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Vol. I. REVIEWS.
BADEN-BADEN.
PRINTED BY S C OT Z NI O VS K Y.
1858.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Pag.
COOPER'S "INDIAN AND INGIN" 1
TRANSLATORS OF HOMER 11
PHONICS AND PHONETICS 57
THE PROSE WRITINGS OF ANDRE CHENIER 64
RECENT ENGLISH HISTORIANS OF ANCIENT GREECE 80
TABLE ESTHETICS ' 126
A TALE ABOUT THE PRINCESS 171
VANITY FAIR 195
OXFORD HEXAMETERS 215
NEW YORK SOCIETY AND THE WRITERS THEREON 220
ARISTOPHANES 249
THE 'WALTER MAPE8' POEMS 262
PROFESSOR LINCOLN'S HORACE 278
LATIN PRONUNCIATION 277
THE AJAX OF SOPHOKLES 283
PARIS IN LITTLE , AND SOME OF THE VANITIES THEREOF .... 294
APROPOS OF "RACHEL AND THE NEW WORLD" 331
26.
COOPER'S "INDIAN AND INGIN."
American Review, September 1846.
VERY narrow and imperfect is the common notion
about novels, that they are fictitious narratives written
to amuse. So far is this from being the case that we
are persuaded no successful novelist ever wrote , or , at
least, continued to write, without some ulterior aim — the
advocacy of some principle or sentiment. A man of vivid
imagination is generally, (if indeed we must not say ne-
cessarily,) also a man of strong personal feelings and
partisan tendencies; and when he finds himself in the
position of a moral agent, can he help making his fiction
the vehicle of truth, or what he conceives to be truth?
To uphold certain schools of art, literature or politics;
to further social reforms ; to discourage prejudices , and
expose abuses; to make one nation better known to, and
therefore, better appreciated by, another; to influence
popular opinion , and even modify national habits of
thought — these are some of the novelist's aims — not merely
as some suppose in their short-sightedness, to help board-
ing-school misses and silly boys to kill time. Great,
indeed, is his power for evil; but mighty is it likewise
for good, nor is he always, thank God, a servant of
Darkness. If D'Israeli perverts his dexterous humor to
the gratification of private pique, and the resuscitation
of defunct fallacies. Miss Martineau inculcates lessons of
charity and long-suffering that are better than many
sermons. If the French Romancers do their best to create
a hell upon earth, by way of compensation for their dis-
belief in one hereafter, our own great novelist presents
that spectacle which has ever been the philosopher's
admiration — an indie idual who dares to tell the truth to
a tyrant.
When "Satanstoe," the first of the Littlepage Manu-
scripts, appeared, it excited in us feelings of unmitigated
Vol. T. ^
pleasure and lively expectation. The "Chainbearer" did
not alloy that pleasure, or disappoint that expectation.
We were glad to see our distinguished countryman
applying his talents and energies to the exposure and
censure of that evil condition of things which is at once
the danger and the disgrace of our State. We were glad
that he had written a novel on the subject, not a pamphlet,
or an essay, or a disquisition; for men will read novels
who will not read pamphlets and disquisitions and essays.
We were glad (for the first times in our lives) that he
was a "Democrat," for many men will listen to a Democrat
who would not think of hearing a "British Whig." Above
all we were glad to find throughout these books abundant
signs that their author aims at being a Christian as well
as a gentleman — to meet with abundant recognitions of
the Highest Authority — expressed indeed, at times, with
that disagreeable dogmatism which seems as if by some
fatality to attend on all Mr. Cooper's opinions — but
unmistakably genuine, and as such heartily refreshing in
a time of infidel litterateurs^ and infidel legislators.
"The Redskins; or Indian and Ingin'' completes his
proposed task. "This book," we quote from the preface,
"closes the series of the Littlepage Manuscripts which
have been given to the world as containing a fair account
of the comparative sacrifices of time, money and labor
made respectively by the landlord and the tenants on a
New-York estate, together with the manner in which
usages and opinions are changing among us ; as well as
certain of the causes of these changes." The present
illustration of these developments involves none of those
thrilling incidents for which Mr. Cooper is so famous.
His story is entirely subordinated to his moral. The
narrative contains few, or, to speak plainly, no points of
particular interest. A young man and his bachelor uncle,
both large landed proprietors, return from their travels
in Europe to find their tenants in arms, and their own
homes in actual danger. Disguised as German pedlers
they visit the seat of war, are present at an anti-rent
meeting, and observe the actions and motives of sundry
parties concerned in the movement. Discovering them-
selves in a moment of excitement they are fairly besieged,
and the rioters endeavor to make their house literally
"too hot to hold them." But the arrival of some real
8
Indians (on a visit to an old chief, a friend of the family)
enables them to repel the "armed and disguised," or
pretended '^Ingins" till the sheriff comes to the rescue.
Of course there is a heroine who is neither more nor
less interesting than the author's heroines generally are,
and a wedding to wind up with according to rule
established. In all this, save the introduction of the
Indians proper, (a very felicitous conception, and very
neatly worked out,) there is nothing more than might
happen to any landholder in the disturbed districts;
not so much as has happened to some of them. In short,
"the Redskins" is simply a vigorous exposure of Anti-
Rentism. And it is also evident to us that the book was
written for the masses, that it was designed to enlighten
popular views, and expose popular fallacies. This we
infer from the sedulous repetition of its chief points, and
the labor expended in asserting and proving such posi-
tions as these: That it is possible for the poor to tyrannize
over the rich as well as the rich over the poor; that
exclusiveness on the part of an individual is no infringe-
ment of his neighbor's rights ; that money does not make
the gentleman, or guide the gentleman in the choice of
his friends — positions which to a gentleman are simple
axioms,
eg de Torcav
eQlLir^vecov xaziQeL.
The work exhibits throughout much of one of the
last qualities many of our readers might be disposed to
give Mr. Cooper credit for — strong common sense. No
judge's charge could state the points at issue more clearly
and forcibly. And pari passu with this common sense
runs that common honesty which has of late grown very
uncommon among us. An utter fearlessness of popular
prejudices, and that mighty bug-bear, "public opinion,"
characterizes the book. To be sure, as it is our unfor-
tunate tendency to run into extremes, the author some-
times says annoying things which are merely annoying,
and can do no good. For example, he is continually
dwelling on the prooincialism of our city. Now here
we happen to differ from him, and after our own limited
experience of foreign cities, are convinced that in all the
essentials and attributes of a metropolis, New-York may
hold up its head with any of the second-class European
capitals — Naples for instance. But suppose it otherwise —
let New-York and New-Yorkers be as provincial as the
novelist asserts, what good is there in his saying so?
Nay, let them be as convinced of it as he is, what good
would there be in their feeling so? Our own impulse
would be rather to magnify and exaggerate the beauties
of New^-York in the hope of exciting her citizens to
greater zeal for the honor of the Empire State, and
greater vigilance against the danger which threatens so fair
a domain. Again, we find most unnecessary ofFensiveness
of language in every expression relative to New-England.
Thus, Puritanism is described in these conciliatory terms
which might move the envy of D'Israeli himself:
"The rowdy religion, half cant half blasphemy, that
Cromw^ell and his associates entailed on so many English-
men, but which was not without a degree of ferocious,
narrow-minded sincerity about it after all."
What would Thomas Carlyle say to this?
But whatever blame we might otherwise be disposed
to bestow on Mr. C. for his worse than useless violence
on some minor matters vanishes before our admiration
of the unflinching resoluteness with which he has achieved
his great task — that of telling his countrymen the
truth on subjects of vital importance, respecting which
most erroneous ideas are prevalent.
The main points affirmed, illustrated and conclusioelg
proved in "'The Redskins" are these:
1. That the alleged grievances of the tenants are
utterly false and frivolous.
2. That the aim and object of the Anti-Renters is
simply and absolutely to get other men's property without
paying for it.
3. That the landlords' rights have been disregarded
because they are rich men ; and the rich being a minority,
may, in this country of majorities, be tyrannized over
with impunity.
4. That the present movement is only the first step
to a general war upon property.
5. That there is still honesty enough in the commu-
nity to put down anti-rentism at any moment, if the honest
men will only exert themselves properly.
Of course, we shall not be understood to say that these
topics are treated of in regular order, or that they are
the only ones introduced; but the readers of ''The Red-
Skins" (and may their name be legion !) will agree in the
justice of the above analysis.
How all this has been done we shall endeavor par-
tially to show, by extracts from the work itself, begin-
ning with an indignant exposure of
THE POPULAR CANT ABOUT ARISTOCRACY.
"Lest this manuscript should get into the hands of some of those
who do not understand the real condition of New- York society, it
may be well to explain that 'aristocrat' means, in the parlance of the
country, no other than a man of gentlemanlike tastes, habits, opinions
and associations. There are gradations among the aristocracy ;
of the State, as well as among other men. Thus , he who is
an aristocrat in a hamlet, would be very democratic in a village;
and he of the village might be no aristocrat in the town at all;
though in the towns, generally, indeed always, when their popu-
lation has the least of a town character, the distinction ceases alto-
gether, men quietly dropping into the traces of civilized society, and
talking or thinking very little about it. To see the crying evils of
American aristocracy, then, one must go into the country. There,
indeed , a plenty of cases exist. Thus , if there happen to be a man
whose property is assessed at twenty- five per cent, above that of all
his neighbors — who must have right on his side bright as a cloudless
sun to get a verdict , if obliged to appeal to the laws — who pays
fifty per cent, more for everything he buys, and receives fifty per
cent, less for everything he sells, than any other person near him—
who is surrounded by rancorous enemies, in the midst of a seeming
state of peace— who has everything he says and does perverted, and
added to, and lied about — who is traduced because his dinner-hour
is later than that of 'other folks'— who don't stoop, but is straight
in the back — who presumes to doubt that this country, in general,
and his own township in particular, is the focus of civilization— who
hesitates about signing his name to any flagrant instance of ignorance,
bad taste, or worse morals, that his neighbors may get up in the
shape of a petition, remonstrance, or resolution — depend on it, that
man is a prodigious aristocrat, and one who, for his many offence
and manner of lording it over mankind, deserves to be banished."
ARISTOCRATIC EXCLUSIVENESS. (The interlocutors are the Pseudo-
German and one of his tenants.)
'"Well, Mr. Greisenbach, the difficulty about aristocracy is this
Hugh Littlepage is rich, and his money gives him advantages that
other men can't enj'y. Now. that sticks in some folks' crops.'
h
"'Oh! den it ist meant to divite broperty in dis coontry; und to
say no man might haf more ast anudder?'
"'Folks don't go quite as far that, yet; though some of their
talk does squint that-a-way, I must own Now, there are folks about
here that complain that old Madam Littlepage and her young ladies
don't visit the poor '
"'Veil, if deys be hard — hearted, und hast no feelin's for der poor
and miseraple — '
"'No, no; that is not what I mean, neither. As for that sort of
poor, everybody allows they do more for them than anybody else
about here. But they don't visit the poor that isn't in want.'
" 'Veil, it ist a ferry coomfortable sort of poor dat ist not in any
vant. Berhaps you mean dey don't associate wid 'em as equals ?'
'"That's it."
FEUDAL PRIVILEGES.
"'Then the cry is raised of feudal privileges, because some of
the Rensselear tenants are obliged to find so many days' work with
their teams , or substitutes , to the landlord , and even because they
have to pay annually a pair of fat fowls ! We have seen enough of
America, Hugh, to know that most husbandmen would be delighted
to have the privilege of paying their debts in chickens and work,
instead of in money, which renders the cry only so much the more
wicked. But what is there more feudal in a tenant's thus paying his
landlord, than in a butscher's contracting to furnish so much meat
for a series of years, or a mail contractor's agreeing to carry the
mail in a four-horse coach for a term of years, eh? No one objects
to the rent in wheat, and why should they object to the rent in
chickens ? Is it because our republican farmers have got to be so
aristocratic themselves, that they do not like to be thought poulterers?
This is being aristocratrc on the other side. These dignitaries should
remember that if it be plebeian to furnish fowls, it is plebeian to re-
ceive them; and if the tenant has to find an individual who has to
submit to the degradation of tendering a pair of fat fowls, the land-
lord has to find an individual who has to submit to the degradation
of taking them, and of putting them away in the larder. It seems
to me that one is an offset to the other.'"
HARDSHIP OF LONG LEASES.
"The longer a lease is, other things being equal, the better it is
for the tenant, all the world over. Let us suppose two farms , the
the one leased for five years, and the other for ever: Which tenant
is most independent of the political influence of his landlord, to say
nothing of the impossibility of controling votes in this way in Ame-
rica, from a variety of causes? Certainly, he who has a lease for
ever. He is just as independent of his landlord, as his landlord can
he of him, with the exception that he has rent to pay. In the latter
case, he is precisely like any other debtor — like the poor man who
contracts debts with the same storekeeper for a series of years. As
for the possession of the farm, which we are to suppose is a desirable
thing for the tenant, he of the long lease is clearly most independent,
since the other may be ejected at the end of each five years. Nor
is there the least difference as to acquiring the property in fee, since
the landlord may sell equally in either case, if so disposed; and if
not disposed, no honest man, under any system, ought to do anything
to compel him so to do , either directly or indirectly ; and no truly
honest man would."
RESERVATION OF WOODLANDS.
"This wood, exceeding a thousand acres in extent, stretched
down from the hills along some broken and otherwise little valuable
land, and had been reserved from the axe to meet the wants of some
future day. It was mine, therefore, in the fullest sense of the word:
and singular as it may seem , one of the grounds of accusation
brought against me and my predecessors was that we had declined
leasing it! Thus, on the one hand, we were abused for having leased
our land, and, on the other, for not having leased it. The fact is,
we, in common with other extensive landlords, are expected to use
our property as much as possible for the particular benefit of other
people, while those other people are expected to use their property
as much as possible for their own particular benefit "
PLEA OF IGNORANCE. (Loquitur an English servant )
"'What is it you wants, I says to him? you can't all be land-
lords — somebody must be tenants ; and if you didn't want to be
tenants, how come you to be so? Land is plenty in this country'
and cheap too; and why didn't you buy your land at first, instead of
coming to rent of Mr. Hugh: and now when you have rented, to be
quarreling about the very thing you did of your own accord?
"'Dere you didst dell 'em a goot t'ing; and vhat might der
'Squire say to dat?'
"'Oh! he was quite dumb-founded, at first; then he said that in
old times, when people first rented these lands, they didn't know as
much as they do now, or they never would have done it.'
"*Und you could answer dat; or vast it your dum to be dum-
founded?'
"'I pitched it into him, as they says; I did. Says I, how's
this, says I — you are for ever boasting how much you Americans
know — and how the people knows everything that ought to be done
about politics and religion — and you proclaim far and near that your
yeomen are the salt of the earth— and yet you don't know how to
bargain for your leases !'"
THE DEMAGOGUE THE COURTIER'S COUNTERPART
"Although there was a good deal of the English footmann in
John's logic and feeling, there M^as also a good deal of truth in what
he said. The part where he accused Newcome of holding one set of
opinions in private, concerning his masters, and another in public, is
true to the life. There is not, at this moment, within the wide reach
of the American borders, one demagogue to be found who might not,
with justice, be accused of precisely the same deception. There is
not one demagogue in the whole country, who, if he lived in a mo-
narchy, would not be the humblest advocate of men in power, ready
to kneel at the feet of those who stood in the sovereign's presence.''
"True to the life" indeed! It is old Aristotle over again. The
Stagyrite has a passage worth referring to in this connection:
"Another form of Democracy is where all citizens are eligible to
office, as in the former instance, but the multitude is supreme, instead
of the law; and this is the case when the people's resolutions
(t<x iprjcplof-iaTa) are valid, but the law is not. This is brought about
by demagogues; for in republics administered according to law, a de-
magogue finds no place, since the best citizens have the preeminence;
but demagogues spring up where the laws are not valid. For there
the people becomes a monarch — one tyrant composed of many. * * * *
Such a people, then, being virtually a king, seeks to play the king,
as it is not controlled by law, and becomes depotic, so that flatterers
are in repute; and this form among popular governments is analogous
to tyranny among monarchies. Wherefore , also , their disposition is
the same, and both are wont to tyrannize over the better class, and
the resolutions of the one answer to the ukases (tcc €71 it ay f^i at a)
of the other, and the demagogue and courtier are equivalent, and each
other's counterpart.''— 'POLITICO, Book 4, Chap. 4.
ONE LAW FOR THE RICH AND ANOTHER FOR THE POOR.
"There is a landlord in this State, a man of large means, who
became liable for the debts of another to a considerable amount. At
the very moment when his rents could not be collected, owing to your
interference and the remissness of those in authority to enforce the
laws, the sheriff" entered his house, and sold its contents, in order to
satisfy an execution against him! There is American aristocracy for
you, and I am sorry to add American justice, as justice has got to
be administered among us."
A POPULAR SYLLOGISM. (From an Anti-Rent Lecture.)
"Let the people but truly rule, and all must come well. The people
have no temptation to do wrong. If they hurt the state they hurt
themselves, for they are the state Is a man likely to hurt himself?
Equality is my axiom."
SLUMBEKING OVER A VOLCANO.
"Look at the newspapers that will be put into your hands to-
morrow morning, fresh from Wall and Pine and Ann streets. They
will be in convulsions, if some unfortunate wight of a Senator speak
of adding an extra corporal to a regiment of foot, as an alarming
war-demonstration, or quote the fall of a fancy stock that has not
one cent of intrinsic value, as if it betokened the downfall of a na-
tion ; while they doze over this volcano, which is raging and gathering
strength beneath the whole community, menacing destruction to the
nation itself, which is the father of stocks."
MR. COOPER'S OPINION OF THAT ATROCIUS PRIVILEGIUM CALLED,
WITH EXQUISITE IRONY, "AN ACT TO EQUALIZE TAXATION."
"We deem the first of these measures far more tyrannical than
the attempt of Great Britain to tax her colonies, which brought about
the Revolution. It is of the same general character — that or unjust
taxation ; while it is attended by circumstances of aggravation that
were altogether wanting in the policy of the mother country. This
is not a tax for revenue , which is not needed ; but a tax to 'choke
ofP' the landlords, to use a common American phrase. It is clearly
taxing nothing, or it is taxing the same property twice. It is done
to conciliate three or four thousand voters, who are now in the
market, at the expense of three or four hundred who, it is known,
are not to be bought. It is unjust in its motives, its means and its
end. The measure is discreditable to civilization , and an outrage on
liberty."
A NUT FOR THE ADVOCATES OF CONCESSION.
"That profound principle of legislation, which concedes the right
in order to maintain quiet, is admirably adapted to forming sinners?
and, if carried out in favor of all who may happen to covet their
neighbors' goods, would, in a short time render this community the
very paradise of knaves."
A MAKE-BELIEVE GOVERNMENT WORSE THAN NONE.
"Manytongues took charge of the watch, though he laughed at
the probability of there being any farther disturbance that night.
"'As for the red-skins,' he said, 'they would as soon sleep out
under the trees, at this season of the year, as sleep under a roof;
and as for waking— cats a'nt their equals. No— no— Colonel; leave
it all to me, and I'll carry you through the night as quietly as if we
were on the prer-ies, and living under good wholesome prer-ie law.'
10
"'As quietly as if we were on the prairies !' We had then
reached that pass in New-York, that after one burning, a citizen
might really hope to pass the remainder of his night as quietly as if
he were on the prairies 1 And there was that frothy, lumbering,
useless machine, called a government, at Albany, within fifty miles
of us, as placid, as self-satisfied, as much convinced that this was
the greatest people on earth, and itself their illustrious representatives,
as if the disturbed counties were so many gardens of Eden, before
sin and transgression had become known to it! If it was doing any-
thing in the premises , it was probably calculating the minimum the
tenant should pay for the landlord's land, when the latter might be
sufficiently worried to part with his estate. Perhaps it was illustra-
ting its notions of liberty, by naming the precise sum that one citizen
ought to accept, in order that the covetous longings of another should
be satisfied!'"
WHAT IT'S COMING TO.
"'I agree with you, Hugh,' said my uncle, in reply to a remark
of my own; 'there is little use in making ourselves unhappy about
evils that we cannot help. If we are to be burnt up and stripped of
our property, we shall be burnt up and stripped of our property. I
have a competency secured in Europe, and we can all live on that^
with economy, should the worst come to the worst.'
"*It is as strange thing, to hear an American talk of seeking a
refuge of any sort in the old world!'
"'If matters proceed in the lively manner they have for the last
ten years, you'll hear of it often. Hitherto, the rich of Europe have
been in then habit of laying by a penny in America against an evil
day; but the time will soon come, unless there is a great change,
when the rich of America will return the compliment in kind. We
are worse off than if we were in a state of nature, in many respects ;
having our hands tied by the responsibility that belongs to our position
and means, while those who choose to assail us are under a mere
nominal restraint.'"
Cooper's Receipt for Anti-Eentism is, in substance
simply to disfranchise those counties which resist the opera-
tion of law. When will our rul— our servants, we mean,
be men enough to use so efficacious a remedy?
But our limits compel us to take leave for the
present of this most valuable book. We say for the
present , for its themes are too momentous to be disposed
of so briefly. But one thing we must say in conclusion.
The parts of this work which might seem , to the
inexperienced reader, the wildest, such as the hints at
u
emigration, suggestions of repelling force by torce, &c.,
do not originale icith Mr. Cooper. The same thoughts have
found a lodgment in many a breast already, though they
have never till now found so open an utterance. More
than one party of Americans in Europe (albeit it might
consist of more than a bachelor uncle and his nephew)
has .held such a conversation as Hugh and Roger held
in Paris. More than one American has given his friends
as grim a welcome home as Jack Dunning did the
Littlepages.
And finally (for there is room for a few more lines)
if any one should blame us for omitting the lesser duties
of criticism — for ha\ing failed to observe that ^Ir. Coo-
per's style is at times incurably wooden, and his sentences
frequently read the very opposite of what they mean,
and his mottoes occasionally have not the least earthly
connection with the subjects of the chapters to which
they are | refixed — we have noticed these blemishes and
others, as who has not in every novel that Mr. Cooper
ever wrote. But at present we are in no frame of Uiind
to carp at the spots on the face of the sun. If all our
authors would write as truthfully as the author of '^Indian
and Ingin" we should be content to have them all write
as clumsily.
TRANSLATORS OF HOMER.*
"BELIER, mon ami, commencez par le commence-
ment." As we are going to write about translations of
Homer let us first get a clear idea of what translation,
and more particularly poetical translation, is. Some of
the popular nations on the subject are indirectly expres-
sed in the following passage, from the writings of an
eminent logician :
"A good translation of a poem (though perhaps, strictly speaking,
what is so called is rather an imitation) ["and accordingly," adds the
author, in a note, "it should be observed that, as all admit, none but
a poet can be qualified to translate a poem"] is read , by one well
* Homer's Illiad. Translated by Munford. Boston: Little & Brown. 1846-
12
acquainted with the original with equal or even superior pleasure to
that which it affords one ignorant of that original, whereas the best
translation of a prose work (at least of one not principally valued
for beauty of style) will seldom be read by one familiar with the
original." — Whateley's Rhetoric^ p. 334.
Under the head "Fallacies" in the Archbishop's Logic
is mentioned, (p. 207,) that of indirect assumption ; of which
there are two or three palpable instances in the above
extract. First of all we do most positively deny, from
our own experience, that ^Hhe best translation of a prose
work will seldom be read by one familiar with the ori-
ginal." We have known men who read with pleasure
Hobbes' Thucydides and the Oxford Tacitus, though fairly
acquainted with the originals. To be sure a great deal
lies in the parenthesis "at least of one not principally
valued for beauty of style." A work is usually read
either for its style or its matter; and he who reads it
for matter alone will usually prefer consulting the ori-
ginal as the safest course, the best translators blundering
occasionally. Some, who are intensely fond of original
poetry, cannot abide any poetical translations at all; but
it would hardly answer to generalize from their case.
But this by the way. Our main quarrel is with the
assertions that none but a poet can translate poetry, and
that good poetical translation is imitation. The first of
these many receive as an axiom. Qualify it, and say that
a poet's translation must be superior to that of any other
man, and a still greater number will acquiesce in it. Yet
we are slow to admit it even in this qualified form. There
are, it is true, some strong plausibilities against us. We
naturally admit, it may be said, that to translate a prose
work well one must write good prose; why should not
the same rule hold good in the case of poetry? Then
the facts of the case are against us. Great poets are
usually great translators. There is Pope, and Byron,
and Shelley, and Coleridge, &c. But let us see how
these positions will bear examination.
In w^hat sense is a good translator of prose a good
prose- writer? Must a man be a great historian to trans-
late Thucydides well? Or a great novelist to translate
Balzac well? Hardly. When we say that our translator
is a good prose-writer we mean that he has a good prose
13
style. Correspondingly then, a good translator of poetry
must have a good poetic style, i. e. poetic manner; be-
tween which and poetic matter there is no necessary
connection. Poetry consists in two things, the idea and
the expression. Now a man may have great facility of
poetic expression, and that even in a foreign tongue,
without the power of originating a single poetic idea.
There are plenty of young men in England who will
paraphrase Burns and Shakspeare into Latin and Greek
verses scarcely to be surpassed for elegance by anything
in Ovid or Euripides. On the other hand poetic ideas
may exist conjointly with a very limited power of poetic
expression, as in the case of Miss Barrett. To form a
great poet both are required; to form a poet at all the
latter alone is insufficient.
Next let us see how many of the best translators
of poetry have been poets. And here be it observed,
by way of caveat , that as translation is an inferior de-
partment of literature, the translations of one who has
already acquired a poetical reputation will derive an
adventitious celebrity from his original works. They
will be read as part of his poetry, and thus become
better known than the productions of one who is no poet.
E. g. supposing Chapman's Illiad to be better than Pope's
still Pope's will always be more generally read, because
Pope as a poet was infinitely above Chapman. Coleridge's
Wallenstein is universally admired in England and ge-
nerally praised in Germany. Byron translated very well.
Shelley with much spirit, though very inaccurately. Leigh
Hunt very well. Wilson particularly well. Pope's imi-
tation of Homer we shall waive considering for the present.
Among ourselves Halleck and Longfellow are good trans-
lators. Se stands the case against us.* Now for the
other side. Old Chapman was no poet. Neither is
"Young Chapman," the only man who has any idea of
putting JEschylus into English verse, and the best Eng-
lish translator of Theocritus (which last commendation,
by the way, is no very exalted panegyric). Elton has
never been guilty of original poetry, but his Specimens
from the Classics are some of the best translations
* For obvious reasons we confine ourselves to English translators
14
extant, f Equally innocent is Carlyle, whose versions of
German ballads, extracts from the Niebelungen Lied, &c.,
are not to be surpassed. Aytoun is a more doubtful case.
He is an inexhaustible writer of parodies, and his serious
poem, Hermotimus, is a work of much promise. Yet no
one would call him a great poet; and no one who has
read Blackwood's Anthological articles can help calling
him a great translator.
But here our facts may be impugned, and we come
to our remaining point of difference with Whateley, the
fundamental question, indeed, of all; What is translation?
Ten years ago we remember, at New Haven, they
had a system they called literal translation; which con-
sisted in rendering every separate word by its primitive
dictionary meaning, making, in realily, as complete ''Dog
English" as the oft-quoted verte canem ex is "Dog Latin"
There is extant a Boston translation of the Tusculan
Questions on this principle which is well w^orth borrow-
ing, to see what impracticable jargon may be written
with English words. There are also some English attempts
upon German philosophical works which are prime spe-
cimens of this lingo, particularly Dobson's perversion of
f In support of this assertion we request particular attention to his
translation of that noble passage in the Peleus and Thetis of Catullus,
beginning
"At parte ex alia florens volitabat lacchus," &c.
*'But in another part lacchus, flush'd
With bloom of youth, came flying from above
With choirs of Satyrs and Sileni born
In Indian Nyse: seeking thee he came,
Oh Ariadne! with thy love inflamed.
They, blithe, from every side came revelling on
Distraught with jocund madness ; with a burst
Of Bacchic outcries and with tossing heads.
Some shook their ivy-shrouded spears; and some
From hand to hand in wild and fitful feast
Snatch'd a torn heifer's limbs : some girt themselves
With twisted serpents: others bore along
In hollow arks the mysteries of the God,
Mysteries to uninitiated ear
In silence wrapt. On timbrels others smote
With tapering hands, or from smooth orbs of brass
Clank'd shrill a tinkling sound; and many blew
The horn's hoarse blare, and the barbaric pipe
Bray'd harsh upon the ear its dinning tune."
1$
ScUeiermacher. The other extreme is where the trans-
lator only takes his author for a guide , and interweaves
new ideas or casts out old ones in accordance with his
fancy or compliance with his metrical inability. The
English scholars already alluded to aim only at produ-
cing elegant Latin and Greek verses, bearing some re-
semblance to the English ones on which they are founded.
It would sometimes be rather puzzling to re-translate
these elaborate performances, as for instance, w^hen Ben
Jonson's "Tempering his greatness with his gravity" is
expressed by
ae^ag T€ navxag ef.i(.ieXwg eriQa^aTO.
A line which it requires a tolerable Greek scholar to
comprehend. That a translator has unlimited license in
this way will hardly be maintained. Few, for example,
would call Marlowe's Sestiad a translation of Musseus'
Sestiad. When Mitchell expands tw o lines of Aristophanes
into three or four verses and a chorus, the boldest would
hesitate to call his paraphrase a translation. But literal
w^ord-for-word rendering is absurd in prose and (happily)
impossible in verse.
Where then is the medium? What is to be our de-
finition of translation, as distinguished from paraphrase
on the one hand and school-boy construing on the other?
The best we can find is Arnold's, viz., Giving Equivalents.
How will the popular notion square with this? Is Pope's
''While scarce the swains their feeding flocks survey,
Lost and confused amidst the thickening day
an equivalent to Homers
TooGov Tig t' e7iL},evGGeL ooov %' ettI Xaav Yrjoiv'^
Is Chapman's
>'Well, but not wisely, loved a cruel maid"
(involving as it does a choice bit of Shakspeare) an
equivalent to Theocritus' ccTirjvea iixev ezaiQoy? Is Taylor's
"Tramp, tramp along the land they rode.
Splash, splash along the sea,"
an equivalent to Burger's
Hurre, hurre, hop, hop, hop,
Gings fort im sausenden galop?"
In this last instance the imitation is admitted by both
English and Germans to surpass the original. It is more
than an equivalent, but on that very account not a
translation.
16
Let us look at the question in another point of view.
If imitation is translation then imitators are plagiarists.
Take any case of imitation, e. g. Homer's description of
Olympus,
"oS^i cpaol d^etov edog aoq^aXeg alel
e'liiuEvar ovt'' aref.iOLGi rivaGoeTai, onre tiot' ofA^QV)
devetaL ovre xiwv ercmikvaTai' ctXXa f^iaX'' ald-prj
TieTiTaTdi avvicpelogf Xevxrj d' BTiididQOfxsv alyXr].^''
Thus imitated by Lucretius,
"Apparet divuum numen sedesque quietse
Quas neque concutiunt venti, nee nubila nimbis
Aspergunt, neque nix acri concreta pruina
Cana cadens violat; semper innubilus aether
Integer et larg^ diffuso lumine ridet."
Any by Tennyson,
''I am going a long way
To the island-valley of Avilion,
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Or ever wind blows loudly, but it lies .♦
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea."
Would any one accuse Lucretius and Tennyson of pla-
giarizing from Homer ? Yet if imitation be translation, they
can scarcely help being obnoxious to the charge. Let
us take an ardent admirer and accurate critic of poetry,
who is master of both his languages and has the facility
of versifying and command of metre acquired by much
poetic reading and study. It is quite possible for a man
to posses all these qualities in a high degree without a
single spark of that imagination which is the primary
idea implied in (connoted by, as the Logicians would say)
the term poet. Such a man, we contend, has all the re-
quisites for a translator of poetry. He unterstands how
to make the dress, and the figure is given him complete.
In some respects he is even better qualified than a poet,
for there is no fear of his trying to improve on his
original as Pope was tempted to deal with Homer.
We have been thus particular in explaining oursel-
ves, because it is an indispensable preliminary to the
comparison of different translations that we should have
a clear idea of what the excellence of a tranlation con-
sists in. According to the popular notion verse transla-
tions are to be estimated by their merits as poems in
■^f.
17
their own vernacular; and that is the best translation
which would be the best original poem if its original
did not exist. According to our theory, (w^hich is that
of Cow per, Elton, Carlyle, and we may add Wilson, in
spite of the praise he has on one occasion bestowed upon
Pope's Homer,) every translation must be rigorously
compared with its original, and that is the best tranla-
tion which would give a man ignorant of the original
language, the best idea of what the original is like.
Homer was the bible of his countrymen for several
centuries: he has since been the admiration of the civi-
lized world. It was most natural that many attempts
should be made to re-produce hin in modern languages.
In this respect the Germans have been fortunate. If the
English have not, it has not been for want of trying.
The complete translation of Homer best know^n are
Chapman's, Pope's, Cowper's and Sotheby's. Besides
these are Ogilby's and Hobbes', an Ossianic prose trans-
lation by Macpherson, and the more recent versions of
Morrice (?) and Brandreth in blank verse. Of partial
translations from one book to ten, the number is very
considerable. A friend recently enumerated to us eleven,
to which we were able to add five, and there is little
doubt that the list might be still further extended. We
have now in Munford's Iliad an American edition to the
roll of competitors.
Chapman's (1600) was the first complete translation.
(Hall had published, nineten years previously, the first
ten books in Alexandrines, a translation of a translation.)
After the appearance of Pope's Homer he lay unjustly
in the shade for some time. He was restored to notice
partly by the New School who favored irregular versi-
fication, partly by a very different style of critic, Wilson.
Since then it has been fashionable to exalt him immea-
surably above Pope, and extol him as the prince of trans-
lators. To do this is to talk very wildly: a cursory
examination will show that his translation has serious
defects. The most obvious is his breaking up the even
flow of Homer's versification by constantly running his
lines into one another. Now if there is any distinctive
feature of Hexameter verse it is the full, rounded close
of each line; to which Chapman pays no more heed than
Vol. I. 2
IS
if he were translating the Horatian Alcaic or any other
continuous stanza. His interpolations, too, are sometimes
very annoying. On no point do Chapman's admirers lay
greater stress than his fidelity as a translator; yet he
has taken as great liberties with his author in his way,
as Pope in his. Most of these additions may be brought
under one head— forced conceit. Conceit was the vice
of that time. Thus Marlowe's Sestiad, an exceedingly
beautiful and luscious poem, is so disfigured by the
quaintnesses in its first fifty lines, that most readers are
killed off there and unable to go further. The blemishes
of a similar kind in Shakspeare are familiar to all. On
opening Chapman at random (in the 5th book) we find
examples of this on either page. "Who taking chariot,
took his wound," and "bowed his knees to death and
sacrificed to earth." All through Cooke Taylor's edition,
which carefully discriminates the added matter, we find
at the bottom of almost every page notes like these.:
"Not in the original." "This play on words is Chap-
man's, not Homer's." "No warranty for this expression
in the original," &c. Other additions he makes for the
sake of explanation, e. g. , in describing the sacrifice in
the 3d book.
"The true vows of the Gods (term'd theirs since made before their
eyes.)"
"with which away he cut
The wool from both fronts of the lambs which (as a rite in use
Of execration to their heads that brake the plighted truce)
The heralds of both hosts did give the peers of both."
Where the words within parentheses are entirely his own.
Some of his expansions such as ^Aidrig (the Unseeing)
into "that invisible cave that no light comforts," are
more admissible as they help to bring out fully the au-
thor's meaning. Yet even these are too paraphrastic to
please us.
But Chapman has also some great merits as a trans-
lator. In the first place he has hit upon the only English
metre which will suit all parts of Homer. For though
some passages may be transfused into blank verge as
Elton has shown, what blank verse or what Iambic rhyme
can adequately express the Descent of Poseidon, or such
dancing verses as these?
19
^'aXX ay ifxaiv oxecov emprjoeo ocpqa I'drjai
OiOL TQCj'ioL ^Innoi, iTCLOTai.ievoL Tiedloio
xQaiTVi'cc jLiak^ sv&a diajxe/tiev tjde (pi^aGdaiT
Well rendered by Chapman,
"Come, then ascend to me,
That thou may'st try our Trojan horse, how, skill'd in field they be.
And in pursuing those that fly, or flying when pursued,
How excellent they are of foot."
Except that tqcoloi Ytttuoi means "the Horses of Tros,"
not "Trojan Horses."
Next he expresses with much accuracy and felicity
the Homeric epithets. Pope seems to have thought that
because those epithets were constant, it was allowable,
nay preferable, to omit them, as they had lost their ori-
ginal definiteness. Now in some extreme cases this is
true, e. g., cfLlog comes to be simply equivalent to the
possessive pronoun; but in general these adjectives give
precision as well as beauty. In the English ballads "Eng-
land is always Merrie England, Douglas always thb
Doughty Douglas; all the gold is red and all the ladies
are gay." What should we think of a German translator
who omitted these picturesque epithets?
Again, whatever freedom Chapman may have used
in other places, he always in his similes follows Homer
as closely as possible, laboring to carry out all his points
of comparison without adding any others. Ever and
anon, too, amid his broken verse we come across a
magnificently swelling line equal to Pope in harmony and
superior to Cowper in fidelity.
Many of Chapman's expressions are now obsolete;
on w^hich account, as well as that already mentioned,
Cooke Taylor's edition of him is very valuable , as it
contains a full explanation of all those words wich would
be likely to perplex an ordinary reader.
Ogilby's work was published with much splendor
for that day, and adorned with elaborate engravings of
belligerents curiously out of drawing. It is a rare book,
not on account of its merits. There are a few copies in
this city, but we have not been able to lay hands on
one, which is no severe disappointment to ourselves or
great loss to our readers.
Hobbes was past seventy when he began to learn
20
Greek. Nevertheless his Thucydides is the best trans-
lation extant, not merely for forcible English, but for
actual scholarship and comprehension of that very diffi-
cult author. But his Iliad reads like a Burlesque. It is
as if he had really taken pains to vulgarize it. For
instance, Zeus thus addresses the assembled gods;
"You Gods all and you Goddesses, d'ye hear?"
and the confirmation of his oath to Thetis is thus ludi-
crously narrated:
"This said with his black brows to her he nodded,
Wherewith displayed was his face divine,
Olympus shook at stirring of his godhead.
And Thetis from him jumped into the brine*"
His Odyssey is rather better.
Pope's Homer was extravagantly praised in its day,
and by a natural re-action extravagantly disparaged since.
Pope was a poet, and a great poet: whoever says he
was not is simply an ass. We saw it coolly stated in
print not long ago that "nothing could be worse than
his translation of Homer." The individual who could
make such an assertion deliberately should be condemned
to read Sotheby and Munford straight through. The
great merit of Pope's Homer is the perfect structure of
his verse : its great defect, his utter misunderstanding or
willful perversion of nearly all the similes.
Cowper, though "among the warmest admirers of
Mr. Pope as an original writer," could not be satisfied
with him as a translator. His own version is one of
the closest possibles. He pays great attention to the
similes, the epithets, and what we may call the refrain
lines. He presents Homer in all his simplicity, and nearly
all his strength, but with scarcely a vestige of his harmony.
For though sometimes successful in the onomatopoeic
lines, he is generally dry and unmelodious to a painful
degree; for which reason his translation, exellent as it
is in many respects, can never be popular.
The editor of the — will be glad to hear that Sotheby's
translation has been published — some twelve years ago.
It professed to combine Pope's elegance with Cowper's
accuracy. How far this attempt was successful the reader
shall have full opportunity of judging.
The same object was aimed at by William Munford,
a Virginian, whose Iliad has been recently published;
21
only he wrote in blank verse and Sotheby in rhyme.
That a man should begin to translate Homer without
having ever heard of Cowper's version is astonishing;
that Munford should consider his own version superior
to Cowper's is still more surprising. A translation of
the Iliad into blank verse, at once accurate and harmonious,
is not quite an impossibility, but it is by no means tov
Tvxovxog. Tennyson could achieve one, were it possible
to wake him up out of cloudland and inspire him with
ordinary energy. Elton possibly might. We should be
slow to trust any other man living, or that has lived
for some time. Munford's performance is just such a
one as any educated man might execute who would take
the trouble; and has no possible value as an addition
to the already existing stock of Homeric literature.
Appended to it are various stale, stupid, common-place,
congregational - country - parson - ish notes. Here, for
example, is an original and brilliant one, containing some
recherche information.
— "Priam's spurious son.
"The morality of ancient times was very loose, in relation to
indulgence with women. The kings and heroes had many concubines
as well as wives. The Christian religion alone introduced, and enfor-
ced, by awful sanctions, a system of purity in this respect."
To prove our words we proceed to put Munford to
ihe test — severe indeed, but one challenged by every
new translator — of comparison with his predecessors. And
we begin with
CHRYSES' PRAYER AND APOLLO'S VENGEFUL DESCENT.
''Qg Ecpax' eddsiGev S^ 6 yenioi', xal eneld^eTo juvO^to. x. t. L
Lib. I. 33—49.
LITERAL VERSION.
Thus spake he: old man feared and obeyed his word. And went
the silently along the shore of the loud-resounding sea.* Then going
apart the aged man prayed much to King Apollo, whom fair-haired
Leto bare.
Hear me, God of the silver bow, who art wont to protect Chrysa,
and Cilia the divine, and who rulest with might over Tenedos ; Smin-
theus ! if ever I have built thy temple agreeably to thee , or ever
* If you prefer the Reuchlinian pronunciation poliflisveeo you
must translate "the many rippled sea."
consumed to thee the fat thighs of bulls and goats, fulfil this my
desire. May the Greeks atone for my tears by means of thy arrows.
Thus spake he praying : him Phoebus Apollo heard. And descended
the heights of Olympus angry at heart; having upon his shoulders
his bow and completely-coVered quiver. And the arrows clashed on
the shoulders of him enraged, as he moved. So he went on like the
night. Then he sat apart from the ships and dispatched an arrow.
And terrible was the clang of the silver bow.
CHAPMAN.
This said, the sea-beat shore
(Obeying his high will) the priest trod off with haste
and fear;
And walking silent, till he left far off his enemies' ear,
Phoebus, fair-hair'd Latona's son, he stirr'd up with a vow
To this stern purpose: Hear, thou God that bear'st the
silver bow,
That Chrysa guard' st, rul'st Tenedos with strong hand,
and the round
Of Cilia most divine dost walk ; — O Sminthius ! if crown'd
With thankful offerings thy rich fane I ever saw, or fired
Fat thighs of oxen and of goats to thee, this grace desired
Vouchsafe to me: pains for my tears, let these rude
Greeks repay.
Forced with thy arrows. Thus he pray'd, and PhcBbus
heard him pray;
And vex'd at heart, down from the tops of steep heaven
stoop'd; his bow
And quiver cover'd round, his hands did on his shoulders
throw;
And of the angry deity the arrows as he moved
Rattled about him. Like the night he ranged the host,
and roved
(Apart the fleet set) terribly : with his hard-loosing hand
His silver bow twang'd.
This is not a favorable specimen. The best lines
of the original are cut up and stowed away in odd corners
of different verses. "Hard-loosing hand," is a forcible
epithet, but "not in the original." All we can find to
commend here is, "Thus he prayed and Phoebus heard
him pray," and "the round dost walk" for aficpL^eiirjxag.
POPE.
The trembling priest along the shore return'd,
And in the anguish of a father mourn'd.
23
Disconsolate, not daring to complain,
Silent he wander'd by the sounding main :
Till, safe at distance, to his god he prays.
The god who darts around the world his rays.
''Oh Smintheus! sprung from fair Latona's line,
Thou guardian powder of Cilia the divine,
Thou source of light! whom Tenedos adores,
And whose bright presence gilds thy Chrysa's shores:
If e'er with wreaths I hung thy sacred fane,
Or fed the flames with fat of oxen slain;
God of the silver bow! thy shafts employ.
Avenge thy servant, and the Greeks destroy."
Thus Chryses pray'd: the favouring power attends,
And from Olympus' lofty top descends.
Bent was his bow, the Grecian hearts to tcound,
Fierce as he moved, his silver shafts resound.
Breathing revenge, a sudden night he spread.
And gloomy darkness rolled around his head
The fleet in view, he twang'd his deadly bow.
And hissing fly the feather'd fates below.
Here the second, third, and sixth lines are utterly
redundant. The brief comparison of Phoebus' approach
is amplified much to its injury. The Italicized couplet
is a grand one, though the first line is too much written
for the second, as is often the case in Pope's best couplets.
The numerous additions and alterations it is needless to
particularize more minutely.
COWPER
He spake, the old priest trembled and obey'd.
Forlorn he roamed the ocean's sounding shore,
And solitary, with much prayer his King
Bright-hair'd Latona's son Phoebus, implored.
God of the silver bow, who with thy power
Encirclest Chrysa, and who reign'st supreme
In Tenedos and Cilia the divine,
Sminthian Apollo! If I e'er adorn'd
Thy beauteous fane, or on thy altar burn'd
The fat acceptable of bull's or goats,
Grant my petition. With thy shafts avenge
On the Achaian host thy servant's tears.
Such prayer he made, and it was heard. The God,
Down from Olympus with his radiant bow
u
And his full quiver o'er his shoulder slung,
Marched in his anger; shaken as he moved
His rattling arrows told of his approach.
Gloomy he came as night; sat from the ships
Apart, and sent an arrow. Clang'd the cord.
Dread-sounding, bounding on the silver bow.
Very close throughout. Radiant is almost the only
word unwarranted by the original. "Full" is not correct
for afUfijQefffa- "Encirclest Chrysa" is good. The second
line, with its succession of open O's is very sonorous;
probably the most successful attempt ever made to express
the famous original.
Now let us have
HOBBES
(Just for the fun of the thing J
Frighted with this away the old man went,
And often as he walked on the sand,
His prayers to Apollo up he sent.
Hear me Apollo wdth thy bow in hand.
That honor'd art in Tenedos and Chryse,
And unto whom Cilia great honor bears.
If thou accepted hast my sacrifice.
Pay th' Argives with thy arrows for my tears.
His prayer was granted by the deity.
Who with his silver bow and arrow keen
Descended from Olympus silently
In likeness of the sable night unseen.
His bow and quiver both behind him hang,
The arrows chink as often as he jogs (!)
And as he shot the bow was heard to twang.
How cleverly he spoils or omits every single point
in the original! We give also, as a curiosity, a specimen of
MACPHERSON.
He, frowning, spoke; the old man feared and shrunk
from his high commands. Sad^ silent, slow, he took his
way, along the wide resounding main. Apart and distant
from the host, he poured his mournful soul in prayer: he
poured it forth to bowyer Phoebus, whom the long-haired
Latona bore.
Hear, bearer of the splendid bow! Guardian of
Chrysa, of Cilia the divine! Thou that o'er Tenedos
reign'st with fame! Smintheus, 4iear my prayer! If
25
ever with wreaths I adorned, O Phoebus! thy beauteous
fane: if ever thine altars smoked with offerings — from
the flocks and herds of Chryses: if me thou regardest in
ought, O Phoebus, hear my prayer! Punish Greece for
these tears of mine. Send thy deadly arrow^ abroad.
He, praying, spoke. Apollo heard. He descended,
from heaven, enraged in soul. On his shoulders his bow
is hung: His quiver filled with deadly shafts! which
harshly rattled, as he strode in his wrath. Like night
he is borne along: then darkly sitting, apart from the
host, he sends an arrow abroad. The bright bow emits
a dreadful sound, as the shaft flies, unseen, from the
string.
Macpherson pretends to be quite literal, but is
sufficiently diffuse, as the superfluous words which we
have italicized in the above extract show.
SOTHEBY.
Hoar Chryses shuddering back his footstep bent,
And by the sounding deep in silence went.
Till far apart the hapless father pray'd.
And thus invoked Apollo's vengeful aid —
"God of the silver bow whose sovereign sway
Thy Chrysa, Cilia, Tenedos obey.
If e'er I wreathed thy splendid shrine, or fed
Thy altars flaming as the victims bled,
Loose thy avenging shafts, bid Greece repay.
Tears of a father turned in scorn away!"
Thus Chryses pray'd: his prayer Apollo heard.
And heavenly vengeance kindled at the w^ord.
He from Olympus' brow in fury bore
His bow and quiver's death-denouncingstore.
The arrows rattling round his viewless flight
Clang'd as the God descended dark as night.
Then Phoebus stay'd, and from the fleet apart
Ijaunch'd on the host the inevitable dart.
And ever as he Aving'd the shaft below
Dire was the twanging of the silver bow.
The fourth line is tame; the tenth line strong and
harmonious; neither of them answer to anything in the
orignal. The twelfth is in the style of Pope's very worst
interpolations. The penultimate line is evidently written
for the couplet, after the Popian precedent. "Inevitable"
26
and "death-denouncing" which are meant to be strengthening
epithets have the very opposite effect.
MUNFORD.
The old man trembled, and his word obey'd.
Silent he went, along the sounding shore
Of loudly-roaring ocean; but, at length.
Remote, he fervently implored the king
Apollo, whom bright-hair'd Latona bore.
Hear me, O thou, with silver boAV adorn'd
Who guardest Chrysa with thy power divine,
And heavenly Cilia! King of Tenedos,
Great Smintheus, hear! If ever I have crown'd
Thy honor'd fane with wreaths, or 6ver burn'd
The fatted thighs of bulls or goats to thee;
I pray thee now, accomplish my request!
By thy avenging arrows may the Greeks,
For these my tears, atone! So pray'd the priest,
And dread Apollo heard him. And he, in wrath,
Descended from Olympus' lofty cliffs,
Arm'd with his bow, and quiver well encased.
His fatal arrows rattled, threatening death.
As fiercely he approach'd; and, dark as night,
He came, terrific. From Achaia's fleet
Apart, his stand he took, and sent his shaft.
Shrill twang'd with direful clang, the silver bow.
There is nothing particularly bad in this version
(except the peculiarly enfeebling introduction of "terrific,"
nor anything particularly good. Its proper designation
is ordinary. It is precisely the sort of translation that j
nine out of ten readers of Homer would have the ability '
to write and the good sense not to publish.
Our next selection shall be
THE ORECIAN MUSTER.
^Hvre nvQ atdr^Xov, x. r. A. Lib. II. 455 — 473.
LITERAL VERSION.
As a destructive fire consumes an immense wood, on the peaks
of a mountain, and the blaze is conspicuous from afar, so as they
marched, the all-glittering gleam from their admirable armor went
up through the firmament to heaven.
And as the many tribes of winged birds, geese, or cranes, or
long-necked swans, in the meadow of Asius, around the streams of
Cayster, fly hither and thither upborne, exulting on their wings, and
27
the meadow resounds as they light-down-one-after-another. So of
them the many tribes from the ships and tents poured forth into the
Scamandrian plain, while the ground re-echoed terribly under the feet
of themselves and their horses. So they stood in the flowery meadow
of Scamander, innumerable, as many as the leaves and flowers grow
in spring.
As are the many tribes of thickly-congregated flies which hover
about the shepherd's fold in the spring season, when also milk
moistens the pails ; so many stood in the plain the long-haired
Greeks against the Trojans, longing to destroy them utterly.
CHAPMAN.
And as a fire upon
A huge wood, on the heights of hills, that far off hurls
his light,
So the divine brass shined on these, thus thrusting on
for fight:
Their splendor through the air reach'd heaven: and as
about the flood
Caister, in an Asian mead, flocks of the airy brood.
Cranes, geese, or long-necked swans, here, there, proud
of their pinions fly,
And in their falls lay out such throats, that with their
spiritful cry
The meadow shrieks again; so here, these many na-
tion'd men,
Flow'd over the Scamandrian field, from tents and ships:
the din
Was dreadful, that the feet of men and horse beat out
of earth.
And in the flourishing mead they stood, thick as the
odorous birth
Of flowers, or leaves bred in the spring: or thick as
swarms of flies
Throng them to sheep-cotes, when each swarm his erring
wdng applies
To milk dew'd on the milk-maid's pails: all eagerly
disposed
To give to ruin the Ilians.
The first two similes are most accurately rendered,
mdiilov is the only omission; "spiritful" and "odorous"
the only insertions. Some of the expressions are highly
picturesque — "Far off" hurts his light -^^ ''Flowed over
the Scamandrian plain," "The din beat out of earth," The
28
third simile Chapman has closed off in a hurry and
injured by over compression.
POPE.
As on some mountain, through the lofty grove,
The crackling flames ascend, and blaze above;
The fires expanding as the winds arise,
Shoot their long beams, and kindle half the skies:
So from the polish'd arms, and brazen shields,
A gleamy splendor flashed along the fields.
Not less their number than the embodied cranes.
Or milk-white swans in Asius' watery plains.
That o'er the windings of Cayster's springs
Stretch their long necks, and clap their rustling wings.
Now towT.r aloft, and course in airy rounds;
Now light with noise: with noise the field resounds.
Thus numerous and confused, extending wide.
The legions crow'd Scamander's flowery side;
With rushing troops the plains are covered o'er,
And thundering footsteps shake the sounding shore.
Along the river's level meads they stand.
Thick as in spring the flowers adorn the land.
Or leaves the trees; or thick as insects play.
The wandering nation of a summer's day ,
That, draw^n by milky streams, at evening hours.
In gather'd swarms surround the rural bowers;
From pail to pail vnth busy murmur run
The gilded legions, glittering in the sun.
So throng'd, so close, the Grecian squadrons stood
In radiant arms, and thirst for Trojan blood.
The first simile is here utterly misunderstood and
misrepresented. Homer compares the sudden flash of
armor to the immediate effect of a distant blaze. Pope
gives us a gradual conflagration, and thus precisely destroys
the point of comparison.
In regard to the second, though not agreeing with
Taylor, "that Homer's design was to describe confusion
of movement rather than confusion of sound;" for we
think it evident that both are represented; we must admit
with him that Pope's epithet "embodied" is introduced
"with more than usual infelicity." One of the most
prominent ideas in the original is the successive lighting
of the birds, which Pope has entirely overlooked.
29
The simile of the flies Chapman takes as alluding
to the numbers of the Greeks. We think him right. His
editor refers it to their eagerness for fight Pope seems
to understand it of their appearance ; on which Taylor
justly observes that "the flies that swarm round milk-
pails are remarkable for anything rather than their glitter."
^^^Qfi elaQLVfj is Spring not Summer.
COWPER.
As when devouring flames some forest seize
On the high mountains, splendid from afar
The blaze appears, so, moving. on the plain,
The steel clad host innumerous flash'd to heaven.
And as a multitude of fowls in flocks
Assembled various, geese, or cranes, or swans
Lithe necked, long hovering o'er Cayster's banks
On wanton plumes, successive on the mead
Alight at last, and with a clang so loud
That all the hollow vale of Asius rings ;
In number such from ships and tents effused.
They cover'd the Scamandrian plain; the earth
Rebellow'd to the feet of horse and men.
They overspread Scamander's grassy vale,
Myriads, as leaves, or as the flowers of spring.
As in the hovel where the peasant milks
His kine in spring-time, when his pails are filled,
Thick clouds of humming insects on the wing
Swarm all around him, so the Grecians swarm'd
An unsumm'd multitude o'er all the plain.
Bright arm'd, high crested, and athirst for war.
Generally correct but wanting life and spirit — Cow-
per's usual fault.
SOTHEBY.
As flames on flames spread far and wide their light
From forests blazing on the mountain height.
Thus flash'd the lightning of their arms afar,
And heaven's bright cope beam'd back the glare of war.
As feathery nations sweeping on amain.
Flights of the long-neck'd swan, and silvery crane.
From Asius' meads by clear Cayster's spring.
Now here, now there, exultant wind on w^ing.
In gay contention strive, while long and loud
do
The champaign rings beneath the plumed cloud;
So from their camp and fleet the innumerous train
Pour'd forth their confluence on Scamander's plain.
Beneath the march of myriads earth around
Thunder'd and rattling war-hoofs rock'd the ground,
In numbers numberless as leaves anfl flowers
That fill the cup of spring and robe her bowers.
As in fair springtime when the swain recalls
The lowing cattle to their wonted stalls,
Eve's milking hour from aether downward draws
The flies' winged nations swarming o'er the vase;
Thus Greece-poured forth her multitudinous throng,
All burning to avenge their country's wrong.
Very pretentious and very bad. All the distinctive
epithets are omitted. ll'Cdr^lov, uanerov, deGTraoloio — not
an attempt to express any of them, but instead a quantity
of redundant and otiose adjectives in other places, ''silvery
crane" (Sotheby, like Pope, thinks the goose too vulgar
to introduce and turns him into a showy embellishment
for his crane,) "clear Cayster's spring'' and a number of
lines that have no connection with the original but are
merely put in to make fine writing. Two of the most
platitudinous we have italicized. "Vase" to rhyme with
"drawls" is fearfully vulgar.
MUNFORD.
As raging fire consumes a wide-spread wood.
On some high mountain's summit, whence the blaze
Is seen afar; so, from their burnish'd arms.
With radiant glories gleam' d effulgent light,
Flaming through aether to the vault of heaven!
And as unnumber'd flocks of swift-wing'd birds.
Geese, cranes, or stately swans with arching necks,
In Asius' meadow' round Cayster's streams.
Fly here and there exulting on the wing.
And (while with clamor they alight) the fields
Their cries re-echo, so the numerous tribes
Of Greeks, from ships and tents outpouring, throng'd
Seaman der's plain. The ground, with dreadful din,
Sounded beneath the feet of bounding steeds
And trampling warriors. Numberless they stood.
Covering that verdant meadow, as the leaves.
And flowers of spring, or as the countless swarms
31
Of restless flies that in a shepherd's fold
At summer eve, when milk bedews the pails,
Play infinite! So numerous were the Greeks,
Ardent for battle, breathing dire revenge
And death against the Trojans.
The first two lines are better than Cowper. The
version is correct on the whole, except that eiaQiv^ is
mistranslated, and the force of that important word,
nQoxaO^LtovTcov overlooked. The italicized lines are as
tawdry as Sotheby's, but, in general the fault is rather
Cowper's — w^ant of life.
We now turn to the Fourth Book, where
PANDARUS, INSTIGATED BY ATHENE, SHOOTS AT MENELAUS
AND BREAKS THE TRUCE.
i^c; (f(XT ^^d-qvairi * ic^ de (pQsvag aq)QO}'i tiuO^ev. ^ t. X.
LITERAL VERSION.
Thus spoke Athene, and persuaded his mind, fool that he was!
Straightway he drew-from-its case his well-polished bow [made of
the horn] of a springing wild goat, which, as his wont was, he
himself once hit under the breast, (having caught the animal in
ambush as it stepped out of the rock), and pierced in the chest; so
it fell backward on the rock. The horns from its head grew out
sixteen palms; these a horn-polishing artificer arranged and fitted,
and, having well smoothed the whole, put a golden .tip upon it. And
this he [Pandarus] skillfully bent and made ready, while his brave
comrades held their shields before him, for fear the warlike Grecian
youths should rush up ere Menelaus the Martial, son of Atreus, was
hit. Next he drew the case from his quiver and selected an arrow
that-had-never-been shot, winged, the foundation of dark pangs. Then
swiftly he adapted the keen arrow to the string, vowing that he
would sacrifice to Lyceanborn, bow-renowned Apollo, a famous heca-
tomb of a hundred firstling lambs, if he returned home to the walls
of sacred Zelia. Then he took and drew at the same time the notched
end and the ox sinews; the string he brought to his breast, the iron
point to the bow. Thereupon, when he had stretched the mighty
bow to a circle, the bow twanged, the string sung mightily, and the
sharp-pointed shaft bounded forth longing to fly among the crowd,
CHAPMAN.
With this, the mad-gift-greedy man, Minerva did persuade ;
Who instantly drew forth a bow, most admirably made
Of the antler of a jumping goat, bred in a steep upland;
Which archer-like, (as long before, he took his hidden
stand,
32
The evick skipping from a rock,) into the breast he smote,
And headlong fell'd him from his clift. The forehead
of the goat
Held out a wondrous goodly palm, that sixteen branches
brought ;
Of all which, (join'd,) a useful bow a skillful bowyer
wrought ;
(Which pick'd and polish'd,) both the ends he hid with
horns of gold.
And this bow, bent, he close laid down, and bade his
soldiers hold
Their shields before him: lest the Greeks, discerning him,
should rise
In tumults ere the Spartan king could be his arrow's prize.
Mean space, with all his care he choosed and from his
quiver drew.
An arrow; feather' d best for flight, and yet that never flew;
Strong headed, and most apt to pierce; then took he up
his bow,
And nock'd his shaft, the ground whence all their future
grief did grow.
When praying to his god the sun, that was in Lycia bred.
And king of archers, promising that he the blood would
shed
Of full an hundred first fallen lambs, all offer'd to his
name.
When to Zelia's sacred w^alls, from rescued Troy he
came ; —
He took his arrow by the nock, and to his bended breast
The oxy sinew close he drew, even till the pile did rest
Upon the bosom of the bow; and as that savage prize,
His strength constraint into an orb — as if the wind
did rise —
The coming of it made a noise, the sinew forged string
Did give a mighty twang; and forth the eager shaft
did sing
(Afiecting speediness of flight) amongst the Achive throng.
Very spirited and dashing. The earlier lines are not
very close to the original, but Chapman improves in
fidelity as he proceeds. "Evick" seems to be a ccTTa^
leyoiLievo)'. Taylor explains it "the evicted," i. e. "doomed
one." "Y^iTLog is not "headlong," but quite the reverse.
33
POPE.
He heard, and madly, at the motion pleased,
His polish'd bow with hasty rashness seized.
'Twas formed of horn, and smooth'd with artful toil;
A mountain goat resigned the shining spoil,
Who pierced long since beneath his arrows bled;
The stately quarry on the cliffs lay dead,
And sixteen palms his brow's large honors spread;
The workman join'd, and shaped the bended horns.
And beaten gold each taper point adorns.
This, by the Greeks unseen, the warrior bends,
Screened by the shields of his surrounding friends.
There meditates the mark; and couching low.
Fits the sharp arrow to the well-strung bow.
One from a hundred feather'd deaths he chose,
Fated to wound, and cause of future woes.
Then offers vows with hecatombs to crown
Apollo's altars in his native town.
Now with full force the yielding horn he bends.
Drawn to an arch, and joins the doubling ends;
Close to his breast he strains the nerve below,
Till the barb'd point approach the circling bow;
The impatient weapon whizzes on the wing;
Sounds the tough horn, and twangs the quivering string.
These are fine rolling stanzas. But the fourth line is
exceedingly weak ; and all the minutioe which so graphically
depict the goat's capture are omitted. The last couplets
are fine, though "impatient" is not strong enough to express
all the personality conveyed by y.aO^ ofxiXoi' eTilTirao^aL
[levaaivcov.
COWPER.
So Pallas spake, to whom infatuate he
Listening, uncased at once his polish'd bow.
That bow, the laden brows of a wild goat
Salacious had supplied; him on a day
Forth issuing from his cave, in ambush placed
He wounded with an arrow to his breast
Dispatch'd, and on the rock supine he fell.
Each horn had from his head tall growth attain'd,
Full sixteen palms: them shaven smooth the smith
Had aptly join'd, and tipt their points with gold.
That bow he strung, then, stooping, planted firm
Vol. I. 3
34
The nether horn, his comrades hold the while
Screening him close with shields, lest ere the prince
Were stricken, Menelaus, brave in arms.
The Greeks with fierce assault should interpose,
He raised his quiver's lid; he chose a dart
Vnflown, full-fledged, and barb'd ivith pangs of dealh.
He lodg'd in haste the arrow on the string.
And vow'd to Lycian Phoebus bow-renown'd
An hecatomb, all firstlings of the flock,
To fair Zeleia's walls once safe restored.
Compressing next nerve and nolch'd arrow head
He drew back both together, to his pap
Drew home the nerve, the barb home to his bow,
And when the horn was curved to a wide arch,
He twang'd it. Whizz'd the bowstring, and the reed
Leafd off impatient for the distant throng
Marvellously accurate, save only the mistranslation of
i^alov. The closeness with w^iich Cowper here follows
his original, even in places not easy to express in intel-
ligible English prose, is really astonishing.
You have read three noble translations of a noble
passage. Draw a long breath, and then attack.
SOTHEBY.
Thus spake persuasively the blue-eyed Maid,
And thoughtless Pandarus her word obey'd —
Swift from its case drew forth his polished bow
Form'd of the wanton goat's broad-horned brow.
Whom once, in ambush as the archer lay,
His shaft arrested on his mounted w^ay.
And pierced beneath the breast that bathed in gore.
The rock whereon he fell to rise no more.
The horns that proudly turreted his head,
A wondrous growth of sixteen palms outspread.
The bowman these terrific to behold^
Had labored into shape and tipp'd with gold,
That bow he strung, and where he couchant lay,
His warriors closed their shields before his way.
Lest unawares a Greek should forward start
Ere the wing'd shaft reached Menelaus' heart.
His quiver's lid he raised, an arrow chose
Fresh fledged, and pregnant with severest w^oes,
Then fixed it on the cord, and loudly vowed
35
His flock's choice firstlings to the archer god.
Whene'er from Ilion's wall returned again
His voice once more should hail Zeleia's fane.
Now with the cord at once he backward drew
The notch that quicer'd ere the arrow flew,
Strain'd to his breast the string, and ere to part
Poised on the bow the steel that barb'd the dart;
And when the horns, now near and nearer strain'd.
With all his strength, an ampler arch had gain'd,
Shrill twang'd the bow, the cord with quivering sound
Whizz'd, and the dart flew eager for the wound.
We have marked a few of Sotheby's most obvious
amplifications. Comment on their beauty is unnecessary.
He gives as another neat rhyme in "vow'd" and "God."
The third and fifth lines alone are commendable.
MUNFORD.
So spake Minerva, and his frantic mind
Persuaded. Forth at once he drew his bow,
Of horn smooth-polish'd of a lecherous goat,
A wild one, which himself had in the breast
Shot, as it issued from its rocky cave.
He, lying near in ambush, from below
Between the forelegs pierced it: on the rock
It backwards fell outstretched. Upon its head
Grew ample horns, full sixteen palms in length.
These, bending to his purpose skillfully,
A workman shaped^ and nicely polishing
The bow elastic, tipp'd both ends with gold.
This bow he, stooping, rested on the ground
With sly contrivance; having strung it well.
His watchful friends before him held their shields
Protective, lest the Greeks should on him rush
Ere he could shoot the gallant Spartan king.
The leader of Achaia. He meanwhile
Removed his quiver's lid, and chose a shaft
Ne'er used till then, fresh-feather'd for its flight,
Of black and bitter woe^ the direful cause!
Quick to the string that fatal shaft he fix'd
But vow'd to bright Apollo, god of day.
Famed archer of the skies, to pay at home
A splendid hecatomb of firstling lambs,
Whene'er to Zelia's sacred walls return'd.
36
The arrow's notch and bow-string drawn at once,
The string his breast, the point of steel approach'd
The bow's great arch, and when its large round curve
Was to the utmost bent, with sharp loud clang
It sounded; shrilly twang'd the quivering string.
Away the arrow flew among the crowd,
Eager to bathe in blood its thirsty point!
The spirit of his original has here put some life
into our translator. The version is generally correct,
except the wrong translation of i^alov and the false
quantity of Zelia.*
We now proceed to
THE MEETING OF THE HOSTS.
01 ^ 0T€ drj Q ig x(J^QOv eva x. t. A. (Lib. IV. 446, sqq.)
LITERAL VERSION.
Now when, according to purpose, they were come into one place,
meeting, they engaged their shields and their spears and the might
of brazen-corsleted heroes; their bossy shields met each other, and a
great uproar arose. Then was there mingled the cry and the exulting
shout of men, both the slayers and the slain; earth flowed with blood.
As when winter torrents, flowing down the mountains, combine-to-
throw into a hollow-where-glens-meet a strong stream from copious
sources , within a hollow defile, and the shepherd hears their din afar
off among the mountains : such was their cry and their confusion while
mingling.
CHAPMAN.
But when in one field both the foes their fury did content,
And both came under reach of darts, then darts and
shields opposed
To darts and shields; strength answer'd strength; then
swords and targets closed
With swords and targets ; both with pikes ; and then did
tumult rise
Up to her heights; then conquerors' boasts mix'd with
the conquer'd's cries:
Earth flow'd with blood. And as from hills rain-waters
headlong fall,
* Unhappily, this is not Munford's worst mistake of the kind.
In looking for some mare's nest pointed out in one of his luminous
notes, we stumbled upon
"With Thalia blooming in immortal youth."
This from a Scholar (?) and a translator of Homer (II)
37
That all ways eat huge ruts, which, met in one bed, fill
a vail
With such a confluence of streams, that on the mountain
grounds
Far off*, in frighted shepherds' ears, the bustling noise
rebounds :
So grew their conflicts, and so show'd their scuffling to
the ear.
With flight and clamor still commix'd and all effects
of fear.
Not so successful as usual. The last couplet is very
diffuse.
POPE.
Now shield with shield, with helmet helmet closed.
To armor armor, lance to lance opposed.
Host against host with shadowy squadrons drew,
The sounding darts in iron tempests flew,
Victors and vanquish'd join promiscuous cries.
And thrilling shouts and dying groans arise;
With streaming blood the slippery fields are died,
And slaughter'd heroes swell the dreadful tide.
As torrents roll, increased by numerous rills.
With rage impetuous down their echoing hills;
Rush to the vales, and, pour'd along the plain,
Roar through a thousand channels to the main;
The distant shepherd trembling hears the sound:
So mix both hosts, and so their cries rebound.
The first couplet is a grand one, and the third me-
ritorious. ^'Shadowy squadrons" is not very intelligible.
The fourth line is a rather common-place addition, and
the eighth has taken the one fatal step beyond the sublime.
"Earth flowed with blood," but it is too much to make
the "slaughtered heroes" swim about in it. As usual,
the point of the simile is lost. Homer's torrents do not
"roar to the main:" they meet in a narrow place among
the glens (f-uayayxetav).
COWPER.
And now the battle joined. Shield clashed with shield,
And spear with spear, conflicting corslets rang,
Boss'd bucklers met, and tumult wild arose.
Then, many a yell was heard, and many a shout
Loud intermix'd, the slayer o'er the maimed
^ 38
Exulting, and the field was drench'd with blood.
As when two winter torrents rolling down
The mountains, shoot their floods through gullies huge
Into one gulf below, station'd remote
The shepherd in the uplands hears the roar;
Such was the thunder of the mingling hosts.
Are only two torrents intended? We doubt it. Homer
uses the plural, not the dual.
SOTHEBY.
Host against host, now nearer and more near.
Corslet on corslet clattered, spear on spear.
Close and more close the bosses, shield on shield,
Clash'd, and wide spread the thunder of the field,
And shouts and groans, the slayer and the slain
Mixed, as the blood dark-gushed along the plain.
As, when the springs with wintry storms o'erflow,
Two torrents dashing from the mountain brow,
Roar with conflicting floods that rush between
The rocky windings of the rent ravine.
Afar the shepherd, as the cataract raves.
Hears on the cliff the clashing of the waves,
Thus, as the hosts rush'd onward, rang afar
The bray and thunder of the storm of war.
Another rhyme that don't rhyme! But this is the
best we have had from Sotheby so far. The opening
couplets are capital, and
"The rocky windings of the rent ravine,"
is an admirable line. The conclusion is too ambitious.
MUNFORD.
When now encountering, to close fight they came.
Together met their shields, together flew
Their javelins, hurl'd with utmost strength of men.
Mail-clad, the bossy shields conflicting clashed,
And loudly universal tumult rose.
The doleful cry of dying men was there.
The victor's joyful shout: earth stream'd with blood.
As when two mountain torrents, swoln with rain.
Pour down from sources vast, impetuous floods.
Which meeting in a narrow vale between
Confining precipices, foam and roar:
The sound, among the mountains far remote,
A shepherd startled hears : such was the cry
And such the terror when they battle joined.
There is nothing here to call for especial praise or
censure. The ninth line is a tolerably good one.
We should like to quote the Hector and Andromache
scene , for the sake of showing off Elton ; but it is too
long to extract. A few lines from the opening we must
be allowed.
^^Qg ctQci ffOjyr^aaQ aui^n xoovdalokog ^'Etctcoq. x t. X. (Lib.
VI. 369, sqq.)
LITERAL VERSION IN HEXAMETERS.
So thus having spoken, the casque-nodding Hector de-
parted.
Speedily then he came to his well-situate habitation.
But he found not the white-armed Andromache there in
her chambers ;
For she with her boy and her well-clad female attendant,
Standing upon the tower, was wailing, ay, and lamenting.
Hector, then, when he found not his blameless spouse
in the p alace ,
Went to the threshold, stopped, and thus accosted the
maidens:
"Come now, tell me, ye maids, the truth unerring relate me.
Whither went forth the white-armed Andromache, out
of her chamber?
Or to her brothers' sisters, or well-clad wives of her
brothers.
Or to Athene's fane has she gone forth, there where the
other
Fair-haired women of Troy are the dreadful goddess
appeasing?"
Then to his speech in turn replied the housekeeper careful:
"Hector, since your command is strict the truth to re-
port you.
Nor to her husband's sisters, nor well-clad wives of her
brothers.
Nor to Athene's fane has she gone forth, there where
the other
Fair-haired women of Troy are the dreadful goddess
appeasing, &c.
These beautiful introductory lines have not received
so much care as they deserved at the hands of the trans-
40
lators, who have apparently been more solicitous to do
justice to what followed. They are slurred over by
CHAPMAN.
This said, he went to see
The virtuous princess, his true wife, whitearmed Andro-
mache.
She, with her infant son and maid, was climb'd the
tow'r, about
The sight of him that sought for her, w^eeping and
crying out.
Hector, not finding her at home, was going forth; retired —
Stood in the gate — her women call'd; and curiously
inquired
Where she was gone; — bade tell him true, if she were
gone to see
His sisters, or his brothers' wives; or whether she
should be
At temple with the other dames, t' implore Minerva's ruth.
Her woman answer'd: Since he ask'd, and urged so
much the truth.
The truth was she was neither gone to see his brothers'
wives,
His sisters, nor t' implore the ruth of Pallas on their
lives.
By turning the direct address and reply into an
indirect narration, the whole force of the passage is
destroyed.
POPE.
He said, and pass'd with sad presaging heart
To seek his spouse, his soul's far dearer part;
At home he sought her, but he sought in vain;
She, with one maid of all her menial train.
Had thence retired; and with her second joy.
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy:
Pensive she stood on Ilion's towery height.
Beheld the war, and sicken'd at the sight;
There her sad eyes in vain her lord explore,
Or weep the w^ounds her bleeding country bore.
But he who found not whom his soul desired,
Whose virtue charm'd him as her beauty fired.
Stood in the gates, and ask'd what way she bent
Her parting step. If to the fane she went,
41
Where late the mourning matrons made resort;
Or sought her sisters in the Trojan court?
''Not to the court," replied the attendant train,
''Nor mix'd with matrons to Minerva's fane."
Here the answer is given, the address only mentio-
ned. And while the minute inquiry and response are thus
hurried over, whole lines of extraneous matter are inserted
previously. For the simple and strong epithets of the
original, "the well-situate dwelling," "the blameless wife,"
"the white-armed Andromache," we have, substituted,
such phrases as "with sad, presaging heart," "whom his
soul desired," "the wounds her bleeding country bore," &c.
Of the eighteen lines, six are entirely independent of the
original.
COWPER.
So spake the dauntless hero, and withdrew.
But reaching soon his own w^ell-built abode
He found not fair Andromache; she stood
Lamenting Hector, with the nurse who bore
Her infant, on a turret's top sublime.
He then, not finding his chaste spouse within,
Thus, from the portal, of her train inquired.
Tell me ye maidens, whither went from home
Andromache the fair? Went she to see
Her female kindred of my father's house.
Or to Minerva's temple, where convened
The bright-haired matrons of the city seek
To sooth the aw^ful goddess? Tell me true.
To w^hom his household's governess discrete.
Since, Hector, truth is thy demand, receive
True answer. Neither went she forth to see
Her female kindred of thy father's house.
Nor to Minerva's temple, where convened
The bright-haired matrons of the city seek
To sooth the awful goddess."
SOTHEBY.
Thus Hector said, nor longer there remained.
But with swift foot his stately palace gained.
Yet — haply — found not there, more loved than life,
Her whom alone he sought, his beauteous wife.
She, with her babe and nurse, that mournful hour,
42
Watch'd, steep'd in tears, on Ilion's topmost tower
Then at the threshold, hastening to depart,
"Where" — Hector cried : — "the wife of Hector's heart ?
Sought she some sister's anguish to restrain.
Or join'd the matrons at Minerva's fane?"
"None dares," the guardian of the house replied —
"None dares, thus charged, the truth from Hector hide," &c.
The excellence of Sotheby's second line awakens a
hope soon to be disappointed. The omissions are as
numerous and as bad as Pope's; the additions about as
bad, though not so numerous.
MUNFORD.
This said the chief of heroes. Hector, thence
Departing, soon his splendid palace reach'd.
With rooms commodious ; but he found not there
His white-armed princess, fair Andromache;
For with her child and maid, with graceful garb.
She stood in Ilion's tower, moaning sad.
Weeping and sighing. Finding not within
His blameless wife, he on his threshold stood,
And of his servants thus inquiry made:
Be quick ^ and tell me truly, whither went
My lovely consort, fair Andromache?
To any of my sisters did she go,
Or brother's wives, or to Minerva's fane.
Where other Trojan dames with flowing hair,
That awful goddess by their prayers appease?
His household's faithful governess replied:
O Hector, since thou bidd'st me tell thee true.
To none of all thy sisters did she go,
Or brothers' wives, nor to Minerva's fane,
Where other Trojan dames with flowing hair,
That awful goddess by their prayers appease,
Particularly prosaic, throughout.
ELTON.
Straight to his roomy palace Hector came,
But found not in the mansion her he sought,
White-armed Andromache. She witlj her son
And her robed handmaid stood upon the tower.
Wailing with loud lament. But when in vain
He sought within her house his blameless wife,
43
Hector, advanced upon the threshold, stood
And to the damsels spake, "Now tell me true.
Ye damsels! whither from her home went forth
The fair Andromache? Say doth she seek
Her husband's sisters or her brethren's wives.
Or at Minerva's temple join the train
Of Trojan w^omen who propitiate now
With offerings the tremendous Deity?"
The careful woman of the household then
Addressed reply: "To tell thee. Hector, truth.
As thou requirest, neither doth she seek
Her husband's sisters nor her brethren's wives.
Nor in Minerva's temple join the train
Of Trojan w^omen who propitiate now^
With offerings the tremendous Deity," &c.
As close a translation as could well be made, even
to the nice distinction between eivariQiov and yalotov'^
and as musical as Cowper's and Munford's are unmusical.
There is one couplet in Andromache's speech which
Sotheby has translated admirably. She has lost all her
kindred; Artemis slew her mother; Achilles her father
and brethren.
"ExzoQ dzccQ ov jiiol iooi TccarjQ YMi norvict fir]Tr^()
7]Se yaaiyvrjTog, ov de f.iOL d^aleQog Tza^axoiTrjg.
"But thou. Hector, art to me father and lady mother,
and brother, and thou my blooming husband.
CHAPMAN.
Yet all these gone from me.
Thou amply renderest all; thy life makes still my father be ;
My mother, brothers ; and besides thou art my husband too .
POPE.
Yet while my Hector still survives I see
My father, mother, brethren, all in thee.
COWPER.
Yet Hector — oh my husband! I in thee
Find parents, brothers, all that I have lost.
ELTON.
Thou, Hector, art my father! thou to me
Art mother, brother, all my joy of life,
My husband!
u
MUNFORD.
Yet Hector, thou alone art all to me,
Father and honor'd mother.
He thinks he has made a point by introducing noxvia^
and doesn't know what the word means.
Father and honor'd mother, brother too.
My husband dear and partner of my youth!
SOTHEBY.
Yet thou, my Hector! thou art all, alone,
Sire, mother, brethren, husband, all in one.
There are some lines of Yriarte, "Sin reglas de
arte," &c. , which it might be ill-natured to quote in
reference to Sotheby's success here.
Now let us leave earth for awhile and ascend to the
GODS' COUNCIL.
'ifwg ^ikv xnoxoTienkog ixidiaTO naaav in atav. x. r. A.
(Lib. viii. 1—27.)
LITERAL VERSION.
The saffron-robed morn was spreading over all the earth , when
Zeus, the thunder-loving, held for himself an assembly of the Gods,
on the highest summit of mannypeaked Olympus. He in person ha-
rangued them, and the Gods all listened attentively.
"Hear me, Gods and Goddesses all, while I speak what the spirit
in my breast bids me. Therefore let no female nor any male divinity
endeavor to infringe this my command, but do ye all together approve
of it, that I may accomplish these actions as quickly as possible. That
deity whom I recognize afar, willingly gone to assist either the Tro-
jans or the Greeks, shall return to Olympus, indecorously beaten; or
else I will seize and hurl him into gloomy Tartarus, very far oif)
where there is a gulf exceedingly deep under ground: where the gates
are iron and the flor brass; as far below Hades, as heaven is above
earth. Then shall ye know how much the strongest of all the Gods
I am. But come now, try me, deities, that ye may all know. Let
down a golden chain from heaven and do ye all, Gods and Goddesses,
take hold of it : yet will ye not draw down from heaven to earth the
supreme counsellor, Zeus; no, not though ye labor exceedingly. But
when I too, on my part, shall be willing and eager to draw it, I will
draw it up, earth, sea and all. Then will I bind the chain about the
peak of Olympus, and all these things shall become suspended in air.
So much am I superior to Gods and superior to men,
45
CHAPMAN.
The cheerful lady of the light, deck'd in her saffron robe,
Dispersed her beams through every part of this enflow-
er'd globe,
When thundering Jove a court of gods, assembled by
his will.
In top of all the topmost heights that crown th' Olym-
pian hill.
He spake, and all the gods gave ear: Hear how I
stand inclined,
That god nor goddess may attempt t' infringe my sover-
eign mind:
But all give suffrage; that with speed I may these dis-
cords end.
What god soever I shall find endeavor to defend
Or Troy or Greece, with wounds, to heaven he, shamed,
shall reascend:
Or (taking him with his offence) I'll cast him down as deep
As Tartarus, (the brood of night,) where Barathrum
doth steep
Torment in his profoundest sinks: where is the floor of
brass,
And gates of iron; the place, for depth, as far doth
hell surpass
As heaven, for height, exceeds the earth. Then shall
he know from thence
How much my power, past all the gods, hath sovereign
eminence.
Endanger it the whiles and see ; let down our golden chain;
And at it let all deities their utmost strength constrain,
To draw me to the earth from heaven. You never shall
prevail,
Though with your most contention, ye dare my state assail:
But when my will shall be disposed to draw you all to me,
Even with the earth itself, and seas, ye shall enforced be.
Then will I to Olympus' top our virtuous engine bind.
And by it everything shall hang, by my command inclined:
So much I am supreme to gods ; to men supreme as much.
Nobly translated, and very faithful. Almost the only
deviations from the original, are the introduction of "en-
flower'd," the beautiful expansion of 'Hcbg into "the cheer-
ful lady of the light," and the substitution of "virtuous
(powerful) engine," for "chain," (aeLQriv.)
46
POPE.
Aurora now, fair daughter of the dawn,
Sprinkled with rosy light the dewy lawn;
When Jove convened the senate of the skies.
Where high Olympus' cloudy tops arise.
The sire of Gods his awful silence broke,
The heavens attentive trembled as he spoke:
"Celestial states, immortal gods! give ear;
Hear our decree, and reverence what ye hear:
The fix'd decree, which not all heaven can move;
Thou, Fate! fulfill it; and, ye powers! approve!
What god but enters yon forbidden field,
Who yields assistance, or but wills to yield,
Back to the skies with shame he shall be driven,
Gash'd with dishonest w^ounds, the scorn of heaven;
Or far, oh far from steep Olympus thrown.
Low in the dark Tartarean gulf shall groan.
With burning chains fix'd to the brazen floors,
And lock'd by hell's inexorable doors;
As deep beneath the infernal centre hurl'd.
As from that centre to the ethereal world.
Let him who tempts me dread those dire abodes;
And know, the Almighty is the god of gods.
League all your forces, then, ye powers above.
Join all, and try the omnipotence of Jove :
Let down our golden everlasting chain.
Whose strong embrace holds heaven, and earth, and main:
Strive all, of mortal, and immortal birth.
To drag, by this, the Thunderer down to earth.
Ye strive in vain! If I but stretch this hand,
I heave the gods, the ocean, and the land;
I fix the chain to great Olympus' height,
And the vast world hangs trembling in my sight !
For such I reign, unbounded and above;
And such are men and gods compared to Jove."
"Dewy lawn" is weak in this context. The ninth
and tenth lines are superfluous. The concluding couplets
powerful. Why are the Goddesses left out? In Homer
they occupy a conspicuous place.
COWPER.
The saffron-mantled morning now was spread
O'er all the nations, when the thunderer Jove,
47
On the deep-fork'd Olympian's topmost height
Convened the gods in council, amid whom
He spake himself; they all attehtive heard.
Gods! Goddesses! Inhabitants of heaven!
Attend; I make my secret purpose known.
Let neither god nor goddess interpose
My counsel to rescind, but wdth one heart
Approve it, that it reach, at once, its end.
Whom I shall mark soever from the rest
Withdrawn, that he may Greeks or Trojans aid,
Disgrace shall find him; shamefully chastised
He shall return to the Olympian heights,
Or I will hurl him deep into the gulphs
Of gloomy Tartarus, where hell shuts fast
Her iron gates and spreads her brazen floor,
As far below the shades, as earth from heaven.
There shall he learn how far I pass in might
All others ; which if ye incline to doubt.
Now prove me. Let ye down the golden chain
From heaven, and at its nether links pull all
Both goddesses and gods. But me your King,
Supreme in wisdom, ye shall never draw
To earth from heaven, toil adverse as ye may.
Yet I, when once I shall be pleased to pull.
The earth itself, itself the sea, and you
Will lift with ease together, and will wind
The chain around the spiry summit sharp
Of the Olympian, that all things upheaved
Shall hang in the mid heaven. So far do I,
Compared wdth all who live, transcend them all.
Very nervous and remarkably close; sometimes even
too literal, e. g., he misses the idiom in avrrj yal/j avr^
SOTHEBY.
Morn, golden-robed, had earth illumed, when Jove
Convened in council all the pow^ers above.
And on Olympus' many-mountained crest
The attentive synod of the gods address'd;
"Hear, all ye gods! ye, every goddess, hear
The word I speak, and what Jove speaks, revere.
Let none — ' tis vain — the will of Jove withstand
But all approve, so perfect my command,
48
Whoe'er, apart, what god may dare descend.
And heavenly aid to Greek or Trojan lend,
Shall by unseemly wounds on his return
The force and fury of my vengeance learn.
Or I Avill hurl him to Tartarean hell
Down the far depth where night and horror dwell,
The abyss that underneath dark Hades lies
Far as yon earth below the ethereal skies;
Profoundest gulf of ever during woes.
Where iron gates the brazen floor enclose —
There shall he know how far all gods above
The unimaginable might of Jove.
Gods! all your powers concentrate; try the proof;
Loose a gold chain from yon celestial roof.
There, all in counterpoise all heavenly birth
Strive from my throne to draw me down to earth.
Vain toil — while I at once uplift each god
With all the world of waves and man's abode:
Then round the Olympian crest the chain enwreath,
Centre of all above, around, beneath.
Where all sublimely poised at rest remains
W^hile Jove's omnipotence the whole sustains.
"Morn, golden-robed had earth illumed," is as stiff
and bad a translation as could well be made. The em-
phatic conclusion of Zeus, "So much am I above," &c.,
is most infelicitously omitted. The matter intervening
between this unfortunate commencement and conclusion,
is not much better. The eighth line is hardly intelligible,
and the redundant construction in the ninth very awkward,
to say the least. "Shall learn on his return," is wrong.
Zeus did not intend to wait for the delinquent's return,
but meant to take summary vengeance on him.
MUNFORD.
Morn, safiron-robed, now shone o'er all the earth,
W^hen Jove, rejoicing in his thunderbolts.
The gods assembled on the topmost height
Of all the summits of immense Olympus.
He spoke, and they with awful reverence heard;
Hear, all ye gods and all ye goddesses.
The sovereign mandate by my mind approved.
Let not a male or female deity
Attempt to contravene my sacred word,
49
But, all assenting, be it straight fulfilPd
If I shall any of the gods perceive
Withdrawing from the rest, with rash design
To give the Trojans or Achaians aid,
That god, with wounds disfigured, shall return,
Or headlong, by my forceful arm be hurPd
To the deep gulf of gloomy Tartarus,
Where, far remote, beneath the ground descends
The dark abyss; a dungeon horrible,
With gates of iron and with floors of brass.
As far below e'en Hades as the space
Between earth's surface and the starry sky!
By proof then, shall he know, how far indeed
My matchless might surpasses all the gods.
But come, ye deities, if such your wish,
The trial make! Suspending from the skies
Our golden chain, let all the powers of heaven
Confederate, strive to drag me down to earth!
Yet never would your utmost labor move
The strength invincible of Jove supreme.
But when my sovereign will would draw that chain,
With ease I lift it, e'en with earth itself
And sea itself appended! Firmly then,
I bind it, round Olympus' cliff sublime.
And earth and ocean raise aloft in air!
So far do I both men and gods transcend!
This is Cowper and water.
The comparison of the Trojan watchfires to the stars
on a clear night, introduces a brief and beautiful des-
cription of
MOONLIGHT.
^Qg 6' 6V Ev ovQavco aoxQa. x. t. L (Lib. viii, 555-559.)
LITERAL VERSION.
As when in heaven around the brilliant moon the stars appear
very conspicuous: when also the air is free from wind; all the cliffs
and high headlands and valleys appear out: the immense mist* breaks
up from heaven: all the stars are seen, and the shepherd rejoices
at heart.
* ccld^TjQ here has generally been taken for "sky," whereby all
the translators have stumbled. In Chapman's first version we have -
•'And lets a gi-eat sky out from heaven."
Vol. I. 4
50
CHAPMAN.
As when about the silver moon, when air is free from wind,
And stars shine clear; to whose sweet beams, high pro-
spects, and the brows
Of all steep hills and pinnacles, thrust up themselves
for shows;
And even the lowly valleys joy, to glitter in their sight,
When the unmeasured firmament bursts to disclose her
light,
And all the signs in heaven are seen that glad the
shepherd's heart.
This is hardly to be surpassed for beauty and fide-
lity. Yet many prefer the elaborate paraphrase of
POPE.
As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night!
O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light,
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene.
And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene;
Around her throne the vivid planets roll.
And stars unnumbor'd gild the glowing pole,
O'er the dark trees a yelloAver verdure shed,
And tip with silver every mountain's head;
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies;
The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight.
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light.
Few passages in Pope are oftener quoted or more
admired than this. Of its beauty as a description there
can be no doubt. Its merits as a translation are another
matter. Respecting them, we must "say ditto" to Elton.
"In the first line we are informed that the moon is
^the refulgent lamp of night.' 'Sacred,' in the second, is
a cold, make-weight epithet, and adds no sensible image :
Hhe solemn scene' is general, where all should be local
and particular : the simple reality of moonlight is impaired
by the metaphor and personification in the words 'around
her throne.' A flood of glory not only verges on bom-
bast, but conveys nothing distinct: we receive no clear
impression of the boundless firmament opening on the
vision by the breaking of the mist overhead, nor of the
multitude of stars that are taken in at once by the scope
of sight; and the mountain shepherd looking up at the
51
moon from among his flocks, with a sudden sensation of
cheeriness in his solitude, is displaced by a vulgar com-
pany of swains eyeing the blue vault and blessing the
light because it is useful."
[Preface to the ''Specimens/')
COWPER.
As when around the clear bright moon, the stars
Shine in in full splendor, and the winds are hush'd,
The groves, the mountain-tops, the headland-heights
Stand all apparent, not a vapor streaks
The boundless blue, but aether opened wide
All glitters, and the shepherd's heart is cheer'd.
Simple and stately: but there is a redundancy in
the '^clear bright moon." Brilliant, would be better; or even
shining: this latter would preserve the resemblance bet-
ween g)a6Lvrjv and cpaivtTO "In full splendor" is very
good for ccQLUQeTiia.
ELTON.
As beautiful the stars shine out in heaven
Around the splendid moon, no breath of wind
Ruffling the blue calm aether; cleared from mist
The beacon hill-tops, crags and forest dells
Emerge in light; the immeasurable sky
Breaks from above and opens on the gaze.
The multitude of stars are seen at once
Full sparkling, and the shepherd looking up
Feels gladdened at his heart.
^'Splendid moon" we don't like. ''Calm sether" is
superfluous. "Beacon hilltops" and "forest -dells" are
legitimate expanisous to give the full force of oxotilch
and varcat. The concluding lines are more diffuse than
is Elton's wont.
SOTHEBY.
As when in heaven the stars at night's still noon
Beam in their brightness round the fullorb'd moon,
When sleeps the wind, and every mountain height.
Rocks, cliffs and groves, shine towering up in light, ^
And the vast firmament, immensely riven,
Expands for other stars another heaven.
Gladdening the shepherd's heart.
4*
52
"At night's still noon," is no part of the original
specification. The second couplet is a decided case of
anacoluthon. The sonorousness of the third only makes
its want of meaning more conspicuous.
MUNFORD.
As when, in heaven, around the full orb'd moon
Resplendent shine the stars, (the clear blue sky
Unruffled by a breeze); when all the cliffs
And mountain tops, and shadowy groves, though dark.
Distinct appear; then, through the parting clouds,
Unbounded aether bursts upon the view,
And every star is seen; the shepherd's heart
Rejoices at the sight
Like Cowper he has given both translations of ald^rjQ to
be sure of having the right one. The insertion "though
dark" and the two parentheses are very stupid.
Now let us step over four books — nearly as long
a stride as Poseidon's when he stalked down to ^gae
— and mount his chariot with him.
^rj 6^ ildav em xv/naT, x. v. h (Lib. xiii. 27 — 31.)
LITERALLY IN HEXAMETERS.
Over the waves he proceeded to drive; the whales un-
derneath him
Leaped on all sides from their pits, nor failed their king
to acknowledge.
While for delight asunder the sea stood: so they flew
onward
Rapidly, neither beneath was the brazen axletree wetted.
So then his swift-springing steeds him bore to the ships
of the Grecians.
CHAPMAN.
And then the god begun
To drive his chariot through the waves. From whirlpits
every way
The whales exulted under him, and knew their king;
the sea
For joy did open; and his horse so swift and lightly flew,
The under axletree of brass no drop of water drew;
And thus these deathless coursers brought their king to
the Achive ships.
53
Glorious lines these. To be sure, ivaxaQ&f.ioi does not
mean "deathless."
POPE.
He sits superior, and the chariot flies:
His whirling wheels the glassy surface sweep;
The enormous monsters, rolling o'er the deep,
Gambol around him on the watery way;
And heavy whales in awkward measures play.
The sea subsiding spreads a level plain.
Exults and owns the monarch of the main;
The parting waves before his coursers fly:
The wondering waters leave his axle dry.
Pope is continually spoiling Homer's gold by trying to
gild it. Hence the "glassy surface," "enormous monsters,"
"wondering waters," &c. The ideas of subsiding and
exulting are not very consistent.
COWPER.
He o'er the billows drove; the whales.
Leaving their caverns, gambol'd on all sides
Around him, not unconscious of their king;
He swept the surge that tinged not as he pass'd
His axle, and the sea parted for joy.
His bounding coursers to the Grecian fleet
Conveyed him swift.
The rapid movement of the original is lost, as indeed it
must be in any blank verse. "The sea parted for joy"
halts sadly.
60THEBY.
And onward urged his car
That smoothly glided, while along the waves
From the deep darkness of unfathomed caves
Huge whales on every side with gamboling bound
Leapt, conscious of their king, his steeds around,
The sea with joy dividing smoothed the way
Where 'mid the glassy main his passage lay.
There as they flew, his steeds no brine upcast.
Nor ocean bathed his axle as it passed.
MUNFORD.
O'er ocean's waves the winged coursers flew;
Huge whales unwiedly left their secret caves,
54
And joyfully around him gambol'd, all
Acknowledging their king, the gladsome sea,
Subsiding, gave him way; the coursers bore
So rapidly the smoothly-gliding car
That not a briny drop of billowy spray
Bedewed the whirling axle. To the ships
They bore their lord.
Two more attempts at improving on Homer by the use
of fine words. We now proceed to where
APHRODITE LENDS HER GIRDLE TO HERE, BY WHICH SHE
CAPTIVATES ZEUS.
H, xal aTto atj^d-eocpLv iluaaro xeorov l/navra, x. t. I.
(Lib. xiv. 214-217—346-351.)
LITERAL VERSION,
She spake, and loosed from off her breasts her broidered, varied
band: in it were all her charms. In it was friendship, in it desire, in
it beguiling converse, that deceives men's minds, very wise though
they be.
The son of Cronos spoke and clasped his wife in his arms.
Beneath them earth divine, caused-to-spring-up fresh verdant herbage,
dewy lotus and crocus and hyacinth, thick and soft, which lifted them
up from the ground. Amid this they lay down, and were girt by a
lovely golden cloud: bright dews distilled from it.
CHAPMAN.
She answered: 'Tis not fit nor just thy will should be
denied,
Whom Jove in his embraces holds. This spoken, she
untied
And from her odorous bosom took her Ceston, in whose
sphere
Were all enticements to delight, all loves, all longings were,
Kind conference, fair speech, whose power the wisest
doth inflame.
^ ^ ^
This resolved, into his kind embrace
He took his wife ; beneath them both fair Tellus strew'd
the place
With fresh-sprung herbs, so soft and thick, that up aloft
it bore
55
Their heavenly bodies : with his leaves did dewy lotus store
The Elysian mountain; saffron flowers and hyacinths
help'd make
The sacred bed; and there they slept; when suddenly
there brake
A golden vapor out of air, whence shining dews did fall.
POPE.
She said. With awe divine the queen of love
Obey'd the sister and the wife of Jove ;
And from her fragrant breast the zone unbraced,
With various skill and high embroidery graced.
In this was every art, and every charm,
To win the wisest and the coldest warm:
Fond love, the gentle vow, the gay desire,
The kind deceit, the still reviving fire.
Persuasive speech, and more persuasive sighs,
Silence that spoke, and eloquence of eyes.
Gazing he spoke, and kindling at the view.
His eager arms around the goddess threw.
Glad Earth perceives, and from her bosom pours
Unbidden herbs and voluntary flowers ;
Thick newborn violets a soft carpet spread,
And clustering lotos swell the rising bed,
And sudden hyacinths the turf bestrow.
And flamy crocus made the mountain glow,
There golden clouds conceal'd the heavenly pair,
Steep'd in soft joys, and circumfused with air;
Celestial dews, descending o'er the ground.
Perfume the mount, and breathe ambrosia round.
This is one of the most favorable specimens of Pope ;
a beautiful imitation of a beautiful original. The addi-
tions are so gracefully expressed that it is impossible to
find fault with them.
COWPER.
So saying, the cincture from her breast she loosed
Embroider'd, various, her all-charming zone.
It was an ambush of sweet snares, replete
With love, desire, soft intercourse of hearts,
And music of resistless whisper'd sounds
That from the wisest steal their best resolves.
5e
So spake the son of Saturn, and his spouse
Fast lock'd within his arms. Beneath them earth
With sudden herbage teem'd; at once upsprang
The crocus soft, the lotus bathed in dew,
And the crisp hyacinth with clustering bells;
Thick was their growth, and high above the ground
Upbore them. On the flowery couch they lay,
Invested with a golden cloud that shed
Bright dew-drops all around.
This passage really seems to bring out our translators
in their full strength. These three versions, each in its
way, are most excellent. But alas ! for
SOTHEBY.
Then from her breast unclasp'd the embroider'd zone.
Where each embellishment divinely shone;
There dwell the allurements all that love inspire,
There soft seduction, there intense desire.
There witchery of words whose flatteries weave
Wiles that the wisdom of the wise deceive.
This is not so bad, but wait a moment.
He spake, and clasp'd his bride, the joyous earth
Burst into bloom of odoriferous birth;
There the blue hyacinth, gold crocus rose,
And the moist lotus oped its cup of snows;
There underneath them their soft broidery spread,
Swell'd gently up and formed their fragrant bed;
And as the gods lay there dissolved in love.
Resplendent dew-drops gemm'd their gold alcove QO
This is rather too much. Zeus and Here in an alcove!
He should have put them into an entresol in the Rue
Richelieu at once.
MUNFORD.
She said; and from her breast a zone unclasp'd,
Embroider'd rich with variegated dyes.
That girdle all her sweet enticing arts
Contained. There fondness dwelt, there tender looks.
Attractive, soothing speech, and flattery's charms,
Which steals the wits of wisest men away.
* ^ * * *
* * *
The son of Saturn spake, and in his arms
5T
His consort clasp'd. For them the sacred earth,
Spontaneous, herbage from her bosom pour'd,
With new-born flow'rets; lotus, dewy moist.
And ruddy saffron, purple hyacinth,
Thickly bestrewed and soft, a fragrant bed,
Which, swelling, raised them high above the ground.
There they delighted lay, conceal'd within
A beauteous golden cloud, which glittering dews
Around them shed.
Whe had some more passages marked to extract, but by
this time the reader must be ready to unite with us in
the question. Why did Munford translate the Iliad, and why
did his friends publish his translation?
There are three men living who could translate Homer
well, Elton, Tennyson and Aytoun; but the first is too
old, the second too lazy, and the third too busy.
PHONICS AND PHONETICS.
Literary World, January 1848.
ComstoclCs Phonetic Reader. Philadelphia: E. H. Butler
& Co. 1847.
Comstock's Phonetic Speaker. Do. Do.
Comstock's Phonetic Magazine. Philadelphia: A. Comstock.
1847.
DR. COMSTOCK, or, as he spells himself phonetically,
and doubtless prefers to be spelled, Dr. Komstok, pro-
poses simply to alter and remodel the entire orthography
of our language; and as a necessary means of carrying
out this somewhat comprehensive and radical reform, he
announces a perfect alphabet.
A perfect alphabet ! When it is considered that per-
fection is predicable of few sublunary works, and that
all existing alphabets are allowed to have some imper-
fections in the way of deficiency, redundancy, or incon-
gruity of some sort, the announcement is not a little
startling, and savors of something very like arrogance.
But "to us much meditating'' (as Brougham saith after
58
Cicero), another interpretation has occurred which renders
the assertion less wonderful and more admissible. There
is a popular use of the adjective perfect as an intensive
epithet without involving the exact idea of freedom from
imperfection. Thus, when particularly injured or annoyed
by the stupidity of some not over-sagacious individual,
we irately speak of him as ^'a perfect fool." Thus,
Mr. Headley denominates a number of unfortunate de-
ceased, ^^a perfect carpet of corpses." And thus, when
we have occasion to show^ up some would-be scholar,
poet, or philosopher, his friends are sure to cry out by
way of irresistible vindication of him and confutation of
ourselves, that he is "a perfect gentleman." We may
then call Dr. Komstok's a perfect alphabet, meaning
thereby, as we should say in common parlance, that it is
"quite an alphabet," or "considerable of an alphabet,"
or as Punch's "fast man" would express it, "no end of
an alphabet." And indeed this last phrase is not inap-
propriate to the "Phonetic Alphabet," considering its
length. It comprises forty-four letters, thirty-eight "simple"
and six "compounds." Of the simple letters, fifteen are
vowels, including all the vowel and nearly all the diph-
thongal sounds of the language, viz. the four sounds of
a^ the ordinary long and short sounds of e, i, and m,
the 00 or continental u long (which Dr. K. classes with
the sounds of o), the short sound of the same as in full
(which he classes with the sounds of ii) and the diph-
thong ow or ou. The consonants, divided into fourteen
"subvowels" and nine "aspirates," are the established
English consonants, minus c and x, with additional cha-
racters or new appropriations of old characters to repre-
sent sh, eh, wh, ng, the French j , and the sounds of th.
Each letter has its distinct character, and five of the
compound letters, oi, j, ch, gs, x, have characters com-
pounded of the simple ones, expressing their component
sounds. The sixth, ai in fair , has a character of its
own. "All the consonants in the Anglo-American ('alias
the Phonetic') alphabet are sanctioned by English, French,
Greek, or Gothic usage." For instance, c represents the
sound of sh^ because (we are not answerable for the
logic here) ch in French has the same sound.
There are some obvious objections to the theoretical
construction of this alphabet. Thus we may ask, why
59
is 01 to be considered a compound letter and ou a simple
one? The former, is as Dr. K. properly enough states,
composed of the sounds aw^ et ; is not the latter as clearly
composed of the sounds ah, oo? Does not the power of
the diphthong au in Spanish, Italian, and German, confirm
this? Nay more, are not the sounds of i and ii long
diphthongal sounds quite as much as oi^ and do they
not exist as diphthongs in the continental languages?
And how is ai in fair to be made out a diphthong? Dr.
K. says, it is compounded of a lon^ and u short and he
makes lair and layer equivalent sounds. Now, with all
submission, it strikes us that layer is decidedly a dissyl-
lable with the sound of the consonant y distinctly appre-
ciable in it. As to the supposed distinction between ai
in fair and a in fate^ whe have said enough on that point
lately. Our more immediate concern, however, is with
the practical applicability of the alphabet. Of course,
the first obstacle which meets ns in limine is, that it is
no joke to ask a whole people to unlearn their letters
and learn them over again. To this Dr. K. replies, that
the perfection of his alphabet enables any one to learn
it in an hour; and there is a case adduced of a won-
derful "phonic girl in Michigan," who did so. Now, we
do not profess to be "phonic" ourselves (not clearly
understanding what it means, but like the little boy in
the story who was called a philosopher, we "hope ifs
nothing bad"), and that may make some difference, but
we have studied the type of the Phonetic Magazine much
more than an hour (more we confess to decipher some
specimens of Cherokee and other curious tongues which
we found in it, than with any intention of adopting the
Komstokography) and are yet far from being able to
read it with fluency. One constant source of confusion
is, that familiar characters have new sounds affixed to
them. Thus e represents long a; c, sh; z, the French
j, and so on. With the written alphabet it is still worse ;
different forms of the same letter (according to the pre-
sent system) are made to stand for different sounds, and
sounds as different in some cases as e and x; some of
the characters very nearly resemble each other; and,
indeed, the Phonetic written alphabet seems to us nearly
as inconvenient as the German — and what that is,
any one who has learned, or tried to learn to write
eo
German, can testify. Again, there are cases in which
the proposed spelling is contrary not merely to habit,
but to the very genius and theory of the language. It
is one of the most striking peculiarities of English pro-
nuniciation that e final is mute, and that this mute e final
when preceded by a single consonant lengthens the vowel
preceding that consonant which would otherwise be short.
To write the words mate^ mite ^ as Dr. K. proposes, met,
mit, is not merely foreign, but absolutely repugnant to
the idea of every one who has at all examined the prin-
ciples of his own language.
The next obvious objection is that the new system
would throw out all the printed books now in existence,
so that, unless reprinted, they would be lost to future
generations. To this Dr. K. answers that we must reflect
that "the English tongue has been racked by periodical
changes in spelling, which appear to have been founded
not upon phonology, but upon caprice. By these fluctua-
tions in orthography, many words have been repeatedly
rendered unintelligible, and consequently useless, until
reprinted in a new spelling." (So the remedy for this
is to render all works "unintelligible, and consequently
useless," until, &c.) and he then proceeds to argue from
sundry examples (very ingeniously and plausibly selected,
we admit), that the changes which the language has
undergone, are chiefly in spellinq , those in pronunciation
being very slight, so that "the New Alphabet is restoring^
not destroying the language." If any one wishes to know
how far this will hold water, let him recall to mind the
first two couplets of Chaucer; or, without going so far
back, recollect how ocean was pronounced by Milton,
and Rome by Shakspeare. But so far is Dr. K. from
being moved by any of these things, that he is preparing
to adapt his "phonetic alphabet" to the European lan-
guages, beginning with the French ; and one of the num-
bers of his magazine contains an ''Avis mix Frangais^^^
on the matter, which we sincerely hope may some day
meet the eye of the Charioari. And certainly his plan
derives some encouragement from that most erroneous
popular idea which makes education to consist in cram-
ming the mind with facts, not in disciplining it to use
the facts it meets with, and therefore seeks to dispense
with or abridge as much as possible all preparatory steps.
61
We have an excellent specimen of this in a Mr. O. Whee-
lock,* who writes thus to the editor of the Phonetic
Magazine.
"DEAR SIR: —
I have examined the last Number of your monthly Magazine,
and I take the liberty to say that I heartily approve of your Phonetic
Alphabet — the more so on account of the perplexity I have expe-
rienced in spelling, both in learning and teaching; for I have ever
considered the spelling of a class of pupils a mere game of haphkzard,
and have often felt the necessity of some such system, long before I
ever heard of yours. Of the 85,000 words in our language, only
about 60, I think, are spelled strictly according to their sound —
nearly 85,000 separate impressions are to be stamped upon the me-
mory before he can spell perfectly the English language! This it
takes him [whom?} a lifetime to accomplish [! !] to the neglect of
the more useful branches. Were a person required to remember the
names of 85,000 plants, the task would be thought too great for the
mind to accomplish; still how much greater the task to learn and
remember the exact position of all the letters of 85,000 words ! [How
exactly parallel the two cases are !J Yet should a man make pretension
to an education, and spell one word wrong, he would subject himself
to ridicule."
Of course the next step after the Perfect Alphabet
will be a Perfect Grammar, with no irregular inflections,
or exceptions to any of its rules. Such a scheme, indeed,
is quite as sensible in theory and as feasible in practice,
as that of the New Alphabet.
It will help us to form an idea of the practicability
of establishing a universal alphabet, if w^e look at another
uniformity which, though involving far less difficulty, has
never yet been attained — we mean a uniform pronun-
ciation of the ancient languages. In this respect, the
literary world has made no progress since the time of
Erasmus: the Englishman who speaks Latin is unin-
telligible to the German; the German who speaks Latin
is ridiculous to the Frenchman. Even in our own country
it has not been possible to bring about this uniformity
— Greek is still pronounced one way in New York and
another in Boston. We remember that some years ago
there was a congress of professors held here to take
* So ignorant is this gentleman of the principles of our language,
that he is actually at a loss for a rule to determine the sound of a
in male.
62
into consideration this very matter. Various schemes
were proposed. There was much talk about the modern
Greek system. Professor Woolsey informed the conclave
(whether in real or ironical recommendation, or whether
simply as sl piece of information, we w^ill not pretend
to say) that this was the pronunciation of the uncient
Boeotians; and at length the grave assembly broke up
decidedly re infecta.
But let us suppose the Phonetic system established
as the standard orthography of the English language : is
it certain that it would put an end to all the difficulties,
of the subject, and that it w^ould render mispronunciation
impossible — a point on which Dr. K. is particularly san-
guine? Here, again, an analogy from experience will afford
us some aid. The Spanish alphabet is remarkably simple,
having but one silent letter,* and two letters with dif-
ferent sounds; but we have yet to learn that it is a
phenomenon to find a Spaniard who spells or pronounces
incorrectly, or that the Spanish language is particularly
free from dialects and local peculiarities. We may be
sure that those sturdy democrats of language w^ho find
the ordinary rules of orthography too grievous a burden,
would not long submit even to the rules of Dr. K. The
mere desire to distinguish between words pronounced
alike, such as fair and fare^ which the "Phonetic" system
completely confounds (this is an objection, and a very
serious one, which seems never to have occurred to the
"Phonologists"), would introduce some variation. Again
there are words as to the pronunciation of which the
best authorities differ (e. g. either and neither)^ j" and others
in which the American usage differs from the English
(e. g. all w^ords beginning with wh). How can this fail
to introduce a diversity? — unless Dr. K. is to be the
sole arbiter of pronunciation as w^ell as spelling. Were
this new orthography established, it would soon dege-
nerate into general license: one man's "system" w^ould
* The Spanish h affords a striking exemplification of the occa-
sional value of those silent letters which our Phonetic reformers so
contemptuously reject. Though of no use at all in pronunciation, it
is of great importance to the philologist as it represents the Latin
f, facis, hacer, filius, hijo, &c.
\ "Do you say either or eether?" some one asked Dr. Johnson.
'•^Naytherr replied the Lexicographist.
6B
be confusion to his neighbors. Probably every one of
our readers can furnish from his own experience some
instance of amusing perplexity caused him by a practical
"phonographer" — for phonographers were living before
Dr. Komstok, though generally in very humble Vv^alks of
life. The story of Dr. Franklin's chambermaid * is
well known. We have heard one nearly as good. Some
ship-owners during the last war received a letter from
their Captain, w^hose literary abilities were not quite
equal to his nautical. After passing through various
^'Phonetic" spellings, such as bloked for blockade^ they
were at length brought to a full stop by the occurrence
of the word wig^ in a place where it could not possibly
be made to harmonize with the context. As a last resort
an old tar who had more than once sailed under the
captain was summoned. Jack glanced at the hierogly-
phic, and instantly interpreted thus, "Its all plain enough,
Cap'n says as how the wyge (voyage) 'II be a good one
after all."
Indeed the "Phonetic Reformers" are already disa-
greeing among themselves. We see in the Phonetic Ma-
gazine much thunder launched against one Pitman, an
Englishman, who uses some characters "like those on a
tea-chest" (misled perhaps by some fancied etymological
connexion between teachest and teacher)^ and others "like
Apothecaries' drams and scruples" (Dr. K. has no scruples
about his alphabet). There is also a paper published
in this city called the Anglo-Sacsun ^ on yet another dif-
ferent system of "Phonotypy," which publishes a list of
150 teachers of, and lecturers on "the true system of
spelling w^ords — that is, just as they are pronounced."
We are uncharitable enough to doubt whether all these
teachers and lecturers believe in their own graphy and
typy^ whatever it may be, and w^hether some of them
are not speculating on the public avidity for new hobbies
and delusions. Of Dr. K. himmself , w^e would not wil-
* Franklin is claimed as the parent of "Phonography," and thus
spoken of in the Phonetic Magazine :
"His facetiousness and reputation set that Phonetic spirit in action
which has now reached its perfection in form through the genius of
Dr. Andrew Comstock."
Chapeau bus! Chapeau has!
Gloire au Marquis de Carabas!
64
lingly suppose anything harsh, especially after the flat-
tering things he has said of our "tight little island,"
respecting which he states poetically (for the Doctor is
a poet no less than a philosopher), that
"Manhattan is an isle ,
Where talent is spontaneous ;
Where people freely write
Their pieces miscellaneous."
Of him then, and of all sincere believers in ''Phonotypy,"
we cannot take leave better than in the words of Thu-
cydides. "We bless their innocence, but do not envy
their simplicity."
THE PROSE WRITINGS OF ANDRE
CHENIER.*
American Review, January 1848.
EVERY one at all conversant with French literature
has heard of the young poet, who "struck his lyre at
the foot of the scaffold," and whose last verses were
interrupted by the summons of the executioner. It is not
so generally known that this man was one of the most
vigorous, independent, and sagacious prose writers of the
exciting period at which he lived. The first feeling on
reading his political essays is one of surprise, that writers
on the French Revolution should have alluded to him
only as the poet — or rather the youth who would have
been a poet, had he not perished so young. Even his
cousin^ M. Thiers, while going so far as to call him a
distinguished poet,f makes not the least mention of his
controversial writings.
* (Euvres en Prose d' Andre Chenier. Paris : Charles Gosselin 1840.
f "Dans le nombre etaient deux poetes celebres, Roucher, I'auteur
des Mois, et le jeune Andre Chernier, qui lassa d'admirables ebauches."
— Thiers^ Revolution Fran(^aise, vi. 200.
65
Now in this we are persuaded that Ch^nier has not
been fairly treated. His poetry, rough and fragmentary
as most of it is, does not put him very high on Par-
nassus — even the Gallic Parnassus. His longer pro-
ductions are principally imitations of the classics; and
everybody knows what French imitations of the classics
are, and that they resemble the Greek originals about
as much as the domestic madonnas, so common in a certain
city of this Union, do the Raphaels at Florence. To
our mind the man who could translate
allalaig XaKevvxai tsov yaf.iov at xvnaQLoaaL,
C'est ce bois qui de joie et s'agite et murmure,
had fallen very far short of the spirit of Theocritus. In
shorter pieces, (such as his stanzas to Fanny, and other
erotics,) where he had, partially at least, escaped from
the influence of his classic pseudo-models, there is more
poetic fire. But even his last and best known verses,
"Comme un dernier rayon, comme un dernier zephyre," &c.,
owe their celebrity more to the unexampled circumstances
under which they were written, than to any intrinsic
merit. And, generally, his "rough sketches," (ebauches,)
as Thiers appropriately calls them, have been praised
by his compatriots, chiefly for the promise they gave, as
if, to use his own dying words, he "had something in
his head," which would have come out with more time
and opportunity. Now this sort of reputation is, we
repeat it, very far below Chenier's deserts. And we would
vindicate for him, not the vague and doubtful renown of
a possible poet, but the real and tangible character of
an excellent political writer, with a strong and clear
style, an indomitable spirit of independence, and a saga-
city which, considering the circumstances in which he
was placed, is but faintly depicted by the epithet extra-
ordinary. Before proceeding to justify this claim of ours
in detail, we will mention two facts which may, at any
rate, tend to gain us a hearing. It was Andr^ Ch^nier
whom the conservative secession from the Jacobin Club,
selected to prepare their manifesto and profession of
faith. It was Andr^ Ch^nier who composed that letter
in which the unfortunate Louis XVI. made his last appeal
to the people.
Vol. I. 5
66
Louis Ch^nier, a French consul, married a Greek
beauty. His third son, Andre, was born at Constantinople,
in 1762. Sent to France in his infancy, and liberally
educated, he entered the army, and at the age of twenty
was in quarters at Strasburg as a sub-lieutenant. A
soldier's life, in time of peace, is particulary unsatis-
factory to an active and ambitious young man. In six
months Andre quitted his profession forever, and returned
to Paris. There he began to study furiously. He seems
to have proposed for himself w^hat Chatham is said to
have proposed for his son, "to learn the whole Cyclo-
paedia." As is usual in such cases, he read himself nearly
to death. His health was partially restored by a journey
in Switzerland, during which he made some eftorts to
commit his impressions to paper; but his enthusiasm was
too buoyant to be thus fixed, and he had not sufficient
command over his own feelings. Next he w^ent to Eng-
land, in the suite of the ambassador, (the Count of Lu-
cerne,) a very likely way of taming any excess of spirits.
With England he was displeased, as most foreigners,
and especially most Frenchmen, may well be on short
acquaintance. Yet his penetrating mind fully appreciated
the strong common sense of the English people; and
the contrast which he subsequently drew betw^een the
political clubs of London and those of Paris, was not
at all flattering to his countrymen.
It was not till 1790 that he established himself at
Paris, and applied himself seriously to poetic composition.
The state of public affairs soon turned his talents in ano-
ther direction. The Friends of the Constitution^ afterwards
so formidable as the Jacobins^ had in their progress to-
wards anarchy, eliminated from themselves a number of
moderate men, among whom were De Pange and Con-
dorcet. The result was the Society of 1789, a society
whose object was pretty w^ell indicated by its title. Ch^nier
joined these men, and to him as the best or boldest, or
both, of their writers, was the task assigned of putting
forth an official statement of their principles, of "defining
their position," as our phrase is. This he did in an essay
on the momentous question, ^^Who are the real enemies of
the French? He begins with a graphic sketch of the con-
dition of France at that time: —
67
"When a great nation, after having grown gray in careless error,
wearied at length of evils and oppression, wakes from this long le-
thargy, and by a just and lawful insurrection enters upon all its rights,
and overturns the order of things which violated all those rights, it
cannot in an instant find itself calmly established in its new condition.
The strong impulse given to so weighty a mass, makes it vacillate
for some time before it can recover its equilibrium. After all that is
bad has been destroyed, and those charged with the execution of
reforms are pursuing their work in haste, we must not hope that a
people still heated with emotion , and exalted by success , can stay
quiet and wait peaceably for the new government that is preparing for
them. All imagine they have acquired the right of co-operating in
the government, and demand the exercise of that right with an unrea-
sonable impatience. Every one wishes, not merely to assist and
protect, but even to preside over a part, at least, of the fabric; and
as the general interest of these partial reforms is not so striking to
the multitude, their unanimity is less thorough and active. The number
of feet retards the general progress ; the number of arms the general
action.
"In this state of uncertainty, politics take hold of every mind.
All other labors are suspended ; all the old-fashioned kinds of indu-
stry are banished; men's heads are heated; they originate ideas, or
think they originate them ; they pursue them ; they see nothing else ;
the patriots who at first made but one body, because they looked to
but one end, begin to discover differences, in most cases imaginary,
among themselves ; every one labors and struggles ; every one wishes
to show himself; every one would carry the flag; every one in his
principles, his speeches, his actions, wishes to go beyond all others.
* * * * ^
* * * *
"These agitations, provided that a new order of things, wisely
and promptly established, does not give them time to go too far, may
not be injurious, nay, may turn out a public benefit, by exciting a
sort of patriotic emulation ; and if while all this is going on, the na-
tion is enlightening and fashioning itself by really liberal principles;
if the representatives of the people are not interrupted in the work
of forming a constitution ; and if the whole political machine is ten-
ding towards a good government, all these trifling inconveniences
will vanish of themselves, and there is no cause for alarm. But if
we see that, for from disappearing, the germs of political hatred are
taking deeper root ; if we see grave accusations and atrocious impu-
tations multiplied at random ; if we see everywhere a false spirit and
false principles working blindly, as if by some fatality, in the most
numerous class of citizens; if we see at the same moment in every
corner of the empire illegal insurrections brought on in the same
manner, founded on the same misapprehensions, defended by the same
5*
68
Bophistries; if we see frequent appearances in arms on the part of
that lowest class of the people, who understanding nothing, having
nothing, possessing no interest in anything, can only sell themselves
to whoever will huy them; then such symptoms must be alarming."
Here was enough to fix upon Chenier the fatal
enmity of the Jacobins. What, the "poor and virtuous
people" that Robespierre delighted to prate about, ready
to "sell themselves to whoever would buy them!" The
young conservative w^as a doomed man adready.
He goes on to say that such a deplorable state of
things must be owing to the machinations of some public
enemies? Kot the Austrians, fatigued and exhausted by
their own wars; nor the English, "that nation about w^hich
the Parisians talk so much and know so little ;" * nor
yet the emigrants. These last have been influenced by
fear, prejudice and ignorance. The surest way to bring
them back and make them good citizens is to present
such a spectacle of order and tranquillity as will show
them that their fears and prejudices are unfounded. But
even admitting their hostility, what can such a faction
accomplish if the State is united? And this leads to the
first conclusion, that the real public enemies are those
causes which 'prevent the re-establishment of public tranquillity.
Now what are these causes? "Everything that has been
done in this revolution, good or bad, is owing to writings:
in them, perhaps, then, we shall find the source of the
evils that threaten us." And, accordingly, he proceeds
to show that these public enemies are the encouragers and
apologists of popular excesses. After a hasty summary of
these excesses, he exclaims, with a natural and virtuous
indignation — "And to think that there are writers blood-
thirsty or cowardly enough to come forward as the pro-
tectors and excusers of these murders! That they dare
to abet them ! That they dare to point out this and that
victim! That they have the audacity to give the name
of popular justice to these horrible violations of all justice
and all law! To be sure, the power of hanging, like all
other powers, is ultimately referable to the people, but
it is a frightful thing, if this is the only power which
they are not willing to exercise by their representatives."
Then follow several pages of just and powerful in-
Equally true this, at the present day.
69
vective against "those people to whom all law is bur-
densome, all restraint insupportable, all rule odious ; peo-
ple for whom an honest life is the most oppressive of
yokes! They hated the old government, not because it
was bad but because it was a government; they will
hate the new; they will hate all, whatever be their
nature." How accurately Chenier foresaw what would
be the consequence of giving in to these people may be
seen from the following extract: —
''Now, as I was saying, is it not evident that, on the one hand,
the workmen and day-laborers of every class, who only live by con-
stant and steady work, abandoning themselves to this turbulent indo-
lence, will no longer be able to gain a subsistence, and before long,
stimulated by hunger, and the rage which hunger inspires, will only
think of seeking for money wherever they imagine it may be found?
On the other hand, it is hardly necessary to say that the farms and
workshops thus abandoned will cease to be capable of supplying that
income of individuals which alone makes the public income. No more
taxes then; consequently no more public service; consequently the
upper classes reduced to misery and despair ; the army disbanded
and pillaging the country; the infamy of a national bankruptcy ac-
complished and declared; the citizens all in arms against each other.
No more taxes ; consequently no more government; the National As-
sembly obliged to abandon its task, and put to flight; universal
slaughter and conflagration : provinces towns, and individuals mutually
accusing one another of their common disasters ; France torn to pieces
by the convulsions of this incendiary anarchy."
There was no want of respectable persons to laugh
at these alarms and pity the alarmists. Chenier has a
word for these:
''I should like these persons, for our entire satisfaction , to deign
to take pen in hand, and prove that these fermentations, these tem-
pests, these continued pangs, have not the tendency which I attributed
to them; that they do not produce a spirit of insubordination and
want of discipline ; or, if they please, that this spirit is no the most
formidable enemy of law and liberty, I should like them also to
show us what will become of France, if the bulk of the French people?
wearied of their own indiscretions and the anarchy resulting from
them , wearied of never arriving at the goal which they have them-
selves continually put further off, should come to believe that liberty
is only to be found in disgust of liberty, and, as the remembrance of
former evils is readily efl'aced, should end by regretting their old yoke
of quiet degradation."
He proceeds to draw an important distinction: —
^0
"These same persons are never tired of repeating to us that
things are preserved by the same means which have acquired them.
If by this they mean that courage, activity and union are as neces-
sary to preserve liberty as to win it, nothing is more incontrovertible
or more irrelevant ; but if they understand that in both cases this
courage, and activity, and union, are to manifest themselves in the
same way and by the same actions, they are very much mistaken.
The very contrary is the truth, for in destroying and overthrowing a
colossal and unjust powder, the more ardent and headlong our courage
the more certain our success. But afterwards, when our ground is
cleared and we have to rebuild on extensive and durable foundations,
when we must make after having unmade, then our courage should
ce the very reverse of what it was at first. It should be calm, pru-
dent and deliberate; it should manifest itself only in wisdom, tenacity
and patience ; it should fear to resemble those torrents which ravage
without fertilizing. Hence it follows that the means which accomplis-
hed the Revolution, if they continue to be employed without addition
or qualification, can only destroy its efficiency by hindering the con-
stitution from being established. Hence again it follows that those
wild pamphleteers, those unruly demagogues, who, enemies, as we
have seen, of all government and all restraint, thundered against old
abuses at the beginning of the Revolution, were then right enough.*
for they found themselves for the moment united with all honest men
in proclaiming the truths which have made us free ; but that now
they ought not to claim our confidence as a debt, or accuse our want
of attention as a want of gratitude, while in using the same expres-
sions and the same declamations against an absolutely new order of
things, they are preaching an entirely different doctrine, which would
conduct us to a different end.
What remedies and safeguards are to be adopted?
Popular errors are apt to arise from ignorance, rather
than deliberate wickedness. The real principles of civil
liberty must be carefully inculcated. Here are some of
the things which every citizen ought to know and feel : -
"That there can be no happiness and freedom in society without
government and public order.
"That there can be no private wealth, unless the public revenue,
or in other words, the public wealth, is secure.
"That the public wealth cannot be secure without public order.
* An application of the same principle explains what has puzzled
some good men — how Protestants may consistently join with skeptics
in opposing the abuses of the Romish Church, where Romanism is
the prevailing religion.
71
'■''That, while in despotic states a blind obedience to the caprices
of despots is called public order, under a free constitution founded
on the national sovereignty, public order is the only safeguard of
persons and property, the only support of the constitution.
"That there is no constitution, unless all the citizens are freed
from every illegal restraint , and cordially united to bear the yoke of
the law — a yoke always light when all bear it equally.
'"■That every respectable nation respects itself.
"That every nation which respects itself respects its own laws
and magistrates.
"That there is no liberty without law.
"That there is no law if one part of society, be it the majority
or not, can forcibly assail and attempt to overthrow the former ge-
neral wish which has made a law, without waiting for the times and
observing the forms indicated by the constitution.
"That, when the constitution gives a legal way of reforming a
law which experience has shown to be faulty, insurrection against
a law is the greatest crime of which a citizen can be guilty : for he
thereby dissolves society so far as in him lies, and this is the real
crime of treason.
"That there is no liberty if all do not obey the law, and if any
one is obliged to obey anything except the law and its agents.
"That no one ought to be arrested, searched, examined, judged,
or punished, except according to law and by the agents of the law*
"That the law is only applicable to actions, and that all inquisi-
tions upon opinions and thoughts are no less violations of liberty
when exercised in the name of the people, than when exercised in
the name of tyrants."
If these brief sentences had been written at the
present day; if they had appeared, for instance, in an
article of the Courier and Enquirer, or our own Review,
against the anti-renters, while it could not be denied
that they expressed sound political views in a bold and
forcible manner, it might be said that they contained
nothing very striking or remarkable, but were only a
succinct and vigorous statement of what all honest and
sane men believed. But composed, as they were, at a
period when of the two great experiments whence we
derive most of our political experience, the one was just
beginning and the other had not had time to w^ork; a
period when the majority of reformers and philosophers
thought vdth Jefferson, that "the old system of govern-
ment had been tried long enough," and the only escape
from it w^as to rush into the opposite extreme of no
72
government at all except the temporary will of an occa-
sional majority, they denote uncommon sagacity and
foresight, and prove that Ch^nier had the head of a
statesman no less than the heart of a patriot. Most
particularly worthy of notice is the clearness of his finan-
cial views, and the accuracy with which he traced the
connection between private and public wealth. It was
then a favorite delusion, that the nation might be bankrupt
without affecting the fortunes of individuals. The great
hero and apostle of democratic despotism who rose out
of the Revolution, fell into the contrary error of supposing
that the public treasury might continue to be recruited
by the appropriation of private capital, not seeing that,
to use an ancient but apposite illustration, he was thus
killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. It was reserved
for a still more modern democracy to invent a still wiser
and honester financial expedient — that of repudiating
the obligations, while they enjoy the acquisitions, of past
generations.
The Avis aux Frnncais made a great sensation, which
was not confined to France. Two circumstances will
show the extent and force of its influence. The Polish
king Stanislaus Augustus, caused it to be translated into
his language, and sent a token of his esteem to the au-
thor, who returned a letter of thanks: of course, the friends
of the Constitvtion were still more amiably disposed to
him, after this royal correspondence. And Condorcet,
finding that he could no longer take the lead in the
Society of 1789, broke up that association so far as lay
in his power, and went straight over to the Jacobins.
Chenier's reputation emboldened him to present himself
in the following year, (1791,) as a candidate for the
assembly; but, as might have been predicted of a man
so independent and so much beyond his age, he was
unsuccessful. After this he contnued to attak and expose
the Jacobins in the Journal de Paris, a paper professedly
neutral, and publishing communications on any side as
paid advertisements, but edited by men of a conversative
leaning. The Jacobins were not slow to answer their
bold assailant. They set upon him his own brother, Marie
Joseph, the youngest of the four, who had by some
means been inveigled into their ranks. The discussion,
which lasted several months and was only broken off at
78
the urgent entreaties of the rest of the family, displayed
at the outset, but did not long preserve, the moderation
and delicacy demanded by the uncommon position of
the parties. The two brothers all but O'Connellized each
other. They applied to each other's writings the epithet
of infamous, then a pet word in the vocabulary of the
French journalists, and more usually merited than such
pet words generally are. How Joseph Chenier came to
take sides with the Jacobins, is not perfectly clear. It
seems probable that they flattered his vanity, and made
him half believe that his brothers' opposition was attri-
butable to envy and jealousy. For when most angry
with Andre, his bitterest taunt is to remind him of the
election for deputies. A very young man among Demo-
crats may be pardoned for supposing that offlcie and
honor are synonymous, and not reflecting that where
merit is no longer the test of advancement, the correla-
tive mentioned by Sallust is unavoidable. *
If, however, the leading Jacobins supposed, that by
getting up this personal issue they had succeeded in di-
verting or weakening Andre Chenier's attacks upon them,
they were very much mistaken. In the vdnter of 1792,
an event occurred, which, by eminently exposing them
to his ridicule, specially marked him out for their ven-
geance. Two years before, a Swiss regiment had been
condemned to the galleys for mutiny. Their offences
were gross and unequivocal: they had refused to swear
to the Constitution, plundered the regimental chest, and
fired upon the National Guard. But General Bouill^,
against whom they then revolted, had now proved a
traitor to the popular cause. In a fit of childish spite
against him, the Swiss were pardoned; on motion of
Collot d'Herbois, the amnesty was changed into a triumph;
a fete was given to the liberated culprits, and Petion,
as mayor of Paris, presided at it. The intense absurdity
of the affair threw into the shade its injustice and danger;
and Chenier was not the man to let any of this absurdity
be lost. He satirized and ridiculed the Jacobins in prose
and verse. He sketched a plan for the new^ ovation: —
* "Verura ex his magistratus et imperia, postremo omnis cura
rerum piiblicarum minime mihi hac tempestate cupiunda videntur
quoniam neque virtnti honos datiir, neque illi quibus per fraudem is
fuit, utique tuti aut eo magis honesti sunt " — Sallust, Bell. Jug., Cap. 3.
74
"The Romans used to engrave on brass the names of those ge-
nerals to whom they granted a triumph, and their titles to so great
an honor. I suppose the city of Paris will follow this example, and
the happy witnesses of the triumphal entry will read inscribed on
the car of victory:
" 'For having revolted with arms in their hands , and replied to
the reading of the National Assembly's decree which recalled them
to their duty, 'that they persisted in their revolt:'
" 'For having been declared guilly of high treason by a decree of
the National Assembly, Aug. 16, 1790;
'"For having plundered the regimental chest;
"'For having spoken these memorable words: We are not French-
men; we are Swiss; we must have money;
"'For having fired upon the National Guards of Metz and other
places, who marched to Nancy in accordance with the decrees of the
National Assembly.'"
And he proceeds, with unanswerable irony: —
"General Bouille deceived all France and its representatives. None
but these Swiss soldiers penetrated his bad designs. They saw that
he would take the first opportunity to become a perjured traitor,
Accordingly they took up arms against him, and made sure of the
regimental chest, for fear this money, falling into his less patriotic
hands, should serve the purposes of the counter-revolutionists.
"Since General Bouille has shown himself a cowardly and trea-
cherous enemy of his country, it is clear that those who fired on him,
and on the French citizens marching under his orders by virtue of
a decree of the National Assembly, cannot but be excellent patriots.
"In every criminal case there can be but one culpable party. For
example, when a murdered man is proved to have been a rogue, it
is evident that his murderer must be an honest man."
The only reply Collot d'Herbois and his myrmidons
could make, was to charge Ch^nier with being hired by
the Court, and to threaten him with assassination — two
excellent radical arguments.
Ch^nier had already drawn a portrait of the Jacobin
Club, too faithful not to provoke their fiercest indigna-
tion. This sketch was published in the supplement to
the Journal de Paris, February 26, 1792, just a month
before the letter from which we have been quoting: —
"There exists in the midst of Paris a numerous association, hol-
ding frequent meetings , open to all who are , or pretend to be,
patriots, always governed by leaders visible or invisible, who are
continually changing and mutually destroying one another, but who
have always the same object— the supreme power; and the same in-
75
tention— to get that power "by whatever means. This society, formed
at a moment when liberal principles, though sure to triumph, were
not yet completely established, necessarily attracted a great number
of citizens who were filled with alarm and warmly attached to the
good cause. Many of these had more zeal than knowledge. With
them glided in many hypocrites; so did many people who were in
debt, without industry, poor through their own indolence, and seeing
something to hope for in any change. Many wise and just men who
know that in a well regulated State all the citizens do not attend
to public affairs, while all ought to attend to their private affairs,
have since retired from it; whence it follows that this association
must be chiefly composed of some skilful players, who arrange the
cards and profit by them, of some subordinate intriguers with whom
an habitual eagerness for mischief takes the place of talent, and a
large number of idlers, honest, but ignorant and short-sighted, inca-
pable of any bad intention themselves, but very capable of forwarding
the bad intentions of others without knowing it.
"This society has generated an infinity of others ; towns, boroughs,
and villages are full of them. They are almost all under the orders
of the parent society, with which they keep up a most active corre-
spondence. It is a body in Paris and the head of a larger body
extending over France. In the same way did the Church of Rome
plant the failJi, and govern the world by its congregations of monks.
"This system was imagined and executed two years ago by men
of great popularity, who saw very well that it was means of increasing
their power and preserving their popularity, but did not see how
perilous an instrument it was. So long as they ruled these societies,
all the errors there committed met their warmest approbation : but
since they have been blown up by this mine of their own kindling,
they detest the excesses which are no longer to their profit, and,
talking more truth without possessing more wisdom, combine with
honest men in cursing their old master-piece.
"The audience before which these societies deliberate, constitutes,
their strength; and when one considers that men of business do not
neglect their affairs to listen at the debates of a club , and that men
of intelligence prefer the silence of the closet, or the peaceable con-
versation, to the tumult and clamors of these noisy crowds, it is
easy to see what must be the ordinary composition of the audience,
and further, what sort of language is the best recommendation to
them. One simple fallacy is all-sufficient: the constitution being
founded on that eternal truth, the sovereignty of the people, it is only
necessary to persuade the listeners at the club that they are the people.
"Lecturers and journal - mongers have generally adopted this
definition. Some hundred vagabonds collected in a garden or at a
play, or some gangs of robbers and shop-lifters, are impudently de-
76
nominated the people; and never did the most wanton despot receive
from the most eager courtier adoration so vile and digusting, as the
base flattery with which two or three thousand usurpers of the na-
tional sovereignty are every day intoxicated — thanks to the writers
and speakers of these societies !
"As the semblance of patriotism is the only profitable virtue,
some men who have been stigmatized by their disgraceful lives run
to the club to get a reputation for patriotism, by the violence of their
discourses, founding on their riotous declamations and the passions
of the multitude, oblivion of the past and hope for the future, and
redeeming themselves from disgrace by impudence. At the clubs
are daily proclaimed, sentiments and even principles which threaten
the fortunes and the property of all. Under the names of forestalling
and monopoly, industry and commerce are represented as crimes. Every
rich man passes for a public enemy. Neither honor nor reputation
is spared; odious suspicions and unbridled slander are called liberty
of opinion. He who demands proof of an accusation, is a suspected
man, an enemy of the people. At the clubs, every absurdity is admired,
if it be only murderous — every falsehood cherished, if it be only
atrocious. ****** Sometimes, indeed, guilty parties are assailed,
but they are assailed with a violence, a ferocity, and an unfairness
that make them appear innocent."
About the same time, (its exact date and the medium
of its publication are uncertain,) Chenier wrote The Altars
of Fear J a sort of last appeal to the lovers of good order.
Its title alludes to the practice of the ancients, who made
fear a divinity, and erected altars to him.
"To be sure, we have not yet imitated them to the letter, but,
as in all ages profundly religious men have observed that the heart
is the true altar where the Deity chooses to be honored, and that
internal adoration is a thousand times more valuable than all the pomp
of a magnificent worship intrusted to a small number of persons, and
confined to certain places by express consecration, we may say that
fear had never more truly altars erected to it, than now in Paris 5
that this whole city is its temple; that all respectable people have
become its pontiff's , offering to it the daily sacrifice of their opinions
and their conscience."
The mob commit excesses; personal privacy and
personal liberty are invaded; the respectable people say
nothing against it or about it, ,/or fear of being called ari-
stocrats,"
"The simple sound of this word aristocrat stupefies the public
man , and attacks the very principle of motion in him. He wishes
the success of the good, with all his heart; he is making zealous
n
exertions that way, and would sacrifice all his fortune to it: in the
midst of his action, let him hear those four fatal syllables pronounced
against him, and he trembles, he groows pale, the sword of the law
falls from his grasp. Now it is clear enough , that Cicero will never
be anything better than an aristocrat, to take Clodius or Catiline's
word for it: if, then Cicero is afraid, what will become of us?"
It must be pleaded, however, in excuse for these re-
spectable people who said nothing for fear being called
aristocrals, that they had pretty urgent motives for silence.
To be unpopular at that day, was to have your head
cut off: the terms were convertible. There are many
among us, to whom such reproaches are infinitely more
applicable, men who will not lift up their voices against
some popular abuse or injustice or prejudice, for fear
of being called federalist or aristocrat; although, thank
God! to call a man federalist or aristocrat neither knocks
him on the head nor even takes a cent out of his pocket.
And when we hear a man complaining of the tyranny of
the majority and popular intimidation because his indepen-
dent conduct has caused his fellow -townsmen to refuse
him their voices at an election, or made some honest
editor afraid to publish his communications, we would
just refer him to Chenier, who was putting his neck under
the axe every time he took pen in hand.
The momentous tenth of August came, and that no-
torious popular potentate whom our saucy friends over
the water have facetiously denominated „the Yankee Jus-
tinian," had the supreme jurisdiction in Paris. The Journal
de Paris was put down vi et armis, and its conductors
and contributors precipitately scattered. Chenier was in
imminent danger ; many thought that he must have fallen
a victim to the popular fury, and Wieland, the German
poet, wrote to inquire if he were yet allive. But he was
not dead yet, nor even silent; only his writings were
now anonymous or pseudonymous. Owing to this fact,
nearly all that he published in the autumn and winter
of 1792 — 3 has been lost. It is certain, however, that
he was the author of the letter in which Louis after
his condemnation vainly appealed to the French people.
After the king's death his friends persuaded him to quit
Paris for Versailles, where he remained a whole year.
By that time most of his personal enemies had disap-
peared, some torn to pieces by wolves, and some by
78
their fellow Jacobins. But Collot d'Herbois still lived,
and his power nearly equalled Robespierre's.
On the 6th of January, 1794, Ch^nier was arrested.
The immediate and ostensible cause of his arrest was a
visit to a suspected lady at Passy. The proceeding was
utterly illegal, even according to such scanty remains
of law as the Terrorists had preserved for themselves,
for Ch^nier was not under the local jurisdiction of the
man who seized him, and had a safe conduct and certi-
ficate of good citizenship from the authorities of his
quartier. Indeed the gaoler of the Luxemburg prison
refused to receive him, but the functionary at St. Lazare
was less scrupulous.
As Joseph Chenier had been an influential Jacobin
and a member of the Convention, there were not wan-
ting persons afterwards to assert that he had neglected
to save his brother's life when it was in his power to
do so; nay, some even charged him with having contri-
buted to his condemnation. This imputation his friends
have indignantly repelled. They maintain that, on the
contrary, it was chiefly through his influence that Andr6
had remained unmolested for the sixteen months preceding.
They affirm, moreover, that Joseph had been for some
time virtually disconnected with the Jacobins, having
grown wiser as they grew more frantic; that he was
then a suspected if not a denounced man, and would
himself have shared the fate of Andr^, had the rule of
Robespierre lasted a fortnight longer. The two pleas
are not perfectly consistent, and we think that generally
the editors and biographers of the brothers have erred
in trying to prove too much, and in giving to the accu-
sation a greater importance than it deserved. * For our
own part, we do not believe one syllable of it. The
Ch^niers had that strong family attachment which all
families ought to have, and it is absurd to suppose that
if Joseph regarded the wishes of his relatives, when the
question was only about breaking off a paper war with
his brother, he would have disregarded them when that
* Especially do we think M. Arnault to blame, for seriously con-
futing, in a narration of two pages, a scandalous story of Madame
de Genlis, about Mademoiselle Dumesnil's reception of Joseph Ch6nier ;
as if a French actress would trouble herself abouth truth , when
there was a chance of saying a mof, or making a scene.
79
brother's life was at stake. The advice he gave his
father, who wished him to agitate openly for his brothers,
"Rather try to let them be forgotten," was the very
best that could have been given, as the event too truly
showed. Had nothing been said about Andre, he might
have remained unnoticed for two days longer^ which would
have been enough to save his life, and actually did save
the life of Sauveur; but the memorial which his father
addressed to that body called with a mournful irony
the Comittee of Public Safety, was his death-warrant.*
And now comes a characteristic specimen of radical
inaccuracy. Another of the Cheniers, Sauveur, formerly
an officer in the army of the north, had been arrested
and imprisoned at Beauvais. In such haste was the in-
dictment against Andre drawn up, that it confounded
him with Sauveur; attributed to one brother the acts
and writings of both, and designated the poet -editor as
ex -adujutant- general and chief of brigade, under Du-
mouriez ! One of Andre's eulogists suggests that he made
no allusion to this palpable flaw, in hopes that this con-
fusion of personal identity might be the means of saying
his brother. If so, his silence was successful.
There were, indeed, many reasons why Andre Che-
nier should have made no further opposition to the pro-
ceedings against him, than was necessary to expose their
injustice and illegality in the eyes of future generations.
To one whose patriotic hopes had been so cruelly disap-
pointed, life was of little value. When a man of refined
education, liberal principles, hopes of liberal institutions,
and freedom from party fanaticism, sees all constitutional
landmarks swept away, and the ochlocracy triumphant,
his despondency is utter and hopeless. He has "lost the
dream of doing and the other dream of done," and knows
not how to help himself or others. In one case only
* And yet. after all, must we not say that, in a higher sense,
Joseph Chenier was morally guilty of his brother's death ? He had
encouraged the Jacobins in their earlier attempts: he had defended
or apologized for their excesses; he had given them his pen, his
voice, and his influence. In so far, then, as he had contributed to
their triumph must he be deemed answerable for the consequences
of that triumph. Alas ! it is not too well remembered even at the
present day, that they who help to open the flood-gates^ are responsible
for the inundation.
80
can he be sustained. If his mind has been deeply im-
bued with the true philosophy — the philosophy of
Christianity — he may remember that "God fulfils him-
self in many ways," and faith will illumine for him
what, to the eye of reason alone, is thick darkness.
d^aQoei (.lOi d^aQoei rixvov,
o Tad^ EcpoQo. xccl nQaTvvei.
But w^e very much fear Chenier had not this con-
solation. His views, lofty and noble as they were, were
still bounded by this world and the limits of human
ability. And at that time it seemed as if no human abi-
lity could do anything for the French. The people from
whom the gallows was a more acceptable gift than the
right hand of friendship,* had triumphed, and he had
long before made up his mind which alternative to
choose.
Chenier was guillotined July 25th, 1794. His works
were not collected till 1819, and complete editions of
them did not appear till 1840.
RECENT ENGLISH HISTORIANS OF
ANCIENT GREECE.**
American Review, Feb. 1848.
THE study of Greek History is a very different
affair now from what it w^as when Plutarch was accepted
for a standard authority, and "Cecrops, who invented
marriage," f was deemed as historical a personage as
Alexander of Macedon. Our readers may be presumed
* "S'ils triomphent, ce sont gens par qui il vaut mieux etre
pendu que regarde comme ami." — Avis aux Fran^ais sur leurs
veritables Ennemis.
** A History of Greece, by the Right Rev. CONNOP THIRL-
WALL. London: Longman & Co. 1835, 1844. A History of Greece,
by GEO. GROTE, Esq. London : John Murray. 1846-7.
f Atheneeua XIII, 555.
81
to be familiar with, or at least to have some general
idea of the way in which Niebuhr and Arnold (not to
mention the more fanciful speculations of Michelet) have
taken to pieces and reconstructed the early Roman nar-
rative; and the Greek legends are now subjected to a
somewhat similar process by both English and Germans.
It certainly does seem strange at first, that an Englishman
or German in this nineteenth century should pretend to
know more about those remote ages, than the people
who lived so much nearer to them — the Roman who
flourished at the beginning of our era, and the Greek
who wrote hundreds of years before it : but the apparent
paradox vanishes when we consider the historical sense
and habits of philosophical criticism acquired by the
moderns. Etymological and philological studies alone
have done much. When it has been clearly shown that
Livy mistranslated Greek words, and confused old and
new meanings of Latin words, and that ApoUonius Rho-
dius misunderstood and misapplied Homeric expressions,
we have less hesitation in questioning the accuracy of
avowedly poetical narrative of the one and the more
specious history of the other; and the detection of such
illusory etymologies as those w^hich gave rise to the
traditions connected with the Apaturian festival at Athens,
and the street Argiletum in Rome, encourages us to apply
the same rule of interpretation to other etymologically
founded stories.
It is not our intention to take any notice of Gold-
smith and Gillies, and others of whom we have a dim
recollection from our boyhood. But as Mitford, although
pretty well laid on the shelf in his own country, still
enjoys on this side the Atlantic the reputation and po-
sition of a standard historian it would hardly be proper
in an article on this subject to omit all mention of him.
That his qualifications for the task he undertook sur-
passed those of his predecessors, and that his work was
a great improvement on theirs, is freely admitted. But,
to waive the consideration of other faults, there is one
inherent defect in the book. It is the history of a people
generally republican and partly democratic, written ex-
pressly to "show up" democracy. Nay, more, it was
written with the evident purpose of drawing a modern
conservative British moral from the history of ancient
(>
Vol. I.
82
Greek republics. Now a man who sets out with a strong
political bias in favor of the institutions of any country,
is not likely to make a faithful historian ; but much more
unlikely is he who starts with a predetermination to see
everything in the worst possible light, the facts of history
being unfortunately for the most part bad enough in
themselves, without any gratuitous blackening. Such a
course is sufficiently delusive when only contemporaries
are under investigation : it is still worse when we under-
take to judge of the customs and actions of the men of
one age by the standards of another; such inferences,
however encouraged by the necessary licenses of the
poet and the dramatist, make sad work with ethical and
political speculations. We all see the absurdity of the
thing when a young lady in a Magazine story, makes a
modern lover of Pericles, or some other Greek worthy,
and provides him with a heroine of the modern pattern.
We are less quick to perceive the fallacy when a mo-
dern Platonist turns the Athenian philosopher into a
High-Church divine. Still less prompt are we to disen-
tangle ourselves when the political theorist argues from
Rome to England, or from Athens to America, either
with or without some such intermediate step as Venice,
since so many of the important fundamental terms, Aris-
tocracy, Democracy, &c., remain the same. But the
error is none the less, because it is the less transparent.
Whately has said that "wisdom consists in the ready
and accurate perception of analogies;"* but surely a
ready and accurate discrimination of differences deserves
some place in the definition. "Human nature is the same
in all ages," we are told; and this text suggests appro-
priate comments against unnatural schemes, as when it
is proposed to construct the bricks of the political edifice
without straw, or to compose perfection by an aggregate
of imperfections. But we must always make allowance,
and great allowance, for the effect of habit and experience.
If the republican Greeks had no idea of a king, but as
a man who "subverts the customs of the country, violates
women, and puts men to death without trial," f their
idea was in precise conformity with their experience of
* Rhetoric, pp. 104, 106.
t Herodotus, iii. 80, quoted by Mr. Qrote.
83
the TVQavvot'j nor can we blame them for not having ad-
mitted that conception of constitutional government which
it took centuries of subsequent experiment to realize.
Flattering to English ideas of government and con-
formable to old tory dogmas, possessing, too, the posi-
tive merits it did, Mitford's Greece might well occupy
the position it so long enjoyed. But it does great credit
to the good sense and judgment of the British public,
that when a more liberal as well as more learned suc-
cessor appeared — indeed, before he fairly had appeared
— they were ready to receive and adopt him. It is
curious to remark how in this respect monarchial Eng-
land has taken the start of republican America. With
us Mitford still speaks as one having authority, while
over the water he is utterly dethroned by Thirlwall,
and only to be found in the libraries of secluded parsons
and antique country gentlemen.
We should, however, be doing great injustice to
the Bishop of St. David's were we to represent the vin-
dication of the Greek democracies from Mitford's assault
either as the sole object of the work or the main ground
of its success, though it is incidentally connected with
both. Since Mitford's time the study of Greek history
had made rapid advances. The labors of C. O. Mliller
and other eminent Germans had thrown new light upon
it. A Greek history was required which should at least
embody the results of their researches, even if it added
nothing to them. The spirit of the times demanded not
merely a more genial political thinker, but a deeper and
more finished scholar, than Mr. Mitford.
Thirlwall's history, then, is conceived in a liberal
spirit, and displays an erudition which renders it a most
valuable book for students. Still it is not in all respects
satisfactory , nor is it exactly the kind of book to become
universally popular. The author speaks in his preface
of two classes of readers,* for the former of whom,
undoubtedly by far the larger, the work is principally
designed; but the execution of the work is such as to
* "One consisting of persons who wish to acquire something
more than a superficial acquaintance with Greek history, but who
have neither leisure nor means to study it for themselves in its ori-
ginal sources; the other of such as have access to the ancient au-
thors, but often feel the need of a guide and an interpreter."
6*
84
render it far more acceptable to the smaller class. As
a book of reference, and what is technically called cram^
it is unsurpassed. But the style, though clear and argu-
mentative, is the very reverse of brilliant or graphic;
and the general tone of the book is to a mere reader,
what we cannot give a better idea of than by calling it
Hallam's Middle- Ages-ish. Moreover, the reverend historian
has, with an amiable but sometimes embarrassing modesty,
been more solicitous to collate and condense the opinions
of others than to arrive at decisons of his own, so that
in many places the book is chiefly valuable as a synopsis
of different views, and in some its very copiousness of
information is bewildering. While, therefore, ThirlwalPs
Greece found an immediate place in the library of every
student, it was felt that there was still room for another
History of Greece, which should be attractive as well as
critical, and give results as well as materials; and the
announcement that Mr. George Grote was about to en-
deavor to supply this want excited a lively interest.
Mr. Grote is well known to the commercial world
as a partner in one of the great London banking houses,
and not unknown in the political. His principles are
what is generally called philosophical radical^ that is to
say, encouraging the freest range of speculation and
discussion, but not countenancing haste or violence in
action.* When in Parliament, where he twice represented
the city of London, he was chiefly distinguished for
proposing and advocating Vote by Ballot. But this me-
thod of exercising the franchise, natural and proper as
it appears to us, is highly repugnant to English usages
and prejudices, Mr. Grote found little support from his
own party, and the great clerical wit, usually foremost
in the ranks of the reformers, signally contributed to
laugh down the proposed reform. More recently Mr.
Grote has studied and personally inspected the affairs of
Switzerland, and has very lately published in the Spec-
tator a series of letters containing a triumphant vindication
of President Ochsenbein and the Diet. Amid all his
* And it may be added, much more practical and common sense
than one would be led to infer from Sidney Smith's somewhat su-
percilious remark, that "if the world were a chess-board, he would
be an important politician,"
85
various pursuits he never lost sight of his great literary
work, projected at a very early period of his life (some
say before he left the university). With every allowance
for frequent interruptions,* it is probably rather an under-
statement of the case to say, that the eight intended
volumes (we have a suspicion that they will run over
by one or two) will represent twenty years' hard work.
And should any one be disposed to think this an over-
estimate, we would request him, before pronouncing a
positive opinion, to make himself master of one book of
Herodotus or Thucydides, first making sure that he un-
derstands the author's meaning, and then collating and
digesting the authorities on all historical and archaeolo-
gical points involved or alluded to. The time thus occu-
pied will give him some measure of that which must
have been expended on Mr. Grote's History, into which
(supposing the remaining volumes to equal the promise
of the four already published) it is not too much to say
that the reading of a life will have been worked, so
various are the sources from which Mr. Grote draws
his authorities and illustrations. And all this learning is
introduced most naturally and appropriately ; for the au-
thor is one of those rare specimens, a scholar without
any of the disagreeable peculiarities of scholars, without
pedantry or dogmatism or "shop" of any kind.f Uncon-
nected with academical honors or any sort of academical
business as his name was, his appearance as a classical
historian subjected him to a most rigorous scrutiny from
all those firstclass men and medallists who thought they
had taken out a patent for all classical learning in the
"Schools" and the "Tripos;" and the paucity and trivia-
* The preface states indeed that the author has only been able
to devote ''continuous and exclusive labor" to his work for the last
three or four years ; but farther on in the preface there is an implied
admission that the book had made considerable progress before Thirl-
wall's began to appear.
f There is but one thing in the book which savors in the least
of pedantry — an affectation of purism in spelling the Greek names
with Greek instead of Roman letters. This is very harsh in some
cases to the ear as well as the eye, the change of spelling involving
a change of pronunciation in such names as Alksens and Phokylides.
