THE CRITERION; 
 
 OF TALK ABOUT FA3IILIAR THINGS, 
 
 Series cf Hssai>s. 
 
 HENRY T. TUCKERMAN. 
 
 Our knowledge is real only so far as there is a conformity between our ideas 
 and the reality of things ; but what shall be the Criterion ? LOCKE. 
 
 the flowery walk 
 
 Of letters, genial table talk, 
 
 Or deep dispute and graceful jest. 
 
 TEXXTSON. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 PUBLISHED BY KURD AND HOUGHTON. 
 
 BOSTON: E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY. 
 1866. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by 
 
 HENRY T. TUCKERMAN, 
 
 in the Clerk s Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New 
 York. 
 
 RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 
 STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 
 
 \ IB. , 0. HOUGUTON AND COMPANY. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INNS . . . 1 
 
 AUTHORS 43 
 
 PICTURES 77 
 
 DOCTORS 106 
 
 HOLIDAYS 132 
 
 LAWYERS . . . . . . . . . 171 
 
 SEPULCHRES ........ 202 
 
 ACTORS ......... 223 
 
 NEWSPAPERS 252 
 
 PREACHERS ........ 292 
 
 STATUES 325 
 
 BRIDGES 345 
 
INNS. 
 
 Whoe er has travelled life s dull round, 
 Whate er his fortunes may hare been. 
 
 Must sigh to think how oft he s found 
 Life s warmest welcome at an inn. 
 
 SHENSTOXE. 
 
 | HE old, legitimate, delightful idea of an Inn is 
 becoming obsolete ; like so many other tradi 
 tional blessings, it has been sacrificed to the 
 genius of locomotion. The rapidity with which dis 
 tance is consumed obviates the need that so long ex 
 isted of by-way retreats and halting-places. A hearty 
 meal or a few hours sleep, caught between the arrival 
 of the trains, is all the railway traveller requires ; and 
 the modern habit of moving in caravans has infinitely 
 lessened the romantic probabilities and comfortable real 
 ities of a journey : the rural alehouse and picturesque 
 hostel now exist chiefly in the domain of memory ; 
 crowds, haste, and ostentation triumph here over pri 
 vacy and rational enjoyment, as in nearly all the arrange 
 ments of modern society. Old Walton would discover 
 now but few of the secluded inns that refreshed him 
 on his piscatorial excursions ; the ancient ballads on the 
 wall have given place to French paper ; the scent of 
 lavender no longer makes the linen fragrant; instead 
 of the crackle of the open wood-fire, we have the dingy 
 coal - smoke, and exhalations of a stove ; and green 
 1 
 
* INNS. 
 
 blinds usurp the place of the snowy curtains. Not only 
 these material details, but the social character of the 
 inn, is sadly changed. Few hosts can find time to 
 gossip ; the clubs have withdrawn the wits ; the excite 
 ment of a stage-coach arrival is no more ; and a poet 
 might travel a thousand leagues without finding a ro 
 mantic " maid of the inn," such as Southey has immor 
 talized. Jollity, freedom, and comfort are no longer 
 inevitably associated with the name ; the world has 
 become a vast procession that scorns to linger on its 
 route, and has almost forgotten how to enjoy. Thanks, 
 however, to the conservative spell of literature, we can 
 yet appreciate, in imagination, at least, the good old Eng 
 lish inn. Goldsmith s Village Alehouse has daguer- 
 reotyped its humble species, while Dr. Johnson s even 
 ings at the Mitre keep vivid the charm of its metropol 
 itan fame. Indeed, it is quite impossible to imagine 
 what British authors would have done without the sol 
 ace and inspiration of the inn. Addison fled thither 
 from domestic annoyance ; Dryden s chair at Will s was 
 an oracular throne ; when hard pressed, Steele and 
 Savage sought refuge in a tavern and wrote pamphlets 
 for a dinner ; Farquhar found there his best comic ma 
 terial ; Sterne opens his " Sentimental Journey " with his 
 landlord, Monsieur Dessein, Calais, and his inn-yard ; 
 Shenstone confessed he found " life s warmest welcome 
 at an inn ; " Sheridan s convivial brilliancy shone there 
 with peculiar lustre; Hazlitt relished Congreve anew 
 reading him in the shady windows of a village inn after 
 a long walk ; even an old Almanac, or Annual Regis 
 ter, will acquire an interest under such circumstances ; 
 and a dog-eared copy of the " Seasons " found in such a 
 place induced Coleridge to exclaim, " This is fame ! " 
 
INNS. 3 
 
 while Byron exulted when informed that a well-thumbed 
 volume of the " English Bards " had been seen soon after 
 its publication, at a little hostel in Albany. Elia s quaint 
 anecdote of the Quakers when they all eat supper with 
 out paying for it, and Irving s " Stout Gentleman," are 
 incidents which could only have been suggested by a 
 country inn ; and as to the novelists, from Smollett and 
 Fielding to Scott and Dickens, the most characteristic 
 scenes occur pn this vantage-ground, where the strict 
 unities of life are temporarily discarded, and its zest 
 miraculously quickened by fatigue, hunger, a kind of 
 infinite possibility of events, a singular mood of adven 
 ture and pastime, nowhere else in civilized lands so 
 readily induced. It is, therefore, by instinct that these 
 enchanting chroniclers lead us thither, from old Chau 
 cer to our own Longfellow. Gil Bias acquired his first 
 lesson in a knowledge of the world, by his encounter 
 with the parasite at the inn of Panafleur ; and Don 
 Quixote s enthusiasm always reaches a climax at these 
 places of w r ay-side sojourn. The Black Bull, at Is 
 lington, is said to have been Sir Walter Raleigh s man 
 sion ; Dolly s Chop-House is dear to authors for the 
 sake of Goldsmith and his friends, who used to go there 
 on their way to and from Paternoster Row. At the 
 Salutation and Cat, Smithfield, Coleridge and Lamb 
 held memorable converse ; and Steele often dated his 
 " Tatlers " from the Trumpet. How appropriate for 
 Voltaire to have lodged, in London, at the White Per 
 uke ! Spenser died at an inn in King Street, West 
 minster, on his return from Ireland. At the Red 
 Horse, Stratford, is the " Irving room," precious to the 
 American traveller ; and how renowned have sweet 
 Anne Page and jolly Falstaff made the very name of 
 
4 INNS. 
 
 the Garter Inn ! In the East a monastery, in the 
 Desert a tent, on the Nile a boat, a hacienda in South 
 America, a kiosk in Turkey, a caffe in Italy, but in Brit 
 ain an inn, is the pilgrim s home, and one not less 
 characteristic. The subject as suggestive of the phi 
 losophy of civilization is worth investigation. 
 
 In England and in towns of Anglo-Saxon origin, where 
 the economies of life have a natural sway, we find inns 
 representative ; in London, especially, a glance at the 
 parlor-wall reveals the class to whose convenience the 
 tavern is dedicated : in one the portraits of actors, in 
 another scenes in the ring and on the race-course, here 
 the countenance of a leading merchant, and there a 
 military effigy, suggest the vocation of those who chiefly 
 frequent the inn ; nor are local features less certain 
 to find recognition : a view of the nearest nobleman s 
 estate, or his portrait, ornaments the sitting-room ; and 
 the observant eye can always discover an historical 
 hint at these public resorts. Heywood the dramatist 
 aptly specified this representative character of inns : 
 
 " The gentry to the King s Head, 
 
 The nobles to the Crown, 
 The knights unto the Golden Fleece, 
 
 And to the Plough the clown; 
 The churchman to the Mitre, 
 
 The shepherd to the Star, 
 The gardener hies him to the Rose, 
 
 To the Drum the man of war; 
 To the Feathers, ladies, you; the Globe 
 
 The seamen do not scorn, 
 The usurer to the Devil, and 
 
 The townsman to the Horn ; 
 The huntsman to the White Hart, 
 
 To the Ship the merchants go, 
 But you that do the Muses love 
 
 The sign called River Po ; 
 
INNS. 5 
 
 The bankrupt to the World s End, 
 
 The fool to the Fortune hie, 
 Unto the Mouth the oyster-wife, 
 
 The fiddler to the Pie, 
 
 The drunkard to the Vine, 
 The beggar to the Bush, then meet 
 And with Sir Humphrey dine." 
 
 Inn-signs are indeed historical landmarks: in the 
 Middle Ages the Cross-Keys, the Three Kings, and 
 St Francis, abounded ; the Puritans substituted for 
 Angel and Lady, the Soldier and Citizen ; the Sara 
 cen s Head was a device of the Crusades ; and before, 
 the Coach and Horses was the sign of the Packhorse, 
 indicative of the days of equestrian travel. Many cur 
 rent anecdotes attest the virtue of an old, and the haz 
 ards of a new inn-sign ; as when the loyal host substi 
 tuted the head of George the Fourth for the ancient 
 ass, which latter effigy being successfully adopted by a 
 neighboring innkeeper, his discomfited rival had in 
 scribed under the royal effigy, " This is the real ass." 
 Thackeray cites an inn-sign as illustrative of Scotch 
 egotism : " In Cupar-Fife," he writes, " there s a little 
 inn called the * Battle of Waterloo, and what do you 
 think the sign is ? The * Battle of Waterloo is one 
 broad Scotchman laying about him with a broad 
 sword." 
 
 The coffee-room of the best class of English inns, 
 carpeted and curtained, the dark rich hue of the old 
 mahogany, the ancient plate, the four-post bed, the sir 
 loin or mutton joint, the tea, muffins, Cheshire and Stil 
 ton, the ale, the coal-fire, and the "Times," form an 
 epitome of England ; and it is only requisite to ponder 
 well the associations and history of each of these items, 
 
6 INNS. 
 
 to arrive at what is essential in English history and 
 character. The impassable divisions of society are 
 shown in the difference between the " commercial " and 
 the " coffee-room ; " the time-worn aspect of the furni 
 ture is eloquent of conservatism ; the richness of the 
 meats and strength of the ale explain the bone and 
 sinew of the race ; the tea is fragrant with Cowper s 
 memory and suggestive of East India conquests ; the 
 cheese proclaims a thrifty agriculture, the bed and 
 draperies comfort, the coal-fire manufactures ; while the 
 " Times " is the chart of English enterprise, division of 
 labor, wealth, self-esteem, politics, trade, court-life, " in 
 accessibility to ideas," and bullyism. 
 
 The national subserviency to rank is as plainly 
 evinced by the plates on chamber-doors, at the provin 
 cial inns, setting forth that therein on a memorable 
 night slept a certain scion of nobility. And from the 
 visitor at the great house of a neighborhood, when so 
 journing at the inn thereof, is expected a double fee. 
 As an instance of the inappropriate, of that stolid in 
 sensibility to taste and tact which belongs to the nation, 
 consider the English waiter. His costume is that of 
 a clergyman or a gentleman dressed for company, 
 and in ridiculous contrast with his menial obeisance ; 
 perhaps it is the self-importance nourished by this 
 costume which renders him such a machine, incapable 
 of an idea beyond the routine of handing a dish and 
 receiving a sixpence. 
 
 Old Hobson, whose name is proverbially familiar, 
 went with his wain from Cambridge to the Ball Inn, 
 Bishopsgate Street, London. Clement s Inn was the 
 scene of that memorable dialogue between Shallow and 
 Sir John ; at the Cock in Bond Street, Sir Charles 
 
INNS. 7 
 
 Sedley got scandalously drunk. Will s Coffee-House 
 was formerly called the Rose ; hence the line, 
 
 " Supper and friends expect me at the Rose." 
 
 Button s, so long frequented by the wits of Queen 
 Anne s time, was kept by a former servant of Lady 
 "Warwick; and there the author of Cato fraternized 
 with Garth, Armstrong, and other contemporary writers. 
 Ben Jonson held his club at the Devil Tavern, and 
 Shakspeare and Beaumont used to meet him at the 
 Mermaid ; the same inn is spoken of by Pope, and 
 Swift writes Stella of his dinner there. Beaumont thus 
 reveals to Ben Jonson their convivial talk : 
 
 What things have we seen 
 
 Done at the Mermaid ! heard words that have been 
 So nimble and so full of subtle fire, 
 As if that every one from whom they came 
 Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, 
 And had resolved to live a fool the rest 
 Of his dull life. 
 
 The author of " Peter Wilkins " resided for a time at 
 Clifford s Inn, and Dr. Johnson frequented all the taverns 
 in Fleet Street. Old Slaughter s coffee-house in St. 
 Martin s Lane was the favorite resort of Hogarth ; the 
 house where Jeremy Taylor was born is now an inn ; 
 and Prior s uncle kept an inn in London, where the poet 
 was seen, when a boy, reading Horace. This incident is 
 made use of by Johnson in his " Lives of the Poets " in 
 a very caustic manner ; for after relating it, he observes 
 of Prior, that " in his private relaxations he revived the 
 tavern, and in his amorous pedantry he exhibited the 
 college." 
 
 There is no city in Europe where an imaginative 
 mood can be so indefinitely prolonged as at Venice ; 
 
8 INNS. 
 
 and, in the early summer, the traveller, after gliding 
 about all day in a gondola, and thinking of Barbarossa, 
 Faliero, Titian, and the creations of Shakspeare, Ot- 
 way, Byron, and Cooper, at evening, from under the 
 arches of St. Mark s Square, watches the picturesque, 
 and sometimes mysterious, figures, and then, between 
 moss-grown palaces and over tone canals, returns to his 
 locanda to find its aspect perfectly in accordance with 
 his reverie ; at least such was my experience at the 
 Golden Lion. The immense salle-a-manger was dimly 
 lighted, and the table for two or three guests set 
 in a corner and half-surrounded by a screen ; when I 
 raised my eyes from my first dinner there, they fell on 
 a large painting of the Death of Seneca, a print of 
 which had been familiar to my childhood ; and thus 
 memory was ever invoked in Venice, and her dissolving 
 views reflected in the mirror of the mind, unbroken by 
 the interruptions from passing life that elsewhere ren 
 der them so brief. The mere fact of disembarking at 
 the weedy steps, the utter silence of the canal, invaded 
 only by the plash of the gondolier s oar or his warning 
 cry at the angle, the tessellated pavement and quaintly 
 carved furniture of the bedroom, and a certain noiseless 
 step and secretive gravity observable in the attendants, 
 render the Venetian inn memorable and distinct in 
 reminiscence, and in perfect harmony with the place 
 and its associations. 
 
 During the late revolutionary era in Europe, the inn- 
 tables of Germany afforded the most reliable index of 
 political opinion ; the free discussion which was there 
 indulged brought out every variety of sentiment and 
 theory, as it included all classes, with a due sprinkling 
 of foreigners. From the old novel to the new farce, 
 
INNS. 9 
 
 indeed, the extremes of public opinion and the average 
 tone of manners, the laughable contre-temps and the 
 delightful adventure, are made to reveal themselves at 
 inns, so that political sects and all vocations are identi 
 fied with them. To Rip Van Winkle, the most astonish 
 ing change he discovered in his native village, after his 
 long nap, was the substitution of Washington s likeness 
 for that of King George on the tavern sign. 
 
 The dark staircase, rising from the mule-stable of a 
 posada, the bare chambers, wool-knotted mattresses, 
 odor of garlic, and vegetables swimming in oil, are 
 
 o O O 
 
 items of the Spanish inn not likely to be forgotten by 
 the epicurean traveller. But good beds and excellent 
 chocolate are to be found at the most uninviting Span 
 ish inns ; and the imaginative traveller enjoys the priv 
 ilege of sojourning at the very one where Don Quixote 
 was knighted. In highly civilized lands, inns have not 
 only a national, but a professional character ; the sign, 
 the pictures on the wall, and the company, have a cer 
 tain individuality, marine in sailors inns, pugilistic in 
 sporting ones, and picturesque in those haunted by 
 artists ; the lines of demarcation are as visible as those 
 which separate newspapers and shops ; in the grand di 
 vision of labor that signalizes modern life, the inn also 
 has thus become an organ and a symbol. Even their 
 mottoes and symbols give traditional suggestions or em 
 blazon phases of opinion ; natural history has been ex 
 hausted in supplying effigies ; mythology has yielded up 
 all her deities and institutions ; heroes and localities are 
 kept fresh in the traveller s imagination by their asso 
 ciation with " creature comforts." Thus he dreams of 
 Cromwell at the Tumble-down Dick, and of the Stuarts 
 at the King Charles in the Oak, the days of chivalry 
 
10 INNS. 
 
 at the Star and Garter or the Croix de Malta, of bril 
 liant campaigns at the Wagram and Montmorency, of 
 woman s love at the Petrarch and Laura, and of man s 
 at the Freemason s Tavern.* 
 
 My host at Ravenna had been Byron s purveyor dur 
 ing the poet s residence there ; and he was never weary 
 of descanting upon his character and the incidents of 
 his sojourn ; in fact, upon discovering my interest in the 
 subject, he forgot the landlord in the cicerone, and gave 
 no small part of a day to accompanying me to the 
 haunts of the bard. Our first visit was to the Guiccioli 
 Palace, and here he described his lordship s dinners 
 with the precision and enthusiasm of an antiquarian 
 certifying a document or medal ; then he took me to the 
 Pine Forest, and pointed out the track where Byron 
 used to wheel his horse at full gallop, and discharge his 
 pistol at a bottle placed on a stump, exercises prepar- 
 
 * " A recent London paper advertises a genuine thesaurus of ancient 
 tavern signs and other curiosities at auction, collected during a long 
 life by some curious antiquary. The catalogue covered an extensive 
 and unique collection for a history of ancient and modern inns, taverns 
 and coffee-houses in town and country, (numbering upwards of 850 
 signs,) formed with unwearied diligence and vast outlay during a life 
 time, and illustrated with upwards of 2500 of ancient and modern en 
 gravings, comprising topographical and antiquarian subjects, early 
 views of London, caricatures, humorous and satirical subjects, portraits 
 of celebrities whose names have been adopted as signs, characters re 
 markable for their eccentricities, actors and actresses, others illustrating 
 ancient sports and pastimes, etchings, wood-cuts, and numerous others, 
 plain and colored, many of great rarity ; also 415 drawings in water- 
 colors, sepia, and pen and ink, and numerous copies from scarce en 
 gravings and old paintings ; together with extensive antiquarian, local, 
 and biographical notices (both printed and in MS.) on signs and their 
 origin, merriments and witticisms in prose and verse, tales, traditions, 
 legends, and remarkable incidents, singular inscriptions on tap-room 
 windows and walls, anecdotes of landlords, guests, visitors, writers, 
 etc." 
 
INNS. 11 
 
 atory to his Grecian campaign. At a particular flag 
 stone, in the main street, my guide suddenly paused ; 
 " Si<nore," said he, "just as milord had reached this 
 spot one evening, he heard the report of a musket, and 
 saw an officer fall a few rods in advance ; dismounting, 
 he rushed to his side, and found him to be a familiar 
 acquaintance, an agent of the government, who had 
 thus become the victim to private vengeance. Byron 
 had him conveyed to his own apartment and placed on 
 a bed, where in half an hour he expired. This event 
 made a deep impression on his mind ; he was dispirited 
 for a week, and wrote a description of death from a 
 shot, which you will find in his poems, derived from this 
 scene." With such local anecdotes my Byronic host 
 entertained me so well, that the departed bard ever 
 since has seemed to live in my remembrance rather 
 than my fancy. 
 
 Whoever has eaten trout caught in the Anio at the 
 little inn at Tivoli, or been detained by stress of weather 
 in that of Albano, will not forget the evidences the walls 
 of both exhibit that rollicking artists have felt at home 
 there. Such heads and landscapes, caricatures, and 
 grotesque animals as are there improvised, baffle de 
 scription. 
 
 A well is the inn of the desert. " The dragoman usu 
 ally looks out for some place of shelter," says the author 
 of " Over the Lebanon to Balbec ; " " the shadow of a 
 ruin or the covering of a grove of fig-trees is the most 
 common, and, if possible, near a well or stream. The 
 first of all considerations is to reach a spot where you 
 can get water ; so that, throughout the East, the well 
 answers to the old English Half-way House, and road 
 side Accommodation for Man and Beast/ which gave 
 
12 INNS. 
 
 their cheerful welcome to the Tally Ho and Red 
 Rover that flourished before this a<re of iron." 
 
 o 
 
 The pedestrian in Wales sometimes encounters a 
 snug and beautifully situated hostel, (perhaps the Ang 
 ler s Rest,) where five minutes beside the parlor-fire, 
 and a chat with the landlady or her pretty daughter, 
 gives him so complete a home feeling that it is with 
 painful reluctance he again straps on his knapsack ; at 
 liberty to muse by the ever-singing tea-kettle, if the 
 weather is unpropitious, stroll out in view of a noble 
 mountain or a fairy lake in the warm sunset, or hear 
 the news from the last wayfarer in the travellers room ; 
 and there is thus mingled a sense of personal indepen 
 dence, comfort, and solitude, which is rarely experienced 
 even in the most favored domain of hospitality. An 
 equally winsome but more romantic charm holds the 
 roaming artist who stops at Albano or Volterra, where 
 the dreamy campagna or Etruscan ruins alternate with 
 groups of sunburnt contadini, lighted up by the char 
 coal s glow in a way to fascinate Salvator, before his 
 contented gaze ; his portfolio fills up with miraculous 
 rapidity ; and the still life is agreeably varied by the 
 scenic costumes and figures which grace the vintage or 
 afesta. Some humble Champollion could easily add to 
 the curiosities of literature by a volume gleaned among 
 inn inscriptions, from the marble tablet announcing 
 the sojourn of a royal personage, to the rude cari 
 cature on the whitewashed wall and the sentimental 
 couplet on the window - pane ; to say nothing of the 
 albums which enshrine so many tributes to Etna 
 and the White Mountains, the heirlooms of Abbate, 
 the famous padrone of Catania, and Crawford of the 
 Notch. 
 
INNS. 13 
 
 Sicily is famous for the absence of inns and the in 
 tolerable discomfort of those that do exist ; but mine 
 host of Catania was the prince of landlords : a fine 
 specimen of manly beauty, and with the manners of a 
 gentleman, he seemed to think his guests entitled to 
 all the courtesy which should follow an invitation ; he 
 made formal calls upon them, and gave sage advice as 
 to the best way to pass the time ; fitted them out with 
 hospitable skill, and experienced counsels, for die ascent 
 of Etna, and brought home choice game from his hunt 
 ing excursions, as a present to the * stranger within his 
 gates : " his discourse, too, was of the most bland and 
 entertaining description ; he was " a fellow of infinite 
 wit, of most excellent fancy ; " and these ministrations 
 derived a memorable charm from a certain gracefulness 
 and winsome cordiality : no wonder his scrap-book is 
 filled with eulogiums, and that the traveller in Sicily, 
 by the mere force of contrast, records in hyperboles 
 the merits of the Corona d Oro. Alas for the muta 
 bility of inns and their worthy hosts! Abbate was 
 killed by an accidental shot, during an emcitte in Cata 
 nia in 1848. 
 
 The waxed floor, light curtains, and gay paper of a 
 Parisian bedroom, however cheerful, are the reverse of 
 snug ; but in the provincial inns of the Continent, with 
 less of comfort there is often more historical interest 
 than in those of England ; the stone staircases and 
 floors, and the scanty furniture are forlorn ; and the 
 exuberance of the host s civility is often in ludicrous 
 contrast with the poverty of his larder. An hour or two 
 in the dreary saUe-a-manger of a provincial French inn 
 on a rainy day is the acme of a voyageurs depression. 
 The restaurant and cafe have superseded the Freuch 
 
14 INNS. 
 
 inns of whose gastronomic renown and scenes of in 
 trigue and violence we read in Dumas historical novels ; 
 romance and tragedy, the convivial and the culinary as 
 sociations, are equally prominent. " Suburban cabarets," 
 observes a popular writer, " were long dangerous ren 
 dezvous for Parisians ; " before and during the Grand- 
 Monarque s reign the French taverns were representa 
 tive, the army, court, men of letters, and even eccle 
 siastics having their favorite haunt : Moliere went to the 
 Croix de Lorraine, and Racine to the Mouton Blanc ; 
 the actors met at Les Deux Faisants ; one of the last 
 of the old-school Parisian landladies she who kept the 
 Maison Rouge is celebrated in Beranger s Madame 
 Gregoire ; Ravaillac went from a tavern to assassinate 
 Henry the Fourth ; and fashionable orgies were carried 
 on in the Temple Cellars. It is not uncommon to find 
 ourselves in a friar s dormitory, the large hotels in the 
 minor towns having frequently been erected as con 
 vents ; and in Italy, such an inn as that of Terracina, 
 with its legends of banditti and its romantic site, the 
 waves of the Mediterranean moaning under its lofty 
 windows, infallibly recalls Mrs. Radcliffe. In the cities 
 many of the hotels are palaces, where noble families 
 have dwelt for centuries, and about them are percepti 
 ble the traces of decayed magnificence and the spell of 
 traditional glory and crime. To an imaginative travel 
 ler these fanciful attractions often compensate for the 
 absence of substantial merit) and there is something 
 mysterious and winsome in the obsolete architecture 
 and fallen grandeur of these edifices ; huge shadows 
 glide along the high cornices, the mouldy frescoes look 
 as if they had witnessed strange vicissitudes, and the 
 imagination readily wanders through a series of wonder- 
 
INNS. 15 
 
 ful experiences of which these old palazzi have been the 
 scene. Here, as elsewhere in the land, it is the roman 
 tic element, the charm of antiquity, that is the redeem 
 ing feature. For picturesque beauty of situation, neat 
 ness, and rural comfort, some of the inns of Switzerland 
 are the most delightful on the Continent, inviting the 
 stranger to linger amid the clear, fresh, and glorious 
 landscape, and relish the sweet butter, white bread, and 
 unrivalled honey and eggs, served so neatly every 
 morning by a fair mountaineer with snowy cap and gay 
 bodice. 
 
 I am a lover of the woods, and sometimes cross the 
 bay, with a friend, to Long Island, and pass a few 
 hours in the strip of forest that protected our fugitive 
 army at the Battle of Flatbush ; there are devious and 
 shadowy paths intersecting it, and in spring and autumn 
 the wild flowers, radiant leaves, and balmy stillness 
 cheer the mind and senses fresh from the dust and 
 bustle of the city. Often after one of these woodland 
 excursions we have emerged upon a quiet road, with 
 farm-houses at long intervals, and orchards and grain- 
 fields adjacent, and followed its course to a village, 
 whose gable-roofed domicile and ancient graveyard 
 indicate an old settlement; and here is a little inn 
 which recalls our idea of the primitive English ale 
 house. It has a little Dutch porch, a sunny garden, 
 the liquor is served from the square bottles of Holland, 
 the back-parlor is retired and neat, and the landlady 
 sits all day in the window at her sewing, and, when a 
 little acquainted, will tell you all about the love-affairs 
 of the village ; the cheese and sour-krout at dinner 
 suggest a Flemish origin. 
 
 The old sign that hangs at the road-side was brought 
 
16 INNS. 
 
 to this country by an English publican, when the fine 
 arts were supposed to be at so low a stage as to furnish 
 no Dick Tinto equal to such an achievement. It repre 
 sents the arms of Great Britain, and doubtless beguiled 
 many a trooper of his Majesty when Long Island was 
 occupied by the English ; no sooner, however, had they 
 retreated, than the republican villagers forced the land 
 lord to have an American eagle painted above the 
 king s escutcheon. Indeed, it is characteristic of inns 
 that they perpetuate local associations : put your head 
 into an Italian boarding-house in New York, and the 
 garlic, maccaroni, and red wine lead you to think your 
 self at Naples ; the snuff, dominos, and gazettes mark 
 a French cafe all the world over; in Montreal you 
 wake up in a room like that you occupied at Marseilles ; 
 and at Halifax the malt liquor is as English as the cur 
 rency. 
 
 " The sports of the inn-yards " are noted often in the 
 memoirs of Elizabeth s reign. In a late biography of 
 Lord Bacon, his brother Anthony is spoken of as " hav 
 ing taken a house in Bishopsgate Street, near the 
 famous Ball Inn, where plays are performed before cits 
 and gentlemen, very much to the delight of Essex and 
 his jovial crew." And in allusion to the Earl s con 
 spiracy the lower class of inns then and there are thus 
 described : " From kens like the Hart s Horn and the 
 Shipwreck Tavern, haunts of the vilest refuse of a 
 great city, the spawn of hells and stews, the vomit of 
 Italian cloisters and Belgian camps, Blount, long famil 
 iar with the agents of disorder, unkennels in the Earl s 
 name a pack of needy ruffians eager for any device 
 that seems to promise pay to their greed or license to 
 their lust." It has been justly remarked by Letitia 
 
INNS. 17 
 
 Landon that " after all the English hostel owes much 
 of its charm to Chaucer ; our associations are of his 
 haunting pictures, his delicate prioress, his comely 
 young squire, with their pleasant interchange of tale and 
 legend : " still less remote and more personal associa 
 tions endear and identify these landmarks of travel and 
 sojourn in Great Britain. Scarcely a pleasant record 
 of life or manners, during the last century, is destitute 
 of one of these memorable resorts. Addison frequented 
 the White Horn at the end of Holland House Lane. 
 When Sir Walter visited Wordsworth, he daily strolled 
 to the Swan beyond Grasmere, to atone for the plain 
 fare of the bard s cottage. " We four," naively writes 
 the Rev. Archibald Carlyle, speaking of his literary 
 comrades, " frequently resorted to a small tavern in the 
 corner of Cockspur Street, at the Golden Ball, where we 
 had a frugal supper and a little punch, as the finances 
 of none of the company were in very good order ; but 
 we had rich enough conversation on literary subjects, 
 enlivened by Smollett s agreeable stories, which he told 
 with peculiar grace." And his more than clerical zest 
 for such a rendezvous is apparent in his notice of an 
 other favorite inn : " It was during this assembly that 
 the inn at the lower end of the West Bow got into 
 some credit, and was called the Diversorium. Thomas 
 Nicholson was the man s name, and his wife s Nelly 
 Douglass. Xelly was handsome, Thomas a rattling fel 
 low." Here often cnet Robertson the historian, Home 
 the dramatist. Hume, Jardine, and other notable men of 
 the Scotch metropolis. To facilitate their intercourse 
 when in London, they also " established a club at a cof 
 fee-house in Saville Row; and dined together daily 
 at three with Wedderburn and Jack Dalrymple." By 
 2 
 
18 INNS. 
 
 the same candid autobiographer we are informed that 
 at a tavern " in Fleet Street, a physicians club met, 
 had original papers laid before them, and always waited 
 supper for Dr. Armstrong to order." These casual 
 allusions indicate the essential convenience and social 
 importance of the inn, before clubs had superseded 
 them in Britain, and cafes on the Continent. A writer 
 whose " Itinerary " is dated 1617 thus describes enter 
 tainment at the English inns of his day : " As soone 
 as a passenger comes to an inne, the servants run to 
 him, and one takes his horse and walkes him about till 
 he is cool, then rubs him down and gives him feed ; 
 another servant gives the passenger his private cham 
 ber, and kindles his fire ; the third pulls off his bootes 
 and makes them cleane ; then the host and hostess 
 visit him, and if he will eate with the hoste, or at a 
 common table with the others, his meale will cost him 
 sixpence, or, in some places, fourpence ; but if he will 
 eat in his own chamber, he commands what meat he 
 will, according to his appetite ; yea, the kitchen is open 
 to him to order the meat to be dressed as he likes beste. 
 After having eaten what he pleases, he may with credit 
 set by a part for next day s breakfast. His bill will 
 then be written for him, and should he object to any 
 charge, the host is ready to alter it." An Italian noble 
 man of our own day,* his appreciation of free discus 
 sion quickened by political exile, was much impressed 
 with the influence and agency of the English inn in 
 public affairs. " Taverns," he writes, " are the forum 
 of the English ; it was here that arose the triumph of 
 Burdett when he left the Tower, and the curses of 
 Castlereagh when he descended into the tomb ; it is 
 * Count Pecchio. 
 
INNS. 19 
 
 here that begins the censure or the approval of a new 
 law." 
 
 Charles Lamb delighted to smoke his pipe at the old 
 Queen s Head, and to quaff ale from the tankard pre 
 sented by one Master Cranch (a choice spirit) to a 
 former host, and in the old oak-parlor where tradition 
 says " the gallant Raleigh received full souse in his 
 face the contents of a jolly black-jack from an affrighted 
 clown, who, seeing clouds of tobacco-smoke curling from 
 the knight s mouth and nose, thought he was all on 
 fire." 
 
 " A relic of old London is fast disappearing," says 
 a journal of that city, " the Blue Boar Inn, or the 
 George and Blue Boar, as it came to be called later, 
 in Holborn. For more than two hundred years this 
 was one of the famous coaching-houses, where stalls 
 arrived from the Northern and Midland counties. It 
 is more famous still as being the place if Lord Or 
 rery s chaplain, Morrice, may be credited where 
 Cromwell and Ireton, disguised as troopers, cut from 
 the saddle-flap of a messenger a letter which they knew 
 to be there, from Charles the First to Henrietta Maria." 
 
 The Peacock, at Matlock on the Derwent, was long 
 the chosen resort of artists, botanists, geologists, law 
 yers, and anglers; and perhaps at no rural English 
 inn of modern times has there been more varied and 
 gifted society than occasionally convened in this roman 
 tic district, under its roof. 
 
 The Hotel Gibbon, at Lausanne, suggests to one fa 
 miliar with English literature the life of that historian, 
 so naively described by himself, and keeps alive the as 
 sociations of his elaborate work in the scene of its pro 
 duction ; and nightly colloquies, that are embalmed and 
 
20 INNS. 
 
 embodied in genial literature, immortalize the " sky- 
 blue parlor " at Ambrose s Edinburgh tavern. 
 
 Few historical novelists have more completely mas 
 tered the details of costume, architecture, and social 
 habits in the old times of England than James ; and 
 his description of the inns of Queen Anne s day is as 
 elaborate as it is complete : " Landlords in England at 
 that time I mean, of course, in country towns 
 were very different in many respects, and of a different 
 class, from what they are at present. In the first place, 
 they were not fine gentlemen ; in the next place, they 
 were not discharged valets-de-chambre or butlers, who, 
 having cheated their masters handsomely, and perhaps 
 laid them under contribution in many ways, retire to 
 enjoy the fat things at their ease in their native town. 
 Then, again, they were on terms of familiar inter 
 course with two or three classes, completely separate 
 and distinct from each other, a sort of connecting 
 link between them. At their door, the justice of the 
 peace, the knight of the shire, the great man of the 
 neighborhood, dismounted from his horse, and had his 
 chat with mine host. There came the village lawyer, 
 when he gained a cause or won a large fee or had been 
 paid a long bill, to indulge in his pint of sherry, and 
 gossiped as he drank it of all the affairs of his clients. 
 There sneaked in the doctor to get his glass of eau-de- 
 vie, or plague-water, or aqua mirabilis, or strong spirits, 
 in short, of any other denomination, and tell little dirty 
 anecdotes of his cases and his patients. There the al 
 derman, the wealthy shopkeeper, and the small propri 
 etor, or the large farmer, came to take his cheerful cup 
 on Saturdays, or on market-day. But, besides these, 
 the inn was the resort though approached by another 
 
INNS. 21 
 
 cl oor of a lower and a poorer class, with whom the 
 landlord was still upon as good terms as with the oth 
 ers. The wagoner, the carter, the lawyer s and the 
 banker s clerk, the shopman, the porter, even, all came 
 there; the landlord was civil and familiar and chatty 
 with them all." 
 
 Geoffrey Crayon s " Shakspearian Research " culmi 
 nated at the Boar s Head, Eastcheap ; his story of the 
 " Spectre Bridegroom " was appropriately related in 
 the kitchen of the Pomnie d Or, in the Netherlands ; 
 and he makes Rip s congenial retreat from his virago 
 spouse, the " coin of vantage " in front of the village 
 inn. Irving s own appreciation of these vagabond 
 shrines and accidental homes is emphatic ; he com 
 mends the " honest bursts of laughter in which a man 
 indulges in that temple of true liberty, an inn," and 
 quotes zestfully the maxim that " a tavern is the rendez 
 vous, the exchange, the staple of good-fellows." His per 
 sonal testimony is characteristic : <; To a homeless man 
 there is a momentary feeling of independence, as he 
 stretches himself before an inn-fire : the arm-chair is 
 his throne, the poker is his sceptre, and the little parlor 
 his undisputed empire." How little did the modest au 
 thor imagine, when he thus wrote, that the poker with 
 which he stirred the fire in the parlor-grate of the Red 
 Lion would become a sacred literary relic wherewith 
 his partial countrymen are beguiled of extra fees, while 
 the bard of Avon and the gentleman of Sunnyside 
 mingle in the reverie of fond reminiscence. 
 
 " I went by an indirect route to Litchfield," writes 
 Hawthorne, in his English sketches, " and put up at 
 the Black Swan. Had I known where to find it, I 
 would rather have established myself at the inn kept by 
 
22 INNS. 
 
 Mr. Boniface, and so famous for its ale in Farquhar*s 
 time." Gossip and gayety, the poor man s arena and 
 the " breathing-time of day " of genius, thus give to the 
 inn a kind of humane scope. Beethoven, wearied of his 
 palace-home and courtly patronage and the "stately 
 houses open to him in town and country, often forsook 
 all for solitude in obscure inns, escaping from all con 
 ventionalities to be alone with himself." "Nous voyons" 
 says Brillat-Savarin, " que les villageois font toutes les 
 affaires au cabaret ; " Rousseau delighted in the frugal 
 liberty thereof; and the last days of Elia are associated 
 with the inn which was the goal of his daily promenade. 
 "After Isola married," writes one of his friends, " and 
 Mary was infirm, he took his lonely walk along the Lon 
 don road, as far as the Bell of Edmonton ; and one 
 day tripped over a stone and slightly wounded his fore 
 head ; erysipelas set in, and he died." Somewhat of 
 the attractiveness of the inn to the philosopher is that 
 its temporary and casual shelter and solace accords with 
 the counsel of Sydney Smith, " to take short views," 
 and Goethe s, to " cast ourselves into the sea of acci 
 dents ; " and a less amiable reason for the partiality has 
 been suggested in " the wide capability of finding fault 
 which an inn affords." A genial picture of one is thus 
 drawn by a modern poet : 
 
 This cosy hostelrie a visit craves ; 
 Here will I sit awhile, 
 And watch the heavenly sunshine smile 
 Upon the village graves. 
 Strange is this little room in which I wait, 
 With its old table, rough with rustic names. 
 T is summer now; instead of blinking flames, 
 Sweet-smelling ferns are hanging o er the grate. 
 With curious eyes I pore 
 Upon the mantel-piece, with precious wares, 
 
INNS. 23 
 
 Glazed Scripture prints in black, lugubrious frames, 
 
 Filled with old Bible lore : 
 
 The whale is casting Jonah on the shore ; 
 
 Pharoah is drowning in the curly wave; 
 
 And to Elijah, sitting at his cave, 
 
 The hospitable ravens fly in pairs, 
 
 Celestial food within their horny beaks ; 
 
 On a slim David, with great pinky cheeks, 
 
 A towered Goliath stares. 
 
 Here will I sit at peace, 
 
 While, piercing through the window s ivy veil, 
 
 A slip of sunshine smites the amber ale ; 
 
 And as the wreaths of fragrant smoke increase, 
 
 I 11 read the letter which came down to-day." * 
 
 As a contrast to this, take Longfellow s "Wayside 
 Inn," at Sudbury, Massachusetts : 
 
 " As ancient is this hostelry 
 As any in the land may be, 
 Built in the old colonial day, 
 When men lived in a grander way, 
 With ampler hospitality; 
 A kind of old Hobgoblin hall, 
 Now somewhat fallen to decay, 
 With weather-stains upon the wall, 
 And stair-ways worn, and crazy doors, 
 And creaking and uneven floors, 
 And chimneys huge and tiled and tall. 
 A region of repose it seems, 
 A place of slumber and of dreams, 
 Remote among the wooded hills ! " 
 
 The facilities of modern travel and its vast increase, 
 while they have modified the characteristic features of 
 the inn, have given it new economical importance ; and 
 not long since, the American hotel-system was earnestly 
 discussed in the English and French journals as a sub 
 stitute for the European : the method by which all the 
 wants of the traveller are supplied at an established 
 * Alexander Smith. 
 
24 INNS. 
 
 price per diem, instead of the details of expense and 
 the grades of accommodation in vogue abroad. In 
 Paris, London, some of the West India Islands, and 
 elsewhere, the American hotel has, in a measure, suc 
 ceeded. But it is in its historical and social aspect that 
 we find the interest of the subject ; as regards conven 
 ience, economy, and comfort, the question can perhaps 
 only be met in an eclectic spirit, each country having its 
 own merits and demerits as regards the provision for 
 public entertainment of man and beast. The inns of 
 Switzerland will bear the test of reminiscence better 
 than those of any other part of the Continent : the soli 
 tary system of the English inn is objectionable ; discom 
 fort is proverbial in Havana hotels ; the garden-tables 
 and music in the German hostels are pleasant social fea 
 tures ; and, with all their frugal resources, the farm-sta 
 tions in Norway boast the charm of a candid and naive 
 hospitality which sweetens the humble porridge of the 
 weary traveller. " It is scarcely credible," says an " un 
 protected female," in her record of travel there, " that 
 such Preadamite simplicity of heart still exists on 
 earth." In pictures and diaries, the German landlord 
 is always light-haired, and holds a beer tankard ; and the 
 hotels in the British West Indies, according to a recent 
 traveller, are always kept by " fat, middle-aged, colored 
 ladies, who have no husbands." Rose, writing to Hal- 
 lam from Italy, hints the union of romantic and classi 
 cal associations which some of the inns conserve and 
 inspire ; that of Civita Castellana, he remarks, " is on 
 the classic route from Rome to Florence, and is a type 
 of the large Italian inns such as one finds in romances : 
 balconies, terraces, flowers of the south, large courts 
 open for post-chaises, nothing is wanting." When 
 
INNS. 25 
 
 Heine revisited Germany, he tells us how the conserv 
 ative habits of his father-land newly impressed him 
 in the familiar and old-fashioned dishes, " sour-krout, 
 stuffed chestnuts in green cabbages, stockfish swimming 
 in butter, eggs and bloaters, sausages, fieldfares, roasted 
 angels with apple-sauce, and goose." 
 
 In mediaeval times, in that part of Europe, from the 
 isolation of inns they were emphatically the places to find 
 an epitome of the age : soldiers, monks, noblemen, and 
 peasants surrounded the same stove, shared the contents 
 of the same pot, and often the straw which formed their 
 common bed ; the proverb was, " inns are not built for 
 one ; " the salutations, benisons, and curses, the motley 
 guests, the lack of privacy, the trinkgeld and stirrup-cup, 
 the murders and amours, the converse and precautions, 
 the orgies and charities thereof, were each and all char 
 acteristic of the unsettled state of society, the diversi 
 ties of rank, the common necessities, and the priestly, 
 military, and boorish elements of life and manners. 
 But the rarity of any public house, as we understand 
 the term, is more characteristic of those times than the 
 incongruous elements therein occasionally exhibited. 
 " There seem," says an eminent historian, " to have 
 been no inns or houses of entertainment for the recep 
 tion of travellers during the Middle Ages. This is a 
 proof of the little intercourse which took place between 
 different nations. The duty of hospitality was so neces 
 sary in that state of society that it was enforced by stat 
 utes ; it abounded, and secured the stranger a kind re 
 ception under any roof where he chose to take shelter." * 
 
 On first entering an inn at Havre de Grace, I found 
 the landlady taking leave of the captain of an Ameri- 
 * Prescott s Robertson s Charhs Fifth, vol. 1, p. 355. 
 
26 INNS. 
 
 can packet-ship ; he had paid his bill, not without some 
 remonstrance, and his smiling hostess, with true French 
 tact, was now in the act of bidding so pleasing a fare 
 well as would lure him to take up his quarters there on 
 the return voyage. She had purchased at the market 
 a handsome bouquet and tied it up jauntily with rib 
 bons. The ruddy sea-dog face of the captain was half 
 turned aside with a look of impatience at the idea of 
 being inveigled into good-nature after her extortion ; but 
 she, not a whit discouraged, held her flowers up to him, 
 and smiling, with her fair hand on his rough dread- 
 naught overcoat, turned full to his eye a sprig of yel 
 low blossom, and with irresistible naivete whispered, 
 " Mon cher Capitaine, c est immortel comme mon attach 
 ment pour vous" It was a little scene worthy of Sterne, 
 and brought the agreeableness and the imposition of 
 the innkeepers of the Continent at once before me. 
 One evening in Florence I was sent for by a country 
 man who lodged at the most famous hotel in the city, 
 and found him perambulating his apartment under 
 strong excitement of mind. He told me, with much 
 emotion, than the last time he had visited Florence was 
 twenty years before with his young and beautiful wife. 
 The belle of the season that winter was the Marchesa 
 
 . She gave a magnificent ball, and in the midst 
 
 of the festivities took the young American couple into 
 her boudoir and sung to them with her harp ; her vocal 
 talent was celebrated, but it was a rare favor to hear 
 her, and this attention was prized accordingly. " You 
 know," added my friend, " that I came abroad to re 
 cover the health which grief at my wife s death so 
 seriously impaired ; and you know how unavailing has 
 proved the experiment. On my arrival here, I inquired 
 
INNS. 27 
 
 for the best inn, and was directed hither ; upon enter 
 ing this chamber which was assigned me, something in 
 the frescoes and tiles struck me as familiar ; they awoke 
 the most vivid associations, and at last I remembered 
 that this is the very room to which the beautiful Mar- 
 chesa brought us to hear her sing on that memorable 
 evening; the family are dispersed, and her palace is 
 rented for a hotel ; hence this coincidence." 
 
 Among the minor local associations to be enjoyed at 
 Rome, not the least common and suggestive are those 
 which belong to the old Bear Inn where Montaigne 
 lodged. Not only the vicissitudes but the present for 
 tunes of European towns are indicated by the inns. I 
 arrived at ancient Syracuse at sunset on a spring after 
 noon, and dismounted at an inn that looked like an epis 
 copal residence or government house, so lofty and broad 
 were the dimensions of the edifice ; but not a person 
 was visible in the spacious court, and as I wandered up 
 the staircases and along the corridors, no sound but 
 the echo of my steps was audible. At length a meagre 
 attendant emerged from an obscure chamber and ex 
 plained that this grand pile was erected in anticipation 
 of the American squadron in the Mediterranean mak 
 ing their winter quarters in the harbor of Syracuse : a 
 project abandoned at the earnest request of the King 
 of Naples, who dreaded tbe example of a republican 
 marine in his realm ; and then so rarely did a visitor 
 appear, that the poor lonely waiter was thrown into a fit 
 of surprise, from which he did not recover during my 
 stay. 
 
 To the stranger no more characteristic evidence of 
 our material prosperity and gregarious habits can be 
 imagined than that afforded by the large, showy, and 
 
28 INNS. 
 
 thronged hotels of our principal cities. They are epit 
 omes of the whole country ; at a glance they reveal the 
 era of upholstery, the love of ostentation, the tendency 
 to live in herds, and the absence of a subdued and har 
 monious tone of life and manners. The large mirrors 
 and bright carpets which decorate these resorts are en 
 tirely incongruous the brilliancy of the sunshine and 
 the stimulating nature of the climate demands within 
 doors, a predominance of neutral tints to relieve and 
 freshen the eye and nerves. It is characteristic of that 
 devotion to the immediate which De Tocqueville ascribes 
 to republican institutions, that these extravagant and 
 gregarious establishments in our country are so often 
 named for living celebrities in the mercantile, literary, 
 and political world. This custom gives those who en 
 joy this distinction while living " the freedom of the 
 house." It greatly amused the friends of our modest 
 Geoffrey Crayon, when, encouraged by his affectionate 
 kinswoman and his friend Kennedy to " travel on his 
 capital," under the pressure of necessity, he once thus 
 desperately claimed the privileges of his honored name, 
 wherefrom his sensitive nature habitually shrunk. " I 
 arrived in town safe," he writes from New York to his 
 niece, " and proceeded to the Irving House, where I 
 asked for a room. What party had I with me ? None. 
 Had I not a lady with me ? No ; I was alone. I saw 
 my chance was a bad one, and I feared to be put in a 
 dungeon as I was on a former occasion. I bethought 
 myself of your advice ; and so, when the book was pre 
 sented to me, wrote my name at full length from 
 Sunnyside. I was ushered into an apartment on the 
 first floor, furnished with rosewood, yellow damask, and 
 pier-glasses, with a bed large enough for an alderman 
 
INNS. 29 
 
 and his wife, a bath-room adjoining. In a word, I was 
 accommodated completely en prince. The negro wait 
 ers all call me by name, and vie with each other in 
 waiting on me. The chambermaid hasjbeen at uncom 
 mon pains to put my room in first-rate order ; and, if 
 she had been pretty, I absolutely should have kissed 
 her; but as she was not, I shall reward her in sor 
 did coin. Henceforth I abjure all modesty with hotel- 
 keepers, and will get as much for my name as it 
 will fetch. Kennedy calls it travelling on one s capi 
 tal." 
 
 The extravagant scale upon which these establish 
 ments are conducted is another national feature, at once 
 indicating the comparative ease with which money is 
 acquired in the New World, and the passion that exists 
 here for keeping up appearances. It would be useful 
 to investigate the influence of hotel-life in this country 
 upon manners : whatever may be the result as to the 
 coarser sex, its effect upon women and children is 
 lamentable, lowering the tone, compromising the taste, 
 and yielding incessant and promiscuous excitement to 
 the love of admiration; the change in the very nature 
 of young girls, thus exposed to an indiscriminate crowd, 
 is rapid and complete ; modesty and refinement are 
 soon lost in over-consciousness and moral hardihood. 
 But perhaps the most singular trait in the American 
 hotel, is the deference paid to the landlord : instead of 
 being the servant of the public, he is apparently the 
 master ; and a traveller who makes the now rapid tran 
 sition from a New York to a Liverpool hotel, might 
 think himself among a different race ; the courteous 
 devotion, almost subserviency in the one case, being 
 in total contrast with the nonchalance and even despot- 
 
30 INNS. 
 
 ism of the other. The prosperous security of the host 
 with us, and the dependence of his guest for any choice 
 of accommodation, is doubtless the most obvious reason 
 for this anomaly ; but it is also, in a degree at least, to 
 be referred to the familiarity with which even gentle 
 men treat the innkeepers ; to use a vulgar phrase, they 
 descend to curry favor and minister to the self-esteem 
 of a class of men in whom it is already pampered 
 beyond endurable bounds ; no formula of republican 
 equality justifies, this behavior ; and it usually reacts 
 unfavorably for the self-respect of the individual. Some 
 foreigner remarked, with as much truth as irony, that 
 our aristocracy consisted of hotel-keepers and steam 
 boat-captains ; and appearances certainly warrant the 
 sarcasm. It was not always thus. When Washington 
 lodged at the old Walton Mansion-House, which had 
 been converted to an inn, the old negro who kept it was 
 the ideal of a host ; an air of dignity as well as comfort 
 pervaded the house ; through the open upper half of 
 the broad door played the sunshine upon the sanded 
 threshold ; at the head of the long easy staircase ticked 
 the old-fashioned clock ; full-length portraits, by Cop 
 ley, graced the parlor-wall ; the old Dutch stoop looked 
 the emblem of hospitality ; no angular figures were 
 ranged to squirt tobacco-juice ; no pert clerks lorded it 
 from behind a mahogany barricade ; but the glow of the 
 windows at night, the alacrity of the sedate waiter, the 
 few but respectable guests, and the prolonged meals, of 
 which but two or three partook, gave to the inn the 
 character of a home. Lafayette wrote to his wife in 
 1777, while descanting with enthusiasm upon the sim 
 plicity of manners in this country : " The very inns are 
 different from those in Europe ; the host and hostess sit 
 
INNS. 31 
 
 at table with you and do the honors of a comfortable 
 meal ; and on going away, you pay your fare without 
 higgling." An English traveller, who visited this coun 
 try soon after the Revolutionary War, speaks of the 
 "uncomplying temper of the landlords of the country 
 inns in America." " They will not," says another, "bear 
 the treatment we too often give ours at home. They 
 feel themselves in some degree independent of travel 
 lers, as all of them have other occupations to follow ; 
 nor will they put themselves into a bustle on your 
 account ; but, with good language, they are very civil, 
 and will accommodate you as well as they can. The 
 general custom of having two or three beds in a room 
 to be sure is very disagreeable ; it arises from the great 
 increase of travelling within the last few years, and the 
 smallness of their houses, which were not built for 
 houses of entertainment." 
 
 It is a most significant indication of our devotion to 
 the external, that ovations at which the legislators of 
 the land discourse, and eulogies that fill the columns of 
 the best journals, celebrate the opening of a new tav 
 ern, or the retirement of a publican. The confined 
 and altitudinous cells into which so many of the com 
 placent victims of these potentates are stowed, and 
 their habits of subserviency to the rules of the house 
 which are perked up on their chamber-walls, induced 
 a Sicilian friend of mine to complain that sojourners 
 at inns in this land of liberty were treated like friars. 
 The gorgeous luxury of the metropolitan inns is re 
 versed in the small towns, where, without the pictur 
 esque situation, we often find the discomfort of the 
 Continent. 
 
 Under date of March 4, 1634, John Winthrop, first 
 
32 INNS. 
 
 governor of Massachusetts, records in his journal, 
 " Samuel Cole set up the first house of common enter 
 tainment " in Boston. According to the famous lit 
 erary ruse of Irving and Wirt, Knickerbocker s face 
 tious history and the " Letters of a British Spy " were 
 found in the inn-chamber of a departed traveller. Of 
 old, the American inn, or tavern as it was called, sub 
 served a great variety of purposes. One of New Eng 
 land s local historians says : 
 
 " The taverns of olden time were the places of resort 
 for gentlemen ; and one consequence was, good suppers 
 and deep drinking. They also performed the office of 
 newspapers. The names posted on the several tavern- 
 doors were a sufficient notice for jurors. Saturday 
 afternoon was the time when men came from all quar 
 ters of the town to see and hear all they could at the 
 tavern, where politics and theology, trade, barter, and 
 taxes, were all mixed up together over hot flip and 
 strong toddy. 
 
 " The taverns served also as places for marketing. 
 During most of the winter they were filled every night 
 with farmers who had brought their pork, butter, grain, 
 seeds, and poultry to market. Most families supplied 
 themselves through these opportunities, and purchased 
 the best articles at moderate prices. 
 
 " Landlords could not grow rich very fast on country 
 custom. The travelling farmer brought all his food for 
 himself in a box, and that for his horse in a bag. He 
 therefore paid only twelve cents for his bed, and as 
 much for horse-keeping. It was not uncommon to have 
 six days expenses amount only to two dollars. Auc 
 tions, theatricals, legerdemain, caucuses, military drills, 
 balls, and dancing-schools, all came in place at the tav- 
 
INNS. 33 
 
 ern. Especially, sleigh-riding parties found them con 
 venient." * 
 
 " You will not go into one," wrote Brissot in 1788, 
 " without meeting with neatness, decency, and dignity. 
 The table is served by a maiden well-dressed and 
 pretty, by a pleasant mother whose age has not effaced 
 the agreeableness of her features, and by men who 
 have that air of respectability which is inspired by the 
 idea of equality, and are not ignoble and base, like the 
 greater part of our own tavern-keepers." In 1792, 
 AYansey, the commercial traveller already cited, tells us 
 he lodged at the Bunch of Grapes, in Boston, and 
 paid five shillings a day, including a pint of Madeira 
 He had an interview with Citizen Genet and Dr. Priest 
 ley at the Tontine near the Battery in New York ; and 
 saw Frenchmen with tricolor cockades at the Indian 
 Queen on the Boston road ; trivial data for his jour 
 nal then, and yet now suggestive of the political and 
 economical condition of the land, whereof even tavern 
 bills and company are no inadequate test. A sagacious 
 reminiscent informs us that " the taverns of Boston 
 were the original business Exchanges : they combined 
 the Counting-house, the Exchange-office, the Reading- 
 room, and the Bank ; each represented a locality. To 
 the Lamb Tavern, called by the sailors sheep s baby, 
 people went to see a man from Dedham it was the 
 resort of Norfolk County ; the old Eastern Stage-House 
 in Ann Street, was frequented by down-easters, cap 
 tains of vessels, formerly from the Penobscot and Ken- 
 nebec ; there were to be seen groups of sturdy men 
 seated round an enormous fireplace, chalking down 
 the price of bark and lumber, and skippers bringing in 
 
 * Brooks s History of Bedford. 
 3 
 
34 INNS. 
 
 a vagrant tarpaulin to sign the articles. To the Ex 
 change Coffee-House resorted the nabobs of Essex 
 County ; here those aristocratic eastern towns, New- 
 buryport and Portsmouth, were represented by ship 
 owners and ship-builders, merchants of the first class. 
 Dealers in butter and cheese went to the City Tavern in 
 Brattle Street a favorite sojourn of members of the 
 General Court, its court-yard crowded with teams 
 loaded with the best pork from Vermont and Western 
 Massachusetts, and the wooden notions of Yankee 
 rustics. The last of the old Boston taverns was the 
 once famous Elm-Street House, a rendezvous of stage 
 coaches, teams, and transient boarders, which was kept 
 up in the old style until fairly drawn from the field by 
 modern improvements. " Indeed, this slight mention 
 of the functions* and fortunes of inns in the New Eng 
 land metropolis, hints, more than a volume of statistics, 
 the process of her growth and the cause of her social 
 transitions ; locomotion has completely done away with 
 the local affinities of the past, and emigration modified 
 the individuality of class and character which of old 
 gave such special interest to the inn ; we are too grega 
 rious, luxurious, and hurried to indulge in these primi 
 tive expedients. 
 
 A-t the old Raleigh tavern in Virginia, not long since 
 destroyed by fire, Patrick Henry lodged when he made 
 his memorable debut, as a patriotic orator, in the House 
 of Burgesses ; and it was in a chamber of this inn that 
 he prepared his speeches, and that the great leading 
 men of the Revolution, in that State, assembled to con 
 sult. Some of the inns in Canada are named for the 
 Indian chiefs mentioned in the earliest record of ex 
 ploration by Cartier. At the Frauncis tavern in New 
 
INNS. 35 
 
 York, "Washington took leave of his officers, and the 
 " Social Club " still famous in the annals of the city 
 met. Military men appreciate good inns ; Washing 
 ton wrote to Frauncis, and Lafayette praised him. One 
 of the latest of memorable associations connected with 
 the inns of New York is that which identifies the City 
 Hotel with the naval victories of the last war with Eng 
 land. No one who listened to the musical voice of the 
 late Ogden Hoffman, as he related to the St. Nicholas 
 Society, at their annual banquet, his personal memories 
 of that favorite hotel, will fail to realize the possible 
 dramatic and romantic interest which may attach to 
 such a resort, even in our unromantic times and in the 
 heart of a commercial city. Visions of naval heroes, 
 of belles in the dance, witty coteries, and distinguished 
 strangers, political crises and social triumphs flitted 
 vividly before the mind as the genial reminiscent called 
 up the men, women, fetes, and follies there known. A 
 recent English traveller in the United States, in allud 
 ing to the resemblance he discovered to what was fa 
 miliar at home, speaks of one relic which has caught 
 the eye of few as suggestive of the old country. 
 " There is," he observes, " in .Baltimore an old inn, with 
 an old sign, standing at the corner of Eutaw and Frank 
 lin streets, just such as may still be seen in the towns 
 of Somersetshire ; and before it are to be seen old 
 wagons, covered and soiled and battered, about to return 
 from the city to the country, just as the wagons do in 
 our own agricultural counties." * 
 
 How near to us the record of " baiting at an inn " 
 brings the renowned ! " After dinner," writes "Wash 
 ington in the diary of his second visit to New England, 
 * A. Trollope. 
 
86 INNS. 
 
 " through frequent showers, we proceeded to the tavern 
 of a Mrs. Haviland, at Rye, who keeps a very neat and 
 decent inn." Mendelssohn, ideal as was his tone of 
 mind, wrote zestfully to his sister : "A neat, civil 
 Frenchwoman keeps the inn on the summit of the 
 Simplon ; and it would not be easy to describe the 
 sensation of satisfaction caused by its thrifty cleanli 
 ness, which is nowhere to be found in Italy." Lock- 
 hart, when an assiduous Oxford scholar, found his 
 choicest recreation in " a quiet row on the river, and a 
 fish-dinner at Godstow ; " and there is not one of his 
 surviving associates, says his biographer, " who fails to 
 look back at this moment, with melancholy pleasure 
 on the brilliant wit, the merry song, and the grave dis 
 cussion which gave to the sanded parlor of the village 
 ale-house the air of the Palaestra at Tusculum, or the 
 Amaltheum of Cumae." 
 
 It is impossible to conceive any house of entertain 
 ment more dreary than some of the stage-houses, as 
 they were called in New England : the bar-room with 
 an odor of stale rum, the parlor with its everlasting 
 sampler over the fireplace, weeping willow, tombstone, 
 and inscription ; the peacock s feathers or asparagus 
 boughs in the chimney as if in cheerful mockery, the 
 looking-glass that reflects every feature awry, the cross- 
 lights of the windows, inquisitive loungers, pie-crust 
 like leather, and cheese of mollified oak, all defied 
 both the senses and digestion, and made the crack of 
 the coachman s whip a joyful alarum. 
 
 The inns near famous localities identify themselves to 
 the memory with the most attractive objects of travel ; 
 thus the inn, so rural and neat, at Edensor, with the 
 marvels of Chatsworth ; the Red Horse at Stratford, 
 
INNS. 37 
 
 with Shakspeare s tomb ; and the Nag s Head, at Uxo- 
 ter, with Johnson s penance. It was while " waiting for 
 the train," at an inn of Coventry-, that Tennyson so 
 gracefully paraphrased the legend of Godiva ; and the 
 sign of the " Flitch " is associated with the famous be 
 quest of the traditional patron of conjugal harmony. 
 " A wayside inn at which we tarried, in Derbyshire, I 
 fancied must have sheltered Moreland or Gainsborough, 
 when caught in the rain, while sketching in that region. 
 The landlady had grenadier proportions and red cheeks ; 
 a few peasants were drinking ale beneath a roof whence 
 depended flitches of bacon, and with the frocks, the 
 yellow hair, and the full, ruddy features we see in their 
 pictures ; the windows of the best room had little dia 
 mond-shaped panes, in which sprigs of holly were stuck. 
 There were several ancient engravings in quaint-looking 
 frames on the wall ; the chairs and desk were of dark- 
 veined wood that shone with the polish of many a year s 
 friction ; a great fire blazed in the chimney, and the 
 liquor was served in vessels only seen on this other side 
 of the water, in venerable prints. It was a hostel where 
 you would not be surprised to hear the crack of Tony 
 Lumpkin s whip, or to see the Vicar of Wake field rush 
 in, in search of Olivia, an ale-house, that you knew 
 at once, had often given " an hour s importance to the 
 poor man s heart," and where Parson Adams or Squire 
 Western would have felt themselves entirely at home." * 
 Goldsmith has genially celebrated the humble, rustic 
 inn in the " Deserted Village," and his own habits con 
 firmed the early predilection. " His favorite festivity," 
 says one of his biographers, " his holiday of holidays, 
 was to have three or four intimate friends to breakfast 
 
 * A Month in England. 
 
38 INNS. 
 
 with him at ten, to start at eleven for a walk through 
 the fields to Highbury Barn, where they dined at an 
 ordinary frequented by authors, templars, and retired 
 citizens, for ten pence a head ; to return at six to 
 White s, Conduit Street, and to end the evening with 
 a supper at the Grecian or Temple Exchange Coffee- 
 House ; the whole expense of the day s fete never 
 exceeded a crown, for which the party obtained " good 
 air, good living, and good conversation ; " he, Gold 
 smith, however," adds Forster, " would leave a tav 
 ern if his jokes were not rewarded with a roar." 
 One of Ben Jonson s best comedies is the " New Inn," 
 and Southey s most popular ballad is "Mary of the 
 Inn." Chaucer makes his Canterbury pilgrims set out 
 from an inn at Southwark. We all remember the inns 
 described by Scott. Elliston s "larks" at the White 
 Hart and Red Cow were comical episodes, that read 
 like a vaudeville. " She Stoops to Conquer," " L Au- 
 berge Pleine," an "The Double-Bedded Room," are 
 a few of the countless standard plays of which an inn 
 is the scene. " What befell them at the Inn," is the 
 heading of Don Quixote s best chapters, for the knight 
 always mistook inns for castles. Grammont s adven 
 tures frequently boast the same scene, and it was " in 
 the worst room of the worst inn " that the accomplished 
 and dissolute Villiers died. Foote frequented the Bed 
 ford in Covent Garden, and old Macklin doffed the 
 buskin for the apron and carver. Philosophers, from 
 Horace, at the inn of Brundusium, to Montaigne, noting 
 the furniture, dishes, and prices at the inns where he 
 rested on his " Journey into Italy," have found this a 
 most suggestive and characteristic theme. 
 
 In German university towns, the professors frequent 
 
INNS. 39 
 
 the Hereditary Prince, or some other inn at evening, 
 to drink beer, smoke pipes, and discuss metaphysics. 
 The jocose reproof which Lamb administers to the sen 
 timental donor of " Coelebs " was 
 
 " If ever I marry a wife, 
 
 I 11 many a landlord s daughter, 
 And sit in the bar all day, 
 And drink cold brandy and water." 
 
 Quaintly pious is the allusion of John Winthrop 
 in a letter more than two centuries old to his 
 father, the first governor of Massachusetts, when the 
 project of emigration was about to be realized : " For 
 the business of New England, I can say no other thing 
 but that I believe confidently that the whole disposition 
 thereof is from the Lord ; and for myself, I have seen 
 so much of the vanity of the world that I esteem no 
 more of the diversities of countries, than as so many 
 inns, whereof the traveller that hath lodged in the best 
 or in" the worst findeth no difference when he cometh to 
 his journey s end." * 
 
 It has been said of Socrates that he " looked upon 
 himself as a traveller who halts at the public inn of the 
 Earth." " Was I in a condition to stipulate with 
 death," writes Sterne, " I should certainly declare 
 against submitting to it before my friends, and therefore 
 I never seriously think upon the mode and the manner 
 of this great catastrophe, but I constantly draw the cur 
 tain across it with this wish, that the Disposer of all 
 things may so order it, that it happen not to me in my 
 own house, but rather in some decent inn." Aaron 
 Burr realized in a forlorn manner Yorick s desire when, 
 
 * Life and Letters of John Winthrop,-by Robert C. Winthrop, 
 p. 306. 
 
40 INNS. 
 
 after years of social ostracism, he expired at a tavern 
 on Staten Island. 
 
 The beautiful significance of the first incident in the 
 life of Christ is seldom realized, offering, as it does, so 
 wonderful and affecting a contrast between the hum 
 blest mortal vicissitude in the outward circumstances of 
 birth and the highest glory of a spiritual advent : they 
 " laid him in a rnanger because there was no room for 
 them in the inn." It was to an inn that the Good Sa 
 maritan carried the traveller who had " fallen among 
 thieves." Joseph s brethren rested at an inn on their 
 way to Egypt; and it was at the Three Taverns, in 
 the suburbs of Rome, that Paul was met by the breth 
 ren. Venerable as are these allusions in sacred history, 
 the visible token of the antiquity of inns that strikes 
 our imagination most vividly are the wine-stains on the 
 marble counter in Pompeii. 
 
 Falstaff absolutely requires the frame of an inn to 
 make his portrait intelligible, with the biusam figure of 
 Mrs. Quickly in the background ; and it may safely be as 
 serted that no public house of entertainment has afforded 
 such world-wide mirth as the Boar s Head, Eastcheap. 
 The freaks of Tony Lumpkin have their natural scope 
 at an ale-house ; and Goldoni s Locandiera is a fine col 
 loquial piece of real life ; even the most eloquent of 
 England s historians cites the superior inns that existed 
 in the range of travel there, during the early part of the 
 seventeenth century, as a reliable evidence of the pros 
 perity and civil advancement of the nation. These inns 
 are, in fact, the original retreats for " freedom and com 
 fort," whence our pleasant ideas on the subject are de 
 rived ; they still exist in some of the rural districts of 
 the kingdom ; and the cleanliness, good fare, and retire- 
 
INNS. 41 
 
 ment of the old-fashioned English inn, as well as the 
 freshness and urbanity of the host, wholly justify their 
 renown. The exigencies of the climate, and the domes 
 tic habits of the people, explain this superiority ; where 
 so much enjoyment is sought within doors, and the na 
 tional character is reserved and individual, better pro 
 vision is naturally made both for the physical well-being 
 and the privacy of the wayfarer than is required under 
 less inclement skies, and among a more vivacious and 
 social race. 
 
 A most characteristic note of Boswell s is that which 
 records his idol s hearty encomiums on a tavern, while 
 dining at one in London ; both the man and the place 
 then combined to realize the perfection of the idea, for 
 that dim and multitudinous city invites to secluded con 
 viviality ; and that irritable, dogmatic, yet epicurean sage 
 required the liberty of speech, an absolute deference, 
 and the solid physical comforts so easily obtained at a 
 London tavern. There he could make "inarticulate, 
 animal noises over his food " without restraint ; there he 
 could bring only such companions as would bear to be 
 contradicted, and there he could refresh body and mind 
 without fear of intrusion from a printer s devil or needy 
 author. Bores and duns away, a good listener by, sur 
 rounded with pleasant viands and a cheerful blaze, a 
 man so organized and situated might, without extrava 
 gance, call a tavern-chair the throne of human felicity, 
 and quote Shenstone s praise of inns with rapture. Be 
 neath this jovial appreciation, however, there lurks a 
 sad inference ; it argues a homeless lot, for lonely or 
 ungenial must be the residence, contrast with which 
 renders an inn so attractive ; and we must bear in mind 
 that the winsome aspect they wear in English literature 
 
42 INNS. 
 
 is based on their casual and temporary enjoyment ; it is 
 as recreative, not abiding places that they are usually 
 introduced ; and, in an imaginative point of view, our 
 sense of the appropriate is gratified by these landmarks 
 of our precarious destiny, for we are but " pilgrims and 
 sojourners on the earth." Jeremy Taylor compared 
 human life to an inn, and Archbishop Leighton used 
 to say he would prefer to die in one. 
 
AUTHORS. 
 
 " High is our calling, friend ! Creative Art, 
 Whether the instrument of words she use, 
 Or pencil pregnant with ethereal hues, 
 Demands the service of a mind and heart, 
 Though sensitive, yet in their weakest part 
 Heroically fashioned to infuse 
 Faith in the whispers of the lonely muse, 
 While the whole world seems adverse to desert." 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 |OME of the fondest illusions of our student- 
 life and companionship were based on liter 
 ary fame. The only individuals, of the male 
 gender, who then seemed to us (indiscriminate and 
 mutual lovers of literature) worthy of admiration and 
 sympathy, were authors. Our ideal of felicity was the 
 consciousness of distributing ideas of vital significance, 
 and causing multitudes to share a sentiment born in a 
 lonely heart. The most real and permanent sway of 
 which man is capable we imagined that of ruling and 
 cheering the minds of others through the medium of 
 literature. Our herbals were made up of flowers from 
 the graves of authors ; their signatures were our only 
 autographs. The visions that haunted us were little 
 else than a boundless panorama that displayed scenes 
 in their lives. We used continually to see, in fancy, 
 Petrarch beside a fountain, under a laurel, with the 
 sweet penseroso look visible in his portraits ; Dante in 
 the corridor of a monastery, his palm laid on a friar s 
 
44 AUTHORS. 
 
 breast, and his stern features softened as he craved 
 the only blessing life retained for him peace ; rustic 
 Burns, with his dark eye proudly meeting the curious 
 stare of an Edinburgh coterie ; Camoens breasting the 
 waves with the Lusiad between his teeth ; Johnson 
 appalling Boswell with his emphatic " Sir ; " Milton 
 his head like that of a saint encircled with rays seated 
 at the organ ; Shakspeare walking serenely, and with 
 a benign and majestic countenance, beside the Avon ; 
 Steele jocosely presiding at table with liveried bailiffs 
 to pass the dishes ; the bright face of Pope looming up 
 from his deformed body in the cool twilight of a grotto ; 
 Voltaire s sneer withering an auditor through a cloud 
 of snuff; Moliere reading his new comedy to the old 
 woman ; Landor standing in the ilex path of a Tuscan 
 villa ; Savage asleep on a bulk at midnight in one of 
 the London parks; Dryden seated in oracular dignity 
 in his coffee-house arm-chair ; Metastasio comparing 
 notes with a handsome prima donna at Vienna ; Alfieri 
 with a magnificent steed in the midst of the Alps ; 
 Swift stealing an interview with Miss Johnson, or 
 chuckling over a chapter of Gulliver : the funeral pyre 
 of Shelley lighting up a solitary crag on the shores of 
 the Mediterranean ; and Byron, with marble brow and 
 rolling eye, guiding the helm of a storm-tossed boat on 
 the Lake of Geneva ! Such were a few only of the 
 tableaux that haunted our imaginations. We echoed 
 heartily Akenside s protest against the sermon on Glory : 
 
 " Come, then, tell me, sage divine, 
 
 Is it an offence to own 
 That our bosoms e er incline 
 
 Towards immortal glory s throne ? 
 For with me nor pomp nor pleasure, 
 Bourbon s might, Braganza s treasure, 
 
AUTHORS. 45 
 
 So can fancy s dream rejoice, 
 So conciliate reason s choice, 
 As one approving word of her impartial voice. 
 
 " If to spurn at noble praise 
 
 Be the passport to thy heaven ; 
 Follow thou those gloomy ways ; 
 No such law to me was given ; 
 Nor, I trust, shall I deplore me, 
 Faring like my friends before me ; 
 Nor a holier place desire 
 Than Timoleon s arms acquire, 
 And Tully s curule chair, and Milton s golden lyre." 
 
 In our passion for native authors we revered the 
 memory of Brockden Brown, and detected in his ro 
 mantic studies the germs of the supernatural school 
 of fiction ; we nearly suffocated ourselves in the crowded 
 gallery of the old church at Cambridge, listening to 
 Sprague s Phi Beta Kappa poem ; and often watched 
 the spiritual figure of the " Idle Man," and gazed on 
 the white locks of our venerable painter, with his 
 " Monaldi " and " Paint King " vividly remembered. 
 We wearied an old friend of Brainard s by making him 
 repeat anecdotes of the poet ; and have spent hours in 
 the French coffee-house which Halleck once frequented, 
 eliciting from him criticisms, anecdotes, or recitations 
 of Campbell. New Haven people that came in our 
 way were obliged to tell all they could remember of 
 the vagaries of Percival, and the elegant hospitality of 
 Hillhouse. We have followed Judge Hopkinson through 
 the rectangular streets of his native metropolis, with 
 the tune of " Hail Columbia " humming in our ears ; 
 and kept a curious eye on Howard Payne through a 
 whole evening party, fondly cognizant of " Sweet 
 Home." Beaumont and Fletcher were our Damon and 
 Pythias. The memorable occurrence of our childhood 
 
46 AUTHORS. 
 
 was the advent of a new Waverley novel, and of our 
 youth a fresh Edinburgh Review. We loved plum 
 color because poor Goldy was vain of his coat of that 
 hue ; and champagne, partly because Schiller used to 
 drink it when writing ; we saved orange-peel because 
 the author of the " Rambler " liked it ; and put our 
 selves on a course of tar-water, in imitation of Berke 
 ley. Roast-pig had a double relish for us after we had 
 read Elia s dissertation thereon. We associated p - old- 
 
 O 
 
 fish and china jars with Gray, skulls with Dr. Young, 
 the leap of a sturgeon in the Hudson with Drake s 
 " Culprit Fay," pine-trees with Ossian, stained-glass 
 windows with Keats (who set one in an immortal verse), 
 fortifications with Uncle Toby, literary breakfasts with 
 Rogers, water-fowl with Bryant, foundlings with Rous 
 seau, letter-writing with Madame de Sevigne, bread 
 and butter with the author of Werther, daisies with 
 Burns, and primroses with Wordsworth. Mrs. Thrale s 
 acceptance of Piozzi was a serious trouble to our minds ; 
 and whether " little Burney " would be happy after her 
 marriage with the noble emigre was a problem that 
 made us really anxious until the second part of her 
 Diary was procurable and relieved our solicitude. An 
 unpatriotic antipathy to the Pilgrim Fathers was quelled 
 by the melodious paean of Mrs. Hemans ; and we kept 
 vigils before a portrait of Mrs. Norton, at an artist s 
 studio, with a chivalric desire to avenge her wrongs. 
 
