SAYINGS,
WISE AND OTHERWISE
AUTHOR OF SPARROWGRASS PAPERS, ETC.,
BIUEF AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCH,
try <roaid 6. pittJwtt.
NEW YORK :
BOOK
TRIBUNE BUILDING.
I860.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, toy
FREDERIC S. COZZEXS, JR.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
CONTENTS.
AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCH .... . ... xii!
SKETCH BY DONALD G. MITCHELL , . xxiii
I. A TALK ABOUT TEA 1
If. JOURNEY AROUND A TAPIOCA PuDDIMO ... 8
III. THE RADIANT DINNER-CASTOR 13
IV. CHOCOLATE AND COCOA ....... 20
V. NOTABLES AND POTABLES ....... 24
VI. A PKEP INTO A SALAD BOWL ...... 39
VII. MADAME FOLLET 43
VIII. OLD PHRASES 48
IX. ART 55
X. ACCIDENTAL RESEMBLANCES 59
XL SITKA: OUR NEW ACQUISITION ...... 69
XII. PHRASES AND FILBERTS 73
XIII. DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH . . . .81
XIV. THE NOSES OF EMINENT MEW t * 102
XV. BUNKUM MUSEUM ....<. t t 106
XVI. UP THE RHINE . . , .***., 109
XVII. THE FIRST OYSTER-EATER . . , . . .114
XVIII. A LITERARY CURIOSITY ....... 122
XIX. THE RACE BETWEEN THE HARE AND THE HEDGEHOG . 130
XX. WHAT is THE CAUSE OF THUNDER? 130
XXI. A FRENCH BREAKFAST ...... . 140
XXII. DAINTY HINTS FOR EPICUREAN SMOKERS .... 143
XXIII. WAS CHAMPAGNE KNOWN TO THE ANCIHSTS .... 146
XXIV. GERMAN WINES, AUD A WINE CELLAR . .165
XII
CONTENTS.
XXV. A CHRISTMAS PIKCK .,...... 174
XXVI. OXYPORIAN WINES ]86
XXVII. MY FIRST DRAMA 214
XXVIII- WIVES AND WEATHERCOCKS 223
XXIX. INDIAN SUMMER 229
XXX. LA CKECHE 233
XXXI. GYPSIES 238
XXXII. PRIVATE THEATRICALS 243
XXXIII. TRINITY CHURCHYARD , . 255
XXXIV. HOMES FOR OLD MKM ........ 260
AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCH.
MY paternal ancestors settled, either in the
latter part of the seventeenth or very early in the
last century, in Newport, R. I. Leonard Cozzens,
the first of the name, came over from Devizes, in
Wiltshire, England. He was admitted a freeman
of the Colony of Rhode Island, May 3, 1715. He
was a Quaker, I believe; at least my grandfather
was one, before he changed his drab coat for a
soldier's uniform in the Revolution. He married
a great granddaughter of Richard Hayward, a
Moravian, who was a friend of Count Zinzendorf,
the founder of Bethlehem, Pa., and used to enter
tain the missionary brethren at his house ; he was
the principal founder of that church at Newport,
in 1749, and was called then Old Father Hay-
ward, as the chronicles show. His daughter mar
ried the son of Governor Taylor, Colonial Gov-
XIV AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCH.
ernor of Rhode Island, whose daughter in turn
married Daniels, a sort of New England
Robinson Crusoe, who, when a boy, was ship
wrecked, and found floating on a raft on Long
Island Sound. He was apprenticed to a leather-
breeches maker, and was celebrated in after days
for making buckskin breeches, both wind and
water tight, that all the waves of Long Island
Sound could not penetrate. His daughter in turn
married Issachar Cozzens, Senior, my Quaker sol
diering grandfather, who, after he doffed his sol
dier coat, became, like the rest of his wife's
family, a zealous Moravian.
It is said that the Cozzens family has been
traced as far back as the time of Henry VIII. ;
and a Catholic Archbishop by the name of Cozens,
who, overcome by the persuasions of that amiable
monarch, became a Protestant, married a lady of
the Church of England, clapped another 2 in his
name, and became a reformer, whose zeal was by
no means that of the rose-water kind.
Most of the descendants of Leonard Cozzens
were seafaring men, and in colonial times, when
AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCH. XY
we began to encroach upon the French settle
ments in America, were selected by the council
to take charge of the colony artillery, as they
were familiar with this arm of the service, hav
ing learned it on shipboard. Three or four of
the name were enrolled in this company. Sea-
Quakers are adepts in serving this kind of war
tackle, as they are cool in an engagement, always
put powder enough in the touch-hole, and fire
low ; hence all marine weapons of any calibre be
yond a musket were formerly called Quaker guns !
My grandfather had a touch of this fighting
quality ; so when the War of the Revolution broke
out, he took up arms on the 1st of April, 1775,
under Captain Pew of Newport, in the regiment
of Colonel Spencer of Seconnet, under Gen. Na
thaniel Green, Brigadier of the Rhode Island
troops, and marched from Bristol Ferry to Ja
maica Plains, in Massachusetts. A picket-guard,
of which he was one, was stationed at Dorchester
Heights the night before the battle of Breed's
or Bunker's Hill. On that never-to-be-forgotten
morning, by orators, poets, or politicians, the cele-
XVI AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCH.
brated 17th of June, 1775, his company rejoined
the regiment, and marched around the beach to
reinforce their friends on the hill, whom they saw
engaged with the enemy. Charlestown was on fire.
They arrived in the neighborhood of Prospect
Hill, about a mile from Bunker Hill, in time to
support the retreating patriots after the brave
General Warren fell. They then put up breast
works, and kept the ground until the retreat was
covered. He afterwards served as one of the life
guard to General Charles Lee. He was in Sulli
van's expedition, when the French fleet under
D'Estaing, the French Admiral, was to cooperate
with Generals Sullivan and Lafayette, which un
fortunately was frustrated by a premature land
attack of the Americans. In this attack many
British subjects lost their lives and liberties ; and
the Americans were obliged to retreat, carrying
with them many of the British wounded and
prisoners. He afterwards served as a guide for
General Washington ; was in the reserve force at
the capture of General Prescott ; finally was dis
charged from the service, " sick, fatigued, and
AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCH. XVU
worn out," and, as he expresses it in a memoir
written at the age of eighty, now before me,
" never received one copper of pay for my ser
vices."
None of my Quaker or Moravian ancestors ever
were known to joke, and were therefore, no
doubt, persons of profound wisdom. On the other
hand, it 'is said my maternal grandfather broke a
blood-vessel in a violent fit of laughter, and un
happily lost his life in consequence. My ma
ternal grandmother was from Carlisle, a Cum
berland woman with a strong Border dialect, and
knew all the legends, songs, and ghost stories of
that warlike and romantic region. The little
humor I possess must be inherited from this
branch of the house. She had a curious story to
tell of her husband's great uncle, Colonel Robert
Backhouse, who was very wealthy, having de
rived his "large estates in England from a grant
of the crown for his military services, among
others, that of having pursued the Pretender so
closely upon one occasion as to snatch the cloak
from his back. The Backhouse or Backus family
XVlil AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCH,
(as many spell it) are from Cumberland, England.
Crest : " On a snake embowed, its tail nowed, an
eagle displayed," a sort of Mexican dollar crest.
The motto is the best in the whole range of her
aldry, " Confido in Deo" "I trust in God."
My father Frederick and my uncle Issachar were
chemists by profession, naturalists, geologists, and
mineralogists. They were members of several
scientific societies, and the early friends of Drs.
Mitchell, Dekay, Torrey, Hosack, Francis, Audu-
bon, Charles Bonaparte, and other savans of
former days. Of all these, Dr. John Torrey, one
of the most amiable and highly cultivated pro
fessors of natural philosophy the country ever
produced, still survives, and long may he con
tinue. My third and youngest uncle used to be
well known to the visitors at West Point as the
keeper, both of the old hotel on the Point, and
afterwards of the one that now bears "his name.
He was an amiable man, with a lively sense of
humor, and a great favorite with all.
In my early life I was greatly given to study
and reading of all kinds. I made collections of
AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCH.
minerals, shells, coins, and Indian curiosities ;
studied anatomy and chemistry before I was fif
teen years old ; bored everybody to death with
scientific experiments, was wonderfully fond of
theatrical performances, hated history, but had
a passionate love of poetry. This latter, no
doubt, was owing to my maternal grandmother's
teachings, for she used to croon over, day and
night, the old Border ballads and legends in verse,
of which she had an endless store. I also studied
the science of mechanics ; gave up three years to
the practice of the machine branch of bank-note
engraving ; worked at the forge, the anvil, and
the turning-lathe ; became quite a proficient in
cutting ovals, circles, borders, and combinations
of bank-note lathe-work ; worked at the transfer
machine ; touched a little upon the art of print
ing, and could set up type, "and pull a sheet,"
nearly as well as most of the grown men in the
printing-office. My nights were constantly spent
in reading ; indeed, as a boy, I took little pleas
ure in boyish pursuits, as at a period of riper
youth I cared little for the amusements of young
XXU AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCH.
Plymouth," in fifty-two chapters, for the "New
York Ledger ; " by resolution of the " Century,"
a "-Memorial of the late Col. Peter A. Porter,"
read before the " Century," and published by the
same in 1865 ; by resolution of the Historical So
ciety, a " Memorial of Fitz Greene Halleck," Jan
uary 6, 1868 ; published by the society. From
time to time I also contributed stories, sketches,
reviews, etc., to various magazines and weeklies,
and to the daily press.
I have thus briefly sketched out a review of
my literary recreations after business hours, I
should say fully three quarters of which have
never been attributed to me, although copied
by the press and widely circulated.
F. S. COZZENS.
[Some of the papers in the present volume are reprinted from the " Hearth
and Home " Journal. The Editor, Mr. Donald G. Mitchell, published in
that Journal the following sketch which Is herewith appended to Mr.
Cozzens' Autobiography.]
LAST winter, when, in the early days of " Hearth
and Home," we were casting about for those writ
ers who would give a piquancy to the rural talk
which we proposed to furnish to our readers, who
should step in, upon a certain gusty day of Decem
ber, but the author of the " Sparrowgrass Papers."
It seemed to us a most happy encounter.
We remembered the smacking humor of those
papers, and the rollicking way in which he had set
forth the disagreeable features of a citizen's first
experience with country life, and how thousands
of readers had shared with him in the uproarious
fun he had conjured out of his e very-day adven
tures at his country place in Yonkers.
If now thought we he could only make a
sequel to that engaging story, by giving us" a good,
farcical account of some would-be scientific farmer,
who should spend thousands for nostrums and
XXVI SKETCH BY DONALD G. MITCHELL.
For some months he had counted himself an in-
valid ; yet it seemed to us, when we saw him last,
with the old smile and the rare twinkle of the eye,
that he might well weather the winter, and three
or four more to come ; but there was an ailment
of the heart, of which he knew nothing till toward
the last; and this carried him away at a blow
upon the morning of the 23d of December last.
A friend writes :
" Mr. Cozzens has suffered for some time from
asthmatic attacks. At the date of his death, he
was on a visit at the house of a relative in Brook
lyn. He was seated with his wife, when the
shadow fell upon him.
" ' Open the door ! ' he said.
" His wife endeavored to do so, but he preceded
her, and turning the knob, fell to the floor, ex
claiming, ' my ! my ! ' and the genial heart
was stilled. I should like to lay a wreath upon
his grave."
He had been actively engaged in business pur
suits through the greater part of his life, and liter
ature was a by-play with him. The " Wine Press "
SKETCH BY DONALD G. MITCHELL. XXV11
was a small monthly which he issued for a time in
the interest of the business in which he was en
gaged. It contained much valuable statistical mat
ter in regard to vineyards and wine-making, which
was enlivened by his witty comments. A small,
volume of poems by " Richard Hay warde " (a pseu
donym of Mr. Cozzens), showed great facility in
versification, and much of true poetic feeling. But
he has been best known by the " Sparrowgrass
Papers," already alluded to, whose charming rural
pictures and abounding drollery commended them
to a very large circle of readers.
It will be read again, now that his gibes and
quips are silenced forever, with a tender interest.
SAYINGS, WISE AND OTHEEWISE.
BY THE AUTHOR OF SPARROWGRASS PAPERS.
I.
a Calfc suwmt
," said our learned friend, Dr. Bushwhacker,
"we are indebted to China for the four prin
cipal blessings we enjoy. Tea came from China, the
compass came from China, printing came from China,
and gunpowder came from China thank God ! China,
sir, is an old country, a very old country. There is one
word, sir, we got from China, that is oftener in the
mouths of American people than any other word in the
language. It is cask, sir, cash ! That we derive from
the Chinese. It is the name, sir, of the small brass coin
they use, tlie coin with a square hole in the middle. And
then look at our Franklin ; he drew the lightning from
1
2 A TALK ABOUT TEA.
the skies with his kite ; but who invented the kite, sir !
The long-tailed Chinaman, sir. Franklin had no in\en-
tion ; he never would have invented a kite or a printing-
press. But he could use them, sir, to the best possible
advantage, sir; he had no genius, sir, but he had remark
able talent and industry. Then, sir, we get our umbrella
from China; the first man that carried an umbrella, in
London, in Queen Anne's reign, was followed by a mob.
That is only one hundred and fifty years ago. We get
the art of making porcelain from China. Our ladies must
thank the Celestials for their tea-pots. Queen Elizabeth
never saw a tea-pot in her life. In 1664, the East India
Company bought two pounds two ounces of tea as a pres
ent for his majesty, King Charles the Second. In 1667,
they imported one hundred pounds of tea. Then, sir,
rose the reign of scandal Queen Scandal, sir ! Then,
sir, rose the intolerable race of waspish spinsters who
sting reputations and defame humanity over their dys
peptic cups. Then, sir, the astringent principle of the
herb was communicated to the heart, and domestic troubles
were brewed and fomented over the tea-table. Then, sir,
the age of chivalry was over, and women grew acrid and
bitter ; then, sir, the first temperance society was founded,
and high duties were laid upon wines, and in consequence
they distilled whiskey instead, which made matters a great
deal better, of course ; and all the abominations, aE the
difficulties of domestic life, all the curses of Jiving in a
country village ; the intolerant canvassing of character.
A TALK ABOUT TEA. 3
reputation, piety : the nasty, mean, prying spirit; the
uncharitable, defamatory, gossiping, tale bearing, whis
pering, unwomanly, unchristianlike behavior of those
who set themselves up for patterns over their vile
decoctions, sir, arose with the introduction of tea.
Yes, sir ; when the wine-cup gave place to the tea-cup,
then the devil, sir, reached his culminating point. The
curiosity of Eve was bad enough ; but, sir, when Eve's
curiosity becomes sharpened by turgid tonics, and scan
dal is added to inquisitiveness, and inuendo supplies the
place of truth, and an imperfect digestion is the pilot
instead of charity ; then, sir, we must expect to see hu
man nature vilified, and levity condemned, and good
fellowship condemned, and all good men, from Wash
ington down, damned by Miss Tittle, and Miss Tattle,
and the Widow Blackleg, and the whole host of tea-
drinking conspirators against social enjoyment." Here
Dr. Bushwhacker grew purple with eloquence and indig
nation. We ventured to remark that he had spoken of
tea "as a blessing" at first. "Yes, sir," responded Dr.
Bushwhacker, shaking his bushy head, "that reminds
one of Doctor Pangloss. Yes, sir, it is a blessing, but
like all other blessings it must be used temperately, or
else it is a curse ! China, sir,'.' continued the Doctor,
dropping the oratorical, and taking up the historical,
" China, sir, knows nothing of perspective, but she is
great in pigments. Indian ink, sir, is Chinese, so are ver-
rnilion and indigo; the malleable properties of gold, sir,
A TALK ABOUT TEA.
were first discovered by this extraordinary people; we
must thank them for our gold leaf. Gold is not a pigment,
but roast pig is, and Charles Lamb says the origin of
roast pig is Chinese ; the beautiful fabric we call silk,
sir, came from the Flowery Nation, so did embroidery,
so did the game of chess, so did fans. In fact, sir, it is
difficult to say what we have not derived from the Chi
nese. Cotton, sir, is our great staple, but they wove and
spun long staple and short staple, yellow cotton and white
cotton before Columbus sailed out of the port of Palos in
the Santa Maria."
' ' But, Doctor, we want a word with you about tea. A
little information, if you please."
The Doctor is one of our old Knickerbockers. His
big, bushy head is as familiar as the City Hall. He be
longs to the ' ' God bless you my dear young friend "
school ! He is as full of knowledge as an egg is full of
meat. He knows more about China than the Emperor
of the celestial people.
"Tea, my young friend, is a plant that grows in
China, Japan, and other parts of the world. There are
two varieties, Thea nigra and Tiiea viridis black tea
and green tea. The same plant, sir, produces both kinds.
Green tea is made by one kind of manipulation, black
tea \>y another. That is all, sir. The shrub is raised
from seeds like hazel nuts, planted in nurseries ; it is set
out when about a foot high ; lives for fifteen or twenty
years, grows sometimes as tall as General Scott and
A. TALK ABOUT TEA. 5
sometimes as small as Bill Seward. It is picked four
times a year. The first picking is the best, when the
leaves are covered with a whitish down. This is in April,
the next is in May, the next in July, the last in August.
One Chinaman can pick about thirteen pounds of leaves
per day, for which he will receive sixty cask, or six cents.
The green leaves are spread out on bamboo frames to dry
a little, the yellow and old defective leaves are picked out,
then they take up a handful of the leaves, cast them into a
heated pan, get them warmed up, and squeeze out the
superfluous juice ; this juice contains an acrid oil, so acrid
as to irritate the hands of the workman. Good God '
think of that, sir, what stuff for the stomach. Then they
dry them slightly in the sun, then every separate leaf is
rolled up into a little ball like a shot, then they throw these
green tea shot into a pan slightly heated, stirring them
up so as to warm every part alike ; then they cool the
tea, and the shot are picked out one by one, the best for
the first or finest chop. Every little ball picked over by
hand. Then it is packed, sir. The young leaves make
the ' Young Hyson, ' the older and stronger leaves the
, ' Hyson,' the refuse goes by the name of ' Hyson Skin,'
the 'Gunpowder' and 'Imperial' are teas rolled more care
fully in rounder balls than the others. Most of these teas
are colored for our market colored, sir, with a mixture
of Prussian blue and gypsum ; no wonder John China
man calls us outside barbarians, when, he knows we drink
half a ponnd of gypsum and Prussian blue with every
6 A TALK ABOUT TEA.
hundred pounds of green tea, and this tea is made to
order ! Does honest John ever drink such tea ? No, sir,
he knows better than that if he does wear a tail."
"And black tea, you say, is from the same plant,
Doctor ?"
"Yes, sir, Mr. Robert Fortune brought specimens of
the T/iea nigra from the Bohea mountains and compared
them with the Thea viridis, and the plants were identical.
The black tea, sir, is prepared in a different manner from
the other. The leaves are allowed to lie spread out on
the bamboo trays for a considerable time ; then they are
thrown up into the air by the workman, tossed about,
beat, patted, until they become soft or flaccid, then tossed
in heaps, allowed to lie until they begin to change color,
then they are tossed in a tea-pan, roasted over a hotter
fire, rolled, shaken out, exposed to the air again, turned
over, partially dried, put in the pan a second time for five
minutes or so, then rolled, tossed over, and tumbled
again, then put into a sieve, put over the fire again, rolled
about, put over again, three or four times, then placed in
a basket, thickly packed together ; the Chinaman makes
a hole through the mass of leaves with his hand to give
vent to the smoke and steam ; then over the fire they go,
and remain there until they are perfectly dry in fact,
sir, until the fire dies out. Then picked, packed, and as
sorted for the market. Now, sir, here is the difference
between black tea and green tea, the latter retains all its
acrid properties, it produces nervous irritability, sleep-
A TALK ABOUT TEA. 7
lessness, sir ; why, if you take a pinch of green tea and
chew it, sir, you can sit and listen to Dr. 's sermon
and keep wide awake sir a thing impossible to do undei
any other circumstances. But black tea has much of thi?
oil dried out of it, and therefore it is less injurious than
the other ; less injurious, I say, not harmless by any
means. Do you ever travel in the country 1 Well, sir,
there you will see the ravages of green tea, Prussian blue,
and gypsum among the fairest portion of creation
women ! There, sir, you will see pinched-up, penurious,
prying faces faces made up of a complication of fine
lines, as if all human sympathies had got into a tangle ;
necks all wrinkles ; fingers, a beautiful exhibition of
bones, ligaments, and tendons ; eyes, sharp, restless, in
quisitive ; shoulders, drooping ; bust, nowhere ; viscera,
collapsed, and the muscular system, or the form divine
generally, in a state of dubiety ; yes, sir, and all this
comes from the constant use of * T hea viridisj sir, green
tea, sir. Our forefathers, sir, threw the tea overboard in
Boston harbor ; if people knew what we of the faculty
know, sir, they would do the same thing now, sir, with
every chop that comes from the celestial empire "
II.
Jourueg arountr a Eapioca
R. BUSHWHACKER folded his napkin, drew it
through the silver ring, laid it on the table,
folded his arms, leaned back in his chair, by which we
knew there was something at work in his knowledge-box.
"My dear Madam," said he, with a Metamora shake ol
the head, ' ' there are a great many things to be said
about that pudding."
Now, such a remark at a season of the year when eggs
are five for a shilling, and not always fresh at that, is
enough to discomfort any body. The Doctor perceived
it at once, and instantly added, " In a geographical point
of view, there are many things to be said about that
pudding. M^ J vir madam," he continued, "take tapi
oca itself; what ^. it, and where does it come from ?"
Our eldest boy, just emerging from chickenhood, an
swered, "85 Chambers street, two doors below the Irv
ing House."
" True, my dear young friend," responded the Doctor,
with a friendly pat on the head ; " true, but that is not
what I mean. Where," he repeated, with a questioning
look through Ids spectacles, and a Bushwhackian nod,
" does tapioca come from ?"
8
JO DUNE Y AROUND A TAPIOCA PUDDING. 9
"Rio de Janeiro and Para 1"
" Yes, sir ; from Eio de Janeiro in the southern, and
Para in the northern part of the Brazils, do we get our
tapioca ; from the roots of a plant called the Mandioca,
botanically, the JatropJia manihot, or, as they say, tli
Cassava. The roots are long and round, like a sweet
potato ; generally a foot or more in length. Every joint
of the plant will produce its roots like the cuttings of a
grape-vine. The tubers are dug up from the ground,
peeled, scraped, or grated, then put in long sacks of flex
ible rattan ; sacks, six feet long or more, and at the bot
tom of the sack they suspend a large stone, by which the
flexible sides are contracted, and then out pours the cas
sava-juice into a pan placed below to receive it. This juice
is poisonous, sir, highly poisonous, and very volatile.
Then, my dear madam, it is macerated in water, and the
residuum, after the volatile part, the poison, is evaporated,
is the innocuous farina, which looks like small crumbs of
bread, and which we call tapioca. The best kind of tap
ioca comes from Rio, which is, I believe, about five thou
sand five hundred miles from New York ; so we must put
down that as a little more than one fifth -of our voyage
around the pudding."
This made our eldest open his eyes.
''Eggs and milk," continued Dr. Bushwhacker, "are
home productions; but sugar, refined sugar, is made
partly of the moist and sweet yellow sugar of Louisiana,
partly of the hard and dry sugar of the West Indies. I
10 JOURNEY AROUND A TAPIOCA PUDDING.
will not go into the process of refining sugar now, but I
may observe here, that the sugar we get from Louisiana,
if refined and made into a loa would be quite soft, with
large loose crystals, while the Havana sugar, subjected to
the same treatment, would make a white cone almost as
compact and hard as granite. But we have made a trip
io the Antilles for our sugar, and so you may add fifteen
hundred miles more for the saccharine."
"That is equal to nearly one-third of the circumfer
ence of the pudding we live upon, Doctor."
"Vanilla," continued the Doctor, "with which this
pudding is so delightfully flavored, is the bean of a vine
that grows wild in the multitudinous forests of Venezuela,
New Granada, Guiana, and, in fact, throughout South
America. The long pod, which looks like the scabbard
of a sword, suggested the name to the Spaniards ; vagna,
meaning scabbard, from which comes the diminutive,
vanilla, or little scabbard appropriate enough, as every
one will allow. These beans, which are worth here from
six to twenty dollars a pound, could be as easily cultivat
ed as hops in that climate ; but the indolence of the peo
ple is so great, that not one Venezuelian has been found
with sufficient enterprise to set out one acre of vanilla,
which would yield him a small fortune every year. JS"o,
sir. The poor peons, or peasants, raise their garabanzas
for daily use, but beyond that they never look. They
plant their crops in the footsteps of their ancestors, and,
if it had not been for their ancestors, they would proba-
JOURNEY ABOUND A TAPIOCA PUDDING. 11
bly have browsed on the wild grass of the llanos or plains.
Ah ' there are a great many such bobs hanging at the tail
of some ancestral kite, even in this great city, my dear,
learned friend."
" True, Doctor, you are right there."
" Well, sir, the vanilla is gathered from the wild vines
in the woods. Oft* goes the hidalgo, proud of his noble
ancestry, and toils home under a back-load of the refuse
beans from the trees, after the red monkey has had his
pick of the best. A few reals pay him for the day's
work, and then, hey for the cock-pit! There, Signor
Olibgie meets the Marquis de Shinplaster, or the Padre
Corcorochi, and of course gets whistled out of his earn
ings with the first click of the gaffs. Then back he goes
to his miserable hammock, and so ends his year's labor.
That, sir, is the history of the flavoring, and you will
have to allow a stretch across the Caribbean, say twenty-
five hundred miles, for the vanilla."
"We are getting pretty well around, Doctor."
"Then we have sauce, here, wine-sauce; Tenerifle, I
should say, by the flavor.
' from beneath the cliff
Of sunny-sided Teneriffe,
And ripened in the blink
Of India's sun.'
We must take four thousand miles at least for the wine,
my learned friend, and say nothing of the rest of the
eaucc."
12 JOURNEY AROUND A TAPIOCA PUDDING.
"Except the nutmeg, Doctor."
"Thank you, my dear young friend, thank you. The
nutmeg ! To the Spice Islands, in the Indian Ocean we
are indebted for our nutmegs. Our old original Knicker
bockers, the web-footed Dutchmen, have the monopoly
of this trade. Every nutmeg has paid toll at the Hague
before it yields its aroma to our graters. The Spice
Islands ! The almost fabulous Moluccas, where neither
corn nor rice will grow ; where the only quadrupeds they
have are the odorous goats that breathe the fragrant air,
and the musky crocodiles that bathe in the high-seasoned
waters. The Moluccas,
' the isles
Of Ternate and Ticlore, whence merchants bring
Their spicy drugs.'
There, sir 1 Milton, sir. From Ternate and Tidore, and
the rest of that marvelous cluster of islands, we get our
nutmegs, our mace, and our cloves. Add twelve thou
sand miles at least to the circumference of the pudding
for the nutmeg."
' ' This is getting to be a pretty large pudding, Doctor."
"Yes, sir. We have traveled already twenty-five
.housand five hundred miles around it, and now let us
re-circumnavigate and come back by the way of Mexico,
so that we can get a silver spoon, and penetrate into
the interior."
m.
i&atiiant Burner (ftastor.
"begin to think there is wisdom in Dr. Bush
whacker. "There are other things to study
geography from, besides maps and globes," is one of his
favorite maxims. We begin to believe it. u Observe,
my learned friend, "said he, "how the reflected sunshine
from those cut bottles in the castor-stand, throws long
plumes of light in every direction across the white dam
ask." We leaned forward, and saw the phenomenon
pointed out by the index-finger of the Doctor, and as -we
knew something was coming from his pericranics, kept
silent of course. "Well," said he, inflating his lips until
his face looked like that of a cast-iron caryatid, "well,
my dear friend, every pencil of light there is a point of the
compass, and the contents of that castor come from places
as various as those diverging rays indicate. The mustard
is from England, the vinegar from France, China fur
nishes the soy, Italy the oil, we have to ask the West
Indies to contribute the red pepper, and the East Indies
to supply the black pepper." We ventured to remark
that those facts we were not ignorant of, by any means.
" True, my dear learned friend," said the Doctor, with a
Bort of snort ; "but God bless me! if one-half of the
13
14 THE KADI ANT DINNER CASTOE.
people in this city know it." "Mustard," continued
Doctor Bushwhacker, not at all discomfited, "comes
from Durham, in the north of England that is, the best
quality. The other productions of this county do not
amount to much, nor is it celebrated for any thing,
except that here the Queen Philippa, wife of King
Edward the Third, captured David Bruce, King of Scots,
for which reason no Scotchman can eat Durham mustard
except with tears in his eyes. We get our grindstones
from this English county, my learned friend ; and when
you sharpen your knife or your appetite hereafter, it will
remind you of Durham. That long pencil of light from
the next bottle points to France, where they make the
best wine-vinegar we get. Just observe the difference
between that sturdy, pot-bellied mustard-bottle, which
represents John Bull, and this slender, sharp, vinegar-
cruet, which represents Johnny Crapeau; there is a
national distinction, sir, in cruets as well as men. The
quantity of vinegar made in France is very great. The
best comes from Bordeaux ; sometimes it is so strong that
the Frenchmen call it ' vinaigre des trois dents,' or vin
egar with three teeth ; but the finest flavored vinegar I
ever met with came from Portugal, and for a salad, noth
ing could equal its delicate aroma. Well, sir, then there
is the red-pepper, the Cayenne ; that I presume is from
J amaiea ?"
We assented.
" The best and strongest kind is made partly of the bird
pepper, and partly of the long-pod pepper of the West
THE EADIAKT DINNER CASTOR. 15
Indies. This is a very healthy condiment, sir; in the
tropics it is indispensable. There is a maxim there, sir,
that people who eat Cayenne pepper will live for ever.
Like variety, it is the spice of life, sir, at the equator.
Our own gardens, sir, furnish capsicum, and in fact it
grows in all parts of the world ; but that from the West
Indies is esteemed to be the best, and I think with jus
tice. Now, sir, the next pencil of light ig reflected from
the Yellow Sea!"
"The soy, Doctor?"
" The soy, my learned friend; the best fish-sauce on
the face of the globe. The soy, sir, or 'soya,' as the
Japanese call it, is a species of bean, which would grow
in this country as well as any other Chinese plant. Few
Chinamen eat anything without a mixture of this bean-
jelly in some shape or other. They scald and peel the
beans, then add an equal quantity of wheat or barley,
then the mess is allowed to ferment, then they add a little
salt, sometimes tumeric for color, water is added also, in
the proportion of three to one of the mass, and after a
few months' repose the soy is pressed, strained, and ready
for market. That, sir, is the history of that cruet, and
now we will pass on to the black pepper."
"A glass of wine first, Doctor, if you please."
' ' Thank you, my dear friend ; bless me, how dry I
am."
"Black pepper, Piper nigrum, is the berry of a vine
that grows in Sumatra and Ceylon, but our principal
16 THE RADIANT DINNER CASTOR.
supply of this commonest of condiments comes from the
Island of Java ; and we have to pay our web-footed
Knickerbockers, across the water, a little toll upon that,
as we do upon many other things of daily consumption.
The pepper-vine is a very beautiful plant, with large,
Jval, polished leaves and showy white flowers, that would
look beautiful if wound around the head of a bride."
"No doubt, Doctor, but I think the less pepper about
a bride the better."
"Good, my learned friend; you are right; if I were
to get married again, sir," continued the Doctor in a very
hearty manner, ' ' I should be a little afraid of the contact
of piper nigrwn"
"What is white pepper, Doctor?"
"White pepper is the same, sir, as black pepper, only
it is decorticated, that is, the black husk has been rubbed
off. Now, sir, there is not much else interesting about
pepper, except that the best probably comes from the
kingdom of Bantam ; and the quantity, formerly export
ed from the seaport of that name in the Island of Java,
amounted, sir, to ten thousand tons annually; a good
Reasonable supply of seasoning for the world, sir. Well,
sir, we are also indebted to Bantam for a very small breed
of fowls, the peculiar use of which no philosopher has as
yet been able to determine. Now, sir, we have finished
the castor, I think ?"
"There is one point of light, Doctor, that indicates
Italy; what of the oil?"
THE RADIANT DINNER CASTOR. 17
"All! Lucca and Parma I Indeed, sir, I may say,
France, Spain, and Italy !
" ' Three kingdoms claim its birth ;
Both hemispheres proclaim its worth.'
The olive, sir. I remember something from my school
boy days about that. It is from Pliny's History of Na
ture, sir. (Liber XV.) The olive in the western world
was the companion, sir, as well as the symbol of peace.
Two centuries after the foundation of Rome, both Italy
and Africa were strangers to this useful plant. It was
naturalized in those countries, sir, and at length carried
into the heart of Spain and Gaul. The timid errors of
the ancients, that it required a certain degree of heat*
and could not flourish in the neighborhood of the sea*
were insensibly exploded by industry and experience.
There, sir ! But the timid errors of the ancients are not
more surprising than the timid errors of the moderns.
The olive tree should be as common here as it is in the
old world, especially as it is the emblem of peace. My
old friend, Dominick Lynch, sir, the wine-merchant, the
only great wine-merchant we ever had, sir, imported the
finest oil, sir, from Lucca, known even to this day as
' Lynch's Oil.' He it was who made Chateau Margaux
and the Italian opera, popular, sir, in this great metrop
olis. Poor Dom! Well, sir, I suppose you know all
about the olive tree ?"
" On the contrary, very little."
2
18 THE RADIANT DINNER CASTOR.
" Well, the olive is as easily propagated as the willow.
You must go boldly to work, however, and cut off' a limb
of the tree, as big as my arm, and plant that. No twig,
sir. In three years it will bear ; in five years it will have
a full crop ; in ten years it will be in perfection. If you
plant a slip, it will take twenty years or more to mature.
Its mode of bearing is biennial, and you can prime it
every other year, and plant the cuttings. Longworth
ought to take up the oh' ve, sir ; and he might have a
wreath to put around his head, as he deserves. Well,
my learned friend, when the olive is ripe the fruit I
mean it is of a deep violet color. Those we get in bot
tles are plucked while they are green. The plums are
put between two circular mill-stones the upper one con
vex, the lower one concave; the fruit is thus crushed,
and afterward put into a press, and the oil is extracted by
means of a powerful lever. That is all, sir ; an oil-press
is not a very handsome article to look at; but in the
South, I think it would be serviceable at least; but
ter there is not always of the best quality in summer ; and
olive oil would be a delightful substitute."
" What of French and Spanish oil, Doctor?"
" Spanish oil is very good, sir. So is French ; we get
little of the Italian oil now. The oil of Aix, near Mar
seilles, is of superior quality ; but that does not come to
our market. Lately I have used the oil of Bordeaux in
place of the Italian ; it is very fine. But speaking of
olivo oil, let me tell you an anecdote of iny friend G odey,
THE RADIANT DINNER CASTOR. 19
of Philadelphia, of the Ladied Book^ sir, the best heart
ed man of that name in the world. Well, sir, Godey had
a new servant-girl ; I never knew any body that didn't
have a new servant-girl I Well, sir, Godey had a dinner
party in early spring, when lettuce is a rarity, and of
course he had lettuce. He is a capital hand at a salad,
and so he dressed it. The guests ate it ; and sir well,
sir, I must hasten to the end of the story. Said Godey
to the new girl next morning: 'What has become of that
bottle of castor-oil I gave you to put away yesterday
morning ?' ' Sure,' said she, ' you said it was castor-oil,
and I put it in the castor? 'Well,' said Godey, ']
thought BO.' "
IV.
ant <ocxm.
ow * 8 ^' ^ oc * or >" sa id. we over our matutinal,
but unusual cup of chocolate, " how is it that
drinking chocolate produces a headache with many per
sons who can eat chocolate bon-bons by the quantity with
impunity ! " " My learned friend, " said Dr. Bushwhacker,
rousing up and shaking his mane, "I will lell you all
about it. Chocolate, or as the great Linnaeus used to call
it, 'Theo drama 1 food for the gods is a most peculiar
preparation. It is made of the berries of the cacao, sir,
a small tree indigenous to South America. We misname
the berries cocoa, because the jicaras, or native cups in
which the cocoa was drunk by the Mexicans, were made
of the small end of the cocoa-nut. The tree, sir, bears
a beautiful rose-colored blossom, and that produces a long
pod, resembling our cucumber ; in that pod we find the
cacao imbedded a multitude of oval pits, about the size
of shelled almonds, and surrounded with a white acid
pulp. Now, sir, this pulp produces a very refreshing
drink in the tropics, called vino cacao, or cacao-wine,
which is more esteemed there than the beverage we make
from the berries."
"Bui), Doctor, how about the headache?"
20
CHOCOLATE AND COCOA, 21
* Sir," said the Doctor, "I am getting to that. If you
take a pair of compasses, and put the right leg in the
middle of the Madeira River, one of the tributaries of the
majestic Amazon, and extend the other to Caracas, then
sweep it round in a circle, you will embrace within that
the native land of the cacao. It grows, sir, from Vene
zuela to the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, an extent of coun
try more beautiful, vaster, and of less importance than
any other territory on the habitable globe. Well, sir,
this plant, which, from its oleaginous properties, seems
suitable to supply the want of animal food, is expressly
adapted for that country. ' He who has drank one cup,'
says Fernando Cortez, ' can travel a whole day without
any other food.' Now, sir, we must not believe this al
together ; but the value of this liquid nutriment for those
who have to cross the Llanos of the north, or the Pam
pas of the south, is not to be lightly estimated."
"But the headache, Doctor?"
"Chocolate," continued Dr. Bushwhacker, "is made
of the cacao berries, slightly roasted and triturated in
water ; a certain degree of heat is necessary in its prepa
ration. The best we have comes from Caracas ; it is of a
light brown color, and quite expensive, sometimes two or
three dollars a pound. The ordinary chocolate we import
from France, Spain, Germany, and the West Indies, is
a mixture of cacao with sago, rice, sugar, and other arti-
. cles, flavored with cinnamon or vanilla, the latter being
deleterious on account of its effects upon the nervous sys-
22 CHOCOLATE AXD COCOA.
tern. How much Caracas cacao is used here I do not
know, but I presume Para furnishes our manufacturers
with their principal supplies. The quantity of cacao that
comes here in its native state is very great, compared
with the manufactured article, the chocolate ; we import
one hundred and seventy thousand dollars' worth of the
one, against a little over two thousand dollars' worth of
the other."
4 ' But the headache, Doctor ? What is the reason that
liquid choco "
" Sir," replied Dr. Bushwhacker, drawing himself up
with cast-iron dignity, " if I interrupted you as often as
you interrupt me, that question would be answered some
time after the allies take Sebastopol. Chocolate was
introduced into Spain by Fernando Cortez ; to this day
it is in Spain what coffee is to France, or tea to England,
the pet beverage of all classes of people who can afford
it. It was introduced into England simultaneously with
coffee, just before the restoration of King Charles the
Second. Then it was prepared for the table by merely
mixing it with hot water, no milk, sir. Pope alludes to
it in the Rape of the Lock. ' Whatever spirit, careless
of his charge, his post neglects,'
" ' In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow,
And tremble at the sea that froths below.'
The Spaniards, sir, do not use milk in preparing it, nor.
do the South Americans. By the way, thirty years ago,
CHOCOLATE AND COCOA. 23
my friend, Col. Duane, of Philadelphia, published a book
on Colombia, which is highly interesting ; so, too, you will
find Zea's Colombia of the same period ; Pazo's Letters
to Henry Clay, written in 1819 ; Depon's Voyages in the
early part of this century ; and the still more interesting
voyages of Don George Juan, and Don Antonio de Ulloa,
in 1735. Then there is Hippisly's Narrative, Brown's
Itinerary, and many other books, my learned friend, that
will tell you about the cacao. In that country, where
meat is not abundant, a eup of chocolate supplies the
necessary nutriment, and a breakfast of cacao and fruit,
sir, is satisfying and delicious. Arbuthnot says it is rich,
alimentary, and anodyne."
"But the headache, Doctor ?"
" In Spain," continued the Doctor, it is served up in
beautiful cups of fillagree work, made in the shape of
tulips or lilies, with leaves that fold over the top by
touching a spring. These leaves are to protect it from
the flies. The ladies are so fond of it that they have it
sent after them to church ; this the bishops -interdicted
for a while, but that only made it more desirable."
" But what are its peculiar properties, Doctor ?"
" Tea, my learned friend," reph'ed the Doctor, curtly,
" inspires scandal and sentiment ; coffee excites the im
agination ; but chocolate, sir, is aphrodisiac 1"
V.
antr
dear learned friend," said Dr. Bush
whacker, putting down his half-empty
goblet of claret, " that is the .finest wine I ever tasted.
A man, sir, should go down on his knees when he drinks
such wine ; it inspires me, sir, with humility and devo
tion. Six months' retirement and study, with a liberal
allowance of claret like that, would induce an epic poem,
sir!"
" Retirement and study would do much, Doctor ; but
as for the claret I have my doubts. France, with all her
clarets, has no great poet."
' Sir," replied Doctor Bushwhacker, " France has Coi *
neille, Racine, Moliere !"
" True."
" La Fontaine. Voltaire, and Boileau."
" True."
" Jongleurs, Troubadours, Trouveres, without number,
sir!"
"I know it."
" Beranger, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, and what is tho
name of that barber-poet ? ah ! Jasmin."
24
NOTABLES AND POTABLES. 25
* Yes, Jasmin."
" And," continued the Doctor, " there was Du Bartas,
sir, who wrote the 'Divine Week' and the 'Battle of
Ivry,' sir!"
" Yes, sir."
" Claret," said Dr. Bushwhacker significantly.
" Great thing for wit, Doctor !"
" My dear learned friend, it is," replied the Doctor,
emptying his goblet, and giving a triumphant snort, "and
for poetry, too."