Nor is Mr. Grote always consistent mth himself: why should Perikles
be spelt with k and Calypso not ? Even the same word varies in dif-
ferent volumes ! we have Crete in the first and Krete in the fourth.
»6
lity of the inaccuracies they have been able to discover
bear witness to the accuracy and depth of his work.
His opening is bold and novel. Instead of beginning
with the geography of the country, and then passing to
the early inhabitants , as Thirlwall and his predecessors
generally have done, he commences with the stories about
the gods — the Greek Mythology, in fact. With this
he immediately connects the legends of the heroic age,
all the personages of which he considers equally my-
thical and fabulous with the gods and goddesses. Hector
and Agamemnon are put into the same category with
Zeus and Apollo, and authentic history begins only
with the first Olympiad. In anticipation of surprise and
censure, he thus speaks in his preface: —
"The times which I thus set apart from the regions of history
are discernible only through a different atmosphere — that of epic
poetry and legend. To confound together these disparate matters is,
in my judgment, entirely unphilosophical. I describe the earlier times
by themselves, as conceived by the faith and feeling of the first
Greeks, and known only through their legends — without presuming
to measure how much or how little of historical matter these legends
may contain. If the reader blame me for not assisting him to deter-
mine this — if he ask me why I do not undraw the curtain and
disclose the picture — I reply in the words of the painter Zeuxis,
when the same question was addressed to him, on exhibiting his
masterpiece of imitative art: 'The curtain is the picture' What we
now read as poetry and legend, was once accredited history, and the
only genuine history which the first Greeks could conceive or relish
of the past time: the curtain conceals nothing behind, and cannot by
any possibility be withdrawn. I undertake only to show it as it stands
— not to efface, still less to repaint it." — Preface, pp. xii., xiii.
These legends occupy about 450 pages, or two-thirds
of the first volume. Mr. Grote's narrative style in re-
lating them, seems to us remarkably happy — simple
without being prosaic, and carrying the reader straight
forward through very involved and contradictory stories.
The difficulty of telling these old tales in a form acceptable
and suitable to modern readers, is confessedly very great,
as the singular expedient to which Arnold had recourse
testifies. To us, Mr. G. seems to have hit the very
thing; but "doctors differ:" a writer in the Classical Museum
thinks that "his style is too homely, and that he might
have risen more with his theme."* We should like to
extract a legend or two, that our readers might judge
for themselves^ but it is more important to examine our
author's way of dealing with the nature and historical
value of these mythes. We cannot take a better speci-
men than the "tale of Troy divine," contrasting Grote's
broad conclusion upon it with Thirlwall's Euemerizing
doubts. The latter, after sketching or rather hinting at
the story of Troy, in just eleven lines, proceeds thus: — f
"Such is the brief outline [brief indeed!] of a story which the
poems of Homer have made familiar to most readers , long before
they are tempted to inquire into its historical basis; and it is con-
sequently difficult to enter upon the inquiry without some preposses-
sions unfavorable to an impartial judgment. Here, however, we must
not be deterred from stating our view of the subject, by the certainty
that it will appear to some paradoxical, while others will think that
it savors of excessive credulity. According to the rules of sound
criticism, very cogent arguments ought to be required to induce us
to reject as a mere fiction a tradition so ancient, so universally re-
ceived, so definite and so interwoven with the whole mass of the
national recollections, as that of the Trojan war. Even if unfounded,
it must still have had some adequate occasion and motive, and it is
difficult to imagine what this could have been, unless it arose out of
the Greek colonies in Asia ; and in this case its universal reception
in Greece itself is not easily explained. The leaders of the earliest
among these colonies which were planted in the neighborhood of Troy,
claimed Agamemnon as their ancestor; but if this had suggested the
story of his victories in Asia, this scene would probably have been
fixed in the very region occupied by his descendants, not in an adja-
cent land. On the other hand, the course taken by this first (^olian)
migration falls in naturally with a previous tradition of a conquest
achieved by Greeks in Asia. We therefore conceive it necessary to
admit the reality of the Trojan war as a general fact; hut beyond
this we scarcely venture to proceed a single step. Its cause and its
issue, the manner in which it was conducted and the parties engaged
in it, are all involved in an obscurity which we cannot pretend to
penetrate. We find it impossible to adopt the poetical story of He-
len, partly on account of its inherent improbability, and partly because
we are convinced that Helen is a merely mythological person. The
common account of the origin of the war has indeed been defended
on the ground that it is perfectly consistent with the manners of the
* W. M. Gunn, Classical Museum, vol. V., p. 132.
t In this and the following extracts we have occasionally taken
the liberty of italicizing a passage.
88^
age — as if a popular tale, whether true or false, could hf at variance
with them. The feature in the narrative which strikes us as in the
highest degree improhable, setting the character of the parties out of
the question, is the intercourse implied in it between Troy and Sparta.
As to the heroine, it would he sufficient to raise a strong suspicion of
her fabulous nature, to observe that she is classed by Herodotus with
lo, and Europa, and Medea, all of them persons who on distinct
grounds, must clearly be referred to the domain of mythology. This
suspicion is confirmed by all the particulars of her legend, by her
birth, by her relation to the divine twins , whose worship seems to
have been one of the most ancient forms of religion in Peloponnesus,
and especially in Laconia, and by the divine honors paid to her at
Sparta and elsewhere. But a still stronger reason for doubting the
reality of the motive assigned by Homer for the Trojan war is, that
the same incident occurs in another circle of fictions, and that, in
the abduction of Helen, Paris only repeats an exploit also attributed
to Theseus. ***** If however we reject the traditional occasion
of the Trojan war, we are driven to conjecture in order to explain
the real connection of the events; yet not so as to be wholly without
traces to direct us. We have already observed that the Argonautic
expedition was sometimes represented as connecteed with the first
conflict between Greece and Troy. This was according to the legend
which numbered Hercules among the Argonauts and supposed him,
on the voyage, to have rendered a service to the Trojan king, Laomedon,
who afterwards defrauded him of his recompense. The main fact,
however, that Troy was taken and sacked by Hercules, is recognized
by Homer ; and thus we see it already provoking the enmity or temp-
ting the cupidity of the Greeks, in the generation before the celebra-
ted war, and it may easily be conceived thatif its power and opulence
revived after this blow, it might again excite the same feelings." —
Thirlwall, vol. I., pp. 151-153.
Here Homer's statement is received as authoritative ;
yet only four pages after we find that,
"However near the poet, if he is to be considered a single one,
lived to the times of which he sings, it is clear that he did not suffer
himself to be fettered by his knowledge of the facts. For aught we
know, he may have been a contemporary of those who had fought
under Achilles, but it is not the less true, that he describes his prin-
cipal hero as the son of a sea-goddess. He and his hearers most
probably looked upon epic song as a vehicle of history, and there-
fore it required a popular tradition for its basis. * * * But it is
equally manifest that the kind of history for which he invoked the
aid of the Muses to strengthen his memory, was not chiefly valued
as a recital of real events , that it was one in which the marvellous
appeared natural, and that form of the narrative most credible which
tended most to exalt the glory of his heroes." Vol. I. pp. 157-8.
Now let us hear Mr. Grote. After giving at length
(say forty pages) as consistent a narrative of the Trojan
siege as can be compiled out of the various poets, histo-
rians and logographers, he thus continues his speculations
on it: —
"Thus endeth the Trojan war, together with its sequel, the dis-
persion of the heroes , victors as well as vanquished. The account
here given of it has been unavoidably brief and imperfect; for in a
work intended to follow consecutively the real history of the Greeks,
no greater space can be allotted even to the most splendid gem of
their legendary period. Indeed, it would be easy to fill a large volume
veith the separate incidents which have been introduced into the
'Trojan cycle;' the misfortune is, that they are for the most part so
contradictory, as to exclude the possibility of weaving them into one
connected narrative. We are compelled to select one out of the num-
ber generally, without any solid ground of preference , and then to
note the variations of the rest. No one who has not studied the
original documents, can imagine the extent to which this discrepancy
proceeds: it covers almost every portion and fragment of the tale.
But though much may have been thus omitted, of what the reader
might expect to find in an account of the Trojan war, its genuine
character has been studiously preserved without either exaggeration
or abatement. The real Trojan war is that which was recounted by
Homer and the old epic poets, and continued by all the lyric and
tragical composers; for the latter, though they took great liberties
with the particular incidents , yet worked more or less faithfully on
the Homeric scale. * * * * And the incidents comprised in the Tro-
jan cycle were familiarized, not only to the public mind, but also to
the public eye, by innumerable representations both of the sculptor
and the painter — those which were romantic and chivalrous, being
better adapted for this purpose, and therefore more constantly em-
ployed, than any other. Of such events the genuine Trojan war of
the old epic was for the most part composed. Though literally be-
lieved , reverentially cherished , and numbered among the gigantic
phenomena of the past by the Grecian public, it is in the eyes of
modern inquiry essentially a legend , and nothing more. If we are
asked whether it be not a legend imbodying portions of hisiorical matter,
and raised upon a basis of truth — whether there may not really have
occurred at the foot of the hill of Ilium a ivar purely human and po-
litical, without gods, without heroes , without Helen , without Amazons,
without Ethiopians under the beautiful son of Eos, without the wooden
horse, without the characteristic and expressive features of the old epical
war — Hhe the mutilated trunk of Deiphobus in th • under-world — if
90
we are asked whether there was not really some such historical Trojan
war as this, our answer must be, that as the possibility of it cannot be
denied, so neither can the reality of it be affirmed. We possess nothing
but the ancient epic itself, without any independent evidence: had it
been an age of records indeed, the Homeric epic, in its exquisite and
unsuspecting simplicity, would probably never have come kito existence.
"Whoever, therefore, ventures to dissect Homer, Arctinus and Lesches,
and to pick out certain portions as matters of fact, while he sets
aside the rest as fiction, must do so in full reliance on his own powers
of historical divination, without any means either of proving or ve-
rifying his conclusions." — Vol. I., pp. 432-5.
Is Mr. Grote then a mere destructive, who applies the
besom of skepticism to the heroic age, and sweeps it
remorselessly away? No; he restores the old legends in
all their integrity to their proper place and function.
They have no "objective reality either historical or phi-
losophical;" but 'Hheir subjective value, looking at them
purely as elements of Grecian thought and feeling," is
very great. Tho the expansion of this principle, the
remainder of the first volume is devoted.
To understand the true theory of these narratives,
we must first consider the intellectual position of the
people among whom they sprung up.
In those days imagination and sympathy supplied
the place of geography and physical science. But many
causes, and first of all, "the expansive force of Grecian
intellect itself," caused different constructions to be put
upon these products of early fancy. Mr. Grote goes
through the treatment of the mythes by the earlier phi-
losophers and the dramatic poets, and the attempts of the
historians to make history of them; Herodotus' adoption
of the more plausible Egyptian version of the story of
Helen; Thucydides' exposition of the Trojan war as a
great political enterprise, an exposition which "would,
doubtless, have been historical truth if any independent
evidence could have been found to sustain it," but which,
in the absence of such evidence, must be viewed as "a
mere extract and distillation from the incredibilities of
the poets;" and so on down to Euemerus, that disen-
chanter of the ancient romance, whose name has passed
into a familiar word with scholars; and Palsephatus,
whose results "exhibit the maximum which the semi-
historical theory can ever present: by aid of conjecture.
we get out of the impossible and arrive at matters in-
trinsically plausible but totally uncertified." He then
sketches the allegorical theory, and decides on the re-
spective merits of the two.
The discussion is summed up in four conclusions to
this effect: —
1. The Greek legends are "a special product of the
imagination and feelings, radically distinct from both
history and philosophy," and not reducible to either.
Some few of them are indeed allegorical, and some have
doubtless a substratum or element of fact ; but how much
is fact and how much mere "mythe" we cannot, in the
absence of collateral evidence, determine.
2. The personages of the mythical world are a series
of gods and men mixed together, and no such series can
serve as materials for chronological calculation.
3. The legends originated in an age which had no
records, no science and no criticism, but great faith, great
imagination, and great avidity for new narrative; "pe-
netrable by poets and prophets in the same proportion
that it was indifferent to positive evidence."
4. The Greek mind having become historical, critical
and philosophical, detected the inconsistencies and incon-
gruities of the mythes, but was restrained from discarding
them entirely by the national reverence for antiquity.
So, "whilst the literal mythe still continued to float among
the poets and the people, critical men interpreted, altered,
decomposed and added, until they found something which
satisfied their minds as a supposed real basis. They
manufactured some dogmas of supposed original philo-
sophy, and a long series of fancied history and chrono-
logy, retaining the mythical names and generations even
when they were obliged to discard or recast the mythical
events. The interpreted mythe was thus promoted into
a reality, while the literal mythe was degraded into a
fiction." Pp. 598—601.
Our extracts have been carefully selected, with a
view to give the reader a good idea of Mr. Grote's me-
thod of dealing with the heroic period of Greek history.
And, we ask, is not his treatment of these mythical per-
sonages more conservative and respectful than Euemeri-
zing or allegorizing them away? According to his view,
Hector, and Andromache, and CEdipus and Antigone
&2
exist, as Othello, and Desdemona, and Jeannie Deans,
and Lucy Ashton exist. I& not such an existence good
enough for them?
In the concluding chapter of this volume, Mr. Grote
felicitously illustrates his positions by comparing the
mythes of ancient Greece with those of modern Europe. In
the former country the mythopoeic vein continued in the
same course, only with abated current and influence; in
the latter "its ancient bed was blocked up, and it was
turned into new and divided channels" by the introduc-
tion of Christianity. The old German and Scandinavian
kings used to trace their pedigrees to Odin. "After the
w/)rship attached to Odin had been extinguished, the
genealogical line was lengthened up to Japhet or Noah;
and Odin, no longer accounted worthy to stand at the
top, was degraded into one of the simple human members
of it. * * * * This transposition of the genealogical root
is the more worthy of notice, at is illustrates the general
character of these genealogies^ and shows that they sprung
not from any erroneous historical data, but from the turn of
the religious feeling; also that their true value is derived
from their being taken entire^ as connecting the existing race
of men with a divine original.^''
We have ourselves seen the pedigree of an English
country gentleman (one of the "protectionists" m parlia-
ment) which went, through a Saxon king, straight up to
Thor and Odin. To be sure, the member of the family
who showed it to us modestly admitted that the descent
previous to the Heptarchy was not perfectly authenticated.
We pass on to the voluminous and puerile legends
of the saints, and the more poetical romances of chivalry.
"What the legends of Troy, of Thebes, of the Calydonian
boar, of (Edipus, Theseus, &c., were to an early Greek,
the tales of Arthur, of Charlemagne, of the Niebelungen,
were to an Englishman, or Frenchman, or German of
the twelfth or thirteenth century. They were neither
recognized fiction nor authenticated history; they were
history as it is felt and welcomed by minds unaccus-
tomed to investigate evidence and unconscious of the
necessity of doing so. That the Chronicle of Turpin, a
mere compilation of poetical legends respecting Charle-
magne, was accepted as genuine history, and even pro-
nounced to be such by papal authority, is well known;
I
98
and the authors of the romances announce themselves,
not less than those of the old Grecian epic, as being
about to recount real matter of fact. It is certain that
Charlemagne is a great historical name, and it is pos-
sible, though not certain, that the name of Arthur may
be historical also; but the Charlemagne of history and
the Charlemagne of romance have little except the name
in common; nor could we ever determine, except by
independent evidence, (which in this case we happen to
possess,) whether Charlemagne was a real or fictitious
person."
Thus in the famous story of Roland and Ronces-
valles, which Mr. Grote might have specified -particularly,
(and w^e are some what surprised he did not,) suppose
we had nothing but the Turpin Chronicle to guide us,
how likely should we be, by "making shots" at the
probabilities of the case, to eliminate the real facts of
Charlemagne's invasion of Spain, and the surprise of his
rear-guard by the Pyrenean mountaineers? But we may
bring down these quasi-historical tales to a period much
later than even Mr. Grote has attempted. The story
of the French frigate Le Vengeur^ which went down with
her colors flying and her men shouting Vive la Republiquef
is well known; and it has also been proved in black
and white that the story is a sheer fabrication — that
the ship did go down indeed, but not before she had
surrendered, and that her captain and many of her crew
were saved by the victorious adversary. Now, had only
the French-republican version of this afi*air remained, it
might well have imposed on posterity. Here then are
two popular stories , in which the main issue of the narrative
is directly contrary to the known fact — bearing the stron-
gest testimony to the correctness of Mr. Grote's principle.
For it must be remembered that he denies, not the existence
of a basis of fact to some of the Greek legends, but
the possibility of our determinig what that fact is. For
all that we know to the contrary, Dio Chrysostom's ver-
sion of the Trojan war may be the true one, and the
Greeks may have been the beaten party. For all we
know to the contrary, the real Thersites may have had
as much resemblance to the Thersites of Homer, as the
Fastolfe of history has to the Falstaff of Shakspeare.
All our readers may not be aware that the English
94
historians so late as the seventeenth century began the
annals of their country with a mythical personage, Bi^ute
the Trojan y and carried it down to the Roman invasion
through a long line of kings.
"In a dispute which took place during the reign of Edward I.,
(A. D. 1301,) between England and Scotland, the descent of the kings
of England from Brute the Trojan was solemnly embodied in a do-
cument put forth to sustain the crown of England , as an argument
bearing on the case then in discussion; and it passed without attack
from the opposing party,"
Milton's opinion, cited by Mr. Grote, is curious and
apposite: — *
"But now of Brutus and his line , with the whole progeny of
kings to the entrance of Julius Caesar, we cannot be so easily dis-
charged; descents of ancestry long continued, laws and exploits not
plainly seeming to be borrowed or devised, which on the common
belief have wrought no small impression; defended by many, utltrly
denied by few. For what, though Brutus and the whole Trojan pre-
tence were yielded up, seeing they who first devised to bring us some
noble ancestor, were content with Brutus the Consul, the better in-
vention, though not willing to forego the name, taught them to remove
it higher into a more fabulous age, and by the same remove lighting
on the Trojan tales, in affectation to make the Briton of one original
with the Roman, pitched there: Yet those old and inborn kings, never
any to have been real persons, or done in their lives, at least, some
part of what so long hath been remembered, cannot be thought without
too strict incredulity. For these, and those causes above mentioned,
that which hath received approbation from so many , I have chosen
not to omit. Certain or uncertain, be that upon the credit of those
whom I must follow; so far as keeps aloof from impossible and absurd,
attested by ancient writers from books more ancient, I refuse not, as
the due and proper subject of story." History of England, apud Grote,
pp. 641, 642.
Yet the historians of this day begin the history of
England with Julius Caesar, and on strictly analogous
principles our Greek historian has concluded that
"Two courses, and two only, are open; either to pass over the
mythes altogether, which is the way in which modern historians treat
the old British fables, or else to give an account of them as mythes ;
to recognize and respect their specific nature, and to abstain from
confounding them with ordinary and certifiable history. There are
good reasons for pursuing this second method, in reference to the
* The italics here are Mr. Grote'a.
m
Grecian mythes; and when so considered, they constitute an important
chapter in the history of the Grecian mind, and, indeed, in that of the
human race generally."
We have now done with the first volume, but Mr.
Grote has not yet finished clearing his ground. In the
beginning of his second he attacks the heroic chrono-
logy of Fynes Clinton's Fasti Hellenici, w^hich he rejects
in toto , on various accounts, but chiefly for a reason
already alluded to, that the introduction of confessedly
fabulous personages in a series utterly destroys its value
as a basis for chronological computations.
"In the estimate of the ancient chronologers , three succeeding
persons of the same lineage — grandfather, father and son — coun-
ted for a century; and this may pass in a rough way, so long as
you are thoroughly satisfied that they are all real persons; but if in
the succession of persons A, B, C, you strike out B as a fiction, the
necessary continuity of data disappears." *
He then proceeds to treat of the state of society
and manners exhibited in Grecian legend, by poets who,
"while professedly describing an uncertified past, invo-
luntarily borrow their combinations from the surrounding
present." Here, too, we observe in him a marked difi^erence
from his predecessors. The monarchist historians Gillies
and Mitford, were sedulous to eulogize the heroic age,
at the expense of those succeeding, because it was the
age of kingly government. It is hardly necessary to say
that Thirlwall has not fallen into this error; but Grote
has gone further, and prominently brought out various
points of moral improvement in the historical age, as
compared with the heroic. He particularly specifies three,
the providence of the law with respect to the person
and property of orphans, the treatment of fallen enemies,
and the legal punishment of homicide. In alluding to
the fortification of towns, he observes: —
"This decided superiority of the means of defence over those of
attack in rude ages, has been one of the grand promotive causes,
both of the growth of civic life and of the general march of human
improvement. It has enabled the progressive portions of mankind
first to maintain their aquisitions against the predatory instinct of the
ruder and poorer, and to surmount the difficulties of incipient orga-
nization; and ultimately, when their organization has been matured,
both to acquire predominance, and to uphold it until their own disci-
* Grote, vol. ii. p. 64.
96
plined habits have in part passed to their enemies. This important
truth is illustrated not less by the history of ancient Greece, than by
that of modern Europe during the middle ages." *
In regard to the state of the arts, Grote and Thirl-
wall are at variance on an important question. The
latter says, "That the art of writing already existed,
though probably in a very rude state, before his [Homer's]
age, it is scarcely possible to doubt." ** The former posi-
tively asserts that "neither coined money, nor the art of
writing, nor painting, nor sculpture, nor imaginative archi-
tecture, belong to the Homeric and Hesiodic times." And
then in a note, "The orjixaxa Xvyqa mentioned in Iliad
vi. 168, if they prove anything, are rather an evidence
against than for the existence of alphabetical writing
at the time when the Iliad was composed." f On this
famous and much disputed passage. Thirl wall acutely
observes, that it "has been the subject of contro-
versy, perhaps, more earnest than the case deserved.
It has been disputed whether the tablet contained
alphabetical characters or mere pictures. The former
seems to be the simplest and easiest interpretation
of the poet's words: but if admitted, it only proves,
what could hardly be questioned even without this evi-
dence, [?] that the poet was not so ignorant of the art
as never to have heard of its existence. * * * And on
the other hand, if the tablet contained only a picture or
a series of imitative pictures, it would be evident that
where the want of alphabetical writing was so felt, and
had begun to be so supplied by drawing, the step by
which the Greeks adopted the Phoenician characters must
have been very soon taken, and it might be imagined
that the poet was only describing a ruder state of the
art which had acquired a new form in his time." f f And
his last suggestion on this point is certainly ingenious
and plausible: —
* Vol. ii. p. 149.
** Thirlwall, p. 247.
f Grote, Vol. II., p. 156. Mitford accuralely quotes Homer's
words yQCCfiliiata XvyQCC^ and then goes into a long discussion
about yQCXflfia meaning a picture which he might have been spared
the trouble of by merely looking into his Iliad.
tt Thirlwall, p. 242.
97
"According to every hypothesis the origin of the Homeric poetry
is wrapt in mystery; as must be the case with the beginning of a
new period when that which precedes it is very obscure. And it
would certainty be no unparalteled or surprising coincidence if the pro-
duction of a great work, which formed the most momentous epoch in
the history of Greek literature, should have concurred with either the
first introduction, or a new application of the most important of all in-
ventions." *
This question of writing brings us at once to the
Homeric controversy. On this Thirlwall says but little:
wjiat he does say, strongly favors the personality of
Homer and the unity of the Homeric poems. At one
thing we are much surprised: he rejects the existence of
the rhapsodists as a gratuitous and improbable supposition.
In support of the customary hypothesis, Mr. Grote ad-
duces some conclusive instances, particularly the assertion
of Xenophon, (Sympos. iii. 5,) that there were educated
gentlemen in his time, at Athens, who could repeat both
poems by heart; for Xenophon, we know, was a very
straightforward and matter-of-fact man, not lightly to
be suspected of inaccuracy or exaggeration. Throughout
the whole investigation, Mr. G. has shown great discri-
mination in keeping distinct various questions which have
been mixed up with and run into each other — the per-
sonality of the poet, the manner in which his poems
were preserved, their separate or identical authorship,
the time when they assumed their present form, &c.
After alluding to the numerous discrepancies of statement
respecting the epoch and birth-place of Homer, he is
inclined to adopt as the most plausible theory, that he
was the eponymous hero of the poetical fraternity of
Homerids in the Ionic Island of Chios. The date of
the Iliad and Odyssey, he places in the century before
the first Olympiad. That the poems were preserved by
the professional bards without any assistance from manu-
scripts, he considers proved, by the fact that blindness
was not a disqualification for the profession. (Hymn,
ad ApoU. 172.) The Wolfian theory that Pisistratus first
made two complete poems out of what were before
fragmentary ballads, he rejects as "not only unsupported
by sufficient testimony, but also opposed to other testi-
* Thirlwall, p. 247.
Vol. I.
98
mony, as well as to a strong force of internal probabi-
lity." It "ascribes to Peisistratus a character not only
materially different from what is indicated by Cicero and
Pausanias, [W^olf's chief authorities,] who represented
him not as having put together atoms originally distinct,
but as the renovator of an ancient order subsequently
lost — but also in itself unintelligible and inconsistent
with Grecian habit and feeling."
"To sustain the inference that Peisistratus was the first architect
of the Iliad and Odyssey, it ought at least to be shown that no other
long and continuous poems existed during the earlier centuries. But
the contrary of this is known to be the fact. The ^thiopis of Ark-
tinus, which contained 9100 verses, dates from a period more than
two centuries earlier than Peisistratus; several others of the lost
cyclic epics, some among them of considerable length, appear during
the century succeeding Arktinus ; and it is important to notice that
three or four at least of these poems passed under the name of Ho-
mer. There is no greater intrinsic difficulty in supposing long epics
to have begun with the Iliad and Odyssey than with the -ffithiopsis ;
the ascendency of Homer and the subordinate position of Arktinus
in the history of early Grecian poetry, tend to prove the former in
preference to the latter." Vol. H., pp. 208-9.
But the chief argument is derived from the whole
tenor of the poems themselves.
"There is nothing either in the Iliad or Odyssey which savors
of modernism^ applying that term to the age of Peisistratus ; nothing
which brings to our view the alterations brought about by two cen-
turies in the Greek language, the coined money, the habits of writing
and reading, the despotisms and republican governments, the close
military array, the improved construction of ships, the Amphictyonic
convocations, * * * &c., familiar to the latter epoch, which Onoma-
critus and the other literary friends of Peisistratus could hardly have
failed to introduce, had they then for the first time undertaken the
task of piecing together many self-existent epics into one large aggre-
gate. Everything in the two great Homeric poems, both in substance
and in language, belongs to an age two or three centuries earlier than
Peisistratus." Vol. II., pp. 213-14.
At length we arrive at the great question -r- the
unity of authorship. Mr. Grote, after lamenting the
ferocious dogmatism which has too generally characteri-
zed this controversy, and confessed the difficulty, with
our present limited means of knowledge, of forming a
satisfactory conclusion one's self, much more of convin-
cing others, thus continues: —
"Nevertheless no classical scholar can be easy without some opi-
nion respecting the authorship of these immortal poems ; and the more
defective the evidence we posses, the more essential is it that all that
evidence should be marshalled in the clearest order, and its bearing
upon the points in controversy distinctly understood beforehand. Both
these conditions seem to have been often neglected throughout the
long-continued Homeric discussion. To illustrate the first point :
Since two poems are comprehended in the problem to be solved, the
natural process would be, first to study the easier of the two, and
then to apply the conclusions hence deduced as a means of explaining
the other. Now the Odyssey, looking at its aggregate character, is
incomparably more easy to explain than the Iliad. Yet most Homeric
critics apply the microscope at once, and in the first instance, to the
Iliad. To illustrate the second point: What evidence is sufficient to
negative the supposition that the Iliad or the Odyssey is a poem —
originally and intentionally one ? Not simply particular gaps and con-
tradictions, though they be even gross and numerous; but the pre-
ponderance of these proofs of mere unprepared coalescence over the
other proofs of designed adaptation scattered throughout the whole
poem. For the poet (or the co-operating poets , if more than one)
may have intended to compose a harmonious whole, but may have
realized their intention incompletely and left partial faults; or perhaps
the contradictory lines may have crept in through a corrupt text. A
survey of the whole poem is necessary to determine the question,
and this necessity, too, has not always been attended to." Vol. II.,
pp. 219, 220.
The Odyssey (to which Mr. Grote, contrary to the
usual opinion, but we think on good grounds, does not
assign a later date than that of the Iliad) he views as
bearing throughout unequivocal proofs of unity of design.
With respect to the Iliad his opinion is different, and
the theory which he propounds is certainly original and
ingenious. That poem presents to him the appearance
of "a house built upon a plan comparatively narrow,
and subsequently enlarged by successive additions." It
was originally an Achilleis, comprising the first and eighth
books with the books from the eleventh to the twenty-second
inclusive. The last two books are a sort of appendix merely,
but those from the second to the seventh, together with the
tenth, "are of a wider and more comprehensive character,
and convert the poem into an Iliad." The ninth book
is a later interpolation, there being many passages in
the eleventh and following books, which show that apo-
logy and atonement had not been offered to Achilles by
7*
100
Agamemnon. This is explained at length, and also the
continuity of structure observable in the books marked
off as the original Achilleis, and the discrepancies intro-
duced by the remaining books. Having characterized
this theory as original and ingenious, we must be excused
from expressing any further opinion upon it. Our own
opinions about Homer have been always matter of faith
rather than reason ; we are too much interested in his
romance ever to read liim very critically; and as to the
Teutonic Homeroclasts , we never could force ourselves
to go continuously through one of them. On our slight
acquaintance with them (and we refer more particularly
to Wolf and Lachmann) they appear to us so prosaic
and un-ideal and Poco Curanteish, that, however great
their erudition, we do not admit their vocation to criti-
cise poetry at all. With a man who puts the Iliad on
the same footing with the Spanish ballads, we can find
no common ground.
This brings us to the close of the first part of Mr.
Grote's work 5 about half way through his second volume,
and rather more than half way through Thirlwall's first.
After the return of the Heraclidae — which Thirl-
wall Euemerizes into a Doric invasion and conquest, re-
quiring "many years, probably many generations," for
its consummation, and Grote disposes of among the
mythes of the legendary age — we pass at once to the
definite region of Historical Greece. Not that even here
we are entirely freed from uncertainty, but the races and
institutions at which we arrive are real and tangible,
though in some cases — that of Lycurgus is a well-
known instance — a cloud may still hang about their
founders. We can always be pretty sure what laws,
customs, and form of government existed in each place
at a particular time, though something fabulous may still
cling to the individual personages of the period. It is
here, accordingly, that Mr. Grote takes occasion to bring
in his sketch of Grecian geography. Something of the
kind is generally considered a necessarj^ introduction to
a history: we confess to having some doubts of its in-
dispensability. Arnold's most valuable and interesting
work on Rome contains no geographical account of Italy;
and yet singularly enough, Arnold himself has elsewhere
insisted on the importance and necessity of the ordinary
101
course;* nay, more, he illustrates its value by immediate
reference to Italy, the natural features of which he pro-
ceeds to describe in his most felicitous manner. A good
map is certainly always a requisite, and with this pro-
bably most readers would be satisfied. We half suspect
that few persons, except conscientious reviewers like
ourselves, peruse these geographical introductions. Both
our authors are full and accurate in this part of their
work; Grote, the more spirited and interesting of the
two, as he has the greater dexterity in rendering a dry
subject attractive, and illustrates his details by noting
the differences as well as the resemblances of climate,
natural productions, cultivation &c., in Ancient and Mo-
dern Greece.
And now before treating of the Peloponnesian Dorians,
we have one more troublesome subject to adjust or get
over in some way. Every student of Greek and Roman
history has been more than once brought to a stand by
the Pelasgi^ an extinct people who seem to have been
used as a convenient solution for all the problems in the
archaeology of the nations around the Mediterranean,
much as electricity was once employed in physical phi-
losophy to account for all unknown phenomena. The
anxious inquirer, after laboring to shape some definite
and consistent conclusion out of the various conflicting
statements of ancient writers, and the still more conflict-
ing inferences drawn from every one of these statements
by modern scholars, generally has to end by confessing
himself hopelessly puzzled. Whoever has worked through
Niebuhr, and Thirlwall, and Maiden,** and Michelet —
whoever has tried to form a coherent opinion of his own
on the principal questions in dispute: whether the Pelas-
gians spoke Greek, or something very different from
Greek; whether Herodotus ought to have written Croton
where he wrote Creston, or Dionysius ought to have quoted
Creston where he quoted Croton; whether the Tyrsenian Pe-
lasgians came from Greece to Italy or vice versa, or whether
they ever were in Italy at all; whether the real name of
* Lectures on Modern History, pp. 123, 124, 125, 128, 129.
** Prof. Maiden, of the London University, who began a History
of Rome for the "Library of Useful knowledge" in 1830. The early
numbers were remarkably promising , but under the fatality which
seems to attend histories of Rome, it stopped short after the fifth.
102
the people whom we know through the Romans as Etruscans
was Rasena, or whether these Rasena only exist in a wrong
reading* — whoever has blundered through all this, is struck
with agreeable surprise, not unmingled with something like
triumphant satisfaction, to find that Mr. Grote "shoots"
these troublesome Pelasgi as unceremoniously as if they
were so much rubbish. This is his summary method of
dispatching them: —
"If any man is inclined to call the unknown ante-Hellenic period
of Greece by the name of Pelasgic, it is open for him to do so ; but
this is a name carrying with it no assured predicates, no way enlar-
ging our insight into real history, nor enabling us to explain — what
would be the real historical problem — how or from whom the Hel-
lens acquired that stock of dispositions, aptitudes, arts, &c., with
which they began their career. Whoever has examined the many
conflicting systems respecting the Pelasgi — from the literal belief
of Clavier, Larcher and Raoul Rochette, (which appears to me at
least the most consistent way of proceeding,) to the interpretative
and half incredulous processes applied by abler men , such as Nie-
buhr, or O. Miiller, or Dr. Thirlwall, will not be displeased with my
resolution to decline so insoluble a problem. No attested facts are
now present to us — none were present to Herodotus and Thucydides
even in their age — on which to build trustworthy affirmations re-
specting the ante-Hellenic Pelasgians ; and where such is the case,
we may without impropriety apply the remark of Herodotus respecting
one of the theories which he had heard for explaining the inundation
of the Nile by a supposed connection with the ocean — that 'the
man who carries up his story into the invisible world, passes out of
the range of criticism.' " Vol. ii., pp. 346, 7.
Certainly this is the pleasantest and most convenient
way of getting rid of these Pelasgi; but after all, is it
doing full justice to them and to ourselves? It strikes
us that a student who began with and depended upon
Mr. Grote, would be likely to underrate the importance
of the question, at least as much as some enthusiastic
speculators have overrated it, and to form a most inade-
quate idea of its bearings. He would find nothing about
the extent of ground covered by Pelasgic traces and
traditions — in Greece Proper, in Macedonia, around
* Mr. Grote is unusually liberal to the Basena. He alludes to
their existence without the least doubt or suspicion, at the close of
the very chapter in which he has been making a clear sweep of the
Pelasgi, the Greeci, and the ante-Hellenic people generally.
103
the Hellespont, in the islands of the Archipelago, in Asia
Minor, in Italy — nothing about the Pelasgic names,
such as Larism^* that occur in various parts of Greece
— nothing about the Tyrseni, and their connection with
Greece on the one hand and Etruria on the other ^--
nothing about those imperishable and extraordinary relics,
the Cyclopean structures, except indeed Mr. Grote's oft-
hand disposal of them by adopting the conjecture of a
German Professor, that "the character of the Greek
limestone determined the polygonal style of architecture." **
Now we have always considered the whole Pelasgic
question more valuable in reference to Latin, than in
reference to Greek history, (though the general opinion^
we are aware, tends the other way;) and we are well
disposed to adopt Mr. Grote's two main propositions —
that the Pelasgic language was not by any means Greek,
and that it is impossible to predict with anything like
accuracy what element, if any, of the Hellenic civilization
and character was due to the Pelasgi ; and it is for these
very reasons — because we agree with him so far —
that we regret his having handled the subject with such
brevity, and not given us some of the prevalent views
upon it, even though he ended by rejecting them all.
Considered as mere mythes, the traditions about the
Pelasgi are sufficiently interesting to deserve repetition
at any rate. The old story, for instance, which repre-
sented them as a people specially persecuted by the
wrath of the gods, has something very impressive and
poetical in it. Michelet, who never lets a legend lose
any of its romance in passing through his hands, has
worked it up in a series of striking tableaux.
The classical passage respecting the Pelasgic tongue,
and the few places where it was yet spoken in the time
of Herodotus, is the fifty-seventh chapter of Clio: —
* That Larissa is "the city of the Lar," or prince^ and that the
Tyrseni derived their name of "tower-builders" (zvQaig, Tv()Ql$,
turris.) from their architectural propensities, seem to us as natural
and well-founded case of ethnical etymology as any on record.
** It is hut fair to say, however, that Mr. Bunbury, an accurate
and accomplished scholar, whose opinions are formed on his own
observation of the country, has come to the same conclusion respecting
the Cyclopean remains in Italy. Classical Museum, vol. ii., p- 147.
104
"•What language the Pelasgians spoke I am not able positively
to affirm. But if one must give an opinion , arguing from * the Pe-
lasgians still extant at present, those who inhabit the town of Creston
beyond the Tyrseni, (who were once neighbors to the people now
called Dorians, and then dwelt in the territory now called Thessalio-
tis.) and those who founded Placia and Scylace on the Hellespont,
(who were fellow-inhabitants with the Athenians,) and all the other
towns which were Pelasgic, and changed their name — if one must
give an opinion arguing from these, the Pelasgi spoke a barbarian
language. If then all the Pelasgians were like these, the Athenians
who were Pelasgi must have changed their language along with their
transformation into an Hellenic people ; for we know that the Cresto-
nians do not speak the same tongue with any of those who live
around them, neither do the Placians, but they speak the same with
each other. It is clear, then, that they have preserved the same
characteristic form of speech iyXcoGGrig xaQaxTrjQcc) which they
brought with them on emigrating into these places."
This seems tolerably plain; yet in the face of it
O. Muller lays down as a fundamental hypothesis that
"the Pelasgi were Greeks, and spoke the Grecian lan-
guage." ** We shall not enter into an examination of
his reasons for so doing, preferring to quote Dr. Thirl-
wall's opinion, both because it falls more immediately
within our present purpose to compare him with Mr.
Grote, and because this comparison furnishes an amusing
instance of the directly opposite inferences which two
learned men will draw from the very same passage: —
"This language Herodotus describes as barbarous, and it is on
this fact he grounds his general conclusion as to the ancient Pelasgian
tongue. But he has not entered into any details that might have
served to ascertain the manner or degree in which it differed from
the Greek. Still the expressions he uses would have appeared to
imply that it was essentially foreign, had he not spoken quite as
strongly in another passage, where it is impossible to ascribe a simi-
lar meaning to his words. In enumerating the dialects that prevailed
among the Ionian Greeks, he observes that the Ionian cities in Lydia
agree not at all in their tongue with those of Caria; and he applies
the very same term to these dialects, which he had before used in
* Mr. Grote quotes T€XjLiaiQOfiivoig for Texf-icHQO^evov, pro-
bably a misprint.
** Muller's Dorians, i. 1-5,
105
speaking of the remains of the Pelasgian language,* This passage
aifords a measure by which we may estimate the force of the word
barbarian in the former. Nothing more can be safely inferred from
it, than that the Pelasgian language which Herodotus heard on the
Hellespont and elsewhere, sounded to him a strange jargon, as did
the dialect of Ephesus to a Milesian, and as the Bolognese does to
a Florentine." — (Thirlwall, vol. i., p. 53.)
Mr. Grote, after some judicious remarks upon the
improbability of one language being totally displaced by
another, as Herodotus supposed to be the case with the
Pelasgian in Attica, accepts with confidence the Greek
historian's statement of what he heard with his own ears
— the barbaric language spoken by the Pelasgi extant
in his day — and observes on ThirlwalPs softening away
of this statement: "To suppose that a man who, like
Herodotus, had heard almost every variety of Greek in
the course of his long travels, as well as Egyptian,
Phoenician, Assyrian, Lydian and other languages, did
not know how to distinguish bad Hellenic from non-
Hellenic, is, in my judgment, inadmissible; at any rate,
the supposition is not to be adopted without more cogent
evidence than any which is here found." And he con-
tinues the argument in a note, with his usual accuracy
of discrimination: —
"The words yXtoOOrig ^aqctXTijQ (distinctive mode of speech)
are common to both these passages, [of Herodotus,] but their meaning
in the one and the other is to be measured by reference to the sub-
ject-matter of which the author is speaking, as well as to the words
which accompany them — especially the word ^CiQfictQnC in the first
passage. Nor can I think, with Dr. Thirlwall, that the meaning of
^aQ^CCQOQ is to be determined by reference to the other two words :
the reverse is in my judgment correct. BaQf^aQog is a term definite
and unequivocal, but yXcotJGr^g %CiQaXTrjQ varies according to the
comparison which you happen at the moment to be making, and its
meaning is here determined by its conjunction with (^cxQ^aQOg.
When Herodotus was speaking of the twelve Ionic cities in Asia, he
might properly point out the differences of speech among them, as
* The passage referred to here by Dr. Thirlwall is in Clio, 142,
where Herodotus says of the Ionic Greek cities , that "they do not
all use the same tongue, but four different varieties." Miletus, Myus
and Priene have one, Ephesus, Colophon, Lebedus, Teos, Clazomenee
and Phocooea another, the Chians and Erythroeans a third, and the
Samians a fourth. „These are their four characteristic forms of speech."
106
80 many different xaoctyrr^Qtg y'kiOOGrjc; ; the limits of difference
■were fixed by the knowledge which his hearers possessed of the
persons about whom he was speaking; the lonians being all notoriously
Hellens. So too an author describing Italy might say that Bolognese,
Romans,Neapontans, Genoese, &c.. had different 7«paxr/^()f^yAwJ(T/yc:;
it being understood that the difference was such as might subsist
among persons all Italians. But there is also a xaQCCXCrjQ yXcjaarjg
of Greek generally (abstraction made of its various dialects and di-
versities) as constrasted with Persian, Phoenician or Latin — and of
Italian generally, as contrasted with German or English. It is this
comparison which Herodotus is taking when he describes the language
spoken by the people of Kreston and Plakia, and which he notes by
the word [•ia'^[iC(QOV as opposed to ^Ellr^vtxov: it is with refe-
rence to this comparison that yaQaxTrj() yXwOGrjg in the fiftyseventh
chapter is to be construed. The word ^aQ^aQog is the usual and
recognized antithesis of 'EXXrjv or 'Ellr^vixog* Is is not the least
remarkable part of the statement of Herodotus, that the language
spoken at KrSston and at Plakia was the same , though the places
were so far apart from each other. This identity of itself shows that
he meant to speak of a substantive language, not of a strange jargon.
I think it, therefore, certain, that Herodotus pronounces the Pelasgians
of his day to speak a substantive language different from Greek ; but
whether differing from it in a greater or less degree, (e. g. in the
degree of Latin or of Phoenician,) we have no means of deciding."
— Grote, vol. ii. Note on pp. 352, 353.
The barbaric or non- Hellenic character of the Pe-
lasgian language has then the best grounds for being
admitted as a fact. But it is curious to observe, that
while this fact breaks up many of the supposed affinities
between the Pelasgi and the historical Greeks, it seems
to strengthen their connection with another people of
authentic history — the Etrusci. One of the standard
objections to the Pelasgic origin of the Etrusci is, that
if their language were Pelasgian w^e ought to be able
to trace in the Etruscan inscriptions extant some decided
similitude to Greek, and no such resemblance can be
discovered. * But the supposition that Pelasgic and Greek
* Maiden, p. 76. Niebuhr, vol. i., p. III.
Of the Etruscih language, scarcely anything is known with cer-
tainty. ^
The words which we find quoted by Festus , Varro and other
Roman authorities, are (even supposing those authorities unexceptio-
nable) independent nouns, throwing no light on the structure of the
tongue; and from the inscriptions nothing has been gathered except
I
107
(i. e. Hellenic) were different languages, removes this
difficulty at once. The speculation is an interesting one,
but to pursue it here, would involve us in too long a
digression, especially as we have yet to notice Mr. Grote's
other and most important conclusion respecting the Pe-
lasgi, in which we also coincide with him, viz., that it
is impossible to determine which (if any) of the elements
of Hellenic civilization and character are referable to them.
The Hellenic national characteristics — those distin-
guishing institutions and habits which prevailed among
the Greeks generally in spite of local differences — are
well summed up by Mr. Grote: community of sacrifices
and religious festivals ; traditional community of blood ;
a sturdy spirit of individual independence, strongly con-
trasting with the Asiatic feeling of unlimited obedience
to one man ; the non - existence of polygamy and child-
traffic 5 a religious horror of castration, and generally of
all mutilation of the person, alive or dead; on the other
hand, exposure of the person in gymnastic contests, &c.,
which the Eastern nations regarded as most unseemly. *
If we were asked what was the most striking trait of
Hellenic character — that which explains and includes
the greatest number of their national peculiarities — we
should say that it was their respect for the human body,
for the mere physical person. The human form was
something sacred to them. Hence they regarded the
Eastern punishments of cutting off the hands and feet,
putting out the eyes, and the practice (for it was not
even exclusively a punishment) of castration, not merely
as barbarities, but as positive impieties. Hence, too, the
immense importance they attached to the burial of the
that aifil ril or avil ril means vixit annos, or annos vixil^ for antiqua-
rians have not been able to satisfy themselves which is which. Do-
naldson's attempts to explain the inscriptions {Varronianus^ ch. 5)
are more ingenious than satisfactory. Take, as rather a favorable
specimen of them, nV, a year, connected with QSCO^ to flow, from the
regular flowing of time!
* Herodotus, Clio, 10, (the story of Gyges and Candaules ) "For
with the Lydians, and we may say with all the other barbarian na-
tions, it is a great disgrace even for a man to be seen naked." An
analogous difference in European and Asiatic ideas of propriety is
observable at the present day. The tight dress of the Frank is an
abomination to the Moslem: it has the same effect to him that the
appearance of woman in man's clothes has to us.
108
dead, and the whole treatment of the corpse after death.
With this was naturally connected the cultivation of
physical excellence, and the study of physical beauty:
so far from the form being concealed as something to
be ashamed of, it was rather to be exhibited and con-
templated. We see the highest development of this feeling
in the anthropomorphic character of their religion , and
its expression in their marvellous works of art; but the
germ of the sentiment is traceable before art existed: it
runs through the whole Homeric psychology. W^ith Homer
the body is the man; the souls are mere shades that flit
about. The life of the poorest laborer on earth is pre-
ferable to a sovereignty in the realms below. We detect
this in the very first lines of the Iliad. Achilles' wrath
has sent many brave souls of heroes to Hades, and made
themselves a prey to dogs. Here a modern writer would
directly reverse the personality.
Now how far can this, or any other trait of Grecian
character and civilization, be deduced from the Pelasgi?
Maiden thinks that the physical element was Hellenic,
and the intellectual Pelasgic. * And certainly, according
to tradition, the Athenians were of almost pure Pelasgic
descent. But then it is also traditionary that some of
the rudest and least intellectual Greek tribes, such as
the Arcadians were, to use Maiden's own words, "pure
Pelasgians rendered Hellenic only by gradual assimilation
to their neighbors." So that here we are at a dead lock.
The only thing really known about the civilization of
the Pelasgi is, that they were people of an architectural
turn, who built massive fortifications; beyond this we
have no right to affirm anything positively. That part
of the Greek institutions where there is most hope of
our being able to detect and separate the Pelasgian
element, is their theology. Thus there seems good reason
to suppose that Apollo was the original chief divinity
of the Hellenes, and that Zeus (Jupiter) whose head-
quarters at Dodona are -unanimously allowed to be Pe-
lasgic, was adopted by them from the Pelasgi. But
this distinction, even if thoroughly established throughout,
would lead to nothing certain beyond itself.
We are not sorry to quit this perplexing theme, and
* History of Rome, p. 70.
109
hasten on to the next resting place — the foundation of
the Spartan commonwealth, and the institutions of Ly-
curgus; although Mr. Grote previously dispatches the
early history of Argos, and in this respect his arrange-
ment is to be preferred to Dr. Thirlwall's, as it is pretty
evident that Argos was at first the leading power in the
Peloponnesus, and that the ascendency of Sparta was
an event of later date. At this point, the proper com-
mencement of our politico-historical inquiries, it is curious
to note the different views and methods of proceeding
adopted by our two historians. Both are disposed to be
critical and skeptical, as our readers have already had
abundant opportunity of perceiving; but their doubts take
a different turn. Grote receives the institutions as having
a definite reality and establishment at a very early period,
but is incredulous about the law -giver, his opinion of
whom coincides with Muller's, that "we have absolutely
no account of him as an individual person." Thirl wall
admits the personality of Lycurgus, and considers the
chronological discrepancies in the various accounts of
him inconsiderable, while he believes that every important
part of the institutions had existed previous to his time,
and that his work was one of readjustment, not of creation.
Mr. Grote's view has this recommendation, if no other,
that it is conformable to the method of dealing with the
early Roman history adopted by Niebuhr and Arnold.
With the able historian and panegyrist of the Dorians,
C. O. Muller, our authors agree and disagree alternately.
Grote, as we said above, follows him in regard to Ly-
curgus, but is directly opposed to him (and consequently
to Thirlwall, whose opinion is substantially the same as
Muller's) as to the non-peculiarity of the Spartan insti-
tutions. Muller, whose work displays throughout the
strongest pro - oligarchical , pro -Dorian and anti- Ionian
bias, represents the laws of Sparta as the true Doric
institutions, and Sparta as the full Doric type. The only
authority he deigns to give for this is a passage in Pin-
dar, which we cannot dismiss better than in Mr. Grote's
words, that "it is scarcely of any value."* ThirlwalFs
modified position, that many of the individual Spartan
institutions may be traced in other Doric states, is no
* Muller's Dorians, iii., 1, 8. Grote, ii. 456.
110
wise inconsistent with the assertion that there were also
elements of the Lycurgan constitution peculiar to itself.
We may suppose that Lycurgus detected those qualities
in the Dorian character, which rendered it particularly
well adapted to receive certain institutions; while, as
Mr. Grote well observes, it was the very singularity of
these institutions that made them work so impressively
on the Grecian mind. Thus both sides are partially right:
MuUer in the theory that the Dorians generally had a
capacity for a military-oligarchical system of government ;
Grote in the fact that Sparta was the only Doric state
in which this idea was fully developed. The people
whose institutions most nearly resembled those of Sparta
were the Cretans. On this resemblance it may be inter-
esting to compare two distinguished authorities, Aristotle
and Polybius. The former observes: —
"The social arrangements of the Cretans are analogous to those
of the Laconians; for the latter have their ground cultivated by He-
lots, and the former by Perioeci, and both have public tables ; indeed,
the Laconians used to call these tables, not phiditia as now, but an-
dria, as the Cretans do, whence it is evident that this custom came
from Crete. The political arrangements are also analogous , for the
Ephori correspond exactly to the officers called Cosmi in Crete, ex-
cept that the Ephori are five in number, and the Cosmi ten; and the
Laconian Senate is equivalent to the Cretan Council. The office of
king formerly existed in Crete: afterwards it was abolished, and the
Cosmi have the chief command in war. All have a right to vote at
the popular assembly, but this assembly has no power to do anything
except ratify the decrees of the Council and Cosmi. The public
messes are better managed by the Cretans than by the Laconians, for
in Lacedsemon each individual contributes his appointed portion, and
if he fail to do this, the law excludes him from participating in the
privileges of citizenship; but in Crete, the produce of the earth, the
cattle, the public revenues, and the tributes paid by the Perioeci, are
all appropriated, one half for religious expenses and other public ser-
vices, the other for the public tables, so that all, men, women, and
children, are supported from a common fund. * . . . But the institution
of the Cosmi is even worse than that of the Ephori; for the main
evil of the Ephoralty, namely, that the election is a mere matter of
chance, is also true of the Cosmi, but the compensating expedient
* A tolerable approximation to Fourierism, which did not prevent
the Cretans from being terribly quarrelsome and disorderly among
themselves, as we learn from this very same chapter of Aristotle a
little further on.
Ill
does not exist in the latter. In La-
cedfiemon, as the office is open to all, the people, having a share in
the supreme authority, desire the maintenance of the constitution ; but
the Cretans choose their Cosmi, not from the whole people, but from
certain families, and the Council from those who have served as
Cosmi." *
Polybius wonders "how the most distinguished prose
writers of antiquity could have said that the Cretan
government was similar to, nay, identical with the La-
cedaemonian," and proceeds to mention three very impor-
tant points of diiference: —
"The peculiarities of the Lacedaemonian constitution are. first, the
regulations respecting the acquisition of land, of which no one has
more than another, but all the citizens must have an equal share of
the territory belonging to the state; secondly, their estimation of
money, the pursuit of which was from the first dishonorable among
them, and consequently, rivalry in wealth has been entirely extirpated
from the community; thirdly, that the Lacedaemonian kings preserve
an hereditary succession, and the senators hold office for life, and
these two manage all state affairs. But with the Cretans everything is
the very opposite of this, for their laws suifer every man to acquire
as much land as he can, and money is prized by them to such a de-
gree, that the acquisition of it is considered not only necessary but
most meritorious. And generally, the tendency to mean traffic and
avarice is so prevalent in the country , that the Cretans alone of all
men see nothing base in money-making. Moreover, their offices are
annual, and their government arranged on democratic principles." **
** Polybius, vi. 45-6. The historian's astonishment that a people
should see nothing disgraceful in the acquisition of money, is in ac-
cordance with the spirit of antiquity. Mr. Grote, in the appendix to
his chapter on the Solonian Constitution, (iii. 215,) after tracing the
gradual change of moral feeling in this respect, adds, that to do so
is highly instructive, "the more so as that general basis of sentiment
of which the antipathy against lending money on interest is only a
particular case, still prevails largely in society, and directs the current
of moral approbation and disapprobation. With many, the principle
of reciprocity in human dealings appears, when conceived in theory,
odious and contemptible, and goes by some bad name, such as egoism,
selfishness , calculation , political economy , &c. ; the only sentiment
which they will admit in theory is, that the man who has, ought to be
ready at all times to give away what he has to him who has not, while
the tatter is encouraged to expect and require such gratuitous donation"
Exactly the social economy of the Sue and Dickens school. It is
worthy of observation also, that some of the most enlightened nations
of the present day have not yet gotrid of those barbarous absur dities,
the Usury Laws.
112^
Of the three peculiarities here specified, the existence
of the first is, as we shall soon see, exceedingly proble-
matical ; the consequence of the second was directly the
reverse of what Polybius represents, for the Spartans
came to be remarkably venal and avaricious ; * the third,
if correctly stated as regards the Cretans, certainly
constitutes an important difference. It must be borne in
mind, that Aristotle is comparing analogous institutions,
and the state which he considers analogous to Crete
and Lacedsemon, is Carthage^ which certainly had nothing
Doric or Spartan in its national character or social
institutions, though some of its political institutions re-
sembled the Spartan — the diarchy, for instance, though
even here the resemblance was by no means complete,
as the suffetes, so far from succeeding hereditarily, were
not even chosen for life. On a similar system of partial
comparison, we might class the British government with
those of Spain and Prussia, in respect of its principle
of hereditary succession to the chief magistracy, and
wdth our own in respect of its representative system,
free press, freedom of travel without passports, &c. So,
too, we might call the Norwegian government a monarchy
or a democracy, looking at it from different points of
view. The Spartan government itself was arranged by
the Greek political writers, sometimes in one class of
governments, sometimes in another; nay, the aristocratical
or democratic force of particular elements in it is
variously represented: thus in the passage of Aristotle
above quoted, the Ephoralty is represented as a demo-
cratic institution, while in Plato's Laws, (iv. 112,) one
of the speakers says that this institution of the Ephori
is "marvellously despotic," {d^avfiaoTov tug TVQavvixov.)
Indeed, these Ephori are very troublesome people
to deal with. That from being a subordinate magistracy
of some sort, they managed to engross the chief power
* "Lycurgus does not try to make the poor rich, nor the rich
poor; but he imposes upon both the same subjugating drill — the
same habits of life, gentleman-like idleness and unlettered strength —
the same fare, clothing, labors, privations, endurance, punishments and
subordination. It is a lesson instructive, at least, however unsatis-
factory to political students, that with all this equality of dealing, he
ends in creating a community in whom the love of money stands
powerfully and specially developed." Grote, vol. ii. p. 548.
113
in the state, is well known, but the details respecting
them are very vague and contradictory. On this point,
neither of our historians are as full as we could wish.
Thirlwall says scarcely anything; and we are surprised
that Mr. Grote has made not the least allusion to the
theory advocated by Muller and others, that the Ephors
were originally a civil court, who gradually usurped
criminal jurisdiction, and through criminal jurisdiction,
political power. "It was the regular course of events
in the Grecian states, that the civil courts enlarged their
influence, while the power of the criminal courts was
continually on the decline. As in Athens, the Helisea
rose, as compared with the Areopagus, so in Sparta, the
power of the Ephors increased in comparison with that
of the Gerusia." * This view is rendered extremely
probable by a comparison of Aristotle's, (which Muller
must have had in his mind, though, he does not directly
cite it,) where he says distinctly, that the magistracy of
the hundred and four at Carthage closely resembled the
Ephori, except that the mode of election was different. **
Now we know that the hundred and four was a civil
court, and the great difference in the numbers of the
two bodies is only proportioned to the difference in the
population of the two states, f Thirlw all seems to incline
to Muller's opinion, for he states that the Ephors "appear
from the first to have exercised a jurisdiction and super-
intendence over the Spartans in their civil concerns."
We must be careful, however, not to involve in our
adoption of this position the reception of another which
Muller connects with it, namely, that the Ephors were
the "agents and plenipotentiaries of the popular assembly,"
answering to demagogues and exercising a democratic
tyranny. His motive for wishing to make this out is
clear enough. That the rule of the Ephori came to be
tyrannical and mischievous , all authorities are agreed ;
and, of course, it is a great point for him if he can put
all this evil on the head of his bete noire ^ democracy.
But there is really no reason to suppose that the popular
assembly, in which there was no discussion, and not often
* Muller's Dorians, iii. 7, 4.
** Politics, ii. 11.
7 Heeion'a African Nations j cbap. 3.
Vol. I.
114
a division, ever had any independent weight, much less
predominance, in the government; and the indisputable
fact, that when Agis III. and Cleomenes III. wished to
reform the government on the most democratic basis,
the principal resistance offered to them was by the Ephori,
is utterly irreconcilable with Muller's supposition. If it
were perfectly certain that these officers were chosen
upon the most democratic principles from among the
people, as he states, it would certainly give plausibility
to his argument, but even this is by no means clear.
How they were elected is very uncertain. Not by lot,
for Aristotle's testimony is positive to the effect that no
officers were appointed by lot in Sparta, yet Plato speaks
of the Ephoralty as closely approximating to an office
appointed by lot, {eyyvg Trig xlrjQcoT^g duvcc/iiewg.) Else-
where Aristotle speaks of the manner of election as
"particularly childish."* Our own suspicion is, that
there was some dodge about the matter, some specious
contrivance, which pretended to give the choice to the
people, but really lodged it with the oligarchy. A con-
trivance of this kind would be favored by the secrecy
of the Spartan government, which was notoriously close
and silent in all its transactions — as much so as that
of Venice or Russia. And this incidental mention of
Venice reminds us of a not inapposite illustration of our
meaning, a plan most elaborately fair in appearance, but
practically amounting to no security against the evils
which it was supposed to prevent — we mean the method
of electing the doge; the working of which is thus
described by Lord Brougham: —
"In 1249 a new and very complicated manner of exercising the
elective power was devised, which continued to be practiced as long
as the republic lasted; that is, till the year 1798. First of all, thirty
of the Council were drawn by lot, and these again were reduced by
lot to nine, who selected, by a majority of seven, at least, of their
number, forty of the Council, and those were by lot reduced to twelve.
These twelve elected twenty-five of the Council, which were reduced
by lot to nine, and the nine selected forty-five, of whom eleven drawn
by lot selected forty-one of the Council to be electors of the doge.
A majority of twenty-five of these electors required to join in choo-
sing the doge. The prevailing view in this combination of choice and
chance must have been twofold — to prevent the combination of par-
* AriBtot. Polit., ii. 6, 16, iv. 7, 5. Plato, Leg., iii. p. 692.
115
tisans, and thus neutralize or weaken party influence, and to prevent
the knowledge of the parties who should elect, and thus frustrate or
obstruct the exercise of bribery or other undue influence. The first
of these objects could not be at all secured by the contrivance, the
second could only be most imperfectly attained. 1. In order to try
its effect upon party, we must suppose two or more factions to divide
the great Council; suppose, too, an aristocratic, which for shortness
we shall call the Whigs , and a monarchical , the Tories , and first,
suppose them unequal in the proportion of two to one. The chances
are, that the first lot gives twenty Whigs to ten Tories, and the
second, six Whigs to three Tories. As seven must then concur to choose
the forty, it is certain that the minority may make terms; but nothing
can be so improbable, as that they should obtain, by holding out, any
proportion of the forty which could affect usefully for their purpose the
next or fourth operation, the lot reducing the forty to twelve; for
unless they get so many of the forty as to give them a fair chance
of having seven out of the twelve, they do nothing, a bare majority of
the twelve being enough to choose the twenty-five by the fifth operation.
The twenty-five then will be all Whigs, and so will of course the nine to
which they are reduced by lot. These by the seventh operation will
choose eleven Whigs, whom the lot reducing to eight, these eight will
choose forty-one, all Whigs, twenty-five of whom will therefore by the
tenth and last operation choose a Whig doge. In fact, the whole result
is certain, notwithstanding the complication after the two first lots : and
the complication then becomes useless. * * * * 2. It may be admitted
that the lot threw some impediment in the way of corruption and
intimidation, preventing those undue influences from being used to-
wards the greater number of the Council. When, however, the thirty
were once drawn and then reduced to nine, it is not easy to see how
those nine should be exempt from the arts of the candidates. Even
if they were to vote secretly, the bargain might be made by the can-
didate or his party that the bribe should only be paid if earned, that
is, upon the final election taking place. If we suppose seven of the
nine to be thus bought, it is clear that they could secure the event
by choosing as many of the forty as made it certain a majority of
the twelve should be friendly, and then the election was certain, al-
ways supposing, as we have done, that there were a sufficient num-
ber of sure votes in the Council itself." — Political Philosophy, vol.
ii., pp. 269, 599.
Such a system certainly seems to us TiaLSaQiiodrjg
klctv, but it was once lauded as the highest refinement
of political wisdom. And that some such trickery, some
specious and delusive plan which looked like an open
election, but in reality was not, governed the election
of Ephori, we more than half suspect.
S*
lie
Another hypothetical ultra- democratic institution of
Sparta, Mr. Grote totally disbelieves in, though it is
generally spoken of as one of the fundamental enact-
ments of Lycurgus — the alleged redivision, namely,
and equal distribution of landed property. His arguments
on this point, which are exceedingly clear and forcible,
are briefly these: That all historical evidences show
decided inequality of property among the Spartans; that
the historical and political writers who treated of the
Spartan constitution previous to Aristotle, viz., Hellanicus,
Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon and Plato, say nothing
of this equal distribution ; and that Aristotle, in discussing
the scheme of equality of possessions, expressly mentions
Phaleas of Chalcedon as the author of it. He concludes
that the idea must have originated in the reveries of
Agis and Cleomenes and their reforming friends. It is
certainly unfortunate for the "land-reformers" and "vote-
yourself-a-farm" people, that the precedents in ancient
history to which they sometimes appeal, should turn out,
on examination, to be no precedents at all. Thus the
famous Licinian law at Rome, so long supposed to limit
the amount of real estate which an individual might own,
has been proved to refer not to private property at all,
but to the occupation of public land — ager, without any
qualifying epithet, standing for ager publicus, and possidere
being the technical term for to occupy. * We have an
idea (partly suggested by the term TroliTixrj %toQa in the
passage of Polybius which we have had occasion to quote)
that there may have been a similar misapprehension in
relation to Sparta; that there may have been a distri-
bution of public land made among the poorer citizens.
But as this is a mere conjecture founded only on analogy
and a chance expression in one author, and not supported
by any positive authority, we should never have ventured
to express it, had we not found an almost identical opinion
propounded by Dr. Thirlwall. He says: —
"If we suppose the inequality of property among the Spartans
to have arisen chiefly from acta of usurpation, by which leading men
had seized lands of the conquered Acheeans, which belonged of right
* Such, at least, is now the opinion of scholars throughout Eng-
land, and all over Germany, except to use Niebuhr's own expression
„in some obscure and isolated corners of Austria."
117
to the state, their resumption might afford the means at once of cor-
recting an evil which disturbed the internal tranquillity of Sparta,
and of redressing a wrong which provoked discontent among her
subjects. The kings, we are informed, (Xenoph. de Lac. Rep. c. 15,)
had domains in the districts of several provincial towns; similar ac-
quisitions may have been made by many private Spartans before the
time of Lycurgus ; and his partition may have consisted chiefly in the
restoration and distribution of such lands." (Vol. i., p., 305.)
Mr. Grote, however, rejects this supposition as "alto-
gether gratuitous."
Whatever opinion our readers may think it worth
their while to adopt on the many disputed points con-
nected with the Spartan government, a few of which we
have been tempted briefly to examine, they will probably
be disposed to coincide in Mr. Grote's designation of it,
as "a close, unscrupulous and well-obeyed oligarchy."
With this oligarchy the Athenian constitution, republican
as constituted by Solon, purely democratic as re-const-
ituted by Clisthenes, who "took the commons into part-
nership," stands in marked contrast. In neither of our
historians do we find the fashionable comparison of the
merits of these two celebrated governments ; but Mr. Grote
. evidently has something of the kind in view, and from an
intimation he gives us of his intention to defend the most
notorious Athenian demagogues, Cleon and Hyperbolus,
he may be expected to take the extreme Athenian side.
The great argument in favor of the Spartan constitution
is its stability, a test which would make the Chinese
polity the best on earth. Stability may be the accident
of a liberal government like the English, or a despotic
government like the Russian; it is not absolutely and
necessarily desirable of itself. If a government is de-
cidedly bad, its stability is only an additional evil: the
best thing that we can wish for such a government, is
that it should be unstable. Heaven forbid that we should
do anything to underrate or palliate that fickle and hasty
legislation, which has too often been the curse of popular
governments, and led many a man to adopt in bitterness
of spirit, the sentiment which Thucydides puts into the
mouth of one of his characters, that "a city with worse
laws, if immovable, is preferable to one with good laws
that be not binding;" but it were folly to run into the
other extreme, and make a blind conservatism atone for
118
all sins of omission or commission. The barbarous cruelty
of the Spartans to their serfs, their savage illiberality
to strangers as exhibited in the Xenelasia, their systematic
ignorance and discouragement of all art, and literature,
and eloquence, of all talent except military, are too well
known to need more than a passing allusion. The best
thing to be said of them — and it certainly is very much
to their credit — is that the Spartan women were ad-
mitted into something like their legitimate sphere, and
not treated as mere pieces of household furniture, ac-
cording to the practice of most nations of that time.
And yet, after all, this liberty could only improve the
physique of the race , without aiding them morally * or
intellectually, since the women were no better off for
education than the men, all the Lacedaemonians being
illiterate on principle. Illiterate on principle — how
much lies in these few words ! If the Athenians had been
like the Spartans, how much should we have had of
Greek philosophy, or history, or poetry? Should we even
have had Homer preserved for us? Nay, further, what
would have been the effect on the Roman mind, which
was conquered by conquered Athens? What upon the
modern nations, who in their turn received the impulse
from Rome? The inquiry may be extended indefinitely.
Spartan fortitude has indeed passed into a proverb; but
the influence of Athens on the human intellect is bounded
only by the limits of civilization.
The preservation of the regal office was peculiar to
Sparta. In the other Greek states the regular course
was from monarchy to oligarchy, and through oligarchy,
with occasional interludes of usurpation by a despot, to
democracy. We have here a wide field for political
speculation and remark. Thirlwall has done little more
than translate and explain Aristotle, but he has done
this admirably.
* In admitting the superior virtue of the LacedsBmonian women
both our historians have rather hastily followed Muller. "We think
that they are a little too charitable, and that Mr. St. John, in his Man-
ners and Customs of Ancient Greece, has come nearer the mark. "We
may distrust the gossip of Athenseus, but Plato and Xenophon are
pretty good authorities, and the latter especially a most unwilling
witness against the Spartans.
119
For the best picture of such a democracy in its
social and every -day workings, we must have recourse
to Plato : —
"When, methinks, a democratic state, thirsting for liberty, has
bad servants to supply it, and becomes intoxicated with a too deep
and unmixed draught : then , unless its rulers are very yielding and
afford it much license, it charges them vrith being wicked aristocrats,
and punishes them." "You are right, said he, for that is what they
do." "And those who obey the rulers," I continued, "it insults, as
voluntary slaves and men of no account ; and it praises and honors
the rulers for being like subjects, and subjects for being like rulers.
Must they not go to the extremity of freedom in such a state?" "Of
course." "And this inherent anarchy," I went on, "extends itself to
private houses, and finally descends even to animals." "I do not
perfectly understand you," he observed. "For instance," said I, "the
father will grow like a boy and be afraid of his sons, and the son
like a father, and have neither reverence nor fear for his parents, to
show how free he is; and the resident alien is as good as a native
citizen, and the native citizien no better than a resident alien, nay,
than an absolute foreigner." "I am afraid it is so," said he. "Yes,
it is so," said I, "and some other little things like this happen: the
teacher is afraid of his scholars, and flatters them , and the scholars
despise their teacher; and generally the youth imitate old men, and
rival them in words and actions, while the old men, letting themsel-
ves down to a level with the youth, become very witty and obliging,
in imitation of the young, so as not to appear unpleasant or tyran-
nical." He assented. "And the last stage, my good sir, of this free-
dom of the many, as it prevails in such a state, is when servants are
on a complete equality with their masters ; and I had nearly forgotten
to mention the point to which they carry the political equality of the
sexes and the free participation of woman in public affairs. * * * *
And as regards the animals subject to man, no one would believe
without seeing it how much freer they are there than elsewhere; for
it is literally according to the proverb, 'Love me, love my dog,' and
the very horses and asses are wont to roam about in all the majesty
of freedom, running over every one they meet in the streets who does
not get out of their way ; and all other creatures have a correspon-
ding surfeit of liberty. * * * * And you can comprehend the result
of all these things together: the popular mind is made tender and
irritable, so that if one endeavors to put the least amount of restraint
upon it, it frets and will not bear it ; and ultimately, you know, they
take no care of law or precedent, that no one may be their master
any way." — Republic, 562-3.
That much of this pungent ly satirical description
was directly suggested to Plato by the existing state of
120
things in Athens, we can hardly help supposing; and
such sketches help us considerably toward the solution
of that perplexing problem, why so many of the most
eminent Athenians, especially the leading Socratics, openly
preferred the constitution of Sparta, odious as that con-
stitution seems to us. It is but human nature to exag-
gerate the inconveniences which we ourselves suffer.
Had Plato, as a Spartan citizen, personally experienced
the disadvantages of Spartan rule, the tables might have
been turned: and we might have had from his pen a
picture equally able, and still more repulsive, of an
illiterate and oppressive oligarchy. We are not afraid
of having Xenophon's case quoted against us. A gentle-
man of reputation, leaving his country for political reasons,
is not likely to form an impartial judgment on the insti-
tutions of the people among whom he finds an asylum;
the less so because they, feeling flattered by his preference,
pet him in return, and are anxious to make everything
appear to the best advantage before him. But we are
anticipating a subject on which we hope to say more
on some future occasion, when Mr. Grote comes to speak
of it. Returning from the digression into which Thirl-
walPs remarks on the Greek government led us, we will
dip into Grote's chapter on the same subject, at the point
where he is examining the anti-monarchial feeling of
ancient Greece: —
"It is important to show that the monarchical institutions and
monarchical tendencies prevalent throughout mediaeval and modern
Europe have heen both generated and perpetuated by causes peculiar
to those societies, whilst in the Hellenic societies, such causes had no
place ; in order that we may approach Hellenic phenomena in the
proper spirit, and with an impartial estimate of the feeling universal
among Greeks towards the idea of a king. The primitive sentiment
entertained towards the heroic king died out, passing first into in-
difference, next — after experience of the despots — into determined
antipathy. To an historian like Mr. Mitford, full of English ideas
respecting government , this anti - monarchical feeling appears of
the nature of insanity, and the Grecian communities like madmen
without a keeper ; while the greatest of all benefactors is the heredi-
tary king who conquers them from without; the second best is the
home despot, who seizes the Acropolis and puts his fellow-citizens
under coercion. There cannot be a more certain way of misinterprp-
ting and distorting Grecian phenomena than to read them in this
121
spirit, which reverses the maxims, both of prudence and morality,
current in the ancient world. The hatred of kings as is stood among
the Greeks (whatever may be thought about a similar feeling now)
was a pre-eminent virtue, flowing directly from the noblest and wisest
part of their nature : it was a consequence of their deep conviction
of the necessity of universal legal restraint ; it was a direct expres-
sion of that regulated sociality, which required the control of indivi-
dual passion from every one without exception, and most of all, from
him to whom power was confided. The conception which the Greeks
formed of an irresponsible one, or of a king who could do no wrong,
may be expressed in the pregnant words of Herodotus: 'He subverts
the customs of the country; he violates women; he puts men to death
without trial.' No other conception of the probable tendencies of
kingship was justified either by a general knowledge of human nature,
or by political experience as it stood from Solon downw^ard : no other
feeling than abhorrence could be entertained for the character so con-
ceived: no other than a man of unprincipled ambition would ever
seek to invest himself with it. Our larger political experience has
taught us to modify this opinion, by showing, that under the condi-
tions of monarchy in the best governments of modern Europe , the
enormities described by Herodotus do not take place , and that it is
possible by means of representative constitutions, acting under a cer-
tain force of manners, customs and historical recollection, to obviate
many of the mischiefs likely to flow from proclaiming the duty of
peremptory obdience to an hereditary and irresponsible king, who
cannot be changed without extra-constitutional force. But such larger
observation was not open to Aristotle, the wisest as well as the most
cautious of ancient theorists; nor if it had been open, could he have
applied with assurance its lessons to the governments of the single
cities of Greece. The theory of a constitutional king, especially as
it exists in England, would have appeared to him impracticable : to
establish a king who will reign without governing, in whose name
all government is carried on, yet whose personal will is in practice
of little or no effect ; exempt from all responsibility without making
use of the exemption; receiving from every one unmeasured demon-
strations of homage, which are never trantilated into act except within
the bounds of a known law ; surrounded with all the paraphernalia
of power, yet acting as a passive instrument in the hands of ministers
marked out for his choice by indications which he is not at liberty
to resist. This remarkable combination of the fiction of superhuman
grandeur and license with the reality of an invisible straight waist-
coat, is what an Englishman has in his mind when he speaks of a
constitutional king : the events of our history have brought it to pass
in England, amidst an aristocracy the most powerful that the world
has yet seen, but we have still to learn whether it can be made to
122
exist elsewhere, or whether the occurrence of a single king at once
able, aggressive, and resolute, may not suffice to break it up." —
Vol. iii., pp. 15, seq.
That last sentence suggests some interesting specu-
lations. There certainly are many supposable cases in
which the real power and influence of an English monarch
might have been, or may be, brought to a violent trial.
If anything had happened to Queen Victoria while she
was Princess Victoria, Ernest of Hanover would certainly
have undertaken to govern England on ultra -tory prin-
ciples; but as that personage is not so "able" as "ag-
gressive," he would probably have been put down without
much difficulty. Or suppose that the present king-consort
had united with his personal advantages, intellectual
endowments of a high order, and an ambitious spirit —
that he had made himself his wife's master, instead of
her dependant — that he had in her name taken hold
of political affairs — played off the Protectionists and
Free-traders against each other — or given a head and a
nucleus to some doubtful interest, "Young England,"
for instance — might not the personal influence of the
crown have made itself sensibly felt in British politics?
Might not the antagonist forces have stopped the machine
altogether, and rendered a reconstruction of the frame
of government indispensable? There is nothing very ex-
travagant in the supposition, that at some period the
sovereign of Great Britain may be a man of great ability
and energy, and — so much do "circumstances alter cases"
— it is possible that the presence of these qualities in
an English executive may be as productive of awkward
consequences as the absence of them sometimes is in
our own.
Having thus far spoken of Mr. Grote's work in the
highest terms, particularly for its lively and attractive
style, we are now compelled to express our disappoint-
ment at the jejune and summary way in which he has
narrated some of the most interesting episodes in jrrecian
history — the stories relating to the early princes, and
especially those told by Herodotus. The substantial
authenticity of these narratives he admits, and accordingly
mentions their more important details, but with such
rapidity that all the romance of the tale vanishes. One
instance of this has struck us remarkably — the story
123
of Periander's qarrel with his son, which, in Mr. Grote's
abridgment^ reads like a scrap of an old newspaper. The
original legend is so touching and poetical, that we are
tempted to translate it verbatim, though well aware that
no words of ours can convey a proper impression of
the Ionic historian's beautiful language: —
"After that Periander had slain his own wife, Melissa, upon that
mishap there befel him this other: he had two sons from Melissa,
one seventeen, one eighteen years old; these, their mother's father,
Procles, that was sovereign of Epidaunis, sent for to himself and
treated lovingly, as was but natural, since they were his own daugh-
ter's sons; but when he sent them away, he said, on speeding them,
*Do ye know, my sons, who it was that slew your mother?' This
word the elder of them made of no account, but the younger, Lyco-
phron by name, was so grieved at the hearing it, that when he came
to Corinth he neither saluted his father, (for that he was the slayer
of his mother,) nor joined in converse with him, nor answered word
to his questioning, until that Periander, possessed with wrath, drove
him fonh from the palace. And having driven him forth, he inquired
of the elder what their grandfather had told them, whereunto the boy
replied that he had received them lovingly, but the word that Proclet
had said , on dismissing them , he remembered not , for he had not
taken it to heart. Then Periander said it might not be but that he
had given them some secret counsel, and he pressed him with quest-
ions; so the other remembered it, and told the speech. Then Pe-
riander, preceiving this, and willing to yield nothing, sent a messen-
ger to those with whom the son whom he had driven out was dwelling,
and forbade them to entertain him ; therefore, when he was expelled
from that house and went to another, he was driven from that also,
for Periander threatened his hosts and bade them shut him out. Yet
he went to another house of his friends, and they received him, as
being the son of Periander, though they were in fear. At last , Pe-
riander made proclamation that whosoever should admit him into his
house, or speak to him, should pay a fine to Apollo, and the amount
of the fine was stated; by reason of which proclamation, no one
would speak to him nor receive him under his roof — nay, he him-
self deigned not to attempt what was forbidden, but endured living
in the public colonnades. But on the fourth day, Periander beholding
him bowed down with squalidness and hunger, was moved to pity,
and relaxing from his wrath, approached and accosted him. 'My
son, which is preferable for thee, to fare as thou now dost, or to
inherit the sovereignty and the good things which I now enjoy, by
being friendly to thy father? Thou, who, being my son and the king
oi prosperous Corinth, hast chosen a wanderer's life in perversity,
124
indulging anger against him towards whom it least befitted thee;
for if there hath happened any calamity for which thou holdest me
in suspicion, it hath happened to me also , and I bear the greater
share thereof, forasmuch as I myself did all. But do thou, now that
thou hast learned how much better it is to be envied than to be
pitied, and what it is to quarrel with thy parents and betters, depart
hence, home.' With these words did Periander come upon him , but
he answered his father nothing more than to say that he had incur-
red a fine to the god by entering into conversation with him. Then
Periander, finding how unmanageable and invincible his son's disorder
was, fitted out a ship for Corcyra, which island he also ruled over,
and sent him out of his sight. And afterward Periander made a cam-
paign against his father-inlaw, Procles , as the chief cause of his
present difficulty, and took Epidaurus and Procles himself alive. But
when, in the lapse of years, Periander had passed his prime, and
was conscious of being no longer able to oversee and administer the
government, he sent to Corcyra and invited Lycophron to the sove-
reignty , (for he saw nothing in his elder son, who seemed to him
witless;) but Lycophron deigned not even to give an answer to him
that brought the message. Then Periander, for he cleaved to the
youth, sent to him a second, his sister, his own daughter, thinking
that he would be most likely to yield to her; she came and addres-
sed him: 'Wouldst thou, my brother, that the sovereignty should fall
to others, and thy father's house be scattered, rather than go thyself
and enjoy them? Depart home ; cease being thine own tormenter.
Pride is a mischievous thing; try not to cure evil with evil. Many
prefer feasibility to justice ; and many seeking their mother's interests
have thrown away their father's. The sovereignty is a slippery pos-
session ; many are desirous of it ; he is already an old man and past
his prime ; give not thine own property to others.' Thus said she
to him the most seductive things, as instructed by her father, but he
said in answer that he would no wise come to Corinth while he knew
that his father was alive. When she had reported this , Periander
sent for the third time a herald, that he meant himself to come to
Corcyra, and he bade his son return to Corinth, to receive the so-
vereignty from him. As the youth agreed to these conditions, Peri-
ander prepared to sail to Corcyra , and his son to Corinth ; but the
Corcyrseans, on learning the change, slew the young man, that Peri-
ander might not come into their country." Clio, chap. 50-54.
Our bare and literal version will give some idea of
what the story might be made, in the hands of an ele-
gant writer. Of course it would not be possible or de-
sirable that all the tales of Herodotus should be thus
repeated at full length, but we cannot help thinking that
125
a few of them, narrated in suitable language, would add
great interest to a history of this kind, and do much to
further what ought to be one of the historian's chief
objects — encouraging his readers to pursue their study
further^ and have recourse, when it is in their power,
to the original authorities which he consults.
And now other nations come upon the stage , and
particularly the people of the Great King, whose previous
conquests and military reputation served so much to
heighten the renown of the gallant little bands that
victoriously resisted them. This glorious struggle has
continually been the theme of the poet, the orator, and
the patriot, and not without good reason, for it is a
triumph unmatched in the pages of any history, except
our own. In almost all the cases of regular battles
gained against great odds, (we put surprises and ambus-
cades out of the question,) there have been some coun-
terbalancing physical advantages on the side of the mino-
rity, some superior equipment, the result of superior
civilization — armor, horses, firearms, or something of
the sort unknown to the other party, and rendering the
victory less wonderful. But in this instance, the accoutre-
ments and military science and experience of the Persians
seem to have been no way behind those of the Greeks;
nay, in some departments of warfare, such as archery,
it is probable that the Persians were the more skillful.
The Greeks gave the fairest proof that they were, in
Highland phraseology, "the prettier men." In describing
these world-renowned battles, both Thirlwall and Grote
have acquitted themselves well, but neither remarkably.
Their accounts suffer on comparison with those magnifi-
cent pictures of Arnold, which give to Hannibal's cam-
paigns all the interest of a new story. But to say that
they fall short of Arnold is no great censure, nor can
we feel disposed to blame them much, when we remember
how often a "picturesque" historian is tempted to sacrifice
accuracy to effect.
With the battle of Marathon terminates Mr. Grote's
fourth volume, and here our article must terminate also.
We wait with impatience for his observations on later
Greek politics and philosophy y the more so because the
increased interest and liveliness in the corresponding parts
of Dr. Thirlwall's book, induce a hope that Mr. G. willj
in a similar manner, continue to rise with his subject.
We have accomplished our main purpose, which was to
supply, to the best of our small ability, a singular omission
on the part of American reviewers. Here are two works
which will be, for many years at least, the standard
Histories of Greece in the English language; one of them
has been completed four years, the other is now about
half published; and we are not aware that the least
notice has been taken of them by any American perio-
dical. To Mr. Grote's history we are almost positive
that there has not been the slightest allusion. We have
therefore made bold, in default of abler scholars, to take
the matter in hand, deeply regretting that so interesting
and important a subject has not attracted the attention
of some one better qualified to do it justice.
TABLE .ESTHETICS.
Knickerbocker, March 1848.
I AM going to write on a most important subject,
one which concerns all classes and conditions of men
every day of their lives, and has a direct influence on
very weighty public and private affairs; which is inti-
mately associated with ideas of joy and comfort and
strength; three most pleasant things. It is the art,
science and mystery of those acts which the Transcen-
dentalists call 'appropriating to one's self a portion of
the outer world ;' in plain English, bre'akfasting and dining
with their incidents and accessories ; what for want of a
better term, I call table-cBSthetics.
Now I am well aware at the outset, that many very
worthy persons, either from defective education and want
of opportunity to know better, or from inconsiderate
conformity with those about them, (a common American
fault,) or from want of accurate discrimination, confound-
ing things which have some resemblance (another very
common fault of our beloved countrymen) will consider
127
my purpose in this essay frivolous at best, if not abso-
lutely mischievous. So, as it is always well to clear
the ground for a fair start, our preliminary step will be
to hear what they have to say, and then endeavor to
enlighten them a little.
'The art of eating and drinking !' cries one. 'Animal
propensities! sensual! making a beast of one's self!
Digging his grave with his teeth!' and much more in the
same strain.
Hold hard, my friend, and do n't talk rubbish. Do
you mean to insinuate that table-sestheticism and gluttony
are convertible terms? If so, you might just as well
say that every man who goes to see the Venus de Medicis
is a profligate. The very reverse is true in most cases.
It is notorious that the most barbarous nations, those
among whom table-sesthetics , as well as all other arts,
have made the least progress, are the most voracious
feeders. The man who eats knowingly, generally eats
at least one-fourth less than the average of those who
eat at random. He seldom exceeds two meals a day
and one of those not a hearty one. For my own part
I would wager that if the readers who are tempted to
turn up a frugal and virtuous nose at the title of this
paper were put upon my daily diet by way of regimen,
the majority would cry out for a change, and confess
themselves half-starved in less than a fortnight. And
on the score of health, worthy Cato, let me tell you
that you are sadly mistaken. It is not the man who,
after the toil and bustle of the day are over, leisurely
refreshes himself with a dainty and judicious repast,
irrigated with a moderate supply of the generous latex
Lyceus^ and then reposes over his book or in pleasant
conversation to digest it; it is not he who is bilious and
dyspeptic. No, it is the man who at the unnatural and
barbarous hour of one P. M., pitches into himself a variety
of miscellaneous provender indiscriminately for fifteen
minutes, and in fifteen more is at his business again. As
to the intellectual side of the question, there are doubtless
extraordinary occasions when a man has to get through
a certain amount of head-work in a limited time, and is
obliged to live like a hermit in order to keep his brain
clear. Most persons have had some such experiences. I
remember a period of three weeks during which I would
128
willingly have dispensed with eating altogether, and did
only take just enough to support the system. But this
corresponds to the training of the pedestrian or the jockey,
by which he is enabled to undergo a preternatural amount
of bodily exertion; and the one is no more the normal
state and habitual system of diet, than the other is of
exercise. All the genial and natural products of a man's
intellect, the happiest spontaneous effusions of his fancy
and imagination, proceed from a well -nourished frame.
Satur est quum dicit Horatiiis, Evce!
As to the expense too, the argument in many cases
makes all the other way. Economy, not a niggardly
parsimony, but a sensible and prudent economy, enters
into the calculations of the aesthetic. Good taste abhors
excessive profusion, and good edibles are naturally less
prone to be wasted than bad ones. * A clever French
cook will make up nearly the difference in his wages by
saving the fuel which would have been unprofitably
expended by an Irish ignoramus, or ignorama^ as I once
heard a learned Boston lady call it. It is well known
by those versed in military affairs, that a French regiment
will subsist comfortably on rations which would drive
an English regiment to mutiny, not because the French
do not require as much nourishment as the English,
whatever their novelists and dramatists may represent
to the contrary, but because their superior skill in cookery
enables them to make a given amount of animal matter
go further. Let it be allowed, however, that aesthetic
habitudes do involve more outlay of capital than a rude
and hap-hazard way of supporting nature. It remains
to be asked whether the advantages procured by them
do not justify the additional expense. And this will be
better considered in connection with the third objection
which may be supposed, viz., that the pursuit is a frivolous
one and not worthy the time and trouble which it re-
quires.
Now if man be a social animal (as we have the
highest authority for asserting that he is) and if table-
sestheticism promotes sociability, then in truth is it no
* In the hall of a New-England college where I pretended to
eat some twelve years ago , the expense of what was was wasted
would have kept a decent table. The students used to squander their
supplies in very spite, they were so bad.
129
unimportant matter. A good dinner is the parent of good
feeling, peace with one's-self and with the world, bene-
volence and liberality. Wherefore the charitable societies
of England do wisely give dinners, knowing that the
purse is more open after a sumptuous banquet. On the
other hand, what mortification, discomfort and misan-
thropy result from a bad dinner ! What an awful infliction
it is to be asked to partake in suffering one! And to say
that any man with the requisite means can provide the
needful by merely giving orders to his cook, confectioner
and wine-merchant, is absurd; for in the first place, it
requires aesthetic discernment to choose the cook, the
confectioner and the wine-merchant. Moreover, we have
observed that one part of the science is to manage your
means and make the most of your resources, so that one
instructed can give an agreeable banquet at the expense
which would procure but a sorry set-out in the hands
of the uninitiated. The truth is that table -sestheticism
is a branch of the fine arts, a subordinate one indeed,
but occupying its distinct and appropriate place; and you
will generally find that the man who has a good taste
in poetry, painting and music, will also have a good
taste in all things pertaining to the management of the
table. There are some people who think all the fine
arts wicked, and incentives to bad passions; and others
who, having no perception of the beautiful, think them
expensive follies, and take credit to themselves for their
insensibility, like Mr. Chief-Engineer Jervis, who makes
a merit of defacing and disfiguring the most beautiful
river in the world. And there are men whose palates
are naturally blunt, and to whom it makes not the
slightest difference what they taste or imbibe, just as
there are others again who would as lief talk to an
ugly woman as to a handsome one; but you, reader
mine, are not of that sort, I trust, nor happily are the
majority of mankind, even in this utilitarian age. Still
even these people may be led to see the excellency of
table-sestheticism, if they will look at the power it confers
on a master of it in society. What gives a man prestige
and personal popularity, w^hat softens criticism and wins
partisans like being an irreproachable Amphitryon? No
observant man can doubt that the Boston literati owe a
great part of their reputation and influence to the fact
9
Vol. I.
130
of their understanding table - aesthetics and habitually
giving correct little banquets to each other and to casual
visiters. I don't think any one who ever dined with
SHORTBODY could set himself down seriously to inquire
whether the metaphors in DIABOLINE will hold water,
and whether Trochaic Tetrameter Acatalectic is a na-
tural and suitable metre in English or not. \A^hat weapon
so powerful in the hands of a diplomatist as a comme-
il-faut entertainment? Hence the Russians, whose diplo-
matic superiority is well known, give their ministers
unlimited supplies that they may 'hang out' (pardon the
vulgarity of the expression, as Jeames says) without
limit. What keeps a political association together like
good eating and drinking? There was a striking instance
of this some years ago in the English parliament, where
thirty radical members voted together in a body so long
as two of their number (Molesworth and Leader) supplied
the bond of union in the shape of dinners. When the
dinners stopped the unanimity stopped also. Were I
ever to become a politician {urj ysvoiTo) I should, as the
very first step import a first-rate artiste from Paris. A
friend who, like Ulysses, had seen the cities and ascer-
tained the dispositions of many men, made a remark the
other day in connection with this point, which struck
me as proceeding from a philosophic mind. 'Why,' said
he, 'do the good people of Boston fret about the way
things go on in W ashington, and complain of the national
politics? W^hat 's the use of slanging the President and
passing resolutions? There is a far more natural and
efficacious remedy open to them. Let them send down
to the capital (by subscription or otherwise) one of their
most aesthetic men ; let him build an elegant house, give
elegant parties, and induct the w^estern and south-western
members into the refinements of civilization and espe-
cially of cookery. My life for it, they would do more
in that way than by all the speeches that ever were
made in Faneuil-Hall , even though the god-like Daniel
were one of the speakers. And the god-like would say
so himself, for he understands the value of table-aesthetics.'
Such was the substance of my friend's remarks, and
I commend them to the attention of those whom they
most concern, as well worthy to be pondered upon.
There are some things connected with table matters,
131
such as carving,* making salad, telling good wine from
bad, without the knowledge of which a gentleman's edu-
cation cannot be said to be complete, and the subject
generally I consider an essential part of education ; very
much more so than dancing, which some people consider
the sine qua non, for every one does not dance, and it
is possible to live very happily without dancing, whereas
every one eats and drinks, and few people can live well
w^ithout eating well; infinitely more so than that stump
oratory, the acquisition of w^hich seems to be the great
object of half our young men, and which only renders
them nuisances in conversation, and makes true oratory
at a discount from the number of parodies upon it.
The above reflections, and many more of a like
sort, were recently suggested to me with peculiar force
by the perusal of a table classic, BRILLAT-SAVARIN'S
Physiologie du Gont Although in the twenty -odd years
which have elapsed since its publication many improve-
ments have been made in the art of which it treats, it
has still a right to be considered one of the standard
works on table -aesthetics. Whether it has ever been
translated into English or not I will not undertake to
say; but if there is a translation in our vernacular, I
have never met with it; and at any rate, the book is
not very well known among Anglo-Saxons. BRILLAT-
SAVAKIN was an advocate, and afterward a judge of
the Cour de Cassation. Proscribed in the Revolution, he
took refuge first in Switzerland and then in America. In
our good city of Gotham he passed two years, supporting
himself as a musician and a teacher, and gaining popu-
larity, as he says himself, by taking care not to appear
cleverer (n'ttvoir plus d'esprit^J than the Americans. Con-
descending Gaul! It is gratifying to find that such self-
sacrificing modesty met with its reward. Better days
* I MENTION carving particularly, being every day painfully
reminded of the defects of my early education in this point. It is a
natural consequence of the system practised at most of our colleges
of cramming the students into an uncomfortable hall, and feeding
them on the coarsest fare, that they should contract a pernicious and
not easily eradicated habit of scarifying and mangling dishes without
care or decency. On this theme alone a treatise might be written.
Bad fare naturally and inevitably induces a disrespect for the table and
a neglect of its proprieties.
9*
132
dawned at home ; he was restored to his old post of
judge, and for the last twenty-five years of his life lived
on the fat of the land. His great work, 'The Physiology
of Taste, or Transcendental Gastronomy,' of which I
shall try to give the benevolent reader some general idea,
was first published in 1825, just before his decease. By
way of prolegomena to the book we have twenty funda-
mental axioms^ some of the most important of which I
proceed to transcribe, with such comments as naturally
present themselves.
'2. Animals feed^ man eats; it takes a clever man
to know to eat.'
Accordingly, we hear the most unsesthetic and un-
refined persons calling their dinners, etc., food. The word
is awfully prevalent in Connecticut. The tutors at Yale
used to talk about food till they made me sick. And
that nuisance of modern English society, the 'fast man,'
who is always very much of a Goth in his eating as
well as his dress, never says that he is going to a dinner
or a supper at so-and-so's, but to a 'feed' at so-and-so's ;
and certainly the expression is appropriate enough for
such donkeys.
'3. The destiny of nations depends on the manner
in which they are nourished.'
This is illustrated in the body of the work itself,
where the author says: 'In the state of society at which
we have now arrived it is difficult to imagine a people
living exclusively on bread and vegetables. Such a nation,
did it exist, would infallibly be subjugated by carnivo-
rous invaders, as the Hindoos have been successively
the prey of whoever has chosen to attack them.' The
inferiority in warlike prowess of the abstemious Spaniards
and Italians to the more substantially nourished French,
Germans and English, is notorious. And the Mexicans
— poor mortals! — who live on frijoles and tortillas^
are ridden over rough-shod by our beef and venison-fed
soldiery. Apart from mere physical capacity, we can
trace many of the mental characteristics of different
nations to their different meats, beverages and condiments.
The influence of beer and tobacco on the German mind
— the stolid acquiescence in the present and dogged
conservatism induced by the former, the mistiness of
speculation fostered by the latter, are self-evident. The
1
133
national light wines and indispensable coffee point to
several elements of the French character; and it has
often seemed to me that the windy loquacity and speech-
making propensities of a certain class of our countrymen
are distinctly referable to their large consumption of
cold water.
'10. Those who get indigestions [why could we not
say, who indigest themselves? — a felicitous expression,
that s'indigerent^ or get drunk, do not know how to eat
or drink.'
Cf. sis, (as the classical editors say,) our remarks
ante on the error of confounding table - sestheticism with
gluttony.
'14. A dessert without cheese is like a belle who
has lost an eye.'
Various nations employ cheese in very various ways.
The Italian takes it in soup, and with the national minestra
of macaroni or vermicelli it is a great improvement; but
with any other kind of soup, detestable. The Frenchman
serves it at the other end of his dinner, among the fruit
and the bon-bons. The Englishman eats it — often ac-
companied by salad — between the meats and the pastry;
and with a very large number of Englishman it supplies
the place of pastry or dessert altogether; cheese being
to John Bull what pie is to Brother Jonathan. With us
'crackers and cheese' are the ordinary tavern and steam-
boat lunch, and you may also see the travelling public
devouring much cheese at tea^ along with smoked beef,
cake and preserves — aw^ul catachresis of eatables! I
saw with my own eyes a man do this w^ho was then in
the legislature, and has since gone abroad on a diplomatic
mission. I hope he will learn better in Europe. On
our dinner -tables cheese is seldom seen, the national
taste being decidedly in favor of closing with a variety
of sweets ; and as a general rule, our custom seems pre-
ferable; yet there are some occasions when cheese makes
the most appropriate termination; for instance, when you
drink hock. I said, when; for on more accounts than
one, hock is not to be drunk every day. At such a time
you cannot do better than follow the example of my
venerated aesthetic friend 'JOHN WATERS,' and let
your roti be succeeded by nothing but some delicate
Neufchatel v^ith exquisite little dry biscuits and the finest
134
butter ; for sweets destroy German wine, and any sweets
except fresh fruit and those indispensable sponge biscuits
familiarly denominated finger -cakes, are detrimental to
your perception of Bordeaux and Burgundy.
'17. The indispensable quality of the Cook is punctuality:
it should also be that of the quest/
I have written this in small-capitals. Every guest
and every host should have it by heart. Of the two a
deviation from punctuality is worse on the hosfs part,
as being less remediable. If a man doesn't come at the
time appointed, you have always the resource of sitting
down without him ; but what escape is there for the un-
fortunates who are kept three-quarters of an hour in the
drawing-room hungry and listless, making painful en-
deavors to amuse each other, and looking anxiously round
every time the door is opened to see if dinner is an-
noimced ? The English used to have an absurd custom
of understanding the time of dinner as two hours later
than that named in the invitation; e. g.^ if you were as-
ked as six, the company assembled at half-past seven
and sat down at eight. They are now wiser, and rarely
wait more than fifteen minutes beyond the specified time.*
which indeed is a very liberal allowance ; five for diffe-
rence of watches, five for accidents, such as detention
in the road, etc., and five out of pure grace. The
Parisians are generally punctual to the minute. With us
there is no fixed rule; some hosts are punctual, and some
not. The consequence is extreme confusion, for a corres-
ponding uncertainty is produced on the part of the
guests ; and the results are frequently very awkward.
For instance, an invited one assists with extreme punc-
tuality at two or three entertainments in the beginning
of a season, and has to wait three-quarters of an hour
at each. He becomes tired of the fun, and on the next
invitation, should he have any business on hand, says to
himself: 'There 's no use of hurrying,' and accordingly
arrives perhaps half an hour after the period specified ;
but this time he has to do with a punctual host, and
finds to his confusion that the soup and fish are already
* Of course there are some exceptions to this rule, as there
are to most rules. Thus, if a commoner expected a peer to dine
with him, honest JOHN'S inherent flunkeyism would probably make
him wait considerably beyond the fifteen minutes.
135
despatched, or what is worse, that the dinner is waiting
for him , and the guests staring at him , as at a guilty
creature, when he enters. At Washington the old Eng-
lish unpunctuality is the rule; at least it was a very few
years ago. You were asked to breakfast at ten, and on
arriving found no one up to receive you. It once befell
me to be invited to dinner at the '•White-House.' The
card of invitation named an early hour — half-past five,
I think. For forty minutes I enjoyed an uninterrupted
opportunity of examining the furniture and calculating
whether the appropriations made for it were extravagant
or not. At ten minutes after six a member of the Pre-
sident's family made his appearance; in half an hour
more the company began to assemble, and at a quarter
past seven we sat down to table. Now this was of no
consequence in the case of a nobody like myself, but the
very same might have happened, and I have no doubt
has happened more than once , to some foreigner of
distinction. All delays on either side are bad. Waiting
for a guest spoils the dinner; waiting for a dinner may
half-starve the guests. It makes an important difference
in a man's morning arrangements whether he is to dine
at five or at seven , as in the latter case some slight
mid-day refreshment is necessary. Note also the next
axiom.
17. To wait too long for a late guest is a want of
respect for those who are present.'
The lion of the party has a sort of prescriptive right
to be waited for, but it is very bad manners in him to
avail himself of the vrimlege. Whenever the S-enl 'OXviLmia
dwuar ^eyovrsQ shall place me in a dinnergiving position,
I don't intend to wait for any one, lion or not.
'18. He who receives his friends without giving any
personal attention to the repast which is prepared for
them, does not deserve to have friends.'
'19. The mistress of the house should always make
sure that the coffee is perfect; and the master, that the
liqueurs are of the best quality.'
Alas ! with us it would often puzzle master and
mistress both to make sure of the coffee. It is astonishing
that out of so many civilized countries all consuming the
beverage to a greater or less extent, there are only two
in which you ordinarily and habitually get good coffee ;
1S6
France, to wit, and Belgium. The French seem to have
a peculiar genius for the preparation of this article. Our
author's receipt is: 'Pour boiling water upon coffee pla-
ced in a silver or china vase perforated with very small
holes. Take this first decoction, warm it up to boiling
point, strain it again, and you have as clear and good
coffee as can be made.' I used to dispense with the per-
forated vessel, and consequently with the first straining;
instead of which I followed the ordinary plan of mixing
an egg with the ground coffee. My instructors in the
art were an Englishman and an American, who in this
way made as good coffee as I ever drank in Paris; but
I never could come up to their mark, except on a few
lucky days, though I made coffee for myself nearly a
year; which confirms me in the belief that the art is
born with one. But while thus frankly owning my de-
ficiencies, I believe myself capable of giving some not
altogether useless hints on the subject. The first great
and general fault in English and American coffee-making
is, not putting in enough coffee. At hotels universally, and
at private houses generally, there is one -half or two-
thirds too much water. The next great and common
error is over-roasting the berry, which imparts a bitter
and nauseous flavor. By carefully avoiding these dangers,
you may make very palatable coffee without its being
quite clear, though of course complete claridity is essential
to its perfection. The coffee should be roasted and ground
just before it is used. This is one great secret of the
superiority of the Parisian article. If it be too much
trouble to prepare the coffee every day, the best way
of keeping it is after it is made. You may bottle up
enough for a week, (taking care to cork it tight,) and
warm it over as you want it. This sounds strange, but
I have tried the experiment with entire success.
The remark upon liqueurs is worthy of attention.
Not long ago I was at a dinner w^here the host had
imprudently left the care of this matter to the butler;
and the consequence was, that instead of Maraschino and
Cura^oa, we were presented with — anisette and cherry-
bounce! Not that cherry-bounce is by any means a
despicable vanity, under certain circumstances, but it is
not exactly what you would select for a chasse-cafe.
The English are very ignorant of the use and theory
137
of coffee and liqueurs. You will see an Englishman
take two large cups of coffee, flooded w^ith milk, and
should a chasse be introduced — which is not generally
the case — he will make no scruple of tossing off two
or even three glasses. Just before leaving the fast-
anchored isle, I concentrated my aesthetic resources into
three dinners : conceive my dismay , when after the second
I perceived one of the guests — a young Eton-bred
Cantab, but quite old enough to have knowm better —
seizing my last bottle of Maraschino and drinking it as
if it were tableclaret! Fortunately I had presence of
mind enough to divert his attention by throwing some
champagne in his way.
The earlier part of M. Brillat-Savarin's first volume
treats chiefly of matters physiological and anatomical,
which in a treatise not professedly scientific may as well
be passed over. The third of his chapters, or 'medita-
tions,' as he calls them, comes directly to gastronomy,
which is defined as 'the scientific knowledge of all that
relates to man in the matter of nourishment : its subject-
matter is all that can be eaten: its end the preservation
of the species by the best possible sustenance.' He then
shows the connection of gastronomy with other sciences,
natural history, physics, chemistry, political economy, etc..
and particularly its influence in promoting the intercourse
of diflPerent nations. A feast knowingly set out is like
an epitome of the world, where each quarter has its
representatives. Gastronomic knowledge is of great utility
to all classes, but especially to those in easy circumstances,
and who are forced by their position to give frequent
entertainments. To take the lowest view of the case, it
saves them from being pilfered at will by their depen-
dants. In illustration of this he introduces, as his way
is, an appropriate anecdote.
'The Prince de Soubise meant to give a fete one
day. It was to close with a supper, the bill-of-fare of
which he demanded to see. The maitre-d'hotel appeared
at his bed-side with a beautiful bill, headed by a vignette,
and the first article which the prince cast eyes on w^as
'Fifhj hams.' 'Eh? what, Bertrand!' he exclaimed, 'are
you mad? or do you mean to treat my whole regiment?
'No, my lord; there will only appear one on the table,
but the remainder is no less necessary, for my espagnole,
138
my blonds, my (farnitures , my — ^ 'Bertrand, you are
cheating me, and this item shall not be allowed!' 'Ah!
my lord!' said the artiste^ keeping his temper with diffi-
culty, 'you do n't know our resources! Only say the
word, and these fifty hams, which trouble you so, shall
all go into a glass vial no larger than my thumb.' What
answer could be made to so positive an assertion? The
Prince smiled and submitted; the item was allowed.'
Next come some remarks on the appetite, and the
danger of disobeying its calls. To illustrate this, there
is a most awful story, which I cannot detail in cold
blood. That any man, however high a public functionary
he might be, should leave his company foiir hours and
a half in the agonies of hunger and expectation while
he w^as at a cabinet council, seems a pitch of depravity
incredible even in a Frenchman ; and that the company
should have waited out the infliction without pillaging
his house, or setting fire to it, or even adopting the
extremely lenient course of walking oif and dining else-
where, seems an equally prseter-Gallic observance of
those convenances which form the French moral code.
Afterward w^e have some anecdotes of great appetites,
derived from the author's personal observation; among
others one of a cure, who used to consume in his mid-
day meal a capon and a leg of mutton, not to mention
the trifling accessories of soup, salad and cheese. It
must be remembered, however, that the French gigots
are decidedly diminutive, and not to be named in com-
parison with the legs which English clowns eat for wagers.
The next 'meditation' is on the respective nourishment
and other diff'erent efl'ects of different kinds of aliment.
One remark is curious. That an icthyophagous popula-
tion is blessed with abundance of infants is generally
known ; but it is not so generally known that the female
infants preponderate in the proportion of nearly ten to
one. Savarin's inference is that a fish diet is debilitating.
That it produces leanness there is little doubt. 'Jockeys,
in wasting, are never allowed pudding when fish is to be
had,' says an English authority; a Quarterly Reviewer,
if I am not mistaken.
We have now arrived at particular dishes; first, of
course, soup, about which we have somewhat to say
by-and-by. Then the bouilli, that ghost of meat, which
139
French economy has made a national dish. Our author
sees that it is a great mistake, and observes with pleasure
that it has been banished from the best-conducted tables,
and replaced by fish. This was in 1825. At present
there is little danger of encountering bouUli at a Pari-
sian dinner. The national introduction of fish being just
before the roast instead of just after the soup, a complete
French dinner now involves tiDO courses of fish at these
two different periods. To us Anglo-Saxons, fish after
soup seems a natural sequence; but it is difficult to give
any a priori reason for it, and it may be only the force
of habit. On another point we have less hesitation in
condemning the French : their acceptance of cold fish ;
which in any shape is an abomination.* Indeed, con-
sidering the French gastronomic skill, it is singular that
they admit into their catalogue of edibles three of the
most insipid viands: bouilli , cold fish, and veal. Tlie
last may be tolerated on account of the badness of their
beef. Good beef is only to be obtained in the very first
caf^s of Paris. Even at private houses in the metropolis
it is generally detestably tough. As to their mutton,
it is worse than ours; which is saying a great deal.
Indeed, the sheep is only to be found in its perfection in
the British isles ; while, in spite of all that is said about
'the roast-beef of Old England,' you will get on an average
of hotels and private houses, better beef in our Middle
States than in Queen Victoria's dominions. But I am
running miles ahead of my subject.
The observations on game I do not intend to remark
upon or quote from, being fully persuaded that we are
the only people in the world who know how to cook
game. The English keep it too long and the French do
it too much; added to which, the French game is not
so good as ours, to begin with. Our blacks especially
have a natural talent for the preparation of this delicious
nutriment. And being deeply sensible of our many
sesthetical deficiencies, I take an honest pride in being
able to insist on this superiority, which I have too often
seen, heard and tasted the verification of, to be in any
doubt about it. Never did I meet foreigner so prejudiced
as to resist the argument of a canvass-back.
* Of course there is no reference here to anchovy in Mayonnaise,
which is a condiment^ not a basis.
140
Our author alludes to the practice of beginning a
dinner with oysters as an ancient custom, which had
become disused in his time. It has since been revived,
and deserves all encouragement, as the very best way
of preparing for your repast, however delicate a soup
you may have in prospect; onhj don't eat two dozen., or
even one dozen. Three oysters of the size we have them,
or six like the European ones, give the proper whet.
To this rule of course there are individual exceptions.
One of BRILLAT-SAVARIN'S friends used to eat thirty-
two-dozen, ('say three hundred and eighty four,') and then
was just ready for dinner.
The speculations on the truffle are amusing. Savarin
suspects that the reputation of this famous edible is owing
partly to its rarity and partly to what he learnedly
denominates its genesiar, powers. But give whatever
weight you may to the fact of its being an exotic and
an erotic, it must be confessed to impart an exquisite
flavor to those dishes into the composition of which it
enters, though nothing very wonderful in itself. With
all due deference to the great authorities, and the general
opinion the other way, I do not think that the dried and
bottled truffles are f)ery inferior to those freshly dug. I
have eaten the latter at Rome, where they are as common
as potatoes, and could not not detect any great difference.
Talking of truffles reminds one of mushrooms, which are
to us almost as great a rarity as truffles. Herein we
are much to blame for not properly cultivating our na-
tional resources. A very short residence in England or
France will convince any one of the importance of this
fungus in cookery, and — it may be unfashionable, reader,
but I never attempt to disguise my opinions — the cook
who has plenty of good mushrooms at command need
not, me judice^ much regret the absence of truffles.
Of coffee I have discoursed already. Chocolate finds
great favor with our author, who perhaps, amid his well-
merited eulogiums. slurs over rather too much the fact
that with some people it promotes biliousness. The
Spanish preventive against this is to follow the chocolate
with a glass of water. On this account the beverage is
not so well adapted to our summers ; but in winter there
is no better breakfast than a copious cup of chocolate
with a roll or some dry toast. It is very nourishing.
141
and very light at the same time. Whether a man is
going to exercise his head or his legs, whether he means
to read, write or walk, or particularly if he is going to
travel, there is nothing like the chocolate.
Passing over some more 'meditations' upon 'sugar,'
Hhe theory of frying' and other matters, (for one is obliged
to omit something,) we come to the important subject of
thirsty which naturally leads to the means of appeasing
it. Now, having said some things already which may
appear rather impudent, I am going to say one which
certainly will appear so. I believe M. Brillat-Savarin
to have been rather a take-in in the matter of drinks.
I do this, not because he holds forth on the virtues of
eau sucree, as a beverage 'refreshing, wholesome, agreable,
and sometimes salutary as a remedy;' for the French
passion for that most insipid of beverages which turns
the stomach of an Anglo-Saxon, is an inexplicable idio-
syncrasy, which must be put into the same category with
their delight in veal. No, my reasons are first that he
says comparatively little one the whole subject; and
second, that he promulgates this as one of his funda-
mental axioms.
'It is a heresy to pretend that one must not change
wines: the tongue becomes saturated, and after the third
glass the best wine excites only an obtuse sensation.'
As if one could not drink four consecutive glasses
of Latour without w^anting to cross it with some other
wine ! The very reverse of BRILL AT-SAVARIN'S as-
sertion holds good. It is the mixing of liquors, and
crossing them back and forward, that satiates and con-
fuses the palate, and moreover it is the surest and quickest
way of getting drunk; an important consideration. Stick
to one wine during each course. The only icine of inter-
vals, if I may be allowed the expression, is champagne.
The most sagacious remarks I ever met with on the
use of champagne are to be found in Walker's Original.
Walker was an eccentric character, but he had some
very correct ideas on the subject of dinner-givings. By
the way, did you ever know a W^alker who was not an
original in some way or other? I never did. The eccen-
tricities of the celebrated HOOKHAM, (familiarly called
HOOKY, and related to the distinguished Chinese philo-
sopher HOW^ QUA,) are too well known to need mor^
14^
than an allusion. And this reminds me of a story (I don't
know where I shall get to with all these digressions)
relative to the said HOOKHAM WALKER. It was once
my good fortune to dine with six jolly Englishmen, among
whom was Romano.* Over the mahogany, an exciting
discussion came off between the Rum'un and another of
the company suspected of being a Mason. The conver-
sation became animated, and at last my friend was tempted
to terminate a period by the emphatic and sweeping as-
sertion that ^Masonry was all Walker!'
Now our eighth man was a quiet middle-aged par-
son, not altogether at home in his position, for the rest
of us thought and talked rather too fast (in the natural
as well as the slang sense of the term) for him, and
he did not always perfectly understand the subject on
the tapis. Just after Romano had uttered his oracular
condemnation, there was a momentary pause, when our
clerical friend, bending forward, observed in a slightly
hesitating tone, ^I understand you then to say that this
author, W^ALKER, whom you quote, considers Masonry
to be a delusion ?'
'Just so,' responded the Rum'un, sustaining his gra-
vity by a mighty effort, while the remainder of us stuffed
our napkins into our respective mouths in very imper-
fectly suppresed laughter.
W^ell, W^alker says of champagne, that to go round
with it only once or twice (as is often the case in Eng-
lish and French dinners and sometimes even in American
dinners,) is tantalizing and mere aggravation. It should
go round once during each course, that is to say, three,
four, or five times according to the length of the dinner,
making its appearance with the fishy and not (a very com-
mon fault) in the middle of the dinner. ** And thus ju-
diciously employed, it has a marvellous effect in enlivening
and spiriting up a party. With us generally the fault
is the other way, and our Amphitryons 'lay on' the be-
verage too freely, which is also, though not equally, a
mistake, for the best champagne when drunk pure, cloys
* For a full account of this gentleman, see the American Review^
vol. v., p 631.
** We suppose that the goblets are of a proper capacity. Some
of the old-fashioned tapering glasses scarcely hold a thimble full.
14^
upon the palate sooner than any other wine. Dry is less
cloying than sweet, and accordingly all savans prefer it.
With champagne diluted with iced water in the propor-
tion of one-half or two-thirds as a summer beverage, the
case is different. It is the most cooling and refreshing
of drinks, and there is no satiety or head-ache in an
ocean of it. Therefore, reader mine, when you give a
dinner in hot weather put a bottle of champagne (or at
least a pint bottle) and a saucer of ice by every gentle-
man. * Never mind the looks : it removes all fear of
deficient supply, and saves John and Thomas a vast
deal of trouble in running round with the wine.
On the intellectual eifect of champagne drunk con-
tinuously, BRILLAT-SAVARIN remarks, that 'this wine
which is exciting in its first results (ab initio) is stupifying
in its after results (m recessu.) This conclusion he founds
partly on theory, arguing from the presence of carbonic
acid gas, and partly on his observation of particular cases.
For which reason as well as for that above-mentioned,
it should never be continued into the desert.
In the preparation of cold drinks we Americans ex-
cel. I had the honor of first introducing sherry cobbler,
if not into England, at least to ^ Young England' in the
universities, and the beverage created a perfect furore.
In hot compounds, the English have the advantage of
us. Egg-sherry is better than egg-nogg, and bishop and
cardinal {alias mulled port and mulled claret) are per-
fect in their way. The French have adopted punch with
great zest. Our author speaks of it in the highest terms,
always with the accompaniment of — what do you think ?
— toast^ literally buttered toast ^ another English importa-
tion which the Parisians were then beginning to relish.
Talking of punch, let me give you a hint; the best cold
punch is kirsch — no liquor but kirsch. You can get it
to perfection at Delmonico's. In that punch there is no
to-morroWj a most important consideration.
* It is taken for granted that every man has his carafe of water.
How ridiculous that at large dinners bread and water, the two first
necessaries of life, should often be the hardest things to getl Your
servants should be instructed to put tivo pieces of bread into each
napkin , and carafes of water to each guest are indispensable to a
well-regulated dinner of any size.
144
If John Waters sees tliis he will never forgive me
for insinuating that there is any punch in the world but
his; but the truth must be told at all risks, in a matter
of such importance.
Under the head of gastronomic tests , some bills of
fare are presented to us which will not be without in-
terest to the aesthetic reader. Here they are:
'I. Moderate circumstances; say, five thousand francs income:
'1. A fillet of veal piquee and cooked in its own gravy,
'2. A turkey stuffed with chestnuts.
'3. Fat pigeons properly larded.
'4. A dish of sour-crout and sausages. [?]
'5. (Eufs a la neige,
II. Easy circumstances; say fifteen thousand francs income ;
'1. A fillet of beef pique, and cooked in its own gravy.
'2. A fore-quarter of roebuck with cucumber sauce.
'3. A leg of mutton h. la proven^ale.
'4. A truffled turkey.
'5. New peas.
'III. Wealth; say thirty thousand francs income or more:
'1. A dish of poultry, seven pounds weight, stuffed with peri-
gord truffles till it becomes a globe.
'2. An enormous pate de foie gras.
'3. A great carp k la chambord.
'4. Quails truffled and basted with marrow, upon toast with basil.
'5. A pike pique, and farci, with cray-fish sauce.
'6. A pheasant, kept just long enough, piqu6 on toast.
'7. A hundred sticks of the largest asparagus with gravy sauce.
'8. Two dozens ortolans a la proven<;ale.
'9. A pyramid of meringues a la vanille, and a la rose.'
These bills of fare suggest at once several reflections.
The first which naturally presents itself to the financial
mind of an American is the difference between Gallic
and Anglo-Saxon ideas of wealth. Would any man in
England or America, with six thousand dollars or twelve
hundred pounds a year, think of giving such dinners as
that last? I shouldn't like to try it, even as a bache-
lor. The next is the absence of all mention of soup.
Can it be possible that all the delightful varieties of this
article have been invented within twenty-two years? It
nmbt be so, for it would be absurd to suppose that if
they had existed, a professor of the art like M. Brillat-
Savarin, would have said nothing about them. The bisque
d'ecrivisse^ for instance, which makes the taster of it for
145
the first time experience a new and unimagined sensation,
is one of the last things that an aesthetic writer would
pass over. But the matter is put beyond doubt by a
preceding chapter, wherein he speaks of potage as a single
and simple article, and no more thinks of dividing and
classifying potages^ than one would now of discoursing
on different kinds of bread; though even on that subject
a not uninstructive chapter might be written , without
going into as much detail as Athenseus has done.*
The English are not au fait at the theory of soup.
Not but that some of their soups, such as hare and turtle,
are very delicious; but they are soups to make a dinner
off, not to begin a dinner with. After consuming a co-
pious plateful of either, you should not attempt to par-
take of any thing except a little game. To be sure the
English don't follow the rule, but after two supplies of
rich and satisfying turtle, will go on through three or
four courses; but the English are certainly gross diners.
Bearing in mind this peculiarity of their potages, it is
often a good plan when among them to eschew soup en-
tirely; for it is possible to make a very good dinner
without soup, (though I have a friend who when he reads
this won't believe it.) Such a one is even now present
to my imagination. I enjoyed it with a comrade at Wind-
sor, just three years ago. It consisted of only three dishes,
mutton cutlets with tomato sauce, chicken curry and apple
fritters. The cutlets came up on plate, piping hot, the
fritters ditto, the curry was dexterously prepared, the
ale (so grateful after curry) of the best: to make our
banquet perfect we only wanted good wine, but that is
not to be had at an English hotel 'for love or money.'
It is astonishing how badly off the English are for
wine, considering the great quantity they drink and the
high price they pay for it. They literally do not know
what Madeira is. I lived among them six years, and in
that time knew one corporation and two individuals who
had the article as it should be. They boast of their
sherry; but how often does an American find what he
* Since the above was written , I have ascertained on more
minute inquiry that the Trois freres Provencaucr, then boasted twelve
varieties of soup. I has now — how many? probably seventy at
least. Such is the progress of science.
Vol. I. iO
146
would call a good glass of sherry in England ? Observe,
I am not speaking of hotels merely, but of private families.
They principally pride themselves upon their port, which
is really no wine at all, but an artificial preparation,
which ought only to be used in mixtures, such as bishop
and negus, and then with discretion. But it is time to
go back to our author and his cartes. *
It will also be observed that in the third bill the
epithets prefixed to the dishes signify a profusion of
good cheer. Indeed, that there shall be no mistake on
the subject, he subjoins an observation:
'For a gastronomic test to produce its effect with
certainty, it must be comparatively in large quantity.
Experience, founded on knowledge of the human heart,
teaches us that the most delicate rarity loses its influence
when not in exuberant proportion; for the first impres-
sion which it makes upon the guests is naturally checked
by the fear that they may be shabbily helped, or in
certain cases be obliged to refuse out of politeness.'
Now it seems to me that in this, as well as in every
thing, there is a limit. Profusion will no doubt often
produce a startling effect, but it is generally at the
expense of good taste. I for one do not like to be set
down with seven more to a dinner for twenty. Moreover,
small dishes, except at a very large party, (which is
always a mistake,) look more aesthetic and manageable
than large ones. It is very easy for any man with ordi-
nary judgment to hit the proper medium; (of course we
are speaking of dinners and regular meals; at stand-up
collations, ball-suppers, and the like, there must be a
great deal of waste, and a great allowance for waste;
but the fault is on the right side, and one may be well
forgiven for running into it who has witnessed the
meanness with which game is often distributed at very
pretentious dinners. Titmarsh's sketch of three people,
with one quail among them, is hardly a caricature of
what often occurs. Speaking of game, Walker has a
truly original idea about its introduction. He says, that
by being brought on late in the dinner after the guests'
* He does not speak of them as hills of fare , but as series of
gastronomic tests- so that we must suppose them to include only the
striking and principal dishes; which will account for the omission of
entrees, dessert, etc.
I
147
appetites are nearly sated, it loses its rank as a delicacy
and becomes only equal to an ordinary dish in the begin-
ning of the dinner; therefore he advises that the game
should make its appearance first; and if there is not game
enough for an entire dinner,* joints afterward. The sug-
gestion is a bold one. Meat after game would strike
most people as a startling vaTSQov TEQOTSQOVy and beside,
as it is not right to be too hungry when attacking a
dainty it appears more reasonable to stay the first edge
of appetite on something more substantial; that is, sup-
posing the diner to be sharp-set at the beginning, which
he ought to be. The best plan is now and then to
give a game-dinner exclusively j introducing your venison
immediately after the soup, then your small birds of
various species, and a great display of ducks to conclude.
Dinners of this kind, all in one vein, are very efi'ectual
for a change. The fish dinners of Greenwich and Black-
wall have a great reputation; very unduly, in my opinion.
Water -zouchy is most unsatisfactory stuff; you donH
know whether it is fish or soup, hot or cold; whether
you are to eat it with a spoon or a fork. Of eels they
understand so little as actually to serve them plain fried,
without any kind of sauce ; and the much vaunted white-
bait is not superior to , indeed hardly equal to smelt.
Of the eight or ten dishes usually comprised in the first
course, the only one worth remembering is the salmon-
cutlets, which are really excellent ; and the best part of
the whole affair is the cooling and agreeable 'cup,' com-
posed, I conjecture, chiefly of sherry and cider, pleasantly
flavored with various herbs, and iced to the point. By
way of contrast to a comparison with our French rnenu^,
let us look at one of ^yalker's for a bachelor party of
eight :
'1. Turtle-soup and punch.
'2. White-bait, brown-bread and butter, and champagne.
'3. Grouse and claret.
'4 Apple-fritters and jelly ; claret continued.
'5. Ices and fruit ; claret continued indefinitely.'
* Walker was evidently from his writings a moderate and judi-
cious eater. Thus he speaks of having dined one Christmas on i
woodcock and a slice of plum-pudding; a menu which almost frigh-
tened the •Qu.'\rterly Review' into fits.
10*
I
148
The 'Quarterly Review' objected to the turtle, not
without reason. The sweet punch which the English
always drink with turtlesoup is terribly out of place;
and so is, between you and me, reader, the Roman-punch
introduced at our dinners before the game; at least if
you intend to eat any game after it. It may do for the
women, who are not always able to appreciate venison
and canvassbacks.
To come back to BRILLAT-SAVARIN'S observa-
tion, which has set us wandering so far. The last clause
of it brings to mind a very correct hint, which the con-
siderate reader will not despise because it is quoted
(from memory) out of a book of etiquette; for however
snobbish it may be generally to refer to such manuals,
it does occasionally happen that they are written by
gentlemen, and you may sometimes find in them judicious
and appropriate observations.
'There is no error more common among half-bred
people than that of refusing to take the last piece upon
a dish, 'out of manners,' as it is called. This is a direct
insult to your host, as it insinuates that he is not able
to furnish a fresh supply when the first is exhausted.
It is better even to go out of the way for the sake of
taking the last piece.'
To which it may be added, that if the host is such
a curmudgeon as not to have made sufficient provision,
his meanness ought to be exposed in the most unmistakable
way. Itemy if a very small pie or pudding, or any dish
which is expected to 'go all round,' be put before you
to help, don't worry yourself with trying how many
infinitesimal divisions you can make of it, but distribute
it in reasonable portions so long as it will hold out,
and let the rest go without. It is the host's fault, not
yours. I once saw this experiment tried with complete
success. Half the guests were pieless that day, but the
master of the house always took care in future to have
his tarts of a proper size.
Some men, according to our author, are gourmands
by nature, others by position. Of the latter in France
he enumerates four classes: financiers, doctors, literary
men, and divots, or what we should call 'Professors of
Religion.' Such a catalogue would hardly answer for
our meridian, or even just across the channel. It appears
149
that the different orders of French nuns are distinguished
for different kinds of confectionary. English parsons are
not altogether without the reputation of understanding
the things which pertain to good eating and drinking.
The Fellows of Cambridge are right hearty livers, clever
in the dishes they have, and most liberal and Catholic
in their acceptance of new ones. I well remember how,
after the fatigues of one examination, worn out and half
delirious, (not having slept and scarcely having eaten
for five days and nights,) I went to the rooms of a
fellow-classic to take a quiet cup of tea and read poetry
to him. This double process had pretty well soothed
me down, and I was on the point of departing at nine
P. M., or thereabout, when Horace called me back.
Won't you stay and read some more TENNYSON,
Benson, and have something to drink? I have some capital
cognac that w^as sent me by an old parson in the country.'
At these last words I re-seated myself in well-
founded confidence. Better cognac never came out of
France. The morning was considerably advanced when
I fell asleep in his arm-chair, gloriously oblivious of
my recent annoyances.
We have already adverted to the influence of gastro-
nomy and table-aesthetics upon the destiny of nations.
M. BRILEAT-SAVARIN returns to this head, and illu-
strates it by a striking example from the history of his
own country.
After 1815, the conquered and humbled French
were obliged to pay more than fifteen hundred millions of
francs in three years. Men naturally feared that this
enormous drain on the finances w^ould ruin the country;
but the very reverse proved true. During those three
years, more money came into France than went out of it
The secret of this lay in the excellence of the Parisian
cookery, which attracted thousands of strangers and kept
them there. One individual instance of temporary loss
and ultimate profit is positively gigantic. When the in-
vading army passed through Champagne, they helped
themselves to six hundred thousand bottles of M. Moet's
wine. In the ten years succeeding, the additional orders
which he received from the north of Europe more than
repaid him for this enormous pillage.
We now come to a most important topic 5 not that
150
M. SAVARIN^S remarks upon it are very copious or
striking, for he was writing for a people who had some
knowledge and consideration in the matter; but an infi-
nitely important topic for us Americans, who in relation
to it show more 'crass' ignorance, as Lord Brougham
calls it, or wilful and sinful carelessness, than any people
professing to be civilized. An American seems to think
he is losing time by taking his dinner at a decent pace
and preserving a decent composure and tranquillity after
it. Accordingly, one man rushes to his counting-house
before the last morsel is fairly down; another chooses
that time of day of all others to take a walk — such
a walk, too! — as if his dinner was before instead of
in him, and he were walking for it; a third chooses the
half-hour preceding his departure on a journey for the
important meal, and after shovelling in his last piece of
pie , runs off to catch the boat ; a fourth jumps into a
skeleton buggy and tears over the Third- Avenue , his
fast-trotter pulling his arms half off. If you are asked
to make up a riding-party, ten to one the time specified
is 'after dinner.' Suppose you are in the country, at a
friend's house. How many of my readers can realize
the truth of a picture like this? You sit down to table
at the early hour of three; not too early, however, for
you have risen with whatever American bird corresponds
to the sky-lark, and breakfasted with the chickens. Well,
at four, instead of enjoying a leisurely cup of coffee and
a cigar — if so inclined — on the piazza, and admiring
the scenery in luxurious and dreamy repose, some fid-
getty character proposes to 'see the grounds,' and forth-
with you are dragged off two or three miles, up hill
and down, part of the way under a broiling sun, and
by way of finish, are put into a very imperfectly-cleaned
and still more imperfectly-bailed boat, and set to work
at rowing — of all exercises the most laborious to a
man not perfectly accustomed to it — for an hour or
more; or, as I said before, you are called on to mount
and ride. (N. B. — A ride does not mean a drive, which
latter diversion, if you have a Christian horse, and not
one trained on 'b'hoy' principles, is a very legitimate and
wholesome occupation after dinner in warm weather.)
Now until our countrymen and countrywomen reform
these things ; until the great truth can be inculcated upon
i
151
them that after a copious meal, abstinence from any thing
approaching to severe bodily or mental exercise is indispen-
sable for at least one hour; until then, I say, all the
tee-totallers and Grahamites that ever prated will not save
them from bile and dyspepsia. Not but that bad liquor,
pickles, hot buttered cakes, salt meats, and other things
either atrocious in themselves or mischievous in their
excess, do undoubtedly cause a great deal of harm; but
the prime evil of all is, that whatever they eat they do
not take time to digest it.
The English are as gross and nearly as undiscrimi-
nating feeders as we ; but they understand perfectly this
matter of digestion. The hardest reading student at
the university, the most plodding barrister at the inns
of court, the shrewdest and most diligent merchant, all
eschew on principle hard work of any sort for the hour
or two succeeding their prandiation ; and this praiseworthy
custom may divide with their regular and systematic
exercise the merit of that magnificent health and strength
which characterize all the upper and middle classes of
England.
These remarks upon the post-prandial period natu-
rally bring up another great question, to which, reader
mine, I do entreat your attention. We used to practice
the good old English custom of 'seeing mahogany;' that
is, in twenty minutes or half an hour after dessert is
placed one the table, the ladies retire and the gentlemen
remain at table for about an hour longer. But it is with
sincere grief and mortification that I am compelled to
observe and confess that within a few years this ancient
usage has been invaded and nearly displaced by the
continental custom, according to which both ladies and
gentlemen rise very soon after the dessert has appeared ;
before in fact the more deliberate part of the guests
have done justice to it or begun to appreciate the Bor-
deaux. Now I maintain that for the real purpose and
object of a dinner-party — which is not to make a great
display of plate and china, and bully your guests under
the pretence of hospitality, nor to 'kill ofT people who
have invited you before in conformity with the usages
of a hearties and hollow etiquette, but to bring people
tooether that they may enjoy themselves; and accordingly
BRILLAT-SAVARIN nobly and philosophically declares.
152
that 'to invite any one to dinner is to take charge of
his happiness for the time that he remains under your
roof — for the real purpose and object of a dinner-party,
I say, the English usage is on all accounts preferable. It is not
always possible nor desirable that all your guests should
be intimate associates to begin with; one great use of a
dinner is to make pleasant and clever people acquainted
with each other, and give them the opportunity of be-
coming friends if they mutually suit. Now this oppor-
tunity is much better promoted by the English plan, be-
cause, FIRST, there are certain subjects on which
gentlemen are most disposed to talk out, and draw^ one
another out, and converse easily and naturally, which
are mere bores to the ladies. Such are, first, politics;
secondly, some particular branches of science and litera-
ture which are generally out of a lady's line; third, dif-
ferent kinds of business and commercial aifairs. In like
manner, the w^omen have their peculiar topics ; for instance,
nice points of dress and millinery, about w^hich few
gentlemen take much interest or have much knowledge.
So that nothing throws your company together and makes
them talk out and lets them within each other, so to
speak, like separating the sexes for a time and letting
each converse on its own topics.
SECONDLY. A man is naturally inclined imme-
diately after dining to some little abandon of attitude
and manner. He likes to lean back in his chair or to
turn it half round to his neighbor's, or perhaps, if he
has well dined, to let out a button or two of his waistcoat.
Nor do I believe that some corresponding latitude is
altogether unpleasing to the fair sex, and that they object
to reclining in their favteuils for a while and gossiping
at leisure among themselves without the trouble of having
to try to look interested at fine gentlemen speeches.
Then there are men who like to smoke after dinner;
and though not an habitual smoker myself, I know enough
of the effects of the cigar to sympathize with those who
find it an exceeding comfort about that time. There are
some also who like their half-bottle of Bordeaux after
dinner, and others (like myself) who like to sip their
glass or two very leisurely. Now by letting a man do
these things (which he can do only when the English
plan is adopted) you make him feel at home at once:
153
he grows genial and natural, and disposed to talk other
things beside mere drawing-room common-place, and lets
you see something of what manner of man he is. Thus
you may find out more about a person, his specialites^
strong and weak points, good qualities, hobbies, etc., by
dining once with him, English fashion, than fifty times
French fashion, in which latter case, indeed, unless you
sit near him you may never come to know him at all.
Nevertheless, in spite of these potent and unan-
swerable reasons to the contrary, the non - mahogany
system is fast gaining ground among us, being urged
and supported by two classes, the Gallomanic fashionables
who will follow the French blindly in every thing (though
even the French are not so abrupt as their imitators
here, and do not rush away from the table in ten minutes
after the fruit and ices are put on) and the stingy fine
people who are shy of their wine. I dined once with
a character of the latter sort, and it was amusing (or
rather it would have been to any but a sufferer) to
watch how carefully he abstained from taking any notice
of the decanters before him (of course through mere
absence) and how spirited his conversation became with
those immediately on each side of him. Having a pre-
sentiment that there was but a quarter of an hour before
us, I vainly strove to catch his eye with looks that almost
magnetized the decanters themselves and brought them
dowTi of their ovm accord. It was only throwing away
so much ocular indignation and entreaty. At length
when he had nicely calculated his time, he started the
wine with a great flourish and it had just gone once
round when Mesdames rose, the host started with his
lady, and we as is in duty bound did the same. Now
if a man only drinks one glass of wine at his dessert
he likes not to have to do it in a hurry. But the truth
is that most diners-out like more, if they will act in
truth, and not play hypocrites to themselves and one
another. And without any fear of falling into the former
English habits of vinous excess (which honest John has
now happily amended) a guest may w^ell and comfortably,
during the hour of social relaxation, when the chairs of
the w^ell-dined banqueters are drawn close together, im-
bibe his half-bottle of red wine, preceded and followed
by a glass of Madeira or Sherry. (This is a very good
154
rule, a glass of white wine as a foundation for the claret,
and another as a preparation for the coffee: it was one
of BRUMMELL'S.) There is surely nothing indelicate,
or ungallant or discourteous in a man's drinking more
than a woman, any more than there is in his eating more,
which every one takes as a matter of course. Indeed
the latter fact necessarily leads to the former.
And now, should the reader be afflicted with the
too prevalent epidemic of Anglophobia, he may begin to
chafe, so it will be well to appease him with some of our
Frenchman's maxims for a dinner, which however I shall
take the liberty of accompanying, as in a former instance,
with such commentaries as they suggest. BRILLAT-
SAVARIN introduces them w^ith the appropriate obser-
vation that 'however delicate the meats and however
sumptuous the accessories, there is no enjoyment at table,
should the wine be bad, the guests collected indiscrimi-
nately, and the meal consumed with precipitation.'
'The number of guests should not exceed twelve , so
that the conversation may be general.'
Connu et agree. I will not positively affirm that it
is impossible to conduct a large dinner on aesthetic prin-
ciples, as I have never dined with very great people,
and am not prepared to say w^hat the union of colossal
fortune and highly cultivated taste may not accomplish;
but I am sure it must be very difficult. One reason
immediately suggests itself. At a very large table there
must be a considerable interval between each course,
and supposing that the guests are so felicitously grouped
as to be able to amuse themselves during these intervals,
with or without the assistance of music, (and this is not
probable where the guests are numerous,) the whole
period of the dinner must ultimately be protracted to a
tedious length. For a bachelor dinner, eight is an ex-
cellent number. By the way, when the head of a family
gives a bachelor party, he should either pitch his tent
at a restaurateur's for the occasion, or contrive that
Madame shall dine with her relations. One woman among
seven men is awfully out of place, and sure to be bored
herself without adding any thing to their pleasure.
'The guests should be so selected that their pursuits
shall be various, while their tastes are analogous, and
155
with such points of contact that you will not be obliged
to have recourse to the odious formality of introductions/
A magnificent expression of profound wisdom. 'The
guests should be so selected that their pursuits shall be
various while their tastes are analogous;' that is to say,
they must be gentlemen and liberally-educated men in
the highest sense of those terms; and then, however
diverging their lines of business or pleasure, they will
be sure to find points of contact. 'The odious formality
of introductions' is a strong phrase, but not too strong
for the occasion. We have carried this absurdity to its
height. I don't know wheter the elaborate presentation
and solemn hand-shaking that one has to undergo every
where is more annoying or ridiculous. How much better
they manage these things in England ! There you meet
a stranger at dinner; over the wine you hear him talk
and perhaps talk to him; you learn his name indirectly
and he yours ; you take a survey of the man, physically,
intellectually, and socially; and afterward it is at your
option to know him or not when you next meet. Which
ever you do he has no right to be offended.
'The dining-room should be brilliantly lighted, the
table-furniture of remarkable propriety, and the tempera-
ture between sixty and seventy degrees.'
The first hint needs no comment. The second may
for a moment 'give us pause.' There are many things
connected with the equipment of the table, involving
more or less expense. It is not every one who is the
fortunate possessor of costly plate and sumptuous china.
The most accessible luxury, and that which gives most
pleasure in proportion, is elegant cut glass. The delicate
form of a decanter and still more of a glass, adds a
new zest to the generous liquor contained in it, and
makes the aesthetic drinker linger goblet in hand. But
the plate and china are very glorious things for those
that have them. Only it is a fatal mistake (happily
more common in Europe than here) to suppose that any
display of these can atone for any deficiency in that
which is upon them. On the contrary, the more exqui-
site your china and plate the more necessity that your
cook should be irreproachable. Any thing bad, or shabby,
or scanty in the dinner, is only aggravated by the gor-
geousness of the service, which is then felt to be but a
156
bitter mockery. The temperature of the room will depend
not merely not on the quantity of fuel employed, but
also on the number of guests in proportion to its size.
I mention this apparently self-evident fact, because many
people who give dinners do most certainly lose sight of
it. Not unconnected with this is another fault which
deserves the most serious animadversion; that of putting
more people at a table than providence and the cabinet-
maker intended should sit at it. * Doctor X., the master
of — College, Cambridge, was a sad sinner in this
respect. I used to think that his parties were given on
the principle of solving some problem in physics like
this: Given a table of a certain size; required the number
of individuals that can be brouyht around it in a sedentary
posture. It was once my felicity to give him a gentle
hint. Being in the position of a trussed goose at his
board, in some crippled movement, I contrived to knock
over a tumbler. Whereupon he looked thunder-cloudish,
and the uncivilized Cantabs there assembled began to
laugh by way of restoring the stranger (it was the third
month of my residence in England) to his ease. With
a composed countenance I turned to the great X — ,
and assured him that 'accidents would happen in the
best regulated families,' a pregnant proverb involving the
inference that a fortiori were they likely to happen when
people were packed together in that fashion.
^The men should be intellectual without pretension,
and the women amiable without coquetry.'
Methinks I hear the reader say, 'It is very easy to
give such rules as these, but to be able to comply with
them is another thing.'
Perfectly right : it is difficult to follow this direction,
and I am glad you appreciate the dificulty. Half the
battle is to select your company. It is a work of thought
for a bachelor party: when you ask couples the task
becomes one of great nicety, and when you mean to
invite the men and w^omen separately, all your cleverness
and all Madame's will be brought into play. To combine
a party of young ladies and unmarried gentlemen, and
* WHEREAS arm-chairs are very pleassant on other accountsj
they are particularly useful on this, that they prevent the possibility
of over-crowding your table.
157
make the dinner go oif well, is the highest triumph of
social genius.
On this most important jubject a few suggestions
may not be altogether out of place.
1. James Smith's rule for a literary bachelor party
is, eight guests: six talkers; two listeners.
Scholium. The most valuable guest is he who can
be a talker or a listener, according to the company he is
in. This requires a man to be brilliant, sensible and
modest, a rare and happy union of qualities.
2. Beware of bringing too many lions together: they
are not apt to roar in perfect concert. This is a very
natural error when you are feasting a stranger or foreigner.
Anxious to show off to him the celebrities of your place
and your acquaintance with them, you are tempted to
ask all the men of note your room and table will hold,
forgetting the first rule, that to give talkers their fair
chance, there must be listeners.
3. Avoid all bas bleus.
4. Avoid all men who, as was said of Coleridge,
'have a talent for monologue.' Any one who will mo-
nopolize the conversation, however great his talents and
acquirements may be, is oppressive at a dinner. The
places for such people are soirees und conversaziones^
where they can lecture to circles of admirers.
5. One fool positive^ that is to say an individual who
persists in making stupid remarks, whether talked to or
not, is enough to spoil a whole party.
6. Some of the very pleasantest parties are those made
up of persons who have at some period of their lives
been intimate; but who, by their daily pursuits or other
circumstances are prevented from meeting very often.
This is the remark of a shrewd English friend: it has
a relation with BRILLAT-SAVARIN'S precept, that
Hhe pursuits of the guests should be various and their
tastes analogous.'
'The dishes should be most carefully selected and
not too numerous, and the wines the very best,' each of
his kind.'
The other precepts I omit, because some of them,
such as those relative to the coffee and the liqueurs, have
been already anticipated, and others relative to tempo-
rary fashions, such as tea, toast and punch, which were
15S
then (in 1825) recently-introduced English novelties. But
the last one deserves attention.
'No one should go before eleven, but every one
should be in bed by twelve.'
This corresponds to the Englisman's rule w^ho hung
over the chimney-piece of his dining-room : ^Come at seven^
go at eleven.''
But one day an erratic friend, who wished to pro-
long the festivities, inserted a monosyllable which mate-
rially changed the nature of the precept, for it then read:
'Come at seven, go IT at eleoeti.'' And they did 'go it'
accordingly.
This closing precept takes it for granted that the
guests have no other engagement that night. But from
a dinner to an evening party or ball is a natural and
customary progress, and therefore the natural arrange-
ment seems to be that your carriage should come to take
you from one just in time to take you to the other. And
this reminds of another argument in favor of the English
habit of remaining at table. I occupies an hour or two
agreeably, which by the pseudo-Gallic innovation is utterly
thrown away. What earthly use is there in breaking up
your dinner-party at eight or half-past eight when no
one goes to a ball before ten? Or if there is no ball
to go to, it is even worse. You reach home before nine:
it is too early to go to bed, and your evening is just
broken up. If I had quoted all SAVARIN'S maxims,
you would have seen that his post-prandial arrangements
are not so directly antagonistic to those of the English.
The sederunt is transferred from the dining-room to the
drawing room; there is whist for the gentlemen instead
of politics, and punch instead of claret; but one of the
great ends, repose and ease in the house where you have
just dined , is attained by analogous , though different
means.
Our next halting place in the physiology shall be the
meditations on corpulence. The reader must not be too
startled at hearing that one cause of obesity is — eating
and drinking too much. The quality of the aliment how-
ever, has as much to do with the matter as the quantity.
Bread is exceedingly fattening; those therefore who are
inclined to be corpulent should eat but little, and that
little of rye. They should also avoid eggs , potatoes.
159
rice , pastry and other farinaceous substances. (I am
afraid this last sentence reads somewhat like the grocer's
sign, — Soap^ candles, blacking and other vegetables for
sale here. Don't put down the confusion to BRILLAT-
SAVARIN'S discredit; it is all my fault. I am trying
to condense the substance of his remarks as much as
possible, for this grave treatise which set out to be eight
pages , has run on to a length that frightens me; and
hence you see dum brevis esse laboro, etc.) They must
also have a horror of beer. So much for negatives; for
positive remedies, they must eat radishes and celery and
drink seltzer-water and light French wines. The next
precept seems somewhat inconsistent with this, for they
are commanded to eschew vinegar, and the command is
enforced by a touching history of a beautiful girl, who
by drinking a glass of vinegar every morning in the
foolish hope of thereby reducing her figure, brought
herself to a premature grave at the age of eighteen.
Finally, it will be well if they can rise early and take
much exercise on foot and on horseback , but these
recommendations, the author adds, are difficult to follow^,
and he therefore does not depend much upon them. The
chapter in which he enlarges on the difficulties of carrying
out these most simple prescriptions is amusingly and at the
same time painfully indicative of the Celtic character as
contrasted with the Anglo-Saxon. What to an Englishman
or Englishwoman is second, nay, first nature, is an out-of
the way and impracticable remedy to a French ditto.
Those unfortunates who suffer from the opposite
defect, will of course adopt a contrary regimen, take
eggs at breakfast, rice, potatoes and pastry at dinner,
and plenty of bread at all times. They will drink beer,
(which it is not considered vulgar to do in London and
Paris , and which it is supremely absurd to consider
unlady-like here, although there are dummies among us
who if told that a young lady 'drank beer' would look
at her as a sort of Lola Montez,) and pay proper at-
tention to sponge-biscuits, macaroons and similar varieties
of confectionary. The author expatiates with miich feeling
on the regime incrassant^ commencing thus:
'Every lean woman wishes to grow plumper; we
have noted the desire in a thousand instances; it is then
to render a final homage to the all-powerful sex, that
160
we shall endeavor to replace by real forms those fictitious
charms of silk and cotton which one sees so profusely
exposed in the shops, to the great scandal of all rigid
moralists who pass by in a tremor and turn away their
faces from these chimeras as sedulonsly as, nay, more
so than if the reality were before them.'
Elsewhere in more homely and practical language
he says , that 'it is as easy to fatten a woman as a
chicken.'
Here is a delicious bit of aesthetic enthusiasm:
'Shun all acids, except salad which rejoices the heart.''
Salad as a great many Americans and almost all
Englishmen make it, does any thing but rejoice the heart.
Will it be believed that in a cookery-book published in
this city and sold by several of the principal booksellers,
there occurs a receipt for dressing salad which leads off'
thus. 'Take three spoonfuls of oil and as many of vinegar,''
A mingled feeling of indignation and pity stops my pen.
Whoever wrote down that receipt in cold blood ought
to be sent forever to where we are about to accompany
M. BRILLAT-SAVARIN.
Namely, Lent.
Not however with the intention of fasting ; the more
so as our author expressly condemns fasting as a very
bad practice , wherein I take it for granted that my
readers are good Protestants enough to agree with him.
No, we will only touch on this meditation because it
gives a sketch of the manner in which the Parisians at
the middle of last century arranged their meals when
they were not in Lent.
'We used to breakfast before nine on bread and
cheese , fruits and sometimes cold meat. [Not in the
order in which they are here enumerated it is to be
hoped.]
Between twelve and one we dined on the habitual
soup and soupbeef, with better or worse accompaniments
as our means and other circumstances allowed.
At four there w^as a lunch, a light meal for the
particular benefit of children and of those who piqued
themselves on following the usages of antiquity.
But there were supperish lunches which began at
five and lasted indefinitely.
161
'About eight came the supper; roast, side-dishes,
sweets, salad and dessert.'
That is what we should call a late dinner mi?ius the
soup and fish. Nature seems to dictate that the principal
meal should be taken when the fatigue of the day is
over; whether it be called dinner or supper is a mere
fashion of the times.
From speculating on the usages of different ages,
the transition is easy to a history of the art. Our author
says a great deal about the cookery of the Greeks and
Romans, and it would be easy for me to say as much
more, and overwhelm you with an ocean of erudition,
gossip, and jokes, more or less bad, out of that inex-
haustible Athenseus. But nothing is farther from my
intention, because, in the first place, our knowledge of
the classical cuisine is very imperfect when we come to
details, and secondly, what we do know in a general
way does not impress one very favorably. With the
deepest veneration for the poetry of the ancients, I have
a very moderate opinion of their table-aesthetics. The
thick impissated wines, the clumsy fashion of lying down
at meals, which no modern but Fanny Kemble has ever
been able to practice, the Romans' preference for pork
— the Athenians were more aesthetic, and founded their
suppers on fish and game — all these and various other
peculiarities of theirs, are to us incomprehensible, if not
barbarous. One or two things I will just allude to, as
they show amusing resemblances in ancient and modern
matters. The Greeks had regular bills of fare; so the
prince of gossips tells us in his second book. 'When
the host had reclined,' he says, 'there was presented a
little writing, {yQaf-if-LaTidLOv tl,) containing a sketch of
the preparations, so that he might know what delicacies
the cook was going to serve.' * And in one of the later
books of this indefatigable gourmand there is a list of
receipts for making cake, several of which on examina-
tion I have found to be, with the substitution of sugar
for honey, very good receipts for those good old KNICK-
ERBOCKER preparations, krullers, dough-nuts and oely-
koeks. Happening once to mention this to a Cantab
friend, he remarked that one of the London University
Vol. I.
Deipnosophistffi II., 33 (50).
11
162
professors (let us say 'George Long 5' for a story is only
half a story unless there are some names in it;) had
tried to put into practice these very receipts, and made
an awful mess of them. Somewhat taken aback by this,
I a length bethought me of inquiring whether Long had
ever in his life before made cakes of any kind. To which
the response w^as in the negative.
Thirty-eight pages of manuscript, and we are only
just at the beginning of the second part of the Physio-
logy ! What a pity we cannot linger on that second part!
It would have been a rich treat, for here the author
drops precept and argument entirely, and indulges him-
self in illustration and anecdote. I should have liked
above all things to relate to you his preservation of a
huge turbot's 'entirety' after it had puzzled the bon mcants
of Villecrene as much as one of its species did Domitian's
senate of old; and his Day with the Bernardines, which
reminds us of the song about
— 'The monks of old,
What jolly good souls they were!'
and shows that some of the brotherhood at least have
not deteriorated in this respect; and the consternation of
innkeeper when required to lodge and entertain a large
arrival of English, 'for not more than six francs;' and
a dozen other good stories ; but it could hardly be done
short of this whole number of the KNICKERBOCKER.
Let me just give you one anecdote ; not because it is by
any means the best, but because it is the shortest. The
author having been slightly 'done' by an apothecary, is
on the point of calling the worthy dispenser of drugs to
account, when he is suddenly deterred by remembering
the bad success of his friend General BOUVIER in an
encounter with one of the fraternity. This general sent
for M. BRILLAT-SAVARIN to sustain him in the in-
terview with his apothecary, who had overcharged him ;
and to the further intimidation of this redoubtable per-
sonage he had arrayed himself in full uniform, orders
and all. He was just explaining this to our author.
'When even as he spoke the door opened, and we beheld a man
of about fifty-five years enter , carefully dressed. He was of lofty
stature and sedate step. His whole appearance would have presented
a uniform aspect of severity, had not his eyes and mouth together
betokened something sardonic in their connection.'
168
[What a novel SAVARIN might have written if he
had tried! Did you ever see a character better introdu-
ced? It is a perfect opening of a mysterious chapter.]
'He approached the fire-place, refusing to take a seat, and the
following dialogue ensued, which I have faithfully retained in my
memory :
'THE GENERAL.
'Sir, this is a regula^r apothecary's bill that you have sent me,
and —
'THE MAN IN BLACK.
'Sir, I am not an apothecary.
'THE GENERAL.
'And what are you then. Sir?
'THE MAN IN BLACK.
'Sir, I practice pharmacy.
'THE GENERAL.
'Very well, Mr. Practiser of Pharmacy, your boy ought to have
told you —
'THE MAN IN BLACK.
'Sir, I have no boy.
'THE GENERAL.
'Who was that young man then?
'THE MAN IN BLACK.
'Sir, he is a pupil.
'THE GENERAL.
'Well, Sir. I wished to tell you that your drugs —
'THE MAN IN BLACK.
'Sir, I do not sell drugs.
'THE GENERAL.
'And what do you sell then, Sir?
'THE MAN IN BLACK.
'Sir, I sell medicines,'
'There the discussion finished. The general, ashamed of having
comitted so many solecisms and of being so little advanced in the
knowledge of the pharmaceutic tongue, was thrown into confusion,
forgot what he had to say, and paid all that was demanded.'
And now, reader, a word in your ear before we
part. Do you prefer that Celtic or Anglo-Saxon prin-
ciples to prevail in the world ? If you have any tendency
to the Puritan faith, if you undertake to be a strict
moralist and a religious man, you can hardly help desiring
11*
164
that the latter should triumph. Very well; if you give
up the science of table-sesthetics, which has so important
an influence on mankind, to the Celts, you leave in their
hands a tremendous weapon and means of obtaining power.
Ask a Frenchman the reason of his country's ascendency ;
and if a conceited man like Michelet, he will tell you
that it is because France has lavished more blood and
treasure and labor in the cause -of humanity than all
the other nations in the world together, which is — very
much after the manner of Michelet; or if you ask a
more modest man, like our physiologist, he will say that
it is because the French are so obliging in their inter-
course with strangers as always to let themselves down
to the level of their capacity; of the truth of which
those who have travelled abroad can judge for themselves.
But the true secret is, depend upon it, the progress
which the French have made in the arts of dress and
cookery, wherein, notwithstanding occasional absurdities,
they on the whole very much surpass the rest of the
world. By the former they gain the women; by the
latter, both sexes. Will you yield them without an effort
the whole of this advantage, or try to put yourself as
nearly on an equal footing as you can? 'What's the
reason the devil should have all the good tunes?' said
some great divine; Calvin, was it, or Wesley? 'What's
the reason the French should have all the good dinners?'
eays CARL BENSON.
The following letter explains itself in connection with
the above.
'20, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy, Paris, February 22, 1854.
'DEAR KNICK. :
'Les absens ont toujours tort.'
'THE proverb mey be truer in French than in some other lan-
guages, but it is tolerably pertinent in all. Frequently of late has it
recurred to me , owing to the non-appearance of the KNICKER-
BOCKER in these parts; and when, at last, the January number
turned up, it appeared that you had been forgetting old friends in
more ways than one. For there, in black and white, was to be found
this confession : 'It is a curious circumstance, of which until now we
were ignorant, that SAVARIN was a political exile in America,' etc.
^Until now we were ignorant 1' O KNICK., it 's too bad of you! Have
you forgotten that article I wrote you in 1848 about BRILLAT-
SAVARIN, wherein was pointed out, with becoming emphasis, the
165
extreme modesty of the distinguished exile, whereby, as he says, he
made himself so popular among us, namely, pretending not to be
cleverer than the Americans, (n'avoir plus d'esprit qu'eux 7')
'Perhaps hou have forgotten it ; and perhaps you may say to me,
or some of your readers for you: 'Here is KNICK. receiving barrels
of MSS. every week from all parts of the civilized world ; publishing
thirty articles a month, to say nothing of the unpublished and unpub-
lishable ones ; do you think he recollects what you or any one else
wrote him six years ago?' To which I must answer as Lord LON-
DONDERRY did to the British Ambassador at Constantinople. Lord
LONDONDERRY (his name is Vane LONDONDERRY, a name phusei,
and not thesei, as the Greeks used to say) being at Constantinople,
wanted to see all the lions there, and among other things to be
presented to the SULTAN ; and asked the British Ambassador
accordingly :
"My dear Lord LONDONDERRY,' said the Ambassador, 'the
operation is both difficult and dangerous, besides being unusual; it is
customary to make presents to the SULTAN, but not presentations:
as a general rule, I don't introduce any body.'