 This enthusiasm for authors was not altogether the 
 result of a literary idiosyncrasy or local influences ; it 
 grew out of a consciousness of personal obligation. 
 Mrs. Radcliffe, Miss Porter, and Maturin were the clan 
 destine intimates of childhood ; the English poets be 
 came the confidants of youthful sentiment, which met 
 
AUTHORS. 47 
 
 but a cool reception from those by whom we were sur 
 rounded ; and when judgment was enough matured to 
 discriminate the charms of style, a new world opened 
 under the guidance of Mackenzie and Sterne, Lady 
 Montagu and Sir Thomas Browne. Books are en 
 deared, like people, by the force of circumstances ; 
 ideal tendencies, a spirit of inquiry, a thirst for sym 
 pathy, will often drive minds whose environment is 
 uncongenial, to seek therein what is elsewhere denied ; 
 and when, in early life, this resource becomes habitual, 
 it is not surprising that a deep personal feeling should 
 be gradually engendered ; and that we should come to 
 regard favorite authors as the most reliable and dearest 
 of our companions; and this without an inkling of 
 pedantry, or a title to scholarship, but from a thoroughly 
 human impulse intellectually vindicating itself. To 
 such a pitch did the feeling once possess us that we 
 resented any imputation cast upon our chosen authors 
 as if they were actual friends. We honored the critic 
 that defended Bacon ftom the charge of meanness, and 
 longed to applaud his prowess ; we disliked to admit 
 the evidence that Johnson was dogmatic, and ascribed 
 
 O 
 
 his arrogance to a kind of excusable horse-play ; we 
 contended that Thomson was not lazy, but encouraged 
 ease to escape ambition ; we grew very warm if any one 
 really believed Shelley an atheist, and argued that his 
 faith transcended that of the majority of so-called 
 Christians ; we never would admit that Sterne was 
 heartless, or Moore a toady. We could have embraced 
 Dr. Madden after reading his " Infirmities of Genius," 
 and thought the most brave of Sidney s deeds his " De 
 fence of Poesy." How we longed to go a-fishing with 
 Walton, to walk in Cowley s garden, to see Roscoe s 
 
48 AUTHORS. 
 
 library, to hear Coleridge talk, to feel the grasp of 
 Burns s hand, to drink whiskey with John Wilson, to 
 pat Scott s dogs, to go to the theatre with Lamb, to 
 listen to D Israeli the elder s anecdotes, to look on the 
 lakes of Westmoreland at the side of Wordsworth, and 
 to ride through " our village " in Miss Mitford s pony 
 chaise ! 
 
 The first time we saw an author was an epoch. It 
 was in a church. Some one whispered, just as the ser 
 mon began, that a lady in the next pew was the writer 
 of a moral tale then rated high in our little circle. We 
 did nothing the rest of the service but watch and specu 
 late upon this, to us, wonderful personage. We were 
 disappointed at her every-day look and attire ; there 
 was no fine frenzy in eye or gesture ; there she sat, for 
 all the world like any other lady mild, quiet, and 
 attentive. We were somewhat consoled by noting the 
 extreme paleness of her complexion, and a kind of 
 abstraction in her gaze. Her habiliments were dark 
 and faded ; in fact, as we afterward discovered, she was 
 poor, and her book had been printed by subscription. 
 Thenceforth, for a long time, we imagined all female 
 authors were dressed in black, looked pensive, and had 
 no color. This illusion, however, was banished, some 
 years later, when we were taken to a literary soiree 
 where all the female authors were fat, dressed in a 
 variety of colors, and, instead of being melancholy, had 
 an overwhelming vivacity that made us realize how the 
 type had changed. By degrees we became enlightened, 
 and our authormania cooled. In the first place, we 
 were shocked by seeing a pathetic writer, whose uni 
 versal tribute was tears, in a flashy vest ; then we en 
 countered a psychologist, whose forte was sublimity, 
 
AUTHORS. 49 
 
 enacting the part of a mendicant ; it was our misfortune 
 to conduct a bard, whose highly imaginative strain had 
 often roused our aspirations, home from a party in a 
 state of inebriety ; one author we were prepared to love 
 turned out a disagreeable egotist ; another wearied us 
 by the exactions of his vanity ; a third repelled by in 
 tense affectation, and a fourth by the bitterness of his 
 comments ; one, who had written only the most refined 
 sentiment, proved, upon acquaintance, an acute Yankee ; 
 one who had sung the beauty of Nature we found to 
 be an inveterate dandy ; and another, whose expressed 
 ideas betokened excess of delicacy, grossly violated the 
 ordinary instincts of gentle blood. 
 
 On one of our earliest visits to the illusive 
 
 charm attached to the idea of a female author became, 
 indeed, changed to a horror from which we have never 
 wholly recovered. We were requested to escort a lady to 
 what we understood was an ordinary social gathering. 
 After entering a rather small and somewhat obscure 
 drawing-room, saluting the hostess and taking the prof 
 fered seat, we were struck with the formal arrangement 
 of the company. They formed an unbroken row along 
 the walls of the room, except at one end, at which stood 
 a table surmounted by an astral lamp ; and in an arm 
 chair beside it, in a studied attitude, like one posed for 
 a daguerreotype, sat a woman of masculine proportions, 
 coarse features, and hair between yellow and red, which 
 fell in unkempt masses down each side of her broad 
 face. She was clad in white muslin of an antiquated 
 fashion. We noticed that the guests cast looks, partly 
 of curiosity, partly of uneasiness, upon this Herculean 
 female, who rolled her eyes occasionally, and smiled on 
 us all with a kind of complacent pity. We ventured, 
 
50 AUTHORS. 
 
 amidst the silence, to ask our neighbor the name of the 
 gigantic unknown. She appeared extremely surprised 
 at the very natural question. " Why, don t you know ? 
 We re invited here to meet her, and, I assure you, it is 
 a rare privilege. That is Mrs. Jones, the celebrated au 
 thor of the Affianced One ! " At this moment, a brisk 
 little woman in the corner, with accents slightly tremu 
 lous, and a manner intended to be very nonchalant, 
 broke the uncomfortable hush of the room. " My dear 
 Mrs. Jones," said she, " as one of your earliest and most 
 fervent admirers, allow me to inquire if your health 
 does not suffer from the intense state of feeling in 
 which you evidently write ? " The Amazonian novelist 
 sighed, it was funny to see that operation on so large 
 a scale, and then, in a voice so like the rougher sex 
 that we began to think she was a man in disguise, re 
 plied : " When I reach the catastrophe of my stories, it 
 is not uncommon for me to faint dead away ; and, as I 
 always write in a room by myself, it has happened more 
 than once that I have been found stretched, miserable 
 and cold, on the floor, with a pen grasped in my fingers, 
 and the carpet littered with manuscript blotted with 
 tears ! " The Siddonian pathos of this announcement 
 sent a thrill round the circle ; glances of admiration 
 and pity were thrown upon the self-immolated victim at 
 the shrine of letters, and other inquiries were adven 
 tured, which elicited equally impressive replies, until 
 the psychological throes of authorship particularly in 
 the female gender assumed the aspect of an experi 
 ence combined of epilepsy and nightmare. The tragic 
 egotism of these revelations at length overcame our 
 patience ; and, leaving our fair companion to another s 
 escort, we slipped out of the room. A thunder-storm 
 
AUTHORS. 51 
 
 had arisen ; the rain was pouring down in torrents ; upon 
 the door-steps we encountered a very pale, thin, little 
 man, with an umbrella under his arm and a pair of 
 overshoes in his hands. As we passed, he addressed 
 us in a very meek and frightened voice : " Please, sirs, 
 is there a party here ? " " Yes." " Please, sirs, is the 
 celebrated Mrs. Jones here ? " " Yes." " Please, sirs, do 
 you think I could step into the entry ? I m Mr. Jones !" 
 Hastening to our lodgings in another metropolis at 
 twilight, we passed a dwarf standing on a threshold, who 
 leaped down and caught us by the arm, eagerly pro 
 nouncing our name, and requesting a moment s inter 
 view. He led the way to a little room lighted by a single 
 candle, closed the door, and, with a quivering impa 
 tience of gesture, introduced himself. We remembered 
 his name at once. He was the author of a feeble imita 
 tion of Pope. "We never beheld such an ogre. His lit 
 tle green eyes, ape-like limbs, and expression indicative 
 of sensitiveness and conceit, in that lone and dusky cab 
 inet, were appalling. From a cupboard he took down 
 what we supposed to be a ledger, and, placing it on the 
 table, gave an emphatic slap to the worn brown cover. 
 " There," said he, " is garnered the labor of years. I 
 have heard of your enthusiasm for authors, and I will 
 read you specimens of a poem destined to see the light 
 a twelve-month hence. Listen ! " It was an epic in 
 blank verse, dreary, monotonous, and verbose. His 
 recitation was like the refrain of a bull-frog ; it grated 
 on the ear and made the nerves shrink. The candle 
 burned thick ; the air seemed mephitic, and, in a little 
 while, we were oppressed and fevered as by a glamour 
 cast over our brain ; we looked toward the door and 
 moved uneasily ; the green eye was cast fiercely up from 
 
52 AUTHORS. 
 
 the page, and the tone of the deformed became mali 
 cious. We had heard of his vindictive spirit, and felt 
 as if in the cave of an imp, spellbound and helpless. 
 The complacent hardihood with which he read on made 
 us inwardly frantic. We thought of the fair being who 
 waited for us at a neighboring fireside, of the free air 
 we had quitted, and we writhed under the infliction. 
 Hours passed ; a numb, half-unconscious sense of mis 
 ery stole over us, and still the little demon glared and 
 spouted. " Words, words, words," how detestable 
 seemed they then ! At last, in a fit of desperation, 
 we clapped our hand to our forehead, and murmuring 
 something about a congestive tendency, sprang up, ran 
 through the hall and out the door, and looking back, 
 after hurrying on a few yards, beheld the dwarf, with 
 his enormous book clasped to his heart, gazing after us 
 with the implacable look of a disappointed savage. 
 
 Literature is no more regulated by accident than na 
 ture ; lucky hits and the tricks of pencraft are as tem 
 porary as all other artificial expedients. The authors 
 truly remembered and loved are men in the best sense 
 of the term; the human, the individual informs and 
 stamps their books with an image or an effluence not 
 born of will or mere ingenuity, but emanating from the 
 soul ; and this is the quality that endears and perpetu 
 ates their fame. Hence Goldsmith is beloved, Milton 
 reverenced, and the grave of Burns a " Mecca of the 
 mind." At the commencement of the last century there 
 appeared in the London Gazette the offer of a reward 
 of fifty pounds for the discovery of a certain person thus 
 described : " A middle-sized, spare man, about forty 
 years of age, of a brown complexion and dark brown 
 hair, though he wears a wig, having a hooked nose, a 
 
AUTHORS. 53 
 
 sharp chin, gray eyes, and a large mole near his mouth." 
 This was Daniel De Foe, the victim of partisan injus 
 tice, for whose rights every schoolboy would fight now, 
 out of sheer gratitude to the author of " Robinson Cru 
 soe." Let the writers who debase authorship into a 
 perversion of history, a sickly medium for egotistical 
 rhetoric, a gross theft of antecedent labors, a base vehi 
 cle for spite, or a mechanical knack of book-making, 
 realize that they are foredoomed to contempt, and that 
 character is as little disguised by types as by costume. 
 The genuine author is recognized at once ; his integrity 
 is self-evident. 
 
 It was sunset on the Arno ; far down the river, over 
 mountain ranges where snow yet lingered, a warm tint, 
 half rose and half amethyst, glowed along the horizon ; 
 beside the low parapet that bordered the street, people 
 were loitering back from their afternoon promenade at 
 the Cascine : here a priest, there a soldier, now an Eng 
 lishman on horseback, and then a bearded artist ; some 
 times an oval-faced contadina, the broad brim of whose 
 finely-woven straw hat flapped over eyes of mellow jet ; 
 and again a trig nurse with Saxon ringlets, dragging a 
 petulant urchin along ; and over all these groups and 
 figures was shed the beautiful smile of parting day, and 
 by them, under graceful bridges, flowed the turbid 
 stream, its volume doubled by the spring freshets. I 
 surveyed the panorama from an overhanging balcony, 
 where I stood awaiting the appearance of a friend upon 
 whom I had called. Hearing a movement behind, I 
 stepped back into the salon, and found a middle-aged 
 gentleman seated on a divan near the window. We 
 exchanged salutations, and began to converse. He al 
 luded, in unexceptionable English, to the beauty of the 
 
54 AUTHORS. 
 
 hour. " I come here from Geneva," he said. " There 
 I work ; in Italy I recreate ; and it is wonderful how 
 this country ministers to intellectual repose, even by the 
 very associations it excites. We feel a dream-like re 
 lation with the past, and enter readily, for a time, into 
 the dolce far niente spirit of the people; and then re 
 turn to task-work invigorated and with new zest." 
 There was a bland, self-possessed, and paternal look 
 about this chance acquaintance that insensibly won my 
 confidence and respect. He was the image of a wise 
 and serene maturity. His ample brow, his strong phy 
 sique, his affable manner and kindly eye, suggested ex 
 perience, intelligence, and benignity. I was certain that 
 he was a philosopher of some kind, and fancied him an 
 optimist ; but the utter absence of pretension and the 
 simple candor of his address gave no hint of a man of 
 renown. Accordingly, I soon found myself engaged in 
 a most pleasant, and to me, instructive colloquy. Fol 
 lowing up the hint he had thrown out, I spoke of the 
 difficulty of combining mental toil with health, re 
 verting in my own mind to our American race of schol 
 ars, a majority of whom are confirmed invalids. "Ah ! " 
 said he, " there is vast error on this subject. Be as 
 sured that we were intended for intellectual labor, and 
 that there is a way of making it subservient to health. 
 I will tell you a few rules founded on experfence : Vary 
 the kind of work, let it be research one hour, medita 
 tion another ; collation to-day, and revision to-morrow ; 
 do this on system ; give the first part of the day to the 
 hardest study, the afternoon to exercise, and the even 
 ing to social intercourse ; let the mind be tasked when 
 the brain is most vigorous, that is, after sleep ; and woo 
 the latter blessing not in the feverish hour of thought 
 
AUTHORS. 55 
 
 and emotion, but after the gentle exercise of the mind 
 which comes from pastime and friendliness." I looked 
 at the hale, contented face of the speaker, about whom 
 no sign of nervous irritability or exhaustion was discov 
 erable, and asked myself what experience of mental toil 
 could have led him to such inferences. He looked like 
 a temperate country gentleman, or unambitious and 
 well-to-do citizen. He then spoke of the changes he 
 observed upon each successive visit to Italy, of the cli 
 mate of Switzerland, and the society of Geneva ; then 
 he referred to America, divining at once that it was my 
 country, and exhibiting entire familiarity with all that 
 had been accomplished there in literature. He betrayed 
 a keen sense of enjoyment, recognized a genial influ 
 ence in the scene before us, and gradually infected me 
 with that agreeable feeling only to be derived from 
 what poor Cowper used to call comfortable people." 
 I led him to speak of his own method of life, which 
 was one of the most philosophical order. He consid 
 ered occasional travel and prudent habits the best hy 
 giene for a man of sedentary pursuits ; and the great 
 secret both of health and successful industry, the abso 
 lute yielding up of one s consciousness to the business 
 and the diversion of the hour, never permitting the 
 one to infringe, in the least degree, upon the other. I 
 felt an instinctive respect toward him, but, at the same 
 time, entirely at home in his company ; the gentleman 
 and the scholar appeared to me admirably fused in, 
 without overlaying, the man. Presently the friend we 
 mutually expected came in, and introduced me to Sis- 
 mondi. I was fresh from his Italian Republics " and 
 " Literature of the South of Europe," and he realized 
 my ideal of a humane and earnest historian. 
 
56 AUTHORS. 
 
 Quite in contrast with this tranquil and robust votary 
 of letters was the appearance and manner of Silvio Pel- 
 lico. No one who has ever read the chronicle of his 
 imprisonments can forget the gentle and aspiring na 
 ture, just blooming into poetic development, which, by 
 the relentless fiat of Austrian tyranny, was cut off in 
 a moment, from home, intelligent companionship, and 
 graceful activity, and subjected to the loneliness, priva 
 tion, arid torments of long and solitary confinement ; 
 nor is the spirit in which he met the bitter reverse less 
 memorable than its tragic detail, recorded with so much 
 simplicity, and borne with such loving faith. When I 
 arrived in Turin, he was still an object of espionage, 
 and it was needful to seek him with caution. Agree 
 ably to instructions previously received, I went to a cafe 
 near the Strada Alfieri, just at nightfall, and watched 
 for the arrival of an abbe remarkable for his manly 
 beauty. I handed him the card of a mutual friend, and 
 made known my wishes. The next day he conducted 
 me through several arcades, and by many a group of 
 noble - looking Piedmontese soldiers, to a gateway, 
 thence up a long flight of steps to a door, at which he 
 gave a significant knock. In a few moments it was 
 quietly opened ; he whispered to the old serva, and we 
 tarried in an antechamber until a diminutive figure in 
 black appeared, who received me with a pensive kindli 
 ness that, to one acquainted with Le Mie Prigioni, was 
 fraught with pathos. I beheld in the pallor of that 
 mild face and expanded brow, and the purblind eyes, 
 the blight of a dungeon. His manner was subdued and 
 nervous, and his very tones melancholy. I was unpre 
 pared to find, after years of liberty, the effects of his 
 experience so visible, and felt almost guilty of profane 
 
AUTHORS. 57 
 
 curiosity in having thus intruded upon his cherished 
 seclusion. I had known other victiins of the same infer 
 nal tyranny, but they were men of sterner mould, who 
 had resisted their cruel fate by the force of will rather 
 than the patience of resignation. Pellico s very deli 
 cacy of organization barbed the arrows of persecution ; 
 and when at length he was released, loneliness, hope 
 deferred, and mental torture had crushed the energy of 
 his nature. The sweetness of his autobiography was 
 but the fragrance of the trampled flower, too unelas- 
 tic ever again to rise up in its early beauty. A smile 
 lighted up his brooding expression when I told him of 
 the deep sympathy his book had excited in America, 
 and he grasped my hand with momentary ardor ; but 
 the man too plainly reflected the martyr. The stifling 
 air he breathed under the leads of Venice, and the 
 damps of his Spielberg cell, seemed yet to weigh upon 
 his soul ; no glimmer of the patriotic fire which beams 
 from Francesca da Rimini, no ray of the vivacious ob 
 servation that beguiled his solitude and quickened his 
 pen, redeemed the hopeless air of the captive poet ; the 
 shadow of the power he had braved yet lay on his form 
 and face ; and only the solace of filial love and the con 
 solations of religion gave hope to his existence. 
 
 That is but a vulgar idea of authorship which esti 
 mates its worth by the caprices of fashion or the pres 
 tige of immediate success. Like art, its value is intrin 
 sic. There are books, as there are pictures, which do 
 not catch the thoughtless eye, and yet are the gems of 
 the virtuoso, the oracles of the philosopher, and the 
 consolations of the poet. We love authors, as we love 
 individuals, according to our latent affinities ; and the 
 extent of the popular appreciation is no more a standard 
 
58 AUTHORS. 
 
 to us than the world s estimate of our friend, whose na 
 ture we have tested by faithful companionship and sym 
 pathetic intercourse. He who has not the mental inde 
 pendence to be loyal to his own intellectual benefactors, 
 is as much a heathen as one who repudiates his natural 
 kin. Indeed, an honest soul clings more tenaciously to 
 neglected merit in authors as in men ; there is a chiv 
 alry of taste as of manners. Doubtless Lamb s zest 
 for the old English dramatists, Addison s admiration 
 of Milton s poetry, and Carlyle s devotion to German 
 favorites were all the more earnest and keen because 
 they were ignored by their neighbors. In the library, 
 an original mind is conscious of special and compara 
 tively obscure friends, as the lover of Nature has his pet 
 flower and the lover of Art his favorite old master. It 
 is well to obey these decided idiosyncrasies. They 
 point, like the divining-rod, to hidden streams pecu 
 liarly adapted to our refreshment. I knew an old mer 
 chant that read no book except " Boswell s Johnson," 
 and a black and humpbacked cook whose only imagina 
 tive feast was the " Arabian Nights." 
 
 No one really can, indeed, love authors as a class, 
 without a catholic taste. If thus equipped, how inex 
 haustible the field ! He is independent of the world. 
 Is he retrospective in mood ? Plutarch will array be 
 fore him a procession of heroes and sages. Does he 
 yearn for conviviality? Fielding will take him to a 
 jolly tavern. Is he eager for intellectual communion ? 
 Landor is at hand with a choice of " imaginary conver 
 sations." Would he exercise causality? Bishop But 
 ler will put to the test his power of reasoning. Is he 
 in need of a little gossip by way of recreation ? Hor 
 ace TValpole will amuse by the hour. Is the society of 
 
AUTHORS. 59 
 
 a sensible woman wanted ? Call in Maria Edgeworth 
 or Jane Austin. Is the bitterness of a jilted lover in 
 his heart ? Locksley Hall " will relieve it. Would 
 he stroll in the forest ? Evelyn or Bryant will take him 
 there in a moment. By the sea-shore? Crabbe and 
 Byron are sympathetic guides. Are his thoughts com 
 prehensive and inclined for the generalities of litera 
 ture ? Open De Stael or Hallam. 
 
 The relation of authorship to society varies with 
 political influences and average culture ; the class of 
 degraded penwrights so often alluded to by Fielding, 
 the ferocious quarrels recorded of and by Pope and 
 Johnson with critics and publishers, are phases of liter 
 ary life, which, if not extinct, have become essentially 
 modified with the progress of civilization. Yet a quite 
 recent quarterly reviewer speaks of this class of men 
 as u a kind of ticket-of-leave lunatics " ; and modern 
 experiences, if less dark than old annals of Grub Street, 
 include some quite as remarkable instances of reckless 
 extravagance in prosperity and barbarous neglect in 
 adversity. The Bohemian class is confined to no epoch 
 or country. Yet charming is the group of authors that 
 illustrate and signalize every period of British history, 
 an intellectual alleviation to the monotony of fashion 
 able, and the rancor of political life. Every era of 
 French government also has its brilliant salon of phi 
 losophers and poets. Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Montague 
 assembled, in their day, as exclusive a coterie as used 
 to cluster about Dryden s chair, dine with Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, keep Burns s birthday at Edinburgh with 
 Scott at the head of the table, rally at Jeffrey s call, 
 dispute with Hume, chat over Rogers s breakfasts, fra 
 ternize with the lakers at Keswick and Grasmere, or 
 
60 AUTHORS. 
 
 pass an evening with Lamb. From the days of Shak- 
 speare to those of Evelyn and Sydney Smith, from 
 La Fontaine to Lamartine, from Klopstock to Goethe, 
 and from Mather to Channing, every cultivated city 
 abroad and at home, has boasted its author circle, to 
 which kindred tastes ever revert with zest, and whose 
 traditions as well as " works " prolong a spell more 
 refined and memorable than any other social prestige. 
 Weimar, Bordeaux, Florence, Edinburgh, and Boston, 
 as well as London and Paris, are thus consecrated by 
 reminiscences of Goethe, Schiller, Montaigne, Alfieri, 
 "Wilson, Mackenzie, some Concord Sage, or Spanish His 
 torian, some Autocrat, Wizard of the North, or Ettrick 
 Shepherd of the pen. To have seen Niccolini on the 
 Lung Arno ; Elizabeth Browning at a Casa Guidi win 
 dow ; Rossini, the historical novelist, at a bookstore in 
 Pisa ; Hillhouse under the New Haven elms ; Hawthorne 
 at the Athenaeum ; Elia at his India-house desk ; poor 
 Heine on his "mattress grave," or Freiligrath at his 
 bank-counter, requires but the perspective of time to be 
 as impressive or winsome an experience as the first sur 
 vivors of Pope, Chatterton, Milton, or Burke realized in 
 rehearsing their personal cognizance of these famous 
 authors. Such is the instinctive attraction of congenial 
 or eminent authorship. If this subject were nomencla- 
 ted and analyzed in the naturalistic way, there is scarcely 
 a sphere of humanity or a form of character which 
 might not be identified with or illustrated by author 
 ship ; the mad, the mendicant, the charlatan, comba 
 tive, contemplative, heroic, and sybarite, are but a few 
 of the varieties which literary biography reveals. Their 
 amours, diseases, profits, calamities, triumphs, quarrels, 
 personal tastes and habits, domestic life, and most indi- 
 
AUTHORS. 61 
 
 vidual traits and fortunes, have been minutely recorded, 
 so as to form, on the whole, the best and most accessi 
 ble psychological cabinet for the student of human 
 nature. Of no other class of men and women with whom 
 we never had personal acquaintance, do we know so 
 many details ; Chatterton s despair, Young s skull-light, 
 Milton s organ, Berkeley s tar-water, Coleridge s opium, 
 Swift s lady-loves, Cowper s hymns and hares, Rogers s 
 table-talk, Scott s dogs, Steele s debts, Lamb s folios, aue 
 as familiar to us as if they appertained to some neigh 
 bor or kinsman. The prisons of Cervantes, Raleigh, 
 Pellico, Hunt, and Montgomery, have a pathetic charm 
 which no other record of captivity boasts. Even the 
 self-delusions of authors awaken a considerate interest ; 
 the mistaken judgment of Petrarch and Milton, in 
 regard to the comparative merit of their writings ; and 
 the exaggerated estimate .of their own verses by such 
 able statesmen as Frederic and Richelieu, tend to en 
 hance the mysteries of the craft and sanction its illu 
 sions. But it must be confessed that the romance of 
 authorship is fast disappearing in its reality ; so numer 
 ous have become the votaries of a once rare pursuit, 
 so common the renown, so universal the practice, that 
 the individual and characteristic, the curious and inter 
 esting elements thereof, are more and more merged in 
 the commonplace and familiar. 
 
 A distinction has often been insisted on between the 
 critical and the creative in literature ; but modern criti 
 cism, in its best development, is essentially reproduc 
 tive ; so intimate, deep, and affluent is its dealing with 
 authors, that they often are restored in all their vital 
 worth ; and the process has endeared such writers as 
 Lamb, Hazlitt, Carlyle, Arnold, and St. Beuve, as true 
 
62 AUTHORS. 
 
 intellectual benefactors. Such philosophical and aes 
 thetic interpreters of authorship have engendered an 
 eclectic appreciation and enjoyment of authors, and 
 made us what Allston calls " wide likers." Hence the 
 prevalence and promise of what may be called a cos 
 mopolitan, in distinction to a provincial taste, whereby 
 we learn to value the greatest diversities of style, sub 
 ject, and character in literature. Fastidious and severely 
 disciplined minds, indeed, coldly ignore certain authors 
 and warmly espouse others ; but to a spirit at once gen 
 erous and cultivated, sympathetic and intelligent, though 
 a special charm will invest favorite authors, all of the 
 fraternity who are genuine, have a recognized claim to 
 grateful recognition ; and even the unequal and incon 
 gruous development of modern English literature inci 
 dent to the absence of what Matthew Arnold calls " any 
 centre of intelligent and urbane spirit," like the French 
 Academy. Desirable as such a discipline and standard 
 is in quelling eccentricity and incorrectness, .the free 
 and energetic development, the honest, though some 
 times rude, exercise of authorship in our vernacular, 
 is no small compensation. We confess a partiality for 
 the richly diversified phases of mental life thus in 
 duced, an eclectic relish for the varieties of national 
 and personal characteristics. The artistic French, the 
 meditative German, the practical English writers, have 
 each their attraction and use ; the desultory style of 
 Bichter, the quaint individuality of Lamb, the verbose 
 dignity of Johnson, the mosaic finish of Gray, the gro 
 tesque eloquence of Carlyle, the flowing rhetoric of 
 Macaulay, Wordsworth s pastoral isolation, Scott s feu 
 dal enthusiasm, Byron s intense consciousness, Shelley s 
 disinterested idealism, the homely images of Crabbe, 
 
AUTHORS. 63 
 
 and the sensuous luxury of Keats, are all, in their way 
 and at times, accordant with our mental wants, conge 
 nial to our receptive moods. Why should not we toler 
 ate and enjoy the various elements of literature as fully 
 and fondly as those of nature and society ? Does it 
 not argue a narrowness of mind inconsistent with genu 
 ine, intellectual, and moral health, to perversely confine 
 our appreciation of authorship to certain schools, forms, 
 and individuals ? Are not the philosophical, the piq 
 uant, the earnest, the playful, the solemn, gay, impres 
 sive, winsome, acute, wise, and humorous traits and 
 triumphs of written thought, as legitimate, in their infi 
 nite variety, as means of human culture, discipline, and 
 pleasure, as the myriad tints and tones of Nature, and 
 the diversities of character and manners ? A true lover 
 of authors will not only find something to enjoy and 
 appropriate in the most diverse forms of expression 
 and qualities of genius, both in the literature of power 
 and in that of knowledge as finely discriminated by De 
 Quincey ; but will separate the inspired and the jour 
 neyman work of each author, and do justice to what is 
 genuine while repudiating the conventional. If what 
 Goethe maintained is literally true, and genuine author 
 ship is the reflex of consciousness upon outward life, 
 then all its spontaneous products must have a vital 
 element of human life, love, and truth more or less 
 congenial to all readers of candid, clear, and humane 
 instincts : for we agree with a liberal and acute critic 
 when he says that the gift of literary genius " lies in 
 the faculty of being happily inspired by a certain intel 
 lectual and spiritual atmosphere, by a certain order 
 of ideas ; of dealing divinely with these ideas, present 
 ing them in the most effective and attractive combina 
 tions, making beautiful works of them." 
 
64 AUTHORS. 
 
 It is a new and glorious era in our experience of 
 books, when the vital significance of authorship is heart 
 ily realized ; dilletantism, excusable in the novice, gives 
 place to the worship of truth ; to write for the mere 
 sake of writing, to amuse with the pen, becomes in 
 our estimation what it is, a thing of less interest than 
 the most simple and familiar phenomena of Nature; 
 as life reveals itself, and character matures, we long 
 above all, for reality; we perceive that growth is our 
 welfare, and that earnestness, faith, and new truth the 
 only joy of a manly intellect. Then we read to nerve 
 our moral energies, to extend the scope of perception, 
 and to deepen the experience of the soul : the butter 
 flies of literature allure no longer ; the imitators we pass 
 by ; but the deep thinkers, the original, the brave, lead 
 us on to explore, analyze, and conquer. " Literature," 
 says Schlegel, " according to the spirit in which it is 
 pursued, is an infamy, a pastime, a dry labor, a handi 
 craft, an art, a science, a virtue ; " and this diversity is 
 true, not only of authors in general, but sometimes of 
 the same individual. Many a poet whose early utter 
 ance was inspired, has degenerated into a hack, a truck- 
 ster, and a mercenary penman ; and many a youthful 
 dabbler in letters by some deep experience has been 
 matured into the bold advocate or heroic pioneer in the 
 world of thought. 
 
 "We soon learn heartily to sympathize with one of the 
 unfortunate originals of Goethe s Werther, and declare 
 with him, " I have resolved in future to take good care 
 how I write anything to an author, save what all the 
 world may see ; " only extending the prudential resolve 
 to conversation, for whatever advance has been made 
 in refinement in the use of language, in the abuse of 
 
AUTHORS. 65 
 
 confidence modern writers are so destitute of scruples, 
 that the sanctities of life and social intercourse have no 
 greater or more profane intruder than the author. 
 
 Nor is the " heart of courtesy " the only high quality 
 risked by the vocation ; it almost seems, in vain and un- 
 chivalric natures, to sap manhood itself; some one has 
 said, " The man who has learned to read has lost one 
 portion of his courage ; if he writes verses, he has lost 
 a double portion." There is a fatal fluency, an arro 
 gant expressiveness, whereby the robust and honest 
 material of character is, as it were, evaporated in words ; 
 for nothing characterizes the genuine author more than 
 a reticent tone, an integrity of utterance, which makes 
 it apparent that his authorship, instead of a graft, is a 
 growth of his best humanity. So proverbial is the 
 social barrenness of the craft, in its average conven 
 tional scope, that a facetious Florentine barber, in one 
 of the best of modern historical novels (Roniola), is 
 quite appropriately made to say, " I arn sorely afraid 
 that the good wine of my understanding is going to run 
 off at the spigot of authorship, and I shall be left an 
 empty cask, with an odor of dregs, like many other in 
 comparable geniuses of my acquaintance." All mean 
 ness is disenchanting ; but selfish economy of intellect 
 ual treasures, and egotistical insensibility to the merit 
 of others, not only robs the author of all sympathetic 
 charm, but almost invariably signalizes his essential 
 mediocrity or unfounded pretensions. 
 
 Under the two diverse aspects of an inspiration and 
 a career, authorship thus offers the extremes of attrac 
 tion and antagonism to candid and earnest souls ; if the 
 spontaneous gift and charm of the former are justly 
 endeared to all lovers of humanity, the artificial con- 
 5 
 
66 AUTHORS. 
 
 ditions, worldly motives, and forced relations of the lat 
 ter, often dispel the illusions of fame in the realities of 
 vulgar notoriety and mercenary zeal. We can well 
 understand how a reverent, delicate, and true nature, 
 like Maurice de Guerin, shrinks from professional au 
 thorship, when the original beauty and truth of his ut 
 terances led his friends to urge that vocation upon him : 
 " The literary career," he writes, " seems to me unreal, 
 both in its own essence and in the rewards one seeks 
 from" it ; and, therefore, fatally marred by a secret ab 
 surdity." 
 
 At this moment our vernacular is the only tongue in 
 which men can express themselves fearlessly ; it appro 
 priately enshrines the literature of freedom. We sel 
 dom realize this noble distinction of the English lan 
 guage. I was half-asleep one afternoon, in the cabin 
 of a steamer in the Bay of Naples, when suddenly the 
 violent pitching of the vessel ceased, and I hastened on 
 deck to learn the reason of the change, and found, to 
 my surprise, that we were returning into the harbor, the 
 captain having decided that it was too great a risk to 
 venture to sea in such a gale. Pleasant as was the 
 transition from tossing waves to smooth water, every 
 traveller in that region who has gone through the busi 
 ness of a departure, the passport signatures, the tussle 
 with porters, drivers, and boatmen, the leave-takings, 
 packings-up, directions at post-office and banker s, an 
 embarkation in the midst of cries, rushings to and fro, 
 disputes for gratuities, beggars, missing baggage, at 
 tempts to secure a berth, wringing of hands, waving of 
 handkerchiefs, and, it may be, embraces at parting, 
 every traveller cognizant of this experience, will under 
 stand how vexatious it was, within an hour after this 
 
AUTHORS. 67 
 
 tantalizing process, to find one s self, in travelling cos 
 tume, once more in the city, for the afternoon, with no 
 lodging, no appointment, and no sight-seeing to do. I 
 was not long in resolving to visit once more my old 
 dining-place, the Corona di Ferro. At the opposite 
 table to that at which I was seated, appeared a hand 
 some young man, with a dark, intelligent eye, and a 
 bearing indicative of spirit and courtesy. Seeing me 
 hesitate over the carte, he suggested a dish which had 
 proved molto buono that day, and having followed the 
 kindly counsel, we engaged in a desultory chat about 
 the weather, the Opera, the last news from France, etc., 
 and by the time dessert came on, had established quite 
 a pleasant understanding ; at length he made an inquiry 
 based upon the idea that he was addressing an English 
 man. I corrected the error, and his politeness at once 
 warmed into enthusiasm at the discovery that he was 
 talking with an American. After dinner he invited me 
 to his apartments. I found the sitting-room adorned 
 with pictures and littered with books. Having ordered 
 coffee, we were soon engaged in a serious discussion of 
 literary subjects, in which my new friend proved a taste 
 ful votary. He wished for a definite statement as to the 
 extent of the liberty of the press in the United States. 
 J explained it ; and he became highly excited, paced 
 the room, quoted Alfieri, sighed, pressed his brow, and 
 at length flung himself into a chair, declaring that, if it 
 were not for kindred who had claims upon him, he 
 would emigrate at once to America. To account for his 
 feelings, he showed me a pile of MSS. the publication 
 of which had been prohibited by the government cen 
 sors on account of their liberal sentiment. He then 
 exhibited several beautiful poems founded on scientific 
 
68 AUTHORS. 
 
 truths, yet mystically involving great and humane prin 
 ciples, a ruse he had been compelled to resort to in 
 order to express publjply his opinions. As I recog 
 nized the evidences of genius, watched his chafed 
 mood, and noted his manly spirit, I felt deeply the 
 crushing influence of despotism upon authorship, and 
 realized the natural antagonism between poets and 
 kings. 
 
 There is no greater fallacy than that involved in the 
 notion of an essential diversity between an author and 
 his books : professed opinions do not reveal the truth 
 of character, but unconscious phases of style, habits of 
 thought, and tones of expression, like what is called 
 natural language, make us thoroughly acquainted with 
 the man. Is not Jeremy Taylor s religious sentiment 
 manifest in the very method of his utterance ? Can we 
 not see at a glance the improvidence and the fascination 
 of Sheridan in the tenor of his plays ? Who would 
 not avouch the honesty of John L. Stephens after read 
 ing his travels ? What reverent heart is not magnet 
 ized by the genuineness of devotion in Watts, however 
 crudely expressed ? Is not prudence signified in the 
 very style of Franklin ? Are we not braced with the 
 self-confident frankness of Cooper in the spirit as well 
 as the characters of his nautical and forest tales ? Crit 
 ics betray their arrogant temper under the most cour 
 teous phrases ; a gentleman is still a gentleman, and a 
 puppy a puppy, on paper as in life ; the sham and the 
 true are equally discernible in print and in society. 
 Montaigne exhibits his worldly wisdom as plainly in his 
 essays as he ever did in his acts. It is not, therefore, 
 the insidious but the obvious perils of authorship that 
 threaten the novice. Lamentable is it to see mediocre 
 
AUTHORS. 69 
 
 men take up as a vocation either literature of art, for in 
 both a certain amount of character alone insures respect 
 ability ; and this is less requisite in pursuits that do not 
 so openly challenge observation. 
 
 One day I was told a gentleman had called and 
 waited for me in the drawing-room. As I entered, he 
 was gazing from the window in the shadow of a damask 
 curtain, which threw a warm tint upon as strongly 
 moulded a face as I remembered to have seen in one so 
 young. His forehead was compactly rounded, his hair 
 curly and raven, and his eye dark and luminous. As I 
 approached, he handed me a note of introduction from 
 a friend, refused the proffered seat, and wore so earnest 
 and grave an expression that I almost thought he was 
 the bearer of a challenge. " Sir," he began, " I have 
 come to you for sympathy in a great undertaking. I 
 wish to be cheered in a mission, encouraged in a ca 
 reer, advised in an experiment ! " There was a certain 
 wild ness in the manner of this sententious address which 
 breathed of an excited fancy. I expressed a willingness 
 to aid him to the extent of my humble ability. He drew 
 a thick packet from his coat, and proceeded : " I am a 
 native of a little village in a neighboring State. My 
 father is an agriculturist, and has endeavored to ren 
 der me content with that lot ; but there is something 
 here " and he laid a large red hand on his capacious 
 breast " that rebels against the decree. I aspire to 
 the honors of literature. I long to utter myself to the 
 world. Here is a tragedy and some lyrics ; and I have 
 come to town to test my fortune as an author." I saw 
 that he was an enthusiast, and calmly pointed out the 
 obstacles to success. He became impatient. I enlarged 
 on the healthfulness and wisdom of a country life, on 
 
70 AUTHORS. 
 
 the precarious subsistence incident to pencraft. His eye 
 flashed with anger. I urged him to consider well the 
 risk he incurred, the danger of failure, the advantages 
 of a reliable vocation, the comfort of an independent 
 though secluded existence. He advanced toward me 
 with an indignant stride. " Sir," he exclaimed, " I have 
 been misinformed ; you are not the man I took you for ; 
 farewell, forever ! " and he rushed from the house. Six 
 months had elapsed, and I was sitting over a book in my 
 quiet room one day, when a terrific knock at the door 
 aroused me, and an instant after the stranger entered 
 and impetuously grasped my hand. " Sir, my dear 
 friend, I mean," he said, " I have done you injustice, 
 and I have come to apologize. For a month after my 
 former interview, I passed a feverish novitiate, hawking 
 my manuscripts around, deceived by plausible members 
 of the trade, snubbed by managers, frozen out of the 
 sanctums of editors, yawned at by casual audiences, baf 
 fled at every turn, until worn out, mortified, and despair 
 ing, I went home. The feel of the turf, the breath of 
 the wind, the lowing of the kine, the very scent of hay 
 was refreshing. I thought over your counsel and found 
 it true. I now farm the paternal acres on shares, write 
 verses during the long winter evenings, lead the choir 
 on Sundays, am to marry the pride of the village next 
 week, and am here to beg your pardon, and invite you 
 to my wedding." 
 
 The delectable quality of authorship is its imperson 
 ality. Consider a moment the privilege and the immu 
 nity. If we address a multitude or an individual, the 
 impression may be pleasing or wearisome, but courtesy 
 requires that it be endured with equanimity. A book 
 is unobtrusive, silent, objective. It can be taken up or 
 
AUTHORS. 71 
 
 let alone. In it, if genuine, there is a thought that 
 craves hospitality to be caught in a favorable mood, as 
 the fallow hillock receives the seed borne on the va 
 grant wind. It may take root, and the originator thereof 
 has unconsciously given birth to an undying impulse or 
 yielded spiritual refreshment The whole process is like 
 that of Nature, unostentatious, benign, and of ines 
 timable benefit ; and yet how latent, beyond observa 
 tion, secreted in consciousness ! All power of expres 
 sion whether by means of pen, color, or chisel, all 
 artistic development, is but a new vocabulary that re 
 veals character. The author and the artist differ from 
 their less gifted fellows simply in this, that they have 
 more language ; the endowment does not change their 
 natures ; if coarse, artificial, vain, if brave, truthful, or 
 shallow, they thus appear in books and marble or on 
 canvas ; and hence it is that character is the true gauge 
 of authorship, and wins or repels confidence, respect, 
 and love, in the same proportion as do living men. " By 
 their fruit shall ye know them." Therefore authors 
 themselves most effectually disenchant readers. They 
 are disloyal to their high mission ; they compromise 
 their own ideal, write gossip instead of truth, describe 
 themselves instead of Nature, dip their pens in the 
 venom of malevolence, corrupt their style with vulgar 
 ity, keep no faith with aspiration, truckle to power and 
 interest, and so bring their vocation itself into merited 
 disdain. 
 
 How charming, on the other hand, is the sponta 
 neous bard, who sings from an overflowing and musical 
 nature ! There is a court in one of the most populous 
 quarters of London which rejoices in the name of 
 Spring Gardens ; doubtless the spot, at one time, was a 
 
72 AUTHORS. 
 
 rural domain ; at present, a few trees peering over a wall, 
 and a retired and quaint look about some of the brick 
 domiciles that line the street, alone justify the pleasant 
 name it bears. In one of these houses is the office^ of 
 the Commissioners of Lunacy ; and there, one winter 
 morning, I had the satisfaction of a brief tete-a-tete with 
 Procter. His plainly cut frock-coat, long and black, 
 his white hair and quiet bearing, made him appear a 
 curate such as Goldsmith portrayed. It is a curious 
 vocation for a poet, that of testing the wits of people 
 suspected of being out of their mind, and a painful 
 one for a sensitive nature to inspect the asylums de 
 voted to their use. But I remembered that Procter s 
 early taste drew him into intimate love and recognition 
 of the old English dramatists, whose natural element 
 was the terrible in human passion and woe ; I consid 
 ered the profound tenderness of his muse, and I felt 
 that even the tragic scenes it was his duty to witness 
 and to study, were not without a certain sad affinity with 
 genius. Kean visited mad-houses to perfect his concep 
 tion of Lear ; and he who sings of human weal and sor 
 row is taught to deepen and hallow his strain by the 
 misery as well as the amenities of his life. The heart 
 of courtesy, the mood of aspiration, have not been 
 quelled in Procter by the stern professional business 
 which is his daily task. They loomed up even in 
 that dusky office, and kept faith with my previous 
 ideal ; but it was especially in the poet s eye that I read 
 the spirit of his muse ; ineffably mild and tender is its 
 expression, deepening under the influence of emotion 
 like the tremulous cadence of music that is born of sen 
 timent. I saw there the soul that dictated " How many 
 summers, love, hast thou been mine ? " " Send down 
 
AUTHORS. 73 
 
 thy pitying angel, God!" and so many other lays of 
 affection endeared to all who can appreciate the genu 
 ine lyrics of the heart identified with the name of Barry 
 Cornwall. 
 
 With all its occasional disenchantment, my love of 
 authors imparted a singular charm to the experience of 
 travel ; the lapse of time and new localities united then 
 to revive the dreams of youth. What a new grace the 
 first view of the hills of Spain derived from the mem 
 ory of Cervantes, and the gleanings in that romantic 
 field of Lockhart and Irving ; how rife with associations 
 was the dreary night-ride beyond Terracina, near the 
 scene of Cicero s murder; and what an intense life 
 awoke in desolate Ravenna, at the sight of Dante s 
 tomb ! The rustling of dry reeds in the gardens of 
 Sallust had an eloquent significance ; the figures on 
 Alfieri s monument, in Santa Croce, seemed to breathe 
 in the twilight ; the rosemary plucked in Rousseau s old 
 garden at Montmorency had a scent of fragrant mem 
 ory ; in the cafes at Venice, Goldoni s characters ap 
 peared to be talking, and Byron s image floated on her 
 waters like a sculptor s dream ; in the Florentine villa 
 Boccacio s spirit lingered ; in the Cenci palace Shelley s 
 deep eyes glistened ; in the shade of the pyramid of 
 Cestus the muse of Keats scattered flowers ; on the 
 shores of Como hovered the creations of Manzoni, and 
 a cliff in Brittany rose like a cenotaph to Chateaubri 
 and ; while the cadence of Virgil s line chimed with the 
 lapsing wave on the beach at Naples. I thought, at 
 Lausanne, of Gibbon s last touch to the " Rise and 
 Fall," and his revery that night; sought the tablet 
 that covers Parnell s dust at Chester, craved Montgom 
 ery s blessing at Sheffield, looked for Sterne s monk at 
 
74 AUTHORS. 
 
 Calais, and beheld the crown on Tasso s cold temples 
 beneath the cypresses of St. Onofrio. De Foe lighted 
 up gloomy Cripplegate. Addison walked in the groves 
 of Oxford, Johnson threaded the crowd in Fleet Street, 
 and Milton s touch seemed to wake the organ-keys of 
 St. Giles. But it is not requisite to wander from home 
 for such experiences. 
 
 It was a delicious morning in June. I had passed 
 the previous night at a village on the Hudson ; a violent 
 thunder-storm just before dawn had laid the dust, fresh 
 ened the leaves, and purified as well as cooled the sul 
 try air. Attracted by the sweet breath and vivid tints 
 of the landscape, I determined to walk to a steamboat- 
 landing four miles off, and on my way make a long-med 
 itated visit to Sunnyside. Taking an umbrageous path 
 that wound through a shady lane, I sauntered along, 
 sometimes in view of the crystal expanse of Tappan 
 Zee, sometimes catching a glimpse of the hoary and 
 tufted Palisades, and again pausing under a majestic 
 elm on whose pendent spray a yellow-bird chirped and 
 swung, or from whose dense green canopy a locust 
 trilled its drowsy note. The breeze was scented with 
 clover and woodbine ; sleek cattle grazed in the mead 
 ows ; amber clouds flecked a heaven of azure ; fields of 
 grain waved like a shoreless lake of plumes ; the maize 
 stood thick and tasselled ; the lofty chestnuts shook their 
 feathery bloom ; now and then a solitary crow hovered 
 above, or a brown robin hopped cheerily by the wayside. 
 It was one of those clear, serene, luxurious days of 
 early summer which, in our capricious climate, occasion 
 ally unite the gorgeous hues of the Orient with the balm 
 and the softness of Italy ; pearly outlines stretched along 
 the hills, the broad river gleamed in sunshine, and every 
 
AUTHORS. 75 
 
 shade of emerald flashed or deepened over the wide 
 groves and teeming farms. As I drew near to Irving s 
 cottage, the bees were contentedly humming round 
 the locusts, and the ivy-leaves, that clustered thickly 
 about the old gables, were dripping with the tears of 
 night ; every bugle of the honeysuckle was a delicate 
 censer, and the turf and hedge wore their brightest col 
 ors ; even the old weathercock, trophy of an ancient 
 colonial Stadt-house, dazzled the eye as it caught the 
 lateral rays of the sun ; the fowls strutted about with 
 unwonted complacency, and the house-dog bounded 
 through the beaded grass as if exhilarated by the scene. 
 On the veranda that overlooks the river, from which it 
 is divided by a little grove, sat our favorite author, with 
 a book on his knee, the embodiment of thoughtful con 
 tent. His home looked the symbol of his genius, and 
 his expression the reflex of his life. They harmonized 
 with a rare completeness, and fulfilled to the heart the 
 picture which imagination had drawn. Here was no 
 castle in the air, but a realized day-dream. Sleepy Hoi- ^ 
 low was at hand : an English cottage, like that to which 
 poor Leslie brought his angel wife ; a Dutch roof such 
 as covered Van Tassell s memorable feast ; the stream 
 up which floated the incorrigible Dolph ; the mountain 
 range whose echoes resounded with the mysterious 
 bowls, and where Rip took his long nap, all identified 
 with the author s virgin fame, gave the vital interest 
 of charming association to the silent grace of Nature ; 
 and, above all, the originator of the spell was there, as 
 genial, humorous, and imaginative, as if he had never 
 wandered from the primal haunts of his childhood and 
 his fame. That he had done so, and to good purpose, 
 however, was evident in his conversation. News had 
 
76 AUTHORS. 
 
 just arrived of a new French emeute, and that led us to 
 speak of the first Revolution ; and Irving gave some 
 impressive reminiscences of his visits to the localities 
 of Paris which are identified with those scenes of vio 
 lence and blood. He recurred to them with keen sen 
 sibility and in graphic details. It was delightful thus 
 to commune with a man whose name was associated 
 with my first conscious relish of native authorship, and 
 detect the same moral zest and picturesque insight in 
 his talk which so long ago had endeared his writings. 
 I felt anew the conservative power of a love of Nature 
 and an artistic organization ; they had kept thus fresh 
 the sympathies and thus enjoyable the mind. Retire 
 ment was as grateful now as when he sought it as a ju 
 venile dreamer ; the noble river won as fond a glance 
 as when first explored as a truant urchin ; and the 
 kindly spirit beamed as truly in his smile as when he 
 mused in the Alhambra, or walked to Melrose with 
 Scott for a cicerone. My authormania revived in all its 
 original fervor ; here were the mellow hues on the pict 
 ure that beguiled my boyhood ; and the man, the scene 
 and the author blended in a graceful unity of effect, 
 without a single incongruity. 
 

 PICTURES. 
 
 Look on this picture and on this. " 
 
 HAMLET. 
 
 is not surprising that pictures, with all their 
 attraction for eye and mind, are, to many hon 
 est and intelligent people, too much of a riddle 
 to be altogether pleasant. What -with the oracular dicta 
 of self-constituted arbiters of taste, the discrepancies 
 of popular writers on Art, the jargon of connoisseur- 
 ship, the vagaries of fashion, the endless theories about 
 color, style, chiaroscuro composition, design, imitation, 
 nature, schools, etc., painting has become rather a sub 
 ject for the gratification of vanity and the exercise 
 of pedantic dogmatism, than a genuine source of en 
 joyment and culture, of sympathy and satisfaction, 
 like music, literature, scenery, and other recognized 
 intellectual recreations. In these latter spheres it is 
 not thought presumptuous to assert and enjoy individual 
 taste ; the least independent talkers will bravely advo 
 cate their favorite composer, describe the landscape 
 which has charmed or the book which has interested 
 them ; but when a picture is the subject of discussion, 
 few have the moral courage to say what they think ; 
 there is a self-distrust of one s own impressions, and 
 even convictions, in regard to what is represented on 
 canvas, that never intervenes between thought and ex- 
 
PICTURES. 
 
 where ideas or sentiments are embodied in 
 writing or in melody. Nor is this to be ascribed wholly 
 to the technicalities of pictorial art in which so few are 
 deeply wraed, but. in a great measure, to the incongru 
 ous and irrelevant associations which have gradually 
 overlaid and mystified a subject in itself as open to the 
 perception of a candid mind and healthy senses as any 
 other department of human knowledge. Half the want 
 of appreciation of pictures arises from ignorance, not 
 of the principles of Art. but of the elements of Nature. 
 Good observers are rare. Tbe peasant s criticism upon 
 MorelancTs "Farm-yard" that three pigs never eat 
 together without one foot at least in the trough was 
 a. strict inference from personal knowledge of the habits 
 of the animal; so the surgeon found a head of the Bap 
 tist uuiiue, because the skin was not withdrawn some 
 what from the fine of decollation. These and similar 
 inrnfmrm show that some knowledge of or interest in 
 the thing represented, m r.ssr-ntijil to the appreciation 
 of pictures. Sfcors and then* wives crowded around 
 WHlde s * Chelsea Pensioners." * when first exhibited; 
 French soldiers enjoy the minutiae of Yernet s battle- 
 pieces; a lover can judge of his betrothed s miniature ; 
 and die most unrefined sportsman win point out the 
 irffiips of bteed in. one of Landseer s dogs. To the 
 want of correspondence so frequent between the sub 
 ject of a picture and the observer s experience, may, 
 therefore, be attributed no small degree of the prevalent 
 want of sympathy and confident judgment. * Gang into 
 aa Exhibition,* says Ike Ettrick Shepherd. ~ and only 
 
 :--._!:.-. - - - ~_- .- . I: . .: .. - : :..- lrr.tr;. 
 grrt an W^ s cooTersatioti with Wflkie aboct pointings, in his ear- 
 
 --: - - ::,-..-- i:. -1 :_-.:..: -:L_- .- - - 
 
 of the 
 
PICTURES. 79 
 
 look at a crowd o cockneys, some with specs, and some 
 wi quizzing-glasses, and faces without ae grain o mean 
 ing in them o ony kind whatsomever, a glowering, per 
 haps, at a picture o one o Nature s maist fearfu or 
 magnificent warks ! What, I ask, could a Prince s- 
 Street maister or missy ken o sic a wark mair than a 
 red deer wad ken o the inside o George s-Street As 
 sembly-Rooms ? " 
 
 The incidental associations of pictures link them to 
 history, tradition, and human character, in a manner 
 which indefinitely enhances their suggestiveness. Hor 
 ace Walpole wove a standard collection of anecdotes 
 from the lives and works of painters. The frescos of 
 St Mark s, at Florence, have a peculiar significance to 
 the spectator familiar with Fra Angelico s life. One 
 of the most pathetic and beautiful tragedies in modern 
 literature is that which a Danish poet elaborated from 
 Correggio s artist career. Lamb s great treasure was a 
 print from Da Yinci, which he called " My Beauty," 
 and its exhibition to a literal Scotchman gave rise to 
 one of the richest jokes in Elia s record. The pen- 
 drawing Andre made of himself the night before his 
 execution, the curtain painted in the space where 
 Faliero s portrait should have been, in the ducal palace 
 at Venice, and the head of Dante, discovered by Mr. 
 Kirkup, on the wall of the Bargello, at Florence, 
 convey impressions far beyond the mere lines and hues 
 they exhibit ; each is a drama, a destiny. And the hard 
 but true lineaments of Holbein, the aerial grace of 
 Malbone s " Hours," Albert Durer s mediaeval sancti 
 ties, Overbeck s conservative self-devotion, a market 
 place by Ostade, Reynolds s " Strawberry Girl," one of 
 Copley s colonial grandees in a New England farmer s 
 
80 PICTURES. 
 
 parlor, a cabinet gem by Greuze, a dog or sheep of 
 Landseer s, the misty depths of Turner s " Carthage," 
 Domenichino s " Sibyl," Claude s " Sunset," or Allston s 
 " Rosalie," how much of eras in Art, events in his 
 tory, national tastes, and varieties of genius do they each 
 foreshadow and embalm ! Even when no special beauty 
 or skill is manifest, the character of features transmitted 
 by pictorial art, their antiquity or historical significance, 
 often lends a mystery and meaning to the effigies of 
 humanity. In the carved faces of old German church 
 choirs and altars, the existent facial peculiarities of race 
 are curiously evident ; a Grecian life breathes from 
 many a profile in the Elgin marbles, and a sacred mar 
 vel invests the exhumed giants of Nineveh ; in the car 
 toons of Raphael, and the old Gobelin tapestries, are 
 hints of what is essential in the progress and the tri 
 umphs of painting. Considered as a language, how 
 definitely is the style of painters associated with special 
 forms of character and spheres of life ! " There cer 
 tainly never was a painter," says a traveller in Spain 
 of Murillo, " who, without much imagination, and tell 
 ing no story, could yet vision his eyes with such pure 
 love, and make lips so parting with prayer as Murillo ; 
 himself a father, he loved to paint the child-Saviour in 
 conjunction with thin-faced saints." It is this variety 
 of human experience, typified and illustrated on canvas, 
 that forms our chief obligations to the artist ; through 
 him our perception of and acquaintance with our race, 
 its individuality and career, its phases and aspects, is 
 indefinitely enlarged. " The greatest benefit," says a 
 late writer, " we owe to the artist, whether painter, poet, 
 or novelist, is the extension of our sympathies. Art is 
 the nearest thing to life ; it is a mode of amplifying our 
 
PICTURES. 81 
 
 experience and extending our contact with our fellow- 
 creatures beyond the bounds of our personal lot." 
 
 <k A room with pictures in it, and a room without pict 
 ures," says an aesthetic essayist, " differ by nearly as 
 much as a room with windows and a room without win 
 dows. Nothing, we think, is more melancholy, particu 
 larly to a person who has to pass much time in his room, 
 than blank walls with nothing on them ; for pictures 
 are loopholes of escape to the soul, leading it to other 
 spheres. It is such an inexpressible relief to the per 
 son engaged in writing, or even reading, on looking up, 
 not to have his line of vision chopped square off by an 
 odious white wall, but to find his soul escaping, as it 
 were, through the frame of an exquisite picture, to other 
 beautiful, and perhaps idyllic scenes, where the fancy 
 for a moment may revel, refreshed and delighted. Is it 
 winter in your world ? Perhaps it is summer in the 
 picture ; what a charming momentary change and con 
 trast ! And thus pictures are consolers of loneliness; 
 they are a sweet flattery to the soul ; they are a relief 
 to the jaded mind ; they are windows to the imprisoned 
 thought ; they are books ; they are histories and ser 
 mons which we can read without the trouble of turn 
 ing over the leaves." 
 
 The effect of a picture is increased by isolation and 
 surprise. I never realized the physiognomical traits 
 of Madame de Maintenon, until her portrait was en 
 countered in a solitary country-house, of whose draw 
 ing-room it was the sole ornament ; and the romance of 
 a miniature by Malbone first came home to me, when an 
 ancient dame, in the costume of the last century, with 
 trembling fingers drew one of her husband from an an 
 tique cabinet, and descanted on the manly beauty of the 
 
82 PICTURES. 
 
 deceased original, and the graceful genius of the young 
 and lamented artist. Hazlitt wrote an ingenious essay on 
 "A Portrait by Vandyck," which gives us an adequate 
 idea of what such a masterpiece is to the eye and mind 
 of genuine artistic perception and sympathy. Few sen 
 sations, or rather sentiments, are more inextricably 
 made up of pleasure and sadness than that with which 
 we contemplate (as is not infrequent in some old gallery 
 of Europe) a portrait which deeply interests or power 
 fully attracts us, and whose history is irrevocably lost. 
 A better homily on the evanescence of human love and 
 fame can scarcely be imagined : a face alive with moral 
 personality and human charms, such as win and warm 
 our stranger eyes, yet the name, subject, artist, owner, 
 all lost in oblivion ! To pause before an interesting but 
 " unknown portrait " is to read an elegy as pathetic as 
 Gray s. 
 
 The mechanical processes by which Nature is so 
 closely imitated, and the increase of which during the 
 last few years is one of the most remarkable facts in 
 science, may, at the first glance, appear to have lessened 
 the marvellous in Art, by making available to all the 
 exact representation of still-life. But, when duly con 
 sidered, the effect is precisely the reverse ; for exactly 
 in proportion as we become familiar with the mechani 
 cal production of the similitudes of natural and artificial 
 objects, do we instinctively demand higher powers of 
 conception, greater spiritual expression in the artist. 
 The discovery of Daguerre and its numerous improve 
 ments, and the unrivalled precision attained by photog 
 raphy, render exact imitation no longer a miracle of 
 crayon or palette ; these must now create as well as re 
 flect, invent and harmonize as well as copy, bring out the 
 
PICTURES. 83 
 
 soul of the individual and of the landscape, or their 
 achievements will be neglected in favor of the fac-simi- 
 les obtainable through sunshine and chemistry. The 
 best photographs of architecture, statuary, ruins, and, in 
 some cases, of celebrated pictures, are satisfactory to a 
 degree which has banished mediocre sketches, and even 
 minutely finished but literal pictures. Specimens of 
 what is called " Nature-printing," which gives an im 
 pression directly from the veined stone, the branching 
 fern, or the sea-moss, are so true to the details as to 
 answer a scientific purpose ; natural objects are thus 
 lithographed without the intervention of pencil or ink. 
 And these several discoveries have placed the results 
 of mere imitative art within reach of the mass ; in other 
 words, her prose language, that which mechanical sci 
 ence can utter, is so universal, that her poetry, that 
 which must be conceived and expressed through indi 
 vidual genius, the emanation of the soul, is more dis- 
 tinctlv recognized and absolutely demanded from the 
 
 / o * 
 
 artist, in order to vindicate his claim to that title, than 
 ever before. 
 
 Perhaps, indeed, the scope which Painting offers to 
 experimental, individual, and prescriptive taste, the loy 
 alty it invokes from the conservative, the " infinite pos 
 sibilities " it offers to the imaginative, the intimacy it 
 promotes with Nature and character, are the cause of so 
 much originality and attractiveness in its votaries. The 
 Lives of Painters abound in the characteristic, the ad 
 venturous, and the romantic. Open Vasari, Walpole, 
 or Cunningham, at random, and one is sure to light 
 upon something odd, genial, or exciting. One of the 
 most popular novelists of our day assured me, that, in 
 his opinion, the richest unworked vein for his craft, 
 
84 PICTURES. 
 
 available in these days of civilized uniformity, is artist- 
 life at Rome, to one thoroughly cognizant of its humors 
 and aspirations, its interiors and vagrancies, its self-de 
 nials and its resources. I have sometimes imagined 
 what a story the old white dog who so long frequented 
 the Lepri and the Gaffe Greco, and attached himself so 
 capriciously to the brother artists of his deceased mas 
 ter, could have told, if blest with memory and language. 
 He had tasted the freedom and the zest of artist-life in 
 Rome, and scorned to follow trader or king. He pre 
 ferred the odor of canvas and oil to that of conserva 
 tories, and had more frolic and dainty morsels at an 
 al fresco of the painters, in the Campagna, than the 
 kitchen of an Italian prince could furnish. His very 
 name betokened good cheer, and was pronounced after 
 the manner of the pert waiters who complacently enun 
 ciate a few words of English. Bif-steck was a privi 
 leged dog ; and though occasionally made the subject 
 of a practical joke, taught absurd tricks, sent on fools 
 errands, and his white coat painted like a zebra, these 
 were but casual troubles ; he was a sensible dog to de 
 spise them, when he could enjoy such quaint compan 
 ionship, behold such experiments in color and drawing, 
 serve as a model himself, and go on delicious sketching 
 excursions to Albano and Tivoli, besides inhaling to 
 bacco-smoke and hearing stale jests and love soliloquies 
 ad infinitum. I am of Bif-stcck s opinion. There is no 
 such true, earnest, humorous, and individual life, in 
 these days of high civilization, as that of your genuine 
 painter ; impoverished as it often is, baffled in its aspi 
 rations, unregarded by the material and the worldly, it 
 often rears and keeps pure bright, genial natures whose 
 contact brings back the dreams of youth. It is pleas- 
 
PICTURES. 85 
 
 ant, too, to realize, in a great commercial city, that man 
 " does not live by bread alone," that fun is better than 
 furniture, and a private resource of nature more pro 
 lific of enjoyment than financial investments. It is rare 
 comfort, here, in the land of bustle and sunshine, to sit 
 in a tempered light and hear a man sing or improvise 
 stories over his work ; to behold once more vagaries of 
 costume ; to let the eye rest upon pictorial fragments of 
 Italy, the * old familiar faces " of Roman models, the 
 endeared outlines of Apennine hills, the contadina bod 
 ice and the brigand hat, until these objects revive to the 
 heart all the romance of travel. 
 
 Yernet s sympathies were excited by the misfortunes 
 of a worthy tradesman of Marseilles, and he attended 
 the sheriff s auction at the bankrupt s house, where, 
 among the crowd, he recognized a would-be connoisseur 
 in art, of ample wealth ; the painter fixed his eyes upon 
 a dim and mediocre picture on the wall, and bid fifteen 
 francs ; immediately the rich amateur scented a prize ; 
 a long contest ensued, and at length the picture was 
 knocked off to Vernet s antagonist for so large a sum 
 that the honest bankrupt was enabled to pay his credi 
 tors in full, and recommence business with a handsome 
 capital. With the progress of civilization pictures have 
 grown in permanent market value : a Quaker who in 
 curred the reproach of his brethren for securing a 
 Wouverman for a large sum, was excused for this " van 
 ity" by his shrewd friends, when he demonstrated to 
 them that he had made an excellent investment. Lit 
 erature affords many illustrations of the romance of the 
 pictorial art, of which, among our own authors, Allston 
 and Hawthorne have given memorable examples in 
 " Monaldi," and " Twice-Told Tales." Unknown portraits 
 
86 PICTURES. 
 
 have inspired the most attractive conjectures, and about 
 the best known and most fascinating hover an atmosphere 
 of intensely personal interest or historical association. 
 Vasari, Mrs. Jameson, Ilazlitt, and other art - writers 
 have elaborated the most delectable facts and fancies 
 from this vast individual sphere of the picturesque. 
 
 The technicalities of Art, its refinements of style, its 
 absolute significance, are, indeed, as dependent for ap 
 preciation on a special endowment as are mathematics ; 
 but the general and incidental associations, in which is 
 involved a world of poetry, may be enjoyed to the full 
 extent by those whose perception of form, sense of color, 
 and knowledge of the principles of sculpture, painting, 
 music, and architecture are notably deficient. It. is a 
 law of life and nature, that truth and beauty, adequately 
 represented, create and diffuse a limitless element of 
 wisdom and pleasure. Such memorials are talismanic, 
 and their influence is felt in all the higher and more 
 permanent spheres of thought and emotion ; they are 
 the gracious landmarks that guide humanity above the 
 commonplace and the material, along the " line of infi 
 nite desires." Art, in its broad and permanent mean 
 ing, is a language, the language of sentiment, of char 
 acter, of national impulse, of individual genius ; and for 
 this reason it bears a lesson, a charm, or a sanction to 
 all, even those least versed in its rules and least alive 
 to its special triumphs. Sir Walter Scott was no ama 
 teur, yet, through his reverence for ancestry and his 
 local attachments, portraiture and architecture had for 
 him a romantic interest. Sydney Smith was impatient 
 of galleries when he could talk with men and women, 
 and made a practical joke of buying pictures ; yet New 
 ton and Leslie elicited his best humor. Talfourd cared 
 
PICTURES. 87 
 
 little and knew less of the treasures of the Louvre, but 
 lingered there because it had been his friend Hazlitt s 
 Elysium. Indeed, there are constantly blended associ 
 ations in the history of English authors and artists ; 
 Reynolds is identified with Johnson and Goldsmith, 
 vSmibert with Berkeley, Barry with Burke, Constable and 
 Wilkie with Sir George Beaumont, Haydon with Words 
 worth, and Leslie with Irving ; the painters depict their 
 friends of the pen, the latter celebrate in verse or prose 
 the artist s triumphs, and both intermingle thought and 
 sympathy ; and from this contact of select intelligences 
 of diverse vocation has resulted the choicest wit and the 
 most genial companionship. If from special we turn to 
 general associations, from biography to history, the same 
 prolific affinities are evident, whereby the artist becomes 
 an interpreter of life, and casts the halo of romance 
 over the stern features of reality. Hampton Court is 
 the almost breathing society of Charles the Second s 
 reign ; the Bodleian Gallery is vivid with Britain s past 
 intellectual life ; the history of France is pictured on 
 the walls of Versailles ; the luxury of color bred by the 
 sunsets of the Euganean hills, the waters of the Adri 
 atic, the marbles of San Marco, and the skies and at 
 mosphere of Venice, are radiant on the canvas of Titian, 
 Tintoretto, and Paul Veronese ; Michel Angelo has 
 embodied the soul of his era and the loftiest spirit 
 of his country ; Salvator typified the half-savage pic- 
 turesqueness, Claude the atmospheric enchantments, 
 Carlo Dolce the effeminate grace, Titian the voluptuous 
 energy, Guido the placid self-possession, and Raphael 
 and Correggio the religious sentiment of Italy ; Wat- 
 teau put on canvas the fete champetre ; the peasant- 
 life of Spain is pictured by Murillo, her asceticism by 
 
88 PICTURES. 
 
 the old religious limners; what English rustics were 
 before steam and railroads, Gainsborough and More- 
 land reveal ; Wilkie has permanently symbolized Scotch 
 shrewdness and domesticity, and Lawrence framed and 
 fixed the elegant shapes of a London drawing-room ; 
 and each of these is a normal type and suggestive ex 
 emplar to the imagination, a chapter of romance, a se 
 questration and initial token of the characteristic and 
 the historical, either of what has become traditional or 
 what is forever true. 
 
 The indirect service good artists have rendered by 
 educating observation has yet to be acknowledged. The 
 Venetian painters cannot be even superficially regarded, 
 without developing the sense of color ; nor the Roman, 
 without enlarging our cognizance of expression ; nor the 
 English, without refining our perception of the evanes 
 cent effects in scenery. Raphael has made infantile 
 grace obvious to unmaternal eyes ; Turner opened to 
 many a preoccupied vision the wonders of atmosphere ; 
 Constable guided our perception of the casual phenom 
 ena of wind ; Landseer, that of the natural language 
 of the brute creation ; Lely, of the coiffure ; Michel 
 Angelo, of physical grandeur ; Rolfe, of fish ; Gerard 
 Dow, of water ; Cuyp, of meadows ; Cooper, of cattle ; 
 Stanfield, of the sea ; and so on through every depart 
 ment of pictorial art. Insensibly these quiet but per 
 suasive teachers have made every phase and object of 
 the material world interesting, environed them with 
 more or less of romance, by such revelations of their 
 latent beauty and meaning ; so that, thus instructed, the 
 sunset and the pastoral landscape, the moss-grown arch 
 and the craggy seaside, the twilight grove and the sway 
 ing cornfield, an old mill, a peasant, light and shade, 
 
PICTURES. 89 
 
 form and feature, perspective and anatomy, a smile, a. 
 gesture, a cloud, a waterfall, weather-stains, leaves, 
 deer, every object in Nature, and every impress of 
 the elements, speaks more distinctly to the eye and 
 more effectively to the imagination. 
 
 The vicissitudes which sometimes attend a picture or 
 statue furnish no inadequate materials for narrative in 
 terest. Amateur collectors can unfold a tale in refer 
 ence to their best acquisitions which outvies fiction. 
 Beckford s table-talk abounded in such reminiscences. 
 An American artist, who had resided long in Italy, and 
 made a study of old pictures, caught sight at a shop- 
 window in New Orleans of an " Ecce Homo " so pathetic 
 in expression as to arrest his steps and engross his at 
 tention. Upon inquiry, he learned that it had been pur 
 chased of a soldier fresh from Mexico, after the late 
 war between that country and the United States ; he 
 bought it for a trifle, carried it to Europe, and soon au 
 thenticated it as an original Guercino, painted for the 
 royal chapel in Madrid, and sent thence by the govern 
 ment to a church in Mexico, whence, after centuries, it 
 had found its way, through the accidents of war, to a 
 pawnbroker s shop in Louisiana. A lady in one of our 
 eastern cities, wishing to possess, as a memorial, some 
 article which had belonged to a deceased neighbor, and 
 not having the means, at the public sale of her effects, 
 to bid for an expensive piece of furniture, contented 
 herself with buying for a few shillings a familiar chim 
 ney-screen. One day she discovered a glistening sur 
 face under the flowered paper which covered it, and 
 when this was torn away, there stood revealed a picture 
 of Jacob and Rebecca at the Well, by Paul Veronese ; 
 doubtless thus concealed with a view to its secret re- 
 
90 PICTURES. 
 
 moval during the first French Revolution. The missing 
 Charles First of Velasquez was lately exhibited in this 
 country, and the account its possessor gives of the mode 
 of its discovery and the obstacles which attended the 
 establishment of its legal ownership in England is a 
 remarkable illustration both of the tact of the connois 
 seur and the mysteries of jurisprudence.* 
 
 Political vicissitudes not only cause pictures to emi 
 grate like their owners, but to change their costume 
 if we may so call a frame with equal celerity : that 
 which now encloses Peale s Washington, at Princeton, 
 once held the portrait of George the Third ; and there 
 is an elaborate old frame which holds the likeness of a 
 New England poet s grandfather whence was hurriedly 
 taken the portrait of Governor Hutchinson, in antici 
 pation of a domiciliatory visit from the " Sons of Lib 
 erty." 
 
 There is scarcely, indeed, an artist or a patron of art, 
 of any eminence, who has not his own " story of a pic 
 ture." Like all things of beauty and of fame, the very 
 desire of possession which a painting excites, and the 
 interest it awakens, give rise to some costly sacrifice, or 
 incidental circumstance, which associates the prize with 
 human fortune and sentiment. 
 
 A friend of mine, in exploring the more humble class 
 
 * One of the recently discovered gems of pictorial art in Florence is 
 the "coach-house picture " ; so called from being a fresco on a stable- 
 wall; and under the head of " Romance of a Portrait," the "London 
 Athenaeum" publishes a statement which seems to show conclusively 
 that the famous portrait of Addison at Holland House, which has been 
 copied and engraved time and again, and has been mentioned as au 
 thentic by Macaulay, is in fact not a portrait of Addison, but a portrait 
 of Sir Andrew Fountaine, of Narford Hall, in Norfolk, vice-chamber 
 lain to Queen Caroline, and the successor of Sir Isaac Newton in the 
 wardenship of the Mint. 
 
PICTURES. 91 
 
 of boarding - houses in one of our large commercial 
 towns, in search of an unfortunate relation, found him 
 self, while expecting the landlady, absorbed in a por 
 trait on the walls of a dingy back-parlor. The furni 
 ture was of the most common description. A few 
 smutched and faded annuals, half-covered with dust, 
 lay on the centre-table, beside an old-fashioned astral 
 lamp, a cracked porcelain vase of wax-flowers, a yellow 
 satin pincushion embroidered with tarnished gold-lace, 
 and an album of venerable hue filled with hyperbolic 
 apostrophies to the charms of some ancient beauty; 
 which, with the dilapidated window - curtains, the ob 
 solete sideboard, the wooden effigy of a red-faced man 
 with a spyglass under his arm, and the cracked alabas 
 ter clock-case on the mantel, all bespoke an impover 
 ished establishment, so devoid of taste that the beauti 
 ful and artistic portrait seemed to have found its way 
 there by a miracle. It represented a young and spirit- 
 uelle woman, in the costume, so elegant in material and 
 formal in mode, which Copley has immortalized ; in this 
 instance, however, there was a French look about the 
 coiffure and robe. The eyes were bright with intelli 
 gence chastened by sentiment, the features at once deli 
 cate and spirited, and altogether the picture was one of 
 those visions of blended youth, grace, sweetness, and 
 intellect, from which the fancy instinctively infers a 
 tale of love, genius, or sorrow, according to the mood 
 of the spectator. Subdued by his melancholy errand, 
 and discouraged by a long and vain search, my friend, 
 whose imagination was quite as excitable as his taste 
 was correct, soon wove a romance around the picture. 
 It was evidently not the work of a novice ; it was as 
 much out of place in this obscure and inelegant domi- 
 
92 PICTURES. 
 
 cile, as a diamond set in filigree, or a rose among pig 
 weed. How came it there ? who was the original ? 
 what her history and her fate? Her parentage and 
 her nurture must have been refined ; she must have 
 inspired love in the chivalric ; perchance this was the 
 last relic of an illustrious exile, the last memorial of a 
 princely house. 
 
 This reverie of conjecture was interrupted by the 
 entrance of the landlady. My friend had almost for 
 gotten the object of his visit; and when his anxious 
 inquiries proved vain, he drew the loquacious hostess 
 into general conversation, in order to elicit the mys 
 tery of the beautiful portrait. She was a robust, gray- 
 haired woman, with whose constitutional good-nature 
 
 O 
 
 care had waged a long and partially successful war. 
 That indescribable air which speaks of better days was 
 visible at a glance ; the remnants of bygone gentility 
 were obvious in her dress ; she had the peculiar man 
 ner of one who had enjoyed social consideration ; and 
 her language indicated familiarity with cultivated soci 
 ety ; yet the anxious expression habitual to her coun 
 tenance, and the bustling air of her vocation which 
 quickly succeeded conversational repose, hinted but too 
 plainly straitened circumstances and daily toil. But 
 what struck her present curious visitor more than these 
 casual traits were the remains of great beauty in the 
 still lovely contour of the face, the refined lines of her 
 mouth, and the depth and varied play of the eyes. He 
 was both sympathetic and ingenious, and ere long gained 
 the confidence of his auditor. The unfeigned interest 
 and the true perception he manifested in speaking of 
 the portrait rendered him, in its owner s estimation, 
 worthy to know the story his own intuition had so 
 
PICTURES. 93 
 
 nearly divined. The original was Theodosia, the 
 daughter of Aaron Burr. His affection for her was 
 the redeeming fact of his career and character. Both 
 were anomalous in our history. In an era remarkable 
 for patriotic self-sacrifice, he became infamous for 
 treasonable ambition ; among a phalanx of statesmen 
 illustrious for directness and integrity, he pursued the 
 tortuous path of perfidious intrigue ; in a community 
 where the sanctities of domestic life were unusually re 
 vered, he bore the stigma of unscrupulous libertinism. 
 With the blood of his gallant adversary and his coun 
 try s idol on his hands, the penalties of debt and treason 
 hanging over him, the fertility of an acute intellect 
 wasted on vain expedients, an outlaw, an adventurer, 
 a plausible reasoner with one sex and fascinating be 
 trayer of the other, poor, bereaved, contemned, one 
 holy, loyal sentiment lingered in his perverted soul, 
 love for the fair, gifted, gentle being who called him 
 father. The only disinterested sympathy his letters 
 breathe is for her ; and the feeling and sense of duty 
 they manifest offer a remarkable contrast to the paral 
 lel record of a life of unprincipled schemes, misused 
 talents, and heartless amours. As if to complete the 
 tragic antithesis of destiny, the beloved and gifted 
 woman who thus shed an angelic ray upon that dark 
 career was, soon after her father s return from Europe, 
 lost in a storm at sea, while on her way to visit him, 
 thus meeting a fate which, even at this distance of 
 time, is remembered with pity. Her wretched father 
 bore with him, in all his wanderings and through all his 
 remorseful exile, her picture, emblem of filial love, 
 of all that is beautiful in the ministry of woman, and 
 all that is terrible in human fate. At length he lay 
 
94 PICTURES. 
 
 dangerously ill in a garret. He had parted with one 
 after another of his articles of raiment, books, and 
 trinkets, to defray the expenses of a long illness ; Theo- 
 dosia s picture alone remained ; it hung beside him, 
 the one talisman of irreproachable memory, of spotless 
 love, and of undying sorrow ; he resolved to die with 
 this sweet relic of the loved and lost in his possession ; 
 there his sacrifices ended. Life seemed slowly ebbing ; 
 the unpaid physician lagged in his visits ; the impor 
 tunate landlord threatened to send this once dreaded 
 partisan, favored guest, and successful lover to the 
 almshouse ; when, as if the spell of woman s affection 
 were spiritually magnetic, one of the deserted old man s 
 early victims no other than she who spoke acci 
 dentally heard of his extremity, and, forgetting her 
 wrongs, urged by compassion and her remembrance of 
 the past, sought her betrayer, provided for his wants, 
 and rescued him from impending dissolution. In grate 
 ful recognition of her Christian kindness, he gave her 
 all he had to bestow, Theodosia s portrait. 
 