" How is it, then, that with all her great poets, France
has not produced a great poem ?"
" Sir," asked Dr. Bushwhacker, " did you ever read
the GEdipe of Corneille ?"
" No, sir."
" Then I would advise you to read it, sir."
"My learned friend," continued Dr. Bushwhacker,
after an impressive pause, " I have a theory that certain
wines produce certain effects upon the mind. I believe,
sir, that if I were to come in upon a dinner-party about
the time when conversation had become luminous and
choral, I could easily tell whether Claret, Champagne,
Sherry, Madeira, Burgundy, Port, or Punch, had been
the prevailing potable. Yes, sir, and no doubt a skillful
critic could determine, after a careful analysis of the sub
ject, upon what drink, sir, a poem was written. Yes, sir,
or tell a claret couplet from a sherry couplet, sir, or dis-
26 NOTABLES AND POTABLES.
tinguish the flavor of Port in one stanza, and Madeira in
another, from internal evidence, sir."
" Suppose, Doctor, the poet were a water-drinker f "
"My dear learned friend," replied the Doctor vehe
mently, "if you can find in the whole range of literature
and I will go farther than that if you can find in the
whole range of intelligence, either poet, statesman, orator,
artist, hero, or divine, who was a water-drinker, and worth
one (excuse me) curse ! then, sir, I will renounce the
practice of my profession, and occupy my time in a water-
cure establishment. On the contrary, look at the illus
trious writers of all ages and nations, sir; look at Homer.
There is no end to the juncketings in the Iliad, sir ; and
the Greek heaven, sir, is pretty well supplied with every
thing else but water, I believe.
-' This did to laughter cheer
White-wristed Juno, who now took a cup of him, and smiled,
The sweet peace-making draught went round, and lame Ephaistus
Nectar to all the other gods. A laughter never left, [filled
Shook all the blessed deities, to see the lame so deft
At the cup service. All that day, even till the sun went down,
They banqueted ; and had such cheer as did their wishes crown.' "
" "What was Homer's peculiar tipple, Doctor ?"
" The wine of Chios, sir, undoubtedly. In this island,
it is said, the first wines were made by (Enopion, son of
Bacchus ; and here, too, it is said Homer was born. I
believe both, sir. From the island of Chios came the
NOTABLES AND POTABLES. 27
first wine and the first epic, sir ; hand in hand they came
into the world, and hand in hand they will go out of it,
sir!"
" The Eomans, Doctor, were great wine-drinkers."
" Yes, my learned friend. Falernian and Massic, sir,
inspired Virgil and Horace, and the poets have made
the wines immortal. Martial praises his native wine
of Tarragonia, sir ; lie was an old sherry drinker.
And had the Italian vine, sir, perished with the Eoman
Empire, I have my doubts whether Dante, Pulci, Tasso,
Petrarch, Boiardo, and Ariosto would have been what
they now are in the eyes of an admiring posterity. Yes,
sir, and there is Redi, too ! Why, the whole of Italy is
in his l JSacco in Toscana.'' "
" What wine do you suppose Shakspeare preferred,
Doctor ?"
" Sack ! my learned friend dry Sherry or Canary, sir.
All the poets of the Elizabethan age, sir, were sack-drink
ers Ben Johnson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Marlowe, Ra
leigh, Chapman, Spencer, Sydney so, too, was Herrick,
as he says :
' Thy lies shall lack
Grapes, before Herrick leave Canarie Sack.'
and the other writers of his time, sir Carew, Wither,
Cowley, Waller, Crashaw, Broome
' All worldly care is Madness ;
But Sack and good Cheat
Will, in spite of our fear,
Inspire our Souls with Gladness.'
28 NOTABLES AtfD POTABLES.
That was the burthen of a song in the time of the Rump,
sir! It was a 'Rump and dozen' in those days, my
learned friend."
" One writer of that period was an exception, Doctor."
" What writer, sir ?"
"Milton."
" Died of the gout, sir died of the gout, sir. Milton,
my dear friend, died of the gout."
" Cervantes was a Sherry-drinker, Doctor ?"
"Of course, my learned friend. And, no doubt, the
' Val do Penas' of La Mancha was a favorite beverage
with him. But, sir," continued Dr. Bushwhacker sud
denly, sitting upright and holding his head like a poised
avalanche, ' ' by speaking of Cervantes, sir, you have put
a keystone into the arch of my theory, sir. The Eliza
bethan era should be called the age of Sack, sir. Look
at those two great writers, Shakspeare and Cervantes,
each a transcendant genius, sir ; both living at the same
time, sir ; both dying on the same day sir on the 23d
of April, 1616."
"Well, Doctor?"
"And both drinking Sack, sir, or Sherry, constantly.
' If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I
would teach them should be, to forswear thin potations,
and to addict themselves to Sack.' Shakspeare, sir ! King
Henry Fourth, part second, act fourth, scene third, sir!"
"How long did this golden age of Sack continue,
Doctor ?"
NOTABLES AND POTABLES. 29
" Until Charles the Second returned from France, and
brought Claret into fashion. You can see the light, deli
cate, fanciful potable, sir, in the literature of this period
as plain as sunlight. Next came the age of Port, sir, in
Queen Anne's reign."
" Ah ! I remember, the Methuen treaty."
"Yes, sir, the treaty of 1703. Port was encouraged
by low duties, and lighter and better wines of other coun
tries interdicted by enormous imposts, and in consequence
we have a new school of literature, sir. The imaginative,
the nervous, the pathetic, the humorous, and the sublime
departed with the age of Sack ; the gay, the witty, the
amorous, and the fanciful, with the age of Claret ; and
the artificial, the critical, the satirical, and the common
place arose, sir, with the age of Port ! But bless my
heart," said Doctor Bushwhacker, rising and looking at
his watch, "I must look after my patients. The next
time we meet we will have a talk over modern wines and
authors, and that will be more interesting, I dare say."
'Notaries anlr
" The last discourse we had, my learned friend," said
Dr. Bushwhacker, " was about wine and wisdom. What
shall be the next ?"
"Pardon me, Doctor, we are not yet through with
30 NOTABLES AND POTABLES.
that. We reached Port and Queen Anne ; what followed
after the age of Pope and Addison ?"
"The prohibition of wine, sir," replied the Doctor,
solemnly, "led to the substitution of spirits. You see
how Hogarth, in his immortal pictures, shows its pro
gress in Gin Lane. Well, sir, if you wish to see how
intimate are the relations between drinking and thinking,
mark the host of clever literary vagabonds of this period.
Genius in rags, sir ; genius with immortal thoughts in hie
brain and no crown to his hat ; Pegasus, with everything
but his wings, in the pawnbroker's shop. The long ex
hausting toil of literary occupation, which needs a natu
ral stimulant, such as wine, (for men of sedentary habits
must have it, sir,) was relieved by stronger stimulants,
because they were cheaper. And now, sir, mark the two
great geniuses of the middle of the last century, Fielding
and Smollett ; see the wonderful power of those writers,
and observe the characteristic coarseness of their works,
and what else is there to say ' to point a moral,' farther,
than that Smollett, with a shattered constitution, went to
Leghorn, to die there; and Fielding, with a shattered
constitution, went to Lisbon, to die there. Fielding, at
the age of 47, and Smollett at the age of 50, sir."
" What would you infer from that, Doctor ?"
" Sir," replied the Doctor, " I leave you to draw the
inference. Now, sir, we come to another epoch. A
period, sir, of great mental brilliancy, and I wish you to
observe that fine wine drinking had again become fash-
NOTABLES AND POTABLES. 31
ionable. Claret was monstrously expensive, but claret was
the mode. Now, sir, we have Fox, and Pitt, and Sheri
dan, and Burke, and Chesterfield, and Garrick, and Sir
Joshua Reynolds, and Goldsmith. And among this bril
liant cluster there stands out conspicuous a remarkable
figure. Not that he was greater than these, not that hia
genius was superior, nor his wisdom more profound, yet
still the most conspicuous figure in the group was "
"Dr. Samuel' Johnson."
" Dr. Jamuel Johnson," echoed Dr. Bushwhacker.
" Did you ever know, sir, leaving out a few of our prom
inent hydrophobists, a man so eminent for invective,
asperity, bitterness, insolence, dogmatic assumption, and
gluttony, as the Ursa Major of English literature ? And,
sir, he was a total abstinent. To use his own words : ' J
now no more think of drinking wine than a horse does.
The wine upon the table is no more for me than for the
dog who is under the table.' But he could drink, sir,
twenty-three cups of tea at poor Mrs. Thrale's table at a
sitting, until four o'clock in the morning, sir, which may
be set down as a fair sample of teetotal debauchery, my
learned friend."
" Dr. Johnson was a very good hearted man, I
believe."
"A good man, sir, a good man, sir. His charity, hia
candor, his tenderness, his attachment to his friends, hia
love of the poor, his rigid honesty, his piety, and his filial
affection, were wonderful, sir, We all love this Samuel
32 NOTABLES AND POTABLES.
Johnson. But, sir, there was also another character ; an
irritable, uncouth, imperious, ill-tempered, gluttonous,
rude, prejudiced, intolerant, violent, unsparing old cynic ;
and this Samuel Johnson we do not love. Sir, human
nature has scarcely formed a character so disproportion
ate. He was a great man, sir, and a great bear, sir."
* ' I thought you said no water drinker ever was a great
man, Doctor?"
"My learned friend," replied the Doctor, growing
slightly purple, "Dr. Samuel Johnson was a tea drinker,
and used to be a wine drinker! But hand me the
Madeira, if you please, and a handful of filberts. At the
next dinner we will talk of the writers of this century.
What is this wine ?"
" Virginia Reserve, Doctor."
" Then we will drink it, sir ; Virginia is a noble State,
and it is full of noble men "
" And women, Doctor."
" God bless you, my dear friend and women 1"
NotaWes atrtr
"What do you think of whiskey-punch, Doctor, as a
potable ?"
"Bless my heart 1" said the Doctor, shaking his bushy
mane, "by all means ; I never refuse it."
(Enter a tray, two lemons, hot wa(er } a silver sugar
bowl, and the Islay.}
NOTABLES AND POTABLES. 33
"Punch," said Doctor Bushwhacker, "was the
chief inspirer of the hearty, homely, natural, vigorous
writers of this century. You see how the great Sir
Walter used it, sir ; there is a touch of * mountain dew'
in his tenderest productions, sir; the Heart of Mid-
Lothian could never have been written by a cold-water
drinker no, sir ; nor was it. I may even go a little farther
back, to a more unfortunate child of genius Burns, sir !
Robert of Ayrshire loved the barley broo * not wisely,
but too well ' for himself ; he was improvident ; but
then he made posterity rich. (A little more of the Islay ;
thank you.")
"Byron, Doctor?"
" Drank gin ; that we know pretty well, I believe, my
learned friend. There is a touch of juniper in all Byron
a mixture of the bitter and the aromatic."
"And Coleridge?"
"Coleridge," said the Doctor, gravely, with a sort of
emphatic spill of the hot fluid, "illustrates my theory in
a remarkable manner, sir Coleridge and De Quincey,
both. What idea do you have of the Vision of Kubla
Khan, and the Suspiria de Profundis, taken together?
My learned friend, he begins to dream who is absorbed^
in the pages of either : the world, yea, the great globe
itself, becomes intangible ; he is floating away, on a sea
. of ether, in space more illimitable than human thought
could scan before ; his vision is dilated, yet undefined ;
the procession of time sweeps on, measured by centuries ;
34 NOTABLES AND POTABLE^.
events accumulate with supernatural aggregation ; the
scenery by which he is surrounded has surpassed sublimi
ty itself, and he listens to the river that runs
' -through caverns, measureless to man.
Down to a SUNLESS sea.'
"Well, Doctor?"
"OriUM, sir!" replied the Doctor, with awful solem
nity.
"What of Charles Lamb, Doctor?"
."Lamb ? Dear Charles, has certainly lisped of hot gin
and water in his inimitable letters," replied the Doctor,
' ' or, as he would say, ' hot water, with a s-s-s-entiment
of gin.'"
"That sounds Lambish, Doctor."
"My learned friend," replied Dr. Bushwhacker, "I
know it ; I have got Charles Lamb by heart, sir. By the
way, a new anecdote of Elia : he had a friend one night
at No. 4 Inner Temple Lane ; negus was the potable of
the evening, from tenderness to Mary's feelings, who
sometimes shook her sisterly head at the 's-s-s-entiment.'
'It seems a poor cur dog had attracted the attention of the
gentle-hearted Charles that day, and he had invited him
in, fed him, and tied him up slightly in the little yard
back of the house. Charles was talking in hie phospho
rescent way over the negus, when Mary interrupted him:
* Charles, that dog yelps so.' Elia flashed on. 'Charles,
that dog' 'What i-i-is it, Mary? Oh! the dog?
NOTABLES AND POTABLES. 35
He-lie-he-he's enjoying him-s-s-self.' l Enjoying himself,
Charles ?' ' Ye-ye-yes as well as he can with * whine and
water.' "
4 'Capital story, Doctor. What of the Laureate?"
"In reading Southey," replied Doctor Bushwhacker,
' ' you feel the want of the rare old vinous smack pecu
liar to the writings of authors of eminence, sir. I may
say the same, too, of Wordsworth. Both were tolerably
abstinent ; but Southey had his wine-cellar at Greta Hall,
and Wordsworth, in celebrating his first visit to the
rooms once occupied by Milton at Christ College, was a
little overcome, sir, by a '-his visit, sir. Southey, in his
personal character, manners, and habits, must have re
sembled oui % dear Henry Inman, sir."
"AndHazlitt?"
"Misanthropic, cynical, Hazlitt, sir, used to drink
black tea, sir, of the intensest strength. He is another
illustration of my theory, sir."
" And Keats ?"
" Read Keats over, my learned friend ; and if you can
unlatch the tendrils of the vine from any of his super-
exquisite poems, great or small, then sir, I will bury my
>ancet. What a delicate taste for wine he must have had !"
"And Shelley, Doctor ?"
" My dear friend," said the Doctor, rising, and upset
ting his tumbler, " Shelley never understood the human
aspect of existence. I fear me he was not a wine-drinker,
Suppose we say, or admit he was a solitary exception ? n
fiotatles antr
"Do you know," said Dr. Bushwhacker, as he stretch-
ed out his full glass to be touched, "how this custom
originated ? this ringing of wine-bells or kissing of
beakers, sir?"
We replied in the negative.
"Then, sir, I will tell you," replied the Doctor. " It
was the invention of a learned French philosopher, to il
lustrate the five senses. The beautiful color of wine
delights the eye seeing; the delicate bouquet gratifies
the nose smelling ; the cool glass suggests a pleasure to
the fingers -feeling ; and, sir, by drinking it we gratify
exquisitely the taste. Now, sir, touch glasses for the
finest chime in the world, that rings out good fellowship,
sir, and we have the fifth sense hearing."
" Quite a little poera, Doctor, in five lines."
"Put it in verse, sir, put it inverse I give you the
idea."
" Apropos, Doctor, I have a German song here, trans
lated by a iriend: Let me read it to you. (JZditor reads.)
"'LOVE, SONG, AND WINE.
'"DEAE FUEDERICUS: A. Walther writ this in "quaint
old sounding German." It is done into English by your
friend, HUGH PYNNSAUEET.
NOTABLES AND POTABLES. 37
" ' Through the gloom of this sad life of ours,
Three glorious planets still shine,
Serene from the azure of heaven,
And men call them Love, Song, and Wine,
" ' In the dear voice of love all the passion
Of a trusting and earnest heart lies ; j.
And pleasure by love grows immortal,
While sorrow faints, withers, and dies.
" ' Then wine gives a courage to passion,
Inspires the melodious art,
And reddens the gold of the sunlight
That streams o'er the May of the heart,
" ' But song is most noble of all these ;
To mortals it adds the divine ;
It thrills through our hearts like a passion,
And glows through our senses like wine.
" ' Then quench all the rest of the planets,
Bid the golden-rayed stars cease to shine ;
We'll not miss them so long as God leaves us
Those heart-stars of Love, Song, and Wine."'
4 Excellent I ' f said the Doctor, shaking his bushy head.
* ' By the way, what grand old songs those Rhine songs
are ! And the vineyards of the Rhine are reflected in
the songs as they are in the river. * O ! the pride of the '
German heart is this noble River ! and right it is ; for of
the rivers of this beautiful earth, there is none so beauti
ful as this. There is hardly a league of its whole course,
from its cradle in the snowy Alps to its grave in the sands
of Holland, which boasts not its peculiar charms. By
38 NOTABLES AND POTABLES.
heavens ! if I were a German, I would be proud of it,
too ; and of the clustering grapes that hang about its
temples, as it reels onwards through vineyards in a tri
umphal march, like Bacchus, crowned and drunken.'
There, sir, what do you think of that ?"
' ' Grand, Doctor, like the triumphant chanting of an
organ. Who wrote it ?"
' ' Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, sir ! Hyperion, sir !
Read it over, and get it by heart."
" The German writers all use the wines of Fatherland,
Doctor."
' ' Nearly all, from Martin Luther down. I say nearly
all Goethe was an exception. The courtly Goethe used
to drink the fine Burgundies and Bordeaux of France.
But Schiller, sir, was a Rhine-wine drinker. In fact his
writing-table was always supplied with the golden pota
ble of the Rhine. Now, sir, we see between these two
men of eminent genius, two separate and distinguishing
characteristics. Goethe was different from all other
German poets but Schiller was above all other German
poets, including Goethe himsel"
VI.
into a
dear, learned friend," said the Doctor " a
Bowl of Lettuce is the Venus of the dinner
table ! It rises upon the sight cool, moist, and beauti
ful, like that very imprudent lady coming out of the
sea, sir I And to complete the image, sir, neither should
be dressed too much 1"
When Dr. Bushwhacker had issued this observation,
he drew himself up in a very portly manner, as if he felt
called upon to defend himself as well as his image. Then,
after a short pause, he broke silence.
" Lactuca, or lettuce, is one of the most common vege
tables in the world ; it has been known, sir, from time
immemorial ; it was as common, sir, on the tables of
the ancients as it is now, and was eaten in the same way,
sir, dressed with oil and vinegar. We get, sir, from
Athenaeus some idea of the condiments used : not all of
these contributed to make a salad, but it shows they had
the materials :
" ' Dried grapes, and salt, and eke new wine
Newly boiled down, and asatoetida, (pah !)
And cheese, and thyme, and sesame, (open sesame,)
And nitre too, and cummin-seed,
And sumach, honey, and majorum,
40 A PEEP INTO A SALAD BOWL.
And herbs, and vinegar, and oil,
And sauce of onions, mustard, and capers mixed,
And parsley, capers too, and eggs,
And lime, and cardimums, and th' acid juice
Which comes from the green fig-tree ; besides lard,
And eggs and honey, and flour wrapped in fig-leaves,
And all compounded in one savory force-meat.'
They had pepper too. Ophelian says :
" ' Pepper from Libya take, and frankincense.'
So, sir, if you had dined with Alcibiades, no doubt he
would have dressed a salad for you with Samian oil, and
Sphettian vinegar, sir, pepper from Libya, and salt from
ah hm "
" Attica, doctor."
" Attica, my learned friend ; thank you. Now, sir,
there was one thing the ancients did with lettuce which
we do not do. They boiled it, sir, and served it up like
asparagus ; so, too, did they Avith cucumbers a couple
of indigestible dishes they were, no doubt. Lettuce, my
dear friend, should have a quick growth, in the first place,
to be good ; it should have a rich mould, sir, that it may
spring up quickly, so as to be tender and crisp. Then,
sir, it should be new-plucked, carried from the garden a
few minutes before it is placed upon the table. I would
suggest a parasol, sir, to keep the leaves cool until it
reaches the shadow of within-doors. Then, sir, it must
be washed mind you ice-water I Then place it upon
the table what Corinthian ornament more perfect and
symmetrical. Now, sir, comes the important part, the
DKESSING. 'To dress a salad,' says the learned Petriia
A PEEP INTO A SALAD BOWL. 41
Petronius, ' you must have a prodigal to furnish the oil,
a counselor to dispense the salt, a miser to dole out the
vinegar, and a madman to stir it.' Commit that to
memory, my learned friend."
"It is down, Doctor." (Tablets.}
"Let me show you," continued Dr. Bushwhacker,
" how to dress a salad. Take a small spoonful of salt,
thus: twice the quantity of mustard 'Durham' thus:
incorporate : pour a slender stream of oil from the cruet,
so : gently mix and increase the action by degrees,"
(head of hair in commotion, and face briUiant in color ;)
" dear me ! it is very warm now, sir, oil in abundance,
so ; a dash of vinegar, very light, like the last touches of
the artist ; and, sir, we have the dressing. Now, take up
the lettuce by the stalk ! Break ofi' the leaves leaf by
leaf shake off the water, replace it in the salad-bowl,
pepper it slightly, pour on the dressing, and there you*
have it, sir."
" Doctor, is that orthodox ?" '
" Sir," replied Dr. Bushwhacker, holding the boxwood
spoon in one hand and the box-wood fork in the other ;
' ' the eyes of thirty centuries are looking down upon me.
I know that Frenchmen will sprinkle the lettuce with oil
until it is thoroughly saturated ; then, sir, a little pepper ;
then, sir, salt or not, as it happens ; then, sir, vinaigre
by the drop all very well. Our people, sir, in the State
of New Jersey, will dress it with salt, vinegar, and pep
per perfectly barbarous, my learned friend ; then comes
42 A PEEP INTO A SALAD BOWL.
the elaborate Englishman ; and our Pennsylvania friend,
the Rev. Sidney Smith, sir, gives us a recipe in verse,
that shows how they do it there, and at the same time,
exhibits the deplorable ignorance of that very peculiar
people. I quote from memory, sir :
" ' Two large potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve
Smoothness and softness to the salad give ;
Of mordant mustard add a single spoon.
Distrust the condiment that bites too soon,
But deem it not, Lady of herbs, a fault
To add a double quantity of salt.
Four times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown,
And twice with vinegar procured from town ;
True flavor needs it, and your poet begs
The pounded yellow of two well-boiled eggs.
Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, scarce suspected, animate the whole.
Then lastly in the flavored compound toss
One magic spoonful of anchovy sauce.
O great and glorious ! O herbaceous treat !
'T would tempt the dying anchorite to eat ;
Back to the world he'd turn his weary soul,
And plunge his fingers in the Salad Bowl !'
Now, sir, I have tried that, and a compound more execra
ble is not to be thought of. No, sir ! Take some of my
salad, and see if you do not dream afterwards of the
Greek mythology."
vn
jfollet.
>Y dear friend," said the Doctor, holding his
cup in the left hand thumb and forefinger,
with the other three fingers stretched out over the rest
of the table, "I never inhale the fragrance of coffee
without thinking, of the old fashioned coffee pot, or
'Madame Follet,' as dear Miss Bremer used to call it.
Do you know, sir and I suppose you know every thing
do you know, sir, there are a great many old fashioned
people in the world ?"
We replied, the fact was not to be disputed.
" Old fashioned people, sir ; old fashioned in dress, in
speech, in politeness, in ideas, in every thing. And, sir,
not long since, I had occasion to visit two old ladies, sir ;
I went down stairs to the basement dining room, sir,
without ceremony, sir, and there I found the antiquated
virgins over their coffee, sir ; and in the middle of the
table there was the old fashioned tin coffee pot, sir,
scoured as bright as sand could make it, with a great big
superannuated spout, and a great broad backed handle,
sir, and a great big, broad bottom, sir, as broad, sir, as
44 MADAM FOLLETT.
the top of the great bell crowned hat I used to wear
when I went to visit them as a spruce young buck, in the
year eighteen hundred and twenty, sir." Here the Doc
tor's spectacles fairly glistened again.
' 'Well, Doctor?"
" Sir," replied Dr. Bushwhacker, "there was plenty
of silver in the cupboard, plenty ; great pots, and coffee
urns of solid metal, sir, with massive handles to match ;
but they were so old fashioned as to prefer the old,
scoured, broad bottomed tin pot, sir, and with reason,
too, sir."
" Give us the reason, thereof, Doctor, if you please."
"Well, sir, one of the sisters apologized for the coffee
pot in a still, small sort of a voice, a little cracked and
chipped by constant use, and said, the reason why they
drank their coffee out of that pot was because it never
seemed to taste so well out of anything- else."
"Why not, Doctor?"
"Why not? Easily enough explained, sir; we never
make coffee in a silver urn, and when we pour it from the
vessel in which it is made into another, we lose half the
aroma, sir. Coffee is of most delicate and choice flavor,
sir ; very few know how to make it or to use it. The
proper way to make good coffee, sir, is to roast it care
fully in a cylinder over a charcoal fire, until it is of a light
brown color ; then the cylinder should be taken off the
fire and turned gently until the berries are thoroughly
cooled. The best part of the aroma is dissipated, sir, by
MADAM FOLLETT. 45
the abominable practice of turning out the coffee in an
open dish so soon as it is roasted. Why, sir, any body
can see that the finest part of it escapes ; you can smell it,
sir, in every crack and corner of the house. When cooled,
it should be put intd a mortar and beat to powder. A cof
fee mill only cracks the grains, but a mortar pounds out
the essential oil. Then, sir, put it into an old fashioned tin
coffee pot, pour on the hot water, stand it over a fire, not
too hot ; let it simmer gently. If your fire is too hot, it
will burn the coffee and spoil it. Then, sir, take Madam
Follett fresh from the fire, stand Jier on the table, and if
you want an appreciative friend, send for me ! "
"What kind of coffee is the best, Doctor ?"
"Mocha, sir, from Arabia Felix. The first Mocha
coffee that ever reached the Land of the Free and the
Home of the Brave direct, sir, came in a ship belonging
to Captain Derby, of Salem, in the year 1801."
* ' When was coffee first used in Europe, Doctor ?"
" That, my learned friend, is one of * the two or three
things to suggest conversation at the tea table,' as our
friend Willis has it, It is a matter of dispute, my learn
ed friend, and it will probably be settled after the com
mentators have agreed upon the proper way of spelling
the name of Shakspeare, Shaksper, Shagsper, or what
ever you call him."
"How early was coffee in use in the world?"
" Slier baddin, an Arab author, asserts that the first
man who drank coffee was a certain Mufti, 'of Aden, who
46 MADAM FOLLETT.
lived in the ninth century of the Hegira, about the year
1500, my learned friend. So says Dr. Doran. The pop
ular tradition is, that the superior of a Dervish commu
nity, observing the effects of coffee berries, when eaten
by some goats, rendering them more lively and skittish
than before, prescribed it for the brotherhood, in order
to cure them of drowsiness and indolence. Dickens, in
Household Words, gives a capital account of the old cof
fee houses of London. By the way, there is an account,
also, in Table Traits. Here is the book.
" ' Lend me thine ears.' Shagsper.
" * The coffee houses of England take precedence of
those of France, though the latter have more enduringly
flourished. In 1652, a Greek, in the service of an Eng
lish Turkey merchant, opened a house in London. ' 1
have discovered his hand-bill,' says Mr. Disraeli, ' in
which he sets forth the virtue of the coffee drink, first
publiquely made and sold in England, by Pasqua Rosee,
of St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill, at the sign of his own
head.' Mr. Peter Cunningham cites a MIS. of Oldys' in
his possession, in which some fuller details of much in
terest are given. Oldys says : ' The first use of coffee in
England was known in 1657, when Mr. Daniel Edwards,
a Turkey merchant, brought from Smyrna to London one
Pasqua tlosee, a Ragusan youth, who prepared this drink
for him every morning. But the novelty thereof drawing
too much company to him, he allowed his said servant,
with another of his son-in-law's, to sell it publicly ; and
they set up the first coffee house in London, in St. Mi*
chad's Alley, Cornhill. But they separating, Pasqua
kept in the house ; and he who had been his partner ob
tained leave to p'tch a tent, and sell the liquor, in St.
MADAM FOLLETT. 47
Michael's church yard.' Aubrey, in his Anecdotes, states
that the first vender of coffee in London was one Bow
man, coachman to a Turkey merchant, named Hodges,
who was the father-in-law of Edwards, and the partner
of Pasqua, who got into difficulties, partly by his not be
ing a freeman, and who left the country. Bowman was
not only patronized, but a magnificent contribution of
one thousand sixpences was presented to him, where
with he made great improvements in his coffee house.
Bowman took an apprentice, (Paynter,) who soon learnt
the mystery, and in four years set up for himself. The
coffee houses soon became numerous ; the principal were
Farres', the Rainbow, at the Inner Temple Gate, and
John's, in Fuller's Rents,'
" There, sir ; and now, my learned friend, I must pay
a visit to that charming lady, Mrs. Potiphar, who is suf
fering severely with a neuralgia."
vm.
OR my part," said the Doctor, "I do not see
liow we could get along without them. The
old phrases, the idioms, the apothegms of a people are
the gold and silver coins of their language, bearing a pro
portionate value, as many hundred times, to the common
stock of words, as these do to the copper currency. Sir,
if you will get the 'Lessons on Proverbs,' by Richard
Chevenix Trench, you will find you have a sub-treasury
of wisdom, my learned friend."
"Do you not think, Doctor, there is a coarseness in
familiar proverbs that diminishes their value in polite
society ?"
" No, sir, I do not think so," replied the Doctor vehe
mently. " To be sure, there may be, here and there one
in which an allusion might offend a sensitive mind ; but,
generally speaking, they are rather robust, instead of
coarse, strong without being indelicate. Cervantes felic
itously calls them 'Sentencias brevas sacadas de la luenga
y discreta eocperiencia? short sentences drawn from long
and wise experience. Common enough are they among
OLD PHRASES. 49
uneducated people, but not the less valuable for that rea
son, sir ; proverbs may be called the literature of the
illiterate another mouthful of the Mumm, sir thank
you."
" How do you like that wine, Doctor?"
"Grand, sir; glorious, sir; 'Mumm's the word,' sir.
If Shakspeare were living, sir, he would forswear sack,
and say ' Jfumm? * a jewel of a wine, sir Jewel
Mumm."
" The phrase you have just used, Doctor, is a common
one."
" 'Mumm's the word ?' True, my learned friend. Dr.
Johnson, that stupendous lexicographer, remarks of the
word mumm, it may be observed that when it is pro
nounced it leaves the lips closed, thus," (lips in sculptured
silence.)
"How did the phrase originate, Doctor?"
" That, sir, is a question I cannot answer. There are
phrases, sir, beyond the scope of records, written or
printed, so old, sir, that, to use the words of our friend
Blackstone, ' the memory of man runneth not to the con-
i trary' they were always in use. Others we can trace at
once to their originals ; such as, 'How we apples swim,*
to a fable in -<Esop ; or, * To see ourselves as others see
us,' to a poem of Burns ; there are legions of phrases
from the Bible, not one of which inculcates a sentiment
not divine in its humanity ; there are scores from Shaks
peare, scores from Pope, scores from Young, some from
4
50 OLD PHRASES.
Byron, from Milton, Cowper, Thomson, Campbell, Gold
smith, Spenser, Addison, Congreve, Prior, Sir Philip
Sidney, Gray, Collins, Cowley, our own poets, sir and
Daniel Webster, sir, Halleck and Irving."
" There is no fear of a language, Doctor, in which such
coin is current."
"No, sir; nor of a people! But there are other
phrases which, to the undisciplined ear, seem coarse and
vulgar, yet involving a story clever enough in itself to bo
preserved."
" For instance ?"
' ' For instance, ' The gray mare is the better horse.'
We know very well the line is in Prior's Epilogue to
Lucius ; but the story from which the phrase is derived
is something like this : A gentleman, who had seen the
world, one day gave his eldest son a span of horses, a
chariot, and a basket of eggs. 'Do you,' said he to the
boy, ' travel upon the high road until you come to the
first house in which there is a married couple. If you
find the husband is the master there, give him one of the
horses. If, on the contrary, the wife is the ruler, give
her an egg. Return at once if you part with a horse,
but do not come back so long as you keep both horses,
and there is an egg remaining.' Away went the boy full
of his mission, and just beyond the borders of his father's
estate lo ! a modest cottage. He alighted from the char
iot and knocked at the door. The good wife opened it
for him and curtesied. 'Is your husband at home? 1
OLD PJIKASES. 51
' No ;' but she would call him from the hay field. In he
came, wiping his brows. The young man told them his
errand. ' Why,' said the wife, bridling and rolling the
corner of her apron, * I always do as John wants me to
do ; he is my master -an't you, John ?' To which John
replied, 'Yes.' ' Then,' said the boy, ' I am to give you
a horse ; which will you take ?' ' I think,' said John, ' as
how that bay gelding seems to be the one as would suit
me the best.' ' If we have a choice, husband,' said the
wife, l l think the gray mare will suit us better.' 'No,'
replied John, 'the bay for me; he is more square in
front, and his legs are better.' 'Now,' said the wife, 'I
don't think so ; the gray mare is the better horse ; and I
shall never be contented unless I get that one.' ' Well,'
said John, ' if your mind is sot on it, I'll give up ; we'll
take the gray mare.' ' Thank you,' said the boy ; ' allow
me to give you an egg from this basket ; it is a nice fresh
one, and you can boil it hard or soft as your wife will
permit.' The rest of the story you may imagine; the
young man came home with both horses, but not an egg
remained in his basket."
" That is a scandalous story, Doctor."
"True, my learned friend; but after we finish this
Mumin, I will tell you another with a better moral."
Or
"Let us," said the Doctor, "take up the familiar,
every day language the language, sir, not of the draw
ing room, but of the street the language, not of the beau,
but of the b'hoy, sir, and dissect it." Here the Doctor
roiled up his wristbands, and armed himself with a fruit-
knife, in the most formidable manner. "Let us," he
continued, tapping the ringing rim of the finger-bowl,
" dissect it, sir, and expose its muscles, ligaments, and
tendons, its veins and its arteries, its viscera, its nerves
and its ganglionic system, and sir, we will find that these
old phrases are the very bones of the system, sir, the
framework that sustains and supports all the rest. Yes,
my learned friend, take even a tissue of slang, and you
will find it full of marrow-bones !"
"Among some people the range of ideas being limited
"The range of ideas being limited," interrupted the
Doctor, "the range of expression is necessarily limited
also. Yet, you will see how readily, even with a small
stock of words, the b'hoys make themselves understood.
One word passes muster for many, by dint of inflection
and gesture : a single phrase sir, will often convey as
many separate and opposite meanings, as a single string
on Ole Bull's violin will express separate and opposite
OLD PHRASES. 53
sentiments. Why, sir, the slang phrase, * that's so/ is
used to signify affirmation, confirmation, doubt, interro
gation, irony, triumph, and despair ; and a host besides
of shades of sense relative to the subject in hand.
' You'd better believe it,' is sometimes a taunt, or a men
ace, as the case may be ; sometimes a grave and weighty
piece of advice ; and sometimes significant of its own
opposite that is, 'You had better not believe it.' Now
my learned friend, if we could only trace these phrases,
and betimes we will, we would find them to be, not
the property of this generation, but the original expres
sions of a people very much fore-shortened in language,
some centuries behind the curtain of Shakspeare ; or else
the result, the quotient, of some old story, from which
every thing else had been subtracted."
' ' Doctor, pardon me for interrupting you."
"Willis," continued the Doctor, "did originate some
phrases, sir, such as ' the upper ten thousand.' You see
how it has been trimmed down to 'the upper ten,' and
by and by it will be used to signify a class simply, with
out any reference to its previous purport. And in this
connection the facile terminal 'cfora,' which so often has
brought up the rear-guard of a sentence in the papers, is
due to Willis, who struck it out in 'japonicadom' a
most happy and felicitous phrase."
" Doctor, I would like "
" Some authors write whole volumes without a catch*
word "
54 OLD PHRASES.
" To ask if you "
" Others again press a score of them in a "
"Can tell me "
"Chapter. Well, sir?"
" Whether you can tell me what was the origin of tho
phrase ' a fish story? ' :
"Certainly," responded Dr. Bushwhacker; "every
body knows that : An old Indian, who had been convert
ed by the missionaries, got along very well as far as
' Jonah and the whale,' where he faltered a little, but
finally passed over that, and went on. At last he reached
the history of Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego, in the
fiery furnace. 'Me no believe that,' said the Indian.
' But you must believe it,' said the missionaries. The
Indian dissented ; but the missionaries cleved to the point
of faith at issue. At last, after a prolonged debate, in
which the Indian distinguished himself by a display of
natural eloquence, the old aboriginal wound up the string
by saying, l Now, I tell you, me no believe that ; and
since you make me mad, me no believe too that fish
story ! '
" That is the origin of the phrase, sir, and it is not
only original but aboriginal."
IX.
art.
)Y learned friend," said the Doctor, glaring
at us through his critical specs, " I have
seen both exhibitions, the British and the French. I was
delighted sir, delighted with the French exhibition. The
people of France, sir, are essentially an aesthetic people ;
they strive to please you sir, and they succeed in pleasing
you ; they rarely widen their callipers beyond the limits
of decorum ; they kill their tragedy heroes in abattoirs
behind the scenes, and never venture to intrude upon us
those coarser emotions which are independent of taste
and politeness ; so, sir, I visited the French exhibition
with pleasure, and came away gratified. I do not remem
ber any single pictures except those of Rosa Bonheur,
and they struck me, perhaps, because they reminded me
of something I had seen in nature that was familiar ; but
otherwise, I have only a general impression, sir, of pleas
ure, of great pleasure. It was far different, sir, with the
British exhibition. I was not pleased with it, sir, not
pleased with it. I came away, sir, with my emotions ex
cited, and in a state of disagreement. You know my love
of Shakspeare, sir ! Well, sir, I never felt such divine pity
6 ART.
for King Lear, such exquisite sympathy for Juliet (out
of the book), as I felt when I saw those pictures of F
Madox Brown, and Frederick Leighton. As for the bulk
of the rest, the modern school of British Art, it is ex
pressed forcibly in a line, so contemptuous, sir, that from
my love of the aesthetic and the agreeable, I am almost
afraid to quote it. But, sir, as an arbiter of matters of
taste, I cannot refrain from saying of the modern school
of British Art : that
1 Extreme exactness is the sublime of fools,'
and, sir, you may try the measure by the spots on the
sailor boy's breeches, or the twigs on any one of the pre-
Raphaelite trees, and if you are not convinced of the
truth of the above maxim, then try it on Ruskin's own
picture, ' Study of a block of Gneiss, Valley of Cha-
mouni, ^Switzerland, No. 155.' Ruskin, sir, is a great
writer, a great rhetorician ; his persuasive powers are
wonderful, dazzling, but not reliable, sir. Put a pen in
his hand and Ruskin can make his mark. Put a pallet
on his thumb, and Ruskin sinks into the lowest depths
of Ruskinism."
"My dear Doctor!"
"Yes, sir, into the lowest depths of Ruskinism. Ilia
tre-foil, cinque-foil windows are very nice things in print,
and we admire them; as well as his lichens, mosses,
striae, and the oxide stains of his wonderful gneiss bould
ers ; but, sir, what is the use of having Ruskin's meagre
representation of a lichen covered, metallic stained boulder
ART. 57
from an obscure corner of the globe, in our parlor, when
we can have the real article from the richest mineral
kingdom on earth, just by rolling it in ?"
''But there is the sentiment, Doctor."
44 The sentiment? My. learned friend, if there is m
sentiment in the original, what can you look for in the
mere copy ?"
"But, Doctor, what do you think of Holman Hunt's
Light of the World ?' "
''An exquisite bit of art, a happy adaptation of the
school to a single figure; lucky was it for him that he
had no other figures in the background."
"Why, Doctor?"
"Because the school has no idea of atmosphere, sir
atmosphere, distance, perspective ! Look at the back
ground figures in his picture of St. Agnes' Eve ; the
features, the expression of every face, painted as elabo
rately as if they were in the foreground. Is that the way
nature exhibits her panorama? Sir, so far from features,
or the expression of features, being recognizable at that
distance, I can tell you that it would be difficult to say
whether there were men or women, yes, bipeds or quad
rupeds in that perspective."
"Nevertheless, Doctor, you must admit that they aro
very beautiful works of art. Just think of the man who
can paint such pictures. Is he not very much elevated
by genius above his fellows?"
"Unquestionably he is, and when all that is now
58 ART.
claimed for him lias passed through the ordeal of detrac
tion, the pre-Raphaelite, or post-Raphaelite painter, will
find a proper niche, when all the symbols of his art are,
to quote Shakspeare :
" ' In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.'
And, by the way, why not have a pre-Shakspearean
school! Why not!"
"Doctor, that is a capital idea."
"My learned and dear friend, I was only in jest. A
school ! My dear friend, yon have never yet, and never
will see a school of great men. Intellect of the first class
is great independent single alone ! It has no scho
lastic limits, no pedantiy, no peers. The moment art
ceases to appeal to sympathies and emotions, and contents
itself with the bare representation of forms, it comes in
competition with the photograph, and at once is beaten
by the more elaborate delineation of the camera."
"But, Doctor, you forget the symbols of the pre-
Raphaelite school!"
"Symbols, symbols! and of a school? What! has
this age of intelligence to be instructed by symbols of a
school of painters ? If they are able to convey ideas by
symbols, why do they write the names of their pictures
in Saxon characters on the frames? 'Why not let the
symbols explain the symbols ? They teach us what art
is, by symbols! Faugh! If that is high art, let me
begin with the rudiments, and study it out from the
alphabet of a Chinese teacup."
X.
accidental 3&esemWances.
u. Bushwhacker came to us, to-day, in an old fash-
ioned, full circle blue Spanish cloak, a fur cap, a
carpet bag, and a small package of pemmican in his
hand. He deposited these articles in the hall, shook the
hand of my wife impressively, and caressed the children
with warmth and tenderness. The Doctor is usually
boisterous with children, but to-day he was subdued.