"My dear Lord,' (whatever-his-name-was,) said LONDONDERRY,
'I am not any body, and am not subject to general rules.'
'So I say fearlessly that I am not subject to general rules , and
still less was the subject of that article. For were we not both
interested therein, with the interest that comes from knowledge and
appreciation? Were not the observations of BRILLAT - S A VARIN
really phonanta synetoisin in our case? Was not almost the very
last thing I did in America to partake of your hospitality, in company,
I recollect, with that illustrious man, the editor of the Bunkum Flag-
Staff, when we discussed various ways of cooking oysters, and oysters
cooked in various ways ?
'Well, / remember the article, at any rate , if you don't ; and all
the origin and getting-up of it; how I was reading BRILLAT-SAVARIN
in the library of HENRY BREVOORT, (sit ei terra levisf) and casually
observed to him that it would be a good theme for a magazine paper;
how he happened to meet you next day, and made the same obser-
vation; and how the day after came to me a little note from your
'sanctum,'
'DEAR B— : When will that article of yours on BRILLAT-SAVARIN
be ready?'
which sudden taking me up on a barely expressed opinion without
any intention involved, did not, nevertheless, surprise me in the least ;
for we were used to that sort of thing. Didn't DUYCKINCK — peace
to the manes of the Literary World! how much of ours and our friends
lies buried with it ! that's always the way j 'I never had a dear ga-
166
zelle,' etc., but it was sure not to pay expenses and stop publication,
as DICK SWIVELLER might say — didn't DUYCKINCK use to
stop me in the street and order an article on MENANDER, for
instance, without waiting to ascertain whether I had ever read the
classic in question ? Then he would add, by way irresistible clincher,
'You know you're the only man that can do it,' a sort of panegyrical
ellipsis for 'yoii know you're the only man that will do it without a
con-side-ra-tion.' So being used to that sort of thing, we went to
work with a will, and were a full week polishing up the article to
the best of our small ability. And when it came out in the full glory
of KNICK.'s best type , all our aesthetic friends did us the honor to
— say they would look at it ; and the fame of it spread so far in a
certain circle that old BACCHUS, who had never been known to go
to any great expense for literature, actually offered to — read the
magazine if I would send him a copy ; whereupon I incontinently told
him that he might go to the — club, and read it there.
'But after all, it is as well that periodical literature should be
forgotten from season to season ; it gives the same things a chance
of being said more than once. Not that I have any intention of so
doing, or of inflicting any rifacimento of that article on you ; but the
mention of BRILLAT-SAVARIN naturally suggests some reflections
on his speciality to one dwelling in the scene of his most brilliant
labors; where, indeed, you are continually reminded of him by the
sight or other experience of a cake that bears his name — just as
CHATEAUBRIAND, another great celebrity in his way, is immorta-
lized in a particular description of beef-steak, one of twice the usual
thickness.
'It is very easy to sneer at the art of table-aesthetics , and not
difficult to sermonize against it, which does not in the least prevent
its being a valuable product and adjunct of civilization. Having on
the already-referred-to former occasion fully set forth the economical
advantages derived from a knowledge of the art, I shall now pass
over that head sicco pede. As to the physical, it is obvious that
well-cooked dishes are more digestible and nourishing than imperfectly
cooked ones, not to speak of the fearful stimulus given to intempe-
rance in liquor and immoderate use of tobacco by unwholesome and
unsatisfactory dinners. The temperance of the French is almost
proverbial. Still greater are the social benefits resulting from our
art. For how much ill-temper , hatred , envy , malice , and all un-
charitableness are the cooks of the Great Republic accountable! I am
sure that the good folks who like to vent their spite upon us absentees
would be in better humor if they had better dinners. "What has
increased the profusion and waste of our entertainments till fashionable
society has degenerated into a mere round of showy restaurant dinners
and suppers? what more than the impossibility of giving quiet little
167
dinners and suppers from one's own kitchen ? How many Gothamites
would dare ask a friend to take pot-luck with them at an hour's
notice, and how many friends would dare to accept such an invitation?
Here it is nothing uncommon, which is enough to account for society
being more sociable.
"What,' says some indignant moralist, 'do you mean to hold up
French society as a pattern to us virtuous republicans?'
'By no means , my friend , not as a general rule ; only in this
particular. But if any man seriously thinks that the immorality of
the French is owing to their knovnng how to cook good dinners, and
eat them when cooked , why then , in the words of THUCYDIDES,
'I felicitate him on his simplicity, but do not commend his cleverness.'
You might with as much reason attribute it to their temperance. A
Certain amount of physiological case might be made out for that pa-
radox. A more plausible objection may be started. I may be reminded
that the English, who are the greatest people in the world, excepting,
of course, the Americans, and the finest and healthiest-looking people
in the world, not excepting even the Americans, are far behind several
European nations in all arts pertaining to cookery. The objection
looks formidable. But let us 'discriminate the difference,' as a logical
friend of mine used to say before entering into any discussion. Let
us look at the question from all its points of view. The English are
gross and careless feeders just as they are capacious and indiscri-
minate drinkers. Their moist climate and the great quantity of open-
air exercise they take, enable them to consume, without injury, a great
amount of heavy viands and strong potables. But the diet that an
Englishman can thrive on in his own country, would be ruinous to
an American , or even to an Englishman in America. The liquids
which the former can imbibe like water would set the latter on fire;
the solids which nourish the one would indigest (to coin a Gallicism)
the other. It is very doubtful if our climate allows as much exercise
as that of England, and quite certain that it does not encourage as
much. Our people, therefore, require a better system of cookery than
the English. All the refinements of the table, it is said, are mere
creatures of an artificial state of society. "Very true; so are all re-
finements and improvements in dress , in domestic architecture, in all
the comforts of material civilization as distinguished from intellectual
cultivation. Is that a reason for despi^ng them? A celebrated no-
velist has drawn an amusing picture of ADAM and EVE's perplexity
and discomfort when transported to a well-spread modern dinner-table ;
but would they not be equally perplexed at any tailor's or dress-
maker's, or, for that matter, inside of any modern house? If the
example of our first parents is a precedent for going back to a fruit
and cold-water diet, it will equally justify us in adopting their very
168
primitive toilette, or in 'camping out' instead of sleeping on comfortable
beds under a weather-tight roof.
'No doubt there is a certain amount of fashion and custom in
table-8B8thetics , as there is in almost every thing , from crime to
mathematics ; and these fashions and customs , change from time to
time. In DEAN SWIFT'S day (as we learn from his Polite Conver-
sation) the English used to eat soup in the middle of the dinner
which moves THACKERAY'S wonder exceedingly. 'What sort of
society could it have been?' he asks with natural astonishment. And
yet fish, which, according to THACKERAY'S countrymen and ours,
comes the very next to soup, has not yet had its place perfectly
defined on continental tables. The French used to eat it after the
entrees and just before the roast , although most of them have now
adopted the Anglo-Saxon order. But perhaps THACKERAY would
be somewhat surprised if he were told that in a part of his own
county, at the present day, soup is eaten after meat, namely, at the
Pensioner's table of Trinity College , Cambridge , where probably
THACKERAY ate it so himself in his undergraduate days. The
reason assigned to me for this practice was, that the meat being put
upon the table at the beginning of dinner would grow cold if not
eaten first, while the soup, being an extra, might be ordered hot from
the kitchen at any stage of the repast. It is not every custom that
can give so good a reason for itself.
'But THACKERAY was right in his question. It is strictly
philosophical to begin a dinner with soup, as it obviates the necessity
for drinking, which many, perhaps most persons, feel at the commence-
ment of a meal. The preliminary whet of oysters, like the chasse
after the coffee, must be considered an over-refinement of luxury only
suited to great occasions, and not to the dinner of every-day life.
'And similarly, I believe that most of the rules of a scientific
and aesthetic dinner may be explained and defended as bona in se,
and not arising from any caprice of fashion. Thus, to take a funda-
mental principle — the division into courses — eating one thing at
a time instead of every thing in a heap — does it not commend
itself to the educated man's finer feelings instinctively? There is
much barbarism anent this matter in our country; not merely in the
frontier regions of it, either. One of my first experiences in New-
England, when a lad of sixteen, was dining out, and having seven
kinds of meat and vegetables clapped upon my plate at once. Pro-
bably my hosts thought it rather a proof of their civilization. I
recollect once talking to the 'gentleman' who interpreted for some
travelling Indian chiefs. He said that these sons of the forest had
many habits different from those of civilized people ; for instance,
they only took one kind of food on their plate at once when dining.
Poor man! he little guessed that his barbarous charges resembled,
169
in this respect, the most refined inhabitants of the French captial,
who would have put him down for any thing but a civilized man if
they had seen him eat.
'For my part, I thoroughly believe that the dinner-cooking and
dinner-giving arts have arrived at a state much nearer the perfection
of reason and common-sense than many other arts of modern society ;
much nearer than that of dress, for instance. What, I wonder, will
some future and wiser generation think of our ladies' low-necked
ball-dresses , whether as regards decency , comfort , or symmetry ?
What of the street-sweeping skirts ? What will it think of that acme
of inaptitudes , the common domestic masculine hat ? You may hear
men wishing to live to or through some great epoch; till the next
French Revolution but three; or till MACAULAY has finished his
history , or till the conversion of the South-Sea Islanders. I should
like to live to see the conversion of the civilized world — from the
absurdity of the present civilized hat.
'Some of the varieties in the table-sesthetics of different countries
may be easily accounted for by the different capacities and tempera-
ments of nations. Thus, the genial Anglo-Saxon custom of post-prandial
sederunts would be perilous to the Gaul, who is so light-headed as
to be unequal to combining the usual consumption of wine on such
occasions with the equilibrium necessary for the drawing-room after-
ward. So, too, in the distribution of wines during dinner. Anglo-Saxons
begin with champagne after the soup, or at latest after the fish,
reserving the claret for the close of the banquet; in France it is not
uncommon to drink the best Bordeaux in the earlier stages of the
dinner, and only open a bottle of champagne just before the dessert-
Each custom is in accordance with the character of the people that
follows it. The Anglo-Saxon, grave and phlegmatic, is excited to a
proper spirit and liveliness by the early introduction of the champagne,
which would make the Frenchman too gay before the close of the
dinner; he goes on upon his own natural spirits and the quieter red
wines, till, when tired of talking and eating, a glass or two of the
sparkling beverage winds him up and sets him going again.
'One thing I never could account for — the German habit of
eating sweet puddings before the roast. Most dietetic barbarisms can
be explained. When the Down-Easter or Backwoods-man heaps from
six to sixteen different viands on his plate at once, it exemplifies his
promiscuous acquisitiveness and indiscriminating haste. But the German
mind is orderly and logical ; how could it have admitted the solecism
of the misplaced puddings ?
'Although self debarred at the outset from dwelling on the eco-
nomic side of the subject, I cannot help remarking how much of the
animal and vegetable world is wasted in various countries through
culinary ignorance. The English use buckwheat only to feed pheasants
170
being utterly unaware what excellent pan-cakes it affords. Some
European nations are equally ignorant of the pumpkin's utility for
human sustenance. "We Americans make a very inferior pie of it,
tasting something like wet ginger-bread — a dish the offspring of
necessity in the infancy of New-England when the unfortunate inha-
bitants had nothing else to make pies of, and which, with their usual
cycnanserifying propensity — that is to say, their habit of making
swans out of geese — they have imposed upon the Union at large,
as something not only eatable , but palatable. The French have put
the vegetable to its right use: they make a most delicious soup of it.
'I fancy, too, that many ripe figs must be wasted in our Southern
States. Now the Southern French have a way of preserving theirs.
Dismiss from your mind, I beg of you, all ideas of the Eastern,
drum-packed, flat-pressed, mite-nourishing commodity. No, these
figs (they are large green ones, like the best Italian) are round and
swelling, slightly candied on the outside, yet not so as to disguise
entirely their native emerald hue ; all fresh and luscious inside with
all their original juices — a delight of children, and not to be despised
by parents. The sellers of comestibles call them golden figs (figues
d'orj and they well merit the appellation.
'Perhaps some of your unsophisticated country readers may
imagine that I am going to enlarge on the value of the frog as an
article of food, for it is one of our popular delusions (derived from
the English, who have long since outgrown it) that this amphibious
animal is a usual and favorite Parisian plat. I fancy you would be
as likely to see a vol-au-vent de grenouille at a French restaurant
as a colt-steak or rattlesnake fricassee at one of our hotels. Yet
truth compels me to say that I once heard a Frenchman (he was an
officer and a gentleman, and belonged to the aristocratic faubourg
St. Germain) boast of having eaten a dish which throws all possible
frogs into the shade ; to wit, a fox f He said it tasted like game, only
more so! I suspect, however^ that he was joking. We had been
talking of unusual meats, and I mentioned having eaten peacock and
swan. He probably thought I was quizzing him, and wanted to cap
my story.
'And now this indefinite letter has rambled on far enough. Vale
Vive que KNICK., which means, may you live a thousand years, and
always have a good cook. 'CARL BENSON.'
171
A TALE ABOUT THE PRINCESS.
American Review, July 1848.
CARL BENSON'S LIBRARY. Present: CARL AND FRED PETERS.
PETERS. And so Carl, while I have been in the
thickest of the stirring times abroad, and seen one mo-
narchy topple after another, you have been quietly
reading at home. And that gray-covered book is poetry
of course. *
BENSON. It is TENNYSON'S PRINCESS.
PETERS. Oh, Tennyson! Yes, I remember you
always had a great admiration for him — not but what
he is justly entitled to a good standing among the sec-
ondary poets.
BENSON. Perhaps you would be surprised to
hear Tennyson spoken of as a greater poet than Byron.
PETERS. Ay, that should I.
BENSON. And yet such is at present the opinion
of a very large number of the best educated men in
England.
PETERS. Indeed! I knew that of late years Words-
worth had become the fashionable poet of his literary
countrymen, but did not suspect that they had now set
up a new idol in his place.
BENSON. The process in natural enough. Men
grow sated with passion and excitement; they rush for
relief to quiet meditation. The popular taste passes from
poetry which defies theory and morality to poetry which
is all theory and morality. In time the proper medium
between and union of the two begins to be seen and
appreciated. The literary w^orld has its oscillations of
this sort as well as the political.
PETERS. This then you are disposed to consider
Tennyson's great merit, that he is a uniter and harmonizer
of the two opposite schools, the Byronic and the Words-
worthian ?
* Fred talks Yorkshire, but writes as pure English as any of us,
so that it is only doing him justice to translate his remarks into the
ordinary dialect.
172
BENSON. I am, though well aware it is not the
ground that most of his admirers would take. They would
make him (so far as they would allow him to have any
master) a follower of Wordsworth. But the passionate
element is certainly very predominant in him at times,
sufficiently so to have annoyed some over-proper people
here. And I do consider this fusion or eclecticism, or
whatever you choose to call it, as one mark of a great
poet, because it gives a truer representation of man than
is afforded by either of the schools which it combines.
The slave of passion, on however grand a scale he may
be depicted, is a low development of our nature. The
meditative philosopher is a high, but an incomplete de-
velopment. You would not choose as your type of go-
vernment an unbridled democracy or an immovable con-
servatism, but one in which the two parties had room
and scope to struggle. So in the man, you wish to see
the play of his feelings and the supervision of his judgment,
his better reason prevailing in the end amid the conflict
of his passions, but only "saving him as by fire." And
where in modern poetry will you find a greater example
of this than in Locksley Hall?
PETERS. What is the reason then that some people
complain of Tennyson's writing namby-pamby, and emas-
culating poetry?
BENSON. Simply because some people are dum-
mies. I can understand a charge of this kind as applied
to Mrs. Hemans, or Keats, or Wordsworth, (not meaning
that I should agree with the man who makes the charge,
but I can see why he makes it ;) but as applied to Ten-
nyson it seems to me neither more nor less than absurd.
There is pathos and sentiment in him : there are passages
which may make those cry who are cryingly disposed.
In the name of Apollo and the nine Muses, is that to
be set down to his discredit? Read Locksley Hall, I say
again, and read Morte d' Arthur^ and then tell me that
the man who wrote them has emasculated poetry. Bulwer
and Mrs. Norton, whichever it was of them that perpe-
trated the New Timon, might write their heads off before
they could achieve two poems that will live alongside
of those. Ought a man never to feel pensive? Is it a
crime to be sometimes moved by the pathetic? I well
remember that I used to lie on a green bank of summer
173
mornings and read Theocritus till I was full of pity for
Daphnis and the unfortunate man who "had a cruel
companion;" but I never found that it unfitted me for
taking a horse across country or digging up hard words
out of a big lexicon at the proper time.
PETERS. Yes, I remember Romano and you lying
on that very bank you are thinking of, between the
Trinity bridge and the Trinity library, and him making
his confession thus: "I acknowledge the influence of the
scene. At this moment any one might do me."
BENSON. There was a man of the world who was
not ashamed to be sentimental, and why should a poet be ?
PETERS. Thus far you have praised Tennyson's
taste and judgment rather than his genius and originality,
it seems to me. WTiat peculiar and individual merits
do you find in his poetry?
BENSON. In the first place, wonderful harmony
of verse; in the second —
PETERS. Wait a moment, and let us dispose of
the first place before going further. It really surprises
me to hear you make such a point of Tennyson's harmony,
for he is frequently blamed on this very head. There
are some violent, old-fashioned elisions, to which he is
over-prone —
BENSON. Such as "i' the" for "in thee."
PETERS. Exactly; and though not professing to
have read his poems critically, I would engage to point
you out a number of lines in them which contain weak
or superfluous syllables.
BENSON. It must be confessed that occasional
blemishes of the sort may be detected in him, yet it is
scarce possible to read one of his poems carefully
through without being struck with his exquisite sense
of melody. Try it especially with his blank verse: —
blank verse, as every judge of verse knows, is a much
greater trial of an author's powers of versification than
any rhyming metre. Read (Enone or Morte d' Arthur,
and you will see what I mean.
PETERS. But after all, allowing what you claim,
is not this a small matter to build a poetic reputation
on? You may have mere nonsense verses, like the "Song
by a Person of Quality," perfect in the way of rhythm
174 •
and metre: indeed it is a very common device of small
poets to make sound supply the place of sense.
BENSON. It is also a very common device of
people who are not poets at all to profess themselves
such geniuses that they can despise the ordinary laws
of versification. An every-day trick that, and a sad
nuisance are these little great men who set up to \vrite
poetry without being able to write verse. Is the most
correct and elegant prose translation of a passage from
Homer or Dante poetry? The question seems almost absurd,
but w^hy isn't it poetry? There are all the ideas of the
original. It is the vehicle of them that makes the essen-
tial difference. And any tangible and practicable defini-
tion of poetry nuist somehow include metrical expression'^
if you admit one independent of this element, you may
be driven to allow that the Vicar of Wakefield is a poem,
to which felicitous conclusion I once pushed a transcen-
dentalist who was arguing the point with me.
PETERS. But metrical excellence is, to a certain
extent at least, a matter of study and practice.
BENSON. What then?
PETERS. Why, you know, poeta —
BENSON. Nascitur to be sure. Which means that
unless a man has a genius for poetry he can never be
made a poet. And the very same thing is true of the
painter or the mathematician. A man requires education
for everything, even for the proper development of his
physical powers.
PETERS. Of course you except political wisdom
and statesmanship, which in a democracy come to every
man by nature, like Dogberry's reading and writing.
BENSON. Of course. But no man can afford to
despise the rudiments of art, I don't care what his na-
tural genius is. What would you say to a young painter
who should refuse to study anatomy and perspective ?
PETERS. Then you think it as necessary for a
poet in posse to study metre, as for a painter in posse
to study anatomy?
BENSON. Rem acu.
PETERS. You were going to mention another ex-
cellence of Tennyson.
BENSON. Yes, his felicity of epithet. You may
go through his two volumes without finding a single otiose
175
adjective*. Now it is the happy employment of adjectives
that especially makes descriptive writing, whether in prose
or poetry, picturesque; and therefore in Idylls — iidvllia
— poems which are little pictures, or each a series of
pictures, Tennyson has no equal since his master in that
branch of poetry, Theocritus.
PETERS. You seem to have studied your man
well, and therein you would have the advantage of me
in a discussion. But let me ask you one question. Do
you honestly think, to say nothing of this country, that
Tennyson will ever have the same continental reputation
that Byron has?
BENSON. I do not, for a very good reason. Ten-
nyson is decidedly a more national poet than Byron.
Indeed, there is nothing national in the latter. There is
nothing in him that a Frenchman or an American cannot
appreciate as well as an Englishman; nay, there are
many things which a Frenchman can appreciate better
than an Englishman, because they are more in accordance
with his feelings and sympathies. Whereas —
PETERS. You must make an exception in favor
of Byron's satires on contemporary English poets.
BENSON. To be sure; but they are certainly not
the poems on which his continental reputation in any
way depends. Tennyson, on the other hand, is eminently
an English poet. He likes to take his subjects from
English country life, or English popular stories; and some
of his shorter poems are simply and distinctly patriotic,
embodying the liberal conservatism of an enlightened
English patriotism.
PETERS. I remember one beginning —
"Love thou thy land with love far brought
From out the storied Past."
BENSON. There is a finer one than that:
"Of old sat Freedom on the heights,
The thunders breaking at her feet;
Above her shook the starry lights.
She heard the torrents meet."
PETERS. Yes, I recollect; and how she gazes
down from her isle-altar, and turns to scorn with lips
divine the falsehood of extremes. There is nothing vio-
lently or offensively national in that.
176
BENSON. He began with a great deal more spice.
In one of his earlier volumes there is a sort of war-
song conceived in a spirit of magnificent national conceit.
It starts with this satisfactory assumption: —
"There is no land like England
Where'er the light of day be;
There are no men like Englishmen,
So true of heart as they be."
And there is a pious and benevolent refrain or
chorus, after this fashion: —
'■''For the French, the pope may shrive them,
For devil a whit we heed them ;
As for the Fench, God speed them
Unto their heaH's desire,
And the merry devil drive them
Through the water and the fire."
After all, I like a man to stand up for his country.
We don't do it half enough.
PETERS. Whom do you mean by wel
BENSON. You and I, Whigs and Locos, and
everybody. But to return to our Tennyson. There is
another reason for his being "caviare to the general,"
even in his own country. His mind is classically moulded,
and his poems full of classical allusions. The influence
of Homer and Theocritus especially is constantly traceable
in his writings; and his felicitous imitations and sug-
gestive passages constitute one of his greatest charms
to the liberally educated. Sometimes he is harsh, if not
unintelligible to the uninitiated, as when he says that
Sir Bedivere stood with Excalibur,
"This way and that dividing the swift mind
In act to throw;"
which reads very stijff till you recollect the Homeric
dat^of-ievog xarcc d-v(.idv
PETERS. I would go farther yet, and say that a
man, to appreciate Tennyson fully, must be artistically
educated and be familiar with Claudes, and Raphaels,
and Titians. That was what struck me some time ago,
on reading his Palace of Art, (at the recommendation
177
of an admirer, who considered it his chef d'ceuvre ) and
your last remark, together with what you said just before
about his picturesqueness, reminded me of it. I certainly
am inclined to think with you, that Tennyson, like Shelley,
will always be "caviare to the general," and therefore
— but we won't quarrel. I have one more question to
ask you. Don't you think that Tennyson owes some of
his present reputation to clever friends? Isn't he the pet
of his university? Is there not a certain club of Cam-
bridge men that you once told me of?
BENSON. They are not all Cantabs — some Oxo-
nians like Arnold's pupil and biographer Stanley, and
some non-university men like Carlyle. They comprise
lions of all sorts , greater and less ; humorists , with
Thackeray of Punch at their head; artists; literary men
of fashion ; theologians , (did you ever read Maurice's
Kingdom of Christ?) and plenty of reviewers. A poet
who has generally one of his club in the Edinburgh and
occasionally another in the Quarterly, stands a chance
of having full justice done him. At the same time it is
only fair to remember, Fred, that laudatory criticism is
at times essential to justice, especially after unjust and
one sided treatment, like the first notice the Quarterly
took of Tennyson. Nor can the Tennysonians be charged
with anything more than this. You cannot justly impute
to them any mere puffery, or extravagant, because un-
qualified, panegyric. Take Sterling's review, (lately
republished in a volume of his works ;) there is no horror
of fault-finding in it. When he doesn't like a poem he
says so. How different from the mutual criticisms of a
society of mutual admirationists !
PETERS. You are brim-full of your author, I see,
and ready to lecture on him. Suppose you give me some
account of his new poem there, {sotto voce^) especially as
there will be more chance of getting something to drink
after it.
BENSON. That will I. It is a queer thing certainly,
this poem. "A medley" he calls it, and so it is — a
medley of grave and gay, where , like his own holiday
rustics , he in one place pursues sport and philosophy
hand in hand, in another, pure sport. The poet goes to
see a jolly baronet, whose son, Walter, is one of his
Vol. I. 12
178
college friends. It is a fair summer day, and there is a
f^te to the tenantry. Walter shows his guest the house : —
"Greek, set with busts; from vases in the hall
Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names,
Grew side by side ; and on the pavement lay
Carved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park,
Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of time;
And on the tables every clime and age
Jumbled together: Celts and Calumets,
Claymore and snow-shoe, toys in lava, fans
Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries.
Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere.
The cursed Malayan crease, and battle-club
From the isles of palm ; and higher on the walls.
Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer.
His own forefathers' arms and armor hung»"
All which is very fine; but the literary visitor is
sure to make for the books, and dive into
"a hoard of tales that dealt with knights.
Half legend, half historic, counts and kings
That laid about them at their wills, and died;"
till Walter pulls him out, book and all, to see the grounds
and the ruins and the ladies. The happy multitude are
scattered about their path.
"A herd of boys with clamor bowl'd
And stumped the wicket ; babies roll'd about
Like tumbled fruit in grass; and men and maids
Arranged a country dance and flew thro' light
And shadow. * * * *
And overhead
The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty lime
Made noise with bees and breeze from end to end."
So they come to the ruins, where Sister Lilia has
amused herself by dressing up an old ancestor's statue
in new and fashionable woman's attire, and the young
men begin to "talk shop," that is, in the present case,
to talk college, which brings up the old question of female
capacities. At last the guest is called on for a story
that shall be moral and amusing both.
PETERS. Unreasonable requisition!
BENSON. Nevertheless, with Cantab assurance, he
sets about "making a shot" at it; but, says he —
i
179
"One that really suited time and place,
Were such a medley we should have him back
Who told the Winter's Tale to do it for us:
A Gothic ruin, and a Grecian house,
A talk of college and of ladies' rights,
A feudal knight in silken masquerade.
And there with shrieks and strange experiments.
For which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them all.
The nineteenth century gambols on the grass.
No matter : we will say whatever comes :
Here are we seven; if each man take his turn
We make a sevenfold story."
PETERS. Ah, each man a canto ; that would afford
room for some pleasant diversities of style and thought.
BENSON. Unfortunately, or fortunately, there is
nothing of the kind. The seven cantos, or parts, or
fyttes, or whatever you may choose to call them, are
all in one continuous vein. Lilia wanted to be a Princess
and have a college of her own: he therefore must be a
Prince at least, and accordingly a Prince he is, —
"blue-eyed and fair in face,
With lengths of yellow ringlet like a girl ;
For on my cradle shone the nothern star.
My mother was as mild as any saint — "
PETERS. That "any" is prosaic.
BENSON. "And nearly canonized by all she knew,
So gracious was her tact and tenderness ;
But my good father thought a king a king:
He held his sceptre like a pedant's wand
To lash offence, and with long arms and hands
Reach'd out, and pick'd offenders from the mass
For judgment."
This northern Prince had in his boyhood been betrothed
to a southern Princess in her girlhood — a regular
affair of business, as royal betrothals are.
PETERS. Only royal ones, Carl?
BENSON. Don't interrupt me, Fred, for I am like
one of your fast trotters, very hard to start again after
breaking. So when he was coming to man's estate, his
father sent after tiie lady to fetch her, as per agreement;
but instead of the Princess comes
12*
180
"A present, a great labor of the loom,"
and a letter from her father to the effect that she has
"a will and maiden fancies," and in short won't be mar-
ried at any price. You may fancy the old warrior monarch
tearing up letter and present, and threatening an appeal
to the ultima ratio.
PETERS. The Prince resolves to go himself incognito,
I suppose.
BENSON. Precisely so, as you shall hear.
"Then ere tlie silver sickle of that month
Became her golden shield, I stole from court
With Cyril and with Florian" —
(These were his two friends, and the latter has a
sister in the Princess's court,)
"With Cyril and with Florian, unperceived.
Down from the bastion walls we dropt by night
And flying reached the frontier; then we crost
To a livelier land, and so by town and thorpe,
And tilth, and blowing bosks of wilderness,
We gain'd the mother city thick with towers ;"
(How like a journey in Fairy land it is, with all
those quaint Elizabethan words!)
"And in the imperial palace found the king.
His name was Gama; crack'd and small his voice,
A little dry old man, without a star,
Not like a king."
This little old king, who was as oily as one of your
third-rate, shake-your-hand-with-two-fingers diplomats,
explained that his daughter had been put up to founding
a university for maidens by two widows, (one of them
Florian's sister ;) whereat the Prince, chafing him on fire
to find his bride,
"Set out once more with those two gallant boys,
Then pushing onward under sun and stars
Many a long league back to the north," —
(for the summer palace where this female university was
founded lay on the northern frontier,) came to an inn
near the place, and after a consulation with mine host,
hit on the plan of turning ladies for the occasion.
181
"We sent mine host to purchase female gear;
Which brought and clapt upon us, we tweezered out
What slender blossom lived on lip or cheek
Of manhood; gave mine host a costly bribe
To guerdon silence, mounted our good steeds,
And boldly ventured on the liberties."
PETERS. "And so they renished them to ride
On three good renished steeds."
But the thing is an absurdity already. Do you sup-
pose three men among a little town of women, could
escape detection three minutes? Do you know three of
your acquaintance that you would trust in such a position?
BENSON. I have seen heaps of English women quite
ungraceful enough to be men in disguise for that matter.
Their entry is beautifully described. They come into
"A little street half garden and half house ;
But could not hear each other speak for noise
Of clocks and chimes, like silver hammers falling
On silver anvils, and the splash and stir
Of fountains spouted up and showering down
In meshes of the jasmine and the rose:
And all about us peal'd the nightingale,
Rapt in her song, and careless of the snare."
PETERS. Good! and then?
BENSON. Of course they mean to be on Lady
Psyche's side, as a Cantab would say, for she is the
younger, prettier and better tempered of the two tutors.
So the Prince
"sat down and wrote
In such a hand as when a field of com
Bows all its ears before the roaring east:
'Three ladies of the Northern Empire pray
Your highness would enroll them with your own
As Lady Psyche's pupils.'"
And accordingly,
"At break of day the College Portress came :
She brought us academic silks, in hue
The lilac, with a silken hood to each,
And zoned with gold ; and now when these were on,
And we as rich as moths from dusk cocoons,
She, courtseying her obeisance, let us know
The Princess Ida waited."
182
PETERS. Ah, now for the heroine!
BENSON. "There at a board by tome and paper sat,
"With two tame leopards couched beside her throne.
All beauty compassed in a female form,
The Princess: liker to the inhabitants
Of some clear planet close upon the sun,
Than our man's earth ; such eyes were in her head,
And so much grace and power, breathing down
From over her arch'd brows, with every turn
Lived through her to the tips of her long hands.
And to her feet."
How do you like her?
PETERS. The sketch is too shadowy methinks.
Not definiteness enough of touch in it, and — surely
one of those lines halts?
BENSON. Yes, it is one of Tennyson's crotchets
that flower and power are full dissyllables. But the Princess
will define herself better by and by. Of course. Psyche
finds out her brother, and of course she is persuaded to
give them a little grace; else how should they and we
see and hear any more of this Female University life?
And here is some of what they saw and heard: —
"And then we strolled
From room to room : — in each we sat, we heard
The grave Professor. On the lecture slate
The circle rounded under female hands
"With flawless demonstration: follow'd then
A classic lecture, rich in sentiment.
With scraps of thundrous Epic lilted out
By violet-hooded Doctors, elegies
And quoted odes, and jewels five-words long,
That on the stretch'd forefinger of all Time
Sparkle forever : then we dipt in all
That treats of whatsoever is, the state,
The total chronicles of man, the mind,
The morals, something of the frame, the rock.
The star, the bird, the fish, the shell, the flower.
Electric, chemic laws, and all the rest.
And whatsoever can be taught or known;
Till like three horses that have broken fence,
And glutted all night long breast-deep in corn
"We issued gorged with knowledge, and I spoke:
'Why, sirs, they do these things as well as we."
183
PETERS. And to be sure they might, if they were
only taught.
BENSON. And so might most men sew and play
the piano if they were only taught. But whether it would
pay is another question. Here is an after-dinner picture : —
"A solemn grace
Concluded, and we sought the gardens : there
One walk'd reciting to herself, and one
In this hand held a volume as to read.
And smoothed a petted peacock down with that."
A most lady-like substitute for the small terrier
that a Cantab w'ould be promenading about.
"Some to a low song oar'd a shallop by
Or under arches of the marble bridge
Hung, shadow'd from the heat: some hid and sought
In the orange thicket; others tost a baU
Above the fountain -jets and back again
With shrieks and laughter. * * *
So we sat: and now when day
Droop'd. and the chapel tinkled, mixt with those
Six hundred maidens clad in purest white.
Before two streams of light from wall to wall,
While the great organ almost burst his pipes
Groaning for power, and rolling thro' the court
A long, melodious thunder to the sound
Of solemn psalms and silver litanies,
The work of Ida to call down from Heaven
A blessing on her labors for the world."
You see the finest of these descriptions have an
amusing double sense. They are at once a parody on,
and a description of English University life.
PETERS. Yes, I remember going to Trinity Chapel
with you, and those five hundred young men in surplices.
How innocent and virtuous they did look — at a distance!
I wonder if Princess Ida's girls tattled and gossipped as
much when they pretended to be kneeling at prayers.
There were two youngsters just in front of us that night
who were settling the next boat-race all service time.
But certainly there are many delightfully picturesque
features in a Cantab's life. By the way, Carl, what has
become of your sketches?
184
BENSON. Infandum jubes renovare. They were so
free-spoken that no one in this land of liberty dared
publish them. But we live in hope. Do you recollect
what Punchs ays of the great Jawbrahim Heraudee, how,
after having circumvented his enemies and made a great
fortune, he "spent his money in publishing many great
and immortal works?" That's what w^e mean to do some
day, so help us Puffer Hopkins!
PETERS. Ominous invocation! But how fares the
Prince meanwhile?
BENSON. He is invited to take a geological ride
with the Princess. You may be sure he seizes the op-
portunity to discuss the plan she had made for herself
in contrast with that which others had made for her,
not forgetting to say a good word or two for himself.
"'I know the Prince.
I prize his truth ; and then how vast a work
To assail this gray pre-eminence of man !
You grant me license; might I use it? Think
Ere half be done perchance your life may fail;
Then comes the feebler heiress of your plan,
And takes and ruins all; and thus your pains
May only make that footprint upon sand
Which old recurring waves of prejudice
Resmooth to nothing: might I dread that you,
With only Fame for spouse and your great deeds
For issue, yet may live in vain, and miss
Meanwhile what every woman counts her due,
Love, children, happiness?'
And she exclaimed:
'Peace, you young savage of the northern wild.
What! tho' your Prince's love were like a god's,
Have we not made ourselves the sacrifice?
You are bold indeed: we are not talk'd to thus.
Yet will we say for children, would they grow
Like field-flowers everywhere ! we like them well.
But children die ; and let me tell you, girl,
Howe'er you babble, great deeds cannot die.
They with the sun and moon renew their light
Forever, blessing those that look on them.
Children — that men may pluck them from our hearts.
Kill us with pity, break us with ourselves.
O children! there is nothing upon earth
More miserable than she that has a son
185
And sees him err: nor would we work for fame,
Tho' she perhaps might reap the applause of Great
Who learns the one POU STO whence afterhands
May move the world, though she herself effect
But little: wherefore up and act, nor shrink
For fear our solid aim he dissipated
Of frail successors. Would indeed we had been,
In lieu of many mortal flies, a race
Of giants, living each a thousand years,
That we might see our own work out, and' watch
The sandy footprint harden into stone."
After their philosophic equitation they luxuriate in
a tent,
"elaborately wrought
With fair Corinna's triumph ; here she stood
Engirt with many a florid maiden cheek.
The woman-conqueror; woman conquered there
The bearded victor of ten thousand hymns,
And all the men mourned at his side."
There is an instance, one out of many in the poem,
of the admirable way in which all the adjuncts are
artistically in keeping. Tennyson always seems to keep
in mind Fuseli's rule "that all accessories should be
allegorical," and this makes him eminently the painter
of poets. And now comes what all the critics consider
the gem of this work.
PETERS. Isn't it a blank-verse song about "the
days that are no more?" I remember seeing that quoted
in three London periodicals the same day. I bought
them at the railway station.
BENSON. Even the same. There is a unanimity
of opinion about it, which it may seem ridiculous to
oppose, but I do candidly confess to you that I don't
like it as well as some other things in this very poem.
Perhaps it is from utter want of agreement with the
sentiment. The past is for me a sweet season, not a
sad one at all — in consequence no doubt of my fear-
fully antiquated conservative sympathies. I never could
feel, even though a great poet has sung it before Tennyson,
"That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier
things,"
and therefore —
186
PETERS. That is the true critical fashion, Carl,
to dilate upon your own feelings and neglect your author.
BENSON. Straigtforward is the word then. In vino
Veritas. When they begin to drink, the secret's let out
and great is the flutter. The Prince, scornfully expelled,
lights on the camp of his own father, who had heard
of his danger, (it was a capital offence for any male to
infringe on the University limits,) and marched down to
rescue him. Pgor Psyche is there; she has lost herself
and her child: hear what a touching lament she makes
for it: —
"Ah me, my babe, my blossom, ah my child,
My one sweet child whom I shall see no more !
For now will cruel Ida keep her back;
And either she will die from want of care.
Or sicken with ill usage, when they say
The child is hers — for every little fault,
The child is hers; and they will beat my girl.
Remembering her mother: O ray flower!
Or they will take her, they will make her hard.
And she will pass me by in after-life
With some cold reverence worse than she were dead.
Ill mother that I was to leave her there,
To lag behind, scared by the cry they made,
The horror of the shame among them all.
But I will go and sit beside the doors.
And make a wild petition night and day,
Until they hate to hear me like a wind
Wailing forever, till they open to me,
And lay my little blossom at my feet.
My babe, my sweet Aglaia, my one child;
And I will take her up and go my way
And satisfy my soul with kissing her :
Ah ! what might that man not deserve of me
Who gave me back my child?
The medley is true to its name. After this pathos
we have some fighting, for there are three brothers of
the Princess, tall fellows all, and one, Arac, a tremen-
dous champion. He bullies the Prince, and thereupon
the North and South agree to fight it out, fifty to fifty.
I am sure Tennyson had the Ivanhoe tournament in his
head when he wrote this. Arac knocks over every one,
ending with the Prince; but nobody is killed, though
187
there is much staving in of iron plate and bruising of
heads. Then the Princess, under whose very garden
wall the mel^e has taken place, comes down with her
maidens and opens her gates in pity to the wounded,
and so the women lose their cause in gaining it. You
may imagine the catastrophe — the Prince ill in bed,
and the Princess nursing him and reading to him, and
what must follow thence. But it is beautifully worked
out. He lies in delirium, until she from watching him,
and listening to his mutterings, and casting sidelong looks
at "happy lovers heart in heart," (what a felicitous ex-
pression !) begins herself to know what love is. At last
he wakes,
"sane but well nigh close to death,
For weakness ; it was evening : silent light
Slept on the painted walls, whereon were wrought
Two grand designs : for on one side arose
The women up in wild revolt, and storm'd
At the Oppian law. Titanic shapes, they cramm'd
The forum, and half crush'd among the rest
A little Cato cower'd. On the other side
Hortensia spoke against the tax; behind
A train of dames: by axe and eagle sat,
With all their foreheads drawn in Roman scowls.
And half the wolf's-milk curdled in their veins,
The fierce triumvirs, and before them paused
Hortensia pleading : angry was her face.
(How the lion-painters had had it all their own way!
There is great humor in that picture, as well as artistic
keeping.)
I saw the forms; I knew not where I was:
Sad phantoms conjured out of circumstance,
Ghosts of the fading brain they seem'd ; nor more
Sweet Ida ; palm to palm she sat ; the dew
Dwelt in her eyes, and softer all her shape
And rounder show'd: I moved; I sighed; a touch
Came round my wrist, and tears upon my hand;
Then all for languor and self-pity ran
Mine down my face, and with what life I had,
And like a flower that cannot all unfold,
So drench'd it is with tempest, to the sun.
Yet, as it may, turns toward him, I on her
Fixt my faint eyes, and utter'd whisperingly :
188
'If you be what I think you, some sweet dream,
I would but ask you to fulfil yourself;
But if you be that Ida whom I knew,
I ask you nothing ; only if a dream,
Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die to-night.
Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere I die !"
Do you remember a somewhat similar appearance
in Miss Barrett, where the Lady Geraldine visits her
poet-lover, and he takes her for a vision?
"Said he, wake me by no gesture, sound of breath, or stir of
vesture — "
PETERS. Excuse me, but I never yet undertook
to admire Miss Barrett, and would much rather you
should read straight on.
BENSON. It is a pity to interrupt so fine a passage.
"I could no more, but lay like one in trance
That hears his burial talked of by his friends,
And cannot speak, nor move, nor make one sign.
But lies and dreads his doom. She turned; she paused;
She stoop'd; and with a great shock of the heart,
Our mouths met: out of languor leapt a cry,
Crown'd passion from the brinks of death, and up
Along the shuddering senses struck the soul,
And closed on fire with Ida's at the lips ;
Till back I fell, and from mine arms she rose,
Glowing all over noble shame, and all
Her falser self slipt from her like a robe,
And left her woman, lovelier in her mood
Than in her mould that other, when she came
From barren deeps to conquer all with love.
And down the streaming crystal dropt, and she
Far-fleeted by the purple island-tides
Naked, a double light in air and wave,
To meet her graces where they decked her out
For worship without end, nor end of mine.
Stateliest, for thee!"
PETERS. I suppose our classical poet had one of
the Homeric hymns to Venus in his mind, when he
sketched that comparison.
BENSON. Possibly, but there is no verbal resem-
blance that I recollect. Let us see. Here is the shorter
Hymn to Aphrodite. You shall have it word for word:
189
"Fair Aphrodite, goddess golden-crowned,
Majestic in her beauty will I sing,
Inheritress of all the crowning heights
Of sea-beat Cyprus, whence the wat'ry breath
Of Zephyr bore her lapped in softest foam
Across the loud-resounding ocean wave.
Her lovingly the golden Hours received
And clad in robes immortal ; and they set
Upon her head divine a golden crown
Well wrought, and fair to look on; in her ears
The flower of mountain-brass and precious gold ;
And they decked out with necklaces of gold
Her tender neok and silver-shining breasts.
With such the golden Hours themselves bedeck
When they betake them to the pleasant dance
Of deities, and to their father's home.
So having all her person thus adorned
They brought her to th' Immortals, who rejoiced
To see her."
Homer, as you perceive, dwells upon the ornaments
of the goddess more than on her native charms. But
now for our Prince and Princess again. He has slept,
"Fill'd thro' and thro' with Love, a happy sleep,"
and is awaked by her reading a sort of serenade to him
and a beautiful one it is. Listen: —
"Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white ;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk ;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font :
The fire-fly wakens; waken thou with me.
Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.
Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars.
And all thy heart lies open unto me.
Now slides the silent meteor on and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thought in me.
Now folds the lily all her sweetness up.
And slips into the bosom of the lake,
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me."
By-and-by they come to an explanation. He makes
an admirable confession of his faith, and a more admirable
explanation and history of it, even thus: —
190
"'Alone,' I said, 'from earlier than I know.
Immersed in rich foreshadowings of the world,
I loved the woman: he that doth not, lives
A drowning life, besotted in sweet self.
Or pines in sad experience, worse than death.
Or keeps his wing'd affections dipt with crime;
Yet was there one thro' whom I loved her, one
Not learned, save in gracious household ways
Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants,
No angel, but a dearer being, all dipt
In angel instincts, breathing Paradise,
Interpreter between the gods and men.
Who look'd all native to her place, and yet
On tiptoe seemed to touch upon a sphere
Too gross to tread; and all male minds perforce
Sway'd to her from their orbits as they moved
And girdled her with music. Happy he
With such a mother! faith in womankind
Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high
Comes easy to him.'"
And this is his satisfactory conclusion: —
"My bride,
My wife, my life, O we will walk this world,
Yoked in all exercise of noble end.
And so thro' those dark gates across the wild
That no man knows. Indeed I love thee ; come.
Yield thyself up : my hopes and thine are one :
Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself,
Lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me."
Enter the General.
THE GENERAL. Well, Carl, what's on the tapis
now? One of the nine male muses of Boston, eh?
PETERS. No, indeed! but Tennyson's Princess,
which our friend is well nigh enchanted with.
THE GENERAL. It is two years or more since
I heard Carl talking of that poem. The literati in Eng-
land must have been expecting its appearance for a long
time. And it seems to me surprising that they have not
shown more disappointment — that is, if, as seems per-
fectly natural, they meant to judge it by the standard of
the author's former works.
BENSON. Then you are greatly disappointed?
191
THE GENERAL. Not greatly, for I never was a
violent Tennysonian. But I shall be surprised if you are
not dissatisfied.
PETERS. Carl looks incredulous : he wants your
reasons, General.
THE GENERAL. He shall have them. First, let
us begin with the vehicle and dress of the ideas, the
mere structure of the verse. Knowing that you all agree
with me in the importance of this, I have no fear of
being thought hypercritical. Every one must see on
reading the poem, that much of the versification is on
the Italian model. Now this may be a perfectly proper
innovation. It is possible that
"O swallow, swallow if I could follow and light,"
is as natural and suitable a line in the one language as
"Molto egli opro con senno e con la mano"
is in the other; so I will not dwell on this point, though
it certainly admits of dispute. But there are many lines
built on no model at all, in short, not verse at all. What
do you say to this?
"Strove to buffet to land in vain : a tree ;"
or this —
''''Timorously and as the leader of the herd.''
And there are plenty not quite so lame as these,
but very faulty, such as —
"Albeit so mask'd, madam, I love the truth."
"Of open metal in which the old hunter rued."
"I did but shear a feather, and life and love."
"Life. And again sighing she spoke, 'A dream."
Now we have a particular right to animadvert upon
these things in Tennyson, because his harmony of ver-
sification is always insisted upon (and in many cases I
admit with all justice) by his admirers. Here, then, he
fails upon his own ground. And it cannot be fronl haste,
for we know that the Princess has been some years in
preparation; it must be either from wilful carelessness,
or some perversity of theory. So much for the first
charge.
192
Next, there is to be found in this poem a supera-
bundance of quaint and harsh expressions. I do not refer
to the affectation of dragging in antiquated words, such
as "tilth ," and "thorpe ," and "enringed ;" but to such
phrases as these : —
"And then we past an arch
Inscribed too dark for legib'e"
"On some dark shore just seen that it was richy
"Seldom she spoke, but oft
Clomb to the roofs, and gazed alone for hours
On that disastrous leaguer, swarms of men
Darkening her female field ; void was her itse,"
meaning that "her occupation was gone," I suppose; but
it is not easy to get that sense, or any sense out of the
words.
The next fault I have to find is a very serious one.
Your pet poet, Carl, is terribly gross, repeatedly aijd
unnecessarily so. There, don't make such large eyes,
but listen. The Princess
"Was proxy-wedded with a bootless calf,"
to the Prince. Where was the need of allusion or re-
ference to this barbarous and disgusting custom of a
dark age ? You can't say it was introduced to preserve
historical accuracy, for there is no historical or chrono-
logical keeping in the poem. The Princess talks geology
and nebular hypotheses, and the Prince drawls his similes
from fossil remains. Then, again, the break at the close
of the innkeeper's speech — why, the suggestion conveyed
by it would be low for Punch, and only in place in the
columns of a Sunday newspaper. And w'hy the Prince's
question about the want of anatomic schools in the female
University, but for the indiscreet inuendo which it conveys?
BENSON. You grow over nice, General.
THE GENERAL. Nay, if I did, you would hear
me objecting to the whole scene of the three young
gentlemen's discovery ; master Cyril growing tipsy and
striking up a questionable ditty,
"Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences
Unmeet for ladies;"
and the Prince "pitching in" to him.
193
BENSON. Can you suggest any better mode of
bringing about the discovery ?
THE GENERAL. If no better can be devised, that
only throws the objection upon the choice of such a
subject.
PETERS. That brings us to the point. Come,
General, don't be nibbling all around the poem, like a
mouse about a big cheese, but tell us what you think
of it as a whole.
THE GENERAL. As a whole, then, let me ask
Benson if he considers it to add much to Tennyson's
poetic reputation?
BENSON. Is it perfectly fair to expect that each
successive work of an author shall equal or surpass his
former masterpieces?
THE GENERAL. Somewhat of a Quaker answer,
that, but it involves an admission which I accept as a
satisfactory reply.
PETERS. I have heard it objected to the Princess,
that it was too evidently written with a moral and for
a moral, and therefore could not be a really great poem.
BENSON. That is really too bad, Fred. According
to that rule, no allegorical picture can be a great painting.
THE GENERAL. It certainly is not the objection
I should make either. The idea that a great poem cannot
have a moral, seems to me as one-sided and untenable
as the theory of the extreme Wordsworthians , that a
great poem must have a moral. My animadversion would
be just of the opposite kind — that the subject of the
Princess is too slight. It would be well enough for a
semi-ludicrous trifle; it is not sufficient for an elaborate
poem, the work of years. While reading this production,
the suspicion has crossed my mind — a mere suspicion
which it is perhaps uncharitable to utter — that Tenny-
son has intended and striven to be eminently Shakspearian
in it. Hence his peculiar phraseology, his changes from
grave to gay and from gay to grave, his rigorous artistic
propriety combined with his almost systematic chronolo-
gical discrepancy, his introduction of comic characters,
(though he must have seen by this time that humor is
not his forte;) even the very reference to the Winter's
Tale is not without meaning. But Tennyson is said to
be a modest man, and it is hardly fair to tax him with
Vol. I 13
194
such impudence. But at any rate the Princess goes far
to confirm me in the opinion I held before, that long
poems are not Tennyson's line, so to speak. And he
must have an inkling of this himself, else why does he
not finish Morte d' Arthur? — which is surely worth
finishing, though it might not perhaps be "one of the
epics of the world," as Carl thinks. There are many
exquisite little gems in the Princess — many of "those
jewels five-words long," that the author speaks of; but
as a whole, I should be slow to call it a great work
of art.
BENSON. There are certainly also many things in
it to which the General has taken exception, and which
I am not prepared to defend. The thought has struck
me that for some or all of these occasional lapses, we
may have to thank the so-called "Water Cure" which
the author underwent between his former volumes and this.
PETERS. Not a bad idea that, Carl. The result
was exceedingly likely.
THE GENERAL. So then the same cause will
account for the difference between "Evangeline" and
"The Voices of the Night," and that between the Princess
and Locksley Hall.
BENSON. Well, we are agreed on one point at
any rate. And having settled so much satisfactorily, let
us refresh our inner man. Lift up the top of that oak
windowseat, Fred; you are the nearest to it. What do
you find there?
PETERS. Something that looks very like a gate
de joie gras reposing upon some old music; and a little
basket with an assortment of soda buscuit and waters,
and — is there a Bologna in this roll of yellowish paper?
BENSON. Precisely. Where's the General? Oh,
one naturally looks to the other window-seat for the
liquids. Quite right. You will find some jolly old Cognac
there, and a bottle of the real "Drioli" Maraschino , if
you are not above so ladylike a vanity. Help me to
clear the table, Fred. Put Dr. Arnold on the top of
Vanity Fair, and pitch those Boston reviews into the
chiffonier basket. Spread this Literary World out: it
will do for an extempore table-cloth. There, we have
the edibles and potables arranged I let us give a good
account of them.
m
THE GENERAL. We will endeavor to do them
justice , as we have been trying to do justice to the
Princess.
FANITY FAIR.
AN Anglo-Saxon can appreciate, although he may
not altogether admire Gallic wit; but a Gaul is hopelessly
incompetent to understand Saxon humor. * It is to him
what the Teutonic humor is to both Saxon and Gaul,
who suppose it must be humorous to the Teuton because
he vastly delights in it, but find it, so far as themselves
are concerned, dreary in the extreme, and utterly valueless
for purposes of amusement. Here is a book which has
a brilliant run in England, where its author is acknowl-
edged as one of the first periodical writers; we doubt
if any Frenchmann could go through it without falling
asleep in spite of the pictures. In our own country,
where the original Saxon character has become partially
Gallicized, the public opinion (setting aside that class
* Nothing shows this more clearly than the use which the
French have made, and not made, of their own one great humorist.
They bray about him of course, for he is part of their natural glory;
they talk about reading him — "bring me the tongs and a volume
of Pantagraet ," as that precious Theophile Gautier says. Possibly
they even read him as a bit of "business," though it may be doubted
if he is not and has not generally been more read in England than in
France Certainly he has left a greater impress on English than on
French literature. Setting aside minor writers , there is no great
modern French author, so Rabelaiesque as Swift or Southey. Most
of the direct and professed imitations of Rabelais which one meets with
in modern French are utterly inadequate. Balzac sontes Drolatiques
are very clever in their way* but have little of their model except the
antiquated spelling. Even their indecency, on which the author so
prides himself in his preface is the indecency of Balzac and not of
Rabelais. One man alone among contemporary French authors is
imbued with the style and spirit of the old humorist, and that without
making any parade of such inspiration; the resemblance too is more
striking in the serious than in the comic portions of his works.
Napoleon le petit is exactly such a book as Rabelais might have
written had he been in Victor Hugo's place»
13*
196
of readers, unfortunately too large, who are the willing
slaves of the publishers, and feel bound to read and talk
about a book because it is advertised by a big house,
in big letters, as "Thackeray's Masterpiece,") is about
equally divided, some much enjoying "Vanity Fair," others
voting it a great bore.
French wit and English humor! We do not mean
to expatiate on this oftendiscussed theme, tempting though
it be, affording copious opportunity for antitheses more
or less false, and distinctions without differences, but
shall merely hint at what seems the most natural way
to explain this national diversity of taste and appreciation
in respect of the two faculties. Wit consists in the
expression more than in the matter — it depends very
considerably on the words employed — and hence the
wittiest French sayings are, if not inexpressible, at least
inexpressive in English. Under the homely Saxon garb
they generally become very stupid or very wicked remarks
— not unfrequently both. But an Englishman with a
respectable knowledge of French can understand and be
amused by French wit, though he will probably not enter
into it very heartily. Humor, on the other hand, depends
on a particular habit of mind; so that, to enjoy English
humor, a Frenchman must not only understand English,
but become intellectually Anglicized to a degree that is
unnatural to him. In proof of this, it may be noticed
that French-educated or French-minded Americans find
Thackeray tedious, and (to take a stronger case, where
no national prejudice but a favorable one can be at work,)
yawn over Washington Irving.
And yet, if we wished to give an idea of Thackeray's
writings to a person who had never read them, we should
go to France for our first illustration; but it would be
to French art, not French literature. No one who has
ever been familiar with the pictured representations of
Parisian life which embellish that repository of wicked
wit, the Charivari — no one who knows Les Loreltes^ Les
Enfans Terribles^ &c., would think of applying to the
designs of Gavarni and his brother artists the term cari-
catures. He would say, "There is no caricature about
them ; they are life itself." And so it is with Thackeray's
writings; they present you with humorous sketches of
real life — literal comic pictures — never rising to the
197
ideal or diverging into the grotesque. Thus, while his
stories are excellent as a collection of separate sketches,
they have but moderate merit as stories^ nor are his single
characters great as single characters. Becky Sharpe is
the only one that can be called a firstrate hit ; for
"Chawls Yellowplush" is characterized chiefly by his
ludicrous spelling, and his mantle fits "Jeemes" just as
well. And just as Gavarni differs from Hogarth, should
we say Thackeray differs from Dickens, a writer with
whom he is sometimes compared, and to whom he un-
doubtedly has some points of resemblance, though he
cannot with any propriety be called "of the Dickens
school," or "an imitator of Dickens," any more than
Gavarni could be called an imitator of Hogarth.
Thackeray has his points of contact, also, with
another great humorous writer, Washington Irving. Very
gracefully and prettily does Mr. Titmarsh write at times 5
there is many a little bit, here and there, in the "Journey
from Cornhill to Cairo," that would not disgrace Geoffrey
Crayon in his best mood. But his geniality is not so
genuine, or so continuous. Not that there is anything
affected about his mirth — he is one of the most natural
of modern English writers: Cobbett or Sidney Smith
could hardly be more so; but it is dashed with stronger
ingredients. Instead of welling up with perennial jollity,
like our most good-humored of humorous authors, he is
evidently a little blaze ^ and somewhat disposed to be
cynical.
To compare Thackeray with Dickens and Irving,
most of our readers will think paying him a high com-
pliment, but we are not at all sure that his set would
be particularly obliged to us; for it is the fortune —
good in some respects, evil in others — of Mr. Titmarsh
to be one of a set. But wherever there are literary men
there will be sets; and those who have been bored and
disgusted by the impertinence and nonsense of stupid
cliques will be charitable to the occasional conceits of
clever ones. Having had some happy experience of that
literary society which is carried to greater perfection in
England than in any other country, we can pardon the
amiable cockneyism with which Michael Angelo's thoughts
revert to his Club even amid the finest scenery of other
lands, and the semi-ludicrous earnestness with which he
dwells on the circumstance of your name being posted
among the "members deceased," as if that were the most
awful and striking circumstance attendant on dissolution.
And, inasmuch as all his books are really books to be
read, we can excuse the quiet way in which he assumes
that you have read them all, and alludes, as a matter
of course, to the Hon. Algernon Deuceace and the Earl
of Crabs, and such ideal personages, much after the manner
of that precious Balzac who interweaves the same cha-
racters throughout the half-hundred or more volumes
which compose his panorama of Parisian society — a
society in which, as Macauley says of another school,
"the women are like very bad men, and the men too
bad for anything."
This mention of Balzac brings to mind a more serious
charge than that of occasional conceit or affectation which
we have more than once heard urged against our author;
namely, that his sketches contain too many disagreeable
characters. A queer charge this to come from a reading
generation which swallows copious illustrated editions of
Les Mysteres and Le Juif, and is lenient to the loathsome
vulgarities of Wuthering Heights and Wildfell Hall. But
let us draw a distinction or "discriminate a difference,"
as a transcendentalist acquaintance of ours used to say.
If a story is written for mere purposes of amusement,
there certainly ought not to be more disagreeable charac-
ters introduced than are absolutely necessary for relief
and contrast. But the moral and end of a story may
often compel the author to bring before us a great number
of unpleasant people. In a former volume of this Review
the opinion was pretty broadly stated that no eminent
novelist writes merely for amusement without some ulterior
aim ; most decidedly Thackery does not at any rate. We
shall have occasion to refer to this more than once, for
it is doing vast injustice to Mr. T. to regard him merely
as a provider of temporary fun. He does introduce us
to many scamps, and profligates, and hypocrites, but it
is to show them up and put us on our guard against
them. His bad people are evidently and unmistakably
bad ; we hate them, and he hates them, too, and doesn't
try to make us fall in love with them, like the philoso-
phers of the "Centre of Civilization," who dish you up
seraphic poisoners and chaste adulteresses in a way that
199
perplexes and confounds all established ideas of morality.
And if he ever does bestow attractive traits on his
rogues, it is to expose the worthlessness and emptiness
of some things which are to the world attractive — to
show that the good things of Vanity Fair are not good
per se^ but may be coincident with much depravity.
Thus Becky Sharpe, as portrayed by his graphic
pen, is an object of envy and admiration for her clev-
erness and accomplishments to many a fine lady. There
are plenty of the "upper ten" who would like to be as
"smart" as Rebecca. She speaks French like a French
woman, and gets up beautiful dresses out of nothing,
and makes all the men admire her, and always has a
repartee ready, and insinuates herself every where with
an irresistible nonchalance. Then comes in the sage
moralist, and shows us that a woman may do all these
fine things, and yet be ready to lie right and left to
every one, and ruin any amount of confiding tradesmen;
to sell one man and poison another; to betray her hus-
band and neglect her child. (That last touch is the most
hateful one: in our simplicity we hope it is an exagge-
ration. That a woman should be utterly regardless of
her offspring seems an impossibility — in this country,
we are proud to say, it is an impossibility.) Or if any
of his doubtful personages command our temporary re-
spect and sympathy, it is because they are for the time
in the right. Rawdon Crawley is not a very lofty cha-
racter; he frequently comes before us in a position not
even respectable; but when he is defending his honor
against the old sybarite Lord Steyne, he rises with the
occasion: even the guilty wife is forced to admire her
husband, as he stands "strong brave, and victorious."
Nor, though he finds it sometimes necessary to expose
hypocrites, does Thackeray delight in the existence of
hypocrisy, and love to seek out bad motives for apparently
good actions. His charity rather leads him to attribute
with a most humane irony pretended wickedness to weak-
ness. Your French writer brings an upright gentleman
before the footlights, and grudges you the pleasure of
admiring him ; he is impatient to carry him off behind
the scenes, strip off his Christian garments, and show
him to you in private a very fiend. But Thackeray,
when he has put into a youth's mouth an atrociously
200
piratical song, is overjoyed to add quietly that he "re-
members seeing him awfully sick on board a Greenwich
steamer."
Thus far our description has been one of negatives.
It is time to say something of the positive peculiarities
of Mr. T., two of which are strikingly observable, —
the one in his serious, the other in his comic vein. We
shall begin by the latter, for though to us he is greater
as a moralist than as a humorist , we are well aware
that the general opinion is the other way, and that he
is most generally valued for his fun. Many of the present
English comic writers excel to an almost Aristophanic
degree in parody and travestie, but in the latter Thacke-
ray is unrivalled. Now he derides in the most ludicrous
jargon, the absurd fopperies of the Court Circulars:
'^Head dress of knockers and bell-pulls , stomacher a
muffin;" now he audaciously burlesques the most classic
allusions "about Mademoiselle Arianne of the French
Opera, and who had left her, and how she was consoled
by Panther Carr." Some men have that felicity in story-
telling that they will make you laugh at the veriest Joe
Miller as if it had been just invented, and similarly there
is nothing so old or so dry , but it becomes a subject
for mirth under Titmarsh's ready pen or pencil, (for
Michael Angelo is an artist himself, and a right clever
one, and needs no Cruikshank or Leech to illustrate him.)
But Thackeray never sets about a story of any length
without having a will and a purpose. And this indeed
is a noticeable difference generally existing between the
wit and the humorist , that while the former sparkles
away without any object beyond his own momentary
amusement, the latter has definite aim, some abuse to
attack, some moral to hint. Thackeray attacks abuses,
and it is with an honest indignation and simple earnest-
ness that form the distinguishing features of his serious
writings. He assaults all manner of social sham, humbug
and flunkeyism, and gives it to them in a way that does
you good to hear. Against toadyism, affectation and
snobbery, he preaches a crusade in the sturdiest Anglo-
Saxon. The charge began in the "Snobs of England;"
it is now followed up in "Vanity Fair." Any one, there-
fore, who reads the latter book should read the "Snob
Papers" in Punch , by way of introduction to it. Tin-
201
worship and title-worship , and that "praise of men"
which your fashionables love more than the "'praise of
God" — Titmarsh is sworn foe to all these, and wages
unrelenting w^ar on them — but with none of that cant
which runs all through Jerrold and half through Dickens :
he does not make all his poor people angels, nor all his
rich people devils, because they are rich. Nor has he
any marked prejudice against Christianity in general, or
the Christianity of his own church in particular — which
we are weak enough to think rather to his credit. More-
over his sledge-hammer invective against fashionable
fooleries, is not engendered of or alloyed with any rusticity
or inability to appreciate the refinements of civilized life,
as a backwoodsman or Down-easter might abuse things he
did not comprehend; for Titmarsh has a soul for art and
poetry , and good living , and all that is aesthetic and
elegant.
"Vanity Fair," then, is a satire on English society.
The scene indeed is laid thirty years back, but that is
of a piece with Juvenal's
"Experiar quid concedatur in illos
Quorum Flaminia tegitur cinls atque Latina."
It is meant for the present time, as the very illu-
strations show, in which all the male characters wear
the convenient trouser (Americanice pantaloons) of our ow^n
day, instead of the stiff "tights" w^hich were the habit
of that period. In a work of this sort we naturally
expect to find many type-characters — that is, characters
who represent classes of people. Most of these are very
good and true. Rawley Crawdon is a capital representative
of the uneducated part of the young British officer y —
profligate and spendthrift, stupid in everything but cards,
billiards , and horseflesh , and too illiterate to spell
decently; yet withal bold as a lion. It is pleasant to
see such a man properly depicted now and then, for the
writer who does it is doing his duty to civilization by
assailing the old barbarous feudal notion that mere
physical courage , which is generally founded on the
consciousness of superior physical strength and dexterity,
should ride roughshod over moral courage and intellect.
And Lord Steyne is a thorough specimen of the aristo-
cratic old Sybarite. Others had tried their hands at this
202
character before — D'Israeli and that coarsest of fine
ladies , Lady Blessington — but none of them have
succeeded like Thackeray. And Pitt Crawley is a perfect
model of the stiff, slow, respectable formula man. And
Osborne, Sr., is one of your regular purse-proud cits
who measure everything by what it will fetch on 'Change.
But some ^ of the portraits are not fair even to Vanity
Fair, and that of Sir Pitt, the elder Crawley, seems to
us positively unjust. He may be a true sketch from
life; rumor has indeed given him a real name and family;
but he is too bad to be a type of country baronets, or
even of country squires. And though the high - life
characters have bitter justice done them in most things,
there is one point on which the men are a little wronged:
they swear too much. Allowing that a fearful amount of
profanity prevails among people who ought to know better,
there is surely no necessity for its being repeated. We
do not want to hear the thing simply because it is true,
any more than w^e wish to see pictures of disgusting and
frightful objects, however faithfully to nature they may
be painted. But in fact English gentlemen are not so
openly profane as Titmarsh represents them.
The book has no hero: it openly professes to have
none. But there is a heroine, at least a prominent
female character, and she is equal to a dozen ordinary
heroines and heroes. Becky Sharpe is an original creation,
not the representative of a class, though there are traits
about her that remind you of several classes. Any one
who has been much in society must have had the fortune
or misfortune to meet more than one woman who resem-
bled Becky in some points — ay, even among us simple,
unsophisticated, etc., republicans ; for in truth if you only
leave out a little nonsense about titles, everything in
Titmarsh's literary puppet-show will apply point-blank
to our own occidental Vanity Fair. There are women
as spitefully satirical as Rebecca, making mischief in
the most ingenious and graceful ways — fashionable
enough that, and not by any means a sin, but on the
contrary no small recommendation in Vanity Fair. There
are women all in the best society, who flirt with every
passable man that comes near them, as Rebecca did;
for observe, it is not proved that Mrs. Rawdon Crawley
did anything more ; her biographer does not give you to
203
understand that she actually "comitted herself ' with any
one — and this is very proper and pleasing in Vanity
Fair. There are women w ho, like Rebecca, have always
a plausible lie ready to excuse themselves ; and this is
an excusable pecadillo in Vanity Fair. There are women
who, like Rebecca, look to marriage only as a means of
getting a position "in society," and what can be a more
flattering homage to Vanity Fair ? There are w^omen, like
Rebecca, who sponge upon spooneys and get money under
false pretences; and the victims may "cut up rough"
about it, but the rest of Vanity Fair pass it over as a
venial offence and accept their part of the spoil. In
short, put together a number of things the practice of
which is not only allowable but successful in Vanity
Fair, and what a devil of a woman you will make ! Such
at least is our idea of the moral and theory of Rebecca
Crawley nee Sharpe.
She is the daughter of a dissipated artist and a
French danseuse^ is brought up for a governess, has no
principles worth speaking of, but plenty of accomplish-
ments and much wordly cleverness. Hardly out of school,
she makes beautiful play for the first man she meets, a
dummy fat dandy, and thus Titmarsh defends her: —
"It was an advance, and as such, perhaps, some ladies of indis-
putable correctness and gentility will condemn the action as immodest
but, you see, poor dear Rebecca had all this work to do for herself.
If a person is too poor to keep a servant, he must sweep his own
rooms: if a dear girl has no dear mamma to settle matters with the
young man, she must do it for herself. And oh ! what a mercy it is
that these women do not exercise their powers oftener! We can't
resist them if they do. Let them show ever so little inclination, and
men go down on their knees at once ; old or ugly, it is all the same.
And this I set down as a positive truth. A woman with fair oppor-
tunities and without an absolute hump, may marry WHOM SHE
LIKES. Only let us be thankful that the darlings are like the beasts
of the field [Oh ! Oh !] and don't know their own power. They would
overcome us entirely if they did."
We have known young ladies of the same opinion
— that a woman may marry any man she likes — and
some of them have been wofully sold in consequence,
and remained utterly unmarried to the end of time. But
if we are content not to state the proposition in extreme
terms, w^e may make it sufficiently broad. The chances
204
of a woman getting the man she wants, are to those of
a man getting the woman he wants, as nineteen to one
on a very moderate estimate. Where the man is the
attacking party, how easily all his approaches are seen
through ! how they are turned to derision before his very
face! And if he is really, truly, and hopelessly in love,
it is a thousand times worse. Then, when it is of vital
importance to him to make the best appearance, he is
sure to be bungling and stupid, and not able to do himself
justice. On the other hand, it is a beautiful sight, as a
mere work of art, to see a man skillfully angled for,
(for man before matrimony is like to a fish which is
inveigled with rod and line: after the operation he re-
sembleth the horse who is ridden with bit and bridle.)
It is immensely tickling to the victim himself, and vast
fun to the circumstantes — such of them, that is, as have
not similar designs on the sufferer. And so, by rule,
Becky ought to captivate Joseph Sedley off-hand; but
that would have wound up the history too soon; so the
portly exquisite is carried aw^ay from her by the lover
of her particular friend, whom she afterwards pays off
handsomely for the kind turn done her. Spilt milk and
lost lovers are not to be cried over; so the little woman
dries her tears and makes another shy — this time suc-
cessfully — at the dashing, fighting, stupid young officer,
Rawdon Crawley, with his expensive tastes and limited
means. But Mr. and Mrs. R. C. being people of family
(he is and she professes to be) must live accordingly,
and so we are let into the mystery "how to live well
on nothing a-year."
"I suppose there is no man in this vanity fair of ours, so little
observant as not to think sometimes about the worldly aifairs of his
acquaintances, or so extremely charitable as not to wonder how his
neighbour Jones or his neighbour Smith can make both ends meet at
tho end of the year. * * * * Some three or four years after his
stay in Paris, when Rawdon Crawley and his wife were established
in a very small comfortable house in Curyon street, Mayfair, there
was scarcely one of the numerous friends they entertained at dinner
that did not ask the above question regarding them. As I am in a
situation to be able to tell the public how Crawley and his wife
lived without any income, may I entreat the public newspapers which
are in the habit of extracting various portions of the periodical works
now published, not to reprint the following exact narrative and cal-
205
culations, of which I ought, as the discoverer, (and at some expense
too,) to have the benefit. My son — I would say, were I blessed
with a child — you may by deep inquiry and constant intercourse
with him, learn how a man lives comfortably on nothing a-year. But
it is best not to be intimate with gentlemen of this profession, and
to take the calculations at second hand, as you do logarithms, for
to work them yourself, depend upon it, will cost you something
considerable, * * * * The truth is , when we say of a gentleman
that he lives elegantly on nothing a-year, we use the word 'nothing'
to signify something unknown; meaning, simply, that we don't know
how the gentleman in question defrays the expenses of his establish-
ment. Now our friend the Colonel had a great aptitude for all games
of chance ; and exercising himself , as he continually did , with the
cards , the dice-box or the cue , it is natural to suppose that he
attained a much greater skill in the use of these articles than men
can possess who only occasionally handle them. To use a cue at
billiards well, is like using a pencil or a smallsword — you cannot
master any one of these implements at first, and it is only by re-
peated study and perseverance, joined to a natural taste, that a man
can excel in the handling of either. Now Crawley, from being only
a brilliant amateur, had grown to be a consummate master of billiards.
Like a great general, his genius used to rise with the danger, and
when the luck had been unfavorable to him for a whole game, and
the bets were consequently against him, he would, with consummate
skill and boldness , make some prodigious hits which would restore
the battle, and come in a victor at the end, to the astonishment of
everybody — of everybody, that is, who was a stranger to his play.
Those who were accustomed to see it , were cautious how they
staked their money against a man of such sudden resources , and
brilliant and overpowering skill. At games of cards he was equally
skilful, for though he would constantly lose money at the commence-
ment of an evening, playing so carelessly and making such blunders
that new-comers were often inclined to think meanly of his talent;
yet when roused to action, and awakened to caution by repeated
losses, it was remarked that Crawley's play became quite different,
and that he was pretty sure of beating his enemy before the neight
was over. Indeed very few men could say that they ever had the
better of him."
And, of course, if anybody hinted that the Colonel's
play was too good to be true, he had his pistols ready,
"same which he shot Captain Marker," to vindicate his
honor. Are there any nice young men in Yankee land
who live upon nothing in the same way? We don't
pretend to know, and only ask for information.
206
But clever as Rebecca and her husband are in this
way, they can't get much from his elder brother, the
formula before alluded to, one of those people who know
just enough to hold on to what they have got, which,
to be sure, requires some capacity.
"Pitt knew how poor his brother and his brother's family must
be. It could not have escaped the notice of such a cool an experi-
enced old diplomatist, that Rawdon's family had nothing to live upon,
and that houses and carriages are not to be kept for nothing. He
knew very well that he was the proprietor or appropriator of the
money which, according to all proper calculation, ought to have fallen
to his younger brother, and he had, we may be sure, some secret
pangs of remorse within him, which warned him that he ought to
perform some act of justice, or let us say, compensation, towards
these disappointed relations. A just, decent man, not without brains,
who said his prayers and knew his catechism, and did his duty out-
wardly through life , he could not be otherwise than aware that
something was due to his brother at his hands , and that morally he
was Rawdon's creditor. But as one reads in the Times, every now
and then, queer announcements from the Chancellor of the Exchequer
acknowledging the receipt of £ 50 from A. B., or £ 10 from W. T.,
as consciencemoney, on account of taxes due by the said A. B. or
W. T., which payments the penitents beg the Right Honorable gentle-
man to acknowledge through the medium of the public press — so
is the Chancellor, no doubt, and the reader likewise, always perfectly
sure that the above-named A. B. and W. T. are only paying up a
very small instalment of what they really owe , and that the man
who sends up a twenty pound note has very likely hundreds or
thousands more for which he ought to account. Such, at least, are
my feelings, when I see A. B. or W. T.'s insufficient acts of repen-
tance. And I have no doubt that Pitt Crawley's contrition, or kind-
ness, if you will, towards his younger brother, by whom he had so
much profited, was only a very small dividend upon the capital sum
for which he was indebted to Rawdon. Not everybody is willing to
pay even so much. To part with money is a sacrifice beyond almost
all men endowed with a sense or order. * * * * So, in a word,
Pitt Crawley thought he would do something for his brother, and then
thought he would think about it some other time."
It is a good old maxim of Vanity Fair that Sir
Pitt went upon, "Every one for himself, and God for
us all." Some rich men have a habit of doing nothing
for their poor relations, and then wanting to know if
they are satisfied; others do a little, and talk enough
about that to make up for the deficiency — if talk would
1207
do it. All this goes off in England very quietly, as
being the natural course of things in a country where
the eldest son legally succeeds to all the property, and
the younger children are more or less starved. Here it
is not so common, for if a millionaire does not divide
his property equaly, the law, or the lawyers generally,
contrive to do it for him, and make a partition among
all the familiy alike, however worthless or extravagant
some of them may be, the beautiful consequence of w&ch
is, that three generations never occupy the same house,
and it is impossible to preserve, much less increase, any
private collection of paintings, books, or curiosities. We
brag of our equal law of succession, but in some things
it certainly stands in the way of civilization and refinement.
But though Rebecca is not able to bleed her diplo-
matic brother-in-law, she gets the needful from a much
greater man — Lord Steyne. To be sure his morals
are not of the best, "but," as little Lord Southdown
says, "he's got the best dry Sillery in Europe." A right
Vanity Fair apology that! It's none of my business if
this man is a profligate and a villain, so long as it does'nt
hurt me. He is to be damned on his own account;
meanwhile w^hy shouldn't I have the benefit of his good
things as well as any one else? For, as Titmarsh says
in another place, "wine, wax-lights, comestibles, crinoline-
petticoats^ diamonds, Louis-Quatorze gimcracks and old
china, and splendid high-stepping carriage horses — all
the delights of life, I say — w^ould go to the deuce if
people did but act upon their silly principles, and avoid
those whom they dislike and abuse. Whereas, by a little
charity and mutual forbearance, things are made to go
on pleasantly enough: we may abuse a man as much as
we like, and call him the greatest rascal unhung — but
do we wish to hang him therefore ? No, we shake hands
when we meet. If his cook is good, we go and dine
with him." On which accommodating principle, whenever
Lord Steyne had an entertainment, "everybody went to
wait upon this great man — everybody who was asked:
as you the reader, (do not say nay,) or I the writer
hereof, would go, if we had an invitation."
No, Mr. Titmarsh, there are people who wouldn't
go at any price — people to whom you don't do full
justice — your Lady Southdowns and the like — "serious
208
people," as they are denominated on your side of the
water, and "professors of religion" on ours. And because
these people — having their mental optics illumined by
light from above — see through the hollowness and
humbug and wretched unsatisfactoriness of the things of
Vanity Fair, and value them accordingly, and do act
upon their (not altogether silly) principles, and don't sell
them for dry Sillery, or fine music, or pretty women,
or any such amusing vanities — are they to be rewarded
for this by being held up to ridicule? Verily they deserve
better usage from your pen and pencil. Is there any
philosophy or morality or wisdom, except practical
Christianity, that will enable man or woman to fight
Vanity Fair and come off conqueror? And if not, why
do you, who preach so earnestly against Vanity Fair,
sheer down Christian men and women?
Titmarsh would answer probably that he did not,
by any means, intend to laugh at religion, but a counter-
feits or perverted developments of religion — the mock-
righteousness of some who are not righteous at all; the
want of judgment of others who are righteous overmuch.
And were he, or any friend of his, to advance this de-
fence of him, we should be charitably pre-disposed to
accept it^ for there are passages in this book which
none but a true Christian could have written — at least
it seems so to us. Here are two taken at random. A
poor widow is about to part from her child, whom she
has not the means of supporting : —
"That night Amelia made the boy read the sory of Samuel to
her, and how Hannah, his mother, having weaned him, brought him
to Eli, the High Priest, to minister before the Lord. And he read
the song of gratitude which Hannah sang; and which says, Who is
it that maketh poor and raaketh rich, and bringeth low and exalteth?
how the poor shall be raised up out of the dust, and how in his
own might no man shall be strong. Then he read how Samuel's
mother made him a little coat, and brought it to him from year to
year, when she came up to offer the yearly sacrifice. And then, in
her sweet simple way , George's mother made commentaries to the
boy upon this affecting story. How Hannah, though she loved her
son so much, gave him up because of her vow; and how she must
always have thought of him, as she sat at home, far away, making
the little coat; and Samuel, she was sure, never forgot his mother;
4md how happy she must have been as the time came (and the years
209
pass away very quick) when she should see her boy, and how good
and wise he had grown."
The same widow's old bankrupt father dies.
"Emmy stayed and did her duty as usual. She was bowed down
by no especial grief, and rather solemn than sorrowful. She prayed
that her own end might be as calm and painless , and thought with
trust and reverence of the words she had heard from her father
during his illness, indicative of his faith, his resignation, and his
future hope.
"Yes, I think that will be the better ending of the two after all.
Suppose you are particularly rich and well to do, and say on that
last day, 'I am very rich; I am tolerably well known; I have lived
all my life in the best society, and, thank Heaven, come of a most
respectable family. I have served my king and my country with
honor. I was in Parliament for several years, where, I may say, my
speeches were listened to, and pretty well received. I don't owe
any man a shilling; on the contrary, I lent my old college friend Jack
Lazarus fifty pounds, for which my executors will not press him. I
leave my daughters with ten thousand pounds a-piece — very good
portions for girls. I bequeath my plate and furniture , my house in
Baker street, with a handsome jointure, to my widow for her life;
and my landed property, besides money in the funds , and my cellar
of well-selected wine, to my son. I leave twenty pound a-year to
my valet; and I defy any man after I am gone to say anything
against my character.' Or suppose, on the other hand, your swan
sings quite a different sort of dirge, and you say, 'I am a poor, bligh-
ted, disappointed old fellow, and have made an utter failure through
life. I was not endowed either with brains or with good fortune,
and confess that I have committed a hundred mistakes and blunders,
I own to having forgotten my duty many a time. I can't pay what
I owe. On my last bed I lie utterly helpless and humble ; and I pray
forgiveness for my weakness and throw myself with a contrite heart
at the feet of the Divine mercy.' Which of these two speeches,
think you, would be the best oration for your own funeral? old
Sedley made the last; and in that humble frame of mind, and holding
by the hand of his daughter, life and disappointment and vanity sank
away from under him."
After reading such paragraphs as these, we feel
bound to believe that it is mere iiQcovsta when Titmarsh
says he would accept any great bad man's invitation.
We don't believe that he would have dined with the
Marquis of Hereford's mistress, as Croker alias Rigby
used to do after slanging the imcnoral French novelists
Vol. I U
tl6
in that bulwark of orthodox principles, the London
Quarterly.
But to return to the amiable Becky. Under the
patronage of the old rou6 whom she contrives to entice
and wheedle without doing anything to compromise herself,
she actually obtains a footing in "the very best society."
"Her success excited, elated, and then bored her.
At first no occupation was more pleasant than to invent
and procure (the latter a work of no small trouble and
ingenuity by the way, in a person of Mrs. Rawdon
Crawley's very narrow means,) to procure, we say, the
prettiest new dresses and ornaments ; to drive to the fine
dinner parties, where she was welcomed by great people ;
and from the fine dinner parties to fine assemblies, whither
the same people came with whom she had been dining,
whom she had met the night before, and would see on
the morrow — the young men faultlessly appointed, and
handsomely cravatted, with the neatest glossy boots and
white gloves — the elders portly, brassbuttoned , noble
looking, polite and prosy — the young ladies blonde,
timid, and in pink — the mothers grand, beautiful, sump-
tuous, solemn, and in diamonds. They talked in English,
not in bad French, as they do in the novels. They
talked about each other's houses, and characters, and
families; just as the Joneses do about the Smiths. Becky's
former acquaintances hated and envied her; the poor
woman herself was yawning in spirit. 'I wish I were
out of it,' she said to herself. 'I would rather be a
parson's wife and teach a Sunday-school than this; or
a sergeant's lady and ride in the regimental waggon;
or O, how much gayer it would be to wear spangles
and trowsers, and dance before a booth at a fair.'"
Not being at all in the diplomatic way and very
little in the fashionable way, we have had small per-
sonal experience of "the very best" English society —
the Almacks and Morning Post people to wit. So far
as we did see any of it, we thought it marvellously slow,
and by no means distinguished for taste, a great deal
of solid material and resources badly developed, beautiful
diamonds on ugly dowagers, ugly dresses on handsome
belles — for, r^gle generale^ all the English women dress
badly. In the easy, natural, frock-coat-and-no-straps
part of life, honest Bull shines out; but in all matters
211
of fashionable elegance, he is nowhere in comparison
with his neighbor Crapeau — nay, can hardly hold a
candle to his young brother Jonathan whom he some-
times affects to despise as a semibarbarian. By the
way, what a chapter or two an American Titmarsh might
make of our "upper ten thousand!" the handsome little
silly girls just from boarding-school ; the little — men
they call themselves — equally silly but not equally
handsome, just from boarding-school too, only it is
called a university; here and there a juvenile lion who
has brought the last variety of vests and vices from
dear, delightful, dissipated Paris — or perchance a real
Parisian, baron or marquis, sent by subscription of a
club with three changes of linen, to marry an heiress if
he can get one — not forgetting the four great facts of
a Gothamite ball, champagne, oysters, charlotte-russe
and polka. We wonder how the Bostonese do these
things. The ovreTOi say that they have metaphysical
cotillons at the modern Athens, and discuss Wordsworth
amid the mazes of la Trenis. Awful and stunning idea!
Rebecca is apt to be bored, as all people who live
merely to amuse and gratify themselves are. If she finds
town-society stupid, she is not more pleased with rurali-
zing at her brother-in-law's.
"'It isn't difficult to be a country gentleman's wife,' Rebecca
thought. 'I think I could be a good woman if I had five thousand
a-year. I could dawdle about in the nursery and count the apricots
on the wall. I could water plants in a green-house and pick oif
dead leaves from the geraniums. I could ask old women about their
rheumatisms, and order half-a-crown's worth of soup for the poor.
I shouldn't miss it much out of five thousand a-year. I could even
drive ten miles to dine at a neighbor's, and dress in the fashions of
the year before last. I could go to church and keep awake in the
great family pew, or go to sleep behind the curtain with my veil
down, if I only had practice. I could pay everybody if I had but
the money. That is what the conjurers here pride themselves on
doing."
And yet there is much enjoyment in the life of a
country- gentleman's wife, or a country gentleman in
England or America; but it is enjoyment only for those
who like simple and natural pleasures — and Becky did
not like simple pleasures. She disliked children, as we
have mentioned. A terrible trait that even in man —
14*
21^
unless, like William Pitt, he is a great statesman at
twenty-one, and has to defend his country against the
world, when he may be excused from possessing any of
the domestic affections in consideration of the work he
has to do. The man who, having leisure to love children^
hates them — that man we would not trust with our
purse, our secrets, our character, our life. But how
much worse in a woman!
It would take too long to follow Becky through her
chequered career — her grand catastrophe, her exile,
her ultimate partial recovery. Many of our readers were
more or less familiar with her before seeing these remarks
of ours; and such as are not, must have been tempted
ere this to resolve that they will go to the fountain-head
for information about her. We have only to observe,
before taking leave of her, the skill which her biographer
displays in lightly passing over some of the diabolical
scenes she is concerned in, such for instance as "her
second appearance in the character of Clytemnestra."
Your true artist will produce infinitely more effect by
just hinting at a horror, than a secondrate man can work
by going into the most elaborate details. *
Some notice should be taken of the Osbornes and
Sedleys who make up the underplot of the story. We
have some suspicion that Thackeray finished up old
Osborne, the purse-proud merchant, more carefully than
he had intended at first, in opposition to Mr. Dombey,
to show his view of such a character in opposition to
that of Dickens. If such a comparison is challenged,
there can be no doubt that so far as verisimilitude and
nature are concerned, Mr. Osborne, Sr., has it by long
* We noticed a remarkable instance of this ten years ago. No
one who has read Oliver Twist can forget the tremendous power
with which the last scenes in the life of the miserable old Jew, Fagan,
are worked out; but of the very last scene of all — of his actual
execution — there is not a word. Contemporary with Oliver Twist,
appeared an Irish story by one of the Irish novelists, which terminated
with the execution of the principal villain. Every attendant circum-
stance was minutely worked out, and "the agony piled up" uncommonly
high; but after all the thought struck us immediately, "How much
less impression is made by all these terrifying minutiae than by the
half dozen lines in which Boz informs us that Mr. Brownlow and
Oliver, in coming out of Newgate, saw the sheriff's preparations for
the day's tragedy."
213
odds. There never was such a merchant or man of
business at all as Mr. Dombey. His calm, icy pride is
not the pride of a merchant at all; it would be in cha^
racter for a nobleman or a gentleman of old family. We
wonder Dickens did not make him one or the other.
There was nothing in the exigencies of the story to forbid
it. Noblemen are ruined easily enough now-a-days —
-witness the Duke of Buckingham, who has just been sold
out as completely as the veriest Wall-street speculator,
to the great joy of all radicals. Nor is Mr. D. let down
and made to relent in a natural, gradual and plausible
way, as Mr. O. is; but taken off the stage as melo-dra-
matically as he was brought on.
The loves and fortunes of young Osborne and Amelia
Sedley, are designed to carry out still further the attack
on what formed one of the strongest topics of denun-
ciation in the "Snob Papers," — that heartless system
(flourishing to perfection in France, but deep-rooted enough
in England) which considers matrimony as the union, not
of a young man to a young woman, but of so much to
so much. A splendid theme for indignant declamation^
and one in which the satirist is sure to meet with much
sympathy from the young of both sexes. But we must
remember that the principle of union for love has, like
all principles, its limitations. That two young people,
long and fondly attached to each other, should be afraid
to marry because they would be obliged to drop a little
in the social scale, and deny themselves some of the
outward luxuries they enjoy separately ; that they should
sacrifice their hearts to those abominable dictates of fashion
which Titmarsh has summed up in his Snob Command-
ment, "Thou shalt not marry unless thou hast a Broughan^
and a man-servant;" this is truly matter of indignation
and mourning, against which it is not possible to say
too much. But we must also protest against the opposite
extreme — the inference drawn from an extension of
our principle — that love ought to overcome and exclude
all objections, want of principles and character in the
man for instance; or utter want of means on both sides
to support a family ; or even — what is generally the
first thing to be disregarded in such cases — incompa-
tibility of relations and friends. Sentimentalists talk as
if love were to be the substitute for, or at least the
514
equal of religion, (it is the only religion of the French
writers,) whereas, in truth, it is no more infallible in its
decisions or imperative in its claims than ambition, or
courage, or benevolence, or various other passions, which,
either indifferent or positively laudable in themselves,
are liable to sad perversion and exaggeration. The lover
makes great sacrifices for his mistress; so does the am-
bitious man for his ambition; the covetous man for his
fortune ; and, to take a passion wholly and unmitigatedly
bad, the vindictive man for his revenge. In all these
cases the sacrifices are made for the same end — the
securing of a desired object for self; but because, in
the first case, the object of desire is not the possession
of a mere abstraction like fame, or of a mere material
like money, but of another human being, therefore love
has the appearance of being the most disinterested and
self-sacrificing of the passions, while it is, in reality, gene-
rally the most selfish. Is this view a soulless and worldly
one ? We appeal to your own experience, reader. Of all
the pur sang love-matches you have known — matches
where one or more of the impediments we have mentioned
existed — how many have turned out happily ? Nay, we
appeal to Titmarsh himself and his own characters in this
very book. Would it not have been a thousand times
better for Amelia if she had married Dobbin in the first
place? And might not George as well have taken Miss
Schwartz as wed Amelia one month and been ready to
run away with another woman the next ? *
We must take leave of Titmarsh ; for he is carrying
us oflP into all sorts of digressions. We never were so
long filling the same number of pages as we have been
on the present occasion, for whenever we opened the
book to make an extract we were tempted to read on,
on, on — the same things which we had read a dozen
times — but there was no resisting. And when we re-
* This is an element that never enters into the sentimentalist's
calculation — if sentimentalists ever make calculations — the incon-
stancy of love. Could the continuance of a first passion be insured,
there would be more excuse for putting it above prudence, and duty,
and filial affection; but alas! it often vanishes in what D'Israeli not
unfelicitously calls "a crash of iconoclastic surfeit," and then, when
that, for which everything was given up, becomes itself nothing, the
reaction is awful.
215
solutely turned our back to his people, it was only to
think, and reason, and argue about them. How many of
the hundreds of novels, published every year, leave any
impression on your mind or give you one afterthought
about any character in them? It is easy to take excep-
tions to the book — we have taken our share; we
might go on to pick out little slips, instances of forget-
fulness, as where we are told first that Amelia Sedley
is not the heroine, and two or three pages after that
she isj or when the climate of Coventry Island is so
bad that no office will insure Rawdon's life there, yet
in the very same number it is mentioned how much his
life-insurance cost him. But, say what you will, the
book draws you back to it, over and over again. Farewell
then, O Titmarsh ! Truly, thou deservest better treatment
than we can give thee. Thy book should be written
about in a natural, even, continuous, flowing style like
thine own, not in our lumbering paragraphs, that blunder
out only half of what we mean to say. And do thou,
O reader, buy this book if thou hast not bought it; if
thou hast, throw it not away into the chiffonier-basket
as thou dost many brown-paper-covered volumes; but
put it into a good binding and lay it by — not among
the works "that no gentleman's library should be without"
— but somewhere easy of access; for it is a book to
keep and read, and there are many sermons in it.
OXFORD HEXAMETERS.
Literary World, June 1849.
The Bothie of Toyer-na-Fuosich , a Long-Vacation Pastoral
By Arthur Hugh Clough. Cambridge : John Bartlett. 1849.
THIS little book has been a puzzle to some of our
Republican readers who are principled against Fraser.
For as Mr. Bartlett has given no intimation whatever
on the title-page that there was any such thing as an
original English edition, they, seeing a book published
k
216
at Cambridge, Mass., and composed in manyfooted lines,
that run over like too copiously filled glasses (extra
water will produce the fulness as well as extra spirit),
thought that it must be some progeny of Evangeline, either
in the way of imitation or quiz. Whereas it has about
as much to do with Evangeline as with Southey's Vision
of Judgment. The English have been writing English
Hexameters (and Pentameters too, by the way) for se-
veral years. We remember at least two partial trans-
lations of the Iliad, by different hands, and a number of
poems, original and translated, the joint composition of
three distinguished University men, Archdeacon Hare,
Dr. W^hewell, and (we believe) Professor Long. Indeed,
there were plenty of Hexametrists before Longfellow
(we speak of the present generation, without going back
to Southey, much less to Sidney), but they are not often
heard of on this side the water, because they want a
sacred Bostonian.
English Hexameters have generally one of two faults.
Either a uniformity of structure that gives them a mo-
notony of cadence, or a carelessness of structure that
leaves them no cadence at all. The former is the pre-
vailing error of Evangeline. Every line in it is the exact
rhythmical and metrical counterpart of almost every
other line. There is no variety of caesura or movement
throughout the whole poem, and the monotony of the
versification reminds us of a machine, invented in Eng-
land a few years ago, which ground out hexameters to
any extent, on the principle of the kaleidoscope somehow,
and all after this pattern,
Murmura torva tubce percellunt pectora dura,
every line containing four neuter-plurals, a Mollossus of
a verb, * and an Iambic genitive. ''The Bothie of what
do you call it," has the opposite and worse fault of
using so many variations and licenses, that the majority
of the lines which it contains are no hexameters at all,
and can only be admitted as apologies for such by a
stretch of charity rather than of courtesy. The author
benevolently warns us, that every kind of irregularity
* By this formidable expression the writer appears to mean
verb of three long syllables. — Printer's D.
217
must be expected, and that "Spondaic lines are almost
the rule;" unfortunately most of these "Spondaic lines"
are rather Trochaic lines, e. g. the second in the volume.
"Long had the stone been put, tree cast, and thrown the hammer."
And by way of compensation for occasionally falling
short a few syllables, they now and then run over a
good many, till they almost equal the notorious Alexan-
drine of the Scotch versifier: —
"And was not Pharaoh a saucy rascal.
Who would not let the Children of Israel, their wives and their
little ones, their flocks and their herds, and everything
they had, go out into the wilderness for seven days to
eat the Paschal?"
The plot of "The Bothie" is the merest thread. Six
Oxford men go out on a Reading party. Reading, in the
University slang, means studying, and the reading parties
are so called, on the Incus a non lucendo principle, because
the party do anything but read. The veritable students
stay at the University, while the "parties" betake them
to quiet little places (such as the Island of Jersey, for
instance), where the wine is cheap and the women hand-
some, and the climate pleasantly enervating, and "the
contingent advantages generally remarkable," as Dick
Swiveller says — it may be judged how much reading
they accomplish. Our party go to the Highlands, bathe
chiefly, and one of them falls in love, and is ultimately
married to a mountain lassie: his amatory proceedings
are made the medium of introducing more Carlyle and
Tennyson run mad than we have seen for many a day.
However, not wishing to prejudice the reader, we shall
give him a few extracts to judge for himself; and they
shall be given in accordance with the more fashionable
than just rule of picking out the best bits we can find : —
THE USE OF DIFFERENT DENOMIXATIONS OF CLERGYMEN.
"Here too were Catholic Priest and Established Minister standing,
One to say grace before, the other after the dinner;
Catholic Priest; for many still cling to the Ancient Worship,
And Sir Hector's father himself had built them a chapel ;
So stood Priest and Minister, near to each other, but silent,
One to say grace before, the other after the dinner."
218
A touching picture of concord this: it reminds us
of a venerable and lamented friend, who used to give
little soirees to all the ists and oxies in the city, from
Hughes to Bellows inclusive — and the interference of
the Police was not found necessary on a single occasion : —
WHAT THE "READING PARTY" DID WITH THEIR BOOKS.
"Lo the weather is golden, the weather-glass, say they, rising;
Four weeks here have we read; four weeks will we read hereafter;
Three weeks hence will return and revisit our dismal classics,
Three weeks hence readjust our visions of classes and classics.
Fare ye well, meantime, forgotten, unnamed, undreamt of,
History, Science, and Poets: lo, deep in dustiest cupboard
Thookydid, Oloros' son, Halimoosian, here lieth buried. *
Slumber in Liddell-and-Scott, O musical chaif ** of Old Athens,
Dishes and fishes, bird, beast, and Sesquipedalian blackguard !
Sleep, weary Ghosts, be at peace, and abide in your lexicon-limbo,
Sleep, as in lava for ages your Herculanean kindred,
JEschylus, Sophocles, Homer, Herodotus, Pindar, and Plato."
QUANDARY OF AN "EARNEST MAN," AFTER THE MANNER OFCARLYLE.
"I am sorry to say, your Providence puzzles me sadly;
Children of circumstance are we to be? You answer, oh, no wisel
Where does Circumstance end, and Providence where begins it ?
In the revolving sphere which is upper, which is under?
What are we to resist, and what are we to be friends with?
If there is battle, 'tis battle by night: I stand in the darkness,
Here in the melee of men Ionian and Dorian on both sides,
Signal and pass-word known; which is friend and which is foeman?
Is it a friend? I doubt, though he speak with the voice of a brother.
Still you are right, I suppose; you always are and will be.
Though I mistrust the Field-Marshal, I bow to the duty of order.
Let us all get on as we can, and do what we're meant for,
Or, as is said in your favorite weary old Ethics, our ergon.
Yet is my feeling rather to ask, where is the battle?
Neither battle I see nor arraying, nor King in Israel,
Only infinite jumble and mess and dislocation,
Backed by a solemn appeal %r God's sake do not stir there.'"
* A literal translation of the pseudo-epitaph of Thucydides
** Chaff is fast-man for banter.
219
METAPHYSIC MUSINGS AND LOVE-LONGINGS OF A POETIC YOUNG
RADICAL.
"Souls of the dead, one fancies, can enter, and be with the living,
Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her!
Spirits escaped from the body can enter and be with the living,
Entering unseen, and reliving unquestioned, they bring do they
feel, too?
Joy, pure joy, as they mingle and mix inner essence with essence 1
Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her !
Joy, pure joy, bringing with them, and when they retire leaving after
No cruel shame, no prostration, despondency, memories rather.
Sweet, happy hopes bequeathing, Ah ! wherefore not thus with the
living ?
Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her ;
Is it impossible, say you, these passionate fervent impulsions,
These projections of spirit to spirit, these inward embraces,
Should in strange ways, in her dreams should visit her, strengthen
her, shield her?
Is it possible rather that these great floods of feeling
Setting in daily from me towards her, should impotent wholly
Bring neither sound nor motion, to that sweet shore they heave to?
Efflux here, and there no stir nor pulse of influx !
It must reverberate surely, reverberate idly, it may be.
Yea, hath He set us bounds which we shall not pass, and cannot ?
Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her;
Sureley, surely, when sleepless I lie in the mountain lamenting,
Surely, surely, she hears in her dreams a voice 'I am with thee !'
Saying 'although not with thee ; behold , for we mated our spirits
Then, when we stood in the chamber, and knew not the words we
were saying,'
Yea, if she felt me within her, when not with one finger I touched her,
Surely she knows it, and feels it, while, sorrowing here in the
moorland.
Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I might go and uphold her !"
And hereabouts we fell into a doze, and dreamed that
a friend asked us what we had been reading, and we
told him the Bother of toping no Physick, and he said
he thought the title a very strange one and not at all
true, for it was the Bother of toping Physick that had
disgusted him with the old school and made him a
Some-thing-or-other-path , and then we woke up in the
act of writing a dreary essay on English Hexameters,
which would infallibly have put our public to sleep, but
we shall be merciful, and only inflict on them this stray
scrap of it.
22Q
English lines that will do duty for Hexameters are the
easiest things possible to write — easier than any kind
of rhyme. Real English Hexameters are harder to write
than real Blank Verse, and a fortiori harder than any
kind of ryhme. Even these are chiefly valuable as tours
de force. Sir Philip Sidney wrote Hexameters in his
day, so did Southey in his, so do Hare, Whewell, Long-
fellow, Clough, cum multis aliis^ at the present time ; but
the metre is never likely to be popular. We say this
not on account of any particular unfitness in the Hexa-
meter for the purposes of modern versification, so much
as on the general principle that exotic metres cannot be
successfully introduced into a language already supplied
with measures of verse. A strong instance of this is afforded
by the German Trochaic Stanza of Five-Trochee lines,
with Cataletic lines alternating. No one ever read ''The
Gods of Greece" or "The Bride of Corinth" in the ori-
ginal without being struck with the beauty and grandeur
of this metre , yet we will wager that no one prefers
Bulwer's translation of the latter poem to Anstey's. Nor
has Aytoun's original poem in the same stanza (Hermo-
tinus), though published in Blackwood with a particular
description of an eulogy on the measure prefixed, found
many admirers or imitators in ten years, and the author
has not been tempted to repeat the experiment.
NEW YORK SOCIETY AND THE
WRITERS THEREON.
Literary World, 1850.
1. Earning a Living. A Comedy in Five Acts. By a Citizen
of New York. New York. 1849.
2. Revue du Nouveau Monde. Publi^e les ler et 15 de
chaque mois. Par Regis de Trobriand.
3. The Lorgnette; or, Studies of the Town. By an Opera
Goer (weekly). Henry Kernot, New York.
SOME fifteen months ago the American Review threw
out a hint of the ample field afforded to the satirist in
S21
New York fashionable society, and expressed some sur-
prise that the subject seemed to be left by tacit consent
of competent parties, in the hands of Mr. Willis. The
field is now, it seems, to be worked in earnest, for the
first time (with the above-mentioned exception) since
the days of Salmagundi ; and we are very glad of it.
The observations of educated and refined men upon so-
ciety and manners are not only amusing in a merely
literary point of view, they are of great value to the
future historian, and of present importance in representing
the country correctly to the eyes of foreigners. One
reason why English editors so often take their ideas of
American city life from the New York Sewer ^ and other
equally absurd sources, is because American gentlemen
have written so little on this topic. The sketches of
Mr. Willis, racy and amusing as they usually are, do
not supply our desideratum.
After all, much remains to be said on the subject.
Thus far our writers have aimed rather at exposing
follies than at thro\ving out any hint of remedies for
them. This is a necessary first step, but only the first
step. It is very possible that in endeavoring to amend
or supply the deductions or want of deductions of these
writers, we shall only mar their lucid statement of the
premises; still the spirit moves us so strongly to say
something, that we must even take our chance. And
what we have to say, be it premised out of respect to
our friends at a distance, will have reference particularly
and solely (unless where otherwise distinctly specified)
to New York society, not merely because our Gotham is
in some senses, and most certainly in a fashionable sense,
the metropolis of the Union, but because to discriminate
the difi'erences and shades of fashionable life in our several
cities, would require more personal observation than we
have devoted to the subject, and more space than these
columns allow us.
What then, to begin, are the prominent features of
New York fashionable society — those for instance that
would first strike an entire stranger who, armed with
the proper letters and habiliments, should tumble in upon
the middle of a season? The most remarkable is one
which would seem at first sight rather adapted to the
observation of the medical than the fashionable traveller,
222
being a dancing epidemic of the kind well known in the
history of physic. Yet such is the power of example
and fashion in rendering habitual and ordinary the most
abnormal states of mind and body, that we are compelled
to place first among the characteristics of our exclusives
the Polkamania , or feverish excitement after foreign
dances of luscious and familiar character. Such epide-
mics have been of frequent occurrence. The Taranlism
of Italy, popularly attributed by the ignorant peasantry
of that country to the bite of the Tarantula or ground-
spider, is the most notorious. "In the fourteenth century,
soon after the terrible pestilence of the Black Death"
(we quote from Dr. Hecker, as translated in a recent
number of the Westminster) , "a new epidemic appeared
in Europe of an extraordinary character, showing itself
in a violent and involuntary motion of the muscles of the
tegs. The physicians of the time formed the idea that
if the patients were encouraged to dance until they fell
down exhausted with the fatigue of the exertion, a reaction
would commence by which a cure might be promoted.
Bands of music were, therefore, provided for the use of
the afflicted, and airs of the Polka character were composed,
to suit the wild Bacchanalian leaps which their dancing
resembled. * * * The common notion of the time,
countenanced by the clergy, was, that the persons afflicted
were possessed, and the patients themselves generally fell
into the same belief, and acted accordingly."
The present epidemic seems to have become local
in these parts during the youth of that generation which
is just stepping off the stage, and we learn from an erudite
historian cited in the 17th No. of Salmagundi, that the
town is indebted for it to our friend de Trobriand's coun-
trymen. This veracious traveller describes with much
homely pathos how
"Gotham city conquered was
And how the folks turned apes."
How the Hoppingtots (an obvious synonyme for the Gauls),
"being impelled by a superfluity of appetite and a
deficiency of the wherewithal to satisfy the same," resol-
ved to invade our ancient and venerable city, and ac-
cordingly "capered towards the devoted place with a
horrible and appalling chattering of voices." How "when
m
their army did peregrinate within sight of Gotham, and
the people beheld the villanoas and hitherto unseen
capers which they made, a most horrific panic was stirred
up among the citizens;" how the invaders pursued their
siege day and night until ^the fortification of the town
began to give manifest symptoms of decay, inasmuch as
the breastwork of decency was considerably broken down and
the curtain work of propriety blown up;"*"* how the Gothamites
^made some semblance of defence, but their women haoing
been all won over to the interest of the enemy, they were
soon reduced to abject submission;" how the conquerors
put them all to the fiddle without mercy; and terminates
his melancholy narrative with this affecting conclusion:
*'They have waxed to be most flagrant, outrageous, and
abandoned dancers ; they do ponder on noughte but how
to gallantize it at balls, routs, and fandangos, insomuch
that the like was in no time or place ever observed be-
fore. They do moreover devote their nights to the jolli-
fication of the legs and their days to the instruction of
the heel. And to conclude : their young folk who whilome
did bestow a modicym of leisure upon the improvement
of the head, have of late utterly abandoned this hopeless
task, and have quietly as it were settled themselves down
into mere machines wound up by a tune and set in mo-
tion by a fiddle-stick."
A New York fashionable of either sex, between
private rehearsals and public performances, usually oc-
cupies about seven hours of the twenty-four for six days
out of seven in the practice of the Polka, Redowa, Schot-
tisch, and other dances of the free and affectionate cha-
racter. In summer at a fashionable watering place, these
seven hours are not tmfirequently extended to ten or eleven.
In fact it is the main business of their lives; what was
said in joke of Margaret Fuller, is true of them in sober
earnest: dancing is what they call religion. Of course the
immediate and necessary inference is that a man who
does not dance perpetually has no business in society.
When de Trobriand said that ''a Ball ought not to be
a meeting consecrated exclusively to the waltz or the
polka, but a combination of all the elements of social
life with a view to pleasure," his remark, which to an
intelligent foreigner would seem but an allowable truism,
must have been a startling paradox for many of his
224
readers. When he said that "the dance usurps all the
floor, and the talkers, hunted from wall to wall and from
door to door, are generally obliged to abandon their con-
versation," he did not use the language of exaggeration
or caricature, but of simple truth, nay of truth under-
stated. For he might have gone on to say, that if they
do find refuge in some "protecting embrasure of a window
or corner of a hall," the extraordinary circumstance of
two persons preferring conversation to dancing, renders
them marked at once, and the young people who are
twisting about the room in each other's arms, have time,
in the midst of the most affectionate embrace or operatic
display, to keep an eye on Mr. Blank and Miss Dash,
who are talking behind the window-curtain, and to invent
some choice narrative about them afterwards.
The next striking feature in our fashionable society
is its monopoly by the younger members of it. A stranger's
first remark to himself on entering a New York Ball-
room is, that he has fallen among a society of boys and
girls. Nor do strangers only remark this; the native
habitue is often heard to complain .aloud that, just at
the age when best qualified by maturity and experience
to assume his proper place in society, he is ousted by
some brainless boy who is better skilled in the last mo-
dification of the newest dance. Now, such a state of
things would seem naturally to arise from the tacit ad-
mission that dancing the polka is the sole end of society,
for very young people dance better than older ones, and
are better posted up in saltatory intelligence. But here
at starting a discrimination should be made, as yet un-
made we believe, but very perceptible and very important.
The measure of juvenility is not the same in both sexes.
The women have their share, if not their fair share, of
maturity. Married, nay single ladies of thirty — say
twentyeight, are among our most eager and ceaseless
polkers; married women of thirty-five who retain their
good looks (and there are some such) do sometimes venture
out into society, and even at a ball attract some part
of the attention which is their due, thus adding another
to the many instances of the power of beauty, which
overcomes even the fascinations of the Redowa. The
average age of bringing a young lady "out" is not much
younger in New York than in London. It is of teh
225
"Lords of creation" that extreme youth is peculiarly pre-
dicable. Most of these Lords are juveniles of from sev-
enteen to twenty-three, who consider a man completely
blaze and superannuated at twenty-four. Seniors of Colum-
bia College (where the age of admission is fourteen) —
adventurous youths w^ho have passed the two years which
should have been the concluding ones of their course at
that college, in acquiring such virtues as may be picked
up during a fragmentary continental tour and a brief
residence in Paris — precocious young men about town
who are just old enough to have had their name six
months on the books of the club — such is the material
which furnishes the majority of our ball-room beaux.
In a word, while our women in society are, though younger,
not very much younger than women in society else-
where, our men (or representatives of men) are mere
boys; and therefore we would speak of this second dis-
tinctive feature, not as the juvenility of our leaders of
fashion, but the juvenility of the male leaders and the
disproportion of age between the sexes.
We say disproportion of age^ for, allowing their years
to be equal, as they usually are,* the lady is virtually
many years in advance. A woman, all the world over,
is as old at twenty as a man is at twenty-eight; that is
to say, she has as much world-knowledge as much tact,
as much finesse, as much judgment of character, as much
self-possession (using the term in its best sense, as distin-
guished from the assumed impudence of a boy fashionably
christened aplomb)^ as much — cunning we were going to
say, — but that is rather a harsh term to apply to a lady.
Now this disproportion of ages gives rise to many
serious evils ; so many , that we hardly known which to
begin with. The young women must despise, or at least
undervalue the young men with whom they associate, as
inferior to themselves in manner, tact, and conversational
power. Hence they form a low opinion of men, as men,
and are tempted to value them only for their external
* And not only in fashionable society, or New York society, but
in America generally, as every one must have noticed for himself.
We remember, one wet day at a country house, reading through
bodily three volumes of some Ladies' Magazine, full of indigenous
tales. In most of these the hero was twenty-one , and the heroine
twenty; sometimes the ages were reversed.
Vol. I 1^
advantage, — personal beauty, skill in dancing — above
all wealth. Here is a fearful incentive to mercenary
marriages. But we prefer to confine ourseles to its effects
on married life. The bride and bridegroom are the same
age, say twenty-three or four, unless indeed she happens
to be a year older than he. In a mere external and
physical point of view the first consequence is, that she
is an old woman while he is in the prime of life, for
though both sexes among us are too apt to break themr
selves down, and grow old before their time, this pre-
mature decay is more general and more speedy with our
females. The inconveniences, mistakes, mortifications,
and jealousies that constantly arise from such discrepancy,
are too evident to require more than being hinted at.
But this is nothing to the moral phase of the question,
the effect which a virtual disparity of ages has had in
establishing a gynocracy. That a gynocracy does exist,
no one conversant with fashionable life will be hardy
enough to deny. In nine cases out of ten the lady rules
the roast. That cardinal duty of a wife, respect for her
husband^ is utterly ignored by her. He is regarded as
little more than an upper servant. (It certainly speaks
well for our women of ton, that thus far they have so
little abused this power: a state of things may well be
imagined in which, under the corrupting influence of
foreign ideas, it would run into terrible license.) Now
the main cause of this is undoubtedly the original equality
(which is virtual disproportion) of ages. As the bride,
we repeat it, is substantially ten years older in all world-
knowledge than the bridegroom, she soon gets the upper
hand of him. If he is a man of some character, the
fight may last two or three years; occasionally he is
driven by his domestic troubles into evil courses, in
which cases he usually goes to work with the national
rapidity and earnestness, so as to kill himself off in
twelve months, and leave his widow more triumphant
than disconsolate. Generally he lets down his ears, "w/
iniquce mentis asellus^^'' and submits his back to the burden.
"And what if he does?" exclaims some gallant or fair
reader, "is it not all for the best? have you not just
said that the ladies do not abuse their power?" Verily,
not that; they abuse it much less than might have been
expected, for which we are thankful; but still there are
2^1
great evils inherent in female domination. The inability
of the fair sex to distinguish accurately between income
and capital is notorious. The gynocracy has also fostered
the Polkamania — Their women having been won over to
the interest of the enemy ^ says the sage historian in Sal-
magundi. But especially mischievous is it for the addi-
tional tyranny, the imperium super imperio, which it raises
up in after years. The rule of the mother involves and
produces the rule of the daughter. Women are apter to
spoil children than men: the young lady soon learns to
manage her mamma; that is, to manage the whole house
— and thus the househould of a New York gentleman
presents a most Hibernian and reversed-pyramid aspect
of government; the marriageable daughter is Queen Pa-
ramount, the mother vice-reine, and the husband and
father a species of steward, whose business is to secure
seats at the Opera, to look after the baggage when tra-
velling, and to pay (no small item that) the bills of Ma-
dame and Mademoiselle.
And now for our moral deductions and suggestion.
We have looked at the two most palpable features of
our fashionable society ; its exclusion of the head in favor
of the heels, and the extreme youth of the male portion
of it. We have seen that these involve absurdities and
evils ; indeed, that they are absurdities and evils in them-
selves. We have seen that the latter of them has some
bearing on the former. The inference follows of itself.
Our young men are let into society too soon. It is
desirable that they should be kept back at least four
years, and launched at twenty-two instead of eighteen. ^^4
Our collegiate course is not sufficiently extended: our
collegians aro "educated" too soon. The excuse generally
urged for this, is the necessity of a young man's making
his own fortune, und the inability of his parents to pay
for his education beyond a certain time — excuses which
do not apply to the class of persons of whom we are
speaking; and yet in New York, where men are better
able to bear the expense of a thorough education for
their sons than any other city of our Union, the boys
enter and leave college at an earlier age than in any
other city. Not that we would insinuate, for a moment,
that the standard of study at Columbia is below that at
Yale or Harvard; on the contrary we know it, in classics
15 "^
228 •
at least, to be higher; but we do say that the students
enter and leave it at too early an age, and that they
should be retained longer, which would afford the op-
portunity of greatly enlarging and improving the course.
The same remark is applicable to the Collegiate depart-
ment of our University; and this is our first suggestion
towards social reform. It is a remedy to which every
father could contribute his mite ; nay , every young man
himself, of discretion and true ambition. The effect would
be every way beneficial. Our young men, coming into
society with their minds formed, would be able to com-
mand the attention and respect of women who now use
them merely as machines to dance with, or attach to
them a temporary interest, from sensuous or mercenary
motives. They would be more likely to marry upon
reflection, and to get wives of a suitable age ; that is to
say, at least five or six years younger than themselves,
and consequently to be properly looked up to and respected
by those wives. Moreover, as their education would be
thorough enough to fructify not only would they start
better than now, but they would improve more rapidly.
At present (owing in a great measure to our precocious
and superficial education), one reason why the boy of
eighteen, so often usurps the place of the man of thirty
is, that there is not so much difference betw^een the
intellectual calibre and weight of character of the boy
of eighteen and the man of thirty as there ought to be
— as there is in some other countries. The Polkamania
would be considerably abated, for clever women, who
are now driven to dance from having no talkable person
to talk to, would find opportunity for intervals of sensible
conversation ; and the young men, having some furniture
in their heads, would not be perpetually thinking of their
feet. True, there are "human beings erect upon two
legs, and bearing all the outward semblance of men,"
who, after passing their sixth lustrum, have no ideas but
those inspired of Saracco, and no ambition beyond that
of adding another to the existing four hundred and sixty
figures of the German cotillion; but these creatures are
happily rare, and indeed only kept in countenance by
the foolish boys who envy and imitate them. And if it
be objected that such a re-modelling could never be
carried out, as it would be continually liable to the
229
intrusion of external deranging forces, in the person of
every juvenile stranger from other parts of the Union,
the reply is obvious, that if our denizens were to put
these affairs on a right footing among themselves, these
outside impertinents would soon be made to know their
place, as forward boys are in other parts of the world.
Thus we have come to some practical conclusion,
and our remarks, so far as they go, are in a certain sense
complete. But many divisions of our subject remain.
The position of married women among us, the watering-
place influence, the Sybaritism of our "Upper Ten," and
above all, the three great questions — 1. What consti-
tutes the fashion and quasi Aristocracy of New York ?
2. How is it possible to intellectualize this quasi Aristo-
cracy (Mr. Willis's problem, at the solution of which
we have made a partial shot already)? and 3. How far
is it possible or desirable to put dow^n foreign influence,
and erect a purely native standard of taste , propriety,
and fashion?
One marked feature of our Gothamite society is
its Sybaritism. We use the term rather than luxury^ or
many others nearly equivalent, which might have been
employed, to express much outlay of money and eff*ort
for personal decoration and nourishment — for dress,
furniture, eating and drinking — and a corresponding
habit of fastidiousness in such things.
The favorite expenses of different nations are suf-
ficiently easy to ascertain, and not unamusing to distinguish.
Thus, an Englishman runs out into servants and horses;
and after that, his delight is to have plenty of house-
room, that he may never be unable to give a stray friend
a spare chamber. But he is not generally particular in
his dress, so that he be sure of two changes of linen a
day; or in his table, provided it affords an abundance
of substantial edibles and potables. The landowner, who
numbers his domestics by dozens, and his hunters by
tens, walks about among his retainers in rough shoes
and shooting coat , and does the honors in his own
drawing-room, dressed in simple black and white, without
so much ornament as a gold chain or a ruffle. If he
keeps a continental artiste^ it is more for the sake of his
guests than the delectation of his own palate; while as
to his furniture — one of its chief recomendations to
230
him is, that the greater part of it passed through the
service of some generations of his ancestors before it
came into his possession. Now , instal a Frenchman in
such an establishment, and he would forthwith melt down
a large proportion of the animals (human and other)
about it into brocatel, gilding, and plate-glass ; nor would
he be unlikely to dispose a few of them over his own
person in the shape of fancy chains, jewelled studs, or
shirt and waistcoat embroidery. Now, the New Yorker,
having all the Frenchman's fondness for jewellery and
patent leather , superadds to it the one vanity of the
Englishman — the inexhaustible supply of fresh linen;
and similarly in his fare he unites the Englishman's pro-
fusion with the Frenchman's delicacy, besides a certain
discriminating taste in wine peculiar to himself. We
believe our fashionables go to a greater proportional
expense for eating and drinking than any similar class
in the world. In furniture , the taste is very French,
though even here we have a knack of combining the
most expensive habits of both nations. A Frenchman,
in furnishing his house, always has a tendency to run
out largely into plate-glass — it is a characteristic trait
of his vanity — he likes to see numerous multiplications
of himself. On the other hand, he is sometimes vulner-
able in the article of carpet, which is the Englishman's
strongest point. The New Yorker has impartially adop-
ted the one's love for numerous showy mirrors, and the
other's predilection for comfortable and costly carpeting.
Our towns -people certainly go to great expense for
furniture, whether we consider the fortunes of the fur-
nishers or the size and style of the houses furnished.
We have known the mere internal painting and decorations
— what a friend of ours calls the Plattification of a house
— to cost nearly as much as the building, and the fur-
niture to cost half as much as house and lot together.
The consequent want of correspondence between interior
and exterior is often very striking, and it was doubtless
the report of some such incongruity by an observant
cockney, which gave rise to Mr. Alison's brilliant disco-
very, that 'Hhe houses of wealthy Americans are very
plain externally, and very magnificent within, like those
of the Jews in the middle ages — and for the same
reason''
231
Some will be disposed to regard this increasing
sybaritism of ours as a sign of our progress in civiliza-
tion; and of civilization in the mere material sense of
the term, according to the distinction dravi^n by Coleridge,
it doubtless is. But to real cultivation and the highest
progress it is decidedly antagonistic. It directly increases
the power of mere wealth in society, and consequently
increases the difficulty of bringing intellect into its pro-
per place. It also keeps many very desirable people
out of society, because they have too little fortune or
too much prudence to live up to the fashionable standard
of expense. Still worse , it effeminizes the men and
makes mere sugar dolls of the women. The former
scorn to encase their white hands in anything less delicate
than French kid; the latter would faint at the sight of
the shoes w^hich all English ladies use for walking; and
both sexes debar themselves of proper out-door exercise
for fear of soiling their fine clothes.
Let no one tax us with asceticism, or Grahamism,
or any other ism. We honor all the Fine Arts, and
cheerfully admit the dressing of bodies (living or dead)
to a place among those arts. We have a most proper
respect for the tailor, so long as he keeps in his place
and does not usurp too much attention. To the advan-
tages of a w^ell-spread table, no one is more feelingly
alive than ourselves. We look upon the dinner as a
great social, political, moral, and literary agent. But
sybaritism and extravagance are by no means necessarily
conducive to true hospitality and table -sestheticism —
but very often the reverse. Even as we write, there
rises up before us a supper at which "we assisted" some
few years ago, and which has ever since been recorded
in the recording tablets of our mind as a supper of
suppers. The table was spread in a library, walled in
with musty tomes and full of comfortable old furniture,
not very different from what is around us at present.
A jolly set we were , all sorts and ages — a Semi-
Puseyite Congregational parson, and an ex-president of
the Jockey Club ; a merry old doctor and a sarcastic
young poet; a travelled bibliographer, who had studied
men as well as books, and observed the cities and dis-
positions of more people than did old Ulysses ; a literary
merchant, who had given up making money to buy pic-
2^2
tures, and who knew something about the pictures he
bought — every two w^ere a contrast, and all of us
cemented together by a feeling^of good fellowship and
mutual appreciation. One genius of the party concocted
the punch, another genius assisted the cook in stewing
the oysters. There w^as plenty of cold game and hot
baked potatoes; there was quantum stiff, of good malt
liquor, and a few prime bottles of Cordon Bleu; there
was only one man-servant on the premises, and him we
dispensed with as soon as possible; and that night we
didn't go home till moring. Had there been an "occasional"
hired waiter in the room, or a dish of Weller's spun-
sugar work, or one of Delmonico's sham silver skew^ers,
or had the sofas been too fine to loll upon, or the curtains
not used to stand smoke , it w ould have spoiled the
whole affair.
One cause of the sumptuousness of our extraordinary
fare is the poverty of our ordinary. Many things are
hard to procure good in New York, but the hardest of
all is a good cook. Many a man would like to give
cosy little banquets to six or eight friends, but he dare
not trust the Irishwoman in his kitchen (it is a libel on
the respectable name of cook to apply it to such crea-
tures). Therefore, as he has to call in the confectioner,
he thinks it will be cheaper to put three or four dinners
into one, and so he gives a "kill-off"' to twenty or
twenty-four people — just the sort of dinner one does
not like to be asked to. Hence too, so many men, married
and unmarried, dine luxuriously and expensively at the
club (it is a characteristic of our clubs that a dinner at
them costs more than anywhere else), rather than keep
Lent all the year round at home. The Bostonians are
in advance of us here. They are tolerably supplied with
good plain private cooks, and that of itself is one reason
why society should be more intellectual there than here.
Wealthy men of late, have adopted a laudable habit of
making donations for public objects. We suggest to the
next of our millionaires w^ho dies — no, it is not necessary
that he should die — who wishes to be a public bene-
factor, that he found a free academy for the instruction
of cooks. It would be a most beneficial and glorious
institution. Meanw^hile we beg those disciples of progress
who are so clever at teaching other people what to do
233
with their money — Mr. Horace Mann for instance —
not to be offended at this intrusion of ours into what
they doubtless consider their own exclusive domain.
Any speculations upon our society would be very
incomplete without some allusion to the watering-place^
which is a peculiarly American feature. Not but what
there are watering-places in other countries, but people
go to them to undress and be comfortable and compara-
tively unconventional , whereas our people go to our
watering-places to dress more and be more fashionable
and more conventional than ever. It is a half ludicrous,
half painful exhibition of the pursuit of exclusiveness
under diffculties. It has been frequently remarked that,
whatever theories about the necessity of the contrary
may be coined by natives or foreigners, there is in all
our large cities, a certain exclusive set, — a quasi ari-
stocracy of fashion. It has also been observed that this
set is kept up and managed chiefly by the female portion
of it, the men being obliged by the daily necessities of
life to submit to a great deal of social democracy. Thus
the banker's blacksmith may shake hands with him — or
try to at least ; but the banker's wife ignores the existence
of the grocer's wife, who lives next door to her. This
is all very well for the winter season ; but the hot
weather drives people out of town. Every one has not
a country seat : the recent ravages committed upon more
than a hundred continuous miles of the most beautifully
situated summer-residences in the world under the specious
name of improvement, have made our wealthy citizens
not over eager to invest in a species of property which,
however delightful, is held by so precarious a tenure,
and lies at the mercy of the first railroad company who
chooses to take it almost without compensation. So our
fashinonables throng to the watering-places; there they
are lodged and waked and fed, along wdth all the world,
in droves of five hundred, at the will of some despotic
landlord, who considers his guests created solely for his
use and profit. Unable by wealth , social position , or
any other claim, to obtain any more civilized treatment
than the average, they labor to keep up their distinction
by "cutting a dash" in various ways, more particularly
by incongruous and inept display of millinery and tailory.
What can be more absurd^ for instance, than ladies and
234
gentlemen coming in full dress to a table d'hote dinner
(often of the commonest and most scanty description) at
one, two, or three o'clock! An hour after they are
walking or driving, and their fine clothes covered with
sand or dust. An English traveller comes to one of
these feeds in his shooting-coat or linen jacket, and is
set down for a clown: he has much better reason to
consider the black coats and low^-necked dresses about
as superlatively snobbish at such a place and time. But
this is only one out of the absurd selfannoyances of
fashion; there are graver and really very serious disad-
vantages of this sort of life. The habit of doing every-
thing under the eyes of five hundred people — the
impossibility of any approach to privacy — knocks all
the modesty out of youth, and fosters a love of notoriety
and questionable display, the result of all which is fre-
quently a recklessness and thorough abandon^ as if our
gay Gothamites had left all their propriety in town be-
hind them. We have seen gentlemen, who, when at home,
invariably "behaved as such," stooping to bribe a penny-
a-liner for a puff of their equipage or costume; and
have witnessed ball-room and post -ball -room scenes
which may be most conveniently disposed of by the term
Saturnalia.
The manifest evils of such a system, and the increase
of private fortunes , have already caused the partial
introduction of some qualifying expedient, such as the
erection of cottages either independent of or partially
connected with the hotel, and the multiplication of private
parlors in the hotels themselves. Could we flatter our-
selves that any remarks of ours would ever be deemed
worthy the notice of those aristocratic "lords of the
land," who condescend to keep hotels at our watering-
places for the (not always) accommodation of the public,
we should most respectfully suggest to them that large
additions to their buildings , consisting entirely of private
parlors^ would be a vast accommodation to their guests,
and a very good investment for themselves. The demand
for private rooms is always tenfold the supply, and
people will pay any price to get them.
We now come to speak of a very important point
— the position of married ladies among us. The general
American practice in this respect affords a marked contrast
235
to our other habits, as viewed in comparison with those
of the two great European nations. For whereas in
most matters we adopt a course between the French and
English, with a preponderating tendency, however, to
the French , here we have reversed the French rule
entirely. In France a young lady is shut up like a nun
— literally like a nun, for she is generally educated at
a convent. Were she to be seen walking publicly with
a young man (even though accompanied by a third party)
she would be compromise for ever. Her knowledge of
the world and society begins when she is married, and
from that time she amuses herself as much as she can.
With us , the young lady has her full swing while a
young lady, and subsides very much after marriage. The
English practice is a medium between ours and the
French.
One thing ought to be premised at starting — that
if our married ladies do not take a very prominent place
in society, it is not because they are shut up by their
brutes of husbands, nor is it fair to blame the latter
for the comparative seclusion of their wives. The hus-
bands never have any voice in the matter. Our married
women were at first very domestic, because the paucity
and incapacity of their servants made their presence in-
doors necessary. This necessity no longer exists, or exists
to a much less degree; but the female tribunal of scandal
has as repressing an influence. If the diminution of a
young wife's gaiety is not owing to the increasing cares
or expense of her family, it is much more attributable
to fear of her own sex than to the selfishness of her
husband. We suspect our friend De Trobriand's charac-
teristic gallantry has led him a little astray here. Acute
and courteous as his remarks are, we do not consider
that they cover the whole ground, or are strictly fair to
all parties. The purport of them amounts to this. American
men are certainly irreproachably faithful as husbands and
fathers. Their whole aflfections are concentrated in their
wives and children, for whom they make money, and on
whom they spend it. Nevertheless, they do not fulfil
their duties; and their beautiful and virtuous wives are
often unhappy, for their husbands do not continue to
play the lover, do not take the trouble to pay them petits
sains J they do not try enough to amuse them, and prevent
236
that ennui which (to the mind of a Frenchman) is the
necessary consequence of staying at home in the evening.
It so happened, that almost simultaneously with M.
Trobriand's "Femmes," there appeared in Major Noah's
paper an article which may be fairly said to present the
other side of the case — the Anglo-Saxon view against
the Celtic, or the husband's defence against his wife's
volunteer advocate. It was immediately suggested by
some of the recent divorce cases, was written with the
strong common sense which is characteristic of the Major's
productions, and (save only one unlucky sentence of
bathos, in which "the sacrifice of real estate by referees'
sales" forms a grand climax to the sufferings of the
lonely husband, the desolate wife, and the worse than
orphaned children) in very eloquent and effective English.
The Major discourseth thus. Our wives expect too much
from their goodmen. They do not consider their daily
toils and anxieties. A man comes home in the evening
after stocks have fallen, or one of his debtors has ab-
sconded, or the other side has carried a point against
him in court, and his wife pouts and looks chilly, because
he is not in a fit state to pay her nice little compliments
and attentions, or to carry her off" to some show. This
the Major thinks is very unreasonable. In comparing
these opposite views, it seems but just to begin with
the realities^ and then proceed to the sentimentalities of
the case. Let us look then a moment at the actual
daily occupation of man and wife. Very few of our
married men but are in some business or profession.
And the few who have no stated pursuit, are not on that
account released from a troublesome amount of miscel-
laneous business. Cooper has well said that "it requires
no less care to keep a fortune in this country than to
make it." The man of property and leisure, w^ho has
only to go down to the bank every quarter-day, when
the dividens fall due, and draw his five or ten thousand,
is a rara avis indeed. Ko, the fashionable lady's husband
is usually a lawyer, or merchant, or broker, or a gen-
tleman on the look-out for eligible investments, and he
works all day as only an Englishman or an American
can work. Meanwhile, what is his wife about? Her
housekeeping and nursery duties, provided as she is with
bonnes and maids, do not occupy her an hour a day.
237
She passes her mornings in driving about, in the tittle-
tattle of those scandal manufactories the "receptions,"
in consulations with her dress-maker and milliner, in
shopping and running up bills, which her husband works
to pay. It is *no exaggeration to say, that the idlest
married gentleman has more necessary daily occupation
than the most industrious married lady.
Now, such being the case, it does seem to us, that
when they meet at the close of the day, if either party
has a right to expect amusement of the other, it is the
man who may naturally and justly ask his Avife to amuse
him. And there are ways enough in which she might
do so, if she did not think it a diminution of her own
dignity and consequence. For instance, most of our
women are musically educated, and attain very respect-
able vocal or instrumental power of performance — quite
enough to be very pleasing and soothing. But what lady
of fashion would think of playing or singing for the de-
lectation of only her husband? She would think it a most
inappropriate casting of her pearls. Or again, suppose
a poor fellow, who has written at his desk by day till
he has no eyes left at night, should ask madame to read
for him. Would she not think herself martyrized by the
bare hint?
But further, M. Trobriand's disquisition is all predi-
cated on the French conception of home^ which is a very
depreciating one, or, rather in fact, none at all. For a
Frenchman does not know w^hat home means. He has
no such word in his language; he has no idea corres-
ponding in the English word in his heart. It is no bull
to assert of him that he never feels at home but when
he is abroad. To say, then, that M. Trobriand cannot
put himself to the place of an un-Gallicized Anglo-Saxon
householder, that he cannot understand or appreciate the
feelings, the tastes, the sympathies, the passions —
("We thank thee, Gaul, for teaching us that world")
— is only to say that he is a Frenchman. A Parisian's
ideas of domesticity are necessarily connected with vul-
garity and ennui. The discomforts of the menage are the
most ordinary topic of the Parisian caricaturist with pen
or pencil. But to our Anglo-Saxon man it is quite another
matter; "dressing-gown and slippers" do not "destroy his
illusions," or vulgarize his associations, or bore him. After
a day of such work, physical or mental, or both, as a
Celt cannot imagine^ he has discharged that day's duty
to his family; he needs, and he deserves repose and re-
creation. And it is not either repose or recreation to
him to begin his day's work over again — to get up an
elaborate toilette for a concert or ball. His refreshment
and delight are to enjoy the conversation of his wife
and the prattle of his children; to read his evening paper
leisurely over a cosy cup, of tea; or if an old friend
drops in, to have a literary chat, or to play at billiards
or metaphysics, or even to "talk horse," so much the
better.
This domestic comfort, saith the Baron, with a vir-
tuous alacrity to "damn the sins he has no mind to," is
the "calculation of a misplaced egotism." Whatever be
its motive, it is a calculation very seldom realized. How-
ever tired the husband may be with working all day,
he must run out again at night to amuse his wife, who,
having no self-resources, is tired with doing nothing all
day. How many yawning unfortunates we have noticed
at the opera! where the system of fashionable gossip
has the happy effect of making the place a bore to a
wearied man, whether he likes the music or not. If he
does not, it is of course no gratification to him; if he
does, all his pleasure is sure to be spoiled by little beaux
running into the box, and chattering just as the choicest
morceaux are sung. How many unfortunates, too tired
or too wise to dance, have we seen at balls, far into
the small hours, dead knocked up with waiting for their
rotatory halves, and vainly seeking solace in the punch-
bowl! We shall never forget a young husband — clever
enough in business, with a fair sporting turn, but by no
means so fashionable as his wife — whom we once en-
countered in just such a predicament, soon after honey-
moon. His beautiful bride had been polking since nine;
it was then half-past three, and that emblem of a bad
eternity, the German cotillion, was about one third through,
say in the sixtieth figure. Poor B. — ! He had drunk
up all the punch — nothing was left of it but the lemon-
skins and the big ladle — and there he stood in the
corner, supporting a bouquet equal in splendor and cir-
239
cumference to that historical one of Mrs. Kemble's, * and
making a number of disparaging observations about the
cotillion and the man at the head of it. How delighted
he was on seeing us, to find a companion in misery, and
how he did begin to expatiate on Trustee and Lady
Suffolk!
It is utterly unfair then for M. Trobriand to insinuate
that our husbands keep their wives out of society, for
whenever the wife wishes to launch out into the extre-
mity of fashionable dissipation, she pulls her husband
after her, will-he nill-he. A little further on he has hit
upon the real reason of our married ladies' comparative
seclusion. It is ''cet esprit de comm^rage," the spirit
of gossip and scandal, which he justly stigmatizes as a
provincialism unworthy the metropolis of the new world.
His remarks on this point are very just in the main,
though we cannot agree with all his inferences and
illustrations (some of which his translator has left out
altogether, while others he has ingeniously contrived to
divest of all meaning). We would instance particularly
his observations on the popular judgment of a married
woman's preferences in comparison with those of a girl,
where he has entirely confused two things, which are,
and ought to be, in their nature essentially different.
We conclude then on the whole, that if married
women do not take their proper place in society, it is,
first, because they are afraid of each other's tongues.
The remedy for this is in their own hands, or rather
their own mouths; our sex should not be held respon-
sible for it. Secondly, because if they do not dance
there is a deficiency of sensible and amusing men to talk
to them. One way of obviating this^ would be to make
all our matrons continue polking till forty ; such an ex-
pedient we are sure M. Trobriand has too much sense
to recommend. Another and more satisfactory way (to
which we have already alluded) would be to increase
the number of actual men in society.
And now, at length, for our social problems. Before
we can speak clearly of any probable or desirable in-
fluences on any society, we must have some definite idea
* "Almost as big as the interesting youth who walked in with
it." — Vide her diary.
240
of what that society is; therefore, it is necessary in the
first place to inquire, what constitutes the fashionable
society of New York? Not a very easy question to answer;
we suspect many a man, who is in the thickest of it,
would be puzzled to tell himself how he came there.
Perhaps we can best and soonest arrive at a conclusion
by examining in detail the difterent requisites which have
been or might be alleged.
First then, is there anything corresponding to what
is understood abroad by the terms rankj blood, family^ &c.?
Clearly next to nothing. Our state or federal dignitaries,
if they mix in fashionable society at all, either appear
there as transient lions, or owe their position in it to
circumstances independent of and antecedent to their
political elevation. Of the descendants of our old Dutch
settlers, some are in society and some not. Of our
fashionables, some have no grandfathers, and others no
fathers. To speak candidly, our observations of the
family-aristocracies which exist in some parts of our
Union, do anything but make us regret the absence of
such distinctions here. In some of our southern cities
the aristocracy and fashion of the place consists of six
or eight old families, who associate and intermarry ex-
clusively with one another. And for this very reason —
because they have not refreshed and strengthened them-
selves by forming connexions with the talent and wealth
of other classes, they have fallen into the pitiable po-
sition of an aristocracy without talent or money, their
lack of the former preventing them from being of any
use, their lack of the latter from being much ornament;
and altogether they lead a very seedy and disappointed
sort of existence. But to return from this brief digression.
2dly. Does talent or literary reputation enter into
the requisites for a fashionable? So far from it, our
fashionables seem to be growing up in the most shocking
state of illiterature , and to have very generally agreed
among themselves, that talent (save of the heels) is a
thing conveniently to be dispensed with. There are a
very few literary men fairly in the heart of fashionable
society, and a few more half-in, as it were — whom
one meets at some, but not at all, or at all the best
entertainments of a season. But most of them, like the
241
political celebrities in the same situation, owe their po-
sition to circumstances independent of their literary merits.*
Is it mere money, then, that gives fashionable po-
sition? A certain class of writers would answer yes —
and make a great mistake in doing so. The difference
between the fashion and the "second set" is not one of
mere income. We know of people living on two thousand
a year in the former circle, and of millionaires in the
latter. No doubt money is an important element in a
fashionable position — and we should like to know in
what large city of the civilized world it is not. A great
deal has been said (chiefly by some noble litterateurs)
about the exclusiveness of the old French nobility —
how they despise bankers and such parvenus, and re-
fuse to associate mth them. Now, let us put against
this the well-known fact, that a rich American who
goes to Paris and gives magnificent balls, can make sure,
so soon as it is well established that the balls are
magnificent, of having all the Faubourg St. Germain at
them. True, he cannot boast of being invited to their
entertainments in return, for the simple reason that these
people never give any: they prefer to illustrate, at the
expense of others, the proverb about a certain class of
persons who make feasts and a certain other class who
eat them. But John Bull — he has the real uncontami-
nated no-mistake aristocracy of blood, and birth, and
breeding, that keeps the vulgar rich at a distance. Indeed !
What English statesman was it that said, "every man
with ten thousand a year had a right to hope for a peer-
age?" But that was some time ago. Let us come down
to our own day. In the present parliament — Lord
John Russell's parliament — there was a Mr. George
Hudson, who had been a linen-draper's assistant — what
* We shall never forget a conversation we once overheard on
this subject, between a distinguished author, who happened also to
be a fashionable pet, and an old friend of his. The author was la-
menting that literary talent had not its proper place in our society,
and that literary men, as such, were rather looked down upon. The
other urged his own case against him. "What man is more generally
invited than yourself, or more gladly welcomed?" "Yes," replied the
author, and for the j&rst time in the course of a long acquaintance,
we saw a slight shade of bitterness pass over his fine features, "but
it is because I am a friend of the A. 's, and the G. 's, and the S. 's
(mentioning several wealthy families) and not on account of my books."
Vol. I 16
242
we call a dry-goods clerk — in a county town , and
had such refinement and polish as might be expected
from such beginnings; but he had made (or was supposed
to have made) a colossal fortune by railway speculating;
he played old tory and supporter of the aristocratic
interest, and the aristocracy took him up and courted
him. His wife had the looks of a cook and the manners
of a washerwoman; her conversation was a mixture of
Mrs. Malaprop's and Mrs. Ramsbottom's , and her blun-
ders the jest of the town; but then she was the wife of
the rich Mr. Hudson, and displayed on her portly bust
a diamond necklace, which rumor valued at thirty thou-
sand pounds; and so aristocratic dames received her and
smiled upon her. Now^ to be sure, this unlucky couple
are cast off, because their bubble has burst; but the
memory of what they were cannot be so easily obliterated.
It may be argued, however, that the rich man has
a greater advantage here than in Europe, from the fact
of his having one rival element of consideration the less
to contend against — that of rank or family; to which
it is conceded, that there is nothing appreciable corre-
sponding among us. But against this advantage must be
set off a drawback which does not exist over the water
— unless, indeed, the progress of democracy may have
recently introduced it in France. One of our worst social
evils, whatever be its origin , is an extreme spirit of
envy, not confined to any class, but extending to all.
Not only are the democracy spitefully envious of the
quasi-aristocracy, but the quasi-aristocrats are spitefully
envious of one another, and of those who are superior
to them in any temporal desirabilities. When, therefore,
a man essays to put himself forward in society, by means
of mere expenditure, it is true that he finds no hereditary
class to decide against his claims; it is true that he has
the power (greatly augmented by the increasing spirit
of Sybaritism) to purchase a number of fashionable toadies;
but he has also to undergo the ordeal of more secret
envy and open scandal than he would encounter in a
European capital.
Finally, then, is social position referable to a certain
standard of taste , ornament in manners , and fashion
generally? We are inclined to think that it is, and that
the standard of reference is the Parisian. Our young
243
lions dress like Frenchmen, and take delight in bringing
home trunks full of Parisian habiliments. Our ladies are
close copies of the Paris fashions. Our millionaires
import from Paris the furniture of their houses , and
would import the houses ready built were it possible.
The genial custom of "seeing mahogany" after dinner is
in imminent danger ot abolition, because it is not in
accordance with Parisian habits. To have been in Paris
is our "having swum in a gondola." People who would
not know each other here, become acquainted there.
For an unfashionable family, who, from sudden acquisition
of wealth or other motives, have aspirations to the fashion-
able, the shortest way from Pearl street to Washington
Place is through Paris. A geographical paradox, but
very true for all that.
One thing must be borne in mind. It is the external
rather than the intellectual standard of Parisian refine-
ment that is imported and adopted — the civilization
rather than the cultivation, to keep up the Coleridge
distinction. And this for two reasons. First, a great
deal of the French wit and piquancy depends on the
language and national character, and is not easily trans-
ferable to the language or character of an Anglo-Saxon
people. Secondly, the society to which the standard is
transferred being immature in comparison to that from
which it is transferred — boys instead of men, young
ladies instead of married women — is less capable of
appreciating the intellectual, and more apt to confine
itself to the external elements.
Now then it is time to come to our second problem.
How our quasi-aristocracy can be intellectualized. A
fearful question truly, to judge from many things which
we have already taken note of; still, it is not to be
shunned or despaired of. And first, let us put in a
caveat^ very necessary to our right understanding of the
matter. The literary man must not expect too much. If
he repines and thinks himself ill-used because he is not
made a lion of fashion , he errs as much as when he
grumbles because he has not realized by his writings so
large a fortune as the banker or broker has by his
speculations. In either case he undervalues his high
privileges, and shows a disposition to sell his birthright
for a very moderate mess of pottage. It seems but just
16*
U4:
and fitting that , as those who devote themselves to
money-making generally make the most money, so those
who devote themselves to the study and pursuit of fashion
should be the fashionable leaders. Let us take an extreme
case to illustrate our meaning. Dickens is probably the
most striking example extant of a snob of genius — a
great name in literature without the feelings or education
of a gentleman. It is not possible to fancy him associa-
ting genially and naturally with highbred men and women,
for he has no real conception of what they are , as is
evident from the terrible failures he makes whenever he
introduces them into his writings. Now suppose Dickens
were to consider himself unjustly treated, because the
Almacks and Morning Post people did not run after him,
and ask him to their balls.*
Let us remember, moreover, that it is unfair to judge
the fashionable gentleman by a purely intellectual standard.
Take a goodnatured man of prepossessing exterior and
elegant manners, who has travelled enough to observe
the habits and tastes of the principal European nations;
let him have a little ear for music, and a good eye for
dress and decorations; add to this a handsome fortune,
with a liberal disposition, that prompts him to spend it
in generous hospitality, and you have a person calculated
to take a prominent position in society. You are glad
to know him yourself, and to introduce friends from
abroad to him; you look upon him altogether with con-
siderable respect, if not admiration. And yet he is not
merely non-literary , but positively unintellectual. His
conversation does not instruct or amuse. He would be
an absolute nuisance shut up with you in your library
for a long winter evening; the dead bore of an after-
dinner tete-d-tete with him would not be alleviated by
the best Latour he could pour out for you. Yet if he
were gone out of society you would miss him very much.
Conversely, a very clever man may be a great bore in
mixed society, if he has a habit of falling into reveries
instead of attending to the person he is supposed to be
talking to, or if he introduces his learning or his criti-
* A friend who is looking over our shoulder says that Boz does
think this very thing, and is quite savage against the aristocracy in
consequence. We suspect our friend niust be mistaken: Boz could
hardly be such a dummy.
I
245
cisms inaptly (if, for instance, he tmll quote Latin to
ladies, as some Bostonians we wot of are apt to do), or
if he pertinaciously neglects the proprieties of dress, or
in any other way assumes a dispensing potcer of genius^
and practically claims the right to do or omit things
which ordinary mortals may not.
There is indeed one species of intellectual display
for which there is as much room in fashionable society
as in the most purely literary circles, and which is as
congenial to the former as to the latter — we mean
conversational talent. This is the kind of cleverness which
we may most reasonably expect from, and are most
likely to find in the man or woman of fashion. In its
perfection it is seldom connected with any great ability
on paper. The strongest cases which are popularly ad-
duced of the union of both talents — Theodore Hook
for example — are in reality rather evidence the other
way. Not one tenth of Hook's extant writing comes up
to his traditional renown for conversational wit. Every
man, we believe , who has been much conversant vsdth
both writers and talkers, can supply instances from his
own observation of persons who, having displayed very
decided talent in conversation, and being tempted thereby
to write, have very much disappointed their friends when
they came to appear on paper. Indeed, when we consider
the number of books written nowadays, so large that
even a diligent reader does not get through with more
than a thousandth part of them, it is to be wished on
all accounts, that, when people can talk really well, they
should confine their energies to talking.
It must be confessed that the popularity of brilliant
conversationalists among us is somewhat diminished by
a fear of their satirical powers and propensities. Nor is
this fear altogether unfounded. We have been often
pained to observe this abuse of wit give point to ill-
natured remarks, and have wondered why our best
talkers were so apt to be bitter. This union of clever-
ness and ill-nature is one of the most deplorable conse-
quences of that envious spirit to which we have had
occasion to allude. It is a connection that ought to be
broken off, and it is worth the attention of our good-
K natured and sensible ladies (there are plenty such) to
K devise some means for the purpose. Perhaps as every-
I
246
thing is done by societies and associations nowadays, a
plan of this sort might be started, "for the encourage-
ment of witty conversation without personal detraction."
Small prizes might be assigned to the deserving — neatly
bound copies of Willis and de Trobriand; while incor-
rigible offenders against the penultimate commandment
might be sentenced to read back numbers of the North
American Review.
If, then, our boys were kept longer at college, if
our girls were taught that the Polka-Redowa is not the
chief end of life, if our married women went more into
society, and that not merely for dancing purposes, if our
literary men who have fashionable aspirations would not
take ultra-literary airs, if our clever talkers would not
pander to the unhealthy appetite for detraction, if our
party-goers would be content w^ith less champagne and
oysters, in exchange for more "feast of reason" — if all
these changes could be brought about^ there is no doubt
that our fashionable intercourse would be much more
intellectual and soul-satisfying than it is at present. Iff
Alas, who shall pretend to count the possible gathering
of small birds , were the sky to fall in some day ! If
these changes were brought about! when or how should
they be? — and our melancholy echo, like the Irishman's,
answers — "Really I can't tell."
And now for the last question — How far is it
possible or desirable to originate or maintain a native
standard of taste, propriety, and fashion? That our
society should in its commencement borrow largely
from Europe was in the nature of things unavoidable.
At first it inclined to be a provincial and colonial imi-
tation of the English. Most of Paulding's early satires
were directed against Anglomania. Of late years this
has been entirely altered, and we are becoming rapidly
Gallicized. Many are disposed to measure our progress
in civilization and refinement, by our progress in this
imitation of the French. So are not we. While readily
acknowledging the superiority of the Parisians in coffee,
confectionery, and gloves — in dress and cookery ge-
nerally — we are not prepared to accept their standard
of decorum or morality, or indeed of taste, in all things.
Of their inability to enjoy or understand domestic felicity
we have already spoken. Nor is it to be wondered at,
247
when we consider that the whole French theory of
matrimony is fundamentally wrong, being founded on the
mariage de convenance, or union of so much to so much.
Surely there is no fear of any such perversion of our
customs here, it will be said ; for our young people would
never let their parents make such matches for them.
True enough , but there is danger of something even
worse — that they may make such matches for themselves.
An increasing sybaritism is a dangerous incentive to
mercenary unions, and this sybaritism, be it remembered,
we owe in a great measure to the French; it is much
more a Parisian than an English or home growth. Are
our morals generally improving under this new regime?
Nay, for that matter, are the manners of our young men
so much improved? Is there not observable among them
a growing tendency to mistake impudence for self-
possession, and to talk to ladies at home as they would
to actresses and dancing-girls abroad? But to return to
the other point. Could Mr. Willis say now, as unhesi-
tatingly as he did several years ago, that "morality is
the best card for a young man to play, if he wishes to
advance his position in society?" Is there not an attempt
— we are glad to say an attempt merely as yet — to
make vice fashionable? We wish all these questions
could be promptly answered in the negative; but some
of our sad experience would prompt an answer the
other way.
Surely there are social features purely native, which
manifest as much refinement and cultivation as any exotic
ones. That chivalrous treatment of women — that sen-
timent , so conspicuous and prevading , that the most
bigoted and mendacious foreigners have been constrained
to admit its power — a feeling that makes every gentle-
man the natural protector of every lady , and saves
woman every day from molestations or anxiety in situa-
tions which, in other countries, would require for her
the miraculous guard of Una — a feeling which, carried
to the verge of the absurd in some things, and beyond
the verge of the prejudicial in others, as we admit that
it is, still betokens a most advanced state of real civili-
zation — is this sentiment of foreign origin? Is it not
our indigenous growth? Take another trait, now we fear
not so strongly marked as formerly, but still peculiarly
24« .
American, in contra-distinction to the habitual judgment
of the fashionable world in other countries — the idea
that a gentleman is bound to pay, not only his debts of
honor, but his tradesmen's bills also. Or, to descend to
merely material considerations, have we not excellent
tailors and hatters of our own? Is there a city in the
world that can boast better Madeira than our own Gotham?
Do we not build as good carriages and raise as good
horses as the English do, and better than any of the
Continental nations can ? Your travelled exquisite thinks
it low-toned and vulgar to boast of such matters, but
we hold that it is as much more vulgar as it is less
sensible to slight the good things we have, for an indis-
criminate eulogy and imitation of what is foreign. Why
should we turn our shirt collars up or down as the
French happen to do, without any reference to the pe-
culiarities of our climate? Why should we, who dine at
four or five, go to balls at eleven, because the Europeans
do so, their hour of dining being about seven, and the
majority of their men not being expected at their offices
by nine next morning? Far be it from us to run into
the other extreme of depreciating all things and men
foreign. "Clever men learn many things even from their
enemies," said a clever man of old.* Every nation might
learn or adopt some things with advantage from foreigners;
we are surely no exception. But let our adoption be
with discrimination. We may make the French our
patterns in dress, without making them also our patterns
in propriety. Above all , do let us remember that Paris
is not the only city in the world besides New York, and
that there are other places where something may be
learned, and whence somewhat might, without disadvan-
tage, be borrowed.
* Aristophanes , Aves , 376. all'' «7r' ixS'(:(OV Srjta noXka
f.iavd^avovoiv o\ Go<poL
249
AH ISTOPHANES.
Literary World, March 1850.
The Birds of Aristophanes, with Notes, and a Metrical Table ^
bg C. C, Fehon^ Eliot Professor of Greek Literature in
Harvard College. Cambridge, Mass.: John Bartlett,
1849.
IF we have been somewhat behindhand in noticing
this edition, it is simply because, not being afraid of the
"prejudice" which Sydney Smith is said to have alleged
as a dissuasive from the practice, we usually read a book
before reviewing it. But inasmuch as one is peculiarly
apt to get a prejudice for or against a classical editor
by reading him, it is most fitting and proper to go over
the original very carefully, and make up one's mind on
all the pleasant little disputed passages before touching
the editor's comments at all, and this we have done also,
and it is not a work of one sitting. Truly a thankless
and profitless vocation is that of the conscientious reviewer
among us! He devotes more time to the composition of
a short essay than many "popular" authors (of the yellow-
and-brown-paper school) require to turn out a volume,
collates old note -books, grubs among musty quartos,
corrects and re-corrects proofs that make him suspect
the compositors of being in the pay of some secret society
for the encouragement of profanity; and all this for no
solid pudding, and a very small amount of empty praise.
Indeed his reward is usually something not very dissimilar
to the proverbial "monkey's allowance." Those who
show their own ignorance most plentifully whenever they
write, charge him with writing to show his knowledge;
those with whom the number of pages in a book and
the publisher's name on its title-page go a great way
towards determining their opinion of its merit, think it a
shame that an anonymous writer in one corner of a perio-
dical should pronounce on the worth of an author who
comes out under his own colors in a great calf or sheep-
bound octavo ; and others again, who would probably be
250
startled at the paradox that no man can appreciate a
dinner unless able to cook it, fall foul of him for not
writing bad books himself instead of exposing the bad
books of others. Verily we are sometimes tempted to
sigh after the flesh-pots of monarchy, when we think
how reviewers over the water gather in gold and xvSog
together, especially when aggravated by the remembrance
of a drop of the shower that once fell upon ourselves,
what time having occasion to despatch fourteen pages
of manuscript across the Atlantic, we received ourselves
by the next steamer in fair type, without a misprint,
and with the supplementary honorarium of five guineas.
But as it is, our reviewing, whether a good or a
bad action, must be its own reward ; and we must console
ourselves with the pleasure of helping to mention one
who has taken the bold and meritorious step of intro-
ducing a new classic to our students. Professor Felton
is as yet the only American editor of Aristophanes. The
classical course in most of our colleges is so limited, so
much made up of books rather than subjects, and there
are so few among us who carry out their classical studies
in after life, either as a business or a pleasure, that to
attempt inserting a new name in the established schedule
is a task that requires much courage, and seldom obtains
much success. With any one but a college professor it
is absolutely impossible; even a professor's influence is
apt to be local, and confined to his own particular insti-
tution. We are therefore not a little pleased to find
that Mr. Felton's first attempt on the old comedian, *
has met with so much success as to encourage him to
a second trial.