 The indiscriminate disparagement of the old masters 
 which has so long been the parodox of Raskin s beauti 
 ful rhetoric, Haydon s suicidal devotion to the " grand 
 style," Mrs. Jameson s gracious exposition of religious 
 art, and the extravagant encomiums which the fashion 
 able painter of the hour elicits from accredited critical 
 journals, indicate the antagonistic theories and tastes 
 that prevail ; and yet these are all authentic and recog 
 nized oracles of artistic knowledge all more or less 
 true ; and yet, in a comparative view, offering such vio 
 lent contrasts as to baffle and discourage a novice in 
 search of the legitimate picturesque. 
 
 So thoroughly identified with the possibility and prob- 
 
PICTURES. 95 
 
 ability of deception is the very name of a Picture- 
 dealer, that to the multitude an " Old Master " is a bug 
 bear ; the tricks of this trade form a staple of Paris 
 correspondents and travelled raconteurs. The details 
 of manufacture in perhaps this most lucrative branch 
 of spurious traffic are patent ; and, although the legiti 
 mate products of world-renowned painters are authenti 
 cated and on record, scarcely a month passes without 
 some extensive fraud. The amateur in literature, sculp 
 ture, and music, is comparatively free from this perpetual 
 danger ; the sense of mystery does not baffle his enthu 
 siasm ; and while the pictorial votary or victim is dis 
 puting about an "Andrea del Sarto," or a " Teniers," or 
 bewildered by the conflicting theories of rival artists in 
 regard to color, tone, composition, foreshortening ckiaro- 
 oscuro, etc., he enjoys, without misgiving, the noi ci da- 
 rem of Mozart, revels over the faded leaves of his first 
 edition of a classic, or discourses fluently about the 
 line of beauty in his copy of a Greek .statue. " God Al 
 mighty s daylight," wrote Constable, " is enjoyed by all 
 mankind, excepting only the lovers of old dirty canvas, 
 perished pictures at a thousand guineas each, cart-grease, 
 tar, and snuif of candle." The practical lesson deriva 
 ble from these anomalous results of " Pictures," is that 
 we should rely upon our individual impressions, enjoy 
 what appeals gratefully to our consciousness, and repu 
 diate hackneyed and conventional terms, judgments, 
 and affectations, and boldly declare with the poet, be 
 fore the picture which enchants us 
 
 I leave to learned fingers and wise hands 
 The artist and his ape, to teach and tell 
 How well his connoisseurship understands 
 The graceful bend and the voluptuous swell: 
 Let these describe the uudescribable ; 
 
96 PICTURES. 
 
 I would not their vile breath should crisp the stream 
 "Wherein that image shall forever dwell; 
 The unruffled mirror of the loveliest dream 
 That ever left the sky on the deep soul to beam. 
 
 There are heads of men and women delineated hun 
 dreds of, years ago, so knit into the mystic web of mem 
 ory and imagination, so familiar through engravings, 
 cameos, and other reproductive forms of art, and so 
 identified with tragic experience, ideal aspiration or 
 heroic deeds, that the first view of the originals is an 
 epoch in life ; we seem to behold them down a limitless 
 vista of time, and they appeal to our consciousness like 
 the faces of the long-loved, long-lost, and suddenly 
 restored. It is as if we had entered a spiritual realm, 
 and were greeted by the vanished idols of the heart, or 
 the " beings of the mind and not of clay," once arbiters 
 of destiny and oracles of genius. Beatrice Cenci, 
 through soulful eyes infinitely deepened by a life of 
 tears dried up by the fever of intense anguish, looks 
 the incarnation of beauty and woe, beauty we have 
 adored in dreams, woe we have realized through sym 
 pathy. With the first sight of that alabaster skin, those 
 lips quivering with pain, those golden locks, the theme 
 of poets, that corpse-like head-band ; the fragility, the 
 fervor, the sensibility, and the chaste, ineffable grace ; 
 above all, the soulful world of terror, pity, and meek 
 ness in the lustrous and melancholy orbs, how famil 
 iar, yet how new, how pathetic, yet sublime ! The 
 hoary wretch who called her child, seems lurking some 
 where in that hushed and sombre palace ; the brother 
 whose fair brow was lacerated by parental violence ; 
 the resigned mother, the infernal banquet, the prison, 
 the tribunal, the bloody axe, flit with fearful distinctness 
 bet A een our entranced vision and the picture ; for tra- 
 
PICTURES. 97 
 
 dition, local association, Shelley s muse, the secret pen 
 of the annalist, and the pencil of Guiclo, combine to 
 make absolutely real an unparalleled story of loveliness 
 and persecution, maidenhood and martyrdom. It is 
 but recently that the true history of this picture has 
 been authenticated. According to Guerazzi, who has 
 minutely explored contemporary archives, the " study " 
 from which it was painted, Ubaldo Ubaldini made from 
 memory, to console his sister for the loss of Beatrice. 
 He was one of the many artists who loved the beautiful 
 victim with the passion of youth, and the fancy of a 
 painter ; one of the courageous but inadequate band 
 who conspired to rescue her at the scaffold ; * and it 
 
 * Another current tradition is the following: " So great was the ex 
 citement of the Roman populace against the condemnation of Beatrice, 
 that on her way to the scaffold, three attempts were made by concerted 
 bands of young men to rescue her from the officers hands. On the eve 
 of the fatal day she sat meditating her doom so intently, that for some 
 time she did not notice a young man who had bribed the jailer to admit 
 him into the cell for the purpose of making a sketch of her. Her ap 
 pearance is thus described: Beatrice had risen from her miserable pal 
 let, but, unlike the wretched inmate of a dungeon, resembled a being 
 from a brighter sphere. Her large brown eyes were of liquid softness, 
 her forehead broad and clear, her countenance of angelic purity, mys 
 teriously beautiful. Around her head a fold of white muslin had been 
 carelessly wrapped, from whence in rich luxuriance fell her fair and 
 waving hair. Profound sorrow and recent bodily anguish imparted an 
 air of touching sensibility to her lovely features. Suddenly turning, 
 she discovered a stranger seated with pencil and paper in hand looking 
 earnestly at her it was Guido Reni. She demanded who he was, 
 and what he did there; the frank young artist told his name anil object, 
 when, after a moment s hesitation, Beatrice replied, " Signer Guido, 
 your great name and my sad story may make my portrait interesting, 
 and the picture will awaken compassion if you write on one of its an 
 gles the word innocent. Thus was birth given an inspired picture, 
 which, to contemplate, is itself worth a visit to Rome ; which once seen, 
 haunts the memory as a supernatural mystery as the beautiful appa 
 rition of sublimated suifering." 
 7 
 
98 PICTURES. 
 
 was long believed that he died of indignant grief after 
 the catastrophe. Imagine him with the shadow of that 
 mighty sorrow upon his soul, his hand inspired by ten 
 der recollection, secluded with her image stamped on 
 his broken heart, and patiently reproducing those deli 
 cate features and that anguished expression his last 
 offering to her he so quickly followed into the valley of 
 death ! His " study " fell into the hands of Maffei Bar- 
 beriiii, and furnished Guido Reni the materials for this, 
 his most effective and endeared creation. Its marvel 
 lous, aimost magnetic expression, doubtless gave rise to 
 the belief, so long current, that he sketched Beatrice 
 on her way to execution ; but the later explanation is 
 more accordant with probability and more satisfactory 
 to the mind, for such a work requires for the conditions 
 of success, both the inspiration of love and the aptitude 
 of skill. Ubaldini furnished one and Guido the other. 
 
 Many travellers, especially women, have expressed 
 great disappointment with the " Fornarina." They can 
 not associate a figure so much the reverse of ethereal, 
 and charms so robust, with the refined taste and delicate 
 person of Raffaelo. But such objections are founded 
 on an imaginative not philosophic theory of love. There 
 never was a genuine artist who, in matters of feeling, 
 was not a child of Nature ; and we have but to recog 
 nize the idiosyncrasies of poet and painter to find a 
 key to their human affinities. What a peculiar interest 
 we feel in the objects of love whose affection cheered, 
 and whose sympathy inspired those products of pen and 
 pencil, which have become part of our mental being ! 
 I have seen a crowd of half-bashful and wholly intent 
 English girls watch the carriage which contained the 
 obese, yet still fair-haired Countess, whose youthful 
 
PICTURES. 99 
 
 charms so long made Byron a methodical hermit at 
 Ravenna ; and the respectable matron, who as a child 
 was deemed by sentimentalists in Germany and her 
 own exaggerated fancy, the object of Goethe s senile 
 passion, was long courted, on that account, at tea- 
 drinkiugs, by foreign visitors enamored of Faust and 
 ^Vilhelm Meister. Still more natural is the sentiment 
 which lures us to earnest acquaintance with the counte 
 nance on which he who gave an angelic semblance to 
 maternity and caught the most gracious aspect of child 
 hood, used to gaze* with rapture ; the eye that re 
 sponded to his glance, the smile that penetrated his 
 heart, and were fixed on his canvas. The impression 
 which the " Fornarina" of the Tribune instantly gives, 
 is that of genuine womanhood : there is generosity, a 
 repose, a world of latent emotion, an exuberance of 
 sympathetic power, in the full impassioned eye, the 
 broad symmetrical bosom, the rich olive tint ; it is pre 
 cisely the woman to harmonize by her simple presence, 
 and to soothe or exalt by her spontaneous love, the 
 mood of a man of nervous organization and ardent 
 temper. There is a tranquil self-possession in the face 
 and figure which the sensitive and excitable artist es 
 pecially finds refreshing, a candid nature such as 
 alone can inspire such a man s confidence, a majestic 
 simplicity, peculiar to the best type of Roman women, 
 more delightful to the over-tasked brain and sensibili 
 ties than the highest culture of an artificial kind ; and 
 there is the fresh, unperverted, richly developed, har 
 moniously united heart and physique, which, notwith 
 standing the modern standard of female charms, is the 
 normal and the essential basis of honest, natural affin 
 ity. I could never turn, in the Florence Gallery, from 
 
100 PICTURES. 
 
 the pale, delicately rounded, ideal brow, the almost 
 pleading eye, and the cherubic lips of Raffaello, in 
 stinct with the needs as well as the immortal longings 
 of genius, to the mellow, calm, self-sustained and health 
 ful * Fomarina," without fancying the support, the rest, 
 the inexhaustible comfort in Othello s sense of that 
 expressive word which the sensitive artist could find 
 in the cheerful baker s daughter, the irritable seeker in 
 the serene and satisfied woman, the delicate in the 
 strong, the gentle in the hearty, the ideal in the real, 
 the poetic in the practical, the spiritual in the human ; 
 and I contemplated her noble contour, her contented 
 smile, her beaming cheek, and eye undeepened by the 
 experience that withers as it teaches, yet soulful with 
 latent emotion, with an ever-increasing sense of her 
 native claims to Raphael s love. 
 
 Musical organizations are especially sensitive to the 
 pictorial spell ; the letters of Mendelssohn indicate how 
 it influenced his development. Writing from Venice 
 of church services he attended, he says : " Nothing 
 impressed me with more solemn awe than, when on the 
 very spot for which they were originally created, the 
 " Presentation of Mary as a child in the Temple," " the 
 Assumption of the Virgin," " The Entombment of 
 Christ," and " The Martyrdom of St. Peter," in all their 
 grandeur, gradually steal forth out of the darkness in 
 which the long lapse of time has veiled them. Often I 
 feel a musical inspiration, and since I came here have 
 been busily engaged in composition." And from Flor 
 ence he writes : " There is a small picture here which 
 I discovered for myself. It is by Fra Bartolomeo, who 
 must have been a man of most devout, tender, and ear 
 nest spirit. The figures are finished in the most ex- 
 
PICTURES. It)! 
 
 quisite and consummate manner. You can see in the 
 picture itself that the pious master has taken delight in 
 painting it and in finishing the most minute details, 
 probably with a view of giving it away to gratify some 
 friend ; we feel as if the painter belonged to it, and still 
 ought to be sitting before his work or had this moment 
 left." This personal magnetism about pictures is an 
 authentic evidence of their vital relation to character, 
 and it is felt often in an incredible way by the imagina 
 tive and susceptible. The same gifted and generous 
 composer who thus wrote of Titian and Fra Bartolomeo, 
 speaks of the impression he received from Raphael s 
 portrait by himself: "Youthful, pale, delicate, and with 
 such inward aspirations, such longing and wistfulness in 
 the mouth and eyes, that it is as if you could see into 
 his very soul ; that he cannot succeed in expressing all 
 that he sees and feels, and is thus impelled to go forward, 
 and that he must die an early death ; all this is writ 
 ten on his mournful, suffering, yet fervid countenance." 
 Vandyke s portraits of Charles the First, impress the 
 spectator with regal fanaticism, and a tragic destiny 
 more than some of the written histories of his reign. 
 The exquisite hands of Leonardo s " Gioconde," are as 
 eloquent of feminine grace and sensibility as the most 
 elaborate description. Correggio s " Magdalen " in the 
 remorseful abandon and beautiful sadness of its expres 
 sion, reveals her who " loved much," repented, and was 
 forgiven. Giovanni di Medici, in the Uffizzi Gallery, 
 fulfils to the imagination the ideal of mediaeval Italian 
 soldiership. Stuart s " Washington " embodies the se 
 rene conscience, the self-control, the humane dignity and 
 birthright of command which consecrate our peerless 
 chief; and Delaroche s " Napoleon Crossing the Alps," 
 
102 PICTURES. 
 
 perpetuates the intense purpose and insatiable ambition 
 that won so many battles and died of anxiety on an 
 ocean-rock. Such instances, which might easily be 
 multiplied, prove how a single department of Art, and 
 that the least estimated, is allied to history, patriotism, 
 and sentiment, and capable of touching their secret 
 springs and unveiling their limitless perspective at a 
 glance. Guercino s " Hagar " is a biblical poem. Ham 
 let s filial reproaches borrow their keenest sting from 
 two " counterfeit presentments," and Trumbull s faithful 
 and assiduous pencil has transmitted the individualities 
 of our Revolutionary drama. And thus the art of por 
 traiture, even in its general relations, may become, 
 through illustrious subjects and rare fidelity, the ro 
 mance which association of ideas breeds from reality. 
 
 I was never more impressed with the absolute line 
 of demarcation between the imitative and the inventive, 
 even in the lighter processes of Art, than when exam 
 ining the graphic series of illustrations of " The Wan 
 dering Jew." Nature is represented under all forms, 
 the woods, the desert, the ocean, caves, meadows, and 
 skies, and these fixed elemental features might be well 
 reflected by mechanical aids photographed or repro 
 duced through chemical and optical means ; but the 
 true meaning of each picture consisted in the ever- 
 present shadow pursuing the Wanderer the form of 
 the Holy One bowed under his cross : it glimmered in 
 the water, was stamped on the rock, outlined in the 
 gnarled forest branches, pencilled in the floating vapor, 
 reflected in the ice-mirrored lake, with a latent and 
 inevitable yet unobtrusive and apparently accidental 
 omnipresence, as if wrought into the texture of Nature 
 through the creative anguish of conscience which 
 
PICTURES. 103 
 
 emphatically announced an intelligence far beyond all 
 mechanical art, and interfused the material with the 
 abstract, the imaginative, and the human as only genius 
 can. The same thing is evinced by comparing the best 
 photographs of architecture, figures, or landscape with 
 the sketch-book of a genuine artist ; in certain points, 
 there will be found a special intelligence and feeling 
 which transcends the most remarkable imitative truth. 
 How much of this is suggested, for instance, by the mere 
 catalogue of an album on the table at a Parisian soiree : 
 fleurs de Redonte, chevaux de Carl Vernet, Bedouins 
 d Horace, aquarelles de Ciceri, petit paysages de Ge- 
 niole, caricatures de Grandville et de Monnier, beaux 
 brigands de Schnetz " tous chefs d oeuvre au petit 
 pied." 
 
 A portrait of little Fritz, drumming, in the Berlin 
 Gallery, Carlyle hails in his " Life of Frederick the 
 Great " as " one tiny islet of reality amid the shoreless 
 sea of fantasms ; Flaying of Bartholomews, Rape of Eu- 
 ropas, etc." Napoleon was delighted to remember that 
 his mother reclined on tapestry representing the heroes 
 of the Iliad, when she brought him into the world. 
 
 For how long and with what vividness are certain 
 pictures associated with localities. Gainsborough s 
 <k Blue Boy," and Reyuolds s " Strawberry Girl," are 
 among the salient retrospective images of the English 
 school at the Manchester Exhibition. We think of 
 Correo gio with Parma, Perugino with Perugia, Fra 
 Angelico with Florence, Da Vinci s Last Supper and 
 Guercino s Hagar with Milan, Murillo with Seville, 
 Vandyke with Madrid, Rubens with Antwerp, Watteau 
 with Paris, and Paul Potter s Bull with the Hague. 
 
 The Dutch School, in a philosophical estimate, is but 
 
104 PICTURES. 
 
 the compensation afforded by the romance of Art for 
 its deficiency in Nature ; the element of the picturesque 
 not found in mountains, forests, and cataracts, the low 
 land painters wrought from flowers and firesides ; the 
 radiant tulips and exquisite interiors, the humble but 
 characteristic in life and manners. To seize upon indi 
 viduality is the conservative tact of both painter and 
 poet ; whoever does this effectively contributes to the 
 world s gallery of historical portraits, and keeps before 
 the living, the faces, costume, and action of bygone races 
 and heroes. Catlin s aboriginal portraits introduced the 
 American native tribes to Europe ; a naturalist abroad 
 has but to turn over Audubon s portfolio to become in 
 timately acquainted with every bird whose plumage or 
 song makes beautiful our woodlands and sea-shore ; the 
 traveller who rests an hour at Perugia, may trace on 
 the walls of a church the original, crude, yet pious ex 
 pression which Raphael developed into angelic beauty. 
 Vernet has, by the very multiplicity of his battle-pieces, 
 signalized on canvas the military genius of the French 
 nation ; the faith which so distinguishes the fifteenth 
 from the speculation of the eighteenth century, is man< 
 ifest to us most eloquently in the master-pieces of relig 
 ious art, which yet remain in peerless beauty to attest 
 the holy convictions that inspired them ; and all that is 
 peculiar in Grecian culture has found no exponent like 
 the statues of her divinities. Hogarth preceded Crabbe 
 and Dickens in making palpable the shadows of want, 
 crime, and luxury. The Italian satirist who endowed 
 animals with speech and made them represent the 
 absurdities of humanity, hinted their possible signifi 
 cance less than Landseer who, by individualizing their 
 most salient traits, or Kaulbach who revealed the brute 
 
PICTURES. 
 
 105 
 
 creation in the highest intuitive expression. There 
 is a piquant rustic beauty by Greuze, which embodies 
 and embalms, in its exquisite suggestiveness, the special 
 claim of naive brightness and grace that belongs almost 
 exclusively to French lovable women ; and there is a 
 portrait of an American matronly belle of the days 
 of Washington, by Stuart, which represents the type 
 of mingled self-reliance and womanly loveliness that 
 has made the ladies of our Republican court so mem 
 orably attractive. 
 
DOCTORS. 
 
 Throw physic to the dogs. 
 
 .ACBKTH. 
 
 Friend of my life, which did not you prolong, 
 The world had wanted many an idle song. 
 
 POPE. 
 
 .N the moving panoramas of cities are to be 
 seen certain vehicles of all degrees of locomo 
 tive beauty and convenience, from the glossy 
 and silver-knobbed carriage with its prancing grays, to 
 the bacheloric-looking sulky with its one gaunt horse, 
 in which are seated gentlemen of a learned and profes 
 sional aspect, usually wearing spectacles, and always an 
 air of intense respectability, or of contemplation and 
 seriousness. They recognize numerous acquaintances 
 as they pass with a peculiar smile and nod, and are 
 usually accompanied by " a little man-boy to hold the 
 horse," as the French cook in the play defines a tigre. 
 These mysterious personages rejoice in the title of Doc 
 tor, once a very distinctive appellation, but now as 
 common as authorship and travelling. A moralist, 
 watching them gliding by amid fashionable equipages, 
 crowded omnibuses, hasty pedestrians, and all the phe 
 nomena of life in a metropolis, would find a striking 
 contrast between the rushing tide around, and the 
 hushed rooms they enter. To how many their visit is 
 the one daily event that breaks in upon the monotony 
 
t 
 
 DOCTORS. 107 
 
 of illness and confinement ; how many eyes watch them 
 with eager suspense, and listen to their opinion as the 
 fiat of destiny ; how many feverishly expect their com 
 ing, shrink from their polished steel, rejoice in their 
 cheering ministrations, or dread their long bills ! The 
 Doctor ! " a word that stirs the extremest moods 
 despair and jollity ! 
 
 There is no profession which depends so much for its 
 efficiency on personal traits as that of medicine ; for 
 the utility of technical knowledge here is derived from 
 individual judgment, tact, and sympathy. In other 
 words, the physician has to deal with an unknown ele 
 ment. Between the specific ailment and the remedy 
 there are peculiarities of constitution, the influence of 
 circumstances, and the laws of Nature to be considered ; 
 so that although the medical adviser may be thoroughly 
 versed in physiology, the materia medica, and the symp 
 toms of disease, if he possess not the discrimination, the 
 observant skill, and the reflective power to apply his 
 learning wisely, it is comparatively unavailing. The 
 aim of the divine and the attorney, however impeded 
 by obstacles, is reached by a more direct course ; logic, 
 eloquence, and zeal, united to professional attainment, 
 will insure success in law and divinity ; but in physic, 
 certain other qualities in the man are requisite to give 
 scope to the professor. Hence we associate a certain 
 originality with the idea of a doctor ; are apt to regard 
 the vocation at the two extremes of superiority and pre 
 tension, and justly estimate the individuals of the class 
 according to their capacity of insight and their princi 
 ples of action, rather than by their mere acquisitions or 
 rank as teachers. The uncertainty of medicine, as a 
 practical art, thus induces a stronger reliance on indi- 
 
108 DOCTORS. 
 
 vidual endowments than is the case in any other liberal 
 pursuit. 
 
 A philosophical history of the art of healing would 
 be not less curious than suggestive. The absurd theo 
 ries which checked its progress for centuries, the secrets 
 hoarded by Egyptian priests, the union of medical 
 knowledge with ancient systems of philosophy, the 
 epoch of Galen, the Arabian and Salerno schools, the 
 reformation of Paracelsus, the brilliant discoveries 
 which, at long intervals, illumined the track of the sci 
 ence, and the enlightened principles now realized, if 
 fully discussed, would form an extraordinary chapter in 
 the biography of man. Herein, as with other vocations, 
 modern division of labor has concentrated professional 
 aptitudes. " L affluence des postulants," says Balzac, 
 " a force la medecine a se diviser en categories ; il y a 
 le medecin qui professe, le medecin politique et le med- 
 ecin militant et la cinquieme divisions, celle des doc- 
 teurs qui vendent des remedes." 
 
 St. Luke and the" Good Samaritan are yet the favorite 
 signs of apothecaries, confirming the original charity of 
 the art ; and in the south of Europe may still be seen 
 over the barbers shops, the effigy of a human arm 
 spouting blood from an open vein, an indication of the 
 once universal custom of periodical depletion. It is 
 now acknowledged that diverse climates require modi 
 fied treatment of the same disease ; that nervous sus 
 ceptibility is far greater in one latitude than another, 
 and that habits of life essentially individualize the con 
 stitution. Indeed, the widest difference exists in the 
 relation of persons to the doctor ; some never see him, 
 and others must have a consultation upon the most tri 
 fling ailment, so great is the dependence which can 
 
DOCTORS. 109 
 
 be had upon nature, and so extreme both the faith and 
 the scepticism which exists in regard to curative science. 
 
 Popular literature is full of hits at the profession : 
 " La barber fait plus de la moitie d un medecin," says 
 Moliere, who, in " La Malade Imaginaire," has so acutely 
 given the current philosophy of the subject, by satiriz 
 ing the pedantry and charlatanism of the doctors cf his 
 day : " Nous voyons que, dans la maladie tout le monde 
 a recours aux medecins ; ce st une marque de la fai- 
 blesse humaine et non pas de la verite de leur art ; " and 
 of all ailments the hardest to cure is " la maladie des 
 medecins." Imagination has been called by a German 
 philosopher " the mediatrix, the nurse, the mover of all 
 the several parts of our spiritual organism." " I have 
 the worst luck of any physician under the cope of 
 heaven," complains Sancho Panza ; " other doctors kill 
 their patients and are paid for it too, and yet they are 
 at no further trouble than scrawling two or three cramp 
 words for some physical slip-slop, which the apothe 
 caries are at all the pains to make up." 
 
 It would seem, indeed, as if the advance of science 
 improved medical practice negatively, that is, by induc 
 ing what in politics has been called a masterly inactiv 
 ity ; and there is no doubt that no small degree of the 
 success attending Hahnemann s theory is to be attributed 
 to the comparative abstinence it inculcates in the use 
 of remedial agents. The fact is a significant one, as 
 indicative of the want of positive science in the healing 
 art ; and the consequent wisdom of leaving to nature, 
 as far as possible, the restorative process. Indeed, to 
 assist nature is acknowledged, by just observers, to be 
 the only wise course ; and this brings us to the infer 
 ence that a good physician is necessarily a philosopher; 
 
110 DOCTORS. 
 
 it is incumbent on him, of all men, to exercise the 
 inductive faculty ; he must possess good causality, not 
 only to reason justly on individual cases, but to apply 
 the progress of science to the exigencies of disease. 
 It is related of Bixio that such was his zeal for science, 
 having long wished to ascertain whether a man instinc 
 tively turns when wounded in a vital part, asked his ad 
 versary in a duel to aim at one, and, although fatally 
 hurt, exclaimed with ardor, as he involuntarily spun 
 round " It is true, they do turn ! " 
 
 The comparatively slow accumulation of scientific 
 truth in regard to the treatment of disease, is illustrated 
 by the fact that not until the lapse of two thousand 
 years after medicine had assumed the rank of a science, 
 under the auspices of Hippocrates, was the circulation 
 of the blood discovered, an era in its history. The 
 fiery discussion of the efficacy of inoculation and its 
 gradual introduction, is another significant evidence of 
 the same general truth. But, in our own day, the rapid 
 and valuable developments of chemistry have, in a 
 measure, reversed the picture. Numerous alleviating 
 and curative agents have been discovered ; the gas of 
 poisonous acids is found to eradicate, in many cases, 
 the most fatal diseases of the eye ; heat, more penetrat 
 ing than can be created by other means, is eliminated 
 from carbon in an aeriform state, passes through the 
 cuticle, without leaving a mark on its surface, and re 
 stores aching nerves or exhausted vitality. Vegetable 
 and mineral substances are refined, analyzed, and com 
 bined with a skill never before imagined ; opium yields 
 morphine, and Peruvian bark quinine, and all the known 
 salubrious elements are thus rendered infinitely subser 
 vient to the healing art. Chloroform is one of the most 
 
DOCTORS. Ill 
 
 beneficent of these new agents ; and has exorcised the 
 demon of physical pain by a magical charm, without 
 violating, in judicious hands, the integrity of Nature. 
 
 There is a secret of curative art in which consists the 
 genius of healing ; it is that union of sympathy with 
 intelligence, and of moral energy with magnetic gifts, 
 whereby the tides of life are swayed, and one " can min 
 ister to a mind diseased/ Fortunate is the patient 
 who is attended by one thus endowed but such are 
 usually found out of the professional circle they are 
 referees ordained by Nature to settle the difficulties of 
 inferior spirits ; the arbiters recognized by instinct who 
 soothe anger, reconcile doubt, amuse, elevate, and con 
 sole by a kind of moral alchemy ; and potent coadjutors 
 are they to the material aids of merely technical physi 
 cians. " Who dare say," asks Renan, in allusion to the 
 calming and purifying influence of Jesus, " that in many 
 cases, and apart from injuries of a dreaded character, 
 the contact of an exquisite person is not worth all the 
 resources of pharmacy ? " " It was agony to me," 
 wrote Hahnemann, " to walk in darkness, with no other 
 light than could be derived from books." One of his 
 opponents from this confession infers the fallacy of his 
 system ; " the conviction," he observes, " is irresistibly 
 forced upon us that he was not a born physician" If 
 our ancestors were less enlightened in regard to hy 
 giene, and if their physicians were less scrupulous in 
 tampering with the functions of nature, they had one 
 signal advantage over us in escaping the inhuman com 
 ments, made after every fatal issue, on the practice and 
 the treatment adopted no matter with how much con 
 scientious intelligence ; we not only suffer the pangs of 
 bereavement, but the reproaches of devotees of each 
 
112 DOCTORS. 
 
 school of medicine, and of rival doctors of having by 
 an unwise choice sacrificed the life for which we would 
 have cheerfully resigned our own ! Somewhat of this 
 occult healing force might have been read in the serene 
 countenance of Dr. Physic of Philadelphia; it predom 
 inated in the benevolent founder of the Insane Asylum 
 of Palermo, who learned from an attack of mental 
 disorder how to feel for, and minister to, those thus 
 afflicted. The late Preissnitz, of Graefenberg, seems to 
 have enjoyed the gift which is as truly Nature s indica 
 tion of an aptitude for the art, as a sense of beauty in 
 the poet. But this principle is " caviare to the gen 
 eral." 
 
 Medicine has lost much of its inherent dignity by the 
 same element, in modern times, that has degraded art, 
 letters, and society, the spirit of trade. This agency 
 encourages motives, justifies means, and leads to ends 
 wholly at variance with high tone and with truth. The 
 gentleman, the philosopher, the man of honor, and with 
 them that keystone in the arch of character self-re 
 spect, are wholly compromised in the process of sinking 
 a liberal art into a common trade. In the economy of 
 modern society, however, the physician has acquired a 
 new influence ; he has gained upon the monopoly of the 
 priest, for while the spirit of inquiry, by trenching on 
 the mysterious prerogatives which superstition once ac 
 corded, has retrenched the latter s functions, the same 
 agency, by extending the domain of science and ren 
 dering its claims popular, has enlarged the sphere of 
 the other profession. To an extent, therefore, never 
 before known, the doctor fills the office of confessor ; 
 his visits yield agreeable excitement to women with 
 whc^n he gossips and sympathizes ; admitted by the 
 
DOCTORS. 113 
 
 very exigency of the case to entire confidence, often 
 revered as a counsellor and friend, as well as relied on 
 as a healer, not infrequently he becomes the oracle of a 
 household. Privileges like these, when used with be 
 nevolence and integrity, are doubtless honorable to both 
 parties, and become occasions for the exercise of the 
 noblest service and the highest sentiments of our na 
 ture ; while, on the other hand, they are liable to the 
 grossest abuse, where elevation of character and gentle 
 manly instincts are wanting. Accordingly there has 
 sprung into existence, in our day, a personage best des 
 ignated as the medical Jesuit ; whose real vocation, as 
 well as the process by which he acquires supremacy, 
 fully justifies the appellation. Like his religious proto 
 type, he operates through the female branches, who, in 
 their turn, control the heads of families ; and the extent 
 to which the domestic arrangements, the social rela 
 tions, and even the opinions of individuals are thus reg 
 ulated, is truly surprising. " Women," says Mrs. Jame 
 son, " are inclined to fall in love with priests and physi 
 cians, because of the help and comfort they derive from 
 both in perilous moral and physical maladies. They 
 believe in the presence of real pity, real sympathy, 
 where the look and tone of each have become merely 
 habitual and conventional, I may say professional." Yet 
 a popular novelist, in his ideal portrait of the physician, 
 justly claims superiority to impulse and casual sympa 
 thy, as an essential requisite to success. " Pie must en 
 ter the room a calm intelligencer. He is disabled for 
 his mission if he suffer aught to obscure the keen 
 glance of his science."* 
 
 The natural history of the doctor has not yet been 
 * Bulwer s Strange Story. 
 
114 DOCTORS. 
 
 written, but the classes are easily nomenclated ; we have 
 all known the humorous, the urbane, the oracular, the 
 facetious, the brusque, the elegant, the shrewd, the ex 
 quisite, the burly, the bold, and the fastidious ; and the 
 character of people may be inferred by their choice of 
 each species. Those in whom taste predominates over 
 intellect, will select a physician for his agreeable per 
 sonal qualities ; while such as value essential traits, will 
 compromise with the roughest exterior and the least 
 flattering address for the sake of genuine skill and a 
 vigorous and honest mind. As a general rule, in large 
 cities, vanity seems to rule the selection ; and it is a 
 lamentable view of human nature to see the blind prefer 
 ence given to plausible but shallow men, whose smooth 
 tongues or gallant air win them suffrages denied to good 
 sense and candid intercourse. The most detestable 
 genus is that we have described under the name of medi 
 cal Jesuits ; next in annoyance are the precisians ; the 
 most harmless of the weaker order are the gossips ; 
 and there is often little to choose in point of risk to " the 
 house of life " between the very timid and the dare 
 devils ; in a great exigency the former, and in an ordi 
 nary case the latter are equally to be shunned. In the 
 " Horae Subsecivae " of Dr. John Brown, we find some apt 
 and needed counsel to the aspirants for medical success : 
 " The young doctor must have for his main faculty, 
 sense ; but all will not do if Genius is not there ; such 
 a special therapeutic gift had Hippocrates, Sydenham, 
 Pott, Purcell, John Hunter, Delpech, Dupuytren, Kellie, 
 Cheyne, Baillie, and Abercrombie. Moreover, let me 
 tell you, my young doctor friends, that a cheerful face 
 and step and neckcloth and button-hole, and an occa 
 sional hearty and kindly joke, and the power of execut- 
 
DOCTORS. 115 
 
 ing and setting a-going a good laugh, are stock in our 
 trade not to be despised." Brillat Savarin declares, 
 doctors easily become gourmands because so well 
 received. 
 
 In Paris, Edinburgh, and Philadelphia all the world 
 over, the medical student is an exceptional character ; 
 their pranks are patent ; the rough ones like to kick 
 up rows, and the more quiet are unique at practi 
 cal jokes. Bob Sawyer is a typical hero. If, like the 
 portrait-painter, doctors are often the playthings of 
 fortune in cities, where the arbitrary whims of fashion 
 decree success ; in the country, their true worth is 
 more apt to find appreciation ; and the individualities 
 of character, having free scope, quite original children 
 of Apollo are the result. The name of Hopkins is 
 still memorable in the region where he practised, as 
 one of the literary clique of which Humphries, Dwight, 
 and Barlow were members. Dr. Osborn, of Sandwich, 
 Mass., wrote the popular whaling-song yet in vogue 
 among Xantucketers. Dr. Holyoke of Salem, is re 
 nowned as a beautiful instance of longevity ; and the 
 wit of Dr. Spring was proverbial in Boston. The best 
 example of a medical philosopher, in our annals, is 
 that of Dr. Rush of Philadelphia ; he reformed the 
 system of practice ; first treated yellow fever success 
 fully, made climate a special study, and, like Burke, 
 laid every one he encountered under contribution for 
 facts. His life of seventy years was passed in ardent 
 investigation. It is remarkable that the first martyr to 
 American liberty was a physician ; and before he fell, 
 Warren eloquently avowed his principles, like Korner 
 in Germany, rousing the spirit of his countrymen, and 
 then consecrating his sentiments with his blood. Boyls- 
 
116 DOCTORS. 
 
 ton, the ancestral portraits of whose family are among 
 the best of Copley s American works, nearly fell a vic 
 tim to public indignation for his zealous and intelli 
 gent advocacy of inoculation, and natural science owes 
 a debt to Barton, Morton, and De Kay, which is ac 
 knowledged both at home and abroad. A French doc 
 tor has noted the historical importance of his confreres, 
 and tells us Hamond was Racine s master, Lestocq 
 helped elevate Catharine to the Russian throne, Ilaller 
 was a poet and romancer, Cuvier was the greatest nat 
 uralist of his age, and Murat was a doctor. French 
 medecins have figured in the Chamber and on the 
 Boulevards. 
 
 If, by virtue of the philosophic instinct and liberal 
 tastes, the doctor is thus allied to belles-lettres, he is 
 allured into the domain of science by a still more direct 
 sympathy. To how many has the study of the materia 
 medica and the culling of simples, proved the occasion 
 of botanical research ; and hence, by an easy transition, 
 of exploring the entire field of natural science. Thus 
 Davy was beguiled into chemical investigation ; and 
 Abercrombie, by the vestibule of physiological knowl 
 edge, sought the clue to mental philosophy ; while 
 Spurzheim and Combe ministered to a great charity by 
 clearly explaining to the masses the natural laws of 
 human well-being. It is an evidence of the sagacity of 
 the Russian Peter, that he sought an interview with 
 Boerhaave ; for by these varied links of general utility, 
 the medical office enters into every branch of social 
 economy ; and is only narrowed and shorn of dignity 
 by the limited views or inadequate endowments of its 
 votaries. The Jewish physician preserved and transmit 
 ted much of the learning of the world after the fall of 
 
DOCTORS. 117 
 
 the Alexandrian school.* Life-insurance and quaran 
 tines, have become such grave interests, that through 
 them the responsibility of the physician to society is 
 manifest to all ; that to individuals is only partially rec 
 ognized. How Cowper and Byron suffered for wise 
 medical advice, and what ameliorations in states of mind 
 and moral conditions, have been induced by the now 
 widely-extended knowledge of hygienic laws ! Charles 
 Lamb reasons wisely as well as quaintly in this wise : 
 " You are too apprehensive of your complaint. The 
 best way in these cases is to keep yourself as ignorant 
 as the world was before Galen, of the entire construc 
 tion of the animal man ; not to be conscious of a mid 
 riff; to hold kidneys to be an agreeable fiction ; to 
 account the circulation of the blood an idle whim of Har 
 vey s ; to acknowledge no mechanism not visible. For 
 once, fix the seat of your disorder, and your fancies flux 
 into it like bad humors. Above all, take exercise, and 
 avoid tampering with the hard terms of Art. Desks are 
 not deadly. It is the mind, and not the limbs, that 
 taints by long sitting. Think of the patience of the 
 tailors ; think how long the Lord Chancellor sits ; think 
 of the brooding hen." 
 
 In literature the doctor figures with a genial dignity.; 
 
 * " Mohammedanism had been the patron of physical science ; pagan 
 izing Christianity not only repudiated it, but exhibited towards it sen 
 timents of contemptuous disdain and hatred : hence physicians were 
 viewed by the Church with dislike and regarded as atheists by the peo 
 ple, who had been taught that cures must be wrought by relics of mar 
 tyrs and bones of saints: for each disease there was a saint. Already 
 it was apparent that the Saracenic movement would aid in developing 
 the intelligence of barbarian Western Europe, through Hebrew physi 
 cians, in spite of the opposition encountered from theological ideas im 
 ported from Constantinople and Rome." Drapes Intellectual Devel 
 opment of Europe, p. 414. 
 
118 DOCTORS. 
 
 he has affinities with genius and a life-estate in the 
 kingdom of letters : witness Garth s poem of " The 
 Dispensary ; " Akenside s " Pleasures of the Imagina 
 tion ; " Armstrong s " Art of Health ; " Cowley s verses, 
 Sprat s Life of him, and Currie s of Burns ; Beattie s 
 " Minstrel ; " Darwin s " Botanic Garden ; " Moore s 
 " Travels in Italy ; " Zimmerman s " Solitude ; " Gold 
 smith s " Vicar and Village ; " Aikin s " Criticisms ; " 
 Joanna Baillie s gifted brother, and Lady Morgan s 
 learned husband. Burke found health at the house of 
 the benign Dr. Nugent of Bath, at the outset of his 
 career, and married the daughter of his medical friend. 
 " Les medecins sont souvent tout a la fois conseillors, 
 arbitres et magistrats au sein des families." The best 
 occasional verses of Dr. Johnson are those that com 
 mend the humble virtues of Levett, the apothecary.* 
 Dr. Lettson wrote the life of Carver, the American trav 
 eller, and his account of that adventurous unfortunate 
 led to the establishment of the Literary Fund Society. 
 Among the graves near Archibald Carlyle s old church 
 at Inveresk, where that handsome clerical and convivial 
 gossip is buried, is that of the sweet versifier, beloved 
 as the " Delta " of Blackwood, Dr. Moir, who so genially 
 
 * "When fainting Nature called for aid, 
 
 And hovering Death prepared the blow, 
 His vigorous remedy displayed 
 
 The power of Art without the show- 
 In Misery s darkest caverns known, 
 
 His useful help was ever nigh, 
 Where hopeless Anguish poured his groan, 
 
 Or lonely Want retired to die. 
 No summons mocked by chill delay, 
 
 No petty gains disdained by pride, 
 The modest wants of every day, 
 
 The toil of every day supplied. 
 
DOCTORS. 119 
 
 united the domestic lyrist and the good doctor, a Delta 
 framed in bay adorns the pedestal of his monument. 
 Rousseau, an invalid of morbid sensibility, recognizes 
 the professional superiority of the physician as a social 
 agent : " Par tons le pays ce sont les hommes les plus 
 veritablement utiles et savants." The "Medecin de 
 Campagne " of Balzac, and the " Dr. Antonio " of Ruf- 
 fini, are elaborate and charming illustrations of this testi 
 mony of the author of " Emile." What a curious chapter 
 would be added to the " Diary of a Physician," had 
 Cabanis kept a record of his interviews with those two 
 illustrious patients Mirabeau and Condorcet. The 
 social affinities of the doctor prove indirectly what we 
 before suggested, that it is in the character more than 
 in the learning, in the mind rather than the technical 
 knowledge, that medical success lies. One of the shrewd- 
 
 O - 
 
 est of the profession, Abernethy, declared thereof 
 " I have observed, in my profession, that the greatest 
 men were not mere readers, but the men who reflected, 
 who observed, who fairly thought out an idea." Al 
 most intuitive is the venerable traditional ideal of the 
 physician ; among the aborigines of this continent, the 
 u medicine man " was revered as nearest to the " Great 
 Spirit." "I hold physicians," said Dr. Parr, "to be 
 the most enlightened professional persons in the whole 
 circle of human arts and sciences." In our own day, 
 Lever s Irish novels, and in our own country the writ 
 ings of Drake, Mitchell, Holmes, Bigelow, Francis, and 
 others, indicate the literary claims of the profession. 
 Think of Arbuthnot beside Pope s sick-bed, and the 
 latter s apostrophe 
 
 " Friend of my life, which did not you prolong, 
 The world had wanted many an idle song; " 
 
120 DOCTORS. 
 
 of Garth ministering to Johnson, and Rush philosophiz 
 ing with Dr. Franklin, and the friendship of Pope and 
 Cheselden. Bell s comments on Art, Colden s " Letters 
 to Linnaeus," and Thatcher s " Military Journal," are at 
 tractive proofs of that liberal tendency which leads the 
 physician -beyond the limits of his profession into the 
 field of philosophical research. The bequest of Sir 
 Hans Sloane was the nucleus of the British Museum. 
 We all have a kind of affection for Dr. Slop, who, 
 drawn from Dr. Burton of York, a cruel, instrumental 
 obstretician, is the type of an almost obsolete class, 
 as the doctor in " Macbeth " is of the sapient pretender 
 of all time. As to ideal doctors, how real to our minds 
 is that Wordsworthean myth, Dr. Fell, the physician of 
 Sancho Panza, and the Purgon of Moliere, while Dul 
 camara is a permanent type of the clever quack, Dr. 
 Bartolo of the solemn professor, and Sangrado of the 
 merciless phlebotomist. To think it " more honorable 
 to fail according to rule than to succeed by innovation," 
 is a satire of no local significance, but the constant 
 creed of the medical pedant. Satirized years ago by the 
 French comic dramatist, the profession was caricatured 
 the other day by a young disciple of Esculapius, who in 
 a clever drawing represented the votary of homoeopathy 
 with a little globule between thumb and finger, engaged 
 in a kind of airy swallowing ; the allopathic patient in 
 an easy-chair is making wry faces over a large spoonful 
 of physic ; the believer in hydropathy sits forlorn and 
 shivering in a sitz-bath, with a large goblet of water 
 raised to his lips ; while the Thomsonian victim is 
 writhing and nauseating in anguish ; and in the midst 
 a skeleton, with a syringe for a baton, is dancing in a 
 transport of infernal joy. Southey took a wise advan- 
 
DOCTORS. 121 
 
 tage of the popular idea of a doctor, in the genial 
 and speculative phase of the character, when he gave 
 the title to his last rambling, erudite, quaint, and charm 
 ing production. Men of letters accordingly are wont 
 to fraternize with the best of the profession ; and there 
 has always been a reciprocal interchange between them 
 both of affection and wit. Thus Halleck tells us in 
 Fanny " 
 
 In Physic, we have Francis and M Xeven, 
 
 Famed for long heads, short lectures, and long bills ; 
 
 And Quackenboss and others, who from heaven 
 Were rained upon us in a shoAver of pills ; 
 
 They d beat the deathless Esculapius hollow, 
 
 And make a starveling druggist of Apollo. 
 
 The record of our surgeons in the war for the Union 
 is alike honorable to their patriotism, humanity, and 
 skill. 
 
 Popular writers have indicated the claims and char 
 acter of the profession, not only in a dramatic or anec 
 dotal way, but by personal testimony and observation ; 
 and those who have had the best opportunities and are 
 endowed with liberal sympathies, warmly recognize the 
 possible usefulness and probable benevolence of a class 
 of men more often satirized than sung. The privations 
 and toil incident to country practice half a century ago, 
 are scarcely imagined now. Sir Walter Scott tells us : 
 "I have heard the celebrated traveller Mungo Park, 
 who had experienced both courses of life, rather give 
 the preference to travelling as a discoverer in Africa, 
 than to wandering by night and day the wilds of his na 
 tive land in the capacity of a country practitioner." Dr. 
 Johnson, a livelong invalid, and not apt to overlook 
 professional foibles, gives a high average character to 
 the doctor. " Whether," he observes, " what Sir William 
 
122 DOCTORS. 
 
 Temple says be true, that the physicians have more 
 learning than the other faculties, I will not stay to in 
 quire ; but I believe every man has found in physicians 
 great liberality and dignity of sentiment, very prompt 
 effusion of beneficence and willingness to exert a lucra 
 tive art where there is no hope of lucre." 
 
 It is a nervous process to undergo the examination of 
 a Parisian medical professor of the first class. Auscul 
 tation was first introduced by one of them ; Laennec, 
 and diagnosis is their chief art. In their hands the 
 stethoscope is a divining rod. So reliable is their in 
 sight, that they seem to read the internal organism as 
 through a glass ; and one feels under Louis s inspection 
 as if awaiting sentence. The laws of disease have been 
 thoroughly studied in the hospitals of Paris, and the 
 philosophy of symptoms is there understood by the med 
 ical savans with the certainty of a natural science, but 
 the knowledge and application of remedies is by no 
 means advanced in equal proportion. Accordingly, the 
 perfection of modern skill in the art seems to result 
 from an education in the French schools, combined with 
 experience in English practice ; thorough acquaintance 
 with physiology, and habits of acute observation and 
 accurate deduction, are thus united to executive tact 
 and ability. And similar eclectic traits of character are 
 desirable in the physician, especially the union of solid 
 ity of mind with agreeableness of manner ; for in no 
 vocation is there so often demanded the blending of the 
 fortiter in re with the suaviter in modo. 
 
 The absence of faith in positive remedies that ob 
 tains in Europe, is very striking to an American visitor, 
 because it offers so absolute a contrast to the system 
 pursued at home. I attended the funeral of a country- 
 
DOCTORS. 123 
 
 man, a few days after reaching Paris, and, on our way 
 to Pere la Chaise, his case and treatment were fully dis 
 cussed ; his disease was typhus fever. Previous to delir 
 ium he had designated a physician, a celebrated profes 
 sor, who only prescribed gomme syrop. For a week I 
 travelled with a Dominican friar who had so high a 
 fever, that in America he would have been confined to 
 his bed; he took no nourishment all the time but a 
 plate of thin soup once a day ; and when we reached 
 our destination, he was convalescent. Abstinence and 
 repose are appreciated on the continent as remedial 
 agencies ; but they are contrary to the genius of our 
 people, who regard active enterprise as no less desira 
 ble in a doctor than a steamboat captain. 
 
 Veteran practitioners have demonstrated that certain 
 diseases are self-limited, that the art of treating dis 
 eases is still " a conjectural study," and avowed the con 
 viction that " the amount of death and disaster in the 
 world would be less, if all disease were left to itself, 
 than it now is under the multiform, reckless, and con 
 tradictory modes of practice." A conscientious student, 
 of high personal character, entered upon the profession 
 with enthusiastic faith ; experience in the use of reme 
 dies made him sceptical, and he resorted to evasion by 
 giving water only under various pretexts and names ; 
 his success was so much greater than that of his breth 
 ren, that he felt bound to reveal the ruse, but continued 
 thenceforth to assert that, all things being equal, more 
 patients would survive, if properly guarded and nour 
 ished, without medicine than with. 
 
 The influence of the mind upon the body is, in some 
 instances, so great, that it accounts for that identity of 
 superstition and medicine which is one of the most re- 
 
124 DOCTORS. 
 
 markable traits in the history of the science. Sir Walter 
 Raleigh s cordial was as famous in its day as Mrs. Trul- 
 bery s water praised by Sir Roger de Coverley. In 
 Egypt, old practitioners cure with amulets and charms ; 
 among the Tartars they swallow the name of the rem 
 edy with perfect faith ; and from the Puritan horse-shoe, 
 to keep off witchcraft, to Perkins tractors to annihilate 
 rheumatism, the history of medical delusions is rife with 
 imaginary triumphs. As late as the seventeenth cen 
 tury, when Arabian precepts and the Jewish leech of 
 chivalric times had disappeared, when the square cap 
 and falling beards had given place to the wig and cane, 
 in some places the mystic emblems of skull, stuffed 
 lizards, pickled foetus, and alembic gave a necromantic 
 air to the doctor s sanctum. 
 
 The unknown is the source of the marvellous, and 
 the relation between a disease and its cure is less obvi 
 ous to the common understanding, than that between 
 
 the evidence and the verdict in a law case, or relisf- 
 
 & 
 
 ions faith and its public ministration in the office of 
 priest. The imagination has room to act, and the sense 
 of wonder is naturally excited, when, by the agency of 
 some drug, mechanical apparatus, or mystic rite, it is 
 attempted to relieve human suffering and dispel infirm 
 ity. Hence the most enlightened minds are apt to yield 
 to credulity in this sphere, much to the annoyance of 
 the " regular faculty," who complain with reason that 
 quackery, whether in the form of popular specifics or 
 the person of a charlatan, derives its main support from 
 men of civic and professional reputation. Think of Dr. 
 Johnson, in his infancy, being touched for King s Evil, 
 by Queen Anne, in accordance with a belief in its sov 
 ereign efficiency, unquestioned for centuries. Sir Ken- 
 
DOCTORS. 125 
 
 elm Digby was as much celebrated in his day for his 
 recipe for a sympathetic powder, which he obtained 
 from an Italian friar, as for his beautiful wife or his 
 naval victory ; and the good Bishop Berkeley gave as 
 much zeal to the " Treatise on the Virtues of Tar- Wa 
 ter," as to that on the " Immateriality of the Universe." 
 Shakspeare has drawn a quack doctor to the life in 
 Cains, the French physician, in the " Merry Wives of 
 Windsor," and uttered an impressive protest against 
 the tribe in "All s Well that Ends Well " : 
 
 " King. But may not be so credulous of cure, 
 
 When our most learned doctors leave us ; and 
 
 The congregated college have concluded 
 
 That laboring art can never ransom nature 
 
 From her inaidable estate: I say we must not 
 
 So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope, 
 
 To prostitute our past-cure malady 
 
 To empirics ; or to dissever so 
 
 Our great self and our credit, to esteem 
 
 A senseless help, when help past sense we deem." 
 
 An American member of the medical profession * has 
 traced in the great bard of Nature a minute knowledge 
 of the healing art, citing his various allusions to dis 
 eases and their remedies : thus we have in Coriolanus 
 the " post-prandial temper of a robust man," and the 
 physiology of madness in Hamlet and Lear. The wast 
 ing effects of love, melancholy, the processes of diges 
 tion, respiration, circulation of the blood, infusion of 
 humors, effects of passions on the body, of slow and 
 swift poisons, insomnia, dropsy, and other phenomena 
 described with accuracy. Caesar s fever in Spain, Gra- 
 tiano s warning, " creep into a jaundice by being 
 
 * Shalcspeare s Medical Knowledge, by Charles W. Stearns, M. D. 
 New York: D. Appleton & Co."! 
 
126 DOCTORS. 
 
 peevish ; " the physical effects of sensualism in Antony 
 and Cleopatra, the external signs of sudden death from 
 natural causes in Henry VI., and summary of diseases 
 in Troilus and Cressida, are described with professional 
 truth. How memorable his Apothecary s portrait ! while 
 the medical critic assures us that, in a passage in " Mid 
 summer-Night s Dream," the "accessories of a sickly 
 season are poetically described," and that Falstaff ad 
 mirably satirizes the " ambiguities of professional opin 
 ion," while, in Mrs. Quickly s description of his death, 
 and the dying scene of Cardinal Beaufort, as well as 
 the senility of Lear, the mellow virility of old Adam, 
 the " thick coming fancies " of remorse, and Ophelia s 
 aberration every minute touch in the memorable pic 
 ture of " a mind diseased " indicate a profound in 
 sight, and suggest, as no other poet can, how intimately 
 and universally the " ills that flesh is heir to " and the 
 vocation of those who minister to health, are woven into 
 the web of human destiny and the scenes of human life. 
 Who has so sweetly celebrated " Nature s sweet re 
 storer " and the " healing touch " ? or more emphati 
 cally declared, " when the mind s free, the body s deli 
 cate," and 
 
 " "We are not ourselves 
 When nature, being oppressed, commands 
 The mind to suffer with the body." 
 
 The memoirs of celebrated men abound with physio 
 logical interest ; their eminence brings out facts which 
 serve to vindicate impressively the phases of medical 
 experience, and the relation of the soul to its tabernacle. 
 Madden s " Infirmities of Genius " is a book which sug 
 gests an infinite charity, as well as exposes the fatal ef 
 fects of neglecting natural laws. Lord Byron used to 
 
DOCTORS. 127 
 
 declare that a dose of salts exhilarated him more than 
 wine. Shelley was a devoted vegetarian. Cowper spoke 
 from experience when he sang the praises of the cups 
 " that cheer but not inebriate." Johnson had faith in the 
 sanative quality of dried orange peel. When Dr. Spurz- 
 heim was first visited by the physicians in his last ill 
 ness, he told them to allow for the habitual irregularity 
 of his pulse, which had intermitted ever since the death 
 of his wife. George Combe used to tell a capital story, 
 in his lectures, of the manner in which a pious Scotch 
 lady made her grandson pass Sunday, whereby, while 
 outwardly keeping the Sabbath, he violated all the rules 
 of health. Two of the most characteristic books in 
 British literature are Greene s poem of the " Spleen," 
 and Dr. Cheyne s "English Malady;" and another is 
 the history of the " Gold-Headed Cane," or rather of 
 the five doctors that successively owned it. The cane, 
 indeed, was ever an indispensable symbol of medical 
 authority ; the story of Dr. Eadcliffe s illustrates its 
 modern significance, but the association of the walking- 
 staff and the doctor comes down to us from mediaeval 
 times. " He smelt his cane," in the old ballads, is a 
 phrase suggestive of a then common expedient ; the 
 head of the physician s cane was filled with disinfectant 
 herbs, the odor of which the owner inhaled when ex 
 posed to miasma. Even at this day, in some of the 
 provincial towns in Italy, we encounter the doctor in 
 the pharmacist s shop, awaiting patients, his dress 
 and manner such as are reproduced in the comic drama, 
 while the quack of the Piazza is recognized on the Op 
 eratic stage. 
 
 How unprofessional medicine is becoming, may be 
 seen in current literature, when De Quincey s metaphys- 
 
DOCTORS. 
 
 ical account of the effects of opium, and Bulwer s fas 
 cinating plea for the Water-Cure, are ranked as light 
 reading. To the lover of the old English prose-writers, 
 there is no more endeared name than Sir Thomas 
 Browne, and his " Religio Medici " and quaint tracts 
 are among the choicest gifts for which philosophy is in 
 debted to the profession ; while the classical student 
 owes to Dr. Middleton a " Life of Cicero." The viva 
 cious Lady Montagu is most gratefully remembered for 
 her philanthropic efforts in behalf of inoculation for 
 small-pox ; and our Brockden Brown has described the 
 phenomena of an epidemic, in one of his novels, with 
 more insight though less horror than De Foe. 
 
 It is in pestilence and after battle that the doctor 
 sometimes rises to the moral sublime, in his disinter 
 ested and unwearied devotion to others. It must, how 
 ever, be confessed that, notwithstanding these incidental 
 laurels, the authority of the profession has so declined, 
 the malades imaginaires so increased with civilization, 
 and the privileges of the faculty been so encroached 
 upon by what is called " progress," that a doctor of the 
 old school would scorn to tolerate the fallen dignity of 
 a title that once rendered his intercourse with society 
 oracular, and authorized him with impunity, to whip a 
 king, as in the case of Dr. Willis and George the Third. 
 
 " The philosophy of medicine, I imagine," observed 
 Dr. Arnold, " is zero ; our practice is empirical, and 
 seems hardly more than a course of guessing, more or 
 less happy." None have been more sceptical than physi 
 cians themselves in regard to their own science : Brous- 
 sais calls it illusory, like astrology ; and Bichat declares, 
 " it is, in respect to its principles, taken from most of 
 our materia medicas, impracticable for a sensible man .; 
 
DOCTORS. 129 
 
 an incoherent assemblage of incoherent opinions, it is, 
 perhaps, of all the physiological sciences, the one which 
 shows plainest the contradictions and wanderings of the 
 human mind." Montaigne used to beseech his friends 
 that, if he fell ill, they would let him get a little stronger 
 before sending for the doctor. Louis XIV., who was a 
 slave to his physicians, asked Moliere what he did for 
 his doctor. " Oh sire," said he, " when I am ill, I 
 send for him. lie comes, we have a chat, and enjoy 
 ourselves. He prescribes ; I don t take it, and I am 
 cured." 
 
 " There is a certain analogy," says an agreeable writer, 
 " between naval and medical men. Neither like to 
 acknowledge the presence of danger." On the other 
 hand, each patient s character as well as constitution 
 makes a separate demand upon his sympathy; for in 
 cases where fortitude and intelligence exist, perfect 
 frankness is due, and in instances of extreme sensibility 
 it may prove fatal ; so that the most delicate consider 
 ation is often required to decide on the expediency of 
 enlightening the invalid. If it is folly to theorize in 
 medicine, it is often sinful to flatter the imagination for 
 the purpose of securing temporary ease. A physician s 
 course, like that of men in all pursuits, is sometimes 
 regulated by his consciousness, and he is apt to pre 
 scribe according to his own rather than his patient s 
 nature ; thus a fleshy doctor is inclined to bleed, and 
 recommend generous diet ; a nervous one affects mild 
 anodynes ; a vain one talks science ; and a thin, cold 
 blooded, speculative one, makes safe experiments in 
 practice, and is habitually non-committal in speech. 
 Almost invariably short-necked plethoric doctors enjoy 
 freeing the vessels of others by copious depletion, and 
 
130 DOCTORS. 
 
 those more delicately organized advocate fresh air and 
 tonics; the one instinctively reasoning from the sur 
 plus, and the other from the inadequate vitality of which 
 they are respectively conscious. I knew a doctor who 
 scarcely ever failed to prescribe an emetic, and his ex 
 pression of countenance indicated chronic nausea. 
 
 Medicine enjoys no immunity from the spirit of the 
 age. Who does not recognize in the popularity of 
 Hahnemann s system the influence of the transcendental 
 philosophy, a kind of intuitive practice analogous to the 
 vague terms of its disciples in literature ; those little 
 globules with the theoretical accompaniment catch the 
 fancy ; castor-oil and the lancet are matter-of-fact in com 
 parison. And so with hydropathy. There is in our day 
 what may be called a return-to-nature school. Words 
 worth is its expositor in poetry ; Fourier in social life, 
 the Pre-Raphaelites in painting. The newly appre 
 ciated efficacy of water accords with this principle. It 
 is an elemental medicament, limpid as the style of 
 Peter Bell, free from admixture as the individual labor 
 in a model community, and as directly caught from Na 
 ture as the aerial perspective of England s late scenic 
 limner. Even what has been considered the inevitable 
 resort to dissection in order to acquire anatomical knowl 
 edge, it is now pretended, has a substitute in clairvoy 
 ance. Somewhat of truth in this spiritualizing tendency 
 of science, there doubtless is, but Fact is the basis of 
 positive knowledge, and the most unwarrantable of all 
 experiments are those involving human health. 
 
 If the mental experience of a doctor naturally leads to 
 philosophy, the moral tends to make him a philanthro 
 pist. He is familiar with all the ills that flesh is heir to. 
 The mystery of birth, the solemnity of death, the anxiety 
 
DOCTORS. 131 
 
 of disease, the devotion of faith, the agony of despair, 
 are phases of life daily open to his view ; and their con 
 templation, if there is in his nature a particle either of 
 reflection or sensibility, must lead to a sense of human 
 brotherhood, excite the impulse of benevolence, and 
 awaken the spirit of humanity. Warren s " Diary of a 
 Physician " gives us an inkling of what varieties of 
 human experience are exposed to his gaze. Vigils at 
 the couch of genius and beauty, full of the stern ro 
 mance of reality, or imbued with tenderness and inspi 
 ration, are recorded in his heart. He is admitted into 
 sanctums where no other feet but those of kindred 
 enter. He becomes the inevitable auditor and specta 
 tor where no other stranger looks or listens. Human 
 nature, stripped of its conventionalities, lies exposed 
 before him ; the secrets of conscience, the aspirations 
 of intellect, the devotedness of love, all that exalts and 
 all that debases the soul, he beholds in the hour of 
 weakness, solitude, or dismay ; and hard and unthink 
 ing must he be, if such lessons make no enduring im 
 pression, and excite no comprehensive sympathies. 
 
 " The corner-stone of health," says a German writer, 
 " is to maintain our individuality intact ; " and while the 
 hygienic reformer has lessened the bills of mortality, 
 personal culture has emancipated society from much of 
 the ignorant dependence and insalubrious habits of 
 less enlightened times. 
 
HOLIDAYS. 
 
 "And here I must have leave, in the fulness of my soul, to regret the aboli 
 tion and doiug-away with altogether of those consolatory interstices and sprink 
 lings of freedom, through the four seasons the red-letter days, now become 
 to all intents and purposes dead-/eer days. ; CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 |HILE we accord a certain historical or ethical 
 significance to our holidays, we also feel their 
 casual tenure, their want of recreative zest, of 
 enjoyable spirit, and of cordial popular estimation; and 
 are irresistibly prompted to discuss their claims as one 
 of the neglected elements of our national life. It is an 
 anomalous fact in our civilization, that we have no one 
 holiday, the observance of which is unanimous. It is 
 an exceptional trait in our nationality that its sentiment 
 finds no annual occasion when the hearts of the people 
 thrill with an identical emotion, absorbing in patriotic 
 instinct and mutual reminiscence all personal interests 
 and local prejudice. It is an unfortunate circumstance 
 that no American festival, absolutely consecrated and 
 universally acknowledged, hallows the calendar to the 
 imagination of our people. Anniversaries enough, we 
 boast, of historical importance, but they are casually 
 observed ; events of glorious memory crowd our brief 
 annals, but they are not consciously identified with re 
 curring periods; universal celebrities are included in 
 the roll of our country s benefactors, but the dates of 
 their birth, services, and decease, form no saints days 
 for the Republic. How often in the crises of sectional 
 
HOLIDAYS. 133 
 
 passion does the moral necessity of a common shrine, 
 a national feast, a place, a time, or a memory sacred 
 to fraternal sympathies of general observance, appal 
 the patriotic heart with regret, or warm it with desire ! 
 How much of sectional misunderstanding, hatred, and 
 barbarism culminating in a base and savage mutiny, 
 will the future historian trace in the last analysis to the 
 absence of a common sentiment and occasion of mutual 
 pleasure and faith. Were such a nucleus for popular 
 enthusiasm, such a goal for a nation s pilgrimage, such 
 a day for reciprocal gratulation our own, a time when 
 the oath of fealty could be renewed at the same altar, 
 the voice of encouragement be echoed from every sec 
 tion of the Union, the memory of what has been, the 
 appreciation of what is, and the hope of what may be, 
 simultaneously felt, what a bond of union, a motive to 
 forbearance, and a pledge of nationality would be se 
 cured ! Were there not in us sentiments as well as ap 
 petites, reflection as well as passion, humanity might rest 
 content with such " note of time " as is marked on a 
 sun-dial or in the almanac ; but constituted as we are, 
 a profound and universal instinct prompts observances 
 wherewith faith, hope, and memory may keep register 
 of the fleeting hours and months. In accordance with 
 this instinct, periodical sacrifice, song, prayer, and 
 banquet, in all countries and ages, have inscribed with 
 heartfelt ceremony the shadowy lapse of being. With 
 out law or art, the savage thus identifies his conscious 
 ness with the seasons and their transition ; anniversaries 
 typifying vicissitude ; the wheel of custom stops a while ; 
 events, convictions, reminiscences, and aspirations are 
 personified in the calendar ; and that reason which 
 " looks before and after," asserts itself under every guise 
 
134 HOLIDAYS. 
 
 from the barbarian rite to the Christian festival, and be 
 gets the Holiday as an institution natural to man. If the 
 ballads of a people are the essence of its history, holidays 
 are, on similar grounds, the free utterance of its charac 
 ter : and as such, of great interest to the philosopher, and 
 fraught with endearing associations to the philanthropist. 
 
 The spontaneous in nations as well as individuals is 
 attractive to the eye of philosophy, because it is emi 
 nently characteristic. The great charm of biography 
 is its revelation of the play of mind and the aspect 
 of character, when freed from conventional restraints. 
 And, in the life of nations, how inadequate are the rec 
 ords of diplomacy, legislation, and war the official 
 and economical development to indicate what is in 
 stinctive and typical in character ! It is when the armor 
 of daily toil, the insignia of office, the prosaic routine 
 of life, are laid aside, that what is peculiar in form and 
 graceful in movement become evident. In the glee or 
 solemnity of the festival, the soul breaks forth ; in the 
 fusion of a common idea, the heart of a country be 
 comes freely manifest. 
 
 Accordingly, the manner, the spirit, and the object 
 of festal observances are among the most significant 
 illustrations of history. An accurate chart of these 
 from the earliest time, would afford a reliable index to 
 the progress of humanity ; and suggest a remarkable 
 identity of natural wants, tendencies, and aspirations. 
 There is, for instance, a singular affinity between the 
 Saturnalia of the ancient and the Carnival of the mod 
 ern Romans, the sports of the ancient circus and bull 
 fights of Spain ; while so closely parallel, in some re 
 spects, are Druidical and Monastic vows and fanaticism, 
 that one of the most popular of modern Italian operas, 
 
HOLIDAYS. 135 
 
 which revived the picturesque costume and sylvan rites 
 of the Druids, was threatened with prohibition, as a 
 satire upon the Church. It would, indeed, well repay 
 antiquarian investigation, to trace the germ of holiday 
 customs from the crude superstitions of barbarians, 
 through the usages incident to a more refined mythol 
 ogy, to their modified reappearance in the Catholic 
 temples, where Pagan rites are invested with Christian 
 meaning, or the statue of Jupiter transformed into St. 
 Peter, and the sarcophagus of a heathen becomes the 
 font of holy baptism. Gibbon tells us how shrewd 
 Pope Boniface professed but to rehabilitate old cus 
 toms, when he revived the secular games in Rome. 
 Not only are traces of Pagan forms discoverable in the 
 modern holidays, but the mediaeval taste for exhibitions 
 of animal courage and vigor still lives in the love of 
 prize-fights and horse-racing so prevalent in England, 
 and the ring and the cockpit minister to the same bru 
 tal passions which of old filled the Flavian amphithea 
 tre with eager spectators, and gave a relish to the ordeal 
 of blood. In the abuses of the modern pastime we 
 behold the relics of barbarism, and the perpetuity of 
 such national tastes is evident in the combative instinct 
 which once sustained the orders of chivalry, and in our 
 day, has lured thousands to the destructive battle-fields 
 of the Crimea and Virginia. 
 
 Not only do the social organizations devoted to pop 
 ular amusements and economies, thus give the best 
 tokens of local manners and average taste, but they 
 directly minister to the culture they illustrate. The 
 gladiator " butchered to make a Roman holiday," nur 
 tured with his lifeblood and dying agonies the ferocious 
 propensities and military hardihood of the imperial co- 
 
136 HOLIDAYS. 
 
 horts. The graceful posture and fine muscular display 
 of the wrestler, and discus-player of Athens, reappeared 
 in the statues which peopled her squares and temples. 
 The equine beauty and swiftness exhibited at Derby 
 and Ascot, keep alive the emulation which renders 
 England famous for breeds of horses, and her gentry 
 healthful by equestrian exercise. The custom of musi 
 cal accompaniments at every German symposium has, 
 in a great measure, bred a nation of vocal and instru 
 mental performers. The dance became a versatile art 
 in France, because it was, as it still is, the national pas 
 time. The Circassian is expert with steed and rifle 
 from the habit of dexterity acquired in the festive trials 
 of skill, excellence in which is the qualification for lead 
 ership. The compass, flexibility, and sweetness of the 
 human voice so characteristic of the people of Italy, have 
 been attained through ages of vocal practice in eccle 
 siastical and rural festivals ; and the copious melody of 
 their language gradually arose through the canzoni of 
 troubadours and the rhythmical feats of improvisator*, 
 The deafening clang of gongs, the blinding smoke of 
 chowsticks, and the dazzling light of innumerable lan 
 terns, wherewith the Chinese celebrate their national 
 feasts, are to European senses the most oppressive im 
 aginable token of a stagnant and primitive civilization ; 
 the festive elements of the semi-barbarism artistically 
 represented by their grotesque figures, ignorance of 
 perspective, interminable alphabet, pinched feet, bare 
 scalps, and implacable hatred of innovation, both in the 
 processes and the forms of advanced taste. 
 
 Even the aboriginal feasts of this continent were the 
 best indication of what the American Indians, in their 
 palmy days, could boast of strength, agility, and grace. 
 
HOLIDAYS. 137 
 
 Thus, from the most cultivated to the least developed 
 races, what is adopted and expressed in a recreative or 
 holiday manner, what is thus done and said, sought 
 and felt, the rallying-point of popular sympathy, the 
 occasion of the universal joy or reverence, is a moral 
 fact of unique and permanent interest, on the one 
 hand, as illustrative of the kind and degree of civiliza 
 tion attained, and of the instinctive direction of the 
 national mind, and, on the other, as indicative of the 
 means and the processes whereby the wants are met 
 and the ideas realized, which stimulate and mould a 
 nation s genius and faith. 
 
 The testimony of observation accords with that of 
 history in this regard. The foreign scenes which haunt 
 the memory as popular illustrations of character, are 
 those of Holidays. The government, literature, art, 
 and society of a country may be individually repre 
 sented to our minds ; but when we discuss national 
 traits, we instinctively refer to the pastimes, the relig 
 ious ceremonials, and the festivals of a people. Where 
 has the pugilistic hilarity of the Irish scope as at Donny- 
 brook Fair ? Is a dull parliamentary speech, or an an 
 imated debate at the race-course, most vivid with the 
 spirit of English life ? Market-day, and harvest-home, 
 and saintly anniversaries, evoke from its commonplace 
 level the life of the humble and the princely, and they 
 appear before the stranger under a genuine and char 
 acteristic guise. We associate the French, as a people, 
 with the rustic groups under the trees of Montmorenci, 
 or the crowds of neatly-dressed and gay bourgeoise at 
 the Jardin d ffiver, finding in the green grass, lights, 
 cheap wine and comfits, a flower in the hair, a waltz and 
 saunter, more real pleasure than a less frugal and mer- 
 
138 HOLIDAYS. 
 
 curial people can extract from a solemn feast, garnished 
 with extravagant upholstery, and loaded with luxurious 
 viands. We recall the Italians and Spaniards by the 
 ceaseless bells of their festas vibrating in the air, and 
 the golden necklace and graceful mezzano of the peas 
 ant s holiday ; the tinkle of guitars, the bolero and pro 
 cessions, or the lines of stars marking the architecture 
 of illuminated temples, the euphonious greeting, the 
 light-hearted carol, the abundant fruit, the knots of 
 flowers, the gay jerkin and bodice, which render the 
 urbane throng so picturesque in aspect and childlike in 
 enjoyment. The sadness which overhung the very idea 
 of Italy, considered as a political entity, exhaled like 
 magic, before the spectacle of a Tuscan vintage. The 
 heaps of purple and amber fruit, the gray and pensive- 
 eyed oxen, the reeking butts, the yellow vine-leaves 
 waving in the autumn sun, form studies for the pencil ; 
 but the human interest of the scene infinitely endears 
 its still life. Kindred and friends, in festal array, cele 
 brate their work, and rejoice over the Falernian, Lach- 
 ryma Christi, or Vino Nostrale, with a frank and naive 
 gratitude akin to the mellow smile of productive Na 
 ture ; the distance between the lord of the soil and the 
 peasant is, for the time, lost in a mutual and innocent 
 triumph ; they who are wont to serve become guests ; 
 the dance and song, the compliment and repartee, the 
 toast and the smile, are interchanged, on the one side 
 with artless loyalty, and on the other with a condescen 
 sion merged in graciousness. It seems as if the hand 
 of Nature in yielding her annual tribute, literally im 
 parted to prince and peasant the touch which makes 
 " the whole world kin." 
 The contrast, in respect of pastime, is felt most keenly 
 
HOLIDAYS. 139 
 
 when we observe life at home, with the impressions of 
 the Old World fresh in our minds. We have perhaps 
 joined the laughing group who cluster round Punch 
 and Judy on the Mole of Naples ; we have watched the 
 flitting emotions on swarthy listeners who greedily drink 
 in the story-tellers words on the shore of Palermo ; we 
 have made an old gondolier chant a stanza of Tasso, at 
 sunset, on the Adriatic ; our hostess at Florence has 
 decked the window with a consecrated branch on Palm 
 Sunday ; we have seen the poor contadini of a Roman 
 village sport their silver knobs and hang out their one 
 bit of crimson tapestry, in honor of some local saint ; 
 we have examined the last mosaic exhumed from Pom 
 peii, brilliant with festal rites, and thus, as an element 
 both of history and experience, of religion and domes 
 ticity, the recreative side of life appears essential and 
 absolute, while the hurrying crowd, hasty salutations, 
 and absorption in affairs around us, seem to repudiate 
 and ignore the inference, and to confirm the opinion of 
 one whose existence was divided between this country 
 and Europe, that " the Americans are practical Stoics." 
 To appreciate the value of holidays merely as a con 
 servative element of faith, we have but to remember the 
 Jewish festivals. Ages of dispersion, isolation, contempt, 
 and persecution, all that mortal agencies can effect to 
 ehill the zeal or to discredit the traditions of the He 
 brews, have not, in the slightest degree, lessened the 
 sanction or diminished the observance of that festival, 
 to keep which the Divine Founder of our religion, nine 
 teen centuries ago, went up to Jerusalem with his disci 
 ples. And it is difficult to conceive a more sublime 
 idea than is involved in this fact. On the day of the 
 Passover, in the Austrian banker s splendid palace, in 
 
140 HOLIDAYS. 
 
 the miserable Ghetto of Rome, under the shadow of 
 Syrian mosques, in the wretched by-way hostel of Po 
 land, at the foot of Egyptian pyramids, beside the Holy 
 Sepulchre, among the money-changers of Paris and the 
 pawnbrokers of London, along the canals of Holland, 
 in Siberia, Denmark, Calcutta, and New York, in every 
 nook of the civilized world, the Jew celebrates his holy 
 national feast ; and who can estimate how much this and 
 similar rites have to do with the eternal marvel of that 
 nation s survival ? 
 