Moreover, he gave each of them a keep-sake. To Bessy
a stalactite from the grotto of Antiparos ; to Lucy a little
paper of sand from the Desert of Sahara ; Tom had a
vial of water from the pool of Bethesda ; and Jack a
twig of ivy from Mel rose Abbey. Even the baby was
not forgotten, for he had brought it a Chinese rattle, that
no doubt was contemporary with the age of Confucius ;
and to my wife he presented a little book made of papy
rus, inscribed with Coptic characters, which might have
been decyphered had they not been obliterated by time.
Then, putting his hand in his left vest pocket, he drew
forth a present for me. It was his lancet, which, he
assured me, had bled more respectable people than any
other lancet in fashionable practice. "My learned
friend," said he, "you have no idea of the fees which
60 ACCIDENTAL RESEMBLANCES.
have accumulated upon the point of this instrument
But the old practice, sir, the old, venerable, respectable
practice is vanishing in these new fangled, latter-da}!
lights of science. The good old days of calomel and
tartar emetic have departed. The late Surgeon General
broke down the time-consecrated faith in these specifics,
and now, sir, we have to study the physical idiosyncrasies
of a patient before we prescribe, as diligently as lawyers
do when working up a case in their profession. The good
old easy days are gone, sir but I hear the dinner bell !"
The Doctor was silent during the repast. But a bottle
of "Old Wanderer, 1822," as bright as a topaz, drew
him out. Poising the straw stem glass between his
thumb and forefinger, and viewing the shining fluid with
the eye of a connoisseur, he broke forth "My learned
friend, do you suppose that the science of chemistry has
advanced so far that this wine could be imitated even b)
aLiebig?"
" Certainly not, Doctor. To any person of fine taste,
all imitations must pass for imitations. They no more
resemble the original than "
' ' Imitations usually do. I know what you want to say,
my learned friend. All plagiarisms are as inferior to
originals, as copies of great pictures, or plaster casts of
great sculptures, are inferior to the works which the pen
cil or the chisel, in the hands of a great master of his art,
has accomplished. This is so well understood in the
mere sensuous works of painters and sculptors that even
ACCIDENTAL RESEMBLANCES. 61
the most accurate copy of a Raphael, or of a Leonard! di
Vinci, is nothing worth comparing with the original.
But how is it with literature, my learned friend ?"
" I do not understand you, Doctor."
"How is it with literature? Do you think that you
can ever build up an American literature, if the chief
merit of our native authors exists only by imitation ?
Dr. Drake, sir, Joseph Rodman Drake was an exam
ple. He was an original native poet, sir. Who has fol
lowed his example ? Not one."
"That would be imitation, Doctor."
"No, sir. It would be emulation. There is a nice
distinction between the two phrases."
"But what do you mean by plagiarisms, Doctor ?"
" That is rather a harsh term to use. Suppose we call
them 'accidental resemblances.' Now, your friend, Barry
Gray, paid you a great compliment in accidentally resem
bling your style. My dear old friend, Washington Irv
ing, once said to me: * Who is this Barry Gray? He has
stolen from the Sparrowgrass Papers, the style of the
author. Materials are everywhere, and are common prop-
erty. But a new style is the autJwr's own. Tell me the
real name of Barry Gray, that I may know upon whom
to pour the full measure of my contempt, for I hate these
literary pilferers.' '
" Surely, Doctor, you know what stopped my pen at
that time, and so spare me."
" Suppose we take up Halleck as an example," said
the Doctor, sententiously.
62 ACCIDENTAL RESEMBLANCES.
"Great heavens, Doctor! Halleck! I know that
4 Fanny,' has been assumed by the critics to be an imita
tion of Don Juan, but, really, it was written before Don
Juan was published. Lord Byron's story of Beppo sug
gested the metre, and Halleck wrote ' Fanny' before Don
Juan had crossed the Atlantic."
" What do you think," said the Doctor, " of his eulogy
on Bums ?
" 'And if despondency weigh down,
Thy spirits' fluttering pinions then,
Despair thy name is written on
The roll of common men.'"
"Well, Doctor?"
4 ' Shakspeare, sir ! Henry IV, Part I, Act IH, Scene
First,-
" 'And all the courses of my life do show,
I am not in the roll of common men.' "
"Ah, Doctor ! Halleck intended that to be a quota
tion."
"Now, sir," continued the Doctor, "we have Henry
(again) IV, Part I, Act IV, Scene First, as authority for
another popular catch word
" ' There is not such a word spoken of in Scotland, as this term fear.'
And Bulwer in his " Richelieu " says
" ' There is no such word as fail.'
ACCIDENTAL RESEMBLANCES. 63
Do you not see the palpable resemblance of these two ? "
4 ' True, Doctor, but what shall be said of them except
that they are "
"Accidental resemblances! Now, here is another
example, from Paul Revere's Ride in Longfellow's * Way
side Inn':
" ' Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
I hear the tramp of his hoof as he rides.'
But Tennyson had already written in his wonderful dra
matic poem of Man
" ' Low on the sand, and loud on the stone,
The last wheel echoes away.'
What do you think of that?"
" Ah, Doctor, you are rather hypercritical."
" Do you think so ?" said the Doctor, slightly redden
ing, for he does not like his opinions to be impugned.
" What do you think of this from the Birds of Kil-
lingworth, in the same volume ?
" ' And rivulets rejoicing, rush and leap,
And wave their fluttering sisjnals from the steep.' "
"Well, Doctor, I never heard that before, and it is a
beautiful image."
" Beautiful ! indeed it is, if one had never before read
Wordsworth's ode on the Intimations of Immortality,
where we have the same idea presented in a line, the
64 ACCIDENTAL RESEMBLANCES.
rejoicing, the rush and leap of the waters, the signal note,
the great concurrence of waters, in one blast, as it were
' The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep.'
That, sir, is poetry, and the other is "
" But surely, Doctor, you must admit "
"That Longfellow's psalm of life is original. Arslonga
vita brevis, is cleverly rendered. As for the rest of the
stanza, though I will quote the whole of it
Art is long, and time is fleeting,
And our hearts though stout and brave,
Still like muffled drums are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.'
I cannot quite subscribe to the originality of any part of
it. In my copy of Cowley's Poems, (folio ' 1668,' page 13,
of verses written on several occasions,) in his Ode upon
Dr. Harvey, who had discovered the circulation of the
blood "
"And a great disccwery it was, Doctor !"
"A great discovery, sir! As great in medical science,
as Galileo's discovery of the rotation of the earth, sir. In
Cowley's tribute to Dr. Harvey, we find this expression
of the poet full of his subject, the new discovery the
circulation of the blood.
The tuneful march to vital heat.'
And here we see the idea of the march, of the rnnsiciu
ACCIDENTAL RESEMBLANCES. 65
instruments, of the band, of the drums beating, embodied
in the lines of our Cambridge friend."
"So then Cowley was the originator of that thought?"
"No, sir. I did not say so. His lines had 'an acci
dental resemblance' to the lines of Dr. Henry King,
Bishop of Chichester, who had before written in a poem
called the 'Exequy,' an ode dedicated to his deceased
wife
" ' But hark ! rny pulse like a soft drum
Beats my approach, tells that I come,
And slow, however, my marches be,
I shall at last sit down by thee.'
There, sir, what do you think of that ? "
" Why, let us all thank God, Doctor, that such things
have been modernized. Who the deuce could buy Cowley
or Bishop King at this time?"
"Ah, my learned friend," said the Doctor, "I do not
like your remarks. I have paid a great deal of attention
to these works of original men, and I would like to con
serve them, apart and entire from the vulgar world."
"What good would that do, Doctor?"
Dr. Bushwhacker paused. He was evidently moving
upon a different plane from the ordinary motion of mor
tals. His love of uncut editions floated before his eyes.
Finally he broke forth:
" * The blessings of Providence, like the dews of heaven,
should fall alike upon the rich and the poor.' Andrew
4
66 ACCIDENTAL RESEMBLANCES.
Jackson. There, sir, you have an original quotation from
one of the greatest Presidents we ever had."
"No, Doctor, for in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy,
which is one of the most comical books ever written, you
will find on page 391, edition of 1836, printed for B.
Blake, the following sentence:
'As the rain falls on both sorts, so are riches given to good and bad."
" That is so near Jackson's motto, that the accidental
resemblance is palpable. Of course General Jackson had
read Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, my learned friend.
What hadn't General Jackson read ?"
"Now, Doctor, in regard to these matters, what do
you think of Tennyson's
" ' Flowers of all hues, and lovelier through their names,"
Introduced in the prologue to the Princess ?"
The Doctor paused. " Tennyson is certainly an orig
inal poet."
"But Milton in Book IV, verse 256, in Paradise Lost,
hoLS^ flowers of all hues.' Do you think Tennyson stole
from Milton ?"
"No, that was an accidental resemblance !"
" What do you think of Lord Byron ?
" ' For where the spahi's hoof has trod,
There verdure flies the bloody sod,'
Compared with Dr. Fuller, in his Holy War, Chapter
XXX.
'Grass springeth not where the grand signior setteth his foot.' "
ACCIDENTAL RESEMBLANCES. C7
*' Ah," said the Doctor, '-'you are too inquisitive, and
too hypercritical. ' Grass springeth not where the grand
Turk setteth his foot,' and 'where tie spahi's hoof has
trod, there verdure flies the bloody sod,' is the same
thought expressed in different ways. One is a common
place method of expressing a superstition common in
the days of Fuller ; the other a highly imaginative poeti
cal paraphrase of Lord Byron."
"But the thought was an accidental resemblance f
eh, Doctor?"
Dr. Bushwhacker, whose nut-pick had been busily em
ployed during this colloquy, and who had tasted succes
sively the Sherry, the Old Port, and the Wanderer of
1822, now laid down the little steel implement, which, in
his hand, looked very much like a dentist's tooth filler,
brushed the lint of the napkin off his lap, and rose.
"You ask me too much," he said. "You overburthen
my mind with ridiculous questions, and expect me to find
answers for all the quips and cranks of an erratic brain.
Do you not know, sir, it is much easier to ask questions
than to find answers for them? Good bye, sir; I wish
you a very good day. My compliments to your good
lady, who, I suppose, is asleep by this time. And a kiss
for all the little ones, who, no doubt, are in the same
happy condition. I am going, sir, to a country where
there are no poets, nor philosophers, nor plagiarists, nor
politicians. To-morrow I shall take a steamer for San
Francisco, and from that place I shall go to our new
ACCIDENTAL RESEMBLANCES.
Russian American Possessions, among the Polar Bears,
and the beauties of Arctic vegetation. Farewell ! and
perhaps you will never hear more of Dr. Bushwhacker.
NOTE. After the Doctor had departed I found on my
desk the following paper, which I recognized as being in
his handwriting. As a literary curiosity, I have thought
it worth preserving.
XI.
BY DR. BUSHWHACKER.
(Jin N the America-Russian archipelago there is an
island called by the above name, on which is the
capital city of New Archangel. It is situated off a belt of
land, fringed with Russian islands, about thirty miles wide,
and three hundred and forty-five miles long; which shuts off
one-half of British America irom the Pacific ; and north
of that, the great peninsula, like a shoulder of mutton,
tough, sinewy, and fat with Arctic animal life, rolls up
into the mighty fore-arm of Mount St. Elias, and rolls down
in avalanches, eternal snow-storms, glaciers, fogs, and icy
rivers to the Pacific on the west side and to the Arctic Sea
on the north side. To the consumptive patient the land of
fers few attractions, but to those philosophers, whose lungs
are strong enough to endure the fatigues of a lecture-room,
she has an eloquence and beauty, diversified with two
volcanoes, whose throats are in a perpetual blaze of excite
ment. What splendor there is in yonder Aurora Borealis,
that for myriads of years has played upon these lakes,
streams, and mountain peaks ! How delicious nature is
in her normal condition ! I think I hear one of the Strong
M mded, say to her lovely companion in philosophy I 4 Ah,
70 SITKA : OUR NEW ACQUISITION.
Maria! let us lay aside our fans and our chignons, and put
on snow shoes, and explore ! Will you go with me from
the heated atmosphere of social life into the calm sequest
ered retreats of Russian America ? Shall we build huts
of blocks of ice, like the hardy Esquimaux, and wrap our
selves in the drapery of a robe of sable skins or sea otters,
worth $20,000 at least, and despise the pomp of this world?
You know, my dear, sables are very cheap there. Cath
erine of Russia had to get her sables by keeping up a very
expensive military establishment at Sitka. She was a
very illustrious, strong-minded woman, to be sure; and
her morals were a little loose, and she poisoned her
husband ; but what are those trifling enjoyments compared
with carrying out a great idea ? It is not so cold as the
eastern side of the continent. The isothermal lines cause
a great moderation in the atmosphere there. Let us
establish a school there. There are 78,000 souls if they
have souls of Calmucs, Creoles, native Indians, Kuriles,
Aleutians and Kodiaks, Kamschatkians and Esquimaux ;
and how pleasant it will be to teach them the rudiments !
By and by they can vote. Fly with me, dear Maria !
Do you not long for the snow shoes that will carry you
over those vast steppes to a superior intelligence? An in
telligence with nature, a communion with her visible
forms, a relief from the world, and the sweet sympathy
that we shall feel with the Aurora Borealis !'
" The reason why the Czar wishes to dispose of this fer
tile territory is because he cannot conquer the North
SITKA: OUR NEW ACQUISITION. 71
Pole, that being the only Pole that has escaped his auto
cratic fist. It must be said, however, that it affords us
many fine harbors for our whalers after animal petroleum,
for heretofore we have had but one decent harbor on the
Pacific coast, and that is San Francisco. Now we shall
have plenty of them, if we are lucky enough to find them j
in the fogs which are perpetual there.
"The principal inhabitants of this vast territory are
mountains. There is not a tree that will risk its vege-
O
table life by attempting to grow there ; the low lands are
covered with moss instead of grass, and the best kind of
Russian shred isinglass springs spontaneously from the
crevices of the rocks. Of the amphibious animals, the
green seal or moet is most valued there, being highly
prized by the Japanese ; the Muscovy duck flies about in
a very wild state in those high latitudes, while the double-
headed eagle preys alike upon the russ and the walrus.
Most of the artificial teeth in the United States are made
from the tusks of this latter animal, so that in future we
shall get our teeth free of duty. The British having hereto
fore had an exclusive treaty with the Russian government
to supply this place with food and ice-picks, no doubt this
lucrative branch of commerce will fall into our hands.
There is no doubt a vast quantity of gold hidden under
the soil, as it has never made its appearance above the
surface. It is proposed to get up a Russian Crushing
Company to extract this valuable ore from the veins of
Mt. St. Elias. Spruce-trees not bigger than a wisp broom
72 S1TKA : GUIS NEW ACQUISITION.
grow in some patches. These are valuable, as a beer
is brewed from them, very useful as a remedy for the
scurvy. The castle at New Archangel is very heavily gar
risoned with 50 Calmucs and Cossacks, mounts 24 brass-
mounted breech-loaders, five seven -pounders, twelve
horse-pistols, two mountain howitzers, one Governor, one
Russian flag, two ensigns, and a fast team of Esquimaux
dogs for flying artillery practice. The diplomatic cor
respondence with old Gowrowski, who is the governor of
the fort, has not been published as yet, as he asserts the
United States government cannot turn him out without the
consent of the Senate. The vivid description of this en
chanting country by Campbell will no doubt recur to the
reader. Speaking of the hardy sailor on that coast, he
says :
"' Cold on his midnight watch the breezes blow,
From wastes that slumber in eternal snow,
And waft, across the wave's tumultuous roar,
The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore.' "
xn.
an& Jf ilterts.
ST sometimes happens at the end of a dinner, when
jokes and walnuts are cracked together, that the
paternity of some trite quotation is put in question, and
at once the wit of the whole company is set wool-gather
ing.
The man who writes a single line,
And hears it often quoted,
Will in his life time surely shine,
And be hereafter noted.
If every printing office had a case filled with popular
phrases arranged in the manner of types, it would save
much manual labor, and the compositor would be sur
prised to find how often he had occasion to use them. For
so inextricably are these "short sentences drawn from
long experience" entangled in the meshes of language,
that to eliminate them would be like drawing out of a
carpet the threads that form the pattern. A few of these
phrases, usually found floating in the currents of ordinary
conversation, will be sufficient to consider in a paper like
this: if we were to include those embraced in literature
rjid oratory, it would require foolscap enough to cover
he sands of Egypt, and an inkstand as large as one of
74 PHRASES AND FILBERTS.
the pyramids. Not being disposed to make such an in
vestment in stationery at present, we shall only play the
literary chiffonier and hook a few scraps from the heaps
of talk we meet with every day.
Mr. John Timmins, the broker, says of that stock,
"there is a wheel within a wheel" without giving Paradise
Lost, Young's Night Thoughts, and the Prophet Ezekiel
credit for a phrase which may have saved him some
thousands; and when he tells his boon companions
at the club, that as for his wife, who is rather inclined
to be extravagant, " he would deny her nothing "\\Q does
not say how much he owes to Samson Agonistes for the
words he makes use of. When he reaches his house,
Mrs. Tirnmins takes him to task "for coming home at
such an hour of the night, in such a state ;" to which he
replies, in a gay and festive manner: "My dear, 'To
err is human to forgive, divine^ " from Pope's essay
on criticism ; to which Mrs. T. answers in a snappish
way, "Timmins, ' there is a medium in all things ' " (from
Horace). Mr. T., disliking the tone in which this quota
tion is delivered, "snatches a fearful .joy" (from the
" Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College"), by saying-
lie does not intend, in his house, to have "the grey mare
prove the better horse " (from Priors epilogue). This only
"adds fuel to the flame " (from Milton's Samson), and
Mrs. T. observes that if "we could only see ourselves as
others see us " (from Burns), it would be better for some
people ; that ever since lie had joined that club "a change
had ca?ne o'er the spirit of her dream " (from Byron) ;
PHRASES AND FILBERTS. 75
that when she trusted her happiness to him she had
" leaned upon a broken reed " (from Young's Night
Thoughts III, and Isaiah 36: 6), and winds up a long
lecture with the reflection that "evil communications cor-
rupt good manners " (from 1st Corinthians 15: 33). This
last expression exasperates Mr. Timmins, and he asks Mrs.
T., as he takes off' his suspenders, " to whom she alludes ?"
Is it to Perkins who had stood by him "in evil report and
good report f (2d Corinthians 6: 8). Is it to Rapley?
' ' a man take him for all in all " (Hamlet, Act I, Scene
Second), is " after his own heart " (Acts 13: 22), and as
for Badger, who had extended to him in the tight times of
'36 and '37 "the right hand of fellowship (Galatians 2:
9), he was as honest a man as ever breathed ; and here
Mr. Timmins, with one boot in his hand and the other in
the boot-jack, eloquently adds, "an honest man is the
noblest work of God ! " (from Pope's Essay). He was
proud of the friendship of such men, if she meant them.
Airs. T., not at all carried away by such a flood of author
ities, rather scornfully says, ' ' O Timmins, * what is
friendship but a name T " (from Goldsmith's Hermit) ; at
which Mr. T., who by this time is undressed, and " as
mad as a March hare " (from the old English superstition),
puts out the candle "in the twinkling of an eye" (1st
Corinthians 15: 52), lies down as far as possible from the
"weaker vessel" (1st Epistle of Peter 2: 17), courts
" tired Natures sweet restorer, balmy sleep /" (Young's
Night Thoughts), and wakes next morning "a sadder
and a wiser man " (in Coleridge's Ancient Mariner).
76 PHRASES AND FILBEKTS.
If we turn from the frescoed bed-chamber of Mrs.
Timmins to the white-washed kitchen of Jim Skiver, the
shoemaker, we find language not less elevated. Jim
throws a leg of mutton upon the table and says: " There,
Mary, I had * to take Hobsorts choice,' " although Jim had
neither read the 509th Spectator, nor knew that Hobson's
epitaph had been written by Milton. Jim, not "having
the fear of" Beaumont and Fletcher "before his eyes,"
(Romans 3: 18), says, if he can " catch that man wot gave
Bill Baxter a black eye the day afore his weddin' he'll
' lamm ' him", (King and No King, Act V, Scene Third).
To which Mary replies: "I thought somethin' would
happin: * the course of true love never did run smooth? "
(Midsummers Night's Dream, Act I, Scene 1), and Jim
responds, " That's so ; and they've put off the weddin'
so often that it seems kind o' 'hopirf agin 1 hope? " (Ro
mans 4: 18). Jim thinks after they've had a "snack"
(Pope and Dryden), they had better go see the Siamese
Twins ; " twins tied by nature ; if they part, they die"
(Young's Night Thoughts); puts on " a hat not much the
worse for wear" (John Gilpin), "dashes through thick
and thin" (same authority and Hudibras), and after he has
seen the Siamese, requests to see the "Lilliputian King"
(from Gulliver's travels).
How much language would be left us if these estrays
were returned to'their lawful owners, is a question. How
could we console the dying if we had to give up to Gay's
twenty-seventh Fable the phrase, "while there is life
.. -
PHKASES AND FILBERTS. 77
therms hope f " and what could we say to the good in mis
fortune it* we had to restore to Prior's Ode, " Virtue is her
own reward ? " The shopkeeper who ends his long list
of fancy articles with "and other articles too tedious to
mention" makes use of a sentence as old as the Latin
language, and we would take the point from Byron's hit
at Coleridge, if we were to replace in " Garrick's Epilogue
on Leaving the Stage," " a fellow-feeling makes us wond
rous kind" So, too, must Goldsmith's Hermit lose " man
wants but little here below" if Young's Night Thought,
IV, had its own property: and "all the jargon of the
schools" from Burns' 1st epistle to J. Lapraik must be
rendered up to Prior's "Ode on Exodus," which has a
prior claim to it. Mr. Achitophel Scapegrace thinks the
biggest stockholders in the Roaring River Canal Co. will
have the best chance, as " all the big fish will eat up the
little ones " (Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Act II, Scene First),
arid Mr. Bombastes Linderwold talks of a "platform" in
precisely the same sense as Cromwell did two hundred
years ago (Queries in Letter 97, Carlyle). It is in Crom
well's seventh letter that we find for the first time that
apt conjunction, "a gentl&tnan and a Christian," now
somewhat threadbare from misuse, and if we want
" motfier-wit," we must look for it in Spenser's " Faerie
Queen," Book IV, Canto X, verse 21. Everybody has
seen the man in Greek costume who sells soap by the ball,
but nobody but Mr. Leviticus Gaylord suggested, "that
if another Greek shonJd meet that Greek then would be
78 PHRASES AND FILBEKTS.
a tug of war '' and he has authority for saying so in the
Rival Queens, Act IV, Scene First. We have to go
back to Thomas a Kempis for " man proposes but God
disposes ;" but "what if thou withdraw and no friend
takes note of thy departure ?" was written by a young man
only eighteen years of age nearly fifty years ago.* If
we want to look up * ' the solemn brood of care, " we can
find that, ' f and each one, as before, will chase his favorite
phantom," in Thanatopsis. There, too, we will see the hills
''rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun" but "old as the
hills" is older than the "oldest inhabitant," and like him,
has lost its parent. If we need " to point a moral and
adorn a tale," we must get Dr. Johnson's "Vanity of
Human Wishes," and "he that runs may read," in
Cowper's " Tirocinium," and " he may run that readeth
it" in Habakuk 2:2. If any person wish to " consume
the midnight oil" let him read Gay's Shepherd and Phi
losopher, and in Congreve's "Mourning Bride" he will
find "music hath charms to soothe a savage breast." "To
be in the wrong box" will occur to him who has dipped
into the sixth book of "Fox's Martyrs," and Napoleon
found ' ' that from, the sublime to the ridiculous there is
but one step," in Tom Paine's works translated and pub
lished in France, in 1791. We take " buds of promise,"
from Young's "Last Day," "and men talk only to con
ceal their mind," from his "Love of Fame," although
we attribute the thought to Talleyrand. "Good breeding
* Bryant.
PHRASBS AXD FILBERTS- 79
is the, blossom of good sense," is not quite so familiar, but
it is also in the "Love of Fame," from whence we get
the original of what Matilda Jane Peabody believes when
she ties up her hair before the looking glass and says that
' ' Louisa Perkins and Betsey Baker can't hold a candle to
her" "To hold their farthing candle to the sun" is in
her mind, or its equivalent. "Who shall decide when
doctors disagree f" is a question we may well ask between
the AJlopathists and the Homceopathists, and Pope puts it
in his " Fourth Moral Essay." In " Lochiel's Warning "
we find " coming events cast their shadows before" So
Tim Taffeta thinks as he sees the shade deepen upon the
brows of his creditor. So Dr. Senna thinks as he sees the
premonitory symptoms of coming apoplexy in the fail-
round proportions of Alderman Broadbutton, and so
thinks Peter Pipkin as the delicate adumbration is visible
in Mrs. Pipkin's " nature's last best gift " (Paradise Lost,
Book 5, line 19), who finds herself " as women wish to
be who love their lords" (Douglass, Act L, Scene First),
" not wi-sely, but too well " (Othello, Act Y, Scene Last).
It is impossible to see the Ravels on the tight-rope with
out thinking of " the light fantastic toe," and L' Allegro;
and " thoughts that breath and words that burn" live in
the magic atmosphere that surrounds the orator, as well
as in "Gray's Progress of Poesy." To make a complete
collection of these phrases would be the labor of a life 5
so numerous are they, that if the door is once openec},
they pour in tc thick as the leaves in Vala/rnbifosa, " (Para-
80 PHRASES AND FILBERTS.
dise Lost, Book I, line 303) ; and although the ' ' labor of
love" (Hebrews 6: 10), might entertain the scholar, yet if
he were to cast these pearls before an nndiscriminating
multitude, after he "had borne the burden and heat of
the day " (Mathew 20: 12), his only recompense would be
that he had made every one as wise as himself, which the
true scholar cannot abide. "Brevity is the soul ofivit "
(Hamlet, Act II, Scene >Second), and we must make our
discourse "fine by degrees and beautifully less " (Prior's
Henry and Emma). These sentences ' ' jewels, jive words
long that on the stretched forefinger of old Time sparkle
forever " (Tennyson's Princess), are not to be scattered
with too liberal a hand, and, therefore, we shall conclude
with a quotation peculiarly appropriate: " FORSAKE NOT
AN OLD FRIEND: WHEN WINE is OLD, THOU SHALT DRINK
WITH PLEASURE." EccJ. 9: 1.0,
XIII.
<ueen Victoria Speafc 3Eng!igf) ?
>Y friend John Common of Roscommon Bay,
middle inlet, third house on the left hand side
going up, where there is good anchorage for a yacht of
several tons burden, propounded the above question one
day, after a yawning stretch over the briny bay in a brisk
breeze, followed by the usual dead calm, when insight
of home.
" Does Queen Victoria speak English?"
"Surely, John Common of Roscommon, she speaks
her own Queen's English, and that is the purest language
the Court of St. James has heard since the days of Edward
the Confessor."
John Common of Roscommon lazily puffed his cigar
under the canvas canopy of the summer sail, knocked off
the ashes with the tip of his little finger, drew a fresh
whiff of inspiration from his little brown deity, and sakl*
n a soft voice of rebuke :
"I know very well that her Majesty is a pure, high-
minded, pious, good woman ; but my inquiry related not
82 DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH?
to her morals, but to her language ; to her vocabulary,
if you will, which is the vocabulary of the realm ; the
court language, the language of polite society ; in fact,
that arbitrary style of speaking which is commonly known
as the Queen's English, the mother tongue of British
scholars, statesmen, and of the highly educated classes of
that country ; and that is what I meant. I have a theory
of my own upon that subject," he continued, " and I merely
asked the question of you in order that I might have an
opportunity to answer it myself."
"A theory ! a theory ! " cried out several voices from
the cabin of the yacht, where the clinking of ice had been
heard for several minutes, and out came the party. John
Littlejohn, and William Williamson, and Peter Peterson,
and Sandy Sanderson, and several others. They arranged
themselves on the seats under the shadow of the sail,
cigars were handed around; it was a dead calm on the
bay, and so John Common of Roscommon began :
" I have never yet heard an Englishman speak, who
pretended to use the Queen's vernacular, without tracing
in his language a vein of cockney running in it, like a gold
thread through a velvet cloth. And this quite as plain
and distinct among the highly educated, as among the
rest of her Majesty's subjects.
" I maintain that custom does not sanction the misuse
of the eighth letter, or as Rare Ben Johnson quotes it,
' the queen mother of consonants,' although it may excuse
it. Certainly, when we consider the matter fairly, wo
DOES QUEEN VICTOEIA SPEAK ENGLISH ? 83
must conclude that there is as much impropriety in sub
stituting for the beautiful Greek female name ' Helen' the
modern English name of 'Ellen,' as there would be in
calling ' Emma' ' llemma,' which the Court of St. James
will very speedily do, unless a stop is put to further in
novation.
" In citing the name of ' Helen,' for so unquestionably
the Hellenes pronounce it, I had a further object in view,
and that was to follow up the stream of cockneyism to its
classical fountain. The Greeks were probably the original
cockneys at least we can trace the spiritus asper and the
spiritus lenis to them. There might have been still earl
ier cockneys, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that
in the confusion of tongues at the destruction of the Tower
of Babel, that the family of Ifs might have first adopted
the unsettled and wandering mode of life which they have
led elsewhere, and are now leading in the English lan
guage ; but so far as that is concerned, it is mere conjec
ture, and, therefore, very likely to mislead us in our
course of inquiry after truth."
Then he continued:
, "It is quite easy to follow the current down after strik
ing the parent spring. In the time of Romulus and Remus
no doubt the original Latin was a pure sonorous language,
a little barbarous, to be sure, but stuck as full of II's as
the cloves in old-fashioned boiled ham (and a rich dish that
would be now, with the present tax on spices); but as the
Romans waxed opulent, gave up wars and patriotism, and
84 DOES QUEEN VICTOEIA SPEAK ENGLISH ?
began to cultivate arts and lassitude, the introduction of
schools prepared the way for the Greek accent ; it becamo
the rage to imitate the style of Athens, as well in its ora
tory as in its sculpture and in its architecture ; and when
Cicero spoke in the affected and voluptuous diction of
Alcibiades, and Csesar fell at the foot of a marble image,
then the decadence of Empire began.
"The languages, of which the Latin was the primitive
stem, such as the Italian, the Spanish, the Portuguese,
and the French, easily adopted the accent of Rome when
Rome was in its decay. These modem languages cast
off their S's, and to this day the French Academy, the
Spanish Academy, the Universities of Padua and of
Parma have never been able to recall them. In the lan
guage of a Spanish lexicographer, 'H is not properly
considered as a letter, but as a mere aspiration.' The
Spanish Academy has also banished the hard sound of the
h in chimico, chimera, chamelote, etc., by writing instead,
quimico, quimera, camelote. So that the eighth letter is
torn up root and branch, in the Kingdom of Isabella the
Catholic, and the consequence is that they have a revolu
tion in Spain every six years. In a short time Cuba will
be on a detached service. It is significant that the natives
of the Siempre Fiel pronounce ' Habana' with enough
ejaculation of breath upon the first letter to blow a Span
ish fleet from its anchorage.
"But to return to the Queen's English. Before tho
Norman Conquest England had a language of its own--
DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH? 85
not Saxon altogether, but English! that great, pithy,
thoughtful, bold, full-fraughted, mother tongue, which
even now constitutes the substance and strength of the
highest powers of intellectual expression ; not to be ex
celled in any language. I might almost say not to be
matched by any foreign idiom.
"I am speaking now of the pure English, that is
spoken only by educated people in New York city and
its immediate vicinity.
" No person who wishes to attain a lofty style can safely
depart from the good old English idiom. It is to glowing
eloquence and sparkling rhetoric, what a blacksmith's
bellows is to a forge.
" This language, notwithstanding it was so splendidly
celebrated by old Thomas Churchyard (Tempus Henry
VII), had unfortunately been corrupted long before his
time by the Normans. William Conqueror introduced a
court cockney dialect, which had descended from the
Greek cockneys to the Roman cockneys, from' the Roman
cockneys to every branch of the Latin family, and from
the derivatory Norman French it spread through to White-
chapel and Threadneedle streets, through Windsor and
Buckingham Palaces, and from thence to the hearts and
homes of an imitative people. Thus it was that the fam
ily of H's were banished from their own indigenous soiL
" That is the history of it, or chronicle, or what you
will. All that I wish to say is, that we can trace the
Greek taint down to the present time.
86 DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH?
" Now, then, for examples. There is old Geoffrey
Chaucer (commonly known among the wooden spoons
of Boston as Daniel Chaucer), he is full of defiled Eng
lish. In the Nonnes' Priest's Tale, we have 'habundanff
for abundant ;* and for hexameter he uses this outrage
ous substitute:
" 'And they ben versified commonly
Of six feet, which men clepen 'ezametron.' f
For Dante's ' Ugolino' he substitutes ' Hug elm? % He
even clips the French itself by striking an h off a French
clock, and naming Horloge, ' orloge^ and so through all
his works. Can subserviency to the ruling powers farther
go?
" But every innovation has its reaction. The common
people of England, in those early days, seeing that their
beloved H's were being knocked oft' the household words,
like the noses from the Elgin marbles, revenged them
selves by clapping an Hin front of every naked and exposed
vowel. The consequence is that we have such words as
i /icd(/e > for edge, 'AaZZ'for ah 1 , 'hogshead* for oxhead,
and the like. It would be too much of a task to cite all
the corruptions of a similar nature in the language. The
mere mention of these will suggest swarms of others,
familiar to every reader of ordinary books, to say nothing
of philologists.
* Tynvhitt Ed. page 12'). t Ibid, 127. J Ibid, 121. Ibid, 128.
DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH? 87
"Take the word 'hedge' for example. Originally it
meant something. It meant an edge, a boundary of
shrubs, indicating the limit of the field or of the estate.
We have it yet in '.box edgings,' which are partitions of
garden beds, and meaning the same thing precisely.
Shakspeare says, 'Upon the edge of yonder coppice,'
etc. (Loves Labor Lost, IV, I). Now it has lost its sig
nificance in becoming a h'edge.
" So with the word ' hear' We speak of hearing an
argument. That would be considered as proper Queen's
English, would it not ? But suppose any one should say
that he had been ' tieying* a street fight ? Would that
not be a painful sound to ears polite ? And yet both
words are derived from their original substantives, the
ear and the eye, and the verb to 'hear 1 is as plain a cock-
neyism as the verb to ' heye,' when we come to think of it.
You say an ' ear-witness' as well as an ' eye-witness,' do
you not? If anybody should say an 'hear-witness,'
what would you think of that? And yet it is no greater
an impropriety than ' hear' is in the mouths of polite
people. No one can for a moment doubt that according
to the mechanism of the language, ' to ear 1 a person is
quite as proper a form of expression as 'to eye a person,'
and that the II in ' hear' is an insupportable cockneyism.
So with the superfluous ' H' in 'hall.' In old mansions
in England, the main apartments, the great audience
chamber, the dining-room, the vast conservatory where
the noble guests sat above the salt, where the pilgrim
88 DOES QUEEIST VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH?
warmed his rain-drenched, threadbare garments by the
fire ; where the minstrel tuned his wretched harp, and
every condition of life was represented, in this vast vault
ed chamber, the 'aulaS the atrium, the all in all of the
manorial and baronial residence, what right had an H to
strike out the significance of the original word ? There
is no doubt in this case at all. For the ' Manor All,' the
' Town All, 9 and so on in ail the grand old English words,
must be replaced. If you have a little, narrow strait be
tween your parlor and your side wall, call it an entry, if
you will, but do not call it a h'all.
44 So with 'the bird of wisdom, the owl. Everybody
has heard her note who has lived in the country. It is
' how, how, how, how, howl !' From this we get the namo
of this fowl of Minerva. The bird of night, in the new
born nakedness of early English, was undoubtedly the
'Howl.' We find it still in its diminutives, such as
' Howlet.'
'And keep her place as 'Howk? does her tower.'
In the Scotch vocabularies Houlet is the word, not owl.
And, by the way, none of these French cockneyisniB
appear in either the Scottish or Irish dialects. I believe
their idiomatic languages to be purer than the modern
English. Shakspeare does not have any allusion to cock-
neyism in his time, except when he shows his knowledge
of the Greek language in his Athenian play, by putting in
to the mouth of Bottom the Weaver ^Ercles for Hercules.*
* Midsummer Night's Dream," Act I, Scene Second.
DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH ? 89
"But it is needless to multiply examples. Some
vacancy should be left in the mind of the listener, which
he can fill up himself at leisure. Let me say here, how
ever, that, save Chaucer, there are few writers of our
earlier English who so Frenchify the mother tongue as
he does. In Piers Ploughman * we have hem for them,
and hire for their. In Robert of Gloster f we find ' hit'
used for * it, 7 as it is in the Lord's Prayer of Richard the
Hermit, and so it is used to this day by some of the Eng
lish, even in writing. But generally the language of these
old authors was pure, as indeed it was from the tune of
Chaucer to the Restoration. After King Charles II came
in, we had the French affectation introduced, as lively
as it was in the days of William the Conqueror.
"Now a few words more: there is the word 'hatchet/
the diminutive of axe, the original of which is eax, Saxon,
(or astia, Latin). It should of course be atchet. So we
have hatchment, a corruption of the heraldric word
' achievement? meaning an armorial escutcheon ; then
there is the word ability, which, in the dictionaries of a
century old, is spelled properly, ' liability? or able
' hablej from the French ; arquebus, we say, instead of
fiarqucbus, and artichoke instead of hartichoke, and the
like.
"Then, again, consider the number of words from
torhich the H is omitted in pronunciation: 'onorable, 'um-
* " 1362," or Circa. t Tempus Richard II, 1174. 1208.
90 DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH ?
ble, 'umor, 'eir, 'ome, sweet 'ome, 'ow, 'onest, and the
like. Then, again, such words as 'ostler for hostler (from
host or hostel), 'arbor for harbor (a shelter), Oboe for
haut bois, and so on, where the abuse is sanctioned by
the dictionary makers.
"You will commonly find, too, that well-educated
Englishmen (and women) say 'oo, for who, 'andiron for
hand'iron, 'ovv for how, and 'anging for hanging. They
deny it, of course, and will, if they think they are watch
ed, pronounce these words properly, but they are sure to
relapse as soon as they are left to themselves. If you
were to ask Lord John Russell, who is esteemed to be as
deep in erudition as he is in diplomacy, how to spell the
letter H, he would, no doubt, spell it a-i-t-c-h, when in
truth it should be h-a-i-t-c-h, with a strong aspiration on
the first letter."
CHAPTER IL
Olueen Wctoria
lj*2>0 continue," said John Common of Roscom-
mon. "To leave this class of impediments
of speech behind, and go further, we find many defects in
modern English, derived from the same parentage. For
example there is no W in the French alphabet. If you
were to ask a Frenchman to pronounce the name of the
first President of the United States, he would say " Vash-
ington," or he might, by a strong mental effort, get as
near to it as Guashington. Just as if you were to ask him
the name of the second President, he would be obliged to
reply " JIadams" and so forth. Now there is not one
single word in the English language beginning with the
letter V that is not derived from the French, the Spanish,
the Italian, or some of the cognate branches of the Latin
family of words. There is no V in the Anglo-Saxon
alphabet, none in the Moaso-Gothic, from which two
tongues we derive our mother tongue, none in the earlier
editions of English authors ; take, for example, Grafton's
or Holingshed's Chronicles, or any other work of that
92 DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH '{
period. Hence it is that we find such expressions in the
modern British classics as: " Now, Shiny Villiam, give
the gen'lem'n the ribbons," * " veil vot of it," f or "vofs
the use of giving vay so long as you're 'appy ;" of which
forms of expression numbers could be produced if one
could give his mind, his time, and his attention to it. I
do not mean to say that the substitution of the V for the
W is common to the upper classes of Great Britain. Far
from it ; but I do mean to say that this innovation is
creeping up, and will, by and by, beget a class of words
foreign to the genius of the English tongue, just as the
dropping of the H has produced such words as ostler and
arbor.
In confirmation of this, let me state that a distinguished
traveler and philosopher, Mr. George Gibbs, of Long
Island, after a residence of a quarter of a century on the
Northwest coast of this continent, has writfen a dictionary
of the Chinook jargon, or Trade Language of Oregon, pre
pared for the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D. C.,J
in which he shows conclusively that the Chinook, the
Nootkan, the Yakama, the Cathlasco (which is a cor
rupted form of the Watlala or Upper Chinook), the
Toquat (which he spells Tokwaht), and the Nittinak lan
guages have been corrupted by the mis-pronunciation of
the English of the Hudson's Bay Company. The conse
quence is, that there is scarcely an H in its proper place
* Pickwick Club, Ed. 1836, Vol. I, p. 95.
t The Golden Fanner, a play, in three acts ; author unknown, 1835.
t Ed. 1863, 8vo. p. 44.
DOES QUEEX VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH? 93
in any of the dialects of the Northwestern tribes of the
Pacific, and Ws are substituted for Vs to such an extent,
that in his dictionary not one word beginning with the
latter consonant can be discovered. It is, however, a
consolation to know that these are the most prominent
innovations in those rich and beautiful occidental
tongues. After complaining that the Spanish and French
voyageurs have left traces of their languages in the earlier
Chinook, he says :
"It might have been expected, from the number of
Sandwich Islanders introduced by the Hudson's Bay
Company, that the Kanaka element would have found its
way into the language, but their utterance is so foreign to
an Indian ear, mat not a word has been adopted," *
If this be so, we can imagine what a highly respectable
tone prevails in the Kanaka society of Queen Emma.
But to return. The substitution of the French "J 7 "'
for the English "TF"" led to the retaliatory process, by
which every free born Englishman makes all things
hequal. Just in proportion to the cockneyism of the
upper classes in the middle ages arose the defiant attitude
of the cockneyism of the lower classes. The doubleyous
began to crowd into the lower ten million vocabulary.
