Than of the blood thou biddest to be shed.
Sarah. Isaac. Gamari. Servants,
Is. Mother.
Sar. (That name ! that image !)
Is. I am summoned By Abraham. Is he not with thee ? Swift I must speed to find him.
126 ISAAC.
Sar. Hearken — (Strengthen me, O God !)
Is. Thou dost not know that they prepare A sacrifice, whereat I must attend.
Sar. I know my son, I know. Yet hold ! (I feel The pangs of death.) Do not forsake me thus !
Is. My mother, why art thou disquieted, And wherefore dost thou weep ?
Sar. Alas ! I am left Childless.
Is. But I will soon return to thee. Surely for the first time I do not quit Thy much-loved presence.
Sar. But this time — (Oh God ! What agony hath ever equalled mine !)
Is. Gamari, thou whom I have ever loved, Who on my bosom hath so often leaned, Do thou watch over her when I am gone. Mother, till I return, behold thy son ! Thou weepest still. What shall — what must I do ? Thou knowest my father's will,
Sar. Yes, go my son ; His will be done. My will it shall be too, Though in a thousand parts my heart be rent. Go — list — one last embrace, and then farewell !
Isaac, Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid, Though absent I am with you still, to cheer you and to aid ; I will not leave you comfortless, to sorrow here in vain, I go unto my father now, and I will come again. As I am in the Father, and in me the Father is. Believe the words I speak to you ; not mine they are, but
His. Believe, though for a Httle while, my face ye may not see, My promise, that where'er I am, there you shall also be.
ISAAC. 127
CHORUS OP SHEPHERDS, ETC;
Oh ! daughter of humility !
Friend of each virtue that adorns the heart, Obedience ! who Hke thee
Can to the faithful soul rich grace impart ! A wild and savage plant, the human will In its gross soil springs up, and puts forth still Rank shoots, till each excrescence thou dost prune,
And graft the scions of the Maker's pleasure : Then the old trunk acquires fresh vigour soon,
God nourishes it in abundant measures ; And free and fair its branches round are thrown, When thus His will becomes our own.
PART SECOND.
Sarah, alone. Who will have pity on me ? Who will tell me How my son fares ? Servants and shepherds forth I have sent on every side, and none returns. Alas ! belike for pity each avoids me ; Belike, already in his father's hands He hath breathed out his innocent soul. Ah me ! Of all I love, there is none to comfort me. Mine eyes do fill with tears, my strength dries up. My heart is turned within me, while I lookj And there is none to help. Whither shall I turn ? How doth the house sit solitary ; once So full of people, busy and rejoicing ; The ways do mourn ; the gates are desolate ; The flocks in vain for their lost keeper seek ; Wandering they go, without their wonted guide. The shepherd smitten, scattered are the sheep ! - But one at least of such a multitude. One only — Ha ! behold one. I will seek him,
128 ISAAC.
I will demand, — but my heart fails. I dread
To hear his answer. Wherefore do they come
Thus in disorder ? Where is Abraham ?
What have ye witnessed ? God support me ! speak !
Sarah. Gamari. Shepherds, Sar. Oh speak ! your silence is to me More cruel than your words can be ! Forbear — your tidings I have read ; Say not to me — " thy son is dead !"
Yes — on the altar-stone I know Ere this his precious blood must flow : *Tis in my heart, and in my brain, The knife with which my son was slain !
Gam. 'Tis not through my own fault, that I return So tardily from doing thy commands. Know —
Sar. Ah ! I know it all — already ; all, I know, Gamari. I have no more a son. Isaac is dead.
Gam. How ? When myself beheld him Even now, at Mount Moriah's foot.
Sar. Ha ! then — Does he yet live ? Dost thou not mock me ?
Gam. Soon Thou shalt embrace him.
Sar. Everlasting God ! Has then my sorrow moved thee to compassion ! Can thy command be altered or revoked ; What victim, then, was offered to the Lord ?
Gam. By this time, or I err, the sacrifice Must be complete ; but when I parted thence, It was not.
Sar. Was not yet ? What then detained Abfaham at the mountain's foot so long ?
ISAAC. 129
Gam. Me too tliis much amazed, nor did I dare Nearer approach, the cause of their delay To ask. Perhaps he waited for a sign From heaven. For suddenly, towards the mountain I marked him going, with firm steps. He left us All on the plain. He bore the sacred fire In one hand ; in the other was the knife — Sar, And Isaac ?
Gam. Isaac, meek and lowly went, Bending beneath the burden of hewn boughs, Bound up, a cumbrous load, with weary steps Up the steep pathway following.
Sar. Ah, how often Am I to die this day !
Gam. When my dear lord, Wearied and toiling like a bondsman thus I saw, what love, what sorrow filled my heart I Beneath his heavy load, at every step, I dreaded to behold him sink oppress'd. I felt that heavy load weigh down my soul, And so much of his agony on that mount I felt, that even yet upon my brow Thick stands the sweat that anguish wrung from me.
Sar. In pity, from thy sad detail forbear, Nor fret the deep wounds of my soul.
Gam, Behold Abraham is returning.
Sar. Wo is me ! The sacrifice is then complete.
Gam. Of a certainty 'Tis finished. And in Abraham's right hand The knife yet drips with blood.
Sar. Oh ! let me fly The cruel sight.
VOL. I. R
130 ISAAC.
Sarah. Abraham. Isaac. Gamarl Shepherds^ 6fC,
Is. Mother !
Ah, Wife!
Is. Whither goest thou ?
Ah. Whom dost thou fly ?
Sar. Isaac ! Almighty God ! Do I dream. Is it thyself?
Is. Mother, 'tis I. I came to bring thee peace. To thine embrace Again I come. God has unlocked for us The treasures of his grace.
Sar. My son !
Is. Thou art faint.
Sar. My son ! alas, I die !
Ah. Support her, Isaac.
Is. Alas ! that deadly paleness — these cold drops — -
Ah. Be not cast down nor troubled, oh, my son ! Of great and sudden joy the effect thou seest Is no unwonted issue. Brief repose Her o'erfraught soul requires, that to herself And certainty of peace she may return.
Is, How is it that a soul, which could bear up Unyielding against evils numberless. One happy moment thus can quite o'erpower ?
Ah. Grief wears, my son, a known familiar face, While joy is ever but a transient guest.
Cast on a sea of care and pain,
Where storms for ever rage, Man learns from childhood to sustain
Sorrow, his heritage.
So rarely Good his portion is,
The smile of Joy so rare, The glad surprise of sudden bliss
He never learns to bear !
ISAAC. 13i
Gam. Lo ! Sarah breathes again ; and on the Hght Her eyehds are reopened.
Sar. Abraham ! Isaac ! Can it be true.
Is. Yes. Oh my mother ! Thou art in Isaac's arms.
Sar. Thy name be blessed Oh Lord most merciful ! now and for ever ! But Abraham, how —
Ah. Hearken thou, and adore Infinite goodness. On the instant when I lifted up mine eyes, and afar off Beheld the place the Lord revealed to me, Straightway I arose ; and to the appointed hill, With my son only, following near at hand, And with a heart whose throbbings thou may'st guess, Went forward. On the journey Isaac spake. Saying, father, behold here the fire and wood, But where the lamb for a burnt-offering ? Sadly I answered, meeting not his eye, My son, God will provide himself a lamb For a burnt-offering. And we went on both Together, climbing the ascent. And when We came to the place which God had told me of, I built an altar there ; and laid the wood In order. I bound Isaac.
Sar. Ah ! 'twas then He knew the whole. And how, then, unto God Did he present himself a sacrifice ?
Ah. Even as a lamb that to the slaughter goes, Innocent, meek, and opening not his mouth.
Sar. Alas ! I can imagine all the pangs Of that most bitter moment.
Ah. Sarah, no : ' ■
I felt an unknown strength support me then. His own mysterious gift. No more the father.
132 ISAAC.
No more the man possessed me. For the power
Of faith had conquered nature. A clear Kght,
Unseen by mortal wisdom, to my thought
Showed marvellously linked with my son's death
The promises of God. With love and faith
And hope, my heart was glowing in one blaze
Of wondrous ecstasy, wherein I seemed
To hold communion with the Eternal Mind.
And now already on the upturned brow
Of kneehng Isaac was my left hand laid ;
My eyes were bent on heaven ; and I stretched forth
My hand, and took the knife to slay my son.
When a bright radiance, with a sudden burst
Of glory kindled all the air. A voice
Called to me out of heaven, saying, Abraham,
Lay not thy hand upon the lad, nor do thou
Any thing unto him ; for now I know
How much thou fearest God, seeing thou has not
Withheld thy son, thine only son from me.
Sar, I breathe once more.
Ah. At these awakening words. My heart was moved within me. I became Again the man, the father. That kind. voice With angel tones disarmed my steeled breast, The barriers that encircled it were broken. And the full flood of human sympathies Gushed in with overflowing waves. Amazement, Joy, gratitude, love, fear, yearnings profound. Tenderness, pity, almost in one tide Overwhelmed my soul. Fain would I have poured out My thanks unto the Lord ; but not a sound My lips could frame. Then to unbind the lad With hasty hands I strove ; but those same knots Which they unshaking formed, trembling they had not The cunning to undo. Half-murmured words, Broken )vith sobs of rapture, fond embraces,
ISAAC. 133
Mingled with many tears — even while I speak. Again the strong convulsion overcomes My senses. Isaac, finish thou the tale.
Is. The victim yet was wanting for the rite, But God provided one, as Abraham Foretold. At noise of branches rustling near, We lifted up our eyes and looked, and lo ! Behind us a white ram, caught by his horns, In an entangled thicket's thorny brake, Strove vainly to set free his armed front. On him my bonds were fastened. He being slain, With guiltless blood supplied the sacred fire.
Gam, Thrice happy Abraham ! who hath to God Given such clear proof of faiths
Sar. No, not therein The blessing lies. Already known to God Without such proof was Abraham. Himself Did Abraham not know, nor the full power Of his own confidence in God, who willed To instruct him in its strength ; willed that in him Of faith and constancy the world should have A glorious example, memorable Through all succeeding ages. Oh henceforth Pregnant be all the examples of his faith With generous fruits ; and often, in ourselves, May we repeat this solemn sacrifice !
May every heart an altar prove, Where burns the flame of sacred love ; And be the victims of its fires Our earth-born longings and desires : These let us slay, and offer whole The cherished offspring of the soul,
A son devoted, in his eyes Is not a worthier sacrifice,
134 ISAAC.
Than to subdue the hosts of sin, That ever press the soul to win, And give the heart, in foUies lost. To him entire, a holocaust !
Ah, Be silent. Heaven is opening.
The angel appears. Angel. Abraham, I come to thee again, a messenger From God. With thine obedience, and thy proof Of perfect faith, he is well pleased. Because Thou hast done this thing, and not withheld thy son, Thine only son, he doth renew to thee His promises. In blessing he will bless thee, In multiplying he will multiply Thy seed even as the stars of heaven, or sands On the sea shore ; and in them, in due time, Shall all the nations of the earth be bless'd.
In the fulness of ages
Thy progeny glorious. Shall come o'er his enemies
Trampling victorious :
Their gates shall fly open, Their hosts shrink before him,
In the face of the nations
Who shall kneel and adore him !
From God is the promise.
His foes long shall mourn it ; He can swear by no greater,
By Himself he hath sworn it.
Sar, Hast thou heard, Abraham ?
Is. He hears not. Father !
Sur. What glory lightens o'er his features !
ISAAC.
135
Ak God Omnipotent ! with what mysterious types This day thou makest known thy will. The father Offers his only son. The son accepts Of his free will the dreadful penalty, Which he had never merited. Oh why Bears he the fatal instrument of death, On his own bending shoulder ? For what end, Among so many, chosen is that mount ? "Why is the victim's head plucked from the thorns ? In visions of the future I am rapt : With other blood I see that mountain stained ; Another Son I see, bowing his head Meekly, unto his Father's hand commend His spirit. The hills shake ! The graves are opened 1 And the thick blackness of profoundest night Covers all heaven ! — I read the mystery 1 Thanks, thanks, redeeming God ! This is that day, I have desired to see ! This is that blood. An infinite recompense for infinite guilt ! This is that sacrifice which must be made. That satisfies and reconciles at once Eternal Justice and Eternal Love 1 This is that death which unto man redeemed Unfolds the gates of everlasting life !
CHORUS OF SHEPHERDS, ETC.
So long does the Most High, Ere rolling ages in their order staid Shall bring forth the ripe time of prophecy,
Prepare to break the bonds that sin has wrought. Is such the costly ransom to be paid,
Ere man's immortal freedom can be bought. His guilty race from thraldom to deliver ?
Thus in its counsels wills the Eternal Mind. Oh let us lose the purchased blessings never.
Of his dear care, who hath so loved mankind !
i
THE CAIO GRACCO OF MONTI.
VOL. I. — S
[The article which follows is a remarkable example of the facility of Mr. Sands in composition. It was written, including the translations, in the course of a single evening. It appeared in 1824 in the Atlantic Magazine, of which he was then the editor.]
THE CAIO GRACCO OF MOiNTl.
The three tragedies of Vincenzo Monti stand in the highest rank of modern dramatic compositions ; and are not unworthy of a comparison with the noblest productions of the ancient writers. Though he sometimes imitates their excellences, it is in a manner not unworthy of the great originals, from whom he is not afraid to borrow. It is not our intention, however, at present, to enter into any exami- nation of the merits of his dramas ; but merely to give a succinct account of their several plots, for the purpose of introducing such specimens of his manner as a translation nearly literal will allow. In future numbers, we shall probably notice his Aristodemo and Galeotto Manfredi, with his other poetical productions. At present, we pro- pose to give a brief sketch of his Caio Gracco, which, as an heroic tragedy, we prefer to the Aristodemo, though there are different opinions as to their relative merits.
The tragedy opens with a soliloquy of Gracchus, as he enters Rome at night, having just arrived from Egypt, where he had razed Carthage to the ground. His return, as he afterward mentions, had been expedited by the mes- sages of Marcus Fulvius, who had hitherto enjoyed his confidence, and had warned him that the patrician power was increasing, and that the popular laws he had introduced were in danger.
140 THE CAIO GRACCO OF MONTI.
ACT I. SCENE I.
Caius solus. Lo ! Caius, thou'rt in Rome. Here have I entered. Unseen, protected by the friendly night. Gracchus is with thee, Rome ! have courage yet ! Silence reigns all around ; in soundest sleep Rest, from the cares of the laborious day. The toiling people. O ye good and true And only Romans ! Sweet your slumbers are. By labour seasoned ; undisturbed, because Remorse comes not to trouble them.
Meantime, 'Mid the rank steam of their inebriate feasts, The nobles revel — the assassins base Of my loved brother ; or in conclave dark Perchance enclosed, my death the miscreants plot, And forge their chains for Roman liberty ; Nor know how dread an enemy is nigh. But now enough of this. From dangers past Safe, here I press my fathers' threshold. Yes, This is my own loved threshold. Oh my mother ! Oh my Licinia ! Oh my son ! I come At length to end your woes, and with me bring Three powerful furies — Rage, for my wronged country, Love for my friends, and Vengeance, as the third- Yea, Vengeance, for a brother's massacre !
As Gracchus is about to enter his own porch, Fulvius appears, followed by a slave, whom he despatches with hasty words of encouragement, and injunctions of silence, to execute a dangerous and dreadful murder. The poor slave, however, has no sooner left him, than he pronounces his certain doom, as the only sure seal of secrecy. Though it is anticipating the development of the plot, it may be men- tioned here, that Fulvius was the lover of the sister of Gracchus, who was the wife of iEmilianus ; and that, by an agreement between the guilty pair, the slave was now commissioned to assassinate the most illustrious Roman of that age. Gracchus was himself the avowed and deter-
THE CAIO GRACCO OF MONTI. 141
mined enemy of ^milianus ; from the part he had taken with the patricians in the civil commotions, wlien Tiberius Gracchus was slain by Scipio Nasica. He was yet, how- ever, entirely ignorant of the guilt of Fulvius ; and of the ultimate ends which he proposed to himself, by espousing so warmly the popular side. He meets him with joy, and a dialogue ensues on the past and present state of affairs, too long for translation. Fulvius alludes darkly to the assassination of iEmilianus, in language then unintelligible to Gracchus ; but as he is insisting on a clear explanation, he is interrupted by the approach of his mother Cornelia and his wife Licinia, leading his son by the hand, who are leaving their home, accompanied by a freedman. They were going to the house of iEmilianus, who had warned them of the approaching troubles, and offered them the protection of his roof. Gracchus is incensed on hearing this ; and Fulvius ventures to expostulate with the lofty Cornelia ; who, on learning his name, reproaches Gracchus with having such a companion ; and informs him that Ful- vius is plotting against the virtue of his sister, and had that day been expelled from his house by her husband. She retires within her house, and Gracchus follows, after bid- ding Fulvius prepare to exculpate himself.
In the second act, the consul Opimius and Drusus (one of the tribunes) meet at daybreak in the Forum.
Drusus. The earliest ray of morning scarce has lit
The summits of the Palatine ; and yet,
Already, without lictors, and alone, Goes forth the Roman consul ] On this day, With honour big to thee, disgrace to Gracchus, And triumph to the senate, every eye Turns on Opimius. Humbly to his charge The people trust their destiny, the great Their fortunes, Rome her quiet long disturbed. Weary of broils. And stands he idly here — And, shall I say, forgetful of his friends, And of himself 1
142 THE CAIO GRACCO OF SIONTI.
In the dialogue which ensues, Opimius informs Drusus that Gracchus is in Rome ; which he had learned by means of his spies ; and that it is his intention to have an inter- view with him, in order, under pretence of reasoning him into forbearance, to drive him to some sudden act which might lead to his destruction. Gracchus enters, with the people, shouting his name, and denouncing the patricians. He persuades them to retire ; and an admirable scene follows between Opimius and Gracchus, which we cannot give entire, and which does not admit of selections. Drusus enters, and announces the sudden death of ^Emili- anus, and that it was whispered that he perished by vio- lence. Cornelia also enters with the tidings ; and a dread- ful suspicion crosses the mind of Gracchus, as the hints of Fulvius on the preceding night recur to his recollection. His confusion is remarked by Opimius and Drusus, who retire to consult their measures on the hint thus obtained. As Caius is meditating on his suspicions, Fulvius enters, who does not deny his guilt, but justifies it as an act of patriotism. He descants on the tyranny, pride, and cruelty of the Scipios, both at home and abroad ; and vindicates himself still further on the ground, that Gracchus had him- self said that ^Emilianus deserved death as a tyrant ; and that he had therefore only acted the part of a friend in obeying the suggestion. We give the remainder of the dialogue, which concludes the second act.
Cains. Thou my friend, villain ! I have never been The friend of profligates. Oh ! that the bolt Of justice v^^ould descend with heaviest crash. Scattering the miscreants, who, through paths of blood, Find out not liberty, but chains for man, Making more horrible than servitude Even liberty itself. Say not, blasphemer, Say not such sentiment was ever mine. I wished him dead— but by the awful axe Of public justice, which shall one day fall On thy base neck. Thou hast brought upon my name Fearful (disgrace — and tremble !
THE CAIO GKAC'CO OP MONTI. 143
Fill. Gracchus, cease These outrages. I counsel thee — desist. And be this act unjust or just, do thou Reap of my deed the harvest — and be silent. Force me not to say more.
Cuius. What more ?
Ful. That which I may not utter.
Caius. What 1 of further crimes 1 Ful. I know not.
Caius. Knowest thou not ] cold horroj creeps Upon me, and I dare not ask thee more. Ful. Thou hast good reason for't.
Caius. What sayest thou 1
Ful. Nothing. Caius. His words torment my heart. O ! what a thought Flashes, with horrid light across my brain 1 Hast thou accomplices 1
■ Ful. Ay.
Caius. Who 7
Ful. Insensate, Demand no more.
Caius. I will know.
Fid. Have a care. Thou wilt repent of this.
Caius. No more. I will know. Ful. Thou wilt ?— ask then— thy sister. {Exit.) Caius. (solus) Ask my sister ? Has she been in her husband's murder part ? Oh damning guilt ! the Gracchi's stainless name Spotted with everlasting infamy ! With infamy 1 How at the thought I feel The damp hairs rise with horror o'er my brow ! Where shall I hide my head ] and in what wave Wash the deep shame from this dishonoured front ? What's to be done 1 I hear a dreadful voice That murmurs in my soul, and shrieks out there Go— speed thee — take the forfeit of her guilt ! Terrible voice of honour thus betrayed, Voice of my ancestry ! I will obey. For blood thou criest — blood thou shalt have. I swear it.
The third act opens with a scene between Cornelia, Licinia, and Gracchus, in which the majesty of the Roman
144 THE CAIO GRACCO OF MONTI,
matron, and the dignified tenderness and apprehensions of the wife of Gracchus, are displayed with great power and beauty. CorneUa endeavours to persuade her son to desist from his purpose of investigating the circumstances of Scipio's death ; well aware that the result would bring dis- grace upon her daughter and her family. We pass on to the scene which follows.
{A crier advances, bearing a decree of the Senate, which he suspends on a pillar, and the people collect in a hasty manner to read it. A citizen, having observed it, approaches Gracchus, who stands absorbed in grief, and shakes him by the mantle.)
Cit. Gracchus, behold ! observest thou the decree ? Approach and read it.
Caius. {reading) Let th% consul look That the Republic do sustain no harm.
Cit. Beware, unfortunate Roman ! this decree Bodes danger to thy life.
Licinia. What do I hear 1
Caius. I see it ; and I thank thee courteous friend : Thou art, or I mistake, — thou art Quintilius ]
Cit. The same, and still thy friend. Coraggio I (exit.)
Cornelia. Turn, Gracchus, and behold — 'midst all the people, This way advancing, proud Opimius comes. Awake ! the hour has come to try thy soul.
Caius. Depart, and fear not.
Corn. Give me thine hand.
Caius. 'Tis there ; Feel if it tremble.
Corn. No — 'tis firm, and tells me, That better know'st thou how to die, than how To forfeit honour. I am well content.
Caius. Licinia, fare thee well ! if this embrace Should be — if fate — support the unhappy woman. Oh mother ! consciousness hath left her quite. Farewell ! I trust to thee my wife, my son.
{Cornelia retires supporting Licinia.)
Caiu^. {pausing before the statue of his father) Oh thou, who from that silent marble speakest To thy son's constant heart ! unconquered sire ! I feel thy summons ; thou shalt be content. Or Rome this day is free, or soon I too, A naked ghost, shall rush to thine embrace ! ^«^.
THE CAIO GllACCO OF MONTI. 145
Opimius now enters, preceded by the lictors, and fol- lowed by the senators, tribunes, and populace. He addresses the people in an harangue of great art and eloquence, and divides them in their opinions. Gracchus, after a short tumult, obtains leave to speak.
Caius. (from the trihunal) This is the last time I shall speak to you, My countrymen. My enemies and yours Have on my death resolved. I owe ye thanks, That to my lips allowing their free speech, Ye will not suffer me to die infamous. And greater infamy can a Roman know, Than with the name of tyrant on his front Branded, to pass among the silent dead ? A murdered brother's ghost will meet me there. See me all covered with inglorious wounds, And cry, " What hand hath wrought this shame ? from whence These gory trenches ?" And what answer, then, Shall I return, O Romans ] Those same hands. Will I reply, have me to slaughter dragged, Which butchered thee, that day the people left Ungrateful, their defender to his foes, — When thy sad corse lay in the open street. Horribly mangled, — and thy forehead rent Wide with a grisly wound — thine innocent blood Ran in long streams — as, like some worthless wreck. They cast thy corse, yet warm, in Tyber's wave, Which, for the first time stained with Roman blood In civil conflict spilt, flowed to the sea. Nor aught availed thee then the tribune's rank. Which made thy person sacred. And I too,— My tale will run,— was by patrician hate Murdered. I too, for the same crimes condemned, Was called a tyrant ; I, whose every thought Was to my country only consecrated ; I, who redeemed the people from the bonds
Of their insatiate lords ; I, who restored ' *.' '
Their ravished rights to their paternal fields ; I who am poor, plebeian, I who have been The eternal torment of all tyrants — I Too am a tyrant ! Oh my countrymen ! Is this the wages that your servants gain ]
Zd Citizen. Gracchus, take heart. The people is not thus VOL. I. T
146 THE CAIO GRACCO OF MONTI.
Ungrateful, and none here thinks thee a tyrant. «
Speak boldly in your argument, and fear not.
Cuius. Here let the oppressor fear. Am I, forsooth, Of the patrician temper 1 Did I fear When at the imminent peril of my life, I dared surround your prostrate liberties. With solemn laws, as bulwarks 1 I am he, Oh Rome, acknowledge me ! I am he, who Against the unjust, usurping senate stood, And made the people free — yea, made them kings; AH powerful. And in this have I offended ? Answer me, countrymen, was this my crime 1
3d Cit. No ; here we all are kings.
2d Cit. And in the people All power resides.
1st Cit. The senate of our will Is executor, and no more.
Caius. Your foe Is then declared, who charges as my sin Your perfect liberty, and makes his moan, Ever, o'er lost patrician tyranny. Three hundred base and hireling senators Sat in the judgment seat. The strong broke through, Or bought exemption from the feeble bonds Of law, and poverty became a vice. I overthrew this venal, odious court. And thrice a hundred judges, of stanch faith And incorrupt, I added. So the people Had their due share of the judicial power. Now, Romans, who, for this most holy work, Dares censure Caius Gracchus before you ] "Who "? an Opimius, and those same, same traitors?, To whom the market of your lives and fortunes Was barred by me. Oh virtue, name how vain ! Mocked by the wicked and the vile ! ah ! where Now wilt thou rear thy throne, when even here. Here, in the centre of all famous Rome, And all her sacred gods, thou bearost the name Of guilt, and so art punished !
An old Man. True; too true, 'Tis dangerous to be warm in virtue's cause. Surely, some god is reasoning from his lips.
Caius. By the great goodaess of the i?Timortal gods, Born .in the lap of this fair Italy,
THE CAIO GRACCO OF MONTI. 147
The rights of Roman citizenship I deemed Common to all her soil ; from slavery- Redeemed, and made her the world's greatest nation. You, Romans, you, renowned, illustrious sons Of this loved mother, will you, as a crime, Impute to me her rescued liberty ?
1st Cit. No ; we are all Italians ; one sole people, One single family.
People. Italians all, And brethren.
Old Man. Oh delightful sound ! Oh words Noble, divine ! these tears for joy o'erflow.
Caius. Oh ! now indeed I hear the shouts sublime, Of Romans worthy ; and behold the tears Worthy of men. But cease your griefs awhile ; Hear my last damning crime ; and not of grief, But the hot tears of madness and of wrath, Will ye pour forth, oh people much abused ! Grant me your patient audience. Of your lords The insatiate avarice, that on your woes Remorseless trampled, had by rapine seized All your possessions and had only left Your souls to tenant their debased abodes. Your tyrants left ye life, but to enjoy Your never ceasing sorrows — but to tread On your bowed necks — draw tight your servile bonds, — And, as the climax of your wrongs, despise ye Even for the sufferance themselves enforced. Now hear my crime, — my most unheard offence, Whose total sum I in two words express — To give you back your own — to give you back So much of earth, as with a little dust, Might hide your over-toiled and wearied bones. Oh miserable brethren ! the wild beasts Have 'mid the desert rocks and savage woods, Some lair, where each may lay his limbs in peace, And shun the assaults of the inclement skies. You, Romans, you, who 'neath an iron load. O'er the whole earth expose to painful death Your lives in Rome's behalf — you, the world's masters. Nought in this world possess — save what not even All-grasping avarice can take away, The common air and light. Along our plains, Ye wander idly ; fainting by your sides. With famine, sad and piteous company !
148 THE CAIO GRACCO OF MONTI.
Your squalid wives and naked babes attend, Who cry for bread.
Meantime, their banquets high, Drunk with rich wine and kistful surfeits, hold The gown-robed harpies, with some wanton strain Feeding their ears : and all this, which their gorge Insatiable devours, is your own blood. Your blood has bought their dazzling palaces. Bright with barbaric pomp, and trapped with gold ; Their perfumes from Arabia, and the die Sidonian, and their sumptuous carpetings ; Their wide domains and regal villas, reared By Tiber, or in -shady Tusculura ; Their paintings and their statues ; — in one word. All that ministers to their pride, has cost Rivers of blood, in hard fought battles drawn From your own bosoms, by the hostile swords, — And nothing, save their vices, is their own.
Unjust, cruel patricians ! and they dare To call 7/ow, on the toilsome fields of war, Laggards and rebels, — they who have debauched. With customs stolen from the lascivious East, The ancient Latine strain severe, and changed Our camps to brothels ; they, who battening free On subject nations and the empire's wealth, To die by famine leave our soldiery. And drive them to complaint and to despair. Until they make them robbers. They, forsooth, Mourn for our ancient discipline destroyed ; They, in the hour of joining battles, shout, " Fight for your household gods, your fathers' tombs !" But which of ye, oh wretched countrymen ! Which of ye hath or altar, or hearth stone, Or poor paternal sepulchre 1
People {with a loud shout). Not one Not one !
Cuius. For whom then do ye rush to death ? For whose sake have ye gained those scars, whose large And crimsoned characters I see appear. Through each worn tunic's rents ? Oh ! let me kiss Those honourable wounds ! their sight o'erpowers My heart too much with pity ; and at once I thrill with anger, and dissolve in tears. ' 2d Cit. Poor Caius ! see, he weeps — for us he weeps, Magnanimous heart !
THE CAIO GRACCO OF MONTI. 149
A tumult soon ensues ; and the lictor Antilius, in endea- vouring to drive back the people, is stabbed by Fulvius and his followers. Gracchus throws himself from the tribunal, to save the life of Opimius, and prevent the effusion of more blood. He cites Opimius to appear before the people, on the expiration of his consulship ; and persuades the multi- tude to disperse quietly. Fulvius departs, full of vexation at this unexpected clemency. Opimius, determined on revenge, after giving private orders to one of his creatures, retires followed by the senators.
In the fourth act, as Cornelia is discoursing with Grac- chus on the dangerous magnanimity he had just displayed, the forum is surrounded by armed mercenaries, and he finds himself in the power of his enemies. One of the finest scenes in the drama ensues between Cornelia, Gracchus, and Li- cinia, whose prophetic appeals to his conjugal and paternal tenderness at length overpower her husband's resolution to go forth and confront his enemies, at the certain peril of his life. At this juncture, a citizen enters, and informs Grac- chus that a rumour is abroad, implicating him with his sister and Fulvius, in the murder of ^Emilianus. On hearing this he rushes from the portico. While his wife breaks out into uncontrolled anguish, Cornelia here preserves the firmness and dignity of her character, and her devotion to the glory of her son, though preserved only by a violent death.
SCENE V.
Cornelia^ sola. Is there on earth a family more wretched, A heart with more distracting tortures torn, Than mine 1 The daughter of great Africanus And mother of the Gracchi, once was I For sach fair names renowned — I, who was wooed Once to a monarch's nuptials, quite deserted, Of all this pageantry, have only left The melancholy splendour of my woes. Two sons I bore for Rome ; two noble sons ;
150 THE CAIO GRACCO OF MONTI.
Rome of her freedom weary, murdered them —
And by what hands ! Alas ! it is a crime
To give life to great souls ; and those are praised
Only, who bring forth profligates. Such praise
Let mothers of Opimii win ; but me
It better pleases, that my sons should perish .'
Mangled and pierced, than live in infamy. —
But I must follow his disastrous path —
Ah me ! what crowd draws nigh ? a funeral bier —
In solemn train, the mournful senators
Uprear it on their shoulders. How the sight
Freezes my veins. It is dead Scipio's hearse.
My heart fails, and my feet seem clogged to earth.
Oh, impious daughter ! what a deed was thine !
Enter Ojimius and tlie Senators, carrying the bier of Mmilianus. Lictors and
People. Opimius. Here, for a while, set down your funeral load. People, friends, senators, 'tis here we owe The last sad tribute that the public grief Can pay the best of men. There never was, There never will be juster cause for tears. Romans ! your father, and your empire's light, Yea, the world's glory, lie in this sad hearse. For ever quenched in darkness. Oh, what strength. What grandeur from the power of Rome has pass'd ! How at the tidings will the realms ,|ejoice Of Asia and of Afric ; for the arm Invincible, that made their armies quake, Is now for ever palsied ; and in vain We, with our tears, demand him back to life. Where art thou, Quintus Fabius? At my side Heretofore have I seen thee — art thou here ? Oh Fabius ! ever in my mind resounds Thy sentiment sublime — " It was," thou saidst, " It was the eternal will of destiny, That there the empire of the world should be. Where was a soul so great." I thank the gods. Who here ordained his birth ; but I must weep. That they so soon have rapt his spirit hence. And deemed us too unworthy of the gift. Laelius, art thou too here, example proud Of an immortal friendship ? Agony Restrains thy tears. Entranced in silent grief,
THE CAIO CJRACCO OF MONTI. 151
Thou lookest upon this sable couch of death.
Whom seekest thou ] thy Scipio and thy friend 1
Behold him shrouded in his feral robe,
For ever lost to life — silent, for ever.
Nor ever more thine ear shall drink his words
Majestic, with sublimest reasoning fraught,
Breathing high love of country, and imbued
With heavenly wisdom. Nor shalt thou behold him
Fulmine amid the foes, and from the clouds
Of battle breaking, with a front serene.
Stretch the right hand of mercy to the fallen.
Mourn with them, and console them in defeat ;
Thus still, in war or peace, exhibiting
A godlike spirit in a human form.
Kind as a son, a brother, and a friend,
Generous, courteous, modest, and sedate,
A perfect citizen, his heart the shrine
Where every Roman virtue had a place ;
Such was the hero so untimely lost,
And by what means ? —
Romans, I do not seek, I do not wish to turn your pious grief To sudden fury. I will not disclose How black a crime has been committed. Never, Oh ! never may ye know, that ye have lost Your father by a vile assassin's blow. People. Speak. We will know it all.
Oar limits will not permit us to pm^sue this scene any farther. The manner in which Opimius uncovers the corse of Scipio, and excites the people by the spectacle, and gradually works them into indignation and fury against their late idol, reminds us frequently of the funeral oration of Antony. The resemblance is however simply in the mari- ner and the circumstances. In another drama Monti has not scrupled to adopt the ideas and language of Shakspeare.
Just as the citizens have been led to the conviction that Gracchus was accessory to the strangling of his brother-in- law, Drusus enters, and informs the consul, that -a bloody contest was taking place on the Aventine Hill, between the soldiery and the people, who had been roused to acts of vio-
1-52 THE CAIO GRACCO OF MONTI.
lence by the oratory of Gracchus. As he is describing the scene of confusion which had taken place, Lentulus, a ven- erable patrician, is led wounded across the stage. The senators unite in swearing vengeance over the bier of Mmi- lianus ; and while a part of them escort the dead body to the tomb of the Scipios, the rest, conducted by Opimius, and followed by the inflamed citizens, rush to the scene of civil conflict.
In the first scene of the fifth act, the forum is deserted, and Licinia appears alone, uncertain of her husband's fate, and distracted with apprehensions for his safety.
Licinia. What melancholy silence reigns ! Ah me ! What mournful solitude ! The forum vacant — The streets deserted — I behold alone The wo-begone and horror-stricken faces Of aged men lamenting ; other sound I hear not, save the cries of mothers lone, The shrieks and sobs of desolate wives, who call Wildly upon their husbands and their sons. I too am here a mourner, and demand From unrelenting heaven, the cruel one, Who in my grief has thus abandoned me. Yes, thou art cruel, Caius ! For thou couldst — Thou couldst desert me. Idle were my tears, And vain my sorrows. Who can tell me now Where danger meets thee ] Who, alas ! can tell me If yet thou art alive 1
An old man passes, dragging his son from the sanguinary tumult ; and from their conversation, Licinia believes that her husband has fallen a victim to his own magnanimity. Cornelia follows, agitated and silent, who presently brings out the son of Caius, followed by the faithful freedman. We pass over the pathetic colloquy which ensues, and the varying rumours brought by flying citizens, as they hurry across the forum from the scene of conflict. The struggle has terminated in favour of the patricians, and their depend- ants arul mercenaries. We hasten to the last scene, in
THE CAIO GRACCO OF MONTI. 153
which Gracchus enters, flying from the weapons of the hireUng soldiery.
Cuius. A sword, 0 mother ! A sword, if thou hast pity. In my death Let not this base man triumph.
Cor. Let the tyrant Thus vaunt 1 ^ O never !
Cams. Quick, then, oh my mother ! A sword — thou hast it — give it me — and save me The shame of perishing by ignoble hands.
[ Opimius enters^ followed by the patricians arid soldiers. Opim. Behold him — against him let down your arms.
Cornelia, {throwing herself between Caius and the soldiers'] Then through this bosom they must enter first, Ere they pierce his.
Licinia. And through mine, ruffians, too. Opim. Soldiers, by force withdraw these dames, and strike The guilty. To the safety of the state His head must be devoted. Strike !
Cornelia, [veiling her head in her mantle ivith one hand^ and with ih'e other extendiiig the dagger to Gracchus'] My son, Take it, and die in honour.
Caius. By this gift, I know thee, O my mother ! By this blow,
Know thou thy son ! {Stabs himself. Licinia falls senseless on his body.)
We have not attempted to introduce any versions of the powerful dialogues of this drama, as it would have pro- tracted our remarks too far. The author has wisely put into the mouth of Opimius cogent arguments against the levelling principles of Gracchus ; and though the whole in- terest of the drama centres in the latter, and his fate is brought on by the machinations of personal enmity and ar- bitrary power, we cannot but regard him as a visionary, as well as a martyr. The unities are observed as strictly as they ever can be, without the violation of probability ; and the principal characters are preserved throughout with the greatest precision and propriety ; being, alike in their gran- deur or their weakness, * veri, soli RomanV
VOL. I. U
THE GARDEN OF VENUS.
[The version from Politian which follows, appeared in the New- York Review for May 1826, with the following introduction by Mr. Sands : —
"Messrs. Editors — I enclose you an attempt at translation, which you may use at your pleasure. It is a version of part of the fragment of Angelo Poliziano, composed for the tournament of Julian de Medici, celebrated as one of the most classical poems of the fifteenth century. As such, it has received the approbation of all intelligent critics, from Paulus Jovius, the contemporary of the author, to the elegant English biographer of Lorenzo de Medici. The merit of the writer consists by no means in his originality ; his production is a mere canto of the beauties of the ancient poets ; and in particular of Ovid and Virgil. But the felicity with which he has transplanted them is singular, and the propriety of their combination is wonderful. He may be com- pared, as a great modern Greek scholar has been, to a statuary, who selects from the works of the old masters different minute subjects of imitation, and produces from them all a perfect whole.
" From reading Politian's rhymes, I was led to translate them ; and found it, I can assure you, no easy experiment. The struc- ture of his verse, and terseness of his style, require a translation in almost every instance of line for line, preserving the metre of the ottava rima. If you are disposed to criticise my verses, I advise you to try your own hands at a translation of the original, before you express any unquahfied sentence of condemnation. If the author was only in his fifteenth year when he composed the fragment from which they are rendered (and such is the evi- dence afforded by his contemporaries), he ranks high among the prodigies of premature intellect, which have occasionally appeared in the world ; far beyond Pope, even in the power of imitation ; and happier than most of those who are recorded for the precocity of their talents, in securing to himself the efficient patronage of an illustrious family of princes, under whose auspices he flour- ished, and after whose declension he is said, by some writers, to have died, from melancholy and regret for their loss."]
THE GARDEN OF VENUS.
From the First Book of the Stanzas of Angelo Poliziano, commenced on occasion of the Tournament of Julian de Medici,
Now aid me of this realm of bliss to tell,
Fair Erato ! whose name and Love's are one ;
Thou, albeit chaste, alone secure mayest dwell Within the realm of Venus and her son ;
Thou, sole art mistress of the amorous shell ; Love often chants with thee in unison ;
And while his fatal quiver harmless lies,
Awakes thy lute's enchanting harmonies.
A pleasant mount o'erlooks the Cyprian isle,
Which, when the horizon glows with earliest day,
Beholds the seven horns of ancient Nile ; Along its steeps no mortal foot may stray ;
Upon the summit of its towering pile, A fair green hill o'ertops a meadow gay.
Where wanton airs with flowers are dallying still,
And the young herbage with soft tremors fill.
158 THE GARDEN OF VENUS.
Walls of bright gold its farthest borders gird,
With a thick hedge of choice and graceful trees ;
^Mid the fresh foliage many an amorous bird Chants all day long his tender melodies ;
Soft is the sound of murmuring waters heard, Welling from fountains twain, whose properties
Are twofold ; sweet and bitter are their waves,
And tlierein Love his golden arrows laves.
Nor ever is that eternal garden's hue
Whitened with the young frost, or sheeted snow : There icy winter never dares break through,
Nor surly winds on herb or blossom blow ; Nor years their changing quarters ever knew ;
But laughing spring fails not her smile to show ; Flings her wild golden tresses on the air. And weaves with thousand flowers her chaplet fair.
Love's brethren on the banks, a wicked fry, Whose arrows teach the vulgar herd to feel,
With clamours shrill and childhood's frolic cry. Sharpen their bolt-heads with malicious zeal ;
While Pleasure and Deceit are ever nigh, To turn the handle of the cruel wheel ;
False Hope and vain Desire attend thereon,
And with the sparkling fountain wet the stone.
And pleasing Fear and timorous Delight
Together go ; sweet Quarrels, sweeter Peace ;
The Tears, their bosoms sad o'erflowing quite. Therewith the bitter streamlet's tide increase ;
Uneasy Love, exanimate Aftright,
To pine with Care and Sickness never cease ;
Sleepless Suspicion every corner spies.
And bounding Joy through the mid pathway flies.
THE GARDEN OF VENUS. 159
Pleasure with Beauty revels in deep bliss ;
Content flits by, while Anguish sits to mourn ; Blind Error strays now here, now there amiss ;
Mad Fury's cheeks by his own hands are torn ;' Sad Penitence, her crime too late who sees,
Flings herself on the earth in mood forlorn ; Cruelty w^ades in blood, with fell delight. And fierce Despair the fatal noose makes tight.
Demurely silent Fraud, forced Merriment, Sly Signals, couriers from the heart that fly ;
The Glances, gazing with fond looks intent. Spreading their nets to snare the unwary try;
Weeping, her brow upon her palm low bent. Stands with her company of Sorrows nigh ;
And here and there bounds reckless in her glee,
License, from every rule and measure free.
Such is the army which thy children lead, All-beauteous Venus, mother of the Loves !
Zephyr in softest dew bathes all the mead. Shedding a thousand perfumes as he moves ;
Lily and rose and violet succeed
His kisses, blossoming where'er he roves ;
The field its rich attire with wonder views,
Its white, cerulean, and vermilion hues.
The virgin bud looks down with modest dread, Her infant beauty trembling to disclose ;
Her bosom to the solar blaze to spread.
Brilliant and laughing seeks the full-blown rose ;
In emerald gems this hides her timid head ; This at the lattice her fair promise shows ;
This languid in the o'erpowering ardour faints,^
And with rich tints the beauteous herbage paints.
160 THE GARDEN OP VENUS.
Dawn rears fresh violets still, vv^ith tender care, Of white, of yellow, and of purple dies ;
Sad Hyacinthus shows his legend there ; Narcissus in the lymph his image spies ;
In vestal robe, with purple border fair, Pale Clytic to the sun still turns her eyes ;
Adonis of his woes the tale resumes ;
Crocus his three tongues shows ; Acanthus joyous blooms.
Such glories new the opening Spring hath shed On earth's glad bosom since the world arose ;
Above the green hills lifts its lofty head.
And tangled locks against the sun that close ;
Shading beneath its warm boughs overspread A living fount that ever freshly flows ;
With its cool wave, so tranquil and so clear.
That aye distinct its liquid depths appear.
YAMOYDEN,
A TALE OF THE WARS OF KING PHILIP.
IN SIX CANTOS.
" All kinds, all creatures stand or fall By strength of prowess or of wit : 'Tis God's appointment, who shall sway, And who is to submit. — Say then that he was wise as brave, As wise in thought as bold in deed ; For in the principles of things He sought his moral creed. And thou, altho' with some wild thoughts, Wild chieftain of a savage clan ! Hadst this to boast, that thou didst love The liberl]/ of man." — Wordsworth.
VOL. I.— X
[The following advertisement, prefixed to the original edition of Yamoyden by Mr. Sands, explains the history of the poem, and indicates, in part, the several shares of the respective authors. The Proem is, of course, wholly from the pen of Mr. Sands. The original edition of this poem was inscribed to the Rev. Dr. Jarvis, then of Boston, in consequence (as expressed in the dedication) of its "owing its publication in a great measure to the favourable impression expressed by him of its merits."]
ADVERTISEMENT.
Before submitting this poem to the judgment of the public, it is necessary that the editor should give a brief account of the manner in which it was composed. He hopes that this will prove, to the candid and intelligent, a sufficient apology for the defects with which he is well aware this juvenile production abounds.
It was written in separate portions, by the late Rev. James Wallis Eastburn, and himself, during the winter of 1817-18, and the following spring. Mr. Eastburn, in 1816, went to Bristol, Rhode-Island, to pursue the study of divinity under the direction of the Rt. Rev. A. V. Griswold, Bishop of the Eastern diocess. He was constantly in the habit of amusing his hours of relaxation with poetical com- position ; and the local traditions connected with the scenery, in his immediate vicinity, suggested to him a fit subject for his favourite employment. He often mentioned in the course of his correspondence with the editor, his in- tention of making some of the adventures of King Philip, the well known Sachem of Pokanoket, the theme of a poet- ical romance. In the year following, when he visited New- York, the plan of the proposed story was drawn up in con- junction. We had then read nothing on the subject ; and our plot was formed from a hasty glance into a few pages of Hubbard's Narrative. To quote a simile from that crude historian, we began, like bad heralds, to meddle with the charge before we had blazoned the field ; and, though
164 ADVERTISEMENT.
the action of our fable only occupied the space of forty-eight hours, we were led into several inconsistencies, in the gen- eral outline first proposed ; from which no departure was afterward made. After Mr. Eastburn's return to Bristol, the poem was written, according to the parts severally assigned ; and transmitted, reciprocally, in the course of correspond- ence. It was commenced in November, 1817, and finished before the summer of 1818 ; except the concluding stanzas of the sixth canto, which were added after Mr. Eastburn left Bristol. As the fable was defective, from our ignor- ance of the subject, the execution was also, from the same cause, and the hasty mode of composition, in every respect imperfect. Mr. Eastburn was then preparing to take orders; and his studies, with that view, engrossed his atten- tion. He was ordained in October, 1818. Between that time and the period of his going to Accomack county, in Virginia, whence he had received an invitation to take charge of a congregation, he transcribed the first two cantos of this poem, with but few material variations, from the first collating copy. The labours of his ministry left him no time, even for his most delightful amusement. He had made no further progress in the correction of the work, when he returned to this city, in July, 1819. His health was then so much impaired, that writing of any kind was too great a labour. He had packed up the manuscripts, in- tending to finish his second copy in Santa Cruz, whither it was recommended to him to go, as the last resource, to re- cruit his exhausted constitution. He died on the fourth day of his passage, December 2d, 1819.
He left among his papers a great quantity of poetry, of which his part of " Yamoyden" forms but a small propor- tion. His friends may think proper, at some future period, to make selections from his miscellaneous remains, and ar- range them for publication. It was their wish, however, that this poem might be first published, and they were determined in that wish by the approbation of a gentleman
ADVERTISEMENT. 165
whose talents and learning are universally respected in this community. The editor v^as therefore induced to comply with their request, and undertake the correction of the manu- script. His labour, in so doing, has not been trifling. He had no right to make any alterations in the original plot ; or to destroy his deceased friend's poetical identity. He has endea- voured to remove as many errors, in point of matter or ex- pression, as was consistent with these necessary restraints. From looking over several books, whose subjects were con- nected with that of the poem, he has been led to make some additions to the original matter. The principal of these, in point of bulk, are, — the verses in the commence- ment, relating to the previous history of the Indian wars ; — the Sermon introduced in the third canto ; — the Ode to the Manitto of Dreams, in the fourth ; and the introduction of the Mohegan, in the fifth and sixth. The last alteration was always contemplated by Mr. Eastburn, who had made the heroine perform the journey alone. The editor mentions these portions as his own, because they were hastily added in the course of transcription, and printed as soon as writ- ten ; and if they are defective, the discredit should attach to himself alone. The particular property in the rest of the poem, belonging to each author, it would be endless to par- ticularize. Notice is taken in the notes of many errors, the principal of which is the subject of the fourth canto. The few notes marked E., were found among Mr. Eastburn's papers. The rest have been added by the editor.
Plura, quidem, mandare tibi, si quseris habebam ;
Sed vereor tardse causa fuisse morse. Quod si, quae subeunt, tecum, liber, omnia ferres,
Sarcina laturo magna futurus eras.
The poem, in the main, is still to be considered as having been written three years ago ; when the age of -Mr. East- burn was twenty, and that of the editor eighteen years. The latter had scarce attempted versification, of any kind,
166 ADVERTISEMENT.
from the time when the draught of " Yamoyden" was fin- ished : and nothing but the circumstances he has stated, could have induced him to resume the practice, or appear as the author of a poem. As to his individual reputation, on that score, he believes, he is sincerely and perfectly indiffer- ent : but it would be folly to deny, that he could not, with- out pain, see this joint production, now consecrated in his memory by the death of his friend, meet with unfair criti- cism or sullen neglect. November 20tK 1820.
PROEM.
Go FORTH, sad fragments of a broken strain^ The last that either bard shall e'er essay ! The hand can ne'er attempt the chords again, That first awoke them, in a happier day : Where sweeps the ocean breeze its desert way, His requiem murmurs o'er the moaning wave ; And he who feebly now prolongs the lay, Shall ne'er the minstrel's hallowed honours crave ; His harp lies buried deep, in that untimely grave !
Friend of my youth, with thee began the love Of sacred song ; the wont, in golden dreams, Mid classic realms of splendours past to rove. O'er haunted steep, and by immortal streams ; Where the blue wave, with sparkling bosom gleams Round shores, the mind's eternal heritage. For ever lit by memory's twilight beams ; Where the proud dead, that live in storied page. Beckon, with awful port, to glory's earlier age.
There would we linger oft, entranc'd, to hear, O'er battle fields, the epic thunders roll ; Or list, where tragic wail upon the ear. Through Argive palaces shrill echoing, stole ; There would we mark, uncurbed by all control. In central heaven, the Theban eagle's flight ; Or hold communion with the musing soul Of sage or bard, who sought, mid pagan night. In lov'd Athenian groves, for truth's eternal light.
1 68 PROEM.
Homeward we turned, to that fair land, but late Redeemed from the strong spell that bound it fast, Where mystery, brooding o'er the waters, sate And kept the key, till three millenniums past ; When, as creation's noblest work was last, Latest, to man it was vouchsafed, to see Nature's great wonder, long by clouds o'ercast, And veiled in sacred awe, that it might be An empire and a home, most worthy for the free.
And here, forerunners strange and meet were found, Of that bless'd freedom, only dreamed before ; — Dark were the morning mists, that lingered round Their birth and story, as the hue they bore. " Earth was their mother ;" — or they knew no more, Or would not that their secret should be told ; For they were grave and silent ; and such lore, To stranger ears, they loved not to unfold, The long-transmitted tales their sires were taught of old.
Kind nature's commoners, from her they drew Their needful wants, and learn'd not how to hoard ; And him whom strength and wisdom crowned, they knew. But with no servile reverence, as their lord. And on their mountain summits they adored One great, good Spirit, in his high abode, And thence their incense and orisons poured To his pervading presence, that abroad They felt through all his works, — their Father, King, and God.
And in the mountain mist, the torrent's spray, The quivering forest, or the glassy flood. Soft falling showers,- or hues of orient day. They imaged spirits beautiful and good ;
PROEM. 169
But when the tempest roared, with voices rude, Or fierce, red lightning fired the forest pine, Or withering heats untimely seared the wood, The angry forms they saw of powers maliga ; These they besought to spare, those blest for aid divine*
As the fresh sense of life, through every vein, With the pure air they drank, inspiring came, Comely they grew, patient of toil and pain, And as the fleet deer's agile was their frame ; Of meaner vices scarce they knew the name ; These simple truths went down from sire to son, — To reverence age, — the sluggish hunter's shame. And craven warrior's infamy to shun, — And still avenge each wrong, to friends or kindred done.
From forest shades they peered, with awful dread, When, uttering flame and thunder from its side. The ocean-monster, with broad wings outspread, Came ploughing gallantly the virgin tide. Few years have pass'd, and all their forests' pride From shores and hills has vanished, with the race. Their tenants erst, from memory who have died. Like airy shapes, which eld was wont to trace. In each green thicket's depths, and lone, sequestered place.
And many a gloomy tale, tradition yet Saves from oblivion, of their struggles vain. Their prowess and their wrongs, for rhymer meet. To people scenes, where still their names remain ; And so began our young, delighted strain. That would evoke the plumed chieftains brave. And bid their martial hosts arise again, Where Narraganset's tides roll by their grave; And Haup's romantic steeps are piled above the wave.
vol*. I. Y
170 PROEM.
Friend of my youth ! with thee began my song^ And o'er thy bier its latest accents die ; Misled in phantom-peopled realms too long, — Though not to me the muse averse deny, Sometimes, perhaps, her visions to descry, Such thriftless pastime should with youth be o'er f And he who loved with thee his notes to try. But for thy sake, such idlesse would deplore, And swears to meditate the thankless muse no more.
But, no 1 the. freshness of the past shall still Sacred to memory's holiest musings be ; AVhen through the ideal fields of song, at will. He roved and gathered chaplets wild with thee ; When, reckless of the world, alone and free, Like two proud barks, we kept our careless way. That sail by moonlight o'er the tranquil sea ; Their white apparel and their streamers gay, Bright gleaming o'er the main, beneath the ghostly ray ;-
And downward, far, reflected in the clear Blue depths, the eye their fairy tackling sees ; So buoyant, they do seem to float in air. And silently obey the noiseless breeze ; Till, all too soon, as the rude winds may please, They part for distant ports : the gales benign Swift wafting, bore, by Heaven's all-wise decrees, To its own harbour sure, where each divine And joyous vision, seen before in dreams, is thine.
Muses of Helicon ! melodious race Of Jove and golden-haired Mnemosyne ; Whose art from memory blots each sadder trace. And drives each scowhng form of grief away !
PROEM. 171
Who, round the violet fount, your measures gay Once trod, and round the altar of great Jove ; Whence, wrapt in silvery clouds, your nightly way Ye held, and ravishing strains of music wove. That soothed the Thunderer's soul, and filled his courts above.
Bright choir ! with lips untempted, and with zone Sparkling, and unapproached by touch profane ; Ye, to whose gladsome bosoms ne'er was known The blight of sorrow, or the throb of pain ; Rightly invoked, — if right the elected swain, On your own mountain's side ye taught of yore. Whose honoured hand took not your gift in vain. Worthy the budding laurel-bough it bore, — * Farewell ! a long farewell ! I worship you no more.
* Hesiod. Theog. 1. 1. 60. 30.
INTRODUCTION,
Stat vetus et multos inccsdua sylva per annos, Credibile est illi numen inesse loco.
Hark to that shriek upon the summer blast ! Wildly it swells the fitful gusts between, And as its dying echoes faint have passed, Sad moans the night-wind o'er the troubled scene. Sunk is the day, obscured the valleys green ; Nor moon nor stars are glimmering in the sky, Thick veiled behind their tempest-gathered screen ; Lost in deep shades the hills and waters lie ; Whence rose that boding scream, tliat agonizing cry ?
Spirit of Eld ! who, on thy moss-clad throne, Record'st the actions of the mighty dead ; By whom the secrets of the past are known, And all oblivion's spell-bound volume read ; — Sleep wo and crime beneath thine awful tread ? Or is it but idle fancy's mockery vain, Who loves the mists of wonder round to spread ? No ! 'tis a sound of sadder, sterner strain. Spirit of by-gone years, that haunts thine ancient reign 1
174 INTRODTJCTIOX.
'Tis the death wail of a departed race, — Long vanished hence, unhonoured in their grave ; Their story lost to memory, like the trace That to the greensward erst their sandals gave ; — Wail for the feather-cinctured warriors brave, Who, battling for their fathers' empire well, Perished, when valour could no longer save From soulless bigotry, and avarice fell. That tracked them to the death, with mad, infuriate yell.
Spirit of Eld ! inspire one generous verse. The unpractised minstrel's tributary song ; Mid these thine ancient groves he would rehearse The closing story of their sachem's wrong. On that rude column, shrined thy wrecks among, Tradition 1 names there are, which time hath worn, Nor yet effaced ; proud names to which belong A dismal tale of foul oppressions borne, Which man can ne'er recall, but which the muse may mourn.
YAMOYDEN.
CANTO FIRST.
I.
The morning air was freshly breathing,
The morning mists were wildly wreathing ;
Tay's earliest beams were kindling o'er
The wood-crowned hills and murmuring shore.
'Twas summer ; and the forests threw
Their checkered shapes of varying hue,
In mingling, changeful shadows seen.
O'er hill and bank, and headland green.
Blithe birds were carolling on high
Their matin music to the sky,
As glanced their brilliant hues along.
Filling the groves with life and song ;
All innocent and wild and free
Their sweet, ethereal minstrelsy.
The dew-drop sparkled on the spray,
Dar.ced on the wave the inconstant ray j
And moody grief, with dark control,
Tnere only swayed the human soul !
II.
With equal swell, above the flood, The forest-cinctured mountain stood ; Its eastward cliffs, a rampart wild, Rock above rock sublimely piled.
176 YAMOYDEN.
What scenes of beauty met his eye, The watchful sentinel on high ! With all its isles and inlets lay Beneath the calm, majestic bay ; Like molten gold, all ghttering spread. Where the clear sun his influence shed ; In wreathy, crisped brilliance borne, While laughed the radiance of the morn. Round rocks, that from the headlands far Their barriers reared, with murmuring war, The chafing stream, in eddying play. Fretted and dashed its foamy spray ; Along the shelving sands its swell With hushed and equal cadence fell ; And here, beneath the whispering grove. Ran rippling in the shadowy cove. Thy thickets with their liveliest hue, Aquetnet green-! were fair to view ; Far curved the winding shore, where rose Pocasset's hills in calm repose ; Or where descending rivers gave Their tribute to the ampler wave. Emerging frequent from the tide, Scarce noticed mid its waters wide, Lay flushed with morning's roseate smile, The gay bank of some little isle ; Where the lone heron plumed his wing. Or spread it as in act to spring, Yet paused, as if delight it gave To bend above the glorious wave.
III.
Where northward spread the unbounded scene. Oft, in the valley's bosom green, The hamlets' mouldering ruins showed. Where war with da3mon brand had strode.
YAMOYDEN. 177
By prostrate hedge and fence o'erthrown,
And fields by blackening hillocks known,
And leafless tree, and scattered stone,
The midnight murderer's work was shown*
Oft melting in the distant view
The cot sent up its incense blue,
As yet unwrapp'd by hostile fire ;
And, mid its trees, some rustic spire,
A peaceful signal, told that there
Was sought the God of peace in prayer.
The Wampanoag from the height
Of Haup, who strained his anxious sight.
To mark if foes their covert trace,
Beheld, and curs'd the Christian race !
IV.
Now two-score years of peace had pass'd Since in the west the battle yell Was borne on every echoing blast, Until the Pequots' empire fell ; And Sassacous, now no more. Lord of a thousand bowmen, fled ; And all the chiefs, his boast before. Were mingled with the unhonoured dead. Sannap and Sagamore were slain, On Mystic's banks, in one red night ; The once far-dreaded king in vain Sought safety in inglorious flight ; And reft of all his regal pride. By the fierce Maqua's hand he died. Long o'er the land, with cloudless hue. Had peace outspread her skies of blue ; The blood-stained axe was buried long ; Till Metacom his w^ar-dance held. And round the flaming pyre the song Of vengeance and of death was yelled.
VOL. I. Z
178 YA3I0YUEN.
The steeps of Ha up reverbed afar The Wampanoa 4s' shout for war ," Fiercely they trim their crested hair, The sanguine battle stains prepare, And martial gear, while over all Proud waves the feathery coronal.- Their peag belts are girt for fight, Their loaded pouches slung aright, The musket's tube is bright and true, The tomahawk's edge is sharped anew. And counsels stern and flas..iag eyes- Betoken dangerous enterprise.
V.
The red fire is blazing ; ring compassing ring. They whirled in the war-dance, and circuiting sing ; And the chieftans, in turn to the pile as they go. In each brand saw a warrior, each gleed was a foe ; Revenge on the whites and their allies they swear, Mohegans, Niantics, and Pequots they dare,
And sla ,' in he dream of their ire ; The hills of Pocasset replied to their call. And their Queen se it li^ . chiefs and her warriors all,
To the rites of the lurid fire.
VI.
Thro' Narraganset's countless clar^
The secret wildfire circling ran ;
In northern wilds, the gathering word
The tributary Nipnets heard.
Busy and quick, to their errand true.
The messengers of mischief flew.
Noiseless as speeds the painted dart.
In the thicket's shade, to the quarry's heart,
That scares not in its passage fleet
The woodland hosts from their green retreat.
YAMOYDEN. 179
VII.
But Sausaman untimely slain, Kindled too soon the fatal train. From where with mild, majestic pride. Their peaceful, and abounding tide Quunihticut's broad waters pour Even to the ocean's sounding shore — Began one universal strife, One murderous hunt for human life. The wexing moon oft waned anew. Ere grass upon the war-path grew.: On every gale the war-whoop rung ; From every grove the ambush sprung ; The hamlet's blaze, the midnight yell, Ceased not the desperate strife to tell, Till o'er the land, with blood defiled, Went forth a voice of wailing wild ; A voice of mourning and of pain, Their youngest and their bravest slain.
VIII.
Full high the savage pride was raised, Till Narraganset's fortress blazed. When bleak Decem.ber sheeted o'er The wilderness with mantle hoar, Reckless within their hold assailed, They saw the avenging army pour. Beheld their boasted bulwarks scaled. The white men made their entrance good. All slippery with their comrades' blood ; A thousand wigwams kindling sent Their glare along the firmament ; The sun declining from his noon. Faded, a dim, wan circle soon ; The heavens, around that lurid light Frowned like the realms of central night ;
180 YAMOYDEN.
Far, far around, the gleening snow
Was ruddy with the unnatural glow ;
Where the dun column wreathing rolled,
Red flowed the river's tides below.
Amid the slaughtered, in their hold.
Stifling, in vain their warriors bold
Each blazing sconce in fury sought.
Poured on the foe their deadly shot.
Or in mad leaps of torture broke
Thro' sulphurous fire and volumed smoke ;—
While uproar, flame, and deafening yell
Made the scene seem the vault of hell.
Where, writhing wild in penance dire,
Fiends danced mid pyramids of fire !
Nor ceased the musket roar, the shout.
The obstreperous clamours of the rout,
Till gathering night with shades profound
Of gloom and horror closed around.
Tracked by their blood along the snow.
Returned the victors, sad and slow ; —
But, where the smoking ruins show
The prostrate citadel — one heap
Of smouldering ashes, broad and deep,
Where friend or husband none may trace,
The pride of Narraganset's race,
The grisly trophy of the fray,
A holocaust for freedom lay !
IX.
Stabbed in the heart of all their power, The voice of triumph from that hour Rose faintly, mid the heathen host, Sunk was their pride, and quelled their boast. Broken and scattering wide and far. Feebly they yet maintained the war.
YAJVIOYDEN. 181
Spring came ; on blood alone intent, Men o'er her flowers regardless went ; Thro' cedar grove and thicket green, The serried steel was glistening sheen ; Earth lay untilled ; the deadly chase Ceased not of that devoted race, Till of the tribes whose rage at first In one o'erwhelming deluge burst. No trace the inquiring eye could find. Save in the ruins left behind. Like wintry torrent they had poured. O'er mounds and rocks it raved and roared. Dashed in blind fury where it broke. In show^ery spray and wavy smoke ; And now, sad vestige of its wrath, Alone was left its wasted path.
X.
Stark thro' the dismal fens they lie,
Or on the felon gibbet high
Their mangled members hung proclaim
Their constancy — their conquerors' shame.
Ah ! happier they, who in the strife
For freedom fell, than o'er the main.
Those who in slavery's galling chain
Still bore the load of hated life, —
Bowed to base tasks their generous pride,
And scourged and broken-hearted died !
The remnant of the conquered band,
Submissive, at the victor's hand,
As for a boon of mercy, crave
A shred of all their father's land,
A transient shelter and a grave.
Or far where boundless lakes expand.
With weary feet the exiles roam,
Until their tawny brethren gave
The persecuted race a home.
182 YAMOYDEN.
XL
But Metacom, the cause of all,
Last of his host, was doomed to fall.
Unconquered yet, when at his side
His boldest and his wisest died ;
When all whom kin or friendship made
To his fallen fortunes dear were dead ;
Beggared in wealth and power ; pursued
A sentenced wretch, thro' swamp and wood ;—
Yet he escaped — tho' he might hear
The hunters' uproar round him wake,
And bullets whispered death was near ;
O'er bank and stream, thro' grove and brake
He led them, fleet as mountain deer,
Nor yet his limbs had learned to quake.
Nor his heart caught the taint of fear.
XIL His covert to his foes unknown. With such worn train as war had spared. Once more to Haup the chief repaired, Of all his line the home and throne. There, where the spirits of the dead Seemed flitting through each moonlight glade,- Where pageant hosts of glory fled In mockery rose with vain parade, — In gloomy grandeur o'er his head. Where forests ca^ congenial shade, — Brooding mid scenes of perished state. He mused to madness on his fate. South from the tarled swamp that spread Below the mount, an upland rose ; Where towering elms all gray with eld. And birchen thickets close concealed The hunted race from quest of foes.
YAMOYDEN. Ig^
Beneath, their screen the elders threw,
And fern and bramble rankly grew ;
By simple nature wisely taught
Such covert still the savage sought :
So in her leafy form the hare
Sits couched and still, when down the gale,
Of hounds and horns the mingling blare
She hears in tones of terror sw dl.
So spreads, beneath the liquid surge,
To shun the approaching monster's gorge,
The wary fish its inky blood,
And dies with rayless hue the flood.
XIII.
Beside the mountain's rugged steeps. The Sachem now his council keeps ; Though straitened in that hopeless stound. Begirt with fear and famine round, Resolved himself on daring deed, He listened reckless of their rede. Once more within their ancient hold. How dwindled from their pomp of old ! Toilworn and few and doubtful met The Paniese in their council state. High rose the cliffs ; but proud above The regal oaks their branches fling. Arching aloft with verdant cove, Where thick their leaves they interwove. Fit canopy for woodland king. Vines, with tenacious fibres, high Clomb o'er those rocks luxuriantly ; Oft o'er their rugged masses gray. With rustling breeze the wild flowers play ; While at the base their purple hues, Impearled with morning's glittering dews. Bloomed round the pile of rifted stone, Which, as in semblance of a throne.
184 YAMOYDEN,
The hand of Nature there had placed ; And rambling wild, where lower still Bubbled and welled a sparkling rill, These simple flowers its margin graced. Clear as the brightest steel to view. Thro' mossy turf of greenest hue, Its lymph that gushing fountain spread : — And still though ages since have sped,
That little spring is seen ; It bears his name whose deeds of dread
Disturbed its margin green ; As pure, as full, its waters rise. While those who once its peace profaned, Have pass'd, and to the stranger's eyes .-;, Nor trace, nor memory hath remained. Smooth lay the turf before the seat. Sprinkled with flow'rets fair and sweet ; The violet and the daisy gay. And goldcups bright like spangles lay. Thick round the glade the forest grew, Whose quivering leaves and pillars through, The eye might catch the sparkling ray, Where sea-gulls wheeled in mazy play.
XIV.
There met the council, round the throne. Where he, in power, in thought alone. Not like the sentenced outlaw sate. The abandoned child of wayward fate, But as of those tall cliffs a part. Cut by some bolder sculptor's art, The imaged God, erect and proud. To whom the simple savage bowed. His was the strength the weak that sways ; The glance the servile herd obeys ;
YAMOYDEIf. 1 85
The brow of majesty, where thought And care their deepest lines had wrought, And told, like furrows broad that mark
The giant ash-tree's fretted bark,
How stormy years, with forceful sway,
Will wear youth's scarless gloss away.
Shorn were his locks, whose ample flow
Had else revealed him to the foe ;
And travel-stained ihe beaver spoils.
That sheathed his martial limbs below.
But seemed it that he yet would show.
Even mid the hunter's closing toils.
Some splendours of his former state.
When in his royalties he sate.
For round his brow with symbols meet,
In wampum wrought with various die,
Entwined a studded coronet.
With circling plumage waving high.
Above his stalworth shoulders set
A feathery-woven mantle lay.
Where many-tinctured pinions gay
Sprinkled the raven's plumes of jet.-
Collar beneath and gorget shone.
The peag armlets and the zone.
That round with fretted shell-work graced.
Clipped with broad ring his shapely waist.
And all war's dread caparison,
Horn, pouch, and tomahawk were slung ;
And w^ide, and far descending hung.
Quaintly embossed with bird and flower.
The belt that marked the Sachem's power.
XV.
Know ye the Indian warrior race ?
How their light form springs in strength and grace.
VOL. I. A A ^
186 YAMOYDEI^.
Like the pine on their native niountain side^
That will not bow in its deathless pride ;
Whose rugged limbs of stubborn stone
No flexuous power of art will own,
But bend to heaven's red bolt alone !
How their hue is deep as the western die
That fades in Autumn's evening sky ;
That lives for ever upon their brow,
In the summer's heat, and the winter's snow ;
How their raven locks of tameless strain,
Stream like the desert courser's mane :
How their glance is far as the eagle's flight,
And fierce and true as the panther's sight :
How their souls are like the crystal wave.
Where the spirit dwells in his northern cave ;
Unruffled in its caverned bed,
Calm lies its glimmering surface spread ;
Its springs, its outlet unconfess'd.
The pebble's weight upon its breast
Shall wake its echoing thunders deep,
And when their muttering accents sleep.
Its dark recesses hear them yet.
And tell of deathless love or hate !
XVI.
The council met ; each bosom there Pregnant with doubt or with despair 5 And each wan eye and hollow cheek The waste of toil and famine speak ; Yet o'er the dew-webbed turf reclined. Silent they sate ; and stranger's eye Had deemed, in idle mood resigned To nature's sweet tranquillity, They lay to catch the mingling sound Of woods and waters murmuring round ; —
YAMOYDEN. 187
That the robin carolling blithe they heard, Or the breeze the shivering leaves that stirred. Among their eagle plumes it played, And with their cinctures dalliance made ; But customed were they to control The cradled whirlwinds of the soul ; And calm was every warrior's mien, As if there a feast of love had been.
XVII.
Ill could the fiery Sachem brook That gloomy, never-changing look. Though long inured to mazy wile, Through all the thousand lakes of guile, His secret skiff had held its course. And shunned each torrent's eddying force, Yet ever would the fiery soul
Through all the circles dart. Which, like the ice around the pole,
Begirt the Indian heart.
XVIII. Up started Metacom ; — the train Of all his wrongs, — his perished power, — His blasted hopes, — his kindred slain, — His quenchless hate which blazed in vain. So fierce in its triumphant hour. But now to his own heart again Withdrawn, but ran like liquid flame Boiling through all his fevered frame, — All, all seemed rushing on his brain : — Each trembling fibre told the strife. Which quelled that storm with madness rife. Gathering in horrors o'er his brow. And flashing wildly bright below. While o'er his followers faint and few. On inquest stern his glances flew.
188 YAMOYDEN.
Across his quivering lips in haste
A smile of bitterness there pass'd ;: —
As if a beam from the lamp had stole
That burnt within his inmost soul,
As in a deep, sepulchral cell, —
It seemed with transient curl to tell,
How in his triumph or his fall,
He doubted, and he scorned them all !
But silence straight the Sachem broke,
And thus his taunt abrupt he spoke — ■
XIX.
^' Still do we live ? to yonder skies Yet does our warm breath buoyant rise, — To that Great Spirit, who ne'er inhales Incense from all the odorous gales. In the world of warrior souls, more blest, Than that respired from the freeman's breast ! Yet do we live 1 or struck by fear, As the wretch by subtle sorcerer near. Palsied and pining, must we lie In yon dark fen, and dimly spy Our fathers' hills, our native sky :— Like the coward ghosts, whom the bark of stone Leaves in the eternc|,l wave to moan, And wail for ever, as they descry The blissful isle they can come not nigh ; Where the souls of the brave from toil releasedi Prolong the chase, the dance, the feast, And fill the sparkling chalice high, From the springs of immortality ! Say, has oblivion kindly come, To veil remembrance in its gloom ? Have ye forgot, that whilome here. Your fathers drove the bounding deer ; When now, so works the Evil One, Lik'e heartless deer their children run ;-~
YAMOYDEN. 189
Or trembling in their darksome lair, While fear's cold dews gush full and fast, One venturous glance no longer dare Round on their native forests cast. The hunters came, the charm they brought ; The tempting lure the senseless sought, And tamely to the spoiler gave The ancient birthright of the brave !
XX,
" Oblivion ? O ! the films of age Shall shroud yon sun's resplendent eye. And waning in his pilgrimage. His latest beam in heaven shall die, Ere on the soil from whence we fled. The story of our wrongs be dead ! Could the tall trunk of peace once more Lift its broad foliage on our shore ; And on the beaver robe outspread Our remnant rest beneath its shade ; From stainless bowls and incense high Amid the blue and cloudless sky ; Mark round us waves unrimpled flow. And o'er green paths no bramble grow ; — Say where in earth profoundly deep. Should all our wrongs in darkness sleep ? What art the sod shall o'er them heap ; And rear the tree whose verdant tower Aloft shall build, beneath embower, — Till men shall pass and shall not know The secrets foul that rest below ? The memory ne'er can die, of all For blood, for vengeance that can call. While feels a red man in his breast The might, the soul his sires possess'd. Toil, death, and danger can defy. Look up to heaven, and proudly cry,
190 YAMOYDEN.
Eternal and Almighty One, Father of all ! I am thy son !
XXI.
" Poor, crouching children of the brave f Lo ! where the broad and sparkling wave Anointed once the freeman's shore, Your father's tents arise no more. There lie your masters in their pride ; And not so thick, o'er torpid tide, The blessed light that beams on earth Warms the coiled vipers into birth. And not so loathsome do they spread Their slime along its sedgy bed, As glittering on my aching eyes, The white man's homes accursed rise ! I rave ; — and ye are cold and tame ; Forget ye Massasoiet's shame ? Forget ye him, who, snared and caught. Soared on the chainless wings of thought, A lowly captive might not be, For his heart broke, and he was free ! Last, poorest of a mighty race. Proscribed, devoted to the chase, I hold this cumbrous load of life.
Avenging powers ! from you ; The remnant of its dreary strife
To hoarded vengeance due ! But ye — live on; and lowly kneel. And crouching kiss the impending steel, Which, in mere weariness of toil. Full sated with your kinsmen's spoil, May haply grant the boon to live ; — For this your cringing tauhut give ; And o'er your father's hallowed grave Drag the foul members of the slave 1
YAMOYDEN. 191
O slaves ! the children of the free ! The hunted brute cries shame on ye ! At bay each threatening horn he turns, As fierce the enclosing circle burns ; — And ye are baited in your lair, And will ye fight not for despair V
XXII. Thus spoke the Sachem in his ire, Bright anger blazing in his eye ; And, as the bolt of living fire Streams through the horrors of the sky, Kindling the pine, whose flames aspire In one red pyramid on high, In all his warriors, as he spoke. The rising fury fiercely woke ; Each tomahawk, in madness swayed. Gleamed mid the forest's quivering shade ; Loud rose the war-whoop, wild and shrill ; The frowning rock, the towering hill
Prolonged the indignant cry : Far o'er the stilly aether borne. By the light pinions of the morn. It fell on the lonely traveller's ear. Round on the wilderness in fear
He gazed with anxious eye ; On distant wave the wanderer well Knew the loud larum terrible, And trembled at the closing swell.
As slow its echoes die.
XXIII. "'Tis well— no more," the Sachem said, " The Spirit hears your answer made. But who art thou, whose arm alone Hangs nerveless at thy side ?
10^ YAMOVDET<.
Who mak*st thyself mid warriors on6y And, dog-Uke, hast no single tone,
To swell their shout of pride ? Son of a base and recreant band ! Who from the common tyrant's hand, Took the war-hatchet, blood died pledg6 Of peace between them and our foe, And proved too well how keen its edge ;~ Its temper well their brethren know. MiANTONiMo's honoured head Our laggard vengeance will upbraid ; — • Canonchet and Panoquin, slain By coward hands, look forth in vain, From their eternal towers, to spy Mohegan ghosts go wandering by ; — For blood a thousand heroes cry. Whose bones, untombed, dishonoured lie : No kindred hands, with reverent care. Those relics from the waste shall bear ; Ne'er from his path shall tra;vel]er turn, Beside their grassy mound to mourn ; Nor, prostrate stretched beside their grave', Sighing shall say — there sleep the brave ! And shalt thou live, and mingle here With those their memory who revere ?"
XXIV. Young Agamoun, by many a snare Of fame, revenge and promise fair, Long since from the Mohegan shore The Sachem and his warriors bore : Then the young hero's heart beat high, With all the patriot's sympathy; — Fierce as the battle god, for fight Collecting his unconquered might,
YAMOYDEN. 193
Along the war-path of the heaven,
Revealed in red and sulphurous levin,
Rolling his gloomy clouds afar,
Exulting at the scent of war ; —
So he went forth, in strength and youth.
And hailed hope's paltering form as truth :
But years had passed since hope grew cold ;
False was the fraudful tale she told ;
Ambition's dream and promise high
Were but the song of birds flown by !
He saw his marshalled tribe oppose
Their brethren, as their mortal foes ;
He saw their scanted numbers fail.
Like autumn's leaves on winter's gale ;
Until, his hopes, his followers gone,
The western chief remained alone.
Mistrust and jealousy had torn
A noble heart by fortune worn ;
From council and from power estranged,
He saw the Sachem's visage changed ;
The silver chain, in earthly dust.
Had caught the stains of human rust ;
Till in the hour of adverse fate.
Its links were snapp'd for e'er by hate.
XXV.
So where at first, with gurgling rush,
The founts of mighty rivers gush.
So near the kindred streamlets flow.
Their pebbly channels murmuring through.
Their distance at a stride the child
May measure, as he gambols wild :
Each, mingling with its countless tides,
O'er earth's unequal bosom glides,
Through adverse climes and distant realms,- '
And when their tribute ocean whelms,
VOL. I. — B B
194 YAMOYDEN.
With stranger name each stream appears^ Disgorged in different hemispheres.- Untainted yet by crime and wo. While nature's generous currents flow, Thro' sympathy's luxuriant mould, Hearts, side by side, their course may hold ; But parted on the wastes of time, How soon forgot that earlier clime I
XXVI.
"Speak '.traitor, speak ! thy thoughts unfold !-
Be thy cloaked treasons instant told 1
Whizzes in air the venomed dart.
Ere yet it rankles in the heart ; —
Prepared to sting the lurking snake
His monitory hiss will wake j
Hiss, serpent, hiss 1"
The Sachem spoke; Resentment rising seemed to choke The words of wrath that forth had broke :• But conscience lent her bland relief. And calmly spoke the injured chief.
« Whate'er of private feud my heart
To my tongue's language might impart, I learned to bury and to h.de. When battling on my country's side. Who, when her sacred cause inspires,. Enkindles at polluted fires. Where unclean spirits hold retreat. Where none but the impure may meet, His passions base, revenge or pride, — Curs'd be that guilty parricide ! O noteless in the songs of fame, A beacon blaze his recreant name Hovering for ever may it be O'er the dull fens of infamy 1
YAMOYDEN. 195
The stem must crack — the cause must fail, If such unholy warmth prevail ! But wherefore more ? ye've known me long, Ye saw me when your cause was strong — Ye proved me when your hopes were weak. If ye have found me wanting, speak !
XXVII.
*'Here if we linger, what remains?
Inglorious death, accursed chains !
Ah ! tho' the bleak and sheeted blast
Round Haup's bare cliffs its shroud shall cast,
And sweep in howling, wild affray
The sere and shivering leaves away,
Again its dsemons far will fly.
When milder spirits rule the sky ;
The moon of birds her horns will show.
The bough will bud, the fountain flow :
But Metacom, thy second spring
No Weko-lis shall ever sing !
Once Pawkanawkut's warriors stood.
Thick as the columns of the wood ;
On shores and isles, unconquered men
Called Massasoiet father, then : —
The blasting wind with poisoned breath
Brought on its withered pinions death,
Ere bade the Owannox o'er the deep
Their castle-barks triumphant sweep : —
Past is the Autumn of our pride.
When every leaf with blood was died : —
And now dread Winter's troop alone
Shriek round our power and promise gone !
From earth when nations perish, ne'er
Again their leaflets shall appear.
The stranger, in the after time,
Weets not of glory's earlier clime !
196 YAMOYDEN.
Perchance, like yon dwarf firs that grow
Rooted in rocky cleft on high,
As things above, or joy or wo.
That frown against the beauteous sky, —
Of all our tribes, the heirs of want,
A feeble few our land may haunt ;
The gloomy ghosts of dead renown
Awhile from sire to son go down ;
And as with spectral visit say
That here the red men once had sway !
XXVIII.
" Veiling in gloom his awful face.
The Spirit smiles not on our race.
As once he smiled with beams of bliss,
Ere discord's snakes were heard to hiss.
One council fire the nations knew ;
One ample roof o'er all was spread ;
The stately tree beside it grew.
The skies of blue rose overhead.
Once on our wampum-belts how fair
The stainless lines of peace were wrought,
And all the sacred symbols there
With wise and friendly meaning fraught !
Once circling far the glittering chain
Begirt the sea, the isles, the main ;
The belt is broke ; the chain is riven,
And we are left by angry heaven !
Fraught with our weal and with our wo,
The tide of fate runs deep and slow ;
On to eternity it rides.
Mysterious as the wave, Where Huron disembogues its tides, That slowly rises, slow subsides,
As cycles find their grave.
YAMOYDEN. 197
Full low our country's best blood runs, And few and feeble are her sons ; Will ye the desperate venture try, And leave the dreary channel dry ?
XXIX.
" Wild are the wolds and deep the woods
That girdle far our western floods.
There merrily the red deer roam,
There may we fight ourselves a home !
Yet may submission purchase peace"
" Cease," cried the furious Sachem, " cease !"
For long had died the war-whoop's strain.
The warrior's fire was quenched again.
As the last moanings of the gale
Sigh out the tempest's sad farewell.
The whirlwind wakened by their lord
In mournful murmurs died; And thro' that melancholy horde
Sunk all their wakened pride.
XXX.
" Traitor, enough ! thy wish is given ! Go howl around the walls of heaven ! There's ample room, apostate ! there ; Go thou that company to share Of spectres vile, whom doom decreed Proclaims the dastard traitor's meed. For aye those guilty shadows speed
Swift thro' that misty land, On feverish chase, which end hath none. Whose phantom game shall ne'er be won, , Till retribution shall be done ; —
Go, then, to join the band !
198 YAMOYDEN.
Seal with thy blood the covenant made, When Ujvcas first our rights betrayed. The white man's arms are best employed, Their recreant proselyte destroyed."
XXXI.
He said, and from beside him caught
The tube with deadly vengeance fraught ;-
Then instant forth Ahauton stood
(He too of the Mohegan blood),
But short the raving Sachem broke
The words the intercessor spoke.
"By Sassaco us' honoured bones,
Where'er, untombed in sacred stones,
In the fierce Maquas cHme they lie —
No more, or with him shalt thou die !"
Then on his friend the sentenced chief
Cast a last look intent and brief;
It bade Ahauto?j not to dare
The wolf's wild fangs within his lair,
But life for nobler vengeance bear.
Stern lowered the Wampanoags round,
Subdued beneath their chieftain's frown ;
Breathed to the doom of death no sound.
While Agamoun knelt calmly down,
Unblenched and firm ; awhile his gaze
The horde, the earth, the heaven surveys.
As giving them his last good-bye : —
" Brothers ! behold a warrior die !
For kindred let the white men grieve ;
To those who love me, all I leave
Is the large legacy of hate !
True as the ball that drinks my blood,
Mohegan warriors shall make good
To Metacom and his the debt.
YAMOYDEN. 199
Escape be yours ; — but O ! if won,
Beware !" he spoke no more, For closely now the levelled gun
Was placed his heart before.
XXXII.
A moment's pause intensely still,- — A quick, cold, deep and silent thrill,— The steel gives fire, — the chieftain fell,- — The death-shot's sound his only knell, And a low murmur's smothered tone His parting requiem alone 1
XXXIII. . " Take, Areskoui ! take thine own !" — With voice subdued the Sachem said, — " A braver offering never bled, To thee in battle's gory bed 1 And I could mourn the recreant thought By which so dear a life was bought, But that I may not waste a sigh, ^
On foul, infectious treachery. Brothers, away ! not yet the foe These our last haunts of safety know ; Till better days, our watch-word be Hope, vigilance, and secrecy."
XXXIV.
They raise the bleeding corse, and back Hold to their dark retreat the track ; With Metacom remains alone The brave, the generous Annawon. "Brother and friend," — the Sachem cried,. " The only friend my fortunes know, When all by kin, by love allied, Are captive to the un pitying foe, —
200 YAMOYDEN.
Or unavenged, are journeying slow To that far world where spirits go : —
0 friend ! my trust is firm in thee, As in his dream the initiate's faith; Calm is thy soul in victory,
And bold when comes the hour of scaith. Yon trembling herd it is not meet Should read our final purpose yet ; Their courage is an old year's flame. Polluted and unworth the name ; Terror alone their hearts must sway — For this the brave has bled to-day. But I must fly — my native earth, — My father's throne and council-hearth ; — I, of the peerless eagle race, Must fly the hawk's unwonted chase, — The insatiate hawk — who all will have, Nor yields his victim e'en a grave ! Since childhood's earlier moons were dead. When I forgot what things had been, And claimed to rank with warrior men — Of mortal foe I knew no dread. Had nature made these limbs to quail At danger's front, the white men ne'er Had chilled them with the spells of fear ; — For, in those hours when dreams prevail, — When on the boy's bewildered eyes The future's shadowy visions rise,
1 learn'd to fear nor wound nor fate From those pale offspring of the east : — This too oft sung the illumined priest, When heaven he might interrogate. Ere the Manittos' voices ceased.
This have I felt, when slaughter fell Shrieked in my ear its murderous yell ; —
YAMOYDEN. 201
This in the kindling battle's mell, In deathful stour was proven well ; — This have my widowed fortunes found, When all I love lie cold around ;— When like a blasted trunk, alone, Leaf, blossom, bud, and scion gone, I stand, — the fire, the axedefy, And swift-consuming bolts on high. It is not fear !— but o'er my heart The shade of sorrow oft will fly ; — And though from these fair scenes to part Might ask the tribute of a sigh, — That sigh, the last, the only one, Becomes not Massasoiet's son !
XXXV.
" But let this pass ;— by fraud or force.
Through Nipnet tribes we hold our course ;
Yamoyden to their broken bands
Yet dear, must through their northern lands
Make smooth our path. Thou say'st that he
Lists in Aquetnet's woods to hear
A bird, whose music is more dear
Than vengeance or than liberty.
A turtle-dove he nurses there,
And shelters with a parent's care.
That nest must be despoiled ! the chief
Must share our common bond of grief!
And hear me, chieftain— ere our flight,
The last, the long-neglected rite.
Again must blaze in midnight gloom,
Prove if the spirits yet be dumb !
Since Areskoui sees no more,
Supine in heaven, his children's wo.
Evoking powers, our friends of yore,
VOL I C C
202 YAMOYDEN.
The sacrifice of blood must pour^ And o'er their awful altars flow !"
XXXVI.
Here pause we for a while the song. While they their counsels wild prolong. Where many a troubled accent came,, Oft mingling with Yamoyden's name
YAMOYDEN.
CANTO SECOND.
Hail ! sober evening ! thee the harassed brain And aching heart with fond orisons greet : The respite thou of toil ; the balm of pain ; To thoughtful mind the hour for musing meet ; 'Tis then the sage, from forth his lone retreat, The rolling universe around espies ; 'Tis then the bard may hold communion sweet With lovely shapes, unkenned by grosser eyes, And quick perception comes of finer mysteries.
The silent hour of bliss ! when in the west Her argent cresset lights the star of love : — The spiritual hour ! when creatures blest Unseen return o'er former haunts to rove ; While sleep his shadowy mantle spreads above. Sleep, brother of forgetfulness and death, Round well-known couch, with noiseless tread they rove. In tones of heavenly music comfort breathe. And tell what weal or bale shall chance the moon beneath.
Hour of devotion ! like a distant sea.
The world's loud voices faintly murmuring diej
Responsive to the spheral harmony,
While grateful hymns are borne from earth on high.
204 YAMOYDEN.
O ! who can gaze on yon unsullied sky. And not grow purer from the heavenward view ! As those, the Virgin Mother's meek, full eye, Who met, if uninspired lore be true. Felt a new birth within, and sin no longer knew,
Let others hail the oriflamme of morn, O'er kindling hills unfurled with gorgeous dies ! O mild, blue Evening ! still to thee I turn. With holier thought, and with undazzled eyes; — Where wealth and power with glare and splendour rise, Let fools and slaves disgustful incense burn ! Still Memory's moonlight lustre let me prize ; The great, the good, whose course is o'er, discern, And, from their glories past, time's mighty lessons learn 1
I.
The sun is sinking from the sky In calm and cloudless majesty ; And cooler hours, with gentle sway. Succeed the fiery heat of day. Forest and shore and rippling tide Confess the evening's influence wide. Seen lovelier in that fading light. That heralds the approaching night ; — That magic colouring nature throws, To deck her beautiful repose ; — "When floating on the breeze of even, Long clouds of purple streak the heaven. With brighter tints of glory blending, And darker hues of night descending. While hastening to its shady rest Each weary songster seeks its nest. Chanting a last, a farewell lay, As gloomier falls the parting day.
YAMOYDEN. 205
11.
Broad Narraganset's bosom blue Has shone with every varying hue ; The mystic alchymy of even Its rich delusions all has given. The silvery sheet unbounded spread, First melting from the v^aters fled ; Next the wide path of beaten gold Flashing with fiery sparkles rolled ; As all its gorgeous glories died, An amber tinge blushed o'er the tide ; Faint and more faint, as more remote, The lessening ripples peaceful float ; And now, one ruby line aloxie Trembles, is paler, and is gone, — And from the blue wave fades away The last life-tint of dying day ! In darkness veiled, was seen no more Connanicut's extended shore ; Each little isle with bosom green, Descending mists impervious screen ; One gloomy shade o'er all the wcoJs Of forest-fringed Aquetnet broods ; Where solemn oak was seen before Beside the rival sycamore. Or pine and cedar lined the height. All in one livery brown were dight.
III.
But lo ! with orb serene on high.
The round moon climbs the eastern sky ;
The stars all quench their feebler rays
Before her universal blaze.
Round moon ! how sweetly dost thou smile^
Above that green reposing isle, —
206
YAMOYDEN.
Soft cradled in the illumined bay, Where from its banks the shadows seem Melting in filmy light away. Far does thy tempered lustre stream. Checkering the tufted groves on high, While glens in gloom beneath them lie. Oft sheeted with the ghostly beam. Mid the thick forest's mass of shade. The shingled roof is gleaming white. Where labour, in the cultured glade. Has all the wild a garden made. And there with silvery tassels bright The serried maize is waving slow, While fitful shadows come and go. Swift o'er its undulating seas. As gently breathes the evening breeze.
IV.
Solemn it is, in greenwoods deep, That magic light o'er nature's sleep ; Where in long ranks the pillars gray Aloft their mingling structures bear, — Mingling, in gloom or tracery fair. Where find the unbroken beams their way,- Or through close trellis flickering stray, While sheeny leaflets here and there Flutter, with momentary glow. 'Tis wayward life revealed below. With checkered gleams of joy and wo ! And those pure realms above that shine, So chaste, so vivid, so divine. Are the sole type that heaven has shown Of those more lovely realms, its own !
V,
There is no sound amid the trees. Save the faint brush of rustling breeze ;
YAMOYDENo 207
S&ve insect sentinels, that still Prolong their constant la rum shrill, And answer all, from tree to tree, With one monotonous revelry. And at this hushed and solemn hour, As gradual through the tangled woods, Mystery usurps her wonted power, The spirit of the solitudes, — ■- Musing upon her lonely state. As plains the dove her absent mate,^ Sad Nora sits, and mournfully Sings her dear infant's lullaby.
VI.
Sorrow had been her lot. She loved, As few have loved of earthly frame ; And misery but too well had proved Her anguished heart was still the same. Ere Areskoui's wild alarms Called all the red men forth to arms, A Nipnet chieftain wooed and won Her virgin love ; and when begun The desolating strife, his care Long screened her from the quest of war. Night closed on Philip's victor day. And hurrying in the desperate fray. The Nipnet chieftain with his bride Were borne near Haup's beleaguered side. A home he found, that none could know. So deemed the chief, — or friend, or foe ; He placed her in that island grove. With one dear pledge of mutual love. Deep in the forest's bosom green,
Their cot embowered arose ; Enveloped in its woven screen,
And wrapt in calm repose.
308 YAMOYDEN.
The fairy humming-bird could scarce Amid the boughs its entrance pierce ; And practised Indian's hunter eye Would fail to trace its mystery^ One eye alone its labyrinth knew^ One only heart to Nora true. Here while her vigil sad she keeps, And lists in vain Yamoyden's steps, Her w^eeping babe she hushed to rest, And lulled upon her heaving breast, Or wove a passing strain to cheat The tedious hours with music sweet.
VII.
" Sleep, child of my love ! be thy slumber as light As the red bird's that nestles secure on the spray ;
Be the visions that visit thee fairy and bright
As the dew drops that sparkle around with the ray !
0 soft flows the breath from thine innocent breast ; In the wild wood, sleep cradles in roses thy head ;
But her who protects thee, a wanderer unbless'd.
He forsakes, or surrounds with his phantoms of dread.
1 fear for thy father ! why stays he so long
On the shores where the wife of the giant was thrown, And the sailor oft lingered to hearken her song.
So sad o'er the wave, e'er she hardened to stone. He skims the blue tide in his birchen canoe.
Where the foe in the moon-beams his path may descry ; The ball to its scope may speed rapid and true.
And lost in the wave be thy father's death cry ! The POWER that is round us, — whose presence is near,
In the gloom and the solitude felt by the soul, Protect that frail bark in its lonely career.
And shield thee, when roughly life's billows shall roll."
YAMOYDEN. 209
VIII.
The noise of parting boughs was heard,
Within the wood a footstep stirred :
The partner of her griefs appears,
To kiss away her falHng tears.
" And oh !" Yamoyden said, " that thou
This sad reverse of Hfe should'st know !
Wretch that I was, with hand unbless'd,
To snatch this nursUng from her nest,
And bear her with me darkly on.
Through horror's tide and misery's moan !
Alone, though wild the tempest raved.
The roar, the flash, I might have braved ; —
But thou, so young, so wondrous fair,
A wanderer's restless lot to share" — -
" Mourn not for me," she calm replied,
" With thee, the worst I can abide ;
And hope and joy are present here
Mid tenfold gloom, if thou art near.
And in the hour of darkest ill.
There is a hope a refuge still —
Lift we our thoughts, our prayers on high,—
There's comfort in eternity !"
IX.
In rapt delight the chieftain gazed, — Her pale, fair brow was upward raised ; In her blue eye devotion shone, With that mild radiance, all its own. Such as might mark, with purer light, O'er heaven a passing seraph's flight. " Nora, thou cam'st, mid dreary strife. To bless and cheer a wayward life ; — O ! thou wast borne upon my sight,
VOL. I. D D
210 YASIOYDE-S.
In blessedness and beauty given, Of all good tidings omen fair ; As floating through the azure air, The Wakon bird descends from heaverr, Poised on his fleet and equal wings. And from his glittering train far flings, Marking his pathway from above, The rainbow hues of peace and love ! Not vain hath been thy care to teach The great, good Spirif s beloved speech : And not in vain thy words have shown The prophet who from high came down. The Priest and Offering. I have sought His ear, with prayers thy lips have taught, When clouds above were deep and dread. And brightness seemed around them shed, Till, like yon snow-wreaths of the sky. They passed in fading lustre by. When lone I cross'd the silent wave. While its soft light the moon-beam gave, And all above, and all below, Was^ kindling with the heavenly glow. My heart was full of prayer ; and then, Methought thy hopes would not be vain, Ifelt the Comforter appear. And every doubt and every fear Depart ; the cheering presence stole With sweeter influence on my soul. Than the mild breeze around my frame. That o'er the tranquil waters came. Oh ! on the bare and wintry ground. When utter darkness reigned around. Oft have I watched the morning star Break through the eastern mists afar ; But never yet upon my view It came in such immortal hue,
YAMOYDEN. 211
As that glad beam of hope that stole Above the darkness of my soul."
X.
Entranced in sudden bliss they sate,
Forgetful of the storms of fate ;
With thoughts by favoured minstrels sung
Amid their happiest numbers, While o'er her child the mother hung
And marked its innocent slumbers.; Or met Yamoyden's kindling gaze Where mingling love and rapture blaze :— The haw^k's v^^ild scream the silence broke. Again the sense of pain awoke.
XI.
-** And I must go," the chieftain cried,
" To join the children of despair ; —
The eagle may ily to his mountain side,
And the panther from toils and death may hide^
In his wood-circled lair ;
But they, the lords of earth and sea,
May to no home of refuge flee !"
" O why forsake thy child and me ?
Thou art not summoned there —
Where thou, a Christian, may'st again
Thy hands with Christian slaughter stain i"
" Nora, if recreant thought were here,
For us what hope, what home is near ?
The base Mohegan's hand would sink
The treacherous axe within my brain ; —
I have not learn'd from death to shrink.
Yet keener far than torture's pain,
Or the vile foe's exulting strain.
It were, upon thy woes to think ; —
For thou, thy kinsmen's scorn, would'st live
Unpitied and alone to grieve.
212 YAMOYDEN.
And this my boy — it cannot be !
I would, when I am dead, that he
Should be the Indian's friend, — should bear
Glad tidings to our tribes dispersed ;
Should plant the vine and olive -there,
And deep beneath the foliage fair
Bury the tomahawk accursed.
But friend and foe alike would shun
The traitor's child, the coward's son !
They shall not say that when the fire
Circled the hunted herd, his sire
Wept like the roebuck when he flies,
And died as warrior never dies.
XII.
" I sought Seaconet's queen to try
Her faith once plighted to the brave ;
But she, in sore extremity,
Received the axe the white men gave ;
Her tribe has joined their battle cry ;
Alone, unaided, we must fly.
Break through our toils, the hunter bands,
To find a home in happier lands.
O haply yet, our dangers past,
Some bless'd retreat may rise at last.
Yet may we find some lovely plain,
A world within itself our own ;
Encircled by a mountain chain,
Whose crests eternal forests crown ;
While through the midst, serene and slow,
A gently winding stream shall flow.
Those woods, whose undisputed sway
The buskined hunter genii keep, —
That stream, whose banks, in guileful play,
Behold the wily red fox leap,
To snare the sportive birds, whose fate
Those treacherous gambols proves too late,-
YAMOYDEN. 213
Those scenes no war-whoop shall assail : The vines untrod shall clothe the vale, Thick mantling with their cheerful hues And clustering with their purple store ; From the full bark the honeyed juice Its gushing treasures round shall pour ; There melons with their varying die Shall bask beneath a milder sky ; The plumed maize, with shapely blade, Shall stand like marshalled host arrayed. Oh ! there the tranquil hours shall flow. Calm as the glassy wave below ; Remembrance of past griefs shall cease In the sweet bosom of that peace, Yielding sweet streams of comfort blest. Like balmy fountains of the west. Which spirits gift by healing charm. With unction meet for every harm !"
XIII. " Yamoyden, 'tis a blissful dream, — A glimpse of heaven thro' thunder-clouds ; Despair forbids such light to beam O'er the deep gloom our fate that shrouds. Dark is the lord whose desperate cause Thou followest ; yet for reason pause ; Pause, ere that heart of guilt and guile Entrap thee in its latest wile !" " Fear not ; his wasted power forbids The secret hope of hostile deeds. Yet if Revenge the spirit be That holds the Sachem company, How shall his foes the outlaw blame. Or marvel whence the daemon came? Can he forget, while heaves his breath, An outraged brother's captive death ?
214 YAMOYDEN.
Can he forget the lurid light Of Narraganset's bloody night? The forests broad his fathers swayed, O'errun beneath the oppressor's tread ; — The bones that bleach in every fen, The perished race of warrior men ; — The limbs once cast in freedom's mould, Fettered in slavery's iron hold ; — The wanderer of the lonely place Waylaid, and tortured to confess ; His kindred slain, or captive led ;— A price upon his homeless head ;— ^
0 ! his are wrongs that but with death From burning memory can depart ; All the pure waters of thy faith
Could wash them ne'er from human heart !
XIV.
^ Farewell ! the sound is as the wail That rises o'er the closing grave ! While yet the shades of night prevail, My boat must cross once more the wave.
1 go to speed our brethren's flight. And with the morrow's closing light, Return to bear thee hence, and far For ever fly from sounds of war."
" Farewell ! I will not weep ;" — she said, Tho' stealing from its liquid bed There fell the unbidden tear ; — " I will not weep ; — a warrior's wife Must learn the moods of wayward Hfe^ Nor know the form of fear. There is a chill my bosom o'er. Which sadly says, we meet no more. But let it pass ; — farewell ! and God Preserve thee, on the path of blood !*'
YAMOYDEN. 215
XV.
Mute was their last embrace, and sad^' Forth fared the chief thro' forest shade ; And still, like statue of despair His lonely bride stood fixed there, Gazing entranced on vacant air ; Sense, feeling, wrapt in this alone. The cherished theme of love was gone. One throb remained ; — the spell it broke, When her unconscious infant woke ; Maternal cares recalled her thought, And soothed her labouring breast o'erfraught, While thus again her accents flow In deep accordance with her wo.
XVI. 1.
" They say that afar in the land of the west. Where the bright golden sun sinks in glory to rest, Mid fens where the hunter ne'er ventured to tread, A fair lake unruffled and sparkling is spread ; Where, lost in his course, the rapt Indian discovers, In distance seen dimly, the green isle of lovers.
2.
" There verdure fades never ; immortal in bloom. Soft waves the magnolia its groves of perfume ; And low bends the branch with rich fruitage depressed, All glowing like gems in the crowns of the east ; There the bright eye of nature, in mild glory hovers : 'Tis the land of the sunbeam, — the green isle of lovers !
3.
" Sweet strains wildly float on the breezes that kiss The calm-flowing lake round that region of bliss ; Where, wreathing their garlands of amaranth, fair choirs Glad measures still weave to the sound that inspires
216 YAMOYDEN.
The dance and the revel, mid forests that cover On high with th^jf shade the green isle of the lover.
4.
" But fierce as the snake with his eyeballs of fire, When his scales are all brilliant and glowing with ire, Are the warriors to all, save the maids of their isle. Whose law is their will, and whose life is their smile ; From beauty there valour and strength are not rovers. And peace reigns supreme in the green isle of lovers.
5.
" And he who has sought to set foot on its shore,
In mazes perplex'd, has beheld it no more ;
It fleets on the vision, deluding the view,
Its banks still retire as the hunters pursue ;
O ! who in this vain world of wo shall discover.
The home undisturbed, the green isle of the lover !"
XVII.
What sound was that, so wdldly sad. As by prophetic spirit made ? So sudden, mid the silence deep, Breaking on nature's death-like sleep ? 'Twas but the lonely We-ko-lis, Who oft, at such an hour as this, Had from the woven boughs around Prolonged her melancholy sound. But now she perched upon the roof. And from her w^onted spray aloof. In interrupted notes of wo Poured forth her solemn music slow, With tremulous and mournful note. Now nearer heard, and now remote. — And she had heard an Indian tell, . Such sound foreboded sudden bale. It was the soul of a lovelorn maid, Who mourned her warrior slain, he said.
YAMOYDENi 217
But little faith, I ween, had she, A Christian bred, in augury ; Yet strove, alternate fear and shame. Till all the woman's terrors came*
XVIII. There is a trampling in the wood ; The mat, the cabin's entrance rude, Shakes ; it was no dream of fear, — Behold an Indian's face appear ; He stands within the cot, — and three Come scowling in his company. Ask not what terrors o'er her pass'd, As fixed as stood the patriarch's wife^ When the forbidden glance she castj And lightning rooted her aghast, Leaving a mock of life, — G izing she sate, in silent dread, Till sight was gone, and thought was dead : Yet close, and closer still she press'd The sleeping infant on her breast ; A mother's instinct quick was left, Of other sign of life bereft*
XIX.
But when she felt an iron grasp Tearing that infant from her clasp, Her piercing scream the forest rent. And all despair's high strength was sent Gathering around her heart ; " O mercy, Jesus ! save my child !'* She cried in tones so sadly wild. The Wampanoag, fierce and bold. Shrunk from his purpose, and his hold Relaxed with sudden start. Vol. I. — E E
218 YAMOYDENr
Her spoiler's dusky brow she scanned, Yet struggling from his ruthless hand Her wailing child to tear, — As one would mark the madman's eye, When a fearful precipice was nigh, And he had grasped him there. She met his glances, stern and keen, Such might the hungry wolf's have been. Whose spoils now swathed him round ; And in his front all bare and bleak. And in his high, scar-riven cheek, No line of mercy found. A rapid look surveyed the rest ; In vain to them despair may cling ! Ah ! sooner mantling verdure blest On the bald thundercliff shall spring !
XX.
The mother from her child is torn, A cry that rent her heart forlorn, ' Their murderous triumph told ; Then kind oblivion came to save From madness ; dark, as is the grave. Dreamless, and void, and cold. One bears her senseless in his arms. Another stills the babe's alarms ; Then through the forest's tangled way, Swift and straight, towards the bay Their path the Indians hold. Each stepping where the first had gone, 'Twas but as the mark of one. So noiseless was their cautious tread. The wakeful squirrel overhead Knew not that aught beneath him sped. N© bough recoiled as on they broke. Scarce rustling leaf their impress spoke.
YAMOYDEN. 219
XXI.
From the first blush who judges man, Must ill his Maker's image scan : The traveller in the boundless lands, Where the fair west its stores expands, Oft marks with cheerful green unblent, Hgh piled to heaven the bleak ascent, As scathed and blasted by the fire. That fell from the Almighty's ire. But as along the vale he sweeps, More gently swell the fir-clad steeps, Till all the sunny mountain rise. With golden crown amid the skies. Not the swarth skin, nor rude address Bespeak the bosom's dreariness ; — Happy, if thus the evil brain Bore stamp'd the outward curse of Cain.
XXII. Slowly from Nora's wandering soul, Oblivion's mists of midnight roll, And, as she woke, to view again Uncertain horror's spectral train, Dashing waves were murmuring near. Rode the bright moon high and clear : The plunderers cross'd a shelving glade ; Around the forest's mass of shade Rose darkling ; and before, the bay Was quivering with the silver ray. Dim memory rose ; an Indian eye Watched its first dawning earnestly. Strange was the face that, frank and bold. Spoke a heart cast in gentler mould. He bore the waking lady up. And lingered last of all the group;
S2Q YAMOYDEN.
Nor e'er at superstition's shrine, Did votary mark the fire divine, When v^^avering in its golden vase. With feeUngs more intense, Than o'er her v^^an and death-hke face, — Like morning blushing o'er the snow, — The warrior watched the beaming glow Of lost intelligence.
XXIII.
He pointed, where his comrade bore
Her infant in his arms, before.
His gaze with melting ruth was fraught,
And that uncertain peril taught
A language to his look :
Of needful silence in that hour,
Of rescue near from saviour powei-
And faithful aid it spoke.
But still they sped towards the wave,
And he whose glance had sworn to save,
Yet often eyed the circling wood
Where only gloom and mystery brood.
The rippling tides, the insects shrill,
At times the plaining whip-poor-will,.
In melancholy concord wake ;
But other sound was none, to break
The wild suspense of hope and fear ;
There was no sign of rescue near.
Fair shone the moon ; but there gleamed no ray
Of hope in her calm and pearly way ;
Bright rolled the expanding floods below.
But there shone no promise in their flow ;
The Jiues serene of nature's rest
But agonized her anxious breast,
yamoyden. 221
XXIV.
Nearer and nearer lo the shore, Their prize the hurrying party bore ; — The bank is gained ; its brake amid, Their Hght canoe was closely hid. While cautious its descent they guide. To the calm bosom of the tide, Their comrade, lingering yet above. Gazed anxiously around to prove His silent promise true ; — But not a sound is heard, nor sign Is there of aid ; the giant pine Its gloomy limbs unmoving bears. And still the silent forest wears Its sad and solemn hue.
XXV.
•Tis launched, — they beckon him to haste ;
One glance he threw, and hope has pass'd,
No more could Nora brook to wait.
In passiveness, uncertain fate.
She shrieked, — far rung the loud alarm,-^
And as she struggled from his arm
To break, whose faint resistance made
A moment's brief delay.
An Indian leaped to lend his aid ;
But, ere he touched the trembhng maid,
Even in his middle way, —
Loud from the wood a gunshot rung,
Straight from earth the Nipnet sprung.
Then, with but one mortal pain,
Dead he sunk upon the plain.
Again, again the volleys pour.
And Nora saw and heard no more.
222 YAMOYDEN.
XXVI.
She woke ; the ground was wet with blood, —
Her Indian saviour o'er her stood ;
Around her she discovered then,
The faces of her countrymen.
*' Where is my child ?" they answer not ;
Her dusky guardian's eye she sought ;
O'er his high cheek of rugged mould,
The moon-beam glistened, clear and cold ;
A crystal tear was starting bright,
And glittering with the pale, pure light ; —
" Where is my child ? in mercy, say ?"
He pointed to the expanding bay ; —
There was no speck on its azure sheet,
No trace in the waters smooth and fleet, —
As if furrowing keel had ploughed them never,-
And she knew her child had gone for ever.
YAMO YDEN
CANTO THIRD.
Bright as the bird whom Indian legends sing, Whose glance was lightning, and whose eye was flame, The deep-voiced thunder trembling in his wing. When from the ocean earth emerging came ; — Fair freedom soars with wing and glance the same. And calls, from depths profound and cheerless waste, The quickening spark that fires the burning frame. Glows deathless in the patriot's ardent breast. Where loud the thunders speak, where lie her sons oppress'd.
O who hath ever from her buoyant air Drank vigorous life beneath her wings outspread, And would not that the scenes of nature fair Lay rather like the desert seared and dead, — Than see the spirit that inspired them fled. Quenched the bright lightnings of her awful eye ; Hope, valour, crushed beneath oppression's tread. And o'er the darkening scene of death descry How stern destruction holds her drear ascendency.
Hearts that loved freedom came, away to tear From fellow-men that birthright which they T^less'd ; And they, to whom religion's cause was dear, Fanned the unholy passion in their breast ; —
524 YAMOYDEN.
The persecuted sought on the oppressed To trample ; — bared the exterminating sword, Above their victim's last, defenceless rest ; Yea, self-deluded, loud their cries they pour'd For aid, to him, the God of peace, whom they adored.
I.
While hot pursuit a moment failed, The victor host their council held ; — Tho' boastful hope had vaunted sure Their victim and his band secure. Yet varied tale and rumours dark Misled them from their destined mark ; And on Pocasset's winding shore. Awhile they gave the hunting o'er, And on the island now they rest. Which blooms o'er ocean's placid breast, In its bright emerald livery dress'd,
The garden of the deep ; They heeded not its verdant bowers^ Its peaceful groves and myriad flowers, — Snatching a few uncertain hours,
Their council stern to keep. But few were met ; their scouts afar Pursued the scent of failing war ; While here in anxious doubt they stay^ Thus rose the supplicating lay.
II. WAR HYMN. 1. O Thou ! for whom in the heavens high Seraphim embattled fly ! Before us be thy banner spread Like the pillar of fire which thy people led !
YAMOYDEN. 225
2.
Almighty Conqueror ! to thee we cry ; —
Gird thy bright falchion on thy thigh ;
Let all creation's trembling arch
Proclaim our God's victorious march ! 3.
King of all kings ! to thee belongs
To inspire our weak and mortal songs ;
Hear the strains thy Spirit taught
Through Him that our ransom from death hath bought. 4. May we break on the foe, to blaspheme thee who dared, With the sword of thy righteousness, w^hetted and bared. As burst, when their fountains are broken, the floods. As the storm when it tears up the pride of the woods.
5. They shall fade like the smoke which is lost in the air. They shall melt from thy wrath when its fury shall glare ; Unblenched shall we track them, through wild flowing war. By the light of our battle, thy conquering star !
III. Ceased the deep strain. On every brow Sat exultation's crimson glow ; And every bosom beat, as high Swelled the loud anthem to the sky. They felt, as if on promised land,
Like Israel's guided host, They followed heaven's directing hand,
To every isle and coast ; They felt as if his word had bade Their ranks unsheath the glittering blade, Whose high command to Joshua given Led Jacob to his earthly heaven ! No throb was there of pity's mood, For native of the solitude ;
VOL. I. — F F
226 yamoydeN.
Doomed to the carnage of the sword They deemed the country and its lord ; And bigot zeal, to bosoms brave, The callous thirst of slaughter gave. On each flushed cheek, and glistening eye^ The glowing fever revelled high ; While fancy's fixed, — unbounded gaze Almost beheld the Godhead's blaze ; As upwards, in ecstatic trance. Beamed on the azure heaven their glance. Awhile they stood. No word was spoken- Deep was that silence, and unbroken — Even the dark water's hollow roar Was hushed upon the rocky shore, — The wood-wind's music clear and shrill Amid that solemn pause was still ; — Till, with one sudden burst again Arose the animating strain.
IV.
HYMTsr. 1.
Lift up thy banner, Lord, afar,
Arrayed in robes of dazzling light ! Arise, O Conqueror, to the war. In all the glories of thy might ! 2. For who is God, save Thou, and where
Shall man find safety but in Thee ? Thy strength shall aid, thy kindly care Preserve in blest security. 3. The God of armies on our side
Hath waged his warfare, and o'ercome ; > And he shall be our stay and guide, Our hope, our refuge, and our home.
YAMOYDEN. 227
4.
High as the heavens, to God again Lift then the song that tells his praise ;
And earth prolong the solemn strain, And angels tune their golden lays^
V.
As dies, far heard along the shore, The ocean's deep and sullen roar ; As down the mountain's rugged brow The failing thunder's echoes flow ; At first, in cadence wild and strong. The notes profound their voice prolong. Till, rolling far, they part and die, Tho' still unquenched their majesty ; — So hushed the strain ; — so sunk away The Christian warriors' ardent lay .; So far the mighty echoes flow^ The Indian, in his light canoe, E'en at Seaconet's troubled wave. Felt terror shake his bosom brave ; And shrunk, within his fragile boat. To hear that long re-echoed note : — Omen of sorrow, deep and dire, Of rending sword, — of wasting fire, — Of hopes destroyed, — of bosoms torn,— Of exile, cheerless and forlorn,-- Of power extinct, and glory gone, — And his last boon — despair alone.
VI.
Fair breathes the morn ; but not for him Its floods of golden glory swim, The outcast wretch forlorn ; There is no sunrise in his breast, He turns him from the kindling east,
228 YAMOYDEN.
And, like some wandering ghost unbless'd.
Flies the sweet breath ot" morn. The sea-gull skims along the waves, Its snow-white bosom gladly laves ; The eagle cleaves the rack, and sails High o'er the clouds and nether gales ; The red deer heaves his antlers high, Bounding in " tameless transport by ;" — But what with them to do hath he ? They, like the elements, are free ! And thoughts, than death more dread and deep, Across his mental vision sweep, While only lives the soul for pain. Like vulture tyring on the brain.
VII.
Yet to the camp no tidings come Where Philip and his followers roam ;
And, while the scent was cold. The English band that tracked his way, Beneath broad oaks embowering lay.
And varying converse hold. Small space between them, and the rout Of Indians who had joined the shout,
That hung on Philip's flight : Mohegans and Seaconets too, A motley band, in numbers few,
Were gathered for the fight."^
VIII.
Amid the Christian corps there stood A gray old man ; the book of God
* The seven first verses of this canto were transcribed by their author, but a few weeks before his death ; and have been printed exactly after his manuscript.
YAMOYDEN. 829
Was in his hand ; with holy verse That spoke the ancient heathen's curse, He bless'd the murders they had done, And called on Heaven the work to crown. As o'er the past their converse turned, His eye with inspiration burned, While thus his speech began to flow, O'er earlier scenes of toils and wo.