 The conservatism inherent in traditional festivals not 
 only binds together and keeps intact the scattered com 
 munities of a dispersed race, but saves from extinction 
 many local and inherited characteristics. I was never 
 so impressed with this thought as on the occasion of an 
 annual village fete in Sicily. Perhaps no territory of 
 the same limits comprehends such a variety of elements 
 in the basis of its existent population, as that luxuriant 
 and beautiful but ill-fated island. Its surface is vener 
 able with the architectural remains of successive races. 
 Here a Grecian temple, there a Saracenic dome ; now 
 a Roman fortification, again a Norman tower ; and 
 often a mediaeval ruin of some incongruous order, at 
 tracts the traveller s gaze from broad valleys rich with 
 grain, olive - orchards, and citron - groves, vineyards 
 planted in decomposed lava, hedges of aloe, meadows 
 of wild-flowers, a torrent s arid path, a holly-crowned 
 mountain, a cork forest, or seaward landscape. But the 
 more flexible materials left by the receding tide of in 
 vasion are so blended in the physiognomies, the customs, 
 and the patois of the inhabitants, that only nice investi 
 gation can trace them amid the generic phenomena of 
 nationality now recognized as Sicilian. Yet the people 
 
HOLIDAYS. 141 
 
 of a village but a few miles from the Capital, have so 
 identified their Greek origin with the costume of a hol 
 iday, that, as one scans their festal array, it is easy to 
 imagine that the unmixed blood of their classic pro 
 genitors flushes in the dark eyes and mantles in the 
 olive cheeks. This ancestral dress is the endeared heir 
 loom in the homes of the peasantry, assumed with con 
 scious pride and gayety, to meet the wondering eyes 
 of neighboring contadini, curious Palermitans, and de 
 lighted strangers, who flock to the spectacle. 
 
 The love of power is a great teacher of human in 
 stincts ; and despotism, both civil and spiritual, has, in 
 all ages, availed itself of the natural instinct for festi 
 vals, to multiply and enhance shows, amusements, and 
 holidays, in a manner which yields profitable lessons to 
 free communities intent on adapting the same means to 
 nobler ends. The stated pilgrimage to the tomb of the 
 Prophet is an important part of the superstitious ma 
 chinery of the Mahommedan tyranny over the will and 
 conscience ; and it is difficult to conceive now to what 
 an extent the zeal and unity of the early Christians were 
 enforced by specific days of ceremonial, and by such a 
 hallowed goal as Jerusalem. 
 
 Imperial authority in France is upheld by festive 
 seductions adapted to a vivacious populace, and by 
 masque balls, municipal banquets, showers of bon 
 bons, and ascent of balloons, contrives to win attention 
 from republican discontent. Mercenary rulers of petty 
 States, by the gift of stars and red ribbons, and liberal 
 contributions to the opera, obtain an economical safe 
 guard. The policy of the Romish Church is nowhere 
 more striking than in her holiday institutions, appealing 
 to native sentiment through pageantry, music, and im- 
 
142 HOLIDAYS. 
 
 pressive rites in honor of saints, martyrs, and departed 
 friends, to propitiate their intercession or to endear 
 their memories. 
 
 While the pastimes in vogue typify the national mind, 
 and are to serious avocations what the efflorescence of 
 the tree is to its fruit, a bountiful pledge and augury 
 of prolific energy, it is only when kept as holidays, 
 set apart by law and usage, consecrated by time and 
 sympathy, that such observances attain their legitimate 
 meaning ; and to this end, a certain affinity with char 
 acter, a spontaneous and not conventional impulse is 
 essential. The Tournament, for instance, was the nat 
 ural and appropriate pastime of the age of chivalry ; it 
 fostered knightly prowess, and made patent the twin- 
 born inspiration of love and valor. As described in 
 Ivanhoe, it accords intimately with the spirit of the age 
 and the history of the times ; as exhibited to the utili 
 tarian vision and mercantile habits of our own day, in 
 Virginia, it comes no nearer our associations than any 
 theatrical pageant chosen at hap-hazard. What other 
 species of grown men could, in this age, enact every year, 
 in the neighborhood of Rome, the scenes which make 
 the artists holiday ? As a profession, they retain the 
 instincts of childhood, with little warping from the world 
 around. But imagine a set of mechanics or merchants 
 attempting such a masquerade. The invention, the 
 fancy, the independence, and the abandon congenial 
 with artist-life, gives unity, picturesqueness, and grace 
 to the pageant; and the speeches, costumes, feasting, 
 and drollery, are preeminently those of an artist s car 
 nival. It is indispensable that the spirit of a holiday 
 should be native to the scene and the people; and 
 hence all endeavors to graft local pastimes upon foreign 
 
HOLIDAYS. 143 
 
 communities, signally fail. This is illustrated in our 
 immediate vicinity. The genial fellowship and exuber 
 ant hospitality with which the first day of the year is 
 celebrated in New York were characteristic among the 
 Dutch colonists, and have been transmitted to their pos 
 terity ; while the tone of New England society, though 
 more intellectual, is less urbane and companionable ; 
 accordingly, the few enthusiasts who have attempted it 
 have been unable, either by precept or example, to make 
 a Boston New Year s day the complete and hearty fes 
 tival which renders it par excellence the holiday of the 
 Knickerbockers. Charitable enterprise, for several 
 years past, in the Puritan city has distinguished May 
 day as a children s floral anniversary ; but who that is 
 familiar with the peasant-songs that hail this advent 
 of summer in the south of Europe, ever beheld the 
 shivering infants and the wilted leaves, paraded in the 
 teeth of an east wind, without a conscious recoil from 
 the anomalous fete ? The facts of habit, public senti 
 ment, natural taste, local association, and of climate, 
 cannot be ignored in holiday institutions, which, like 
 eloquence, as defined by Webster, must spring directly 
 from the men, the subject, and the occasion. Any other 
 source is unstable and factitious. Of all affectations, 
 those of diversion are the least endurable ; and there is 
 no phase of social life more open to satire, nor any that 
 has provoked it to more legitimate purpose, than the 
 affectation of a taste for art, sporting, the ball-room, the 
 bivouac, the gymnasium, foreign travel, country life, 
 nautical adventure, and literary amusements ; an affec 
 tation yielding, as we know, food for the most spicy 
 irony, from Goldoni s Filosofo Inglese to Hood s cockney 
 ruralist and Punch s amateur sportsman or verdant tour- 
 
144 HOLIDAYS. 
 
 1st. And what is true of personal incongruities, is only 
 the more conspicuous in social and national life. 
 
 When our literary pioneer sought to waken the fra 
 ternal sentiment of his countrymen towards their ances 
 tral land, he described with sympathetic zest an English 
 Christmas in an old family mansion ; and the most pop 
 ular of modern novelists can find no more potent spell 
 whereby to excite a charitable glow in two hemispheres 
 than a " Christmas Carol." In New as well as in Old 
 England, the once absolute sway of this greatest of 
 Christian festivals has been checked by Puritan zeal. 
 We must look to the ancient ballads, obsolete plays, and 
 musty Church traditions, to ascertain what this hallowed 
 season was in the British Islands, when wassail and the 
 yule-log, largess and the Lord of Misrule, the mistletoe 
 bough, boars heads, holly wreaths, midnight chimes, 
 the feast of kindred, the anthem, the prayer, the games 
 of children, the good cheer of the poor, forgiveness, 
 gratulation, worship, all that revelry hails and relig 
 ion consecrates, made holiday in palace, manor, and 
 cottage, throughout the land ; winter s robe of ermine 
 everywhere vividly contrasting with evergreen decora 
 tions, the frosty air with the warmth of household fires, 
 the cold sky with the incense of hospitable hearths ; 
 when King Charles acted, Ben Jonson wrote a masque, 
 Milton a hymn, lords and peasants flocked to the altar, 
 parents and children gathered round the board, and 
 church, home, wayside, town and country bore witness 
 to one mingled and hearty sentiment of festivity. Iden 
 tical in season with the Roman Saturnalia, and the time 
 when the Scalds let " wildly loose their red locks fly," 
 Christmas is sanctioned by all that is venerable in asso 
 ciation as well as tender and joyous in faith. It is 
 
HOLIDAYS. 145 
 
 deeply to be regretted that with us its observance is al 
 most exclusively confined to the Romanists and Episco 
 palians. The sentiment of all Christian denominations 
 is equally identified with its commemoration, the event 
 it celebrates being essentially memorable alike to all 
 who profess Christianity ; and although the forlorn de 
 scription by Pepys of a Puritan Christmas will not 
 apply to the occasion here, its comparative neglect, 
 which followed Bloody Mary s reign, continues among 
 too many of the sects that found refuge in America. 
 There are abundant indications that if the clergy would 
 initiate the movement, the laity are prepared to make 
 Christmas among us the universal religious holiday 
 which every consideration of piety, domestic affection, 
 and traditional reverence unite to proclaim it. 
 
 The humanities of time, if we may so designate the 
 periods consecrated to repose and festivity, were thor 
 oughly appreciated by the most quaint and genial of 
 English essayists. The boon of leisure, the amenities 
 of social intercourse, the sacredness and the humors of 
 old-fashioned holidays, have found their most loving 
 interpreter, in our day, in Charles Lamb. Hear him : 
 
 " I must have leave, in the fulness of my soul, to regret the 
 abolition and doing-away-with-altogether of those consolatory- 
 interstices and sprinklings of freedom through the four seasons, 
 the red-letter-days, now become, to all intents and purposes^ 
 dead-letter-days. There was Paul and Stephen and Barnabas, 
 Andrew and John, men famous iii old times, we used to 
 keep all their days holy, as long back as when I was at school 
 at Christ s. I remember their effigies by the same token, in 
 the old Basket Prayer-Book. I honored them all, and could 
 almost have wept the defalcation of Iscariot, so much did we 
 love to keep holy memories sacred ; only methought I a little 
 10 
 
146 HOLIDAYS. 
 
 grudged at the coalition of the better Jude with Simon, 
 clubbing (as it were) their sanctities together to make up one 
 poor gaudy-day between them, as an economy unworthy of 
 the dispensation. These were bright visitations in a scholar s 
 and a clerk s life, * far-off their coming shone. I was as 
 good as an almanac in those days." * 
 
 And who has written, like Lamb, of the forlorn pathos 
 of the charity boy s " objectless holiday " ; of the " most 
 touching peal which rings out the old year" ; of "the 
 safety which a palpable hallucination warrants " on All- 
 Fools ; and the " Immortal Go-between," St. Valentine ? 
 
 The devotion to the immediate, the thrift, the enter 
 prise, and the material activity which pertain to a new 
 country, and especially to our own, distinguish Ameri 
 can holidays from those of the Old World. Not a few 
 of them are consecrated to the future, many spring from 
 the triumphs of the present, and nearly all hint progress 
 rather than retrospection. We inaugurate civil and 
 local improvements ; glorify the achievements of me 
 chanical skill and of social reform ; pay honor by feasts, 
 processions, and rhetoric, to public men ; give a muni 
 cipal ovation to a foreign patriot, or a funeral pageant 
 to a native statesman. Our festivals are chiefly on oc 
 casions of economic interest. Daily toil is suspended, 
 and gala assemblies convene, to rejoice over the comple 
 tion of an aqueduct or a railroad, or the launching of an 
 ocean steamer. One of the earliest of these economi 
 cal displays in New York, memorable equally from 
 the great principle it initiated and the felicitous auguries 
 of the holiday itself was the celebration of the open 
 ing of the Erie Canal, the first of a series of grand 
 internal improvements which have since advanced our 
 national prosperity beyond all historical precedent ; and 
 * Essays of Elia. 
 
HOLIDAYS. 147 
 
 one of the last was the grand excursion which signal 
 ized the union by railroads of the Atlantic sea-coast and 
 the Mississippi River. The two celebrations were but 
 festive landmarks in one magnificent system. The en 
 terprise initiated in Western New York, in 1825, was 
 consummated in Illinois, in 1854, when the last link was 
 riveted to the chain which binds the vast line of eastern 
 sea-coast to the great river of the West, and the genius 
 of communication, so essential to our unity and prosper 
 ity, brought permanently together the boundless har 
 vest-fields of the interior and the mighty fleets of the 
 sea-board. To European eyes the sight of the thousand 
 invited guests conveyed from New York to the Falls of 
 St. Anthony would yield a thrilling impression of the 
 scale of festal arrangements in this Republic ; and were 
 they to scan the reports of popular anniversaries and 
 conventions in our journals, embracing every class and 
 vocation, representative of every art, trade, and inter 
 est, a conviction would inevitably arise that we are the 
 most social and holiday nation in the world; on the 
 constant qui vive for any plausible excuse for public 
 dinners, speeches, processions, songs, toasts, and other 
 republican divertisements. One month brings round 
 the anniversary banquet of the Printers, when Frank 
 lin s memory is invoked and his story rehearsed ; an 
 other is marked by the annual symposium and contri 
 butions of the Dramatic Fund ; a Temperance jubilee 
 is announced to-day, a picnic of Spiritualists to-morrow ; 
 here we encounter a long train of Sunday -scholars, and 
 there are invited to a Publishers feast in a " crystal pal 
 ace " ; the triumph of the " Yacht America " must be 
 celebrated this week, and the anniversary of Clay s birth 
 or Webster s death the next ; a clerk delivers a poem 
 
148 HOLIDAYS. 
 
 before a Mercantile Library Association, a mechanic 
 addresses his fellows ; exhibitions of fruit, of fowls, 
 of cattle, of machines, of horses, ploughing - matches, 
 schools, and pictures, lead to social gatherings and vol 
 unteer discourses, and make a holiday now for the far 
 mer and now for the artisan, so that the programme of 
 festivals, such as they are, is coextensive with the land 
 and the calendar. All this proves that there is no lack 
 of holiday instinct among us, but it also demonstrates 
 that the spirit of utility, the pride of occupation, and 
 the ambition of success, interfuse the recreative as they 
 do the serious life of America. The American enters 
 into festivity as if it were a serious business ; he cannot 
 take pleasure naturally like the European, and is pur 
 sued with a half-conscious remorse if he dedicates time 
 to amusement ; so that even our holidays seem rather an 
 ordeal to be gone through with than an occasion to be 
 enjoyed. At many of these fetes, too, we are painfully 
 conscious of interested motives, which are essentially 
 opposed to genuine recreation. Capital is made of 
 amusement as of every other conceivable element of 
 our national life. It is often to advertise the stock, to 
 introduce the breed, to gain political influence, to win 
 fashionable suffrages to a scheme or a product of art or 
 industry, that these expensive arrangements are made, 
 these hospitalities exercised, these guests convened. 
 Too many of our so-called holidays are tricks of trade ; 
 too many are exclusively utilitarian ; too many conse 
 crate external success and material well-being ; and too 
 few are based on sentiment, taste, and good-fellowship. 
 In a panorama of national holidays, therefore, instead 
 of a crowd of gracefully attired rustics waltzing under 
 trees, an enthusiastic chorus, breathing, as one deep 
 
HOLIDAYS. 149 
 
 voice, the popular chant, ladies veiled in tuile following 
 an imperial infant to a cathedral altar, the garlands and 
 maidens of Old England s May-day, or the splendid 
 evolutions of the continental soldiery, we should be 
 most aptly represented by a fleet of steamers with 
 crowded decks and gay pennons, sweeping through the 
 lofty and wooded bluffs of the Upper Mississippi, the 
 procession of boats and regiment of marines disem 
 barking in the bay of Jeddo, or the old Hall, in whose 
 sleeping echoes lives the patriotic eloquence of the Rev 
 olution, alive with hundreds of children invited by the 
 city authorities to the annual school festival ; for these 
 occasions typify the enterprise at home, the exploration 
 abroad, and the system of public instruction, which con 
 stitute our specific and absolute distinction in the family 
 of nations. A jovial eclectic could, notwithstanding, 
 gather traces of the partial and isolated festivals of 
 every race and country in America ; harvest - songs 
 among the German settlers of Pennsylvania, here a 
 " golden wedding," there a private grape-feast ; in the 
 South a tournament, at Hoboken a cricket-match, and 
 an archery club at Sunnyside ; a Vienna lager - beer 
 dance in New York, or a vine-dressers merry-making 
 in Ohio. 
 
 If from those holidays which arise from temporary 
 causes, we turn to those which, from annual recurrence, 
 aspire to the dignity of institutions, the first thing which 
 strikes us is their essentially local character. " Pil 
 grim Day," wherever kept, is a New England festival ; 
 " Evacuation Day " belongs to the city of New York ; 
 the anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill is cele 
 brated only in Charlestown ; and the victory on Lake 
 Erie, at Newport, where its hero resided. The events 
 
150 HOLIDAYS. 
 
 thus commemorated deserve their eminence in our re 
 gard ; and patriotic sentiment is excited and maintained 
 by such observances. Yet, in many instances, they have 
 dwindled to a lifeless parade, and in others have become 
 a somewhat invidious exaggeration of local self-com 
 placency. The latter is the case, for instance, with the 
 New England Society s annual feast in the commercial 
 metropolis of the Union. It occasionally tries the pa 
 tience and vexes the liberal sentiment of the considerate 
 son of New England, to hear the reiterated laudation 
 of her schools, her clergy, her women, her codfish, and 
 her granite, at the hospitable board where sits, perhaps, 
 a venerable Knickerbocker, conscious that the glib ora 
 tors and their people have worked themselves into all 
 places of honor and profit, where the honest burgomas 
 ter used to smoke the pipe of peace and comfort in his 
 generous portico, his children now superseded by the 
 restless emigrants from the Eastern States, thus boast 
 fully tracing all that redeems and sustains the republic 
 to the wisdom, foresight, and moral superiority of their 
 own peculiar ancestry. The style of the festival is often 
 in bad taste ; there is too little recognition of the hos 
 pitality of their adopted home, too little respect for 
 Manhattan blood ; an exuberance of language too con 
 spicuously triumphant over a race which the best of 
 comic histories illustrates by the reign of Peter the 
 Silent, so that, at length, a jocose reproof was adminis 
 tered by the toast of a humorist present, who gave, with 
 irresistible nasal emphasis, " Plymouth Rock, the 
 Blarney-Stone of New England." 
 
 It is, however, an appropriate illustration of the cos 
 mopolitan population of New York, that every year her 
 English, Scotch, Welsh, Irish, French, German, and 
 
HOLIDAYS. 151 
 
 Dutch children, after their own fashion, recall their 
 respective national associations. In point of oratory 
 the New England Society carries the day, inasmuch as 
 it usually presses into its service some distinguished 
 speaker from abroad ; in geniality, antique customs, and 
 long-drawn reminiscences, the St Nicholas excels ; at 
 St. Andrew s board the memory of Burns is revived in 
 song ; Monsieur extols his vanished RepuUique ; Welsh 
 harps tinkle at St. David s ; " God save the Queen " 
 echoes under the banner of St. George ; green sprigs 
 and uncouth garments mark the Irish procession of St. 
 Patrick ; " and the Germans multiply their festivals 
 by summer picnics, at which lager-beer, waltzing, and 
 fine instrumental music recall the gardens of Vienna. 
 " Thanksgiving-Day " is of Puritan origin, and was 
 designed to combine family reunions with a grateful 
 recognition of the autumnal harvest. The former 
 beautiful feature is not as salient now as when the ab 
 sence of locomotive facilities made it a rare privilege 
 for the scattered members of a household to come to 
 gether around the paternal hearth. The occasion has 
 also diminished in value as one of clerical emancipa 
 tion from Sabbath themes, when the preacher could 
 expatiate unreproved on the questions of the day and 
 the aspects of the times, that privilege being now 
 exercised, at will, on the regular day of weekly re 
 ligious service. " Fast-Day " has also become anom 
 alous ; its abolition or identification with Good-Friday 
 has been repeatedly advocated ; strictly speaking, its 
 title is a misnomer, and the actual observance of it 
 is too partial and ineffective to have any true sig 
 nificance. 
 
 An old town on the north-eastern extremity of an 
 
152 HOLIDAYS. 
 
 island, the nearest approach to which overland is from 
 the southern shore of Cape Cod, was eagerly visited 
 annually until within a few years, by those who delight 
 in primitive character and local festivals. The broad 
 plain beyond the town, was long held in common prop 
 erty by the inhabitants, as a sheep-pasture. It may be 
 that the maritime occupations of the natives, their in 
 sular position and frugal habits imparted, by contrast, a 
 singular relish to the rural episode thus secured in their 
 lives of hazardous toil and dreary absence, as sailors 
 and whalemen ; but it is remarkable that amid the sands 
 of that island flourished one of the heartiest and most 
 characteristic of New England festivals. Simplicity of 
 manners, hardihood, frankness, the genial spirit of the 
 mariner, and the unsophisticated energy and kindliness 
 of the sailor s wife, gave to the Nantucket " Sheep- 
 shearing " a rare and permanent freshness and charm. 
 Unfortunately discord, arising from the conflicting in 
 terests of these primitive islanders, at length made it 
 desirable to restore peace by sacrificing the flocks, 
 innocent provocations of this domestic feud ; the sheep 
 were sold, and the unique festival to which they gave 
 occasion vanished with them. We must turn to that 
 most available resource, an old newspaper, for a descrip 
 tion of this now obsolete holiday : 
 
 " Sheep-sliearing. This patriarchal festival was celebrated 
 on Monday and Tuesday last, in this place, with more than 
 ordinary interest. For some days previous, the sheep-drivers 
 had been busily employed in collecting from all quarters of 
 the Island the dispersed members of the several flocks ; and 
 committing them to the great sheepfold, about two miles from 
 town, preparatory to the ceremonies of ablution and devest- 
 ment. 
 
HOLIDAYS. 153 
 
 " The principal enclosure contains three hundred acres ; 
 towards one side of this area, and near the margin of a con 
 siderable pond, are four or five circular fences, one within the 
 other, like Captain Symmes s concentric curves, and about 
 twenty feet apart, forming a sort of labyrinth. Into these cir 
 cuits the sheep are gradually driven, so as to be designated by 
 their " ear-marks," and secured for their proper owners in 
 sheep-cotes arranged laterally, or nearly so, around the exte 
 rior circle. Contiguous to these smaller pens, each of which is 
 calculated to contain about one hundred sheep, the respective 
 owners had erected temporary tents, wherein the operation of 
 shearing was usually performed. The number of hands en 
 gaged in this service may be imagined from the fact that one 
 gentleman is the owner of about 1000 sheep, another of 700, 
 and numerous others of smaller flocks, varying in number from 
 three or four hundred down to a single dozen. The business 
 of identifying, seizing, and yarding the sheep, creates a degree 
 of bustle that adds no small amusement to the general activity 
 of the scene. The whole number of sheep and lambs brought 
 within the great enclosure is said to be 16,000. There are 
 also several large flocks commonly sheared at other parts of 
 the Island. 
 
 " As these are the only important holidays which the inhab 
 itants of Nantucket have ever been accustomed to observe, it 
 is not to be marvelled at that all other business should on such 
 occasions be suspended ; and that the labors attendant thereon 
 should be mingled with a due share of recreation. Accord 
 ingly, the fancies of the juvenile portion of our community 
 are, for a long time prior to the annual " Shearing," occupied 
 in dreams of fun and schemes of frolic. With the mind s eye, 
 they behold the long array of tents, surmounted with motley 
 banners flaunting in the breeze, and stored with tempting 
 titbits, candidates for money and for mastication. With the 
 mind s ear they distinguish the spirit-stirring screak of the 
 fiddle, the gruif jangling of the drum, the somniferous smor- 
 zando of the jews-harp, and the enlivening scuffle of little feet 
 in a helter-skelter jig upon a deal platform. And their vis- 
 
154 HOLIDAYS. 
 
 ions, unlike those of riper mortals, are always realized. For 
 be it known, that independent of the preparations made by 
 persons actually concerned in the mechanical duties of the 
 day, there are erected on a rising ground in the vicinity of the 
 sheep-field, some twenty pole and sail-cloth edifices, furnished 
 with seats, and tables, and casks, and dishes, severally filled 
 with jocund faces, baked pigs, punch, and cakes, and sur 
 rounded with divers savory concomitants in the premises, 
 courteously dispensed by the changeful master of ceremonies, 
 studious of custom and emulous of cash. For the accommoda 
 tion of those merry urchins and youngsters who choose to 
 trip it on the light fantastic toe, a floor is laid at one corner, 
 over which presides some African genius of melody, brandish 
 ing a cracked violin, and drawing most moving notes from its 
 agonized intestines, by dint of griping fingers and right-angled 
 elbows. 
 
 " We know of no parallel for this section of the entertain 
 ment, other than what the Boston boys were wont to denomi 
 nate Nigger Lection, so called in contradistinction from 
 Artillery Election At the former anniversary, which is the 
 day on which who is Governor is officially announced, the 
 blacks and blackees are permitted to perambulate the Mall 
 and Common, to buy gingerbread and beer with the best of 
 folks, and to mingle in the mysteries of pawpaw. But on the 
 latter day, when that grave and chivalrous corps, known as 
 the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, parade for 
 choice of officers, which officers are to receive their diplo 
 mas directly from the hands of His Excellency the Governor 
 and Commander-in- Chief, in open day, and in the august pres 
 ence of all sorts of civil and martial dignitaries, why, woe 
 to the sable imp that shall then adventure his woolly poll 
 and tarnished cuticle within the hallowed neighborhood of 
 nobility ! 
 
 " On previous days the sheep had been collected from 
 every quarter of the Island, driven into the great fold at Mia- 
 comet (the site of an ancient Indian settlement, about a mile 
 from town), selected and identified by their respective own- 
 
HOLIDAYS. 155 
 
 ers, placed in separate pens, and subjected to the somewhat 
 arduous process of washing, in the large pond contiguous. 
 After this preparatory ablution, they were then ready to 
 throw off this muddy vesture of decay by the aid of some 
 hundreds of shearers, who began to ply their vocation on 
 Monday morning, seated in rude booths, or beneath umbra 
 geous awnings ranged around the circular labyrinth of enclo 
 sures, wherein the panting animals awaited the divestment of 
 their uncomfortable jackets. The space partially occupied by 
 the unshorn and their contented lambs, and in other spots 
 exhibiting multitudes stripped of their fleece and clamorously 
 seeking their wandering young, presented to the eye and ear 
 of the stranger sights and sounds somewhat rare." 
 
 We have sometimes been tempted to believe that all 
 illustrious occasions, men, and tilings in this republic 
 must inevitably be profaned, that, as a compensatory 
 balance to the " greatest good of the greatest number," 
 secured by democratic institutions, there must exist a 
 sacrifice of the hallowed, aspiring, and consecrated ele 
 ments of national feeling and achievement. If there 
 is an anniversary which should compel respect, excite 
 eternal gratitude, and win unhackneyed observance, it 
 is that of the day when, for the first time in the world s 
 history, the select intelligences of a country proclaimed 
 to the nations, with deliberate and resolved wisdom, 
 the principles of human equality and the right of self- 
 government, pledged thereto their lives, fortunes, and 
 honor, and consistently redeemed the heroically pro 
 phetic pledge. Subsequent events have only deepened 
 the significance of that act and extended its agency ; 
 every succeeding year has increased its moral value and 
 its material fruits ; the career of other and less happy 
 nations has given more and more relief to its isolated 
 grandeur ; and not a day fraught with more hope and 
 
156 .HOLIDAYS, 
 
 glory lives in the calendar. Yet what is the actual 
 observance, the average estimation, it boasts among us ? 
 In our large cities, especially in New York, " Indepen 
 dence " is, by universal consent, a nuisance. It is most 
 auspicious to the Chinese, from increasing the importa 
 tion of fire-crackers. The municipal authorities pro 
 vide for it, as for a lawless saturnalia ; the fire-depart 
 ment dread its approach as indicative of conflagrations ; 
 physicians, as hazardous to such unfortunate patients 
 as cannot be removed into the country ; quiet citizens, 
 as insufferable from incessant detonation ; the prudent, 
 as fraught with reckless tomfoolery; and the respec 
 table, as desecrated by rowdyism. John Adams, when 
 he prophesied that the Fourth of July would be hailed, 
 in all after-time, by the ringing of bells, the blaze of 
 bonfires, and the roar of cannon, was far from intend 
 ing, by this programme of Anglo-Saxon methods of 
 popular rejoicing, to indicate the exclusive and ultimate 
 style of our national holiday. On its earlier recur 
 rence, when many of the actors in the scenes it com 
 memorates still lived, there was an interest and a mean- 
 ins: in the ceremonies which time has lessened. Yet it 
 
 O 
 
 is difficult to account for the absence of all that high 
 civilization presupposes, in the celebration of our only 
 holiday which can strictly be called national ; and if 
 the sympathies of the most intelligent of our citizens 
 could be enlisted, so as to make the occasion a genuine 
 patriotic jubilee, instead of a noisy carnival, or a time 
 for political animosity to assert itself with special em 
 phasis, much would be gained on the score of rational 
 enjoyment and American fraternity. As it is, although 
 the " Hundred Boston Orators " nobly vindicate the 
 talent and good taste of one city in regard to this anni- 
 
HOLIDAYS. 157 
 
 versary, and is a most pleasing historical memorial of 
 the occasion, it cannot be denied that our usual syno- 
 nyme for bombast and mere rhetorical patriotism is 
 " a Fourth of July Oration," and that Pickwickian sen 
 timent, pyrotechnic flashes, torpedoes, arrests, bursting 
 cannon, draggled flags, crowded steamboats, the retiracy 
 of the educated, and the uproar of the multitude, make 
 up the confused and wearisome details of what should 
 and might be a sacred feast, a pious memory, a hal 
 lowed consecration, a " Sabbath-day of Freedom." 
 Perhaps the real zest of this holiday is felt only abroad, 
 when, under some remote consular flag, at the board of 
 private and munificent hospitality in London, or at an 
 American reunion in the French capital, distance from 
 home, the ties of common nativity in a foreign land, and 
 the contrast of uneducated masses or despotic insignia 
 around, with the prosperous, free, and enlightened pop 
 ulation of our own favored country, to say nothing of 
 superior festal arrangements, render the occasion at 
 once charming and memorable. 
 
 One of the most noticeable features of American life 
 to a stranger s eye is the prevalent habit of travel, and, 
 although the incessant and huge caravans that rush 
 along the numerous railways which make an iron net 
 work over this Union, are, for the most part impelled 
 by motives of enterprise and thrift, yet the common 
 idea of recreation is associated with a " trip." Whether 
 the facilities or the temperament of our country, or 
 both, be the reason of this locomotive propensity, it is 
 a characteristic which at once distinguishes the Ameri 
 can from the home-tethered German, the Paris-bound 
 Frenchman, and the locally - patriotic Italian. The 
 schoolboy in vacation, the college graduate, the bride- 
 
158 HOLIDAYS. 
 
 groom, the overtasked professional man, all Ameri 
 cans who give themselves a " holiday," are wont to 
 dedicate it to a journey. But even this resource has 
 lost much of its original charm from the catastro 
 phes which have associated some of the most beautiful 
 scenery of the land with the most agonizing of human 
 tragedies. In the crystal waters of Lake George, by 
 the picturesque banks of the Hudson, amid the fertile 
 valleys of the Connecticut, on the teeming currents of 
 Long Island Sound, have perished, often through reck 
 less hardihood, always by more or less reprehensible 
 negligence, some of the fairest and the noblest of our 
 citizens. The statistics of these melancholy events 
 which have so often appalled the public, have yet to be 
 written; but their moral effect may be divined by a 
 mere glance at the mercenary hardihood and soulless 
 haste that mark our civilization. " Les dangers person 
 nels," says an acute writer, "quand ils attegnent un 
 certain limite, bouleversent tous les rapports et 1 oublie 
 de 1 esperance change presque notre nature." The 
 zest, too, of a journey in America is much diminished 
 by the monotonous character of the people, and by the 
 gregarious habits, the rapid transits, and the business 
 motives of the voyageurs, so that it is only at the termi 
 nus that we enjoy our pilgrimage ; there the sight of a 
 magnificent prairie or mountain range, cataract or mam 
 moth cave, may, indeed, vindicate our locomotive taste,, 
 and the wonders of Nature make for the imaginative 
 and reverential, a glorious holiday. 
 
 A pleasing feature in the recreative aspect of Ameri 
 can life is the literary festival. It is a beautiful custom 
 of our scholars annually to meet amid the scenes of 
 their academical education and renew youthful friend- 
 
HOLIDAYS. 159 
 
 ships, while they listen to the orator and poet, who 
 dwell upon those problems of the times which challenge 
 an intellectual solution and identify the duties of the 
 citizen with the offices of learning. "Within the memory 
 of almost all, there is probably at least one of these 
 occasions, when the interest of the performances or the 
 circumstances of the hour, lent a memorable charm to 
 the collegiate holiday ; when, under the shade of ven 
 erable elms, that witnessed the first outpouring of men 
 tal enthusiasm or the earliest honors of genius and at 
 tainment, they who parted as boys meet as men, and 
 the classic dreamer felt himself a recognized and prac 
 tical thinker for the people ; when the language of elo 
 quent wisdom or poetic beauty came warm from lips 
 hallowed by the chalice of fame. Who that listened 
 ever can forget the anniversary graced by the chaste 
 eloquence of Buckminster, that on which Bryant recited 
 " The Ages," or Everett s musical periods welcomed 
 Lafayette to the oldest seat of American learning? 
 What New England scholar, after years of professional 
 labor in a distant State, ever found himself, once more, 
 within the charmed precincts of his alma mater, and 
 surrounded by the companions of his youthful studies, 
 without a thrill of happy reminiscence ? Yet even 
 these rational opportunities for what should be a genu 
 ine holiday to mind and heart are but casually appre 
 ciated. The sultry period of their occurrence, the 
 irregularity of attendance, and the precarious quality of 
 the " feast of reason " provided, have caused them grad 
 ually to lose a tenacious hold upon the affections, while 
 there are few habitues, the majority, especially those 
 who live at a distance from the scene, and whose pres 
 ence is, therefore, especially desirable, are not loyal 
 
160 HOLIDAYS. 
 
 pilgrims to the shrine where their virgin distinction was 
 earned and their intellectual armor forged. To many, 
 our literary festivals are but technical ceremonies ; to 
 not a few, wearisome forms ; associated rather with fans, 
 didactics, perspiration, and cold viands, than with any 
 social or intellectual refreshment. The " lean annui 
 tant " who loved to visit " Oxford in vacation," and 
 fancy himself a gownsman, and the ingenious " Opium 
 Eater " who has recorded the enduring claims of those 
 venerable cloisters to the scholar s gratitude, enjoyed 
 speculatively more of the real luxury of academic 
 repose and triumph than is often attained by those 
 who ostensibly participate in our college festivals ; and 
 seldom do her children go up to the altars of wisdom 
 consecrated by the pious zeal of our ancestors, with 
 the faithful recognition of the venerable pastor, so 
 long the statistical oracle of the surviving graduates, 
 who, while his strength sufficed, cheerily walked from 
 his rural parish to Old Harvard, to lead off the anni 
 versary psalm, with genial pride and honest self-grat- 
 ulation. 
 
 Of our purely social holidays, New Year s Day, as 
 observed in the city of New York, bears the palm. In 
 itiated by the hospitable instinct of the Dutch colonists, 
 neither the heterogeneous population which has suc 
 ceeded them, nor the annually enlarged circuit of the 
 metropolis, has diminished the universality or the heart 
 iness of its observance. When the snow is massed in 
 the thoroughfares, and the sunshine tempers a clear, 
 frosty atmosphere, a more cheerful scene, on a large 
 scale, it is impossible to imagine. From morning to 
 midnight, sleighs, freighted with gay companions and 
 drawn by handsome steeds, dash merrily along, the 
 
HOLIDAYS. 161 
 
 tinkle of their bells and the scarlet lining of their buf 
 falo-robes redolent of a fete ; the sidewalks are alive 
 with hurrying .pedestrians who exchange cordial greet 
 ings as they pass one another ; doors incessantly fly 
 open ; guests come and go ; every one looks prosperous 
 and happy ; business is totally suspended ; in warm 
 parlors radiant with comfort or splendid with luxury, 
 sit the wives, daughters, sisters, or fair favorites of 
 these innumerable visitors, the queens of the day ; the 
 neglects of the past are forgiven and forgotten in the 
 welcome of the present ; kindred, friends, and acquaint 
 ances all meet and begin the year with mutual good 
 wishes ; in every dwelling a little feast stands ready, en 
 compassed with smiles ; and all varieties of fortune, all 
 degrees of intimacy, all tastes in dress, entertainment, 
 and manners, on this one day, are consecrated by the 
 liberal and kindly spirit of a social carnival. 
 
 Of associations expressly instituted for the observance 
 of holidays there is no lack ; of days technically de 
 voted to festivity, in the aggregate, our proportion 
 equals that of older communities ; and the legitimate 
 occasions for pastime and ceremony, social pleasure, or 
 historical commemoration, are as numerous as is consist 
 ent with the industrious habits and the civic prosperity 
 of the land. The traveller who should make it his 
 speciality to discover and note the ostensible merry 
 makings and pageants of America would find the list 
 neither brief nor monotonous. In the summer he would 
 light upon many an excursion on our beautiful lakes, 
 many a chowder-party to the seaside, arid picnic in the 
 grove ; and in the winter would catch the shrill echo of 
 the skating frolic. Here, through pillared trunks, he 
 would behold the smoke-wreaths of the sugar-camp ; 
 11 
 
162 HOLIDAYS. 
 
 there watch laughing groups clustered round the cider- 
 mill or hop-field ; and in woods radiant with autumnal 
 tints, or prairies balmy with a million flowers, would 
 sounds of merriment announce to him the cheerful biv 
 ouac. Nor have American holidays, even in their most 
 primitive aspect, been devoid of use and beauty. The 
 once renowned " musters " fostered military taste, and 
 the cattle-shows encouraged agricultural science ; witn 
 the increase of horticultural festivals, our fruits and 
 flowers have constantly improved ; regattas and yacht- 
 clubs have indirectly promoted nautical architecture ; 
 school festivals attest the superiority of our system of 
 popular education ; family gatherings, on the large scale 
 observed in several instances, have induced genealogi 
 cal research ; historical celebrations have led to the col 
 lection and preservation of local archives and memori 
 als ; the Cincinnati Society annually renews the noblest 
 patriotic sympathies ; and the genius for mechanical in 
 vention is proclaimed by the Fairs which, every Octo 
 ber, bring together so many trophies of skilful handi 
 work and husbandry, and recognize so emphatically the 
 dignity and scientific amelioration of labor. Yet these 
 facts do not invalidate the general truth that our festi 
 vals are too much tinctured with utilitarian aims to 
 breathe earnestness and hilarity ; that they are so spe 
 cific as to represent the division rather than the social 
 triumphs of human toil ; that they are too partial in 
 their scope, too sectional in their objects, and too isola 
 ted in their arrangements to meet the claims of popular 
 and permanent interests. Our harvests are songless. 
 Reaping-machines have diminished the zest of autumn s 
 golden largess, as destructive inventions have lessened 
 the miracles of chivalry. Here and there may yet con- 
 
HOLIDAYS. 163 
 
 vene a quilting-party, but locomotive facilities have de 
 prived rural gatherings, in sparse neighborhoods, of 
 their marvel and their joy ; and the hilarious huskings 
 of old chiefly survive in Barlow s neglected verse : 
 
 " The days grow short; but though the fallen sun 
 To the glad swain proclaims his day s work done; 
 Night s pleasant shades his various tasks prolong, 
 And yield new subjects to my various song. 
 For now, the corn-house filled, the harvest home, 
 The invited neighbors to the husking come; 
 A frolic scene, where work and mirth and play, 
 Unite their charms to chase the hours away. 
 Where the huge heap lies centred in the hall, 
 The lamp suspended from the cheerful wall, 
 Brown, corn-fed nymphs, and strong, hard-handed beaux, 
 Alternate ranged, extend in circling rows, 
 Assume their seats, the solid mass attack ; 
 The dry husks rustle, and the corn-cobs crack; 
 The song, the laugh, alternate notes resound, 
 And the sweet cider trips in silence round. 
 The laws of husking every wight can tell, 
 And sure no laws he ever keeps so well : 
 For each red ear a general kiss he gains, 
 "With each smut ear he smuts the luckless swains ; 
 But when to some sweet maid a prize is cast, 
 Red as her lips and taper as her waist, 
 She walks the round and culls one favored beau, 
 Who leaps the luscious tribute to bestow. 
 Various the sports, as are the wits and brains 
 Of well-pleased lasses and contending swains ; 
 Till the vast mound of corn is swept away, 
 And he that gets the last ear wins the day." 
 
 Progress in taste and sentiment, however, is already 
 obvious in our recreative arrangements. There is vastly 
 more of intellectual dignity and permanent use in the 
 fetes of the Lyceum than in those of the training-days 
 and election-jubilees which formerly were the chief hol 
 idays of our rural population ; exhibitions of flowers 
 
164 HOLIDAYS. 
 
 mark a notable advance upon the coarse diversions of 
 the ring and the race-ground ; and, within a few years, 
 statues by native artists, worthy of their illustrious sub 
 jects, have been inaugurated by public rites and noble 
 eloquence. 
 
 A radical cause of the inefficiency, and therefore of 
 the indifferent observance of our holidays, may be found 
 in our national inadequacy of expression, in the want 
 of those modes of popular rejoicing and ceremonial 
 that win and triumph, from their intrinsic beauty. As 
 a general truth, it may be asserted that but two methods 
 of representing holiday sentiment are native to the aver 
 age taste of our people, military display and oral dis 
 course. These exhaust our festal resources. Our citi 
 zens have an extraordinary facility in making occasional 
 speeches, and the love of soldiership is so prevalent 
 that it is the favorite sport of children, and all classes 
 indulge in costly uniforms and volunteer parades. But 
 the language of art, which in the Old World lends such 
 a permanent attraction to holidays, with us hardly finds 
 voice. Had we requiems conceived with the eternal 
 pathos of Mozart, harmonious embodiments of rural 
 pastime, like that which Beethoven caught while sitting 
 on a stile amid the subdued murmurs of a summer 
 "evening; melodious invocations to freedom, such as 
 Bellini s thrilling duo ; were a symphony as readily 
 composed in America as an oration ; tableaux, costumes, 
 and processions as artistically invented here as in 
 France ; were dance and song as spontaneously ex 
 pressive as among the European peasantry ; had we 
 vast, open, magnificent temples, free gardens, statues 
 to crown, shrines to frequent, palatial balconies, fields 
 Elysian for both rich and poor, a sensibility to music, 
 
HOLIDAYS. 165 
 
 and a sense of the appropriate and beautiful, as wide 
 and as instinctive as our appreciation of the useful, the 
 practical, and the comfortable, it would no longer be 
 requisite to resort exclusively to drums, fifes, powder, 
 substantial viands, and speechifying, to give utterance 
 to the common sentiment, which would find vent in 
 tones, forms, hues, combinations, and sympathies, that 
 respond to the heart, through the imagination, and, 
 conform "the show of things to the desires of the 
 mind." 
 
 Other causes of our deficient holidays are obvious. 
 The primary are to be found in the absorption in busi 
 ness and the dominion of practical habits, both of 
 thought and action. Enterprise holds Carnival while 
 Poetry keeps Lent. The facts of to-day shut out of 
 view the perspective of time, or, at best, lure the gaze 
 forward with boundless expectancy. To rehearse the 
 fortunate achievements of the past gratifies our national 
 egotism ; but the sensibility and meditation which con 
 secrate historical associations find no room amid the 
 rush and eagerness of the passing hour. Content to 
 point to the heroic episode of the Revolution, to the 
 wisdom and justice of our Constitution, to the caravans 
 that sweep on iron tracks over leagues of what a few 
 years ago was a pathless forest, to the swiftest keels 
 and most graceful models that traverse the ocean, 
 to the aerial viaducts that span dizzy heights and im 
 petuous torrents, to the exquisite vignettes of a limit 
 less paper currency, to the dignified and consistent 
 maintenance of usurped law in younger States of the 
 Union, and to the continually increasing resources of 
 its older members ; we are disposed to sneer at the 
 childish love of amusement which beguiles the inhabi- 
 
166 HOLIDAYS. 
 
 tants of European capitals, and to pity the superstition 
 and idleness which retain, in this enlightened age, the 
 melodramatic church shows of Romanism. In all this 
 there is doubtless a certain manly intelligence ; but 
 there is also an inauspicious moral hardihood. If, as a 
 people, we cultivated more heartily the social instincts 
 and humane sentiments expressed in holiday rites, life 
 would be more valued, the whole nature would find con 
 genial play, and our taskwork and duty, our citizenship 
 and our natural advantages, would be adorned by grace 
 fulness, alacrity, and repose. Quantity would not be so 
 grossly estimated above quality, speed above security, 
 routine above enjoyment. We need to win from time 
 what is denied to us in material. Other nations have 
 in Art a permanent and accessible refreshment, which 
 prevents life from being wholly prosaic ; the humblest 
 dweller on English soil can enter a time-hallowed and 
 beautiful cathedral ; the poorest rustic in Italy can feel 
 the honest pride of a distinctive festal attire ; the veriest 
 clodhopper in Germany can soften the rigors of poverty 
 by music ; the London apprentice may wander once a 
 week amid the venerable beauties of Hampton Court ; 
 and the Parisian shopkeeper may kindle pride of coun 
 try by reading the pictorial history of France at Ver 
 sailles. It is not the expensive arrangements, but the 
 national provision, and, above all, the personal senti 
 ment, which makes the holiday. There was more holy 
 rapture in the low cadence of the hymn stealing from 
 the Roman Catacombs, where the hunted Christians of 
 old kept holy the Sabbath-day, than there is in the gor 
 geous display and complex melody under the, magnifi 
 cent dome of St. Peter s. There was more of the grace 
 of festivity in such a dance as poor Goldsmith s flute 
 
HOLIDAYS. 167 
 
 enlivened on the banks of the Loire, than there is in 
 the grand ball which marks the season s climax at an 
 American watering-place. In public not less than pri 
 vate banquets, the scriptural maxim holds true : " Bet 
 ter is a dinner of herbs where love is." Our national 
 life is too diffusive to yield the best social fruits. The 
 extent of territory, the nomadic habits of our people, 
 the alternations of climate, the vicissitudes of trade, the 
 prevalence of spasmodic and superficial excitements, 
 the boundless passion for gain, the local changes, the 
 family separations, and the incessant fevers of opinion, 
 scatter the holy fire of love, reverence, self-respect, 
 contemplation, and faith. What a senseless boast, that 
 the United States has thirty-five thousand miles of 
 railroad,* while England claims but ninety-two hundred, 
 France forty-eight hundred, if, against the American 
 overplus are to be arrayed countless hetacombs of 
 murdered fellow-citizens, and desolating frauds unpar 
 alleled in the history of finance! What a mockery 
 the distinction of having accumulated a fortune in a 
 few years, by sagacity and toil, if, to complete the rec 
 ord, it is added that mercenary ambition risked and 
 lost it in as many months, or the want of self-control, 
 and mental resources made its possession a life-long 
 curse from ennui or tasteless extravagance ! It is as 
 a check to the whirl of inconsiderate speculation, an 
 antidote to the bane of material luxury, an interval in 
 the hurried march of executive life, that holidays should 
 " give us pause," and might prove a means of refine 
 ment and of disinterestedness. We could thus infuse 
 a better spirit into our work-day experience, refresh 
 and warm the nation s heart, and gradually concentrate 
 what of higher taste and more genial sympathy under- 
 * In 1860. 
 
168 HOLIDAYS. 
 
 lies the restless and cold tide that hurries us onward, 
 unmindful of the beauty and indifferent to the sancti 
 ties with which God and Nature have invested our ex 
 istence. 
 
 Of natal anniversaries we have in our national calen 
 dar one which it would augur well for the Republic to 
 observe as a universal holiday. Every sentiment of 
 gratitude, veneration, and patriotism has already conse 
 crated it to the private heart, and every consideration 
 of unity, good faith, and American feeling, designates 
 its celebration as the most sacred civic fete of the land. 
 Recent demonstrations in literature, art, and oratory, 
 indicate that the obligation and importance of keeping 
 before the ey^es. minds, and affections of the people the 
 memory of Washington, are emphatically recognized 
 by genius and popular sentiment. Within a few years, 
 the pen of our most endeared author, the eloquence of 
 our most finished orator, and the chisel of our best 
 sculptors, have combined to exhibit, in the most authen 
 tic and impressive forms of literary and plastic art, the 
 character and image of the Father of his Country. 
 Copies of Stuart s masterly portrait have multiplied. A 
 monument bearing the revered name is slowly rising at 
 the Capital, the materials of which are gathered from 
 every part of the globe. One of the last and most noble 
 efforts to renew the waning national sentiment ere its 
 lapse brought on civil war, was that of a New England 
 scholar, patriot, and orator who, despite the allurements 
 of prosperity and the claims of age and long service, 
 traversed the length and breadth of the Republic, elo 
 quently expatiating on the character of Washington, 
 retracing his spotless and great career and evoking his 
 sacred memory as a talisman to quicken and combine a 
 
HOLIDAYS. 169 
 
 people s love. With the large contributions thus secured, 
 and those gathered by the daughters of the Repub- 
 lie, the home and grave of Washington has been re 
 deemed as national property. Let the first homage of 
 a free people be paid at that shrine ; and alienated fel 
 low-citizens gather there as at a common altar : his tomb 
 is thus doubly hallowed. In Virginia is a sculptured 
 memorial of enduring beauty and historical significance. 
 A new and admirable biography, with all the elements 
 of standard popularity, makes his peerless career familiar 
 to every citizen from the woods of Maine to the shores 
 of the Pacific. One effective statue already ornaments 
 the commercial emporium, and another is about to be 
 erected in the city of Boston. These, and many other 
 signs of the times, prove that the fanaticism of party 
 strife has awakened the wise and loyal to a conscious 
 ness of the inestimable value of that great example and 
 canonized name, as a bond of union, a conciliating mem 
 ory, and a glorious watchword. Desecrated as has been 
 his native State by rebels against the government he 
 founded and the nation he inaugurated, profaned as has 
 been his memory, now that Peace smiles upon the land 
 his august image will reappear to every true, loyal and 
 patriotic heart with renewed authority, and hallowed by 
 a deeper love. The present, therefore, is a favorable mo 
 ment to institute the birthday of Washington, hitherto 
 but partially and ineffectually honored as a solemn 
 National Festival. Around his tomb let us annually 
 gather; let eloquence and song, leisure and remem 
 brance, trophies of art, ceremonies of piety, and sen 
 timents of gratitude and admiration, consecrate that 
 day with an unanimity of feeling and of rites, which 
 shall fuse and mould into one pervasive emotion, the 
 
170 
 
 HOLIDAYS. 
 
 divided hearts of the country, until the discordant cries 
 of faction are lost in the anthems of benediction and 
 of love; and, before the august spirit of a people s 
 homage, sectional animosity is awed into universal 
 
 reverence. 
 
LAWYERS. 
 
 " To vindicate the majesty of the law/ JUDGE S CHARGE. 
 
 "Why may not this be a lawyer s skull ? Why does he suffer this rude 
 knave to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him 
 of his action for battery ? " HAMLET. 
 
 HE miniature effigy of a town-crier, with a little 
 placard on his bell, inscribed "Lost a Law 
 yer s conscience ! " was a favorite toy for chil 
 dren not many years ago ; and, about the same time, a 
 song was in vogue, warbled by a whole generation of 
 young misses, " all about the L-A-W," in which that 
 venerable profession was made the subject of a warning 
 chant, whose dolorous refrain, doubtless, yet lingers in 
 many an ear. Thus early is law associated with uncer 
 tainty and shamelessness ; Messrs. Roe and Doe become 
 the most dreaded of apocryphal characters ; red-tape 
 the clew of an endless labyrinth ; Justice Shallow, with 
 all his imbecility, a dangerous personage, and human 
 beings, even a friend, transformed by the mysterious 
 perspective of this anomalous element to a "party." 
 The most popular of modern novelists have found these 
 associations sufficiently universal to yield good material 
 in " dead suitors broken, heart and soul, on the wheel 
 of chancery ; " and Flite, Gridley, and Rick, are fresh 
 and permanent scarecrows in the harvest-field of the 
 law. 
 
 From the Mosaic code, enrolled on tables of stone, to 
 the convention which inaugurated that of the modern 
 
172 LAWYERS. 
 
 conqueror of Europe, law has been a field for the no 
 blest triumphs and most gross perversions of the human 
 intellect No profession offers such extremes of glory 
 and shame. From the most wretched sophistry to the 
 grandest inference, from a quibble to a principle, from 
 the august minister of justice to the low pettifogger, 
 how great the distance ; yet all are included within a 
 common pale. 
 
 In every social circle and family group, there is an 
 oracle some individual whose age, wit, or force of 
 character, gives an intellectual ascendency and there 
 are always Bunsbys to " give an opinion " among the 
 ignorant, to which the others spontaneously defer ; and 
 thus instinctively arises the lawgiver, sometimes ruling 
 with the rude dogmatism of Dr. Johnson, and at others, 
 through the humorous good sense of Sydney Smith, or 
 the endearing tact of Madame Recamier. These au 
 thorities, in the sphere of opinion and companionship, 
 indicate how natural to human society is a recognized 
 head, whence emanates that controlling influence to 
 which we give the name of law. Like every other ele 
 ment of life, this loses somewhat of its native beauty, 
 when organized and made professional. To every vo 
 cation there belong master-spirits who have established 
 precedents, and there are natural lawgivers ; as in art, 
 Michael Angelo and Raphael ; in oratory, Demosthenes ; 
 in philosophy, Bacon. The endowments of each not 
 only justify, but originate their authority ; they interpret 
 truth through their superior insight and wisdom in their 
 respective departments of action and of thought ; but 
 of the vast number who undertake to illustrate, main 
 tain, or apply the laws which govern States, a small 
 minority are gifted for the task, or aspire to its higher 
 
LAWYERS. 173 
 
 functions ; hence the proverbial abuse of the profession, 
 its few glorious ornaments, and its herd of perverted 
 slaves. 
 
 From this primary condition, it is impossible for any 
 human being to escape ; if he goes into the desert, he 
 is still subject to the laws of Nature, and, however 
 retired he may live amid his race, the laws of society 
 press upon him at some point ; if his own opinion is his 
 law in matters of fancy or politics, he must still obey 
 the law of the road : in one country the law of primo 
 geniture ; in another, that of conscription ; in one cir 
 cle, a law of taste ; in another, of custom ; and in a third, 
 of privilege, reacts upon his free agency ; at his club is 
 sumptuary law ; over his game of whist, Hoyle ; in his 
 drawing-room, Chesterfield ; now Tesprit du corps ; and 
 again, the claims of rank ; in Maine, the liquor law ; in 
 California, lynch law ; in Paris, a gens cTarmes ; at 
 Rome, a permission of residence ; on an English do 
 main, the game laws ; in the fields of Connecticut, a 
 pound ; everywhere turnpikes, sheriffs sales, marriage 
 certificates, prisons, courts, passports, and policemen, 
 thrust before the eyes of the most peaceable and re 
 served cosmopolite insignia that assure him that law 
 is everywhere unavoidable. His physician discourses to 
 him of the laws of health ; his military friends, of tac 
 tics ; the beaux, of etiquette ; the belles, of la mode ; 
 the authors, of tasteful precedents ; the reformer, of 
 social systems ; and thus all recognize and yield to some 
 code. 
 
 If he have nothing to bequeath, no tax to pay, no 
 creditor to sue, or libeller to prosecute, he yet must walk 
 the streets, and thereby realize the influence or neglect 
 of municipal law in the enjoyment of " right of way," 
 
174 LA WYERS. 
 
 or the nausea from some neglected offal ; the accidents 
 incident to travel in this country assure him of the 
 slight tenure of corporate responsibility under republi 
 can law ; and the facility of divorce, the removal of old 
 landmarks, the incessant subdivision and dispersion of 
 estates, indicate that devotion to the immediate which 
 a French philosopher ascribes to free institutions, and 
 which affects legal as well as social phenomena. In a 
 tour abroad, he discovers new majesty in the ruins of 
 the Forum, from their association with the ancient Ro 
 man law, upon which modern jurisprudence is founded ; 
 and a curious interest attaches to the picturesque beauty 
 of Amalfi, because the Pandects were there discovered. 
 Westminster revives the tragic memories of the State 
 trials, and seems yet to echo the Oriental rhetoric that 
 made the trial of Hastings a Parliamentary romance. 
 At Bologna, amid the old drooping towers, under the 
 pensive arcades, in the radiant silence of the picture- 
 gallery, comes back the traditionary beauty of the fair 
 lecturer, who taught the students juridical lore from be 
 hind a curtain, that her loveliness might not bewilder 
 the minds her words informed ; and at Venice every 
 dark-robed, graceful figure that glides by the porticos 
 of San Marco s moonlit square, revives the noble Por 
 tia s image, and that " same scrubbed boy, the doctor s 
 clerk." 
 
 No inconsiderable legal knowledge has been traced 
 in Shakspeare, His Justice Shallow and Dogberry 
 are types of imbecile magistracy ; in the historical plays, 
 the law of legitimacy is defined ; and not a little judi 
 cial lore is embodied in the " Merchant of Venice " and 
 " Taming the Shrew." Lord Campbell wrote a book to 
 prove that Shakspeare, in his youth, must have been, at 
 
LAWYERS. 175 
 
 least, an attorney s clerk. One of the characters in a 
 popular novel is made to say that he is never in com 
 pany with a lawyer but he fancies himself in a witness- 
 box. This hit at the interrogative propensity of the 
 class is by no means an exaggerated view of a use to 
 which they are specially inclined to put conversation ; 
 and, if we compare the ordeal of inquiry to which we 
 are thus subjected, it will be found more thorough, and 
 better fitted to test our knowledge than that of any 
 other social catechism ; so that, perhaps, we gain in dis 
 cipline what we lose in patience. It is to be acknowl 
 edged, also, that few men are better stocked with ideas, 
 or more fluent in imparting them, than well-educated 
 lawyers. There is often a singular zest in their anec 
 dotes, a precision in their statement of facts, and a dra 
 matic style of narrative, which render them the pleas- 
 antest of companions. In all clever coteries of which 
 we have any genial record, there usually figures a law 
 yer, as a wit, a boon companion, an entertaining dog 
 matist, or an intellectual champion. In literature, the 
 claims and demerits of the profession are emphatically 
 recognized ; and it is curious to note the varied infer 
 ences of philosophers and authors. Thus, Dr. Johnson 
 says to Boswell : " Sir, a lawyer has no business with 
 the justice or injustice of the cause he undertakes ; " 
 and " everybody knows you are paid for affecting a 
 warmth for your client." "Justice," observes Sydney 
 Smith, " is found, experimentally, to be best promoted 
 by the opposite efforts of practiced and ingenious men, 
 presenting to an impartial judge the best argument for 
 the establishment and explanation of truth." " Some 
 are allured to the trade of law," says Milton, " by litig- 
 iousness and fat fees ; " one authoritative writer describes 
 
176 LAWYERS. 
 
 a lawyer as a man whose understanding is on the town ; 
 another declares no man departs more from justice ; 
 Sancho Panza said his master would prattle more than 
 three attorneys ; and Coleridge thought that, " upon the 
 whole, the advocate is placed in a position unfavorable 
 to his moral being, and, indeed, to his intellect also, in 
 its higher powers ; " while it was a maxim of Wilkes, 
 that scoundrel and lawyer are synonymous terms. Our 
 pioneer litterateur, Brockden Brown, whose imaginative 
 mind revolted at the dry formalities of the law, for 
 which he was originally intended, defined it as " a tis 
 sue of shreds and remnants of a barbarous antiquity, 
 patched by the stupidity of modern workmen into new 
 deformity." " In the study of law," remarks the poet 
 Gray, "the labor is long, and the elements dry and 
 uninteresting, nor was there ever any one not disgusted 
 at the beginning." Foote, the comic writer and actor, 
 feigned surprise to a farmer that attorneys were buried, 
 in the country, like other men ; in town, he declared, it 
 was the custom to place the body in a chamber, with an 
 open window, and it was sure to disappear during the 
 night, leaving a smell of brimstone. A portrait-painter 
 assures us he is never mistaken in a lawyer s face ; the 
 avocation is betrayed to his observant eye by a cer 
 tain inscrutable expression ; and Dickens has given this 
 not exaggerated picture of a class in the profession : 
 " Smoke-dried and faded, dwelling among mankind, but 
 not consorting with them, aged without experience of 
 genial youth, and so long used to make his cramped 
 nest in holes and corners of human nature that he has 
 forgotten its broader and better range." 
 
 A French writer defines a lawyer as " un marchand 
 de phrases, un fabricant de paradoxes, qui ment pour 
 
LAWYERS. 177 
 
 1 argent et vend ses paroles " ; and another remarks of 
 the profession that it is a " vaste champ, ouvert aux am 
 bitions des honnetes ; une tribune offerte aux subtilites 
 de la pensee et 1 abus de la parole ; " while Arthur 
 Helps declares that, " Law affords a notable example of 
 loss of time, of heart, of love, of leisure. I observe," 
 he adds, " that the first Spanish colonists in America 
 wrote home to Government, begging them not to alloAV 
 lawyers to come to the colony." * On the other hand, 
 what an eloquent tribute to the possible actual benefi 
 cence of law is the close of Lord Brougham s memor 
 able speech in its defence : 
 
 " You saw the greatest warrior of the age, conqueror of 
 Italy, humbler of Germany, terror of the North, saw him 
 account all his matchless victories poor, compared with the tri 
 umph you are now in a condition to win, saw him contemn 
 the fickleness of Fortune, while in despite of her he could pro 
 nounce his memorable boast, I shall go down to posterity with 
 the Code in my hand ! You have vanquished him in the field ; 
 strive now to rival him in the sacred arts of peace. Outstrip 
 him as a lawgiver whom in arms you overcame. The lustre 
 of the Regency will be eclipsed by the more solid and endur 
 ing splendor of the Reign. It was the boast of Augustus it 
 formed part of the glare in which the perfidies of his earlier 
 years were lost that he found Rome of brick, and left it of 
 marble. But how much nobler will be the Sovereign s boast, 
 when he shall have it to say, that he found law dear and left 
 it cheap ; found it a sealed book, left it a living letter ; found 
 it the patrimony of the rich, left it the inheritance of the 
 poor ; found it the two-edged sword of craft and oppression, 
 left it the staff of honesty and the shield of innocence ! " 
 
 "Why may not this be a lawyer s skull?" muses 
 Hamlet, in the graveyard ; " where be his quiddets now, 
 
 * Friends in Council 
 12 
 
178 LAWYERS. 
 
 his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? 
 Humph ! this fellow might be in s time a greater buyer 
 of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, 
 his double-vouchers, his recoveries ; and this, the fine 
 of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have 
 his fine poll full of dirt ! The very conveyances of his 
 lands will hardly lie in this box ; and must the inheritor 
 himself have no more ? " 
 
 The diversities of the profession in England and 
 America are curious and suggestive. Already is the 
 obligation mutual ; for if in the old country there are 
 more profound and elaborate resources, in the new the 
 science has received brilliant elucidations, and its forms 
 and processes been simplified. There routine is apt to 
 dwarf, and here variety to dissipate the lawyer s ability ; 
 there he is too often a mere drudge, and here his vo 
 cation regarded as the vestibule only of political life. 
 In England, the advocate s knowledge is frequently lim 
 ited to his special department ; and in America, while 
 it is less complete and accurate, he is versed in many 
 other subjects, and apt at many vocations. " The Amer 
 icans," says Sidney Smith, " are the first persons who 
 have discarded, in the administration of justice, the 
 tailor, and his auxiliary the barber, two persons of 
 endless importance in the codes and pandects of Europe. 
 A judge administers justice without a calorific wig and 
 parti-colored gown ; in a coat and pantaloons ; he is 
 obeyed, however, and life and property are not badly 
 protected in the United States." 
 
 There can be no more striking contrast than that 
 between the lives of the English chancellors and the 
 American chief justices : in the former, regal splendor, 
 the vicissitudes of kingcraft and succession, of religious 
 
LA WYERS. 179 
 
 transition, of courts, war, the people and the nobility, 
 lend a kind of feudal splendor, or tragic interest, or 
 deep intrigue, to the career of the minister of justice ; 
 he is surrounded with the insignia of his office ; big 
 wigs, scarlet robes, ermine mantles, the great seal, in 
 terviews with royalty, the trappings and the aw r e of 
 power invest his person ; his career is identified with 
 the national annals ; the lapse of time and historic asso 
 ciations lend a mysterious interest to his name ; in the 
 background, there is the martyrdom of Thomas a 
 Becket, the speech of the fallen Wolsey, the scaffold 
 of Sir Thomas More, the inductive system and low am 
 bition of Bacon, and the literary fame of Clarendon. 
 Yet, in intellectual dignity, our young republic need not 
 shrink from the comparison. The Virginia stripling, 
 who drilled regulars in a hunting-shirt, is a high legal 
 authority in both hemispheres. u TVhere," says one of 
 Marshall s intelligent eulogists, " in English history, is 
 the judge whose mind was at once so enlarged and so 
 systematic ; who had so thoroughly reduced professional 
 science to general reason ; in whose disciplined intellect 
 technical learning had so completely passed into native 
 sense ? " And now that Kent s Commentaries have 
 become the indispensable guide and reference of the 
 entire profession, who remembers, except with pride, 
 that, on his first circuit, the Court was often held in a 
 barn, with the hay-loft for a bench, a stall for a bar, and 
 the shade of a neighboring apple-tree for a jury-room ? 
 The majesty of justice, the intellectual superiority of law 
 as a pursuit, is herein most evident ; disrobed of all ex 
 ternal magnificence, with no lofty and venerable halls, 
 imposing costume, or array of officials, the law yet bor 
 rows from the learning, the fidelity, and the genius of 
 
180 LAWYERS. 
 
 its votaries, essential dignity and memorable triumphs. 
 " Of law, no less can be said," grandly observes Hooker, 
 " than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the 
 harmony of the world." 
 
 The most celebrated English lawyers have their 
 American prototypes; thus, Marshall has been com 
 pared to Lord Mansfield, Pinkney to Erskine, and Wirt 
 to Sheridan (who was a student of the Middle Temple, 
 though not called to the bar) ; imperfect as are such 
 analogies, they yet indicate, with truth, a similarity of 
 endowment, or style of advocacy. The diverse influ 
 ence of the respective institutions of the two countries 
 is, however, none the less apparent because of an occa 
 sional resemblance in the genius of eminent barristers. 
 The genuine British lawyer is recognized by the tech 
 nical cast of his expression and habit of mind, to a de 
 gree seldom obvious in this country. Indeed, no small 
 portion of the graduates of our colleges who select the 
 law as a pursuit, do so without any strong bias for the 
 profession, but with a view to the facilities it affords for 
 entrance into public life. Some of these aspirants thus 
 become useful servants of the State ; a few, statesmen, 
 but the majority mere politicians; and from the predom 
 inance of the latter class originate half the errors of 
 American legislation ; for, however much profound legal 
 training may fit a man of ability for the higher func 
 tions of representative government, a superficial knowl 
 edge and practice of law renders him only an adept in 
 chicanery and the " gift of the gab " ; and it is easy to 
 imagine how a mob of such adroit and ambitious parti 
 sans especially when brought together from the nar 
 row sphere of village life may pervert the great ends 
 of legislative action. They make the laws according to 
 
LAWYERS. 181 
 
 their own interests ; and there is no prospect of the ref 
 ormation demanded in juridical practice, while such a 
 corps form the speaking and voting majority, and act 
 on what has been justly called the one great principle 
 of English law, " to make business for itself" * 
 
 Two names appear on the roll of English lawyers 
 which are identified with the worst characteristics of the 
 race, impious, wild, and brow-beating arrogance. 
 that of Jeffreys, whose ferocious persecution of those 
 suspected of complicity with Monmouth s Rebellion 
 forms one of the most scandalous chapters in the his 
 tory of British courts ; and Lord Thurlow, who, in a 
 more refined age, w r on the alias of Tiger, for his rude 
 ness, inflexibility, oaths, and ill - manners, his black 
 brows, and audible growls. In beautiful contrast shine 
 forth the Law Reformers of England, whose benign 
 eloquence and unwearied labor mitigated the sangui 
 nary rigors of the criminal code, and pressed the Com 
 mon Law into the service of humanity. Romilly and 
 Erskine have gained a renown more enduring than 
 that of learned and gifted advocates ; their professional 
 glory is heightened and mellowed by the sacred cause 
 it illustrates. 
 
 The trial by jury and habeas corpus are the grand 
 privileges of England and our own country ; the integ 
 rity of the former has been invaded among us, by the 
 abuse incident to making judgeships elective, and by 
 the lawless spirit of the western communities ; while the 
 conviction of such eminent criminals as Earl Ferrers, 
 
 *" By the working of the apparatus for the administration of jus 
 tice, they, make their profits; and their welfare depends on its being so 
 worked as to bring them profits, rather than on its being so worked as 
 to administer justice." Herbert Spencer. 
 
182 LA WYERS. 
 
 Dr. Dodd, and Fauntleroy, prove how it has been, and 
 is respected by the public sentiment of England. 
 
 " The great expense of the simplest lawsuit," writes 
 an English lawyer, in a popular magazine, " and the 
 droll laws which force all English subjects into a court 
 of Equity for their sole redress, in an immense number 
 of cases, lead, at this present day, to a very entertaining 
 class of practical jokes. I mean that ludicrous class, 
 in which the joke consists of a man s taking and keep 
 ing possession of money or other property to which he 
 even pretends to have no shadow of right, but which he 
 seizes because he knows that the whole will be swal 
 lowed up if the rightful owner should seek to assert his 
 claim." The instances which are cited are rather fitted 
 to excite a sense of humiliation than of fun, at the cruel 
 injustice of a legal system which expressly organizes 
 and protects robbery. 
 
 The legal treatises produced in England in modern 
 times, are wonderful monuments of erudition, research, 
 and analytical power. The intelligent lawyer who ex 
 amines Spence s two volumes on Equity, does not won 
 der his brain gave way when thus far advanced on his 
 gigantic task. It is this patient study, this complete 
 learning, which distinguishes the English lawyer; in 
 point of eloquence, he is confessedly inferior to his 
 Irish and American brethren, as they are to him in 
 profundity ; in the careful and persistent application of 
 common sense to the hoarded legal acquisitions of cen 
 turies, the great minds of the English bar stand unri 
 valled. It is, indeed, the most certain professional ave 
 nue to official power. " Rely upon it," says a brilliant 
 novelist, " the barrister s gown is the wedding-garment 
 to the British feast of fat things ; " and Veron declares 
 
LAWYERS. 183 
 
 that " en France, mais en France seulement, un avocat 
 est propre a tout, tandis qu un medecin n est juge propre 
 a rien qu a hanter les hopitaux." 
 
 In this country, the lawyers of each State have a char 
 acteristic reputation ; the Bar of Boston, as a whole, is 
 more English, that of the South more Irish, in its gen 
 eral merits. Marshall was an exception to the eloquent 
 fame of American lawyers born and bred south of the 
 Potomac ; his superiority was logical : " aim exclusively 
 at strength," was his maxim ; and " close, compact, sim 
 ple, but irresistible logic," his great distinction. Whea- 
 ton s labors in behalf of International, and Hamilton s in 
 that of Constitutional law, have laid the civilized world, 
 as well as their native country, under high and lasting 
 obligations. 
 
 The popular estimate of a profession is dependent 
 on circumstances ; and this, like every other human 
 pursuit, takes its range and tone from the character of 
 its votary, and the existent relation it holds to public 
 sentiment ; not so much from what it technically de 
 mands, but from the spirit in which it is followed, comes 
 the dignity and the shame of the law. The erudite 
 generalizations of Savigny belong to the most difficult 
 and enlarged sphere -of thought, while the cunning ter 
 giversations of the legal adventurer identify him with 
 sharpers and roguery. How characteristic of Aaron 
 Burr, that he should sarcastically define law as " what 
 ever is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained." In 
 the first cycle of our Republic, when a liberal education 
 was rare, the best lawyers were ornaments of society, 
 and the intellectual benefactors of the country. In that 
 study were disciplined the chivalrous minds of Mar 
 shall, Hamilton, Adams, Morris, and other statesmen of 
 
184 LA WYERS. 
 
 the Revolution. A trial, which afforded the least scope 
 for their remarkable powers, was attended by the intelli 
 gent citizens with very much the same kind of interest 
 as filled the Athenian theatre a mental banquet was 
 confidently expected and deeply enjoyed. To have a 
 great legal reputation, then, implied all that is noble in 
 intellect, graceful in manner, and courteous in spirit it 
 bespoke the scholar, the gentleman, and the wit, as well 
 as the advocate. When Emmet came hither with the 
 prestige of inherited patriotism and talents, as well as 
 the claims of an exile, he found men at the bar whose 
 eloquence rivalled the fame of Curran and Grattan. 
 
 In Scotland, lawyers are eminently identified with 
 social distinction and arrangements. " The fact of the 
 substitution of the legal profession for the old Scottish 
 aristocracy," says a late Review, " in the chief place in 
 Edinburgh society, is typified by the circumstance that 
 the so-called Parliament House, which is on the site of 
 the ancient hall where the Estates of the Kingdom sat 
 when the nation made its own laws, is now the seat of 
 the Scottish law-courts and the daily resort of the inter 
 preters of the land. The general hour of breakfast in 
 Edinburgh is determined by the time when the Courts 
 open in the morning ; and dispersed through their homes 
 or at dinner-parties in the evening it is the members 
 of the legal profession that lead the social talk." 
 
 The equality of free institutions was never more aptly 
 illustrated than by a scene which occurred in a Court- 
 House we used to frequent, in boyhood, in order to hear 
 the impassioned rhetoric of a gifted criminal lawyer. 
 A trial of peculiar interest was to come on ; the room 
 was crowded with spectators and officials ; the judge, a 
 venerable specimen of the stern and dignified magis- 
 
LAWYERS. 185 
 
 trate, took his seat ; the sheriff announced the opening 
 of the court, and the clerk called over the names of 
 those summoned to act as jurors. We were startled to 
 hear, among those of grocers, draymen, and mechanics, 
 the well-known name of an aristocratic millionaire. It 
 was thrice repeated and no answer given. " Has that 
 juror been duly summoned," inquired the judge. " Yes, 
 your honor," was the reply. " Let two constables in 
 stantly bring him before us," said the magistrate. One 
 can imagine the vexation of the rich gentleman of leis 
 ure, when dawdling, in a flowered robe de chambre, 
 over his sumptuous breakfast, to be disturbed by those 
 rude minions of the law ; however, there was no alter 
 native, and he was obliged to dispatch his meal and 
 accompany the distasteful escort. He entered the court, 
 where a deep silence prevailed, with a supercilious smile 
 and complacent air of well-bred annoyance. " How 
 dare you keep the court waiting, sir ? " was the indig 
 nant salutation of the judge, who, perhaps, when last in 
 the gentleman s company, had sipped a glass of delect 
 able old Madeira to his health. " I intended to pay my 
 fine and not serve," stammered the millionaire. " And 
 do you suppose, sir, that wealth exonerates you from the 
 duties of a citizen, and is any apology for your gross 
 incivility in thus detaining the court for over an hour ? 
 Xo excuse will be accepted ; either take your seat in 
 the jury-box or stand committed." Through the silent 
 crowd, the luxurious man of fortune threaded his wav, 
 and sat down between a currier and wood-merchant, 
 with whom he had to listen to the law and the evidence 
 for a fortnight. 
 
 The author of the " Lives of the English Chancel 
 lors " refers to the usual explanation of the origin of 
 
186 LA WYERS. 
 
 the term "wool-sack," as intended in compliment to 
 the staple product of the realm ; and adds his own 
 belief that, in " the rude simplicity of early times, a 
 sack of wool was frequently used as a sofa." In the 
 colonial era of our history, when ceremony and etiquette 
 ruled the public hall as well as the private drawing- 
 room, American judges wore the robe and wig still 
 used in the Old Country. These insignia of authority 
 inspired an awe, before the era of legal reform and of 
 philosophical jurisprudence, which comported with the 
 tyrannous exercise of juridical power, when it was little 
 more than the medium of despotism, and when the 
 calm reproach of Stafford was a literal truth : " It is 
 better to be without laws altogether, than to persuade 
 ourselves that we have laws by which to regulate our 
 conduct, and to find that they consist only in the enmity 
 and arbitrary will of our accusers." 
 
 The Conveyancer, Writer to the Signet, Attorney, 
 Barrister, and other divisions of the legal profession, 
 indicate how, in this, as in other vocations, the divi 
 sion of labor operates in England ; while on this side 
 of the water, the contrary principle not only assigns to 
 the lawyer a degree of knowledge and aptitude in each 
 branch of his calling, but lays him under contribution 
 in every political and social exigency, as an interpreter 
 or advocate of public sentiment ; hence his remarkable 
 versatility and comparatively superficial attainments. 
 In the history of English law, the early struggles and 
 profound acquirements of her disciples form the salient 
 points, while in that of America, they are to be found 
 rather in the primitive resources of justice and the 
 varied career of her ministers. With regard to the 
 former, our many racy descriptions of the process of 
 
LA WYERS. 187 
 
 Western colonization, abound in remarkable anecdotes 
 of the unlicensed administration of justice. After the 
 Pioneer comes the Ranger, a kind of border police, 
 then the Regulator, and finally the Justice of the Peace. 
 In the primitive communities, when a flagrant wrong is 
 committed, a public meeting is called, perhaps, under 
 an oak-clump, or in a green hollow, the oldest settler is 
 invited to the chair, which is probably the trunk of a 
 fallen tree ; the offence is discussed ; the offender iden 
 tified ; volunteers scour the woods ; he is arraigned, 
 and, if found guilty, hung, banished, or reprimanded, 
 as the case may be, with a dispatch which is not less 
 remarkable than the fair hearing he is allowed, and the 
 cool decision with which he is condemned. 
 