Of the standard Greek authors, not forming a part
of our usual college course, there is none, with the ex-
ception possibly of Aristotle, whom we would rather
see introduced into it than Aristophanes. Admirable per
se as one of the greatest humorists the w^orld has ever
produced, he derives additional interest and value from
the light he throws upon the political and social life of
Athens. In this respect his comedies are to us (the
illustration is an obvious one, and has been used before)
very much what a file of Athenian newspapers would
* The Clouds, which has gone through two editions.
251
be. And yet, so various are the fortunes of great authors
in different ages, he was for a long time regarded by
the moderns as little more than a malignant buffoon.
Many of our readers doubtless remember the notices of
him in Rollin, and writers of that class and time, ac-
cording to whose accounts the Clouds would be about
on a level with "the Serious Family," or any other
ephemeral burlesque on religion and morality; and pre-
served to after times only by the bad reputation of having
contributed to the destruction of society. Subsequently
the English classical public (a term which includes a
large portion of the English literary public) very generally
took up the study and defence of our author, being incited
thereto not only by his hearty humor, but also by his
stout conservative opinions, and the earnestness, dexterity,
and general applicability of his attacks on demagogues
and radicals. His sarcasms and invectives against Cleon
were to them enhanced by the readiness with which they
could be transferred to O'Connell. From the traducer
of good men he became elevated to the champion of
virtue and law. And w^hereas his continual and undeniable
detraction of Socrates remained an awkward feature in
the pleasant picture drawn of him, some of his admirers
went so far as to suggest that this might be all right
— that Socrates was somewhat of a humbug after all,
and by no means deserving his general reputation. A
good deal of innuendo to this effect may be found in
Mitchell. It is robbing Peter to pay Paul with a vengeance.
Much more reasonable is the Teutonic speculation
that the objects of Aristophanes' attack in the Clouds
were, nominally indeed, Socrates and his disciples but
really Protagoras and Prodicus, the fathers and founders
of the Sophists par sang^ who had then just arrived in
Athens, and were notorious lions. This interesting con-
jecture is supported by many ingenious and probable
arguments, one of which only we shall give a hint of as
a specimen. One of the most striking and important
scenes in the Clouds is that where the Dicseologus and
Adicologus — the Right Cause and the Wrong Cause
— are introduced, arguing before the young man whom
the Sophists wish to proselytize. The Wrong Cause gains
the day, and the youth accordingly gives in his adhesion
to Socrates. Now we learn from the Scholiast here, and
252
other authorities, that is was Protagoras who first avowedly
taught how "to make the worse appear the better reason,"
and that from this very circumstance he acquired the
nickname of Logos. Here then the allusion is evidently
to him. Admitting, however, this supposition to its fullest
extent, it only proves that Aristophanes, not being entirely
ignorant of Socrates' character and tenets, nevertheless
wilfully confounded him with the Sophists.
For our own part, at the risk of becoming obnoxious
to the charge of great presumption, we must say that
there never seemed to us anything so very extraordinary
in this difference between the Aristophanic and the real
Socrates, nor anything inconsistent with the fact of the
comedian's being a good man, according to the standard
of goodness in his time, and a wise man according to
the standard of wisdom in any time. We might as well
wonder why Sydney Smith did not appreciate the Evan-
gelicals. What careful student of Histor^^, Literature,
Politics, or Ethics, but has learned that great powers
of production and of appreciation do not necessarily go
together. Whether it be possible for an inferior producer
or a non-producer to make a good critic (we think it is,
but cannot stop now to argue the point) there can be
no doubt that in every department of human knowledge
very good producers have often made very bad critics.
Different habits of thought or of life, social distinctions,
personal enmities and friendships, mere fancy, the very
fact that "non omnia possumus omnes" — that all men
are not all-sided or many-sided — these and other causes
are continually hindering men from judging accurately
of each other ; and the deviations of a great man's judg-
ment are more marked than those of other men's, in
proportion as its orbit is greater. Let us consider the
relative positions and sentiments of the parties in this
case. Aristophanes was an Athenian gentleman of ultra
conservative opinions, and (as may be inferred from internal
evidence, though we have little positive knowledge of
his life and family) of exclusive and fastidious habits.
Socrates was slovenly and eccentric in his mode of life,
for which indeed we cannot commend him, inasmuch as
he thereby set a bad precedent to subsequent reformers,
who have often acted as though there were much godliness
yer se in a shocking bad hat, and a pair of boots that
253
don't match. Though really a good conservative in po-
litics, he had introduced so many novelties in other matters
as to be naturally suspected of general radicalism; while
his monomania on the subject of the inspiration (popularly,
but incorrectly known as the Socratic Daemon*), to which
he conceived himself subject, would easily raise a doubt
of his sanity with one who had not the opportunity of
correcting the first impression by personal intercourse
with him, and intimate knowledge of his mind. Then
he was the particular friend of Alcibiades (whom he
seems to have cultivated on the same principle that
sometimes induces a virtuous matron to take up and
patronize a juvenile roue, in the hope of reclaiming him,
and apparently with about as much success as usually
attends her efforts), and Alcibiades the demagogue was
a natural enemy of the satirist. In short, appearances
were against the philosopher, and appearances are most
tempting to the comedian whose business is chiefly with
superficial follies, and who can only investigate or intro-
duce a principle by stealth. That Aristophanes had any
personal enmity against Socrates, or that the Clouds had
anything to do with the judicial murder that took place
twenty-four years afterwards , is an opinion now sufficiently
exploded, and about on a level with that which we believe
still prevails among some Frenchmen — that the philo-
sopher was put to death by the Thirty Tyrants, some
of W'hom were his intimate friends and pupils. When
we remember that Plato, whose dialogues are always
conducted with the strictest regard to dramatic propriety,
introduces the poet and his supposed victim familiarly
conversing at the same supper-table, it is astonishing
how the story should have been in circulation so early
as Elian's time, and have kept its ground so long.
Some other apparent inconsistencies are observable
in the writings of Aristophanes. He is always the ad-
* A very clever and very odd little fellow of Trinity College,
(Sydney Walker, editor of the Corpus Poetarum Latinorum) fancied
himself subject to a divine influence precisely similar to that of Socrates.
It acted just in the same way, always prohibitory , never suggestive;
and seemed on the whole to exercise a very beneficial effect upon him.
By the way, may not the Soothsayer's answer, v. 960 of our
play, TO Stlov evenodite fie, contain a sarcastic allusion to the
Socratic inspiration?
254
vocate of peace with the Spartans, while at the same
time he ridicules the imitators of Spartan fashions among
the Athenians. But here he shows his usual wisdom,
and follows the juste milieu^ on the one hand not deeming
it necessary to be always wanting to cut people's throats
because they had a different form of government, on the
other holding that a nation should endeavor to better
itself by developing its own ideal, not by aping the habits
of others. We also find him in the same breath deprecating
the introduction of new gods, and ridiculing the old ones
without mercy. But he evidently regarded religion as
it is to be feared too many educated and respectable
and intellectual men regard it now — as only a convenient
device to help to govern the people. What is vdcked
carelessness or impious conceit in them, was, to a man
with the light he had, only worldly prudence. His deities
were a sort of upper cabinet: he used them as Punch
does the British ministry, taking his fun out of them
without stint, but ready to support their authority when
in real danger.
But there is one point of attack to which Aristo-
phanes is liable, more serious, in our view than any of
the above. It is a point which has not hitherto received
the attention it deserves, and we are anxiously waiting
to see if Mr. Grote will say anything about it. We mean
the moral picture he has drawn of his countrymen.
The well-known practice of ordinary partisan sati-
rists is to daub one half of their canvas all black, and
the other half all white. All the men on one side are
angels, all those on the other brutes or devils. Warren's
Ten Thousand a Year is a notable example of this. Now
we find nothing of this kind in Aristophanes. All parties
and classes in Athens are most impartially represented
as thorough, unmitigated profligates. The ultra-demo-
cracy, to be sure, are snobs and low fellows into the
bargain, but they have by no means the monopoly of
wickedness ; the Athenian gentlemen , the Charientes and
Catocagathm ^ the young men of cultivated minds and re-
fined manners, whose delicacy was such that one of them,
their satirist himself, would not attack by name two distin-
guished strangers on a visit, but whipped them over the
shoulders of a native — all these exquisites are repre-
sented as being in the customary practice of the most
I
255
degrading vices. In the scene from the Clouds already
referred to, where the Right Cause and the Wrong Cause
argue, the final and triumphant argument of the latter
is an appeal to the universal prevalence of wickedness,
as an undisputed and indisputable fact. "What are all
our public and popular men?" asks the representative of
Belial, "are they not abandoned profligates? Nay what
are the majority of this very audience but vile debau-
chees?" And then the Better Reason with a despairing
assent goes over "body and goods" to the enemy. (Truly
it is no wonder that the Clouds did not get any prize ;
such a charge must have incensed any audience, whether
conscious of its truth or its falsity.) Now in describing
his fellow-townsmen thus, did Aristophanes libel them,
or did he tell them unpleasant but wholesome truths?
Most English writers would answer the latter ; we think
it is Mitchell who goes so far as to affirm that the
comedian exaggerated nothing except the masks. An
admirer of the Athenian democracy would probably
maintain on the other hand that his characters were as
much distorted from the originals in their moral attri-
butes as in their physical exterior. Which of the two
views is the right one? The question is not to be sum-
marily disposed of: it has many sides and features, and
is immediately suggestive of and intimately connected
with another, a very interesting one, and containing matter
for a long essay in itself, viz.: — How far is the avowedly
fictitious literature of a nation to be accepted as a faithful
portraiture of its morals and manners? Probably the first
impulse of most minds would be to deny its title to be
so received at all. Even of writing that professes to be
true, there is a great deal that is utterly untrustworthy.
No unprejudiced man, for instance, would form his opinions
on the morals of our public men from the statements of
partisan newspapers, and no sane person believes that
our ladies and gentlemen are m the habit of making
assignations at confectioners', or that our ministers and
deacons usually seduce young women, and own gambling
houses, because some malignant penny-a-liner chooses
to say so in a yellow-covered pamphlet. On the other,
the picture drawn by Parisian novelists of Parisian society,
improbable and undesirable to believe as it is, is proved
by independent authorities to be pretty substantially
256
correct. A lively and discriminating writer in the Ame-
rican Review, some time ago, endeavored to lay down
a canon for our decision in such cases, viz. that the writer
of fiction was to be credited tvhen natural^ and he illu-
strated his position by drawing a comparison between
Shakspeare and George Sand. But this is only throwing
back the inquiry one step, for what is natural to one
man is unnatural to another. This is true in the com-
monest affairs of life. It is the most natural thing in
the world for an Englishman to take his canter of eighteen
miles a day: to a Frenchman, who seldom makes his
appearance on the outside of a quadruped, such a pro-
ceeding would be anything but natural. The English
critics cannot begin to agree among themselves whether
the "Currer Bell" novels, describing society in a large
and Avell-known portion of their own country, are natural
or not ; and of two persons, whose age, experience, talent,
and reputation, gave them an equal a priori claim to be
considered good judges, we have heard the one say of
Vanity Fair that it was a libel on human nature, the
other that it was a perfectly accurate picture of society.
For ourselves, we should say that in the first place, when
a writer is a professed satirist, a certain allowance must
be made on that account, the number of grains of salt
not being susceptible of rule or measure, but to be de-
termined by the reader's judgment and by circumstances ;
secondly, that the agreement and correspondence of au-
thors is to be examined. If the majority of the fictitious
writers in any age of any country, unite in representing
a certain state of morals or manners, we should accept
their representation subject, only to the above-mentioned
allowance, quite as confidently as that of historians, es-
sayists, or even divines. And applying this rule to the
case before us, we find that the other Comic poets of
Athens, so far as we have remains of them, bear Ari-
stophanes out in the unfavorable picture he draws of
Athenian morals.
And now, in connexion with this speculative question,
comes up a very important practical one. How far ought
we to expose this disgusting picture to our students?
In other words, ought our college editions of Aristophanes
to be expurgated? Here we come upon delicate ground,
for Messrs. Anthon and Felton have taken directly
257
opposite sides on this question, and it is a perilous thing
for a simple layman to put himself between two hostile
professors. He is in danger of sharing the fate of Mr.
Pickwick, who rushed between the belligerent editors,
"just in time to receive the carpet-bag on one side of
his person, and the fire-shovel on the other." Still, one
must have an opinion, and of the two, we feel compelled
to agree with Mr. Felton, though our reasons do not
coincide with his; indeed, go much beyond them. We
are most deeply impressed with the weight of the maxim,
"Maxima debetur pueris reverentia," but by the time
that a young man comes to read Aristophanes , he is
usually arrived at an age w^hen he must have some more
abiding safeguard than mere innocence of everything un-
seemly. Nay , we think it not only permissible but
absolutely desirable, that the student should read by
himself some things that it would not be proper for him
to read in the lecture-room. Let no one be shocked,
and we will endeavour to explain why.
In the life of every man of liberal tastes and pur-
suits there is a period, generally coincident, or nearly
so, with the culminating point of his education, when he
is peculiarly assailable by the temptation of intellect-
worship. The pleasures of taste and imagination, of the
acquisition and the communication of knowledge, are so
noble in themselves, and so exalting in their influence,
so infinitely above the joys of vulgar dissipation or
fashionable frivolity, that he is in danger of making them
his trust, and forgetting the existence of something still
nobler. He is prone to think too much of intellectual
and too little of moral excellence. In the combination of
original intellect and artistic development of that intellect,
the Greeks have never been equalled; therefore the study
of Greek literature is particularly exposed to this danger.
Now if we present to a young man only the model
beauties of Greek literature, with all that is improper
sedulously excluded; if he is to read the First Book of
the Republic and the Tenth Satire of Juvenal, and ignore
the existence of the Fifth Book and the Sixth Satire,
we give him a one-sided view of Heathen virtue, and
indirectly suggest and encourage the mischievous delusion,
that there may be a high standard of morality without
vital religion. But if we give him a peep behind the
Vol. I ^^
268
curtain — just enough to disgust him — if we let him
see how the highest standard of intellect united to ex-
cellence in art and refinement of manners, is unable,
without higher assistance, to save a people from shame-
less depravity — then we give him a most impressive
lesson of the necessity of Christianity.
But it is time to come to the play which stands at
the head of our article, lest we should be suspected of
having lost sight of it altogether. The Birds is the sixth
in chronological order of the extant Aristophanic camedies.
It was exhibited during the second campaign in Sicily,
and has been generally supposed to ridicule the Athenian
projects of universal dominion, particularly as then mani-
fested in the Sicilian expedition; an opinion from which
we see no stringent reason for dissenting, although Prof.
Felton doubts it, and Muller somewhat generally describes
the piece as "a satire on Athenian folly and credulity,
on that building of castles in the air, and that dreaming
expectation of a life of luxury and ease, to which the
Athenian people gave themselves up in the mass." The
play is opened by the appearance ot two old Athenians,
Pisthetserus and Euelpides {Persuader and Good-hope)^ the
former a plausible and visionary demagogue, the latter
a sort of Sancho Panza to him. Disgusted with the li-
tigiousness and fickleness of their countrymen, and not
thinking it likely that they shall much better themselves
in any other part of Greece (observe how Aristophanes,
with all his abuse of his compatriots, is intensely native
when it comes to making comparisons), they have resolved
to travel away from men altogether, and accordingly,
under guidance of a raven and jackdaw (or jay), are
going in quest of the country of the birds and the court
of King Epops (the Hoopoe), who was formerly a man,
Tereus of Thrace, and connected by marriage with the
Athenians. They have come pretty much to the world's
end without finding any signs of the king or of his cour-
tiers and are pathetically lamenting (as many a stupid
young man about town might do) that "they want to go
to the devil and can't find the way." At length the road
terminates in a rocky barrier, at which, being unable
to advance further, they knock. A servant of the Hoopoe
makes his appearance, and is induced to summon his
master, to whom the travellers communicate their design,
259
and also a great scheme which they have on hand for
the aggrandizement of the birds. King Hoopoe, much
struck with the project, desires his consort, the nightingale,
to assist him in calling his subjects to council. This
nightingale was a celebrated female flute-player, and a
delightful solo from her was added to the magnificent
lyric which Epops sings here. Down came the birds,
one after another, xlayyr^dov TiQoxccd^luovTsg ^ like their
fellows in Homer, all sorts, sizes^ and colors, and a funny
sight they must have been on the stage. But great is
their rage and consternation as they become aw^are of
tw^o mortal men, the sight of whom is necessarily asso-
ciated in their minds with ideas of traps and cages,
plucking and roasting. Forthwith they resolve to do
justice on the intruders after the fashion in vogue south
of Mason and Dixon's Line, tearing them to pieces first,
and hearing what they have to say afterwards. But the
old gentlemen have not lived in Athens so long or tra-
velled so far for nothing; they have a fair appreciation
of their rights, and a proper resolution to maintain them.
Their baggage and kitchen equipage are converted into
a rampart, their spits into spears, &c., and so formidable
a front do they present, that the birds are brought to
parley. Pisthetserus seizes the favorable moment , and
makes them a speech. He explains to them that the
feathered race were originally prior in age and superior
in rank, not only to men, but even to the gods; that this
position is still their right, though they have been un-
justly deprived of it, and that it is in their power to
recover it. (All these points are supported by most
comical and ingenious arguments, a capital burlesque on
such as usually go down with a popular audience.) As
a means of doing so he proposes that they shall build
a city in the air, thus cutting off the communication between
gods and men, and equally preventing the fat savor of
sacrifices from going up to heaven, and the gay celestials
from coming down to visit the ladies to whom they are
attentive on earth, while the birds are to assume the
place of gods to men, which they can do at a much cheaper
rate than the present deities. The oration is completely
successful, the strangers are at once received into full
favor, and, after singing a magnificent parabasis, which
is a half serious and half burlesque synopsis of the
17*
260
ancient cosmogony and theogony, the birds go off, under
superintendence of Euelpides, to build the fortifications,
while Pisthetserus remains to sacrifice for the welfare of
the new city, Cuckoocloudland. The sacrifice, which is to
the various birds instead of the various gods, is interrupted
by the arrival of sundry pettifogging officials, ^formers,
reformers, and other nuisances, who are very summarily
disposed of, being in most instances kicked out headlong
— a most commendable precedent for disposing of such
people — and then comes in a messenger-bird, in great
haste and flutter, with the astounding intelligence that
the fortifications are completed, at which Pisthetserus
himself is taken aback. But soon another messenger
arrives, announcing that some one from heaven is tres-
passing in the city. It proves to be Iris. How she has
flown through the walls does not exactly appear, but
where the whole piece is a gigantic lie, it is not well
to be too particular about slight inconsistencies. How-
ever, Pisthetserus bullies her back by sheer force of slang,
after the usual manner of demagogues, and at the same
time the herald who had been despatched to the lower
world returns with the report that all the Athenians
have gone bird-mad. Some more emigrants and visitors
are disposed of, and then enters Prometheus disguised
and concealed under an umbrella. He has come down
on the sly to betray the starving and desperate condition
of the gods, and his information is soon verified by the
appearance of an embassy from heaven, consisting of
Neptune, Hercules, and a certain barbarian divinity, one
of the Triballi. The terms demanded by Pisthetserus
are sufficiently exacting, no less than that Jupiter shall
give up to the birds the sovereignty of the world, and
to himself his favorite queen {not his wife, whom the
Thunderer might have been too glad to get rid of) in
marriage. Neptune is for going back re infectd^ but the
premier of Cuckoocloudland, with an eye to the wellknown
love of good cheer which characterizes the stage Hercules,
has a savory banquet in preparation. The son of Alcmene
is overcome by the order, he bullies the Triballian (who
cannot speak plain Greek, and is altogether a very slow
specimen of a divinity) into voting with him, the treaty
is concluded, and the play ends with a grand apotheosis
of Pisthetserus and his bride. It was put on the stage
261
without regard to expense, but only gained the second
prize, probably from political reasons.
The Birds is very amusing throughout, and not so
difficult as some of the other Aristophanic comedies.
Professor Felton has, on the whole, performed his editorial
task very well, as, indeed, might have been suspected
from his previous success with the Clouds. Whatever
diversity of opinion there may be as to his transactions
with ^schylus, we have never heard it denied that he
takes hold of Aristophanes in a workman-like manner.
It is evidently a labor of love with him ; he has a hearty
sympathy with his author that carries him through
triumphantly. The few observations we have to make
refer generally to sins of omission rather than of com-
mission. Thus we should have said something on v. 150;
on 7CQoo3ii^a, v. 425; on vv. 479, 817 (Tiavv ye), 961, 989,
1140, 1396, 1663 (where Dindorfs suggestion, el ^u^
^ccTiCei / \=aVM ^aTLLei]^ instead of the common reading,
^adiLetv, seems to us the only way of making anything
like sense of the passage) ; and generally we think there
is not sufficient explanation of the proverbs and the
parodies, particularly as some of the translations and
other parts of the notes are not absolutely necessary,
and might easily be dispensed with if there was any fear
of making the work too bulky. At the end of v. 537
there should be a comma between vf.uov and avxtov (we
entreat T. L. not to be angry, but we cannot afford to
put a full stop to our points just yet, even for him; by
the way, will he oblige us by observing that Professor
Felton puts a full-sized comma between xatayeX^g /liov
and dialog fl, v. 1393?), otherwise the position and con-
struction of the latter word are ambiguous. On the
contrary, the first comma in v. 771 should be omitted;
as it now stands xvxpot would be the vocative instead
of the nominative. The professor's note on v. 543 is
''Eti' 8110V, in any case, i. e. here, to my harm.^'* This is
a confusion of two different readings and renderings.
Most of the editions have en ef-iov, in my time, opposed
to TiQoyovcov TiaQ(xd6vT0)v in the previous line ; Bothe
wishes to substitute en e(.i6i, which reading the trans-
lation to my harm (or more literally against me) requires.
But the old reading, with the old explanation, does not
involve a solecism or anachronism, any more than the
I
262
very first sentence in Thucydides does ; it is in accordance
with a common Greek idiom, which, indeed, would be
a bull in any modern language, but is perfectly good
Attic nevertheless. KaiiirjXov ccjlivov tlv\ vv. 1544, 1545,
we should translate a camel by way of a lamb^ like Theo-
critus , Idyll, xiv. 17, Bolf^og Tig xoyklag e^rjoiO^rj^ a
shell-fish was chosen by way of relish. It is but fair to
add, however, that both passages are much disputed.
There ! we have finished our observations without
saying much about tol ^ or ys, or TTojg, or any of those
particles which it is, indeed, a small thing for a scholar
to understand, but which it is a still smaller thing (^pace
T. L. again) for one professing scholarship to be ignorant
of. And, in concluding, we have one suggestion to offer
to Professor Felton. Aristophanes may be very pleasantly
and usefully illustrated from Athenaeus. Mitchell has
tried this, but his extracts w^ere too wholesale and indis-
criminate, and being unaccompanied by translations or
explanations, their length and dificulty generally prevent
the student from making much use of them. Judicious
selections, with translations attached, embodied in the notes,
would do much towards making Aristophanes more in-
telligible and more interesting to our collegians.
THE 'WALTER MAPES' POEMS.*
Knickerbocker, April 1850.
FRIENDS AND READERS OF 'OLD KNICK.':
LAST May I submitted to your notice a certain
translation, promising at the same time to present you,
in the very next number, with some observations expla-
natory of it, and of the collection of poems whence it
was taken. But ''man proposes,' and it is otherwise
disposed for him: since then I have been terris jactatus
* The Latin Poems commonly attributed to WALTER MAPES.
Collected and edited by THOMAS WRIGHT, Esq. London: printed
for tbe Camden Society. 1841.
263
et alto^ and moreover, so much mixed up in the quidquid
agunt homines^ that honest Walter and I have been stran-
gers from that time to the present. Ten months! — it
is a long while in Magazine history ; almost long enough
for the completion of a 'serial' romance ; quite long enough
for you to have forgotten PHILLIS and FLORA, even
supposing you read their dispute. But I do not thus
hold myself excused from my promise; especially since,
if you should happen to have read the translation in
question, that very slovenly version standing by itself
must have given an unfair idea of the Oxford Archdeacon,
which it is my duty to correct. Would that all mistakes
of the pen could be as easily corrected!
It is a very pleasant thing for a quiet man, who has
been knocking about in general society, to get back once
more into his library; to feel post tot naufragia^ if not
tutus ^ at least securus; careless of what is going on out
of doors; to live in a world of his own, far pleasanter
than that w^ith which he associates every day. An intel-
ligent and highly accomplished friend of mine, who has
a predilection for using long words without being par-
ticular about their meaning, is wont to call himself a
misogynist^ intending thereby to signify that he dislikes
the majority of men. Now I don't call myself a miso-
gynist, but I avow a strong preference for books. When
it is remembered that you choose your companions not
from your own little age and locality, but from all
countries and all times; that you can be with them just
when you please, and just as long as you please; that
you can vary them at will ; that there is no risk of your
talking them out and exhausting their capacities ; no fear
of their boring you or your boring them; in view of all
this, I really marvel that any man who has the education
to enjoy, and the means to procure a library, can be
tempted out into the world to seek amusement or re-
laxation, unless on the principle of D'Israeli's exquisite,
who found good wine such a bore because he had it
every where, and wanted a little bad, by way of change.
The above incipient flourish is not altogether due
to Walter Mapes. I had many older and more valued
friends — Greek, Latin and English classics — to shake
hands with first, and then after a pleasant time with
them, I bethought me of my promise to 'Old KNICK,,'
564 ^:
and came down to the Archdeacon ; who after all is not
to be despised, for, though no remarkable poet, he was a
stout satirist, and the school of verse which he founded
valuably illustrates the popular movements in England
during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Walter Mapes (the orthography of his name is un-
certain : we find it written Map, Mape. Mahav, and Mahapp^
was an ecclesiastic of Henry the Second's time, and a
favorite with that monarch, from whom he received various
preferments, ending with the Archdeaconry of Oxford.
He had studied at Paris and travelled to Rome; was
esteemed for his learning and celebrated for his vdt.
He died early in the thirteenth century. His satires on
the clergy generally appear in manuscript under the name
of Golias or Golias Episcopus^ and even his friend and
biographer Giraldus Cambrensis talks about this Golias as
if it were the name of a real personage. But the appel-
lation is so clearly a pseudonym, having reference to the
goliards^ or clerical buffoons of the time, that there is
reason to suspect that this mistake of Giraldus, which
much surprises our editor, was really a mistake made on
purpose^ and that prudential considerations induced him
to ignore the real authorship of the satires. In the extract
given by Mr. Wright from the Speculum Ecclesice^ GIRAL-
DUS quotes all the bitterest parts of the attack on the
Romish Court [Golias in Romanam Curiam J just as a
fashionable lady repeats a scandalous story: 'It's very
shocking — I don't believe a word of it — very improper
for people to invent such things — but here it is;' and
the story, being much more spicy than the contradiction,
goes deeper and travels farther. It is not till more than
a century after that we find the best known of these
poems, such as the Apocalypsis, the Confession and the
^e Conjuge, generally attributed to WALTERS MAPES.
This popular opinion is supported by some slight internal
evidence in the poems themselves, by the absence of
contradiction, (for Giraldus may have been deceived
himself, or, as we think more probable, have endeavored
to deceive others,) and by the knowledge derived from
Mapes' contemporaries, that he was of a satirical dispo-
sition, and lampooned the Cistercian Monks. But the
original satires of Mapes gave rise to many imitations
during the half century succeding him, and it is not pos-
265
sible now to discriminate accurately between the pro-
ductions of the master and those of his scholars.
The metre employed in these poems is chiefly of
two kinds: one, the stanza of four (accentual) trochaic
lines all rhyming; the other having properly neither rhyme
nor assonance, but a correspondence of the unaccented
syllables in the (accentual) dactylic terminations: E. G.,
the first stanza of the Apocalypsis :
'A TAURO torrida lampade Cynthii,
Fundente jacula ferventis radii,
Umbrosas nemoris latebras adii,
Explorans gratiam lenis Favonii.'
As if we were to end four English lines with unify,
charity^ jollity^ density. It is hardly necessary to observe
that quantity has nothing to do with the versification of
either metre.
There are a few specimens of different stanzas^ some
of them after the model of the monkish hymns, as the
one de Riiina Romce^ which commences thus:
'PROPTER Syon non tacebo,
Sed ruinas Romre flebo
Quoiisque justitia
Rursus nobis oriatnr,
Et ut lampas aecendatur
Justus in ecclesia.'
The subject-matter of the poems is chiefly the cor-
ruption of the Romish church. Sometimes we find other
topics introduced: a few of them discuss serious theo-
logical points: some are gross satirical attacks on the
whole female sex. These libels were exceedingly com-
mon in the middle ages. Nous avons change tout cela,
and are become much more refined: witness the Caudle
Lectures. But the great majority have for their theme
the vices and hypocrisy of the clergy, exposed sometimes
with playful raillery, sometimes with ferocious invective.
After the Reformation many of them were printed, and
translated into French and English. The satire is carried
out in a variety of ways, direct and indirect: here for
instance is a burlesque anathema pronounced by Golias
on a thief:
266
'RAPTOR mei pilei morte moriatur,
Mors sit subitanea nee provideatur,
Et poena eontinua post mortem sequatur,
Nee campis Elysiis post Lethen fruatur.
'Raptor mei pilei sseva morte cadat,
Ilium febris, rabies et tabes invadat,
Hunc de libro DOMINUS vitee sanctse radat,
Hunc tormentis .^ACUS cruciandum tradat.
'Ei vita brevis sit pessimusque finis
Nee vivat feliciter hinc diebus binis ;
Laceret hunc CERBERUS dentibus caninis,
Laceratum gravius torqueat ERINYS.
'Nunquam diu bajulet illi colum CLOTO,
Cesset filo LACHESIS tracto nondum toto,
Filum rumpat ATROPOS, nee fruatur veto,
Et miser presbytero corruat remoto.
'Exeommunicatus sit in agro et tectol
Nullus eum videat lumine directo !
Solus semper sedeat similis dejecto
Hunc poenis Tartareis cruciat ALECTO.
'Ille rebus omnibus quas habet emunctus
Nee confessus occidat, oleo nee unctus,
Morte subitanea palleat defunctus
Judse traditori sit inferno conjunctus.
'Hoc si quis audierit excommunicamen
Et non observaverit prsesulis examen,
Nisi resipuerit corrigens peccamen
Fuerit anathema ! fiat, fiat. Amen !'
Will the reader accept this version, in which the
quadruple rhyme of the original is not attempted:
ARCHDEACON WALTER'S CURSE
ON THE MAN WHO STOLE mS PURSE.
MAY the man who stole my purse perish in a twinkling,
rvs By a sudden death of which he shall have no inkling !
After death immediately may he find damnation,
Nor in fields Elysian get an habitation,
267
May the man who stole my purse die a very sad death !
Fever, madness, pestilence, every sort of bad death ;
May his name be blotted from the book of life eternal.
Him may u^ACUS, the judge, doom to pains infernal.
May his life be very short and his end his warning;
May he not live happily through another morning!
With his fangs may CERBERUS lacerate and tear him.
May the FURIES with their snakes scourge and never spare him !
May not CLOTHO in his case long uphold life's distaif,
LACHESIS before 'tis spun cease the thread to twist oif;
ATROPOS cut short the thread and his prayer deny him ;
May he perish wretchedly, not a parson by him.
Out of doors and in the house may the curse be on him,
No one with propitious eye ever look upon him ;
May he mourning sit alone, by his friends forsaken,
Till he dies — and then may he not preserve his bacon.
Spoiled of all his earthly goods, stripped of each possession,
May he die w^ithout extreme unction or confession.
When in short and shallow grave, his pale body laid is,
May his soul with JUDAS sit down in lowest Hades.
Whosoever heareth this excommunication,
And observeth not the priest's pious proclamation,
Unless he repent him in time for expiation,
May he be anathema and go to damnation!
A very fair sacerdotal anathema, is n't it? — not
quite equal to that immortalized by Tristram Shandy,
but still sufficiently catholic, comprehensive and terrible.
The admixture of Pagan mythology is amusing: it was
not uncommon in writings of the time.
In the Apocalypsis Golice Episcopi^ which enjoyed
great popularity during the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, the poet represents himself as carried up into
heaven in a vision, where the vices of the popes and
clergy are revealed. Parts of the Apocalypse and of
Ezekiel's vision are closely imitated, the application being
always made to the present state of the church. Thus
he sees four beasts full of eyes, exactly corresponding
to those seen by the prophet, and this explanation is
given of them: the lion is the pope:
268
'EST leo Pontifex surDmus qui devorat,
Qui libras sitiens libros impignorat,
MARCUM respiciens, MARCUM dedecorat,
In summis navigans in nummis anchorat.'
The calf is the bishop, fattened on other men's goods ;
the eagle is the archdeacon, scenting the prey and flying
to it from a great distance ; the 'fourth beast with the
face of a man' is the dean, full of craft, and working
mischief under the mask of justice. They are full of
eyes all round, because they look out for money from
all quarters.
The De Conjuge non Ducenda, which was also very
popular, is one of the scurrilous satires on women to
w^hich w^e have already alluded. But the most remarkable
poem in the collection is the Confessio Golice^ from which
in the fifteenth or sixteenth century was extracted the
so-called 'Drinking Song', by which the name of Walter
Mapes is principally known in modern times. Yet it gave
the archdeacon a bad reputation unjustly, as if he com-
posed the lines for a bacchanalian ditty expressing his
own sentiments, whereas they are put into the mouth of
Golias^ the representative of the shameless and dissolute
priest, w^hen he confesses (in a semi-exculpatory sort of
w-ay) his many misdeeds. 'Boiling inwardly with great
anger, he will commune with himself in bitterness ;' * and
then he goes on to bewail his inconstancy and his prone-
ness to succumb to the three standard temptations of
the enemy ; wine, women, and gaming. One fancies those
old ecclesiastics playing pretty deep for w^ant of better
occupation. We know that they invented back-gammon,
which after all, however, is not a very fast kind of
gambling, and they had no lack of valuables to stake.
But Golias says very little about his passion for play,
only that he is cold without and warm within when
playing, and — what we should hardly expect — that
he makes verses better for the excitement. Of the ladies
he has more to say:
'PRJESUL, discretiseime, veniam te precor
Morte bona morior, dulci nece necor;
Meum pectus sauciat puellarum decor
Et quas tactu nequeo, saltern corde mtechor.
* '^STUANS intrinsecus ira vehementi,
In amaritudine loquar meae menti.'
269
'Res est arduissima vincere naturam
In aspectu virginum mentem ferre puram ;
luvenes non possumus legem sequi duram
Leviumque corporum non habere curam.
'Quis in igne positus igne non uratur?
Quis in mundo demorans castus habeatur?
Ubi VENUS juvenes digito venatur
Oculis illaqueat, facie prsedatur.'
BISHOP, most discreet of men, hear me cry for quarter !
Of a pleasant death I die, slain by a sweet slaughter.
Every pretty woman's face melts my heart like water.
Till I love — and fain would have — every mother's daughter.
Nature is to overcome harder than you reckon :
Pure of heart 'tis hard to be when the damsels beckon ;
Youths like us so hard a yoke cannot put our neck on,
And this flesh of ours, so frail, cannot keep a cheek on.
Who can in the fire be put so the fire won't burn him?
Who that's living in the world can from beauty turn him?
The old common-place excuse of the sinner; but
there is pretty writing in the above, however false the
sentiment. The italicized line has always seemed to me
very sweet and expressive. Still there is nothing in them
equal to the rollicking verses afterward made into the
drinking song, and so quaintly translated by Leigh Hunt.
The author evidently understood, however much or little
he may have sympathized with, the feelings of a jovial
toper. Golias knows himself to be more inspired by the
bottle than by beauty or the dice-box. As he says:
'SUUM cuique proprium dat natura donum,
Ego versus faciens vinum bibo bonum.'
NATURE giveth every man his own speciality ;
I, when writing verses, drink wine of the best quality.
The language of these poems is about equal to the
current Latin of the period. Of course we find in them
various barbarisms and slang words, and some queer
spellings. Effimera for s(pt]iiieQa is curious, as showing
that the Reuchlinian (modern Greek) pronunciation then
prevailed. Words like somnum damnum have always an
epenthetetical p, sompnum, dampnum. QU. : Did this come
270
in through the French pronunciation ? * The same letter
somewhat similarly inserted in Christopher once mystified
an etymologist not a little. Mr. Fox Talbot, a bold
pursuer of mares' nest in the way of derivation, deduced
the name from Christ — opfer^ (German,) Christ's sacrifice.
But this p has clearly no connection with the vowel of
the preceding syllable, and only serves to modify the
aspirate following it. Is not the Latin name older than
the German word? I suspect so.
As to the style of the poems, it is very varied, at
times coarse and familiar in the extreme, at times lofty
and elegant. We occasionally meet with pretty bits of
landscape and description. The Phillis and Flora has
several of these, and here is one from another poem:
'Hie est locus regius paradisi flore,
Quem FLORA multiplici suo ditat rore
Arborum quem CYBELE venustat honore,
Qui lOVINO coelitus fovetur odore.
'Hie resudat balsamus, hie myrta liqueseit,
Hie cypressus redolet, et palma frondeseit,
Fago nubunt ederse, coctanus palleseit
Surgit gigas abies, populus albescit.
'Ulmas hie extenditur vitibus arnica.
PHILLIS flores parturit et DAPHNE pudica
Lenta salix redolet et vana myrica,
Late ramos explicat platanus iniqua.
'Rupes tenet hysopus, et papaver plana,
Clivos montes edera et siler montana,
Lilium suboceupat vallium arcana,
Arida jusquiamus, narcissus fontana.'
One can tell easily enough whence this enumeration
of trees comes. It is a direct classical imitation. Ovid
first gave such a catalogue:
* It will be observed that the letter is not introduced gratia
euphonic, like the p in Sampson for Saints son, or the /? in many
Greek contracts , for its presence is absolutely invila euphonia , we
may say
271
*NON CHAONIS abfuit arbos
Non nemus Heliadum non frontibus esculus altis,
Non tiliflB molles, nee fagus et innuba laurus.
Et coryli fragiles, et fraxinus utilis hastis
Enodisque abiea curvataque glandibus ilex,
Et platanus genialis, acerque coloribus impar
Amnicolaeque simul salices, et aquatica lotus
Perpetuoque virens buxus, tenuesque myricae,
Et bicolor myrtus et baccis caenila tinus.
Vos quoque flexipedes hederse venistis et una
PampinesB vites et amictae vitibus ulmi;
Ornique et picese pomoque onerata rubenti
Arbutus, et lentse victoris prsemia palmae :
Et succincta comas hirsutaque vertice pinus ;
Adfuit huic turbsB metas imitata expressus.' Met. X. 90.
That was when Orpheus played to the woods. Parallel
passages are to be found in Seneca and Statins, but the
best imitation is Spenser's:
*THE sailing pine, the cedar, proud and tall,
The vine-prop elme, the poplar never dry.
The builder oak, sole king of forests all.
The aspen good for staves, the cypress funeral.
'The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors.
And poets sage, the fir that weepeth still.
The willow, worn of forlorn paramours,
The yew, obedient to the bender's will.
The birch for shafts, the sallow for the mill,
The myrrh sweet blending in the bitter wound,
The warlike beech, the ash for nothing ill.
The fruitful olive and the platane round,
The carver holme, the maple, seldom inward sound.'
Fairy Queen, Book I. 1. 6.
In some respects Spenser has improved on his ori-
ginal fitted off each tree with its appropriate epithet,
which Ovid has not done in every case. But some of
Ovid's adjectives are very happy: the 'cone-like cypress,'
the 'virgin laurel,' (so called from Daphne,) the ^stream-
cherishing willows,' the 'winding-footed ivy.
Returning from this digression, it remains for us to
speak of the poem Phillis and Fiora. It is the last
in Mr. Wright's collection, and probably the latest in
date; at any rate, it is not attributed to Mapes in the
272
MSS., and seems to belong to a subsequent era. It be-
longs to a class of poems, which, beginning as early as
the tenth century with the Anglo-Saxon versifiers, were
first transferred to rhyming Latin by Mapes and his
contemporaries, and continued long after them, becoming
especially popular in France under the title of Debats.
They are indeed debates or discussions between two
parties, who are sometimes mere personifications, as wine
and water ^ the body and the soul'^ sometimes real mortals
of different classes or opinions. Two 'amorous ladyes,'
one admiring a soldier and the other a scholar, hold a
contention 'w^hich one's lover loveth most,' and ultima-
tely refer the matter to Cupid himself, who decides in
favor of the scholar; for so we must translate clericus^
his position being much like that of an English college
Fellow, well supplied with the desirabilities of life, a
lover of learning and good cheer, and having little to
do with preaching and other peculiar functions of a modern
priest or clergyman. The poem, which probably dates
nearly as late as 1300, was very popular in the sixteenth
century. It is comprised in some continental collections,
and we learn from Ritson that George Chapman trans-
lated it into English in 1595. His version would be worth
having, but Mr. Wright was not able to find a copy,
and therefore it is not likely that any of us ever wdll.
Although the aspect of the poem is perfectly serious,
I have sometimes thought there was a latent satire in-
tended in it. The reasons which Flora gives for preferring
her scholar love are mostly of a very mercenary character,
and his own learning is rather throw^n into the back-
ground compared with his wealth and luxury. If the vow
of celibacy had been strictly observed by the clergy in
those days, the very argument of the piece and the final
decision, 'that the scholar is by far the most ardent
lover,' would be a bitter satire in itself. But w^e know
that numbers ef the English priests were virtually mar-
ried : these left-handed marriages were formally condemned
in council in 1215, but the papal ordinances on the subject
were enforced with difficulty. Several of the poems in
this collection, written immediately after Mapes's time,
handle the question with great boldness, and display much
good sense and sound protestant doctrine.
Feb. 18th. CARL BENSON.
273
PROFESSOR LINCOLN'S HORACE.*
Literary World, April 1851.
WE are somewhat inclined to question the demand
or necessity for a new edition of Horace. Our doubt
has no reference to foreign labors in this field. With
a nationality much to be desiderated in some other mat-
ters connected with literature , the college-going and
college-teaching part of our community has invariably
hesitated to receive into general use the work of a
European scholar until it receives the imprimatur of a
native editor. The American classical editor, therefore,
has only to take into consideration home competitors,
and these in the present instance, we think, have already
pretty well occupied the ground, and the labors of some
of them have acquired a reputation not limited to their
section of the country or to the country itself. We are
disposed to think that, without going out of the beaten
track, any of our professors having leisure and inclination
to edit might find something more left to be done in
Virgil than in Horace; but how we do wish that some
of them would make the attempt to enlarge a little the
boundaries of our very limited collegiate Latin course!
For instance, how many American students know anything
about Lucretius? Yet is he not, whether considered in
a literary or a philological point of view, quite as worthy
to be read as Ovid? A move of this kind can only be
made by our Professors ; not merely is it their peculiar
business, but they are the only persons by whom it can
be done, because first, there are very few men out of
their circle qualified for the work; secondly, where such
a rara avis as a scholar of leisure exists , the very fact
of his not being connected v^^ith any institution of learning,
prevents him from introducing a book into the standard
* The Works of Horace. With English Notes for the use of
Schools and Colleges. By J. B. Lincoln, Professor of the Latin
Language and Literature in Brown Universitey. New York : Ap-
pleton & Co.
Vol. L ^^
274
course anywhere. The classical editor here must have
some large school or college as a stand-point to begin with.
Since, however, Professor Lincoln has, by reasons
best known to himself, been led to the conclusion that
another edition of Horace was required, it is but bare
justice to him to say that he has executed the task in
a very workmanlike manner. The book itself is quite a
treat to one's eyes after the usual run of American school-
books — large and correct print, handsome type, and a
liberal allowance of margin; and it is further embellished
with occasional vignettes, though of these we must be
allowed to say, that neither their beauty, number, nor
importance altogether justifies the flourish of trumpets
made about them in the preface. The foot-notes of
various readings are very convenient, and contribute to
give the work a scholarly appearance; we respect an
editor who has the courage to give various readings.
The critical notes are good so far as they go^ good enough
to make us wish for more. Unluckily, this question of
more or fewer notes has become almost a party one
between New York and New England professors, the
former, as a general rule, taking the side of more copi-
ous, the latter of more scanty illustration ; so that it is not
easy to approach the subject without being suspected
of, perhaps without being imperceptibly biased by, some
feeling of partisanship.
The obvious argument against the profuse annotation
system (a system more favored in Germany than in Eng-
land: we mention this fact because it has been our fortune
to find an opinion to the contrary strangely prevalent in
some quarters) is that it makes the learner depend too
much on his notes and not enough on his lexicon and
himself. There is a subordinate reason arising from
considerations of convenience and expense — the addition
which many notes make to the bulk and cost of a volume.
As regards this latter, we should begin where there is
any danger of making too big a book, by throwing out
all parallel passages from modern poets and all from
ancient poets when introduced to illustrate the sentiment
only, such quotations, like pictorial illustrations, seeming
to us not strictly in place in a critical edition. We are
inclined also to admit that the practice of giving trans-
lations in the notes merely to show how a sentence or
275
phrase may be put into the best English, has been some-
times carried to excess. For the student to understand
the meaning of a passage is but half the battle; he should
labor to express it in elegant as well as accurate terms,
thus bringing into play and improving his knowledge of
his own language.* At the same time it must be said
that the eastern students who are left to exercise them-
selves in this way do not appear to profit much by the
opportunity. The first thing that strikes a New York
trained boy at a New England college is the barbarous
style of construing adopted by most of his classmates,
which, aiming at bald literalness, errs as much from real
accuracy as the elegant but loose paraphrases to which
he has been accustomed. A proper style of translation,
however, is much better learned from the teacher than
from a book; but here again it happens unfortunately
that a great many of our teachers are not over qualified
for this task. Indeed, the American editor of a school
or college text-book must always bear in mind this defi-
ciency of the average teachers. Still, all things considered,
we advocate a sparing use of notes which translate merely
for the sake of the language, but with notes which explain
grammatical difficulties and verbal niceties, the case is
different: we never saw too many of them in an American
classic. The most common error of a student working
by himself — and we speak not of mere tyros, but of
those who have made considerable progress — is to
overlook the existence of difficulties^ to get a general idea
of the meaning of passage without being able to explain
the construction and the force of particular words accu-
rately. Now, as we have already said, many of our
students have to work alone, and many with inferior
teachers. Moreover, the chances of this error are greatly
multiplied by the character of the national mind; where
there is one American boy deficient in sharpness and
quickness of apprehension , there are fifty deficient in
habits of patient investigation and accurate discrimination.
Take a subtle Greek author — Sophocles for instance;
examine a student who has read him alone or under an
* Writing out translations is a valuable exercise not sufficiently
attended to in any of our academic institutions. It is the best pos-
sible preparation for English composition, and would be an advantageous
substitute for it in the earlier stages of the College course.
18*
276 '
incompetent tutor; he will give you a fair outline of the
general meaning, but when you come to question him
closely, whj is this particular word used here? what would
this construction be in ordinary Greek? why does this collo-
cation of words mean so and so when it usually means
something else? he cannot go on for two lines without
stumbling. Now, of course we do not mean to compare
Horace with Sophocles for difficulty ; yet there are many
latent niceties (dodges and catches as they would be cal-
led in Cantab slang) all through the Odes, and the very
fact that they have the reputation with most students
of being easy is the strongest argument in support of
our position. The Satires, on the contrary, are considered
hard , and it is just for this reason — because their
difficulties are appreciated — that our students on the
whole know them better than any portion of any author
read in our colleges.
We did not intend to make any particular remarks
on individual notes in this work; but a single one which
has struck our eye we cannot forbear commenting on
briefly. At v. 6 of the Epistle to the Pisos (usually known
as the Ars Poetica)^ Prof. Lincoln says "isti tabulae. Such
a picture as that: isti expresses contempt.'''' We do not
believe that iste in classical Latin ever expresses anything
of the sort. There was a dictum of the old grammarians
to that effect ; and it is because it was one of the things
particularly impressed upon us at school, and because
we not only read but wrote a good deal of Latin before
discovering the error, that we are anxious to correct it
in others whenever the opportunity presents itself. Iste
(still represented by ese in Spanish and cotesti in Italian)
is the demonstrative pronoun referring to the second person^
as hie refers to the first person and ille to the third ; hic^
this by me, iste, this or that by you, this of yours; ille,
that (at a distance from both of usj. The idea of implied
contempt probably originated thus; in an advocate's speech,
iste^ your man, would be the term naturally applied to
the client of the opposite counsel, and as "your man"
was pretty sure to be well abused before the speech
was through , grammarians fancied that the word had a
bad sense and denoted a contemptible object in itself.
So far all is tolerably plain sailing ; but besides this there
is a secondary and loose use of iste to denote a subject
277
of previous conversation or allusion ; this that we have
been talking about (yvQ might construe this between us, to
carry out the locative discrimination between the meanings
of the pronouns) as in the passage before us, isti tabulce,
this imaginary picture that I have been telling you about, or
in one word, such a picture. If it be asked why the word
may not also express contempt here, since the imaginary
picture is certainly ridiculous and contemptible enough,
we answer simply because iste is found in other places
referring to antecedents anything but contemptible. Thus
in our very author, Epist. I. 6. 67: ''Si quid novisti
rectius islis^ Candidus imperti, si non his utere mecum;"
where Horace cannot mean to throw contempt on his
own precepts, while he is challenging his reader to pro-
duce any better ones. So also Cicero in Catil. I. 9:
"Utinam tibi isiam mentem dii immortales duint." Would
that the immortals could give you such a disposition (to go
into exile).
LATIN PRONUNCIATION.*
Literary World, July 1851.
THE little pamphlet with this long title is really
multum in parvo — one of those books that suggests the
perpetration of an article on it longer than the work
itself. Professing to be merely a guide to scientific
students who are not scholars, it opens out into a dis-
cussion of all the doubtful questions in Greek and Latin
pronunciation. These questions cannot fail to be of in-
terest to every scholar, particularly an English or Ameri-
can one, on account of the greater damage which the
learned languages suffer in being subjected to the pro-
nunciation of ours. Our difference from and inferiority
* Elements of Latin Pronunciation, for the Use of Students in
Law, Medicine, Zoology, Botany, and the Sciences generally, in which
Latin words are used. By S. S. Haldeman, A. M., Professor of Na-
tural History in the University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia : Lip-
pincott, Grambo & Co.
278
to the continental nations of Europe in this respect arises,
not so much from the consonants — taze^ tache , and tathS
are probably as great variations from the original sound
of tare as tase is — but from the continually recurring
vowels a, i, u. It is not probable, however that the
English will ever alter their habit of pronunciation, although
it renders their attempts at conversing in Latin with Ger-
man or Italian scholars difficult and ludicrous. In this
country,' where scholarship is more limited and more in
its infancy, any attempt at such change might be more
likely to succeed. Indeed it has partially succeeded in
New York, where we have adopted a pronunciation of
Latin and Greek nearly approaching the German; but
the New Englanders still retain the English powders of
the letters, with the additional ornament of as many
false quantities as possible. Still it is not probable that
even we shall generally adopt a new standard of clas-
sical pronunciation, because it is difficult to ascertain
satisfactorily what the real standard was, for many reasons.
First, there are the natural caprices of language.
Suppose the French should cease to be a living tongue,
by what analogy or parity of reasoning from the other
European languages should we be likely to arrive at its
true pronunciation? If several files of the Charivari and
other comic publications remained, the puns and rebuses
might help us to find out some of its peculiarities, such
as that it has more than a dozen combinations of letters
to represent the simple sound of long o, but others, such
as the pronunciation of the diphthong o/, we should never
be likely to hit — unless indeed we found in some English,
German, or Italian author, French words written accor-
ding to their sound in those languages — and even not
then with perfect accuracy, by reason of.
Secondly^ the uncertainty with which sounds are
rendered from one language to another. The Romans,
we are expressly told by themselves, had no sound cor-
responding to the Greek upsilon and were obliged to
invent a character for it; neither English, Spanish, nor
Italian have a sound corresponding to the French u.
German teachers and German grammars will tell you
that their 6 is equivalent to the French (bu and their ii
to the French w, which is contrary to the experience of
every man's ears who has heard the two languages spoken
279
constantly, and also to the fact that such rhymes as
schon and gehn^ blick and zuriick occur continually in the
best German poets, whereas no Frenchman would think
of rhyming coBur wdth amer or dure with pire. The Greek
dipthong £L, though generally expressed in Latin, by /,
was in some well known words, as Medea, expressed by
e, but this may have been owing to another cause, which
brings us to.
Thirdly, the variableness of pronunciation in different
parts of the same country, and by different people. In
France and England there is but one standard, but equally
well educated men in different parts of Germany will
pronounce the past participle of the verb geben, ghegayben,
yegayben, and yeyayben. The instability of some of the
Greek diphthongs, particularly those of the long vowels
with i subscript, seems the only hypothesis capable of
accounting for the contradictory modes in which they
are expressed.
Fourthly , we have the difference of opinion among
individuals themselves as to what sounds are different
and what identical, what long and what short, what long
and short sounds correlative. Thus Mr. Haldeman seems
to consider the French u and German w precisely equi-
valent to each, which we consider a want of discrimina-
tion. On the other hand, if asked the quanity of the
vowel in art, we should say it was long like that of arm,
for which he would reprehend us. And many people
still maintain the (in our opinion) traditional infatuation
of English lexicographers, that ai and long a have a
different sound, e. g. that fair and fare are distinguishable
in pronunciation. The great confusion of vowel and diph-
thong sounds, as well as of correlative short and long
sounds, tends to destroy our accuracy of ear in this
respect. *
Fifthly, limited knowledge and the imperfect genera-
lization consequently made from once or a few languages,
* In English two of the vowels (I U) have diphthongal power,
one vowel (the continental U) can only be represented by a diph-
thong {oo) and the ordinary long and short powers of every vowel
belong to two different letters or a letter and a diphthong. Thus a
in father and a in fate are the a and e of most languages, and so
on throughout ; in no one case is the short power of a vowel the
sound of its long power shortened, or the short correlative of its
long sound.
280
constitute a formidable impediment and source of error.
When we are discussing what a sound ought to be or
how one sound should fall into another on general prin-
ciples of speech, it requires a most extensive knowledge
of different languages to justify a dogmatic assertion of
what those principles are. We have often seen and heard
advanced in support of the uniformly hard pronunciation
of C and G in Latin, the artifices used in the modern
continental languages to preserve unchanged the sound
of the radical consonant (e. g. manger makes mangeons
not mangons in the first person plural, rico makes riqui-
simo ^ not ricisimo in the superlative) and the absence of
any such artifice in the ancient tongues. But this rule
does not hold in the language most immediately descended
from the Latin; it requires no more than a fashionable
operagoer's knowledge of Italian to observe that amico
makes not amichi but amici in the plural. Mind, we are
not arguing against the uniform pronunciation of the
Latin C and G — indeed the correspondence of the former
to the Greek ;f is a sufficient proof in its case at least
— but only remarking that the analogy so often advanced
to support it is imperfect and defective. And Mr. Halde-
man quotes a ludicrous instance of a man's English as-
sociations misleading him, in Bonnycastle's argument that
the Latin v could not have been pronunced like w^ be-
cause it is vulgar to say imnegar in English!
The result of these difficulties (and we are not sure
that we have enumerated all the difficulties of the
case) is that it is not possible to determine satisfactorily
the pronunciation of all the Latin letters so as to form
a complete system which philologists will generally agree
to. In the case of some letters we can attain to abso-
lute certainty; in the case of others, after all our spe-
culations, we are left in absolute uncertainty; and there
are various shades of probability between. Sometimes
having decided one letter we can by means of it decide
another with all the neatness and accuracy of a mathema-
tical demonstration. The comparison of tu-tu to the cry of
the screech-owl, the agreement of most modern languages
in their pronunciation of u and its Greek equivalent ov^
the absence of any contradictory evidence from any source,
all unite to justify us in assuming that the Roman sound
of this letter was our oo. Going a little further we find
281
that u and v were interchanged and stood in the relation
of vowel and consonant; comparisons among other lan-
guages show us that w is the consonat sound of oo (as
exemplified in the identical sound of the French word
oui and the English word we). We see that such a poetic
form as silua is immediately and naturally explained by
pronouncing the original word silwa — and the result
of these and many similar observations is a conviction
that the Roman v was pronounced like our ?^.
Sometimes we have a probability, as that the Roman
diphthong m was pronounced like our ee^ which is inferred
from the relations of its Greek equivalent o/, which re-
presents long e in the heroic genitive form oio^ length-
ened expression for «o, and is found closely connected
with the same sound in such changes as olf^ct from Ydov.
But this probability cannot be so far confirmed as to
exclude the possible correctness of other hypotheses.
Sometimes we are divided between a nearly equal
balance of authorities and probabilities, so that not only
no certain but no probable conclusion can be arrived at.
Such is the case with the Roman E (connected with and
involving the whole question of Etacism and lotacism^
otherwise called the Erasmian and Reuchlinian contro-
versy, in regard to Greek pronunciation), the diphthong
YI and the aspirates. In some of these the Greek cor-
respondence give us no assistance whatever, any more
than we could obtain information of the values of y and
X out of the single equation y=x.
The above somewhat desultory remarks, suggested
by a mere glance at the general plan of Mr. Haldeman's
book, may give some hint of the wide field it opens.
To go into it in detail is not our intention; we have
neither time nor space. Occasionally in grappling with
a subject of so great extent, and seeking to pack down
his results as closely as possible, he has, we fear, exem-
plified the "dum brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio;" in
other places, e. g. his illustrations to prove that the Greek
^ was sd not ds^ he is very lucid and satisfactory. There
are a few peculiarities of his system which demand special
notice. Into these parts and these only of his work shall
we enter minutely.
He considers — that is, if we understand him cor-
rectly, which we are not quite sure of, for the paragraph
282
is somewhat ambiguously expressed — that the Greek
q) was an asperated English w. Now, in the first place
it has always been agreed that cp (whatever its sound
may be) was cognate to ti, and it seems rather incon-
sistent to take away an aspirate from a tenuis existing
in the language, leave it without any, and give the aspirate
to a tenuis not existing in the language since the disap-
pearance of the digumma and only represented by the
vowel sound on. Secondly, the combinations brought
about by such a pronunciation would be most unharmo-
nious j hwrairia (cpQazQia) for instance. To be sure there
are some puzzling arrangements of consonants in Greek;
why ^/ii in Iambic verse should be permissive (i. e. admit
a short vowel before it) and g/li not, when according to
our organ of hearing and articulation sm can go together
in one syllable much better than thm; or why in any
verse a proper name like Daphnis should be a Pyrrhic
rather than a Trochee, so that we must separate the
syllables Da-phnis and not Daph-nis — these are mysteries
to us; but there is one consideration that settles the
question to our mind. The combination hicr induces a
vowel before the r — thus hwr atria would come to be
pronounced hwdratria. Now it was precisely to avoid a
similar occurrence that the Greeks inserted letters in
words like avdQl and fj^eGrif^iSQicc] and we are therefore
justified in concluding positively that such a combination
as hwr in contrary to the genius of the Greek language.
Donaldson's idea that cp had the sound of p followed
by an aspirate as in the English word haphazard is rightly
rejected by our author. Mr. D. fortifies himself with
the reduplications (e. g. 7Teq)vxa) and contacts like ^aTZffoj.
The former do not make for his theory any more than
for the usual one, and the latter go dead against it, for
our p with an aspirate after it is hard enough to pro-
nounce, and two would be next to impossible. In answer
to another theory of Donaldson's that "the Latin F must
have contained a guttural element," he cites the change
from F and 5 to H metioned in the American Journal of
Science as a peculiarity of Hawaiian and Tahitian lan-
guages compared with the Polynesian standard. This is
equal to Mr. Donaldson himself, who will always be
talking about visarga or anusvarah instead of apocope or
ecthlipsis to astonish us poor fellows who are badly off
283
for Sanscrit. There was no use of going so far out of
the way to get an illustration. Any father of a family
may find it in his own nursery. It is the most ordinary
thing for children before they can speak plain to use
the aspirate instead of F in beginning a word, to say
honey for funny, &c. They also frequently substitute the
aspirate for initial S5 the converse of which is seen in
akg sal, vlr^ silva, and the like. H is capable of being
articulated before S or F can be, and when the organs
are imperfect as in infancy or the ruder stages of society,
it is used for what afterwards becomes s or f. The
Barbarians of the Spanish provinces recorrupted F into
H, and it still remains as their written language, e. g.
facio, Spanish hacer, &c., though the H is no longer
sounded.
THE AJAX OF SOPHOKLES.*
Literary World, October 1851.
IT may be unpatriotic, but it certainly is very true,
to say that the man in this country who wTites a book
on a strictly classical subject (unless he be a College
Professor, in which case he may induce his pupils to
buy it) must make up his mind beforehand to pay his
own expenses, and be moreover content with a very
limited circle of readers. The English gentleman w^ho
compiled this convenient and useful edition of a magni-
ficent play to which most of our students are strangers,
has, thanks to his being a foreigner, come out of the
affair better than a native would probably have done.
Harvard found him a publisher, on the whole he may
congratulate himself on having escaped so well.
Such books are not read because there are not men
educated to read them — men w^ho can either comprehend
readily or take interest heartily in their subject. A young
* The Aias (Ajax) of Sophocles, with Critical and Explanatory
Notes. Cambridge: John Bartlett. 1851.
284
man in one of our great cities, with a family sufficiently
wealthy to support him at the best college in the land,
is clapped into a counting-house at fifteen and chained
there for seven years. His w^ork is office drudgery, his
enjoyments and solaces of the earth, earthy. The Sewer^
the Jacobin, and the Inexpressible comprise the extent of
his literary researches. Derby and Pacalin are his oracles^
any space which they leave in his ideas being filled up
by Saracco. Delmonico suppers are his positive, a 2',
45" horse his comparative, a share in a yacht his super-
lative of eartly bliss. Such a man, even should he become
opulent at an early period of life, can never be expected
to cultivate an acquaintance with the Literce Humaniores.
It is very doubtful if he has the power, and pretty cer-
tain that he will not have the inclination to do so. An
ambitious country youth is fond of books, goes to college
and acquires a reputation there. He is likely to do good
in the church, to shine at the bar: perhaps has visions
of senatorial dignity. Alas ! because facility in composition
and public speaking are to be of use to him in his future
career, therefore he will do nothing but speak and write
from the start, before he has learned to read or think.
What classics he deigns to acquire are at most a college
Appointment's w^orth — possibly not even that — per-
haps just enough to fournish him with an occasional
hacknied quotation — decidedly not enough to render
the classical element a conspicuous one in his thoughts,
studies, and tastes. When intelligent foreigners complain
of our want of refinement, it is this sort of refinement they
mean — the critical and aesthetic sympathies of educated
literary men and well-read gentlemen, not the refinement
of dresses and dinners, French clothes and French dances,
of which we denizens of the Atlantic cities have enough
and somewhat too much.
Shockingly aristocratic and monarchical and un-
American these remarks of ours ! At least there will be
plenty of charitable people to say so, for our popular
mind has grown "tender and irritable," like that of the
decadent democracy described by Plato; even as a spoiled
child or a spoiled woman, it will be found fault with in
nothing. You can't say a w'ord about Bruin the nigger-
dealer, or Grabster of the Bath Hotel, or the Morning
Sewer^ but some one will raise the hue and cry after you
285
as an enemy of "our free institutions." O blatant individual,
are Bruin and Grabster and the Sewer integral parts of
our government and institutions? If so, then have we
institutions not altogether perfect, but imperatively de-
manding somewhat of reform. But we trust that they
— two of them at least — are not institutions at all,
but monstrous excrescences to be lopped off from the
body social and sent to their own place.
Indignant democrat, thou hast a friend or a brother
perhaps, a good man and clever, respected and loved
by thee above all other men. Wouldst thou, therefore,
insist that everything about him shall be deemed perfect
by all the world — praise his snub nose, for instance,
as an aquiline, and quarrel with all who shall not con-
fess it the purest Roman? If so, thou art very blind or
a sad toady. Go, take a lesson from John Bull, whose
sauciness thou art wont to wax wroth with, forgetting
that he is just as saucy at home. John is a patriot
every inch of him , and thinks enough — yea , quite
enough — of himself and his country; yet is he not
slow to revile and ridicule the abuses thereof. Can we
expect him to be more civil to us than he is to his own
people? When the Times compares Lords Brougham and
Campbell to a couple of Scotch terriers, is it surprising
that it should speak with small respect of Senator Se-
ward or Editor Greeley? Thackeray wrote a book on
English snobs and showed up a great many of the
"institutions" of his fatherland in very large type. We
think we see him writing a book about the Snobs of
America and some of the said snobs reading it.
But all this while we are keeping you away from
our play. Draw up the curtain then — or rather let it
down, for the classic curtain did not rise from the stage,
but sank beneath it. The contest for the arms of Achilles
is decided. The judges have given them to the eloquent
man in preference to the brave man. Disappointment
drives the defeated candidate mad; he rushes out on the
sheep and cattle of the army and slaughters them instead
of the Grecian chiefs. Ulysses will play the spy on his
unfortunate rival, and here the drama opens.
The wily son of Laertes encounters his patron god-
des near the tent of Ajax. And here let us make a note.
The uninterrupted stateliness of the classical drama, its
286
exclusion of vulgar persons, low words, undignified ideas,
are often complacently dwelt on by those who are not
inclined to over admiration of the romantic school. Now,
of the pseudo classic drama, as we have it in Racine and
Alfieri, this may be true enough, but it certainly is not
true of the old Greek drama. There is in it a great deal
of the comic or semi-comic directly or indirectly developed
by the inferior characters, ^schylus is sufficiently prone
to magniloquence, yet with all his Qi^jLiad-' IjiTToxQrjrj/uva,
he makes the female attendant in the ChoephorcB talk
about some very ordinary operations of life, and there
are clearly comic points in the Guard's prologue to the
Agamemnon. The whole run of Euripides' Alcestis — Her-
cules kicking up a row in the house, the supremely farcical
idea of Admetus slanging his father for not offering to
die instead of him, and so forth — might furnish us
with a still stronger case, were it not now generally agreed
among scholars that the Alcestis was not a tragedy at
all, but a species of genteel comedy. In this very play
Ulysses makes some fun. First of all he is afraid of
Ajax: "What are you about, Minerva? For God's sake
don't bring him out!" And then when she taunts him
for his cowardice, he tries to look big and declares that
"he would not have stood out of Ajax's w^ay even when
he was in his right mind." Far enough out of it now
is the poor son of Telamon, killing and torturing sheep
whom he takes for the Atridce and Ulysses. The goddess
and her proteg^ retire, and the chorus (of sailors from
Salamis) advance, bewailing the calamity of their chief,
and seeking to investigate further the truth of the reports
respecting him. Forth comes to them Tecmessa, the
captive but loving mistress of Ajax. From her they learn
their lord's condition. The frantic fit has left him; he
sits fallen among the fallen carcases, in a state of des-
pondency still w^orse than his former phrensy. Even as
she speaks the inner doors are opened {avolxeTai tj Gxrjvrf)
and the hero is seen in his tent surrounded by the slaugh-
tered cattle. He advances; almost his first words are a
prayer for death: "You are my only friends, therefore
kill me." The chorus is bewildered — after the usual
manner of Greek choruses — they "neither know how
to stop him or how to let him go on." He will not be
comforted; his fortune is now in accordance with his
I
287
name {A^lag)^ he may now cry at (alas!) many times.
Every one hates him. Shall he go home over the ^gean
sea? No, he cannot bear to behold the face of his father,
Telamon. Shall he rush upon the Trojan fortifications
and die fighting! No, thus he might please the Atridse.
He will do something desperate. (In this speech we note
another community of conceit between the classic and
romantic drama — the verbal quibble, the use of the
paronomasia^ or in plain English, the pun. So in the Aga-
memnon Helen is called elavdQog, elaTiTohe, a hell of men
and cilies^ as it has been translated.) Tecmessa interposes.
Long since deprived of a home and a father, her safety
has been bound up in that of her conqueror; she begs
him not to expose her and their child unprotected to the
insults of enemies. He persists in taking leave of the
infant, Eurysaces, whom he commends to the seamen;
at length, however, the entreaties of the captive princess
seem to move him; in beautifully flowing verse (would
that we could translate it better!) he expresses his change
of purpose: —
The long immeasurable lapse of time
Brings forth all hidden things, conceals all known.
What may not he expected when we see
The fearful oath, the hardened mind o'ercome.
Yea, I, on direful deed so stern resolved
Am softened down , like iron dipped in oil.
E'en by this woman ; pitying her too much
To leave her widowed, with an orphan boy
Among our enemies. Nay, I will go
To bathe me at the meadows by the shore.
That I, from blood-pollutions purified.
May 'scape the goddess's oppressive wrath.
And having found an unfrequented place.
There will I hide my sword, accursed arm,
Buried in earth where none may see it more;
For since I first received within my grasp
This gift of Hector, foeman bitterest.
The Greeks have never showed me any good.
So true the proverb is that men repeat,
"Foes' gifts are no gifts and they profit not."
And we shall know henceforth to yield to Gods,
And we shall learn henceforth to reverence kings.
They are the rulers, so we must submit.
288
For things prodigious, yea, and mightiest,
Submit to dignities. The winter snows.
Hard-trodden, yield to fertile summer's heat;
The melancholy night withdraws her steps
Before the blazing coursers of the day.
The breath of storms terrific leaves the deep.
And all-o'erpowering sleep releases those
Whom he has bound nor alwayholds them fast,
And how shall we not learn discretion too?
The chorus, overjoyed at the change, invoke the
presence of Pan and Apollo to kallow their raptures: —
I thrill with delight like the shudder of love,
I am borne up with joy to the regions above.
O Pan, Pan, come hither to me !
Wandering over the sea, *
From the snow-smitten cliffs of Cyllene advance!
O King that rulest the heavenly quires;
And join in the measure thy wisdom inspires,
The Nysian and Cnosian dance.
For now 'tis my pleasure to sport in that measure.
And come thou too with willing mind
Ever to me propitiously inclined,
O royal Apollo, thy favor make known.
Who boldest the Delian isle for thine own;
O'er the Icarian sea
Hasten to me !
But their joy is destined to have a speedy and bitter
termination: Ajax was deceiving them; and while they
are thus singing for delight, and a messenger is telling
them how all the army have abused Teucer on his bro-
ther's account, and how Calchas the soothsayer has ex-
pressly commanded that Ajax should be kept in his tent
during this day, on w^hich he was especially exposed to the
wrath of Pallas, the unhappy man, bent on self-destruction,
has found a retired spot for the deed. Here note that
there is an indubitable change of scene. The Unity of
Place is utterly set at nought. We see Ajax in a wood^
preparing to fall on his sword. It cannot fail to do its
work — the sword of his most hated enemy. Hector,
fixed in the hostile earth of Troy. He prays for an
* See our note further on, upon cc?JfilayxT£.
289
easy death, and that Teucer may find his corpse. He
invokes the avenging furies upon the whole Grecian army.
He bids the sun announce his fate to his aged parents.
Of the light of day, of his own country of Salamis, and
the country of Troy he takes farewell. These are his
latest words. The rest he will tell to those in Hades.
And here by rights, according to our own modern
notions, the play should terminate. When Ajax has fallen
on his sword the main action is over. But the play does
not terminate for several hundred lines — it being a pe-
culiarity of the Classic Drama that the action is apt to be
redundant, and to be continued beyond the main catas-
trophe. This redundancy did not begin with the Greek
Drama; it is equally conspicuous in the Greek Epic.
Both the Iliad and Odyssey go on beyond the winding
up of their main interest. The one seems naturally to
end with the death of Hector, the other with the reve-
lation of Ulysses and the slaughter of the suitors. The
old German epic of the Niebelungen Lied appears to pre-
serve the unity of action better. There is extensive
work in prospect for. the undertaker, but the poet does
not busy himself with anticipating that ; when his leading
personages are all killed off he leaves them, and pretends
to say no more.
I really cannot tell you what after that befel ;
The princes all were weeping, the women, too as wellj
Likewise the noble burghers for friends beloved indeed.
Here hath my tale an end ; this is the Niebelungen's need.
Hence much doubt and confusion ; squabbling of commen-
tators, and violent apocope committed on the father of
poetry by the sons of criticism, much whereof might have
been prevented by observing this peculiarity of the Greek
mind. And we will not say that none of the commen-
tators have done so — for truly their name is legion;
there is nothing which more truly illustrates the ars
longa vita brevis than this Homeric controversy in its
various forms — but we have never met with any who
had recourse to this explanation. When we come to the
tragedies it might be suggested that their arrangement
into trilogies caused the redundancy, for purposes of con-
nexion; but this supposition would not fully account for
the fact. If the Agamemnon^ Choephorce, and Eumenides were
rewritten now-a-days, the terminations of the first two,
Vol. I. i9
290
if not of all, would doubtless be materially curtailed.
Take the greatest dramatic poem written in the English
language since Shakspeare — Henry Taylor's Philip Van
Artevelde — the first part ends with the hero's triumph, the
second with his death; there is no appendix to either.
In the Comedies we may sometimes discover another reason
— the peripetia or dramatic irony showing the unsatis-
factoriness of the object gained in the plot; thus in the
Wasps^ when Philocleon is induced to relinquish his pet-
tifogging and electioneering habits, the action of the ori-
ginal plot is complete, but the satirist proceeds to show
him behaving worse, and giving more trouble in his
character of a fashionable gentleman, than in his old one
of a politician. But in the tragedies this superfluity can
only be explained by supposing the Greek formula of
dramatic action a very different one from that of the
moderns. Grote's comparison (in reference to the early
myths and legends) of the Greeks to clever children^ has
often struck us as applicable to many traits of their
character and points of their history. This wanting the
after-clap to a story, and insisting on having the last
possible word about it, is very much in the clever-childish
vein. We do not, however, profess to account for the
cause of this phenomena; our purpose is only to call
the attention of the reader to its existence, and its con-
trast to the manner in which the unity of action is pre-
served in its completeness, without the addition of sup-
plementary matter, by the writers of the modern or romantic
school. Here the English drama appears to have attained
the juste milieu^ but the Modern French Romancists have
run into the other extreme, and for fear of weakening the
catastrophe by subsequent detail, have frequently cut it
too short, and left the action incomplete. The effect of
these mutilated catastrophes is very startling at first, but
they pall on repetition, and the trick of them becomes
unpleasantly manifest. For examples of our meaning,
we refer to any play of Dumas ^ and almost any play of
Victor Hugo. Thus in the former's tragedy upon the
story of Catharine of Cleves (we can never remember the
names of Dumas's tragedies, as they never have the
slightest connexion with the subject), the death of St.
Megrim does not fully complete the action; we have a
desire to know the Duchess' fatej and in Lord Leveson
291
Gowers adaptation of this play to the English stage,
she poisons herself immediately after her lover's assas-
sination. This is a case in point, as showing the dif-
ference between English and French conceptions on the
subject.
A familiar illustration of the difference between the
Classic and Romantic methods of winding up the action
of a play in the catastrophe, is afforded by the drama
of Lucrezia Borgia^ as originally written for the stage,
as adapted to opera, and as usually sung in opera. In
Victor Hugo's play, Gennaro, after discovering that
himself and companions have been poisoned at the ban-
quet, stabs Lucrezia, who has just life left to announce
their relationship before she falls at his feet. In the
operatic version, he dies of the poison, and she sings a
lament over him in presence of her husband and the
chorus. The former termination is in the Romantic, the
latter more resembles the Classic method. And it shows
which way the sympathies of most moderns are, that,
beautiful as the aria era desso il figlio mio is universally
acknowledged to be, still it is generally felt to be almost
an impertinence, and the opera as represented on the
stage is usually, in compliance with public opinion, made
to end with the death of Gennaro.
To return then from our digression : Ajax having
fallen, the chorus enter to search for him; at first one
division appears:
Labor, labor after labor;
Here and there,
Every were.
No one nowhere can inform me.
Hark, hark!
Sure I hear a heavy tread.
It is the other division of the chorus, engaged in an
equally fruitless search. Tecmessa is the first to discover
the body and announce the hero's melancholy end. Teucer
now appears and joins in the lamentation. They are
preparing to inter the corpse when Menelaus forbids
them to proceed. Ajax had endeavored to destroy the
army, and especially the chiefs; he had proved more
hostile than any Trojan; therefore he shall now be de-
prived of the honors of burial. Cast out on the yellow
sand he shall become the banquet of sea-birds. Teucer
19*
292
defies Menelaus, who goes off to call his "big brother,"
Agamemnon. But neither to him will the archer yield.
The direst threats are interchanged, when the sage Ulysses
interposes. By his expostulations the royal brothers are
pacified, and they suffer the funeral obsequies to proceed.
It remains for us to say a few words on the manner
in which the editor has accomplished his task. One
thing we do not like in the outset — his un-Latinizing
the Greek name. In the case of the deities it may do,
though even here we think the necessity on the score
of accuracy much exaggerated; doubtless Minerva and
Mercury, for instance, were not originally equivalents to
Athene and Hermes, but the usage of the Augustan poets
ultimately made them such. But when it comes to
Thukydides and Sophokles, we must enter our protest.
True, there is the authority of Mr. Grote ; but even Homer
nods sometimes, and Grote is a little timorous and in-
consistent, wavering between Krete and Crete^ and in some
other names. This, however, is a small matter. The
compilation of notes is usually very good. Sometimes
the editor has fallen into the error (which we have also
observed in his friend. Professor Felton) of mixing up
together several interpretations of different value, without
any attempt at deciding among them. We would refer
to the note on v. 33 as a striking example of this. Dog-
matism, it may be said, shows arrongance in an editor.
Possibly, but on the other hand, want of discrimination
is a confession of inefficiency. Sometimes, too, we think
that, copious as the notes are, a bare reference to a
grammar is given where an explanation at length of an
idiom or peculiarity would have been desirable. Thus,
on V. 27, where the cattle are described as found killed,
avroig ernGtaTaLQ, shepherds and all, we have merely see
Matth. 405, obs. 3. Now an edition of this sort ought to
be a manual of the play, so that it may be read without
any other book, even a lexicon; such, at least, is our
opinion. Moreover, we have a striking recollection of
the manner in which a knowledge of this idiom was first
impressed upon ourselves by a note in Peile's Agamemnon,
while this very brief allusion in the book before us might
easily be overlooked by a student.
V. 31. Quaere, may not the intermingling of different
tenses in Greek and Latin poets be merely a poetic
293
licence, for the sake of the measure, as English poets
use be for are and ye for you (accusative), both strictly
grammatial errors, for the sake of the rhyme?
V. 49. Here we think the editor should have men-
tioned the other and more common meaning of xal drjy
well then I let you alone^ and numerous other places.
V. 136. ^8 TTQaooovra we would take as an accusative
absolute. Any case may be used absolutely in Greek.
V. 352. We really cannot see what w^ould be gained
by the proposed substitution of Tiot/nsvolv for ixoif.ievwv.
Reiske's emendation, TTi^iiiovav (adopted by Wunder), seems
altogether preferable.
V. 659. We prefer Hermann's and Bothe's construc-
tion of aXinkayy^te , but at the same time feel bound to
admit that the editor has the majority of commentators
on his side. But how he has been induced to take up
Mr. Lewes's (not Lew/5, as here printed, and which our
students would be apt to take up for Tayler Lewis') idea
that the Greek chorus dit not dance, we really cannot con-
ceive. Whoever wants to see an abundant confutation
of this crotchet, will find it in the Classical Museum.^
vol. iii. pp. 229, 599. It is hard to see how a man with
an ear for metre can doubt that not only the chorus
generally, but some of the main personages occasionally
made their entry dancing; Bacchus, for instance, in the
BacchcB of Euripides, when he rushes in with
aT€T€ xsQavviov cu^ona XajHTiada
ovjiicplsye Gv/ncpkeys dtof-iaxa Ilsvd-eojg.
Lighten the | glittering | torch of the | thunderbolt!
Kindle up! | kindle up! | mansions of | Pentheus!
We had marked some other notes for comment, but
being more anxious to praise than criticise this very
neatly and carefully got-up edition, abstain from further
remark, heartily commending it to all students and
scholars.
m
PARIS IN LITTLE, AND SOME OF
THE VANITIES THEREOF.
Fraser, May 1855.
'GOOD morning, Bleecker, good morning! You are
just the very man I wanted to see! You come in as a
propos as the monkey in the friar's sermon.'
What monkey and what friar? It may be an old
story, but I don't remember it.'
'Perhaps because it was not worth remembering, for
it can't be that I never told it to you. It is an old story
to me, which I happened to think of from going to church
yesterday in a gymnasium.'
'A gymnasium?'
'Yes, a regular gymnasium, and one that is in full
operation on weekdays; poles, ropes, ladders, all the
apparatus remaining there, only pushed into corners so
far as practicable during sermon-time.'
'The congregation were turned out of their regular
place of worship by the municipal improvements I suppose?'
'So you might naturally guess, but it happens to be
in consequence of a fire. Now this set me thinking of
all the queer places where I had been to church.'
'No great compliment to the sermon that.'
••It w^as a very good one though. Still it could not
hinder the locality from bringing up some odd associa-
tions in my mind, for I have been to church in a good
many bizarre and unchurch-like places: stables in, or
just out of, Rome, theatres in America, private houses
in some countries, and have witnessed some queer scenes
also in regular church buildings; it was one of these
that occurred to me just as you came in.
'Several years ago, no matter how many, I was in
Naples all alone, waiting for three men who were to join
me there. As the men didn't come till long after I had
seen all the sights, I made a mighty effort to utilize the
delay by getting up the language; and finding my pre-
vious book-learning of but moderate practical utility, I
tried various other plans; one of them was to frequent
295
all assemblages of the people around, jugglers, rhapso-
dists, popular preachers, any kind of exhibitors in short,
and hear what was being declaimed. Not a remarkably
sagacious proceeding on my part, for all these exhibitors
generally hold forth in the vulgar dialect, so you can't
understand a word of what they say, and if you could
it wouldn't help you much towards a knowledge of gram-
matical and polite Italian. Such however was my plan,
and in pursuance of it I one day dropped into a little
church, the name and situation of which I have now
forgotten, but it was a very little one, and crowded with
persons of both sexes, chiefly of the lower orders. It
was a fine spring morning, and the heat (not to mention
the dirt and odor) was overpowering, though the large
windows or skylights of the roof had been judiciously
left open. The preacher himself, a little 'round fat, oily' ^
man seemed, nearly overcome by it; whether this made ^-^
him speak more slowly than usual, or whether his dis-
course had less than the usual allowance of dialect, at
any rate I could make out a good deal of what he said.
His discourse, or at least the exordium of it, in which
he was only just fairly launched, treated of temptation
and various disguises assumed by man's great enemy for
that purpose. 'You know, my children, he appeared to
our first parents under the form of a serpent. Sometimes
he presents himself in the guise of a dog, sometimes of
a cat, sometimes — (the speaker's zoological vocabulary
did not appear to be very extensive, and he hesitated
between his clauses) — sometimes (looking around) he
takes the form of a monkey.'
'Scarcely were the words out of the friar's mouth
when one of the big skylights was partially darkened,
there was a rush of a falling body, a rattle of chains
and a portentous yell, and down tumbled, directly on the
pulpit in front of the preacher, a huge black ape nearly
clawing off his nose in its descent.
'You may say there was a row! Women fainting, men
crossing themselves, some scrambling for the door, all
making an awful uproar, to swell which the strange
visitor lent his small voice. It was some minutes before
two or three of the stoutest among the male portion of
the audience plucked up sufficient courage to go to the
rescue of the friar, who, with his hands over his eyes,
296
was frantically endeavouring to squeeze himself back-
wards through Ihe wall, not altogether free from the
idea which evidently possessed the bulk of his congre-
gation, namely, that the Evil One in person had come
up — or down — upon him. I suddenly bethought me
of my foreign attire, and fearing that the presence of a
heretic might be construed to have some connexion with
the apparition, made myself particularly scarce, without
waiting to see how the good people disposed of his mon-
keyship, but I afterwards learned how he came there.
The wife of one of the foreign ministers at Naples had
a strong practical turn for zoology, and kept quite a
menagerie of strange animals for her private delectation,
among them this big ape, who, having escaped from con-
finement that day, after scrambling over the roofs of
numerous houses, endeavoured to perch in the church
window, but the ledge of it being too narrow to hold
him, he tumbled down just in time to give point to the
preacher's exordium.-
'Well, the comparison is a flattering one for me, at
any rate; perhaps for both of us. But what did you
want me for? To go to church anywhere?'
'Not exactly. To do that on a week-day might be
against your principles. No, it was something very diffe-
rent. Thinking of different churches put me in mind —
why I can't say — of different dinners, and I thought
— suppose we go once to this new Dinner de I'Exposition.'
^Connu mon chere. We have been there already, last
week. It's no go. Dinners good enough in conception,
but cold in execution, that is to say when served —
courses too long, considering they are not numerous —
railroad to pass the wine gets off the truck — altogether
more show than substance.'
'Keally? Common report would have led me to
expect something better. But tell me, now; where had
you been dining before — the day before, for instance?'
'The day before? I dined with Gerard Ludlow.'
'Who has one of the best cooks (in a quiet way)
in Paris. And the day before that?'
'With Charley Vanderlyn and Tom Edwards and
some Cubans at Philippe's.'
'Exactly. You have been feasting at two splendid
banquets, and then go to dine at a dollar a-head. It
297
isn't fair to the last dinner. Still you may be right.
There was one thing which made the Diner de TExpo-
sition suspicious — the great amount of reclame that
heralded it.'
'In the newspapers — I mean what pass for such
in Paris?'
'Not merely in w^hat, till a new word is invented
expressly for them, we must continue to call the news-
papers but in several other quarters. Here, for instance,
is a whole series of little books about various phases of
Parisian life — Les Fetits Paris'^ and one of the first in
the series, Paris Restaurant^ published at the end of last
year , has for its point and conclusion an unqualified
panegyric upon the Diner de I'Exposition, which was not
then in existence, and upon the company which started
it (magnificently self-christened La Soci^t^ G^n^rale de
Gastronomic), which had just commenced its existence.'
'There must be a good many of these Petits Paris.
I thought of waiting till they had all appeared, and then
reading them in a lump.'
'That you would find as unsubstantial work as making
your dinner off pJats sucres. There are fifty volumes an--
nounced; judging from what has appeared, they might
as well go on to a hundred and fifty, being mere bundles
of anecdote and gossip, each volume very slightly con-
nected by the leading idea conveyed in its title.'
'Some of the Charivari men wrote them?'
'Yes, the authors of The Memoirs of Bilboquet^ Taxile
Delord, I believe, and Clement Caraguel. Probably a
good deal of the matter intended for that clever but
somewhat coarse prose parody (which, as you may re-
collect, stopped or tvas stopped at the third volume) has
been worked up in these little fivepenny books.'
'To begin with the restaurants is natural enough. I
am sure the first definite idea one gets of Paris is a
longing for a French dinner. When a boy, you see
pictures of the Tuileries and the Louvre as you do of
a hundred other buildings in other cities, and all these things
are laid up in your mind to be 'done' in a regular course
of sightseeing. But the description of a French dinner
by an appreciation of dinners comes home to the feelings
as something peculiar, and the first impulse of a stranger
on arriving is to dine at some crack caf^.'
298
'Yes, and one of the first things that strikes the
stranger in Paris is the general impression of cookery
going on perpetually everywhere. A gastronomic odour
pervades the city. Nevertheless I do not think — per-
haps because, extensive as the subject is, it has already
been worked up in such a variety of ways — that the
Bilboquet set have given to mankind any very new or
original observations on it, although they show sufficient
pretension in the formal enunciation of aphorismes and
pensees.'^
'That is taking a leaf out of Brillat Savarin's book.'
'It is. But they pronounced Savarin to obsolete,
rococo, vieux doctrinaire, a fogy in short.'
'I know his book well. He says some judicious things
about provender, but is much at sea — like most of his
countrymen — in the matter of potables. For instance,
where he says that you must change your wine after
every three glasses. If he had said bottles.''
'Vous etes orfevre, M. Bleecker!'
'No, but you know that as well as I do. To take
too much champagne consecutively is an error ; but fancy
a man coming across a good bottle of Chateau Margaux
about the period of the roast, and letting go before he
had imbibed at least half of it ! The idea of crossing
wines (alw^ays excepting the interludes of champagne),
and going backwards in your series once formed, is a
fatal error on sanitary as well as aesthetic grounds. It
plays the very deuce with a man.'
'Seriously, I agree with you. Speaking of restaurants,
there are three which contine to hold the first nominal
rank, as they have done for some time, the Trois Fr^res
Proven^aux, the Caf^ d' Anglais, and the Caf6 de Paris.
Though some undertake to class some other cafes with
them (as the Bilboquet authors do V^four, V^ry, and
the Madeleine), these three are generally spoken of to-
gether, apart from the rest; the stranger usually hears
of them as such. Still, as they are at present constituted
and directed, the candid and diligent inquirer must admit
that they owe a great deal to prestige^ and a great deal
more to accessories not strictly coming under the head
of gastronomies. Thus very much of the reputation and
attraction of the Trois Fr^res is due to the luxury, or
rather the show of its service, and the convenience of
299
its rooms for private balls or 'hops,' semi-extemporized
after dinner or supper. As to the mere eating and drinking,
the satisfying of the I'qog idrjTvog xal ncjGLog, I have
eaten some good dinners there, and some very middling
ones, more of the latter than of the former — and good
or bad, they are always dear.'
'I suspect it is necessary to make no end of fuss
at the Trois Fr^res. I went there once to order dinner
for a party, gave directions quietly and somewhat hastily,
and we had a cruelly bad spread. Another time I went
with Sumner; he was as pretentious as a Russian prince,
and held a council of war with nearly the whole establish-
ment; that time we did very well.'
'True enough, I should say from my own experience;
but there are some things in which the Trois Fr^res is
positively and invariably deficient; for instance, if you
order Rhine wine, they give you some very mediocre
stuff, hardly equal to two-florin Forster, at the modest
price of twenty-five francs. It is all very well to say
that you ought to drink the wine of the country, and
call for no exotics ; that's a good general rule, but surely
at a place like the Trois Fr^res you ought to be able
to get good hock.'
'Particularly as it is better after the oysters than
Chablis or Sauterne, or any other drinkable.'
'The Anglais, I think, lives up to its reputation better
than the Trois Fr^res, though somewhat fallen off within
a few years. It was in great case as late as '50. Between
'40 and '50 it had more repute for suppers than dinners,
though sufficiently famous for both. Its chief deficiency
now is the cellar, which used to be very superior, espe-
cially in the article of Burgundies, both still and spark-
ling. Yet after all a carefully selected dinner at the
Anglais is a very comfortable thing. As to the Cafe de
Paris, how it keeps up its reputation I never could un-
derstand. It may be my bad luck or want of sufficient
experience, but having ordered dinners there myself, and
assisted at the dinners of others, time and again, I never
found anything remarkable there; not so good a spread,
for instance, as you could get at the Maison d'Or, and
much dearer. I fancy this establishment must be living
on its former renown, for great renown it had in past
days, w^hen you and I were boys, and before we were
t
800
boys. In those days the doughty V^ron used to dine
there daily , and English milords to get drunk there
nightly and «//-nightly. In those days, or somewhat later,
it was the scene of some famous bets, such as Count
Quelquechose's five hundred franc dinner.'
'How was that?'
'Somehow thus. The Count de Quelquechose was
one of your viveurs about town, who united in himself
two qualities that do not always go together, the gourmand
and gourmet — in plain English, the glutton and epicure.
So you may suppose a large share of his means was
absorbed in what the transcendentalists call 'appropriating
to one's self a portion of the outer world,' and it often
became convenient to him to dine at other people's ex-
pense; and he often did so, for he was one of those
men whom it is a pleasure to see eat, he went into the
operation with such a will. Once upon a time the Count
made a bet that he would eat 'to his own cheek,' five
hundred francs of dinner at the Cafe de Paris. Five
hundred francs, a hundred dollars, twenty pounds sterling!
You don't look duly astonished. Mind, he was not merely
to order and partake of that amount of dinner, but to
eat every morsel of everything he called for (except of
course bones and shells); and drink every drop of liquor
he ordered. Moreover it was stipulated that he should
not win if he died, or was taken seriously ill within
forty-eight hours after the event. The match came oiBf
at the place and time appointed, in the presence of a
select company. I wish I had the bill of fare to show
you, but it was rather before my time, xleog olov axovo/nev,
I can only give you the prominent items of the per-
formance. He began with some caviare, by way of a
whet, which made good fifteen francs. Then came the
potage, and this was his strong point, and what princi-
pally contributed to his winning. It happened that at
that period the Cafe de Paris boasted among its exotic
luxuries birds' -nest soiip^ at twenty francs the portion.
The Count called for, and consumed, twelve successive
potages. When you consider that a French 'soup for one'
is nearly or quite enough for two, not to mention the
richness of this Chinese dish, you may wonder, indeed,
that he had capacity or appetite remaining for the main
body of the dinner. What the entrees were I can't say;
301
but his other principal resting point was the roast, com-
posed exclusively of game, and comprising several of
the rarest birds in or out of season ; they had the double
advantage of being dear and easily digestible. Mean-
while you may suppose the umpires watching every plate,
to see that it was fairly emptied, with occasional remarks
like this, 'M. le Comte, here is a wing of a pheasant
not picked,' and so forth.'
'And the wine?'
'That did not help him so much as it might have
done a similarly situated Anglo-Saxon. The French, as
you know, are no great drinkers to begin with, and the
Parisian cafes have no very expensive wine in comparison
with our hotel standard. The Count needed all his wits
about him too, and could not afford to run the risk of
disturbing his head. Two bottles of Johannisberg (or
what did duty for such at the Caf^ de Paris), at thirty-
five francs each, and a bottle of the best Lafitte at
fifteen francs, was all he could do in that line.'
'He ought to have had some of our twenty-five dollar
Madeira.'
'He did not require it, for he gained his bet 'in
hand,' as you may say, and the umpires announced the
successful result as he was peeling a fine peach. Then
came the bouquet. 'Gentlemen,' said Quelquechose, looking
round on the admiring company, 'is the wager fairly won ?'
They all declared it was. 'Gar^on^ bring me a pineapple
and a bottle of Kerres.'' (Xeres, or Sherry, to wit.) And
forthwith he proceeded, over and above his bargain, to
eat the entire pine-apple, without sugar, European fashion,
but with about two-thirds of the Kerres to keep all straight.
'And now, gentlemen,' continued the Count, as he lit a
cigar, 'double the bet; make it ten thousand francs to
five, and I will eat a similar supper in two hours from
now.' His auditors were fairly 'knocked;' not a man
dared take him up. However, the losers partially con-
soled themselves with the thought that they had a loophole
left; he might die or seriously 'indigest himself within
the two days. Vain were their hopes! The Count con-
tinues to be well and flourishing up to the present time.
You may see him now any fine day (when his finances
are in good order) parading on the Champs Elysees with
his dokkar and his steppair.
302
'A certain number of years seems necessary to put
a caf6 in the first rank. Some of those called secondary
need only the sanction of a little more antiquity to take
place with or above the best known names. Such is
Philippe's, in the Rue Montorgueuil , situated near the
site of the now defunct Rocher de Cancale, professing
to be the virtual successor of that once famous restau-
rant, and like it making a particular merit of its fish
The eating there is probably better than anywhere else,
the wine sometimes open to criticism. It is a great resort
of gentlemen epicures; ladies do not frequent it so much,
on account of the inconvenient locality and the still more
inconvenient staircases. For a bachelor dinner, where
the company is not very fastidious about their liquor, no
place beats it.'
'I remember Philippe's well these many years. I
was there in '51, when an extempore bet was decided,
not exactly like your Count's, but interesting too in its
w^ay. A Mississippi gentleman won a big pile. He bet
that he would bring five hundred drops out of an empty
bottle , from which the last supernaculum had been
drained.'
'Without putting anything into it, of course?'
'Of course; it was done in the fairest way, without
any dodge, on the purest natural philosophical principles.
The secret is this. There is a great deal of moisture
still remaining in the bottle, only it is dispersed all over
the inside surface in homoeopathic particles, too minute to
be poured out in any ordinary way. You take the bottle,
hold it nearly horizontally thus, shake it up well, and strike
the lower part of the neck repeatedly on your hand. After
you have manipulated it in this way for a minute or
two (the length of time depends on the performer's skill),
the moisture becomes collected and condensed in the
neck, and then you can jerk out upon a plate or a sheet
of white paper more drops in a quarter of a minute than
you can count in a quarter of an hour. It made quite
a sensation at the time, but soon spread about. A French-
man who was with us exhibited the trick next night at
the Maison d'Or.'
'Ah, that is another B, No. I, the Maison Dor^e, as
it calls itself on the outside, the Maison d'Or as every-
body else calls it. This establishment has acquired an
303
immense vaudeville and feuilleton reputation; the name is
redolent of Carnival and mi-careme suppers. Ten years
ago the Maison Dor^e was not; where it now is, there
was a nice little unpretending restaurant, Le Caf^ de la
Cit6, very good, and particularly cheap. It is no better
now, and certainl}^ no cheaper; the silver of the old
establishment remains in the new one to this day; but
the change of name and the chrysography and other de-
corations of the outer walls gave it a start. It hit upon
the idea of running opposition to the Anglais, and under-
bidding it in the article of suppers. Its ecrevisses a la
Bordelaise are unmatched. Verdier has good wine in his
cellars for the initiated, though the chance customer
does not get a great deal of it.'
'And some choice cognac for his American patrons.
The foreigners have done a good deal for him, and no
foreigners more than our countrymen. He owes them
something. It is a pity the Maison is even still less of
a place for ladies than Philippe's.'
'You may take a Russian or an Italian countess there^
but hardly a party of unacclimated Anglo -Saxonesses.
Were you ever at Vachette's? That epris the resentative
now of what the Caf6 de la Cit^ was, a place where you
can get a good French dinner at a reasonable price. Some
of his dishes are perfect; in the king of French soups,
bisque d'ecrevesse^ he excels. The principal drawback at
this restaurant is the small size of the rooms, and espe-
cialty the low ceilings, which make it disagreable in
warm weather. Vachette's is a great place for artists
on a grand holiday.
'In class B we may also place the Caf6 de la Made-
leine (promoted by Bilboquet to class A), a capital place
for breakfasts. And this brings us to a restaurant little
renowned in books, about which , for instance , the Petits
Paris are utterly silent, but well-known to all aesthetic
livers. It was much frequented by deputies when the
French had a constitution.'
'You must mean the Cafe Voisin. A wonderful cellar
it has. If you could put that and Philippe's together, you
w^ould have the perfection of a dinner.'
'So I have heard others remark, but the remark is
hardly just to the Voisin. The cookery there is not in-
ferior, on the contrary. It may not boast any specially
304
renowned plai^ but the average of the dishes is blameless.
In the course of several years' experience, I have never
eaten, anything bad there for breakfast, dinner, or supper:
more than I can say of any other cafe in Paris. Give
me the Voisin above them all, for reasonably sized ban-
quets that is; you can't dine thirty people there, and
give them a ball afterwards. It adds to the charm of
that quiet retreat at the corner of the Rue St. Honor6
and Rue Luxembourg, that there has never been any
pretension, or fuss, or reclame about it.'
'I remember the cellar as everything that can be
desired. All the wines are good, and you may proceed
methodically from lower to higher qualities, each of its
kind faultless, from Margaux to Chateau Margaux, for
instance.'
'Bignon, Magny, and Leblond are all placed in the
second class by Bilboquet. Sed quaere. Also Beauvallet,
who had a specialite for Sauterne , but his stock of
Chateau d'Y quern is running low now. Of third-class
restaurants, Deffieux, near the Porte St. Martin, is a fair
specimen. It is a convenient place to dine at when you
are going to one of the Upper Boulevard theatres after-
wards. Cheap enough, and not bad in its way.'
'I remember that place too, and Edwards getting
very ill there — of bouchees de crevettes he said it was.'
'A most unchristian and perilous dish anywhere.
After the thirdraters comes the abyss of bad restaurants,
comprising among others all the places (and their name
is legion) where they offer you soup, three courses, and
dessert for from thirty sous to two francs.'
'One man's meat is another man's poison, as the
proverb says. I have known English and American artists
— or art-students — made seriously ill in a few weeks
by frequenting establishments of this sort. On the other
hand, I saw a letter this winter in The Sewer from one
of its correspondents here, who enlarged rapturously on
the cheapness of life in Paris, particularly the delicious
dinner he got for thirty cents.'
'Doubtless they suited him exactly. I should like
nothing better, for my part, than to make the 'head devil'
of The Sewer and all his staff dine at a thirty-sous restau-
rant as long as they survived it. It would be a righteous
retribution for their misdeeds. But it illustrates the adage
305
even better perhaps to compare your reporter's eulogy
with an incident recorded in this same Paris Restaurant.
One wealthy provincial meets another in the Palais Royal,
and to repay him for previous hospitalities offers him a
dinner at 'Halavant's.' The invited, finding by sad ex-
perience that this 'Halavant's' is a two-franc restaurant,
incontinently sends a couple of friends (the French require
two seconds a-piece for a duel, you know; they always
must talk twice as much about a thing as we do) to call
out the inviter for having insulted him ! The Amphitryon
was not valorous, though it is hard to understand how
a man habitually dining at a two-franc restaurant should
be careful of his life; he offered to apologize. 'A bare
apology will not do,' said the seconds. 'No; you must
order a dinner for four, the best that can be had from
Chevet's at thirty francs a-head, wines extra to corre-
spond.' And it was only on these terms that he got off
his encounter. The French litterateurs are not to be duped
'any longer by the diners a prix fixe^ and I doubt if the
artists are. The last time I 'assisted' at an artists' dinner,
we had good, honest mutton chops and fried potatoes,
washed down with twelve-sous Bordeaux from the cask.'
'You are persuaded then that the two-franc dinners
are necessarily bad in themselves, and not from difference
of habit?'
'Most certainly. In the first place, they do not re-
present ordinary French cookery, in the same way that
a plate of roast beef at an eating-house or a steak at
a chop-house represents ordinary American or English
cookery. They are a sham and a base imitation of
scientific French cookery at one-half or one -third of the
lowest possible real price. The cuisine bourgeoise is not
particularly deficient, either in simplicity or quantity. But
when you pretend to have a number of dishes for the
price of a single one, there is no escape from one of
two alternatives; either the viands will be curtailed in
quantity down to microscopic dimensions, or they will be
miserably inferior in quality. In the former category
come the Italian vetturino dinners. I never travelled
vett but one day; that day's bill of fare is engraven on
the recording tablets of my mind. After the unavoidable
vermicelli soup, for the piece de resistence two mouthfulls
of bouilli, for the entree one very small sweetbread, for
Vol. I. 20
306
the roast one snipe, for the plat sucrS one fritter (and a
small one at that), for the dessert one apple, one biscuit,
and an infinitesimal fraction of cheese. It would have
made a comfortable lunch for Tom Thumb — not Barnum's,
but the original article, who used to go to bed in a thimble.
At the prix fixe restaurants I imagine (of course we neither
of us know anything about them from personal experience)
that the other alternative prevails; there is enough to eat
if it were good, but it isn't — very much the reverse.
Possibly not extremely bad in the actual eating ; for here
the disguising abilities of the cook come into play. Won-
derful powers of temporary persuasion over brute matter
they have, these Gauls. The other day I wanted some
leads for an American pencil. English leads are prohi-
bited, and all the French sizes were too small; but the
shopkeeper not only persuaded me that his article fitted,
but he persuaded the leads to fit until I had bought
them and gone home, then they tumbled out as fast as
they were put in. You know the old story of George"
IV.'s butler, who had drunk up his royal master's best
hock, except one bottle. The wine being ordered for
some great dinner, the trusty servant took a chemical
friend into council, established a small laboratory in his
room, and made the wine according to sample as fast
as it was wanted. Everybody praised it and drank it,
and everybody was deadly sick next morning, but in
those days of toping that passed as a matter of course.
Similarly I fancy your cheap restaurant cook may work
up something that will be tolerably palatable for the mo-
ment, but the after consequences are fearful.'
'But suppose a man can't afford to pay more than
thirty sous for his dinner?'
'Then let him regulate his bill of fare accordingly.
There is no reason why he should not dine well for that
sum, or even less, in any country except California or
Australia, if he will dine off one dish. Low-priced din-
ners, low-priced things of all sorts, may be excellent in
their way. It is your shams, your cheap imitations of
high-priced things, that are bad in every way. A man
may make a capital meal on cheese and bread and but-
ter, or, even without the third article, on the other two ;
he may have good bread and cheese, and in sufficient
quantity, for, say at the outside, sixpence sterling, or
307
twelve sous; but if he wants to have a dinner of three
courses for twice or three times that price, he is likely
to get nothing good, not even the bread. A bottle of
English ale is a capital beverage, and may be had here in
Paris for two francs; but if you attempt to get a bottle
of champagne for the same price or ten sous more, you
will have a very bad beverage, simply because good
champagne cannot be produced at so small an expense
as good ale. You may indeed happen to get anything,
from a house to a dinner, at less than the market value,
but only through some accidental and exceptional state
of things. Many people ruin themselves in business, re-
staurateurs as well as others, but no one ever started
in business with the deliberate intention of ruining him-
self, as any restaurateur would who gave good provisions
ready cooked for less than they cost raw.'
'It seems clear enough. And yet you have a plen-
tiful and luxurious dinner, comprising the best of every-
thing in market, at an American hotel for fifty cents,
that is two francs and a half.'
'Yes, but recollect that, with the exception of labour,
everything is (or w^as till very recently) much cheaper
in the American cities than in Paris. Rents were lower,
all provisions, except wine (not included in our table
d'hote), much lower, fuel very much lower. Since prices
generally, and rents especially, have gone up, most of
the city hotels have raised their price to seventyfive
cents, nearly four francs. Then there are two things
which help our hotel-keepers a great deal. First, they
make huge profits on their wine. For instance, you, Mr.
Bleecker, in the course of your business, sell mine host
of the St. Knickerbocker, a goodly batch of Medoc, at
the rate of about thirty three cents a bottle. If you put
up at the house, you will have to pay him a dollar for
the same. Similarly he buys his champagne at fourteen
dollars a dozen, and retails it at two dollars and a half
a bottle. Just a hundred per cent, in one case, and
nearly twice as much in the other, after allowing a few
cents for the claret bottles. Secondly, they can calculate
almost to a unit the precise number of persons for whom
they have to provide. There are so many 'boarders;'
all these dine or pay for their dinner, which comes to
the same thing; when there is enough for them, there is
20*
308
enough for any outsiders who may drop in. Look at the
Parisian hotel tables d'hote*^ at a respectable one you pay
three francs and a half, and for that sum get a respectable
dinner , perhaps , certainly not a very good one. At a
crack table d'hote you must pay five francs.'
'Like that of the Hotel des Princes. Have you been
there lately?'
'Not for four years or more. The last time I dined
there we were a small party of French and Americans,
your brother among the latter, just after the new dining-
room was completed. / thought w^e got on very well,
but the others blamed the dinner exceedingly; said it
was too long, the dishes cold, rechauffes — in fact, found
all sorts of fault with it. Cabinet dinners are apt to
spoil a man for tables d''hdte. Talking of the hotels here,
some of their private dinners are hard to beat. Whenever
you expect any friends here, w^ho are 'some punkins,'
persuade them to put up at the H6tel Bristol. They
may ask you to dine there, and it almost realizes your
ideal of Philippe and the Voisin combined. Your only
difficulty will be how to repay them, unless you have
the tallest kind of a chef/
'It's all very well, Frank, but don't you sigh after the
flesh-pots of Egypt sometimes? the game and the oysters
especially? I was at a real national dinner last December,
soon after arriving, at Ludlow's, okra soup, pickled oysters,
and canvas-backs.'
'I hope there were some Frenchmen present to be
duly impressed.'
'Why, no. Ludlow had heard that it was a bad season
at home for canvas-backs, and wanted to have them tried
in private committee before hazarding the reputation of
the country among foreigners; so we tried them, and
there was some difference of opinion, and we went on
trying, and — and — in short, we eat up all the ducks
— there were only fifteen of them between eight of us.'
'Very considerate on your part. To give the French
an American dinner you must wait till they come to see
you at home. Transported viands do not generally pay.
I wonder now supposing some foreign friend w^ere to
pay you a visit in Gotham, and you wanted to get up
a strictly national banquet for him, how you would set
about it? Let us see. To begin with the winter bill of
309
fare, you might have okra soup, but it must be made
with preserved okra and tomatoes, which do not give a
correct and complete idea of the dish. Say, rather,
oyster-soup, which is in season, and stewed terrapin, which
is virtually a soup also.'
'Then for fish — halibut gratin?'
'No, that is but a Frenchified dish, a mediocre imi-
tation of turbot creme gratin. Halibut steak will answer,'
'But you must have tartare sauce for that.'
'Not necessarily. Or what do you say to our smelts,
which beat whitebait, or any small European fish?'
'But the English have smelts.'
'And shad too, but not like ours in anything but
name. They have smelts as we have apricots , and as
the French have apples. Now^, the main body of the
dinner will be the most difficult part to nationalize, for
the pieces de resistance are usually English, and the entrees
French. We must have a ham at one end of the table;
no American dinner can be complete without ham. It is
surprising that, consuming so much of the article as we
do, w^e have not improved it more; the best Virginia is
a long way behind Westphalia. At the other end must
be some kind of fowl ; what do you say to a wild turkey,
roast, with that inevitable New England adjunct of roast
turkey, cranberry sauce?'
'The combination is not very scientific however.'
'No, it is not in accordance with table aesthetics.
The cranberries w^ould do better with roast venison or
mutton.* We will have them there only for the name
of the thing, and our relish shall be a slice of bufiPalo
tongue, which is far preferable to the ham. For vege-
tables there will be sweet potatoes, hominy, and fried
egg-plant, all strictly peculiar and appropriate. So much
for the principal course; now for the removes; fried
oysters of course, and a venison steak. Our roasts shall
be the unapproachable canvas-back, that delicious 'quail'
which, I believe, is properly some kind of partridge, that
equally delicious 'partridge' which is properly a ruffed
* The English reader will bear in mind that the American cran-
berry is altogether different from the fruit to which he is accustomed
under that name. It is nearly as large as a cherry, and of a bright
lake or light crimson colour.
aio
grouse. C'^here's a bird you couldn't eat with cabbage;
the idea would be profanation). That will do for the
solids. Bear steak and rattlesnake fricassee would be
as out of place in a New York dinner as frog soup in
a Parisian.'
'For the sweets, pumpkin pie doubtless?'
'We must have it on principle, though it tastes more
like gingerbread poultice than anything else. Also that
king of pies, the (so-called) cocoa-nut pudding.'
'Isn't that an English dish.'
'I used to think so, but never saw it in the 'old
country,' and presume we may claim it. For dessert,
some of those prime apples which are exported to all
parts of the world, Newtown pippins, Rhode Island gree-
nings, Spitzenbergs, and so forth. So much for our
winter dinner. Now for the summer one. Okra soup,
which runs bisque d'^ecrevisse^ very hard; shad; the sub-
stantial must stand as before ; then soft crabs at libitum
for the remove; plovers for the roast; and for dessert
a big water-melon. Towards autumn we may introduce
a grand flourish of green corn before the roast ; and the
shad must be replaced by — I hardly know what -^
perhaps a black-fish, stewed in claret, after the manner
of John Waters of the Knickerbocker. I think a man
might live pretty comfortably on such fare, though it
does not present the finish and ensemble of a French menu.''
'One needn't starve, especially with a black cook
for the game and oysters. Our sable brethren shine there
decidedly. But we have forgotten one important point,
the beverages; they must be national to correspond.'
'Nay, surely Bacchus is a true cosmopolite.'
'Excuse me. At a French dinner you drink French
wines; at a German dinner German wdnes.'
'At an English dinner?'
'English wines, port and sherry, made not perhaps
on the premises, like George IV.'s hock, but in the country.'
'Like a great deal of our champagne.'
'Precisely. Which reminds me that we must have
Newark cider, after which no European cider deserves
the name. As to the native grape, I can't go into rap-
tures about Catawba. It is like a bad imitation of that
artificial jwine one sees in England, and nowhere else,
sparkling Moselle.'
311
'We may claim Madeira by right of naturalization
and improvement.'
'Yes, we have fairly annexed that. And sherry cob-
blers, for the preparation is an American one, though
they are made with Spanish wine. But if we talk any
more about dinners. I shall feel prematurely hungry.
What comes after Paris Restaurant?'
'Chronologically, I don't remember ; logically, I should
say Paris Viveur. How would you translate viveur by
the way? Fast man,' possibly on the system of rendering
by equivalents.'
'But the term in less refined.'
'As all English dissipation is less refined than French,
one of the principal reasons possibly why the latter is
more dangerous. Paris Viveur^ is particularly scattering;
random scraps and stories, with occasional faint attempts
at moralizing upon them. Its best anecdotes are those
of the tailors. The great artist of the last generation
it seems was Chevreuil. He, like many other distinguished
characters, got into Clichy, an establishment which is
bound to figure largely in any treatise on viveurs. How
he got there is not distinctly stated; whether through
his own fault or that of others; whether he possessed
too large a share of that confiding disposition generally
predicated of the genus Schneider ; or whether he emulated
too successfully the fast life of his clients. At any rate
he got fairly 'stuck' there, and there it is that Bilboquet
makes his acqaintance. The great man tells his hearer
how, when a certain young exquisite had presumed to
criticize one of his coats, he tore the garment to pieces
on the spot, throwing the fragments into the face of an
ordinary tailor who had rashly interfered in the discussion,
struck the critic's name off his books, and only re-admitted
him as a 'client' after an ample apology. Chevreuil is
no more; but we are informed that he has left behind
him to console humanity Blain and Sentis. The former
is the personage, usually misspelt Blin by feuilletonists
(not to be confounded with Blanc^ of the Palais Royal,
who has a speciality for waistcoats). Sentis is the artist
a la mode at present. He used to be a firm; Werth,
Girard, and Sentis, in the Rue Feydeau, a little street
full of tailors, three or four deep in the same house.
You would think there were enough of them in that
312
streetlet alone to rig out all Paris. I am inclined to
suspect that Sentis, notwithstanding Bilboquet and the
Moittard club, is like some other great institutions, not
quite all he is cracked up to be. He has a dangerous
tendency to pad, the least bit of padding I grant, but
the least bit is too much. Whether we go on the old
theory of dress, that clothes are meant to fit a man; or
on what seems to be the new one, that they are meant
not to fit, but to hang about him with a certain amount
of grace, — in either case any artificial adaptation by
padding shows an inferiority of workmanship.'
'The last time I was in London I saw the advertise-
ment of a tailor there who styled himself 'artist in draping
the real form.' I supposed that was a discreetly insinuated
compliment to the manly proportions of his customers,
which did not require any unreal making-up.'
'He didn't go on the principle of Geoffrey Grayon's
tailor (perhaps the one immortalized in Moore's Diary),
who was comparing his art Avith the kindred one of sculpture.
'Really, Mr. Irving,' says he, 'our task is a much greater
and more difficult one than the statuary's. He only has
to make the shape of a man ; we have to make the shape
and the clothes tooV
'Very small matters these for two almost middle-
aged Anglo-Saxon men to be talking about in this nine-
teenth century, when the siege of Sebastopol is going
on, not to mention Cuba, and slavery, and Mormonism.
Well, we are not great men either of us — we never
were anything — not even in the State legislature, like
Barnum's friend, the original proprietor of the Feejee
mermaid. So we can afford to talk about small things
if they amuse us and keep us comfortable.'
'It must be confessed that one's life in Paris comes
to be very much made up of small things. We live amid
and upon trifles — French trifles are so pleasant.'
'Yes, and we grow over fastidious and Sybaritic no
doubt. W^e w^ho at home were too happy if we could
find a trouser pattern not the axact counterpart of every
one else's, or a pair of gloves that didn't tear to pieces
in a quarter of an hour and cover our hands with an
aggravating white substance, learn to turn up a meta-
phorical nose at half the crack tradesmen in Paris. We
grumble at Ville's boots, and blaspheme Boivin Ain6.
313
Certainly this is a great place for small things; the or-
ganization for the supply of minor wants is wonderful.
For instance, if you get your boots muddied in crossing
the Boulevards, you can go into an establishment on
purpose for cleaning them. You perch on a high seat
with your feet against a brace, much as if you were in
a trotting sulky, and while the man polishes your pedal
extremities you may poser for the passers-by, and at
the same time enjoy the satisfaction of contemplating
yourself in a glass opposite — a never-failing source of
occupation and amusement to a Frenchman. Still there
are some desideranda even here — a few things that you
can't get.'
'Leads for your pencil?'
'After all they are as useful as blacking for your
boots. There was another article that you couldn't get
two years ago, and I am not sure that you can now —
portable India-rubber bathing tubs, such as John Bull
delights in. The invariable answer, on applying for the
commodity, was a deliciously Hibernian enthymeme. 'There
was no call for such articles, because there were so many
facilities for bathing in Paris.' I wondered if the Pari-
sians, previous to starting on a summer tour were sup-
posed to have a bath that should last the whole season,
as the Connecticut schoolboy used to wash his face over-
night to save time in the morning.'
'Or perhaps their only idea of travelling was going
to the sea-side, and having a natural bath always ready
under your window.'
'Talking about baths reminds me of what is not a
luxury but a necessity to people of decent habits — the
supply of water in a dwelling house. Compare New
York and Paris in this respect. The Seine water is
drawn around in carts, laboriously carried up flights of
stairs on men's backs, and costs you, for a large apart-
ment or a small house, from twenty to thirty francs a
month. Seventy-two dollars a year! At home, in every
story and almost in every room, you have but to turn
a cock, and out gushes the pure element, for a fourth, or
less than a fourth, of what you pay your porteur d'eau here.'
'Except when the pipes freeze up and break, which
happens once in three years at least, and woe betide
the house when once the plumber gets into it.'
314
'All the improvements of civilization have their draw-
backs. What are you laughing at?'
'That glorious bit of commonplace. It puts me in
mind of the last farce at the Palais Royal. A captain's
wife is deploring her husband eaten up by the Caffres,
the servant consoles her with, Mais Madame que voulez-
vous? Chaque peuple a ses usages/
'H — m. Here are some more of the little books.
Paris Omnibus — some interesting statistics — interesting
really because they show how much better the poor
omnibus horse is used in Paris than in Anglo-Saxon
cities. An omnibus horse here costs five or six hundred
francs to begin with.'
'Just about the price of ^n American stage horse.'
'A country stage horse, yes; a city omnibus horse,
no. Then the Norman has fifteen quarts of oats a-day.'
'May be Bilboquet is gassing?'
'I suspect not. If you observe the horses yourself,
you will see that they look in good condition. It is the
Quarante-sous animals that sufffer. Another fact you may
not be aware of. The genesis of the omnibus is consi-
derably ante - Shillibeerian ; the thing, though not the
name, dates as far back as Louis XIV. Le grand monarque
licensed a public coach to ply from the market to the
Tuileries with twelve insides. But it appears this first
experiment was not successful. Paris Proprietaire and
Paris Portier — these are two subjects that come home
to the heart of many a man just now. I would wager
a trifle that these two numbers are not the least read
of the series. The way rents are up now is a caution
to California. Fifty per cent, is a very moderate rise
since 1850. In some cases it is a hundred per cent, or
more. Furnished apartments are letting by the year
higher than they used to let by the month; aye, forty
per cent, higher. Happy is the man whose lease will
carry him through the year of the Exposition. Paris
Boheme', that may come next by way of contrast. There
is not much to be said well, though a great deal may
be, and has been said about the artistic and literary
Bohemian after Henry Murger's book. The Bohemien in-
dustriel is little other than a modification of the too
well-known Chevalier d'industrie. Of this class was the
gentleman commemorated by our author, who, living in
315
a garret, professed to keep up a great establishment,
including a black servant. This servant was himself; he
not only put on a livery, but coloured his face and hands^
and thus disguised he would carry a bouquet to one of
ces dames, with his own compliments. Sometimes ces
dames gave him a pourboire , which more than paid the
cost of the nosegay, for flowers are not dear in Paris.
There is room, however, for some chapters on the Kings
of Bohemia y as we might call them — the really great
writers, who make a great deal, and spend a great deal
more. I believe Eugene Sue is or was one of these
sovereigns , though Bilboquet does not mention him.
Dumas pere is emphatically one of them, and Dumas fils
not far behind his illustrious progenitor. But Balzac, in
his way, was perhaps the best of them all. One of his
lucky hits is given here. He had just furnished his
drawing-room in white satin complete, and was exhibiting
it one evening to a few friends , w^ondering meanwhile
how^ he should ever pay for it. We can't judge of the
eff'ect,' said one of the company, 'till it is fully lighted-up.'
Forthwith the forty candles of the central chandelier
were lit, and just then a publisher was announced. 'Show
him in,' says Balzac, 'make yourself at home, my boys!
Don't be afraid to put your feet on the sofas.' In comes
the publisher, and is so overcome by the magnificence
of the author's private life, that he offers any amount for
a new romance. When Balzac was hard up, he used to
talk of starting a grocery, with George Sand for dame
de comvtoir, a rose in her hair, selon les regies, and Theo-
phile Gautier and Gerard de Nerval for apprentices, one
weighing sugar and the other grinding coffee. Poor
Gerard de Nerval! That was a true Bohemian for you!
In want of the necessaries of life, finding no better place
to hang himself in than a miserable garret, all the while
possessing quantities of curiosities stored away in other
garrets, he hardly knew where himself. His real name,
by the way, was no more Gerard de Nerval than Madame
Dudevant's is George Sand; it was La Brunie. Paris
Boh erne was written before his catastrophe; but there are
some judicious observations in it that might form a pro-
fitable commentary on his fate, pointing out the errors of
supposing that poverty is the indispensable portal to the
temple of literary fame. Most of the 'illustrations' of
316
modem French literature began life very comfortably.
Lamartine, Victor Hugo, De Musset, De Vigny, Scribe,
Janin, all had a sufficient income, inherited or earned,
before they devoted themselves to literature. Chateau-
briand though poor himself, had plenty of rich friends
to help him. All this seems matter of course to you;
you look as if you were hearing a batch of truisms. How
many ardent young men would consider you a miserable
Philistine!'
'You don't.'
'No, indeed ! I plead guilty to partaking in the com-
mon, worldly, prosaic, utilitarian opinion on the subject
— Bilboquet's and yours — that is to say, I do not
admit the feasibility of a man's starting in life with the
idea of making his living by literary pursuits. In the
first place, it is a point of the highest importance to any
young man who has to make his own way — we, with
our American notions would probably say that it was
very desirable for a young man in any situation, but we
won't digress into that question — it is of the highest
Importance, I repeat, to a young man having to make
his own way, that he should begin with some fixed and
regular occupation — one that calls upon his time and
attention, and brings him into professional contact with
others at stated hours of the day. Unless his life is re-
gularized by some such outward influence, it will be very
difficult for him to methodize it by himself. Now, litera-
ture cannot be an occupation of this sort to a beginner
in it; it only becomes such to a man who has already
acquired a fair amount of literary reputation. And this
one a priori theoretical consideration would settle the
question for me without going into any enumeration of
practical instances.'
'You don't believe then in poverty making geniuses?'
'My dear Bleecker, nothing makes genius but God.
A genius is born, and not made or unmade by any
process. Genius is usually accompanied by ambition — a
more effective stimulus than poverty. Even in the ex-
ceptional case of a genius without ambition, still the man
will write, or paint, or carve, as Jenny Lind used to say
she sung 'because she couldn't help herself.' So far as
the possession of wealth has any influence on genius, I
l)elieve its influence to be decidedly favourable; it gives
317
the author or artist a chance of producing more, by saving
from the risk of premature death, and in various other
ways. When you come to a lower order of intellect, if
you take a clever man, or a man of talent, terms which
cover a great deal of ground, and may be construed to
comprise everybody who writes well enough to find
publishers and readers, and ask, how far such a one's
productiveness will be effected by his possession or w^ant
of means, that is another question altogether. It is highly
probable that such a man will write more if the pecuniary
proceeds of his pen are a serious object to him than if
they are not. Even then I imagine it is a question more
of quantity than quality, and it may be doubted how far
the extra amount of production due to pecuniary stimulus
is a benefit to the public, or to the writer's own ultimate
reputation. All this is entre nous by the way. They are
not the opinions I am in the habit of ventilating. It is
an ungrateful and perilous task to throw any doubts in
the way of a youth who has the least Boheme tendency.
He sets you down mentally for an arrant Philistine wdth
no soul above dollars, and gives you a prominent place
in the great world-conspiracy against his renown.'
'Paris Journaliste. Why, Frank, what can they say
about the newspapers? There ar'n't any'
'Not much left of them — except always the feuille-
ton of dramatic criticism. That is the Hope at the bottom
of the Pandora's box of revolution. Out of it and the
traditional 'business' of a journal, the caput mortuum which
remains — penny-a-lining and so forth — Paris Jour-
naliste is made up. Thus if you are curious to know the
two principal and inexhaustible sources of canards when
the 'city items department' is short of copy, they are,
according to Bilboquet's authority, young workwomen jump-
ing out of garret windows, and seizures in clandestine
gaming-houses'
'Since the stage is still lively and flourishing as
ever, there ought to be plenty about it in the Petits Paris/
'The subject is fertile enough; but consider how it
has been written up, and down, and across, for the last
hundred years or more. Delord — Caraguel — Bilboquet
has had his shy at it already pretty eftectually in his
memoirs. Still there are a few things here worth looking
at. What we vulgarly call 'funk' — the fear of the
public — is known in the vocabulary of the French stage
as le taf. It appears that most of the distinguished actors
and actresses are subject to this fear long after their
reputation has been made. D^jazet is mentioned as an
illustrious exception. Some resort to the natural remedy
of Dutch courage^ and dro^vn the laf with good liquor.
Some are always attacked with it if the accessories are
not all in apple-pie order. Thus Arnal of the Variet^s
was actually unable to play one night because his cane
had been changed. Then about the claque. Everybody
knows that it is a regularly organized institution, but
everybody doesn't know that it follows other collateral
branches of industry, some of them unexceptionable enough
such as buying in advance the droits d'auteur of dramatists
hard up for ready money; others, more open to censure,
such as taking bribes from one actress to hiss another.
Here is an anecdote conveying a valuable moral in re-
ference to puffery of all sorts. When Nestor Roqueplan,
that excellent judge (and illustration) of humbug, was
manager of the Variet^s, he advised a playwright to leave
out one of his pet bits of declamation. 'I can't,' says the
author 'it's the gem of the piece.' 'On the contrary,'
replies the manager, 'it's very bad, and the proof is that
/ shall have to make the claqueurs put on an extra round
of applause to pass it/
'Here is a little exemplification of the poco-curanteism
we were speaking of a little while ago, generated by an
embarras de richesses^ manifesting itself in other things
besides boots and gloves. We have been accustomed to
admire the French dramatic performers solidairement^ as
the law reports say — one and all, down to those who
play the most trivial parts. But behold Bilboquet, who
has seen too much of them to be anything but critical,
declares that in the whole range of tragedy and genteel
comedy there are but three good actresses — Rachel,
Augustine Brohan, and Allan. Madeleine Brohan, Fix,
Denain, &c., are all dolls and automata!
'Alongside of Paris Actrice lie, quite naturally as it
were, Paris Lorette, Paris Faublas, Paris Mariage, and so
forth, reminding us what a wicked set these French are,
and how they delight in subjects which we virtuous
Anglo-Saxons never mention — in public. Seriously, if
the Parisian stage does 'hold the mirror up to nature,'
319
it is a very bad kind of nature which it loves to reflect.
Ever since the appearance of La Dame aux Camelias —
by the bye , it is not so well known as it should be,
that the bloody, radical, socialist redrepublic prohibited
the performance of this play for two succesive years,
and that it only obtained a licence under De Morny's
administration after the coup d'etat — ever since the no-
torious Duplessis was canonized on the boards, the po-
pular dramatists have vied with each other in depicting
every shade and variety of vice and profligacy. There
seemed to be a change lately, but it was only a pause;
they have broken out again. Foremost among them is
the same Dumas, junior, with his new piece at the Gym-
nase — the Empress' particular theatre, of all places —
a piece the name of which is a term he has been proud
to invent, and for which a celebrity is predicted equal
to that of the word lorelte^ which made the literary for-
tune of M. Rocoplan alias Roqueplan. Le Demi-Monde,
You would hardly guess what that means.'
'Second set?'
'Oh dear, no! It is very hard to translate except
by a periphrasis. His Demi- Monde is the link between good
and bad society — if you can admit the existence of such
a thing — the world of compromised women, a social
limbo, the inmates of which (according to Dumas' au-
thority, at least) are perpetually struggling to emerge
into the paradise of honest and respectable ladies. Such
a society as Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was in before she
experienced religion. It is hard to say which are the
most disgusting, the boldly immoral dramas of Dumas fils
and Gozlan; the motiveless and colourless productions
of Feuillet, where the characters act in utter insensibility
to moral distinctions, and the Whirlpool of caprice dis-
places the Zeus of reason; or the flimsy attempts at
morality involved in such pieces as Serret's Que dira le
Monde? in which a young man makes a manage de con-
venance (what charming associations are conjured up by
that phrase!) instead of espousing his mistress, all for
the holy and 'unanswerable motive of tvhat Mrs. Grundy
will say. Barri^re must be excepted from our censure.
His name in connexion with his writings is provocative
of a pun, as if he were a self-erected barrier to oppose
the march of profligacy. An honest and sturdy satirist
320
is he, with wonderful bursts of cleverness — one might
almost say of genius. Rather wanting in unity of design
perhaps (against which the French habit of working in
couples, or in leashes as they do sometimes, greatly mi-
litates), but powerful in detail.'
'I saw his Parisiens^ which bears out what you say.
His crack piece, Les Filles de Marbre^ they have not given
since I came here.'
'Buy it the next time you are on the Boulevards, it
will be a franc well laid out. They will probably give
it again about the time of the Exhibition. Meanwhile,
if your admiration of the man will sustain you through
the infliction, I will read to you, or at you, a metrical
version of the same from a volume of manuscript poems,
ludicrous and miscellaneous, wholly inedited^ and likely
to remain so, unless I should chance one fine morning
to circumvent some very green publisher, or to find a
few hundred dollars about me that I absolutely didn't
know what to do with, neither of which contingencies
is likely to happen soon.'
'Barri^re has written some mediocre plays besides
his two or three good ones?'
'Yes, he has worked with too many dififerent colla-
borators, and tried too many different experiments. He
has made farces for the Palais Royals, and dramatized
other people's novels with very moderate success.'
'I saw a piece of his and Jules Lorin's played in
London some years ago, where an artist woos and wins
an interesting young widow, to the prejudice of a fashio-
nable lion. I thought the artist-hero was a great snob
myself, and hadn't the first idea of decent behaviour.'
'That is a weakness of artist heroes. In Augier and
Sandeau's Pierre de Touche^ which had such a success at
the Fran^ais last year, the hero , that is, the good hero
of the play, will insist on being followed everywhere by
his dog, 'up stairs, down stairs, in my lady's chamber.'
The bad hero finally kills the animal for trespass, which
brings about the catastrophe of the piece. It didn't feel
inclined to blame the bad hero; probably I should have
done the same thing in his place, for the beast must
have been a nuisance in respectable society. Yet after
all, bluntness and frankness, even with a tendency to
degenerate into rudeness, form a refreshing contrast to
321
the shams of a fashionable society, in which you are
sickened with compliments to your face and lied about
assiduously behind your back. It is a comfort to find
men who have some other religion besides biensemce^
always provided that the artist has that other religion,
otherwise his throwing overboard the bienseance is no
merit per se , but much the reverse. It is very easy to
make a mistake that way. I fear a great many of our
countrymen do it, and that there is a growing tendency
among some classes of them to reason most illogically
that, because good manners are sometimes found in con-
nexion with vice and hypocrisy, therefore bad manners
are a certain index -of honesty and virtue. How many of
our diplomatic agents, for example, seem to think that it
is impossible for an American to show his attachment to
republican principles when abroad in any other way than by
treading on the toes or spitting in the face of everybody
he meets! But here are the verses. 'Hats off in front,' and
if we come across anything you don't understand — '
'I will not ask you to explain it.' {Legit Manhattan,)
'^^Ico/.i€v ig'^S-rjvag. Let us go
To Athens, queenly Athens, violet-crowned.
The city loved of Pallas, where the gods
Of art and song gave to their worshippers
A fuller measure of their inspiration
Than falls to men in these degenerate days.
Here is the sculptor's workshop. There he stands,
King of his art, thrice famous Phidias,
Whose chisel fashioning Olympian shapes,
Brought down the deities to lower earth;
But he has all forgot the mighty gods.
And he has all forgot his aims divine,
And prostitutes his skill to baser ends,
Enshrining courtesans in Parian stone,
And turning harlots into godesses.
Who comes? A noble guest. 'Tis Gorgias,
Athens' most potent burgher; his the boast
Of wealth inherited in countless store.
His are the troops of slaves and mines of ore,
And fertile islands: learning claims he not.
Nor grace nor goodness; wealth to him is wit.
Wisdom, and virtue; and because of wealth
The servile crowd falls down and worships him.
Vol. I. '21
322
But stay! we need a slight preparative.
Should some fair dame peruse this narrative,
It were a pity to mislead her,
And very possibly the reader
Already feels inclined to say
That Barri^re, when he wrote his play,
Either the name on purpose missed, or he
Was not well read in Grecian history;
Because its pages plain declare
That Gorgias was no millionaire.
His calling is beyond conjecture or
Cavil; he was a public lecturer;
And did not make too much by it.
His property was chiefly wit;
And all through Plato he appears
Less like a Rothschild than a Thiers
(If the English mw-pronunciation
Should strike you as an innovation,
The rhyme when altered will declare
He was no Rothschild but a Thiers).
But this is pretty much the quality
Of all Parisian classicality.
Although their writers we may witty call,
They can't be praised for being critical.
Nay, when you come to recollect.
What better ought you to expect
From any race who, to a man,
Nickname poor Lucien Lucy Anne,
And call Pythagoras Peter Gore?
(A fact Leigh Hunt observed before)
So with this error we'll not quarrel,
Since it cannot affect the moral.
And will admit, ere we begin
That Gorgias represents the tin;
A man who rolls in countless riches,
And spends the same on various ladies;
A mode of scattering money which is
The shortest way_, excepting play.
To send a man to Hades.'
'They do make pretty wild work with the ancient
history here. There was a piece called Diogene^ I re-
collect, in '46, either at the Frangais or the Od^on.
Diogenes is the hero. He, and Pericles, and Demosthenes,
323
run for Archon on opposition tickets. Aspasia gives a
ball in the Periclean interest, and among the evening's
entertainments Pindar sings an ode in praise of Alexander
the Great.'
'Come now, Bleecker, you must be embroidering. I
remember the play, and there was nothing about Pindar
or Alexander in it.'
'Well, perhaps I am wrong there; but I'll swear
the other details were given 'with the most scrupulous
exactness,' as De Morny says to Veron. I wonder how
much his endorsement of Veron is worth?'
Now Phidias, we may briefly state.
Has broken out of bounds of late,
And in his frantic dissipation
Has lost all sight of moderation.
One night he gets 'shiny,' and serenades Phryne,
Next noon, by Aspasia, he quite set a-fire is.
And the following day is half mad about Lais,
Who , as Ovid says, muliis amata was mris. *
And so from morn to night the flat hews
Till he has chiselled out their statues;
(A sort of tit for tat, since they
Have chiselled him for many a day.)
But, sore oppressed by poverty.
To Gorgias he has sold the three,
Who now appears prepared to pay
The cash, and take the goods away.
But 'No!' says the sculptor, 'you shall not do so:
I now choose to keep them, and wont let them go.'
'We don't stand such nonsense,' says Gorgias, 'no how.
Deliver the goods, or look out for a row.'
Belligerent fists upon either side they show,
To settle the question by ultima ratio.
In the midst of the din
Comes Diogenes in.
A habit it was of this cynic philosopher
To the sculptor's establishment often to cross over,
And though people called him a crazy, untidy ass,
He was greatly esteemed and regarded by Phidias
Qualiter in thalamos formosa Semiramis isse
Dicitur et muWs Lais amata viris.
21
334
To him the question they refer,
From his appeal they'll not demur.
"Tis truly a very queer case, says Diogenes,
'If artists will fall so in love with their progenies.
But methinks that before they are taken away,
The statues themselves should have something so say.
Ask whether or no
They're willing to go.'
'Very well!' 'Very well!' 'Be it so!' 'Be it so!'
'Aspasia, Lais, Phryne, hear! let my devotion move.
The artist's chisel gave you life ; then give the artist love !'
The marble limbs are motionless; the marble eyes are dim;
The sculptor's tale may nought avail; they will not move
for him.
'Aspasia, Lais, Phryne, hear! and follow, and be kind.
No richer man than Gorgias in Athens shall ye find.
Come, sit with me on golden thrones, off jewelled dishes
feast ;
For I can measure purses with the monarchs of the East.'
The stony eyeballs gleam with life ; the marble limbs unfold.
To vivify the courtesan the only charm is gold.
'And so ends the prologue. Have you had enough, or
shall I go on?'
'Give me a number of cigars first, and then start your
team.'
'Here are some Jenny Linds, and we start again.'
Hey presto! Change scenes. To Madrid let us go.
'Well, Spain after Athens.' — Dear reader, not so.
The Madrid we speak of is on the north side
Of the mountains which Spain from its neighbour divide.
In short, 'tis a place in the Bois de Boulogne,
Which as a Parisian 'Abbey' is known,
Where a jolly old Frenchman, named Born, wine and
ham sells
To sundry gay lions and lark-loving damsels.
Notorious characters like Rigolette,
And other celebrities there may be met;
And here come three ladies, to wit, Juliette,
Foedora, and Marco, who sings at the opera;
For my part I think it would have been more proper a
Danseuse to have made her, since people do say
325
That the rats are most famous for nibbling away
The fortunes of gentlemen rather too gay.
'To them' Messrs. Mauleon, Julian, and Francis:
The first a professional votary of chance is.
In winning and losing he passes the day,
Though only with stocks he's accustomed to play;
The last a mere fop, who has little to say
But Julian's a regular French Alcibiades,
Who likes upon other folks' sofas to lie at ease.
Of all men he borrows, makes love to all women.
And takes enough wine every evening to swim in;
But quizzes and laughs at his friends all the while,
With teasing good humour and mischievous smile.
So now when the broker looks up from a plateful
Of peppery cray-fish to call him ungrateful.
Says he, 'My dear sirs, it were too great a platitude
Before these fair ladies to talk of ingratitude.
They're much better up to the time of the day.'
Then, turning to Marco, goes on at so glib a rate
As not to give her any time to deliberate
Before he proceeds with his truth-telling lay.
'Marco, all our fair excelling,
Dost thou love in flowery hall
Joyous notes that loudly swelling
Bid the dancers join the ball?
Dost thou love 'mid evening shadows,
Murmurs of the quivering trees.
When the poplars o'er the meadows
Whisper to the passing breeze?
Gently o'er the dewy meadows
Whisper to the passing breeze?
'No! No! No! No!'
What then dosl thou love, Marco?
Not the singing of the thrushes,
Nor the streamlet's rippling flow,
Nor the sighing of the bushes,
Nor the voice of Romeo?
(Then he pulled out his purse, and he jingled the gold.
But she never coloured, nor looked the least sold.)
Here's the noise to please Marco.
Dost thou love the merry singing.
Signal of the revel gay,
326
When amid the goblets' ringing,
Drowning reason floats away?
Dost thou love the organs holy,
Whence the sacred strains arise.
Which, like supplications holy.
Mount with incense to the skies?
Sound like prayings of the lowly,
Mount with incense to the skies?
'No! No! No! No!'
(Jingle as before, you know,)
Here's the music for Marco.
Dost thou love while careless straying
Through the woods without a way,
Brazen horns' tumultuous braying
Round the gallant stag at bay?
Dost thou love when night is falling
The sonorous steeple-bell
All the scattered flocks recalling
To the homes they know so well?
From the country round recalling
To the homes they know so well?
'No! No! for ever No!'
Other sounds are all too low;
This alone can reach Marco.'
By the time Mr. Julian has finished his song,
A jolly young artist comes loafing along;
A nice little fellow yclept Raphael,
Which name for a painter would do very well ;
But this a sculptor, who models for pelf
And fame — quite a model of virtue himself.
He won all the prizes at school, went to Rome
To study, now saves up his earnings at home.
Takes care of his ma like a dutiful son.
And goes to bed early, and does as he's bid.
At this stage the reader my possibly wonder by what
means he happens to come to Madrid,
Which isn't exactly the place for a student —
I mean one who studies, and does what is prudent.
In every large town there are youngsters we know.
Called students^ like lucus a non liicendo.
(If you blame the wrong accent, my muse will not hnlt her
Course for your blame; I appeal to old Walter
\
327
De Mapes; whensoever a good rhyme he wanted, he
Never would hesitate long about quantity.
And nearer our time there was Dr. Maginn,
Who to violate quantity thought it no sin. *)
But still, though his motives are not understood,
The cause of his visit was possibly good.
He, perchance, went for art (as some of us for liter-
ature), to seek models few places are fitter.'
'You may guess what is coming — Jupiter Ammon,
if it isn't too bad! The man has fallen asleep. I say,
Bleecker, wake up! Is that the way you treat your friends?
or did you think you were reading a back number of
the North American?'
'And is that the way you treat your friends, too. —
The fact is, Manhattan, I always said there was opium
in those Jenny Linds. Very fine verses, those of yours,
all the same — give me an intense desire to hear the
original.'
'It's your own loss; just as we were approaching
the best part of it ; Diogenes — Desgennais, the principal
character of the piece — Barri^re's great creation, in fact.'
'Oh, I saw enough of him in Les Parisiens. A magni-
ficent declaimer against all sorts of vice ; wondrous saucy
to boot.'
'Theophile Gautier says, that if any man were to
talk in society as Desgennais does on the stage, he would
be promptly kicked out of doors. All the better, then,
that Diogenes should have some place where he can speak
out without fear of such interruption.'
'But just consider a moment, Frank, if you are not
rather behind the age in glorifying the Anglo-Saxons at
the expense of the Gauls. Why, man, the Anglo-Saxons,
half of them at least, have gone bodily over to the Gauls,
horse, foot, and dragoons. The Alliance is the word
now. Napoleon III. is the idol of the English pen and
people; and since he is the state, and the nation too,
here, they must admit all the institutions of the country
with him — admit them so far as not to condemn them.
* His Latin version of Chevy Chace
Has this sort of line in more than one place,
Edidhrunt stragem plurimam per or dines Anglorum.
Heroum vitas dempserunt non amplius stiperborum.
328
The opposition of Anglo-Saxon and French ideas, sen-
timents, principles, morals, has already almost receded
into the past, unless we have inherited all the family
share of the difference.'
^Friend Bleecker, suppose you were in a house on
fire, and had no decent pretext for cutting out of the
premises, and letting it burn up by itself, — it is probable
that you would assist the next man to you in trying to
check the conflagration, without waiting to make an ela-
borate scrutiny of his antecedents. He might be a pick-
pocket or a Sewer reporter, so long as he helped you
to pass buckets and save furniture. France and England
are now united in a common cause, by the imperative
necessity of self-defence and self-preservation; but as to
any fusion or approximation of the ways of thinking
between them on social and moral subjects, until such
period as the Ethiopian shall change his skin and the
leopard his spots, don't you believe it. The present
Emperor may be a greater man than all his uncles put
together; he may be the greatest man on earth (our
people certainly have never been disposed to deny his
claims; you recollect it was a countryman of ours, the
unlucky Wykoff, who first discovered him, so to speak,
and prophesied that the Prisoner of Ham,' whom all
Europe then considered a most absurd adventurer, would
turn out a great man); that doesn't affect the question
ultimately. Do you suppose this dynasty is to last for
ever? Or that any one man, in the few years that con-
stitute the span of an earthly potentate's reign, can reform
and transform the entire character of a people which has
taken hundreds of years, and has remained formed pretty
much as it now is for hundreds of years? Or is John
Bull to become Frenchified in his dotage? I haven't so
bad an opinion of the old gentleman.'
'But come, don't you think, candidly between us,
that you have too bad an opinion of the French — that
you are haunted by old prejudices against them — that
it is just possible you may misunderstand them? Confess,
even now, that you think a little better of them and
their ways than when you knew them l^ss.'
'If we are to reason conversely, judging from the
way in which they misunderstand us, I may be far enough
out in my reckoning; but with increased experience of
329
the people, my opinion of them remains much the same
— only rather more so — as our western men say.
Doubtless there are several leaves which we might take
from their book with great advantage. I believe that
the intellectual training of their young men has been
much underrated by the English , and far from fully
appreciated by the Americans. I admit that they
are much more agreeable and amusing companions than
we, on short acquaintance at least; and that their con-
versational powers are justly admired by ladies. We
have a different theory in this matter; we believe that
a man who talks a great deal will be apt to talk either
a great deal of nonsense — • which is useless, or a great
deal of personality — which is dangerous. But after all
it is a question of comparison; probably the English
consider us as over-talkative as we do the French. Let
us own, too, that in temperance and frugality they are
vastly superior to us (the fact is worth noticing, were
it only to show that temperance, in its modern technical
sense, is not the parent and source of all other virtues,
but is perfectly compatible with numerous vices and
basenesses). But, without dwelling on minor faults, there
are two huge blots on the French character which must
render it hateful to us, so long as virtue and honour
have any real meaning of themselves, independent of
time, place, and custom. One is, its inability to appre-
ciate female virtue and domestic happiness — two things,
we may remark, which have gone hand in hand with
constitutional liberty ever since the days when Tacitus
wrote his Germania^ and Catullus his Epithalamium of
Manlius and Julia. We need not dwell upon this — we
need not stop to discuss the tu-quoque system of answering
the charge — the appeal to individual instances else-
where, or to the statistical records of other countries.
We both know that there is an awful amount of vice in
London and in New York, as well as in Paris; and we
know too the different conditions under which it exists;
that in the former cities vice bears on its brow the stamp
of social degradation, and hides itself in holes and cor-
ners; that here it stalks out in the broad sunlight, and
disputes the ground with virtue, and rather elbows it
out of place. Enough of that. The other feature of the
Gallic character even more antipathetic to ours, is their
330
small regard of truth. This is a propensity that grows
up with them, inculcated by one generation on the suc-
ceeding. You remember probably, in Villette^ how the
school-girls used to confess, as a perfect matter of course
and a venial peccadillo, J'ai menfi phisieurs fois. There
is no woman who, at any period of her life, has had
experience of a French school, either as pupil or teacher,
but can testify to the truth of this picture. There is no
man with similar experience but can endorse the state-
ment as equally applicable to the other sex; and this,
too, is a 'slave's vice.' Observe two men in blouses
quarrelling. Count how many times they give each other
the lie. Two Englishmen or Americans of the corre-
sponding class would have pitched into each other be-
fore they had exchanged the epithet three times; but the
Frenchman does not feel the insult in the same degree.
Look at their ideal heroes. In this very last piece of
young Dumas, Le Demi-Monde — that all Paris goes to
see, and all the critics are in ecstasies over — one of
the principal characters is held up as a striking example
of an homme d'honneur — always talking and bragging
about it too; how does he show his honour at the con-
clusion? By telling an immense lie, and acting it out
to the smallest details, his justification being, that he
thereby takes in another liar — diamond cut diamond
— there's a hero for you! Some people will tell you
that this little failing is a necessary adjunct of French
politeness, which is to be accepted as the set-off to it.
Miserable error! True politeness may often require a
man to hold his tongue — it never requires him to utter
a falsehood!'
'Bless me, Manhattan, what a Diogenes in patent
leathers you are becoming! It's as good as a sermon
to hear you, and very consolatory — especially after
reading Barnum's Autobiography^ and a few numbers of
The Sewer and The Jacobin.''
'An unfortunate and puzzling parenthesis that of
yours ! But I fancy we can give them a few such points
and beat them yet; and it does me good to let off steam
thus once in a while, if it be only to make a profession
of faith, and to show that, though we may have dallied
for a time in the enchanted cave, we have not eaten so
much of the lotus but that we can arise when the need
331
comes, and shake off the dust of our feet against this
paradise of vanities, and go forth out of it into a world
of earnest and serious men.'
'Amid a great confusion of metaphor and illustration.
After that we must go and dine at the Cafe Voisin?
APROPOS OF "RACHEL AND THE
N E W W O R L D."
"Spirit of the Times", July 1856.
WE like contrast. It is the main principle and theory
of our contributions to the ''Spirit." In accordance with
this principle w^e sit down on the fourth of July to give
whomever it may concern the butt end of our mind touch-
ing M. Leon Beauvallet and his book. The greatest of
days, and the meanest of men. There is a good contrast
to begin with.
Our country has been blessed f with a great variety
of travellers and tourists, of all sorts and nations, and
difference of fitness for their self-imposed task of deciding
and discussing our manners and institutions. Beauvallet
in one or two points was qualified for the task beyond
all his predecessors.
In the first place, he understood just one word, and
no more, of our language. This gives peculiar value to
his explanations, as, for instance, when he informs his
countrymen that cammilHa is the English for camelia.
Secondly, he had made up his mind, before coming
to America , that everything in it must be perfectly
detestable.
But if so, naturally exclaims the reader, why did
he come here at all? Ah, why indeed? Quis expedivit
psittaco smim chaire? quoth Persius (we give timely
warning that, having been bitten by Jules Janin, we
intend in this article to discharge a vast superfluity of
quotation upon society.) The one word of English which
Beauvallet understood w^as dollar, America to him, like
England to Dr. Wagner, was "only to be valued for her
money."" Probably he was not the only one in the Felix
332
company (they turned out anything but a happy family
in the end) who entertained the same opinion.
But Beauvallet had other qualifications. America
must present to any Frenchman, seeing it for the first
time, a strange contrast to his customary associations.
The best educated Parisian, the most worldly-wise gentle-
man of the Faubourg St. Germain^ must find many things
to surprise, mystify, and annoy him. A country which
you enter without passports, and inhabit without fogs;
men who assemble in huge crowds daily, and keep order
without the presence of soldiers, and almost without the
presence of policemen; politicians who can support the
government without being paid for it, and abuse it with-
out being imprisoned or exiled; editors who publish
without caution-money or censors ; a whole society which,
being perfectly free to spend its Sunday as it chooses,
goes to church, instead of to a theatre or to a horse-
race; a population which finds baths a necessity, and an
opera a superfluity; bad coff*ee and good cigars; spirited
horses driven without half a yard of curb-bit, and gentle-
men who drive them without a rear guard of two flunkies ,
married women who love their husbands, and who do
not love indecent conversation ; young girls who are not
shut up in convents, but allowed to go about freely in
good society — just as if every man in good society
was not an unprincipled and dangerous character w^here
women are concerned; all these things, and a thousand
more, so shock his old ideas that he may Avell be par-
doned for feeling uncomfortable.
Beauvallet was not an educated Frenchman (every
educated Frenchman, now-a-days, knows a little English
— unless, indeed, he happen to be a literary man,) still
less a French gentleman. He was a third or fourth-rate
actor, who had never attained celebrity, or filled an
important role on the boards of any Parisian theatre.
He had hung on the skirts of people really great in his
calling; he knew some low literary men, like Roger de
Beavoir (a person chiefly notorious for his perpetual
squabbles and lawsuits with his wife); he had frequented
second-class restaurants such as Vachette^s and BonvaleCs^
places much patronised by rapins out on a holiday, and
the inferior grade of Lorettes, and which he apostrophizes
as a real epicure might Philippe's or the Voisin, In short,
333
he was a thorough specimen of a French Cockney and
snob. He saw in the papers that "Rachel was going
among the savages," and took it all for granted before-
hand. His barbarian experiences begin as soon as he
goes to sea. "Eight bells" are to him the most idiotic
of absurdities; the gong for dinner is absolute heathenism.
The steamer pitches and rolls in the most absurd w^ay,
as if on purpose to disconcert the illustrious voyager.
Still amid all his tribulations it is gratifying to find that
his finer sentiments are unimpaired. We have a touching
little illustration of this. The ship's calf dies, and is
thrown overboard. Beauvallet bewails his untimely fate
in accents of genuine sympathy.
"A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind."
When the voyage was ended, B.'s troubles had only be-
gun. By a striking manifestation of poetic justice, he
who had come to bleed the Yankees falls at once into
the clutches of a New York hackman, probably the most
rapacious species of the genus extortioner on record,
except all the inhabitants of Marseilles, and the ordinary
Italian Custom House officer — Douanierius Ilalicus, Do-
mesticus^ as Janin would say. He then goes to a French
hotel, and by a natural sequence finds the American
cooking very bad. As a general rule, everything American
is bad, because it is different from Paris. One saving
clause there is, though he will not allow even this to be
such. He discovers hundreds of prostitutes. He must
have felt as much at home as the Englishman who ar-
rived in a foggy country.
The Rachel campaign is opened, and the audience
buy books of the play with parallel translations. Here,
of course, is an opportunity for enlarging on the ignorance
of the Americans, who do not understand French suffi-
ciently to follow a play without books.
Now to take a broad and serious view of this mighty
subject, (though, to be sure, to talk of anything serious
where Beauvallet is concerned is a joke in itself), the
American audience did exactly what audiences of all
countries do when they go do hear foreign players. The
only marked exception is in the case of opera, and that
simply because the stock pieces of any operatic establish-
ment are not numerous, and are well known to the
ordinary frequenters of it. When a new Italian opera
334
of any mark appears, be it in London or Paris, there
is a very general purchasing of librdti with parallel
translations. The Parisians did the very same thing, too,
when Ristori appeared among them; parontes oidamen
(as Janin would say again), w^e saw it with our own
eyes. The fact is, that to follow a play on the stage
requires not only a knowledge of, but a very familiar
acquaintance with, the language in which it is written, as
any one who remembers his first visit to a German or
Italian theatre can bear us witness. In many instances
it requires an acquaintance with a great deal more than
the language — with the habits and familiar sayings of
the people. Thus no one could understand the joke in
Dumas Jr.'s Demi Monde^ about la tour prends garde unless
he was well up in the French nursery songs.
The idea that no Americans understand French is
about on a par with the almost equally prevalent one
on our side that no Frenchmen understand English, while,
in fact, it is very generally taught, at present, to the
better classes in France. Take five young men of the
Jockey Club, and it is safe betting that three of them
speak tolerable English. The error on both sides has
the same twofold origin; it is partly anachronism, sup-
posing the state of things which existed two generations
ago to be prolonged until the present time; and it partly
arises from the unfortunate fact that a certain class of
literary men in each country, who ought to be the best
acquainted with each other's languages respectively, are
about the worst acquainted with them of any tolerably
decent classes in the two communities.
Returning to our traveller, we find him equally
severe on us because Lecouvreur was spelt Lacouvreur in
the play bills. Considering that the first newspapers in
Paris, such as "La Presse," can rarely set up one sen-
tence in English without making more than one blunder
in spelling it; that in the Emperor's works there occur
orthographical errors in English names (as we can testify
from our own observation); that another illustrious per-
son, no less than Beauvallet himself, cannot write the
name of an ordinary flower in English without two mi-
stakes ; in view of all this , he need not have been quite
so hard on our printers. Some one has naively asked,
Could not Beauvallet have corrected the proof himself?
335
Pas si bete. He was not going to lose a whole paragraph
of jokes on Yankee ignorance.
Certainly the setting up of French type is not the
strongest point of the great Anglo-Saxon race. We re-
member a ludicrous instance which occurred in London.
The French company there were bringing out Mme. de
Girardin's play, La Joie fait Peur (Joy causes Fear). The
printers persisted in rendering the last w^ord Pure (Joy
Makes Pure). Being much expostulated with, they made
another eiFort, and finally printed it Puer ^ producing an
untranslateable title which would have answered for the
theatre delle Antiche Stinche at Florence.