IX.
** Nor lure of conquest's meteor beam, Nor dazzling mines of fancy's dream. Nor wild adventure's love to roam. Brought from their father's ancient home. Mid labours, deaths, and dangers toss'd, O'er the wide sea the pilgrim host. They braved the battle and the flood. To worship here their fathers' God. With shreds of papal vesture tied To flaunting robes of princely pride. In formal state, on sumptuous throne, Daughter of her of Babylon, Sat bigotry. Her chilling breath To fires of heavenly warmth was death ; Her iron sceptre England swayed, Religion withering in its shade. The shepherd might not kneel to call On Him, the common sire of all, Unless his lips, with harsh constraint, Were tuned to accents cold and faint ; For man's devices had o'erwrought The volume by a Saviour bought ; And clogged devotion's soaring wing That up to heaven should instant spring, ' With phrases set, that bore no part In the warm service of the heart.
230 YAMOYDEN.
But why recount their sorrows past, From the first martyr to the last ? Or pope's or bishop's bigot zeal, Alike their hate of Christian weal ; Or torture's pangs and fagot's flame, Or fines and exile, 'twas the same. Same antichrist, whom prophets old With sad announcing voice foretold !
X.
^* Such were the wrongs that cried to heaven,- What time shall see those wrongs forgiven ! O England ! from thine earliest age, Land of the warrior and the sage ! Eyrie of freedom reared on rocks That frown o'er ancient ocean's shocks I Cradle of art ! religion's fane. Whose incense ne'er aspired in vain ! Temple of laws that shall not die. When brass and marble crumbled lie ! Parent of bards whose harps rehearse Immortal deeds in deathless verse ! O England 1 can thy pride forget Thy soil with martyrs' blood is wet ? Bethink thee, — like the plagues which sleep In earth's dark bosom buried deep. As the poor savage deems, — that o'er Thine head, the vials yet in store. Vials of righteous wrath must pour !
XI.
" Strong was the love to heaven which bare From their dear homes and altars far. The old, the young, the wise, the brave. The rich, the noble and the fair. And 'led them, o'er the mighty wave, Uncertain peril's front to dare.
YAMOYDEN. 291
Strong was their love ; and strong the Power
Whose red right arm, in danger's hour,
Was bared on high their path to show,
Through changeful scenes of weal and wo ;
By signs and wonders, as of old,
When Israel journeyed through the waste,
Was its mysterious guidance told ;
Though lightnings flashed, and thunders rolled,
The sunbeam glorious smiled at last.
XII. " How oft the storm their barks delayed, How oft their prows they turned dismayed ; How oft his wings above their head The death-announcing angel spread ; While the chill pestilential gale Sung in the shrouds and shrinking sail ! They came ; upon the soil they trod, Where they might worship Nature's God ; — But not, as erst from Pisgah's height, Burst on the patriarch's aching sight The promised realms of life and light. Rose on their view the land they sought, By exile, want, and misery bought.
XIII.
" Blazing o'er heaven with sickly flame, A meteor fierce their herald came ; Plagues filled with death the tainted air, To yield the pilgrims entrance there. A golgotha of sculls was spread O'er all the land beneath their tread : — For backward flew the savage race, To give the new intruders spac3; Expected now their wilds among, Foretold by captive's prophet tongue.
232 YAMOYDEN.
In dismal depths of swampy dell Their Powahs met with purpose fell,— With haggard eye, and howls of ire. They called on famine, sword, and fire, To fill the air with Christian groans, And whiten earth with Christian bones.
XIV.
" God heard their blasphemy. Though not By spell of theirs was ruin wrought. For wisest ends, from man concealed, The Indian curse w^as half fulfilled. Gaunt famine came ; — with ghastly train Of all the screaming fiends of pain. He stalked o'er forest, hill, and plain ; On herb and tree his mildew dealt, And man and beast the syroc felt. Long fed they on the withering roots^ Wild berries and the forest fruits ; With what the barren ocean flung. From its vast womb their rocks among ; Until their numbers grow too weak, Such scanty sustenance to seek. Then fled the rose from beauty's cheek ; Then the last spark cold age that fired. Gleamed in its socket and expired ; Then youth unripe its stem forsook ; Untimely blasts the sapling shook ; Then manhood's sterner sinews bowed ; Till death sat scowling o'er the crowd — None left to lay, with pious pains. In decent earth their cold remains. — The heaven was brass above their head ; The earth was iron 'neath their tread ; — Then from its surface cracked and dry, * Egypt's worst pests their fears espy ;
YAMOYDEN. 233
Crawled forth the myriad insect host,
With shrilly wings o'er all the coast ;
The coming plagues their swarms declared,
Disease destroyed whom death had spared.
Sore were their trials ; oft their toil
Was vainly spent on steril soil ;
Oft blazed their roofs with raging flame ;
And oft the fierce tornado came,
And in its whelming fury ran
O'er all the works of God and man :
The tall pine like a wand it broke,
Plucked from its roots the giant oak.
Made all its mighty fibres writhe.
And whirled and wound it like a withe.
XV.
" Yet mark the all-preserving care, When helpless, faint, and sick they were. And when the heathen might have trod In dust and death the church of God, A mortal terror o'er them came, Withheld the sword and wasting flame ; And dread and reverence like a spell On their unholy purpose fell.
XVI.
" Such were their changeful woes for years
Of toils and doubts, and hopes and fears.
Yet still before the freshening gale
New pilgrims bade their canvass swell ;
And he who whilome walked the sea.
The turbid waves of Galilee,
Lit the vast deep with heavenly ray,
And bade the waters yield them way ;
Till in the wilderness arose
His church triumphant o'er her foes.
VOL. I.
234 YAMOYDEX.
O'er heathen rage, and Hps profane,
That mocked the sufferers' mortal pain,
When in their agonies they cried
On Christ to save their souls, and died ; —
O'er daring sin, that strove to rear
The shrine of Dagon, even here ; —
O'er damning error's secret wiles.
Prolific schism's delusive toils ; —
O'er pagan and apostate foes,
The church of God triumphant rose.
Till now, o'er wilds where murder swayed,
Her branches cast their sacred shade.
Springing with instant growth to heaven,
Like the blest gourd to Jonah given.
Wo to the worm, whate'er it be,
Whose tooth corrodes that goodly tree 1
If e'er the thirst for novel lore.
Half learn'd pretension's shallow store.
Or foul design, with secret blow
To lay the goodly structure low,
Corrupt the sacred faith we own.
Or pluck from Christ the Godhead's crown.
Then shall the Indian curse yet fall
In whelming fury on them all !
Ruin and havoc shall again
Destroy their homes and blight their plain !
To after ages shall they be
A proverb for their infamy !
XVII.
" The hour is come : the pagan host Scattered, dissolves like morning frost. The hour is come, when we shall tread In dust the writhing serpent's head. What mercy shall to him be shown Who weds eternal hate alone ?
YAMOYDEN. 235
Revenge his god — to murder led, For this he woos e'en Christian aid ; When wreaked his wrath, he turns to dart His sting into his patron's heart. For this, on Moloch's streaming pyre. He gives his children to the fire. For this in torture he will die, Smiling through all his agony ; Till, in its horrid transport lost, To Tophet flies the howling ghost ! Thus saith the Lord — fear not their spite. The outcast heathen's power to harm ; Against my people, in my sight. They shall not raise the murderous arm. His works in latter days proclaim From age to age his power the same ; Even as of old when Joshua's word The lights of heaven obedient heard ; O'er Gibeon's towers the lingering ray Prolonged the unwonted blaze of day ; While hung the moon with crescent pale, O'er Ajalon's undarkened vale."
XVIII.
Thus ran the preacher's theme ; and long Dwelt on his words the listening throng-. Recounting portents far and near On rumour's gales inconstant driven. Whence superstition's greedy ear Drank in the immediate voice of heaven. They talked of that polluted night That saw the heathen's damning rite ; By God forsaken, when their spell Conjured in aid the Prince of Hell : When groans of tortured martyrs blended With yells of furious joy ascended ;
286 YAMOYDEN.
When, while the sacrifice was screaming, The hot, baked earth was wet and steaming. As drop by drop it caught the blood Of saints, whose latest prayer to God
In blasphemy was drowned. Since then the savage crest was bowed, Sunk was their spirit stern and proud, Nor more was heard their war-cry loud,
Through echoing groves to sound. But judgment with destruction fraught. Hung o'er their heads, where'er they sought
Escape from tempests round, As broke the clouds of thunder o'er The routed Amorites of yore. Then talked they of the sign beheld
By their advancing troop. When through their borders first was yelled
The death-announcing whoop ; When at the midnight's ghostly noon, A crimson scar deformed the moon : lake Indian scalp the shape it had ; And, while they gazed, the planet bright Plunged into earth's o'erwhelming shade. And veiled her silver orb in night. From thence with awe had holy lips Presaged the foe's more dark eclipse. Nor this alone portended war ; Through the clear aether heard afar. Strange sounds were pealed with deafening din, As from the mouth of culverin ; As if aerial hosts on high Waged strife sublime for victory. And whizzing balls with musket knell Like wintry hail descending fell ; And o'er them martial music pass'd, With roUing drum and clarion blast ;
YAMOYDEN. 237
And trampling steeds, with thunder shod, O'er heaven's rebounding arches trod. They talked of God's immediate hand Outstretched above the suffering land ; Of timely rains that often came, To quench the fiercely conquering flame, That wrapt their homes in helpless hour — They spoke and bless'd the saving power. And long, to while the hours away. They talk of many a former day : Of native hill and peaceful plain, Far o'er the wild and severing main ; While some with anxious speech prepare The future councils of the war.
XIX.
Upon a hillock's tufted breast. Holding no converse with the rest.
An aged man there sate ; Care seemed enstamped upon his front As if he had endured the brunt
Of long and adverse fate. Scarce sixty winters' snows were spread Upon his venerable head ; And still within his full gray eye There was a tameless energy. That told a heart inured to bear Each form of wo without despair. And stands aloof, unchilled by sorrow, No cheer from earthly hope to borrow. Religion's promise in his view Was fixed, and he believes it true ; Star of his soul ! in glory beaming, A light worth all earth's sweetest dreaming ! As many a busy murmur fell On his scarce conscious ear.
238 YAMOYDEN.
At times to memory, audible,
They told of vanished scenes too well
Remembered, and too dear. Still at some half-caught sentence rose The troublous image of his woes ; He heard them speak of distant land, And memory with obtrusive hand
Would point his vision there ; He heard them tell of tender ties, And the full tide of agonies Rushed o'er his soul left sad and lone ; A deep, involuntary groan
The inward conflict told ; It was so strange for him to show, Such outward sign of secret wo. That silence followed straight, profound, As if at supernatural sound ; And every speaker's eye around
Turned on that warrior old. Oft had they longed in vain to hear That ancient man of life austere,
His trials dark relate ; For his stern mien, his sadness mix'd With lines of wo subdued, had fix'd
Their interest on his fate : But sorrow's sacred mystery Can reverential sympathy
In every heart create ; That long-drawn sigh, that burst unchecked, Appeared to break the spell respect Had thrown around his fortunes wrecked.
Lone misery's robe of state ! And they besought him to disclose, At large, the story of his woes,
YAMOYDEN. 289
XX.
It seemed that feelino^'s burstino^ tide
Had half o'erborne the silent pride
That barred communion with its pain,
And made the wish to comfort vain.
A struggle passed, intense and brief,
While thus began his tale of grief.
"Dark even in youth the orphan's fate^
But youth is ne'er quite desolate ;
Its tears revive with moisture sweet,
The wild flowers springing at its feet ;
And round in goodly prospect rise
Green, smooth ascents, and cloudless skies.
For who, when fancy warm and young,
Depicts the future's dazzling scope.
Lists not the charmer's syren tongue. Owns not the power of suasive hope ?
Would that in after years of grief, I could have felt the sadness brief
That infancy bestows ! Would that my heart by madness wrung.
To hope's sweet comfort could have clung.
Amid severer woes ! But rolling years of varied sorrow. Have bade me naught from hope to borrow ; Far is her flight, and strong her wing. And eagle-like her foot will cling. Above the storm, to cliffs that raise Their fronts to catch the solar bla^e. Yet lives she not amid the skies. Like eastern birds of Paradise, Whose feed in fragrant air is given. Who quaff the balmy dews of heaven ; Deserted on her eyry high. Her bosom faints, and fails her eye, And hope herself unfed will die.
240 YAMOYDEN.
Who follows not the torch of hope, Shall in no future darkness grope ; Who builds not on her promise fair, Needs fear no earthquake of despair.
XXL
" I had a brother whom I loved, The only kindred death had left ; And wo our mutual friendship proved, Of those who cherished us bereft. I loved him — and he clung to me, Though nearly young and weak as he ; For friends were cold ; and coldness made Us seek each other's feeble aid. And oft together would we mourn O'er days that never could return ; We wept for those whom memory still Would to our youthful hearts reveal ; We wandered to their sepulchre, — For all we loved was resting there : Where oft till midnight we would stay. And watch, and weep again, and pray ; Till seemed in our young bosoms shed, A fellow-feeling with the dead.
XXII.
" We parted, when a venturous band In quest of wealth, to foreign land.
The aspiring Edward drew ; 'Twas with a deep, foreboding gloom Beside our parents' sacred tomb,
We spoke our last adieu. And tidings rare and far between, Told where the wanderer's steps had been ; ' Till silence o'er his fate was spread, And when long years had come and fled, I deemed him numbered with the dead.
YAMOYDEN. 241
But now, to blast the realm's repose, The banner dark of discord rose, And friends became each other's foes
In that unnatural war : My soul was young, untutored then, In all the evil ways of men ; And liberty's insulted name, Set all my bosom in a flame,
The glorious strife to share. The infant's inexperienced sight Of distance cannot judge aright ; And youthful dreams will still deceive, And youthful bosoms still believe,
When passion has the sway : Alas ! that time can but disclose The snares that trap the soul's repose,
In youth's misguided day ! When wisdom learns too late to shun The snares by which we were undone, —
In age's dim decay.
XXIII. '•Grand, but delusive, is the dream, When dazzling rays of glory seem, With light celestial, to illume The burnished crest, and dancing plume ; When angel tones are heard to fill The trump's inspiring clamours shrill ; When the mailed host, in stern array, Rolls onward with resistless sway ; While with one pulse each heart beats high, One sacred fire in every eye. And one the unbroken battle cry, * For conscience and for liberty !' The cause for which I fought and bled, Is dear, though all its hopes have fled, —
VOL. I. H H
242 YA3IOYDEN.
Fled from our country's ark, to trace In western wilds a resting-place, Where yet, in solemn groves, the soul Communes with heaven without control? And, like the patriarch in the wood, Invokes the everlasting God !
XXIV.
" It boots not now with pains to tell Of all that in that war befell ; How king and state with various chance' Encountered each the other's lance ; How, bleeding fresh from every pore, Our country weltered in her gore ; While every breeze that swept the sky Told but of war's wild revelry ; When even the brother had imbrued His hands amid his brother's blood ; The parent wept no more his son, In that disastrous strife undone ; For all was hostile ; — all arose To fill the cup of England's woes.
XXV.
" It was on Naseby's fatal plain Our host was marshalled once again ; And, on their common soil, for blood The kindred ranks impatient stood. While Charles and Rupert on the right In triumph brief maintained the fight, I followed Cromwell's sage command, Where Lang dale led his loyal band. And vainly strove to check the tide That all his vigilance defied. * Routed and broken as he flew.
More wide the scattering slaughter grew.
YAMOYDEN. 243
I marked a gallant warrior long
At bay restrain the impetuous throng ;
Fierce fell the flashes of his blade,
Like lightning on the foeman's head ;
And death was dealt in every wound,
Till parted his assailants round ;
I marked him, where alone, amain
His courser scoured the encumbered plain :
Filled with the fury of the day,
I followed reckless on his way ;
Fainter and faltering in their course.
The blood-drops fell from knight and horse ;
He turned, as my descending sword
Through the reft mail his bosom gored.
Then sunk, his fleeting vigour gone ; —
The staggering steed rushed blindly on ;
0 God ! as round my victim gazed. His eye with death's dull amel glazed,
1 saw my brother in my foe !
And he his murderer seemed to know — For pardon lingered in his eye. As death's drear shadow flitted by ; — His lips essaying seemed to sever, But quivering vainly, closed for ever I
XXVI.
** No more with martial zeal inspired,
To a lone valley I retired.
To spend what yet remained of years
In penitential thoughts and tears :
But sadness came as horror pass'd,
New objects charmed my soul at last,
And from my wounded core anew
A scion green of promise grew.
I loved — was bless'd — 'tis briefly said —
As swift those blissful moments fled :
244 YAMOYDEN.
The angel partner who had smiled On my lone path, through deserts wild, And led to earth's sole paradise, Was wrapp'd to her congenial skies,
XXVII.
** One pledge she left ; I could not brook Longer upon those scenes to look. Where ghosts of pain or pleasure past Started, where'er my glance was cast. I bore my daughter o'er the flood. Trembling at ocean's wild alarms, Just blooming into womanhood. And ripe in all her mother's charms. Ye know the rest ; — an Indian sought Ere long our newly rising cot 2 It seemed the friendship which he bare The white man's race had led him there. With strong desire their love to learn. And Christian usages discern. He showed what soil would bear the grain, What best our scanty herds sustain ; For he had learn'd to speak our tongue, And he would listen, fixed and long. When of sublimer themes I spoke, Revealed in inspiration's book ; Unfolding thence the wondrous plan Of all that God had done for man. By converse oft, and frequent view, Almost as one of us he grew ; Yet liked I not sometimes to hear How he would win my Nora's ear. With legends of his tawny race. And feats that Nipnet annals grace.
VAMOYDEN. 245
XXVIII. ^' In sooth his form was free and bold, And cast in nature's noblest mould ; His martial head full lightly bore The many-tinctured plumes he wore ; His glossy locks beneath their band Were clipp'd with no unskilful hand ; His polished Hmbs unseamed with scars, And wonted stains of Indian wars — And well the robe we gave became With graceful fold his goodly frame. Frank was his speech ; but ne'er would rove. Tutored by cunning, or by love. To themes for woman's ear unfit : And Nora listening long would sit. By words and signs while he expressed Creation's wonders in the west ; Or told of foughten field ; or showed Through woods and wolds the hunter's road ; How plain, and swamp, and forest through, They chased the mighty buffalo ; Or winged the unerring arrow, where High coiling in his leafy lair. They saw the panther's eyeballs glare. Of ambush base and torture fell. Of midnight fire and murderous yell, ^
Of blood-stained rites and league with hell. The treacherous spoiler did not tell ! And she would ask to hear again The feats of wild and martial men ; Or told in turn what art had done, In lands beyond the rising sun ; Of those vast hives of human homes ; Proud palaces and glittering domes ; Of loaded quays, and sails that bear From all the globe their tribute there ;
246
YAMOYDEN.
Of armies in their panoply,
And floating bulwarks on the sea.
Yet little marvelled he, at all
The pomp her memory could recall,
But better was she pleased, to tell
Of her own loved and pastoral vale,
Its sheltering hills, and banks of green.
Of childhood's gladsome pranks the scene.
Then rapt, his ear he would incline.
As if some seraph's voice divine
Brought tidings from those opal fields
Which autumn's sun, descending, gilds.
I should have looked to see as soon
The uncaverned wolf in frolics boon,
With bounding fawn unfeared agree.
As that between thein love should be.
But I abhorred such converse vain,
And checked the Pagan's speech profane.
I chided and forbade. Alas !
Too late to save my child it was.
Perchance, too long alone she strayed,
In her young hours, within the shade
Of those blest scenes where Hfe began,
Far froi^ the busy haunts of man.
For sinful phantasy still loves
To people mountains, caves, and groves ;
By whispering leaves and murmuring rill,
The tempter speaks, when all is still.
And phantoms in the brain will raise,
That haunt the paths of after days.
Weeds o'er the uncultured mind will spread.
As fern from earth's neglected bed.
Perchance, and I believe it true.
Of herb and spell the powers he knew ;
Tutored in their foul juggler's art.
By fiendish craft he won her heart.
YAMOYDEN. 247
XXIX.
** I drove the Pagan forth too late,
For they at stolen hours had met ; —
Haply, too sternly to my child
I spoke ; her nature was most mild.
Her feelings warm, but never wild,
I trod too rudely on the shoot
Of that young passion's embryo root ;
Like the meek chamomile, it grew
Luxuriant from the bruise anew.
An English youth her suitor came ;
I hoped to quench the unholy flame
The heathen lit, by sacred vows
Of wedlock with a Christian spouse.
It did but haste her final doom, —
On one sad night she left her home ;
She parted, with the tawny chief.
And left me lonely in my grief.
Research was vain, though long pursued,
I sought again my solitude : —
She sowed the winds that madly blew, —
She could but reap the whirlwind too !
'Twas cruel, in the stranger's clime,
Thus from her gray old sire to part.
And barb the only shaft that time
Had yet in store to pierce my heart.
But O, my child ! where'er thou art —
Whether beneath the inclement sky.
Thy whitened bones unburied lie ;
Or dead alone in damning sin.
Thou sharest the apostate's slough unclean,
This, this the undying source of pain.
We cannot meet in heaven as^ain !
Is it not written — * when thy God
Shall make the nations' realm thine own,
S48 YAMOYDEN.
Thou shalt not mingle with their blood, Nor yield thy daughter to his son. For from the path her fathers trod, Her steps to idols will be won And swift destruction's fiery doom The accursed union shall consume !' "
XXX. Fitzgerald ceased ; and every eye Paid tribute to his agony : Even hearts were moved, long hardened made, By cold, deliberate murder's trade. On rough- worn features, stern and rude. The glistening tear unwonted stood ; As on the gnarled oak's scathed boughs, The dew-drop of the morning glows. Scarce had he paused, when through the wood. Up to the camp, two horsemen rode, Wayworn, as if with tidings bound ; And quick, their panting coursers round. The troop impatient thronged to hear What news they brought of hope or fear. Right glad their leader was, to view His former comrades, bold and true ; And loud the joyous murmurs broke, As thus the elder soldier spoke.
XXXI.
"News from the Sachem ! trapp'd at last. In his own den we hold him fast, An Indian from the rebel fled, Incensed for blood of kindred shed. From Haup's wild fastnesses last night Escaped and beckoning met our sight. ^Brought from the adverse bank, he told Where now the traitor keeps his hold ;
YAMOYDEN. 249
And bade us haste, from murderous knife,
If we would save a Christian's hfe.
On secret enterprise, a band
Had sought by Metacom's command,
At eventide, the island shore,
Its central forests to explore.
And with them had his friend been sent,
Who told him of their black intent.
Some secret foul, which but those few
Of Philip's trusted followers knew.
Brief time for rescue was allowed.
We took what followers chance bestowed ;
Swift was our journey ; but 'twas yet.
To intercept the foe too late.
Just on the bank their band we met,
And one beneath our instant shot
Was stretched in death upon the spot.
The rest in terror o'er the flood.
Through the dim shades their flight made good.
Clasped by the friendly Indian there,
A Christian woman, young and fair,
Fainted we found ; the Indian's art
Recalled the life-pulse to her heart,
The living lustre to her eye.
Which only gazed on vacancy: —
Her child was gone— her cry was vain,
And feverish madness fir'd her brain ;
On woven boughs and leaves upborne,
We brought the unconscious dame forlorn.
Through tangled brake and forest screen
Long has our toilsome journey been : —
Waste we no more of idle breath.
But hunt the outlaw to the death !"
VOL. I. 1 I
250 VAMUVDKN .
XXXII.
Meantime, the oaks' tall columns through, The expected band appeared in view ; Slow through the glade their steps advance •, Locked in a calm and deathlike trance, With them the rescued dame was brought^ Free from the agonies of thought. Near, in an opening of the wood, A long-forsaken wigwam stood. Its ruins nought but curious quest The former haunt of men had guessed ;. For woven saplings, germing new. Thick round the rustic dwelling grew. The twisted creeper's verdant woof O'erspread the boughs, and bearskin tough, And birchen bark, its simple roof; And wild flowers mid the foliage twine ; The many-coated columbine, And bittersweet luxuriant sprung. Robust and statelier vines among. Now from that pyramid of green, A curling smoke was rising seen, Mid sycamore's o'erarching screen. A transient shelter it became, To a poor settler and his dame ; — Though comfortless such dwelling be, 'Twas yet the home of liberty. — Straightway the two Mohegans there The litter with its burden bare. O'er the fair form, in pitying mood. The lowly cabin's inmates stood ; They bathed her brow, and raised her head, Until again her stupor fled : The circling white of her blue eye ^ Was stained with redly gushing die ;
YAMOYDEN. 251
Streaks with a storm of anguish past,
Across its Hquid heaven had cast
Now those bright orbs, with wandering roll,
Betrayed the twilight of the soul ;
And now a shriek, on every ear,
Fell, like lost wretch's cry of fear,
When, toppling from the dizzy steep,
He sinks into the roaring deep !
Fitzgerald heard the phrensied cry —
It struck on his bosom suddenly.
Like a chord's sad sound, when bursting near,
From a harp whose music was most dear.
XXXIII. He rushed to the hut ; — with a start he met The child he loved too fondly yet ; Up springing wildly at the sight. Her madness yields to nature's might. At first the father would have press'd The hapless wanderer to his breast ; But sterner thoughts repulsive rose, Of all her guilt and all his woes : While a drear conflict was begun, And nature now, now anger won. Pale Nora hid her face to shun The glance she dared no longer meet : — Prostrate and trembling at his feet, She only clasped his knees and wept, While round her auburn tresses swept : — She only sighed, in murmurs low, " O do not curse me !" " Curse thee ! no ; Tho' down the vale of years alone, I bear my cross with tottering frame. And pangs than death more dread have known, " Pangs from a daughter's hand that came — I would not call the eternal wrath, To burst o'er thy misguided path !
252 YAMOYDEN.
Though hopeless of forgiveness there, I can but plead with earnest prayer,
Against its heavier curse : Oh ! I had borne to see thy bloom Of youth, slow withering o'er its tomb —
Had borne to see thy hearse, Hung with the stainless virgin wreath, That told thy purity in death. But thus — from heathen's couch defiled, Polluted outcast of the wild — I cannot brook to see my child !" " Then, then, I am indeed undone. And light or hope on earth is none ! Here let me die !" " No ! sinful one ! Live ! rising from the gloomier grave Of guilt, no more the tempter's slave. Live ! let thy days in tears be spent, In mental penance deep repent ; Thou art not fit to die !" he said. And raised the mourner from the ground, And all his gathered sternness fled, When in his arms his child he found. Their tears together blended flow — Her crime forgiven, almost forgot. Till severing from her pressure slow. Calmer he left the lonely cot. "Nora, farewell! if heaven shall spare Thy sire, his home thou still shalt share ; But if in this uncertain strife. An Indian ball destroy my life. Christians, I know, my child will save ; And, when I moulder in the grave, Remember — that thy sire forgave." He left her, but his parting word ^His shuddering daughter had not heard ; On adverse sides — her only thought — Her father and her husband fought.
YAMOYDEN. 253
XXXIV.
Counsel meantime the soldiers hold —
The Indian there his injury told ;
He said Ahauton was his name,
And of Mohegan Hne he came ;
Told how the death of Agamoun
A brother's vengeance must atone ;
And how to dust by sorrow borne,
By pain, defeat, and famine worn.
The wily Sachem could not hope
Much longer with his foes to cope.
Tho' fiercely yet of war he spoke,
Yet his stout heart was almost broke.
When last were slain, round Taunton's wave.
His counsellors and his warriors brave.
Left now of all his tribe alone,
The Wampanoags' glory gone —
His every friend and kinsman dead.
Soon he must yield his forfeit head.
XXXV.
Their eager conference o'er at last, The mandate for the march was pass'd. Swiftly the scanty files withdrew. As shrill the warning bugle blew ; Their arms thro' thickets glittering bright. Before the sun's retiring light. Who, waning from his central throne. Thro' clouds and forests lurid shone. The rising wind that shook the trees, Or curled the waving of the seas ; The shrieking birds that sped along, Or plunged the rising waves among, Proclaimed by signs distinct and clear, The bursting of a storm was near. As pass'd the eager troop away, Fitzgerald made a brief delay,
254 YAMOYDEN.
With the Mohegan chief, before He joined the march along the shore. They spoke in low and whispered tone, But, when their earnest speech was done, " Lead thou my steps," the old man cried, " To their foul haunts be thou my guide. Heaven bids me mar the rites defiled. And seek and save my daughter's child."
Y A M O Y D E N.
CANTO FOURTH.
As if to battle, o'er the midnight heaven The clouds are hurrying forth : now veiled on high ; Now sallying out, the moon and stars are driven, As wandering doubtful ; in the shifting sky. Mid mazes strange the Dancers seem to fly ; Wildly the unwearied hunters drive the Bear : Through the deep groves is heard a Spirit's cry ; And hark ! what strain unearthly echoes there, Borne fitful from afar, along the troubled air.
I.
TO THE MANITTO OF DREAMS. 1. " Spirit ! thou Spirit of subtlest air, Whose power is upon the brain, When wondrous shapes, and dread and fair, As the film from the eyes At thy bidding flies, To sight and sense are plain !
2.
"Thy whisper creeps where leaves are stirred ;
Thou sighest in woodland gale ;
Where waters are gushing thy voice is hej^rd ;
And when stars are bright.
At still midnight.
Thy symphonies prevail !
256 YAMOYDEX.
3.
" Where the forest ocean, in quick commotion,
Is waving to and fro,
Thy form is seen, in the masses green,
Dimly to come and go.
From thy covert peeping, where thou layest sleeping,
Beside the brawling brook,
Thou art seen to wake, and thy flight to take
Fleet from thy lonely nook. 4.
Where the moonbeam has kiss'd
The sparkling tide,
In thy mantle of mist
Thou art seen to glide.
Far o'er the blue waters
Melting away.
On the distant billow,
As on a pillow.
Thy form to lay.
5.
Where the small clouds of even
Are wreathing in heaven
Their garland of roses.
O'er the purple and gold.
Whose hangings enfold
The hall that encloses
The couch of the sun.
Whose empire is done, —
There thou art smiling,
For thy sway is begun ;
Thy shadowy sway,
The senses beguiling.
When the light fades away. And thy vapour of mystery o'er nature ascending,
'The heaven and the earth.
The things that have birth, And the embryos that float in the future are blending.
YAMOYDEN. 257
11. 1.
" From the land, on whose shores the billows break
The sounding waves of the mighty lake ;
From the land where boundless meadows be,
Where the buffalo ranges wild and free ;
With silvery coat in his little isle,
W^here the beaver plies his ceaseless toil ;
The land where pigmy forms abide,
Thou leadest thy train at the eventide ;
And the wings of the wind are left behind,
So swift through the pathless air they glide.
2. Then to the chief who has fasted long, "When the chains of his slumber are heavy and strong, Spirit ! thou comest ; he lies as dead, His weary lids are with heaviness weighed ; But his soul is abroad on the hurricane's pinion, Where foes are met in the rush of fight. In the shadowy world of thy dominion Conquering and slaying, till morning light!
3. Then shall the hunter who waits for thee, The land of the game rejoicing see ; Through the leafless wood, O'er the frozen flood, And the trackless snows His spirit goes. Along the sheeted plain. Where the hermit bear, in his sullen lair. Keeps his long fast, till the winter hath pass'd, And the boughs have budded again. Spirit of dreams ! all thy visions are true. Who the shadow hath seen, he the substance shall view I
VOL. I. K K
258 YAMOYDEN.
III. 1.
" Thine the riddle, strange and dark, Woven in the dreamy brain : — Thine to yield the power to mark Wandering by, the dusky train ; Warrior ghosts for vengeance crying, Scalped on the lost battle's plain. Or who died their foes defying, Slow by lingering tortures slain.
2.
Thou the war-chief hovering near, Breathest language on his ear ; When his winged words depart, Swift as arrows to the heart ; When his eye the lightning leaves ; When each valiant bosom heaves ; Through the veins when hot and glowing Rage like liquid fire is flowing ; Round and round the war pole whirling. Furious vv^hen the dancers grow ; When the maces swift are hurling Promised vengeance on the foe ; Thine assurance. Spirit true ! Glorious victory gives to view \
3.
When of taught and strength despoiled,
Lies the brave man like a child ;
When discoloured visions fly.
Painful, o'er his glazing eye.
And wishes wild through his darkness rove>
Like flitting wings through the tangled grove, —
Thine is the wish ; the vision thine,
And thy visits, Spirit ! are all divine !
YAMOYDEN. 259
4.
When the dizzy senses spin, "
And the brain is madly reeling,
Like the Pow-wah, when first within
The present spirit feeling ;
When rays are flashing athwart the gloom,
Like the dancing lights of the northern heaven.
When voices strange of tumult come
On the ear, like the roar of battle driven, —
The Initiate then shall thy wonders see,
And thy priest, O Spirit ! is full of thee 1
IV. ** Spirit of dreams ! away ! aw^ay \ It is thine hour of solemn sway ; And thou art holy ; and our rite Forbids thy presence here to-night. Go light on lids that wake to pain^ Triumphant visions yield again i If near the Christian's cot thou roam. Tell him the fire has wrapp'd his home : Where the mother lies in peaceful rest, Her infant slumbering on her breast. Tell her the red man hath seized its feet. And against a tree its brains doth beatt Fly to the bride who sleeps alone. Her husband forth for battle gone ; Tell her, at morn, — and tell her true, — His head on the bough her eyes shall view ; While his limbs shall be the raven's prey : — Spirit of dreams ! away 1 away !"
V.
So sung the Initiates, o'er their rite '*
While hung the gloom of circling night. Nor yet the unholy chant must rise, Nor blaze the fire of sacrifice,
260 YAMOYDEN.
Until beyond yon groves afar, The Bear hath dipp'd his westering car ; And shrouded night, with central sway, Veiled deeds unfit to meet the day. Then rose the Prophet, on whose eye Past generations had gone by : He saw them fall, as some vast oak, By storms unriven, by bolts unbroke, Sees all the forest by its side In countless autumns shed its pride ; Marks, gathering still, as years roll on. Winter's sere harvest round it strown ; — Yet his gigantic form ascends. Nor to the howling voice of time, One sturdy, veteran sinew bends. Erect in native grace sublime. The scattered relics of the lock. Which oft had waved o'er battle shock, In long and silvery lines were spread, Like the white honours o'er the head
Of ancient mountain ash ; — His large eyes brightly, coldly shone, As if their mortal light was gone
With clear, unearthly flash ; With strong arms forth outstretched he sprung; Loose o'er his frame the bearskin hung ; Through every limb quick tremors ran, As, rapt with fate, that aged man His lore oracular began.
VI. THE PROPHECY.
" O heard ye around the sad moan of the gale, As it sighed o'er the mountain, and shrieked in the vale ? 'Tis the voice of the Spirit prophetic, who pass'd ; His mantle of darkness around him is cast ;
YAMOYDEN. 261
Wild flutters his robe, and the light of his plume Faint gUmmers along through the mist and the gloom ; Where the moonbeam is hidden, the shadow hath gone, It has flitted in darkness, that morrow has none ; But my ear drank the sound, and I feel in my breast, What the voice of the Spirit prophetic impress'd. O saw ye that gleaming unearthly of light ? Behold where it winds o'er the moor from our sight ! — 'Tis the soul of a warrior who sleeps with the slain ; — How long shall the slaughtered thus wander in vain? It has pass'd ; through the gloom of the forest it flies, — But I feel in my bosom its summons arise.
VII.
** Say, what are the races of perishing men ?
They darken earth's surface, and vanish agen ;
As the shade o'er the lake's gleaming bosom that flies,
With the stir of their wings where the wildfowl arise.
That has pass'd, and the sunbeam plays bright as before, —
So speed generations, remembered no more ;
Since earth from the deep, at the voice of the Spirit,
Rose green from the waters, with all that inherit
Its nature, its changes. The oaks that had stood
For ages, lie crumbling at length in the wood.
Where now are the race in their might who came forth,
To destroy and to waste, from the plains of the north?
As the deer through the brake, mid the forests they sped.
The tall trees crashed round them ; earth groaned with
their tread ; He perished, the Mammoth, — in power and in pride. And defying the wrath of Yohewah he died ! And say, what is man, that his race should endure. Alone through the changes of nature secure ? Where now are the giants, the soil who pos^ess'd. When our fathers came down, from the land of the w^st ?
262 YAMOYDEN,
The grass o'er their mounds and then* fortresses waves, And choked amid weeds are the stones on their graves ; The hunter yet Hngers in wonder, where keeps The rock on the mountains the track of their steps ; Nor other memorial remains there, nor trace. Of the proud Allegewi's invincible race.
VIII.
" As their nation was slain by the hands of our sires, Our race, in its turn, from our country expires I Lo ! e'en like some tree, where a Spirit before Had dwelt, when rich garlands and offerings it bore, But now, half uptorn from its bed in the sands. By the wild waves encroaching, that desolate stands, Despoiled of the pride of its foliage and fruit. While its branches are naked, and bare is its root ; — And each surge that returns still is w^earing its bed. Till it falls, and the ocean rolls on overhead ; — Nor a wreck on the shore, nor a track on the flood. Tells aught of the trunk that so gloriously stood, — Even so shall our nations, the children of earth, Return to that bosom that yielded them birth. Ye tribes of the Eagle, the Panther, and Wolf^ Deep sunk lie your names in a fathomless gulf! Your war-whoop's last echo has died on the shore ; The smoke of your wigwams is curling no more. Mourn, land of my fathers ! thy children are dead ; Like the mists in the sunbeam, thy warriors have fled !
IX.
" But a Spirit there is, who his presence enshrouds, Enthroned on our hills in his mantle of clouds. He speaks in the whirlwind; the river outpours Its tribute to him, where the cataract roars. His breath is the air we inhale ; and his reign Shall endure till the waters have triumphed again ;
YAMOYDEN.
Till the earth's deep foundation convulsions shall heave,
And the bosom of darkness its fabric receive !
'Tis THE SPIRIT OF FREEEOM 1 and nc'er shall our grave
Be trod by the recreant, or spurned by the slave !
And lo ! as the vision of years rolls away,
When our tribes shall have pass'd, and the victor hath
sway. That spirit I naark o'er the war-cloud presiding ; The storm that rolls upward sublime he is guiding; It is bursting in terror ; and choked is the path Of peace, by the ruins it whelms in its wrath. The rivers run blood ; and the war-caldron boils, By the flame of their cities, the blaze of their spoils. Bend, bend from your clouds, and rejoice in the sight. Ye ghosts of the red men ! for freedom they fight !
X.
" Dim visions 1 why crowd ye so fast o'er my eyes. In the twilight of days that are yet to arise ? Undefined are the shapes and the masses that sweep, Like the hurricane clouds o'er the face of the deep ; They rise like the waves on the surf-beaten shore. But recede ere they form, to be gazed on no more. Like the swarms of the doves o'er the meads that descend. From the north's frozen regions their course when they
bend, So quick o'er our plains is the multitude's motion ; Still the white sails gleam thick o'er the bosom of ocean ; As the foam of their furrows is lost in the sea. So they melt in one nation, united and free !
XL " Mourn, land of my fathers ! the red men have pass'd, Like the strown leaves of autumn, dispensed by the blast !
264 YAMOYDEN.
Mourn, land of the victor ! a curse shall remain,
Till appeased in their clime are the ghosts of the slain !
Like the plants that by pure hands of virgins alone
Must be plucked, or their charm and their virtue is gone,
So the fair fruits of freedom, souls only can taste,
That are stained by no crime, by no passion debased.
His nest where the foul bird of avarice hath made,
The songsters in terror took wing from the shade ;
And man, if unclean in his bosom the fire.
No holier spirits descend to inspire.
Mourn, land of the victor ! our curse shall remain.
Till appeased for their wrongs be the souls of the slain !"
XII.
He ceased, and sunk exhausted down. Strength, fire, and inspiration gone. The fear-struck savages in vain Await the unfolding voice again. A panic terror o'er them ran, As now their impious task began. Their pyre was reared on stones that fell, What time, their father's legends tell, The avenging Spirit's fiery breath Had poured the w^ithering storm of death Along that field of blood and shame ; Where now, for ages past the same. There grew no blade of cheerful green ; But sere and shivering trees were seen. Blasted, and white with age, to stand. Like spectres on the accursed land. Therewith, meet sacrifice of guilt. Broad and high-reared their pile was built. And now their torch unclean they bear ; Long had they fed it light with care, Stolen, where polluted walls were razed, And f)urifying flames had blazed.
YAMOYDEN. 265
XIII.
Swift o'er the structure climbs the fire ;
In serpent course its streams aspire ; Entwined about their crackling prey, Aloft they shoot with spiral way ; Wreathing and flashing fiercely round, Their glittering net w^as mingling wound O'er all the pile ; but soon they blended j One mighty volume then ascended, — A column dense of mounting flame : — Blacker the shrouded heaven became, And like substantial darkness frowned O'er the red atmosphere ; around The sands gave back the unnatural glare ; Lifting their ghostly arms in air, Were seen those trunks all bleak and bare ; At distance rose the giant pine, Kindling, as if by power divine. Of fire a living tree ;
While, where the circling forests sweep, Each varying hue, or bright or deep, Shone as if raised o'er nature's sleep, By magic's witchery.
XIV.
He who had marked the Pow-wahs then,
As round the pyre their rites begun,
Had deemed it no vision of mortal men,
But of souls tormented in endless pain.
Who for penance awhile to earth again
Had come to the scene where their crime was done.
No other robe by the band was worn.
Save the girdles rude from the otter torn ;
Below, besmeared with sable stain, '
Above, blood-red was the fiendish train,
VOL. I. — L L
266 YAMOYDE.N,
Save a circle pale around each eye, That shone in the glare with a fiery die ; While a bird with coal-black wings outspread Was the omen of ill on every head. And while their serpent tresses wound, Unkempt and unconfined around ; For unparified, since their vows, had been Those ministers of rites unclean. And one there was, round whose limbs was coiled The scaly, coat of a snake despoiled ; The jaws by his cheek that open stood. Seemed clogged and dripping yet with blood. With a rattling chichicoe he led, ' Or swift, or slow, their measured tread ; And wildly flapped, the band among, The dusky tuft from his staflf that hung ; Where the hawk's, the crow's and raven's feather. With the bat's foul wings were woven together.
XV.
Close by a couch, with mats o'erspread, As if a pall that wrapped the dead. Sat crouching one, who might beseem The goblin crew of a monstrous dream ; For never did earthly creature wear A shape like that recumbent there. No hideous brute that starving sought Some cavern's grisly womb, to rot. Nor squalid want in death forlorn, Hath e'er such haggard semblance borne. A woman once ; — but now a thing That seemed perverse to life to cling, To rob the worm of tribute due ; — Her limbs no vesture covering, No season's change, nor shame she knew.
YAMOYDEN. 267
Burnt on her withered breast she bore Strange characters of savage lore ; And gathering up her bony frame, As fiercely raged the mounting flame, Not one proportion equal told Of aught designed in nature's mould. Her yellow eyeballs bright with hate. Rolled in their sunken sockets yet. With sickly glare, as of charnel lamps That glimmer from sepulchral damps.
XVI.
And now began the Initiates' dance ;
Slow they recede, and slow advance ;
Hand locked in hand, with footsteps slow,
About the ascending flame they go.
At first, in solemn movement led,
A chant low muttered they obeyed ;
But shrill and quick as the measure grew.
Whirling about the pyre they flew.
In a dizzy ring, till their senses reeled.
And the heavens above them madly wheeled,
And the earth spun round, with its surface burning,
Like a thousand fiery circles turning.
Louder and wilder as waxed the tone.
They sever, in uncouth postures thrown ;
They sink, they tower, and crouch and creep.
High mid the darting fire they leap.
And with fearful prank and hellish game,
Disport, as buoyant on the flame.
Now terror seemed to freeze each heart.
As tremulous in every part.
With outstretched arms and wandering eyes,
They brave aerial enemies, '
And combat with an unseen foe ;
He seems to strike above, below ; —
268 YAMOYDEN.
And fiercer grew the imagined fight, Till every limb, convulsed and tight, Showed the muscle strained, and swollen vein, As of madman writhing in mortal pain. With fury blind, they rolled around. Impervious to the scorching ground, And even within the glowing verge Unconscious and unheeding urge. The measure changes : ere its close. Staggering the rout possessed arose ;
Then pealed the loud hah-hah ! Harsh, dissonant, in anguish heaved, As if the soul, to be relieved.
In sound took wing afar. Like laughter of exulting fiends. The startling chorus wild ascends ; While the shrill whoop, — that had seemed to die With the last breath of agony, Then rose with its horrid shriek and long, — Closed that disturbed, discordant song. Then in the silence, you had thought The daemon coming whom they sought, And from the sullen chichicoe. Had heard his boding answer flow
XVII. SONG OF THE POW-WAHS.
"Beyond the hills the Spirit sleeps, His watch the power of evil keeps; The Spirit of fire has sought his bed. The Sun, the hateful Sun is dead. Profound and clear is the sounding wave. In the chambers of the Wakon-cave ; Darkness its ancient portal keeps ; * An,d there the Spirit sleeps, — he sleeps.
YAMOYDEN. 269
XVIII.
" Come round on raven pinions now, Spirits of ill, to you we bow ! Whether ye sit on the topmost cliff,
While the storm around is sweeping, Mid the thunder shock, from rock to rock
To view the Hghtning leaping ; As ye guide the bolt, where towers afar
The knotted pine to heaven. And where it falls, your serpent scar
On the blasted trunk is graven : — Whether your awful voices pour Their tones in gales that nightly roar ; — Whether ye dwell beneath the lake ; In whose depths eternal thunders wake, — Gigantic guard the glittering ore. That lights Maurepas' haunted shore, — On Manataulin's lonely isle. The wanderer of the wave beguile, — Or love the shore where the serpent-hiss. And angry rattle never cease, — Come round on raven pinions now ! Spirits of evil ! to you we bow,
XIX.
" Come ye hither, who o'er the thatch
Of the coward murderer hold your watch ;
Moping and chattering round who fly
Where the putrid members reeking lie,
Piecemeal dropping, as they decay.
O'er the shuddering recreant day by day ; .
Till he loathes the food that is whelmed amid
The relics, by foul corruption hid ;
And the crawling worms about him bred
Mistake the living for the dead !
270 YAMOYDEN.
XX.
" Come ye who give power To the curse that is said, And a charm that shall wither To the drops that are shed, On the cheek of the maiden. Who never shall hear The kind name of Mother Saluting her ear ; But sad as the turtle On the bare branch reclining, She shall sit in the desert, Consuming and pining ; With a grief that is silent, Her beauty shall fade. Like a flower nipt untimely, On its stem that is dead.
XXL
" Come ye, who as hawks hover o'er
The spot where the war-club is lying,
Defiled with the stain of their gore,
The foemen to battle defying ;
On your dusky wings wheeling above,
Who for vengeance and slaughter come crying ;
For the scent of the carnage ye love,
The groans of the wounded and dying.
XXII.
" Come ye, who at the sick man's bed. Watch beside his burning head ; When the vaunting juggler tries in vain Charm and fast to sooth his pain, And his fever-balm and herbs applies, .Your death watch ye sound till your victim dies.
YAMOYDEN. 271
XXIII.
" And ye who delight The soul to affright, When naked and lonely, Her dwelling forsaken. To the country of spirits Her journey is taken ; When the wings of a dove She has borrowed to fly, Ye swoop fronn above. And around her ye cry : She wanders and lingers In terror and pain, "While the souls of her kindred Expect her in vain.
XXIV.
" By all the hopes that we forswear ; By the potent rite we here prepare ; By every shriek whose echo falls Around the Spirits' golden walls ; By our eternal league n:iade good ; By all our wrongs and all our blood ; By the red battle-axe uptorn ; By the deep vengeance we have sworn ; By the uprooted trunk of peace, And by the wrath that shall not cease. Where'er ye be, above, below, Spirits of ill ! we call ye now !
XXV.
" Not beneath the mantle blue Spread below Yohewah's feet ; Not through realms of azure hue. Incense breathing to his seat ;
272 YAMOYDEIf.
Not with fire, by living light Kindled from the orb of glory ; Not with words of sacred might, Taught us in our fathers' story ; Not with odours, fruii or flower^ Thee we summon, dreadful Power ! Power of darkness ! Power of ill ! Present in the heart and will. Plotting, despite of faith and trust. Treason, avarice, murder, lust ! From caverns deep of gloom and blood. Attend our call, O serpent god ! Thee we summon by our rite, HoBAMOQUi ! Power of night !
XXVI.
" Behold the sacrifice !
A harmless infant dies.
To whet thine anger's edge !
A Christian woman's pledge.
Begot by Indian sire.
Ascends thy midnight pyre.
For thy friendship, for our wrongs,
To thee the child belongs."
XXVII.
Did the fiend hear and answer make ? Above them loud the thunders break ; The Hvid lightning's pallid hue Their dusky canopy shone through ; Then tenfold blackness gathering far Presaged the elemental war. While yet in air the descant rung. Upward the listening priestess sprung,
YAMOYDEN. 273
By instant impulse ; as if yet
The spirit of her youth survived,
As if from that lethargic state,
Quickened by power vouchsafed, she lived.
She tore the sable mats away,
And there Yamoyden's infant lay.
By potent opiates lulled to keep
The silence of the dreamless sleep,
O'er which that night should sink \
Swathed in the sacrificial vest.
Its bier the unconscious victim pressed.
The hag's long, shrivelled fingers clasp
The babe in their infernal grasp.
While o'er the fiery brink.
Rapidly, giddily she hurls
The child, as her withered form she whirls ;
And chants, with accents hoarse and strong,
The last, the dedicating song.
XXVIII.
SONG OF THE PRIESTESS.
" The black clouds are movino*
o
Athwart the dull moon,
The hawks high are roving,
The strife shall be soon.
Then burst thou deep thunder !
Pour down all ye floods !
Ye flames rive in sunder
The pride of the woods !
But O thou ! who guidest
The flood and the fire,
In lightning who ride it.
Directing its ire ;— '
VOL. I. M M
274 YAMOYDEN.
If darker to-morrow
The wrath of the strife,
Be the white man's the sorrow,
And thine be his hfe !
The elk-skin about him^
The crow skin above,
To thee we devote him.
The pledge of mixed love.
For ever and ever
The slaves of thy will,
Let ours be thy favour,
O Spirit of ill 1"
XXIX.
She had not ceased, when on the blast A warning shriek of horror pass'd ; Emerging from the woodland gloom. They saw a form unearthly come. AVhite were its locks, its robes of white. And gleaming through their lurid light. Swift it advanced. The Pow-wahs stood, Palsied amid their rites of blood ; E'en the stern Prophet feared to trace The awful features of that face, And shrunk, as if towards their flame Yohewah's angry presence came.
XXX.
He grasped the witch by her skinny arm. Her powerless frame confessed the charm ; Before his bright, indignant glance Her eyes were fixed in terror's trance. " Away," the stranger cried, " away I Votaries of Moloch ! yield your prey 1
YAMOYDEN. 275
Have ye not heard the wrath on high Speak o'er your foul iniquity ? Know ye not, for such worship fell, Deep yawns the eternal gulf of hell V* Then, bursting from his dream of fear, To front the intruder rushed the seer, — When straight, o'er all the vaulted heaven, Kindled and streamed the glittering levin ; Pale and discoloured shone below The embers in that general glow. As blind amid the blaze they reel. Rattled and crashed the deafening peal ; And with its voice so long and loud, Fell the burst torrent from the cloud ; It dashed impetuous o'er the pile ; The hissing waters rave and boil ; The smothered fires a moment soar. Spread their swarth glare the forest o'er, Then sink beneath their whelming pall. And total darkness covers all.
XXXI.
O many a shriek of horror fell, Amid that darkness terrible. Unlit, save by the lightning's flash. And echoing with the tempest crash Those stifled screams of fear; They deem in every bursting peal The avenging Spirit's rage they feel, And crouching, shuddering hear. While ever and anon ascended The dying Priestess' maddening cry, — With muttering curses fearful blended It rose convulsed on high.
276 YAMOYDEN.
And when their palsying dread was gone, And a dim brand recovered shone, And when they traced by that sad Hght The scene of their unfinished rite, And many a look uncertain cast, The STRANGER and the child had pass'd.
YAMOYDEN.
CANTO FIFTH.
'Tis night ; the loud wind through the forest wakes, With sound like ocean's roaring, wild and deep. And in yon gloomy pines strange music makes, Like symphonies unearthly, heard in sleep ; The sobbing waters dash their waves and weep ; Where moans the blast its dreary path along, The bending firs a mournful cadence keep ; And mountain rocks re-echo to the song. As fitful raves the storm, the hills and woods among.
I.
What wanderer finds his way to-night, Amid the forest's depth of gloom, Where gleams no ray of lingering light The horrid darkness to illume ; Save where the lightning's dazzling stream Descends with momentary gleam ? O'er his high form and plumed head. The thick and heavy drops were shed ; While round there fell upon his ear Many a sound for doubt and fear ; The wolf's fierce howl at distance heard ; The screaming of each startled bird ; At times the falling forest's crash. Scattered by the rending flash, ,
Mingled with the tempest's WTath, Around that lonely wanderer's path.
278 YAMOYDEX.
II.
Across the strait, whose heaving wave, When rising gusts impetuous rave, And gales are sweeping on their way, From isle to isle and bay to bay. Wakes, lashed to foam, with fury strong, To join the chorus of their song, Yamoyden sought the island shore. Despite of all the billowy roar ; And onward through the tangled path, Sped heedless to the tempest's wrath. Swifter his cautious footsteps grew. When near, his Nora's bower he knew. A gleam prolonged of lightning showed The limit of his darksome road ; Pale, but distinct, its lustre played, Lambent along the narrow glade : — Where yon old elm its arm extends. That slowly o'er his pathway bends, With solemn gesture, as if meant To warn the wanderer of intent
Unknown, or danger near, — Does fancy's mimic dread portray Amid the boughs a spectre gray, Oris it the boding vision seen, Where murder's secret work has been.
Oft by the Indian seer ? Ha ! points it to the cottage now ? Fled from his heart the rising glow, And gushing stood upon his brow,
The damps of awful fear.
III.
That moment ceased the tempest's sound. As if its spirits hovering round,
YAMOYDEN. 279
Listening the wanderer's tread, Awhile withheld their deafening yell ; And a hushed pause about him fell, The silence of the dead. The thunder was no longer heard ; No breath the dripping forest stirred : There only murmured far away, Solemnly the moaning bay ; The faint sigh of the sinking breeze Rustled amid the farthest trees ; The rain-drops from the loaded spray With sullen plash around him sunk; — Then paused the wanderer on his way ; Bowed to foreboding terror's sway His soul within him shrunk.
IV.
The cottage of his hope is near ;
But came no sound upon his ear;
No trembling taper twinkled dim.
To tell of vigils kept for him.
Perchance she sleeps ; he onward pass'd ;
The humble roof is gained at last ;
He paused awhile to listen there, —
'Twas still and solemn as despair ;
He called, — none answered to his call, —
He entered, it was darkness all. '
It struck to his heart with a deadly chili,
That horrid darkness, deep and still ;
Stunned was his brain as with a blow;
And still he seemed not yet to know
The fearful certainty of wo.
As one not heeding why or where, He staggered back in the chilly air.
280 YAMOYDEN.
Agiin t^e tempter's spirit spoke, Again the deep-voiced thunder woke, In lengthening volleys peal on peal, Whereat earth's fabric seemed to reel ; While, as from caldrons vast, of flame, Down the o'erwhelming deluge came. Died on his ear, unheard, the roar ; Ke 1 ad not recked although before His step the earth had yawned ; Through all the imagined shapes and forms That drive to battle blackening storms, In stern array his path had cross'd ; — In grief's thick darkness he was lost, On which no daybeam dawned.
VI.
" There is no hope," he murmured, " none ! I journey homeless and alone. The forest eagle's secret nest Has seen, at last, the spoiler's quest. O'er life's remaining wastes of wo. Alone, and desperate, forth I go. Fool that I was, who vainly thought. When ruin's work was round me wrought, Amid a people's funeral cry, Still to secure that only tie, — That flower which, with too venturous hand. From danger's topmost steep I bore ; And fostered in a desert land. Amid the gaunt wolves' raving band. Amid the whirlwind's ceaseless roar. And yet it grew, mid doubt and fear, And desolation round, more drear ; And still was every care it brought, . Affection's agony of thought,
YAMOYDEN. 281
That tore the heart, and racked the brain,
Bless'd in the sacred source of pain ;
Like some lone bird, whose pinions hover,
Flapping and tired as on she hies,
The lake's far gleaming surface over.
Who now^ a seeming reed espies.
Where, mid the waters, she may rest
Her drooping head and weary breast.
Then trusting to that guileful stay,
Becomes the lurKing monster's prey,
Her heart by fangs relentless torn
Even from that dearly welcomed bourne ;
So I, a wan derer lone, had fain
On love's confiding bosom lain ;
To find, when all the rest had pass'd.
Thence come the deadliest wound at last.
And that fond shelter vain.
Vain ! shall I seek her father's hall,
Where she must pine in dreary thrall.
Reproach her portion sad in life.
Who dared to be the Indian's wife ?
Shall I forsake our brethren left.
Of power, of kin, of home bereft ;
Even the vile fox's part essay.
And point the ruffians to their prey ?
Idle the dastard treachery were.
They would not yield her to my prayer.
O Nora ! if one beam of hope
Could through unfathomed darkness grope,
For thee, thy child, thy God, I dare
All but a traitor's name to bear ;
All the proud heart must bend to brook.
Soothed by thy one atoning look.
For thee, for them, I once have borne
Thy father's wrath, thy kinsmen's scorn,
VOL. I. N N
282 YAMOYDEN.
Their pledge of peace they tear away, And vengeance hath its debt to pay.
YIL
" Roar on, ye winds ! your voice must be Sweet as the bridal chant to me. Widowed in love, with hate I wed, Espoused within her gory Led. The storm of heaven will soon be past, And all be bright and calm at last ; But man in cruelty and wrong The tempest's fury will prolong, And pause not in his fell career Save o'er my brethren's general bier. Then come my foes ! your work is done ! I cannot weep, I will not groan. My fathers winced not at the stake. Nor gave revenge, with torture rife, One drop its burning thirst to slake. To the last ebbing drop of life. My heart is cold and desolate ; — I shall not struggle long with fate. Had I a mortal foe, and were His form to rise upon me here. There is no power within my soul, My arm or weapon to control ; — Sunken and cold ! but it will rise. With my lost tribe's last battle cries ; And death will come, like the last play Of lightning on a stormy day !"
VIII.
So mused the chieftain as he strode Backward upon his cheerless road. The shore is nigh ; the storm again Had hushed its mad and clamorous strain ;
YAMOYDEX. 288
"There was a roar along the surge, Which howling winds had ceased to urge ; The dark gray clouds above were spread, In softening aspect, overhead ; The lightning faint at distance played,
And low the thunders die. Most melancholy was the sound Of murmuring winds and waters round ; And sadly showed the tempests' path, Where yet the signals of its wrath
Were hung in grandeur high. Dark flowed the rapid waves beneath. Save where the levin's lessening wreath
Yet trembled in the sky ; Painted the feathery surge upon, [•..
Its flash in dying glory shone,
And vanished fitfully. It was an hour for one to mourn, In life, in love, in hope forlorn ^ When all above, and all below. Pour their deep thrill on heart of wo,
Lone sorrow's luxury ; — As oft there gleams a transient glow, Above the headlong torrent's flow.
To sooth and cheer the eye ; With its half lost and filmy ray. Lingering upon the restless spray. As fleets the current by.
IX.
Once more his bark is on the wave,
To join the desperate and the brave ;
On through the heaving bay it flew.
As his strong arm behind him threw #
The crested wave ; unheedful still.
While strength exerts its wonted skill,
284 YAMOYDEN.
He only felt, his heart around,
A girth that all its pulses bound ;
And all of memory, fear or hope,
Was wound within its anguished scope ;
As when the fated victim feels
The Carcajou about him dart ;
And staggering thro' ihe forest reels,
While still the foe insidious steals
His mortal pressure round the heart, —
Until the wound his mercy deals,
That lets the struggling soul depart.
X.
Meantime within his trusted hold
The dauntless outlaw lay ; In scapeless peril proud and bold,
As in his victor day. The bear mid northern winter's gloom, In some old oak's sequestered womb, Lethargic lives, nor tastes of food, Till from his cheerless solitude, The exulting voice of balmy spring, The sullen hermit forth shall bring ; But can the soul, that slumbers never, Live on, when hope has fled for ever ; — When homage, royalty, and power Have pass'd, the pageant of an hour ; — Live on, through exile, want, and chains. When neither friend nor slave remains ;^- Live on, the mark and theme of hate, To bide the smile of frowning fate, — The single chance, — not yet to fall. As vulgar souls resign their breath ; — And bear, with gloomy patience, all, One trophy to erect in death ; One stab, with dying hand, to give. And know oub foeman shall not live ?
YAMOYDEN. 285
XL
Thou, of the ocean rock ! what eye
Thy secret mind shall scan? No conqueror now, no monarch high ;
A lone, a captive man ! Thine was the chance, in regal sway, Amid thy panoplied array.
And gallant pomp around, To meet thy last, decisive day, When war, along the kindling fray,
With dazzling horrors frowned ; While myriad swords around thee moved, Flashing afar the blaze beloved ; And with thy name their battle cry. The charging squadrons rushed to die. But here, in Haup's inglorious swamp, In subterrene, unwarlike camp The stones his pillow, and the reeds The only couch he asks or needs, A hero lay, whose sleepless soul Was given, the spirits to control Of lesser men ; of heart as great As thine, spoiled favourite of fate ! And he was wise, as bold and true, To use the simple craft he knew ;
His skill from nature came ; A different clime, a different age. Had scrolled his deeds in glory's page ; And proud as thine his wreath had been ! But if unlike thy closing scene.
How more unlike thy fame ! Thy strife was for another's throne, For realms and subjects not thine own,
And for a conqueror's name : '
He fought, because he would not yield His birthright, and his fathers' field ;
S86 YAMOYDEN.
Would vindicate the deep disgrace, The wrongs, the ruin of his race ; — He slew, that well avenged in death, His kindred spirits pleased might be ; — Died, for his people and his faith. His sceptre, and his liberty !
XII. And on this night, whose parting shades Shall see the avengers lift their blades, And bring relentless fury, fraught With many an insult's goading thought.
The outlaw Sachem slept ; The while his scanty band around, Low in the swamp's unequal ground.
Their mournful vigils kept. Tall trees overthrown their bulwark made, While rude, luxuriant vines o'erspread.
Concealed their lurking place ; There, now to feeble numbers worn. In strength o'erspent, in hope forlorn. Shrunk, trembling for the coming morn.
The Wampanoag race.
XIIL
Mothers and widows sad, were then Hidden within that gloomy fen ; Left for a space, by war, to mourn Each sacred bond asunder torn. Perchance they thought of many a scene Departed, to return no more ; How, when the hunter's toil was o'er, And dressed his frugal meal had been, His children clustered round his knee. To hear the tales of former days. And learn what men should strive to be. While listening to the warrior's praise :
J XA^MOYDEN. 287
And she, thrice happy parent ! sate,
Well pleased, beside her honoured mate ;
What time gray eve its welcome hue
O'er distant hills and forests threw :
Nor idle then, with dexterous hand.
She wrought the glittering wampum band ;
Or loved the silken grass to braid ;
Or through the deer-skin, smooth and strong,
Weaving the many-coloured thong,
Her hunter's comely sandals made.
This they recalled ; and marvelled they,
When bounteous earth is wide and free,
Why man, whose life is for a day.
So much in love with wo should be 1
XIV.
He slept, yet not the spirit slept ; Her feverish vigil memory kept ; In motley visions on her eye. The phantom host of dreams pass'd by. Tradition, meet for vulgar faith. Has told of threats of coming skaith, Spoke by the Evil One, who came, This eve, his destined prey to claim, In form, as when at noon of night, He met him on the mountain's height : O'er the gray rock the fiend outspread His sable pinions as he fled, And ere the sounding air he cleft. His foot gigantic impress left. Such superstition's idle tale, — But let the minstrel's lore prevail.
XV.
He saw the world of souls ; and there. Brave men and beauteous women were :-
288 YAMOYDBN.
- •-■
Fair firms to chiefs of godlike mien,
Reposing in their arbours green,
Supplied the spicy bowls they quaffed,
And round them danced, and joyous laughed ;
While aye the warriors smiled to see
Those lovely creatures in their glee ;
And pledged them in the sparkling cup ;
Or breathed their fragrant incense up ;
Grateful and pure, *twas seen to flow
From calumets like stainless snow.
Apart reclined in king!y state.
The ancient Massasoiet sate,
And earnest with Uncompoen old,
Speech grave, but pleasant, seemed to hold ;
Uncompoen, slain in recent fight.
Contending for his nephew's right.
Just from the woods, like hunter dight,
The gallant Ouamsutta came ;
Bearing behind his plenteous game.
In order moved the warrior's train ;
Joyous his bearing was, and free,
As if fatigue and wounds and pain.
In that bless'd world could never be ;
His buskins trapped with glittering gold,
His floating mantle's graceful fold
Clasped with a sparkling gem; Dazzling his cincture's radiance gleamed. Woven from the heavenly bow it seemed. And like the sun-rays danced and streamed
His feathery diadem. A spear with silver tipt he bore ; The gayly-tinkling rings before, —
The quiver rattling on his back, His buoyant frame and kindling eye, The thrilling pulse of transport high, ^ The sense of power and pleasure spake.
YAMOYDEN, 289
And one and all the Sachem knew,
When near their blissful bower he drew ;
And clapped their hands with joy to see
The hero join their company.
And strains of softest music round,
From flutes and tabors, with the sound
Of voices, sweet as sweetest bird.
To greet the entering guest were heard.
" Welcome," they sung, " thy toils are done,
Thy battles fought, thy rest is won ;
And welcome to the world thou art,
Where kindred souls shall never part ; .^
Honor on earth shall valour have,
And joy with us attends the brave."
XVI.
That ravishing dream was rapt away, Vanished the forms, the music died ; And changeful fancy's wayward sway Visions of darker hue supplied. O'er frozen plains he seemed to go. Mid driving sleet, and bluiding snow. Then Assawomsett's lake he knew, And dim descried, the tempest through, Apostate Sausaman arise ; Stiff were his gory locks with ice,
And mangled was his form ; It towered aloft, to giant size ; Fierce shone the fury of his eyes,
Like lightning through the storm. He cried, " My spirit hath no home ! A weary, wandering ghost, I roam. This night the avengers lift the blade, And my foul murder shall be paid !"
VOL. I. O O
290
YAMOYDEN. XVII.
Then thought the Sachem that his way
Through Metapoiset's forest lay. Mid the thick shadows of the grove,
A form was rushing seen ; He saw with wildered paces rove
Pocasset's warrior queen. As from the water's depths she came, With dripping locks and bloated frame. "Wild her discoloured arms she threw To grasp him ; and as swift he flew. Her hollow scream he heard behind. Come mingling with the howling wind. " Why fly from Watamoe ? she died. Bearing the war-axe on thy side !"
XVIII.
Now in a gloomy glade he st^od ; Along the sward, the tracks of blood Led, where in death a conguar lay ; Fast ebbed the crimson stream away ; But fiercely rolled his balls of fire, And flashed their unextinguished ire Towards the forest ; where the chief An armed Indian could descry. Who, less in anger than in grief. Seemed to behold his victim die. Though lost his features were in gloom. But Philip knew his hour was come. And death from Indian hand was nigh. For that red tiger oft had been. In earlier dreams prophetic, seen. It was the emblem of his soul, The shade that still his life attended; And but when life attained its goal, H-e knew its visioned being ended.
YAMOYDEN. 291
XIX.
He woke, and from his covert sprung ; O'er the dark fen deep silence hung ; The moon had burst her sable shroud, And from a silver-skirted cloud Emerging, radiant but serene, Looked forth upon the varying scene. "Now verging to the opening west,
Her beams obliquely fell ; O'er the broad hill's rock-girdled breast,
O'er thicket, glade, and dell ; Scattered the bay's blue waters o'er, And lit Pocasset's shelving shore. 'Twas as if now, when fate was near, Awhile she brushed away her tear ; That, the last time, the Sachem's eye. His native regions might descry, — So lovely is that trembling beam, That well his soul entranced might deem, The Spirit's world, with all its bliss, Had not a realm so fair as this.
XX.
If sorrow hath its feeling high, And sadness its sublimity, 'Tis when the hero on his fate. With thought composed, can meditate ; Throw o'er the past a steady eye, And bid an ingrate world good-by ! Long and intently gazed the chief, Till found his thoughts in speech relief. " Like thee, fair sun of night ! have I, Through mountain clouds of destiny. Struggling, and darkened oft, been driven ; But fixed, as is thy course in heaven.
292 YAMOYDEN.
y Nor brethren's fear, nor foeman's wrath, Hath turned me from my purposed path, My hour is come ; my light is lost, By never-bursting blackness crossed ; While unrevenged my kindred lie, My nation's ghosts indignant cry ; And unatoned, my native lands Must captive pass to stranger hands. But thou, in thine immortal march Renewed, wilt span the eternal arch : Here wilt thou pour thy mellow flood, When other sandals press the sod : Thou, eye of even ! on yonder hill Wilt look, serene and beauteous still. When the last echo shall have died. That spoke my tribe's expiring pride ; Thy quenchless font diminished not. When Metacom shall be forgot.
XXI.
" Fair sun of night ! thou movest alone ;
Compeer or friend thou ne'er hast known,
Mid all the swarms in yonder plain.
That sparkle only in thy wane.
And lone as thine, my course has been.
Amid the multitudes of men.
Through all the crowds that hemmed me round,
My soul no kindred spirit found.
All brutish natures I could meet.
The wary, bold, and strong, and fleet ;
But that, whereby men's spirits sway
The herds that fly them, or obey,
I could not waken to my will
Or touch to one responsive thrill ;
The nobler powers of men unite.
In hopes, in council, or in fight.
YAMOYDEN, 203
Else, conquering ever, I had met The foe I reverence, v^^hile I hate ; And to their ocean hurled agen The intruders proud, who are but men.
XXII. " I can believe what seers of old, And earlier dreams have dimly told, — With memory's casual beams, that play, To mock with ineffectual ray, — With those wild thoughts and fancies vain, That idly cross the waking brain ; — I can believe some souls, that quit Their fleshy forms, again are sent, — Unconscious, after wanderings fit, Of their forsaken tenement, — By wisdom's lore to sway the host, Or glow within a warrior's frame ; As thou, O moon ! though sometimes lost, Return'st, another, yet the same. If thus it be, — or if the soul. Escaped, shall wing its viewless flight, Amid the clouds that o'er us roll, To track the eagle's realms delight, And swell the tempest's martial voice. When spirits bold in fight rejoice ; — Or seek those far off' western climes. Whence came our sires, in distant times. For ever with their shades to dwell : — Where'er the spirit's course may be. My last good-night I give to thee ; Since thou no more shalt beam on me, Moon of my fathers ! fare thee well !'*
XXIII.
He heard soft steps advancing fast ; Long shades o'er the rough fen were cast ;
294 YAMOYDEN.
Indians draw near ; in moments brief, Yamoyden stands before the chief. " Brother, well met ; if firm thou art,
With me to stand or bleed ; If not, even as thou camest, depart,
No doubtful aid we need. For treacherous dogs have sought the foe, And soon our secret haunt will show ; Uncertain to remain or fly, Our hope is but hke men to die." " Sachem, no doubtful faith is mine ; My heart, my hand, my friends are thine. To life to bind me there is nought ; Like thine, my kindred all have sought
The world where spirits go ; Like thine, a captive led, my wife Leaves me a beggared half of life. Hopeless to struggle with the strife
Of roaring waves of wo. No winged sorcerer, from the bed, Where they lie fathoms deep, and dead,
My perished hopes can bring ; No charmed bough can find again My cherished treasure's secret vein ; And no sweet songster's welcome voice Can bid this widowed heart rejoice,
Or tell of budding spring. My tongue with thee hath known no wile ; I liked thee not when stained with guile. And helpless innocence thy spoil : And yet if thine the serpent stroke.
And thine the serpent sting. Thy foes did first each deed provoke. And rattling indignation spoke
Swift vengeance on the wing. Nor e'er shall Indian say that I Stood calm, in recreant baseness nigh,
YAMOYDEN. 295
To see the foul and senseless beast On generous valour coldly feast ; Gorge on, with no remorseless pang, Nor feel the venom, nor the fang."
XXIV.
" Brother, enough ; our wrongs the same, One be our fate, and one our fame 1" Abrupt their speech the Sachem broke, For conscience smote him as he spoke. In that high moment of despair. When kindred valour swore to share The hour of peril and of death. The secret wrong lay hid beneath ; The deadly wrong, unthought, untold, — And all was hollow, false, and cold ! " Rise, warriors rise !" the chieftain cried ; " Even here, on Haup's majestic side. Yet be the white man's power defied ! Once more our native holds shall see The Wampanoags' martial glee ; Once more their echoes shall prolong Our ancient, sacred, warrior song 1"
XXV.
Emerging from the checkered sod, From moving tree, from parting clod,
A hundred Indians rise ; As if a wizard's power had bade The graves in throes give up their dead. The potent spells of fear obeyed, At which the pale moon overhead
Shrunk fading from the skies ! Around the expecting warriors ran ; His martial dance the chief began ; With ponderous club the earth he stroke, And thus his death-song wildly woke.
296 YAMOYDEN.
XXVI.
PHILIP'S DEATH- SONG. 1.
♦* Heard ye, among the murmuring trees, The spirits* whispering in the breeze ? Mark ! where along the moonHght glade, Flits the wandering hero's shade ! Old and sage Oosamequen ! Seekest thou thy people's groves agen? Wise and ancient Sagamore ! Warily his wrongs he bore ; But still his spirit o'er its hate Brooding did deeply meditate ; Living, it lowered on their abodes, Dying, curs'd the white men's gods !
2.
See ye not a fro waning ghost ? Valiant son of valiant sire ! Alas ! that thine was not the boast, OuAMSuTTA 1 to expire, As warriors love their life to yield. With blood-stained arms, on battle field ! The stately beech is green in vain, When dies at top its vital part ; Wrought in thy brain the victor's chain. And withered all thy manly heart. But let thy foemen, from thy hearse. Hear, and dread thy dying curse !
3.
Along the mist-clad mountain's brow The deer may course in transport now ; O'er his plains may bounding go. Bold, the shaggy buffalo ; Now the gray moose may fearless fly ; For cold the valiant hunters lie !
YAMOYDEiV. ^97
Strong was their arm ; their step was fleet ; Swift as the deer's their winger' 'eet : How oft in desperate conflict low They laid the madly struggling foe ; How oft their grasp, with sinewy might, Has staid the elk, in wildest flight !
4. Say, have I left ye, champions brave, Forgot, dishonoured in your grave? Say, did your spirits call in vain. On one unmindful of the slain ? Brothers, have I idly stood. When rung your war-cry in the wood ; When crimson battle-stains ye took, Your quivers filled, and war-clubs shook? Ye for my long remembrance speak. Midnight fire, and midnight shriek ! Scalps, that my deadly vows made good ! Fields, where I quaflfed the bowl of blood !"
XXVII.
But here no more our song must dwell, While other chiefs look up the tale
Of their forefathers' deeds ; TiASK and Tespiquin began. And through their sanguine annals ran. The feuds and wars of many a clan. Lost to the storied race of man.
Nor of them memory heeds : Then, doomed to fall by guileful plan, ' Long spoke the generous Annawan. Meantime Yamoyden stood aloof; He heard a solemn, still reproof. Demanding why the song of blood, '
Ascending to the Christian's God,
To his late vows succeeds ?
VOL. I. P P
YAMOYDEN.
CANTO SIXTH.
Woman ! blest partner of our joys and woes ! Even in the darkest hour of earthly ill, Untarnished yet, thy fond affection glows, Throbs with each pulse, and beats with every thrill ! Bright o'er the wasted scene, thou hoverest still, Angel of comfort to the failing soul ; Undaunted by the tempest, wild and chill. That pours its restless and disastrous roll, O'er all that blooms below, with sad and hollow howl !
When sorrow rends the heart, when feverish pain Wrings the hot drops of anguish from the brow, To sooth the soul, to cool the burning brain, O, who so welcome and so prompt as thou ! The battle's hurried scene and angry glow, — The death-encircled pillow of distress, — The lonely moments of secluded wo, — Alike thy care and constancy confess, Alike thy pitying hand, and fearless friendship bless !
Thee youthful fancy loves in aid to call ; Thence first invoked the sacred sisters were ; The form that holds the enthusiast's heart in thrall, He, mid his bright creation, paints most fair ;— »• True, — in this earthly wilderness of care, — As hunters path the wilds and forests through ;
300 YAMOYDEN.
And firm, — all fragile as thou art, — to bear Life's dangerous billows, — as the light canoe, That shoots, with all its freight, the impetuous rapid's flow,
Thee, Indians tell, the first of men to win, Clomb long the vaulted heaven's unmeasured height : And well their uncouth fable speaks therein The worth even savage souls can never slight. Tired with the chase, the hunter greets at night Thy welcome smile, the balm of every wo ; Thy patient toil makes all his labours light ; And from his grave when friends and kindred go, Thou weeping comest, the sweet sagamite to strow 1
I.
Left to the troublous thoughts that rose To bar her wearied frame's repose, Sad Nora, in her guardian's care, Had pass'd, in penitence and prayer, The hours, till evening round descended, And forests, shores, and waters blended,
In her pale, misty light : The tenants of the wigwam slept, And silently their prisoner crept
Forth in the doubtful night ; She gazed, with moist and wistful eye, As now the moon, through clouds on high.
Climbed near her central height ; The wind, careering o'er the sky, Scattered the rack confusedly ;
One moment all was bright. The next with shadows overspread ; And dark the forests waved their head ; And dark each scene that lay beneath The inconstant heaven's uncertain wreath^
.Arose upon her sight.
YAMOYDEN. 301
II.
And now the hour was near, she knew, When, to his love and promise true, Yamoyden from the mount would speed, To seek his desolated cot ; It was in vain she mused, and sought The morning's dark events to read.
That tore her thence away From all she loved, in danger's hour. And to the gloomy ruffian's power
Consigned her child a prey. She only saw her husband, reft Of all that fate unkind had left. Roam through the forest, lost and wild, Calling on Nora and her child ; — And then she thought upon the brave. Doomed with him to a common grave. Whom yet her warning voice might save.
III.
Unconscious where her footsteps strayed, She roved through many a darksome glade, Till, far from the forsaken glen, She knew her morning's road agen. She marked it by a lonely mound, Raised by the traveller's pious hand. That told, in its deserted ground. Slept the dead heroes of the land ; Dead, ere upon the verdant strand The invader's hostile feet were found ; Now sleeping, nameless, and alone, Beneath that heap of rugged stone. Onward through thick embowering wood,
Her lonely journey sped ; '
Deep was the tangled solitude
That round the wanderer spread.
302 YAMOYDEX.
Onward she went, till wild and rude, The tempest burst in wrathful mood,
Careering o'er her head. Withdrawn was now the silver ray ; The lightning's momentary play
A ruddier splendour shed ; Then midnight blackness round was cast Nor longer could the path be traced,
And roving wild she fled.
IV.
Yamoyden rushed in that same hour Forth from his desolated bower. Alas ! that hearts thus close allied Should struggle with the severing tide,
So near, yet so remote ! Like sailors of some perished bark. Struggling mid billows vexed and dark ; While howls so loud the storm's career, Each other's screams they cannot hear,
Nor catch one dying note ; While but a single wave disparts Those gallant, lost, and faithful hearts 1
Soon reason left her mind again ;
There seemed a gulf of thoughts and pain
Roaring around her harassed brain.
Where nought distinct arose ; She knew not why she wandered there, Nor heard the sound that rent the air.
Nor felt the tempest's throes. It seemed as if, in murmurs nigh, Throbbed on her ear some melody.
YAMOYDEN. 303
She once had loved and sung ; And well-known voices whispered near, Even to her darkling memory dear ; And then a moment thundered by The elemental revelry,
And deafening round her rung. But when to consciousness once more She waked, she marked the billows roar, With troubled hue and sullen dash. Oft lit by the retiring flash. The storm had ceased its maddening rage, And on her clouded pilgrimage
The moon was slowly riding ; High, mid the fringings of the storm, She showed, half hid, her lucid form,
The scene of tumult chiding.
VI.
New terror blanched her pallid brow, When o'er her path a stranger crossed. With wildered air, and footsteps slow, As one in moody musings lost. It was a red man she espied.
And, on her nearer view. Her kind deliverer and her guide
The trembling lady knew. The bold Mohegan shrunk to see So wan, so fair a form as she j In white was robed her slender frame. And needs, he thought, a spirit came ; A spirit more beautiful than e'er Had visited this gloomy sphere. Her tremulous voice dissolved his spell ; " Mysterious friend ?" she cried, " O tell, »
304 YAMOYDEN.
Since life thou gavest me, where are those, My husband and my infant where, — Without whom life is hard to bear, A prison-house of many woes 1 Why was I torn from home away ? At whose command, — and wherefore — say." " Such oft thy question," said the chief, " Amid the darkness of thy grief. Then vain my words to reach thine ear ; For it was closed ; and I could hear Thy converse with the spirits near. Christian, than this I know no more, — 'Twas Metacom's command that bore Thy child to Pawkanawkut's shore. And thou with him hadst gone ; but I Sought from his feeble cause to fly, And thought that through thyself, for me, Peace with thy brethren there might be : Nor other aim had then, to save Thy form from bondage or the grave. Of Uncas' race am I, who ne'er Aught heeded woman's idle tear. But when thou didst, in thy despair. Hang on me like a wild-flower fair. To the bleak cliffs of Haup that clings, — When thou wast borne beneath my wings, So lovely, helpless, wo-begone, — Amid our ruthless band alone, — A new-born gush of mercy stole, Like a fresh dew, upon my soul : Ay ! though thy treacherous race I hate, That melting pity lingers yet. Beautiful Christian ! I would die, To spare thine heart one heavy sigh ! But this is idle ; wouldst thou seek ^ Ne>vs of Yamoyden ?" " Speak ! O speak !"
YAMOYDEN. 305
" I saw him, as his swift canoe,
Hours since, towards the mountain flew.
I marked him, through the mists and gloom :
I knew him by his eagle plume.
And by his woven mantle red ;"
" And thou wilt serve me, — thou hast said ?
O then conduct me there ! And I will call on heaven to shed Its choicest blessings o'er thy head,
Even with my dying prayer." " Fair Christian ! to the mountain side. Gladly thy footsteps I will guide ; But where thy husband lies below, With Metacom, I cannot go. Sad scenes will meet thine eyes," — " No more ! Kind chieftain, bear me to the shore !"
VII.
His boat was nigh ; its fragile side Boldly the venturous wanderer tried ; Along they shot o'er the murmuring bay, As they bore for the adverse bank away. I guess it was a full strange sight. To see in the track of the ghostly light. The swarthy chief and the lady bright,
O'er the heaving waves borne on ; While her white wan cheek and robe of white
The pale ray played upon ; And above his dusky plumage shook ; Backward was flung his feathery cloak. As his brawny arms were stretched to ply The oars that made their shallop fly :— I ween that he who had seen them ride. As they rose in turn o'er the bellying tide, ^ Had deemed it a vision of olden time, Of Afric wizard in faery clime ;
VOL. I. Q Q
306 YAMOYDEN.
In durance dread, by sorceries dark,
Who wafted a lady in magic bark.
And all above, and around them, save
Where the quivering beam was on the wave,
Was dubious light, and shifting shade,
By clouds and mists and waters made :
The snowy foam on the billow lay,
Then sunk in the black abyss away ;
The rack went scudding before the blast.
And its gloom o'er the bay came swift and pass'd ;
Flittingly gleamed the silvery streak.
On the waving hills and mountain peak ;
But the star of love looked out in the west.
As if that lone lady's path she bless'd.
VIII. Swift, where the midway current swept, His pirogue's course Ahauton kept ; And soon, upon the opposing shore. They saw their skiff securely moor ; And Nora knelt upon the sand. And bless'd her God's directing hand ;
Then on their course they bent ; Tall rocks in rude disorder piled. Frowned o'er the bank sublimely wild ;
Where fancy's eye, at dusky hour.
Might image citadel and tower.
And o'er the margin where they hung.
The fir from frequent fissure sprung ;
Here, bending as it strove to lave
Its branches in the passing wave ;
There, perched on high, with solemn cone,
It stood, in gloomy pride, alone.
IX.
, She marked them not ; nor, farther still, Succeeding to that broken hill,
YAMOYDEN. 307
Where wide the landscape lay ; Nor paused they where an ancient wood, In dark repose, and silent, stood ; Beyond its awful solitude,
The twain pursued their way. Now, by the margin of the cove. In rugged, winding path they rove. She only looked, where, broad and high. Mount Haup arose in majesty ; Lifting, through forests brown, its head. Where the gray cliffs their rampart spread ; Their moss-clad brows the chroniclers Of time, for many a thousand years. That here, unstoried, came and went ; Aloft they stood, like battlement Of Spirit's castle ; as if there. The wandering hosts of upper air, In fleecy vapour oft revealed. Nightly their spectral wassail held.
X.
And now, through wet and tangled ground, Their pathway to the mountain wound. The moon's last rays were trembling o'er The hill, the bay, and adverse shore. A moment, faintly bright, they rest Upon the summit's naked breast ; Checker the thickets on its side, Shed filmy lines along the tide ; On distant bank and rock and isle. Gleam with their melancholy smile ; They tip the farthest hills that bound The fading landscape glimmering round ; Fringe the deep clouds with parting light, # Then fail, and all is lost in night.
308 YAMOYDEN.
XI.
In darkness and in doubt, they tried The rising mountain's rugged side ; Rude and uneasy its ascent, To one with toil and grief o'erspent, Bhe heard the startled fox's cry, Pass with its sudden wailing nigh ; The wolf's sad howl came frequent by ; But human voice was heard not there ; 'Twas lone and mournful as despair; — No watchfire shot its gleams afar, Nor woke the red man's song of war ; — If warriors in these shades reposed. All was in utter silence closed.
XII.
Pass'd is the long and rocky slope ; She stands upon the mountain top ; And cool is now the breeze that flings O'er the bleak height its humid wings, Freshening across the eastern bay, The signal of approaching day. And faintly, in the distant sky, A gray beam stole on Nora's eye ; Dimly morn's struggling herald kiss'd The foldings of the billowy mist. And fell upon the waves below, With soft and melancholy glow,
XIII. Here the Mohegan paused ; he bent Northward, awhile, his gaze intent ; As if he marked, mid glooms below. The haunts where lay ensnared his foe. Troubled he seemed, as one who doth ^A task, to which his will is loath,
YAMOYDEN. 309
But feels some fatal power control,
As with resistless whirl, the soul.
" Christian," he cried, " I leave thee here,
Where danger's course thou needst not fear.
He, who my brother slew, lies there !
As it were shame beyond repair,
If any but my father's son,
The murderer's scalp in battle won !
I would the tempest, o'er him spread.
Might burst but on the guilty head ;
But the red bolt, once launched, must fall
In wrath and ruin upon all.
I go ; but when the strife is past,
And the proud king lies cold at last.
When the foul birds shall downward sweep.
And forth the wolves on carnage peep.
Then mayst thou hence descend, to save
With thy sweet prayers the captive brave ;
Bid the stained hand of slaughter stay
The axe impending o'er its prey ;
Perchance Yamoyden rescue, — nay !
Now, vain thy farther journeying were.
Farewell ! I leave thee thus alone.
But when my destined work is done.
His life shall be my dearest care."
XIV.
Silent and swift the chief departed ; Dark o'er the bosom of the hill, Along the rocks she marked him steal. Then in the thicket's depths he darted j And she was left, alone to ^ee\ The sad impatience that would see The measure of its misery ; ,
That hath, in man, nor hope nor friend, Nor knows what time its wo shall end.
310 YAMOYDEN.
Then fervently the lone one prayed, In this her trying hour for aid.
XV.
Sad rose the morning ; not in bloom
Awakening radiant from the gloom ;
All nature gladdening as it spread,
And light, and life, and glory shed ;
Not sporting on the gentle gale.
That floats o'er stream and dewy vale ;
Not bursting mid the kindling heaven.
Its hues in gold and purple given ; —
For now, in dreary twilight lay
The scene beneath its mantle gray :
Mute was the melody of morn,
And hushed was nature's harp forlorn.
Alone, above the vaporous clouds.
That hung, with mournful hue, like shrouds,
O'er every distant peak. Rose a faint line, as morning here Thro' the dark hosts her flag would rear,
The coming day to speak. Purple it seemed, yet lost and blending, With the dull hues around ascending ; And a soft roseate tint was seen. At intervals, the shades between ; As changeful, as unfixed it spread. As the last bloom, ere life has fled. But as the light of day uprose, Those transient tints of beauty close ; In volumes dense, o'er earth and main, Descend the wreathing mists again ; Pocasset's long and verdant coast In that unwelcome veil was lost. With sweep of hills and forests wide. And sparkling waves between that glide ;
YAMOYDEN. 311
Where, glancing o'er the sunny isles, That stud the water's dimpling smiles, The eye might ocean's breast explore, Or scan the western streams that pour Their tides on Narraganset's shore ; Or upward, to Patuxet's side, Extend the tribute of their pride. But now the scene had narrow bound, And scarce the mountain's base beyond.
Was aught distinctly seen : Strange were the shapes that seemed to rise Imperfectly upon the eyes ; And wildered fancy here might form The awful Spirit of the storm.
In all his terrors dress'd ; Stretching his giant arms abroad, And throned where footsteps never trod ; Or high in gloomy car upborne. Rushing to combat with the morn,
Upon the tempest's breast.
XVI
Still as she gazed with anxious eye. The expected battle to descry. The breeze with murmurs low that sighed, Came freshening from the eastern tide, And swept the brooding mists away. That o'er the northern prospect lay. Rocks, woods, and swamps arose to view, Though yet o'erhung with vapoury hue And eastward, dimly mid the trees. The English forms and arms she sees ; Low couched beneath the forest shade. Round lay their silent ambuscade. '
Prostrate the moveless band she spied ; An Indian by a white man's side.
312 YAMOYDEN.
Alternate placed, was crouching seen, Skirting the borders of the fen.
XVII.
Intently as she gazed, agen, Elsewhere, she marked where armed men Westward were hid, in ambush close, From where a swelling upland rose. That knoll a practised eye alone The haunt of savages had known ; For the rude sconce, around it reared. Like thicket's tangled growth appeared. And there the remnant of that race, So long devoted to the chase. Lay hid ; thus hemmed, all unaware What morning greetings foes prepare ;—- But, as the elks in northern wood, Girt by the hunter's circle fly, And headlong plunging in the flood New dangers meet, and with their blood Staining the guarded waters, die ; So, vainly may the band betrayed Rush from their leaguered palisade. The swamp's recesses dark to try, — There, too, relentless foemen lie.
XYIII. As Nora marked them, from the knoll, With wary steps an Indian stole ; And seemed it, that the thicket's screen Kept from his glance the foe unseen. For forth he gazed ; and though in sad And dusky livery morn was clad. Nature's free kingdom seemed to yield A transport through his heart that thrilled.
YAMOYDEN. 313
He leap'd for joyance ; when a flame Bright from the ambushed thicket came ; The death-ball whizzed, with angry knell^ And from the rampart wild he fell.
XIX.
Then, as that signal's echoes rung, Far flashed the fire the woods among. Too soon their shot the ambush sent ; Innocuous o'er the foe it went. But the dun smoke that upward flew, The fortress veiled from Nora's view, Till, as the breezes slowly bear Its volumes through the drizzly air, She marked the assaulted Indians glide Forth from their bulwark's eastward side, — Unclosed, that timely they might gain The marsh ; disordered ran the train ; The dark morass they hurried through, Ever low-bending as they flew, Where sinking soil, and bush and tree, Might best their screen and shelter be. And issuing from the forest's verge, Swift on their track the foemen urge ; As beagles to the death-scent true, They rushed, and as remorseless too ; — The EngUsh, for their brethren's blood, — Mohegans, for their ancient feud, — Seaconets, too, by treachery base. Who hoped to win the conquerors' grace ; — How weak the web that treason wove, When ruin followed if it throve !
XX.
Then rose from that wild swamp the shout That followed on the Indians' rout;
VOL. I. R R
314 YAMOYDEN.
And their mad yell of fear and wrath. As the shot whistled o'er their path ; And flame and smoke, far scattering, met The lady's glance, who lingered yet Above ; — but then a film came o'er Her sight, and she beheld no more. A husband's death-cry in her ear Came sadly, wildly ringing near ; And from the mountain steep she sped, Unknowing where her pathway led.
XXL
With that abrupt and steep descent.
Her senses reeled, her breath was spent ;
But she was borne, in her giddy way,
To where the eastern ambush lay.
They marked her not, though near she came ;
Fixed was their gaze, intent their aim,
Where, lost in their uncertain dread,
A band confused of Indians fled,
Toward the forest bound ; Quick paused they in their progress rash, The thicket kindled with the flash.
And rung the musket sound. Staggered, dismayed, the wildered band ; Some idly drew, with trembling hand. Their moose-strings wet ; the forest through The arrowy shower in mockery flew ; A few their deadlier arms employ. But now as powerless to destroy ; Then scattering, as the allied force Uprose and urged upon their course,
Swift o'er the fen they fly ; Yet Nora heard, above the rout, . The vollying shot and scream and shout,
'Old Annawan's war-cry.
YAMOYDEN. 315
He strove, with cheer, reproach, and threat,
His naked band to rally yet.
And yet the unequal conflict wage ;
But vain, stout heart ! thy gallant rage,
That well, on this sad field, became
The trophies of thine ancient fame I
XXII.
Thus from the covert where she stood, Vanished the motley multitude ; One only here erect remained. And moveless ; one alone disdained To gnaw the toils his hunters spread, But reared at bay his monarch head. A white man and an Indian near, Fronted and stayed his bold career ; And scarce their muskets' length apart, Stood, levelling at the warrior's heart. Thus stopp'd he, barred in his advance ; Firm on the twain he fixed his eye, Fierce as the pouncing falcon's glance ; His battle-axe he brandisheH ^^s^ » Els© all unarmed. An instant there Paused in their purposed work the pair ; So proud, in his defenceless state, And terrible, he seemed to wait. Himself to death to dedicate ! TrembHng, the white man first gave fire, But saw in faithless flash expire
The engine's fatal store ; " Thine is the chance the prize to gain," —
He said, but spoke no more. Ere, hurled with dexterous hand amain. Sunk the fell tomahawk in his brain, ^
And down, a ghastly corse, he fell ! Then straight a loud and joyous yell
316 YAMOYDEN.
His Indian comrade gave : " A ghost had been incensed," he cried, " If thou by other arm had'st died !
This, from his gory grave, Sends Agamoun !" he said, and true, On their swift wings, the death balls flew. A moment yet the Sachem stood. His right hand planted on his breast, Where inward gushed the vital blood And his attempted words suppress'd. Ahauton marked his dying look. Speaking its stern and sad rebuke ; Then in the moor's dank, miry bed. Deep fell the indignant chieftain, dead !
XXIII.
This in a moment's space was pass'd ; But as around the wanderer cast
Her gaze, a vision came, That drew, despite of toil and fear, E'en to the verge of battle near
Heriiuvr oj^lnniisted frame. Amid a roving band, alone. Her father in the fen was thrown. Now feeble waxed with age and toil ; And scarce upon the slippery soil He kept his footing ; while he held, With strength surpassing that of eld.
The ruffian host at bay ; A well-known voice salutes her ear, E'en in that hurried scene most dear ; A well-known form she marked among That haggard, fierce, and desperate throng,
Round, howling for their prey ; And, o'er her father's white hairs swung, As high a murderous axe was hunf^,
She saw Yamoyden stay
YAMOYDEN. 317
The lifted arm ; alas ! too late
To break the blow, impelled by fate I
Averted from the old man's head,
On his own faithful breast it fell !
A rescue comes, — the Indians fled, —
Far off the sounds of conflict swell ;— *
But never more, on battle field.
That valiant arm shall weapon wield ;
Nor, mid the combat's voices blending,
His cheering cry be heard ascending !
XXIV,
Dying he lay ; and o'er him bent Fitzgerald, now with kind intent. As ebbed the living current fleet. He whispered soothing comfort sweet. Fraught with such heavenly nourishment. Such chrism to the departing soul, As amber gum to feverish vein ; Deep in the mental wound it stole, Forgotten then his mortal pain. What form comes floating on his glance, Brightest In that celestial trance ? *' Fair image of my blessed wife ! Comest thou too, from the load of life
To loose the spirit's struggling wing.
And bid it upward, upward spring ?
Wilt thou not join me in that clime.
On whose far shore the waves of time
Fall with faint murmur as they flow ?^
Our child — farewell !" — " Yamoyden, no !
Alone thy spirit will not go.
We have not loved as those that woo,
Amid the spring-tide's laughing flowers,
And in green summer only true,
Part ere dark winter's chilling hours.
318 YAMOYDEN.
Hearts, long in grief and danger tried, Relenting death will ne'er divide !"
XXV.
Thus faintly murmuring, by his side
Exhausted sunk his faithful bride.
She strove, v^^ith her long locks unbound,
To stanch the grim and ghastly wound ;
Her husband's arms, with dying grasp,
Her lovely, wasted form enclasp ;
Her constant bosom to his breast
Closer and closer still he press'd ;
Her gaze met his, where every ray
Of earthly passion pass'd away ;
The glance of love, that conquers time,
Was blent with confidence sublime ;
As if on their departing view,
With heaven, that love was opening too !
Fitzgerald, bending o'er them, brushed
Aside the tears that freely gushed.
" Farewell, misguided one !" he said, —
" Dim light along thy path was shed ;
There may be mercy, even for thee !
Thy child ; may heaven to me
Be kind as I to him shall be !
May this thy parting hour be sweet ; Thy wounded conscience healed ;
With unction of the Paraclete, Thy soul's salvation sealed;
And may thy parted spirit meet Thy Saviour's form revealed."
XXVI.
The old man's glance was heavenward cast, As breathed that wish, the best, the last. And strong and fervent was his prayer. Communing with his Father there.
y
YAMOYDEX. 319
He viewed them as they lay reclined,
Their lips conjoint, their forms entwined.
They moved not, heaved not, breathed not, yet
It seemed the lovers* glances met.
He knelt, he strove his child to raise.
But vain the task the sire essays ;
He felt no struggle ; caught no sound ;
But to each other they were bound,
So close, that vain were all endeavour,
With aught that sacred clasp to sever,
Save sacrilegious knife; The father gazed in anguish wild, — He pressed the bosom of his child, —
There beat no pulse of life !
CONCLUSION.
Sad was the theme, which yet to try wc chose, In pleasant moments of communion sweet ; When least we thought of earth's unvarnished woes, And least we dreamed, in fancy's fond deceit. That either the cold grasp of death should meet. Till after many years, in ripe old age ; Three little summers flew on pinions fleet. And thou art living but in memory's page, And earth seems all to me a worthless pilgrimage.
Sad was our theme ; but well the wise man sung, " Better than festal halls, the house of wo ;" 'Tis good to stand destruction's spoils among, And muse on that sad bourne to which we go. The heart grows better when tears freely flow ; And, in the many-coloured dream of earth, One stolen hour, wherein ourselves we know, Our weakness and our vanity, — is worth Years of unmeaning smiles, and lewd, obstreperous mirth.
'Tis good to muse on nations passed away, For ever, from the land we call our own; Nations, as proud and mighty in their day, Who deemed that everlasting was their throne. An age went by, and they no more were known ! Sublimer sadness will the mind control, Listening time's deep and melancholy moan ; And meaner griefs will less disturb the soul ; And human pride falls low, at human grandeur's goal.
VOL. I. S S
322
CONCLUSION.
Philip ! farewell ! thee King, in idle jest, Thy persecutors named ; and if in deed, The jewelled diadem thy front had pressed, It had become thee better, than the breed Of palaces, to sceptres that succeed, To be of courtier or of priest the tool, Satiate dull sense, or count the frequent bead, Or pamper gormand hunger ; thou wouldst rule Better than the worn rake, the glutton, or the fool I
I would not wrong thy warrior shade, could I Aught in my verse or make or mar thy fame ; As the light carol of a bird flown by, Will pass the youthful strain that breathed thy name r But in that land whence thy destroyers came, A sacred bard thy champion shall be found ; He of the laureate wreath for thee shall claim The hero's honours, to earth's farthest bound, Where Albion's tongue is heard, or Albion's songs resound.
NOTES.
NOTES TO CANTO FIRST.
Stanza II.
The forest cinctured mountain stood.
Mount Hope appears to have been called by the Indians Mont Haup, or Montaup ; and has been thence easily corrupted into its present name. It has given occasion for many pleasant puns to Mr. Hubbard and Cotton Mather. As when Philip fled there in his last exigency, it is called Mount Hope, rather Mount Misery — " Lucus a non lucendo," &c. It is called Haup throughout the poem ; improperly, I believe — Transeat cum ceteris. The following description is pretty correct ; although somebody has been playing a hoax upon the worthy meditator among the tombs ; first, as to the name of the hill ; secondly, as to the fact of Philip's choosing the most con- spicuous situation he could possibly select when he most needed conceal- ment ; and, thirdly, as to the circumstance of his droll exhibition on the occasion of his death. That there is no foundation for this tradition seems evident from the account of Captain Church himself, extracted in the notes to the Sixth Canto.
<' King Philip, as he is usually called, erected his wigwam on a lofty and beautiful rise of land in the eastern part of Bristol, which is generally known by the name of Mount Hope. According to authentic tradition, however, Mo7i Top was the genuine aboriginal name of this celebrated eminence. To this there was no doubt an appropriate meaning ; but it cannot, at present, be easily ascertained.
" From the summit of this mount, which is, perhaps, less than three hun- dred feet* above high-water mark, it is said, that in a clear day every town in Rhode-Island may be seen. The towering spires of Providence in one direction, those of Newport in another, the charming village of Bristol, the fertile island of Poppasquash, fields clothed with a luxuriant verdure as far as the eye can stretch, irregular meandering waters intersecting the region to
■^ By a late admeasurement it is not much more than two iiundreJ.
326 NOTES TO CANTO FIRST.
the west, Mount Hope bay on the east, and distant lands with various marks of high cultivation, form, in the aggregate, a scene truly beautiful and romantic.
" The late Lieutenant-Governor Bradford, in early life, knew an aged squaw, who was one of Philip's tribe, was well acquainted with this saga- more in her youthful days, and had often been in his wigwam. The infor- mation through her is, therefore, very direct, as to the identical spot where he fixed his abode. It was a few steps south of Captain James De Wolf's summer-house, near the brow of the hill, but no vestige of the wigwam remains. The eastern side of this hill is very steep, vastly more so than that at Horse Neck, down which the intrepid Putnam trotted his sure-footed steed, in manner worthy of a knight of the tenth century, in time of the revo- lutionary war, and wonderfully escaped his pursuing enemy.
" When Church's men were about to rush upon Philip, he is said to have evaded them by springing from his wigwam as they were entering it, and rolling, like a hogshead, down the precipice which looks towards the bay.
" Having reached the lower part of this frightful ledge of rocks without breaking his bones, he got upon his feet, and ran along the shore in a north- easterly direction about a hundred rods, and endeavoured to screen himself in a swamp, then a quagmire, but now terra-firma.
" Here the sachem of Mon Top, long the magormissabib of the New- England colonies, was shot, on the 12th of August, 1676, by Richard,* one of his Indians, who had been taken a little before by the noted Captain Church, and was become his friend and soldier.
" The ledge of rocks, forming the precipice before mentioned, extends for a considerable distance nearly parallel with the shore of the bay. In a cer- tain situation between the site of the wigwam and the place where Philip received his death wound, and where the solid mass of quartz, which forms the basis of Mon Top, is nearly perpendicular and forty or fifty feet high, is a natural excavation of sufficient dimensions to afford a convenient seat. It is five or six feet from the ground, and is known by the name of Philip's Throne. A handsome grass plat of small extent lies before it. At the foot of the throne is a remarkably fine spring of water, from which proceeds a never-failing stream. This is called Philip's Spring.
" On that throne, tradition says, Philip used often to sit in regal style, his warriors forming a semicircle before him, and give law to his nation." — Rev. T. Aldeji's Collection of Epitaphs, Pentade I., vol. iv.
Aquctnet Green.
Aquetnet was the Indian name for the island now called Rhode Island. — New-England^ s Memorial, 116.
* This was not his name. See the Notes to Canto VI.
NOTES TO CANTO FIRST. 327
Focasset''s Hills. The Pocasset shore, now called Tiverton, is opposite Mount Hope.
^ Stanza IV.
Now two-score years of peace had pvcss^d, dj-c. " As for the rest of the Indians, ever since the suppression of the Pequods, in the year 1637, until the year 1675, there was always in appearance amity and good correspondence on all sides ; scarce an Englishman was ever known to be assaulted or hurt by any of them until after the year 1674," &c. — Hubhard^s Narrative of the Indiaii Wars in New-England, 6fC.
Until the Pequods^ empire fell.
" The Pequots, or Pequods, were a people seated in the most southerly bounds of New-England ; whose country the English of Connecticut juris- diction doth now for the most part possess. This nation were a very war- like and potent people about forty years since ; at which time they were in their meridian. Their chief sachem held dominion over divers petty saga- mores ; as over part of Long Island, over the Mohegans, and over the saga- mores of Quinapeake, yea, over all the people that dwelt upon Connecticut river, and over some of the most southerly inhabitants of the Nipmuck country, about Quinabaag. The principal sachem lived at or about Pequot, now called New-London. These Pequots, as old Indians relate, could in former times raise four thousand men fit for war ; and held hostility with their neighbours that lived bordering upon them to the east and north, called the Narragansitts, or Nechegansitts ; but now they are few, not above three hundred men ; being made subject unto the English, who conquered and destroyed most of them, upon their insolent deportment and just provocation, anno 1638." — Gookin's Historical Collections of the Indians in Ncio- England ; first printed from the original manuscript, at Boston, in 1792.
" Historians have treated of the Pequots and Moheagans as two distinct tribes, and have described the Pequot country as lying principally within the three towns of New-London, Groton, and Kensington. All the tract above this, as far north and east as has been described, they have represented as the Moheagan country. Most of the towns in this tract, if not all of them, hold their lands by virtue of deeds from Uncas, or his successors, the Moheagan sachems. It is, however, much to be doubted, whether ihe Mo- heagans were a distinct nation from the Pequots. They appear to have been apart of the same nation, named from the place of their situation. Tineas was evidently of the royal line of the Pequots, both by his- father and mother ; and his wife was daughter of Tatobam, one of the Pequot sachems. He appears to have been a petty sachem, under Sassacus, the great prince of the nation. When the English first came to Connecticut, he
328 NOTES TO CANTO FIRST.
Wfis in a state of rebellion against him, and of little consequence among the Indians. The Peqiiots were by far the most warlike nation in Connecticut, or even in New-England, &c. Their principal fort was on a commanding and most beautiful eminence in the town of Groton, a few miles south- easterly from Fort Griswold. This was the royal fortress, where the chief sachem had his residence. He had another fort near Mystic river, a few miles to the eastward of this, called Mystic fort. The Pequots, Moheagans, and Nehantics, could doubtless muster a thousand bowmen." — TrumhidPs History of Connecticut, vol. i., p. 42.
" The Mahiccaimi" says Mr. Heckewelder, " have been called by so many names that I was at a loss which to adopt, so that the reader might know what people were meant. Lookiel calls them ' Mohicans,' which is nearest to their real name Mahiccanni, which, of course, I have adopted. The Dutch called them Mahicanders ; the French Mourigans, and Mahin- gans ; the English, Mohiccons, Mohuccans, Mohegans, Muhheekanew, Schaticooks, River Indians.
They are called Muhhekaneews, by Dr. Edwards, in his " Observations^'' on their language, published at New-York, 1801. The old historians of New-England term them Moheags, Moheaks, and Mohegins, &c. I have adopted in the text the mode of writing it which seemed most euphonious. These people were one of the most martial and important tribes of the great family to which the Delawares belonged, called Lenopi by Mr. Jefferson, in his " Notes on Virginia," and Lenni Leiiape,* by Mr. Heckewelder. The latter author agrees with the venerable historian of Connecticut, as to the Mohicans being the same race with the Pequods.
Until the Pequots^ empire fell, cfc.
1 have thought it necessary to make the foregoing extracts in relation to the people, who, after their decisive overthrow, mentioned in the text, always took part with the English against Philip. But as the events, recapitulated in the fourth and sixth following stanzas, were merely premised, as explana- tory of the allusions made in the poem, it is unnecessary to give much more than references to the authors who have recorded them.
And Sassacoiis, ^c.
The name of the Pequod sagamore is thus written, without the diaeresis, by the Rev. Mr. Hubbard. The accent is, however, placed on the first syl- lable, in a poem by Governor Winthrop, preserved in the " Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society." " At Sassacus' dread name," &c.
The Pequods quarrelled with the colonists at an early period of the settle- ment : and, after a hollow treaty of peace, which they entered into in the year 1636, they protected certain of the Narragansetts who had murdered
* Meaning an original p^iople. avToxBoveg.
NOTES TO CANTO FIRSTi 329
S^me of the English on Block-Island. This led to a war, in the course of which the Narragansetts, with the versatile and jealous policy of Indian nations, made their own peace with the English, and refused to assist the Pequods. They appear, however, to have experienced some compunction when the Pequod fort was attacked by the English on the 26th May, 1637 ; when, after a vigorous and desperate resistance by the savages, the fort was fired by Captain Mason's men, sixty or seventy wigwams burnt, and seven hundred of the miserable Pequods destroyed. The Narragansetts were mere spectators on this occasion. They either felt, or pretended, an uncon- querable fear of Sassacus, whom they called invincible ; saying, " he was all one god." Uncas, sachem of the Mohegans, who, as has been already mentioned, was in a state of revolt against the great sagamore when the English first settled in Connecticut, was their guide to the fortress of his enemy ; and ever after, with wary and more consistent policy than belonged to his brethren, adhered to the interests of his new allies. Sassacus fled to the Mohocks (termed Mohogs and Maquas* by the old historians), who mur- dered him and sent his scalp to the conquerors. — See TrumbuWs History of Connecticut., and the authorities there quoted ; also Hubbard's Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians., first published, by authority, at Boston, 1677. New-England' s Memorial, Boston printed, Newport reprinted, 1777. Prince'' s Chronological History of New-England, Boston, 1736. Mather's Magnalia, Book VII. 4-c.
Till Metacom his war-dance held. " The Paukanawkutts were a great people heretofore. They lived to the east and northeast of the Narragansitts ; and their chief sachem held dominion over divers other petty sagamores, upon the island of Nantuckett, and Nope, or Martha's Vineyard, of Nawsett, of Mannamoyk, of Sawkat- tukett, Nobsquasitt, Matakees and several others, and some of the Nipmucks. Their country, for the most part, falls within the jurisdiction of New- Plimouth colony. This people were a potent nation in former times ; and could raise, as the most credible and ancient Indians aflSrm, about three thousand men. They held war with the Narragansitts, &c. This nation, a very great number of them, were swept away by an epidemical and un- wonted sickness, an. 1612 and 1613, about seven or eight years before the English arrived in those parts to settle the colony of New-Plimouth. Thereby Divine Providence made way for the peaceable and quiet settlement of the English in those nations. What this disease was that so generally and mortally swept awa}^, not only those, but other Indians, their neigh- bours, I cannot well learn. Doubtless it was some pestilential disease. I
* Maqua in the Mohegan tongue, which is the same with the Chippeway and Algonquin, means bear. See the vocabularies in Dr. Edwards's " Observations," " Carver's Travels," and the Appendix to Baron Le Hontan. So, Mahingan means a wolf; and their tribe was called Les Loups by the French, according to Mr. Jeffer.son.
VOL, I. T T
330 NOTES TO CANTO FIRST,
have discoursed with some old Indians, that were then youths ; who sajy that the bodies all over were exceeding yellow, describing it by a yellow gar- ment they showed me, both before they died, and afterward." — Gookin.
Of this people, the Wampanoags, or Wampanoogs, &c. (as it is differently written), seem to have been the immediate clan or family of old Massasoit, or Massasoiet, or Woosamequen,* the father of Metacom, or Metacomet,t called King Philip by the English. The latter, however, signs his treaties^ " Philip, Sachem of Pokanoket, his mark. P."
" When Plimouth colony was first planted, within three monettes after their first landing, March 16, 1620, Massasoit, the chief sachem of all that side of the country, repaired to the English at Plimouth, and entered into a solemn league upon sundry articles, printed in N. E. Memorial, 1669, p. 24. The words are as followeth," <&c. — Hubbard, old edition 7. EdAtion of 1814, p. 56.
" The which league the same sachim, Sept. 25, 1630,+ a little before his death, coming with his eldest son [Mooanam or Wamsulta], afterward called Alexander, did renew with the English at the court of Plimouth, for himself and his son, and their heirs and successors ; and after that he came to Mr. Brown's, that lived not far from Mount Hope, bringing his two sons, Alexander and Philip, with him, desiring that there might be love and amity after his death between his sons and them, as there had been betwixt him- self and them in former times : yet it is very remarkable that this Massasoit, called also Woosamequen (how much soever he affected the English, yet) was never in the least degree any wayes well affected to the religion of the English, but would have had them engaged never to attempt to draw away any of his people from their old Pagan superstition and devilish idolatry,'* &c. — Idem.
"After the death of this Woosamequen, or Massasoit [about 1656], his eldest son succeeded him about twenty years since, Alexander by name, who, notwithstanding the league he had entered into with the English, together with his father, in the year 1639, had neither affection to the Eng- lishmen's persons, nor yet to their religion, but had been plotting with the Narhagansets to rise against the English, of which the governour and council of Plimouth being informed, they presently sent for him to bring him to the court ; the person to whom that service was committed was a prudent and resolute gentleman, the present governour of the said colony, who was nei- ther afraid of danger, nor yet willing to delay in a matter of that moment.
* The Indians were in the habit of changing their names at their great war dances. Thus Canonchet was afterward called Nanunteno.
t Printed, I suppose, by mistake, Metamncet, in the Analectic Magazine, containing the life of Philip, by Mr. Irving, ^ee Increase Mathefs Brief History of tJie Warr, &c. Boston, 1676.
} Should be 1639, as Hubbard has it himself in the next page, and as it is in N. E. MeHio> rial. The error is not corrected in the new edition of Hubbard.
NOTES TO CANTO FIRST. 331
He forthwith, taking eight or ten stout men with him well armed, intended to have gone to the said Alexander's dwelling, distant at least forty miles from the governour's house, but by a good providence he found him whom he went to seek at an hunting-house, within six miles of the English towns, where the said Alexander, with about eighty men, were newly come in from hunting, and had left their guns without doors, which Major Winslow, with his small company, wisely seized, and conveyed away, and then went into the wigwam, and demanded Alexander to go along with him before the governour, at which message he was much appalled, but being told by the undaunted messenger, that if he stirred or refused to go he was a dead man ; he was, by one of his chief counsellors, in whose advice he most confided, perswaded to go along to the governour's house, but such was the pride and height of his spirit, that the very surprizal of him raised his choler and indig- nation, that it put him into a feaver, which, notwithstanding all possible means that could be used, seemed mortal ; whereupon intreating those that held him prisoner, that he might have liberty to return home, promising to return again if he recovered, and to send his son as hostage till he could do so ^ on that consideration he was fairly dismissed, but dyed before he got half-way home." — Idem. Our author then makes a sort of apology for the treatment of Alexander. He says it was never urged as a cause of offence by the said Alexander's brother, byname Phihp, commonly for his ambitious and haughty spirit nicknamed King Philip. Nothing, he says, could have induced the said Philip to make war on the English, " besides the instiga- tion of Satan, that either envied at the prosperity of the Church of God here seated, or else fearing lest the power of the Lord Jesus, that had over- thrown his kingdome in other parts of the world, should do the like here, and so the stone taken out of the mountain without hands should become a great mountain itself, and fill the whole earth, no cause of provocation being given by the English."
Thus died of a broken heart the proud-spirited brother of Philip. Cotton Mather, who treats the Netops, as he calls them, with very little ceremony, condescends to mention, that " Alexander was treated with no other than that humanity and civility which was always essential to the major-general ; nevertheless, the inward fury of his own guilty and haughty mind threw him into such a. fever as cost him his life." — Magnalia, Book VII. Ecclesianum proilic, or the Wars of the Lord, p. 45, a. and b.