 There is a peculiar kind of impudence exhibited by 
 the lawyer it is sometimes called " badgering a wit 
 ness " and consists essentially of a mean abuse of 
 that power which is legally vested in judge and advo 
 cate, whereby they can, at pleasure, insult and torment 
 each other, and all exposed to their queries, with impu 
 nity. It is easy to imagine the relish with which un 
 professional victims behold the mutual exercise of this 
 legal tyranny. A venerable Justice, in one of our cities, 
 was remarkable for the frequent reproofs he adminis 
 tered to young practitioners in his court, and the formal 
 harangues with which he wore out the patience of those 
 so unfortunate as to give testimony in his presence. On 
 one occasion, it happened that he was summoned as a 
 witness, in a case to be defended by one of the juvenile 
 members of the bar, whom he had often called to order, 
 with needless severity. This hopeful limb of the law 
 was gifted with more than a common share of the cool 
 assurance so requisite in the profession, and determined 
 
188 LAWYERS. 
 
 to improve the opportunity, to make his " learned 
 friend" of the bench feel the sting he had so often 
 inflicted. Accordingly, when his Honor took the stand, 
 the counsel gravely inquired his name, occupation, place 
 of residence, and sundry other facts of his personal his 
 tory though all were as familiar to himself and every 
 one present as the old church, or main street of their 
 native town. The queries were put in a voice and with 
 a manner so exactly imitated from that of the judge 
 himself, as to convulse the audience with laughter ; 
 every unnecessary word the hampered witness used was 
 reprimanded as " beyond the question ; " he was con 
 tinually adjured to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and 
 nothing but the truth ; " his expressions were captiously 
 objected to ; he was tantalized with repetitions and 
 cross-questioning about the veriest trifles ; and, finally, 
 his tormentor, with a face of the utmost gravity, pre 
 tended to discover in the witness a levity of bearing, 
 and equivocal replies, which called for a lecture on "the 
 responsibility of an oath ; " this was delivered with a 
 pedantic solemnity, in words, accent, and gesture, so 
 like one of his own addresses from the bench, that 
 judge, jury, and spectators, burst forth into irresistible 
 peals of laughter; and the subject of this clever retali 
 ation lost all self-possession, grew red and pale by turns, 
 fumed, and at last protested, until his young adversary 
 wound up the farce, by a threat to commit him for con 
 tempt of court. 
 
 When Chief Justice Coleridge retired from the bench, 
 his farewell address deeply affected the members of the 
 bar present : " These are not your severest trials," said 
 he, referring to the more familiar difficulties of the 
 profession ; " they are those which are most insidious ; 
 
LAWYERS. 189 
 
 which beset you in the ordinary path of your daily duty ; 
 those which spring from the excitement of contest, 
 from the love of intellectual display, and even from 
 an exaggerated sense of duty to your clients. Gentle 
 men, especially my younger friends, suffer me, 
 without offence, to put you on your guard against 
 these. We can well afford to bear traditional pleasant 
 ries upon us from without, but we cannot afford that, 
 underlying these, there should exist among thoughtful 
 persons a feeling that our professional standard of 
 honor is questionable, that we, as advocates, will say 
 and do in court what we, as gentlemen, would scorn to 
 do in the common walks of life. Sometimes, I confess, 
 it seems to me that we lend support to such a feeling 
 by the lightness with which we impute ungenerous con 
 duct or practices to each other. Surely no case is so 
 sacred, no client so dear, that ever an advocate should 
 be called upon to barter his own self-respect. If that 
 be our duty, our great and glorious profession is no call 
 ing for a gentleman." 
 
 The relation of law to poetry is proverbially antago 
 nistic ; and the attempt to bind imagination to techni 
 calities has usually proved a hopeless experiment ; and 
 yet it is curious to note how many of the brotherhood of 
 song were originally destined for this profession, and 
 how similar their confessions are, of a struggle, a com 
 promise, and finally, an abandonment of jurisprudence 
 for the sake of the Muses. Ovid, Petrarch, Tasso, Mil 
 ton, Cowper, Ariosto, and others, are examples ; Scott 
 was faithful awhile to a branch of the law ; Blackstone s 
 only known poem is a " Farewell to the Muse ; " Mar 
 shall and Story wooed the Nine, in their youth ; Tal- 
 fourd deemed it requisite to declare, in the preface to 
 
190 LAWYERS. 
 
 " Ton," that he " left no duty for this idle trade," and 
 Procter only weaves a song in the intervals of his stern 
 task as a Commissioner of Lunacy. With philosophy 
 the law is more congenial : Bacon and Mackintosh are 
 illustrious examples of their united pursuit. Sir Thomas 
 More wrote verses on the wall of his prison with a coal, 
 and Addison compliments Somers on his poetry in his 
 dedication of the " Campaign." Lord Mansfield s name 
 appears in history a successful competitor for the Oxford 
 prize poem. Lyndhurst and Denham were given to 
 rhyme, and Sir William Jones is popularly known by 
 his nervous lines on " What constitutes a State." Lord 
 Jeffrey is one of the most characteristic modern exam 
 ples of the union of legal and literary success, his 
 taste of the latter kind having, with the aid of a felici 
 tous style, made him the most famous reviewer of his 
 day, while the mental traits of the advocate unfitted him 
 to appreciate the ideal, as they rendered him expert and 
 brilliant in the discussion of rhetoric, facts, and philos 
 ophy. 
 
 Its connection with the most adventurous and tragic 
 realities of life often brings law into the sphere of the 
 dramatic and imaginative. Popular fiction has found 
 in its annals all the material for profound human inter 
 est and artistic effect. Scott s most pathetic tale, the 
 " Heart of Mid-Lothian," " Ten Thousand a- Year," and 
 " Bleak House," are memorable examples. The trials 
 of Russell, Strafford, Vane, and other noble prisoners 
 charged with high treason, have furnished both plot and 
 incidents for popular novelists. Uriah Heep, Oily Gam 
 mon, and Gilbert Glossin, are familiar types of legal 
 villainy. Thackeray s best work, artistically speaking, 
 "Henry Esmond," is largely indebted to the State 
 
LA WYERS. 191 
 
 Trials of Queen Anne s time for its material. Have you 
 ever seen Portia enacted by a woman of genius ? Then 
 has the romance of law been impersonated forever to 
 your mind. That demoniac plaintiff, so memorably rep 
 resented by Kean, with his haunting expression and 
 voice, the noble wife of Bassanio, uttering, in tones 
 of musical entreaty, her immortal plea for Mercy, and, 
 when it failed to touch the Jew s heart of adamant, 
 cleaving his hope of vengeance by a subtle evasion, 
 the joy of Antonio, the fiat of the judge, the merry re 
 union and gay bridal talk at Belmont that night, whose 
 moonlit gladness lives forever in the page of Shak- 
 speare ; Queen Katherine s defence, and Othello s 
 argument before their judges, equally show how effec 
 tive is a tribunal under the hand of the poet of Nature ; 
 and every barrister of long experience can relate epi 
 sodes in his career " stranger than fiction." 
 
 Although one would naturally turn to the State Tri 
 als, Causes Celebres, " Memoirs of Yidocq," and similar 
 works, for the dramatic materials developed by process 
 of law, yet, to the initiated, there is an equal fund of 
 interest in those researches of the profession which ap 
 pear to deal only with technicalities. How many effect 
 ive situations have playwrights, and such observers of 
 human nature as Hogarth, drawn from, or grouped 
 around the formal act of making or readino- a Will ! 
 
 o o 
 
 There is positive romance in the task of the Convey 
 ancer, when he traces the title of an estate far back 
 through the ramifications of family history, often bring 
 ing to light the most curious historical facts and remark 
 able personal incidents. Questions of property, of heir- 
 ship, of fraud, and of divorce, involve manifold relative 
 facts, that only require the sequence and arrangement 
 
192 LAWYERS. 
 
 of literary art, to make them dramas. Perhaps no field 
 of character has yielded types as memorable to the 
 writers of modern fiction as that of the Law. Think 
 of Balzac s diagnosis of the French statutes regulating- 
 burial and marriage settlements, in his psychological 
 Tales ; of Brass, Tulkinghorn, and Peyton. Libel cases 
 vie with police reports in unveiling the tragedy and 
 comedy of life. That a trial involves scope for the 
 broadest humor, or the most facetious invention, is evi 
 dent from the Moot Court having become a permanent 
 form of public entertainment in London. 
 
 No profession affords better opportunities for the 
 study of human nature ; indeed, an acute insight of 
 motives is a prerequisite of success ; but unfortunately 
 it is the dark side of character, the selfish instincts, that 
 are most frequently displayed in litigation, and hence 
 the exclusive recognition of these which many a prac 
 tised lawyer manifests. In its ideal phase, among the 
 noblest in its possible actuality, among the lowest 
 of human pursuits, we can scarcely wonder that popular 
 sentiment and literature exhibit such apparently irrec 
 oncilable estimates of its value and tendencies. Eng 
 lish lawyers of the first class are scholars and gentle 
 men. Classical knowledge and familiarity with standard 
 modern literature are indispensable to their equipment ; 
 and such attainments are usually conducive to a humane 
 and refined character. In the programme suggested by 
 eminent lawyers, for a general training for the Bar, there 
 is, however, an amusing diversity of opinion as to the 
 best literary culture ; one writer recommends the Bible, 
 another Shakspeare, one English history, and another 
 Joe Miller, as the best resource for apt quotation and 
 discipline in the art of efficient rhetoric. Coke was re- 
 
LAWYERS. 193 
 
 markable for his citations from Virgil. But there is no 
 doubt that general knowledge is an essential advantage 
 to the lawyer, if he understand the rare art of using it 
 with tact. The mere fact that the highest political dis 
 tinction and official duty are open to the lawyer, ought 
 to incline him to liberal studies and comprehensive ac 
 quaintance with literature, science, and philosophy. 
 
 How distinctly in social life the phases of the legal 
 mind have become, is evident from such allusion as that 
 of a Quarterly Reviewer, who, in a political discussion, 
 remarks that " Mr. Percival was only a poorish nisi 
 prius lawyer, and there is no kind of human being so 
 disagreeable to the gross Tory nation;" while De Quin- 
 cey, with that philosophic benignity which sometimes 
 inspires his weird pen, observes that, " he had often 
 thought that the influence of a portion of the acrid hu 
 mors, which seem an element in the human mental con 
 stitution, being drained off, as it were, in forensic dispu 
 tation, raised the lawyer above the average of mankind, 
 in the qualities that give enjoyment to society." 
 
 The trial of Aaron Burr elicited the most character 
 istic eloquence of Clay and Wirt ; that of Knapp, the 
 tragic force of statement in which Webster excelled. 
 Emmet s address to his judges has become a charter to 
 his countrymen. Patrick Henry s remarkable powers 
 of argument and appeal, which fanned the embers of 
 Revolutionary zeal into a flame, originally exhibited 
 themselves in a Virginia court - house. And, if elo 
 quence has been justly described as existing " in the 
 man, in the subject, and in the occasion," we can easily 
 imagine why the legal profession affords it such frequent 
 and extensive scope. 
 
 The intellectual process by which the advocate seeks 
 13 
 
194 LAWYERS. 
 
 his ends is Observable in the best conversation and writ 
 ing. Almost all good talkers are essentially pleaders ; 
 they espouse, defend, illustrate, or maintain a question. 
 Many of Lord Jeffrey s reviews are little else but spe 
 cial pleadings, and Macaulay s most brilliant articles 
 are digests executed with taste and eloquence ; the sub 
 ject is first thoroughly explored, then its presentation 
 systematized, and afterwards stated, argued, and summed 
 up, after the manner of a charge or plea, with the addi 
 tion of rhetorical graces inadmissible in a legal case. 
 There is nothing, therefore, in the peculiar exercise of 
 the faculties which renders law a profession apt to per 
 vert second-rate minds ; the evil lies in the predeter 
 mined side, the logic aforethought, if we may so say, 
 the interested choice and dogmatical assumption of 
 a certain view undertaken " for a consideration." " I 
 know some barristers," observes Thackeray, " who mis 
 take you and J[/or jury-boxes when they address us ; but 
 / these are not your modest barristers, not your true gen 
 tlemen." 
 
 The special pleading and judicial complacency of 
 Jeffrey in other words his lawyer s mind prevented 
 his recognition of the highest and best poetical merit. 
 It has been said of the conversation of his circle at 
 Edinburgh, that it was, " in a very great measure, made 
 up of brilliant disquisition, of sharp word-catching, in 
 genious thinking, and parrying of dialectics, and all the 
 quips and quiddities of bar-pleading. It was the talk 
 of a society to which lawyers and lecturers had, for at 
 least a hundred years, given the tone." * 
 
 When from the advocate we pass to the bench, and 
 from the feed barrister to the philosophical jurist, a new 
 *Lockhart s Life of Scott. 
 
LAWYERS. 195 
 
 and majestic vista opens to the view. As in literature, 
 two great divisions mark the legal character : there is 
 the narrow but thoroughly informed practitioner, and 
 the comprehensive judicial mind, the first only dis 
 tinguished within a limited bound of immediate utility 
 and respectable adherence to precedent, and the other 
 a pioneer in the realm of truth, a brave and original 
 minister at the altar of justice. Lord Brougham, in his 
 " Sketches of English Statesmen," has admirably indi 
 cated these two classes. To the former he says, " The 
 precise dictates of English statutes, and the dictates of 
 English judges and English text-writers, are the stand 
 ard of justice. They are extremely suspicious of any 
 enlarged or general views upon so serious a subject as 
 law." The second and higher order of lawyers are 
 well described in his portrait of Lord Grant, of whose 
 charges he remarks : " Forth came a strain of clear, 
 unbroken fluency, disposing, in the most luminous order, 
 all the facts and all the arguments in the cause ; reduc 
 ing into clear and simple arrangement the most entan 
 gled masses of broken, conflicting statement ; settling 
 one doubt by a parenthetical remark, passing over an 
 other only more decisive that it was condensed ; and 
 giving out the whole impression of the case upon the 
 judge s mind, the material view, with argument 
 enough to show why he so thought, and to prove him 
 right, and without so much reasoning as to make you 
 forget that it was a judgment you were hearing, and not 
 a speech." Do we not often find, in literature and in 
 life, counterparts of this picture of a judicial mind ? 
 Add to it discovery, and we have the legal philosopher ; 
 intrepid love of right, and we recognize the legal re 
 former. To this noble category belong such lawyers as 
 
196 LA WYERS, 
 
 Mansfield and Marshall, Romilly, Erskine, and Web 
 ster. Genius for the bar is as varied, in its character, 
 as that for poetry or art. In one man the gift is acute- 
 ness, in another felicity of language ; here extraordinary 
 perspicuity of statement, there singular ingenuity of 
 argument. It is rhetoric, manner, force of purpose, a 
 glamour that subdues, or a charm that wins ; so that no 
 precise rules, irrespective of individual endowments, can 
 be laid down to secure forensic triumph. Doubtless, 
 however, the union of a sympathetic temperament and 
 an attractive manner with logical power and native elo 
 quence form the ideal equipment of the pleader. Ers 
 kine seems to have combined these qualities in perfec 
 tion, and to have woven a spell both for soul and sense. 
 He magnetized, physically and intellectually, his audi 
 ence. " Juries," says his biographer, " declared that 
 they felt it impossible to remove their looks from him 
 when he had riveted, and, as it were, fascinated them 
 by his first glance ; and it used to be a common remark 
 of men who observed his motions, that they resembled 
 those of a blood-horse." 
 
 The tendency to subterfuge in the less highly en 
 dowed, is but an incidental liability; in general, law- 
 practice seems to harden and make sceptical the mind 
 absorbed in its details. One can almost invariably 
 detect the keen look of distrust or the smile of incre 
 dulity in the physiognomy of the barrister. Every 
 thing like sentiment, disinterestedness, and frank dem 
 onstration, is apt to be regarded without faith or sym 
 pathy. Most lawyers confess that they place no reliance 
 on the statements of their clients. If you introduce a 
 spiritual hypothesis or a practical view of any topic, it is 
 treated by this class of men with ill-concealed scorn. 
 
LAWYERS. 197 
 
 The habit of their minds is logical ; they usually ignore 
 and repudiate those instincts which experience seldom 
 reveals to them, and observation of life in its coarser 
 phases leads them to doubt and contemn. But, while 
 thus less open to the gentler and more sacred sympa 
 thies, they often possess the distinction of manliness, of 
 courage, and generosity. The very process which so 
 exclusively develops the understanding, and makes their 
 ideal of intellectual greatness to consist in aptitude, sub 
 tlety, and reasoning power, tends to give a certain vigor 
 and alertness to the thinking faculty, and to emancipate 
 it from morbid influences. One of Ben Jonson s char 
 acters thus defines the lawyer : 
 
 " I oft have heard him say how he admired 
 Men of your law-profession, that could speak 
 To every cause and things mere contraries, 
 Till they were hoarse again, yet all be law. 
 That, with most quick agility, could turn 
 And return, make knots and undo them, 
 Give forked counsel, take provoking gold 
 On either hand, and put it up." 
 
 And one of Balzac s characters says : " Savez-vous, 
 mon cher, qu il existe dans notre societe trois homines : 
 le pretre, le medecin, et 1 homme de justice, qui ne peu- 
 vent pas estimer le monde ? Us ont des robes noires, 
 peut-etre parce qu ils portent le deuil de toutes les ver- 
 tus, de toutes les illusions. Le plus malheureux des trois 
 est favoue." When the question at issue is purely util 
 itarian, and the interest discussed one of outward and 
 practical relations, this legal training comes into emi 
 nent efficiency ; in a word, it is applicable to affairs, but 
 not to sentiment, to fact, but not to abstract truth. How 
 evanescent is often a great lawyer s fame ; often as in 
 tangible as that of a great vocalist or actor. Even their 
 
198 LAWYERS. 
 
 eloquence is now rare. Great lawyers are uniformly 
 distrustful of rhetoric, and their power is based on 
 knowledge. We learn from the son and biographer of 
 Chief Justice Parsons that a special reason of his emi 
 nent superiority was that accident gave him early and 
 undisturbed access to the best law library in America. 
 It has been truly said, that the eloquence of the bar has 
 become a tradition ; " it is suspected as impugning sense 
 and knowledge," and is opposed to the practical spirit 
 of the age. Yet, the .advocate, like the poet, is occa 
 sionally born, not made, notwithstanding the maxim 
 orator Jit. A mind fertile in expedients, warmed by a 
 temperament which instinctively seizes upon, and, we 
 had almost said, incarnates, a cause, is a phenomenon 
 that sometimes renders law an inspiration instead of a 
 dogma. Such a pleader lately lived in one of the East 
 ern States. Not only the grasp of his thought, but his 
 elocution, announced that he had literally thrown himself 
 into the case. It would be more strictly correct to say 
 that he had absorbed it. The gesture, the eye, the tone 
 of his voice, the quiver of the muscle, nay, each lock 
 of his long steel-gray hair, that he tossed back from his 
 dripping brow, in the excitement of his fluent harangue, 
 seemed alive and overflowing with tlie rationale and the 
 sentiment of the cause ; his enthusiasm was real, how 
 ever it may have originated ; and, by identifying himself 
 with his client, he espoused the argument as if it were 
 vital to his own interest. Such instances, however, are 
 exceptional ; few are the lawyers thus constituted. Ac 
 cepting their cases objectively, and maintaining them by 
 formula, the usual effect is that which Burke describes 
 in his character of Greville : " He was bred to the law, 
 which is, in my opinion, one of the first and noblest of 
 
LAWYERS. 199 
 
 human sciences a science which does more to quicken 
 and invigorate the understanding than all other kinds 
 of learning put together ; but it is not apt, except in 
 persons very happily born, to open and liberalize the 
 mind exactly in the same proportion." 
 
 Why is the poet s function the noblest ? Because it 
 is inspired, not arbitrarily decreed by the will. Mental 
 activity is grand and beautiful in proportion as it is dis 
 interested ; and it is on account of the almost inevita 
 ble forcing, by circumstances, of a lawyer s mind from 
 the line of honest conviction into that of determined 
 casuistry, that the moral objection to the pursuit is so 
 often urged. " The indiscriminate defence of right and 
 wrong," says Junius, " contracts the understanding while 
 it corrupts the heart." Some men, in conversation, af 
 fect us as unreal. We attach no vital interest to what 
 they say, because the mind appears to act wholly apart 
 
 the fusion of sense and feeling, which we call soul, is 
 wanting ; there is no conviction, no personal sentiment, 
 no unselfish love of truth in what they say ; and yet it 
 may be intelligent, erudite, and void of positive falsity 
 
 still it is mechanical, the intellect is used, not inspired, 
 willed to act, not moved thereto : this is the character 
 istic of legal training, unmodified by the higher senti 
 ments ; it makes intellectual machines, logical grist 
 mills, talkers by rote; the rational powers, from long 
 slavery to temporary and interested aims, seem to have 
 lost magnanimity ; their spontaneous, genuine, and ear 
 nest action has yielded to a conventional and predeter 
 mined habit. Yet at the other extreme, we see the 
 most lofty and permanent intellectual results. It has 
 been justly said that the Code Napoleon is even now 
 the sole embodiment of Lord Bacon s thought " put 
 
200 LA WYERS. 
 
 them (the laws) into shape, inform them with philos 
 ophy, reduce them in bulk, give them into every man s 
 hand. Laws are made to guard the rights of the peo 
 ple, not to feed the lawyers." 
 
 Whoever, in the freshness of youthful emotions, has 
 been present at the tribunal of a free country, where 
 the character of the judge, the integrity of the jury, 
 and the learning and eloquence of the advocates have 
 equalled the moral exigencies and the ideal dignity of 
 the scene, and when the case has possessed a high tragic 
 or social interest, can never lose the impression thus 
 derived of the majesty of the law. No public scene of 
 human life can surpass it to the apprehension of a 
 thoughtful spectator. He seems to behold the principle 
 of justice as it exists in the very elements of humanity, 
 and to stand on the primeval foundation of civil society ; 
 the searching struggle for truth, the conscientious appli 
 cation of law to evidence, the stern recital of the pros 
 ecutor, the appeal of the defence, the constant test of 
 inquiry, of reference to statutes and precedents, the 
 luminous arrangement of conflicting facts by the judge, 
 his impartial deductions and clear final statement, the 
 interval of suspense and the solemn verdict, combine 
 to present a calm, reflective, almost sublime exercise of 
 the intellect and moral sentiments, in order to conform 
 authority to their highest dictates, which elevates and 
 widens the function and the glory of human life and 
 duty. Compare, with such a picture, the base mockery 
 of justice exhibited by the Inquisition of old, and an 
 Austrian court-martial of our own day ; the arbitrary fiat 
 of an Eastern official, and the murderous ordeal of the 
 provisional bodies that ruled during the first French 
 revolution, and it is easy to appreciate the identity of 
 
LA WYERS. 201 
 
 justly-administered law with civilization and freedom. 
 " Justice," says Webster, " is the great interest of man 
 on earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized 
 beings and civilized nations together. Wherever her 
 temple stands, and as long as it is duly honored, there 
 is a foundation for social security, general happiness, 
 and the improvement and progress of our race. And 
 whoever labors on this edifice, with usefulness and dis 
 tinction, whoever clears its foundations, strengthens its 
 pillars, adorns its entablatures, or contributes to raise 
 its august dome still higher in the skies, connects him 
 self, in name and fame and character, with that which 
 is, and must be, as durable as the frame of human 
 society." 
 
SEPULCHRES. 
 
 " The hills, 
 
 Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun ; the vales, 
 Stretching in pensive quietness between ; 
 The venerable woods ; rivers that move 
 In. majesty, and the complaining brooks 
 That make the meadow green ; and poured round all 
 Old ocean s gray and melancholy waste, 
 Are but the solemn decorations all 
 Of the great tomb of man." BRYANT. 
 
 | HE comparatively recent and widely diffused 
 interest in the establishment of rural ceme 
 teries in this country is an auspicious reaction 
 of popular feeling. Never did a Christian nation man 
 ifest so little conservative and exalted sentiment, apart 
 from its direct religious scope, as our own. This patent 
 defect is owing, in a measure, to the absence of the ven 
 erable, the time-hallowed, and the contemplative in the 
 scenes and the life of our country ; it is, however, con 
 firmed by the busy competition, the hurried, experimen 
 tal, and ambitious spirit of the people. Local change 
 is the rule, not the exception ; scorn of wise delay, 
 moderation, and philosophic content, the prevalent 
 feeling ; impatience, temerity, and self-confidence, the 
 characteristic impulse ; houses are locomotive, church 
 edifices turned into post-offices, and even theatres ; an 
 cestral domains are bartered away in the second gener 
 ation ; old trees bow to the axe ; the very sea is en 
 croached upon, and landmarks are removed almost as 
 soon as they grow familiar ; change, which is the life 
 
SEPULCHRES. 203 
 
 of Nature, seems to be regarded as not less the vital 
 element of what is called local improvement and pros 
 perity ; the future is almost exclusively regarded, and 
 the past contemned. 
 
 If a man cites the precedents of experience, he is 
 sneered at as a " fogy " ; if he has a competence, he 
 risks it in speculation ; newspapers usurp the attention 
 once given to standard lore ; the picturesque rocks of 
 the rural wayside are defiled by quack advertisements, 
 the arcana of spirituality degraded by legerdemain, the 
 dignity of reputation sullied by partisan brutality, the 
 graces of social refinement abrogated by a mercenary 
 standard, the lofty aims of science levelled by charlatan 
 tricks, and independence of character sacrificed to de 
 basing conformity ; observation is lost in locomotion, 
 thought in action, ideality in materialism. Against this 
 perversion of life, the sanctity of death protests, often 
 vainly, to the general mind, but not ineffectually to the 
 individual heart. 
 
 "When it was attempted to secure the collection of 
 Egyptian antiquities brought hither by Dr. Abbott of 
 Cairo, for a future scientific museum to be established 
 in New York, the representatives commercial, profes 
 sional, and speculative of " Young America" scorned 
 the bare idea of exchanging gold for mummies, sepul 
 chral lamps, papyrus, and ancient utensils and inscrip 
 tions ; yet, within a twelvemonth, a celebrated German 
 philologist, a native biblical scholar, and a lecturer on 
 the History of Art, eagerly availed themselves of these 
 contemned relics to prove and illustrate their respective 
 subjects; and the enlightened of Gotham s utilitarian 
 citizens acknowledged that the trophies of the past were 
 essential to elucidate and confirm the wisdom of the 
 
204 SEPULCHRES. 
 
 present. It is this idolatry of the immediate which 
 stultifies republican perception. Offer a manuscript to 
 a publisher, and he instantly inquires if it relates to the 
 questions of the day ; if not, it is almost certain to be 
 rejected without examination. The conservative ele 
 ment of social life is merged in gregarious intercourse ; 
 the youth looks not up to age ; the maiden s susceptibil 
 ities are hardened by premature and promiscuous asso 
 ciation ; external success is glorified, private consistency 
 unhonored ; art becomes a trade, literature an expe 
 dient, reform fanaticism ; aspiration is chilled, romance 
 outgrown, life unappreciated ; and all because the vista 
 of departed time is cut off from our theory of moral 
 perspective, and existence itself is regarded merely as 
 an opportunity for instant and outward success, not a 
 link in an eternal chain reaching " before and after." 
 
 Sentiment is the great conservative principle of so 
 ciety ; those instincts of patriotism, local attachment, 
 family affection, human sympathy, reverence for truth, 
 age, valor, and wisdom, so often alive and conscious in 
 the child and overlaid or perverted in the man, for 
 the culture of which our educational systems, habitual 
 vocations, domestic and social life, make so little pro 
 vision, are, in the last analysis, the elements of what 
 ever is noble, efficient, and individual in character ; in 
 every moral crisis we appeal to them, as the channels 
 whereby we are linked to God and humanity, and 
 through which alone we can realize just views or lawful 
 action. In our normal condition they may not be often 
 exhibited ; yet none the less they constitute the latent 
 force of civil society. To depend upon intelligence 
 and will is, indeed, the creed of the age, and especially 
 of this republic ; but these powers, when unhallowed 
 
SEPULCHRES. 205 
 
 by the primal and better instincts, react and fail of 
 their end. It is so in individual experience and in 
 national affairs. The absence of the sentiments which 
 the pride of intellect and the brutality of self-will 
 thus repudiate, is the occasion of our greatest errors ; 
 to them is the final appeal, through them the only 
 safety ; and their violation was the precursor of base 
 and bloody treason ; their vindication but the renewal 
 through sacrifice of a normal and vital interest of hu 
 man society. The war for the Union has been expia 
 tory not less than patriotic. And the great lesson 
 taught by these and similar errors is, that the life, the 
 spirit, the faith of the country had, by a long course of 
 national prosperity and a blind worship of outward suc 
 cess, become gradually but inevitably material ; so that 
 motives of patriotism, of reverence, of courtesy, of gen 
 erous sympathy, in a word, the sentiments as distin 
 guished from the passions and the will, had ceased to 
 be recognized as legitimate, and the reliable springs of 
 action and guides of life. It was the repudiation of 
 these which horrified Burke at the outbreak of the 
 French Revolution ; he augured the worst from that 
 event, at the best hour of its triumph, because it stripped 
 Humanity of her divine attribute of sentiment, and left 
 her to shiver naked in the cold light of reason and will, 
 unredeemed by the sense of justice, of beauty, of com 
 passion, of honorable pride, which under the name of 
 Chivalry, he lamented as extinct. He spoke and felt as 
 a man whose brain was kindled by his heart, and whose 
 heart retained the pure impulse of these sacred instincts 
 and knew their value as the medium of all truth and the 
 basis of civil order. They were temporarily quenched 
 in France by the frenzy of want ; they are inactive and 
 
206 SEPULCHRES. 
 
 in abeyance here, through the gross pressure of mate 
 rial prosperity and mercenary ambition. Hence what 
 ever effectively appeals to them, and whoever sincerely 
 recognizes them, whether by example or precept, in a 
 life or a poem, through art or rhetoric, in respect for 
 the past, love of nature, or devotion to truth and beauty, 
 excites our cordial sympathy. In this age and land, no 
 man is a greater benefactor than he who scorns the 
 worldly and narrow philosophy of life which degrades 
 to a material, unaspiring level the tone of mind and 
 the tendency of the affections. If he invent a charac 
 ter, lay out a domain, erect a statue, weave a stanza, 
 write a paragraph, utter a word, or chant a melody 
 which stirs in any breast the love of the beautiful, admi 
 ration for the heroic, or the chastening sense of awe, 
 any sentiment, in truth, which partakes of disinterest 
 edness, and merges self " in an idea dearer than self/* 
 uplifts, expands, fortifies, intensifies, and therefore 
 inspires, he is essentially and absolutely a benefac 
 tor to society, a genuine though perhaps unrecognized 
 champion of what is " highest in man s nature " against 
 what is " lowest in man s destiny." And not the least 
 because the most universal of these higher and holier 
 feelings is the sentiment of Death, consecrating its sym 
 bols, guarding its relics, and keeping fresh and sacred 
 its memories. 
 
 The disposition of the mortal remains was and is, 
 to a considerable extent, in England, an ecclesiastical 
 function ; in Catholic lands it is a priestly interest. In 
 dignity to the body, after death, was one of the most 
 dreaded punishments of heresy and crime ; to scatter 
 human ashes to the winds, expose the skulls of malefac 
 tors in iron gratings over city portals, refuse interment 
 
SEPULCHRES. 207 
 
 in ground consecrated by the Church, and disinter and 
 insult the body of an unpopular ruler, were among the 
 barbarous reprisals of offended power. And yet, in 
 these same twilight eras, in the heathen customs and 
 the mediaeval laws, under the sway of Odin and the 
 Franks, the sentiment of respect for the dead was 
 acted upon in a manner to shame the indifference and 
 hardihood of later and more civilized times. With the 
 emigration to America, this sentiment looked for its 
 legal vindication entirely to the civic authority. With 
 their reaction from spiritual tyranny, our ancestors 
 transferred this, with other social interests, to popular 
 legislation and private inclination. Hence the compar 
 atively indefinite enactments on the subject, and the 
 need of a uniform code, applicable to all the States, 
 and organized so as clearly to establish the rights both 
 of the living and the dead, and to preserve inviolable 
 the choice of disposition, and the place of deposit, of 
 human remains. 
 
 The practical treatment of this subject is anomalous. 
 Amid the scenes of horror, outraging humanity in every 
 form, which characterized the anarchy incident to the 
 first dethronement of legitimate authority in France, 
 how startling to read, among the first decrees of the 
 Convention, provisions for the dead, while pitiless de 
 struction awaited the living ! And in this country, 
 while motives of hygiene limit intermural interments, 
 and a higher impulse sets apart and adorns rural cem 
 eteries, our rail-tracks, still often ruthlessly intersect the 
 fields of the dead, and ancestral tombs are annually 
 broken up to make way for streets and warehouses. 
 The tomb of Washington was long dilapidated ; the 
 bones of Revolutionary martyrs are neglected, and half 
 
208 SEPULCHRES. 
 
 the graveyards of the country desecrated by indiffer 
 ence or misuse. The conservative piety of the Hebrews 
 reproaches our inconsiderate neglect, in the faithfully 
 tended cemetery of their race at Newport, R. I., where 
 not a Jew remains to guard the ashes of his fathers, 
 thus carefully preserved by a testamentary fund. Of 
 late years elaborate monuments in rural cemeteries 
 have done much to redeem this pnce proverbial neglect. 
 They constitute the most sacred adornment of the envi 
 rons of our principal cities. 
 
 Both the modes and places of burial have an histori 
 cal significance. The pyre of the Greeks and Romans, 
 the embalming process of the Egyptians, the .funeral 
 piles of Hindoo superstition, and those bark stagings, 
 curiously regarded by Mississippi voyagers, where In 
 dian corpses are exposed to the elements, the old 
 cross-road interment of the suicide, the inhumation 
 of the early patriarchs and Christians, all symbolize 
 eras and creeds. The lying-in-state of the royal de 
 funct, the sable catafalque of the Catholic temples, the 
 salutes over the warrior s grave, the " Day of the Dead " 
 celebrated in Southern Europe, the eulogies in French 
 cemeteries, the sublime ritual of the Establishment, and 
 the silent prayer of the Friends, requiems, processions, 
 emblems, inscriptions, badges, and funereal garlands 
 mark faith, nation, rank, and profession at the very 
 gates of the sepulchre. Vain is the sceptic s sneer, 
 useless the utilitarian s protest ; by these poor tributes 
 the heart utters its undying regret and its immortal 
 prophecies, though " mummy has become merchandise," 
 and to be " but pyramidically extant is a fallacy in 
 duration " ; for, as the same religious philosopher * of 
 Norwich declared, " it is the heaviest stone that melan- 
 * Sir T. Browne. 
 
SEPULCHRES. 209 
 
 choly can throw at a man, to tell him he is at the end 
 of his nature " ; and therefore, in the grim Tuscan s 
 Hell, the souls of those who denied their immortality 
 when in the flesh, are shut up through eternity in liv 
 ing tombs. How the idea of a local abode for the mor 
 tal remains is hallowed to our nature, is realized in the 
 pathos which closes the noble and sacred life of the 
 Hebrew lawgiver : " And he buried him in a valley of 
 the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor ; but no man 
 knoweth of his selpuchre unto this day." * Etruria s 
 best relics are sepulchral urns ; social distinctions are 
 as obvious in the tombs of the ancients as in their pal 
 aces : witness the Columbarium in ruins and the fresh 
 pit of the plebeians, the sandy isles of the Venetian 
 cemetery, and Pompeii s street of tombs. Byron thought 
 " Implora pace " the most affecting of epitaphs ; and the 
 visitor at Coppet recognizes a melancholy appropriate 
 ness in the garden-grave of its gifted mistress. 
 
 Natural, therefore, and human is the consoling thought 
 of the poet, of the ship bringing home for burial all of 
 earth that remains of his lamented friend : 
 
 " I hear the noise about thy keel ; 
 
 I hear the bell struck in the night ; 
 I see the cabin-window bright; 
 I see the sailor at the wheel. 
 
 " Thou bringest the sailor to his wife, 
 
 And travelled men from foreign lands; 
 And letters unto trembling hands ; 
 And thy dark freight, a vanished life. 
 
 " So bring him: we have idle dreams: 
 This look of quiet flatters thus 
 Our home-bred fancies ; O, to us, 
 The fools of habit, sweeter seems 
 
 * Deut. xxxiv. 6. 
 14 
 
210 SEPULCHRES. 
 
 To rest beneath the clover sod, 
 
 That takes the sunshine and the rains, 
 Or where the kneeling hamlet drains 
 The chalice of the grapes of God, 
 
 " Than if with thee the roaring wells 
 
 Should gulf him fathom deep in brine; 
 And hands so often clasped in mine 
 Should toss with tangle and with shells." * 
 
 Doubtless many of the processes adopted by blind 
 affection and superstitious homage, to rescue the poor 
 human casket from destruction, are grotesque and un 
 desirable. Had Segato, the discoverer of a chemical 
 method of petrifying flesh, survived to publish the 
 secret, it would be chiefly for anatomical purposes that 
 we should appreciate his invention ; there is something 
 revolting in the artificial conservation of what, by the 
 law of Nature, should undergo elemental dissolution ; 
 and it is but a senseless homage to cling to the shat 
 tered chrysalis when the winged embryo has soared 
 away : 
 
 " All ombra de cipressi e dentro 1 urne 
 
 Confortate di pianto, e forse il sonno 
 
 Delia morte men duro? " f 
 
 Nature sometimes is a conservative mother even of 
 mortal lineaments ; in glacier or tarn, in tuffb and lime 
 stone fossils, she keeps for ages the entire relics of 
 humanity. The fantastic array of human bones in the 
 Capuchin cells at Palermo and Rome; the eyeless, 
 shrunken face of Carlo Borromeo embedded in crystal, 
 jewels, and silk, beneath the Milan cathedral ; the flesh- 
 less figure of old Jeremy Bentham in the raiment of 
 this working-day world ; the thousand spicy wrappings 
 
 * Tennyson s In Memoriam. 
 t Dei Sepokhri, di Ugo Foscolo. 
 
SEPULCHRES. 211 
 
 which enfold the exhumed mummy whose exhibition 
 provoked Horace Smith s facetious rhymes, these, 
 and such as these, poor attempts to do vain honor to 
 our clay, are not less repugnant to the sentiment of 
 death, in its religious and enlightened manifestation, 
 than the promiscuous and careless putting out of sight 
 of the dead after battle and in the reign of pestilence, 
 or the brutal and irreverent disposal of the bodies of 
 the poor in the diurnal pits of the Naples Campo Santo. 
 More accordant with our sense of respect to what once 
 enshrined an immortal spirit, and stood erect and free, 
 even in barbaric manhood, is the adjuration of the 
 bard : 
 
 " Gather him to his grave again, 
 
 And solemnly and softly lay, 
 Beneath the verdure of the plain, 
 
 The warrior s scattered bones away; 
 The soul hath quickened every part, 
 
 That remnant of a martial brow, 
 Those ribs that held the mighty heart, 
 
 That strong arm, strong no longer now ! 
 Spare them, each mouldering relic spare, 
 
 Of God s own image; let them rest, 
 Till not a trace shall speak of where 
 
 The awful likeness was impressed." 
 
 Yet there are many and judicious reasons for prefer 
 ring cremation to inhumation ; the prejudice against the 
 former having doubtless originated among the early 
 Christians, in their respect for patriarchal entombment, 
 practised by the Jews, and their natural horror at any 
 custom which savored of heathenism. But there is 
 actually no religious obstacle, and, under proper arrange 
 ment, no public inconvenience, in the burning of the 
 dead. It is, too, a process which singularly attracts 
 those who would save the remains of those they love 
 
212 SEPULCHRES. 
 
 from the possibility of desecration, and anticipate the 
 ultimate fate of the mortal coil " to mix forever with the 
 elements " ; at all events, there can be no rational objec 
 tion to the exercise of private taste, and the gratification 
 of personal feeling on this point. "" I bequeath my soul 
 to God," said Michael Angelo, in his terse will, " my 
 body to the earth, and my possessions to my nearest 
 kin " ; and this right to dispose of one s mortal 
 remains appears to be instinctive ; though the indig 
 nation excited by any departure from custom would 
 indicate that, in popular apprehension, the privilege so 
 rarely exercised is illegally usurped. 
 
 The outcry in a Western town, a few years ago, when 
 cremation was resorted to, at the earnest desire of a 
 deceased wife, and the offence taken and expressed in 
 an Eastern city, when it became known that a distin 
 guished surgeon, from respect to science, had bequeathed 
 his skeleton to a medical college, evidence how little, 
 among us, is recognized the right of the living to dis 
 pose of their remains, and the extent to which popular 
 ignorance and individual prejudice are allowed to inter 
 fere in what good sense and good feeling declare an 
 especial matter of private concern. Yet that other than 
 the ordinary modes of disposing of human relics are not 
 absolutely repugnant to endearing associations, may be 
 inferred from the poetic interest which sanctions to the 
 imagination the obsequies of Shelley. Although it was 
 from convenience that the body of that ideal bard, so 
 misunderstood, so humane, so " cradled into poesy by 
 wrong," was burned, yet the lover of his spiritual muse 
 beholds in that lonely pyre, blazing on the shores of the 
 Mediterranean, an elemental destruction of the material 
 
SEPULCHRES. 213 
 
 shrine of a lofty and loving soul, accordant with his 
 aspiring, isolated, and imaginative career.* 
 
 Vain, indeed, have proved the studious precautions 
 of Egyptians to conserve from decay and sacrilege the 
 relics of their dead. Not only has " mummy become 
 merchandise," in the limited sense of the English mor 
 alist ; the traffic of the Jews in their gums and spices, 
 the distribution of their exhumed forms in museums, 
 and the use of their cases for fuel, is now superseded 
 by commerce in their cerements for the manufacture of 
 paper ; and it is a startling evidence of that human 
 vicissitude from which even the shrouds of ancient 
 kings are not exempt, that recently, in one of the new 
 towns of this continent, a newspaper was printed on 
 sheets ma,de from the imported rags of Egyptian mum 
 mies. 
 
 Of primitive and casual landmarks, encountered on 
 solitary moors and hills, the cairn and the Alpine cross 
 affect the imagination with a sense alike of mortality 
 and tributary sentiment, even more vividly than the 
 elaborate mausoleum, from the rude expedients and the 
 solemn isolation ; while the beauty of cathedral archi- 
 
 * A recent advocate for cremation thus suggests the process : " On 
 a gentle eminence, surrounded by pleasant grounds, stands a con 
 venient, well-ventilated chapel, with a high spire or steeple. At the 
 entrance, where some of the mourners might prefer to take leave of the 
 body, are chambers for their accommodation. Within the edifice are 
 seats for those who follow the remains to the last ; there is also an organ 
 and a gallery for choristers. In the centre of the chapel, embellished 
 with appropriate emblems and devices, is erected a shrine of marble, 
 somewhat like those which cover the ashes of the great and mighty in 
 our old cathedrals, the openings being filled with prepared glass. 
 Within this a sufficient space intervening is an inner shrine, cov 
 ered with bright, non-radiating metal, and within this again is a cov 
 ered sarcophagus of tempered fire-clay, with one or more longitudinal 
 slits near the top, extending its whole length. As soon as the body is 
 
214 SEPULCHRES. 
 
 tecture is hallowed by ancestral monuments. Of all 
 Scott s characters, the one that most deeply enlists our 
 sympathies, through that quaint pathos whereby the 
 Past is made eloquent both to fancy and affection, is 
 Old Mortality renewing the half-obliterated inscriptions 
 on the gravestones of the Covenanters, his white hair 
 fluttering in the wind as he stoops to his melancholy 
 task, and his aged pony feeding on the grassy mounds. 
 Even our practical Franklin seized the first leisure from 
 patriotic duties, on his visit to England, in order to ex 
 amine the sepulchral tablets which bear the names of 
 his progenitors. 
 
 A cursory glance at the most cherished trophies of 
 literature indicates how deeply the sentiment of death 
 is wrought into the mind and imagination, how it 
 invests with awe, love, pity, and hope, thoughtful and 
 gifted spirits, inspires their art, elevates their concep 
 tions, and casts over life and consciousness a sacred 
 mystery. The most finished and suggestive piece of 
 modern English verse is elegiac, its theme a country 
 churchyard, and so instinct are its melancholy numbers 
 with pathos and reflection, embalmed in rhythmical 
 music, that its lines have passed into household words. 
 Our national poet, who has sung of Nature in all her 
 
 deposited therein, sheets of flame at an immensely high temperature, 
 rush through the long apertures from end to end ; and acting as a com 
 bination of a modified oxyhydrogen blow-pipe, with the reverberatory 
 furnace, utterly and completely consume and decompose the body in 
 an incredibly short space of time ; even the large quantity of water it 
 contains is decomposed by the extreme heat, and its elements, instead 
 of retarding, aid combustion, as is the case in fierce conflagrations. 
 The gaseous products of combustion are conveyed away by flues, and 
 means being adopted to consume anything like smoke, all that is 
 observed from the outside is occasionally a quivering transparent ether 
 floating away from the high steeple to mingle with the atmosphere." 
 
SEPULCHRES. 215 
 
 -I 
 
 characteristic phases on this continent, next to those 
 
 ever-renewed glories of the universe has found his 
 chief inspiration in the same reverent contemplation : 
 " Thanatopsis " was his first grand offering to the Muses, 
 and " The Disinterred Warrior," the " Hymn to Death," 
 and u The Old Man s Funeral," are but pious variations 
 of a strain worthy to be chanted in the temple of hu 
 manity. Shakspeare in no instance comes nearer 
 what is highest in our common nature and miraculous 
 in our experience, than when he makes the philosophic 
 Dane question his soul and confront mortality. The 
 once popular and ever-memorable " Night Thoughts " 
 of Young elaborate kindred ideas in the light of Chris 
 tian truth ; the most quaintly eloquent of early specu 
 lative writings in English prose is Sir Thomas Browne s 
 treatise on Urn-Burial. The most thoughtful and ear- 
 
 o 
 
 nest of modern Italian poems is Foscolo s " Sepolchri ; " 
 the Monody on Sir John Moore, Shelley s Elegy on 
 Keats, Tickell s on Addison, Byron s on Sheridan, and 
 Tennyson s " In Memoriam," contain the most sincere 
 and harmonious utterances of their authors. Not the 
 least affecting pages of " The Sketch Book " are those 
 which describe the " Village Funeral " and the " Wid 
 ow s Son " ; and the endeared author has marked his 
 own sense of the local sanctity of the grave by selecting 
 that of his family in " Sleepy Hollow," in the midst of 
 scenes endeared by his abode and his fame. Halleck 
 has given lyrical immortality to the warrior s death in 
 the cause of freedom ; and Wordsworth, in perhaps his 
 most quoted ballad, has recorded with exquisite simplic 
 ity childhood s unconsciousness of death ; even the most 
 analytical of French novelists found in the laws and 
 ceremonial of a Parisian interment, material for his 
 
216 SEPULCHRES. 
 
 keenest diagnosis of the scenes of life in that marvel 
 lous capital. Hope s best descriptive powers were en 
 listed in his sketch of burial-places near Constantinople, 
 so pensively contrasting with the more adventurous 
 chapters of Anastasius. If in popular literature this 
 sentiment is so constantly appealed to, and so enshrined 
 in the poet s dream and the philosopher s speculation, 
 classic and Hebrew authors have inscribed its me 
 morials in outlines of majestic and graceful import ; 
 around it the picturesque and the moralizing, the viva 
 cious and the grandly simple expressions of the Roman, 
 the Greek, and the Jewish writers seem to hover with 
 the significant plaint, heroism or faith, which in 
 vokes us, with the voice of ages, to 
 
 " Pay the deep reverence taught of old, 
 
 The homage of man s heart to death; 
 Nor dare to trifle with the mould 
 
 Once hallowed by the Almighty s breath." 
 
 Perhaps there is no instance of this vague and awful 
 interest more memorable to the American than when 
 he reads, on some ancient tablet in the Old World, the 
 burial record of his ancestors. 
 
 The monitory and reminiscent influence of the church 
 yard, apart from all personal associations, cannot, in 
 deed, be over-estimated ; doubtless in a spirit of propri 
 ety and good taste, it is now more frequently suburban, 
 made attractive by trees, flowers, a wide landscape, and 
 rural peace, and rendered comparatively safe from dese 
 cration by distance from the so-called march of improve 
 ment, which annually changes the aspect of our grow 
 ing towns. Yet, wherever situated, the homes of the 
 dead, when made eloquent by art, and kept fresh by 
 reverent care, breathe a chastening and holy lesson, 
 
SEPULCHRES. 217 
 
 perhaps the more impressive when uttered beside the 
 teeming camp of life. To the traveller in Europe it is 
 a pathetic sight to watch the Norwegian peasants strew 
 flowers, every Sabbath, on the graves of their kindred, 
 and gives a living interest to the memorials of Scandi 
 navian antiquity gathered in the museums, whereby, 
 through the weapons and drinking-cups of stone, bronze, 
 and iron, exhumed from graves, he traces the origin and 
 growth of that remote civilization. And when time has 
 softened the most acute and bitter memories of the War 
 for the Union, what monument to individual prowess, 
 what trophy of patriotic self-sacrifice will compare, in 
 solemn and elevating pathos, with the impression de 
 rived from the " national cemeteries " of the battle-field 
 and the hospital ? As Lincoln said of Gettysburg, 
 " they will dedicate us afresh to our country, to human 
 ity, and to God." 
 
 When the traveller gazes on the marble effigy of the 
 warrior at Ravenna, and then treads the plain where 
 Gaston de Foix fell in battle, the fixed lineaments and 
 obsolete armor bring home to his mind the very life of 
 the Middle Ages, solemnized by youthful heroism and 
 early death ; when he scans the vast city beneath its 
 smoky veil, thick with roofs and dotted with spires, 
 from an elevated point of Pere la Chaise, the humble 
 and garlanded cross, and the chiselled names of the 
 wise and brave that surround him, cause the parallel 
 and inwoven mysteries of life and death to stir the foun 
 tains of his heart with awe, and make his lips tremble 
 into prayer ; and, familiar as is the spectacle, the more 
 thoughtful of the throng in New York s bustling thor 
 oughfare will sometimes pause and cast a salutary 
 glance from the hurrying crowd to the monuments of 
 
218 SEPULCHRES. 
 
 the heroic Lawrence, the eloquent Emmet, the gallant 
 Montgomery, and the patriotic Hamilton. Those asso 
 ciations which form at once the culture and the romance 
 of travel are identified with the same eternal sentiment. 
 Next in interest to the monuments of genius and char 
 acter are those of death ; or rather, the inspiration of 
 the former are everywhere consecrated by the latter. 
 
 " Take the wings 
 
 Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce, 
 Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 
 Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound 
 Save his own dashings, yet the dead are there ! " 
 
 Nero dug his own grave, lest he should be denied 
 burial, and Shakspeare guarded his own ashes by an 
 imprecatory epitaph ; David praises the men of Jabez 
 Gilead who rescue the bones of their king from the 
 enemy. It is a sweet custom, that of making little 
 excavations in sepulchral slabs to catch the rain, that 
 birds may be lured thither to drink and sing. The 
 Chinese sell themselves in order to obtain means to 
 bury their parents. 
 
 We enter a city of antiquity memorable Syracuse 
 or disinterred Pompeii through a street of tombs ; the 
 majestic relics of Egyptian civilization are the cenotaphs 
 of kings ; the Escurial is Spain s architectural elegy ; 
 Abelard s philosophy is superseded, but his love and 
 death live daily to the vision of the mourners who go 
 from the gay capital of France, to place chaplets on the 
 graves of departed friends ; * the grandeurs of West- 
 
 *"How can we reconcile this pious and faithful remembrance with 
 the character of a nation generally thought so frivolous and inconstant ? 
 Let this amiable, affectionate, but slandered people send the stranger 
 and the traveller to this place. These carefully tended flowers, these 
 tombs, will speak their defence." Memoir of Harriet Preble^ p. 70. 
 
SEPULCHRES. 219 
 
 minster Abbey are sublimated by the effigies of bards 
 and statesmen, and the rare music of St. George s choir 
 made solemn by the dust of royalty ; deserted Ravenna 
 is peopled with intense life by the creations of Dante 
 which haunt his sepulchre ; Arqua is the shrine of affec 
 tionate pilgrims ; the radiant hues and graceful shapes 
 of Titian and Canova become ethereal to the fancy, 
 when viewed beside their monuments ; St. Peter s is but 
 a magnificent apostolic tomb ; and the shadow of mor-. 
 tality is incarnated in Lorenzo s brooding figure in the 
 jewelled temple of the dead Medici. Even the dim, 
 half-explored catacombs of Rome yield significant tes 
 timony to the Christian s heart to-day. " The works of 
 painting found within them," well says a recent writer, 
 " their construction, the inscriptions on the graves, all 
 unite in bearing witness to the simplicity of the faith, 
 the purity of the doctrine, the strength of the feeling, 
 the change in the lives of the vast mass of the members 
 of the early Church of Christ." * 
 
 What resorts are Santa Croce, Mount Yernon, Saint 
 Paul s, and Saint Onofrio ! What a goal, through ages, 
 the Holy Sepulchre ! How the dim escutcheons sanc 
 tify cathedrals, and sunken headstones the rural ceme 
 tery ! How sacred the mystery of the Campagna hid in 
 that " stern round tower of other days," which bears the 
 name of a Roman matron ! The beautiful sarcophagus 
 of Scipio, the feudal crypt of Theodric, the silent sol 
 dier of the Invalides, the mossy cone of Caius Caestus, 
 in whose shadow two English poets | yet speak in grace- 
 
 * Atlantic Monthly, vol. ii. p. 139. 
 
 t"I am now engaged," wrote Mr. Severn, the artist -friend who 
 watched over Keats in his last hours, " on a picture of the poet s grave. 
 The classical . story of Endymion being the subject of his principal 
 
220 SEPULCHRES. 
 
 ful epitaphs, Thorwaldsen s grand mausoleum at Copen 
 hagen, composed of his own trophies, what objects 
 are these to win the mind back into the lapsing ages 
 and upward with " immortal longings " ! We turn from 
 brilliant thoroughfares, alive with creatures of a day, to 
 catacombs obscure with the impalpable dust of bygone 
 generations ; we pass from the vociferous piazza to the 
 hushed and frescoed cloister, and walk on mural tablets 
 whose inscriptions are worn by the feet of vanished 
 multitudes ; we steal from the cheerful highway to the 
 field of mounds, where a shaft, a cross, or a garland 
 breathes of surviving tenderness ; we handle the cloudy 
 lachrymal, quaint depository of long-evaporated tears, 
 or admire the sculptured urn, the casket of what was 
 unutterably precious, even in mortality ; and thereby 
 life is solemnized, consciousness deepened, and we feel, 
 above the tyrannous present, and through the casual 
 occupation of the hour, the " electric chain wherewith 
 we re darkly bound." " When I look upon the tombs 
 of the great," says Addison, " every emotion of envy 
 dies in me ; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, 
 every inordinate desire goes out ; when I meet with the 
 grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with 
 compassion ; when I see the tombs of the parents them 
 selves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom 
 we must quickly follow. When I see kings lying by 
 those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits 
 placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the 
 
 poem, I have introduced a young shepherd sleeping against the head 
 stone, with his flock about him ; while the moon from behind the pyra 
 mid illuminates his figure, and serves to realize the poet s favorite 
 theme, in the presence of his grave. This interesting incident is not 
 fanciful, but is what I actually saw, one autumn evening, at Monte Ter- 
 tanio, the year following the poet s death." 
 
SEPULCHRES. 221 
 
 world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with 
 sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, 
 fractions, and debates of mankind. When I read the 
 several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, 
 and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great 
 day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and 
 make our appearance together." Thus perpetual is the 
 hymn of death, thus ubiquitous its memorials, attest 
 ing not only an inevitable destiny, but a universal sen 
 timent ; under whatever name, God s Acre, Pantheon, 
 Campo Santo, Valhalla, Potter s Field, Greenwood, or 
 Mount Auburn, the last resting-place of the body, 
 the last earthly shrine of human love, fame, and sor 
 row, claims by the pious instinct which originates, the 
 holy rites which consecrate, the blessed hopes which 
 glorify it respect, protection, and sanctity. 
 
 There is, indeed, no spot of earth so hallowed to the 
 contemplative as that which holds the ashes of an intel 
 lectual benefactor. What a grateful tribute does the 
 transatlantic pilgrim instinctively offer at the sepul 
 chre of Roscoe at Liverpool, of Lafayette in France, of 
 Berkeley at Oxford, of Burns at Alloway Kirk, and of 
 Keats and Goldsmith, of all the bards, philosophers, 
 and reformers whose conceptions warmed and exalted 
 his dawning intelligence, and became thereby sacred to 
 his memory forever ! How fruitful the hours snatched 
 from less serene pleasure devoted to Stratford, Mel- 
 rose, and the Abbey ! To realize the value of these 
 opportunities, the spirit of humanity enshrined in such 
 " Meccas of the mind," we must fancy the barrenness 
 of earth stripped of these landmarks of the gifted and 
 the lost. How denuded of its most tender light would 
 be Olney, Stoke Pogis, the vale of Florence, the cypress 
 
222 
 
 SEPULCHRES. 
 
 groves of Rome, and the park at Weimar, unconsecrated 
 by the sepulchres of Cowper and Gray, Michael Angelo, 
 Tasso, and Schiller, whose sweet and lofty remembrance 
 links meadow and stream, mountain and sunset, with 
 the thought of all that is most pensive, beautiful, and 
 sublime in genius and in woe. 
 
ACTORS. 
 
 " All the world s a stage, 
 And all the men and women merely players." 
 
 HAMLET. 
 
 IRAMATIC talent is far more common than is 
 usually believed. In every family where de 
 cided traits of character prevail, it is sponta 
 neously exhibited ; and no intimate circle of friends in 
 which a perfect mutual understanding and entire frank 
 ness exists, can often meet without an instinctive devel 
 opment of a propensity and a gift innate in all intelli 
 gent and genial minds ; either in the play of humor, in 
 graphic narrative, in skilful imitation, or the accidental 
 turn of conversation, the dramatic appears, and we have 
 only to look and listen objectively, to find the scene 
 and the dialogue " as good as a play." Almost every 
 community has its self-elected buffoons, its volunteer 
 harlequins, and its involuntary actors, who, carried away 
 by the spur of vanity or the overflow of enthusiasm, 
 vividly represent either the ludicrous, the characteristic, 
 or the impassioned in human nature. To the imagina 
 tive, observant, and susceptible, " all the world s a stage," 
 and men and women " merely players " ; or, rather, 
 there are times when the aspects of society thus impress 
 us. There is, too, a dramatic instinct in the very con 
 sciousness of imaginative and impassioned natures, who, 
 to use the words of a woman of genius, yield to " un 
 
224 ACTORS. 
 
 besoin inne qu elles eprouvent de dramatiser leur ex 
 istence a leurs propres yeux." A national dramatic 
 language has ever been recognized in the responsive 
 vivacity of the Italian manners, the theatrical bearing 
 of the French, and the proud reticence of the Spaniard ; 
 these traits are infinitely modified to the eye of scientific 
 observation ; and are the direct and significant language 
 of temperament, race, and character. It is, perhaps, 
 because the elements of the dramatic art are thus uni 
 versal, that its professors are so little esteemed, unless 
 of the very highest order. It is certainly true of most 
 of the celebrated performers that they have been un 
 happy, and averse to their children adopting the voca 
 tion. 
 
 To appreciate the significance of elocutionary art, we 
 have but to consider that all poetry and rhetoric need 
 interpretation. To the multitude, in its printed or writ 
 ten form, the word of genius is often as much a sealed 
 book as the notes of a fine musical composition to one 
 uninitiated as to the meaning of those occult signs of 
 harmony. Wordsworth gained many converts to his 
 poetical theory by the impressive manner in which he 
 recited his verses, who would have remained insensible 
 to their worth if only the force of reasoning had been 
 used. The popularity of many English lyrics and dra 
 matic scenes is owing to the emphasis given them, in 
 the memory, by felicitous declaimers. How different is 
 the Church Service, an old ballad, an oration, the senti 
 ment of Tennyson, the chivalry of Campbell, or the 
 ardent gloom of Byron, when melodiously and intelli 
 gently uttered : only those who really feel the sense or 
 pathos of a poem, win others adequately to receive it ; 
 and there now lie neglected heaps of noble verse, the 
 
ACTORS. 225 
 
 latent music of which has not been vocally eliminated. 
 In this view, the requisite combination of voice, sensibil 
 ity, and intelligence that constitute a good elocutionist 
 is an endowment of inestimable value. Lee, the dram 
 atist, used to read his plays so effectively that it dis 
 couraged the actors from undertaking them ; and the 
 crowds that listen attentively to an able reader of Shak- 
 speare, indicate the extent of public taste for this unap 
 preciated and rarely cultivated accomplishment. Kean 
 gave "a local habitation," in the minds of thousands, 
 to Shaksperian inspiration ; his surviving auditors are 
 yet haunted by his tones ; his inflections and empha 
 sis sculptured, as it were, with a breath, upon memory, 
 words that had previously left only a transient impres 
 sion. Had we, in our Western civilization, a profession 
 analogous to the improvisatore of the South, or the 
 story-teller of the East, to make familiar and impres 
 sive the utterance of our poets, they need not fear com 
 parison with the ancient bards of the people. Tasso 
 and Ariosto are read to this day, in squares and on 
 quays in Italy, to swarthy and tattered groups, who 
 applaud a good line as if it were a new candidate for 
 fame : and, notwithstanding the aversion of the highly 
 intellectual to the theatre, Shakspeare became domesti 
 cated in the English mind through the interpretation of 
 histrionic genius. It is on account of this vital connec 
 tion between literature and elocution, this absolute need 
 of a popular exposition of what otherwise would never 
 penetrate the common mind, that the decadence of the 
 Stage is to be regretted, and the recognition of elocution 
 as a high, graceful, and useful art is desirable. We 
 have an abundance of critics; we need expositors, 
 artists to embody in clear, emphatic, and justly modu- 
 15 
 
226 ACTORS. 
 
 la ted tones, the graces and the thoughts which minstrel 
 and philosopher have elaborated ; this would awaken 
 moral sympathy, give a social interest to the pleasures 
 of literature, and wing words of truth and beauty over 
 the world. It is in view of such an office that the actor 
 rises to dignity ; and that such a " great simple being " 
 as Mrs. Siddons, was consoled, when insulted by an 
 audience, for her " consciousness of a humiliating voca 
 tion ; " and that Kean, wayward and dissolute, recklessly 
 leaping the barrier of civilization, like Freneau s Indian 
 boy who ran from college to the woods, reappears to 
 the fancy as a genuine minister at the altar of human 
 ity. Talma s life was coincident with some of the 
 greatest events of the century ; and his social position is 
 a noble vindication of histrionic genius in alliance with 
 superior character. Associated with the literary men 
 of his country, and befriended by her statesmen, his 
 reminiscences were quite as interesting as his profes 
 sional triumphs. Intimate with Chenier, David, and 
 Danton, he was admired and cherished by Napoleon. 
 Like Kean his earliest attempts failed, and like Garrick 
 he was a reformer in his art. The philosophy of dra 
 matic personation as regarded by such a man has a 
 peculiar interest. "Acting," he said, " is a complete par 
 adox ; we must possess the power of strong feeling, or 
 we could never command and carry with us the sympa 
 thy of a mixed audience in a crowded theatre ; but we 
 must, at the same time, control our sensations on the 
 stage, for their indulgence would enfeeble execution. 
 The skilful actor calculates his effects beforehand ; the 
 voice, gesture, and look which pass for inspiration, have 
 been rehearsed a hundred times. On the other hand, a 
 dull, composed, phlegmatic nature can never make a 
 
ACTORS. 227 
 
 great actor." Talma s introduction of Kemble s toga 
 in the Roman plays, his teaching Bonaparte to play 
 king, according to the famous on-dit, his matchless dig 
 nity and elocution, his English affinities, his charming 
 talk, his select circle of friends, his prosperous style of 
 living, and the new rank he gave his vocation, combine 
 to endear and elevate his memory. 
 
 In an historical view the relation of actors to society, 
 art, letters, and religion, offers many curious problems : 
 proteges of the State in the palmy days of Greece, with 
 the purely secular interest attached to the stage under 
 the Romans, it degenerated ; yet Cicero profited by the 
 instructions of Roscius, and gained for him an impor 
 tant suit ; and while Augustus decreed that " players 
 were exempt from stripes," later edicts declared, " that 
 no senators should enter the houses of pantomimes, and 
 that Roman knights should not attend them in the 
 streets." Excommunicated by the Church of Rome in 
 the Middle Ages, they gave vital scope and character to 
 Spanish literature by evoking the rich and national ma 
 terials of that extraordinary drama of which Calderon 
 and Lope de Vega are the permanent expositors. Its 
 history shows how, from religious comedies to historical 
 and social plays, the representatives of the stage in 
 Spain fostered her intellectual development and only 
 popular culture, " until there was hardly a village that 
 did not possess some kind of a theatre." The actors at 
 Madrid " constituted no less than forty companies," and 
 " secular comedies of a very equivocal complexion were 
 represented in some of the principal monasteries of the 
 kingdom." The conduct of the Spanish actors, how 
 ever, according to the same testimony,* " did more than 
 
 * Ticknor s Spanish Literature. 
 
228 ACTORS. 
 
 anything else to endanger the privileges of the drama." 
 Their personal lot seems to have been as hard as the 
 worst of their successors ; " slaves in Algiers were bet 
 ter off." In France, political, social, and literary life 
 and labor are often so related to or influenced by the 
 renowned artistes of the stage, that they figure as an 
 inevitable element in popular memoirs ; nowhere is the 
 influence of the profession so direct and absolute ; and 
 while the rise of German literature and liberalism is 
 identified with the advent of dramatic genius and the 
 national revival of the theatre, in England the most 
 distinctive and pervading glory of her intellectual char 
 acter and fame is the offspring of this form of letters 
 and this phase of social recreative art. The biogra- 
 
 * i O 
 
 phies of the most celebrated and endeared authors, from 
 Alfieri to Irving, and from Goethe to Wilson, indicate 
 that dramatic entertainments, whether Italian opera or 
 the English stage in its prime, court-plays at Weimar, 
 or Terry at Edinburgh, are to them the most available 
 recuperative and inspiring of pastimes. 
 
 It is alike instructive and amusing to trace the dra 
 matic element, so instinctive and versatile, from the nat 
 ural language of races and individuals, through social 
 manners to its organized culmination in art ; and thus 
 to realize its historical significance. The Greek drama 
 has afforded philosophical scholars the most inspiring 
 theme whereby to illustrate the culture of classic antiq 
 uity. In the mellifluous verses of Metastasio, the stern 
 emphasis of Alfieri, and the comedies of Goldoni, we 
 have a perfect reflection of the lyrical taste, the free 
 aspiration, and the colloquial geniality of the Italians. 
 From Moliere to Scribe what vivid and true pictures of 
 human life and nature as modified by French charac- 
 
ACTORS. 229 
 
 ter ; while the essential facts of the origin and devel 
 opment of the British stage, so fully recorded by Dr. 
 Doran, brings it into intimate and sympathetic contact 
 with all the phases and crises of literature, society, and 
 politics. In the days of the first Charles the stage 
 "suffered with the throne and the church." Around 
 Blackfriars, Whitefriars, the Globe, the Rose, Drury 
 Lane, Covent Garden, and the Haymarket, crystallize 
 the most salient associations of court and authorship ; 
 on this vantage-ground Puritan and Cavalier alternately 
 triumphed ; and the genius of England bore its con 
 summate flower in Shakspeare. Now denounced and 
 now cherished, to-day patronized by kings, and to-mor 
 row denounced by clergy, the memoirs and annals of 
 each epoch include the fortunes and the fame of the 
 drama as one of the most suggestive tests of social 
 transitions. Queen Henrietta was " well-affected to 
 wards plays," while South vigorously assailed, and Bos- 
 suet consigned their personators to the infernal regions. 
 The play-houses declared a public nuisance by the 
 Middlesex grand jury of 1700, at an earlier and later 
 period were shrines of fashion, nurseries of talent, and 
 haunts of courtiers. The representative men and wo 
 men of the day were dramatic authors, actors, and act 
 resses ; each succeeding generation of poets essayed in 
 this arena, so that a familiar designation of the ages is 
 borrowed from their leading playwrights, whose works 
 faithfully mirror the moral tone, the social spirit, and 
 the public taste. In Alphra Behn s " Oronooko," Mrs. 
 Centlivres " Busy-Body," Addison s " Cato," Steele s 
 " Tender Husband," Dr. Young s " Revenge," Gay s 
 " Beggar s Opera," Sheridan s " School for Scandal," 
 Goldsmith s " She Stoops to Conquer," Rowe s " Jane 
 
230 ACTORS. 
 
 Shore," Farquhar s "Beaux Stratagem," and many 
 other popular plays, we have, as it were, the living voice 
 of ideas, passions, and sentiments which agitated or 
 charmed the town ; and the robust, earnest individual 
 ity of the English race forever lives in the profound, 
 impassioned utterance of the old dramatists, as its emas 
 culated tone is embodied in the comic muse of the Res 
 toration. How vivid the glimpses of stage influence in 
 the memoirs and correspondence of each era, in the art 
 and the annals of the nation. Evelyn and Pepys note 
 Betterton s triumphs ; Tillotson learned from him his 
 effective elocution ; Kneller painted, and Pope loved 
 him. The " Tatler " comments on " haughty George 
 Powell " ; Jack Lacy still lives in his portrait at Hamp 
 ton Court " The great Mrs. Barry " is buried in West 
 minster cloisters ; and Mrs. Pritchard s bust looms up 
 from among those of poets and statesmen in the Abbey, 
 and recalls Churchill s metrical tribute. Burke, John 
 son, Walpole, and Chesterfield, expatiate on Garrick 
 with critical zest or personal sympathy. Each great 
 performer creates an epoch of taste or fashion, feeling 
 or fame. Betterton, Quin, Barry, Foote, Cibber, Gar- 
 rick, Kemble, Cooke, and Kean, are names whose men 
 tion brings to mind not a transient histrionic reputation, 
 but a reign, a social, literary, or national period, crowded 
 with interesting characters, remarkable achievements, or 
 special traits of life and manners. Each theatre has its 
 memorable traditions ; each school its great illustrators ; 
 audiences, criticisms, the court, the coffee-house, the 
 journal, derive from and impart to the theatre a specific 
 influence. The gallantry, the wit, the local manners, the 
 style of writing, the fashion that prevail at a given 
 period, are associated with the stage, the annals whereof, 
 
ACTORS. 231 
 
 whether in Paris, London, or Vienna, are therefore in 
 valuable as a reference to historian, novelist, and artist. 
 " The Garrick fever," we are told, " extended to St. Pe 
 tersburg " ; " a dissenting, one-eyed jeweller " in George 
 Barn well, brought the domestic drama into vogue ; the 
 " Beggar s Opera " " made highwaymen fashionable," 
 and Ross is still remembered in Edinburgh " as the 
 founder of the legal stage." 
 
 There is this great difference between the British and 
 the French stage, that while the former has achieved 
 the grandest triumphs of tragic genius, both literary 
 and histrionic, the comedy of the latter has proved a 
 permanent school of manners, of language, and of art 
 The patronage of the government, and the most strict 
 artistic methods and discipline, have established a stand 
 ard of acting through the Theatre Frai^ais. Accord 
 ingly, instead of one superlatively clever and a score of 
 inefficient performers, all the French actors and ac 
 tresses work together for a harmonious result ; unity of 
 art and of effect, exquisite finish, scientific aptitude, 
 graces of manner, of utterance, and of expression, often 
 combine to make the modern French drama the per 
 fection of artificial triumphs. 
 
 The lyric drama has greatly diminished the influence 
 and modified the character of the stage ; and its per 
 sonal records and associations abound in romantic and 
 artistic triumphs. The rare and delicate gift of a voice 
 adapted to this sphere, the temperament, talent, and 
 beauty of the queens of song, the individuality and 
 power of musical composition, the vast expense and 
 varied attractions of the Italian opera, its fashionable 
 sway, and the genius and social interest identified with 
 its history, all combine to throw a special and significant 
 
232 ACTORS. 
 
 charm around its votaries and its record. What a world 
 of emotional and artistic meaning the very names of 
 Purcell, Pergolesi, Bach, Cherubini, Mozart, and Rossini, 
 Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Beethoven, Mercandante, and 
 other eminent composers, awakens ; and how the mem 
 ory of their great interpreters haunts the imagination ! 
 Perhaps, in our material age, there is no sphere where 
 fancy and feeling have found such scope. From the me 
 moirs of Alfieri to those of our own Irving, it is evident 
 that the most available of inspiring recreations, for men 
 of thought and sensibility, is the lyric drama ; and from 
 the days of Metastasio at the court of Vienna, to those 
 of Felice Romani s libretto of " La Norma," words and 
 melody have reproduced, in vivid and vital grace, the 
 tragic and the naive in history, sentiment, and life. 
 Even around imperial careers flit the vocal victors of 
 the hour. Joseph of Austria, the great Frederic, and 
 the first Napoleon, had their authoritative or concilia 
 tory skirmishes with a prima donna, or an impresario ; 
 operatic alternate with diplomatic episodes. Nor is 
 the social charm and prestige of the lyric drama less 
 apparent in the annals of kindred genius. At Sophia 
 Arnould s salon the illustrious writers and statesmen of 
 Paris gladly convened. Goethe celebrated in verse the 
 eighty-third birthday of Mara. Sir Joshua painted 
 Mrs. Billington as St. Cecilia ; and Catalani made Eng 
 lish tars, rowing her to a frigate, weep as she warbled 
 the national anthem. The amours, rivalries, luxury, 
 disasters, adventures, courtly favor, social influence, con 
 jugal quarrels, noble charities, and artistic triumphs, of 
 vocalists, add a new and marvellous chapter to the an 
 nals of dramatic character and fortunes. Lavinia Fan- 
 ton s " Polly Peachum " secured the triumph of Gay s 
 
ACTORS. 233 
 
 " Beggar s Opera," and the heart of a duke ; of kindred 
 significance is that scene, so exceptional in English con 
 ventional life, and well described by Dr. Burney, where 
 Anastasia Robinson was acknowledged by Lord Peter 
 borough as his wife. A cardinal and a cook were the 
 parents of Gabrielli ; Pasta s "Medea "was an epoch 
 in histrionic art ; Malibran s brief and brilliant career 
 revealed the most versatile woman, as well as original 
 cantatrice of her day; Sontag s death was a public 
 calamity ; Catalani s marvellous vocalization lacked pa 
 thos, because " she had not suffered ; " while Mrs. Woods 
 gained the same quality from a contrary experience. 
 Madame Devrient was called the Siddons of Germany ; 
 Jenny Lind s naive song won thousands for the indi 
 gent ; and Braham s triumphant tones in singing the 
 triumphs of Israel, made the audience appear to Lamb, 
 as Egyptians over whose necks the Hebrew chanter 
 rode. 
 
 From the time Burbage was lessee of the Globe The 
 atre, and Shakspeare performed in his own characters, 
 the morality of an actor s profession and the stage have 
 been discussed ; but that there is no inevitable degrada 
 tion in the theatre, is evident from the late wholly sue 
 cessful though temporary revival of its glory under the 
 auspices of Macready ; by magnificent and complete 
 scenic arrangements, the restoration of mutilated Shak- 
 spearian dramas, efficient companies, the reformation of 
 the house itself, and especially by combining with the 
 best dramatic authors of the day, and rigidly maintain 
 ing his own self-respect as a member of society, Ma 
 cready once more brought together the scattered ele 
 ments upon which the character and utility of the stage 
 is based, invested it with the highest interest, and raised 
 
234 ACTORS. 
 
 it above the cavils both of severe intellectual taste and 
 of pure morality. For a brief period it was the centre 
 of graceful ministries, a high school of art, the hand 
 maid of literature, and the means of elevating public 
 sentiment and refreshing the most toilsome minds ; 
 works of real dramatic genius were elicited ; latent 
 artistic resources suggested ; and the noblest drama in 
 the world adequately represented. Financial difficul 
 ties, incident to the monopoly enjoyed by patentees, 
 soon put a stop to the laudable enterprise ; but the ex 
 periment is as memorable as it was satisfactory. Ronzi 
 shed tears of pleasure when she found herself the only 
 guest at a nobleman s villa near Florence to which she 
 had been invited to a fete sumptuously and tastefully 
 arranged ; it was so rare an exception to the rule of 
 making professional vocalists contribute to, instead of 
 receiving, private entertainment ; and it is a curious 
 fact, in the social history of theatrical characters, that 
 the English, notwithstanding their prudery and exclu- 
 siveness, first recognized actors and actresses of merit 
 as companions. Miss Farren is not the only performer 
 married to one of the nobility. The Earl of Craven 
 espoused Miss Bromton ; Lord Peterborough, Anastasia 
 Robinson ; a nephew of Lord Thurlow, Miss Bolton ; 
 and Sir William Becher, Miss O Neil. One can read 
 ily understand how an intellectual bachelor like James 
 Smith, accustomed to solace himself for domestic priva 
 tions by cultivating a sympathy for the heroines of the 
 mimic world, should lament, as he did, in apt verse, 
 their appropriation even by noble lovers. He closes a 
 pathetic record of the kind with this allusion to the 
 union between his prime favorite, Miss Stevens, and 
 Lord Essex, who seems to have acted on the advice of 
 
ACTORS. 235 
 
 the author of " Matrimonial Maxims," who says, " If 
 you marry an actress, the singing-girls are the best " : 
 
 " Last of the dear, delightful list, 
 Most followed, wonder d at, and miss d 
 
 In Hymen s odds and evens; 
 Old Essex caged our nightingale, 
 And finished thy dramatic tale, 
 
 Enchanting Kitty Stevens! " 
 
 Boswell s reason for his partiality to players and sol 
 diers was that they excelled " in animation and relish 
 of existence." There is a striking illustration of the 
 personal sympathy awakened by the profession in con 
 flict with the judgment that condemns it, as a career, in 
 the life of Scott. On one of the last days of Sir Wal 
 ter s life, when in a bath-chair at Abbotsford, he was 
 wheeled to a shady place by Lockhart and Laidlaw, he 
 asked the former to read him something from Crabbe. 
 Lockhart read the description of the arrival of the 
 Players at the Borough. Sir Walter cried " Capital ! " 
 at the poet s sarcasms on that way of life, but asked 
 penitently, "How will poor Terry endure those cuts?" 
 and when Lockhart reached the summing up 
 
 " Sad, happy race ! soon raised and soon depressed, 
 Your days all past in jeopardy and jest; 
 Poor without prudence, with afflictions, vain, 
 Not warned by misery, nor enriched by gain " 
 
 " Shut the book," said Scott ; " I can t stand more of 
 this : it will touch Terry to the quick." A different but 
 significant tribute to the actual personal worth of the 
 profession occurs in one of those genial " imaginary- 
 conversations," vital with reality of reminiscence and 
 rhapsody, wherein Christopher North and the Ettrick 
 Shepherd discourse so memorably. The conduct of 
 Kean in appearing on the stage immediately after a 
 
236 ACTORS. 
 
 scandalous intrigue had become public, is reprobated by 
 " Tickler " as " an insult to humanity " ; to which the 
 Shepherd replies : " What can ye expec frae a play 
 actor ? " " What can I expect, James ? " is the reply ; 
 " Why, look at Terry, Young, Matthews, Charles Kem- 
 ble, and your friend Vandenhoff; and then I say that 
 you expect good players to be good men as men go ; 
 and likewise gentlemen." 
 