" TFeal pie" took the place of the other word:
" Even the tailors 'gan to brag,
And embroidered on their flag,
'AUT WlXCERE AUT MORI.' " t
* Gibbs' Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, Ed. 1803, p. viii, (Pro-
face).
t Thackeray's Ballads, Ed. 1856, p. 121.
94 DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH ?
There was a stout battle between the starveling French
V and the broad bottohied English W, and to this day it
has continued. There is not a member of any English
legation in any part of the world, at this present time,
who dares to spell "Vaterloo" with a V. And this is in
obedience to the dictates of the lower, and, I might
almost say, the illiterate classes ; for after all, a mob has
a great deal to do with fixing the expression as well as
the meaning of words.
Since I am so far committed to this subject, I must
continue a little longer ; but let me say here, that if I tax
the old nation from which we are derived, with speaking
a very impure language, let me at least have the credit
of doing so in a friendly spirit. Let us with one hand
soothe the American Lexicographical Eagle, while with
the other we smooth the bristling mane of the British
Polyglot.
In further confirmation of w T hat I have already advanced,
permit me to recall to every mind another phrase of the
language of the realm, in order to prove that the queen
speaks broken French. I do not mean to say that she
does so intentionally, for surely no one can have a higher
regard for that good lady than I have. In fact, we are
both of an age ; both born on the same day of the same
month in the same year, perhaps in the same hour, if
degrees of longitude could be computed with accuracy
(of different parentage, I admit). What I mean to say
is, that she speaks imperfect English, both of herself and
DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH ? 95
through her ministers, through her parliaments, through
her lords and her lord mayors, through her ladies and her
laundresses, through her British museum, and her Billings
gate market. After all this explanation, which might lead
to a digression, let me return to the point that I intended
to make when I said that the queen speaks broken
French.
Nothing is more striking to an American when he first
visits London than the constant misuse of the French
".J." pronounced aw by the high school of cockneys.
The lower classes of her majesty's subjects use the plain
old fashioned English "A." as an expletive, as well as an
offset to the other (a fashion, by the way, derived from
the Greeks, for their language is full of expletives), in
tin's manner I was "a-going" or, I was " a-thinking,"
or, I was "a-'oping," or, I was " a-hironing," and so on
through the whole family of verbs. Now this misuse of
the vowel is so common to the common people, that to
hear it from the lips of any person is sufficient to suggest
that his education has been quite imperfect. This being
BO, is it quite fair that we should acquit Lord Brobdignag
,of a similar charge, when we hear him read from a master
of style, thus: "They say-aw? that it was #?0-Liston's firm
belief, that he-aw was aw-great and neglected tragic ac-
taw. They say-aw that ev-aw-iy one of us believes, in
his heart, or would like-aw to have others believe, that
he-aw is something which he is aw-not!"
It is very true, as Dr. Samuel Johnson says in his little
96 DOES QUEEN VICTOKIA SPEAK ENGLISH?
article on Orpiment, that " talk is elastic." But even talk
he mis-spells (for he means "talc," a mineral), neverthe
less we will accept the mistake as being truer than his
definition in every way. Talk is elastic ! but what shall
be said of the petrifiers of the living words of our lan
guage ? What shall we say, for example, of the abuses
of Webster's Dictionary ? When an elastic language
becomes a concretion of fossils when its life has gone
out, and lexicographers have left nothing of it but its
organic remains what should be done with them ? To
compel them to speak plain English would be impossible,
for that they do not comprehend. What should be done
with them ? Surely the Cadmus teeth they sow should
rise up and reap them.
I suppose, in time, that the good old Engh'sh word
"Beef-eater," as applied to those broad-backed warders
of the Tower of London, will degenerate into "Bujfetier"
(French), as now a revolution is being effected in a simi
lar word and " cur," which some writers claim as a
Hindoo word, " Ischur" * Blackstone (a famous law
writer of the last century), has endeavored to elevate the
tone of the British bar by changing the honest old name
of " bum-bailey" in this wise: He says " that the special
bailiffs are usually bound in a bond for the due execution
of their office, and thence are called 'bound-bailiffs,'
; Dictionary of Cant and Slang. London. Ed. 1860, p. 11.
DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH ? 97
which the common people have corrupted into a much
?nore Iiomely appellation, burn-bailey! " *
I cannot here avoid expressing my regret that a very
creditable weekly paper in the British booksellers' interest
in London should have its classical name corrupted into
"a much more homely appellation." I mention this the
more cheerfully from the fact that it has always abused
American authors, and, therefore, when I say that I regret
it, you will understand that it is an act of generosity on
my part. I allude to the At/ienceum, which has never
recovered from the punishment that Bulwer inflicted
upon it when he called it the "Ass-i-neum," a name by
which it has been known to cultivated people in all parts
of the world, from the days of Paul Clifford down to this
time.
But these corruptions of the language we must frown
down. Let us take a bold stand against other cockney-
isms creeping into public use, such as "cab" for cabriolet,
"pants" for pantaloons, "canter" from the Canterbury
pilgrimages at the good old-fashioned ambling pace, and
the like ; for, if we do not, the age of progress will make
the word "gentleman" a dead language, and only its
cockney substitute, the "ge?it," will be known in diction
aries and newspapers.
A few more words and I shall wind up my squid.
There is a slang phrase of Parisian-French, which I
* Blackstoue's Commentaries cm the Laws of England. 4to. Ox
ford, 1766. Book I., Chap. IX., p. 346
7
98 DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH?
cannot recall at this moment, that expresses a peculiai
way of shortening words, and running one into another,
in use among the fashionable people of the continental
metropolis, so that it is very difficult for a novice to un
derstand their aristocratic argot.
This shrinkage, this corrugation, this wrinkling up of
words, so that a good long sentence which should be
sonorous and expressive, becomes as shriveled as a washer
woman's thumb, is beautifully implanted in the modern
English. Go to the House of Lords and hear the debate
between Lord Brobdignag and the Marquis of Lilliput I
Only by the skill of the practiced reporter can that tongued
and grooved dialect be interpreted. I shall not give you
a sentence by way of example, but only a few specimen
bricks of this modern Babel.
It is well known that in the glorious old English
tongue every word carries a meaning with it, a little
history in its womb, such as those beautiful phrases
"belly-timber," as applied to food, and "bread-basket,"
as applied to its receptacle. So the lord of thousands of
broad acres in Merrie England
"Lovely in England's fadeless green." Halleck
was called the Earl of "Beau-champs" from the Norman
French, as in Scotland the name of Campbell is derived
from an Italian origin meaning the same thing as Bean-
champs, " Campo-bello." Just as the constellation in the
Southern hemisphere called "Charles' Oak," recalls the
DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH? 99
history of that royal and ragged refugee, in Boscobell, s:>
a vast number of words in English once represented ideas.
They were words with poetry and history locked up within
them, like flies, in perpetual amber. The river "Alne"
in Cumberland, the stream celebrated in many a border
fora}'', has upon its banks the ancient town of Alnecester,
and the "home of the Percy's high-born race," Alnwick
Castle. Should you inquire for either place, there is not
a man in England who would understand you. But just
ask for Anster and Annick, and there is not a red-coated
boot-brushing boy in the neighborhood of Temple Bar
that cannot tell you where to find the train that will carry
you to the residence of the Lord's of Northumberland. I
remember once that I hired a post and pair to go down to
Stratford-upon-Avon. A jaunty postilion in spotless, white
dimity knee breeches, white top boots, silver-rimmed hat
band, and a whole carillon of bell buttons on his jacket,
touched his hat as I stepped into the " shay." "Drive me
round," said I, "by the way of Charlecote Hall!" for 1
wished to see the place where Shakspeare was tried for
deer-stealing. That was a puzzler. The friendly landlord
of the " Warwick Arms," the aged pensioner of the Bear
and Ragged Staff; the obsequious waiter; the radical
tailor, who made red riding coats for fox-hunting squires
auc l d d them in the bitterness of his sartorial soul ;
the small boy that always followed a stranger as the mite-
fly follows a cheese ; the parochial beadle with his bell ;
the blue eyes of the chambermaid, from an upper story
100 DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH?
of the Warwick Arms ; all, in dire suspense, in that dewy
morning, waited to hear the reply of the post-boy. There
was no reply. Presently an imderhostler, who had been
hovering around the horses like a spiritual gad-fly, whose
wings were horse-brush, and curry-comb, spoke out in a
foggy voice: "P'raps the gemman means Chawcut?"
Shade of Shakspeare ! And chawcut it was, as everybody
understood it there. So it is that in this puckered-up
English, Warwick, itself a splendidly significant name,
becomes Waric. The Beauchamp Chapel is Beecham.
Charlesbury has lost its ancient significance in Chawbree.
Cholmondely is Chranlee. Berwick of old renown,
"royal Berwick's beach of sand, "is now Berric ; Candle-
wick Street in London, is Cannick ; Gloucester is Gloster,
Smithfield is Smiffld, and Worcester Wooster ! So, too,
that word dear to every domestic tie, "housewife," is
" hussif" subtle is "suttle," and High Holburn, I-olurn.
Can anybody doubt that the corruption of these good
old expressive English words into bastard French is not
undermining the Queen's English ?
And the mis-spelling of these and many other words
will soon follow the mis-pronunciation, as, indeed, some
do now witness "Gloster!" I once hired an English
hackman to take me from a once-celebrated hotel in New
York to a once-celebrated Hudson river steamboat. It
chanced that when we reached the wharf the boat was
casting off, and the driver called out to me, " You 'ad
better 'urry up, sir, or she'll be h'off, and you can pay me
DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH ? 101
the fare when you get 'ome agin." So when I did get
back again, and asked for my little account, he referred
to his pocket remembrancer "Mr. C., June 14th, 1842.
in. o. to e. u." "What does that mean?" "'Alerican
'Otel to 'Endrick 'Udson, sir!"
"And what," said little Tweedle, " are we to do. If
we go to England, are we to fly in the face of every man
there ? are we to insist upon our own pronunciation, and
endeavor to find out famous localities by naming them in
the language used in the Saxon Heptarchy ?"
" Certainly," said John Common of E-oscommon, "I
would advise you to agitate this subject ; to call tilings by
their right names in that benighted kingdom ; to inquire
for places that nobody can tell you anything about, so
that you can teach the ignorant natives what should be the
names of their choicest, their dearest, their most cherished
localities. You can do this thing, for you have a genius
for disturbing the old herring-bone foundations of ancient
edifices. And I will give you all the glory of being the
pioneer, if you choose to take this matter of reform of
the tongue upon your own shoulders. I may adopt it
also. But I shall not trumpet forth my claims upon the
world until I find that you have succeeded. I think I-
feel a fresh breeze creeping up. Haul away on the jib
halyards ! Let us see if we can't work up the creek.
The champagne has been in the cooler over there for five
hours now and the meats only go to the brander upon
signal. So haul up the dinner signal ! Ah, here comes
tho breeze ! Up sails, and now to dinner."
XIV.
Koses of (Eminent
)F all the quadrupeds, the elephant is, unquestion
ably, the most sagacious. And, although some
have fondly imagined that his sagacity is wholly owing
to his great bulk -just as we are apt to think w r isdom is
peculiar to the fat, or judgment to the thickset yet, in
justice to the elephant, we must not allow the world 'to
repose upon so absurd and preposterous an error. If
mere bulk were wisdom, what shall be said of the hippo
potamus ; of coroners, and aldermen ; of justices of the
peace, the rh'irioceros, and the commissioners of the Patent-
office ; of prize-medal pigs, and Gen. ? We see, at
once, the fallacy of the popular belief, when we consider
the very opposite relations existing between bulk and wis
dom, in the above examples. It is needless here to enter
into an elaborate detail of the sympathetic attachments
of the brain and the nose, extending through an infinite
ramification of nerves, arteries, ganglions, and tissues,
nor of the power of the organ itself to express emotion ;
to scorn, to sneer, to snivel, to affirm, or deny ; to put itself
intrusively where it is not wanted; to be arrogant, haughty,
conceited : to suffer indignities ; to be a sleeping-trumpet,
THE NOSES OF EMINENT MEN. 103
and a moral, psalm-singing instrument in the conventicle.
The relations between the brain and this organ, are, there
fore, nearly equivalent to those between a ship and its
rudder with the trifling difference, that we are guided by
one, and led by the other. These facts being established,
all that is required to be known further, is, whether the*
dimensions of a nose being given, it is possible to arrive
at a fair estimate of the subsidiary mental power, if not,
indeed, at a regular scale, such as Kepler has laid down
with regard to the planetary system. To this we answer
in the affirmative. Let us take the wisest of brutes as an
instance. The height of the tallest elephant in the jun
gles of Africa is ten feet and a half, and the length of his
proboscis, from the lower suture of the' coronal bone (os
frontis), to the tip, is exactly seven feet and an inch.
Now, if we add to the height of the elephant his weight
and circumference, we find the proportion of the organ
to the sum total to be exactly 19 11-60 per centum. If
we take, as an offset to this, the commonest and most
familiar zoological example, viz., the proportions exist
ing between the weight, height, and bulk of the hippo
potamus, and the length of his nose, we find them ex
pressed in round numbers by the fractions 132-33900.
And it is a curious scientific fact, that the mental capaci
ties of the two animals I mean the power of mind the
" think" that is in them, when carefully measured, exhibit
nearly the same figures. If, then, guided by these as
tonishing results, we take up any plethoric body of men
say the United States Congress, or the State Legislature,
104 THE XOSES OF EMINENT MEN.
for instance it is very easy to determine precisely their
intellectual value, in a psychological point of view. The
average of a board of aldermen, reduced to the scale of
half an inch to the foot, exhibits so near an approxima
tion to the proportions of the lesser animal, that we might
call them the " city hippopotami", and be accurate enough
for ordinary purposes. On the other hand, if we attend
a meeting of strong-minded women, we find a prodigious
development of this feature. Strong-minded women have
immense noses, with some flat hats and a variety of spec
tacles. Jews, also, are singularly gifted ; but we make al
lowance of at least one-third for organs of this pattern, on
account of the natural hook, from the eyebrows to the tip.
We once had the honor of being intimate with one of the
most profound scholars and thinkers in Holland, who was
so long-nosed and near-sighted that he wiped out with his
nose half of what he wrote with his pen thereby show
ing a memorable instance of wisdom. The average
length of a fully-developed, intellectual, male nose, is
precisely two inches and a half from the indention be
tween the eyes to the extreme end of the cartilage.
Washington's nose was 2 5-8 inches ; but the presidential
average has, so far, been what we have stated above
Jeiferson, for example, representing the longs, and Fill-
more the shorts. Wellington and Napoleon differ only
the sixteenth of an inch, both being above the average ;
Lord Brougham, who is an encyclopaedia of general in
formation, follows a feature three inches in length ! the
average nose of the Century Club is 29-16; Thackeray's
THE NOSES OF EMINENT MEN. 105
nose is 2 5-8 precisely the length of the nose of the
"Father of his country;" President Johnson's is 2 9-16;
Irving's, 2 7-12 ; Bryant's, 2 6-11 ; Dickens's, 2 3-8 ; Du-
rand's, 2 7-13 ; Gen. Scott's, 2 5-10; Longfellow's, 2 6-11 ;
Gen. Sherman's 2 1-2 ; Macaulay's, 2 5-9 ; Farragut's,
2 3-4 ; Commodore Wise's, 1 7-12 ; Tennyson's, 2 4-7 ;
Hoffman's, 2 7-13 ; the average magazine nose of this
city is 1 5-8 ; in Philadelphia, 1 7-8; McClellan's is 2 8-12;
Verplaiicks', 2 5-8 ; Bayard Taylor's, 26-11; we shall
have Fredrika Bremer's by next steamer ; the nose of the
Academy of Design, 2 5-9 ; Browning's, 2 5-9 ; Miss
Mulock has a very respectable feature for a woman, being
2 1-4 ; Jean Ingelow, 2 1-8 ; Bonner's, 2 1-2 ; Seward's,
nearly 3 inches, and our own a snub.
In making our measurements, we have had the greatest
difficulties to encounter, by reason of the foolish desire
of many to be represented as measuring more than they are
entitled to. But, as we know by experience how often
scientific data are put aside as worthy of no credit, be
cause of a few trifling defects or errors, we have been
guided only by our instruments. We know it is very
hard to refuse a sixteenth of an inch, when it is asked by
a friend, as a particular favor, but, nevertheless, our "re
flections" must be accurate and reliable, or else they will bo
justly condemned. In pursuance of our theory, we have
engaged Mr. Pike, the eminent mathematical instrument
maker, to construct for us a noseometer, of the greatest
capacity, and will, from time to time, furnish our readers
with the results of the observations taken therewith.
XV.
(From tlie Bunkum Flagstaff and Independen
ISunftum
UST opened, with 100,000 Curiosities, and perform
ance in Lecter Room ; among which may be found
TWO LIVE BOAR CONSTRICTERS,
Mail and Femail.
ALSO ! !
A STRIPED ALGEBRA, STUFT.
BESIDES ! !
A PAIR OF SHUTTLE COCKS
AND ONE SHUTTLE HEN alive'
THE!
SWORD WHICH GEN. WELLINGTON FIT WITH
AT THE BATTEL OF WATERLOO ! whom is
six feet long and broad in proportion.
WITH!!!
A ENORMOUS RATTLETAIL SNAKE a regular
whopper !
BUNKUM MUSEUM.
107
AND!
THE TUSHES OF A HIPPOTENTJSE !
Together with!
A FINGAL TIGER: AND A SPOTTED LEPROSY!
Besides
THE GREAT MORAL SPECTACLE OF
"MOUNT VESUVIUS."
PART ONE.
Seen opens. Distant Moon. View of Bey of Napels.
A thin smoke rises. It is the Beginning of the Eruction !
The Napels folks begin to travel. Yaller fire, follered by
silent thunder. Awful consternation. Suthin rumbles !
It is the Mounting preparin' to Expectorate! They call
upon the Fire Department. Ifs no use! Flight of stool-
pidgeons. A cloud of impenetrable smoke hang over the
fated city, through witch the Naplers are seen makin'
tracks. Awful explosion of bulbs, kurbs, torniquets, pin
weels, serpentiles, and terrapins! The Moulting Laver
begins to squash out !
End of Part One.
COMIC SONG.
The Parochial Beedle Mr. Mullet.
LIVE INJUN ON THE SLACK WIRE.
Live Injun Mr. Mullet.
OBLIGATIONS ON THE CORNUCOPIA, BY
SIGNOR VERMICELLI.
*
Signer Vermicelli Mr. Mullet.
108 BUNKUM MUSEUM.
In the course of the evening will be an exhibishun of
Exileratin' Gas ! upon a Laffin Highena !
Laffin Highena Mr. Mullet.
PAET TWO.
Bey of Napels voluminated by Gondola Lites. The lava
gushes down. Through the smoke is seen the city in a
state of conflagration. The last family ! ' l Whar is our
'parents ?" A red hot stone of eleving tuns weight falls
onto 'em. The bearheaded father falls scentless before
the statoo of the Virgin ! DenwnongU
The hole to conclude with a
GRAND SHAKSPEAEING PYBOLIGNEOUS
DISPLAY OF FIEEWUEX!!
Maroon Bulbs, changing to a spiral weel, witch changes
to the Star of our Union : after, to butiful p'ints of red
lites ; to finish with busting into
A BEILLIANT PERSPIRATION!
During the performance a No. of Popular Airs will be
performed on the Scotch Fiddle and Bag-pipes, by a real
Highlander.
Real Highlander Mr. Mullet.
Any boy making a muss, will be injected to once't.
As the Museum is Temperance, no drrnkin' aloud, but
anyone will find the best flickers in the Sic on below.
XVI
rtje
A LEAF FROM A NEW BOOK.
>HE clouds now began to break away once
more we see the distant peaks of the Sie-
bengebirge and the castled crag of Drachenfels a flush
of warm sunlight illuminates the wet deck of the Schnel-
fahrt ; the passengers peep out of the companion-way,
and finally emerge boldly, to inhale the fresh air and in
spect the beauties of the Rhine. As for the Miller of
Zurich, he had taken the shower as kindly as a duck,
shaking the drops from his grey woolly coat, as they fell,
and tossing off green glass after green glass of Liebfrauen-
milch, or Assmanshauser, from either bottle. Betimes his
pretty wife joined us, and walked on tip-toe over the wet
spots ; the sun came out, hotter and hotter ; the deck,
the little tables, the wooden seats, began to smoke ; over
coats came off, shawls were laid aside ; plates piled up with
110 UP THE KIIINE.
sweet grapes and monstrous pears, green glasses, and tall
flasks of Rhine wine, were handed around to the ladies,
and distributed on the tables ; and the red-cheeked Ger
man boy whose imitations of English had so amused us,
B'.outed the captain's orders to the engineer below, in a
more cheery voice ' Store ! backor! forrorF "
I had had an indistinct vision of a pair of whiskers at
the far end of the breakfast table, brushed out d VAng-
laise in parallel lines, as thin as a gilder's camel's hair
brush. These whiskers now came up on deck, attached
to a very insignificant countenance, a check cap, and a
woollen suit of purplish cloth, such as travellers from
Angleterre enjoy scenery in. Across the right breast of
this person, a narrow black strap of patent leather wound
its way until it found a green leather satchel, just across
his left hip ; while over his left breast, a similar strap
again wound around him, and finally attached itself to a
gigantic opera glass in a black leather case. All these
implements of travel, with little else to note, paced
solemnly up and down the now dry deck of the Schnel-
fahrt.
In the meantime, my glass, map, guide book, were all
in action, castle following castle, Rolandseek, Rheineck,
Andernach, and all the glorious panorama, rolling in view
with every turn of the steamer. And chiefly I enjoyed
the conversation of my Miller of Zurich, whose plump
forefinger anticipated the distant towers and battlements
which he had seen so often, for so many times, in yearly
IF THE RHINE. Ill
trips upon the river. Nor was I alone, for from every
stand-point of the deck were fingers pointed, and glasses
raised, at the glories of the castellated Rhine.
But in the midst of this excitement and enthusiasm,
that purple traveller, with whiskers and straps, satchel
and opera glass, walked up and down, unobservant of
the scenery, miserable and melancholic, without a glance
at the vineyards, or the mountains, or the castles. Then
I knew that he was an Englishman, doing the Rhine.
He walked up to our table, where old Zurich and his
pretty wife were seated before the grapes and the wine,
where my shawl and satchel were flung map spread,
and guide-book open and said, in that peculiar English
voice which always suggests catarrh
" Going up the Rhine, sir?"
"Rather" said I, drily (for I hate bores).
"Aw!" now the reader must translate for himself
' ' Forst time ye' beene h'yar ?"
" Yes," I answered, "is it your first visit also?"
"Aw no ! 'been* hea-r pu'foh ; sev-wal taimes. How
fawr 'goin, sawr?" (Don't talk of Yankee inquisitive-
ness).
"To Mayence, and no further this evening." (Opera
glass leveled directly at Ehrenbreitstein).
".Gaw'ngtoHydl'bugf
"I think so."
"HydPbug's 'good bisness ; do it up In 'couple of
awhrs."
112 UP THE KHUSTE.
Here old Zurich makes a remark, and says:
" Military engineers build, that other military engineers
may destroy."
MYSELF. "Are those yellow lines against the hill
masonry ? parapets ?"
OLD ZURICH. "Fortified from top to bottom."
"Gaw'ng to Italy?" chimes in the camel's hair
whiskers.
" No " (decidedly no).
"Gaw'ng to Sowth 'f Fwance?"
"Probably."
"Wai, if 'r not gaw'n t' Italy, and you'r gaw'n to
South 'f Fwance gaw'n to Nim ?"
" To Nwnes f what for ?"
" 'F yawr not gaw'n to Rhawm, it's good bisness to go
to Nim they've got a ring thar."
"A ring ?"
"Yas, 'ontyeknaw?"
"A ring?"
" Yas saim's they got at Rhaonier good bisness that
do it up in tow hawrs ; early Christians, y' knaw, and
wild beasts !"
" Oh, you mean the Roman amphitheatre at Nismes
u sort of miniature Coliseum."
"Yaas, Col's'in."
" No, sir, I am not going to Nismes" another look at
Ehrenbreitstein and its shattered wall.
"Never be'n up th' Rhine before," quoth whiskers.
UP THE RHINE.
"No," we are approaching the banks of the "Blue
Moselle."
" Eh'nbreitstine's good bisness, and that sort o' thing
do't in about two hawrs ! "
"I do not intend to stop at Ehrenbreitstein, and,
therefore, intend to make the best use of my time to see
the general features of the fortress from the river."
"Aw then y'd better stop at Coblanz, and go t' Wis-
bad'n, by th' rail."
"What for?"
"Why, the Rhine, you know, 's a tiresome bisness,
and by goin' to Wisbawd'n from Coblanz, by land, you
escape all that sort aw-thing."
" But I do not wish to escape all this sort of thing
I want to see the Rhine."
"Aw!" with some expression of surprise. "Going
to Switz'land ?"
"Yes."
" Y' got Moy for Switz'land?"
" Moy ? I beg your pardon."
" Yes, Moy Moy ; got Moy for Switz'land ?"
* " Moy do you mean money ? I hope so."
" Ged Gad, sir, no ! I say Moy."
"Upon my word, I do not comprehend you."
"Moy, sir, Moy!" rapping vehemently on the red
cover of my guide book that lay iipon the table. "I say
Moy for Switz'land."
" Oh, you mean Murray."
4 ' Certainly, sir, didn't I say Moy ?"
XVII.
E impenetrable veil of antiquity hangs over the
antediluvian oyster, but the geological finger-post
points to the testifying fossil. We might, in pursuing
this subject, sail upon the broad pinions of conjecture
into the remote, or flutter with lighter wingj in the
regions of fable, but it is unnecessary : the mysterious
pages of Nature are ever opening freshly around us, and
in her stony volumes, amid the calcareous strata, we be
hold the precious mollusc the primeval bivalve,
- "rock-ribbed! and ancient as the sun." BRYAOT.
Yet, of its early history we know nothing. Etymol
ogy throws but little light upon the matter. In vain have
we carried our researches into the vernacular of the
maritime Phoenicians, or sought it amid the fragments of
Chaldean and Assyrian lore. To no purpose have we
analyzed the roots of the comprehensive Hebrew, or lost
ourselves in the baffling labyrinths of the oriental San
scrit. The history of the ancient oyste 1 ' is written in no
language, except in the universal idiom of the secondary
THE FIRST OYSTER-EATER. 115
strata ! Nor is this surprising in a philosophical point of
view. Setting aside the pre- Adamites, and taking Adam
as the first name-giver^ when we reflect that Adam lived
ix-land, and therefore never saw the succulent periphery
in its native mud, we may deduce this reasonable con
clusion : viz., that as he never saw it, he probably never
NAMED it never! not even to his most intimate friends.
Such being the case, we must seek for information in a
later and more enlightened age. And here let me take
occasion to remark, that oysters and intelligence are
nearer allied than many persons imagine. The relations
between Physiology and Psychology are beginning to be
better understood. A man might be scintillant with
facetiousness over a plump "Shrewsbury," who would
make a very sorry figure over a bowl of water-gruel.
The gentle, indolent Brahmin, the illiterate Laplander,
the ferocious Libyan, the mercurial Frenchman, and the
stolid (I beg your pardon), the stalwart Englishman, are not
more various in their mental capacities than in their table
aesthetics. And even in this century, we see that wit
and oysters come in together with September, and wit
and oysters go out together in May a circumstance not
without its weight, and peculiarly pertinent to the subject-
matter. With this brief but not irrelevant digression, I
will proceed. We have " Ostreum" from the Latins,
" Oester" from the Saxons, " Auster" from the Teutons,
" Ostra" from the Spaniards, and " Huitre" from the
French words evidently of common origin threads spun
116 THE FIESt OYSTEK-EATER.
from the same distaff! And here our archaeology narrows
to a point, and this point is the pearl we are in search of :
viz., the genesis of this most excellent fish.
"Words evidently derived from a common origin."
What origin ? Let us examine the venerable page of his
tory. Where is the first mention made of oysters ? Hu-
dibras says:
" ' the Emperor Caligula,
Who triumphed o'er the British seas,
Took crabs and ' OYSTERS' prisoners (mark that !)
And lobsters, 'stead of cuirassiers ;
Engaged his legions in fierce bustles,
With periwinkles, prawns, and muscles,
And led his troops with furious gallops,
To charge whole regiments of scallops,
Not, like their ancient way of war,
To wait on his triumphal car,
But when he went to dine or sup,
More bravely ate his captives up ;
Leaving all war by his example,
Reduced to vict'lingofa camp well."
This is the first mention in the classics of oysters ; and
we now approach the cynosure of our inquiry. From this
we infer that oysters came originally from Britain. The
word is unquestionably primitive. The broad open
vowelly sound is, beyond a doubt, the primal, sponta
neous thought that found utterance when the soft,
seductive mollusc first exposed its white bosom in its
pearly shell to the enraptured gaze of aboriginal man !
Is there a question about it ? Does not every one know,
THE FIRST OYSTER-EATER. 117
when he sees an oyster, that that is its name? And
hence we reason that it originated in .Britain, was
latinized by the .Romans, replevined by the Saxons,
corrupted by the Teutons, and finally barbecued by
the French. Oh, philological ladder by which we mount
upward, until we emerge beneath the clear vertical light
of Truth ! ! Methinks I see the FIRST OYSTER-EATER !
A brawny, naked savage, with his wild hair matted over
his wild eyes, a" zodiac of fiery stars tattooed across his
muscular breast unclad, unsandaled, hirsute and hungry
he breaks through the underwoods that margin the
beach, and stands alone upon the sea-shore, with nothing
in one hand but his unsuccessful boar-spear, and nothing
in the other but his fist. There he beholds a splendid
panorama! The west all aglow; the conscious waves
blushing as the warm sun sinks to their embraces ; the
blue sea on his left ; the interminable forest on his right ;
and the creamy sea-sand curving in delicate tracery be
tween. A Picture and a Child of Nature ! Delight-
O
edly he plunges in the foam, and swims to the b*ild crown
of a rock that uplifts itself above the waves. Seating
himself he gazes upon the calm expanse beyond, and
- swings his legs against the moss that spins its filmy ten
drils in the brine. Suddenly he utters a cry ; springs up ;
the blood streams from his foot. With barbarous fury
he tears up masses of sea moss, and with it clustering
families of testacea. Dashing them down upon the rock,
he perceives a liquor exuding from the fragments ; he
118 THE FIRST OYSTER-EATER.
sees the white pulpy delicate morsel half hidden in the
cracked shell, and instinctively reaching upward, his
hand finds his mouth, and amidst a savage, triumphant
deglutition, he murmurs OYSTER! ! Champing in his
uncouth fashion bits of shell and sea-weed, with uncon-^
trollable pleasure he masters this mystery of a new sen
sation, and not until the gray veil of night is drawn over
the distant waters, does he leave the rock, covered with
the trophies of his victory.
We date from this epoch the maritime history of
England. Ere long, the reedy cabins of her aborigines
clustered upon the banks of beautiful' inlets, and over
spread her long lines of level beaches ; or penciled with
delicate wreaths of smoke the savage aspect of her rocky
coasts. The sword was beaten into the oyster-knife, and
the spear into oyster rakes. Commerce spread her white
wings along the shores of happy Albion, and man
emerged at once into civilization from a nomadic stato
From this people arose the mighty nation of Ostrogoths. ,
from the Ostraphagi of Ancient Britain came the custom
of Ostracism that is, sending political delinquents to
that place where they can get no more oysters.
There is a strange fatality attending all discoverers 1 -'
Our Briton saw a mighty change come over his country
a change beyond the reach of memory or speculation.
Neighboring tribes, formerly hostile, were now linked
together in bonds of amity. A sylvan, warlike people
had become a peaceful, piscivorous community ; and he
THE FIRST OYSTER-EATER. 119
himself, once the lowest of his race, was now elevated
above the dreams of his ambition. He stood alone upor
the sea-shore, looking toward the rock, which, years ago,
had been his stepping-stone to power, and a desire to
revisit it came over him. He stands now upon it. The
season, the hour, the westerly sky, remind him of former
times. He sits and meditates. Suddenly a flush of
pleasure overspreads his countenance ; for there just
below the flood, he sees a gigantic bivalve alone with
mouth agape, as if yawning with very weariness at the
solitude in w r hicli it found itself. What I am about to
describe may be untrue. But I believe it. I have heard
of the waggish propensities of oysters. I have known
them, from mere humor, to clap suddenly upon a rat's
tail at night ; and, what with the squeaking and the clat
ter, we verily thought the devil had broken loose in the
cellar. Moreover, I am told upon another occasion,
when a demijohn of brandy had burst, a large " Blue-
pointer " was found, lying in a little pool of liquor, just
drunk enough to be careless of consequences opening
and shutting his shells with a ' ' devil-may-care " air, as
if he didn't value anybody a brass farthing, but was go
ing to be as noisy as he possibly could.
But to return. When our Briton saw the oyster in
this defenseless attitude, he knelt down, and gradually
reaching his arm toward it, he suddenly thrust his lingers
in the aperture, and the oyster closed upon them with a
spasmodic snap ! In vain the Briton tugged and roared ;
120 THE FIRST OYSTER-EATER.
he might as well have tried to uproot the solid rock as to
move that oyster ! In vain he called upon his heathen
gods Gog and Magog older than Woden and Thor ;
and with huge, uncouth, dyuidical oaths consigned all
shell-fish to Nidhogg, Hela, and the submarines. Bivalve
held on with "a will." It was nuts for him certainly.
Here was a great, lubberly, chuckle-headed fellow, the
destroyer of his tribe, with his fingers in chancery, and
the tide rising ! A fellow who had thought, like ancient
Pistol, to make the world his oyster, and here was the
oyster making a world of him. Strange mutation ! The
poor Briton raised his eyes : there were the huts of his
people; he could even distinguish his own, with its
slender spiral of smoke ; they were probably preparing a
roast for him ; how,he detested a roast ! Then a thought
of his wife, his little ones awaiting him, tugged at his
heart. The waters rose around him. He struggled,
screamed in his anguish ; but the remorseless winds dis
persed the sounds, and ere the evening moon arose and
flung her white radiance upon the placid waves, the last
billow had rolled over the FIRST OYSTER-EATER !
I purpose at some future time to show the relation ex
isting between wit and oysters. It is true that Chaucer
(a poet of considerable promise in the Fourteenth Cen
tury) has alluded to the oyster in rather a disrespectful
manner ; and the learned Du Bartas (following the elder
Pliny) hath accused this modest bivalve of " being incon
tinent," a charge wholly without foundation, for there is
THE FIRST OYSTER-EATER. 121
not a more chaste and innocent fish in the world. But
the rest of our poets have redeemed it from foul aspersions
in numberless passages, among which we find Shak-
speare's happy allusion to
" Rich honesty dwelling in a POOR house."
And no one now, I presume, will pretend to deny, that
it hath been always held
" Great in mouths of wisest censure ! "
In addition to a chapter on wit and oysters, I also may
make a short digression touching cockles and lobsters.
XVIII.
& ILtterarB (Eurtosttg.*
JACAULAY in the Exordium to his History, proposed
to bring his narrative down "to a period within
the memory of men still living." The phrase was doubt
less chosen for its ambiguity ; so as to delude or to ex
clude some notice of our Revolution. If the following
extracts be genuine (and for their authenticity I do not
vouch), they favor the former hypothesis. They purport
to be sketches for a future volume : stone, rough hewn,
for an edifice which, alas ! the master did not live to com
plete. KISTOEICUS.
CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON.
"The post of Commander-in-Chief of the insurgent
armies was of vital importance. Yet, the man who, ot
all men, was fitted to fill such a post adequately was at
hand. The Congress knew it ; and with a unanimity
that rarely marked their proceedings, selected George
Washington a delegate from Virginia. The reader will
naturally pause at the mention of a name which is re
garded with fond idolatry by a federation of great com
monwealths ; which History has admitted into the com
pany of founders of empire with Romulus and Gustavus,
*See Preface.
A LITERARY CURIOSITY. 123
and into the roll of great captains with Hannibal and
Frederic : and which is pronounced with equal veneration
on the banks of the Thames and on the banks of the
Ganges. Both the circumstances of his birth and the
circumstances of his education had fitted him for the part
he was called on to play. In his blood, of English origin,
there was blended something of the fiery valor of the
cavaliers of Rupert, with something of the resolute energy
of the soldiers of Oliver. His form, in its matchless union
of vigor and grace, had foiled the pencil of Stuart and the
chisel of Chantry. He had known the salutary discipline
of early toil. With his stipend of a guinea a day as a
surveyor, he had acquired, in youth, the art of controlling
himself. In manhood, by the exercise of patriarchal
dominion over thousands of acres and hundreds of slaves,
he had acquired the art of controlling others. Equally
fortunate had been his public career. He had served in
the armies of the Crown, and against the natives of the
wilderness. He had thus learned something, both of des
ultory and of disciplined warfare. At a later day, and
on a wider theatre, his knowledge of the one enabled him
to surprise the Hessians at Trenton ; and his knowledge
of the other to entangle Cornwallis in the toils of York-
town.
" His courage was of the truest temper. Stoic savages
told with wonder how he alone was calm when the sol
diers of Braddock were slaughtered like sheep ; and Con
tinental veterans loved to narrate how his face shone with
124 A LITERARY CURIOSITY.
heroic fire as he rallied the broken battalions at Mon-
mouth. His intellect was solid and comprehensive. The
natural ardor of his temperament was subdued by a judg
ment of singular accuracy and prudence. His unaffected
piety showed itself alike on public and on private occa
sions : when he drew his sword at Cambridge : when he
sheathed it at Annapolis : when he knelt alone in the
snowy solitudes of Valley Forge.
"And, indeed, all the strength of his intellect, and all
the resources of his character, were needed for the task
he had undertaken. For he had undertaken to confront
the finest infantry of Europe with an army of tradesmen
and farmers half clad, half fed, and wholly undisciplined.
In the ranks, the spirit of patriotic ardor was but too
often allied with the spirit of turbulent freedom. At the
council board, there were officers to whom the precedence
of a colleague was more galling than the tyranny of the
common oppressor. He had to deal with deliberative
bodies that acted when they should have debated, and
with executive bodies that debated when they should
have acted ; with an army that murmured at his activity,
and with a government that blamed his inaction ; and he
was forced to exhibit, to both government and army, at
one time the reckless courage of Charles XII, and ai
another time the serene patience of Marlborough.
"Nor must his claims to civic wisdom be passed un
noticed. His style, founded, it is true, on the turgid mas
terpieces of that period, was accurate and comprehensiy
A LITERARY CURIOSITY. 125
His talent for abstract speculation was not contemptible.
He presided with commanding wisdom over that assemb
lage of wise and ingenious statesmen, who framed a
system of government in imitation of a great system, in
which the centrifugal force of the separate Common
wealths and the centripetal force of the Federal author
ity were balanced with consummate skill. Nor did he
exhibit less wisdom when called on to put in motion
the machine which he had helped to frame. He resisted
the unjust rule of many men, as he had resis-ted the
unjust rule of one man ; and saw with prophetic eye the
issues of that insane freedom that ended in the ' carmag
nole ' and the ' guillotine.' Nor was the calm splendor of
his setting unworthy of the long day of glory. He beat
his spear into a pruning hook ; and planted choice trees,
and reared rare breeds of animals with the same con
scientious energy, with which he had ruled armies and
governed cabinets.
"And yet, the truth is that characters of such perfec
tion excite neither the just, sympathy nor the just admir
ation of the great mass of mankind. The very foibles of
irregular greatness are a bond of sympathy and a source
of interest. Most readers will turn away from a ruler
who was never unjust, and from a general who never
swore, to follow the amiable amours of Henry IV, or
the picturesque passion of Hildebrand. So, also, do the
defects of imperfect natures serve to render, by the force
of contrast, their merits more striking. The eloquence
126 A LITERARY CURIOSITY.
of Tully stands out in flaming characters against the
dark background of that timorous nature ; and the glance
of Bacon, the philosopher, seems more comprehensive when
we compare it with the glance of Bacon, the venal fudge,
owered obliquely on a bribe. The mental eye is misled,
as the physical eye is misled by the ruins of Palmyra 01
the Cathedral of Cologne. The imagination outstrips the
reality, and bestows an unmerited grandeur on the restored
temple and the completed church. But the harmonious
adjustment of the mental and moral faculties of Wash
ington, prevent us, at the first glance, from duly estimat
ing the extent of those faculties. We are like the
traveller who stands for the first time in that splendid
structure which the genius of Michael Angelo has reared
for the Catholic hierarchy. He cannot at once justly esti
mate the length of that endless nave, or the expanse of
that awful dome. And not until he discovers, by re
peated observation, that the baldaquin which covers the
altar is as lofty as a palace, and that the cupids that flit
about the door are as big as giants, will he feel assured
that he treads the floor of the largest building on the
earth."
THE CHARACTER OF FRANKLIN.
" The new ambassador was Benjamin Franklin, one of
the foremost citizens of the young Republic, and one of
the foremost citizens of the older republic of science. He
was of humble origin. Both in Boston, the place of his
A LITERAEY CURIOSITY. 127
birth, and ill Philadelphia, the place of his adoption,
he had wrought at that art, 'preservative of all arts,' of
which the followers, like ships that bear spices and odora
from the East, retain something of the precious cargoes
they are employed to distribute. The clearness of his in
tellect was equaled by the clearness of his perceptions.