To him succeeded Metacom, or King Philip, anno 1662 ; " who," as the learned, but quaint, annalist goes on to state, " after he had solemnly renewed his covenant of peace with the English, most perfidiously broke it by making an attempt of war upon them in the year 1671, wherein being sea- sonably and effectually defeated, he humbly confessed his breach of covenaiit, and subscribed articles of submission, &c. Indeed, whefi the Duke of Archette, at his being made governour of Antwerpe castle, took an oath to keep it faithfully for King Philip of Spain ; the officer that gave him his oath
332 NOTES TO CANTO FIRST.
used these odd words, If you perform what you 'promise, God help you ; if you do it nott the devil take you body and soul ! And all the standers by cried, Amen. But when the Indian King Philip took an oath to be faithful unto the government of Neic-England, nobody used these words unto him ; nevertheless, you shall anon see whether these words were not expressive enough of what became of him." — Idem, p. 45, b.
It would be too troublesome, as well as unnecessary, to give even a sketch of the life of Philip up to the time when the poem commences. A connected account of the sachem's adventures may be found in Mather'*s Magnolia, Increase Mather^s Brief History, &c. ; Hutchinson's History of Massachu- setts, vol. i. ; and TriimhuWs History of ConnecticxU, vol. i. The following note in Holmes'' s American Annals does justice to his character, and makes proper allowance for the measures taken by the English.
" The death of Philip, in retrospect, makes different impressions from what were made at the time of the event. It was then considered as the extinction of a virulent and implacable enemy ; it is now viewed as the fall of a great warrior, a penetrating statesman, and a mighty prince. It then excited universal joy and congratulation, as a prelude to the close of a mer- ciless war ; it now awakens sober reflections on the instability of empire, the peculiar destiny of the aboriginal race, and the inscrutable decrees of Heaven. The patriotism of the man was then overlooked in the cruelty of the savage ; and little allowance was made for the natural jealousy of the sovereign, on account of the barbarities of the warrior. Philip, in the pro- gress of the English settlements, foresaw the loss of his territory, and the extinction of his tribe ; and made one mighty effort to prevent those calami- ties. Our pity for his misfortunes would be still heightened, could we entirely rely on the tradition (mentioned by Calendar, 73), that Philip and his chief old men were at lirst averse to the war ; that Philip wept with grief at the news of the first English who were killed ; and that he was pressed into the measures by the irresistible importunity of his young warriors. The assur- ance, on the other hand, of the equity of our ancestors, in giving the natives an equivalent for their lands, is highly consoling. The upright and pious Governor Winslow, in a letter dated at Marsfield, 1st May, 1676, observes : « I think I can clearly say, that before these present troubles broke out, the English did not possess one foot of land in this colony, but what was fairly obtained by honest purchase of the Indian proprietors. We first made a law that none should purchase, or receive of gift, any land of the Indians, without the knowledge and allowance of our court. And lest yet they should be streightened, we ordered that Mount Hope, Pocasset, and several other necks of the best land in the colony, because most suitable and convenient for them, should never be bought out of their hands.' See Hubbard's Narrative (where this important letter is inserted entire), and Hazard, Coll. ii. 531- 534." — Holmes'^s American Annals, vol. i. p. 365.
Whatever wrongs Philip may have sustained during his life, from the
NOTES TO CANTO FIRST. 333
arms and pens of his enemies, it seems that his shade will be fully propi- tiated in the present day. He will have Mr. Southey for his bard ; and has already had Mr. Irving for his biographer. To those who have had occa- sion to examine the rude annals of the earlier settlers in the east, it must surely be a matter of admiration to see with what facility and grace the author of Knickerbocker has extricated and made use of all the prominent and interesting particulars in the history of that period.
Fiercely they trim their crested hair. " Then she called for the Mount Hope men, who made a formidable appearance, with their faces painted, and their hair trimmed up in comb- fashion, with their powder-horns and shot-bags at their backs ; which among that nation is the posture and figure of preparedness for war." Thomas Church's " Entertaining History of King Philip^s War,''^ &c. Boston, 1716. Newport, reprinted, 1772. By coml-fashion, is meant a crest, from the fore- head to the back of the head. " The priests in Secota," says Purchas, " haue their haire on the crowne like a combe, the rest being cut from it : only a foretop on their forehead is left, and that combe. They are great wisards." Purchases Pilgrim, Part 3d, p. 949. *' Table 2, is an Indian man in his summer dress. The upper part of his hair is cut short, to make a ridge which stands up like the comb of a cock, the rest is either shorn off, or knotted behind his ear." History of Virginia, second edition, London, 1822 ; said in a manuscript note, in the copy belonging to the New-York Historical Library, to be by one Robert Beverly.
Their peag belts. The author last mentioned calls the wampum beads peak ; it is generally written peag. " The women of distinction," says he, " wear deep neck- laces, pendants, and bracelets, made of small cylinders of the conque-shell, which they call peak." The white beads were made from the hollow of conchs ; the purple, which were most prized, from muscle-shells. They were strung on leather. Golden^ s History of the Five Nations. Heckewelder, &c. And see a subsequent note to this Canto.
Stanza V.
The red fire is blazing. «' It being now about sun-setting, or near the dusk of the evening, the Netops came running from all quarters loaden with the tops of dry pines, and the like combustible matter, making a huge pile thereof, near Mr. Church's shelter, on the open side thereof ; but by this time supper was brought in, &c. ; but by the time supper was over, the mighty pile of pine knots and tops, &c. was fired, and all the Indians, great and small,
834 NOTES TO CANTO FIRST.
gathered in a ring round it. Awashonks, with the oldest of her people, men and women mixed, kneeling down, made the first ring next the fire, and all the lusty stout men, standing up, made the next, and then all the rabble in a confused crew surrounded on the outside. Then the chief captain stepped in between the rings and the fire, with a spear in one hand, and a hatchet in the other, danced round the fire, and began to fight with it, making men- tion of all the several nations and companies of Indians in the country that were enemies to the English ; and at naming of every tribe, he would draw out and fight a new fire-brand, and at finishing his fight with each particular fire-brand, would bow to him and thank him ; and when he had named all the several nations and tribes, he stuck down his spear and hatchet, and came out ; and another stept in and acted over the same dance, with more fury, if possible, than the first ; and when about half a dozen of their chiefs had thus acted their parts, the captain of the guard stept up to Mr. Church, and told him, ' They were making soldiers for hi?n,^ " &c. Church's History, p. 49, 50.
The hills of Pocasset replied to the call, And their queen, ^c. Weetamoe, the sunk* squaw, or squaw sachem of the Pocassets, was a kinswoman of Philip. Captain Church was hard beset by her people, at the breaking out of the war. She is not to be confounded with Awashonks, squaw sachem of the Seaconets, who dwelt southerly from the Pocasset Indians.
Stanza VI.
Through Narraganset^s countless clan. " East of Connecticut were the Narraganset Indians : these were a numerous and powerful body. When the English settled Plymouth, their fighting men were reckoned at three or four thousand ; fifty years after this time they were estimated at two thousand. The Pequots and Narragansets maintained perpetual war, and kept up an implacable animosity between them." Trumbull, I. 43. This jealousy was a great source of safety to the English, both in the Pequot war, when they were joined by the Narragan- sets, and in the war with Philip, when the Pequods (or Mohegans) assisted them in exterminating the Narragansets. The Niantics, or Nehantics, were a branch of the Narragansets who joined the English interest, under their sachem Agancmo. For a further account of the Narragansets, see Gookin.
The tributary Nipnets heard. " On the northeasterly and northern part of the colony were the Nipmuck Indians. Their principal seat was about the great ponds in Oxford, in * Written snuke in the very incorrect modern edition of Hubbard.
NOTES TO CANTO FIRST. 335
Massachusetts, but their territory extended southward into Connecticut more than twenty miles." Trumbull^ I. 43. These people are also called Nipnets by Hubbard ; it has been already mentioned that they were tribu- tary to the Pawkanawkults. The situation of all these tribes is thus briefly given by Hubbard. " The seacoast, from the pitch of Cape Cod to the mouth of Connecticut river, [was] inhabited by several nations of Indians, Wampanoogs (the first authors of the present rebellion), Narragansetts, Pequods, Mohegins, and the more inland part of the country by the Nipnets (a general name for all inland Indians betwixt the Massachusetts and Con- necticut river)."
Stanza VII.
But Sausaman untimely slain. Sausaman was the son of Christian Indians, but apostatized, and became King Philip's secretary, who, as Dr. Mather sarcastically remarks, could not even read. A letter dictated by Philip, and written by Sausaman, is preserved in the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. ii. p. 40. Sausaman afterward returned to the English, and became an instructer among the Indians. In the year 1674, he informed the governor of Plymouth that Philip was plotting with all the Indian nations, to destroy the English. Little notice was taken of this communication at first. But Sausaman was soon after found murdered on Assawamsett pond, at a place now called Middleborough, Massachusetts. When he was missed, the neighbours sought for and found the dead body, which had been put under a hole in the ice ; but his hat and gun, being left, led to the discovery. " A jury was impanelled," says C. Mather, *' and it was remarkable, that one Tobias, a counsellor of King Philip'' s, whom they suspected as the author of this murder, approaching to the dead body, it would still fall a bleeding afresh, as if it had been newly slain, &c. Afterward an Indian, called Patuckson, gave his testimony, that he saw this Tobias, with certain other Indians, killing of John Sausaman, &c. Hereupon Tobias, with two other Indians, being apprehended, they were, after a fair trial, hy a. jury consisting half of English and half of Indians, convicted, and so condemned ; and though they were all successively turned off the ladder at the gallows, utterly denying the fact, yet the last of them happening to break or slip the rope, did, before his going off the ladder again, confess that the other Indians did really murder John Sausaman, and that he was himself, though no actor in it, yet a looker on. Things began by this time to have an ominous aspect." — Math. Magnalia, VII. 46. a. See also Hubbard, new edition, 66-71, Church, 9. Increase Mather, 2, and the Postscript to the same ; also the Postscript in the old edition of Hubbard, apologizing for the justness of fhe war, &c.
336 NOTES TO CANTO FIRST.
" Philip^ conscious to his own guilt, pusht on the execution of his flot as fast as he could ; he armed his men, and sent away their women [to the Nar- ragansets], and entertained many strange Indians that flocked in unto him from several parts of the country, and began to be tumultuous." — C. Mather uhi supra.
Thus broke out King Philip's war, which terminated in almost the total extermination of his allies. Happily for the settlers, it commenced prema- turely. The sachem's plans were general, and deeply laid. The Narra- gansets had promised to rise with four thousand men, according to Hub- bard. It is unnecessary to make any particular references on the miseries of war, alluded to in Stanza VII.
Stanza VIII.
Till Narraganset^s fortress biased.
In the winter of 167.5-6 the commissioners of the United Colonies deter- mined to attack the Narraganset fortress, situated near Pawcatuck river, " on an elevated ground, or piece of upland, of perhaps three or four acres, in the middle of a hideous swamp ; about seven miles nearly due west from Narraganset south ferry." — Church, 29. The following account of that tragical business is the most full and perspicuous.
" The next morning (Dec. 19th), at the dawning of the day, they com- menced their march towards the enemy, who were in a swamp at about fifteen miles distance. The troops proceeded with great spirit, wading through the snow, in a severe season, until nearly one o'clock, without fire to warm or food to refresh them, except what had been taken on the way. At this time they had arrived just upon the seat of the enemy. This was upon a rising ground, in the centre of a large swamp. It was fortified with palisades, and compassed with a hedge without, nearly of a rod's thickness. The only entrance which appeared practicable was over a log, or tree, which lay up five or six feet from the ground. This opening was com- manded in front by a kind of log-house, and on the left by a flanker. As soon as the troops entered the skirts of the swamp, they discovered an advanced party of the enemy, upon whom they immediately fired. The enemy returned the fire, and retired before them, until they were led to the very entrance by the block-house. Without reconnoitering the fort, or waiting for the army to march up and form for the attack, the Massachusetts troops, led on by their officers with great courage, mounted the tree and entered the fort ; but they were so galled from the block-house, and received such a furious and well-directed fire from almost every quarter, that after every exertion of skill and courage of which they were capable, they were obliged to retreat out of the fort. The whole army pressed forward with the utmost , courage and exertion, but such were the obstructions from the
NOTES TO CANTO FIRST. 337
Swamp and the snow, that it was a considerable time before the men could all be brought up to action. Captains Johnson and Davenport, and many brave men of the Massachusetts, were killed. The Connecticut troops, who formed in the rear, coming up to the charge, mounted over the log before the blockhouse, the captains leading and spiriting up the men in the most un- daunted manner. About the same time that the main body of the Con- necticut troops were forcing their way by the blockhouse, a few bold men ran round to the opposite part of the fort, where they found a narrow spot where there were no palisades, but a high and thick hedge of trees and brush. The sharpness of the action in the front had drawn off the enemy from this part, and climbing over unobserved, they ran down between the wigwams, and poured a heavy and well-directed fire upon the backs of the enem}^, who lay wholly exposed to their shot. Thus assaulted in front and rear, they were driven from the flanker and blockhouse. The captains cry- ing out, they run, they run, the men pressed so furiously upon them that they were forced from that part of the fort. The soldiers without rushed in with great spirit, and the enemy were driven from one covert and hiding-place to another, until the middle of the fort was gained ; and after a long and bloody action they were totally routed, and fled into the wilderness. As they retired, the soldiers set fire to the wigwams, about six hundred of which were instantly consumed. The enemy's corn, stores, and utensils, with many of their old men, women, and children, perished in the conflagration. It was supposed that three hundred warriors were slain, besides many wounded, who afterward died of their wounds and with the cold. Nearly the same number were taken, with three hundred women and children. From the number of wigwams in the fort, it is probable that the whole number of the Indians was nearly four thousand. Those who were not killed in battle, or did not perish in the flames, fled to a cedar swamp, where they spent the night without food, fire, or covering. It was, nevertheless, a dearly-bought victory. Six brave captains fell in the action, and eighty men were killed or mortally wounded. A hundred and fifty were wounded, who afterward recovered. After the fatiguing march, and hard-fought battle of three hours, in which the troops had been exercised, the army, just at the setting of the sun, having burnt and destroyed all in their power, left the enemy's ground ; and carrying about two hundred dead and wounded men, marched back, sixteen or eighteen miles, to head-quarters. The night was very cold and stormy. The snow fell deep, and it was not until mid- night, or after, that the army got in. Many of the wounded, who otherwise might have recovered, died with the cold," &c. — TrumbulVs History of Connecticut^ vol. i. p. 338-340. See also Mather's Magnalta, 49, 50. Hubbard, 130-133. Increase Mather, 30. Captain Church was severely wounded in this action. " He was struck with three bullets, one on his thigh, which was near half cut oflT as it glanced on the joint of his hip-bone ; another through the gatherings of his breeches and drawers, with a small VOL. I. UU
338 NOTES TO CANTO FIRST,
flesh-wound ; a third pierced his pockets, and wounded a pair of mittens that he had borrowed of Captain Prentice; being wrapped up together, had the misfortune of having many holes cut through them with one bullet ; however, he made shift to keep on his legs," &c. — Churchy 27. This kind of defensive armour seems to have been not unusual in those chivalrous days. " Mr. Gill was struck with a musket-ball on the side of his belly ; but being clad with a buff coat, and some thickness of paper under it, it never broke his skin." — Church. 11.
Stanzas IX. and X.
Till of the trihes whnm rage, at, first, &c.- The jealousies of the confederated Indians among themselves hastenec? their separation, and consequent destruction in detail. " This quarrel pro^ ceeded to that height, that from that time forward those several Indians that had for so long a time been combined together resolved now to part, and every one to shift for themselves, and return to their own homes ; Philip to Mount Hope, and the Narragansets to their own country again ; the Nipnets and the River [Connecticut] Indians bending their course west- ward, others northward," &c. — Hubbard, 211. C. Mather says their demons deserted them. See notes to Canto III.
Of the once powerful nation of the Narragansets, Mr. Hubbard, imme* diately after the war, says, " there is none of them left on that side of the country, unless some few, not exceeding seventy in number, that have shel- tered themselves under the inhabitants of Rhode-Island, as a merchant of that place, worthy of credit, lately affirmed to the writer hereof. It is con- sidered by what degrees they have been consumed and destroyed." — Hubbard, new edit., p. 158. Most of the persecuted tribes went westward, and were never heard of thereafter. Some settled among the Moheagans, on the Hudson river. An incredible number were executed at different places*
Those who in davery^s galling chain, &c. " After this," says Church, " Dartmouth's distresses required succour, great part of the town being laid desolate, and many of the inhabitants killed ; the most of Plymouth forces were ordered thither ; and coming to Russel's garrison at Ponoganset, they met with a number of the enemy that had surren- dered themselves prisoners on terms promised by Captain Eels of the gar- rison, and Ralph Earl, who persuaded them (by a friend Indian he had em- ployed) to come in. And had their promises to the Indians been kept, and the Indians fairly treated, it is probable that most, if not all the Indians in those forts had soon followed the example of the Indians who had now sur- rendered themselves ; which would have been a good step towards finishing the war. But in spite of all that Captains Eels, Church, or Ear), could say,
NOTES TO CANTO FIRST. 339
argue, plead, or beg, somebody else that had more power in their hands improved it ; and without any regard to the promises made them on their sarrendering themselves, they were carried away to Plyniouthy there sold, and transported out of the country, being about eight-score persons^
In another place, the narrator says, " They met the general, and pre- sented him with eighteen of the enemy they had captived. The general, pleased with the exploit, gave them thanks, particularly to Mr. Church, the mover and chief actor of the business, and sending two of them (likely boys) a present to Boston ; smiling at Mr. Church, told him that he made no doubt his faculty would supply them vnth Indian boys enough before the war was ended.''^
Again ; " Captain Chirch hastening with his prisoners through the woods to Plymouth, disposed of them all, except only one Jeffery, who proved very ingenuous and faithful to him, in informing him where other parcels of Indians harboured," &c. — E.
Stanza XI.
When all whom kin or friendship made
To his fallen fortunes dear, were dead. Philip's uncle Uncompoen, sometimes called Uncomdaen,* was slain July 31st, 1676, and his sister taken prisoner at the same time. On the 2d o^ August, he narrowly escaped from Captain Church, leaving his peag, wife> a-nd son. His friends of any distinction among the other tribes had been killed before, viz., Canonchet, Pomham, Matoonas, &c.
And bullets whispered death was near. Among Philip's other hair-breadth deliverances, the following is recorded by Captain Church ; it happened on Taunton river, near Bridgewater. " Next morning Captain Church moved very early with his company, which was increased by many of Bridgewater that enlisted under him for that expedition, and by their piloting, soon came very still to the top of the great tree which the enemy had fallen across the river ; and the captain spy'd an Indian sitting on the stump of it on the other side of the river, and he clapp'd his gun up, and had doubtless dpspatrbfirl him, but that one of his own Indians called hastily to him not to fire, for he believed it was one of their own men ; upon which the Indian upon the stump looked about, and Captain Church's Indian seeing his face, perceived his mistake, for he knew him to be Philip, clapp'd up his gun and fired, but it was too late, for Philip immediately threw himself off the stump, leap'd down a bank on the side of the river, and made his escape." — Church, 62. '
* Akkompoin, according to Church.
340 NOTES TO CANTO FIRST.
Stanza XII.
South from the tangled swamp that spread Beloiv the mount, an upland rose. ♦' Philip was now upon a little spot of upland, that was in the south end of the miry swamp, just at the foot of the mount, which was a spot of ground that Captain Church was well acquainted with." — Idem, 70.
So spreads beneath the liquid surge. *' The Indians," says C. Mather, " covered themselves with green boughs, a subtilty of the same nature, though not of the same colour, that they affirm to be used by the cuttle-fish."
Stanza XIII.
The Paniese. " The counsellors of the Indian kings in New-England were termed the Paniese. These were not only the wisest, but largest and bravest men to be found among their subjects. They were the immediate guard of their respective sachems, who made neither war nor peace, nor attempted any weighty affair, without their advice." "These paniese, or ministers of state, were in league with the priests, or powaws. To keep the people in awe, they pretended, as well as the priests, to have converse with the invisible world, and that Hobbamock* often appeared to them." — Trumbull.
Stanza XIV.
When in his royalties he sate. " The moon now shining bright, he saw him [Annawon] at a distance coming with something in his hands, and coming up to Captain Church, he fell upon his knees before him, and offered him what he had brought, and speaking in plain English, said, " Great Captain, you have killed Philip, and conquered his country ; for I believe that I and my company are the last that war against the English, so suppose the war is ended by your means ; and therefore these things belong unto you." Then opening his pack, he pulled out Philip's belt, curiously wrought with wompom, being nine inches broad, wrought with black and white wompom, in various figures and flowers, and pictures of many birds and beasts. This, when hung upon Captain Church's shoulders, reached his ankles ; and another
* Supposed by the English to be the devil. See Notes to Canto IV.
NOTES TO CANTO FIRST. 341
belt of wompom he presented him with, wrought after the former manner, which PhiUp was wont to put upon his head ; it had two flags on the back part, which hung down on his back ; and another small belt with a star upon the end of it, which he used to hang on his breast ; and they were all edged with red hair, which Annawon said they got in the Mohog's country. Then he pulled out two horns of glazed powder, and a red cloth blanket. He told Captain Church these were Philip's royalties, which he was wont to adorn himself with when he sat in state." — Church, p. 84. I have seen a cape made of feathers, said to have been Philip's, and a pouch of the same materials, at Brown College, in Providence. The Antiquarian Society in Rhode-Island profess, I believe, to have his scull.
Stanza XV.
As the payither^s sight. I am well aware that there is, properly, no such American animal ; but it is a better sounding word, in poetry, than cat of the mountain, &c. I have also called a couguar a tiger, in the sixth Canto, to avoid a repetition of the word.
The crystal wave Where the spirit dwells in his northern cave. " About thirty miles below the falls of St. Anthony, at which I arrived the tenth day after 1 left Lake Pepin, is a remarkable cave of an amazing depth. The Indians term it Wakon-teebe, that is, the Dwelling of the Great Spirit. The entrance into it is about ten feet wide, the height of it five feet. The arch within it is near fifteen feet high and about thirty feet broad. The bottom of it consists of fine clear sand. About twenty feet from the entrance begins a lake, the water of which is transparent, and extends to an unsearchable distance ; for the darkness of the cave prevents all attempts to acquire a knowledge of it. I threw a small pebble towards the interior parts of it with my utmost strength : I could hear that it fell into the water, and notwithstanding it was of so small a size, it caused an astonishing and horrible noise that reverberated through all those gloomy regions. I found in this cave many Indian hieroglyphics, which appeared very ancient, for time had nearly covered them with moss, so that it was with difficulty I could trace them. They were cut in a rude manner upon the inside of the walls, which were composed of a stone so extremely soft that it might easily be penetrated with a knife ; a stone everywhere to be found near the Mississippi. The cave is only accessible by ascending a narrow steep pas- sage that lies near the brink of the river." — Carver's Travel^ p. 39, 40.
342 NOTES TO CANTO FIRST.
Stanza XIX.
Yet does our warm breath buoyant rise, &c.
" Whither is that breath flown, which a few hours ago sent up smoke to the Great Spirit 1" — Carver^s Travels, p. 282. The usual Indian meta- phors for war and peace are generally known. — " Straight roads, smooth waters, clear sky, smoking the white calumet on a beaver blanket under the tree of peace, the war kettle," &c. &c. are terms familiar to all who have looked into Colden's History of the Five Nations, Carver's Travels, &c. I have not, therefore, thought it needful to make any note on particular ex- pressions of this description. The following list of metaphors is extracted from Heckewelder, and comprises, I believe, most of those employed in the text.
" * The sky is overcast with dark blustering clouds.' We shall have troublesome times ; we shall have war. — ' A black cloud has arisen yonder.' War is threatened from that quarter, or from that nation. — ' The path is already shut up.' HostiUties have commenced ; the war is begun. — ' The rivers run with blood.' War rages in the country. — ' To bury the hatchet.' To make or conclude a peace. — ' To lay down the hatchet, or to slip the hatchet under the bedstead.' To cease fighting for a while, during a truce ; or, to place the hatchet at hand, so that it may be taken up again at a moment's warning. — ' The hatchet you gave me was very sharp.' As you have satisfied me, I have done the same for you ; I have killed many of your enemies. — ' Singing birds.' Tale-bearers, story-tellers, liars. — * Don't listen to the singing of the birds which fly by.' Don't believe what stragglers tell you. — * To kindle a council fire at such a place.' To appoint a place where the national business is to be transacted ; to establish the seat of government there. — * I will place you under my wings.' (Meaning under my arm-pits.) I will protect you at all hazards ; you shall be perfectly safe ; nobody shall molest you. — * Suffer no grass to grow on the war-path.' Carry on the war with vigour. — ' To open a path from one nation to another, by removing the logs, brush, and briers out of the way.' To invite the nation to which the path leads to a friendly intercourse ; to prepare the way to live on friendly terms with them. — 'I have covered yon spot with fresh earth ; I have raked leaves, and planted trees thereon ;' means, literally, I have hidden the grave from your eyes ; and figuratively, you must now be cheerful again ! — ' To bury deep in the earth' (an injury done). To consign it to oblivion." — Heckewelder, p. 125, 126, 127, 128, 129.
As the wretch by subtle sorcerer near. " It is incredible to what a degree the superstitious belief in witchcraft operates on the mind of an Indian. The moment his imagination is struck with £he idea he is bewitched, he is no longer himself. Of this extraordinary
NOTES TO CANTO FIRST. 343
power of their conjurers, of the causes which produce it, and the manner in which it is acquired, they have not a very definite idea. The sorcerer, they think, makes use of some deadening substance, which he conveys to the person he means to ' strike,' in a manner which they can neither under- stand nor describe. The person thus ' stricken' is immediately seized with an unaccountable terror. His spirits sink, his appetite fails, he is disturbed in his sleep, he pines and wastes away, or a fit of sickness seizes him, and he dies at last a miserable victim to the workings of his own imagination." — Heckeivelder, 229-231. See also Carver, Charlevoix, Bartram, Hearne, &c. referred to in Dr. Jarvis's discourse on the religion of the Indian tribes, &c. delivered before the N. Y. Historical Society, December 20, 1819. And see notes to Canto IV. Dr. Jarvis, p. 51, takes notice of the mistake, made by Carver and others, in confounding the jongleurs, or jugglers (in English), with the priests. The expression, sorcerer, made use of in the text, alludes to the former order. I have generally, however, termed them pow-wahs, and their brethren, who followed the more regular practice, prophets. It is somewhat singular that Mr. Southey, in one of his ' Songs of the North- American Indians,' should put the French term jongleur in the mouth of a native.
Like the coward ghosts whom the hark of stone. " They believe (the Chepewyans) that immediately after their death they pass into another world, where they arrive at a large river, on which they embark in a stone canoe, and that a gentle current bears them on to an extensive lake, in the centre of which is a most beautiful island ; and that in the view of this dehghtful abode, they receive that judgment for their con- duct during Ufe which terminates their final state and unalterable allotment. If their good actions are declared to predominate, they are landed upon the island, where there is to be no end to their happiness ; which, however, according to their notions, consists in an eternal enjoyment of sensual pleasure and carnal gratification. But if their bad actions weigh down the balance, the stone canoe sinks at once, and leaves them up to their chins in water,, to behold and regret the reward enjoyed by the good, and eternally struggling, but with unavailing endeavours, to reach the blissful island from which they are excluded for ever." — Mackenzie's Voyages, p. 84, Neiv- York edit. 1802.
The hunters came, the charm they brought.
It is said in Bartram's Travels that the deer are enticed by the olive leaves.
344 NOTES TO CANTO FIRST.
Stanza XXI.
Taubut. " Thank you." — Heckewelder. As fierce the enclosing circle burns. " Les chasseurs se rangent sur quatre lignes, qui forment un tres grand quarre, et commencent par mettre le feu aux herbes, qui sontseches alors, et fort hautes ; puis, a mesure que le feu gagne, ils avancent en se reserrant. Les bcsufs, qui craignent extremement le feu, fuyent toujours, et se trouvent a la fin si serres les uns contre les autres, qu'on les tue ordinairement jusqu'au dernier." " Quand il [le boeuf j est blesse il est furieux, et se retoume sur les chasseurs." — Charlevoix, torn. iii. 131.
Stanza XXII [.
Miantonimo^s honoured head. I know not if the quantity of this word be correct. Miantonimo was the chief sachem of the Narragansets, and was defeated and taken prisoner in a pitched battle with Uncas, who cut off his head and sent it to the English. They stuck it on a pole, in terrorum., anno 1643, Canonchet was Mianto- nimo's son. He was captured in 1676 by the Connecticut forces and their Indian confederates, the Mohegans and Niantics, under their sachem, old Ninigret. Canonchet was one of the most gallant chieftains of that day. A very interesting account, too long to be inserted, is given of his capture, in Hubbard, p. 159-162. He was honourably shot by some Mohegans of his own rank. Mr. Irving has mentioned him in his life of Philip. Panoquin was the friend of Canonchet, and also a sub-sachem among the Narragan- sets.— Hubbard. Mather''s Magnalia. Increase Mather, &c.
Ne^er from his path shall traveller turUf
Beside their grassy mound to mourn. *' But on whatever occasion they [the Indians' mounds] may have been made, they are of considerable notoriety among the Indians : for a party passing, about thirty years ago, through the part of the country where this barrow is, went through the woods directly to it, without any instructions or inquiry ; and having staid about for some time, with expressions which were construed to be those of sorrow, they returned to the high road, which they had left about half a dozen miles to pay this visit, and pursued their jour- ney."— Jefferson's Notes, p. 161, 162.
NOTES TO CAIVTO FIRST. 345
Stanza XXIV.
The hatt'.e-god. " II paroit, madame, que dans ces chansons on invoque le dieu de la guerre, que les Hurons appellent Areakoui et les Iroquois Agreskou6. Je ne S5ai pas quel nom ou lui donne dans les langues Algonquines." " UAres- koui des Hurons et PAgreskoue des Iroquois est dans I'opinion de ces peuples le Souverain Etre, et le Dieu de la Guerre." — Charlevoix, III. 207-344. I do not know, any better than Father Charlevoix, the name of the war-god among the Lenape ; but find a totally different word for the verb to make tear, which, in the Iroquois, is derived from the name of the deity. The New-England Indians, I believe, had no such person in their mythology.* The word is, therefore, improperly put into King Philip's mouth, Mr. Camp- bell writes it Ariouski, in " Gertrude of Wyoming."
Stanza XXV.
So where atjirst xoith gurgling rush. " I observed that the main body of the Fox river came from the south- west, that of the Ouisconsin from the north-east. That two such rivers should take their rise so near each other, and after running different courses, empty themselves into the sea, at a distance so amazing (for the former, having passed through several great lakes, and run upwards of two thou- sand miles, falls into the Gulf of St. Lawrence ; and the other, after joining the Mississippi, and having run an equal number of miles, disembogues itself into the Gulf of Mexico), is an instance scarcely to be met in the extensive continent of North America. I had an opportunity, the year following, of making the same observations on the affinity of various head branches of the waters of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi [which] in some places ap- proached so near that I could have stepped from the one to the other." — Car- ver^ s Travels, p. 28.
Stanza XXVI.
Eyikindles at polluted fires — The stem must crack. " They will not suffer any belonging to them to fetch such things as are necessary, even fire, from these retreats, though the want is attended with the greatest inconvenience. They are also so superstitious as to think, if a
* See the notes to Canto IV. VOL. I. X X
346 NOTES TO CA?«TO FIRST.
pipe-stem cracks, which among them is made of wood, that the possessor hss lighted it at one of these polluted fires," &c. — Carver'' s Travels^ p. 152. This alludes to a particular custom, to which the simile in the text has no reference. See, also, for that custom, Adair^s History of the Narth Ameri- can Indians. M^Kenzie^s History of the Fur Trade, p. 87. Star in the West, ly Dr. Boiidinot, &c. and the notes to Canto IV.
Stanza XXVII.
No Weko-lis shall ever sing. " The Indians say that when the leaf of the white oak, which puts fortlx in the spring, is of the size of the ear of a mouse, it is time to plant corn '^ they observe that now the whipperwill has arrived, and is continually hover- ing over them, calling out his Indian name ' Wekolis,'' in order to remind them of the planting time, * Hackihack P go to planting corn !" — Heckcwcldcr, p. 305. Carver, mentioning the same circumstance, says, the Indians term the bird " Muckawiss.''—-^. 310.
The blasting icind ivith -poisoned breath. The mortality among the Indians, previous to the coming of the English, has been mentioned before, in the note from Gookiii, on the Pawkanawkutts- And see notes to Canto III.
The Owannox. This was the name given to the English by the Indians. Thus, when the enemy approached Mystic Fort, the sentry of the Pequods cried out, O wanux ! O wanux ! or, as C. Mather has it, Wannux ! Wannux ! — Mag- nalia, VII. 42.
The gloomy ghosts of dead renown. Is, I perceive, borrowed from Young, —
The melancholy ghosts of dead renown, All point to earth, and hiss at human pride !
Stanza XXVIII.
The council fire. " One house, one Jlre, and one canoe, is to say that they constituted to- gether one people, one family." — Heckeweldcr, 79.
Mysterious as the icave, Wliere Huron disembogues its tides. I transcribed these lines hastily, without referring to their precise allu- sion. 'The second line may be stricken out, without injuring the sense of the
NOTES TO CAXTO FIRST. 347
passage. Those, however, who are disposed to be captious, are perfectly- welcome to all the blunders / may have committed, here and elsewhere.
" I had like to have omitted a very extraordinary circumstance relative to these straits (Michillimackinack). According to observation, made by the French, while they were in possession of the fort, although there is no di- urnal flood or ebb to be perceived in these waters, yet, from an exact atten- tion to their state, a periodical alteration in them has been discovered. It was observed that they rose by gradual, but almost imperceptible degrees, till they had reached the height of about three feet. This was accomplished in seven years and a half; and in the same space they as gently decreased, till they had reached their former situation ; so that in fifteen years they had completed this inexplicible revolution/' — Carver, ip. 92.
Stanza XXX.
Go hotel around the walls of heaven ! *' He," the Prophet, " likewise told me, that departed souls always went southward ; and that the diiference between the good and bad was this — •that the former were admitted into a beautiful town, with spiritual walls, or walls agreeable to the nature of souls ; and that the latter would for ever iiover round those walls, and in vain attempt to get in," &c. — Diary of David Brainerd. — E. See also Carver, p. 251. M^Kenzie, Sec. &c.
The white mail's arms. Cotton Mather thus pathetically laments the introduction of fire-arms among the Indians. " After this the Land rested from War for forty Years together, even until the Sins of the Land called for a new Scourge ; and the Indians, by being taught the use of Guns, which hitherto they had not learnt, were more capable to be made the instruments of inflicting it. The ' English Interest in America must at last, with Bleeding Lamentations, cry out Heu I potior telis vulnera facta meis. For after this, the Auri sacra Fames, that cursed Hunger of Lucre, in the diverse Nations of Europeans here, in diverse Colonies bordering upon one another, soon furnished the Savages with Tools to destroy those that furnish'd them ; — Tvols pregnant with infernal flamc,^^ &c. — Magnalla, VII. 44. The Dutch sold great quantities of fire-arms to the Indians.
Stanza XXXI.
By Sassacoiis^ honoured hones.
This mode of expression is, I believe, improper for an Indian. The author last quoted has this curious remark, speaking of the destruction of the Pe-
348 KOTES TO CANTO FIRST.
quod fort. " When they came to see the ashes of their friends mingled •with the ashes of the fort, and the bodies of so many of their Country terri- bly Barhikew'd, where the English had been doing a good morning's work, they Howl'd, they Roar'd, they stamp'd, they tore their hair ; and though they did not Swear {for they knew not how!) yet they Cursed, and were the Pictures of so many Devils in Desperation."— iJfa^naZm, VII. 43.
In the fierce Maqua's clime. The Indians in the western parts of Connecticut were tributary to the Mohawks. The cry of " a Mohawk ! a Mohawk !" struck them with uni- versal panic. The Mohawks announced their coming by the shout, " We are coming, we are coming, to suck your blood !" See Colden's History, vol. i. p. 3., and Trumbull, p. 56. These conquerors made a descent upon Philip's confederates, during this war, and destroyed numbers of them. See the notes to Canto III;
Stanza XXXII.
That Philip killed an Indian for proposing terms of peace, and that the brother, or friend, of the deceased, betrayed the sachem's haunts to the Eng- lish, are historical facts, recorded by all the contemporary historians of that day. Cotton Mather says, — " A man belonging to Philip himself, being dis- gusted at him for killing an Indian, who had propounded an expedient of peace wiih the English, ran away from him to Rhode Island, where Captahi Church was then recruiting of his weary forces." — Magnalia, VII. 45. " One of Philip^s men (being disgusted at him, for kiUing an Indian, who had propounded an expedient for peace with the English), ran away from him, and coming to Road Island, informed," &c. — -Increase Mather, p. 46. " Such had been his inveterate malice and wickedness against the English, that, despairing of mercy from them, he could not hear that any thing should be suggested to him about a peace, insomuch as he caused one of his confederates to be killed, for propounding an expedient of peace ; which so provoked some of his company, not altogether so desperate as himself, that one of them (being near of kin to him that was killed), fled to Road Island," &c. — Hubbard, old edit. p. 103. See Captain Church's account in a note to Canto III. As to the mode of Agamoun's execution, it is, I believe, justi- fiable.
" The Sachem was not only examiner, judge, and executioner, in all crim- inal cases, but in all matters of justice between one man and another. The Sachem whipped the delinquent, and slit his nose, in cases which required these punishments ; and he killed the delinquent, unless he were at a great distance. In this case, in which execution could not be done with his own hands, he sent his knife, by which it was effected. The Indians would not
NOTES TO CANTO FIRST. 349
receive any punishment that was not capital, from the hnnrls of any except their Sachems. The Sachems were so absolute in their government, that they contemned the limited authority of the English governors." — Trum- bull, p. 52, 53.
" In the time of Bacoii's rebellion, one of these Werowances [Virginia Sachems], attended by several others of his nation, was treating with the English in New Kent county, about a Peace ; and during the time of his Speech, one of his Attendants presum'd to interrupt him, which he resented as the most unpardonable Affront that could be offered him, and therefore he instantly took his Tomahaivk from his girdle, and split the Fellow's head, for his presumption. The poor Fellow dying immediately upon the spot, he commanded some of his men to carry him out, and went on again with his Speech where he left off, as unconcern'd as if nothing had happen'd." — His- tory of Virginia, p. 194.
Stanza XXXIV.
The brave, the generous Annawon, See a note to Canto V.
As in his dream the Initiate's faith. See a sisri^sequent note to this Canto.
Their courage is an old year''s flame. " The Indians esteem the old year's fire as a most dangerous pollution, regarding only the supposed holy fire, which the Archimagus annually re- news for the people." — Adair, p. 22.
The insatiate hawk. "The Cheerake Indians have a pointed proverbial expression, signifying < The great hawk is at home.' " — Adair, p. 17, speaking of the Indian con- tempt of avarice.
Since childhood''s earlier moons were dead, &c.
The following extracts relate to what some writers call " making black boys," and Mr. Heckewelder, " the initiation of boys." See the notes to Dr. Jarvis's discourse ; and to the Fourth Canto.
" I do not know how to give a better name (initiation of boys) to a super- stitious practice which is very common among the Indians, and, indeed, is universal among those nations that I have become acquainted with. By cer- tain methods which I shall presently describe, they put the^mind of a boy in a state of perturbation, so as to excite dreams and visions ; by means of which they pretend that the boy receives instructions from certain spirits or
350 NOTES TO CANTO FIRST.
unknown agrents as to his mnduot in life, that he is informed of his future destination, and of the wonders he is to perform in his future career through- out the world.
" When a boy is to be thus initiated, he is put under an alternate course of physic and fasting, either taking no food whatever, or swallowing the mest powerful and nauseous medicines, and occasionally he is made to drink decoctions of an intoxicating nature, until his mind becomes sufficiently be- wildered, so that he sees, or fancies that he sees, visions, and has extraordi- nary dreams, for which, of course, he has been prepared beforehand. He will fancy himself flying through the air, walking under ground, stepping from one ridge or hill to the other across the valley beneath, fighting and conquering giants and monsters, and defeating whole hosts by his single arm. Then he has interviews with the Mannitto, or with spirits, who inform him of what he was before he was born, and what he will be after his death. His fate in this life is laid entirely open before him, the spirit tells him what is to be his future employment, whether he will be a valiant warrior, a mighty hunter, a doctor, a conjuror, or a prophet. There are even those who learn, or pretend to learn, in this way, the time and manner of their death.
" When a boy has been thus initiated, a name is given to him analogous to the visions that he has seen, and to the destiny that is supposed to be pre- pared for him. The boy, imagining all that happened to him while under perturbation to have been real, sets out in the world with lofty notions of himself, and animated with courage for the most desperate undertakings. They could always cite numerous instances of valiant men, who, in former times, in consequence of such dreams, had boldly attacked their enemy with nothing but the Tamahican in their hand, had not looked about to survey the number of their opponents, but had gone straight forward, striking all down before them." — Heckewelder, p. 238-9.
The extract which follows, is, perhaps, as satisfactory an explanation of ihis singular custom, as any that has been given since the author's time. The same, or similar rites, being used by the Indians of the north, probably gave occasion to the same superstition among the settlers there, as was en- tertained by those of the south ; namely, that the savages sacrificed their children to Moloch, or the Devil.
'* The Indians have their altars and places of sacrifice. Some say, they now and then sacrifice young children : but they deny it, and assure us, that when they withdraw their children, it is not to sacrifice them, but to conse- crate them to the service of their god. Smith tells of one of these Sacrifices in his time, from the Testimony of some People who had been Eye-wit- nesses. His Words are these." Here follows a quotation from Smith, re- ferred to in the notes to Dr. Jarvis's Discourse. He then proceeds ; " I take this story of Smith's to be only an example of Huskanawing, which, being a ceremony then altogether unknown to him, he might easily mistake some of the Circumstances of it.
NOTES TO CANTO FillST. 351
" The solemnity of the Huskanawing is commonly practis'd once every fourteen or sixteen years, or oftener, as their young Men happen to grow up. It is an Institution or Discipline which all young Men must pass, before they can be admitted to be of the Number of the great Men, Officers, or Cocka- rouses of the Nation ; whereas by Captain S)nilh's Relation, they were only set apart to supply the Priesthood. The whole ceremony of Huskanawing is performed after the following manner : —
*' The choicest and briskest young Men of the Town, and such only as have acquired some Treasure by their Travels and Hunting, are chosen out by the Rulers to be Huskanaiced ; and whoever refuses to undergo this Process, dares not remain among them. Several of those odd preparatory Fopperies are premis'd in the Beginning, which have been before related ; but the principal Part of the Business is, to carry them into the Woods, and there keep them under Confinement, and destitute of all Society, for several Months ; giving them no other Sustenance, but the Infusion or Decoction of some poisonous, intoxicating Roots ; by virtue of which Physick, and by the severity of the Discipline which they undergo, they become stark staring Mad : In which raving Condition they are kept eighteen or twenty Days; During these Extremities, they are shut up. Night and Day, in a strong In- closure, made on Purpose, one of which I saw, belonging to the Pamaunkie Indians, in the year 1694. It was in Shape like a Sugar-loaf, and every way open like a lattice, for the air to pass through. In this Cage, thirteen young men had been Huskanaw''d, and had not been a Month set at liberty when I saw it. Upon this Occasion it is pretended, that these poor Creatures drink so much of that Water of Lethe, that they perfectly lose the Remembrance of all former Things, even of their Parents, their Treasure, and their Lan- guage. When the Doctors find that they have drank sufficiently of the Wysoccan (so they call this mad Potion), they gradually restore them to their senses again, by lessening the Intoxication of their Diet; but before they are perfectly well, they bring them back into their Towns, while they are still wild and crazy, through the Violence of the Medicine. After this they are very fearful of discovering any thing of their former Remembrance ; for if such a thing should happen to any of them they must immediately be Huskanaw\l again. Thus they unlive their former Lives, and commence Men, by forgetting that they ever have been Boys. The Indians pretend that this violent Method of taking away the Memory, is to release the Youth from all their childish Impressions, and from that strong Partiality to Per- sons and Things which is contracted before Reason comes to take place." — History of Firgima, p. 175, 176, 177, 178, 179.
This too oft sung the illumined priest. " One thing," says Dr. Mather, " which imboldened King PhiHp in all his Outrages, was an assurance which his Magicians, consulting their Orar.les, gave him, that no Englishman should ever kill him ; and indeed if
352 NOTES TO CANTO FIRST.
any Englishman might have had the honour of Killing him, he must have had a good measure of Grace to have repressed the Vanity of Mind whereto he would have had some Temptations. But this will not extend the Life of that Bloody and Crafty Wretch above half his days /" — Magnalia, VII. p. 54.
Stanza XXXV.
Yamoyden. A word euphonized by my deceased friend, I beUeve, from some more un- couth name. All the letters, however, belong to the alphabet of these Indians. The rude sound of the Indian names was distressing to the writers of Philip's age, as appears from several remarks of Mather, and others. The author of some verses, meant to be complimentary, prefixed to Hubbard's Narrative, calls them,
" Names uncouth which ne'er Minshew could reduce, By's Polly glotton to the vulgar use." With all due deference, however, the appellations of many of these chief- tains, particularly in the vicinity of Narraganset bay, if connected with classical associations, would seem full as sonorous as the names of the ancient heroes.
Prove if the spirits yet he dumb — The sacrifice of blood. See notes to Cantos III. and IV.
NOTES TO CANTO SECOND.
The Virgin Mother's meek full eye. "Christ himself, and the Virgin Mary had most beautiful eys, as amiable eys as any person, saith Barradius, that ever lived ; but withall so modest, so chaste, that whosoever looked on them, was freed from that passion of burning lust ; if we may beUeve Gerson and Bonaventure, there was no such antidote against it as the Virgin Marie's face." — Burton^ s Anat. Mel.
Stanza III
Round moon. So the Indians term the full moon. — Heckewelder, p. 307.
Stanza V.
Sad Nora sits. The name of the heroine was, in the original copy, scriptural. My friend afterward altered it ; and I have left the one he selected.
A Nipnet chieftain wooed and won
Her virgin love. I believe no example is on record, of a Christian woman, of any refine- ment, voluntarily leaving her friends, and going off with an Indian. There have been many instances where they have been carried off by the savages ; and after having become used to their mode of life, refused to return to their connexions. La Hontan and Charlevoix are at issue, on a point respecting the taste of the French women. I quote from a poor translation of the former author, not having the original work. Speaking (jf the conduct of the savages, at the fair at Montreal, after they have intoxicated themselves a little, he says, — "'Tis a comical sight to see 'em running from shop to VOL. I. Y Y
354 NOTES TO CANTO SECOND.
shop, stark naked, with their bow and arrow. The nicer sort of women are wont to hold their fans before their eyes, to prevent their being frighted with the view of their ugly parts. But these merry Companions, who know the brisk She-Merchants as well as we, are not wanting in making an offer, which is sometimes accepted of, when the present is tempting. If we may credit the common report, there are more than one or two of the Ladies of this country, whose Constancy and Vertue have held out against the attacks of several officers, and at the same time vouchsafed a free access to these homely paramours. 'Tis presum'd their Compliance was the effect of Curi- osity, rather than of any nice Relish ; for, in a word, the Savages are neither brisk nor constant. But whatever is the matter, the women are the more ex- cusable upon this Head, that such opportunities are very unfrequent." — La Honlari's Voyage to N. America^ do7ie into English, London, 1703.
" Si par hazard, Madame, vous tombez sur le livre de la Hontan, ou il est parle de cette Foire, donnez vous bien de garde de prendre tout ce qu'il en dit pour des verites. La vraisemblance n'y est pas m^me gardee. Les Femmes des Montreal n'ont jamais donne lieu a. ce que cet Auteur y met sur leur compte, et il n'y a rien a craindre pour leur honneur de la part des Sau- vages. II est sans exemple qu'aucun d'eux ait jamais pris la moindre liberty avec les Frangoises, lors m6me qu'elles ont ete leurs Prisonnieres. IPs n'en sont pas m^me tenths, et il seroit a souhaiter que les Francois eus- sent le meme degout des Sauvagesses. La Hontan ne pouvoit pas ignorer ce qui est de notoriete publique en ce Pays ; mais il vouloit egayer ses Me- moires, et pour y reussir, toutlui ^toit bon," &c. — Charlevoix, III. p. 142-3.
Stanza VII.
The shores where the loife of the giant was thrown. There is a tradition, preserved in the Mass. Hist. Society, vol. i. p. 137, of the Indians on one of the islands near Narraganset bay. They say that a giant, called Moshup, one of their ancestors, getting in a passion with his wife, hurled her through the air, and she dropped on Seaconet Point. There she beguiled those who were passing on the water with a melancholy song, which drew them to the shore, where she made them pay her tribute. She finally turned into stone.
Stanza IX.
The ivakon bird descends from heaven. " The Wakon bird, as it is termed by the Indians, appears to be of the same species as the birds of paradise. The name they have given it is ex- pressive of its superior excellence and the veneration they have (oi it ; the
NOTES TO CANTO SECOND. 355
Wakon bird being in their language the bird of the Great Spirit. It ig nearly the size of a swallow, of a brown colour, shaded about the neck with a bright green ; the wings are of a darker brown than the body ; its tail is composed of four or five feathers, which are three times as long as its body, and which are beautifully shaded with green and purple. It carries this fine length of plumage in the same manner as a peacock does," &c. — Carver, p. 814. Wakon, however, is the term for God, or the Great Spirit, in the Nau- dowessie dialect. In the language of the Algonquins, Chippewyans, &c. which is radically the same with that of the New-England Indians, the name of the Deity, or Good Spirit, is Kitchi Manitou ; as that of bad Spirits is Matchi Manitou. The term used in the text is therefore improper, as is also (though less objectionable, as it is applied), the phrase Wakon cave, employed in the Fourth Canto.
The great good Spirit'* s beloved speech.
According'to Adair, the Southern Indians termed the sacred traditions of their forefathers, " the beloved speech."
Stanza XL
Wept like the roebuck when he flies.
" On dit qu'il [le Chevreuil j jette des larmes, lorsqu'il se voit poussd a bout par les chasseurs." — Charlevoix, III. p. 132.
Stanza XII.
I sought Seaconci^s queen. Awashonks, the " Sunke Squaw" of Seaconet, shortly before this time, had submitted, with ninety of her warriors, to Major Bradford. Her Indians accompanied the English in their last chase after Philip. See Magnalia, VII. 53. Hubbard, new edit., 213. Church, 21, 43, &c.
Hunter genii.
Charlevoix mentions a feast in honour of what may be supposed to be the Hunter Genius, p. 118.
The wily red fox leap,
To snare the sportive birds.
*' Les Renards donnent la chasse aux oiseaux de Riviere, d'une maniere
fort ingenieuse. lis s'avancent un peu dans I'Eau, puis se retirent et font
cent cabrioles sur le Rivage. Les Canards, les Outards, et d'autres Oiseaux
semblables, que ce jeu divertit, s'approchent du Renard ; quand il les voit a
356 NOTES TO CANTO SECOND.
sa portee, il se tient fort tranquile d'abord, pour ne les point effaroucher, il renmue seulement sa Queue, comme pour les attirer de plus pres, et ces sots Animaux donnent dans le piege, jusqu'a becquetter cette Queue. Alors Je Renard saute dessus, et manque rarement son coup." — Charlcvoixy III. p. 183.
;;, , " Balmy fountains of the west.
*' Un officier digne de foi m'a assure avoir vu une Fontaine, dont I'Eau est comme de I'Huile, et a le gout de Fer. II m'a ajoutfe qu'un peu plus loin, il y en a une autre toute semblable, et que les Sauvages se servent de son Eau, pour appaiser toutes sortes de douleurs." — Idem. p. 224.
Stanza XIII.
The wanderer of the lonely place
Waylaid, and tortured to confess. " They soon captivated the Numponsets, and brought them in, not one escaping. This stroke he [Church] held several weeks, never returning empty handed. When he wanted intelligence of their kennelling places, he would march to some place likely to meet with some travellers or ramblers, and scattering his company, would lie close, and seldom lay above a day or two, at the most, before some of them would fall into his hands, whom he would compel to inform where their company was ; and so, by his method of secret and sudden surprises, took great numbers of them prisoners." — Church. — E.
All the pure waters of thy faith.
The savages, naturally enough, ascribed supernatural effects to the sacra- ment of Baptism. — See Charlevoix, 249.
Stanza XVI.
" The river St. Mary has its source from a vast lake, or marsh, called Ou- aquaphenogan, which lies between Flint and Oukmulge rivers, and occupies a space of near three hundred miles in circuit. This vast accumulation of waters in the wet season, appears as a lake, and contains some large islands, or knolls, of rich high land ; one of which the present generation of the Creeks represent to be a most blissful spot of the earth: they say it is in- Ijabited by a peculiar race of Indians, whose women are incomparably beau- tiful ; they also tell you that this terrestrial paradise has been seen by some Qf their enterprising hunters, when in pursuit of game, who, being lost in^ inextricable swamps and bogs, and on the point of perishing, were unex-
NOTES TO CANTO SECOND. 357
pectedly relieved by a company of beautiful women, whom they call daugh- ters of the sun, who kindly gave them such provisions as they had with them, which were chiefly fruit, oranges, dates, &c. and some corn cakes, and then enjoined them to fly for safety to their own country ; for that their husbands were fierce men, and cruel to strangers : they further say that these hunters had a view of their settlements, situated on the elevated banks of an island, or promontory, in a beautiful lake ; but that in their endeavours to approach it they were in perpetual labyrinths, and, like enchanted land, still as they imagined they had just gained it, it seemed to fly before them, alternately appearing and disappearing. They resolved, at length, to leave the delusive pursuit, and to return ; which, after a number of inexpressible difficulties, they effected. When they reported their adventures to their countrymen, their young warriors were inflamed with an irresistible desire to invade, and make a conquest of, so charming a country ; but all their attempts hitherto have proved abortive, never having been able again to find that enchanting spot, nor even any road or pathway to it ; yet they say that they frequently meet with certain signs of its being inhabited, as the building of canoes, footsteps of men, &c. They tell another story concerning the inhabitants of this sequestered country, which seems probable enough, which is, that they are the posterity of a fugitive remnant of the ancient Yameses, who escaped massacre after a bloody and decisive conflict between them and the Creek nation (who, it is certain, conquered, and nearly exterminated, that once powerful people), and here found an asylum, remote and secure from the fury of their proud conquerors." — BariranCs Travels through North and South Carolina, &c. London, 1 792, p. 25, 26.
Stanza XVII.
And she had heard an Indian tell,
Such sounds foreboded sudden bale. " As soon as night comes on, these birds will place themselves on the fences, stumps, or stones that lie near some house, and repeat their melan- choly notes without any variation till midnight. The Indians, and some of the inhabitants of the back settlements, think if this bird perches upon any house, that it betokens some mishap to the inhabitants of it." — Carver, 311.
It icas the soul of a love-lorn maid. The author of the " History of Virginia," before quoted, makes men- tion, p. 185, of a bird, said to contain the soul of one of their princes, by the Indians. Their ideas of the transmigration of souls are referred to in the notes to Canto V.
358 NOTES TO CANTO SECOND.
Stanza XX.
Each stepping where the first had gone. " They march one man behind the other, treading carefully in each other's steps, so that their number may not be ascertained by the prints of their feet." — Heckewelder.
NOTES TO CANTO THIRD.
Bright as the bird whom Indian legends sing, &c. " The notion which the Chepewyans entertain of the creation is of a very singular nature. 7 They believe that at the first the globe was one vast and entire ocean, inhabited by no living creature, except a mighty bird, whose eyes were fire, whose glances were lightnings, and the clapping of whose wings was thunder. On his descent to the ocean, and touching it, the earth instantly arose, and remained on the surface of the waters. This omnipo- tent bird then called forth all the variety of animals from the earth," &c. &c. — Mackenzie's Voyages, p. 74. — E.
Stanza I.
The garden of the deep. The island of Rhode Island has always been celebrated for its picturesque beauty, and the salubrity of its climate. Its surface is delightfully varied into hill and dale, wood and field, and unquestionably merits the appellation here bestowed. It was the rendezvous of the English colonists during the wars with Philip. — E.
Stanza X.
The plagues ivhich sleep
In earth's dark bosom buried deep.
As the poor savage deems.
It is mentioned in " New England's Memorial," that the Indians supposed the white men had the power of burying the smallpox under ground, or let- ting it escape among them. They were severely afflicted with this disease, particularly in the spring of 1634. Owing to their total w;«nt of comfort and cleanliness, few of them could escape, who caught it. " Being very sore,"
360 NOTES TO CANTO THIRD.
says the memorial, " what with cold and other distempers, they die like rotten sheep." Cotton Mather says, it was the plague, which Squanto told his countrymen the English kept in a cellar.
Stanza XII.
How oft the storm their larks delayed. The difficulties encountered by the first emigrants, in crossing the ocean, and after their arrival, are generally known. They are faithfully narrated in the Magnalia, Princess Chronological History^ N cw- England'' s Memorial^ Purchases Collections^ &c. and in the modern histories of Hutchinson, Trum- bull, &c. It would be useless to make any extracts in these brief notes, unless required by the text.
Stanza XIII.
A meteor fierce their herald came. " Some of the ancient Indians, that are surviving at the writing hereof, do affirm, that about some two or three years before the first English arrived here, they saw a blazing star, or comet, which was a forerunner of this sad mortality, for soon after it came upon them in extremity. Thus God made way for his people by removing the heathen." &c. — N, E. Memorial, Boston jninted, Newport reprinted, 1772. Of this mortality among the Indians, mentioned in the notes to Canto First, the Memorial says, — " The Lord was disposed much to waste them by a great mortality, together with which were their own civil dissensions and bloody wars, so as the twentieth person was scarce left alive when these people arrived ; there remaining sad spectacles of that mortality in the place where they seated, by many bones and skulls of the dead lying above-ground : whereby it appeared that the living of them were not able to bury them." Id. p. 25.
C.Mather, Magnalia, 1.7, speaking of this mortaUty, says, " It is remarkable that a Frenchman, who not long before these transactions had by a shipwreck been made a captive among the Indians of this country, did, as the survivors reported, just before he dy'd in their hands, tell these tawny Pagans that God, being angry with them for their wickedness, would not only destroy them all, but also people the place with another nation, which would not live after their brutish manners. Those infidels then blas- phemously reply'd, God could not kill them ; which blasphemous mistake was confuted by an horrible and unusual plague,'''' &c. This story is told more at length in N. E. Memorial, p. 29, 30.
NOTES TO CANTO TIiIRI>. 361
Their pow ah s met with purpose fell. ** But before I pass on, let the reader take notice of a very remarkable particub^r, which was made known to the planters at Plymouth some short space after their arrival ; that the Indians, before they came to the English to make friendship with them, got all the powahs in the country, who for three days together, in a horrid and devilish manner, did curse and execrate them with their conjurations ; which assembly and service they held in a dark and dismal swamp. Behold how Satan laboured to hinder the gospel from coming into New-England." — N. E. Memorial, p. 32.
Stanza XIV.
Gaunt famine came. That the miseries of this famine are not exaggerated may be seen by a reference to the authorities. ^
Crawled forth the myriad insect host. ^ . ,
•* It is to be observed, that the spring before this sickness there was a numerous company of flies, which were like for bigness unto wasps' bumble- bees ; they came out of little holes in the ground, and did eat up the green things, and made such a constant yelling noise as made the woods ring of them, and ready to deafen the hearers ; the Indians said that sickness would follow, and so it did very hot in the months of June, July, and August, of that summer." — N. E. Memorial^ 99. The account of the sickness is given in the same place.
On steril soil. — Oft Mazed their roofs with raging flame — And oft the fierce tornado came. See the same book, p. 43, 103, &c.
Stanza XV.
A mortal terror o'er them came. This circumstance is particularly dwelt upon by Nathaniel Morton (author of the Memorial), and C. Mather. VOL. I. Z Z
362 NOTES TO CANTO THIRD.
Stanza XVI.
When in their agonies they cried.
On Christ. "After the English of the Massachusetts were returned, the Pequots took their time and opportunity to cut off some of the English at Connecticut, as they passed up and d^wn upon their occasions ; and tortured some of them in putting them to death in a most barbarous manner, and most blasphem- ously in (the Pequots' horrible blasphemy) this their cruelty, bade them call upon their God, or mocked and derided them when they so did."— iV. E. Memorial, 107.
" Those who fell into their hands alive were cruelly tortured after a most barbarous manner, by insulting over their prisoners in a blasphemous wise, when in their dying agonies, under the extremity of their pains (their flesh being first slashed with knives, and then filled with burning embers), they called upon God and Christ, with gasping groans, resigning up their souls into their hands ; with which words these wretched caitiffs used to mock the Enghsh afterward, when they came within their hearing and view,"— Hubbard, p. 23, 24.
O^er daring sin — Prolific schism. — Alluding to the differences in religious opinions, which were so unsavoury in the nostrils of those worthy and stubborn sectarians, who had themselves emigrated that they .might enjoy the free exercise of their tenets. One Thomas Morton, at an early period, appears to have been particularly and deservedly obnoxious for his open profanity. See N. E. Memorial, p. 76, 77. Magnalia, &c. This man, among the other offences laid to his charge, is said to have sold guns and powder to the natives.
Wo to the worm whatever it be !
" But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered." — Jonah, c. iv. v. 7.
^'^ Y exha. T> oci. Arrow smith, in Orat. Antiweigeliana, Faxit' Deus Opti- mus, Maximus, tenacem adeo veritatis hanc Academiam, lit deinceps, in An- glia Lupum, in Hibernia Bufonem, invenire facilius sit, quam aut Socinia- num aut Arminianum in Cantabrigia." — Magnalia, iv. 138.
Stanza XVII.
On Moloch's streaming pyre. See the Notes to Canto IV.
NOTES TO CANTO THIRD. 363
Thus saith the Lord. Josh. c. 10. V. 8.
Stanza XVIII.
That polluted night That saw the. heathens'' damning rite. " The Indians took five or six of the English Prisoners ; and that the Reader may understand, crimijie ah uno, what it is to be taken by such Devils Incarnate, I shall here inform him : They Stripped these unhappy Prisoners, and caused them to run the Gantlet, and Whipped them after a Cruel and Bloody manner ; they then threw Hot Ashes upon them, and cutting off Collops of their Flesh, they put Fire into their Wounds, and so, with Ex- quisite, Leisurely, Horrible Torments, Roasted them out of the World." — Magnalia, vii. 51, b. " But now was the time for Deliverance ! There was an Evil Spirit of Dissention strangely sent among the Indians, which disposed them to separate from one another : The Dcemons, who visibly ex- hibited themselves among them at their Poi^ai/7?w^ or Conjuring, signified still unto them that they could now do no more for them : the Maquas, a Powerful Nation in the West, made a Descent upon them, ranging and raging through the Desart with irresistible Fury ; Fevers and Fluxes became Epidemical among them, &c. Ajid an unaccountable terror at the same time so Dispirited them, that they were like men under a Fascination." — Idem, p. 52, a.
" Whether for the loss of some of their own company in that day's enter- prise (said to be an hundred and twenty), or whether it was the devil in whom they trusted that deceived them, and to whom they made their address the day before by sundry conjurations of their powaws ; or whether it were by any dread that the Almighty sent upon their execrable blasphemies, which it is said they used in torturing some of their poor captives (bidding Jesus come and deliver them out of their hands from death, if he could), sure it is that after this day they never prospered in any attempt they made against the Entrlish, but were continually scattered and broken, till they were in a manner all consumed." — Hubbard, new ed. p. 186.
Then talked they of the sign beheld By their advancing troop. A central eclipse of the moon in Capricorn, according to Hubbard, hap- pened on the 26th of June, when some troops from Boston were on their march to Mount Hope. " Some melancholy fancies would not be persuaded but that the eclipse, falling out at that instant of time, was ominous, conceiving also that in the centre of the moon they discerned an unusual black spot, not a little resembling the scalp of an Indian: As others, not long. before,
364 NOTES TO CANTO THIRD.
imagined they saw the form of an Indian bow, accounting that likewise omi- nous (although the mischiefs following were done by guns, and not by bows). Both the one and the other might rather have thought of what Marcus Crassus, the Roman General, going forth with an army against the Parthians, once wisely replied to a private soldier, that would have dis- suaded him from marching that time, because of an eclipse of the moon in Capricorn, that he was more afraid of Sagittarius than of Capricornus, meaning the arrows of the Parthians." &c. — Hubbard, p. 74.
Cotton Mather recording this circumstance, has the same remark with respect to Sagittarius and Capricornus. This is not the only instance in which he condescends to borrow from Hubbard. The latter, speaking of the butchery in cold blood, of thirty Pequods, says, " They were turned pres- ently into Charon's ferryboat, under the command of Skipper Gallop, who despatched them a little without the harbor." This sentimental piece of wit is thus copied in the Magmalia, VII. p. 44. " They put the men on board a vessel of one Skipper Gallop, which proved a Charon's ferryboat unto thero> for it was found the quickest Way to feed the Fishes with 'em."
Nor this alone portended war. " Yea, and now we speak of things Ominous, we may add, Some time before this, in a Clear, Still, Sunshiny Morning, there were divers persons in Maiden who heard in the Air, on the South- East of them, a Great Gun go off, and presently thereupon the Report of Small Guns like M\isket Shot, very thick discharging, as if there had been a Battel. But that which most of all astonished them was the Flying of Bullets, which came Singing over their Heads, and seemed very near to them ; after which the sound of Drums passing along Westward was very Audible ; and on the same day, in Ply- mouth Colony, in several Places, invisible Troops of Horses were heard Riding to and fro." — Magnalia, VII. p. 46. For a further account of these prodigies, see Hubbard, p. 74, and Increase Mather, p. 34, who says he had the relation " from serious, faithfull, and Judicious hands, even of those who were ear-witnesses of these things."
Of timely rains, &c. There are several instances related of the interposition of Divine Provir dence in behalf of the English, during their conflicts with the Indians. One of the most remarkable is said to have happened at Bridgewater. We borrow the words of Hubbard. " The Indians presently began to fire the town, but it pleased God so to spirit and encourage several of the inhabit- ants, issuing out of their garrison houses, that they fell upon thom with great resolution, and beat them off; at the same instant of time, the Lord of Hosts also fighting for them from Heaven, by sending a storm of thunder and rain very seasonably, which prevented the burning of the houses which were fired." — E.
NOTES TO CANTO THIRD. 365
Stanza XX.
Darky even in youth, the orphan's fate. The story of Fitzgerald, previous to his emigration, is irrelevant to our subject. I have retained it, however, as it formed so considerable a portion of my friend's share of the poem. I have added three long stanzas, nar- rating the manner in which the daughter was won and carried off by the Indian. The ideas are probably borrowed from the wooing of Othello. How should they not be 1
Like eastern birds of Paradise. " Manucodiatae, eastern birds of Paradise, that doe live on aire and dew." — Burto7i's Anat. Mel.
Who follows not the torch of hope, &c. « Who builds not upon hope," says Sir Philip Sidney, " shall fear no earthquake of despair." — Aphorisms. So Seneca, in Medea,
Qui nil potest operare, desperet nihil. — E.
Stanza XXIV.
Wlien even the brother had imbued
His hands amid his brother'' s blood ;
The parent wept no more his son.
In that disastrous strife undone. Sed postquam tellus scelere est imbuta nefando, lustitiam que omnes cupida de mente fugaruHt, Perfudere manus fraterno sanguine fratres, Destitit extinctos natos lugere parentes, &c. &c.
Propertius, Epithal. Pelci et Thetidos.
. ^V" Stanza XXV.
Naseby'*s fatal plain. The decisive battle of Naseby was fought in the year 1645, with nearly equal forces, on the sides both of the king and parliament. The fortune of the day turned against Charles, and he was finally obliged to quit the field, with the loss of about eight hundred men ; though the parliament lost above a thousand. — E.
3GG NOTES TO CANTO THIRD.
Stanza XXVIII.
Perchance loo long alone she strayed, &c. "As fern grows in untild grounds, and all manner of weeds, so do grose humours in an idle body : ignavum corrumpunt otia corpus.'''' " Cozen ger- man to idleness, and a concomitant cause, which goes hand in hand with it, is nimia solitudo, too much solitude — which is either coact, enforced, or else voluntary." " Voluntary solitude is that which is familiar with melancholy, and gently brings on, like a Screw, a shooing horn, or some Sphinx, to this irrevocable gulf. Most pleasant it is at first, to such as are melancholy given, to lie in bed whole dayes, and keep their chambers, to walk alone in some solitary grove, betwixt wood and water, by a brook side, to meditate upon some delightsome and pleasant subject which shall aflfect them most; amabilis insania, and mentis gratissimus error,'''' &c. &c. — Anat. Mel.
Stanza XXIX.
Is it not written, &c. Deuteronomy, chap, vii. ver. 1-4.
Stanza XXX.
Up to the camp two horsemen rode. \ In the account of the means by which the intelligence of Philip was con- veyed, we have deviated, not materially, however, from historical accuracy, in order the better to interweave it with the story. We quote the following from Churches history. — " Not seeing or hearing of any of the enemy, they went over the ferry (from Pocasset) to Rhode Island, to refresh themselves. The Captain, with about half a dozen in his company, took horse and rid about eight miles down the island, to Mr. Sandford's, where he had left his wife ; who no sooner saw him but fainted with surprise ; and by that time she was a little revived, they spied two horsemen coming a great pace. Cap- tain Church told his company that those men (by their riding) came with tidings. When they came up they proved to be Major Sandford and Cap- tain Golding ; who immediately asked Captain Church, what he would give to hear some news of Philip? He reply 'd. That was what he wanted. They told him, They had rid hard with some hopes of overtaking him, and were now come on purpose to inform him, that there were just now tidino-s from Mount Hope ; an Indian came down from thence (where Philip's camp now was) on to Sand-point, over against Trip's, and halloo'd, and made signs to be fetched over, he reported, That he was fled from Philip, who,
NOTES TO CANTO THIRD. 367
(said he) has killed my brother just before I came away, for giving some advice there displeased him. And said, he was fled for fear of meeting with the same thing his brother had met with ; told them also. That Philip was now in Mount Hope neck." — E.
Stanza XXXIV.
And koto to dust by sorrow home, &c. " Sir" (said some of the Indians to Captain Church), " you have now made Philip ready to die, for you have made him as poor and miserable as he used to make the English ; for you have now killed or taken all his relations. That they believed he would now soon have his head, and that this bout had almost broke his heart." — Church. — E.
NOTES TO CANTO FOURTH.
Mid mazes strange the dancers seem to fly, ' Wildly the unwearied hunters drive the Bear.
" lis (les Iroquois et les Hurons) nomment les Pleyades, les Dayiseurs et les Dansucses. lis donnent le nom d^Ours aux quatre premieres de ce que nous appellons lagrande Ourse; les trois qui composent sa queue, ou qui sont le train du Chariot de David, sont, selon eux, trois Chasseurs, qui poursuivent I'Ours ; et la petite Etoile, qui accompagne celle du milieu, est la Chaudiere dont le second est charge. Les Sauvages de I'Acadie nom- moient tout simplement cette Constellation et la suivante, la grande et la petite Ourse ; mais ne pourroit-on pas juger que quand ils parloient ainsi au sieur Lescarbot, ils ne rep^toient que ce qu'ils avoient oiii dire a plusieurs Francois V— Charlevoix, III. 400.
" It has been surprising unto me to find, that they have alw^ays called Charles's Wain by the name of Paukunnawa, or The Bear, which is the name by w^hich Europeans also have distinguished it." — Magnalia, III. 192.
Manitto,
Or Spirit. The word is thus written by Heckewelder. By the English authors it is written Manitou, whence Mr. Campbell has it so, in " Gertrude of Wyoming."
" As when the evil Manitou that dries The Ohio woods," &c.
The mistake may have arisen from the French authors writing it Manitou, which is pronounced Maneetou.
The incantation which I have introduced in this place, is founded on the subsequent passages from Charlevoix ; which are, I believe, abundantly sufficient to justify the expressions in the text, unless it be, perhaps, those in the second verse of the third stanza, where the Spirit is apostrophized as the Muse, or personification of the imagination itself. I have also taken the liberty of ascribing to one Spirit the congenial attributes of many. If Father Charlevoix has not been deceived, and led too far by his own fancy, surely, the elements of poetry cannot be denied to our aborigines.
NOTES TO CANTO FOURTH. 369
" Before we launch out into the particulars of their worship, it will he proper to remark that the savages give the name of Genius or Spirit to all that surpasses their understanding, and proceeds from a cause that they can- not trace. Some of their Spirits they take to be Good, and some Bad ; of the former sort are the Spirit of Dreams, &c. Of the latter sort are Thun- der, Hail falling upon their corn, a great Storm,''^ &c. — La Honlan, vol. ii. p. 30. The Manittos of the Lenape are the same as the Okkis of the Iro- quois.— Charlevoix, p. 345.
When the Indians had dreams, it was indispensable to their quiet, that the vision should be immediately accomplished. One of them, who dreamed that he was tormented by his enemies, had himself tied to a stake, and would not be pacified until he had been severely mangled. Many stories of this kind are told by Charlevoix, p. 354. The longest and most curious is that of a Huron woman, narrated p. 230, in the third volume. It is too long to be here inserted ; though several ideas in the text are taken from it.
Stanza I. Ver. 2.
Thy whisper creeps where leaves are stirred, &c.
" Et I'on pretend que la presence de I'Esprit se manifeste par un Vent impetueux, qui se leve tout a coup ; ou par un Mugissement, que Ton entend sous terre," &c. Charlevoix is here speaking, however, of the Spirit which occasions mental wandering in sickness ; which I have identified with the Spirit of Dreams.
Stanza II. Ver. 1.
From the land, &c. " They (four savageS from the west) further informed us, That the Nation of the Asseni poulaes, whose lake is down in the map, and who lie North- East of the Issalti, was not above six or seven Days Journey from us : That none of the Nations within their Knowledge, who lie to the West and the North-West of them, had any great Lake about their Countries, which were very large, but only Rivers, which coming from the North, run cross the countries of their Neighbouring Nations, which border on their Confines, on the side of the Great Lake, which, in the Language of the Savages is the same as sea. That Spirits, and Pigmies, or men of little Stature, did in- habit them, as they had been informed by People that lived farther up than themselves ; and that all the nations which lie beyond their Country, and those which are next to them, do dwell in Meadows and la»ge Fields, where are many wild Bulls and Castors, which are greyer than t})osc of the North, and have their Coat more inclining to Black ; with many other wild Beasts, VOL. I. A A A
370 NOTES TO CANTO FOURTH.
which yield very fine Furrs." — Hennefin's New Discovery of a Vast Country in America, &c. London, translated vnth additions, 1699.
It is probable that Father Hennepin confounded the general name of the sea, among the savages, with the particular name given to the Assinapoil lake. Charlevoix says, " Le veritable Pays des Assinaboils est aux envi- rons d'un Lac, qui porte leur nom, et que I'on connoit peu. Un Fran9ois, que j'ai vu a Montreal m'a assure y avoir ete, mais il I'avoit vu, comme on voit la mer dans un Port, et en passant, L'opinion commune est que ce Lac a six cent lieues de circuit ; qu'on ne peut y aller que par des chemins pres- queimpratiquables; que tous les Bords en sont charmans, &c. Quelques Sauvages le nomment Michinipi, qui veut dire la Grande Eau. C'est bien dommage que ce Lac n'ait pas et6 connu des Sgavans, qui ont cherche par- tout le Paradis Terrestre ; il auroit ete pour le raoins aussi bien place la que dans la Scandinavie," — ITL p. 185.
Ver. 2.
Then to the chief u'ho has fasted long, &c. " Celui qui doit commander ne songe point a lever des Soldats qu'il n'ait jeune plusieurs jours, pendant lesquels il est barbouille de noir, n'a presque point de conversation avec personne, invoque jour et nuit son Esprit tute- laire, observe surtout avec soin des Songes. La persuasion ou il est, suivant le g6nie pr^somptueux de ces Barbares, qu'il va marcher a une Victoire certaine, ne manque gueres de lui causer des Reves selon ses desirs." — Charlevoix, IIL p. 216.
Ver. 3.
Then shall the hunter who waits /o7i thee. " C est loujours un Chef de Guerre, qui marque' le tems de la chasse de I'ours, et qui a soin d'inviter les chasseurs. Cette invitation est suivied'une Jeune de huit jours, pendant lesquels il n'est pas meme permis de boire une goutte d'eau. Le Jeune s'obvcrve pour obtenir des Esprits qu'ils fassent connoitre ou I'on trouvera beaucoup d'ours," &c.»&c. — Charlevoix, p. 115.
Where the hermit hear Keeps his long fast. " Le tems de la chasse de I'Ours est I'Hyver. Alors ces Animaux sont caches dans les creux d'arbres ; ou s'ils en trouvent d'abattus, ils se font de Icurs Racines une Tanicre, dont ils bouchent I'entrSe, avec des Branches de Sapin, et ou ils sont parfaitement a I'abri des rigueurs le da Saison. Si tout cela.^ur manque, ils font un Trou en Terre, et ont grand soin, quand ils y
NOTES TO CANTO FOURTH. 371
sont entres, d'en bien fermer I'ouverture. On est bien assure qu'II n'y porte ancune provision, et par consequent que pendant tout ce temps-la il ne boit, ni ne mange." — Charlevoix, p. 117.
With regard to the state in which the savages supposed the soul to be during sleep, Charlevoix has this passage. " II n'y a rien, sur quoi ces Bar- bares ayent porte plus loin la superstition, et I'extravagance, que ce qui re- garde les Songes ; mais ils varient beaucoup dans la maniere, dont ils expli- quent leurs pensees sur cela. Tantot c'est I'Ame raisonnable, qui se promene, tandis que I'Ame sensitive continue d'animer le corps. Tantot c'est le G^nie familier, qui donne des avis salutaires sur ce qui doit arriver : tantot c'est une visite, qu'on regoit de I'Ame de I'Objet, auquel on r§ve ; mais de quelque facon, que I'on congoive le Songe, il est toujours regarde comme une chose sacr^e, et comme le moyen le plus ordinaire, dont les Dieux se ser- vent pour faire connditr* aux Hommes leurs volontes." — Charlevoix, p. 354.
Stanza III. Ver. 1.
Thine the riddle, strange and dark. It formed, according to our author, a great amusement of the savages, to tell their dreams in an enigmatic manner, and compel each other to divine them. A feast of dreams, as it was ordinarily called, but which was named by the Iroquois " the confusion of brains," was occasionally held. Its orgies were fantastical, and sometimes dangerous ; for if any one took it into his head to say that he had dreamed of killing another, the person threatened had need of ready wit, to avert the literal fulfilment of the vision. An account of this festival is given in Charlevoix, p. 356. There was an- other strange custom growing out of this superstition. Previous to entering the enemies' country, the warriors ran about their camp, proclaiming their obscure visions ; and he whose riddle was not satisfactorily guessed, had the privilege of returning without comment or dishonour. " Voila," says Char- levoix, "qui donne beau jeu aux Poltrons." — P. 237. These enigmas, as this author repeatedly remarks, were always ascribed to the inspiration of a genius.
Thine to yield the power to mark, &c. " II n'est pas etonnant aprcs cela'que les Sauvages croyent aux Reve- nans : aussi en font-ils des contes de toutes les fagons. J'ai vu un pauvre Homme, qui a force d'en entendre parler, s'etoit imagine qu'il avoit toujours une troupe de Morts a ses trousses, et comme on avoit pris plaisir a. aug- menter sa frayeur, il en etoit devenu fou." — P. 374.
372 NOTES TO CANTO FOURTH.
Ver. 3.
When of thought ayid strength despoiled^ &c.
" On ne refuse rien au malade de ce qu'il demande, parce que,'dit-on,'ses desirs en cet etat sont des ordres du Genie, qui veille a sa conservation ; et quand on appelle les Jongleurs, c'est moins a cause de leur habilite, que parce qu' on suppose, qu'ils peuvent raieux s^avoir des Esprits la cause du mal, et les remedes, qu'il y faut appliquer." " Selon les Iroquois, toute Maladie est un desir de I'Ame, et on ne meurt, que parce que le desir n'est pas accompli." — P. 367-370.
In consequence of this superstition, they would not begrudge any trouble or danger, to satisfy the wildest wishes of an invalid. The jugglers or quack doctors among them, take advantage of this belief, to prescribe, in desperate cases, the accomplishment of some impossible task, which they pretend is wished by the patient, as the Spirits have revealed to them. — Id. p. 368.
Ver. 4.
When the dizzy senses spin, &c. Fools and madmen were supposed to be entirely under the influence of Spirits. The words of the latter were regarded as oracles. — Idem.
Like the Powah, when first within, The present Spirit feeling.
" II se commence (le Jongleur) par se faire suer, et quand il est bien fatigue \i. crier, a se debattre, et a invoquer son Genie, &c. Alors, plein de sa pretendue Divinite, et plus semblable a un Energumene, qu'a un homme inspire du Ciel," &c. — Idem.
" The Conjurer is a partner with the Priest, not only in the Cheat, but in the Advantages of it, and sometimes they officiate for one another. When this Artist is in the act of Conjuration, or of Pauwawing, as they term it, he always appears with an Air of Haste, or else in some convulsive posture, that seems to strain all the Faculties, like the Sybils, when they pretended to be under the power of Inspiration." — History of Virginia, p. 183.
Stanza V.
Loose o'er his frame the hear-skiii hung.
" Of all the sights I ever saw among them, none appeared so near akin to what is usually imagined of infernal powers, as the appearance of one who
NOTJES TO CANTO FOURTH. 373
was a devout and zealous reformer, or rather restorer, of what he supposed was the ancient religion of the Indians. He made his appearance in his pontifical garb, which was a coat of bear-skins, dressed with the hair on, and hanging down to his toes, a pair of bear-skin stockings, and a great wooden face," <fec. — Braincr(Vs Diary. — E.
" The Habit of the Indian Priest is a Cloak made in the Form of a Wo- man's Petticoat ; but instead of tying it about their middle, they fasten the Gatherings about their neck, and tye it upon the Right Shoulder, always keeping one Arm out to use upon Occasion. This Cloak hangs even at the Bottom, but reaches no lower than the middle of the thigh ; but what is most particular in it is, that it is constantly made of a Skin drest soft, with the Pelt or Fur on the Outside, and revers'd ; insomuch, that when the Cloak has been a little worn, the Hair falls down in Flakes, and looks very shagged and Frightful." — History of Virginia^ p. 143.
Stanza VI.
O saw ye that gleaming toiearthly of light 1 "Among their various superstitions, they [the Algonquins] believe that the vapour which is seen to hover over moist and swampy places, is the spirit of some person lately dead." — Mackenzie. — E.
Stanza VII.
Since earth from the deep — Rose green o''er the xoaters. See the first note to Canto III. There are many varieties in the account ' of the creation, given by the Indians, all agreeing in the circumstance of the earth's emerging from the deep. It is unnecessary to quote them here.
He perished, the Mammoth. — An Indian chief, of the Delaware tribe, who visited the Governor of Vir- ginia during the revolution, informed him " that it was a tradition handed down from their fathers, that in ancient times a herd of these tremendous animals came to the Bick-bone licks, and began an universal destruction of the bear, deer, elk, bufl[tdo, and other animals which had been created for the use of the Indians. That the great Man above, looking. down and seeing this, was so enraged, that he seized his lightning, descended on the earth, seated himself on a neighbouring mountain, on a rock (on which his seat and the prints of his feet are still to be seen), and hurlod his bolts among them, till the whole were slaughtered, except the big bull, who, presenting his forehead to the shafts, shook them oft' as they fell, but, missing bne at
374 NOTES TO CANTO FOURTH.
length, it wounded him in the side, whereon, springing round, he bounded over the Ohio, the Wabash, the Illinois, and finally over the great lakes, where he is living at this day." — Jeffersoii's Notes.
Yohewak. I have retained this word in the text, because it sounds well ; and, for the purposes of poetry, it is of little consequence whether it be a significant word, or a mere series of guttural noises. Yo-he-woh, as it is written by Adair, is precisely the noise made by the sailors, when hauling together ; and as the Indians used it during their most violent dances, it is likely that similar exertions produced similar sounds ; the giving utterance to which, in some measure, alleviated the pain of the effort. No doubt an Indian, when chop- ping wood, makes the same sort of grunt that a white man does. In like manner, Allelnjah, oi* the sound resembling it, which the Indians are said to utter, is no more to be derived from the Hebrew, than from the Greek t\i\iv, or the Irish howl, Ullaloa, or the English Halloa.
Where now arc the giards, the soil who possessed ? See the first chapter of Heckewelder's " Historical Account," &c. The tradition of the Lenape is, that when their fathers crossed the Mississippi, they met, on this side of it, with a nation called Alligewi, from whom, the author says, the Alleghany river and mountains received their name. " Many won- derful things are told of this famous people. They are said to have been re- markably stout and tall, and there is a tradition that there were giants among them; people of a much larger size than the tallest of the Lenape. It is related that they had built to themselves regular fortifications, or entrench- ments, from whence they would sally out, but were generally repulsed." Mr. H. describes two entrenchments he has seen. " Outside of the gateway of each of these two entrenchments, which lay within a mile of each other, were a number of large flat mounds, in which, the Indian pilot said, were buried hundreds of the slain Talligevvi, whom I shall hereafter, with Col. Gibson, call Alligewi." The traces of gigantic feet, in different parts of the country, mentioned in several books, are ascribed to this people in the text.
Stanza VIII.
Lo I even now like some tree u-hcre a Spirit before, &c.
" Autrefois les Sauvages voisins de I'Acadie avoient dans leur Pays sur le bord de la Mer un Arbre extr^mcment vieux, dont ils racontoient bien des merveilles, etqu'on voyoit toujours charg^ d'offrandes. La Mer ayant de- couvert toute sa racine, il se soutint encore longtems presqu'en I'air contre la violence des vents et des flots, ce qui confirma ces Sauvages dans la pens^e qu'il etoit le siege do quelquc grand Esprit : sa chute ne fut pas meme capa-
NOTES TO CANTO FOURTH. 375
ble de les d^tromper, et tant qu'il en parut quelque bout de branches hors de I'eau, on lui rendit les memes honneurs, qu'avoit regils tout I'Arbre, lorsqu'il etoit sur pied.^^— Charlevoix, p. 349.
The simile of Lucan must occur to every classical reader : — Qualis frugifero quercus sublimis in agro Exuvias veteres populi, sacrata que gestans Dona ducum ; nee jam validis radicibus hserens, Pondera fixa suo est ; nudosque per aera ramos Eifundens, trunco, non frondibus, efficit umbram.
Our natioyis, the children of earth. See Mr. Heckevvelder, chapter xxxiv. and Charlevoix, p. 344, and as before quoted, for the Indian ideas of the origin of mankind. The latter author mentions various and different accounts ; one of which coincides with that of the former. According to both authors, the Indians only con- sidered man as the first of animals. They had a future state for the souls of bears, &c. as w^ell as for those of men. Mr. Heckewelder quotes this tradition from a MS. of the Reverend Christopher Pyrlaeus : " That they [the Iroquois] had dw^elt in the earth where it was dark, and where no sun did shine. That though they followed hunting, they ate mice, which they caught with their hands. That Gauawagahha (one of them) having acci- dentally found a hole to get out of the earth at, he went out, and that' in walking about on the earth, he found a deer, which he took back with him, and that, both on account of the meat tasting so very good, and the favour- able description he had given them of the country above and on the earth their mother concluded it best for them all to come out ; that accord ingly they did so, and immediately set about planting corn, &c. That however, the Nocharanorsul, that is, the ground hog, would not come out but had remained in the ground as before." For this reason, they would not eat this animal. Mr. Heckewelder says that this tradition is common to the Iroquois and Lenape. It resembles the account given by JEschilus, of the state in which Prometheus found mankind :
'Oi rpHra /Jiiv P\ii:ovTti £^\ctov iidrrjv, KXvovTcg ovK r^Kovov dW dveipdrcjv 'AXiyKioi lAopcpatai, tov fiaKpov xP^vov ''^Kc^vpov iiKrj TtdvTa, kovti ■riKiv6v(l)€ig Adfuovi TrpoaaXous ?7cai') ov ^v\ovpylaV Karcjpvx^i ^' evaiov, (Ixrr' nrjcvpoL MvpixTjKSs, dvTp(jiv iv jj-vxats dvrjXiocS' k. t. A.
376 NOTES TO CANTO FOURTH.
Stanza X.
Like the swarms of the doves o^er the meads thai descend.
" We iinbarqued and made towards a meadow, in the neighbourhood of which the trees were covered with that sort of Fowl more than with leaves : For just then 'twas the season in which they retire from the North Coun- tries, and repair to the Southern Climates ; and one would have thought that all the Turtle-Doves upon Earth had chose to pass through this place. For the eighteen or twenty days that we stay'd there, I firmly believe that a thousand men might have fed upon 'em heartily, without putting themselves to any trouble." — La Hontan., i. p. 62.
" L'autre Manne, dont j'ai parle, est une espece de Ramiers, qui passent ici dans les mois de Mai et de Juin ; on dit qu'autrefois ils obscurcissoient I'Air par leur multitude ; mais ce n'est plus la meme chose aujourd'hui. II en vient encore neanmoins jusqu'aux environs des Villes un assez grand nombre se reposer sur les arbres. On les appelle communement Tourles, et ils different en effet des Ramiers, des Tourterelles et des Pigeons d'Europe, assez pour en faire un quatrieme espece. lis sont plus petits que nos plus gros Pigeons, dont ils ont les Yeux, et les Nuances de la Gorge. Leur Plumage est d'un brun obscur, a I'exception des Ailes, ou il y a des plumes d'un tres-bien Bleu. On diroit que ces Oiseaux ne cherchent qu'a se faire tuer ; car s'il y a quelque Branche seche a. un Arbre, c'est celle-la, qu'ils choisissent pour se percher, et ils se rangent de maniere, que le plus mal- adroit Tireur en pent abattre une demie douzaine au moins d'un seul coup de Fusil." — Charlevoix, p. 171.
Stanza XI.
Like the flants which hy pure hands of virgins alone
Must he plucked. " L'on montre certaines Plantes fort salutaires, qui n'ont point de virtu, disent les Sauvages, si elles ne sont employees par des mains vierges." — Idem, 350.
The foul bird of avarice. The Hawk. See a Note to the First Canto.
NOTES TO CANTO FOURTH. 377
Stanza XII.
The avenging SpirWs fiery breath Had poured the withering storm of death, &c. A superstition akin to this is recorded in Carver's Travels, p. 30.
Stolen when polluted loalls icere razed, &c.
This being a sacrifice to evil spirits, its materials were supplied by the opposites to all that was esteemed holy. As it is founded in error and mis- take, the following Notes are selected merely to show whence the ideas in the text were derived ; and by no means to support them.
" The Indian women are remarkably decent during their periodical ill- ness ; those nations that are most remote from the European settlements, as the Nadowessies, &c. are more particularly attentive to this point ; though they all without exception adhere in some degree to the same custom. In every camp or town there is an apartment appropriated for their retirement at this time, to which they retreat, and seclude themselves with the utmost strictness, during this period, from all society," &c. — Carver. The rest of the passage with respect to the polluted fires is extracted in the Notes to Canto First. The author in another place says, that these houses were fired, and immediately abandoned. See also Mackenzie, Adair, &c.
Stanza XIV.
The Pow-icahs, &c. " The manner of their devotion was, to kindle large fires in their wig- wams, or in the open fields, and to sing and dance round them in a wild and violent manner. Sometimes they would all shout aloud, with the most antic and hideous notes. They made rattles of shells, which they shook in a wild and violent manner, to fill up the confused noise. Their priests, or powahs, led in these exercises. They were dressed in the most odd and surprising manner, with skins of odious and frightful creatures about their heads, faces, arms, and bodies. They painted themselves in the most ugly forms which could be devised. They sometimes sang, and then broke forth into strong invocations, with starts, and strange motions and passions. When these ceased, the other Indians groaned, making wild and doleful sounds. At these times they sacrificed their skins, Indian money, and the best of their treasures. These were taken by their Powahs, and all cast into the fires and consumed together. The English were also persuaded that they sometimes sacrificed their children as well as their most valuable commodities. Milford people observing an Indian child, iiearly at one of these times of their devotion, dressed in an extraordinary manner, with all VOL. I. B B B
378 NOTES TO CANTO FOURTH.
kinds of Indian finery, had the curiosity to inquire what could be the reason. The Indians answered that it was to be sacrificed, and the people supposed that it was given to the devil. The Evil Spirit which the New-England Indians called Hobbam-ocko [or Hobam-oqui], the Virginia Indians called Okee. So deluded were these unhappy people, that they believed these barbarous sacrifices to be absolutely necessary. They imagined that unless they appeased and conciliated their gods in this manner, they w^ould neither suflTer them to have peace nor harvests." — Trumbull^ I. p. 49. The Histo- rian of Connecticut, on the authority of Mather and Purchas, thus assents to the popular belief with regard to the custom of human sacrifices among the Indians. In page 51 he has this passage, — " The stoutest and most promis- ing boys were chosen, and trained up with peculiar care in the observation of certain Indian rites and customs. They were kept from all delicious meats, trained to coarse fare, and made to drink the juice of bitter herbs until it occasioned violent vomitings. They were beaten over their legs and shins with sticks, and made to run through brambles and thickets to make them hardy, and, as the Indians said, to render them more acceptable to Hobbam-ocko." This is undoubtedly the same custom mentioned in the previous extract ; and is precisely that which prevailed among the Indians of Virginia, as seen by Captain John Smith, and which he thought was a sacrifice to the devil. His account is preserved in Purchas, and in the His- tory of Virginia ; and is explained in the latter book by the ceremony of Huskanawing. See a Note to Canto First. Heckewelder calls it the Initia- tion of Boys; and Charlevoix, "getting a tutelary Genius," iii. p. 346. See the notes to the Rev. Dr. Jarvis' Discourse ; where most of the authori- ties on this subject are quoted. It is fully manifest that there was no such thing as the sacrifice of children among our Indians. The plot of the poem was hastily formed, when we had scarcely read any thing on the manners of the Indians, or even the history of the times. This ignorance led us, not only to introduce a rite which never had any existence, but to ascribe to Philip a useless piece of treachery and cruelty, with scarcely any necessity for it, even in supporting the fiction. I have endeavoured to make the incantations consistent with themselves, and with the error we fell into. As originally written, by myself, they did not possess even that merit. It is unnecessary to quote more from the old writers on the New-England Indians, to show their belief on this subject. They all agree, pretty much in the same point. " 'Tis an unusual thing for them," says Mather, " to have their Assemblies, wherein, after the usage of some Diabolical Rites, a Devil appears unto them, to inform them and advise them about their cir- cumstances ; and sometimes there are odd Events of their makino- these applications to the Devil. For instance, 'tis particularly affirmed. That the Indians in their wars with us, finding a sore inconvenience by our Dogs sacrificed a Dog to the Devil ; after which no English Dog would bark at an Indian ioi divers months ensuing."— ikfa^na/w, iii. 192. What interpreter
NOTES TO CANTO FOURTH. 379
the Devil had on these occasions does not appear. That he did not under- stand the Indian tongue is manifest from what our author says himself immediately after. " Once finding that the Damons in a possessed young Woman understood the Latm, and Greek, and Hebrew Languages, my Curiosity led me to make Trial of this Indian Language, and the DcBmons did seem as if they did not understand it." Daniel Gookin gives this account of the matter. " Their religion is as other gentiles are. Some, for their God, adore the Sun ; others the moon ; some the earth ; others the fire ; and like vanities. [This is confounding the Spirits, or ministerial agencies, with the One Supreme Being, whom the Indians undoubtedly worshipped, as the writer goes on to say.] Yet generally they acknow- ledge One great supreme doer of good ; and him they call Wonand, or Man- nitt : another that is the great doer of evil or mischief; and him they call Mattand, which is the devil ; and him they dread and fear more than they love and honour the former chief good, which is God. There are among them certain men and women whom they call powows. These are partly wizards and witches, holding familiarity with Satan, that evil one ; and partly are physicians, and make use, at least in show, of herbs and roots, for curing the sick and diseased, &c. The powows are reputed, and I conceive justly, to hold familiarity with the devil ; and therefore are, by the Enghsh laws, prohibited the exercise of their diabolical practices within the English jurisdiction, under the penalty of five pounds, — and^the procurer, five pounds, — and every person present twenty pence. Satan doth strongly endeavour to keep up this practice among the Indians, and these powows are lactors for the devil," &c. — Gookin,^. 14.
Even Charlevoix believed in this absurd superstition. " II est encore vrai que le Jongleurs roncontrent trop souvent juste dans leur Predictions, pour croire qu'ils devinent toujours par hazard, et qu'il se passe dans ces occasions des choses, qu'il n'est presque pas possible d'attribuer a aucun secret naturel. On a vu les pieux dont ces Etuves etoient fermees, se courber jusqu'a terre tandis que le Jongleur se tenoit tranquille, sans remuer, sans y toucher, qu'il chantoit, et qu'il predisoit I'avenir. Les Let- tres des anciens Missionaires sont remplies de faits, qui ne laissent aucun doute que ces Seducteurs n'ayent un veritable commerce avec le Pere de la seduction et du mensonge." — III. 362.
Some writers, on the contrary, have gone too far, in asserting that the Indians had no knowledge of the Evil Spirit. The prophet, mentioned by Brainerd, who pretended to restore the ancient religion of the Indians, told him " that there was no such creature as the devil known among the Indians of old times." Baron La Hontan very dryly remarks, " that, in speaking of the devil, they do not mean that Evil Spirit that in Europe is represented under the figure of a Man, with a long Tail, and great Horns and Claws." His conclusion on the subject appears to be correct — "thfft these Ecclesias- ticks [Jugglers] did not understand the true import of that great word
880 NOTES TO CANTO FOURTH.
Matchi Manitou. For by the Devil they understand such things as are offensive to 'em, which, in our language, comes near to the signification of Misfortune, Fate, Unfavourable Destiny," &c. It was to deprecate the wrath of these baleful agencies, and not to conciliate their friendship and court their alliance, that sacrifices were offered to them. — History of Virginia^ 170. The Indian worship extended to all the objects of nature. The Spirits of groves, torrents, mountains, rivers, and caves, had all their adorers and oblations. The minutest and most contemptible particle of matter, by the craft of the Juggler, or sickly fancy of the patient, became a genius, and was connected with a magic spell. How far their philosophy went, in the ado- ration of moral influences, seems more questionable ; and though they are said to be believers in destiny, their worship of Fate, which La Hontan seems to imply, is highly improbable. As to their Witchcraft^ no doubt its professors may have pretended a familiarity with the powers of evil. Their tricks were as simple and ridiculous, and often as fatal, as those of the prac- tisers of the Obeah art among the negroes.
Save their girdles rude from the otter torn, &c. " The Conjuror shaves all his hair off, except the crest on the crown ; upon his Ear he wears the Skin of some dark-coloured Bird ; he, as well as the Priest, is commonly grim'd with Soot, or the like ; he hangs an Otter skin at his girdle," &c. " He has a black Bird, with expanded wings, fastened to his Ear." — History of Virginia, p. 143, 183. " Les os et les Peaux des Serpens servent aussi beaucoup aux Jongleurs et aux Sorciers, pour faire leurs prestiges ; et ils se font des bandeaux et des Ceintures de leurs Peaux." <' Un Jongleur paroit ensuite, ayant a la main un baton orne de plumes par le moyen duquel il se vantoit de deviner les choses les plus cachees." — Char- levoix. The chichicoe, orchichicou, is a rattle, made of different materials, sometimes of a gourd, &c. It generally formed the music of a powowing assembly, and is mentioned under the same name by many different writers. See Carver, Charlevoix, History of Virginia, &c. " He advanced toward me with the instrument in his hand, that he used for music in his id.olatrous worship, which was a dry tortoise shell, with some corn in it, and the neck of it drawn on a piece of wood, which made a very convenient handle." — Brainerd^s Diary. — E. The mode of painting the bodies, described in the text, is mentioned by Carver and Charlevoix.
Stanza XV.
A woman once. The Indian women arc described as peculiarly addicted to the worship of evil spirits. — Charlevoix, p. 359, 360.
NOTES TO CANTO FOURTH. 381
Sta^'za XVI.
And now began the Initiates'* Dance.
The term " Initiate" is borrowed from Carver. He uses it, however, in " reference to those who were admitted into " The Friendly Society of the Spirit."— p. 175. He mentions, in the same place, the Pawwah, or Black Dance, by which the Devil was supposed to be raised. The Dances of the Indians are described in so many places, and their mode is so well known, that I shall only insert the note left by my friend, from the Diary of Brainerd.
"Lord's day, Sept. 21. — I spent the day with the Indians on the island. As soon as they were up in the morning I attempted to instruct them, and laboured to get them together, but quickly found they had something else to do ; for they gathered together all their powwows, and set about half a dozen of them to playing their tricks, and acting their frantic postures, in order to find out why they were so sickly, numbers of them being at that time disor- dered with a fever and bloody flux. In this they were engaged for several hours, making all the wild, distracted motions imaginable ; sometimes sing- intr, sometimes howling, sometimes extending their hands to the utmost stretch, spreading all their fingers, and seemed to push with them, as if they designed to fright something away, or at least keep it at arm's end ; some- times sitting flat on the earth ; then bowing down their faces to the ground ; wringing their sides, as if in pain and anguish ; twisting their faces, turning up their eyes, grunting or puflSng. These monstrous actions seemed to have something in them peculiarly suited to raise the devil, if he could be raised by any thing odd and frightful. Some of them were much more fervent in the business than others, and seemed to chant, peep, and mutter, with a great degree of warmth and vigour. I sat about thirty feet from them (though undiscovered), with my Bible in my hand, resolving, if possible, to spoil their sport, and prevent their receiving any answer from the infernal ' world."— E.
Then pealed the loud hah-hah ! " Heh, heh, heh, — These notes, if they might be so termed, are articu- lated with a harsh accent, and strained out with the utmost force of their lungs." " Whoo, Whoo, Whoop, is continued in a long, shrill tone, nearly till the breath is exhausted, and then broken ofl:' with a sudden elevation of the voice."— Career, 172, 217.
382 NOTES TO CANTO FOURTH.
Stanza XVII.
Beyond the hills the Spirit sleeps.
The Sun was often worshipped as the visible God. In the most solemn sacrifices, the fire was sometimes kindled from his heat. — Carver, La Hon- tan, vol. second. The Hurons are said to have confounded Areskoui with the Sun. — Charlevoix. When the Sun has set, they say he is dead. — Car- ver, Charlevoix, III. 219. Adair, 76.
The Wakon Cave. See a note in Canto First, and on the " Wakon-Bird," in the notes to Canto Second.
Stanza XVIII.
Your serpent scar On the Hasted trunk is graven.
" Ces Peuples ne connoissent pas mieux la nature du Tonnerre ; quelques uns le prenoient pour la voix d'une espece particuliere d'Hommes, qui vo- loient dans les airs : d'autres disoient que ce bruit venoit de certains Oiseaux, qui leur etoient inconnus. Selon les Montaguais, c'eloit I'efFort, que faisoit une Genie pour vomir une Couleuvi-e, qu'il avoit avalee ; et ils appuyoient ce sentiment sur ce que, quand le Tonnerre etoit tombe sur un Arbre, on y voyoit une figure assez approchante de celle d'une Couleuvre." — Charle- voix, iii. 401.
The other superstitions referred to in this stanza, being local, and some of them belonging, moreover, to the Hurons, are far-fetched for an Incanta- tion of the New-England Powaws. — Transeant cum cateris. "Nearly half way between Saganaum Bay and the north-west corner of the Lake, lies an- other, which is termed Thunder Bay. The Indians, who have frequented these parts from time immemorial, and every European traveller that has passed through it, have unanimously agreed to call it by this name." — Car- ver, 91. " One of the Chipevvay chiefs told me that some of their people, being once driven on the island of Maurepas, found on it large quantities of heavy, shining, yellow sand, that, from their description, must have been gold dust. Being struck with the beautiful appearance of it, in the morning, when they re-entered their canoe, they attempted to .bring some away ; but a spirit, of an amazing size, according to their account, sixty feet in height, strode in the water after them, and commanded them to deliver back what they had taken away. Since this incident, no Indian that has ever heard of it will venture near the same haunted coast." — Idem, 8.5. This island is known by the name of Manataulin, which signifies a Place of Spirits, and is
NOTES TO CANTO FOURTH. 383
considered by the Indians as sacred as those already mentioned in Lake Su- perior. Two small islands near Detroit were called " les Isles de Serpens a Sonnettes ;" Charlevoix says, " on assure qu'elles sont tellement remplies de ces Animaux, que I'Air en est infecte." Serpent worship was common to all the Indians, but more peculiarly cultivated among some nations, as the Malhomines. — Charlevoix, 291.
Stanza XIX.
Come ye hither loho o'er the thatch Of the coward murderer hold your watch. " Les Hurons etendoient le corps mort sur des Perches, au haut d'une Cabanne, et le Meurtrier etoit oblige de se tenir plusieurs jours de suite im- mediatement au dessous, et de recevoir tout ce qui decouloit de ce Cadavre, non-seulement sur soi, mais encore sur son manger, qu'on mettoit aupres de lui, a moins que par un present considerable, fait a la Cabanne de Defunt il n'obtint de garantir ses Vivres de ce Poison." — Charlevoix, III. p. 274.
Stanza XX.
Come ye loho give power To the curse that is said, &c. " On a vu des Filles s'etrangler, pour avoir requ une reprimande assez 16gere de leurs Meres, ou quelques gouttes d'Eau au Visage, et I'en avertir en lui disant, Tu li* auras plus de Fill.e.'''' — Id. 226.
Stanza XXI.
Come ye who as hawks hover o'er
The spot where the war-club is lying. As a commencement of hostilities, according to Heckewelder, the Indians murder one of the enemy, and leave the war-club lying near the body ; it is painted with their devices, that the party attacked may know their enemies, and not execute revenge on an innocent tribe. — Page 165.
384 NOTES TO CANTO FOURTH.
Staxza XXII.
Ye icho at the sick man's bed, &c. As before mentioned, sickness is always ascribed to the agency of some spirit, of whatever form the Juggler's fancy pleases, which must be driven out of the patient before his recovery can be effected. If the force of imagi- nation, in sickness, be duly considered, the practice of treating all diseases as cases of hypochondria, may not be so ridiculous as the fantastic manoeu- vres of these quacks would, at first sight, imply.
Stanza XXIII.
And ye icho delight, The soul to affright, &c. *' lis disent que I'Ame separee du corps conserve les memes inclinations, qu'elle avoit auparavant, et c'est la raison pourquoi ils enterrent avec les Morts tout ce qui etoit a leur usage." " Les Ames lorsque le terns est venu qu'elles doivent se separer pour toujours de leurs corps, vont dans una Region, qui est destinee pour etre leur demeure eternelle. Cette Region, disent les Sauvages, est fort eloignee vers I'Occident, et les Ames mettent plusieurs mois a s'y rendre. Elles ont meme de grandes difficultes a sur- monter, et elles courent de grands risques, avant que d'y arriver." " Dans le Pays des Ames, selon quelques-uns, I'Ame est transformee en Tour- terelle."— CAarZei;ou-, p. 351, 352.
Stanza XXV.
Not beneath the mantle blue, Spread below Yohewah's feet, &c. Sacrifices to good Spirits were made when the sky was clear, the air serene, &c. — La Hontan, ii. 31, 32.
0 SCI pent god. This is one of the forms under which the Indians supposed the Evil Spirit to appear. " Another power they worship whom they call Hobbamock, and to the northward of us Hobbamoqui ; this as farre as wee can conceive is the devill ; him they call upon to cure their wounds and diseases. This Hob- bomock appears in sundry formes unto them, as in the shape of a man, a deare, a fawne, an eagle, &c., but most ordinarily as a Snake." — Winslow's " Good News from Ncic-England,"" Anno 1622, in Purchas, iv. p. 1867. And see ante, notes on this Canto,
NOTES TO CANTO FOURTH. 385
Stanza XXVIII.
The hawks high are roving. " Before a thunder-shower, these birds [night-hawks] are seen at an amazing height in the air, assembled together in great numbers." — Carver.
The elk-skill about him,
The crow-skin above. It has been already mentioned, that the skin of some dark coloured bird was made use of at all conjurations. The elk-skin was also employed, according to Carver and others. Charlevoix says that it was always con- sidered a good omen to dream of the elk.
VOL. I. C C C
NOTES TO CANTO FIFTH.
Stanza II.
WJiere yon old elm its arm extends, &c. " They also fancy another spirit which appears in the shape of a man upon the trees near the lodge of a person deceased, whose property has not been interred with them. He is represented as bearing a gun in his hand, and it is believed that he does not return to his rest until the property that has been withheld from the grave has been sacrificed to it." — M^Kenzie^s Hist, of the Fur Trade, p. 74.
Stanza VI.
Like some lone bird wJiose pinions hover, &c. M. de Champlain remarked, among the fishes in the Lake which bears his name, one called by the savages Chaousarou, which is termed by Charlevoix " Le Poisson Arme." " II a le corps a peu pres de la figure d'un Brochet ; mais il.est couvert d'une Ecaille a I'epreuve du Poignard . sa couleur est d'un gris argents, et il lui sorte de dessous la Gueule une Arete platte, den- telee, crease et percee par le bout, &c. Un tel Animal est un vrai Pirate parmi les Habitans des Eaux ; mais on n'imagineroit peutetre pas qu'il fait aussi la Guerre aux Habitans des Airs ; il la fait neanmoins, et en habile Chasseur ; voici comment. II se cache dans les Roseaux, de telle sorte qu'on ne pent voir que son Arme, qu'il tient elevee perpendiculairement au- dessus de I'Eau. Les Oiseaux qui viennent pour se reposer, prennent cette Arme pour un Roseau sec, ou un morceau de Bois, et se perchent dessus. II n'y sont pas plutot, que la Poisson ouvre la Gueule, et fait si subitement le mouvement necessaire pour ravir sa Proye, que rarement elle lui echape," &c. — Charlevoix, p. 1 53.
NOTES TO CANTO FIFTH. 387
Eve7i the vile fox's fart essay. The fox is said by Charlevoix to play the part of jackall for the carcajou, or quincajou, as it is termed by him.
Stanza IX.
The carcajou about him dart. " This creature, which is of the cat kind, is a terrible enemy to the deer, elk, moose, carraboo, &c. He either comes upon them from some conceal- ment unperceived, or climbs up into a tree, and waits till one of them, driven by an extreme of heat or cold, takes shelter under it ; when he fastens upon his neck, and opening the jugular vein, soon brings his prey to the ground. This he is enabled to do by his long tail, with which he encircles the body of his adversary ; and the only means they have to shun their fate, is by flying immediately to the water ; by this method, as the carcajou has a great dislike to that element, he is sometimes got rid of before he can effect his purpose." — Carver.
Stanza XII.
Low in the swamfs unequal ground, &c. This is an error which I omitted to correct. The Indians were not in the swamp, but on an upland, as is mentioned, correctly, in the Sixth Canto.
Stanza XIV.
Tradition meet for vulgar faith, &c. Philip was said to have seen the devil in a dream the night before he was killed. Hubbard merely notices it in a parenthesis. " Whether the devil appeared to him in a dream that night, as he did unto Saul, foreboding his tragical end, it matters not." Increase Mather says, — " It seemeth that night Philip (like the man in the host of Midian) dreamed that he was fallen into the hands of the English, and just as he was saying to those that were with him, that they must fly for their lives that day, lest the Indian that was gone from him should discover where he was, Our Souldiers came upon him," &c. Cotton Mather borrows the account from his namesake. " That very night Philip (like the Man in the Army of Midian) had been dreaming that he was faWn into the hands of the English,^'' &c. Connecting the story of the dream with what Mather says Philip's Powaws had toj/l him, — with the vision said to be revealed during the ceremony of Huskanawing, — and the belief in Destiny, which the Indians are said by Adair to entertain, — I 'have
388 NOTES TO CANTO FIFTH.
endeavoured to make some poetical use of those several superstitions ; and to give some unity to that part of the plot which is taken from history. I have made Ahauton shoot Philip ; though that exploit is said, by Increase Mather, to have been performed by a Pocasset Indian, named Alderman by the English.
There was a tradition that Philip and the Devil used to amuse themselves, during their nocturnal interviews, by pitching quoits from the top of Mount Hope to Popasquash neck. I have understood that some large flat stones are still to be seen at the latter place, which are singularly situated ; and that the mark of a large foot is visible somewhere on the rocks in the vicinity of Mount Hope, which was once attributed to the impress of the Devil,
Stanza XV.
Massasoiet — Ouamsutta — Uncompoen. See the Notes to Canto First,
Cabzmeis. Carver says he knows not why the Pipe of Peace was so termed by the French. La Hontan, in his explanatory Table, says, — " Calumet in general signifies a Pipe, being a iYorma?i Word, deriv'd from Chalumeau. The Savages do not understand this Word. The Pipe of Peace is called in the troquese Language Ganondaoi, and by the other Savage Nations Poagern.^^
Flutes and labours. The Indians had rude musical instruments resembling these. To the south, as might be expected, their music was more tolerable, or rather, less execrable than in the north. See BartravCs Travels.
Stanza XVI. Assawomsett''s lake — Sausaman, See Notes to Canto First.
Stanza XVII.
Metapoiset^s forest — Weetamoe. "August 6. Twenty Souldiers marched out of Taunton, and took all those Indians, in number thirty and six, only the Squaw-Sachem of Pocasset^ who was next unto Philip, in respect of the mischief that hath been done, and the blood that hath been shed in this Warr, escaped alone ; but not long ftfter some of Taunton finding an Indian Squaw in Metapaisct newly dead,
NOTES TO CANTO FIFTH. 389
cut off her head, and it happened to be Weef.amoo, i. e. Squaw Sachem her head. When it was set upon a pole in Taunton, the Indians who were prisoners there knew it presently, and made a most horrid and diabolical Lamentation, crying out that it was their Queen's head. Now here it is to be observed, that God himself, by his own hand, brought this enemy to destruction. For in that place where, the last year, she furnished Philip with Canooes for his men, she herself could not meet with a Canoo, but venturing over the River upon a Raft, that brake under her, so that she was drowned just before the English found her. Surely Philip's turn will be next." — Increase Mather, p. 45, 46.
Stanza XXII.
The belief in a metempsychosis, which Philip is here made to express, is not unwarranted. — " I once took great pains to dissuade from these notions a very sensible Indian. He asserted very strange things of his own super- natural knowledge, which he had obtained not only at the time of his initia- tion, but at other times, even before he was born. He said he knew he had lived through two generations ; that he had died twice, and was born a third time, to live out the then present race, after which he was to die, and never more to come to this country again. He well remembered what the womdn had predicted, while he was yet in his mother's womb," &c. &c. — Hecke- welder, p. 240.
" The Indians call this Altar by the Name of Powcorance, from whence proceeds the great Reverence they have for a small Bird that uses the Woods, and in their Note continually sound that Name. They say this is the Soul of one of their Princes ; and on that score they would not hurt it for the World." — Histoiy of Virginia, p. 185. " The Chepewyans have some faint notion of the transmigration of the soul, so that if a child be born with teeth, they instantly imagine, from its premature appearance, that it bears a resem- blance to some person who had lived to an advanced period, and that he has assumed a renovated life, with these extraordinary tokens of maturity." — M'Kenzie. History of the Fur Trade, 24.
" They brought me word that some new married Women were running to receive the Soul of an old Fellow that lay a dying. From thence I concluded that the People were Pythagoreans ; and upon that Apprehension, ask'd 'era how they came to eat Animals, into which their Souls might be transfus'd : But they made answer, that the Transmigration of Souls is always confin'd to the respective Species, so that the Soul of a Man cannot enter into a Fowl, or that of a Fowl cannot be lodged in a quadruped, and so on." — La Honian, I. 120.
" D'autres reconnoisscnt dans tons les Hommes deux Ames ; ils attri- buent a I'une tout ce que je viens de dire, ils pretendent que I'autre ne quitte
390 NOTES TO CANTO FIFTH.
jamais le corps, si ce n'est pour passer dans un autre ; ce qui n'arrive pour- tant gueres, disent-ils, qu'aux Ames des Enfans, lesquels ayant peu joui de la vie, obtiennent d'en recommencer una nouvelle," &c. — Charlevoix, p. 351.
Stanza XXIII.
No winged sorcerer, &c. " The Fish Hawk skims over the lakes and rivers, and sometimes seems to lie expanded on the water, as he hovers so close to it, and having by some attractive power drawn the fish within its reach, darts suddenly upon them. The charm it makes use of is supposed to be an oil contained in a small bag in the body," &c. — Carver.
No charmed bough, &c. The Witch Hazel has been supposed to have the property of detecting veins of precious metal. The superstition is improperly introduced in the speech of an Indian. — T. C. C.
To see the foul and senseless beast
On generous valour coldly feast.
" However remarkable it may appear, it is certain that though the venom
of the rattle-snake affects, in a greater or less degree, all animated nature,
the hog is an exception to the rule, as that animal will readily destroy them,
without dreading their poisonous fangs, and fatten on their flesh." — Carver.
Stanza XXVI. Ver. 3.
Along the mist-clad mountain'' s brow, &c. Carver (page 265) gives a beautifully characteristic account of the conduct of an Indian woman on the successive deaths of her son and husband. The third verse, in the death-song of Philip, is taken from her Lament. " If thou hadst continued with us, my dear son, how well would the bow have become thy hand, and how fatal would thine arrows have proved to the ene- mies of our band. Thou wouldst often have drank their blood, and eaten their flesh,* and numerous slaves would have rewarded thy toils. With a nervous arm wouldst thou have seized the wounded buffaloe, or have com- batted the fury of the enraged bear. Thou wouldst have overtaken the flying elk, and have kept pace on the mountain's brow with the fleetest deer," &c.
* These Indian metaphors, it is well known, are not to be taken literally. They mean no more than killing their enemies, simply ; though several stories are related of the literal execution of their threat, " that they would suck the blood of their enemies." Uncos is said to have eaten a piece of Miantonimo. But the authority is very questionable.
NOTES TO CANTO FIFTH. 391
Ver. 4. Sai/y have I left ye, champions brave ! " The bones of our deceased countrymen lie uncovered ; they call out to us to revenge their wrongs, and we must satisfy their request. Their spirits cry out against us. They must be appeased. Sit, therefore, no longer inactive ; give way to the impulse of your natural valour, anoint your hair, paint your faces, fill your quivers ; let the forests resound with your songs ; console the spirits of the dead, and tell them they shall be revenged." — Carver, p. 195.
Stanza XXVII.
Tiask. Tespiquin. Arinawan. Tiask, or Tiash, Tespiquin, Totoson, and others, were Philip's chief counsellors. Those mentioned in the text were with him in the swamp. They were all caught and killed soon after. Annawan, or Annawon, was also a chief captain and counsellor, and seems to have been an intelligent and high-minded warrior. He was taken by Captain Church soon after his escape from the swamp where Philip was killed ; and behaved with great composure and magnanimity after his capture. " He was put to death, as he justly had deserved," says Mr. Hubbard.
NOTES TO CANTO SIXTH.
Thee^ Indians tell, the first of men to win, Clomh long the vaulted heaven's unmeasured height. The Iroquois do not go back to the earth for the creation of man. Six men first appear in their mythology ; one of whom ascended to heaven to seek a woman, named Atahansic. He found her ; and when she was de- tected in having received his visit, she was precipitated from the upper regions. She ahghted on the back of a tortoise, where she was delivered of twins, one of whom killed the other. Sac— Charlevoix, p. 344.
Thou weeping comest, the sweet sagamiteto straw. " Chacun se retire ensuite chez soi, raais des Femmes reviennent pendant quelques jours verser au meme endroit de la Sagamite." — Idem, p. 378. Sagamite is a mixture of Indian corn and other inofredients.
Stanza XVI.
The account of the ambushment and death of Philip is taken from Cap- tain Church.
" By that time they were got over the ferry, and came near the ground, half the niglit was spent. The Captain commands a halt, and bringing the company together, he asked Major Sandford''s and Captain Golding''s advice, what method was best to take in making the onset, but they dechned giving him any advice, telling him. That his great experience and success forbid their taking upon them to give advice. Then Captain Church offered Cap- tain Golding that he should have the honour (if he would please to accept of it) to beat up Philip^s head-quarters. He accepted the offer, and had his alloted number drawn out to him, and the pilot. Captain ChurcWs instruc- tions to him were to be very careful in his approach to the enemy, and be sure not to shew himself until by day light they might see and discern their own men from the enemy ; told him also, that his custom in the like cases was, to creep, with his company, on their bellies, until they came as near a^ they could ; and that as soon as the enemy discovered them they would cry
NOTES TO CANTO SIXTH. 393
out ; and that was the word for his men to fire and fall on. Directed him, when the enemy should start, and take into the swamp, they should pursue with speed, every man shouting and making what noise they could ; for he would give orders to his ambuscade to fire on any that should come silently.
" Captain Church knowing that it was Philip^s custom to be foremost in the flight, went down to the swamp, and gave Captain Williams of Sciluate the command of the right wing of the ambush, and placed an Englishman and an Indian together behind such shelters of trees, &c. that he could find, and took care to place them at such distance that none might pass undis- covered between them ; charged them to be careful of themselves, and of hurting their friends, and to fire at any that should come silently thro' the swamp ; but being somewhat further thro' the swamp than he was aware of, he wanted men to make up his ambuscade. Having placed what men he had, he took Major Sandford by the hand, said <Szr, I have so placed them that it is scarce possible Philip should escape them. The same moment a shot whistled over their heads, and then the noise of a gun towards Philip'' s camp. Captain Church thought at first it might be some gun fired by accident ; but before he could speak, a whole volley followed, which was earlier than he expected. One of Philip^s gang going forth, looked round him, and Cap- tain Golding tho't the Indian looked right at him (though probably it was but his conceit) so fired at him, and upon his firing, the whole company tha:t were with him fired upon the enemies' shelter before the Indians had time to rise from their sleep, and so overshot them. But their shelter was open on that side next the swamp, built so on purpose for the convenience of flight on occasion. They were soon in the swamp, and Philip the fore- most, who starting at the first gun, threw his petunk and powder-horn over his head, catch'd up his gun, and ran as fast as he could scamper, without any more clothes than his small breeches and stockings, and ran directly on two of Captain Church''s ambush ; they let him come fair within shot, and the Englishman's gun missing fire, he bid the Indian fire away, and he did so to purpose, sent one musket bullet through his heart, and an- other not above two inches from it ; he fell upon his face in the mud and water, with his gun under him. By this time the enemy perceived they were waylaid on the east side of the swamp, tack'd about short. One of the enemy, who seemed to be a great surly old fellow, halloo'd with a loud voice, and often called out, lootasht lootash. Captain Church called to his Indian Peter, and asked him, who that was that caWd so ? He answered, It was old Annawon, Philip^s great Captain, calling on his soldiers to stand to it, and fight stoutly. Now the enemy finding that place of the swamp which was not ambush'd, many of them made their escape in the English tracks. The man that had shot down Philipy ran with all speed to Captain Church, and inform'd him of his exploit, who commanded him to be. silent about it, and let no man more know it, until they had drove the swamp clean ; but when they had drove the swamp thro', and found the enemy liad
VOL. I. D D D
894 NOTES TO CANTO SIXTH.
escaped, or at least the most of them, and the sun now up, and so the dew gone, that they could not easily track them, the whole company met to- gether at the place where the enemies' night shelter was ; and then Captain Church gave them the news of Philip^s death ; upon which the whole army gave three loud huzzas. Captain Church ordered his body to be pulled out of the mire on to the upland, so some of Captain Church'' s Indians took hold of him by his stockings, and some by his small breeches (being otherwise naked), and drew him thro' the mud to the upland, and a doleful, great, naked, dirty beast he looked like. Captain Church then said. That forasmuch as he had caused many an Englishman's hody to be unburied, and to rot above groundy that not one of his hones should be buried. And calling his old Indian executioner, bid him behead and quarter him ; accordingly he came with his hatchet and stood over him, but before he struck he made a small speech, directing it to Philip ; and then went to work, and did as he was ordered. Philip having one very remarkable hand, being much scarred, occasioned by the splitting of a pistol in it formerly ; Captain Church gave the head and that hand to Alderman, the Indian who shot him, to show such Gentlemen as would bestow gratuities upon him ; and accordingly he got many a penny by it. This was in the latter end of August, 1676." — Church's History, p. 70, 71, 72, 73.
The death of Philip draws from Captain Church no other comment, than that his company got but four shillings and sixpence a piece for their trouble. They shot but few Indians, and Philip's head went with the rest, at thirty shillings each.
There is a comical history of the Discovery of America and the Wars with the Indians, written by one H. Trumbull, which seems to have gone through several editions. He states that Philip was lying in a swamp, near Mount Hope, with ninety Seaconet Indians, and was shot by a Mohegan, on the twenty -seventh of October, 1679. Also, that Oneco, son of Uncas, broiled and ate a pound of Philip's flesh. Now the Seaconets were with Captain Church ; Philip was shot by a Pocasset Indian ; and that event took place on the twelfth of August, 1676. AH the authorities agree in this point ; and the story of Oneco and the pound of flesh is an embellishment, drawn entirely from the sanguinary imagination of this blundering chronicler. The rest of his history, at least as far as I am acquainted with the facts it professes to record, is equally, and as surprisingly, inaccurate.
Stanza XVII.
But as the elks in northern xoood, &c. The mode of hunting the elk, by driving him into the water, where other hunters are disposed in a semicircle of canoes, is described by Charlevoix, p. 7,' 126.,
NOTES TO CANTO SIXTH. 395
Stanza XXIV.
As amber gum io feverish vein. The balm of the sweet gum-tree, or liquid amber, is reckoned by the Indians to be an excellent febrifuge. — Carver, 335.
It will be seen from the extract from Church, in what respect we have deviated from history. It is unnecessary to add anything more to these notes ; except that Philip's quarters were hung up, " and his head (in the words of Mather) carried in Triumph to Plymouth, where it arrived on the very day that the Church there was keeping a solemn Thanksgiving to God. God sent 'em in the Head of a Leviathan for a Thanksgiving f^'east.
bTwf Tra? aTrdkonOj OT/f T6iavTdye fi^ot.
Sic pereat quisquis captarit talia posthac !"
END OF VOL. I.
■'^'
WRITINGS
ROBERT C. SANDS
VOL. 11.
Vol. II.— a
THE
WRITINGS
ROBERT C. SANDS,
PROSE AND VERSE.
WITH
A MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
SECOND EDITION.
NEW-YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CLIFE-'STREET 18 3 5.
•
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1835,
By Harper & Brothers,
In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New- York.
OONTENTS
OF
THE SECOND VOLUME.
Page
Association 9
The German's Story - 21
The Man who Burned John Rogers 29
A Simple Tale 44
Boyuca 63
Thoughts on Hand- writing 102
Mr. De Viellecour and his Neighbours 114
Scenes at Washington, No. 1 159
Scenes at Washington, No. 11. ... ? 209
Ghosts on the Stage 267
The Stranger in Weehawk 278
Hoboken 287
John Brown 292
John Smith » . 300
Police Literature 310
Jjetter from Orange County 316
Dream of Papantzin 320
Monody, to the Memory of the Rev. J. W. Eastbum . . . 336
Sleep 340
Parting 344
A Monody, made on the late Mr. Samuel Patch .... 347
Daniel Rook 353
The Sun looks on naught, &:c ' . . 356
Good Night . -. .357
b CONTENTS.
Psalm cxxxvii 358
Lines written in an Album 359
The Lover to the Tree 361
Prologue to Waldimar 363
The Stars, — a Poetic Meditation ......... 366
The Butterfly 372
Elegy on Henry Slender .. ^ ....... . 373
Horace, Book H. Carm. 3 375
Horace, Epode 2 , 377
Weehawken 380
Preface to an Album 382
Invocation 386
To a Lady on the Death of her Daughter 389
The Ocean of Nonsense 394
The Deluge 399
Noah, a Poem * . . . 403
The Dead of 1832 406
MISCELLANEOUS PIECES,
[The paper entitled "Association," together with "The German's Story," to which it serves as an introduction, was first published in " the Talisman," . a miscellaneous work undertaken by Mr. Sands, in conjunction with two of his literary friends, under the name of Francis Herbert, Esq. They appeared in the last volume of that work, in the year 1830. The " Simple Tale," which follows, was published in the second volume, in the year 1829. The story entided " Boyuca" was one of the latest pro- ductions of the author. It formed part of a collection of original tales, by different wrhers, published under the name of "Tales of the Glauber Spa," in November, 1832.]
•s^'
ASSOCIATION.
" We change our clime, but not our nature, when we ruri beyond the sea." Neither time, nor place, nor circumstance, can affect the identity of the individual man. I am not about to weary the patience of any too indulgent reader, by expatiating on this old but sage proposition. All that is true is trite ; yet truth is often received by sophis- ticated mankind, with the startling effect of an entirely new revelation. Axioms which reason and experience constrain us to assent to, do not prevent us from entertaining and fos- tering pleasant delusions. Hope and Imagination triumph over Truth. Under a different sky — with different asso- ciates— among other forms of things — the venerable relics of by-gone ages — or the fresh and newly-crested honours of a rising nation —
" Among unknown men In lands beyond the sea,"
we dream that we should act a wiser and better part. Circumstances may favour the self-deception- in some instances. Disappointment must of course attend upon most of them. But truth tells us that it is a deception in all. Man is not the creature of circumstances ; he is the creature of Omnipotence.
We are not changed by any differenceln the persons and objects around us. Yet how do they seem^hanged to us ! The reasons why they do so are obvious, and are oftener
VOL. IT. B
10 ASSOCIATION.
felt, than well expressed in prose. Poetry is indebted to them for half of its stock in trade.
In plain and gently-ambling prose, however, steering clear of the whirlpools and quicksands of metaphysics, every one can understand how what we have seen, heard, felt, and undergone, in an intervenient space of time, affects the picture presented to our mind's eye by external objects at different periods. The most familiar illustration of the effects of comparison is, that what had at one time seemed grand in size, or beautiful in proportion, will subsequently strike us, and generally with a melancholy sensation, as diminutive or misshapen.
Theodore Hook, as pleasant a writer in his way as any English author I know of, seems to think, from the manner in which he dwells upon it, and the frequency of the ob- servation in his " Sayings and Doings," that he has made a profound discovery in relation to this subject — to wit : that when we leave, for the first time, scenes of humble preten- sions, we are not so much struck with the altitude or vast- ness of other objects, as we are, on returning, with the little- ness and mean proportions of what we had once been ac- customed to regard, not only with complacency, but respect. The rules of optics and of perspective furnish an easy solu- tion of the first part of this supposed phenomenon ; while the simplest consideration of the nature of association as readily explains the latter. When Captain Lemuel Gulliver returned from Brobdignag, he ducked very naturally on entering his own door^ though he had grown no taller than he had been when he entered it with " front sublime," and all the upright dignity of man. Why the respectable animal which we call a goose, does, or is supposed to, in the com- mon conundrum, stoop in entering a barn by the door- way, is satisfactorily accounted for by the children's answer to the quibble ; at least to my apprehension. If there be a deeper solution of the mystery, I suppose it can only be obtained by devising some direct means of interaommunion with the
ASSOCIATION. 11
geese themselves. If this can be done, the opportunity should be embraced of unravelling several other knotty- points in metaphysics.
Places which v^^e visit after protracted intervals of time, can hardly ever wear, to our perceptions, precisely the same aspect, though they should in the mean time undergo no obvious change. Yet there may be exceptions to this gen- eral truth. The present associated images may fortuitously be so identical with those of a former hour, that the inter- vening years, with all their joys and sorrows, shall have their effects and influence momentarily suspended, and that we shall go back in the chronology of memory.
There is a well-known anecdote, illustrative of this phe- nomenon. A gentleman was about to sail for the East Indies, who had a propensity for telling long stories. He stood on the quay, with his most intimate friend, telling him one of his most prolix legends, when he was summoned. to get into the small boat which was to convey him on board. Many years elapsed, during which he married and buried two wives, and made and lost a fortune, when he returned and landed on the same quay, where he met the same friend. " As I was saying" — he continued, taking him by the arm ; and finished his narrative, resuming it at the precise point where he had been interrupted. There is nothing extrava- gantly improbable in this incident ; and, from all I heard about it in Germany, there is no reason to doubt that it actually occurred.
When an alteration has been made in any place which it is our chance or desire to revisit, or when it has received some addition, no matter how small in comparison with the whole, the whole will seem changed to us ; but it will de- pend on other associations, whether we most regard the novel object, and wonder whence it came, or the former scene, and wonder why it is altered.
In the course of my somewhat rambling life, I have my- self often experienced the various effects which circum-
12 ASSOCIATION.
stances produce, in changing the appearance of natural anci artificial objects. But I remember no more violent and disagreeable sensations arising from this cause, than those -vvhich I felt on paying a second visit to what is called the Pine Orchard, an elevated platform on the Catskill Moufir tains, of late most terribly becockneyfied in newspaper prose.
I ascended to it many years ago, accompanied by two experienced admirers of nature. We carried with us only our pilgrim staves and scrips. Our path was a rugged and often a toilsome one ; but, as it led us onward amid deep woods and a fine landscape bounded by a barren and wild prospect, in the valley through which the Katerskill creek runs, winding its course onward until it unites with the Kattskill — or turned abruptly round some bold rampart, •vvhose rocky foundation jutted forth in defiance, supporting a respectable hill, which would, in a level country, be dig-? nified with the name of a mountain — or as it carried us over gurgling water-courses, through shady glens, and into dark ravines — or left us to clamber and actually to crawl up precipitous ascents — still, " the rough road seemed not long." Ever-shifting scenery and converse as varied be- guiled us, so that we felt not fatigue, and should scarcely have been conscious of the difference between our sluggish progress, and that of " Hyperion's march on high," had it not been for the increasing heat. And ever and anon we paused to contemplate some striking picture before us ; or arrested our footsteps, and stopped on a level landing-place to gaze on the region we had left behind, when a new open- ing presented such a combination of the imagery we haji before beheld in detail, as the mind could not have grouped, or the imitative power of painter or poet expressed.
We were sensible that we were constantly ascending ; but the mountain did not rise before the sight, nor was the point to be gained at all visible. And, afterward, I could not help assimilating our journey to that of Life, when th^
ASSOCIATION. 13
unseen and unknown heaven has been steadfastly kept in mind as the bourne of its pilgrimage ; and after toil encoun- tered, mazes threaded, and difficulties overcome, it is crowned with the Beatific vision.
At length we reached a delightfully cool grotto, which, with its smooth projecting stone roof sheltered us from the sun, while we reclined on as primitive seats of the same material beneath. The moisture which exuded from the rock all around, filled this retreat with freshness. A natural basin in the living stone was filled with pure cold water by its secret fountains, which welled out also in other directions, forming little rivulets that played and murmured softly around our feet. Here we refreshed ourselves for a short time, and blessed the Nymph of the place, to whom an^ tiquity would have given a name, had her haunt in classic days been approached by the footsteps of the then civilized man.
My companions did not inform me how near we were to the Mecca of our pilgrimage ; nor had they given me any other notion of the view from the spot we had almost reached, than that it was a very extensive one. When, therefore, after climbing a moderate ascent on the left, I stood upon the naked flat rock, two or three acres in extent, called the Pine Orchard, by a catachresis (a few dwarf evergreens of two feet high, or less, and of an unhealthy look, which sprouted from the crevices of the platform, being the only specimens of vegetation), and when I ad- vanced to its brink, overlooking five or six States, the vast- ness of the scene that broke upon me all at once was over- whelming-, and, at first, not understood.
I beheld — " Creation !" as Natty Bumpo said, " dropping the end of his line into the water, and sweeping his hand around him in a circle." On the verge of this stupendous precipice, whose sheer descent is in some pjaces nearly a thousand feet, in an atteuuated atmosphere, above the com- mon clouds and vapours, with all heaven over head, and
14 ASSOCIATION.
half the earth, as it would seem at first, spread beneath the feet, there was nothing artificial, nothing that man had done, to relieve or break the suspension of the faculties which occurred instantaneously when the prospect burst upon the eye. We stood on this narrow table-land, isolated from the world ; of which we gazed on a portion seen in minia- ture so far below ; while beside, and behind us, the ever- lasting mountains lifted their heads, still towering higher into the clear and boundless firmament.
The presence of God was realized in the breathless pause of the moment. Nor did the sensation accompanying this consciousness soon pass away. On changing my position, to which 1 had been fixed and rooted for the time, on mov- ing to other points of observation, and on ascending to higher acclivities, still the same unlimited extension lay before the sight, and the image of eternity dwelt upon the mind.
And when we arose the next morning (for we bivouacked after a fashion beneath the rocks and under the trees), the mist that covered the level scene below, just before the dawn, unbounded by any outline, but mingling with the all- casing air that enwraps the planet we live upon, presented to the feelings a more immediate though cloudy type of that which is without beginning or end, or any confines, than the ocean itself has ever suggested to me. I have been on much more elevated spots, and have powerfully felt the natural influences of the locality, and the picture before me. But the sense of mighty solitude, of somewhat oppres- sive and always sublimating abstraction from the peddling concerns of mankind, never overcame me more forcibly than on this occasion. I heard a deep voice, though all was silent, and saw a vast phantom stretching and spread- ing away for ever ; and the shadow which this pageant cast over the brain was constantly that of " Eternity, Eternity, and Power."
There has been no description attempted fit to be com-
ASSOCIATION. 15
pared for an instant with that given by the hunter in the Pioneers, either of this place or of the neighbouring Fall. It was my fortune to read the passages to which I refer before I thought of expressing in written language my own recollections of the effects produced on myself by both of them. My ingenious countryman has anticipated me alto- gether (as he has anticipated everybody else), by making his favourite hero the organ of his own reminiscences.
As we stood on the floor of rocks, down which the streamlet which was so soon to take so terrible a leap came sportively winding and dancing onward, with as much glee as if it was always holyday upon earth, and as we looked down into the profound depths, where its waters, after having been resolved and shattered into spray, resumed their course— and gazed laboriously up the side of another gigantic mountain, rising fairly to the sight, in all its distinct grandeur, from its very base to its dome-shaped summit clothed from bottom to top with its drapery of solemn woods, mounting girdle upon girdle, until the eye ached that tried to count for even a small portion of its unmeasured conoid, the number of their cinctures — ^here, there, and everywhere — we saw nothing which interfered with the religion of the place. Nature remained, stalled and throned in her own holy solitudes. We trod, involuntarily, with cautious steps ; and spoke in regulated tones, as if feeling that we were in her Cathedral ; that the voices of her waters and the whisperings of her wilderness were devo- tional litanies and thanksgivings.
I do not think that Natty Bumpo himself would have been much more scandalized and afflicted, had he known that the march of the " Settlements" would extend up to these wild regions, where, by himself alone, he had chased the bear, the wolf, and the panther, and where, safe from man's intrusion, he had gazed from his eyrie, in his contem- plative moods, upon the " carryings on" of this worlds — than I was, when I learned that some people had been building
16 ASSOCIATION.
a monstrous tavern on the table-rock — knocking up a grog- shop on the top of the semi-amphitheatre into which the streamlet makes its leap, and damming up its waters — for miserable lucre — in order to charge the spectators a shilling a head for opening the sluice.
Oh ! ye Oreads, Dryads, Hamadryads, and Napeids ! Thou, sweet and solitary Nymph of the now desecrated grot ! And ye, tiny Naiads of the rivulet and the daring cataract ! Whither have ye fled ! And had ye no aven- ger ? Do the storm and the hurricane roar harmless for ever beneath your immemorial haunts ? Do the great Thunder, and the all-consuming Lightning, which was wont to visit the lofty places of the earth — the tall pines and the presumptuous towers, and the monuments of ancient kings — riot idly beneath the regions ye have loved ? Will not winter, when the trees, each of which belonged to one of you, freeze and shiver on the ice-incrusted scalps of those Titan-hills which you once made your homes — ^when he binds up your springs, arrests your torrents, and piles up his snow in your valleys, nooks, and pathways — will he not in some indignant and tyrannic mood lock up your invaders in monumental cold, to perish without succour or sympa- thy ? I thought in my folly that those two barren acres and that sacristy of nature were inappropriable, and that they belonged to mankind. It was an idle thought. Could the bowels of iEtna or Vesuvius be subjected to human power, Enceladus would be made to roar by contract, and the natural fireworks be exhibited for a consideration !
Such might or would have been the expression of my indignation, when I heard of the profanations to which I have adverted. An actual inspection of the Improvements ^ as it may well be conceived, did not mitigate my exaspera- tion. Human converse and human comforts reconciled me however for the time being, and, prosaically, to the change ; though poetically it was and must be impossible to do so. The .place has been made vulgar; the nymphs have fled;
ASSOCIATION. 17
it has been trodden by the feet of cockneys, unnumbered and innumerable ; lackadaisial lovers have made soft matches in its rarified air, where their small v^its were weakened by expansion ; and the qualities of the victuals and drink which may be bought upon it have been pain- fully puffed in the public prints. It is desecrated. And though the elements should carry away every vestige of the improvements, it can never more, unless dreadful oblivion shall shroud the past, be gazed on from afar as a point in the outHne of the blue figure above the horizon, which the heavens seem to vindicate as their own, or be visited with reverent footsteps — as it was gazed upon, and as it was approached, in the days that have departed.
Yet, with agreeable company, one may get along there well enough, I have no doubt. When I was there the second time, which was a few years ago, I went up the Hudson in a crowded steamboat. I am fond, when in the mood, of mingling with the accidentally-assorted contents of these conveyances. We are not obliged to be brought into such close compact with disagreeable individuals as we are in other contrivances for the transportation of people by land and water. And we often make temporary acquaintances, from whom we part with a feeling of pleasant melancholy. On this occasion, I was pestered with an Englishman, who had come out to see about selling some cotton stuffs for his employers, and having two weeks on hand, before the return of the packet, was making notes for his travels. As we passed the Highlands, he observed that they were nice Ills. He inquired whether the other end of the Hudson emptied into Hudson's Bay ; and being told yes, made a memorandum to that effect.
Even those who find the Pine Orchard an. Elysium, have to go through Purgatory to get to it, in the usual warm season. The musty adage says that we must all eat a peck of dirt in the course of our lives, and the whole of this pen- alty will be exacted in riding, on a hot and dusty day, from
VOL. n. — c
18
ASSOCIATION.
the Catskill-landing to the hotel on the mountain. When the crowded vehicle, in which we were dragged up the ascent, drove round in front of the inn, the company were in a sorrow^ful-looking ph'ght ; and as w^e regarded each another's condition, the ridiculous contended manfully with the subhme for the mastery. There, to be sure, w^as the vast view at our feet ; but there too was the big hotel, all shining new, with w^ell-dressed multitudes promenading its piazzas, and inspecting the travel-soiled and fatigued new importations with complacent curiosity. And then the trouble with baggage and servants, and procuring one's self quarters and needful comforts — though there is no host more civil and agreeable to be found in the land than the lord of this wooden castle in the air — these things must effectually interfere with the feeling of awe, if not with that of simple wonder, which the instantaneous bursting of the vision below upon the sight is calculated to produce. The ladies severally said, Oh ! ah ! or dear-me ! and hurried to get dressed, before they " looked at the prospect."
The prospect indeed is altogether another sort of an affair — seen everlastingly through every one of the hundred windows in front of this mansion, which there is no passing without beholding it, in a picture-like form set in a common- place frame — from what it was when looked upon from the naked rock, under the canopy of heaven, and in the solitude of nature. I wished heartily that it was out of the way.
I was sitting in one of the parlours, in the evening, where a small circle were amusing themselves with such re- sources as they had for the purpose. Two interesting young ladies from Virginia, whom I shall call Penserosa and Allegra, were seated together on a sofa. The latter was playfully tracing on the wall the outline of the profile in shadow thrown upon it by the bust of Penserosa. It so happened that the full features of this damsel were at the same time reflected in a looking-glass which hung in the direct-ion to which her head was turned. On that reflection she might well have gazed with the conscious pride of
ASSOCIATION. 19
beauty ; but whether she did or not, I am unable to say. The sweet and somewhat pensive lineaments of her coun- tenance were thus presented in triple variety; the fair originals being three-fourths seen, while the mirror showed the whole, and the mere contour was exhibited on the wall. There was also a third copy of them in process ; for I ob- served that an Italian artist, who had been roving among the mountains taking sketches, was busy with his tablets, and ever and anon casting an earnest glance at the sisters,
I was mentioning to an intelligent German the disap- pointment I had experienced in the change which the view had undergone, to my eyes ; and we fell into a rambling disquisition on the subject of association. Penserosa opened a volume of Wordsworth's poems, which was lying by her, and asked if any thing better had ever been written on this theme, than the glorious ode of this great bard, which she began to read aloud.
There was a melancholy pathos in her voice as she read the first stanza, concluding with
" Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more" —
which almost led me to suspect some secret of the heart, might, without resorting to the deep philosophy of the poet, afford a sufficient reason for her feeling —
" That there had passed away a glory from the earth."
Allegra said that for her part she loved variety, and should soon get tired of the world, if it always looked ahke. With the beautiful development of the poet's theory, be- ginning with —
" Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting," &c.
the German was enraptured. The expressions of. his ad- miration were enthusiastic to an unusual extent ; at least, I was somewhat surprised by it. He understood the English
20 ASSOCIATION.
language remarkably well, though he spoke it with a broken accent. We fell into a speculative disquisition about the notion of the pre-existence of the soul as a matter of course; though, as a matter equally of course, none of us had any thing to suggest which was not suggested three thousand years ago, as we know from the records ; and three thousand years before that, as we have the best rea- sons in the world for believing, it was as great a mystery. — •■
" The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar :
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness But trailing clouds of glory, do we come
From God, who is our home ; Heaven lies about us in our infancy !"
The German adverted to a mental phenomenon, which he seemed to think connected with this subject. He said he had several times been suddenly perplexed by a strange sensation that what was passing at the identical moment had happened before. I admitted that I had experienced the same hallucination myself, as did also Penserosa. Allegra said she had never felt exactly alike twice in the course of her life. I referred, for the reason of the seeming mystery, to the strong accidental similarity or identity of associa- tions ; as in the case of the gentleman who went to India, which I have before mentioned. But this natural solution did not seem altogether satisfactory to my new acquaint- ance. He dwelt so much on one instance which he said had occurred to himself, in which he was in a kind of trance, that I besought him to give xne the particulars. He said he had written them down, on account of their curiosity, and that I was welcome to the manuscript.
I thought his narrative might prove amusing to some of my readers. I believe I have translated it faithfully. There is some flightiness about it, as might be expectec} from the nature of the occurrence.
THE GERMAN'S STORY.
I WAS sitting one evening, just before twilight, with my back against the wall, in a recess of my with-drawing room, in which there was a large window. I leaned my arm on a table, and was meditating with no continuous train of thought, but, certainly, without the least somnolency ; as I am not subject to it in the afternoon, and had taken strong coffee after a light dinner. A strange sensation came over me, identifying the present moment with one which had been. " Just so I have felt — all this I have acted and suf- fered before." Thus 1 thought, or rather, of this I was conscious. It was not that I accurately recognised any par- ticular combination of existing images or sensations, as the doubles of those I had perceived at a previous point of time : but the strange consciousness was entire and irresist- ible, and was accompanied with a peculiar physical effect, not unlike the incipient terror of those who are affected by the dread of supernatural appearances. As my dog looked up sleepily in my face, this hallucination grew more vivid. A lady, who was in the room, made some remark as she quitted it. I heard only, as it seemed to me, a passing strain of music in the cadence of her sweet tones ; and, as I looked upward, I felt that I knew all that was to follow.
But Beatrice stood before me with her full yet floating and angelic form, her bright and laughing eyes, and her lux- uriant hair, with its clusters carelessly yet classically con- fined in beautiful subordination ; and she smiled as she was wont, when not to believe the language of her expression would have been disbelief in the existence of angelic Intel-
22 THE German's story.
ligences. So I looked at her. I could not love her more than I had done, or did ; for love of her then occupied my soul, and was like the Hebrew tense, supposed to shadow forth the Divine origin of that language — past, present, and to come. The modifications of time had nothing to do with my feelings, to which Love, undivided, was the measure of duration as well as of space, matter, and sentience. Beatrice stood before me. " So," said she, " you are in a brown study again ?"
" Our ideas will wander, dear Beatrice, at certain times, when we are not asleep, and cannot safely swear that we are awake. But now I am wide awake ; and now I think of but one object."
" That is because you cannot help it. It is before you, and compels you to talk to it."
" Sit down by me, and do not be so mischievous. Why, you are almost in bridal apparel ?"
" I am practising for the day after to-morrow. Do you think you will be ashamed of me?"
We sat together in a recess, a window which admitted a prospect of the beautiful twilight scene ; and the softened glory yet lingering in the west, mellowed but not yet all spiritual, as it irradiated her form and features, showed me the most delightful vision which prophet had ever seen, or poet pretended to behold. And it was no phantasm ; for this exquisite image breathed and lived and panted respon- sively to the quick and full pulsations of my own heart : and as I looked down into her eyes, where the light of the soul illuminated each mysterious sun of expression which shed its effulgence over the sweetly moulded world of her features, I seemed gazing into wells of unfathomable thought, and holiness and love. He who could have believed that truth did not lie at the bottom, would never have been healed at the pool of Bethesda. But what was / to be- lieve ? I only felt, strong as the consciousness of my own existence, that we loved, I saw my own miniature in each
23
of those wondrous orbs ; and did they not open into her heart ?
" Beatrice !" — I murmured.
" Hierome !" — she whispered.
" Why is not to-morrow, the day after to-morrow?"
"Because, my friend, the almanac-makers will not have it so. The day after to-morrow will come soon enough." (And she sighed.)
" But not too soon, Beatrice ?"
" Oh no ! — It is past seven o'clock, is it not ?" (What a strange question 1)
" I should think so ; for the sun set some minutes ago."
" Well, Hierome, when the everlasting sun measures the days and nights, and the heart measures time by its own calendar, I wonder why they make almanacs, and watches. It seems to me as absurd as astrology. Did you ever be- lieve in astrology ?"
" Believe ? — I believe nothing at this moment, but that I am, and you are ; — and that I love you as my better exist- ence. But, last night, I was gazing on the stars, and I will censure no one hereafter for having faith in their ordained connexion with the destinies of men — provided the prose- lyte is not honestly in love, and an accepted lover. If he cannot then defy augury, he ought to be discharged by his mistress."
" I incline to the same opinion," said Beatrice. " If he is frightened by looking at the quiet stars, a melon rind with a candle in it would be certain death to him."
" But you shall hear about my astronomical observations, nevertheless, dear Beatrice. I looked forth on the eternal, silent, and mysterious heavens. Star after star, as it hung in the intensely blue abyss, arrested my glance, and then it wandered to another, and yet another. More millions of those unextinguished lamps were raying out their influences, than there have been individuals to be governed by them among living men and the generations that have been on this planet since the morning stars sang together. I looked
24
upon the milky way ; and explored, with untaught eyeS; that star-studded pavement for the footsteps of Omnipo- tence. All was vague and undefined in the mirror that gave to my soul its images ; or else my soul drank in only the lessons of Eternity and infinite Power, which the mean- est peasant can read in that book of God. But presently my attention was fixed upon two pellucid and sparkling orbs, distinctly shining near each other. Their spheres were as uniformly brilliant as the focal radiant eye of the diamond ; save that their lustre seemed more liquid, and that they appeared to oscillate in the ocean of immensity beyond our atmosphere, sprinkling or shooting forth portions of their own pure glory ; and as they vibrated, they still seemed seeking to approach each other — '^
" Did you hold your fingers between your eyes ?" said Beatrice ; "because — "
" Pshaw !" said I, rather angrily — " I know it is all folly ; but I did not hold my finger between my eyes. And to what do you think I likened those two beautiful stars ?" " Perhaps to Aretine's two eyes.'*
" No 1" said I, still more vexed ; " if I had wished to see anybody's two eyes in those stars, you might account for it. But I will tell you all my vision. I likened them unto our- selves ; and in the very sanctuary of my heart I offered up to them my orisons, and adopted them as the controllers of our destiny. The filmy drapery which had floated round them was withdrawn. In a certain space in heaven they were alone ; and therein they shone and radiated, and sometimes seemed almost to kiss each other. Whether it was a mere delusion of the sight or the imagination, or that some wandering meteor mocked me — it did seem that I saw a sphere of morbid aspect drop rapidly between those two goodly stars ; and I was startled through the very marrow of my frame, with the rapidity of an electric shock, and with a cold sensation, which I felt through every pore. Yon need not laugh, Beatrice. The yellow star fell. Some
THE German's story. 25
one then spoke to me, about I know not what ; but when I looked again, a silvery curtain had been drawn over that portion of the firmament ; and through it I only saw, as I thought, the heaven-rejected and sickly hues of that strange* interloping light. Now this made me melancholy, until I fell asleep ; and then in my dreams I saw this unholy orb, moving about, like an ignis fatuus in a church-yard. At last I thought I was in our own cathedral, and that you were with me ; and that the priest stood in the chancel with an open book ; and that then this accursed and persecuting globe came, and hung right over the altar, whirling round and round its dull, tainted, and abominable fires, till I grew sick-^"
" I don't wonder at it."
" But, Beatrice, I must tell you almost every thing. Have compassion on my dreams ; though they are made, like those of other men, of incondite stuff— the leavings of reason."
" Strange stuff they are," said Beatrice, "and not worth remembering. You may look into the fire, or into the water, or among the stars, until you can see what you please. And if you look upon the water or stars very long, you may see what does not please you. This was your case. I had much rather look at an honest wood- fire, or a grate full of good coals. There you may form Saracens, knights, and whatever you like, and invest them with all the glorious poetry of obscurity ; and then, like Circe, metamorphose them into what you will ; and you do not feel dizzy or light- headed afterward. But where do you think Frederick can be ?"
Frederick was my friend, O Nemesis ! and the cousin of my best beloved. I do not know why a convulsive shudder should have passed through my frame when this simple question was addressed to me by Beatrice. He had dined with us, and was to return with her that evening to her father's house, a couple of leagues distant.
VOL. IX. D
26 THE GER3IAN^S STORY.
" I dare say he is merry enough, with the merrier party in the saloon."
" Do you know," said Beatrice, " I have thought it would be more delightful to give my father our intended present, now, than alter — after — "
" Af.er he has given you away, dear Beatrice. Do as you please about it."
" Oh ! I will not thank you now," said she. And she kissed my cheek. To be sure, I would have given her every thing, save the fee-simple of my soul, if she had then asked for it. I held a bond for a very large amount, which had been given by her father to mine, as security for which nearly all the property of the debtor wa^ pledged. A release, drawn up with all due formalities, had been pre- pared and executed ; and w^e had agreed to present it to her father on the day of our wedding. It was in an escri- toire on the table beside me, and I drew it out and gave it to her. She placed the parchment in her bosom ; and, pressing her hand upon it, said, " It is all yours, never- theless."
** Ce qui est a toi est a moi."
" Ce qui est a moi est a nous. But there comes Frederick, at last," said Beatrice, gently withdrawing from me.
Another chill passed over me ; and now it struck me more emphatically than before, that it was strange how the name of her best friend should have the effect of one of those charmed words, which, being uttered, will cause paralysis, fever, and other sudden diseases, in certain men, or the animals which are their property. I looked casually forward, in vacancy of thought, and my glance fell on a large mirror of singular perfection, which, in the waning light, seemed to reflect objects with more distinctness than that in which the original images were directly presented to the eye. The picture of Frederick passed over it; and its polished surface became immediately overclouded with^a rusty incrustation, through which, smoking with pes-
THE German's story. 27
tilential lustre, I thought I saw the dingy yellow star of my vision. Ashamed of such weakness, I half expressed my vexation in spoken words.
" I am getting to be a mere old woman. Frederick, I hope you have committed no deadly sin ! They say that a true mirror is spoiled, when it has reflected the image of a contaminated person ; and just now, I thought that the large looking-glass was clouded when you passed it. And so it is still, if I see well."
" You do ; and the glass looks as if the servants had been keeping holyday," said Frederick, who stood looking ear- nestly at me. It afterward occurred to me that his colour changed, and that a tremor passed over him.
" He is getting so superstitious," said Beatrice, " that I am almost afraid of him. I almost believe that he keeps company with ghosts, and that some of his friends may come to see me without knocking."
" Marriage will lay them," said Frederick.
" I hope so !" said Beatrice.
" I know it will," said I. But, while I said it, I felt as if two separate processes of thought were going on in my brain, with inadequate machinery ; and I wondered how I did know that I knew it !
" The coach is waiting," said Frederick : " it is later than I had supposed : and I shall take the liberty of doing now what I shall never have the right to do again ; of parting you two."
" I must go then," said Beatrice, gliding her hand into mine, while a quick look of singular intelligence passed between her and her cousin.
" No ! by the God that made and redeemed me !" I ex- claimed, starting forward furiously — " not this time ! All this has been once before ; and, oh ! there was a horrible sequel of shameless fraud, and perjury, and infamy — and of idiocy, credulity, and forgiveness ! But not again ! Every syllable of all this I have heard before. Every sensation I
28 THE GERMAN*S STORY.
have felt before. Every image, even to the twirling of that wretch's half-gnawed glove, I have seen before 1 But whether the eternal river of time has rolled backward, or I have slept and dreamed through a long interval of pain and joy, or nature is to stand still while this drama is played over again, for my indemnity and your confusion — now, miserable swindlers, you shall not go 1 Traitress, I spit upon you ! Liar and coward, take this token of my friendship /"
And I aimed a blow at the vanishing shadow, as my own wife, my dear Aretine, entered with a candle, which she had left the room to seek. She could not have been absent two minutes ; and I had not stirred from my position.
" It is a thousand times better as it is" I exclaimed. " But if I were a Mahometan, I could easily believe in the story of the Prophet's pitcher ; and as it is, I have entire faith in the tale of a tub, in the Arabian Nights' Enter-
THE MAN WHO BURNT JOHN ROGERS.
Qui vultur jecor intimum pererrat, Et pectus trahit, intimasque fibras, Non est quein lepidi vocant poetae, Sed cordis mala, livor atque luctus.
Petronius Arbiter.
On board of one of the ships sent out by Walter Raleigh under the patronage of Queen EUzabeth, to make dis- coveries along the North American coast, was a passenger of a singular and melancholy aspect, who from the first moment of departure was regarded by all the company with eyes of doubt and suspicion. There was a settled gloom upon his countenance, mingled with an expression ' that seemed sinister and malign, at the same time that it was timorous ; and there was a restlessness and uneasiness in his deportment and gait which it was disagreeable for one who noted him to observe. He would sometimes start when there was neither sound nor sight, nor other cause of agitation. Sometimes he was seen, as darkness was descend- ing over the waters, to conceal himself near the ship's stern, or among ropes and coils of cable ; on which occasions he would start and turn pale, as if detected in guilty musings, or would assume a savage aspect, as if he wished to destroy the intruder on his stolen privacy. The horrors of a guilty conscience seemed evidently to possess him. It seemed as
30 THE MAN WHO BURNT JOHN ROGERS.
if its workings had given him an unnatural appearance of premature age. The hnes of his face and the furrows of his brow were deeply impressed ; and a morbid imagination might almost trace, in the dusky red characters of the latter, the thunder-scars of the fallen angels. His hair in some places had turned completely gray. And yet, on the whole, he seemed not to have numbered more than forty years.
He entered the vessel under the general invitation, un- known to any of the ship's company. A rumour was soon current that his assumed name was fictitious, and that he had done some deed which rendered him odious among mankind. His crime was variously surmised, and, among other things, it was whispered that he had been an execu- tioner. There were in that ship many desperadoes, and many who were flying from justice at home for crimes which in any country would have made them infamous. But no man inquired into or cared for his neighbour's char- acter, though notoriously bad. This man alone, convicted by his peculiar and disagreeable physiognomy and manner, was the mark of aversion to all his fellow-voyagers. The awkward attempts which he made, during the first few days of their voyage, to foi^m acquaintances, met with such unpromising reception that he desisted, and became uni- formly silent. The women passengers avoided his glance, or looked at him askance, with a mingled expression of curiosity and horror ; and at night they stifled the cries of their children by telling them that the Strange Man was coming. At meal-times, a solitary corner became his own by prescription, where his food was given and received in silence : and at night he retired to a couch, from the vicinity of w^hich the occupants of the adjacent dormitories had removed ; as they said his motions, groans, and cries pre- vented them from sleeping. The sailors regarded him with a superstitious dislike, as the Jonas of their vessel, and avoided, or coarsely repulsed him, when he drew near them at thdr work. He frequently overheard their comments
THE MAN WHO BURNT JOHN ROGERS. 31
on his situation, and their surmises as to the cause of his revolting appearance, and the disgust it excited ; which were all, however various, alike disgraceful to him.
Thus, on the bosom of the ocean, and within the narrow prison of a ship, without friend or counsellor, or the power of vindicating himself (for who can fight single-handed with prejudice ?) among hundreds of his fellow-beings, men of like passions with himself, this wretched exile found himself the focal object of aversion, hatred, and disgust. He seemed to be in the situation of a guilty ghost ; more tormented in its unnatural exposure to the living world than in its con- genial hell ; or like some of the prodigies with which the superstitions of different ages have teemed ; like one who had been bitten by a rabid wolf; or who, having had his own veins sucked by a visitant from the charnel-house, had become himself possessed by the horrible appethe for blood. He was like the first born Cain, bearing an obvious but inexplicable mark, which was at once the stamp of his guilt and his protection from the death which he coveted ; or like the Jew who insulted our Divine Redeemer, as he passed on to his closing passion, branded with the indelible stigma which men trembled at and fled from. But the first murderer ^nd the wandering Israelite had the world before them, with its solitudes and lurking places, where no human , countenance could obtrude with its expression of scorn, or fear, or detestation. This man was tied to his stake, with a tether whose shortness only allowed him to make idle and maddening efforts to hide himself from the many hundred eyes that glanced distrustfully and with loathing upon him. The Hindoo who has lost his caste can mingle with others, who, however despised by millions around them, at least form a community and fellowship of misery. But this man was alone ; and the hatred for all his persecutors, which he gave them back in return for their aversion, was silently consuming his heart. '
There was, however, a young man, named Rogers,
32 THE MAN WHO BURNT JOHN ROGERS.
among the company, whose sympathy for the desolate state of this individual overcame the repugnance which, in com- mon with the others, he could not help feeling. He had, once or twice, made an eftbrt, when none observed him, to break through the sphere of repulsion with which the lonely man had become invested. But the latter, supposing his object was derision or insult, avoided his looks and retreated from his advance. Rogers, however, had marked him, when he apparently thought himself secure from notice. He had observed that he wore a shirt of coarse hair under his upper garments, and had seen him in the attitude of prayer telling his beads. He naturally concluded that the source of so much anguish was some dreadful and unfor* given crime, for which he was undergoing penance.
The weather, which had long been threatening in appear- ance, now indicated an approaching storm ; and the symp- toms increased in terror and in certainty. A tremendous gale rendered it impossible for the ship to carry any can- vass ; and night came on with tenfold darkness. The com- mander of this vessel, now separated from the others, was in the utmost perplexity ; and the ship was alternately roll- ing and driving under bare poles, at the mercy of the tem- pest. At first a murmur, and soon a shout was heard among the crew, that the strange man should be brought forth and thrown overboard.
Roused by the clamour and the sound of his name, reit- erated amid the uproar, the unfortunate being sprung from his troubled slumbers, and rushed upon deck. He trembled in every joint and fibre ; his hair rose in distinct bristles ; and his eyes, after wandering wildly, fixed in an intense gaze that spoke of expected evil, dreadful and inevitable. It seemed as if he had been summoned to reveal to the assembled universe the secret that overburthened his heart, and to receive the forfeit of some unpardonable sin, among the hootings and cursings of mankind. No one approached him who regarded his countenance by the fitful light of the
THE MAN WHO BURNT JOHN ROGERS. S3
lanterns ; but those immediately before him shrunk back- ward, under the overpowering influence of preternatural terror. Two stout seamen, however, sprang from behind^ and were hurrying him rapidly towards the gangway. He was urged along so speedily, that he made no resistance until on the verge of destruction. The ship rolled down- ward on the side whence he was about to be precipitated ; and a ruddy flash which streamed from a lantern held near the spot, fell upon the troubled waste beyond. They were on the summit of an immeasurable mountain-wave ; and the wretch looked downward and downward into infinite dark- ness ; while stretching high above, before him, another advancing Alp of waters was impending over the gulf, which was to be to him the abyss of eternity. He uttered one long and shrill and piercing shriek ; and clung, in the agony of his struggle, so firmly to his conductors, that -they in vain endeavoured to shake him off"; but when they had pushed him from his foothold, he adhered, with the tenacity of despair, to the gripe he had taken of each of them, and was thus suspended over the yawning shades below. One was advancing with a cutlass to sever him from his tor- mentors and from life, when the vessel, shifting its position, threw all three backw^ard. His grasp relaxed ; he fell, as if examinate, and rolled against the mast* The two men, having sprung again on their feet, were kicking him towards the opposite quarter ^ when Rogers, who had been standing near, interrupted them, and arrested the body of their intended victim in its progress. The whole scene had passed in a few moments ; but in that brief interval the poor Jonas of the ship had passed through all the bitterness of death. Rogers now remonstrated with the seamen, but to no purpose. In vain he represented that the man had an equal right with themselves to the precarious protection which the ship yet yielded them ; that they might one day be called to account for it; and that, thougli they should escape from human tribunals, they must eventually,. and
vol,. II. E
34 THE MAN WHO BURNT JOHN ROGERS.
might, perhaps, in a few moments, follow this now^ living being, who had never offended them, to the last common audit, to answer for their usmpation of the attribute of God,
His intercession would have been altogether ineffectual^ had not the commander himself at that moment appeared, and restored order by directing the execution of some new manoeuvre. While the attention of the men was thus diverted, Rogers dragged the insensible being down to his couch, and deposited him there in darkness and temporary safety. He opened his eyes, which fixed for a moment on his deliverer ; then, turning on his face, he enveloped him- self in his covering, and lay coiled in the farthest corner of the recess which had been allotted him to sleep in.
The storm abated, and courage and confidence returned to the crew. On the day following the night of his jeopardy the strange being crawled from his lurking-place, unob- served, until he suddenly made his appearance in his usual place at the' hour of dining. His danger on the preceding night was not generally known ; but the company looked at him with a creeping sensation of superstitious awe^ when they saw that his hair had turned completely white. His lower jaw seemed to have dropped. His head was bowed low over the trencher, from which, with trembling hands he took his allotted fare. Silence for some time prevailed in the cabin ; and when the spell was passing away, the speakers addressed each other in an under tone, that sounded unnaturally to themselves, rebuked as it was by the fear that had fallen upon them. From a furtive glance which he threw towards him, Rogers thought that the object of so much terror recognised him as having been his pre- server. He soon took an opportunity, unobserved, of beckoning to him, and the man followed him to a retired corner. Not without some emotion, Rogers requested him to meet him, at midnight, on the quarter-deck. " I wdll, sir," replied the man : " I believe I owe you my life. Would to God I had never incurred the debt. May I
THE MAN WHO BURNT JOHN ROGERS. 35
know the name of one, who, at any rate, meant to befriend me ?" — " Rogers." At this word the man recoiled. His limbs seemed seized with a sudden paralysis, and he was only sustained from sinking by a projecting timber. " I know you not," said Rogers : " you never did me any injury : I may do you some good. Remember your appointment." So saying, he left him.
Whether curiosity or humanit}^ had most influence with the young man in seeking this interview, is a question which, probably, he did not ask himself. Whatever was the origi- nal motive, the former inducement was now exceedingly strong. He determined to gain from the stranger a con- fession of the cause of his situation ; and though it could not possibly interest him, though it might involve him in a troublesome confidence, or stamp on his memory some dis- agreeable picture with which his imagination might be ever after haunted, though the supposed possession of the man's secret, or even a discovery of their private conference might render him obnoxious to the dislike of all his companions, — he still felt impatient until the hour should come which w^as to gratify his desire of penetrating this mystery. Such is the disease of the mind, however denominated, or by what- soever cause excited, inseparably connected with the thirst for knowledge. Eve could not have disbelieved the warn- ing which she heard from the lips of Omnipotence ; that evil, however darkly apprehended as to its nature, must follow the breach of the Divine prohibition ; and yet she plucked and ate, and death came into the world.
The wind had lulled, but a universal darkness covered the face of the deep as the appointed hour drew nigh. Save the watch and himself, all the inhabitants of the ves^l were resting below from the fatigues and alarms of the previous night and day, as Rogers was slowly pacing the quarter-deck. The lights from the binacle glimmered with wan and melancholy rays, deepening 'the infinity of gloom around. The ocean seemed moaning, as if afcer its
36 THE MAN WHO BURNT JOHN ROGERS.
recent tortures. There was no other sight nor soun^, until a stifled groan fell on the ear of Rogers — a sob of deep agony, which the suflferer seemed vainly endeavour- ing to repress. He looked in the direction whence it came, and indistinctly discerned a figure advancing with irregular movements, and half-crawling towards him. He began to experience an unaccountable nervous agitation. This man was probably insane ; perhaps unnaturally visited by some demoniac possession. Credulity was rife with stories of the kind at that time. Why had he sought this intimacy ? Why summoned him in private, at this untimely and ghostly hour ? But the figure had reached him, and after a little timid observation, the strange being stood up and began to gaze earnestly on Rogers' countenance, as the dim light played flittingly across its features. There was nothing to terrify the subject of its scrutiny, either in the gaze, or in the appearance of the examiner. For the former soon changed from the expression of anxiety to that of humble entreaty ; and the figure shook as with decrepitude. And, indeed, after a short time he fell down on his knees, took hold of his young defender by the skirts, and looked up to hirn with an imploring eye. Rogers drew him from his abject situa^ tion to the stem of the vessel, and there bade him sit down beside him.
Silence succeeded for a few moments ; when, with some hesitation, he addressed him. " I believe I did, indeed^ pre^ serve your life last night. You say you cannot rejoice at your deliverance. I have felt compassion for you, because you are alone among so many. Confide in me, and I will extend my protection still further. Whatever crime you may have committed, you are going to the deserts of a new world, where you may begin a new existence. The arm of retributive justice cannot reach you there ; and the face of man cannot behold you, if you choose to fly into its soli-? tudes, I haye a strong (desire to learn your histpry, and
THE MAN WHO BURNT JOHN ROGERS. 37
promise, most solemnly, never to betray your trust, with- out your consent."
" I have committed no crime," replied the man, " for which I am amenable to human laws. In what I have per- formed, I have been told I did Heaven service. But could I fly from man, nay, could I escape from the presence of God, beyond the uttermost parts of the earth or the depths of hell, I cannot fly from myself. I have prayed for mad- ness ; but I am not mad. I can reason, and, alas ! too well remember. Here it is, printed on my brain, a picture of fire ; and it burns, and will burn for ever, unless the soul can be annihilated. I would not commit an offence which I believe w^ould consign me to perdition ; or I would, long since, have laid down this tormenting load of life : yet how could I be happy in heaven, if memory is there, or if there I am to meet any of the countenances that are now looking upon me, though you cannot see them, — so sad, so horror- struck, so agonized ? Have you not read how heathens, in old times, guilty of parricide, or other inexpiable offence, were followed over all the earth, and even to the thresholds of their temples, by terrible v/omen, shaking unquenchable firebrands, with living serpents hissing and twisting around their heads ? I am beset by many followers ; but they do not threaten me, but look fixedly and sorrowfully upon me ; , and I seem sinking down and down beneath their looks into a fathomless pit. Last night I saw them, too, deep in the monstrous womb of the ocean ; and now I see them ; and I shall see them for ever. The heathens, I have read, could cling to their altars ; and the Jews had certain places where the avenger of blood could not pursue. But I have no sanctuary, and no city of refuge, in all the wide world of land and waters that basks in the sunlight ; — and I cannot look for it in the grave."
And here he lay down on his face, and a strong convul- sion shook him like an ague fit. He regained some com- posure, and continued. " Since I have been on board of
38 THE MAN AVHO BURNT JOHN ROGERS.
this vessel the torments of my earthly purgatory have been condensed to an intensity greater and more unre- mitting, than ever the persecutions of those who follow me have been constant. Every living thing around has mocked at and shunned me ; until each human countenance seems to be that of a fiend to whom the penal torture has been assigned of persecuting, and mouthing, and chattering at the guilty ; but I could abide all this, if they were not with me. I have seen them in crowded capitals ; in the Arabian deserts ; and in the dungeons of the infidels ; but never, though long years have passed, more distinctly than now.
" But why should I weary you with what you cannot understand, and have no interest in. You ask to know the source of my calamity. I w^ill endeavour to tell you as briefly and intelligibly as I can. I was the son of an indus- trious and frugal woollen-draper, in the city of London, and his only child. I was much indulged ; and my father, hav- ing bound me apprentice to himself, did not chastise me when I neglected his business, but was satisfied to reprove •me for my present offences. I did not acquire any vices ; but I was an idle youth, and loved to see spectacles of all kinds. In particular, I attended all pubhc executions ; and was very sure never to be absent when any tragic scene was to be acted on Tower-hill or at Tyburn. I loved to watch the countenances of men going to be separated instantly from the bustle of life ; and felt a strange excite- ment at the parade and circumstances which attend the ,awful execution of law. I did not go with the common feelings of the multitude, who thought no more of the event .after it had passed, but dispersed to other places of amuse- ment, or to their every-day business. The procession to the scaffold or the tree ; the prayer, and the psalm, and the dying speech ; the preparations for the block or the halter ; the descending axe or the withdrawing cart ; the hushed pause, of the countless spectators ; the mangling of the
THE MAN WHO BURNT JOHN ROGERS. 3&
bodies afterward — were all to me so many acts of a stage- play, in which I took a fearful but intense delight. It became a passion, paramount above all others ; insomuch, that I sometimes envied the vile executioner, all stained as he was, and besmeared with the blood, and tearing the vitals of his often yet conscious victims ; because he enjoyed a nearer prospect of the scene, from which I was kept back by the crowd and the soldiery.
" I have seen, in the East, men who derived their suste- nance from mortal poisons ; and others who kept tame snakes in their bosoms, and would caress the slimy mon- sters, as they were wrapped in their grisly and glittering folds. I have heard, too, of cannibals, and of forlorn crea- tures who haunt grave-yards and prey upon dead carcasses. Not more unaccountable even to myself than the fancies and appetites of these extraordinary creatures was the desire that possessed me of witnessing the sufferings of human beings previous to the separation of soul and body. I have reasoned upon it since, and found no satisfactory cause ; for in my nature, if I know what it was in child- hood, there was no cruelty nor malice against my fellow- men. But so it was, that the contemplation of all these scenes of bloodshed and terror was my constant employ- ment, and visions of executions, in all their terrible variety* of pain, and fear, and agony, held their infernal sabbath in my mind, so that I neglected business and regular occupa- tion of every kind.
" The persecution of the heretics began, and burnings took place in every part of the country. I had never attended an exhibition of this sort, and imagined, according to the craving of my diseased curiosity, that it must sur- pass in terror and sublimity all I had witnaj^sed of the closing drama of penal justice. It so happened that I had made acquaintance with one of the sheriff's men, with whom I had held much communion on the subjectf always upper- most in my thoughts ; and he came one morning to inform
40 THE MAN WHO BURNT JOHN ROGERS.
me that a minister was to be burnt the next day, and that I mightj if I pleased, be close to the pile, and see every thing as it occurred. This was a golden opportunity for me ; and one for which I had long and vainly sighed. I was, however, not a little damped in my eagerness, when he told me it was necessary I should light the pile myself. From this office, although a good Catholic, and esteeming, even as I still do (but forgive me — you are a Protestant)> the consuming of heretics as an acceptable thing to God : — from this function, I say, I recoiled, as unbecoming the son of an honest man, out of whose province it was entirely to perform the part of the common hangman. My acquaint- ance, however, told me, that I could gain a near access to the stake on no other condition ; and gave me a mask which was adapted to the upper part of my face, and which, he said, w^ould prevent any person from recognising me. He added, that he would call for me the next morning, and so saying, he left me.
" All the rest of that day I was uneasy, irresolute, and almost beside myself, pondering between my desire to indulge a long-cherished curiosity, and the repugnance I felt to execute an office considered disgraceful even when pre^ scribed to an individual as his legal duty. Before I fell asleep, I had made up my mind to depart from home early in the morning, and to behold the spectacle from a distance among the multitude. My dreams, prophetic of all I have ever had since, were troubled, wild, and agonizing ; and I awoke in a feverish state of excitement. Very soon the populace was seen pouring from various quarters to the field where the execution was to be ; and while I was yet meditating whether to evade my appointment by flight, or to refuse accompanying the sheriff's follower, he made his appearance, and beckoned to me, and as if by a fatal, uncontrollable impulse, I slipped quickly out of my father's shop, and accompanied him on his way. Turning down a narrow alley, ho equipped me with my mask, and hurried,
THE MAN WHO BURNT JOHN ROGERS. 41
or rather dragged me towards the prison. No notice was taken of me, as, by the side of my companion, I mingled among the retainers of the law. Very soon the inner gates were opened, and there came forth among the officers a man in black vestments, a little advanced in years. His countenance, though not discomposed, was sad ; for, as I heard, he had just parted from his family. And behind the escort I saw them slowly advancing, but did not then note them particularly ; for a heavy load had fallen upon my heart. I heard not distinctly what was uttered around me, and turned my face neither to the right nor the left, but was led by the arm, mechanically, by my companion ; following, with the other attendants, the cart in which the victim intended for the present sacrifice was placed.
" In this stupor I walked on the whole distance, unroused by the great following of the people, or the occasional inter- ruptions that took place in our progress, until we arrived at the spot where the stake and the fagots were prepared. I kept my eyes fixed, as if by enchantment, on that fatal pile, and was dragged along unresistingly, while a ring was formed around the scene of torture. With dim and dream- ing vision, I saw the minister descend from the cart, and walk tranquilly and firmly, as it seemed, to the goal of his earthly pilgrimage. There were other things passing, which swam indistinctly before my sight. There was a priest with an angry countenance, holding a cross, from whom the heretic minister turned away ; and a proclama- tion was read, of which I heard the sounds, without per- ceiving the meaning of the words. Then they fastened the prisoner to the stake by iron hoops, and closed up the circle of fagots around him. At this moment I was thrust for- ward so suddenly by my companion, that I was urged within a few feet of the pile. I stood without motion, rather as a machine than a thinking being, and a torch was put into my hand by a halberdier. The sheriflr,,who stood by, addressed me, but I understood not his words. I only com-
voL. n. — F
42 THE MAN WHO BURNT JOHN ROGERS.
prehended from his gesture that I was to light the pyre. A dead silence prevailed among all the assembled people, and we might have heard the whisper of an infant, or the falling of a leaf. A brief struggle passed through my frame, and hastily, by the same seemingly mechanical im- pulse, of which alone I appeared to be conscious, I advanced with the fatal brand. One instant I cast my eyes upwards on the victim. His countenance was serene and cheerful ; and he bent his eyes upon me with a settled calmness and forgiveness, w^hich now lives before my sight as though it were yesterday. 1 thrust the torch among the light stuff and combustibles at the foot of the pile ; and the flame speedily ran all around it, and mounted among the wood. I thought I felt it at the same moment encircling my own brain. I dropped the torch and returned to my companion. There was a weight upon my feet that seemed to clog them to the earth at every step, and a deathlike coldness at my heart. Then, as I lifted up my eyes, I beheld, behind the surrounding guards, a melancholy train in sable apparel. There was a mother with a little infant in her bosom. She was tall and of a dignified aspect ; but her cheeks were pale ; and her eyes, swollen and red, were fixed in the direction of the pile where her husband was suffering. There were two lusty and stately youths, who stood gazing sternly and sadly ; but as the fire began to crackle fiercely behind me, they lifted up their voices and wept aloud. There was a maiden just arrived at womanhood, slender and graceful, with a saintly countenance, such as I have seen in pictures of the Holy Virgin ; and she clung weep- ing to her elder brother. There was a younger girl, with golden hair and blue eyes, like a young cherub, weeping, shrieking out for mercy for her father, and a boy, deformed, and supporting himself with a crutch, who had an obliquity in one eye, that gave to the agony of grief, expressed in his face, a strange peculiarity. And there were little children clinging around their mother's garments, all crying bitterly ;
THE MAN WHO BURNT JOHN ROGERS. 43
the youngest, poor souls, for company, not knowing why the rest were so afflicted. Methought that, at the same instant, they all directed their eyes towards me ; and ever since I have retained the individual expression of each of those wo-begone faces. I turned around, and saw the father of this family surrounded by the ascending blaze, that burnt fiercely, but with a pale unnatural lustre, in the broad glare of day. His look was serene, and he stretched out his hands, and washed them in the consuming element."
{Here there is a large defect in the manuscript,)
The vessels w^ere in sight of the coast of Florida. A delightful perfume was wafted from the shore, and the adventurers beheld the banks, even down to the edge of the water, covered with luxuriant vines and groves of magnolia. Some boats put off from the ship in which Rogers was a passenger, for the purpose of paying a visit to this land of promise ; and in one of them the unhappy man, whose his- tory is herein before recorded, went on shore. He was never seen more. Those who were in the same boat with him said that he had wandered into the interior of the coun- try, and could not be recalled in time. It is more probable that they purposely left him.
The ship under command of Sir Francis Drake, a few years afterward, took from the Virginian coast the remnant of the colonists, who were unfortunate in their settlement. Among the survivors, Rogers returned to England, by whom the foregoing facts were narrated. And notwith- standing many traditions and legends that have been popu- lar, the above are the only authentic particulars in relation
to the MAN WHO BURNT JOHN ROGERS.
Hcec scripsi, invito. Minerva, Richmond, August 21th, 1724.
A SIMPLE TALE.
In a certain village, pleasant enough to behold, as you ride or walk through it, but abominably unpleasant to re- main in, on account of the unconquerable propensity of its inhabitants for scandal and tittle-tattle, which prevails to a degree infectious even among decent people : — in this village, about ten years ago, a man and his wife, of plain appear- ance, both in person and dress, came to reside, having the fear of God before their eyes ; and in that fear, I trust, they died.
But they were the subjects of much speculation ; and the presidential question has not, to my certain knowledge, called forth so much original argumentation among the people of that village, as did the arrival of this couple ; un- pretending, unquaint, and inoffensive as they were.
They came in a stage, with but small incumbrance of baggage for persons who meant to remain in one place for any long time ; and, according to an arrangement pre- viously made, took up their quarters in the house of a re- spectable widow, whose modest mansion afforded to them the only room they wanted, and whose modest circum- stances made their coming to board with her, in that single room, a decided convenience.
The fact being ascertained, in an hour's time, throughout the village, that the widow Wilkins had got two boarders who were to occupy her spare room, it became a subject of conversation at the post-office, the tavern, the groceries, the prayer-meeting, and in every domestic circle. But nobody was able, that evening, to throw light upon the question of
*
A SIMPLE TALE. 45
who the new comers were ; and conjecture was left free to range through the mazes of its own world of imagination.
Three ladies, a widow, a widow bewitched, and a middle- aged single woman — namely, Mrs. Steele, Mrs. Hawkins, and Miss Cross, had gone immediately, on observing that the stage had dropped two passengers with the widow, to ascertain who they were, where they came from, what they had in view, and whither they were going next. All the information, however, that Mrs. Steele, Mrs. Hawkins, and Miss Cross had been enabled to obtain (albeit they would have wormed the one secret which a man ought to keep from his wife out of him, after the Holy Inquisition had given him up in despair), was, that Mrs. Wilkins had taken a man and his wife to board at her house ; and that their name was Tompkins. They had retired to their own apart- ment, and had not been seen by the respectable triad ; yet Miss Cross said, she thought from the looks of an old pair of boots, which were tied to one of Mr. Tompkins's trunks, which was standing in the entry, that " they were no great shakes." As to this point she had a right also to speak her opinion, seeing that her father had been a respectable retail shoemaker. So, therefore, the report of Mrs. Steele, Mrs. Hawkins, and Miss Cross did but whet the curiosity of the congregation as to the private history, present estate, and future prospects of poor Mr. Tompkins and his wife. Many supposed that his name was assumed for the occasion. So many, they urged, were indicted or sued, who had such an alias, that he must have broken out of the State Prison, or run away and left his bail in the lurch. An inveterate reader of all the newspapers observed, that a Mr. Tomp- kins was advertised as having left his wife without any means of subsistence, who would pay no debts contracted by him. It was probable that he had a female partner of his flight ; and the circumstance of his coming in such a clandestine way to the house of the widow, Wilkins, was certainly a singular coincidence. It would be endless, and
4G A SIMPLE TALE.
scarcely amusing, to mention all the suppositions broached on the subject. One, which was quite popular, was, that this Mr. Tompkins must be the man who had been hanged in Alabama some months before, and who, it was rumoured, had been resuscitated.
The most speculatively benevolent hoped that these peo- ple would be able to pay their board to the widow, as she was a good sort of woman, though none of the wisest, and could not afford to lose it. The most scrupulously decorous hoped this couple were actually married, and had not come to bring disgrace into Mrs. Wilkins's house, as she had always passed for an honest woman, as had her mother before her, though there had been some strange stories about her aunt and the Yankee doctor.
The next morning, after breakfast, Mr. Tompkins came forth from the widow's house, and walked through the vil- lage to the barber's shop. His gait w^as that of a grave gentleman who has passed the meridian of life, and has nothing to excite him immediately to unnecessary action. There was nothing in his manner that was at all singular, nor was there even the inquisitive expression in his counte- nance, which would be natural in that of an entire stranger in the place. He walked as a man walks who is going over ground he has trodden all his life, in the usual routine of his occupations. His clothes were plain black, cut after no particular fashion or fancy, but such as old gentlemen generally wear. His walking-stick was plain, with a horn handle. He wore apparently no ornaments, not even a watch. Those whom he met in the street, or passed as they stood in their doors, looked hard and sharply at him ; but he neither evaded nor responded to their glances of in- terrogation.
The barber who shaved him, extracted from him the facts that he had come last from York city, where there was no news ; and that he meant to stay for some time in the vil- lage. After leaving him in possession of this valuable
A SIMPLE TALE. 47
information, Mr. Tompkins sallied forth, and strayed, at the same leisurely pace, up a hill, the summit of which com- manded a picturesque view of the village, and of the ad- jacent country. The barber observed something like a cicatrix, in a rather suspicious part of his neck, but he did not feel justified in pronouncing an opinion as to whether he had ever been actually hanged or not.
In the mean time, or not long after, Mrs. Steele, Mrs. Hawkins, and Miss Cross paid a visit to the widow, to tell her not to forget to come to a charitable sewing society that afternoon, and to make another effort to relieve their minds about the case of poor ]\irs . Tompkins. They found the latter lady sitting with her hostess. She was knitting cot- ton stockings. She was a plain, middle-aged woman, forty years old or upwards, attired in a dark-coloured silk dress, with a cambric ruff and cap, not exactly like those worn by the straitest sects of Methodists and Friends, but without any ornament. An introduction having been effected, the ingenuity of the three ladies was immediately exercised in framing interrogatories to the stranger. She was civil, amiable, and apparently devoid of art or mystery ; but never was there a more unsuccessful examination, con- ducted with so much ability on the part of the catechists, and so much seeming simplicity in the witness. Without resorting to downright impertinence, these ladies could ex- tract no more from Mrs. Tompkins, than that she had come with her husband last from New-York, where they had left no family nor connexions, and that they meant to spend some time in the village.
" Had she always lived in New-York ?"
" No — she had travelled a great deal."
" Was it her native place ?"
" No — she Avas born at sea !"
" Had her husband been long settled in New- York ?"
" No — he had lived there some time," &c. <^c. &c.
With this highly unsatisfactory result, the fair inquisitors
48 A SIMPLE TALE.
were compelled to return from their mission. Something, however, in the placid manner of Mrs. Tompkins, had pro- duced an influence upon them which counteracted the natu- ral effects of the irritability arising from ungratified curi- osity. Their hypotheses in relation to her were by no means so uncharitable as might have been expected. Mrs. Steele actually maintained that she believed her to be Mrs. Fry, travelling incog, through the United States. Mrs. Hawkins had no doubt it was Dorothy Ripley, a woman who had a call to straggle through the country, vending her religious experience ; and that her escort was no less a per- sonage than Johnny Edwards, a lay enthusiast of great notoriety. Miss Cross, the least complimentary in her con- jectures, supposed it was Mrs. Royal, a travelling author- ess, and bugbear to booksellers and editors.
After a walk of two hours or more, Mr. Tompkins re- turned from his perambulations, and stopped in at the tavern or stage-house, where he seated himself in an unobtrusive place, and began to read the newspapers. He perused these budgets of literature systematically and thoroughly ; and the anxious expectant of the reversion of any partic- ular journal he had in hand, waited in vain for him to lay it down. When he had finished one broadside, and the fidgetty seeker after the latest sense had half thrust forth his hand to grasp the prize, Mr. Tompkins, gently heaving a complacent sigh, turned over the folio, and began to read the next page with the same quiet fixedness of attention, and unequivocally expressed purpose of suffering nothing it contained to escape his attention. It thus took him about two hours to finish his prelection of one of the issues of that great moral engine, as it is called, by whose emanations the people of this country are made so wise and happy. Ad- vertisements and all he read, except poetry, which he seemed to skip conscientiously, generally uttering an inter- jection, not of admiration. Notwithstanding he thus tried the patience of those who wanted a share of periodical
A SIMPLE TALE. 49
light, he was so quiet and respectable a looking man, that not even a highwayman, or a highwayman's horse (suppose ing that respectable beast to be entitled to its proverbial character for assurance), would have attempted to take the paper away from him by violence. His person was in no- body's way. His elbows and knees were kept in ; and there was no quarrelling with his shoe or his shoe-tie* There was a simplex-munditiis — a neat-but-not-gaudiness, about him, which everybody understood without under- standing Latin.
When he had apparently exhausted the contents of all the periodicals that lay on the bar-room table, just as the village clock struck one, Mr. Tompkins asked for a glass of cider, which he drank and departed. I need make no apology to an intelligent reader for a detail of these minute particulars ; because they engrossed the attention of many at the time, and were severally the subjects of conflicting hypotheses. And besides, the history of his first day's resi- dence was so exactly that of every other which followed, that it is expedient to be particular in recording it.
He returned then to his lodgings, and after dinner was seen sitting in the porch of the widow's house, smoking a cigar, and reading in an ancient looking volume. Towards sundown he again walked forth, with his wife (if wife she , was) under his arm ; and they strolled to some distance through the lanes and among the fields adjacent to the village. Thence they returned at tea-time, and at an early hour retired to their apartment.
Mrs. Wilkins had not for a long time received so many visiters as called upon her that evening, to inquire after her health, and the " names, ages, usual places of residence, and occupations" of her boarders. For the best of all possible reasons, she was unable to satisfy them on many of these points. The appearance of Mr. Tompkins at the tavern, however, had produced a reaction in the Opinions of the men, as that of his wife had in those of the ladies ; and he
VOL. ir. — G
50 A SIMPLE TALE.
was supposed to be some greater character than a runaways husband, a fraudulent insolvent, or a half-hanged malefac- tor. They were determined to make an ^neas under a cloud out of him. One was convinced that he was Sir Gregor Mc Gregor ; another that he was Baron Von Hoff- man (a wandering High-Dutch adventurer, much in vogue at that time), and a third ventured the bold conjecture that he was Napoleon himself. A rumour, then rife, that the most illustrious of detenus had effected his escape, gave greater accuracy to the last surmise than to any other. Napoleon was then in !
The post-master advised the speculative crowd, whose imaginations were perturbed and overwrought by this sug- gestion, to keep themselves quiet, and say nothing about it for the present. Letters and packages must necessarily come to the mysterious visiter, which would be subject to his inspection ; and from the post-marks, directions, and other indices, which long experience had taught him to un- derstand, he assured them that he should be able to read the riddle. By this promise, the adult population were con- trolled into forbearance from any public manifestation of astonishment. The little boys, however, whose discretion was not so great, kept hurraing for Bonypart to a late hour,, around the widow's house ; for which the biggest of them suffered severely next morning at school ; their master being what was called an old tory.
"Days, weeks, and months, and generations (in the chro- nology of curiosity), passed :" but the post-master was un- able to fulfil his promise. Nothing came to his department directed to our Mr. Tompkins ; nor did that gentleman ever inquire for any letters. During this period, which was about half a year, the daily occupations of Mr. T. were almost uniformly the same with those mentioned in the diary I have given. So punctual was he, that a sick lady, having marked the precise minute at which he passed before her hojise, on his return to dinner, set her watch regularly
A SIMPLE TALE. 51
•tiiereafter by his appearance, and was persuaded that it kept better time than those of her neighbours. One would have thought that she ought to have felt grateful to the iso- lated stranger who thus saved her the trouble of a solar observation : but whether it arose from the influence of the genius of the place, the irritability of sickness, or her asso- ciation of Mr. Tomp-kins with ipecacuanha, certain it is, that her guesses about his identity, and his motives for coming to that town, were of all others the most unamiable.
I must mention, however, some of the other habits of Mr. Tompkins, and some of the peculiarities of his character. For, though the former were systematic, and the latter mo- notonous, he was yet not a mere animated automaton ; and was distinguished from other male bipeds by certain traits, which his acutely observant neighbours of course did not fell to note.
Neither he nor his wife ever bought any thing for which they did not pay cash. Their purchases were few in num- ber, and small in amount ; and they generally seemed to have exactly the requisite sum about them, rarely I'equiring change, and never exhibiting any large surplus of the circu- lating medium. On Sunday, unless the weather was very bad, they attended at the Episcopal church regularly, sitting in Mrs. Wilkins's pew ; and regularly did Mr. Tompkins, deposite a sixpenny-piece in the plate which was handed round. They did not, however, partake of the communion in that church — why, 1 know not. It was in vain that Mrs. Tompkins was urged by the ladies with whom she became acquainted, to attend religious meetings of different kinds, held in the evening. It was also in vain that either her husband or she was solicited to subscribe to any charity, of whatever description. They severally answered, " I can- not afford it," so naturally, that the ladies and gentlemen on the several committees appointed by the several charitable meetings, gave them up in despair. They rarely accepted invitations to tea-drinkings; and yet there was nothing un-
52 A SIMPLE TALE,
social in their manner or conversation. They could con- verse very agreeably, according to the opinions of many of the people ; and what was strange — was, that they neither talked about scandal, religion, or politics. Sometimes they spoke of other countries so familiarly, that the question, <* Have you ever been there V was naturally asked ; and the answer was generally " Yes." Avoiding, however, any communion other than what was inevitable, with those who were decidedly gross and vulgar in intellect and feeling, and forming no intimacies in the small social circle into which they were, thrown, the barrier was never passed by their acquaintances, which precluded familiarity. The amusements of Mr. Tompkins, other than those I have stated,— to wit, walking and reading the newspapers,—' were extremely limited in kind or degree, so far as they were observed. Books of his own he had none. The widow's collection was small : but he availed himself of it occasionally, when smoking, or when the weather was bad. As it was more than a quarter of a century since any of the volumes had been purchased, and they were mostly odd ones, his studies could neither have been profound nor ex- tensive. He also very frequently played backgammon with an old Danish gentleman, Mr. Hans Felburgh, who had brought his wife from the West Indies, to reside in this viU lage for the benefit of her health, and had buried her there. It had been a subject of much dispute why he remained ; whether from regard to her memory, want of funds, or be- cause he v/as afraid or too lazy to go back. My readers, I trust, are troubled with no such impertinent curiosity. No human being can long move and live in the same society without contracting a preference for somebody or other ; but the intercourse between these two gentlemen arose very naturally, as they were near neighbours and both strangers, and as the Dane was without kith or kin in the country.
Thus, as I have said, six months passed away, and the pystery which enshrouded Mr. Tompkins yet hung about
A SIMPLE TALE. 53
him " as a garment." Curiosity, " like the seif-bm^ning tree of Africa," had almost consumed itself in its own ardours ; but the vital fire yet glowed under the embers. The people had worn threadbare all the arguments on the questions who Mr. Tompkins was, and why he did not publish to them his autobiography. The all-absorbing topic of conversa- tion now was — " How did he live ? what were his re- sources ?" He ran in debt to no one, borrowed from no one, and kept no account in either of the four village banks ; he paid his board regularly, as was regularly ascertained from the widow, who became indignant, however, at the frequent recurrence of the question. The tax-gatherer in his rounds called upon him, and found him only liable to be assessed at the same rate as those were who had neither realty nor personalty subject to taxation.
It was now suggested, and became the current report, that Mr. Tompkins and his wife were secretly connected with a gang of counterfeiters, for whom they filled up bank notes, and with whom they had means of holding clandes- tine intercourse. Often were they both dogged, on their rambles, by gratuitous enthusiasts in the cause of justice, Mrs. Tompkins was seen to stoop for some time, removing a stone that lay under a hedge. The observer, in his eager- ness, approached too incautiously, and trampled among the dry leaves. She turned her head and saw him, and went onwards, making a pretext of pulling up a handful of violets. Nothing was to be found under the stone, or near it ; but there could have been little doubt, it was supposed, that she had intended to deposite counterfeit bank notes, where her accomplices knew how to find them. Mr. Tompkins was observed, in his morning walks, to stop occasionally to talk to some very poor people, who lived in the outskirts of the village, and even occasionally to enter their ricketty and tumble-down habitations. Many inquiries were of course made of them, both in an insinuating and a fulminating tone, as to the object of Mr. Tompkins's visits, and the purport
54 A SIMPLE TALE.
of his communications. But these virtuous, though impecu- nious democrats, made no other reply, than that Mr. Tomp- kins was a good man, and a better man than those who came to examine them ; and, when threatened, they stood upon their integrity as individuals, and their rights as free citizens, and contrived to empty their tubs and kettles " con- venient," as the Irish say, to the ankles of the questioners.
But now an event occurred — or rather seemed likely to occur. One afternoon, a horseman, dusty with travel, rode up to the tavern, and having alighted, inquired if a Mr. Tompkins lived in that town. Now there was also a shoe- maker of that name who had long dwelt there. But when the stranger added, that the person he sought for could not long have been a resident, all doubts vanished. Between their impatience, however, to assure him he had come to the right place, and uneasiness to get out of him the facts which were to explain the mystery, the dusty traveller had much difficulty in obtaining answers to his first question, and to his second — " where Tompkins lived V Ail the informa- tion he gave, in exchange for that which he received, was, that he had business with the gentleman. He also asked, where he could find the nearest justice of the peace ? A bandy-legged individual, with a hump-back, and a strange obliquity in both his eyes, who was drinking beer, came for- ward immediately, and said he was the squire. The trav- eller looked as if he thought the people had a strange taste in selecting their magistrates ; but, telling the crooked func- tionary that he might have occasion to call on him in a short time, set forth in the direction indicated to him, to find the person he was in search of.
He marched at a round pace ; but not so fast that others were not on the ground before him. Several persons who had heard what had passed, scudded off in different ways for the same point, announcing as they ran, in half-breath- less accents, to every one they met, that a sheriff had come for Mr. , Tompkins. A party kept at no great distance
A SI3IPLE TALE. 55
l)ehirid the stranger, among whom was the justice himself, who seemed disposed not to be out of the way should his services be demanded.
As Mr. Tompkins, who w^as sitting in the porch of the widow's house, reading a volume of the Gentleman's Maga- zine for 1749, and had just exhaled a cloud of many-col- oured smoke, was watching the delicate spiral curve of sapphire hue, which did not intermingle with the other vapour, but wound through it like the Jordan through the Dead Sea (to give the coup dc grace to a figure worn to tatters, and beggarly tatters too), I say — as Mr. Tompkins lifted up his eyes and beheld the prospect before him, he was aware of a man in riding trim, lifting the latch of the widow's little court-yard ; behind whom a small crowd, headed by the cross-eyed and cross-legged Coke of the parish, advanced in a huddle, all earnestly gazing upon him- self. And, glancing around, through the rose-bushes, lilac- trees, and pales which surrounded the modest enclosure in which he was ensconced, he beheld, peeping and chuckling, the quaint and dirty faces of divers boys and girls, with dishevelled hair and goblin expressions ; and he marvelled what in the world was the matter.
The stranger entered the court-yard, and touching his hat respectfully, asked if Mr. Tompkins v/as at home 1
" That is my name, sir," said the gentleman,
"I beg your pardon, sir," said the stranger. "I have been mistaken. I was looking for another gentleman."
So saying, he again touched his hat, and retired, looking rather surlily upon, the people who gathered round him, and followed in a cluster his retiring footsteps. My tale does not lead me to tell how he got along wuth them, nor do I know more than what I have heard — which was, that hav- ing proceeded a little distance, and feeling them treading upon his heels, he got upon a stump, and looking around him, asked if the place was a Sodom or Gomorrah,: — that a Christian man, dressed like themselves, could not come
56 A SIMPLE TALE.
into it without being mobbed in that manner? Upon which he marched on at a quicker step, some of the men shouting, and a few of the Uttle boys following and throw- ing stones after him, till he remounted his horse ; and min- gling with the clatter of the charger's retiring hoofs was heard the rider's hoarse and coarse malison upon the town, and all the people that lived in it !
'< But with Mr. Tompkins
Abides the minstrel tale."
" Time rolled his ceaseless course," as he does now while I write ; and I shall record but one more anecdote, being an mcident which happened several months after that last men- tioned.
A fondness forgetting up charitable societies had always prevailed, to a greater or less extent, in this village. But at this particular time it became a rage, in consequence of the organization in larger towns of associations on a grand scale ; the notices of whose meetings, with the names of the several official dignitaries, as published in the newspapers, inflamed the ambition of the country folks. A society for the Suppression of Pauperism was immediately formed. Under its auspices, at the same time, was organized a society for the relief of the poor and destitute ; and, subsidiary to the latter, an auxiliary branch was instituted, for the pur- pose of seeking out and examining the condition of such poor and destitute people, with a view of reporting their cases to the parent society. The executive committee of the auxiliary branch consisted of four ladies and three gen- tlemen ; who met twice a week regularly, with the power of calling extra meetings, for the purpose of reporting and consulting.
It was certainly most unfortunate that a system so com- plicated and so admirable should be framed, without any subjects being found to try it upon. It was like a fine new mil), 'with a double run of stones, without any grist to be
A SIMPLE TALE. 57
ground in it. The executive committee were not inactive ; but, strange to relate, unless they patronised some of the members of one or all of the three societies, thus compacted like Chinese boxes, there was never a soul in the place upon the causes and actual extent of whose poverty and destitu- tion they could report, without going to the gentiles whom I have mentioned before, who lived in the crazy and decidu* ous tenements in the outskirts.
To them, however, the three gentlemen, urged partly by their zeal in the cause, and partly by some sly intimations from the four ladies, that they were afraid of receiving injury to their clothes or to their persons, were induced to repair. Their mission was fruitless enough. While they were talking to some of the members of this small Alsatia below, others from above contrived accidentally to admin* ister libations of ancient soap-suds and dish-water to the philanthropists, which sent them back in no amiable mood, and in a pickle by no means prepossessing, to report to the executive committee of the auxiliary branch.
What was to be done ? It was necessary that some re- port should be made, which, having been approved by the branch and the parent institution, and laid by them before the Pauperism Society of the village, might be transmitted to the great Metropolitan Branch of the General State Asso- ciation. The grand anniversary was approaching ; and ' what a contemptible figure their returns would make. Under these circumstances Miss Cross called an extra meet- ing of the executive committee.
I do not intend to report the proceedings of this illus- trious delegation, but merely the upshot of them. They actually appointed a sub-committee, consisting of Miss Cross, who was all of six feet high, and a pot-bellied tinman who was only four feet eleven, to wait upon, Mr. and Mrs. Tompkins; and to inform them in a delicate way, that the auxiliary branch had viewed with satisfaction their efforts to maintain a decent appearance, and had taken into very
VOL. II. — n
58 A SIMPLE TALE.
particular consideration the causes of their poverty, and the mode of applying suitable relief. It was well known the committee were instructed to say, that they were destitute people, because nobody wrote to them, and it was a univer- sal subject of wonder how they lived. They were growing paler and thinner under the influence of hope deferred, or more probably of no hope at all ; and if they would quit Mrs. Wilkins's, whose charge for board was too high, they might yet have bright and pleasant days before them, under the patronage of the society. They might lodge with the aunt of Miss Cross, who had a nice room in her garret, and took as boarders half a dozen of the cabinet-maker's appren- tices. Mrs. Tompkins could improve her time by washing and ironing ; and something might be done for her husband, in the way of getting him accounts to cast up for grocers, running about to collect them, dunning, &c.
So Miss Cross and the tinman went the next afternoon ; and, I believe, that with all the importance they assumed or felt, as members of the auxiliary branch, there was a little hesitation in their entrance into the demesne of Mrs. Wilkins. At any rate, I know, that in mounting the three steps before the door, Miss Cross, by a twitch of her foot, either nervous or accidental, kicked her colleague, who was behind her, on his back, or some other part ; and set him a rolling with such emphasis, that he found it troublesome to stand up again fairly ; or, indeed, to know the four points of the compass.
Mr. Tompkins was playing backgamm.on with his Danish friend, when his wife opened the door suddenly, with her face flushed, and said — '• My dear, here are a lady and gentleman, who wish to inquire into the causes of our pov- erty, and the means of relieving it." She laughed as she spoke, but as she turned away and went up stairs, cried hysterically.
Mr. Tompkins, who had a man taken up, as the phrase is, and had just thrown doublets of the very point in which
A SIMPLE TALE, 59
he could not eiittr, rose, and issued forth to talk to the sub- committee. I believe, most devoutly, that he was an amia- ble man ; and as to the vulgar practice of profane swearing, I do not think he ever had indulged in it before in his life. But when he discharged this sub-committee, I am credibly informed, that he availed himself of as round and over- whelming a volley of blasphemy as ever was heard on board a man-of-war. I hope it has been pardoned him, among his other transgressions.
Time rolled on, and five years had passed away since the
arrival of Mr. Tompkins and his wife at . Curiosity
as to them had become superstition ; though the vulgar imaginations of the mechanical bourgeois of the village had not enabled them to conjure up any spirit or demon, by whose assistance this inoffensive couple were enabled to exist with- out getting into debt. No letters had come, during all this period, through the hands of the conscientious and intelli- gent post-master. No deposite had been made by Mr. Tomp- kins in any one of the four banks ; nor, to the best of my knowledge and belief, had he ever seen the inside of either of them ; for he never went to a place where he had no business to transact, or was not required by courtesy to go.
Death — which we must all expect, and meet as we can — Death came, and makes tragical the end of a narrative which I have written, perhaps, in a strain of too much levity. A fever, occasioned probably by local influences, seized Mrs. Tompkins, and after a few days' illness, unexpectedly even to the doctor, she died. Such was the fact ; and if I had all the particulars, I know not why they should be given. It is hard, however, to realize that anybody is dead, with whom we have long associated ; still harder, if we have dearly loved the friend who has gone before us. I suppose this was the case with Mr. Tompkins, who did not long wear his widower's weeds. He died too, only eight weeks afterward.
He followed his wife to the grave, leaning 'on the arm of
60 A SIMPLE TALE.
his friend, the Dane — for I may be allowed to call him his friend, as he had no other — and shed no tears that anybody saw. His habits of life were ostensibly the same as before. He took his morning's walk, and his afternoon's walk, al- though he had no wife to accompany him then. He caused a plain white marble tomb-stone to be erected at the head of her grave, on which was simply inscribed " Susan Tompkins : Died in the 49th year of her age." A fever of the same type with that which carried off his wife, seized him, and he died as I have already mentioned.
There is no difficulty in getting up a funeral procession in such country places. Those w^ho would have cheerfully consigned their own blood connexions to Don Pedro or the Dey of Algiers, while living, will make it a matter of busi- ness to follow anybody's corpse to its last home : and there is no religion, sentimentality, or poetical superstition in their so doing. It is a mere way they have.
Therefore there was no lack of people to make up a pro- cession, either at the funeral of Mrs. Tompkins or of her husband. There was a group of rather ragged looking people, men, women, and children, who remained, after the crowd had gone away, near the graves on both occasions. They had reason to cry, as they honestly did, for the loss of those who had been kind to them.
It was a strange circumstance, but it was actually true, that when Mrs. Wilkins, under Mr. Felburgh's inspection, came to settle up what was due for the funeral expenses of Mr. Tompkins, and to herself, they found exactly the amount required, and neither a cent more nor less. What papers he might have burned after his wife's death I know not ; but the lady and gentleman above mentioned, who acted as his legatees, did not find the smallest memorandum or scrap of paper left by him. The wardrobe of both hus- band and wife was not extensive, and the trunks containing their wearing apparel w-ere preserved inviolate by the re- spectable Mrs. Wilkins. She has since died. Mr. Fel^
A SIMPLE TALE. 61
burgh went shortly after Mr. Tompkins's death to Denmark. If any private revelations were made to him, he has never divulged them, and I know he never will. When I saw him in Copenhagen in the summer of 1826, I did not think he looked like a man who was to stay much longer in this world of care. He had not any thing to trouble him par- ticularly, that I know of; except that he had nobody to inherit his property, and that was not much.
There was another strange circumstance, which I must not pass over. A few weeks after Mr. Tompkins was buried, a plain tombstone, shaped exactly like that which had been erected by his order over his wife, appeared at the head of his grave ; and on it was inscribed — " Hugh Tompkins : Died in the 58th year of his age." Who put it up no one could tell, nor is it known to this day.
The burying-ground is as forlorn a place as can well be imagined. There is only a ragged fence around it, and nothing but rank common grass, dandelions, and white weed grow in it. There is nothing picturesque in or about it ; and a Paris belle would rather never die at all, than be stowed into such vile sepulchral accommodations.
These are all the facts in my knowledge, relating to my hero and heroine, as to whom and whose resources curi- osity is yet so lively, in the village which I have referred to, but not named, in order to avoid scandal.
^' The annals of ihe human race,
Its records since the world began, Of them afford no other trace Than this — there lived a man"
and his wife, whose name was Tompkins.
I superscribe my story "A Simple Tale," and "simply," as Sir Andrew Aguecheek has it, I believe it is such. It can possess no interest save from the mystery which hangs over its subjects ; no pathos, except from their loneliness on the earth, into whose common bosom they h;ive been con- signed, leaving only such frail memorials behind them as their laconic epitaphs and this evanescent legend.
B O Y U C A.
CHAPTER I.
En especial de aquella senalada Fuente, que decian los Indies que bolvia a los Hombres, de viejos, 1110908, la qual no havia podido hallar por baxos, i corrientes, i tiempos contrarios. — Herrera, dec. i., lib. 9, cap. 11.
In one broken link of that long chain designated by the general name of the Bahama or Lucayos Islands, and about three hundred years ago, two Spanish cavaliers, in bright steel armour, were reclining on the thin soil spread over the rock, covered with rather scanty herbage, and overrun with creeping vines, in the midst of a grove of lofty palmettoes. The graceful columns rose all around them, farther than the sight could pierce, except in looking towards the ocean, and ascended straight, smooth, and tapering, far higher than any shafts with which the most ambitious and power- ful of human builders have ever propped the domes of their cathedrals and temples. The plumelike branches, spring- ing and expanding from the green and swelling summits of these pillars of nature, overarched the whole with a canopy of verdure, which excluded the sunbeams, while they bor- rowed brightness from them. A soft and balmy fragrance, redolent of many odours genially blended, and not over- powering to the sense, breathed freshly through the grove.
BOYUCA. 63
The figures of armed men in these " pillared shades" were in strange contrast with their deep tranquillity. The hidal- gos seemed to have yielded to the influences of the scene, as they listlessly reposed their stalworth and mail-clad limbs, each reclining his head upon his hand, and apparently wrapt in musings. They wore the large sombrero, with its gracefully drooping feathers ; but it was plain that even in this peaceful solitude they were not inapprehensive of danger. Their ponderous and glittering casques tufted with sable plumes, heavy gauntlets sheathed in intertwisted rings, pieces of armour, and partisans lay around them. Near them was couched one of those terribly strong and sagacious hounds, whose lineage is recorded, but of which the breed, if not extinct, has been long since materially changed. He was not of the largest size ; but, even in his watchful repose, the power as well as the agility of his limbs might be discerned. In colour he approached almost to red. He was black in the muzzle ; and his regular and white teeth might be seen, firmly set, and looking as dan- gerous as brilliant. His eyes were hazel, but were illu- mined with a light, which, kindled by rage, might flash like electric fire. Around this group a few soldiers were scat- tered recumbent, or leaning on their long pikes, or examin- ing the condition of crossbows and arquebuses. An Indian, partly clad in the Spanish costume, was among them.
As the cavaliers looked towards the sea, through the natural aisles of this sylvan temple, the prospect was one which, with its associations as presented to their minds, was at once lovely and grand. Where the grove terminated in that direction, the surface of the island sloped down imper- ceptibly, for some distance to the beach, covered with enamelling wild flowers of every colour, in bewildering mixture and profusion ; and even down to and upon the pebbled and shell-strown beach itself, the sea-grape-tree and flowering shrubs and vines were quietly vegetating and blossoming, as if they had no fear that the mighty and
64 BOYUCA.
treacherous power on whose borders they were eiicroach-* ing, of which armadas are the " toys," and which changes at its will the boundaries of empires, would deign to destroy their humble and ephemeral existence. In equal tranquil- hty, but more in pride and defiance, anchored, on the calm, blue, sunlit waters, were lying at a short distance from the beach two clumsy, but picturesque caravels. With their miniature castles, built tier on tier above their poops, sur* mounted by huge lanterns, with their far-projecting prows, ascending and curling outwards, they somewhat resembled in form that of. the antique lamps which occurs most fre- quently. Their masts were of great height in proportion to the size of the hulls ; and their long bowsprits, rigged with square sails, made so elevated an angle with the water, that they more resembled masts bent forward from their proper position. Streamers fluttered from all their tops; and from that of the tallest mast of the larger galley a silken banner fitfully and partially unfolded itself to the gentle breeze, in which, amid letters and heraldic devices wrought in gold, a green cross was displayed.
Far beyond stretched upon the eye the blue expanse of w^aters over which that memorable flag had first floated but twenty years before, and from which it now exacted homage. Here and there upon their glistening surface some little emerald island might be seen, yet unnamed and unexplored, and ofl^ering temptation to the insatiate spirit of adventure, curiosity, and cupidity.
Silence, as we have said, reigned over the scene, or could not be said to be disturbed by the suppressed breathing of the sea, the whisper of the ripples on the shore to the conchs and many-coloured shells and stones which they were kiss- ing, the glancing of the circling gulls, as they displayed fit- fully their white bosoms, or by the motion of the gentle air, scarcely more audible than the pulsation of life. Occasion- ally the tiny colibry, nature's miracle in the winged crea- tion, darted by not far off, like a pencil of light thrown
BOYUCA. 63
hastily from a prism ; bat its weak and simple note died ere it reached the ear. The feathered visiters of the spot, few in their variety, were disporting elsewhere, or had been scared b}^ the warlike intrusion. The innocuous little lizard, in his party-coloured and beautiful coat, crept noise- lessly through the carpet of the grove ; and the venomles^ snake lay coiled in his retreat. No sounds of shrilly uttered orders, or of rude merriment, nor chants that lighten the sailor's toil or amuse his idleness, came from the galleys ', for their commander had enjoined the strictest observance of quiet, and it was for the interest of his followers, as it had been their habit, to obey.
" So then," in an under-voice, said the younger cavalier^ " if this old hag disappoints us, as I take it for granted she must, in your favourite object, and will in mine (though, fof an incorrigible heathen, she has thus far proved herself a more true and skilful guide than any old woman I ever* knew or heard of),— if she deceives us, your excellency will make the best of your way back to Boriquen."
" Why," asked the senior, in rather a vexed tone, "why, Seiior Perez, do you call me *your excellency?' Am J an adelantado, or even the governor of a wretched island, that I should be thus saluted ? What am I, friend, but a poor gentleman adventurer, who, if this our enterprise fails totally, must be grateful for being allowed to enjoy a small ' repartimiento, and bid good-by to ambition, wealth, and glory ?"
The sturdy warrior who thus spoke had long before passed the prime of man's life, " il medio curso della vita nostra ;" — and hard service, which had imbrowned and scarred his features, and made his helm-worn locks, peaked beard, and grim mustachios more gray than grizzly, had certainly not made him appear younger than he really was* His forehead, not unusually high, but full and ample, was corrugated with the deep furrows of toil, and thought, and care. The outline of his countenance, comnianding, grave,
VOL. II. 1
66 BOYUCA.
half-stern, intelligent, and looking as if it exacted from others such true intelligence as they might have to give — with its bold, slightly aquiline nose, and compressed lips, cheek- bones rather high, and coldly serene, though fixed and penetrating eyes, as it appears in the rude engravings which ornament the folios of the old Spanish chroniclers of his ex- ploits, reminds us somewhat, save in certain indications of its liability to become petulant and impatient, of that of several worthies of our own revolution, whose features live on canvass, or in memory, or yet in the flesh. In youth, the lineaments of the cavalier must have had a strikingly imaginative character, traces of which were still visible^ particularly w^hen they were lightened up with animation. " Yes, Juan," he continued, after a pause, " if this old crone has now misled or deceived us, as you gloomily anticipate, I must return to my hacienda, arrange my affairs, and rot perhaps before I die, leaving further ex- ploration to you and Alaminos — or to the vulgar spirits which, if you were successful in your researches, would probably wrest from you both profit and renown ; and by sharing in the secret which would then be common, would prolong their own worthless and dull existences, cumbering these fair islands, and those still fairer which will be found beyond them, with their purely animal presence ; impeding the progress of knowledge, and perpetuating their own stu- pidity in numberless generations, as clod-like, mean, and half-souled as themselves."
" Sefior Almirante," said the blunt Juan Perez de Ortubia, " there is a deal of sense in the latter part of your observa- tions. Allow me to w^onder that the idea never struck you before. Now that we have nothing else to do for an hour, I would fain talk to you about that same fountain, which puts me in mind of those unreal ones which those who have been in Africa tell of, as deluding the thirsty traveller in the desert. Our Lady grant that there may be no sorcery in it. But of this anon, if you please k> hear me. I must say,
BOYUCA. 67
it is unkind and unfair in you to suppose that our veteran pilot and I, your devoted lieutenant, would deprive you of your lawful credit and reward, even if we could do so without risk or censure, as, I allow, you have been served by others. But that shattered caravel cannot long thread these intricate seas, botch her up as much as we may ; and should you part from us, we must soon follow you to St. Juan, whether we find this Boyuca,* or Bimini, or return with only the hair on our heads. Even then, our missing vessel may come back with good tidings. And if not, are we to count our hundred skirmishes, narrow escapes, and many losses and wounds for nothing ? And must we stand with folded arms in stony gloom, like those melancholy rocks you took a fancy to call the Martyrs ? Is the dis- covery of that beautiful island of white flowers and per- fumes, which seems larger than Hispaniola, and which we found on the joyous festival of Palms, to be accounted as nothing? The savages have well called it by a name implying secrecy. By San Fernando, I'll be sworn it has secrets worth keeping. Though there may be no Boyuca there, there are things more substantial."
" Yes, Perez," slowly replied the grave senior of the two, as his lieutenant paused to take breath, " I suppose I may write home a relation of my adventures to the king our lord ; and much good it would do me. Or I may repair in' person to court, and tell of the fierce currents in which we have been whirled, the rocks and shoals against which we have been beaten, the thousands of ferocious cannibals which have beset us, and the fine countries we have seen. But what avails this without gold — gold to lavish as if we knew where to procure it in abundance, proving the truth of our story, and that our labours have not been useless ard barren? And after all, what is this gold, which causes
* Gomara says the Indians called the fountain first nought after, which search led to the discovery of Florida, Boxjuce.
68 BOYLCA.
such hatred, and jealousy, and bloodshed among Christians ; which these heathens despise, and which we must so soon resign if possessed ?-^I am willing to hear what your wis- dom has to suggest about the fountain of youth."
" There again, senor, you have, in the close of your remarks, touched upon what is matter worth handling, if you be so pleased. But allow me to say that you are in a gloomy mood, especially when you speak of that philoso- pher's stone with contempt, which, — to say nothing of sage alchy mists, who can read the prophecies of the stars, but have not yet been able to make gold, — so many brave men, since the great admiral himself first sailed, have toiled and died to gain. As for these heathen creatures, they despise gold as they do our decent apparel and holy religion ; because they know neither the uses of the former here, nor of the latter hereafter. What is gold, but that which en- ables us to buy lands, build houses, serve our sovereign, bring up our children respectably in the Catholic faith, advance ourselves and them into power, and office, and title, and promote the cause of the church by exterminating these blasphemous heathens ? Gold !- — I do believe there is plenty of it in Cautio — or Florida, as you have very piously and properly called it. But as to the fountain of life — "
<* Ay, as to that, Senor Perez, I said that I was willing to hear your discourse."
*' Then, in the first place, and under your correction,-— for I have had but little leisure to learn from the clergy what the doctrine was, and my uncle the canon turned me out of doors when I was quite a lad, and our chaplain died of a surfeit the day before we sailed (a bad omen), — I say, I have my doubts whether Holy Church may approve of the object of our, or rather of your, adventure. Certain it is, that no such well, or fountain, or river, has ever been con- secrated by any saints that we know of. It may be that ^an Salomon or San Paulo, who, I believe were great navi- gators, was here once upon a time ; but seeing the un-
BOYUCA. 69
spiritual state of these savages, I doubt it particularly. If there be any such waters, I am afraid the devil gave them their virtues ; and they will turn out a damnable fraud at last, like all his works."
" If this be all you have to suggest, my friend, your con- science may remain quiet. We are Christian men" (and as the leader spoke he crossed himself devoutly), "defying the enemy and all his works, in the name of our Lady and San Juan. Learned men, Perez, and holy fathers have held that, by Divine permission, such seeming miracles might be ; though it has been doubted whether they were according to the course of nature. The waters of the pool of Bethesda were only healing after the angel had troubled them, as I heard from a learned monk, who preached in the cathedral at Leon ; and he also said, that when some Eastern king was sent by a prophet to bathe in the river Jordan, to cure him of a loathsome disease, the waters had no virtue to cure any others than himself, though they might have had if it had pleased God. But why should there be any miracle or any sorcery in this famous fountain of which we are in quest? We know of many springs that yield relief to the sick, and prolong life, perhaps to the ordinary period of its duration. Why should not others be by nature gifted with like qualities in a more intense degree, so as at once, by a proper use of them, to restore the vigour of our bodies, as in their most complete and full organization? And why, if it were but a fable, should these ignorant savages have dreamed of such a subtle invention ?"
" It seems to me," said Perez, " that I am often obliged to reply to your excellency's — I beg your pardon — to our admiral's observations, backwards ; taking the bull, as the proverb says, by the tail, instead of by the horns ; which is perhaps the safer way. Are not these heathens, if not the devil's own children by generation, the children of his king- dom upon earth ? — as Fray Bartolomeo said i;i the last dis- course I heard him preach in San Domingo, before I last
70 BOYUCA.
left Hispaniola. And is not he the father of subtle inven- tions ? But suppose such a fountain to exist. I take it, its virtues are no charm against accident. We should be no more secure from harm, when away from Bimini, than we are ; or than poor Salzedo was proved to be by those who drowned him, to try if the Spaniards were immortal. We may perish in the ocean, or by the poisoned arrow, or by any vulgar casualty."
" Ay, Perez ; and what would life be worth without haz- ard and danger ? How else should we feel its value ? I am not so foolish as to desire immortahty on earth, even for my memory. But I would renew life — "
" For how many generations ?"
" For one — or two — or more. How can one answer such a question, Seiior Perez ? Are w^e not here, as it were, at the commencement of this New World, as the patriarchs were at that of the old, after the deluge ; with all before them where to choose ? But, alas for us ! they were the fresh descendants of giants, — of men who num- bered life by ages ; not by those flying years which hurry us on the grave before we can half-conceive, much less exe- cute, grand undertakings. They lived till their children's children grew into nations, hale and strong, and enjoying all that makes existence happy ; and when they laid their gray hairs in the sepulchre, a people, the offspring of their own loins, gathered around it — "
" I take it," said Perez, " they had not much hard fight- ing to do, and drank no aguardiente. Besides, there are a great many more of us, I believe."
" Not too many — not enough gallant spirits, to explore — we know not what, that may remain before us, in the round world (if round it be as I do believe) ; to subjugate the barbarians, and establish new empires and imperial cities. Oh, Perez, it is not only the flight of our sails over new oceans, or of our banners over new worlds that I regard ; but it is the onward progress of the human mind, immortal
BOYUCA.
71
as its Author, not shackled by the meanest agents that fulfil his pleasure. Why should not the free in soul be free in fact? And will they not be? Methinks I see an awful, radiant form, all armed and equipped, like the unbegotten goddess of the old pagans. The earth thrills beneath her tread, and her spear-head shines like Lucifer. She is in- vincible and immaculate, and her name is Libertad ! But now we do but labour for posterity ; and when that which we should win is reached, w^e do but see it as the patriarch Moses saw Palestine from Pisgah, — and we die. Look at the great admiral. What did he gain, besides a vision of the harvest left for others to reap, save chains, neglect, and a sorry epitaph? When he was too old for service, they left him to eat his heart with vexation, and were glad enough to be rid of him."
" His son, however, to whom you owe no special good- will, has succeeded to his power."
" And may lose it to-morrow. May God preserve our lord the king, Perez — but hark ye, between ourselves, give me youth and hardy followers, and let me go onward with the sun — and I will found new empires, not to be blown from my grasp by the breath of a bishop or a cardinal. I will find a new world, not for Castile and Leon, but for one Juan Ponce, an humble private gentleman of the latter kingdom."
" And I might be your adelantado. That would be capi- tal. But, seiior, let us consider. Would the chances of success be so much more in your favour, during a new lease of life, with all your experience, than in that of one commencing his course of adventure for the first time, with the knowledge obtained by tradition ? Good luck and bad would probably come in the ordinary proportion ; and you might have as much trouble with the vulgar varlets, who would renew their youth likewise, as you prophesied /might when you opened our confabulation. And disappointment.
72 BOYUCA.
I take it, would be no sweeter for coming the oftener, but quite the contrary."
" I spoke, Perez, in a gloomy fit. By San Juan I I would find a w^ay to deal with the varlets. What you say of dis- appointment may well apply to the scum of cities or slaves of the soil at home — to the drudges who toil but to prolong a miserable life on a few square yards of beggarly earth, — " or the lying pimps and parasites of deceitful courts. But here all is fresh and new. This air has never been satur* ated with the breaths of sordid loons, nor reeked with the foul smoke of their hearths. Here to respire and range at pleasure is to be free as yonder ocean, and to be uncon" querably fixed in the determinate purpose of the soul. I feel — I know that I can overcome all opposition, and bend all meaner spirits to my purpose. Give me but the strength of my youth, and time for action, and execution should fol- low my volition, as naturally as the effect does the cause." " Always by our Lady's grace ?"
" Ay, always — always"— (and the cavalier crossed him* self again devoutly). "But now, with battered health and broken fortune, if we are deceived at last, I go to lay up myself and yonder crazy galley together, and none will think the w^'eck of either of us worth repairing."
"Again your gloom is upon you. I shall say nothing of the certain overpeopling of the world, even were it ten times as large as we reckon it may be, by the number of knaves who would needs insist upon plunging their filthy carcasses into Bimini, unless, indeed, they dried it up."
" By all the gods," said the elder cavalier, " not a scoun- drel of them all shall pollute it. I will defend the island with a strong hand — even against our lord the king himself, unless he will come to my terms."
" That might not be so easy," said Perez ; " and we might as well find it first, before it will be worth while to talk treason."
" No^ne but ourselves and our guides, and such as shall be
BOYUCA. 78
sworn to secrecy, shall know where it is. It cannot be a river, or it would lose its virtues, or communicate them to other waters. We will wall it up, and it shall be watched as carefully as is even the holy sepulchre itself."
" Into which all manner of beastly infidels have occa- sionally entered. Others have been on this quest before us, and they may already have done what you threaten to do. But, as I said, let us find it first. There is another matter of which I shall say but little. Do we not, the longer we live, stand in more jeopardy of committing deadly sin ? And with a renewal of the hot passions of youth, will not our risk be double ? May we not perish without the benefit of ghostly shrift and absolution, and scatter our bones over some unconsecrated desert, where Christian men may, in some distant dny, spurn them as those of idolaters, unworthy of burial ?"
" Indulgences may always be had ; and while we sail under that banner, our cause is a holy one."
" Well — -what I want to say even makes me sad to think of; and like you, senor, I could be melancholy enough. My parents and the friends I loved best, where are they ?"
*' Your parents are in paradise, I hope."
" I doubt it not. They died in the true faith, and no rites of the church were w^anting. I remember them well, and I hope to see them again as glorified spirits. But now, senor, consider this matter. Could we bring all we love, at any time we pleased, to bathe in this restoring well, they would still have no indemnity from harm by the assault of enemies, or by the perils of fire, air, earth, and water. And so, the longer we were enabled to protract life, the more we should have to sorrow for. If we lived on, one by one they would disappear, and our memory would be a church- yard record of those whom we thought fittest to live, and to make life happy. Would our new friendships have the freshness of the old? Bimini may give bacl^ the strength of youth ; but could its waters restore the well-spring of the
VOL. II. K
74 BOYUCA.
soul ? I trow not, unless, indeed, they had the dull powers of some old river I have heard of, by drinking of which men forget all the past. Give me memory, with its plea- sures and its pains ; but let it not be too much overbur- thened, or more than it must be, in the common period of life. Sefior, when you were young, you must have loved some object better than all the rest — "
" I did." And the stern warrior passed his hand across his eyes. " But it is long since she was — nothing."
" Nothing here, but an image living in the soul, which must sometimes sigh to rejoin the soul that has departed. I have — but how know I when I too must say I had — one who loves and expects me in Boriquen. She must be weary of my absence, and perhaps, poor soul, thinks I have been ere this food for the fishes or the cannibals. Our best affections cannot be stifled by the turmoil of war and conquest, or by the struggles of ambition. Why, even a dog, could he understand the offer, would not accept a re- newal of his short life, to be again and again the slave or companion of new masters. What sayst thou, Bere- cillo?"*
The animal thus addressed started to his feet, erected his ears and his long head, and snuffed the air, and seemed waiting for further orders with bright expectant eyes. At a sign from the senior cavalier, he made a few gyratory movements, recomposed his limbs, and closed his eyes.
"Even so," said Perez, "when his term is up, or when he may have lost his master — may that period be far dis- tant— even so would he fain lie down in his last quiet sleep, leaving his renown behind him ; though for him, poor fel- low, there is nothing to come after death."
" Ahi ! well, Senor Perez," said the cavalier, " I never
♦ Gomara, who describes this animal, calls him Becerillo in the text before me ; but it is probably a misprint, as the other authorities spell the name as in the text.
BOYUCA. 75
knew before how deep a philosopher you were, nor sup- posed you at all a sentimentalist. Let us waive our discus- sion. I still sigh for the fountain of life !"
CHAPTER II.
Ventura erat ad liraen, cum virgo, poscere fata Tempus, ait. — Virg.
A SILENCE of some minutes ensued. The senior relapsed into gloom, and the younger was resigning himself to slum- ber, when the dog again arose, sensible of the approach of another party. But his low growl of recognition intimated that it was no stranger. Presently a female figure, if such it might be called, appeared, advancing with a slow and regular gait. The step was firm and light, and the form erect, of this old and shrivelled Charaibo woman. Lank spare gray hairs hung round her broad square head and over her lofty forehead, which had been flattened after the manner of her nation, and over her wild black eyes, which wandered with quick uncertain glances, as if her brain was unsettled. Her teeth were yet white and regular, though no one knew how many years had passed over the head of this crone ; and there seemed to be no flesh under the loose skin, originally of a Spanish olive colour, but still bearing irregular dull red vestiges of having been stained with ar- natto. She wore no garment but a red cotton cloth or hamack, depending from one shoulder, slightly girt below with a rude cincture, and hanging down loosely to the knee. Buskins of the same material encased the lower part of the leg. Such was the haggard form that now stood before the cavaliers, and pointing with her bare and withered arm in
76
BOYUCA.
the direction from which she had made her appearance, ex- claimed, " I have found Bimini !"
"Ha! is it no new delusion?" cried the older soldier, starting up hastily, while his countenance kindled and glowed with intense and even fierce expectation.
" She certainly has not tried it herself," said Perez, rising more slowly ; " or if she has, it has not made her look any younger. Hast thou washed in the fountain, Cuanaboa ?"
The sybil fixed her glance for a moment on the querist, uttered a low hollow laugh, folded her arms over her skinny bosom, and with a look I'esembling one of contempt for the question, and in a shrill and almost angry tone, her gray locks vibrating as she shook her head quickly, and several times, from one side to the other, she replied, " No !" Again she shook her head more slowly, and in a lower and sadder voice repeated, " No !'*
" Truly," said Perez, " you Charaibes, or Calibis (for I cannot make out your heathen names), are an unaccount- ably strange sort of people. I wonder not that you despise gold, for you don't know its uses. But you, Cuanaboa, may have been a good-looking girl a hundred years ago, or less ; and though I grant your savage husbands do not treat you with common decency, I cannot believe that there was ever a real woman who did not wish to restore her beauty ; — though she may be the last to find out that she has lost it. It proves, however," he observed, turning to his com- mander, " that they are not of the same species with our- selves. Padre Bartolomeo was certainly right."
The elder warrior stood confronting Cuanaboa, wrapped again in many thoughts ; and regarded her with a stern gaze of interrogation, not unmingled with suspicion. She stood awaiting his speech in an attitude as rigid as his own ; and now met his glance with one that did not quiver nor deviate, but was composed in its brightness.
** TelJ me, Cuanaboa,'* he said, slowly, and in deep toned
BOYUCA. 77
accents, " did you believe you had found the spring, and did you not even t ste it ?"
This v^^oman, it should be mentioned, had been casually found by these wanderers of the deep, some time before, on a small island of which she was the sole inhabitant, and w^hich they named La Vieja, — ex nomine facti. She had learned enough of their language to speak it indifferently well for common purposes, and acted sometimes as an inter- preter, but more particularly as a guide, in their intricate navigation.
She replied in brief and broken sentences to the queries of the soldiers, growing more animated, and gesticulating not ungracefully, as she proceeded — " Halea tibou" (good be to you), " senores." She held up her hands six times in succession, spreading out their long attenuated fingers. " So many times," she continued, " have the great rains and the great heat come, after each other, since one called me yene-nerV^ (my wife). "My children are gone to their father's countr}'. I am alone. I w^ait to follow them. Tamoussi will soon let me go there.* The evil spirit per- mits you white and bearded men to take away the fairest lands from these cowardly Arrowauks. He teaches you to make the brave Charaibes as bad as the worst of you. This brings the hurricanes oftener ; and the brave and the dastards perish together. Drink ye of the fountain ! Live, slay, and conquer. I would not live to be your slave. I would not live to win back all I have lost. I lost them long, long before you came ; but they are with me as if it were yesterday. I would not live to have them, and to lose them again. They are in the pleasant land of Guiana, on the farther side of the great mountains, and live for ever in pride and happiness. There you can never be, alive or
* The "Universal Father," in the language of the Calibis Indians of South America — from whom the insular Charaibes are supposed, with sound reason to support the theory, to have been descended. See Edwards's HistoTy of the West Indies.
78 BOYUCA.
dead. There they build great houses of the gold you are ever seeking for.* There the hurricane never sw^eeps, nor is the air disturbed with the thunder, nor the sea and land with the frightful quakings — "
" Why may not we be there, and why will you not show us the way, Cuanaboa ?" exclaimed the lieutenant.
Again a low chuckling laugh, and a smile of almost withering sarcasm, interrupted the sybil's discourse, and the enthusiastic expression of her features.
" Why !" she screamed, " Tamoussi will not let you. The spirits of the brave will not let you. Bathe in the fountain ! live, slay, and conquer ! But there ye may not come. I go to my goodly home for ever. I have seen one by the fountain ye seek, who has been with me whenever I called him, so long as I have told you, from the time when I was first alone until ye found me."
" She is old enough, I take it," interrupted Perez. " But can it be possible that she has lived sixty years in total solitude ?"
" She could have kept no reckoning," said the commander.
" I know what you say, sefiores," said the Charaibe. "You may wander, and fight, and kill those who have done you no harm, and search for the yellow stone which is your god, and forget how often the trees have changed, and the flowers, and the grass, and the moon, and the sun himself. But so long as I have told you, I was alone, — alone,; — but the Tuyraf was with me when I called him. When I burned sweet herbs, the smoke was pleasant to his nostrils,
* El Dorado.
t So the demon, styled by the old Spanish authors the devil's particular agent, and by the modern writers on Indian superstitions the tutelary genius, was called by the Charaibes of the continent north of Guiana, according to the report made by Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo for the King of Spain. It will answer well enough for the purposes of this apologue. The spiritual home of these savages on the Continent was of course farther off than that of their descendants in the islands ; but their customs and creed appear to have been nearly the same.
BOYUCA. 79
and he came. He came when the moon and stars were bright in the sky, and danced in the waters. He called me Tequina,* and told me when the hurricane would come. When ye came, and found me waiting, he had told me to be ready. But now, by the fountain, he came without my calling. He told me that when the sun disappears I should go to my people. Then, because I have brought ye to the waters ye seek, gather up my knees,f and cover me from the light and air. Cuanaboa returns to her father and mother, her husband and her children."
" Will it be safe or proper," asked Perez, " to go with her farther, since she has confessed her dealings with the devil himself; and hath been in his company in person less than an hour since ?"
The tequina sat herself down ; and reclining against a palmetto, began to chant an aryeto in a low dull strain of monotonous cadences, and in her own language.
" Perhaps she is even invoking him now," continued Perez. " I am a good Catholic Christian, and I do not at all like this business."
" Peace, Perez," said the senior. " Do you think the enemy, if indeed he visits this hag, dare show himself to the true soldiers of Holy Church, and in sight of yonder blessed emblem ? Cuanaboa, when you have rested from your fatigue, we will set out for this same spring — ay," he mut- tered to himself, " though we should find the fiend guarding it. Perez, if you have fears, you may remain."
" Fears !" said Perez, quickly ; " save for my soul, I have forgotten them, if I ever knew them." He drew his long straight sword from the scabbard, and having reverently
* The conjurer to whom the Tuyra was supposed to make his revelations. The epithet was applied to persons particularly distinguished as excelling in any art or craft, according to Oviedo. It was sometimes applied to the Spaniards themselves, who could not have been flattered by the appellation,
t This patriarchal custom was observed among some of the Charaibes, and an argument is fouiided on it as to their oriental origin.
80 BOYUCA,
kissed the cross which formed its handle, said, " Let her lead on — I, for one, wil] follow."
" Let the poor creature have some little repose. Yet I would fain set out ; for she never seems to feel weariness, and the sun is half-way down."
" Her journey is to end, she says, with his setting. If the devil keeps his word with her, we shall lose the best guide we have had."
"As you said yourself, but a short time since, he is the father of lies."
But Cuanaboa did not long keep them in suspense. Her chant being ended, she arose, and said, " Let us go."
" Did you meet with any Indians on your way ?" asked the senior.
" None. I met with none but Tuyra. There are none here."
" We shall then have no need of carrying superfluous weight," said the knight, adjusting his short scarlet capa loosely over his armed shoulders. " Nevertheless, we will take two soldiers with us, as we may want them. Call them, Perez, and bring the interpreter too. Let a strict watch be kept here till our return, and let no one leave the spot, as he values his eyes and limbs."*
* A common military punishment among the Spaniards, in those days, was mutilation.
i30YUCA.
81
CHAPTER IIL
Dux fcemina facti. — Viro^
These arrangements having been made, the cavalier^ followed Cuanaboa, who moved on at a moderately quick and regulated pace, to which she timed the muttered chant which she had resumed. While thus engaged they knew she would answer no questions. Berecillo stalked by their side ; and the Indian and the guards brought up the rear in silence.
Though many of these islands were found to be very populous, there was no evidence that this small one, thus visited, had ever undergone the slightest cultivation, orhad> indeed, been trodden by other footsteps. The nature of the soil, which in most places but thinly covered the rock beneath, and the almost impenetrable thickness of the woods, were unfavourable for the simple agriculture of the Indians ; and the fruit-trees which, in many of the other islands, spontaneously flourished in such variety and abun- dance, were not visible here* Perhaps, too, an incident which will be related, or some superstition, may account for the absence of all inhabitants from this " Bimini" of the Tequina*
It was tov/ards the close of the dry and hot season i and delightfully as the breeze from the sea had crept upon them, while at rest, the cavaliers, in motion, could not but feel, notwithstanding the excitement of the moment^ the relaxing influence of the ardent climate. The air became more motionless ; and the utter silence was scarcely broken by their measured and unresounding tread* Even thd heavy crossbow-men stepped with the caution of a devotee entering the sanctuary whose precincts are most sacred to
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82 BOYUCA.
his eyes ; and it might well have been supposed, that instead of rushing to renew youth at the fountain of life, they were following to its last place of deposite a body which life had left for ever.
As they gradually left the palmetto grove and its neigh- bourhood, they found themselves ascending, in what soon assured the appearance of a gloomy and narrow valley, in the direction of precipitous high grounds, rough with huge rocks up to the lofty summit, and shaggy with dark trees of a vast growth, as seen even from the sea where they first observed the appearance of the isle. The shade grew deeper and deeper as they advanced, not without difficulty, through the interlaced fibres of tough crawling vines, and over the complicated and knotty projections of the far- spreading roots of the mighty trees around them. The rank lianes and other venomous creepers, from the decoc- tion of which the savages obtained that poison with which their arrow-heads were impregnated, and for the mortal effects of which, when communicated to the blood by a flesh-wound, the Spaniards then knew no remedy, curled in entangled rings 'round the ankles and legs of the armed men. They w^ere further embarrassed with the matted and luxuriant vegetation, springing up in a wilderness of pro- fusion and variety, in which they waded knee- deep. Sombre mahogany-trees of the hugest size, solemn locusts, and tall cedars wearing a funereal hue, towered up on either side of their path, if path it might be called, upon the ascending ground, to a vast altitude, mingling their dark foliage in indistinguishable masses ; w^hile the vines, climbing even to the branches of the loftiest trunks, thence spread themselves in wanton snake-like extension, with inexhaustible exube- rance of length, mingling and intertwisting, and hanging the arches of the dense forest with sepulchral festoons. No slanting sunbeams quivered through this " contiguity of shade," and the light imperceptibly admitted seemed un- natural. In this lone haunt, as in that of the Den of Error —
BOYUCA. - 83
" The glistening armour made A little glooming light, much like a shade."
The gloom was indeed horrid as that of the " selva oscura" —
" Questa selva selvaggia ed aspra e forte" —
in which the poet of hell found himself at the commence- ment of his infernal pilgrimage.
Nor were the specimens of animal life which they met with in this solitude calculated to relieve and enliven its oppressive and close loneliness and lifelessness. The arma- dilloes, crawling into their nooks, or between fissures of the rocks, lay motionless and contracted within their scaly har- ness. High above, diminutive monkeys, gray and brown, with prominent wild eyes and sprawling nostrils, stared at them with surprise, moping faces, and ugly gestures, and a dismal chattering faintly heard below. Of none of these did the well-trained Berecillo deign to take the slightest notice. Receiving a soldier's pay,* he fought only with a soldier's adversaries, and made his way through the obstruc- tions of the route with a precise and silent gravity.
As they still advanced, and the " brown horror" of the wood seemed to deepen, no opening yet appearing in front of their circuitous and crooked course, the air became cloggy to the inspiration, and noisome to the smell. Perez, who, in deference to his taciturn commander, had stridden onwards hitherto with manly and determined steps, sup- pressing, perhaps, some natural ejaculations which might else have escaped his lips when encountering some pecu- liarly tenacious obstacles, now broke silence. But his deep bold voice sounded as if it had lost its natural tones ; like that of one in a large, unventilated, subterranean vault.
" I think," said he, "we shall be suffocated. This does
* The pay of a crossbow-man, and other perquisites, -^yith rations, ore, was allowed him when in service.
84 BOYUCA.
indeed, seem to be the devil's own den. Gu^naboa ! shall we soon be out of it ? Is Bimini here ?"
The witch (as she was, according to her own account of herself) had for some time ceased from her mumbled incan- tation, or whatever it might have been, still moving onward in an unhesitating manner, as if she was perfectly familiar with the route by which she was threading the labyrinth. Nor did she turn her head, or pay any sign of attention whatever, to the question of Perez. But presently she sud^ denly stopped, in manifest trepidation; while at the same moment, with a terrible growl, the hound bounded from the side of his master, sprang up the rugged ascent on one side, and was lost from sight in the black and sa-vage wilderness.
" Sorceress," cried the lieutenant, swiftly baring his blade, " if thou hast led us into peril of our souls, thy own, irredeemably sold as it is, shall first depart."
" I am more apprehensive of an ambush," said the com- mander, following in action the example of Perez, but with less haste and more precision.
The occidental saga stood trembling and unheeding, or not hearing these exclamations. Her eyes were fixed on a particular point in the forest, and she asked, in broken, accents, " Tuyra ! is it thus I must die?"
But ere she had said so, a crashing of branches was heard amid the underwood, with the continued barking of the dog, re-echoing from unseen rocks or elevations, and made more terrible by the unearthly effect produced by the same cause which altered the sound of the human voice. But still more terrible, and altogether strange, was another cry, which might, but for the same cause, have been loud as the roar of a bull, but was strangely compounded of plaintive agony and mad wrath. The soldiers closed up to their officers in uncertainty and fear, crossing themselves as they prepared their arms for service ; and with them stood the interpreter, exhibiting in his shaking limbs and wander- ing ej)^es the unequivocal signs of vague terror,
BOYUCA. 85
It was but a moment, before, peering through a tangled thicket of underwood, creepers, rank weeds, and inex- tricable brake, they suddenly saw, at not more than twenty yards' distance Irom them, two bright malignly fierce eyes, darting their glances upon Cuanaboa, through a dilated and inflamed iris of sickly, yellowish brown, circled with black and white, as they rolled in the huge lion-like head of a mon- ster, with projecting black ears, tipped with white, broad tawny breast, and great red fore-paws, with long protruding fangs, couched as if preparing for an instantaneous spring. The Charaibe woman almost sank to the earth ; but it was in infinitely less time than the circumstance can be related in, that, catching a glimpse of the group beyond, the creature, with its awfully dolorous cry, resembling a prolonged hoo ! hoo ! or involuntary screams of pain, uttered now under the pangs, and now in the intervals of excruciating torture, withdrew its eyes and fangs from their sight; and the rustling noise it made in its departure was drowned by the sharp uninterrupted baying and ringing clamour of the dog, struggling to penetrate the thick-set progeny of the forest floor.
" Por la santa Madre de Dios," exclaimed Perez ; " you are called for, Cuanaboa. Your time has come. Here — kiss this blessed symbol" — (and he tendered to her his sword, at the extremest distance which the length of his arm and that of the weapon would permit, and more too ; while the bright blade trembled and vibrated irregularly up and down, as the point rested in the grip of his gauntleted fingers) — " kiss ! — kneel ! — pray ! — or follow where your master bids you."
" Ochi !"* cried the interpreter.
^' It is a tiger," said the commander, who stood with
* The name given by the Charaibes of the conthient to the animal some- times called the South American tiger.
86 BOYUCA.
fixed eyes and ears attentive to every sound. "Raise your point, and be on your guard."
" A tiger ! There be none here — v^hat should they prey on ?"
" Indians," said, or rather fearfully murmured the half- exanimate interpreter.
" Ay, it is Satanas himself, who has come for her as he promised ; and he may come for all of you, that I know of, by good right."
As he spoke, the lugubrious hoo ! hoo ! of the savage beast, not like the voice of one crying in the desert to re- pent, but like that of one crying to prepare for eternal anguish, was heard from the other side of their station ; and in an instant, a long red quadruped, with a swollen bristling tail of the same colour, and of at least two feet in length, in rapid motion, was seen springing through the air, and immediately climbing the tall trunk of a locust. It was among its branches in another instant ; and from a cleft among them, fifty feet at least above the lower ground on which the party stood, the glaring eyes again appeared. In the brief time permitted them for observation, during its flying ascent, they could perceive that it almost doubled in size that of Berecillo, who now rushed between them and the tree on which the prodigy had fastened, foaming at the mouth, and watching the movements of his adversary's eyes ; and keeping up incessantly an angry roar, as he shifted his position, leaning back on his haunches, and bracing his rigidly-knit limbs, as if in expectance of the stranger's leap.
They also perceived that the hide of the latter was, in its ground-work, of a bright tawny red ; quaintly streaked from the breadth of its back with black and fallow stripes, diminishing in size as they approached the lighter hue of the belly and extremities ; that it had also among them spots that looked like eyes, and that he showed in all his forma- tion amazing strength, ferocity, and activity. Ever and
BOYUCA. 87
anon, as his eyes became fixed on Berecillo, and he seemed about to spring, he shrank back, as his glances wandered to the soldiers ; — glances which
" Made no sunshine in the shady place,"
but seemed to emit through it lurid beams of yellow fire. But the Indian interpreter now appeared to have regained his self-possession, and had led one of the soldiers with him a few yards farther oft^; hastily and earnestly giving direc- tions to the reluctant veteran. Bringing the butt of his weapon to his foot, the latter drew the strong cord to its tension ; and adjusting to its groove a heavy bolt, adapted to a long steel arrowhead, furnished with broad and deeply indented barbs, raised it slowly, and not in a military style, to his shoulder, as he hesitatingly winked at the furious and to him unintelligible savage, in his frightfully beautiful and shining coat, — w^ho, with fixed look and contracted limbs, must have fairly given the impulse for his fatal spring upon the dog, when the Indian touched the soldier's shoulder. The tough cord twanged ; and it was plain enough whither the bolt had sped ; for they saw it cleaving into the yellow breast of the monster, and heard his demoniac shrieks of pain, tormenting the very marrow of their bones. The red blood crimsoned his rich and mottled skin, as, for a few seconds he clung to, or was balanced upon, the tough limbs he had chosen for a rest ; and then, with fainter but not less thrilling yells, he fell, crashing all before him, and rolling over arid over down the declivity, to within a few yards of the party.
As Berecillo was sweeping round him, and ever and anon, in a paroxysm of rage, preparing to rush upon the entirely new and dangerous stranger (for such he was to him), not, however, with that fearless speed, sudden, straight, and swift as that of an arrow, with which he was wont to seize his designated victim, among however great a multi- tude, but with dreadful groanings, and almost whinings, he was successively called oflf by the Indian, the bovvman, and
S8 BOYUCA.
his master ; and it was with an entire breach of the seerrrlj discipline becoming a man-at-arms of that, or of any age^ that he growKngly, and by unequal movements, obeyed the stern command of the latter.
Meantime, whichever way the mortally-wounded creature turned, the barbed steel, as he twisted it in his vitals, or as it was forced in by the end of the shaft coming in contact with the ground, as he rolled over or fell, tortured from him screams which no human ears could ever forget, and no human voice could faintly describe or imitate, were even the crazy shep- herd Chrysostom's attempt a practicable one.* But their ears could not be shut to those infernal sounds, nor their eyes, by a distressing fascination, be withheld from occa- sionally reverting to the exhibition of horror long to be pro- tracted, as they followed the guide and interpreter, at their earnest entreaties to proceed ; the former assuring them that the ochi would be dead before their return.
" Ay," said Perez, gloomily, " that may very well be/' The beast tore up the underwood and the earth, and the sparks flashed as he ground the rock with his teeth. With convulsive leaps, he at one time showed at full length his crimsoned breast and wildly-struggling limbs, with his in- furiate eyes bursting out of their sockets, and so fell pros- trate backwards ; and then, after writhings intolerable to be beheld, he would jump from his feet, and fasten claws and fangs on some huge trunk, tearing ofl' great shreds of the thick tough bark, and splinters of the wood itself, until he fell again from the temporary exhaustion. They were soon out of sight of this scene, but still the piteous wails and yells, that shook every nerve even of those fearless men, followed them with persecuting reiteration.f
* Hare que cl mismo infierno comunique Al triste pecho mio un son doliente, Conque el uso comun de mi voz tuerza, <fec.
Don Quixottc. Part I. chap. 14. t This mode of kiliing the tiger, as it was at first called, of Terra I'irjna, fiwd the description of the beast and its habits, are taken, with few v;iria-
BOYUCA. 89
CHAPTER IV.
How great, while yet we tread the kindred clod, To stop and pause, involved in high presage ; Through the long vista of a thousand years, To stand contemplating our distant selves, As in a magnifying mirror seen, Enlarged, ennobled, elevate, divine, » To prophesy our own futurities !
And chase we still the phantom, through the fire,
O'er bog, and brake, and precipice, till death 1 — Young.
The line of their march was now more irregular and hasty, though their advance was not more rapid than it had been ; and this auricular torture made every moment seem a divisible portion of tedious time, to be counted as in sick- ness, or in waiting for an answer to a half-hopeless applica- tion for relief, made in imminent trouble, by the dull ticking of a lazy-going chronometer.
The leader himself addressed the woman. " When shall we escape from this darkness, — when shall we see the foun- tain, Cuanaboa?"
" It is now but a little way, and my travel will soon be done for always."
tions, from the report of Oviedo, before referred to. M. Buflfon gives but a poor account of the jaguar of Guiana, as he calls the animal. M. Sonini de Manoncourt, whose description is given in Count Lacepede's edition of Buf- fon, agrees in most respects with Oviedo; but he denies that the Indians were more afraid of it than the whites. They have had, however, the ex- perience of some hundred years to improve their morals and reprove their superstitions ; one of which was, that the ochi would select an Indian for his prey among many white men. It is very extraordinary indeed how this jaguar, or whatever it was, got into a desolate island of the Bahamas, as they belonged only to the main. But so says the legend ; and as it conforms to recorded truth in so many instances, the logical inference'is in its. favour here.
VOL. II. — M
90 BOYUCA.
It is impertinent to the story, and the dry matter-of-fact legend we follow, says of course nothing about it ; but may we not venture to guess w^hat were the feelings of a hith- erto-disappointed, bat still superbly ambitious adventurer, when the " amreeta cup" was thus, possibly, within his im- mediate grasp ? Is it not to be feared that judgment yielded to imagination — and faith-built hopes of spiritual happiness, to dreams of earthly fruition ?
Worlds ! w^orlds ! — all the imaginable or unimaginable space between these new islands, and
" -Mightiest empire, to the destined walls
Of Cambalu, seat of Cathaian khan ;" —
Wealth, pomp, and splendour !— all that can blaze and glitter,
" Where the gorgeous east Showers on her kings barbaric pearls and gold ; —
Dominion ! — caciques, and khans, and caliphs, prostrate in oriental man- worship, — "louting low" — and even Csesars not daring to ask homage, but courting friendship ; — Plea- sure ! — renewable at will, infinite in variety, " never ending, still beginning ;" — Progeny ! — numerous enough among whom to choose, for the partition of his falling mantle, — " et nati natorum, etqui nascerentur ah illis;^^* — Glory ! — seek- ing not in vain to enlarge itself, till it girdled the round world, as with a belt for the dull planet; — ay, independent immortality, — or so long a possession of all this, that
" Still as up he sped Above him still th' immeasurable spread :"
In a word, " the kingdoms of the world and the glory thereof," — all, all may have overwhelmed the imagination of the leader, as he reflected that a few j.iaces might bring him to the mystic lymph, by laving in which, at will, the
* " And children's children shall the crown sustain." — Dryden,
BOYUCA. 91
power of overcoming time, place, and circumstance, and destiny would belong to a poor and untitled gentleman, Juan Ponce, of Leon.
" I guess we are almost out of the woods," said Perez ; *'but the weather portends a squall of some kind or other. In the name of all the saints, senor, let us transact this fresh-water business, whatever it may turn out to be, as quickly as possible, and get out of hearing of the screech- ing of that devil incarnate ! You have seen me fight in Africa. I tell you, I am afraid to be here."
But not to those screechings, shrill and ear-piercing as they were, did the chief now attend ; nor did he mark, as the ground before them became more open, that the appear- ances denoted some movement near at hand in the now sluggish elements. He looked only forward in the direction in which the woman was advancing, to where, through the more scattered forest-growth, a precipice arose, as it almost seemed, to the sky, against the now rather inky hue of which, in that direction, a bald black crag which crowned the summit was gloomily relieved. Below, the scarred and seamed face of the rock gave evidence that it had expe- rienced the action of fire at some remote day ; which was confirmed by uncouth incrustations and jagged formations above, quaintly fashioned like turrets and towers, circling what might have been the mouth of a crater. Up to this elevation in the immediate perpendicular line of vision, the abrupt ascent was ruggedly interspersed with savage and deformed specimens of vegetation, presenting monstrous figures to the imaginative eye ; while immensely long trails of seemingly charred weeds and creepers hung downwards, with the melancholy eflfect produced by the trappings of wo, used to decorate some antique chamber where dead pride was laid out in state, when revisited at long periods after the name of him in whose honour the mockery of mourn- ing had been got up and passed into oblivion. On either side of this front, however, up to the naked summit, the hill .
92 BOYUCA.
was clothed with dense and awful woods, the irregular out- line of which at the tops was unfringed with any lighter hues borrowed from the heavens. If volcanic power had, as seemed probable, hollowed the centre of this rude pile, it might well have served for the residence of some angry Prospero, and as the reception-chamber for his ministers of evil.
Looking to their left, the train of this pilgrim of hope, who seemed to be approaching the strangest conceivable shrine, for the realization of his prayers, observed that the sun was of a dusky red hue ; and that a dimness had come over the pure depths of ether. Dull was the light in which they beheld the haughty and superb, but baleful manchineel, uplifting its stubborn and symmetrical limbs, and exhibiting among the dark foliage its golden but poisonous apples, like the King of Terrors, masked and clothed in purple ; or some trunk that, from the nature of the crevice from which it had forced itself in its infant wantonness, had grown along the surface with its sinuous and massive folds, even like the " leviathan, that crooked serpent" of the prophet Isaiah ! and which might have said, with a slight alteration, in the language of another divinely-inspired poet, " My path is my own, and I have made it for myself." But to the Europeans who now observed it, with its prickly coat and branching crest, it seemed more like the dragon of more modern and romantic invention ; for they knew a precious little about the writings of the prophets.
The sky, as we have said, was dull, and by the glimpses they caught of the sea, they might mark that it was also of a leaden colour, and seemed disturbed. A sound arose as of distant subterranean thunder, which they would naturally have ascribed to the beating of the waves on the beach, when the element of which they were the vagabond pro- teges gave the usual notice of its being vexed and incensed. But this noise was not like that of " the much sounding main." It seemed like distant thunder from the caverns of
BOYUCA. 93
the earth ; smothered but prolonged, as they made their way over the unequal floor, where the scraggy protrusions of honey-combed coralline rock, besides the inequalities of the surface, impeded them in their way to the mountain, through the immemorial dust, and ashes, and worms of the forest, as the superstratum of its floor might have been called without an overstrained metaphor. It required no quickness of association to assimilate the rugged forest- girdled enclosure, with its insurmountable wall, towards which they were journeying, to some unconsecrated ceme- tery ; and the murmur that came up to their ears, to the moans of unpardoned ghosts.
Still the atmosphere continued to be oppressively close ; while they were sensible of a new and disagreeable odour which appeared to find its way from the seaside to the west. Hitherto they had met with no water in their progress. But now they came close by the side of a pool or spring, over- shadowed by locusts, cedars, and mahogany trees, at which the Indian woman cast for a moment an inquisitive glance. As they marked the action, and looked at the unilluminated surface of the miniature lake, they observed bubbles con- stantly rising and breaking upon it, and a slight faint hiss as of water beginning to boil.
" Is this Bimini ?" asked Perez, leaping to the brink, and plunging his hand into the reservoir. " By all the saints," he exclaimed, withdrawing it speedily, " it is as cold as the grave."
A smile, as chilled and chilling as the image employed by the lieutenant for a comparison, came to the face of Cuana- boa, as she said, " Ye seek for the fountain of life, and this is that of destruction. They are near together. Put a torch to this, and you will see it burn like the fires your people told me of, which they must pass through before they go to be happy."
"She blasphemes," said Perez; "and she is as false as the fiend her master. Is it near this seething caldron,
94 BOYLCA.
in this ugly and noisome desert, and with this infernal rumWing beneath our feet, that we can find any thing that is good ?'*
" Cuanaboa," said the chief, pausing, " I have trusted you ; I trust to you yet ; but if you prove a traitress, the hound shall tear your living body to pieces. You said the other fountain was near ; show it to me."
She gazed on him with a stern and frowning aspect ; and a flash of indignation broke from beneath her haggard brows. " Let your fierce dog now rend and slay me where I stand ; and if you could depart alive, what would you have gained by all your foolish wanderings ? But, no 1 yonder is the water you seek," pointing to the rocks strewn at the foot of the precipice which they were now near ; "and much good," she muttered, as she went on her way towards it, " may it do ye, after ye have drunk."
They were soon mounting or scrambling over oddly piled and inconveniently angular fragments of stone, covered with the common, perplexing, tough, and deceitful net-work of vines; and not without shuddering they saw, in the tangled and wide interstices beneath, coiled snakes that thrust up their crests, with revengefully red eyes, and hissed as they seemed unfolding their slimy convolutions ; or fiat- headed gray lizards, whose gripe they dreaded as being fatal. The hollow and ominous sound from beneath became deeper in its loudness, and seemed to come up to them directly from the entrails of the earth, as they at length stood within a few yards of the bare face of the mountain, which here rose sheer up above them ; its grotesque tracery of unpatronised parasites, wretched wild-pines, broken pro- jections, and lava formations of fantastic shapes, in the upper elevations, alone breaking the view up to the zenith, now overshadowed with a veil, dim, indistinct, and gloomy. Right in front of, and extending downward beneath them, was a shallow but high and deep cavity in the naked and rude stone, black with seeming stains, wherever the per-
BOYUCA. 95
colating moisture silently trickled through unseen and minute crannies. Silently we say, for the exudation would have been as inaudible as the progress of the liquid was imperceptible, " at the calmest and the stillest" hour. But now, from a hollow circular space of a few feet in diameter, at the very bottom of this grotto, the noise they had heard came up with more violent and awful effect.
The Tequina leaped to the brink of this chasm, and was followed with anxiously quick steps by the chief. Perez also, from an emotion of curiosity, or a sense of duty, lazily and incredulously presented himself, confronting his commander on the other side of the cavity, while, a little way behind his master, the dog stood, with his feet firmly planted against the broken and scattered stones, his limbs quivering with terror, and his short hair fiercely raising it- self, as with instinctive affright, over all his strong and shapely body. The men-at-arms and the Indian interpreter gazed curiously down upon the party, whose speculations, they seemed to have no desire of disturbing by more close approximation.
" I guess," as a lake-poet would say, that a striking picture might have been made out of the group, thus arranged in that wild place, and peculiar light ; could a painter have caught the expression of the individuals, and of the scene, and the combined expression of both.
" Here," said Cuanaboa, pointing downwards to the aper- ture, with a motionless apathy of countenance, — " here is Bimini." The tones of her voice, usually distinct, and not unmusical, sounded hoarsely, and as if prophetic of doom, heard as they were amid the re-echoed roar, sullen, angry and solemn, which came from the opening at their feet.
Perez applied the tip of his finger to the surface of the humid rock, where the dull light irregularly twinkled, show- ing that there was motion in the thin moisture which glassed it ; and looking downwards, exclaimed, " God jielp me I is this your Bimini ? I have half a mind to throw you into it,"
98 BOYUCA.
The chief also peered into the well. The liquid element was plainly to be seen, perfectly sniooth as the polished surface of black marble, in which a ray of dingy light might be said to sleep, for it did not quiver, but only showed the smoothness and sombre quietude of the waters.
" It is the repose of death," he muttered.
" And the dreadful sound from beneath it," said Perez, "is made by those whose unrest shall be everlasting."
The old woman grimly smiled.
" Ho ! Diego, lend me thy casque and a cord," said the chief, kneeling and bending over the edge of the well. It was most difficult to determine how near to the mouth the water rose. It might have been two yards, or less or more ; and the sides of the enclosure afforded no facilities for descent. It was impossible to form a conjecture as to its depth.
Before the crossbow-man could comply with his leader's requisition, even had his powers of motion and habit of obedience not been paralyzed by superstitious and by natu- ral fear — a darker gloom came over the scene. The sun- light was altogether and suddenly hidden by black clouds — black unequivocally. The wind from the west arose and blew a gale in an instant. The roar from below degene- rated into a murmuring growl ; and they became sensible of a tremulous motion, as it were, of the ground beneath their feet, accompanied with a giddiness which made them insensibly recoil. The thunder from overhead answered in a protracted peal to the rumbling below ; as one bright sheet of blue electric light dazzled their sight almost to blindness, and shivered a proud and sturdy locust; the cleft half of which fell crackling and crushing near them. Still the whirlwind increased to fury, and every vegetating thing was whirled and twisted into agony by its power. The earth trembled now in reality. They might feel the shock of the whole island, as the ocean flung itself against its coasts in sudden madness : " the boldest held their breath
BOYLCA. 97
for a time." But, in the hurricane, the earthquake, or the airquake, as some sensible writers call the commotions which occur in those isles, the boldest and the most timid are upon a level, when the destroyer comes unexpectedly upon them ; upon the same level that all will be when the whole earth will be opened by the blast of the last trumpet* The rain came down in flying torrents. At one moment total darkness wrapped the scene ; and at the next a broad sheet of lightning developed in livid colouring all its hor- rors ; showing the giants of the forest writhing, bending, and crackling, and often breaking, and their branches, with uptorn vines, tossed in wild eddies in the whirlpool of the air ; showing too the pallid countenances of the party, as, having retreated to some distance from the well with trembling and uncertain steps, they were cast to the earth, and clung with the tenacity of desperation to whatever fixed object they could grasp. They heard the rush of de- scending masses of the rock, and the shivered fragments, thundered by and around them.
The whirlwind rushed by as suddenly as it made its destroying visitation. It swept the black mantle from the skies, and its roaring died away on the ocean, whose sullen moaning was now only heard. The howling of the dog, and piteous cries of animals that had blended in the dread- ful chorus ceased. In a few minutes the bruised soldiers, who had almost miraculously escaped without serious injury, slowly arose, as if doubtful whether they could main- tain their footing, and gazed wistfully and fearfully upon each other.
" Holy Maria be praised 1" falteringly exclaimed Perez. " I vow to her a shrine of gold in her chapel at San Juan, whenever all I can win will purchase one. Is it possible that we have escaped ? Ay, all are here but the priestess of Satanas that beguiled us hither. But our comrades, and our ships— where are they V ^
VOL. II. N
98 BOYUCA.
" They may be safe, I hope," said the commander. " The storm passed not in that direction, and its path was a narrow one. But, by heavens ! it was terrible, and what havoc it has made !"
They gazed now around upon the scene of desolation, over which the declining sun threw a ruddy hue, painting the face of nature with the tinge of autumn ; and the chilli- ness of the air added to this effect. It seemed as if they had passed at once into a totally different season, by art- magic. The face of the hill before them was changed. Part of its rocky crown had been detached ; and in its fall had carried all before it on the face of the precipice, where it had left everlasting scars. Its shattered ruins were strown all around them ; and, advancing with difficulty among and over them, no traces of the well were discov- erable, or even of the shallow cavern which had projected over it. A confused heap of stone, surmounted by one huge fragment, which the long and painful toil of multitudes could scarcely have broken or removed, was all that pre- sented itself to their eyes. But another spectacle arrested their attention, as, led by the whining of the hound, they found the Charaib woman prostrate on the earth, and bleed- ing profusely from a wound in her head, where she had evi- dently been struck by a flying piece of the stony avalanche. Her face was turned towards the setting sun, on which her eyes were fixed. She regarded them not, but was mur- muring in her own language. The Indian bent over her, and said she was conversing with the souls of her dead re- lations. The grisly fissure in her scull, into which the gray hairs had been forced by the blow, was too wide and deep to admit of any hope that assistance, if they had been able to render it, would have protracted her life for many moments.
The sun, " a palpable sphere of flame," translucently and fiercely red as the burning and v/hirling throne of Arimanes,
BOYUCA. 99
lit up the sky and the ocean with crimson fire, as his disk touched the bosom of the sea. The woman's eyes bright- ened strangely. The interpreter explained her last mur- mured expressions to be, " I see Bimini." Her lips and eyes then closed, and she was dead.
The " glorious orb," which " was a worship ere the mystery of his making was revealed," had disappeared. Quickly as the fading pageantry of some dream of oriental splendour, — of some such dream as that of Kublah Khan, which resolved itself into music that did not remain " un- written,"— the red glory which had " come down on the land and sea" paled and departed. The stars came forth swimming and floating in their eternal beauty, in skies where they are most beautiful ; and as their shafts of diamond radiance quivered in the now im purpled waves, or pierced the recesses of the ruin-strown forest, they seemed inquiring with brightly pensive glances into the cause of the coming of the strangers, who silently sur-. rounded the mangled body of poor Cuanaboa.
" Let her wish be complied with," said the commander, " and let our promise be fulfilled. Let us cover her remains from the beasts, and then let us depart."
There was no difficulty in preparing a sepulchre, extem- poraneously, for it was close at hand. A hollow place, fit for the purposes of a grave, had been formed among the massive rubbish, which it was not probable that aught save another commotion of nature would remove, perhaps, for ages. It was with mingled feelings of regret and supersti- tious aversion, and an undefined reverence for the remains of the lonely one, which they were about leaving for ever in that lonely place, — that having cast broken branches into the accidental sarcophagus, so as to form a platform for the repose of the corpse, and having swathed it round with its red mantle, the rough crossbow-man and the Indian gently lifted it, even as it lay, and deposited it in the cj^vity. Over
100 BOYUCA.
the top ihey drew the broadest and flattest pieces of the stone which lay around ; and heaping them up into a pile, the mausoleum of the Tequina was completed. They worked in silence and sadness, with the bright stars for their funeral candelabras, while the emerald flashes from the beetle, and dancing yellow gleams from the fire-fly, added their irregular illuminations to the high, mysterious, and dishevelled old wood. The lizards and crickets with their monotonous descant, and the monkeys who mingled their eldritch responsive cries, were the only choristers ; and the subdued moan of the ocean was the only requiem at the sepulture of the Recluse of the I.ucayan Isles.
Where nothing is left to tell which is not matter of his- tory, or which the dullest may not imagine, it would be im- pertinent to dwell on the return of the voyagers to their ships, which, being on the protected shore of the island, had not been shaken from their moorings by the brief Raz de Maree, if such it might be called. They sailed on the fol- lowing morning, and the commander returned to San Juan. Every one knows that the lieutenant afterward rejoined him, having indeed found the island, but not the fountain he sought for.
And every one may know, that, some ten years after- ward, Balboa, having found the vast Pacific, had been de- collated as his reward ; and that the fame of Hernando Cortes was then bruited through the world. A soul more imaginative, and possibly less sordid and cruel than ten- anted the bosoms of either of those adventurers, then winged its flight for the certain immortality, a misty type and per- haps unholy dream of which it had cherished on earth. As the dim eyes of the aged and disappointed Ponce de Leon gazed their last on the black cross which the servant of the church held before them, while dim tapers burned gloomily around, and the solemn service for the parting soul was
BOYUCA. 101
read, may we not hope that he too, like the poor Indian solitary and enthusiast, who had once been his guide, was enabled to think that he saw Bimini ? For among the words that came to his dying ears were these : —
" There is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of our God ; the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High."
THOUGHTS ON HAND-YfRITlNG.*
When a person has nothing which is actually new or interesting to say on a subject, it is a question which very naturally suggests itself to the reader, why he writes about it at all ? I, therefore, suppose this question directed to myself; and reply, with perfect honesty, that, in making such remarks as occur to me on the subject of chirography, I am fulfilling a promise, and also writing a preface to a story which I have to tell.
I have had reasons for meditating much on the mystery of hand-writings, though my reflections have resulted in no new discoveries ; and I have neither solved any of the para- doxes, nor come to a definite conclusion on any of the doubtful points with which the subject is pregnant. The first difficulty which was suggested to miy mind about it, occurred in early childhood. I could not discover how the rapping me over the knuckles with a long, round, lignum- vitae ruler, until those articulations were discoloured and lame, was to assist me in using my fingers with ease and grace, in copying the pithy scraps of morality which were
* The paper entitled *' Thoughts on Hand-writing," with the tale of *' Mr. De Viellecour and his Neighbours," to which it^serves as an introduc- tion, appeared in the Talisman for the year 1828. The former was written entirely by Mr. Sands, and the latter in conjunction with one of the literary friends by whom the work was undertaken, and whose manner the reader will probably distinguish in the commencement of the story. — Editor.
THOUailTS ON HAND-WRITING. 103
set before me. My master, however, seemed to think it was good for me. The poor man took a world of pains, and gave me a great many, to very little purpose. He was very fond of quoting to me a passage from Horace, in an English version he had picked up somewhere, of the fidelity of which I have since had my doubts.
" In wisdom and sound knowledge to excel, Is the chief cause and source of writing well. The manuscripts of Socrates were writ, So fairly, because he had so much wit."
I certainly never became a proficient in calligraphy. I have, however, in the course of my life, been consoled for my own imperfections on this score, by observing scholars, statesmen, and gentlemen at large, who passed very well in the world, and obtained professorships, outfits, and sala- ries, and the entree into polite society, whose signs manual were hieroglyphics, which Champollion himself would give up in despair. Their whole manipulation (as the learned would say), with pen, ink, and paper, produced a result so utterly undecipherable, that, instead of its " painting thought, and speaking to the eyes," if their secretaries or corre- spondents had not known what they wanted to say, or ta have said for them, the persons interested in their despatches might as well have been in the innocent situation of John Lump and Looney Mactwolter, when they had " mixed the billy-duckses."
I hav^e known lawyers and doctors, whose autographic outpourings the solicitor and apothecary alone understood, by professional instinct : and yet the bills in chancery of the former, fairly engrossed, produced suits which are not yet decided ; and the prescriptions of the latter found their way into the patient's system, and caused a great effect.
There is one thing, however, on which I have made up my mind decidedly ; which is, that a person wlio writes so detestable a hand that he cannot read it himself, acts in an-
104 TliOUOHTS ON HAND-WRITING,
improper manner ; and abuses the gift which Cadmus was good enough to introduce into Europe.
The character of my own writing seems somewhat amended, since time has laid his frosty hand upon my head, and cramped the joints of my fingers. It is less capricious in the variety of directions in which the letters run, and less luxuriant in gratuitous additions to their tops, and bottoms, and natural terminations. They look more like a platoon of regular troops, and less like a militia-training ; more like an arrangement produced by the agency of human intellect, and less like the irregular scratches made by the brute crea- tion in the surface of the soil. So that I get along without any material difficulty ; and have, indeed, been sometimes complimented on the elegance of my writing.*
One thing which has always been unaccountable to me is, the nice acquaintance some persons acquire with the signatures of particular individuals, so that they can detect a forgery at first sight, however well it may be executed, and can swear to the spuriousness of the sophisticated writ- ing. Neither, for the life of me, can I understand the wis- dom of the rule of evidence, which makes the question im- portant, whether a witness has ever seen the person write, about whose autography he is interrogated. I am sure it would puzzle the twelve judges of England to explain, why our having seen a man write should enable us to distinguish the character of his hand, any more than we should be enabled to identify his clothes, by having seen him put them on.
That the intellectual and moral character of a person may be ascertained from his hand- writing, is a theory which many are fond of believing in. It seems, certainly, a more
* Our printer was certainly in no very complimentary mood, when he first saw our author's manuscript. He said it was all pie ; though, to our eyes, it more resembled hasty-pudding. He said it would ruin his boys for ever, to set it up ; and almost cried for pity, as he looked at his amiable disciples, and thought of the piece of work before them. — Pub.
THOUGHTS ON HAND- WRITING. 105
plausible one than those of chiromancy or phrenology ; but beyond a certain extent, I think it can be shown to be as visionary as either. Up to a certain point, however, it may be far more rational.
The sex of the writer may be conjectured with more infallibility than any other attribute.
" The bridegroom's letters stand in row above, Tapering, yet straight, like pine trees in his grove ; While free and fine the bride's appear below, As light and slender as her jasmines grow."
Still you cannot always tell from the appearance of a, manuscript whether a lady or a gentleman has held the pen. I had a female relative, who was a strong stout-built woman, to be sure ; but she wrote a hand so formidably masculine, that the only suitor w^ho ever made her an offer was terrified out of his negotiation by the first billet-doux he had the honour of receiving from her. He was a slen- der and delicately made man ; and wrote a fine Italian hand.
Next to the sex, the age of a writer may be guessed at with most certainty from the chirograph. If the gods had made me poetical, I would paraphrase the seven ages of Shakspeare (omitting, of course, the infant in his nurse's arms), with reference to this theme. But I must "leave it to some fitter minstrel." There are, however, more excep- tions to this than to the former proposition. Some people write a puerile hand all their lives : and the gravest maxims, the profoundest thoughts, the most abstruse reasonings, have sometimes been originally imbodied in signs as fantas- tical as the scrawl made in sport by a child. On the other hand, men of regular temperament, and methodical habits of business, will acquire a formed and deliberate character in their hand- writing, which is often not impaired until ex- treme age. ^
The nation, profession, and other accidental properties
VOL. II. O
106 THOUGHTS ox HAND-WRITING.
of a person, may also, perhaps, be discovered in a majority of instances, from his chirograph. But it is obvious that there is no mystery in this, which philosophy need be in- voked to elucidate. Mr. Owen's doctrine of circmnstances will explain it very satisfactorily. I am only disposed to deny that the bent of natural inclination, or the predomi- nance or deficiency of any intellectual quahty, can be ascer- tained by this test. I have never met with any one w^ho possessed the art of divination in this way ; nor, as the theory cannot be proved by any process of reasoning from first principles, can it be supported by a fair examination of any miscellaneous collection of autographs. Imagina- tion may carry us a great way, and suggest resemblances of its own creation, between the characters of men known in history and fac-similes of their autographs. But, divest- ing ourselves of its influence, let us look at the signatures to the death-warrant of Charles I., or the declaration of American independence ; — which instruments I do not bring into juxtaposition irreverently, but because every one has seen them. I believe it will be impossible, without the aid of fancy, from recorded facts in the lives of those who sub- scribed these documents, compared with the peculiarities of their signs manual, to found an honest induction in sup- port of this hypothesis.
Some conceited people try to write as badly as they can, because they have heard and believe that it is a proof of genius. While all will admit that this notion is very ab- surd, it is still generally believed that men of genius do write in a very obscure, infirm, or eccentric character : and we are told of a thousand familiar instances ; such as Byron, and Chalmers, and Jeflfrey, and Bonaparte, etc. A goodly assortment in the same lot ! One thing is very cer- tain, that those who write a great deal for the press will soon write very badly; without its being necessary to ascribe that circumstance to intellectual organization. Bo- naparte had no time, when dictating to six clerks at once, or
THOUGHTS ON HAND-WRITIXG. 107
signing treaties on horseback, to cultivate a clear running hand. Distinguished as he was above other men, in his fame and in his fortunes, I believe we may also concede to him the honour of having written the worst possible hand, decipherable by human ingenuity. And when we find, from the fac-similes of some of his early despatches, how abominably he spelled, as well as wrote, we are led to infer that a defective education, and an eagle-eyed ambition, which soon began to gaze too steadily at the sun to regard the motes in the atmosphere, will sufficiently account for a matter of such small importance to so great a man, without resorting to " metaphysical aid" to account for his bad writing.
The hand- writing of an individual is not as much con- nected with the machinery of his mind, as is the effect of any other personal habit. Neat people do not always write neatly ; and some very slovenly persons, whom I have known, were distinguished for a remarkably elegant formation of their letters. Affectation, on the contrary, being out of nature, will always betray itself in this par- ticular, as in every other.
I am disposed also to treat, as a fond chimera, a notion I have often heard expressed, that there is a natural gentility appertaining to the chirographs of nature's aristocracy ; supposing such a phrase to be proper. Every thing else about a gentleman's letter will furnish better hints as to his breeding and quality, than the character of his hand- writing. Set a well-taught boot-black and a gentleman down to copy the same sentence on pieces of paper of like shape and texture, and few of your conjurers in autographs will be able to guess, from the specimens, which is the gentleman and which is the boot-black.
But to leave this drouthy and prosing disquisition, I am minded to illustrate both the evils and the advantages of bad or illegible writing, by incidents which have occurred, or are easily supposable, in real life. My poor old niaster.
108 THOUGHTS ON HAND-WRITING.
against whose memory I cherish no malice, notwithstanding his frequent fustigation of my youthful knuckles, when he despaired of my profiting either by the unction of his pre- cepts or the sore application of his ruler, endeavoured to frighten me into amendment by examples. He composed for my use a digested chronicle of casualties which had be- fallen those who perpetrated unseemly scrawls ; and, after the manner of Swift, entitled his tract, "God's revenge against Cacography." I have long since lost the precious ^ift ; but I have not forgotten all the legends it contained.
The tale is old of the English gentleman, who had pro- cured for his friend a situation in the service of the East India Company, and was put to unprofitable expense by misreading an epistle, in which the latter endeavoured to express I is gratitude. " Having," said the absentee, " been thus placed in a post, where I am sure of a regular salary, and have it in my power, while I enjoy health, to lay up something every year to provide for the future, I am not unmindful of my benefactor, and mean soon to send you an equivalent" Such a rascally hand did this grateful Indian write, that the gentleman thought he meant soon to send him an elephant. He erected a large outhouse for the unwieldy pet ; but never got any thing to put in it, except a little pot of sweetmeats, and an additional bundle of compliments.
Few who read the newspapers have not seen an anecdote of an amateur of queer animals, who sent an order to Africa for two monkeys. The word two, as he wrote it, so much resembled the figures 100, that his literal and single-minded agent was somewhat perplexed in executing this commis- sion, which compelled him to make war on the whole nation. And great was the naturalist's surprise and perplexity when he received a letter informing him, in mercantile phrase- ology, that 80 monkeys had been shipped, as per copy of the bill of lading enclosed, and that his correspondent hoped to be able to execute the rest of the order in time for the next vessel.
THOUGHTS ON HAND-WRITIJfG. 109
Many, too, must have read a story which appeared in the EngUsh newspapers, a few months since, of the distressful predicament into which a poor fisherman's wife was thrown, by the receipt of a letter from her husband, who had been absent from home, with several of his brethren, beyond th • ordinary time The honest man stated, in piscatorial phrase, the causes of his detention, and what luck he had met with in his fishing. But the conclusion of his bulletin, as spelled by his loving amphibious helpmate, was as fol- lows : — " I AM NO MORE !" The poor woman gazed awhile on this fatal official intelligence of her husband's demise, and then on her eleven now fatherless infants ; and then she burst into a paroxysm of clamorous sorrow, which drew around her the consorts of seventeen other fishermen, who had departed in company with the deceased man. None of them could read ; but they caught from the widow's broken lamentations the contents of the supernatural postscript; and taking it for granted that they had all been served in the same manner by the treacherous element, they all lifted up their voices, and the corners of their aprons, and made an ululation worthy of so many forsaken mermaids. In the words of the poet, they made "'igh water in the sea," on whose margin they stood ; when one of the overseers of the poor, who came to the spot, alarmed by the rumour that the parish was like to be burthened with eighteen new widows and an hundred and odd parcel orphans, snatched the letter from the weeping Thetis, and silenced the grief of the company, by making out its conclusion correctly, which was, " / add no moreP
There is a memorable passage in our annals, which must be familiar to those who have read the old chronicles and records of our early colonial history. I allude to the con- sternation into which the General Court of the Massachu- setts and their associated settlements were thrown, when their clerk read to them a letter from a worthy^ divine, pur- porting, that he addressed them, not as magistrates, but as
liO THOUGHTS ON HAND-WRITING.
a set of Indian demls. The horror-stricken official paused in his prelection, aghast as was the clerk in England, — for whose proper psalm a wag had substituted " Chevy Chase,*' when he came to the words " woful hunting." He looked at the manuscript again, and after a thorough examination, ex- claimed, " yea ! it is Indian devils." A burst of indigna- tion from the grave sanhedrim, long, loud, and deep, fol- lowed this declaration. They would all have better brooked to have been called by the name of Baptists, papists, or any other pestilent heretics, than to be branded as the very heathen, whom they had themselves never scrupled to com- pliment by calling them children of Belzebub. If I remem- ber aright, the venerable Cotton Mather notes, in his biog- raphies of the eminent divines of his day, that the innocent offender was, in this instance, roughly handled by the secular arm of justice, for insulting the dignitaries both of church and state, before he had opportunity of convincing his brother dignitaries that the offensive epithet, Indian devils, was a pure mistake in their manner of reading his epistle ; inasmuch as he had meant to employ the more harmless phrase. Individuals, The apology was accepted ; though I observe that the latter word is, at present, deemed impo- lite, if not actionable, in Kentucky ; and is as provoking to a citizen of that state, as it was to Dame Quickly to be called a woman, and a thing to thank God on, by Sir John Falstaff.
I knew a gentleman, who would have been very well pleased to have received a lucrative appointment, in a cer- tain state of the Union ; because his patrimony was naught, and his professional profits, to speak mathematically, were less. His joy was unbounded, therefore, on reading a letter from a very great man, who wrote a very little and a very bad hand, responsive to his application for the post which he coveted. He deciphered enough of the letter to make out, that many were soliciting the station for which he had applied, and that /m- testimonials had been received. But
THOUGHTS ON HAND-WRITING. Ill
the concluding sentence was that from the favourable au- gury of which the young ambition of the aspirant ran at once, in imagination, to the top of its ladder* " Though last, not leasV^ — were the cabalistic words, by virtue of which he founded many Spanish castles ; destined, alas ! like those of Arabian enchantment, to vanish or fly away at the spell of a more powerful magician, or the loss of the talisman which summoned the genii to erect them. He might have launched into dangerous prodigality on the strength of his anticipated promotion, if a friend had not succeeded in convincing him, that the flourish with which the great man had terminated his honourable scrawl, if it was not a verse from the Koran, in the Arabic character, must have been meant for that very insignificant and un- fruitful expression, — " Yours, in haste."
No executive sunshine ever beamed on him. But being
of a philosophic turn of mind, he devoted much of his time,
for some years after his disappointment, to an analysis of
the precise meaning of these three unlucky words, and read
all the writers on our language, from the Diversions of
Purley to the last wonderful discoveries on the subject
made in this country. I suppose that he passed his time
pleasantly in these researches, but not, I should think, very
profitably : for the only result of all his reading, which I
ever heard him utter, was, that " yours, in haste," is a most
unphilosophical, ungrammatical, and nonsensical expression,
involving a confusion of time, place, and circumstance. He
said, it was a sorites of hulls ; a metaphysical absurdity ; a
moral insult to good sense and good feeling ; and that he
never would continue a correspondence with any person
who had used it in addressing him.
It is very easy to conceive what sad consequences may result in aflairs of love and matrimony, from careless scrib- bling, by which ideas may be suggested directly the re- verse of those intended to be expressed by the 'writer. In insinuating the delicate question orally, much ambiguity
112 THOUGHTS ON HAND- WRITING.
may be allowed for, on the score of anxiety and embarrass- ment: and it has always been understood, that the lady s answer, like a certain character in algebra, which combines the positive and negative signs, must be interpreted by ac- companying circumstances ; or rather, that it is like the adverb of answer, in some of the dead languages, which is both yea and nay, and requires an inclination of the head, or the expression of the countenance, to make it intelligible. Lawyers say, too, that it is difficult, in many cases, to prove a verbal promise of marriage. But equivocal writing has not the advantage of being illustrated by tone, glance, fea- ture, or attitude, and may lead to very dangerous conse- quences.
In that department of the post-office, of wl.ich Cupid is master, the mails should contain only perfumed and gilt- edge billets, written in fair, soft, legible characters, like the correspondence of Julie and St. Preux, as conducted by their inspired amanuensis. I have written a narrative of the evils which befell one of the best of men, from an acci- dental obscurity in his manuscript, to which I merely meant these remarks as an introduction. I perceive they have run to a greater extent than I had anticipated. For this reason, but more particularly because I would not en- courage fraud or deception in any form or under any pre- text, I will not even hint at the possible advantages which may flow from bad or ambiguous hand-writings.
I can conceive no instance in which sound morality will tolerate the commission of such a thing, with malice afore- thought, or from sheer carelessness ; unless it be where the ingenuity of the writer is taxed for commonplace compli- mentary flourishes, or at the conclusion of an epistle. It is sometimes a very perplexing thing to make a proper obei- sance at the end of a letter, when we are at a little loss about etiquette, or fear to be too formal or too familiar, too cold or too tender. Whether an imitation of the Chinese or the Sanscrit characters may be employed with propriety, in
THOUGHTS ON HAND-WRITIIVG. 113
any such dilemma, is a case of conscience, which I will not undertake to decide. I must refer the reader to an excel- lent work by Mrs. Opie, with a most unfashionable name ; and if such an evasion is not classed by her among the pec- cadilloes which she has denounced, it may be safely resorted to by the most scrupulous precisian. Vol. ir. — p
MR. DE VIELLECOUR
AND
HIS NEIGHBOURS.
A TALE, MORAL AND CHIROGRAPHICAL.
On his paternal acres near the village of New-Rochelle, and within twenty miles of the city of New- York, at a short distance from Long Island Sound, lived, and still lives, my excellent old friend Adam Adrian Viellecour. He is, as his name and residence at once announce to all who have any skill in our local antiquities, a descendant of those brave and pious Huguenots, the Puritans of France, who emigrated to New-York during the reign of Louis XIV.
The New-Rochcllc colonists, like most of the other New- York descendants of the Huguenots, have married and intermarried, first with their Dutch, and afterward with their English neighbours, until their language and most of their national peculiarities have disappeared. Their very names have taken an English sound ; some of them have, indeed, actually transmigrated into regular English and Dutch appellations, by one odd orthographical metemp- sychosis or other. Thus the minstrel name of Querault has been anglified into Carrow ; and the matter-of-fact
MR. DE VIELLECOUR AND HIS NEIGHBOURS. 115
Dutch-sounding cognomen of Haasbroock preserves the only traces of the chivalric aristocracy of the high-born Asbroques of St. Remy. Still the nice observer may detect the blood of the old French Calvinists in their progeny, by a certain mobility of feature, Uveliness of expression, rest- lessness, vehemence and rapidity of gesticulation, — and often also by their buoyant and mercurial cheerfulness, and the sharp foreign accent which marks their laugh.
Some fev^, too, of those of gentle blood and higher edu- cation, still preserve traditions of the fondness with which their grandsires used to speak of notre cMrc patrie ; and affectionately or proudly cling to the names and armorial bearings of their families ; preserving a little of the language of their fathers, half-anglicised and half-antiquated as they spoke it ; with some of the domestic habits, and much of the ceremonious politeness of the old school of French manners ; the whole ennobled by not a few traces of that high spirit of mixed religious and chivalric feeling wiiich graced the old Huguenot character.
Even such a one is the excellent Mr. De Viellecour — kind-hearted, liberal, cheerful, — of the most sensitive honour, and the most exact and punctilious courtesy. Alas ! that so kind and so noble a heart should have been almost broken, by a basket of quinces, and a flourish of penman- ship at the end of a A* !
He was born somewhere about the year 1760 ; and had received his early education, and learned the rudiments of religion and politeness under the good M. Carle, the pastor of the French church in New- York. He had afterward studied his Latin on Long Island, according to the most approved methods of Eton and Westminster, under the learned Dr. Cutting, of Horatian and vapulative memory.
The revolution, in which he was too young to take any active part, broke up all his plans of study, and projects of professional and commercial pursuits. On the death of his father, soon after the peace, he inherited a decent
116 MR. DE VIELLECOUR
competence, upon which he Uved contentedly in single blessedness.
How this happened to a man so polite, so tender-hearted, and so fond of female society, I do not exactly know. My aunt has indeed given me occasional broken and mysterious hints of his devoted attachment in early youth to a lady, like himself, of French descent, who was then at the cele- brated boarding-school of Mademoiselle Blanche Piot, in the city of New- York ; how vows were exchanged, and true faith plighted before Heaven. But the lady was a Catholic .^ — sincere, fervent, and devoted. The lover could not be false to the creed for which his ancestors had bled on the walls of Rochelle, and had been hunted like wild beasts through the mountains of the Cevennes by the dragoons of Louvois. I never could make out the rest of the story. But the lady is now abbess of a convent of Sisters of Charity, somewhere in Lower Canada ; and the lover is still a bachelor at New-Rochelle. There did he live, when I first knew him, in all the comfort which a bachelor country gentleman can enjoy. Nothing could be more trim or in better order than his little farm, orchard, and garden ; and though French in most of his tastes and habits, the precise neatness of his house gave sufficient evidence that his ma- ternal Dutch blood had the complete mastery in regard to all household matters.
His habitual temperance, gayety of disposition, and inno- cence of life, had been rewarded with a healthy and vigorous old age. His light and slender figure was unbent by years ; his step firm and active ; and the smooth, boyish ruddiness of his cheek, and the quick sparkle of his black eye, con- trasted oddly enough with his gray hairs, sharp features, and wrinkled brow : while the brisk vivacity of his manner formed just as whimsical an incongruity with the elaborate formality of his politeness.
Over the mantel-piece of his common dining-room (his ^aUe-a-manger, as he loved to call it), hung the arms of tlia
AND HIS NEIGHBOURS. 117
Viellecours, from the herald's office at Toulouse, resplendent in all the pomp of red, blue, black, and gold blazonry. Beneath this was habitually suspended an antique sword, of formidable length, and admirable workmanship. It claimed to be a rapier of the age of Francis I., and its curiously worked and embossed basket-hilt, and other orna- ments of the sheath, were worthy of the hand of Cellini himself. This sword had been borne on the thigh of many a gallant soldier of the Viellecour family ; and there was, moreover, a tradition (for which, however, I cannot vouch) , that it was the identical weapon with which the Protestant amazon, Margot do Lacy, defended the ramparts of Monte- limart on the breach, killed Count Ludovic with her own hands, and repulsed the besiegers, leaving her right arm on the spot where she had acquired so much glory.
His little library contained several reliques, brought from his chere patrie by his great grandfather, le Sieur Santerre de Viellecour. There stood, armed in its massive and em- bossed boards and brazen clasps, the old family Bible ; a book of which even those famous Bible-collectors, Earl Spencer and the Duke of Sussex might envy him the pos- session. It was a noble, large-paper copy of Stephens's first edition of Calvin's French Bible, containing that beau- tiful preface, in which the great reformer, throwing off his scholastic dignity with his Latin, pours out his whole soul, and speaks the true language of the heart, in touching and racy old French. Then there was a grand worm-eaten folio of Boileau, with the spirited engravings of Picart. There too stood — the source of all his wo — the ^^ Art d^Ecrii'epar M. Villemain, maitrc tcrevain jure ;^^ a superb system of penmanship, by the writing-master of " Mon- seigneur le Grand Dauphin." Therein wxre to be seen samples of the hands oi Romaine, and Ronde, and Batarde, and Coulee : and there too w^as unfolded the analysis of all Jetters, into pleinsy and dcIcSf and liason'^ : and there ^ere cadeaux^ and traits de plume, and paraphes, which
118 MR. DK VIELLECOUR
might have defied even the late Emperor Alexander, that prince of all chirographical flourishers, to have imitated. This book, from his boyhood, had been the subject of the study and admiration of our hero ; it was his youth's em- ployment, and his age's charm. He used to maintain that all the English and Yankee systems of penmanship, from Dilworth to Jackson and Hev^itt, were stolen from that of his author. On this theme he could discourse by the hour, most fluently and eloquently ; and the fruits of his theory he displayed in a stately, elaborate, flourished old French hand, which would have done honour to the great Ville- main himself; although to an English eye, his s's, and his y's, and his A;'s, defied all deciphering.
In that old bookcase, too, stood the stout quartos of Duhamel, and the Maison Rustique, those great treasures of antiquated georgics. Their precepts carried with them an authority, and their language had a charm for him, which made him look with utter contempt upon Curtis, and Mawe, 4ind Mac Mahon, and Forsyth, and Cobbett, and the whole tribe of modern English didactic gardeners. Nor did this knowledge end in mere speculation. Its fruits, also, were visible in the mellow hangings of many an acre of peach orchard, pear orchard, and apple orchard ; to say nothing of his well-stocked basse-cour, regulated by the precepts of the Maison Rustique, or of divers variegated little parterres .of flowers and box, on the model of those of old Versailles, as pictured in the same volumes.
But his hobby of hobbies was his quince orchard. From some caprice, or, as my aunt used to hint, from some <iherished associations of pure youthful vows, whispered by moonlight under the lowly shade of a spreading quince-tree, in a garden in Wall-street, out of the sight of M'selle Blanche Piot, he had acquired an affection for this crabbed, astringent, and ungainly fruit, which a German metaphysi- •eal novelist would have converted into a natural idiosyn- crasy. • Mr. Viellecour had studied the history of the
ANU HIS NEIGHBOURS. 119
quince, and its habits and uses, from its first wild growth on the rocky banks of its native Danube, to its state of golden perfection on the sunny Tagus. He had collected its varie- ties from all quarters, and had even (a new promotion for this unassuming fruit) grafted it upon every stock with which its relation to the great family of pears could authorize it to claim an alliance.*
., His success was equal to his merits. His quinces were the wonder of the whole " East River side" of the country : and their fame had been spread, far and wide, by many an annual oflfering to his city friends ; sometimes presented to good housekeepers, upon whose skill in confectionary he could rely to do justice to his quinces, in their native beauty ; while to humbler friends, and brother bachelors, they were sent in marmalades and confitures of divers names and various confection, and in Hqueurs of the most delicate flavour and recondite chymistry.
How frail are the hopes of man! From those beloved quinces — from that fair, flourished hand-writing, sprung the sorrows which bowed down thine age, and drove thee to wander forth — but I must not anticipate my story.
There was another family of quinces, of a diflTerent kind, which had been transplanted into his vicinity, about a year before the perplexities ensued, which I have undertaken to narrate. In or near this same township of New-Rochelle, about a mile from Mr. Viellecour's dwelling, a family of Yankees was found ; as many Yankees there be every- where, both from Connecticut, Rhode Island, and the Bay- state ; with others of low degree, from Martha's Vineyard, Block Island, Sagadahoc, and all along shore. It is a way they have, the universal Yankee nation, of being every-
* Botanists well know how long it was undecided among the lights of the science, whether a quince was an apple or a pear, and whe'Ther apples are pears, or pears apples ; but, I believe, according to the latest and most approved classification, they are all comprehended under the great genus of Pyrus, or Pears.
120 MR. DE VIELLECOUR
where ; and, in truth, they may generally be said to be the salt of the earth. But this small detachment proved a great inconvenience and mortification to my worthy friend, as I shall presently have occasion to show.
What induced the Pecks to leave Bridgeport, and "im- prove" a farm at New-Rochelle, after the death of old Epenetus Peck, I am not Yankee enough to guess. I have heard of a slander-suit, which Zephaniah Cobb talked of bringing against old Mrs. Peck, if she did not " clear out" of the "Borough." But this may be scandal; as the vicinity is famous for its domestic manufacture of that article, of which I believe most attorneys think the encour- agement a part of the great " American system."
However this may be, it is certain that the widow Peek, her daughter Miss Peck, a young lady of a most uncertain age, and her nephew, Plutarch Peck, kept house together, and took boarders at the place I have designated. The defunct Epenetus, after many years of ingenious but unsuc- cessful enterprise, in all arts, trades, and occupations, regu- lar and irregular, towards the end of a life whose experience had made him knowing in all the ways of man, had received, from certain moneyed corporations, some honorary gratu- itous pecuniary compliments, for his disinterested services in the purlieus of certain legislative assemblies. This sum he had invested in stock, in the names of his consort, and the first pledge of her affection, the fair Abishag ; soon after which he died insolvent. Plutarch's father was lost at sea. Plutarch said of himself, that he " had been to college :" and he unquestionably had been at the Norwalk academy. He was studying law, teaching school, and keeping accounts for a Dutch grocer ; besides editing one of the county papers, entitled the " Cataract of Freedom," and at leisure intervals superintending the agricultural and pecuniary in- terests of the family. He was an aspiring young man ; and betrayed a pruriency to cut a dash, wherever he thought an opportunity offered. Of him I need say no more at
AND Ills NEIGHBOURS. 121
present. Nor is it my purpose to enter into any details of the character and private history of old Aunt Peck, as Plu-' tarch used to call her. They are uninteresting, and the family is litigious. Of Abishag or Miss Peck, last presented to my mind, and now painted at full length upon the retina of my mental eye, it may be essential to mention a few characteristics. In respect of matrimony, and rumours of matrimony, she strongly resembled the illustrious Betsey of England ; and deserved as little as that " imperial vot'ress," the imputation of passing through life,
" In maiden meditation, fancy free.'*
She had remained, as I have hinted, for an unascertairi-- able time, mistress of herself, unencumbered with a husband. Whether she really thought the poet wrong, who says that " earthlier happier is the rose distilled," etc. may admit of a doubt. She had long had a fondness, nay, it may be termed a rage, for making people believe (and herself, too, among the rest), that she was constantly solicited to become a bride. In sober truth, shrewd, sagacious, and matter-of- fact as she was in all things else, touching this affair of marriage, she was subject to strange hallucinations. Her imagination was (if we may speak poetically), redolent of matrimony. The ideal husbands which filled her mind were indeed not exactly such as haply may sometimes flit across the day-dreams of youthful beauty, brave, and young, and handsome — all glowing with the purple light of love, and breathing truth and fervent constancy. Hers were sober and comfortable visions of snug establishments, sprucely painted two-story houses, with well-papered par* lours and nice kitchens — huge stores of household linen — men-servants and maid servants — one-horse chaises or trim Jersey-built wagons, and, by way of necessary appendage, some respectable helpmate, with a good thriving business, or a round and regularly paid salary. Thus it happened
VOL. II. Q
122 MR. DE VIELLECOUR
that from time to time the whole neighbourhood was in- formed, of what she more than half believed herself, that offers had been made for her hand, now by a medical doctor at Mamaroneck— now by a reverend professor at New- Haven — now by a rich widower apothecary in the Bowery —now by an old Dutch dominie on the North River — and now by young Mr. Rubric, fresh from the Episcopal Semi- nary at New-York, whose first clerical bands her own fingers had hemmed. The said reverend and medical doctors, the dominie, the apothecary, and young Mr. Rubric, meanwhile, remaining not only innocent of all amorous intention, but utterly ignorant of all rumours thereof.
Of her personal charms it is best not to say much. Could she have been preserved for ever, as she had been for &o many years, she would have supplied the desidera- tum of a standard of long measure, and saved a learned secretary of state, professors of colleges, and revisers of laws, many a long report, as she was perfectly straight, and exactly five feet, eleven inches, and eleven lines high, when unhosed, unbuskined, and unbonneted. Time had not rubbed off nor rounded the acute angularity of her features, or the distinct rigidity of her articulation. There was an irresistibly extortionate air in her countenance, when she wanted to get all the facts out of everybody ; and it exhibited an arithmetical precision when she was in a contemplative mood, which showed that she had added up her ideas, and carried nine. Her defunct papa, among his innumerable avocations, had been an agent for selling Pomeroy's Universal Patent Catholicon. From him she inherited a great taste for quackery ; or, as her mamma called it, a genius for medicine ; and she preferred giving away, not only her recipes, but her nostrums, to letting her hand get out of practice.
Gentle Reader ! If these outlines are coarse, they are graphic. If the portrait is vulgar, the original is one of
AND HIS NEIGHBOURS. 123
God's creatures, and none of mine. I know, and I love, nay, where it is unaffected, I adore, the fastidiousness of this exquisite age. But if we are to paint only beautiful forms, I wish the Harrisburgh Convention would contrive some protection against time and the elements, and the perpetuation of those ugly family likenesses, which do so play the mischief with the line of beauty.
It would have been strange if these Pecks had lived for a year within a mile of the residence of my estimable friend, without patching, or, as I may more correctly say, scratch- ing an acquaintance with him. There certainly was no chymical affinity between the parties ; but the oil and the vinegar met, if they did not coalesce. The Pecks were related to the family of Lawyer Bull, in whose black-eyed daughter Betsey Mr. Viellecour had always shown an in- terest from her infancy ; either because something about her put him in mind of others whom he had loved, or because it gave him pleasure to watch the development of grace and proportion, even in a bouncing rustic beauty. This, by-the-way, together with a new year's gift to her of a gilt Telemaque and Bhss's Talisman, was enough to lead some wise women to conjecture aloud that he meant to make bouncing Betsey Bull his wife, and to pronounce him an old fool for thinking of so disproportionate a match. It was, also, very convenient for these Pecks to borrow seeds, salads, sprouts, and shoots from Mr. Yiellecour ; and Plu- tarch was anxious to prevail on him to teach him French ; but this task the old gentleman, with all his good-nature and urbanity, absolutely and unequivocally refused to un- dertake. In return, the Pecks always stopped to inquire after his health ; and Plutarch would save him the trouble of going to the post-office for his newspapers, which he took home first to read himself; and, after having poured forth their contents on the county, in the " Cataract of Free- dom," he would then return them to their owner, mangled by his editorial shears, and looking like some inexplicable
124 MR. DE VIELLECOUR
pattern for a lady's nocturnal head-gear, — always, however, relating to their owner the remarkable passages which he had cut out.
It chanced that in the autumn of 182-, Mr. Yiellecour was attacked by a fit of the rheumatism, from having inju- diciously exposed himself to the night air, in his anxiety for the health of a favourite myrtle, which was menaced by the indications of an unexpected black frost. This fact was soon known to the inquisitive and lengthy Abishag, who had a specific for that infliction, equally infallible for man and horse. She had tried it on both ; as well as on a certain other animal, which a Kentucky editor of Linnaeus w^ould probably classify as a little of both, with a mixture of the Buffalo. I allude to a certain nondescript Canada- Gallicised Irishman, who had been at board with Mrs. peck for some weeks. And here it becomes necessary to mention such authentic particulars of his Hfe and habits as have hitherto transpired.
He belongs to a genus of which every one knows more or less, who has seen or heard any thing of the phenomena, ■jvhich, for the edification of monster-hunters and monsters- gazers, have arisen, culminated, and set, or more often ** shot madly from their spheres," in the horizon of New- York society, for the last twenty years. Of this genus there are several species, though the nature of each kind soon passeth away, and "goeth out" of fashion, and of remem- brance. Yet, in their brief career, they have charmed fe- male hearts, and turned wise brokers' heads. Such is the power of foreign tongues and foreign titles, foreign jewels and foreign jokes, foreign fasliions and foreign fiddling. There is your heroic humbug, as your Waterloo general ; your scientific humbug, such as you may meet at the sup- pers of the Literary and Philosophical Society, or the soirees of some Moscenas ; your patriotic humbug, who has " left his country for his country's good," and such you may see everywhere. There is your medical and ^ourmusicaj
AND HIS NEIGHBOURS. 125
humbug; your ecclesiastical humbug, your pedagogical humbug, your proselyte humbug, and your new-community humbug ; your phrenological humbug, your cuisinier hum- bug, your travelled humbug, and your savage humbug. Last, though not least, there is the real, pure, natural, un- licked, unlettered, unequivocal, unadorned, unadulterated, unsophisticated, unaccommodated humbug ; or, as Lear says, " the real thing itself — a poor, bare, forked animal," who, without education, knowledge, or manners — without tongues or travels, jewels or juggles, fashions or falsetto, grace or grammar, will make his way by the mere dint of sheer and monstrous lying — lying which has neither the merit of invention or consistency ; and is so essentially gro- tesque, that it seems easier to believe it at once, than to believe that it has ever been believed.
But to return to Terence Mountjoy. He was an indi- vidual of the species last described. When he came to old Mrs. Peck to take board, he had on a Canada foraging cap, and a blue military frock, which had once been well befrogged and embroidered, fastened with hooks and eyes, with a well- worn and greasy standing collar, in front of which was dis- played a dirty ruffle, with a diamond breast-pin glittering among its soiled implications. His neck was disguised in a black Wellington stock. His nether man was invested in a pair of buckskin breeches ; to which integuments he was so partial, that he never changed them during his resi- dence at the widow's. This might have arisen from his fondness for displaying the sturdy outline of his limbs; or, as he said himself, from the military habits he had acquired in the Swiss cavalry. But Miss Peck, whose curiosity, as well as her duty as a hlanchisseuse, led her occasionally to overhaul his wardrobe, could never discover that there was any other garment provided for the protection of his inferior person. She also remarked some peculiarities about the marks of his linen, which resembled erasures and various readings. This he satisfactorily explained to Abishag, b^
126 MR. DE VIELLECOUR
stating that he had been obliged to rip out the crests and armorial bearings of his family, in order to preserve his in- cognito. She also observed nothing in the shape of a w^aist- coat among his finery ; a deficiency which, if it existed, was supplied, or concealed, by his tight-bodied frock. I have said enough about Terence's apparel, but may add, that he occasionally exchanged his fur-cap for a chapeau- bras, which looked as if it had seen hard duty in the ser- vice of some Hessian general.
This prepossessing wight informed Mrs, Peck and Co. on his arrival, that he was a nobleman incog., which he begged them not to mention, as it was a secret. He said he was a grand cross of the holy iron Roman canon of Austria ; in proof of which he exhibited a dirty orange tawny coloured riband with a whitish border, to which was attached a watch key in the shape of a harp. He was, he said, a Frenchman, though born in Ireland ; and was no less a per- son than the Duke of Marseilles ; had been possessed of immense estates in Normandy, where he owned a chateau of white marble, as long as the State Prison. But, on the return of the Bourbons, his estates were confiscated, and he fled to Ireland, to the protection of his uncle, the Arch- bishop of Munster, in whose palace he was concealed for some time, until his residence was betrayed to the new French ministry by the Elector of Denmark ; and an officer of the Inquisition was sent to demand his person from the English government. In this extremity he was obliged to accept the hospitable invitation of his old military friend, the governor of Botany Bay. Under his auspices, he so- journed for a time in tranquillity ; but he soon became weary of the monotony of that pastoral district — felt the want of literary and " illigant" society, and grew tired of eating nothing but kangaroos. Avoiding the sorrows of part- ing, and the ceremonious politeness of his excellency and suite, he took private passage for Canada, where he had friends in high places. An office of great importance was
AND HIS NEIGHBOURS. 127
about to be conferred upon him there, when an unfortunate affair of honour, with an aid-de-camp of the lord-Heuten* ant, compelled him to make a precipitate flight from the vice-regal court. He was daily expecting remittances from his French estates, which were to arrive at New-York in a seventy-four ; and meanwhile he wished to remain in rural and unostentatious retirement.
Such was the account given of himself by Terence, at divers times, and with divers variations. If any one should wonder that Mrs. Peck and her daughter, who were no fools, gave it credit, let them remember that equally gross stuff has been swallowed by people who pass for intelligent, when enforced by imperturbable impudence, and illustrated by a rag, a riband, or five dollars worth of paste jewels* When weeks passed on, and neither the seventy -four nor the remittances were heard of, and when the grand cross fell sick with the rheumatism, the Reverend Doctor Peck, a brother-in-law" of the old lady, and who had just arrived on a visit at her house, strongly advised her to make him raise the wind by hypothecating his diamonds, or else avoid the premises. But he found an advocate not only in Abishag, who wanted to make a thorough experiment on his system with her specific, but in Plutarch, to whom he was teaching French ; a language which Duke Terence had picked up enough of at Montreal and Quebec to speak with unhesi- tating fluency, in a nondescript patois pronunciation, and a genteel negligence of grammar ^ and, moreover, could write upon occasion, in an orthography which, if it w^as not that of Voltaire, or of the Academy, had the superior merit of perfect originality. Under his instructions, the ambi- tious Juvenal soon felt himself sufficiently accomplished in the Parisian dialect to venture to say to Mr. Villecour, w^hen he carried him his aunt's nostrum, — "/e vmys appronder parte francy by ang toor The last of this gibberi'sh sounded so much like — and be hanged to you^ that my respectablie
128 MR. DE VIELLECOUR
friend thought it an expression of anger, for his having re- fused to initiate Plutarch into the language of love, diplo- macy, tactics, and fashion. But, with his usual politeness, he wished him success in his studies, and accepted the pre- scription.
I have now, perhaps somewhat tediously, furnished the intelligent reader with a key to the ensuing correspondence, which I can assure him is genuine. I have taken no liber- ties with either the style or orthography of any of the let- ters, except in supplying the necessary words when a torn seal, or worn-out fold, has occasioned a lacune in the MSS. Whether the disease was slight, or the remedy efficient, or the cure had been really achieved by patience and flan- nel, Mr. Viellecour found himself so much better in a few Aveeks, that his politeness led him to express his thanks to his benefactress, and to accompany his letter with a present of quinces ; both of which were despatched by a servant. The former ran thus : —
" Belcour Grove, December 26, 183—.
" Fair Lady I
" I pray your forgiveness for not having before thrown myself at your feet. I had flattered myself that I should have had the felicity of kissing your fair hands on Christmas eve. But I was engaged with my builder, Mr. Plumline, who waited on me with plans and contracts for the new kitchen, and the two additional bedrooms to my mansion*
" I have sent you by the bearer a basket of yelloj^v Portu- gal pear-quinces, true court-pendus. He will also inform you of the happy and blessed effects of the medicine, which you so amiably and kindly sent me ; which happy result I ascribe, under Providence, as much to the charm of the long and taper fingers which compounded and prepared it, and to the benevolent spirit which presided over its admin- istration, as to its intrinsic virtues. Be pleased to receive.
AND lilS NEIGHBOURS. 129
With your wonted condescension, this golden fruit ; and I earnestly pray you therewith to accept my
i2
(ite^
" With the tenderest regard,
" I have the honour to be, " Madam, " Your most devoted friend and servant^
" Adam Adrian de Viellecour."
" P.S. This fruit, I hope, is of good quahty, as it is of choice stock. Autumn has mellowed its juices, but not, I trust, lessened its flavour. Yet I hope that next year's fruit will surpass this by far, if Vertumnus and Pomona will smile on their poor devoted worshipper."
Having discharged his conscience of this debt of grati- tude, the old gentleman felt himself comfortable and satis- fied, except that he waited with a little restless anxiety for the arrival of some articles which he had written for to town, and which he intended to bestow as holyday presents, on Betsey Bull, his god-daughter Emily, and some other youthful favourites. Plutarch Peck had set off some days before on an electioneering expedition. One of the candi- dates returned to t le lower branch of the Legislature at the general election for the county having died, a special elec- tion was ordered by the governor's proclamation to supply the vacancy. This was a relief to Mr. Viellecour, who rarely had known a day pass, for a long time, without hav- ing his meditations interrupted by the smirking, priggish physiognomy, and nasal twang, of this Caleb Quotem of the neighbourhood. He was therefore at his ease : and his
VOL. n. — R
130 MK. DE VIELLECOUR
soul, like that of the rich man in the parable, might be said to be merry within him ; when on the second morning after writing his epistle, his old black servant entered with an air of astonishment, and a package of letters, which seemed the contents of a whole mail ; announcing, in faltering accents, that Mr. Peck's boy John was in the hall, and would wait for an answer. I shall not pay the reader so poor a com- pliment as not to leave to his imagination the effect which a perusal of these documents, awkward in shape and volu- minous in contents, produced on him they were written at, as he deciphered and pondered on them, for two long hours, in dreamy surprise and confusion, while John was " waiting for an answer." Nor after what has been above detailed concerning Mr. V.'s penmanship, and the matri- monial delusions of the amiable and angular Abishag, will any explanation be wanted of the manner in which the old gentleman's cordial return of " hearty thanks" became trans- formed in the eyes of the fond fair and her kindred into a fervent tender of " heart and hand."
The first he opened was from the fair Miss Peck herself.
" New-Rochelle, December 28th. " Dear Sir, " Yours of the 24th came duly to hand. The quinces were in good order. Though rather late for this year's sweetmeats, I hope to turn them to account. I am glad to hear that the medicine had, under Heaven, so agreeable an effect. You may discontinue taking it more than five times a day, after a week. Touching your proposals for my heart and hand, I have agreed, on consideration, and advis- ing with our people, to accept thereof. I fervently trust we may enjoy long and prosperous years, in all that makes the marriage state happy ; my best endeavours whereunto shall not be wanting. My revered uncle the Reverend Epaphroditus Peck, D. D., with whose entire approbation I have ^aken this awful step, being, as you know, on a visit
AND HIS NEIGHBOURS. 131
to my mama, and being obliged to attend the opening of the Monongahela College, where he is professor [of the an- cient and modern languages, geography, history, mineral- ogy, composition, political cEConomy, and elocution].* On the 15th of next month, it will be most pleasing to the family to have the ceremony performed by him during his stay. Ma has no objections ; and can have every thing ready against that time. Aunt Biddy, Uncle Cyrenus, and their people, will be here from Stonington, in season for certain. My dear nephew the Honourable Plutarch Peck, who, I think, would be a suitable man for one of your attendants, must be at the assembly there, up to Albany, the very first day of session ; which also is another power- ful reason for not suffering any delay in this business of ours.
" Your sincere friend and well-wisher,
" Abishag p. Peck."
" P. S. Do not go to any unnecessary expense about the w^edding-suit. The olive-coloured coat you wore when we heard uncle Epaphroditus preach that powerful sermon from Jeremiah's Lamentations, two Sabbaths ago, will do very well, with a new velvet collar. Perhaps you might get the old metal buttons covered, if they are any ways rusty, which I did not observe.
" 2. Ma has sent by cousin Jehosaphat, as he goes through Danbury, to invite the judge, and the general, and the doctor.
*' 3. Uncle Josiah, and the judge, and the general, and the doctor, and their folks, can tarry at your house on the night of the solemn occasion. If you are short of beds, Colonel Guion will lend you some.
* The words in brackets are interlined in the Rev. Mr. Peckfe own hand- writing ; who seems also to have occasionally corrected the spelling of some long words.
132 MR. DE VIELLECOUR
" 4. Ma don't like dancing, as it would not do while my revered uncle E. Peck [D. D. etc.] is abiding under her roof. We can, however, have a supper. I know that oysters will be quite a treat to the judge, and the general, and the doctor, as they live such a ways back from shore. Perhaps if you watch the wagons, you can get some good ones cheap, over to Colonel Guion's.
" 5. I like your notion about the two new bedrooms ; but wings on both sides would answer better. One will do, however, at present. An extension of the family may ren- der another necessary. Bat this business can be delayed until after the solemn ceremony. In the meantime I don't want you to meddle with the new kitchen. We can fix it better when I come.
" 6. Of course you will have to go to York, to make some arrangements. When you go to buy the ring, (the string within is my measure), call on cousin Diodatus, who deals more reasonable than the Broadway jewellers. No. 417^ Chatham-street. We must stick by our kin. If you can conveniently give him a lift up in your wagon, it would be rather genteel to ask him to be present on the solemn occasion,"
The next epistolary discharge was much shorter. It was from the matron, the venerable old Mrs. Jerusha Peck.
"Dear Son-in-law,
" I don't know as I have any objections in particular to letting you marry our Abishag. As far I know, having always bore a good character, and being a suitable match in age and disposition, as I am glad to hear your rheuma^ tism is better ; therefore, being moreover blessed in your worldly affairs, and a likely man, as brother Epaphroditus is here, and going away soop, I give my consent, willing that
AND HIS NEIGHBOURS. 133
your wedding should take place to-morrow week, to our house.
" I remain your loving friend,
" Jerusha Peck."
The reverend doctor made up by his verbosity for his sister's brevity. Here follows his epistle.
"Dear Sir,
" Notwithstanding that you approximate to a septuage- narian antiquity, and are, therefore, by divers olympiads, my senior in longevity, the fiducial relation of my position to the Pecks, Browns, and Smiths, as also to our collateral and maternal connexions, the Devotions, the Curtises, the Handys, the Peabodys, the Stones, the Bulls, and the Blos- soms, in conjunction with the profound interest I feel in the destiny of my consobrinal niece, Abishag Peabody Peck, justify me in approaching you in a tone, first of expostula- tion, and secondly of congratulation.
" I. I propose, therefore, first, to advise with you plainly on the portentous and awful nature of the matrimonial contract ; on which subject, though you have arrived so near to that epocha, which the Scriptures indicate as the extreme goal of mortal existence, you can have little practical experi- ence ; as I am told you have, up to this date, declined taking unto yourself a helpmate, and procrastinated a tender of your person to the other sex, until the female race might have exclaimed with the divine Tully — Quousque tandem. Cat ilina, patientia ahutere nostra ? which may be face- tiously rendered, " How long, O thou Catiline of an Adam, wilt thou abuse our patience ?"
" As that great man, the late President Styles, my par- ticular friend, said to me on my first marriage, " Brother Epaphroditus, though thou hast seemed a my^ogynist, we find that thou art not a mysognamist ;" meaning, that though during my probationary tutorship, I had assiduously
134 MR. DE VIELLECOUR
avoided the distractions of worldly amusements, I had, nevertheless, borne in mind to fulfil the duties of a good Christian, and a good citizen : so, nephew Adam, as 1 may jocularly call thee, anticipatorily, I may rest my argument on the single authority of the great apostle to the gentiles, who says, ",he that marrieth doeth well," and say unto thee, " in marrying thou hast done well ; but in taking this tender lamb of my fold, thou hast done better. Yea, many have done well, but thou hast exceeded them all." Great is her experience in domestic oeconomy. For eight lustres, or forty years, commencing with the ninth anniversary of her nativity, that is to say, from her ninth year, has she been diurnally occupied, first with the concerns of her paternal, and afterward of her maternal household. I have, during that period, known of her household practices. In house- keeping, cooking, and all things, she has conducted with great acceptance. Her temper is not at all ugly. I have never known her cross more than a week at a time. She will be a fortune to any man. Like Jael, she hath brought forth butter in a lordly dish, and made a prey of divers colours of needle-work, on both sides. Like the wise woman of old, she maketh fine linen, and selleth it to the merchant, she girdeth her loins with strength ; therefore her husband will be known in the gate, and will sit among the elders of the land. Unto her may not be applied that witty saying of the heathen ethnic — varium et mutabile semper fcemina ; whereof. Dr. Styles used to say, that it was bad grammar ; and that, moreover, the sentiment was erroneous. It is a providential coincidence, that as Abishag descends from the veritable puritan flock, who established the true faith on the iron-bound coast of New-England, so you are an offshoot from the godly stock of the Protestant upholders of the faith in France ; though of which of the three parts of French Gaul I know not ; since Julius Caesar, that great writer and distinguished general, says — Omnis Gallia ih tres partes est divisla. I presume that you are
AND HIS NEIGHBOURS. ] 35
not unapprized, that your claims have superseded all con- sideration of the arma virumque of a certain Hibernian Popisli Ishmaelite. My niece Abishag has also been seri- ously thought of by our President, on my recommenda- tion. He is only your senior by a few years ; and is not only a D. D. from the Burlington University, but an LL.D. from Dartmouth.
" n. I therefore proceed to my second head ; but as the portion of paper, usually allotted to such exercises is nearly exhausted, w^e are necessitated, dear Adam, to limit our- selves to a felicitation and congratulation, on the joyful prospects opening themselves before you. As you look dovi^n the vista of futurity, you have a rod and a staff for your declining- years ; and instead of descending into the tomb a solitary pilgrim, your monument will be bedewed with the tears of all those respectable families, the Pecks, Smiths, Browns, Curtises, Stones, Devotions, Peabodys, Handys, Bulls, and Blossoms: to all of whom, I doubt not, while your existence is mercifull}^ prolonged, your house will literally prove a house of refuge ; the nakedness of whose poor connexions you will doubtless clothe, and to all whose orphans you will be a father. Vale, carissime Adame. " Your friend and uncle,
" Epaphroditus X. Peck."
" Postscriptum, — Abishag having thoughtfully shown me her letter, I must request you to note what she touches on about my nephew Diodatus. Many of her other sugges- tions are precious, as indicating her a3Conomical and pru- dent views of things. I shall remain, according to her request, to officiate at the solemnity.
"E. X. P."
The flourishing hand of Plutarch next caught our hero's eye, and with trembling fingers he opened his despatch.
136 !ilR. DE VIELLECOUR
" Sawpitts, December 27th. " My dear old Add, " I am glad to hear that aunt Abishag has brought her hogs to so good a market. I suppose you know that the canvassers rejected six hundred votes ; and I have got the certificate. So I shall take my seat as one of the members from this county ; and you may depend upon me, my old fellow, for any odd jobs at Albany. Though you have never turned out at our trainings, I guess I can get you brevetted a major. At your time of life I think it would be only respectable for poor old Aunt Abishag's husband to have some title ; and that will answer as well as any. I have no objections to accept your invitation to stay to the wedding ; though I shall lose three whole days of the session ; and there, you see, is nine dollars gone. By-the- by, I happen to want some loose change. I would thank you to let me have a trifle, say 8475. If you have not got it about you, please scribble your name on the back of the enclosed paper, and I can get it done. I shall be home to- morrow.
" Yours, in haste,
" Plutarch Peck.'*
*^ P.S. By-the-way, you may as well back the paper, and send what loose cash you may have, besides. Cousin John will give you a receipt. You can't be alarmed about the security, as my life is insured in the Life and Fire ; and though this is the first time 1 have got into the Assembly, I warrant you I'll be in Congress, and get made a judge, too, before you are seventy ; and that's not long, you know."
The last letter in John's budget was most portentous in outward size and shape, and appeared to have been sealed with shoemaker's wax, bearing the impress of that brazen- faced Goddess of Liberty, whose effigy is delineated on the copper coin of this empire. The character of the hand-
AND ins NEIGHBOURS. 137
writing is utterly indescribable* It was addressed thus, and such were its contents.
" To Mr. Esquire A. A. Vealcour,
" Shay loot, upon his tares in New Rochet.
« Sir,
" To come to the pint, without making any daytoor, and, as we mihtary men say, to make a riglar dayployay at once, soor le shom, youre no better than a neegur, and therefore I ask you for the satisfaction of a gintleman. Tho^ born an exile from my native land, and expatryated from the French pierage, of which I am a hereditterry member, though born at Cork, where my honored father and mother Were accidentally ingaged in bizness, in Monmouth Ally* Having by my valour received the order of le grand can" non de fare, from his Imparial and Royal Majesty, the Emperor of Whortemburg ; and having, during my tempo- rary incognito in America, while teaching the French and the other polite languages of Europe, met with ginral ap- probation, and got certificates from the most distangay and sientifique pursonages, as w^ell as from my frind, Father O'Larkin of Muntryall ; also from the principle of the Man- hattan Academy.
" Regarding you, Mr. Vealcour, as a man com e fob, and also a beau garsoon, wich, if we were both married to Mamzelle Peck, neither of us could be, without her being the widder of one or both of us, you will do me sensible plaisir to meet me, soor le shorn d^onoor. Make the time, place, and weepons agreeable to yourself. If 1 had known of the raisons for writeing this billydoo, before I had found out the cause of them, 1 should not insist upon this round- counter taking place, airly to morrow, back of the old church that has been pulled down. Having lost my pistles, when my trunk, with all the family plates and jooels m it, was drownded in Hell gate last summer, as also the tightil deeds
VOL. II. S
138 MR. DE VIELLECOUR
of my French estates, by raison of wich I am keeped out of my patrymoney, and hindered from appairing hke a gintle- man of the beaumont. Accordingly, it will be very agreea- ble, and it will be a favor meriting my eturnel grattytude, if you will be polite eniiff to bring pistles, frinds, and doctors for 2.
« As I despise all insinuyations about my pursenal attach- ment to old Miss Peck, being bottummed on her paltry- three thousand 7 hunddred in the Aigle Bank, to show my generosity and soopareyority to all such marcynerry mo- tives, I volunterryly offer to sacrifise to you my own free will and tender inclinations, and 27 hunddred dollars, gratus. This will be affected, by our not fighting at all. Only you pay me a thousand dollars, and you may marry the old lady, and every thing will be deranged a la marble. As I am obleeged to be off from this place an hour before I will re- ceive your ansir, and am gone to morrow to my estates, I expect your response^ toody siveet, by the garson to reach me here. In the mane time, I have the honor to remain, my dear friend,
" With the hiest consideration,
" Your most obedient sarvent,
" Te RANGE MOUNTJOY,
" Grand + of the big Iron cannon of
" Whurtemburg."
" P. S. When we have deranged no pateet zaffares, which will have been to the satisfacshun of us all two, as I know you are too much of a gintleman to fob me off with the dirty paper that's going here, and will doutless pay me off in York notes, for wich I can git the shiners, you may com- mand my sarvices, to assist at your bridal rights. If the poor old neegur. Jack Davenport, is too sick with his roo- mytiz to fiddle upon the joyful occasion, I shall have no ob- jection to make some music myself. It shall prevent any suspicion of either of us being shot, when I will be seen
AND HIS NEIGHBOURS. 139
there. And thus we will both draw ourselves out of this affare, very illigantly."
While, in perplexed amazement, Mr. Viellecour was de- ciphering the scrawl of his singular rival, a package and other articles were laid on his table, which had arrived by the stage ; as was also a letter, directed in a lack-a-daisical hand, and sealed with yellow wax, with a dying Cupid for a device. The parcels and bandboxes contained the bon- bons, knick-knacks, and dresses, about the arrival of which he had been inquiring every ten minutes, but a few hours before, with rather fidgetty impatience. But, alas ! in his present frame of mind, the milk of his nature had lost its sweetness ; and, with unusual testiness he swept from be- fore him, at one buffet, the whole assortment of confec- tionary, literary, and millinery ware. Casting his eyes, however, on the superscription of the letter, a gleam of placid benevolence stole on his troubled features. " Poor AdelleT he exclaimed, instinctively putting his hand in his pocket, " what does she want now V
But, before opening Adelle's letter, it becomes imperi- ously necessary to tell who and what she was. Adelle Eloise Huggins had been " left an orphan at an early age," in the vicinity of New-Rochelle. Her parents were of French extraction : but, by what process of etymological corruption her family name had become Huggins, or what it may originally have been, it is now impossible to conjec- ture. Twenty odd years before, Mr. Viellecour, and a few other benevolent spirits, had sent her to school when she was twelve years old, to learn every thing, even the ele- mentary principles of reading, writing, arithmetic, and plain-sewing. With more kindness than wisdom, they placed her under the care of a lady who had set up a new boarding-school, at a few miles distance, where she learned to embroider, to make artificial flowers, and to read Char- lotte Smith's novels, and Mrs. Radcliife's romances. After edifying by this course of instruction for three years, it was
140 MR. DE VIELLECOUR
distressing to Mr. Viellecour to find that she could neither spell correctly, nor cipher to any purpose. Her specinaens of penmanship were truly horrible to the eye of any lover of regularity and neatness ; but to those of her patron, whose notions on the subject of calligraphy we have men- tioned, the sight of them was absolutely an all-unutterable torture ; and when, with a view of ascertaining her progress in geography, he asked her where Paris was, she announced, without hesitation, that it was the capital of Rhode Island, — she was instantly taken from school, and consigned to the tutelage of a lady who presided over a millinery shop in William-street, then the fashionable promenade of the New- York fair. Not without many tears did Miss Huggins enter upon this unromantic course of instruction. But time, who .dries up rivers, dried up her tears ; and she found soon that she really had a liking for the business. Still, however, her early novel reading had impregnated her imagination with a thorough habit of castle-building and revery ; Caritat continued to feed her appetite for ideal tit^bits and forbidden fruit. Like Miss Peck, though with far more romantic imaginings, the idea of matrimony was ever prominent in her waking dreams. By the force of this hallucination, she transformed every straggling male customer, who wanted to cheapen a pair of white gloves, or a watch-rib- and, into a Romeo or an Altamont. Time passed on; find her time with Mrs. Vandyke expired. Mr. Viellecour then enabled her to set up a little establishment for herself; and though she managed her business in rather a crazy manner, and had no high reputation for taking care of her apprjBntices, or for punctuality in performing her promises to her customers, she had contrived, with the aid of her patrons, to live, and to live single, in the upper part of Pearl- street, near its intersection with Chatham, to the time when the occurrences I am recording took place.
The visions of her youthful fancy, pretty and pastoral, had vanished and were forgotten. Those of her earlier womanhood, of a more ambitious character, had faded
AND HIS NEIGHBOURS. 141
gradually ; though ever and anon they came thronging upon her in more extraordinary combinations, and with greater intensity. It was at half-past eleven o'clock, on a Saturday night, after her shop was shut up and her pupils dismissed, that she sat pensively reading, for the thirteenth time, a poetical contribution of her own to the Weekly Museum, signed Ella, and entitled " Moonlight on the Bat- tery," which had that day seen the light in print. Perhaps it had lost its interest on the last repetition ; or perhaps her mind was bewildered with thick-coming overflowings of the heart and imagination ; or perhaps she was a little heavy with incipient somnolency. But she slowly laid down the precious periodical, and filled a small tea-cup from a flask which stood near. I have no doubt the liquid was palatable ; as it was quince liqueur, made under Mr. Viellecour's own directions, from the produce of his own orchard. When he gave it to her, he recommended it as an occasional cordial ; adding, that it w^as quite strong. But at this moment, from the sublimed state of her intellect tual system, she was led, by some mysterious impulse, again and again to replenish and exhaust her little chalice. And, though the fluid was such as might have been poured by Hebe into the celestial cups, and quaffed by the Olympian senate, it began to send up a misty vapour into the cloudy tabernacle of the wits of Miss Huggins. There, while the ghosts of former phantasies flocked around her sensorium, and the pride of authorship, and the associations of moonshine and water, and the additional super-efierves- cences of lancy, and the tendency to somnium, and the fumes of the liqueur, were blending, overturning, confound- ing, and whirling about these apparitions, she fell into a crisis, such as the magnetic initiates call a coma. Such 1 think, at least, may be the best philosophical solution of her case ; but, at any rate, '
" A change came o'er the spirit of her dreams.'*
It suddenly occurred to her with the irresistible force of
142 MR. DE VIELLECOUR
truth, when breaking on the mind as a sun-burst into a dun- geon, that, Uke Lady Arabella, in " The Victim of Duty, or the Delicate Distress," she must sacrifice her mature charms, her splendid visions, her exquisite sensibility, her taste, her accomplishments, her health, nay, even life itself, upon the altar of gratitude ! It flashed upon her, in this paroxysm of inspiration, that all the teiiderness shown to her by her early patron, his liberality in advancing her in life, his occa- sional visits to inquire so earnestly about her health, his re- commending her to the custom of all his friends, his sending her a ticket to the Bachelor's ball, — were all tokens, strong as proofs from holy writ, that he cherished for her, even from her infancy, a deep-seated, fervent, delicate, silent, cor- roding, and consuming passion, which was slowly drying up the fountains of his existence. The retiring modesty of his character, and his refined perception of the indelicacy of suffering her to suppose that he founded any claims to her personal affections on the past obligations he had laid her under, sufficiently accounted for his never having ventured to lisp the tender secret of his heart. The associations sug- gested by the liqueur no doubt strengthened this conviction. With a brief, though painful struggle, she bade adieu to her visions of youthful heroes, of demi-gods, and of kings ; nay, even of a middle-aged admiral, or ambassador, or pres- ident of a bank ; and generously resolved to screw her in- clinations to one sticking point, and bend her stubborn wishes to the stern mandates of duty.
Such had been the state of her mind for more than a week, when a strange rumour leached her ear, the conse- quence of which was the following letter.
" New-York, February 27th, 182— " False and perfiduous yet still TOO fassenating jian ! " What beckoning ghost along the moonlight shade in- vites rpy steps and points to yonder glade ? Can it, O my aggonizing bosom, can it be true, what I hear, about you
AND ins NEIGHBOURS. 143
and old Miss Peck ? Alas ! my palpitating heart informs me that it is ! Besides, Squire Pm'dy told me of it, yester- day, when he stopped in Marrynack stage, to get his daugh- ter's new pink satin hat, trimmed with Marrybows and edged with blond. But what have I to do with Marrybows now? What means this tumult in a whestle's veins, where very amusing melancholly rains? What did you mean, the last time you scorted me to Castle Garden, by saying you should like to walk so every night? and asking me if I wouldn't like to go see the Honey-moon of Shakespear? Mrs. Todd, and all her young ladies, said it was a fixed thing ; and when you sent that last barl of apples and quince licquor, which is sour enough for vinegar, all our end of Pearl-street was sniggering to see me get it out of the stage ; while I was overwelmed with delicate embarrass- ment, and my face sufused with roseate blushes. Oh ! ever beauteus, ever friendly, tel, is it in heaven a crime to love so very well ? But I know what I will do. I will commit sooicide ! I will jump into Peck-slip, off the furthest end of the dock ! No friend's complaints, no kind domestick tear, shall please my ghost nor grace my watery beer. By maremaids hands my dying eyes were closed ; by mare- maids hands my decent limbs composed ! Yes. I will throw myself into the east river, drest genteely in the last Parris fashion, so that my friends may not be ashamed of me ; in my Gro de Napp, O de Neel dress ; corsage made high and easy, with a little fulness in back and front, set in the band round the waste with a oval rose coloured pufg, gradually decreasing to a pint, forming a tasteful stumma- cher a la Russ ; sleeves on gee-goes, confined at the wrist with black velvet bracelets ; the skurt ornamented with a deep flounce, with small skoliups at the edge pinked, and a rule O above, and a drapery beneath, spread out at top and bottom, like a fan, drawn together in the center, and eon- fined by a rowlet; and Til have pantaletts a la Turk,
144 MR. DE VIELLECOUR
trimmed with bobbinet round the ankles, caught under the foot with a silver corded band. Yes. And I'll put on a beau- tiful Vandyked muslin collaret, tyed round my throat, and falling gracefully over my left shoulder, with a lavender- colored gauze ribbon on one side, and rose color on the other. And my hair shall he tastefully arranged a la naigh, in cannon curls, surmounted by a beautiful Tokay, of white gauze, with silver ends falling gracefully over the right shoulder to corryspond. I shall therefore ware no vail, but I'll have horseskin gloves, and shoes of white satting, pure as my sole, and tender as my heart, and act a Roman's or some tragick part. How on earth will you feel, when you hear of my being a fair penitent, and coming to sich a watery end? Yes, and besides this quarter's rent, you'll have to pay the next one too. For all I'm dead, that won't be no discharge to your security for the rent. My lawyer says so, and he knows. The landlord knows his rites too, I can tell you ; and that will be good for you. It will be all in vain for you, after I am drownded, and sat upon by the coroner's jury, to put on half morning, and in sable weeds appear ; grieve for an hour may be, and morn for half a year; and bare about the mockery of woe, to moonlight dances and the cattle show. I know you will be going about to the Museum and Specktaclum, and all about in fashinable society. But don't lay that flatring eyentment to your sole. My disembodied shade shall flitter round, in the mirky hours of night among the trembling moonbeams, and like Alonzer the brave and the fair Imogeene, when the worms they crauled out and the worms they crauled in, my dripping spectur will come to your wedding and set by your side, will tacks you with perfiddy, falsehood and pride, and bare you away to the grave I ! ! Oh you, you abomi- nable man ! Squire Purcy says your Byshy squints both ways. I know she's lame, for I seen her wauking to catch up the stage. And O 1 mon Jew ! how she's freckled I And
AND HIS NEIGHBOURS. 145
besides all this, I'll sew you for britch of promise right away, unless you let this job alone. Youre a wicked man. But a broken harted maiden preys that Highman may not shute his shaft, nor Cupid hold a candle at your nuptual cele- bration. Perhaps you may shed a hypercritical tear when you read the verses which Rolla will make, in the elegiack stanzas on my precocious death, in the next Museum. " Your fair and fond friend,
" Adelle Eloise Huggins."
"My tears have made my effusion ineligible. Can it be true what I hear, that your bride, the mean creature, is so shabby as to be fixing up her nasty old things for the wed- ding herself, instead of employing a gen'eel milliner and doing the thing handsomely. If she's so stingy already, what will she come too when s'e is married? Some one else wouldn't serve you so. Doubt that the stars are fire, doubt trutii to be a lyre, but don't doubt that I love."
The system of education has been much improved since Miss Huggins acquired the rudiments of her style and orthography. It is obvious to every intelligent reader, that her habits of mind and her daily avocations did not tend to her improvement in either of those particulars. And, with* out pausing to philosophize on the subject, I mention it as a fact, in the history of the human mind, that the mere habit of I'eading produces no change in their spelling, punctuation, or grammatical arrangement of wordSj upon those who have acquired a vicious system of their own in these matters. They write, as compositors set up their types, by the ear. Their eye catches a whole word, but not its constituent ele- mentary signs of sound. I could make a profound and ingenious speculation on this subject ; but I must return to Mr. Viellecour, whom I left reading Miss Huggins's letter. He had not deciphered the postscript when old Sampson, brought into the room another cartel ; but observing the
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146 MR. DE VIELLECOUR
agitated air of his master, he paused in distress and uncer- tainty. The old gentleman, however, with a lack-lustre eye, held forth his hand to receive the despatch, which proved to be from Barnabas Bull, Esq., or Lawyer Bull, as he was more familiarly called by his neighbours. Thus it ran :
" Sir,
" The course you have thought proper to take, in break- ing off your, engagements with my daughter Elizabeth Ann Bull, which were so well understood in the family, and by all the neighbours, and of which I have ample proof, renders it necessary for me to adopt measures of an unpleasant na- ture. I have no doubt a New- York jury, before whom I mean to carry the issue for trial, on the ground of prejudice existing here, will give $5,000 damages, as a small atone- ment for the feelings of an insulted father, and a much injured girl — to wit, the aforesaid Elizabeth Ann Bull.
"By way, however, of giving you a locus penitenticE, by which I mean a chance of compromising the suit, I have told the constable who has the writ, not to serve it until half an hour after your receipt of this letter, during which time you may consider what course you will take to do me justice.
" Your obedient servant,
" B. Bull."
" P.S. Should you incline to break off with Miss Peck, I will defend your action for you. No jury in the world will give that foolish old woman more than sixpence."
After reading this last courteous epistle, the poor old gen- tleman sat for some minutes with a fixed and vacant gaze, such as had never before clouded the vivacity of his coun- ,tenance. In his trance the images of Abishag, Terence, Mr§. Peck, Epaphroditus, Plutarch, Miss Huggins, Miss
AND HIS NEIGHBOURS. 147
Betsey, and Lawyer Bull, whirled round his brain in dizzy succession. The awkward web of embarrassment in which he had become innocently entangled, — his acute sensibility, which shrunk from even the shadow of ridicule, — his horror of notoriety under such strange circumstances, — were all overwhelming him, and plunging his judgment into a chaos of inextricable confusion ; in which all pecuniary or per- sonal considerations — the appeal of Terence to the pistol, and of Lawyer Bull to the jury, were alike forgotten. This warfare of his thoughts was interrupted by a sound, shrill and startling as was
" The blast of that dread horn, On Fontarabian echoes borne ;"
but not like that portentous clarion did it announce the death of heroes,
" How Rowland brave, and Olivier, And every paladin and peer. At Roncesvalles died — "
but it proclaimed that the Boston mail stage was approach- ing, and that a change of horses must be ready at the inn. By a very natural association, the image of his great grand- father Jean Pierre Gaspard Adrian Santerre de Viellecour, flying with his wife and children, his big Bible and curiously mounted silver-hilted sword, from the persecution of the bloody Louis le Grand, the scarlet woman, and the beast, was presented to the imagination of our hero. He arose with precipitation ; took down the time-honoured rapier from its customary place beneath the Viellecour arms, then pointing to a trunk in which he had a few days before packed up an assortment of clothes, when he was meditat- ing a New- Year's visit to some old friends in Philadelphia, he very solemnly and laconically ordered Sampson^to carry it after him to the inn, and take care of the house till his return. He then invested his person in his blue roquelaire,
148 MR. DE VIELLECOUR
lined with red velvet, and fastened with silver clasps, the gift of no less a person than the diplomatic ex-bishop of Autun ; who, during his temporary exile in this country, had kindly condescended to make Mr. Viellecour's house his country-seat, and to accept some trifling loans of a few hundreds, in requital of which he left hm this parting legacy. Beneath this garment, so precious from its asso- ciations, its proprietor adjusted his spiritual and temporal weapons ; after which he walked with a determined gait, not unworth}^ of his ancestry, into the hall : the venerable Sampson followed him in silence, with corresponding dig- nity and gravity of demeanour. But their march was soon obstructed by John Peck, whose patience was waxing rather impatient while wailing for his " answer," although his cousin Plutarch had assured him he would receive at least half a dollar from the old gentleman for his mission. As John had received nothing from Plutarch, in the way of outfit, he clung pertinaciously to the idea of salary ; ar)d confronting Mr. Viellecour, in a dogged and loutish, but fixed attitude, and with drawling but impudent accents, he interrupted the procession. " Old Squire," said John, " I guess you're been a nation long time a writing that 'are answer for Aunt Bisbag. And you 'ant forgot that 'are four shilling, that cousin Plutarch said you was to have gin me, you know, have you ?" The old gentleman brushed by the varlet, rather roughly, muttering something about drowning puppies in a horsepond ; which the literal and faithful Sampson, as it will appear, interpreted into a command.
The master and man proceeded to the stage-office, whcrq the former, without saying a word, placed himself in the coach which was standing before the door. The vehicle had arrived without any passengers. He had therefore ample room wherein to adjust liimself and his properties, on the back-seat. With his formidable sword on one side, and his gigantic Bible on the other, and the tiunk beneath I>is
AND Ills NEIGHBOURS. 149
feet, he might have sat to Dunlap for the personification of Christian resignation. He nodded a mehincholy farewell to Sampson ; the driver throve away his heel-tap in the most approved style, mounted the box, gathered his reins, cracked his whip, and off went the mail stage.
A dozen bystanders began at the sam^e time to interro- gate Sampson, who stood like an Egyptian statue of atten- tion (if any such there be, of which I have strong doubts), following with his eye the fast disappearing conveyance — as to where his master was going, what made him in such a hurry, what he was going to do, when he was coming back, and when he was to be married to old Miss Peck, etc. etc. etc. Sampson, after due deliberation, replied that Mr. Viellecour was gone in the stage to York, about his ow^n business. And having uttered this oracular response, he returned with more speed than he usually thought it decorous to exhibit, to his master's house. There, on the threshold, still stood John Peck, who was determined not to lose his promised perquisite, and had now become angry and unceremonious. " See here, nigger," he cried out, as Sampson w^as mounting the steps, " I want that 'are answer, right away ; and that 'are half dollar. Goy blame it all, I guess they'm chiefly done dinner to humm, and what's the use of my waiting here so?"
The latter part of this appeal seemed to touch Sampson's feelings ; for he very deliberately ook hold of the urchin, and slinging him over his shoulder, marched ofl' with him as coolly and seriously as he had done with the trunk, though John was a much more obstreperous article in the way of baggage. But John fared like many forlorn newspaper poets of the present day, who are always dying of con- sumption, or complaining of malice and persecution, in very distressful metre, which nobody reads, and which nobody ought to read. For before his expostulations had attracted the attention of the pubUc, Sampson had transported him to the margin of a small lake, the perfume of which was 'not
150 MR. DE VIELLECOUR
quite that of Araby the Blest, at no great distance, into the centre of Avhich (the thin coat of ice that had covered it, having been thaw^ed by the rays of a bright and warm day) he projected his person with as great ceremony as was consistent with despatch. The only articulate sounds which he uttered, by way of funeral service or illustration, were " Dere now, mister," accompanied with an equivocal grunt.
It was not until the early spring had again put forth its germs of promise, that any tidings were heard of Mr. Vielle- cour. Meantime, his newspapers and letters were regu- larly called for at the post-office by Sampson. The former were heaped on each other, until the pile almost touched the ceiling. The latter, ranged along the mantel, were rapidly assuming that brown, melancholy air of antiquity which belongs to a long unopened letter. The windows of the house were shut, except for about half an hour at noon-day, when they were opened and again closed, with regular and mysterious precision. A thin column of smoke stole up from the chimney of Sampson's comfortable quar- ters in the kitchen. A host of inquiries were made after their absent neighbour, for a few weeks, by impertinent and curious people ; not a few, too, by old friends. Sampson turned on his heels from the former, with a growl. To the latter, he answered with a sigh, that his master was absent, and he could not tell when he would return.
It was a bright clear day, in January, when the sun was slightly thawing the snow on Haerlem bridge, and burnish- ing with its rays the smooth and level white expanse of Haerlem plain and Morisania, that a party of honest Westchester fai'mers, returning from town, had stopped at the toll-house, on the Westchester side of that great thoroughfare, and were there talking of what they called politics. They discoursed about Mr. Adams, Mr. Craw- ford, General Jackson, Governor Clinton, Mr. Clay, and Plutarch Peck. Not that they thought of the latter as a
AND HIS NEIGHBOURS. 151
candidate for the presidency ; but they marvelled much how he would get along at Albany. Some surmised that he would soon break down. One old gentleman, who had won a bet on his election, insisted that he was a smart fellow, and would take care of himself.
The Danbury stage, returning from New- York, drove up at this juncture. All the passengers got out to warm themselves, save one, who seemed anxious not to invite observation. This, however, was impossible. " Why, halloa ! Plutarch ! is that you ! Where are you going ? What has brought you from Albany ?" were the inquiries levelled at the traveller from half a dozen quarters.
Plutarch, being thus necessyated, as he would have called it, to disembogue from the stage, gave a long, involved, complaining, digressive, and unintelligible account of him- self; the amount of which we can state in a few words. He had been returned to the Assembly, by the rejection of four or five hundred votes for another candidate, on the ground that the name of the latter had been spelled on the ballots with two r's instead of one. This gentleman, how- ever, resolutely claimed his seat. The Committee of Elec- tions instantly and unanimously decided in his favour ; and the vote of the House forthwith dislodged the unfortunate Plutarch, without giving him a single opportunity to im- mortalize himself. It happened, however, that on the first day of the session, he was enabled to utter the beginning of a sentence, which would probably have had no end, if it had not been cut short as it was by the Speaker. On the presentation of some petitions, which Plutarch thought had a bearing on his favourite subject, the election by the people of public notaries, inspectors of beef and pork, sole-leather, and staves and heading, he got on his legs. " When," said he, " Mr. Speaker, we consider the march of intellect in these United, and, as I may say, confederated States, and how the genius of liberty soars in the vast expanse, stretch- ing her eagle plumes from the Pacific Ocean to Long Island
1&2 MR. DE VIELLfiCOUtl
Sound, gazing with eyes of fire upon the ruins of empires — " just at which point of aerial elevation the Speaker brought dow^n the metaphorical flight of the genius, and that of the aspiring orator together, by info ming the latter t'.at he should be happy to hear him when in order, but that there "was now no question before the House.
While Plutarch w^as entangling himself and his hearers, in the perplexed labyrinth of his explanation, a pung drove up to the toll-gate, from which alighted no less a person than that vigilant and distinguished officer (as he is justly styled by the reporters of the proceedings of the New^- York Sessions), Mr. Jacob Hays, accompanied by his trusty Achates. They were escorting, with their usual marks of attention and courtesy, a gentleman in a Canada fur cap, black stock, blue frock, wdth frogs and embroidery, buck- skin breeches, and a dirty frill, in which the diamond breast- pin was now no longer conspicuous. This respectable person no sooner recognised Plutarch, than he appealed to him to testify that he was a nobleman incog. ; and a dis- guised gentleman ; and that he could talk French. This he did with great volubility, and at the top of his lungs ; but it produced no other effect on the high constable, than to make him regard the sheepish looking ex-member with a peculiarly acute and comprehensive side-glance; by w^hich he seemed to imprint at once, on the iron tablets of his memory, every characteristic feature of the chopfallen ci-devant Assemblyman.
Plutarch, who saw how Terence's affairs stood, was glad of an opportunity to escape, by throwing himself into the back seat of the stage, w^hich w^as now going off. His quondam French master, however, did not let him go, without asking him to treat him at least to a drop of the cretur ; and on his paying no attention to this request, told him he was no gentleman at all, " but only jist a neegur ; and that he might go home to his beggarly family, and he v/ouid find they had cleared out ; for the Aigle Bank was
AND IIIS NEIGHBOURS. 153
husstedy and the Cataract of Freedom was stopped ; and the ould women were crazy."
Before I dismiss Terence — whose taste for large castles was soon gratified, by his being sent to exercise his archi^ tectural genius in assisting to erect the Sing Sing state prison — a word or two more about him may be necessary* The intelligent reader may have gleaned, from his own account of himself, the probable facts in his history. To France he had never been, but Botany Bay he had certainly visited. I know not how he left Australasia, or whither he wended from thence ; but shortly before the time of this narrative, he had been in the service of a gallant officer, from the green isle of chivalry, and love, and song, whose regiment was stationed in Canada. I love the Irish char^ acter, and the Irish melodies ; and I love the Irish whiskey, when well compounded with lemons, sugar, and hot water, on a winter's night. Let not the good and the brave and the beautiful, to whom the harp and the shamrock are dear,, look on me with unfriendly eyes, if my story has compelled me to advert to the failings of one of their countrymen* Terence was afflicted with a fondness for irregular appro- priation. Such furtive propensities are said to be natural weaknesses in some individuals, and even to run in families ; operating irresistibly upon their subject, and compelling them to abstract clandestinely the personal property of others. In the days of superstition, demoniac possession would have been assigned as the cause of this tendency. In our days, the phrenologist ascribes it to a preternatural development of the organ of acquisitiveness as he most certainly does any mal-addressc (such as poor Terence's), in its direction and application, to an equally imperfect development of the organ of secretiveness. But I shall not trouble the reader with the philosophy of the case ; and must content myself with stating the fact, that Terence was given to stealing. While at Quebec, in th^ service of a high-minded colonel, whose hard-earned laurels and pri-
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154 MR. DE VIELLECOUR
vate virtues, might well, in an estimation of national char- acter, counterbalance the infirmities of a hundred such specimens as his valet, our nobleman incog, picked up by the ear a quantity of miscellaneous French, together with some crude notions of rank, title, high life, and foreign man- ners ; and one day, when his constitutional malady came strongly upon him, he picked up his master's vahse, and his diamond breast-pin, which was lying on the toilet. With these goods in his custody, he travelled into the " Stales," where he spent some time, in the course of which he took occasion to commit some new depredations in the city of New-York ; as appeared when he was brought to the police-office, to be examined on the charge of stealing the breast-pin, the value of which had induced his master to pursue him. He had thus the honour of being claimed by two governments, as a special subject of judicial and ex- ecutive attention ; and to present, in his own beautiful person, one of the most debated and debatable questions of international law. But the colonel being contented with the restitution of his jewels, the state of New- York was left to deal with Terence ; and in what wise he was dealt with, I have already suggested. Peace be to his labours in the hammering of Westchester marble, for the construction of his own cell ; wherein requiescat in pace !
And now I hurry to a close." When Plutarch got home, he found that Terence's intelligence was not much exagge- rated. The Eagle Bank had stopped payment. The " Cataract of Freedom" was no longer issued ; and the printer had run away, leaving Plutarch alone to face certain angry creditors. Mrs. Peck and her daughter had resolved to migrate, under the auspices of the reverend professor, to the west ; whereupon the disbanded Assemblyman, knowing that his creditors would soon be reinforced by his New-York hatter, boot-maker, and especially his tailor, who, on the credit of his legislative dignity, had £tted him out for Albany, with stylish cloak, and surtout, and frock,
AND HIS NEIGHBOURS. 155
and a full suit of customary black, and a large assortment of white, red, and blue waistcoats and under waistcoats, of his own choice ; not forgetting, moreover, his too confiding cousin Diodatus's claims upon him for a gold breast-pin, and a new Geneva gold watch — saw no other course before him, than to prevail upon the family to take him along.
Thither, then, they marched with bag and baggage, scrip and scrippage. I know not what has become of Plutarch since. But I do know that Miss Peck contrived to marry the president of the college ; and I sincerely hope, as I know him to be a worthy gentleman, that he is satisfied with the arrangement.
It was on a fine spring morning, when the sun, bright and cheerful, seemed to shed a smile over the face of the re- sponsively laughing earth, from which the snows had van- ished, while the herbage in many spots was assuming its verdant hue, that the wmdows of Mr. Viellecour's house were observed, by the admiring neighbours, to be open, as was the hall door, in which Sampson stood, in his Sunday suit, showing his teeth with an air of joyous satisfaction. Moreover, the well-known favourite myrtle, and the orange trees, and the tall, double oleander, and the fragrant gera- niums, had been brought forth from their winter quarters, and were now displayed in their usual vernal station upon the south piazza, inhaling the fresh breeze, and rejoicing in the open sunshine. The mystery was not long unsolved. Their master had returned the night before, and resumed possession of his much-loved mansion, with all its cherished appurtenances. His eye was as bright, his cheek as ruddy, his demeanour as affable as ever. Where he had bsen, he never saw fit to disclose ; and as the topic seemed o a un- pleasant one, I never took the liberty of asking him. There have been rumours that he was seen that winter in the gallery of the House of Representatives, at Washington — at the new theatre in Cincinnati, Ohio— and at an ordination
156 MR, DE VIELLECOUR
in Bennington, Vermont ; but I verily believe they were all apocryphal.
On the day after his return, while he was still engaged in examining all his ancient and loved repositories, and mentally preparing for an horticultural campaign, the door of his parlour slowly opened, and a young gentleman entered, with rather a timid air, leading by the hand a fe- male companion, whose features were hidden by a modest white veil. Mr. Viellecour knew the lad at once, as his
godson, Eugene R , for whom he had always felt a
great regard, for his father's sake and for his own ; and who had lately left West Point, having received a lieutenant's commission. Who the lady was he did not know ; until she withdrew the drapery from her blushing face, and dis» covered to his view the " dancing hair and laughing eyes" of Betsey Bull.
My tale has grown too long to admit of my describing scenes. I must content myself with facts. Eui:ene and Betsey, it appeared by their story, had had a good under- standing together as to the state of their several affections, from the lime the former paid Mr. Viellecour a visit, more than a year before. Lawyer Bull, they thought, and thought wisely, would not consent to their union under existing cir- cumstances. So they ran away to Connecticut, and got married in Greenfield (doubtless attracted to that spot by the fame of one of the most eloquent clergymen of the age), and now they wished to avail themselves of their kind- hearted friend's good offices, to be reconciled to Betsey's papa» Their supplication was not ineffectual ; for Mr. Viellecour undertook the business, and so dealt with old Bull, that he gave his daughter and son-in-law his blessing; and when he dies, as he must do some day or other, I sup- pose he will give them his property, as he has no other children.
This match, to the best of my knowledge, has proved a very good one ; though, as a general principle, filial diso-
AND HIS NEIGHBOURS. 157
bedience entails on the transgressor many calamities ; and stolen marriages are rarely happy. Betsey's two babies are as pretty children as ] ever saw in my life ; and the eldest has been named Adrian Viellecour. He will, I have no doubt, profit by his baptismal appellation.
As I have made very free use of the names of certain individuals in this story, let me, with my parting bow, beg their pardon if they are offended, and do them all the ser- vices in my power.
I would most earnestly and respectfully recommend to the ladies, that truly excellent milliner, Miss Huggins, who has given up romancing, and in consequence of so doing, now occupies a large and splendid establishment, on the very Rialto of fashion, where the fair, the gay, and the young most do congregate.
I would also point out to the attention of the gentle-' men, the honest and liberal Diodatus Peck, as a superior watchmaker and jeweller, in every respect worthy their patronage.
To all parents, who wish to give their children a cheap, liberal education, I would suggest that the college, the presi- dent of which married Miss Peck, and in which the Rev- erend E. X. Peck is professor, ofl^ers a great many induce- ments to the guardians of youth. The air is salubrious. The mutton is there cheap and abundant. On this, and on fine fresh milk, the students are principally fed. It appears, by the 'printed advertisement of the institution, that all sciences are taught; the whole circle being accurately divided among nine professorships, the chairs of two of which are at present ably filled by the venerable president ; and those of the other seven as ably, by the learned and reverend Dr. Peck. The terms are low, and the neighbour- hood is quiet and moral. '
I am, moreover, strongly tempted to recommend to the
158 MR. DE VIELLECOUR AND HIS NEIGHBOURS.
same public, a personage, not the least heroic or important, though the least conspicuous, of those of my tale. I mean the accomplished and unfortunate tailor, who had equipped Plutarch Peck for his legislative campaign. Whoever had seen Plutarch before and after the said equipment, would have been practically convinced that the old proverb of 'manners makes the man^ was all wrong, and that not man- ners, but the tailor makes the man. What an air of gen- tility and ease, and what grace did this admirable artist shed over the ungainly presence, and awkward presentation of our friend Plutarch ! But I must refrain. I fear even to hint at his name, lest the mention of it might inflict upon him a swarm of customers like unto Plutarch himself — statesmen and men of genius all ; and thus intercept a great man in his progress towards that fame and fortune which, I trust, await his high deserts. He is, indeed, an artist and a gentleman — but, alas ! he is also
A liberal youth, whose speculative skill, Is hasty credit, and a distant bill ; " '
Artist and wit, who scorns all vulgar trade, Exults to trust, and blushes to be paid.
SCENES AT WASHINGTON.*
No. I.
"Black spirits and white,
Blue spirits and gray,
Mingle, mingle, mingle,
Ye that mingle may." — Macbeth.
The company, the politics, and the fashions at Wash- ington, were just as miscellaneous and queer in the winter of 18 — , as they were last winter, or the winter preceding, and as they will be next winter. As usual, a certain por- tion of the most select boarding-houses were occupied with messes of members of congress, and by genteel families, or those that wished to be thought so ; while others, of a less privileged order, were more liberally open for the accom- modation of whoever might apply; including those who had been unable to make an arrangement of a more aristocratic character. Over the administration of one of the latter de- scription presided Mrs. Charity Cricket, a notable lady from the eastward, whose deportment was marked by a dignity, discretion, and delicacy, appropriate to her high functions. At the time my narrative commences, in the month of
* The first part of the " Scenes in Washington" appeared in the Talis- man for the year 1829, and the second part the year following/ It was. writ- ten with the assistance of the same literary friend who furnished a part of the story of Mr. De Viellecour.
160 SCENES IN AVASIllNGfON.
December, her folks, as she called them, were few. Therd was the Honourable Mr. Spratt, from one of the Middle States, a sober and prudent middle-aged gentleman and a bachelor. Having been elected to Congress for no political reason, but on some local question, he was " en the fence ;" where, like a wise man, he determined to sit, until he had made up his mind on which side it would be most pleasant and profitable for him to get off. He avoided, on this ac- count, a daily juxtaposition with any partisan mess ; and had a dread of the ceremonious attentions and little polite- nesses which he feared would be exacted in some houses of style; as well as of the formidable hospitalities and heavy bills equally necessary at others. He therefore se* lected the modest mansion of Mrs. Cricket, where he en- joyed certain personal comforts, for which he had a particu- lar regard, at no other expense than that of occasionally franking letters for the family. He had a large triangular room, such as no other city in the world but Washington can boast of ; having three windows, one east and two west, where he placed his hyacinth roots, wrapped in. cotton, and planted in green bottles, and enjoyed the benefit of the prospect; looking out, on one side, upon a noble street without any houses, and on the other, upon a showy bank without any money. Mr. Spratt had but a narrow reve- nue, which he yet contrived to make large enough for his expenses, not by stretching his income, but by straitening his disbursements. He hated noise, and was fond of quiet and regularity. I may add, that he had taught Virgil and Blair's Lectures in his youth ; and by reading reviews and pamphlets, had kept up a current acquaintance with the second-hand literature of the day. Besides all this, he was an honest, kind-hearted man, who was generally allowed to improve upon acquaintance. I hope my readers will be of the same opinion.
There was also lodging at Mrs. Cricket's, a Mr. Belah Brio-c^s, who came to Washington to have Patterson made a
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 161
port of entry, its river cleared out, the falls taken away, and piers erected at the mouth. He was a red-haired, busthng man, who always had, or seemed to have, business on hand. And there was an old gentleman named Timothy Jenks, who was advocating a claim on Congress for the Mohegan Canal Company, which he insisted was a good one ; and none could gainsay it, as he had asserted tlie same thing for twenty years, and was likely to do so for the rest of his life. I must not forget Monsieur Angelo Falconet, a French stone-cutter, who had been or wished to be employed in em- bellishing the Capitol with more freestone Pilgrims, Penns, and Pocahontases. Last, and most picturesque, though the most taciturn of the family, was Warren Hancock Half- moon, a young gentleman of pale complexion, thin frizzly sandy hair, and staid and sad demeanour, who seemed to have no special business of any kind, but was waiting, as he said, for letters from his friends. His silence and unobtru- siveness pleased Mr. Spratt, who, as he gave him no trou- ble, and never interrupted his conversation, thought him rather a well informed and well behaved young man.
Mr. Spratt had spent a few weeks very comfortably, just according to his tastes and habits, at this lodging-house, when, on returning from the Capitol one day in December, he was met in the passage of her house by Mrs. Cricket, who wore an air of special importance and evident satis- faction. Her ruffles bristled up in a peculiar manner, and her countenance glowed with tidings she yet seemed to have a little hesitation in unfolding.
" Mr. Spratt," she said, " you will not be obliged to stay in your room so much in the evenings any more. We shall have music and society, sir. I shall introduce you pres- ently to two new comers, a lady and her niece, from England, — Miss Violet Lily and Miss Phoebe Black ; and I advise you to take care of your heart, Mr. Spratt. I knew ycm would be gallant enough to give up your room £ut once, bu have no idea of discommoding you. I have given them
VOL. II. X
162 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
mine, in the third story, for the present. They really are most elegant and interesting people. I have been obliged to take the sofa, and arm-chair, and the looking-glass, and carpet, and a few other things out of your room, which I knew you would not miss. I have put all your clothes neatly into the big trunk." " Humph !" said Mr. Spratt.
" Why yes," said the lady, " I knew you'd have no ob- jection ; and if you really had as lief go up in the third story, I guess you would find it as comfortable. But don't let your politeness induce you to make any sacrifice, Mr. Spratt."
Mr. Spratt made no reply, but walked up to his disman- tled chamber with rather a dogged air. His revery there was not of the most amiable character. " This Miss Violet Lily," thought he, " is some pale-faced, languishing, sentimental, forte-piano thrumming, fantastical, fashionable chit, who will faint at the smell of roast meat, and spoil one's dinner with her airs. And she'll have the house run down with old beaux and young dandies, talking all manner of stuff, and making a racket all night, and stumbling up stairs from parties, waking the whole house. But I suppose I must make myself spruce, and make the best of it to-day. Where the devil is my looking-glass ! Women don't shave ; what do they want with looking-glasses ?"
Meditating, probably, in some such strain, he descended grumbling to the sitting parlour. On entering it, he found a lady reclining, with all the grace she could, upon a sofa ; with a little French gilt volume in one hand, and a pencil in the other, with which she seemed to be marking such pas- sages as struck her attention. She rolled a pair of large gray eyes askance at Spratt ; who seeing a strapping, able- bodied woman, with a well fed person, and red cheeks, and weighing some two hundred, or "by'rlady," as FalstafF says, some two hundred and fifty weight, took it for granted it was Miss Phoebe Black, and making a slight reverence,
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 163
sat down and took up a newspaper. Certain casual glances did not lead him to regard the lady with increased admira- tion. She wore a turban, with a very complicated fold, and set somewhat awry, with a huge artificial rose stuck in front of it. Her nose was beaked, large, and prominent; her mouth spacious ; and her chin double. Her hair, which was her own in some sense or other, was displayed in large flaxen curls before, and was a crop behind. Mr. Spratt thought that the upper part of her portly bust was a little too ostentatiously exposed ; and that her masculine red arms did not appear to much advantage through their gauze integuments, which were confined at the wrists with mon- strous bracelets, set with imitation cornelian cameos of a fat Brutus and a lean Cassius. Her girdle was fastened in front with a massive shining clasp of Berlin ware, on which was the ill-favoured effigy of Oliver Cromwell. All over her bust hung a variety of chains, attached to watches, quiz- zing glasses, and other paraphernalia. Her full person was invested in white, so as to lose none of the effect produced on the beholder by its ample dimensions.
While Mr. Spratt was going through the detail of this examination of herself and her accoutrements, this goodly lady suddenly rose from her recumbent attitude, and ex- claimed, in no small voice, and in a manner highly impas- sioned— " Divine Voltaire ! how powerful is thy verse to excite the kindred passions !
* Quand on vit dans Paris la faim pale et cruelle, Montrant deja la mort, qui marchait apres elle, Alors on endentit des hurleraents affreux !' "
Here, breaking off' her recitation, and turning suddenly to Spratt, she exclaimed — "Pray, sir, can you tell me what is the dinner hour here ?"
" Four o'clock, ma'am ;" said Spratt, who was hungry himself, besides being astonished and vexed ; " but at this rate, I suppose we sha'ntgetit till night."
164 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
« Not till night !" cried the lady.
" Gallop apace, ye fiery-footed steeds Towards Phoebus' mansion ; such a wagoner As Phaeton, would whip ye to the west, And bring in cloudy night immediately."
" Pray, sir," added she, with an air of deep interest and emotion, " are your famous Potomac canvass-back ducks now in season ?"
^' Why, canvass-backs a'nt over plenty in this house, ma'am."
The fair creature sighed, or rather groaned, and rolling up her eyes sentimentally, said, " I shall not then find hej*e what this divine Voltaire calls
' Les vins les plus parfaits, les mets les plus vantes.''
But what of that ? I am now in the chosen abode of lib- erty, freedom, and the rights of man."
At this moment Mrs. Ci'icket entered, accompanying a neat and modest-looking young woman, not remarkable either for beauty or plainness, and said, "Ah, Mr. Spratt, let me introduce you to Miss Violet Lily." Spratt rose and made a bow at the companion of the hostess, but the big lady on the sofa, exclaiming " Spratt ! Spratt !" ruslK?d forward fairly into his arms, and throwing her own round his neck, said, " Oh enlightened man ! whose speech on repealing the laws relating to marriages, and facilitating divorces, in this District of Columbia, I read in the Intelli- gencer this morning. Accept the homage of a grateful maiden's thanks !"
Spratt, blushing, confounded, and having lost his scratch in this warm salutation, withdrew from the encounter as well as he was able. The younger lady, who seemed shocked and scandalized, exclaimed, " Oh, Aunt Violet ! how can you do so !" on which the other turning abruptly from Spratt, said, in angry tone, " Miss Black, how often
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 165
have I told you not to call me aunt ? You know I am only your mother's younger sister. Have I not frequently directed you to call me ma helle Wiolette, or ma chere^ or ma cava Wiolettina. And what do you know about the ecstatic proprieties of the first salutation between people of ex- panded views and liberal genius ? Did I not see Lady Morgan embrace Benjamin Constant, at their first interview in the cafi des milks colonnes. I seen it myself And did'nt Aspasia do so to Cicero, after his speech in the trial of Catiline ? And did'nt Madame de Stael throw her arms round Sir Isaac Newton's vei erable neck, and kiss him : it was Sir Isaac or else Sir Joseph Banks, I forget which. Excuse the prejudices of a contracted education, O enlight- ened and eloquent Spratt !"
Sprait by this time had adjusted his wig, cravat, and ruflles, and was meditating his escape from this " crazy fat fool of a woman," as he internally called her. But he was defeated in his manosuvres. Miss Violet, hearing it an- nounced that dinner was actually ready, seized him by the arm and dragged him with her, insisting on his sitting next to her at table. The company present had too much serious business to attend to, to enter into much conversa- tion. They were, besides, under constraint, from the arrival of the two ladies, one of whom was so portentously dazzling in her personal appearance. Miss Violet, how- ever, had the faculty of losing no time at dinner, and of con- versing, or rather soliloquizing all the while. Having given the board a rapid and scrutinizing survey, with that deci- sive coup d'ijeil which marks genius alike on the field and at table, she made an ample and solid selection of provisions, pulled up Brutus and Cassius a httle way, and eased Oliver Cromwell well out, to facilitate her proceedings ; and then worked her knife and fork with the regularity, celerity, and power of one of Stevens's steam-engines ; talking all the time at poor Spratt about parhamentary eloquence, the rights of man and the wrongs of women, Catholic eman^-
168 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
cipation, the Missouri question, Symmes's theory, and Greece. At length a cover was placed before Spratt, which was welcomed by the joyous exclamation from Mr. Belah Briggs, of " Ah, here come the canvass-backs !" No sooner had Miss Violet heard this interjectional remark, than her eyes glistened, and turning to her victim, she directed him to carve one of those birds for her. Poor Spratt had conveyed but little nut ment into his own sys- tem, from the everlasting appeals made to him on different subjects and for different dishes with such rapidity, that so far from being^ able to eat, he had not been able even to hear or think. He set himself, however, mechanically to work ; and by the time he had dissected one of the ducks, the lady had despatched the contents of her first plate, and w^as ready to be helped. She was so much pleased with one part of this glory of the American table, that she wished to try another, and then another ; and so it went on —
" Another and another still succeeded, And the last plate was welcome as the first."
At length she took breath, laid down her implements, and exclaimed, " Oh Mr. Spratt, is not this the bird, about which one of your sweet American poets has written somiC ecstatic lines ? I think I remember one sublime passage :
♦ Farewell ! thou'rt swallowed in the gulf immense, No more thy wings shall glitter in the morn, No more shall evening hues thy plumes adorn, Nor noon-day splendour greet thy rising thence.'
By the way, I am glad to see you don't keep up the ab- surd practice of drinking healths, but leave every individual to follow the unshackled and unsophisticated impulses of taste, nature, and necessity." Tt is proper to mention that she had, from the beginning, helped herself to wine from Sp'^att's decanter, without ceremony and without stint. Halfmoon, who had scarcely opened his lips before, now
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 167
took occasion, modestly lifting up his eyes, to edge in an observation. " Yes, madam," said he, " as the Swan of Avon says —
— ' It is a custom Fore honoured in the breach than in the observance, To drain our draughts of Rhenish down, And bray the triumph of our pledge.' "
Miss Violet, upon this, gazed earnestly at the speaker, whose eyes were again cast down under her scrutiny. '* Ah !" she said, "have I found a congenial spirit? (Some of the mince-pie, Mr. Spratt, if you please.) He who can quote so readily the Swan of Avon, must himself be a »Swan of the Potomac. (A little cheese with it.) That pallid cheek, that interesting languor, and the veiled lightnings of those eyes, told me before that you were a nursHng of the Nine. Pray may I venture to inquire your name ?"
" Warren Hancock Halfmoon," stammered the blushing minstrel.
*' And what favoured spot of fair and free Columbia's land claims the honour of your birth ?" " Jericho, ma'am, upon Long Island." Here the lady drew out from the drapery which invested her exuberant chest, from among a collection of miscella- nies, a small red covered note-book, in which she made a memorandum. Having done this with great expedition, and returned her tablets to their depository, she proceeded, " Dear Halfmoon, you must favour me with some of your poetry. You must indeed. Haven't you got some about you ?''
The poet hemmed and hawed, in seeming confusion ; but after a few "Why ma'ams," and "Oh ma'ams," he drew from his pocket a parcel of folded sheets of letter paper, which he fumbled with and overlooked. Mr. Spratt seized the favourable moment, and took French leave. The rest of the company, except the polite Monsieur Falconet, fol-
1G8 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
lowed his example. Miss Black retired with Mrs. Cricket, who seemed to deem her services no longer necessary. Miss Violet, retaining possession of Spratt's decanter, said, " Dear Halfmoon, we lend you all our ears. Proceed."
The minstrel, after stating in an agitated manner, that he had two or three pieces, and that none of them were finished, and he did not know whether he could read them himself, finally recited the following rhapsody.
Oh ! when shall come the mind's apocalypse ! What tenebrous investitures control
The shackled ethnic soul, Bound like Prometheus to the rock of life While high above, in airy strife, The screamy vultures lick their horny lips ! But ah ! I spy one ray Of Pythian day, Scattering away The horrent clouds fuliginously hurl'd
Upon a prostrate world ! And in the great thermometer of mind, Where long the liquid argentine has climbed, Behold on bigotry's myoptic eyes, The'glittering metaphysic column rise. While each dark soul shall chrysalize ! Yes ! they shall mount and fly, Like a transparent-pinioned butterfly^; Swift as a thunderbolt. Or youthful Arab colt, Child of the desert, lord of the plain. Without saddle or bridle, or crupper or rein ! But 'tis only a vision ! the ethnical soul Still, magnet-like, turns to delusion's north pole ; Bound with shackles of steel, and of adamant ice, To priestcraft, and error, and stern prejudice!
Miss Violet commended this production in very extrava- gant terms, and frequently interrupted the reading by ex- clam.ations. She objected however to the mode of pro- nouncing " prcjuc?zce," by making it rhyme to vice. The poet said, that that was the way in which it was pronounced
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 169
in the Monongahela College, and used by the most distin- guished orators at the eastward. M. Falconet was profuse in his compliments. " Ah 1" said he, "this is so hke our Casimir Delavignel Monsieur is one vare great poete. That simile of the leetle horse wizout no bridle, is superbe. He is so like a man wizout no prejuges. He is hke that grand bull in our Racine ; ^
♦ Indomptable taureau ! Dragon impetueux ! Sa croupe se recourbe en replis torteueux ; Ses longs mugissements font trembler le rivage.' "
But as I am not writing a fashionable novel, I can report the particulars of this conversation no further. Miss Violet turned her attention to M. Falconet, and astonished him with some French quotations, which he (as well as every- body else) had never heard before. She shook the poet so tenderly and strenuously by the hand, after making him escort her to the door of her chambei', that the poor young man was fairly in the highest heaven of his invention; and the elements of the society at Mrs. Cricket's had been de- cidedly agitated by her introduction, to a degree as exten- sive as the effect was unexpected.
In the evening of that day, for the first time since he had been a boarder at the house, Mr. Spratt did not make his appearance. Mr. Briggs and Mr. Jenks, together with a mail-contractor and the poet, were present. The latter sat pensive and silent, while Miss Violet discoursed to the other gentlemen about western lands and city lots, and Mexican mining operations ; doubted the solvency of the Bank of England and of the Barings ; asked the price of the stock of the United States Bank, and of the three per cents., and New- York Canal stock, and Dismal Swamp shares; ex- pressed her regret that the state of society compelled each individual to look after his own property ; and inquired how Mr. Owen's settlement had succeeded. The 'gentlemen answered to the best of their knowledge ; and, when supper
VOL. II. Y
170 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
was announced, Miss Violet took the poet by the arm, and led him with her to the most sociable of domestic feasts, •where his blue devils were speedily dispersed by the charms of her conversation, and whence she sent him to his slum- bers and his dreams to meditate on unimaginable things.
The inferences drawn by Mr. Briggs, Mr. Jenks,and the mail-contractor, as to the wherewithals of the lady, soon be- came reports — very soon ; because, the next day, the prin- cipal topic of conversation in all Washington was the arrival of the extraordinary, accomplished, and splendid- looking Enghsh lady, with an exorbitant fortune, who had come to the United States to make it her home. It was broadly whispered that she was Mrs. Coutts ; and a fellow who came from Manchester, as he said, reconnoitred the house of Mrs. Cricket, and offered, in the bar-room of a principal hotel, to make his affidavit tliat it was that des- tined duchess incog., like the Empress Rusty fusty in the farce, disguised as a cheesemonger's widow.
This rumour fell upon the ear of a gentleman, a member of Congress, who boarded at the Indian Queen, and who was speculative as to such matters. His name and addi- tions were, the Honourable Colonel Phocion Milton Mans- field ; and he was a lawyer from the western county of a western state, who had been elected to represent his dis- trict, for one session, in consequence of the death of the eloquent and much lamented Peter Davis, who died, after introducing a Catawba Bill, highly interesting to the voters of his district, and which Colonel Phocion had pledged himself to carry through. This was not the only pledge the colonel had made at this period. Among others, v/as one to Mr. Angelo Falconet, to get him employment from Congress, in erecting equestrian statues of all the heroes of the war of the revolution, and pedestrian ones of all those of the last war, as well as remuneration for his services during the time he had been waiting to get into service. Through M. Falconet, the colonel was introduced to the
SCENES AT WASHINGTOX. 171
splendid English lady ; and how far, and how fast, he pushed his acquaintance with her, may be best ascertained from a sketch of some passages in a scene which took place but a few evenings afterward.
It was at the soiree or evening party of one of the secre- taries, foreign ministers, auditors, clerks, or doorkeepers — or else of some one that wanted to be a secretary, foreign minister, auditor, clerk or doorkeeper, — or of somebody else among the white population that gave soirees, that Miss Violet Lily was seen leaning substantially on the arm of the Honourable Colonel Phocion Milton Mansfield. She was dressed (for she must be dressed, and I have already intimated that I have a genius that way, and flatter myself that my readers know it) — she was dressed in white satin, with a puffing of violet ribands, caught up (to speak tech- nically), at the sides, by large bunches of purple violets of extraordinary dimensions, which ornamented the skirts of her exterior drapery. A broad sky-blue riband (and a long one too), encircled her waist, the ends of which severally were fastened to the flowers before mentioned. Her capa- cious bust was overloaded with blonde lace ; while round her neck hung a gilded rope or cable chain, from which depended a monstrous copper medallion, struck during the reign of Robespierre. Her stately head was surmounted by a red velvet Berri, over which two birds of paradise presided, forming with their bodies a central tiara, while their tails hung down on either side of the subject they were intended to illustrate, in a graceful or a grotesque man- ner, according to the taste of the observer. Some people like to see very fat and stout ladies dressed off'in this style ; most fat and stout ladies do Uke it. I confess I do not. I should have added that her earring supported medallions of Cupid and Psyche. She was armed and equipped for conquest. But Miss Huggins had never been applied to, for her exclusively correct advice, on the arrangement of
172 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
this lady's toilet, as all her customers will at once per- ceive.
Behind the colonel and Miss Lily, as they entered the room, was the pensive poet ; who carried the lady's pocket handkerchief, album, note book, and bottle of Cologne water in one hand, and her reticule in the other. In the brief promenade the party made, while saluting the lady of the house, and finding a place to sit down in, it was ob- served that the poet tickled Miss Violet's uncovered elbow once or twice, and made some remark ; thereby meaning or intending (as the attorneys say in a declaration in a slander suit), to convey the idea, that though a member of Congress had the lady immediately in charge, the lien of the said member upon her, or rather her lean upon him, was only for the nonce ; and that he (the poet) had a word or two to say in the matter.
" How pleasing," said Miss Violet to Colonel Phocion, after they had been seated for some time, — " how pleasing is the simplicity of your republican institutions ! No papal or feudal prescription or formality shackles the natural and naive licentiousness of your social intercourse ! And yet, alas ! having always had the free exercise of unrestricted action and volition, growing out of the primitive habits of your glorious aborigines —
' When wild in woods the noble savage ran,'
you have not yet exercised your philanthropic energies so as to produce any vehement impression on the moral sur- face of mankind. Ah Phocion ! what tyrant's blood has yet stained the dagger of an American matron? (My handkerchief if you please, dear Halfmoon.) Where are your white-robed maidens, walking in long and solemn processions, to hang their aureat wreaths upon the altar of almighty Nature ? — And then your pharisaic Sabbath, and
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 173
all the imitations of feudal customs, such as discharging the ladies from the dinner-table, just at the moment when the esprit of sociality effervesces and the wine-cup circles in more genial rounds ; and then your asking for taxes at ferries and toll gates in a free country, — these are evidences that all is not yet right, my Phocion !"
" Madam," said Phocion, flourishing a yard and a half square of American white cambric, " there is a deal of truth, and, as I may say, much astuteness, mingled with what, under correction, I may venture to call asperity in your sentiments. But allow me to call you to order ; or rather, permit me to explain. There was an American matron once who did kill a tyrant, or rather, I mean to be meant as being understood to say, who meant to kill one. — When my lamented mother, and her eleven fatherless chil- dren, were detained captives and prisoners at Sing Sing by Lord Cornwallis, and immured in a loathsome dungeon, without any victuals to eat or drink, she took one day ad- vantage of the sentinel's being drunk, rushed into the com- modore's marquee, with her scissors, and dyed that humble instrument of domestic industry in the cruel tyrant's gore."
" Well, but dear Phocion," said Miss Lily, " I have seen Lord Cornwallis myself, in England. She didn't kill him, did she ?"
" Not dead, ma'am," said Mr. Mansfield, " as I before intimated. But she wounded him badly in a dangerous place — in the knee, and was dragged to prison by his myr- midons ; and was only released from certain death by the capture of General Burgoyne. But her heart was broken, and she died immediately afterward !"
"Well, but my dear Milton," said Miss Violet, "was you born, when your mother died in 1776? for then it was, I believe, America was fighting against Britannic tyranny and the tyrant Pitt ?"
" It was — it was my grandmother, madam, begging par- don, of whom I wished to be understood as speaking," said
174 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
Phocion ; " I was so much in the habit of seeing my revered mother and grandmother together, that I perpetually con- found them in my reminiscences. It was my grandmother who slew — I mean, who meant to have slain the tyrant."
" Oh, my Mansfield 1" said Miss Lily, squeezing the white glove of her escort, " I would cheerfully give my ten thou- sand five hundred and twenty-nine pounds sterling in the Mexican Refining Company, to have but seen that there heroic woman, your glorious grandmamma. Was she tall, and of a noble figure ?"
What answer the member would have given I cannot tell, because the vivacity of the lady's declamation had gradually drawn around them a number of people, who, either from the privileges of a soiree, or on republican prin- ciples, seemed to think themselves entitled to the benefit of Miss Violet's inspirations. Casting her eyes upon them, unabashed (though the poet withdrew from behind her chair, and the member scratched his head which he hung down, as if solving a mathematical proposition), she thus addressed them : " Oh 1 my republican friends ! is there any nobler character in all history than the heroic woman who has slain a tyrant ?"
The parties addressed, excepting Spratt and M. Falconet, who happened to be among them (the former having Miss Phoebe Black under his arm), were rather startled at this unexpected appeal. It embarrasses the thread of my story to tell who all these parties were ; yet it suits me to de- scribe some of them. There was a Virginian by birth, who had lived most of his days abroad, had half forgotten his own language, and half learned half a dozen foreign ones, — was full of foreign affectations, and was yet a true Virginian after all. On his arm hung a little Washington belle, an afficee to all the high-life people of Washington for the last ten years ; during which she had danced with charges and attaches, and flirted and talked bad French with bearers of despatches, bookmaking travellers of all
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 175
nations, painters, sculptors, chevaliers d'industrie, and honest English blacklegs ; and yet, notwithstanding the quantity of work she must have had to do, with all these kinds of people, she was still as sprightly and interesting as ever, and the Virginian appeared pointedly attentive to her. There was also a member of Congress from Tennessee, a genuine child of Esau, who had taken his sleep, when he could afford time for it, in tents and log-houses, and under cypress boughs ; whose farm was his hunting-ground, and whose hunting-ground was the district he represented in Congress : — a raw-boned, manly, bold, blunt, sagacious, and withal superb-looking specimen of the hunter state of civiHzation. He had his arms akimbo, with no lady hang- ing on either. There was a Carolina gentleman of the old school, elaborately elegant, and a little too formally polite for the present day ; with whom was a Carolinian of later years, who, like the former, was well taught and well bred, though not quite as well as he of the elder school. He had, however, the same constitutional gayety and irasci- bihty, rebuked and excited alternately by the lazy and languid temperament of southern skies. And on the arm of this latter young gentleman hung another Washington belle, who had for fifteen years danced and talked bad French, with charges, attaches, and other ofTicial characters, and occasionally with lions ; to whom the Carolinian seemed to behave with ordinary politeness. All by herself, and without any arm to hang upon, stood another belle, who had been for twenty years talking, and flirting, and dancing, with all the attaches, affiches, employes, charges, and stray male birds of passage at the capital. She was flirting her fan desperately, and talking to a gentleman who seemed shy of listening about the great ball given by General Tu- reau, the French minister at Washington, on Bonaparte's being made emperor. The individual talked to was a New-Hampshire manufacturer, who had seen too much of the world to undergo the infliction of the faded lady's re-
176 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
miniscences, if he could decently avoid it. And there was a Yorkshire clown, fresh from the cloth-market counter at Leeds, with a famous pair of calves in shining white silk stockings, attempting to show off the airs and graces of Almack's. Perhaps the most striking character present was a gentleman with monstrous black whiskers and mustaches, who represented himself as a Spaniard, com- missioned by the Dictator of Paraguay as his minister to the United States, with a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars a year, which he said was thought a very economical allowance in his land of mines and millions. This states- man, however, at the moment, laboured under the double misfortune of not being recognised by the government, for want of proper credentials, and his bills upon Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, and elsewhere, being refused acceptance, for want of funds and credit.
The name and style of his card was — " Don Joachim Maria Pedro Ignacio Washington de Sidonia, Ministre Plenipotentiare et Ambassadeur Extraordinaire de sa Se- renite le Dictateur de Paraguai, pres des Etats Unis."
These persons, with sundry diplomats, marine officers, New-York and Philadelphia belles, and members of con- gress, crowded round Miss Violet, and were alike startled with the vivacity and vehemence of the manner in which she apostrophized them. The force of it was felt most emphatically by a little French member of the corps diplo- matique^ who was near the fair querist ; for, accompanying her eloquence with Demosthenian gesticulation, Miss Violet not only brushed his profile in a manner which made the sparks come out of his eyes, but knocked the snuff-box out of his hand, and scattered its contents on the carpet. Pick- ing it up, he bowed, with an air a little ruffled, as he said, ♦' Maisoui — Madame Judith etait une femme superbe, sans doute, et puis Charlotte Corday, — ellcs out bien leurmerite ; — mais, diable ! ou sont done Ics tyrans aujourd'hui ?"
"The; elder Carolinian, with a smile, half polite and half
SCENES AT WASIIINGTOT?. 177
sarcastic, observed, " Undoubtedly, madam ; many ladies have shown honourable intrepidity. Margaret Nicholson must have been a most interesting woman."
" Si, senora," said Don Pedro, " to kill the teeranos is one noble action. Our immortal dictator kill some most every week."
" Gracious heavens," said Miss Violet, " of what dicta- tor do you speak ?"
" Of my augoost maestro, sefiora, the Doctor Francia, of which I hold the honour for to be his mineester, with full powers, near these United Estates."
" Shades of Timoleon, Brutus, and Cromwell !" exclaimed the lady, who, starting up with an effect which electrified the circle, and made it expand like one in the water, "which seeketh to enlarge itself," flung her arms round the Senor Don Joachim Maria, &c. and gave him a hug which would have killed six exquisites. The don, however, nowise dis- concerted, seemed to relish the exercise, and gave her a cordial reciprocal hug, no less to the scandal of the ladies than the amusement of the gentlemen. Colonel Phocion arose in apparent vexation, and the poet tried to cram not only the Cologne bottle, fan, and pocket handkerchief, but the album also into the reticule. But, at length, letting the don loose. Miss Violet retired a few paces, and supporting her form (alas ! not too delicate) on the edge of a reading table, clasped her hands on the top of her head, in the man- ner of Talma in the CEdipe, and stood for a moment as if rapt, and preparing to improvise some splendid flight of imagination and passion. It was but for a moment, for she was heavy, and the table was slight ; and the result was, according to the laws of gravitation, that both she and it went down plump together ; and down with them went a quantity of glasses of half-eaten ice-creams and half-swal- lowed lemonades, the splash of which spread wid^e, not only over the lady, but over all in her neighbourhood. No small confusion, and great and indifTerently disguised mer-
VOL. II.— Z
178 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
riment succeeded. The noise of the violins, and the cry of " Gentlemen, take your partners for a cotillion," pre- vented a continuance of the scene ; the suffering individuals hastily removing the spattered refreshments from their gar- ments as well as they were able. Colonel Phocion and M. Falconet both assiduously struggled to raise Miss Vio- let, and both claimed the honour of her hand, in virtue of a previous engagement. She said that she had promised Mr. Mansfield first, but feared that after so much excite- ment, she would be unable to bear the fatigue of a quadrille. As the colonel was leading her out, Miss Black, who sat in a corner, glowing with shame and confusion, said to her attendant Mr. Spratt, " Do assist me to get my aunt of one side, to put her a little in order. What a figure she is !" Mr. Spratt replied, rather ungallantly I must confess, "Oh, never mind ; she'll get into some other scrape directly. Halfmoon has got her things ; let him do it."
Miss Violet had her own theory about the poetry of mo- tion. She considered it, as she informed Colonel Phocion, " a salubrious as well as a sentimental branch of gymnas- tics." She thought that all the muscles should be brought into play, and the different passions expressed likewise in the attitudinization, according to the character of the music. The colonel, who was certainly no Vestris, nor even a dancing faun, had therefore a great deal to undergo in play- ing second to her fantasies, flings, and gyrations. As the music commenced, and she was bowing low as her girdle, she threw up her arms in such an ecstacy, that, as he was regaining his upright position, one of her elbows came into his left eye with an emphasis which occasioned a copious secretion of tears. But he had the consolation which misery loves, in perceiving that with the other elbow she had knocked a coffee-cup out of a young lady's hand, into the lap of an old one in a white satin gown. The music being Hvely, she was dashing and active. She took hold of Phocion's hands honestly, and whirled him round with a
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 179
velocity which made him giddy. In chasseing out of all lawful bounds, she kicked the shins of a gouty navy com- missioner ; and, in an indescribable whirl, overset two little attaches before they could get out of her eccentric orbit. " What a splurge^^ (said a Kentucky representative, in one of the favourite and most expressive words of Western invention), " what a splurge she makes." Well might he say so, for the whole house shook to its foundation ; crock- ery and panes of glass rattled ; and the host went out, in great uneasiness of mind, to examine a suspicious crack in the wall, and ascertain if its dimensions were beginning to amplify. But, as the measure changed to a more Lydian and less Bacchanalian strain, her whole expression of coun- tenance and attitude altered to that of languishing and interesting repose. She threw up her head with an appeal- ing melancholy, hke Niobe ; then assumed an air of vo- luptuous majesty, and glided along with the queenly grace of Semiramis ; then darting forward with " the arrowy rush" of Ronzi Yestris, she came plump against a tall black waiter, who was bringing refreshments through the door — refreshments, alas ! destined never to be tasted. The earth, or rather the floor, drank their contents ; and the tall black- amoor, in his fall down stairs, knocked over a fat German count, who fell upon a lean Ohio lawyer, who overset a French fiddler ; and they all came down, at the bottom of the stairs, upon the venerable household dog, who set up a yell of pain and consternation.
It cannot be doubted that Colonel Mansfield was much relieved when he was discharged from further duty in this cotillion, and at liberty to sit down by the side of his inter- esting partner. When they had both taken a little breath, Miss Lily declared that she was perfectly exhausted by her exertions. Her gallant attendant asked what refreshment he should have the honour of presenting to her. " Shall I offer you," said he, " some of the golden products of exube* rant tropical vegetation, where Phoebus — "
180 SCENES AT WASHIXGTON.
" I don't like sour oranges," said Miss Lilly. " Can't you get me some slices of Virginia ham, with plenty of mus» tard ? Thaf s perfect ambrosia."
*> Why," said her beau, " do you really prefer the flesh of that Moses-forbidden animal, to the golden products of tropical vegetation — where the solar beams — "
" Oh ! Moses was a gentleman of considerable ingenuity, and an author of great — I will not say unmerited — reputa- tion," said Miss Lily ; " I will give you my opinion of his works, and of the philosophy of his jurisprudence, dear Pho- cion, in full, hereafter. But you may bring me some of the ham, at present, if you please, with som.e pickled and stewed oysters. Ai d don't," she added, with a deep and solemn earnestness, " don't forget the mustard. And bring some porter too. I really require some renovation of the flag- ging powers, that are now collapsing from physical ex- haustion."
When the member returned, after an inquest of some minutes, loaded with the delicacies thus demanded, he found some difficulty in making his way through a close circle around the lady, to whom she w^as reading passages from an historical tragedy in blank verse, f om one of the manu- script volumes carried by the poet, entitled ** The Death OF Holofernes." She was reading with a loud voice a most enthusiastic passage, when she perceived her swain struggling to approach her with the supplies ; upon which, laying Holofernes in her lap, she promised to resume when she should be sufficiently reinvigorated, and proceeded to *' take the goods the gods provided."
In short, for I must be short. Miss Violet ate and drank, and recited and flirted, after her fashion, with the poet, making him tie her shoes, and fasten her bracelets, and put up her curls ; and asked the price of lands in the western country of Mr. Mansfield, and whether the soil was favour- able to the culture of dates and olives, and how a colony of Greeks Vv'ould do there, and whether the Mahometan
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 181
religion was tolerated, and if he could recommend the Ohio eanal loan as a safe investment, and whether there was a theatre at Louisville, and whether a Sunday opera, wdth good dancing, would not prove a profitable speculation at Columbus, &c. &c. until everybody went away, and this interesting couple among the rest ; Phocion being decidedly over head and ears in love with his magnificent companion, or her presumed pecuniary appurtenances, or both. Mr. Spratt having ceremoniously handed Miss Black into her aunt's carriage, declined accompanying them, and marched home on foot in a meditative mood.
Days passed on, in which no incident occurred which I have room to describe. Don Pedro de Sidonia became a constant visiter of Miss Lily, and apparently an acceptable one. Colonel Phocion also paid great attention to him, and predicted that he would soon be recognised as the greatest diplomatist of the age. Halfmoon having nothing else to do, of course had many opportunities of paying his atten- tions to the lady, and made a fair copy of Holofernes for her, having permission to make such alterations as his taste might suggest. Having a taste for the horrible, he proposed to amend the catastrophe, by cutting the tyrant's head oft' upon the stage, which led to a slight difference of opinion ; as the fair authoress admired the French school, and shrunk from the open display of such horrors as sound well in full- mouthed recitation.
How, when, or w^here a definite understanding took place between the Honourable Colonel Mansfield and Miss Violet Lily, I cannot positively say, as such matters are generally arranged in a tete-a-tete. But the date may probably be referred to a day, the events of which I shall partially record. Each of the parties thought the match an advan- tageous one, from the representations of the other. Miss Lily inferred, from some remarks let drop by he/ admirer, that he had farms on the Ohio, was an influential personage, politically speaking, and owned a principality of a million of
182 SCENES AT WA.SHINGTOX.
acres in the Mexican province of Texas. Mr. Mansfield drew conclusions from his adorable's discourse, that she had a great fortune invested in the different stocks in Europe, Asia, and America, and had also a w^allet full of bills of exchange, to a comfortable amount, for her travelling expenses.
One morning, escorted by him, the poet, his excellency from Paraguay, and M. Falconet, she proceeded to the capitol, and seated herself in the gallery, to hear a debate on graduating and paving Tennessee Avenue, on which Mr. Mansfield was determined to take the floor. He had pre- pared himself elaborately for the subject by reading half a volume of the Congressional Register, overhauling three of the shelves of the library, and obtaining several memoranda from the clerk's office. He had resolved to make a six hours' speech ; and actually did harangue nearly that quan- tity of time. When the first opportunity offered, he startled the house by the abruptness with which he rose; and, having thrown himself into what he considered a dignified attitude, he launched at once into a full tide of tremendous declamation. He meant, he said, to consider the subject in a constitutional light, and according to the sound principles of constitutional construction. He gave a history of the origin and adoption of the constitution, and of its amend- ments, with obituary notices of all its framers and signers, and complimentary eulogies on the survivors. He then stated some of its provisions ; that the president and vice- president were elected for four years, with the reason thereof ; that the senators were elected for six years, with the probable reason thereof; and that members of the House of Representatives were elected for only two years, with the possible reason thereof. The right of Congress to pave the Tennessee Avenue in the city of Washington, in which, he said, it being a western state, and he being a western man, his constituents were particularly interested, resulted not from any power vested in Congress over the
SCENES AT AVASHINGTON. 183
district of Columbia, as he should demonstrate in full ; nor yet from Washington being the seat of government. These points he handled in an elaborate argument of an hour and a half; by which time no members remained in their seats, except a few who were writing letters, a few who had dined early and were taking a nap ; and four new and con- scientious representatives, recently arrived, who had pledged themselves to attend punctually to business, and felt obliged to seem to listen.
The orator then went on to prove, that the right of Congress to pave Tennessee Avenue did not arise from that of establishing post-offices and post-roads. On this head he spoke for an hour, when one of the four con- scientious members, who was terribly hungry and thirsty, with such of the letter-writing and newspaper-reading members as had finished their business, and such of the early diners as had waked up, had severally withdrawn.
Mr. Mansfield then proceeded to argue, that the right of Congress to pave Tennessee Avenue did not arise from the constitutional power vested in them to regulate com- merce between the several states ; though this was a road between Maryland and Virginia. He then apostrophized the genius of liberty, who, he said, had been nursed at the breast of commerce. And then he apostrophized the angel of commerce, who, he said, was the mother of navigation, the daughter of trade, the grand-daughter of industry, the niece of manufactures, the cousin of science, and the grand* mother of the revenue of the United States. As he was entering upon a history of the national debt, and a detail of the sources of revenue, with a bird's eye view of the tariff question, two others of the conscientious members, with a majority of the writers, readers, and sleepers decamped.
He made his peroration in a blaze of eloquence, statistics, and poetry; quoted Pope's Homer, Seybert's Statistics, the Pleasures of Hope, Morse's Geography, Hail 'Columbia, and M'Culloch on Interest ; and wound up with a grand
184 SCENES AT WASHINGTOIf.
simile, of the American Eagle " roosting on Chimborazo, with one wing shading the naked negro of St. Domingo, and with the other shielding from the boreal blast the shivering savage of Michigan ; nd the Northwest Territory."
He paused, and looked around him. The lamps were burning with a dim and melancholy light. There was a beggarly account of empty chairs. A few members had dropped in after dinner, to see what was to be done next. The chairman was rubbing his eyes, hearing no longer the music of the orator's cadences, which at several times had lulled his senses into forgetfulness. The gallery was empty, except that two figures still remained, in a devout attitude of attention- One was Miss Lily, the other the poor poet, who, more constant than her other attendants, had never quitted her side, though he was half-starved and half-asleep, and half-crazy with love and jealousy. The lady had with her a w^ell-stuffed wicker reticule, to which she had occa- sionally resorted. It undoubtedly contained a bottle of Cologne, and might have contained some other kind of refreshment, though I venture no opinion as to what it was.
As the accomplished performer of the six hours' speech was crossing the rotunda, with an air of abstraction, gravity, and somewhat repulsive importance, Miss Lily suddenly sprang before him, and clasped him in her arms. It was with no small difficulty that he supported her momentum. She sobbed in a violent paroxysm, which seemed to be the consequence of high-WTOught and long-suppressed feeling. Mr. Mansfield staggered, as her spasms increased, while the echoes of the rotunda repeated and re-repeated her singults and sighs, and the sonorous salutes which she bestowed on the countenance of the defender of sound constitutional principles. Halfmoon, seeing that he was de trap, and that there was no further occasion for his services, went home, in the hope of getting something to eat, and left the high- contracting parties to their own reflections. But, as he
SCENES AT Washington. 185
retired, he cast such a look at the couple as old Satan did at Adam and Eve, when the former pressed the " matron lip" of the latter " with kisses pure."
They returned to Miss Violet's lodgings in a hack, and entered Mrs. Cricket's mansion with an air which indicated that some interesting negotiation had been brought to a successful conclusion. I pass over what I could easily de- scribe (for I have been in similar situations myself), — the probable particulars of the conference which had taken place. As they entered the parlour, with great rapidity (as Miss Lily complained that she was terribly hungry), their progress was arrested by an unexpected apparition. Miss Phcebe Black was seen reclining her head on Mr. Spratt's shoulder, and sobbing bitterly ; while Spratt, as he sustained her comfortable looking person, had a senti- mental expression, which was quite out of his usual line.
Miss Violet put herself into an attitude of astonishment, . which was not affected ; and, after a pause, during which Phoebe had time enough to wipe her eyes, and regain some composure, exclaimed, " Miss Black, what's the meaning of this here ? What's the matter with you ?" — Hereupon Mr. Spratt, Phoebe being silent, took her by the hand, and led her to the opposite door, saying " Ma'am, she has good enough reason for crying, as you ought to know." And, having thus discharged Miss Black, he blew his nose, took a resolute pinch of snuff, adjusted his wig, and marched sternly past Miss Lily and Mr. Mansfield.
A late dinner was now announced, and the enamoured pair, together with Halfmoon, made such a meal as might have been expected, after so long a period of abstinence. The poet sat mumchance, looking as black as Erebus, and seemed trying to force down his vexation, by swallowing exorbitant mouthfuls of provision. Miss Lily and Mr. Mansfield cast sheep's-eyes at each other, an^ ate up a whole leg of mutton between them. When the poet retired, they were left to enjoy a delicious interview, upon which
VOL. II. A A
186 SCENES AT AVASHINGTON.
I shall not intrude ; but I believe they talked about business matters, as well as those of sentiment.
The next morning at breakfast, the table being full, after Miss Lily had swallowed her fifth cup of coflee, with a few pounds of fried liver, half a dozen boiled eggs, and a plate of toast, Mr. Mansfield entered abruptly, and withal rather sheepishly ; and went up to Miss Violet, who extended her left hand to him (wiping her mouth with the right), which he seized and kissed, with a priggish and self-satis- fied air. He then got a little stool, which was standing innocently by the side of the fireplace, and sat himself be- hind the lady, looking lack-a-daisical and sentimental, and with an expression of conscious triumph. He was dressed in a blue coat, and a pair of white kerseymere breeches, with flesh-coloured silk stockings and a white waistcoat ; and held in his hand a bouquet of green-house flowers, con- sisting of a piece of an orange tree, with a big green orange tied fast to it, a myrtle, an artificial rose, and a bit of gera- nium. Having composed his person, or rather discomposed it, into an awkward attitude, he gave her this combination of the works of nature and art, saying, " Thus, sweet Violet, I present to you, in humble prostration, the emblems of vic- tory and love."
" Ah !" exclaimed M. Falconet, " voila Mirabeau aux pieds de Madame de Stael ! It is Socrate at the feets of Madame Aspasie. It is so like what I use see in Paris, where the scjavans srow themselves to the feets of the ugly women of genius. Voila le triumphe de I'amour ! Vive I'esprit ! I go srow myself on the tozzer side of be- hind her, diable !" Whereupon, with a cofl^ee cup in the left hand, and a plate containing a salad of potatoes and a round of hot toast stuck on a fork in the right, he went round the table and accommodated himself with another stool by Miss Lily's side, singing, with his mouth tolerably full,
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 187
" O dieu d'amour, Je t'implore," &c.
Mr. Jenks exclaimed, between the suftbcation of two morsels of sausage, " what a queer nosegay !"
The poet, who looked gloomily, and what is vernacularly called grum, said snappishly, " The laurel is the emblem of victory, the myrtle belongs to Venus, and Bucchus's is the vine. The olive has been decided to be the best thing to make Grecian wreaths of victory out of, by the Greek ladies who gave a premium. But I never heard of such things as them belonging to none of the gods and goddesses. If I was to make up a bunch to express my passion, I would make it such as I have described, in an occasional poem;
Deeper than is the moonlit ocean's flood, Sacred as freedom dyed in tyrant's blood. Sharper than is the ravening tiger's tooth, Constant as is the eternal flash of truth, And fitful as the fervid pulse of youth."
On which M. Falconet, getting up suddenly, asked, " Mais, diable ! what bouquet did you make him, after all ?" And seizing Miss Violet's disengaged hand (Colonel Phocion having the other), he exclaimed, in an impassioned manner, " What sort of bouquet shall / make for to exprime 7/2?/ passion ?"
Mr. Spratt looked on the whole of this ceremonial with an air of profound and hearty contempt, and having finished his beef-steak, observed, in a peremptory manner, " All such nonsense has been exploded long ago. Can't people eat their breakfasts without being plagued with such actor- folks ? For shame, Mr. Mansfield !"
Miss Violet rolled up her eyes to heaven, and releasing her hands from the grasp of her admirers, folded them on her breast, as Mrs. Siddons, or some other great actress, is represented in some picture, that has or has not been
188 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
painted. She was meditating a speech, and made it, as follows :
" Circumstances have placed me in a condition beyond my own control. Destiny, and the necessary concatena- tion of cause and effect, pre-existing to my own volitions and sensations, have put me in a position, imperiously de- manding an explication of the moral attitude in which I am j)osee. True it is, that the sentimentalities and gallantries of youthful passion are but the playful ebullitions of consti- tutional fervour, which the maturer considerations of sound philosophy control. This nosegay, however, I accept from a hand w^hich destiny has decided shall be eternally united to mine. But when I say eternally, I beg not to be under- stood in the vulgar acceptation of the term, nor as allowing the existence of any eternity, past, present, or future ; nor still less as assenting to the superstition of the indissoluble perpetuity of the matrimonial league or connubial covenant. But a similarity of pursuits and taste and genius, I confess with a maiden's blush, which I w^ould not make if I could help it" (and which nobody saw), " has united me with this illustrious representative of the people."
Here, having risen in the warmth of her declamation, she laid her hand on Spratt's shoulder, who started up as if something had bitten him, saying, " No ! — how? — what? — f
not me ? I beg your pardon, ma'am ; here is some mis- take."
While Miss Violet paused in her oratory, a terrier dog
took occasion to sit in her chair, and peruse her countenance.
She continued, with one of her curls hanging over her left
eye, as follows :
" No, citizen Spratt ! It is this illustrious man, from the
banks of Muckrinkskunksky, who has triumphed over my
virgin heart, and w^on my plighted faith. I yield my hand
to one of nature's nobles, a plain but sublime republican.
This contract made before high heaven — stand up, Phocion
-^I consider as binding as if ratified by pope or cardinal,
SCENES AT WASIIIAGTOK. 189
patriarch, or rabbi, or hireling Protestant priest. And here I declare before the totality of existence, and the rest of creation, that I take this man to be nay lawful husband — that is to say, during the continuance of the contract."
Phocion had risen, and was obviously startled by the rapidity and energy of the lady's proceedings. He mut- tered something about the necessity of complying with the customs of society, and the lady's doing him too much honour : she holding his hand, however, all the while, and he playing with a great gilt watch chain, and a flat mahog- any coloured seal as big as a platter.
The Frenchman, with a shrug, sat down to finish his breakfast. Spratt said nothing, and the others were lost in astonishment. But the poet, after tumbling over a tea- kettle, throwing down a high-backed chair with a child in it, and treading on the cat's tail, came round to where Phocion was standing, in his way to the door, and said, *' Sir, you shall hear from me." Thus having spoken, he departed ; Spratt remarking, " If he does, he'll have to pay the postage."
Not to be too proKx, it appears, that after breakfast, Miss Black, by Mr. Spratt's invitation, took a walk to see a collection of pictures, or of wild beasts, I declare I do not know which. I suppose they were gone about two hours ; but when they returned, Miss Phoebe found that her aunt had gone off with her baggage, under the protec- tion of the Honourable Mr. Mansfield, and departed for New- York. Of this fact she was apprized by Mrs. Cricket, and by the following letter.
"Dear Niece,
" I am gone to the North, having married Mr. Mansfield, who goes along with me. As it would not be convenient to take you along, and I have inculcated upen you the natural independence of woman, you must take care of yourself. I have paid the bills, and leave you ten dollars
190 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
enclosed, with which you will defray your expenses until you hear from me. Be prudent in your disbursements, and in case you meet with any embarrassment, read my work * on the Principles of mental and moral Identity,' in con- nexion with my didactic Epicurean romance, which you have with you. In case you want to write to me soon, direct to New- York, to the care of Mr. Grant Thorburn, agriculturist ; who, though not personally known to me, is, I understand, a personal fi'iend of the whole human race. Adieu, dear Phoebe. Tender ties for a time distract me from you, but when we are settled on the banks of the Muckrinkskunksky, it will give us pleasure to see you occasionally at our social board.
" Violet I.ily Mansfield."
The next morning, the following paragraph appeared in the National Intelligencer.
" Married, yesterday, at the hotel of his Excellency the
Minister Plenipotentiary of Paraguay, by the Rev. ,
the Hon. Phocion Milton Mansfield, of the House of Rep- resentatives, to Miss Violet Lily, the lovely author of ' The Castle of Epicurus,' ' Hicks's Hall,' and various other popu- lar romantic and metaphysical works."
No one in Washington knew where the hotel of his ex- cellency was : but, with the usual courtesy shown by the people of that city to all titular dignitaries, they were as willing to believe that the room occupied by Senor Pedro do Sidonia, over the barber's in X. street, was the quarters of a plenipotentiary, as Don Quixote was to take the fat landlord's inn for a castle.
Here then we drop the curtain over the first act of this drama, and imagine that the next commences in the great commercial metropolis.
In an elegantly furnished private apartment in the City
SCENES AT WASHINGTON, 191
Hotel, was assembled one morning a party, consisting of a lady and three gentlemen. The lady was Mrs. Mansfield, late the lovely Miss Violet Lily, author of many popular works, &c. One of the gentlemen, sitting by her side on the sofa, was her simple and sublime republican husband. The other two were his Excellency from Paraguay, and M. Angelo Falconet. The former gentleman had travelled with the delighted and delightful pair from Washington, wishing to see the country, and to give them the benefit of his diplomatic countenance and agreeable society. Mr. Mansfield had been induced to make what he considered a good investment of his own pay, and some of his wife's loose change, by purchasing of his excellency for $600, a bill for $1000, drawn, or purporting to be drawn, by Doctor Francia, on a meritorious banking institution, chartered by the State of New- Jersey, and planted on the banks of the Hudson, to supply the demand of New- York for neat, new, and prettily engraved paper-money. The same hotel was of course the head-quarters of the Paraguay mission. M. Falconet had arrived on business but an hour or two before, and called immediately to offer his congratulations.
" Ah !" said he, " mais quel bonheur de vous trouver ici belle Violette. You look superbe — femme vraiment su- perbe ! Quel embonpoint 1 Vivent I'amour et la philoso- phic ! Be pleased to agreer my congratulations on your weddings. I most go make you some leetel, what you call presents. I most what you call chucks some homage to your feets. Let me see. I make you one leetel colossal statue, with Philosophic, who take lesson from Cupidon. Ha ! ha ! c'est une belle conception."
" Will you ?" said Mrs. Mansfield ; " that will be sub- lime. But it will take you some years."
" No ! no ! belle Violette ; I make him in some plaster, in six days, maybe !" *
Here a waiter looked in, and told Phocion that some gen- tlemen wanted to see him, down stairs.
192 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
" Such compliments from the hand of genius," said the lady, " are grateful to the heart of sensibility. I must show you a magnificent cadeau which I have received from this our distinguished republican friend, the illustrious ambassa- dor from Paraguay. I selected these, at his request, from ever such a sight fetched here by the jeweller's man, yesterday."
It may seem strange, that Mrs. Mansfield, who talked so sublimely on many occasions, should interlard her con- versation with common-place vulgarisms. But it is plain, from every day's observation, that no scrambling for mis- cellaneous knowledge and hard words in subsequent life, will extirpate the habits of speech contracted in childhood and youth.
She exhibited to the polite sculptor a box, containing some diamond earrings, a ruby breastpin, and some pearl ornaments for the hair, which he admired with a thousand exclamations, and praised the liberality of the munificent and splendid diplomatist to the skies.
" Ah," said he, " they shall not say, no more, at Wash- ingtons, that his excellence did not pay his leetel bills to his tailleur and cordonnier, nor his rentes to the barbier, my God !"
'* Madre de Dios !" said his excellency, " todos los em- bustcros seram ahorcados."
" Yes," said the lady, " it has ever been the case that greatness is attended by calumny.
' Still envy follows merit as its shade.'
The Swan of Avon truly and sweetly says,
* How sharper than a wiper's tooth it is To have a good for nothing pack about us !'
1 fear that even my exalted Phocion will not escape the shaft? of malice, and the persecutions of the ungrateful."
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 193
Here they heard the noise of many people, coming up stairs in loud and angry conversation, and above all, the Voice of the exalted Phocion, exclaiming, " That cock won't fight. I'm a limb of the law myself, and you can't come over me with that old case in your twenty-first Johnson. Do it at your peril. I'll have you all taken up by the mar- shal of the district. Do you think I don't know what privilege is ? Do you think I'm a member of Congress for nothing ?"
Here the door opened, and Mr. Mansfield entered, red with wrath, followed by two strangers ; behind whom slowly came the discarded Halfmoon, looking queerer than usual.
"Nov\r," said the member, " do what you dare." " Oh ! as to daring, mister," said one of the strangers, a rusty-looking, lean young man, terribly pockmarked, and with a hare-lip ; " 1 don't want to show no disrespect, you know ; but I know what the law is, and this here 1 ilng must be settled, you see, or the sheriff must take good bail at his o'vn risk, you see."
" He'll run the risk of being carried neck and heels to Washington, to ask pardon of Congress on his bare knees, if he does it," said Phocion.
The other stranger, who was a gentlemanly, good-locMng man, said, " Really, this is wasting time to no purpose. I have a great deal of other business to attend to. This is an awkward affair, madam, which I hope can be easily arranged ; but this gentleman, your husband, has got into a violent passion, for which I am sorry. I am instructed to serve a writ upon you, and want bail, which I suppose you can easily get, for three thousand dollars."
Here Phocion again broke in, saying, " I tell you it a'nt law nowheres."
" I guess I know what's lor, as well as you do, mister," said the hare-lipped attorney. "I've heerd the' recorder decide it so, fifty times over. I don't want to be teached,
VOL. II. B B
194 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
lor, by a lawyer out of the wild woods neither, where they don't know a soopseny from a si nul."
" What is the meaning of all this ?" said the lady. " And are there writs, and all the detestable chicanery of English law in this free Roman country ! And how can I, a matron female, be held to bail ? Oh Cobbett and codification 1 Why there's no such law even in feudal England."
" Nor here neither," said Phocion. " I'll call the servants to send for the police, to take you all up. Get out of the room, you shabby lot of rascals, ragamuffins, and impostors !"
" Rascals and impostors is actionable ;" said the attorne}^ " Jist try and call the servants, mister. Maybe you want the posse comitatus. Do you know what that is in the woods ?"
" Madam," said the officer, " I will explain it to you, if you will be calm. That gentleman" (pointing to the poet) " has brought an action against you for a breach of promise of marriage ; and there is an order to hold you to bail for three thousand dollars. I can only do my duty, and serve the writ. If any thing is wrong, you must advise with your counsel as to the remedv."
Halfmoon had gradually advanced to within a few yards of where Mrs. Mansfield sat. Suddenly starting up, she seized him by the collar, and shaking him in no gentle manner, exclaimed, " What ! you contemptible, jingling, poor, beg- garly, rhyming, rigmaroling, ragged, blear-eyed puppy ! marry you ? what put that into your crazy brains ?" And here she gave him four or five hearty cuffs on both sides of his head, which rang through the house. Then suddenly she " changed her hand, and checked her pride ;" and letting go the buffeted bard, said, in more gentle accents, " So, sir, all your protestations of love have come to this ! This is your generosity as a republican man, and your sympathy as a votary of literature ! Begone, and never, never let me see your face again !" and she collapsed on the sofa.
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 195
*' If that there an't a good assault and battery, I don't know ;" said the attorney. " I wish I had a sealed com- mon-plea writ in my pocket. My brother, missus, will be gone when he gets his damages, or bail ; or we'll take you off to jail, in plaguy short metre, now I tell you."
" Dearest Phocion," said Mrs. Mansfield, " where is my Cologne !" M. Falconet flew to the mantel-piece, and brought a bottle from thence, some of which the lady emp- tied into a tumbler, and helping herself to some water, gulped it down.
The deputy sheriff, in the meantime, who had more sense, and, as I said before, more good breeding than any other party present, had drawn the excited and wrathful Mr. Mansfield into a corner, and held communion with him, which lasted for some minutes. The latter was overheard talking about the privileges of a member of Congress, and of those residing in an ambassador's hotel ; but at length he seemed to cede the point in discussion, and turned doggedly towards the company. The officer requested the two brothers to be seated. The attorney leaned his chair back, at the usual angle of negligence, hoisted one foot on the front bar, and stretched the other leg over it, until that foot was parallel with his face. The poet sat leaning on a table, forming an illustration of the gap between anger and despair, in Collins's Ode to the Passions.
" Perhaps, gentlemen," said the officer, " there may be a compromise of this ugly matter, which will save the feelings of both parties."
" Well," said the attorney, " Mr. Mansfield can plank five thousand dollars, half what I laid my damages at, and pay the costs."
" Five thousand sea serpents !" said Phocion. " You never saw as much as a quarter of it, in all your life."
" A quarter," said the poet, musing, and puzzling his brains with dividing five thousand by four, " that's thir-
196 SCEISES AT WASHINGTON.
teen hundred and seventy-five dollars ; I'll be generous, and take it."
" With costs and counsel fee," said the attorney. " There's a fair offer, and the last you'll get nov^, I tell you."
" Mais, diable !" said M. Falconet, " c'est trop, c'est enorrne."
" Oh ! that's all stuff," said Mr. Mansfield ; " to get rid of you, I'll give. you twenty dollars, and you may go to the devil."
"Eternal powers !" exclaimed the poet — " twenty dollars ! as the price of blighted hope and crushed affection — a youth of misery, and a death of despair ! I scorn the base com- promise with feeling. I will take three hundred and fifty, and not a cent less."
A deal of curious haggling ensued, which it would be unpleasant and unprofitable to repeat in detail. The upshot was, that Warren Hancock Halfmoon agreed to accept eighty -three dollars and seventy- nine cents, from Mr. and Mrs. Mansfield, in full satisfaction for damages, costs, and certain expenses for hack-hire, to which, he said, the lady had put him in Washington. The attorney counted the money, some of w^hich he abstracted, and the poet put the rest of the bills in his trowsers' pocket, carefully depositing the change in that of his waistcoat. The attorney and the officer then withdrew ; but the poet tarried on the threshold, as if loath to depart, and cast one longing, lingering look behind. Suddenly turning round, he advauvied to Mrs. Mansfield, and said, " After all that has passed between us, I cannot bear to part in resentment."
" No," said Phocion, who was writing, " you must not go until you have signed this receipt in full."
" I will," said Halfmoon ; " and I give too a receipt in full for all the torments this bleeding heart sustains. O Violet ! fair and cruel ! that we had never met, or never parted thus ! But while I present my fortunate rival with a receipt
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 197
m full, when I might have recovered ten thousand dollars in damages, allow me to accompany it with a small poetical effusion of the heart." So saying, and having signed the receipt, he presented to the lady two soiled pieces of rumpled paper ; in doing which he ventured to take her hand, which he bowed to kiss, but did not ; because she gave him a de- cided whack with the other, which sent him reeling to the door, saying, " Get out, you crazy fool — you've got your eighty dollars, and may be off!"
Halfmoon did go off, after a few wry faces, and left the gentlefolks to enjoy their elegant conversation without being molested. The receipt and poetry were read, the first of which ran thus :
« New- York, Feb. 19th, 18-^.
" Received from the Honourable Colonel Phocion Milton Mansfield, eighty-three dollars and seventy-nine cents, lawful money of the United States of America ; the same being in full satisfaction, acquittal, and discharge of the said Hon. Colonel Phocion Milton Mansfield, and of Violet his wife, of and from all and all manner of claims and demands, actions, and causes of action whatsoever, which I, or my heirs, executors, administrators or assigns, now have or may have at the date hereof, against the said Honourable Colonel Mansfield and Violet his said wife, or any or either of them, for or by reason of any act, deed, promise, contract, tort, damage, slander, assault and battery, trespass, cove- nant, replevin, or breach of the peace, heretofore done, accruing, or accrued."
Such was the composition to which the poet affixed his signature. As a pendant I add the following effervescence of his own brains.
198 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
TO VIOLET.
North Carolina's vaunted gold,
Nor all the gems of Samarcand Can love requite, unbought, unsold,
Too pure, too deep, to understand. And when that love, the Fates' decree,
(If Fates there are who rule our lives), Has crossed, as it has you and me.
Despair, despair, alone survives.
And, as an eagle on the height
Of Chimborazo, by the levin Is scorched, and wheels his faltering flight
Down to the ocean's depths, from heaven ; So I, from high prognostic bliss,
In fall precipitate am hurled ; And for the vision-quaf-fed kiss,
See but the dreary ethnic world.
My heart is proud, and will not break,
Though Titan's vultures gnaw my liver ; Yet shall that heart for ever ache.
And thine with sympathy shall shiver. Then say not I can be consoled.
An exile on life's moral strand, By all North Carolina's gold,
Or jewelry of Samarcand !
To save my own character on the score of legal infor- mation, I must say that I was at a loss to know how Half- moon the attorney obtained an order to hold Mrs. Mans- field to bail, until I learned some time since that he was in the habit of scratching out and interlining old orders, a practice which led to the necessity of his disappearing one day to seek his fortune elsewhere.
That evening the whole party went to the play, and having secured places, sat in one of the most conspicuous front seats of the side boxes. I believe the performance was Tom and Jerry, with Catharine and Petruchio for the afterpiece, but have not room enough for detail. A re-
SCENES AT Vv ASIIINGTON. 199
spectable looking man, in an adjoining box, cast many scru- tinizing glances at Mr. Mansfield, and whispered to a per- son who sat next him, who fixed his gaze in the same direction. Mrs. Lily, who was on the look-out for admi- ration, and was both dressed and undressed to an anoma- lous degree, could not help observing that her husband, and not she, was the subject of observation. The constant and peremptory stare of an unwashed loon in the pit, she ascribed to her own attractions. Indeed, there were opera- glasses enough pointed at her to gratify the most insatiate vanity ; and during the interval between the entertainments, two lion-hunters, — a great naturalist, and a great man in the abstract, — came into the box and introduced themselves to the minister of Doctor Francia, tendering him their services in the city, and he introduced them to his party. From one of these gentlemen they received an invitation to a lecture next day, to be delivered at the opening of a Na- tional Institute, established that year and since defunct. On the whole, they returned highly pleased with the manner in which they had passed the evening. Alas ! as Pilpay, the eastern sage, has most truly remarked, " What is human bliss ? It is like an apple cart with two wheels, extremely liable to be upset."
The next morning, after a late breakfast, at which SenoF Pedro de Sidonia did not make his appearance, sending word that he had a severe head-ache, Mr. Mansfield went to the United States Bank, with credentials from his wife, to transfer some stock standing there in her name as guar- dian, of Miss Phoebe Black to his own. As he entered the banking room, he was struck w^th the appearance of a figure standing by the counter, resembling strongly that of one familiar to his sight. As the person turned round he was no longer in doubt, though somev/hat in amazement. " Why, Mr. Spratt," he said, " what brought you here 1" " Oh ! just to transfer eighty shares of stock, belonging to my wife," said Spratt, rather dryly.
200 SCENES AT WASHINGTON^
" Your wife ! why, are you married ?"
" Yes. I see by the papers you are too."
" Who did you marry ?"
" Oh ! a young woman in ^Yashington," said Spratt, wiping his spectacles, and putting them in his pocket. " Good morning, sir." And so saying, he walked out of the bank without further ceremony,
Phocion addressed himself to the clerk, with whom the other member had just been transacting business, and stated w^hat he wanted to do, and what vouchers he had to au- thorize him to do it. The clerk informed him that the gentleman who had just gone out had already done pre- cisely the same thing, having produced abundant testimo- nials that he was the husband of Miss Phoebe Black, who was of full age, v/ith all the papers and certificates neces-^ sary.
Mr. Mansfield returned to his lodgings, out of humour with the world in general, and with Mr. Spratt, himself, and his wife in particular. He found that a precious can tie was thus cut out of the round whole of his anticipated wealth. He knev/ that he should soon want ready money^ and though he had promised not to present Dr. Francia's draft for acceptance in two weeks to come, began to think of doing so immediately, in order to turn it into cash. He also resolved to make his wife give him the warrants of her Guatamala stock, and see w^hat he could do with some of them in the market. He did not find her in the parlour on his return, and sitting down in a crusty mood, took up a newspaper. Glancing his eyes in a wandering way over the columns, they were attracted by the following extract from an English journal :
" Among the other bubbles which burst in the city yes- terday, was that most transparent one of all, the Royal and Imperial Guatamala Refining Company. Mr. Twiss has hoppe4 the twig, and it is supposed has gone to see Brother
SCENES AT AVASIIINGTOX. 201
Jonathan, and dispense his political economy to the 'tarna- tion Yankees. The stockholders in this concern are per- sonally liable to the creditors."
Mr. Mansfield turned pale, and felt sick at heart. He rang the bell violently, when his wife entered, in agitation, saying, " Dearest Phocion, there has been a robbery — I have lost my jewels which his excellency — " Here a ser- vant showed in a gentlemanly and well-shaped looking man, who bowed first to the lady and then to the gentle- man. Colonel Phocion, who was muttering between his teeth, something which I am afraid sounded portentously like an execration about the jewels, was obliged to bow in return, and inquire if the stranger wished to see him. On his again bowing assent, he requested him to be seated, biting his handkerchief to prevent himself from grinding his teeth, or to take oflf the edge of his vexation. The gentle- manly and well-shaped looking stranger, whom Mrs. M. recognised as the individual she had seen in the next box the night before, accordingly accommodated himself with a seat, but not till the lady had done so first, and, after a pause, said —
" I took the liberty of calling upon you, sir, in relation to a little account between us, for clothes furnished by me, of some years standing. This is a copy of the bill then rendered, which you will probably remember, from the circumstance that you were then going to the Legislature. I ought to have charged interest, but it is not my practice with gentlemen. This bill, you will observe, is made out in the name of my last assignee, of whom I am only the agent, having been unfortunate in business two or three times, since I had the honour of seeing you."
" This — " said Colonel Phocion, with a strange and most apocryphal expression — " This is for somebody else, sir ; I know no more about it than the dead. I h^ve never been to the Assembly here in this State When you find
VOL. II. CC
202 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
the right man, I advise you to charge him compound in- terest by all means."
" I hope you will pardon me, sir," said the visiter ; " but the extraordinary resemblance must have deceived me en- tirely, as it has others. Pray did you ever hear of a gen- tleman mamed — "
Here the door again opened, and a man entered, w^hoso appearance was in no ways prepossessing, who did not take off his hat, and had not taken off the mud from his sprawUng and patched imitations of half boots. He marched straight up to Mr. Mansfield, and fumbled under a bilious looking, weather-beaten, tavern-stained plaid cloak, and the breast of a body coat of no colour at all, until he had hauled out a vast greasy pocket-book, whose original and existing hues were equally unimaginable and unascertainable. From this he produced an oblong piece of paper, and said, " I've got a warrant agin you, squire."
" A warrant against me ! — what does all this mean ?" said Colonel Mansfield. " I owe nobody here a cent — I never was here before in my life ; and I wish to — but no matter. You are under a mistake, my friend, and may go about your business."
" Well, now, that's a good one," said the constable. " How- sumdever, my business is to serve this here warrant. But darn my old shoes, if it do'nt make me laugh, for all. You never was here before, hay V
" None of your impertinence, if you please," said Phocion. " Show me your warrant. I know nothing about these people. My nam.e is Mansfield."
" Oh ! I know that very well," said the ungenteel looking man. " That's the name you go by now, but you didn't used to. That'll do for the flats. Didn't I know you up to Sawpitts, at that old election where Tompkins run agin Clinton ? I am glad to see you are so well ofl' in the world. I suppose this wopping fat lady is your wife, what you got all the money by. Fm glad to see you so well, too, ma'am.
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 203
I always likes to be a kinder civil to ladies ; but I jist had a little business with your man."
" I was aware, sir," said the polite tailor, " that you were known as Mr. Mansfield ; but had formed a supposition that in consequence of receiving a legacy, or marrying under particular circumstances, you had changed your name."
" It is altogether a mistake, sir," said Phocion. " I never had another name since my baptism. I have heard re- cently of many strange cases of personal resemblance, and mistakes of identity occurring in consequence ; but this ex- ceeds them all. But to cut this matter short, I am a mem- ber of Congress, and will not have my privacy intruded upon by such ragamuffins as this fellow. I cannot be arrested, mistake or no mistake, by reason of my privi- lege."
" Well, now,'^ said the constable, " darn my old shoes, if that an't another good one. You a member of Con- gress ! My eyes ! There's no telling what we may all come to be. But you must settle all that with Justice Swanton. Only you don't mean to say, do you, that you an't Plutarch Peck, that used to live up to New-RochellCj to old Aunt Peck's?"
" I do, you scoundrel !" said Phocion, rising in a phrensy, and ringing the bell. " I'll let you know — " here the door again opened, and two other persons came in ; the one a plain-looking citizen, the other in a cartman's frock. They advanced with a doubtful air. At length the former said, " Cousin Plutarch, I suppose you don't choose to know your old relations !"
" Not if you are one of them," said Phocion ; " for I never saw you before since I was created."
" Oh, cousin Plutarch !" said the cartman. " You used to pull a long bow ; but how can you stand there, and say you don't know cousin Diodatus here, what trustfed you for a watch ; and me, John Peck, that did all your arrants ? I
204 SCENES AT V/ASHINGTON.
just called to see how you and your wife did, and ask for a trifle you owe me, including that 'ere half dollar, for carry* ing a letter to old Mr. Viellecour. Why I know'd you as soon as ever I seen you in the pit, last night."
The plain citizen thus designated as Diodatus, said here- upon, perceiving that the member was striding rapidly across the floor, apparently working himself into a still sub- limer passion — " Plutarch, I have not come to dun you for the watch and seals, though you ought to have paid for them or returned them. There is no use of denying that you are yourself, for I will swear that I sold you that same chain, three years ago and more. But what I came after is of more importance to me. A rascally fellow that is travelling about with you ; a sort of Forty gee-Spanishman, that says he is ambassador to somebody, has bought jewelry ofme— "
Here Doctor Francia's lieutenant entered.
*' Well, sir," said Phocion, " here is the fellow you speak of — his Excellency Don Pedro de Sidonia, minister pleni- potentiary and envoy extraordinary from his Serenity the Dictator of Paraguay. I must appeal to your excellency whether you choose to have your hotel a thoroughfare for all the scum of the earth, who choose to mistake me for Pluto somebody, and to call your excellency a fellow and a rascal."
" Valgan me todos los dioses !" said the minister. " What for come all this populacho in my hotel ? You borrachos, ladrones, and very vulgar persons, go yourselves away luego, and instantaneamently, or I will send you all to my augoost master Doctor Francia, who shall shoot you at the back door before his almuetzo."
Here the well-known Jacob Hays, the high-constable, introduced himself, took hold of his excellency by the arm, and said, " Well, Peter Siddons, we've got you again, have we ? You're wanted to serve out the rest of your time at Sing-Sing. How much counterfeit money have you passed
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 205
since you broke out ? Let me look at your ears." Where- upon this uncivil personage took hold of the ambassador's wig, and, by a curious slight, removed an exuberance of coal-black hair, and left a pate covered with a meagre and close-shaved red or golden crop. Nor did Mr. Hays's familiarity stop here. In a brief space of time he had searched all his excellency's pockets, ordinary and extraor- dinary, and, from among a strange medley of articles, pro- duced a paper-covered box, upon which he observed to Diodatus, " I guess these are your things, Mr. Peck. You can come to the police-office and get them."
Like lago, Peter Siddons made no speech on retiring. He grinned at Phocion and the lad}^ and withdrew under charge of his escort. The watchmaker followed, as did the cartman ; the latter observing, " I am sorry that you seem to be in a bad way, cousin Plutarch, and I won't bother you about old debts ; only I ought to have had that 'are half dollar."
Mrs. Mansfield had fainted away. Her husband called his two remaining guests out of the room, and handing the constable some bills, said, he did it to be rid of him, but would have restitution, and requested the civil tailor to call again next morning, when he would convince him he was in error.
Mrs. Mansfield came to herself when she heard no longer the sound of voices. She waited impatiently for the return of her husband, who had inhumanly left her in a state of insensibility. But he did not come back. He had been to his chamber, made up a slight parcel from his wardrobe, and " parted like Ajut, never to return," and his bills at the City Hotel remain unpaid until this day.
Those who have read the preceding part of these my lu- cubrations will recognise an old acquaintance. Those who have not had the taste or opportunity so to do, will readily conjecture that he had previously, under a different name, exploded in the State of N'ew-York.
206 SCENES AT AVASIIINGTON.
Mrs. Mansfield, Mrs. Peck, or Miss Violet Lily, as she again called herself after being deserted, offered Holofernes to the manager of one of the theatres. Though he would not take the tragedy, he v/as willing to take the author upon trial ; and " the part of Juliet, by a young lady, being her first appearance on any stage," was advertised in large letters and italics. Such a failure was never made before, and I trust I shall never be present at such another again.
A philanthropist, who happened to know something about her connexions abroad, wrote to Mr. Spratt, to in- quire what he intended to do for her ; and received a reply, in which that gentleman stated that he meant to have no- thing at all to do with her, unless a commission of lunacy could be hopefully taken out ; and that she need not be in any want, as she was entitled to receive annually a sum sufficient for her support, under the will of his wife's grand- father. He added, that the crazy woman and her husband had intended to cheat his wife out of all her money."^
When I last heard of Miss Violet Lily, she resided at New Harmony, where her lectures were very popular.
Mr. and Mrs. Spratt seem to have been destined for each other ; and though they married in haste, and have had lei- sure to repent for some time (during which two new citi- zens have appeared in their family), there is every reason to suppose that their domestic comfort has been unin- terrupted.
Such is my tale. The characters are all drawn from life ; and if they are truly drawn, the story is a good one, and has in it instruction as well as amusement. If, how- ever, any reader should wish to know what special moral I intend to inculcate, I must reply, that my trifles in this way are not written according to the Edgeworth pattern, regularly cut out to the measure of some given morality ; but^are simply sketches of such views of life and manners,
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 207
a little out of the common, as happen to have fallen under my own observation. The instruction to be derived from them is, of course, of the same sort v^ith that which may be drawn from the observation of life itself, somewhat miscel- laneous, and more or less valuable according to the temper, spirit, and intelligence of the reader or observer. The characters of this story are a little fantastic, and I must also own, a little coarse ; but it was precisely because they were out of the beaten track of society, that they struck me as worthy of commemoration. If the painter of life and character were to draw none but faultless Sir Charles Grandison heroes, Grecian-nosed, well-behaved beauties, or wholesale tragedy villains, his talent would be as worthless as that of an old acquaintance of mine, an English artist of some note, who had been so long drawing after plaster Venuses and Apollos, that when he was forced to copy na- ture, he used to say, in fretful despair, " Hang nature — nature always puts me out."
Moreover, what, in that case, becomes of the moral uses of this way of writing ? A great man of a past age said, that " History was Philosophy, teaching by example ;" and all true descriptive narratives of man and woman, their pas- sions, and fantasies, and actions, come within the same defi- nition. Whether n an be portrayed in the grand historical gallery of Walter Scott, the exquisite cabinet of miniatures of Le Sage, or the little rough album sketches of Francis Herbert, provided we paint likenesses, we are all, in our several ways, " Philosophers teaching by example."
The lesson taught in the present narrative, my readers must moralize out << r ti emselves. That which I drew from the real characters and events myself was twofold. First, it confirmed the dislike and suspicion I have always entertained for those who parade their sensibilities and eccentricities before the public eye, or claim exemption from the approved forms of society and the rules of pru- dence, on the score of genius and originality. Another
208 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
moral naturally followed this, teaching me an increased reverence for plain good sense, straight forward conduct, quiet modesty, e very-day economy and prudence, and those other unpretending humble virtues, in man or woman — but most in woman — which make life's daily burdens light, and its ways pleasant and easy ; — which spread themselves like pure oil, far and wide over the troubled waves, and make all around safe, and smooth, and bright, and calm.
SCEiNES AT WASHINGTON.
No. II.
I^ was on a fine, mild, sunshiny morning in December, while the Congress of 18 — was in session, when the Hon. Mr. Moreton was taking his breakfast at his quarters in a fashionable boarding-house, and reading in the IntelHgencer a speech made by himself two days before, on his favourite subject, " Internal Improvement," that my story begins. Mr. Moreton was a gentleman, distinguished alike for his graceful and flowing eloquence in public, and his courteous bearing towards his constituents and fellow-citizens in the private intercourse of life. I dare add no more, than that he was a little stately, without pomposity ; a little precise and oratorical in conversation, without being pedantic or fantastic. He is dead — and the picture would be too easily recognised were I to go further. I will not profane his memory in a sketch in which I must necessarily bring him into contact with somewhat grotesque though real charac- ters. I have, in the course of accidental intercourse with him, abroad and at home, witnessed in his company much of what was naturally and morally striking —
" Have climbed with him the Alpine snow, Have heard the cannon as they rolled Along the silver Po ;"
and rarely have I seen his dignified equanimity of mind, or the somewhat formal tenor of his discourse, ruffled or inter--
VOL. II. D D
210 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
rupted by the circumstances of the moment. I leave it to his interesting nephew, who is, as I understand, preparing his biography, to do that justice to his memory which the well-known talents of the w^'iter authorize the friends of Mr. Moreton to expect. But I am constrained to intro- duce this gentleman, in relating some anecdotes perhaps worth preserving, homely, but too true to make a joke of.
I choose to tell all my stories, for what they are worth, in my own way ; and should not have embarrassed this sketch with an apology, if personal feeling had not dictated one.
Mr. Moreton was at breakfast, as I have stated, when a black servant announced that a gentleman in the parlour below was waiting to see him. Occupied with the happy folio of four pages, wherein Messrs. Gales and Seaton had done full justice to Mr. Moreton in a reported speech occu- pying three out of the four aforesaid crowded pages, and not having yet tasted his coffee, the call seemed unseasona- ble. But supposing it was made by one of his constituents, to all whose suggestions he conscientiously gave ear, or by some person of scientific ability, who had new ideas on his favourite subject, rail-roads, he left the breakfast table to attend upon his visiter.
As he entered the parlour below, he encountered a gen- tleman in black clothes, somewhat rusty, with white cotton stockings, yellow shoes, and a blue cravat; who came rapidly up to him, with a letter in his hand, talking as rapidly, in a pert and sharp tone. He was in stature rather under the ordinary size, small across the shoulders, and feeble looking in body, though his complexion was fair and sanguineous. It was no hectic flush ; and yet a recruiting sergeant would have hardly reported him as an able-bodied man.
" Permit me, sir," he said, " to present to you this letter" — a queer looking document, devoid of rectangular propor- tions, and travel-stained from long wearing in the pocket
SCENES AT V*^ASIIINGTON. 211
" which makes known to each other, mutually and recipro- cally, the Reverend Hercules Firkins, of Little Babylon, smd the Honourable and eloquent Mr. Moreton, of the House of Representatives —
* Arcades ambo, Et cantare pares, et respondere parati — '
which Dryden, as you know, somewhat tamely renders,
* Arcadians both, and both aUke inspired, To sing and answer, as the song requires.'
Of this passage, by-the-by, neither the great Heyne, nor the American editor of Virgil, the Reverend Job Cooper, seem to me to have understood the naked and eutonic, I might add the diatonic and catatonic force. But, 'non cuivis adigit adire Corinthum ;' a proverb which, though usually quoted in Latin, belongs in fact to a Greek author, whom I rate as high for classic sense as I do Lord Coke for legal acumen : — for, though now an ecclesiastic, I was once a member of the bar myself, as you will see — but I beg par- don— by the letter which I interrupt you in reading. A very clever man indeed is Mr. Jinks, the writer of it. I raised him, as they say in Kentucky. I brought it for form's sake. He is one of my deacons."
The Honourable Mr. Moreton gravely requested his vol- uble guest to be seated ; and read, not without a little per- turbation, after the volley of words he had received, the letter presented to him ; which ran as follows : —
" Little Babylon, Nov. 30th, 18—.
" Excellent Sir, " Knowing from the newspapers that you are a great friend of internal improvements and canals in general, and being myself president of a company formed to get our legislature to connect Ten-mile-pond with Little-eel-creek, I make bold to introduce to your better acquafntance my learned friend and pastor, also the principal of our academy,
212 SCE^ES AT WASHINGTON.
and whose works on law, trigonometry, divinity, and sta- tistics, you must have read often, the Reverend Hercules Firkins, D.D., principal as aforesaid, and President of the Athenian Lycasum of this town, as also of the societies for the suppression of intemperance and political economy. 1 entirely approve myself of your political course, as does our friend Dr. Firkins ; whom you will find a very agreea- ble acquaintance.
" Your sincere friend,
" Hiram Jinks."
" Jinks, Jinks — Firkins, Perkins," here uttered Mr. More- ton in soliloquy — " patent ploughs — tractors" —
" Yes, yes, sir, Firkins, the same Reverend Dr. Firkins, the veritable Amj^hytrion, as Moliere says. * Quae regio in terris non nostri conscia laboris V I had no doubt you had heard of me. You must have read in the Reports my great argument in the case of the Rhode Island butter* churns, Peabody and Huskins versus Peck : though the re- porter did me injustice ; for he summed up the whole in a page, when I took five hours and forty minutes to deliver it, made twenty-seven points, and cited all the authorities, dicta, and elementary treatises on the law of patents, from the Year Books and Yelverton, down to this fiddling and foolish reporter himself. It was a case, sir, which jiad a great bearing on morals and divinity, and whichj in fact, first led me to change my profession. Yes, sir, it was the inferences, antagonistically eveloped by my mind, in arguing that case, together with the study of the works of the great GEcolampadius, with which you are doubtless familiar, that induced me to make my forensic arms yield to the ecclesi- astical toga. But pardon me, sir, you can hardly have breakfasted ?"
" No, sir. But allow me to ask what special business has suspended your pastoral, legal, and scientific labours ; and in what way I can be of service to vou ?"
SCENES AT WAJ^IIIIH'CJTON. 213
" That is the point, sir, to which 1 urn to come. But I must persist in your first finishing your breakfast, in which I v*^ill join you. I am ' appetins jentacuU' myself; and am not one of those, who, as the immortal Burke says, * dream of canonizing mind by divorcing it from matter.' "
" The sentiment is just, though I really do not recollect the passage.*'
" But you must recollect, sir, the powerfully analytic, and irrefragably argumentative article on Education, in the last Quarterly Review, by my friend Bob Southey, in whicli the su" ject is handled."
" Well, Dr. Perkins, if you will be kind enough to take a seat at my breakfast-table, you will find in our small mess .Tudge Dash and Colonel Asterisks, with other intelligent gentlemen, whom you doubtless know by reputation. We can then discuss, more at leisure, such suggestions as you may desire to ofl^er."
So Mr. Moreton gravely and gracefully ushered tlie • Reverend Dr. Firkins up to the breakfast parlour ; where several gentlemen, worthy of special notice, which I have no time to bestow, were paying more or less attention to the accumulated luxuries of an American public table. There were tea, coffee, beef-steaks, oysters, eggs, ham and eggs, sausages, devilled turkeys — bread, wheaten, Indian and rye, and mixed of all, dyspeptic and anti-dyspeptic — pan- cakes and buckwheat cakes, rivalling those far-famed ones of Pennsylvanian Chester — hoe-cakes and Johnny-cakes, with the interminable variety of Indian cakes known to the Virginia kitchen — together w^ith the appropriate condiments of sugars, domestic and foreign, molasses, honey, pepper- vinegar, and mouiard de Maille. One of the honourable members present was reading the copious notes of a speech he intended to make the next day ; while another was read- ing a communication written by himself, in praise of his own speeches, and published in a paper from his own. dis^ trict ; while two others, to the speeches of both of whom
214 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
the public paid more attention than they did themselves, were engaged in a deep discussion on the question, whether the oyster grew to fit the shell, or the shell to fit the oyster.
Mr. Moreton had no particular faculty of remembering new names. He introduced his guest as the Reverend Mr. Jinkins-
" Dr. Firkins, if you please, sir," said the new importa- tion, plumping himself down between the two disputants, "Principal of Clio Hall, Little Babylon, and President of the Athenian Lycaeum of the same place, and of the societies for suppressing intemperance, political economy, et csetera. Coffee, madam, if you please — Ha ! ' aut Eras- mus aut Diaholus /' I'll thank you, Mr. Moreton, for a bit of that devil — the devil in shape of a broiled turkey." Being accommodated with these and other items, he looked round him, and exclaimed — " Doctor Johnson was in error, * pace tanti viri,' when he observed of his breakfast in Scot- land, * where the tea and coffee were accompanied not only with bread and butter, but with honey, conserves, and mar- malades,' that ' if an epicure could remove by a wish, wherever he had supped, he would breakfast in Scotland.' The real gastronome can only expatiate at discretion at the matunine meal in America."
The two oyster disputants smiled and sipped their tea ; when Dr. Firkins suddenly interrupted them, by rising, with an impetus which jarred the whole table, and rapidly trans- ferring his leg of turkey from the right hand to the left, he clapped the former on the polished and half-bald forehead of Mr. Moreton, exclaiming, " What a bowl of intellect !" Having thus anointed the sinciput of the representative, he sat down with like rapidity, and for some time proceeded in silence with his provisions.
*' Well, Mr. Moreton," said he, after a brief interval, " I perceive you are impatient to hear my communications." I have no time to let the doctor deliver himself in his own way, and have already given a sufficient sample of his
bCEr^ES AT WASHINGTON. 215
priggish pedantry. In a fluent discourse of great length, much involved and interlarded with odds and ends of quo- tations in various languages, he arrived at the proposition, " that in consequence of the rapid march of mind, there was now an effectual demand for a grand national encyclo- poedic institute or university ; in which, under the imme- diate patronage of the federal government, the native talent of the country might be eveloped according to his system. Of talent, he said, there was an average quantity in all ages ; every thing depended on the manner of its evelope- ment. The analytic and synthetic methods of education had both proved abortive. A little more might be said in favour of the dialectic. He was himself, decidedly, and be- yond peradventure, for the gladiatorial and not the monito- rial system. The spontaneous evolution of talent, during the period of mental juvenescence, could only be effected by its antagonistical exercise ; or, as Johnson had felicitously expressed it, ' its intellectual digladiation.' It was this which made the 7ious effervesce, and become esprit. The public lands should be assigned for the support of a uni- versity, which should have twenty-four professors, one from each state, to be severally appointed by the executive of each; the president to be appointed by a committee on literature, of which the President of the United States should be ex-ofHcio a member.
" This happy union of state and national patronage, he claimed as a bright invention of his own, which would instantly put at rest those state jealousies which had hitherto prevented the erection of a National University, and thus give him peculiar claim to be employed in the institution himself. Of course, in the mean time, till the university got hopefully under way. Doctor Firkins was willing to ofhciate as president ; but as it would be a sinecure untii some students were procured for indoctrination, he was wilUng collaterally to occupy his time with several small jobs. He would give instruction in ancient and modera
210 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
tongues to the Secretary of State, and private lectures on marine architecture to the Commissioners of the Navy- Board. As a matter of course also, he would be chaplain to both Houses of Congress, which would be all in his way. He hoped, he said, to preach in the House on the next Sun- day, when he would deliver his great sermon on the balance of power ; in which all the topics to which he had adverted would naturally be introduced."
Here a waiter brought a card to Mr. Moreton, on read- ing which he observed to Doctor Firkins that he was com- pelled to wait on a gentleman below, whose introductory letter claimed his immediate attention ; that he should be happy to serve Doctor F. as far as was in his power, but that his time was very much occupied.
" Oh ! don't make a stranger or novus hospes of me, sir," said the doctor ; " I'll meet you again at Philippi, that is, in the House. I can entertain myself very well in the society of these gentlemen."
" Good morning then, sir," said Mr. M., with a cold feel- ing of apprehension at the threatened revisitation. One of the remaining members, the Honourable Mr. Latimer, a gentleman who, as Falstaff described himself (I dare say more justly than the painters or actors represent him to us)^ was "a portly man and a corpulent, of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a noble carriage," and moreover, like the knight, was a wag. He, I believe, had undergone all the doctor's prolixity, for the sake of having some jokes with and through him. He complimented him highly on his new and philosophical views of education ; and recom- mended him strenuously, as the best man to further his pro- jects, to go to Mr. Spratt, a staid, blunt member of Congress, whom my former readers doubtless remember. He also told him that Mr. Moreton was particularly pleased with having his * bowl of intellect' admired and handled.
On again entering the parlour below, Mr. Moreton saw a young, man of a delicate complexion, and an air whicli
SCENES AT WASHINGT'ON. 217
seemed to be affectedly half-rakish, looking as if he had bought his clothes at a slop-shop. He wore a blue cloth cloak, faced with green velvet, and lined with blue satin, with long black silk cords, and gold tassels depending at the ends of them. It hung backward from off his right should der. He held before his eyes, without their coming in con- tact with his face, a pair of gold spectacles, and a white cambric pocket handkerchief. With his right hand he also contrived to hold a fur cap, with a gold binding, and to sup- port his exterior robe.
He advanced with a finical pace, and contrived, without losing any of his furniture, to present a letter. It was from Mr. Moreton's aunt, Mrs. Beverly Grayson, was neatly written on gilt-edged paper, sealed with the family arms fully emblazoned, and ran as follows : —
*' Sweet Springs, Dec. — , 18—.
*' My dear Nephew, " The amiable and interesting young gentleman who will deliver this letter into your hands, is Mr. Hyppolite de Grey, whom I wish to commend to your particular attentions. He is the grandson of the younger brother of Chief Justice de Grey, who took so much notice of your grandfather, when he was making the tour of Europe in 1774. His grand- father emigrated to Nova Scotia in 1750, where this young gentleman's father has several large plantations. There can be no doubt that he is nearly allied to our family ; because all the Greys are collaterals of the Graysons. I have found him intelligent and well bred, according to the modern school. He has been particularly attentive to your cousin Arabella and myself, during our sojourn here. I remain,, remembering you always,
" With the greatest affection and esteem,
"Rebecca Beverly Grayson."
" I hope this will turn out better than the last introdud*
VOL. II.— E E
218 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
tion of my kind aunt, though it looks unpromising'^ — thought Mr. Moreton, as gravely and gracefully rising, he presented his hand to his new protege, w^ho daintily pre- sented a couple of fingers, saying, " Enchante de vous faire connaissance — but I beg pardon — you probably don't un- derstand French. How does the world wag with you ?"
*' I thank you sir, I am in good health," said Mr. Moreton, slowly and seriously. " If you speak French with more freedom than English, I believe I can understand you suffi- ciently well for the ordinary purposes of conversation."
" Oh ! nHmporte, sir, I talk English pas mal, well enough. This is a shabby little town, this Washington of yours. I wonder how you survive in it. I suppose, however, you have some belles. I understand there is a party to-night at the Patagonian minister's. Til go there along with you, if you are going."
" You are pleased to be facetious. I apprehend, sir, that we have no diplomatic functionary so distinguished for per- sonal procerity, as to be entitled to the appellation of Pata- gonian."
*' Proce — ^who, sir ? Oh yes, there is such a queer place down at the south. Ah ! he's no functionary then ; but he has a party. Will you take some lundyfoot?"
** I use no tobacco, sir ; nor is it known to me that any Patagonian gentleman entertains company to-night ?"
" But you go to some party to-night ?"
" I presume I shall visit the Minister of the Netherlands."
" Well, I'll come ready dressed, to dine with you, and accompany you to the Austrian's. I suppose you can't keep a carriage in this hole of a place, can you ? I wonder how any one can exist without his own Jiocr-e. But you don't exist here. You have no opera, have you ?"
" None, sir, that I ever heard of. You must really be good enough to excuse me for the present, as I must pay a visit before going to the House, which it is my imperious duty not to neglect."
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 219
" Gh ! just as you please about that. I'll see you again at dinner, you know. Perhaps I may lounge into the chamhre des dehats, and you may introduce me to the Speaker, if you like. I'm at Gadsby's, I think they call the man's name — a vulgar sort of a place, but as good as any they have got here. Au revoir, as they say in Paris."
So saying, this accomplished young man withdrew, with his cloak, cap, cane, spectacles, pocket-handkerchief, and all. The Honourable Mr. Moreton now found himself dis- agreeably embarrassed by two singular proteges, thrust upon him in a brief space of time. Dr. Firkins he hoped to be enabled to discharge by cold politeness ; but his respect for Mrs. Grayson forbade this summary dismissal of Master de Grey. He could not help thinking, to be sure, that any of the systems of education enumerated by the doctor, ana- lytic, synthetic, dialectic, or antagonistic, might have im- proved the young man's condition as to manners : but he took it for granted that he was some spoiled youth, who had been badly brought up. Then he began to turn some fine sentences in his mind, about " the deleterious influences of unadvised indulgence and of contagious associations on the ductile minds of youth," &c.
He proceeded, therefore, to arrange his papers, which he always carried under his arm, neatly tied with red tape, to fulfil his engagement, and to repair at his usual punctual hour to the capitol.
As he was walking sedately through the rotunda of the capitol, some one said to him, " Good morning, Mr. More- ton." He was courteously returning this salutation, when a female voice exclaimed, " Moreton !" and an able-bodied woman came up to the representative.
She had a decided, though not unfeminine cast of phy- siognomy, over which the hair she wore was accurately adjusted in regular rolls. Her manner was not unlady- like, though bold ; and the courtesy she dropped, though not amiss in a ceremonious drawing-room, was rather too long,
220 SCENES AT \VA.SHINGTON,
profound, and, as it were, professional, for such an extem- poraneous interview.
" I perceive," said this lady, " that I have the honour of addressing the Honourable Mr. Moreton. My name, sir, is Montagu. I have a letter of introduction to you, from your intimate friend the Reverend Professor McCrabbin. I have, however, taken the liberty of introducing myself, in order to embrace the earliest opportunity of conferring with you on some subjects of much interest, as I believe, to the nation, and which I understand you have much at heart."
"I certainly am happy, madam," said Mr. M., " to be so much honoured. Scraggs ? Crabbed ? How can it have escaped, my memory, where and when I enjoyed the friend- ship of the professor !"
" The letter, sir, will doubtless recall the circumstance of your early associations wdth him. The object of my visit to Washington is to establish, under the patronage of gov- ernment, with a liberal appropriation in money and a hand- some donation in land, an institute for the education of young ladies, similar to that founded by Napoleon at St. Denys, destined exclusively to the instruction of the daughters of naval and military officers, secretaries of the departments, and members of Congress. Permit me, in the mean time, to introduce to you two young ladies, who are under my matronising wing ; dear in affection, though not near in blood — Miss Ann Fin and Miss Adelgitha Long- child. I finished them both."
" Finished 'em, madam ?" said Mr. Moreton, as the stout lady, stepping on one side, developed to his view two female figures, who immediately began to make strange motions.
" Yes, sir, I finished them," said Mrs. Montagu, with a marked emphasis on the phrase.
A passing description is due to these perfected or con- cluded damsels. The epithet seemed strangely applied io
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 221
Miss Ann Fin, to whom there appeared to be no end. In meagre ahitude she towered towards the skies, some six feet two, with a figure all alike, a small head, and a sort of nose, which, if it had not been placed where it was, would hardly have passed for any feature at all. She was dressed in the most fashionable style, as she supposed ; her colum- nar structure being surmounted with a short green spencer, trimmed with gold cord or lace — I forget which. Miss Adelgitha Longchild was by no means as tall as Miss Fin. In fact, she lacked two feet of her stature. She was, as to person, what is called chunky ; had two black eyes rolling promiscuously in her head, and a bright scarlet spencer.
Miss Fin stepped up two mincing paces ; Miss Long- child drew herself up on tiptoe. Then Miss Fin drew back her left knee, and Miss Longchild folded her arms under her bust. Then they both performed a courtesy, according to their several positions — saying, in one breath and with identical emphasis, though in diiferent keys-^the voice of Miss F. being small and squeaking, and that of Miss L. loud and shrill —
" Exceedingly happy to have the honour of an acquaint- ance with a gentleman, distinguished alike for his parlia- mentary eloquence and his domestic morals as — " Here was a long pause, during which Mrs. Montagu stood smiling in placid triumph.
*' As the Honourable Mr. Morrison," said Miss Fin, " As the Honourable Mr. Murphy," said Miss Longchild. "Mr. Moreton, my loves," said Mrs. Montagu, rather snappishly.
" So distinguished, alike for his parliamentary morals, and for his domestic eloquence, as Mr. Moreton,"— said both the young ladies, as fast as they could repeat the words.
" Really, ladies, you overwhelm me," said Mr. M. ; "I
am truly happy in forming an acquaintance^ with you,
madam, and these young ladies under your matronal care."
^* Godo, signore, di trovarla qui per accidente" said both
222 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
the young ladies in one breath, as before — one firing her Italian grammar vocabulary over and the other under the level of Mr. Moreton's ears.
" Pray, Mr. Moreton," asked the senior lady, " is there any special business in the House to-day V
" I regret, madam, that very imperative business obliges me to be in my seat this morning. But I feel less concern on account of the circumstance, as I see two of my friends coming this way, to whose attentions I shall be most happy to confide you and the young ladies under your charge."
Here our friend Mr. Latimer came up, with Hippolyte de Grey leaning on his arm, in a nonchalant but decisive manner, which indicated that he would not be shaken off, because it was his pleasure or fantasy not to be ; while Latimer looked vexed and impatient, Hke a fine steed with a huge horse-fly fastened upon him, who is trotting rapidly to get to his journey's end, and ever and anon giving a con- vulsive brush with his tail, in a vain effort to get rid of his impudent customer.
" Perhaps my French is troublesome to you," said Hip- polyte, as they came up. " Don't let your modesty pre- vent you from saying so, if it is."
" Not at all — not at all — for I don't perceive that it is any worse than your English."
" Gentlemen," said Mr. Moreton, " allow me to introduce you to these ladies — Mrs. Wortley, Miss Fisk, and Miss Longbranch — ladies on whom birth, education, and wealth alike have smiled. The Honourable Mr. Latimer and Mr. De Grey. I shall place these ladies under your charge for a short time, Mr. Latimer, and that of your accomplished young friend ; as I shall be necessarily occupied with the Rock-creek Bill debate."
" The devil 1" half exclaimed I^atimer — looking up at Miss Fin, down on Miss Longchild, and collaterally at Hip- polyte. The latter, who had bristled up at the word wealthy which' Mr. Moreton had innocently put in, for want of a
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 223
better wherewith to round his sentence, immediately came simpering forward, and said, " Ladies, I shall be most happy to wait on you. Allow me the honour — "
Here he placed himself, bowing and smirking, between the two finished young ladies, who made a courtesy, as before, wheeling half round ; Miss Fin bending the tips of her feathers down into the eyes of the Adonis, and Miss Longchild bobbing hers up under his nose. One thrust her arm down, and the other lifted her hand up ; and thus they took possession of his elbows ; after which they dropped courtesies again, and stood ready to proceed.
Tempted by the ridiculous figure which the trio pre- sented, and willing to accommodate Mr. Moreton, who, as he knew, was never guilty of a joke, Latimer gave a half- suppressed groan, threw away a quid of tobacco, and with an air half-despairing and half-waggish, suffered Mrs. Montagu to take his arm, and led the procession to the gallery, where he determined to get rid of the concern as soon as possible. " Pray, Mr. Latimer," said the lady, " do you not find a considerable floating mass of floating female intellect in Washington ? I am well apprized that you are a literary as well as a political character. The two young ladies behind us are the first fruits of my anxious toils, after hav- ing made female education my incessant study, since the' period when I was left alone to struggle with the world, preferring independence to a second hymeneal union."
" You raised that neat pair of belles, then, as they say at the south."
" I finished them, sir. My system of education does not include the common school branches. That foundation being laid, my aim is to erect on it the Corinthian super- structure of accomplishments ; to teach all that softens the heart, polishes the wit, refines the manners, and expands the genius ; together with French, Italian, drawing, the use of the globes, Paley's Moral Philosophy and Evidences, Euclid, the first volume of Dugald Stewart, and the proper
22i SCENES AT WASHINGTON,
branches of female gymnastics, or calisthenics. Accug* tomed to tlx; most elegant and refined society, when I quitted the domestic state, I thought it a duty I owed to myself, not to suffer the advantages I had acquired to be wasted ; but to devote my time and talents to the intellect tual nurture of my young countrywomen."
" Calisthenics, I believe, treats of windmills and steam- boats," said Latimer. Before Mrs. Montagu had time to reply, her ears were assailed by a strange combination of noises behind. As they turned round to ascertain what the matter was, they perceived that the remainder of the party was in trouble and entanglement. In winding up the cork- screw gallery stairs, Mr. De Grey had trodden on the flounces of Miss Longchild ; and his cords and lapels becoming entangled at the same time with the bobs and flying appurtenances of Miss Fin, they had all three gone backwards together ; and it was a special mercy that none of their bones were broken. As it was, they made a sadly ludicrous exhibition, during the happening of the accident, and in regaining their upright position and re-adjusting thei finery.
By the time the agitation arising from this difficulty had been in some measure overcome, they reached the gallery, where the ladies were accommodated with seats, pointed out to them by Latimer ; who, making a profound bow to them all, said to Hippolyte, " I am compelled to resign to you the exclusive pleasure of attending on these ladies." In an under-tone he added — " The young one sare great fortunes."
" Which of them?" asked Hippolyte, anxiously.
** The tall one is richest in lands. The little plump one is a cash concern — a quarter of the Bank of Little Falls, and half the Skeneatelas Insurance Company."
He then departed, saying to himiself, " Heaven forgive U3 for lying ! But ij '? a work of necessity and mercy.
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 225
The Lord send that poor second-hand Beau Brummell a safe deliverance !"
Hippolyte graciously insinuated himself between the two heiresses, and the party gazed on the scene around and beneath them. Who, on this side of the Atlantic, has not seen the hall of the House of Representatives ? or who, on either side, has not seen Morse's admirable picture of it, which now graces the gallery of a noble amateur in Eng- land ? — that hall where all the splendours of the marbles, serpentines, and breccias of America and Italy, and all the graces and proportions of Grecian art, and all the talent of successive architects — of the luxuriant L'Enfant, the mag- nificent Latrobe, and the practical Bulfinch — aided by the decorations of accomplished sculptors, foreign and domestic, and set off by all the gorgeousness of modern upholstery and Honduras mahogany, wrought and polished by the master artists of New- York and Philadelphia — have con- spired to make a room utterly unfit for any earthly purpose to which it can ever be applied ; where people can neither see nor hear one another ; containing, according to accu- rate admeasurement, 200,000 cubic feet ; and in conse- quence thereof, and of other enormous advantages, un- comfortable to sit in, unhealthy to stay in, and dangerous to legislate in, alike for the people and the law-makers.
There, too, they saw the Speaker, looking like the lady in the lobster, as he sat in his little gingerbread pagoda, stuck at the bottom of a lofty colonnade, which rivals the portico of the Pantheon in magnitude, and surpasses it in the richness of its materials. In picturesque contrast with him, they saw the colossal plaster virago, who threatens every moment to crush him from above. In one corner o* the house they saw an old gentleman in spectacles, who was standing with his hat oflf, and reading, as they supposed, a newspaper ; but who, as they learned from the Intelligencer next day, w^as making a great speech. The rest of the members, in miscellaneous groups, or about their neat piano-
VOL. II. — F F
*22G SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
forte looking desks, were walking, talking, caucusing, read- ing, writing, or meditating, and making a buzzing noise like that heard in a large school. On one of the sofas they ob- served Mr. Latimer, holding an extempore levee, and dis- pensing to his audience sundry edifying remarks, the effect whereof came up to the gallery in 'many an audible peal of laughter.
When the old gentleman had, as they supposed, got through with reading his newspaper, and sat down, a gen- tleman of considerable altitude and stentorian lungs arose, and declaimed with vehement gesticulation, in the course of which the words " the Bank of the United States," fell on the ears of the party aloft.
" I hope," said Miss Longchild, " they won't stop the Bank of the United States. That would cut off a good piece of pa's income."
The gentleman with good lungs soon after let fall an observation, made with still greater emphasis and pathos, in which they caught the expression — " the landed interest is on the brink of ruin." On hearing which. Miss Fin ex- claimed, " O Lud ! I hope not ; for most all pa's personal property is landed estate."
" Your filial sensibilities, young ladies," said Hippolyte, " are quite refreshing to my taste ; upon my soul they are quite larmoyantes, as the French say."
At the words " filial sensibilities," both the youno- women pricked up their heads quickly, sighed, and took breath, and said together, as before — " Filial affection
springs up spontaneously in the human heart like the
itune," said Miss L. — " uine," said Miss F. — "like the ^ine which entwines itself round the oak of the forest."
« One at a time, my dears," said Mrs. Montagu. " These young ladies, as you perceive, Mr. De Grey, have not yet learned to restrain and conceal their delicate sensibilities. Education can do every thing for the mind ; but the world
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 227
alone can teach the art of controlHng the feelings. You must perceive that they are wholly unsophisticated — with souls fresh from the plastic hand of nature."
" Quite fresh, and bran new, I perceive, ma'am," said Hippolyte, looking abstractedly on a sudden, and some- what troubled, as if a particular object below had arrested his attention. " After all, this is a dull place. Suppose we go and see some lions. I understand they have some at- tempts at those kinds of things here."
Mrs. Montagu and her protegees graciously acquiesced ; and they travelled off to some other exhibition — the Patent- office, I believe ; Hippolyte pondering between real estate and hard cash, but inclining, for certain private reasons, to the latter convenience.
Just as Latimer was getting into a hack, after the adjourn- ment of the house, the door of the vehicle was seized as it was closing, and the visage and person of Dr. Firkins were successively introduced. " Good day, again, sir," said he, as he seated himself. " Drive on, coachee — I am in great luck to have fallen in with you again so soon. It is not often, sir, that twice in one brief day, we meet accidentally with such Trojans. Without flattery, from the sample of your conversational antagonism which I had this morning, I know not which to admire most, the copious variety of your information, the saline pungency of your electrical wit, or the elastic agility of your symposiastic powers."
To each several member of this encomium, Mr. Latimer bowed low, and the doctor bobbed his head responsively. " Doctor, doctor, you flatter," said the former.
" No, sir ; I am not one of those ' mellitis fallere verbis doctus.' I hold with the divine Shakspeare, that * 'tis a sin to flatter.' I ' would not flatter Neptune for his trident, nor Jove for his power to thunder.' I suppose you dine at the president's to-day ?"
" No ; I have not that honour." ^
" At the British minister's, then ?"
228 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
" No ; I dine at home."
« Ter, quaterque felix, that I am," said the doctor — " I will go along and dine with you — I wish to resume my ex- position to Mr. Moreton ; and shall be glad to develop my views to a sodality so enlightened as that which en- circles your intellectual board — ' the feast of reason and the flow of soul,' ' with mirth which after no repentance draws.' "
^' Don't give us too much credit on that score, doctor. I have known very sound headaches very honestly earned at that intellectual board ; to say nothing of the gout, of which I feel at present a slight twinge."
*^0h! a victim to *athritic tyranny.' I presume, by- the-by, that you are a descendant of the great herald of the reformation ; a prelate whom, in spite of my anti-episco- pal opinions, I hold in great veneration. But, though I belong to the straiter sect of our Protestant religion, I cast no malign or puritanic eye on the generous festivities of the hospitable table, and ' a little wine for the stomach's sake,' you know."
Latimer groaned inwardly, muttering something inaudi- bly, and looking with blank despair at the document he held in his hand, upside down.
" Oh ! the report of the Secretary of the Treasury. Pray tell me, sir, what is your opinion as to the measure of value ? Do you believe with Ricardo, that all value is founded on the quantity of labour ? or do you hold with Malthus — but ha ! we are here, in articulo temporis. There is the dinner bell ringing. * The bell invites me ; I go and it is done ;' you take the paranomasiastic application of " done, ha ?" said the doctor, laughing very complacently, as he got out of the carriage."
Latimer was fain to follow him ; and though inclined to be vexed at being saddled with such a bore, and meditating whether he could not trump up an extempore fit of the gout, to be rid of him, he concluded it was better to bear the evil
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 229
with patience, and make as much of such amusement as the doctor might yield.
He therefore shoved him into the drawing-room, where he apologized for leaving him a few moments. As the doctor entered he saw but one person present ; a young man very finically dressed, who sat with his back towards him, resting one foot on the bottom of a chair, and the other on the jam of the fireplace. He was picking his teeth, and trying to hum some sort of an air. The doctor, whose affability extended to all mankind, walked up to him, when the youth, who was no other than our Hippolyte, suddenly dropped his tooth-pick and both feet, upsetting the chair and the poker, and started up in some confusion.
" How came i/ou here, sir ?" said Firkins.
" In the stage — I came ;" said the youth. " My old lad, I have come on a wise errand ; and shall feather my nest well enough, I can tell you."
Here other company entering, the pair withdrew within the recess of a window, where they intercommuned until dinner was announced. On this intimation they joined the company. Firkins giving several repeated nods and looks of approbation, and Hippolyte wearing a satisfied smirk of more than ordinary conceit.
If the doctor had justly praised the luxuries of an Amer- ican breakfast, well might some more gifted eulogist expa- tiate on those of an American dinner. It has been my lot, as my readers know, to have " sat at good men's feasts," in all parts of the globe ; with Indian rajahs, Turkish mollahs, and Persian mirzahs ; as well as with English bishops and bankers, peers and players, among whom are to be found the most exquisite judges, as well as the ablest performers in this way. I have dined at the splendid table of Cardinal Fesch, and at the still more recherches, and soignes feeds of the Ex-chancellor Cambaceres ; have taken pot-luck on waterzouchie and Dutch herrings with the rich burghers of Amsterdam, and macaroni and parmesan at
230 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
Naples with princes and primates. I have sat in Germany at the meagre but elegant dinners of Professor Kant, and at the sumptuous and groaning board of my some time pub- lisher Brockhaus at Leipsic ; of merchant rulers at Frank- fort, and professors and constitution-makers at Berlin. But enough of this. Let people talk as pedantically, or as patri- otically as they please, about la cuisine Frangais, or la cucina Italiana, or " the roast beef of old England," I hold that all good dinners are good ; but after all, commend me to an American one. My learned friend. President Cooper, to whose authority I always bow in all matters of law, literature, philology, chymistry, political economy, and cookery, has indeed said excathedretically, that " the waste of an American kitchen is horrible." This is a solemn, but not an appalling truth. For we live in a country where we may " cut and come again ;" where, notwithstanding profusion, there is always enough left and to spare ; where even careless cookery cannot spoil the good material ; and where there are seven — yea, eight dishes, unrivalled in all the other countries of the earth — the ham of southern Vir- ginia, the sheepshead of the eastern Atlantic waters, the canvass-back duck of the Potomac, the hump of the buffalo, the muzzle of the moose, the tail of the beaver, the soft-shell of the Red River, and young rattle-snakes cooked a la matelote, as they dress them at the ^aut de Ste, Marie.
At the present dinner, at which was assembled a numer- ous company, Dr. Firkins acquitted himself as usual, both in the way of talking and eating. He devoured half a wild goose, while he informed the table, that after the rescue of the capitol, geese had at Rome for a long while been sacred from the spit, until in the downfall of the republic, the geese of Gaul attracted the notice of the Roman epicures, from which time forward large flocks of French goslings were driven to Rome, with as much regularity as droves of Ken- tucky hogs are now through the avenues of Washington. He did equal justice to a magnificent boiled turkey, while
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 231
he quoted Pliny to prove that Sophocles had introduced that sagacious bird in one of his lost tragedies, to deplore the fate of Meleager, who had introduced his race into Greece. Where he got this learning 1 know not — most probably at second-hand, as we all do now-a-days. Mean- while Mr. de Grey sat looking, as he thought, exceedingly genteel, and like a poco-curante of the first water ; while he was committing various solecisms in manners in what the doctor would have called pransorial tactics, which it is un- necessary to specify.
In the chasms of the business of the table, which oc- curred on this occasion, as they do everywhere, " when the rage of hunger is appeased," and before the spirits are warmed to the true conversation pitch — (by-the-way. Dr. Firkins must be excepted, who " made no pause, nor left a void") — the young Adonis ever and anon drew forth and gazed complacently upon a showily set miniature. Some- how it attracted the attention of the castle-building More- ton, and recalled him from the tunnel of the Ohio and Chesa- peake Canal, where his mind had been wandering during the delivery of Dr. Firkins's gastronomical didactics.
** What chef-crceuvre of the arts of design is it, Mr. De Grey, that you view with such pleasure ?"
" Arts of design — upon my word, sir, I never heard her charged with thai, sir — though, to be sure, there was a little scandal about the princess and a young traveller, who shall be nameless ; the Princess Pauline, the great beauty, you know — heaute sans fard, as the French say. Gentlemen," added he, passing the miniature round the table, " it is a miniature of the Princess Pauline, Napoleon's sister, painted by the great Isabey, of Paris, and represents her looking tenderly at another miniature of a certain friend of hers, who shall be nameless."
The miniature, as it passed from hand to hand, received all the praise it deserved, and it would have dor^e credit to Isabey or Malbone, or any other artist in that way, alive or
232 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
dead. At last it reached Mr. Latimer, who, with a slight start of surprise at first seeing it, turned to De Grey with a look half inquiring and half facetious : " ' There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy.' These accidental resemblances of people to each other, and by'r Lady, of pictures too — are marvel- lous matters. Had not you told us that this was a French picture of a royal beauty, gazing sentimentally on her friend's miniature — -friend was the word, I think, was it not ? — I should have sworn, by all my gods, that this was a copy or duplicate of a miniature of my own niece, taken in New- York last spring for her husband, when the captain was ordered to the Pacific."
De Grey stammered something about " royal and noble beauty — great Parisian painter — Mr. Latimer being a wag — strange resemblances sometimes," — when the other sud- denly turning the conversation, said : —
" Well, Mr. De Grey, how did you get along with your two splendid heiresses ?"
" Oh ! well enough, I suppose. It's a great bore to be obliged to do the agreeable to such young things. By-the- way, what was you saying about heiresses ? Is Miss Long- child a great heiress ?"
" Why" — said Latimer, hesitating —
" Longchamps — Longchamps" — said Mr. Moreton — from whose memory the finished young lady of the morning had totally departed, and who, as he partly heard Hippolyte's question, was led to think of a great commercial friend — *' He was one of your millionaire men. He made his vast fortune by trade with the East Indies ; and has, I under- stand, left each of his nine daughters a hundred thousand dollars, in money and stocks, besides a splendid house a piece, with all domestic and fashionable appendages."
" All that is clearly not to be sneezed at, especially with so accomplished a young lady in the bargain," said Latimer,
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 233
Here Hippolyte threw a triumphant glance at Dr. Fir- kins, as he asked him to take wine with him.
" Dr. Perkins seems to be an old acquaintance of yours, Mr. De Grey," said Mr. Moreton.
" Oh yes. I imbibed the rudiments of my education from the doctor. I studied Caesar, and Viri Romae, and all the other classics, under him. He is universally allowed to be the greatest professor and most learned preacher in the whole county." [The doctor did not hear this well-in- tended tribute to the extent of his fame, or he might have been shocked at the narrow confines allotted to it.] " If he had completed me in the classics," continued De Gray " I might have talked Latin and Greek as well as I do French."
It seemed now to occur to this youth that it would be as well to abandon other objects, and follow up some business he had in hand. So far as his face could express it, he looked as if he had something to do. Stating in an affected way that he had an engagement, and regretting that he could not accompany Mr. Moreton in the evening, he de- parted, just as Dr. Firkins had got fairly under way with one of his digressive dissertations (the utterance of which was only interrupted by an occasional glass of wine), on the comparative merits of CEcolampadius and Jeremy Ben- tham ; "both of whom," he said, "however he might dis- sent from some of their opinions, he maintained to be ad unguem exemplars of definitive ratiocination — Arcades ambo — which Dryden, as you know, somewhat tamely renders,
* Arcadians both, and both alike inspired, To sing and answer, as the song required.' "
Here it occurred to Mr. Moreton, who had long been gazing in a profound fit of abstraction on a plate o^ oranges, to ask the doctor a question : and starting from his revery,
VOL. II. G G
23 t SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
he said, " You seem to know Mr. De Grey, Dr. Perkins. Pray who is the young gentleman ?"
The cataract of his discourse being stopped thus sud- denly, the doctor hesitated, looked blank, and taking a hasty swallow, assumed an air half sheepish and half important, as he replied, " I think I may be indeed said to know him ; and to have not only cognition but science of him. I know his accidence as well as his essence ; he being in fact my son — that is, metaphysically. In short, my academic bower was to him and his their 'cunabula gentis.* You recollect that fine passage, Mr. Latimer ?"
" It is in Trismegistus ; isn't it ?" said Latimer.
" But, doctor," continued Mr. Moreton, " after the pains you must have lavished upon this youflg gentleman, it really appears to me that his colloquial English is somewhat— a — too vernacular."
" I confess it, sir. It is all the fault of his mother, for whom the gynecocracy might blush, if they could. ' Varium et mutabile semper' — no, sir, she was not mutabile semper. She w^as an eternal scold, and the indefatigable tormentor of my existence. Her rixatory and objurgative powers were rivalled only by her brutal ignorance — "
" But, doctor, who may the young gentleman be ? After such a description of his mother, you do not prepossess us much in favour of the son."
" He is, sir, a young man of merit, for whom, if the hu- manities have done little, nature and contingencies have done much ; and on whose opening pathway Fortune has shed her golden radiance. * Multos numerabit amicos.' He may count upon soon possessing a regal revenue."
" And what kind of a man, doctor, was his father?"
" His father, sir — his father was a man of original nouSy cultivated by all the appliances and means which the science and learning of past centuries have accumulated ; distinguished in various professions and callings ; one, in short, marked out by Providence, to change the moral sur-
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 235
face of society ; trample under foot that Jacobinic spirit which amalgamates the highest intellect with the lowest ; and by the mighty influence of the antagonistic principle — " " But pray, doctor," said Latimer, " how much did this original nous, Jacobin-trampling, antagonistic gentleman make out of it all, in the way of money ?"
" Make out of it all, sir ? Little or nothing — that is to say, sir, little for such a man. The late Mr. De Grey, sir, left something — a good fortune for his only son. He is a young man of good property, sir, — say two or three hun- dred thousand dollars." [Here the doctor shut his eyes, and quaffed a glass of champaign.] " Had the lad not left me in mere childhood, I should have formed him to moral issues worthy of his pecuniary expectations ; and formed him in like fashion as I hope to mould the sons of Colum- bia, under the organic pressure of the great national institute."
" And his amiable lady-mother, sir," said Latimer, " on whose vituperative and rixatory accomplishments you have delivered so enthusiastic and impassioned a eulogy — what became of her ? Ou est done cette dame la ?"
" I hope she is in heaven !" said Firkins, with a groan, swallowing down a glass of Madeira. " A violent and a vile woman was his mother, sir ;" filling rapidly and gulp- ing down a large glass of Sherry. Hereupon he drummed on the table with his fingers, and on the floor with his heels ; shrugged his shoulders, worked his eyebrows, winked his eyes, bit his hps, and twisted and wriggled about in his chair in a marvellous and mysterious manner. He was silent for a few moments ; but did not long suffer himself to labour under such unnatural restraint. He got upon his favourite hobby CEcolampadius, whom he now compared to Lord Coke ; talked of Junius and Psalmanazar, and the butter-churn case ; of the controversies between the ortho- dox and liberals, high church and low church, 'tariff' and anti-tariff", the constitutionality of internal improvements,
236 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
the comparative merits of the Edinburgh and Quarterly'' Reviews, his friend Bob Southey, as he called the laureate, and Dr. Dwight ; of the Reformation, craniology, and the fine arts.
When it is considered that, meantime, in the usual style of a Washington convivial dinner-party, a variety of wines was constantly passing round the table, and that the doctor regularly helped himself at each revolution to two glasses of different kinds, with no more reference to their affinities than to the coherence of the subjects of his discourse, it is not to be wondered at that the latter soon became strangely jum- bled in his brain, and oddly combined in his talk ; that he got CEcolampadius into the churn, made Junius a writer in the Quarterly, and Psalmanazar and Southey controversial contemporaries ; and finally degenerated into a hodge- podge of unassociated and unassociable things, absurd as the nonsense chorus to a song in O'Keefe's farces.
At length Mr. Latimer, whether out of benevolence or weariness, or a mixture of both, got rid of what he called, in a hog-latin parlance of which he was fond, a regularis apcr, by fairly bolting the doctor out of the room. The latter, who was in the maudlin crisis of his excitement, was very loving upon his host, hugging him, and calling him by all the affectionate diminutives which his classical vocabu- lary or his own invention could supply ; until Latimer suc- ceeded in thrusting him into a hackney coach, sending his favourite servant to accompany him to his lodgings.
The next morning, as Mr. Moreton was sitting at his abstemious breakfast of dry toast and coffee, with the other viands and provant before enumerated smoking and steam- ing unregarded before him, and was reading his favourite National Intelligencer, a note was handed to him by a servant, on looking at which he muttered " Montagu ? Montagu 1 Oh ! ah ! yes — I recollect. It is all in the way."
SCENES AT XVASIIINGTON. 237
In consequence of the reception of this billet, he called, before going to the House, on the lady already introduced to my readers, whom he found with her two attendant nymphs, who made their motions as cleverly as on the pre- xieding day ; and on being telegraphed by the matron to withdraw, effected their disappearance in seventeen ma- noeuvres, without any serious accident.
" Pray be seated, my dear Mr. Moreton," said Mrs. Montagu. " I have an important inquiry to make, which I felt it my duty to address to you ; and I therefore took the liberty, which I hope you will excuse, of requesting this interview. Knowing, as I do, that your time is precious to yourself and to the nation, I feel that some apology is necessary."
" None at all, madam, I assure you. I am honoured by being allowed to receive your communications ; and am at your present disposal."
" I am anxious, then, to state to you, sir, that the young gentleman whom you introduced to me yesterday, and whose appearance is undoubtedly prepossessing, has evinced a disposition to cultivate an acquaintance with my young ladies. Knowing, as you must do, how delicate my responsibility is, you will pardon me for asking how far, with perfect security to their peace of mind and my own obligations, I may encourage his polite attentions to them, beyond the ordinary pale of general courtesy."
" Madam," said Mr. Moreton, " your own penetration will doubtless enable you to judge with more accuracy than my imperfect knowledge of his talents and character en- ables me to do, of the disposition, manners, and morals of this young gentleman. It has been well remarked, by nice observers of human nature, that ladies, from an instinctive gift or quicker faculty of appreciation, form a juster esti- mate of men from their first impressions, than the lords of creation are themselves enabled to make, notwithstanding their greater general experience. Mr. De Grey brought a
238 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
letter of recommendation to me, from a source which I am
bound to respect ; yet I confess I should not have founded
any deliberate opinion upon that alone ; as the venerable
and beloved relative from whom it came has frequently
been deceived in her judgment of character. Her account
is, however, corroborated by the spontaneous testimony of
my learned and reverend friend President Perkins ; who
informs me that the young gentleman was his pupil in
childhood, and that he has inherited a very handsome
property — some two or three hundred thousand dollars, I
think he said — from his father. But, Mrs. Wortley, in
matters of this most important nature, money, though a
necessary, is by no means the principal requisite. Neither
should any thing be taken on indirect report or hearsay. I
confess that there is something in Mr. De Grey's address,
something in his manners, habits, and colloquial style,
which has not altogether prepossessed me in his favour."
Mrs. Montagu had listened apparently with a little im- patience to the latter part of this speech. "Very true, indeed, sir, as you observe," said she. " But are you cer- tain it is said, that old Mr. De Grey has left his son so much money ?"
" Two or three hundred thousand dollars, I am almost sure the doctor said, madam."
" And do you think the doctor's information may be relied on."
"Probably, madam, not with perfect precision. The inference is, however, natural and rational, that an old pre- ceptor would not be very far wrong. He is, however, my only authority. I must leave the investigation and con- sideration of the matter to your enlightened mind and ma- ture discretion. I must attend my committee at eleven o'clock, and unless you have other immediate commands, must beg your permission to leave you."
Mr. Moreton accordingly departed. Nothing further transpired on this day, v/hich happened to be Friday,
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 239
necessary to record as bearing on the issue of my narrative. The Saturday which followed was like all other Saturdays in Washington, during the winter session. Neither House sat. The industrious members went to the public offices to transact the business of their constituents ; the election- eering members were engaged in franking letters and printed matters, and in writing to their friends ; the fashion- able members paid visits and left cards ; and the members who were given to frolicking slept off the effects of the pre- ceding night's revel. The young ladies, as it was a rainy day, w^ere making all their preparations for the evening's ball, which was to be given by the lady of a secretary ; and the old ladies held consultation about who was who, among all the bachelor and widower faces in Washington. Among other topics of conversation, much was said of a new cler- gyman, of great learning and eloquence according to ru- mour, w^ho, it was advertised, would preach on the next morning in the Representatives' Chamber, in the place of one of the chaplains.
Hippolyte de Grey, who had removed the evening before to the house where Mrs. Montagu lodged, was sufficiently engaged in making the amiable to Miss Longchild ; the accommodating matron having somehow or other contrived to leave him to enjoy a tete-a-tete with her shortest pupiL In the afternoon. Miss Fin complained of a headache, and a touch of dyspepsy, attended with pulmonary symptoms. By way of a salutary repose, Mrs. Montagu took her out in a hackney-coach, through a fine, cooling, and delightful fall of rain, sleet, and all the varieties of moisture which hiemal Jove administers to the earth in that quarter. Miss Long- child had sprained her ankle, and Hippolyte had an inop- portune engagement ; so the two ladies went forth together, and unattended, like Ariosto's Bradimante and Marfisa ; but before long, Mrs. Montagu met with a knight, whose services she was determined to secure. This was nd other, than Mr. Moroton, on who:-e per.secutions, fur cuurtcs)'s dqvn:
240 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
sake, none but the rustical and unfeeling will refuse to" bestow the tribute of a sigh. He was trudging, like the Duke of Wellington, with his umbrella, on the pave round the treasury. Mrs. Montagu immediately ordered the car- riage to stop, and calling to the representative, invited him to take a seat with her. Once having him in her posses- sion, he was helpless and hopeless : and I regret to record,- and shudder at the recollection of having once done so my- self, that he was compelled to show to these ladies the lions of Georgetown ; to wit, the Nunnery and the College ; to stand in the sleet, pointing out where the prospects ought to be ; and to get out at almost every corner, inquiring where Timothy Wilkins lived, whose cousin's daughter had been finished by Mrs. Montagu. I drop the curtain over this afflicting adventure. The only pleasing circumstance connected with it w^c.s, that Miss Fin came home declaring that all her aches and symptoms had disappeared, in con- sequence of having taken an infallible specific — a glass of rye-jack and bitters, recommended and administered by Mr. Wilkins.
Sunday dawned in unwonted brightness, auspicious i<y the hopes of Dr. Firkins, who was that day " to thunder in the capitol," with, as he fondly expected, " all the American Senate at his heels." He had read with great admiration the long speeches, immeasurable even as reported, which were delivered in the House : and though he had never ventured to try more than half of his sermon "on the balance of power," at one time, on even the most patient congregation, he now expanded it, and added several new heads and illustrations ; had recourse to all the universal histories and biographical dictionaries in the Congress Library, and copied out and inserted at full length all the lives, characters, and adventures of the several remarkable personages whom he had had occasion to mention by name in his original draft, being determined to give his audience
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such a " screed of doctrine," for length, at any rate, as never before was heard in the same place.
Miss Longchiid's ankle continued to be sprained, and Hippolyte came late from his room complaining of an intol- erable headache, attended with a good deal of fever. Mrs. Montagu was much afflicted with his indisposition; she pressed, however, into her service, Mr. Wilson, a young gentleman who lodged at the house, and who, wonderful to relate, was in Washington, neither seeking an office nor holding one ; with no professional business to transact ; no contract to solicit ; and no bargain, job, scheme, or project of any sort or kind on hand, which he was anxious to effect. This amiable and truly interesting young man had half- expressed an intention to go and hear the celebrated preacher ; and good luck dropped from the skies upon him unexpectedly, giving him an opportunity of escorting thither the two ladies by particular request. They did not, how- ever, enter into the hall of the House of Representatives until the preliminai-y service had been disposed of; Firkins having hurried that over to reserve his powers for the ser- mon. The floor was crowded with a brilliant congrega- tion, in which talent, fashion, and beauty had a fair repre- sentation of their aristocracy ; so that our ladies were obliged to find seats in the circle most remote from the Speaker's pagoda, which, like the poet's night-cap, " a cap by night, a stocking all the day," after serving for six days as the throne of human legislation, becomes the chair of pulpit eloquence on the seventh. The officiating clergy- man was sitting at the time of their entry— the top of his head, as he was arranging his manuscripts, and his pocket- handkerchief on the desk, being the only items of the man or his appendages that were visible.
When he started up, it was so suddenly done, that many of the congregation were startled in sympathy, and Mrs. Montagu in particular. Mr. Wilson noticed thai her twitch- ino-s continued after the electric shock had passed off frqm
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the rest of the audience, and that an animation synapathetic with that of the orator sent a flush to her bold Semiramis- like cheeks, and a lightning flash to her piercing eyes, which shot over the heads of the multitude, and ever pointed its coruscations towards Dr. Firkins. The learned principal wiped his brow and his hands, and each particular finger, very carefully. Then perking up, he gave a piercing look round upon the assembly ; and having coughed to try his throat and lungs, requested that the doors might be shut. This being complied with, while he was arranging his enor- mous scroll of didactic eloquence (at the sight of which some prudent elderly gentlemen seated near the door em- braced the opportunity of withdrawing), the doctor coughed again. The noise from his diaphragm seemed to sound better in his ears this time, and he took a glass of water with great deliberation and emphasis.
He announced that his text w^as to be found in I^eviticus xix. 36. — " Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin shall ye have." My report of some of the heads of his discourse must necessarily be extremely brief; still my readers may complain even of this small matter. If they are so disposed, let them think of what the Washington congregation underwent, such of them at least as sat out the performance, and they will blush at their own selfish- ness and effeminacy. The doctor began, of course, with the. history of weights and measures — their quantity, quality, and nomenclature among the Orientals, Greeks, and Ro- mans ; detailed the changes which had taken place in them in different periods and countries ; and the efl^ects which those changes had produced on the commercial, moral, and physical condition of men. In adverting to the French decimal system, he was led into an eloquent digression about Jacobinism ; which he said had trampled under foot all law and order, and overthrown the system of weights and measures, by gluing up the old standards in an inso- luble viscosity of blood and blasphemy. He commented
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likewise on long and learned reports made to Congress on the subject ; and as to long measure, concluded that it was impossible, owing to the inequalities of the earth's surface, to ascertain the length of a degree on the equator ; but suggested, as his own opinion, that it could only be measured with mathematical precision on the moon, by means of a good telescope.
From physical weights, balances, powers, and conven- tional definitions of extension, he should proceed, he said, to the far more important ones of a moral nature. And, beginning with the individual Man, he should touch first on the metaphysical balance of power. Imagination and the discursive faculty, monomania and animal magnetism were powers operating in various directions. Their force was counteracted in several modes, by judgment, reason, and the direct evidence of the senses. Memory was the balance-wheel ; on the proper adjustment of which depended the preservation of a due equilibrium in the intellectual ' microcosm. By reading good old classical authors, the Fathers, and the commentators on the civil law, and by keeping large commonplace-books after the manner of Locke, of which a dozen pages at least should be filled daily, the balance-wheel, he pronounced, would be kept sufficiently well loaded, and the machinery would work with an equable motion.
Secondly, he proceeded to treat of the domestic bal- ance of power, in which the husband, the head of the family, was the true balance-wheel. He was both erudite and poet- ical in his account of the patriarchal form of government. This would have been the most curious and fructifying part of his discourse, had not the mischief arising from bad mar- riages, and the curses attendant upon having bad wives, untimely inflamed his vein of indignation ; and, like a whirlwind of dust and a band of hostile Ishmaelites, de- stroyed the tranquil and refreshing picture of en encamp- ment of the Bedouin Arabs, which he had emptied into his
244 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
Gommonplace-book from some modern traveller, and thence into his sermon. He had obviously lost his temper in the composition of this part of the discourse, nor did he find it again in the delivery. He went the whole length, in speak- ing of the fair sex, of the surly and coarse protosatyrist Simonides of Cos, from whom he quoted freely. The swine, fox, slut, earth, ocean, ass, cat, mare, and ape species of women, he dwelt upon con amove. Of that class whose emblem is the bee, he spake sparingly. He asked, what in the range of animated nature was more insufferable, than a scold, a slut, a hoyden, a harlot, a female fool, fury, or fiend ? He ran through Johnson's definitions of scold and shrew, emphasizing with great apparent feeling their beautiful variations — a shrill, peevish, malignant, spite- ful, vexatious, turbulent, brawling vixen, or termagant female person. He cited Ecclesiasticus to the effect that " he who hath her," (an uncomfortable wife, to wit), " is as if he held a scorpion. She is a yoke shaken to and fro ;" but, said the doctor, not to be shaken off: because, though you may get a divorce in Vermont, Rhode Island, or Connecticut, yet in consequence of recent ill-advised de^ cisions elsewhere, it amounts to nothing in most of the other states.
Old Barton stood him in great stead, and the plagiarisms of Sterne and others were modest in comparison to his ; but I have too much respect for Burton as well as for the refined half of human-kind, to assist in spoliations from him, or in repeating the gross terms which the misogamists of antiquity, who were cross only because they did not know how to please the ladies, thought fit to employ ; all of which terms, however, the doctor doled out without stint ; smack- ing his lips whenever he took breath, as if, like a Persian laureate, his mouth had been stuffed with sugar-candy.
He then proceeded to give a history of all the bad matches of antiquity. On the authority of Eichhorn and Adam Clarke, he proved Job's wife to be the earliest, though
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by no means the worst on record ; and from her he went down through all the cases of petit treason and matrimonial impropriety on the part of the weaker vessel, till he came to the spouse of Herod. In the list he included many worthy ancient ladies, of whom all that is to be found is some occasional remark of theirs which may be considered as snappish, and not quite as amiable as modern wives use ; but they had the full benefit of the doctor's vocabulary, and he took it for granted that they were all as bad as they could be. He then explored the pages of profane history ; beginning with Semiramis and the wife of Candaules, whose name, as he said, Herodotus had forborne to mention out of delicacy ; but who, according to Bochart and other good authorities, was called Nyssasa. He mentioned many other oriental belles, and Helen and Clytemna3stra, and a long catalogue of Grecian queens and heroines ; and came to the conclusion as to the latter, after having devoted pro- . found attention to the subject, that Penelope was the only woman of rank among them w^ho maintained a show of common delicacy. This one good example he held up as a consolation to all who despaired of the gynecocracy. At the same time, he felt it his duty to observe, from accurate investigation, that the evidence of her conduct during the ten years' war which bore hard upon her, had been smoth- ered, out of respect to her distinguished husband. There certainly was some ingenuity in the argument, which he founded on the tediousness of the nine last books of the Odyssey, and the protracted unwillingness of this far-famed matron to recognise her husband ; whom, he said, she 7nust have either known, or not chosen to know ; and he be- lieved, that if poor Argus, whom he proved from the Greek anthology to be a terrier, had had the gift of speech, and had not died in the sudden paroxysm of his joy, he would have told his old master some very strange stories.
During this part of the discourse, Mrs. Montagu was so peculiarly restless, that Mr. Wilson asked her with an air
246 SCExNES AT WASHINGTON,
of disinterested politeness, if she did not wish to retire. She gave him to understand that she did not, so summarily that he did not renew the appHcation ; but as old Judge Symp- sons had contrived to get a seat by Miss Fin in the mean time, the poor young man took the liberty of stealing a fur- lough on his own account for a few minutes.
As for the Roman matrons, from TuUia, to Messalina, the doctor found none worthy of his admiration. If the story of Lucretia was not a fable, she was a fool ; and all the world who knew any thing, believed that Cornelia was accessory to the murder of her son-in-law.
So, ghding into the middle ages, he expatiated freely through the scandalous chronicles of the lives of the Em- press Theodosia of Constantinople, Rosamunda of Lom- bardy, Lady Macbeth of Scotland, and Elfrida of England. Even poor Elgiva, he said, was a forward wanton, who fared no worse than she deserved, according to the manners of her age. He went through the royal lines of all Europe, in quest of illustrations ; among whose distinguished fe- males, Catharine de Medicis, Isabella the wife of Philip of Spain, Mary Queen of Scots, and Catharine of Russia, came in for their several shares of overwhelming vitupera- tion. The Duchess of Marlborough, or old Sal, as he familiarly called her, was shown up in fine style. In the course of these references, he burst out into an eulogium on the eighth Henry of England, who was, he maintained, the rival of Cranmer in Protestant zeal, of Erasmus in learning, and of the Duke of Wellington in energy ; and who had revenged, on a series of bad wives, the universal wrongs of injured husbands since the institution of the marriage con- tract. The evidence was in favour of one of these ladies, and he believed that Jane Seymour might have been a good sort of a woman. But with all due respect to the female sex, this proportion of one good wife out of five, he said, might be taken as a liberal allowance.
He then took a bird's-eye view of the Newgate Calen-
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dar ; observing that there was a manifest flimily likeness in the countenances therein depicted of all the bad wives who had been hanged or burned for every variety of crime, from simple larceny to such atrocities as were committed by Martha Brownrigg,
Who whipped two female 'prentices to death, And hid them in the coal-hole."
He should forbear from touching on men's private expe- riences, or probing their secret wounds, from respect to the feelings of the a.udience. Remedies, other than unmanly patience and endurance, there were none — saving the appli- cation of disciphne, or the gentler experience of divorce. The latter course was rarely vindicated in the pulpit ; but for his own part, he was free to say, that he held the opinions of those two illustrious polygamists, the first royal head of the English church, and the immortal Milton.
He observed, moreover, that, according to old Purchas, in his Pilgrims, the Chinese attempted to turn scolds and other pestilent ill-conditioned females to good account, by supporting their deaf and dumb asylums at Pekin by fines levied upon them. But as these fines must commonly be paid by the husband or other sufferer from the nuisance, the doctor doubted the equity of the law. He much more approved of an old English common-law practice, men- tioned by Dr. Plot in his History of Staffordshire, as pre- vailing at Newcastle, where scolds w^ere cured by an easy collar round the neck, connected with a thin smooth plate of iron inserted into the mouth to keep the tongue down — an invention which he pronounced to be " at once pre- ventive and sanative, and worthy of the wisdom of our ancestors."
He next proceeded to the constitutional balance of power in a state ; as to which I only remember that Ke said De Lolme's triangle was good enough to jingle upon ; but that
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the adjustment must be between the rulers and the beruled, which could only be effected by didactic and ministerial functionaries, or, in other words, by the clergy and the constables.
Little, also, can I report of his last grand head, the National Balance of Power. I should do him injustice in attempting it. The subject, he said, was not understood in this new country, because it ivas new, and its position was original. He would say, that perhaps the proud-eyed, comatose, and inflated dictation of many, who called them- selves statesmen, was such as justified him in throwing his own light on the subject, both in its true abstract theory, and as that bore on the existing state of the world. He had done so in two forthcoming octavos ; and on the present occasion should advert but to a few familiar topics. Such a thing as an actual balance among nations, he said, first existed when Assyria was governed by Ninus, and alto- gether ceased when Hayti was lost to France. The ques- tion, as to the probability or possibility of a new irruption of barbarians from the North, which was still the subject of grave scholastic discussion in Europe, proved, he said, the deteriorating and dementalizing effects which Jacobinism, gunpowder, and the Encyclopaedia had had upon the masses of intellect in that section of the globe. It was absurd to pro- pound such a subject of inquiry. There could be no doubt that in the course of a few centuries, more or less, Europe would be invaded from Africa, whose human material was silently but certainly concentrating and increasing, and would continue to do so, until its movement and destination would become as irresistible as the river, when its waters rise high above the level of the precipice, and it rushes in its bulk over the barrier, gathering fury by its freedom, and scattering destruction in its descent. But the next northern invasion would visit America. China could not contain its millions for ever ; and untold hundreds of thousands of rov- ing and ravenous men, hurrying with them in their progress
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the sturdy and hungry barbarians of the Arctic regions, would in some long polar night march to Behring's Straits. A more genial climate would still invite them onwards ; and they would be on the high road to New- York, perhaps, while half our posterity disbelieved their existence. But these things were not likely to occur soon ; though they must take place before all nations could have a military representation at the battle of Armageddon, which he believed would be fought near Botany Bay, on what would then be the neutral ground of the world.
At present he warned the nations of the earth, assembled as he might call them, in that illustrious audience (bowing to a quarter where he saw some foreign gentlemen and diplomatists), to consider the imposing attitude of Denmark, striding'as she did like a Colossus across the Baltic, and hav- ing a foothold in the occidental Indies, from which her young ambition might aspire to climb the Andes. Once she had swayed the sceptre of three powerful northern realms, and dictated to the princes of Southern Europe j
And what the fathers did of old The sons might do again,
on the larger theatre of two hemispheres. He warned them too against the political ambition of the pope, who, fired by the prospect of Catholic emancipation in Ireland, had already appointed a vice-consul in the United States. He quoted the great CEcolampadius, to prove that great states had always been subdued by small ones ; and cited all history to confirm the dogma.
When it was known by an inspection of their watches, ■which was frequently made during the first half of the ser- mon, that the northern mail had arrived, the members of Congress present became restless ; and certain whispering conversations arose, the murmur of which app'eared to fall on the doctor's ear : as he frowned portentously, and was
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silent, till silence was restored. When it waxed later, and the resident auditors, ^vho went to their own churches in the afternoon, began to fear that they would lose their own early and frugal Sunday dinner, other symptoms of dis- quietude were manifested, which were encouraged and backed by such of the former malecontents as had had the grace or the politeness to remain. When the dinner bells were heard from the neighbouring hotels, neitrier the frowns nor pauses of the orator, had power to quell what he would have styled the PolyphlcEsbic noise ; and when Mr. Latimer got up a cry of fire, the bulk of the audience poured out with no further ceremony, in a continued stream, the residuum amounting to some twenty or thirty heads ; for whose edification Firkins was obliged to huddle up his prac- tical, moral, and religious applications ; and to promise a conclusion of his discourse on another occasion.
When the exercises of the morning were at length con- cluded, Mrs. Montagu put down her veil, took hold strenu- ously of poor Wilson's arm, and remained standing ; wait- ing, as she said, until the crowd should have withdrawn. As this crowd of some score of persons advanced towards the door, she followed with her eyes, in an attitude of intense observation, the retiring clergyman, who moved rapidly, discoursing all the while as volubly, to half a dozen persons who surrounded him, and quickly disappeared.
Mrs. Montagu started, after a moment's pause, and dragged her chaperon out; while old Judge Sympsons. hobbled after, supporting the aerial Patagonian whose pros- pects of real estate had been vouched for by our friend Latimer. If Mrs. Montagu's object was to overtake the doctor, it was, however, defeated. He departed as rapidly as did the sheriff of Nottingham from the presence of Robin Hood.
As they were returning home, Mrs. Montagu observed to her escort, " I think, nav I am sure, that I have seen the
SCENES AT WASHINOTON. 251
gentleman who preached for us before. Do you know where he lodges ?"
Wilson was unable to give the desired information. Mrs. Montagu requested him to ascertain the doctor's ad- dress as soon as possible. She said she had a particular motive for making the inquiry, as she had a little private business of great importance to herself to transact with him. At the same time she prayed Mr. Wilson to obtain this intelligence without mentioning that she had sought for it.
When they arrived at their quarters, the dinner was nearly over, and they sat down to a supplement. Mrs. Montagu was informed, with a meaning look, by the lady of the house, that Miss Longchild and Mr. De Grey had gone out in a carriage, several hours before, and had not returned. She replied, very shortly, that she supposed the fine weather had tempted them out, and that very probably the hospitalities of Georgetown had induced them to pro- tract their absence ; and apparently paid little attention to the subject ; her mind still being occupied with the author of the morning's prelection. When Wilson informed her after dinner that he had been unable to learn from any one in the house where Firkins resided, she besought him ear- nestly to prosecute his inquiries until he was successful. She said that she should get no rest all night, unless she received this information. The polite young gentleman promised to ascertain the doctor's abode, if he had any local habitation, and went forth upon his mission.
The day, which had been so fair and fine in the morning, became overcast towards evening. Wind, mist, rain and sleet, asserted their claims and contended for the mastery ; so that those who were assembled in the cheerful sitting- room in the evening, had reason to be glad that they were so comfortably protected from the elements. Mrs. Mon- tagu, however, seemed restless and uneasy ; which was naturally ascribed to her receiving no intelligence of her
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shorter protegee. To some well-meant attempt at conso* lation on this subject, by the landlady, she replied, " Oh ! I feel no concern whatever about the dear girl. I have the most perfect confidence, as she well knows, in her discre- tion and lady-like sense of propriety. I have no doubt she is at Mr. Wilkins's ; and it would be extremely injudicious for either her, or Mr. De Grey, whose health is quite deli- cate, to think of returning in this storm. Still I know that my affectionate Adelgitha will be anxious on my account. There is a deep tinge of romantic feeling in her nature, which leads her to exaggerate ordinary mischances, and create real out of sentimental evil."
" Romance and sentimentality, and fiction, and all such things," said old Judge Sympsons, who was sitting by Miss Fin, " in my opinion are all affectation ; and so are hysterics and dyspepsy."
" To wex the mind with imag-i-na-ry misfortunes," recited Miss Fin, " without the con-com-ba-tant of a moral lesson, is to increase the sum of personal grieve-yan-ces, and in-ca-pa-ci-yate us for enduring un-a-woi-dable evils.'*
" Now that's what I call good sense," said the judge. "Novels and fits, and writing love-letters, and fainting away, are all nonsense and affectation. It all comes of reading trumpery books."
With such pleasant and profound conversation they be- guiled the time, until Mr. Wilson returned, dripping wet, and bespattered with mud. From him Mrs. Montagu learned in a conversation apart, that Dr. Firkins was lodg^ ing at the house of a Mrs. Catafelto, who lived somewhere between the Seven Buildings and Rock Creek. She thanked her Mercury so graciously for the trouble he had taken on her account, and regretted so warmly the damage accruing to his clothes, and which might accrue to his health, that he must have been consoled abundantly for the plight was in. The lady then retired to her bower of rest at an early hour, telling Miss Fin she need be in no hurry on her account.
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The next morning the reverend, eloquent, and learned subject of Mrs. Montagu's inquiries, again obtruded him- self at the breakfast-table of Mr. Moreton's mess, with an air of a singularly complicated character. His gait and his countenance were pregnant with diverse meanings; in which a sort of important perplexity was most obvious. He stated, with more embarrassment than was natural to him, that he wished to make a private communication, which would be very brief, to Messieurs Moreton and Latimer, as soon as possible, and had come early for that purpose. Having seated himself at table, he resumed his ease, and inquired how the " Senatus populusque" had liked his ser- mon the day before. Latimer said it was the most pro- digious performance of the kind he had ever heard, and that the ladies, in particular, talked of nothing else. He regret- ted extremely, that from the false alarm of fire, he had lost the conclusion, which the door-keeper had assured him was the most interesting part of the discourse. Mr. Moreton, who had not been present, hearing that the subject had been the balance of power, observed that it was a theme prohfic in good topics; aflbrding equal scope for the display of philosophic investigation, sound erudition, and ingenious theory.
It was with great good-humour, in consequence of these compliments, that the doctor received Latimer's peremptory intimation that what he had to say must be said quickly, as he had not ten minutes to spare. Mr. Moreton likewise ob- served, that " though clergymen, in discharging their pro- fessional functions, had an unquestioned right to dispose as they saw fit of the conventional period of time assigned to that exercise, yet, on other occasions, public and private duties must, from the constitution of society, maintain a para- mount claim."
Descending with these gentlemen to a parlour, the doctor seated himself, crossed his ankles, coaxed his knee^ with the palms of his hands, rolled his head about, and again looked
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importantly perplexed ; but was tardy in beginning to articulate.
" Come, Mr. President, festina lente won't do now. Fire away, domine," said Latimer ; " and you must labour to be brief, or I shall not be able to attend at the parturition. Shortihus estate^ as Julius Pollux has it."
" Well, gentlemen," said Firkins, " the impediment to my suffering my fledged and winged words to take flight, is the necessity of a previous explanation."
" Oh, there's none at all, doctor," said Latimer. " When the pie was opened — the birds began to sing — "
" I must, however, without a formal vindication, explain, that in relation to the subject matter, or one of the subject matters to which my forthcoming communication relates, and as to which I must solicit your advice, gentlemen, I may heretofore have been misunderstood by you; not with- out such an inferential assent on my own part to such mis- apprehension on yours, as unskilful casuists might misinter- pret into the similitude of implied or half voluntary decep- tion."
" Oh, if there's a humbug, let it out, doctor. Time flies."
" Patience, for one moment, my dear sir," said Firkins, who seemed honestly in a painful situation. " My charac- ter requires a brief exposition of this one point, to gentle- men of your high standing. Whether not to contradict what is false, by yielding an apparent approbation to the sophisticated statement, or to state what is true, being un- derstood differently and knowing one's self to be so, is justi- fiable in practical ethics, is a question which all the schools of philosophy have agitated, and on which even divines dis- agree. Far be it from me and my friends to follow the profligate and corrupt tactics of the disciples of Loyola."
" Pshaw, doctor, never mind the Jesuits. Whether a falsehood is a lie or not, depends upon * a concatenation accordingly,' as the learned Tony Lumpkin says ; and be- sides, I recollect that CEcoIampadius says, lying is lawful,
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in cases of high treason, and where the honour of famihes is at stake."
" Does he, indeed ? The passage has escaped my mem- ory ; and the other great ethical authority you quote is quite new to me. Lying, sir, is of course out of the ques- tion, or I should not have courted such society. But as to whether countenancing a disguise was strictly proper in one of my cloth, I shall pretermit it now, as a subject for our antagonistic solution in future conversations. You must know, then, gentlemen, that the young man who has appeared here as Mr. De Grey, and whom I fortuitously recog- nised— "
Here the door opened, and a veiled lady entered, whom a servant ushered in, announcing to Mr. Moreton that it was Mrs. Montagu, who had called upon him. Mr. More- ton was advancing towards her in his usual dignified and polite manner; but the lady, having courtesied, came rap- idly forward, raised her veil, and exhibited a countenance glowing with indignation, as she fixed Firkins with her eyes. She sank, much agitated with spasms, on a chair opposite to the doctor, continuing to ray out the wrath of her expression directly upon him ; while she panted, heaved, and shook, as one does who is in good case of body and in a towering passion of mind, without being able to come to what the Fancy call the Scratch.
The doctor first turned pale, for several moments ; a flush then passed over his face, and went and came, and went again, while he was fidgetting about ; but after some time, consideration or resolution seemed to visit him ; and, after grinding his teeth, and looking red as a turkey-cock,, he said, "It is my heart's desire to finish my communica- tion to you, Mr. Moreton. I will retire till this lady has transacted her business, and pray you to remain five min- utes afterward. My character requires it."
" I bid you,, sir, remain now," said the lady. " It is my
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heart's desire to confront you here. My character requires it. Your character ! where did you get it from ?"
" But, madam," said Mr. Moreton, " control your feel- ings. Dr. Perkins — "
" Perkins is not his name, nor Firkins either," said the lady. " It is Bigglesbury. Twenty-seven years ago he married me, and twenty years ago he deserted me, taking away my only child, and leaving me totally destitute ; labouring, too, under whatever base surmises his conduct might give rise to. I grieved not for his loss ; but I will know what has become of my child ; and will make him vindicate my character, and confess himself a rascal. I found out his lodgings ; traced him here ; and now [here she sobbed], gentlemen, you will see that I have justice done to me."
Latimer and Moreton looked to Firkins for a response. Strange as it may seem, after such an unexpected assault on his complacency, he soon got over the shock ; and hav- ing rubbed his eyes, wiped his forehead, and twisted his figure about, he folded his arms, and said, with an air of composure, and even of lurking triumph — " True it is, that I married this lady twenty-seven years ago, or more. I thought she was defunct ; but am glad she yet lives, to re- pent, as I hope she does, of the horrible life she led me during our intercourse. I was compelled to leave her by the acidity of her temperament and the outrageousness of her passions. Of her character for the last twenty years, I know nothing, and can give no certificate ; and as she ex- presses no desire to resume her conjugal relations, I care not to inquire about the matter. But as to her son, I can give her an account of him, which will be satisfactory even to herself, if she be the woman called Mrs. Montagu — "
" What else should I call myself, you pedantic and insig- nificant wretch," exclaimed the lady, " than by my maiden name ; never disgraced but by taking yours ? Do you
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think I would live alone, with such a name as Biggies-- bury r
" Firkins is certainly an improvement ; it is more eupho- nic and sonorous, and suggests divers pleasing bucolical and pastoral associations," said Latimer, who seemed to have got over his hurry.
"Madam," said Mr. Moreton, "allow me to remark — and I address the observation to you, doctor, likewise, that ' the exposition of family dissensions, beyond that pale of consanguinity which encloses near and confidential kindred, is ever as unprofitable in fact, as it is painful in contempla- tion—
" Well, sir, my son then, where is he ?" said the lady, forgetting her manners, and with eyes still flashing at Fir- kins like the threatenings of an unexploded thunder cloud.
" He is rich and happy," said the doctor ; — when the knob of the door was handled, and a voice was heard asking, " Where is Doctor Firkins ?"
The doctor started up, exclaiming,
' Ecce quem qusris, ille quem requiris, Toto notus in orbe — '
" Bigglesbury, alias Firkins," — added Latimer, as Hippo- lyte entered, with Adelgitha hanging upon him, with a long green veil covering her dumpy proportions.
They both seemed startled at first on seeing Mrs. Mon- tagu, who had also risen, and, on their appearance, drew herself up wnth an air of dignity. After a little fluttering, however, they advanced and kneeled (perhaps I should say the female suppliant squatted) gracefully before her.
" Forgive us, madam," said Hippolyte. " We have been a getting married ; but it was all owing to my impatience. This elegant and yielding creature is too sensitive to endure scolding ; but lay it all on to me."
"Rise, sir," said Mrs. Montagu. " Rise, Adolgitha." It is needless for me to say, that I had not expected such a
VOL. II. KK
258 S€E]NES AT WASHINGTON.
wantof confidence, such an apparent slight — on so moment-' ous an occasi-on." She shed tears — at least she put her handkerchief to her eyes.
" Oh ! my dear Mrs. Montagu 1 my more than parent !" — sobbed and sputtered Adelgitha ; as she clung to the stately figure of her instructress. " There were reasons — . yet I could rather have died than hav^e thus offended you ! All wdll be explained — forgive me !" And she seemed to weep likewise, or had, at any rate, violent singults and flesh- quakes, which looked alarming.
Hippolyte stood in an elegant attitude, as he thought ; and Latimer handed him a pitcher of water, saying " your bride is in hysterics ;" but Mrs. Montagu raised and em- braced the penitent bride. " You are forgiven, my still dear Adelgitha," said she. " Explanations must be post- poned. Collect yourself, and allow me to introduce to you^ Mr. Moreton, and to you^ Mr. Latimer, Mr. and Mrs. De Grey-"
"Well!" said Firkins, "do you know all about it? or why don't you introduce them to me V
A withering look of scorn and contempt flashed from the eyes of the " lofty lady," as she glanced at the querist, who was sm.irking, and rubbing his hands — and drew herself up to the full altitude of her somewhat commanding figure. Reply she gave him none.
"Ah!" said Firkins, " I see you don't know any thing about it. Ignorance and Sublimity were twins, according to an ancient apologue. Who do you think married them ? Who do you think Mr. De Grey is ?"
The lady regarded him sternly, and with a look some- what more contemptuous than angry ; and turning to the two representatives, said — "Gentlemen, I have solicited your countenance, and know that I shall not ask it in vain. The eclaircissement which has just happened should have transpired elsewhere. I know not how or why it should have taken place here — its extraordinary nature must ex-
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 259
cuse the indecorum, which I presume arose from the anxiety of my dear Adelgitha. I pray you to let it pass ; and suffer me again to request that this — clergyman — whom I find in your society, will explain why he abandoned me, and where my son, if he still lives, has been bestowed ?"
" So you think," said the doctor, laughing, " that these young people came here to find you ? O mala fides homi- num ! — But the rights of nature are sacred, notwithstand- the ludicrousness of circumstances. Jocose associations, in the order of events, frequently induce solemn de- velopments."
' But now the awful hour draws on. When truth must speak in loftier tone.'
" Kneel, Jonas Biggelsbury, to your mother." [Hippo- lyte kneeled accordingly, while Adelgitha, starting back- wards, sat down upon the floor.] " I am a clergyman, madam ; you need not have sneered and stuttered about it. Here is your son, round wdiose name I have suffered a cloud to dwell until this moment ; and he is bestowed, I trust, according to your liking. I saw fit to apply to the Massa- chusetts legislature to change my name, when I changed my profession ; and their sovereign act has made that mine by which I am known. Let this young couple, endowed with youth and riches, receive our mutual blessings ; and then let us follow our several businesses, without interfer- ence, obstreperousness, or intercalumniation. These chil- dren had not only my consent and paternal benediction, but were solemnly united by me, in my clerical capacity, in that bond which only death, divorce, or the intolerable mis- conduct of the woman can morally dissolve."
The doctor delivered this declaration in a declamatory style, and in a manner which he thought was dignified ; in which supposition he was so wrapt, that he did not observe the effect it produced on the three members of his new
260 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
acknowledged family. When Hippolyte, alias Jonas, kneeled to his mamma, as per instruction, she stood, after a wild stare, like a monumental and not a live woman ; while Adelgitha fidgeted and turned all sorts of colours, rolling her eyes round and round about, as if she saw seven suns in the firmament. Hippolyte, the exquisite Hippolyte, still kneeled in a lackadaisical manner, obviously not knowing what he was about ; though the smile of conceit, enhanced apparently by some recent acquisition of imaginary import- ance, still remained like painted and sickly-looking light- ning, on his mawkish, pragmatical, and wishy-washy coun- tenance. He found the use of his tongue first, however, saying, in a stammering way, " Is this lady my mother, sir?"
" Oh ! yes," said Firkins. " There is no mistake about that. I thought she was dead till ten minutes ago. The ecstacy of our mutual recognition had taken place, and the effervescence passed off before your appearance. Filial piety is to be indulged, as the earliest instinct. But Mr. Latimer is in a hurry, and we have business to transact. Embrace your mother, and reserve family explanations for another time. Look at your wife, sir 1"
Well he might ; for Adelgitha Bigglesbury was rolling on the rug and thumping the floor in utter oblivion of all her graces and callisthenics. Hippolyte obeyed his father literally by " looking at his wife," and no more, while the good-natured Latimer and the courteous Moreton raised her from the floor and placed her on a sofa.
Mrs. Montagu had sunk upon her chair, and not yet spoken. At length she said, slowly and huskily, but in an imperative voice still — " If this young man is my son, where is the two or three hundred thousand dollars that he is worth to come from ?"
" Pecuniarily and presently," said Firkins, sniggering, " from your charming eleve, his wife ; but permanently and
SCENES AT WASHIKGTON. 261
prospectively, from the prescience and prospects of his father ?"
Mrs. Montagu almost groaned, and nearly screamed as she said, " His wife is my niece, and her clothes are not paid for ! her father is porter to the United States Branch Bank. But you^ Mr. Moreton, you, sir — how could you tell me that you believed this unhappy young man to be so rich?"
" I referred, madam, to Dr. Firkins as my authority ; who, I am sorry to say, does not stand at present in a moral atti- tude which would command hereafter that ordinary ere* dence which I am disposed to yield at all times to a clergy- man or a scholar."
" Humph !" said Firkins, who now looked indescribably. " I was prepared to elucidate that point, sir, when the im- perative haste of Mr. Latimer induced me to postpone it, and the unexpected visit of this woman rendered it impos- sible. But why did you say, sir, before many witnesses, of whom I was one, at the public table, that this unfortunate female child was worth a hundred thousand dollars, with a house and furniture, and coach and horses ?"
" I said no such thing, my friend," said Mr. Moreton, after a pause — putting on a stateliness which a sculptor might have copied for an Olympian Jove's, while a giant's cub was trifling with one of his thunderbolts. " I did not say so."
" Certainly, not," said Latimer. " I was one of the wit- nesses you spoke of, doctor ; and Mr. Moreton referred to quite another lady, though of a name somewhat similar, which you might have misunderstood."
" But you told me yourself," said Hippolyte, who looked as white as a sheet, and still more foolish than would have been credible, even to those who knew his natural expres- sion— " you told me yourself, Mr. Latimer, that she was a cash concern." '
It was not in his usual manner that the gentleman thus
2G2 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
addressed replied, after some hesitation — " If I had known you were quite such a spooney, I should have been more cautious in using terms. I never saw or heard of you or the lady before the day you inflicted yourself upon me. But it seems, after all, that it is in the family fashion. She is a charming creature too, and plump as an angel. You may make a cash concern out of it by prudence and indus- try. I take it for granted it cost you nothing to get mar- ried. What strikes me most forcibly is, that any non-resi- dent clergyman is subject to a heavy fine, and imprison- ment at the. discretion of the court, for marrying in the dis- trict without a license. I advise you, doctor, as your friend, very seriously and solemnly, to clear out from Washington extemporaneously. The tiling will get wind, and before you know it you will be in jail. My ten minutes were up half an hour ago, and I must go. I can be of no service, and wish you all a good morning. So saying he left the room — but as suddenly returning, addressed Hippolyte: " I had almost forgotten, my gay Lothario — that same minia- ture of the princess — how came you by it ? Did you steal it ? or how did you get hold of it, without any direct lar- ceny ? — where is it ?"
The elegant favourite of Pauline, after fumbling for some time about his bosom, sheepishly produced the minia- ture, and tendering it to Mr. Latimer, said, " that the origi- nal miniature had struck his fancy at Mr. Cummings's, and that he had got the artist to make him a copy — '*
" For which you never paid him, hey ? Come, I will rid your conscience of that sin. I can't leave my affectionate, sentimental little niece in bad company, constantly running the risk of being passed off" for some humbug princess of Par- mesan. Give me the picture. I'll make it a present to my wife, and will remember, as I pass through New- York on my way home, to do that which you took care to forget — that is, pay the artist." ^Hippolyte delivered the miniature, which Mr. Latimer
SCENES AT WASHINGTON. 203
deposited in his pocket. Then assuming a mock solemnity, he bowed most gravely and profoundly to every individual member of the assembled party, and withdrew ; but as he cleared the door he burst out into what Homer calls inex- tinguishable laughter, which lasted him in repeated and un- controllable peals from his lodgings to the capitol stairs, a good mile and three-quarters. " The gods envy an honest man enjoying an honest laugh."
Mr. Moreton, ere he followed the rapidly retreating foot- steps of his co-legislator, paused, with an air of unquestion- able dignity, while his right hand rested in his bosom, and his hat was balanced in his left, and leisurely and emphati- cally made the following observations: —
" However much I may be at present disposed to regret the intricate complication of circumstances in which it is apparent that you, madam, and the Rev. Dr. Perkins, together with others, have been involved by your unfortu- nate severance, and by the multiplicity of not unnaturally superinduced events, and ordinarily consequent contingen- cies, yet allow me to say that the result cannot be recalled. I regret the result, as I have stated ; and I am free to admit, madam, that I do so on the supposition that it was, weighing all the collateral motives and predicaments, en- tirely unavoidable on your part. On this supposition (or admission as regards you, madam), I must regret that the concatenation of events involving your private comfort and arrangements has wound up so unsatisfactorily. I know not that I have any specific proposition to make for the in- ternal improvement of your individual or domestic condi- tion. I fully concur in the opinion advanced by my hon- ourable friend from — I mean, I agree with Mr. Latimer in advising you to go home. I recommend an oblivion of the past ; a sedulous cultivation of the fireside charities ; a res- toration to their niches of the innocent household gods ; a rekindling of early sympathies, and a reunion ©f ancient solemn connubial engagements. The unsophisticated viva-
264 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
city, the vernal freshness of spirits, and the elasticity of feel- ing in these young persons, will, I trust, enable them to bear patiently the dissipation of their golden dreams. I hope that by industry and prudence they may make their way in the world, and their union be crowned with a happy and numerous issue."
As Mr. Moreton was bringing his observations to a close, with his hand on the knob of the half open door. Firkins had sidled gradually in that direction, and would have slipped out, had not Mrs. Montagu seized him by the end of his coat, which she grasped firmly, and gave him a look like that of armigerent Minerva, w^iich operated as an effectual ne exeat. Mr. Moreton, having finished his speech, the words of which he weighed out with great deliberation in a fit of abstraction very natural to him, did what he was ever wont to do at the same hour when quitting his own paper and document-strewed apartment for a committee- room, or any other business. He fairly closed and locked the door behind him, and carefully put the key in his pocket, leaving the good people within to settle their own affairs.
In what wise they discoursed together, I know not, or what mutual explanations took place. It may be proper to mention that what is known of Hippolyte's life, from the time when his father sent him to seek his fortunes, till his appearance at Washington, is rather curious ; but I cannot encumber my already too protracted narrative with particulars. I may make them the subject of a separate sketch. I have it on the authority of Mrs. Jerusalem, who kept the house, and let the party out w^hen they began to knock and ring, that they retired in safety and silence, and marched in Indian file to Mrs. Montagu's lodgings, headed by that dignified lady. Here a note was received from Miss Fin, stating that she had walked out with old Judge Sympsons ; and that when she walked back it would be as young Mrs. Sympsons. Her father, I may as wxU mention,
SCENES AT WASHINGTOIV. 265
is a very honest army-tailor, and possessed a patent for four hundred acres in the Rocky Mountains.
The doctor took Latimer's advice, and made a speedy departure ; wending to Little Babylon with his son and new daughter. Hippolyte taught dancing and fencing in the seminary under his father's charge ; and professed to teach French. What practical developments of the antago- nistic principle took place in the family circle, it would be vulgar to rehearse.
Mrs. Montagu, the Junonian finisher of the daughters of the land, had got rid of two awkward appendages to her establishment, and tried her system more successfully on better materials. Her fame spread far and wide, till it reached the Andes. She went to South America, under a personal guarantee from Simon Bolivar, that he would pay her ten thousand dollars a year, if she could not make it herself, and provided it could be got out of the public treasury.
It is not at all my fashion, as I have told my readers, io select specific moralities as texts to be illustrated by narra- tive and example. I have always held that the interests of morals are better served in general by painting vice and virtue as they occur in actual life — strangely mixed with one another — frequently struggling together for the mastery in the same breast — our virtues sometimes leading to mis- fortune, sometimes degraded by weakness — our vices often made splendid by union with noble qualities, and not always receiving their judgment here.
But in the present instance, my purpose has been to re- late a series of actual adventures, which I happened to witness, and which I felt myself bound to record purely for the sake of the regular and useful moral lesson which every character and incident unfolds, and the strict poetical jus- tice with which falsehood and vanity brought upon them- selves their own punishment. The silly arts of 'the son,
VOL. II. — L L
266 SCENES AT WASHINGTON.
the weak falsehood of the father, and the ambitious vanity of the mother, all severally contributed their due share in bringing ridicule, disappointment, and mortification upon the whole family. The root of the follies of all was vanity. That of Hippoly te was ridiculous. That of poor Firkins more inclines me to mourn than, to smile. A memory enviable aUke for its tenacity and its quickness — learning, not at all select, not very profound, nor all of it very accurate, but truly admirable for abundance, copiousness, and variety — an insatiable thirst for knowledge, industry untiring and indefatigable, a never flagging vivacity of spirits, great command af language, some power of elocution — all these, under the guidance of a sober intellect and a due estimate of himself, would have made him distinguished as a teacher and useful as a pastor. But self-conceit and the love of display made him alike forget his pupils in the school-room and his Master in the pulpit, in the restless desire to show oflf Dr. Firkins himself. They seduced him into aberra- tions in private life, and exposed him to mortifications which even Dr. Firkins, such as he was, might well have avoided.
Wisely and truly hath it been said, that humility is the deep and solid foundation of all excellence. It is humility alone which gives the right direction to talents, which adds grace and permanence to every other virtue, dignity to learning, and lustre to genius.
GHOSTS ON THE STAGE*
Every one knows, or has heard of the studious habits of the illustrious Jefferson, and of his fondness for collecting books, not for show, but for use, in all departments of science, art, literature, antiquarian research, and modern speculation. But his classical pursuits, and his study of the difficult authors which cannot be read without great labour, while the poet and schoolmaster only can derive profit by mastering them, are probably known but to few. The general impression has been, that he was more attached to philosophical and speculative investigations — to those, the result of which might have a practical influence on the con- dition of man — than to the perusal of works of pure litera- ture. Indeed, I have heard his example held up, by those who were alike ignorant of the course of his private read- ing, and of the classics which they condemned as stale and unprofitable, to vindicate the assertion that the acquisition of the Greek and Latin languages was a waste of time at best, and alien to, and uncongenial with a proper compre- hension of the important business of life.
But the truth is, that these despised classics, on which all
* This article was published in the Talisman for 1830. It was written in the assumed character of Francis Herbert, the supposed author of that work ; and relates an imaginary conversation held by him with one of our most eminent statesmen and scholars. The particulars respecting the lite- rary habits of Jefferson are curious and authentic.
268 GHOSTS ON THE STAGE.
our best literature is founded, formed the favourite study of this great man in his youth, and afforded him a principal source of amusement in the dignified and learned retire- ment of his age. I had an opportunity of ascertaining this fact when I visited Monticello, in the winter of 1824-5.
I have rarely found more subjects for thoughtful and pleasing observation than w^ere then afforded me, in the in- tellectual and personal habits of the ex-president. The activity of his mind had always excited my admiration. That of his body I was now surprised to find so little im- paired by time, and by the manifold and distracting exer- cises of that intellect, which at the birth of our nation, and in the first great council of the fathers of our country, had
" Winged that arrow, sure as fate," Which fixed the sacred rights of man."
When I accompanied him in his daily morning ride to his mfant university, he bestrode a fiery, powerful horse, which it would have puzzled many a Broadway exhibitor of equesr trian prowess even to manage. And when we arrived at the foundations and rising walls of those diversified struc- tures, * where grateful science' shall long ' adore his shade,' he ran up ladders, and travelled rapidly and unhesitatingly along the unfioored beams oi^ the rotunda, while my younger nerves were, I confess, agitated, as I followed him deliber- ately and cautiously.
It is, however, to his classical reading and habits of study only, that I have now occasion to refer. He was no mere amateur, as was obvious from an inspection of his library. His collection of lexicons was large, and bore the evidences of having been consulted, thumbed, and enriched with anno- tations, as regularly, if not as learnedly, as those of his re- nowned correspondent. Dr. Parr ; while tables and indexes, chronological, or for the convenience of reference, which must have been compiled with considerable labour, were to
GHOSTS ON THE STAGE, 269
be found in his own hand- writing, pasted in several of the classical authors.
It was one of his favourite labour-saving contrivances, to unite in one volume w^hatever he found most immediately serviceable, or considered most relevant, upon one subject. He would take a valuable classic, Polybius, for example, select the fairest printed Greek text, and the best German annotations, and cause them to be bound, interleaved alter- nately with the French commentary and translation of Fol- lard, and the Reveries of Marshal Saxe ; producing by this conjunction a set of singularly variegated, but curious and useful quartos.
As no directions could have been sufficiently explicit to enable a binder to dispose with any accuracy of these sheets, varying in size and in the contents of the pages, it is obvious that their preliminary arrangement must have been made by the hands of the distinguished collector himself, or under his immediate supervision. In one less celebrated for sound practical sense, political wisdom, aptitude for managing a nation's business, and indomitable moral energy, occupations like these w^ould have been noted and com- mented upon, by the superficial and flippant, as indicating the reverse of such high qualities. The philosophy of nature's roturiens did not hold water in this instance.
One day at dinner, after we had chatted some time, and on a variety of topics, while three or four sorts of wines, which, though neither old, nor curious, nor high priced, were good of their kind, and as pure from brandy adultera- tions as they came from their vineyards, had passed and been tasted convivially, the conversation turned on dra- matic representations, and the introduction of apparitions upon the stage. On this latter subject, I fully subscribed to Lloyd's opinion, that no ghost should be seen by. the audi- ence ; and argued the inconsistency of making the bloody and brain-created phantom of Banquo stalk before the spec- tators of the scene, w^hiie to those who were up6n it, save
270 GHOSTS ON THE STAGE.
Macbeth, the space filled up by the ghost must, by an im- practicable effort for imaginative delusion, be conceived to be but empty air. I urged also the more palpable and com- plicated inconsistency in the representation of Hamlet ; in which, at one time, the prince, the audience, and three gen- tlemen of the palace, behold the resurrection of the buried majesty of Denmark ; while, on another occasion, the ghost being visible to all else, the queen could not behold him. And, though the surpassing, and all but actually divine genius of Shakspeare, was here identically conspicuous, so far as conception was concerned, and the play was to be read in the closet, still I maintained, that in enacting regular tragedy, the production of ghosts should not be attempted ; both on account of the incongruities before suggested, and the ludicrous accidents which may mar the effect, consider- ing the persons employed to personify them.
" I must dissent from you altogether," said my host. " You admit that the reader sees no inconsistency, or rather feels none, when the queen does not behold the spirit of her dead husband. I am clearly of Dr. Johnson's opinion, that * a dramatic exhibition is a book recited with concomitants that increase or diminish its effect.' A play read, affects the mind like a play acted. If the poet's fable is worthy of the intervention of a ghost, I am decidedly in favour of having a good honest one produced, that the spectators may be sensible of what it is which terrifies or overawes the actor. With all my regard for the French stage, I confess that La Rive, the Talma of my time, did not affect me (nor do I be- lieve that he did his enthusiastic audience) with half the thrilling emotion, the calenture of the imagination, or ner- vous excitement, which I have experienced at the appear- ance of many a sturdy and clumsy old Hamlet, orBanquo, at Drury Lane and Covent Garden ; or even at Philadel- phia, where, I recollect, while Congress sat there, Fennell played the ' buried majesty of Denmark.' "
*' Shakspeare being in question, and Doctor Johnson, the
GHOSTS ON THE STAGE. 271
greatest of scholiasts, and your experience, being against me, I must of course give up the point. But in the regular tragic drama, you will admit, that not only the French stage, but all classical authority and usage is against the introduction of any ghosts at all, whether seen or supposed to be so ?"
" I beg your pardon. Do you remember none in any Greek tragedy ?"
" None," I replied, after some consideration. " Gods and goddesses, personifications, Force, Strength, Death, and so forth, cannot be called such. Alcestis is indeed revived by the descent of Hercules to Hades ; but no ghost is intro- duced, or could be. The Eidolon of Polydore, in the He- cuba, is merely brought in for prologue, to show the pur- poses of the play, as Shakspeare employed Gower or Father Time ; with certainly more poetical effect than could have been attained by the conversational explanations of Mes- sieurs Noodle and Doodle. But he has nothing to do with the action of the drama, nor would Euripides have ventured to make a mere shade an agent or interlocutor."
" You have forgotten, I perceive, the raising of the Eido- lon of Darius, by the incantations of the Persian council or magi ; and the introduction of Clytemnagstra in the ' Eu- menides.' ^Eschylus, the great master of the sublime, the terrible, and the horrific, had the boldness to bring up the unsubstantial shades : and did so most successfully."
I confess, that though in my youth I was very fond of Greek literature (and my admiration of its unrivalled trea- sures has never been diminished), I was never very familiar with the remaining works of the father of tragedy. My acquaintance with them was confined to the Prometheus Bound ; and, with that exception. Parson Adams's manu-- script ^schylus, without copious collateral assistance, would have been nearly as great a puzzle to me as it was to the country squire. This I frankly acknowledgc^d. It was with no small surprise, also, that I heard my host discours- ing of these relics, unknown certainly to many professors
2T2 GHOSTS ON THi: STAGE.
in this country, with an ease which showed that he had read them intelhgently, and an enthusiasm which was not borrowed from the pedantic raptures of a commentator, but inspired by its original subject. In grandeur and mag^ nificence of conception, he thought iEschylus peerless ; and said it needed little study of what he has left, to be con^ vinced that even his own rich and flexible language was in- sufficient to supply the exorbitant demands of his imagina- tion. As with Shalvspeare, expression sunk under the weight of his thoughts, or received from them a powei which the same words never had before. He said he would show me the passages to which he had referred.
The conversation then fell into a different channel. On retiring to my room at night, I found on the table two oc- tavo volumes, severally containing the Persians and the FuEiEs of the ancient dramatist, interleaved and arranged in the manner I have before described. The text was, if I recollect aright, that of Bothe. His annotations, and those of Schutz, the old Scholia, the French of Du Theil, and the English version of Potter, with plates from the antique, were bound together face to face.
With these convenient aids, I made out the meaning, according to the text before me, of the Chorus in the Per- sians, which calls up the shade of Darius ; at whose tomb the widowed mother was making propitiatory ofierings to appease the manes, when, after the defeat and flight of Xerxes, the council had been listening with intense impa- tience to the rumours of disaster and destruction, brought by a messenger. From reading, I was led to versifying ; and finding my attempt at translation, not long since, among some loose papers, I suggested the subject, which has often been mentioned as an admirable one for a painter, to Inman. His prolific pencil has furnished me with a clas- sical illustration; and I have taken the opportunity of chronicling the conversation which gave rise to my making the version.
CHORUS IN THE PERS.^. 273
CHORUS IN THE PERSiE.
Guardians of the world beneath !
Earth ! and herald Hermes ! hear ! Ruler of the realms of death !
Bid the royal ghost appear ! Hither from depths of endless night, Conduct him upwards into light ! Of quick and dead by him alone, Persia's fortunes may be shown !
Hearest thou, king ! who did'st in glory and bliss Rival on earth the gods by earth adored —
Hearest thou now, in the profound abyss. These strains barbaric to its guardians poured ?
These strains that shrill and changeful, as they flow,
Bear the same burthen, of thine empire's wo — Hearest thou, king ! below ?
Earth ! and ye ushers to the world of gloom !
Yield the magnificent up, the godlike king ! Our earth-born god from your unfathomed womb
We do conjure you to our sight to bring ! From your unseen dominions vast and dread, Such as when Persia's soil was o'er him spread Restore Darius dead !
Hallowed hero ! hallowed mound !
Hallowed ever is the ground,
Where the great whom nations bless'd.
Slumber in their sacred rest ! King of the invisible world, yield up thy prize ! Pluto ! give back Darius to our eyes, Darius, good and wise !
VOL. II. M M
m^
274 CHORUS IN THE PERS.E.
For he did not waste the blood Of the vaUant and the good ; Did not, for an idle show, Plague the w^orld with w^ar and wo ; Heav'n-taught men deemed him, and heav'n-taught
he swayed The hosts of Persia ; — sad the homage paid, Darius ! to thy shade !
Time-honoured majesty ! return ! ascend 1 Here o'er thy mausoleum's sculptured pride, Thy regal sandals raise, in saffron died ; Here let thy diadem blaze upon our eyes ; Mount up, return, our father, and our friend. Blameless Darius ! rise !
What tidings strange and sad thine ears attend ! Master of masters ! still for thee they wait ; Thick mists of horror shroud thy suffering state, The flower of all thy youth unburied lies : Return, return, our father and our friend. Blameless Darius ! rise !
Wo for the land ! for ever wo !
Fresh for thy loss our grief must flow.
In death so mourned, in life so cherished.
Oh ! why hast thou, the powerful, perished ?
Doubly erring, first and last.
Madly erring, he who cast.
O'er ocean's waste, on hostile shore.
Thy navy, navy now no more —
% •■/<-■ -^ ^<= -jp -j^- # ^
The shade of Darius ajjjjears iipon the tomb.
THE BEGINNING.
WRITTEN AS AN INTRODUCTION TO THE TALISMAN FOR THE YEAR 1830,
Strange and mysterious Beginning ! Of thee nothing is, and nothing can be known, save that thou wast in all created things ! The traditions of the human family, as we ascend by their dim light the steps down which the unnum. bered generations of ancestry have trodden, show us no limit to the endless stair. We know only that it began when the heavens and the earth were made.
And, as we are ignorant of the beginning of matter and of time, so are we of that of the intellectual process in our- selves. The chain of memory does not extend beyond an uncertain period in infancy, — a period as dimly defined as the outline of the mountains in ihp. Hawn of an overclouded day.
Nor do we know the beginning or immediate cause (which are here convertible terms), of the bias given to the temperament of our ancestors, or of ourselves, producing those idiosyncrasies, and tendencies good or bad, which affect our earthly welfare. Poor Ophelia might have added to her simple morality that " we know not how we began to be such as we are !"
And, again, as we have no knowledge of the . origin of those elements which constitute our general temperament, so neither have we any of the beginning of our permanent loves and friendships. Poetry may paint the 'local and
276 THE BEGINNING.
ideal circumstances of the supposed first hour of their forma- tion, and the metaphysician may spin out his fine theory of associations, but no individual can truly tell, from the his- tory of his own feelings, when they had their beginning. I speak, of course, of loves and friendships worthy of the name, and of individuals capable of entertaining them.
The Beginning ! If that of animal and that of intellectual life is a mystery which philosophy can never solve, and revelation has not explained, that of their phases, of the end of one and the great change of the other, are wrapt in equal obscurity. We know not when madness begins — we know not when sleep begins — we know not when death begins. For ourselves, we can neither mark nor record the com- mencement of either state ; and our friends cannot do it for us. Yet our sane and waking existence has each its defi- nite point of termination ; and so hath our being upon earth.
We know not when we began to think ; and, so manifold are the perceptions, sensations, and ideas which we acquire and combine, and which lie dormant until the memory is accidentally awakened, or some chord of association is touched, that we can never revert with certainty to the cause and manner by which the embryons of our thoughts were received, whether from observation or the suggestion of others. Th^sft wp imboHy : nnt of these we invent, and call our work original. Mankind sanction the use of the term, and declare the " clay creator" immortal, if his mem- ory should chance to survive his generation. But he, the poet, the maker, can no more ascertain from the chronology of his own mind at what time his first impressions were re- ceived, than he can explain the Beginning of all things.
The old profane poets of various countries and ages may have felt this truth when they began their work with an act of adoration to muse or deity, and then let the current of their inspiration, as it is called, in language which, thus ap- plied, has no particular meaning among either gods or men, run on as it might. They knew not where the fountain
THE BEGINNING. 277
head, the Beginning was ; but as the waters of thought rose up, they flowed out in language fresli and noble, and whose every sound was an echo to the sense.
Thus we know no more when the Beginning was than w^e can predict wdiat the end will be. But while we had no powder over the former, we have much over its conse- quences and issues that may aflect the character of the latter.
When beginning to compose a volume, of w^hich the ma- terial lies in chaos before us, we have a general idea of the form we wish it to assume ; but know not what appendages or alterations the waywardness of fancy, the infinity of as- sociations, or unforeseen effects may occasion, or whether the end will crown the work. But we have it in our power to prevent the intrusion of impurity, reject the instigations of malice, and avoid the appearance of evil ; and, though we may be neither wise nor brilliant, take care to write nothing which the truly virtuous must condemn.
And so in human life. While we had no control over the causes which produced our natural tendencies, or the impulses given in childhood, and can have but little over the accidents and contingencies to which our journey is liable, yet we may so encourage the former if good, or struggle with them if vicious, and so deal with the latter by prudence and self-respect, that, though every hope should be frustrated, and every desire ungratified, our life shall still not all run to waste, and its latter end be worse than its Beginning.
THE STRANGER IN WEEHAWK.
Being the Fragment of a Classical, Topographical, Mineralogical, and Botani- cal Tour to that renowned and ancient City ; performed in the Summer of 1817. By a Member of the Institute of Cork. Carefully printed from the original MS.
" Navigation hath often united the bodies of kingdoms together, but travel hath done much more." — W. Lithgom-,
HAvmG had, from my earliest youth, an insatiable de- sire of travelling and seeing foreign parts, an impetus which has acquired proportionable vigour with the elongation and dilation of my body, I gave vent some days ago to my in- cUnation, and in company with a friend, packed up my wardrobe, consisting of a few sundries, and departed with him. We descended to the water's edge, and prepared to take a solar observation, when we found that we had no quadrant, and that the luminary was invisible, on account of the clouds which covered all the face of the sky. But I have since discovered that the latitude and longitude are laid down on the map, which supersedes the necessity of men- tioning them.
We embarked in an aquatic conveyance, called by the people of these parts a iiorse-hoat. But I am inclined to think that this novelty is a mere sham, a trick upon trav- ellers. There are a dozen sorry nags in this contrivance.
THE STRANGER IN WEEHAWK. 279
which go round in a circular walk, with halters round their necks, and beams at the other extremity. How this orbicu- lar movement can promote the rectilinear advancement of this mammoth boat, is to me a mystery. And as we were six hours in crossing the river, I suspect that they go and come with the tide ; and that the horses are a mere catchpenny, to bring their masters the trigesimo-secundal part of a dollar more on every head than the customary ferriage levied on passengers. However, the unhappy quadrupeds appeared to strain very severely, and in their hinder quarters very particularly ; indeed every sinew of the latter part seemed to be over-exerted, while the head, neck, and fore legs moved glibly enough, which is certainly a natural curiosity. I account for it in this way : — as the horses are all in a string, and the hinder parts of each one immediately subjected to the inspection of his follower, these noble animals draw up their anteriors from pride, and con- tract their posteriors from decency. But I do not lay this down as an hypothesis which is defensible, until I hear from the Antiquarian Institute at Cork, to whom I have trans- mitted an account of this phenomenon, with my conjectures thereon.
The ship's company consisted of nine Dutchmen, three of whom had their frows and sundry of their progeny with them; also one leg of mutton, two breasts of veal, one cheese, and a pound of tea. One of the females, though apparently of a slender constitution, seemed to have a pretty good appetite, for she consumed seventeen apples, two loaves of bread, and the cheese ; and would probably have pro- ceeded to attack the spare-ribs and leg of mutton, if her husband, anticipating such a result, had not squatted him- self down upon them ; and being a man of some circum- ference, it would have been as difhcult a task to have effected their liberation, as to get Enceladus out of Etna.
Most of the company were smoking ; and I discovered the cause of the phlegmatic nature of the Dutch. They
280 THE STRANGER IN WEEHAWK.
use such short pipes, that the smoke goes up their noses, and, as I had reason to beheve, makes the whole tour of their bodies. They have some shrewdness, however. We observed that the cover of the cabin leaked, and they said it was owing to the cracks.
It was raining very fast when we went on board, but the blue horizon soon afterward appeared, and we expected to see a very fine rainbow ; but we were disappointed, as we have since found that in these latitudes there are no rainbows observable at noonday — a curious fact, which I have also transmitted to the Cork Institute.
We landed at Hoboken at half past 2 P. M., but did not tarry to make observations on that place. Its commerce, however, appears to be in a declining condition, as there were but three xebecs, caiques, or galliots lying in the port, two of which were in ruins, and the third by no means seaworthy. Many causes might be assigned for this ; but we dropped a tear over this famous city, and wound our course round into the country. The road lay through tall hills, covered with ground grass, juniperi Jiorentes of Lin- naeus, and the granito-rosso, and granito-grigio or bigio rocks, vertical strata of which intersected these mountains in every direction, and had a very picturesque effect. The road appeared to consist of gravel poundato ; — specimens of all these I have sent to Ireland.
We journeyed at an easy pace, reflecting on the decline and fall of the Roman empire, a subject which the scenery naturally introduced. Our attention, however, was soon arrested by the singular conduct of a dog- He came up to us as if in despair, and we were afraid at first that he was afliicted with the hydromany ; but we were soon con- vinced of our error in that res])ect. His path was a cur- vilinear zigzag ; now retrograde, and now forwards. We then conjectured that he was bewitched ; and gave credence to the superstitions of the inhabitants of these parts, who firmly believe in the doctrine, and nail horse-shoes over
THE SfllANGER IN WEEHAWK. 281
their barn door, to prevent the foul fiend from exerting his potential malice upon their cattle. [One of these charms I examined, and sent a fac- simile to the society aforesaid.] The dog looked in our faces very particularly, whined, hung his ears, and carried his tail between his legs, in token of submission. This is the first proffer of service which the canine species make: when they do fealty as an acknow- ledgment of being willing to become 3'our dog, they curl the tail, and lay their front legs horizontally, bending the head and body gracefully back, which is as much as to say, " Je deviens votre chien." The dog kept us company ever after, running before, and looking back to let us know that he considered himself an avant courier, or else keeping by us.
Nothing particular occurred further until we came to Weehawk. I noticed, however, that the hogs {sues im- mundi of the ancients) are in these parts particularly stupid. An instance which fell under our own observation, is very suprising. One of them had a yoke on his neck, to which was conjoined a stick parallel to the front of his head, perpendicularly directed. This prevented his getting be- tween the bars of the fence ; but the stupid beast continued bruising his nose, without reflecting that, by laying on his side, he might with facility have insinuated himself into the delightful bed of clover which tantalized his inability to enjoy it.
We arrived at the Weehawk inn, and stimulated with punch and crackers. These last were great curiosities, as they appeared, from the taste and inscription upon them, to have been baked in the year 1741. They were proba- bly brought over from Holland by the present burgomaster of Weehawk. The dog ate them, apparently with much satisfaction, by which we discovered that he was a country dog, as those belonging to the city are not partial \o such food.
VOL. II. N N
282 THE STRANGER IN WEEHAWK,
We again set out on our pilgrimage, in order to survey the environs of this extensive and populous town, and struck into a different road. We saw two heifers lying on the grass, who did not seem to know what to do with themselves. Here we reflected on the darkness of the middle ages, and the glorious consequences of the invention of printing.
We heard something singing, and concluded it was a bird, the " avis volucris'^ of Linnoeus. We turned out of the road here to enjoy the prospect afforded by a romantic glen, with a brook in it, and cascades according. The dog washed his {qq\., and we reflected on the source of the Nile.
We discovered an island in this stream, covered with tansies, bullfrogs, and one straight tall ^valnut-tree. We shook the latter in hopes of procuring some fruit ; but as none descended, I suppose it was not the season for them. The withered leaves which covered the ground, while the trees above were in all their verdure, naturally led our contemplations to a comparison between youth and age, life and death, prosperity and adversity.
We returned to Weehawk through a juniper wood, and remarked two particularities in the inhabitants : one is, that they use pocket handkerchiefs on no day of the week but the flrst, by any chcince whatev^er. They are then, how- ever, only worn for ornament — the wearer making a pre- tence of employing his clean and neatly folded piece of muslin after he has performed the nasal em unction with his fingers. This is unquestionably a much cleanlier prac- tice than that of the Europeans and Neo-Eboracians.
The other singularity is, that they wear no gallowses, or suspenders. There is an antiquity before the door of the mansion, the date of which we were unable to ascertain. It is a gallows. Whenever any of the male inhabitants walked under this, we observed that they bowed gracefully,
THE STRANGER IN WEEHAWK. 283
at the same tiaie holding the waistband of their braccha3 with their left hand ; and by this we discovered the origin of the custom already mentioned. Peter Stuyvesant is recorded, in the chronicle of Knickerbocker, to have pun- ished minor offences by tying a rope round the criminal's middle, and letting him swim in vacuo on a high gallows. Doubtless this indignity was ill brooked by the generous souls of the Dutchmen ; and their posterity have inherited their feelings, though they are ignorant of the cause which makes them, as it w^ere, involuntarily perform the feat aforesaid, and forswear gallowses as a memorial of their stigma.
We were here witnesses of a very interesting scene, the last fisherman's adieus and departure. All the rest had left the river long since ; and this man, whose personal appearance was by no means deficient in the grotesque and picturesque, was taking his leave of the scene and of the companions of many a carousal and festivity. They showed much less sympathy than he did, however, and refused to take off* his hands a basket of codfish, the savour whereof was not indeed very inviting. Prose is too cold for this scene ; I have therefore done it into verse.
LAY OF THE LAST FISHERMAN.
The sun was sinking in his glory
Behind the dark bluff's shaggy brow, His ruddy rays stream'd thro' its verdure,
And streak'd with fire the wave below. Lit by his sad and parting radiance
Was every tint of varying green ; The distant spires of yon proud city
Bright flaming in the ray were seen.
Fill'd by the mournful gale of even The white sails o'er the water mov'd,
When came a mariner all lonely, To bid adieu to scenes he loved.
284 THE STRANGER IN WEEHAWK.
His locks hung scattered on the breezes, Like sea-weeds wild dishevell'd spread ;
Ruddy his visage, weather-beaten, Like coral nurs'd in ocean's bed.
The waters blue lay calm and stilly,
As if to tempt him back again, When stretching out his arms to heaven,
Thus spoke the latest Fisherman : " The hour is come, and I must leave ye,
To wend where tempests furious blow ; Last of my race I fondly linger'd.
Till hope hath fled — and I must go.
" Deserted now, too lovely river !
The bare poles o'er thy waters stand. And soon the winds and waves careering.
Shall root them from the treacherous sand. Moor'd in yon gentle creek securely,
My little bark 1 how wilt thou bide 1 Will thine own element destroy thee 1
Will strangers bear thee o'er the tide 1
*' O ! if their grasp with hands unhallow'd
Should bear thee from that lov'd retreat. Gape all thy wounds, and break thy rudder,
And midway let them ruin meet ! — I go where ocean darkly rages —
I go to ride the billowy wave — Farewell ! farewell ! I must not linger,
If I the ocean storms would brave.
" Fare thee well, thou gallant Hudson,
If for ever, fare thee well ! Waft my last sigh, evening breezes,
Bear it on thy murmuring swell ! Fare thee well, thou fir-clad Weehawk !
Bend thy dark leaves in the gale ; Wave thy cedars now, all mournful
As they seem, to bid farewell !
*' Fare thee well, my host, who kindly Still for me bid cheerers foam,
I will bless thee, when, all dripping, Driving on the deep I roam.
THE STRANGER IN WEEIIAWK. 285
Fare thee well, too fair Maraunche —
Oh ! my heart is failing now — " Wild he look'd — put on his old hat,
As he rusliM from Weehawk's brow !
Then methought that by the river
Bless'd Saint Anthony had stood, Calling to a second sermon
All the fishes of the flood ! For the wave was hid, where swarming,
Wild with joy's delicious power. Big and little, porpoise, killie.
Tumbled on its top that hour ! Sport awhile, ye gentle fishes,
While ye may, for soon ye'll mourn — One destroyer now hath left ye,
But a thousand will return !
IHiatus valile deflendus.']
H O B O K E N,
"first published in the NEW-YORK MIRROR,]
For v/hat is nature ? ring her changes round,
Her three flat notes are water, woods, and ground ;
Prolong the peal — 3^et, spite of all her clatter,
The tedious chime is still — grounds, wood, and water."
Is it SO, Master Satirist ? — does the all-casing air, with the myriad hues which it lends to and borrows again from the planet it invests, make no change in the appearance of the spectacula rerum, the visible exhibitions of nature ? Have association and contrast nothing to do with them ? Nature can afford to be satirized. She defies burlesque. Look at her in her barrenness, or her terrific majesty — in her pov- erty, or in her glory — she is still the mighty mother, whom man may superficially trick out, but cannot substantially alter. Art can only succeed by following her ; and its most magnificent triumphs are achieved by a religious observ- ance of her rules. It is a proud and primitive prerogative of man, that the physical world has been left under his con- trol, to a certain extent, not merely for the purpose of rais- ing from it his sustenance, but of modifying its appearance to gratify the eye of taste, and, by beautifying the material creation, of improving the spiritual elements of his own being.
When the Duke of Bridgewater's engineer was exam- ined by the House of Commons as to his views on the sys- tem of internal communication by water, he gave it as his opinion that rivers were made by the Lord to feed canals ;
IIOBOKEN. 287
and it is true that Providence has given us the raw material to make what we can out of it.
This may be thought too sublime a flourish for an intro- duction to the luxuriant and delightful landscape by Weir, an engraving from which embellishes the present number of the Mirror. But, though it may be crudely expressed, it is germain to the subject. Good taste and enterprise have done for Hoboken precisely what they ought to have done, without violating the propriety of nature. Those who loved its wild haunts before the metamorphosis, were, it is true, not a little shocked at what they could not but con- sider a desecration ; and thought they heard the nymphs screaming — "We are off," when carts, bullocks, paddies, and rollers came to clear the forest sanctuary. They were ready to exclaim with the poet. Cardinal Bernis —
" Quelle etonnante barbarie D'asservir la variete Au cordeau de la symmetrie ; De polir la rusticitfe D'un bois fait pour la reverie, Et d'orner la simplicite De cette riante prairie I"*
But " cette riante prairie" is now one of the prettiest places you may see of a summer's day. It is appropriately called the Elysian Fields, and does, indeed, remind the spec- tator of
" Yellow meads of asphodel, And amaranthine bowers."
It is now clothed in vivid, transparent, emerald green ;
* " Oh, what a shocking thing to sacrifice Variety to symmetry, In such a wise ! To polish the rusticity Of that old wood, designed for revery, And ornament the simple grace, *
Of that fair meadow's smiling face." — Printeu's Devil.
288 HOBOKEN.
its grove is worthy of being painted by Claude Lorraine' ; and from it you may look, and cannot help looking, on one of the noblest rivers, and one of the finest cities in the universe.
Hoboken has been illustrated so often, in poetry and prose, and by the pencil of the limner, in late years, that it would be vain and superfluous to attempt a new descrip- tion. A " sacred bard," one who will be held such in the appreciation of posterity, has spoken of the walk from this village to Weehawken as " one of the most beautiful in the world,"* and has given, in prose, a picture of its appear- ance. Another writer, w^hose modest genius (I beg your pardon, Messrs. Editors — he is one of your own gang) leavens the literary aliment of our town, and the best part of whom shall assuredly " escape libitina," has elegantly and graphically described the spot in illustrating another series of pictorial views. f Halleck's lines are as familiar as household words. Francis Herbert has made the vicinity the scene of one of his tough stories. At least half a dozen different views have been taken of it within the last two years. They embraced, generally, an extensive view of the river, bay, and city. Weir has selected a beautiful spot, in one of the new walks near the mansion of Colonel Ste- vens, with a glimpse of the splendid sheet of water through the embowering foliage. That gentleman, and lady with a parasol, in front of the prim, and who look a little prim themselves, seem to enjoy the loveliness of the scene, as well as the society of one another. Our country has rea- son to reckon with pride the name of Weir among those of her artists.
" The sunny Italy may boost
The beauteous hues that flush her skies ;"
* American Landscape. Edited by W. C. Bryant, No. I. This work was projected by the New-York artists ; but the project has been abandoned.
t Views of New-York and its environs. Published by Peabodv & Co, and edited by T. S. Fay. Still in the course of publication.
IIOBOKEN. 289
he has seen, admired, studied, and painted them ; but he can find subjects for his pencil as fair, in his own land, and no one can do them more justice.
It is a fact not generally known, that there is, or was, an old town in Holland called Hoboken, from which, no doubt, this place was named. There was also a family of that name in Holland. A copy of an old work on medicine, by a Dutch physician of the name of Hoboken, is in the library of one of the eminent medical men of this city. The old- est remaining house upon it, for it is insulated, forms the rear of Mr. Thomas Swift's hotel upon the green, and was built sixty years ago, as may be seen by the iron memoran- dums practicated in the walls. There is at present a superb promenade along the margin of the river, under the high banks and magnesia rocks which overlook it, of more than a mile in length, on which it is intended to lay rails, for the edification of our domestic cockneys and others, who might not else have a chance of seeing a locomotive in operation, and who may be whisked to the Elysian Fields before they will find time to comb their whiskers, or count the seconds.
In this genial season of the year, a more appropriate illus- tration could not be furnished for the Mirror than a view of this pleasant spot. We say, with Horace, let others cry up Thessalian Tempo, &c., our own citizens have a retreat from the dust and heat of the metropolis more agreeable—
" Quam domus Albunese resonantis, Et prseceps Anio, et Tibumi lucus, et uda Mobilibus pomaria rivis."
But, as some of your readers may not understand Latin, let us imitate, travesty, and doggrelize the ode of Flaccus, bodily. There is an abrupt transition in the middle of it, which critics have differed about ; but I suppose it is pre- served as he wrote it ; the whole of the old rascal's great argument being, that with good wine you may be comforta- ble in any place, even in Communipaw.
VOL. II. O O
290 HOBOKEN.
Laudahunt alii claram Rhodon, &c. Let Willis tell, in glittering prose, Of Paris and its tempting shows ; Let Irving, v\hile his fancy glows,
Praise' Spain, renowned — romantic ! Let Cooper write, until it palls, Of Venice, and her marble walls, Her dungeons, bridges, and canals,
Enough to make one frantic !
Let voyageiirs Macadamize,
With books, the Alps that climb the^skies.
And ne'er forget, in anywise,
Geneva's lake and city ; And poor old Rome — the proud, the great. Fallen — fallen from her high estate, No cockney sees, but he must prate
About her — what a pity !
Of travellers there is no lack,
God knows — each one of them a hack,
Who ride to write, and then go back
And publish a long story. Chiefly about themselves ; but each Or in dispraise or praise, with breach Of truth on either side, will preach
About some place's glory.
For me — who never saw the sun
His course o'er other regions run.
Than those whose franchise well was won
By blood of patriot martyrs — Fair fertile France may smile in vain ; Nor will I seek thy ruins, Spain : Albion, thy freedom I disdain,
With all thy monarchs' charters.
Better I love the river's side,
Where Hudson's sounding waters glide.
And with their full majestic tide
To the great sea keep flowing : Weehawk, I loved thy frowning height, Since first I saw, with fond delight, The wave beneath thee rushing bright,
And the new Rome still growing.
IIOBOKEN. 291
[Here occurs the seeming hiatus above referred to. He proceeds as follows :] —
Though lately we might truly say, " The rain it raineth every day," The wind can sweep the clouds away,
And open daylight's shutters : So, Colonel Morris, my fine man, Drink good champagne whene'er you can. Regardless of the temperance plan, . Or what the parson utters.
Whether in regimentals fine, Upon a spanking horse you shine, Or supervise the works divine
Of scribblers like the present ; Trust me, the good old stuff, the blood Of generous grapes, well understood On sea, on land, in town, in wood.
Will make all places pleasant.
For hear what Ajax Teucer said,* Whose brother foolishly went dead For spleen : — to Salamis he sped.
Sans Telamon's dead body ; His father kicked him off the stoop- Said he, " For this I will not droop ; The world has realms wherein to snoopj
And I am not a noddy.
" Come, my brave boys, and let us go. As fortune calls, or winds may blow ; Teucer your guide, the way will show —
Fear no mishap rior sorrow : Another Salamis as fine. Is promised by the Delphic shrine : So stuff your skins to-night with wine.
We'll go to sea to-morrow."
* The papa of the two Ajaces charged them, when they started for Troy, to bring one another home ; or else he threatened not to receive the sur- vivor. Ajax Telamon being miffed, because the armour of Achilfes was awarded to Ulysses, went crazy, killed sheep, and made a holocaust of him- self. When Teucer went home without him, the old gentleman shut the door in his (ace.— Free translation of Mad. Dacier.
JOHN BROWN.
tThe two letters which follow, from John Brown and John Smith, were written by Mr. Sands in conjunction wiih several of his literary friends ; and appeared, the one in the New-York Commercial Advertiser, in the summer of 1828, and the other in the Evening Post, in the winter follow- ing. As the prose part was principally from the pen of Mr. Sands, and contains many strokes of his peculiar humour, and as moreover the two letters are curious in a literary point of view, it has been thought best to preserve them in this collection.]
To the Editors of the Commercial Advertiser. Gentlemen, I HAVE concluded to request a publication in your columns of a budget which I have on hand ; and can only say that I shall be gratified w^ith your present insertion of my article, although you should have to leave out some terrible accidents, horrible massacres, and dreadful speci- mens of human depravity and elemental carelessness until the next day. Let Mr. Smith's barn be burnt, insured or uninsured ; Mr. Brown's house be stricken with thunder and lightning, killing two canary birds, a guinea-pig, and a Muscovy goose, value 87 89i. Let Mr. Johnson be assaulted and battered to any amount his attorney chooses to estimate in his writ, and Mr. Jackson be slandered to any extent, beyond his namesake the general, Mr. Clay, or any other great man; but put in my article by all means, because there is no time to lose. The solemn conviction of my mature judgment is, that the motto devised for the
JOHN BROWN. 293
ticket at the next ensuing commencement of Columbia Col- lege, is, to say the least of it, very suspicious Latin indeed — and highly dangerous to the literary character of the institution.
I must therefore request you to give me a place, and your^ own lights on this matter, by or before Saturday next, although Mrs. Whipple's trial waits thereby for a day or two. Public justice can be executed at any time ; but the commencement happens on Monday or Tuesday next, as I am told ; after which there will be an end of speculation ; and the motto in question will be as good Latin, as any dogma attested by councils is canonical and an article of faith ; and all the doctors, shining with their new " semilu- nar fardels," and the masters who have been confirmed in classicality, on the strength of drumming up an old essay on the science of political economy or naturalization laws, — and all the young bachelors, fresh from the unction of hunc libj'um tihi trado, &c. will be a-swearing vigorously, that it is most choice, and excellent, and singularly nice Latin.
The facts are these. They were communicated to me by a member of Congress, who will not volunteer his name ; but if called upon by the proper authority, will state all he knows about it. I am a simple seeker after sense, and have often got into personal jeopardy, and undergone personal sufferance, by reason of my simplicity. I am no alumnus of the college. My family thought a private education preferable, and I have had the benefit of all the patent courses from N. G. Dufief 's to Mr. Leigh's, who cured me of a queer way I had of pronouncing the r's and ^'s. The X bothers me a little yet ; and I cannot, for the soul of me, pronounce the final g to eatin and drinkin. But I proceed to the main business of my communication.
As the mottos of the Commencement tickets have always been caviare to the laity, and so profoundly mystified that the initiated had much difficulty in explaining the Tull mean- ing which was disguised in their sententious and oracular
294 JOHN BROWN.
appearance ; the society of graduates, at a meeting about six months since, selected one for the present celebration (ac- cording to my information as above stated), and requested their distinguished associate, our secretary of legation near the court of St. James, to obtain illustrations and elucida- tions of its meaning from his friends among the savans of Europe ; all which will be submitted at the next dinner of the alumni. A few of them which have been transmitted, in consequence of this request, I have obtained, and furnish you with below. Though very sublime, they do not settle my scruples as to the motto, which is the most cramp and bitterest bit of Latin I ever had the pleasure of making an acquaintance with. It is as follows :
Hac iter, O Juvenes, en ardua, scandite fortes. Our dis- tinguished fellow-citizen, Mr. Cooper, now at Paris, who was formerly attached to the navy, where, as his masterly descriptions of naval manoeuvres show, he had all his eyes open, promptly furnished the following version :
This is the path ; though rough and full of rubbers, Climb up, my lads, and don't be lazy lubbers.
Here our great novelist supplies " rubbers" as the noun understood, with which ardua agrees ; a naval, but not a grammatical Hcense.
The British laureate, who had got his hand in for hexame- ters, since his Vision of Judgment, supplied this traduction :
Here lies the | road 0 my J lads see how — tough and | steep climb it J bravely.
" Tough andU^ is an attempt at imitating the impediments of the path in the ruggedriess of the metre. But as a literal translation, this is a failure.
Messrs. Wordsworth and Coleridge united their talents in producing the following scrap :
Behold the ascent, sheer, craggy, and uncouth ; • With bold foot climb ye up, small infantry ! Ilir This here's the way.
JOHN BROWN. 295
This is clearly Miltonic, as all the words may be found in Milton. But the difficulties of the grammatical con- struction are shirked, as they are by most translators. The last clause is obviously suggested by Mr. Wordsworth's old theory of poetry, and contains an allusion to a sign-post. There is no such thing on the road in the picture illustrat- ing the motto : this version, too, however beautiful, is there- fore inappropriate.
The following elegant paraphrase is privately said to have been obtained, in the course of diplomacy, from the accomplished premier of England ! better known in the literary and poetical world as the illustrious author of the " Loves of the Triangles." He also added a Darwinian illustration, the authenticity of which will be immediately recognised by all who have read the Anti-Jacobin.
Lo yon sheer path, whose windings seem to mock The venturous foot, and climb from rock to rock ; Yon mount, whose granite ribs, and shoulders bare, Lift its blue brow to bathe in heaven's own air ; Youth ! plant your straining steps against the steep. Seize the sharp crags, the dangerous chasms o'erleap, Gain the free summit, grasp the fadeless prize. And wear the immortal garland of the skies.
Here follows the illustrative simile : —
So erst great Jack, with love of glory fired, To climb the bean-vine's flexile stem aspired ; From leaf to leaf, the supple urchin springs. Finds a safe stair among the verdant rings. Soars till his mother's eyes behold no more, Nor stays, till at the giant's brazen door ; Then, by the careful housewife hidden well. Eludes the monster's sight and cheats his smell ; Till stealing sleep at last, with soft surprise, Lets down the lofty lids that arch his eyes ; Then by his couch the youthful hero stands. The bright blade gleaming in his uprais'd hands :-~*
296 JOHN BROWN.
Falls the keen steel, the jointed bones divide, From the black arteries spouts the vital tide, Rolls thundering on the floor the severed head, Arid listening nations hold their breath in dread.
The following couplet, from an unpublished poem of Lucien Bonaparte, kindly communicated to the royal bro- ther of the noble republican poet, bears so remarkable a resemblance in its spirit and meaning to this exquisite hexameter, that if this were not a singular coincidence, it might pass for a translation :
" AUez done, mes enfans, pleins d'une belle audace, Grimpez par la au haut soramet du mont Parnasse."
The par la is touching and picturesque ; but not exactly a solution of my doubts and misgivings.
Whether the impassioned muse of Berenger will be as readily recognised in the following spirited version, we will not pretend to say.
C'est ici le grand chemin. Qui conduit au magasin i
Ou Ton garde la sagesse : C'est escarpe, vous ditsez 1 — N'importe — montez ! montez !
Brave et robuste jeunesse !
But the translation upon which I place the most value, because it most faithfully reflects the image of the original, is one furnished to me, myself {JMeijiSurn], by my Turkish friend Salomon Ben Jeroboim, a learned mufti of Constan- tinople, who has just parted from me amid an abundance of tears shed on both sides, to make the tour of the Grand Canal. This beautiful translation was left me, that having this emanation of his mind before me, I might in some sort console myself for the absence of his person. Salomon Ben Jeroboim, as the reader well knows, is the author of an
JOHN BROWN. 297
epic poem, in Lingua Franca, on the Recovery of Corfu, in forty-eight books, being twice as many as those of Homer's IHad. He was exceedingly delighted with the motto I showed him, and declared that next to the Lingua Franca, the Latin was that language which expressed the greatest amount of meaning in the fewest words. As the Lingua Franca, however, is made up of all the modern dialects derived from the Latin, it is justly supposed to be a selec- tion of their several beauties, and thus to be enabled to excel the original parent of them all. But I detain the reader from the verse, in which he will see a demonstration of the truth of this observation. I will only premise that I do not be- lieve that the peculiar force of the original could be so per- fectly given in any language upon the face of the earth. Here it is :
Star qui camina !
Mozi ! mirar
Sti gran Colina :
Montar ! Montar !
Still being at fault, and unable to parse this morceau, I applied to Mr. Lingo, president of the Catadelphian, Hyper- trophinian Institute, in Catharine-lane. He asked two days to conster (as he said), and parse the article ; at the expiry of which time he transferred into my possession the follow- ing documents, with no charges, which was very genteel in him. The least the college can do is to make him a master of arts ; for it is not every master of arts that can conster such tough aud troublesome excerpts from the heathen dialects.
Translation by Lionel Lingo, N. Y. H. L. S. F. L. P. S. N. Y., and one of the counsellors of the American Academy of Languages.
Hac iter, this is the way,
Road, journey, path, or route, 0 JuveneSfj&s much as to say, ,
Lads, youths, or striplings stout ;
VOL. II. P P
298 JOHN BROWN.
En ardua, lo ! there are tall
Things yonder there on top, Scandite fortes, climb up all,
Being strong, aiid never stop.
GRAMMATICAL STRICTURES.
Versi Sciolti.*
En is an interjection.
To which I have no objection ;
But ardua is not so good,
For no one knows what's understood.!
For hac, it is an adverb,
Though some think it is a pronoun ; But scandite 's a bad verb,
Because it governs no noun.J
But it is with pride and pleasure, Mr. Editor, that I (being, by the mother's side, a Knickerbocker of the importation of 1668) contrast these feeble attempts to transfuse the spirit of Roman poetry into any other modern tongue, w^ith a noble and most sonorous version in the manly dialect of our Faderland.
The Hon. M V B , with his usual attention
to the interests of elegant literature, kindly transmitted to the college, under his own frank, the following bit of Dutch dithyrambic, which he had procured from the committee who manufactured the toasts given at the late Dutch dinner at Albany to the Chev. Huyghens.
* Mr. Lingo teaches Italian, very cheap, at his literary gymnasium ; where there is also no extra charge made for " such as learn manners."
t Mr. Lingo thinks it may be loca ; but will not hazard his pedagogical reputation on the suggestion.
t On looking into the dictionary, I think, with all due respect to Dr. Lingo, that his criticism will not hold water. Tacitus, speaking of some Swamp democrat of his day, uses this verb intransitively ; saying, that " he climbed up above the prince ;^' which shows the fellow's ill-breeding, and also that the verb may be used in this manner.
JOHN BROWN. 299
Zie hier, en zie daer ! Dis weg is hobbeligen —
Dat Berg is Hoog ! Wakkeren Jongelingen !
Klim gylieden ! ! !
Every reader must be struck with the singular force and expressiveness of Wakkeren Jongelingen — stout or whack- ing young fellows.
Here ends my budget. I remain unsatisfied ; and if you, Mr. Editor, or your correspondents, can satisfy my scruples, you will relieve my mind from a great load. In the interim, I am yours, with great respect and anxiety,
John Brown.*
* I am not my brother, in the Directory.
iraii-
JOHN SMITH.
\
To the Editors of the New-York Evening Post.
Gentlemen : —
I BEG permission to address to you the following com- munication. It is not the first time I have had my ideas published, because I once before had occasion to explain myself in print in the ** Commercial Advertiser." I cannot again avail myself of the columns of that newspaper ; be- cause the editor has seen fit to let Mr. John Brown, whom I have the misfortune to call my cousin, abuse me without stint, and without any editorial apology. As to John Brown's knowing any thing about polite letters, I assure you that it is a gross absurdity.
On Wednesday evening, as I was reading that charming paper, the " New- York American," I met with the follow- ing lines ; a version of which was requested by the editor. The lines are intended for an inscription over the door of a gambling house : —
II est trois portes a cet antre, L'espoir, I'infamie, et la mort ;
C'est par la premiere qu'on entre, Et par les deux autres qu'on sort.
I have been taking a spell at the French tongue ; and, whatever poor Brown may insinuate, I have not been utterly unsuccessful in my studies. It did not take more than half an hour, as I can assure you, and can prove by
at-
oil to;
late 1
JOHN SMITH,
301
my wife and oldest daughter, to produce the following translation : —
To this here hole three gates there be, Hope and Disgrace and Felo-de-se, 'Tis by the first that men are tempted, By the two last that they are emptied,
I know that the rhyme in the second distich is not per- fect ; nor should I have obtruded my thoughts upon you if a better translation had been given. I wish to publish my own first unassisted effort, however, because, much to my surprise, among all the fashionable — travelled people ex- clusive— ones of us knowables, distangueys, and all the other concerns, from abroad or at home, that are supposed to be able to pay their shot, or get clear of paying it by taking the benefit of the act, there was never a one to trans- late the aforesaid bit of Gallic metre.
I was in this state of mind, when, happening to commu- nicate my anxieties to a highly respectable member of that useful and efficient association, the Coalition Society, he in- formed me that his ingenious and learned friend and fellow- member, the editor of the Commercial, had put the lines into excellent and edifying verse, worthy to be set in gilt frames and hung over fireplaces, where they might be got by heart by all the little boys that are yet to grow to be men in the dangerous atmosphere of this great city. I sent for the Commercial immediately, and was rejoiced at find- ing two metrical translations of the lines in question. The first of these, which the erudite editor calls " literal, but not poetical," is as follows : —
Three doors this cavern hath, Hope, Infamy, and Death, The first men enter through, Escape by th' other two.
This version is pretty enough, but the rhyme will be very much improved if at the end of the second line you read
I.
JOHN SMITH.
To the Editors of the New-York Evening Post.
Gentlemen : —
I BEG permission to address to you the following com- munication. It is not the first time I have had my ideas published, because I once before had occasion to explain myself in print in the " Commercial Advertiser." I cannot again avail myself of the columns of that newspaper ; be- cause the editor has seen fit to let Mr. John Brown, whom I have the misfortune to call my cousin, abuse me without stint, and without any editorial apology. As to John Brown's knowing any thing about polite letters, I assure you that it is a gross absurdity.
On Wednesday evening, as I was reading that charming paper, the " New- York American," I met with the follow- ing lines ; a version of which was requested by the editor. The lines are intended for an inscription over the door of a gambling house : —
II est trois portes a cet antre, L'espoir, I'infamie, et la niort ;
C'est par la premiere qu'on entre, Et par les deux autres qu'on sort.
I have been taking a spell at the French tongue ; and, whatever poor Brown may insinuate, I have not been utterly unsuccessful in my studies. It did not take more than half an hour, as I can assure you, and can prove by
JOHN SMITH, 301
my wife and oldest daughter, to produce the following translation : —
To this here hole three gates there he, Hope and Disgrace and Felo-de-se, 'Tis by the first that men are tempted. By the two last that they are emptied.
I know that the rhyme in the second distich is not per- fect ; nor should I have obtruded my thoughts upon you if a better translation had been given. I wish to publish my own first unassisted effort, however, because, much to my surprise, among all the fashionable — travelled people ex- clusive— ones of us knowables, distangueys, and all the other concerns, from abroad or at home, that are supposed to be able to pay their shot, or get clear of paying it by taking the benefit of the act, there was never a one to trans- late the aforesaid bit of Gallic metre.
I was in this state of mind, when, happening to commu- nicate my anxieties to a highly respectable member of that useful and efficient association, the Coalition Society, he in- formed me that his ingenious and learned friend and fellow- member, the editor of the Commercial, had put the lines into excellent and edifying verse, worthy to be set in gilt frames and hung over fireplaces, where they might be got by heart by all the little boys that are yet to grow to be men in the dangerous atmosphere of this great city. I sent for the Commercial immediately, and was rejoiced at find- ing two metrical translations of the lines in question. The first of these, which the erudite editor calls " literal, but not poetical," is as follows : —
Three doors this cavern hath, Hope, Infamy, and Death, The first men enter through, Escape by tV other two.
This version is pretty enough, but the rhyme will be very much improved if at the end of the second line you read
302 JOHN SMITH,
dath instead of death. Then follows another translation ; which, says the editor, is more loosely made. I was shocked to think that any person who made such preten- sions to morality should undertake to translate any thing " loosely," more especially lines which convey so strict a lesson of behaviour as the ones in the American, and which seemed to me, therefore, worthy of being strictly translated. On looking at the translation, however, I found that I must have misapprehended the editor's meaning, and that he only meant looseness in the composition. Here it is : —
Of this horrible den the three portals, Hope, Infamy, Death, ever gape ; The first yields an entrance to mortals, And by the two last they escape.
On reading these lines, it struck me as somewhat queer, that the person who entered the gaming house by the avenue of hope, should be said to escape by those of infamy and death. It seemed to me that the individual would be better satisfied to stay than to be dragged out and hanged, which I take to be the meaning of the last line. I have heard of fish getting out of the frying-pan into the fire, but I never thought that this could with propriety be called an escape. This reflection made me understand why the worthy colonel called his translation a loose one, and, for that matter, I could not see why the first was not as loose as the second.
This morning I saw a truly deplorable effort, made in the " American Gazette." I am aware that Philadelphia is a very literary place, where a great many outlandish books are published. I am apprized that they empty all their own learning and fine arts into a very large magazine, which nobody reads ; though some persons say they do so, who live upon the reputation of being mightily wise. I tried hard myself to read it, forwards and backwards, and could not crawl over ten pages either way. But I am not so smart as many men ; and, as the ghost said to Giles Scrog- gins, " that's no rule."
JOHN SMITH. 303
The following is the translation furnished for New- York by Philadelphia: —
Three ample doors this mansion hath, Their names — Hope, Infamy, and Death ; The first alone for entrance made, The others are for those — who've played.
In the two first lines the translation in the Commercial is merely watered ; and the two last ought to be dated from Point no Point. The italics will not mend the wit. But I must allow that it is innocent, and becoming, and praise- worthy. I should infer, from the high literary character of the editor of the Columbian Gazette, that he had concocted the quatrain himself.
1 concluded, on the whole, that I would set this matter right. I was partly induced to do so from a wish to con- vince John Brown that I have got as many opportunities of finding out the meaning of things as he has, and partly from a wish to enlighten the polite congregation of the American. The last motive is strengthened by the circum- stance that none of them have yet essayed to render this French piece of poetry into their own vernacular, or into any other tongue which is alive or dead. I have been at great pains and expenses, on short notice, and submit to you the results ; claiming no reward from the corporation, and asking for no public subscription.
The inscription of which the editor of the American seeks to procure a translation, imbodies a valuable scrap of morality which young persons in all countries ought, should understand. I have sent to the editor of a certain morning paper to get a Hebrew translation. If he does not send it to me I shall get one elsewhere. A Chinese version will also, I trust, be furnished by an illustrious stranger, who is at present under a cloud ; and an inge- nious gentleman in Sloat-lane has promised to manufacture the woodcuts of the characters. Those translations must be at present postponed, together with the Swedish, Russian,
304 JOHN SMITH.
Welsh, and Cherokee, which are penes me — that is, in my possession — and which you cannot print, because you have not the types. When John Brown can muster as much learning, I will forgive his past impudence.
I dare not mention the name of the accomplished poet (with which, however, all Europe is vocal), who upset the flimsy French which has worried the American into the following energetic German : —
Hoffnung, Schande und Tod sind die Ptbrten
Die fuhren zu diesem Hans W
Durch die erste ziehen mit Freude wir ein , Durch die andern zernichtet heraus.
I suspect it will be no long time before the elegant author of the foregoing lines will allow everybody to ascertain where he stays, and to become intimate with him. I am mum.
The Spanish version which follows is also from a hand which it is not lawful for me to name. But long after we are all dead and forgotten (meaning no offence to you, gen- tlemen, and including John Brown and his constituents), I reckon this writer will be known. I say no more, because I do not understand the language ; —
Esta morada,*'que tu miras tiene
Tres puertas, esperanza, infamia, muerte :
Por la primera el atronado viene, Y por las otras un destino fuerte Despide los juguetes de la suerte.
The following Portuguese version I am thankful to be enabled to do myself. I am modest enough about original compositions, but, as to translations, I have no hesitation in expressing an opinion. I have lived three months in Rio Janeiro, and believe that the Portuguese annexed will hold water : —
Esta caverna tem Tres portas, esperanza, infamia, morte :
Pela primeira vem, E pelas outras vai, o adorador da sorte.
JOHN SMITH. 305
Wanting a translation in Lingua Franca, I bethought me of John Brown's old friend the mufti, as he called him, Salomon Ben Jeroboim. He is no more a mufti than my old shoe ; and he actually does sell old shoes at the Five Points, where I found him. He gave me the following version in a very short time. He is a capable man, and, I guess, worth a good deal of money : —
A sti lugar tre porte star,
Speranza, morte, mala fama II home per il prima entrar, E per il altre se marchar
Cuando el graa diablo clama.
It was by a piece of more singular good fortune than ever befell John Brown that I was enabled to obtain the literal but beautiful version which follows, in the sweet and holy language of Tasso and Ariosto. It is an improvisation, which I have written down. I must die ; but let it be en- graved on my tombstone that I was its author : because \ asked for it, and it was produced : —
A quest' antro v' han tre porte V'e speranza, Infamia, e Morte — Nella prima ammesso sei, Ma per 1' altre uscir tu dei.
The poetical archimage who gave me the Tuscan ren- dering of the passage, and the Latin variations which fol- lows, also gave me the following beautiful arietta, which he has frequently heard sung by the gondoliers of Venice. It is very pretty, I have no doubt, and I will have it set for the guitar by some great composer : —
Se ti gh' avesse vogia de crepar, Va in quela casa e metite a ziogar Sapi, fradelo, che la gha tre porte, Lezi ! Speranza, Desonor e Morte ; E se ti mete sula prima el pic, Te tochera passar per tute tre ! VOL. II.-«^Q Q
306 JOHN SMITH.
An ingeaious attempt has been made to imitate this ui English, by a rising young man, who will do something wonderful one of these days r —
If you want to be worsted, Bedeviled and bursted. Go into this den, Where traps wait for men : Each door has its name, One is Hope, one is Shame, And one, as you see. Is Felo-de-se. Put your foot within one, There's an end of your fun ; And, as sure as a gun, Thro' the rest you must run.
My cousin, John Brown, has boasted, in his last letter to the editor of the " Commercial Advertiser," of his intimacy with Dr. Lionel Lingo, Principal of the Hypertrophinian Catadelphian Seminary, in Catherine-lane. I think I may say, without vanity, that I am at least as intimate with him as my cousin John, who, being but an ignorant sort of per- son, and quite unpolished in his ordinary dialect, is — I say it with all tenderness — by no means a fit companion for scholars like Mr. Lingo. I have applied to Mr. L. to give a version of the French lines aforesaid into Latin and Greek, for the benefit of such persons as may not be acquainted with the various modern tongues aforesaid. He did it with the greatest readiness, and for a compensation which I shall not mention, from a regard to Mr. Brown's feelings, — though I will go so far as to say that I have no doubt that he was hoaxing my cousin when he said that the price of transla- tions was getting high. Here follows the Latin version, — as pretty elegiac stanzas as you will find in Ovid : —
FORUM ALEATORIUM.
Hae mihi sunt portse tres : spes, infamia, Jethum, Introitus prima est, exitus est aliis.
JOHN S3IITH. 307
His Greek translation is equally felicitous. Dr. Lingo understands the art of packing down sense as well as any gentleman of my acquaintance : —
E/f KU^iU TiipiOV . TfitC iy.Ot n<Tl TTVAOil, at7^0C, B-aVsLTO; Ti KStl iKTCli'
Tm /uiy Trpcer'' arcs'!.;, taicS" cttiQ^ i^tnov.
The following Latin translation has also been furnished me by the same elegant pen to which I am indebted for the Italian one, and I have the same right to call it my own : —
TABERNA ALEATORIA.
Tres domui sunt valvae ; spes, ignoniinia et mors, Unadat introitum, sed remeare duo.
My good friend, Stanislaus Przescwisky, one of the descendants of that little handful of Polish settlers of New- Jersey, who afterward became mingled and confounded with their Dutch neighbours, furnished me with the follow- ing neat translation of the inscription into Polish, which, with the help of a grammar and dictionary, he effected in the course of a very few minutes. Mr. Przescwisky is now engaged in the laudable attempt to extricate his family from the confusion of descents into which it had fallen, by studying the language of his ancestors, not being dis- couraged by the manifest danger to his teeth, which are none of the best. It is a very pleasing and harmonious dialect, abounding with picturesque clusters of con- sonants : —
Nadjieja, scromota, smirk sa trzy drzwi, Pizychod przez him, wychod przez drugimi.
The beautiful translation which follows, in the obsolete vernacular of our city, was sent me by a relation and friend, Mr. Lambert, or, as he is more familiarly called, Mr. Bot Burghart, a w^orthy descendant of the Dutch burgomasters of New- York : —
308 JOHN SMITH.
Drie deuren heeft dat huis zoo snood, De hoop, de schande, en de dood ! De gek, cm her veel gelds le winnen, Komt blindUngs door de eerste binnen, Verlooren fluks de laat te duit, Hij door do anderen gaat uit.
For the following Aversion into one of the most expressive languages of the North, I am indebted to a Danish gentle- man, whom, from his accent, I should have taken for an American. There is an odd mark in his manuscript, which he calls the diaeresis, which, if you have not, leave out :—
Om nogensinde Du Commer i Nod,
Her cr et Huus med tre Dore,
Vil Du vide hvorhen de fore 1
Den forste till Haab, do andre til Skiandselog Dod.
Lest the fastidious should not be pleased with my own rendering, above given, of this excellent moral stanza in the vernacular tongue, and thereby the principal benefit thereof be lost to our own and the English nation, I have requested two of my nephews, both young men of promising genius, to put it into English verse for me, giving them my word of honour that they should have the satisfaction of seeing their verses in print. One of them, who is somewhat of a wag, who wears his hat cocked up behind, and a coat to which the feathers and bits of paper have taken a remark- able affection, and whom, although I say it with pain, I have sometimes detected in the absorption of a mint julap in the morning, succeeded in producing the following : —
This cavern, so the Frenchman saith,
Has got three doors, Hope, Shame, and Death :
Men by the first strut in quite stout,
And by the other two sneak out.
My other nephew, a very sober, polite, nattij young man, who reads Lailah Uookh aloud to himself before breakfast, brought me the version which follows, and which, from the
JOHN SMITH. 309
solemnity of the verse harmonizing so with the gravity of the subject, I hesitate not to say I prefer to the other : —
Stop, passenger ! and with suspended breath ! ! View these three portals, Hope, and Shame, and Death : By that of hope men enter — such the law — And by the doors of shame and death withdraw.
You have thus, gentlemen, the result of my investigations, excepting what you cannot print for lack of implements. I respectfully beg leave to dedicate the lot to the editor of the American, whose ingenious selection of this poetical morsel has instigated my labours, and to whom, as the primary cause of their being accomplished, the glory ought to be Tendered. He is altogether so many cuts above me, that I cannot venture to suggest the fraction of an idea to him. But I would beg leave to intimate the tythe of a notion, that it would be pleasing and useful if he w^ould take measures to have all the versions in the foreign tongues, which I have forwarded to you, done into literal English prose and poetry, as an exercise, by the youthful pillars and pedestals of the country, now forming under the plastic influence of his truly classical journal.
Your obedient servant,
John Smith.
POLICE LITERATURE.*
We have all seen and read Mornings in Town and Country, and Mornings in all the principal cities of Europe ; Evenings at Home, Evenings in Autumn, and in all the other seasons ; but a reporter for the Morning Herald has lately chosen to devote his elegant leisure to Mornings in the Police Office ; with the philosophical purpose of ex- tracting from the exhibition afforded by the matunine resur- rection of the votaries of Bacchus, Mercury, Venus, and Mars (if the tremendous father of Rome may be consid- ered as one of the patrons of the fancy), whatever met his own perception of the ludicrous, or could be travestied into something which might satisfy the effectual demand (to use the scientific language of the political economists) of the newspaper reading market. There is certainly nothing which may not be burlesqued. It is easy enough to con- ceive that there is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous. A little hero (and almost all heroes are little), cuts but a sorry figure in a picture-window, with a cocked hat and sword too big for Goliath of Gath, however well he may appear in a gazette, or in an epic poem. But that propensity of our nature, vvhich leads us to make mirth out of moral obliquity, to consider distress and misery, in their concrete appearance, as highly amusing affairs, and to
* This article forms part of a review of a work entitled " Mornings in Bow-street," vvhich appeared in the New- York Review for April, 1826.
POLICE LITERATURE. 311
turn human vice and sorrow (as the French tutor com= plains, in one of Matthews's exhibitions), "into ridiculous- ness," can only be ascribed to Adam's fall, wherein, as the primer properly observes,
" We sinned all."
It is, to be sure, after all, rather a funny sight, to see a young, or an old gentleman, brought up at sunrise in the morning, before the worshipful, courteous, and amiable magistrates, who preside over the nocturnal and diurnal morals of a large city. Refreshed by slumber, and wide awake by turning out of his dormitory at so early and healthy an hour, gently breathed and exercised by his walk to the tribunal, the modern praetor seats himself in his chair, with a countenance full of smiles, a voice mellifluous as the lark's saluting the morn, and an insinuating manner, the charms of which cannot be expressed. (At least, so we are told. We are ready to make affidavit that we have never been in the watch-house, except on works of neces- sity or mercy.) But then those who have been out a-lark- ing, after the solemn noon of night ; who have been fa- tigued by their peripatetic exercises ; who have, perhaps, stimulated a httle beyond the measure of prudence, and have then been compelled to invoke "nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep," in an attitude almost anyhow — on a bench, or in a dark corner — what an awkward squad they com- pose ! They have been very naughty, and we ought to be sorry and ashamed for them. But they cut such a droll figure, from crown to toe, that we feel, for the moment, as if it were more natural to laugh than to shed tears. Their beavers are knocked into divers representations of solids, unenumerated in the eleventh book of Euclid. Their locks are in no nowise Cesarean, but resemble rather those of Absalom after he was hauled down from his state of de- pendency. Their eyes are not " in a fine phrensy rolling," but like the sun at the same probable hour, are struggling
312 POLICE LITERATURE.
through clouds and mists, squinting a lew slant, occasional beams, as if in search of what may be visible. A little comm. sap. et aqua. font, would certainly be a good prescription for the improvement of their complexions. Then consider their gait, and the management of their several members. A leader charging at the head of his squadron ; a great orator advancing to address the conscript fathers, or the more illustrious populace, whom they are supposed to rep- resent ; a gallant, leading the lady of his love to join in the graceful measures of the mazy dance — would either of them, think ye, walk o' this fashion?* Next take a survey of tlieir drapery. Contemplate the existing condition of their apparel, which may have been bright and glossy enough when they first sallied forth on the ramble which terminated in this disagreeable restriction on their locomo- tive faculties. However gaudy it may have been, it is now every thing else but neat.
How they have got into this pickle is of very little con- sequence. The only important question is, how they shall get out of it, without attracting too much observation. The innocent and the guilty are in a similar predicament. Many, and perhaps most, of these detenus, if asked what brought them there, might probably adopt, with truth and candour, the answer of Tom Moore of Fleet-street's mag- pie. But they must give bonds, and pay the fees for their delightful night's rest, as well as the others, who have, per- haps, broken the peace of the people, and violated their dignity.
These cases, however distressing and uncomfortable to the parties most immediately interested, are apt to excite risibihty among the by-standers. But when it is an affair of irregular appropriation, either fraudulent or forcible, that is to say, of petit or grand larceny, burglary, or highway robbery, the business, one would think, must assume a more
* The original passage is equally appropriate — " Think ye Alexander 5me/< o' this fashion 1"
POLICE LITERzVTURE. 313
serious aspect. We should suppose it proper to turn Mo- mus out of court, with all his quips and cranks, " i vezzi e i giochi," before awful Nemesis uplifted her scales. But such is not always the case in criminal proceedings, either as regards the accused — whether innocent or guilty, the judges who are to pass sentence, or the advocates who are to discuss the law and facts. " Even the scaffold" has "echoed with the jest," of which there are illustrious in- stances. Socrates proposed sacrificing to Esculapius a few hours before his death. Sir Thomas More was face- tious in the Tower. Sir Walter Raleigh and Anna Boleyn were quite pleasant in making arrangements for their de- capitation. And to descend from Tower-hill to Tyburn, the more vulgar subjects of penal jurisprudence have frequently a natural or assumed waggery, a delightful " recklessness," as Mr. Cooper would say, about the distinctions between meum and tuum, and the rights and duties of individuals (as defined in the treatises of moral philosophy, and in the statutes), or a particular idiom, which gives an amusing air to their improprieties, and in some measure softens the naked atrocity of their outrages. Learned judges have condescended to humour the joke ; and Joe Miller furnishes many excellent bon-mots, committed beneath tha black cap of judgment, for the benefit of those to whom the bellman was so soon to chant his pious and admonitory verses —
" And when St. 'Pulchre's bell to-morrow tolls, The Lord have mercy upon your poor souls."
We have all heard with what gout that excellent new joke is cracked monthly at the sessions, when the treading- mill is recommended to the malefactor as an agreeable di- vertimento, a fine exercise, and a healthy amusement, in the intervals of his more sober occupation of picking oakum, or weaving penitentiary striped cloth. As the object of pun- ishment is as much the example it holds up to others, as the reformation of the criminal, particularly in those cases where
VOL. II. R R
SI 4 POLICE LITERATURE,
the latter is to be hanged, all this pleasantry may not h& amiss. It is gilding the pill which the culprit must swallow for the good of the community While stern Justice marches onward with swift and equal step, it is strewing her path- way with flowers. And after all, a moralist, hke Hamlet, might find little to choose betw^een Jack Sheppard in his cart, and Julius Ca3sar in his triumphal chariot. This is certainly a more rational and decorous practice than that in which some well-meaning people seem inclined to indulge in our country, of canonizing felons as martyrs ; making their walk to the place of execution a public mourning pro- cession ; their gradus ad patihulum a Jacob's ladder, and their legal exit from the world (we speak not rashly nor un- advisedly), almost a vicarious suffering, for the benefit of the particular congregation to whose tenets the culprit had happened to be supposed to be converted.
Criminal proceedings of all kinds always excite a strange interest in the public ; and the practice of embellishing, as well as reporting them, has long been a source of profit to writers, and of amusement to readers, in Great Britain. Latterly, we have seen many forlorn attempts of the kind in our own daily prints. But the young gentlemen who essay to rival our trans-atlantic brethren in this species of composition, are not at all up to the thing. Their reports are insufferably flat. If they will persist in perpetrating them, we recommend a small and select library to their serious perusal, as a preliminary course to qualify them for the undertaking, viz. the variorum editions of the Newgate Calendar ; Fielding's Classical History of Jonathan Wild ; the Life of Bamfylde Moore Carew, King of the Gipseys, with the glossary ; the best modern editions of the Slang Dictionary ; and as respectable a collection of reports as they can procure, up to, and including the work, the title of which is at the head of our article. Should there be any of them more promising than there is present reason to expect we would put them through a second and more refined
POLICE LITERATURE. 315
course of reading, such as the miscellaneous and multifari- ous works of Pierce Egan, Blackwood's Magazine, ad libi- tum, and some portions of " Sayings and Doings ;" to which we would add, by way of giving them a taste of science and poHtical economy, Colquhoun's Police of London and of the river Thames. With this initiation into style and tech- nical terms, with their opportunities for observing what is droll about black and white convicts, if they could make no better fist of reporting than they do now, we should give them up in despair, and beg them to let the poor devils go to the hridewell, penitentiary, and state-prison, according to law, without such lame and impotent efforts to make their crimes or their misfortunes matters of merriment.
But we are too patriotic not to be willing to ascribe the dullness of our own police literature to another cause than the obtuseness of our reporters. We would fain believe that the morality of our nation is too strong to approve and cultivate, as yet, this habit, " miscendi seria ludo," of con- founding the bad with the ridiculous, putting sin in mas- querade, like the vice of the ancient mysteries, and turning the solemn drama of Justice into a farce. We hope it may long continue to be the case, and pray that none of our remarks may be maliciously or stupidly construed.
LETTER FROM ORANGE COUNTY.
To the Editor of the Atlantic Magazine.
Orange County, July 7, 1824.
I AM a plain countryman, of a lineal descent from one of the first settlers in New-Amsterdam. I have lived, man and boy, fifty-seven years, last August, on the farm which my grandfather ploughed ; and till this summer in peace and contentment. I have regularly sowed eighty bushels of wheat in a year, and killed, one fall with another, fifty hogs, and pasture at present twelve fine cows, and have had no care or trouble whatever, except never getting enough at Newburgh for my wheat by sixpence a bushel. My barns, Mr. Editor, are almost as big as the court-house at Goshen ; and sometimes as well filled as to company. But I have got to be a public man, and find my troubles arise and thicken about me. Last year the classis met, and recom- mended to the congregation to build a new church ; and to tell the truth, the old one was sadly out of repair. It was built when our village was settled, is eight-sided, and the roof looks like one of my wife's extinguishers. So we sub- scribed among us twelve hundred pounds for the purpose, and I put down twenty pounds myself, which I have re- pented ever since, not for the money's sake — though it was fully my share ; but, being one of the largest subscribers, I was appointed on the building committee, and here, Mr.
LETTER FROM ORANGE COUNTY. 317
Editor, was the beginning of sorrow. There are five of us on this committee, and as you may not know the men, I will tell you what they are. There is Hans Van Hoogen- dorf, that used to keep a store at the cross-roads, but has lately turned farmer. Hans once went to Boston on some errand, among the Yankees, and ever since tells monstrous long stories about the marvels he saw in his travels in eastern parts. Then there is Harry Ostrander, the miller, he is justice of the peace, has grown very fat, and smokes all day long ; and Jacobus Jacobson, who owns a quarter in a sloop that sails from our landing, and who goes in her now and then to New- York ; and Jonathan Snap, the Con- necticut-man, originally a Yankee pedlar, but who has lived here long enough to be a true Dutchman in grain. Then there is myself, Mr. Editor, as I said before, a plain farmer, and never made for a building committee-man.
Now, sir, I thought when I agreed to serve, that we should just get together and engage some honest carpenter to build our church for us, as cheap as we could, and have nothing to do ourselves but to look out that we got the money's worth in good work, and did not spend more than the twelve hundred pounds. But no such thing : — when we first met, Hans Van Hoogendorf got up and made a long speech, in which he said that the church we were to build ought to be an ornament to the village, and an honour to the county ; that it was very important to determine on the best possible plan to build after ; and that we ought to pro- cure various drawings and designs from eminent architects, and compare them together, and thus be able to select the best. And he talked moreover about Greece, and Rome, and Palladio, and a parcel of such stufT, that I thought was Latin, and could not understand ; but which pleased some of the committee mightily. Then they talked about distri- bution, and symmetry, and orders, and many other things that I did not comprehend ; but the end of the whole was, that nothing was done for a month but talking ; and pillars,
318 LETTER FROM ORANGE COUNTY.
and bases, cornices, pedestals, pediments, and many other long words were sounded in my ears till I was fairly be- wildered. My brethren of the committee were contin- ually riding round the county, looking at every house, and church, and stable in Orange County, to find what they called a model ; in which search Jacobus Jacobson was particularly active : but I never could learn that they found what they were in search of. Then, to make bad worse, one would make a design, and another would make a design ; and they would talk about colonnades, and arches, and towers, till my head ached. In that, each one had his own opinion, and diifered from every other, and each would try to talk me over to his side, till I got clean addled, and hardly understood one word they said. Then Jacobus Jacobson got a paper from New- York, with a little church drawn upon it, as natural as hfe, and showed it all about, and then somebody sent another from Albany, and a third from New- York again, all diflferent, so that we were still as bad off as ever. So matters went on some time longer. Then it was proposed to " submit these designs" (I believe I remember the very words) " to some person of distinguished taste for his approbation." And as CorneHus Van Cuyler was thought a better judge of rum, and tea, and brown sugar, than any one else, his taste was relied on, and his opinion was asked. Then a land-surveyor, who could draw maps, was referred to ; and a man who formerly kept a store down by the river, but broke, and for some time past has kept a sort of school in our village ; and perhaps many more of equal claims for taste and judgment. But so it was, Mr. Editor, these people all differed among themselves as much as the " building committee" had done, so that every thing was left at sixes and sevens, and I begin to doubt whether we shall ever know our own minds on the subject, or come to any agreement at all.
Now, sir, our domine takes your Atlantic Magazine, and sometimes he lends it to me, for I like to read now and then
LETTER FROM ORANGE COUNTY. 319
of an evening, when the work is done ; and I lately read in the second number something about " the fine arts," and about " architecture," which I could not understand, but it sounded as if it had some sense in it, did one know how to get hold of it, so I suppose it was understood in New- York. Besides, I have been told that there is to be a very large building put up there, for merchants to go to for some pur- pose or other, though I did not hear what. So I suppose that all those things are easy with you, that perplex and trouble me so much. And our domine has advised me to write a letter to you about it, and promised to look over the spelling and grammar, being no great scholar myself, and I have made bold to do so. I have built two large barns and a cider-mill since I took the farm into my own hands, and never found any trouble with all these things that plague our committee. So, Mr. Editor, I will take it as a great favour if you will tell me the shortest and best mode of laying out twelve hundred pounds in building a church without all this doubting and debating : — and still more, if you will ask the gentlemen on the " building committee" of the great build- ing (for I suppose they have one), bow they manage to get along without troubling their heads with symmetry, and proportion, and effects, or talking about pedestals, and cornices, and pediments, and basements, and columns, and the other things that divide and confuse us so much. If we can come to any determination in time, we mean to begin pulling down the old church about the ] st of next March, so that you need not be in any haste about it. And if you ever come into our place, except in haying-time or harvest, and will call on me, I shall be glad to see you, in an old-fashioned one-story house, built before orders and proportions were invented, where you shall be welcome to as clean a bed, and as good fare at table as the country can furnish. I am, sir, your most humble servant.
Rip Van Boskerk,
DREAM OF PAPANTZIN.*
In examining the contents of my portfolio, with a view of making up the second volume of my occasional mis- cellanies, I found a fragment written in blank verse (and much of it in versi sciolti, which in English means no metre at all), founded on a legend recorded by the Abbe Clavigero, a gentleman with whom I had only the pleasure of enjoy- ing a brief acquaintance, during a short visit to Mexico, which I made in my youth ; but whose history I subse- quently read with much gratification ; not unmingled with regret, that circumstances had prevented me from examin- ing and exploring more fully the scenes and antiquities of a country whose annals are so interesting.
I have inserted in this place a portion of my original fragment, with some alterations and additions. The in- telligent reader will perceive that I had a good opportunity of introducing a prophetic account of the political revolu- tions in Mexico. I did so ; but it was too cumbrous for the slender frame of narration in which it was intro-
* [The Dream of Papantzin was published in the Talisman for 1829, with the introduction which precedes it in this volume. It is one of the most per- fect specimens left by Mr. Sands of his poetic powers, whether we regard the varied music of the versification, the freedom and splendour of the diction, the nobleness and affluence of the imagery, or the beautiful and original use he has made of the Mexican mythology.]
DREABI OF PAPANTZIN. 821
duced, and too long for this little volume. I have therefore omitted it. I have also been compelled, for the same rea- son, to omit many allusions to Mexican localities, and many- metaphors which I believe v^^ould stand the ordeal of crit- icism, because notes would be awkward in a work of this form ; and, in fact, have no business in it. Several things, however, I have necessarily retained, requiring notes ac- cording to the modern system, but not, I believe in reality. The story, as told by Clavigero, is as follows : —
" Papant^in, a Mexican princess, sister of Moteuczoma, and widow of the governor of Tlatelolco, died, as was supposed, in the palace of the latter, in 1509. Her funeral rites were celebrated with the usual pomp ; her brother, and all the nobility attending. She was buried in a cave, or subterranean grotto, in the gardens of the same palace, near a reservoir in which she usually bathed. The entrance of the cave was closed with a stone of no great size. On the day after the funeral, a little girl, five or six years old, who lived in the palace, was going from her mother's house to the residence of the princess's majordomo, in a farther part of the garden ; and passing by, she heard the princess calling to her cocoton, a phrase used to call and coax children, &c. &c. The princess sent the little girl to call her mother, and much alarm was of course excited. At length the King of Tezcuco was notified of her resurrection ; and, on his representation, Moteuczoma him- self, full of terror, visited her with his chief nobility. He asked her if she was his sister. ♦ I am,' said she, * the same whom you buried yesterday. I am alive, and desire to tell you what I have seen, as it imports to you to know it.' Then the kings sat down, and the others remained standing, marvelling at what they heard.
" Then the princess, resuming her discourse, said : — ' After my life, or, if that is impossible, after sense and the power of motion departed, in- continently I found myself in a vast plain, to which there was no bound in any direction. In the midst I discerned a road, which divided into various paths, and on one side was a great river, whose waters made a frightful rushing noise. Being minded to leap into it to cross to the opposite side, a fair youth stood before my eyes, of noble presence, clad in long robes, white as snow, and resplendent as the sun. He had two wings of beautiful plu- mage, and bore this sign on his forehead (so saying, the princess made with her fingers the sign of the cross) ; and taking me by the hand said, < Stay, it is not yet time to pass this river. God loves thee, although thou dost not know it.' Thence he led me along the shores of the river, where I saw many sculls and human bones, and heard such doleful groans that they moved me to compassion. Then turning my eyes to the river, I saw
VOL. ir. — s s
322 DREAM OF THE
in it divers great barks, and in them many men, different from those of these regions in dress and complexion. They were white and bearded, having standards in their hands, and helmets on their heads. Then the young man said to me, ' God wills that you should live, that you may bear testimony of the revolutions which are to occur in these countries. The clamours thou hast heard on these banks are those of the souls of thine ancestors, which are and ever will be tormented in punishment of their sins. The men whom thou seest passing in the barks, are those who with arms will make themselves masters of this country ; and with them will come also an annunciation of the true God, Creator of heaven and earth. "When the war is finished, and the ablution promulgated which washes away sin, thou shalt be first to receive it, and guide by thine example all the in- habitants of this land.' Thus having said, the young man disappeared ; and I found myself restored to life — rose from the place on which I lay — lifted the stone from the sepulchre, and issued forth from the garden, where the servants found me.'
" Moteuczoma went to his house of mourning, full of heavy thoughts, saying nothing to his sister (whom he never would see again), nor to the King of Tezcuco, nor to his courtiers, who tried to persuade him that it was a feverish phantasy of the princess. She lived many years afterward, and in 1524 was baptized."
This incident, says Clavigero, was universally known, and made a great noise at the time. It is described in several Mexican pictures, and affidavits of its truth were sent to the court of Spain. ^
DREAM OF THE PRINCESS PAPANTZIN,
Mexitlis' power was at its topmost pride ; The name was terrible from sea to sea ; From mountains, where the tameless Ottomite Maintained his savage freedom, to the shores Of wild Higueras. Through the nations passed, As stalks the angel of the pestilence, The great king's messengers. They marked the young, The brave and beautiful, and bore them on
PRINCESS PAPANTZIN. 323
For their foul sacrifices. Terror went Before the tyrant's heralds. Grief and wrath Remained behind their steps ; but they were dumb.
He was as God. Yet in his capital Sat Moteuczoma, second of that name, Trembling with fear of dangers long foretold In ancient prophecies, and now announced By signs in heaven and portents upon earth ; By the reluctant voices of pale priests ; By the grave looks of solemn counsellors ; But chief, by sickening heaviness of heart That told of evil, dimly understood. But evil which must come. With face obscured, And robed in night the giant phantom rose, Of his great empire's ruin, and his own. Happier, though guiltier, he, before whose glance Of reckless triumph, moved the spectral Hand, That traced the unearthly characters of fate.
'Twas then, one eve, when o'er the imperial lake And all its cities, glittering in their pomp. The lord of glory threw his parting smiles, In Tlatelolco's palace, in her bower, Papantzin lay reclined ; sister of him At whose name monarchs trembled. Yielding there To musings various, o'er her senses crept Or sleep, or kindred death.
It seemed she stood In an illimitable plain, that stretched Its desert continuity around, Upon the o'erwearied sight ; in contrast strange With that rich vale, where only she had dwelt, Whose everlasting mountains, girdling it. As in a chalice held a kingdom's wealth ;
324 DREA3I OF THE
Their siinimits freezing, where the eagle tired, But found no resting-place. Papantzin looked On endless barrenness, and walked perplexed Through the dull haze, along the boundless heath. Like some lone ghost in Mictlan's cheerless gloom Debarred from light and glory.
Wandering thus She came where a great sullen river poured Its turbid waters with a rushing sound Of painful moans ; as if the inky waves Were hastening still on their complaining course To escape the horrid solitudes. Beyond What seemed a highway ran, with branching paths Innumerous. This to gain, she sought to plunge Straight in the troubled stream. For well she knew To shun with agile limbs the current's force. Nor feared the noise of waters. She had played From infancy in her fair native lake, Amid the gay plumed creatures floating round, Wheeling or diving, with their changeful hues, As fearless and as innocent as they.
A vision stayed her purpose. By her side
Stood a bright youth ; and startling, as she gazed
On his effulgence, every sense was bound
In pleasing awe and in fond reverence.
For not Tezcatlipoca, as he shone
Upon her priest-led fancy, when from heaven
By filmy thread sustained he came to earth,
In his resplendent mail reflecting all
Its images, with dazzling portraiture,
Was, in his radiance and immortal youth
A peer to this new god. — His stature was
Like that of men ; but matched with his, the port
Of kings all dreaded was the crouching mien
PRINCESS TAPANTZIN. 325
Of suppliants at their feet. Serene the light That floated round him, as the lineaments It cased with its mild glory. Gravely sweet The impression of his features, which to scan Their lofty loveliness forbade : His eyes She felt, but saw not : only, on his brow — From over w^hich, encircled by what seemed A ring of liquid diamond, in pure light Revolving ever, backward flowed his locks In buoyant, waving clusters — on his brow She marked a Cross described ; and lowly bent She knew not wherefore, to the sacred sign. From either shoulder mantled o'er his front Wings dropping feathery silver ; and his robe Snow-white in the still air was motionless, As that of chiselled god, or the pale shroud ■Of some fear-conjured ghost.
Her hand he took And led her passive o'er the naked banks Of that black stream, still murmuring angrily. But, as he spoke, she heard its moans no more ; His voice seemed sweeter than the hymnings raised By brave and gentle souls in Paradise, To celebrate the outgoing of the sun, On his majestic progress over heaven. *' Stay, princess," thus he spoke, " thou may est not yet O'erpass these w^aters. Though thou knowest it not, Nor Him, God loves thee." So he led her on, Unfainting, amid hideous sights and sounds ; For now, o'er scattered sculls and grisly bones They walked ; while underneath, before, behind, Rise dolorous wails and groans protracted long, Sobs of deep anguish, screams of agony. And melancholy sighs, and the fierce yell Of hopeless and intolerable pain.
326 DREAM OP THE
Shuddering, as, in the gloomy whirlwind's pause, Through the malign, distempered atmosphere. The second circle's purple blackness, passed The pitying Florentine, who saw the shades Of poor Francesca and her paramour, — The princess o'er the ghastly relics stepped, Listening the frightful clamour ; till a gleam. Whose sickly and phosphoric lustre seemed Kindled from these decaying bones, lit up The sable river. Then a pageant came Over its obscure tides, of stately barks. Gigantic, with their prows of quaint device, Tall masts, and ghostly canvass, huge and high, Hung in the unnatural light and lifeless air. Grim bearded men, with stern and angry looks Strange robes, and uncouth armour, stood behind Their galleries and bulwarks. One ship bore A broad sheet pendant, where inwrought with gold She marked the symbol that adorned the brow Of her mysterious guide. Down the dark stream Swept on the spectral fleet, in the false light Flickering and fading. Louder then uprose The roar of voices from the accursed strand, Until in tones, solemn and sweet, again Her angel-leader spoke.
*' Princess, God wills That thou shouldst live, to testify on earth What changes are to come ; and in the world Where change comes never, live, when earth and all Its changes shall have passed like earth away.
" The cries that pierced thy soul and chilled thy veins Are those of thy tormented ancestors. Nor shall their torment cease ; for God is just. Foredoomed, — since first from Atzlan led to rove.
PRINCESS PAPANTZIN. 327
Following in quest of change, their kindred tribes, —
Where'er they rested, with foul sacrifice
They stained the shuddering earth. Their monuments
By blood cemented, after ages passed
With idle wonder or fantastic guess,
The traveller shall behold. For broken, then,
Like their own ugly idols, buried, burnt.
Their fragments spurned for every servile use,
Trampled and scattered to the reckless winds,
The records of their origin shall be.
Still in their cruelty and untamed pride.
They lived and died condemned ; whether they dwelt
Outcasts, upon a soil that was not theirs,
All steril as it was, and won by stealth
Food from the slimy margent of the lake,
And digged the earth for roots and unclean worms ;
Or served in bondage to another race.
Who loved them not. Driven forth, they wandered then
In miserable want, until they came
Where from the thriftless rock the nopal grew.
On which the hungry eagle perched and screamed,
And founded Tenochtitlan ; rearing first
With impious care, a cabin for their god
Huitzilopochtli, and with murderous rites
Devoting to his guardianship themselves
And all their issue. Quick the nopal climbed,
Its harsh and bristly growth towering o'er all
The vale of Anahuac. Far for his prey.
And farther still the ravenous eagle flew ;
And still with dripping beak but thirst unslaked
With savage cries wheeled home. Nine kings have
reigned. Their records blotted and besmeared with blood So thick that none may read them. Down the stairs And o'er the courts and winding corridors Of their abominable piles, upreared
328 DREAM OF THE
In the face of heaven, and naked to the sun,
More blood has flowed than would have filled the lakes
O'er which, enthroned midst carnage, they have sat,
Heaping their treasures for the stranger's spoil.
Prodigious cruelty and waste of life,
Unnatural riot and blaspheming pride, —
All that God hates, — ^and all that tumbles down
Great kingdoms and luxurious commonwealths
After long centuries waxing all corrupt, —
In their brief annals aggregated, forced.
And monstrous, are compressed. And now the cup
Of wrath is full ; and now the hour has come.
Nor yet unwarned shall judgment overtake
The tribes of Aztlan, and in chief their lords
Mexitlis' blind adorers. As to one
Who feels his inward malady remain,
Howe'er health's seeming mocks his destiny.
In gay or serious mood the thought of death
Still comes obtrusive ; so old prophecy
From age to age preserved, has told thy race
How strangers, from beyond the rising sun.
Should come with thunder armed, to overturn
Their idols, to possess their lands, and hold
Them and their children in long servitude,
" Thou shalt bear record that the hour is nigh^ The white and bearded men whose grim array Swept o'er thy sight, are those who are to come, And with strong arms and wisdom stronger far. Strange beasts obedient to their masters' touch. And engines hurling death, with Fate to aid. Shall wrest the sceptre from the Azteques' line, And lay their temples flat. Horrible war. Rapine and murder and destruction wild Shall hurry like the whirlwind o'er the land. Yet with the avengers come the word of peace :
PRINCESS rAPANTZIJT. 329
With the destroyers comes the bread of Hfe ; And, as the wind-god in thine idle creed, Opens a passage with his boisterous breath Through which the genial waters over earth Shed their reviving showers ; so, when the storm Of war has pass'd, rich dews of heavenly grace Shall fall on flinty hearts. And thou, the flower. Which, when huge cedars and most ancient pines Coeval with the mountains are uptorn. The hurricane shall leave unharmed, thou, then, Shalt be the first to lift thy drooping head Renewed, and cleansed from every former stain;
" The fables of thy people teach, that when The deluge drowned mankind, and one sole pair In fragile bark preserved, escaped and climbed The steeps of Colhuacan, daughters and sons Were born to them, who knew not how to frame Their simplest thoughts in speech ; till from the grove A dove poured forth, in regulated sounds. Each varied form of language. Then they spake, Though neither by another understood. But thou shalt then hear of that Holiest Dove, Which is the Spirit of the Eternal God. When all was void and dark, he moved above Infinity ; and from beneath his wings Earth and the waters and the islands rose ; The air was quickened, and the world had life. Then all the lamps of heaven began to shine. And man was made to gaze upon their fires.
" Among thy fathers' visionary tales, Thou'st heard, how once near ancient Tula dwelt A woman, holy and devout, who kept The temple pure, and to its platform saw A globe of emerald plumes descend from heaven.
VOL. II. — TT
330 DREAM OF THE
Placing it in her bosom to adorn
Her idol's sanctuary (so the tale
Runs), she conceived, and bore Mexitli. He,
When other children had assailed her life,
Sprang into being, all equipped for war ;
His green plumes dancing in their circlet bright,
Like sheaf of sun-lit spray cresting the bed
Of angry torrents. Round, as Tonatiuh
Flames in mid-heaven, his golden buckler shone ;
Like nimble lightning flashed his dreadful lance ;
And unrelenting vengeance in his eyes
Blazed with its swarthy lustre. He, they tell,
Led on their ancestors ; and him the god
Of wrath and terror, with the quivering hearts
And mangled limbs of myriads, and the stench
Of blood-washed shrines and altars they appease.
But then shall be revealed to thee the name
And vision of a virgin undefiled,
Embalmed in holy beauty, in whose eyes,
Downcast and chaste, such sacred influence lived,
That none might gaze in their pure spheres and feel
One earth-born longing. Over her the Dove
Hung, and th' Almighty power came down. She bore
In lowHness, and as a helpless babe.
Heir to man's sorrows and calamities.
His great Deliverer, Conqueror of Death ;
And thou shalt learn, how when in years he grew
Perfect, and fairer than the sons of men,
And in that purifying rite partook
Which thou shalt share, as from his sacred locks
The glittering waters dropped, high over head
The azure vault was opened, and that Dove
Swiftly, serenely floating downwards, stretched
His silvery pinions o'er the anointed Lord,
Sprinkling celestial dews. And thou shalt hear
How, when the Sacrifice for man had gone
PRINCESS PAPANTZIN. 331
In glory home, as his chief messengers
Were met in council, on a mighty wind
The Dove was borne among them ; on each brow
A forked tongue of fire unquenchable lit ;
And, as the lambent points shot up and waved.
Strange speech came to them ; thence to every land,
In every tongue, they, with untiring steps.
Bore the glad tidings of a world redeemed."
Much more, which now it suits not to rehearse, The princess heard. The historic prophet told Past, Present, Future, — things that since have been, And things that are to come. And, as he ceased. O'er the black river, and the desert plain. As o'er the close of counterfeited scenes. Shown by the buskined muse, a veil came down, Impervious ; and his figure faded swift In the dense gloom. But then, in starlike light. That awful symbol which adorned his brow In size dilating showed : and up, still up. In its clear splendour still the same, though still Lessening, it mounted ; and Papantzin woke.
She woke in darkness and in solitude. Slow passed her lethargy away, and long To her half dreaming eye that brilliant sign Distinct appeared. Then damp and close she felt The air around, and knew the poignant smell Of spicy herbs collected and confined. As those awakening from a troubled trance Are wont, she would have learned by touch if yet The spirit to the body was allied. Strange hindrances prevented. O'er her face A mask thick-plated lay : and round her swathed Was many a costly and encumbering robe, Such as she wore on some high festival,
332 DREAM OF THE
O'erspread with precious gems, rayless and cold,
That now pressed hard and sharp against her touch.
The cumbrous collar round her slender neck,
Of gold thick studded with each valued stone
Earth and the sea-depths yield for human pride—
The bracelets and the many-twisted rings
That girt her taper limbs, coil upon coil — ■
What w^ere they in this dungeon's solitude 1
The plumy coronal that would have sprung
Light from her fillet in the purer air.
Waving in mockery of the rainbow tints,
Now drooping low, and steeped in clogging dews,
Oppressive hung. Groping in dubious search,
She found the household goods, the spindle, broom,
Gicalli quaintly sculptured, and the jar
That held the useless beverage for the dead.
By these, and by the jewel to her lip
Attached, the emerald symbol of the soul,
In its green life immortal, soon she knew
Iler dwelling was a sepulchre,
She loosed The mask, and from her feathery bier uprose. Casting away the robe, which like long alb Wrapped her ; and w-ith it many an aloe leaf, Inscribed with Azteck characters and signs. To guide the spirit where the Serpent hissed, Hills towered, and deserts spread, and keen winds blew. And many a " Flower of Death ;" though their frail
leaves Were yet unwithered. For the living warmth Which in her dwelt, their freshness had preserved ; Else, if corruption had begun its work, The emblems of quick change would have survived Her beauty's semblance. What is beauty worth. If the cropt flower retains its tender bloom
PRINCESS PAPANTZIN. 333
When foul decay has stolen the latest lines Of loveHness in death ? Yet even now Papantzin knew that her exuberant locks — Which, unconfined, had round her flowed to earth, Like a stream rushing down some rocky steep, Threading ten thousand channels — had been shorn Of half their waving length, — and liked it not.
But through a crevice soon she marked a gleam Of rays uncertain ; and, with staggering steps, But strong in reckless dreaminess, while still Presided o'er the chaos of her thoughts The revelation that upon her soul Dwelt with its power, she gained the cavern's throat And pushed the quarried stone aside, and stood Jn the free air, and in her own domain.
But now obscurely o'er her vision swam The beauteous landscape, with its thousand tints And changeful views ; long alleys of bright trees Bending beneath their fruits ; espaliers gay With tropic flowers and shrubs that filled the breeze With odorous incense, basins vast, where birds With shining plumage sported, smooth canals Leading the glassy wave, or towering grove Of forest veterans. On a rising bank, *" Her seat accustomed, near a well hewn out From ancient rocks into which waters gushed From living springs, where she was wont to bathe, She threw herself to muse. Dim on her sight The imperial city and its causeways rose, With the broad lake and all its floating isles And glancing shallops, and the gilded pomp Of princely barges, canopied with plumes Spread fanlike, or with tufted pageantry Waving magnificent. Unmarked around
334 DREAM OF THE
The frequent huitzilin, with murmuring hum
Of ever-restless wing, and shrill sweet note,
Shot twinkling, with the ruby star that glowed
Over his tiny bosom, and all hues
That loveliest seem in heaven, with ceaseless change,
Flashing from his fine films. And all in vain
Untiring, from the rustling branches near,
Poured the Centzontli all his hundred strains
Of imitative melody. Not now
She heeded them. Yet pleasant was the shade
Of palms and cedars ; and through twining boughs
And fluttering leaves, the subtle god of air.
The serpent armed with plumes, most welcome crept,
And fanned her cheek with kindest ministry.
A dull and dismal sound came booming on ; A solemn, wild, and melancholy noise. Shaking the tranquil air ; and afterward A clash and jangling, barbarously prolonged, Torturing the unwilling ear, rang dissonant. Again the unnatural thunder rolled along. Again the crash and clamour followed it. Shuddering she heard, who knew that every peal From the dread gong, announced a victim's heart Torn from his breast, and each triumphant clang, A mangled corse, down the great temple's stairs Hurled headlong ; and she knew, as lately taught, How vengeance was ordained for cruelty ; How pride would end ; and uncouth soldiers tread Through bloody furrows o'er her pleasant groves And gardens ; and would make themselves a road Over the dead, choking the silver lake. And cast the battered idols down the steps That climbed their execrable towers, and raze Sheer from the ground AhuitzoFs mighty pile.
PRINCESS PAPANTZIN. 335
There had been wail for her in Mexico, And with due rites and royal obsequies, Not without blood at devilish altars shed, She had been numbered with her ancestry. Here when beheld, revisiting the light. Great marvel rose, and greater terror grew, Until the kings came trembling, to receive The fore-shown tidings. To his house of wo Silent and mournful, Moteuczoma went.
Few years had passed, when by the rabble hands Of his own subjects, in ignoble bonds He fell ; and on a hasty gibbet reared By the road-side, with scorn and obloquy The brave and gracious Guatemotzin hung ; While to Honduras, thirsting for revenge, And gloomier after all his victories. Stern Cortes stalked. Such was the will of God.
And then with holier rites and sacred pomp. Again committed to the peaceful grave, Papantzin slept in consecrated earth.
iVl O N O D Y,
TO THE MEMORY OF THE REV. J. W. EASTBURN.
"V"ail, Zion, vail thy mourning head,
Let sacred clouds descending weep ; Mourn, holy hill, thy shepherd dead.
Whose voice no more shall charm thy sheep !• Thou, city of the Lord, deplore
A watchman vanish'd from thy walls 1 While nightly tempests round thee roar^
No more thy faithful servant calls. Temple of God ! let chants of wo
Through all thy hallowed courts be borne ; A polished shaft in dust lies low.
And round the sister columns mourn. Departed saint 1 how sweet the strain
The spirit taught thy lips to pour ! How dear the echoes which remain
When now the music breathes no more ! Around those lips, as in the shade
Where infant Plato lay reclin'd, Hymettian bees prophetic play'd.
And left their choicest store behind : But than their treasures far more sweet.
Though with them inspiration clung. With unction of the Paraclete,
Descending seraphs tipp'd thy tongue !
Monody on the rev. j. w. EASTBtJB(N. 337
" Proclaim,"* the Eternal Spirit said,
" Glad tidings to the meek in heart. Bind up the wounds that earth has made, And bid the enfranchis'd slave depart. Tell the poor captive, chain'd by sin,
* Thy bars are burst, and thou art free ! The year of glory shall begin,
The spring of beauty dawns for thee T Bid those who mourn on Zion's steep,
Swathed in such garb as grief should be, As o'er the sins of men they weep.
Look through their tears to Calvary. For them the oil of joy shall flow.
Immortal beauty shall be theirs. And, for the livery sad of wo.
The spotless robe that angel wears. In ancient wastes, where moss o'erspreads
The temples once devote to God, And weeds, luxuriant, wave their heads
Above the consecrated sod ; Where ruin, scowling o'er the gloom,
For years has marked the scene her own, Rebuild the crumbling walls, relume
The fire upon the altar stone !" He heard the summons and obeyed ;
And desolation bloom'd again. Like nature, as old bards have said.
Obedient to the minstrel strain. How soon his strain exultant swells
The hymn that mortals may not share 1 Like music borne on summer gales,
That melts upon the distant air.
* I«ai&fa. VOL* U. — U U
338 MONODY ON THE REV. J. W. EASTBURN.
So soars the lark in early morn,
Her note heard fainter as she flies ; Upward, still upward, she is borne,
Until in heaven her warbling dies. But now, that cherished voice was near ;
And all around yet breathes of him ; — We look, and we can only hear
" The parting wings of cherubim 1" Mourn ye, whom haply nature taught
To share the bard's communion high ; To scan the ideal world of thought,
That floats before the poet's eye ; — Ye, who with ears o'ersated long.
From native bards disgusted fly, Expecting only, in their song.
The ribald strains of calumny ; — Mourn ye a minstrel chaste as sweet,
Who caught from heaven no doubtful fire, But chose immortal themes as meet
Alone, for an immortal lyre. O silent shell ! thy chords are riven !
That heart lies cold before its prime ! Mute are those lips, that might have given
One deathless descant to our clime ! No laurel chaplet twines he now ;
He sweeps a harp of heavenly tone, And plucks the amaranth for his brow
That springs beside the eternal throne. Mourn ye, whom friendship's silver chain
Link'd with his soul in bonds refin'd ; That earth had striv'n to burst in vain, —
The sacred sympathy of mind. Still long that sympathy shall last :
Still shall each object like a spell, Recall from fate the buried past,
Present the mind belov'd so well.
MONODY ON THE REV. J. W. EASTBURN. 339
That pure intelligence — O where
Now is its onward progress won ? Through what new regions does it dare
Push the bold quest on earth begun ? In realms with boundless glory fraught,
Where fancy can no trophies raise — In blissful vision, where the thought
Is whelm'd in wonder and in praise ! Till life's last pulse, O triply dear,
A loftier strain is due to thee ; But constant memory's votive tear
Thy sacred epitaph must be.
SLEEP.
tThe fdlowing address to Sleep is a version of such parts of Mem. v. Part 2. Sec. 2. of Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, as seemed to the writer fit for versification. Other ideas are introduced, probably not more original.]
Since too much waking hurts, O, gentle Sleep !
Even against thy will thou must be woo'd, And forced the restless soul entranced to keep,
Till we overcome the deadly waking mood. Sweet influence ! yea, thou must be forced to steep
In bland oblivion thoughts that are not good For entertainment — since they bring us pain, And, without thee, will craze the fevered brain,
Shalt thou, on alpine heights, in polar cold, The bloodless dormouse and the sullen bear
In one long night of no unrest enfold, In frozen curtains that admit no care ;
While man, as lord of breathing things, enrolled In God's own order writ, shall have no share
Of solace,_which his nature needs must claim,
Both for the mind o'erwrought and wearied frame ?
Thee the old poets, in immortal lays,
Adored as universal nature's rest — Peace of the soul, whose influence care obeys,
Sore care who listens to no other best ; As still restoring, after anxious days.
The limbs and faculties with toil oppressed —
SLEEP.
341
Refitting man his daily race to run
Of toil, beneath the ever-travelling sun,
Thy charm the skilful as supreme confess Above all alchymy and magic spells ;
Of different modes to win thy bland caress, The antique leech in lore black-lettered tells.
But v^rhen grim night-mare griefs the soul oppress. Not his the craft thy presence that compels ;
Dark Melancholy's patient cannot find
In foolish physic, slumber for the mind.
Nor unto him luxurious rest deny
Through a whole third of earths' diurnal phases ; But half asleep in revery to lie
While light's original fountain streams and blazes, And nature works beneath the laughing sky,
Doating, in fond conceits, and dreamy mazes. Sinks him below all God's own quick creations. Nor will one muse inspire his meditations.
For that sweet moistening sleep must fall on men As heaven's own dew, impalpable and fine.
And unperceived, till cool, clear morning, when On every blade and leaf impearled they shine.
So he who well has slept, new hopes again Finds fresh and sparkling ; and the god divine,
Which we call reason, prompts him through the day
To struggle with his fortune as he may.
Oh sage philosophy ! teach us how to slumber. When the intractable brain is hot or dry.
With all the pangs and fears we cannot number, And all the hopes that blossom, fade, and die ;
With the great businesses our thoughts that cumber, Whereat the angels laugh — with reason why 1
342 SLEEP.
When all that thou canst teach us, thou hast taught, Oh sage philosophy ! thy lore is naught !
Hark ! the loud thunder roars — thine enemy,
Sleep, even when thou art kind ; and thro' the shutters
The lurid lightning sheds its blazonry ; But I am not alarmed, though the storm utters
Its threatenings ; for I am at peace, with thee,
My conscience. Is it so ? stern conscience mutters,
I do fear God. And yet I cannot keep
Mine even reckoning with thee, oh sleep !
Sleep ! let the wretch who waits and dreads to-morrow, Lose but one little gap of hurrying time ;
Revive the dead, to sooth his heart's dear sorrow, Or steep in Lethe unforgotten crime ;
Or teach the flagging frame at least to borrow Some little strength before the matin prime.
Vainly invoked, oh sleep ! thou canst not give
Relief to those who, fearing evil, live.
Not to the clown, who for his rent unpaid Must on to-morrow leave his low-roofed cot ;
Not to the king, who for his sceptre swayed Unwisely, waits a battle to be fought ;
Him only canst thou with thy influence aid Who, sentenced, for all earth cares not a jot —
Condemned to die i' the morning — who has pass'd
The bitterness of death, before life's last.
For he sleeps soundly, when he hath no need Of thee, against that morrow's setting sun.
For whom irrevocably 'tis decreed
His business in this tedious world is done ;
Whose hope is dead, whose fear is past remeed. And whose eternity has now begun.
SLEEP. 343
No dreams disturb his slumbers who must wake To meet the axe, the gibbet, or the stake.
Might I interrogate thee, thou who art
Death's younger brother, and his counterfeit.
Fain would I ask thee if, when we depart
From heaven's clear presence, and in darkness meet
The worms for our companions, in their mart Of human food, shall visions foul or sweet
Visit our slumbers, ere the trumpet's peal
Shall summon us to endless wo or weal ?
If ere the soul puts its old vesture on,
Transformed to rapturous or to burning weeds.
It shall do homage at the eternal throne. Or penance in dread Hades for its deeds ?
Ah, could thine oracle the truth make known
From those dark halls whence never voice proceeds,
It were in vain, dull god, to question thee.
What portion hast tlioic of eternity ?
For in the grave, whether our dreams be fraught
With amaranths, harpings, and sweet gales of heaven.
Or demon-haunted, is to us as naught,
Who are imbued with the immortal leaven.
Time is not, if we lie devoid of thought ; And if the sure expectancy be given.
Whether we wake to glory or to shame,
'Twill at the resurrection be the same.
PARTING.
E tu chi sa se mai Si sovverrai di me !
Say, when afar from mine thy home shall be,
Still will thy soul unchanging turn to me ?
When other scenes in beauty round thee lie,
Will these be present to thy mental eye ?
Thy form, thy mind, when others fondly praise,
Wilt thou forget thy poet's humbler lays ?
Ah me ! what is there, in earth's various range/
That time and absence may not sadly change !
And can the heart, that still demands new ties,
New thoughts, for all its thousand sympathies —
The waxen heart, where every seal may set,
In turn, its stamp — remain unaltered yet.
While nature changes with each fleeting day.
And seasons dance their varying course away ?
Ah ! shouldst thou swerve from truth, all else must part.
That yet can feed with life this withered heart !
Whate'er its doubts, its hopes, its fears may be,
*Twere, even in madness, faithful still to thee ;
And shouldst thou snap that silver chord in twain.
The golden bowl no other links sustain ;
Crushed in the dust, its fragments then must sink,
And the cold earth its latest life-drops drink.
■?
PARTING. 345
Blame not, if oft, in melancholy mood. This theme, too far, sick fancy hath pursued j And if the soul, which high with hope should beat, Turns to the gloomy grave's unbless'd retreat*
Majestic nature ! since thy course began,
Thy features wear no sympathy for man ;
The sun smiles loveliest on our darkest hours ;
O'er the cold grave fresh spring the sweetest flowers.
And man himself, in selfish sorrows bound.
Heeds not the melancholy ruin round.
The crowd's vain roar still fills the passing breeze,
That bends above the tomb the cypress-trees.
One only heart, still true in joy or wo.
Is all the kindest fates can e'er bestow.
If frowning Heaven that heart refuse to give,
O, who would ask the ungracious boon — to live ?
Then better 'twere, if longer doomed to prove
The listless load of Hfe, unbless'd with love,
To seek midst ocean's waste some island fair, —
And dwell, the anchorite of nature, there j —
Some lonely isle, upon whose rocky shore
No sound, save curlew's scream, or billow's roar,
Hath echoed ever ; in whose central woods.
With the quick spirit of its solitudes.
In converse deep, strange sympathies untried,
The soul might find, which this vain world denied.
But I will trust that heart, where truth alone. In loveliest guise, sits radiant on her throne ; And thus believing, fear not all the power Of absence drear, or time's most tedious hour. If e'er I sigh to win the wreaths of fame And write on memory's scroll a deathless name, 'Tis but thy loved, approving smile to meet, And lay the budding laurels at thy feet.
VOL. II. X X
346 PARTINC*
If e'er for worldly wealth I heave a sigh,
And glittering visions float on fancy's eye,
'Tis but with rosy wreaths thy path to spread.
And place the diadem on beauty's head.
Queen of my thoughts, each subject to thy sway,
Thy ruling presence lives but to obey ;
And shouldst thou e'er their bless'd allegiance slight^
The mind must wander, lost in endless night.
Farewell ! forget me not, when others gaze. Enamoured on thee, with the looks of praise ; When weary leagues before my view are cast, And each dull hour seems heavier than the last,. Forget me not. May joy thy steps attend, And mayst thou find in every form a friend ; With care unsullied be thy every thought ; And in thy dreams of home, forget me not 1
■^
A MONODY
MADE ON THE LATE MR. SAMUEL PATCH, BY AN ADMIRER OF THE BATHOS.
By water shall he die, and take his end. — Shakspeare.
Toll for Sam Patch ! Sam Patch, who jumps no more,
This or the world to come. Sam Patch is dead ! The vulgar pathway to the unknown shore
Of dark futurity, he would not tread.
No friends stood sorrowing round his dying bed ; Nor with decorous wo, sedately stepp'd
Behind his corpse, and tears by retail shed ; — The mighty river, as it onward swept. In one great wholesale sob, his body drowned and kept.
Toll for Sam Patch ! he scorned the common way That leads to fame, up heights of rough ascent,
And having heard Pope and Longinus say.
That some great men had risen to falls, he went And jumped, where wild Passaic's waves had rent
The antique rocks ; — the air free passage gave, — And graciously the liquid element
Upbore him, like some sea-god on its wave ;
And all the people said that Sam was very brave.
Fame, the clear spirit that doth to heaven upraise
Led Sam to dive into what Byron calls The hell of waters. For the sake of praise,
He wooed the bathos down great water-falls ;
348 MONODY ON SAMUEL PATCH.
The dizzy precipice, which the eye appals Of travellers for pleasure, Samuel found
Pleasant, as are to women lighted halls, Crammed full of fools and fiddles ; to the sound Of the eternal roar, he timed his desperate bound.
Sam was a fool. But the large world of such,
Has thousands — better taught, alike absurd. And less sublime. Of fame he soon got much.
Where distant cataracts spout, of him men heard.
Alas for Sam ! Had he aright preferred The kindly element, to which he gave
Himself so fearlessly, we had not heard That it was now his winding-sheet and grave. Nor sung, 'twixt tears and smiles, our requiem for the brave.
He soon got drunk, with rum and with renown,
As many others in high places do ; — Whose fall is like Sam's last — for down and down.
By one mad impulse driven, they flounder through
The gulf that keeps the future from our view, And then are found not. May they rest in peace !
We heave the sigh to human frailty due — And shall not Sam have his ? The muse shall cease To keep the heroic roll, which she began in Greece —
With demigods, who went to the Black Sea
For wool (and if the best accounts be straight. Came back, in negro phraseology,
With the same wool each upon his pate).
In which she chronicled the deathless fate Of him who jumped into the perilous ditch
Left by Rome's street commissioners, in a state Which made it dangerous, and by jumping which He made himself renowned, and the contractors rich —
MONODY ON SAMUEL PATCH. 349
I say, the muse shall quite forget to sound
The chord whose music is undying, if She do not strike it when Sam Patch is drowned.
Leander dived for love. Leucadia's cliff
The Lesbian Sappho leapt from in a miff, To punish Phaon ; Icarus went dead.
Because the wax did not continue stiff; And, had he minded what his father said, He had not given a name unto his watery bed.
And Hello's case was all an accident.
As everybody knows. Why sing of these ?
Nor would I rank with Sam that man who went Down into ^Etna's womb — Empedocles, I think he called himself Themselves to please.
Or else unwillingly, they made their springs ; For glory in the abstract, Sam made his.
To prove to all men, commons, lords, and kings,
That " some things may be done, as well as other things.''
I will not be fatigued, by citing more
Who jump'd of old, by hazard or design. Nor plague the weary ghosts of boyish lore,
Vulcan, Apollo, Phaeton — in fine
All Tooke's Pantheon. Yet they grew divine By their long tumbles ; and if we can match
Their hierarchy, shall we not entwine One wreath ? Who ever came " up to the scratch," And for so little, jumped so bravely as Sam Patch?
To long conclusions many men have jumped
In logic, and the safer course they took ; By any other, they would have been stumped.
Unable to argue, or to quote a book.
350 MONODY ON SAMUEL PATCH.
And quite dumb-founded, which they cannot brook ; They break no bones, and suffer no contusion.
Hiding their woful fall, by hook and crook. In slang and gibberish, sputtering and confusion ; But that was not the way Sam cam.e to his conclusion.
He jumped in person. Death or Victory
Was his device, " and there was no mistake," Except his last ; and then he did but die,
A blunder which the wisest men will make.
Aloft, where mighty floods the mountains break. To stand, the target of ten thousand eyes,
And down into the coil and water-quake. To leap, like Maia's offspring, from the skies — For this all vulgar flights he ventured to despise.
And while Niagara prolongs its thunder.
Though still the rock primaeval disappears. And nations change their bounds — the theme of wonder
Shall Sam go down the cataract of long years ;
And if there be sublimity in tears. Those shall be precious which the adventurer shed
When his frail star gave way, and waked his fears Lest, by the ungenerous crowd it might be said. That he was all a hoax, or that his pluck had fled.
Who would compare the maudlin Alexander,
Blubbering, because he had no job in hand, Acting the hypocrite, or else the gander.
With Sam, whose grief we all can understand ?
His crying was not womanish, nor plann'd For exhibition ; but his heart o'erswelled
With its own agony, when he the grand Natural arrangements for a jump beheld, And measuring the cascade, found not his courage quelled.
MONODY ON SAMUEL PATCH. 351
His last great failure set the final seal
Unto the record Time shall never tear, While bravery has its honour, — v^hile men feel
The holy natural sympathies which are
First, last, and mightiest in the bosom. Where The tortured tides of Genessee descend,
He came — his only intimate a bear, — (We know not that he had another friend). The martyr of renown, his wayward course to end*
The fiend that from the infernal rivers stole
Hell-draughts for man, too much tormented himy With nerves unstrung, but steadfast in his soul,
He stood upon the salient current's brim ;
His head was giddy, and his sight was dim ; And then he knew this leap would be his last, — ■
Saw air, and earth, and water wildly swim. With eyes of many multitudes, dense and vast. That stared in mockery ; none a look of kindness cast.
Beat down, in the huge amphitheatre " I see before me the gladiator lie,"
And tier on tier, the myriads waiting there The bow of grace, without one pitying eye- He was a slave — a captive hired to die ; —
Sam was born free as Csesar ; and he might The hopeless issue have refused to try ;
No ! with true leap, but soon with faltering flight, —
" Deep in the roaring gulf, he plunged to endless night."
But, ere he leapt, he begged of those who made Money by his dread venture, that if he
Should perish, such collection should be paid As might be picked up from the " company" To his Mother. This, his last request, shall be,—
352 MONODY ON SAMUEL PATCH.
Tho* she who bore him ne'er his fate should know,—
An iris, ghttering o'er his memory — When all the streams have worn their barriers low, And, by the sea drunk up, for ever cease to flow.
On him who chooses to jump down cataracts,
Why should the sternest moralist be severe ? Judge not the dead by prejudice — but facts,
Such as in strictest evidence appear.
Else were the laurels of all ages sere. Give to the brave, who have pass'd the final goal, —
The gates that ope not back, — the generous tear ; And let the muse's clerk upon her scroll, In coarse, but honest verse, make up the judgment roll.
TJierefore it is considered, that Sam Patch
Shall never be forgot in prose or rhyme ; His name shall be a portion in the batch . Of the heroic dough, which baking Time
Kneads for consuming ages — and the chime Of Fame's old bells, long as they truly ring,
Shall tell of him ; he dived for the sublime. And found it. Thou, who with the eagle's wing Being a goose, would'st fly, — dream not of such a thing \
To the Editor of the Literary JournaL
Sir,
The three last numbers of Blackwood's Edinburgh Mag- azine contain three cantos of an epic poem, called Daniel 0*Rourke. The story, of which this is a new version, is very old, and probably familiar to a great many people. In an old Manchester Almanac, I find the version which I send you. It may have been from the pen of Mr. Words- worth, as it has much of the characteristic simplicity of Betty Foy, Goody Blake, and Harry Gill.
DANIEL ROOK.
Would you hear of Daniel Rook, How a journey long he took ? How he travelled to the moon, And got back again quite soon ?
Daniel Rook, beside a lake, Saw the dimples breezes make ; Saw the skies reflected shine. And Daniel thought it very fine.
Then an eagle came along. Very large and very strong ; Said the eagle, Daniel Rook, Pray what is't at which you look ?
VOL. II. Y Y
354 DANIEL ROOK.
Then full boldly Daniel Rook Unto the monstrous eagle spoke ; — I am looking at the lake, Seeing how the waters shake.
Said the eagle, no more slack,* Daniel get upon my back ! So the monstrous eagle took On his shoulders Daniel Rook.
Up he flew, like sin and death, Never stopping to take breath ; Daniel thought he'd ne'er have done, When above he spied the moon ;
Like a cheese without a rind, O how gloriously it shined ! Like a cheese that's cut in two, ' Aha ! said Daniel, how d'ye do ?
Said the eagle, Daniel bold,
Of that there horn you must take hold ;
So the simple Daniel did
Just as the monstrous eagle bid.
Then away the eagle flew. Leaving Daniel looking blue ; Now I'm sure, said Daniel bold. Hanging heie I shall take cold.
Then the man in the moon came out,
Picked his teeth, and looked about ;
Mr. Daniel Rook, said he.
Good morning, what do you want with me ?
* Conversation — Slang Dictionary.
DANIEL ROOK. 355
Said Daniel, how is your wife to-day ? She is in a family way ; I fear we shan't have room enough, Sol beg,Dan icl, you'd be off.
I can't, said Daniel — You must, said he— ■ I won't, said Daniel, it can't be — Very well, said the man in the moon, We shall see that very soon.
In he went, and out he strode, With a crowbar died with blood ; Sure and certain aim he took. Knocked off the horn and Daniel Rook.
Fall'n from his high estate, Daniel went at no small rate : Nor can he tell, so queer he feels. Which is his head, and which his heels.
He saw a flock of wild geese nigh, And long and loud he heard them cry — Daniel Rook, where will you go ? Indeed, said Daniel, I don't know ;
But by the course which now I take, I guess I'm falling in the lake. Then said the geese — why don't you look, And fall on dry land, Daniel Rook ?
Hiatus.
THE SUN LOOKS ON NAUGHT IN HIS CIRCUIT AS GREAT.
The sun looks on naught, in his circuit, as great As the mind whose fixed purpose is stubborn as fate ; That in storm or in sunshine, with foe or with friend, Unchanged and unchanging, endures to the end.
Attractions unnumbered the needle control, And it trembles unfaithful, forsaking the pole ; But the resolute will moves sublime in its pride, Nor will turn for affection or flattery aside.
The old oaks may writhe where the hurricane sweeps, And the firm bedded rocks may be torn from the steeps- The pine of the forest may bend to the blast. But the strong will of man stands erect to the last.
As the Titan, by demons in Caucasus bound, While the war of mad elements thundered around, Braved Jove, though the vulture had fastened his fangs, The stout heart yields not, till it breaks mid its pangs.
When her last sob convulsive great nature shall heave, And the world its foundations in ruin shall leave. The end the last stoic shall calmly expect. And sink proud on the bier of a universe wreck'd.
October ISth, 1825,
GOOD NIGHT.
Good night to all the world ! there's none, Beneath the " over-going' ' sun, To whom I feel or hate or spite, And so to all a fair good night.
Would I could say good night to pain. Good night to conscience and her train, To cheerless poverty, and shame That I am yet unknown to fame !
Would I could say good night to dreams That haunt me with delusive gleams, That through the sable future's veil Like meteors glimmer, but to fail.
Would I could say a long good night To halting between wrong and right, And, like a giant with new force. Awake prepared to run my course !
But time o'er good and ill sweeps on, x\nd when few years have come and gone, The past will be to me as naught. Whether remembered or forgot.
Yet let me hope one faithful friend. O'er my last couch shall tearful bend ; And, though no day for me was bright. Shall bid me then a long good night.
October ISth, 1825.
PSALM CXXXVII.
Where mid Babel's proud gardens and palaces glide The waves of Euphrates, we sat by the tide ; Our harps on the willows hung mournful above, And we wept as we thought on the land of our love !
For our masters came by, and a song they desired, And mirth from the exile the spoiler required ; With mockery they bade us awake at their nod. To please his blasphemers, the hymns of our God.
Say, how in the land of the heathen, his foe.
Can the songs of his temple in melody flow.
O Salem, though torn from thine altars away,
If one wish of my heart from thy mem'ry should stray,
Then for ever be withered my hand, nor again May it win from the harp that I cherish a strain ; Be rigid my tongue, and be voiceless my breath, Fast locked, for the crime, in the silence of death !
O God of our fathers ! remember the day When the heathen exulting made Salem their prey, While our kindred stood by, nor our altars revered. But the spoiler to havoc unpitying cheered.
Yet tremble, thou city of pride and of power ! The avenger shall come, and the terrible hour ; In the blood of thy children his blade shall be died. For the God of our fathers shall fight on his side !
November 1 5th, 1821.
WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM OF A YOUNG LADY.
These pages destined to contain
Of constant friendship records sweet, Or of the stranger, who again
The eye, perchance, shall never meet, Or of devotion, that in vain
Sought words to utter all it felt, Like relics left at sacred fane
That tell what pilgrims there have knelt.
What mingling scenes, in distant years,
Will these recall to memory's eye ! Of gloom and radiance, smiles and tears,
Shifting like April's changeful sky ; Of loves and feuds, of hopes and fears,
Of rapturous hours so quick that fled. And some, like stones that grief endears.
Will stand, memorials of the dead.
Would that, with prophet's ken, I might
A glad and peaceful course assure. To thy young star, whose lustre bright
Now sheds on earth its influence pure ; And say that when Time's hurrying flight
Shall steal thy cheek's vermilion glow ; Of those blue orbs obscure the light
And check that spirit's sparkling flow.
360 WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM.
Still memory, when of buried days
The forms and scenes she shall restore, Though weeping, haply she surveys
The loved and lovely then no more. Shall shrink not with averted gaze
From troublous ghosts of wo or pain, Of lingering hope that long betrays,
Of vows forgot or breathed in vain !
Fair be thy course, as thou art fair !
Serene thy life, as thou art good ! No harrowing thoughts of days that were,
To mar thy bosom's peace obtrude ! And when thy glance, in joy or care
Cast on these lines, perchance, shall be. Still think on one, whose constant prayer
Shall ask all heaven's best gifts for thee.
May Uh, 1827.
THE LOVER TO THE TREE
ON WHICH HE HAD CARVED THE NAME OF HIS MISTRESS, (from POLIZIANO.)
On thee, thou favoured bark ! 1 grave The hallowed name I love the best ;
Henceforth thy joyous boughs shall wave In ever youthful verdure dress'd.
And while thy trunk, each day, shall swell, The characters I've traced shall spread,
And nymphs from every grassy well Around, shall here their measures tread.
Shall tread, when spring renews the year, With joyous feet to honour thee.
While all the woodland songsters near Shall pour their blithest melody.
Fond, happy lovers shall repair.
Henceforth, to seek thy leafy shrine,
And weave fresh cbaplets for their hair, While round thy envious brethren pine.
VOL. II. Z Z
THE LOVER TO THE TREE.
O'er thee the softest dews shall weep
Of Heaven ; its loveliest hues shall reign:
Nor in thy holy shade shall sleep
One treacherous maid, one faithless swain-
No bird of prey on thee shall light, Nor mid thy branches fold his wing ;
Sweet Philomel, alone, all night.
Shall nestle there, and there shall sing. November f 1827.
PROLOGUE
TO
WALDIMAR, A TRAGEDY.
The Tragic Muse, since first her power began, To rouse to generous warmth the soul of man, Her scenes and actors everywhere has found, — In savage wilds, or fable-haunted ground. For Art may tame or mould, but cannot change The ma^'or-^ assions in their varying range, "^-'"onder and Awe awoke, when first the eyes Of the first patriarch saw the earth and skies ; Love, next in power and order, lit his fiame. And Fear and Grief, as Guilt's companions, came ; Hate and Revenge, as Murder's heralds scowled, Remorse and mad Despair behind him howled ; While Pity bent above the wreck deplored. And Hope, with rapturous wing, triumphant soared. These, the mind's taskers with their kindred train, In every age and clime hold equal reign.
Our author's scene is in an ancient day, When stormy passions had their wildest play ;
364 PROLOGUE TO WALDIMAR.
When Rome's enormous mass of power, o'ergrown, Crumbled and quaked beneath a severed throne ; Each giant fragment, parting from the pile, Shook all the world, and left an empire's spoil : Each soldier-chieftain, with a monarch's power, Usurped the transient homage of the hour ; And oft, insane with delegated might, Perished, like him whose fate we show to-nightp
Bold is each effort now to please the age With dramas worthy of the classic stage, In Fame's high dome the masters sit enthroned, Whose spells resistless every passion owned ; Who gave to each conception prosperous birth. And with immortal music filled the earth. While vivid still their images appear, While still their numbers linger on the ear, But cold attention waits the modern bard, Who risks the crowded theatre's award.
Yet, our New World the muse's pencil needs \ What wild adventures, what heroic deeds. Remain unsung ! what forms, that in the gloom Of the long Past magnificently loom, Might re-enact the stories of their time. Arouse to virtue, or affright from crime !
Would ye behold the native drama rise ? To kill the pioneers were most unwise 1 All is not gained at once. The Genoese, Who first explored our now familiar seas. Bursting all barriers in his firm intent. Found but the isles, and not the continent I A hundred stars had shed prophetic ravs, Ere Shakspeare's sun obscured them in its blaze !
PROLOGUE TO WALDIMAR- 365
Try, then, our Author's argument and cause, By patriot feeUng, not by tyrant laws ; And let not Justice hold the balance, blind. But poise the scales, determined — to be kind !
THE STARS.
A POETIC MEDITATION.
(from de la martine.)
It is the hour for thought — a sacred hour, When lingering twilight yet prolonjs its power ; And, cheering heaven for day's departing hue. Bids to the mountain-steeps a late adieu. Along their verge its fitful gleams remain, Like some imperial vesture's floating tran ; And slowly sweep the vault o'ercast with gloom, Where the dim stars their pallid fires relume.
Those globes of gold — those isles that ever shine, To which the thoughtful eyelids still incline. Shoot forth their myriads in the fading lig t, Sprinkling with golden dust the path of night. The breath of evening, on its track that iuis. Sows their bright clusters o'er the sparkling skies ; Each quivering flame eludes the dazzled gaze. Mingling and fading in the brilliant maze ; O'er the fringed wood-tops hovering these appear Scattering their splendours from each crystal sphere, Like some fair bird of heaven, that from its wings Unfolding, founts of living lustre flings ; These stretch their fleecy ridges o'er the dome. Like cliffs far glistening, hoar with ocean's foam ;
THE STARS. 367
These, like some steed tbat scours t'le derert plain, Unroll in lengthening folds their floating mane ; These, o'er the horizon's verge that seem to peep, Look forth like eyes upon a world asleep ; These twinkle through the welkin's far descent, Like snowy canvass o'er the waters bent, That from some distant shore returning gleams. O'er ocean's bosom, in the morning beams.
God of his noblest works, those shining spheres, Alone the number knows, the distance, and the years ; Some, dim with age, grow pale to mortal eyes, Some vanish from their orbits in the skies ; Others, like flowers his spirit woos to blow, Radiant with grace and youth their foreheads show ; And in the east their new effulgence pour. Startling the eye that counts their numbers o'er ; Through space they shoot, and man, with glad acclaim, The new-born world salutes, and gives its name.
Oh, who, enraptured with their glances chaste. As o'er their hosts his wandering looks were cast, That has not learned the purest orb to call By that dear name love hallows over all ; For me, one isolated, lonely light Has cheered the hours of many a tedious night ; Its beams through mystic shadows round it thrown, Recalled a glance on earth that brightly shone ; May we, ah ! may we to those lamps of heaven. Transfer the name, at least, that love has given 1
Now night moves on — through ether's boundless deep Those floating v/orlds their course in silence keep ; And we with them, in whirl unceasing rolled, Still to a port unknown our progress hold.
368 THE STARS.
Oft, at still night, if sighs the passing breeze, Earth seems to float, Uke barks on buoyant seas ? We mark the foamy crests the mountains bear. Cut, in their measured course, the surge of air ; As rolls our planet through the azure wave. Against the prow we hear the tempests rave ; Through the strained cords the north-wind shrilly moans, While the lashed sides respond with sullen groans ; INiai , o'er the abyss, where floats his dwelling, flies, And on the pilot's faith assured relies.
Suns ! wandering worlds ! borne with us by the tide, Tell, if 'tis told ye, whither do we ghde ? Say, to what port celestial blows the gale ? What bound assigns He to the rapid sail ? Speed we where gloom and silence only wake, On shoals immense at midnight doomed to break, O'er everlasting space scattering the mighty wreck ? Or, by his hand, led near some pleasant shore, There, by the eternal anchor fast, no more To hang suspended o'er the unmeasured deep. In some bless'd gulf of heaven shall we arrive in sleep ?
O ye, who nearer to yon vault are rolled. Ye sparkling worlds ! the truths ye know unfold ! That purer sea, that heaven wherein ye wheel. To you must clearer, quicker sense reveal ; More ye must know, as ye are far more bright, Because of truth the eternal type is light. Yes— may we trust your cresset's silver floods That paint the trellised summits of the woods ; Or, breaking glorious o'er the ocean vexed, Calm, as they spread, its foamy waves perplexed ; Yes — may we trust those rays, whose pregnant fire Can virtue, love, devotion pure inspire, —
THE STARS. 369
And, while the eye, half-oped, beholds each sphere, Draw from each fringed lid the unconscious tear ; — If faith to those sweet promptings may be due. Those hopes that draw the lover's sighs to you. And beauty's eyes and vows remembered long, The eagle's fiery wings, and those of song, Ye camps of heaven, ye Edens of the sky. Shrines, palaces of holier realms on high. The sojourn ye must prove of peace and purity !
V Through the long tract, at midnight's solemn hour.
Your distant influence o'er us holds its power ! All that we sigh for — fruits, that from above To earth, rich waifs, have fallen — truth and love, In your bright climes, for which in vain we sigh. The heirs of life with heavenly food supply ; And man, perchance, restored his right of birth. May one day find with you all he has lost on earth.
How oft, when musing on some lonely hill. Where the free soul sublimer promptings fill, Beautiful stars ! empyreal flowers, whose hue The drooping lily marks with jealous view, I've murmured low, Would I were one of you ! Were wafted from this earthly sphere away To yon bright cope where rapt my glances stray. With one more fire to strew the heavenly road. Kindling at once beneath the steps of God ; Or, on his awful brow, to shine a gem. One pale, fair brilliant in his diadem !
Floating in that clear azure's limpid wave, I'd still recall the globe my life that gave. And steal each night, with lonely steps and slow To shine on mountains, loved so well below ;
VOL. II. A A A
370 THE STARS.
Beneath the thick boughs' waving gloom to gUde,
Sleep o'er the meads, or float above the tide ;
Some filmy cloud, with gentlest gleam pervade,
Like young love's glances through their modest shade.
Man I would visit, might I here descry
Some deeply pensive brow — some sleepless eye —
Some soul in weeds, or some o'erburthened breast.
Its pious sadness that to God confess'd —
Some wretch from day that veiled his secret grief.
And in night's bosom sought from tears relief —
Some restless genius, some o'er-active mind,
By too strong impulse urged the infinite to find —
My beam with friendship's holiest tint imbued,.
Pitying the woes here too well understood,
Like a soft secret to some genial heart,
To those sad downcast eyes would love to dart ;
There my fond glimmering should repose awhile,
Sleep on their breasts or o'er their eyelids smile ;
A word I would reveal in heavenly tone,
Of a deep mystery well to sorrow known ;
Would dry their tears, and when the morning's eye
Found my disk paling in the bending sky,
Deserting their soothed brows, my parting beam
Should leave them yet a sweet unearthly dream,
And peace and hope ; that, over-tired to weep,
At least they might enjoy the boon of balmy sleep.
And you, bright sisters, stars, my kindred train. Whose amel decks the blue empyreal plain, That, in due cadence to the heavenly lyre, Twine and untwine the links of your harmonious quire Joined to your band, your measures free to tread, The impulse following that your courses led, In yon bright maze I would pursue your host, 'Mid shining labyrinths where sight is lost ;
THE STARS. 371
Taught to adore and know the Power, whom here We seek, and haply seeing ye revere ; Of the quick splendours of his quivering beams. There might my soul drink in the eternal streams ; Filled by that presence, in whose sphere ye wheel, There I might feel in Him all that yourselves can ^qq\.
THE BUTTERFLY.
(from the FRENCH OF DE LA MARTINE.)
Born with the spring, and with the roses dying,
Through the clear sky on Zephyr's pinion saiUng, On the young floweret's opening bosom lying,
Perfume and light and the blue air inhaling, Shaking the thin dust from its wings, and fleeing,
And fading like a breath in boundless heaven, — Such is the butterfly's enchanted being ;
How like desire, to which no rest is given, Which still uneasy, rifling every treasure, Returns at last above to seek for purer pleasure.
ELEGY ON HENRY SLENDER.
And thou art dead ! as thin and spare
As mortal form could be ; And frame so lean, and bones so bare
We never more shall see. Though finished are thine earthly days, And o'er thy tomb the cow may graze
In rude simplicity — Still busy memory lingers yet, Thy well-loved face she can't forget.
I will not ask where thou liest low,
Because I know full well — I saw thee to the churchyard go,
I heard thy funeral knell. They brought thee in thine own wheelbarrow, And laid thee in thy grave so narrow,
Without a stone to tell Thy name, thy birth-place, or thy station, Thy virtues, or thy occupation.
I will not ask of what thou died.
Of dropsy or of fever ; Whether thy leg was mortified,
Or out of place thy liver.
374 ELEGY ON HENRY SLENDER.
It was enough for me to know,
That thou hast gone where all must go,
Must go, alas ! for ever — The when — the how — the why, or wherefore, I never knew, nor do I care for.
And life's short day of joy and sorrow.
Shall never more be thine, Its stormy nights, its cloudy morrow.
Its darkness or sunshine — But yet thy name abroad shall ring. And far and wide shall poets sing
Thy praise in strains divine ; And matrons old, and maidens tender, Long sigh for thee, young Harry Slender.
HORACE, BOOK II. CARM. 3.
When fortune frowns, thine equal mind Preserve, and when her smiles are kind, Exult not, arrogantly vain. But keep thy calm and equal strain ;
Whether black care consumes thine hours. Or stretched in cool secluded bowers. The festal day inspires thy soul. And old Falernian fills the bowl ;
Where the tall pine and poplar white Above their social shades unite. Marrying their boughs, and winding nigh. The rapid lymph runs trembling by.
Here bring the wine, the perfume bring. And the sweet rose, soon perishing ; While fortune, youth, and the black twine Of the dread sisters leave them thine :
For from thy fields and fireside bless'd. Thy domes by yellow Tiber kiss'd, Soon thou must part ; thine heaps now grown So high, the heir shall call his own.
376 HORACE, BOOK II. CARM. 3.
If rich, and sprung from lines of fame. Or houseless, and without a name. Indifferent is ; at the fixed day, Relentless hell demands its prey.
We are all onward urged, — the urn Fraught with a death at every turn. Must soon or late our lot discharge. And we for endless exile mount the barge.
HORACE. EPODE 2.
PLEASURES or A COUNTRY LIFE.
Happy the man, remote from toil and care,
As in the golden age men were ; Who ploughs his native field with his own team,
And hath no debts of which to dream ! Who starts not to the trump's shrill reveillee,
Nor views with fright the raging sea ; Shuns the hoarse forum and the haughty gate
Of wealth, and of the vulgar great ; Well pleased around his poplars tall to twine
The tendrils of the wedded vine ; To prune the useless shoots, and in their place
Engraft a more prolific race. In the far deepening vale, wandering at ease.
Joyous his lowing herds he sees ; In shining jars the clear pressed honey pours.
Or gathers in his fleecy stores ; Or when dame Autumn rears her honoured head,
With her ripe fruitage garlanded, Large drooping from the boughs, the yellow pear
And purple grape reward his care ; Thy votive gift, Priapus ! Sylvan, thine,
Protector of the bounding line !
VOL. II. B B B
378 HORACE, EPODB 2.
How sweet to lie, 'neath some old oak reclining,
Or where the tall grass round is twining ; Through its tall banks the still stream glides along,
Birds wake their sadly pleasing song. And fountains near their murmuring descant keep,
Inviting calm and holy sleep ! But winter comes, at thundering Jove's command,
With storms and snows in either hand ; Then on the savage boar the dogs are set,
And drive him to the entangling net ; Or for the glutton thrush he lays his snares,
And light extended gins prepares ; Here caught, the trembling puss, the stranger crane
Give sport in hoary winter's reign. Who thus employed, has time or wish to prove
The pangs and cares of cruel love ? But ah ! should some chaste dame adorn his hall.
Whose home and children were her all (Like fair Sabina, or the browner bride.
Gracing the swift Apulian's side). Who bids the sacred hearth more brightly burn.
Against the weary man's return, — Folds up the herd right glad her cares to meet,
And drains each well distended teat , — Then from the well loved cask the wine draws forth.
Cheering, though of little worth, — And joyous, for her lord, with active zeal,
Prepares the frugal unbought meal— With such, nor Lucrinc oysters more I'd prize.
Nor turbot of majestic size, Nor scarcer fish, if any winter bore.
From eastern waters near our shore. Not Afric's fowl could prove a daintier treat.
Nor Asia's partridge seem more sweet. Than the ripe olives hanging thick and low,
Plucked from the most luxuriant bm^gh :
HORACE, EPODE 2. 379
Or wholesome mallows, or green sorrel, still
Wandering o'er the meads at will ; Or the kid rescued from the wolfs fell bite,
Or victim lamb at festal rite. And at the feast how pleasant to behold
The flocks swift bounding to the fold ; To mark the weary oxen dragging slow,
With drooping necks the inverted plough ; And all the household slaves, a swarming band.
Around the glittering lares stand.
Thus spoke the usurer Alphius, in his thought
His house and farm already bought. He called in all his funds in the Ides ; but when The Calends came — he loaned them out again.
WEEHAWKEN.
Eve o'er our path is stealing fast ; Yon quivering splendours are the last The sun v^ill fling, to tremble o'er The waves that kiss the opposing shore ; His latest glories fringe the height Behind us, with their golden light.
The mountain's mirror'd outline fades Amid the fast extending shades ; Its shaggy bulk, in sterner pride, Towers, as the gloom steals o'er the tide ; For the great stream a bulwark meet That leaves its rock-encumbered feet.
River and Mountain ! though to song Not yet, perchance, your names belong ; Those who have loved your evening hues, Will ask not the recording Muse, What antique tales she can relate, Your banks and steeps to consecrate.
Yet shbuld the stranger ask, what lore Of by-gone days, this winding shore, Yon cliffs and fir-clad steeps could tell, If vocal made by Fancy's spell, —
WEEHAWKEX. ^81
The varying legend might rehearse Fit themes for high, romantic verse.
O'er yon rough heights and moss-clad sod Oft hath the stalworth warrior trod ; Or peered, v^ith hunter's gaze, to mark The progress of the glancing bark. Spoils, strangely won on distant waves, Have lurked in yon obstructed caves.
When the great strife for Freedom rose Here scouted oft her friends and foes, Alternate, through the changeful war, And beacon-fires flashed bright and far ; And here, when Freedom's strife was won, Fell, in sad feud, her favoured son ; —
• Her son, — the second of the band, The Romans of the rescued land. Where round yon cape the banks ascend, Long shall the pilgrim's footsteps bend ; There, mirthful hearts shall pause to sigh, There, tears shall dim the patriot's eye.
There last he stood. Before his sight Flowed the fair river, free and bright ; The rising Mart and Isles and Bay, Before him in their glory lay, — Scenes of his love and of his fame, — The instant ere the death-shot came.
PREFACE TO AN ALBUM.
An Album, while an Album, is a thing (If clean the paper, and the binding fair),
Pretty to look at ; and the poets sing Of many similes that appropriate are ;
And which 'tis easy to our mind to bring
As none of them are new, or strange, or rare ;
Such as — a maiden's heart — a baby's mind —
Or the first state of those two parents of mankind.
But ah ! upon the simple maiden's heart,
Will Love, too soon, some guileful image trace ;
And Sin and Satan soon will play their part. And alter much the helpless infant's case.
Adam and Eve were soon seduced to start From Paradise, awhile their resting place ;
And so, an Album, in the course of time.
Is soiled by hands and feet, fingers and rhyme.
Oh ! and alas ! while on this volume's brink, Still a white sea, I stand, and meditate
Upon the many coloured kinds of ink. Whose tortuous currents here must permeate, —
When on the torture of those brains I think, Whose oozings here must be incorporate, —
Upon the geese that must the quills supply,
And those that must commit the poetry, —
PREFACE TO AN ALBUM. 383
I sorrow, that all fair things must decay, While time, and accident, and mischief last ;
That the red rose so soon must fade away. The white be sullied by the ruthless blast ;
The pure snow turned to mud, in half a day ; Even heaven's own glorious azure be overcast ;
Imperial ermine be with dust defiled.
And China's finest crockery cracked and spoiled.
Thou snow-white altar ! which to friendship reard. With freshest garlands should alone be hung.
And with no dull and smoky incense smear'd, But such as perfume-laden Zephyr flung ;
Strange hieroglyphics, soon, I am afeard. Thy graceful sculpture will appear among ;
The vulgar love their names to cut or write
On every post that's new, or tablet that is white !
Of what an Album's like, before 'tis used, I thus have chanted in my homely phrase ;
But what it's like, by fate when long abused, To tell, perplexes me in various ways ;
Fancy invoked assistance has refused
To yield resemblances ; because, she says,
It were to Love and Friendship treason vile.
To comment coarsely on their honest toil.
Then, without thee, O Nymph ! so often pray'd.
So rarely won, to listen to our cry ! Whose image floats in heavenly tints portray'd.
Of roseate morn, or eve's empurpled sky ; — In later poets' pictures much decay'd
And patched, and tattered in thy drapery ; — Without the Fancy ! I must strive to find Such similes as suit the common mind.
3Si rKErAcu to an alblm,
'Tis like a trunk, with ancient clothes replete, Of every colour, fashion, age, and shape ;
'Tis like a virtuoso^s cabinet,
Thro' which wath listless eye w^e talk and gape ;
Where beauty and deformity we meet, .is 'ywq eti'V Birds of bright plumes and bats, the deer and ape :
*Tis like the legislature, — whereunto
Few swans, some hawks, and many goslings go.
'Tis like an ancient single lady's chest,
Where rummaging, the curious heir discovers
Old patterns, worn-out thimbles, and the rest ; A
Of antique trumpery ; fans, and flowers, and covers
Of pincushions ; a petrified wasp's nest ;
Letters from long defunct or married lovers ;
Work-boxes, ten-pences that once were new.
And murder'd metre, if she was a blue.
'Tis like a doomsday-book, wherein is writ Of every man's capacity the measure, —
The length, and breadth, and boundaries of his wit, And value of his intellectual treasure : —
'Tis like a party, when you ask to it
Clowns, who derive from such soirees no pleasure.
But are compelled in company to go,
Their awkwardness and ignorance to show.
'Tis like a churchyard — where, in crooked row^s. Tomb-stones, and urns, and crosses are arrayed,
Memorials of the persons that repose
Beneath, whose virtues arc thereon displayed ;
Where every kind and colour, friends and foes. Together sleep, beneath the cypress shade ;
I wish I had let this simile alone —
It is a sad, though an important one.
PREFACE TO AN ALBUM. 385
For, as those pale memorials to the eye
Of unforgetful friendship, can restore The loved and lovely in the days gone by.
The forms once djar, that we behold no more. So can these pages bring the absent nigh,
And summon back the ghost from Lethe's shore : Therefore, they are sacred ; and I am ashamed In any wise their uses to have blamed.
'Tis like a Talisman, by magic hands
Framed with quaint spells, and graved with figures strange. That, by the instructed finger touched, commands
All images that float in nature's range ; Recalls each well-known form from distant lands.
And shows the shrouded dead without a change : And long-forgotten scenes, a shadowy train. And long-forgotten faces smile again.
VOL. IL C C C
INVOCATION.
It is not now as it has been of yore ; —
The things which I have seen, I now can see no more.
Wordsworth.
O quick for me the goblet fill, From bright Castalia's sparkling rill ; Pluck the young laurel's flexile bough. And let its foliage wreathe my brow ; And bring the lyre with sounding shell, The four-stringed lyre I loved so well !
Lo ! as I gaze, the picture flies
Of weary life's realities ;
Behold the shade, the wild wood shade,
The mountain steeps, the checkered glade
And hoary rocks and bubbling rills,
And painted waves and distant hills.
O ! for an hour, let me forget How much of life is left me yet ; Recall the visions of the past. Fair as these tints that cannot last, That all the heavens and waters o'er Their gorgeous, transient glories pour.
INVOCATION. 387
Ye pastoral scenes by fancy wrought ! Ye pageants of the loftier thought I Creations proud ! majestic things ! Heroes, and demigods, and kings ! Return, with all of shepherds' lore, Or old romance that pleased before !
Ye forms that are not of the earth,
Of grace, of valour, and of worth !
Ye bright abstractions, by the thought
Like the great master's pictures, wrought
To the ideal's shadowy mien.
From beauties fancied, dreamt or seen !
Ye speaking sounds, that poet's ear Alone in nature's voice can hear ! Thou full conception, vast and wide, Hour of the lonely minstrel's pride, As when projection gave of old Alchymy's visionary gold !
Return ! return ! oblivion bring
Of cares that vex, and thoughts that sting !
The hour of gloom is o'er my soul ;
Disperse the shades, the fiends control.
As David's harp had power to do,
If sacred chronicles be true.
Oh come ! by every classic spell, By old Pieria's haunted well ; By revels on the Olmeian height Held in the moon's rehgious light ; By virgin forms that wont to lave Permessus ! in thy lucid wave !
388 INVOCATION.
In vain ! in vain ! the strain has pass'd ; The laurel leaves upon the blast Float, withered, ne'er again to bloom, The cup is drained— the song is dumb — And spell and rhyme alike in vain Would woo the genial muse again.
TO A LADY,
ON THE DEATH OF HER DAUGHTER WHO HAD JUST TAKEN THE VEII«r (from THE FRENCH OF CRESSET.)
Shall grief perverse, with midnight gloom,
Thy fairest days o'ercast, While prostrate by a daughter's tomb.
Thy ceaseless sorrows last ? Ere the glad morn her gates unfolds,
They wake thee with a sigh, And evening's pensive shade beholds
Tears dim thy lucid eye.
Just was the debt to sacred grief
For her whose fate I sing. Whose bloom was lovely, as 'twas brief,
And perished in its spring. The earlier hours of passionate wo A secret joy mysterious know.
To jealous sorrow dear ; 1 did not then forbid their flow,.
But gave thee tear for tear.
But short the term that nature gives
To unavailing sighs ; The constant grief that longer lr\^es,
)Seems morbid to the wise.
390 TO A LADY,
Thy dear remains, oh shade beloved f In their dark prison pent,
Sleep on by all our moans unmoved, Nor hear our sad lament.
Nor funeral dirge, nor anguish wild
Relentless fate can stay ; The mother mourns in vain her child,
For death retains his prey. Still, still, the heartless monster calls
For victims, still he weaves The sickly torch that man appals Still howls around our frighted walls.
And covers earth with graves.
Still under the same cypress shade,
A common urn beneath, Sees parents with their children laid,
Who followed them in death. Down to that grave, by anguish worn,
Despairing should'st thou go. Friendship a double loss must mourn,
Our tears anew must flow.
Or dost thou, with enforced sighs.
Mourn like the common train, Who in their solemn liveries
Decorous sadness feign ? That it was sweet to weep, a school Of yore maintained ; but false their rule,
And false their poets sing ; From grief so lingering and so dull.
No joy can ever spring.
Deep in the glooms of savage wood, The turtle wails her mate,
ON THE DEATH OP HER DAUGHTER. 391
But reconciled to widowhood,
Forgets at length her state. So faithful grief will strive in vain Its cherished misery to retain
Nor lift its funeral pall ; Time will at last a triumph gain.
Who triumphs over all.
See by the smoking altar, where
Her Iphigenia bled, The mother stand in wild despair,
And ask to join the dead. But other cares her bosom knew, The wings of time as swift they flew,
Brushed off* the parent's tears ; Our Iphigenia's memory, too.
Must yield to fleeting years.
Since then those pinions, broad and strong.
Must bear, perforce, away Thy melancholy, nurs'd so long.
Why wail the dull delay ? Chase the black poison from thy soul,
And time anticipate. Thine altered mood let use control,
And reason vindicate.
Not so complained the Grecian dame.
But armed her noble breast ; Her nature's weakness she o'ercame.
Her natural sighs repressed. " For why should I consume," she said,
With vain regrets my heart ? When smiling in its infant bed, I knew one day its fragile thread
The fatal shears must part."
392 TO A LADY,
Ah no ! your rules, ye stoics cold,
In vain would I enforce — Great God ! thy temple's gates unfold,
And show our sole resource. A hand divine alone can heal The wounds the bleeding heart must feel,
Vain human counsels were ; Beside the sacred altar kneel.
The comforter is there.
Go, Christian mother, to the shrine,
And wing thy griefs above, Submissive to the power divine.
That chastens in its love. Tho' rankles yet thy recent smart,
Eternal wisdom own, That breaks the tenderest ties apart, To fix the undivided heart
Upon itself alone.
Ere the decree of fate went forth,
Already she had died ; Snatched from the dangerous snares of earth,
Heaven claimed her as its bride. From that vain world its votaries paint
With each delusive die, Shut out by every firm restraint. Lived, for her God alone, the saint,
And knew no other tie.
Self-dedicated to the rite
Behold the victim move. When stands prepared the altar bright
Of everlasting love.
ON THE DEATH OF HER DAUGHTER. 393
The incense mounts, the wreaths are hung ;
Attends the sacrifice ; But whence those shrieks the crowd among 1 Her bridal hymn I should have sung, —
I chant her obsequies.
So fades a rose untimely strown,
Of all its petals shorn ; Plucked, with its budding charms half blown,
An altar to adorn. Its perfumes sweet, at morning light,
Through all the fane it shed ; Eve came, and dark descending night
Saw all its glories fled.
Just Heaven ! we mourn her young career
Cut short by sudden blight ; But own thy wisdom ; every year
Was numbered in thy sight. We should not mete by length of days The term the saintly spirit stays,
Its trials to endure ; Death to the wretch whom none can praise,
Alone is premature. Vol. II. — D D D
THE OCEAN OF NONSENSE.
A MISTY dream — and a flashy maze — Of a sunshiny flush — and a moonshiny haze ! I lay asleep with my eyes open wide, When a donkey came to my bedside, And bade me forth to take a ride. It was not a donkey of vulgar breed, But a cloudy vision — a night-mare steed ! His ears were abroad like a warrior's plume, — From the bosom of darkness was borrowed the gloom Of his dark, dark hide, and his coal black hair, But his eyes like no earthly eyes they were ! Like the fields of heaven where none can see The depths of their blue eternity ! Like the crest of a helmet taught proudly to nod And wave like a meteor's train abroad, Was the long, long tail, that glorified The glorious donkey's hinder side ! And his gait description's power surpasses — 'Twas the beau ideal of all jack- asses.
I strode o'er his back, and he took in his wind — And he pranced before — and he kicked behind — And he gave a snort, as when mutterings roll Abroad from pole to answering pole — While the storm-king sits on the hail-cloud's back — And amuses himself with the thunder-crack !
THE OCEAN OF NONSENSE. 395
Then off he went, like a bird with red wings That builds her nest where the clifF-flower springs — Like a cloudy steed by the light of the moon, When the night's muffled horn plays a windy tune ; And away I went, while my garment flew Forth on the night breeze, with a snow-shiny hue — Like a streak of white foam on a sea of blue. Up-bristled then the night-charger's hair too, Like a bayonet grove, at a shoulder-hoo !
Hurra ! hurra 1 what a hurry we made ! My hairs rose too, but I was not afraid ; Like a stand of pikes they stood up all. Each eye stood out like a cannon ball ; So rapt I looked, hke the god of song. As I shot and whizzed like a rocket alonw. Thus thro' the trough of the air as we dash'd. Goodly and glorious visions flash'd Before my sight with a flashing and sparkling, In whose blaze all earthly gems are darkling. As the gushes of morning, the trappings of eve, Or the myriad lights that will dance when you give Yourself a clout on the orb of sight. And see long ribands of rainbow light ; Such were the splendours, and so divine. So rosy and starry, and fiery and fine.
Then eagle ! then stars ! and then rainbows ! and all That I saw at Niagara's tumbling fall, Where I sung so divinely of them and their glories, While mewed in vile durance, and kept by the tories. Where the red cross flag was abroad on the blast I sat very mournful, but not downcast. My harp on the willows I did not hang up. Nor the winglets of fancy were suffered to droop, —
§96 THE OCEAN OF NONSENSE.
But I soared, and I swooped, like a bird with red wings, Who mounts to the cloud-god, and soaringly sings.
But the phantom steed in his whirlwind course, Galloped along like Belzebub's horse, Till we came to a bank, dark, craggy, and wild, Where no rock-flowers blushed, no verdure smiled — But sparse from the thunder cliffs bleak and bare, — Like the plumage of ravens that warrior helms wear. And below very far was a gulf profound, Where tumbling and rumbling, at distance resound Billowy clouds — o'er whose bottomless bed The curtain of night its volumes spread — But a rushing of fire was revealing the gloom. Where convulsions had birth, and the thunders a home.
You may put out the eyes of the sun at mid- day —
You may hold a young cherubim fast by the tail — You may steal from night's angel his blanket away — Or the song of the bard at its flood- tide may stay. But that cloud-phantom donkey to stop you would fail !
He plunged in the^ulf — 'twas a great way to go. E'er we lit mid the darkness and flashings below ; And I looked — as I hung o'er that sulphurous light— r. Like a warrior of flame ! — on a courser of night i But what I beheld in that dark ocean's roar, I have partly described in a poem before. And the rest I reserve for a measure more strong. When my heart shall be heaving and bursting with song!
But I saw as he sailed 'mid the dusky air, ' A bird that I thought I knew everywhere, A fierce gray bird with a terrible beak, With a glittering eye, and peculiar shriek.
THE OCEAN OP NONSENSE. 397
^* Proud Bird of the Cliff!" I addressed him then— " How my heart swells high thus to meet thee again ! Thou whose bare bosom for rest is laid On pillows of night by the thunder-cloud made ! With a rushing of wings and a screaming of praise Who in ecstasy soar'st in the red-hot blaze ! Who dancest in heaven to the song of the trump, To the fife's acclaim, and bass-drum's thump ! Whence com'st thou," I cried, " and goest whither?" As I gently detained him by his tail-feather.
He replied, " Mr. N ! Mr. N , let me loose !
I am not an eagle, but only a goose ! —
Your optics are weak, and the weather is hazy —
And excuse the remark, but I think you are crazy."
THE DELUGE.
SUPPOSED TO BE BY THE AUTHOR OF "JUDGMENT, A
Methought I stood within a palm-tree grove, Held in a sleep-like spell — the cooling shades, Verdure o'er-canopying, voice of birds, Green hues of nature, perfumes exquisite. And heaven's fair front with all its glory tricked, With dazzling argentry and golden waves. Clouds roseate-wreathed, and broad pavilion spread High in the west, with crimson tapestry And Tyrian purple hung — these o'er my senses Came like a dreamy trance. In that fair grove, The level beams of the retiring sun Streamed mottled, multiform, with magic tints, 'Mid the long spiry leaves and tall straight columns, Where glorious birds, with plumage many-colour'd, Sat motionless. In their declining trains. Shone 'mid the foliage from aloft, the glow Of ruby, emerald, topaz, sardonyx. All hues that sparkled in the diadems Of Babylon's or India's monarchs old, Irradiant.
As I gazed, beside the grove, A green vale gently sloping I beheld. There grew the date, the fig-tree and the plane,
THE DELUGE. 399
And in the midst a whispering brook, that kiss'd Pebbles to modern mineralogists Unknown, made music breathing equally of life And calm repose — Its margin many-tufted With peerless flow'rets, such as blushed of yore In Nebuchadnezzar's yard, or the parterre Of Solomon, or in the regal bower Of great Semiramis.
An easy swell Rose from the vale ; reposing on its summit A bulky structure lay ; most like two barks, Joined latitudinally, covered with a platform, Whereon a dome is reared, o'er-canopied With shelving roofs. Mechanic specimens Drawn by exertions of equestrian strength. Like this, on Hudson's waves are visible ; — From such, when Tyre defied the child of Ammon, Its massive freight the huge balista hurled —
Methought a stair clomb high the green hill side. To where in that vast edifice expanded A portal stood. Then came a mingled train. With weary steps and sad reverted eyes. Of size like Amalek, or him of Gath, Or his surpassing stature, who maintained His royal throne in forest-girdled Bashan, And stretched his ponderous limbs on couch of iron. First, touched with earliest frosts of sacred eld. Yet upright, with majestic port elate, The undeluged world's great patriarch went. In vain- My quest (so strange the pageantry of dreams !) vSought to behold his venerable spouse. Then passed into the ark, three goodly men. Following the sage, each with encircling arm Supporting a fair form of peerless mould; And a long train behind w^ent mounting still ; As prisoners upon w^hom the massive portal
400 THE DELUGE.
Shuts, grating dolorous requiem to the joys Of liberty and daylight — so they went, And darkness hid them from. But anon, Soft on the breeze came notes of minstrelsy ; A bridal train along the vale advanced. In quaint attire and jewels sheen arrayed ; With step elastic, bounding to the change Of quick delightful music. There the sons Of Tubal touched with fingers light the chords, Which quivered with ecstatic harmony ; And Tubal's offspring bade the sounding brass Wake its bold clangors. Others through the coil Of serpent tubes the winding sound prolonged; While some on pastoral flutes and sweet recorders. Breathed tones like those, which o'er Italian seas, Heard in the stillness of the radiant night, Imbodying passion's soul in melody, Feed love and young desire.
As when a stranger, Lingering amid the gardens of the deep. That stud the glittering Caribbean waves. In some Antillian grove, beneath the shade Of tall palmettos, and the embowering wood Of fig-tree huge, self-multiplied, beholds Dark Afric's children, on a festal day. In rainbow colours dight, their dance uncouth. Albeit not void of grace with vigorous hmbs, Prolong to rustic banja^s tinkling twang, — While on the lively green, the blushing grape. The golden orange, and the shapely pear, And ripe ananas with its scaly coat And virent tuft, in rich confusion lie ; — The stranger looks delighted on the scene Novel and gay ; — so looked I on the rout Who came with joyance and with minstrelsy.
THE DELUGE. 401
Then in the porch the hoary patriarch stood With aspect tristful yet severe — " Avaunt !" He cried, " repent, repent ! the hour is come, Even now the deluge comes !"
With slight respect, I trow, to his gray hairs, that sportive band Sent forth, responsive to the warning voice. Their heart's gay laugh exuberant, that shook Their diaphragms, as to the glorious west They pointed. As in Bagdad's ancient pomp. Or Ispahan, when the last night is o'er Of Ramadan's long fast, a flood of light Pours from the bazars, on the sequent eve, Resplendent, and the orient waves therein. Burnished with brilliant blazonry, along The streets and crowded marts, in splendid glow Beam like the array of some enchanter's home ; So far and wide the kindling Occident Caught from the eternal fire one blaze of pomp, Flashing with all its multitudinous tints. From molten gold that swam in opal fields To fierce intolerable glory. Thus The sun went down, upon that fatal eve — The portal closed. The man of God withdrew. The mirth, the dance, the minstrelsy went on. But where the glory of the west? As when On Jersey's shore, the kindled meadows throw A pale dull hue of red along the welkin. So faint, so dim, was now the verge of heaven. Untimely twilight came. A volumed mist Rose suddenly, and far unrolling hung Its sombrous drapery o'er the vaulted cope, Darkening and deepening. — Whirlwinds pass'd along On pinions terrible ; the forest trees Bowed their tall heads, and writhed in agony, Like masts upon the ocean tempest-lashed —
VOL. II. E E E
402 THE DELUGE.
The bridal train swift scattering, from my sight
Vanished — The birds flew screaming in wild circuits,
Mazed and in terror lost — And blackening still
The clouds went up. Sullenly, heavily,
Huge drops came pattering down. A hollow groan,
Even from the bowels of the monstrous world,
Was heard presaging wo. And then a roar,
As of a thousand chariots, or the voice
Of all the ram's horns when the embattled towers
Of Jericho in whelming ruin fell,
At distance came. The solid frame of earth
Shuddered beneath me ; — when above, at once,
From tenfold darkness, burst the livid sheet
Of lightning, that revealed the horrid depths
Of blackness round ; and on the distant brow
Of the horizon, as it fell, I marked
The ocean, piling wave on wave, advance,
A wall of waters, beetling over-head.
And chmbing still, till its impending height
Threatened whole continents ; as when it closed
On car-borne Ammon's chivalry and power ;
With murmurs wrathful, like the eternal roar
On Lapland's sounding coast. While overhead
The dreadful thunder spoke ; and with the peal,
I woke — Right gladly through the casement then,
I marked the dew-drops on the pendant spray.
Glittering with early morning's roseate beam.
And bless'd my stars that I had not been drowned.
NOAH,
A POEM. BY PAUIi ALLEN.
The follawmg summary, found among our collection, appears to he the author's ETTtypacptti, or poetical analysis of the above work, which, though just pub- lished, has been composed for some time, as appears by the preface.
CANTO I.
This states how Noah was quite sad, To see what work the deluge made ; But joyful when the rainbow came, Calling his wife to see the same. How first he sent a raven out, Who carrion ate, and screamed about, And made such an infernal din, He wished again he had him in — How next he sent a dove, who found An olive branch upon dry ground ; How Noah made a speech, and sent Her off again— and how she went.
CANTO II.
How upon Ararat, the ark
Stuck in the mud, when it was dark ;
And how next morning they went out
To sacrifice, and look about.
How mercy's angel, sweet as may be.
Said she'd known Noah from a baby ;
404 NOAH.
When he caught humble-bees and teazed *em, Pulling their tails out, which much pleased 'em ;- How drinking's amiable weakness Would lead him into shame and sickness ; How great big boats, with masts and sails, Should go a-fishing after whales ; And Mr. Guille from Vauxhall Should mount above the heads of all. Also, how in her curious speech she Lugged in the Venus de Medicis ; Concluding with a brief reflection Upon astronomy's perfection.
CANTO III.
How Shem with a red face got up, And let the cattle out o' the coop ; And how they came out, one by one, Also the birds when they had done ; How Noah then got out of bed. And stroked his offspring on the head, Saying he had done a good deed, To let the cattle out to feed,
CANTO IV.
States how the devil came to Ham, And told him it was all a flam, About the world's being all o'erspread ; How Ham believed in what he said. And being glad to hear that others Besides his father, self, and brothers, Had not been drowned, a strain quite gay Began upon his harp to play ; At which the devil, disguised till then. Took his own ugly form agen ; And with his tail his legs between, Sneaked off*, and looked extremely mean.
NOAH. 405
CANTO V.
How Ham having lately got a son,
Noah came to see him thereupon,
And in a fit of prophecy,
Told him his baby black should be ;
How all his offspring should be dingies.
And sold for slaves to the West Indies.
And how Canaan on the spot
Turned as black as any pot.
Whereat his mother screamed in wonder,
Seeing her babe as dark as thunder.
How Noah then went on to state
Of Japhefs line the happier fate,
How they should all come over here,
Scare off the buffaloes and deer,
And massacre the cruel savages.
Who on their settlements made ravages.
How soon the Lion of the British,
Seeing their good luck, would get skittish,
And walking clear across the ocean.
Would make a terrible commotion.
Till being well kicked and cuffed he should
Go grumbling back across the flood.
These, interspersed with other things,
Paul Allen most obscurely sings.
Ne'er since the ark was set afloat
Was such a curious poem wrote.
THE DEAD OF 183 2.
Oh Time and Death ! with certain pace, Though still unequal, hurrying on,
O'erturning in your awful race.
The cot, the palace, and the throne !
Not always in the storm of war. Nor by the pestilence that sweeps
From the plague-smitten realms afar. Beyond the old and solemn deeps :
In crowds the good and mighty go. And to those vast dim chambers hie : —
Where mingled with the high and low. Dead Caesars and dead Shakspeares lie !
Dread Ministers of God ! sometimes Ye smite at once, to do His will,
In all earth's ocean-sever'd climes, Those — whose renown ye cannot kill !
When all the brightest stars that burn At once are banished from their spheres,
Men sadly ask, when shall return Such lustre to the coming years ?
THE DEAD OF 1832. 407
For where is he* — who Hved so long — Who raised the modern Titan's ghost,
And showed his fate, in powerful song. Whose soul for learning's sake was lost ?
Where he — who backwards to the birth
Of Time itself, adventurous trod. And in the mingled mass of earth
Found out the handiwork of God ?t
Where he — who in the mortal head,J Ordained to gaze on heaven, could trace
The soul's vast features, that shall tread The stars, when earth is nothingness ?
Where he — who struck old Albyn's lyre,§ Till round the world its echoes roll,
And swept, with all a prophet's fire, The diapason of the soul ?
Where he — who read the mystic lore,|| Buried, where buried Pharaohs sleep ;
And dared presumptuous to explore
Secrets four thousand years could keep I
Where he — who with a poet's eyell
Of truth, on lowly nature gazed, And made even sordid Poverty
Classic, when in his numbers glazed ?
Where — that old sage so hale and staid,** The " greatest good" who sought to find ;
Who in his garden mused, and made All forms of rule, for all mankind ?
Goethe and his Faust. t Cuvier. t Spurzheim. y Scott.
Champollion. f Crabbe. *' Jeremy Bentham.
408 THE DEAD OF 1832,
And thou — whom millions far removed* Revered — the hierarch meek and v^ise,
Thy ashes sleep, adored, beloved, Near where thy Wesley's coffin lies.
. He too — the heir of glory — wheref Hath great Napoleon's scion fled ? Ah 1 glory goes not to an heir ! Take him, ye noble, vulgar dead !
But hark 1 a nation sighs ! for he,J Last of the brave who perilled all
To make an infant empire free. Obeys the inevitable call !
They go — and with them is a crowd, For human rights who thought and did.
We rear to them no temples proud, Each hath his mental pyramid.
All earth is now their sepulchre.
The mind, their monument sublime —
Young in eternal fame .they are — Such are your triumphs. Death and Time.
* Adam Clarke. f The Duke of Reichstadt. f Charles Carroll.
THE END.
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