 This sympathy with the profession, and vivid interest 
 in some phase or period of the drama, is an almost uni 
 versal fact in the experience of intelligent and sensitive 
 persons. Thackeray s picture of Pendennis enamored 
 of an actress in boyhood, is typical of a common epi 
 sode of youth ; if not in this form it takes the shape of 
 enthusiasm for a certain actor or class of plays, or a 
 mania defined as the condition of being; " sta^e-struck " ; 
 
 o CD 7 
 
 while to the philosophical as well as sympathetic of 
 these early votaries, the literature of the drama is a 
 perennial storehouse of psychological data, and the 
 most vital connecting link between written lore and ac 
 tual life the source of the highest poetry and the most 
 universal human truth. 
 
 In literary biography, the accounts of the manner in 
 which the plays of Goldsmith, Sheridan, Byron, Mrs. 
 Hemans, Joanna Baillie, Procter, Talfourd, Hunt, Lamb, 
 and other poets, were brought on the stage, the re 
 ciprocal good offices of actors and authors mutually 
 acknowledged, the array of intellectual friends convened 
 to grace the occasion, and the anecdotes and criticism 
 thence resulting form some of the most agreeable 
 episodes in literary biography. Farquhar, Holcraft, Mrs. 
 Inchbald, Knowles, and others, combined the author and 
 actor ; and it was a genial and noble custom for distin- 
 
ACTORS. 237 
 
 guished writers to contribute prologues and epilogues ; 
 the interchange of such kindly offices gave, as we 
 have said, a wide and elevated social interest to the the 
 atre which had, in a great measure, passed away before 
 the advent of Kean. Besides the comparative indiffer 
 ence of the public, he was obliged to contend against 
 both the prejudices and the refinements of taste the 
 one opposing all innovation as to style, and the other 
 repudiating the intensity and boldness of his concep 
 tions. 
 
 The Spagnoletto style of Sandford, and the " cord 
 age " visible in old Macklin s face, are traditional. The 
 inimitable pathos of Miss O Neil, the tragic beauty of 
 Pasta, the heroic manner of Siddons, the irresistible 
 humor of Matthews, and Listen s comic genius, had 
 each their distinctive character ; they respectively indi 
 vidualized the art, and, if we range over the entire gal 
 lery of histrionic celebrities, we shall find their fame 
 based upon as peculiar traits of excellence as that of 
 renowned authors and painters ; and their genius con 
 sisting in some quality emphatically their own where 
 imitation and art became subservient to, or illustrative 
 of, an idiosyncrasy. 
 
 Impulsive genius seldom receives the credit of artistic 
 study, and its most effective points are often ascribed to 
 chance inspiration. This is an error of frequent occur 
 rence in judging of actors ; and it is one almost per 
 versely indulged by the bigoted opponents of the ro 
 mantic or natural school. The most effective touches, 
 however, in Garrick, Kean, and other eminent perform 
 ers, are easily traced to careful observation or a personal 
 idiosyncrasy or association. In the very first instruc 
 tion the latter received in his art, recourse was had to 
 
238 ACTORS. 
 
 natural sympathy in order to perfect his imitative skill. 
 The pathetic intonation with which, even as a boy, he 
 exclaimed, " Alas, poor Yorick ! " in Hamlet, was de 
 rived from the manner in which he habitually spoke of 
 an unfortunate relative who constantly excited his com 
 miseration ; he was instructed to transfer the tone awak 
 ened by real to the expression of imaginary grief: his 
 manner of falling on his face was derived from the fig 
 ure on Abercrombie s monument, and his fighting with 
 a weaponless arm in Richard was borrowed from the 
 death-scene of an officer in Spain. The play of Ber 
 tram, by Maturin, he is said to have rendered memora 
 ble by a single touching benison : all who once heard 
 his " God bless the child," recall it with emotion ; it was 
 a favorite mode of uttering his paternal tenderness at 
 home ; hence its reality. Garrick made a study of an 
 old crazy friend of his in order to enact Lear with truth 
 to nature ; and when Kean was playing in New York, 
 he accompanied his physician to Bloomingdale asylum 
 for the express purpose of obtaining hints for the same 
 part, from the manner and expression of the insane pa 
 tients. Indeed, those most intimate with Kean in his 
 best days, unite in the opinion that he was never sur 
 passed for the intense and original study of his charac 
 ters \ he brooded over them in the quiet fields, observed 
 life and nature, conversed with discerning men, and 
 acutely examined books and his own consciousness, for 
 the purpose of attaining an harmonious and artistic con 
 ception ; he tried experiments in elocution before his 
 wife, and was in the habit of rehearsing, for hours, with 
 out any auditor. So elaborate were his studies, that, 
 having once decided on a course, he never modified it 
 without great self-dissatisfaction, and on one occasion, 
 
ACTORS. 239 
 
 when he yielded hie judgment, on a special point, to 
 please Mrs. Garrick, the inharmonious effect was obvi 
 ous to all. 
 
 " What the bank is to the credit of the nation," said 
 Steele, " the playhouse is to its politeness and good 
 manners." And although this maxim is scarcely appli 
 cable now, the instinct and the sympathy by virtue of 
 which the stage instructs and refines, forever obtain in 
 humanity. Among recent illustrations, is the genial in 
 fluence of dramatic pastimes upon the isolated and dark 
 sojourn of ice-bound Arctic voyagers, as described by 
 the intrepid and philosophic Kane and his predecessors. 
 The gallery of human portraits, conserved even by the 
 minor English drama, are among the most genuine il 
 lustrations of life and character ; Sir Peter Teazle and 
 Joseph Surface, Sir Pertinax and Tony Lumpkin, Syl 
 vester Daggerwood and Mawworm, are emphatic types 
 with which we could ill dispense. One of the remark 
 able intellectual phenomena of the age in which we 
 live, however, is the gradual encroachment of literature 
 upon dramatic art. The best modern characters which 
 genius has created exist in masterpieces of fiction and 
 poetry ; in a measure they have superseded in popular 
 favor dramatic ideals, except the highest and most en 
 deared. Scott, Dickens, and their contemporaries or 
 successors, have given the world a new gallery of living 
 portraits such as of old were only to be found in the 
 drama. Well said Wilson in the " Noctes " : "I think 
 the good novels that are published, come in place of 
 new dramas." The Italian opera has by its affluent ar 
 tistic attractions, overshadowed, and in a great measure 
 superseded, the " legitimate drama." Even in Italy the 
 opportunity is comparatively rare to enjoy fine acting 
 
240 ACTORS. 
 
 apart from music and the ballet ; #et there is no better 
 lesson for the novice in that " soft bastard Latin " that 
 Byron loved, than to listen to one of Goldoni s old- 
 fashioned colloquial plays as clearly and with admirable 
 emphasis, recited by such a company as that of which 
 Internari was so long the ornament ; by melodious em 
 phasis alone commonplace maxims seemed to attain the 
 sparkle of wit ; and the mere tone of voice is fraught 
 with infectious merriment. From Arlechino s broad 
 jokes to Ristori s majestic pathos, the natural dramatic 
 instinct and endowments of the Italians, awaken every 
 shade and subtlety of sympathetic feeling. 
 
 Philosophically examined, the stage will be found a 
 compensatory institution, and its actual relation to so 
 ciety intimate or conventional, according to the pre 
 dominance of real or ideal satisfaction. Thus the free 
 enterprise and speculative range in America makes 
 it merely recreative; the best Italian dramatist wrote 
 when his country s civic life was paralyzed. The senti 
 ment checked by caste and absolutism in Elizabeth s 
 day, burst forth in the old dramatists, and culminated, 
 for all time, in Shakspeare ; while the memoirs of 
 Goethe, Schiller, and Korner indicate how near and 
 dear to the popular heart of their country was the art 
 in all its phases and forms, wherein baffled aspirations 
 found scope. The histrionic artists of Germany, and 
 the actresses of Paris, are or have been a vital element 
 of the social economy, impracticable and almost incon 
 ceivable to English and Americans. "Wilhelm Meis- 
 ter " is the legitimate romance of its country and era. 
 " L artiste aimee du public," says Madame Dudevant, 
 " est comme un enfant a qui 1 univers est la famille," 
 while the affinity of the dramatic instinct with literary 
 
ACTORS. 241 
 
 culture and capability is not only evident in the friend 
 ships between authors and actors, but in the facility 
 with which the former become amateur performers. 
 Montaigne says, " I played the chief part in the Latin 
 tragedies of Buchanan, Guerente, and Moret, that were 
 acted in our college of Guienne." Dickens is a capital 
 actor and dramatic reader of his own stories ; and 
 Washington Irving, when sojourning at Dresden, de- 
 lectably enacted, in a genial family circle, Sir Charles 
 Rackett. 
 
 One proof of the essential individuality of histrionic 
 genius, is that in every celebrated part each renowned 
 actor seems to have excelled in a different phrase. 
 Garrick s Hamlet was inimitable in the words, " I have 
 that within that passeth show ; " while the most af 
 fecting touch of the elder Wallack was " That undis 
 covered country from whose bourne no traveller re 
 turns." Kean s first soliloquy in Richard is perhaps 
 the best preserved traditional recitation of the English 
 stage ; and the power of contrasted intonation in the 
 expression of feeling, never forgotten by those who 
 listened, was evinced in the memorable passage in 
 Othello 
 
 " Perdition catch my soul but 7 do love thee, 
 And when I love thee not, chaos is come again." 
 
 His conceptions were remarkable for bold earnestness. 
 His discordant voice, insignificant figure, and slightly 
 misshaped feet, seemed to pass miraculously away before 
 the glowing energy of his spirit ; to the imaginative 
 spectator he visibly expanded, and filled the stage, and 
 towered over the inferior actors of larger physical di 
 mensions ; his action, expression of countenance, intel 
 ligent emphasis, and vigor of utterance, lifted, kindled, 
 16 
 
242 ACTORS. 
 
 and glorified, as it were, his merely human attributes, 
 and bore him, and those who gazed and listened, trium 
 phantly onward in a whirl of passion, a concentration 
 of will, or a chaos of emotion. 
 
 As far as contemporary memoirs elucidate the sub 
 ject, it is evident that gross violations of elocutionary 
 taste were habitual both prior to and succeeding the 
 time of Betterton. This actor, with remarkable physi 
 cal disadvantages, appears to have had the most decided 
 genius especially for tragedy ; we have no accounts 
 of the effects of tragic personation exceeding those re 
 corded of Betterton ; so truly did he feel the emotion 
 represented that it is said his color, breathing, accent, 
 and looks betrayed an incessant and absolute sympathy 
 with the part ; as Hamlet he turned deadly pale at the 
 sight of the ghost, and Gibber emphatically declares 
 that his tone, accentuation, and the whole management 
 of his voice were faultlessly adapted to each passage he 
 recited. Garrick seems first to have established a taste 
 for the refinements of the art ; his style, compared to 
 what had been in vogue, was singularly chaste ; he 
 embodied the great idea of unity ; and when he first 
 appeared, his manner, expression of countenance, in 
 flection of voice, and whole air instantly revealed the 
 character, of which he did not lose sight for a moment. 
 The Kemble school has been traced to Quin; but its 
 individuality was trenched upon vitally by Kean, al 
 though it has been, in many essential features, renewed 
 by the elder Vandenhoff and Macready. It is con 
 tended by its ardent votaries that Kean sacrificed the 
 dignity of his art so ably sustained by John Kemble 
 and his renowned sister, to mere effect ; that he substi 
 tuted impulse for science, and excited sympathy by pow- 
 
ACTORS. 243 
 
 erful but illegitimate appeals to emotion. This, how 
 ever, is a narrow statement, and like the old dispute 
 about Racine and Shakspeare, the classic and romantic, 
 the natural and the artistic resolves itself into the 
 fact that the principle of a division of labor is applica 
 ble to art as well as social economy. In Cato and Cori- 
 olanus and "\Volsey, the traits of Kemble were perfectly 
 assimilated ; in the more complex part of Richard the 
 Third, and the more impetuous one of Othello, the en 
 ergy, quickness, intense expression, and infectious action 
 of Kean were not only electrical in their immediate ef 
 fect, but appropriate in the highest degree in the view 
 of reflection and taste. Thus, too, Cooke, as Sir Per- 
 tinax Me Sycophant, Mrs. Siddons as Lady Macbeth, 
 Cooper as Virginius, Kean as Shylock, Macready as 
 "Werner, and Booth as lago, made indelible because 
 highly characteristic impressions. The actor, like the 
 author and artist, has his forte a sphere peculiarly fit 
 ted to elicit his powers and give scope and inspiration 
 to his genius ; and it is here that we should estimate 
 him, and not according to a comparative and irrelevant 
 standard. 
 
 The lives of actors partake of the extreme alterna 
 tions and varied excitement of their profession. To the 
 philosopher there is nothing anomalous in the frequent 
 contrast between the lessons of virtue they enact and 
 the recklessness of their habits. When we consider 
 how much they are the sport of fortune, and how often 
 poverty and contempt form the background to the pict 
 ure of love, triumph, or wit in which they figure ; and 
 remember the constant draft upon nervous sensibility 
 and the resources of temperament, as well as intelli 
 gence, it is their lot to undergo, we cannot reasonably 
 
244 ACTORS. 
 
 wonder that extravagances of conduct, vagaries of habit, 
 and a proneness to seek pleasure in the immediate, char 
 acterize players. " Players," says Hazlett, " are the only 
 honest hypocrites." It is proved by judicial statistics, 
 that " of all classes they are the freest from crime " ; 
 while their charitable sympathies are proverbial ; in 
 marriage and finance, however, they are the reverse of 
 precisians ; yet few more pleasing examples of domestic 
 virtue and happiness can be found than some recorded 
 in histrionic memoirs. A kindly but acute observer 
 who long fraternized with the craft, Douglas Jerrold, 
 said of the strolling player : " He is the merry preacher 
 of the noblest, grandest lessons of human thought. He 
 is the poet s pilgrim, and in the forlornest by-ways and 
 abodes of men, calls forth new sympathies, sheds upon 
 the cold, dull trade of real life an hour of poetic glory. 
 He informs human clay with thoughts and throbbings 
 that refine it ; and for this, he was for centuries a 
 ( rogue and a vagabond, and is, even now, a long, long 
 day s march from the vantage-ground of respectability." 
 Through the annals of the English stage there may be 
 traced a vein of romantic vicissitude as suggestive as 
 any the written drama affords : Wilks, generous and 
 spirited, abandoning a profitable engagement in Dublin, 
 with language as noble in its key as one of Fletcher s 
 characters, to allay the conjugal jealousy of a brother 
 actor ; Nell Gwinn discouraged in her theatrical ambi 
 tion by the manager, becoming orange-girl to the thea 
 tre in order to be in the line of her aspirations, which, 
 when realized, made her the mistress of a king and the 
 envy of courtiers ; Mountfort, killed in an impromptu 
 duel with a noble rival for the love of Mrs. Bracegir- 
 dle j the charming Mrs. Woffington disguised as a man. 
 
ACTORS. 245 
 
 at a country ball, undeceiving the affianced of her dis 
 loyal lover ; the beautiful Miss Bellamy meditating sui 
 cide on the steps of Westminster Bridge ; Savage asleep 
 on a street-bunk, and, three days after, the admired 
 guest at a lord s table ; the eccentricities of Gibber s 
 daft daughter ; Holcraft s affecting story of his boyhood, 
 and the ludicrous self-importance displayed in his ac 
 count of his trial for treason ; the fascinating dialogue 
 
 O O 
 
 of the benevolent Mrs. Jordan with the Quaker in the 
 rain under a shed ; Jerrold s father playing in a barn 
 upon an estate that was rightfully his own ; and Doug 
 las himself, the future dramatic author, carried on the 
 stage by Kean, as the child in Rolla. Palmer fell dead 
 while personating " The Stranger," in consequence of 
 the excess of sorrow which the situation induced, he 
 having just been stricken by a great domestic bereave 
 ment ; Williams was killed by Quin ; and Mountford 
 and Clive murdered. Quin s memorable jokes, Cooke s 
 lapses from more than Roman dignity and Anglo-Saxon 
 sense, to a worse than Indian sottishness ; Grimaldi, 
 whom Hook called " the Garrick of Clowns," and to 
 whom Byron gave a silver snuff-box, leaving buffoonery 
 and harlequin whirls to train pigeons, collect flies, or 
 meet with London robbers ; Matthews, after keeping 
 the Park audience in a roar for hours, crossing the river 
 to stroll in pensive thought under the trees at Hoboken ; 
 and the versatile and admired Hodgkinson dying at a 
 solitary tavern on the road to Washington, amid the 
 horrors of pestilence, and his body thrown into a field 
 by slaves ; Booth s extraordinary fits of contemplative 
 originality, and the grotesque night-adventures in which 
 Kean was the leader, are but incidental glimpses of a 
 world in which the violent, fantastic, and reckless in- 
 
246 ACTORS. 
 
 stincts of human nature are wantonly displayed, yield 
 ing curious material for the metaphysician, and ample 
 scope for charity. An English poet has brought to 
 gether many such anecdotes of Kean, some touching, 
 in the highest degree, some superlatively ridiculous, and 
 others shocking to the heart, yet all kindled with the 
 forlorn glory of genius, like the scathed form of Milton s 
 fallen angel. And what a mercurial compound was 
 Samuel Foote, London s great source of fun and satire 
 for years, whose chance observations became proverbs, 
 who used to find a seat for Gray the poet, stand ruefully 
 against the scenes to have his artificial leg attached, and 
 then go forward to set the house in a roar, as ingen 
 ious as Steele in evading " injunctions," who lived by 
 his " takings off," over which the grave Johnson shook 
 with merriment, and whose " wits " were literally his 
 capital, whereby he realized three fortunes ! It is no 
 wonder people frequented Macklin s ordinary when he 
 quit the stage ; nor that they listened until far into the 
 night to that " perpetnal showman of the extraordinary 
 in manners, adventure, sentimentality, and sin," Ellis- 
 ton, whose " I 11 never call you Jack, my boy, again," 
 equalled in comic zest the tragic force of Kean s " God 
 bless the child," in " Bertram," who made life itself a 
 comedy, and played the " child of fortune " to the end ; 
 exuberant in vagaries, a vagabond by instinct, celebrat 
 ing " the triumph of abstinence by excess," and with 
 " eccentricity absolutely germain to his being," yet could 
 so perfectly enact the " regal style " in common life, that 
 Charles Lamb declared he should " repose under no in 
 scription but one of pure Latinity." The "Memoirs of 
 Grimaldi " Tas the first book Dickens published, and in 
 that biography of a harlequin are the smiles and tears 
 
ACTORS. 247 
 
 of a genuine romance. In the pemsal of such an ex 
 perience, we realize how directly comedy springs from 
 human life ; the piazzas of Spain and Italy, with their 
 motley crowds and glib dialogue, gave birth to the thea 
 tre. What a curious fact in human nature is the rela 
 tion of seeming to being in the drama. Dr. Shelden, 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, was dining with the cele 
 brated Betterton, and said : " Pray, Mr. Betterton, in 
 form me what is the reason you actors can affect your 
 audiences with speaking of things imaginary as if they 
 were real, while we of the Church speak of things real 
 which our congregations only receive as if they were 
 imaginary." " Why, my Lord," replied the player, " the 
 reason is plain. We actors speak of things imaginary 
 as if they were real, and you in the pulpit speak of 
 things real as if they were imaginary." It has been ob 
 served that there are no English lives worth reading 
 except those of players, who, " by the nature of the 
 case, have bidden Respectability good-day"; and a 
 grave literary critic explains on higher ground than this 
 abandon, why there is an intrinsic charm in an actor s 
 memoirs, when he remarks that " notwithstanding every 
 thing which may be said against the theatrical profes 
 sion, it certainly does require from those who pursue it, 
 a certain quickness and liveliness of mind." 
 
 The very nature of the vocation is inciting to vagrant 
 propensities and thoughtless adventures. The English 
 theatre originated in strollers who performed in inn- 
 yards; and the Greek drama is associated with the 
 " cart of Thespis." I have seen an itinerant company 
 of Italians perform a tragedy in the old Roman amphi 
 theatre at Verona, on a spring afternoon, to a hundred 
 spectators grouped about the lower tiers of that magnif- 
 
248 ACTORS. 
 
 icent relic of antiquity, where gladiators once contended 
 in the presence of thousands. It was an impressive 
 evidence of the universality of dramatic taste, which, 
 however modified by circumstances, always re-asserts 
 itself in all nations and climes. The best historians, 
 cognizant of this, make the condition and influence of 
 the theatre a subject of record ; and its phases undoubt 
 edly mirror the characteristic in social and national life 
 more truly than any other institution. It was a great 
 bone of contention between the Puritans and Cavaliers ; 
 Macaulay finds it needful to revert to the subject to 
 illustrate the reign of Charles II. and the Common 
 wealth, and Hildreth to mark the difference of public 
 sentiment in New England and the other States after 
 the revolution. Its critical history in England would 
 afford a reliable scale by which to measure the rise, 
 progress, and lapses of civilization and public taste. 
 Upon this arena the great controversy between nature 
 and art, rules and inspiration, eclecticism and adherence 
 to a school, which, under different names, forms an ever 
 lasting problem to the votaries of intellectual enjoy 
 ment, was boldly fought. And the discussion once in 
 spired by Kemble and Kean has been renewed by the 
 respective advocates of Rachel and Ristori. 
 
 The diminished influence of the stage is obvious in 
 its comparative isolation. " The dramatic temperament," 
 observes Mrs. Kemble, " always exceptional in England, 
 is becoming daily more so under the various adverse 
 influences of a civilization and society which fosters a 
 genuine dislike to exhibitions of emotion, and a cynical 
 disbelief in the reality of it, both necessarily depressing, 
 first its expression, and next its existence." This social 
 repudiation of the dramatic instinct undoubtedly affects 
 
ACTORS. 249 
 
 its professional development; and the stage in Great 
 Britain, of late years, with the exception of the lyric 
 drama, appeals far more to the amusing than the tragic 
 element ; the comic muse and the melodrama have 
 long been in the ascendant. The social character 
 which once rendered the stage in England a connect 
 ing link between literature and the town, refined circles 
 and the public at large, no longer exists ; that such a 
 relation naturally obtains we perceive in the mutual ad 
 vantages then derived from its recognition ; authors and 
 actors, indeed, have a reciprocal interest in the drama, 
 while the tone of society and manners is directly influ 
 enced by, and reflected from, the theatre ; much, there 
 fore, of the deterioration of the latter is owing to its 
 being in a great degree abandoned by those whose 
 taste, character, and personal influence alone can re 
 deem it from abuse and degradation ; for it has been 
 well said that the theatre is respectable only in propor 
 tion as it is respected. A traditional charm and intel 
 lectual dignity, as well as social attractiveness, lingers 
 around .the memory of its palmy days; when Quin so 
 nobly befriended the author of " The Seasons ; " when 
 Steele was a patentee, and Mrs. Bracegirdle inspired 
 the best authors to write for her, and received a legacy 
 from Congreve ; when Dr. Johnson and Goldsmith dis 
 cussed new plays and old readings with Garrick, and 
 Mrs. Oldfield remembered poor Savage in her will ; 
 or Sheridan vibrated between the greenroom and the 
 dress circle. Similar pleasing associations belong to 
 the era of Mrs. Siddons, when she doffed the majestic 
 air of Lady Macbeth, to mingle with the literati of Edin 
 burgh ; and nightly saw Reynolds, Gibbon, Burke, and 
 Fox in the orchestra. Peg Woffington charmed Burke, 
 
250 ACTORS. 
 
 and incited him to his first successful literary effort ; 
 and Archbishop Tillotson profited by the elocution of 
 Betterton. We are told in corresponding memoirs, of 
 Kitty Olive s l clear laugh, fair Abington with her 
 dove-like looks/ charming Mrs. Barry, and womanly 
 Mrs. Pritchard. There is no vocation so directly in 
 spired by love of approbation ; the stimulus of applause 
 is an indispensable encouragement, and popular caprice 
 vents itself without limit in deifying or degrading the 
 children of Thespis. It is not to be wondered at that 
 diseased vanity often results from such adulation as 
 attends the successful actor. " Is it possible," asks Sir 
 Lytton, " that this man so fondled, so shouted to, so 
 dandled by the world, can, at bedtime, take off the 
 whole of Macbeth with his stockings ? " The old essay 
 ists criticized the stage with efficiency ; men of political 
 fame watched, with interest, over its destiny ; men of 
 genius proclaimed its worth, and men of birth took an 
 active part in its support and direction. Thus encour 
 aged and inspired, actors of the higher order felt a 
 degree of responsibility to the public, and indulged in 
 aspirations that gave elevation and significance to their 
 art. Its evanescent triumphs, when compared with 
 those of letters, painting, or sculpture, have often been 
 lamented ; Gibber is eloquently pathetic on the subject, 
 and Campbell has expressed the sentiment in a memo 
 rable stanza. In one refepect, however, the fragility of 
 histrionic renown is an advantage ; no species of enjoy 
 ment from art has been made the theme of such glowing 
 reminiscence ; as if inspired by the very consciousness 
 that the merit they celebrated had no permanent me 
 morial, intelligent lovers of the drama describe, in con 
 versation and literature, the traits of favorite performers 
 and the effects they have produced, with a zest, acute- 
 
ACTORS. 251 
 
 ness, and enthusiasm rarely awarded the votaries of 
 other pursuits. What genial emphasis, even in the 
 traditional memory of Wilks Sir Harry Wildair, Barry s 
 Jaffier, Quin s Falstaff, Henderson s Sir Giles, Yates 
 Shakspeare s Fools, Macklin s Shylock, Harry Wood- 
 worth s Captain Boabdil, Cooke s McSycophant, Sid- 
 dons Lady Macbeth, and Kean s Othello ! Yet in no 
 art is eclecticism more a desideratum ; our great actors 
 proverbially suffer for adequate support in the minor 
 characters ; rivalry and division of labor sadly mar the 
 possible perfection of the modern stage. Walpole, who 
 was an epicurean in his dramatic as in his social tastes, 
 sighed for the incarnation in one prodigy of the voice 
 of Mrs. Gibber, the eye of Garrick, and the soul of Mrs. 
 Pritchard. In Gibber s eulogies upon the tragic gen 
 ius of Betterton, or the inimitable drollery of Nokes, 
 Hunt s genial memoirs of Jack Bannister, Lamb s 
 account of Munden s acting, Campbell s tribute to Mrs. 
 Siddons, and Barry Cornwall s description of Kean s 
 characters, there is a relish and earnestness seldom 
 devoted to the limner and the bard, who, we feel, can 
 speak best for themselves to posterity. Indeed, the 
 heartiness of appreciation manifested by literary men 
 towards great actors, is the result of natural affinity. 
 There is something, too, in the mere vocation of the 
 latter, when efficiently realized, that excites intellect 
 ual and personal sympathy. The actor seems a noble 
 volunteer in behalf of humanity, a kind of spontane 
 ous lay-figure upon which the drapery of human life 
 may be arranged at pleasure ; he is the oral inter 
 preter of the individual mind to the hearts of the people ; 
 and takes upon himself the passion, wit, and sentiment 
 of types of the race, that all may realize their action and 
 quality. 
 
NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 " What is it but a map of busy life ? " COWPER. 
 
 REMEMBER how vivid was the impression 
 of Paris life, in its contrasts and economy, de 
 rived from the distribution of the " Entr Acte " 
 at the Opera Comique, announcing the death of Talley 
 rand. Cinti Damoreau had just warbled afnale in the 
 " Pre Aux Clercs," and the applause had scarcely died 
 away, when a shower of neatly-printed gazettes were 
 seized and pondered. There was a minute description 
 of the last hours of a man associated with dynasties 
 and diplomacy, for half a century, who had been the 
 confidant of the Bourbons and the Bonapartes, and a 
 few moments before bade farewell to earth and Louis 
 Philippe ; and all these historical and incongurous mem 
 ories solemnized by death, filled up the interval of a 
 gay and crowded opera, and the pauses of an exquisite 
 vocalist ; a more bewildering consciousness of the past 
 and present, of art and history, of intrigue and melody, 
 of mortality and pastime, it is difficult to imagine. 
 
 The newspaper is not only a map but a test of the 
 age ; its history is parallel with civilization, and each 
 new feature introduced is significant of political and 
 social changes ; while its tone, style, and opinions, at 
 any given time, indicate the spirit of the times more 
 definitely than any other index. If we scan, with a 
 philosophic eye, these fugitive emanations of the press, 
 
NEWSPAPERS. 253 
 
 from their earliest date to the present hour, we find that 
 they not only record events, but bear indirect, and there 
 fore, authentic testimony to the transitions of society, 
 the formation of opinions and the actual standards of 
 public taste. Hence they are eminently characteristic 
 to the annalist. Compare the single diminutive sheet, 
 which, in the latter part of the sixteenth century, formed 
 the London newspaper, almost wholly occupied with 
 state papers and the statistics of a battle in some dis 
 tant region, with a copy of the present leading Tory 
 journal in the same latitude ; the extent and variety of 
 its contents, the finished rhetoric of its leading article, 
 the scholarly criticism, fully reported debates, thorough 
 detail of news, foreign and domestic, local and univer 
 sal, personal and social evince how the resources of 
 the world have multiplied, the refinements of life pro 
 gressed, and the intellectual demands of society risen. 
 News, like all other desirable things, was, at the origin 
 of newspapers, a monopoly of government ; the Gazette 
 a mere instrument of courts : now the daily journal, in 
 free countries, is the legitimate expression of the popu 
 lar mind; its comparative liberty of utterance is the 
 criterion of political enfranchisement ; and where entire 
 scope is afforded, it takes as many forms as there are 
 sects, theories, and interests in a community. Thus 
 from being a mere record it has become an expositor ; 
 from heralding royal mandates it has grown into an 
 advocate of individual sentiments ; and daguerreotypes 
 civil life in its swiftly moving panorama, with incredible 
 celerity and faithfulness. The improvements in the 
 modern journal are chiefly owing to those in human 
 intercourse. The steam-enonne and the electric tele- 
 
 o 
 
 graph, by rapidly concentrating the knowledge of events 
 
254 NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 at central points, give both the motive and the means 
 of vitality and completeness to the newspaper. A re 
 markable effect, however, of these facilities is that they 
 have diminished what may be called the personal influ 
 ence of the editor, and reduced the daily journal in a 
 great measure, to its normal state that of a dispenser 
 of news. The success of the newspapers, for instance, 
 in the commercial metropolis of this country and also in 
 London, is at the present day more the result of enter 
 prise than talent. The paper which collects the earli 
 est and most complete intelligence of passing events is 
 the most successful. When these materials of interest 
 were not so abundant ; when days and weeks elapsed 
 between the publication of important news, the vehicle 
 of this evanescent but much desired commodity, were 
 kept alive by the individual talent and information of 
 editors. Their views were earnestly uttered and re 
 sponded to ; and the paper was eagerly seized for the 
 sake of its eloquence, its argument, or its satire. It is 
 true, indeed, that a degree of this prestige still belongs 
 to the daily journal ; but the eclat of the writer is now 
 all but lost in the teeming interest of events ; the edi 
 tor, who, in less exciting times, would have been the 
 idolized lay-preacher or improvisatore of the town, must 
 content himself with judiciously compiling new facts, 
 vividly describing passing events, and making up from 
 his foreign and domestic files, an entertaining summary 
 of news. His comments are necessarily brief ; no op 
 portunity is afforded carefully to digest the knowledge 
 he acquires or to compare the occurrence of to-day with 
 its parallel in history. Accordingly he glances at the 
 new book, utters his party dictum on the last legislative 
 act, gives a vague interpretation to the aspects of the 
 
NEWSPAPERS. 255 
 
 political horizon, and refers to the full, varied, and in 
 teresting details of " news," for both the attraction and 
 the value of his journal. A curious effect of this mod 
 ern facility in accumulating news, is that of anticipating 
 the effect of time, or superseding the interest of artifi 
 cial excitements. So various, incessant, and impressive 
 are the incidents daily brought to our knowledge, so 
 visible now is the drama of the world s life, that we 
 have scarcely time or inclination for illusions. History 
 seems enacting ; changes, once the work of years, are 
 effected in as many months, and we are so accustomed 
 to the wonderful that sensibility to it is greatly dimin 
 ished. Imagine the scientific discoveries, the political 
 revolutions, the memorable facts of the last twenty 
 years, all at once revealed to one of our ancestors, at 
 the epoch when editors used to board vessels at the 
 wharf to glean three months English news for their 
 weekly readers ; when political items, marine disasters, 
 advertisements and marriages were all printed in the 
 same column and type, and notice was formally given 
 that the postman would start on horseback in a week, 
 to convey letters a hundred miles ! Compare, too, the 
 terse, emphatic style of the modern press to the old- 
 fashioned prolixity, and the practice of publishing both 
 sides of a public question on the same sheet, with the 
 existent division of newspapers into specific organs ; 
 the original extreme deference to authority with the 
 present bold discussion of its claims; and the even 
 tenor of the past with the eventful present. Each pe 
 riod has its advantages ; and the enduring intellectual 
 monuments of the earlier somewhat reproach the rest 
 lessness, diffuse and fragmentary life of to-day. " The 
 patriarch of a community," says Martineau, " can never 
 
256 NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 be restored to the kind of importance which he pos 
 sessed in the elder societies of the world ; from their 
 prerogatives he is deposed by the journal ; whose speech 
 less and impersonal lore coldly but effectually supplies 
 the wants once served by the living voice of elders, 
 kindling with the inspiration of the past." 
 
 To discover the public feeling of an epoch as well as 
 its social economy, historians, not less than novelists, 
 wisely resort to a file of old newspapers. In James 
 Franklin s journal, commenced at Boston in 1722, and 
 afterwards removed to Newport, for instance, we find 
 controversies between the clergy and the editors of 
 the province, discussions on the utility of inoculation, 
 advertisements of runaway slaves, and notices of whip 
 pings and the pillory all characteristic facts and land 
 marks of the progress of civilization. The advanced 
 culture of the Eastern States is evident from the con 
 temporaneous republication in one of their daily prints 
 of the poetry of Shenstone, Collins, and Goldsmith, and 
 in another of Robertson s History ; there, too, we find 
 Whitefield s preaching theologically analyzed, and the 
 manner of the " Spectator " and " Tattler " at once imi 
 tated. Federalism was incarnated in the " Columbian 
 Centinel " ; and in another organ, of the same commu 
 nity, at an earlier period, the contributions of Otis and 
 Quincy prepared the public mind gravely to assert the 
 rights for which the colonies were about to struggle. 
 The financial essays of Morris and others taught them, 
 through a similar medium, the principles of currency, 
 exchange, and credit; Dennie induced, in the same 
 way, a taste for elegant literature ; and the journals of 
 Freneau and Bache embodied the spirit of French 
 political fanaticism. History, indeed, records events in 
 
NEWSPAPERS. 257 
 
 their continuity and with reference to what precedes 
 and follows ; but the actual state of public sentiment in 
 regard to such exciting affairs as Hamilton s duel, Jef 
 ferson s gunboats, Genet s mission, Perry s victory, the 
 Freemason s oath, the death of Washington, California 
 gold, and Kossuth s crusade, is most vividly reflected 
 from the diverse reports, opinions, and chronicles of the 
 newspaper press. 
 
 It is impossible to estimate the fusion of knowledge 
 and argument brought about by the press in free coun 
 tries, whereby public sentiment is formed and concen 
 trated. Truth, even the most sacred, was propagated 
 in the world ages ago, by oral and written communica 
 tion ; perhaps it was then more cherished and better 
 considered ; but without modern facilities of intercourse 
 like the press, it is difficult to imagine how a political 
 organization like our own, could be regulated and con 
 served ; how universal reputations could be so speedily 
 created, the discoveries of science made available to all, 
 or charitable and economical enterprise be expanded to 
 their present wide issues. The establishment of pro 
 lific and cheap journals in New York in 1830, was an 
 event of incalculable historical importance. The uni 
 versal interest in public affairs, justifies in this country 
 the greatest editorial enterprise; while the growing 
 value of our journals as means of reference, make it 
 desirable their form should be convenient; the book- 
 shape of Niles Register is one reason it is so much 
 consulted. The variety of talent and opinion enlisted 
 in American journalism, the fights and flatteries of its 
 conductors, the alacrity and seasonableness which is its 
 chief ideal, are traits which absolutely reflect the nor 
 mal life of the people; the church and school-house 
 17 
 
258 NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 which inaugurate an American settlement, are instantly 
 followed by the newspaper ; and as the antiquarian now 
 searches the " Boston-News Letter " or " Pennsylvanian 
 Gazette" for incidents of the Revolutionary war, or 
 statistics of colonial trade, he will, a century hence, find 
 in the journals of to-day the economical questions, the 
 social gauge, the daguerreotyped enterprise, filibuster- 
 ism, and popular tastes of this era. 
 
 The stagnation of business and the lapse of metro 
 politan fashionable life, which so emphatically marks 
 midsummer in America, make that wonderful chart of 
 life, the daily newspaper, more sought and enjoyed than 
 at any other time. From the merchant in his counting- 
 room, to the stranger in the hotel-parlor, from the pas 
 senger in suburban cars and steamboats, to the teamster 
 waiting for a job there is observable a patience and 
 attention in reading newspapers such as one seldom 
 perceives at more busy periods of the year. And if 
 we were to cite a single characteristic sign of the times, 
 as of universal import, it would be American journalism. 
 The avidity with which the papers are seized at water 
 ing places the habit of making their contents the 
 staple of talk, and the manner in which they are con 
 ducted in order to meet the popular demands are 
 facts indicative of modern civilization which no one can 
 ignore who would rightly appreciate its tendency and 
 traits. These are brought out and made conscious, to 
 a remarkable degree, in the leisure intervals which mid 
 summer alone affords to our active and busy people. 
 
 The truth is that newspaper reading is the exclusive 
 mental pabulum of a vast number in this country ; and 
 to this circumstance is to be ascribed the amount of 
 general information, and ready, though superficial ideas, 
 
NE WSPAPERS. 259 
 
 on all kinds of subjects, which so astonish foreigners. 
 If you converse with your neighbor in the railway cars, 
 or listen to the remarks at the table d hote, hear what 
 the farmers, mechanics, tradesmen, and gentlemen, so 
 gregariously locomotive now, have to say you will find 
 that the daily press furnishes nine-tenths of the subject- 
 matter and the speculative inspiration. There never 
 was a time or a country where this " fourth estate," as 
 it has been well called, enacted so broad and vital a 
 function. Every year our press has become more per 
 sonal and local on the one hand, and more comprehen 
 sive on the other. Cowper s idea of seeing life through 
 the " loop-holes of retreat," can now be realized as never 
 before. However sequestered may be the summer home 
 of our citizens, they have but to con the daily journals 
 and know all that goes on in the great world, with a 
 detail, as to events, persons, and places, which not only 
 satisfies curiosity, but imagination. Nothing is too 
 abstract for the discussion, or too trivial for the gossip 
 of the American journal. It concentrates the record 
 of daily life at home and abroad ; and has so encroached 
 upon the province of the old essayists, the excitements 
 of fiction and the materials of history, that more or less 
 of the literature of each may be found in every well- 
 conducted newspaper. 
 
 And yet so undesirable is the unseasonable or ex 
 cessive dependence upon newspaper reading, considered 
 with reference to high culture and refined individuality, 
 that, of all indirect benefits of modern travel, perhaps 
 none is more valuable, as a mental experience, than an 
 Eastern tour which cuts off the usual excitements and 
 routine of civilized life, and especially that intense and 
 absolute relation with the Present fostered by the news- 
 
260 NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 paper. Under the palms, on the Nile, and amid the 
 desert, to a thoughtful mind and sensitive organization, 
 it is blissful and auspicious to feel isolated awhile not 
 only from the busy material life of the age, but from its 
 chart and programme the newspaper ; and so be able 
 to live consciously for a season in the Past, and feel the 
 solemn spell of solitude and antiquity. The modern 
 deluge of journalism it has been said with more truth 
 than we can at present quite appreciate, " bereaves life 
 of spirituality, disturbs and overlays individuality, and 
 often becomes a mania and a nuisance, to keep out of 
 which is the only way to keep sacred. It is a sad bar 
 barism," continues the same writer, "when men yield 
 to every impulse from without, with no imperial dig 
 nity in the soul which closes its apartments against the 
 virulence of the world and from unworthy intruders." * 
 A Swedish archaeologist proves, by relics found in graves 
 in Europe and America, that man in the savage state 
 makes in form, and as far as possible in material, iden 
 tical utensils and weapons ; so in civilized nations the 
 same abuses and traits characterize the periodical press. 
 Crabbe s description of the newspaper in England 
 eighty years ago, finds a curious parallel in that of 
 Sprague in America, fifty years later. 
 
 The individual needs an organ in this age wherein 
 and whereby he may record or find reflected his opin 
 ions ; the great evil is that he who directs this repre 
 sentative medium, may be a " landless resolute," a Bohe 
 mian adventurer, without convictions or interests. It 
 is to Burke and the opposition who protected printers 
 from the House of Commons in 1770, that the " Fourth 
 Estate dates its birth ; " and Burke was right in his 
 
 * W. L. Symonda. 
 
NEWSPAPERS. 261 
 
 declaration " posterity will bless this day." "Under the 
 ancient regime one in a hundred Parisians only could 
 read. After the Revolution, all became interested in 
 battles ; to read the news became indispensable ; hence 
 it has been well said : " Napoleon a appris a lire aux 
 Parisiennes. Le professeur leur a coute cher." The 
 biographer of Yolney records that philosopher s testi 
 mony against the newspaper as a means of popular cul 
 ture : " L auteur des Ruines, appele a la chaire cl IIis- 
 toire, accepte cette charge penible, mais qui portait 
 avec elle lui offrir les moyens d etre utile: tout en 
 enseignant 1 histoire, il voulait chercher a diminuer 
 1 influence journaliere qu elle exerce sur les actions et 
 les opinions des homines ; il la regardait a juste titre 
 comme 1 une des sources les plus fecondes de leurs pre- 
 juges et de leurs erreurs." De Tocqueville indicates, in 
 a different way, his sense of the casual adaptation of 
 the newspaper which he describes as " a speech made 
 from a window to the chance passers-by in the street." 
 Among other tests which the rebellion in the United 
 States has thoroughly applied, is that of the press : and 
 it is no exaggeration to say that thereby London and 
 Paris journalism has been completely denuded of the 
 prestige of integrity and humanity save as exceptional 
 traits. 
 
 The deliberate protest of an eminent public man like 
 Cobden, is sufficient proof of this fact in regard to the 
 great British organ. He writes : " A tone of preemi 
 nent unscrupulousness in the discussion of political 
 questions, a contempt for the rights and feelings of oth 
 ers, and an unprincipled disregard of the claims of con 
 sistency and sincerity on the part of its writers, have 
 long been recognized as the distinguishing character- 
 
262 NEWSPAPERS 
 
 istics of the Times, and placed it in marked contrast 
 with the rest of the periodical press, including the 
 penny journals of the metropolis and the provinces. 
 Its writers are, I believe, betrayed into this tone mainly 
 by their reliance on the shield of an impenetrable se 
 crecy. No gentleman would dream of saying, under 
 the responsibility of his signature, what your writer said 
 of Mr. Bright yesterday. I will not stop to remark on 
 the deterioration of character which follows when a man 
 of education and rare ability thus lowers himself, ay, 
 even in his own eyes, to a condition of moral cowardice. 
 We all know the man whose fortune is derived from the 
 Times. We know its manager; its only avowed and 
 responsible editor he of the semi-official correspond 
 ence with Sir Charles Napier in the Baltic, through 
 whose hands, though he never pen a line himself, every 
 slander in its leaders must pass is as well known to 
 us as the chief official at the Home-Office. Now the 
 question is forced on us whether we, who are behind the 
 scenes, are not bound in the interests of the uninitiated 
 public, and as the only certain mode of abating such 
 outrages as this, to lift the veil and dispel the delusion 
 by which the Times is enabled to pursue this game of 
 secrecy to the public and servility to the government 
 a game (I purposely use the word) which secures for 
 its connections the corrupt advantages, while denying 
 to the public its own boasted benefits of the anonymous 
 system." 
 
 The London Times has won, and popularly confirmed 
 for itself during the American war for the Union, the 
 name of " Weathercock," only fixed awhile by a trade 
 wind, and veering, with shameless alacrity, at every 
 mercenary and malicious breath ; while never before in 
 
NEWSPAPERS. 263 
 
 the history of the world, has the line of demarcation 
 between what is true and comprehensive, and what is 
 interested and partisan, been made so emphatically 
 apparent to the common mind as in the vaunts, vaga 
 ries, and vacillations of journalism. On the other hand 
 one of the most remarkable evidences of the benefit of 
 popular education as well as an unique contribution to 
 the materials of history, may be found in the letters of 
 the soldiers of the Union army, written from the seat 
 of war to their kindred and printed in the local jour 
 nals ; thousands of them have been collected and ar 
 ranged, and they naively describe every battle as wit 
 nessed and fought by as many individuals. Never 
 before were such materials of history available. In 
 view of the great result the elimination of vital truth 
 by public discussion the expression as well as the en 
 lightenment and discipline of public sentiment through 
 the press, we have ample reason to agree with Jefferson, 
 who declared, " If I had to choose between a govern 
 ment without newspapers, or newspapers without a gov 
 ernment, I should prefer the latter." 
 
 A son of Leigh Hunt, in a voluminous work entitled 
 "The Fourth Estate," has written the annals of the 
 English press ; of which Count Gurowski has well 
 said that it " addresses itself to classes, but seldom, very 
 seldom, to the people itself, as the only national ele 
 ment. The English press mentions the name of the 
 people to be sure, but speaks of it only in generalities, 
 not in that broad and direct sense, as is the case in 
 America. Whole districts, communities, and townships 
 in England, as well as on the Continent, exist without 
 having any newspaper any organ of publicity. There 
 in England is under the influence of centralization, as 
 
264 NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 are the other European States. Almost every township 
 and more populous village in the free States in the 
 Union has its organs, whose circulation is independent, 
 and does not interfere with that of those larger papers 
 published in the capitals of States, or in the larger 
 cities." 
 
 A philosophical and authentic history of the news 
 paper, would, however, not only yield the most genuine 
 insight as to public events and the spirit of the age, it 
 would also reveal the most exalted and the lowest traits 
 of humanity. The cowardly hireling who stabs reputa 
 tions as the bravo of the Middle Ages did hearts for a 
 bribe ; and the heroic defender of truth and advocate 
 of reform, loyal with his pen to honest conviction amid 
 the wiles of corruption and the ignominy of abuse in 
 a word, the holy champion and the base lampooner are 
 both represented in this field. It is one of the condi 
 tions of its freedom, that equal rights shall be accorded 
 all ; and the wisest men have deemed the possible evils 
 of such latitude more than compensated by the prob 
 able good. Perhaps our own country affords the best 
 opportunity to judge this question ; and here we cannot 
 but perceive that private judgment continually modifies 
 the influence of the press. We speak habitually of each 
 newspaper as the organ of its editor ; and the opinion 
 it advances has precisely as much weight with intelli 
 gent readers as the individual is entitled to and no more. 
 The days when the cabalistic " we " inspired awe, have 
 passed away ; the venom of a scurrilous print, and the 
 ferocity of a partisan one, only provoke a smile ; news 
 papers here, instead of guiding, follow public opinion ; 
 and they have created, by free discussion, an indepen 
 dent habit of thought on the part of their readers, 
 
NEWSPAPERS. 265 
 
 which renders their influence harmless when not nncfiil. 
 Yet the abuses of journalism were so patent and perni 
 cious thirty years ago, that Hillhouse thus entered his 
 wise protest against the growing evil : - Many of our 
 faults, much of our danger, are chargeable to a medUesf 
 prf&f. No institutions or principles are spared its em 
 piric handling. The most sacred maxims of jurispru 
 dence, the most unblemished public characters, the Thai 
 points of constitutional policy and safety, are dragged 
 into discussion and exposed to scorn by presumptuous 
 scribblers, from end to end of the nation.* Printers 
 originally issued gazettes, and depended upon contribu 
 tions for a discussion of public aflairs news whereof 
 they alone furnished : gradually arose the editor ; and 
 two conditions soon became apparent as essential to bis 
 success prompt utterance of opinion, and constant re- 
 announcement and advocacy thereof. Cobbett declared 
 the genius of journalism to consist in re-iteration* upon 
 which distinction a witty editor improved by substitut 
 ing re-irritafi<Mi. 
 
 As a political element, journalism has entirely changed 
 the position of statesmen, and seems destined to subvert 
 the secret machinery of diplomacy. These results grow 
 out of the enlightenment and circulation of thought on 
 national questions induced by their omrefrmt public dis 
 cussion by the press; their tendency is to break up 
 monopolies of information, to scatter the knowledge of 
 facts, and openly recognize great human interests. By 
 condensing the mists of popular feeling into clear and 
 powerful streams, or shooting them into luminous crys 
 tals, the judgment^ the sympathies, and the will of man 
 kind are gradually modified. Hence, all who represent 
 the people, are acted upon as they never could have 
 
266 NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 been when authority was less exposed to criticism, and 
 the means of a mutual understanding and comparison 
 of ideas among men less organized and effective. It 
 has been justly observed that no danger can result from 
 the most seductive " leader " on a public question, while 
 the same sheet contains a full report of all the facts re 
 lating to it. The pamphlet and gazette of Addison s 
 day, and earlier, are now combined in the newspaper. 
 In great exigencies, however, the immediate promulga 
 tion of facts may be a serious national peril ; an experi 
 enced American editor and careful observer of the phe 
 nomena of the Rebellion, thus emphatically testifies to 
 the possible evil of an enterprising press : " I believe 
 most strongly now, that this Rebellion would have been 
 subdued ere this, if, at the outbreak, the Government 
 had suppressed every daily newspaper which contained 
 a line or a word upon the war question, except to give 
 the results of engagements. Our daily journals have 
 kept the Confederates minutely and seasonably informed. 
 The greater the vigilance and accuracy of these jour 
 nals, the greater their value to the enemy." But a 
 more significant result than this may be found in the 
 test which the Rebellion has proved, not only to social 
 and national, but to professional life, and especially the 
 editorial. How completely has the prestige of news 
 papers as organs of opinion faded away before the facts 
 of the hour ! What poor prophets, reasoners, historical 
 scholars, patriots, and men have some of the conductors 
 of the press proved ! With what distrust is it now re 
 garded ; and how does public confidence refuse any 
 nucleus but that of individual character. The press, 
 therefore, as a popular organ, is unrivalled. It now 
 illustrates every phase, both of reform and conserv- 
 
NEWSPAPERS. 267 
 
 atism, every religious doctrine, scientific interest, and 
 social tendency. Take up at random any popular news 
 paper of the day, and what a variety of subjects and 
 scope of vision it covers, superficially indeed, but to the 
 philosophic mind, none the less significantly ; the 
 world is therein pictured in miniature, the world of 
 to-day. 
 
 Probably the most universal charm of a newspaper 
 is the gratification it affords what phrenologists call the 
 organ of eventuality. Curiosity is a trait of human na 
 ture which belongs to every order of mind, and actuates 
 the infant as well as the sage. To its more common 
 manifestations, the newspaper appeals, and, indeed, orig 
 inated in this natural craving for incident. In its most 
 sympathetic degree, this feeling is the source of the 
 profound interest which tragedy inspires, and its lower 
 range is the occasion of that pleasure which gossip 
 yields. It is a curious fact, that the same propensity 
 should be at once the cause of the noblest and the 
 meanest exhibitions of character ; yet the poetic impulse 
 and reverent inquiry of the highest scientific intelligence 
 intent upon exploring the wonders of the universe, is 
 but the exalted and ultimate development of this love 
 of the new and desire to penetrate the unknown. The 
 everlasting inquiry for news, which meets us in the 
 street, at the hearthstone, and even beside the bier and 
 in the church, constantly evinces this universal passion 
 How often does that commonplace question harshly 
 salute the ear of the reflective ; what a satire it is upon 
 the glory of the past ; how it baffles sentiment, chills 
 enthusiasm, and checks earnestness ! The avidity with 
 which fresh intelligence, although of no personal con 
 cern, is seized, the eagerness with which it is circulated, 
 
268 NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 and the rapidity with which it is forgotten, are more sig 
 nificant of the transitory conditions of human life, than 
 the data of the calendar or the ruins of Balbec. They 
 prove that we live altogether in the immediate, that our 
 dearest associations may be invaded by the most trivial 
 occurrence, that the mental acquisitions of years do not 
 invalidate a childish love of amusement ; and that the 
 mere impertinences of external life have a stronger hold 
 upon our nature than the deepest mysteries of con 
 sciousness. " It seems," wrote Fisher Ames, " as if 
 newspaper wares were made to suit a market as much 
 as any other. The starers and wonderers and gapers 
 engross a very large share of the attention of all the 
 sons of the type. I pray the whole honorable craft to 
 banish as many murders, and horrid accidents, and mon 
 strous births, and prodigies from their gazettes, by de 
 grees, as their readers will permit ; and by degrees, 
 coax them back to contemplate life and manners, to 
 consider events with some common sense, and to study 
 Nature where she can be known." On the other hand, 
 this curiosity about what does not concern us, is un 
 doubtedly linked with the more generous sympathies, 
 and is, in a degree, prompted by them, so that philan 
 thropy, good-fellowship, and the amenities of social life 
 and benevolent enterprise are more or less the result 
 of the natural interest we feel in the affairs of nations 
 and those of our neighbor. If the newspaper, there 
 fore, considered merely as a vehicle of general informa 
 tion in regard to passing events, has a tendency to dif 
 fuse, and render fragmentary our mental life, on the 
 other hand, it keeps the attention fixed upon something 
 besides self, it directs the gaze beyond a narrow circle, 
 and brings home to the heart a sense of universal laws, 
 
NEWSPAPERS. 269 
 
 natural affinities, and progressive interests. But curios 
 ity is not altogether a disinterested passion ; and it is 
 amusing to see how newspapers act upon the idiosyn 
 crasy or the interest of readers. The broker unfolds 
 the damp sheet at the stock column ; the merchant 
 turns, at once, to the ship-news ; the spinster first reads 
 the marriages ; the politician, legislative debates ; and 
 the author, literary criticisms ; while lovers of the mar 
 vellous, like Abernethy s patient, enjoy the murders. 
 To how many human propensities does the newspaper 
 thus casually minister ! Old gentlemen are, indeed, 
 excusable for losing their temper on a cold morning, 
 when kept waiting for a look into the paper by some 
 spelling reader ; and to a benign observer, the comfort 
 of some poor frequenter of a coffee-house oracularly 
 dispensing his gleanings from the journals, is pleasant 
 to consider ; a cheap and harmless gratification, an 
 inoffensive and solacing phase of self-importance. We 
 can easily imagine the anxious expectancy with which 
 the visitors at a gentleman s country-seat in England, 
 before the epoch of journals, awaited the news-letter 
 from town, destined to pass from house to house, 
 through an isolated neighborhood, and almost worn out 
 in the process of thumbing. 
 
 Three traditions exist to account for the origin of 
 newspapers. The first attributes their introduction to 
 the custom prevalent at Venice, about the middle of the 
 fifteenth century, of reading the written intelligence 
 received from the seat of war, then waging by the 
 republic against Solyman II., in Dalmatia, at a fixed 
 time and place, for the benefit of all who chose to hear. 
 French annalists, on the other hand, trace the great 
 invention to a gossiping medical practitioner of Paris, 
 
270 NEWSPAPERS, 
 
 who used to cheer his patients with all the news he 
 could gather, and to save time, had it written out, at 
 intervals, and distributed among them ; while an Eng 
 lish historian, quoted by D Israeli the elder, says, " they 
 commenced at the epoch of the Spanish Armada ; and 
 that we are indebted to the wisdom of Elizabeth and 
 the prudence of Burleigh for the first newspaper." * 
 The same authority conjectures that the word gazette is 
 derived from gazzerotta, a magpie, but it is usually as 
 cribed to gazet, a small coin, the original price of a 
 copy in Venice. One of the most startling relics of 
 Pompeii is the poster advertising gladiators. The oldest 
 newspaper in the world, according to " L Imprimiere," 
 is published at Pekin. It is printed on silk, and has 
 appeared every week for a thousand years. Whatever 
 the actual origin, however, it is natural to suppose that 
 a gradual transition from oral to written, and thence to 
 printed news, was the process by which the modern 
 journal advanced towards its present completeness. It 
 is remarkable that the retrograde movement essential 
 to despotism in all interests, is obvious in the news 
 paper ; censorship driving free minds from written 
 expression, as in the recent instance of Kossuth when 
 advocating Hungarian progress. 
 
 A rigid and complete analytical history of the news 
 paper would perhaps afford the best illustration of the 
 social and civic development of the civilized world. 
 
 * " News-letters were written by enterprising individuals in the me 
 tropolis and sent to rich persons who subscribed for them ; and then cir 
 culated from family to family, and doubtless enjoyed a privilege which 
 has not descended to their printed contemporary the newspaper 
 of never becoming stale- Their authors compiled them from materials 
 picked up in the gossip of the coffee-houses." Draper s History of 
 the Intellectual Development of Europe,, p. 509. 
 
NEWSPAPERS. 271 
 
 Commencing with a mere official announcement of na 
 tional events, such as the ancient Romans daily promul 
 gated in writing, we find the next precursor of the public 
 journal in that systematic correspondence of the schol 
 ars of the Middle Ages, whereby erudite, philosophical, 
 or aesthetic ideas were regtflarly interchanged and dif 
 fused. From this to the written circular distributed 
 among the English aristocracy, the transition was a nat 
 ural result of economical and social necessity ; and the 
 historian of the subject in Great Britain, finds in the 
 popularity of the ballad a still further development of 
 the same instinct and want expressing itself among the 
 people. As their vital interest in civic questions en 
 larged, pamphlets began to be written and circulated 
 on the current topics of the day; then a periodical 
 sheet was issued containing foreign intelligence, among 
 the earliest specimens whereof is, " The Weekly Newes 
 from Italy and Germanic," which first appeared in 1622. 
 It is a characteristic fact that the first two special news 
 paper organs that were published in England were de 
 voted to sporting * and medical intelligence. But it was 
 reserved for the last century to expand these germinal 
 experiments into what we now justly consider a great 
 civilizing institution. When Burke f began to apply 
 
 * Jockey s Intelligencer, 1683. 
 
 t Burke s influence upon journalism was still more direct. "While 
 preparing for Dodsley " An Account of the European Settlements in 
 America," he was led by his researches to suggest a periodical which 
 should chronicle the important literary, political, and social facts of the 
 year. Such was the origin of the " Annual Registers." The first vol 
 ume appeared in 1759. For several years it was edited by Burke, is 
 still regularly published, and has been imitated in similar publications 
 elsewhere, having finally initiated and established the historical element 
 of journalism. 
 
272 NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 philosophy to politics, and Junius to set the example 
 of memorable anonymous writing on public questions, 
 and Wilkes to battle for the liberty of the press, new 
 and powerful intellectual and moral elements were in 
 fused into journalism ; to these, vast mechanical improve 
 ments gave new diffusion ; discussion gave birth to sys 
 tems, invention to new industrial interests, social culture 
 to original phases and forms of popular literary taste 
 and talent. In England, Hazlitt s psychological criti 
 cisms, Jerrold s local wit, Thackeray s incisive satire, 
 the descriptive talent of scores of travelling reporters, 
 and the dramatic genius of such observers as Charles 
 Dickens, blended their versatile attractions with the 
 vivid chronicle of daily news and the elaborate treatise 
 of political essayists ; while in France, from Rousseau, 
 Grimm, and Mirabeau, to Thiers and St. Betive, the 
 journal represented the sternest political and the most 
 finished literary ability ; from the old " Journal Etran- 
 ger," devoted to scandal, to Marat s " Ami du Peuple," 
 the vicissitudes and the genius of France are enrolled 
 in her journalism. 
 
 The French papers have the largest subscription, 
 those of London the most complete establishments, and 
 in America they are far more numerous than in other 
 countries ; over three thousand are now published, and 
 their price is about one seventh that of the English. 
 The tone of the American press is usually less dignified 
 and intellectual than that of France and England. It 
 has also the peculiarity of being maintained, in a great 
 degree, by advertisements ; thus the commercial as well 
 as the party element, both dangerous to the elevation 
 of the press, enter largely into its character here. It 
 has been said of penny-a-liners that they are to the 
 
NEWSPAPERS. 273 
 
 newspaper corps what Cossacks are to a regular army , 
 and the activity of journalism in Great Britain, and the 
 detail of its enterprise, are signally evidenced by such 
 a class of writers, as well by the fact that in 1826, 
 when Canning sent British troops to Portugal, newspa 
 per reporters went with the army, a custom which in the 
 Crimean, East India, and recent American war, has 
 given birth to such memorable correspondence. The 
 shipping intelligence of United States journals is more 
 minute, the philosophical eloquence of those of Paris 
 more striking, and the details of court gossip and crim 
 inal jurisprudence more full in those of London, 
 characteristics which respectively mirror national traits 
 and the existent state of society in each latitude. The 
 shareholders of the London " Times " have occasionally 
 divided a net profit of one hundred and twenty thou 
 sand pounds the well-earned recompense for the 
 complete arrangement and efficient exercise of this 
 greatest of modern instruments. It is not surprising 
 that the most renowned of writers have availed them 
 selves of a medium so direct and universal. Chateau 
 briand wrote in the " Journal des Debats " against Po- 
 lignac ; Malte-Brun contributed geographical articles to 
 the same print ; Benjamin Constant s views were un 
 folded in the " Minerve Fran9aise " ; Lafitte s opinions 
 found expression in the " Journal du Commerce." Lam- 
 artine s ideal of a journal is one which has " assez de 
 raison pour convenir aux homines serieux, assez de te- 
 merite pour plaire aux hommes legeres, assez d excen- 
 tricite pour plaire aux aventereux." With all the re 
 strictions to which despotism in France has subjected 
 the press, its history as a whole is as Protean as Paris 
 life, and reflects the tendencies of national character. 
 18 
 
274 NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 As early as 1650, there was a " Gazette de Burlesque/ 
 soon after a " Mercury Galant " ; the " Journal des De- 
 bats " is devoted to facts and its own dignity, the " Sie- 
 cle " represents mercantile interests, " La Presse " is 
 full of ideas, and has been well described as partaking 
 of the nature of a torrent which " Se grossit par la re 
 sistance"* Napoleon depended on the " Moniteur," 
 and kept the press low because he feared its influence 
 more than an army. The proprietors of the " Constitu- 
 tionel " often pay a hundred and fifty francs for a single 
 column. William Livingston wrote eifectively in 1752, 
 in the " Independent Reflector," of New York, against 
 Episcopal encroachments. Freedom of the press, in 
 America, was established by the trial of the printer Zen- 
 ger. Kossuth was a journalist while at the head of a 
 nation. Cavour began his public career in the same ca 
 pacity, and Heine was the admirable correspondent of 
 leading German journals for many years. Centraliza 
 tion vastly increases the influence of journalism in Paris, 
 and its history there is a perfect index of the successive 
 revolutions. From Benjamin Franklin to Walter Sav 
 age Landor, and from Junius to Jack Downing, these 
 vehicles of ideas have enshrined memorable individual 
 ities as well as phases of general opinion. Jefferson, 
 Hamilton, Rufus King, De Witt Clinton, and Everett, 
 all our statesmen, have been newspaper writers. 
 
 * The following return of the numbers daily printed by the principal 
 Paris journals is taken from M. Didot s pamphlet on the fabrication of 
 paper. It may be regarded as official: " Presse," 40,000 ; " Si6cle," 
 35,000; " Constitutionel," 25,000; "Moniteur," 24,000; " Patrie," 
 18,000; "Pays," 14,000; " Debats," 9,000; "Assembled Nationale," 
 5,000; "Univers," 3,500; "Union," 3,500; "Gazette de France," 
 2,500 ; " Gazettes de Tribunaux," 2,500. These journals are all printed 
 in five offices, and the quantity of paper they annually consume 
 amounts to more than four millions of pounds. 
 
NEWSPAPERS. 275 
 
 Specimens of recorded thought from the earliest to 
 the present time, would aptly mark the history of civil 
 ization ; the writings on stone, wax, bones, lead, palm- 
 leaves, bark, linen, and parchment inscribed by pa 
 tient manual toil, denoting the era when knowledge was 
 a mystery and its possessor a seer ; illuminated chroni 
 cles and missals representing its cloistered years ; 
 black-letter, the transition period when it began to ex 
 pand, although still a luxury, and the newspaper illus 
 trating its modern diffusion and universality. The 
 scribe s vocation was at once superseded by the inven 
 tion of printing, and the scholar s monopoly broken up ; 
 hence the scarcity and value of books prior to the times 
 of Faust and Caxton, can scarcely be appreciated by 
 this generation. "Wonderful indeed is the contrast to 
 the American traveller, as he muses beside the Anapus 
 at Syracuse, over the papyrus vegetating in its waters, 
 
 between the scrolls of antiquity engrossed on this 
 material, and the twenty thousand closely printed sheets 
 thrown off in an hour by orfe of the mammoth daily 
 presses of his native country. This rapidity of produc 
 tion, however, is almost as oblivious in its tendency as 
 the limited copies produced by the pen and transmitted 
 in manuscript. It may be said of exclusive newspaper 
 writers and readers, with a few memorable exceptions, 
 that their intellectual triumphs are " writ in water " ; 
 and melancholy is that fate which condemns a man of 
 real genius to the labors of a newspaper editor ; frag 
 mentary and fugitive, though incessant, are his labors, 
 
 usually destructive of style, and without permanent 
 memorials ; when of a political nature they often enlist 
 bitter feelings and promote a knowledge of the world 
 calculated to indurate as well as expand the mind. A 
 
276 NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 veteran French writer for the press, describes the edi 
 tor s life as always " troublee et militante" An Ameri 
 can poet,* whose divine art is a safeguard against the 
 worst evils of journalism, in a recent history of his 
 paper, thus speaks of the influence of the employment 
 upon character : 
 
 "It is a vocation which gives an insight into men s motives, 
 and reveals by what influences masses of men are moved, but 
 it shows the dark, rather than the bright side of human nature, 
 and one who is not disposed to make due allowances for the 
 peculiar circumstances in which he is placed, is apt to be led 
 by it into the mistake, that the large majority of mankind are 
 knaves. It fills the mind with a variety of knowledge relating 
 to the events of the day, but that knowledge is apt to be super 
 ficial ; since the necessity of attending to many subjects pre 
 vents the journalist from thoroughly investigating any. In 
 this way it begets desultory habits of thought, disposing the 
 mind to be satisfied with mere glances at difficult questions, 
 and to delight in passing lightly from one thing to another. 
 The style gains in clearness and fluency, but is apt to become, 
 in consequence of much and hasty writing, loose, diffuse, and 
 stuffed with local barbarisms and the cant phrases of the day. 
 Its worst effect is the strong temptation which it sets before 
 men, to betray the cause of truth to public opinion, and to 
 fall in with what are supposed to be the views held by a con 
 temporaneous majority, which are sometimes perfectly right 
 and sometimes grossly wrong." 
 
 In regard to the influence of newspapers on style, it 
 has been noted that since their cheap issue, colloquial 
 simplicity has vanished. " A single number of a Lon 
 don morning paper," observes a writer in Blackwood, 
 " (which in half a century, has expanded from the size 
 of a dinner napkin to that of a breakfast tablecloth, 
 from that to a carpet, and will soon be forced by the 
 * Bryant. 
 
NEWSPAPERS. 277 
 
 expansion of public business into something resembling 
 the mainsail of a frigate,) already is equal in printed 
 matter to a very large octavo volume. Every old woman 
 in the nation now reads daily a vast miscellany, in one 
 volume royal octavo ; thus the whole artificial dialect of 
 books has come into play as the dialect of ordinary life. 
 This is one form of the evil impressed upon style by jour 
 nalism ; a dire monotony of bookish idiom has stiffened 
 all freedom of expression."* As to its effect on the 
 morale, when pursued exclusively as a material interest, 
 one of the most acute and observant of modern French 
 writers says: " Le journal, au lieu d etre un sacerdoce, 
 est devenu un moyen pour les partis ; de moyen, il s est 
 fait commerce ; et comme tons les commerces, il est sans 
 foi ni loi ; " and in allusion to the French, bitterly adds, 
 " nous verrons les journaux, diriges d abord par des 
 homines d honneur, tomber plus tard sons le gouverne- 
 ment de plus mediocre, qui auront la patience et la lachete 
 de gomme elastique qui manquent aux beaux genies, ou 
 a des epiciers qui auront de 1 argent pour acheter des 
 plumes." Macaulay, says a French critic, " a conserve 
 dans 1 histoire, les habitudes qu il avait gagnees dans les 
 journaux." Journalism has proved an effective disci 
 pline for statesmen ; the late prime minister of Sardinia 
 first dealt with public questions in the columns of a 
 political journal. 
 
 But whatever facility of expression and tact in the 
 popular exposition of political science may be acquired 
 by the statesman or annalist, in the practice of journal 
 ism, there is no doubt that the worst perversions of 
 " English undefiled " have originated in, and been con 
 firmed by, newspapers. On this subject, an American 
 
 * BlackwoocTs Magazine, Yol. xxviii., p. 8. 
 
278 NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 writer at once philosophical, erudite, and liberal, who 
 has treated of the history and influence of the English 
 language with remarkable insight and eloquence, em 
 phatically testifies to the verbal corruptions and conse 
 quent moral degradation of the newspaper press. " The 
 dialect of personal vituperation," says Marsh, " the 
 rhetoric of malice in all its modifications, the Billings 
 gate of vulgar hate, the art of damning with faint praise, 
 the sneer of contemptuous irony, have been sedulously 
 cultivated ; and, combined with a certain flippancy of 
 expression and ready command of a tolerably exten 
 sive vocabulary, are enough to make the fortune of any 
 sharp, shallow, and unprincipled journalist who is con 
 tent with the fame and the pelf." 
 
 The interest which belongs to newspapers as arenas 
 for discussion and records of fact, is greatly marred by 
 the abuses of the press. No more humiliating exhibi 
 tion of human passion can be imagined than printed 
 scurrility ; and no meaner and more contemptible evi 
 dence of skulking treachery than anonymous libels. 
 By what anomaly base spirits enact and endure insult 
 in this form, which public opinion and the faintest self- 
 respect compel them to resent when orally uttered, we 
 have never been able to explain. It is, however, a 
 satire on the alleged freedom we enjoy in this country, 
 that any malicious poltroon who has the means to pur 
 chase types, may defame the character, and thereby 
 injure the prosperity, of any one towards whom he enter 
 tains a grudge, with comparative impunity. Indeed, if 
 a man comes before the public in any shape, even in 
 that of a benefactor, he is liable to gross personal at 
 tacks from the press ; here the shafts of envy, of party 
 hatred, of blackguardism and of detraction, find a covert 
 
NEWSPAPERS. 279 
 
 whence they may be sped with deadly aim and little or 
 no chance of punishment. To realize, at once, the 
 moral grandeur and the degrading abuse of which the 
 press is capable, one should read Milton s discourse on 
 the " Liberty of Unlicensed Printing," and then a his 
 tory of cases under the law of libel. The choice of 
 weapons is allowed his enemy even by the inveterate 
 duelist ; but there is this essential dishonor in the at 
 tacks of the practiced writer that he adroitly uses 
 an instrument which his antagonist often cannot wield. 
 Thus the laws of honorable warfare are basely set aside ; 
 and cowardice often wins an ostensible triumph. The 
 meanest threat we ever heard was that of a popular 
 author towards a spirited and generous but uneducated 
 farmer with whom he was in altercation, and who pro 
 posed a resort to arms : "I hold a pen that shall 
 point the world s finger of scorn at you !" The cheap 
 est abuse is that which can be poured out in newspa 
 pers ; and besides the comparatively defenceless position 
 of the assailed, if he have no skill in pen-craft, it is the 
 more contemptible because premeditated ; the insulting 
 word may be uttered in the heat of rage, but the slan 
 derous paragraph goes through the process of writing 
 and printing; it is therefore, the result of a deliberate 
 act. The " scar of wrath " left on the heart by the par 
 tisan combats of the press, is seldom honorable, and the 
 records of duels, persecutions, and street-fights origina 
 ting in libels, is one of the most degrading to all con 
 cerned, of any in social history. Vituperation and 
 invective, Billingsgate and the cant nicknames of news 
 paper controversy, belong to the most unredeemed 
 species of blackguardism. No wounds rankle in the 
 human bosom like those inflicted by the press ; and no 
 
280 NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 * 
 
 agent of redress should be used with such thorough 
 observance of the golden rule. " The French," says 
 Matthew Arnold, " talk of the brutalite des journaux 
 Anglais. What strikes them comes from the necessary 
 inherent tendencies of newspaper writing not being 
 checked in England by any centre of intelligent and 
 urbane spirit, but rather stimulated by coming in con 
 tact with a provincial spirit." 
 
 From these various capabilities and liabilities of 
 journalism we may infer what are the requisites of an 
 editor. It is obvious that his intellectual equipment 
 should be more versatile and complete than that de 
 manded by any other profession. He is to interpret the 
 events of the day, and must, of course, be versed in the 
 history of the past ; he is to speak a universal language; 
 and the gifts of expression must be his chief endow 
 ment ; he exercises a mighty influence, and, therefore, 
 judgment, self-respect, a recognition of rights and du 
 ties, and a benevolent impulse are essential. The juste 
 milieu between moral courage and respect for public 
 sentiment, should be his goal. It is a significant fact, 
 that, in this country, where there are more readers than 
 in any other, and, at the same time, entire freedom of 
 the press, journals have not attained to the intellectual 
 standard of the best of foreign origin, nor has the pro 
 fession of an editor reached the rank it has in Europe. 
 With a few exceptions, the vocation has been adopted, 
 as school-keeping used to be, as the most available re 
 source. Cleverness has usually been the substitute for 
 acquirement ; loyalty to some dogma for philosophy, 
 and glib phrases and cant terms for style. In some 
 memorable cases, where the London system of a divis 
 ion of labor is resorted to, and the French practice of 
 
NEWSPAPERS. 281 
 
 careful rhetoric and reasoning applied to current topics, 
 the result has approximated to what a leading journal 
 should be. Such names as Franklin, Russell, Thomas, 
 Duane, Buckingham, Walsh, Gales, jNoah, King, Hoff 
 man, and the eminent contemporary editors of America, 
 bear, it must be remembered, but a very small propor 
 tion to the sum total of newspapers published in this 
 country ; and it is the average ability and character of 
 editors to which we refer. Yet familiarity alone blinds 
 us to the " extraordinary talent " exhibited in the jour 
 nalism of our times. " I 11 be shot," says Christopher 
 North, to the shepherd, " if Junius, were he alive now, 
 would set the world on the rave as he did some half 
 century ago." 
 