Under the name of Poor Richard, and through the
humble medium of an 'Almanac,' he put forth a system
of homely ethics, in which the virtues of temperance,
probity, and industry were explained and commended in
aphorisms of ingenious terseness. Nor did he fail to
practice what he preached. He was speedily honored
with offices of trust, both from the Colonies and the
Crown. And when differences, that sprang partly from
criminal interference and partly from criminal neglect,
arose between the two countries, he exerted himself
strenuously, first to prevent, and then to remove those
differences. The hour for reconciliation passed away :
and he now stood up for war with the same placid courage
with which he had stood out for peace. He was one of
the Committee that drafted the great Declaration. He
was now sent to represent the good cause at the Court of
France, and at the bar of European opinion. An extra
ordinary reception awaited him. He was widely and
justly known as an eminent man of science as the Co
lumbus of electrical discovery. The French nation is,
beyond all other nations, fond of striking effect and
picturesque contrast. And nothing could be more stri-
128 A LITERARY CURIOSITY.
king or picturesque than the spectacle now presented. A
Quaker diplomatist was about to appear in the most
artificial of courts : a new Archimedes was to come from
the land of the Natchez and the Mohawk : the legate of
the latest republic was to recall the image of antique
wisdom and of antique virtue of the Grecian Solon and
the Roman Regul-us. Haughty courtiers bent in emotion
before him : brilliant beauties struggled for a kiss ; sculp
tors and painters pursued him with merciless assiduity ;
the Academy rang with applause when Target's adulatory
Latin described the sage as one ' who had wrested the
thunder from heaven and the sceptre from tyrants:' and
upon a ship of war, that was sent on its mission of death
and destruction under the desperate Paul Jones, was
bestowed, with pardonable inconsistency, the name of
'Poor Richard.'
"The chief glory of Franklin lies in this that he was
the greatest of the pupils of Bacon. And, indeed, ho
w r as such a pupil as Bacon would have delighted to honor.
To both pupil and master, Philosophy was not the mystic
goddess of Plato, or the impracticable vixen of the school
men. She was an angel of beneficence and a minister of
mercy ; an Elizabeth Fry or Florence Nightingale. Her
mission was to relieve human suffering and to advance
man's estate. And, in truth, Franklin's long and suc
cessful career was a triumphant application of these
principles. No sooner had the electric spark glided down
the kite-string than the lightning-rod was invented for its
A LITERARY CURIOSITY. 129
innocuous descent. The maxims of Poor Richard were
devised not only for the household of the Quaker
mechanic and the dealings of the Quaker tradesman, but
for the government of States and the intercourse of na
tions. Even the barren tactics of chess were made to
furnish lessons for the higher warfare of life. Nor did his
philosophy fail to bear her fruits to the philosopher
himself. The virtues of self-respect and self-reliance that
walked by his side, when he entered Philadelphia with a
loaf of bread under his arm, did not desert him when he
listened, amid the frowns of hostile statesmen, to the
pitiless sarcasm of Wedderburne ; nor when he stood, the
centre of universal homage, in the brilliant court of Louis.
" Zealows theologians have attacked the orthodoxy of
his creed ; casuists have cavilled at the imperfection of
his ethics. But he was doubtless a good man ; he was
surely a great man. And he richly deserves the title of
' the most useful of the children of men ' a title which
Franklin himself would have prized beyond all the gifts
of fortune and all the laurels of fame."
XIX.
ISettoeeu tije ?$ate anft tije
on tije Hittle i^eat|) fog
FKOM THE LOW GERMAN OF SCHRODER.
HIS story is a tough one to tell, youngsters,, but
true it is for all that ! for my grandfather, from
whom I have it, used always to say, when he told it :
"True must it be, my son, otherwise one could not tell it
so at all!" And this is the way the story ran:
'Twas on a pleasant Sunday morning, toward harvest
time, just as the buckwheat blossomed. The sun had
gone brightly up into the heaven ; the morning wind
swept warm over the stubble ; the larks sang in the air ;
the bees hummed in the buckwheat ; the good folk went in
Sunday gear to church, and all creatures were happy, and
the hedgehog also.
The hedgehog stood before his door with his arms
folded, peeped out into the morning air, and chirruped a
little song to himself, just as good and just as bad as a
hedgehog is wont to sing on a pleasant Sunday morning.
And' as he was singing to himself, in a cheery little voice,
* See Preface.
131
all at once it came into his head he might just as well,
while his wife was washing and dressing the children,
take a little walk into the field to see how his turnips were
standing. Now the turnips were close to his house, and
he used to eat them with his family, so that he looked
upon them as his own. No sooner said than done. The
hedgehog shut the house-door to after him, and took his
way to the field. He had not gone very far from the
house, and was about to turn, just by the thorn bush which
stands there before the field, near the turnip patch, when
he met the hare, who had gone out on a similar business,
namely, to look after his cabbages. When the hedgehog
caught sight of the hare, he bid him a friendly ' ' good
morning ! " But the hare, who, in his own way, was a
mighty fine gentleman, and held his head very high,
answered nothing to the hedgehog's greeting, but said to
the hedgehog, putting on thereby a most scornful mien :
" How happens it, then, that thou art strolling about
here in the field so early in the morning ?"
"I'm taking a walk," said the hedgehog.
" Taking a walk ?" laughed the hare, " methinks thou
mightest use those legs of thine for better things."
This answer vexed the hedgehog hugely, for he could
stand almost anything, but his legs he did not like to
have spoken about, because they were crooked by nature.
"Thou thinkest, perhaps," said the hedgehog to the
hare, " thou could'st do more with thine own legs 1"
"That's what I do think," said the hare.
132 THE RACE BETWEEN
"That depends upon the trial," quoth the hedgehog.
*' I bet that if we run a race together, I beat thee hollow !"
"That's quite laughable, thou with thy crooked legs,"
said the hare, "but I've nothing against it if thou art so
bent upon it. What's the bet ?"
"A golden louis d'or and a bottle of brandy! " said the
hedgehog.
" Done," said the hare, "fall in, and then it may come
off at once."
' ' Nay, there's no such hurry, " said the hedgehog, ' ' I'm
still quite hungry ; I'll go home and get a bit of breakfast
first ; within half an hour I'll be here again on the spot."
With tliis the hedgehog went his way, for the hare was
also content.
On the way the hedgehog thought to himself:
"The hare trusts to his long legs, but I'll fetch him
for all that ; he's a fine gentleman to be sure, but still
he's only a stupid fellow, and pay he shall 1 "
Now when the hedgehog came to his house, he said to
his wife: "Wife, dress thyself in my gear, quickly, thou
uiust go with me to the field."
"What's all this about?" said his wife.
" I've bet the hare a golden louis d'or and a bottle of
brandy that I beat him in a race, aud thou must be by."
"O my husband!" began the hedgehog's wife to
cry, "art thou foolish ? hast thou then quite lost thine
understanding ? How canst thou wish to run a race with
the hare ?"
THE HARE AND THE HEDGEHOG.
"Hold thy mouth, wife," said the hedgehog, "that's
my business ; don't meddle with men's affairs. March .
dress thyself in my clothes, and then come along."
What could the hedgehog's wife do ? She had to follow
whether she would or no. When they were on the way
together, the hedgehog said to his wife : ' ' Now listen to
what I have to say. See'st thou, on the long acre
yonder will we run our races. The hare runs in one
furrow and I in another, and we begin to run from up
there. Now thou hast nothing else to do than to take
thy place here in the furrow, and when the hare conies
up on the other side thou must call out to him : ' ' I'm here
already!" With this they had reached the field; the
hedgehog showed his wife her place and went up the
furrow. When he got to the upper end the hare was
already there.
" Can we start?" said the hare.
' Yes, indeed !" said the hedgehog.
" To it then 1" and with that each placed himself in his
furrow, and the hare counted one, two, three ! and away
he went like a storm wind down the field. But the
hedgehog ran about three steps, and then ducked down
in the furrow and sat still.
When the hare, on the full bound, came to the lower
end of the field, the hedgehog's wife called out to him,
"I'm here alre.idy!" The hare started and wondered
hot a little ; he thought not otherwise than that it was the
hedgehog liimaelf that ran out to meet Jiim ; for, as every
134 THE RACE BETWEEN
one knows, the hedgehog's wife looks just like her hus
band.
But the hare thought : there's something wrong about
all this 1 Another race ! At it again ! And away he
went again like a storm wind, so that his cars lay flat on
his head. But the hedgehog's wife staid quietly in her
place. When the hare came to the upper end the hedge
hog called out to him, "I'm here already." But the
hare, beside himself with rage, cried : ' ' Another race ! at
it again!"
"I'm quite willing," answered the hedgehog, "just as
often as thou likest."
So the hare ran three and seventy times, and the hedge
hog held out to the very end with him. Every time the
hare came either below or above, the hedgehog" or his wife
said "I'm here already !"
But the four and seventieth time the hare came no
more to the end. In the middle of the Held he fell to the
earth and lay dead upon the spot.
So the hedgehog took the louis d'or and the bottle of
brandy he had won, called his wife out of the furrow, and
both went home together : and if they have not died,
they are living still. So happened it that on the Buxte-
hude heath the hedgehog ran the hare to death, and since
that time no hare has ever dreamed of running a race
with a Buxtelmde hedgehog.
But the moral of this story is, first ; that no one, how
ever high and mighty he may think himself, shall let it
THE HARE AND THE HEDGEHOG. 135
happen to him to make merry over an humble man, even
if he be a hedgehog ; and secondly, that it is advisable,
when one marries, that he take a wife out of his own
condition, and who looks just like himself. He, therefore,
that is a hedgehog, must look to it that his wife is also a
hedgehog ; and so forth.
XX.
te tfje OTause of Sijtmtrer?
"First, let me talk with this philosopher. What is the cause of
thunder TKing Lear, Act III, Scene Fifth.
SERIES of observations, and a single experiment,
would throw some light upon this important ques
tion. Take, for instance, a summer afternoon when the
air is close and sultry, and the atmosphere rarefied, when
respiration is laborious, and no wind stirring among the
leaves. But, on the distant horizon, there are indications
of vapor ; not rolling clouds, but thin exhalations from
the earth, drawn up by the heat of the sun. Suddenly
this humid veil is illuminated by flashes, and people 'call
it heat lightning, summer lightning, sheet lightning. I
wish particularly to direct attention to the fact, that this
exhibition of electricity is not often accompanied with
other phenomena peculiar to thunder storms. No rain
follows the flash, nor is any report heard ; and, further
more, these illuminated vapors are always muck elevated.
It is idle to say that on account of distance from the
earth the report is not audible ; for few persons, familiar
with mountain heights, can fail to remember that some
WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF THUNDER ? 137
time or other they were in the midst of such an atmos
phere, when the lightning appeared to surround them,
apparently witliin a few feet of them, flashing on every
side, yet without rain or detonation. In this condition
the atmosphere is said to be highly charged with electric
ity. But surely we cannot accept this as equivalent to
the same meaning applied to a Leyden jar, fresh from
contact with the knob of the electric machine. Indeed,
is not the contrary very possible ? Would not the data
show that, in such a condition the atmosphere, instead
of being highly charged, had not its usual percentage of
electric stimulus? Experiments with the electrometer
might prove this supposition to be correct, and, on the
other hand, they might prove it to be incorrect. But one
thing cannot be disproved nor denied that air, highly
rarefied by heat, and humid, is air, plus water ; and also
that in this condition air is susceptible of being silently
illuminated by electricity. This point being settled, we
will proceed to the next which is, " What is the cause
of Thunder?"
The learned, down to the latest moment of going to
press, have advanced no further than this, that " thunder
is a noise produced by THE EXPLOSION OF LIGHTNING, or
by the passage of lightning from one cloud to another ! or
from a cloud to the ground." Whoever has read the cel
ebrated treatise of John Conrad Francis de Hatzfield
upon the subject, will iind a far more plausible theory
advanced by that sagacious philosopher, and quite as
138 WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF THUNDER?
amusing as the modern idea, that the sound of thunder ia
analogous to the snap produced by holding the knuckle
of one's forefinger to the brass bulb of an electrical
machine ! an explanation that has never satisfied any
reasonable mind. Let us see if there be not a rational
solution of the mystery.
The phenomena of thunder storms are: first, heavy
clouds ; then lightning ; then the report, and then a
fall of rain ! Now, let us trace the consequence to its
source. The rain is produced by two causes, either sud
den condensation of watery vapors or clouds, by colder
temperature, or the formation of water by the action
of the electric fluid. The first explains itself; the latter
is linked with the subject of this paper. Let us, there
fore, confine ourselves to that rain only which follows
the thunder. Rain water is composed of two elements,
oxygen and hydrogen. Hydrogen is a combustible gas,
and oxygen supports combustion. A stream of pure
hydrogen, ejected from a pipe into pure oxygen, burns
brightly in perfect silence. But, mixed with oxygen, it
explodes upon taking fire ; just as a young man, having his
own fortune to make, goes quietly to work until he gets
a partner with a tremendous capital. The relative aspects
of silent lightning and noisy lightning may be compared
by a simple apparatus sold at any chemists ; it is a tin
lamp filled with inflammatory gas. So long as the gas is
allowed to burn in small quantities it is taciturn, but, ex
posed to a larger mixture of oxygen, it goes off with a
WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF THUNDER? 139
loud report. This is a lamp that any spark of electricity
can ignite. And then again the product of the flame is
water! The union of hydrogen and oxygen is water.
What meteoric phenomenon is so simple as this, that
thunder is caused by the electric spark uniting with rare
fied air plus oxygen, and rarefied vapor plus hydrogen,
detonating, recompounding, and forming rain!
XXI.
$3teafcfast*
LE Prince de Talleyrand gave a dsjtuner ft la
fourchette at wliich the illustrious Brillat Sa-
varin was a guest. This great philosopher gives us the
bill of fare, interspersed with his own reflections and
directions, which I have translated for the edification of
all gourmets. Yours, P. D.
1st. Guinea hen's eggs fried 'in quail's fat, spread with
a coulis (gravy) of ecrevisse (a species of crawfish), very
warm, each egg being a single morsel, and taken at a
mouthful, after having been well turned in the coulis.
Eat pianissimo.
After each egg drink two fingers of old Madeira. This
wine to be drunk with reflection. (Recueillement).
2d. Lake Trout with Montpelier butter, iced (butter
made with aromatic herbs). Roll each morsel nicely and
perfectly in this high-flavored seasoning.
Eat allegro.
Drink two glasses of fine Sauterne or Latour Blanche.
To be drunk contemplatively.
* Sea Preface.
A FEENCH BREA.KFAST. 141
3d. Fillets of the breast of Grouse, with white truffles
of Piemant raw, in slices.
Place each fillet between two layers of truffles, and let
them soak well in gravy d la perigueux, made of black
truffles served apart.
Eat forte, on account of the white truffles being raw.
Drink two glasses of Chateau Margaux ; the beautiful
flavor of this wine will be most apparent after drinking.
4th. Boasted Rail on a Crust, a la Sardanapale ; the
legs and side-bones to be eaten only ; the leg not to be
cut in two ; take it between the thumb and fingers ; salt
it lightly ; put the thigh part between the teeth and chew
it all, meat and bone.
Eat largo and fortissimo, at the same time take a cut
of the hot crust, prepared with a condiment of liver and
brain of woodcock, goose liver of Strasbourg, marrow
of red deer, and pounded anchovies, highly spiced.
Drink two glasses of Clos Vougeot ; pour out this wine
with emotion, and drink with a religious sentiment.
5th. Morilles (a species of large and exquisite mush
rooms), with fine herbs and essence of ham ; let these
divine cryptogamas melt in the mouth.
Eat pianissimo,
Drink a glass of Cote Rotie, or a glass of very old
Johannesberger. No recommendation as to the way of
drinking this wine (the Cote Rotie) ; it is commanding
and self-imposing; as to the Johannesberger, treat it
like a venerable patriarch.
142 A FRENCH BKEAKFAST.
6th. Bouchees a la Duchesse, with pine-apple jelly.
Eat amoroso.
Drink two or three glasses of Champagne, Sillery Sec,
Verzeney, non Mousseux (still) iced to SIIOAV.
7th. Brie Cheese, or Estanville (near Meaux).
Drink one glass of Port.
Then, if you please, an excellent cigar (demi regalia
de Cabanas), after which one small glass of Cui^ao, and
a siesta, during which you will dream of the beauties of
the dinner to come.
Each course of such a breakfast must be served only
at the time the cook is ready ; the guest must wait, not
the cook, so that the dishes may be presented in perfect
order
XXII.
3$ints for ISpicurcan
HOEVER has been in Havana must needs recol
lect the little brazier, with its ball of white
ashes, beneath which a live hard-wood coal, called a
" candela" glows all day for the accommodation of
smokers in every house. This we thought once a dainty
device. But our friend, Master Karl, has given us some
new, delicate, and fragrant suggestions :
" It is an established canon that the purest and most
elevated tastes or flavors are unmixed simple. I re
spectfully submit that in smoking tobacco, this rule by
no means holds good.
" And here I might cite the learned Wimtruphius,
who in his ' Epigrammata ' puns so learnedly on Bac
chus and To-Bacco, and their mutual flavoring influence.
This I spare you. Likewise the lucubrations of Schiop-
plus DunderJtedius, who in speaking most horrifically,
De odore fetida tobacci, distinctly analyzes it into two
smells one infernal, the other diabolical. This spared
also (by request).
* See Preface.
144 DAINTY HINTS FOK
" But I mean simply to say that a point may be given
to a good cigar by lighting it from wood not from the
timber of a lucifer match, but from a smouldering, smok
ing fragment of a log, either hickory, oak, or even pine.
And note ye, good fellows all, that the earlier in the
season this is done, the more delicate is the gout ; yea,
this rule holds so far good, that on the first crisp evenings
in September, no musk-rose or violet that is nay, no
vitivert nay, no ess bouquet nay, no florimel nay,
no eau de cypre nay, no hediosmya nay, no daintily-
ambered aqua colonice or any Paradisaical sweets that
be, can surpass the odorat of the first whiff of a wood-
lighted cigar.
"Yea, and more. If you smoke light, and mild, and
dry, preferring Latike'a and Knaster to fine-cut, turnback,
and chopped cavendish, there is a class of perfumes
that I ween, which Piesse places as the third note in the
gamut of good smells a certain spicy oriental class,
such as cascarrilla, or a faint admixture of santal, which
perfumes the axe which lays it low, which in no wise de
tracts from piping joys. And I tell you in all truth,
that Virginia leaf, with these sweet delights, and with
iumach or kinni kinnick therein gently mingled, spreads
around such a pastilled, ecclesiastical cathedral air,
blended with dim souvenirs of the rue Breda, that he
who smokes thereof is oftentimes in tone to sing the
high song of King Solomon, or the lyrics of the Persian
land, wherein love and devotion are so curiously en-
EPICUREAN SMOKERS. 145
twined, that no sensation that is, can be compared
thereto, unless it be the kissing of your sweetheart
during sermon-time under thti lee of a high-backed old-
fashioned pew.
41 Ita dixit ille Rector
Er wollt's nicht anders han,
Vale semper bone Lector,
Lug du und stoss dick dran
Gut Gesell iat Rinckman. '"
xxm.
<Ef)ampagne l¬on to tije Ewtente?*
NEW YORK, July 1st, 1867.
[HE author of the following two communications, written
seven -years ago, in now revising them, finds melancholy
thoughts taking the place of the gay and festive feelings in which they
were originally composed. In those seven years of civil strife which
brought sorrow to the hearts of thousands, whose loved ones, whose
"beautiful and brave," fell on the battle-field, death did not spare
some of the best and noblest of those who were sportively mentioned
in these papers.
Dr. Francis has passed away Dr. Francis, the jovial, the kind-
hearted, the man of boundless curiosity and unerring memory, of
large and sound acquirements, the genuine and enthusiastic New
Yorker, who has preserved the choicest memorials of the men of the
last generation in that city which he himself so long gladdened and
instructed.
President Felton, of Harvard University, is no more. The great, the
genial, the liberal, the wise, the accomplished scholar, one of whose
Homeric criticisms is specially combated in these papers, who is there
described as a person of the highest scholarship, armed with the
authority, and clothed with the dignity of Jupiter, he, too, was soon
suddenly snatched away from the station he adorned, and the studies
which he loved.
See Preface.
WAS CHAMPAGNE KNOWN, ETC. 147
New York still mourns the death of one of her most eminent sur
geons, Dr. John Watson.
The memory of all men of professional excellence, however high
it may have been, is proverbially brief.
" Feeble tradition is their memory's guard."
Thus the fame of the distinguished skill of Watson must soon fade
away, like that of Kissam, of Wright, of Post, and even within
a few 3 r ears, that of Mott. But the memory of Dr. Watson will
be preserved by his volume on "The Medical Profession in Ancient
Times," a book equally agreeable and impressive, very learned, yet
very original. That memory will also be preserved and cherished
among a limited but very select class of students, in law, in medicine,
and in intellectual science, by his elaborate, acute and exhaustive
printed opinions as a medical expert in the great Paisk will case.
To those honored names must I add that of Thackeray. He was one
well known familiarly in our American cities, and there are still
hundreds who quote his criticisms on our " Big Bursts of Oysters," as
well as on our old Madeira, so plentiful and so prized but twenty
years ago, while the portraits of Col. Newcome, of Becky Sharpe,
and many more, remain, life-like in the minds of thousands.
But such recollections will touch and sadden only some few of my
older readers. The passages relating to the lamented dead have been
therefore left unaltered, in the wish to give to such of any younger
generation who may casually look into this book, a passing glance at
the pursuits and opinions of some of tho noted literary men among
us in 1860.
August 7, 1866.
MY DEARCOZZENS: I had hoped to spend my vacation
in quiet idleness, with a rigorous and religious abstinence
148 WAS CHAMPAGNE
from pen and ink. But I cannot refuse to comply with
the request you urge so eloquently, placing your claim to
my assistance not only on the ground of old friendship,
but also as involving important objects, literary and sci
entific, as well as social and commercial ; all of them (to
repeat your phrase and Bacon's), "coming home to the
business and bosoms of men."
You desire me to inform you, after careful examination
of all the authorities, u whether the ancient Greeks or
Romans, during the classic ages, were acquainted with
champagne."
In such an inquiry, at once scientific and classical, it
is all-important that the question should be stated with
logical precision. Bacon himself has taught us that the
judicious statement of the question (prudens interrogatio)
is one half the way to scientific discovery.
Now, I may safely presume that you do not mean to
ask whether the territory of Champagne was known to the
ancients. Any Freshman can tell you that the fair land
on each side of the murmuring Marne, and up the vine-
clad sides of the mountains, was part of ancient Gaul,
known and subject to the Romans, and designated as part
of different provinces at different periods of the Roman
sway.
On this point and all relating to it you can get what
ever information you desire from Cluverius and D'Anville,
or the Fathers of Trevoux. But this, I take it, ycu can
not mean, though it is the literal sense of your request.
KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS? 149
Nor, in my judgment, can you mean to ask, whether
the Greeks and Romans were acquainted with the wines
of the growth of that part of old Gaul which, under the
ancient regime of France, was called the province of
Champagne. Of course the Roman colonists in Gaul
knew and used the wines therein grown and made ; but
from the account given by the elder Pliny, of the wines
there produced, they bore little resemblance to the
present wines of Champagne, whether wousseux cremant,
or still. They are not named with any respect in Pliny's
statement of the one hundred and ninety five (195 !) sorts
of wine which in his day were counted fit for the Roman
market, of which only eighty kinds were admitted to be
" wines of authority for good tables" " quibus auctoritas
fuerit mensa," as he says, unless I misquote him. The
art of wine-making was then in its very infancy in Gaul.
Indeed, it was not until the days of the great and good
Ingulphus, the Seventeenth mitred Abbot of Yerzeney,
who was also Dean of Rheims (I give that great man
the titles by which he was known in the last forty years
of his life, although his most admirable and important
inventions and improvements in the making and man
agement of wines were made whilst he was still only
cure of Verzy on the mountains, and afterwards Arch
deacon of Ay, in the low country along the Marne) I
say, that it was not until the days of the aforesaid Ingul
phus (supradicti Heverendissimi Ingulphi as the Rheiim
Chronicle styles him), that the wines of Champagne at-
*
150 WAS CHAMPAGNE
tracted tlie attention of Royalty. Soon after that they
became the constant accompaniments, de rigueur, of
all "good men's feasts." I write, as you know, out
of reach of my own library, as well as of that of our
university, and must trust altogether to memory. Other
wise I could not resist the temptation of expatiating further
in the praise of this great benefactor of humanity. I
will only add that the great Ingulphus of whom I speak,
and to whom we all owe such an unpayable debt of grati
tude, was the one of the Rohan family, and must not be
confounded with the three other very able and distin
guished men of the Latinized name of Ingulphus, or
Ingulphius (for the name is spelled both ways), who
figure in public affairs in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries.
The great Ingulphus prosecuted his vinous experi
ments and effected his discoveries during the reign
of the famous Philip Augustus ; or rather, Philip
Augustus reigned in France during his time, which,
by a very noteworthy coincidence, was the very period
when, according to the best Irish antiquaries, their Milesian
forefathers discovered and perfected the manufacture of
whisky, us/cy, or the water, as it was called in the ancient
tongue of the Emerald Isle ; though in the cognate dialect
of the Scotch Gaelic, it was known as uisgee. These
epochs also corresponded with the date when Magna
Charta, the palladium of England's liberty, was wrung by
the English from their reluctant monarch. No sound
KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS? 151
philosopher can suppose that coincidences like these are
accidental. No, no:
"There are more tilings in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
But, to return to your inquiry. Having, by the pro
cess of philosophical elimination, excluded much vague
ness and danger of error, I proceed to reduce your inquiry
to the shape of the prudent interrogation, the logically
exact questioning, of the school of Bacon and Newton.
Your inquiry, then, must be this. Did the ancients, in
the high and palmy days of their eloquence, philosophy
and poetry, either in Greece or Rome, or in both, know
and use (and of course become fond of) any effervescent
wine or wines having the chemical qualities, as carbonic
acid gas, with the tartarous and saccharine constituents,
the physiological and dietetic qualities, aroma, bouquet,
etc., together with those other properties either belong
ing to the science of the laboratory or to that of the table,
which have been so beautifully stated by my good friend
Dr. Miilder, Professor of Dietetic Chemistry in the
University of Utrecht, in his "Chemistry of Wines," as
being essential to the true wines of Champagne, whether
mousseux or demi-mousseux ?
In this statement of the question, you see, I purposely ex
clude the mnnon-mousseux, or what is less philosophically
expressed in English by the name of ''still Champagne."
This I do because in the vulgar and popular use, such wines
152 WAS CHAMPAGNE
are not included under the term Champagne, although
grown and made in that District, and some of them, as
Sillery, of the very highest merit, gastronomic and dietetic,
convivial, social, and moral, and especially in those
qualities which the physiology of the table designates as
Oxyporian.
Thus, I think that the preliminary question is clearly
settled with an Aristotelian precision, such as the learned
gentlemen who discuss questions of Contagion and In
fection in academies and conventions would do well to
imitate. I then proceed to the investigation itself. This
I am not ashamed to affirm that I do with perfect confi
dence in the successful result; for I doit, not like my
learned friends just mentioned.
"Cajca regens filo vestigia."
Or, as it is translated in my new version of Virgil, (now
on the press of Ticknor & Fields)
" With stumbling steps along the dubious maze,
Tracing with half-seen thread the darksome ways."
But with a bold arid firm step, lifting high the blazing
torch of classic lore, which pours its floods of light forward
in my path.
The conclusion to which I come is simply that the
Greek and Roman gentlemen and scholars, in the high
and palmy state of their literature and art, had used and
enjoyed wines similar to the effervescent, foaming, spark
ling, or creaming wines of Champagne.
KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS? 153
I have stated the precise question, and the conclusion
to which my mind has logically arrived.
It would be descending not a little from the dignity of
learning to recapitulate any of the steps by which that
conclusion was attained, and the various authorities on
which it rests.
It is a wise general rule never to give such reasons for
your opinions. Let those who ask your opinion be satis
fied when they have got it. Yet, considering the great
importance of the present inquiry, and the intense inter
est which it must excite, I will deviate from my ordinary
practice.
Before stating this evidence, it must be observed, once
for all, that though I hold that a sparkling wine similar
to our best Champagne was known to the ancients, it is
quite as clear that such was not a common characteristic
of their wines. The resemblance was only of some of
their choice vintages to those of our Champagnes. Other
wise, their wines were commonly still, strong, and often
thick, like our "Essence Tokay." I do not care to
trouble you with any learning on this head. It would be
too large a dose for the present.
On all similar questions as to Grecian habits and Greek
learning, the best and most uni versal authority is Athenaeus.
He is the most delightful and instructive author on mat
ters of the table in any language, being to Greek literature
a Dr. Kitchener of a higher order, or rather his work is
what Brillat-Savarin's "Physiologic du Gout" is in French;
154 WAS CHAMPAGNE
but it is of tar more value than Savarin's, because, with
equal sprightliness and familiar knowledge of the subject
that he handles, his book is filled, crammed, stuffed,
spiced, larded with choice extracts from numerous Greek
poets and dramatists, whose other writings are all lost.
I always make Athenseus my summer travelling com
panion in the original, of course ; and I prefer reading
him in Schweighauser's last edition, partly because it is
the best, but chiefly because old Schweighauser was ex
ceedingly kind to me at Strasbourg, more years ago than
I care to tell. But as I know that your Greek is exceed
ingly rusty, you may consult Athenseus with profit and
pleasure in Bonn's edition of Yonge's literal translation.
I looked into it not long ago, and found that I could
understand it nearly or quite as well as the original, which
is more than I can say for most of the translations which
our college lads use for "ponies."
Amongst an infinite number of delicious excerpfs from
Greek poets as popular in their day as Beranger is in our
own, but of whom nothing remains to posterity but ex
quisite fragments, he quotes a long passage from Critias,
who thus begins a poem which, by the way, is palpably
the model of the well-known lines of Goethe, and of Byron
who is thought to have borrowed from him. Yet as
Byron knew much more Greek than he did German, I have
no doubt that both he and Goethe copied directly from
the old Greek. Byron has it thus :
" Know you the land of the cypress aud myrtle ?"
KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS? 155
Critias, addressing his native land of Sicily, says
" Hail to the land of the dim Proserpine!
There sparkles and foams the mirth-boding wine,
With its froth, its fun and noise,
Its folly, its wisdom, its joys
The folly of sages, the wisdom of boys."
Does not the " sparkling and foaming," etc., clearly refer
to some effervescent, frothing wine ?
Again, Athenseus quotes various passages from Alexis,
who seems to have been a Lesbian Tom Moore, for he
luxuriates over "the rich and rosy wine" of the island
of Lesbos, and thus addresses Bacchus on this wine :
"Hail vine-crowned Bacchus, chief divine,
Who from his sea-girt Lesbian lair
Erst floated out the demon Care
With sparkling, ruby wine."
Can there be any reasonable doubt that the "sparkling
ruby wine," with its proper concomitant, "the floating
out of old Care" from the place where he had long
nestled in gloomy security, all allude to a choice, efferves
cing, red wine, precisely of the quality of an excellent
vin rose inousseux de Champagne f
Then gushes forth a torrent of quotations out of the
inexhaustible memory of this philosopher of good suppers,
from the poet Hermippus, who seems a cosmopolitan sort
of a bard, and writes as if he were at home over all the
known world. Complimenting other wines, for which
he had unquestionably a right liberal and Catholic faith,
156 WAS CHAM PAG MO
the poet after praising the "Thasian's mild perfume,"
bursts into admiration of
" The bloom that mantles high
O'er Homer's Chiah cup."
In every one of these beautiful fragments you perceive
the mantling, pettilant character of our best Champagne
mousseux or demi-mousseux, and there are clear indications
(ki the original, at least) of the golden color of some of
these sparkling vintages, and the roseate tinge of others.
By the way, there is another ancient usage of which
Athenaeus has preserved the memory together with that
of dozens of authors whose very names would have been
swept into oblivion with their poems, their songs, their
ballads, and their comedies, which were once the charm of
the civilized world, had it not been for the inexhaustible
memory of this most catholic of quoters. The fact may
not be conclusive, but it is at least corroborative of the
opinion I maintain.
It is that the Greeks were accustomed to cool their
wines even by snow, as they were not blessed with our
ice-houses. What is this but an anticipation of the Vin
de Champagne JFrappe of our modern tables ?
I must content myself with only one more authority
from this source. Athenseus himself, in his sober, prose
speculations, says ( Lib. 1, 59) of a certain wine, " This
kind is a wine which has a tendency to mount upward."
Now, with all deference to my old friend Schweighauser
(who quite overlooks the point), how can any of the above
KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS? 157
passages be explained without understanding them to
refer to wines resembling our sparkling Champagne ?
If I thought that you could read Greek with any sort
of facility, I should not have troubled you with the above
imperfect but not unfaithful versions of these precious
fragments. They are more faithful than those of Bonn's
translation, if not more poetical ; yet, like his, they are
far from expressing the force and truth of the original.
In reading aloud these exquisite fragments in their native
Greek, I hear the whizzing burst of the exploded cork, I
see the foaming froth of the goblet, I scent the flowery
perfume of its delicate bouquet.
These and other authorities in Athenseus and the bright
dramatists and poets whose gems the philosopher has pre
served in his sober prose, like pearls in amber, are quite
sufficient for my argument as to the Greek. When I
get home among my books, I am sure that I can fortify
these authorities by many passages to the same effect,
from Plato, Aristotle, Ptolema3us, Hippocrates, and St.
Chrysostom.
Yet there is one other authority not to be omitted in
such a discussion. It is even that of old Homer himself.
In some thirty or more passages he paints his gods or
heroes gazing upon the angry sea, to which he gives the
epithet ou/oi/', literally " wine-faced." The translators
and commentators tell us that the compound word means
" dark," or " ruddy," like the wine of that age. What
stupidity ! Is it not clear that it refers to the foam-
158 WAS CHAMPAGNE
covered deep that it paints the angry main with its
whole surface instinct with life, and mantling and foam
ing like the best foaming wine of the times probably like
that "Chian wine," that the poetic fragments in
Athenseus tell us was Homer's favorite brand. In brief,
the only translation which can convey the force of the
epithet to a modern is the " Champagne-like- deep." It
is impossible to describe more happily the "foam-faced
sea," the olvoxa #ovrov on which Achilles gazes, and calls
forth his sea-born mother, in the beginning of the Epic
story. How admirably does this harmonize with the
wild spirit of the hero, and the stormy tale of his wrath
and his glory. It becomes nearly as flat as the leavings
of yesterday's uncorked Champagne, if this glowing
epithet is reduced to "dark," or "ruddy," or even to
"claret-colored," which last would be at least more
poetical, though not more accurate.
Next, then, for the Romans. That a delicate vin
inousseux petillant, a foaming and sparkling wine, was
familiar to the tastes of the refined gentlemen of Rome in
the time of Maecenas and his little senate of poets, and
soldiers, and philosophers, we need no better proof than
the testimony of Virgil himself, who graphically repre
sents the drinking of just such a wine as that with which
you oblige your friends at various prices, and under sundry
brands, but all choice and dear. I take first the literal
meaning of Virgil's melodious verses, though I have long
thought that those contained a deeper secondary and
KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS? 159
recondite sense, referring to the recherche repasts of Vir
gil's great friend and patron, Maecenas. It is in the close
of the first book of the ^Eneid, in the recital of Dido's
royal banquet to the Trojan chief. Toward the end of
the feast, Dido is described as ordering, and receiving,
and filling with wine, the hereditary massive goblet of
gold and gems, used by her progenitor Belus, and the
long line of her ancestors,
"'Hie Regiua gravem gcmmis auroque poposcit,
Implevitque mero, paterarn, quam Bclus et omnes
A Belo soliti "
Then, after a pause of silence, she invokes Jove, the God
of hospitable laws, to make that day auspicious alike to
the wanderers of Troy and her own subjects, exiles from
Tyre. After inviting the favorable presence of Bacchus,
the giver of mirth, and of the gracious Juno, next she
pours on the table the liquid honors of libation (laticum
libavit honorem] ; and after touching the bowl with her
lip, passes it on, with gay chiding at his slowness, to her
next neighbor Bitias. Whereupon,
" Ille intpiger hausit
SpumanUm paleram, et pleno se proluit auro."
For the sake of being very accurate, I have given you
an exact prose version of the preceding lines, instead of
my own resounding translation ; still, as I have already
informed you, in the press of Ticknor & Fields. I
proceed in the same way as to those last quoted. " He
160 WAS CHAMPAGNE
(Bitias), no slouch at his glass (none of the translators
in any tongue, have given the sense of im/piger with
such precision), drained off the foaming cup, and bathed
himself in the overflowing gold." Here, again, so far as
I can remember, no one of the translators or commenta
tors I have examined all of them in my time, though
not very lately has given the full force of the ' 'plena se
proluit auro," for though it implies that this inexpert
drinker drenched himself with the choice liquor contain
ed in the golden goblet, it also unquestionably means that
he bathed his face in that vinous spray with which frothing
Champagne often moistens or even bathes the face of the
hasty and ill-mannered drinker. Good Abbe De Lille,
better accustomed to the pleasures of Champagne than
the port-drinking English translators and the beer-loving
German commentators, comes much nearer in his
" S'abreuvanl a longs traits du nectar ecumant."
But you will see how much better even than this I shall
'do it in my translation, which, as I have announced at
least twice before, is now in press.
Here, then, I may triumphantly rest my argument.
Yet I cannot refrain from adding what is probably
known to very few scholars out of Italy. It is this ; Car
dinal Mai, whose services to learning have entitled him
to the lasting gratitude of all scholars, discovered,
eighteen months ago, among the hitherto unexplored
treasures of the Vatican library, a manuscript, as yet
KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS ? 161
imprinted, containing the ^Eneid with the notes of an
anonymous old commentator or scholiast, evidently
nearly contemporary with the poet, or at least of the
very next generation to him, full of curious criticism and
still more curious facts. This old scholiast, in his note
on the very passage just under consideration, confirms a'
conjecture of my own, which I communicated in a paper
of mine to the ' ' London Classical Journal" some twelve
years ago or more. He expressly says that this passage
was meant to be understood in its literal sense by ordi
nary readers and by posterity, but that it also referred,
in its interior or/esoteric sense, to the habits of Maecenas
at his festive board, where Horace, Pollio, Yams, and
Virgil were in the habit of dining with him twice every
week, not including his birthday parties and other high
festivities. On these occasions those favorite guests were
always treated with a certain foaming wine of the
"Dido brand" "vino effervescent, spumanteque, ampho-
ris notd Didonis signatis"
He adds, also, that this wine was always supplied for
the table of Maecenas from the wine-vaults of Sulpicius,
" Sulpicianis horreis" the same eminent wine-merchant
whose stock is mentioned with great reverence by Hor
ace in one of his odes.
As far as I can make out the topography of old Rome,
Sulpicius had his chief commercial establishment in
Curtius street, nearly opposite to the first city station of
the great Appian Way, the Hudson River Railroad of
162 WAS CHAMPAGNE
old Rome, a locality not very unlike yours in your own
city.
I trust that you are now quite satisfied that the gentle
men and of Greece Rome were accustomed to quaff a
generous and pure vin mousseux, quite like, and in no
way inferior to the best Champagne of our times. I
trust, also, that you will have ambition and patriotism
enough to make the resemblance between old imperial
Rome and your commercial Rome still more perfect by
arranging with your correspondents at Rheims or at Cin
cinnati to supply you with a DIDO brand of the very
choicest quality. Recollect that it must not be non rnous-
seux or still, or even merely cremant, but resembling as
near as may be the Dido wine of antiquity, spumans,
petillant, mousseux, sparkling, foaming, fragrant, and
with the more important qualities of a delicate aroma
and an unimpeachable bouquet.
Yours, very truly, .
P.S. Remember me to our friend Dr. Francis, and con
gratulate him for me, on the honor of the legal doctorate
so worthily added last month to his medical dignity by
his venerable and distinguished Alma Mater. She has
anticipated our university in this grateful duty. Yet I
trust that our governing powers will not neglect to add
his name to the list of those eminent persons educated
elsewhere, but crowned with our academic laurel, who
figure in our triennial catalogue.
KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS? 163
By the way, why does not the doctor, in his capacity
of the Herodotus of your local history, amongst the fossil
remains of the last century which he has dishuined, make
out to dig up some choice reminiscences (there must have
been much material for such) of the long residence of
Brillat Savarin in New York between sixty and seventy
years ago. I was exceedingly interested with the account
of him related by Mr. in my visit to the Century
Club with you the last time I was in your city. That
the immortal author of the great work on Transcendental
Gastronomy should have lived for some years in New
i r ork, by scraping the violin in the humble and
unscientific orchestra of the John street and Park
Theatres, under the rule of Dunlap or Price, and then
emerged in Paris the most successful of authors, the
gayest and wisest of table philosophers, and, moreover, a
Judge of the Court of Cassation, the highest tribunal of
France, promoted to that high station by the discriminat
ing Napoleon, and continued by the Bourbons, is as
whimsical and as surprising a vicissitude of fortune as
any of the incidents in the life of Louis Philippe or of
Louis Napoleon. I must unquestionably have seen him
more than once in former days, at the Court of Cassation,
seated by the side of his venerable chief, the Legitimist
Premier President De Seze, and there affirming or re
versing the decisions of the courts below, involving
millions of francs and the most thorny points of the Code.
But I never could dreain that amongst these dignified
164 WAS CHAMPAGNE KNOWN, KTC.
sages of the law, in their grave customary robes and ju
dicial caps d mortier, I saw the sprightly author of the
"Physiology of Taste," who had erst for two or more
years been first violin of the only theatre in village-like
New York during the play-going days of your grand
father.
XXIV.
Certnan Wiintx an* a Wiinz
v
p the Rhine in the leaf j month of June, one might
go further and fare worse, especially with regard
to wine. The fact is, it is a noble thing to find some
good in one's surroundings. To pass serenely and quietly
from Claret, Burgundy, and Champagne to Schiedam
Schnapps and thence to Johannesberger, Marcobrunner,
Riidesheimer, and even Piesporter, without a groan.