This London version of Madame de Giradin was very
possibly known to Beauvallet. It was quite current in
Paris two seasons ago, and as these things circulate
fast (they are precisely the sort of matters w^hich the
Parisian public is allow^ed to discuss and competent to
understand), it might well have gone dow^n as low as
his set. But it wouldn't do to say anything just now
against "our allies." He is very discreet in the few
remarks he has to make about England. All his wrath
is reserved for the New Yorkers, who did not receive
(or pay) Rachel as they did Jenny Lind. "So much the
worse," says he, with an ex cathedra air of Minos, Rada-
manthus, and ^acus, rolled into one, and a Pope thrown
in, "so much the worse for the Americans." Now that
the Iron Duke is dead, Jenny Lind is the greatest existing
thorn in the side of the French. She is the slave in their
chariot, the amari aliquid that rises up in their cups amid
Sebastopol triumphs and Exhibition splendors. A great
singer who won't come to Paris! They would give one
of their best victories, or finest shows, to have her there,
just for the pleasure of not receiving her well. It is
really a national question with them; we never yet met
a Frenchman, whether he had ever heard her or not,
whether he knew anything about music or not, with
whom it was not an article of religion that she couldn't
be a great artist — it was impossible in the nature of
things. Moreover, when you tell a Frenchman that part
of the enthusiasm w^hich welcomed Jenny Lind here w^as
due to her moral antecedents, you are talking more Greek
to him than all Janin's scholarship can translate. For
if there is anything more incredible and impossible to a
i336
Parisian than that any woman (especially any artist)
should have any moral character at all, it is that any
public should care ten cents whether she has or not.
So absurd does the reason assigned appear to him, that
he will actually take the trouble to ransack our barba-
rous annals, and finding therein that some eighteen years
ago Fanny Elssler caused a great sensation here, he claps
his hands triumphantly, and thinks he has found an un-
answerable reductio ad absurdum. We have heard this
reception of Fanny Elssler so often brought up as an
insurmountable argument on the subject that we shall
take the trouble of going into a brief digression respec-
ting it.
The American public was much greener then than
now in such matters. Elssler was the first great chore-
graphic artist (if that be the proper expression) who
visited our shores. She came with a great professional
European reputation; various places in Germany and
Italy had committed absurdities about her nearly equal
to those which marked her progress here. Several Ameri-
cans abroad, some of them in diplomatic positions, had
given her letters of introduction. As such letters with
us are something more than the mere form which they
usually are in Europe, and are regarded wath reference
more to the giver than the presenter of them, so as to
make "the flag cover the goods," they opened the very
best society to the danseuse. We are far from approving
of the conduct of those who gave the letters, but we
say they are to blame, not those who received them. In fact,
Elssler's succes was owing to a variety of causes — we
had nearly forgotten that she was patronized by the
celebrity who first discovered Louis Napoleon, and after-
wards revived (with the modern improvements) the old
Scandinavian system of courtship — and it is likely to
remain a unique phenomenon. If any of the crack dancers
of the day, Rosati, for instance, were to come over now
with the expectation of being received as Elssler was,
we fancy she would have no better consolation than that
which "one of the most remarkable men" out West offers
to his political opponent. "At any rate, she will have
tried an experiment."
Popular and lucrative to a considerable extent the
ballet will probably always be in our large cities, but
337
this is far from being an American peculiarity. If, as
we ourselves believe, the admiration of public dancers
is one of the barbarisms of civilization, it is a barbarism
of which Brother Jonathan has by no means the monopoly.
Every fashionable European capital has the same weakness.
In Paris (the only place in the world according to Beau-
vallet), the finest opera is considered incomplete without
its allowance of dances, sometimes introduced into the
body of the piece, sometimes violently intercalated bet-
ween the acts. There is always a large portion of the
audience who only appear when the ballet begins. The
last director (Janin's friend Rocoplan, alias Roqueplan,)
mutilated "Der Freischutz" to make a curtain raiser or
prologue for a second rate ballet.
The receipts of Rachel's first night did not amount
to one -third those of Jenny Lind's. All other reasons
apart, Beauvallet himself has given one which alone would
be fully sufficient to account for it. The seats were not
sold at auction; even had the theatre been more than full
(as he also confesses) it could not have held half Barnum's
amount. Yet so predisposed to blame is he, that because
that did not happen which he has himself shown could not
possibly have happened^ he falls foul of the American public ;
"of course, he is speaking only of the masses," who, he
adds, in another place, "are unintelligent and gross in
the United States, as they are everywhere else." He
thinks it very grand to talk thus of the masses. It is
vastly aristocratic, sets him up in society at once, and
gives him position as a fine gentleman. So Jeames Yel-
lowplush, mounting majestically behind the Marquis of
Carabas' carriage, looks down with complacency on the
gorgeous splendors of his breeches and the gracefully
swelling rotundity of his sliken-clad calves, and turns
up his nose at the "common people," those "'orrid vulgar
wretches without refinement." Oh! Beauvallet, Jeames
Beauvallet, this is language for your masters. Silly enough
in their mouths, it is at least consistent; in yours it is
the most inconsequent of absurdities. You know very
well, in your own heart, that you are nothing but a poor
(in every sense) player, without standing or consequence
of any sort, that you would go down on your knees to
the vilest adventurer in the imperial circle, lick De Morny's
patent-leathers, kiss Fleury's coat-tails, and worship, not
Vol. I. 22
338
Catalani's, but Bajocchi's pantaloons;* that you would
jump out of your skin with joy on receiving a command
to perform before their Majesties. What business have
you to put on the Grand Seigneur in talking of the
masses of any country? What are you yourself but one
of the masses — only without the M?
To be sure, he adds a saving clause and allows it
this time. "There is a class who are intelligent, educated,
even artistic; it comprises all the members of the American
press." Well, thought we, this fellow does nothing by
halves, certainly, and we turned the next page fully ex-
pecting to find that there were no gentlemen in America,
except all the members of Congress.
In a letter to that worthly, Roger de Beauvoir, Beau-
vallet disburthens himself of a portion of his sorrows.
Here he is eloquent on the subject of brawls and assas-
sinations, and people shot in the streets, a subject to which
he often reverts in subsequent pages. Now, far be it
from us to maintain that our American cities generally,
and New York particularly, are under the best possible
municipal government. There are Europeans who have
a right to throw stones at us. But before any French-
man undertakes to project any missiles our way, he should
consider the extreme fragility and vitreosity of his own
habitation. Where was Beauvallet in June '48, and De-
cember '51 ? W^as he hid in the cellar with M. Prud-
homme? Did he hear of any people being shot in the
streets at those times in or about Paris? W^as he ever
out a night in the winter of '52, say from January to
March? We can tell him, and whoever else it may con-
cern, that it was not safe to pass after dark through
any street in which there was a sentinel — that is to
say, three-fourths of the streets in Paris. One of these
functionaries shot down a young man in the Rue Richelieu^
because another young man had blackguarded him some
hours before. We have a very distinct recollection how,
returning home from a dinner party in the "small hours,"
we came much nearer than was agreeable to being shot,
solely because we were in a street near the Elysee — a
street, be it observed, in no way closed to the public
by legal or official notice. To be sure, we might have
"And worship Catalani's pantaloons," — Uyrotu
339
been out at that time for improper purposes, and the
present dynasty is so moral. We must also do the sen-
tinels the justice to say that, after holding a council of
war to the number of five over us, and ascertaining that
we lived in that quarter, and could not get home any
other way without going nearly a mile round, they po-
sitively did not shoot us ; nay more, they absolutely per-
mitted us to pass straight on without going a mile out
of our way. "The French are a very polite people."
(Vide "Peter Parley" and other nursery books.)
But these were revolutionary times. How is it now?
Last winter a cabman deliberately murdered a passenger
for having made him refund forty cents overcharge. Soon
after a house porter knocked down and killed his mistress
for scolding him. These, indeed, were men of the mas-
ses, "who are unintelligent and gross everywhere." But
about the same time a young man in a perfectly respectable
position quietly shot down his father-in-law after break-
fast. Now fancy a foreigner generalizing on the state
of Parisian society from these examples.
Everything in New York is utterly detestable to our
traveller; even the wonderfully ludicious phenomenon of
a ferry-boat, large enough to hold a carriage and horses,
fails to draw more than a passing smile from him. The
company go to Boston, which he decidedly prefers to
New York. The American Athens must feel highly flat-
tered. His return was coincident with another great
event, the arrival of Jules Janin's article, which turned
the whole city upside down; every one was talking of
it. How Beauvallet found this out with his limited
knowledge of the language he does not inform us ; but
if the Yankees were "furious against him" they might
have been quite frantic against Janin, whose re-published
article is decidedly the feature of the book. Janin is a
thorough blackguard, but a clever one; whatever he writes
is sure to be readable , and much of it is sure to be
amusing. He was originally a schoolmaster, and brought
into his second profession much of the stock in trade of
his first. His pages fairly bristle with classical quota-
tions, so that you may tell one of his productions across
the room by the italics in it. But the accuracy of his
learning by no means equals its extent. Even that shallow
ass, Roqueplan, got the better of him on some minor points
840
of grammar. As a writer, his career has been more lucrative
than honorable. It is impossible to have much respect
for a man who has taken black mail from actresses, and
done up his own wedding night in a feuilleton. He is
particularly great at "pitching into" people. His last
grand exploit of the sort was in 1852, when, in spite of
the grammatical errors aforesaid, he made an example
of manager Roqueplan.
Janin was not always so ill disposed towards us.
Some twelve or fifteen years ago he actually wrote a
book ("The American in Paris") in collaboration with
one of those Democrats whom he now stigmatizes as
savages. But allowances must be made for the poor
man's circumstances. He is an Orleanist, opposed to
the present dynasty, which has moreover mercilessly
curtailed his loved quotations, the Imperial censorship
having discovered much treason in Tacitus. He could
not console himself by abusing Per fide Albion^ for Albion
is now an ally of Gaul, and the docile French press
must speak of her discreetly. Russia had been worn
threadbare, and only America was left to assail.
He proves on first principles that the Americans
cannot understand or appreciate tragedy, because they
are "essentially democratic," and tragedy belongs to
courts. The first court that encouraged it was that of
Athens! Is the man trying to impose on his readers, or
is he merely, like Mr. Pecksniff, using fine words without
being particular as to their meaning? The Court of
Athens, the fierce democracy that would hardly brook
any government at all, that ground down its wealthy
citizens with impositions, and forced contributions to an
extent that would have gladdened the cockles of Proud-
hon's heart, and made Greeley smile (in the Spirit-ual
sense), were such a thing possible. Of course there were
rich men and exclusives in Athens, as there must be in
all cities, but does J. J. seriously believe that none but
the Kalokagaihoe and the charienteSy the "Upper Ten" of
the place, went to hear Sophocles ? Has he forgotten
that the "masses" of Athens took to these things as na-
turally as the meanest Italian peasant now-a-days does
to music — that they were so skilled in rhythm and
declamation as to detect instantaneously a misplaced
accent in a speech? Has he ever counted the Democratic
341
claptraps in a Greek play, where the author was "writing
for the galleries?" We can show him a nice little list
of them. These courts have "delicate tongues, which
regard the slightest innovation as a crime." We could
give some illustrative examples of that too. Does Janin
remember how the gender oi Carosse came to be changed?
How that great King, Louis XIV., when a little boy,
once asked for his coach in a hurry, and called it by
mistake man carosse^ and how, as whatever the King did
must be right, the word became masculine forthwith, and
remained so from that time? Does he remember how
the verb to esteem acquired a peculiar technical meaning
in French fashionable society, which, for a time, supplanted
all its legitimate signification ? (Our virtuous editor might
find the anecdote at length a thought too spicy for his
columns, but we have seen it quoted in very grave books,
Mill's Logic for one).
But are we no less unable to appreciate the thoughts
than the icords of tragedy. Here, in default of first prin-
ciples or personal experience, the critic falls back on the
authority of (O, shades of Pinto, Munchausen, and Gul-
liver !) Mme. Fontenay. American women cannot under-
stand love scenes, because "their loves are as silent as
the tomb." It is not written in the gospel according to
St. Fontenay? Certainly a French woman's loves are
not as silent as the tomb, nor a Frenchman's either. He
would not give five francs for the most beautiful creature
in the world unless he could go out into the street the
next day and talk about it. The first Frenchman w^e
ever knew (and he was not the worst of the lot by a
long chalk) used to astonish us by asking with great
pretence of mystery, "Do they talk much about me and
Mrs. So and So?" We were astonished at it in those
days. We were very green; we had not seen much of
la grande nation.
The Americans, quoth J. J., can take no interest in
the ancients, because Greek princesses did not ride in
the laps of strange men in omnibuses (neither do Ame-
rican young ladies, we beg leave to assure any stray
foreigner who may chance to come across our remarks).
Astyanax in New York would have paid board to his
mother, and the "unterrified" would have given three
groans for Agamemnon, king of kings. (Here Janin mixes
342
up Scripture and Classics in a ludicrous way. Homer
calls Agamemnon "king of men" [anax andron]. The
other expression belongs to a book which J. J.'s coun-
trymen know too little about.)
It is always easy to create fun by transferring the
habits of one age to another. Put a helmet on Mr. Fill-
more, or give an umbrella to Hannibal crossing the Alps,
and you have a standing joke ready made. But did it
ever occur to the critic that he might be paid off in his
own coin, and tu-quoque ed to any extent? Did Electra
wear a bustle and a hoop-petticoat and a bonnet on the
back of her head? Did Andromache have a wet-nurse
for little Astyanax? Did Helen pension off Menelaus
with a foreign embassy, and continue herself to occupy
the family mansion at Mycenae, with Paris living in a
nice little pavilion alongside her, and both of them received
in the best Argive society? Was Nausicaa shut up
in a convent, or was she horriblement compromise by mee-
ting Ulysses on the sea -shore ? But here, perhaps, Janin
might tell us that he was not talking of the ancient Greeks
at all, but of the French Greeks, as represented in French
tragedy; and then, indeed, we should not know what to
say, for Corneille's princesses are about as much like
Greek women as J. J. and L. B. themselves are like a
couple of Athenian Kalokagathw.
But if he will allow us to stick to the Greek Greeks,
we can go on with our incompatibilities for hours. How
many Athenian tragedies could be represented unmutila-
ted on the French stage? What would the police say
to this line from Sophocles' "Antigone?"
"That is no state where only one man rules."
or to this from ^schylus, „Agamemnon?"
"For Death's a milder fate than tyranny."
How could an audience of French functionaries , that
had sworn, unsworn, and re-sworn away what little faith
they may have started in life with, listen understandingly
to the inspired Princess talking of that "higher law"
which is not of yesterday or the day before, but from
everlasting, and which never grows old by time? What
kind of points a French theatre can appreciate we know
by experience. One night at the Francais — Rachel's
own theatre, the great temple of the tragic muse — there
343
was, besides the regular legitimate drama, a new farce
by Scribe. One of the characters is a gentleman who
can never make up his mind till it is too late. To illus-
trate this he tells how, after '48, he could not decide
between the different political parties for a long while;
finally he declared for the Republic — the night before
the 2d of December. This was a great joke, and a laugh
went all round the house. We had seen many things in
France that made us melancholy, not the less so because
some of them were counted by some people amusing;
but of all the sights we ever saw — the m'ad mechani-
cal dancers in the public gardens , the painted harlots
lolling in gilded equipages, and thrusting honest women
out of the best places, the insolence of Jacks-in-office,
the despair of honest men, the utter want of faith, and truth,
and honor, throughout all classes — nothing made us
feel so profoundly sad as the spectacle of a people jesting
over the grave of their liberties.
One really is inclined to w^onder that Janin, before
writing about America, did not seek to procure some
more authentic information on the subject. Perhaps his
ignorance of the language may have been in his way.
It certainly is extraordinary how little the literary men
of France have done to keep up with the progress made
in this respect by other classes of the country. Setting
aside some brilliant exceptions, such as Guizot and John
Lemoine, they treat the English tongue as if it w^ere
some barbarous dialect , and seldom allude to it
except for purposes of ridicule. Their ignorance may
best be measured by the small amount of knowledge
required to impose upon them. A vagabond French-
man, who once infested this country, and who could never
put an entire sentence of our language together correctly,
is now considered quite an English authority in Paris,
and actually engaged in translating American stories for
French papers.
But had Janin no resources in his own language?
Were not Chevallier and De Tocqueville as much worth
consulting as Mme. Fontenay?
Finally, on this matter of appreciation we should
like to ask this critic a few plain and serious questions.
Was Rachel in the habit of playing to 25,000 francs, or
20,000 either, in Paris? Was she not frequently obliged
344
to leave the Capital because she could draw better houses
in other countries? Did not at least three-fourths of the
Parisian press and public always abuse her on these
occasions for looking after her own interest? Lastly,
did not this same press and public invent (to use one of
their own pet expressions) a new tragedian on purpose
to spite Rachel for leaving them? Did they not take
up Ristori — an excellent actress, doubtless, but pro-
bably no better than ten or fifteen other women who
might be picked out from the Italian and German boards
— and set her up as a rival, nay a superior to their
own great artist?
So much for M. Janin, of whom we merely observe
in conclusion that he is so badly posted up on the Homeric
controversy as not to know that the Will of Jove , not the
Wrath of Achilles^ is the key-note of the "Iliad," and that
the swift-footed son of Peleus and the king of men (not
of kings), and all the great chiefs, were but puppets in
the hands of Zeus.
From Beauvallet's experiences of the Southern States
we can only extract one gem, elicited by Rachel's reading
Cooper while ill at Philadelphia. "We expected to see
statues of Cooper in all public places. Statues to an
author in America ! They do not even read his works.
That is a literary fact [!] Americans do not read —
they count. They find that more instructive." This is
a pregnant paragraph. It suggests several pertinent
questions, as, for instance, in what public square of Paris
one may find a statue of Victor Hugo. What sort of
reception the stranger would be likely to meet who should
enquire for Les Chatiments ^ or Napoleon le Petit ^ at any
French bookseller's. But we prefer to speak of his
sneer at the money-making propensities of our countrymen
— a sneer repeated in several other places. There is a
class of Frenchmen from whom we can understand such
language. The descendants of the old aristocracy deem
themselves a peculiar people; they have a proverb of
their own; noblesse oblige. What their nobility obliges them
to do it sometimes puzzles an unsophisticated republican
to discover. It does not oblige them not to insult the
wife of any foreigner who is green enough to give them
the run of his house. It does not oblige them to hesitate
at telling any number of lies when they have anything
: . 345
to get by it. It does not oblige them not to sponge
upon any one who will entertain them without -ever making
any return. It does not oblige them to pay their bets
when they lose Cv^obatum estj. But it does oblige them
not to engage in any regular legitimate traffic. A French
nobleman may che — we beg pardon, be lucky — at
cards, or speculate on a race, or marry a parvenue heiress
(which operation he calls in his elegant diction manuring
his lands) ^ he may even marry an American girl, if she
has tin enough, though not brought up according to Parisian
notions of bienseances ; but he may not be a merchant or
a banker, and can therefore, not exactly with propriety,
but with perfect consistency, laugh at the money-making
cit. But coming from Beauvallet, this language is the
hugest of absurdities. It is the one thing more ridiculous
than his talk about the masses. Why, what under God's
heaven brought the man here but money ? He came to a
country which he detested, to a people whom he regarded
as savages. Was it to reform and civilize them by his
example? The missionary did not even attempt to master
the speech of the barbarians. Was it because his pre-
sence was necessary to sustain Rachel and M. Felix?
Even he will hardly have the impudence to say that.
What then was the motive? Mem quocumque modo rem.
The 20,000 solid reasons set forth in the contract.
"Gallulus esuriens in coelum, jusseris, ibit" — the
English of which is that Beauvallet wanting money came
to the United States.
Not sorry , however, is he to get out of them , and
to find in Cuba two darling institutions of his native
land, passports and soldiers. Still more pleased is he
when the Havanese Sunday arrives. ''Thank Heaven
this day is not spent here as in the United States.
Very different!" And so, wishing to pass his Sunday in
a pious and rational manner, Beauvallet goes to a cock-
fight. We need not be surprised at him , if the French
Minister could find no better pastime for his Washington
Sundays than shooting cats out of a back window.
(Historic, as L. B. modestly says of his own assertions).
Before taking leave of this book (on the narrative
of which we have gone into no details, for everybody
has doubtless read it by this time; our people are so
weakly curious to see themselves abused,) we wish to
23
346
say a few words about the translation. It has been much
praised, and in one sense deservedly. The spirit of the
original is very well rendered, and it is extremely hard
to translate light French writing without letting the esprit
(and even a tenth-rate Frenchman like Beauvallet has
some esprii) evaporate in the translation. No one knows
how hard it is who has not tried, and here the work
deserves all the praise it has received. But in the minor
matters of grammar and idiom it is frequently inaccurate,
so that the author is sometimes made to utter even greater
nonsense than he means. Thus on the very second page,
''at four in the morning we could have landed at Havre,
w'here I caught," &c. Could have,, used thus independently.
is not English. Probably (for we have not seen the
original, the French expression was nous povvions, we
were able to arrive, or we managed to arrive. So again
at p. 220. "They deny that a married woman may be-
have badly. What Beauvallet makes the Americans deny
is not the possibility but the permissibility of a woman's
misconduct. "They say that a married woman ought not
to behave badly," or better, "they will not allow a married
woman," &c. This is obvious from the antithetical clause,
"but as for the young girls, they may do whatever enters
their heads." Sometimes also he mistranslates particular
words, as wiien he talks of the "loungers in white vests"
who throng Broadway. Obviously Beauvallet wTote vestes
blanches. Vest is a sort of gents or English fine w^aistcoat
Veste in French means either a boysjacket or a man's
morning coat. Vestes blanches are white coats^ such as no
one in Europe even wears except possibly some stray
lion at a watering-place; they would naturally be quite
a phenomenon to the Parisian cockney.
And now perhaps the reader may ask, why should
you notice this person at all? Why build up a big
wheel in several columns of the „ Spirit" to break this
insignificant bug upon ? A very proper question, friend
reader, and thus we answer it. It was not for Beauvallet,
but for w^hat he suggests. "Snobs," says their sage
historian, "are a part of the beautiful," and their study
is most instructive. Especially for this reason. Any un-
favorable national traits, any pretty little foibles of the
people at large, are sure to be intensified in the snob.
Thus the English snob is eminent for servility to those
347
above, and brutality to those below him; the American
ditto for recklessness, bragadocio, and vulgar curiosity;
the French ditto for immorality, falsehood, and skepti-
cism; and so on to the end of the chapter. The carica-
ture assists us to judge of the original. Our actor is a
snob; the Duke de Quelquechose is a gentleman (according
to the Parisian idea of one), but the Duke and the actor
are both Frenchmen. We are no patent patriots, no in-
discriminate admirers of everything at home. Often (we
say it both in sorrow^ and in anger) have we been prouder
of our country than at the present moment. But what-
ever be our faults and follies, we are not likely to profit
much politically, morally, socially, or even aesthetically,
by study and imitation of the Gallic type. And this is
the moral of Beauvallet. Requiescat in Paris.
PIECES
OF A
BROKO-DOWN mm
PICKED UP BY HIMSELF.
Vol. II.
ORICI\Al VERSES A^D VERSE TRAMATIOM
BADEN-BADEN.
PRINTED BY SCOTZNIOVSKY.
1858.
i
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
ORIGINAL YERSES. Pag.
HOW THE TWINS PAID THEIR POET 1
THE LAY OF SIR LYTTON 6
A SPECIMEN OF THE PUFF POETICAL 9
THE UNTRUE AND MELANCHOLY HISTORY OF MARGUERITE GAUTIER 12
AN ANATHEMA A LA WALTER DE MAPES 21
SONG OF THE BUCHANIERS 22
TERSE TRAXSLATIOl^S.
THE LAMENT FOR DAPHNIS 25
THE INCANTATION OF SIMiETHA •. 27
AN AMCEB^AN FROM THEOCRITUS 32
THE VENGEANCE OF EROS 34
BACCHUS AND ARIADNE 36
THREE EPIGRAMS FROM GEORGE BUCHANAN 37
THE AUTHORS' QUARRELL 38
THE CONTRABANDIST '. . 43
WALTER OF ACQUITAINE'S DEATH-SONG 63
SCRAPS FROM A PROJECTED TRANSLATION OT THE NIBELUNGEN
LIED 66
LEONORA 69
SCHILLER'S DIVISION OF THE EARTH 76
THE MAIDEN'S LAMENT , 77
ANC^US 78
'HEUS SUSANNAI' 80
ORIGINAL VERSES.
HOW THE TWINS PAID THEIR
POET.
Literary World, June 1851.
PRINCE Scopas the Thessalian
Is holding festival, •
And subject guests and stranger guests
Throng endlessly his hall.
His coursers in the chariot-race
Have gained the victory.
Great Creon's son the prize hath won;
A happy man is he!
Break out in jocund shout and song !
Let all the world be gay!
For Scopas of a noble line
Holds noble feast to-day!
The odor of the banquet
Is scented miles about;
The plumage of the slaughtered birds
Has paved the street without;*
The cement of the oldest jars
Is loosened to supply
The wine that cheers the drooping heart,
And lifts the spirits high;
No fish that swims in sea or stream
But helps to grace the board.
The King can show no richer cheer,
Rich Persia's potent lord.
There is many a famous jester
To aid the mirth to-day,
And many a ready piping-girl
Who Lydian airs can play.
* Fish and game were the staples of an sesthetic Greek banquet,
and it was customary to scatter the feathers of all the birds killed
before the door, in ostentation of the good things within.
Vol. n. 1
And many a wondrous dancer
Whose feet in endless maze,
Gliding through labyrinthine steps,
Elude the keenest gaze,
And who in witching pantomime
Can every legend show,
And type the love of Gods above
To mortals here below.
The lovely Ariadne now
Shall her presentment find.
And draw another Bacchus down
To mix with human kind.
The four victorioils coursers
Are led in triumph round;
Their headbands are all golden.
Their manes with ribands bound.
Four coursers they of snowy white,
And sprung (so poets told)
From those famed horses Harpy-born,
Achilles drove of old;
And had they uttered mortal speech,
As Xanthus did of yore.
The crowd had scarcely marvelled,
Or scarce revered them more.
But what are feasts and horses.
And dancing-girls and wine.
To the poet loved of gods and men.
The stranger-bard divine?
On him fix every ear and eye.
The lord of lyric lay.
Who comes to crown the festival
With glorious song to-day.
His stately limbs are richly clad
In purple and in gold;
His robe is flowing to his feet
In many a graceful fold.
His head with fragrant garlands twined.
His long locks floating free.
He stands amid the list'ning guests,
A goodly sight to see!
E'en such his garb and ornament
As once Arion wore
B
Whom from the wave a fish did save,
And home to Corinth bore.
But he is with no savage crew,
No peril hath to fear;
For in his patron's hall he stands.
And none but friends are near.
Simonides the Coan !
His fingers touch the string ,
His flashing eyes are lifted up
As he begins to sing.
"I will not waste my life,^' he sang,
"A perfect man to seek*
Upon this earth wide-habited,
Who but is sometimes weak?
Th' immortal gods have this alone.
To live from censure free.
Men are the sport of circumstance,
And blameless cannot be.
Enough for me the man to find
Whose soul abhors the vile;
Who, honoring the gods above,
Doth on their poets smile.
So shall he leave a good report
E'en when to Hades gone,
Nor mourn unhonored and unsung
By chilly Acheron." f
And next he sang of Scopas' might,
His old and glorious race.
And his stormy-footed coursers
Of unconquerable pace.
There is many a prince of Thessaly
That owns high-stepping steeds.
There is many a wealthy foreigner
That in the course succeeds;
But vain were all their efforts.
And humbled all their pride.
* See Plato's Protagoras, where the prelude of Simonides's ode
is given. It appears probable that Scopas did not bear the best of
characters, and the poet could not have praised him for Ijis virtues
without gross hypocrisy.
f See Theocritus, Idyl xvi.
1*
When Scopas, son of Creon,
In the race his fortune tried.
The snowy coursers to the goal
Devoured th' astonished way,
And shrank in shame the rival house,
The proud Aleuadse!
For this be thanks to Castor due,
Who all unseen was there,
And touched their feet with strength divinfe ,
The prize away to bear.
His theme inspired the singer then.
And in a louder strain
He praised the Dioscuri,
The Dorian brothers twain.
Castor, who first taught mortals
To guide the steed aright.
And his brother, Polydeuces,
Aye best in fistic fight.
How young they went a-field to hunt
The Calydonian boar.
And in the good ship Argo tried
The dragon-haunted shore.
And how they checked huge Amycus,
And hushed his foul abuse;
And how upon those w^arriors bold,
The sons of Aphareus —
On Lynceus and stout Idas
They like a tempest fell.
And bore away their brides so gay,
And took their lives as well.
And how. in starry semblance
On springing masts they light,
And save the praying mariners
When seas with foam are white;
And how they watch the traveller,
Alone, or in the throng.
And punish the unholy host
That does the stranger wrong;
And where a loyal worshipper
In risk and strife they see.
Or racing steed, or fighting chief.
The yguide to victory.
Then all would give the singer
Applause and honor meet;
But the Prince looked cold and gloomy,
He was chafed in his conceit.
And will he grudge a largess rare
To a bard of rarest fame?
Whose poet-praise to after days
Shall waft his patron's name.
He breaketh out in bitter jest —
"Methinks it doth belong
To those to pay who bear away
The honors of the song:
For every word I had therein,
The Twins have still their three;
Simonides has sung the Twins, —
The Twins may pay his fee."
The singer answered nothing;
He moved not in his place;
There stirred no wrinkle of his robe,
No muscle of his face.
Till a slave has touched his shoulder —
"There are two young men that wait.
And ask to see the Coan bard.
Beyond the outer gate:
Two youths of goodly bearing
Alike in form and face ;
In garments white, with foreheads bright,
Like men of godlike race.
Like Dorians wear they flowing hair;
Their speech thereto agrees;
And now, beyond the outer gate,
They seek Simonides."
Then slowly turned the singer,
And slowly stepped away:
The revellers resumed their cups;
But little heeded they.
Their only care the present good.
Their law their host's behest;
They jeered the unrewarded bard.
And praised the scurvy jest.
And now he stands without the gate.
But no young men are there;
Within, a crowd; without, a blank;
There is naught but empty air.
But hark! a crash! like lightning-flash
Sink gallery and wall.
Pillar, and roof, and portico,
In one continuous fall!
The palace like a baseless dream.
Had melted all away;
And crushed beneath the crumbling mass,
Prince, guests, and courtiers lay.
And thus the Doric demigods
Their scorned power displayed;
And thus the" Twins, by poet sung.
Their darling poet paid.
THE LAY Of SIR LYTTON.
CVery much) after Macaulay.
THE b'hoys from swate ould Ireland,
With awful oaths they swore,
The Envoy of the Saxons should
Make fun of them no more.
With awful oaths they swore it ,
And no end of row made they.
And sent bill-stickers up and down.
All around throughout the town
To summon their array.
Up and down and all about
The bill-stickers have sped,
And porter-house and shanty
The flaming call have read —
Such as can read that is to say.
The rest have heard the news —
And those who cannot read can run
With or without their shoes.
Shame on the false Milesian
W^ho lingers anyhow.
When Doheny the fugitive.
Gives orders for a row.
The rioters and rowdies
Are pouring in amain
From many a noisy grog-shop ,
And many a dirty lane,
From many a mouldy office where,
The pettifogger blooms,
And waits his prey from day to day
In precincts of the Tombs.
But in the Sixth Ward chiefly
The news was spread about,
And from the Sixth Ward chiefly
Did the rabble crew turn out;
The "Bloody Sixth" where KELLY rules
The roast triumphantly.
And by his Aldermanic rights
Sets drunken loafers free*
Thience mustered many a lusty wight,
The Saxon's fierce defier
Across the water — taking care
To put himself no nigher —
Who in the prime of Tammany
Had often played his part.
And proved himself a "Dimmocrat"
Of hand and eke of heart.
And on the three election days
Was wont the brunt to bide.
To mob the polls and block the ways.
And thrash the Whigs beside —
Or if he could not thrash, at least
His foemen to abuse —
And swell with pride the sturdy train
Of brawling bigot Hughes.
According to the programme.
To dignify the aff^air,
Ned Butler the confederate ,
Was called unto the chair.
At his right hand stood the Doheny
(If w^e thus accent the name).
And at his left the people's man
Of subterranean fame.
Who never looked more proud , 'tis said ,
And glad of his array,
Not even on the hallowed morn
Of that eventful day,
When BlackwelPs famous island
Received him to her breast;
And oped in joy her granite gates
To greet the glorious guest.
Then up and spake the Doheny,
"My friends , we will disgrace
This minion of the Saxon,
Who talks ill of our race.
He says the Celts are barbarous,
And also given to lie;
Considerably uncivilized —
The wretched foreign spy!
Unruly and disorderly —
Of course he must mean us.
Three groans for Henry Bulwer, then!
I move we raise a muss!"
And then (to take a little horn) the speaker made a pause.
And great was the excitement, and terrific the applause;
And curses loud and deep were called down on Sir
Henry's head.
And Doheny began again, and this MEMORIAL read: —
The Boys of Knockdownmany and Killmore^
To His Excellency President Fillmore,
The hesitating modesty proverbial to our race.
Would hinder us from thrusting our nose where we've
no right to,
But the present is so flagrant and remarkable a case.
That it's what we are in honor bound to talk about, and
fight, too.
We've all been so insulted by Sir Henry, the Ambassador,
That Your Excellency '11 see it's quite impossible to pass
it o'er.
He says that Celts are barbarous, will forge as well as steal.
Are vicious and uncivilized, and not at all genteel.
And by the Celts he means ourselves, because we're
Saxon-haters
(Though but for sons of Saxon men we'd been hard up
for taters) ,
i
9
And many of us have thriven in this Saxon-settled land,
And all of us have multiplied, till we're a goodly band.
And throw a fourth of Gotham's votes ^ be pleased to un-
derstand.
And some of us are law^yers, and have risen to rank
and riches —
What a bloody shame to say of us we don't wear any
breeches !
And since we tolerate the laws and keep them — when
we must.
And though you all are heretics, don't tread you in the dust.
Considering these services, we've not the smallest doubt
That you'll proceed immediately to kick this Bulwer out ;
And if it should bring on a war, we're ready for the
slaughter, —
We'll talk as big, and run as fast^ as we did across the water.
And so of course Your Excellency will do all that's right.
And we, your said memorialists, will ever swear and fight.
"Ever pratf was too pacific for the order of the night,
So they amended as above, which pleased the meeting quite.
A SPECIMEN OF THE PUFF POE-
TICAL.
Spirit of the Times, July 1851.
I HAVE a friend one P. C. K — ,
Who selleth the best of all Champagne.
Champagne wine is good I wot.
Whether the weather be cold or hot;
When Boreas blows
And you're almost froze
From the tip of your nose
To the tips of your toes,
Then how your heart glows as the beverage flows
That makes you see everything couleur de rose
Or in the dog-days
When the sun's fierce rays
10
Set all in a blaze
And your blood seems to boil
And your butter turns oil
And the freshest of chops and steaks will spoil
And your face grows brown.
And your collars drop down
And there is n't a soul that you know left in town,
Save in Wall Street, where brokers, by way of preparing
For the still hotter temperature whither they're faring
Keep shaving and cornering, bulling and bearing,
(If the Editor shrinks
From this stanza, and thinks
Such an insinuation might possibly stop all his
Circulation in this one commercial metropolis.
Why then he may just
Leave it out and be — blessed.
Or fill up with asterisks as he likes best)
And your poor tired muse
Beseechingly wooes
The balmiest breezes of eve to come at her —
In short, under every stagle of thermometer
All times and all seasons are good for Champagne
Especially that of P. C. K. —
Some years ago there was going on
A great deal of talk about Du Brimont
And after that again years a few
There was still more talk about Cordon Bleu
And 'tis now the fashion to talk about Mumm
(The very name says, in its praises be dumb)
And some about Heidseck will prate for a week (it
Might hide very long before I would seek it)
And your grave Bostonian so stately of pace.
With second hand English writ in his face.
Of whom you may say without any libel, he
Claims to be master of omne scibile
And in every thing to be men's guider
Will talk to you half an hour about Schr eider ;
At one time Bacchanals all confest
That Brigham's Sillery was the best,
It used to gladden me when I spied
His grape leaf gilt on a bottle's side
II
But pallida mors who lets none escape
Without leave stalked away with our grape
And a very good fellow well known to me
Hangs out a wine that they call N. B.
If any one's cross or troubled with spleen, he
Will find it a capital Nota bene
But I'm sure there never was any Champagne
Like the — brand* of P. C. K. —
And I remember it happened to me
When I was a Cantab at Trinity;
A friend who lived in the land of the Gaul
Sent me some wine that was rather tall,
The name I was stupid enough to forget.
But the smack of the juice I remember yet.
'Twas a creamy wine of roseate hue
Like rubies dessolved in ambrosial dew.
And we brought in good fellows not a few
To carry a rich Symposium through.
Oh 'twas a goodly sight to see
The mirth of that revelling company!
The Celts that meet about the Park so notedly irascible
So prominent in everything that's make -a- man- jack-
ass-able ,
Could not have made more noise than we and scarce have
been more riotous;
We got a going such a pace no mortal man could quiet us ;
For one rose up and speechified and one sat down and sang
Another laughed the while he quaffed until the old roof rang.
And one was quoting Addison and one was quoting Rabelais,
And one declaiming Locksley Hall was by no means a
shabby lay
And one far gone, with something twixt a hiccup and a
cough in his
Throat, lay along ejaculating scraps of Aristophanes.
Now this was remarkably tall Champagne
But nothing to that of P. C. K. —
«
And if you would know
Where you must, go
* I've had to strike out the name because the brand is n't now
what it "used to was". 1857,
12
To find the wine
That is so divine
Whenever you feel like a fit of the blues
Take up your hat and put on your shoes
(Or boots as the case may be) on your feet
And go down to 80 Beaver Street,
For there is the office of P. C. K.,
And there you will find the best Champagne.
THE UNTRUE AND MELANCHOLY
HISTORYMARGUERITE GAUTIER.
"Spirit of the Times," July 1853.
MISS GAUTIER was a very nice girl,
With lips like coral, and teeth like pearl,
Cheeks very pink, and skin very fair.
Big blue eyes and golden hair;
And her style and her figure were very complete,
And her hands and her feet
Were remarkably neat.
And her name was Margaret (in French Marguerite).
In short, she was something uncommonly sweet.
All sorts of men, from the prince to the farmer.
Had to admire her, she was such a charmer.
"Sweets unto sweet," the strict conclusion brings,
That pretty women must, like pretty things,
Enumeration's power it might perplex
To note the longings of the fairer sex;
The growing wants that on indulgence wait,
The fragile china, and the massive plate.
The winter's heavy shawls and sable fur.
The summer's robes of painted gossamer,
The antique laces, and the fresh brocade.
The well-trained footman, and accomplished maid
The neat chaussure that tempts the passing beau;
The diamond's sea of light, the ruby's glow;
13
The prancing "steppers," and the gilt coupe',
The first new peaches, and the last new play;
And all the pride of life and lust of eye,
That fashion's fickle forms of fantasy supply.
But alas! for the visions of ladies romantic!
Not even the fairest perpetually can tick.
Margaret Gautier
Had no money to pay
For all the fine things she would have every day.
Her face was her fortune, as says the old song.
And she soon found some trouble in getting along,
For she hadn't the rhino to come it so strong.
In such a tight place being Margaret Gautier,
She took to the only contrivable way,
I'd rather her line,
Though it may be quite fine,
Should ne'er be adopted by any of mine.
Open house for whoe'er came along
(Provided he'd only the tin).
She kept, and she hung out no end of amanSj
(You see that the subject compels me to trench
Every once in a while on the tongue of the French),
Taking strangers' and natives, too, in.
Now you won't understand me as meaning t' advance
That such things as this happen only in France.
I haven't the least dubitation that it is
An every-day case in our populous cities;
Nay, in this virtuous town you might easily find,
If you so unvirtuously should be inclined.
Ladies as gay
As Margaret Gautier;
Only we don't so prize 'em
As to immortalize 'em
Every day , in a diiferent way ,
First in a novel, and then in a play.
But this is a trait of French civilization.
That's greatly conducive to edification.
As yet we are not so far forward; but ah!
In the good time that's coming, nous changerons cela.
When socialism over all orders and ranks is.
And folks love in leashes , and live in phalanxes,
14
And there is but one Fourier, and G — y his prophet,
'Twill then be the time to think seriously of it ,
And disciples of progress consistently may
For their goddess of Reason take Margaret Gautier.
Mr. Armand was a nice young man
As ever lounged in a smoking divan.
He turned the heads of the women and maids,
And he wore tight trousers, with stunning big plaids,
(At least such is Fechter's idea of the part.
And Fechter's allowed to stand high in his art.)
Who knew him the best were accustomed to say.
He was fit to be one of the jeunesse doree^
Which literally stands for gilt youth '^ but alas!
Their mettle is generally nothing but brass,
So it is a misnomer — we can't let it pass,
Unless you consider the letters too few,
And after the G just epenthesize* U,
When (with Tribunese grammar) perhaps it may do.
But this nice young man had lived much in the country.
And wasn't well posted in city effrontery.
Till he came down one day to la belle ville de Paris,
A city that plays with young men the Old Harry.
A friend of his there thought 'twould not be irrelevant
To take him around some, and show him the elephant.
And supposed them most likely the creature to meet
If they went to the house of the fair Marguerite.
Now Miss Marguerite had become so stuck up
She'd have none but the somest of punkins to sup,
And in making a nosegay she couldn't touch really a
Flower at all, except a camelia.
But it happened that Armand had seen her before.
And to see her but once was of course to adore.
So (in quarters like that there's small fear of rejection),
He conceived for this lady the warmest affection.
* Which means when you put in a letter or more
In the midst of a word where it wasn't hefore.
Consult any writer on figures of prosody,
Anthon or Gary — and Ramsay's good , too —
If you should any of them come across, a day
"When you have nothing that's better to do.
15
And she, by a most irresistible whim,
Was seized with the purest of passions for him,
Just at first sight that very night.
The wish she had formed she made speedily known,
To leave all the others, and love him alone;
And, since she was certain in town to allure all eyes.
Determined to go off, and quietly ruralize.
Thereby to get rid of her old city gaieties —
And certainly very agreeable in May it is
To wander away to some sylvan retreat
With a nice young man evermore at your feet.
But (now to the coolest thing yet very pat I come).
To go on a journey requires some viaticum.
So Margaret, to scare up the needful amount.
Straightway had recourse to a very rich Count ,
Who was one of her many amans or amis.
"I know you are flush, my dear fellow," says she,
"Lend me five hundred dollars to get up a spree."
So, thinking that he
Of the party would be.
The Count ponied up instantane-ous-ly.
You may "phansy his phelinx"
Beyond all concealings.
When he came back at night,
With no doubt all was right.
And found that the damsel to whom he had lent a
Cool half a thousand, was quite non inventa.
This singular couple (most couples are plural).
Meantime posted ofi" out of town to endure all
The hardships of doing a bit of the rural;
Such as, deprivation of city society.
Same faces over again to satiety ;
Dull rainy Sundays, that give you the vapors.
Stops in the mail, and no chance of the papers.
Gossips who will pertinaciously look for you —
Servants who won't as they should wash or cook for you;
Indeed, I've no doubt when the Count's loan was out.
They had sometimes to put their own clothes up the spout.
And dine on umbrellas, like Jingle in Pickwick,
And burn tallow candles with great nasty thick wick.
16
Yet spite of all evils they lived on their loves
And were getting as cozily on as tv^o doves,
When v^^ho should come down, their enjoyment to mar,
One unlucky day, but our Armand's papar!
He was an old gentleman, portly and big,
With very black clothes, and a very white wig,
Had the gift of the gab, and indulged in it freely.
And was in discourse platitudinous really.
When once he got off, and could spin you genteelly
As many round lies in a sentence as — any
Frenchman you know.
And there are many
Who can do so.
He had but this son, whom he doated upon.
And thought the young man getting .seriously done.
So determined to put a swift end to his fun.
And, just when his hopeful least dreamed of a visit, he
Appeared on the scene to disturb his felicity.
When once this old fogy saw how the land lay,
He started his plan in a very odd way.
Suspecting his son would be hard to persuade , he
Proceeded instead to come over the lady.
At first tried to bully, but met with his match.
So altered his scheme with convenient dispatch.
And taking a line, which appears of the oddest, he
Commended her much for her virtue and modesty;
"But," says he, "my dear child, we're all under dominion
Of a very great nuisance called public opinion,
And, though of your goodness /'ve not the least doubt.
Such ain't the opinion of most folks about.
Not only you'll send this young man to the d — 1,
But also you'll work his poor sister much evil.
So long as he keeps in your fair companie
She cannot be spliced to a proper parti y
(This was all a romance, and the old fellow knew it.
But he'd filled up his programme, and had to go through it.
If causes like this could break off a French wedding,
There'd be small amount of legitimate bedding ,
And Hymen's most a la mode priest might decline a cure
That aff*orded no fees, as a profitless sinecure.)
11
^Bo do, like an angel, clear out — cut away!
And a father will bless you for ever and aye.
Not to speak of the prayers of a sister and mother,
For her who saved them, and a son and a brother."
^'But what if I do," said the innocent Peg,
"He would run after me if he had but one leg.
Should I fly to the deserts of Ind on a camel, he
Would follow, nor care half a curse for his family."
"Exactly; and therefore you'll have to pretend
That the flame is burnt out and your love at an end;
And since he has no tin (on which comforts depend)
You're forced to take refuge with some other friend."
And poor Marguerite was so green that she did
Just what the old file of a governor bid.
The above is the version of Monsieur Dumas,
(Alexander, of course, but the son, not the pa.)
There are other historical writers who say
That the tale should be told in a diff'erent way;
That Marguerite really went off like a flash
Because her dear Armand was quite out of cash.
The thing has occurred very often before.
And probably will occur more than once more.
A lot of gay people one evening had met
In the rooms of a very extensive lorette.
Who gave a magnificent ball of a Saturday,
(It slides into Sunday, that's why she made that her day,)*
There were heaps of young dandies, and bushels of actresses
In pink, blue, and green — every color but black dresses.
And hard looking middle-aged men cutting dashes,
With no end of orders, and beards, and mustaches:
And Armand was there;
Out of very despair.
He went into society pour se distraire;
And whom should he meet but a girl with light hair!
It made him indignant to find in his way
His quondam companion. Miss Marguerite Gautier.
^-
* The French like to have their spree, out on the latter day.
Vol. II. ^
IS
For Armand had been drinking: just to drown unpleasant
thinking
He took down champagne like winking till he nearly
turned his head.
Though not absolutely reeling, still a long way past
concealing
Any strong or sudden feeling; and impetuously he said:
"Friends! just look at that 'ere woman! I have done for
her what no man
Would have done but me; uncommon strong the love
for her I bore.
By following and loving her I w^orried my old Governor,
Lost my station in the nation, opportunities a score.
Fame and fortune both despising, her affection only prizing,
I had starved with her, or shared with her a cottage
or a crust;
But she left me! Why? Ah, / know. 'Cause I had run
short of rhino;
She abandoned me for lucre, for the vile and filthy dust !"
Here failed his speech; with rage he shook;
He hitched his pants and out he took
A most plethoric pocket book,
(While Margaret wished herself in Hades,)
Whence tumbled out bank notes in scores.
That turned the eyes of all the ladies,
And over Margaret these he pours:
"There, take the dross! since that is all you prize.
Both it and you I utterly despise."
Here Margaret's friend, who had witnessed the action.
Came up in a rage to demand satisfaction.
Addressing our hero with "Sir, I must say
You're a cow^ard to talk to a w^oman that way;
Consider yourself as insulted; take that!"
He pulled off his glove and he fetched him a pat.
Of course after that there was nothing to do
But to order up pistols and coffee for two.
A belligerant party at breaking of day
W^ent off to the wood in an ancient "po' chay,"
(The wood that is known as the Bois de Boutogir)
But it luckily happened that no one w^as hurt.
For a curious bystander gave the alarm,
19
And brought down on the combatants sundry gens d'armes^
Making seconds and principals promptly cut dirt.
The fair Marguerite, as it must be confessed,
Had caused a sad vacuum in many a man's chest.
So a sort of retributive justice was shown
When there turned out to be something wrong in her own.
Her drinking, and gaming, and flirting, et cetera^
Were not quite the remedies likely to better her;
But she "went it while young" at the best pace, until
She took to her bed, and lay hopelessly ill.
There, plundered by servants, unhelped by a friend ,
She lingered along to her desolate end.
At last, when grown weakest, and palest, and thinnest, her
Scruples induced her to send for a minister —
Or priest, I should say,
Who came the next day,
And "carried her sins and her fears all away.-'
And this is why the party prater
(As Colonel Pipes perchance might say)
Never saw fit to reprobate a
Perusal of this play.
Although they anathematized Uncle Tom,
And hindered Dumas (that's the elder one) from
Going on with his tale of the Wandering Jew,
(Surnamed Isaac Laquedem, in which he'd a crack at 'em,)
That was bound to eclipse the famed story of Sue. ;^
Pve not yet been able to find that a priest
Has ever "pitched into" this drama the least,
Though the heroine's life a strict moralist shocks , he
Would hold that her death shows complete orthodoxy.
But if into this subject a writer inquires,
He'll be greeted with columns of "scoundrels" and "liars."
The sole line of argument some people know —
My dear Bishop Feegrave now isn't it so?
To make her happiness complet
She saw her Armand at her feet,
The old papa confessed the cheat,
And, since she had not the least chance of recovery,
And his son was so ardent and constant a lover, he
Without any condition,
Took ofi' his prohibition.
20
So she glided out of life,
Quite a saint, almost a wife.
MORAL OR ENVOY.
La Dame aux Camelias was so the rage.
And had such a run on the Vaudeville stage;
Nor only in Paris, but all over France ;
(They played it all round everywhere en province^
And in Italy, Belgium, and Germany, too.
Some dramatists thought it in England might do,
They got up a version extremely genteel —
If I rightly remember they called it Camille.
Then, since law in England requires, with a high sense
Of morality's claims, for each new piece a license,
They called on the Chamberlain; this reply made he —
"A very good play, of our own worth a score.
Like most of the dramas from Paris brought o'er;
But on this side the channel (the fact I deplore)
There's no lady-go-to-able name for a — lady,
In Miss Marguerite's peculiar position, and so
You'll agree with me surely — in short, it's no go."
Thus the conquering lady was run off the track;
That prude, Anglo Saxondom, drove her straight back.
But the worst was to come, for soon after she found
A strong opposition upon her own ground.
A vaudevillist, looking for something quite new.
Bethought him the "moral indignant" might do.
I'm not sure of his name.
Though 'tis one known to fame,
French names from one's mem'ry are so apt to steal.
Was it Clairville, or Bieville^ or some other ville'^
(It wasn't Bayard
For he isn't ihar,
But has gone to — wherever dead Vaudevillists are.*)
* His mode of departure was so very French
That it seems to be fairly deserving of menti-
-on, at least in a note; he was first taken ill
With his foot in a waltz, and his hand on his quill.
He gave a big ball on a Saturday night,
The very next morning his spirit took flight,
And his posthumous play
In the course of a day,
Was brought out with no less than the greatest success,
At the Vaudeville or the Varieies.
Ah, now I remember! the man is Barriere,
And his townsmen should pray he may ever be there,
A permanent barrier against the attractions
Of innocent names for uninnocent actions.
For he in his "Daughters of Marble" has told.
How these creatures are worse than the sirens of old.
He shows a young man from the fairest position
Brought down to a very unseemly condition.
By a woman to evil so hopelessly wed
There isn't a word on her side to be said.
Till at last, stripped of all, and with scarcely a rag on his
Back, he expires in the greatest of agonies.
AN ANATHEMA A LA WALTER
D E M A P E S.
On the man who stole my purse in an Omnibus. Knickerbocker 1856.
MAY the man who stole my purse meet with all
inflictions !
Friendship of the Sewer set, Feegrave's benedictions.
Long harangues Congressional , full of wrath and passion
Strikingly illustrated in the present fashion.
May his wife write several books and be counted clever,
May his sons be candidates (well abused) for ever!
May he be in prison shut, fasting without ere a can.
And have nothing there to read except the North- American f
May he perish unabsolved of all sins confessible;
May he have to write a leader for the Inexpressible
May he be dissected by Bowie-Knives and handsaws,
And sent off an Emigrant overland to Kansas!
When its earthly tenement yields his soul no shelter
May it animate the corpse of an ancient pelter.
Tackled to an omnibus, may 'neath whip and curb he
Travel to eternity o'er the Russ in Urbe.
22
May he be devoured alive by the fiercest creatures
Cimices domesHci^ Carribee mosquitoes!
May the railroads subdivide into sausage meal him
And adopted citizens o'er their whis key eat him!
SONG OF THE BUCHANIERS.
Fraser, December 1856.
THE day is past, the votes are cast,
The great result is known;
No more of fear, but joy and cheer:
The land is now our own.
Whatever powers to combat ours
And check our course were wont.
Both great and small, we put down all.
And first of all FREMONT.
We hate his fame, we scorn his name,
(As all that sounds like free;)
We therefore have put Fremont down,
And hey, then! up go we!
We'll put the Northern presses down.
Their awkward voice we'll stifle;
We're not the men for tongue and pen.
We go for knife and rifle;
For bludgeon and rope shall be full scope,
From Kansas to the sea;
We'll therefore put the Free Press down.
And hey, then! up go we!
We'll put free speech in Congress down.
In Bully Brooks' way;
The law of the cane shall make quite plain
What members must not say.
No man shall dare our plots declare.
Or show how black they be;
We'll put free speech entirely down,
And hey, then! up go we!
23
And next we'll put religion down,
(Except what does for slaves,
That they should obey for ever and aye.
Which sometimes bloodhounds saves,)
For the parsons preach free-toil and free-speech, —
A vile iniquity!
We'll therefore put religion down.
And hey, then! up go we!
We'll afterwards put marriage down,
For the neighbouring Mormon powers
Have their own 'peculiar institution,'
And sympathize with ours;
The patriarchs old who had slaves, we're told,
Had also polygamy.
Can one be well and the other of hell?
So hey, then! up go we!
We'll also put all learning down.
For scholars are our foes.
The men of thought set those at nought
Who can only reason by blows:
And learning gives us ill report,
It likes not slavery;
We'll therefore put all learning down.
And hey, then! up go we!
We'll put all decent envoys down,
And pack them straight away.
MHCE WALSH has claims to go to St. James,
To the Tuileries, Soule;
And ATCHISON shall to Russia go,
(For the Czar fit company;)
Thus will we put good manners down.
And hey, then! up go we!
VERSE TRANSLATIONS.
THE LAMENT FOR DAPHNIS.
FROM THE FIRST IDYLL OF THEOCRITUS-
Literary World, August 1847.
BEGIN the lay Bucolical, dear muses mine, again !
Thyrsis am I from ^tna, and this is Thyrsis' strain.
Where were ye, nymphs, where were ye when Daphnis
pined away?
In Peneus' lovely vallies, or in Pindus' vales that day?
For sure by great Anapus' wave ye were not then, I deem,
Nor Etna's lofty summit, nor Acis' holy stream.
Begin the lay Bucolical, dear muses mine, begin!
For him the jackals loudly howled ; him did the wolves deplore ;
His death the very lion from the glade lamented o'er.
Begin the lay Bucolical, dear muses mine, begin!
And many cows were round his feet, and many bulls
were near,
And many calves and heifers too, bewailed their master dear.
Begin the lay Bucolical, dear muses mine, begin!
First Hermes from the mountain came, and said „0 Daph-
nis mine!
With whom art thou so much in love? For whom, my
friend, dost pine?"
Begin the lay Bucolical, dear muses mine, begin!
And cowherds came, and shepherds came, and goatherds
crowded fast;
They all inquired what ill was thine ; Priapus came the last,
And said "Poor Daphnis, why art thou thus wasting?
while the maid.
O'er many a rugged mountain top, o'er many a grassy slade,
Has fled to seek another man,* and left thee desolate.
* Our translation here is founded on an emendation of C. Words-
worth, a ds S xtOQa for the old reading a Ss T€ XCOQa confirmed
by the parallel passage in Virgil.
" Galle quid insanis ? ait, tua cura Lycoris
Perque nives alium jerque horrida castra secuta est.'*
26
Ah, truly thou art sick of love, and very hard thy fate !"
But nothing said the swain to them ; his bitter love for aye
He brooded o'er and cherished it, unto his dying day.
Begin the lay Bucolical, dear muses mine, begin!
And Venus sweetly laughing came to triumph o'er her foe.
(A pleasant smile was on her lips ; a heavy heart below).
"And did'st thou, Daphnis, boast o'er love to gain the
victory ?
And hath not love, a grievous love, been victor over thee ?"
Begin the lay Bucolical, dear muses mine, begin!
"O Venus, hard and cruel one!" made answer Daphnis then,
"O Venus very blamable! O Venus curst of men!
And dost thou think already, that my sun for aye hath setP
Daphnis shall e'en in Hades feel the pangs of Eros yet."
Begin the lay Bucolical, dear muses mine, begin!
"Steal off to Ida, where they say the cowherd once to thee —
Go to Anchises! there are oaks; here only reeds to see;
And pleasant is the swarming hum of many a honey bee."
Begin the lay Bucolical, dear muses mine, begin!
"Adonis too is in his prime, for. well he tends his ewes.
And shoots the trembling antelopes, and savage beasts
pursues."
Begin the lay Bucolical, dear muses mine, begin!
"Yet once again approaching him, say thus to Diomed,
'The cowherd Daphnis yields to me; come thou and fight
instead!'"
Begin the lay Bucolical, dear muses mine, begin!
"Wolves, jackals, cavern- loving bears, ye mountain-
dwelling brood,
Farewell! Herd Daphnis never more shall meet you in
the wood,
Nor in the thicket nor the groves. O Arethuse, farewell!
And rivers all, whose lovely streams from Thymbris
downward swell!"
Begin the lay Bucolical, dear muses mine, begin!
"And whether thou, O Pan, upon Lyceus' range should'st be,
Or traversing great Maenalus, come thou to Sicily !
And leave the tomb of Helice, the fun'ral pillar high.
Of Lycaonides, though loved by dwellers in the sky."
Leave off the lay Bucolical, go muses, leave the lay!
"Come royal Pan, and take from me this pipe so sweet to play.
(Its stops are of the closest wax, its mouth is wreathed well)
For this unlucky love of mine is dragging me to hell."
27
Leave off the lay Bucolical, go muses, leave the lay!
"Let brambles, yes, let sharpest thorns bear violets to-day,
Let bushes of the juniper sprout with narcissus fine.
Let everything be interchanged, and pears grow on the pine ;
Since Daphnis dieth. Now indeed let stags the staghounds
tear,
And mountain owls for singing with nightingales compare."
Leave off the lay Bucolical, go muses, leave the lay.
So much he said, and nothing more. His song for aye
was done.
Him Venus would have lifted up, but all his thread was spun ;
And Daphnis to the river went. Away the eddy bore.
The man whom every muse did love, nor any nymph abhor.
THE INCANTATION OF SIM^THA.
FROM THE SECOND IDYLL OF THEOCRITUS.
Literary World, July 1853.
HO, SLAVE! the laurel branches here. Where can
the philtres be?
Black wool around the magic vase! Arrange it speedily;
That I the love who loves me not may conquer by my
charms.
Since now for twelve whole days the wretch comes never
to my arms.
He knows not if we live or die ; he ne'er at break of day
Knocks at our door; his fickle love has gone another way.
Ah, to his dear gymnasium to-morrow will I go.
To see him, and to scold him, too, because he treats me so.
But now my charms shall conquer him. Oh, lend thy
brightest ray,
Propitious moon! for unto thee in secret will I pray.
And to the infernal Hecate, whom jackals shrink before.
As o'er the funeral mounds she stalks, amid the clotted gore.
Hail, Hecate! thou fearful one, and speed us now if e'er.
That our's with dire Medea's drugs, or Circe's may compare.
And prove effective as the charms of Perimede fair.
Then turn and turn, my magic wheel, and bring my
lover home.
28
And first we burn the barley cakes — Haste, strew them,
Thestylis.
Where are your wits, you wretched girl, at such a time as this?
Am I become your laughing-stock? Now strew, and
strewing say,
"Thus do I sprinkle Delphis's bones, thus let them waste
away."
Then turn and turn, my magic wheel, and bring my
lover home.
For Delphis hath tormented me; so I at Delphis now
Enkindle this; and as it snaps, the blazing laurel bough.
And not a cinder leaves to see, so sharp and swift the flame.
So let the fire of fierce desire consume all Delphis's frame.
Then turn and turn, my magic wheel , and bring my
lover home.
Now as I melt, with aid divine, this cake of wax away.
E'en thus be Delphis, Myndis's son, consumed with love
to-day ;
And even as this brazen wheel whirls round in rapid track,
So let him to my door be whirled by Aphrodite back.
Then turn and turn, my magic wheel, and bring my
lover home.
Now will I offer barley husks — Thou, Artemis, can'st well
Move all things stubborn — even him, the Inflexible, of hell —
The dogs are baying through the town , with sacred
terror awed.
Ho, strike the cymbal, Thestylis! The goddess is abroad!
Then turn and turn, my magic wheel, and bring my
lover home.
Behold! the sea is silent all; the blasts are gone to rest.
But never sleeps the pain of care within my troubled breast.
For I am all on fire for him, who left me (woe's my life !)
To be a vile deserted thing, and not a wedded wife.
Then turn and turn, my magic wheel, and bring my
lover home.
Thrice pour I my libation out, and thrice these words
I say, —
"Or be she maid, or be she wife, whom Delphis loves, I pray
He may forget her utterly, like Theseus, who of old.
On Dia Ariadne left for all her locks of gold."
Then turn and turn, my magic wheel, and bring my
lover home.
29
There grows a herb in Arcady that maddens every steed;
The mares and colts go wild from it that on the mountains
feed.
Thus raging my I Delphis see ; like madman let him come,
And from his loved gymnasium rush hither to my home.
Then turn and turn, my magic wheel, and bring my
lover home.
I take this bit of woollen fringe — from Delphis's cloak
it came —
And thread by thread the fringe I shred above the hungry
flame.
Ah me! ah me! consuming love, why suck my life-blood so?
Why cling to me like hungry leech that will not let me go?
Then turn and turn, my magic wheel, and bring my
lover home!
To-morrow I'll a lizard pound, a bitter cup to pour;
Now, take these unguents, Thestylis, and go anoint his door,
Above the threshold where I still am bound in soul and heart.
Though nothing he regardeth me, or eareth for my smart;
And spitting, whisper "E'en thus anoint I Delphis's bone."
Then turn my wheel, and bring my love, for now I sit alone.
Ah, how shall I my passion wail? With what begin my lay ?
Who brought this evil on me? Anaxo came one day
(The daughter of Eubulus), who the sacred basket bore
Unto the grove of Ai-temis; around her and before
Were many savage animals, a lioness was one.
O, lady Moon, regard my love! Oh, hear how it begun!
Thucarila, my Thracian nurse (now dead and gone is she).
Was living near, and much besought and much entreated me
To see with her the spectacle, so I, foredoomed to woe,
Put on my fairest linen robe along with her to go.
And clasped me in the yellow gown that Clearista lent.
O, lady Moon, regard my love! hear whence the .dart
was sent.
WTien we were half-way thither, by Lycon's house I spy
Delphis and Endamippus together passing by.
Their locks were blond as amber, their Hmbs were shin-
ing bright.
So shining, that thy beams, fair Moon, cast not a lovelier light.
For they were fresh from exercise, from pleasant toil
they came,
O, lady Moon, regard my love! Oh, hear me whence
the flame.
so
And as I saw him I grew mad, my soul was wounded sore,
Unhappy me ! my beauty paled ; I saw and heard no more,
Nor thought of the procession, nor knew I how I came
Back home again ; a fiery pang took hold of all my frame.
Ten days, ten nights in bed I lay, but found there no repose.
O, lady Moon, regard my love! Oh, hear how it arose!
And all my skin grew tawny as sandal wood to see.
And all my hair fell off my head, and nought was left of me
But skin and bones ; while still I searched the city through
and through.
Nor missed the house of any hag, if only charms she knew.
But no one had a remedy, and still the time went on.
O, lady Moon, regard my love! Oh, hear how it began!
And so to this my servant-maid at last the truth I say,
"O, Thestylis, for this disease find me some saving way.
For Myndis's son has all my soul 5 now, therefore, hasten
straight,
For him at the gymnasium of Timagetes wait
Since there it is he loves to be, ay, thither 'tis he goes.
(O, lady Moon, regard my love ! Oh, hear how it arose !)
And when you find him there alone, nod quietly, and say,
'Simsetha wishes you to come,' and bring him out this way,"
Thus said 1 5 off she ran, and brought the smooth-limbed
Delphis here.
Into these very rooms of mine ; and when I knew him near.
Just as he crossed the threshold with lightly falling tread,
(O Lady Moon,regardmy love! Oh, hear me how it sped!)
I shuddered all from head to foot, and colder grew than snow,
And streams profuse, like southern dews, did from my
forehead flow,
And nothing could I utter — r not so much as in their sleep.
Young children say, while closer they to their dear
mother creep*,
But all of me was statue-stiff, such shivers through me ran.
O, Lady Moon, regard my love! Oh, hear how it began!
And when he saw me, heartless one, he looked upon the
ground.
And sat down on a little couch, and, sitting, speech he found:
"In asking me to this your house, before I hither came.
You did as much anticipate, dear mistress mine, my flame,
As I did when I ran to meet sweet Phyllis t'other morn.
(O Lady Moon, regard my love! Oh, hear how it
was born!)
For I was coming, yes, I was, I swear by love's delight,
With three or four good friends of mine, about the fall of night ;
Sweet apples in my robe for you, my head with poplar
crowned
(The poplar white of Hercules), with purple fillets round.
(O Lady Moon, regard my love ! hear how it did abound!)
And if you chose to let me in — w^hy , very well — in truth
They say I am, as men go now, a tall and handsome youth ;
I should have been contented with one kiss of your sweet
mouth.
But if you had repelled me then, and bolted fast your gate,
We should have come with torch and axe we're not the
men to wait.
(O Lady Moon, regard my love! Oh, hear me whence
it came).
So Cyprian Aphrodite is the first my thanks to claim.
And after Aphrodite, you have saved me from my fate.
Dear lady, by inviting me to come within your gate,
When I was half consumed by love, for truly love's desire
Becometh oft a burning ray more fierce than Vulcan's fire."
So said he; I, too credulous, believed the tale he told,
And took him by the hand at once, and in my arms did fold.
Our couch was soft, our lips were warm, our whisperings
were sweet;
I will not babble. Lady Moon, nor all we said repeat.
And from that time to yesterday he saw by me no blame.
Nor I by him, until to-day an ancient gossip came
(The' mother of our piping-girl, Philista is her name) ;
This very day, when up the heavens the steeds immor-
tal sped.
That bring the rosy-fingered morn back from her ocean bed.
She told me many other things, and "Delphis loves," she said.
She did not tell me if his love were wedded wife or maid,
That I might know it certainly; but only did pretend
He poured his cup of pleasure full, and hurried to his end ;
And that A^r house with crov\rns of his was thickly garlanded.
Such was the old wife's narrative. It was the truth she said.
For now it is the twelfth day that I wait and see him not ;
He has some other dear delight, and we are all forgot.
But now ri try to win him back with philtres — should
he still
Torment me thus, I'll drive him to his destiny, I will;
32
So mighty are the drugs I have safe guarded in my chest.
Of old I learned them, mistress mine, from an Assyrian guest.
Then turn thy chariot ocean-ward, then Lady Moon, adieu!
And I will bear my heavy grief, and live my sorrows through.
Farewell, fair Moon ! and fare ye well, ye other stars of light,
That follow at the chariot wheel of softly -gliding night !
AN AMGEB^AN FROM THEOCRITUS.
Literary World, February 1849.
MENALCAS.
VALLEY and rivulet!
Earth's fairest daughters!
If e'er Menalcas yet
Sang to your waters
Songs that ye love indeed.
While his pipe trilleth
Do ye his lambkins feed
As his soul willeth;
And should our Daphnis dear
Bring his kids ever.
May he find plenty here,
Failling him never.
DAPHNIS.
Grasses and living wells!
Sweetest things growing,*
Deem ye like Philomel's,
Daphnis' strains flowing?
Feed then his little flock,
And, should his friend come,
May he of richest stock
Ne'er to the end come.
* A singular expression, but exactly that of the original;
xQccvaL xal (iozdvac yXvxsQdv q)vz6v„
MENALCAS.
Green pastures everywhere,
Milk-pails o'erwelling;
Young things up-growing are
Where my love's dwelling.
But on the mournful day
When she ne'er passes,
Dry is the shepherd's lay,
Drier the grasses.
DAPHNIS.
There wanders many a sheep
(Fertile goats by her).
Bees swarm in thickest heap.
Oaks spring up higher,
Where my girl's wont to play.
Off should she speed her.
Dry are the cows that day,
Drier their feeder,
MENALCAS.
Goat, o'er whose she-ones bend
Woods deep and quiet,
Kids, to the wave descend.
For she is by it.
Tell Milo, short-horn mine.
Straight to him speeding,
How Proteus, though divine,
Seals was once feeding.
DAPHNIS.
Let me the land not hold
Of Pelops cunning,
Nor have great store of gold,
Nor beat winds running;
But, singing 'neath this rock.
Be, love, thy pillow.
And view our grazing flock
Down to the billow.
MENALCAS.
Cold is to trees a bane,
Heat drieth water;
Birds are with springes ta'en.
Beasts in toils caught are,
Vol. n.
34
Maid's love makes man to moan,
Yea, Father Jove too,
I have not loved alone;
Thou hast felt love too.
THE VENGEANCE OF EROS.
IMITATED FROM THEOCRITUS.
American Review, November 1848.
A WOOER very passionate once loved a cruel May —
Her form was fair beyond compare, but bitter was her way;
She hated him that lov^d her, and was unkind for aye.
Nor knew she Love, how great the god, how perilous his bow.
How bitter are the shafts he sends on her that is his foe.
Whene'er they met, whene'er they spoke, immovable was she.
And gave him not a gleam of hope to soothe his misery.
No smile her proud lip had for him, no pleasant glance
her eye;
Her tongue would find no word for him, her hand his hand
deny.
But as a forest-dwelling beast far from the hunter flies.
So did she ever treat the wretch: dire scorn was in her eyes;
Her lips were firmly set at him, her face transformed with ire.
And anger paled her haughty brow that used to glow like fire.
Yet even so to look on she was fairer than before.
And by her very haughtiness inflamed her lover more;
Until so great a blaze of love he could no longer bear,
But went before her cruel door and wept his sorrows there.
And kissed the stubborn threshold, and cried in his despair —
"O savage girl and hateful ! of no human birth art thou!
Stone-hearted girl, unworthy love! I come before thee now
To off'er thee my latest gift — my death — for ne'er again
Would I incense thee, maiden, more, nor give thee any pain.
But whither thou hast sentenced me, I go, for there, they say.
For lovers is forgetfulness, a cure, a common way;
Yet not e'en that, the cure of all, my longing can abate.
I bid these doors of thine farewell, but well I know thy fate.
The rose like thee is beautiful — in time, it fades away;
And beautiful Spring's violet which withers in a day :
The lily is exceeding fair; it falls and wastes anon:
The snow is white; it hardens first, and then is quickly gone ;
And lovely is the bloom of youth, but short-lived is its prime.
And thou shalt love as I have loved — 'twill surely come
— that time,
When thou shalt look within thyself and weep in bitter woe.
But grant me, love, this last request — one kindness now
bestow :
When thouhast found me hanging dead before thy portal here,
pass not by my wretched corse, but stand and drop a tear,
And loose the cord, and wrap me up in garments of thine own,
And give one kiss , the first and last that e'er I shall have
known.
And do not fear to kiss the dead — the dead lips will not
move;
1 cannot change to life again, though thou shouldst change
to love.
And hollow out a tomb for me, my hopeless love to hide ;
Nor go away till thou three times 'Farewell, my friend,'
hast cried.
And if thou wilt, say also this, 'My friend was good and
brave ;'
And what I write upon thy wall write thou upon my grave!
'Love slew the man that lieth here; wayfarer pass not by,
But stop and say, A cruel May hath caused him here to lie.' "
The heartless fair came forth at morn, and there her lover
hung.
She nothing said, nor wept a tear that he had died so young.
Her careless garments brushed the corse that hung before
her bath ;
The wonted fountain tempted her, she sought the pleasant
bath.
And braved the god whom she had spurned ; for at that very
place,
A marble Cupid crowned the wave high o'er a marble base.
The conscious statue toppled prone; the stream with blood
was dyed;
The cruel girl's departing voice came floating on the tide.
Rejoice and triumph, ye that love ! The god his wronger slew.
And love, all ye that are beloved! the god will have his due.
3*
86
BACCHUS AND ARIADNE.
FROM THE FIRST BOOK OF OVID'S ARS AMATORIA.
Knickerbooker, June 1847.
'GNOSIS in ignotis amens errabat arenis
Qua brevis sequoreis Dia feritur aquis, etc.
ON Dia's sandy islet the ocean billows beat;
On Dia's sandy islet stray ARIADNE'S feet,
Just as from sleep she started, those erring feet are bare,
All loose her flowing garments, all loose her yellow hair.
She plained to the deaf waters of THESEUS' cruelty;
Her tender cheeks were tear-bedewed, most pitiful to see.
She shrieked and wept together, but both became her well,
Nor was her face disfigured by all the tears that fell.
Her soft, soft breasts still beating with open hands, she cried,
'The traitor hath departed! — ah, what will me betide?
Ah what will me betide?' she said. Hark! over all the shore,
Sound cymbals shrill and tambourines that phrensied hands
run o'er.
With terror fell she prostrate and stammered like the dying:
Her color fled, and as the dead her pallid limbs were lying.
When lo ! the wild Bacchantes come, with tresses all abroad,
Andlo ! the buoyant satyrs come, that swarm before their god !
And lo ! the drunk SILENUS his seat can scarce retain ;
The ass is bending with his weight, his hands grasp tight
the mane ;
He chases the Bacchantes : they fly and tempt pursuit,
The while that clumsy rider goads on his sluggish brute.
Down from the long-eared creature he tumbles on his head !
'Get up! get up, old fellow!' the noisy Satyrs said.
His chariot top lACCHUS with vines hath wreathed about ;
His golden reins lACCHUS to his tiger-team lets out.
37
Nor blush, nor speak nor even think of THESEUS now
she may,
And thrice to fly she started, and thrice fear made her stay :
She shuddered like the barren ears, what time the tempest
blows,
She trembled like the light reed that in the dank marsh grows.
'Behold a love more constant in me !' lACCHUS cried,
'Fear not; thou, Cretan woman, shaltbe lACCHUS' bride:
The heaven shall be thy dowry ! a star for all to see.
Thou oft shalt guide from heaven, my bride, the ship tost
doubtfully.'
He said and from his car, lest the tigers her should fright,
Leaped down to land; the yielding sand confest his foot-
step's might.
He pressed her to his bosom — to strive she had no skill;
He bore her off — for easily a god does what he will.
Then some went singing Hymen! and some cried Evoe!
And so the God and his true-love were wedded holily.
THREE EPIGRAMS FROM GEORGE
BUCHANAN.
New Haven 1839.
VENDIDIT sere polum, terras in morte reliquit;
Styx superest Papse quam colat una Pio.
The heavens for gold Pope Pius sold,
The earth at death he left;
So he must dwell for aye in hell.
Of all but that bereft.
Paulus ab Hebraeo scis quantum distet luda?
Hie coeli Dominum vendidit, ille domum.
Wouldst know from Hebrew Judas how differs Paul of Rome ?
One sold the Lord of heaven, the other sells his home.
Contendunt specimen pistor pictorque uter edat
Pulchrius, hie fuco doctior, ille foco.
38
Hie fecisse Deum se jactat; rettulit ille,
Corpus ego verum, tu simulacra facis.
Dentibus assidu^ teritur Deus hie tuus, inquit;
Corrodunt vermes, rettulit ille tuum.
Pictor ait, multos meus integer astat in annos;
Ssepe una innumeros devorat hora tuos.
At tibi vix toto Deus unus pingitur anno,
Pistor ait, decies mille dat hora mihi,
Parcite, ait mystes frustra contendere verbis;
Nil sine me poterit vester uterque Deus.
Et quia utrumque Deum facio, mihi servit uterque:
Namque hie mendicat, manditur ille mihi.
A baker and a painter once into a quarrel fell.
Whether the skilful artist did the man of dough excel:
The painter boasted he made God ; but quick was the reply,
"You fashion but his image, his real body I."
"Your God is ever chewed by men," "And yours the worms
devour,"
"My God remains for years entire, a witness of my power ;
Of yours some tens of thousands are eaten in an hour."
"But you can scarcely paint a god in one revolving year ;
Of mine a hundred thousand in one short hour appear."
"Stay," said the priest, "my children, nor quarrel fruitlessly;
Your gods of bread and canvass are nothing without me ;
And since I make a god of both, they both promote my good.
The painter's god must beg for me, the baker's be my food."
THE AUTHORS' QUARREL.
Translated for the Literary World from Moli^re's.
Femmes Savantes^ February i853.
TRISSOTIN introducing Vadius).
OUR friend has been dying to see you so long.
That, in bringing him hither, I cannot be wrong.
No tyro, dear madam — an adept in wit.
PHILAMINTA.
The hand that presents him is surety for it.
TRISSOTIN.
All the authors of old he has read thoroughly;
Not a man in the country knows more Greek than he
PHILAMINTA.
Good Heavens ! He knows Greek, then ! Greeks sister; dear me !
BELISA.
Greek, niece; did you ever!
ARMANDA.
What, Greek! Can it be?
PHILAMINTA.
Mr. Vadius knows Greek! Ah! allow me the bliss,
For love of that Greek, sir, to give you a kiss.
(^She kisses him; he kisses Belisaf and Armanda also. J
HENRIETTE (to Vadius, who is proceeding to kiss her, too).
Excuse me, sir; Greek I do not understand.
PHILAMINTA.
I love those Greek books; they are really so grand!
VADIUS.
Dear Madam, I fear to be tedious or rude:
I may on some learned discussion intrude;
But I was so anxious to see you to-day —
PHILAMINTA.
Sir, a man who knows Greek cannot be in the way.
TRISSOTIN.
Besides, he does marvels in prose and in verse ;
And can, if he will, something pretty rehearse.
VADIUS.
The fault of our authors (without reservation)
Is, that they monopolize all conversation!
In street or at table, at court or in city,
Unweariedly reading some wearisome ditty.
Now, / think the silliest thing in creation
Is an author who everywhere begs admiration.
Who seizes the ears of the first he can find.
And punishes them for his absence of mind.
You never saw me such an obstinate bore;
I agree with the Greek who, they tell us, of yore
Forbid all his scholars, in special instructions.
To be in a hurry to read their productions —
Here's a little new poem for young lovers; permit
Me to ask for your candid opinion of it.
40
TRISSOTIN.
Your verses have beauties in none others found.
VADIUS.
The Loves and the Graces in all yours abound.
TRISSOTIN.
Your phrases are neat, and your style is so light!
VADIUS.
We find the pathetic in all that you write.
TRISSOTIN.
How sweet your Bucolics! how tender and true!
Theocritus, surely, was nothing to you.
VADIUS.
Your odes have a noble and elegant vein, "
That even old Horace could never attain.
TRISSOTIN.
Can anything equal your love-ditties rare?
VADIUS.
Can aught with your wonderful sonnets compare?
TRISSOTIN.
Your little rondeaux are so charmingly sweet!
VADIUS.
Your madrigals all are o'erflowing with wit!
TRISSOTIN.
In ballads especially all you excel.
VADIUS.
And you make charades supernaturally well.
TRISSOTIN.
If France could appreciate half of your worth!
VADIUS.
If merit now met its due honors on earth —
TRISSOTIN.
You would roll through the streets in a carriage of gold.
VADIUS.
Every square in the city your statue would hold —
Hem! this ballad of mine — your opinion upon it
I should like to —
TRISSOTIN.
Pray sir, have you seen a short sonnet
On the^ Princess Urania's fever?
41
VADIUS.
Just so;
'Twas read at a party a few nights ago.
TRISSOTIN.
Do you know who's the author?
VADIUS.
I know not — nor care,
For 'tis an exceedingly trifling affair.
TRISSOTIN.
Yet many admire it — or so they tell me.
VADIUS.
No matter for that — it's as bad as can be;
And if you had seen it, you'd think so too.
TRISSOTIN.
Dear sir, I am sorry to differ from you:
But I hold that its merit must every one strike.
VADIUS.
May Heaven preserve me from making the like!
TRISSOTIN.
I maintain that a better the world cannot show;
For / am the author — yes, /, you must know.
VADIUS.
You?
TRISSOTIN.
I.
VADIUS.
Well, I can't think how this came to pass.
TRISSOTIN.
I had the bad luck not to please you, alas!
VADIUS.
No doubt there was something distracted my head,
Or else the man spoiled it, so badly he read;
But here is my ballad, concerning which — I —
TRISSOTIN.
The days of the ballad, methinks, are gone by;
'Tis very old-fashioned and out of date quite.
VADIUS.
Yet, even now, many in ballads delight.
TRISSOTIN.
No matter; I think them decidedly flat.
42
VADIUS.
You think them! Perhaps they're no worse, sir, for that.
TRISSOTIN.
For pedants, indeed, they have charms beyond measure.
VADIUS.
And yet we perceive that they give you no pleasure.
TRISSOTIN.
You give others qualities found but in you,
(They all rise J
VADIUS.
You call others names that are justly your due.
TRISSOTIN.
Go, blotter of foolscap — contemptible creature!
VADIUS.
Go, scribbler of sonnets, and butcher of metre!
TRISSOTIN.
Go, impudent plagiarist — pedant, get out!
VADIUS.
Go, rascal —
PHILAMINTA.
Good Lord, sirs, what are you about?
TRISSOTIN.
Go, go, strip your writings of each borrowed plume;
Let the Greeks and the Latins their beauties resume.
VADIUS.
Go, you, and ask pardon of Venus and Bacchus
For your lame imitations of jolly old Flaccus.
TRISSOTIN.
Remember your book's insignificant sale.
VADIUS.
Remember your bookseller driven to jail.
TRISSOTIN.
My fame is established; you slander in vain.
VADIUS.
Yes, go to the author of satires again,
TRISSOTIN,
Go, yourself.
VADIUS.
With the greatest of pleasure I'd go.
He treats me with honor, as all people know.
He mentions me once, in the course of his sport,
As one of some authors in favor at court.
But he never once leaves you alone in his verses:
You are always the butt upon which he rehearses.
TRISSOTIN.
Exactly — then / am more honored by far.
He puts you in the crowd, like a wretch, as you are ;
He thinks by one blow you are easily slain,
Nor does you the honor to strike you again;
But he seeks me alone^ as an enemy rare,
'Gainst whom he must bring every effort to bear:
And his blows, still repeated, convincingly show
He is never quite sure to have vanquished his foe.
VADIUS.
My pen shall soon prove me — to your great disaster.
TRISSOTIN.
And mine shall soon let you know who is your master.
VADIUS.
I defy you in verse, prose, Latin, and Greek!
TRISSOTIN.
You shall hear from me, sir, in the course of the week.
CExit Vadius.J
THE CONTRABANDIST.
From George Sand, Knickerbocker, 1840.
Scene: A banquet in a garden.
CHORUS OF REVELLERS.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Let us strike the full goblets again and again,
Till their roseate lips shall be shattered in twain;
Come, wind of the evening, from balm-breathing bowers,
And strew on our foreheads the sweet orange flowers;
Let us drink to the day that unites us once more,
At the time-honored home of our sires of yore!
Brothers and friends, rejoice!
CASTELLAN.
Come, friend of my childhood, come servitor mine,
And fill me a goblet of generous wine !
Those hands that have guided my steps when a child,
Must support me again, ere this night shall be o'er;
And when I am stammering, wine-overcome,
I shall then seem thy master no more ;
And to me thou wilt say, as thou often hast said,
'My child, it is time to retire to thy bed.'
CHORUS OF REVELLERS.
Fill up, fill up the merry wassail cup!
Free, free be the red wine poured!
For the servant good who so long hath stood
By the side of his noble lord !
Let his wrinkled brow grow joyous now !
Let him yield his spirit up
To the power di\ine of the god of wine,
Who smiles in the mantling cup!
'Tis Bacchus fair that lurketh there,
The fairest of gods is he:
Yes, even Cupid is a sluggard stupid,
Compared with the wine-god free.
Drink, drink old man, till thy gray-haired age
Hath vanished and fled away.
And thou art as young as the youngest page,
Who now doth thy w^ord obey.
That thy lord may be, when deprived of thee.
Unable his couch to find,
And with us may stay, till the dawn of day,
Like a generous host, and kind.
A GUEST.
And why dost thou, my charming fair.
Refuse our revelry to share?
Why dost thou take such scanty sips
As hardly wet thy rosy lips?
Come, fill thy goblet brimming high!
For if thou dost not drink as I,
In truth I shall begin to fear
I am to thee no longer dear;
And that thou shun'st the red wine''s flow,
Lest it should make thee tell me so!
46
CHORUS OF REVELLERS.
Drink, wives and sisters, drink with us,
And join us in our lay.
For Bacchus only those betrays,
Who would all else betray.
'Tis he unveils the hearts of men.
Like the trump of the judgment day:
The liar's words he falsifies,
And the truth of the true makes clear;
So ye who have no wicked thoughts.
Unmeet for friends to hear,
Let fall your words confidingly.
Without a shade of fear;
As the crystal drops in early spring,
At Sol's all-powerful will.
Start forth adown the ice-bound cliffs.
In many a limpid rill.
CHORUS OF WOMEN.
Yes, we will drink and sing with you,
Nor shun the red wine flowing;
For we have nothing in our hearts,
That we should fear your knowing;
And if we say too much to-night,
'Twill be no cause of sorrow;
For well we know that none of you
Will think of it to-morrow!
OMNES.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Let us strike the full goblet again and again,
Till their roseate lips shall be shattered in twain:
Come, wind of the evening, from balm-breathing bowers,
And strew on our foreheads the sweet orange flowers!
This, this is the day that unites us once more,
At the time-honored home of our sires of yore:
Let one and all rejoice!
A GUEST.
I fear that the uproar of all our voices together,
may intoxicate us sooner than the wine. Let us suffer
the jolly god to take possession of us slowly, and gra-
dually to infuse into our veins his genial influence. Let
the youngest of us sing some popular air, and we will
repeat the chorus only.
BOY.
Here is a lay of the mountains, which you must all
remember. It often draws tears from the eyes of those
who hear it in foreign lands.
CHORUS.
Ay, sing, my boy, sing, make no delay!
And let each, as the chorus he swells to day.
Bless his good angel that now, once more.
He sees the home of his sires of yore:
Let one and all rejoice!
BOY.
'I who a contrabandist am,
A noble life I lead;
I scour the mountains night and day,
Or down to the hamlet speed.
To sport with the lovely maidens there ;
And when the guard comes by,
I clap the spur t© my good black steed,
And back to the mountains fly!
Huzza! huzza! my good black steed.
The guard is just in view;
Huzza! huzza! my good black steed!
Ye maidens fair, adieu!
CHORUS.
'Huzza! huzza! my good black steed!
The guard is just in view ;
Huzza ! huzza ! my good black steed !
Ye maidens fair, adieu!'
Rejoice ! Rejoice!
Let us strike the full goblets again and again.
Till their roseate lips — '
CASTELLAN.
Ha! who is this pilgrim that issues from the forest,
followed by a famished dog, black as night ? He approaches
us with an uncertain step. He seems worn out with fa-
tigue. Fill him a generous cup. Let him drink to his
far-off home and absent friends.
CHORUS.
Tired wanderer, the cup of joy come fill with us, and drain
To the far-off home and absent friends thou ne'er ihay'st
see again.
47
THE STRANGER.
Ungrateful country, friends untrue,
I never more will drink to you!
Accursed for ever may ye live,
Who a brother thus like a beggar receive !
For ever may ye be forgot,
Who a former friend remember not!
The w^orthless cup ye bid me take,
(A vulgar alms,) I fain would break.
And in that wine would bathe my feet.
That yields my heart no genial heat.
False is your friendship, bad your wine.
And your welcome cold as this lot of mine I
CHORUS.
Who art thou, who alone darest to beard us all in
the home of our sires? — who boastest that thou art
one of us? — who pourest out in the dust the cup of
joy and hospitality?
STRANGER.
Who am I? I will tell you. I am an unfortunate
man, and therefore none of you remember me. Had I
come among you in my former splendor, you w^ould all
have run to meet me, and the fairest of your dames
would have poured for me the Stirrup-cup in a golden
goblet. But I come alone, with no pomp of equipage
— no servants, horses, nor dogs: the gold of my habit
is tarnished by sun and rain; my cheeks are hollowed,
and my forehead sinks under the weight of my lasting
cares , like that of Atlas beneath the burthen of the
world. Why do you gaze at me so stupidly ? Are you
not ashamed to be surprised in these bacchanalian orgies,
by him who fondly thought that you were even now
lamenting his absence? Come, rise! Let the proudest
among you yield me his seat by the side of your fairest
dame.
CASTELLAN.
Stranger , thou takest liberties with us which we
would not permit, were not this a grand festal day. But
as, during the saturnalia, slaves were permitted to lord
it over their masters, so on this day, devoted to the
48
rites of hospitality, we are willing to laugh at the jokes
of a ragged vagrant, who calls himself our brother and
our equal.
STRANGER.
The wanderer, my gracious hosts, who thus among you
stands,
No longer is your equal now, though born in kindred lands :
But once he was your equal, ye who, without alloy
Of care or anguish, merrily do quaff the cup of joy.
CHORUS.
And who art thou, then? Tell us, eccentric stran-
ger, and raise to thy parched lips the cup of joy.
STRANGER.
Every cup is filled with gall for him who has no
longer friends nor country; and since ye would know
who I am, be assured, O children of joy, that I who
have drunk the cup of life to the dregs, am greater than
you; for grief has made me greater and more powerful
than the greatest and most powerful among you.
CASTELLAN.
Stranger, thy boldness amuses me ; if I mistake not,
thou art a street poet; an improvisator of drolleries; an
expert buffoon; go on, and since it is thy whim not to
drink, drink not, but continue to amuse us with thy va-
garies, while we drain the cup of joy.
LA HERMOSA.
My beloved! my friends! Sir Castellan! this man
asserts that he is greater than any of you; but you
should pardon his boldness, for he has also said that he
is the most unfortunate of men. Do not, I beseech you,
torment him with your raillery, but prevail upon him to
tell us his story.
CASTELLAN.
Come, then, pilgrim, since La Hermosa has taken
thee under her kind protection, tell us thy misfortunes,
and we, amid our joy, will hear them with pity, for
love of her.
49
STRANGER.
Castellan, I have something else to think of beside
your amusement. I am neither improvisator, nor singer,
nor buffoon. I laugh, 'tis true, and that often ; but with
a secret, a gloomy, and a despairing laughter, as I look
upon the crimes and the w^oes of men. Maiden, I have
naught to tell. The history of all my misfortunes is
comprised in this one sentence: I am a man.
LA HERMOSA.
Unfortunate man! I feel for thee unutterable com-
passion Look at him, my friends; do you not seem to
recognize those features, so changed by grief? Look at
him, my dear Diego; truly, I have seen that face in a
dream, or else it is the phantom of one whom I have
loved.
DIEGO.
Hermosa, you are too compassionate. I have never
met that gloomy face in all my travels. If it has ap-
peared to you in a dream , that dream was doubtless a
night-mare, attendant on a bad supper. Nevertheless,
if he will tell us his story, I am willing to lay aside
my anger.
CHORUS.
If he is willing to relate.
Th' adventures he has known,
Here let him fill the cup of joy.
And gaily drain it down.
But if he will nor speak nor drink.
At once to Pluto going,
There let him drain the gall of hute.
From a cup of iron glowing!
BOY.
With a timid voice, on bended knee, I would make
bold to offer a suggestion to my lord. This stranger
has been attracted toward us by the chorus of my song.
When I commenced singing, he was winding along the
skirts of the wood, in the direction of the plain; but
suddenly, as if his ear w^ere struck with agreeable sounds,
he returned upon his steps; twice or thrice he stopped
Vol. II. 4
60 '
to listen, and when I finished, he had almost reached
us. He asserts that he is one of your old friends; that
you once were his companions; that this is his native
land. Well, then, let him sing my song, and if he can
repeat it all without a mistake, we cannot doubt that
he was born among our mountains.
CASTELLAN.
Be it so. Thou hast well spoken, young page, and
I approve of thy advice, for La Hermosa smiles.
CHORUS.
Young page, thou hast well spoken;
Our fairest's smile we see;
Of her consent it is the token.
And our host approves of thee.
Fill, then! and let the stranger
First sing our country's lay.
Then drain with us, no more a ranger,
The cup of joy to-day.
STRANGER.
'Tis well; I consent. Listen, then, and let none in-
terrupt me.
'I — I — I •— '
CHORUS.
Bravo! He knows the first syllable perfectly!
STRANGER.
Silence !
I who a youthful goatherd .am —
CHORUS.
No! no! That is not it!
LA HERMOSA.
Let him go on; he has a good voice.
STRANGER.
I who a youthful goatherd am,
A pleasant life I lead:
A careless child of the mountain wild,
A pleasant life indeed!
I from afar the town behold.
And never to this hour
Have seen, save from afar, the gold
Of the cathedral's tower.
51
All the fair maidens love I well,
Within the vallies near;
But more than all who there do dwell,
I love my sister dear:
Doloris, purest of the pure,
And fairest of the fair,
Who under those old cedars lies.
Beneath the green turf there!
Alas, my life is nought but tears —
My woes I cannot bearl
DIEGO.
What does the man mean by this strange medley?
His sister whom he loves as alive, and bewails as dead,
at the same time ! His pleasant life on the mountain,
and immediately after, his life dissolved in tears! Her-
mosa, his voice is clear, but his head is decidedly muddy.
LA HERMOSA.
Heavens! I have heard of a certain Doloris, whose
brother —
DIEGO.
Hermosa, you are too compassionate, indeed. Let
this adventurer sing the song of our country, or let him
go drain the cup of tears with Satan!
CHORUS.
Let him go drain the cup of tears
In the depths of gloomy Tartarus,
If he will not sing our country's song,
And drain the cup of joy with us.
STRANGER.
Let me alone a moment. My memory returns. I
have confounded two stanzas of the song. This is the first :
I who a youthful goatherd am.
An easy life I lead;
I on the mountain tend my flock,
Or rest on the verdant mead.
The gilded towers I never yet,
Save from afar, did view.
The maidens fair of the vale I love.
And I pull the violets blue, >
To weave them garlands far less bright
Than their eyes of azure hue.
4*
5^
And when I hear the vesper bell,
And evening's shades draw nigh,
I call to me my buck-goat black.
And back to the mountains hie.
Come hither, come hither, my buck-goat black!
The night obscures our view:
Lead on the flock, my buck-goat black!
Ye maidens fair, adieu!
CASTELLAN.
Well sung, pilgrim ! But this is not the song — not
even a stanza of it: thou hast changed the subject. Come,
try again; for thy voice is good, and thy imagination
more fertile than thy memory is faithful.
CHORUS.
In our song let him join; let him moisten with wine
His lips, that he breath may regain:
But our own native lay he must sing us to-day.
If the full cup of joy he would drain.
STRANGER.
I — I — Stop a moment. Ah, I have it:
I who a dashing scholar am,
A jovial life I lead:
Through Salamanca's learned courts.
By day and night I speed.
And oft beyond the ramparts pass,
Those female forms to view.
Who flit like goblins through the night.
The stormy night untrue;
The mother of all treacheries;
Accursed may she be!
The mother of all crimes and woes — '
Ah, I am wrong! That is not it.
DIEGO.
By Jove! it is time for him to find it out! He is
not remembering at all, but inventing, from one stanza
to another.
CHORUS.
Silence! silence! Hear him: he has a good voice.
53
STRANGER.
And when along a narrow lane,
A doctor old and sly,
Beneath my fair one's balcony —
Comes slowly stealing by,
I break my guitar on the old pedant's head,
And off to the mountains fly.
Take that! take that! old pedant black!
Fit recompense for you;
Take that! take that! old pedant black!
Bid the maidens fair adieu!
CHORUS.
Bravo! An amusing song! Let us repeat the chorus:
Take that! take that! old pedant black!
Fit recompense for you!
Take that! take that! old pedant black!
Bid the maidens fair adieu.
CASTELLAN.
Go on, my noble improvisator; thou hast not sung
the song of our country, and I am glad of it, for thine
pleases me; but thou knowest our bargain. It must be
honorably fulfilled, if thou wouldst drain with us the cup
of joy.
CHORUS.
Try, stranger, once more, and wet as before
Thy lips, thy spent breath to regain;
But our own country's lay thou must sing us to-day,
If the full cup of joy thou wouldst drain.
STRANGER.
Let me alone, I pray you. My thoughts overwhelm
and confound me. Ah! my memory returns; listen:
I — I — Now I have it:
I who a luckless lover am,
A mournful life I lead:
I weep in the mountains night and day.
With a heart that aye doth bleed;
I sometimes to th' accursed town
By night return once more.
To sit beneath her balcony.
Whose love for me is o'er.
54
My rival passeth! — forth I spring —
Its point my poiniard stains
In the black blood, the sluggish ink,
That flows in a pedant's veins:
Die! die! thou wretch whom nature hates!
And thou deceitful fair,
Thou never more shalt man delude — '
But I am wrong — wandering again ; I always con-
found the first and second stanzas, in my impatience.
Listen 5 this is it:
But ha! the holy brotherhood!
Those dreaded froms I view:
Back to thy sheath, my poiniard good!
The alguazils pursue.
Back to thy sheath, my poiniard good!
Thou maiden false, adieu!
CHORUS.
Back to thy sheath, my poiniard good!
The alguazils pursue:
Back to thy sheath, my poiniard good!
Thou maiden false, adieu!
CASTELLAN.
Yet once more, pilgrim ! Thou wanderest so adroitly,
that it is impossible thou canst not find the way again.
Try once more!
CHORUS
Try, stranger, once more, and wet as before
Thy lips, thy spent breath to regain;
For our own country's lay thou must sing us to-day,
If the full cup of joy thou wouldst drain.
STRANGER.
Were I to sing you that lay which is imprinted on
my memory in characters never to be effaced, the wine
of your cups would turn into tears; ay, into gall, per-
haps, or black blood!
CASTELLAN.
Go on, eccentric singer, and fear not. We love thy
songs; and the potency of our cups can soon lay all the
spirits of darkness.
55
CHORUS.
Proceed, noble singer, again!
No terrors our hearts can annoy;
The spirits of darkness we hold in disdain,
While crowning the full cup of joy.
STRANGER.
I who a wretched murderer am,
A frightful life I lead;
By night I lurk in gloomy caves,
Where toads and adders breed.
By day, in search of herbs and roots,
I scour the forests drear.
And strive once more the voice of man.
Though from afar, to hear.
My feet are mangled; on my brow
The mark of Cain I bear;
My voice is as the torrents hoarse,
With whom my home I share:
My soul is rugged as the cliffs.
Who now my comrades are.
And when the fatal hour draws nigh,
Marked by the rolling spheres,
A bloody star shoots up the sky,
A spectre black appears.
And till that star in ocean sets.
O'er cliff, and crag, and thorn.
Close in the gloomy phantom's track.
With frantic speed, I'm borne.
March on, march on, thou spectre black!
I follow close behind;
March on, march on, thou spectre black!
Athwart the stormy wind.
Well, why do you not repeat the chorus? Why do
you draw your cups away from mine? Cowards and
visionaries, what fear ye?
CASTELLAN.
Pilgrim, if this is the last stanza of thy song, and
the last chapter of thy history; if thy words, thy ap-
pearance, and thy conduct lie not; if thou art indeed a
murderer — '
56
STRANGER.
What! — are you afraid too?
LA HERMOSA: (aside, gazing on the stranger.)
Yet he is so handsome!
STRANGER : (bursting into a laugh J
Ha! ha! ha! You will make me die of laughter!
Ha! ha! ha! All these brave champions^ these intrepid
bacchanals, see them, paler than their cups of agate!
Look out! look out! Room for the spectre! Well, do
you see it? But no; 'tis a different shade; it appears to
me/ I see it; I hear it! Listen to its song:
I who a gallant warrior am,
A glorious life I lead;
My foe I in the mountains hold.
In nought can he succeed.
For there I press and weary him,
I harass and affright;
I shut him up in dark defiles,
Nor give him chance of flight.
His hosts with terror I consume.
His 'bloody flag tear down,
And trample 'neath my courser's feet
His power and his renown.
And when the thrilling clarion sounds,
I charge impetuously;
Hurrah! hurrah! my good black crest!
On! on to victory!
My plume, half-broken by the balls,
Floats to the wand so free!
CHORUS.
Hurrah! hurrah! my good black crest!
On! on to victory!
My plume, though broken by the balls,
Shall yet my triumph see.
CASTELLAN.
He sings right well: his eyes sparkle; his hand
makes the wine of his cup boil over. Drain that cup, my
brave singer; thou hast well deserved it; but if thou
wouldst sit among us, and drink till night, and from night
till morning, thou must sing the song of our country.
I
57
CHORUS.
Thou must sing us to-day, O stranger! the lay
Of our own native mountain and plain,
If thou till the morrow wouldst wash away sorrow,
And the full cup of joy with us drain.
STRANGER.
I will, but it must be when I please, and as I please.
Meanwhile, hear this stanza:
I who a careless rover am,
A reckless life I lead;
I wander from the crowded town,
And off to the mountains speed;
And thence I bear the maidens fair,
To my mansion rich and gay.
Where we whisper our loves in myrtle groves.
And wile the time away;
And when ennui, like a sable owl,
O'ershadows me in air,
I fill my goblet to the brim.
And I drown the bird of care.
Drink, drink, and die, thou night-bird black!
Drink, drink of the mantling cup,
'Tis life to me, 'tis death to thee!
We both must drink it up.
Back to thy nest on the church-yard yew!
On the hapless victim's tomb.
Go, on the spectre's shoulder perch!
Thy own, thy proper home.
Do you like that? Perhaps I am wrong again. Will
you hear another?
I who an humble hermit am,
A pious life lead I;
I watch and pray by night and day.
In my cell on the mountain high.
I lodge the weary pilgrims there,
I give their cares relief;
I expiate their sins and mine,
By penitential grief.
And when the moon in heaven rides high.
And the bright stars look pale.
And nought is heard but the chamois' cry,
Borne faintly on the gale,
56
Low on the lonely heath kneel I,
And raise my suppliant wail.
PRAYER.
To thee in this my solitude, I lift my humble cry,
And in the silent desert before thee weeping lie:
Ye splendors of the starry night, ye hosts of heaven above,
O witness ye my sorrow, and witness ye my love!
And ye, O guardian angels, bright messengers, who bear
From heaven to earth our pardon, as from earth to heaven
our prayer.
Who float amid the harmony of the celestial spheres.
Who in the moon's mild beams descend to this our vale of
tears,
Who over us, but all unseen, direct your rapid flight,
W^ith the circles of the rolling stars, and the gloomy
veil of night :
W^eep, weep with me ; repeat my prayers ; to you for aid I fly.
Receive my tears of penitence, and bear them to the sky.
And for my pardon plead with Him who hears the sinner's cry.
I have changed the measure. Does it please you
now? Come, then, join in the refrain:
To me a poor black penitent, O be thy mercy given !
It comes! and peace on earth is mine, and mercy, sent
from heaven.
CHORUS.
To thee, to thee, black penitent, be peace and mercy given !
Be peace on earth for ever thine, and mercy sent from heaven.
CASTELLAN.
If God absolves thee, pilgrim, the justice of men
cannot exact more than that of heaven. Seat thyself,
and be purified from thy crimes by the tears of repen-
tance; be cheered in thy calamity by the libations of joy.
STRANGER.
My crimes! my repentance! your pity! No, no, my
good friends; the song does not finish thus. You must
hear yet another stanza:
I who a bay-crowned poet am,
. I gods and men despise:
I have songs for grief, and songs for joy.
For the shades, and for the skies.
5^
A rhyme I have for the murd'rers knife,
And one for the bloody fray,
Another yet for love, and still
For repentance, one more lay.
'Tis thus I breathe my soul in verse,
And take no thought of time.
For what to me is the universe.
If I only have my rhyme?
And when ideas begin to fail.
Oh then I seize my lyre, •
And make its chords ring merrily out.
Which fools with joy inspire.
Sound out! sound out! my lyre-chord good!
Thou dost ideas supply;
Sound out! sound out! let reason go!
The rhyme's the thing, say I.
CASTELLAN.
Dost thou mock our hospitality, audacious poet! Hast
thou not a ready song, a complete melody? We have
listened to thee an hour, subjected by turns to the sway
of all the various emotions with which thou didst inspire
us; and hardly hast thou raised to the skies a pious
strain, when thou resumest the tone of a fiend, to laugh
at God , at thy fellow men , and at thyself. Sing us,
then, at least the song of our country, or we will wrest
from thy hands the cup of joy.
CHORUS.
Yes, sing our native lay, or we
The cup of joy will wrest from thee.
STRANGER.
O God of shepherds, hear me! and thou, O Mary, hear!
Thou mother mild of heaven, to whom the simple soul is dear;
O God of young hearts, hear me ! and thou, O Mary, hear !
Who dost inspire the lover, and confirm his vow sincere :
O God of battles, hear me! and thou, O Mary, hear!
Who dost preserve the valiant, and fill the foe with fear :
O God of hermits, hear me! and thou, O Mary, hear!
Protectress of the pious, who lov'st the sacred tear:
Oh God of poets, hear me! and thou, O Mary, hear!
Thou most harmonious melody of the celestial sphere !
Sustain the weary pilgrim, conduct the traveller bold,
Preserve the gallant warrior, visit the hermit old;
60
Smile, smile upon the poet, receive benignantly
The incense of his heart, which now he offers unto thee;
Like to the mingled perfume of every flower that grows.
Whose odor on this barren earth, thou didst to him disclose.
Well, does the refrain embarrass you? You cannot
follow the measure? Listen then, while I begin again:
I who a youthful goatherd am.
Would give, most willingly,
Full all the flocks th' sierra feeds.
If my fair would smile on me.
I who a dashing scholar am,
Would burn my books thrice o'er.
For a kiss, beneath the balcony.
Of her whom I adore.
I who a happy lover am.
Would give my love's caresses.
For one good blow at a pedant's head.
If e'er he her addresses;
I who a cheated lover am.
My very soul would sell.
To sheathe my poiniard in the heart.
Of him she loves so well!
I who a hunted murd'rer am.
Love, vengeance, all, would give,
If as a glorious conqueror,
I might one moment live;
I who a conq'ring warrior am.
Would give my triumph's palms,
For but an instant of repose
From my troubled conscience' qualms:
I who a pious hermit am.
Would yield my hopes of heaven,
Were, in return, for but an hour,
The poet's phrenzy given;
I who at length a poet am.
My garland of gold so gay.
For but one spark of heavenly fire ;
Would gladly give away;
Rut when my song doth her pinions ope.
And my proud foot spurns the ground,
And the music of the spheres I hope
To hear in the distance sound,
61
Some fiend accursed, a thick black cloud
Like a gloomy veil, doth roll
All, all around my luckless head,
Around my branded soul!
Lost, gasping, tired, I trembling float
'Twixt hope and grim despair,
'Twixt light from heaven, and shades of hell
'Twixt blasphemy and prayer j
And mourning cry, as to earth fall I,
Back, back to my native clay,
Alas! alas! that cloud-veil black!
My pinions, where are they?'
CHORUS.
Alas! alas! that cloud-veil black!
My pinions, where are they?
CASTELLAN.
Sit down, sit down, noble singer; thou hast conquered us.
DIEGO.
He has not sung the song of our country; not a
single verse of it.
LA HERMOSA.
He has sung better than any of us. Stranger, take
this branch of red sage ; dip it in thy cup, and sing for me.
STRANGER.
I sing for no one, but only to please myself, when
the whim takes me. Maiden, I accept thy gift. The
spectre waits for me, in the forest. Adieu, credulous
host ! Adieu, all ye vulgar bacchanals, who ask the poet
for sour wine, when he brings you the nectar of heaven.
Sing your song of the country by yourselves! For my
own part, the country makes me sick, and the wine of
the country sicker.
Come, come with me, my poor black dog!
I have no friend but you;
'Tis time, my dog, for us to go:
Ye maidens fair, adieu! [Exit J
CASTELLAN.
A strange man!
a2
DIEGO.
A bandit, I'll wager! Let us arrest him, and throw
him into prison.
LA HERMOSA.
The walls would fall before his song; the spirits of
heaven would descend to loose his chains.
BOY.
My lord, you promised to own him for your friend
and countryman, if he sang the song of our country.
Hear him now, on the summit of the hill:
STRANGER. Cfrom the hitlj
'I who a contrabandist am,
A noble life I lead;
I scour the mountains night and day,
Or down to the hamlet's speed,
To sport with the lovely maidens there.
And when the guard comes by,
I clap the spur to my good black steed.
And back to the mountains fly:
Huzza! huzza! my good black steed!
The guard is just in view.
Huzza! huzza! my good black steed!
Ye maidens fair, adieu!
DIEGO.
By heavens, I know him now; for he dons his red
mantle ; he mounts his horse ; he tears off* his false beard,
and no longer disguises his voice ! 'Tis Jos6, the famous
Contrabandist; the accursed bandit; and I captain of the
guards, who was charged with his arest! After him, my
friends ! ■ — after him !
CASTELLAN.
No, indeed; he is a noble child of the mountains,
who was a scholar, a lover, and a poet, and who, it is
said, became a bandit chief in consequence of his poli-
tical sentiments.
DIEGO.
Or in consequence of a murder.
LA HERMOSA.
Or in consequence of a love afi^air.
63
CASTELLAN.
No matter; he has tricked you most gloriously,
Diego ; and while imposing upon us, he has both excited
and charmed us. God speed him! and may nothing more
trouble this festal day, this day devoted to joy!
CHORUS.
Let nothing more our mirth alloy,
Drain we the brimming cups of joy!
CThey sing in full chorus the song of the Contrabandist.J
FINAL CHORUS.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Let us strike the full goblets again and again.
Till their roseate lips shall be shattered in twain.
Come wind of the evening from balm-breathing bowers,
And strew on our foreheads the sweet orange flowers.
Fill, fill up the cups! Let us drink and be gay,
And celebrate duly this festival day:
Let one and all rejoice!
STRANGER, O'w the distance.)
Amen !
OMNES.
Amenl
WALTER OF ACQUITAINE'S
DEATH-SONG.*
A free translation from the French of L. Picket.
Horse Journal 1853.
COME! I invite you, men of arms, that love the battle's
strife.
To hear a mournful history, the last song of my life.
Then listen warrior, listen clerk, before my days are sped:
My name is Walter of Acquitaine ; from Attila's camp I fled.
I fled from the camp of Attila, I, Walter of Acquitaines.
* It must not be for otten that the modern poet has changed
the catastrophe of the old Monkish epic according to which Walter
and Hildegnnd escaped the pursuit of their evening.
64
Along with me fair Hildegund was flying o'er the fields;
Her sire was king of Burgundy and lord of many shields.
The girl is dead, — I weep for her, — both wept and ven-
ged is she;
And I am going soon to die, — in death I shall be free.
My dying hour brings liberty to Walter of Acquitaine.
We took across the country, much treasure in our flight :
We had goodly store of diamonds, andcups of jewels bright;
We fled that camp of savages, like lovers true and brave.
For neither she nor I was born to be the foemans slave.
Neither Hildegund of Burgundy, nor Walter of Acquitaine.
I had a coat of tempered steel, a sword of trenchant blade;
My chargers step was firm and proud, and she the darling
maid —
Her little heart, with charming fear, on mine beat lovingly.
To think it was but yesterday all this belonged to me!
All this belonged but yesterday to W^alter of Acquitaine.
We rested on a mountain with many a steep ascent;
She slept upon my knees when the day was fairly spent, —
All round us utter silence and darkning shades of night,
As if both earth and heaven were watching o'er our flight.
But weary with our flight that day was Walter of Acquitaine.
The leaves were bright in full monlight, when she awoke
from sleep.
"To morrow we will go," said I; the watch till morning keep.
Yes watch and pray the while I lay my lead upon thy breast ;
Be not too lightly terrified ; all nature is at rest.
Though an army come, call quietly on Walter of Acquitaine.
Alas! that night was very short, our foes were very near, —
My paradise was but a dream; they chased and found us here.
I felt her soft lip quivering on mine before she spoke, —
"Walter the foe!'.' her words were slow, but quickly I awoke.
It was a gloomy wedding night for Walter of Acquitaine.
When first I saw their lances scale the summit of the hill,
It grieved me to have rested there, and brought her to such ill.
"They shall not have thee, Hildegund ; so God be but our aid !
Fear nothing we can die, but once," no other word I said.
No other word to Hildegund said Walter of Acquitaine.
65
I saw her lip just tremble with a sad and fevrish smile;
A quick and chilling shudder ran through all her limbs the
while ;
And her eye was ever following the spears in dark array,
That mounted up from bush to bush their sure and sullen way,
That mounted through the thicket dense to Walter of
Acquitaine.
On one side rolled the mountain stream, on one side came
the foe.
Her bridal gifts were hanging at my charger's saddle bow;
My eager hands unloosed the bands of the ample chests he
bore,
I emptied down the precipice her gems and golden store.
There was nothing left to Hildegund but Walter of Acquitaine.
"There, let the torrent take thy wealth!" all mad with rage
I cried;
Let courser go, and palfrey too! what need we more to ride?
We cannot be too light to die; my love what thinkest thou?
So we but die together. — Wo to the foremost now!
Wo to the first that meet the steel of Walter of Acquitaine."
Then, like a scythe whose spreading sweep lays low the
meadows pride.
My falchion bright fell left and right, and a Hun drop-
ped on each side.
My Hildegund was on her knees, close, close behind me
there
I had struck down ten of their boldest men before she
said one prayer;
The ten best men of Attila, I, Walter of Acquitaine.
But their swarming train poured in like rain, and she
was all their aim;
I fought and hewed their multitude, still on and on they
came,
Till the press of the throng became so strong, they tore
the girl away;
I howled for spite, they mocked my plight, but I cleft
their thick array.
And came to the side of Hildegund, I Walter of Acquitaine.
Vol. II. b
With the savage band on either hand, she wept and tore her
hair.
Poor innocent ! to my heart it went to see her sobbing there.
They would have borne her off alive; it needed but a blow.
Her head I split — I'm proud of it — I saved my true love so.
I killed my love, to save my love, I, Walter of Acquitaine.
Pierced like a sieve and streaming blood, but alive enough
to kill;
I drove them back to seek for help, and scared them
down the hill.
They left me there by Hildegund, where, in her blood,
she slept;
I held her with a trembling hand, and knelt by her and wept.
There was none to weep for Hildegund but Walter of
Acquitaine.
My life is weary, Hildegund, my weapon clogged with slain.
Close to thy face I take my place; here come the Huns
again !
My strength and blood are ebbing fast, my days will soon
be o'er,
But to spread a bed for us two dead , I want to kill some
more.
A funeral couch for Hildegund and Walter of Acquitaine.
SCRAPS FROM A PROJECTED TRANS-
LATION OF THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.
THE HEROINE.
FROM THE FIRST ADVENTURE.
Und ist in alten maren
u. s. w.
TO us in ancient story be many wonders told
Of heroes great in glory, of courage manifold;
Of joyaunces and high-times, of weeping and of wail.
Of keenest worthies' strife ye may now hear the won-
drous tale.
A maiden full noble in Burgundy upgrew,
So might be none fairer the lands of earth all through.
Criemhilt was she y-cleped and was a lovely maid,
For sake of whom the life was lost of many a gallant blade.
There were three kings that watched her, three kings
of might and name,
Giinther and Gemot those heroes without blame,
And Giselher the youthful a choice and gallant blade.
These princes had to keep her, their sister was the maid.
HER DREAM.
In disen hohen eren
u. 8. w.
A dream dreamed Chriemhilt who walked in virtue's ways,
That she a wild falcon had trained for many days.
T' was worried by two eagles , before her sight full plain :
Could nought in this world happen to give her greater pain.
This dream she to her mother dame Ute did relate.
Her mother could not give her presage of better fate.
"The falcon that thou rearedst, a noble man is he.
So God be not his safe-guard thou'lt lose him speedily."
My well-beloved mother, why name you man to me?
Without love of gallant will I forever be.
So will I stay a fair maid until my dying day
And wed the love of mortal man I never, never may.
Abjure it not so stoutly then did her mother say
If thou wouldst be heart -gladdened in this world all
thy day,
That Cometh through man's love alone thou wilt be very fair,
And therefore God assigns thee a knight beyond compare.
„Let be" she said "thy counsel, lady mother mine!
It hath to many women been clearer than sunshine
That sorrow is love's wages. This have they to lament.
So no mishap befal me, to lack both I'm content."
Thus in her lofty virtue that she kept in its prime
Lived this noble maiden a long and joyous time.
For that she knew of no man whom she could truly love.
Yet after she with honor a good knight's wife did prove.
6*
68
He was the very falcon the dream to her depicted,
Explained her by her mother. What vengeance she inflicted.
Upon her nearest kinsmen, by whom the deed was done!
So through the death of him alone died many a mother's son.
THE HERO.
FROM THE SECOND ADVENTURE.
Da wuclis in Niederlanden
u. s. w.
There grew up in the Lowlands a noble monarch's child.
His father's name was Sigemund , Sigelind his mother mild.
'Twas in a wealthy stronghold and one well known to fame ;
The Rhine it lay alongside, and Santen was its name.
Siegfried he was y-cleped, that self same gallant good,
To many realms he wandered in high and daring mood.
In prowess great of person to many lands rode he.
Oh what impetuous heroes he found in Burgundy!
Before this valiant warrior to manhood well had grown
He had achieved such marvels with his own hand alone
That ever more about him men might both sing and say
And we might wonder at him unto this very day.
THEHl MEETING.
PROM THE THIRD ADVENTURE.
Nu gie diu minneliche
u. s. w.
Forth came the lovely maiden as comes the morning red.
The gloomy clouds disparting : much care the gallant fled,
Who in his heart had borne it a long and weary way;
lu all her bloom before him he saw the lovely May.
From forth her garments glittered full many a jewel rare ;
Her rosy-red complexion shone marvellously fair:
However loth to own it, yet must men all agree
That on .the earth was never so fair a thing as she.
As floats the silver full-moon the starry host before.
And light so clear and mellow down through the clouds
doth pour,
So shone she in her beauty before each other dame;
Well might the hearts of many be fluttered as she came 1
69
The chamberlains so wealthy before her led the way;
The heroes high in spirit; they would not quiet stay;
To see the lovely maiden they pressed to and fro.
To Siegfried, the hero, that was both joy and woe.
Within himself thus spake he, "How can it ever be
That I should win thy love? 'Tis an idle fantasy.
Yet must I go without thee, then were I better dead."
And aye as he thought on her his face turned white and red.
There did the son of Sieglind before them fairly stand
As he were limned on parchment by cunning master's hand ;
And every one that saw him owned wdllingly his worth,
"Sure such a gallant hero was never seen on earth."
Trin. Coll., Cant., 1842.
LEONORA.
YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE, 1840.
Republished in the Evening Post January 1847.
(This I believe to be the first version of Biirgers famous ballad
ever published in the metre of the original. At the same time I make
the assertion with diffidence, knov^ring how difficult it is to prove a
negative of this sort. In the Autumn of 1846 Clarence Mangan con-
tributed to the Dublin University Magazine what he supposed to be
the first version ever made in the original metre, and, some years
later, Albert Smith published one for which he advanced the same
claim. On the appearance of Mangan's translation Mr. CuUen Bryant
did me the honor to approve of and republish mine.)
LEONORA, as the day dawned red
Upstarts from dream dismaying,
"Art untrue, William, or art dead?
How long wilt be delaying?
He had gone with King Frederick's might
Upon the field of Prague to fight.
No letters came declaring
If he still well were faring.
70
The monarch and the empress proud
Of lengthened war fatigued,
Their haughty hearts at last had bowed,
And had together leagued.
And all the host with shout and song
And clang of drum both loud and long.
And radiant garlands wearing,
Were to their homes repairing.
And here and there and everywhere
O'er road and bridges, yearning
With joy, did throng both old and young
To meet their friends returning.
"Thank God!" the wives and children cried
And "Welcome!" many a joyful bride
But none Leonora meeteth,
None kisseth her or greeteth.
She searched the ranks right through and through,
She asked whoe'er came nigh her,
But no one aught of William knew
Of all that passed by her.
So when the army all had passed
Herself to Earth she wildly cast.
Her raven ringlets tearing
With countenance despairing.
Her mother hastens to the place,
"May God in pity view thee!"
And clasps her in her fond embrace,
"Child, what hath happend to thee?"
"O mother, mother, gone is gone!
Farewell the world and all thereon!
With God is no compassion.
Oh me, my hopeless passion!"
"Help, help. Oh God! Look kindly down!
My Child, to prayer apply thee.
What God does, for the best is done;
He will with pity eye thee."
"Oh mother, idle fantasy!
God has not done the best for me.
What, what can prayer avail me?
It must from henceforth fail me."
71
„Help, God I who knows the Father, knows
He helps his Children grieving.
The sacrament shall cure thy woes,
With holy, power relieving."
"O mother, for what tortures me
No sacrament relief can be;
No sacrament recover
Alive my lifeless lover."
"Hear, child, what if in Hungary
The false one is undoing
His plighted word and faith to thee ,
Some other maiden wooing?
Cease, child, his falsehood to deplore;
His days shall never prosper more.
When life is nigh to leave him
His perjury shall grieve him."
"Oh mother, mother gone is gone!
The lost is lost forever!
Death, death is now my only boon
W^ould I had, liv^d never!
Out, out, forever out my light!
Depart, depart in gloomy night
With God is no compassion.
Oh me, my hopeless passion!"
"Help, God nor on this child so young
Lay hard thy hand of terror.
She knows not what escapes her tongue.
Oh count it not her error!
My child, thy earthly cares resign.
And think on God and bliss divine.
So shall thy soul victorious
Obtain a bridegroom glorious."
"Oh mother, what is bliss divine?
Oh mother, what perdition?
With him, with him is bliss divine.
Without him all perdition.
Out, out, forever out my light!
Depart, depart in gloomy night!
With God is no compassion.
Oh me, my hopeless passion!"
72
Thus raged despair incessantly,
Her burning brain confusing;
Thus went she on most impiously
God's providence accusing.
She wrung her hands and beat upon
Her breast till down the sun had gone,
Till o'er heavens blue arch glancing
The golden stars shot dancing.
And sudden, hark! comes tramp, tramp, tramp.
A horse is trotting by her!
Down springs the rider nith a stamp
On the' outer staircase nigh her.
And hark again! The door-bells ring,
A low and gentle cling, cling, cling!
There through the door came clearly
These words of one loved dearly,
"Hollo, hollo! arise my dear!
Art waking, love, or sleeping?
Say, in thy visions was I near?
Art laughing now or weeping?
Ah William, thou! so late by night!
I've watched and wept since morning light.
For thee my heart is bleeding.
Whence com'st thou hither speeding?
At midnight hour I saddled steed.
Came from Bohemia hither:
I mounted charger late indeed
To take thee with me thither!"
Ah William, stay till night be past.
The hawthorn shivers in the blast.
Here, love where nought can harm thee
In my embraces warm thee.
Then let the hawthorn shivering shrink.
My dearest, let it shiver!
The charger snorts, the spur doth clink ^
I may not wait forever.
Come, robe thee, spring and mount with speed
Behind me on my sable steed.
A hundred miles indeed now
We to our couch must speed now.
73
"A hundred miles to night wouldst thou
To bridal couch me carry!
And hark, the clock is threatening now
The eleventh hour — Oh tarry!"
"See here, see there! The moon shines bright.
We and the dead ride well to-night!
This very night, I swear thee.
To bridal couch I'll bear thee."
"But where the bed that we must fill?
And where the chamber, say, love."
Six planks, two shingles, cool and still,
And small, and far away, love."
"Hast room for me?" to me and thee.
Come, robe thee, spring and mount with me!
The gate is open standing.
The guests wait our commanding."
His fair one robed her straight, and sprung
Upon the steed behind him.
To the dear rider close she clung;
Her snowy arms entwined him.
And hurry, hurry, skirr, skirr, skirr!
Away at headlong speed they spur,
Pant horse and rider, dashing
Mid sparks and pebbles flashing.
On right and left with wondrous speed
The dazzled sight from under
How scudded forest, field and mead!
How did the bridges thunder!
"Dost fear my love? The moon shines bright.
Hurrah! The dead ride well to night
Dost fear the dead my dearest?
"The dead? Why name them, dearest?
O'er what doth fly the night-bird high?
What dirge and knell come booming?"
The death-knell long, the fun'ral song,
We are the dead entombing."
And nigher came a fun'ral train
With bier and coffin o'er the plain.
Their chant was like the groaning
Of frogs in marshes moaning.
74
''When midnight's past your dead entomb,
With dirge and knell forth speeding;
But now I bear my young wife home.
Come with' me to the wedding!
"Come, sexton, with, thy quire away
And croak for me a wedding lay.
Come, priest, and give thy blessing
Ere we our couch are pressing.
Cease dirge and knell — the bier is gone!
Obedient to his calling
Swift, swift the train comes, closely on
Behind his horse-hoofs falling;
And faster faster, skirr, skirr, skirr!
Away at whirlwind speed they spur.
Pant horse and rider dashing
Mid sparks and pebbles flashing.
How fast on right, how fast on left
Hill, dale and woodland speeded!
How fast on left and right and left
Town tower and tree receded!
Dost fear my love? the moon shines bright.
Hurrah, the dead, ride well to-night!
Dost fear the dead, my dearest?"
Ah name them not my dearest.
See there! upon the gibbet's height,
The wheel of death surrounding,
Half visible by pale moonlight
An airy rabble bounding.
"Hollo ye rabble! hither flee!
Ye rabble, come and follow me!
Ye must the dance be leading
When we to bed are speeding."
And straight the rabble, swoof, swoof, swoof,
Came close behing him bustling.
As whirlwinds round the hazel bush
Sweep through the dry leaves rustling;
And ever faster skirr, skirr, skirr!
Away at torrent speed they spur.
Pant horse and rider, dashing
Mid sparks and pebbles flashing.
75
How flies whate'er the moon o'ershone!
How fast 'tis backward driven!
How all above has backward flown,
The stars and the blue heaven !
"Dost fear, my love? the moon shines bright.
Hurra! The dead ride well to night.
Dost fear the dead, my dearest?"
"Why wilt thou name them, dearest?"
"Barb, barb, methinks the cock doth crow;
The sand is nigh expended.
Barb, barb, I feel the morn air blow.
Barb, here our course is ended.
Right well, right well, our ride has sped
All ready stands the bridal bed.
The dead are good at riding!
Here, here's our home abiding."
Up to an iron grated door
At headlong speed he rushes;
One stroke with slender rod, no more,
Padlock and bolt back pushes.
The jarring gates fly open wide
And over graves they onward ride.
All round in moonlight beaming '
The grave stars white were gleaming.
And lo! with startling suddenness,
Ah me, a grousome wonder!
The rider's garments peice by peice.
Fall mouldering asunder.
His head becomes a skull all bare
Of hair or flesh, his body fair
A skeleton unfolding
The scythe and hour glass holding.
High rears the steed, snorts fearfully.
The sparks around him darting,
And sinks beneath her suddenly.
Swift through the earth departing.
And howls on howls through high air sound.
And moonings deep from under ground.
Leonora's heart is rending,
'Twixt life and death contending.
76
Now swiftly sport by moonlight's glance
A band of phantoms scowling,
All round about in curling dance
These words in concert howling,
"Be patient! If thy heart must break
Blame not what God in heaven spake.
Thy life — this hour must end it.
Thy soul — May God befriend it!"
SCHILLEE'S DIVISION OF THE
EARTH.
Literally translated.
"TAKE ye the world" spake Jove from high Olympus
To men below, "I give it freely: take!
It shall be yours forever to inherit;
Like brothers the division make."
Then hastened all mankind to take possession,
And quickly young and old their claims made good.
The farmer seized the first fruits of the harvest
The squire rode gaily through the wood.
The merchant took what filled his warehouses
The abbot chose the jovial old Rhine wine
The King stopped up the highways and the bridges j
And said "the tenth of all is mine." M
At length arrived, long after the division
The tardy poet; from afar came he.
But everything alas! had now its master.
There was for him no vacancy.
"Ah me! and shall I only of all others ^
Forgotten be? What, I, thy truest son!" 9
So poured he forth the voice of his complaining
And flung himself before Jove's throne.
7f
'^If thou amid the land of dreams didst wander"
Replied the God, "then quarel not with me.
Where wast thou pray, when man the world divided?"
''I was" exlaimed the bard "with thee.
Mine eye was on thy radiant countenance hanging.
Upon thy heaven's harmony mine ear.
Forgive the spirit which in thee entranced
And all forgot the earthly sphere."
"Alas!" quoth Jove "the world away is given.
Field, wood, and town no more belong to me.
Whilt thou then come and dwell with me in heaven?
It shall be ever open unto thee."
THE MAIDEN'S LAMENT.
Literally translated from Schiller.
THE oak-wood murmurs,
The clouds swam high,
The maiden sitteth
The green shore by;
The billows are breaking in might, in might,
And she sigheth out to the darksome night.
Her fair eye the gushing tear staineth.
"The heart is perished,
The world is waste.
And gives nought longer
Of joy to taste.
Thou Holy One, summon thy child back to thee!
Enough of this world and its fortune for me.
I have lived and have loved — what remaineth?"
"Thy tears that are flowing
All fruitlessly pour
Thy weeping can waken
The dead never more.
?8
Then seek for what comforts and sooths the sad heart
When the pleasures of Love like a vision depart.
I, the Holy one -will not deny thee."
"Then let my tears flowing
All fruitlessly pour,
Let weeping not waken
The dead ever morel
The sweetest relief for the sorrowing heart
When Love's fairy joys like a vision depart
It's tears and laments will supply me."
New Haven, 1840.
A N C ^ U S.
FROM THE GERMAN.
"ANCJEUS reigned in Ionia. * * * * He was told by one of his
servants, whom he pressed with hard labor in his vineyard, that he
would never taste the produce of his vines. He had already the cup
in hand, and called the prophet to convince him of his falsehood,
when the slave, yet firm in his conviction, uttered the well-known
proverb —
^Multa cadunt inter calicem supremaque lahra!
^'Twixt cup and lip there's many a slip.'
And at that very moment Ancaeus was told that a wild boar had en-
tered his vineyard; upon which the threw down the cup and hastened
to drive away the wild beast. He perished in the attempt."
THE Monarch of Samos (Ancseus his name), '• "
His vineyard with pleasure surveyed
His vines he was carefully planting; up came
An old slave and solemnly said.
"Oh stay, King Ancseus, thy sedulous hand!
Hie home to thy palace and rest!
The juice of the vineyard which now thou hast planned
Shall ne'er for thy goblet be pressed!"
n
The monarcli looked on him and smiled in disdain,
And thus to the old man said he:
"Thy task shall it be, when the goblet I drain.
To fill it, thou dotard, for me."
"Trust not Fortune, aye beguilling;
Trust not Hope, for Hope is vain.
Now is Fortune on thee smiling?
She may quickly change again.
'Twixt the vine and press, I ween.
Storm and frost may intervene."
The vines have up-sprouted so spreading and high;
The leaves are fresh-blowing and green;
The grapes in rich clusters all under them lie,
Or peep out the foliage between.
And as the glad monarch the gathering viewed,
He saw that the old man was near.
And hailed him, exulting — "The vintage is good;
Are goblet and cup-bearer here?"
Then answered in sorrow that servitor gray,
"Yes, fair, is this vintage of thine;
Yet hast thou, thy sedulous toil to repay.
Not tasted one drop of the wine.
"Trust not Fortune, aye beguiling;
Trust not Hope, for Hope is vain.
Now is Fortune on thee smiling?
She may quickly change again..
'Twixt the press and cup, alas!
Time enough has yet to pass."
The feast is made ready — fair sight to behold;
The slave in sad silence is there:
He bears to the monarch the goblet of gold.
But shudders that goblet to bear.
Then out spoke the monarch in merriest mood —
"All hail to thee, prophet of ill !
My labors have brought me a recompense good;
Say, why art thou shuddering still?
80
Then answered in sorrow that servitor gi*ay,
While tears in his aged eyes shine —
"I bear to my sovereign the goblet to-day —
He hath not yet drunk of the wine !
"Trust not Fortune, aye beguiling;
Trust not Hope, for Hope is vain.
Now is Fortune on thee smiling?
She may quickly change again.
'Twixt the goblet and the Up
Often times the hand will slipr
The King laid his hand on the goblet of gold,
And smiling he raised it on high;
That instant the gates of the palace unfold.
And the vintners in terror draw nigh:
"Oh haste thee, great monarch! a boar from the wood
Doth ravage thy vineyard so fair;
The best of thy hunters are laid in their blood —
The wild beast hath slaughtered them there!"
Up started the monarch, and, weapon in hold.
He furiously rushed through the door;
His lips were ne'er wet in the goblet of gold —
He came from the vineyard no more!
Trust not Fortune, aye beguiling;
Trust not Hope, for Hope is vain.
Now is Fortune on thee smiling?
She may quickly change again.
Ere another moment flies.
Falls the lightning from the skies,
New-Heaven, June 15, 1840.
.^HEUS SUSANNAT
Knickerbocker , March 1849.
'PASSIBUS baud pigris Alabamae prata relinquo;
In genubus porto barbiton ipse meam:
Ludovicique peto gaudent quae nomine terras:
Delicias venio rursus ut aspiciam.
81
Nocte pluit tota, hos fines quo tempore ventum est,
At nebulas prorsus pellit aprica dies;
Frigore me feriunt baud sequi spicula Solis.
Ne lacrymam ob casum, funde, SUSANNA, meum,
Casus, cara, meus ne sit tibi causa doloris:
Nam cithara hue domino venit amata suo.
Conscendo fulmen; rapior mox amne secundo;
In nosmet laesi numinis ira cadit.
Innumeros subitse rapuerunt fulgura flammse,
Et nigros homines mors nigrior perimit.
Machina dirupta est, sonipes volat inde caballus,
Acturusque animam (crede) mihi videor.
Quam retinere volens mea demum lumina clausi.
Ne lacrymam ob casum, funde, SUSANNA, meum!
Sopitum nuper dulcis me lusit imago;
(Nee vox per noctem, nee sonus ullus erat)
Obvia prsecipiti decursu colle secundo
Visa est ante oculos nostra SUSANNA vehi.
Gutta vagabundse turbato stabat ocello,
Pendebat labris segipyri popanum ;
Ecce, aio, properamus et Austri linquimus arva
Ne lacrymam ob casum, funde, SUSANNA, meum!
Aurelios mox inde Novos Austrumque revisam,
Undique delicias quserere nempe meas.
Quam si non possim contingere lumine claro,
Huicce nigro infausto nil nisi fata manet;
Et quando in placida constratus morte quiescam
Ne lacrymam ob casum funde, SUSANNA, meum!
Casus, cara, meus ne sit tibi causa doloris!
Hue veniens, mecum barbiton, ecce! fero.'
PIECES
OF A
BROKE\-DOni\ CRIIIC
PICKED UP BY HIMSELF.
▼oL m.
81ITCM8, ISSATS All riRAGRAPHS.
BADEN-BADEN.
PRIHTBD BT SCOTZHIOTSKT.
1859.
ic
I
iij
«■ If,
Hil
Me MI
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Pag.
ENVY AND SCANDAL ..... 1
AMERICAN PERIODICAL LITERATURE U
AMERICAN POETRY 25
FALSE PRO-SLAVERY ANALOGIES ,.-...-. 30
THE ENGLISH PRESS AND THE AMERICAN PUBLIC 37
THE HACK-HORSE WOT WOULDN'T GO 48
POOR OLD CHARLEY . 57
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE . 76
THE DUCHESS' POCKET HANDKERCHIEF .102
THE GREEN MONSTER 118
A COMMISSION OF LUNACY 123
THE WEEK OP THE COUP D'ETAT 126
COMMERSONIANA 149
ENVY AND SCANDAL.
Knickerbocker, June 1849.
IT is customary for us to boast of our virtue as a
nation. If there is one thing more than any other vs^hich
an American believes, and has been taught to believe from
his youth, and is ready to maintain on all occasions, it
is that he belongs to a particularly virtuous and moral
community. And the reports given of other countries by
that rapidly-increasing class of our countrymen who travel
abroad, tend very strongly to confirm this impression.
Interrogate a travelled American on this point, and he will
be likely to answer (supposing him to be a man of pre-
tensions to character and morals) after this guise: ^Can
there be a doubt of our superiority? Compare our practices
with those of Europeans. In Paris a young man speaks
of his mistress as openly as he would of his horse ; he
would laugh at the idea of its being necessary or desirable
to disguise the connection. In England parsons drink their
bottle or bottles of wine after dinner, and poor men are
starving by thousands, while lords enjoy incomes larger
than what we consider the principal of a large fortune.
In Italy — ' And so on; every country supplies him with
unfavorable points of contrast to our own.
Now it certainly is but just to admit, that after every
qualification, and exception, and drawback, and caveat,
which a candid and well-informed man would feel obliged
to make, these pretensions are perfectly correct, so far
as they go. Our men are decidedly more chaste than
the Europeans, and the general tone of our society is in
this respect purer. And in temperance, to use the word
in its popularly limited and technical sense — I was on
the point of saying in its slang sense — we stand far
before several nations of the old world. Our superiority
in both these respects may be correctly attributed to those
Puritan sentiments, from the influence of which not even
those of our states which were settled by the Cavaliers
Vol. m. 1
2
are altogether exempt. And it is also certain that there
is among us a more general sympathy between different
classes of society, which prompts the undertaking and
promotes the carrying out of schemes of general bene-
volence to a greater extent than is customary elsewhere.
And this merit is the direct result of what we conveniently
sum up in the phrase, 'our democratic institutions.'
But readily granting and gladly accepting all this,
it remains to be considered how far the influence com-
monly thence drawn is sustainable. It remains to be
inquired, if the whole moral law is included in abstinence
from sensual sins and exemption from the pride and sel-
fishness of class feeling. And though the pursuit of this
inquiry may subject us with the unthinking to the charge
of unpatriotic feeling, it is in truth a most patriotic in-
vestigation, because it is one likely to be beneficial. The
profit of haranguing people against a sin to which they
are not given, is exceedingly problematical. At best it is
a mis-spending of time, since every audience has sins
enough to which it is prone, and in the condemnation of
which the preacher or moralist may find ample employment.
But, moreover, it is particularly apt to create self-righte-
ousness, and lead people to
'Compound for sins they are inclined to.
By damning those they have no mind to.'
To declaim, for instance, upon the errors of Popery be-
fore a congregation of rigid Presbyterians, or 'Evangelical'
Episcopalians, amounts to just nothing; there being no
rational probability that any members of such an auditory
will ever go to Purgatory or pray to relics. The man
who makes a profitable use of the theme is one who,
like Whately, points out how these errors have their
origin in human nature, and to what similar or corres-
ponding errors Protestants are liable. And a 'tee-total'
lecture to a meeting-house-full of New-England women
and boys, most of whom never see the outside of a bottle
of wine from one year's end to the other, is very much
a work of supererogation. And generally, people are
more apt to be pleased than profited by homilies on the
faults of their neighbors. Let us then not shrink from
the examination through any such erroneous views of the
requisitions of patriotism.
Our democratic polity, as we said, has introduced a
very general spirit of sympathy between classes, and
consequently of pecuniary benevolence, contrasting favor-
ably with the exclusive constitution of many European
societies. But as this peculiar good is the direct result
of democracy, so does there also directly and peculiarly
result from democracy a mighty evil — a prevailing sen-
timent of envy directed against individuals in any w^ay
distinguished. The leading idea of democracy being that
'all men are equal', or as St. Tammany used to express
the principle, 'one man's as good as another', whoever
is better than others; whoever rises above the mass by
his talents or wealth, or any other distinction; above all,
whoever is distinguished from them by his principles and
conduct, becomes popularly condemned of incwism^ and
is assailed by envious and malignant detraction and perse-
cution. Hence is it that our greatest statesmen of all
parties are found occupying subordinate positions in the
state, and repeatedly see inferior men put over their
heads into the highest offices. Hence too, that wealthy
and fashionable men are constantly slandered and vilified.
Some of our most widely-circulated newspapers make it
a great part of their business to represent the 'Upper
Ten' as one sink of profligacy and dishonesty. We are
inclined sometimes to indignation, and sometimes to laughter,
on observing the dispensing powder of rank and wealth in
England, which frequently allows a respectable man — i. e.,
one of property or title — to do things which , if done
by a poor individual, would meet with prompt punishment.
But meanwhile we ought not to overlook that opposite
extreme here which renders the possession of property,
liberal education, and fashionable connections, a thing to
reproach a man with, and a certain weapon against him,
if he is brought before the public in any other than a
purely literary light. And if our literary men pur sang
escape comparatively unscathed, it must be attributed to
a lucky accident. The want of something to admire (so
common a want among a new people) having no rank,
and comparatively little wealth to gratify itself upon , has
fixed upon literary reputation or rather literary notoriety,
and hence our national predilection to toady indiscrimi-
nately all literary lions, great or small, native or foreign.
So too the Puritan spirit, while it has induced a
very meritorious state of society in some respects, has
1*
also given birth to a very great evil, if not peculiarly,
at least to a peculiar degree its own. The Puritan spirit,
rigidly proper itself, is exacting and censorious in its
demands from others, parading a virtue strongly hostile
to the future existence of cakes and ale. While abstain-
ing, moreover, from many popular amusements and topics
of conversation, it is also (would it be too much to say
therefore? J disposed to indemnify itself by a free discus-
sion of character and conduct.
Now when to these influences is joined the national
spirit of curiosity, a spirit from which no one class among
us can be said to be more free than another, the conse-
quence is , a state of gossip unrivalled in any large com-
munity, the peculiar feature of which is that the men are
as great gossips here as the women are in the most gos-
sippy of other countries. Those of us who have habi-
tually lived in the atmosphere, though sometimes too
immediately made aware of its pernicious effects, yet do
not ordinarily, when not actually suffering from it our-
selves, estimate its full virulence. It is only those who
have been some time absent from the country on whom
at their return a full appreciation of this general meddle-
someness is forced. Let a young man be abroad for
several years, corresponding rarely with home, and seldom,
if ever, seeing the face of an American; then let him
return and ask after his old acquaintances and school-
mates. The budget of scandal he hears will fairly frighten
him. If he be a stout politician and opposed to the party
in power, this general deterioration of men is put down
to the account of Mr. Polk or Mr. Tyler. But when he
comes to ascertain for himself, in course of time, how
little truth there is in all the sad stories he has heard,
he will feel that a habit of detraction is one of our na-
tional sins, and will probably not be without some twinges
of conscience for his own share in it at some period of
his life.
Verily they manage these things better in Europe.
In England gossip is the proverbial property of old maids.
The first duty of an English gentleman is to mind his
own business. This taciturnity of the Englishman is attri-
buted, by people who cannot understand it, to selfishness,
or want of interest in others; whereas it proceeds from
an excellent motive — a desire to avoid intermeddling
in the affairs of others, or injuring them by rashly cir-
culating false or mischievous reports. The French are
not so discreet. A Gaul's vanity is such that it often
runs ahead of his honor, and he will talk scandal of a
woman to give himself consequence in the eyes of those
around. Yet even a Frenchman does not gossip scandal
for the mere sake of gossipping, and the low standard of
Parisian morality has at least this one mitigation, that
it renders fewer things scandalous and calumniable. And
what makes our system of gossip less excusable is, that
it has not the temptation of professional idleness elsewhere
existing. Our women, who have something to do in their
households , manufacture more tittle-tattle than the Pa-
risian fashionables, who give up their very children to
the care of hirelings. There is more scandal talked in
the three or four clubs of New-York than in all those
of London put together, though the former are chiefly
composed of business men (nominally, at least,) while
men of independent fortune compose no small fraction
of the latter. Nor are our other cities, from Savannah
to Boston, a whit less faulty than New-York in this
matter, but, if any thing, rather worse.
'How very stupid and prosy you are growing !' says
a goodnatured friend, who has license to look over my
shoulder.
That reminds me of a remark I heard a wicked wit
make the other day, Hhat good people were always stu-
pid.' Pity't is so, (I don't mean that good people are,
but that this essay is) for I never wanted more to write
interestingly. Were I a parson I would preach a sermon
on the ninth commandment that should stir up my hearers
a little, I promise you. As it is, I can but write this
— very stupid you call it — undeniably running some-
what off into general declamation, a thing very unprofitable.
Let me therefore try to illustrate my meaning by some
particular instances.
Let us begin with the most innocent , one which
involves no positive malice, and which many will be
disposed to smile at the idea of mentioning as wrong-
It is an ordinary occurrence for 'the world;' that con-
venient personage whom the Gauls call on and the Teu-
tons man; to announce that two young people are 'engaged,'
the parties most nearly interested having no knowledge
6
of the imputed relation between them. Hundreds of pas-
sably good folks have no hesitation of repeating such a
report on the merest hearsay, or starting it on the vaguest
evidence. Well, what harm does it do? Let us see. In
course of time, before very long course of time, the
young people hear of the happiness allotted to them by
the benevolent public of their acquaintance. We will,
in violation of the ordinary rules of gallantry, take the
gentleman first. How is he affected? If a conceited young
man, or disposed to be conceited, it puts him immediately
on the very best terms with himself. Of course he sees
through it all. The young lady would be glad enough
to have him, no doubt. Most likely her friends have
got up the report. But he is n't going to 'throw himself
away without sufficient cause' in the flower of his days.
Not he indeed. And so, though perhaps the damsel her-
self would n't take him at any price, he is fully confir-
med in the delusion of his own great value, and becomes
fuller than ever of himself. Or suppose him to be a
modest youth; a rare animal, of which however some
specimens remain to the present day. Then the intelli-
gence comes upon him like a thunder-clap. He may be
brave enough, and yet find himself not a little frightened.
Henceforth he feels hopelessly awkward when thrown
into his imputed betrothed's society, and is compelled in
very self-defence to avoid it ; unless he is a very romantic
and high-minded juvenile, and then he may say to him-
self, '•The world has put Miss — 's name and mine to-
gether. I am bound to propose to her;' and propose he
does, and perhaps he is accepted, and marries her, so to
speak, without meaning to. Here then on the one hand
you have a pleasant acqaintance, which might have ripened
into a happy marriage, broken off*; and on the other, a
match brought about which can hardly fail to be an
unhappy one, founded as it is neither in love nor reason,
but in a mistaken sentiment of honor. While the eligible
young men who think well of themselves are driven to
ludicrous extremities to avoid the fair-ones whom they
suppose to be lying in wait for them. I have known
some absent themselves from all parties and ladies' so-
ciety for a whole season, aud others put themselves under
the protection of some most unfashionable and anti-ladies'
man; a very male Duenna, as it were.
Of the lady's feelings little shall be said, for ladies'
feelings are sacred subjects. Try to imagine them your-
self, reader; how awkward they must be if she does not
care for the young man, how more than awkward if she
does. But putting aside all such hypothetical sentimen-
talities as feelings , I have known serious practical in-
conveniences result from such gossip. I once asked a
clever Bostonian why she had given up her equestrian
exercise, of which I knew her to be very fond.
'Because,' she replied, 4f I was seen riding twice
with the same gentleman, people would say I was en-
gaged to him, and I am not belle enough to command a
different cavalier every time I go out ; so I have stopped
riding altogether.'
Here then is a matter of pure gossip, not involving
malice or envy, and yet see how much annoyance, to
use the mildest term, it may and does produce. Let us
now go a step farther, and take an instance where ma-
lice generally does enter into the original motive of the
report; the assertion or insinuation of a married woman's
flirtation.
Flirtation is a pleasant eupheuism, and many persons
use it very much at random without appearing to attach
any serious meaning to it. But what does it mean when
applied to a married woman? Simply this that she is in
danger of committing a heinous crime and is on the verge
of ruin, and likely to ruin not only her own reputation
but the peace of two families. ThaCs all. An accusation
sufficiently serious, one would think, to demand unmis-
takable grounds before making it. But on what sort of
grounds do we hear such a charge made every day?
Why that Mr. Smith has been seen occasionally in Mrs.
Brown's opera-box, or that living within ten doors of
each other, they have been once or twice observed walk-
ing together, by some self-constituted street-inspector,
or that Smith has been heard to praise Mrs. Brown for
her beauty, or she him for his intelligence, or that he is
often at the Browns', Brown having been his fellow-
collegian and travelling-companion for years. There are
some propositions which it does not require an astonish-
ing amount of penetration or charity to admit, for in-
stance that a real friend will naturally be more civil to
his friend's wife than to Mrs. Anybody, and that a man
may admire a woman's beauty or wit and be fond of
her society without plotting against her husband's honor.
But honest, straightforward, natural conduct, is the last
solution for his imagined mysteries that ever occurs to
your habitual gossip. It is so much more interesting to
make a secret and an intrigue out of every thing and
put a wrong construction on the most innocent actions.
It must be owned, however, that there are many
well-meaning persons, quite free from malice, who honestly
believe it an impropriety for a married woman to be
seen in public with any one but a relative. This is the
fault of an erroneous popular opinion respecting the po-
sition and duties of married women. When Willis said
of a Bowery beauty, that 'after she is married, she is
thought no more of than a pair of shoes after they are
sold,' he might have extended his remark considerably
beyond the Bowery. This notion seems to be based on
the conventional fiction (which was true in an earlier
stage of American society, when every matron was her
own 'help,') that a married lady must have all her time
occupied by household duties and the education of her
children. This state of things we have, in a measure at
least, outgrown, and beside it is not the lot of every
woman to be blessed (?) with a large family. But owing
to these deeply-rooted conventional ideas, most ladies on
ceasing to be what is technically called 'young ladies,'
desert their proper station in society, and are apt to be
bored in consequence. They become dawdling and fussy
under the supposition that they really are doing something
in-doors; or they read stupid novels or frequent equally
stupid lectures ;* or they manufacture this infernal gossip
* I WISH somebody able to do the topic justice could be per-
suaded to enlighten the public on this lecturing system of ours, and
show how absurd and hollow and every way wasteful it is, and how
instead of increasing knowledge and promoting intellectual discipline,
it has a direct tendency to diminish the one and retard the other.
The idea of any educated creature going to a lecture for amusement
is amusing enough. Any lecture worth any thing as a lecture requi-
res an exertion of the intellect to hear it profitably, as much exertion
as to hear a sermon perhaps. But the female mind requires to be
diverted with the sight of crowds, and therefore for those who have
scruples of conscience against balls and operas, lectures on any thing
from an agreeable alternation with Ethiopian Melodists and Lusus
Naturse. For my own part, I confess to a strong predilection for the
I
^ 9
that does so much mischief. There are clever women
enough to break up the system. I sometimes wonder
some of them do not in desperation throw themselves
into the breach, and run quite wdld for a time, smoke
and drink grog like the Parisian lionnes^ gallop out alone
a la Fanny Kemble, and play the original Fourierite
generally.
Making allowance for all this, much of the scandal
I have mentioned is directly chargeable on the spirit of
envy. For, as the working of this spirit, so fostered by
the democratic principle , makes the community at large
hostile to the quasi-aristocracy , which is distinguished
for wealth and certain sorts of knowledge, so does it
make the quasi-aristocracy hostile to those among them-
selves who are distinguished for wit or other attractions.
And married belles are more envied and hated and ca-
lumniated than single ones just in proportion as there
are fewer of them.
Now comes a third kind of scandal, which I think
more strikingly national than either of the preceding,
the gossip of men, especially young men, about one an-
other. This is carried on to such an extent^ that it may
fairly be called one of our national vices. We are ready
enough to laugh at the young Englishmen whom we some-
times see here, their aw^kward dress and more awkward
manners, their potatory propensities, and rusticity in many
things; but there is one point in which it were well if
we could or would imitate them; they have not a habit of
talking ill of each ^ther. It is positively frightful to hear
how our young men will speak of their friends — yes,
actually their friends — men tow^ard whom they enter-
tain none but good feelings; but the love of gossip is
stronger than the considerations of friendship. On what
grounds, for instance, or what no grounds, will a young
man get the reputation of being dissipated. Jones sees
Brown at the club some cold winter night with a glass
of brandy and water before him. Perhaps Brown may
opera on the mere score of morality; there is infinitely less hypocrisy
about it at any rate. A tolerably large number of those who go there
go to enjoy the music, and do enjoy it, and carry away pleasing re-
collections of it, but did you ever know man or woman who went to
a popular lecture (save an occasional newspaper reporter) that could
tell you any thing about it afterward except who was there?
\
10
not be in the same position for the next year. Perhaps
he had been walking two miles in the frost, and had to
walk two more. But he is not to have the benefit of
any of the extenuating circumstances. Next day Jones
tells Robinson that he sees Brown drinking o' nights at
the club. Robinson tells Thompson that Brown is getting
to be a hard fellow; and so the story grows on its tra-
vels, till Brown's Presbyterian mother and sisters in the
country hear that the unfortunate youth tipples in all the
bar-rooms of the city, and is carried up to bed three
nights out of six. Or again, how easily and how falsely
is the report started about any man that he is living
beyond his means! Here we see another exhibition of
the democratic spirit of envy, which delights in seeing
a rich man ruined ; and if it cannot be thus gratified, takes
some satisfaction in saying that he is going to be ruined.
This is another case in which it is curious to mark
the difference between our opinions and those of the English.
In England, when a man lives well and spends money,
he is usually supposed to have money; whence it arises
that an impostor with a little ready cash and a large
stock of assurance, often victimizes English tradesmen
in a way that makes their gullibility almost incredible to
us. Here, on the contrary, when a man lives freely, the
general inference is that he has not the means sufficient
to support his style, and is going to 'blow up' before
long. To be sure there is some foundation in actual
occurrences for the different views entertained in the two
countries. If our people are sharp in making money,
the trans-Atlantic Anglo-Saxons are more prudent in
keeping it. You do n't often hear of an English banking-
house breaking from speculations in flour and cotton, and
every thing but their regular business ; nor does an Eng-
lishman ever put half his fortune into his house, so as
to find himself, at the end of four or five years, with
a splendid mansion and nothing to keep it up with. If
some of our parvenus have thus erred, their errors have
been bitterly visited on the whole class of people who
inhabit fine houses. With a ludicrous inconsistency, also,
the amount of private fortunes is absurdly magnified by
popular report, so that a man w^ill be said at the same
time to be worth three times as much as he really is,
and to be on the high-road to ruin.
11
We can best estimate the power of gossip by ob-
serving the contrivances resorted to to propitiate and avoid
it. A young lawyer who has let his moustache grow" on
the continent, sacrifices this ornamental appendage to his
countenance immediately on his return, lest it should be
taken for an indication of expensive and unbusiness-like
habits. A gentleman who keeps horses will be careful
not to boast of the number of his stud and the prices he
has paid for them, as an Englishman would: he rather
seeks to conceal both. I shall never forget the distress
and confusion of a young merchant who lived in the
upper part of our island, and occasionally sported a hand-
some gray tandem on the road. One day his Irish groom
was ordered to wait for him about a mile out of town ;
but Pat, having his full share of that dunderheadedness
from which the 'finest pisantry' are not quite exempt,
tooled the equipage straight down to the store in Pine-
street. Out came a crowd of the curious to criticize the
unusual spectacle, and out came the unlucky owner, shak-
ing in his boots, and dreading he hardly knew what.
Fortunately he retained presence of mind enough to give
Pat an emphatic slanging and order him to take off the
leader and ride him home; by which prompt measure my
friend saved his credit and character. This happened
several years ago, by the way. We Gothamites are getting
a little wiser now, and I do not despair of seeing the
time here when a man may spend his money as he pleases,
provided he makes no criminal use of it, without incurring
the suspicion of being xaxovovg xci) dr^f^ut), or intending
to break in a month. They are not so far advanced in
Boston, judging at least from what their organ, the Dio-
dern Athenian Blunderbuss^ says.
Why who in New- York ever reads the Blunderbuss?'
My dear fellow, it is not right altogether to despise any
thing, not even the 'Blunderbuss.' After I have finished
all the other magazines I usually take a dip into it, and
occasionally pick up a piece of valuable information, such
as the one I was going to call your attention to. You
know how much money is given to literary and charitable
institutions by the good people of Massachusetts, which
we hear of, not from themselves — oh dear no! — but
from the concurrent testimony of an admiring universe.