 The rarest and most needful moral quality in an 
 editor is magnanimity. Of all vocations this is the 
 one with which narrow motives and exclusive points of 
 view are most incompatible. It is true that the office is 
 self-imposed ; but, in its very nature, is included a com 
 prehensive tone of mind and feeling ; the editor, there 
 fore, who pronounces judgment upon a book, a work of 
 art, a public man or popular subject, according to his 
 personal animosities or selfish interests, annuls his own 
 claim to the position he occupies. If the pulpit, the 
 medical chair, the justice s bench, or the authority of 
 elective office is exclusively used by an individual for 
 direct personal ends, for the exclusive emolument of 
 friends, or the gratification of private revenge, the per 
 version is resented at once and indignantly by public 
 opinion ; and the same violation of a general principle 
 for a particular end, is equally unjustifiable in the press. 
 Yet how many journals serve but as channels for the 
 prejudices, the likes and dislikes, the plans and whims 
 
282 NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 of their editors, so that, at last, we recognize them, not 
 as broad and reliable expositors of great questions and 
 critical taste, but as mouthpieces for the spite, the flat 
 tery, and the ambition of a single vain mortal ! For 
 such evils Milton s arguments for patient toleration of 
 all kinds of printed ideas, are the best remedy : " Pun 
 ishing wits," he says, " enhances their authority ; errors 
 known, read, and collated, are of main service toward 
 the speedy attainment of what is truest ; and, though 
 all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the 
 earth, so truth be in the field, we do injuriously by 
 licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength." 
 With all its defects, therefore, the emanations of a free 
 press are the best expositors of the immediate in taste, 
 opinion, and affairs ; and copies of the " Times," the 
 " Court Journal," and " Bell s Life in London," depos 
 ited under the corner-stone of a modern English edifice, 
 are as authentic memorials of the country and people 
 as they exist to-day, as the styles of Grecian architec 
 ture, or the characteristics of Italian painting, of epochs 
 in the history of art, and far more detailed, minute, and 
 elaborate. The complex state of society, the multitu 
 dinous aspect of life, the progress of science and its 
 influence on social economy, can indeed only be desig 
 nated by such a versatile record. The miserable little 
 gazzettas issued in the south of Europe, containing only 
 the diluted news of the French journals ; the spirited 
 feuittetons of the cleverest authors of the day that ap 
 pear in the latter, the enormous advertising sheets in 
 this country, and the able rhetoric and argument of the 
 daily press in Great Britain, are so many landmarks 
 and gauges of the civic life, the mental recreations, the 
 prosperity and the political intelligence of these differ- 
 
NEWSPAPERS. 283 
 
 ent countries. Although Fanny Kemble snubbed the 
 press-gang, ironically so called, perhaps in this age 
 there is no office capable of a higher ideal standard and 
 a more practical efficiency combined, as that of the 
 public writer. Let us suppose such a man endowed 
 with the greatest faculty of expression, learned in his 
 tory and the arts, with philosophic insight and poetical 
 sensibility, chivalric in tone, uniting the principles of 
 conservatism and reform, devoted to humanity, gen 
 erous, heroic, independent and " clear in his great 
 office ; " and thus furnished and inspired, waging the 
 battle of honest opinion, a stanch advocate of truth, 
 stripping the mask from fanaticism and dishonesty, and 
 shedding pure intellectual light on the common mind ; 
 no more noble function can be imagined. Seldom, 
 however, is the ideal of an editor even approached ; and 
 hence the wisdom of an eclectic system and a division 
 of labor ; concentrating upon the same journal, the 
 humor of one, the statistical researches of another, the 
 learning of a third, and the rhetoric of a fourth, until 
 all the needful elements are brought into action for a 
 common result. 
 
 In periods of war, emigration, or catastrophes of any 
 kind, the newspaper becomes a chart of destiny to the 
 heart, and is seized with overwhelming anxiety to learn 
 the fate of the absent and the loved ; and in times of 
 peace and comfort, it is the readiest pastime. What 
 traveller does not remember with zest the intervals of 
 leisure he has spent, under the trees of the Palais Royal, 
 over a fresh gazette ; or the eagerness with which, in 
 an Italian cafe, he has devoured " Galignani " with his 
 breakfast ? It is difficult to imagine how the social re 
 forms that distinguish the age could have been realized 
 
284 NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 without the aid of newspapers ; or by what other means 
 popular sympathy could be kindled simultaneously on 
 both sides of the globe. In view of such offices, we 
 must regard the editor as a species of modern improvi- 
 satore who gathers from clubs, theatres, legislative halls, 
 private society, and the streets, the idea and the ele 
 mental spirit of the hour, the topic of the day, the 
 moral influence born of passing events, and then con 
 centrates and elaborates it to give forth its vital prin 
 ciples and absolute significance. 
 
 As a medium of controversy, the advantages of the 
 newspaper are signal. In 1685, the discussion of popery 
 in England was carried on by means of tracts issued 
 from the presses of Oxford, Cambridge, and London ; 
 and some of the pamphlets of De Foe, Steele, and 
 other popular writers, had a large sale ; but the circula 
 tion of these vehicles of argument was limited compared 
 to the daily journals of our day ; and in order to reach 
 the people, controversialist and agreeable essayists from 
 the times of " Sir Roger L Estrange " to that of " O. 
 P. Q.," have wisely availed themselves of newspapers. 
 That they now aid rather than form public opinion, 
 however, is quite obvious. The implicit faith once be 
 stowed upon editors has departed ; and no class are 
 more pertinacious in asserting the right of private judg 
 ment than habitual readers of journals ; they derive 
 from them materials of discussion rather than positive 
 inferences. Yet there are two qualities that in Great 
 Britain and America gain an editor permanent admir 
 ers good-sense and an individual style. The thun 
 der, as Carlyle calls it, of Edward Sterling in the 
 London " Times," and the plain words of Cobbett, are 
 instances. In fact, the same qualities insure considera- 
 
NEWSPAPERS. 285 
 
 tion for a newspaper as for an individual ; tone, manli 
 ness, grace or vigor, full and free knowledge, wit and 
 fancy, and the sincerity or geniality of the editor s char 
 acter, are not less recognized in his paragraphs than in 
 his behavior. But as a general rule, as before sug 
 gested, in the United States, the press is the expositor, 
 not the herald, of opinion ; the newspapers simply mark 
 the level of popular feeling ; their criticism seldom 
 transcends the existent taste, and their tone is rarely 
 elevated above that of the majority. Between the rad 
 ical and the conservative, there appears no medium ; 
 and newspapers symbolize these two extremes. In our 
 large cities, there is always one newspaper which has a 
 name for respectability of which its editors are extremely 
 jealous ; it never startles, offends, or inspires, but pur 
 sues an even, unexceptionable course, is praised by old 
 people who have taken it for years, and desire that it 
 shall contain their obituary ; its news, however, is usually 
 stale, its opinions timid, and its spirit behind the age. 
 To represent the opposite element, there is always a 
 vigorous, speculative, and fresh-toned newspaper, which 
 continually utters startling things, and suggests glorious 
 impossibilities ; it is the exponent of reform, a harbin 
 ger of better times, and appeals to hope and fancy, 
 rather than to memory and reflection. Now the expe 
 rienced reader will at once perceive that an editor, 
 worthy the name, should be an eclectic, and combine in 
 his own mind and work, the expression of both these 
 extremes of opinion and sentiment ; but it is found, by 
 experiment, that a hobby is the means of temporary 
 success, that a catholic temper is unappreciated, and 
 that, in a republic, combativeness and self-esteem are 
 the organs to be most profitably addressed. 
 
286 NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 There is a very large class whose reading is confined 
 to newspapers, and they manifest the wisdom of Pope s 
 maxim about the danger of a little learning. Adopting 
 the cant and slang phrases of the hour, and satisfied 
 with the hasty conjectures and partial glimpses of 
 truth that diurnal journals usually contain, they are at 
 once superficial and dogmatic, full of fragmentary ideas 
 and oracular common-place. If such is the natural 
 effect upon an undisciplined mind of exclusive newspa 
 per reading, even the scholar, the thinker, and the man 
 of refined taste is exposed to mental dissipation from 
 the same cause. A celebrated French philosopher, 
 recently deceased, remarkable for severe and efficient 
 mental labor, told an American friend that he had not 
 read a newspaper for four years. It is incalculable 
 what productiveness of mind and freshness of concep 
 tion is lost to the cultivated intellect by the habit of 
 beginning the day with newspapers. The brain, re 
 freshed by sleep, is prepared to act genially in the morn 
 ing hours ; and a statistical table, prepared by an able 
 physiologist, shows that those authors who give this 
 period to labor, most frequently attain longevity. Scott 
 is a memorable example of the healthfulness and effi 
 ciency attending the practice. If, therefore, the student, 
 the man of science, or the author dissipates his mental 
 vigor, and the nervous energy induced by a night s 
 repose, in skimming over the countless topics of a news 
 paper, he is too much in relation with things in .general 
 to concentrate easily his thoughts ; his mind has been 
 diverted, and his sympathies too variously excited, to 
 readily gather around a special theme. Those intent 
 upon self-culture, or intellectual results, should, there 
 fore, make this kind of reading a pastime, and resort to 
 
NEWSPAPERS. 287 
 
 it in the intervals of more consecutive thought. There 
 is no element of civilization that debauches the mind 
 of our age more than the indiscriminate and exclusive 
 perusal of newspapers. Only by consulting history, by 
 disciplining the reasoning powers in the study of phi 
 losophy, and cherishing a true sense of the beautiful by 
 communion with the poets, in a word, only by habit 
 ual reference to standard literature, can we justly esti 
 mate the record of the hour. There must be great 
 examples in the mind, great principles of judgment 
 and taste, or the immediate appeal to these qualities is 
 ignorantly answered ; whereas, the thoughtful, intelli 
 gent comments of an educated reader of journals upon 
 the questions they discuss, the precedents he brings in 
 view, and the facts of the past to which he refers, place 
 the immediate- in relation with the universal, and enable 
 us to seize upon essential truth. To depend for mental 
 recreation upon newspapers, is a desperate resource ; 
 not to consult them is to linger behind the age. De 
 Tocqueville has shown that devotion to the immediate 
 is characteristic of republics ; and this tendency is man 
 ifest in the prevalence of newspapers in the United 
 States. They, in a great measure, supersede the de 
 mand for a more permanent native literature ; they fos 
 ter a taste for ephemeral topics and modes of thought, 
 and lamentably absorb, in casual efforts, gifts and graces 
 of mind which, under a different order of things, would 
 ave attained not only a higher, but a lasting develop 
 ment. The comparative importance of newspapers 
 among us, as materials of history, is evidenced by the 
 fact that the constant reference to their files has induced 
 the historical societies to propose an elaborate index to 
 facilitate the labors of inquirers, which has been felici- 
 
288 NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 tously called a diving-bell for the sea of print. A list 
 of the various journals now in existence would be found 
 to include not only every political party and religious 
 sect in the country, but every theory of life, every sci 
 ence, profession, and taste, from phrenology to dietetics, 
 and from medicine, war, and odd-fellowship, to litera 
 ture, Catholicism, and sporting. Tribunals and pun 
 sters, not less than fashion and chess-players, have their 
 printed organ. What was a subordinate element, has 
 become an exclusive feature. "In those days," writes 
 Lamb, " every morning-paper, as an essential retainer to 
 its establishment, kept an author who was bound to fur 
 nish daily a quantum of witty paragraphs at sixpence a 
 joke." Now " Punch " and " Charivari " monopolize 
 the fun, and grave and gay are separately embodied. 
 The cosmopolitan nature of the people would as obvi 
 ously appear in the number of journals issued in foreign 
 languages, each nation and tribe having its newspaper 
 organ ; and an analysis of the contents, even of one 
 popular journal for a single year, would be found to 
 touch the entire circle of human knowledge and vicissi 
 tude, without penetrating to a vital cause, or expanding 
 to a comprehensive principle, yet affording a boundless 
 horizon ; astronomical phenomena, causes celebres, 
 earthquakes, the advent of a great cantatrice, shipwrecks 
 and revolutions, battles and bankruptcies, freshets and 
 fires, ententes and hail-storms, gold discoveries, anniver 
 saries, executions, Arctic expeditions, World s Fairs, 
 the utterance of patriots, and the acts of usurpers ; 
 all the materials of history, the suggestions of philoso 
 phy, and the visions of poetry, in their chaotic, elemen 
 tal, and actual state. It is evident that more excite 
 ment than truth, more food for curiosity than aid to 
 
NEWSPAPERS. 289 
 
 reflection, more vague knowledge than actual wisdom, 
 is thus promulgated and preserved. The harvest of 
 the immediate is comparatively barren ; and life only 
 proves the truth of Dr. Johnson s association of intel 
 lectual dignity with the past and future. The individ 
 ual, to be true to himself, must take a firm stand against 
 the encroachments of this restless, temporary, and ab 
 sorbing life of the moment represented by the newspa 
 per ; he must cleave to Memory and Hope ; he must 
 look before and after, or his mind will be superficial in 
 its activity, and fruitless in its growth. 
 
 There is no mechanical invention around which clus 
 ter such interesting associations as that of printing ; the 
 indirect agency of the press and of journalism is re 
 markable ; and this is owing to the relation they bear 
 to the world at large, and to personal improvement. 
 The newspaper office has always been a nucleus for 
 wits, politicians, and literati, a nursery of local genius, 
 and a school for knowledge of the world, and criticism. 
 In Franklin s autobiography, the natural effect of even 
 a mechanical connection with the press is memorably 
 unfolded ; and scarcely a great name in modern history 
 is unallied with some incident or activity connected with 
 the daily press. Otis, Adams, Hancock, and Warren, 
 used to meet at the office of the " Boston Gazette," and 
 write essays on colonial rights in its columns. Talley 
 rand and Louis Philippe frequented the sanctum of an 
 editor in the same town, to read the " Moniteur," and 
 discuss Hews. Chateaubriand first heard of the king s 
 flight from a stray newspaper picked up in a log hut in 
 the backwoods of America ; and it sent him back at 
 once to the army of the Princes. Home Tooke s " Di- 
 19 
 
290 NE WSPA PERS. 
 
 versions of Purley " were written to beguile his impris 
 onment occasioned by a libel ; and his trial resulted in 
 making parliamentary reports legal. Hunt s prison- 
 life, for which he was indebted to his comments on the 
 Prince-Regent in the "Examiner," is the most charm 
 ing episode in his memoirs ; and some of the noblest 
 flights of Erskine s eloquence arose from the defence of 
 those prosecuted for constructive treason based on the 
 free expression of opinion in regard to public questions. 
 Jefferson thought Freneau s paper " prevented the Con 
 stitution from galloping into a monarchy " ; and it was 
 in the columns of a daily journal that Hamilton de 
 fended the proclamation of neutrality. It has been 
 said that the most reliable history of the French revo 
 lution, and wars of the republic, could be gleaned from 
 the pages of an American journal of the day, conducted 
 by a man of political knowledge and military aptitude, 
 who combined from various prejudiced foreign papers 
 what he deemed an authentic narrative of each act in 
 the drama ; and it is certain that the best account of the 
 massacre and the destruction of the tea from which 
 dates our Revolution, are to be found in the contem 
 porary newspapers. Never .was contemporary history 
 so copiously and minutely written as in the newspaper 
 annals of the war for the Union. In fact, the best his 
 tory thereof has been compiled by an assiduous collator 
 from current journalism. The history of censorship in 
 Europe in modern times is the history of opinion, of 
 freedom, and of society. We felt the despotism of the 
 King of Naples in all its baseness, only when a writer 
 of genius told us, with a sigh, that he had been driven 
 to natural history as the only subject upon which he 
 
NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 291 
 
 could expatiate in print without impediment. Thus 
 we see how the fate of nations and the experience of 
 individuals are associated with the press ; and how its 
 influence touches the whole circle of life, evoking 
 genius, kindling nations, informing fugitives, and alarm 
 ing kings. 
 

 PREACHERS. 
 
 " It is neither thjBta vote nor the lading ou of hands tha t gives men the 
 right to preach.v One s own heart is authority. ^Ic he cannot preach to 
 edification, he is noFlmffioT-IzSI, "though" all the ministers of Christendom 
 ordain him." 
 
 | HITS writes a popular preacher of the conserv 
 ative sect in theology : recognizing a spiritual 
 fact and conviction which tempts us to analyze 
 and define, as a subject of natural history, the function 
 and fame of the preacher. The term by its derivation 
 is the most generic word to indicate clerical vocation ; 
 " to say before," to proclaim, inculcate, preach ; in other 
 words, to be the herald and representative of truth, right, 
 faith, and immortal hope, such is the basis and logical 
 claim of the preacher s authority, under whatever form, 
 creed, or character. They may be divided iiita~ihje._in- 
 / , spired, the ascetic, the jovial, the belligerent, the finical, 
 "the shrewd, and the ingenuous. The " oily man of God " 
 described by Pope, Scott s Covenanter, and Friar Tuck, 
 the disinterested Vicar of Fielding, Shakspeare s good 
 friars and ambitious cardinals, Mawworm, Mrs. Inch- 
 bald s Dorimel, the gentle hero of the Sexton s Daugh 
 ter, Manzoni s Prelate and Capuchin, and Mrs. Radcliffe s 
 Monks, are genuine and permanent types, only modified 
 by circumstances. All that is subtle injirt^cej_an jthat 
 
PEE AC HERS. 293 
 
 is. relentless in tiie-lo^e oL-powjer, all that is exalted in 
 spiritual graces^ all that.is base in cunning, glorious in 
 self-sacrifice, beautiful in compassion, and noble in alle- / 
 giance, has been and is manifest in the priest. His great 
 distinction is based upon the fact that " the church, 
 rightly ministered, is the vestibule to an immortal life." 
 He is at once the author of the worst tyranny and the 
 grandest amenities of social life. The traveller on 
 Alpine summits blesses the name of St. Bernard, and 
 descends to Geneva to shudder at the bigoted ferocity 
 of Calvin. v s The picture of the good pastor in the " De 
 serted Village," and Ranke s " Lives of the Popes," give 
 us the two extremes of the character. The spiritual 
 heroism of Luther, the religious gloom of Cowper, and 
 the cheerful devotion of Watts, are but varied expres 
 sions of one feeling, which, according to the frail condi 
 tions of humanity, has its healthy and its morbid phase, 
 its authentic and its spurious exposition, and is no more 
 to be confounded in its original essence, with its imper 
 fect development and representatives, than the pure 
 light of heaven with the accidental mediums which color 
 and distort its rays. 
 
 The prestige of the clerical office is greatly diminished 
 because many of its prerogatives are no longer exclu 
 sive. " When ecclesiasticism became so weak as to be 
 unable to regulate international affairs, and was sup 
 planted by diplomacy, in the castle the physician was 
 more than a rival for the confessor, in the town the 
 mayor was a greater man than the abbot."* The 
 clergy, at a former period, were the chief scholars; 
 learning was not less their distinction than sanctity. 
 
 * Draper s Intellectual Development of Europe. 
 
294 PREACHERS. 
 
 In every intelligent community, this source of influence 
 is now shared with men of letters ; and even the once 
 peculiar office of public instruction, is now filled by the 
 lecturer, who takes an evening from the avocations of 
 business or professional life, to claim intellectual sym 
 pathy or impart individual opinions. ,BuL.tha great 
 /" Qgent in breaking. jug the m Qnopoly, of. ihe pulpit has 
 been Che press* Written has in aj^reat measure super 
 seded oral thought. Half the world are readers, and 
 the necessity of hearing no longer exists to those desir 
 ous of knowledge. The sermons of the old English 
 divines abound with classical learning and comments on 
 the times, such as are now sought in periodical litera 
 ture. In Latimer, Andrews, and Donne, we find such 
 hints of the prevailing manners as subsequently were re 
 vealed by "The Spectator." The L philosophy of an tiqui ty 
 (~ and the morals of courtSj., the. facts of distant. jcjimes, all 
 that we now seek in popular books and the best jour- 
 -r^nals, came to the minds of our ancestors through the 
 discourses of preachers. American ministers, prior to 
 and at the era of the Revolution, were the expositors 
 of political as well as religious sentiments. Indepen 
 dent of the priestly rites, therefore, a clergyman, in past 
 times, represented social transitions, and ministered to 
 intellectual wants, for which we of this age, have ade 
 quate provision otherwise ; so that the most zealous 
 advocate of reform, doctrine, or ethical philosophy, is 
 no longer obliged to have recourse to the sacerdotal 
 office, in order to reach the public mind. This appar 
 ent diminution of the privileges of the order, however, 
 does not invalidate but rather simplifies its claims. In 
 this as in so many other functions of the social economy, 
 progress has the effect of reducing to its original ele- 
 
PREACHERS. 295 
 
 merits the duties and the influence of the profession. 
 Education, once their special_regponsibility v and popu 
 lar enrightennient~oii the questions <)f the hour, being 
 assumed by others, the preacher is free to concentrate 
 his abilities on theology and the religious sentiment. 
 Division of labor gives him a better opportunity to be 
 " clear in his great office." It is reduced to its normal 
 state. Except in isolated and newly-settled communi 
 ties, there is not that incessant appeal to his benevolence 
 and erudition : to heal the sick, reconcile litigants, argue 
 civic questions, teach the elements of science, promote 
 charities ; in a word, to be the village orator and social- 
 oracle, are not the indispensable requisites of a clergy 
 man s duty which they were before the Newspaper and 
 the Lyceum existed. He is, therefore, at liberty to imi 
 tate the apostles of Christianity and the fathers of the 
 Church, and bring all his power to awaken devotion 
 and faith, and all his learning to the defence of sacred 
 
 & 
 
 truth. That the time and capacity of the profession is 
 diffused, and the sympathy of its members enlisted in 
 behalf of other than these aims, is, indeed, true ; but 
 this is a voluntary and not an inevitable result, and only 
 proves that the spirit of the age overlays instead of 
 being penetrated and ruled by the priestly office. 
 
 " Civilization," says Lamartine, "was of the sanctuary. 
 Kings were only concerned with acts ; ideas belonged to 
 the priest/ And, by a singular contradiction, with the 
 general progress of society, the same class as a whole, 
 have proved the most antagonistic to innovation even 
 in the form of genius, whose erratic manifestations are 
 jealously regarded as inconsistent with professional de 
 corum. Hence Byron, in one of his splenetic moods, 
 exclaimed to Trelawney : " When did parsons patronize 
 
296 PREACHERS. 
 
 genius ? If one of their black band dares to think for 
 himself, he is drummed out or cast aside like Sterne 
 and Swift." On the other hand, venerable physicians 
 say that the clergy are the most efficient promoters 
 of medical innovations ; and that quackery owes its 
 social prestige in no small degree to their counte 
 nance. 
 
 After the Reformation, this office as such lost its spe 
 ciality ; the right to exercise it was no longer peculiar ; 
 and in all societies and epochs, when a great activity of 
 the religious sentiment, or an earnest discussion of 
 questions of faith prevailed, men prayed, sermonized, 
 commented on Scripture, and mingled all the duties of 
 the clerical vocation with their own pursuits. Thus the 
 English statesmen of Cromwell s time were versed in 
 
 o 
 
 divinity, exhorted, and published tracts in behalf of 
 their creeds. Theology was a popular study ; and the 
 kingdom swarmed with lay-preachers. Sects, too, repu 
 diated official leaders ; and even among the Pilgrim 
 Fathers of New England, ministers betrayed a jealousy 
 of encroachments on the part of their unconsecrated 
 brethren. Many Christians also recognized spiritual gifts 
 as the exclusive credentials of a priesthood. Church 
 not less than State prerogatives were challenged by re 
 publican zeal ; and the historical authority of the order 
 being thus openly invaded, a new and more rational test 
 was soon applied, and preachers, like kings, were made 
 amenable to the tribunal of public opinion, and obliged 
 to rest their claims on other than traditional or educa 
 tional authority. "On conserva," says Rochambeau, 
 writing of American society at the period of the Revo 
 lution, " au ministre du culte le premiere place dans les 
 repas publics ; il benissoit le repas ; mais ses preroga- 
 
PREACHERS. 297 
 
 tives ne s entendoient pas plus loin dans la societe.* 
 Get expose," he adds, evidently in view of priestly cor 
 ruption in France, " doit amener naturellement des 
 moeurs simples et pures." f " They," says the historian 
 of preachers at the time of the Revolutionary war, 
 " dealt in no high-sounding phrases of liberty and equal 
 ity; they went to the very foundations of society, showed 
 what the rights of man were, and how those rights be 
 came modified when men gathered into communities. 
 The profound thought and unanswerable arguments, 
 found in these sermons, show that the clergy were not 
 a whit behind the ablest statesmen of the day in their 
 knowledge of the great science of human government. 
 In reading them, one gets at the true pulse of the peo 
 ple, and can trace the steady progress of the public 
 sentiment. The rebellion in New England rested on the 
 pulpit, received its strongest impulse, indeed, its moral 
 character, from it ; the teachings of the pulpit of Lex 
 ington caused the first blow to be struck for American 
 independence." 
 
 The tendency of all the so-called liberal professions 
 is to limit and pervert the development of character, by 
 giving to knowledge a technical shape, and to thought 
 a prescriptive action. Conformity to a specific method 
 is unfavorable to original results, and organization often 
 does injustice to its subjects. Only the strong men, the 
 
 * Dr. Sprague s " Annals of the American Pulpit," is full of deline 
 ations and anecdotes of prominent preachers. Their energy, zeal, and 
 courage, are viewed in connection wifri "their racy individual peculiari 
 ties. AVhat some of the Methodists had and have to endure and suffer, 
 is indicated by a direction from a circuit, ill want of a preacher, to the 
 Western Conference: "Be sure you send us a good swimmer," it 
 being the duty of the minister in that region frequently to swim wide 
 and bridgeless streams to keep his appointments. 
 
 t Memoires de Rochambeau. 
 

 298 PREACHERS. 
 
 brave and the highly endowed, rise above such restric 
 tions. It is a kind of social necessity alone which rec 
 onciles the man of scientific genius to seek the passport 
 of a medical diploma, the logician to exert his mind 
 exclusively before a legal tribunal, and the votary of 
 religious truth to sign a creed and become responsible 
 to a congregation. How constantly each breaks away 
 from his respective sphere to expatiate in the broad 
 kingdom of letters ! Would Ilumboldt have written 
 the Cosmos had his life been confined to a laboratory, 
 or a round of medical practice ? Would Burke have 
 theorized in so comprehensive a range, if chained to an 
 attorney s desk, or Sir Henry Vane s martyrdom acquired 
 a holier sanction from the mere title of priest ? 
 * At the first glance, so distinct are the phases of the 
 V office that it is difficult to realize its identity. The 
 ideal of a village pastor like Oberlin, self-devcted, in a 
 secluded district, to the most pure and benevolent enter 
 prise, the life of a Jesuit missionary in Canada or 
 Peru, who seems to incarnate the fiery zeal of the 
 Church he represents, the complacent bishop of the 
 Establishment, listlessly going through a prescribed 
 form, and his very person embodying worldly pros 
 perity ; and the inelegant but earnest Methodist sway 
 ing the multitude at a camp-meeting in the wilds of 
 America, consider the vast contrast of the pictures : 
 1 the dark robe, lonely existence, and subtle eye of the 
 1 Catholic ; the simple, friendly, conscientious toil of the 
 /poor vicar ; the scholarship and good dinners of the 
 , English bishop ; the cathedral decked with the trophies 
 I of art, and fields lit up by watch-fires ; the silence of 
 \the Quaker assembly, and the loud harangue and fran 
 tic moans of the " revival ; " the solemn refinement of 
 
PREACHERS. 299 
 
 the Episcopal, the intellectual zeal of the Unitarian, and 
 the gorgeous rites of the Roman worship ; antl/an un 
 informed spectator, to whom each was a novelty, would 
 imagine lliaT a totally diverse principle was at work./ 
 To the philosophic eye, the ceremonies, organization, 
 costume, rites, and even creeds of Christian sects, are 
 but the varied manifestations of a common instinct, 
 moi*e.or4es&-aningled with other human qualities, and 
 influenced in its development by time and place. 
 Traced back to its source, and separated from inciden 
 tal association, we find a natural sentiment of religion 
 which is represented in social economy by the preacher. 
 Simple as was the original relation between the two, 
 however, in the process of time it has become so com 
 plicated that it now requires no ordinary analytical 
 power to divest the idea of the priest from history, and 
 that of religion from the Church, so as to perceive both 
 as facts of human nature instead of parts of the ma 
 chinery of civilized life. To do this, indeed, we look 
 inward, and derive from consciousness the great idea 
 of a religious sentiment ; and then ask ourselves how 
 
 O 
 
 far it is justly represented in the institutions of the 
 Church and the persons of her ministers. Let this 
 process be tried by a man of high endowments, genuine 
 aspirations, and noble sympathies, and what is the re 
 sult? "Milton," says Dr. Johnson, in his life of that 
 poet, " grew old without any visible worship." a phrase 
 which, considering the superstition of the writer, and 
 the exalted devotional sentiment of the subject, has, to 
 our minds, a most pathetic significance. It tacitly ad 
 mits that Milton worshipped his Maker ; it brings him 
 before us in a venerable aspect, at the time when he 
 was blind, proscribed, and indigent ; we recall his image 
 
300 PREACHERS. 
 
 at the organ, and seem to catch the symphonies of " Par 
 adise Lost " and the " Hymn on the Nativity ; " and yet 
 we are told by the greatest votary of religious forms 
 and profession among English literary men one who 
 was oppressed by the sense of religious truth, and a slave 
 to Church requirements, that, in his old age, the rever 
 ential bard had no " visible worship." It is an admis 
 sion of great moment ; it is a fact infinitely suggestive 
 Why did not Milton practically recognize any organized 
 church, or publicly enact any prescribed form ? Not 
 altogether because he had tasted of persecution, and 
 been driven, by the force of individual opinion, away 
 from popular rites ; but also, and to a far greater degree, 
 because he had so fully experienced within himself, the 
 force and scope of the religious sentiment, and found 
 in its prevalent representation, not an incitement, but a 
 hindrance to its exercise. 
 
 In the patriarchal age, the head of a family was its 
 priest ; and, in all ages, the true and complete man feels 
 a personal interest and responsibility, a direct and entire 
 relation to his Creator, that will not suffer interference 
 any more than genuine conjugal or parental ties. The 
 so-called progress of society has rendered its functions 
 more complex, and broken up this simple and natural 
 identity between the offices of devotion and those of 
 paternity. It has not only made the priestly office dis 
 tinct and apart from domestic life, but shorn it of glory 
 by the cumbrous details of a hierarchy and badges of 
 exclusiveness ; and lessened its sanctity by changing 
 the grand and holy function of a spiritual medium and 
 expositor into a professional business and special plead 
 ing. "What are conventional preachers but the em 
 ployees of a sect ? And so regarded, how is it possible 
 
PREACHERS. 301 
 
 to rejoice " in the plain presence of their dignity " ? 
 Called upon by a thoroughly earnest soul in its deep 
 perplexity and agonizing bewilderment, what can they 
 do btit repeat the common-places of their office ? How 
 instantly are they reduced to the level of other men, 
 when brought into contact with a human reality ! The 
 voice of true sympathy, though from ignorant lips, the 
 grasp of honest affection, though from unconsecrated 
 hands, yield more of the balm of consolation in such 
 an hour, because they are real, human, and therefore 
 nearer to God, than the technical representative of His 
 truth. The essential mistake is, that instead of regard 
 ing the fnan"as something divine in essence and rela- 
 tion7~a~perverse theology assigns that quality to the 
 office. It is what is grafted upon, not what is essential 
 to, humanity, that is thus made the nucleus of rever 
 ence and hope, whereas priesthood and manhood are 
 identical. The authority of the former is derived from 
 the latter; by virtue of being men we become priests, 
 that is, servants of the Most High ; and not through 
 any miraculous anointing, laying on of hands, courses 
 of divinity, or rites of ordination. " How," says Car- 
 Jyle, " did Christianity arise and spread abroad among 
 men ? Was it by institutions and establishments and 
 well-arranged systems of mechanism ? Not so. On 
 the contrary, in all past and existing institutions for 
 those ends, its divine spirit has invariably been found 
 to languish and decay. It arose in the mystic deeps of 
 man s soul; and spread abroad by the preaching of 
 the word, by simple, altogether natural, and individual 
 efforts ; and flew like hallowed fire from heart to heart, 
 till all were purified and illuminated by it." Accord 
 ingly, if merely professional representatives of the 
 
302 PREACHERS. 
 
 Church, as such, hold a less influential position now 
 than formerly, it is not because the instinct of worship 
 has died out in the human heart, nor because men feel 
 less than before the need of interpreters of the true, 
 the holy, and the beautiful ; it is not that the mysteries 
 of life are less impressive, or its vicissitudes less con 
 stant, or its origin and end less enveloped in sacred ob 
 scurity ; but it is because more legitimate priests have 
 been found out of the Church than in it ; because that 
 institution and its ministers fail to meet adequately the 
 wants of the religious sentiment ; and it has been dis 
 covered that the Invisible Spirit is more easily found 
 by the lonely seashore than in the magnificent cathe- 
 \ dral ; that the mountain-top is an altar nearer to His 
 throne than a chancel ; and that the rustle of forest- 
 leaves and the moaning of the sea less disturb the idea 
 of His presence in the devout heart, than the monoto 
 nous chant of the choir, or the conventional words of 
 the preacher. We have but to glance at the pictures 
 ^ of clerical life, so thickly scattered through the memoirs 
 \ and novels of the day, to realize the necessity of an ec- 
 1 lectic spirit in estimating the clerical character - whose 
 highest manifestations and most patent abuses seem en 
 tirely irrespective of sect A Scotch clergyman, writ 
 ing in 17G3, of the society at Harrowgate, "made up of 
 half-pay officers and clergymen," thus describes the lat 
 ter : " They are in general I mean the lower order 
 divided into bucks and prigs ; of which the first, though 
 inconceivably ignorant, and sometimes indecent in their 
 morals, yet I held them to be most tolerable, because 
 they were unassuming, and had no other affectation but 
 that of behaving themselves like gentlemen. The other 
 division of them, the prigs, are truly not to be endured, 
 
PREACHERS. 303 
 
 for they are but half-learned, are ignorant of the world, 
 narrow-minded, pedantic, and overbearing." * Contrast 
 with this estimate of a class Victor Hugo s portrait of 
 an individual in his " Provincial Bishop " " Monseig- 
 neur Bienvenu," so called, instinctively, by the people : 
 " The formidable spectacle of created things developed 
 a tenderness in him ; he was always busy in finding for 
 himself and inspiring others with the best way of sym 
 pathizing and solacing. The universe appeared to him 
 like disease. He auscultated suffering everywhere. The 
 whole world was to this good and rare priest a perma 
 nent subject of sadness seeking to be consoled." 
 
 The absolute need of separating in our minds the 
 idea of the clerical man as a natural development of 
 humanity a normal phase of character from the 
 historical idea of the same personage, is at once evinced 
 by the immense distance between the lives, influence, 
 and traits of the men who have conspicuously borne 
 the office of public religious teachers and administrators 
 in different sects, ages, and countries ; as for instance, 
 Ximenes, Wolsey, Kichelieu, TVhitfield, Channing, 
 George Herbert, and Dr. Arnold ; in position, habits, 
 and relations to the world, how great the contrast ! 
 And yet each represented to society, in a professional 
 way, the same principle ; the former with all the pomp 
 of hierarchal magnificence, and all the influence of 
 executive power, and the latter by the force of patient 
 usefulness, earnest simplicity, and individual moral 
 energy. Between Puritan and Pope what infinite 
 ^^de^_^ejwee~n Jewish rabbi and ~Scotch""eTder how 
 diverse is the traditional sanction ; and "howlittle would 
 a novice imagine that the bare walls and plain costume 
 * Rev. Archibald Carlyle s Autobiography. 
 
304 PREACHERS. 
 
 of a Friends meeting had the least of a common origin 
 with the gorgeous de corations of a Minster ! Thus do 
 the passions, the tastes, and the very blood of races and 
 individuals modify the expression of the same instinct ; 
 worship is as Protean in its forms as labor, diversion, 
 hygiene, or any other human need and .activity. Phi 
 losophy reconciles us to the apparent incongruity, and 
 reveals beneath surplice, drab-coat, and silken robe, 
 hearts that pulsate to an identical measure. 
 
 The best writers have recognized the clerical tone of 
 manners as significant of the social condition of each 
 period. Burnett thought more highly of his " Pastoral 
 Care " than of his History ; and Baxter s " Reformed 
 Pastor " is an indirect but keen testimony to the deca 
 dence of the clergy. Macaulay cites Fielding s parson. 
 Sir Roger s chaplain in the " Spectator," Cowper s re 
 buke of the " cassocked huntsmen," the Stiggins of 
 Dickens, and Honeyman of Thackeray, are but a pop 
 ular reflex of that deep sense of the abuse of a profes 
 sion which is the highest evidence of its normal estima 
 tion. And the types of the vocation seem permanent. 
 Every era has its Whateley, its Lammenais, and its 
 Spurgeon or men in the church whose gifts, tone, 
 and mission essentially correspond with these. When 
 George Herbert abandoned court for clerical aspira 
 tions, a friend protested against his choice " as too mean 
 an employment " ; and yet so truly did he illustrate the 
 spiritual grandeur of his office that the chime which 
 called to prayer from the humble belfry of Bemerton, 
 was recognized by the country people as the " saint s 
 bell." It was his holiness, and not his attachment to the 
 ritual year, that inspired his example while living, and 
 embalmed his memory ; lowly kindnesses were " music 
 
PREACHERS. 305 
 
 to him at midnight " ; charity was " his only perfume " ; 
 to teach the ignorant in his estimation " the greatest 
 alms " ; and a day well spent, " the bridal of the earth 
 and sky " ; his humanity spiritualized by Christian faith 
 and practice, so essentially constituted him a priest that 
 " about Salisbury," writes his brother, " where he lived 
 beneficed for many years, he was little less than sainted." 
 He drew an ideal from his own soul, and for his own 
 guidance, in the " Country Parson." 
 
 To the reverent mind that dares to exercise freely 
 the prerogative of thought, the constant blending of 
 human infirmity with the method of worship is painfully 
 evident : the instinct itself, the sentiment highest in 
 man is thus " sicklied o er with the pale cast of 
 thought ; " what is beautiful and true in the ceremonial 
 or the emblem, arrays itself to his consciousness so as 
 to intercept the holy beams that he would draw from 
 the altar. Let him obey the waves of accident, and 
 pause at shrines by the wayside ; and according to cir 
 cumstances will be the inspiration they yield. Thus 
 turning from the gay Parisian thoroughfare, at noon 
 day, he may pace the chaste aisles of the Madeleine, 
 and feel his devotion stirred by the solemn quietude, 
 the few kneeling figures perhaps by the dark cata 
 falque awaiting the dead in the centre of the spacious 
 floor ; and then what to him is the doctrine of transub- 
 stantiation ? Religious architecture is speaking to his 
 heart. The voices of the choristers at St. George s 
 Chapel, at Windsor, may touch his pious sensibility, but 
 if his thoughts revert to the ruddy dean, his good din 
 ners, and indulgent life, and the poor, toilsome vicars, 
 which make the Establishment a reflection of the world s 
 diversity of condition the pampered and the drudged ; 
 20 
 
306 PREACHERS. 
 
 or, if he notes the prayer that the Queen may be pre 
 served " in health and wealth" how sanctity ceases to 
 invest the priest and the ritual, thus typical of human 
 vanity and selfishness ! " We know not," wrote Jerrold, 
 "and we say it with grief, but with profound conviction 
 of the necessity of every man giving fullest utterance 
 to his thoughts we know not, in this world of ours, in 
 this social, out-of-door masquerade, a more dreary short 
 coming, a greater disappointment to the business and 
 bosoms of men than the Established Church. Its es 
 sence is self-denial ; its foundations are in humility and 
 poverty ; its practice is self-aggrandizement and money- 
 getting." Nor is the reverse of the picture, the contrast 
 between the high and low clergy, less inauspicious. " A 
 Christian bishop," writes Sydney Smith, "proposes in 
 cold blood, to create a thousand livings of one hundred 
 and thirty pounds each, to call into existence a thou 
 sand of the most unhappy men on the face of the earth 
 the sons of the poor, without hope, without the assist 
 ance of private fortune, chained to the soil, ashamed to 
 live with their inferiors, unfit for the society of the bet 
 ter classes, and dragging about the English curse of 
 poverty, without the smallest hope that they can ever 
 shake it off. Can any man of common sense say that 
 all these outward circumstances of the ministers of re 
 ligion, have no bearing on religion itself?" On the 
 other hand, what divine significance to the pious soul, 
 " as through a zodiac moves the ritual year," in the 
 altar, the font, the choral service, the venerable liturgy, 
 the holy emblems and hallowed forms whereby this 
 Church is consecrated to the hearts of her devout chil 
 dren, and the reverence of sympathetic intelligence. 
 Buckle, drawing broad inference from extensive and 
 
PREACHERS. 307 
 
 acute research, unmodified by sympathetic observation, 
 wrote an historical treatise rich in knowledge and- phi 
 losophy, to prove that Spain and Scotland owe whatever 
 is hopeless and hampered in their intellectual develop 
 ment to the tyranny of priests and preachers. It was 
 a special plea, but it serves to illustrate, with compre 
 hensive emphasis, the antagonism between Ecclesiasti- 
 cism and Christianity ; for viewed individually, as a 
 social phenomenon, and not the mere exponent of an 
 organization, the preacher or teacher of the right, advo 
 cate of the true, representative of faith, becomes a dis 
 tinct and personal character, and is identified with hu 
 manity. It is when the man and the function coalesce, 
 and the former transcends and spiritualizes the latter, 
 that in history and in life, all that is great and gracious 
 in the vocation, is memorably vindicated. Under this 
 genuine aspect, Rousseau found his ideal of happiness 
 in the life of a village cure, Chateaubriand renewed the 
 heartfelt claims of religion in eloquently describing its 
 primitive and legitimate benignities. Medieval eccle- 
 siasticism commenced its purifying though inadequate 
 ordeal through the heroism of Savonarola at Florence 
 and Sarpi at Venice. Current literature, indeed, con 
 tinually and clearly states the problem ; and illustrates 
 the question with a frequency and a talent which indi 
 cates how largely it occupies the popular mind. To dis 
 criminate between the preacher s conventional office and 
 his spiritual endowment, between Christianity as a 
 sentiment and a dogma, between the religious and the 
 temporal authority, between the Church as an institu 
 tion and a faith, is an emphatic mission of artist and 
 author in our age. Witness the salient discussions of 
 the " Roman question," the pleas and protests of Galli- 
 
308 PREACHERS. 
 
 can and Ultramontane, the conservative zeal of the 
 Pusfcyite, and liberal encroachments of the progressive 
 clergy, and the picturesque or psychological fictions 
 which instruct and beguile modern readers.* Both lit 
 erature and life in modern times, while they attest the 
 official decadence of the clergy, as a political and theo 
 logical organization, still more significantly vindicate 
 their normal influence as a social power. " Not as in 
 the old times," says a philosophical historian, in allusion 
 to the clergy of America, " does the layman look upon 
 them as the cormorants and curses of society ; they are 
 his faithful advisers, his honored friends, under whose 
 suggestion and supervision are instituted educational 
 establishments, colleges, hospitals, whatever can be of 
 benefit to men in this life, or secure to them happiness 
 in the life to come." f 
 
 There are types of character that prophesy vocation, 
 and we occasionally see in families a gentle being, so 
 disinterested, thoughtful, and above the world in natural 
 disposition, that he seems born to wear a surplice, as 
 one we can behold officiating at the altar by virtue of a 
 certain innate adaptation ; and so there are men of 
 strong affections, early bereft, and thereby alienated 
 from personal motives, and thus peculiarly able to give 
 an undivided heart to God and humanity ; or, through a 
 singular moral experience, initiated more deeply than 
 their fellows into the arcana of truth, and hence justi 
 fied in becoming her expositors. In cases like these, a 
 more than conventional reason for the faith that is in 
 
 * The " Warden," " Barchester Towers," and " Framley Parsonage," 
 by A. Trollope; " Vincenzo," by Ruffini; " Madamoiselle La Quin- 
 
 tinie," par Geo. Sand; "La Maudit," par L Abbe ; "Adam 
 
 Bede "; " Chronicles of Carlingford," etc. 
 
 t Dr. J. W. Draper. 
 
PREACHERS. 309 
 
 them, causes them to speak and act with an authority 
 which is its own sanction, and hence springs what is 
 vital both in the life and the literature of the visible 
 Church. Sacerdotal biography, the achievements of 
 the true reformer, the literary bequests of the genuine 
 pulpit orator, and the results of efficient parochial gen 
 ius, attest the reality of such characters ; they are of 
 Nature s ordaining, and sectarianism itself is lost sight 
 of in their universal and grateful recognition as wit 
 ness St. Augustine, Fenelon, Luther, Wesley, Fox, and 
 Frederick Robertson. Landmarks in the history of our 
 race, oases ia the desert of theological controversy, flow- 
 ejsjin the garland of humanity, they " vindicate the ways 
 of God to man/ and are the redeeming facts of eccle 
 siastical life. Above the system they illustrate, beyond 
 the limits they designate, and providential exceptions to 
 a general rule, we instinctively accept them as holding 
 a relation to the religious sentiment and the highest in 
 terests of the world that only a profane imagination can 
 associate with the pretensions of the thousands who 
 claim their fraternity. This idea of asserting the hu 
 man as consecrated and not usurped by the priestly, has 
 ever distinguished the veritable ecclesiastical heroes. 
 Lammenais, when a mere youth, was arrested for his 
 eloquent advocacy of freedom and faith ; " we will show 
 them," he said of the civil tribunals, " what kind of a 
 man a priest is." 
 
 Dupuytren, the most celebrated French surgeon of 
 his day, was destitute of faith, and by his powerful mind 
 and brusque hardihood, overcame the individuality of 
 almost every one who approached him. One day a poor 
 cure from some village near Paris called upon the great 
 surgeon. Dupuytren was struck with his manly beauty 
 
310 PREACHERS, 
 
 and noble presence, but examined, with his usual non 
 chalance, the patient s neck, disfigured by a horrible 
 cancer. "Avec cela, il faut mourir" said the surgeon. 
 " So I thought," calmly replied the priest ; " I expected 
 the disease was fatal, and only came to you to please 
 my parishioners." He then unfolded a bit of paper 
 and took from it a five-franc piece, which he handed to 
 Dupuytren, saying : " Pardon, sir, the little fee, for we 
 are poor." The serene dignity and holy self-possession 
 of this man, about to die in the prime of his life, im 
 pressed the stoical surgeon in spite of himself, though 
 his manner betrayed neither surprise nor interest. Be 
 fore the cure had descended half the staircase, he was 
 called back by a servant. " If you choose to try an 
 operation," said Dupuytren, " go to the Hotel Dieu, I 
 will see you to-morrow." " It is my duty to make use 
 of all means of recovery," replied the cure, " I will go." 
 The next day, the surgeon cut away remorselessly at 
 the priest s neck, laying bare tendons and arteries. It 
 was before the days of chloroform, and, un sustained by 
 any opiate, the poor cure suffered with uncomplaining 
 heroism. He did not even wince. Dupuytren respected 
 his courage ; and every day lingered longer at his bed 
 side, when making the rounds of the hospital. In a 
 few weeks the cure recovered. A year after the opera 
 tion, he made his appearance in the salon of the great 
 professor with a neat basket containing pears and chick 
 ens. " Monsieur," he said, " it is the anniversary of the 
 day when your skill saved my life ; accept this humble 
 gift ; the pears and chickens are better than you can 
 find in Paris ; they are of my own raising." Each suc 
 ceeding year, on the same day of the month, the honest 
 priest brought his grateful offering. At length Dupuy- 
 
PREACHERS. 311- 
 
 tren was taken ill, and the physicians declared his heart 
 diseased. He shut himself up with his favorite nephew 
 and refused to see his friends. One day he wrote on a 
 slip of paper, "Le medecin a besoin du cure" and sent 
 it to the village priest, who quickly obeyed the sum 
 mons. He remained for hours in the dying surgeon s 
 chamber ; and when he came forth, tears were in his 
 eyes, and Dupuytren was no more. How easy for the 
 imagination to fill up this outline, which is all that was 
 vouchsafed to Parisian gossip. 
 
 "Whoever has gone from Roman church or palace 
 his soul yet warm with the radiant figures and divine 
 expression of saints and martyrs as depicted by the 
 inspired hands of the Christian artists of the fifteenth 
 century into the gloomy and damp catacombs, where 
 the early disciples met in order to enjoy " freedom to 
 worship God," must have felt at once the solemn reality 
 and the beautiful triumph of faith, in its unperverted 
 glow on the one hand nerving the believer to cheer 
 ful endurance, and on the other kindling genius to no 
 ble toil ; and, before this fresh conviction, how vain 
 appeared to him the mechanical rite and the cold 
 response of conventional worship ! The truth is that 
 the history of religion is like the history of love ; a 
 natural and divine sentiment has been wrested into 
 illegitimate service ; ambitious pretenders, like the wan 
 ton and the coquette, abuse to selfish ends what should 
 either be honorably let alone or sacredly cherished. 
 This process, at once so habitual and so intricate 
 working through formulas, tradition, appeals to fear, the 
 power of custom, the imperative needs and the ignorant 
 credulity of the multitude has gradually built up a 
 partition between heaven and earth, obscured spiritual 
 
312 PREACHERS. 
 
 facts, made vague and mystical the primitive relation of 
 the soul to the fatherhood of God, and thus induced 
 either open scepticism or artificial conformity. In 
 painting, in music, in literature, in the wonders of the 
 universe, in the mysteries of life, and in human con 
 sciousness, the sentiment asserts itself forever ; but to 
 the genuine man of to-day is allotted the ceaseless duty 
 of keeping it apart from the incrustations of form, the 
 perversion of office, and the base uses of ambition and 
 avarice. 
 
 The lionism of the pulpit is another desecration. 
 London and New York must have their fashionable 
 preachers as well as favorite prima donnas, and the 
 phenomena attending each are the same. Intellectual 
 amusement, exclusiveness, the mode, thus become -iden 
 tical with that which is their essential opposite, and the 
 meekness and sublimity of the religious function is 
 utterly lost in a frivolous glare and soulless vanity^ _The 
 pew itself is a satire on existent Christianity ; the very 
 organ-airs played in the fashionable churches, by recall 
 ing the ball-room and the theatre, are ironical ; and to 
 these how often the elegantly-worded common-place of 
 the preacher is a fit accompaniment so well likened, 
 by a thoughtful writer, to shovelling sand with a pitch 
 fork ! Thank heaven, we have perpetually the Vicar 
 of Wakefield and Parson Adams to keep green the 
 memories of that genial simplicity and honest warmth 
 of which modern refinement has deprived the clerical 
 man. They, at least, were not effigies. Heroism as 
 embodied in Knox, scholarship in Barrow, zeal in Dod- 
 dridge, holy idealism in Taylor, sacred eloquence in 
 Hall and Chalmers, earnest aspiration in Channing and 
 Kobertson, these and like instances of a fine manly 
 
PREACHERS. 313 
 
 endowment, give vitality to the preacher and signifi 
 cance to his ministrations. 
 
 In a recent farce that had a run at Paris, and carica 
 tures English life, the curtain rises on a deserted street, 
 hushed and gloomy, through which two figures at last 
 slowly walk on tiptoe : as they approach, and one 
 begins to address the other, the latter, raising his fin 
 ger to his lips, whispers " C est Soonday," and both dis 
 appear : the comedy ends, however, with a prodigious 
 dinner of beef and beer. Absurd as such pictures of 
 a London Sabbath are, they yet indicate a suggestive 
 truth, which is, that the extreme outward observance in 
 Protestant countries, of one day in seven, by repudia 
 ting all pastime, is the best proof of a conscious defect 
 in the social representation of the religious instinct, 
 exactly as the festivity of continental people, on the 
 same day, illustrates the opposite extreme of indiffer 
 ence to appearances. It is probable that neither affords 
 a just index of the state of feeling ; for domestic enjoy 
 ments in the one case, and attendance at mass, by sin 
 cere devotees, in the other, are facts that modify the 
 apparent truth. It is highly probable, also, that in this 
 age of free inquiry and general intelligence, what has 
 been lost in public observance has been gained in indi 
 vidual sincerity. There is not the same dependence 
 on the preacher. Devotional sentiment is fed from 
 other sources. It has come to be felt and understood 
 as never before, that man is personally responsible, and 
 must seek light for himself, and repose on his own faith. 
 Accordingly, he is comparatively unallied to institu 
 tions, and will no longer trust for spiritual insight to a 
 mortal as frail and ignorant as himself. The redeeming 
 fact is to be sought in the existence of the sentiment 
 
314 PREACHERS. 
 
 itself. The sensuality of a Borgia makes more impres 
 sive the sanctity of Fenelon ; because of the artificial 
 funeral eulogies of Bossuet, we are more sensible to the 
 practical efficiency of Father Matthew ; Calvin s intol 
 erance heightens the glory of Luther s vindication of 
 spiritual freedom ; the fanaticism of the Methodist, the 
 subtlety of the Jesuit, the cold rationalism of the Unita 
 rian, the dark bigotry of the Presbyterian, the monot 
 onous tone of the Quaker, the refined conservatism of 
 the Episcopalian, and other characteristics of sects, 
 philosophically considered, are but the excess of a ten 
 dency which also manifests its benign and desirable 
 influence as an element of Christian society. What 
 liberal mind can reflect upon the agency of the English 
 Church, pregnant of abuses as it is, without feeling that 
 she has greatly contributed to preserve a wholesome 
 equilibrium amid conflicting agencies, to keep intact the 
 dignity and hallowed associations of worship, to calm 
 the feverish impulses and prolong a law of order amid 
 chaotic tendencies ? What just observer will hesitate 
 to award to Dissenters the honor of imparting a vital 
 spirit to the listless body of the Church, renewing the 
 sentiment of religion which had become dormant through 
 conventionalism and oppressive institutions, and making 
 its divine reality once more a conscious motive and 
 solace to the world ? How much have the eminent 
 preachers of liberal Christianity, in New England, done 
 toward enlarging the charity of sects, elevating the 
 standard of pulpit eloquence, and giving to the priestly 
 office moral dignity and intellectual force ! Who that 
 has witnessed the life-devotion of the Sisters of Charity, 
 in a season of pestilence, seen the tears on the bronze 
 cheeks of hardy mariners at the Bethel, or heard the 
 
PREACHERS. 315 
 
 bold protest of the educated divine, above the voice of 
 public opinion, at a social crisis, pleading for principle 
 against expediency, and has not, for the moment at 
 least, forgotten dogmas in grateful appreciation of the 
 general benefits resulting from the direct inspiration of 
 that sentiment, which the preacher, of whatever creed, 
 is ordained to illustrate ? Truly has it been said, that 
 " it is the spirit of the soul s natural piety to alight on 
 whatever is beautiful and touching in every faith, and 
 take thence its secret draught of spiritual refreshment." 
 [ Even popular literature enforces the argument. The 
 Vlives of Fox, Wesley, Fenelon, Arnold, Chalmers, and 
 Charming, illustrate the same truth, that the man can 
 sanction the priest, the soul vindicate the office, and the 
 reality of a sentiment reconcile or sublimate discordant 
 creeds. 
 
 That good maxim of the brave English lexicographer, 
 " Clear your mind of cant ; " and the noble appeal of 
 Campbell s chivalric muse, who asks 
 
 " has Earth a clod 
 
 "Where man, the image of his God, 
 Unscourged by Superstition s rod, 
 Should bend the knee ? 
 
 have an eternal significance. We are called upon to 
 resist formalism by as potential reasons as those which 
 impel to sincere devotion. It is evidenced in the best 
 writings of the day, that the highest in man s nature 
 may be linked with the most ferocious and abject. Bal- 
 four of Burley is but the fanciful embodiment of an 
 actual union between religious zeal and a thirst for 
 blood. Blanco White s memoirs indicate the possible 
 variations of speculative belief in an honest and ardent 
 
316 PREACHERS. 
 
 mind; and true observation induced John Foster to 
 write his able treatise on " The Objections of Men of 
 Taste to Evangelical Religion." " There is no deny 
 ing," says a popular reviewer, " that there is a certain 
 stiff, tough, clayish, agricultural, English nature, on 
 which the aggressive divine produces a visible and good 
 effect." Father Marquette s adventurous martyrdom, 
 Pascal s metaphysical acuteness, the rude courage of 
 John Knox, the witch-chronicle of Mather, the magnetic 
 power of Edward Irving, the wit that scintillated from 
 Sydney Smith, the poetry of Heber, the ideal beauty of 
 Buckminster s style, and the virtuous charm of Berke 
 ley, prove how the expositors of religion blend with 
 professional life the essential characteristics of man, and 
 how impossible it is to divide the office we are consid 
 ering, from those qualities and conditions which belong 
 essentially to the race. In the face of such diversity, 
 before such acknowledged facts, how irrational is it to 
 exempt the preacher from any law either of life or 
 character; how unphilosophical and untrue to regard 
 him in any other light than that of experience ; and 
 how unjust to imagine there is any occult virtue in cere 
 monial systems of faith, or the accident of vocation, 
 whereby he derives any special authority unsustained 
 by personal gifts and rectitude. 
 
 The problem we have suggested, of, an- -antagonism 
 between the theological profession, the .office of priest, 
 artificially held, and the manly instincts, has recently 
 been illustrated by the criticisms on Carlyle s " Life of 
 Sterling." In that work, it is lamented that the mental 
 freedom and just development of a gifted, ingenuous 
 and aspiring soul were restrained and baffled by the 
 vocation of priest ; and to this view Churchmen indig- 
 
PREACHERS. 317 
 
 nantly protest, and accuse the biographer of infidelity. 
 It is evident, however, that it was not religion but its 
 formula, not truth but an institution, which he thought 
 hampered and narrowed the legitimate spirit of his 
 friend. There is that which commands profound re 
 spect in Carlyle s recoil from the conventional ; there is 
 justice in his indignation at the attempt to link a true, 
 loving, brave, and progressive mind to any wheel of 
 social machinery. To keep apart from an organized 
 mode of action is the instinct of the best natures, not 
 from pride, but self-respect. Of modern writers few 
 have a better right to claim for literature an agency 
 more effective. The press has, indeed, in a measure, 
 superseded the pulpit. Xo intelligent observer of the 
 signs of the times can fail to perceive that as a means j 
 of influence, the two are at least equal. In the pages 
 of journals, in the verses of poets, in the favorite books 
 of the h our, ^wef "Have "Tibmilies~that teach charity and 
 faith more eloquently than the conventional Sunday s I 
 discourse ; they come nearer to experience ; they are ] 
 more the offspring of earnest conviction, and therefore 
 enlist popular sympathy. When we turn from such 
 gejuiine^ pleadings and pictures to those offered by the 
 unspiritual preacher, how unreal do the last appear ! 
 It was once remarked by an auditor of a genial man, 
 who gave a prescriptive emphasis to his sermons, quite 
 foreign to his frank nature, that he seemed to feel that 
 what he uttered was " important if true " ; and such is 
 the impression not a few preachers leave on the lis 
 tener s mind. If we carefully note those within the 
 sphere of our acquaintance, we find that many are either 
 visibly oppressed or rendered artificial by their profes 
 sion. It seldom harmoniously blends with their nature. 
 
318 PREACHERS. 
 
 They seem painfully conscious of a false relation to 
 society, or manfully, and, it may be recklessly, put aside 
 the character, as if it were indeed a masquerade. Either 
 course is a proof of incongruity ; and in those cases 
 where our confidence and affection are spontaneously 
 yielded, is it not the qualities of the man that win and 
 hold them ? his spiritual aptitude to, and not the fact 
 of his vocation ? 
 
 In no profession do we find so many instances of a 
 mistaken choice, and this even when its duties are re 
 spectably fulfilled. The candid preacher, when arrived 
 at maturity, will not seldom confess with pain, that the 
 logical skill of the advocate, the love of representing 
 nature of the artist, the scientific skill of the physician, 
 or the practical industry of the man of affairs, consti 
 tuted the natural basis of his usefulness ; and proved 
 inadequate endowments in his actual vocation. Per 
 haps the great error is in prematurely deciding on a 
 step so responsible. To bind a youth s interests, repu- 
 tation, and opinions to the priesthood, as is often done 
 by the undue exercise of authority and influence, at an 
 impressible age, by Protestant not less than Catholic 
 families, is a positive wrong ; and the moral courage 
 which repudiates wha4; was unjustly assumed, is more 
 deserving of honor than blame. Inefficiency, in such 
 cases, is proverbial : " He talks like a parson," said 
 Lord Carteret, of Sherlock, " and consequently is used 
 to talk to people that do not mind him." A clergyman 
 in conversing with a gifted layman used the phrase 
 " born preacher." " I do not believe there is such a 
 thing," replied the former, "for it implies a born hearer, 
 which is a being whose existence is incompatible with 
 my idea of the goodness of the Creator." Occasion- 
 
PREACHERS. 319 
 
 ally we see delightful exceptions to such an erroneous 
 choice ; men of firm yet gentle souls, deep convictions, 
 and sustained elevation, whose talents not less than the 
 spirit they are of, whose natural demeanor, habitual tem 
 per, and constitutional sympathies, designate them for 
 the sacred office. "We listen to their ministrations with 
 out misgiving, accept their counsel, rise on the wings of 
 their prayer, respond to their appeals, and rejoice in 
 their holiness as a true and a blest incentive and con 
 solation. We ordain them with our hearts, for the idea 
 of the preacher is lost in that of the brother. 
 
 In these instances, the normal conditions of the office 
 are realized, the boundaries of sect forgotten, and the 
 legitimate idea of a minister to the religious sympathies 
 practically made apparent. Such a preacher was Fen- 
 elon, in whose life, aspect, and writings the love of God 
 and man were exhibited with such pure consistency that 
 his name is a spell which invokes all that is sacred in 
 the associations of humanity. The blandishments of a 
 court, the rudeness of soldiers, the ignorance of pea 
 sants, were alike chastened by his presence. Neither 
 persecution, high culture, nor the gifts of fortune, for a 
 moment, disturbed his holy self-possession. He dis 
 armed prejudice, envy, intrigue, and violence, by the 
 tranquil influence of the spirit he was of. Ecclesiasti 
 cal power, ceremony, tradition, and literary fame were 
 but the incidental accessories of his career. The prin 
 ciples of Christianity and the temper of its genuine dis 
 ciple so predominated in his actions, speech, manners, 
 writings, and in his very tones and expression of coun 
 tenance, that every heart, by the instinct of its best 
 affections, recognized his spiritual authority. The man 
 thoroughly vindicated the office ; therefore the courtier 
 
320 PREACHERS. 
 
 at Versailles and the rustic of Cambray held him in 
 equal reverence. 
 
 In Madame Guyon, Anne Hutcheson, and Hannah 
 More, we see the religious sentiment and the instinct of 
 proselytism in connection with the idiosyncrasies of 
 female character, rendered more affecting by its tender 
 ness, or losing in efficient dignity by the weakness of 
 the sex. A beautiful example of the natural preacher, 
 unmodified by the paraphernalia of the office, is given 
 in Wirt s description of the Blind Preacher, while its 
 original identity with scholarship and philosophy is sin 
 gularly illustrated in the career of Abelard ; and Mo- 
 liere s "Tartuffe " is but the dramatic embodiment of its 
 extreme actual perversion at those periods when the 
 form, by a gradual process of social corruption, has 
 completely superseded the reality, and cant and hypoc 
 risy are allowed to pass for truth and emotion. All 
 that is peculiar in the modus operandi of sects testifies 
 to the constant adaptation of the office to occasion : 
 thus__the_ itinerant . episcepacy ....ojf_the_MeJ c hojdists, the 
 attractive temples of the Catholics, the time Jiall owed 
 liturgy of the Church of England, the immersing fonts 
 of the Baptists, the plain language and prescriptive 
 uniformity of the Quakers, and the literary culture of 
 the Unitarians, appeal to certain tastes, feelings, or 
 associations, which, although independent of the relig 
 ious sentiment, greatly tend to the impressiveness of 
 its outward manifestation upon different classes of per 
 sons. A spiritual tendency is characteristic of Sweden- 
 borgians) an absence of the sense of beauty is observ 
 able in the Friends; the superstitious element is the 
 usual trait of Romanists ; conservatism prevails among 
 Episcopalians ; and a progressive spirit and broad sym- 
 
PREACHERS. 321 
 
 pathies usually distinguish liberal Christians. To a 
 bigot this diversity is offensive; to a philosopher it is the 
 result of an inevitable and beneficent law. An Ameri 
 can poet has aptly described the scene which a Protes 
 tant city presents on a Sabbath morning, when its streets 
 are filled with the diverging streams of a population, 
 each moving toward its respective place of worship, in 
 obedience to this law of individual faith. ) 
 
 The word " skeleton " as applied to the outline of 
 sermons is very significant, for this is the only feature 
 they have in common when vital; and yet how different 
 the manner in which they are clothed with life ! Some 
 times it is logic, sometimes enthusiasm ; now the elo 
 quence of the heart, and now the ingenuity of the 
 head that creates the animating principle ; in one in 
 stance the beauty of style, and in another the force of 
 conviction or the glow of sympathy; and there are cases 
 where only grace of manner, melody of voice, and the 
 magnetism of the preacher s temperament and delivery 
 impart to his words their effect ; for every grade of 
 rhetorical power, from the refinements of artificial study 
 to the gush of irresistible feeling, has scope in the pul 
 pit ; there is no sacred charm in that rostrum except 
 what its occupant brings ; its possible scale includes 
 (elocutionary tricks and the most disinterested and un 
 conscious utterance ; mediocrity lisps there its common- 
 place truisms, and devotional genius breathes its holy 
 oracles ; it is the medium of complacent formulas as 
 well as of inspired truth. 
 
 The ancient philosophers and the modern essayists 
 often apply wisdom to life in the manner of the best 
 sermonizers ; and as Christianity has infused its spirit 
 21 
 

 PREACHERS. 
 
 into literature, this has become more apparent. Seneca 
 and Epictetus as moralists, and Plato in psychological 
 speculation, anticipated many of the sentiments that now 
 have a religious authority. Rousseau, in as far as he 
 was true to humanity, Montaigne to the extent he justly 
 interprets the world, Bacon in the degree he indicates 
 the approaches to universal truth, Saint Pierre when 
 awaking the sentiment of beauty as revealed in Nature, 
 Shakspeare by the memorable development of the laws 
 of character, Dante as the picturesque limner of the 
 material faith of the Middle Ages, Richter in his beauti 
 ful exposition of human sentiment, all exhibit a phase 
 or element of the preacher, and in the writings of 
 Milton and Chateaubriand it breaks forth with a still 
 more direct emphasis. Carlyle aud Coleridge, Isaac 
 Taylor, Wordsworth, Lamb, and many other effective 
 modern writers, are among the most influential of lay 
 preachers. And.this unprofessional teaching, this priest- 
 |hood of nature, \as multiplied with the progress of 
 ] society, so that every community has its father confess 
 ors, its sisters of charity, its gifted interpreters and 
 eloquent advocates ; while literature, even in forms the 
 most profane, continually emulates the sacred function, 
 yielding great lessons, exciting holy sentiment, and 
 demonstrating pure faith. Indeed, it is characteristic 
 of the age, that the technical is becoming merged in 
 the aesthetic ; as culture extends, the distinctive in pur 
 suit and office loses its prominence. Lamb jocosely 
 told Coleridge he never heard him do anything but 
 preach ; and there is scarcely a favorite among the 
 authors of the day that, in some way, does not hallow 
 his genius by consecrating it to an interpretation or, sen 
 timent which, in its last analysis, is religious. 
 
PREACHERS. 323 
 
 In these considerations may be found a partial ex 
 planation of that diminution of individual agency in the 
 priesthood to which we have referred. The modern 
 religious teachers also, as we have seen, have not the 
 same extent of ignorance to vanquish as the old divines. 
 The line of demarcation between ecclesiastical polity 
 and Christian truth is more evident to the multitude ; 
 and it is now felt as never before, that " a heart of deep 
 sympathies solves all theological questions in the flame 
 of its love and justice." Hence the comparative indiffer 
 ence to controversy ; and the recognition of the primal 
 fact so truly stated by the same reflective writer 
 that u spiritual insight, moral elevation, rich sympathies, 
 are the tokens whereby the divinely ordained are sig 
 nalized." * 
 
 The practical inference is, that never before was the 
 obligation of personal responsibility in spiritual inter 
 ests, on the part of the laity, so apparent, nor that of a 
 thorough integrity in the preacher. To be " clear in 
 his great office " to rely on absolute gifts and essen 
 tials of character to cleave to simplicity and truth, 
 and keep within the line of honest conviction, is now 
 his only guarantee, not only of self-respect, but of use 
 fulness and honor. Organization, form, tact, theological 
 acquirement, the prestige of traditional importance, are 
 of little efficacy. The scientific era the reaction to 
 first causes the universal and intense demand for the 
 real the exposure of delusions the test of wide 
 intelligence and fearless inquiry the jealousy of men 
 tal freedom the multiplied sources of devotional sen 
 timent the earnestness of the age all invoke him 
 to repudiate the machinery, the historical badge, the 
 * Calvert s Scenes and Thoughts in Europe. 
 
324 
 
 PREACHERS. 
 
 conventional resources of his title nay, to lose, if 
 possible, his title itself and incarnate only the ever 
 lasting principles, laws, and sentiments, by virtue of 
 which alone he may hope for inspiration or claim au 
 thority. 
 
STATUES. 
 
 " And if it be Prometheus stole from Heaven 
 The fire which we endure, it was repaid 
 By him to whom the energy was given, 
 Which this poetic marble hath arrayed, 
 With an eternal glory." 
 
 BYRON. 
 
 I HERE is as absolute an instinct in the human 
 mind for the definite, the palpable, and the 
 emphatic, as there is for the mysterious, the 
 versatile, and the elusive. With some, method is a 
 law, and taste severe in affairs, costume, exercise, social 
 intercourse, and faith. The simplicity, directness, uni 
 formity, and pure emphasis or grace of Sculpture have 
 analogies in literature and character ; the terse despatch 
 of a brave soldier, the concentrated dialogue of Alfieri, 
 some proverbs, aphorisms, and poetic lines, that have 
 become household words, puritanic consistency, silent 
 fortitude, are but so many vigorous outlines, and impress 
 us by virtue of the same colorless intensity as a master 
 piece of the statuary. How sculpturesque is Dante, 
 even in metaphor, as when he writes, 
 
 " Ella non ci diceva alcuna cosa ; 
 Ma lasciavane gir, solo guardando, 
 A guisa di Icon quando si posa." 
 
 Nature, too, hints the art, when her landscape tints 
 are covered with snow, and the forms of tree, rock, and 
 mountain are clearly defined by the universal whiteness. 
 
326 STATUES. 
 
 Death, in its pale, still, fixed image, always solemn, 
 sometimes beautiful, would have inspired primeval 
 humanity to mould and chisel the lineaments of clay. 
 Even New Zealanders elaborately carve their war- 
 clubs; and from the "graven images" prohibited by 
 the Decalogue as objects of worship, through the mys 
 terious granite effigies of ancient Egypt, the brutal 
 anomalies in Chinese porcelain, the gay and gilded fig 
 ures on a ship s prow, whether emblems of rude inge 
 nuity, tasteless caprice, retrospective sentiment, or em 
 bodiments of the highest physical and mental culture, 
 as in the Greek statues, there is no art whose origin 
 is more instructive and progress more historically sig 
 nificant. The vases of Etruria are the best evidence 
 of her degree of civilization ; the designs of Flaxman 
 on Wedgwood ware redeem the economical art of Eng 
 land ; the Bears at Berne and the Wolf in the Roman 
 Capitol, are the most venerable local insignia ; the carv 
 ings of Gibbons, in old English manor-houses, outrival 
 all the luxurious charms of modern upholstery ; Phidias 
 is a more familiar element in Grecian history than Per 
 icles ; the moral energy of the old Italian republics is 
 more impressively shadowed forth and conserved in the 
 bold and vigorous creations of Michael Angelo than in 
 the political annals of Macchiavelli ; and it is the mas 
 sive, uncouth sculptures, half buried in sylvan vegeta 
 tion, which mythically transmit the ancient people of 
 Central America. 
 
 We confess a faith in, and a love for, the " testimony 
 of the rocks," not only as interpreted by the saga 
 cious Scotchman, as he excavated the " old red sand 
 stone," but as shaped into forms of truth, beauty, and 
 power by the hand of man through all generations. We 
 
STATUES. 327 
 
 love to catch a glimpse of these silent memorials of our 
 race, whether as Nymphs half-shaded at noon-day with 
 summer foliage in a garden, or as Heroes gleaming with 
 startling distinctness in the moonlit city-square ; as the 
 similitudes of illustrious men gathered in the halls of 
 nations and crowned with a benignant fame, or as prone 
 effigies on sepulchres, forever proclaiming the calm 
 without the respiration of slumber, so as to tempt us 
 to exclaim, with the enamored gazer on the Egyptian 
 queen, when the asp had done its work, 
 
 " She looks like sleep, 
 As she would catch another Antony 
 In her strong toil of grace ." 
 
 Although Dr. Johnson undervalued sculpture, partly 
 because of an inadequate sense of the beautiful, and 
 partly from ignorance of its greatest trophies, he ex 
 pressed unqualified assent to its awe-inspiring influence 
 in " the monumental caves of death," as described by 
 Congreve. Sir Joshua truly declares that " all arts ad 
 dress themselves to the sensibility and imagination " ; 
 and no one thus alive to the appeal of sculpture, will 
 marvel that the infuriated mob spared the statues of the 
 Tuileries at the bloody climax of the French Revolu 
 tion ; that a " love of the antique " knit in bonds of life 
 long friendship YTinckelmann and Cardinal Albani; 
 that among the most salient of childhood s memories 
 should be Memnon s image and the Colossus of Rhodes ; 
 that an imaginative girl of exalted temperament died 
 of love for the Apollo Belvidere, and that Carrara 
 should win many a pilgrimage because its quarries have 
 peopled earth with grace. 
 
 To a sympathetic eye there are few more pleasing 
 tableaux than a gifted sculptor engaged in his work. 
 
328 STATUES. 
 
 How absorbed he is ! standing erect by the mass of 
 clay, with graduated touch, moulding into delicate 
 undulations or expressive lines the inert mass, now 
 stepping back to see the effect, now bending forward, 
 almost lovingly, to add a master indentation or detach a 
 thin layer ; and so, hour after hour, working on, every 
 muscle in action, each perception active, oblivious of 
 time, happy in the gradual approximation, under patient 
 and thoughtful manipulation, of what was a dense heap 
 of earth, to a form of vital expression or beauty. 
 
 Much has been said and written of the limits of 
 sculpture ; but It is the sphere, rather than the art itself, 
 which is thus bounded ; and one of its most glorious 
 distinctions, like that of the human form and face, 
 which are its highest subject, is the vast possible variety 
 within what seems, at first thought, to be so narrow a 
 field. That the same number and kind of limbs and 
 features should, under the plastic touch of genius, have 
 given birth to so many and totally diverse forms, mem 
 orable for ages, and endeared to humanity, is in itself 
 an infinite marvel, which vindicates, as a beautiful won 
 der, the statuary s art from the more Protean rivalry of 
 pictorial skill. If we call to mind even a few of the 
 sculptured creations which are " a joy forever," even to 
 retrospection, haunting by their pure individuality the 
 temple of memory, permanently enshrined in heartfelt 
 admiration as illustrations of what is noble in man and 
 woman, significant in history, powerful in expression, or 
 irresistible in grace, we feel what a world of varied 
 interest is hinted by the very name of Sculpture. 
 Through it the most just and clear idea of Grecian cul 
 ture is revealed. The solemn mystery of Egyptian, 
 and the grand scale of Assyrian, civilization are best 
 
STATUES. 329 
 
 attested by the same trophies. How a Sphinx typifies 
 the land of the Pyramids and all its associations, mytho 
 logical, scientific, natural, and sacred, its reverence 
 for the dead, and its dim and portentous traditions ! 
 and what a reflex of Nineveh s palmy days are the 
 winged lions exhumed by Layard ! What more authen 
 tic tokens of mediaeval piety and patience exist than 
 the elaborate and grotesque carvings of Albert Diirer s 
 day ? The colossal Brahma in the temple of Ele- 
 phanta, near Bombay, is the visible acme of Asiatic 
 superstition. And can an illustration of the revival of 
 art, in the fifteenth century, so exuberant, aspiring, and 
 sublime, be imagined, to surpass the Day and Night, the 
 Moses, and other statues of Angelo ? But such gen 
 eral inferences are less impressive than the personal 
 experience of every European traveller with the least 
 passion for the beautiful or reverence for genius. Is 
 there any sphere of observation and enjoyment to such 
 a one, more prolific of individual suggestions than this 
 so-called limited art ? From the soulful glow of expres 
 sion in the inspired countenance of the Apollo, to the 
 womanly contours, so exquisite, in the armless figure of 
 the Venus de Milo, from the aerial posture of John of 
 Bologna s Mercury, to the inimitable and firm dignity 
 in the attitude of Aristides in the Museum of Naples, 
 from the delicate lines which teach how grace can 
 chasten nudity in the Goddess of the Tribune at Flor 
 ence, to the embodied melancholy of Hamlet in the 
 brooding Lorenzo of the Medici Chapel, from the 
 stone despair, the frozen tears, as it were, of all bereaved 
 maternity, in the very bend of Niobe s body and yearn 
 ing gesture, to the abandon gleaming from every muscle 
 of the Dancing Faun, from the stern brow of the 
 
330 STATUES. 
 
 Knife-grinder, and the bleeding frame of the Gladiator, 
 whereon are written forever the inhumanities of ancient 
 civilization, to the triumphant beauty, and firm, light, 
 enjoyable aspect of Dannecker s Ariadne, from the 
 unutterable joy of Cupid and Psyche s embrace, to the 
 grand authority of Moses, how many separate phases 
 of human emotion " live in stone " ! What greater con 
 trast to eye or imagination, in our knowledge of facts, 
 and in our consciousness of sentiment, can be exempli 
 fied, than those so distinctly, memorably, and gracefully 
 moulded in the apostolic figures of Thorwaldsen, the 
 Hero and Leander of Steinhaiiser, the lovely funereal 
 monument, inspired by gratitude, which Ranch reared 
 to Louise of Prussia, Chantrey s Sleeping Children, 
 Canova s Lions in St. Peter s, the bas-reliefs of Ghi- 
 berti on the Baptistery doors at Florence, and Gibson s 
 Horses of the Sun ? 
 