To take a glass of Completer at Coire or allay thirst by
Vin de Glacier, Yvorne, or St. Georges, through the
land of snow-capped mountains and yodles ; thence de
scending to d'Asti, Barbera, Campidano di Lombardi,
Canonao del Sardegna, Monte Fiascone, Orvietto and
Lagrima Christi ; drinking Aguardiente, Sherry, and Val
de Pefias in Spain, coming down to Bouza in Cairo or
Mahayah in Morocco, pitching into Vodke or Kisslys-
chtxhy in Russia. Behold, QUO DUCIT GULA !
Perhaps, for euphony, it is the best way to sum up
German wines under the headings Rhine wine, Moselle
wine or the popular hock ; for what Anglo-Saxon head
* See Preface.
166 GERMAN WINES, AND A
can always recall even a few names like Augenscheimer,
Assmannliaiiser, Affenthaler, Bacharach, Brauneberger,
Bischeimer, Bessinglieimer, Bodenheimer, Bechebacher,
Berncasther, Deidesheimer, Epsteiner, Euohariusberger,
Geissenheimer, Graacher, Griienhauser, Hocliheimer,
Hinterhaus, Johannesberger, Liebfraumilcli, Lauben-
heimer, Liestener, Mittelheimer, Marcobrunner, Nier-
steiner, Oppenheimer, Pitcher, B/iidesheimer, Rauen-
thaler, Schamet, Steinberger, Steinwein, Schiersteiner,
Thiergartner, Walporger and Zeltingener?
It is a popular fallacy to suppose good German wines
are acid ; they are dry, fine flavored, and keep better
than the five hundred year immortality of an oil paint
ing. As for the alcohol in them, by a careful analysis,
Hochheimer showed only 14.37 per cent, of pure alcohol,
while a very old sample, only marked 8.8, a lower figure
than almost any of the French wines.
Johannesberger from the Schloss, is the king of Ger
man wines; twenty-five years ago, Mumm and Giesler
of Cologne and Johannesberg, held the vintage of 1822
at the rate of $10 per gallon ; at compound interest it
would now be worth about $60 per gallon ! This wine
with Steinberger, Geissenheimer, and Hochheimer, have
the most delicate flavor and aroma of all German wines.
The warmest seasons insure the best vintages, so those
of 1748, 1766, 1779, 1783, 1800, 1802, and 1811 were
celebrated among the past generation as we now look to
1834, 1839, 1842 and 1846. Pure air and plenty of sun-
WINE CELLAIi. 167
light aj'e the best guardians for vines, and those crowning
the high lands yield wine of the best body, while those
in the low lands are poorer, and the wine requires years
to attain a really fine flavor. Next to Johannesberger
comes Steinberger of the Duke of Nassau, the iron hand
in a velvet glove, delicate as a zephyr, it has the strength
of a hurricane ; kiss the beauty, but don't arouse the
virago. Hercules viraginem victi, but every one is not a
"Dutchman!"
There is something very attractive in Liebfraumilch ;
the best comes from Worms, it has a good body and
should be drunk reflectively, this milk for babes. While
Marcobrunner, Rudesheimer, and Niersteiner are for arms
and the sword song of Korner.
Brauneberger ranks first among Moselle wines, and
according to young Germany, there is not a headache in
a hogshead of it ; certainly after two bottles of it, there
was no Jcazenjammer next morning. The old story that
Bacchus, when he lived in the Fatherland, having
invited Jupiter down stairs to make a night of it on
Brauneberger, so pleased the latter with this tipple, that
he at once ordered all he could buy, on credit, for
Olympus, to take the place of nectar, for a change ; may
be true. When you go to Heidelberg, stop at the Black
Eagle Hotel, and ask Herr Lehr, the landlord, for a bot
tle of Sparkling White Moselle ; drink it in the court
yard under the vine leaves, and to the sound of that
fountain where the large trouts swim !
168 GEKMAN WINES, AND A
To look forward for ten years to seeing a cellar and
then have it turn out a " sell," is one of the agonies of
travel. Possibly under other circumstances, Auerbach's
cellar in Leipsic would have worn less the air of a show-
shop, or less like Julius Caesar in peg-tops and a stove-pipe
hat, than I found it, but not even a bottle of Hoch-
heimer those paintings on the wall representing Faust's
appearance and disappearance, and the old admonition
of 1525:
"VlVE, BIBE, OBREGARE, MEMOE," etc.
could bring up anything ideal so I left. At Mayence I
was more favored, and though the scene comes up through
several glasses dimly, at least the attempt can be made
to describe an old-fashioned cellar, where travelling
English don't ask "for that table, ah, he bored the holes
in, you know. Faust, I mean. Three wax stoppers,
and all that sort of thing?" "Haven't got it, sir! "
answers the Jccllner. " Then why the don't you make
one ! " says despairing England.
On the steamer from Coblentz, I formed the acquaint
ance of an officer, a lieutenant, who was just off duty
from Ehrenbreitstein, and was on his way to Frankfort.
Arriving after sunset, we determined to stay that night
at Mayence, and go on next morning by railroad to
Frankfort. After dinner at the hotel, we strolled out to
look around town, and finally, as we crossed a narrow
street, he proposed a bottle of Brauneberger in a cellar
on the opposite side of the way, a quiet old nest, ho
\VIXE CELLAR. 169
Baid, where only old-fashioned and well-to-do Mayeiizers
were to be found. Down we went, and passing through
an anteroom, where a fine specimen of a broad-shouldered
middle-aged German was talking with a spectacled old
gentleman with the air of a Professor, in a land where
Professors are something; we were passing on to the
next cellar, when the broad-shouldered landlord, bowing
with great respect, saluted my companion with a string
of titles as long as a roll of sausages. Upon which the
Herr Professor, for such he was, lifted his hat politely
to us, and, salutations over, we entered the next cellar
attended by the landlord.
"Altmayer," said the officer, turning to him, "a bottle
of that Brauneberger." And duly and deliberately the
portly wirth departed, soon returning with the Moselle
Nectar and glasses. If Hasenclever has not visited that
cellar, he has sketched its match in some quaint old
German city, for there it was, an interior worth crossing
three oceans to sit in, and drink Moselle or Rhine wine.
The low ceiling was spanned with groined arches, dusky
with age, not dark, as the olla color of Murillo, but a
light-brown coffee-color, with a dash of light, borrowed
from the lamp that hung in the centre of the cellar, and
whose light just penetrated to the great butts lining the
walls. The round table at which we were seated was of
oak, dark with age, and anything more beautiful in the
way of the light that shone through our brimming
glasses of Brauneberger, and was reflected on that dark
170 GERMAN WINES, AND A
oak, I have never seen. The wirth having returned to
the ante-room, my companion, evidently pleased with the
interest I took in the surroundings of the cellar, judi
ciously kept silence until I had thoroughly viewed it all,
sipping slowly the delicate wine, and wondering how all
the sunlight got into the cellar at night. There was
positively a thin golden cloud all around us, and such
serene repose as a traveller who has been through a
dozen galleries of paintings, innumerable churches, etc.,
all in one day, believes to be the height of pleasure, i. e.,
KHEYF !
' ' I am very glad we came here," said the lieutenant,
1 ' for I see you can appreciate what I have always
thought one of the most picturesque wine cellars in this
part of Germany. Have yon noticed the grotesque
carving on that door leading to the further cellar?"
Turning my head in the direction indicated, I noticed a
pointed arch doorway, surrounded with the most beautiful
gothic tracery leaves, birds, monkeys, grapes, curious
grinning heads, all cut in stone, while the oak panels of
the door were rich in carved flowers and leaves.
"The oak door," said the lieutenant, "is a modern
addition of the wirtKs, but the rest runs back to the
16th century." While I was still looking at the curious
carving round the door, three or four middle-aged gen
tlemen, together with the spectacled Professor, entered
the cellar, and after polite salutations, drew up to the
table, and the wirth soon appeared with bottles and
WINE CELLAR. 171
glasses for the different private guests, for in such light
they all appeared and acted. Having a cigar case well
stocked with a supply of Partagas primer as, it went the
vounds, and the cigars were accepted after much urging
on my part, for the idea is not German ; I had the satis
faction of reaping an amount of gratified expressions
from each smoker that paid me for the sacrifice ; for I had
nursed the few I brought with me from the States with
great care. Conversation flowed on easily, and the
second bottle of Brauneberger went the way of the first ;
it was even better nectar than its leader. The h'ght in
the cellar appeared brighter and brighter, the golden
cloud seemed filled with bees-wings' humming, the great
butts looming out of the mellow light looked like brown
Franciscans making merry over a bottle of sambuca.
The spectacled Professor told a right good story two feet
broad, the other elderly gentlemen kept it up! The
lieutenant ordered a third bottle of Brauneberger, which
was better than its predecessors.
Then there came in a wandering violin-player, blind
as a bat, and a very pretty girl with a guitar, who was
not blind, as her bright eyes, shining on the handsome
lieutenant, plainly told, and when she sung that pretty
song of "Frau Nachtigal," it appeared to me, after the
wine, that she accented those lines
" Wer du bist, der bin auch ich,
| : Drum lass nach zu lieben mich": |
172 GEKMAN WINES, AND A
and regarded the lieutenant in the adoring style, permit
ting, at some future time, any amount of poussirmg, as
the Germans have it. Then we ordered just one more
bottle of Brauneberger, and the lieutenant, taking the
guitar from the pretty girl, sung in a fine, baritone voice,
" Soldatenleben "
" Kein besser Leben,
1st auf dieser Welt zu denken "
and the old gentlemen joined in the "Valleri, vallera,
valle-ra ! " chorus with hearty good will and kreutz
fideldy !
Several glasses of wine were bestowed on the blind
violinist, a collection made for the pretty girl, who
assured the lieutenant her name was Aennchen von
Tharau, which he doubted, insisting on it that Aennchen
died in 1650 and lived in Himmel Strasse! But she
gave us a parting song, prettily sung, and floated off into
that golden cloud and hum of bees, and the old Francis
cans smiled away from the big butts, and the spectacled
Professor bore us backward in his discourse to the days
when men passed whole lives as we were now passing
hours, and believed they were doing right, the illiterate)
heathens.
"The Herr Professor will have us in Egyptian bond
age directly, unless we hurry away," said the lieutenant
to me in a low voice ; so we arose, as arise men who
bear away many bottles ; and kindly greetings and
WINE CELLAE. 173
adieux bore us off to the wirth, who hoped to see us
soon again, and bestowed all the titles on my companion
that he had inherited and won ; and we sailed out into
the moonlit streets of Mayenee, and down to the hotel
by the arrowy Rhine, and slept the sleep of men who
have drank good Brauneberger in a grand old cellar
surrounded by refined and genial companions.
VALE!
XXV.
of garnered rhyme, from hidden stores of olden time, that
since the language did begin, have welcomed merry
Christmas in, and made the winter nights so long, fleet
by on wings of wine and song ; for when the snow is on
the roof, the house within is sorrow proof, if yule log
blazes on the hearth, and cups and hearts o'er-brirn with
mirth. Then bring the wassail to the board, with nuts
and fruit the winter's hoard ; and bid the children take
off shoe, to hang their stockings by the flue ; and let the
clear and frosty sky,, set out its brightest jewelry, to show
old Santa Glaus the road, so he may ease his gimcrack
load. And with the coming of these times, we'll add
some old and lusty rhymes, that suit the festive season
well, and sound as sweet as Christmas belL And here's a
stave from rare old Ben, who wrote with most melodious
pen:
"To the old, long life and treasure ;
To the young, all health and pleasure ;
To the fair, their face
With eternal grace ;
And the soul to be loved at leisure.
A CHRISTMAS PIECE. 175
To the witty, all clear mirrors ;
To the foolish, their dark errors
To the loving sprite,
A secure delight ;
To the jealous, their own false terrors. "
And here's from that Bricklayer's pate, a stave that's
most appropriate ; for when the Christmas chimes begin,
to eat and drink we count no sin ; as sexton at the rope
doth pull, it cries, " Oh, beU ! bell ! bell-y-full !"
HYMN.
Room ! room ! make room for the Bouncing Belly,
First father of sauce, and deviser of jelly ;
Prime master of art, and the giver of wit,
That found out the excellent engine the spit ;
The plough and the flail, the mill and the hopper,
The hutch and the boulter, the furnace and copper^
The oven, the boven, the mawken, the peel,
The hearth and the range, the dog and the wheel ;
He, he first invented the hogshead and tun,
The gimlet and vice, too, and taught them to run,
And since with the funnel and hippocras bag,
He has made of himself; that he now cries swag !
Now just bethink of castle gate, where humble mid
night mummers wait, to try if voices, one and all, can-
rouse the tipsy seneschal, to give them bread and beer
and brawn, for tidings of the Christmas morn ; or bid each
yelper clear his throat, with water of the castle moat ; for
thus they used, by snow and torch, to rear their voices
at the porch :
1TC A CHRISTMAS PIECE.
WASSAILKE'S SONG.
Wassail ! wassail ! all over the town,
Our toast it is wliite, and our ale it is brown }
Our bowl is made of a maplin tree ;
We be good fellows all ; I drink to thee.
Here's to our horse,* and to his right ear,
God send our measter a happy new year ;
A happy new year as e'er he did see,
With my wassailing bowl I drink to thee.
Here's to our mare, and to her right eye,
God send our mistress a good Christmas pie ;
A good Christmas pie as e'er I did see,
With my wassailing bowl I drink to thee.
Here's .to our cow, and to her long tail,
God send our measter us never may fail
Of a cup of good beer : I pray you draw near,
And our jolly wassail it's then you shall hear.
Be here any maids ? I suppose here be some ;
Sure they will not let young men stand on the cold stone !
Sing hey O, maids ! come trole back the pin,
And the fairest maid in the house let us all in.
Come, butler, come, bring us a bowl of the best ;
I hope your soul in heaven will rest ;
But if you do bring us a bowl of the small,
Then down fall butler, and bowl and all.
And here's a Christmas carol meant for children, and
most excellent, and though the monk that wrote was
hung, yet still his verses may be sung.
* In this place, and in the first line of the following verse, the name
of the horse is generally inserted by the singer; and " Filpail" is often
substituted for "the cow" in a subsequent verse. Robert Bell's An
cient Poems, Ballads, and Songs. London : 1857.
A CHRISTMAS P1.KCK. 1"
A. CAROL BY EGBERT SOUTHWELL.
As I in a hoarie, winter's night
Stood shivering in the snow,
Surpiiz'd I was with sudden heat,
Which made my heart to glow ;
And lifting up a fearefull eye
To view what fire was neere,
A pre'.tie babe, all burning bright,
Did in the aire appeare ;
Who, scorchkl with excessive heat,
Such flouds of teares did shed,
Afl though his flouds should quench his flames,
Which with his teares were bred :
Alas ! (quoth he) but newly borne,
In fierie heats I Me,
Yet none approach to warm theh hearts,
Or feele my fire, but I ;
My faultlesse brest the furnace is,
The fuell, wounding thornes :
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke,
The ashes, shames and scornes ;
The fuell justice layeth on,
And mercy blows the coales,
The metalls in this furnace wrought,
Are Men's defiled soules :
For which; as now on fire I am,
To work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath,
To wish them in my blood.
With this he vanisht out of sight,
And swiftly shrunke away,
And straight I called unto minde
That it was Christmasse Day.
And here's a song so pure and bright, it may be read
on Christmas night, unless the moon her light do lack,
for which consult the almanac :
178 A CHRISTMAS PIECE.
A HYMN TO DIANA.
Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair,
State in wonted manner keep ;
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess, excellently bright
Earth, let not thy envious shade,
Dare itself to interpose,
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear, when day did close :
Bless us, then, with wished right,
Goddess, excellently bright.
Lay thy bow of pearl apart,
And thy crystal-shining quiver
Give unto the flying hart
Space to breathe, how short soever ;
Thou, that makest a day of night,
Goddess, excellently bright.
And here is something quaint and tough, for such as
have not had enough : a Christmas carol, that was done
in 16 hundred twenty 1 :
ANE SANG OF THE BIETH OF OHEIST.
With the tune of Baw lula law.
(Angelus, ut npinor, loquitur.)
I come from Hevin to tell,
The best Nowellis that ever befell :
To yow thir Tythiuges trew I bring,
And I will of them say and sing.
This Day to yow is borne ane Childe,
Of Marie meik ane Virgine mylde,
That btisset Barne billing and kynde
Sail yow rejoyce baith Heart and JVIynd.
A CHEISTMAS PIECE. 179
My Saull and Lyfe stand up and see
Quha lyes in ane Cribe and Tree,
Quhat Babe is that so gude and faire ?
It is Christ, God's Sonne and Aire.
O God that made all Creature,
How art thow becum so pure,
That on the Hay and Stray will lye,
Amang the Asses, Oxin, and Kye f
O my deir Hert, zoung Jesus sweit,
Prepare thy Creddil in my Spreit,
And I sail rocke t7iee in my Hert,
And never mair from thee depart.
But I sail praise thee ever moir
With Sangs sweit unto thy Gloir,
The Knees of my Hert sail I bow,
And sing that richt Bcdulalow.*
And here are several hints to show, how Christmas
customs first did grow, for as the holy fathers say, some
Pagan tricks we Christians play, and prove that Yule and
Christmas box, are not precisely orthodox, for so we quote
and understand,
ANTIQUITIES FROM FATHER BRAND.
In the Primitive Church, Christmas-Day was always
observed as the Lord} 8-Day was, and was in like Man-
* The Rev. Mr. Lamb, in his entertaining notes on the old poem on
the Battle of Flodden Field, tells us that the nurse's lullaby song,
balow, (or " he balelow,") is literally French. " He bos! lale loupl "
that is, " hueh ! there's the wolf ! "
180 A CHEISTMAS PIECE.
ner preceded by an Eve or Vigil. Hence it is that our
Church hath ordered an Eve before it, which is observed
by the Religious, as a Day of Preparation for that great
Festival.
V
Our Fore-Fathers, when the common Devotions of the
Eve were over, and Night was come on, were wont to
ught up Candles of an uncommon Size, which were called
Christmas-Candles, and to lay a Log of Wood upon the
fire, which they termed a Yule-Clog or Christmas-Block.
These were to Illuminate the House, and turn the Night
into Day ; which Custom, in some Measure, is still kept
up in the Northern Parts.
The Apostles were the Light of the World ; and as
onr Saviour was frequently called Light, so was his
Coming into the World signified, and pointed out by the
Emblems of Light : " It was then " (says our Countryman
Gregory] " the longest Night in all the Year ; and it was
the midst of that, and yet there was Day where he was :
For a glorious and betokening Light shined round about
this Holy Child. So says Tradition, and so the Masters
describe the Night Piece of the Nativity." If this be
called in Question, as being only Tradition, it is out of
Dispute, that the Light which illuminated the Fields ot
Bethlehem, and shone round about the Shepherds as they
were watching their Flocks, was an Emblem of that
Light, which was then come into the World. "What can
be the Meaning," says venerable Bede, "that this Appar
ition of Angels was surrounded with that heavenly Light,
A CHRISTMAS PIECE. 181
which is a Thing we never meet with in all the Old
Testament ? For tho' Angels have appeared to Prophets
and holy Men, yet we never read of their Appearing in
such Glory and Splendor before. It must surely be, be
cause this Privilege was reserved for the Dignity of this
Time. For when the true Light of the World, was born
in the World, it was very proper that the Proclaimer of
His Nativity, should appear in the Eyes of Men, in such
an heavenly Light, as was before unseen in the World.
And that supernatural /Star, which was the Guide of the
Eastern Magi, was a Figure of that Star, which was
risen out of Jacob ; of that Light which should lighten the
Gentiles." " God," says Bishop Taylor, " sent a miracu
lous Star, to invite and lead them to a new and more
glorious Light, the Light of Grace and Glory."
In Imitation of this, as Gregory tells us, the Church
went on with the Ceremony : And hence it was, that for
the three or four First Centuries, the whole Eastern
Church called the Day, which they observed for our
Saviour's Nativity, the Epiphany or Manifestation of the
Light. And Cassian tells us, that it was a Custom in
Egypt, handed down by Tradition, as soon as the Epiph
any, or Day of Light was over, &c. Hence also came
that ancient Custom of the same Church, taken Notice of
by St. Jerome, of lighting up Candles at the Reading of
the Gospel, even at Noon-Day; and that, not to drive
away the Darkness, but to speak their Joy for the good
Tidings of the Gospel, and be an Emblem of that Light,
182 A CHRISTMAS PIECE.
which the Psalmist says, was a Lamp unto his Feet and
a Light unto his Paths.
The Yule-Dough (or Dow), was a kind of Baby or
little Image of Paste, which our Bakers used formerly to
bake at this Season, and present to their Customers, in
the same manner as the Chandlers gave Christmas
Candles. They are called Yule-Cakes in the county of
Durham. I find in the antient Calendar of the Romish
Church, that at Rome, on the Yigil of the Nativity,
Sweetmeats were presented to the fathers in the Vatican,
and that all Kinds of little Images (no doubt of Paste}
were to be found at the Confectioners' Shops.
There is the greatest Probability that we have had
from hence both our Yule-Doughs and Mince Pies, the
latter of which are still in common Use at this Season.
The Yule-Dough has perhaps been intended for an Im
age of the Child Jesus. It is now, if I mistake not,
pretty generally laid aside, or at most retained only by
Children.
J. Boemus Aubanus tells us, that in Franconia, on the
three Thursday Nights preceding the Nativity of our
Lord, it is customary for the Youth of both Sexes to go
from House to House, knocking at the Doors, singing
their Christmas Carrols, and wishing a happy new Year.
They get in Return from the Houses they stop at, Pears,
Apples, Nuts, and even Money.
little Troops of Boys and Girls still go about in this
very Manner at Newcastle some few Nights before, on
A CHRISTMAS PIECE. 183
the Night of the Eve of this Day, and on that of the Day
itself. The Hagmena* is still preserved among them.
They still conclude, too, with wishing "a merry Christ
mas, and a happy new Year."
We are told in the Athenian Oracle, that the Christ
mas Box Money is derived from hence. The Romish
Priests had Masses said for almost every Thing: If a
ship went out to the Indies, the Priests had a Box in her,
under the Protection of some Saint : And for Masses, as
their Cant was, to be said for them to that Saint, &c.,
the poor People must put in something into the Priests'
Box, which is not to be opened till the Ship return.
The Mass at that time was called Christmas ; the Box,
Christmas Box, or Money gathered against that Time,
that Masses might be made by the Priests to the Saints
to forgive tliG people the Debaucheries tfthat Time ; and
from this Servants had the Liberty to get Box Money,
that they too might be enabled to pay the Priest for his
Masses, knowing well the Truth of the Proverb :
"No Penny, No Pater-uoster."
Another Custom observed at this Season, is the adorn
ing of Windows with Bay and Laurel. It is but seldom
observed in the North, but in the Southern-Parts it is
very Common, particularly at our Universities ; where it
is Customary to adorn, not only the Common Windows
* Hagmena i.e., Haginmcene, holy month.
184 A CHRISTMAS PIECE.
of the Town, and of the Colleges, but also to bedeck the
Chapels of the Colleges, with Branches of Laurel.
The Laurel was used among the ancient Romans, as
an Emblem of several Things, and in particular, of Peace,
and Joy, and Victory. And I imagine, it has been used
at this Season by Christians, as an Emblem of the same
Things ; as an Emblem of Joy for the Victory gain'd over
the Powers of Darkness, and of that Peace on Earth, that
Good-will towards Men, which the Angels sung over the
Fields of Bethlehem.
It has been made use of by the Non Conformists, as
an Argument against Ceremonies, that the second Council
of Bracara, Can. 73, forbad Christians " to deck their
Houses with Bay Leaves and Green BougJis." But the
Council does not mean, that it was wrong in Christians
to make use of these Things, but only "at the same Time
with the Pagans, when they observed and solemnized their
Paganish Pastime and Worship. And of this Prohibition,
they give this Reason in the same Canon / Omnis hcec
observatio paganismi est. All this kind of Custom doth
hold of Paganism : Because the outward Practice of
Heathenish Rites, perform'd jointly with the Pagans
themselves, could not but imply a Consent in Pagan
ism."
But at present, there is no hazard of any such Thing.
It may be an Emblem of Joy to us, without confirming
any, in the practice of Heathenism. The Time, the
Place, and the Iteasons of the Ceremony, arc so widely
A CHRISTMAS PIECE. 185
different, that, tho' formerly, to have observed it, would
unquestionably have been a Sin, it is now become harm
less, comely, and decent.
So here we close our prose and rhyme, and end the
Chrismas pantomime, with wishing health and happy
cheer, to you through all the coming year, and pros
perous times in every State, for eighteen hundred sixty-
eight.
XXVI.
have received from our esteemed friend, and
valued correspondent, whose paper on the
champagne wines of the ancients excited so much sur
prise and curiosity in literary circles, another article
upon kindred topics, which will no doubt prove even
more interesting than the former one. Embracing, as
it does, a wider range of inquiry, it exhibits more clearly
than the other paper, unusual stores of scholarship, at
once comprehensive, familiar, and accurate ; a vigorous
and telling style in itself a model of good English
writing ; a curious and technical knowledge of wines in
general, beyond that of any' modern writer with whom
we are familiar, an exact knowledge of chemistry, and a
happy vein of humor, as original as it is genuine. It is
not surprising that the authorship of the last paper
should have been ascribed to several of the most profound
scholars in the country. But we can safely predicate of
this one that it will excite a still wider range of specula
tion as to the name of the writer, which, for the present,
* See Preface.
OXYPOKIAN WINES. 187
we shall withhold until such time as we are permitted to
print it.
THE LETTEH.
, October 5, I860.
Mr DEAR EDITOR : I have been much amused in learning
through the press, as well as from the more sprightly narra
tive of your private letter, that such and so very odd claims
and conjectures had been made as to the authorship of
my late hasty letter to you, in proof that the poets and
gentlemen of old Greece and Rome drank as good
champagne as we do. You know very well that the
letter which you published was not originally meant for
the public, and the public have no right at all to inquire
who the author may be ; nor, indeed, has the said imper
tinent public to inquire into the authorship of any
anonymous article which harms nobody, nor means to do
so. I have not sought concealment in this matter, nor
do I wish notoriety. If any one desires the credit of
the communication, such as it is, he or she is quite wel
come to it until I find leisure to prepare for the press a
collection of my Literary Miscellanies under my own
name. I intend to embody in it an enlarged edition of
this essay on the antiquity of champagne, mousseux, with
a regular chain of Greek and Latin authorities defending
and proving all my positions.
To this future collection of my critical and philologi
cal writings I look forward with a just pride as a fit gift
188 OXYPORIAN WINES.
to the few in our country who occupy their leisure, not
with light and trifling literature, but on grave and solid
studies (like the investigation of the Champagne ques
tion), and with the culture of high and recondite learning ;
or, as this thought is admirably expressed by Petrarch,
in one of his epistles, announcing to a learned friend the
completion of one of his Latin prose works, in a pas
sage which I have selected for the motto of my own
Collectanea: " Munus hocce prebeo, non iis qui levibus
et ludicris nugis assueti sunt, sed Iis quibus cordi est,
gravis et severus bonarum literarum et doctrines recon
dite cultus."
You tell me that you have every day personal inquiries
or written communications to the Wine Press, desiring
information as to the meaning of the word Oxyporian,
which I used as characterizing the effects of certain
wines. It seems that the word is in neither of the rival
American dictionaries, nor in any English one in present
use. Of this I was not aware, but if it is not in their
dictionaries, so much the worse for the learned lexi
cographers. It ought to have been there ; they have
no excuse for omitting it. On the other hand, you and
I deserve all such honor as the literary and scientific
public can bestow, for restoring the word Oxyporian to
the present generation. It is a good word, and one as
Corporal Bardolph phrases it " of exceeding good com
mand." But I shall not imitate the gallant corporal in
his style of definition and explanation : " Accommodated!
OXYPOKIAX WINES. 189
that is, when a man is, as they say, accommodated ; or
when a man is being whereby he may be thought to
be accommodated, which is an excellent thing." That is
not my fashion. This word OXYPORIAN is of great
antiquity and high descent. It was first used by Hippo
crates, and from his medical use passed to that of the
philosophers, thence into the Latin, and thence to the
old English medical and philosophical writers down to
Sydenham, since whose day it has not been used for near
two centuries. It is from the Greek OZu-xopios and means
simply that which is of speedy operation and as quick in
passing off first used as a substantive name of such a-
medicine, then as an adjective with a broader sense. I am
sorry that it has gone out of fashion, for no other word
can supply its place, either for scientific or literary use.
The philosophy of the word, especially as applied to
wines, is nowhere better illustrated than by one of the
old lost poets in a fragment preserved by my favorite
Athenseus. The Athenian dramatist Philyllius thus
describes the Oxyporian character and effects of certain
wines :
Take Thasian, Cliian, Meridian wine,
Lesbian old or new Biblyne,
Differing all, but all divine
Straight to the brain all swift ascend,
Drive out black thoughts, bright fancies lend,
Glad the whole man then pass away
Nor make to-morrow mourn its yesterday.
190 OXYPORIAN WINES.
That last line cost me more labor than I have often
bestowed upon a whole lecture, and though it is hyper-
catalectic with redundant syllables, expressive enough, I
think of the metre and feeling of the original, it has not
done full justice to the crowded thought, the practical
philosophy of the gay and wise old heathen.
I never read Athenseus without renewed gratitude to
kind Professor Schweighauser, who first opened to me
that treasure-house of the remains of ancient bards,
" with whom (justly says a modern critic) perished so
much beauty as the world will never see again." How
fortunate it was that the old Greek philosophical diner-
out was as much given to quotation as Montaigne, Jere
my Taylor, or myself. As for the learned French-German
or German-Frenchman, Schweighauser the recollec
tions of my brief acquaintance with him rise in my mind
like "a steam of rich distilled perfumes," fraught with
the memory of refined classical criticism, and the flavor
of the world-renowned culinary product of his own
beloved city of Strasbourg, the pate de foies gras.
But I must not forget to call your attention to the
very curious parallel between this fragment of an Athen
ian dramatic author and Falstaff 's eulogy on the virtues
of his favorite sherris-sack. " It hath a twofold operation
in it. It ascends me into the brain, drives me forth all
the foolish, dull and crudy vapors which overrun it,
makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble,
fiery and delectable shapes." " The second property of
OXYPOEIAN WINES. 191
your excellent slierris is the warming of the blood, which
before cold and settled left the liver white and cold, but
the sherris-sack warms it " Yet why need 1 quote
any more of what you and half your readers have by
heart. Now there is not the slightest ground for attrib
uting this resemblance of thought and expression to
imitation. No (as I remarked in one of my lectures on
the resemblances to be traced between Shakspeare and
the Greek tragedies), the great ancients and this greater
modern coincide in thought because they alike draw their
thoughts from truth and nature and the depths of man's
heart. The comparison of the passage cited from Fal-
staff and that of which I have above given my feeble
version, affords ample evidence of this. They agree
marvelously in describing the immediate operation of
the lighter Greek wines, resembling our best Bordeaux
and champagne, and that of FalstafP s more powerful
and grave sherry. In this they are equally true. But the
Greek goes on to insist on the Oxyporian worth of his
favorite wines in gladdening the whole man ' ' with mirth
which after no repentance draws." Not so the great
English poet. He, with a dietetic and physiological
philosophy as profound and as accurate as was his insight
into the aifeetions and passions of man, passes over in
profound silence this point on which the Greek bard
dwells. This Shakspeare does, not from ignorance, but
to lead the reader to infer from Falstaff's own infirmities,
that such was not the after-operation of Falstaff's "inor*
192 OXYPOEIAlSr WINES.
dinate deal of sack " tliat his drink was not Oxyporian
that did not pass away "like the baseless fabric of
a vision " ( and, to use the words of the great bard in a
sense which he might not immediately have intended, but
which was, nevertheless, present to his vast intellect :)
" Leave not a rack behind."
The fat knight experienced to the end of his days the
slow but sure operation of his profuse and potent beve
rages, in results from which the judicious drinker of the
more delicate wines of modern France as well as of
ancient Ionia is and was wholly exempt.
But a trace to ideas of past ages. Let me come down
to our own day, and give you a practical example of the
use and value of this word Oxyporian, and the immense
benefit which we have conferred upon our own country
men, in having thus followed the precept of Horace,*
so happily paraphrased and adapted to modem speech
by Pope :
" Command old words that long have slept to wake,
Words that wise Bacon or brave Raleigh spake."
Such a word was this same Oxyporian. Now mark
its application.
Suppose that by way of aiding and embellishing my
* Proferet in lucem, speciosa vocabula rerum,
Quse priscis memorata Catonibus atque Cethegis,
Nunc situs informU "nremit et deserta vetustas.
nor at. Epi&t. it, L. v. 116.
OXYPOKIAN WINES. 193
Thanksgiving family festivities, you present me with a
basket or two of sparkling native wine prepared accord
ing to the recently improved method. Thereupon I
send you a brief certificate thus worded :
" I certify that I have tried (number of bottles left
blank) of improved Sparkling Catawba on self, family,
and friends, and find the same truly Oxyporian."
These few words speak volumes a whole encyclopedia
in that one word Oxyporian. Even with my humble
name thereto subscribed, what an effect would this pro
duce! But if in addition you could prevail on our
mutual friend, Dr. Holmes, to concur with a similar
attestation, how that effect would be multiplied a hun
dred fold! The Professor, upon the exhibition of a
proper quantum of the last edition of our best brands,
would, doubtless, in the Macbeth spirit of his late anni
versary discourse against chemicals and Galenicals,
certify to this effect :
"After repeated experiments of the wine to me exhib
ited by F. S. C., being native Sparkling Catawba, with
last improvements, I certify the same to be eminently
, Oxyporian. Take this quant, suffi. Repeat the draught
next day. ' Throw physic to the dogs.' "
"O. W. H."
I shall be much mistaken if such certificates, thus
clear, strong, brief; inspiring public confidence and pub
lic thirst, would not at once compel our native cultivators
to put hundreds of thousands of acres more into grape cul-
1ft
194 OXTPOKIAN WINES.
tivation, and oblige the sole agent in New York to hurry
A. T. Stewart higher up Broadway, leaving that marble
palace to be converted into an Oxyporian Hall for the
exclusive sale of Catawba and other Oxyporian liquids,
domestic and foreign.
The same experiments might with great propriety,
and, doubtless, with equal success, be repeated upon Dr.
Holmes and myself with the Dido brand of French
Champagne when it arrives !
I have just said that I am determined not to enter at
present into verbal controversy on the accuracy of my
translations and citations on the great question of the
champagne of antiquity. I leave all that till my pro
posed publication, which I trust will settle the question,
even against the authority ot Eustathius and Gladstone
as to the word ofvoira, though the one was a Greek Arch
bishop eight hundred years ago, and the other is the
present Chancellor of the Exchequer of the British Em
pire, and has just achieved the triumph of abolishing the
duties on champagne and other wines of France.
But I learn that two other arguments have been ad
vanced against my doctrine, both from distinguished
quarters, and both founded, not upon the authority of
scholiasts and lexicons, but upon the principles and reason
ing of the higher criticism.
The first of these is advanced by President King, of
your New York Columbia College. His objection to my
argument is briefly this : If either the Greeks or the
OXYPORIAN WINES. 195
Romans had champagne, Horace must have taken his
share, and luxuriated in recounting its merits and glories.
As Horace makes not even a distant allusion to any wine
of this kind, no such can have been in use in his days.
I have a great respect for President King's judgment,
both in respect to champagne and to Horace ; and his
argument is logical in form and plausible in reasoning.
Still this must have been an obiter dictum of his (as the
lawyers say), not a formal decision, such as he would
have given on full argument and examination of the
authorities. I think that I can convince the President of
the error of his argument ; and considering the magnitude
of the question, and the responsibilities of his position,
I am confident that he has too much candor to persist in
his error after duly weighing my reasoning.
I object entirely to Horace's testimony to his compe
tence if he is offered as an expert in wine ; but if he is
regarded as an ordinary witness to facts, then to the
credibility, weight, or value of his negative testimony.
This objection arises from no general disrespect to his
character or talent. I am far from agreeing with an
accomplished professor of your city, whom I might ad
dress in the words of Horace >
"Docte sermones utriusque linguae,"
as master alike of the tongue of Shakspeare and of that
of Schiller.* I cannot agree with him in vilipending
* Dr. Francis Lieber. Ed.
196 OXYPORIAl* WINES.
Horace to use a word of Charles Fox's, which I fancy
has not been used since his days. I was told lately, at a
literary party in Boston, by an eminent fellow-citizen of
yours, that this accomplished New York professor had
pronounced Horace to be "a mediocre old fogy." So
do not I.
As a keen-sighted observer and describer of men and
manners, full of shrewd good sense and worldly wisdom,
Horace has no rival ; and the unanswerable proof of it
is that his thoughts and maxims, and even language, on
such topics, have been incorporated into the thoughts,
language, and best literature of all modern nations. In
pure poetry, his patriotic pride and ardent love of country
often raise him to the noblest strains of lyric declamation.
Above all, he has an unrivaled power of natural but con
densed expression, compressing whole pages of thought,
or of description of nature, of form or of manner, into
a short phrase or a brilliant word or two. On some
other points I nearly agree with your professor, who is as
polyglot in knowledge as he is in languages. Horace's
lore-verses I hold very cheap. In these he is indeed
graceful, courtly, airy, elegant ; but he has little passion
and no tenderness. If he ever approaches to any sem
blance of either passion or affection, it is when he trans
lates or imitates the Greek, to which source late German
critics have traced not a few of his minor lyric beauties,
and made it probable that he owed more than can now
be clearly ascertained. The other line, in which I hold
OXYPORIAN WINES. 197
him to be still more clumsy and out of his element, is that
which specially relates to our present purpose. It is that
which he often affects, and affects with little success, the
gaiety of the Bacchanalian songster. In nearly every
one of his convivial odes he is as far as possible from the
light gaiety or the broad jollity of such poets as Burns
or Beranger, and a dozen Scotch and Irish songsters of
far less name but of scarcely less merit. In his desperate
attempts at jollity, his constant incentive to festivity
which seems to mean, with him, nothing but hard drink
ing is the shortness of human life and the black prospect
of death, so that his festive odes may be condensed into
the thought of Captain Macheath, in the Beggar's Opera :
" A man will die bolder with brandy."
Much as in his "Moriture Delli," etc., he is inferior
to the gay songsters of later times, he appears still worse
when any of his scenes of conviviality are compared
with those of Shakspeare, of Cervantes,- or of Scott,
with the feasts of Falstaff, of Sancho, or of Friar Tuck.
If I compare Horace with these moderns, it is because
the contrast is more striking from our familiarity with
the latter. But the same thing might be shown to
scholars by placing him by the side of Plutus, or of the
remains of Greek comedy. The truth is, that Horace,
with all his love of company, his shrewd observation of
life, his keen perception of the ridiculous, was decidedly
a melancholy man. I do not believe that in his most
198 OXYPOEIAN WINES.
convivial hours, he ever rung out that hearty peal of
laughter for which Walter Scott was celebrated ; nor was
Horace, in those solitary rambles of his about the shops,
markets and by-places of Rome, which he so agreeably
relates, ever seen smiling and chuckling to himself, over
nis own thick-coming pleasant fancies, like your Halleck,
when amusing himself in the same fashion in his frequent
visits to Boston or New York.
Yes, Horace was clearly as melancholy a man, when
by himself, as Lord Byron was, and for tjie same reason,
a stomach performing its functions badly, and stimulated
in the one case by Falernian, in the other by strong gin
and water.
Horace himself, unconsciously, shows us the philosophy
of all this, in the account which he gives here and there
of his own history. He had led a pretty hard, promis
cuous sort of a life in his early days of inglorious and
disastrous military rank. Afterward he got up in the
world, and became the holder of a comfortable office, of
more profit than honor ; and then, by the favor of his
friends in power, became a well-to-do country gentleman.
Next we find him suffering the certain penalties of an
early debauched and chronically debilitated stomach.
He had weak eyes, and a deranged digestion, the first
being the natural result of the other malady. He at
times resorted to total abstinence and cold water, and
became a great critic in good water, in which last partic
ular he showed his usual practical good sense. He was
OXYPOBIAN WINES. 199
constantly running about, as he tells us, from the plain
fare of his Sabine farm to Rome, where he shared the
luxurious table of Maecenas. Thence he galloped off to
Baiae, the Newport of that day ; then from one mineral
spring to another ; now dosing himself with chalybeate,
now with sulphur water. But all this water regimen is
interspersed with frolic after frolic in old Falernian. His
love of Falernian flashes the whole truth upon us. What
was this famed Falernian wine f It was, unquestionably,
a rich, high-flavored wine, but as unquestionably most
highly brandied, decidedly fortified with an enormous
proportion of alcohol, nearly bringing it up to the proof
of our most approved old Cognac. The commentators
and compilers of antiquities do not let us into the secret
of this same famed Falernian. But I speak on the very
best authority. It is that of Pliny the naturalist.
In speaking of the strong Eoman wines, he says of the
Falernian varieties, in a customary phrase of his, that
there is no wine of higher authority, " JSTec ulli in vino
major auctoritas." He then adds, that it was inflamma
ble! and the only wine that was so: "Solo vinornm
flamma accenditur." "It is the only kind from which
flame can be kindled." The ancients had no more pre
cise test than this one, that of burning with a flame, to
ascertain the proportion of alcohol in these liquors. They
had nothing similar to the various beautiful modes of
modern chemistry, to ascertain the alcoholic proportions
of wine as the eboulliscope of the French chemists, the
200 OXYPORIA]S r WINES.
halymetric method used by Fuchs and Zieri, and the
ingenious aerometer of Tabaric, all which give such
elegant precision to the alcoholic tables, digested and
enlarged by our exact Dutch friend, Professor Mulder.
But Pliny's statement is enough to prove that the strength
of Falernian did not arise from "combined alcohol"
formed in the natural process of fermentation of the
grape juice, but from added "uncombined alcohol" (as
the chemists term it) produced by distillation. On this
very question, I cannot refrain from quoting the opinion
of Dr. Watson, of New York, in his most agreeable,
learned and instructive work on " The Medical Profession
in Ancient Times," a volume which, if it had been pub
lished in London, would have been reprinted in the
United States, and had a circulation of thousands. I
copy from the volume on my table which I have just read
with much gratification to myself, and the highest respect
for the author's science and scholarship.
After quoting Pliny, he says, " modern wines with
only their natural supply of alcohols are not of strength
equal to this. That is the Falernian. It is therefore
reasonable to infer that the art of distillation must have
been known to the vintners of antiquity. If so, it must
have been confined to some fraternity and practiced by
them as one of their secret mysteries, for the purpose of
fortifying their wines, and thus kept secret until alcohol
was discovered anew by the alchemists of the middle ages."
Such was Falernian, differing only from our Cognac
OXYPOKIAN WINES. 201
brandy from having a full vinous body with a luscious
fruity flavor.
This exposition of the true character of Falernian at
once explains and is confirmed by the fact that Horace
often in his exhortations to the hardest drinking, speaks
of some rules of mixing water with the Falernian, which
no Greek or Roman author meritions as usual as to other
wines, excepting only certain Greek wines of a similar
potency.
All the above stated considerations prove to my satis
faction (and I trust also to that of President King) that
Horace, with all his matchless merits, was exactly in the
state of certain of our mutual acquaintances, some of
whom, men of the prairie or of the plantation, alternate
between "total abstinence" and unquenchable thirst for
Bourbon and Monongahela; others, again, habitues of
city clubs and hotels, vibrate between soda or congress
water, and old Otard, or Geneva, more or less diluted
with water ; generally less than more, and every day be
coming more and more less.
Now to the inference from this statement of facts:
Would you, Mr. President, or you, Mr. Editor, take the
opinion or the evidence of any such, of our acquaintance,
though we should receive it with all respect on any other
point, political, commercial, or financial upon any
question touching champagne. You would not ? Neither
do I accept Horace's testimony on the same subject.
I learn that I have to meet another argument, leveled
202 OXYPORIAN WINES.
at my Homeric interpretation, of the word commonly
rendered "dark," which T hold to mean "champagne-
faced," or covered with foam like champagne. This is
from another dignitary of learning, not of your city,
whose high scholarship is everywhere admitted. He is
armed with the authority and clothed with the dignity of
Jupiter, yet I cannot say with the Italian chief,
"Dii me terrent, et Jupiter hostis."
" The powers above I dread, and hostile Jove."
No, even against Jupiter, I reply,
" Thrice is he armed, who hath his quarrel just"
and I am thrice armed in the cause of truth and of
Homer.
As in respect to Horace, so in this Homeric question,
I defer for the present all mere verbal and lexicographi
cal disquisition. My future readers will have quite
enough of it in my forthcoming volumes. But I willingly
meet the great argument of my very learned and eminent
critic, as it claims to rest upon broad, historical and
critical grounds.
He boldly maintains that Homer could not have known
personally anything of champagne even supposing that
there was anything resembling it in his day that
throughout his two epics he never intimates in himself or
in his heroes any taste or connoisseurship in wine, though
he describes the drinking of a good deal of it, to which
he gives various indiscriminating epithets, as "pleasant,"
OXYPOEIAN WINES. 203
" sweet, " ' ' divine, " ' * dark, "or " red. " Above all, it is
asserted that he betrays the grossest ignorance on its use
in making his venerable Nestor (who should have known
better) mix grated cheese with his old Pramnian wine.
Before entering on the wider field of discussion, I must
briefly refute this last wholly unsound objection. It is
easily and quickly done. Any reader who will carefully
read the whole of the eleventh book of the Iliad, either
in the original or in any tolerably faithful translation
even in Pope's brilliant but commonly loose paraphrase
will see at once that this preparation of old wine, thick
ened with grated goat's milk cheese, and flour, which
Nestor took with his wounded friend after their escape
from battle, was clearly a medical prescription prepared
under the professional direction of Machaon, who was
surgeon-general of the Greek allied army, as well as
commanding colonel of his own and his brother's contin
gent. Machaon had a flesh wound ; Nestor, a very old
man, was prostrated by fatigue and fright.
The word used is xbxswv, meaning a compound potion,
and Pope with far more precision than is usual with him,
renders it "the draught prescribed." I cannot help
thinking that this happy version was suggested to the
poet by his scholarly medical friend Dr. Arbuthnot, to
whom he and Swift often expressed their warm acknowl-
sdgments for services, medical, literary, and social :
" the kind Arbuthnofs aid,
Who knows his art, but not his trade."
204: OXYPORIAN WINES.
Dr. Holmes may very probably sneer at the prescribed
mixture, and I will not pretend to defend it, for that is
not in my line. But Machaon was a physician of great
eminence in his day, and seems to have anticipated the
doctrines of Brown or of Broussais, and to have been
inclined to a bold practice in stimulants. As a surgeon,
he stood at the very head of his profession. Besides,
this was his prescription for himself, as well as for his
friend ^ and when the physician thus shares with his pa
tient the risk or the benefit of his potion, even Dr.
Holmes, heretic in medical faith as he is, will allow that
the patient may venture boldly to swallow whatever may
be ordered. I trust that Dr. Watson will discuss this
whole question in the next edition of his Medical Pro
fession in Ancient Times. In the meanwhile, enough
has been said to exonerate both Homer and the Pylian
sage from the charge of heathenish ignorance in regard
to wine.
Indeed as to Nestor, even if the poet's frequent testi
monials in the Hiad to his wisdom and vast knowledge
earned by old experience, are not enough to exempt him
from any suspicion of gross ignorance in respect to good
wine, he himself has given ample proof of his tas'e and
judgment in such matters in the Odyssey. When the
son of Ulysses, in that epic, visits Nestor at his home in
Pylos, he finds the aged chief presiding at a grand sacri
fice and banquet. Before Nestor knows who his guest is
he greets him kindly, and besides ordering for him and
OXYPORIAN WINES. 205
his friend a choice portion of the feast, gives them a
goblet bumper of Malmsey Madeira.
Here I must pause and explain, to prevent the barking
of small critics. Homer calls the wine neMetiyq "honey-
sweet " which proves it to have been a luscious, sweet,
fruity wine ; and all who are at all learned in the history
of grape culture know that the Malmsey of Madeira is
the product* of a vine in Madeira, originally imported
from the district of Malvasia, in the Peloponesus, which
lay within Nestor's own territory. From Malvasia came
the Spanish and Portuguese name of the wine, Malvasio ;
thence the old French Malvoisie, and thence Malmsey >
Pardon this apparent pedantry ; the digression is forced
upon me. Nestor gives his unknown guests, with all the
rest of the crowd, plenty of new, pleasant, and sweet
Malmsey of his own growth ; but afterward, when he
knew that the son of his old friend was his guest, he
gives him a more select entertainment with his family :
" Filling high the cups
With wine delicious, which the butler-dame
Who kept his stores, in its eleventh year,
Now first did broach."
In that compound of my own manufacture, ' ' Butler-
dame," I have aimed at clearly defining the office con-
tided to confidential old ladies in well-regulated house
holds in Greece, like Nestor's. Homer in his original
Greek expresses the office, here and in seven or eight
other places by the female substantive Tafit^. The Eng-
206 OXYPOKIAN WINES.
lish and French translators all omit or slur it over, as if
it was not genteel to have a female butler. The German
translators on the contrary, honestly use the resources
of their noble language, as copious and flexible as the
Greek, in its compounds, but give a rather broader sense,
by die haus-hof meisterin. But I was not aware till
after I had made my translation that the best Dutch
translator, the illustrious Vondel, theDryden of Holland,
had formed a word of his own precisely parallel to my
own, though more sonorous and musical, ' ' de schencfoter-
vrouw. But I must restrain myself on these tempting
verbal digressions (as I have done in my classical quota
tions), lest I should incur the Shakspearean sarcasm, he
"has been at a great feast of languages and stolen the
scraps." Let us return to Nestor.
Nestor never dreamed of giving his guests wine-whey,
such as he had taken, according to prescription, nor does
he offer them any grated cheese to mix with their new
Malmsey, or their eleven years' old Pylian Particular.
Then, as to Homer's personal opportunities of becom
ing practically familiar with the good wines of his times,
is it possible that my erudite critic imagines Homer to
have led a straggling beggar-like life, like an Italian
organ-grinder? The great bard has himself described
his own status and habitual life in the picture he gives of
the blind bard Domodoius, and the respect with which
he is received, and the luxury he shares in at the sump
tuous court of the good king Alcinous. Like him Ho-
OXYPOKIAN WINES. 207
mer himself passed from the table of one king, prince,
potentate or laird to that of another, faring sumptuously
every day, and thus becoming as familiar with the qualities
of the several Chian, Lesbian, Thrasian, Pramnian and
Pyiian vintages, as our acquaintance Thackeray did with
the old Madeiras of Boston, Salem, Richmond, and
Charleston, or the choice Bordeaux and Rhine wines of
recherche tables in New York.
I might quote an hundred scattered lines in the Iliad to
prove this. But why dwell upon minor points of evidence ?
"The greatest is behind." While Homer ascribes this
good taste and knowledge of good wine to his wisest old
man, has he not distinguished that hero, who is second
only in rank to Achilles, by his taste and judgment in the
same line ? Do not the plot and the interest of the second
great epic depend mainly upon this characteristic of its
hero, and the just pride he feels in his good cellar ?
Alas ! I ask these questions as if the answer was
familiar to all who read Homer even in the translations
of Pope or Cowper. Alas ! alas ! I do not know that a
single, critic, or annotator, has explained any Greek in
structor or professor here or even in . Germany has made
his students familiar with this great feature of Homer's
domestic epic, the Odyssey, and of its hero Ulysses.
Nevertheless, the filial piety of Virgil's ^Eneas the
deep melancholy love of Tasso's Tancredi the "noble
mind," "the courtier's, scholar's, soldier's eye, tongue,
sword," of the accomplished Hamlet are none of them
208 OXYPORIAN WINES.
so essential a part of these several characters and of their
eventful stories, as are to the character and story of
Ulysses, his taste and skill in wine, his judgment in its
management and use, and the deep interest which he
manifests in his own fine and carefully selected stock.
In the very beginning of the Odyssey, before Ulysses
himself appears on the scene, the poet, to make his reader
acquainted with his hero's character, introduces him into
the wine-room of the long-absent chief. It is quite
worthy of remark that he is the only king or chief men
tioned in either great epic, except Nestor, who had a
regular, well-ordered wine-room, or cellar. These few
chiefs, I must remind rny readers, are repeatedly desig
nated by the great poet, as the wisest of all the Greeks,
so adjudged by the common voice Nestor, from his va
ried experience and the collected wisdom he had gathered
during the few generations of men among whom he had
lived. Ulysses, from his own native sagacity. No other
Greeks compared with them either in general wisdom,
or in judgment in the choice or care of their wines.
Achilles, for instance, was a model of gentlemanly
hospitality, carved beautifully, and gave his guests the
best wine that force or money could get ; but he had no
stock of it, and did not know how to manage it, if he had
it. Not so the "much-contriving" Ulysses.
Before Ulysses enters upon the scene, his son, Telema-
elms is described as preparing for a secret voyage in
search of his long-absent father, and this affords Homer
OXTPOEIAN WINES. 1 } 09
an opportunity to paint in anticipation, though indi
rectly, the most striking peculiarities of his hero. His
cellar, or wine-room (for it appears to have been above
ground, though on the ground-floor), is superintended,
like that of Nestor, by an aged female butler. I am not
quite satisfied with any translator, and I render the lines
thus :
" Down to a broad, high room, the youth descends,
His father's store-room, where his treasures lay
There stood against the wall, in order ranged,
Casks of age-ripened wine, fit for the gods,
The grape's pure juice, from every mixture free."
The good young man, who had been well brought up
by his mother, according to his father's precepts and
example, thus gave order touching the providing for his
ship :
" Fill up these demijohns ; draw off bright wine
Our best, next after that thou dost reserve
Hapless Ulysses, still expecting home ;
If, death escaping, he shall e'er return,
Fill twelve, then fit them all with stoppers tight."
I translate as literally as metre will permit, in honest,
"English verse, without rhyme" (as Milton phrases it),
in the hope of preserving these minutely graphic touches
of the great poet, who always narrates to the eye, and
in turn displays "la terribil via" the grand and terrible
manner of Michael Angelo, or the grace, dignity and
i A
210 OXYPORIAN WIXKS.
expression of Raphael, and then rivals the most pains
taking Dutch or Flemish painter in his careful details of
the butchery, the barn-yard, the market, the kitchen or
the wine cellar.
I flatter myself that in spite of the obvious difficulty
of such passages, I have, in the above and my other
scraps of Homeric versions, succeeded in expressing some
exquisite details which Pope's rhymes have polished into
vague smoothness, and Cowper's more faithful, but too
uniformly Miltonic, blank verse has failed to render.
After this preliminary sketch of the "many planning"
Ulysses, we find him everywhere taking his wine like a
gentleman, never in any excess, but always with good
taste, whether at the table of the magnificent king of
Pharacia or at the humble fireside of the keeper of his
own hogs. He avoids the snares of Circe by refusing to
drink her brewed and drugged liquor. When he ex
plored the land of the Cyclops, he took with him a goat
skin of high proof brandy, given him by the priest of
Apollo, which he used only in case of accidents. I say
"BRANDY;" for though Homer calls it wine, that must
have been from delicacy toward the reverend gentleman,
for the poet expressly says that the worthy priest and hia
wife were wont :
" Whene'er they quaffed that dark, delicious j
To slake each cup with twenty from the fount,
Yet the slaked bowl sweet odor shed around,
Divine, enticing."
OXYPORIAN WrXES. 211
Arxother proof of the true nature of this "wine," as
Homer delicately calls it, is to be seen in the care with
which the good priest kept it out of the way of all his
servants, reserving it for the private drinking of himself
and wife, of course in all moderation.
"Of that pure drink, fit for the gods, no one
Of all his household, male or female knew,
Save only he, his wife and butler-dame."
By the way, this priest of Apollo seems to have been
a sort of prince-bishop, keeping a large establishment of
men and women servants. Yet he, too, like Nestor and
Ulysses, put his choice liquors and stores under the care
of a butleress, or, as I have preferred to render it in a
more Homeric phrase, and in the spirit of the Greek
compound, a Butler-dame.
But Ulysses took none of this brandy himself, nor gave
it to his men, but when he got into a scrape with the
giant Cyclops, he dosed the huge cannibal with it quite
raw, which soon made him tipsy (or, as the original ex
presses it with philosophical accuracy "came around his
brain,") then puts him to sleep, when Ulysses puts out
his great single eye, and escapes.
When he reaches home incog., he learns with indigna
tion the suit of the petty chiefs of Ithaca to his supposed
widow, their wasteful depredations upon his goods and
chattels, especially his cattle and hogs, and their insults
to his only son ; but he does not explode in full wrath till
he hears of the wasteful abuse of his wines the
212 OXTIORIAN WINES.
8ia<v<rcrfyti/ov (as he says with the precision of a carefiil wine
merchant), his good wine "drawn off." This he de
nounces as the " unkindest cut of all." He successively
recounts his wrongs from the suitors of his wife :
" Their Shameless acts, guests roughly drawn away
Through all the house, gross insults to the maids,
Provision gormandized day after day :
Tlie wine drawn off ! drunk up with monstrous waste,
Enormous, without stint, or taste, or end."
Od. XVL
I have not time nor space to note his other expressions
of wrath on the same topic.
It is, therefore, with admirable fitness that the poet
makes Ulysses defer the hour of his final vengeance till
he sees his palace filled with revelry, and the wine cup
crowned with his own best vintages, lifted high and passed
around by the insolent invaders of his home and his
honor. Then it is, when the loudest and boldest of these
revelers lifts to his head a huge two-handled goblet of
choice " Ithaca Reserve" that he, who had long watched
these scenes in suppressed wrath, and in the guise and
garb of a beggar, now "throws off his patience and
his rags together," rises from the mendicant into the
monarch, and from his mighty bow showers around winged
arrowy vengeance upon the wretches who had essayed to
win the affections of his wife, who had plundered his
possessions, who had wronged and insulted his darling
only son, and who had swilled, without appreciating it,
OXYPORIAN WINES. 213
pipe after pipe of his much prized wine, all of it carefully
selected, in splendid condition, and most of it more than
twenty years old.
And this is the Homer who had no taste, judgment,
feeling, or knowledge in wine !
But I have said more than enough on these topics.
Those who wish to know still more on them must be con
tent to wait until the publication of my "Lectures on
Homeric Literature," unless, indeed, I should find time
to comply with the urgent solicitations of your great pub
lishers the Appletons and supply the article Ulysses
for the American Cyclopaedia. I have done with all
journalistic controversy. I have floored my adversaries,
and may now say like Virgil's veteran pugilist :
" Hie victor cestus artemque, repono ;"
or, as I have rendered the line in my yet unpublished
translation of Virgil :
" Still Victor, Champion, now with pride
My tience and my gloves I lay aside."
Very truly your friend.
XXVII.
Brama.
)OW I came to take a fancy to do it I do not know,
but I always did have a fancy for the stage. So
at the early age of say ten, or it might have been
eleven, more or less, I was the owner of a theatre, and
manager of a company, with scenery, properties, flies, flats,
wings, traps, and all the equipments, gear and rigging
necessary to produce a play in superior style. The pro
scenium was a very grand affair, rich in red curtains and
gilt side-boxes, and the arch over the centre laid off in
gorgeous panels of blue and gamboge. The side-scenes
and flats were by Mr. Figg, No. 11 Qheapside, London,
and the performers were also by the same eminent artist :
in sheets, sixpence, plain ; one shilling, colored.
Didn't I make a mistake when I bought the plain
sheets and undertook to color them myself? Why, it was
not in the capacity of a boy's paint-box to put such colors
on the characters as those done at the London establish
ment. Take, for instance, Count Frederic Friberg's hus
sar tights and jackets ? When did ever color-man put a
cake of carmine in a boy's paint-box that would equal the
richness of that London crimson ? And then the red sack
that gracefully fell from the top of his shako. And Karl,
MY FIRST DRAMA. 215
his man, had a red jacket, too, laced over with gamboge
and worsted. And the head miller, Grindoft', alias the
head robber, Wolf, in his red -top Ronaldi tunic (second
dress), what would he have looked like in pale pink, in
stead of his flaming tunic and sash, and flamingo-feather
in his slouch of a slouched hat ? I tell you, if you expect
to make an impression in your minor theatre, you must
have plenty of carmine in your dresses ! Why, they do
that on the greater stage yes, and plenty of red fire, too.
The play, of course, was that favorite of everybody's
earlier days, " The Miller and his Men." You know the
opening chorus,
" When the wind blowowowses,
Then the mill gowowowses ;
When the wind blows, then the mill goes,
Our hearts are all light and merry ;
When the wind drowowops,
Then the mill stowowops:
When the wind drops, then the mill stops,
We'll drink and sing, hey, down deny!
We'll drmk and sing, hey, down deny!
Down deny, down deny, down deny !
Down deny "
and ever so many downs, and ever so many derrys.
The theatre was made out of an old wooden candle-box,
turned upside down so as to afford play for the stage-man
ager's hand to work the actors from beneath. The pro
scenium was nailed to one end of the box, the bottom
being removed ; the stage was made of slats, nailed cross-
ways ; the side-scenes were glued to bits of wood that
fitted in grooves on each side, and the curtains, the sky,
and the big back-scenes were suspended by strings that
216 MY FIRST DRAMA.
ran through pulleys of bent pins, that were hammered with
infinite trouble into the frame-work that surrounded this
temple of art. The sheets of scenery being pasted upon
pasteboard, afforded a delightful and gay task to cut out
the figures of trees and rocks, bridges and cottages, in set
scenes ; but, like many another manager, didn't I have
trouble with my dramatis personce ? I tell you, when I
had them all pasted on stiff cards, wasn't it a task to cut
out their little legs without injuring their symmetry. Let
anybody try I do not care how skillful an artist he may
be no, not even if he has the genius of Michael An-
gelo just let him try to cut out the small spaces between
the calves of pasteboard actors, and if it does not make his
heart sick before he finishes them, then I am no stage-
7 O
manager !
But the crowning glory of the whole affair was the mill.
It stood in four rows of set waters, on a set rock, and in
the description of scenery was called "working." That
meant that the mill was a wind-mill, with four wings to
move around during the whole performance. Why didn't
the author, Mr. Pocock, make it a water-mill at once ?
But to turn a wire crank to keep the figures going, and
work the millers, with sacks of flour on their backs, across
the bridge and into the cavern under the mill, and to work
the boat across the stage in four rows of set water, and
sing the opening chorus of
" When the wind blowowowses "
and to attend to getting old Kelmar on the stage properly
through the fourth slat from the footlights it does tax
one's energies to set them in motion and to keep them in
motion at one time.
MY FIRST DRAMA. 217
Of course everybody knows the plot of this famous
melodrama, and therefore I will not attempt to repeat it,
but it begins in this way : Old Kelmar has a beautiful
daughter, Claudine, who is in love with, and is loved by
a young peasant, by name Lothair. The head miller,
Grindoff, is in love with Claudine also, but he has an un
disposed lot on his hands in the person of a former flame
named Ravina and when I say a flame I mean it in a
brown slashed skirt trimmed with black, two brass clai&ps
to slashes, and red petticoat showing through. The miller
and his men are all robbers. As millers, they steal meal
all day from the farmers ; and as robbers, they steal all
night from the rest of the public, thus doing a heavy busi
ness. Under the broad, white hat of the miller, Grindoff
wore the black, corkscrew curls of Wolf, the bandit.
Under his peaceful, white smock-frock were concealed an
iron breast-plate, a pair of pistols, and all the pestilent
passions that poison the pericardium of a professional pil
ferer. The miller's men are all dressed in smock-frocks
with robber-costumes beneath, of course. Count Fred
erick Friberg, with his man Karl (comic), have lost their
horses and their way in the deepest kind of a Bohemian
forest. (Notice, that it is a common practice with actors
to lose their horses in such places.) They travel on foot
during a thunder-storm to the cottage of old Kelmar,
Claudine's father ; get a night's lodging on two chairs be
fore the fire, and are dogged by the robbers, who determine
to kill them for Count Friberg is a very vigilant magis
trate, and intends to root up the robbers and destroy their
little trade. Grindoff, however, fails to kill the count, but,
218 MY FIRST DRAMA.
inspired by love, carries off Claudine to his den. Lothair
disguises himself, and joins the robbers to rescue Claudine.
Here he finds Ravina getting ready to administer a little
comfort to his lady-love in the shape of a cup of cold pisin.
This he dashes from her hand, and persuades her to enjoy
SAveeter revenge namely, to blow up old Grindoff lei
surely, and all his men, as well as the mill, and any number
of barrels of family-flour, marked extra and extra-super
fine. For this purpose a fuse is laid in the crevices of the
rocks connected with the magazine, which Ravina is to
touch off when all is ready. In the mean time, old numb
skull Kelmar, who has been wandering about, calling out
" Me cheild ! me cheild ! " falls in with a company of Fri-
berg's dragoons, who have also lost their horses, and brings
them to the mill in the nick of time. The last scene was
a wasted piece of stage effect. The mill being made to
blow up, it had another mill behind it, all wire and red
tinsel. The fuse communicated with a large fire-cracker
which was to cause the explosion, and half a dozen other
broken in two for the purpose of keeping up the illusion,
by fizzing in small detachments behind the pasteboard
rocks around the mill. Ah ! it was a moment of unparal
leled excitement when, at the last, the robbers swarm
around the mill the Friberg dragoon muskets are pointed
at them Claudine is snatched from the arms of Grindoff
by Lothair, who dashes with his lovely prize across the
bridge and shouts out, " Now, Ravina, fire the train ! " Fuf
fuf fuf goes the fuse. Bang! goes the big fire-cracker.
Fizz, fizz, fizz, and the demi-crackers are sparkling up intc
small fountains of fire, when the old mill blows up in sec-
MY FIRST DRAMA. 219
tions, disclosing the jagged edges of its tinsel substitute,
and the orchestra plays
" When the wind blow-owes "
on a fine tooth comb. Some difficulty was experienced at
first in getting the performers to move easily in the slats,
and as many of them came on sideways, they had to ske
daddle back again in the same fashion when the dialogue
was over. Count Frederick Friberg having his left arm
under a blue fly a short hussar cloak, with the elbow
sticking out like a derrick had to elbow his way on the
stage, and when he retired the last thing seen of him was
his elbow and the angle of the blue fly. But the play was
a great success. It took three mortal hours to perform it,
and I was never tired of the performance. It was rather
too much though for two maiden aunts and one maiden
uncle who came one evening to spend a quiet hour. I
peeped over the top of the theatre from time to time to see
how they were enjoying it, and I beheld the three. They
looked like the three Fates.
But I had one audience that never tired. Four little
tin lamps served as footlights they were not bigger than
a silver quarter of a dollar in circumference, and about an
inch thick. No lights were allowed elsewhere in the room,
and they sufficed for all the stage business.
Night after night, a little girl's face, the lower part in
shadow, the upper in full light of the lamps, was intently
watching the performance. Shall I ever forget those large,
tender, brown eyes, that thoughtful brow, those clustering
curls, and those patient hands clasped in her lap ?
220 MY FIRST DRAMA.
She used to sit in a high chair, so that the light from the
stage, thrown upward upon features that were wonderfully
harmonious, enhanced every dimple, and brought forth in
strong relief the exquisite tenderness of expression Avith
which her face was illuminated. Shall I ever cease to re
member Adelaide M , my only audience ?
To be sure, sometimes the audience interrupted the
stage business thus :
AUDIENCE. " Who's that ? who's that ? who's
that?"
STAGE-MANAGER. " This is Ravina."
AUDIENCE. " Who is she ? "
STAGE-MANAGER. " She is the wife of the chief rob
ber."
(STAGE-MANAGER, as Ravina) : " Pity me ! I am, in
deed, an objic of compassion. Seven long years a captive,
hopeless still of li-iber-rty. Habit has almost made my heart
as these r-rude r-rocks that scr-r-reen me from the light of
heaven ! Miserable, lost R-ravina ! By dire necessity
become an agent of their wickedness, yet born for virtue
and for freedom ! "
AUDIENCE. " What is she saying ? "
A small white head reappears over the top of the
theatre :
" Adelaide, if you don't pay more attention to what Ra
vina is saying, I'll just let down the curtain, and you sha'n't
see the mill blow up."
The great success of " The Miller and his Men " led me
to dramatize a story then just published, called " Karl
Blewen ; or, The Tall Mariner of the Maelstrom." It' is
MY FIRST DRAMA. 221
astonishing how fond all boys are of stage heroes with
the name of Karl. The tall mariner, however, was a very
wicked fellow, and the piece ends with the wretch, when
at the very height of his villainy, being sucked down into
the depths of the maelstrom.
Now, the whirlwind that I made to do Mr. Karl's final
business was as big as a saucer, made of paper in wreaths
and frills all around the central tube, down which the male
factor was to be drawn. The waves were concentric, and
painted like waves, green, with white spray, and the
whole revolved around a wire crank under the stage. Of
course, as whirlpools suck everything down through the
centre by simply revolving, I supposed all that had to be
done was to drop Mr. Blewen into the midst of the vortex,
whirl him round rapidly, and down he would go. But,
unfortunately, on the first and only night of the play, the
chief performer, instead of being whirled down in the hole,
was whirled out of the whirlpool, and out beyond the foot
lights. He was picked up and placed in the maelstrom,
but he would not " down." Every time he was whirled,
he would whirl out instead of in. So from that time, nei
ther Adelaide nor I believed in maelstroms. Any one
who had witnessed the scenic performance would come
away satisfied that the centrifugal tendency of a whirlpool
is just the opposite of what it is supposed to be.
O ! pensive brown eyes, why do ye still seem to shine
jpon me out of the deeps of shadow, made visible by those
stage-lamps? Are those the spiritual eyes of Adelaide,
that, after so many, many years, still appear bending over
her page as vividly, as gentle, and as patient as they did in
222 MY FIRST DRAMA.
years past and gone ? I know that I once stood by a little
girl's dying bed, and saw the breast heave with the flicker
ing life. I know that I once followed my only audience
to her little grave in the old church-yard. I know that
years afterward I took down from the attic the dusty frame
of what had been a little theatre. The mice had made
away with scenery and performers ; even the maelstrom
had gone piecemeal, devoured by the ruthless teeth of
Time. The weather stains of many, many years are on
the gravestone of little Adelaide, but how is it that as I
write now, I feel all the tender affection of a pure boy
often toward his first, his dear, his child-sweetheart ?
XXVIII.
antr
wind had steadily blown from the northeast, m
the most spiteful manner, for three days : every-
thing was dripping ; outside of the house, a cold,
cheerless prospect, from the window, of gray sky, wet and
leafless trees, and lank evergreens, or of the filtering mois
ture soaking through the roots of the lawn-grass, or run
ning in little woe-begone rivulets down the carriage-road.
The clothes-lines, so tense from the moisture that they
never could be unfastened and coiled away, were obsti
nately bent upon trying to uproot the posts to which they
were tied in the knottiest of knots, that set both finger
nails and teeth at defiance. It seemed as if one would like
to go out and thrum a miserable ditty upon them of some
one tb*t had been hanged, if for no other purpose than in
sheer spite, to shake off the thousand drops that hung pen
dent from the zigzag lines. Everything was reeking :
the wheelbarrow was drizzly ; the celery-trenches were
half filled with yellow water ; the windows on the side of
the barn facing the storm were shut in ; and, on the top
of the barn, the wooden weathercock (which, by the way,
was a fish) pointed due due due N. E. !
We could see it from the dining-room window. Every
224 WIVES AND WEATHERCOCKS.
day we looked at it, and there it was, with its forked tail
obstinately turned to the S. W. Ah ! as we watched that
weather-fish, didn't we keep Lent !
The house itself, which is a clever little bit of comfort
able architecture in almost all weathers, began to grow
uncomfortable inside. The fire did not seem to be as
cheerful as usual. Talk of contrasts of the cold, howl
ing storm without, and the bright warm fire within of
the inclemency of nature on the outside of the door, and
the blessed, hospitable welcome on the cozy inside !
Those ideas are only rhetorical contrasts, not real ! Sup
pose you have ever so warm a fire inside, and happen to
look out of your dining-room window, and there, on your
barn, is a weather-fish, with its tail steadily pointing S.
W., and its head in the opposite direction, will all the
cozy fires in the world bring happiness to your despairing
bosom ? And suppose the day was Wednesday, and you
had invited that dear, old, bookish prig, Bulgrum, and his
wife, Mrs. Bulgrum who is also your wife's dearest friend
and the three little Bulgrums, all girls, to dine with
you, and partake of a plain country dinner ; and you had
provided a Bucks' county turkey, with celery, to say
nothing of everything else a plain soup, for instance, to
begin with, with green peas ; and an oyster pdt, to help
your appetite ; cauliflower, as big as a bride's bouquet, a
present from the president of a horticultural society; a
baked ham, with Champagne sauce, to flank the turkey,
and a bit of Kennebec salmon for the fish ; and as you
think of the fish, your visual orb reaches through the glass
window to that other fish on the barn ; and there he is,
WIVES AND WEATHERCOCKS. 225
with his pertinacious phiz pointing forever N. E. ! N.
E. ! N. E. !
I would not have minded it so much if Bulgrum, who is
O *
a careful man about keeping his engagements, had not
said : " Now mind you, we'll come if it don't rain ! " And
not only this, but my wife, who is rather particular in her*
culinary skill, and begins to prepare for a dinner a day be
forehand, said to me on Wednesday morning, with a face
full of falling weather : " If they don't come, nothing will
keep."
Now, although Bulgrum, over his wine and cigar, is one
of the most delightful companions a perfect scholar and
accomplished gentleman, a sort of admirable Crichton, in
fact a man who will talk, not like a book, but like a li
brary of books, and then also talk wonderfully of new things
never recorded in books ; and his wife, Mrs. Bulgrum, is
one of the most charming, sensible, pretty, and discreet of
little women as good as she is wise, and as tasteful as
she is good-humored and witty ; and the little girls of the
name of Bulgrum, who are a little like father and a good
deal like mother ; and we felt how much we all would have
enjoyed their visit to us for I would have absorbed Bul
grum ; my wife would have been knee-to-knee, the whole
evening, with Mrs. Bulgrum ; and our daughters would
have taken the three young Bulgrums into their play-room,
among their dolls' play-houses, and such a happy time as
we would have had but for that weather-fish !
One being I could make happy. If I could not conjure
np our visitors, I could, at least, bring a happy smile to the
face of my better half. I determined to do it. She had
15
226 WIVES AND WEATHERCOCKS.
been all the morning in the kitchen not grumbling ex
actly, but smothering her grief by making pies and tarts,
and attending to the preparation of the dinner generally.
For she said, if it cleared off in the afternoon, they Avould
come in the four-o'clock train ; and so, Avith her hands full
of flour, every little while she would give a sorrowful
glance through the wet kitchen-windows toward the fish
on the top of the barn. Meantime, I was busy with a
treatise on Proverbs, in the library, in which I found many
srumbs of comfort ; and, among the rest, that " No good
norse is of a bad color," and that " It is an ill wind that
blows nobody good," and that " The darkest hour is first be
fore day," and so on ; when I heard my wife's footstep on
the stairs, and I knew she was going up into the spare-room
closet, after the old grandmother coffee-set, which never
appeared except for company. Now was the time for me !
I speedily put myself inside of a pair of mouldy boots
that had grown blue Avith the damp Aveather, and, slipping
on a kind of a split pea-jacket, hurried off to the barn,
armed Avith a common gimlet. In the roof of the barn
was a first-class scuttle ; and, climbing a ladder, I squeezed
through the hole, and Avas soon in possession of the head
strong, obstinate, dogged Aveathercock-fish, which stood sen
tinel on the summit of a little iron rod nailed by a croAvfoot
to the apex of the roof. But I must explain the mechanism
of a Aveathercock. You take Avhatever animal you please
for a model, and carve out his image from a shingle or
other bit of soft Avood. Then you bore a hole underneath
and in the exact centre of him ; or, if you haven't a gim
let, you can heat the end of the kitchen-poker and burn
WIVES AND WEATHERCOCKS. 227
i
out a socket about two inches deep, and a quarter of an
incli in diameter. If your poker is too large, get the vil
lage blacksmith to alter it for you. When your weather
cock is all ready, just put up somewhere on the roof of
your barn an upright wire that will fit the socket, upon
which you can slip your vane, and try it. When the wind
comes, if you have balanced him exactly upon his centre,
you will find that he will point, head or tail, the way of the
wind, just as it happens. So you will have to take him off
again, and make the pivotal aperture a little on one side of
the centre, nearer the head or tail, and you will find that
the longest part of the pointer will always be turned to the
quarter of the heavens opposite to that from which the wind
comes. The fact is, that the true philosophy of the con
duct of a weathercock is not to show which way the wind
is going, but which way the current of wind has gone. In
this respect, it resembles the teachings of experience.
Now, all I had to do with our weathercock was to bore a
hole a couple of inches abaft the centre, so as to make the
head-part longest and heaviest, and then the tail would
point to the northeast and the head to the southwest. I
did so, set him on his pivot again, scrambled down the lad
der, and as soon as possible got to the house without dis
covery.
By and by my wife came down -stairs with a basketful
of coffee-cups. I could hear her in the dining-room busy
with them, putting them to rights on the beaufet. Just
then, as if to add a little to the delusion, the rain held up
for a brief interval. And then I heard her ! she was com
ing ! she broke into my room in a storm of joy, seized me
228 WIVES AND WEATHERCOCKS.
by the arm, and, drawing me into the dining-room, pointed
through the moist window at the faithless monitor on the
roof, and, witli her eves beaming with delight, said : " The
wind has shifted ! O ! " she continued, " I had a pre
sentiment they would come after all. It is only one o'clock
now, and plenty of time for them to get off! " Although
it rained nearly all that blessed afternoon, my wife was
happy whenever the weathercock met her eye. It was the
signal of hope, of blue sky and balmy breezes. And soon,
when train after train had passed, and we sat down to
dinner, with five empty chairs instead of guests, and I told
the truth about the weathercock, yet was my wife no less
pleased. " Since you did it to please me," she said, " I
have no fault to find with that deceitful weathercock." So
we all had a happy dinner, and drank the health of the
Bulgrums ; and I fumigated the library with a fragrant
cigar afterward, and arrived at the sage conclusion that if
husbands would only try to please their wives a little, and
not have their weathercocks always pointing northeast,
that there would be more happy households in the world
and cheerful firesides, in spite of outside rain-storms.
XXIX.
Jhrtriau Summer
IPj the woods begin to change, and nature, like
1 the dying dolphin, puts on its richest hues, and
the sunsets are gorgeous, and the smokelike vapor
begins to gather on lake and watercourses, and cicada have
hushed their evening orchestra, and the bullfrogs have
ceased to pipe, and you sometimes see, at early dawn, hoar
frost on the meadow that is Indian Summer !
Or later, when the dried leaves, slowly winding down
from branch to earth, strip the forlorn tree, and the brown
and sturdy oak rustles bravely with its rusty foliage ; and
the green grass is strewn with the pointed tawny leaves of
the chestnut, and the highway roads grow crisp, and echo
to the wheels of vehicles, and the sky and river seem as if
they never could be so blue, and a thin haze hangs in the
air then we know that it is Indian Summer !
Or later when the trees are all stripped, and their
skeletons stand motionless in the still air, and the open
chestnut burs still rerc ^in upon the ground ; when all the
leaves have been blown into heaps or ridges, and wreaths
of smoke begin to curl up from rural chimneys, and all the
birds but unusual flocks of sparrows have flown, and the
nights are cool with frosty stars, and the days humid and
hazv then that is the Indian Summer !
230 INDIAN SUMMER WHEN ?
Or later when the grass itself begins to grow gray,
and the clouds grow ashy and threatening, and the river
looks cold and ghastly, and the roads are in flinty ridges,
and a flurry of snow has scared away the sparrows, and
coal and kindling-wood advance in price, and butchers grow
rosy, and meat is exorbitant, and poultry is firm in price,
and everybody says this is the first touch of winter ; and,
suddenly, the clouds break, and the yellow sun comes out
like a bridegroom rejoicing, and warms up again the dull
earth and the hearts of men ; and the blue vapor is seen
again in the heart of the shadowy woods. Then, every
body says, this is the Indian Summer I
Or later when December has arrived, and we begin
to overhaul the furry robes of the stable, and horses have
to be carefully blanketed when they cease to trot, and
men find now what overcoats were made for, and children
understand how kind was grandmother's forethought when
she knitted the mittens and the wind howls, and the
snow flies, and the rain and sleet becomes blinding, and
the lightning ceases to flash, and the thunder to explode in
the sky, and then warm and humid weather reappears,
and the mist rises, and, enveloping with its magic veil
river, cliffs, woods, and plain, so that imagination tricks up
the barren landscape with herbage, flower, and foliage, and
we see in the flushing clouds the roseate hues of gardens,
and once more the misty plains seem tempting to the tooth
of grazing animals, and the foggy woods appear to be re
loaded with foliage, and the bright squirrel comes from his
hiding-place, and now and then a solitary wasp crawls on
the window-plane, and we begin to think we have been
INDIAN SUMMEK WHEN ? 231
premature with blankets, and we sit by open windows, and
let the fire in the house-furnace fret itself to ashes, and we
begin to anticipate the mildest of winters, then everybody
says that is the Indian Summer !
When, then, is Indian Summer ? Is it in the full change
77 O
of the green leaf to the infinite hues of October ? Is it in .
the November month,
" Ere o'er the frozen earth the loud winds run,
Or snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare,"
that it comes, like a plumed and painted warrior ; or is it
far beyond this period, even in the bleak December, that
this most poetical of seasons appears, with magic touch, to
spread a halo over ur American landscapes ? Is it not a
blessed thing one to subdue the heart with love and
gratitude that we have not one Indian Summer alone,
but many ; that, during the dreary months, this beautiful
vision comes and goes, and reappears and vanishes, not
like the hectic flush of decaying life, but anticipating, as
it were, the rosy days of future summers ? Is it not a
delightful source of happiness to know that, even amid the
cold and tempestuous future, some days will be bright and
brief seasons of themselves not singly, but followed by
many other days of gorgeous beauty a succession, as it
were, of Indian summers ? It is an error to suppose that
the colored foliage is the work of frost or decay. I have
seen the leaves turn, at the appointed season, when not a
crystal of frost has touched a blade of grass when the
days and nights were warm as many in midsummer. It
is because the time has come for the ripening of the leaf,
232 INDIAN SUMMER WHEN ?
as it has come for the ripening of the cheek of a Flemish
beauty, or a Duchesse D'Angouleme.
Thank the Creator of all seasons that we have dozens
of Indian summers between October and January.
But do not look for them after the last day of Decem
ber. After Christmas, comes the New Year, and no more
summers. But it is still a season of hope. In January,
when the sun gets stronger, and the days grow longer,
then we begin to look for Spring ! for the early crocus
blooming amid the snow for the "resurrection of the
earth " for the tiny bluebird building its hopeful nest
for the ploughed mould and fructifying showers. Such,
even, is human life. Many a heart grows prematurely
wintry, desolate, and cold, while others, in advanced age,
carry with them a sort of frost-bitten bloom, and live and
bask in an atmosphere of Indian summers.
XXX.
Ha
the city of Paris there is a street that runs parallel
with the Louvre, the garden of the Tuileries, and
the Champs Elyse'es (or Elysian Fields), just one
block apart from them, and called by the name of Rue St.
Honore*. It was one bright and beautiful morning that I
walked up this street with a friend of mine, who then
resided in this famous city. " You will see," said he, " a
great deal that is vile and wicked in Paris, if you take the
trouble to look for it ; but you will also find a great deal
that is good, noble, and benevolent, if you will take the
same trouble ; although I must say that foreign visitors do
not care much to find out what is really good and worthy
of visiting here, preferring instead to indulge their curiosity
in other and less reputable objects." So saying, he led
me through a door up one flight of stairs into a spacious
room, that at once filled me with surprise and delight.
For standing endwise against the walls of the room, on
every side, were beautiful little swinging cradles, nearly
all of light iron-work, and painted of various colors
blue, green, white, and gold, and other gay tints, with tiny
white sheets, blankets, and pillows, and nestled amid the
soft, warm coverings was such a multitude of rosy faces,
234 LA CRECHE.
nearly all of them fast asleep, that what with the bright
day shining through the tall windows, and the bright
cradles, and the exquisitely clean room, and the little
heads and closed eyelids, and rosy cheeks and lips of this
baby congregation around, one could scarcely be unmoved,
even if he were an American, and his own little ones were
no nearer to him than three thousand miles beyond the
salt sea !
Nor was the surprise of seeing so many swinging
cradles at all diminished by reading the illustrious names
attached to them ; for every one had a plate or card, upon
which was engraved or inscribed the name of some juve
nile of illustrious birth : for instance, the one on my right,
as I entered, bore the name of the young Prince Imperial,
and others, on every side, exhibiting some title of nobility
belonging to the tender morning glories of the Empire.
"So, then," said I, "here lies the flower of the young
noblesse of France ! " Here are the infant emperors,
princes, dukes, marquises, and counts of the Napoleonic
dynasty. Alas ! where are the young Bourbons, the
Orleans, the Montpensiers, the Joinvilles, the Moni-
morencies ? By my faith, the children of people of rank
are always beautiful ; there is a something so distinguished-
looking in their countenances, even when asleep, that you
at once recognize the difference between them and the
O
children of ordinary people !
A few of the youthful dukes and princes were wide
awake, and sitting bolt upright in their cribs, while quite
a rosy ring of urchins were seated on the clean wax floor,
all with round, shining eyes, and little black heads, and
LA CRECHE. 235
blooming cheeks ; but, to my surprise, not among them
all was a note of complaint uttered, a cry of pain, an ex
clamation of fretfulness. All looked happy, clean, and
content. But it seemed to me they were awfully serious
staring at us with haughty looks, as if impressed'with
the dignity of their positions in life.
A couple of bright, apple-faced nuns of the Order of
St. The"rese, clad in yellow stuff gown, with keys, rosaries,
scissors, pincushions, or other useful articles, hanging from
their girdles, were bustling about among the callous com
munity, as full of goodness and mirth and cheerful conver
sation, as if they had been veritable mothers themselves.
The whole establishment, one of them said, was under
the immediate protection of the Empress, as well as
seventeen other creches in the city. They were benevo
lent institutions, where poor mothers could deposit their
babies in the morning, before going to their daily work,
returning to nurse them at proper hours, and then to take
them home in the evening. When they are brought to
La Creche in the morning, they are washed, dressed, fed,
and attended to during the whole dav, medical attendance
/ '
provided, if necessary, for all of which the mother pays
only two sous (or two cents). This institution takes
charge of sixty children a day, none of which, I believe,
are over two years of age. The swing-cradles are the
gifts of benevolent ladies, many of them of high rank,
and are given in the name of their own little ones. " See
here,'' she said, pointing to the first one that attracted my
attention, u a cradle from the Empress herself! "
So, then, these are not children of noble blood, but only
236 LA CRECHE.
foundlings of washerwomen and seamstresses. I thought
from the first they all had a sort of plebeian look I " Par
don me, monsieur," said Sister Agathe, " these are not
foundlings. Their mothers are very poor ; but they may
be very respectable. And when they take their infants
away at night, ah ! monsieur should see how happy the,
poor mothers are to get them back once more hugging
them as if they never, never wanted to part with them
again ! "
It was a beautiful thought to give these institutions the
name they bear ; for La Creche signifies " a manger," and
at once brings to mind the heavenly manger in which the
young Saviour himself a child of the poor was care
fully laid by his virgin mother.
Such institutions as La Creche do not foster crime ; but
they may be the means of preventing hundreds of thou
sands of cases of infanticide ; they may prevent many
cases of suicide ; they may even bind fathers and mothers
together by stronger ties than those which are too often
separated by misery and hepelessness. Little children
soon grow large enough to take care of themselves, ana
even to add to the support of a family. But while they
are infants, and helpless, and poor, and friendless, protect
them for a little while, O ye benevolent !
I turned from La Creche with a happy heart, to think
that even in this vast and vicious city the little ones were
not altogether unprovided for ; that even in the midst of
toil and privation, Parisian mothers could look forward to
the rising of the morning's sun with hope and gratitude ;
and as I then thought of my own country, a cloud dark-
LA CRECHE. 237
encd my spirit, and I said : " Would to God we had a
day-by-day asylum, such as this, in the midst of our popu
lous and thriving cities ! If we had, how many a poor
mother's heart would be lightened over her daily work,
and how many a rich woman's heart would feel glorified
in ministering to such a charity ! Surely there are plenty
of benevolent ladies who would contribute a cradle a-piece !
Surely there are plenty of benevolent gentlemen who
would gladly lend their aid to support such a building ;
the expense of nurses would not be much indeed, how
many poor women would be too happy to embrace such a
situation ? And then to think of the good it might do ;
of the crimes it might prevent !
XXXI.
N artist friend of mine, who was engaged in the
composition of a large picture, representing a
gypsy camp, told me that he had travelled in
America some hundreds of miles in search of these singu
lar people, who, it seems, have at last crossed the Atlantic
and now form a new element in our heterogeneous popu
lation. But, like Evangeline, he never found more than
the place where they had been. Gypsies are a wandering
race, and have an instinct of moving from place to place
probably a little quickened by a wholesome fear of the
town constable. The artist also informed me that, at
present, gypsies are becoming quite numerous here, and
that already there are two kings of the gypsies controlling
two branches of this vagabond race in this country. I
ventured to suggest that this idea of their being numerous
was probably owing to the fact that they wandered about,
and so were counted several times over, like the Irish
man's flea. However, be it as it may, he never found his
encampment ; and began his sketch from recollections of
those he had seen so many times in Europe.
It was during one of the loveliest days in our Indian
Summer that I had occasion to ride across Westchester
GYPSIES. 239
County, to see a gentleman upon business. The leaves
had not yet wholly deserted the trees, but the branches
were becoming visible on them. A profusion of the most
brilliant hues met the eye at every turn. Every leaf
twinkled like a colored jewel in the sunlight; and the
peculiar blue haze of vapor that rolls up from the moist
earth, hung like a silvery veil over the distant landscape,
and added its contrasting charms to the rich colors of the
foreground. At last the waters of the Sound appeared in
the distance, and I had reached the end of my journey.
Passing the gate-lodge to an extensive domain, I rode
through a natural wood of huge oaks and maples, magnifi
cent in gorgeous colors, until I came to a turn in the road
occasioned by a sharp, edgy granite rock that intruded
itself directly in the way at this point ; and, turning this
huge obstacle, I came in view of something that filled me
with surprise and delight. It was ft gypsy camp.
As I had not time to examine it - and, indeed, it
seemed to be entirely deserted I rode onward rapidly,
to finish the object of my journey first, determining to pay
it a visit on my return. On my arrival, I found the ladies
of the mansion-house not a little excited about their
strange visitors. They only wanted to pluck up a little
courage, and then they would go to-morrow and investi
gate the mysteries of palmistry, although there was some
little financial difficulty in the way; for in order to insure
good luck, you know, you must first cross the gypsy's palm
with a silver sixpence, and, alas ! where was a silver
sixpence to be found ?
As I rode homeward I had occasion to observe that my
240 GYPSIES.
friend's domains were, in some places, more extensive than
valuable. The rising grounds were covered with gigantic
forest trees, through which the road wound in beautiful
undulations, bringing into view picturesque glimpses of
nature, seemingly as if the owner had made all the studies
fcrr effect peculiar to an English park. After threading a
mile or more of this forest landscape, the road opened upon
extensive salt marshes, perfectly level, and extending out
to the waters of the Sound and the horizon line. The
sun, now sinking in the west, appeared like a vast bonfire,
amidst glowing clouds, and its ruddy light flushed the sur
face of the meadows, illuminating every pool and winding
water creek, with gleams of crimson flame. Another turn
in the road, and passing through a clump of trees, I rode
into the camp. It was pitched on the inside of the huge
gray rock I spoke of, over which hung a few scattered
maples in all the glory of foliage peculiar to the Indian
Summer. The vast marshes, spreading out to the horizon
line^ added repose and solitude to the scene. On the side
opposite the rock) and beyond the tent, a struggling array
of leafless bushes were arrayed with a great variety of old
frippery, and portions of children's dresses hung out to dry
a perfect harlequinade of brilliant colors ; and near the
tent a group of children in motley, with a couple of gypsy
women seated on the ground, dressed with that peculiar
taste for picturesque costume for which the race has been
so often noted, formed a composition which no beholder
with the least emotion for art could look at without feeling
an exquisite sense of pleasure.
They were English gypsies ; the women with the pecul-
GYPSIES. 241
iar charm of complexion of the race, clear olive, with a
blush of red in the cheeks ; fine forms, but slender and
diminutive ; fine features, bright black eyes, and teeth
which might have been white but for the tobacco pipe.
Like the Jews, the gypsies are a race, but not a nation.
But while the Jews usually have fixed abodes, these are
the true apostles of the ancient and honorable fraternity
of vagabonds. By profession they are tinkers, farriers,
poachers, mountebanks, fortune-tellers, beggars, thieves,
and sometimes worse.
To no people does the term outcast so properly belong.
Formerly it was supposed they came from " Egypt," and
hence the name they bore ; but in the secret language of
the gypsy tribes, no word of Coptic is to be found, while
many of Hisdostanee, or even Sanscrit, can be traced,
showing clearly their Asiatic origin. And here they are,
thrown by the wave of over-populous Europe upon this
western hemisphere. A people who have lived under all
forms of government, and yet subject to their own laws ;
under all religions, yet preserving only some relics of
Asiatic superstitions ; amidst all languages, yet speaking
among themselves the language of the East ; ignorant of
dictionaries and vocabularies, yet teaching this mysterious
tongue, until it has become the thieves' language all over
the world. No laws can restrain them, no benevolence
reclaim 'them, no temptation of wealth and ease can induce
them to adopt a fixed residence, but ever to wander is
their lot. Living in the midst of nations of mixed races
which have become homogeneous by intermarriage, these
singular people preserve the pure blood of the Hindoo for
16
242 GYPSIES
thousands of generations, and with it an instinctive habit
of laziness, of trickery, of voluptuousness. Strange peo
ple ! What effect will America, that great amalgam of
strange peoples, have upon you ? Will you too, gypsies !
become Americans and fight for the old flag ? Never !
As there are fixed and wandering stars in the heavens,
so will there be fixed and wandering tribes on the earth,
for all time !
XXXII.
Pribate
fAM a medical man by profession, and a quack in
practice. Now understand me. I am a regular
practitioner college-bred studied with old Dr.
Trichianosis, got a diploma from the College of Physicians
and Surgeons, and am empowered legally to do what I
please with my patients " patients on a monument "
(Shakespeare), or under one ? he ! he ! and so far am reg
ular. But the quackery lies in the way I practice. To tell
you the truth, I am by nature a humorist, and would dote
upon a joke, within the limits of becoming mirth ; but I
dare not do it. It would ruin my practice ; I should lose
all my patients, that is to say, I should lose all of them,
whereas now I only lose some of them ; so I have schooled
myself to a degree of seriousness that is as good as a for
tune to me. Here is where I applaud myself for being a
quack. I believe I could even stand by the bedside of old
Dr. Phineas B. Mumps, my rival, and see him depart,
without a smile on my lips, although I know the old rascal
has been trying to get my patients away all his life, and I
know also that I would have my pick of his as soon as the
breath \vas out of his body. But if I show no outward
and visible signs of the mirth that rages within me, I suf-
244 PRIVATE THEATRICALS.
fer a great deal from congestion of the jocose membranes.
That is a complaint not in the books, but it ought to be.
One very cold winter the poor became so alarmingly
numerous in our village that the price of bread and coal
nearly doubled in value. The consequence was that the
Ladies' United Tatting and Crochet Association for the
Amelioration of the Condition of the Meritorious Poor
held a meeting, and it was determined to give an Enter
tainment at the village hall for the benefit of the unfor
tunate. But what kind of an entertainment ? Never had
anything in our slow and sleepy village been seen beyond
lectures and negro minstrels ; and so when the proposition
was made " to have an amateur theatrical entertainment,"
some of the elderly female officers of the meeting nearly
fainted away. The proposition was at once indignantly
voted down, but the thought had taken root, and it was not
long before it developed itself outside of the Society. Those
members who had the rosiest cheeks and the brightest eyes
and the softest curls would persist in asking serious people
like myself, for instance, and the clergy of the different
denominations whether there really was any harm in the
performance, if the play had no swearing in it, and the
funds collected were for a good object. The answers be
ing perfectly satisfactory, you should have seen how the
contagion spread ! Finally it was arranged that there
should be an amateur performance ; that the word " dra
matic " should be suppressed, out of regard to the tender
consciences of several families who would not attend if it
was called by that name, but who would subscribe for
tickets if it were simply an " entertainment." The busi-
PRIVATE THEATRICALS. 245
ness of preparation was placed in the hands of a committee
of gentlemen, and the time of performance fixed at two
weeks from date by the ladies of the Society with a re
quest that the play should be " Hamlet." The committee
had but little to do in two weeks. They had only to cast the
piece so as to allot proper persons to the different characters ;
the performers had to study their parts, rehearse, and get
ready their costumes ; the stage manager had to provide
all the scenery; and as the rural stage had no conven
iences, carpenters were to be suborned to supply the neces
sary slides, grooves, gear, and tackle ; the property-man
was enjoined to get foils and bowls of poison, skulls and
spades for the grave-diggers, and everything so that noth
ing should be wanting to prevent our having a lively time
of it.
O, how I wanted to play Polonius ! I knew the part
by heart, but it would ruin me in my professional practice
if I ever ventured to reveal that I had a mind acute
enough to discern the points of that wonderful character.
However, the play of " Hamlet " had to be given up.
When the committee requested the gentlemen, at a subse
quent meeting, to write down their names on a slip of
paper, with the characters they would be willing to assume
in this celebrated tragedy, they found in the hat nine names
for Hamlet, and not one for anything else, all owing to
the influence of Edwin Booth no doubt. Then in regard
to the carpenter he wanted a month at least to prepare
his fixtures. As for the scenery, that had not been ordered
yet. Some of the ladies suggested that we might go to
the New York theatres and borrow some old scenery that
246 PRIVATE THEATRICALS.
they did not want to use. But that was objected to upon
the ground that as regular stage scenery was usually thirty,
forty, or even fifty feet high, and as our amateur stage had
a clear head-room of only twelve feet, we could not stand
up the borrowed scenes even if we had them. Upon which
hey proposed to play " Hamlet " without scenery. On
consideration it was found this proposition would not an
swer. So after due deliberation it was determined to aban
don " Hamlet," and to play the " Dead Shot," with
" Bombastes Furioso " as the after-piece. Six weeks were
allowed for the preparation of even these slight pieces, but
then we had nothing ready, and had to get everything
made.
The Figaro of the whole affair was Mr. Lempriere, the
young banker. Under his active management the prepara
tions were all completed in due time. It invariably hap
pens in amateur performances that something is forgotten
which spoils the whole play. Mr. Lempriere forgot noth
ing. He had the scenery painted and the carpenter's work
completed ; he had the broken china and pistols for the
Dead Shot ; the dash of red paint for the supposed death-
ivound ; the punch-bowl, ladle, pipes, tobacco, foils, and
boots for Bombastes everything, in fact, provided, so
that the actors had nothing to do but to learn their parts.
Then they were drilled by book R. H. U. E. and C. and
exit L. H., and all the choruses were rehearsed on various
pianos in our suburban village ; and nothing was wanting.
I say nothing was wanting I am mistaken one per
former was wanting. Every other character in the farce
and the burlesque was beautifully filled except the part
PRIVATE THEATRICALS. 247
of the tall grenadier in the army of Bombastes. No one
could be found to take that part. How I wanted to do it T
I was fitted for the character, being six feet two inches
7 o
high. As the time rolled on toward the opening night,
and no one volunteered, my fingers' ends thrilled with the
pent-up desire within me. Nobody thought of asking me
to play the part the gravest man in Goose Common I
So I began to fish for an invitation. I called upon Figaro.
" Sir," said I, in my professional voice, "I see no harm in
this proposed entertainment, if conducted, as it will be,
with a due regard to decorum and public opinion. In fact,
I do not think, grave and serious as is my nature, that
I would hesitate even to take a part in it myself, provided
I had no study to perplex me, and that I could be so dis
guised that no one would know me, for in all benevolent
enterprises for the benefit of the poor I am ready to lend
a helping hand, both professionally and otherwise." There
was but one prominent thought in the mind of Figaro, and
that was how to get some one to play the tall grenadier.
So after hopping about in a very ridiculous manner, snap
ping his fingers, and surveying my tall thin form with evi
dent satisfaction, he said, in a whisper, " Suppose there
was just such a character, would you undertake it?"
" Ah, my friend," said I, gravely, " do not ask me ; I
would not participate in a stage dialogue for the world."
" But," responded Figaro, " if I could find a part in which
you would not have a word to say ; and the make-up would
so effectually disguise you that your own wife would not
know you, would you just for this once be willing to
undertake it for the sake of helping a benevolent enter
prise ? "
248 PRIVATE THEATRICALS.
" If there were such a part, and nobody else could be
had to fill it, I might promise to do it, for the sake of hu
man i ty ! "
" Then," said he, taking out his tablets, " you are
booked for the tall soldier in the army of Bombastes.
Here's the play ; study your part ; no rehearsal needed ;
I'll tell nobody, you'll tell nobody
" ' Nobody, nobody, nobody, no ! '
and nobody will be the wiser," and he went on reciting his
part
"' Loved Distaffina! Now, by my scars I vow,
Scars got I haven't time to tell you how;
By all the risks my fearless heart hath run, :
Risks of all shapes, from bludgeon, sword, and gun,
Steel-traps, the patrol, bailiff shrewd and dun;
By the great bunch of laurels on my brow,
Ne'er did thy charms exceed their present glow ! ' "
But I had to interrupt him and take my leave.
Doctor Seneca booked for the big soldier in " Bombastes
Furioso ! " How completely I'll disguise myself, and how
I'll astonish them wife and all ! Lempriere is a banker,
and knows how to keep a secret ; how I'll roll mine like a
rich morsel under the tongue ! Nobody shall ever know
who played the part of the tall soldier, and I will play it so
they will all want to know ; and won't I hear of it when I
visit my patients next morning ! Let me see what the text
says :
" R. Enter Bombastes, attended by one drummer, one fifer, and two soldiers,
all very materially differing in size."
I do not know how the others will appear ; but I shall
very materially differ in size from three of them.
PRIVATE THEATRICALS. 249
That very night I began to prepare. I could not have
had a more favorable opportunity. My wife had gone to
the United Tatting and Crochet Association, as it was the
regular night ; my man, Dutch Joe, drove her there in the
family chariot, which consisted of one horse and a vehicle
that, for want of a better name, I had christened the Riff-
3 7 O
marole. That I might not be disturbed, I went down in
the kitchen to tell the girls they need not attend to the
office grate, as I would see to it myself; that they might
bring up a pitcher of cold water; and if they wished to
visit the neighbors' girls, they might go for a couple of
hours, which favor they did not refuse. So, going up to
my office again, I sat down and smilingly began to think
over affairs. In the first place, I must have a heavy black
mustache and beard ; they could easily be procured in the
city. But then my nose was long, straight, and thin a
peculiar nose. What was I to do with it ? Over a black
mustache and beard it would be more conspicuously noted
perhaps recognized at once. There was not another
nose like it in Goose Common. Couldn't the tip be turned
up with a thread running behind my ears so as to make a
snub of it ? I tried it, and it was capital in effect ; but
the sharp-edged thread was highly irritating to the pugna
cious organ. That wouldn't do. Could I enlarge my
nostrils by stuffing them full of cotton ? I tried this ; but
nature always ready with contiivances of her own to rid
herself of incumbrances came to the rescue with such
a tremendous sneeze, as I was packing the cotton into its
place, that it blew both plugs out and across the room. So
that had to be abandoned.
250 PRIVATE THEATRICALS.
At last an idea struck me as feasible. We had plenty
of garden seeds in Dutch Joe's room, and among the rest
a quantity of dried Lima beans. I would get a couple of
these beans, glue them fast with Spaulding's patent glue
to the outside of my " nosterils," as Chaucer calls them ;
and as a Lima bean is precisely the shape of a large nostril,
they would do admirably. Then over them I would lay a
piece of wet, diaphanous isinglass plaster, which would
adhere so closely to the bridge and beans of the recon
structed organ that all would appear as one ; and then I"
would paint all up to look as showy as possible. My wife
would not be home for two hours ; I had no professional
calls to make ; all was quiet indoors ; and it does not take
long to glue two beans to your nose, cover them with a wet
plaster, and wait until it dries, while you are getting the
carmine paint ready.
Howbeit the white shiny Limas shone through the thin,
skin-colored plaster like white blisters or, to speak pro
fessionally, like a couple of cysts provided with plentiful
supplies of pus.
While the plaster was gradually drying I fashioned a
comic eyebrow with burned cork over my left eye ; but
the first one being a failure I was trying another one higher
up, and had partly finished number two when I heard the
door-bell ring. As I supposed the hired girl would attend
the door I paid no attention to it, but the ringing continu
ing, the thought flashed across my mind that both the girls
had gone out. So I thought I would peel my nose and
take off the accoutrements before I opened the door. But
the plaster was dried hard ; and as the bell kept up a con-
PRIVATE THEATRICALS. 251
tinuous jingle, I thought that somebody migh. require in
stant medical advice, and, nose in hand, I opened the door,
and in walked the Rev. Dr. Job Baldblather, the eloquent
Old School Presbyterian divine, whose sermon on last
Sunday had been levelled at theatrical performances in
general, and at this entertainment in particular and
his wife. He had the richest congregation in Goose Com
mon, many of them afflicted with good old-fashioned chronic
complaints. I was his family physician ; his patronage
secured the very pearls of his congregation ; and here I
was, caught with a nose half-dramatized ! Fortunately the
hall-lamp was only dimly burning, and he had not seen
much as yet.
" We saw your office-lamp shining through the blinds,"
said he, in a pretty gruff voice, " and we knew you were
at home no, not in the parlor " (I was in hopes to get
them seated there in the parlor in the dark, and under pre
tense, of getting alight, plunge my nose in warm water and
relieve it of all incumbrances) " no, not in the parlor,"
said he ; " we will go in the office. Mrs. Baldblather's
tonsils are swelled to an enormous size, and she has come
to you for advice."
Could anything be more unfortunate ? In that office
was a Carcel-lamp of great brilliancy, a burned cork, rouge,
strips of adhesive plaster, a play-book, and a bowl of Lima
beans ! Something must be done. I instantly threw a
newspaper over the dramatic materials, and exposing my
nasal organ to their astonished view, waited to hear what
they would say. Great Jones Street ! how it frightened
them ! Mrs. Baldblather threw up her hands and eyes
252 PRIVATE THEATRICALS.
and bleated like a lamb ; and the eloquent divine gazed at
m J apparition of a nose with an expression in his spec
tacles such as Brutus might have put on when he saw the
ghost of Caesar's Roman nose at Philippi !
A happy thought rose in my mind. " You see," said I,
" how poor men of science suffer that multitudes may be
benefited ! I am trying experiments on my nose. Bv a
topical application to the skin an irritation is produced
which raises the cuticle in the form of a vesicle filled with
serous fluid. You will perceive," said I, laying my fore
finger upon the right-hand bean, " the peculiar shape of
this sack or bag " Just then the door-bell rang again,
but I had now an excuse ready a plausible one, that
would explain everything ; and I would not have cared if
all the congregation of the Rev. Dr. Baldblather called
upon me ; so, as bold as a lion, I went to the door and
opened it.
It was my friend Figaro. As soon as he caught a dim
glimpse of my spectre of a nose and comic eyebrow he
burst into such an uproarious fit of laughter that the house
echoed with it. " Capital ! " he shouted out. " O, Doc
tor, what a genius you have for the comic ! That nose will
bring down the house ! O ho ! ho ! ho ! You intend to
paint it red a true Bardolphian nose ! O ho ! ho ! oh ! "
In vain I pulled him by the arm and pointed to the office
door, and with shrugs and gestures signified that I had com
pany. The nose and the double eyebrow ruined all my
attempts at anything like a remonstrative or appealing ex
pression. At last I quieted him, whispered the state of the
case in his ear, opened the study door, and ushered him
PRIVATE THEATRICALS. 253
into the presence of Dr. Baldblather, who was furiously
reading the paper I had used as a screen, while his wife
was inspecting the dramatic materials which had been
hidden under it.
An instant had scarcely elapsed before the sound of
wheels was heard rapidly approaching, sudden jerks of the
bell continued uninterruptedly, and I had to admit a third
visitor. It was Dutch Joe, my gardener, groom, and char
ioteer. His head was hanging down so that he did not
perceive my altered visage ; his arms were swinging from
side to side ; to my surprise he was weeping violently.
44 O, Doctor, your wife is maybe det ! " " Dead ? "
44 Yes, she hat a catfit at de singin' schule, and I dink she's
det and gone by dis dime. All de laties drow der scissor
and der spools and der neetles ; some for vater vent ; some
opened der vintoes, some to cry begin ; O, mem Himmel !
and some say, ' Joe, run for de Doctor ! ' Der old hoss is
most use up, I trove so quick as you never see ; hooray up,
Doctor : maybe she 's det so soon dat you never more will
see if she don't be alife yet." Good Heavens ! my head
swam around ! The awful intelligence brought by Joseph
had been heard in the office, and everybody came out in
the hall. I was bundled into the vehicle as Dr. Baldblather
whispered in my ear, " This is a judgment upon you ; '
and the next moment I was whirling toward the fatal So
ciety rooms where, perhaps, I would be too late to receive
even a parting recognition from my angel of a wife ! At
these thoughts I sobbed out aloud, and Joe joined me in a
howl of sympathetic grief.
We reached the church, in the basement of which were
254 PRIVATE THEATRICALS.
the rooms of the Society ; down the stairs I flew, burst
into the lecture -room, and there found my wife lying upon
pillows on a sort of sofa, looking as pale as a ghost, but still
alive. Jn fact, the rooms having been overheated was the
cause of her fainting away, which had so frightened Dutch
Joe. " My angel, what is the matter with you ? " I
cried, as I affectionately folded her in my arms ; but she
caught a glimpse of my nose, did not recognize me, gave a
yawp, and fainted away again as dead as Jephthah's daugh
ter.
Nearly all the ladies of the U. T. & C. A. screamed and
flew out of the lecture-room. Joe, who had not had a
view of my frontispiece before, and who was naturally
superstitious, gave a yell, and bolted also. The flying con
gregation soon brought in the excellent clergyman who had
charge of the parish to which the United Tatting and Cro
chet Association belonged ; they also brought in Dr.
Phineas B. Mumps, my rival; Dr. Baldblather and his
wife followed hard upon our heels ; Figaro summoned all
the dramatis persona ; the Society ladies all flocked inside
again ; all the village vagabonds gathered about the win
dows and peered through them ; my wife had her hands
chafed, and wet rags wrapped around her head. I went
to the vestry-room, procured a bowl of hot water, and un-
nosed myself: my wife recovered, but I lost my very best
patient. The fault was, not that I had constructed a nose
of Lima beans, but that I had been caught while making it.
XXXII.
FRIEND of mine, who had been for many years
upon the Northwest boundary survey, returned at
last to his native city. While upon the Pacific
coast he had made the acquaintance of a young frontiers
man a youth who had been born on the Northwestern
border of Missouri, and whose family, following the
Western tide of emigration, had at last pitched tents in
Oregon ; while he, still impelled by the exploration-thirst,
had wandered up into the remoter wildernesses of Puget
Sound, on the extreme limits of Washington Territory.
My friend said he was a singularly well-informed man
for one who had led such a wandering life in a bookless
land. Every scrap of printed matter that fell in his way
he perused with avidity, and being blessed with a memory
" like wax to receive, like marble to retain," whatever he
read was firmly retained. Besides, he was of such an
inquiring mind that whenever he met a stranger from the
States, it would be curious indeed if he did not extract some
information from him. Thus, by dint of these three fac
ulties, he had acquired an astonishing knowledge of our
Revolutionary history and the histories of the subsequent
wars, and in manv instances could cite with wonderful
256 TRINITY CHURCH-YARD.
accuracy and minuteness a detail of events connected with
facts, dates, and persons, that might have put to the blush
many a college-bred youth of his own age.
My friend the engineer, after his return to New York,
kept up a correspondence with the Washington Territory
frontiersman, and one day received a letter from the latter
stating his intention to visit the great city. He had never
seen a city in his life. The Aspinwall steamer in which
he was expected arrived at last, arid in the list of passen
gers was the name of the frontiersman. But he did not
make his appearance at the house of his quondam friend
until nightfall. By some chance he had wandered into
Trinity Church-yard, and there passed the day.
After the customary salutations were over, " George,"
said he, addressing the engineer, his eyes dilating with
wonder as he spoke, " I have had my very soul moved
this day with what I have seen.
" Sir, I have seen the tomb of Alexander Hamilton, the
soldier, the patriot, the statesman ! And beside it the
modest stone that is set over the grave of his wife Eliza,
who was the daughter of Philip Schuyler, one of Wash
ington's greatest generals. I have seen the monument to
Albert Gallatin, one of the leaders in the Western whis
key insurrection, and afterward so worthy and tried an
officer of our federal government. I saw there the tomb
stone of Michael Cresap, first Captain of the Rifle Bat
talion, who died in 1775 ' a son,' so the inscription runs,
' of Colonel Thomas Cresap.' Surely can this be a son
of the cruel Colonel Cresap who murdered in cold blood
all the family of Logan, the friend of the white Man, and
TRINITY CHURCH-YARD. 257
drew forth the famous message to Lord Dunmore from
that warrior : ' There runs not a drop of my blood in the
veins of any living creature ! This called on me for re
venge. I have fought for it. I have killed many. I have
fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at
the beams of peace but do not harbor a thought that
mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will
not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to
mourn for Logan ? Not one ! '
" It seemed to me," said the frontiersman, " as I read
the inscription upon the stone of Captain Cresap, as if the
blood of Logan was crying to me from the ground. Near
that stood an altar-shaped tomb, on which was an inscrip
tion which filled me with awe and reverence. O ! what
simplicity was there, what filial tenderness, what resigna
tion, and what faith ! As if the overcharged heart could
but repeat the beloved name, and the certain hope of the
hereafter :
'"My Mother!
The trumpet shall sound,
And the dead shall arise ! '
No other words were there. As I read the inscription. I
could almost fancy the sound of the trumpet echoing
through space, and the heavens opening.
" Near to this tomb," continued the frontiersman, " I
saw another that recalled to my mind Gray's Elegy :
" ' Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? '
This marble monument had once been very elegant, but it
had fallen into decay ; the railing around it was choked
258 TRINITY CHURCH-YARD.
with weeds and dropping to pieces with rust ; the inscrip
tion itself had scaled off so as to be no longer readable ;
the sepulchral urn that had formerly crowned the summit
of the structure was now broken from its pedestal, and
thrust into the arch that ornamented the upper part of the
omb, looked like a head that had been decapitated. Near
to that, was the beautiful tribute to the memory of the hero,
Captain James Lawrence, of the frigate Chesapeake; on
one end of it his dying words : ' Don't give up the ship ! '
" But the saddest of all was the tombstone of the eight
little children of John and Effie Lewis, recording that
they died Avithin a few years of each other the eldest
being only four years old, and the youngest four months.
And although they died so long ago that the youngest, if it
had lived, would have been a very elderly person now, yet
they died in their youth ; and so the tears stood in my
eyes as I thought of the poor, bereaved mother and her
sorrowing helpmate mourning for their little ones seventy
years ago. There is something immortal like in the
memory of the death of a child. You know I lost my
first boy, and that sorrow will never pass away.
" Among the tombs, many were dated nearly a century
and a half ago. I suppose these things are familiar to
you, but to me, who never saw anything made or executed
by human hands more than twenty years old, they were
the first that I had ever seen of that strange world of
which I had read so often the world of the past."
It was strange to think of this Western man regarding
the monuments in Trinity Church-yard with the same feel
ings that we would look upon the Parthenon, or the Pyra
mids, or the Sphinx, or on the columns of Luxor !
TRINIlf CHURCH- YARD. 259
" Remember," said my friend the engineer, " that this
man, who was so wonder-struck at the antiquity of the
church-yard at the head of Wall Street, had often seen hi
the forest of Oregon tiees as old at least as the Pyramids,
and a quarter as old as we Christians reckon the globe to
be."
But inanimate things, to awaken human interest, must
possess in themselves some traditional connection with
humanity. The trees in the forests of Oregon may be
even older than the cedars of Lebanon, but they do not
recall the splendors of the court of Solomon, nor the armed
hosts of Crusaders, who reposed under the spreading
branches of the latter when the Cross and the Crescent
contended for possession of the holy walls of Jerusalem I
XXXIV.
for 4Mfc Men.
BOUT eight miles from Stratford-on-Avon, the
honored birth and burial-place of Shakespeare,
stands the pleasant little town of Warwick, upon
the same river, the most beautiful of English rivers,
the Avon. If you are a moralist, and prone to compare
the pomps and vanities of the world with the humblest
memorials of departed genius, you need but look upon the
stone-paved kitchen and the two-story bedroom of the
house where the famous dramatist first drew breath, and
then upon the lordly towers and battlements of Warwick
Castle, to satisfy yourself that imagination has a more
lasting hold upon the world than reality ; that the creator
of fictitious kings, Shakespeare, has a wider and more
enduring fame than even the King-maker, the last of the
Barons, the proud Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick,
who raised up and pulled down real kings at his pleasure.
It was while enjoying the reflections which such contrast
will naturally awaken in every human breast, that I loi-
'tered through the pleasant street of Warwick ; now lean
ing over the stone bridge, beneath which flows the Avon,
and looking lower down to the broken, ivy-covered arch of
tfie old bridge, built in the time of the Crusades, beyond
HOMES FOB OLD MEN. 261
which are the lofty walls of the castle ; or, perchance,
surveying with wonder and admiration the beautiful
13eauchamp Chapel ; or thinking of the stout hero, Guy
of Warwick, the redoubtable lover of fair Phoelice, that
I wandered in the direction of one of the town-gates, over
which is built a little chapel, and presently saw a quaint
building of the past ages, that at once arrested my atten
tion.
It was a Home for Old Men.
Such is the inscription over the front of the hospital of
St. John:
" HOSPITIVM COLLEGIATVBI,
ROBERT! DVDI>EII, COMITIS
LEYCESTET^E,
15 ( Bear ) 71
and
Droit et ( Ragged Staff, j Loyal."
Founded nearly three hundred years ago by the ambi
tious Earl of Leicester, at that time the princely suitor to
the hand of Elizabeth ; the magnificent Lord of Kenil-
worth ; the ambitious pretender to the princely throne of
Holland (and so sure of it, that medals were struck to
commemorate the event), this friend and enemy of Sir
Walter Raleigh ; this faithless relative of Sir Philip Sid
ney ; this intriguing, splendid, ambitious voluptuary, who
may even have connived at the assassination of his loving
wife, dear Amy Robsart, that he might gain the cruel
hand of England's greatest queen ; this man, unprincipled,
covetous, selfish, and unscrupulous, in the midst of hits
profligate career, his lust of power, and his lust of wealth,
had so much of human instinct in him, that he, out of his
262 HOMES FOR OLD MEN.
superfluity, endowed, in the pleasant town of Warwick,
"A Home for Old Men." The name of the Earl of
Leicester now is a by-word and a reproach ; his memory
is connected with outrage, cruelty, and baffled ambition ;
Kenilworth is in ruins ; but this endowment, after a lapse
of three hundred years, still remains living and pregnant
with life, and will be like a taper shining through the dark,
to show for future ages that
" So shines a good deed in a wicked world."
That old hospitium is a shining good deed in the minds
of all men. It is not a pauper asylum. Its inmates are
entitled to the places they occupy by merit, not awarded
a place by favoritism or intrigue. The fact of being there
makes them respected.
The Hospital of St. John, with its spacious court and
gardens, was established in the reign of King Richard II.,
for retired soldiers, and purchased by Robert Dudley, Earl
of Leicester, in 1571.
At the time of my visit, I was shown into a room
where a Waterloo hero, with his two swords crossed in
the ancient window, was comfortably reading his Bible.
All its inmates are old soldiers. A hundred years ago, it
was an asylum for the veterans of Louisburg and Quebec.
Fifty years before, it was a receptacle for the worn-out
soldiers of Marlborough and Prince Eugene ; and before
that it had afforded an asylum to the soldiers of Richard
III., or the Duke of Richmond ; before that, it no doubt
sheltered the veterans of Richard II., or those of his am
bitious and successful rival, Henry Bolingbroke, afterward
Henry IV.
HO.MKS FOR OLD MKN. 263
A qaeer little sanctuary for old age ! May tne sun
shine ever on its venerable front, with its pointed gables,
oak frame-work, and little, diamond-shaped window-panes !
It can accommodate twenty pensioners, the youngest old
boy being over sixty years of ago ; the oldest over eighty.
There are some rules and regulations about the place sug
gestive of by-gone days. None of the veterans are allowed
to go into the streets of Warwick without wearing a long
black surtout, without sleeves, that reaches almost to their
heels ; and behind, a broad, black lappet, with a silver
badge, nearly as big as a door-plate, with the arms (in
relief) of the Dudleys, " The Bear and Ragged Staff; "
the latter cognizance you find in various forms throughout
the building, one in the entrance-hall, worked in in tapestry
by poor Amy Robsart. The pensioners are not allowed
to have their wives, hawks, nor hounds in the building.
Each one receives five shillings sterling every Thursday,
and seventeen sovereigns every quarter. I visited the
chapel, in which they are allowed only to hear the ser
vices, and in which they are not allowed to take Commu
nion ; the latter ceremony must take place at the parish
church. The Master must be a clergyman, and his income
is four hundred pounds a year, and house-rent free. There
is a fine old garden, with twenty f)lots set apart, so that
each pensioner can cultivate his little flower-patch ; a sum
mer-house, to smoke or play draughts in; a chapel, in
which service is held nine times a week ; and here they
live, as happy and contented a set of old fogies as you will
find in the world.
In the neighboring town of Coventry are two asylums
264 HOMES FOR OLD MEN.
for old people : one founded in 1529 by William Ford, a
merchant of Coventry, for the reception of " aged persons
of good name and fame," now occupied by aged females
only, of which there are eighteen or twenty ; and the
other, Bond's Hospital, was founded in 1506 by Thomas
Bond, a wealthy draper, and Mayor of Coventry, for the
reception of " ten poor men, and a woman to dish their
meat and drink." These charitable institutions, from suc
cessive donations, have considerably augmented their rev
enues. Instead of ten poor men, the funds of Bond's
Hospital now support forty-five residents and non-residents.
Such institutions are scattered benefactions in the various
towns of England, but we need not stop to enumerate
them. Passing from these to the magnificent structures
of Greenwich and Chelsea, with their thousands of pen
sioners, and the no less noble endowment of Louis XIV.,
the Hotel des Invalides, swarming with invalid soldiers,
both officers and men, the pride and glory of France, and
the fitting tomb, of Napoleon, let us think for a moment
of the " poor old men " of our own country.
Is there anything more cheerless in prospect than a
lonely old age ? In vain do we seek to provide for a com
fortable future by the accumulation of wealth, or feel a
certainty in the anticipation of laying in a stock of happi
ness by a tender and loving care of our children. Alas !
the pursuit of wealth is ever attended with vicissitudes,
and children do not always survive their parents, or, if
they do, sometimes want of means, or cold neglect, or
(worse than all) ingratitude steps in, and then the old man
is lonely indeed. For when he has arrived at a certain
HOMES FOR OLD MEN. 265
age, rarely does lie carry with him the friends of his youth,
and few old men there are who do not yearn for the society
of old companions.
Provide, then, an asylum for old men, ye that are able
to do it, that the example so set may enable you to be
comforted, perchance, in like manner when length of years
and feebleness and privations overtake you.
The late Robert Minturn had a vague idea floating in
his mind to found such an asylum. It never took any
definite shape, unfortunately, before death removed this
estimable gentleman from our midst. He owned about
eleven acres of ground on Ward's Island, which, had he
lived, he intended to devote to this charitable object, and,
by his will, he left it to St. Luke's Hospital for that pur
pose. The occupation of the island by the numerous
hospitals (among which I may mention an insane hospital
of two hundred and fifty patients) of the Commissioners
of Emigration, and those under the care of the Commis
sioners of Charity and Correction, make this otherwise
beautiful spot manifestly unfit for the purpose. But it is
to be hoped that before long the project will become prac
ticable. The increasing want of the commissioners of the
above-named charities will probably lead to the purchase
of these eleven acres by them, and the proceeds can be
applied to aid in establishing a home for old men.
There are already asylums for aged and indigent females,
under the care of benevolent ladies. Why not for old
men also? It seems to me, that, besides the Minturn
asylum, a fund might be established to found a home for
the veterans of the printing fraternity. In a future num
ber we shall discuss this suggestion.