W^ell, the 'Blunderbuss' has let the cat out of the bag.
12
A late writer therein says that the public sentiment of
Boston does n't allow a man to drive four-in-hand , or
put his servants into livery, (or build an elegant house,
I suppose;) and so, when a Bostonian has made a for-
tune, he absolutely does n't know how to spend the in-
come of it, and the only way in which he can cut a dash
with it is to give a handsome slice to a school or hos-
pital, and so get his name into the papers. If one of us
had said such a thing! — said? if you or I had only
hinted the possibility of such a motive — what a tempest
would have come down upon us! How the Mrs. Harris
of the 'Modern Athenians' would have emptied the teapot
of her indignation upon our devoted heads ! But it is one
of themselves that says it — or rather some of them-
selves, for the 'Blunderbuss' must count for more than
one — so let us only be thankful that we are for once,
by their own confession, a little wiser than our Athenian
neighbors, though we have still enough to learn.
But the 'Blunderbuss' has led us into a little digres-
sion. To come back to our theme. Thus far I have
been talking only of the circulation of things false; false
stories invented, or false inferences drawn from admitted
facts. I am now going farther — to a length that will
surprise some people. I say that a story may be per-
fectly true, to your certain knowledge, and yet you have
no right to repeat it. It has been a great mark for ri-
dicule, and a fine field for declamation, that old English
law maxim, 'The greater the truth, the greater the libel;'
but it is not so entirely absurd, after all, when you corne
to examine it in all its bearings; and the unwritten rule
of English society I would put down for our example
in its broadest terms, thus:
You have no right to repeat any thing that comes
to your knowledge disadvantageous to a man's private
character, unless you are compelled to do so in self-
defence.
There is nothing here said of your duty as a Christian ;
that may possibly require a little more; but only of your
duty as a gentleman and a member of society. Here it
is that the Puritan spirit manifests itself mischievously.
You have seen a man in questionable company, or heard
him swear, or suspected him of being the worse for li-
quor, and you deem it your duty to publish the matter
18
on the house-tops, by way of showing your abhorrence
for such sins; whereas your responsibility is in truth li-
mited by your own example and that of those over whom
you have power and influence. If then you are sufficiently
intimate with the party to speak yourself to himself about
it, do so ; but you are not likely to good by speaking of
it to any one else, and are very sure to do harm.
I have said my say pretty much, and now methinks
I hear some grave person exclaiming with asperity, 'And
so. Sir, you consider talking about sin as bad as sin
itself. You put gossip on a level with profligacy.' My
dear Sir, or Madam, I do not think any better of dissi-
pation than you do ; but I think worse of scandal. I do
not palliate the one : I condemn the other. It is not easy,
or pleasant, or profitable, if it be possible, to weigh the
comparative heinousness or veniality of sins in themsel-
ves, but we can calculate the harm they do to others,
and you can see as well as I, that while the evil pro-
duced by an act of debauchery or extravagance is fre-
quently, if not generally, temporary and limited in its '
eff'ects, ten words of scandal may set half-a-dozen people
by the ears together for life, and their children after
them for three generations. You, Sir, have never had
any wild oats to sow. Therefore you have great cause
to be thankful. But do n't suppose that your correct life
gives you a license to talk ill of others. That was just
the mistake of the Pharisee of old. No one, not even
the clergyman, or that mighty man of men, the daily
editor, has a right to appoint himself citstos morum', and
if you make a practice of repeating unfavorable stories,
true or false ^ your practice is a very ungentlemanly and
unmanly one. You, Madam, are an unimpeachable wife
and a devoted mother ; regular at church, and charitable
to the poor. For this you are worthy of much praise;
but if, with all this, you delight in pulling to pieces your
neighbors' reputations, and spreading scandalous reports,
you are a great sinner^ and your parson will tell you so
if he does his duty. Apropos of parsons , I once heard
a conversation between two, which will serve me for a
fitting conclusion. A young clergyman, who found his
position among his flock not very comfortable, had cal-
led on an old one for instruction and assistance. The
senior did not send me away, either because I was toa
14
young to require this, or because he thought me old
enough to share in the profit of his counsel.
^Put cotton in your ears, Brother K./ said he ^so that
you can't hear any stories.' The junior bowed.
Pat cotton in your mouth, so that you can't tell any stories.'
THE PERIODICAL LITERATURE
OF AMERICA.
Blackwood, January 1848.
BRITISH readers are not unacquainted with the
American newspaper press , as , not to mention the nu-
merous extracts from transatlantic papers in the columns
of London journals , the merits of that press formed, but
a few years ago, a topic of controversy between two
London Quarterlies. But of American magazines and re-
views they seldom hear anything. This is certainly in
no degree owing to the scarcity of these publications,
for they are as numerous, in comparison, as the news-
papers, have a very respectable circulation (in some cases
nearly forty thousand), and that at the not remarkably
low price of four or five dollars per annum. Neither is
it to their insignificance at home, for their editors make
a considerable figure in the literary w^orld, and their
contributors are sufficiently vain of themselves, as their
practice of signing or heading articles with their names
in full would alone show. * Indeed Willis' idea (so ri-
diculed by the Edinburgh) of a magazine writer becoming
a great lion in society, is not so very great an absurdity
if applied to American society. Nor is this due to the
fact that their topics are exclusively local; for there is
scarcely a subject under heaven of which they do not
treat, and a European might derive some very startling
* One of the superficial peculiarities of American magazines is
that the names of all the contributors are generally paraded conspi-
cuously on the cover, very few seeking even the disguise of a pseu-
donym. The number of "most remarkable" men and women who thus
display themselves in print is really surprising.
15
information from them. The Democratic Review^ for example,
has a habit of predicting twice or thrice a year that Eng-
land is on the point of exploding utterly, and going off
into absolute chaos.
"Perhaps," interrupts an impatient non-admirer of
things American generally, "it is because they are not
worth hearing anything about." And this suggestion is
not so far from truth as it is from politeness. Consider-
ing the great demand for periodical literature in the
New-World, one is surprised to find it so bad in point
of quality. Not that the monthly and quarterly press is
disfigured by the violence and exaggeration that too
often deform the daily. Over-spiciness is the very last
fault justly chargeable upon it. In slang language, it
would rather be characterized by the terms "slow," "seedy,"
"remarkably mild," and the like. Crude essays filled with
commonplaces, truisms, verses of the true non Di non ho-
mines cast, tales such as shopboys and milliners' girls
delight in, and "critical notices," all conceived in the
same spirit of indiscriminating praise, make up the co-
lumns of the monthlies; while the one or two more
pretending publications w^hich now represent the quarterly
press, are a uniformly subdued and soporific character.
Now the first phenomenon worthy of notice is, that
this has not always been the case. It was very different
eight or nine years ago. The three leading cities of the
north, New-York, Boston, and Philadelphia, had each its
Quarterly: the Knickerbocker^ a New -York magazine,
boasted a brilliant list of contributors, headed by Irving
and Cooper, and its articles were frequently copied (some-
times without acknowledgment) into English periodicals.
This change for the worse is worth investigating, at least
as a matter of curiosity.
"I don't know that it is a change for the worse,"
says a prim personage in spectacles. "If your periodical
literature dies out entirely , you need not be very sorry.
I shouldn't be if ours did." And then come some mur-
murs of "light," "superficial," "unsound," and more to
the same effect.
"My good sir, this in the face of Maga I not to men-
tion the Quarterly and the Edinburgh. With such fails
accomplis against you, what can you say?"
"I don't believe in fails accomplis. They are the ex-
IB
cuse of the timid man, and the capital of the unprincipled
man. Fait accompli means, in plain English, that 'because
it is so, therefore it ought to be so' — a doctrine which
I, for one, will never assent to."
"Well, there is something in that last position of
yours. We will condescend, therefore, to argue the ques-
tion. Let me ask you, then.
"Firsts Do you see any prima facie improbability in
supposing that a man may write a very good essay, who
could not write two good volumes octavo ; or a racy and
interesting sketch, who could not put together a readable
novel; or a few graceful poems, without having matter
enough for a volume of poetry ?
''Secondly^ Is a treatise necessarily profound, because
it is long ; or superficial, because it is of practicable di-
mensions?
''Thirdly^ When you use the term 'superficial,' do you
really believe and mean to imply that periodical writers
are in the habit of discussing subjects which they do not
understand? Would you say, for instance, that Macau-
lay's reviews denote a man ignorant of history, or that
Sedgwick knows less geology than the man who wrote
the Vestiges of Creation^ or that Mitchell knew less Greek
than Lord Brougham?
"But perhaps it is the literary criticism to which
you object. You are an author yourself, perhaps, though
we have not the pleasure of recollecting you. You have
written a goodsized volume of Something, and Other Poems,
and cannot bear that your thoughts and rhymes should
be scrutinized and found fault with by a riviewer — that
your immortal fire should be tested in so earthy a cru-
cible. In that case you will find many more or less
distinguished names to sympathize with and encourage
you. There is Bulwer, with whom the word critic is an
exponent of everything that is low, and mean, and con-
temptible; and on our side of the water (sorry are we
to say it) a much milder man than Bulwer — Washington
Irving — has spoken of the critical tribe as having little
real influence, and not deserving more influence than they
have ; while of the small fry of authorlings , there is no
end of those who are ready to rate the reviewer roundly
for 'finding fault with his betters.' One cannot even
condemn an epic of impracticable length and hopeless
17
mediocrity — nay, not so much as hint that verses are
not necessarily poetry — without being assailed by an
unceremonious argumentum ad hominem — 'You couldn't
make better.' * And perhaps the critic could not. It is
more reasonable to suppose that he wouldn't if he could,
entertaining the commendable conviction, that to spend
a day , much more a mouth or a year , in writing
middling verse, is an awful waste of time. But what an
absurd irrelevancy of counter-charge ! Suppose Brummell
had found fault with the Nugee or Buckmaster of his
day for misfitting him, and the Schneider had replied,
'Mr. Brummell, you couldn't make as good a coat in a
year.' 'Very probably not,' the beau might have retorted ;
'but my business is to wear the coat, and yours to make
it.' Must a man be able to concoct a bisque (Vecrevisse
himself, before he can venture to hazard an opinion on
the respective merits of the Trois Freres and the Cafe
Anglais? Or shall he be denied the right of giving a
decided vote and holding a decided opinion in politics,
because he has not ability or opportunity to become a
cabinet minister to-morrow? In seeking to put down, or
affecting to despise criticism, the author makes a claim
which no other distinguished character ventures. The
artist does not insist on controlling the judgment of his
contemporaries, still less the statesman. Did a premier
fulminate his dictum to the effect that no journalist had
a right to find fault with his measures, he would raise
a pretty swarm of hornets about his ears. By what pre-
cedent or analogy, then, can the poet, or novelist, or
historian , set himself up as autocrat in that realui of
letters, which is proverbially a republic ?
"Besides, suppose for a moment that all professional
critics were Sir-Peter-Lauried in the most complete man-
ner, who should help to guide the popular mind in de-
termining on the merits of a work? Are we to trust the
written puffs of the author's publisher, or the spoken
puffs of his friends? Or are authors only to judge of
authors, and is it quite certain that in this way we shall
* We have heard this argument again and again in America, ge-
nerally in reference to the seediest of verses; and there could not be
a greater proof of the vagueness and erroneousness of American public
opinion as to the nature and object of criticism, and the qualifications
for exercising it.
Vol. ni. 2
18
always obtain unprejudiced and competent judgments?
Or shall we make an ultimate appeal to the public them-
selves, and decide a book's merits by its sale — a test
that would put Jim Crow infinitely before Philip Van
Artevelde? No doubt a bad critic is a very bad thing;
but it is not a remarkably equitable proceeding to judge
of any class by the worst specimens of it; and surely it
is no fairer to condemn critics en masse ^ because some
of them have formed erroneous judgments or uttered
predictions which time has falsified, than it would be to
condemn authors en masse ^ because many of them have
written stupid or dangerous books. Let us ask ourselves
soberly what a critic is — not the caricature of one that
Bulwer would draw, but such an idea of one as any
dispassionate and well-informed man would conceive. In
the first place , criticism depends very much on taste,
and taste is of all faculties that which is founded on and
supported by education and cultivation. Therefore the
critic must be a liberally educated man in the highest
sense of the term. And as he has to be conversant with
niceties of thought and expression, philology and the
classics should have formed a prominent element in his
education. We should be very suspicious of that man's
critical capacity, who had not thoroughly studied (by
which we do not mean being able to speak) at least one
language besides his own. Then, as a matter of course,
before beginning to write about books, he must have
read many books of all sorts, and not only read, but
studied and comprehended them. All which w^ll help
us to see why the professional critic is likely to be a
better judge of books than the professional author, be-
cause the preparation of the former renders him eminently
eclectic; while the latter is apt to have a bias towards
peculiarities of his own, and thus to judge of others by
a partial standard.
"Next, the critic must be a courageous and inde-
pendent man. His judgment upon a book must be en-
tirely irrespective of any popular outcry for or against
it. If he is at all apt to float wdth the opinions of
others, he cannot be the adviser and assistant of the
public, but will only encourage accidental error or pre-
meditated deception. For a similar reason, he will keep
all personal and private considerations out of view. He
19
must not be supposed to know the author, except as ex-
hibited in his works. But while personality is the bane
of criticism, partisanship, moral or political, is so far
from being a hinderance to the critic, that it is actually
an aid to him. If he has legitimate grounds for praising
a coadjutor or condemning an opponent, he will write
all the better for his partisanship; for, indulging that
partisanship, he feels himself, if he be an honest parti-
san, to be also serving the public. We do not pretend
to have enumerated all the requisites for a critic. There
are some natural qualities, which, if not indispensable,
are at least a great assistance. Thus we find men who
have the same immediate perception of styles that por-
trait painters have of countenances, and can immediately
assign to any anonymous writing its author, though the
peculiarities which distinguish that author be so light that it
is not easy to illustrate, much less to explain them. And thus,
if you ask such a man ; 'How do you know that — wrote this ?
What turn of expression or traits, of style can you point
to ?' He will reply, 'I can't give you any reason, only I am
sure it is so;' and so you will find it to be. He knows it, as
it were, by intuition." But we have already said quite enough
on the general question ; so let us leave our friend to wipe
his spectacles, and come back to our particular case.
In examining the causes of the inferiority of Ame-
rican periodical literature, the most readily assignable,
and generally applicable , is , that its contributors are
mostly unpaid. It is pretty safe to enunciate as a ge-
neral rule, that, when you want a good thing, you must
pay for it. Now the reprints of English magazines can
be sold for two dollars per annum ^ whereas a properly
supported home magazine or review cannot be afi^orded
for less than four or five. Hence no one will embark
a large capital in so doubtful an undertaking; and peri-
odical editorship is generally a last resource, or a des-
perate speculation. One of the leading magazines in
New- York — perhaps, on the whole, the most respectable
and best conducted — was started with a borrowed ca-
pital of 300 dollars (say L. 65). But it is hardly neces-
sary to remark, that the proprietors of a periodical should
have a fair sum in hand to begin with, that they may
secure the services of able and eminent men to make a
good start. The syllogistic conclusion is obvious. At
20
the same time, the editor finds at his disposal a most
tempting array (so far as quantity and variety are con-
cerned) of gratuitous contributions ; for there is in Ame-
rica a mob of — not "gentlemen" altogether — men and
women ''who write with ease," and whose "easy writing"
seldom escapes the correlative proverbially attached to
easy writing. This is, in a great measure, owing to the
system of school and collegiate education , which , by
working boys and girls of fourteen and upwards at
"compositions" and "orations" about as assiduously as
Etonians are worked at "longs and shorts," makes them
"writers" before they know how to read, and gives them
a manner before they can have acquired or origiliated
matter. Most of these people are content to write for
nothing; they are sufficiently paid by the glory of ap-
pearing in print; many of them could write no better if
they were paid. And it certainly is a temptation to be
offered a choice gratis, among a variety of articles not
absolutely unreadable, while you would be compelled to
pay handsomely for one good one.
But the specific evils of such a system are numerous.
In the first place, it prevents the editor from standing
on a proper footing towards his contributors. Many a
man who is not so engrossed with business but that he
can afford to write for nothing, would, nevertheless, find
an occasional payment of forty or fifty dollars a very
timely addition to his income, and would prefer that way
of making money to many others. But, in comparison
with the editor, he appears positively a rich man, and
as such is ashamed to ask for any pecuniary recompense.
He feels, therefore, as if he were doing a charitable and
patronising, or at least a very friendly act, in contribut-
ing, and will be apt to take less and less trouble with
his contributions, and write chiefly for his own amuse-
ment ; while the editor, on his part, does not like to run
the chance of offending a man who can write him good
articles occasionally, and feels a delicacy about declining
to insert whatever the other writes.
Next, it often stands in the way of honest criticism.
Men can be paid in flattery as well as in dollars, and
the former commodity is more easily procurable than the
latter. If the editor eulogises the author of " — and
other Poems," as at least equal to Tennyson, there is a
n
chance that some of the "other poems" may come
his way occasionally. Of course, if he were able and
willing to pay for good articles, he could always com-
mand the service of good contributors, and need not
stoop to so unworthy a practice.
Thirdly, it destroys all homogenousness and unity
of tone in the periodical, by preventing it from having
any permanent corps of writers. The editors must fur-
nish good articles now and then, to carry off their or-
dinary vapid matter; and, accordingly, they are sometimes
under the disagreeable necessity of paying for them 5 but
not sufficiently often to make it worth the while of a
writer, to whom the pecuniary consideration is an object,
to attach himself permanently to any of their concerns.
Hence, those men who expect to derive any appreciable
part of their income from writing in periodicals, are con-
tinually changing their colours, and essentially migratory.
And as the principal attraction of the unpaid writers is
their variety, which is best provided for by frequently
changing the supply of them, while one great inducement
to themselves is the gratification of their vanity, which
is best promoted by their appearing in the greatest num-
ber of periodicals, they also become migratory, and with-
out permanent connexion. Accordingly, it is not uncommon
for a periodical to change its opinions on men and things
three or four times a year. Frequently, too. these changes
are accompanied by disputes about unsettled accounts,
and other private matters, which have an awkward ten-
dency to influence the subsequent critical and editorial
opinions of both parties. Now and then they lead to
libel suits — sometimes to still greater extremities.
But the worst consequence of all is, the suspicion
cast upon all offers from periodicals to really eminent
writers, by the failure of editors (through had faith, or
inability, or both) to fulfil promises made to their con-
tributors. Some of these cases are positively startling.
In one instance, a distinguished author was promised, or
given to understand, that he icould have as much as one
thousand dollars a year. He wrote for two years steadily,
and never received two cents.
We see , then , one great radical cause of inferiority
in American periodical literature, affecting it in all its
departments. But there are other influences which espe-
cially conspire to pervert and impede criticism. Some of
these will be obvious, on referring back to our hints at
the requisites for a critic. We said that he should be
in the highest sense of the term a liberally educated
man. Now this is what very few of the American pe-
riodical writers, professed or occasional, are. The popular
object of education in the new world is to make men
speak fluently and write readily about anything and every-
thing — speaking and writing which, from their very
fluency and readiness, tend to platitude and commonplace.
Those studies which depend on and form a taste for
verbal criticism are pursued in a very slovenly and un-
satisfactory manner; the penchant being for mathematics,
from their supposed practical tendencies. * Men read
much, but they do not "mark, learn, and inwardly digest."
Their reading is chiefly of new books, a most uncritical
style of reading, to which the words reference, compari-
son^ illustration^ are altogether foreign. Again, we said
that our critic must not only be able to form, but ready
to express his own opinion — in short, that he must be
bold and independent. Now this is no easy or common
thing in America, not so much from want of spirit and
fear of the majority, as from want of habit y the demo-
cratic influence moulding all minds to think alike. At
the same time, it must be admitted that a spurious public
opinion does often exercise a directly repressing influence.
Cooper says, in his last novel, that the government of
the United States ought to be called the Gossipian^ and
certainly Mrs. Grundy is a very important estate in the
republic. Then there are many powerful interests all
ready to take oflfence and cry out. The strongest editor
is afraid of some of these. And if these influences have
such power over a newspaper, which has mercantile in-
telligence, advertisements, and other great sources of
support, much more must they affect a magazine or re-
* It is hardly necessary to expatiate on the absurdity of this
fallacy. Every man who reads anything better than newspapers,
finds frequent use for his classics in the way of explaining quotations,
allusions, &c. , while nothing can be imagined more utterly useless in
every-day life than Conic Sections and Diffei-ential Calculus, to any
man not professionally scientific. But because arithmetic is the in-
troductory branch of mathematics, and also the foundation of book-
keeping, it is thought that working a boy at mathematics will make
him a good man of business.
view. One great aim of an American magazine, there-
fore, is to tread on nobody's moral toes, or, as their
circulars phrase it, "to contain nothing which shall offend
the most fastidious" — be the same Irish renegade, re-
pudiator, or Fourierite. Accordingly, nearly all the ma-
gazines and reviews profess and practise political neutrality;
and the two or three exceptions depend almost entirely
on their political articles and partisan circulation. It was
once mentioned to us by the editor of a Whig (Conser-
vative) Review, that he had one Democratic subscriber.
And we know another editor w^ho is continually apolo-
gizing to his subscribers , and one half of his correspon-
dents , for what the other half write. This has not always
been the case. The Southern Literary Messenger was
established to write up "the peculiar institutions," and
therefore only suited to and intended for the southern
market; but there was a time when, under the manage-
ment of Mr. E. A. Poe, an erratic and unequal, but
occasionally very brilliant writer, it had considerable
circulation in the north. And the "Democratic Review,"
while it contained and paid for good articles , was subscri-
bed to, and even written for by many Whigs.
Another enemy of true criticism in America is pro-
vincialism. There is no literary metropolis which can
give decisive opinions, and the country is parcelled out
among small cliques, who settle things their own way
in their own particular districts. Thus, there are shining
lights in Boston, who are "small potatoes" in New- York;
and "most remarkable men" in the West, whom no one
has remarked in the East. Sometimes, indeed, these
cliques contrive to ramify and extend their influence into
other places. This is effected by a regular system of
flattery — "tickle me and I'll tickle you;" nor is there
even an endeavour to conceal this. For instance, when
the classical lion of a certain clique had been favourably
reviewed by a gentleman in another city, whose opinion
was supposed to be worth something, the periodical or-
gan of the clique publicly expressed its thanks for the
favour , and in return dug up a buried novel of the
critic's , and did its best to resuscitate it by a vigorous
puff. Here w^as a fair business transaction, with prompt
payment. We have observed that the tendency of Ame-
rican reviewing is to indiscriminate praise. The exceptions
24
to this (setting aside some rare extravagances , which
resemble the efforts of a bashful man to appear at ease,
attempts to annihilate Cooper, or Tennyson, for instance)
usually spring from some of the private misunderstandings
we have aluded to; e. g, two litterateurs quarrel, one of
them is kicked out of doors, and then they begin to
criticise each other's writings. And the consequence is,
that it is next to impossible to pass an unfavourable
opinion upon anything, without having personal motives
attributed to you, and getting into a personal squabble
about it. When an author, or an artist, or an institution is
condemned, the first step is, to find out, if possible, the writer
of the review, and the next to assail him on private grounds.
Indeed, the author's friends do not always stop at pen
and paper. Some years ago , an English magazinist charged
a fair versifier of the West with having "realized" some of
his inspirations — a very absurd claim by the way, as
there was nothing in the disputed stanzas which would have
done any man much credit. Soon after, the Kentucky pa-
pers announced that a friend of the lady had gone out ex -
press by the last steamer, for the purpose of "regulating"
the Englishman. What the result was we have never heard.
Such are some of the causes which militate against
the attainment of a high standard in American periodical
literature. For some years it went on very swimmingly
on credit; but it is exceedingly doubtful, to say the least,
if the experiment could be successfully repeated. We
have seen that many of these obstacles are directly re-
ferable to the fact that the editorship of Monthlies and
Quarterlies does not tempt men of capital into it; and
it is not difficult to perceive that such of the others as
are surmountable, can be most readily overcome by re-
munerating those engaged in the business. If good critics
are well paid, it will be worth men's while to study to
become good critics ; and if a periodical is supported
with real ability, it will make its way in spite of sectional
or party prejudices, as we have seen was the case in some
instances. And since it is plain that the republication of
English magazines must interfere with the home article, the
conclusion seems inevitable, that the passing of an in-
ternational Copyright Law would be the greatest benefit'
that could be conferred on American periodical literature.
25
AMERICAN POETRY.*
From an article in Fraser, July 1850.
AFTER the Americans had established their politi-
cal nationality beyond cavil, and taken a positive rank
among the powers of the civilized world, they still re-
mained subject to the reproach, that in the worlds of
Art, Science, and Literature, they had no national existence.
Admitting, or, at any rate, feeling, the truth of this taunt,
they bestirred themselves resolutely to produce a prac-
tical refutation of it. Their first and fullest success was,
as might be expected from their notoriously utilitarian
character, in practical inventions. In oratory, notwith-
standing a tendency to more than Milesian floridness and
hyperbole, they have taken no mean stand among the
free nations of Christendom. In history, despite the
disadvantages arising from the scarcity of large libraries,
old records, and other appliances of the historiographer,
they have produced some books which are acknowledged
to be well worthy a place among our standard works,
and which have acquired, not merely an English, but a
Continental reputation. In the fine arts, notwithstanding
obviously still greater impediments — the want at home,
not only of great galleries and collections, but of the
thousand little symbols and associations that help to
educate the artist — the consequent necessity of going
abroad to seek all that the student requires — they have
still made laudable progress. The paintings of Wash-
ington Allston are the most noteworthy lions in Boston ;
the statues of Powers command admiration even in Lon-
don. In prose fiction, the sweet sketches of Irving have
acquired a renown second only to that of the agreeable
* This article, like the one on American periodical Literature,
was written anonymously for an English periodical , and written for
its immediate readers, that is to say as, much as possible from an
English stand-point of view. This will account for its feigned igno-
rance of sundry minor local matters and for some other peculiarities.
At the same time the writers' opinions are in no respect disguised.
essayists whom he took for his models, while the Indian
and naval romances of Cooper are purchased at liberal
prices by the chary bibliopoles of England, and intro-
duced to the Parisian public by the same hand which
translated Walter Scott. In poetry alone they are still
palpably inferior : no world-renowned minstrel has yet
arisen in the New- Atlantis , and the number of those
versifiers w^ho have attained a decided name and place
among the lighter English literature of their day , or
whose claims to the title of poet are acknowledged in
all sections of their own country, is but small.
If we come to inquire into the causes of this defi-
ciency, we are apt at first to light upon several reasons
why it should not exist. In the first place, there is nothing
unpoetical about the country itself, but everything highly
the reverse. All its antecedents and traditions, its dis-
covery, its early inhabitants, its first settlement by civi-
lized men, are eminently romantic. It is not wanting in
battle-grounds, or in spots hallow^ed by recollections and
associations of patriots and sages. The magnificence of
its scenery is well known. The rivers of America are
at the same time the most beautiful and the most majestic
in the world: the sky of America, though dissimilar in
hue, may vie in loveliness wdth the sky of Italy. No
one who has floated down the glorious Hudson (even
amid all the un-ideal associations of a gigantic American
steamer), who has watched the snowy sails — so diffe-
rent from the tarry, smoky canvass of European craft —
that speck that clear water; who has noticed the fault-
less azure and snow of the heaven above , suggesting the
highest idea of purity, the frowning cliffs that palisade
the shore, and the rich masses of foliage that overhang
them, tinged a thousand dyes by the early autumn frost
— no one who has observed all this, can doubt the
poetic capabilities of the land.
A seeming solution, indeed, presents itself in the
business, utilitarian character of the people; and this
solution w^ould probably be immediately accepted by
very many of our readers. Brother Jonathan thinks and
talks of cotton, and flour, and dollars, and the ups and
downs of stocks. Poetry doesn't pay: he cannot appre-
ciate, and does not care for it. 'Let me get something
for myself,' he says, like the churl in Theocritus. 'Let
27
the gods whom he invokes reward the poet. What do
we want with more verse? We have Milton and Shakes-
peare (whether we read them or not). He is the poet
for me who asks me for nothing;' and so the poor Muses
wither (or as Jonathan himself might say, tcUtJ away,
and perish from inanition and lack of sympathy. Very
plausible; but now for the paradox. So far from dis-
liking, or underrating, or being indifferent to poetry, the
American public is the most eager devourer of it, in any
quantity, and of any quality ; nor is there any country in
which a limited capital of inspiration will go farther. Let us
suppose tw^o persons, both equally unknown, putting forth
a volume of poems on each side of the Atlantic; deci-
dedly the chances are , that the American candidate for
poetic fame will find more readers, and more encourage-
ment in his country, than the British in his. Very co-
pious editions of the standard English poets are sold
every year, generally in a form adapted to the purses
of the million; to further which end they are frequently
bound two or three in a volume (Coleridge, Shelley, and
Keats, for instance, is a favourite combination). Even
bardlings like Pollok enjoy a large number of readers
and editions. Nor is there — notwithstanding the much-
complained-of absence of an international copyright law
— any deficiency of home supply for the market. Writ-
ing English verses, indeed, is a much a part of an
American's education, as writing Latin verses is of an
Englishman's, — recited 'poems' always holding a pro-
minent place among their public collegiate exercises;
about every third man, and every other woman of the
liberally-educated classes, write occasional rhymes , either
for the edification of their private circle, or the poets'-
corner of some of the innumerable newspapers that encum-
ber the land ; and the number of gentlemen and ladies one
meets who have published a volume of Something and
Other Poems, is perfectly astounding.
The true secret seems to be, that the Americans, as
a people, have not received that education which enables
a people to produce poets. For, however true the poeta
nascitur adage may be negatively of individuals , it is not
true positively of nations. The formation, of a national
poetic temperament is the work of a long education, and
the developement of various influences. A peculiar clas-
28
sicality of taste, involving a high critical standard, seenis
necessary, among the moderns, to high poetic production;
and such a taste has not yet been formed in America.
True, there are kinds of poetry — the Ballad and the
Epic, which, so far as we can trace them, are born,
Pallaslike, full-grown ; which sound their fullest tone in
a nation's infancy , and are but faintly echoed in its
maturity. But these are numbers in which lisps the in-
fancy, not of a nation merely, but of a race. And the
Americans w^ere an old race though a young nation. They
began with too much civilization for the heroic school
of poetry : they have not yet attained enough cultivation
for the philosophic.
If this be not the right theory of American poetical
deficiency, it remains only for us to take the line which
many American critics really do * — to deny the fact
itself — to maintain that the American poetry of the
present day is at least as good as the English; that Marco
Bozzaris is on a par with the Battle of the Baltic^ or any
other pet lyric of Campbell's ; that Thanatopsis goes
a-head of anything in the Excursion; that the Baven is con-
siderably better than Locksley Hall, and Evangeline beats
the Eve of St. Agnes 'all to smash.' And may it not be
60 after all? Really the answer is not so easy to put
into words, however obvious it may be to the minds of
all of us. It is a very delicate matter to be judges in
our own case. And an appeal to a third party , the
French critics, for instance, would still be open to ex-
ceptions. It might be said that a writer in verse is slowly
read and understood by those who speak a foreign language ;
that the necessity of waiting for a translation is a sore
impediment to the growth of his fame abroad ; that some
of our poets would come off but badly if judged by this
standard. How should we be prepared, it might be asked,
to accept Tennyson's French reputation as a test of his
place on Parnassus ?
Making all allowances for the difficulty , we think
there is one proof which the most ferociously patriotic
* We have before us an article which opens with this quiet
assumption : — 'The fact is as undeniable as it is generally acknow-
ledged, that, since the death of Lord Byron, the best fugitive poetry
of the United States has been greatly superior to that of England.'
n
'States-Man' must admit. American productions in the
other branches of literature have been received with no
petty jealousy or niggard praise. The sober histories of
Prescott and Bancroft ; the romantic fictions of Irving
and Cooper 5 the vivid seasketches of Dana and Melville,
have all been deservedly approved and read by a British
public, nay, some of them have acquired an English re-
putation at least simultaneous with, if not absolutely prior
to, their native renown. Why should American poets
alone be treated with injustice? Or is the public of
England competent to decide in all other branches of
literature, and incompetent only in this? But, in truth,
the infancy of American poetry is clear to any candid
and well-informed man from one single quality, setting
all others out of the question — its character of imita-
tion. Very few of the Transatlantic bards show distinc-
tive features of originality, either in thought or expression.
Take out some halfdozen from the ninety and more tenants
of Mr. Griswold's poetical menagerie, and the verses of
the rest might be shaken up promiscuously and re-distri-
buted among them without its making much difference.
The authors might possibly discriminate between their
respective productions, but we doubt very much if the
readers could. And even among the few selected poets,
we should find at least as ^^ny reminiscences excited
as new suggestions supplied. Thus Halleck reminds us
sometimes of Byron, and more frequently of his favourite
Campbell *, Bryant brings up associations of Wordsworth,
with an occasional dash, or rather dilution, of Collins 5
Whittier has evidently studied Macaulay's ballads, and
so on. Poe and Longfellow perhaps exhibit the most
originality of thought, and marked expression in language,
of any whom the volume contains ; yet the former often
shows the direct influence of Tennyson, Miss Barrett, and
the Keats' school generally, while the latter's quaint and
pretty verses are occasionally redolent of the earlier
English sacred poets.
Among the proximate influences which impede the
poetic progress of the Americans, one of the most evi-
dent, as well as one of the most active, is the great de-
ficiency of wise and independent criticism. The tendencies
of American reviewers are to undeviating eulogy — in
the words of one of their number, they consider that
80
'books, like men, should be judged by their goodness
rather than their badness' — doubtless a very charitable
and engaging rule, but one likely to be productive of
unfortunate consequences to the innocent who invariably
adopts it in judging of either books or men. One cause
of this erroneous theory and practice of criticism we
have already hinted at ; another is to be found in the
adroit system of puffery adopted by the large American
publishing-houses ; and a mis - directed national vanity
has, propably, its share in producing the effect. It is
customary for these writers to boast, with much self-
complacency, of the superiority of their 'soft sawder,'
over the condemnatory tone familiar to English reviewers.
Certainly one of the most captivating of democratic fal-
lacies is the idea that excellence can be best obtained
by lowering the standard of it ; but men of critical pre-
tension might at least recollect, that if nil admirari is a
deadening and chilling mistake,' omne admirari is as dan-
gerous an error the other way ; that if the former is the
mark of a blase and a misanthrope, the latter is equally
the attribute of the rustic who , on his first visit to town,
takes all the tinsel he sees in the streets for gold, all
the stucco for stone, and all the 'ladies fair and free'
for great women of fashion.
FALSE PRO-SLAVERY ANALOGIES.
Evening Post 1854.
SO well known are the persuasive effects of constant
repetition, that to enlarge on them seems little short of
commonplace. Every school-boy can tell you the con-
sequences of familiarity with vice , as expressed by the
poet, and the silliest platitude on the stage becomes a
sort of joke by dint of continued reiteration. The claims
of Mohammedanism to a divine origin would at once by
repelled by our readers as unworthy serious consideration,
yet the journals of distinguished missionaries in the East
show us that they felt obliged there, associating with a
Mohammedan population , to investigate the whole ques-
tion thoroughly and sum up the arguments on both sides.
It is to be feared that the American public is be-
coming accustomed to the defence of slavery — its de-
fence not as a thing palliable or tolerable, a melancholy,
necessity or a choice of evils, but as a positive good, a
bonum in se. The most salient feature of argument in
this bold vindication is a sophistical analogy by which
the exceptional and barbarizing institution of slavery is
compared to the universal and heaven-sanctioned rela-
tions of marriage and family. This argument may in-
deed be said to have assumed a semi-official character,
since one of our foreign ministers publicly boasts of
having put down, or at least out-argued, a famous British
admiral by means of it.
It is desirable that this pretended analogy should be
carefully examined and deliberately weighed in all its
details and bearings.
Briefly it may be stated thus: "You say that slavery
is wrong, because the master has power over him and
sometimes treats him cruelly. But this would be an equally
valid argument against the institutions of marriage and
family, for a man has power over his wife and children,
and wives and children frequently suffer ill treatment
from their husbands and parents."
Very well. Here is a comparison fairly placed before
us for consideration. Let us first take the wife's case, and
see how her relation to her husband resembles or diff'ers
from that of the slave to his master. First, as to the
beginning and origin of the relation : According to the
theory of all civilized countries the wife becomes such
voluntarily, and this is practically true in a large majority
of cases. Nay more, in most cases not only does she
enter the relation voluntarily — i. e. not against her wishes
— but in direct consequence of her wishes, which form
an important element in the causes of her marriage. Or,
in the plainest and briefest English, most women who
get married want to be married.
Now the slave finds himself in his relation to his
master in one of two ways. Either he is born into his con-
dition — of course without his wishes being consulted —
or he is forced into it against his wishes. Here, then, we
have at once a fundamental and original difference be-
tween the two relations compared. One is entered into-
voluntarily, the other is not. Anything which may befal
32
a wife, as such, is to a certain extent the consequence
of her own act. Whatever happens to a slave, as such,
is in no respect the consequence of his own act.
But what can befal a wife that her position should
be compared to the slave's ? What the slave's condition
is we know tolerably well. It is unnecessary to do
more than allude to it. His master is legally authorized
to correct him ad libitum. He is legally punishable, even
by death, if he resists. This legal correction is only li-
mited by death, the infliction of which may be punished
if it can be proved by white witnesses.
In order to make the case of the wife in any respect
parallel, it would be necessary to show either that her
husband was legally authorized to beat her ; or that she
labored under some civil disqualification which hindered
her from being fully protected by the written law; or
lastly, that the unwritten law of public opinion encoura-
ged, or at least permitted, a husband to beat his wife.
Now it is well known that the same law which pro-
tects any woman against any man, or any man against
any other physically stronger than himself, protects a
wife against her husband. She may bring him before
the same court ; he will be visited with the same pu-
nishment. Nor is this a mere theoretical right; being a
lawful witness in her own case, she is as practically
competent to avail herself of it as any other maltreated
person. And lest fear of a repetition of cruelty should
deter her from giving evidence against her husband, she
has an acknowledged right to quit his roof and remove
herself from his power. Was such a thing ever even
thought of as the removal of a slave from his master's
power for ill usage ?
As to the unwritten law on the subject — the po-
pular feeling and social sentiment — all this is even
more in the wife's favor. Among all respectable people
an occasional, not to say habitual, wife-beater is socially
outlawed. In the very lowest class, all that can be said
of him is that he is not always an object of continual
abhorrence. Any pretence even of oppression on the
part of a husband raises a host of friends for the ag-
grieved wife. This chivalrous feeling has even been made
a political engine. What more popular argument in favor
of the Maine Law than the tendency of drunkenness to
83
make men maltreat their wives? Quere : Did a temperance
lecturer at the South ever inveigh against drunkeness on
the ground that it made men beat their slaves?
The only limitation to the wife's power of remedy,
which can be alleged, is a purely sentimental one, (in
the good sense of the word.) namely, that delicacy^ dread
of public scandal, and consideration for her children and
her family generally, may induc6 her to suffer in silence.
The answer to this is, that such considerations have
weight on both sides of the relation. The very «ame
motives may lead a husband to pass over grave irregu-
larities or even the most serious wrong on the part of
his wife. It is clear, then, that no correspondence can
be made out here in favor of slavery, an institution where
all the privilege is on one side, and all the suffering on
the other.
But the advocate of slavery changes the venue, and
by so doing thinks he has brought facts to bear against
us. "What you affirm may be true of our free states,"
he exclaims, "but look at England! Look at the London
police reports ! Husbands beat, mangle and mutilate their
wives, and are only punished for it by a few months'
imprisonment." Very well, say we, first show us some
cases in which a slaveholder has been punished for beating,
mangling or mutilating his own slave, even with a few
days' imprisonment. Next consider that the* English have
never attempted to deny, defend or palliate the enormity
of wife beating among their lower orders ; still less have
they ever murdered or wished to murder any one for
calling attention to it. Note especially that, in order to
make the cases at all parallel, it would be necessary that
in all trials for such offences not only the evidence of
the wife, but that pf any other woman whatsoever, should
be inadmissible.
It w^ill be seen, then, that the analogy requires a
much larger number of legs than it possesses, to make
it go on all fours.
But we have not yet done cutting the ground from
under it. Brutal usage of wives by their husbands is
an "institution" almost peculiar to England. Russia may
claim some share in it, but in other European countries
it prevails to a very slight extent. It is, therefore, but
fair to conclude that the cause of it is not to be sought in
YoL m. 3
34
the institution of marriage, because it is not conterminous
with that institution but that it is rather owing to a cer-
tain leaven of brutality in the English character, eradi-
cated, or at least restrained, by religion and education
among the higher classes, but having its full swing with
the lower. If our opponents can show^ that there are
slaveholding communities in which the slaves are not
habitually treated with cruelty , they will then be entitled
to claim that the cruelties practised on the southern slaves,
(as w^ell as the murders, duels, street fights, &c., among
the masters,) are not in any respect attributable to the
institution of slavery, but only to a natural leaven of
brutality in the southern character. It is doubtful whether
they would take much by this motion ; but even this doubtful
advantage is denied them. It is impossible to produce
any country in which slavery has long existed, without
involving cruel treatment of ^he slaves.
The analogy asserted between the wife's condition
and the slave's fails, therefore, in every point of principle
involved. The child's however, has two prima facie points
of undoubted resemblance. First , the child , like the slave,
finds himself in a state of subjection to which his consent
has not been asked j secondly, the father has a legal right
to inflict corporal punishment on his child, as the master
has on his slave, and this legal right is, as in the other
case, morally supported by custom and public opinion.
But when we come to examine why the child and
the slave are placed in their respective conditions, the
analogical resemblance vanishes at once. The child finds
himself in a state of subjection to his parents. Why?
Because from his physical and mental incapacity he must
be under the control and direction of some one ; and
therefore law and custom put him under the control of
those persons who, in all reasonable probability, will
love him and care for him more than any other persons
in the world would, being moved thereto by one of the
strongest, if not the strongest, of natural affections. He
is subject to his parents for his own benefit — that is
the leading idea of the relation.
But the slave is subject to the master for the mas-
ter's profit — that is the leading idea of his relation.
The talk we sometimes hear about the slave being placed
in his state of servitude for the sake of civilizing and
J
35
Christianizing him is in most instances sheer cant and
blasphemy ; and even admitting that such results are in
certain cases and to a certain extent obtained by slavery,
they are still only incidents, not original reasons of the
relation. Its fundamental idea is that the slave belongs
to the master for the master's profit, just as his horse
or carriage , or any other chattel, animate or inani-
mate, does.
The origin of the two relations , therefore , though
superficially similar, is fundamentally different.
Now for the right to punish : Admitting that it is
the same in both cases, we proceed to examine what
are the safeguards in each case against its abuse. The
child is protected by one of the strongest natural affec-
tions. Nothing measures this affection better than the
strength of the motives required to overcome it — except,
indeed, the astonishment excited at its being overcome
by any motives, however strong. History assigns the
foremost place among the worthies of loyalty and patriotism
to him who has sacrificed his children rather than betray
his king or his country. The woman who leaves her
children to follow a man is considered to have given the
last proof of frantic devotion to him. Law and custom
may safely place an arbitrary power in the parent's hand,
when there exists so strong a motive against its abuse.
Now, what is the feeling of a master towards his
slave ? Very often it must resemble that which he would
entertain towards any beast of burden. At best it is the
sentiment of affection for an old family servant. Who
will pretend to compare this with the affection of a pa-
rent for a child? The prince, in the fairy tale, kills
his two children to re-animate his faithful John. This is
all very well in a fairy tale, but we do not expect such
things in real life.
How exalted an opinion should we form of a man's
patriotism from being told that he had suffered two or
three of his slaves to be killed by the enemy rather than
turn traitor !
The only general feeling at work to protect the
slave is one of interest and calculation. This gives him,
practically , about as much protection as a horse has.
The man who maltreats his horse will probably hear
some remarks calculated to annoy him; perhaps he may
36
even fall into the hands of some society for the preven-
tion of cruelty to animals — (there are no corresponding
societies in slaveholding communities;) but neither his
legal nor his moral punishment will in any way compare
with that of a man detected in cruelty to his offspring.
Let it also be noted, that it is never for the parent's
interest (save in some exceptional and monstrous cases,
like those of the English burial-clubs,) to destroy his
children; but w^e have statistical records to prove that
it is often for the planter's interest to work up his stock
of slaves in a certain period of time, and supply their
place by fresh purchases.
But further: The parent has reasons of prospective
interest for not maltreating his children. He naturally
looks to them for support and comfort in his old age.
It is of great importance to him that, when emancipated
from his control, they should not regard him with in-
difference or aversion. Whereas there is very little chance
of the slave's ever being in a condition where his feelings
can make much difference to his master.
It may indeed be said that masters will treat their
slaves well for fear of their running away ; but the pre-
cautions of another sort, taken against evasion, show
that slaveholders themselves have little faith in this motive.
We have spoken of children when emancipated from
parental control. This brings us to consider the limited
period of the child's subjection — a difference sufficient
of itself to vitiate the whole analogy, and render the
comparison at once inadmissible. As well might it be
argued that members of the learned professions ought
not to contract matrimony, because they were prohibited
from doing so while students at college.
Once more : The child, though legally punishable by
his parents, has legal remedies against inhuman punish-
ment beyond those of the slave. If any stranger takes
up his cause, he may be heard as a witness against his
own parents — so may his brothers and sisters or any
other children.
Finally : In every supposable case of a parent's mal-
treating his legitimate child, he would be as likely or
more likely to maltreat an illegitimate child. Therefore
the occasional ill-treatment of children by parents is no
argument against the institution of marriage. But it cannot
37
be similarly shown that the master who ill treats a slave
would be as likely to ill treat a servant. Therefore the
ill usage of slaves is a direct argument against the in-
stitution of slavery.
We conclude, then, that the relation of child and
parent resembles that of slave and master in two bare
facts; but in all the circumstances qualifying those facts,
it differs so utterly as to destroy all argument drawn
from analogy of the cases.
Some of the above remarks look like demonstrations
of self-evident truths. We may be accused of knocking
down men of straw. And so we are; but it is not ice
who have set them up. The slaveholders have erected
them to do duty for real men, which they will if not
knocked over. The puppets w^hich the Italian bandit
stationed at the roadside yielded to the touch of an in-
fant; but until their real nature was detected, they served
him as effectually in his schemes of plunder as living
and vigorous accomplices could have done.
THE ENGLISH PRESS AND THE
AMERICAN PUBLIC.
Fraser, July 1855.
THE newspapers and periodicals of Great Britain
have been in the habit of handling the Americans , their
customs, habits, laws, and proceedings generally, with
the smallest possible amount of gloves. The American
public — by this term we do not mean merely the Ame-
rican daily press, which we are far from accepting as a
complete or adequate representative of the American public
— complains of this treatment, and denounces the attacks
made on it as ill-natured, unfair, and prejudiced. To
this it is replied that the Americans are absurdly thin-
skinned and sensitive , and moreover supremely inconsistent
in wishing to put down free discussion, and curtail the
largest liberty of criticism. However inconsistent or
illogical the Americans may have been in some of these
38
complaints, however much thej^ may in the abstract de-
serve a greater or less part of the things said about
them, and the jokes cracked on them, we incline to
think that the course pursued by the bulk of the English
press is an ill-advised one, and very mischievous in its
practical results , for reasons which we shall proceed to
explain.
Once for all be it understood at the start, that in
arraigning the practice of the leading British journals
and periodicals, we do not impugn the truth of their
fundamental facts. We charge them with no falsification
of premises. Neither do we question the excellence of
their leaders as models of literary composition and sa-
tirical writing. What we do question , and that most
seriously, is their policy; and our object in the follow-
ing pages will be to show why their usual style of
treating American subjects is peculiarly impolitic and
dangerous.
It is often said, and generally admitted, that the
Americans are a remarkably sensitive people. Allowing
this to be the case, the obvious inference would seem
to be, that there was no great wisdom in going out of
the way to irritate them, since grave journalists who
write on international matters are not expected to act
the part of practical jokers, aggravating a testy indivi-
dual for the mere purpose of seeing what fun he will
make when he loses his temper. But we must look into
the matter more closely. There are different kinds of
sensitiveness. The French, for instance, are almost pro-
verbially touchy, but their touchiness is by no means
the same as that of the Americans.
The Frenchman is sensitive about little every-day
occurrences which affect his personal dignity. If you
chance to jostle him, or tread on his toes, or derange
his hat. or interfere with his dog, he flies into a passion.
True , he is not apt to proceed to personal violence, and
he will generally accept with graciousness a timely apo-
logy , but until or unless thus appeased , his verbal wrath
is excessive. Nor indeed is he slow to get up an 'affair
of honour' on grounds as trivial as the above. When it
comes to pen and ink, however, he is more philosophic.
The criticisms of foreigners he seldom takes the trouble
to read , even when able to do so 5 those of his compatriots
39
he laughs at and repays in kind. French feuilletons have
indeed been the cause of some very striking duels, but
however great the eclat attendant on these encounters,
their number is small in proportion to that of duels arising
from other causes, and to the provocation given one another
by the Parisian litterateurs.
Now the sensitiveness of the American manifests itself
in a way precisely the reverse of this. An accidental
collision in a crowd, or any similar want of personal
courtesy, is so far from being sharply resented by him,
that it is a chance if he even remarks it. You might
commit a rudeness of this sort in America a hundred
times with impunity, unless you were so unlucky as to
stumble upon a professional bully of the 'Mose' sort,
whose amusement as well as business it is to pick quarrels.
A recent French traveller has mentioned with sur-
prise an incident which occurred to him soon after his
arrival in New- York, and which exactly illustrates our
proposition. In a crowded street he chanced to spit on
a man who was passing. He expected angry words,
perhaps something worse, but the aggrieved party either
not noticing the accident at all, or correctly appreciating
it as an accident, passed on without the slightest remark.
On the other hand , the American attaches an extraordinary
importance to whatever appears in print, and especially
in widely circulated print, like the columns of a news-
paper. He is not always critical to discriminate the
value of the source whence the praise or censure pro-
ceeds ; it is enough for him that it circulates. Much
elated by praise , he is correspondingly annoyed by blame.
This fact explains in a great measure the inferiority of
American literary criticism, such criticism being at a
discount , because when honestly exercised it almost
inevitably leads to personal squabbles. It also goes far
to account for the influence wielded by some of the
American daily papers, an influence of which we should
vainly seek the explanation, either in the literary merit
of their articles or the personal character of their con-
ductors. Most of the scandalous papers in England have
died out, not because their proprietors were perpetually
cowhided or perpetually prosecuted , but because the
public refused to patronize them. In America the con-
victed libeller pays his costs and damages out of the
40
increased circulation which the notoriety of a conviction
procures for him; and the thrashing received in his own
person, or vicariously in that of one of his reporters,
acts as a reclame for his journal. The suit and the as-
sault are testimonies of the highest kind to his powers
of annoyance. And thus the Barnard Gregory of Ne'w-
York becomes a candidate for a foreign mission, and the
Alderman Harmer of Nassaustreet actually obtains a seat
in Congress. But, it may be asked, is not a sensitiveness
which leads to such results highly reprehensible? That
is not the point now under discussion. Reprehensible or
not, we find the sentiment existing, and its existence must
be taken into account in dealing with the people among
whom it prevails. Moreover, this sentiment is aggravated
tenfold by an unfortunate contrast between a peculiarity
of the English intellect and a peculiarity of the American
apprehension. The cultivated English mind delights in
banter, in that species of saucy but not malevolent rail-
lery which popularly denominates itself chaff ^ and which
does not necessarily imply any want of respect or esteem
for the object of it, though its form and manner are
anything but respectful. What English writers lova to
boast of is undeniably true — that they exercise this
propensity on their own affairs and institutions quite as
unsparingly as they do on those of foreigners. They
are as critical on themselves as on other people. The.
misfortune is, however, that other people do not always
understand it so well, and of all people the worst to un-
derstand it are the Americans. They are too serious and
earnest to take chaff at its just value and meaning. It
is not within their comprehension that a paragraphist can
quiz an individual or make fun of a nation without en-
tertaining an intense personal or political enmity to
him or it.
When the English journalist says triumphantly, 'We
satirize things at home as freely as things abroad ,' he
considers himself arrived at the ne plus ultra of contro-
versy on that head. Yet this sort of argument is surely
not to be admitted in its broadest form, and without li-
mitation. It would hardly do to carry out in all the
transactions of everyday life. A man who were to beat
his neighbour's wife, for instance, would find small justi-
fication in the fact that he had been in the habit of beating
41
his own. Nor in this particular case would it be im-
possible to turn the argument round, and reason inversely,
thus: the Americans (or any other people) exercise a
certain amount of reserve in discussing certain subjects,
therefore they expect that foreigners will do the same.
^It is the privilege, and the duty, and the pride of
an English journalist to speak the truth without fear or
favour.' Very well. This is a magnificent sentiment,
which we should reluctantly incur the responsibility of
even seeming to take exception to. But the implied prac-
tical application is by no means a logical inference. The
necessity of telling the truth does not involve the neces-
sity of telling it in the most disagreeable manner, and
with an elaborate garnish of the most aggravating cir-
cumstances. A gentleman is bound to tell the truth, but
is he not also bound to give no unnecessary offence ?
'We defy any one to contradict our statements in
matters of fact. Has not this, and that, and the other
been said and done in America? And if our statements
cannot be controverted, what is there to complain of?
But surely between the wholesale fabrications of the
New-York Herald, or the New-York Tribune^ on the one
hand, and a perfectly candid and fair representation on
the other, there is a tolerably wide range. It appears
more a platitude than a paradox to say that a number
of truths may be told so as to leave an untrue impres-
sion, yet this simple proposition is constantly ignored
in the practice of the English press. One obvious method
of doing this is to omit or slur over counterbalancing
facts. Would any one, for example, who depended wholly
or chiefly for his American information on the columns
of The Times^ get a correct idea of the state of things
across the Atlantic 5 We answer unhesitatingly , No !
His information, though positively true, would be relatively
false, from its one-sided nature and dexterous colouring.
We cannot better illustrate our meaning than by
comparing the conduct and language of the English press
generally (there are some noteworthy exceptions, such
as the Daily News) towards America, with its conduct
and language towards the German powers. Doubtless
every English journalist would repel with scorn the in-
sinuation that he was influenced either by fear or by
any interested motive to conciliate those powers at the
42
expense of truth and freedom. Yet how discreet, and
courteous, and patient, and long-suffering has been the
general tone of the English press towards Germany?
What can be the reason of this difference ? Is it theore-
tical sympathy ! Surely an Englishman cannot feel a
marked preference for the institutions of Austria, politi-
cal or religious, over those of America. Is it practical
gratitude for better deserts ? No unarmed Englishman
has been cut down in the streets of New-Orleans by an
armed American officer, nor have English travellers been
stopped and pestered with impossible passport and custom-
house regulations, and treated like suspected conspirators
or detected pickpockets by American functionaries. Sup-
pose The Times should try for a few months to be as
civil to America , as it usually is to Austria — just for
the sake of curiosity and variety — would anybody be
the worse for it?
Our principal object, however, is to scrutinize the
policy^ rather than the fairness of the course pursued in
regard to America by the greater portion of the English
press. For this purpose it will be necessary to take a
brief retrospective view of its historical relations with
America.
During the first forty years of the present century,
while the old party lines of Whig and Tory continued
to be distinctly drawn, and to comprise between them
nearly the whole of the English political world, the Ame-
merican Republic was generally regarded as a sort of
outdoor off-shoot and result of Wliig principles, and ac-
cordingly came in for its share of the general condem-
nation pronounced by Tory writers on everything Whig.
For the same reason Whig writers generally defended
it, sometimes perhaps in a tone of supercilious patronage,
but at any rate defended it. In those days Blackwood^
the Quarterly^ the Standard^ &c., noticed the Americans
unfavourably, as a matter of course, and a bit of party
'business.' Equally as a matter of course the Edinburgh^
the Morning Chronicle , &c., took their part. The Times was
for or against, according to the side it happened to be
on. But even before the present bouleversement and
disarrangement of English political parties, which has
brought about such funny results here and there (making
the Morning Post a Whig organ, for instance) — even
43
before this upsetting of old party landmarks, it came to
be generally allowed that the Western Republic had out-
grown its qvasi-de^endence on English party politics. The
Conservatives no longer felt obliged to attack it, and
many of the Liberals certainly got w^ell over their pro-
pensity to praise it. Were we asked to name the Eng-
lish publications which during the last twelve years have
been most systematically virulent in their anti-American
articles, we should feel little hesitation in naming, among
newspapers , The Times , which has been generally on the
liberal side during that period ; among periodicals , the
late Foreign Quarterly, which though not openly hanging
out any political flag, was obviously and decidedly Pal-
merston Whig.
It is clear then that no English journalist is bound
by party ties at home to adopt an unfavourable tone
towards America. He is left perfectly free in that re-
spect. The excuse was a tolerably good one while it
lasted (and conversely let us add, must be accepted as
a palliation for much of the nonsense which the demo-
cratic and Administration prints in America are wont to
utter about England), but it exists no longer, and the
journalist has only to consider the interest of all Eng-
land in reference to the relations of the two countries.
In America the case may be fairly stated thus. The
feeling of a majority of the population is , we regret to
say , unfavourable to England. But there is a large and
respectable minority always existing, though not always
composed of the same elements or acting in concert, which
is decidedly friendly. Now it is clearly the policy of
the English press (assumed as the representative of the
English people) to support and strengthen this minority,
whereas its almost constant tendency has been to play into
the hands of the majority.
How so ? Simply thus : by thrusting the minority
into the same boat with the majority, confounding them
in the same censure, assailing them with the same ridi-
cule, weakening at the same time their chance of success
in opposition, and their inclination to opposition.
There are cases in which it is hard to separate the
minority from the majority, in dealing with a foreign
nation. Thus it would be impossible to go to war with
the majority and remain at peace with the minority. Yet,
44
even in this extreme instance, he would be but a poor
statesman who should take no account of the minority
in the hostile country. Let us suppose, for the sake of
argument, that there is a strong peace party in Russia,
numbering say one fourth of the great landed proprietors
and the influential persons at court. On this hypothesis,
it would be the clear interest and duty of the allies, by
offering fair and unexceptionable terms of negotiation,
and by other obvious means , to endeavour to strengthen
the hands and increase the numbers of this peace party.
If, then, our proposition be true even of nations engaged
in actual hostilities, how much more must it be of those
between whom not only extensive diplomatic, but the
closest and most important commercial, relations exist.
We have remarked in a former article that the Ame-
rican minority has a constant source of power in the
possibility of its becoming a majority. But a stronger
point than this remains behind. Not only do the words
and acts of the American Government, so promiscuously
attributed to the American people , not always represent
the whole of that people, but they do not always represent
the majority of it. We put aside the cases in which the
President and the Senate have been at variance, for the
Senate might be considered a quasi- stxi^iocxaiic body.
But the House of Representatives, chosen more directly
by the people than the President himself, frequently chan-
ges its political complexion during the latter half of the
presidential term, simultaneously with, and in consequence
of, the state elections going against the administration.
Nor ought such a condition of things to excite sur-
prise, least of all in England, where at this moment it
is doubtful if any Ministry could be formed which would
be sure on all the great questions of the day of either
commanding a majority in Parliament, or representing a
majority of the nation.
But the English press generally despises the trouble
of making these obvious distinctions, and prefers to con-
found all American men and things in indiscriminate con-
demnation. Congress passes a measure of doubtful pro-
priety after a long conflict, by a small majority. Perhaps
the next Congress may reverse this decision ; at any rate
the circumstances show that a large party in the country
is opposed to the measure. Never mind ; put it down
45
to the discredit of the whole country and all the parties
in it. One section of the Union carries some favourite
plan of its own, to which the other section is bitterly
opposed. Blame that other section too for what it could
not prevent by any means short of civil war. The ad-
ministration makes some injudicious appointment, or issues
some silly manifesto. That too is the fault of the Ame-
rican people, though the American people at that very
moment may be condemning, in the most practical way,
at all the local elections, the conduct of the administration.
It will give more precision to our statements if we
examine in detail the conduct of the English press towards
certain American political parties.
And first, the late Whig party (we are obliged to speak
of it in the past tense, for it is now as completely disorgani-
the old Tories or Protectionists here). No one tolerably read
in American political history can doubt that this party, which
for twenty years occasionally held the reins of power,
but generally acted the part of the regular Opposition,
was on the whole decidedly favourable to England. It
may not have been so openly or noisily English as the
Democratic party during most of the same period was
French, but its predilections were decidedly that way.
They were so, partly by reason of its partial descent
from the old Federalist Opposition ; partly from its com-
prising a majority, not exactly of the literary men, per-
haps, but of the best educated and most accomplished
men in the country ; partly from its including also a ma-
jority of the old Protestant and Puritan feeling ; * in short,
from a variety of causes, which it is unnecessary to
enumerate. Did the English press reciprocate the good
offices of the American Whigs ? A conscientious study
of that press during many years of the period referred
to, leaves no room for other than a negative answer.
The liberal prints generally attacked the American Whigs
for not being Free-traders. The conservative prints ge-
nerally assailed them for not going far enough in their
resistance to the anti-English parties, forgetting that they
had duties on both sides, and were bound to look at home
* The overthrow of this principle, and the rise of a radical
and irreligious section in the party, was the main cause of its final
overthrow.
46
as well as abroad. The really eminent statesmen and orators
idolized by the Whigs were damned with faint praise by the
English press. In fine, its whole tendency was, on the one
hand, to throw cold water on the sympathy of its American
friends, and on the other, to weaken their influence by
giving a handle to their adversaries. On the downfall of
the Whigs arose another opposition party, which had for
some years previous maintained a sort of embryo existence,
under the name of Native American^ but which started
into full vitality with the slang title of Know-nothings.
Though this new political sect might in a rough way be
described as opposed to all foreigners and foreign influence,
many of its immediate developments were decidedly
favourable to England. In the first place, negatively,
because the English residents in the United States have
never (much to their credit be it said) interfered in the
politics of the country, and were therefore in no respect
obnoxious to the Knownothings; and then positively, be-
cause one of their leading principles was opposition to
the influence of the Irish emigrants, and particularly of
the Irish priests, an influence which, it is hardly neces-
sary here to repeat, has been invariably hostile to Eng-
land, and which, had its power only equalled its will,
would long since have involved the two countries in open
war. How has the English press treated the Know-
nothings ? Their appearance above the political horizon
was greeted with a most virulent attack from The Times^
and the comments of other journals upon them have been
mostly depreciatory.
The anti-slavery and free-soil agitation in America
fell in so exactly with the long-established moral and
religious prepossessions of influential classes in England ;
it presented such an occasion for sentimental declamation
and cheap sympathy as well as for the outpouring of
real honest indignation ; it aff'orded so happy a second
edition of the Jenny Lind mania, in the double apotheosis
of a woman who was at the same time a great lion and
a great virtue, that it could not fail to be immensely popular
with the public of Great Britain. The press was borne
along by the stream. But it went rather behind than
before public opinion. It was not sorry to have its fling
at American institutions, but much less fond of praising
American abolitionists. The same propensity to criticise
47
accessories, to carp and nibble at details, to ridicule
minor extravagances, that marks its treatment of Ame-
ricans generally, marks its treatment of the anti-slavery
men in particular.
We repeat it, the general language of the English
press* towards Americans, one and all, is not such as
to encourage the American admirers of England in their
pro-English sympathies. Routine and obstinate conser-
vatism unfortunately exist in other things besides military
organization ; the tone which might safely be used tow^ards
the United States when they numbered but a few millions,
almost outside of the Civilized w^orld, and without ex-
ternal power or influence, physical or moral, has been
continued down to a time when it is dangerously out of
place. The Americans have been charged with a spirit
of braggadocio, and it is possible that they may set an
over-estimate on their progress in some respects , — in
art, in literature, in criticism, even in morality, — but
one thing they do appreciate correctly , and that is their
growing importance in the material and political world.
They know individually and collectively , that Europeans
can no longer afford to slight them.
It is because we have the highest opinion of the
talent, integrity, education, and social position of the
gentlemen who write for the English press, that we offer
for their consideration these remarks — remarks which
they, from the height of their superior wit and cleverness,
may possibly look down upon as feebly and clumsily
expressed, but which are nevertheless dictated by a sin-
cere desire of doing good. And if they desire to do good
to the Americans , let them try it in some other way than
by continually satirizing them. The Americans can find
satirists among themselves at less expense to the common
cause of humanity. The task is ungrateful anywhere, but
if a native attempts it , the worst that can happen to
him is that he or his family will be set up for marks to
be lied at by the 'head deviP of the Herald or the Tri-
bune^ and all his subordinate imps and correspondents.
The mischief stops with a certain amount of personal
annoyance to himself ; it does not make trouble between
* We are too happy to note some prominent exceptions, such as
the Daily News and the Westminster Review.
48
two great countries. A joke is a very good thing, but
there are cases in which it decidedly does not pay. The
officer in colonial days who wrote a ribald and obscene
song to ridicule the despised provincials, little thought
that his fellow-soldiers would be ignominiously marched
out of the country to that very tune , and that it would
live to become the national air of a powerful people
when his own name was irretrievably lost in oblivion.
And should serious difficulties (which God avert!) ever
arise between England and America, it would be a poor
consolation to the friends of humanity to reflect that The
Times had made this editor or that ambassador the laughing-
stock of Europe.
THE HACK-HORSE WOT
WOULDN'T GO.
OR, HOW THE YANKEE DID THE YORKSHIREMAN.
(American Review, February 1847.)
Rap ! rap ! ! rap ! ! !
No answer.
Three more raps and two kicks.
"Hullo who's there ? What's the row ?"
"Toomble oop , Benson , toomble oop !"
And Fred Peters tumbled in.
"Eeeee — yow! 'Tisn't church time yet," and I
yawned awfully.
"Noa, but we're goaing to York, you know."
"Oh ! Ah ! Ye-es." And it began to dawn upon my
somewhat obfuscated intellect that we were to be at
York in time for the Cathedral service, which begins at
10 A. M. It was now halfpast 6 , and we were in Leeds,
twenty-four miles distant. Under this pressure I did
"toomble oop," and set about my toilet vigorously.
Fred Peters was a right good fellow, half Yankee,
half Yorkshire. I believe he was born in the good city
of Gotham, but his dialect w^as precisely that of the
Ridings. Adopted at first partly out of fun, partly as an
aid in business, (at that time we New-Yorkers were
49
suffering for the sins of the Pennsylvania defaulters and
Mississippi repudiators, and John Bull was very shy of
us,) this peculiar modification of the vernacular had be-
come his natural mode of speech, and he seldom used any
other. We were sw^orn cronies, though in very different
lines, he being learned in all mysteries of broadcloth, I
a moderately learned and decidedly equestrian Cantab.
Business had brought him, and pleasure me, to the north
of England : our temporary headquarters were , as above
hinted, at Leeds.
And now breakfast and other matutinal operations
being successfully completed at half- past 7, we were
ready to start. Our vehicle was one of the "Shem,
Ham and Japhet Buggies," by Sidney Smith commemo-
rated. The horse was a wiry dark bay, with a hammer
head, never-resting ears, and no tail to signify. There
were good points about him, but he had an aspect of
unmitigated rowdiness that strongly reminded me of the
"bhoys" on the 3d Avenue. And this souvenir of my be -
loved city moved me — no , kept me from moving ; for
I stood contemplating the fiery (and fired) steed in ecstasy
of admiration.
"Handsome horse, that!" said Peters.
"Never mind , we're not proud." (A Cantab never is,
if you will take his word for it.) In we jumped ; I took
the ribbons , of course , and off went rowdy at a good
round pace.
FYTTE THE SECOND — Cueing Fight the First.)
"One mile to Tadcaster. How far is that from York?"
"Ten moiles further."
"Not so bad that. Thirteen miles in — how much,
Fred ?"
"One hour and five minutes. Plenty o' toime; you'd
better pull up a little."
Singularly enough the horse had come to the same
conclusion just at that moment, for he began shaking
his head with great rapidity, and decreasing the velocity
of his legs in a corresponding ratio until he came to a
walk. To this we had no objection ; indeed , it was the
very thing we intended. But after about fifty yards he
came to a positive standstill. Even in this we were
willing to acquiesce for a reasonable time, and allowed
Vol. m. 4
50
him sixty full seconds for repose, afte/ which I intimated
the propriety of advancing. But the usual suggestions
were quite lost upon our animal. Whip, reins and voice,
equally failed to educe any symptoms of locomotion.
"Oi'll lead him," quoth Peters, the best natured of
men, and out he leaped. For some twenty yards the
horse condescended to proceed ; then he stood stockstiller
than ever.
''Coom along, old horse! Coom wi' ye! (Here the
horse backed a trifle.) Coo-om ! poor fel-low ! Ah ! Ben-
son, he'll nayther be driven nor coaxen," and Fred, for
once in his life, looked like giving it up. For my part
I essayed alternately every term of endearment and ob-
jurgation, all to no purpose. The brute remained ob-
stinately statuesque. As my friend , Dr. Whistle of Trinity,
might have said, "no fortuitous concourse of itinerants
was ever more deaf to the authoritative mandate of a
policeman" than the Yorkshire Rosinante to our persua-
sions. He could not be induced to "move on" at any price.
"Confound you to all eternity !" I exclaimed at last;
and springing up, I began to flagellate the refractory one
in every part reachable. "Clear the track, Fred!" And
he did, in good time for himself, for just as I had com-
pleted my circuit of castigation, the subject of it made
a hunterlike bolt , tearing aways tugs and traces as if
they were paper, and leaving the buggy to its destiny.
As I make it a principle always to stick to the reins,
I found myself flying through the air in a very erratic
curve , the locus of which it would require a better ana-
lyst than myself to determine. Even in this emergency,
however, I retained sufficient presence of mind to draw
one rein hard, by which means the horse was landed in
a road-side gully, before he could drag me more than
three or four leaps, and I escaped without further injury
than a slight rent in my tweeds. As for Peters, he sat
down on a big stone and laughed inextinguishably.
It does not take long to get a horse out of a ditch.
I had had hunting experience enough to understand those
sort of things. The next step was to head him towards
our vehicle, which was no sooner done than he started
off at a rate that bade fair to carry him back to Leeds
in less time than he had come from it. And now I should
have been compelled to let go the reins in self-defence,
51
but lo ! in his headlong career he caught sight of the
buggy, whereat he brought up all standing, shied right
round and resumed his immobility. Once more I exhausted
all my powers of persuasion to induce an advance , but
as to making him move one step buggy-ward, you might
as well try to make a French novelist believe in virtue
and honor, or a Loco-Foco listen to reason. Vainly did
I "remonstrate" with him more Hibernico ^ first with the
butt-end of my whip and afterwards with my boots : it
was an utterly fruitless expenditure of leather.
"Well," said I at last, "if Mahomet won't go to the
mountain the mountain must come to Mahomet ;" so we
laid hands on the buggy and dragged it bodily up to the
horse ; then, having tied up the traces ccfxcooyencog (which
may here be translated for the benefit of those not ^cu-
riously learned^ "with an old suspender") we each took
one side of his head and , by a great triumph of art,
coached him over the remaining mile. And thus w^e made
our entry into Tadcaster at 10 A. M., Sunday morning.
Almost every one was at church, and we led along
our goodly steed nearly five minutes, through a not very
promising street, without discerning, as Pat says, "ere
a Christian, not aiven a pig, shure." At the end of that
time we became aware of a large bundle of pots coming
down upon us at the rate of six miles an hour, and as
the ambulatory mass of pewter drew nigher we distin-
guished a small boy in the centre of it.
"I say , boy !"
"Zurr !" and the pot-boy pulled up in about as much
time as it would have taken a locomotive to perform the
same feat.
"Where does this road go ?"
"It goa boath ways, zur, it do."
"And that one?"
"That doan't go nowhere, zur."
"H — m — m. Any inn here ?"
"Yes, zur, there be the Roizin Zun, and the Zwan
wi' one neck , you know , and the Zwan wi' two necks."
„And which is the best?"
"Whoy, zur, feyther he loikes the Zwan wi' two
necks: Oi belongs to the Roizin Zun mysel ! Vera good
tap the Zun, zur."
"Well, which is the way to the Sun?"
4*
52
Memory and imagination are equally incompetent to
convey an adumbration of the bewildering answer we
received, compared with which the celebrated Dutch
direction, "First you must go up a high hill, and then
down a low hill," &c., was a very model of lucidness.
We looked dubiously at the boy, the horse, and each other.
"What's to be done, Peters?" '
Fred replied by warbling a stave of "the Pilot:"
"Fear not, but troost in Pro-o-o-vidence ,
Where'er thou chawnce to be."
"Here's a penny for you, my lad. Be a good boy,
and go to church. Come up, Bucephalus!"
Fortes forluna. After ten minutes eccentric perambula-
tion we brought up opposite the door of the Rising Sun.
"Hillo, house ! hillo !"
But the house didn't feel itself called on to answer.
"Hillo-o ! Anybody in ?"
"Neigh !" quoth a horse somewhere, (not our horse ;
he wouldn't deign to do anything of the sort.)
Troy 'em again, Benson! Giv'em an Indian whoop, now!
So I gave them a pretty good imitation of one, which
had the desired effect, for there emerged from the stable
a ponderous hostler, with a red waistcoat, red cravat,
red hair and unutterably red face. I thought it must be the
rising sun himself put into knee-breeches for the occasion.
"Can we have a horse and chaise here to go on to York?"
"O, ye be goaing further zur, be ye?"
"Yes! Put up that horse and take care of him —
he's thorough-bred."
"Aw ! indeed ! Oi should na ha' thought it from the
look of him." And the canny Yorkshireman scanned at a
rapid glance the points of our impracticable.
"Well, he is. A valuable animal that. Take good
care of him, and mind! Don't you get behind him. He kicks."
This was said quite at random, but it proved too true
in the end.
FYTTE THE TFIIRD.
"W^hat a glorious cathedral, Fred ! and what chaunting !
It's a pity we were so late."
"Oi'm thinking we wur in toime for the best of it."
"I wish we could import such a building our way.
Strikes me it would benefit our utilitarians a trifle."
"Ye may say that, mon."
53
"Tall half-and-half that was at the Queen's Head !"
"And the cheese not small nayther."
"What a nice little horse this is ! (we were inspired
by John Barlycorn, and in very good humor with every-
thing.) If we only had him to take us all the way to Leeds !"
"Moy heart quails just to think o' droiving that other
one."
"Well, you must summon up your fifty tude, as Pat
says, for here's Tadcaster ; (ke-ip! pay along pony !) and
here's the Rising Sun, as large as life and twice as na-
tural. How's the thoroughbred, hostler?"
"He's doin' vera well, zur."
"He must be turning over a new leaf then [sotto
voce.J And the buggy ?"
"All roight, zur."
We paid our shot, and bestowed a munificent largess
on our rubicund friend. "Now, Peters, we must have a di-
vision of labor. Do you take the whip and I'll see to thereins."
Fred looked as if he thought the division hardly a
fair one to himself. Never was man more mistaken. Hardly
had I gathered up the ribbons when our horse, always
in extremes, like a modern reformer, dashed off at four
minute pace, pulling in a way that threatened to haul
me straight over the dash-board. For thirteen miles we
scarcely spoke a word. The state of things seemed too
good to be true. I twisted the reins round my hand
and held well on, giving vent to an occasional yell as
the pace exhilarated me ; Peters smoked a Principe in
satisfied silence. At the thirteenth milestone I began to
tremble, fearing that this might be the precise amount
of which our animal was capable. But again we were
agreeably disappointed. On he flew with undiminished
speed, and merrily we dashed into Leeds, just as they
were lighting the lamps.
"Through many a startled suburb
Thundered his flying feet;
He rushed into the goodly town,
He rushed up the long white" —
no, not "white," but particularly black and dirty street
in which the York road terminated ; and we auspicated
our entry by pulverizing a donkey-cart which wouldn't
clear the track. Both donkeys, so far as our comet-like
velocity permitted us to observe, escaped unhurt, but the
54
cart must have been past carpentry. "Coom out o' way,
Tammy, or thee'U be run over !" I felt a slight jar ; it
was caused by our oflP hind hub knocking over a small
child, who continued a rotary motion for some seconds,
and finally disappeared down a yawning cellar. Humanity
prompted us to stop, but you might as well have tried
to pull up the black horse that carried off Lenore. Nor
indeed, if feasible, would such a proceeding have been
safe, for when the unmanageable was once stopped, not
Horace Greeley himself could set him going again.
The long narrow street down which we had been
locomoting, crossed at right angles a long wide one —
the main street of Leeds. On the right, lay the Albion
Hotel, our quarters; I had a shrewd suspicion that our
steed's lay on the left. Anticipating a fearful struggle,
I gradually eased out the nigh rein as we approached
the critical corner and tightened my pull on the off one
correspondingly. Peters, who saw what was passing in
my mind, just at the decisive moment, seized my wrist
with one of his hands and the rein with the other; so
that our combined energies were directing the vehicle
eastward. "All this, it is* hardly necessary," &c., "pas-
sed in a less time," &c., &c. , as Mr. James would say.
"A body acted upon by two forces will proceed in
a line between them," [vide Whistle's Mechanical Algebra,
some page or other.) Agreeably to this fundamental law,
horse and buggy continued a straight -forward course,
which there was nothing to prevent their doing indefini-
tely except a few houses. One half-second more, and
we should have been in a linen-draper's shop — when
as if restored to partial sanity, rowdy brought up with
miraculous suddenness. The velocity which had been
regularly distributed through his limbs , was instantly
transferred, as by magic, to his hind quarters. Elevating
his heels to an extent that was more amusing to those
around, than comfortable to those behind him, he broke
one trace and both shafts, and entirely dissipated the
dashboard. ''Factoque hoc fine quievit," like Pious ^neas.
I shied the reins right and left over the horse's neck,
and jumped out on the causeway fAmericanice side-walk.)
"Where ye goaing?" quo' Peters.
"I'm going up to the Albion ; you may do as you like."
"And leave the horse standing here ?"
55
In reply, I expressed a wish that the animal might
stand there as long as was convenient to him, and un-
dergo a much more unpleasant operation afterwards.
Having thus relieved my injured feelings , I was proceeding
to crowd all sail for the Albion , when a stout lad came
to the rescue.
"Pleaze, zur, Oi knows t' auld horse."
"Oh, you do know him? well, I wish you joy of
your acquaintance."
•■'B'longs t' auld Measter Stoiles, zur. Shall Oi tawk
him whoam ?"
''Yes, take him away, and tell Mr. Styles to send
in his bill and — ." It is unnecessary to repeat the con-
clusion of the sentence. Persons who are much excited
sometimes talk inconsiderately.
"Aw, never fear, zur, t' auld gentleman '11 zend 'um
in fast enough."
FYTTE THE FOURTH.
Next morning between the first egg and the second
cup of tea, a small document was handed to me. I glan-
ced at it, and handed it over to Peters, who read as
follows :
"Leeds, July 2, 1843.
— Benson, Esq., to Ralph Styles, Dr.,
To horse and chaise to Tadcaster, . . L. 1
To breakage and damage of horse, . L. 1 10
L. 2 10
Received payment."
"Dear droive , rayther !"
"Wait a minute, Fred, my boy, till you see the
other side of the ledger. Waiter! Pen, ink and paper!"
The stationary was brought. "What be that you're
wroitin', Carl?"
"Read it, Fred;" and Peters read.
"Leeds, July 2, 1843.
Ralph Styles, to Carl Benson, Dr. to
Surgeon's bill for damages inflicted
by his horse, L. 3 3
Per Contra,
By bill delivered, L. 2 10
Balance due Mr. Benson L. 13
Ree'd payment."
56
My Pylades looked half a dozen notes of interroga-
tion. I rose and limped across the room.
"What is the matter wi' you?"
"Am I very lame, Fred?"
"Awful!"
"That'll do then." I inquired of the porter Mr. Sty-
les' locality, and having ascertained that it was not far-
ther off than a cripple might manage to hobble, gradually
worked my way thither. In a small office sat a large
man of the ordinary Yorkshire type. "Zurvant, zur,"
said he, as I entered with an emphatic limp, and a fero-
cious aspect.
"Are you Mr. Ralph Styles? Because, if you are,
here's your bill — and here's mine."
"Aw ! you be the chap that had my horse yesterday,
be you ?"
"I am that unfortunate man. (0-oh ! my leg !")
"Noice job you made of it. T' horse has the heaves."
"Has the heaves, has he ? I'm glad of it, fcrescendoj
I hope he'll get the bots and a few more nice little com-
plaints. I wish that horse was dead !" And down came
my fist on the desk, nearly knocking the inkstand up into
Mr. Style's nose. "0-oh ! my leg , again !" and I stooped
down to rub the member in question.
"Zure , zur , I hope ye be na vera mooch hoort."
Styles looked rather alarmed.
"I am very much hurt ; shan't be able to attend to
business properly for three months. However, I won't
say anything about that, but if you don't pay my doc-
tor's bill , I'll have satisfaction of you — if there's any
law in the land , that is. I'll teach you to give two quiet
young gentlemen such a horse as that." And very quiet
this young gentleman looked.
"Now, zur, Oi wants to do what's faier mysel, I
does, but you caun't expect me in faierness to pay your
doctor's bill. But Oi'll tell you what Oi will do. Pay
me hauf o' moy bill and we'll be quits."
"Ah, you mean to say that you'll take off half of
your bill, if I take off half of mine, which leaves" —
"Na, Oi did na zay that, zur, Oi'll tawk off hauf o'
moine and zay nothink about yourn, ye know."
"H — em— em !" I leaned on the desk a few seconds
in a thoughtful attitude. "I don't want to go to law
61
about a trifle. You mean to say that you'll take off half
of your bill and receipt it in full, if I say nothing about
mine ?"
"Zactly zo, zur."
"Here it is then !" and I planked a sovereign and
two half crowns, while Mr. S. on his part made his
original performance complete by adding to it the magic
words "Ralph Styles." And never had two words a more
magic effect, for no sooner was the exchange made, and
the important scrap of paper safely pocketed, than I cut
an exuberant pigeonwing, and followed it up by shooting
across the little room at one glissade.
It's astonishing how much better my leg feels," and
I let off a few more capers. Styles looked on with a
very puzzled expression. "Oi doan't understand this,"
said he at length, "pray, zur, be ye hurt, or be ye not?"
"I'm not hurt," said I, "thank Providence, and no
thanks to your horse. But let this be a warning to you
how^ you put that brute before a Christian again, or
there'll be manslaughter some day."
The Yorkshireman was utterly dumbfounded. My
coolness had stumped him completely. For at least three
minutes he gazed at me, open-eyed and open-mouthed.
Then broke forth, spite of himself, this most unwilling
and mortifying confession , "Well , I be done !"
And so is CARL BENSON.
POOR OLD CHARLEY.
Knickerbocker, July 1853.
CLARA rushed into my room, her fair hair floating
down her shoulders, her little feet in slippers, and her
dressing-gown wrapped hastily round her little figure.
'What is it?' I asked, starting half conscious out
of a heavy , summer-morning sleep, with a dim fear that
the baby might be ill or the house on fire.
'One of the horses is dead ! it must be Charley !
They brought him out of the stable just now, and he
laid himself down and died,'
58
I tumbled up somehow and ran to the window. Of
course my room commanded the stable-yard, but one
horse-chestnut, of untimely luxuriance, had popped a
big leafy bough just between my point of vision and the
spot where the unfortunate deceased lay, so that I could
barely discern two hoofs and a nose. With a speed that
emulated my muchabhorred and shudderingly-remembered
New-Heaven toilettes , (in those dreary college-days when
we had fifteen minutes to dress in, without light or fire,
on a New-England winter-morning, the thermometer as
low down as it could go,) I sprang into the nearest ha-
biliments , precipitated myself down stairs , and appeared
upon the scene. Yes, there he lay, poor old Charley,
fearfully swollen , (it was inflammation of the lungs, so far
as our veterinary knowledge enabled us to judge ;) around
his half-open mouth were some dark stains of the grass,
where Tom had been trying to bleed him: it was no use.
'He seemed all right last night, Sir,' said the groom:
(that I knew myself, having seen him at seven.) 'This
morning, when I took him out, he rolled right over,
and choked, and swelled, and died in a minute, as you
may say. And,' continued Tom , as he saw me regarding
the body with a puzzled air, 'I sent Mike off for old
Csesar to come and bury him.'
I returned to the house, performed my matutinal
ablutions, and went through the ceremony of breakfast,
unsentimental as it may seem under the circumstances ;
then moved back to the stable-yard, and arrived there
just as old Csesar drove in.
Such an apparition I never saw before or since.
Imagine a man very short and thick-set, any age you
please on the grave side of seventy, but strong and active
notwithstanding; a grizzly black face; grizzly white hair
and w^hiskers ; long, knotty, prehensile hands, and nails
like claws ; a hat that resembled a fragment of a very
rusty and battered stove-pipe ; and clothes — they really
knock the spots out of my poor pen, so far as doing
them justice is concerned. Such variety of wretchedness!
They were more like the mysteriously-united collections
of rags one reads of in the sketches of Irish travellers,
than any thing ever seen in an Anglo-Saxon community.
That his cart might not have been painted at some re-
mote era , I will not make bold to affirm ; but if it e,ver
59
had been overlaid with color , time , weather , and filth
had long since rendered that color indistinguishable ; a
general hue of mud pervaded the establishment. The
horse was worthy of the chariot and charioteer : a mere
pony in height, of a flea-bitten gray, turned rusty by
exposure to the elements. Every rib and bony angle
protruded through his frame-work of skin ; every joint
was swollen to twice its natural size. He had no more
tail than a Manx cat ; and his head was absolutely fixed
between his fore-legs, as if the muscles which raise the
neck had lost their power. That old horse alone, if turned
out in a conspicuous position, would have been enough
to infect a whole landscape with an air of desolation.
As I looked at Caesar and his fortunes, he seemed
to me some evil spirit or gnome, come to snatch away
the remains of my poor favorite ; a Charon in a cart
instead of a boat, who was to bear off Charley to
some fearful region where dead horses go. At length
I found voice, and demanded his intentions respecting
the corpse.
We used to throw 'em into the river,' said Caesar,
(it was extraordinary to hear him talk like an ordinary
person ; he ought to have spoken some unnatural jargon,
I thought,) 'but the Corporation won't let us now, so we
take 'em somewhere and bury 'em.'
It was said that Csesar had a peculiar style of bury-
ing his subjects; that, in short, he was a Gothamite
representative of the European knacker ; boiled up the
unhappy beasts ; made glue and dogs' meat of them ;
sausages, probably, to some extent — perhaps ate them
himself. My resolution was taken on the spot.
'Friend Csesar,' said I, 'I would n't have Charley
thrown overboard if the Corporation asked me to. You
shall bury him, but you need not take him any farther
than the orchard. We will put him there ; he may im-
prove the apple-trees ; I understand they put dead cats
into grapevine beds sometimes.'
'And sure,' put in Tom with a smile of approbation,
'he was a good horse in his time, and deserves dacent
burial all the same as a Christian.
(Christian^ as above used, means merely human being,
or one of the genus homo. It is not solely an Hiberni-
cism, but an English provincialism also , and as such has
m
attracted notice in the erudite pages of the discriminating
Mr. Punch :
'The ass he drinks water, and likewise the cow, *
But none but a Christian takes beer, you '11 allow.')
Tom was not uncommonly popular, notwithstanding
his professional merits. Indeed, he was something of a
misanthropist , and a good deal of a misogynist, (I wonder
what he would say if heard me calling him such awful
names ?) but for the noble animal he cherished a tender
affection and consideration. Once, when Billy, the cart-
horse , had an internal inflammation which I , in my pride
of veterinary knowledge , took for the bots , and accord-
ingly 'exhibited' some whiskey and red pepper, which
very nearly did his business for him, Tom, at the first
symptoms of peril, dashed off on a run to the farrier's,
just three miles off, without waiting for orders; and when
some of the servants afterwards bantered him on his
earnestness , he only condescended to allude to his having
been sent for the doctor in similar haste one night when
the cook was ill, adding, by way of conclusive expla-
nation, that 'a sick horse needed a doctor as much as
any Christian.'
We prepared to put Charley on the antediluvian cart.
One is accustomed to think of a dead body as easy to
handle; easier, at least, than a living one; but I never
saw such a specimen of passive resistance as he afforded.
We might have carried three live horses, slung them on
board a ship , or tied them under Poitevin's balloon, more
easily then we disposed of that dead horse. I thought
first that we should never have him lifted , and then that
we should never have him perfectly balanced on the cart.
Tom and Mike were not sufficient aid ; we had to call
in the gardener and his helper to our assistance. At length,
by the united efforts of all six of us, the now wooden
and angular form of the once lightning-footed and pliable-
limbed stepper was adjusted on its homely hearse. Then
followed another marvel : how was that dilapidated,
spectral pony to draw three times his own weight, and
up hill, too, for the ground rose to the orchard? Yet
draw it he did, and at something approaching to a trot.
* Or as it might be altered to suit our meridian,
'The Greeley drinks water and likewise the Dow.'
61
'I had noticed from the beginning of the proceedings
that all the servants treated Caesar with a respect which
a white man — particularly a white of the lower orders,
and most particularly an Irishman — rarely exhibits to-
ward a 'gentleman of color.' This unusual deference was
so marked that I observed it from the moment of his
entry on the premises; and my first impulse w^as to at-
tribute it to superstitious fear — not so bad a guess,
either, for even a well-educated man, if his imagination
were at all susceptible , might well be excused for standing
in some awe of such a hobgoblin concern as Caesar and
his equipage. But this was not the real reason ; I was
now to learn it.
'Did you notice the cart. Sir?' asked Tom, dropping
his voice to an earnest whisper as we brought up the
rear of the sad procession.
'Yes, indeed.'
'You would n't give a dollar for it , would you ?'
'Not for horse and all.'
'Sir-r !' throwing all the impressiveness he could
into his tone, 'that man's worth twenty thousand dollars
this day !'
The milk in the cocoa-nut was accounted for. Sub-
sequent inquiry confirmed the correctness of Tom's in-
formation , save only the usual exaggeration of the
amount. This half- scarecrow^ , half-gnome to behold,
this patched and shredded knacker, w^as the actual pos-
sessor of twelve thousand dollars in bank-stock, besides
having educated his children and set them up in some
respectable business.
We chose the spot for Charley's sepulture between two
of the largest and finest apple-trees. Caesar demanded three
spades, and asked the two helpers to stay and assist him. The
gardener hurried off for the utensils, and the other men made
no objections to working under orders of a 'nigger.' Such
is the magic power of wealth to confer respectability.
So it is all arranged now. I sit down on the grass to
watch the operation and smoke — not a cigar, but a
goodly clay pipe, such as a Knickerbocker who is proud
to be a member of the St. Nicholas ought to smoke.
Baby — so long as there is but one, he is always the
baby — comes tumbling out of doors to see what papa
is about, and what they are going to do with poor Charley.
62
It is his first acquaintance with death. The sun is growing
warm, but we have plenty of shade here, and are never
breezeless.
And this is the end of our seven years' friendship !
for friendship it really was. I believe we understood
each other like two Christians, as Tom would say. I
have had a great many two-legged friends — at least they
called themselves such — in those seven years, not half
so true to me as Charley. Once he gave me a fright,
but that was not his fault ; my own , if any one's. On
the whole , I don't think I have one unpleasant recollection
connected with him , but a great many very pleasant ones.
The way I came to make Charley's acquaintance was
this : w^alking down Wall-street one fine spring day , I
saw that Charley Losing w^as crossing over to speak to
me about a horse. I say about a horse ^ for that followed of
course from the fact of his speaking to me. At that time we
were humble units of Young America, and Young America
must do one of two things — dance or drive trotters. Losing
and I came under the latter category. We knew all the
calendars in the Spirit of the Times ^ so that we could
have stood an examination on them, and used to voyage
all over the country to see matches and try promising
colts, just as an Irish gentleman (according to Thackeray)
goes sixty miles on business, i. e.-, to look at a pointer.
'Good-morning,' said Losing: 'how much do you weigh ?
I stated the usual amount of my material ponderosity.
'Just mine exactly :' and then he related to me suc-
cinctly (for he never had the national proclivity to word-
wasting) that he had matched his bay horse Charley to
trot against a team, two in a wagon, two miles of turn-
pike, for two hundred dollars, (here I put in, 'Why,
you're quite in the doo-all,' but Losing treated the
shocking attempt at a pun quite right by tafing no notice
of it,) and that he wanted a man of his own weight to
sit with him. He had found the right passenger.
Just a fortnight from that time, I underwent the
disagreeable operation of crossing the Brooklyn ferry,
and soon alter found myself travelling down to the scene
of action behind Charley Losing's fast team , the dun
horse and black mare that every one on the island knew. I
had supposed our rendezvous would be Langshaw's, which
used to be the great place of meeting for such affairs in
those days, but Losing and Mr. Langshaw didn't hitch
horses any longer. Said Langshaw had good liquor and
a miraculous cook, but in his other ways was one of
those landlords who are now happily getting to be mat-
ter of history, at least in the more civilized parts of our
country. He fed his guests and boarders three times a
day by the clock, and it would have taken a very keen
man to get so much as a piece of bread and cheese at
any other hour, unless indeed you ordered a dinner or
supper three days ahead. Mrs. L. was ten times worse
in this respect than her husband. One afternoon. Losing,
coming along from some sporting excursion, desperately
tired, and hungry enough to eat a cat without stoping
to cut the claws off, pulled up at Langshaw's, and re-
quested some provender. Mr. Langshaw was out, and
Mrs. Langshaw, utterly deaf to Charley's hints of some
cold beef which he had caught a glimpse of in a closet,
insisted that there was nothing to eat in the house, and
that nothing could be prepared in less than two hours.
Whereupon, Losing, being prevented by the laws of gal-
lantry and the land from pitching into a female woman,
pitched himself into his wagon, pelted home at such a
rate that he knocked two shoes off his horse and lamed
him for a week ; and on his arrival , after filling his va-
cuum with the first comestible he could lay hands on,
(which chanced to be a whole apple-pie,) poured out a
pretty stiff horn of cognac, and took a solemn vow over
it that he would never tie his trotters under Langshaw's
shed again. And Charley Losing was a man of his word.
Accordingly we were to meet at a small tavern near
Langshaw's, but on the opposite side of the road. It
professed to call itself the Mechanics Retreat, and hung
out a sign to that effect ; but the local artist not being
very strong in punctuation, had substituted for the apo-
strophe above the final 5, a comma below it, so that the
Mechanics^ Retreat read more like a repulse than a in-
vitation. It was a fine day, and the performances had
attracted a pretty large crowd. The bar-room and stoop
overflowed with sporting characters, and the adjacent
sheds were thickly planted with wagons. The team had
not arrived at the appointed hour, which did not surprise
us ; some body always is late on these occasions ; as we
were notj it was only to be expected that the other party
64
would be. Losing didn't care; his horse, carefully sheeted,
was walking up and down before one of his numerous
wagons , under the guidance of Scipi6 Africanus , who
knew as much of things equine as his master, and that
is saying not a little. For himself, he sedulously ab-
stained from all beverages, though there was much li-
quoring going on in and about the Mechanics, Retreat,
1^ and we received numerous invitations; nor did he light
a single cigar; we strolled about, looking at this and
that horse, and winding up with Charley himself, who
was not a large or showy animal, perhaps it might be
said, not a handsome one, but had splendid points to the
eye of a connoisseur. And Losing told me when and
where and for how much he had bought the horse, and
all the particulars of his training and performances up
to his present age of eight years ; thence he digressed
to the wagon, and gave me much information how and
by whom a wagon should be built, all which I listened
to with as much interest as Miss Anybody would manifest at
an account of the last new fashions in Paris or Grace Church.
Finally, after a considerable lapse of time, arrived,
not the team, but its proprietor. One of his nags had
cast a shoe that very morning, and was lame, so he came
to pay forfeit. Losing having received the money —
you could not tell from his face whether he was satis-
fied or disappointed at this abrupt termination of the
performances — walked solemnly into the bar-room, and
there made up for lost time in a way that created a
visible respect for him among the circumjacent loafers.
Then he proposed to me that, as I had never travelled
behind Charley, we should go home with him , which we
accordingly did. After having smoked his second cigar.
Losing, seeing that I was pleased with his pet's travel-
ling, advanced another proposition.
'I am going over the pond,' said he, meaning thereby
the Atlantic, 'and don't know when I shall come back.
My brother Fred has bought the team, and Harrison is
going to take Screwdriver ; now you had better buy
Charley — I know you want a horse — and that will
just set me free."
We bargained a little for form's sake, and to keep
our hand in; finally I bought Charley for four hundred
and fifty dollars, and it was a good investment.
65
The sun is growing warmer. Come into the shade,
Franky ! They have not finished digging yet. I had no
idea it took so large a hole to put the poor old horse in.
Charley soon became my pet, and with reason, for
every one allowed him to be a most valuable animal.
True, there were a good many nags about that could
beat him on a brush, but for long drives he had few
equals ; and those were the drives I liked, living so far
from the city , and going to and fro continually , to say
nothing of numerous ferry -crossings eastward. There
was no give-out about that little bay ; he was always
ready for his work. Many a pleasant spin of from eight
to fourteen miles I had with him , sometimes on the
Westchester road and the avenue, sometimes on the is-
land. After travelling far enough to tire an ordinary
horse, he was just in trim to begin trotting his fastest,
so that now and then he would astonish a fancy-man
who had been regarding him as merely an average roadster.
One afternoon I remember particularly as if it were but
yesterday. At that time I was having a passage-of-arms
with the great North American Blunderbuss^ and wanting
to consult some erudite folio , drove down to Harry
Masters' after it. A lovely spring afternoon it was, such
as we seldom, too seldom enjoy in our rapid country,
where spring will glide into summer before the winter
is fairly gone. So fresh w^as the landscape, so genial and
Italian-like the atmosphere, that mere existence was a
positive luxury. And as Charley bowled along, up-hill
and down -hill, over bridges and past taverns, at his
easy journey-pace of twelve miles an hour, (for he never
was one of your disagreeable brutes , that have no medium
between a walk and full speed ,) I felt inexpressibly com-
fortable, and in first-rate condition for pitching into the
Blunderbuss. On the whole, it is just possible that my
whole turnout added to the cheerfulness of the scene.
Charley had a new harness on that fitted like wax, and
his owner was adorned with a new white hat ; the wagon
had just been varnished, and in the strap of the seat
alongside me was stuck a jolly posy from our own garden,
which I was taking in for Mrs. Masters. Just about a mile
from the stones, (it was in the early part of the after-
noon, while the road was as yet tolerably clear, and
most of those who were out went the other way.) the
Vol. m. 5
sharp quick sounds of pattering feet struck my ear. A
well-built iron-gray was brushing up behind me in a
road-sulky. On ordinary occasions I should not have
ventured to risk the difference of weight after coming
such a distance, but Charley and I both felt so gay, and
he looked so ready for a start as he pricked up his ears
at the sound of approaching wheels , that just as the gray
had his nose almost over my shoulder, and was about
to turn out and pass, I gathered in the reins a little,
and told my pet to go. Away he, sweeps in his beau-
tiful round trot, pitching back a cloud of dust and pebbles
upon the aston^hed sulky. The gray tries to follow ;
for a few steps he holds his own in the rear, then the
sound of his feet grows fainter in the distance , dying
away in a canter. I pull up Charley a litte carelessly;
he breaks from being too suddenly checked, and comes
almost to a full stop. Just as I start him again, the
gray, who has meantime settled, comes flying by at a
great pace. But Charley is at his heels in a moment ;
he presses him close , and is just lapping, when a sudden
jolt sends the whip flying out of its socket. There is
nothing to be done but pull up and put back. A bene-
volent Hibernian has picked up the article , and hands it
to me. This time I keep fast hold of it. Our friend
with the gray has drawn up , and is waiting. All right !
you won't have to wait long. Go it, Charley! Just as
we are at his w^heel, off" goes the gray at his best. One
on each side of the road, we tear along. It is a dead
level, and rather heavy. Charley with so much weight
against him, can't make up that length, for all my coax-
ing. The gray is going his prettiest, under a tremendous
pull. I jerk Charley upon the centre of the road, at the
risk of splitting a hoof; he skims the hard Macadam
with redoubled velocity, and gains on his antagonist.
'Go it, mustaches !' cries a small boy, as we pass. Flop !
the gray is up. His driver makes a vain efi'ort to catch
him into his trot. It's no use ; the w agon goes by like
a whirlwind, and leaves him so far behind, that he gives
up all farther effort. Then I strike the stones, and draw
up to a walk ; and as the sulky comes slowly trotting
along , I remark quite casually to the discomfited jockey,
'I guess your horse has n't been nine miles with four
hundred pounds behind him.'
67
Here I can fancy the lady -reader (if indeed any
lady-reader should have gone so far into poor Charley's
fragmentary biography) ejaculating, 'What, nothing but
horses and racing !' and then passing contemptuously to
the next article. Stay awhile, fair dame or gentle da-
mosel. Hath not the noble animal ever played a great
part in poetry and romance, from Roderick's Orelio (to
go back no farther) down to the charger that carried off
the Duchess May and her lover?
'When the bride-groom let the flight on his red roan steed
of might.
And the bride lay on his arm , safe , as if she felt no harm,
Smiling out into the night ?'
Well now, suppose I show you how Charley assisted
in an authentic bit of romance, with a happy termination
too ; how he restored a disconsolate wife to the arms of
an unsuspecting husband. List, then, and be moved.
One summer, I was staying up the river, at Phil.
Van Home's, and, being bound to stay a great part of
the summer, had come with all my family, Charley in-
cluded. Among our neighbors was one who dwelt some-
what farther inland than most of us 5 an old gentleman
named Hertezoff, of Russian descent originally, as the
termination of his name implies. A very nice old gentle-
man he was, though we used to think he might have
lived a little nearer to the Hudson without any danger
to it from his proximity. But you can't expect people
to have every thing, and looks were the forte of the
family. Miss Hertezoff was a real American beauty,
neither a blonde, nor a brunette, nor yet a compromise
between the two , but a union of the best points of each ;
skin marble-white, hair and eyes dark brown, cheeks lit
up with roses, and so forth. As to her accomplishments
and mental furniture, I never had an opportunity of stu-
dying them, for she was very much taken up elsewhere;
but believe she had, at least, the usual amount of femi-
nine graces and perfections.
About that time came into those parts a stranger
who was immediately allowed to be 'some pumpkins,'
inasmuch as he was a southerner , rich , young and hand-
some. His name was Sinclair Preston ; he came from
Mississippi, where he owned one estate , besides another
in Louisiana. He really was a fine-looking fellow, tall,
5*
68
fresh- complex ioned and regularly - featured , with most
aristocratic hands and feet ; and knew enough to eschew
all loud patterns, and dress very quietly. Not to go into
particulars, he 'knocked' all the adjacent male population,
native and imported, in the matter of looks, and would
have made us all very envious, if the lords of creation
ever were envious of such things ; but I believe that is
a privilege of the other sex. Moreover, he was, for a
southerner, marvellously quiet and undemonstrative. He
did not get drunk, rarely swore, and, mirabile diclu^ never
gambled. Nay , more 5 he always paid his debts when
asked, even if they were not debts of honor ; and Avas
so disgusted w^hen his state repudiated, that he repudiated
it^ and ever after called himself a Louisianian. Farther,
he had a good education, and did not put 'sir' or 'ma'am'
more than half a dozen times into every sentence he
uttered. In short, he was a paragon of social virtues
— but for one unlucky failing. Sinclair Preston was
the most forgetful and scatterbrained of men. He was
exactly the sort of person to whom the old woman's
saying applies : 'If your head were loose , you would
forget it.' To make an appointment with him was a farce.
If you asked him to dinner a week a-head, and sent
him a reminder the day before, it was two to one he
never came after all. If he was going on an excursion,
and there was no kind friend at hand to jog his memory ,
he was sure to be wandering somewhere else when the
boat started. There was no counting on any of his
movements with the most distant approach to certainty.
The rich young southerner having come to our lo-
cality, fell in love, according to rule, with the prettiest
girl there, which Mary Hertezoff as decidedly was, as
Sinclair was the handsomest man. They were engaged
very soon after their first acquaintance, and married very
soon after their engagement. I am sure the whole affair
did not occupy two months. They had a gay wedding
one night, and were to start next day on a southern tour.
When I say they had a gay wedding, I am not using
the adjective at random, or for merely ornamental pur-
poses. It was a gay wedding, a very gay one ; perhaps
a New-Englander might have called it too gay. Hertezoff
had some old Madeira, and the guests knew where it
was. I remember that Harry Masters, who tried to steer
69
his household home that night with a four-in-hand, couldn't
keep in the middle of the turnpike, (which is about as wide
as the Third Avenue ,) but ran into the ditch , and broke
his pole. To be sure, Harry had the excuse of its being
a very dusty and windy night, (more by token, as Pat
says, I lost a hat of my own on the same occasion,) but
some said he was more in the wind than the state of
the weather alone could account for. However, my host
and 1 were up in good time next morning, for it would
have been a positive sin to lie in bed such mornings as
we had. While Phil, and I were running extempore
races round the grounds — one of our usual morning
amusements, and a very good way of getting up an ap-
petite for breakfast — a boy came along with some game.
We were none of us ardent sportsmen, and should have
been very badly off for the article, had we depended on
our own exertions for the supply of it ; indeed , game
was scarce any how, and it w^as not often that any
one in the vicinity had a good lot at a time. So Phil,
was glad enough to buy all that the boy had , and
then, like a kind, thoughtful, neighborly fellow as he
w^as, he recollected that Hertezoff was very fond of
partridges. 'Frank,' said he, 'will you drive down after
breakfast, and take these to the old gentleman, with my
compliments ?' Phil, knew that I was too happy to have
any excuse for driving about the country.
Mr. Hertezoff lived not many miles from us, but a pretty
good way — that is to say, a pretty bad way — from the
steam-boat landing at Vienna. I found his front gate open,
and, bowling unceremoniously into it, nearly ran over old
Sarah , the cook , who was holding an animated conversa-
tion with another servant in the very centre of the lane.
'Something for you,' said I, pointing to the plumb
birds at my feet.
'Ah! it's little we care for them now,' she replied,
regardhig the lovely animals wdth a look of indifference
that, in a cook, was positive impiety.
'W^hy, what in goodness' name is the matter ?' Her
bewildered look, which I at first attributed to her narrow
escape from pulverization under Charley's hoofs, had
evidently some more permanent cause.
'O Sir, Mr. Preston's been and gone, and forgot Mrs.
Preston.'
70
It was so very absurd, and yet so like the man,
that I could ^vith difficulty suppress a roar of laughter.
'Yes,' she continued, -he took the rockaway and the
team this morning,' (the Hertezoffs were not so flush of
horses and vehicles as some of us ; their establishment
was always denoted by the singular number and definite
article,) 'and all his things, and some o' hern. I wonder
Jake was such a fool as to go with him. And they
did n't find it out for nigh half an hour, and now they 're
ravin' distracted ; and Sam has gone off on old Plough-
boy, but he '11 never catch 'em.'
I thought it highly probable not, from my own re-
collections of Ploughboy, the farm -horse; but at any
rate there appeared no use for me in the present state
of things; and doubtless I should have gone straight back,
but the Hertezoff grounds were so arranged that you
could not turn conveniently without driving round the
house; so round the house I drove, and at the farther
corner of it a ludicrously pitiable spectacle presented
itself. The bride, all equipped in her travelling-dress,
and looking none the less beautiful for her consternation,
was walking, or rather trotting, round the broad stoop
that encompassed the house, as if performing some charm
to restore
'Her Daphnis to her much-desiring arms.'
In a rocking-chair near the door sat her father, on
one side of him a pile of band-boxes, on the other his
half-smoked cigar, which had fallen helplessly to the
floor. He was rocking as fast as his daughter was run-
ning, and every time she passed him in her round, he
would lift up his eyes and hands, and exclaim : 'My poor,
forsaken child : what is to become of you ?'
I checked my horse instinctively. A thought struck
me. The landing was seventeen miles off, or a short
eighteen at most. The Swallow usually arrived there at
eleven. I glanced at my watch ; it was not yet ten. We
had an hour and fourteen minutes.
'Mrs. Preston, I will take you to the boat in time.'
'Can you ?' and she stopped short in her career.
'Yes ; but you must leave your baggage.'
She glanced at the band-boxes, and hesitated a mo-
ment ; then, just as I had lightened my vehicle, by pitching
out the birds almost into Hertezoff's lap, she leaped into
71
the wagon without waiting for me to bias the front axle
and make room for her.
'Hold fast, Mrs. Preston. Partridges, with Mr. Van
Home's compliments. Ke-ip, Charley! Good-bye, Mr.
Hertezoff!' and away we rattled down the lane and out
at the gate, leaving the old gentleman more bewildered
than ever ; his daughter whisked away , he had hardly
time to see by whom, and three brace of birds left in
exchange for her.
Though our road descended most of the way, (else
would our chance have been small indeed ,) it rose at
first, soon after emerging from the Hertezoff place, for
nearly a mile , and pretty stiffly too. To press the horse
up this hill would have been suicidal ; we were obliged
to mount at any easy pace. By way of keeping up my
companion's spirits during this delay, I extemporized some
most apocryphal stories of my nag's performances against
time. Heaven forgive me for Munchausenizing ! I am not
sure but I made Charley distance Trustee in a ten-mile
heat. However , this romance served to keep Mrs. Preston
quiet till we had climbed the ascent. A lovely view it
was from the top, and a lovely day to see it in. Every
variety of hill and valley and wood and water in sight ;
and far away below, the blue Hudson and the white
sails gliding over it ; and far away above, the blue sky
and the white clouds sailing on it. But I had no eyes
save for my horse's ears and the road straight before
me. Straight enough it lay, descending for miles, the
few occasional elevations being not more than the velo-
city due to the previous descent would carry us over
without trouble. I drew up the reins : 'Hold fast , Mrs.
Preston ; do n't mind the dust. Ke-ip , Charley 1' The
gallant bay made a hop forward, and then took hold
of the bit and settled down to a tearing trot, making
the dust eddy and the pebbles spin around us. 'He-e,
boy ! g'lang !' and away goes Charley !
And first we overtook the hopeless messenger. Sam,
a diminutive black, was bobbing up and down on big
Ploughboy at a hobby-horse canter. We shot by him
like a steamer past a liner when there is no wind, and
my hind-wheel nearly took off the top of one of his boots.
Whether he saw that his services were no longer needed,
I do 'nt know, for he was instantly lost to sight in our
72
self-raised cloud of dust. 'He-e , boy ! he-eh !' and away
goes Charley !
What's this ? A flock of geese spread over the road.
We take no notice, Charley and I, but go right at them ;
Mrs. Preston cannot suppress a scream. I understand
geese ; I have seen a great many in Rhode Island, (no
arriere pensee against the inhabitants of that good state,
though they have adopted the M — e L-w ;) it is a phy-
sical impossibility to run over them. Right and left they
vanish, as by magic, from under our wheels, and the
wagon speeds on smoothly without a jar. 'That's right;
he-e, old fellow!' and away goes Charley?
Some minutes — that is to say, a mile or so —
farther on, a huge haycart is drawn diagonally across
the road, while the careless driver stands on one side
of it, gossipping with a crony. 'Hey! Hallo there! Those
men ought to hear us : I'm sure we make noise enough 5
but they won't take the trouble to. Ah, my fine fellows !
We have n't driven on the Bloomingdale-road for nothing.
We know where there is just room to get through, and
where there is n't. There is just room on the right side,
exactly where you are standing,' Without a moment's
hesitation, we dash at the opening. Our wheels shave
the ponderous orbs of the hay-cart, and the two natives, tar-
dily bestirring themselves to escape Charley's onslaught,
are precipitated into the ditch. We hear the beginning
of some tall swearing behind us , but the half-formed
anathemas die away on the breeze. 'All right ; get along !'
and away goes Charley !
The pace continued so good that I began to be
afraid, n©t that we should miss the boat, but (a more
important loss to me) that I should kill my horse. To
be sure, I had once performed a similar feat, about the
same amount of road in the same time, with a mare be-
longing to old Bacchus. (It was to escape a thunder-
shower when driving a young lady home from a dinner-
party.) But Dolly never was altogether herself again
after it , and Bacchus , who was then worth only one
hundred and eighty thousand dollars a year, never
forgave me for the injury done his property. Well,
we are not so mean as Bacchus , thank God ! and
if Charley dies in a lady's service , his tomb shall
be honored for it. Think of that, old fellow, and step
73
out more than ever. 'Hey, get along!' and away goes
Charley !
gioja! potamosf potamos ! We are close on the
river. Terribly blown, and puffing like a steam-engine,
but with something left in him yet, Charley rushes into
the little village of Vienna ; (the smaller a place is in
our state, the bigger name it is sure to have.) For the
first time since starting, I dare look at my watch. Three
minutes to spare ! 'Hurrah ! go it, old fellow ! this is the
last spirt.' Horse and man making noise enough to startle
all the inhabitants, we rattle through the village slap to
the end of the wharf. Just in time ! The red flag is
flying from the stafi"; the good boat Swallow^ is making
her landing. The disembarking passengers have Hoted
out their plunder,' and a goodly pile of trunks is going
on beard. Watching them and smoking a cigar, a tall
gentleman leans against a post. It is Sinclair Preston.
'Hallo, Preston ! here's your wife !' I shouted with
such voice as I had left, for my throat was hoarse and
dry between the dust that had gone into it and the yells
that had come out of it. By way of supplementary em-
phasis, I nearly ran Charley's head into his face.
'By Jove !' ejaculated the.Louisianian, stepping forward
just in time to catch his bride as the jerk wdth which
I pulled up threw her into his arms, 'I thought I had
forgotten something.'
They have finished the grave and plumped the poor
old horse into it. Franky has been scooping out a little
grave with sticks in imitation. He has found a chicken's
head^ and is interring it with much care and ceremony.
Dear Franky ! how near we were both going to the grave
together, though you never knew it, all by reason of
Charley. No — let us be just to the departed ; it was my
fault more than his.
One fine April day — we lived in town then, and
Franky was just beginning to talk — I took him and his
nurse on a drive. We had a comfortable top-wagon — not
exactly the thing to trot — and an old harness rather too
light for the wagon. But not having the least intention to go
fast, I started in the middle of the day, when the roads
were empty. So we had a nice time of it till, as we
were returning through Yorkville and climbing a hill,
evil destiny sent a couple of b'hoys in a wagon behind
74
us. I heard them yelling, and drew Charley in, not with-
out some demonstration of reluctance on his part. All
would have been well, but as they passed us on the top
of the hill, one of them made some contemptuous allusion
to my horse. Piqued into a forgetfulness of prudence,
I gave my pet his head , and started him down the des-
cent. We were just lapping the other wagon when he
broke. Vexed at the occurrence, I did not attempt to
stop him until he had run past the b'hoys, and then
tried to catch him into his trot. But the pull on the reins
had no effect ; he continued to gallop ; and I then saw,
to my consternation, that his breaking was only the con-
sequence of the breaking of something else. The breeching
flapped loose about his flanks. He couldn't stop if he
wanted to. And Franky, delighted at the rapid motion,
claps his little hands in childish glee, and exclaims : ^We
beat, papa ! faster, faster !'
The old horse is going fast enough now. We spin
through the village. My coach-maker is standing in front of
his shop, gossipping with some neighbors. I hear him say,
'•There 's a runaway ;' and another answer, 'Oh, he'll stop
when he gets to the bottom of the hill.' It is an incident of
great variety in their morning, a decided case of suave man
magna. How provokingly cool their observations sound !
Yes, when we get to the bottom ! But what might
happen in that half mile ! The horse might kick or fall,
and in either case we should be thrown in a heap to-
gether ; or a wheel might come off", or a jolt upset us.
One consolation — there w^as no fear of our running
foul of another vehicle ; the road lay perfectly open.
After all, the greatest danger was that the nurse might
be frightened, and attempt to jump out wdth the child.
I dare not even say , ""Sit still , Jane ; but changing the
now useless reins into my right hand, kept firm hold of
the boy with my left.
We were not long going down that hill, but it see-
med to me an age. I could feel the perspiration break-
ing out all over me, and trickling down my face in big
drops. At length we reached the level ground, and the
instant Charley felt the weight drawing behind him , in-
stead o*f pressing on his heels, he struck his trot, and in
another second I pulled him in. Pouring sweat, and tremb-
ling in every limb, he stopped, not all at once, or motion-
75
lessly, but with an evident inclination to go on again.
I was in dread lest the other wagon might come up be-
fore we were fairly disembarked, and so start him off
once more. But it was far behind. I tumbled out some-
how. 'Now, Jane, give me the baby. Thank God ! Jump
yourself ! Keep well back out of the road ; go to the
stone wall.' A chill and faintness came over me with the
revulsion of feeling. My head swam and my knees shook.
With a last instinct to hold fast to the horse, I shortened
the reins and took him by the head, and then went off
into a fainting-fit just as I stood, half holding him, half
supported by him ; the last thing I heard, before losing
consciousness , was Franky's exclamation : 'Oh , papa ,
did n't we go fast !'
A gruff voice recalled me. 'Hallo, Mister : any body
hurt ?' It was the b'hoy who had come up with us.
'No body ; but our breeching's broke. Have you got
any thing to mend it with ?'
My off-handed manner just suited the b'hoy, on whom
any superfluous politeness would have been thrown away.
He produced a bit of cord, and helped me to splice up the
harness. You may be sure I drove home pretty carefully.
Old Charley is nearly covered up. We shall soon
see the last of him. That is the worst of having a pet
animal; their life is so small a fraction of yours, that
the separation comes just as you are fairly attached to
them. I was once assured by an acquaintance of Dr.
Lingard, that the historian's decease had been visibly
accelerated by the death of his favorite dog. How many
griefs poor Clara has had as her King Charleses , Blen-
heims, &c., have been carried off by the various ills to
which doghood, especially small doghood, is heir ! Baby
is the wisest of us ; he has set up a parroquet , which
(if he does n't pull its head off meantime) will probably
outlive him twice over. But Charley didn't die of old
age ; he w^as only fourteen — hardly past his prime.
One summer I had to go over the water, and the garde-
ner in whose charge he had been left, not having Tom's
consideration for the equine family, allowed him to catch
the heaves. Next winter we nursed him our best, and thought
him fast recovering, when — this morning he died. There :
they have thrown in the last shovel-ful, and smoothed the
top over. He was a good friend. I feel the tears in my eyes.
76
'Hallo, old boy ! good-morning !' I start up and see
a white hat and a brown horse and a yellow gig glan-
cing through the trees between us and the stable-yard.
It is Bleecker, who has come to lunch with us and drink
some of his own wine. I go to meet him, and Franky
toddles after me. 'Mamma, I shall die and be buried in
the orchard with old Charley, and then papa will come
and cry over me.'
Di avertite omen.
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE.
(1852.)
IT has become fashionable late — democratically
fashionable I mean, not aristocratically — or perhaps it
would be better to say popular — it has become popu-
lar then of late to abuse a certain very innocent class
of people in our dear Gotham as useless members of the
community — that is to say because we do not perpe-
tually cheat one another in buying and selling lots, or
deliver interminable tirades of utter bosh to crowds of
admiring loafers. For my own part I have the weakness
to think that dancing the polka is an occupation quite
as honorable to the individual and profitable to the com-
munity as dancing attendance on office-holders ; and if
some of us now and then consume a little more cham-
pagne and oysters than are absolutely necessary, at any
rate we foot our own bills and don't make the tax-paying
public settle them for us. Surely, when our country is
so well supplied with patriots that a candidate for the
smallest ward office cannot be selected without wrang-
ling infinite and an incalculable member of ballotings in
caucus, is it not well that some part of society should
be able to stand aside and look on ? Yet somehow I
can't help fancying that if by any popular freak, some
of us were to find our way into office, we might do as
well as some of the people who are there. If any of
us were to be appointed to foreign charg6-ships for in-
stance, we could at least talk a little French and Ger-
man. I am strongly disposed to believe (having seen
77
both the men on the ground there — literally on the ground
— several times that year) that my friend G. Boosey
Esq. would have made at least as good an official re-
presentative of the U. S. at the court of Rauchenzul^ad
in 1844 as did the gentleman from the South-West, the
Hon. Polyphemus C. Halforse, who actually held the
post. Boosey couldn't have got more drunk than Halforse
did if he had tried his best, and he could have entered
a drawing-room without making a fool of himself and
talked to the people he met every day without an in-
terpreter.
One principal reason why the class in question (of
which Frank Manhattan is not ashamed to avow himself
a member) has acquired a reputation for folly is that
the gentlemen composing it are too much gentlemen to
take advantage of other people, and too unsuspicious
always to avoid being taken advantage of by other people.
Consequently they ussually are taken advantage of in their
dealings with others, be it in business proper, or in po-
litics or even in the safer walks of literature. And the
done man is apt to be thought a fool, though perhaps
in the long run the rogne who does him is the worse
fool of the two ; if scripture goes for anything. This re-
minds me how I was once practically mixed up in one
of our most exciting political questions. Indeed it was
no fault of mine that they didn't try me for high-treason.
Not a great many seasons ago I was bowling down
from Westchester one fine Spring morning, according to
a habit I had of driving in to town before breakfast and
taking my matutinal meal at the club. In those days I
drove a little mare that had been on the track once or
twice, and was called Lady Carpole , after the wife of the
Omnibus-proprietor of whom I bought her. She was a
light little thing with some blood and not much bottom,
but for a half-mile brush when she was not overweighted,
it took a pacer to beat her. About that time some of us had
found out that it was snobbish to be too well dressed,
especially before dinner 5 and I used to walk and drive
around in the oldest, easiest, and most dust-defying gar-
ments, grey tweed coat and trousers to match, check
shirts, waiscoat au naturel^ as we used to call it, mean-
ing in plain English none at all, gloves ditto, checked
cravat with ends flying sailor -fashion, and grey cap j
78
the whole attire more professional than elegant. A pri-
mitive friend of mine who belonged to the great Uni-
versity of Oxbridge used to walk about at all hours of
the night without his academicals, 'for' said he 'the proc-
tors will never know me for a gownsman, I look so much
like a snob.' In like manner I might have flattered my-
self I looked so much like a dealer or a trainer that no
one would have taken me for anything else — but for
the mustache.
Honest John Bull does n't understand why Young
America should wear a mustache. Ask him why Colonel
Dash wears a mustache and he will tell you, in a tone
of compassion for your ignorance, that 'Colonel Dash is
in a cavalry regiment.' Exactly — then an English
gentleman's wearing a mustache shows that he is a ca-
valry officer. Well, my dear John, an American gentle-
man's wearing a mustache is equally significant, only the
meaning is different. It shows (or ought to show) that
he is rentier pur^ with full power to dance the polka or
drive trotters or play poker all day and all night too if
be chooses. So carefully is this distinction preserved by
the knowing ones that when a man of business , like
our friend Ned. Bleecker for instance, goes to Paris or
Baden or even Saratoga for the season, he encourages
his mustache to grow, and when he returns and the win-
ter sets in, he cuts it all off — not a very long or dif-
ficult operation by the way in Bleecker's case — and
goes into Wall-Street with a clean face.
I was about half way on my road to the city jogging
up a hill at an easy pace , thinking where and how far I
should "brush" the mare before I got in, and whether I
should encounter any one at that early hour of the day.
Just as the thought suggested itself, pit-pat ! came the
steady step of a square trotter behind me and the next
minute a magnificent horse passed my waggon at an easy
gait, only a little faster than that at which we were going,
an animal such as no man woman or child could have
seen go by without some word look or gesture of ad-
miration. He was a bright chesnut all over except a
a white star on his forehead, and his height exceeded
sixteen hands by at least an inch. Save that his neck
was a little too heavy (an indication of Canadian blood)
the most captious observer could have found no fault in
79
his shape, and the beauty of his action defied criticism.
His bushy tail was a good one by nature and art had
played no tricks with it ; it stood well out from his legs
and flowed down below his hocks. I could see enough
of his mouth too , as he bore slightly on the bit to be
pretty sure that he was a young horse ; his eyes and ears
were those of a gentle one and his step very like that
of a fast one. An Irishman was on his back , not riding
him any too well, it seemed to me ; the general absence
of liveries in our country rendered it impossible to say
whether he was the animal's groom or owner.
We were just at the top of the hill. 'Now for it !'
said I to myself, and taking hold of the little loops
attached to the reins I gave the mare a gentle pull and
quickened her trot gradually. As I was ranging up
alongside Pat, he began to talk to his horse and lean
upon him, and away went big sorrel, faster, faster, faster
down the hill , the little mare still creeping up to him
with corresponding and voluntary acceleration of pace.
I was rather keeping her in hand and chiefly taken up
with watching the chesnut how cleanly and beautifully
he stepped, till, my nag pulling harder and requiring all
my attention, I suddenly found that we were going in-
side of a three-minute stroke, the other horse still leading
a little, and his rider looking askant at me, as if to say
Svhere are you now ?' Then I shook Lady Carpole up
and lifted her and made music to her, and as I raised
my voice and threw my whole weight back on the reins,
the struck out with one of her dashes that she used to
make whenever we wanted to get out of a tight place in
the road , and carried the big horse right off his feet.
Sorrel broke well for a green one and struck his trot
again some three lengths behind me, but I had gained too
much advantage to be easily overhauled, and the Irish-
man in a rash attempt to close the gap broke himself
again, so that when we palled up at the bottom of the
hill he was forty or fifty yards in the rear. "Whose
horse is that?" I enquired as he came up on a slow
trot. "Mine shure," says Pat, with a mixed expression
of coutenance, half pride at owning so fine an animal,
half shame at being beaten.
I made up my mind to have that horse, for he was
a beauty to look at, and I felt ready to bet my life be
80
was a good one to go. It struck me forcibly that the
Irishman could n't ride him his best , which inspired the
hope that be might not know enough to sell him his best.
So I coaxed him along, sometimes on a walk, sometimes
on a jog-trot till I found out where he lived. It was
not more than a mile out of the way, so I accompained
him home. His home was little better than a shanty and
his stable a mere shed, so small that it seemed a mystery
how the big horse could get into it. All the way along
I had been bringing my man gradually to the point, first
ascertaining that the horse was for sale and then gra-
dually feeling at the price ; we had therefore got through
our preliminaries before stopping, and soon came up to
the mark pretty fairly on both sides, so that in five mi-
nutes from the time of our halt it was agreed that I
should pay 400 for the chesnut, and the Irishman , (I
call him Pat or the Irishman not from any disrespect to
him in his national or individual capacity but simply be-
cause I do not know his real name to this day) should
deliver him next morning, by which time I hoped to have
the cash ready to pay for him, being about to receive
a sum nearly as large on this very expedition to town.
I gave Pat a stray V. which happened to be in my
pocket, as earnest-money, and rattled off to the city.
After stabling my horse and calling on my debtor
who paid me like a man and in bankable money too, I
crowded all sail for the club, with a comfortable feeling
of fulness in my pockets and a less pleasing sensation
of emptiness elsewhere, for the digression after the sor-
rel and the dunning excursion together had considerably
prolonged my morning fast. How I did astonish that
beef-steak ! and to see me lay fried potatoes in the shade
might have made a stranger doubt my nationality and
take me for an adopted rather than a native citizen.
Grateful was the mild Floreza which solaced subsequent
digestion while looking over the morning-papers. But
soon a change came over my meditations. There had
just occurred a most distressing case under the new Fu-
gitive Slave Law. * * * * 'Altogether a most scandalous
piece of business' said the Jacobin^ and for once the Ja-
cobin and I were on the same side. I worked myself
up into no small rage, said many disrespectful things of
their Excellencies the President and the Secretary of
81
state, and felt like doing something violent to vent my
feelings — writing a "slasher" for instance, or picking
a "muss" with the first individual I met. And when old
Mr. Meriwether of Virginia, one of our non-resident
members , walked through the room wishing me good-
morning as he passed in his usual affable way, I returned
his salutation mechanically and felt immediately after as
if I had been doing something wrong, and it would have
been more humane and religious to have insulted him in
some way. The very locality, the walls and furniture of
the room, helped to feed the fuel of my indignation, for
was it not this club — the Untied Fogies — that had
blackballed my friend Fielding because he was an Abo-
titionist ? 'The mean toadies' thought I 'they are like some
of their wives — cotton before nature. Cotton and money
and southern trade are all their principles. I would
resign if I did n't feel sure I could bother them more by
staying in.' And thus I went on fuming and fretting like
a bottle of beer in the dog-days.
But, Fugitive Slave-law or no Fugitive Slave -law,
I must go about my day's work. Several little matters
I had to see about, chiefly commissions for the lady part
of the household, but the main business of the day was
to attend a meeting at Tom Robinson's office in Broad-
way. It was a committee of all the property about
Devilshoof to petition the corporation ; all the land-
holders of the neighborhood , whether resident on their
properties or not, were to be represented. The corpora-
tion attorney had made a sudden move for the opening
of 250th Street through all our places, just to make up
a nice little bill of costs for himself and bribe a few
hundred voters by giving the contractors a job. We in-
tended to present a unanimous remonstrance of the pro-
prietors on the line and in the vicinity of the projected
improvement, and accordingly were to meet at 5 P. M.
in the said office to sign the remonstrance prefaced with
a few spicy resolutions.
I started on my errands, but the Fugitive question
kept mixing itself up with all my thoughts and strangely
confusing my transactions. I ordered a keg of pickled
Carolinians at my grocer's, and when Stewart's clerk asked
what colored gloves I wanted, replied 'black of course.'
Having promised to take tea with the Travises who
Vol. m. 6
lived a mile beyond us, I was bound to dine before the
meeting and accordingly ordered my Tartaric eels and
jardiniere cutlets at Delmonico's by a quarter past three.
But either from having breakfasted late or thought too
much — a very common cause of want of appetite among
our excitable people — I felt little inclination to eat and
a strong tendency to take it out in drinking. So after
imbibing a bottle of Mouton in addition to my usual pint
of Champagne, I lit my Esculapio and strolled leisurely
up Broadway. Not very for from Robinson's office my
name was suddenly ejaculated in a sort of stage whisper.
I turned short round and beheld Silas Benschoten.
Mr. Benschoten was a little of a lawyer and a good
deal of a politician ; he had also been and perhaps w^as
still, something of a speculator. He w as an out-and-out
radical in politics, and professed to be something in re-
ligion 5 the uncharitable said it was more profession than
practice. Scandal dared to hint that he would make a
speech before a charitable society one night and go to
a Ripton ball the next. However this might be, his out-
ward deportment and standing were unexceptionable. He
had a commanding person and persuasive manners, moved
in good society and enjoyed some valuable agencies. He
and I had been partially drawn together by a common
Free-soil hobby, which we both rode at a pretty good
pace , though my performances were usually confined to
a select circle and Silas curvetted more for the public
eye. But besides this he was a good judge of a live
horse and a better judge of claret ; a very pleasant man
too at a dinner party and dinner parties always were a
weakness of mine, so without being exactly confidential,
we had come to be on pretty familiar terms, I should
say that he was an old bachelor — for America that
that is — pretty well up in the thirties, if not absolutely
on the shady side of forty.
"Mr. Manhattan" said he, in a most impressive tone,
**you are the very man I was looking for."
''Ah," thought I as this almost stereotyped prelude
to some particularly disagreeable request struck my ear,
"now he is going to ask me carry an impracticable par-
cel to an out-of-the way place, or to take an impertinent
message to somebody , or be his friend in a duel , or
most probable and worst of all, to lend him a few
hundred dollars because he has a little note to take up
to-morrow."
"You are just the man," he continued ''because you
have nothing to do —
"I beg your pardon but I have a great deal to do.
This very moment I am on my way to a meeting of great
importance, and then I have another engagement out of
town to-night, and to-morrow morning I must write a
review of that new novel Allbam for Hopkins, for I pro-
mised him he should have it to-morrow^ night and then —
He looked at me so seriously — so very Ancient-
Mariner — that my catalogue of engagements was broken
off before he had opened his mouth in reply. Beckoning
me a few steps down a side street he went on in a low
voice and with an earnest manner,
There is a young lady from the South near here —
in my office in fact — at this moment, who is most de-
sirous of getting to Canada as soon as possible. It is
of the greatest importance that she should go by v the
five o'clock boat this afternoon. The case is so urgent
that I would go myself, but you know I must be in court
to-morrow for that great rail-road case, Backus and others
vs the Hardscrabble Co."
The whole state of the case flashed upon me in a
moment. The "Young lady" was a fugitive who had
been passed on from Philadelphia to Benschoten as a
prominent abolitionist. The thing w^as common enough.
Last summer I had forwarded in this way a man who
came to me directed by some quaker whom I had never
seen or heard of; he wore the very plantation suit in
which he had escaped. I disguised him in some of my
old clothes (a tall figure he cut in them) and sent my
cook, a "lady of color," to see him safe on board a
North River boat and pay his passage for him. But the
present was a case of more interest , a woman ; some
beautiful quadroon perhaps, as Silas called her 'a young
lady.' "Benschoten is a sharp man," thought I, "he
remembers that this aiding and abetting of fugitives has
been declared constructive treason. So to make all safe,
I am not to know that this is a slave, nor is he sup-
posed to know either. He puts a young lady under my
charge and I take charge of her — that's all ; the pos-
sible leakiness or indiscretion of either of us cannot
84
compromise the other." And then I spoke out and said
«I '11 take her."
"I thought you would" he replied. We looked very
intelligently at each other and started simultaneously for
his office in Nassau Street. In three minutes we were
at the building in the second story of which he hung
out his shingle. As we passed through the ante-chamber
or front office I noticed that the clerk was absent ; doubt-
less he had been purposely sent out of the way. Silas
stopped a moment.
"Have you money enough about you for the trip.
You know the bank is closed and I can't get any till
to-morrow." "Yes indeed," and I slapped the 350 in my
pocket. With that came across my mind the recollection
of its destined purpose , making me pause a moment in
my philanthropic intentions. The committee and the tea
party and the article might go, but the horse couldn't
be lost. A thought struck me.
/'Stay a bit, Mr. Benschoten. If I do this for you,
you must do something for me." Succintly yet fully I
unfolded to him the history of the chestnut. He knew
enough about the noble animal to understand my narra-
tive and appreciate my feelings. He undertook to ad-
vance the money for the horse and send his clerk with
it early next morning.
"And now" said he, throwing open the door of his
main office, let me introduce you to Miss Amanda Middle-
ton the young lady from the South I spoke of. Miss
Amanda, this is my friend Mrs. Manhattan."
She was a brunette with somewhate irregular but
not unattractive features and very respectably dressed.
This was all I had time to observe, for Benschoten hur-
ried us down stairs, remarking that we had but fifteen
minutes to reach the boat.
"Miss Middleton's baggage ?" I enquired ! "has the
hackman got it?"
"We don't take a back" said Silas with another
significant look. My porter will carry the lady's trunk.
"Is that all the baggage ?" I asked again in some
amazement, as the stout Hibernian who worked for Mr.
Benschoten appeared with one small trunk on his shoulder.
"AH" he replied, "Miss Middleton is travelling in
such haste that she had not time to put up many things."
85
Had I entertained any doubts as to the true character
of my extempore charge, here was enough to dispel them
at once. What but the imminent peril of some awful
disaster, such as a return to slavery, could make a woman
travel with no bandbox and only one small trunk ?
Miss Middleton dropped her veil and clung tightly
to my arm, as I set off at such a pace that the encum-
bered porter could hardly keep up with us. We just
hit the boat ; the last bell stopped ringing as we crossed
the plank. I led my charge into the most retired corner
of the deck cabin, if any part of a boat with five hundred
people on board could be called retired, and we seated
ourselves with an evident feeling of satisfaction. Listen-
ing to the rapid revolutions of the Skimmer'' s paddles,
I rejoiced to think that we were safely started on
the last stage but one of my companion's eventful and
and perilous journey. But the inconveniences of my own
position soon suggested other reflections. I was contra-
vening the law of the land, indirectly indeed but very
decidedly. There was no knowing how near the pursuers
might be, or whether some accident might not throw us
into their clutches, the breaking dow^n of a train, the
sticking of our boat on the "overslaugh" or the like.
Nay, even at that moment, the lightning of the telegraph
might be out-travelling us, and putting the hunters of
men on our scent at Albany. If she were to be ap-
prehended I should have some difficulty in clearing my-
self. And then my affairs at home ! What will they think
of me for not attending the meeting ? And what will
the Travises think of me for cutting their tea-party ?
And what above all will my little wife think of my ab-
sence for three or four days ? Even little Franky will
miss his papa , and cry after him perhaps. Benschoten
will not put them at rest, for he dare not tell then the
whole truth. He takes too good care of himself for that.
"What are you thinking of, pray ?" said the fugitive,
lifting her veil and flashing an expressive look from her
black eyes.
"If you wish to know very much, I was thinking
of you."
"You do me too much honor" and she cast down
her eyes and her veil again. It was the first time I had
heard her voice. Though not harsh, there seemed a want
of refinement about it. Predisposed as I was to make
her a heroine and see everything about her in the most
romantic light, it did not impress me very favorably. I
scrutinized her dress as v^ell as I could without staring
too much at her. It was respectable and even handsome
but evidently not the work of a crack modiste How
should it be indeed ? Again my revery came over me
and the original thread of my speculations was taken
up. She is not a quadroon ; she must be the daughter
of one. Her father did his best to repair the consequences
of his original fault, brought her up like a lady, probably
intended to free her after his death, but his circumstances
became embarassed, or he died intestate. She was to
have been sold to the spoiler and is flying from worse
than death
It must be so —
Ting ting ! ting a ring ding ! ! ting a ting ting ! ! !
ding ! ! ! !
Confound that nigger ! does he mean to deafen me
for life?
"Passengers t'aven't paid 'er passage '11 please step
to 'er Cap'n's officer an sett-?///"
Now, my dear sable brother, don't make such an in-
fernal row ; we hear well enough. I had nearly forgot-
ten that little matter of the passage money though. The
lady must be left alone for a few minutes ; I trust noth-
ing will happen to her meanwhile. At any rate there is
no reason for any one's suspecting her here.
There were, as has been observed, five hundred per-
sons on board the Skimmer that afternoon and the Cap-
tain's office was in an awful state of siege. All the
state-rooms had been engaged long ago of course, and
the passengers were struggling for the few remaining
berths. For myself it made very little difference ; I al-
- ways sit up on such occasions, but I was anxious to
provide some sort of accomodation for my companion.
After sustaining the usual perilous jam and providientally
working through it unscathed , I found myself in front
of the little window. The moment I mentioned "the
lady" who accompanied me, a perceptible change mani-
fested itself in the Captain's very business demeanor,
and he turned his attention my way , summarily post-
poning the pretensions of a tall New-Englander who had
B1
made a dead heat with me for the opening. "A lady"
in America, by the way, means anything (not black) in
petticoats, indeed I am not sure but since the apparition
of Mrs. Bloomer the term may have taken even a wider
range.
"Very sorry indeed, sir," said the gentlemanly cap-
tain — Take notice that a steamboat captain , hotel
keeper, or newspaper editor is always "gentlemanly,''
even though he should be very much the reverse. The
epithet occurs in this connexion as regularly in American
penny-a lining as the swift-footed Achilles in Homer or
Merrie England in the old ballads. Is is but justice
however, to him of the Skimmer, to say that he really
deserved the stock adjective of panegyric and was a most
civil and affable person.
"Very sorry indeed sir, that we can do no better for
your lady, but there is not a state-room or berth in the
ladies' cabin unoccupied. We will have a settee prepared
for her without fail." Oji my reporting progress to the
fair fugitive, she asked me what I intended to do, and
on learning that I meant to sit up all night, "guessed"
she would do so too. Natural enough that her anxiety
should deprive her of any desire to sleep.
The bell rang again, this time for supper. I forced
myself to eat something. Miss Middleton scarcely touched
any thing. Dyspeptic and fastidious ladies are so com-
mon that the circumstance was not likely to excite attention.
Supper over, w^e retired to our corner in the forward
part of the deck cabin. With an infinite desire to talk
to my companion, I never felt more puzzled in my life
how to commence a conversation. When on the Hudson
one naturally talks of the Hudson and its beauties. Even
in a night-boat you can expatiate on the lovely prospects
that would he visible if it were only daylight ; "now we
must be passing the Tappan See ; now^ we ought to be
opposite the Kaatskills ; were you ever at the Mountain
House ?" and so on. But to Amanda Middleton the Hud-
son was chiefly interesting as being her pathway to freedom
and any allusion to her never having seen it before might
have entailed some more compromising reminiscences.
The subject I was dying to interrogate her about was
the very one to which I could not allude. At last as
the safest common ground I began to talk of Mr. Ben-
88
schoten. He was a very clever man. Yes, she said, he
was, and a very smart one too. I saw we were at cross
purposes, but as Benschoten was both English and American
clever , I made no objection and continued that he had
a great reputation for philanthropy. She assented in a
tone that made it doubtful whether she quite understood
w^hat philanthropy meant. I had had the pleasure of
knowing him seven years. She had not known him so
long. Probably not. I wanted to ask her more, but he-
sitated. To be sure we were not exactly in the midst
of a crowd ; indeed there w^as not a person at that mo-
ment visible within thirty feet of us. But I knew not
how many of the adjoining state-rooms might already be
occupied by their tenants, and servants or passengers
were continually passing. Even as I thought of this,
there was a step near us ; I started ; it was a peddler
of magazines and cheap novels. I bought one — Mrs.
Trollope's last, re-christened as Mrs. Grey's, and offered
it to Miss Middleton who went to work at it very quietly.
Then I took a magazine for myself but could not master
resolution to cut the leaves. I fidgetted and looked at
my watch, thought the boat was crawling, though she
was making eighteen miles an hour against the current.
It came to be ten o'clock and the cabin was almost de-
serted. My curiosity could no longer contain itself.
"Does the story interest you. Miss Middleton ?
She said it did — no, not a great deal.
''Your story must be very interesting. I should sn
like to hear it. You might tell it me now without danger."
"My story?"
"Yes, the story of your life and how you came here."
"O my ! Well, if I ever ! Really sir this is going
very far on so short an acquaintance," and she glanced
round the cabin from under her veil "Some time when
we are better acquainted and in some other place, I may
tell you — perhaps."
It took me all aback, but she was quite right. Some
one might have overheard us. Altogether she was so
cool, her self-possession restored me to mine. If she was
reading I might compose. Puffer Hopkins won't mind
receiving his article a few days later. So I let myself
slide off into a revery of composition, mentally dipping
the pen of indignation into the gall of satire and elaborating
89
something that would give the devil — that is in this
case the author of Allbam — his due, whenever I found
opportunity to throw it upon paper. By and by, becoming
a little interested in my subject I took a turn up and
down the now deserted cabin and then resumed my seat
near Miss Middleton — only opposite instead of along-
side as at first. I felt some need of an accustomed ad-
junct of composition, my cigar. All the waiters and
stewardesses had gone to whatever served them in lieu
of beds, and no passengers but ourselves were visible.
"Would it annoy you if I were to smoke ?" Not in the
least, she said, so I lit a Figaro and made myself com-
fortable.
"Do you know !" said I after a pause , half to my-
self, "I pity women sometimes."
"They are to be pitied for a great many things"
said Amanda.
"But this is a queer reason, you will perhaps say —
because they do not smoke.
"But I do." said she naively.
I handed her my case and she chose her Figaro
artistically and lit it scientifically.
"How awful for a woman to smoke ! exclaims the
genteel reader. Reader mine, I have known the most
delicate and pureminded women to smoke habitually, and
therefore view the matter in a different light. If a man
objects to the use of tobacco altogether by either sex,
that is another matter , but that your professed cigar-
smoker should object to a female friend or relative par-
ticipating in his pleasure, seems to me very selfish and
unfair. The thing is bizarre if you like, unconventional,
odd (fearful word that last to an Englishman ; I don't
know if we have any so dreaded in 6>wr language ; perhaps
unpopular would come the nearest to it,) but take my
word for it, it is not immoral or indecent.
Perhaps one reason for my being rather gratified
than otherwise at Amanda's smoking was that it obliged
her to throw back her veil, which gave me full oppor-
tunity to study her features. She had a retrousse nose,
large and lustrous though not peculiarly intelligent black
eyes and a rather low forehead. Her mouth was large
but symmetrical, (you could see that even with the cigar
in it,) her chin full and sensuous. She looked more like
90
a woman who could love a man to death than one likely
ever to set the Hudson on fire. I could fancy her. though
not exactly my style of beauty, quite capable of inspir-
ing une grande passion. My imagination conjured up the
temptations, the trials, the insults she might have under-
gone before she was driven to seek an escape ******
As regarded our mere bodily comfort, we had made a
good hit in sitting up. The arm-chairs in which we re-
clined were not only comfortable but luxurious. How
the night passed I do not clearly remember, but Miss
Middleton and I smoked six cigars, (she one and I the
other five) I believe I fell asleep two or three times and
am certain she did once at least, for I saw her head
droop forward and heard sounds (unromantic as it may
seem) very like those which ordinary mortals emit when
snoring.
The Skimmer put into dock at Albany just as the
clock struck three. So anxious are our people to get
anywhere an hour or two before any one else that they
will actually destroy comfort without eventually gaining
time for the sake of a little extra speed. What earthly
use, for instance, was there in a man's being at Albany
by three in the morning w^hen he could not leave the
place before seven, nor do anything — no, not even eat
his breakfast before six ? How much more convenient
to arrive at six. Yet it was placarded as a recommen-
dation of the Skimmer that she was "through in eight
hours ;" had she taken eleven she would have been
hooted off the line.
Luckily I was known at Congress Hall and so was
my friend Mr. Benschoten ; we were doubly sure of
meeting every attention there. My first concern was to
ascertain the best means of continuing our journey, and
I found that the Niagara route, though the longest and
most fatiguing was decidedly the quickest. The Schenec-
tady cars started at seven ; I obtained a room for Miss
Middleton and then procured of mine host some neces-
sary articles of clothing and a small valise. To do this
without exciting suspicion , I thought it necessary not
only to leave a deposit but to extemporize some plau-
sible narrative of having lost or left behind my carpet
bag. Then I sat down in the bar-room, intending to
watch there till six, but nature asserted her dominion,
91
I fell asleep in my chair and was soon lost in visions
of Southerners and distressed females, bowie-knives and
pistols till I woke with a start and a scream dreaming
that the sheriff's hand was on my shoulder, and nearly
frightened the life out of the black boots as he stumbled
through the room with both hands full of slippers.
At a quarter past six Amanada appeared, much re-
freshed by her short nap. We were both hungry enough
by this time and did justice to a very good breakfast.
Once in the cars our chances of safety were much in-
creased, as every moment carried us farther into the
western part of the state where in case of our being
arrested there was every chance of a rescue. Amanda
looked more at ease, though she had been remarkably cool
for one in her position all along , and I now began to
feel more anxious for myself and my family than for her.
How much had Benschoten told them ?
Had he told them anything ? What would they think
of my absence ? What excuse should I give when I came
back ? Then my thoughts reverted once more to Miss
Middleton. There was one thing about her that puzzled
me. Her accent and dialect were not in the least southern,
but on the contrary exactly those of a New -England
woman of the middle class — if it be not blasphemy
against the sovereign people to talk of any distinction
of classes in New-England. After meditating some time
on this phenomenon I concluded it must be owing to her
having had a New-England teacher. But a greater sur-
prise than this was in store for me. At Utica, where we
stopped to dine some of the passengers struck up the
very subject of the Law. Her face evinced some dis-
agreeable emotion. I began to tremble in spite of my-
self, and when one of the company suddenly appealed
to her, as a woman, all my self possession was ready
to desert me. But she. with no appearance of any other
feeling than vexation and disgust, replied in the sharpest
tone ; "I don't see why they should make such a fuss
about those nasty niggers. I'm sure I never want to see
one of them, and I wish they were all far enough."
I thought of Parodi's come finge ! in Lucrezia ! it was
a wonderful piece of acting in real life. After that I
had no further fears on her account ; she might have
been trusted to outface her own father, had he been the
92
party in pursuit. My anxieties concentrated in myself,
and I had a sad fright at one stopping -place. While
changing cars I observed an old gentleman closely scru-
tinizing me and my companion, who dropped her veil and
turned her head aside. Returning his gaze I recognized
old Slugden of our club ; he had business in the South
and travelled there often. "Ah, Mr. Manhattan "quoth he
with another look at Miss Middleton," still water runs
deep they say. But I never should have expected this
from you."
He knew what I was about then and whom I was es-
corting ! '''That Benschoten's been leading you into mis-
chief. A married man — well it's none of my business;"
and Avith these words he left us. I did n't think it was
any of his business, and was glad to be rid of him. But
his expressions gave me material for thought. He clearly
suspected my companion's identity. She did not want to
acknowledge his acquaintance. He knew that Benschoten
was mixed up in the matter. Had he seen her in the
South ? Probably. At any rate here was the end of our
secret. He would blab it all over. Well if it comes
to the worst, he can't prove that 1 knew who she was.
We travelled on all that day and all night. I couldn't
sleep in the cars but Amanda did, and her head reclined
on my shoulder in the most sisterly manner. At length
we were at Niagara. How well I remembered the crossing
in former days ! the little skiff, the element under us so
beautifully clear, green, and still, like molten emerald,
while close, to us , just over our heads as it were, thun-
dered the terrible cataract — so like our present position,
the calm of absolute safety with the consciousness that
extremity of peril was close to us. But now Yankee inge-
nuity had already contrived a more comfortable and less
romantic, though equally picturesque mode of making the
transit. I thought Amanda looked pleased and tranquil,
but she said nothing till we had quitted the bridge and
were on English ground; then she spoke for the first
time, "Now I shall be able to sleep well."
And she did sleep ! Soon after the early dinner she
retired to her room — to lie down a few moments she
said — and never made her appearance till seven next
morning. I thought she was going not only to make the
circuit of the dial, as the French say, but to double it.
i
93
Some good part of this period I was myself making up
for lost time in the sleeping line ; during the rest of it,
I was chiefly thinking of her. It puzzled me (then were
a good many puzzles about the woman) that no one
appeared to take charge of her. My link in the chain
of transmission ought to be over now that she had crossed
the water ; some philanthropist or other should have been
on hand to receive her. To whom was she ticketed ?
A startling suspicion crossed my mind that she might be
at the end of the list ; that she had no protector in
Canada and was to be left to herself, unless I staid to
take care of her, which I certainly could not. And in
one sense she seemed able enough to take care of her-
self, but how was she to live without money or friends ?
I remembered the famous case of the runaway who after
being rescued from his pursuers in Boston at the expense
of a few lives, found himself considerably impeded in the
enjoyment of his liberty in Canada by the fact of his
being at starvation point. It would be a sad satire on
philanthropy if this young woman were delivered from
slavery in one country only to become a pauper, or some-
thing worse in another. Perhaps Benschoten knew this,
and was too glad to get rid of the responsibility himself.
She might have come to him with some such missive as
this "Friend Silas, thee will receive herewith a young
maiden flying from the oppressor, without friends or re-
sources. If thee can do nothing else for her, thee will
at least transmit her to the British provinces and com-
mend her to the care of Providence. Thine, Ephraim
Cutaway." Well, if Silas has passed on the joke to me
in this way, I shall not feel over much obliged to him.
But we shall know to-morrow.
^When the morrow appeared and Miss Middleton
with it, she had evidently been paying some attention
to her toilette, and I could not help congratulating her
on her looks. She received my sweet sayings very
graciously and then , to my astonishment , informed me
that she was very much obliged to me for the trouble
I had taken and would have no further need of my
services. She did not want to keep me from my bu-
siness and friends. She expected her friend in the
course of the day. So saying she walked into the break-
fast room without waiting for me to accompany her,
94
signifying as it were , that my share in the business
was ended.
This put the top-stone to my astonishment. The
least I could have expected was that she should be very
grateful to me as one of her preservers. And now she
thanked me just as if I had called a carriage or carried
a shawl for her. It was incomprehensible. I followed
her into the breakfast room. There was no one within
several chairs of us. "May I ask, Miss Middleton, whom
you expect?" She refused to tell me. Then did she
expect to meet any one there ? If her friend was not
there, he would write to her from some other part of
Canada ; she was much obliged to me , but she could
now take care of herself entirely. That was all I could
get out of her.
She was expecting some one then. Doubtless a fu-
gitive like herself. Perhaps they had plighted their faith
in the day of slavery, and had fled separately, not being
able to fly together. It was on his account that she had
acted so strangely, so rudely to me. What sort of per-
son was he ? To suppose him a black was destructive
to one's romance, besides being improbable. Most likely
he was one of mixed blood like herself, nearly, if not
quite, white to look at. I felt curious enough to wait
for his arrival, as a day more or less could make no
material difPerence in my position.
While I was thus cogitating Miss Middleton left the
table. Now that we were in Canada, I had entered both
our real names for the first time in the hotel book.
There was nothing surprising therefore in the barkeeper's
addressing me as he did, just as I was on the point of
rising myself.
"A letter, sir, for the lady who is with you." There
was a letter sure enough for Miss A. Middleton and
strange to say, directed in a hand- writing familiar to
me, though whose it was I could not at the moment re-
collect. Miss Amanda was in the ladies' parlor, no
other person occupied it. I handed her the letter, which
she opened with eagerness, but at the first glance her
face assumed an aspect of utter consternation^ and soon
she flung the epistle from her and sank into the nearest
chair in an excellent imitation of hysterics. I rushed
forward and attempted to soothe her but she repulsed
95
me with "go away ! go away !" While I was standing
irresolute and hopelessly mystified, my eye fell on the
letter lying on the other side of the room where she
had thrown it. It was not in human nature to refrain
from picking up the combustible. I did and read as
follows
Dear Amanda,
The best of friends must part
sometimes. Cannot rejoin you according to promise because
must go to Europe after ail. Would advise you to look out
for a successor; not difficult to obtain with your attractions.
Ever ^c. Silas B.
'Jupiter Ammon !' quoth I. The whole field was not
quite clear to me yet, but I began to have some insight
into the millstone.
By this time Miss Middleton had recovered sufficiently
to stand up. She saw me smiling, for after the first
shock of surprise, amusement at the immense dexterity
of the sell w^as the predominant feeling in my mind.
"Well sir, What had you to do with this ?" She de-
manded in no very gentle accent.
'If you mean what share I have had in our friend
Silas' absquatulation "I replied, hardly knowing whether
to laugh or be angry" it astonishes me as much as your-
self. I only know that he does n't owe me any money,
which I am very glad of, and that he has sent me here
on a wild-goose chase, which I am very sorry for.
"Then why did you bring me here ?" She asked, in
a tone that would have made her fortune or helped it
at least, on the stage.
"Because" said I in the innocence of my heart "I
thought you were a fugitive slave."
"You thought / was a slave ! Me a slave ! Do I
look like a nigger ? You — you — " she became momen-
tarily speechless with rage.
"You certainly look very black." (I could not have
suppressed the joke, such as it was, if it had been con-
structive treason under the new law.)
The fair Amanda was utterly incompetent to give
vent to her emotions in words, and glanced around for
some tangible means of expressing them. There was a
large pewter inkstand on the mantle-piece. She made a
dash at it. I made a quicker one through the door and
96
in three quarters of an hour was travelling homeward
in the railroad, having actually forgotten to pay my (or
our) bill at the Albion.
If I had made little pause going, I made less in re-
turning, covering nearly four hundred miles without stop-
ping half an hour till I found myself at Albany. There
I rested a while and restored his properties to mine
host of the Congress. While luxuriating over a leisurely
meal, my eye lit on a New-York paper which had just
arrived; it was the first I had seen for two days, and
the first thing I saw in it was this advertisement.
'^Lost or otherwise missing^ Mr. F. Manhattan of this
city. He is [here followed a tolerably accurate descrip-
tion of my person and a tolerably correct inventory of
such garments as I had on.] Being of a very absent dis-
position, it is supposed he may have walked into the
river by mistake. • A proper reward will he paid for
the body, and any information respecting him will be
thankfully received by his afflicted wife or by Mr. Ashhel
C. Tompkins, general agent, No. 330 Third Avenue."
Pleasant that to read of one's self 1 Then I turned
to the Editorial department and saw ;
'^Personal Items. Mr. Silas Benschoten. Mysterious
disappearances are becoming quite fashionable. This
distinguished Abolition lawyer was yesterday found en-
tirely non est inventus. Circumstances have transpired
which leave no doubt that our gifted but unprincipled
townsman has sailed for France in the Humbug^ leaving
several parties very much out of pocket by the journey.
The De Ruyter estate is said to suffer to the tune of
25,000, and several others have been victimized in smaller
amounts. We wish this were all, but worse remains to
add. A certain "lady fair and free" who ought to be
Mrs. Benschoten is missing, and as it has been conclu-
sively ascertained that she is not the partner of his flight,
rumor asserts that, knowing too many of his secrets, she
was disposed of by him at the last moment with more
regard to convenience than to law or morality.
P. S. Another supposed murder ! An additional
circumstance connects the disappearance of Mr. Manhattan,
on which we commented yesterday, with the flight of
his fellow abolitionist. The former was last seen in con-
versation with Silas Benschoten whose office they entered
n
together. It is too much to be feared that he as well as
the young woman alluded to, have been murdered to
ensure their silence. The police are actively occupied in
searching Benschoten's lodgings in Fitz-Jones Place, but
no mangled remains have as yet been discovered."
It was pretty late that afternoon when I landed from
the Sparrow in my native city. While making my way
to the Harlaem cars it struck me that there might be
some one at the club going to Devilshoof that night,
who could take me directly there ; also that my sudden
appearance might mystify the members a little and make
some fun. So I struck straight out for the United Fogies
and on arriving there pushed immediately into the dining-
room. There were but six or eight men in it, among them
Wm. Travis, one of the few young men besides myself
who belonged to the club. As I entered unnoticed, old
Slugden and Tony Jones , the two greatest gossips of
our very gossippy circle, were engaged in an animated
discussion about my probable fate. Jones, who being
on the opposite side to Benschoten in politics, naturally
inclined to the most charitable supposition concerning
him, was maintaining in very positive terms that Silas
had made away with me and Amanda before making
away himself ; that she was lying at that moment some-
where poisoned in a hole like a rat, and that I should
be found some day, quartered and packed up in a pork-
barrel a la Colt 4* Adams.
"Now I tell you ," retorted the other, equally posi-
tive, "that I saw him and Amanda Garland with my own
eyes at Rochester, going into the Buffalo cars. I spoke
to them and they tried to cut me. And I'll bet you a
thousand dollars that Manhattan is alive and well — that
is unless Amanda — " "Go you halves Mr. Slugden I"
"said I, stepping forward with a melodramatic strut, like
Lusignan in La Reine de Chypre when he jumps out from
behind the curtain and cries moil
"God bless me !" ejaculated the old fellow , and
starting suddenly forward, his chair slipped and he came
down with a portentous squash. Tony on his part nearly
turned a somerset the other way in his astonishment, and
then nearly fell over Slugden in trying to pick him up.
Travis caught me by both hands and the remaining mem-
bers present crowded about me; in short so far as my
Vol. III. 7
98
object had been to make a sensation it succeeded per-
fectly. They overwhelmed me with questions. I told
my story just as it had occurred and asked Travis if be
could give me a lift home that night. He could. "Well
then" said I "let me share your dinner meanwhile, and
tell me all that has happened here."
We called for more okra soup, more spring chickens
and asparagus, and a great deal more champagne, and
while I was giving an account of the provender, Travis
gave me an account of Benschoten's proceedings.
Silas had become hopelessly involved, not so much
from his expenditures (though these were on a sufficiently
liberal scale) as from unsuccessful "operations" in Wall
Street. An expos^ was inevitable ; he resolved to anti-
cipate it by flight. Pocketing all his receipts at the be-
gining of the quarter, amounting to thirty thousand dol-
lars or more (five sixths of which was in no respect his
property but only passed through his hands. as agent or
receiver, to say nothing of his liabilities) he took passage
for Europe under an assumed name. European rogues
are invariably represented in European novels as escaping
to America, and too plentiful an amount of such gentry
does find its way to our shores. But it is equally true
that the American rogue usually runs off to Europe.
He has that and Texas to choose between. Silas' aboli-
tion — not principles exactly but professions — as well
as his refined tastes made him decidedly object to the
latter place. But when all his plans were arranged, he
came very near bringing up in Singsing, owing to an un-
expected turn in his affairs. Amanda Garland was his
chere amie. Though this did not prevent her from having
some other little flirtations on hand, and being pretty
well known to a certain set, she really was much attached
to Benschoten, and he loved her as much as it was in
his nature to love any one but himself. Without much
reputation for cleverness, it was nevertheless she and
she only who discovered the secret of his desperate con-
dition and intended departure, as women will find things
out even when not particularly brilliant. Probably she
threatened to blow up the whole project unless he would
make her the companion of his journey, at any rate he
actually disposed of the berth which he had engaged and
promised to make Canada his refuge instead, if she would
i
99
go thither a day in advance and wait for him. After
she had fallen into the share, a mere caprice of hers was
near breaking up the plan again. She would not go alone ;
she must have a beau to accompany her. With a little
time Silas could easily have supplied this requisite, but
time was the very thing he could not spare. His only
hope was to catch some innocent travelling northward,
which would have been much easier later in the season
then it was at that time. All at once he stumbled upon
me and his ready wit suggested the strategem which
he had so successfully put into execution. The next
evening he was off in the Humbug.
"As foi* you" said Travis, "you were missed at the
meeting that night and angry enough we were with you
for not coming. However we signed your name to the
memorial just as if you had been there, and it made no
difference [not an uncommon proceeding in our free and
easy country, this taking one's signature for granted].
Your family took it very coolly. Mrs. M. said you had
probably gone over to Jersey to look after some horse
or other. The papers have n't had much time to specu-
late on the mysterious disappearance, but our set said
enough about it. Your old flame Mary Perkins had gone
to Staten Island for some days to see her sick aunt, and
Storey Hunter said she had eloped with you. You may
judge what a blessing it was to her husband. I believe
she felt it her duty to promenade Broadway three hours
a day for three days after. And Jack Foolidge swore
you were Benschoten's accomplice and twice as great a
defaulter as he was. But most people thought Silas had
doctored you to save exposure, in consequence of your
having found him out."
"It's a mercy "said 1" that I never was mixed up
with the gentleman in any pecuniary transactions, or they
might have suspected me of complicity with good reason.
But have you heard anything of a certain horse that I
commissioned our absent friend to buy for me ?"
"That "replied Travis" I did n't mean to tell you for
fear of consequences, but as you take the whole business
with praise-worthy coolness perhaps you will listen to
this part of it without flaring up very fearfully. The
Humbug didn't sail till the afternoon, so that Silas had
time to do one final bit of swindling just before he
7*
100
started ; though you would hardly have thought a man in
his position competent for it. He went out to your place
by day break, met the owner of the horse there, repre-
sented to him and to your groom that you were detained
in town on business and had sent him to pay for the
animal. So he did pay for him. Then says he 'Mr.
Manhattan has promised me a drive of the horse for my
trouble' and he actually borrowed your sulky and harness
and drove straight off to Snaffletons.' 'Snaffleton' he says
'I have a first-rate young horse here, but he is too good
for a hard-making business man like me, and besides I
want some money to take up a note to-day. Just let
me show you what time he can make.' So he took him
round that half-mile track just below Snaffleton's and
he made some very tall time for a green horse , and
Snaffleton paid him seven hundred cash dow^n. Your
people could n't think what had become of him, till one
of Snaffleton's boys came to Devilshoof to say that your
sulky and harness were in his yard."
The surest way to disarm ridicule is to be the first
to tell the story against yourself. This I did, and joined
everywhere in the laugh raised at my expense. How^-
ever the horse was not given up without an effect to
recover him, though there was small hope of success.
Benschoten had bought the chesnut with his own mo-
ney — or that of his creditors — but not mine at any
rate, nor had I any witnesses of the original bargain.
But then again Silas had represented himself to my
groom as acting for me when he bought him, and it
stood to reason that I would not buy a horse to sell
him again an hour after. The Irishman might have been
of some assistance to me, but he had put out for parts
unknown, probably Mr. Snaffleton had made it worth
his while to do so, on learning the flaw in his own title.
In search of Mr. Snaffleton I went. He was a dealer
in and trainer of "fast crabs" about two miles below
me. At first he put on a most injured innocence air as
if I had come to impose upon his guileless simplicity :
he had bought the horse and paid a high price for him.
I offered him the price and a hundred over for his trouble.
He refused, and well he might, for he had already been
offered twelve hundred by another party, and the ches-
nut was believed to be worth at least sixteen. Gradually
101
we got into a considerable heat and made a tolerable
row between us. Luckily Mr. Snaffleton was in an un-
usually generous mood ; I suppose like Sampson Brass,
he had just been cheating somebody and getting the
change ; and after we had interchanged much argumen-
tative elocution he thus delivered himself of his ultimatum.
"I'll tell you what it is , Mr. Manhattan , I'm an
honest man [was there ever a horse-dealer the reverse?]
and I want to do what's fair, and not only fair but liberal.
I bought the horse and am entitled to him but if you
won't make a muss about it, I'll give you four hundred
dollars."
""Cash ? Snaffleton."
''Two hundred in bankable bills , there they are"
spreading out four fifties of the Merchants' Bank with
a magnificent air, "and my note at three months for the
balance, if you '11 give me a receipt in full of all claims
or interest in the horse."
It was something to get 200 out of a jockey with-
out having actually given him anything for it. I con-
sented and wrote the discharge, and Mr. Snaffleton wrote
me the note at three months in a very professional style
of chirography and orthography.
"And now" said I, pocketing the four fifties, "you
say you want to do what's liberal. So do I : I don't
mean to be out -done by you or any other man. This
note of yours being of no value w^hatever, I make you
a present of it back again — and I hope you duly appreciate
my generosity."
Three months after this there was a great match
on the Centreville between two trotters, both untried
but both reputed to be something very slashing. I staked
a large pile on my horse, as we continued to call him
because he ought to have been mine ; and won a few
hundreds, but it gave me little consolation ; I was more
vexed than ever to think how I had lost that chesnut,
after his making such time as he then did.
I saw Amanda once again. It was the very next
summer at Saratoga in the height of the season. How
she got it deponent saith not , but she had plenty of
money and was living on intimate terms with a very
respectable Presbyterian family. She passed for a lady
whose husband had been suddenly called away to the
102
South on business. As the Presbyterian family were
not in our set, it was no business of mine to tell them
who she was.
THE DUCHESS^ POCKET-HAND-
KERCHIEF.
A STORY WITH SEVERAL MORALS, AND NO PARTICULAR PLOT.
Knickerbocker, January 1855.
MRS. ROBINSON was at a ball, sitting along-side
the Duchess of Castelfondu, a real live French duchess
of the Faubourg St. Germain.
Who was Mrs. Robinson? She was an American
lady, and that is enough. Be assured she was no body
whom you know. There is not the least possible allusion
intended to the Robinsons of X — place, who are in your
set, or the Robinsons of Y — street, who are not. If you
will be very curious, her husband came originally of an
English family, and was related to the Mr. Robinson
who made that famous tour with Messrs. Brown and
Jones, a year or two ago.
How did Mrs. Robinson come into her present po-
sition ? Travelling for mere guide-book purposes is
pretty plain sailing in these days of Murray and steam,
when all the world speaks English, and the rest of
mankind French. But travelling abroad, or living abroad,
for the sake of foreign society , is another matter , and
somewhat of a mystery still. Every man can go to
Corinth now-a-days, but riot every man or woman can
see all the Corinthians. Overhaul the list of your own
and your friends' experience; you will find some queer
pages in it, and not a few puzzling contrasts. Mrs. M —
goes abroad, dines with a prince in one country , lives
at an earl's house in another, and so forth. Mrs. N —
every way her equal, moving in precisely the same sphere
at home, and fortified with as good antecedents and re-
commendations, takes very nearly the same tour without
receiving the least attention worth talking of when she
103
gets back. She thinks it very queer. But, queerer still,
Mrs. O — , who was altogether ^second set' compared with
Mesdames M — and N — , takes her tour, and knows twice
as many great people as Mrs. M — did ; in fact, has
scarcely any thing less than a duchess on her visiting-
list. How shall we account for this ? Without pretending
to do so fully, we will suggest some partial explanations.
In all circles, except the strictest court and diplo-
matic ones, where every thing and every body go by
label and ticket, change of country has a tendency to
modify a man's social position, either by causing his
antecedents to be ignored, or by (excuse the expression)
diminishing the probability of his consequents. He has
travelled partly away from the social distinctions of one
country, without fully entering into those of the other.
There is a stage of society in which foreigners, as such,
are natural objects of aversion, and the same word expresses
a stranger and an enemy. But this state of things is true
only of a barbarous stage. Among all respectable classes
of civilized society there is, on the contrary, rather a
prepossession in favor of a stranger, (except, of course,
where particular national enmities come into play.) We
need not seek any very lofty or disinterested motive for
this. All classes or sets (with the possible exception of
purely intellectual ones) must get tired of one another ;
and it would hardly be going too far to say that the
more eclectic, and exclusive, and fashionable a set is,
the more self wearying it becomes. All your 'punkins,'
of all countries, would willingly change their circle from
time to time if they could do so without permanently des-
cending from the pedestal of their real or fancied dig-
nity. If they could take up people of other sets for a
time only, they would be glad to do so. Now the stranger
comes in exactly to supply this want. He gives them
freshness and variety of ideas for a time, and they are
not troubled with him afterward. Therefore they are
willing enough to receive him, if he saves their dignity
by making the first advances. And if, in addition, he
puts himself to what the French call the expenses of the
intercourse, not metaphorically merely, but also literally,
they are not only willing but delighted to associate with
him. But if the stranger pretends to meet them on equal
ground, and is not ready to make a gratuitous and repeated
104
outlay of money, or flattery, or both, then the case is
altered; his claims are either critically scrutinized, or
dismissed without scrutiny.
This is one reason why fashionable success abroad
does not follow home rules, nay, sometimes seem to re-
verse them ; and also why the very people whom you
would suppose most qualified for living and enjoying
themselves abroad frequently return in disgust after a
very short trip, considerably un-Europeanized in their
predilections ; for these had stood too much on their
dignity, supposing themselves to be somebody on the
east side of the Atlantic, because they were somebody
on the west, or laying too much stress on a few intro-
ductory letters, or on other claims of which we shall
say more presently; in fact, considering that they had
changed their country only, and not their sphere. Whereas
Mr. and Mrs. Nobody, not supposing themselves in fashion-
able society, to begin with, make the same efforts to get
into it that they would at home, and often with greater
success.
We have incidentally alluded to letters of introduction.
No part of our subject is more dubious and more difficult
to reduce to rule. Perhaps one might venture to condense
the result of one's experience into two general propositions:
first, that such letters are much less readily and frequently
given in Europe than with us ; second, (what seems rather
paradoxical at first,) that they are of much less value
when given. But you will find much contradiction in
practice, and many exceptions. One friend will tell you
that he has derived the greatest benefit from his letters;
another, that equally good ones have been of no appre-
ciable service to him. Nay, I have known A to be better
treated solely on the strength of B's letters^ than B had
ever been himself by the persons to whom he recommended
A. This is a case which can hardly be accounted for on
any other supposition than that of accident or caprice.
But to return : there is one cause of complaint often
alleged by Americans against Europeans. You hear it
most frequently from 'our best society,' and it is one of
the reasons why they are so often disgusted with Europe.
But it applies generally, and is only oftener heard from
them because their accidental position brings foreigners
in America more into contact with them. The charge is
105
this : that Europeans, after being treated with every pos-
sible attention in America, do not reciprocate this treat-
ment to Americans, even their very entertainers, who visit
them in Europe.
This want of reciprocity may be as disagreeable to
the subjects of it as if it arose from systematic ingrati-
tude or intentional contempt ; but such is not its real
origin. It is attributable to a difference in the manners
and customs of the two hemispheres, want of attention
to which often puts people in a false position.
The Americans are eminently a hospitable people;
probably the most hospitable among civilized nations.
There may be sectional shades of difference ; one part
of the country may be more so than another ; but, on the
whole, it is a hospitable country, in its internal as well
as its external relations. It is a mistake to say that
foreigners, as such^ are particularly run after or made
much of by our fashionable society. An English or French
gentleman is treated in New-York, for instance, as a
Philadelphian would be, or vice versa. Just refer to your
own experience, reader mine. You go to Boston, or Phi-
ladelphia, or Baltimore. You know Smith of the city in
question — not very intimately either. Perhaps you
travelled a day with him somewhere in Europe ; perhaps
you drank sherry-cobblers with him one night at Newport ;
at any rate , you saw enough of each other to conclude
mutually that you assimilated pretty well. You arrive
in Smith's city ; forthwith you know all his family, from
his grand-mother (if you choose to take notice of her \
Young America does n't generally of old people) to the
little children. Smith's governor asks you to dinner, after
which you are carried off to a party somewhere. You
are introduced to every body in Smith's set, and they
all ask you to whatever is going on in the way of festi-
vity. In short, you are at once admitted to a whole
social circle on the strength of having known one of the
younger members of it. If Smith had come to your city,
you and your set would have treated him in precisely
the same way.
Now, on t' other side the pond the case is very dif-
ferent. Whatever may be the social virtues of the western
Europeans, hospitality is not a prominent one. Not only
so, but hospitality which has any tendency to be off-hand
109
or promiscuous is regarded as vulgar and contrary to
good taste. One of the ridiculous traits usually attributed
to the parvenu in a European novel is his continually
asking people to dinner on short acquaintance. Nor is
the etiquette of acquaintance the same. From your know-
ing a young man, even to a considerable degree of inti-
macy, it does not by any means follow that you know
the older or the female members of his family. You
may be on speaking acquaintance with a European for
years ; he may present you to his wife and sister ; he
may ask to be presented to yours, or he may not ; and
the latter is quite as likely as the former. Hence we
see that a European, in treating an American just as he
would have done one of his own countrymen, does not
come up to the American's standard ; so that our country-
men (and women) are apt to take offence where none
was intended.
A practical question of some importance results.
Ought we to change our manner of receiving foreign
travellers, and do no more for them than they or their
people would do for us ? This , reader , is a question
which you must answer for yourself. It has been some-
what debated of late, and there is a good deal to be
said on both sides ; but if you will take my opinion as
worth any thing, I say No ! Are our customs in this respect
better than the European? Me judice they are, after
making all allowance for extravagance and ostentation,
and whatever other errors you may detect in them. //
they are, it would be a poor and profitless sort of spite
to change them for such a cause. I would not be dis-
honest with a rogue, or dishonest because there are
rogues in the world. I would be hospitable on principle,
without stipulating for re-payment in kind. Still, there is
much to be said on both sides, and you must judge yourself.
There is yet another phenomenon worthy of remark
in this connection — one which has surprised John Bull
not a little. It is the position of sundry American re-
sidents in Paris, among the very exclusivest coterie of
Parisian society. This is to be explained partly by the
above-mentioned American proclivity to hospitality, and
partly by the relation in which the 'upper ten' of France
stand to the rest of their compatriots, including the powers
that be.
lOT
France is probably the only country in the world
— certainly the only European country — whose rulers
are not 4n good society' at home ; where the court is
not the source and arbiter of aristocratic fashion. It was
so under Louis Philippe ; it is so under Louis Napoleon,
though political quidnuncs prophecy a change, and pre-
dict that all the Faubourg St. Germain will go over one
by one to the imperial colors. But as yet no lady of
the old aristocracy will show herself at the Tuileries ;
nay, no man, unless he be an officer in the army, and
therefore obliged to present himself there as a part of
his professional etiquette. If the Faubourg St. Germain
disowned the court, much more must it the finance, which
is only a lower stage of the court set, hanging on to
whatever is the court for the time being — Orleans or
Bonaparte.
Thus the Faubourg was thrown on its own resources
for self-entertainment.
Now, the Faubourg St. Germain in itself was a
small set — very well bred and well educated, no doubt
— but somewhat dull withal, and inclined to be wearied
of itself, and want an little variety — as indeed we
have remarked that all small and highly exclusive
sets must be. But why should it not give balls to
itself? Are not a hundred people enough to keep up a
dance together all the year round, if the accessories
hold out?
Ah ! reader, in that last if lies the secret. The Fau-
bourg was comparatively well off — far enough removed
from the poverty of the Spanish Hidalgo — but yet by
no means so rich as some other Faubourgs of its own
city, not to mention the fashionable aristocracy of some
other countries. And loving external show — as what
Frenchman does not ? — having also caught a sort of
Anglo mania in things equine, and essaying to improve
on its English models — the Faubourg must turn out
the neatest and best-appointed equipages in the Bois de
Boulogne. Loving the stage — as what Frenchman does
not ? — the Faubourg must have its opera-boxes ; and
in consequence of these out-door expenditures, the Fau-
bourg had little left to give itself balls at home. But
the Faubourg must have balls to go to ; most idle people
like balls, most fashionable people require balls, most
108
Frenchmen cannot exist without balls ; and the Faubourg
was very idle, very fashionable, and very French.
At this crisis appeared, like gods out of the machine,
various rich Americans, who from time to time (uno
avulso non deficit alter aureus) settled in Paris, because
Paris was a very nice place to spend money in. These
began to entertain, with characteristic hospitality, hanging
out to the natives, just as they used to do to their country-
men at home ; and the native aristocracy were very glad
to come, since not only they were fed and danced for
nothing, (that is to say, for the honor of their company,)
but they had a common ground whereon to meet, without
lowering their dignity, other sets of their own townsmen.
And thus it happens that almost the only place where
you are sure to meet representatives of all classes of
French society — Legimist, Orleanist, Court, Finance —
is the ball-room of some rich American. There is an
English proverb about a certain class of persons who
make feasts, and a certain other class who eat them ; I
do n't know if the French have a corresponding proverb
in their language, but they understand the practical illu-
stration of it to perfection.
Bless me ! says the reader, have you taken all this
round-about to tell us that Mrs. Robinson gave a ball,
and the Duchess came to it ? Do n't be in a hurry, friend
reader,. Mrs. Robinson did n't give a ball — at least not
on this occasion. She was not only alongside a real
French duchess, but at a real French ball, given by a
real countess of the Faubourg St. Germain, the Countess
Bazalion ; which involves another digression.
Mrs. Robinson had in her party a very nice girl.
Miss Robinson ; not her daughter. Mrs. R — was not old
enough to have a daughter 'out ;' she was niece , or
cousin, or something to Robinson — at any rate his ward.
Now, the Robinsons were at the Italiens one night, and
in a box nearly opposite them were their friends, the
Smiths , (when I say their friends , I mean that the Ss and
Rs belonged to the same set at home, and went to each
others' balls and so forth.) These meetings are frequent
enough now, when our countrymen who winter in Paris
may be counted by thousands ; sometimes you will see
so many of them at the Italiens that you might almost
fancy yourself in Astor-Place again. Well , with the
1D9
Smiths was the young Count Chateaudore. He often
came into Smith's box, for he liked to be seen with a
pretty woman and a stranger ; it gave him a chance to
show off — poser ^ as he would have called it — and
made his friends ask questions. And the Count, having
observed sundry telegraphs of recognition between the
Smiths and the Robinsons, inquired of Mrs. S. who her friends
were, and was informed accordingly. He took a casual
glance at Miss Robinson through his glass, and observed
that she was nothing extraordinary, or words to that effect.
'But she 's a great heiress,' quoth Mrs. Smith, 'four
millions at least.'
Eight hundred thousand dollars is a good round sum
enough when enunciated in American coin ; but put it
into French, and it becomes quite stunning. The Count
took a rapid rub at the glasses of his lorgnette, and an
energetic survey of Miss Robinson. It was astonishing
how the young lady improved on second sight. He pro -
nounced, in a more positive tone than before, that she
was 'not so bad.'
The Count was related to the Countess Bazalion.
How it happened exactly, I do n't know, but soon after,
Mrs. Robinson was presented to the Countess at some
ambassador's ball, and before long the Countess actually
gave a ball herself, and asked all the Robinsons to it.
So now we have got fairly back to Mrs. Robinson.
Perhaps it was as well to give her time to collect her-
self, for she did not feel entirely at her ease. She could
talk French fast enough and correctly enough too — not
like poor R — , who used to confuse words now and then
— interchange menage and manege^ for instance. Neither
her maid, her milliner, nor her mantua-maker — those
three Ms that are such capital letters in the alphabet of
a lady's life — ever could excuse herself for non-execution
or mal-execution of orders, on the ground that she had
not understood Madame. But when it c.ime to good so-
ciety, she was always afraid her foreign accent might
expose her to ridicule. This was one of her most sensitive
points. She wanted to talk exactly like a French lady,
more than half-suspected she didn't, and was therefore
continually nervous lest Frenchmen or French -women
should laugh at her.
O my dear Mrs. R — , when will you exert a littlo
110
of that good sense and reason which Providence and your
Anglo-Saxon instructors gave you, and see that being
ridiculed and being ridiculous are two very diiferent things
— that in estimating the damaging power of ridicule,
the agent is to be taken into consideration, and not the
object only ? How the finished rogue laughs at the honest,
quiet citizen! How the man- about -town derides the
scholar ! How the grasshopper in the fable overwhelmed
the poor ant with her ridicule ! O Mrs. R — , there are
other things which you have not unlearnt, and which you
would be sorry to unlearn, and which all your home-
friends will be still more sorry if you ever do unlearn,
but which make you quite as ridiculous in the eyes of
these elegant Parisians as your foreign accent. It is ri-
diculous in you to go to church so often. It is ridiculous in
you not to know all about the intrigue of the Marquis de
Machin and the Russian Princess Choseoffski, and not to
take any interest in it after it has been explained to you.
It is ridiculous in you to have your children tagging at
your heels half the time. It is ridiculous in you to think
so much of your husband , and so little of other men. It
was very ridiculous in you to snub the Baron de Boisbrul^
so when he made love to you (on the second day of
your acquaintance) and to have been so distant to him
ever since. The Baron thinks you quite a savage.
But though Mrs. R — did not talk much to the
Duchess, for fear of exposing her accent, she took a
pretty comprehensive survey of the great lady, and came
to the conclusion that she herself, simple Mrs. R — , was
considerably younger than the Duchess, at least as good-
looking, and quite as well dressed. And as she arrived
at this satisfactory result, she began playing with her
embroidered handkerchief, when suddenly she started,
with so much surprise in her countenance that the Duchess
could not help looking at the cause of her surprise —
that is to say, in the direction of Mrs. R — 's hands —
and immediately her countenance also betrayed indubitable
marks of astonishment, though of course she was too
well-bred to blush. Well mighl she be astonished for
on the corner of the handkerchief was conspicuous an
embroidered coronet, and under the coronet were the
Duchess's own initials 1
The awkward pause that ensued was broken by the
Ill
French lady. 'I believe, Madam,' said she,' 'we have
made a mistake, and exchanged handkerchiefs ;' so saying
she possessed herself of the coroneted one, and handed
over her own to Mrs. Robinson, who, though utterly
unable to conceive how the exchange could have been
effected in the first instance, was rapturously glad to
have it rectified, and at once set about inspecting the
recovered article, to make sure that it was all right this
time. But soon she looked more perturbed than ever,
for there in the corner were the same coronet and ini-
tials ! The ladies compared the handkerchiefs ; they were
precisely alike, stitch for stitch, only one was a thought
more perfumed than the other. What had been done,
and what was to be done ? The Duchess had not brought
two handkerchiefs, and Mrs. R — come without any ; that
seemed sufficiently obvious. Yet both of them were the
Duchess's, as far as marks could make them. Mrs. R —
was on the point of saying that it probably arose from
a washer-woman's mistake ; but then she doubted if a
duchess could reasonably be supposed to have any direct
knowledge of such people as washer-women. Both par-
ties were in a great state of marvel, which might have
continued indefinitely, for any thing either of them could
do to throw any light on it, when suddenly a young man
— not the Duke of Castelfondu , who was n't a young
man by any means — invited the Duchess to the supper-
room, and the Duchess was so delighted with the atten-
tions of this young beau of the 'Baby Club' — a flou-
rishing infant of thirty-eight, or thereabout — that she
quite forgot the cambric mystery, and walked off, leaving
the original cause of surprise in Mrs. R — 's hands.
That lady did n't care about supper. She was anxious
to go home. Robinson w^as not in the least unwilling
to gratify her. He thought a French supper not worth
staying for ; a very contemptible affair, where there was
little wine and no punch.
His wife could hardly sleep that night for continu-
ing to wonder about the handkerchief, and the first thing
next morning she overhauled her washer-woman ;
'That is to say, she would have done, but that she was
prevented,'
like Guy Fawkes in the song ; for the washer-woman
lived in the country, as most French ones do, it not
112
being the Parisian custom to have a laundry at home j
and as the wash only came on Saturday, and it was now
Tuesday, she must wait nearly a week for any informa-
tion from that source. So meanwhile she unbosomed
herself to her maid. Mile. Marie, after the usual profusion
of shrugs and exclamations, set her wits to work to ac-
count for the phenomenon , and soon recollected that,
having to get Madame a pocket-handkerchief at the last
moment on the previous evening, she had taken one from
Monsieur's room, which was nearer the parlor than Ma-
dame's, knowing that Monsieur had very handsome hand-
kerchiefs, fine enough even for Madame to carry.
Here was a chance for a family scene. Luckily Mrs.
Robinson was too sensible a woman to be jealous , and
Robinson too proper a man to give her just cause. But
she could not resist the opportunity for bantering her
husband, (few women can,) and poor Robinson, who had
never spoken to Madame de Castelfondu in his life, and
hardly knew her by sight, found himself 'run' in a way
that mystified him exceedingly. When at length his better-
half condescended to make a serious explanation, his
perplexity was by no means dispelled, nor did a sight
of the object afibrd any assistance to his memory.
No very long period elapsed before Robinson might
have been seen, if any one had been in his room to see
him, making a deliberate investigation of his whole ward-
robe, and that without calling in the assistance of his
valet. It was no brief task ; for Robinson , like many
of his countrymen, who have (or indeed who have not)
lived abroad, rejoiced in a pretty extensive stock of
foppery. Without going into other particulars, it may
be sufficient to observe that his especial weakness was
for lace and cambric, about which he knew as much as
any woman. His dress shirts were something super-
exquisite, his white cravats had lace points, and some
of his handkerchiefs were, as Marie had said, fine enough
for any lady to carry. As often happens in such cases,
he was not completely informed as to the extent and
limits of his wardrobe. He was tolerably conscious him-
self that his servant might appropriate a few stray articles
without his being likely to miss them. But that that
worthy should have added any thing to the stock was
not overlikely ; beside, though Monsieur Joseph, being a
118
Frenchman, had. of course, his "successes,' he did not
quite aspire to rank duchesses among them. However,
as Robinson proceeded with his investigation, he disco-
vered that somebody had put some things there which
were not his. First he fished up a false collar — Ro-
binson never wore false collars ; he would have repelled
the insinuation of such a possibility with indignation :
then came to light a check shirt, of a pattern which he
did not affect. How the dickens did these things come
there? He, like his wife, began to suspect the washer-
woman of gross carelessness. There were no more strange
pocket-handkerchiefs, however. Stay, though ! — from
the bottom of a heap appeared one, though very unlike
the original cause of doubt. It was of coarser texture
than any of those near it, and marked with — not a
coronet or a duchess' initials, but a big T, in indelible ink.
A light flashed on the mind of the puzzled man. Not
many months before, young Thompson, fresh from his
trans-atlantic home, had occupied that very room. The
Robinsons were just going off to Switzerland when Thomp-
son, the son of an old friend, made his appearance in the
metropolis of pleasure. Robinson , unable to do any thing
else for his visitor, had left the apartment at his disposal
during their absence. One day Thompson left the pre-
mises in haste, possibly not quite sober; probably he
carried away some of Robinson's linen, at any rate he
left some of his own behind. Monsieur Joseph had made
an observation thereanent at the time.
Thompson, therefore, must have introduced the co-
roneted handkerchief into that wardrobe. But where did
he get it from ? Leaving all other considerations out of
the question, his Parisian residence had not been exactly
coincident with the fashionable season. Robinson would
write to Thompson and ask him. Alas ! Thompson had
started, as Americans will, to 'do' all Europe and part
of Asia and Africa in six months. It was hard saying
in what part of the globe he might be at that moment.
So, for the present at least, nothing was left for Robin-
son but to wonder away. The washer-woman, when her
day came round, could throw no light on the matter.
But it so happened that the very next week Robin-
son received at letter from Jones, then sojourning in
Rome, which, among other gossip, enumerated sundry
Vol. III. 8
m
114
of their compatriots then to be found in the Eternal City,
and mentioning Thompson among them, with the farther
information that he (Thompson) was to stay there a whole
fortnight, 'to see every thing that could be seen.' There-
upon Robinson, without taking into account the nice little
piece of work that his former guest had undertaken —
enough to keep him busy twenty hours out of the twenty-
four, if he went through it conscientiously — wrote -off
to beg an elucidation of the handkerchief, always pro-
vided there was no secret attached to it which involved
any one's honor.
The answer arrived in due time, somewhat illegible,
and bearing marks of haste and fatigue generally, inas-
much as the wTiter had been to nineteen palazzi that
morning. Thompson could not precisely say how the bit
of cambric had come into his custody, indeed, did not
know that he had ever had any thing of the sort ; but
he remembered being out of handkerchiefs on one occasion,
and borrowing some of Mrs. Thompson.
Now^ Thompson was not married in the least. Never-
theless, Robinson understood perfectly who was meant
by Mrs. Thompson.
The modern Parisians are not on the whole very
similar to the ancient Athenians, but they have some
points of resemblance to them. Among others, they have
elevated their helmroR into a not merely recognized, but
actually conspicuous and celebrated class of society. Only,
while the Aspasias of Greece were renowned for their
mental accomplishments and intellectual brilliancy, their
representatives in the French capital are, if you will be-
lieve the satirists and ^Mfl52-moralists of the day, densely
ignorant and astoundingly stupid. But in this judgment,
involving as it does a high compliment to the fashionable
society of both sexes , to the taste of its male and the
attractions of its female members, the satirists in question
are but half right. They ear from judging cleverness and
stupidity solely, or almost solely, by a literary standard.
Ignorant and uneducated these women doubtless are, so
far as concerns orthography and grammar ; but profound
students of human nature, great readers of men, if not
of books. It is said that there are self-established grades
among them, and that such as are actresses profess to.
look down upon those who only practice the other branch
115
of the profession, but in truth they are all actresses, and
can play any part which their immediate interest suggests.
They can be gay or pensive, savagely jealous or blindly
indifferent^ according to the tastes of their temporary
friends 5 they know how to disarm suspicion, or to excite
jealousy, according as either course is the more expe-
dient. In short, they lead a man whither they will, by
successful appeals to his vanity. And therefore, in a
great measure , it is that they have attained their posi-
tion in France, elsewhere unattainable ; for your French-
man is the vainest of men ; and though sharp enough to
cheat others, may be cheated himself with equal ease,
when you have once found the corde sensible whereby to
play on his vanity. This explains, too, why Young
America is victimized by the same class to such an ex-
tent ; for the American, though less afflicted with vanity
than the Frenchman, has a good deal in comparison with
some other nations.
Thompson's stay in Paris, though short, had been
long enough to entangle him. The original name of the
lady above referred to as ^Mrs. Thompson,' was probably
lost in obscurity ; but she was known to the gay world
as Mademoiselle Amanda.
No doubt, reader, however philosophic you may be,
it has happened to you once in your life to fidget about
some essentially unimportant matter, until, by mere dint
of fidget, it became of the greatest importance to you.
So it was now with Robinson. He could not rest till he
had 'spotted' the handkerchief. Up to a certain point
he had traced it, and Mile. Amanda might h^ve appro-
priated a coronet just for fun , as ladies of her class
sometimes do ; but the initials were as far as ever from
being accounted for. Perhaps he would have ended by
absolutely calling on her to ask for an explanation, though
quite conscious that such a step would be possibhv
compromising and probably ridiculous, when another
lucky accident suggested to him another way. He re-
ceived an invitation from Wilkinson to attend his house-
warming.
Wilkinson was a gay young bachelor, who had
just left that rendez-vous of gay young bachelors-, the
Hotel des Princes , for furnished apartments. Oh i if
his Presbyterian father and his Congregational aunt
116
could have seen the kind of house-warming he was
going to give, and the sort of celebrities who were to
^assist' at it !
Nevertheless, you may accompany us thither for a
short time without fear of being shocked ; for there will
be some green Americans present, and to make a proper
impression on them, appearances will be preserved, at
least, till after supper. It looks pretty much like any
small ball, where there is a good deal of energetic dan-
cing, considerably more polka than quadrille.
It has sometimes occurred to me that if the ladies
— the real ladies — who oultivate so assiduously the
worship of Terpischore, as developed in the modern rites
of w^altz, polka, schottisch, &c., could know, even ap-
proximately, the stamp of dissipation which these amuse-
ments bear in their origin and associations ; what a place
they occupy in the fast life of Paris, how far excellence
in them goes to give reputation and success in what the
French call thirteenth -ward societxj^ (farther, probably,
than any thing except the inmique a la Marco^ the jingle
of the almighty coin ,) how generally the young man's
initiation into the mysteries of the light fantastic at Cel-
larius' or Laborde's goes hand in hand with his initiation
into vice and profligacy — if they knew these things,
perhaps they would not be so rapturously fond of or so
exclusively devoted to this particular sort of relaxation.
But of course our ladies do n't know these things. How
should they ? Perhaps it is very shocking in me even
to hint at them.
The mflle portion of the company is not wholly made up
of Americans. By no means. Beside some other foreigners,
Spaniards or Italians, there are numerous natives. Most
of these wear orders. You must not suppose they have
not a perfect right to do so. Decorations are cheap in
these parts. It is not necessary to do any thing very
great, or even any thing very bad, to get one. The
Legion of Honor is a pretty good -sized army in it-
self, say fifty thousand. You shall see a man with
some thirty -six stars and ribbons. He keeps a box
full of them, about as big as a good-sized trunk, and
delights to pull them out and show them to his acquain-
tance on small provocation, like a child exhibiting his
toys. Yet this man positively never did any one remarkable
117
thing in his life. He did n't even shoot any of the town-
snobs (bourgeois) in that little affair of December 1851.
But once he was sent to a duke's wedding, and another
time to a king's funeral . and another time he travelled
with a prince's mistress, and on each of these occasions
some body sent him a decoration.
Robinson, however, was not looking for any one of
these decorated gentlemen, nor for any of the otherwise
decorated ladies. He was seeking a compatriot . one
Johnson, a middle-aged bachelor, who had been much
behind the scenes, literally as well as metaphorically.
Johnson was perfectly posted up in all the chronicles of
scandal and gallantry for the last fifteen years ; could
tell you how many men La Belle Henriette had ruined,
and what hospital she died in, and whom Prince Ru-
bleskoi had patronized after he quarrelled with Mile.
Sauterelle of the Grand Opera. There are people who
call this sort of statistics knowledge of the worlds and re-
gard those who are ignorant of them as uneducated
simpletons.
'Good-evening !' says Robinson . 'I heard from our
young friend Thompson the other day. He has n't
forgotten the fair Amanda yet.' ('Should n't think he
would!' parenthesized Johnson.) I was to present his
remembrances to her, but she doesn't seem to be here
to-night.'
'No ; the Duke has as little private spree of his own
going on to-night somewhere.'
^The Duke ?'
'Yes ; the serious man, since Thompson left.'
What had serious men to do with Miss Amanda ?
Reader , Vhomme serieux is the one who pays the ex-
penses, and a very serious thing it is, as may you never
learn by experience.
'But whiit Duke ?' persisted Robinson.
'Why, the man with the very black whiskers —
Castelfondu.'
Robinson fairly clapped his hands for joy. He had
accounted for the milk in the cocoa-nut this time. Evi-
dently the Duke had given some of the Duchess' hand-
kerchiefs to Amanda. Delighted at having attained this
satisfactory conclusion, he ran off home immediately, yet
not time enough to escape the notice of the Sewer reporter,
118
who was present, disguised as a French waiter, and who
gave him a prominent place in his next letter.
Whether Mrs. Robinson ever explained the matter
to the Duchess, or whether she even sent her back her
handkerchief, I really do not know. Like Robinson after
he made the discovery, and story-tellers generally 'I came
away then.'
THE GREEN MONSTER. - A T E M-
PERANCETALE.
Translated for the Literary World, from the French gf Gerard de Nerval,
and respectfully dedicated to the T-totallers of Armerica.
April 1853.
I. THE DEVIL'S CASTLE.
DIFFERENT evil spirits are known to have diffe-
rent localities.
The devil Vauvert is essentially an inhabitant of Paris ;
he has resided there for several centuries, if the historians
are to be believed. Sauval, Felibien, Sainte-Foix and
Delacroix have told us of his pranks at length.
He appears at first to have inhabited Castle Vauvert^
which was situated on the very spot now occupied by
the merry Chartreuse ball ; that is to say, at the end of
the Luxembourg, and opposite the alleys of the Ob-
servatory.
This castle, of sad reputation, was partly demolished,
and its ruins became out-houses and offices to the con-
vent of Chartreux, in which convent Jean de la Lune^
nephew of the anti-pope Benedict XIII. , died in 1414.
Jean de la Lune was suspected of holding intercourse
with a certain devil, probably the familiar spirit of the
old Castle Vauvert, for each of these feudal edifices had
its familiar spirit, as is well known. History, however,
has left us no positive information on this interesting point.
But the devil Vauvert made himself talked about
again in the time of Louis XII.
119
For a long time there was heard every night a great
noise in a house constructed of the ruins of the old con-
vent, and deserted by its owners several years previous.
The neighbors, in a great fright, applied to the
lieutenant of police, who sent some archers. What was
the astonishment of these soldiers, on their arrival, to hear
the clinking of glasses, mingled with boisterous laughter !
The first supposition naturally was, that some rob-
bers or coiners were holdhig an orgie, and, judging of
their number from the noise they made, it was deemed
prudent to send for a reinforcement. But the noise seemed
to increase with the arrival of the new squadron ; and
the sergeants were in no hurry to lead their troops into
this den, where they heard disturbance enough to have
been the work of a whole army.
At last, about morning, a sufficient body of trobpg
arrived. They entered the house just as its obscurest
corners were lighted up by the rays of the rising sun'.
Nothing was to be seen, and all was silent !
The examination lasted all day. When every part
of the premises above ground had been ransacked, some
one suggested that the noise might have come from the
cellar. The catacombs were in this quarter, and there
might very possibly be a communication.
But while the police were preparing to act upon
the hint , night set in again, and the noise recommenced
louder than ever.
Some of the soldiers, however, had previously looked
into the cellar and discovered nothing there but bottles.-
"It must be the devil that has set them a dancing," said
they; and no one dared to descend and disturb his Satanic
Majesty's amusement.
The authorities contented themselves with occupying
the approaches to the street and asking the prayers of
the clergy.
The clergy prayed to any extent, and even squirted
a large amount of holy water into 1:he cellar through the
trap-door.
The noise went on all the same.
n. THE SERGEANT.
During a whole week the neighborhood was blocked
up by a crowd of citizens, half frightened and half curious.
120
At length, a provost-sergeant, bolder than the rest,
oifered to descend into the accursed cellar, in consideration
of a pension, to revert, in case he perished in the attempt,
to a dress-maker named Peggy.
He was a brave man, this sergeant, very little su-
perstitious , and very much in love. He adored the dress-
maker, who was a very neat and very frugal person —
indeed, one might almost call her miserly.
She would not marry a simple sergeant with no in-
come. But on gaining a pension, the sergeant w^ould
seem quite another man in her eyes.
Encouraged by this prospect, he exclaimed that he
believed in neither God nor the devil, and that he would
find out what this noise was.
"What do you believe in, then?" asked one of his
comrades.
"I believe," he replied, "in the Lieutenant of Police
and the Provost of Paris."
Having enunciated this laconic and pregnant creed,
he took his sabre between his teeth, a pistol in each
hand, and ventured boldly dow^n the steps.
A most extraordinary spectacle awaited him on reach-
ing the floor of the cellar.
All the bottles were rolling in a voluptuous dance
and forming most exquisite figures. The green-seals re-
presented the men, and the red-seals the ladies.
There was nothing wanting, not even the orchestra,
which was posted on the shelves. The empty bottles
sounded like wind instruments ; the broken bottles like
cymbals and triangles ; the cracked bottles emitted a
piercing harmony like that of violins.
The sergeant, who had imbibed a few horns before
undertaking his expedition, seeing only bottles there, felt
greatly reasured , and began to dance himself in imitation
of them.
By-and-by, encouraged by the charming gayety of
the spectacle, he caught up a nice, long-necked bottle,
carefully sealed with red, and apparently containing white
claret, and pressed it lovingly to his heart.
Mad laughter resounded on every side ! The startled
sergeant let fall the bottle — it broke into a thousand
pieces !
The dance stopped ; cries of terror were heard in
every corner of the cellar, and the sergeant felt his hair
stand on end as he beheld the spilt wine forming a pool of
blood. The corpse of a naked female, whose fair hair
swept the ground and dabbled in the red moisture, was
stretched at his feet !
The sergeant w^ould not have been afraid of the
devil in person, but this sight filled him with terror;
however, remembering that he must give some account
of his adventures, he suddenly seized a green-seal that
was grinning in his face, and cried "Fill have one at
any rate !"
A thundering peal of fiendish laughter replied, but
the sergeant was already half w^ay up the steps. In
another instant he stood among his comrades and show-
ing them the bottle, exclaimed, "Here's a goblin for you !
A pretty set of soldiers you are to be afraid of going
into a wine-cellar !
The piqued archers rushed down the steps pell-mell,
and sure enough, they found only a broken bottle of
claret in the middle of the floor, and a quantity of whole
ones in their places.
The archers lamented the fate of the broken bottle,
but, brave enough now, thought it their duty to remount
each with a bottle in his hand.
They had fairly earned them and were allowed to
drink them.
The sergeant said "As for me, I will keep mine for
my wedding."
There was no reason for refusing him the promised
pension, so he married the dress-maker, and —
You were going to say they had plenty of children.
On the contrary — they had only one.
III. WHAT FOLLOWED.
At the sergeant's wedding supper he put the famous
green-seal bottle betw^een himself and his bride, and the
two had it all to themselves.
The bottle was green as grass ; the wine red as blood.
Nine months after the dress-maker was delivered of
a little monster entirely green , except two red horns on
his forehead.
Now, after that, young girls, go and dance at the
Chartreuse, on the site of Castle Vauvert — if you can !
122
The child grew — In size if not in virtue. Two
circumstances annoyed his parents, his green color and
a caudal appendage, which at first seemed only a pro-
longation of the coccyx^ but gradually assumed the character
of a genuine tail !
The surgeons and learned men of Paris were con-
sulted. They declared it impossible to extirpate the tail
without endangering the infant's life. They added that
it was a case exceedingly rare, but of which examples
were cited in Herodotus and Pliny the Younger. (Fourier's
system had not been then invented, nor Lord Monboddo's.)
As to the color, they attributed it to a predominance
of the bilious system. Nevertheless they essayed se-
veral caustic applications in the hope of modifying the
too decided tint of the epidermis. After a number of
washes and frictions they succeeded in changing th^
original grass-green first to a bottle-green, then to a
sea-green , and finally to an apple-green. Once the skin
appeared quite white, but in the evening it re-assumed
its verdant hue.
The sergeant and the dress-maker could find no con-r
solation for the annoyance caused them by this little
monster ; for his moral qualities is no way compensated
for his physical disadvantages ; he grew more obstinate,
ill-tempered, and malicious every day.
The melancholy which they experienced led them
into a vice too common among people of their class.
They gave themselves up to drink.
But the sergeant would only drink wine sealed with
red, and his wdfe would only drink wine sealed with green.
Every time the sergeant was dead-drunk he saw in
his sleep the bleeding woman whose apparition had so
terrified him when he broke the bottle in the cellar. The
phantom would say to him, "Why didst thou press me
to thy heart and afterwards slay me ? — me , who loved
thee so well !"
Every time the sergeant's wife had been too atten-
tive to the green-seal, she saw in her sleep the appari-
tion of a huge and hideous green devil, who said to
her, "Why art thou astonished to see me? Didst thou not
drink of the bottle? Am not I the father of thy child?"
When the child was thirteen years old he disappeared
one day, and no one ever knew what became of him.
123
His inconsolable parents continued to drink ; but
they never saw again the terrible phantoms which had
tormented their sleep.
rv. MORAL.
Thus the sergeant was punished for his impiety and
the dress-maker for her avarice, and both for their in-
temperance.
A COMMISSION OF LUNACY.
Literary World, February 1851.
"WHAT security have we /' asked Bishop Berkeley,
"that nations as well as individuals may not suddenly go
mad?" What security have we, ask we, that a periodi-
cal with all its contributors may not go crazy en masse —
clean daft on some hobby or other — and remain so for
a tedious length of time ? This query has been forced
on our consideration by the extraordinary conduct of our
whilom respected contemporary, the American Whig Re-
view. For the last we don't know how many months it
has been unable to talk (or rather rave) on any subject
but two — England and Free Trade, two monstrous night-
mares which haunt all its dreams. The aggressions of
England and the dangers of free trade — these alter-
nately are the staples of every one of its articles, no
matter what the heading be. Thus, in the current num-
ber there is something professing to be a story of fashion-
able life in New-York (it might as well be in Nova-
Zembla or New-South-Wales, for any resemblance it
has to the reality) ; but before many pages it slides off
into an exposition of the peculiar (political shall we call
them ?) views which characterize all the other papers
of the Review. Every person, every occurrence of note
has, in the excited imagination of our contemporary,
some connexion with the gigantic conspiracy which Eng-
land (aided, alas ! by traitors among ourselves) is getting
up against American industry and the liberties of the
124
whole world. At the head of this conspiracy stands H.
R. H. Prince Albert, &c., w^ho, tired of his amateur-
tailoring pursuits, has left off inventing fantastic regi-
mentals and ventilating hats to get up the Exhibition of
Industry — a great scheme of universal delusion, whereby
the senses and substance of all nations are to be taken
prisoner and shut up in a big glass case — a sorcerer's
palace, in which the eyes and ears of all the world and
his wife are to be drugged and fascinated. His prime
coadjutor on this side the water is — of all men on
earth to favor free-traders and monarchists — the editor
of the Tribune. Deeply implicated with and forming a
sort of link between these, is Mr. James, the novelist,
whose advent to these shores, it seems, had a hidden
political purpose now first discovered, and whose im-
mortal "two horsemen" are by our contemporary's heated
vision metamorphosed into two fiery griffins ready to
swallow up all our mills and factories after the prece-
dent of the renowned Dragon of Wantley. Is n't it awful
to contemplate ? Will no protecting power interfere in
time to save our beloved republic from the unhallowed
designs of this nefarious triumvirate. Prince Albert, Horace
Greeley, and G. P. R. James, who are coming to take
away Nicaragua , and all our other liberties ?
It is much to be deplored that several unfortunate
facts of recent occurrence , attested by the word of dozens
of newspaper writers , afford some foundation for the
hallucination of our esteemed contemporary. Thus it is
notorious that George Thompson, M. P., and so forth,
was sent out here express by the British government to
effect a dissolution of the Union, for which purpose a
large amount was subscribed. Lord Stanley, Baron Roth-
schild. Mr. Cobden, Professor Punch, and other well
known personages, having put down their names for
sums varying from L. 5000 to L. 10,000 each — the sur-
plus to be devoted to the buying up of John Jay, Esq.,
and other gentlemen of the Abolition persuasion. It has
also been long known to all readers of the Sun, that our
Minister in England has sold the w^hole country , East,
West, North, and South, to the Court of St. James, receiv-
ing as the price of his iniquity the promise of the Duke-
dom of Massachusetts. To these familiar instances we
can add some that have recently come under our own
125
observation. Thackeray , in his last work, has a whole
page in praise of the New- York exquisites, whom he
celebrates as having the finest beards, smallest feet, and
largest cigars in the world. It is clear he would not say
anything so flattering of the country without some ulterior
object ; which object, we learn from independent sources,
to be that of visiting us ; and this visit is clearly for
the purpose of concocting with G. P. R. James (the
Orestes and Pylades friendship of the two writers is well
known) some atrocious plot against our liberties. But
more. The approaching arrival of Martin F. Tapper is
publicly announced, and a Washington corespondent of
the New-York Herald has it on the best authority that
President Fillmore has received intelligence from a source
worthy of credit that the said Tupper is making arrange-
ments with his friend Robert Dodge, Esq. (some mention
the 'Editor of the Knickerbocker as an accomplice in the
business, but this part of the report wants confirmation),
to blow up the North River, and destroy the navigation
of the Erie Canal.
Seriously speaking, is it not rather absurd that this
"Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations," which is an
un-English idea from beginning to end, should be repre-
sented as a great conspiracy of England against the in-
terests of the world? This notion was altogether too
cosmopolite and social for an English ministry or an
English public to originate; the merit of it belongs en-
tirely to the Queen's husband. The English, who endured
the German Prince well enough so long as he only made
hats and shot pheasants and gave them something to
laugh at , began to abuse him as soon as he got hold
of an original and successful idea. They swore at the
expense of the preparations, forgetting the enormous sums
that foreign visitors would bring into their island ; they
were in agonies lest Rotten Row should be destroyed,
though none of the plans contemplated interfering with
that particularly stupid equestrian promenade. The feel-
ing was so strong that it actually made Brougham and
Campbell, for the first time since they had been peers
together, take the same side. The Prince's position and
the Court influence just managed to carry the project
through ; but to this day the great organs of public
opinion in England have not ceased to rail and sneer at it.
126
And now some of our wiseacres discover that the whole
is a device of Russell, Palmerston, and Cobden, to bam-
boozle Brother Jonathan, and destroy American manu-
factures.
While we are thus writing, a friend who is deeply
skilled in antiquarian lore, and has been diving into the
newspapers of the last three weeks, looks over our shoul-
der, and informs us that the real detecter of the awful
moral torpedo concealed in this great glass house is not
our friend the American^ but one of our City Fathers.
Alderman Shaw (may his intelligence never be less !) in-
formed the assembled wisdom of Manhattan that this
World's Fair was a second edition of the Congress of
Vienna, to enslave America, and re-rivet the fetters of
Europe. This tremendous intelligence — coming on such
authority, too — utterly stupifies and bewilders us ; in
popular phraseology, it "throws us all oif the hooks."
We are petrified at such an exhibition of human depra-
vity. To think that these kings and kaisers should make
such an attempt in an age which has penny papers, and
Paine's Gas, and the Rochester Spirits, and so many
means of diffusing virtue and intelligence ! Where do
they expect to go to ? We can only exclaim in the me-
morable words of Julius Caesar to Oliver Cromwell :
Quousque, Catilina, abutere patientid nostra?
THE WEEK OF THE COUP D'ETAT.
Literary World , January 1852.
MONDAY, Dec. 1, 1851. — To-night there is to be
the first representation of a new opera at the Comique,
"Blue Beard's Castle." "We will go and see it," says
the spokes-woman of our party.
Now, for my own part, I feel very little enthusiasm
in the matter of first representations. Indeed, I would
rather not see a new piece till the fourth or fifth night.
By not going to first nights you escape a good deal of
trash. You escape much disappointment for yourself,
m
and some painful sympathy with author, composer, ma-
nager, and artists. Neither the piece nor the audience
has fair play the first night ; it is too like a last rehear-
sal — only in public instead of in private. Accidents
frequently occur, always jarring, often ridiculous. On
the production of La Perle du Bresil last week, the tenor
inadvertentl}^ represented good King Dagobert ; he ap-
peared with his continuations wrong side out, and could
hardly walk, as may be supposed, to say nothing of the
ludicrous figure he cut. But ce que femme veut, &c., so
we posted off to the Comic Opera, but were too late in
the field. ''Not one place," said the clerk, before I could
open my mouth to ask, or indeed was fairly inside the
door. Forthwith a small crowd of enterprising specula-
tors beset me, with offers of stalls and boxes, but I
turned a deaf ear to them. Money goes fast enough in
Paris without paying these gentlemen a hundred per
cent, profit. Something must be done, however, to con-
sole the ladies. The plot of the Perle du Bresil is ma-
nifestly absurd , but the music is Felicien David's ; it
ought to be good. So up we plod to the Boulevard du
Temple, "a weary, weary way to go," especially for a
man in a misfitting pair of American boots, and just re-
covering from a sprained ankle. Plenty of room here;
it looks as if the experiment of an opera in the St. An-
toine quarter was not remarkably successful.
2\2 P.M. — Mount Bay Harry, and off to the Cha-
teau Madrid — not exactly the resort for a family man,
but I have a business appointment with a person who
is not to be found anywhere else at this hour, and whom
I cannot go to see at any other. While we are arranging
our affair (to prevent any misconception, it should be
remarked that the person is of the same sex with my-
self), Brion's best barouche drives up with a great splash,
a four-in-hand before it, dapple-greys and bright bays
chequered a I' Americaine ^ three of my beloved country-
men-inside, and a fourth driving. Certainly our people
are born whips. This young gentlemen — I call him
young gentleman^ for he is some years my junior — where
should he have learned to drive ? He is a stockbroker,
a regular Wall-street man ; his professional experience
would naturally bring him into contact with bulls and
bears, and lame ducks, and other creatures, but not with
128
the noble animal. But is he anything else ? Yes, a co-
lonel of militia ; and that one fact ought to give him a
patent for not knowing anything about a horse. Yet
there he is, tooling along that team as if he had been
a stage-coachman all his life. Brion's son is on the
box with him — in as neat a groom's livery, by the
w^ay, as I ever saw, even in England — and it is a tight
race between them which can handle the horses best,
though the colonel never saw them before to-day.
I have been meditating this morning on the Parisian
Loretles and femmes entretenues. Accident has lately given
me considerable opportunities of studying these interest-
ing classes of Parisian society. Yes, accident^ reader
mine ; the word is not put in out of prudery or conven-
tionalism; it was pure accident; a man who has a pas-
sion for horses will find that they sometimes involve
him in the acquaintance of some other branches of the
animal kingdom before he knows it. And from the little
I have seen, it already ceases to be matter of wonder
with me that so many of my young countrymen (and, I
suspect; so many young Englishmen too) go to the devil
with four post horses in this gay capital. If I were to
say that these "ladies fair and free" have better man-
ners in public, more reserve, more dignity, a better style
altogether than half the women of "our set," dear Go-
tham would be up in arms against me, and I should never
dare to show my face there again. If I were to say
that they dress better, walk better, sit better, are more
at their ease in company, have more the air of women
born to wear pompadour silks and do nothing than the
majority of English ladies, an indignant British public
might rise against me as one man. So I shall merely
say that they are exquisitely got up, elegantly mannered,
and — in the presence of third parties , which must be
supposed to be the extent of a moral man's experience
of them — behave with perfect propriety.
Why do I dwell on this topic even for a moment ?
Because there is a real moral in it — a moral very con-
soling to us brethren of the quill, who are "nothing if
not" literary, and do not over-affect drawing-room people,
and whom the said drawing-room people are wont to
sneer at in their worldly wisdom, perhaps superciliously
to denominate snobs. It is this ; the utter worthlessness of
I
129
external refinement^ as a test or sign of moral cultivation
and real progress towards the highest aims of civilized life.
Ponder upon it, O reader! it is worth considering. ***
A representative for Paris has been elected to-day.
There came to me a ticket on Saturday in my copy of
the Corsaire^ putting me in mind of such things at home.
I wonder who is chosen. It is Devinck by a large ma-
jority. This, and a reported duel between M. Carlier,
ex-Prefect of Police, and M. Lavoest, ex-Director of the
Gobelins (probably a canard)^ are the most interesting
items of political news. *****
Well, certainly the Pearl of Brazil is the greatest
trash in the way of plot. There never was anything
more incoherent, unsatisfactory, without motive through-
out. But the music is some compensation ; not that I
would exactly endorse what the possibly suboenlioned critic
of the Corsaire says of it that it is "full of great beauties,
charming melodies, and ravishing details ;" but it is suf-
ficiently pretty (though at times a little noisy for so
small a house), never tiresome, and worth a dozen of
Halevy's operas any time. Duez, as the Pearly looks and
sings very sweetly ; but why is it necessary for her to
wear such short petticoats (particularly as her ankles
are nothing to brag of), or to go to sea in full ball dress?
The audience is not the least amusing part of the
spectacle. It is an opera public corresponding to the
theatre public of the Porle Si. Martin. There are plenty
of blouses in the pit, and some in the uppermost tier of
boxes ; a hard-looking set ; and the respectables about
us have the air of being driven this way by want of
funds (the prices are just half those of the Academy and
the Ilaliens) , or like ourselves by stress of first repre-
sentation.
Tuesday, Dec. 2d. — Rather fatigued by last night's
Brazilian Pearl, and feeling inclined to put it in the same
category with Mexican opals, I sleep heavily till past
nine, nor should I wake then, but our loquacious and
peppery cook intrudes upon my slumbers a full hour be-
fore the usual time, alleging as an excuse for this anti-
cipation that if she goes to market later she may meet
with a musket ball. "A musket ball !" "Ah, you in your
bed there little know what is going on."
The Chamber is dissolved, and they have written
VoL m. 9 .
ISO
^Lodgings to LeC over the door. Thiers, Cavaignac, Chan-
gamier, and Lamorici^re, are in prison. The city is in
a state of siege, and all the troops marching in from
the provinces. Exit cook. So ! I told the editor of the
Kniclierbocker, when we took leave of each other, that I
was going to Paris to see the next revolution ; but verily
it has come a leetle sooner than I expected. Hallo, De-
sir6 ! what's all this row about ?
The valet confirms all Marie's report, with the ad-
ditional pleasing intelligence that we are prisoners in
the house, no one being permitted to pass in or out.
(So much for living in a fashionable situation, next door
to the President, or Prince, or Emperor, or whatever
he is now.) My Irish- American groom, on attempting to
sally forth, and nearly walking over the two little sen-
tinels w^ho tried to stop him, was surrounded by a pla-
toon of twenty-five men, and just on the point of being
taken, dead or alive, to the guard-house, but the co/i-
cierge-, who is the special providence of all locataires,
contrived to rescue him from the armed force. Well,
we are in no hurry to go out till two ; if the court is
not clear then, we shall mount Bay Harry, and ride out
at full gallop, like a besieged knight of the olden time;
let any one stop us that can.
Enter James in a white heat. He swears that he
is an American citizen (he was born in the heart of Kil-
kenny, and never took out his naturalization papers for
fear of being called on to do militia duty, until he was
obliged to apply for them in order to get a passport to
come abroad), that he has been insulted by those (an
extensive prefix of epithets more emphatic than compli-
mentary) Frenchmen , that he will make it a national
matter, and, moreover, carry his knife and stick it into
the first beggar that lays hands on him. I tell him if
he does, he will infallibly be shot, without benefit of
clergy or trial, and that he had better hold his tongue
and mind his business, like the rest of us. This said,
I go to breakfast, for man must breakfast, revolution or
no revolution ; and after the morning meal is despatched,
and that rare luxury in Paris, a good American cigar,
lighted, I proceed to a front window and reconnoitre.
Our salon looks out on the Avenue Gabriel., right along-
side the Champs Elysees. We can see one corner of the
131
President's grounds, where sentinels are always posted.
They are not posted there only now, but at every corner,
before every house, almost before every tree. They are
stopping all who approach within a not very definitely
marked distance of the executive mansion, and turning
back men , little boys , women with baskets , and every
one, not without profuse gesticulation and remonstrances
in more than one instance. Hark ! there is a shout of
men and a trampling of horses. Here comes a body of
cavalry at a good hand gallop, and — if that is n't Louis
Napoleon ! riding like a centaur, as he always does, his
pet chestnut prancing superbly, as if conscious of carry-
ing Caesar and his fortunes. He looks bilious, as a man
may, after sitting up all night ; aware of his peril too,
but resolute to meet it. "Vioe V Empereur P'' cry the cor-
tege of pedestrians ; off goes the well known silvery-
plumed hat, and the Emperor in posse bows to the crowd,
and smiles to his officers. On sweep the horsemen, the
runners are left behind, but their shouts continue, Vive
la — . No , it can't be. Yes, but it is , though. Now thai
he is gone by , they are crying Yive la RepuOlique/ How
jollily French !
It is just past eleven. Desire reports the state of
siege raised so far as concerns our house. I sally out,
and naturally make first for the Legation. The Secre-
tary has not been at home since eight. The attache is
very polite, but his manner clearly intimates that he has
quite enough to do without talking gossip to curious
compatriots, and that he will be more glad of my com-^
pany on some future occasion. I take the hint and eva-
porate. The long, narrow, winding street of the Faubourg
St. Honore is densely crowded — coats and blouses, men,
women, and. children, lots of soldiers and police sergeants
of course. The armed force generally seem to think it
a capital joke. Not a man of them but looks as if he
would like no better fun than to attend the execution
of Thiers, and bayonet a few thousand Socialists after-
wards. Through the broad gates of the Elysee you can
see numerous carriages of various kinds, private equi-
pages, job coupes^ some very Lorette-like broughams, as
if a portion of the President's fair friends had come to
take refuge with him, or were about to decamp. The
crowd thickens as you approach the Boulevards. Plenty
132
of foreigners, plenty of women, plenty of carriages and
omnibuses. Just as I emerge upon the Rue de la Concorde
my name is ejaculated near me. It is an old Cantab
friend just arrived in time to see the sport. We stop
to shake hands, and an officer starts us along with 'Mar-
chezP — the last edition I suppose of the old establi-
shed circulez. G — has just been the whole length of
the Boulevards, and seen nothing remarkable. We turn
back to the Champs Elysees^ and after five false starts,
many of the streets being blocked up by the military,
find ourselves there at last. A double line of cuirassiers
extends all the way up to the Arc d'Etoile. There are
very few lookers-on ; the interest is concentrated else-
where. We go back to our quarters and I give G — a
practical explanation of the American phrase taking a
horn. Then he talks of going to his embassy. I suggest
that, judging from my own experience at mine, as well
as reasoning on general principles, he had better stay
away. So he betakes himself to his apartments, and I
start on my daily ride. The Bois de Boulogne is almost
empty of equipages, though there is still a fair sprink-
ling of equestrians in it.
Let the opera be sung though the heavens fall. If
the globe tumble in pieces, the ruins will strike the Pa-
risians at a spectacle. To-night we assist^ as the vile
penny-a-line phrase of the day is, at the debut of a new
tenor in Ernani^ with Cruvelli the heroine. Were I to
give my opinion of these artistes (which, being diametri-
cally opposed in both points to the general opinion here,
is probably not worth much), it would be that there are
several sopranos about quite equal to Cruvelli, and that
no living tenor except Mario comes anywhere near Guasco.
There is a very good house, though not absolutely a
crowded one ; everything looks so en routine that if the
President should appear in his box there opposite us, it
would not surprise me in the least. I intimate as much
to a friend who has joined us. "Ah," says he, "if you
had been where I was half an hour ago , you would n't
take it so quietly. All along the Boulevards they are
crying Vice la Republic! A bas le Dlctateur! One man jum-
ped on a bench and shouted A bas Napoleon/ Instantly
nine or ten police sergeants pounced upon him to drag
him off j the rush was such from different quarters, that
133
he was kept stationary among them for a moment. In
that moment the nearest twenty bystanders closed upon
the policemen ; they did n't say a word . but the way
they hustled them was a caution. The prisoner vanished.
and the sergeants were glad to get off with the loss of
their man."
The cavalry left the Champs Efysees at ^Ye this after-
noon. I met them going np the Nenilly road as I came
in from my ride. But the bivoaac fires of the foot-sol-
diers are burning clearly when we retmm home after
the opera.
Wednesday J December Sd, — So full two hundred
members were arrested at once, and the chamber is most
dissolved ; they have pulled down the room it used to
meet in. That is making a clean sweep ; but public
opinion seems to justify it. Everything is quiet : there
are but two doubtful sig^ns. One, that all the tradesmen
are sending in their bills; if you owe a man two francs
for work done yesterday, he is after his money. The
other, that only eight papers (and most of these semi-
official) continue to be published. Still with these the
newsmen reap a rich harvest, selling for half a franc, and
sometimes even for a franc, what costs them eleven centimes.
The Sun of Austerlitz. which was due yesterday,
but only shone metaphorically then, is out in actual
splendor to-day. I turn out my American-built phaeton
and drive up the Boulevards. Everything wears an every-
dav appearance, except the extraordinary allowance of
soldiers, and the people do not take much notice of them.
What they do notice is my phaeton, and the horses in
their cobweb harness are stared at as if they were wild
animals. Circulating orders are less strictly enforced
than yesterday, otherwise I might be taken up, trotters
and all, for causing a stoppage. Quere^ would an Eng-
lish, or Scotch, or American crowd, politically circum-
stanced as these people are, stop to look at Cleopatra's
gallev or a team of fiery dragons ?
It is singular ; there seems to be no opposition worth
mentioning ; a little talk — very little even of that. The
citizens generally look very much pleased at what has
happened. As to the cries last night, a few hundred
turbulent individuals can make a great deal of noise.
Will Louis Napoleon, then, have it so easily and abso-
134
lutely his own way ? Suppose he should not — if the
army were to prove unsound after all ; if the provinces
were to march against Paris (though that would indeed
be a new era in French history), what then ? 1 think he
would fight even to the death. Who can doubt his valor,
when he has so many times braved, not merely danger,
but what a Frenchman dreads infinitely more than dan-
ger — ridicule ? Then consider what a prize he has to
contend for ! Power hardly limited , in fact ; wealth, pomp,
and luxury scarcely even limited in name. Put yourself
in his place once — suppose you had enjoyed for three
years what he has enjoyed — his palace, his stables,
his seraglio , his flatterers — for three years , not long
enough for any of these pleasures to pall upon you ; just
long enough for them to become habitual and in some sort
necessary — all at once you are menaced with the loss
of them all, ay and disgrace, perhaps exile, into the
bargain. Would you not fight ? Would you not move
Acheron, if you could not bend the gods above? No,
you say, I would not break my word ; I would not shed
blood, even worthless blood, for a few^ years' more en-
joyment of the temporal gauds you mention. Very well,
reader. Perhaps, reader, you and I would not fight for
these things. We have no abiding city here. W^e will
take the goods the gods provide, and when fortune frow^ns
we will wrap ourselves up in our virtue. We would
fight for our wives and children, for our religion if the
Papist or the infidel menaced it, for our God and for
heaven. Well, Louis Napoleon is fighting for his God
and his heaven. For the voluptuary's heaven is on this
earth ; he has his good things now.
Whether then we look at the favorable or unfavor-
able side of his character, I think the President is safe
to fight ; but it does not look much as if he would have
any such necessity. Many of my countrymen are of a
different opinion. They are sending for their passports
by dozens ; but nothing to the way in which les Milords
Russes are beginning to send. Still fewer people in the
Bois de Boulogne to-day than yesterday.
No theatres to-night. A French friend calls upon
us, a gentleman of the old school, in all respects the re-
verse of la Jeune France^ which, be it said without he-
sitation, is much worse than Young New- York in Young
135
Kew- York's worst points, more slangy, more rnde, more
vicious, less manly, less able to discriminate between
ladies and actresses. One of the regular Faubourg St.
Germain set, he is of course a legitimist. I offer him
some bad negus (made of St. George) and some good
cigars ; after he has smoked five of them he lets out his
ideas about the present state of things. "M. le President
has caught us nicely, and the Orleanists as well. We
have to elect between the humiliation of a Dictatorship
and the danger of our throats being cut by the Socialists.
It is a melancholy choice ; still there can be no doubt
as to the alternative to be preferred."
It seems the President received as usual on Monday
night. The company did not leave till after eleven, and
he was visible himself till after ten. Between midnight
and six next morning the blow was struck.
Thursday , December 4th. — Tradesmen continue to
pour in with their bills, all wearing long faces and com-
plaining that their workmen are leaving them. I sit
down to indite a long letter home, not without consider-
able doubts of its reaching its destination, at least till
one or two mails after the proper time. At noon come
fearful rumors of mutiny in the provinces and barricades
in the city. I rush out and meet a diplomatic friend who
in the excitement of the moment has forgotten his diplo-
matic caution. He says the scene on the Boulevards last
night was terrific. As the squadrons of lancers passed
along, they were half followed half surrounded by a
dense crowd, shouting, or rather growling, Vioe la Re~
puhliquef A has les fyransf till the hoarse roar fairly
drowned the noise of the horses' feet. Two artillery men
were dragged from their fourgon .^ and all but torn to pieces
before the troops could rescue them. Several isolated
acts of violence on the part of the populace were checked
by shooting the aggressors down like dogs. Barricades
are up at this moment in the old traditional places, and
the fight has begun in earnest.
Meanwhile everything in this quarter maintains its
ordinary appearance. All the soldiers, except the usual
allowance of sentinels about the executive mansion, are
gone ; their presence is doubtless required elsewhere.
Except a couple of thundering proclamations (and those
not printed in very large type or posted very conspicuously)
136
there is nothing within a quarter of a mile of us which
could lead a stranger to suspect that less than two miles
off a murderous conflict is raging.
But so goes the world. "One half of it knows not
how the other half lives." Strangely insufficient expres-
sion ! How many people really know — I do not ask
how many gossips pretend to know — how their neigh-
bors live ? what they are saying , and doing, and medi-
tating. Here is a man that calls you his friend, and
you call him yours. You were at school together and
travelled half over Europe together. You drive him out
behind your new trotter, and he gives you a dinner at
Delmonico's. He praises your book, and you swear by
his wine. He votes with you at elections, and you de-
pend on his judgment in hiring a house. You lent him
money when he was cornered in Harlem stock, and he
kicked Storey Hunter for speaking ill of you. If some-
body were to say that he is not your friend, you would
show that somebody the door very soon. Three days
ago this friend of yours was making desperate love to
your wife ; it is no fault of his that she did not run
away with him. You are banqueting at the Anglais with
Tom Edwards and Gerard Ludlow and Harry Masters
— a jolly parlie carree — drinking Roman ee gelee like
water, wondering what Frank Sumner is doing in New-
York, and regretting his absence. To hear your com-
panions talk you would think the only thing to be re-
gretted on earth at this moment is that Frank Sumner
is not here to taste this filet a la Milanaise. A few hundred
yards off some luckless mechanic is starving, some girl
is selling her honor to save her own and her mother's
life, some bankrupt speculator is preparing to blow his
brains out. But why multiply instances of what every
one know^s if he will give himself the trouble to think
of it ? It is all in accordance then with the way of the
world that I go straight to the coach-maker's and give
directions how the wheels of my wagon are to be repainted,
rouge clair filets bleu fonce^ just as if the Parisians w^ere
not killing one another almost within hearing. And then
I stop in the Rue Castiglione to have a little cane mended.
Thus far the shops are all open , but on crossing the
Place Vendome^ the signs of trouble are beginning to mani-
fest themselves in. the rapidly closing shutters. Of the
187
two very stringent proclamations already alluded to, that
relating to the non-circulation of carriages is but partially
regarded, that bidding the citizens to stay at home ut-
terly disregarded. Knots of people are at every shop
door in the Rue de la Paix^ and not a few on the trottoir,
one group especially surrounding a coachman, who is
relating how his carriage was taken from under his feet
— to form a barricade, doubtless. The Boulevard des
Capucines is thronged , but not a shop open. Horsemen
pass to and fro continually. It is one, and having break-
fasted very slightly, I feel decidedly hungry, but there
is no chance of getting anything to eat unless I go home;
all the confectioners are shut up. Here and there a cigar
shop is open, and one or two druggists have their shut-
ters down, as if looking out for the wounded. All the
other shopmen have holiday perforce. Thus far the
middle of the street is unobstructed , though there are
not a great many carriages to be seen : but when we
reaT^h the Rue Lafitte, a line of infantry is drawn across
from causeway to causeway just above the street, for-
bidding all passage, the causeways themselves being still
left free for the circulation of foot passengers. Just be-
low the street is ranged a corresponding line of citizens,
coats and blouses intermingled ; it looks as if they were
facing the troops and ready to fight them at any mo-
ment, but in reality it is only to see as much as they
can of what is going on above — which happens to be
just nothing, owing to the sharp angle made by the
boulevards at the Rue Richelieu. We double the angle
and proceed with quickened step and heightened curio-
sity. The boulevards are neither crowded nor deserted
— something between the two ; there are perhaps about
one third as many people on the trottoirs as there would
be on an ordinary day. The troops (infantry) occupy
the middle of the street. We pass the Rue Faubourg
Montmartre. This usually crowded thoroughfare is almost
empty, but many curious eyes are turned down it. The ob-
ject of attraction is an overturned carriage, perhaps the very
one that was "pulled from under the feet" of our friend in the
Rue de la Paix, the commencement of an interrupted barri-
cade. Six soldiers are guarding it reverently, walking round
it at a respectful distance, with arms presented as if they still
expected it to explode with socialism, Trojanhorse fashion.
S^ 138
Three streets further and our progress is stopped
— Passe pas/ A line of sentinels stretches clear across
from house to house. I form part of an irregular rank
of curious spectators averaging three deep, and crowding
as near to the Rue Faubourg Poissonniere as the armed
force will let us approach. Every few minutes the roll
of the musketry comes up upon the wind. '^They are
fighting on the Porte St. Denis,''^ says the man next me
in a half w^hisper. "How long have they been at it?"
"An hour and a half" — that is to say since half-past
twelve, for it is now about two.
By and by comes a startling cannonade: we can
see the smoke of it, but the down-ward slope of the
ground beyond us prevents our seeing any more. The
general opinion of those around is that the troops are
getting the worst of it, or at any rate have not made
any progress in subduing the insurgents. As if to con-
firm this, they suddenly advance upon us and drive us
back two streets — to the Rue St. Fiacre. Are they
obliged to retreat then? Louder swells the roar of the
cannon in answer.
It shall never be said that there was a fight going
on within half a mile of me, and I came no nearer seeing
it than this. The back streets are clear, so I dive down
the nearest, and make for the Porte St. Denis as nearly
as I can calculate. Several persons are going in the
same direction; through the cross lanes we catch glimpses
of the soldiers on the Bonne Noiwelle. Suddenly they
warn us back. My companions obey, but I watch my
time and dodge past like an man caught in a shower
trying to run between the drops. I have the Rue de la
Lune to myself. Corragio!
All at once up starts a sentinel from somewhere,
and without word or gesture of warning lets fly at me.
The first impulse of a civilian, a man who has not been
used to stand fire, under such circumstances, is to run;
and run I did with a will till I found myself at the
place whence I had started. Then my courage began
to return. Probably the soldier only fired in the air;
certainly the ball did not come near me. "It will never
do to give it up so, Mr. Brown." I make another shy
down the Rue Beauregard. This time an adventurous
Frenchman accompanies me.
189
There was no one in the other street but myself;
there is no one in this street but myself and the adven*
tiirous Frenchman who takes the lead of me. We push
on, and are soon rewarded for our daring with a sight
of the SI. Denis barricade — one angle of it at least —
a great wall of paving stones, equal in thickness to the
width of the Rue Beauregard. Scarcely have we observed
this when a flash issues from the very centre of the
barricade (neither soldier nor insurgent was seen to fire
it), and the succeeding report is responded to by the
crash of glass in a window alongside us. It is now a
tight race between myself and my extempore companion ;
after a sharp brush of three or four blocks (as we should
say in America) we bring iip from sheer exhaustion not
far from the Rue Vivienne. I shall wait for the barricades
to come to me next time , and you may bet a hat that
he won't go near them again to-day !
Every shop in the Vivienne is shut, but the street
is thronged with citizens. Not a soldier or policeman
to be seen. Groups talking at all the corners. I join
one; a Napoleonist and Republican are disputing, the
latter seems to be getting the best of it, at least he has
the sympathies of his audience with him. C'estvrai; Vive
La Republique ! shouts a Grisette at the close of his last
emphatic period. Vive La Republique! echo three fourths
of the bystanders, and the friend of law and order sneaks
off; then, as two or three well dressed men are seen
approaching, the assemblage dissolves itself instinctively,
and its component individuals walk noiselessly away.
This being shot at makes one hungrier than ever.
The nine employes of Felix patissier ., are standing at his
door. The windows are shut, but the door is open, and
I have a vision of tarts. I rush frantically and devour
whatever I can first lay hands on, ingurgitate a glass of
what the French call IMadeira, make a hero of myself
to the neat little woman who supplies my wants, and
then walk home leisurely. It is halfpast three, the Boule-
vards are full of cavalry hastening to the scene of action.
At the corner of the Place de la Concorde^ a little broug-
ham — the only carriage I have seen for two hours —
drives rapidly by ; the little woman in it looks nervous
enough. Her set don't profit by revolutions.
I mount Harry, for trotting in the Bois de Boulogne
140
is assuredly better than being shot at in the city. But
the Bois is a perfect desert ; no one throughout the whole
length and breadth of it except two grooms exercising
horses. Not a w^aiter or a boy to hold horses at Madrid,
so little hope have they of any company to-day.
My brother-in-law rejoins me at dinner. From a
friend's fourth story on the Boulevards he has seen some
sharp fighting, plenty of insurgents shot, and a few offi-
cers unhorsed. Later in the day he came near experien-
cing more of the revolution than he wanted. A despatch
rider had gone over a child near the Rue de la Paix^
killing it on the spot. The people around naturally ex-
pressed much indignation, which was proceeding to ma-
nifest itself in something stronger than words, w^hen a
charge of lancers swept the streets , trampling down
everything in the way without mercy, and the biggest
man of the troop made a point of riding over Henry.
But an American is not used to this sort of thing in his
own country, and not at all disposed to take it quietly.
Hal collared the lancer at once, that is to say he caught
the horse by the curb, and very nearly jerked the lan-
cer over, horse and all. At that time these soldiers did
not carry their pistols ready cocked as they did after-
wards, and the distance was too close to use the lance;
so while the man was trying to shorten his weapon with
one hand, and fumbling at his holster with the other,
Henry dodged under the nose of another horse, and made
his escape down a passage where several other non-
combatants had already taken refuge. No sooner was
he there than he discovered it to be a cul de sac. and
the pleasant reflection flashed upon him that the soldiers
might spit them all at their ease. Luckily they were
contented with clearing the street, and did not attempt
to pursue the fugitives into corners.
Fortified by a good dinner, I sally out again in the
evening. There is some difficulty in getting to the Boule-
vards from the number of sentinels in this quarter, but
when once there you may walk up and down them all
night w^ithout meeting anything remarkable. I did for
two good hours. There w^ere many little knots of people,
but as they gave no symptoms of violence, no notice
was taken of them by the troops. One young man in
a blouse is defending the soldiery to a tolerably attentive
I
141
audience. He has been a soldier himself, and knows
that soldiers must obey orders. It is their pleasure as
well as their duty. ''If you had a patron that supported
you, would you be so base as not to do what he told
you ?" His logic may not be first-rate , but his earnest-
ness is indisputable. Fatries are selling at various prices,
from half a franc to a franc, and the purchasers anxi-
ously reading them by twilight. Nobody seems to believe
any of the reports from the provinces ; the official an-
nouncement, and the Socialist reports, meet with about
equally general discredit. Lancers with cocked pistols
guard the Rue St. Fiacre , and all the Boulevards above
are occupied by the troops, but there is no sign of fight-
ing or firing.
Friday, Dec. 5th. — A misty and threatening day,
quite enough to dissipate any possible chance of the in-
surgents rallying. I read the account of yesterday's fight
in Galiynani^ and then ride up to the Boulevards. They
are nearly full of cavalry, but carriages are permitted
to pass, and are passing. A broken fourgon lies near
the Maison Doree — shivered windows and shotmarks
on the houses. We must come back on foot and examine
it more closely. We do so after breakfast. There is a
great crowd ; the sentinel lancers, with their cocked pistols,
two at each corner, will not allow any person to stop
a moment, so you have to look as you walk. It is sin-
gular that the three Cafes Claris, Tortoni and Maison
DoreeJ about which and in which there w^as so much
fighting, show scarcely a mark of it. The first house
that looks at all the worse for the row, is the Fetite
Jeannette, where I used to buy gay cravats ; after that,
the large building just beyond the Varietes. This house,
partly occupied by the Fraternal Insurance against Fire
and Explosions^ whose chrysographed title extends all
across the front of it, has been pretty well exploded,
as far as its windows are concerned, and the fire of the
artillery has knocked a pretty big hole in the second
story. People are staring at this hole as well as the
soldiers will let them, while from one of the seventh-
story windows a gentleman in a seedy dressing-gown
looks down upon the crowd with an air that says, "I
had a finger in yesterday's pie." The w^orst marks of
the conflict are on the Poissonniere ^ just before the Rue
142
St. Fiacre. Billecoq's shawl warehouse has a large hole
in its front, and the house next below (separated from
it by a passage) nearly as large a one in its side. I
had almost forgotten a bit of unintentional allegory at
that great ready-made clothing shop, Le trophele^ on the
upper end of the Montmartre. The ornamented blinds
representing the different personages of Meyerbeer's opera,
had been all rolled up out of the way. Only a little
bit of one of them hung down, enough to let you read
the legend "Couronnement du Prophete.^''
The military still prevent you from going past the
Rue St. Fiacre, so I go down it, and then along the vil-
lanous looking and most inappropriately named Beaure-
gard, quite at my leisure, and with plenty of company.
The soldiers stop us again before we reach the Boule-
vards, but let us come near enough to observe the debris
of the St. Denis barricade, the scattered paving stones,
the bare places in the pavement. In returning I note
one house in the Rue Petit Carreau, just out of the Beaure-
gard, which has evidently been the scene of a sharp con-
flict. The front, newly painted of a deep red, throws
out the white shot-marks with startling distinctness.
I stay quietly at home to-night filling my journal.
Another French friend drops in, and tells me, among
various items of gossip, that at least tweloe hundred people
have lost their lives in the thirty-six hours preceding
to-day, many of them innocent citizens, but que diable
atlerent-ils (aire dans cette galere? That would have been
my epitaph if the sentinel or the Socialist had shot me
yesterday.
Saturday, Dec. 5th. — At nine o'clock James comes
to see me with a long face, to say that his French hel-
per is missing, and has probably been arrested, but where
or for what, or how he is to be got at, or w^hat is to
become of him, nobody knows. After several fruitless
speculations we try the laisser alter, which answers in
this instance ; the boy makes his appearance at eleven.
He slept last night in a house suspected of Socialism.
The police made a descent about five in the morning,
and took up all who were not regular lodgers, and some
who were. Having been taken up without any particu-
lar reason, he was now discharged without any particu-
lar examination or caution. Pay some visits. All my
143
countrymen appear to have been shot at, but none of
them confess to have been in the least degree frightened.
The restriction on the circulation of vehicles is officially
removed this morning : it was unofficially removed yester-
day. Ride out at 3. The Bois de Boulogne is recovering
its wonted crowd and gaiety. Remember that I forgot
to pay for my liquor the other day in Madrid, and turn
in there to discharge that ceremony. No end of com-
patriots on the ground ; Dicky Bleecker and Harry Masters,
and the Colonel and Edwards, and two or three more
of "the boys." Masters has "been around a few" the
last three days, and is "gassing" not a few about w^omen
run over, and houses invaded, and two hundred men
massacred by the troops, and so on, when suddenly a
little dark man whom nobody noticed, rises up before
him from a corner. "Sare, I understand English ; I •am
a French officer ; you say w^hat is not true."
Mouvemens dioers in the assembly. "And do you
think," says Harry, turning short upon the interrupter,
and swelling up to and over him like a high-actioned
trotter, till he seems about to fall on him, and crush
him to the earth, "do you think I will let any French-
man or any other man, tell me in public that I say what
is not true ? Donnez-moi votre adresse , Monsieur ; void
la mienne;^'' and he nearly gives the officer point in the
face with his card.
The Frenchman is very cool, for a Frenchman ; he
begs Masters to talk English that the people of the house
may not understand him, and takes him aside in the
yard, not out of sight, however, or altogether out of
hearing, for by and by there is something said about
police^ and then Harry gives the other an immense shove,
^Allez-vous en^ canaille/ Je croyais causer avec un offi-
cier et en gentilhomme, et vous me parlez de la police? Then
returning to our party, he begins to swear in all the
languages he knows, and to pour out much Lingua Franca
on the enormity of his opponent's reference, addressing
himself in his excitement chiefly to the waiter. The wai-
ter seems disposed to stand by his best customers, for
the Americans are great patrons of the Madrid brandy.
My Kilkenny groom, and Harry's groom," (another "Ame-
rican citizen,") hang about, watching and hoping for a
signal to pitch into some one. For a few minutes everybody
- f
144
talks at once; then there is a lull; the French officer
and our officer, the Colonel, who speaks the best French
of the party, having been talking apart ; they come for-
ward again, and the Frenchman makes his excuses. It
is all owing to his imperfect knowledge of English, and
Harry's imperfect knowledge of French. He only meant
at first to tell our countryman he was mistaken : he was
wrong to have told him even that in public. The re-
ference to the police was merely for the official returns
of killed and wounded to fortify his statement. So we
are all satisfied, and Masters asked him to take a drink,
which he declines, and slides off very rapidly. Well he
may, being rather in the minority here, for there are
eight Americans on the ground , and only one other
Frenchman, who has remained in a corner, looking very
shaky through the whole aifair.
Among other disastrous eff'ects of the revolution, La-
horde's is shut up (the great dancing-school of all Paris
now ; Edwards says it "knocks" Cellarius). To console
"the boys" under this calamity, I ask them to an extem-
pore supper. Young Empson the artist drops in. He
has his story to tell.
"You know my atelier is close to the Rue Faubourg
Montmartre^ and I usually come to the Boulevards that
way. Having been hard at work all Thursday morning,
I did not get out till two, and was then surprised to
find the usually crowded street utterly deserted and si-
lent as the grave. Very soon a party of soldiers warned
me back with guns presented. But I could n't stop on
any account (I was going to see a real live patron who
had given me an order for fifteen hundred francs' worth
of picture) , so I opened my Talma to show there were
no arms under it, and approached them boldly. They
allowed me to pass on, hearing my story; but after I
had passed, whether they thought 1 did not move fast
enough or whether it was only a bit of deviltry on their
part, three of them levelled their pieces at me. Then I
showed them a specimen of tall walking."
This mild narrative of the painter's sets every one's
tongue agoing. Those who have not been shot at or
half run over themselves know some one who has.
"Did anybody see Ludlow lately?" asked the Co-
lonel. "He got into a nice fix, he did. Gerald had been
145
I
six times in Paris without seeing a barricade: so pretty
early Thursday morning he walked up to the dangerous
district to look for one. All at once he saw rather more
of them than he wanted, for they sprung up all round
him like magic ; he was fairly walled in. Whichever
way he turned it was sauve qui pent, chacun chez soi,
charges of soldiery, volleys of musketry, men shot dead
alongside of him, and such like pleasant incidents. He
did n't dare to say he was not of that quarter for fear
of being arrested, perhaps bayoneted, so he kept dodging
about from house to house for just five hours. At length
he found one street where the coast was clear, and down
that he sloped pretty rapidly, and never stopped till he
was in the heart of the St. Germain quarter. How he
got over the Seine he doesn't know, can't tell which
bridge he crossed, and isn't sure but he took the river
at a jump flying."
''Appleton must have had the nicest time of it,"
says Bleecker. "He was all the morning in his office
on the Bonne-Nouvelle , hard at work with his correspon-
dence. (Thursday is packet day, you know.) As the
clock struck three he had bundled up his letters, and
was starting for the post-office, when the porte-cochere
closed in bis face, and then came a twenty-minutes' roll
of musketry, about his very ears, it seemed. So he re-
treated to his apartment, and remained there three hours
and more, listening to the musketry every quarter of an
hour as it was fired near or into the house, with occa-
sional interludes of cannon. Once the soldiers broke into
the room next to his, and bayoneted twelve poor devils
in it, non-combatants too, who had merely run in there
to get out of the way. Appleton didn't know how soon
his turn might come, so he prepared for action all the
weapons about him — one six-shooter and one jack-knife
— built a little private barricade of chairs and tables,
and sat down behind it calculating how many of the
armed force he might be able to sacrifice to his own
manes. After all he got out just in time for dinner, and
lost nothing but the mail, for the trouble was all over
before half past six."
"How many people, I wonder, have been killed alto-
gether ?" inquired I, thinking of my French friend's twelve
hundred. "The loss of the troops is said to be very small."
Vol. m. 10
146
"Of course they will not acknowledge the real amount
of it," said Empson. "I had experience of that at Rau-
chenzubad in 1848. There were semething like barricades.
One particular night I remember the Prussian troops
only owned to losing about half a dozen, and I knew
one man who shot twenty of them from one barricade."
The artist stopped and stroked his silky Teuton-
like beard. Finding his auditors properly attentive he
continued :
''He was a Polish count, one of the Posen Poles,
hating the Prussians by instinct, and fought like one who
bore a charmed life. Conspicuous in person and dress,
he would climb to the top of the barricade, receive the
rifle handed to him from below, and take deliberate aim.
He was a slow shot, but a dead one, and never fired
without settling his man. Between midnight and five in
the morning he killed twenty soldiers, one for every
quarter of an hour. The Prussians thought him the
devil incarnate, and were fairly panic-struck. But about
dawn some thirty of them took courage with the light,
stormed the barricade in flank, got round it, and put a
dozen balls into him from behind. His corpse lay where
it fell for two days. Well, as I was saying, the official
reports only stated a loss of six or seven soldiers all
over the town, and this one man in one place had killed
twenty! I saw it myself, for my window happened to
command the scene of action."
Sunday, Dec. 7th. — I go to the Lutheran church in
the Rue des Billettes , a good half-hour's walk. The
preacher is a most earnest man, with a powerful, homely
eloquence, and now and then a touch of semi-irony almost
Sydney-Smith-ian. Last Sunday he was preaching on
the duty of ministers, and current misconceptions respect-
ing it. "Many persons think that it is our business to
perform certain ceremonies at which a certain form, and
decorum, and propriety are desirable and requisite — to
christen people, marry them, bury them; also to be the
distributors of certain alms, the agents of the state in
its charitable acts, a link to bind diff'erent classes of
society together, a very respectable bureaucracy. More-
over, as it has been the cutom for ages that the minister
should make stated discourses, they expect that he will
make a discourse about quelque chose de bon, and with
147
a certain eloquence and fervor; but that he should talk
of the great truths of religion — the ruin caused by sin,
the anguish of a soul in penitence, the mediation of
Christ, the new life — they are astonished that he should
dwell on these things, yea, even to a dying man, from
whose eyes the veil that has long overshadowed them
is so soon to be lifted. My friends, were you to express
your surprise that we do not talk enough about these
things, the accusation would be too true in many in-
stances, and I could understand you ; but when you pro-^
fess astonishment at our talking of them at all, then I
can only say your astonishment astonishes me very much,
and methinks if the Apostles were here, they who used
to preach the word in season and out of season, they
would be astonished too at your astonishment — that
they would. CIls s'etonneraient aussi, ces apotres-ld.') To-
day he was alluding to the startling events of the past
week. His text was, "The Lord reigneth," and he took
occasion to speak of those who refused to admit his
reign. "These miserable men thought they could do
without God fse passer de Dieu) and he has given them
up to the dominion of their own folly. They would not
keep his day of rest, and they have no rest or peace in
themselves. They would not believe in Him, and they
have no faith in one another. They would not love Him,
and they hate one another. They w^ould not seek the
blessing from above, and they have lost the blessings of
this world."
After church I walk up the Rue du Temple, just
next to the Billettes. Notices are posted here in great
numbers of the telegraphic despatches from the Provinces.
It is quite striking to remark with what utter indifference
these official announcements are always received. The
people say the Provinces are quiet, for otherwise some
one would have brought the news by railroad; no one alleges
the governmental despatches as any proof of the fact.
Except these placards, there are no traces of the late
"muss" till the corner of the Rue Rambuteau; one house
there is utterly ruinous in the way of windows, the very
sashes of the lower story being broken out ; nothwith-
standing which, a small confectionery business goes on
in it the same as ever. After this, all the way to the
Boulevards you meet little patches of loose pavement
148
here and there, and the workmen busy restoring them.
And so we come out on the Temple boulevard, just
opposite the little Opera where we heard the Perle du
Bresil last Monday. Not a sign of military occupation.
There is ratker more than the usual Sunday crowd, and
rather less than the usual allowance of uniforms in it.
Every shop open — every man, woman, and child look-
ing gay and happy. A few saplings have been recently
replanted, but that is an ordinary municipal repair which
might happen any day in the year. It is not until after
traversing the whole distance from the Opera National
to the Porte St. Martin that I can detect a single shutter
put up, or a single broken square of glass. I cannot
realize to myself, I cannot make myself believe, that the
Parisians were killing one another here three days ago.
But on the Bonne-Nouvelle ^ War's iron heels have left
some intelligible marks. There is much loose pavement
about the Porte St. Denis; the railing of the little raised
causeway on one side has vanished altogether; much of
the masonry too is broken down, and the debris still lie
as they fell. Opposite the Gymnase some houses are
nicely scarred with shot. Yet there are but half a dozen
of these ; and even of broken glass there is far less than
you would expect. To be sure it may have been mended
in some places ; at this moment there are twenty glaziers
operating on the Aubusson dep6t. The chief damage
seems to have fallen on those lovely ornaments of the
Boulevards which the Parisians call rambuteaux. Every
one of these is either shortened by the head, or altoge-
ther prostrated — a proof of more good taste on the
part of the Socialists than one would have been disposed
to give them credit for.
After our pedestrian circuit of seven miles, Henry
and I start on our daily ride in the Bois de Boulogne.
The fashionable promenade has recovered all its gaiety.
The equipages are numerous as ever ; the equestrians
more than ever abundant. Every boy, every calicot that
can hire or sit anything on four legs, is there; every
foreigner that affects the noble animal is there — Eng-
lish, Russian, or American. The metropolis of pleasure
is itself again. True, there are some rumblings of distant
thunder, a little lurid light on the horizon, some distant
departments in possession (temporary, we hope) of the
149
Socialist bands, some little Jacquerie going one some-
where. But order reigns at Paris, and Paris is France.
Vive Louis Napoleon! Vive PEmpereur /
Paris, December 13.
LITERARY LOAFINGS.
AFTER THE MANNER OFCOMMERSON.
November 1853.
I HAVE always thought Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle Tom^*
would have been a truer book if it had been written by
her husband, for then her story would have been history.
There are some deformities which attract no parti-
cular attention, but a man born without feet must ne-
cessarily be a no-to-rious character.
If you want to travel cheaply, put up a clothes-line
in your yard ; you can then go to your rope whenever
you please, and cross the line at a minute's notice.
The compositions of some authors seem to be called
so on the same principle that an opiate is styled a com-
posing draught.
Artists have adopted different emblems of charity.
I wonder none of them ever thought of a piece of Indian-
rubber, which gives more than any other substance.
A lady having to go to a strange place should set
off at once without stopping to think, for the woman
who deliberates is lost.
An argument in favor of a future state of existence
may be drawn from the present existence of — . He is
no use whatever in this world ; there may be another in
which he will be of some.
Marriage is the ordinary candle, less beautiful and
picturesque than the ignis fatuus of love, but decidedly
more useful and reliable.
The glory of the old European nations is like the
shining of a corpse. Those who pass by at distance be-
hold only the phosphoric light, they do no not see the
putrescent carcase which it surrounds.
160
If I have not fully seen the elephant, I have at least
had a glimpse of his trunk. I found some of my writ-
ings in the lining of it lately.
The juvenile scion of Young America, smoking his
ten or fifteen cigars every morning, irresistibly reminds
me of the caterpillar, which consumes several times its
own weight of leaves in a day.
It is difficult to transact any business with a miser.
He is so averse to hospitality that he will not readily
entertain even a proposition.
No tee-totaller can be consistent to the end. He
may refuse wine all his life but must come to his bier
at last.
It is common to speak of those whom a flirt has
jilted as her victims. This is a grave error 5 her real
victim is the man whom she accepts.
There is an Eastern tale of a magician who disco-
vered by his incantations that the Philosopher's Stone lay
on the bank of a certain river, but was unable to de-
termine its locality more definitely. He therefore pro-
ceeded along the bank with a piece of iron, to which
he applied successively all the pebbles he found. As
one after another they produced no change in the metal,
he flung them into the stream. At last he hit upon the
object of his search , and the iron became gold in his
hand. But alas ! he had become so accustomed to the
"touch and go" movement that the real stone was invo-
luntarily thrown into the river after the others, and lost
to him forever. I think this story well allegorizes the
fate of the coquette. She has tried and discarded so
many hearts that at length she throws away the right
one from pure force of habit.
An itinerant preacher ought always to be a good
logician. It will then be easier for him to convert the
premises wherever he stops for the night.
Some men measure the value of governments by
their patronage of art ; on the same principle that "little
Musgrave" in the ballad went to church not to say his
prayers, but to see the "fair women."
On looking over these sketches, I detect some Ame-
ricanisms, which I have nevertheless left as they are, for
the sake of the local coloring. Thus team in America
means two horses, not four ; a chesnut horse is called a
sorrel, &c.
Vol. IV. will certain newspaper correspondence.
>*..J^
..^
■*,
4h
PIECES
OF A
BROKEN-DOWN CRITIC
PICKED UP BY HIMSELF.
Vol. IV. LETTERS.
BADEN-BADEN.
PRINTED BY S C OT ZNI O VSK Y.
1859.
■^
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
TO THE NEW- YORK GAZETTE AND TIMES 1
TO THE HONORABLE HORACE MANN 4
TO THE LITERARY WORLD (2) 34
TO THE KNICKERBOCKER 55
TO THE SPIRIT OP THE TIMES (4) 62
REVIEW. GRATTAN'S CIVILIZED AMERICA . 88
m
I
I
Editors Gazette ^ Times: July 18*7.
GENTLEMEN : — I have been much surprised to
see an extract from the Democratic Review "on the Origin
of England's National Debt," copied into your paper with-
out comment, which usually implies an endorsement of the
doctrines contained in it. The writer, advising and pre-
dicting the repudiation of England's public debt, insists on
the non-obligation of that debt, because a great part of
it was contracted by a former generation — that of Wil-
liam Pitt — and he says ''Of 30 generations which passed
away from the Norman Conquest down to the French
War, each one had as much right to borrow as that of
Mr. Pitt, and nearly every one had as much necessity."
At first blush this would seem to argue that a govern-
ment has no right to borrow money at all, since every
loan must be raised at some particular time, in some par-
ticular generation. But he can hardly mean this ; it is
too great an absurdity even for the Democratic Review to
advocate. He must mean that they have no right to bor-
row for longer than a generation <) that is, as he explains
it, for 22 years.
Now, gentlemen, it seems to me that this plan of
substituting for our conception of a Nation and a Slate
that of a. succession of generations, is not only one of the most
disorganizing and ruinous in practice ever devised, but
also one of the most illusory and intangible in theory.
What is a generation ? What permanent ties unite the
Americans of this generation (humanly speaking) except
such as are derived from their being members of a com-
mon Country and State ? Take away this great bond and
what have you to limit or define your generation ? The
writer can suggest nothing except his period of 22 years.
22 years from tchen, and to when? From to-day or to-
morrow, or last year, or the time when the present voters
or the majority of them came of age ? How are we to
draw the line between this generation and the last or the
Vol. IV. I
next ? We are the governing generation now. Those who
are 15 or 20 years our juniors will be the governing ge-
neration when that time shall have elapsed. What right
have we to bind them for 2 years or 7 years any more
than for 20 or 30 ? The very term generation suggests
ideas of what is fleeting and transitory and unstable ; and
the moment we attempt to carry out the general notion
into particulars, all is confusion and incongruity.
On the other hand our conceptions of a State and a
Nation are fixed and real. The term Nation involves phy-
sical and moral peculiarities, a definite locality, generally
a peculiar language, often a peculiar religion. The term
State suggests the ideas of law and government, order
and justice, treaties, courses of policy, improvements car-
ried on from one age to another, all the things that are
most grave and sacred and permanent in men's eyes. A
state has a personality about it which you seek in vain
to attach to a generation. You may open an account
current with a government ; you can't with a generation.
True, a people may discover themselves to be wiser than
their fathers. They may think, nay, they may know that
in certain circumstances they would have managed their
affairs more wisely. And so, too, a man may grow wiser
and find that he has entered into indiscreet engagements
and borrowed imprudently. But does this exonerate him
from his engagements, I do not say in law, but in con-
science and honor ? He is still the same man , though
his moral and mental nature may have been enlightened,
and he is bound by his own acts. Similarly a people
may be bound to pay the debts of their ancestors, even
though they have reason to doubt the policy and justice
of having originally contracted these debts.
So much for the general question; but the specific
instance under discussion, demands more particular con-
sideration. The assertion that nearly all the generations
before Mr. Pitt had as much necessity to borrow money
as he had , is just on a par with the usual impudent
mendacity of our Radical scriblers. What the London
Examiner said of O'Connell, is most strictly applicable
to these men. Their moral nature has become so warped
that they really do not know what truth is. With them
it means whatever makes for their side, and by falsehood
they understand whatever makes for the other side. Hence
a
they unscrupulously and invariably adapt their facts to
their theory ; will this writer pretend to say that from
the Norman conquest to the French war, the national
existence of England, was at stake once every 22 years!
Or will he maintain that this was not the case in Pitt's
time, when she had to fight single-handed against a con-
tinent ? The exertions and sacrifices which the English-
men of that day made, showed their appreciation of the
danger which threatened them. Do men pay 10 per cent
property -tax , without a pressing necessity ? Does the
Democratic Review suppose that every sovereign or pre-
mier between William the Conqueror, and George III.
could have levied such a tax ? I should like to see our
good Democrats called on to pay 10 per cent property-
tax on account of Mr. Polk's Mexican War ! Those
Englishmen did not spare their own shoulders and they
had a right to impose a burden on future generations, be-
cause future generations were interested in the struggle then
pending. It is a vile slander to say that Pitt and his
generation were unjust to , or careless about, their poste-
rity. They were most mindful of the interests of that
posterity. They took care that they should be free Eng-
lishmen, not slaves to Napoleon and his dynasty; en-
lightened Protestants and not Papists or Infidels. The
continuance of such blessings, the deliverance from such
evils was cheaply purchased by the addition of a few
millions or many millions of taxes. No, gentlemen, "every
generation from the Norman Conquest to the French War,"
had not the same right to borrow as that of Mr. Pitt,
for none of them had the same necessity.
Let us suppose for a moment that our position and
that of Mexico in the present war were partially inter-
changed : that our territory was threatened with invasion,
our armies with defeat ; that there was a chance of our
country being subjugated by Santa Anna and of our Pro-
testant Ministers having Popish Priests set over them.
Should we hesitate about any means of preserving our
independence ? Should we scruple to borrow money in
any quarter to any amount that might be requisite for
carrying on the war ? Should we shrink from subsidizing
foreign powers ? And then suppose the philosopher of
the Democratic Review to interpose with "No, you must
not burden posterity ! If you borrow this money your
1*
grandchildren will have to pay double taxes for the in-
terest of it." With what indignation should we repel
his absurdities ! "Miserable mole that you are," we might
exclaim, "the question is not whether our grandchildren
shall pay a few hundred dollars more or less taxes, but
whether they should have any voice in paying their own
taxes at all ; whether they shall have a country and free
institutions, or be the servants of strangers. Away with
such short-sighted folly !"
The English people enjoy the glory of having resisted
a continent like Europe and overcame a man like Na-
poleon. It was not to be expected that they should have
this glory for nothing, nor are they unwilling to pay the
price for it. They are not so foolish and so wicked as
the Democratic Review hopes or believes them to be.
There is yet, however, one alternative which I had
nearly forgotten. He of the Democratic may say that
there is no objection to a nation borrowing all they can
in such a crisis, but that the next generation may repu-
diate the debt if they see fit. But this course will be found
on examination to be equally unjust to their ultimate
posterity. For repudiation though it may answer very
well for the first time, is not a game to be played twice.
If the second generation repudiates what the first bor-
rowed, the third will not find it easy to borrow again
should they require it ever so much. And what more
mortifiying position can we imagine that of a generation
which, with every honest intention and prospective means,
finds itself so damned by the bad faith of its predeces-
sors as to be incapable of obtaining credit ? Thus in
whatever light we view the question, it appears most
clearly that the party which maintains the obligations of
a State is the one truly mindful of the interests of posterity.
TO the Honorable Horace Mann:
SIR,
Since even under the aristocratic governments of
the Old World, a cat is proverbially permitted to look
at a king, much more, in this land of democracy, may a
private individual address without previous introduction
a Member of Congress. Undeniable is it, that our pri-
vate individuals have not been slow to use and abuse
this privilege, and numbers of them make it their busi-
ness to bother public men on all occasions, in or out of
season. Nor should I have been willing to follow so
many bad examples, had you not, in some sense, your-
self given the provocation.
Some two months ago I happened to see in the Li-
terary Worlds a brief and complimentary notice of your
"Thoughts for a Young Man," which mentioned your
holding up Stephen Girard as an example, and John Ja-
cob Astor as a warning. The latter gentleman was my
maternal grandfather, and having been accustomed to look
upon him during his life, and to regard his memory since
his death, with a considerable amount of respect, I na-
turally felt a little curious to see what he had done to
be held up as a warning, particularly what legal or moral
crime he had committed to make you put him in the same
category with the ferocious despot Nicholas, or that prince
of swindlers, the ex-railroad king, George Hudson — as
the same journal informed me you did. True, in the
course of twelve years or more, during which time I had
sufficient opportunities of becoming acquainted with his
life and character, I had never seen or heard anything
to induce the suspicion of such a probability ; neverthe-
less, as it is notorious that we often learn a great deal
about ourselves and our private affairs from strangers, it
seemed not impossible that some such information might
be obtained in the present instance.
Of Stephen Girard , I knew only that v he had been
the richest man, or one of the richest men, in the coun-
try ; that he was a Frenchman by birth, but had lived
most of his life — a very solitary one, w^ithout near re-
lations or friends — in Philadelphia ; that he left the
greater part of his fortune to establish a college for or-
phans , into which no minister of any religious denomination
was ever to set foot, under any pretext or circumstance
whatsoever — which always struck me as a very in-
genious contrivance for the increase of knowledge with-
out virtue ; and that the college had been but lately
opened, after a delay of some fifteen years. Nor did I
gain any further details from your ^Thoughts." But I
did learn the gravamen of Mr. Astor's offence in your
6
eyes, viz. that he did not leave more than one-sixteenth
of his fortune for any public purpose; conduct, which
you profess yourself unable to palliate or account for
except on the supposition of absolute insanity, — (p.
65, note J
Now, calling a man ''insane," like calling him scoundrel^
rascal or vagabond is a very convenient way to dispose
of people whom we do not like, while we are unable to
substantiate anything specific against them ; but it is a
weapon which cuts more ways than one, and the hasty
or indiscreet resort to which it is somewhat dangerous
to encourage. Different men have different ideas as to
what constitutes this sort of insanity. For instance, when
you make an abolition speech in Congress, the Southern
and Southwestern representatives would doubtless be much
delighted to shave your head and enclose you between
the four walls of an asylum, and would be prepared with
a wilderness of arguments, enough to convince them-
selves at least, if no one else, that you fully deserved such
treatment. Or when, six or seven years ago, you took
occasion in a public discourse to speak very disrespect-
fully of the ballot and universal suffrage, I will engage
there was no want of persons who said you must be
crazy to blaspheme institutions which to them were like
an appendix to the Ten Commandments. A great many
very sensible , though perhaps common -place people,
agree in thinking that the Massachusetts transcendental-
ists have been made mad — whether by too much learn-
ing or not, they are less unanimous. I have no doubt
we could find many devout men, who would say that, to
found an institution for education from which all ministers
of the gospel were systematically excluded, was little
short of the act of a madman. In fine, there is a popu-
lar tendency to confound, by a loose use of language,
madness with unreasonableness or folly; and in some cases
to aggravate, in others to excuse actions, by assigning
to them as a motive, insanity, when at most they can
only come under the charge of irrationality, and very
often are referable only to eccentricity or peculiarity.
Yet the distinction is not so very subtle or metaphysical
either — one would think it simple enough. You may
say that a drunken man is mad for the time ; that a very
angry man is so too. Possibly, but you would surely
never say in any serious conversation or writing, that a
man was insane according to any legal or medical sense
of the term, because you had once seen him in a violent
passion, nor yet because you had once seen him intoxi-
cated. Every man w^ho commits a crime, nay, every man
who wittingly and deliberately commits sin, acts contrary
to the dictates of reason , but such a man's mind is not,
therefore, permanently disordered, otherwise, what a great
madhouse the whole world w^ould make ! But the mention
of crime leads me to the real cause of this abuse of w^ords.
The morbid sympathy shown by a certain class of phi-
lanthropists for criminals, and especially for the more
atrocious criminals, such as murderers, has, among ways
of screening such wretches from condign punishment,
suggested the plea of insanity. In this our sentimental-
ists are greatly aided by the craniologists, many of whose
speculations go directly to refer all great crimes to de-
fective mental organization. The public mind thus be-
comes accustomed to associate with ideas of permanent
insanity, individual acts of great wickedness or irratio-
nality. A clever legal friend of mine seriously professes
a theory that every person is a monomaniac, or mad upon
some one point, by which he probably means to say that
every person has a w^eak point on which he has a ten-
dency or susceptibility to be led astray and a times act
irrationally.
I suppose then, your saying that Mr. A.'s only ex-
cuse for leaving his fortune to his relations instead of
to the public, is to be found in the supposition of his
insanity, — is only a characteristically exaggerated way
of expressing that you think he made a foolish and un-
reasonable disposition of it. Mr. Girard, on the contrary,
is lauded with equal extravagance for the establishment
of his college to promote irreligious education among
orphans, as opening a fountain of blessedness so copious
and exhaustless that it will flow on undiminished to the
end of time — (p. 64.) To judge of the value and ju-
stice of this condemnation and this laudation, it will be
necessary to look at the lives and circumstances of the
two men, very briefly, but rather more in detail than you
have done.
I have taken the trouble to make myself somewhat
acquainted with the history of Mr. Girard, and more
8
particularly with the history of his college since his death.
The difficulty of procuring the necessary documents has
delayed for many weeks the appearance of this little
epistle, which would otherwise have been laid before you
a few days after your book fell into my hands.
Stephen Girard was a native of France, but a citizen,
and for many years a resident of Philadelphia. He was
a bachelor, and had no near relatives except a brother,
with whom he was not on the best terms. He lived un-
socially, and was as frugal of the ordinary courtesies of
life as of his gold. As a merchant and banker, he ac-
cumulated a large fortune, variously estimated, but cer-
tainly not less than- seven or eight millions of dollars. It
does not appear that he ever entertained the idea of
distinguishing himself in any other walk of life. Dying
without intimate friends, he left his whole property, with
the exception of a few trifling legacies, to establish a
college for orphans, within the 'premises appropriated to
which no ecclesiastic^ missionary , or minister of any sect
whatsoever, is ever to be admitted for any purpose. * The
plan, material, and dimensions of the collegiate buildings
were most particularly specified, but insuperable archi-
tectural difficulties prevented these directions from being
carried out to the letter. To support the roof of the
main building, it was necessary to erect a portico of
Corinthian columns — a lucky necessity, as it enabled
the architect to convert a very plain into a very splendid
exterior. For fifteen years the college was in embryo,
owing partly to these architectural difficulties, and partly
to others, some of which I cannot find prominent allusion
to in any of the reports or documents emanating from
the institution. There have been rumors of obstinate and
protracted litigations, but since about these xkeog olov
ccxovofiev, I know nothing about them except from hear-
say, we may pass them briefly over. One might suspect
without being very superstitious, that these delays were
the first judgment of the Almighty on an institution esta-
blished in defiance of him. At any rate, let one thing
be borne in mind, — the college has only been in opera-
tion two years. All your fine talk therefore about „ opening
a fountain of blessedness," &c. is quite gratuitous, being
* See the ninth subdivision of the twenty-first clause of his will.
founded, not on any actual experience or observation
of the workings of this particular instance, but on the
general assumption, that the acquisition of knowledge or
mental improvement must necessarily in all cases be a
blessing, which is notoriously a disputed point. If we
come to a priori reasoning on the matter, it might be
urged with quite as much plausibility, that an educational
institution based on such a principle as the systematic
exclusion of all definite Christianity, could not, from its
very nature, prosper. Indeed, this clause has been a great
stumbling block to the various eulogists of Mr. Girard,
and it is painfully amusing to see the various attempts
they make to gloss it over. They lay great stress on
the fact, that he does not express any hostility to Chris-
tianity, but only a fear of the "clashing doctrines" and
"controversy" of "such a multitude of sects." Now, as
Christianity is made up of the various denominations of
Christians, this is something like cutting off a man's limbs
piecemeal while professing not to hurt the man himself.
The children are to be brought up "sober, truthful, in-
dustrious," "according to the purest principles of mora-
lity ;" * there is nothing said about their being brought
up Christians^ and certainly they are not to be brought
up according to the tenets of any denomination or de-
nominations of Christians, all such teaching being strin-
gently excluded from the college. And as all Christians
belong to some denomination, if Mr. Girard intended that
his scholars should be Christians, either he must have
looked forward to their constituting a sect of their own,
or he must have had some idea of a general Christian,
without any distintive rites or theological opinions, like
the general man of Plato, and those who, after him, be-
lieved in the independent existence of general ideas apart
from their individual attributes — which is a very inge-
nious metaphysical notion (though even as that, it is now
pretty much exploded ,) but not to be carried out , or
conceived of as able to be carried out, in real practical
life. It is possible that one of these alternatives may
have been in Stephen Girard's mind ; it is more probable
that, not being really a Christian, though he nominally
belonged to the Romish Church, he did not see the use
* See the same clause of the will
10
of Christianity, while, as a keen practical man, he had
a sharp eye for the abuses of sectarian polemics. In-
dustry, temperance, veracity, all the business virtues, he
adored, but had not sufficiently enlightened views to per-
ceive the intimate dependence of "the purest principles
of morality" on the Chirstian religion. Hence his scheme
of turning all clergymen bodily out of the college, be-
cause different sects have a tendency to wrangle, which
seems to me about on a par with the conduct of a man
who should found an asylum, and because there are Al-
lopaths, and Homoeopaths, and Hydropaths, and various
other paths and ways of killing and curing, the followers
of which are accustomed to abuse one another respec-
tively, should prohibit every M. D. whatsoever from en-
tering the premises of the said asylum.
One effect of this restriction, I think, must be ob-
vious to any one who considers the matter seriously. It
has a perilous tendency to give the scholars a prejudice
against all clergymen. These orphans are fed, clothed,
and taught gratuitously, they naturally are grateful to
their benefactor, and learn to respect his memory and
value his opinions. They find out that no ministers of
the Gospel are allowed to enter the college. If they in-
quire into the reason of this prohibition, it will reach
their minds in some such form as this — that it was be-
cause ministers of different sects are apt to quarrel. I
do not see how the prestige can be otherwise than un-
favorable. As Mr. G. intended that the children should
be left to "adopt such religious tenets as their maturer
reason mitjht enable them to prefer," he probably was
afraid of their acquiring a prejudice in favor of some
denomination while at college , which would be most
effectively prevented by giving them an impartial pre-
judice against the ministers of alt denominations.
One word more before taking leave of Stephen Gi-
rard. The desire of immortality embraces this world as
well as the next. Man longs to perpetuate his name
upon earth. Most of us ol ttoIIoI seek to do it in the
way alluded to by Plato. Great spirits do it by splen-
did achievements of genius. Girard was not in a posi-
tion to continue his name and memory by either of these
methods. He had no family ; he was not a distinguished
man in politics, science, or literature. All his greatness
n
consisted in his fortune. This, and his name in connec-
tion with it, he could preserve only by leaving it for
some public object ; and the dispostion which he did make
of it, for the instruction of men's minds to the neglect
of their souls, was not exactly the best conceivable, nor
the most likely to "open a fountain of blessedness to the
end of time."
John Jacob Astor, like Stephen Girard, w^as a for-
eigner, who settled in this country and made a large
fortune by mercantile pursuits. Unlike him, he had a
family ; unlike him, too, he aspired to be something more
than a mere man of business. Though not a liberally
educated man, he enjoyed the society of literary men ;
though possessing no extraordinary means of political
information or training, he saw further into the interests,
capacities, and destiny of the country of his adoption,
than those who were at the head of the government. He
had visions of founding a great colony, and these visions
were only prevented becoming realities by the short-
sightedness of our rulers. It would be superfluous for
me to dilate upon the circumstances of his Pacific ex-
pedition and settlement : they have already been cele-
brated by the one man in America most capable of doing
them justice. Mr. Astor asked of the government but
one sloop of war and a lieutenant's commission for him-
self ; with these he promised to defend the territory since
so famous as the Oregon, and he could have done it,
for the aborigines there were then our friends. Our go-
vernment did not see the importance of the region, and
sufl'ered it to be captured by the British, and aferwards,
under the treaty of joint occupation, to fall virtually into
the hands of the Hudson's Bay Company, who acquired
the confidence of and control over the nalxves. The con-
sequences of this oversight were, first, that during a
period of nearly thirty years enormous profits, which
would otherwise have accrued to American citizens, flowed
into the pockets of British subjects 5 and, secondly, that
at the end of that time the question of disputed territory
tore open old wounds, revived the worst animosities which
had been rapidly dying away, and nearly involved the
two countries in a terrible war. The clear head which
would have prevented these losses and mischiefs distinctly
foresaw them. After the treaty of Ghent was concluded,
12
Mr. Astor said to his friend, Albert Gallatin, "I am very
much pleased with all that you gentlemen, [the Commis-
sioners,] have done^ but there are some things which you
ought not to have left undone. You should have settled
more definitely the question of the Columbia territory."
Mr. Gallatin w'as a most able and longheaded man, but
even he did not appreciate the correctness of his friend's
views, and attributed to personal feelings the importance
which Mr. A. attached to the subject. He answered with
a smile, ''Never mind, Mr. Astor, it will be time enough
for our great-grandchildren to talk about that in two
hundred years." "If we live," replied the other, "we
shall see trouble about it in less than forty years." He
lived to see his prediction verified within the given time.
And this is the man whom you represent as a mere skin-
flint, who had no idea beyond his money-bags.
When Mr. Astor found that his efforts for the public
benefit w^ere not understood, he did what it would be
well if more people did now-a-days — he confined him-
self to his own business, and by it amassed a fortune,
stated by his executors to be a little less, but generally
presumed to be a little more than eight millions of dol-
lars. Of this he bequeathed the great bulk to his eldest
son, a respectable competence to his daughter and grand-
children, fifty thousand dollars to the poor of his native
village in Germany, and four hundred thousand for the
establishment of a public library in this city.
It is not generally considered that Mr. Astor's will
was in all respects an equitable one , and I certainly
should be the last to maintain that it was. But, be this
as it may, it has nothing to do with the question between
us, for you do not blame John Jacob Astor because he
left too littl^ to some of his relatives, but because he
left anything to any of them.
To return , then , to the Astor Library. It is very
easy to sneer at a bequest of "only half a million, or
less than half a million of dollars ;" words cost nothing,
and any man can afford to be liberal of another's pro-
perty. But I maintain that the endow^ment is not a des-
picable one, whether considered positively in itself or
comparatively with reference to Mr. Astor's fortune. It
is not an every-day occurrence for a man to leave even
one-sixteenth of his property to the public, and the sum
13
left is sufficient to establish a library much superior to
any now existing in the country. And I assert, that the
disposition of this money was a particularly good and
wise one, and that the institution is eminently calculated
to be a benefit and an honor to this city. It is less
grand and imposing than the Girard College ; there is
less of it ; but it is also less open to objection , and in
some points more calculated to command respect. How,
for instance, would the two institutions strike an intel-
ligent foreigner ? An Englishman comes here, or is sent
here by authority, to observe the state of education and
knowledge among us. According to the natural order of
things he is a clergyman, education in England being
placed almost entirely in the hands of that class. In
the one case, he finds a library open to all decent people
and well provided with valuable works of all sorts ; he is
politely received by the accomplished and learned super-
intendent, and, after seeing all that is to be seen, is in-
formed that the trustees will be much obliged to him if
he can, from his special professional knowledge or other-
wise, suggest any books which the library ought to, but
does not possess. In the other, he has a very fine view
of the outside of a grand edifice, which he is not permitted
to enter for fear of causing disputes and controversy ! *
It is not, however, my present intention to elaborate
a panegyric upon my grandfather, nor was the vindica-
tion of his memory from your attack my only or princi-
pal motive for addressing you this letter. That attack
was but an individual instance of misrepresentation ; there
are general opinions broadly announced in your lecture
which provoke animadversion — opinions which are often
* There is a story on record of a "professional" (I am not sure
but it was Mr. Thomas Hyer himself, the champion of the American
turf) going to Philadelphia on a spree. According to the custom of
such persons in America when out on a holiday, he was got up in
a very precise suit of black. To be sure he had not a white cravat
but there are many "denominations" who do not regard this as essen-
tial. Among other lionizings he went to take a peep at the Girard
College and was refused admittance, on which he expressed his sur-
prise and indignation in very strong language — such language that,
if reported for drawing-room reading it would require to be written
down with a great many blanks and dashes. "Oh I beg your pardon
sir" exclaimed the janitor as soon as he heard the emphatic expletives,
pray walk in. I really mistook you for a clergyman.
14
promulgated in disreputable quarters, but which I never
before detected coming from a respectable source.
On your 61st page I find these words : "Vast for-
tunes are a misfortune to the state. They confer irrespon-
sible power ; and human nature, except in the rarest in-
stances, has proved incapable of wielding irresponsible
power without abuse. The feudalism of capital is not a
whit less formidable than the feudalism of force. The
millionaire is as dangerous to the welfare of the com-
munity in our day, as was the baronial lord of the Middle
Ages."
Such language coming from a man in your position
should be characterized as it deserves, without any eu-
phemism or affectation of delicacy. It is perilous non-
sense : it is a groundless and wicked absurdity. How is
the millionaire dangerous to the community ? What spe-
cial privileges has he ? What exemption from the law ?
What attribute of feudalism or aristocracy ? In what pos-
sible sense is he irresponsible? What power does his
money give him to infringe on the rights of others, or
to force their consciences ? What can he do to divert
the course of justice, or to modify the expression of the
popular voice ? Is there a millionaire in New-York or
Boston who could change the vote of his own coachman ?
To talk of the political influence of a rich man in this
country, is like talking of a Highlander's trousers, or an
antirenter's honesty, or Northern aggressions on the South,
or anything which is notoriously nothing at all. It is
a subject proper only for metaphysical treatises like Plato's
Sophist, which discuss the existence of non-existences. Or
is the rich man able to pervert justice and wrap the in-
tegrity of our tribunals ? Desire of popularity _, and fear
of opposing the tide of public opinion, have, it must be
owned with shame, sometimes exercised an undue influ-
ence on judges and jurors and counsel, but I think it
would not be possible to produce, from the annals of
our jurisprudence, a single case in which a suitor has
obtained more than his due, or a criminal escaped the
punishment due him, by the mere power of his wealth.
Having had some opportunities of observing what power
and influence wealth really does confer among us, I have
found it to amount usually to this, that if a man is rich
and known to be liberal in the way of entertaining, he
15
will find some half-dozen people to toady him for the
sake of his dinners.
In fact, so far from a rich man's having any unfair
advantage in the community, he labors under many po-
sitive disadvantages ; so far from his being to treat others
unfairly, he is continually liable to be unfairly treated
himself. The popular prejudice is always against him,
whether he is a party in a law-suit, or a mover in any
public matter, or whether he merely expresses an opinion.
Let me relate an anecdote which I do not merely "be-
lieve," but know to be authentic. Two American gentle-
men meet abroad, one a youth just emerging into man-
hood, with some literary taste and intellectual promise,
the other a middle-aged man of the world , with much
political and social experience. Says the junior, in the
course of a long talk about things at home, "When I
return, I mean to wTite a series of pamphlets on such
and such subjects," (naming certain leading questions of
the day.) "You had better save yourself the trouble,"
replies his older and more experienced friend, "for the
very fact of your being a rich man will destroy any
weight that your suggestions might otherwise have." In-
deed, not only the actual possession, but the bare repu-
tation or suspicion of wealth, will often annihilate a man's
public influence, and make him distrusted. A person with
wealthy connections and refined habits will readily incur
the penalty of being denounced as a millionaire and an
aristocrat — convertible terms of opprobrium with many
scribblers here. *
If we look for the cause of this treatment, we shall
not be very far wrong in attributing it to the spirit of
envy^ which modern democracy produces and fosters. There
has been a great deal said about the peculiar dangers
of democracy, and the various abuses to w^hich our po-
* I do not mean to say that there is no aristocracy in the coun-
try — that is to say, no set or sets of men who use their own, so
as to abuse their neighbors, who infringe upon other people's rights,
and exercise a tyranny over other people's amusements and occupa-
tions. There is a sufficiency of such aristocracy among us ; so far
as my observation has extended, it is composed chiefly of the follow-
ing classes: 1st, Omnibus drivers — 2d, Hotelkeepers — 3d, News-
paper editors — 4th, Blackguards and rowdies generally, such as the
people who stormed the Opera House, and drove Macready out of
New- York.
16
litical and socicl forms are prone ; but it really does
seem to me, that this, which has never to my knowledge
been specially dwelt upon by any writer on the subject,
is the very worst evil chargeable on democracy. As soon
as a man does anything, or has anything done to him,
to put him above others in any way, he violates the first
article of the democratic creed, "Every man's as good
as another."* Instead of a legitimate source of pride,
as he would be in most countries, he becomes an object
of suspicion and hatred. We see the greatest and worst
development of this feeling in the universally admitted
fact, that to be a great statesman, and generally acknow-
ledged as such, is precisely the way not to become Pre-
sident of the United States, and the little germs of it
are traceable in the petty local dislikes felt for, and
annoyances aimed at, any man who happens to have a
finer house, larger library, or better appointed equipage,
than his neighbors. True, as the spirit of admiration for
superiority is natural to man, and not to be altogether
eradicated by any adverse influences, there are some kinds
of excellence which still command honor among us. In
the South and South-West, military glory is at a premium,
and the successful general meets with a full appreciation of
his merits. In the North and East, literature, up to a
certain point, is very popular ; indeed, it finds great sym-
pathy as a very excellent democratic pursuit, almost
every third man or woman being, in some sense or non-
sense of the term, an author. And a literary man stands
more chance of being spoiled by flattery, than soured by
detraction — unless he should dare to oppose the cur-
rent of any popular opinion ; in that case , all his talent
cannot save him. With these exceptions, it may be safely
affirmed, that as soon as a man becomes conspicuous
for anything, so soon is he slandered and hated; and
of no class of persons is this truer than those whom you
stigmatize as "equally dangerous to the community \vith
the baronial lords of the Middle Ages."
Take an obvious example. Our newspapers, which
are generally conducted by average specimens of the
* It is hardly necessary to observe, that I do not use the words
democracy and democrats in their technical party sense. I am quite
aware that you are called a whig, and sometimes vote with the
whigs in Congress.
17
people at large, which, collectively, exercise an immense
influence on public opinion, and in return, pretend with
tolerable truth to be a reflex of that opinion, have with
a few honorable exceptions, a special penchant for abus-
ing rich men, and inventing or circulating things to their
prejudice. If a rich man is in business, of course he is
making his money by dishonest practices. If not in bu-
siness, he must necessarily be idle, and therefore vicious,
it being a matter of course that a man cannot be occu-
pied, unless he is visible so many hours a day in a store
or office, and equally so, that he must be a votary of
dissipation unless he goes through a certain routine of
work every morning. If he gives money for any public
object, he is not praised for his liberality, but abused
for not giving more. If he spends his wealth in fostering
art or literature, he ought to have built hospitals or free-
schools with it. If he is in any trouble or affliction, a
great shout of joy is set up, and the afi'air is placarded
as much as possible. Now, these gentlemen of the press
know pretty well their own pecuniary interests, whatever
may be their ignorance on other important points ; and
with all their horror of rich men, have a knack of filling
their own pockets comfortably ; and they would not be
so ready to abuse the wealthy, unless it paid to do it.
And now, sir, you, by incorrect and mischievous
assertions, made deliberately, and in a most public man-
ner, are doing your best to aid and abet, and increase
this prejudice and tyranny of an unjust public opinion.
What can have been your motive or reason, or ex-
cuse, for so doing ? It is just possible that having, among
other hobbies, ridden that of abolition pretty hard, and
having become thoroughly imbued with a detestation of
the injustice involved in the idea of a slaveholding mil-
lionaire , you have come , by that confusion of similar
ideas, which is the commonest of American fallacies, to
associate wealth with oppression^ so that you deem the
factory operative the slave of the factory owner, the
servant of the master, and generally the employed of the
employer. To this suspicion, a color is lent by the sen-
tence on your next page, "The power of money is as
imperial as the power of the sword, and I may as well
depend upon another man for my head as for my bread."
Now, I will not stop to expose the inapplicability of such
Vol. IV. 2
18
a supposition to our country, — that has been done al-
ready often enough. I will only say, if you really believe
this, then you are the most inconsistent of men in keep-
ing up an agitation in and out of Congress, against Southern
slavery — you are a most gratuitous and unwarrantable
meddler in pouring out the vials of your wrath on the
inhabitants of one part of the country, for practising
exactly what exists, by your own statement, under a
different form in your own part of the country. And the
representatives from Carolina and Georgia, who tell you
to go home and mind your own business, for your labor-
ing classes are as badly off as their slaves, will be per-
fectly in the right. I had always supposed, that when
the fierce strife of words arose in our national halls of
legislation between Northerner and Southerner, that it
was because the white laborer here was not to be com-
pared to the black slave there, — because it was a foul
wrong and a vile slander, to make the comparison, —
because the good people of Ohio had sent "Tom Corwin
the waggoner's boy" to the Federal Senate, and the wood-
sawyer's son sat next to the ex-President's in the schools
of Boston, — that the Representatives of Northern labor
— Horace Mann among them — were so eager to repel
the taunt and invective of the slaveholder, and to roll
back upon him his arrogant assertion. To be sure, I
have not read Congressional speeches very attentively,
nor am I curious in discovering how far the meridian
under which a man is speaking influences his assertions
and arguments. But no ! it cannot be. A man like you
must know better than this. I am forced to conclude
that you were tempted by the euphonious jingle of "bread"'
and "head," and the desire, like Mr. Pecksniff, of turning
an elegant period, without being particularly solicitous
that it should mean anything.
Even at the South , it would not be correct to say
wealth exercises a dangerous or injurious influence. The
evil is, not that one man holds three slaves, and another
three thousand, but that any man holds slaves at all.
There is a ruling class and a subject class ; the one race
oppresses the other; but there is no social or political
oppression exercised by particular members of the ruling
class over the rest of their body. Among the whites
there is as much, or nearly as much equality as at the
19
North. The Virginians, for instance, are known to be
all on a level, every man we meet from the state be-
longing to "one of the first families" in it. But this, by
the way.
I was trying to find your reason for a very un-
reasonable proposition which you had laid down. The
first attempt being unsuccessful, we must try again. A
few lines lower, on the same page, (the 62d,) I find this
sentence :
"Weighed in the balances of the sanctuary, or even
in the clumsy scales of human justice, there is no equity
in the allotments which assign to one man but a dollar
a day with working, while another has an income of a
dollar a minute without working."
The clumsy scales of human justice have always
allowed one man to be richer than another. The balance
of the sanctuary allows one man to be stronger, hand-
somer, healthier, wiser, than another. Is inequality in all
things injustice ? Very possibly you hope to annihilate
all these inequalities, by observance of the physical laws,
and to make men all equal in health, strength, beauty
and intelligence, as well as in property. If your allusion
to the Divine government of the world is intended to
mean anything, you must have some such vision. As to
the human part of the proposition, if, I say again, your
assertion means anything, it is mere absolute Socialism.
This man lives in a fine house without having to work.
I have to work, and am poor. This is unjust to me. I
have as good a right to the money as he has, and if
ever I grow strong enough, am justified in seizing it. La
propriete c'est le vol.
It is an old story to expose such fallacies, but when
they are repeated and endorsed by a man of your posi-
tion and character , it seems necessary to take some no-
tice of them, even at the risk of saying over again what
has been better said a thousand times before. What is
work ? Is there no work but carrying a hoe or wield-
ing a spade ? Is all work equally valuable ; or is the
value of work to the community to be measured by the
physical labor expended, or the time occupied in it ? Sup-
posing one man , by his mechanical ingenuity and study
and enterprize, produces an invention which adds millions
every year to the wealth of his country ; is it unjust that
2*
20
he should get some droppings of the golden shower, and
enjoy a large fortune for the rest of his life ? Is it not
bare justice and honesty on the part of the nation, acting
as between man and man, to allow him this advantage?
Nay , more ; as he may , in many instances , not have
achieved his task till arrived at a time of life when it
is too late for him to get the full enjoyment of his worldly
wealth, is it unjust that he should be allowed to bequeath
it to his nearest and dearest relatives ? Such a state of
things is a direct analogy with the moral government o'f
the world, under which, as you yourself have taken pains
to show, (p. 19,) the bodily and mental defects and ex-
cellencies of the parents are very frequently inherited by
the children. Suppose a man has written a book that
will last as long as the language in which it is written,
and give pleasure and profit to millions of readers for
successive ages. If he happens to get more than a usual
share of the good things of the world, ought we to cry
out against this as an injustice ? Ought we not rather
to pray that it might happen oftener ? Suppose he prac-
tises a literary leisure in the intervals of composition,
and cannot positively be said to do anything for some
months in the year, — is he entitled to no more indul-
gence than the hod-carrier at a dollar a day, whose in-
fluence upon society is confined to the number of houses
he helps to build, unless he chances to break his neigh-
bor's head, and figure in the police reports of the day?
The "injustice" will hardly hold good then, I think, any
more than the "Feudality." But perhaps rich people are
dangerous to the community, from the mischief they do
in a negative way, by their idleness. You are terribly
severe upon idleness as "the most absurd of absurdities,
and the most shameful of shames." But here, again, it
is necessary to examine into the signification of our words.
By idleness^ you evidently mean independence — the ab-
sence of a fixed, imperative daily occupation, and the
freedom to choose and vary one's occupation from day
to day. This is clear by your illustration of "wealth
that breeds idleness," the English peerage. This exemple
struck me the more, because at the very time of reading
your pamphlet, I happened to be in daily communication
with a member of that peerage, a very young man, heir
apparent to one of the most distinguished titles in his
21
country, and a harder working man of his age, or one
in a more complete state of training, physical and men-
tal, I have never met with. He is not obliged to labor
for his bread at any fixed occupation, and therefore you
would call him a "bivalve" and other hard names, but
he does the work of two men every day of his life, and
his services to the community of which he is a member,
are worth those of a great many day-laborers or clerks
put together. I have known or met a number of young
men of the same class, not all equally learned or intel-
ligent, but all of them decidedly men , who had, by study
or exercise, made the most of what natural gifts they
possessed, and were very respectably qualified to take
part in the government of their country ; and would be
the first to turn out and fight for it, if it were threatened
from abroad.
With regard to the "specimens which are beginning
to abound here," I fear it must be conceded that their
time is not always so diligently or profitably employed.
But they have the excuse that, owing to the popular
prejudice already alluded to, the most natural as well
as most honorable path of duty is virtually closed against
them.
But let us go a little farther into first principles. I
positively deny that the absence of occupation is neces-
sarily in itself a disgraceful absurdity, and I still more
positively deny that work is necessarily in itself honorable
and profitable. A great deal of idleness is from its very
nature innocuous. A great deal of occupation is directly
mischievous. One of two brothers lives quietly and la-
zily in the house of his fathers ; the other works all day
to pull it down, having no means to provide a new one.
He is occupied intensely — but would it not better for
himself and the family, that he should emulate his bro-
her's idleness ? A demagogue — lecturer , member of
Congress, or otherwise — exerts himself to foster social
or sectional prejudices, to set one class, or one interest,
or one division of a country, against another ; he is very
busily employed ; but is he not more mischievous in his
influence on society than the club -room lounger, who
plays billiards half the morning ? There are many hard-
working people whom it would be a mercy to mankind
to keep quiet, and not a few idle people whom I, for
22
one, should be very sorry to see attempting any business.
Add to this, that a great deal of what popularly passes
for idleness is in its results very effective performance,*
and you have somewhat of a case made out for the man
of no fixed daily occupation.
The purport of the preceding paragraphs (somewhat
desultory, I confess, but not altogether undesignedly so,
from a desire to view the subject in several lights,) is
that the capitalists of this country are, neither as a class
nor as individuals, possessed of any unjust power in the
state, or in any way dangerous to the community — which
indeed one would think must be a truism to any man of
ordinary intelligence, information and honesty.
Discussing the powers of a class naturally brings us
to the discussion of their responsibilities ^ since responsi-
bility is directly proportioned to power. And since in
this case you exaggerate the power, it is to be expected
that you should exaggerate the responsibility also. Since
you compare the power of wealthy republicans to that
of feudal barons, we may well suppose that you will
expect them to exert as much influence on the state of
society. But your notion of responsibiliy is the queerest
ever heard of, for it consists in holding the man respon-
sible for precisely that which he does not do and cannot
prevent. ** Because some shameless woman lives by pro-
stitution, it is wrong for Mr. A. to go to the Opera. Be-
cause some vagabond gets drunk and beats his wife, Mr.
B. "incurs enormous guilt" in buying a Turner or sitting
to Gray for his portrait. Because some Irishman, under
the baneful direction of his priest, will not let his children
go to school, Mr. C. is a monster of iniquity for "walling
himself in" with a large library. We are just about as
much responsible for these things as you are for the
existence of slavery in the state of Georgia, and by the
sacrifice of all "our superfluous wealth and time" could
do about as much to prevent them as you could to put
down slavery by devoting all your spare Congressional
* "Imagine an active bustling little prsetor under Augustus, how
he probably pointed out Horace to his sons , as a moony kind of
man, whose ways were much to be avoided, and told them it was a
weakness in Augustus to like such idle men about him, instead of
men of business." — Helps' Friends in Council
** Pp. 60 and 82.
pay to buying up the slaves of Mr. Toombs, or by going
yourself into the great but barbarous nation of South Caro-
lina, and getting yourself torn to pieces by the savage
inhabitants.
Certainly there is one case in which men of fortune
and leisure in a large city are responsible for the vice
and misery in it — when, by their bad example, they
tend to increase both. If they frequent gambling hells
and other haunts of dissipation, if they patronize the
black-leg and the bawd, if they waste in dishonor what
their fathers honorably acquired — then they, in common
with the members of other classes who participate in these
practices, lie under the awful responsibility of having pro-
duced misery by encouraging vice. But unless it can be
shown that such melancholy examples are more common
in the wealthiest class than in any other, it is unfair and
absurd to throw^ upon it the whole responsibility. And
I make bold to say, that whether in point of obedience
to the laws of the land or to the requisitions of morality,
this much abused class will compare favorably with the
rest of society. Those members of it who are still making
money, are too much engrossed with their business to do
mischief to any one ; and if the younger portion has some
follies, such as dancing ten hours a day in New- York,
or training fast horses in Philadelphia, or making bad
copies of good pictures in Boston, these frivolities are
injurious only to themselves, and very far from exercising
a feudal tyranny over the rest of the community. It would
be as reasonable to say that the butterfly was a danger-
ous member of the animal kingdom, or to hold it respon-
sible for the misdeeds of the lion and the hyena.
I wonder it never occurred to you, that by exag-
gerating the power of money, you were furnishing a fear-
ful stimulus to the pursuit of wealth for improper motives.
True, you may say, "I have furnished the antidote along
with the bane ;" but the bane affects the very persons
who will not be affected by the antidote. You inflame
a young man's imagination, by suggesting to him the ac-
quisition of an extra-legal, irresponsible power, giving
as a reason for his not wishing to seek wealth, the very
thing that will make him desire it ; nor does the Hibernian
after-thought of exaggerating the responsibility of the
irresponsible power mend the matter at all. It is like
24
the play of Jack Sheppard, where the final execution of
the robber-hero does not present a moral sufficient to
counterbalance the previous fascinating exhibition of his
free and easy life.
But there is one power which the rich man has, not
only not dangerous, but in the highest degree beneficial
to the community. It is the power of encouraging Art
and Literature. And since the taste which energizes this
power is more usually developed in the second genera-
tion than in the first, it is rather to be desired than de-
precated, that we had more men educated to spend money.
I wish most heartily that there were more men among
us able to incur the enormous guilt of having large libraries,
and beautiful picture galleries. For as to saying that
these things should be the work of the State, which is
the dream of some people, it would be as reasonable to
suppose, that virtuous laws and institutions could prevail
in a nation individually profligate, as that a people can
encourage art and literature, if the individuals composing
it are semi-literate, (if I may be allowed to coin a word
for the occasion,) and unsesthetic.
Here, however, we come to a direct issue. So far
from thinking the encourgement of literature and the arts
desirable for and glorious to a nation, you view them as
comparatively useless, if not altogether pernicious.
This is, after all, our great cause of quarrel. Had
it not been for these disparaging remarks of yours, I
should probably have remained silent. But, a delighted
worshipper of art, and, it would be absurd to say a li-
terary man, but I may say, a constant and devoted stu-
dent of literature — one who believes these to be two
mighty influences toward, and tests of, civilization, is
disposed to resent most promptly, from motives of duty
as well as feeling, all assaults made upon them by either
the Puritan or the Utilitarian. Your remarks, certainly
more honest and undisguised than any I have met with
in writers of the same school, go very far to confirm
the opinion authorised by many able men, that the pre-
sent spirit of radicalism, and self-styled "progress," is
progress the wrong way, destructive of civilization and
cultivation, and altogether barbarizing in its tendency.
On the subject of the Fine Arts, I shall not say
much. A certain amount of sympathy with them, and
25
appreciation of them , (which may exist without any
practical ability of performance in them,) seems neces-
sary to any person before he can be put on common
ground with their advocates. They are like the Spanish
mariner in the ballad —
"Yo no digo esta cancion sino a quien comigo va."
'^Wouldst thou learn my galley's secret ?
With my galley thou must go."
A man may be ignorant of music in a scientific point
of view ; he may be unable to explain critically its bene-
ficial influence on himself and others ; but if he cannot
feel, and does not acknowledge any such influence, it
seems to me there must be something radically wrong
about him. A poet who is usually allowed to be a great
master of human nature, though he did live before the
spiritual laws were discovered by the craniologists, has
said —
"The man who hath no music in himself,
^ ^ ^ '^ ^
Let no such man be trusted^
I very much fear that Horace Mann has no music
in himself, and is not to be trusted for an opinion on
the virtue and value of music. About painting you have
said more. Here you lay great stress on an antagonism
which has no existence. You extol the beauties of na-
ture, and commend them to our contemplation, instead
of those of art. * Now, not only is there no natural an-
tipathy or incompatibility between the two pursuits, but
they naturally go together, and reciprocally encourage
and help each other. Who is a more ardent admirer and
diligent student of nature than the landscape-painter ?
He could not he a landscape-painter if he were not.
This eye for nature is the first requisite in his art. And
what makes one more anxious to see a striking or beau-
tiful place, than the sight of a truthful and competent
representation of it ? People who have learned to ap-
preciate the beauties of art, have acquired, pari passu,
a deep appreciation of natural beauty. People who
* Pp. 49, 50.
26
systematically despise and ignore art, are ready to practise
any barbarity upon nature. I have seen men who, standing
before Raphael's Transfiguration, audibly wished they
had half the money it cost ; and I have seen the same
men reading newspapers, when they had only to lift their
eyes to behold the most gorgeous autumnal sunset. The
utilitarian who sneers at the expenditure of five thousand
dollars for a picture, would be the first man to build a
rag mill over a cascade, or drain a lake for an acre of
pasture ground. A Mr. Jervis, engineer of a railroad
company, recommended a route which defaces the whole
east bank of the Hudson, as far as the road extends,
and one of his avowed reasons was, that the appearance
of the shore would be improved by cutting away its
sharp curves, and filling up its bays ! There is a fair
specimen of the veneration for nature, that you may ex-
pect from an unartistic and unsesthetic man.
But your observations on literature merit a more
careful examination and discussion, for the extraordinary
fallacies which they involve, and that too on a subject
which one cannot suppose you ignorant of, or incompetent
to appreciate. The first Secretary of the Massachusetts
Board of Education must be , I should think , to some
extent, a literary man. Yet we find you undervaluing
literature, because it is not something different from it-
self, because it is not intimately connected with some-
thing, with which it cannot possibly be intimately con-
nected. You begin with a very ad capiandum antithesis.
„ Literature is mainly conversant with the works of man,
while science deals with the works of God ; and the
difference in the subject matter of the two, indicates the
differerence in their relative value, and in the power and
happiness they can respectively bestow" — (p. 51.) The
statement is very effective, but it is obtained only by
leaving out a considerable portion of the truth on both
sides. In the first place, literature is conversant, not only
with the works of man, but with the mind of man, the
greatest of all God's works in this world. Here the li-
terary men had the start of the metaphysicians by hundreds
and thousands of years. But, further, when the poet
celebrates in song the beauties of nature, is he not dealing
with the works of God ? When the scientific man writes
or lectures about pumps, and pulleys, and screws, and
27
levers; and all sorts of mechanism, is he not conversant
with the works of man ? No doubt , he does frequently
deal with the works of God. Mr. Jervis was dealing with
the works of God, when he defaced the most beautiful
rivrr in the world ; and very foul dealing it is sometimes,
and a great bore to the said works, and not all calculated
to improve the mind. Suppose I were to begin an ar-
gument with such a sentence as this, ''Literature is con -
versant with mind, while science deals with matter, and
the difference in the subject of the two indicates the dif-
ference in their respective value." You would cry out
against the unfairness of the assumption, but it w^ould
be just as fair as yours, which asserts of the w^hole field
of literature what is true only of one subordinate depart-
ment of it — criticism.
"A vast proportion of our literature consists of what
had been written, or is a reproduction of what had been
written before the truths of modern science w^ere dis-
covered."
And what if it was ? So far as this has any bearing
on its value, it would be as much to the purpose to say,
that it had been written before M. Soyer invented the
omelette a la Beelzebub^ or Horace Greeley set up the
New- York Tribune. Do men go to the historian, the
dramatist, or the poet, to learn natural science, or tech-
nical metaphysics? Does it enter into their vocation to
teach such things ? Did any man who knew the meaning
of words ever ask it of them? And if not, how are
they, in their literary capacity, concerned by the progress
of science? To insist on condemning literature, because
is has been developed faster than science, is a most ex-
traordinary instance of inability to discriminate between
two things essentially different. For not only does lite-
rature not depend upon science for any of its essentials,
but any attempt to transfer the language of the one to
the other, is, ipso facto ^ an inconvenience, an absurdity,
or a burlesque. In mathematical science, for instance,
the excellence of a proposition is, that it be expressed
in the fewest words, consistent with intelligibility; in-
deed, symbols are used as much as possible to the ex-
clusion of words. Any ornament is not merely superfluous,
but injurious. The science of law, though not exactly
similar in respect of brevity, is equally sedulous to avoid
28
the ornaments and graces of language. And, generally,
the unpoetical suggestions and tendencies of science are
all but proverbial. When, therefore, you say, that "All
science may be invested with the charms of literature,''
(p. 52,) and that "there is no reason why literature should
not hereafter be founded on science," (p. 54,) your con-
ceit is not merely impossible, but farcical. Every word
in it is a joke, to which the Loves of the Trianqles^ and
Punch's Lays of the Acids and Alkalies, are sober seri-
ousness.
That the progress of natural science should have
influence on Theology, was natural enough ; and at one
or two epochs there has seemed danger of their inter-
fering. Happily the danger w^as only seeming. The wisest
men have agreed that Genesis and Geology are recon-
cilable, and that Joshua's commanding the sun to stand
still does not altogether disprove the authenticity of the
Old Testament. It is generally admitted that the Scrip-
tures were not written to teach men natural science.
Yet there was at least a speciousness in the claim
that our religious standard should conform to the progress
of modern scientific discovery ; but to insist on such a
conformity in our literary standards, or to condemn them
for not possessing it, has no such excuse ; because, first,
the things are totally different in themselves, and secondly,
the facts of the case abundantly refute you, it being, for
instance, well known that while the ancient Greeks were
very badly off for physical science, their literary works
take rank with any since produced. If I were to urge
against the value of some recent discovery in Medicine,
Astronomy, or Mechanics, that it was made in an age
which could boast of few great literary men, you would
laugh at the irrelevancy of my objection ; yet this would
be the very counterpart of your charge against the "vast
proportion of our literature," that it was written before
the truths of modern science were discovered.
Again I find, about a page farther on, that the same
"vast proportion of the existing literature has as little
relation to metaphysical 1;ruth as the speculations of the
schoolmen before the time of Bacon had to physical laws.
It is not more true that Aristotle and his followers in-
vented laws for nature which she never owned, and ex-
plained her phenomena on principles that never existed,
29
than it is that most of those works which we call works
of the imagination assume the existence of spiritual laws,
such as the spirit of man never knew, and therefore pro-
duce results of action and character, such as all experience
repudiates. Hence it is, that I would commend science
more than literature, as an improver of the mind."
Hence it is. Voild pourquoi votre fille est muette. The
milk in the cocoa-nut is now satisfactorily accounted for.
But let lis examine the premises of this luminous inference
with a little care. "Metaphysical truth." Does this re-
fer to mere technical and formal metaphysics, or to those
practical metaphysics which constitute what is called a
knowledge of character and human nature, and enable
the writer to portray human nature accurately. If to the
latter, is is positively incorrect and contrary to the facts
of the case. Have the great poets, dramatists and no-
velists, from Homer and Sophocles to Shakespeare and
Scott, displayed an ignorance of human nature, and mis-
represented it ? Are there any evidences that the wri-
ters of the present or coming generation will surpass
them in this respect? If it refers to the former, it is
altogether irrelevant, and but a repetition of your former
fallacy of confusion. But even if it were not, are you
certain that all existing science has a correct relation to
metaphysical truth. Do mathematics and metaphysics,
for example, always walk hand in hand? I have seen
mathematical text-books of reputation ^ in which funda-
mental mechanical propositions, such as the Parallelogram
of Forces, were proved by arguing in a circle. When
it comes to the Doctrine of Chances, which involves me-
taphysical as well as mathematical elements, your mere
mathematicians make the wildest work, as any one who
has the good fortune to be a good mathematician and
metaphysician both will tell you. And in one of the best
known metaphysical works of the day. Mills' System of
Logic ^ some of the most prominent examples of fallacies
are taken from received principles among physical philoso-
phers, such as the Principle of the Sufficient Reason.
But now comes the overwhelming paradox and anti-
climax of all.
"Gall, Spurzheim and Combe have done for meta-
physics, or the science of mind, as great a work as Bacon
did for physics, or the laws of matter."
t
30
This sentence, I must own, not only staggered, but
absolutely upset me, and it took me some time to recover
from it. Well, thought I, many hard things have been
said against the sciences, but it was left for Mr. Mann
to give them the unkindest cut of all, and that under the
treacherous disguise of friendship. He has thrown down
literature and the arts under their feet for them to trample
on, and it is only to degrade them the more by setting
up over their heads in the first seat the very equivocal
science of Craniology, or, as it boastfully styles itself.
Phrenology. Verily, if the great scientific lights of the
world, the great chemists, natural historians and astrono-
mers of Europe, were to hear this, methinks they would
cry out most lustily to be delivered from such friends. They
would agree that it was a decided case of non tali auxilio.
One good, however, such as it was, accrued to me
from perusing this wonderful sentence. It threw a little
light, dim to be sure, but still a little, on a portion of
your 51st page, which at first, not pretending to understand
the language in which it was written, I had passed over as a
mere blank , the words conveying no definite idea to me.
"By far the larger part of all histories, a great por-
tion of epic poetry, and almost all martial poetry, are
addressed to the brutish propensities of combativeness
and destructiveness. But physical science addresses it-
self to the noble faculty of causality, and the kindred
members of Its group, including the mathematical powers ;
and ethical science addresses itself both to causality and
to conscientiousness, and seeks also the sacred sanction
of veneration for whatever it teaches."
This, it now appears, is the comparison of literature
and science according to the craniological standard ; and
it reminds me of a craniologist I once heard lecture, who
argued that Newton and Pitt and Brougham were not by
any means great men, because they were deficient in
certain "organs." Still, however, it is not perfectly sa-
tisfactory, and leaves room for question and comment.
For instance , are "combativeness and destructiveness"
necessarily and invariably pernicious attributes, and if
so, why is your model young man, some twenty pages
farther on, to "combat hand to hand with some of those
terrific monsters that infest society" ? Or is the larger
part of all history to be disregarded and thrown aside
31
by the young man desirous of improving his mind, on
account of its appealing to these brutish propensities ?
Or is the new regime to eliminate all the combative and
destructive part out of history ? I do not pretend to
answer. Davus sum non (Edipus. If the votaries cannot
explain themselves, we, the outsiders, are not called on
to interpret them. But it seems probable that the last
supposition may be the correct one, from what follows,
where you say that "ethical philosophy and education,
as well as several other things, can never be properly
understood but in the light of their (Spurzheim and Gall's)
philosophy." Now, as this philosophy was only invented
in the year 1809, it follows that before that time there
was no proper understanding of education or ethical
science, a supposition very flattering to the vanity of the
disciples of progress, but not exactly confirmed by the record
of history or the experience of the student's researches.
Once more,
"As the science of zoology has hunted krakens, phoe-
nixes, unicorns and vampires [?] from the animal king-
dom ; as the science of astronomy has swept pestilential
and war-portending comets, and all the terrors and the
follies of astrology, from the sky ; as a knowledge of
chemistry has made the notion of charms and philters
and universal remedies, and the philosopher's stone, ridi-
culous and contemptible j as an improved knowledge of
the operations of nature around us has banished fairies,
and gnomes, and ghosts and witches, and a belief in
dreams and signs , from all respectable society ; [how
comes it then that so many craniologists believe in the
Rochester knockings ?] so will an analytical knowledge
of the faculties of the human mind, of their special func-
tions and ends, and of their related objects in the world
of matter and in the w^orld of spirit, sweep into forget-
fulness four-fifths of what is called literature." (Pp. 53-4.)
Now that four-fifths, and even a greater proportion
of the books composing the current literature of the day,
are destined to oblivion, there can be no doubt. But
this is not true of works on literature alone, it is equally
so of works on the sciences. They have the same elements
of decay, their multiplication beyond the power of peru-
sal, and the varying nature of their subject-matter —
the latter indeed to a greater extent than any merely
32
literary productions. The discoveries continually made
in the physical sciences must render a number of the books
on them obsolete ; so must the discoveries and fashions
(for there is a great deal of fashion among mathemati-
cians, though they are not generally suspected of it,) in
pure mathematics. No schools of literature have succeeded
and dethroned one another so fast as the schools of mo-
dern metaphysics. Astronomers tell us that some fixed
stars may never be visible on this earth until after they
have ceased to exist ; and in like manner , a German
writer on mental philosophy is frequently exploded and
his theory upset by his countrymen, just as England,
France, and America are beginning to take an interest
in him. Nor do the writings of the craniologists in any
way influence or accelerate the destruction of our present
literature, except by their own numercial addition to the
perishing portion of it. As to your suggestion of cranio-
logizing all future literature, it is the essence of farce.
One hardly knows how to attempt treating such a pro-
position seriously. To be sure, there are "reforms" equally
absurd to keep it in countenance. Not very long ago I
chanced to see the writings of some people who called
themselves (if I recollect rightly) Phonetics , modestly
claimed to have invented a perfect alphabet, and seriously
proposed to alter the spelling of the whole language, and
oblige every existing book to be rewritten and reprinted.
Here, then, we arrive at the great conclusions of
your advice to young men, which I have found it con-
venient to consider in a nearly inverse order • — a dogma,
that craniology is at the head of all desirable human
knowledge — another dogma, that rich men are danger-
ous to the community, — a deduction that it is wrong
to encourage literature and the arts, and a practical in-
ference that the best use a man can make of his money
is to found a systematically irreligious college with it.
"Amphora ccepit
Institui ; currente rota cur urceus exit ?"
For really, if we deduct'the dietetic maxims, very proper
in themselves, though expressed with unnecessary extra-
vagance and violence of language ; and the description
of the beauties of the natural world, gorgeous and glowing
enough to command admiration as a mere piece of writing,
33
but of no particular value in their connection; these four
points are the principal original propositions in your lecture.
Yet I must own that, to myself, the perusal of your
"Thoughts" caused no disappointment. I enjoyed the
blessing promised by Dean Swift to those who expect
nothing. I never do expect anything from modern radi-
calism. For the magnificence of its general promises is
the inverse measure of its particular performance. Its
professions and practices form a contrast that would be
amusing, were it not so lamentable. Proclaiming frater-
nity and kindred intercourse among all nations, it begins
by destroying the citizen's affection for his own country.
Preaching brotherly love and sympathy among all classes
of the community, it stimulates one class against an-
other by unfounded invectives. Denying the claims and
value of ancient lore, it confers the once honored title
of professor on every itinerant cobbler. Parading a great
show of reverence for the physical and metaphysical
sciences, it sets up over their heads the pseudo-sciences
of craniology and mesmerism. Barely deigning to believe
in God, it has no hesitation to believe in the absurdest
ghosts. Ostentatious at times in its patronage of Christia-
nity, it carefully drops out all the vitality of the system,
and virtually turns the Saviour of mankind out of his
own religion. In short, it is, in all general phraseology,
sublime and comprehensive, — in all minutiae of detail,
narrow-minded and unwise, — reminding one perpetually
of the astrologer in the fable, who was so occupied in
watching the stars, that he never saw the pit under his
nose until he tumbled into it.
Hoping that your future political and social career
may be saved from some o'f these inconsistencies, that
your philanthropic zeal may be tempered by a discrimi-
nating judgment, and the charity you feel for some classes
may be extended to all ; that you may learn to consider
a man of property as not necessarily an enemy to society,
and the claims of religion, as well as those of benevo-
lence, compatible with a love of literature and art,
I remain
Your obedient servant,
New-York, May 15, 1850, C. A. B.
Vol. IV.
34
To the Editor of the Literary World, March 18^8.
DEAE. SIR : — In submitting to your attention some
remarks suggested by your leading article of the 19th
ult., I shall not be daunted by the consideration that it
may seem "behind the time" to refer to what was writ-
ten so long ago. Some wiseacre whom I heard or read
lately, says that an article in a periodical is seldom of
any importance beyond the current week or month. I
should think that depended very much on the character
of the article and the character of the periodical. And
without shocking your modesty so far as to hint that
your papers will become Mandard classics, like the cri-
tical writings of Jeffrey, Sidney Smith, and Macaulay
(whose name it may be well to inform the accurate editor
of the Democratic Review , is not spelt Macauley), I may
certainly take it for granted that your subscribers have
fresh in their memories what you presented to them a
month, or less than a month since.
Some correspondent asked you, just for a change,
to give "a spicy and personal cut-up of an author." This
you refused to do , and your refusal must have called
forth the earnest approval of every reader. Personality
is one of the most damning vices of criticism, because,
laying aside its violation of literary and gentlemanly de-
corum, it is putting the question of a book's merits on
a totally false and irrelevant issue. And it is the more
carefully to be avoided because the temptation to it is
sometimes very great, when an author's friends and ad-
mirers will drag his private life before the public, and
insist on making a flourish of trumpets before him every
time he goes out to tea. So convinced am I of this, that
I would refrain from any approach to it, even in cases
where it has become proverbially allowable. If Gracchus
were to write a pamphlet against sedition, I would not
use a tu quoque argument against him.
But while the leading assertion of your article thus
carries its own recommendation with it, there are some
more general remarks following, which by no means so
self-evidently command assent, particularly the conclusion
you arrive at, that "that criticism is most true which
rather seeks the good than the evilj" or to put the pro-
35
position into a concrete form, that the critic is most true
who seeks rather to praise than to blame.
Now, with all due submission, it seems to me, that
the spirit of true criticism considered in the abstract, and
independently of age or country, cannot be said to have
a bias either to praise or blame, its object and purpose
being to judge impartially of works of art by rules of
art ; and that the proper animating spirit of criticism in
any age and country will depend upon contingent cir-
cumstances, viz. the wants, errors, and tendencies, of the
country and period to which it has reference.
To illustrate my meaning. Your conclusion is im-
mediately founded on a very pleasant and ingenious po-
sition of Leigh Hunt. But, before making a practical
application of his remarks to ourselves, it will be well
to examine the peculiar circumstances under which he
wrote. When he made his appearance in the critical
world, politics influenced all literary judgment in Eng-
land, and literary and political partisanships were so
mingled together, that it seemed almost impossible to
separate them. Great poets, more or less intimately
associated with Hunt himself, were depreciated, misquoted,
and abused, by the Quarterly Review, and the Tory
writers generally, on account of their political opinions.
I say on account of their political opinions, for it would
be absurd to suppose that such men as Gifford and
Southey could not discover the genius of such men as
Shelley and Keats. The public mind was thus most un-
fairly prejudiced against these poets, and it required some
competent critic to call attention to their beauties. Hunt
was the very man. His perfect good humor and gentle-
ness formed a highly prepossessing contrast to the viru-
lence of the Tory reviewers, and his fascinating style
conciliated and enticed the most bigoted. It would be
curious to inquire how many of his readers Keats owes
to Hunt. Another aim of our critic was to excite a more
general taste for some of the fathers of English poetry,
and especially for Chaucer. In this too he was eminently
and deservedly successful.
Now if any similar state of things existed among
ourselves ; if the literary mind of America, or any large
portion, was violently prejudiced against any man or men,
from political or other extraneous reasons 5 if, for instance,
3-*
36
all the Whig litterateurs were trying to write down Coo-
per and Bryant, because they are democrats, or if the
whole Southern press had made a dead set at Professor
Longfellow because he has written some anti- slavery
poems, then we should certainly need judicious praisers,
honey-tongued critics, who delight in lingering over beau-
ties themselves, and are skilful in displaying them to
others. Or if the founders of our national literature
were already becoming neglected ; if people began to
leave off reading Knickerbocker, and Salmagundi, and
the Spy; then, too, whe should undoubtedly want a
laudatory school of criticism to awaken the public atten-
tion to beauties which were escaping it. And, not to
take any hypothetical state of things, such a laudatory
school we did want at the appearance of Cooper and
Irving, to show us what genius was among us, and not
leave the discovery to English writers.
But how stands the case now with our literary public?
Is its disposition in any way similar to that of the
English public, when Leigh Hunt first wrote ? Is there
anywhere a tendency to decry any native author or school
of authors ? Does not the fashion run in the very op-
posite direction, to exaggerated and almost random praise ?
Can you point out one instance of a good book published
here for the last ten or twenty years that has not met
with merited praise and success? And have not many
worthless books been fulsomely eulogised, and, in con-
sequence, sold largely? If these questions must be
answered in the affirmative (and it would be difficult to
give them any other answer), then is the critic's duty
something very different from what it would be in a cap-
tious and prejudiced community.
English criticism has divested itself of its political
unfairness. Blackwood has praised Miss Martineau, and
been glad to receive Bulwer as a contributor. But the
English critics are still high in their standard, and chary
of their praise. To compare them with ours in this re-
spect, we must not look merely at the Quarterlies, which
only notice a few works at a time , and those such as
they can found telling articles upon ; but turn to those
periodicals which notice more or less briefly all the new
publications which they receive. Such are the Athenaeum,
Literary Gazette, Examiner, Spectator, and those maga-
37
zines which give an appendix of literary notices. Compare
these with corresponding American publications. It will
be found that in the latter, the majority of the works
noticed are approved of; while in the English periodicals
above-mentioned , a very large number, probably a moiety
at least, if not a majority of the works noticed, are con-
demned. In saying that the English critics as a body are
men of the best education, and so situated as to be very
little subject to extraneous influences, either from authors
or publishers, I speak from personal observation and
knowledge ; and I also speak from personal observation
and knowledge in saying that many of our soi-disanl
critics are most indifferently qualified for their task, and
that a great deal of what passes for criticism among us,
either directly emanates from or is suggested by the
large publishers. Thus, it is well known to those behind
the scenes, that some houses in this city have their sa-
laried readers connected with the literary department of
the daily press. This may be an extreme case, but I
fear it is not a solitary one.
But it may be said, "What harm is there after all,
if an author is praised more than he deserv^es to be ?
Even admitting that praise, when nearly indiscriminate,
loses much of its value, and becomes a mere form, why
should w^e not have forms of courtesy and say fine things
to one another out of pure compliment, in literary as
well as in fashionable society ? At any rate it serves
to keep up cordiality and good-will, and is therefore
preferable to a rigid impartiality, which provokes acri-
mony and causes mortification." To which I reply, that
unmerited and misapplied praise does very positive harm
to both reader and author, however convenient and com-
fortable it may be for the critic.
And first for the reader. When a man is led by an
adroit puff to purchase a trashy book — when, as hap-
pened to myself not very long ago, he pays five dollars
for a work one week , and is glad to sell it at auction
for twice as many shillings the next — he suffers a very
tangible and most easily appreciated injury in pocket,
not to mention the disappointment and vexation which
amount almost to a sense of personal injury sustained
from the reviewer. Or if less experienced, and more
credulous, so that his faith in the critic seduces him not
38
merely into buying the book, but into believing it to be
good, then the mischief is much more serious. His
powers of appreciation and discrimination^ his taste and
judgment, become more or less vitiated by a bad model,
or he adopts error while supposing himself to be acqui-
ring information. You say that if the badness of a book
predominates, it will soon condemn itself. This depends
entirely on what you mean by soon. If you mean that
in two or three generations a book will be likely to find
its level, few will dispute this point ; but it by no means
follows that a worthless production may not be made to
impose upon part of one generation, if there is no true
friend of the public to unmask it.
Next, as to the author. Let us begin by speaking
of the larger class, who will write books, inviid Minerva.
I take for granted that it is an act of real kindness to
such to dissuade them from continuing in a vocation for
which they were not destined by nature ; just as, to adopt
your own Socratic mode of illustration, if we found a
man to be a uniformly unsuccessful shoemaker, the most
friendly advice we could give him would be that he
should devote his energies to some other trade. But if,
on a false theory or out of mere good nature, we praise
what is not praiseworthy, the subjects of our panegyric
are directly encouraged to persevere in a mistaken course.
It is more serious matter when we have to deal with
authors who possess real merit tarnished by great de-
fects. The best thing that can happen to them is that
they should clear themselves of their blemishes ; and ac-
cordingly while all credit is given to their excellences,
these blemishes should be strictly noticed. Nothing is
more natural than that a writer should be ignorant of
his own errors, particularly faults of style and expres-
sion ; and though in some cases wounded pride will make
him persist in them after they are pointed out, in most
instances he will be inclined to profit by the criticism,
even if not over well-disposed towards the critic. But
if his characteristic vices are never animadverted upon,
they will be sure to grow upon him, and he will deteriorate,
instead of improving. And this will help us to account
for the singular fact (I think it may be called a fact ;
at least I have never heard the proposition disputed),
that the earliest works of American authors are almost invariably
their best. The effects of an opposite course of criticism
may be seen in two English poets of the present day,
Tennyson and Patmore. Tennyson had always a clique
of friends (not mere toadies and small litterateurs either,
but clever men themselves, among whom it will be suf-
ficient to mention Thackeray and Monckton Milnes), to
praise and puff what he wrote. But there were also in-
dependent critics in England , and consequently his first
volumes of poems , two thirds of which are now self-
condemned, being deemed by their author unworthy of
republication, met with some rough handling. Very pro-
bably he and his were not particularly pleased at the
time, but he profited by the criticism , as the success of
his re-appearance ten years afterwards proves. And it
is worth mentioning, to show how he profited by criti-
cism even when one-sided and malevolent, that out of
some pages full of passages which the Quarterly Review
found fault with, he has amended all but one. Compare
this with — but it is as well to mention no names on
this side Ihe Atlantic. One word of Patmore. He
published a small volume of poems before attaining his
majority. A number of English critics, headed by Douglas
Jerrold, and some of the writers in Punch, were lavish
in their eulogies of this first effort. These indiscreet
panegyrics produced some counter-reviews, which erred
as much on the other side.* Their effect, however, has
been to keep the young aspirant quiet ever since. If he
really has the making of a poet in him (which some
competent judges believe in spite of Blackwood), it will
doubtless come out at the proper age. Had he been born
in America and appeared with an American Jerold to
back him, he would have gone on publishing every three
or six months, and kept confirming and aggravating his
worst faults instead of waiting till they shall be correc-
ted by study and maturity.
You say that "a book, like a man, should be judged
by its goodness rather than its badness." The illustra-
tion is appropriate, being liable to the very same excep-
* Particularly one in Blackwood , which was not improbably
prompted by a sort of hereditary feud. Patmore's father (under the
signature of King Tims), was one of the original contributors to
Blackwood, and afterwards quarrelled with and cut or was cut by
the connexion.
40
tions and qualifications as the position which it illustrates.
I should judge a man by his goodness or his badness,
entirely with reference to the character and condition of
those persons whom my judgment was to ajffect. If I
were conversing with a man who had been soured and
made misanthropic by ill success or ill treatment , or
who had sapped his faith by reading French novels, or
in any other way acquired an unhealthy tone of feeling,
so that he was predisposed to look at the worst side of
human nature, and suspicious of every one, I should, in
speaking of other men, make a point of dwelling on their
merits and showing the good that was in them. But
were I associated with an over sanguine and confiding
youth, I should not be anxious to praise all those around
us, but should rather try to put him on his guard against
their faults. This "jolly good fellow" is a roue^ and
will lead you into bad courses if you follow him impli-
citly ; this plausible gentleman will draw you into a
doubtful speculation; this beauty will make a fool of
you if she can ; and so on. And thus my judgment would
in each case call the attention of the party for whose
benefit it was made, to what he would of himself be
likely to overlook.
Doubtless there is a public propensity among us to
devour books indiscriminately ; but this is the very reason
why the critic (who is supposed to be , to a greater
or less extent, a public guide and instructor) should,
so far from consenting to pamper this propensity, do his
very best to diminish both the supply and the demand.
If books, like boots, were in a few years either utterly
worn out or unfashionable and comparatively useless,
then would new books be as much a "need" to the com-
munity as new boots ; but when we consider that a really
good book, when once established as such, is a yczrjfiia
eg ah, the multiplication of indifferent and mediocre
works must be regarded as a positive nuisance. If not
a single volume were to be published for the next twelve
months, no one would be the worse for it except the
publishers. The intellectual appetite of the literary public
would be in no danger of suffering starvation. An Egyptian
famine could not exhaust the supplies it has inherited.
41
To (he Editors of the Literary World, Paris, February 7, i852,
MESSRS. EDITORS: — Some time ago, you thought
it worth while to publish a sketch of the coup d'etat as
it fell under my experience and that of my friends. Written
in great haste, and most of it w^hile the events were
actually going on, that sketch pretended only to give the
impressions of the moment; any philosophy expressed
in or deducible from it, is hardly a proper subject of
criticism. Since reading it over, however, as it appeared
in your columns, 1 have thought that some passages in
it might possibly be misconstrued into an avow^al of sen-
timents very different from my real ones — and I should
hope, from those of every American. The irony of the
concluding sentences could not, indeed, except by wilful
perversion, be interpreted as signiiiying approval or ad-
miration of Louis Napoleon ; but it might be said that
the w^hole subject was treated too lightly, that the liber-
ties of a great nation are not laughing matter, and that
to talk jestingly of an usurpation argued indifference to
some of man's highest interests. Now, though it has
been my fate to be called more than once, and in good
round type too, aristocrat, monarchist — and what not?
— I stoutly insist upon being considered a genuine re-
publican, and should be very sorry to have any respect-
able man suppose that I am not, or that I consider it
to be a trifling matter to a country whether it is under
a republic or a despotism. But at the same time, I wished
only to depict , as graphically as I could , the outside
appearance of things, the quceque vidi et quorum pars fui^
reserving the serious discussion of the matter to another
opportunity. That opportunity having arrived, I now
purpose to give you, in all gravity, my ideas upon this
extraordinary and most successful usurpation. In the
first place, it may be well to observe that my remarks
do not pretend to much originality. Most of what is said
in them has been said before, and by Americans, though
more to the English than the American public ; but the
particular truths enlarged upon are so often lost sight
of in vague generalities, that they will well bear repetition.
The successful usurpation of Louis Napoleon Buona-
parte, as it now stands confirmed and ratified by the vote
42
of France, is certainly a most remarkable phenomenon.
It met with no resistance worth speaking of, whatever
disturbances took place in the capital or the departments
being greatly exaggerated , and in some places actually
fomented by the party in power for their own purposes.
It was executed by second-rate men. * All the great
men of the country, with the possible exception of M.
Guizot, are either silent or in opposition. In the list of
the exiles , not in that of the Council of State, are the
true Hllustrations'^ of the country to be found. It has
received the approbation of a majority, the acquiescence
of a large majority of the French people. For to say
that the election w^as a complete piece of fraud and
stupendous juggling, as some English papers still persist
in doing, seems little short of absurdity. How is it pos-
sible to bribe, or cajole, or intimidate more than nine
millions of voters, voting by ballot too, to stultify them-
selves ? How does the supposition tally wath the fact
that in Paris, where the government had most opportunities
to bring into play any schemes of corruption or intimi-
dation, there was the greatest proportion of negative
votes ? People talk of the repressive force exercised by
the army, as if there had not been an army in 1830 and
1848, with this important difference in favor of former
dynasties, that, on the present occasion, all generals of
reputation were averse to the government. There would
have been no want of leaders to a popular movement,
if the people had willed one. No, there can be little
doubt that the President's move was approved of by
great numbers of the French people, and that a very
large majority of them have, at least, acquiesced in it.
Now , when we ask why this is so ; how it happens
that the majority of the nation were so ready to resign
all power to a self-appointed Dictator, the answer given
by the French themselves is utterly astounding to an
* [This was written without taking sufficient account of the
marvellous man who in appropriating all the political power of the
country, seems also to have appropriated all its political intelligence.
It was a pretly general error, common to nearly all the English and
nearly all the American public. Alas for our pride of intellect and
our capacity to look through the millstone of futurity ! There was
just one man in all Anglo-Saxondom who foresaw and foretold the
destined glory of the Prisoner of Ham. That man was — Peel or
Brougham or "Webster? No, but Mr. Wykoff.]
43
Anglo-Saxon — the cause is so strangely disproportionate
to the effect. The people were afraid of the Socialists ;
they suspected a general conspiracy against law and pro-
perty which was to break out in insurrection during the pre-
sent year; and, therefore, they put themselves into the power
of the man who promised to deliver them from this cala-
mity. Now no one will accuse me of underrating the mis-
chievous, barbarizing, unchristianizing, every way destruc-
tive tendency of Socialist doctrines. A certain amount
of harm, and no small one, they have done in France,
and must do wherever they exist. But the French so-
cialists were not imminently dangerous, either from their
numbers or their influence. There were perhaps a hundred
thousand of them in the whole country. Was that a
number to terrify eleven millions of voters out of their
wits and their liberties ? The very class on whom they
trusted, the working men, had seen completely through
them in several instances, and laughed at their overtures.
If a New-Yorker were to propose that General James
Watson Webb should be made Dictator of the State to
put down the Anti-Renters, he would generally be suspected
of insanity. Yet such a proceeding would be more ra-
tional than that of the French, for the Anti-Renters are
still rampant and mischievous, whereas the Socialists in
France were subjugated and harmless at the close of
last year. A fairer illustration would be to suppose that
the people of the whole Union had conferred dictatorial
powers on President Fillmore, through fear of the riots
against the Fugitive Slave law which have occurred in
three or four places. Or to take the case of the British
empire, it is as if all Ireland were put under martial law
on account of the agrarian disturbances in some parts
of it, or as if Lord John Russell had been invested with
supreme power at the time of the Chartist demonstration. *
Now to say that the French are not fit or not pre-
pared for a republic ; that we are the only people who
are, and, at least, that the Anglo-Saxon race is the only
* On which occasion, by the way, Louis Napoleon acted as
special constable , and paraded Regent street in company with the
present Lord Stanley, who was engaged in the same amateur duty.
He must then have seen how little open and tangible danger there
was in this phantom of Socialism, and may have learnedj at the same
time, how great use could be made of it.
44
race that is — this is a very unsatisfactory solution of the
puzzle. For why are the French not as competent to have a
republic as we? Are they so deficient intelligence ? Are they
so much our inferiors in education? Are they not better
members of society in some respects, more temperate, more
obedient to authority, less brutal ? And, first of all, there is
an important discrimination to be made, not always suffi-
ciently attended to. Is the capacity of France for republi-
canism merely a question of time ? Allowing that the French
do not know how to be republicans now, is it reasonable
to expect that they will learn to be? In fine, should
we say that the French are not prepared for a republic,
or that they are not fit for one ? This must be determined
in the outset, and for my own part, I have no hesitation
in agreeing with the sagacious author of "A States-Man's"
Letter in the Times ^ that they are not fit^ and not likely
to learn if they were to go on for a hundred years trying
experiments at the rate of a new Constitution every five
years, because there are inherent elements in the French
character (certain to endure as long as Frenchmen are
Frenchmen) which render them incapable of managing a
republic well, consequently unable to appreciate its bene-
fits, consequently careless of retaining them, consequently
ready to yield them up to any bold usurper.
In the first place, then, a Frenchman is in the habit
of looking to his government to help him when he ought
to be helping himself; of calling out for Hercules instead
of putting his own shoulders to the wheel. ''The people
expect too much from the government," might be said
by any and every constitutional ruler of France. A
Frenchman votes or electioneers for this or that mi-
nistry, expecting that the minister will give him or his
relations a place, or pension, or order ; or do such and
such things for his particular trade or manufacturing
interest, or the like — not from a single and simple
conviction that his party is the best for the country. He
can't see the use of working for the government, if he
is not in turn to exploiter it in some way. Not that he
is unpatriotic : he would fight to the death in his country's
defence at home, or for her glory and aggrandizement
abroad ; but he cannot comprehend the combination of
self-dependence and self-abnegation necessary in a re-
publican citizen. He is accustomed to the visible inter-
45
ference of the government everywhere, and he believes
that it can do anything — make water run up hill, or
the three-hooped pot have ten hoops!
All this is essentially anti-republican ; for the citizen
of a republic must be prepared to give rather than re-
ceive the initiative. His government must be his instru-
ment rather than his Providence. His fortune must de-
pend on his own exertions ; his honors must be ultimately
derived from the people, his fellow-citizens. If he will
be jobbing and mercenary and dishonest in his politics,
he must impose upon the people rather than sell himself
to the Executive. That government is best for him —
not which governs least, as has been falsely said —
but which is least felt in governing.
Secondly, the Frenchman must have a highly decorated
government. A government of show and pomp and pa-
rade, with no end of soldiers and horses, and trappings
and fine clothes. A government which can give enter-
tainments without regard to expense, and ostentatious
largesses, charitable or otherwise, without limit. When
Louis-Philippe, in the early part of his reign, before his
people took to shooting at him, used to walk about un-
attended in a plain citizen's dress, shaking hands with
the public, they did not know what to make of it, and
he was sometimes actually insulted. *
This, again, is an anti-republican feeling. I do not
say that it is incompatible with a love of or capacity
for liberal institutions, such as those of a limited mo-
narchy for instance. There is much of the same feeling
in England. I once had endless difficulty in convincing
an Englishman — a highly educated man too — how
we could respect an Executive who only drove two horses 5
and there are doubtless tens of thousands of Londoners
who believe that the Queen's gilt coach and eight cream-
colors are an integral part of the British constitution.
But it is certainly anti-republican, for simplicity is an
essential in a republican government. How thoroughly
imbued our people are with this principle is too obvious
to need extended comment. When the chief magistrate
visits any of our great cities, all the curiosity and respect
* A Carlist nobleman presented him with a sheet of gingerbread,
which , being called in French pave^ was supposed to imply a sar-
castic allusion to the barricades.
46
and enthusiasm excited are for the man alone, without
regard to his outward accessories ; no one thinks of re-
marking whether the horses match exactly, or the car-
riage is of the newest fashion, or the driver wears an
old hat — or the President himself one for that matter.
And any attempt to increase the President's salary or
contingent emoluments would certainly fail, even in the
case of the most popular chief magistrate conceivable.
Thirdly, the French are a people with luxurious tastes
and inclinations, over curious in dress and diet, effeminate
and fastidious in all things, lazy except in pursuit of
pleasure , and never loving work for work's sake , as
Anglo-Saxons do. That this is the case with the upper
classes, all who have had opportunities of observing
them will admit ; but I also believe it to be true of the
other classes to a much greater extent than is commonly
supposed — that, for instance, French servants eat more
and work less, their opportunities being equal, than Eng-
lish, Irish, or American ones, and that, if certain des-
criptions of tradesmen live very frugally, it is from sheer
necessity and not from choice. Now luxurious and idle
habits are inimical not only to republican, but to all free
institutions. I may be met by the example of England.
The English aristocracy are ostentatious and gorgeous
in the extreme, pompous in their retainers and profuse
in their expenses, but they are not personally luxurious.
They are neither finical in dress nor fastidious at table.
They delight in athletic sports ; they voluntarily seek
hard work in Parliament or on the country justice's Bench.
They undergo privations in travelling for the sake of
seeing foreign countries. They do not let either their
bodily or their mental powers run to waste.
I may also be reminded that a certain class in our
Atlantic cities have carried material luxury to a pitch
unsurpassed in any part of the Old World. But in the
first place, this class have no political power or influence
whatever ; they do not strive for any, and they could
not get if they did. Secondly, the American has (and
it is one of his peculiar superiorities over all Europeans,
and especially over all Celts) an eternal potentiality of
work in him. He never loses his manliness entirely, but
can always un- Sybaritize himself, and go off to the
backwoods , or China , or California , if any pressing
47
necessity arises , or even without any pressing ne-
cessity.
But are luxurious habits dangerous to free institu-
tions ? I answer unqualifiedly in the affirmative , not
meaning, however, by so doing, to declaim in favor of
the "state of nature," or against great cities, or great
fortunes in great cities 5 to say that the capitalist is a
feudal tyrant and the enemy of the people, or any non-
sense of that sort. It stands to reason that in every
great and wealthy country there must be individual wealth,
and even a certain ostentation of individual wealth. And
a man may make parade of his riches in horses and
flunkies, or libraries, or works of art, or entertainments,
as his taste lies, and through the abuse of any of these
things may grow proud, or conceited, or exclusive, or
what is called aristocratic, or absurd and wicked in many
ways ; yet still as long as he does not effeminate him-
self, as long as he remains hardy and vigorous in mind
and body, and does not become lazy and Sybaritic and
wrapped up in trifles, so long is he not unfit or unable
to sustain the privileges of a free citizen. Many a young
Parisian, who lives on ten or fifteen thousand francs
a year, is more un- manned and un-republicanized by
luxurious habits , than an English peer with his colossal
fortune.
Once more, the French are prone (I do not profess
to give all these traits in any logical sequence, for it is
doubtful if they have any, though traces of them all are
visible in the final result) to aim at realizing the ideal,
instead of idealizing the real. The ability to reform
without destroying, to mend the old political fabric with-
out pulling it down altogether and having nothing to
live in meanwhile, to improve existing institutions rather
than draught new constitutions on paper — this is one of
the most glorious superiorities of the Anglo -Saxon race.
Nearly all the Continental nations are deficient in this
respect — not, I humbly submit, for want of political
experience — they have had plenty of that in the last
sixty years — but from sheer want of the reforming ca-
pacity. But this trait is more injurious to the French
than to any other European nation, because their greater
brilliancy of imagination leads them more readily to ex-
temporize political theories, while their want of faith (of
48
which we shall have more to say by-and-by) prevents
them from clinging to their own inventions long and firmly
enough to give them a fair trial.
Again, the French as a nation are liable to fits of
political panic. It is obvious that such a disposition must
be perilous to the existence of any limited government.
If (to refer to our own country again for purpose of
illustration) the American people had believed the Union
to be really in danger from the agitation of the Abolition
question — if they had taken for gospel all that was
said by fanatics, and toadies, and newspaper scribblers
on both sides, and, through fear of the Garrisonites or
the very absurd persons in South Carolina, had been
ready to confer extraordinary powers on the executive,
it is evident that this very panic-induced readiness would
have been a temptation to the executive to demand ex-
traordinary powers. But is there not something puzzling
in the fact of this propensity to panic on the part of a
nation who in battle are among the bravest in the world?
Perhaps if we look into it a little more closely, we shall
see that the truth so well expressed by our great dra-
matist, "Conscience doth make cowards of us all," will
go some way towards explaining the paradox.
The French have long boasted to be the most re-
fined of modern nations. This claim has been to a great
extent admitted ; to a great extent it is true. In all ele-
gances of manner, in grace, tact, ability to please and
amuse, in positive civility as distinguished from the ne-
gative politeness of the Englishman, they have no equals.
They also claim to be the most civilized people — and this
also is true, looking to material civilization only. Occasional
exceptions may be taken here and there 5 the English
are better judges of horses, the Americans of wine, the
Poles dance better, and so on ; but on the average of
all comfortable or luxurious appliances, in all things that
come under the dominion of that mysterious deity fashion^
the Parisians are far in the van of the world, and Paris
is emphatically, the metropolis of pleasure, amusement,
and elegance. Nor does this material civilization, as in
some other places , exist without or in opposition to mental
refinement, and talent ; the fine arts come in to the help
of the coarse ; lively and witty , well educated and ac-
complished critics, patrons — capricious to be sure, but
49
still intelligent patrons of artists — the French can well
boast of their superiority in every species of civilization
but one — that one, alas ! the highest — the moral.
When I saw in print what I had written last De-
cember, about the utter worthlessness of refinement as a
test of real civilization and progress ^ it looked somewhat
hard and violent, and though subsequent reflection has
convinced me more than ever of its truth, a few words
of explanation may be allowed me, to prevent miscon-
ception.
Never was it my intention to deny — indeed it would
have been absurd to do so — that refinement in itself
is a very good and desirable thing. It is always better
cmteris paribus that a man should be refined than clownish,
that a woman should dress well than ill, that a dinner
should be tempting than unsatisfactory. Man was made
to live in society, and all knowledge that makes people
get on more comfortably in society, that promotes good
feeling and geniality, is not to be despised; but on the
contrary, highly honored, so long as it keeps in its own
place. Thus, the art of giving dinners or entertainments
of any kind properly, is one which it is well for every
person of substance to acquire. Nay, we may go further,
and say that politeness is a part of religion, and that a
man's refinement of taste may often be a valuable auxiliary
to his principles. But what I insist is, that we must not
admit politeness to be the whole or the greater part of
religion or refinement, to stand instead of principle ; that
there is always danger of this being the case 5 that it
frequently is the case ; that the greatest refinement and
the greatest moral turpitude are perfectly compatible,
that they co-existed in ancient Athens, and co-exist in
modern France; that therefore, in short, refinement is
entirely fallacious as a test or a sign of moral superiority
or the highest civilization. I think this mistaken pro-
pensity of the French to put manners before or instead
of morals, will help to account for one of the problems
in French politics ; the fact of Fafis being France , as it
is frequently expressed, the utterly subordinate condition
of the provinces. The provincial is more virtuous than
the inhabitant of the metropolis ; he is at least as brave;
but he is a clown in comparison , no critic in the fine
arts or the coarse, fearful of Parisian ridicule and dazzled
Vol. IV» 4
50
from afar by Parisian splendor. Such a mental power
does the capital wield over the departments, greater I
am convinced than the mechanical one obtained by the
system of centralization.
This substitution of manners for morals brings us to
an important branch of our subject.
French immorality has long been a standard theme
for declamation among Anglo-Saxon writers, so long that
a little exaggeration in their treatment of the subject
might not unnaturally be suspected ; and yet the young
man who visits Paris fresh from a Protestant country
may w^ell say that the half has not been told him. Let
us give the devil his due ; the French have an advantage
of us in one respect. They are not a people prone to
excess in strong drink. They are more temperate than
the Scandinavians, the Scotch, the English, the non-total
abstinence portion of the Americans. (This, by the way,
is a little nut for the temperance fanatics among us : it
may show them that their pet virtue is not the necessary
parent and attendant of all others.) But, as regards what
is more technically called immorality, the condition of
Paris has not been exaggerated by any of those who
have written on it — indeed, it is hardly capable of
exaggeration. It is open and glaring every-where ; he
who walks may read it. The splendid print-shops on
the Boulevards and in the other thoroughfares , are
crowded with prints which just stop short of indecency
and carry elegant voluptuousness to its utmost limits.
At the theatres, there is a constant fire of questionable
jokes, fornication, and adultery, the latter especially,
being never failing subjects of mirth to a Parisian audience.
That a young man — say twenty-six years old — should
be married, is such a phenomenon to a Frenchman, that
you can with difficulty persuade him of its existence.
The young Parisian's mistress is a part of his establish-
ment as much of course as his valet or his umbrella ;
he does not hesitate to talk about her to his sister or
to any lady of his acquaintance. The most notorious
lorettes occupy the best places in the theatres, vie with
the greatest ladies in their equipages and dress , are can-
onized on the stage, and immortalized in the feuilleton.
Indeed, fornication is too common and necessary a prac-
tice to be made much fun of; but adultery, I repeat, is a
51
standing joke. A deceived and dishonored husband is
an eternal subject of mirth to a Parisian. Now, to come
back to our original theme, I believe — the reader may
verify or disprove it from his own knowledge and study
— that no unchaste people, especially no people that
habitually made light of the marriage tie, ever was able
to preserve a republican government long. (By a Re-
public, I do not mean a close oligarchy like the Venetian.)
I believe that what Catullus said, apostrophizing the god
of wedlock, —
"The land that will not render
Service unto thee ,
Can have no defender
For its borders free."
was true then and has been ever since, and that the
united testimony of history will shew it.
But it is well not do dwell too long on this point,
lest we should forget that this licentiousness, shocking
as it is, is not the most crying fault of the nation. The
great and awful sin of the French is a negative one —
their want of faith, their Mephistophelean incredulity for
virtue, their Manichean belief in the success of evil, their
Epicurean belief in things material only. Faith is surely
the entelechy, the vital, energizing principle of Christianity.
Christian faith was a new element introduced into theology ;
not like sanctioning and defining points of morality which
had been imperfectly understood and rudely practised
before, but something of which the Heathen had no con-
ception : it was a new idea impressed on the human mind.
And it is just this idea which the French have destroyed
among themselves. They have no abiding and realizing
faith in the superintending interference of God ; they
cannot even sincerely echo the saying of the Greek tra-
gedian, that the Deity is still mighty in Heaven, over-
seeing and ruling things below ! They have no faith in
the existence of great moral principles, truth, purity,
integrity. They have no faith in God's creatures, man
or woman, in the veracity and fidelity of the one or the
virtue of the other. What little faith remains in the
country is to be found in the relics of the Legitimist
party, and theirs is a faith too nearly allied to supersti-
tion and bigotry, a faith which is not inconsistent with
52
narrow-mindedness and hatred of truth, which does not
interfere with intolerance on the one hand or immorality
on the other, which does not hinder the Corsaire^ for
instance, from abusing the English and the Americans,
Kossuth and Palmerston, in the most shameless way, as
an interlude to its indecent narratives of actresses and
its sneers at domestic life. Such a want of faith in a
people is the most fatal of sins, because it is the least
curable. A man may be dissipated, profane, criminal ; it
is a shame and a sorrow that he should be so. But so
long as he acknowledges the existence of virtue, so long
as he says : "I am not good , but there are those who
are, and there is such a thing as goodness ;" so long as
he approves the meliora though he may run after the
deteriora^ so long there is hope for him : but when he
has acquired a disbelief in virtue, and will neither be
good himself nor allow any one else to be so, then is
his condition fearful indeed. Moralists have erred in
dwelling exclusively or chiefly on the indecency of French
literature ; they have applied to the Parisian novelists a
test which would equally banish Rabelais and Swift and
Aristophanes, and give us only family editions of Shakes-
peare. It is the want of belief in virtue, the chaos of
principles, the apotheosis of vice, that constitutes the
true mischief of these books.
How this unhappy condition of the French mind was
brought about is a much disputed and much disputable
question of history. The Legitimists, and the friends of
old-established despotism generally throughout Europe,
of course, attribute it to the excesses of the first Revo-
lution. Liberals, as naturally, carry the causes of it
farther back ; and a good Protestant may be pardoned
for suspecting that it is something like a judgment on
the nation, for having, in old times, deliberately preferred
error to truth , and intolerance to toleration ; that the
wicked schemes of Madame de Maintenon, the Revoca-
tion of the Edict of Nantes, and the persecutions which
drove out of France the most virtuous part of its popu-
lation, have been fearfully avenged on the generations
succeeding. But whatever be the cause, the melancholy
fact is too apparent. The sole belief of the French is
material and Manichean , confessing the power of the
Prince of this world. For Religion, they have set up
53
what their writers profanely call Love, but which it is
not easy to represent in one word decently and truth-
fully at the same time — perhaps the nearest expression
to it would be Passion. For inward principle, they have
set up outward manner; for a test of merit, they have
taken — the only test they can comprehend — tangible
worldly success. Hence, with the greatest refinement,
and a very great intellectual superiority, the French have
no moral elevation tvhatever. They talk a great deal about
virtue, and purity, and honor, and self-denial; you will
hear more about these on the French stage, and in French
books and newspapers, than you will in any other country :
but it is all talk, sheer blague^ meaning nothing except
to throw dust in one's eyes. They are positively in-
competent to appreciate true greatness of soul. See, for
instance, how the reception of Kossuth by the American
people has aifected the French. They were utterly un-
able to comprehend it. That a defeated and fugitive
exile, who had nothing to give, but was himself in want
of everything ; that such a man should be welcomed as
a hero, and his progress through a great country be like
a triumphal march, was a worship of the setting sun
beyond their understanding. They could only account
for it by supposing that the Americans were so puerile
or so biases as to run after the most insignificant objects
of curiosity. A scribbler in a French newspaper calling
Kossuth an insignificant object ! This moral incapacity
shows itself in a thousand ways — in giving prizes for
virtue^ and having moral comedies written to order ; in the
utter disregard for oaths and a fortiori for pledges, which
so notoriously distinguishes French politicians ; in the
inability of French novelists, so exceedingly clever in
the delineation of wickedness, to create a good man, an
orthodox hero of romance.
Now, to come back to our theme again ; the old
saying about virtue being peculiarly necessary to the
duration of a republic, hacknied as it has become, often
denied as it has been, I fully receive and endorse. The
only danger is that, in drawing inferences from it, citi-
zens of a republic may reason the wTong way, and say:
Because we are a Republic,^ therefore we are the most vir-
tuous people in the world; instead of: If we wish to secure
our Republic,) we must preserve our virtue. But faith is
54
also most necessary, strong faith, in the institutions of
the Republic, which does not prevent a wholesome watch-
fulness of individuals, or indeed, it must be added with
sorrow, an occasional abuse of this watchfulness into
unfair and embarrassing suspicions. The French have not
this strong political faith; they have never had it, from
the time of Louis XIV. down to this day. The frequent
changes of their government are enough to show it. Had
they believed in any of their governments since 1789 —
even in that of Napoleon — with the same earnestness
which w^e entertain for our Constitution, it must have
stood in spite of all the pressure from without.
It has been stated that the French are destitute of
moral elevation. At the same time, they are very in-
telligent , and very impressionable • — ready to admire what
they understand — that is to say, any achievement of
courage or talent. Hence it follows that a man who is
clever, daring , and successful , loses no moral ground by
being unscrupulous; his dishonesties, his illegalities, his
perjuries, do not excite the same popular indignation that
they would in England or America. Every reader can
make the application for himself , without its being ne-
cessary for me to say anything personal in reference to
the Prince-President. The French have admitted success
as the test of merit ; the end of success justifies, in their
eyes , the adoption of all means. Such could not be the
case in England or America.
Well, the French have chosen their government, as
they had a perfect right to. Si populus vult decipi deci-
piatur. But Americans may draw one or two lessons
from the present occurrences in France.
1. Louis Napoleon has been elected and re-elected
by universal suffrage. Ergo, universal suffrage is not
necessarily of itself a preservative against tyranny. Like
all other kinds of suffrage, its effect depends upon the
character and wisdom of those who exercise it, not on
any virtue or charm inherent in its name or form.
2. England has at present, and has had for years :
a. Free right of travel through her territory with-
out passports ;
b. A free Press ;
c. Free right of public meetings.
55
France has none of these things, and never had for
any length of time.
The first and second of these rights affect foreigners
as well as citizens. Every American who has lived in
England, and in France, has the difference of the two
countries in respect of personal liberty brought home to
him every day.
Can any rational man hesitate as to which is the
free country, France or England?
Can any American, who is an American, hesitate as
to which country has more points of sympathy with
Knickerbocker, February i852.
AN INTERCEPTED PARISIAN EPISTLE. — We
have great pleasure in presenting the accompanying '•Letter
from Colonel Cranberry Fuster to Jefferson J. Grabster^
Junior, Esquire, Acting Editor Pro. Tern, of the Oldport
Daily Twaddler. ED. «:NICKERB0CKER.
Paris, Rue St. On-a-ray, November W, 185i.
. 'MY DEAR JEFFERSON : We have always main-
tained, as you doubtless remember, that it does a young
man, or even a middle-aged man, much good to see
something of foreign lands ; not that he can possibly
hope to learn any thing there, especially in the way of
morals or politics, but because (according to the popu-
lar belief, to dissent from which would be flat blasphemy)
his experience of other countries must infallibly make
him more contented and better satisfied with his own.
Such a lesson cannot but be of great value, and is worth
being learned thoroughly : it is therefore gratifying to
find so many of our countrymen, particularly the more
juvenile portion, disposed to learn it thoroughly. They
frequently occupy several years in comparing the insti-
tutions of benighted Europe with our own, and studying
the phases of life under despotic or semi-despotic go-
vernments , among all sexes and classes of the population.
It can hardly be doubted that, when they return, it will
56
be with a thorough appreciation of and preference for
the manners, morals, and tastes of our own happy he-
misphere.
'Our numerous friends and subscribers will doubtless
be desirous to know, in the first place, the particulars
and incidents of our outward-bound trip. Unfortunately,
our journal was interrupted very early in the passage ;
to say the truth, (which we may be permitted to do in
the present instance, having nothing to gain by adopting
a contrary course,) we have but a very indistinct recol-
lection of what took place during the first thirty -six
hours. Even after our ideas began to assume a more
definite shape, and our locomotive and digestive facul-
ties had recovered their pristine vigor, we found con-
siderable difficulty in eliciting all the information we
could have wished respecting the other passengers. Most
of them seemed singularly stupid and incommunicative,
although we took good care to let them know who we
were, and left several copies of the '-Twaddlef on the
saloon-table.
'As to the steamer herself, the 'Screw-driver' may
justly be called a floating palace. She a' n't any thing
else; and her officers are men who deserve to win and
have won golden opinions from every one. The captain
secured us a seat near his own at table, and helped us
out of his own champagne-bottle every day, so that w^e
were enabled to dispense altogether with the usual for-
mality of a wine-bill : of course he is a scholar and a
gentleman ; and as the mate smuggled through several
thousand cigars for us, we cannot do less than pronounce
him a most enterprising and gentlemanly man. The day
before our arrival in port, we had the pleasure of pro-
posing our commander's health in a speech of twenty
minutes' length. At the conclusion of our remarks, the
passengers manifested the liveliest satisfaction. The
only dissentient voice was that of a specimen of 'Young
New-York,' who audibly expressed a wish that 'he could
get some of the gas out of that speech to put into the
ale !' The impudent little sprig of codfish-aristocracy !
The ale was quite good enough for him ; I '11 be bound
he never drank as good at home; or if he did, it was
because his father was a bankrupt, and cheated his
creditors. But in truth, this young animal was of an
57
insolence altogether insufferable : he did n't know his
place , nor who he was talking to , and continually spoke
of newspaper correspondents, and even of editors, just
as if we w-ere mere ordinary vagabonds ; w^hereas your
readers will acquit me of vanity when I say this much,
that we are frequently very extraordinary ones.
^Another passenger, who gave himself very unne-
cessary airs, was a Mr. Carl Benson , from the city of
Gotham, a person of strongly-marked British sympathies,
and a venomous enemy of republican institutions. I have
reason to suspect him of being in the pay of Lord Pal-
merston, and that he has been hired to abuse our Southern
brethren in the English periodicals. From a conversa-
tion in his state-room which I overheard, (accidentally,
of course,) I gather that he is at present concocting for
Frazer's Edinburgh Magazine^ a scandalous, inflammatory,
and would-be pathetic story on the subject of the Fu~
gitive Slave Law. He showed his aristocratic disposition
during the whole voyage by w^earing the oldest clothes,
never smoking, and drinking nothing but water ; but this
may also have been owing to the embarrassed state of
his finances ; for I was told that ....
[Here we are constrained to omit a number of
assertions and suppositions respecting our correspon-
dent, Carl, and various members of his family, because
we have no reason to suppose them accurate, nor, if
ever so accurate, of the slightest public interest.
ED. KNICKERBOCKER.]
•■This young gentleman's criticism was on a par with
his other opinions. One day I found him making merry
over an article in the '•Young Ladies' Magazine^' a perfect
gem, entitled , The Death of Cwsar, and for which we are
indebted to the pen of that sweet songstress of Arkansas,
Anna Maria Mathilda Biggs, who had on this occasion
confined her aspiring pinions by the bands of prose ; and,
sooth to say, she danced in her fetters most gracefully.
On my polite inquiry what there might be in this ele-
gant composition that had so moved his mirth, he pointed
disdainfully to the following sentence :
"A gun from the Capitol announced the approach
of Csesar.'
'It is unnecessary to dilate on the obvious anachronism.
58
But can a gushing, impulsive, self-educated, inspiration-
rapt female be expected to remember these niceties of
scholarship like a small book - worm ? And what must
we think of the man's soul who could pronounce on the
merits of a whole article from reading one sentence of it?
'Among our passengers were three Jesuit priests from
Canada. I always make it a point to be civil to such
people, on the principle that some African tribes worship
the d — 1 ; there is no knowing how much harm they
may do you else some day. We had also on board four
Protestant clergymen, of different denominations. When
the first Sunday came, all the seven wanted to preach
at once. W^e were obliged to submit their claims to the
decision of the ballot. I gave my vote for the Catholics,
in accordance with the true theory of social-democratic
liberality and toleration : 'Always go against your own
churchy and never into any.''
'We landed at Havre. Of this place I will not say
that it always rains there , having had pretty positive ex-
perience that it sometimes snows. The difference in in-
tellectual progress between the Europeans and ourselves
was strikingly manifested from the first. This benighted
population had never heard of the ''Oldport Twaddler/' I
doubt if even a copy of the 'New-York Sewer' could have
been found in the whole town ! Of course I made the
shortest possible stay in this moral wilderness, and hur-
ried on to the capital of France, where I am now plea-
santly enough lodged in the 'Sinkiame.i' as they call it;
but you do not sink at all to arrive at it : on the con-
trary, you have to mount either five or six stories, I am
not sure which, for I always get put out in counting the
steps. These elevated situations are recommended by
the medical students, and others well acquainted with
the laws of physiology, on account of the greater purity
of the atmosphere. Our street derives its appellation
from the fact that the saint to whom it is dedicated (St.
Peter, I believe) is represented in the pictures as sliding
down from heaven on a sun-beam, and is therefore cal-
led Saint On-a-ray.
'The disaffection of the people toward the govern-
ment, and their admiration of and longing for our really
republican institutions is so openly manifested on all oc-
casions, that he who runs can't help reading. Every
59
tradesman who called on me with his commodities took
occasion to contrast their condition with ours, and to wish
for a republic like the American. Mr. Benson, who was
present during one of these gratifying demonstrations on
the part of a hair-dresser, muttered something about
'black' which I did not quite understand, and assured
me that the man w as 'coming soft-sawder over me,' and
trying to empty my purse by stuffing me with praise of
my country. But this explanation must be put down to
the anti-republican bias of its author. I really do not
think the French generally equal to such a dodge, for
in some similar matters I have found them very slow of
comprehension. For instance, when I tried to impress
on my boot-maker that if he furnished me with a pair
of new patent-leathers gratis^ I might in return benefit
his connection very much by mentioning him favorably
in the columns of the '-Twaddler^'' and recommending him
to our countrymen visiting Paris: would you believe it?
the stupid fellow could not be made to see the advan-
tage of such an arrangement, and obstinately insisted on
being paid in the current coin of the realm !
'Although rather pressed for time as yet, I have
seen some of the lions. My first visit was naturally to
the world-renowned cathedral of Notre Dame^ (pronounced
^Not a d — n f'J immortalized by its historical associations,
and not less by having been the subject of a most ori-
ginal romance from the fertile pen of Madame Dudevant,
better known by the nom-de-plume of George Sand. This
majestic but somewhat dilapidated edifice has recently
been undergoing considerable renovations ; a process
which might be extended with advantage to some of the
other churches and public buildings. A countryman,
whom I met on his return from Italy, informs me that
this is still more the case in that unhappy priest-and-
king-ridden country, where all the public edifices, he as-
sured me, were very much out of repair. Such are the
withering effects of despotism !
'But the last revolution here, partially counteracted
though its effects have been by the intrigues of the
Prince-President and his reactionary myrmidons, has left
some glorious souvenirs; (you see I am beginning to ac-
quire sufficient familiarity with the language to express
myself in it occasionally 5) among others, the triumphant
k
60
inscription of progress , Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, which
appears in large black letters on all the national pro-
perty, from the Church of God to the post-office for
letters ; from the proud palace of Louis Napoleon to the
public wood-yard [Timbre NationalJ in the Rue de la Paie.
I was somewhat puzzled, however, to observe under al-
most every one of these mottoes an additional one, 'De-
fense d'afficher,'' Passing by one of these, with a French
acquaintance , who possesses some knowledge of our
language, and inquiring of him its meaning, he translated
it, 'It is forbidden to stick ;' but on attempting to explain
himself farther, became so embarrassed that I saw there
was a sore point somewhere, and forbore to press him.
Mr. Benson afterward let me into the mystery. It seems
that , during the commotions which accompanied and fol-
lowed the revolution of February, some of the apostles
of freedom carried their zeal so far as to preach and
sometimes practise the doctrine, that all aristocrats and
enemies of the people should be disposed of by assas-
sination. It therefore became necessary for the Provi-
sional Government to mark, in the most decided way,
their disapprobation of having recourse to such extreme
means, which they did by the inscription aforesaid. The
radicals at present confine themselves to making fun of
the aristocrats, or 'silk-stocking gentry,' on all oppor-
tunities, on which account they are called 'mock-socks.''
While on this subject, I may mention that one of the
streets in our quarter is called by the significant name
of 'Daggers-o!' Indeed, the names of the French streets,
or rues^ are in many instances exceedingly appropriate.
One is called 'Hell-dare^'' from the desperate character
of the gambling-houses in it ; another, 'Petty Shams.,'' from
the little tricks of the store-keepers in it to gain custom.
Then there are 'Tie-boot' and ^Lafit,' inhabited chiefly by
shoe-makers and tailors. The street of the most fashion-
able shops is justly denominated 'De la Paie,' Cparce
qu'on y paie le double pour toute chose/ said my informant,)
while, as a contrast, we have the 'Rue de Saoers^^ in a
more economical part of the city.
'The cookery of France has long been the boast of
its inhabitants, and the puzzle of strangers. Sidney Smith
said of Lord Brougham that he could not take tea without
a stratagem 5 I may say of myself, that I cannot take
61
dinner without a mystery : there is a whole circulating
library of them in every dish. However, I have not as
yet, to my knowledge^ eaten a frog, though I would not
swear to being guiltless of the consumption of sundry
cats and rats. Only yesterday I found the tip of the
tail of some unknown animal — literally a tail of my-
stery — in one of our table d''hdte dishes. The practice
of commencing dinner with soup, confined among us to
the codfish-aristocracy, is here universal ; and the poorer
classes, rather than go without this national dish, some-
times absolutely make it of old shoes ! But the distress
among the lower orders here is such as a free-born Ame-
rican can have no idea of. In times of scarcity they are
positively driven to consume their bed-clothes ; in allusion
to which circumstance, the French cooks, with their cha-
racteristic levity, have invented a dish called ^blankets of
woP The Parisians are very fond of ducks, (canards j
A particular species much in demand are called Canards
du Constitutionnel >) or 'constitutional ducks,' from their
wholesomeness. I have been pleased to learn that P. T.
Barnum, Esq., in his capacity of Agricultural Society Pre-
sident, has made arrangements for naturalizing this valu-
able breed in America.
'As a Frenchman always begins his dinner with soup,
so he always ends it with salad. There are several kinds
of this esculent in use; the best is called 'Lay-too^'' be-
cause it makes its appearance at that stage of the meal
when the eater requires to 'lay to,' or rest, after his
prandiatory exertions.
'The duties of my responsible position leave me, as
you may suppose, little time for mere amusement. But
I was induced the other day to accompany Mr. Benson
to a sort of out-of-town hotel, whither the fashionables
are accustomed to resort. It is called 'Mad-rid^'' from the
frantic style of equestrianism in vogue among its fre-
quenters. There I saw many of the first leaders of ton
in Paris, female as well as male; 'grand dams^^ Benson
called them, which, however, in French does not mean
grandmothers^ but great ladies. The Baroness of Clichy,
the Princess Mogador , and many other women of rank,
were pointed out to me. The equipages of these children
of luxury were superb ; their dress and manners most
elegant ; but it was painful to observe that they had not
62
been unscathed by the demoralizing influence prevalent
in feudal countries : some of them actually smoked cigars !
It rejoiced me greatly to remark, among other celebrities
present, the resident reporter of the 'Sewer:' such an in-
cident was truly gratifying, as a proof that men like
ourselves find their proper place here, and meet with a
due acknowledgment of their merits.
'The same evening we attended a splendid ball, in
a very beautiful garden. These balls are called 'Mabille^''
from the French s'habiller^ Ho dress one's self,' as being
emphatically the dress-balls. The students and literary
men of Paris frequent them, but they have somewhat
fallen off of late, and the society is not quite equal to
that of the Mad-rid. Benson told me that the lady por-
tion of the visitors were 'Low-rales,'' or. second rates, as
compared with the 'grand dams,'' above mentioned.
'The post is waiting, and I must close in haste.
'Yours ever,
CRANBERRY FUSTER.
Spirit of the Times.
Take notice, the locality and date of this epistle
Are, 9th of April, Saturday, the quiet town of Bristol.
DEAR "SPIRITS — Though 'tis difficult for one
aright to pitch a lay who's been imbedded seven days in
Tom Carlyle and Michelet, with some excursions Co-
leridge-ward (there's kant enough all round me ,) and
other philosophic trips, sufficient to confound me. (I also
mention these pursuits by way of an apology for boring
you with anything approaching to theology.) I'm tempted
irresistibly for half an hour to toss over all musings of
historian, polemic, and philosopher, and spin you off a
yarn in rhyme , or something that will stand for 't ; so
God save our militiamen and long live General Sandford!
First, then, Election Day has passed, and all is very
quiet ; Rhode Islanders are not , just now , the boys to
raise a riot ; their dialect rhymes lor and Dorr, and there-
fore to sustain law they've voted out the "Algerines,"
63
and voted in the Maine Law. So every man must brew
himself, and only fill his own jug ; just sell a quart of
cider here and they'll give you the stone jug. Thank
Heaven, they can't yet confiscate your private pocket-
pistol ! They're not yet so uncivilized in this 'ere town
of Bristol. And next your correspondent grieves that,
though discreet and quiet, he has had but little chance
to judge of Bristolese society ; for having been a fort-
night here, and more, as he's a sinner, there's not a
human in the place has asked him out to dinner ; whereby
(the Maine Law's no excuse ; that shan't go down now,
shall it ?) he conceived imperfect notions of Rhode-Island
hospitality ; because, without the slightest dread of using
a misnomer, we call ourselves "pum sumpkins" — at least
when we at home are. (You see I use a figure which is
common and convenient ; to all such literal liberties I
trust you will be lenient. In all the realms of verbal
fun I don't know such a path as is to worn out witlings
opened by this popular metathesis. As in a farce the
dramatist is safe to raise a roar if he can put a player's
heels where was his head before, so if you just trip up
a phrase and interchange first letters, you frequently ap-
pear to be as witty as your betters. Nay, sometimes it
so happens you the meaning don't confound, but get thereby
a truer sense, as well as newer sound ; for instance, our
young folks of old were wont to be romantic^ but Young
America is now decidedly more antic J We felt ourselves
much slighted (to return from this digression) to think
that all our sojourn here made not the least impression,
and were extremely gratified when some folks of the
"Upper Ten" of the region round about invited us to
supper. To some of the inhabitants we greatly longed
to speak, who often to our mind recalled four words of
ancient Greek : baia men alia rhoda^ which in England I
suppose is, there aren't many girls about ^ but those that are^
are roses — a word which commg just in time forbids me
to disclose a scintilla of our doings there , because they
were sub rosa. I therefore drop the curtain with this
only intimation — we hadn't much Maine liquor-law in
force on that plantation.
We're coming back to Gotham soon, intending to
go thence on to Philadelphia possibly ; meanwhile adieu,
CARL BENSON.
64
Bedford, L. /., June iO, i853.
Dear "Spirit^ — It is always flattering to a man's
vanity to be missed. Your readers and contributors seem
to have accepted the Parisian Correspondence as a fixed
fact , and a desirable item ; so much so that some public
spirited tourists have volunteered to fill the gap. May
they stay there till I go back (that's not wishing you
any harm , is it, friend Tramper ?) and longer too. The
more the merrier — and the better cheer, too. We shall
falsify half the adage.
But, do you know, if these gentlemen hadn't come
to the rescue so handsomely, I might have been tempted
to carry out an idea which occured to me in looking
over some of the letters I received last month from t'other
side the pond ; which was , to go on with a Parisian Corre-
spondence all the same, though bodily resident on Rhode
Island or Long Island , or some of the other islands.
Suppose, for instance, we had taken this extract from
a single epistle : —
"There is a very tedious drama at the Porte St. Martin,
Even Mellingue can't make it interesting. The subject
a feud between the St. Pols and Armagnacs ; the scenery
and costumes, and Mdlle. Lucie's legs, keep it going.
" Thiliberte ,' a three act comedy in verse by Emile
Augier, is having a run at the Gymnase^ very well acted
of course, the sentiment a little too fine drawn.
"'La Malaria,' by the Marquis Delannoy, was with-
drawn from the Francais for a few nights by superior
orders, being thought too trifling for the first French
theatre — at least that was the ostensible reason. It has
been restored. The subject, from Dante's Inferno^ is
prettily treated ; a jealous Italian shuts up his wife in
the Maremna, and not finding the climate expeditious
enough, dispatches her wifti a poisoned bouquet. Brohan,
as the heroine, was charming.
"Ponsard's 'L'honneur et I'argent,' runs finely at the
Odeon. They make money there with the pieces refused
at the Francais, Two or three nights ago some gay youths
came down from the Boulevards with four post-horses
and applauded vehemently. Probably they were more
pleased with their own wit than the author's.
65
"The Italian Opera has picked up. Mme. Lagrange
and Rossi have acquitted themselves satisfactorily and
Cruvelli, in 'Linda,' made a great hit in the mad-scene
the other night. Fiorentino , of the 'Constitutionnel,' says
it was one of the few sensations worth remembering.
Gardoni, the sweetest tenor we have heard since Mario,
sang here at concerts on his way from St. Petersburg to
London. Tamburini, who has nothing left but the name,
sang, or was supposed to sing, with him.
"There is a new opera Comique by Thomas. A chorus
of Pifferari, and a tarentella by Ugalde, are pretty. It
fell rather flat; the libretto (by Leuven) was hissed."
There ! I think half a dozen such extracts, some for
the other theatres, some for sporting matters, some for
things in general , would have made up a plausible-looking
letter , quite enough to deceive the public. Poor public !
how it is deceived, for all its shrewdness, especially in
these outside matters. I noticed a little instance the other
day, and had a quiet laugh over it. One of our Month-
lies publishes an article on "Life in Paris," adorned (the
term is used for want of a better) with bad copies on
a reduced scale from the Tableau de Paris^ an illustrated
work brought out in Paris last year, itself a copy from
Gavarni and various sources. Thereupon the discriminating
editor of a daily observes that "these cuts have a Punch-
like comicality which speaks well for the progress of
American [!] art." Possibly, however, this was meant
for a joke. It is charitable to suppose so. The daily
in question is much given to jokes — of a peculiar
sort. Very lately it published a deliberate misstatement
about one literary man, just for the chances of involving
him in a quarrel with another literary man, and so getting
up a nice little bit of mischief. What a pity that such
benevolent intentions should ever be disappointed! Doubt-
less this was a joke too, though your correspondent is
too dull to see the wit of it. He thinks that there is
some palliation for the blunders of ignorance, but no ex-
cuse for the fa15rications of malice. Query, does advo-
cating the Maine Law give a man indulgence in any
amount of falsehood ? Is that an article in the new
scheme of Socialist morality ?
But your correspondent is too honest to mystify or
try to mystify anybody, and will not pretend to be where
Vol. IV. 5
he is not. Three months hence he may be telling you
how things really are in the metropolis of pleasure
meanwhile he submits a question or two on equine
matters. ******
Wonder if there is any law, statute, or ordinance,
in our good city, against using condemned racers for cart
horses, and if there be such, whether it is any body's
business to put it in force. Let me relate, without co-
loring or exaggeration, a little scene, which as it pro-
videntially terminated in no catastrophe , is rather amusing
than otherwise to think of, though it might have ended
in a sad ditty, anything but a carmen triumphale.
Last month your correspondent had occasion to
worship a deity to whom Gothamites are wont at that
time of year to pay duty and sacrifice. I don't know who
was his exact counterpart or prototype in classic mytho-
logy, probably Terminus — at any rate, if I am wrongs
the erudite editor of the "Tribune" can doubtless set me
right. In plain English, I had some furniture to move,
and as the articles were valuable and the route somewhat
complicated, I got upon the cart myself along with them
for better supervision of their transport. By the time we
were well into the crowd of Broadway, it became evident
that our propelling power had more energy and love of
progress about him than was perfectly consistent either
with the comfort of the moveables or the safety of the
public generally. On inquiring of my Automedon the
reason of proceedings so at variance with the legitimate
habits of the common domestic cart-horse, he replied,
"that this horse had been a good runner and won two
scrub races on Long Island ; had then been sold to a
lady, who couldn't make anything of him, (exceedingly
likely) and thus arrived at his present estate." He added
the pleasing information that he himself was only the tem-
porary driver of the cart, the owner having been capsized
the day previous with considerable personal damage.
I have followed some hunts , and half a steeple-chase,
and been in a few tight places on the road, not to speak
of runaways, but I never really knew what it was to be
afraid of a horse till that day. Sometimes our animal
would start off at full trot, tearing his load along as if
it were a skeleton wagon, and rushing into the very jaws
of an omnibus. Then he would give ominous indications
67
of friskiness about the hind legs. Also, he had learned
one branch of his new vocation, namely, to back for the
purpose of "dumping" and back he would, on the slightest
provocation in the way of check , never heeding whether
it w^as against a curb stone or into a carriage. It was
some relief to quit Broadway, but we auspicated our
deflection into a side-street by nearly pulverising a light
wagon. I added my small forces to the driver's pull,
just in time to prevent the frail vehicle from being crushed
like a nut-shell.
At length we reached the ferry, where we were to
cross. At the nearest corner rose a sumptuous oyster
stand embellished with its proprietor. The fiery steed
made one eifort to rush into the confluent tide of vehicles.
His driver hauled frantically against him ; he backed like
a locomotive reversed, the cart wheels jarred on the
curb-stone, and the cart tail impinged on the oyster stand
with marked emphasis. There was a cry of men and a
crash of falling timber.
"Well," said I to myself, "a man has but one life
to live and there's no use of his dying before his time."
So I took a flying leap into the street, and having
landed just clear of a team, slid under the nose of an-
other cart-horse and gained a place of safety on the
side-walk. I looked back to the scene of concussion,
and beheld the oysterman on his reverse sitting amid the
fragments of his establishment like Marius among the
ruins of Carthage — read cartage for this day only.
Some benevolent individuals picked up the overthrown
dispenser of bivalves. I had fearful visions of the po-
lice making a swoop on us — a pardonable error of
apprehension arising from European reminiscences. Then •
I recollected we were in a free country, and began to
dread some ill-usage from the crowd. Fortunately I was
so shabbily dressed, and in such a state of dirt generally
that the most professed lover of the people could not
have suspected me of the crime of aristocracy. Having
a chance to recover my presence of mind, I made the
carman do what he ought to have done before, get down
and stay at his horse's head during the rest of our journey,
and so by leading the "high-mettled racer" we reached
our destination without having any one's blood or bones
on our heads.
68
Now I take the liberty of very much doubting whether
such a brute as this would be permitted to do cart work
habitually in the streets of any European city. I may be
very unpatriotic and un-American to say so, but it is my
opinion, nevertheless.
Yours ever.
Newport, R. I., July 25, 1853.
Dear ^ Spirit.^'' — Two little weeks ago, or even a
shorter time, Newport, having already undergone the
agony of preparation, was enduring that of expectation.
The tables showed long rows of empty seats j the cor-
ridors echoed to the almost solitary footsteps of the few
habitual early-comers. There was no music, and a "plen-
tiful scarcity" of carriages. The very barbers were shaving
one another for want of something to do. Even the cot-
tagers , not yet on hospitable thoughts intent, looked
slightly blank at the face of a stranger. Now the perio-
dical change is nearly accomplished. Rooms are scarcer
than people to put in them were a fortnight since. Even
those hotels which seemed at last overtaken by retribu-
tive justice for their misdeeds, and left desolate of guests,
are beginning to fill up. (Here by the way, let me remark
with pleasure that our "ancient fogy" house, the old-
established family Bellevue, has held its own this season,
and been doing a good stroke of work in advance of
more showy rivals. Its unobtrusive merits are getting
to be properly appreciated.) There is much show of equi-
pages, and a nice accompaniment of Germania music to
• your after-dinner cigar or after-tea chat. The cottages
— everything in Newport not a hotel is of course a cot-
tage ; they are the only two architectural appellations ad-
mitted, and the latter includes equally the four-story
mansion, embowered in twenty acres of shrubbery, and
the four-room frame building in the middle of the town
— the cottages are swept and garnished, and interchanging
dinners and "at-homes." As to the lots of pretty women
one sees everywhere — excuse me 5 it is really too serious
a subject to talk of.
Yet your correspondent prepares to quit the festive
scene without regret, inasmuch as he is going (happy
69
man to have the choice) from this pleasant place to one
still pleasanter. For ubi bene ibi patria, which I trans-
late very freely, ''the pleasantest place for a man is where
his family are." And besides this subjective pleasantness
(to speak transcendentally) Paris has many objective
amenities.
To be sure it is dead. So is all France. The "Courier
& Enquirer" determined that some weeks ago. Brandy
and salt won't save it — not all the burnt brandy of
Louis Napoleon's soldiery , nor all the attic salt of its
wits and dramatists. A very remarkable article that was
of the "Courier's," with several merits besides its bre-
vity. Much impressed therewith, and having meditated
somewhat on the subject, your correspondent has come
to a different conclusion. I suppose in this free country
one may differ in opinion even from an editor.
Surely he would be a bold man who should affirm
that France was financially, or commercially, or manu-
facturingly dead. (Excuse the last clumsy adverb.) Some
important elements of national life these. Militarily dead
she most assuredly is not , and seems likely to show the
Czar as much before, long. Nor can she well be called
defunct in a literary point of view, though the temptation
of pecuniary profit .and other reasons have drawn most
of her talent in two special directions, to fictitious and
dramatic literature.
But the death asserted of France is probably a mo-
ral one. We have often heard this. French immorality
has long been no secret to the French raemselves, even
to the very men among them who have done their best
or worst to swell the tide — the politicians, the novelists,
the dramatists, the artists. Couture's famous picture,
"The Banquet during the Decline of the Roman Empire,"
owed its reputation not more to its artistic merits (pos-
sibly a little over-rated) than to the sentiment it con-
veyed — its moral applicability to the existing state of
society. There have been several morals drawn from
that picture. One of our most popular writers has ap-
plied it to our own Gothamite Upper Ten-dom, that effete
and emasculate society which sends out young men one
year to fight the country's battles in Mexico, and another
year to drive carts and keep stores in California, and
70
every year to marry and bring up families on incomes
that would condemn a European exquisite to selfish old-
bachelor-hood. But there is no accounting for comparisons
any more than for tastes. Digression apart, French im-
morality is not to be denied or glossed over, but neither
is it a thing of yesterday. The French are an immoral
people now, and they always were. What killed their last
chance was something that happened some time ago —
the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. That was what
fixed their flint for them. The reign of Louis XIV. was
one of France's great eras. No one would have said
then she was dead or dying ; certainly not the Pope or
the German Emperor, most assuredly not that greatest
of modern kings, William III. of England, who wore out
his mighty heart contending against her. Are the French
people more immoral^ or less morale whichever way you like
to phrase it, under Napoleon III. than they were under
Louis XIV. ? I say no ! no ! a thousand times no !
As to religion, the French don't persecute now as
they did in Louis XIV.'s time ; and , with all due
deference to the high ecclesiastical authorities on the
other side, I opine that toleration, even when the result
of indifference, is a great step in advance of perse-
cution. So on the whole we conclude that France isn't
dead yet.
At the same time, Paris may well be the moral death
of many wlio go there. Especially dangerous is it for
those youth whose innocence is the result of ignorance
and Mrs. Grundv, rather than principle and reason. Such
are marvellously prone to go to the devil with four post
horses. Young America in Paris suffers much from two
alarming maladies, laziness and lorettes. Only let us do
our countrymen justice in one respect. They are not in
the habit — even the youngest and spooniest of them —
of taking the first Dame aux Camelias they meet for a
Princess in disguise, albeit it has lately become fashionable
to represent them so in print. I fancy that sort of thing
has occasionally happened to green Englishmen — bagmen
and the like — and our writers on Paris have adopted
this stock incident from the English. Our compatriots
take these ladies for what they are — which is bad
enough ; they don't mistake them for real ladies.
There is an old nautical joke against a landsman
71
that "he has come to sea to wear out his old clothes."
It has often seemed to me that the Anglo-Saxons (Eng-
lish as well as ourselves) come similarly to Paris to wear
out their bad morals, keeping such good ones as they
are supposed to have for home consumption. It is really
refreshing to see how a man who has been shown all
the ropes of the metropolis of pleasure, perhaps given
some of the Gauls a wrinkle or two, comes home, looks
prim, talks grave, goes to church, and thanks God that
we are not even as those Frenchmen.
The Parisians must have odd ideas of our countrymen
from their ordinary outside phases there. I verily believe
that the only product of American civilization permanently
translated into Paris is the noble game of poker — pocare as
they call it in ^he clubs. The sherry-cobbler has not quite
held its ground. One prevalent notion is, that all Americans
are immensely rich, like the Russians. And indeed these
are the two most money-spending nations among conti-
nental travellers ; only the Russian is living on his in-
come, and the American frequently treating himself to a
bit out of his principal. The English milord is almost
in the past tense. The present generation of Englishmen
mostly go abroad to economize. A very natural accident
has increased the reputation of our countrymen in this
respect — that of their frequently making purchases from
the most fashionable tradesmen, far beyond their own
consumption, on account of friends or relatives at home.
I knew a lady w^ho used regularly to supply five sisters
in New- York with bonnets, and thereby obtained the not
altogether desirable renown of spending a fortune in mil-
linery. And it was once my own hap, under somewhat
similar circumstances , to run up a bill at Boivin's that
astonished the weak mind of a certain small periodical,
published I believe in a section of the country where
people are not in the habit of wearing gloves.
Now that we have come to the end of our time and
paper, -what is all this farrago libelli about? Quien sabe?
Let it go. I am so in the habit of writing to the "Spirit"
that it has become a sort of necessary excitement ; I am
afraid writing grows on one, like liquor and tobacco, and
other insidious habits. When once safe across the water
we will try to send you something better. May we not
this time, as too often before,
72
**Pave with abortive intentions
[the road to] A place too caloric to name/^
Meanwhile, farewell for a month or so. Cras ingens
iterabimus aequor. Translate, we sail in the Franklin,
July 30th.
Ever yours.
Chateau Hocquard, Louveciennes , August 22, i853.
Dear ''Spirity — Have the goodness to imagine a
park of a hundred acres, "be the same more or less,"
straggling all over a hill ; magnificent old tress and leafy
avenues of all sorts ; drives and walks, carriage-roads,
bridle-paths, and foot-paths; artistically-cut vistas at all
the best points of view, giving you miles of prospect over
hill and dale, wood and water, disclosing here an aqueduct,
there a rail-road bridge , here a little village on the ri-
ver, there another country-seat on another hill. On the
highest ground a jolly old house, with suites of rooms
numerous, and cool stone passages, and mysterious clo-
sets, and queer glass plates about the door-knobs that
throw startling reflections on your privacy, making you
turn round at times, under the impression that your door
has been left open, or that some stranger has popped
into your room ; and old pictures (bad enough, too, some
of them,) and books of the "no-gentleman's-library-should-
be-without" kind ; the whole establishment having been
left uninhabited just long enough to give it a little wild-
ness, without letting it go to ruin. Such is Chateau Hoc-
quard, about twelve miles from Paris, where your cor-
respondent is at home for the season.
At home ? Can a man begin to be at home anywhere
out of his native country ? There w^as a time when I
thought not, but nos miUamur^ however the tempora may be.
At any rate, we are not alone in the change. No one
who has not intimately associated with those Americans
who .may be conveniently grouped under the term "the
travelled class," can fully appreciate the extent of their
absentee propensities. You may often hear it laid down
as an axiom, both by them and by foreigners (quick
enough to observe such manifestations), that no American,
after having lived abroad, comes home to live from choice,
73
his return being due either to business engagements —
in other words, want of means — or to filial duty and
family ties. Somewhat too broad this assertion, but not
without a good deal of foundation. And the existence
of such a feeling presents a curious social problem.
To be sure there are two solutions which you need
not go far to seek. First, that of the American Radical,
your real leveller, who hates everybody in any way bet-
ter off than himself, richer, more educated, more respected;
or of the man who makes his living, wholly or partially,
by talking "for Buncombe."
"These are bad people 5 useless people at least, and
all useless people in this country are bad. They like to
see the masses slaves, and we are all freemen. They
like to be idle, and we are all workers. They like lu-
xury, and we are all temperance, frugality, and republi-
can simplicity. They like dissipation and vice, and we
are the most moral and virtuous nation under the sun ," &c.
&c. &c. There is no scarcity of these assertions. You
may hear them repeated over and over again, in news-
papers, magazines, lectures, addresses. Probably the
reasoner winds up by saying "they are a set of snobs,"
a term of opprobrium which such persons are very fond
of using, just as "gemmen of color," when angry with
a man, are apt to call him "you nigger!"
The European Conservative who has observed the
peculiarity in question , is equally dogmatic in his way
of accounting for it. "America is no country for gentle-
men, and therefore gentlemen don't like to live in it.
Every one is at work making money. Those who have
made it, or their children, do not know how to spend it,
except in animal gratification or ostentation of upholstery.
The man of elegant leisure finds no like-minded men.
But further, he is subject to a galling social tyranny
which obliges him either to shun all notice , or to flat-
ter his tyrant, the mob. He dares not live differently,
or spend his money differently, from his neighbors. He
goes abroad not only to gratify refined tastes , but also
to enjoy social freedom."
That these solutions contradict each other is evident.
But this is saying very little of them. When brought
into contact they severally tionfute themselves^ and at
74
the same time, paradoxical as it seems, mutually con-
firm the prejudices of those who propose them.
For instance, the American radical sees that there
are eminent men in his country not engaged in business
or politics, and also men of wealth and leisure. The re-
lative talents of the former, the relative wealth and lei-
sure of the latter, he may not properly estimate, but the
broad fact of their existence is sufficiently obvious. Being
convinced, therefore, by actual observation, that the Eu-
ropean's position is in some sense and degree untrue, he
concludes that it is untrue altogether ; that there is noth-
ing in the country of which a gentleman has any right
to complain, and that he who does practically complain
by living or wishing to live abroad, is a worthless and
unrepublican character.
On the other hand, the European meets with Ame-
ricans temporally or permanently resident abroad. He
finds them men of elegant tastes and pleasing manners.
Very probably his experience of them goes far to remove
old prepossessions which he entertained. Nevertheless,
he sees all this class indiscriminately denounced, and re-
presented in an odious light by popular writers. Know-
ing by experience the falsehood and injustice of these
attacks, he is the more confirmed in his idea that gentle-
men of leisure and refinement have neither occupation,
enjoyment, nor liberty, in America, and therefore get out
of it in self-defence as soon as they can or dare.
An unprejudiced man (or something as near to that
moral phenomenon as can reasonably be supposed to
exist) might perhaps say that the truth lay between these
extremes, the class of which we speak suflPering some
real grievances, and at the same time having these grie-
vances exaggerated by foreigners, and being disposed to
exaggerate them themselves. But there is also another
possible supposition, that the truth, or at least a portion
of it, may lie not between the extremes at all, but out-
side of the line altogether ; that Americans may live, or
wish to live abroad, without any particular aristocratic
or anti-democratic prejudices, without losing their pa-
triotism or preference of free institutions.
Nobody doubts that a man who has emigrated to
escape absolute starvation, or the effects of political per-
secution, (say an Irishman or a Hungarian) may retain a
75
most ardent attachment for his country, although he hris
run out of it as fast as his legs could carry him, or the
billows of ocean bear him, and has no appreciable chance
of ever permanently returning to it. This is the extreme
case : take another. Many Englishmen and Frenchmen
reside among us who continue to prefer the institutions
of their own countries, as they show by not claiming
American citizenship. These men live in America volun-
tarily, because they can improve their fortunes and live
more comfortably and luxuriously there than at home.
Now, if it be indisputable that political freedom (a some-
what vague and sometimes much abused term, which
often comes practically to mean living under a government
with a republican form.') and money-making are the two
great and overwhelming motives of human life, •then of
course there is an end of the application ; but if we ad-
mit that there may be other inducements quite as legi-
timate to fix a private individual in his choice of residence,
a tolerably wide field is opened at once.
Take health, for instance, one of the- greatest bles-
sings in itself, and a necessary foundation for the enjoy-
ment of many others. The climate of many parts of
Europe, is, on the whole, more favorable than than of
any part of America, as a man very soon finds out, or
as the mere use of his eyes will tell him, if he has never
tried the experiment himself. The American who returns
from those hotbeds of tyranny, dissipation, and wickedness,
the European capitals, lands with the bloom of health
on his cheek and twenty pounds more flesh on his bones
than he had at starting. After being a month or two in
our free and virtuous commercial metropolis, he looks
thin and yellow and care-worn as ever. The subject is
one so entirely unconnected with politics, morals, or re-
ligion, that it might be supposed a person could avow
the fact, and assign it as a reason for choosing to live
on the east side of the Atlantic without thereby incur-
ring any odium or suspicion. No sane being supposes
that Victoria has any influence with the Clerk of the
weather, or that Louis Napoleon can "do" a decree at
the Tuileries for the regulation of the atmosphere, and
give a "second warning" to Boreas, or that Frank Pierce
has, like Virgil's Augustus, joint empire of the skies vdth
Jupiter. And yet so fanatically and ineptly rampant is
76
the patriotism of some people, that to hint at the climate
of Naples or Paris being better than that of New- York,
will be considered a sort of treason. You will hear them
talk as if were one's duty to die, or at least be bilious
and dyspeptic, under a republic, when you can live and
be w^ell under a monarchy.
Again, our city life (and remember we are discus-
sing the motives of a city-living class) is the most hurry-
ing and worrying, and wearing and tearing, in the world.
There is as constant fever of excitement. Whenever I
go into Wall-street (where, seldom having more than
half-a-dozen people to see, and always at least half an
hour to see them in, I am not obliged to race like a
stray locomotive.) it gives me a most Rip Van Winkle
and behind -the -age sensation. Every man and every
thing around me seems to say "W^hat are you about here,
you idler ? What are you doing, walking at the rate of
three miles an hour? W^ake up, run around, do some-
thing and somebody to make money. Go into a bank or
a company. Speculate in lots. Corner some hapless in-
dividual on fancy stock. Turn up your sleeves and slave,
like a free citizen. Get the advantage of somebody, like
a conscientious man. Make a few hundred thousand dol-
lars in less than no time, or else fail for half a million,
and ruin yourself and a dozen friends, and some hundred
strangers." That's what the very stones of Wall-street
seem to be saying to me. Very exciting and tempting
it is, even to a philosopher. If you ever watched Prince
Kantpronouncizname, at Rauchenzubad, gathering in po-
cketfuls of rouleaus, you couldn't help feeling a momen-
tary wish to try your luck. But of course you wouldn't,
for it's wrong to gamble.
It may be that all this restlessness has a magnificent
collective result, and makes us a miracle of progress,
the admiration and envy of the world, and so forth, but
its individual personal results are anything but brilliant
or pleasant. A dogged application, which only unbends
itself physically in undigesting voracity, and mentally in
undigested bombast and rabid invective, is considered
the normal state of a citizen. The luxury of leisure and
the luxury of mirth are alike condemned. The desipere
in loco is'kicked out of doors , and the possibility of occasio-
nal trifling construed into an incapacity for sober thought.
77
So much for what we have called that part of the
case which lies outside the line between the two extreme
opinions. Not that this branch of the question is ex-
hausted. Several other reasons might be adduced why
an American may prefer Europe for a residence without
ceasing to have a profound respect for his Excellency
the President and all — no , not all the Members of
Congress ; that would be expecting a little too much ;
but for Congress in its abstract and collective capacity.
What we have said, however, may serve for a specimen.
, Now let us look at what lies within the line, and
somewhere between the two extreme points. Is it true,
for instance , that a man of leisure can find nothing to
do in America, or, on the other hand, that our men of
leisure are w^orthless members of the community ?
To say that a gentleman out of business (counting
as business the three learned professions, public service,
and all kinds of mercantile work) can find no amusement
in America, is to lay down an exaggerated and incorrect
position. A sporting man has large opportunities, and
some kinds of sport (as who know better than the "Spi-
rit" and its readers ?) are better carried out in our country
than in any other. The mere epicureism of life, whether
displayed in edibles or potables, or in w^earables and
upholstery, is highly culivated in our cities. The tourist,
the lover of scenery, the amateur sketcher or landscape
painter, have all great advantages.
It must be borne in mind, however, that most of these
pursuits and predilections are not of a highly intellectual
character. Many of them also are of a class which,
though not necessarily vicious or inherently low (Heaven
forbid!) have a tendency, unless tempered by other influ-
ences^ to lead into animal excess and irregular habits.
If we qualify the position, and say that a man of
literary or scientific, or (with some exceptions) artistic
leisure, is apt to find himself out of place in America,
it will perhaps not be so very far from the real state
of the case.
The want of libraries j galleries, and similar appli-
ances, is a fact so obvious that it requires only to be
stated; to enlarge on it would be superfluous. But a
more serious want, one of constant and daily recurrence,
is that of like-minded associates. Books may be imported,
78
but men cannot be made to order. Most persons, how-
ever attached to their favorite pursuits , go on in them
all the better for sympathy. The veriest London alder-
man would not fully enjoy himself alone at a banquet.
The most complete specimen of a New- York ditto would
be comparatively honest if he had no compeers to aid
and encourage him in his "realizing" propensities. The
amateur has an ever present sense of discouraging in-
fluences about him, which all his enthusiasm cannot cause
him to forget. Whatever has not a practical, i. e. money-
making or vote-making result, is looked upon with con-
tempt or suspicion. That a gentleman should study music
without teaching it, or architecture without being a pro-
fessional architect, is a perfectly natural thing in Germany
or Italy. With us it would be deemed only an excuse
for doing nothing. Or that he should take up his resi-
sidence at a German University for the purpose, say, of
acquiring an Oriental language, would be thought rather
a praiseworthy step than otherwise in France or England.
Among us I am afraid it would be regarded in most
quarters with stupid wonder or more stupid ridicule. In
a word, the man who is not making or trying to make
money, has a certain want of position and influence. There
is a prestige against him. Political ambition is only an
apparent exception, for that has an ominous squint to-
wards "the spoils."
Now most men , and particularly most Americans,
are more or less many sided. Almost every person has
more than one favorite pursuit or tendency. We do not
generally find people in real life like the characters in
Miss Burney's novels, or the "Fine Old English" style
of comedy, mere concrete representations of a single pas-
sion. A man may like pure mathematics and also be a
disciple of Izaak Walton. He may have a natural in-
clination to philology and also a weakness for horse-flesh.
He may feel a strong interest in art, conjointly with a
correct appreciation of good suppers. And here it is
that our utilitarian standard tells both ways against the
man of leisure. He has an intellectual taste leading him
to the pursuit of some study. He has also a physical
taste leading him to the pursuit of some favorite recrea-
tion. He finds associates more readily, and consequently
more encouragement in the latter than in the former. He
79
sees that indulgence in the former diminishes his con-
ventional respectability as much as indulgence in the
latter. He is repulsed from intellectual society (or what
does duty for such) and invited into purely physical
society.
Of course there is one ready and convenient answer
to all this. The gentlest form of it is the position that,
ours being a new country, every man in it is bound to
work and develope the country's resources. Once this
assertion may have been correct enough, but surely at
present a stranger standing in our streets, and looking
around him, might well ask, "If this nation, with the
second commerce in the world, with its miles of ship-
ping and thousands of leagues of railroad, its cities of
half a million population, and its citizens of ten millions
fortune — if this country is not sufficiently developed
now to attend to the ornaments and graces of life, when
will it be ?" But the more usual and violent form of
stating the answer is, that idle men ought to be made
Pariahs, for the genius of our country's institutions de-
mands that idleness should be held disreputable. This
is good popular doctrine, and a stock sentiment with
such people as are in the habit of lecturing at fifty cents
a head.
Here, in the first place, great injustice is done to
the class attacked, by the use of the world idle^ this de-
preciating term being applied , not to want of occupation
but to want of paid occupation ; not to the non-study of
any profession, art, science, or branch of literature, but
to the non-practice of it for pecuniary remuneration.
Probably no one but a fanatic, or a barbarian, would
contend that it is in any way wrong or dishonorable to
be an artist, or author, or teacher, (I abstain designedly
from the word professor; it has become too low since
craniologists and mesmerizers , and all sorts of humbugs,
have taken it up,) or savant^ provided one does so pro-
fessionally, and makes an income by such pursuit. Now
suppose that having the income beforehand from inde-
pendent sources, a man chooses to give his services to the
public, or his friends, does that make his position less
respectable ? If so , then we measure the art or science
by the money, the higher standard by the lower j genius,
talent, learning, are, to use Goethe's illustration, not the
80
high and heavenly goddesses, but the convenient cows
that keep us in cheese and butter. I should take it just
the other way, and say that the author, artist, or scien-
tific nian, works for money only incidentally, because he
must live , and the laborer is worthy of his hire ; that
the pecuniary proceeds of his labor are his means and
not his end ; and that if he acts on a difi^erent principle,
making the acquisition of a fortune his end, then, how-
ever successful in securing that object he may be, he is
not imbued with the true spirit of a liberal profession.
But, it may be said, we put the case too favorably
for our side. Many, nay most men of leisure, are not
amateurs of any art or science, or literary men in the
sense of writing and publishing literary men. Their only
occupation is amusement ; they are literally idle. We
will admit this, and moreover put aside the possibility
of their doing good as Maecenases or patrons, though some-
thing might be said on this point. Take a gentlemanly
and accomplished man, who has nothing to do but dis-
charge his family and social duties, and amuse himself.
It is possible that such a one may be in some sense his
own enemy, that he loses a great resource and the most
reliable means of real amusement, by having no pet em-
ployment ; but if his life is correct and pure, if he pays
his debts and wrongs no one, what is there disgraceful
in his mode of existence? Oh, says the objector, idle
people have a proclivity to vice. Perhaps there comes
up a quotation from the child's classic about Satan finding
some mischief, &c.
No doubt leisure has its temptations. Arthur Helps
expresses this very well when he says that ''hard work
is a great police agent." Possibly, however, the normal
state of man may not be that of constant police super-
vision. And there arises a small query on the other side
not altogether unworthy consideration. Has business no
temptations? Is the lawyer never tempted to "make the
worse appear the better reason," to foster litigation, to
widen breaches that might easily be repaired ? Is the
merchant never tempted to something very like licensed
gambling, or what may be legal honesty, but looks very
like moral dishonesty ? * Are the terms politician and
* "An American citizen never steals; he only gets the advantage."
— Sam Slick.
81
man of principle absolutely and indisputably synonymous?
Nay, that great moral teacher, the daily editor, is his
course entirely free from snares and perils ? Does he
walk through the world like an innocent Little Red
Ridinghood, without any wolf in the path? Compare the
idleness of twenty Master Silkes and Mrs. Potiphars , and
the industry of the New-York (reader to fill the blank as
he pleases), with reference to the respective amount of
harm they do the community. Calculate the extent of
damage done by a single commercial explosion.
It may be said, "but these are exceptional cases ; it
is not the inherent quality — the differentia^ as logicians
call it — of the lawyer to pettifog, of the merchant to
fail, of the editor to deceive and slander." Very well,
then I say on my side, it is not the differentia of the
gentleman to be disorderly, or dissipated, or profligate ;
nay, it is part of his character not to be so. There is
a distich in Ovid (much quoted by the "North American
Review," and occasionally mis-cited by the Honorable
Horace Mann,) how "learning the liberal arts softens the
manners and prevents men from being brutal," which
deserves more attention than it always receives among us.
Chateau Hocquard, October 6, 1853.
Dear [^Spirit/' — In the present dearth of news —
that is of news suited to your columns , allow me to take
up the thread of sundry observations you were indulgent
enough to make room for in your paper of the 10th ult.
Were I writing to a political journal now, nothing would
be easier than to spin a long yarn every week about the
great things that are to happen; what the Russian Emperor
is going to do , and what the French ditto is going to do,
and what Lord Aberdeen isn't going to do , and so forth.
Then if none of all this comes to pass, it can be con-
tradicted by next packet ; which furnishes an endless
supply of material, a most convenient Penelope's web.
But now that the sporting world is waiting for next week,
and the theatrical for next month, what can we do but
finish our speculations?
There w^as one (real or assumed) cause of absenteeism
at which our former investigation stopped short — "so-
cial tyranny." Is there such a thing in America more
Vol. IV. 6
82
than in some other countries? and if so, in what does
it consist ? You will often hear very loose assertions on
this point. Not only foreigners, but some Americans,
will tell you, "there is more political liberty in America,
but more social liberty in Europe." Many of the persons
who promulgate this formula, do so with a strange mis-
application of terms ;
"License they mean when they cry liberty."
Sometimes a man will praise Paris for its social liberty
because his position as a stranger allows him to do things
not merely which an Anglo-Saxon man could not do in
an Anglo-Saxon country, but what he would not do him-
self if he were a Frenchman in good society. Thus on
returning from his Continental tour he finds that he cannot
go to the theatre on Sunday night and take his mistress
with him; forthwith he d — ns the country, and declares
that American freedom is all humbug, and France is the
place for liberty after all.
I once heard a Frenchman in London dispose of
English liberty by a similar process. A slightly immoral
play of Victor Hugo's had been refused a license at the
St. James' Theatre. ''On dit que ceci est un pays libre^"
exclaimed the indignant Gaul, "et on nous defend de voir
Ruy Bias!" (Call this a free country, indeed, where they
won't let us see Ruy Bias played !)
[It is not unworthy of remark that such persons
usually object to England on the score of social slavery
quite as much as to America.]
Nevertheless there is a certain amount of truth in
the formula. It v^ould be a gross injustice to our coun-
trymen abroad to say that they all understand liberty to
consist in vice and impiety. An American often does
really find abroad a social independence which he never
enjoyed at home.
But may not this be owing to the fact that he is a
stranger in the land, has no social duties, no Mrs. Grundy,
nobody to think of but himself and such of his family
as may be with him ?
This has something to do with it doubtless, but it
does not begin to cover the whole ground. For let him
go to some place in America (be it large city or country
town) where he is equally a stranger in everything but
language ; he will not be his own master in the same way.
83
One reason is our national curiosity. Not only will
your genuine Democratic citizen do twice as much work
for himself as any other living man, but he will insist
on helping to do his neighbor's business, or at least
hearing what that business is. Another cause is the spirit
of envy, a feeling often stimulated to such jealousy that
it finds fault with all difference from its own standard,
as if difference must imply an assumption of superiority.
Not but that a man may indulge in his peculiar or exclusive
tastes at home, if he shuns doing anything, or saying
anything, or having anything, that can attract attention
out of doors. But then what becomes of his glorious
privileges as a citizen of a free country ? Such a man
might live quite comfortably under the present French
government — perhaps even under the Austrian. Let him
chance to express an independent opinion on some social
question and see how soon he will be in a tight place.
An opponent of the Maine Law in some parts of New-
England is a case in point, and other illustrations will
occur to your readers.
To be sure this does not often happen. It is more
usual that one of the class in question becomes demon-
strative in his external tastes. Then, for doing exactly
what he would naturally do in any other civilized country
— for doing what cannot by any legitimate use of w^ords
be taxed as the violation of any moral code, he shall
subject himself to unpopularity, which only stops short
of personal violence. It would not be saying too much
to affirm that those persons in America who know best
how to spend money* are the very ones whose expen-
diture raises the most outcry and incurs the most odium.
There is no cheaper way of getting popularity than by
decrying a certain class which has its place and value
in all civilized communities just as the butterfly has its
place in the animal kingdom, though a less useful animal
than the pig. Take notice, it is not on account of their
wealthy nor are they the richest individuals of the com-
munity. The self-made and vulgar millionaire is indeed
obnoxious to that envy which attacks superiority in any
* If any captious reader should be inclined to take up this sen-
tence on the ground that, the noblest and best use of wealth is in
works of charity and mercy, he will please recollect thnt we are not
talking of giving money but of spending it. The distinction is obvious.
84
shape, but at the same time his success is in some re-
spects flattering to all those who resemble him in their
tastes and pursuits. But he who makes any virtual preten-
sion to superior refinement, whether it consists in recondite
intellectual attainments or in more formal accomplishments
and graces , claims that which essentially pre-supposes a
certain education and antecedents more or less peculiar,
and therefore incurs the terrible charge of aristocracy.
Though the above remarks are sufficiently clear to
any one who will take the trouble to reflect on them,
yet as they might, if left alone, incur the charge of
vagueness from a hasty reader, we will develope them
into some particulars.
There is a cry against the class in question for anti-
Americanism^ adopting foreign habits, paying too much
deference to foreign opinions, making too much of foreigners,
&c. Now I can understand the consistency of charging
this as a crime on any person, or persons, in some countries
of the world — England for instance. (The consistency,
I say, not the propriety.) But among a people w^hose
boast it is to receive and adopt foreigners from every
land under Heaven, a people in whose elections the
foreign population forms one of the most important ele-
ments — that it should there be made a serious charge
against any set of individuals to have adopted some tri-
vial foreign fashion, does seem to me the height of in-
consistency. Unless it can be shown that a bonnet is of
more importance than a religion, the class that attaches
an undue interest to trifles, is not the one commonly
supposed to. In truth, the persons under discussion are
in most points intensly American — ask any intelligent
foreigner if they are not — with most of the prominent
merits and faults of their countrymen. The only marked
difference predicable of them, as a class, is their want
of interest in politics, a deficiency surely pardonable when
we consider how overstocked the politician market al-
ways is. If they were less American in some things, if
they had more of the Englishman's pride and self respect
for instance, they would not be so easily chased out of
the country by anything said or printed about them, be-
cause they would not care a monosyllable for anything
that was said or printed; at the same time they would
probably be even more unpopular than they are.
85
Let us go still further into particulars. Within a
few years there has been a great row made about liveries.
To hear some writers you would think that this was the
crying sin of our cities, the most deadly of innovations
and corruptions, that our morals and liberties were seri-
ously endangered by the spectacle of a few dozen Irish ser-
vants in Broadway wearing top-boots or breeches, or both.
Why so ? A livery is unrepublican , says the popu-
larity hunter, because it is a badge of servitude. Now,
in the first place, I deny that a livery necessarily is a
badge of servitude. Probably, friend "Spirit," you have
seen a gentleman rider in colors. At any rate, we have
all seen a man driving his own horse, or the horse he
entered, in livery. Yes, in livery^ and if the Jockey
Club rules were strictly enforced it would always be the
case, but those rules, as you very justly remarked not
long ago , are continually violated. I wonder if Gil.
Crane , or Ward , ever thought they were assuming a
"badge of servitude" by riding and driving in that green
velvet dress which (unless your correspondent is greatly
mistaken) is as much a part of Mac's regular appurte-
nances as his saddle and bridle.
But we will make the other side a present of this
argument. Let us suppose there is a radical difference
between a jockey's costume and a groom's, which makes
it impossible to compare the two. Let us admit that a
livery necessarily shows the bearer of it to be a servant.
What reason is there that a servant should be ashamed
to wear a badge of his business any more than a soldier,
or a sailor, or a parson of his? None at all, unless he is
ashamed of being a servant. And this idea will be found
to run through the whole question. Every argument against
liveries is by a perfectly legitimate extension, an argu-
ment against the whole institution of domestic service.
This is the ground which our livery -mastiges ought in
consistency to take. I should like to see them come out
on this "platform," and how their exertions would be
received by the objects of their solicitude.
"But the poor man is oppressed by being forced to
wear a livery." Was there ever a greater bit of "Bun-
combe ?" It may do for people "way up country," but
surely no inhabitant of a city can read it without a smile.
An American gentleman forcing his servant to do anyihingl
S6
Why, in nine cases out of ten the servant is the more
independent man of the two. A good servant can find
a place more readily than an employer can find a good
servant. This is true to some extent even in London and
Paris ; it is true without qualification of all our cities. And
in every case it may be affirmed the groom or coachman
would rather wear a neat livery than not, unless he has
been insulted on some occasion by some of those gentry who
are so anxious to take care of his liberties for him.
In the next place, what harm does a livery do the public ?
Is there any indecency or impropriety a about it, as there
would be for instance in a woman wearing a man's clothes,
or vice versa ? Is it any inconvenience to those who come in
contact with it, like a horseman in a crowd of pedestrians,
or a smoker in a public place frequented by both sexes?
What is the use and purport of it ? First, it enables you
to distinguish your own servant in a promiscuous crowd,
and in this respect it is really a great convenience, and
the larger our cities become the more wdll liveries be
needed on this account. But this is not the only inten-
tion of it. It serves a purpose of display and luxury.
Yes, it does. It helps to make ah equipage complete.*
A carriage looks better w^hen its driver is in proper costume,
just as a race looks better when the jockies are. Well , is
this a crime against republicanism ? Are we to have
sumptuary laws ? No doubt fitness and elegance are a
stench in the nostrils of some persons. It was recently
made a serious charge against the President of the United
States, thet his coachman and footman were dressed alike.
If a man prefers incongruity, if he would rather wear
one boot and one shoe than a pair of either article, by
all means let him be free to follow his tastes, but let
him also have common charity enough to allow those w^ho
have juster notions of symmetry to follow their tastes.
The true reason of his outcry is often a mean feeling
of envy against those who are better off than himself,
and have more refined ideas.
* I fancy that if we go very deep into the philosophic signifi-
cation of a livery, it betokens a professional connection with horses
and equipages. The European in-door liveried servants were originally
out-door servants, who accompanied the carriage on foot, whence their
name footmen. So you see this discusion comes strictly within the
special province of the "Spirit."
87
In short, the whole question ought to lie between
the servant and his employer. If I choose to give Patrick
or Sambo a livery, and he chooses to wear it, (as he
most probably will, being a pecuniary gainer thereby to
the extent of much wear and tear of his own clothes
saved,) no other person has anything to do with the
matter. The man who insults Pat for wearing a livery
infringes on his social freedom. The man who denounces
or misrepresents me for having a servant in livery in-
fringes on my social freedom — in a small thing, you will
say, but small things often lead to great. If any man
or men may prescribe what dress my servants shall or
shall not wear, they may by a perfectly legitimate ex-
tension of the principle, proceed to regulate my wife's
dress or my own, the sort of carriage I shall drive in,
or the number of rooms I shall have in my house.
However, I feel some hope that this popular delu-
sion may be "reformed indifferently." Now that a De-
mocratic President has appointed to an important post
abroad a gentleman who was always noted for sporting
neat and correct liveries, the practice may perhaps be
admitted as not necessarily destructive of the Constitution.
Let us pass to another point. Perfect social equa-
lity can only be attained approximately in any country.
There will always be some classes with more influence
and license than others, if not by law, then by custom
or possession somehow, in a greater or less degree. Now
it makes some difference to a gentleman icho the 'privileged
classes are. For instance , other things being equal , he
would rather have to ask a favor of a prince than of
an innkeeper. I say other things being equals not meaning
to deny that some innkeepers are perfect gentlemen, and
some princes quite the reverse ; but the rule is a safe
general one, though liable to exceptions. In many parts
of America, however, a hotel-keeper is more privileged
than a titled personage in any part of Western Europe :
it is more dangerous to offend him, he can offend others
with more impunity. Let me illustrate this by contrast.
Every traveller has remarked that English hotels are
generally bad and always dear. The tradition of "war
prices" is kept up at them, and many other traditions
and fictions. Finally the nuisance, which had long been
too much for strangers, became too much for the natives 5
88
A. B. C, X. Y. Z., and other combinations and permutations
of the alphabet, inundated the "Times" with their com-
munications; the evil has been thoroughly exposed and
brought before the public, the first step, and a very ne-
cessary one, towards its abatement. The spark that kind-
led the flame was the letter of the first A. B. C. to the
"Times." Now suppose the landlord shown up by A.
B. C. aforesaid had written to the "Times" demanding
the name of the person who had dared to find fault with
his establishment, that the editor through fear or favor
had given the name up, that the landlord had thereupon
hired one London and one country paper to abuse A.
B. C. in every variety of Billingsgate pour encourager les
autreSj which had the effect of frightening other victims
into silence for some time, until matters came to a crisis
in a pitched battle with deadly weapons between the
guests and servants of the hotel. Put this case to an
Englishman, and he would tell you that every stage of it
was impossible, yet the precise counterpart happened in
America a very few years ago ; pars fuit your correspondent.
GRATTAN'S CIVILIZED AMERICA.
Porter's Spirit, May 1859.
- IT is a singular problem in the literature of the age,
that no Englishman has ever written a really good book
about America. Very clever and tolerably accurate news-
paper and magazine articles have been produced from time to
time on isolated questions, but all larger and more serious
works have proved fearfully inadequate. The singularity
consists in the contrast which this deficiency presents to
the superiority, everywhere else obvious, in the English
treatment of political and social questions. The best
French writers are very clever, very neat, very ingenious ;
but they all lack the breadth and massiveness of the
Briton, and all seem incapable of thoroughly comprehen-
ding at once the theory and the facts of a question. But
when we come to American affairs, we find that the French
have written some very bad books, no doubt, but also
some very good ones j De Tocqueville's is a case in point.
89
The suggestion that no English celebrity, equal in his
line to De Tocqueville, has handled the subject, would
not be a sufficient solution. Oscar Commettant is no
very distinguished name in French literature , yet his
sketches show a fairer and truer appreciation of our
people than can be found in the pages of very celebrated
English writers. How comes it that the Frenchman, with
all the disadvantages of a different race, language, and
(generally) religion, can hit so much nearer the mark than
the member of a kindred stock ?
Probably it is this very resemblance which makes a
great part of the difficulty. The English traveller is pre-
disposed by these great similarities to expect many other
similarities in_ smaller things , which do not exist ; and
when, instead of these, he finds marked differences, a
certain feeling of disappointment and annoyance results,
which interferes with his judgment on more important
matters. When he goes on the Continent, he is prepared
to find everything different from what it is at home ;
• when he comes to America , he is not prepared to find
anything different, except the government. Now, it is
precisely in things much alike in general, that small dif-
ferences of detail make the strongest impression, because
they are unseen from a distance, and unsuspected before-
hand. To take an extreme case : the English Universi-
ties are very like each other, and very unlike all other
academic institutions. The American Colleges, too, are
very much alike among themselves. Yet, aman^ going from
Oxford to Cambridge, or from Yale to Harvard, is more
struck, at first, by the difference than by the resemblance,
because he had no clear expectation of any differences
existing.
If it seem unphilosophical to attach so much weight
to trifling differences of habits and manners, we must
recollect that a great part of man's daily life is made
up of these trifles. There are differences, however, much
more important than the hours of dining, or the stuff
of which one's "continuations" are made, or the names
by which these necessary articles of dress are called —
marked differences of moral association and feeling. Thus,
the present discussion in England respecting marriage
with a deceased wife's sister, is extremely curious to an
American — curious because it ig quite impossible for
90
him, by any ordinary effort of imagination, to put himself
in the place of one of the parties to it. *
Of course, we do not pretend to say that this covers
the whole ground. There is another fertile source of
disappointment, of which we shall have occasion to speak
farther on. There are impediments on our side as well.
Thus, it is extremely probable that our over-sensitive-
ness has prevented some of the men best qualified to
write about us from doing so, for fear of giving offence
to a people whom they really like, yet about whom their
English frankness might oblige them to tell some un-
pleasant truths. In the case of one very eminent author,
we can affirm this to be the fact from our own personal
knowledge. While waiting in hope for Buckle's second
volume, we, meanwhile, without professing fully to ac-
count for, can only deplore this incapacity or fatality,
not confined to Englishmen alone, but extending to all
her Majesty's subjects. Thus, Mr. Grattan is an Irish-
man ; the only consequence of which , so far as we are
concerned, is the addition of some peculiar blunders and#
spites to the blunders and spites of his predecessors.
The first impression which one derives from a per-
usal of Mr. G.'s book, is its pervading tone of ill-nature
and mains animus^ a set purpose to say disagreeable
truths — or the reverse of truths — in the most dis-
agreeable way. This intent is manifest in the earliest
pages of his introduction, where, for the comfort of the
whole nation, and the especial delectation of "our bre-
thren of the South," he fixes the term Yankee^ in certainly
not its least offensive sense, on the entire people of the
United States. It is evident in his dimly veiled or openly
undisguised disparagement of every public character (ex-
cept Henry Clay) whom he mentions ; in his unlimited
abuse of the "upper ten ;" in his exaggerations of our
artistic and literary deficiencies ; in his "damning with
* According to this explanation , it might be argued conversely
that Americans would not be able to write well about England ; and
this we believe to be really the case, up to a certain point, but in
a less degree, because, in the nature of things, the American usually
has a previous knowledge of more details about England than the
Englishman has about America; and, also, because he has more of
the French faculty of self-adaptation. Emerson's "English Traits" is
not exactly a perfect book, but we believe it to be a better and truer
one than any Englishman bas written about America.
91
faint praise" of our women ; in his onslaught upon the
very eatables and potables of the country.
For an explanation of the causes of this ill-feeling
we have not far to look. There is abundant internal
evidence that Mr. G rattan was a man of manifold dis-
appointments. He was disappointed because the people,
who at first ran after him as a new literary lion, did
not continue to treat him up to the mark of his own
fancied importance — a very high mark, as we shall soon
have occasion to perceive. He was disappointed, as he
candidly admits , in some of his pecuniary speculations
— a fruitful source of discontent with European visitors,
even before Mrs. Trollope's celebrated millinery bazaar
at Cincinnati. He was disappointed because his country-
men, the Irish, were not altogether popular with the bet-
ter classes in America, particularly in those quarters where
the English were most appreciated. He was disappointed
because some of "our most remarkable men" indirectly
snubbed him, and because some of "our best society"
did not throw open their doors to him. Some of these
griefs he has himself expressed with great naivete; others
may be deduced from his pages by a very small exercise
of the logical process. Besides these, there is another,
of more recondite origin, but, perhaps, the bitterest of
all — the disappointment which Mr. Grattan, as an ultra-
Liberal, felt in the working of our Democratic institutions,
as measured by their practical and social deviations from
his ideal standard.
No one who has studied and watched the fluctuations
of British feeling towards us, can have failed to preceive
that within, say eighteen years, a great change has taken
place in the respective position of English parties with
regard to America. Previous to that time, it was per-
fectly understood and agreed that the Tories attacked
everything American , as a bit of home party business ;
while the Whigs defended us — sometimes in a rather
supercilious and over-patronizing manner — but, at any
rate, defended us, and that as a piece of domestic party
business also. But a period came when some awkward
accidents, such as repudiation, brought us temporarily
into very bad odor in Europe, and this period happened
nearly to coincide with the first weakening of the old
English political party ties. Ever since then a number
92
of the English Liberals — of course, we do not mean
to say all^ but a number — especially of the more ad-
vanced or radical ones, have felt as if "their pet bear
had not danced to the genteelest of tunes," and have
vented their disappointment on the bear's head accordingly.
In other words , they have sought to make the American
people pay for any imperfections in the working of li-
beral institutions.
This was notoriously the case with the late Foreign
Quarterly^ a Palmerstonian-Whig organ, and a bitter
enemy of America, during the last years of its existence.
That periodical expressly and stoutly disclaimed any in-
tention of attacking those political institutions which other
writers were endeavoring to make responsible for what-
ever went amiss in America ; and laid the whole blame
on the origin and character of the people, whom it po-
litely described as a ''brigand confederation," formed,
like fabled Rome, from the off-scourings of all lands, and
not only destitute but incapable of all the graces and
most of the virtues of civilization. Of "liberal" travellers
who have visited the country, and gone away to abuse
it without stint, Dickens is a striking instance. And,
generally, we believe, that, of late years, Americans,
whether in their individual or collective capacity, are
more likely to receive justice at the hands of English
conservatives than of English radicals, because the former
are more inclined to regard us independently of our po-
litical institutions, while the latter are disposed to make
us, in a manner, personally responsible for any real or
apparent ill consequences of them.* That Mr. Grattan
comes under the head of disappointed radicals, is evident
from his remark that there is in America "so much to
approve of politically, and so much to condemn socially,"
an idea which he repeats several times, under different forms.
The next striking feature in Mr. Grattan's book is
the immense assumption that characterizes it throughout.
* Of course, there are exceptions. Mr. Bright is the most sa-
lient. His admiration of us is positively dangerous to our reputation,
as all exaggerated praise* is dangerous, from the re-action which
must some day follow. Were he at the head of a large and power-
ful party, the old political division of English opinion with regard to
us might be revived with tenfold vigor. But his present doctrines
are not generally popular, in spite of all his eloquence and plausibility.
93
He constitutes himself, ex cathedra, judge of everything,
from the deepest philosophical questions to the minutest
trifles of what Mr. Turveydrop calls "deportment." In
the very first page of his introduction, he jauntily alludes
to Guizot, Comte, Buckle, and others of a like stamp,
as authors whom he does not quite pretend to equal. A
writer of ordinary modesty might have hesitated to name
himself in the same sentence with Guizot, Comte, or
Buckle ; but modesty is not the proverbial failing of Mr.
Grattan's countrymen, and we are, therefore, less surprised
to see him, immediately after, disposing of a most pro-
found social and political problem , by the casual remark
that "he cannot understand how great moral principles
should become subservient to the control of climate." It
is just possible that all the things w^hich Mr. Grattan
cannot understand would make a book even larger than
these two volumes.
This assumption of unbounded superiority shows it-
self everywhere in the book ; in his superb advice to
the American people to be content with that inferior kind
of civilization to which they are able to attain ; in his
slashing judgments on men of literary and political standing
far above his own ; in his amusingly saucy patronage of
particular individuals (we would give something to see
Prince John's face when he reads the notice of the Van
Buren family) ; above all, in his dogmatical decisions on
all points of good breeding and polite conduct. As it is
here that Mr. G.'s self-sufficiency takes the boldest and
widest range, one cannot help inquiring what were the
antecedents which gave him the right to constitute him-
self censor morum and arbiter elegantium, and to give
lessons in all the humanities of social life to the whole
American — or, as he prefers to call us, the whole
Yankee nation.
Mr. Grattan was the relative of an orator and po-
litician, not exactly the greatest that the world has ever
produced, but, certainly, distinguished in his tim^ and
country. He was "brought out" in the literary world,
chiefly under the auspices of our countryman, Washing-
ton Irving, and soon became a fair second-class literary
man. He wrote some very readable novels, of which his
best friends would probably dare to say no more than
that they were about up to the current average of G. P.
94
R. James'. He also wrote some respectable volumes of
what, for the want of anything better, it is generally
agreed to call history. He came to America as Consul;
he had previously been Consul on the Continent.
Now", we should be sorry to say anything in dis-
paragement of the worshipful body of Consuls — a body
in which we can count some connections, and several
valued personal friends. At the same time, we state
nothing disrespectful to that class, but simply an incon-
trovertible fact, in saying, that a Consul's position,
even in America, does not give him exactly the same
opportunity of seeing all classes of society that is en-
joyed by some other personages — an Embassador, for
instance. Of course, nothing of this kind ever entered
into the head of Mr. Grattan, who obviously considers
himself the most important as well as the most capable
of all the diplomatic functionaries in America during his
time; but the fact remains, nevertheless, and, therefore,
in default of anything in Mr. G.'s position which autho-
rizes him to pronounce so dogmatically on the topics in
question, we are driven to look for internal evidences of
his fitness or unfitness. Fortunately, a crucial passage
soon occurs, which may be taken as a most decisive test
of his pretension to be a superior judge of what con-
stitutes and distinguishes a gentleman. In his strictures
on Daniel Webster's first speeches after his return from
England, he charges him, among other sins of omission,
with having said "nothing disparaging of the Queen."
A leading public man returns from a country where he
has been cordially and magnificently received and enter-
tained, and his censor blames him for not having taken
the first public opportunity to speak ill of the Sovereign
of that country, and that Sovereign a woman ! Comment
is decidedly superfluous. *
There is yet another pervading feature in Mr. G.'s
book, less on the surface than the two already mentioned,
* All Mr. G.'s remarks here are a curious study in respect of
what he thinks Webster ought to have said. It is plain, to a reader
of moderate reflection, that, according to the programme which he
would have drawn out, Webster's discourse would have been made
a fit pendant , mutatis mutandis^ to that speech , the delight of all
Europe , which Count de Morny delivered to the French Legislature
after his return from Russia.
95
but scarcely less important, when we come to examine
his observations on American society. He had lived some
time on the Continent ; his social ideal was , therefore,
not the pure English, but a mixture of English and Con-
tinental — the latter, probably, predominating more than
he himself was aware of. We have frequently noticed
this semi-unconscious eclecticism in men whose experience
of life has extended over different countries; they refer
the elegancies and proprieties of social intercourse, as
well as the graver traits of character and morals, to a
composite standard , which has no real existence in any
country, but has been formed in their own minds out of
the customs and traditions of many — more or less fea-
sible, more or less inconsistent, according as the mind
of the speculator is more or less logical.
Thus : one of Mr. Grattan's earliest and strongest
convictions, that "the people of the country are seen to
the greatest advantage in masses," is undoubtedly true;
but it is as undoubtedly true (though perhaps in a less
degree) of the English people as compared with the people
of the Continent. Taken individually, or as one of a
small social circle, the single Englishman, like the single
American, does not, on the whole, show any marked in-
tellectual superiority over the single Frenchman or Ita-
lian — in some respects he is positively inferior. But a
mass of Anglo-Saxons, English or American, are infini-
tely superior to a mass of Frenchmen or Italians. Why?
Because the moment that the Latin-Celts tend to form
a mass, the all-pervading, everywhere-interfering spirit
of their paternal governments , their bureaucracy , their
universal protective system, steps in and renders them help-
less. The Latins, and most of the Continental Teutons,
are political babies , who have never had the full and
fair opportunity of learning to act in masses. The Anglo-
Saxons having had this opportunity, multiply enormously
their individual strength when united in bodies.
Similarly, to pass from a large subject to a small
one, Mr. G. observes, that "the great majority of men
in America have small taste for female society." Now,
this is comparatively true, if we take the Continental
nations for our standard ; but positively false, if we com-
pare the American with the Englishman. Taking the
average of all classes, the American is decidedly as much
96
more of a "ladies' man" than the Englishman, as he is
less so than the Frenchman. The first remark of an
American woman in England (unless she happens to ar-
rive in the train of some official character) is the ab-
sence of attention, compared with what she has received
at home and on the Continent ; and it has always been
a puzzle to us how the English ladies contrive to amuse
themselves, as they do, without the gentlemen.
To take up and go through this book in regular
order is next to impossible, because there is no regular
order in it — not even a chronological one. Politics and
personal experience and general reflections are thrown
together, often in the same chapter, often in alternate
chapters, so that to bring them out of chaos, and arrange
them under separate and regularly digested heads, would
really be more trouble than to re-write the whole work.
His remarks on society and general national traits are
those which first arrest the attentation, from the number
of startling assertions which they contain — assertions
which the majority of native readers will probably stig-
matize as flagrant mis-statements, but which we prefer
to designate as very imperfect generalizations from ex-
ceptional cases.
Thus he mentions, quite en passant, as a fact about
which there can be no doubt^ that is common for young
women to marry men "old enough to be their grandfathers."
Now, if there is a country in the world where young
women do not habitually marry old, or even elderly men,
that country is the United States of America. This as-
sertion holds good, not of any section of country or class
of society, but, in its broadest sense, of the whole coun-
try, and every class and "set" in every part of it. In
fact, the fault is just the other way ; it has been observed
over and over again, both by native and foreign writers,
that there is generally not sufficient difference of age
between husband and wife. The husband ought to be
somewhat the elder in every country, and particularly in
ours, both because our women are sooner developed in
mind and manners than our men, and because they give
way sooner physically; but it happens, in the majority
of cases, that they are very nearly the same age. If we
were to say that the union of a young woman in good
society to a man "old enough to be her grandfather"
97
would be regarded as all but infamous, and followed
by total or partial loss of caste , our statement might be
too strong, but it would be far nearer the truth than
Mr. G.'s obiter dictum the other way. For the benefit of
any foreigners who may chance to read our remarks
without having had personal experience of American
society, we add that this is not a question of fact only,
but also one of theory. Our position may be proved
negatively, on two theoretical grounds. First, given an
uncontrolled choice by young women, without restraint
or compulsion on the part of the parents, and also a
free social intercouse between young persons of both
sexes (and that both these exist in America no one will
pretend to deny), it is not human nature that any large
fraction of young women should marry old men , espe-
cially when we consider, in addition, that in no country
are there more women having means of their own, or
reasonable expectations, than in America. Secondly, if
it were the rule, instead of the exception, for young
women to marry old men, it would not be human na-
ture that the evils attendant elsewhere on such a prac-
tice should not follow here, and American society would
be highly immoral, which our most violent assailants
have never dared to assert.
"We next come to a statement referring to a more
limited class of persons, but equally startling within its
limits. Mr. Grattan affirms that American women abroad,
invariably are, or pretend to be, home sick, and that
they constantly insist on returning home, against the
wishes and contrary to the pecuniary interests of their
husbands. This is so ludicrous a contortion of fact, that
we were some time in doubt of Mr. G.'s being in earnest.
We more than half suspected him of indulging in that
"lurking satire" for which he gives himself credit, and
which he conceives us half-civilized Americans incapable
of detecting. It is much plainer than the nose on Mr.
G.'s face that the tendency to absenteeism, so prevalent
among our Upper Ten, is almost entirely the ladies'
work. In nineteen cases out of twenty, it is the hus-
band who wants to come home (if for no other reason,
because he has "affairs" of some sort to look after),
and the wife who wants to stay, and who does stay,
abroad. Sometimes, the good man is actually persuaded
Vol IV. ' %
98
into fancying that he prefers Europe to his own coun-
try ; sometimes he acquiesces passively, as American
husbands are wont to do. Here, again, there is a per-
fectly consistent theoretical explanation of the fact to be
found. The absentee tendency of American ladies is, if
not excused, certainly accounted for by the consideration
that of our national amusements the greater part are
amusements for men only. Ladies cannot shoot, or drive
trotters, or attend political meetings. Owing to the se-
verity of our climate, the utter want of parks and pro-
menades in and about our large cities, the inferiority of
the stage, and the almost solely masculine character of
our turf attendance, it is hardly too much to say, that,
for a large portion of the year, a lady who does not
like balls and dancing has really no means of amusement
whatever. But the feminine mind requires amusement
as much now as it did in Pope's time* 5 so our ladies
go abroad for what they cannot find at home. Another
reason frequently given, the comparative freedom from
domestic annoyances, we believe to be somewhat ex-
aggerated, but so far as it holds good, it also affects the
women more than the men.
Another astounding discovery of Mr. G.'s is, that "our
native writers are generally neglected," and our most
distinguished literary men "kept in a social position far
below their merits ; utterly unknown in the very places
of which their names are the chief ornaments." Here,
strange as it may seem, we really believe that Mr. G.
writes in something like good faith. His error appears
to be owing, not so much to a wilful intention of per-
verting the truth, as to the illogical habit of mind that
shows itself throughout the argumentative part of his
book — a habit of making serious bulls , confusing things
separate, joining things incompatible. Take the case of
Prescott, one of those whom he singles out by name,
as "receiving no popular consideration." Prescott's book's
were bought and read and praised everywhere. He was
one of the idols of society in his own city. He was a
welcome guest in all others, wherever he chose to go.
* "Men some to business, some to pleasure take,
But every woman is at heart a rake."
Meaning that every woman likes amusement and society, as ia
evident from the context.
99
What ought to have been done for Prescott that was not
done ? Could he, with his physical infirmities, have been
made Governor of Massachusetts , or Minister to England?
We cannot recall a single instance in which a literary man,
wishing to engage in public life, has not been readily brought
forward by his party ; but we can recall several attempts
to drag literary men into public life in spite of them-
selves — attempts sometimes positively ludicrous ; as
when it was seriously proposed to "run" Washington
Irving as Democratic candidate for Mayor of New-York.
Mr. Grattan has blundered all round the true state of
the case , in several places , without hitting it. He
characterizes Edward Everett as a man fitted for a purely
literary life, unfitted for a political one. How far this
is true of Everett, we shall not stop to inquire (and most
decidedly shall not take Mr. G.'s word for it implicitly),
but it certainly is true of a majority of our first literary
men. They are modest, retiring, almost feminine in character,
frequently delicate in health, quite indisposed to the rough
and hard work of party politics. Whosesoever fault it
is that more of them do not hold official positions (if it
be a fault at all *), it most positively is not the fault of
the American public, and to tax that public with it, is
the height of unfairness.
Perhaps, however, we are misinterpreting Mr. Grat-
tan, and he is merely referring to the social position of
our literary stars. If so, we can only say, that in this,
as in many other instances, our experience has been dia-
metrically the opposite of his. We never saw or heard
of any set of men or women who thought themselves
too good for the society of Irving, or Prescott, or Long-
fellow, and we do not believe that any such set exists
in the Union. A person disposed to be captious and
hypercritical might, indeed, suggest that these gentlemen
are in "our best society" not by virtue of their literary
merits, but simply as members of a certain set ; in other
words, that their fashionable position is apart from and
independent of their literary one. This fine-drawn but
not impossible distinction might go to prove that our
* Where literary men, as a class, have had predominant influence
in politics (as in various Continental States , and more than once in
France), they have invariably succeeded in making a frightful mesa
of things.
100
fashionables are not so literary and intellectual as they
should be, or as those of some other countries are, but
it does not touch the point at issue here. In fact, Mr.
G. has here again put his saddle altogether on the wrong
horse. If a foreigner does not meet at a ball or soiree
so many of our literary lions as he expects, it is because
they do not choose to come. Mrs. Potiphar is always
too happy to invite and entertain Curtis Pacha, without
hope or fear of the consequences in his next book. But,
very likely, Curtis Pacha finds the thing a bore, and
thinks he can pass the evening more amusingly and in-
structively to himself in his study or at his club. Then
the foreigner, if he be a man of Mr. G.'s logical calibre,
puts down prominently in his memoranda that the Pacha
is in a social position far below his merits.
The three instances above arc fair specimens of Mr.
Grattan's imperfect generalizations ; they are but three
out of a vast number which we have not time or space
even to allude to.
The disquisitions on American politics it would be
impossible to discuss in any other than a partisan news-
paper, seeing that the whole subject is treated in the
most narrow partisan spirit. This was, perhaps, to be
expected from the man who blames Daniel Webster for
not introducing English politics into his American speeches;
but we certainly were not prepared to find Mr. Grattan
descending to retail the lowest stump and pot-house slang,
such as charging the Whigs (Horace Greeley among the
rest, we suppose,) with trying to establish a privileged
class in the country.
But it is in the deductive portions of his book, when-
ever he comes to draw conclusions, that Mr. G.'s illogical
habit of mind is most conspicuous. He never makes an
inference without showing his utter want of wisdom, i. e.,
the perception of analogies and discrimination of differ-
ences, or, to compress our definition, the discernment of
things compatible and incompatible. Thus he takes nearly
a whole chapter, to show that our women have no hearts,
and our men are incapable of serious attachment. This
theme he works out with a virulence at times bordering
on profanity, as when, literally investing himself with
the Divine attributes of omnipresence and omniscience,
he asserts that "no young man ever blushed at being
101
refused, and no young woman ever wept at rejecting"
her lover. The plain truth of which, when stripped of
Mr. G.'s characteristic hyperbole, is, that our people
have not the headlong passions, or all-engrossing vanity
of the Celts and Latins; that they do not behave like
the personages of an Italian romance, or a French novel ;
that they do not put the terrestrial Venus in place of
duty, common sense, and religion combined, and, con-
sequently, are not hopelessly upset by a love disappoint-
ment — do not "die of love," or kill themselves for
love, as he expressly states. It never occurred to Mr.
G. that this coldness of temperament — attribute it to
religion, habit, education, climate, what you will — is
an indispensable element in American society, as at pre-
sent constituted. Take a social state of things, in which
parents have no authority over their adult children, and
husbands little authority over their wives, where young
people of both sexes mix freely without restraint, and
there is a very limited range of amusements for married
women — the strong Anglo-Saxon sense of personal
and domestic honor supreme over all this — then inspire
these people with the ardent and impulsive affections of
the Italian, or the egregious amour propre of the Gaul,*
and a very few years would bring about a general ca-
taclysm of society. Our belles would be the cause of
countless suicides, duels, assassinations, abductions d
Vlrelandaise; our married life would be poisoned by su-
spicion, if not tainted with intrigue ; the bowie-knife and
revolver, already too common in the West and South,
would become household implements all over the country,
and moral chaos would be the result.
The viciousness of Mr. Grattan's logic is particularly
evident in his speculations on the possibility of improve-
ment or progress in our society. Here , his arguments
throughout are like Trinculo's government — "the latter
end mistrusts the beginning." The standard of American
civilization he repeatedly asserts to be imperfect, and all
the vials of his wrath are poured out on those who seek
to elevate it. The appearance and character of the people
he represents as utterly monotonous ; and if any indi-
viduals adopt a different standard from the mass, they
* Our national vanity is not exactly a thing to be denied, but i
rarely takes the particular turn of the Frenchman's.
102
are enemies of the nation, and pitiable self-tormentors.
The Americans are ignorant of their intellectual and
artistic deficiencies, for want of something wherewith to
compare themselves on this side of the Atlantic ; and
those who seek such means of comparison on the other
side, are clumsy and "inflated" pretenders.
We give tirhely notice, that our remarks on this topic
will carry us a long way in advance of Mr. Grattan ;
nevertheless, the reader who pays strict attention can
hardly fail to perceive that the following considerations
grow most legitimately and logically out of the subject
— nay, are necessary to its full comprehension. More-
over, in anticipation of any possible charge of plagiarism,
we make a clean breast beforehand, and confess to having
borrowed a little of John Stuart Mills' thunder, and forged
a few of his bolts over again in our own very imperfect
smithy, the temptation to adapt and apply some of his
general observations to this particular case proving utterly
irresistible.
One of the great tendencies of the present age is,
to efface the indimdual. It might, at first sight, appear
that, w4th the spread of political freedom and the abro-
gation of class distinctions, the power of the private
citizen must be increased ; but the very ability of freemen
as a mass^ tends to weaken, by assimilation, each unit
of the mass in his separate capacity. This tendency is
not confined to political democracies, like America, or
social democracies, like France 5 it exists in England, to
a less degree, indeed, but quite sufficiently to attract the
attention and excite the fears of thinking men ; it exists
in all countries. In brief, it is the evil of the age, as
the oppression of the masses was the evil of the pre-
ceding feudal ages. Unquestionably, the smaller evil of
the two, it is still a very serious one, since it arrests
intellectual progress. For almost all intellectual progress
is owing to eminent individuals. Governments are far
more likely to retard than advance improvements ; and
the masses, however powerful when once started, are
seldom capable of originating anything great. Even in
morals, the same or a similar rule holds good ; the prin-
ciple of "doing as everybody does," is a certain road to
a low moral standard ; and the man who wishes to live
up to the better part of his nature, must set before
103
himself an ideal model superior to that furnished by those
around him. The development of individual peculiarities
should, therefore, by all means, be encouraged, not dis-
couraged ; for, if the eccentric individuals are but ordinary
men, they can produce no effect, and will, therefore, do
no harm, and, at any rate, they afford a pleasing variety ;
if they are superior men, they are pretty certain to do
some good. As what many short-sighted politicians would
consider the strongest recommendation of a proposed
measure , that it is in accordance with the governmental theory
of the country, is no recommendation at all to the philosopher,
but much the reverse^ because every form of government has
a tendency to intensify its oicn abuses; so it is really no
panegyric on a citizen, to say that he says and does
everything like his fellow-citizens. The practical con-
clusion from all which is, that if any individuals in Ame-
rica have ideas, or aspirations, or tastes, or habits, or
rules of conduct different from those of the mass, instead
of being denounced by small demagogues at home, or
stray foreigners of Mr. Grattan's stamp,* as enemies of
.the country, they ought positively to be regarded as
public benefactors. If Mr. G. is really in earnest in at-
tributing to such persons the feverish day dream of wishing
to establish a privileged class, he may safely dismiss
this insane idea from his mind. Their desires are much
more limited. The only privilege they ask is, to be let
alone , to be allowed to follow their own way, and express
their own opinions, without interference, insult, or slander.
What Mr. Grattan charges as a folly, and almost a
crime, on some ofthese persons (his denunciations here, too,
strangely agreeing with those of some very low politi-
cians among ourselves), that they admire England, and
in some things imitate the English, is really the strongest
testimony in their favor. He asserts, more than once,
that want of a standard of comparison renders Americans
ignorant of their deficiencies in literature and the arts.
This statement, though exaggerated, is partly true; and
* Mr. Grattan evidently considers himself altogether different
from, and superior to, any American — in fact, belonging to quite
another order of beings. We , on the contrary , judge him , from his
book, to have many points in common with a third or fourth class
American. We think, for instance, that he would make a capital
village editor, or bar-room politician.
104
our ignorance would be still greater, if we took his ad-
vice, and excluded all consideration of European models.
Doubtless, he is consistent in giving this advice. Wishing
us all manner of ill, he naturally desires that our civi-
lization should deteriorate, as he prophecies that it must
do ; and his jealousy as an Irishman has also some little
share in his anger against the admirers of England. For-
tunately, our educated countrymen are not disposed to
follow such perilous counsel. The cultivated American,
who feels that man does not live by bread alone, and
that boundless physical resources do not comprise all
that is necessary to happiness, naturally looks to the old
w^orld for instruction. His choice lies between England
and France. He can hardly help taking some bias from
one or the other. And when we consider the relative
position of the two countries, in respect to civil and re-
ligious liberty, domestic morals, and general manliness
of character, can there be a doubt as to which is the
more desirable model ?
A servile and indiscriminating admiration of England
would, indeed, be a great absurdity, as well as a great
evil ; but, whatever danger there may have been of this,
in some quarters, at the time when Paulding wrote, there
certainly is very little now-a-days. The tendency of our
countrymen is too apt to be the other way. The masses
are frequently inspired by a blind and inconsiderate
hatred, based on obsolete traditions, and fomented by
the worst class of native demagogues and foreign re-
fugees ; while the upper-ten are inordinate consumers of
the very Camelia-like lotus which flourishes in and about
Paris. There is a very large class of persons who con-
sider it unpatriotic to admit that England — or, indeed,
any country — is superior to us in anything. A most
short-sighted patriotism, this ; for it is as old as JEsop,
that the man who boasts of what he has not, will, in
the end, fail to gain credit for what he has. The most
certain way of making the English acknowledge our
superiority, where it really exists, is to acknow^ledge
theirs where it really exists. Doubtless , he is but a silly
theorist who attempts to realize a purely foreign ideal ;
but he who aims at idealizing existing institutions, by
the help of hints picked up from all quarters, it not ne-
cessarily chasing a shadow. And we count it no paradox
105
to say, that the American who has the profoundest
admiration for England will also be the best able to
appreciate the peculiar excellences of his own country,
whether they present resemblances to or differences from
the corresponding English traits.
Thus, we agree with Mr. Grattan, that American
civilization has, and ought to have, a peculiar stamp and
type of its own, and that this type is, in some respects,
inferior to that of some countries in the old world ; but,
on the other hand, we maintain that, in other respects,
it is superior to that of any country — England tiot ex-
cepted. To prove this assertion, we appeal to the po-
sition of woman in America. We shall not insist on the
proposition in its broadest terms, that the relative con-
dition of women advances pari passu with the march of
civilization , though many of our readers would accept it
at once, and perhaps even regard it as a mere truism.
But we do assert, with little fear of contradiction, that
women are nearer their true relative place in a civilized
country than in a barbarous one, and that a higher re-
lative position of the weaker sex is a prima facie evidence
of a high state of civilization. Now, there is in America,
we do not say more chivalry, for we confess to having
taken a great disgust for the word, ever since it has
been popularly associated with a local state of things
literally translatable by bludgeons, bowie-knives, and
bragadocio, but more deference to, and more practical
respect for, women than in any other country whatever.
It is well known that a woman may travel through the
Union without an escort, because, in case of difficulty,
the national sentiment makes every respectable man her
impromptu protector. Punch's ''Unprotected Female" would
be an impossibility among us.
We certainly do not intend to enter upon the im-
mense subject of civilization — what are its causes, and
of what it consists. To do so would require many num-
bers of Porter. But we must note one thing more before
passing on. The general idea of civilization includes at
least two great distinct heads — national and intellectual
progress — civilization proper and cultivation. The former
comprises all purely physical and tangible improvements,
with the sciences on which they are founded, and the
coarse arts, so to speak, relating to food, dress, and
106
upholstery ; the latter embraces the fine arts and litera-
ture. We say, at least two great distinct-heads, for, with
all due deference to the eminent writers who have adopted
the above distinction, we are strongly inclined to make
a third separate and independent head, of morals and
religion. But setting that question aside, and looking
only to the two branches already mentioned, the latter
of these may be far more noble, intrinsically ; but it is
clear that both must be taken into account, in striking
the balance between any two countries.
Mr. Grattan thinks he has "smashed" our claims to
high civilization, by dwelling on our deficiency in, and
want of patronage for the Fine Arts. Here, as almost
everywhere, there is a great exaggeration in his charges ;
but even admiting his premises in their full extent, his
inference does not necessarily follow. The modern Eng-
lish are so much less an artistic people than the ancient
Athenians Avere, that any comparison between the two,
in that point , would be simply absurd 5 yet no one, we
presume, will deny that the modern English are, on the
whole, more civilized than the ancient Athenians. Or, to
take two contemporary nations, will any one assert that
the entire civilization of the Americans and Italians is,
in anything, like the direct ratio of their respective
cultivation ?
We now approach the most difficult part of our
subject. Although the gentleman, in some sense may exist
under a comparatively barbarous state of society, in his
highest sense, he is. one of the very highest types of the
civilized man. The writer, therefore, who undertakes to
treat of the civilization of any people, will naturally have
something to say about their gentlemen. Mr. Grattan's
treatment of this topic is quite characteristic. He heads
one of his pages, "American gentlemen — where to find
them ;" but all his reasoning is directed to show that they
are not to be found at all , or only in instances so rare
as to constitute the exceptions .which prove the rule.
Now, this, we repeat, is perfectly characteristic. One of his
main objects being to say as many disagreeable things
as possible about the Americans, he hit upon this, among
others , as extremely well adapted to annoy them ; for
even the silliest declaimers against "codfish aristocracy"
will hurdly like being told that there are no gentlemen
107
in the country. We say, again, that this is not a light
matter to handle. Scarcely anything is easier in popular
estimation, than to determine whether this or that man
is a gentleman, this or that class of men gentlemen —
scarcely anything is, in reality, more difficult. Men who
literally have not the fist conception of what the word
implies, will be excited to the point of endeavoring to
cut your throat or blow your brains out, if you call in
question their claims to the epithet ; and Mr. Grattan
evidently considers the decision on a whole nation's gen-
tility as easy as lying, or as a sum in the rule of three.
But the modern idea of a gentleman is a very refined
and complicated one, and its complete definition would
demand a considerable verbal outlay. The opinions of
different civilized and highly civilized nations as to what
may be expected of a gentleman — what he must, and
must not do — vary very much on different points. Take,
in proof of this, the well-known fact, that the practice
of duelling has, in England, been entirely put down by
public opinion, while in France it still flourishes in al-
most its pristine vigor. Even in the same nation, the
demands of society are by no means consistent. It cer-
tainly enters very largely into the Englishman's notion
of a gentleman, that he should have received a liberal
education, and a very advanced one — and the conven-
tional proof of this is his having taken a University de-
gree. It is a very common English sentiment, not un-
frequently expressed in so many words, that the Dissenters
are not gentlemen, because they have not a University
education. But then, again, it is quite notorious that,
until within a very few years, a large fraction of the
English officers (perhaps a majority) were men not: only
not liberally educated, but very imperfectly educated at
all; so imperfectly, that their deficiencies were a com-
mon-place source of ridicule for the popular satirist.
Yet , no Englishman ever questioned the position of
English officers as gentlemen. Moreover, the constituent
qualities of a gentleman are clearly divisible into two
separate heads — the manners and the sentiments. There
is "the outward visible sign," and "the inward spiritual
grace." And, admitting that the two must, to a certain
extent, coincide, still, the one or the other element may
preponderate in the national judgment as well as in the
108
individual practice. We make these remaks merely to
show the manysidedness of the subject, and that it is not
to be disposed of by a few sharp and shallow observa-
tions, such as, that American editors call bar-keepers
"gentlemanly," or that "it takes three generations to make
a gentleman."
Mr. Grattan appears to regard the question as one
of manners alone. This somewhat simplifies the discus-
sion, but by no means removes all our difficulties. When
we reflect on the people we have met, who were perfect
gentlemen in manners, and perfect scamps in everything
else, we really feel inclined to doubt whether a gentle-
man, in this limited sense, is altogether a desirable pro-
duct of civilization. When, on the other hand, we con-
sider the number of scamps loose upon society, who are
thorough blackguards into the bargain, we hesitate to
say anything in disparagement of good manners, lest we
should seem to countenance that most fearful of errone-
ous conclusions, that because good manners are not every-
thing they are therefore nothing, and that a rogue is less
a rogue for being a brute in addition. This much, how-
ever, is clear, at any rate, that if we admit Mr. Grattan's
premises to their fullest extent — if we decide that man-
ners, and manners only, make the gentleman — there is
still great fault to be found with the logic of his con-
clusion. The Americans do not even know what is meant
by the term gentleman, argues Mr. G., because their news-
papers apply the term "gentlemanly" to clerks, bar-keepers,
and even servants. Now, that, in the general run of
our newspaper writing, a great number of terms are
strangely misapplied is a fact — ludicrous or melancholy,
according to the light in which the reader chooses to
view it. Our press — of course, we do not refer to the
New- York Times, or the Washington National Intelligencer,
or either of the Posts — New-York or Boston — or the
Spirit — is generally characterized by a loose use of
words, which presents a startling contrast to the preci-
sion of an English or French journalist. The same re-
mark is perfectly applicable to Irish newspapers ; and we
have a very strong suspicion that for these vagaries of
journalism, as well as for some of flowers of oratory,
which adorn our public debates, and cause perpetual
amusement to intelligent natives and curious foreigners,
109
we are, in a great measure, indebted to Mr. G.'s coun-
trymen. But his inference from the particular case which
he selects is, we repeat, by no means logical. Let us
first look at the literal meaning of the word in question.
Gentleman/y means gentleman/?^^. The application of it
to certain actions of an individual does not imply that
he is in all respects a gentleman, or that the party ap-
plying the term to those actions considers him such. This
is clearly shown by the converse case. It unfortunately
sometimes happens that gentlemen, under the influence
of wine, or jealousy, or anger, or other strong passion
or temptation, commit ungentlemanly acts ; and a frequent
repetition of such acts would, doubtless, make the offender
lose his position, and bring him to the level of an or-
dinary Congressman or Alderman. But there is no moralist
or etiquettist so strict as to maintain that an isolated act
of this kind renders the erring party, henceforth and
forever, no gentleman.
Looking a little further, we find that the rule which
attaches certain manners to a peculiar class, is subject
to numerous exceptions, and not altogether a perfectly
safe guide in practice. The maitre d' hotel , or the first
valet of an old wealthy European household, is often a
capital imitation of a gentleman, and may, with the ut-
most propriety, be designated a very gentlemanly man.
Transport hira to some place where he is not known,
and the chances are, that, until his antecedents are found
out, or some accident betrays his want of a liberal edu-
cation, he will be able to impose himself on society as
a gentleman. On the other hand, there are many men
of rank and fortune — Frenchmen, Italians, yea, even
Englishmen — whose outward semblance is not that of
gentlemen at all. We do not refer to their being guilty
of gross language or rude acts, but to their general dress,
demeanor, and style of conversation, which are almost
certain to mislead a stranger. We have seen a duke
taken for a horsecoper, and known a marquis to be mis-
taken for his own groom. The more we consider Mr.
Grattan's remarks on this subject, the more narrow and
inadequate do they appear to us. He seems to have no
conception of personal dignity or inborn delicacy of feel-
ing ; or, if he has, it is associated with the exquisitely
snobbish idea, that such qualities can only belong to
no
people with a big rentroll and a handle to their names.
One of the most gentlemanly men we ever had the plea-
sure of knowing (Mr. Grattan may sneer if he pleases)
was a village blacksmith.
Our author has, indeed, settled the whole question
to his own satisfaction, in a very trenchant and off-hand
way. "It takes three generations to make a gentleman"
— three generations of rich people. But, in America,
it usually happens that if the grandfather is rich, the
grandchildren are poor ; therefore , the Americans have
no chance of becoming gentlemen. This is certainly a
very expeditious conclusion, and has the additional ad-
vantage of being extremely flattering to such rich men
as have rejoiced in rich grandfathers, of whom a few
are actually extant in America to the present day. But,
although Mr. G. has drawn up this plausible dictum in
the form of a syllogism, it will not hold water on strict
examination. Mr. G, seems to forget that the United
States had a certain number of gentlemen to start with. All
traces of these have not quite been swept away by the
fluctuations of democracy. In some of the older Southern
States, such as Virginia and South Carolina, the very
names that were at the head of fashionable society in
colony times are so still ; and their diminished fortunes
only prove Mr. G.'s additional error, in asserting that
a ^poor gentleman/' in European sense of the term, does
not exist among us. In New- York, some of the original
Knickerbockers have done better, preserving their wealth
and position both. Mr. G., in common with some native
scribblers of small account (his agreement with whom
we have already had occasion, more than once, to no-
tice), would probably characterize this last sentence as
tautological. According to him, the fashionable society
of an American town is composed solely of the richest
families in it. This is altogether a mistake. Even in the
richest and most luxurious of our Atlantic cities, there
are millionaires out of "our set," and persons of very
moderate means in it. No doubt wealth is a very important
element of our fashionable society ; so it is in that of
every country — at least, every rich, commercial, and
progressive country. In every such country, persons are
to be found occupying the highest stalls in Vanity Fair,
whose chief or only claim to be there is their wealth.
Ill
We are much inclined to suspect that Mr. Grattan's
opportunities for seeing "our best society" were more
limited than he likes to allow, and that he has, in more
than one place, confounded fashionable with official society
— as great a mistake in America as it would be in France.
Had he been at home among our Upper Ten, he could
hardly have failed to notice their second-hand Parisianism,
which, though falling far short of the esprit^ and, we
are happy to add, of the vice also of its prototype, shows
itself in a hundred unmistakable ways.
Our own idea of the American gentleman is analogous
to that which we have of American civilization. He has
a type of his own, notwithstanding his occasional imi-
tations of Englishmen, or more frequently of Frenchmen.
This type is, in some respects, inferior to various Euro-
pean types; in other respects it is superior to them all;
in others, again, the question is open. Thus, the Ame-
rican gentleman is certainly not educated up to the Eng-
lish standard, perhaps hardly up to the French. He has
not the artistic cultivation of the German or Italian ; but
his delicacy of sentiment, manifesting itself in the general
tenor of his words and actions, is, in some very impor-
tant points, superior to that of any European. We have
spoken of the general American respect for woman ; and,
as the best qualities of a nation are usually intensified
in its gentlemen, it is here that the American gentleman
shows to the greatest advantage. The Frenchman is
wonderfully civil, and attentive, and complimentary, to
a lady in public^ but in private he will not hesitate to
insult her grossly, by telling her indecent stories, under
pretence of amusing her, or trying to force what he
calls his love^ on her, when it is not wanted; nor will
he shrink from circulating all manner of lies and scandal
about her, afterwards, if she sends him to — the patron
deity of most Frenchmen. The Englishman has a high
respect for women of his own rank; but his aristocratic
feelings and education lead him to form an unfavorable
opinion of the virtue of those below him. The American
alone respects every woman who respects herself. This
feeling, with him, is a habit of mind, quite independent
of religion , or hypocrisy, or Mrs. Grundy, showing itself
in a variety of ways — among others, in an absence of
di^osition to talk smut after dinner or supper (the
112
Frenchmen begin after breakfast). We once heard a
distinguished Englishman recalling, with much interest,
the agreeable evenings he had spent at the Century; he
concluded by declaring that what gave him the greatest
pleasure and surprise combined, was the total absence
of anything that would not bear repetition in a draw-
ing-room.
In some things the American and European standards
are at variance. Thus, one of our characteristics of a
gentleman is , that he is hospitable , and particularly
hospitable to strangers. So far is this from being the
case abroad, that anything like general hospitality is
considered an immediate mark of a vulgar parvenu.
The oldest and richest nobles of Paris and Genoa fall,
in this respect, for below the American idea of a gentle-
man. Who is wrong? If our countrymen are, we frankly
prefer to be wrong with them.
And now, taking leave (at last) of our gentlemen,
we must say a few words of our ladies. Mr. G rattan
has given them the benefit of his valuable opinion, that
they are, „beyond all comparison, superior to the ma-
jority of the men, in appearance and manners." This
preference of the women of a country to the men, by a
male traveller, we have frequently remarked, as well as
the corresponding preference of the men to the women,
by a female traveller ; a species of rivalry , more felt
than acknowledged, is generally the reason of such pre-
ferences. In Mr. G.'s case, however, it is not that he
loves our women more, but our men less. He has said
as much, direct or indirect, harm about them, as he could
conveniently. Some of his strangest mistakes we have
already commented upon. Where a man fires so many
shot , some of them are pretty sure to hit ; and he has
made one undeniable hit in stigmatizing the practice of
inveigling away other people's servants , a practice which,
we blush to say, some women in good society think it
decent and lady-like to follow. A true lady would rather
cook her dinner herself, or go without it, than be guilty
of such meanness.
It is quite a relief to find something to praise in
this book. Not but that it contains several other per-
tinent and correct observations ; but, unfortunately, they
have all been made before. We can scarcely pick out
113
anything of value which has not been already said —
and better said — by native or foreign writers, or both.
All the originality is mistake or misrepresentation. The
best parts of the work are its lightest parts ; and we
think Mr. G. would have done much better, had he sup-
pressed all his would-be philosophy and "civilization,"
and confined himself to turning out a book of jokes. The
answer of his newly-caught countryman, who, being asked
if he was a native , replied : "No ; but I mane to be,"
is worthy a place among classic bulls.
And now, if any person thinks that we have been
amusing or gratifying ourselves by "pitching into" Mr.
G.'s book, that person is greatly mistaken. A more
disagreeable task we never undertook. It was particularly
unpleasant to be obliged to say anything of the author's
antecedents, but this he has brought upon himself. Had
he united high patrician birth, great literary renown, and
wide diplomatic experience ; had he been a Stanley, a
Bulwer, and a Talleyrand, rolled into one, it would hardly
have justified the tone he has assumed. We take leave
of his book with a feeling of unmitigated sorrow that it
was ever written. Save to the pockets of author or
publisher, it can do no good, and is certain to do a great
deal of harm. There is no excuse for it in party or so-
cial necessities of any kind. Ah English Tory (if the
animal still exists) may think it his duty to write against
the Americans ; an American who fears the corruption
of his countrymen by Parisian ideas, may think it his
duty to write against the French. But our political in-
stitutions Mr. G rattan rather professes to approve of;
and our social institutions in no way threaten or interfere
with those of England or Ireland. His work is, through-
out, a mere ebullition of personal ill-feeling, and we
know not w^hether it is more calculated to give foreigners
false and odious ideas of us, or to embitter among our-
selves the already existing and not altogether unprovoked
prejudices against foreign travellers and book-makers.
ERR^T^ -^OL. 1.
Page 33, line 27, after "are" add "particularly".
" 35, line 14, for "gives as" read "gives us".
" 147, line 31, for "a comparisoa" read "or comparison".
" 161, line 21, for "impissated" read "inspissated".
" 163, last line but two, for "to prevail" read "should prevail".
" 169, first line, for "captial" read "capital".
" 171, Title (and also in Table of Contents) for "Tale" read "Talk".
" 195 Title, for "Fanity" read "Vanity", ^ote, lin.i 3 ; for "bray" read
"brag", for "natural" read "national"; line 5 for "Pantagraet" read
"Pantagruel" ; line 12 for "sonies", read ''Conies".
" 198, line 12, for "Macauley" read "Macaulaj ".
" 216, 8 lines from foot, for "Mollossus" read "Molossus".
" 235, line 22, for "never have" read "never had".
" 237, 13, lines from foot, for "corresponding in "read "corresponding to'»
" 242, 3 lines from foot, for " taste, ornament in manners" read "taste
in ornament, manners".
" 251 , 11 lines from foot, for "par sang" road "pur sang".
" 257, 6 lines i'r m foot, omit "and the Tenth Satire of Juvenal" ; 5
lines from foot, omit "Book and the Sixth Satire".
" 259, line 7, for "came" read "come".
" 261, 8 lines from foot, for "m ani/ case" read "m mi/ case".
" 279, 4 lines from foot, after "sounds" add "in our language".
last line for ''once" read "one".
" 282, 10 lines from foot, for "our p" read "one p".
" 283 Title (and also in Table of Contents) for "SOPHOKLES''
read "SOPHOCLES".
" 287, line 23, for "he expected" read "be expected".
" 288, line 11, for ''kallow" read "haUow".
" 296, 16 lines from foot, for "c^ere" read ''cher" 12 lines from foot,
for "truck" read "track".
" 297, 3 lines from foot, for "appreciation" read "appreciator".
" 298, line 12, for "to obsolete" read "to be obsolete".
Page 303, line 22, for "epris the resentative" read "is the representative".
" 326, lines 7 and 8 from foot, divide the lines thus,
"At this stage the reader may possibly wonder by what means he
happens to come to Madrid",
" 337, 11 lines from foot, for '"sliken-clad" read "silken-clad".
" 346, line 27 for "gents or English fine waistcont" read 'Agents English
for waistcoat" ; line 30 for "even" read "ever".
There are several other typographical errors, particularly in punctua-
tion, and in French words ; thus icrevlsse is invariably misspelt wherever it
occurs. The author's unavoidable abienca from Baden while the greater
part of the first volume and the whole of the second were passing through
the press, accounts for these numerous mistakes.
Page 281,Hnes 13, 14, "lengthened expression," &3., is the author's mistake,
not the printers. The heroic genitive is not lengthened from any thing but
shortened from the adjectional form.
ERIlA.TA..-^OL. 2.
Page 10, line 14, for "one" read "our".
" 11, line 16, for "desaolved" read *-'di3Solved" ; line 28 for "declaiming"
read "declaring".
" 17, note, for "spree" read "sprees".
" 23, line 5 for "free-toil" read "free-soD".
" 29, line 3 for "my" read "may"; line 14 for "eareth" read "careth".
" 63, 7 lines from foot, for "Picket" read "Pichat" ; 6 lines from foot,
for "J3brse Jouryial" read ''Home Journal"; note, for "for otlien"read
"forgotten" ; for "evening" read "enemies".
" 64, 13 lines from foot, for "lead" read "head".
" 69, note, for "Mr" read "Wm".
" 72, line 11, for "nith" read "with".
" 75, 7 lines from foot, for "The Sparks" read "Fire-Sparks"; for "moon.
ings" read "moanings".
" 76, line 3, for "curling" read "circling".
" 77, line 8. for "And" read ''Had"; for "Whilt" read " Wilt" ; line 16,
for "swam" read "swarm."
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