 The last time Heine went out of doors, before suc 
 cumbing to his fearful malady, he says : " With difficulty 
 I dragged myself to the Louvre, and almost sank down 
 as I entered that magnificent hall where the ever-blessed 
 goddess of beauty, our beloved Lady of Milo, stands on 
 her pedestal. At her feet I lay long and wept so bit 
 terly that a stone must have pitied me. The goddess 
 looked compassionately on me, but at the same time 
 disconsolately, as if she would say : Dost thou not see 
 that I have no arms, and thus cannot help thee ? " 
 
 Have you ever strolled from the inn at Lucerne, on a 
 pleasant afternoon, along the Zurich road, to the old 
 General s garden, where stands the colossal lion de 
 signed by Thorwaldsen, to keep fresh the brave renown 
 of the Swiss guard who perished in defence of the 
 royal family of France during the massacre of the Rev- 
 
STATUES. 331 
 
 olution ? Carved from the massive sandstone, the ma 
 jestic animal, with the fatal spear in his side, yet loyal 
 in his vigil over the royal shield, is a grand image of 
 fidelity unto death. The stillness, the isolation, the 
 vivid creepers festooning the rocks, the clear mirror of 
 the basin, into which trickle pellucid streams, reflecting 
 the vast proportions of the enormous lion, the veteran 
 Swiss, who acts as cicerone, the adjacent chapel with its 
 altar-cloth wrought by one of the fair descendants of 
 the Bourbon king and queen for whom these, victims 
 perished, the hour, the memories, the admixture of Na 
 ture and Art, convey a unique impression, in absolute 
 contrast with such white effigies, for instance, as in the 
 dusky precincts of Santa Croce droop over the sepul 
 chre of Alfieri, or with the famous bronze boar in the 
 Mercato Nuovo of Florence, or the ethereal loveliness 
 of that sweet scion of the English nobilityjfliioulded by 
 Chantrey in all the soft/ and lithe grace of childhood, 
 holding a contented dove to her bosom. 
 
 Even as the subject of taste, independently of histor 
 ical diversities, sculpture presents every degree of the 
 meretricious, the grotesque, and the beautiful, more 
 emphatically, because more palpably, than is observable 
 in painting. The inimitable Grecian standard is an im 
 mortal precedent; the mediaeval carvings embody the 
 rude Teutonic truthfulness ; where Canova provoked 
 comparison with the antique, as in the Perseus and Ve 
 nus, his more gross ideaf is painfully evident. How 
 artificial seems Bernini in contrast with Angelo ! How 
 minutely expressive are the terra-cotta images of Spain ! 
 What a climax of absurdity teases the eye in the mon 
 strosities in stone which draw travellers in Sicily to the 
 eccentric nobleman s villa, near Palermo ! Who does 
 
332 STATUES. 
 
 not shrink from the French allegory, and horrible melo 
 drama, of Roubillac s monument to Miss Nightingale, 
 in Westminster Abbey ? How like Horace Walpole to 
 dote on Ann Conway s canine groups ! We actually 
 feel sleepy, as we examine the little black marble Som- 
 nus of the Florence Gallery, and electrified with the 
 first sight of the Apollo, and won to sweet emotion in 
 the presence of Nymphs, Graces, and the Goddess of 
 Beauty, when, shaped by the hand of genius, they seem 
 the ethereal types of that 
 
 " common clay ta en from the common earth, 
 
 Moulded by God and tempered by the tears 
 Of angels to the perfect form of woman." 
 
 Calm and fixed as is the natural language of Sculpt 
 ure, it is the artistic illustration of life s normal activity 
 and character in the economy not less than in the ideal 
 and heroic^xhase. " Our statues," says one of the 
 quaint personages of Richter s " Titan," " are no idle, 
 dawdling citizens, but all drive a trade. Such as are 
 caryates hold up houses ; and heathen water-gods labor 
 at the public fountains, and pour out water into the 
 pitchers of the maidens. Such as are angels bear up 
 baptismal vessels." 
 
 Yet the distinctive element in the pleasure afforded 
 by sculpture is tranquillity, a quiet, contemplative 
 delight ; somewhat of awe chastens admiration ; a feel 
 ing of peace hallows sympathy ; and we echo the poet s 
 sentiment, 
 
 " I feel a mighty calmness creep 
 Over my heart, which can no longer borrow 
 Its hues from chance or change, those children of to-morrow." 
 
 It is this fixedness and placidity, conveying the impres 
 sion of fate, death, repose, or immortality, which render 
 
.STATUES. 333 
 
 sculpture so congenial as commemorative of the de 
 parted. Even quaint wooden effigies, like those in St. 
 Mary s Church at Chester, with the obsolete peaked 
 beards, ruffs, and broadswords, accord with the venera 
 ble associations of a mediaeval tomb ; while marble fig 
 ures, typifying Grief, Poetry, Fame, or Hope, brooding 
 over the lineaments of the illustrious dead, seem, of all 
 sepulchral decorations, the most apt and impressive. 
 We remember, after exploring the plain of Ravenna on 
 an autumn day, and rehearsing the famous battle in 
 which the brave young Gaston de Foix fell, how the 
 associations of the scene and story were defined and 
 deepened as we gazed on the sculptured form of a re 
 cumbent knight in armor, preserved in the academy of 
 the old city ; it seemed to bring back and stamp with 
 brave renown forever the gallant soldier who so long 
 ago perished there in battle. In Cathedral and Parthe 
 non, under the dome of the Invalides, in the sequestered 
 parish church, or the rural cemetery, what image so ac 
 cords with the sad reality and the serene hope of hu 
 manity, as the adequate marble personification on sar 
 cophagus and beneath shrine, in mausoleum or on turf- 
 mound ? 
 
 " His palms enfolded on his breast, 
 
 There is no other thought express d 
 
 But long disquiet merged in rest." 
 
 In truth, it is for want of comprehensive perception 
 that we take so readily for granted the limited scope of 
 this glorious art. There is in the Grecian mythology 
 alone a remarkable variety of character and expression, 
 as perpetuated by the statuary ; and when to her deities, 
 we add the athletes, charioteers, and marble portraits, a 
 realm of diverse creations is opened. Indeed, to the 
 
334 STATUES. 
 
 average modern mind, it is the statues of Grecian di 
 vinities that constitute the poetic charm of her history; 
 abstractly, we regard them with the poet : 
 
 Their gods V what were their gods ? 
 There s Mars, all bloody-haired; and Hercules, 
 Whose soul was in his sinews; Pluto, blacker 
 Than his own hell ; Vulcan, who shook his horns 
 At every limp he took; great Bacchus rode 
 Upon a barrel ; and in a cockle-shell 
 Neptune kept state ; then Mercury was a thief; 
 Juno a shrew; Pallas a prude, at best; 
 And Venus walked the clouds in search of lovers; 
 Only great Jove, the lord and thunderer, 
 Sat in the circle of his starry power 
 And frowned I will ! to all." 
 
 Not in their marble beauty do they thus ignobly impress 
 us, but calm, fair, strong, and immortal. " They 
 seem," wrote Hazlitt, " to have no sympathy with us, 
 and not to want our admiration. In their faultless ex 
 cellence, they appear sufficient to themselves." 
 
 In the sculptor s art, more than on the historian s 
 page, lives the most glorious memory of the classic past. 
 A visit to the Vatican by torchlight endears even these 
 poor traditional deities forever. 
 
 On lofty ceilings vivid frescoes glow, 
 
 Auroras beam, 
 The steeds of Neptune through the waters go, 
 
 Or Sibyls dream. 
 
 As in the flickering torchlight shadows weaved 
 
 Illusions wild, 
 Methought Apollo s bosom slightly heaved 
 
 And Juno smiled. 
 
 Aerial Mercuries in bronze upspring, 
 
 Dianas fly, 
 And marble Cupids to the Psyches cling 
 
 Without a sigh. 
 
STATUES. 335 
 
 The absence of complexity in the language and in 
 tent of sculpture is always obvious in the expositions of 
 its votaries. In no class of men have we found such 
 distinct and scientific views of Art. One lovely evening 
 in spring we stood with Bartolini beside the corpse of a 
 beautiful child. Bereavement in a foreign land has a 
 desolation of its own, and the afflicted mother desired 
 to carry home a statue of her loved and lost. We con 
 ducted the sculptor to the chamber of death, that he 
 might superintend the casts from the body. No sooner 
 did his eyes fall upon it, than they glowed with admira 
 tion and filled with tears. He waved the assistants 
 aside, clasped his hands, and gazed spell-bound upon 
 the dead child. Its brow was ideal in contour, the hair 
 of wavy gold, the cheeks of angelic outline. " How 
 beautiful ! " exclaimed Bartolini ; and drawing us to the 
 bedside, with a mingled awe and intelligence, he pointed 
 out how the rigidity of death coincided, in this fair 
 young creature, with the standard of Art ; the very 
 hands, he declared, had stiffened into lines of beauty ; 
 and over the beautiful clay we thus learned from the 
 lips of a venerable sculptor how intimate and minute is 
 the cognizance this noble art takes of the language of 
 the human form. Greenough would unfold by the hour 
 the exquisite relation between function and beauty, or 
 ganization and use, tracing therein a profound law and 
 an illimitable truth. No more genial spectacle greeted 
 us in Koine than Thorwaldsen at his Sunday -noon re 
 ceptions ; his white hair, kindly smile, urbane man 
 ners, and unpretending simplicity, gave an added charm 
 to the wise and liberal sentiments he expressed on Art, 
 reminding us, in his frank eclecticism, of the spirit in 
 which Humboldt cultivated science, and Sismondi his- 
 
336 STATUES. 
 
 tory. Nor less indicative of this clear apprehension 
 was the thorough solution we have heard Powers give, 
 over the mask taken from a dead face, of the problem, 
 how its living aspect was to modify its sculptured repro 
 duction ; or the original views expressed by Palmer as 
 to the treatment of the eyes and hair in marble. 
 
 Appropriate and inspiring as are statues as memorials 
 of character, in no department of art is there more 
 need of a pure and just sense of the appropriate than 
 in the choice of subject, locality, and treatment in stat 
 uary embellishment. Many greatly endeared human 
 benefactors cannot thus be wisely or genially celebrated. 
 Of late years there has been a mania on the subject ; 
 and even popular sentiment recognized the impropriety 
 of setting up a statue in the market-place, of pious, re 
 tiring Izaak Walton. 
 
 Shelley used to say that a Roman peasant is as good 
 a judge of sculpture as the best academician or anato 
 mist. It is this direct appeal, this elemental simplicity, 
 which constitutes the great distinction and charm of the 
 art. There is nothing evasive and mysterious ; in deal 
 ing with form and expression through features and at 
 titude, average observation is a reliable test. The same 
 English poet was right in declaring that the Greek 
 sculptors did not find their inspiration in the dissect 
 ing-room ; yet upon no subject has criticism displayed 
 greater insight on the one hand and pedantry on the 
 other, than in the discussion of these very chefs-cToeuvres 
 of antiquity. While Michel Angelo, who was at Rome 
 when the Laocoon was discovered, hailed it as "the 
 wonder of Art," and scholars identified the group with 
 a famous one described by Pliny, Canova thought that 
 the right arm of the father was not in its right position, 
 
STATUES. 337 
 
 and the other restorations in the work have all been 
 objected to. Goethe recognized a profound sagacity in 
 the artist. u If," he wrote, " we try to place the bite in 
 some different position, the whole action is changed, 
 and we find it impossible to conceive one more fitting ; 
 the situation of the bite renders necessary the whole 
 action of the limbs." And another critic says, " In the 
 group of the Laocoon, the breast is expanded and the 
 throat contracted to show that the agonies that convulse 
 the frame are borne in silence." In striking contrast 
 with such testimonies to the scientific truth to Nature 
 in Grecian Art, was the objection I once heard an 
 American backwoods mechanic make to this celebrated 
 work. He asked why the figures were seated in a row 
 on a dry-goods box, and declared that the serpent was 
 not of a size to coil round so small an arm as the child s 
 without breaking its vertebrae. So disgusted was Titian 
 with the critical pedantry elicited by this group, that, in 
 ridicule thereof, he painted a caricature, three mon 
 keys writhing in the folds of a little snake. 
 
 Few statues at Rome excite the imagination apart 
 from intrinsic beauty, like that of Pompey, at whose 
 base tradition says " great Caesar fell." It was discov 
 ered lying across the boundary line of two estates, and 
 claimed by both proprietors. Shrewd Cardinal Spada 
 decided the head belonged to one and the body to an 
 other. It was decapitated, and sold in fragments for a 
 small sum, and by this device was added to his famous 
 collection, by the wily churchman. 
 
 Yet, despite the jargon of connoisseurship, against 
 which Byron, while contemplating the Venus de Med 
 ici, utters so eloquent an invective, sculpture is a grand, 
 serene, and intelligible art, more so than architecture 
 22 
 
338 STATUES. 
 
 and painting, and, as such, justly consecrated to the 
 heroic and the beautiful in man and history. It is pre 
 eminently commemorative. How the old cities of Eu 
 rope are peopled to the imagination, as well as the eye, 
 by the statues of their traditional rulers or illustrious 
 children, keeping, as it were, a warning sign, or a sub 
 lime vigil, silent, yet expressive, in the heart of busy life 
 and through the lapse of ages ! We could never pass 
 Duke Cosmo s imposing effigy in the old square of 
 Florence, without the magnificent patronage and the 
 despotic perfidy of the Medicean family being revived 
 to memory with intense local association, nor note the 
 ugly mitred and cloaked papal figures, with hands ex 
 tended, in the mockery of benediction, over the beggars 
 in the piazzas of Romagna, without Ranke s frightful 
 picture of Church abuses reappearing, as if to crown 
 these brazen forms with infamy. There was always a 
 gleam of poetry however sad on the most foggy 
 day, in the glimpse afforded from our window, in Tra 
 falgar Square, of that patient horseman, Charles the 
 Martyr. How alive old Neptune sometimes looked, by 
 moonlight, in Rome, as we passed his plashing fountain. 
 And those German poets, Goethe, Schiller, and Jean 
 Paul, what to modern eyes were Frankfort, Stuttgart, 
 and Baireuth, unconsecrated by their endeared forms ? 
 The most pleasant association Versailles yielded us of 
 the Bourbon dynasty was that inspired by Jeanne d Arc, 
 graceful in her marble sleep, as sculptured by Marie 
 d Orleans ; and the most impressive token of Napoleon s 
 downfall we saw in Europe was his colossal image in 
 tended for the square of Leghorn, but thrown perma 
 nently on the sculptor s hands by the waning of his 
 proud star. The statue of Heber, to Christian vision, 
 
STATUES. 339 
 
 hallows Calcutta. The Perseus of Cellini breathes of 
 the months of artistic suspense, inspiration, and experi 
 ment, so graphically described in that clever egotist s 
 memoirs. One feels like blessing the grief-bowed fig 
 ures at the tomb of Princess Charlotte, so truly do 
 their attitudes express our sympathy with the love and 
 the sorrow her name excites. Would not Sterne have 
 felt a thrill of complacency, had he beheld his tableau 
 of the Widow "Wadman and Uncle Toby so genially 
 embodied by Ball Hughes ? What more spirited sym 
 bol of prosperous conquest can be imagined than the 
 gilded horses of St. Mark s? How natural was Michel 
 Angelo s exclamation, " March ! " as he gazed on Dona- 
 tello s San Giorgio, in the Church of San Michele, 
 one mailed hand on a shield, bare head, complete armor, 
 and the foot advanced, like a sentinel who hears the 
 challenge, or a knight listening for the charge ! Tene- 
 rani s " Descent from the Cross," in the Torlonia Chapel, 
 outlives in remembrance the brilliant assemblies of that 
 financial house. The outlines of Flaxman, essentially 
 statuesque, seem alone adequate to illustrate to the eye 
 the great mediaeval poet, whose verse seems often cut 
 from stone in the quarries of infernal destiny. How 
 grandly sleep the lions of Canova at Pope Clement s 
 tomb ! 
 
 A census of the statues of the world, past and pres 
 ent, would indicate an enormous marble population : in 
 every Greek and Roman house, temple, public square, 
 cemetery, these effigies abounded. According to Pliny 
 the number of memorable statues in Athens exceeded 
 three thousand ; the number brought to Rome from 
 conquered provinces was so great that the record 
 seems incredible; add to these the countless statues 
 
340 STATUES. 
 
 we know to have been destroyed, the innumerable frag 
 mentary images encountered in Italy, and the variety 
 of modern works from those which people the cathe 
 dral roof to those which adorn private galleries and 
 favorite studios, and the mind is bewildered by the ex 
 tent not less than the beauty of the products of the 
 chisel. 
 
 We have sometimes wondered that some aesthetic 
 philosopher has not analyzed the vital relation of the 
 arts to each other and given a popular exposition of 
 their mutual dependence. Drawing from the antique 
 has long: been an acknowledged initiation for the Km- 
 
 O O 
 
 ner, and Campbell, in his terse description of the histri 
 onic art, says that therein " verse ceases to be airy 
 thought, and sculpture to be dumb." How much of 
 their peculiar effects did Talma, Kemble, and Rachel 
 owe to the attitudes, gestures, and drapery of the Gre 
 cian statues ! Kean adopted the " dying fall " of Gen 
 eral Abercrombie s figure in St. Paul s as the model of 
 his own. Some of the memorable scenes and votaries 
 of the drama are directly associated with the sculptor s 
 art, as, for instance, the last act of " Don Giovanni," 
 wherein the expressive music of Mozart breathes a 
 pleasing terror in connection with the spectral nod of 
 the marble horseman ; and Shakspeare has availed him 
 self of this art, with beautiful wisdom, in that melting 
 scene where remorseful love pleads with the motionless 
 heroine of the "Winter s Tale," 
 
 " Her natural posture ! 
 
 Chide me, dear stone, that I may say, indeed, 
 Thou art Hermione; or rather thou art she, 
 In thy not chiding : for she was as tender 
 As infancy and grace." 
 
STATUES. 341 
 
 Garrick imitated to the life, in " Abel Drugger," the 
 vacant stare peculiar to Nollekens, the sculptor ; and 
 Colley Gibber s father was a devotee of the chisel, and 
 adorned Chatsworth with free-stone Sea-Nymphs. 
 
 In view of the great historical value, comparative 
 authenticity, and possible significance and beauty of 
 busts, this department of sculpture has a peculiar in 
 terest and charm. The most distinct idea we have of 
 the Roman emperors, even in regard to their individual 
 characters, is derived from their busts at the Vatican 
 and elsewhere. The benignity of Trajan, the animal 
 development of Nero, and the classic vigor of young 
 Augustus, are best apprehended through these memo 
 rable effigies which Time has spared and Art trans 
 mitted. And a similar permanence and distinctness of 
 impression associate most of our illustrious moderns 
 with their sculptured features ; the ironical grimace of 
 Voltaire is perpetuated by Houdon s bust ; the sympa 
 thetic intellectuality of Schiller by Dannecker s ; Han 
 del s countenance is familiar through the elaborate 
 chisel of Roubillac ; Nollekens moulded Sterne s deli 
 cate and tmimpassioned but keen physiognomy, and 
 Chantrey the lofty cranium of Scott. Who has not 
 blessed the rude but conscientious artist who carved the 
 head of Shakspeare, preserved at Stratford? How 
 quaintly appropriate to the old house in Nuremberg is 
 Albert Diirer s bust over the door ! Our best knowl 
 edge of Alexander Hamilton s aspect is obtained from 
 the expressive marble head of him by that ardent re 
 publican sculptor, Ceracchi. It was appropriate for 
 Mrs. Darner, the daughter of a gallant field-marshal, to 
 portray in marble, as heroic idols, Fox, Nelson, and 
 Napoleon. We were never more convinced of the in- 
 
342 STATUES. 
 
 trinsic grace and solemnity of this form of " counterfeit 
 presentment" than when exploring the Baciocchi pa- 
 lazzo at Bologna. In the centre of a circular room, 
 lighted from above, and draped as well as carpeted with 
 purple, stood on a simple pedestal the bust of Napo 
 leon s sister, thus enshrined after death by her husband. 
 The profound stillness, the relief of this isolated head 
 against a mass of dark tints, and its consequent em 
 phatic individuality, made the sequestered chamber 
 seem a holy place, where communion with the departed, 
 so spiritually represented by the exquisite image, ap 
 peared not only natural, but inevitable. Our country 
 man, Powers, has eminently illustrated the possible 
 excellence of this branch of Art. In mathematical 
 correctness of detail, unrivalled finish of texture, and 
 with these, in many cases, the highest characterization, 
 busts from his hand have an absolute artistic value, 
 independent of likeness, like a portrait by Vandyck or 
 Titian. When the subject is favorable, his achieve 
 ments in this regard are memorable, and fill the eye 
 and mind with ideas of beauty and meaning undreamed 
 of by those who consider marble portraits as wholly 
 imitative and mechanical. Was there ever a human 
 face which so completely reflected inward experience 
 and individual genius as the bust which haunts us 
 throughout Italy, broods over the monument in Santa 
 Croce, gazes pensively from library niche, seems to awt 
 the more radiant images of boudoir and gallery, and 
 sternly looks melancholy reproach from the Ravenng 
 
 tomb ? 
 
 " The lips, as Cumae s cavern close, 
 
 The cheeks, with fast and sorrow thin, 
 The rigid front, almost morose, 
 But for the patient hope within, 
 
STATUES. 343 
 
 Declare a life -whose course hath been 
 
 Unsullied still, though still severe, 
 Which, through the wavering days of sin, 
 
 Kept itself icy chaste and clear." 
 
 National characters become, as it were, household gods 
 through the sculptor s portrait ; the duplicates of Cano- 
 va s head of Napoleon seem as appropriate in the salons 
 and shops of France, as the heads of Washington and 
 Franklin in America, or the antique images of Scipio 
 Africanus and Ceres in Sicily, and Wellington and 
 Byron in London. 
 
 It is to us a source of noble delight, that with these 
 permanent trophies of the sculptor s art may now be 
 mingled our national fame. Twenty years ago, the 
 address in Murray s Guide -Book, Crawford^ an 
 American Sculptor, Piazza JBbrJertnt, would have 
 been unique ; now that name is enrolled on the list 
 of the world s benefactors in the patrimony of* Art. 
 Greenough, by his pen, his presence, and his chisel, 
 gave an impulse to taste and knowledge in sculpture 
 and architecture not destined soon to pass away ; no 
 more eloquent and original advocate of the beautiful 
 and the true in the higher social economies has blest 
 our day ; his Cherubs and Medora overflow with the 
 poetry of form ; his essays are a valuable legacy of 
 philosophic thought. The Greek Slave of Powers was 
 invariably surrounded by visitors at the London World s 
 Fair and the Manchester Exhibition. Story s Cleopatra 
 was the nucleus of charmed observation at Sydenham. 
 The Pearl Diver of Paul Akers is his own most beauti 
 ful monument. Palmer has sent forth from his isolated 
 studio at Albany a series of ideal busts, of a pure type 
 
344 
 
 STATUES. 
 
 of original and exquisite beauty ; and many others might 
 be named who have honorably illustrated an American 
 claim to distinction in an art eminently republican in 
 its perpetuation of national worth and the identity of 
 its highest achievements with social progress. 
 
BRIDGES. 
 
 " I stood on the bridge at midnight, 
 
 As the clocks were striking the hour, 
 And the moon rose over the city, 
 Behind the dark church-tower. 
 And like those waters rushing 
 
 Among the wooden piers, 
 A flood of thoughts came o er me, 
 That filled my eyes with tears." 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 INSTINCTIVELY, Treason, in this vast land, 
 aimed its first blow at the Genius of Commu 
 nication, the benign and potent means and 
 method of American civilization and nationality. The 
 great problem Watt and Fulton, Clinton and Morse, so 
 gloriously solved, a barbaric necessity thus reduced back 
 to chaos ; and not the least sad and significant of the 
 bulletins whereby the most base of civic mutinies found 
 current record is that entitled, " Destruction of the 
 Bridges " ; and (melancholy contrast !) simultaneously 
 we hear of constructive energy in the same direction, 
 on the Italian peninsula, an engineer having submit 
 ted to Victor Emmanuel proposals for throwing a bridge 
 across the Straits of Messina, " binding Scylla to Charyb- 
 dis, and thus clinching Italian unity with bonds of iron."* 
 
 * Kecent Italian journals speak of a project to construct a bridge 
 over the Straits of Messina, to unite Sicily with the mainland. The 
 bridge proposed will be a suspension one, on a new system, the chains 
 being of cast-steel, and strong enough to support the weight of several 
 railway trains. 
 
346 BRIDGES. 
 
 Bonds of nationality, in more than a physical sense, 
 indeed, are bridges ; even cynical Heine found an en 
 deared outlook to his native Rhine on the bastion of 
 a familiar bridge. Tennyson makes one an essential 
 feature of his English summer-picture, wherein forever 
 glows the sweet image of the " Gardener s Daughter " ; 
 and Bunyan found no better similitude for Christian s 
 passage from Time to Eternity than the " river where 
 there is no bridge." 
 
 The primitive need, the possible genius, the science 
 and the sentiment of a bridge, endear its aspect and as 
 sociations beyond those of any other economical struc 
 ture. There is, indeed, something genially picturesque 
 about a mill, as Constable s pencil and Tennyson s muse 
 have aptly demonstrated; there is an artistic miracle 
 possible in a sculptured gate, as those of Ghiberti so 
 elaborately evidence ; science, poetry, and human enter 
 prise consecrate a light-house ; sacred feelings hallow a 
 spire, and mediaeval towers stand forth in noble relief 
 against the sunset sky ; but around none of these famil 
 iar objects cluster the same thoroughly human associa 
 tions which make a bridge attractive to the sight and 
 memory. In its most remote suggestion it typifies 
 man s primal relation to Nature, his first instinctive 
 effort to circumvent or avail himself of her resources ; 
 indeed, he might take his hint of a bridge from Nature 
 herself, her fallen monarchs of the forest athwart a 
 stream, " the testimony of the rocks," the curving 
 shores, cavern roofs, and pendent branches, and the 
 prismatic bow in the heavens, which a poet well calls 
 " a bridge to tempt the angels down." 
 
 A bridge of the simplest kind is often charmingly 
 effective as a landscape-accessory ; there is a short plank 
 
BRIDGES. 347 
 
 one in a glen of the White Mountains, which, seen 
 through a vista of woodland, makes out the picture so 
 aptly that it is sketched by every artist who haunts the 
 region. What lines of grace are added to the night- 
 view of a great city by the lights on the bridges ! What 
 subtile principles enter into the building of such a 
 bridge as the Britannia, where even the metallic con 
 traction of the enormous tubes is provided for by sup 
 porting them on cannon-balls ! How venerable seems 
 the most graceful of Tuscan bridges, when we remem- 
 
 & O 
 
 ber it was erected in the fifteenth century, and the 
 Rialto, when we think of Shylock and Portia; and 
 how signal an instance is it of the progressive applica 
 tion of a true principle in science, that the contrivance 
 whereby the South Americans bridge the gorges of 
 their mountains, by a pendulous causeway of twisted 
 osiers and bamboo, one of which, crossed by Hum- 
 boldt, was a hundred and twenty feet long, is identi 
 cal with that which sustains the magnificent structure 
 over the ^siao-ara River ! The chasms and streams thus 
 
 O 
 
 spanned by a rope of seven strands, have a fairy-like 
 aspect. Artist and engineer alike delight in this feat 
 ure of tropical scenery. In some cases the stone struct 
 ures built by the Spaniards, and half destroyed by 
 earthquakes, are repaired with bamboo, and often with 
 an effective grace. In a bridge the arch is triumphal, 
 both for practical and commemorative ends. Unknown 
 to the Greeks and Egyptians, even the ancient Romans, 
 it is said by modern architects, did not appreciate its 
 true mechanical principle, but ascribed the marvellous 
 strength thereof to the cement which kept intact their 
 semicircle. In Caesar s " Commentaries," the bridge 
 transit and vigilance form no small part of military tac- 
 
348 BRIDGES. 
 
 tics, boats and baskets serving the same purpose in 
 ancient and modern warfare. The Church of old orio-- 
 
 O 
 
 inated and consecrated bridges ; religion, royalty, and 
 art celebrate their advent; the opening of Waterloo 
 Bridge is the subject of one of the best pictures of a 
 modern English painter ; and Cockney visitors to the 
 peerless Bridge of Telford still ask the guide where the 
 Queen stood at its inauguration. But it is when we 
 turn from the historical and scientific to the familiar 
 and personal that we realize the spontaneous interest 
 attached to a bridge. It is as a feature of our native 
 landscape, the goal of habitual excursions, the rendez 
 vous, the observatory, the favorite haunt or transit, that 
 it wins the gaze and the heart. There the musing 
 angler sits content ; there the echoes of the horse s 
 hoofs rouse to expectancy the dozing traveller ; there 
 the glad lover dreams, and the despairing wretch seeks 
 a watery grave, and the song of the poet finds a re 
 sponse in the universal heart, 
 
 " How often, oh, how often, 
 
 In the days that have gone by, 
 Have I stood on that bridge at midnight, 
 And gazed on the wave and sky! " 
 
 One of the most primitive tokens of civilization is a 
 bridge ; and yet no artificial object is more picturesquely 
 associated with its ultimate symbols. The fallen tree 
 whereon the pioneer crosses a stream in the wilderness 
 is not more significant of human isolation than the 
 fragmentary arch in an ancient city of the vanished 
 home of thousands. Thus, by its necessity and its sur 
 vival, a bridge suggests the first exigency and the last 
 relic of civilized life. The old explorers of our West 
 ern Continent record the savage expedients whereby 
 
BRIDGES. 349 
 
 watercourses were passed, coils of grape-vine car 
 ried between the teeth of an aboriginal swimmer and 
 attached to the opposite bank, a floating log, or, in shal 
 low streams, a series of stepping-stones ; and the most 
 popular historian of England, when delineating to the 
 eye of fancy the hour of her capital s venerable decay, 
 can find no more impressive illustration than to make a 
 broken arch of London Bridge the observatory of the 
 speculative reminiscent. 
 
 The bridge is, accordingly, of all economical inven 
 tions, that which is most inevitable to humanity, signal 
 izing the first steps of man amid the solitude of Mature, 
 and accompanying his progress through every stage of 
 civic life ; its crude form makes the wanderer s -heart 
 beat in the lonely forest, as a sign of the vicinity or the 
 track of his kind ; and its massive remains excite the 
 reverent curiosity of the archaeologist, who seeks among 
 the ruins of Art for trophies of a by-gone race. Few 
 indications of Roman supremacy are more striking than 
 the unexpected sight of one of those bridges of solid 
 and symmetrical masonry which the traveller in Italy 
 encounters, when emerging from a mountain-pass or a 
 squalid town upon the ancient highway. The perma 
 nent method herein apparent suggests an energetic and 
 pervasive race whose constructive instinct was imperial ; 
 such an evidence of their pathway over water is as sug 
 gestive of national power as the evanescent trail of the 
 savage is of his casual domain. In the bridge, as in no 
 other structure, use combines with beauty by an instinc 
 tive law ; and the stone arch, more or less elaborate in 
 detail, is as essential now to the function and the grace 
 of a bridge, as when it was first thrown, invincible and 
 harmonious, athwart the rivers Caesar s legions crossed. 
 
350 BRIDGES. 
 
 As I stood on the scattered planks which afford a 
 precarious foothold amid the rapids of St. Anthony, 
 methought these frail bridges of hewn timber? accorded 
 with the reminiscence of the missionary pioneer who 
 discovered and named the picturesque waters, more than 
 an elaborate and ancient causeway. Even those long, 
 inelegant structures which lead the pedestrian over our 
 own Charles River, or the broad inlets of the adjacent 
 bay, have their peculiar charm as the scene of many a 
 gorgeous autumnal sunset and many a patient " consti 
 tutional " walk. It is a homely, but significant proverb, 
 " Never find fault with the bridge that carries you safe 
 over." What beautiful shadows graceful bridges cast, 
 when the twilight deepens and the waves are calm ! 
 How mysteriously sleep the moonbeams there ! What 
 a suggestive vocation is a toll-keeper s ! Patriarchs in 
 this calling will tell of methodical and eccentric charac 
 ters known for years. 
 
 Bridges have their legends. There is one in Lom- 
 bardy whence a jilted lover sprang with his faithless 
 bride as she passed to church with her new lover ; it is 
 yet called the "Bridge of the Betrothed." On the 
 mountain range, near Serravazza, in Tuscany, is a nat 
 ural bridge which unites two of the lofty peaks ; narrow 
 and aerial, it is believed by the peasantry to have mirac 
 ulously formed itself to give foothold to the Madonna as 
 she passed over the mountains, and it bears her name. 
 An old traveller, describing New York amusements, 
 tells us of a favorite ride from the city to the suburban 
 country, and says, " In the way there is a bridge 
 about three miles distant, which you always pass as you 
 return, called the Kissing Bridge/ where it is part of 
 the etiquette to salute the lady who has put herself un- 
 
BRIDGES. 351 
 
 der your protection." * A curious lawsuit was lately 
 instituted by the proprietor of a menagerie who lost an 
 elephant by a bridge giving way beneath his unaccus 
 tomed weight; the authorities protested against dam 
 ages, as they never undertook to give safe passage to so 
 large an animal. 
 
 The office of a bridge is prolific of metaphor, where 
 of an amusing instance is BoswelPs comparison of him 
 self, when translating Paoli s talk to Dr. Johnson, to a 
 " narrow isthmus connecting two continents." It has 
 been aptly said of Dante s great poem, that, in the 
 world of letters, it is a mediaeval bridge over that vast 
 chasm which divides classical from modern times. All 
 conciliating authors bridge select severed intelligences, 
 and even national feeling : as Irving s writings brought 
 more near to each other the alienated sympathies of 
 England and America, and Carlyle made a trysting- 
 place for British and German thought; as Sydney 
 Smith s talk threw a suspension-bridge from Conserva 
 tive to Reformer, and Lord Bacon s (in the hour of bit 
 ter alienation between Crown and Commons) " recon 
 ciling genius spanned the dividing stream of party." 
 
 How quaint, yet effective, Jean Paul s illustration of 
 an alienated state of human feeling, " the drawbridge 
 of countenances, whereupon once the two souls met, 
 stood suddenly raised, high in air." Nor less significant 
 is a modern historian s definition of an Englishman as 
 an island surrounded by a misty and tumultuous sea 
 of prejudices and hatreds, generally unapproachable, 
 and, at all times, utterly repudiative of a bridge. Pon- 
 tifex Maximus has long ceased to wear the great spirit- 
 
 * Travels through the Middle Settlements of North America in 1759- 
 60. By Rev. Andrew Burnaby. 
 
352 BRIDGES. 
 
 ual title whose unchallenged attribute was to bridge the 
 chasm between earth and heaven. What humor may 
 be evolved from a nose-bridge Punch in his dealings 
 with the great Duke, and Sterne in his record of Tris 
 tram Shandy s infancy, have notably chronicled ; while 
 the infinite delicacy of tension in the bridge of Paga- 
 nini s violin, indicates the relation thereof to exquisite 
 gradations of sound. " The Mahomedans," says Scott, 
 " have a fanciful idea that the believer, in his passage to 
 Paradise, is under the necessity of passing barefoot 
 over a bridge composed of red-hot iron plates. All the 
 pieces of paper which the Moslem has preserved during 
 his life, lest some holy thing being written upon them 
 might be profaned, arrange themselves between his feet 
 and the burning metal, and so save him from injury." 
 In the " Vision " of Mirza, a bridge is typical of human 
 life. That was a ludicrous incident related of poor, ob 
 stinate, crazy George the Third, that encountering 
 some boys near a bridge early one morning, he asked 
 them what bridge it was. " The Bridge of Kew," they 
 replied ; whereupon the king proposed and gave three 
 vociferous cheers for the Bridge of Kew, as a newly-dis 
 covered wonder. Amusing, too, was the warm dispute 
 of the two errant lake poets whether a certain acutely 
 angular bridge in the Alps was called great A from its 
 resemblance to that letter, or as the first of its kind. 
 
 How isolated and bewildered are villagers, when, after 
 a tempest, the news spreads that a freshet has carried 
 away the bridge ! Every time we shake hands, we 
 make a human bridge of courtesy or love ; and that was 
 a graceful fancy of one of our ingenious writers to give 
 expression to his thoughts in " Letters from under a 
 Bridge." With an eye and an ear for Nature s poetry, 
 
BRIDGES. 353 
 
 the gleam of lamps from a bridge, the figures that pass 
 and repass thereon, the rush and the lull of waters be 
 neath, the perspective of the arch, the weather-stains 
 on the parapet, the sunshine and the cloud-shadows 
 around, are phases and sounds fraught with meaning 
 and mystery. 
 
 It is an acknowledged truth in the philosophy of Art, 
 that Beauty is the handmaid of Use ; and as the grace 
 of the swan and the horse results from a conformation 
 whose rationale is movement, so the pillar that supports 
 the roof, an.l the arch that spans the current, by their 
 serviceable fitness, wed grace of form to wise utility. 
 The laws of architecture illustrate this principle copi 
 ously ; but in no single and familiar product of human 
 skill is it more striking than in bridges ; if lightness, 
 symmetry, elegance, proportion, charm the ideal sense, 
 not less are the economy and adaptation of the struct- 
 lire impressive to the eye of science. Perhaps the 
 ideas of use and beauty, of convenience and taste, in no 
 instance, coalesce more obviously ; and therefore, of all 
 human inventions, the bridge lends the most undisputed 
 charm to the landscape. It is one of those symbols 
 of humanity which spring from and are not grafted 
 upon Nature ; it proclaims her affinity with man, and 
 links her spontaneous benefits with his invention and 
 his needs ; it seems to celebrate the stream over which 
 it rises, and to wed the wayward waters to the order 
 and the mystery of life. There is no hint of superflu 
 ity or impertinence in a bridge ; it blends with the wild 
 est and the most cultivated scene with singular aptitude, 
 and is a feature of both rural and metropolitan land 
 scape that strikes the mind as essential. A striking 
 confirmation of this idea offers itself in a recent critic s 
 23 
 
354 BRIDGES. 
 
 definition of a classic style of writing : " A bridge," he 
 says, u completes river landscape ; it stiffens the scenery 
 which was before too soft, too delicate, too vegetable. 
 Just such is the effect of pure style in literary art." * 
 The most usual form has its counterpart in those rocky 
 arches which flood and fire have excavated or penned 
 up in many picturesque regions, the segments of 
 caverns, or the ribs of strata, so that, without the in 
 stinctive suggestion of the mind itself, Nature furnishes 
 complete models of a bridge whereon neither Art nor 
 Science can improve. Herein the most advanced and 
 the most rude peoples own a common skill ; bridges, of 
 some kind, and all adapted to their respective countries, 
 being the familiar invention of savage necessity and 
 architectural genius. The explorer finds them in Africa 
 as well as the artist in Rome ; swung, like huge ham 
 mocks of ox-hide, over the rapid streams of South 
 America ; spanning in fragile cane-platforms the gorges 
 of the Andes ; crossing vast chasms of the Alleghanies 
 with the slender iron viaduct of the American railways; 
 and jutting, a crumbling segment of the ancient worldj 
 over the yellow Tiber : as familiar on the Chinese tea- 
 caddy as on Canaletto s canvas ; as traditional a local 
 feature of London as of Florence ; as significant of the 
 onward march of civilization in Wales to-day as in Ligu- 
 ria during the Middle Ages. Where men dwell and 
 wander, and water flows, these beautiful and enduring, 
 or curious and casual expedients are found, as memora 
 ble triumphs of architecture, crowned with historical 
 associations, or as primitive inventions that uncon 
 sciously mark the first faltering steps of humanity in 
 the course of empire ; for on this continent, where the 
 * Bagehot. 
 
BRIDGES. 355 
 
 French missionary crossed the narrow log supported by 
 his Indian convert in the midst of a wilderness, massive 
 stone arches shadow broad streams that flow through 
 populous cities ; and the history of civilization may be 
 traced from the loose stones whereon the lone settler 
 fords the watercourse, to such grand, graceful, and per 
 manent monuments of human prosperity as the elabo 
 rate and ancient stone bridges of European capitals. 
 
 When we look forth upon a grand or lovely scene of 
 Nature, mountain, river, meadow, and forest, what 
 a fine central object, what an harmonious artificial feat 
 ure of the picture, is a bridge, whether rustic and sim 
 ple, a mere rude passage-way over a brook, or a curve 
 of gray stone throwing broad shadows upon the bright 
 surface of a river ! Nor less effective is the same ob 
 ject amid the crowded walls, spires, streets, and chim 
 ney-stacks of a city. There the bridge is the least con 
 ventional structure, the suggestive point, the favorite 
 locality ; it seems to reunite the working-day world 
 with the freedom of Nature ; it is, perhaps, the one 
 spot in the dense array of edifices and thoroughfares 
 which " gives us pause." There, if anywhere, our gaze 
 and our feet linger ; people have a relief against the 
 sky, as they pass over it ; artists look patiently thither ; 
 lovers, the sad, the humorous, and the meditative, stop 
 there to observe and to muse ; they lean over the para 
 pet and watch the flowing tide ; they look thence around 
 as from a pleasant vantage-ground. The bridge, in pop 
 ulous old towns, is the rendezvous, the familiar land 
 mark, the traditional nucleus of the place, and perhaps 
 the only picturesque framework in all those marts and 
 homes, more free, open, and suggestive of a common 
 lot than temple, square, or palace ; for there pass and 
 
356 BRIDGES. 
 
 repass noble and peasant, regal equipage and humble 
 caravan ; children plead to stay, and veterans moralize 
 there ; the privileged beggar finds a standing-place for 
 charity to bless ; a shrine hallows or a sentry guards, 
 history consecrates or Art glorifies, and trade, pleasure, 
 or battle, perchance, lend to it the spell of fame. The 
 dearest associations of a life are described in one of 
 Jean Ingelow s most elaborate poems, as revolving 
 around and identified with " Four Bridges " : 
 
 " Our brattling river tumbles through the one ; 
 The second spans a shallow, weedy brook; 
 Beneath the others, and beneath the sun, 
 Lie two long stilly pools, and on their breasts 
 Picture their wooden piles, encased in swallows nests. 
 And round about them grows a fringe of weeds, 
 And then a floating crown of lily flowers, 
 And yet within small silver-budded weeds; 
 But each clear centre evermore embowers 
 A deeper sky, where stooping, you may see 
 The little minnows twirling restlessly." 
 
 In the neighborhood of Aberdeen, the picturesque 
 bridge over the Don, with its adjacent rocks, trees, and 
 deep, dark stream, is known as the " brig of Balgow- 
 nie." Thomas the Rhymer uttered many prophecies 
 about " Balgownie s brig black wa " ; and it figures 
 among the scenes of Byron s boyhood. Let any one 
 recall his sojourn in a foreign city, and conjure to his 
 mind s eye the scenes, and prominent to his fancy, dis 
 tinct to his memory, will be the bridge. He will think 
 of Florence as intersected by the Arno, and with the 
 very name of that river reappears the peerless grace of 
 the Ponte Santa Trinita with its moss-grown escutch 
 eons and aerial curves. He will recall the Pont du Gard 
 with the vicinage of Nismes ; the Pont Neuf, at Paris, 
 with its soldiers and priests, its boot-blacks and grisettes, 
 
BRIDGES. 357 
 
 the gay streets on one side, and the studious quarter on 
 the other, typifies and concentrates for him the associa 
 tions of the French capital ; and what a complete sym 
 bol of Venice its canals, its marbles, its mysterious 
 polity, its romance of glory and woe, is a good pho 
 tograph of the Bridge of Sighs ! Her history is, in 
 deed, singularly identified with bridges. One, as her 
 exchange, is permanently associated with the palmiest 
 days of mediaeval commerce ; another with the darker 
 records of her criminal law; while on one of her 
 bridges, Sarpi, the " terrible friar " Paolo was waylaid 
 and nearly killed by Papal assassins, whence dates the 
 most efficient protest against ecclesiastical tyranny. 
 
 The history of Rome is written on her bridges. The 
 Ponte Rotto is Art s favorite trophy of her decay ; two 
 thirds of it has disappeared ; and the last Pope has in 
 effectively repaired it, by a platform sustained by iron 
 wire : yet who that has stood thereon in the sunset, and 
 looked from the dome of St. Peter s to the islands pro 
 jected at that hour so distinctly from the river s surface, 
 glanced along the flushed dwellings upon its bank, with 
 their intervals of green terraces, or gazed, in the other 
 direction, upon the Cloaca of Tarquin, Vesta s dome, 
 and the Aventine Hill, with its palaces, convents, vine 
 yards, and gardens, has not felt that the Ponte Rotto 
 was the most suggestive observatory in the Eternal 
 City ? The Ponte Molle brings back Constantine and 
 his vision of the Cross ; and the statues on Sant An- 
 gelo mutely attest the vicissitudes of ecclesiastical eras. 
 
 England boasts no monument of her modern victories 
 so impressive as the bridge named for the most memo 
 rable of them. The best view of Prague and its peo 
 ple is from the long series of stone arches which span 
 
358 BRIDGES. 
 
 the Moldau. The solitude and serenity of genius are 
 rarely better realized than by musing of Klopstock and 
 Gessner, Lavater and Zimmermann, on the Bridge of 
 Rapperschwyl on the Lake of Zurich, where they dwelt 
 and wrote or died. From the Bridge of St. Martin we 
 have the first view of Mont Blanc. The Suspension 
 Bridge at Niagara is an artificial wonder as great, in its 
 degree, as the natural miracle of the mighty cataract 
 which thunders forever at its side ; while no triumph 
 of inventive economy could more aptly lead the imag 
 inative stranger into the picturesque beauties of Wales 
 than the extraordinary tubular bridge across the Menai 
 Strait. The aqueduct-bridge at Lisbon, the long cause 
 way over Cayuga Lake in our own country, and the 
 bridge over the Loire at Orleans, are memorable in 
 every traveller s retrospect. 
 
 But the economical and the artistic interest of 
 bridges is often surpassed by their historical sugges 
 tions, almost every vocation and sentiment of humanity 
 being intimately associated therewith. The Rialto at 
 Venice and the Ponte Vecchio at Florence, are identi 
 fied with the financial enterprise of the one city and the 
 goldsmith s skill of the other : one was long the Ex 
 change of the " City of the Sea," and still revives the 
 image of Shylock and the rendezvous of Antonio ; while 
 the other continues to represent mediaeval trade in the 
 quaint little shops of jewellers and lapidaries. One of 
 the characteristic religious orders of that era is identi 
 fied with the ancient bridge which crosses the Rhone 
 at Avignon, erected by the " Brethren of the Bridge," a 
 fraternity instituted in an age of anarchy expressly to 
 protect travellers from the bandits, whose favorite place 
 of attack was at the passage of rivers. The builder of 
 
BRIDGES. 359 
 
 the old London Bridge, Peter Colechurch, is believed 
 to have been attached to this same order ; he died in 
 1176, and was buried in a crypt of the little chapel on 
 the second pier, according to the habit of the fraternity. 
 For many years a market was held on this bridge ; it 
 was often the scene of war ; it stayed the progress of 
 Canute s fleet ; at one time destroyed by fire, and at 
 another carried away by ice ; half ruined in one era by 
 the bastard Faulconbriclge, and, at another, the watch 
 word of civil war, when the cry resounded, " Cade hath 
 gotten London Bridge," and Wat Tyler s rebels con 
 vened there. Elizabeth and her peerless courtiers have 
 floated, in luxurious barges and splendid attire, by its 
 old piers, and the heads of traitors rotted in the sun 
 upon its venerable battlements. Only sixty years ago a 
 portion of the original structure remained;* it was once 
 covered with houses ; Peter the Dutchman s famous 
 water-wheels plashed at its side ; from the dark street 
 and projecting gables noted tavern-signs vibrated in the 
 wind. The exclusive thoroughfare from the city to 
 Kent and Surrey, what ceremonial and scenes has it 
 not witnessed, royal entrances and greetings, rites 
 under the low brown arches of the old chapel, revelry 
 in the convenient hostels, traffic in the crowded mart, 
 chimes from the quaint belfry, the tragic triumph of 
 vindictive law in the gory heads upon spikes ! The 
 veritable and minute history of London Bridge would 
 illustrate the civic and social annals of England ; and 
 romance could scarce invent a more effective back 
 ground for the varied scenes and personages such a 
 * Sir Astley Cooper s nephew presented to Dr. Valentine Mott, the late 
 eminent New York surgeon, an elegantly wrought case of amputating 
 instruments, the handles of which are made of the wood and the blades 
 of iron from old London Bridge, whose oak timbers were laid in 1176. 
 
360 BRIDGES. 
 
 chronicle would exhibit than the dim local perspective, 
 when, ere any bridge stood there, the ferryman s daugh 
 ter founded, with the tolls, a House of Sisters, subse 
 quently transformed into a college of priests. By a law 
 of Nature, thus do the elements of civilization cluster 
 around the place of "transit ; thus do the courses of the 
 water indicate the direction and nucleus of emigration, 
 from the vast lakes and mighty rivers of America, 
 whereby an immense continent is made available to 
 human intercourse, and therefore to material unity, to 
 the point where the Thames was earliest crossed and 
 spanned. More special historical and social facts may 
 be found attached to every old bridge. In war, espe 
 cially, heroic achievement and desperate valor have often 
 consecrated these narrow defiles and exclusive means 
 of advance and retreat : 
 
 " When the goodman mends his armor 
 
 And trims his helmet s plume, 
 When the goodwife s shuttle merrily 
 
 Goes flashing through the loom, 
 With weeping and with laughter 
 
 Still is the story told 
 How well Horatius kept the bridge 
 
 In the good old days of old." 
 
 The bridge of Darius spanned the Bosphorus, of 
 Xerxes, the Hellespont, of Caesar, the Rhine, and 
 of Trajan, the Danube ; while the victorious march of 
 Napoleon has left few traces so unexceptionably memo 
 rable as the massive causeways of the Simplon. Cicero 
 arrested the bearer of letters to Catiline on the Pons 
 Milonis, built in the time of Sylla on the ancient Via 
 Flaminia ; and by virtue of the blazing cross which he 
 saw in the sky from the Ponte Molle the Christian em 
 peror Constantine conquered Maxentius. The Pont 
 
BRIDGES. 361 
 
 du Gard near Nismes, and the St. Esprit near Lyons, 
 were originally of Roman construction. During the 
 war of freedom, so admirably described by our country 
 man, whereby rose the Dutch Republic, the Huguenots, 
 at the siege of Valenciennes, we are told, " made forays 
 upon the monasteries for the purpose of procuring sup 
 plies, and the broken statues of the dismantled churches 
 were used to build a bridge across an arm of the river, 
 which was called, in derision, the Bridge of Idols." 
 
 But a more, memorable historical bridge is admirably 
 described in another military episode of this favorite 
 historian, that which Alexander of Parma built across 
 the Scheldt, whereby Antwerp was finally won for Philip 
 of Spain. Its construction was a miracle of science and 
 courage ; and it became the scene of one of the most 
 terrible tragedies and the most fantastic festivals which 
 signalize the history of that age, and illustrate the ex 
 traordinary and momentous struggle for religious liberty 
 in the Netherlands. Its piers extended five hundred 
 feet into the stream, connected with the shore by 
 boats, defended by palisades, fortified parapets, and 
 spiked rafts ; cleft and partially destroyed by the vol 
 canic fire-ship of Gianebelli, a Mantuan chemist and 
 engineer, whereby a thousand of the best troops of the 
 Spanish army were instantly killed, and their brave 
 chief stunned, when the hour of victory came to the 
 besiegers, it was the scene of a floral procession and 
 Arcadian banquet, and " the whole extent of its surface 
 from the Flemish to the Brabant shore " was alive with 
 " war-bronzed figures crowned with flowers." " This 
 magnificent undertaking has been favorably compared 
 with the celebrated Rhine bridge of Julius Casar. 
 When it is remembered, however, that the Roman work 
 
362 BRIDGES. 
 
 was performed in summer, across a river only half as 
 broad as the Scheldt, free from the disturbing action of 
 the tides, and flowing through an unresisting country, 
 while the whole character of the structure, intended 
 only to serve for the single passage of an army, was far 
 inferior to the massive solidity of Parma s bridge, it 
 seems not unreasonable to assign the superiority to 
 the general who had surmounted all the obstacles of 
 a northern winter, vehement ebb and flow from the 
 sea, and enterprising and desperate enemies at every 
 point." * 
 
 It was at the bridge of Pinos, where the Moors and 
 Christians had so fiercely battled, that Columbus, after 
 pleading his cause in vain at the court, hastening away 
 with despondent steps, was overtaken by the queen s 
 messenger ; recalled and provided with the substantial 
 aid that led to his momentous discovery. It was in a 
 pavilion in the middle of the bridge across the Seine at 
 Montereau, that the Dauphin, afterwards Charles the 
 Seventh, invited the Duke of Burgundy to meet him in 
 colloquy; and there the latter met his death. The 
 Bridge of Lodi is one of the great landmarks of Napo 
 leon s career ; and the Bridge of Concord no insignifi 
 cant landmark of the American Revolutionary War. 
 Over the Melos at Smyrna is a bridge which is a 
 rendezvous for camels, and has been justly called " the 
 central point of the commerce of Asia Minor." 
 
 We have a memorable illustration of the historic 
 interest of bridges, in the elaborate annals of the Pont 
 Neuf. f Although in importance it has long since been 
 superseded by other elegant causeways, for centuries it 
 
 * History of the Netherlands, Vol. I. p. 182. 
 f Histoire du Pont Neuf, par Edouard Fournier. 
 
BRIDGES. 363 
 
 was the centre of Paris life, of the trade and pastime, 
 of the scandal and the violences, of the shows and 
 ententes, so that the record of what occurred there is 
 an epitome of political and social history. It was the 
 rendezvous of dog-clippers and ballad-singers, of bravi 
 and gallants, of the quack and the courtesan, of student, 
 soldier, artist, and gossip. "The heart of Paris beat 
 there," says the historian of the Pont Neuf, " from the 
 seventeenth century ; " the statue of Henry IV. alone 
 made it the nucleus of political associations ; it was alike 
 the scene of Cellini s adventure and Sterne s senti 
 ment. Catherine de Medicis laid its first stone. Henry 
 IV. completed it; guillotines, cafes, and altars have 
 signalized its extremities or parapets. La Fronde was 
 there inaugurated ; there the discharge of cannon pro 
 claimed the flight of the king in 91 ; its pavement was 
 bloody with the massacres of September ; the first Na 
 poleon there first tried his hand against the revolution ; 
 it was the scene of an Englishman s famous bet and a 
 parrot s famous lingo. Huguenot, royalist, priest, execu 
 tioner, gamin, assassin, thief, dandy, nun, hero, and ac 
 tress, procession, tryst, ambush, faction, and farce, 
 murder, song, bo?i-mot, watchword, the tragic, the holy 
 and the hopeless in life, alternate in the story of the 
 Pont Neuf. The Countess du Barri, as a child, " the 
 pretty little angel," was a vendor there ; and an old 
 epigram identified her career with bridges, her birth 
 with the Pont an Choux, her childhood with the Pont 
 Neuf, her triumph with the Pont Royale, and her end 
 with the Pont aux Dames. 
 
 Even the fragile bridges of our own country, during 
 the Revolution, have an historical importance in the 
 story of war. The " Great Bridge " across the Elizabeth 
 
864 BRIDGES. 
 
 River, nine miles from Norfolk in Virginia ; the floating 
 bridge at Ticonderoga ; that which spanned Stony Brook 
 in New Jersey ; and many others, are identified with 
 strife or stratagem. What an effective object in the 
 distant landscape, to the habitue of the Central Park 
 in New York, is the lofty bridge whereby the Croton 
 aqueduct crosses the Harlaem River, with its fifteen 
 arches, its fourteen hundred feet of length, and its span 
 of nearly a thousand ! How few of the multitude to 
 whom King s Bridge is a daily goal or transit, are cog 
 nizant of its historical associations ; yet the records of 
 Manhattan Island declare that in 1692 " His Excellency 
 the Governor, out of great favor and good to the city," 
 proposed the building of this bridge, and soon ordered 
 that " if Frederick Phillipse will undertake the same, 
 he shall have the preference of their Majesties grant, 
 (5th of King William, and 3d of Queen Mary,) which 
 was subsequently confirmed to the lord of the manor 
 of Phillipsburgh " ; whereon was born and lived Wash 
 ington s first love the beautiful Mary Phillipse. Here 
 was the barrier of the British when they occupied New 
 York Island in the Revolution ; while as far north as 
 the Croton River, extended the neutral ground, the 
 scene of Cooper s first American romance, the heroine 
 of which is this same fair but unresponsive enslaver of 
 our peerless chief s young affections. Here in 75 
 Congress ordered a post established to protect New 
 York by land ; two years later occurred the san 
 guinary fight between the Continentals under Heath, 
 and the Hessians under Knyphausen. The next year 
 Cornwallis fixed his command at the same border 
 causeway ; and in 81, when our army came near the 
 spot to give the French officers a view of the out- 
 
BRIDGES. 365 
 
 posts, a brisk skirmish ensued, and a number of our 
 men were killed at long shot King s Bridge was long 
 the rendezvous of freebooters in those unsettled times, 
 and the rallying-point of the Cow-boys. Beautifully 
 situated at the confluence of the Hudson and Harlaem 
 rivers, surrounded by high rolling hills, then thickly 
 wooded and crowned with forts, the region was origi 
 nally selected as the site of New Amsterdam, on account 
 of its secure position. When Manhattan Island was 
 abandoned by the British in 76, Washington occupied 
 King s Bridge as his head-quarters. Indeed, from Tren 
 ton to Lodi, military annals have few more fierce con 
 flicts than those wherein the bridge of the battle-ground 
 is disputed ; to cross one is often a declaration of war, 
 and Rubicons abound in history. 
 
 There is probably no single problem, wherein the 
 laws of science and mechanical skill combine, which has 
 so won the attention and challenged the powers of in 
 ventive minds as the construction of bridges. The 
 various exigencies to be met, the possible triumphs to 
 be achieved, the experiments as to form, material, secu 
 rity, and grace, have been prolific causes of inspiration 
 and disappointment. In this branch of -economy, the 
 mechanic and the mathematician fairly meet ; and it 
 requires a rare union of ability in both vocations to 
 arrive at original results in this sphere. To invent a 
 bridge, through the application of a scientific principle 
 by a novel method, is one of those projects which seem 
 to fascinate philosophical minds ; in few have theory 
 and practice been more completely tested ; and the 
 history of bridges, scientifically written, would exhibit 
 as remarkable conflicts of opinion, trials of inventive 
 skill, decision of character, genius, folly, and fame, as 
 
366 BRIDGES. 
 
 any other chapter in the annals of progress. How to 
 unite security with the least inconvenience, permanence 
 with availability, strength with beauty, -how to adapt 
 the structure to the location, climate, use, and risks, 
 are questions which often invoke all the science and 
 skill of the architect, and which have increased in diffi 
 culty with the advance of other resources and requisi 
 tions of civilization. Whether a bridge is to cross a 
 brook, a river, a strait, an inlet, an arm of the sea, a 
 canal, or a valley, are so many diverse contingencies 
 which modify the calculations and plans of the engineer. 
 Here liability to sudden freshets, there to overwhelming 
 tides, now to the enormous weight of railway-trains, 
 and again to the corrosive influence of the elements, 
 must be taken into consideration ; the navigation of 
 waters, the exigencies of war, the needs of a population, 
 the respective uses of viaduct, aqueduct, and roadway, 
 have often to be included in the problem. These con 
 siderations influence not only the method of construc 
 tion, but the form adopted and the material, and have 
 given birth to bridges of wood, brick, stone, iron, wire, 
 and chain, to bridges supported by piers, to floating, 
 suspension, and tubular structures, many of which are 
 among the remarkable trophies of modern science and 
 the noblest fruits of the arts of peace. Railways have 
 created an entirely new species of bridge, to enable a 
 train to intersect a road, to cross canals in slanting 
 directions, to turn amid jagged precipices, and to cross 
 arms of the sea at a sufficient elevation not to interfere 
 with the passage of ships, objects not to be accom 
 plished by suspension-bridges because of their oscilla 
 tion, nor girder for lack of support, the desiderata being 
 extensive span with rigid strength, so triumphantly 
 
BRIDGES. 367 
 
 realized in the tubular bridge. The day when the great 
 Holyrood train passing over the Strait of Menai by this 
 grand expedient, established the superiority of this 
 principle of construction, became a memorable occa 
 sion in the annals of mechanical science, and immor 
 talized the name of Stephenson. 
 
 We find great national significance in the history of 
 bridges in different countries. Their costly and sub 
 stantial grandeur in Britain accords with the solid qual 
 ities of the race, and their elegance on the Continent 
 with the pervasive influence of Art in Europe. It is a 
 curious illustration of the inferior economical and high 
 intellectual development of Greece, that the "Athenians 
 waded, when their temples were the most perfect mod 
 els of architecture " ; and equally an evidence of the 
 practical energy of the old Romans, that their stone 
 bridges often remain to this hour intact. Our own in 
 complete civilization is manifest in the marvellous num 
 ber of bridges that annually break down, from negligent 
 or unscientific construction ; while the indomitable en 
 terprise of the people is no less apparent in some of the 
 longest, loftiest, most wonderfully constructed and sus 
 tained bridges in the world. We have only to cross 
 the Suspension Bridge at Niagara, or gaze up to its 
 aerial tracery from the river, or look forth upon wooded 
 ravines and down precipitous and umbrageous glens 
 from the Erie Railway, to feel that in this, as in all 
 other branches of mechanical enterprise, our nation is 
 as boldly dexterous as culpably reckless. In no other 
 country would so hazardous an experiment have been 
 ventured as that of an engineer on one of the most fre 
 quented lines of railroad in the land, who finding the 
 bridge he was approaching on fire, bade the passengers 
 
368 BRIDGES. 
 
 keep their seats, and dashed boldly through the flames 
 ere the main arch gave way ! " The vast majority of 
 bridges in this country," says a recent writer, " whether 
 for railroads or for ordinary horse-travel, have these ele 
 mental points: 1. Fragility. 2. Unendurably hideous 
 ugliness. 3. Great aptitude for catching fire. They 
 are all built of wood, and must be constantly patched 
 and mended, and will rot away in a very few years. 
 They are enormous blots on the landscape, stretching 
 as they do like long unpainted boxes across the stream ; 
 like huge Saurian monsters with ever-open jaws into 
 which you rush, or walk, or drive, and are gobbled up 
 from all sight or sense of beauty. The dry timber of 
 which they are buijf will catch fire from the mere spark 
 of a locomotive, as in the case a few years ago of that 
 hideous bridge which had so long insulted the Hudson 
 River at Troy ; and which was not only burned itself, 
 but spread the destroying flame to the best part of the 
 town. These bridges deface all the valleys of our land. 
 The Housatonic, the Mohawk, the Lehigh, the hundreds 
 of small yet beautiful rivers which so delightfully diver 
 sify our country, one and all suffer by the vile wooden- 
 bridge system which has nothing at all to plead in ex 
 tenuation of its tasteless, expensive existence. Every 
 bridge in this country should be deprived of its heavy 
 roof; and if the exigencies of engineering required 
 side-walls, they should be plentifully perforated with 
 open spaces. The more recent railroad bridges are 
 fortunately open bridges, or viaducts, as it is fashiona 
 ble to call them, and the traveller, as in the case of the 
 Starucca viaduct on the Erie road, can both admire the 
 engineering skill and enjoy the scenery. The Connecti 
 cut Valley is terribly disfigured by these bridges ; and 
 
BRIDGES. 369 
 
 a traveller from New Haven to Memphremagog will be 
 thoroughly impressed with this fact, which is the only 
 drawback to the pleasure of the route." As an instance 
 of ingenuity in this sphere, the bridge which crosses the 
 Potomac Creek, near Washington, deserves notice. The 
 hollow iron arches which support this bridge also serve 
 as conduits to the aqueduct which supplies the city with 
 water. 
 
 Amid the mass of prosaic structures in London, what 
 a grand exception to the architectural monotony are her 
 bridges ! How effectually they have promoted her sub 
 urban growth! " The English," wrote Rose, from Italy, 
 " are Hottentots in architecture except that of bridges." 
 Canova thought the Waterloo Bridge the finest in Eu 
 rope, and, by a strangely tragic coincidence, this noble 
 and costly structure is the favorite scene of suicidal 
 despair, wherewith the catastrophes of modern novels 
 and the most pathetic of city lyrics are indissolubly 
 associated. Westminster Bridge is as truly the Swiss 
 Laboyle s monument of architectural genius, fortitude, 
 and patience, as St. Paul s is that of Wren ; there 
 Crabbe, with his poems in his pocket, walked to and fro 
 in a flutter of suspense the morning before his fortunate 
 application to Burke ; and our own Remington s bridge- 
 enthusiasm involves a pathetic story. At Cordova, the 
 bridge over the Guadalquiver is a grand relic of Moor 
 ish supremacy. The oldest bridge in England is that 
 of Croyland in Lincolnshire ; the largest crosses the 
 Trent in Staffordshire. Tom Paine designed a cast- 
 iron bridge, but the speculation failed, and the materials 
 were subsequently used in the beautiful bridge over the 
 River Wear, in Durham County. There is a segment 
 of a circle six hundred feet in diameter in Palmer s 
 24 
 
370 BRIDGES. 
 
 bridge which spans our own Piscataqua. It is said that 
 the first edifice of the kind which the Romans built of 
 stone was the Ponte Rotto, begun by the Censor Ful- 
 vius and finished by Seipio Africanus and Lucius Mum- 
 mius. Popes Julius III. and Gregory XIV. repaired 
 it ; so that the fragment now so valued as a picturesque 
 ruin symbolizes both Imperial and Ecclesiastical rule. 
 In striking contrast with the reminiscences of valor, 
 hinted by ancient Roman bridges, are the ostentatious 
 Papal inscriptions which everywhere in the States of 
 the Church, in elaborate Latin, announce that this Pon 
 tiff built, or that Pontiff repaired, these structures. 
 
 The mediaeval castle -moat and drawbridge have, 
 indeed, been transferred from the actual world to that 
 of fiction, history, and art, except where preserved as 
 memorials of antiquity ; but the civil importance which 
 from the dawn of civilization attached to the bridge is 
 as patent to-day as when a Roman emperor, a feudal 
 lord, or a monastic procession went forth to celebrate or 
 consecrate its advent or completion ; in evidence where 
 of, we have the appropriate function which made per 
 manently memorable the late visit of Victoria s son to 
 her American realms, in his inauguration of the magnifi 
 cent bridge bearing her name, which is thrown across 
 the St. Lawrence for a distance of only sixty yards less 
 than two English miles, the greatest tubular bridge 
 in the world. When Prince Albert, amid the cheers of 
 a multitude and the grand cadence of the national an 
 them, finished the Victoria Bridge by giving three blows 
 with a mallet to the last rivet in the central tube, he 
 celebrated one of the oldest, though vastly advanced, 
 triumphs of the arts of peace, which ally the rights of 
 the people and the good of human society to the repre 
 sentatives of law and polity. 
 
BRIDGES. 371 
 
 One may recoil with a painful sense of material in 
 congruity, as did Hawthorne, when contemplating the 
 noisome suburban street where Burns lived ; but all the 
 humane and poetical associations connected with the 
 long struggle sustained by him, of " the highest in man s 
 soul against the lowest in man s destiny," recur in sight 
 of the Bridge of Doon, and the two " briggs of Ayr," 
 whose " imaginary conversations " he caught and re 
 corded ; or that other bridge which spans a glen on the 
 Auchinleck estate, where the rustic bard first saw the 
 Lass of Ballochmyle. The tender admiration which 
 embalms the name of Keats is also blent with the idea 
 of a bridge. The poem which commences his earliest 
 published volume was suggested, according to Milnes, 
 as he " loitered by the gate that leads from the battery 
 on Hampstead Heath to the field by Caenwood " ; and 
 the young poet told his friend Clarke that the sweet 
 passage, " Awhile upon some bending planks," came 
 to him as he hung " over the rail of a foot-bridge that 
 spanned a little brook in the last field upon entering 
 Edmonton." One of Wordsworth s finest sonnets was 
 composed on Westminster Bridge. To the meditative 
 pedestrian, indeed, such places lure to quietude ; the 
 genial Country Parson, whose " Recreations " we have 
 recently shared, unconsciously illustrates this, as he 
 speaks of the privilege men like him enjoy, when free 
 " to saunter forth with a delightful sense of leisure, and 
 know that nothing will go wrong, although he should 
 sit down on the mossy parapet of the little one-arched 
 bridge that spans the brawling mountain-stream." On 
 that Indian-summer day when Irving was buried, no 
 object of the familiar landscape, through which, without 
 formality, and in quiet grief, so many of the renowned 
 
872 BRIDGES. 
 
 and the humble followed his remains from the village- 
 church to the rural graveyard, wore so pensive a fitness 
 to the eye as the simple bridge over Sleepy-Hollow 
 Creek, near to which Ichabod Crane encountered the 
 headless horseman, not only as typical of his genius, 
 which thus gave a local charm to the scene, but because 
 the country-people, in their heartfelt wish to do him 
 honor, had hung wreaths of laurel upon the rude planks. 
 There are few places in Europe where the picturesque 
 and historical associations of a bridge more vividly im 
 press the spectator than Sorrento ; divided from the 
 main land by a gorge two hundred feet deep and fifty 
 wide, the chasm is spanned by a bridge which rests on 
 double arches, built by the Romans ; it is the popular 
 rendezvous, and, beheld on coming from some adjacent 
 orange-garden, resembles a picture, the men with their 
 crimson or brown caps, and the women with jetty hair 
 and eyes, and enormous ear-rings, cluster there in the 
 centre of the most exquisite scenery. There is a bridge 
 across the Adige at Verona, which used to be opened 
 but once a year, on account of the risk of injury its 
 span being prodigious ; it was long called the " Holiday 
 Bridge." In Paris the change in the names of bridges 
 is historically significant: in 1817 "the bridge of Aus- 
 terlitz abdicated its name," and became the bridge of 
 the Jardin des Plantes. The lofty bridge of Carignano, 
 at Genoa, owes its existence to a quarrel between two 
 noblemen ; and it is a favorite sacrificial spot to suicides 
 who have repeatedly thrown themselves therefrom head 
 long into the Strada Servi. 
 
 " The Baltimore and Ohio railroad company lose two 
 of their admirable bridges: one at Fairmount, over the 
 Monongahela River, and the famous one over the Cheat 
 
BRIDGES. 373 
 
 Hiver," wrote a late reporter from the scene of war in 
 Virginia. " The latter was one of the most beautiful 
 structures in the United States, and, being placed amid 
 scenery of unsurpassed grandeur, it had already become 
 a classic spot in the guide-book of American art. It 
 was vandalism fit for ingrates and traitors of the lowest 
 type to destroy what was at once so beautiful and useful 
 a monument of taste and science." 
 
 Another fine landscape effect produced by a bridge 
 is at Spoleto, in the Roman States ; the ten brick arches 
 that so picturesquely span the romantic valley, have 
 carried the water for centuries into the old city. The 
 magnificent bridge by which Madrid is approached, is 
 a grand feature in the adjacent landscape ; and its 
 striking photograph a noble souvenir of the Spanish 
 capital. The most awful bridge imagination ever cre 
 ated, is that described by Milton, whereby Satan s " sea 
 should find a shore " : 
 
 " Sin and Death amain 
 
 Following his track, such was the will of Heaven, 
 Pav d after him a broad and beaten way 
 O er the dark abyss, whose boiling gulf 
 Tamely endured a bridge of wond rous length, 
 From hell continued, reaching th utmost orb 
 Of this frail world; by which the spirits perverse 
 With easy intercourse pass to and fro 
 To tempt and punish mortals." 
 
 Fragments, as well as entire roadways and arches of 
 natural bridges, are more numerous in rocky, mountain 
 ous, and volcanic regions than is generally supposed ; 
 the action of the water in excavating cliffs, the segments 
 of caverns, the accidental shapes of geological forma 
 tions, often result in structures so adapted for the use 
 and like the shape of bridges as to appear of artificial 
 
374 BRIDGES. 
 
 origin. In the States of Alabama and Kentucky, espe 
 cially, we have notable instances of these remarkable 
 freaks of Nature ; there is one in Walker County, of the 
 former State, which, as a local curiosity, is unsurpassed ; 
 and one in the romantic County of Christian, in the latter 
 State, makes a span of seventy feet with an altitude of 
 thirty ; while the vicinity of the famous Alabaster Moun 
 tain of Arkansas boasts a very curious and interesting 
 formation of this species. Two of these natural bridges 
 are of such vast proportions and symmetrical structure 
 that they rank among the wonders of the world, and 
 have long been the goals of pilgrimage, the shrines of 
 travel. Their structure would hint the requisites, and 
 their forms the lines of beauty, desirable in architec 
 tural prototypes. Across Cedar Creek, in Rockbridge 
 County, Virginia, a beautiful and gigantic arch, thrown 
 by elemental forces and shaped by time, extends. It is 
 a stratified arch, whence you gaze down two hundred 
 feet upon the flowing water ; its sides are rock, nearly 
 perpendicular. Popular conjecture reasonably deems 
 it the fragmentary arch of an immense limestone cave ; 
 its loftiness imparts an aspect of lightness, although at 
 the centre it is nearly fifty feet thick, and so massive is 
 the whole that over it passes a public road, so that by 
 keeping in the middle one might cross unaware of the 
 marvel. To realize its height it must be viewed from 
 beneath ; from the side of the creek it has a Gothic 
 aspect; its immense walls, clad with forest-trees, its 
 dizzy elevation, buttress-like masses, and aerial symme 
 try, make this sublime arch one of those objects which 
 impress the imagination with grace and grandeur all the 
 more impressive because the mysterious work of Na 
 ture, eloquent of the ages, and instinct with the latent 
 
BRIDGES. 375 
 
 forces of the universe. Equally remarkable, but in a 
 diverse style, is the Giant s Causeway, whose innumera 
 ble black stone columns rise from two to four hundred 
 feet above the water s edge in the County of Antrim, on 
 the north coast of Ireland. These basaltic pillars are 
 for the most part pentagonal, whose five sides are closely 
 united, not in one conglomerate mass, but articulated so 
 aptly that to be traced the ball and socket must be dis 
 jointed. 
 
 The effect of statuary upon bridges is memorable ; 
 the Imperial statues which line that of Berlin form an 
 impressive array ; and whoever has seen the figures on 
 the Bridge of Sant Angelo at Rome, when illuminated 
 on a Carnival night, or the statues upon Santa Trinita 
 at Florence, bathed in moonlight, and their outline dis 
 tinctly revealed against sky and water, cannot but 
 realize how harmoniously sculpture may illustrate and 
 heighten the architecture of the bridge. More quaint 
 than appropriate is pictorial embellishment ; a beautiful 
 Madonna or local saint placed midway or at either end 
 of a bridge, especially one of mediaeval form and fash 
 ion, seems appropriate ; but elaborate painting, such as 
 one sees at Lucerne, strikes us as more curious than 
 desirable. The bridge which divides the town and 
 crosses the Reuss is covered, yet most of the pictures 
 are weather-stained ; as no vehicles are allowed, foot- 
 passengers can examine them at ease. They are in 
 triangular frames, ten feet apart, but few have any 
 technical merit. One series illustrates Swiss history ; 
 and the Kapellbriicke has the pictorial life of the Saint 
 of the town ; while the Mile Bridge exhibits a quaint 
 and rough copy of the famous " Dance of Death." 
 
 In Switzerland what fearful ravines and foaming cas- 
 
376 BRIDGES. 
 
 cades do bridges cross ! sometimes so aerial, and over 
 hanging such precipices, as to justify to the imagination 
 the name superstitiously bestowed on more than one, of 
 the Devil s Bridge ; while from few is a more lovely 
 effect of near water seen than the " arrowy Rhone," as 
 we gaze down upon its " blue rushing " beneath the 
 bridge at Geneva. Perhaps the varied pictorial effects 
 of bridges, at least in a city, are nowhere more striking 
 than at Venice, whose five hundred, with their mellow 
 tint and association with palatial architecture and streets 
 of water, especially when revealed by the soft and radi 
 ant hues of an Italian sunset, present outlines, shapes, 
 colors, and contrasts so harmonious and beautiful as to 
 warm and haunt the imagination while they charm the 
 eye. It is remarkable, as an artistic fact, how gra 
 ciously these structures adapt themselves to such di 
 verse scenes, equally, though variously, picturesque 
 amid the sturdy foliage and wild gorges of the Alps, 
 the bustle, fog, and mast-forest of the Thames, and the 
 crystal atmosphere, Byzantine edifices, and silent canals 
 of Venice. 
 
 Whoever has truly felt the aerial perspective of Tur 
 ner has attained a delicate sense of the pictorial signi 
 ficance of the bridge ; for, as we look through his float 
 ing mists, we descry, amid Nature s most evanescent 
 phenomena, the span, the arch, the connecting lines or 
 masses whereby this familiar image seems to identify 
 itself not less with Nature than with Art. Among the 
 drawings which Arctic voyagers have brought home, 
 many a bridge of ice, enormous and symmetrical, seems 
 to tempt adventurous feet and to reflect a like form of 
 fleecy cloud-land ; daguerreotyped by the frost in min 
 iature, the same structures may be traced on the win- 
 
BRIDGES. 377 
 
 dow-pane ; printed on the fossil and the strata of rock, 
 in the veins of bark and the lips of shells, or floating 
 in sunbeams, an identical design appears ; and, on a 
 summer morning, as the eye carefully roams over a 
 lawn, how often do the most perfect little suspension- 
 bridges hang from spear to spear of herbage, their filmy 
 span embossed with glittering dew-drops ! * 
 
 * " The invention of the Suspension Bridge, by Sir Samuel Brown, 
 sprung from the sight of a spider s web hanging across the path of the 
 inventor, observed on a morning walk, when his mind was occupied 
 with the idea of bridging the Tweed." 
 
RETURN TO the circulation desk of any 
 
 .- 
 
 University of California Library 
 or to the 
 
 NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 Bldg. 400, Richmond Field Station 
 University of California 
 Richmond, CA 94804-4698 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 2-month loans may be renewed by calling 
 
 (510)642-6753 
 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing books 
 
 to NRLF 
 Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days 
 
 prior to due date 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 NOV 1 2 
 
1 1 11^6000 
 
 r*^ - i? 
 
 M165240 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY