'mm^mi>^-^9mm^ ^OJJ €M''^ "»MHMtmostMfeasM ii« i M tt» ^^ "«* wwri f ^^' : . .■■■-■- •:.... ■--- ,^-,,^-.Tr"li1Trtltf8''-'-ffrrirMW^^ THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID Oyi^-cO ^^ THE LIFE, TEAVELS, AND LITERARY CAREER OP BAYARD TAYLOR. " Crown Love, crown Truth when first her brow appears, And crown the hero when his deeds are done : The Poet's leaves are gathered one by one, In the slow process of the doubtful years. Who seeks too eagerly, he shall not find : Who seeking not pursues with single mind Art's lofty aim, to him will she accord, At her appointed time, the sure reward." BY RUSSELL H. CONWELL, AUTHOR OF "life OF PRESIDENT HATES," " WHT AND HOW THE CHINESE EMIGRATE, "HISTORY OF THE GREAT FIRE IN BOSTON," "HISTORY OF THE GREAT KIKE IN SAINT JOHN, N. B.," "LESSONS OF TRAVEL," KTC, ETC. BOSTON : B. B. RUSSELL & CO., No. 57 CORNHILL. DETROIT : R. D. S. TYLER & CO. PORTLAND : JOHN" RUSSELL. PIIILADELPITIA : QUAKER CITY PUBLISniN-G HOUSE. NEW YORK: CHARLES DREW. CHICAGO: ANDREWS & DORMAN. INDIANAPOLIS, IND. : FRED L. HORTON & CO. 1879. c/ ffo}jjjrtgf)t. By B. B. RUSSELL & CO., BOSTON. Printed by Albert J. Wright, 79 Milk Street. (ITo THE MISTRESS OP MY HOME. "My tears were on the pages as I read The touching close : I made the story mnie, Within -whose heart, long pUghtcd to the dead. Love built his hving shrine." *'For she is lost; but she, the later bride, Who came my ruined fortune to restore; Back from the desert wanders at my side, And leads me home once more." — Poet's Journal. 75 2 C iG PREFACE. It is a solemn yet pleasant duty to compile in compre- hensive order the records of a life so eventful and influential as that of Bayard Taj'lor. It is solemn, because the sad tears which began to flow at his death, are coursing freely still. Pleasant, because there is no task more satisfactory than that of recounting the deeds of a virtuous, industrious, heroic life. No text-book of morals, or of general history, is so eflective in educating the 3'oung as the annals of well- spent years, gathered for that purpose. There is more or less influence in fables and mj'thological tales ; and there is considerable power in a well written, skilfully plotted work of fiction ; but the direct and unavoidable appeal of a noble life, which has closed with honor and deserved renown, is far more potent and permanent in the culture and reforma- tion of the world, than all other forms of intellectual and moral quickening. No apology is needed for writing such a biograph3^ It would be inexcusable to leave the world in need of it. When the time f^omes for a book more complete in its arrangement and details, and more select in its diction, this will find its proper place in library and reading-room. Until that time it may be at work renewing the memories of a friend, refreshing the recollection of his sweet words, and calling the attention of the stranger to the American who nUrt^ fZ€^^iZ 6 PREFACE. has paid to Europe some of the literary debt we have owed so long. The writer does not expect that this book will occupy the permanent place in literature, which he sincerely hopes will reward those authors who may follow him on this same topic. Written amid the pressing calls of a busy profession, and in the season when lyceum lecture engagements, which he could not postpone, have kept him continually awa}'' from his home ; he has attempted nothing more than to give an outline of a remarkable life, for the purpose of satisfying the present demand. Errors may be found by critics, such as all hastily written volumes are liable to contain ; but should this work, as a whole, incline the reader to honor the man- hood, love the poetry, and revere the memory of one whom the writer for many ^^ears has admired and loved, it will answer the purpose for which it has been written. The author cannot do less than acknowledge, in this place, his great obligations to the father and mother of Mr. Taylor, to Mrs. Annie Carey, his sister, and to Dr. FrankUn Taj'lor, his cousin, for their generous courtesy and most important assistance in gathering the facts for this volume. All the poetical quotations in this book are from Tajior's poetical works. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Mr. Taylor's Career. — Difficulty and Importance of the Work. — The Romance of his Life. — Variable Experience. — His Success as Novelist, Orator, Traveller, and Poet, .... 13 CHAPTER II. German Ancestry. — English Ancestry. — The Pennsylvania Ger- mans. — The Quakers. — How his Forefathers came to America. — The Effect of Intermixture of Races. — The Hereditary Traits seen in his Books, 17 CHAPTER III. Birth at Kennett Square. — Old Homestead. — The Quaker Church. — The Village. — His Father's Store. — Life on the Farm. — Mis- chievous School-boy. — Inclination to write Poetry. — Practical Joker. — Studious Youth. — His Parents. — His Brothers and Sisters, 21 CHAPTER IV. Unfitness for Farming. — Love for Books. — Goes to the Academy. — Appearance as a Student. — Love for Geography and History. — Enters a Printing-office. — Genius for Sketching. — Corre- spondence with Literary Men. — Their Advice. — Hon. Charles Miner. — Putnam's Tourist Guide. — Determination to go to Europe. — Dismal Prospects, 29 CHAPTER V. Visited by his Cousin. — Decides to go to Europe with his Cousin. — Correspondence with Travellers. — Lack of Money. — Unshaken Confidence. — Publication of Ximena, 36 CHAPTER VI. The Contest with Enemies. — Departure from Philadelphia. — Friendship of N. P. Willis, — Discouraging Reception. — Inter- view with Horace Greeley. — Searching for a Vessel. — Steerage Passage for Liverpool. — Fellow Passengers. — The Voyage. — The Beauty of the Sea. — Landing at Liverpool, . . 42 CHAPTER VII. Departure from Liverpool. — Travels Second-Class. — Arrival at Port Rush. — The Giant's Causeway. — Lost and in Danger. — Dun- luce Castle. — Effect upon the Travellers. — Condition of the Irish. — Arrival at Dumbarton. — Scaling the Castle Walls. — Walk to Loch Lomond. — Ascent of Ben Lomond. — Loch Katrine. — Visit to Stirling, 50 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. Visit to the Home of Burns.— The Poet's Cottage. — The Cele- bration. — Walks and Rides in the Rain. — Edinburgh. — Its Associations. — The Teachings of History. — Home of Drum- mond. — Abbotsford. — Melrose. — Jedburgh Abbey. — New- castle-on-Tyne, 59 CHAPTER IX. Visit in London. — Exhibition of Relics. — The Lessons of Travel. — Historical Association. — London to Ostend. — The Cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle. — The Great Cathedral at Cologne. —Voy- age np the Rhine. — Longfellow's " Hyperion." — Visit to Frankfort. — Kind Friends. — Reaches Heidelberg. — Climbing the Mountains, 67 CHAPTER X. Study in Frankfort. — Lack of Money. — Diifereut Effect of Want on Travellers. — Bayard's Privations. — Again sets out on Foot. — Visit to the Harfcz Mountains. — The Brocken. — Scenes in " Faust." — Locality in Literature. — The Battle-field at Leip- sic. — Auerbach's Cellar, 77 CHAPTER XL Pictures at Dresden. — Raphael's Madonna. — Bayard's Art Educa- tion. — His Exalted Ideas of Art. — His Enthusiasm. — Visits Bohemia. — Stay in Prague. — The Curiosities of Vienna. — Tomb of Beethoven. — Respect for Religion. — Listens to Strauss. — View of Lintz. — Munich and its Decorations. — The Home of Schiller. — Poetic Landscapes, and Charming People. — Statue by ThorwaMseu. — Walk to Heidelberg, . . 85 CHAPTER XII. Starts for Switzerland and Italy. — First View of the Alps. — The Falls of the Rhine. — Zurich. — A Poet's Home. — Lake Lucerne. — Goethe's Cottage. — Scenes in the Life of William Tell. — Ascent of the Alps at St. Gothard. — Descent into Italy. — The Cathedral at Milan. — Bayard's Characteristics. — Tramp to Genoa. — Visits Leghorn and Pisa. — Lovely Florence. — De- lightful Visits. — The Home of Art, 95 CHAPTER XIIL Visit to Rome. — Attractions of its Ruins. — Bayard's Persistent Searches. — His Limited Means. — Sights and Experiences. — Journey to Marseilles. — Walks to Lyons. — Desperate Circum- stances. — Stay in Paris. — Employment of his Time. — De- parture for London. — Failure to obtain Money or Work. — Seeks a Friend. — Obtains Helji from a Stranger. — Voyage to New York. — Arrival Home, 106 CHAPTER XIV. Edits a Country Newspaper. — Tlie " Phronixvillo Pioneer." — The Discouragements. — The Suspension. — Publishes " Views Afoot." —^ Introduction to Literary Men. — Ccmtributes to the " Literary World." — Becomes an Editor of the New York " Tribune." — The Gold Excitement of 1849. — Resolves to viait the Eldorado. — Arrival in California, 115 CONTENTS. 9 CHAPTER XV. Entrance to California. — The Camp at San Francisco in 1S49, — Description of the People. — Gold-Hunters. — Speculations. — Prices of Merchandise. — Visit to the Diggings. — Adventures on the Route. — The First Election. — The Constitutional Con- vention. — San Francisco after Two Months' Absence. — Poetical Descriptions. — Departure for Mexico. — Arrival at Mazatlan. — Overland to the Capital. — Adventure with Robbers. — Re- turn to New York, 120 CHAPTER XVI. The Poet's First Love. — Playmates. — Miss Mary S. Agnew. — His Fidelity. — Poems Inspired by Affection. — Her Failing Health. — Consumption. — His Return to Her. — The Marriage at the Death-bed. — Her Death. — The Poet's Grief. — His Inner Life. — The Story in his own Rhyme, 133 CHAPTER XVn. Grief and Despair. — Describes his Feelings. — Failing Health. — Severe Mental Labor. — Decides to go to Africa. — Visits Vien- na. — Arrival at Alexandria. — Sails up the Nile. — Scenes in Cairo. — The Pyramids. — The Lovely Nile. — An Important and Pleasant Acquaintance. — A Lasting Friendship. — Learning the Language. — Assuming the Costume. — Sights by the Way, 151 CHAPTER XVIIL Moslem "Worship. — Scenery of the Nile. — Fellowship with the People. — The Temple of Dendera. — Mr. Taylor's Enthusi- asm. — Luxor. — Karnak. — The Extent of Ancient Thebes. — The Tombs and Statues. — Tbe Natives. — Arrives at Assouan. — Th« Island of Philse. — Separation of the Friends. — Starts for the White Nile. — Trip through the Desert. — Again on the Nile. — Reception by the People and Officials. — Visits Ancient Meroe, 164 CHAPTER XIX. From !Meroe to Khartoum. — Twenty-seventh Birth-day. — Desire to Explore Central Africa. — Ascent of the White Nile. — Ad- Tenture with the Savage Shillooks. — Visits the Natives. — Re- turn to Khartoum. — Crossing the Desert. — Parting with Friends. — Descent of the Nile. — Arrival at Cairo, . . 174 CHAPTER XX. Departure from Egypt. — A Poet in Palestine. — Difference in Trav- ellers. — Mr. Taylor's Appreciation. — First View of Tyre. — Route to Jerusalem. — The Holy City. — Bath in the Dead Sea, — Appearance of Jerusalem. — Samaria. — Looking down upon Damascus. — Life in the eldest City. — The Bath. — Dose of Hashish. — Being a Turk among Turks, .... Ir52 10 CONTEXTS. CHAPTER XXI. Leaving Damascus. — Arrival at Beyrout. — Trip to Aleppo. — En- ters Asia Minor. — The Scenery and People. — The Hills of Leb- anon. — Beautifnl Scenes about Brousa. — Enters Constantino- ple. — A Prophecy. — Return to Smyrna. — Again in Italy. — Visits his German Friend at Gotha. — The Home of his Second Love. — Goes to London. — Visits Gibraltar. — Cadiz. — Seville. — Spanish History, ....... 194 CHAPTER XXII. Leaves Gibraltar for Alexandria. — Egypt and Old Friends. — The Town of Suez. — Embarks for Bombay. — Mocha and its Cof- fee. — Aden. — Arrival in Bombay. — Reception by the People. — Trip to Elephanta. — Ride into the Interior. — Difficulties of the Journey. — Views of Agra. — Scenes about Delhi. — Starts for the Himalaya Mountains, 206 CHAPTER XXIII. The Himalaya Mountains. — Returning Southward. — Lucknow and Calcutta. — Foretells the Great Rebellion. — Embarks for Chi- na. — Visit to the Mountains of Penang. — The Chinese at Sin- gapore. — Arrival at Hong-Kong. — Joins the Staff of the U. S. Commissionor. — Scenes about Shanghai. — The Nanking Rebellion. — Life in Shanghai. — Enlists in the Navy. — Com- modore Perry's Expedition, '221 CHAPTER XXIV. His Reception on the Man-of-war. — Commodore Perry's Tribute. — Mr. Taylor's Journals. — Visit to the Loo-Choo Islands. — Explo- rations. — Mr. Taylor becomes a Favorite. — His Description of the Country. — Cruise to Japan. — The Purpose of the Expedi- tion. — Mr. Taylor's Assistance. — Return to Hong-Kong. — Re- signs his Commission. — Visits Canton. — Sails for America. — St. Helena. — Arrival in New York, 230 CHAPTER XXV. Takes up the Editorial Pen. — Publication of His " Poems of the Orient." — His Books of Travel. — Lecturing before Lyceums. — Friendship of Richard H. Stoddard. — Private Correspondence. — Love of Fun. — Resolves to Build a Home at Kennett. — Charges of Intemperance. — Preparations for a Third Trip to Europe. — Acquaintance with Thackeray, .... 242 CHAPTER XXVI. Visit to Europe. — Reception in England. — Company in Charge. — Starts for Sweden. — Stockholm. — The Dangerous Ride. — The Severe Cold. — Arrival in Lapland. — First Ex])erieuce with Canoes and Reindeers. — Becomes a Lapp. — The Extreme North. — The Days without a Sun. — " Yankee Doodle." — The Return. — Studj^ in Stockholm. — Return to Germany and Lon- don. — Embarks for Norway. — Meets his Friend at Christiania. — The Coast of Norway. — The Mi:lish-speakin2r countries as an excellent authority, and it is deeply to be regretted 16 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. that he was called away with so many uncompleted translations, and unfinished plans for translations, from the standards of German literature. But it is as a poet that he receives the greatest homage. Yet how little he printed ! Unless there shall be found laid away many poems unpublished, he may be classed as one of the least prolific poets of his generation. His lines are so simple, so true to life, such incarnate sentences, so expressive, that, to one who has had a similar expe- rience with the poet, every stanza is a panorama, vivid and indelible. We shall see as we pursue the tale, how sensitive he was to everything poetical, and how deeply he was moved by all those finer and more subtle emo- tions, which only a poet can feel. Plis love was deep and abiding. His friendship, like the oaks of his Cedarcroft woodland. His old home was to him the sweetest place in all the beautiful lands he saw. His life was full of romantic incidents, and he recognized them and appreciated them, for the poetry they sug- gested. We venture to say that his poetry will live in every household, if all his other works should be forgotten. ANCESTRY. 17 CHAPTER n. German Ancestry. — English Ancestry. — The Pennsylvania Ger- mans. — The Quakers. — How his Forefathers came to America. — The Effect of Intermixture of Races.— The Hereditary Traits seen in his Books. The ancestry of Bayard Taylor were connected with some of the best blood of England and Germany. His grandmothers were both German, and his grand- fathers both English. The German line comes from that body of emigrants, consisting of large numbers from Weimar, Jena, Cassel, Gottingen, Hanover, and perhaps Gotha, who sailed from Bremen and Ham- burg between 1730 and 1745. The continued quar- rels among the dukes and princes of Germany, — the wars in progress and impending, wherein the peace of the people was incessantly disturbed, — caused a universal uneasiness among the people of those small nations. They never were quite sure of a day's rest. If they sowed unmolested, there was a grave doubt whether some complication with France, England, or Poland might not bring foreign invaders or allies to destroy or devour the crops. The wars were so inces- sant, and the quarrels among the petty lords so fre- quent, that the people became disheartened. They 18 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. were weary of building for others to destroy, and of rearing sons to be sacrificed to some individual's ambition. All those German provinces, or duchies, had to accommodate themselves to the religion of their princes, and, at times, the winds that played about the hills of the Black Forest were far less uncertain. To the fathers of these emigrants, who sought America as a haven of religious and political rest, George Fox and his Quaker disciples had taught the doctrines of " The Holy Spirit," and, under various guises, the tenets of that belief still survived in the German heart. Those Germans who settled in the counties of Pennsylvania, lying to the south and south-west of Philadelphia, came to this country during the -disturb- ances in the Fatherland, caused by Augustus, Maria Theresa, Frederick, and the scores of other princes who were in power, or seeking to secure it, in the numerous states and free cities of Germany. It is no light excuse, no desire for mere wealth, no hasty search for the fountains of youth, that causes the solid, earnest, patriotic people of Saxony, Baden, or Bavaria to leave forever the home of their nativity. It is a little curious to see how these races, which so cordially and hospitably received the Quaker mission- aries from England, should at last unite with them in the settlement of the New World, and, by their inter- marriage, produce such offshoots of the united stock as Bayard Taylor and his cotemporaries. The Quaker ancestry of the poet, — the Taylors ANCESTRY. 19 and the "Ways, — run back through a long line of mdustrious men and women, more or less known in Central Pennsylvania, to the colony which William Penn sent over from England to cultivate the great land-grant, which King Charles II., of England, gave him, in consideration of his ftither's services as admiral in the British navy. They, too, were driven from their homes by the incessant turmoil either of wars or religious persecutions. Their preachers had again and again been imprisoned, while some had died the death of martyrs. Even Penn himself was often in chains and in prison, for being a peaceable believer in the truth of the Quaker doctrines ; but so blameless were the lives of these people, and so forgiving their Christian behavior, that the term "Quakers," which was at first applied to them in derision, became at last a title of respect and honor. " The fear of the Lord did make us quake," was a common expression with Georo'e Fox, the founder of the sect, and the name "Quakers" originated in sneers at that devout sentence. It is easy to trace in the history of the State of Pennsylvania, the influence of the Quaker spirit, and its impression upon the institutions of the American nation is also strikingly apparent. But when one takes up the life of one of their descendants, and studies his habits, his style of thought, and his ideas of social and political institutions, the hereditary Quaker element, in a modified form, is detected in 20 LIFE OF BAYAKD TAYLOR. every motion and expression. It would seem as if any reader, to whom the author is unknown, would detect at once, in any volume of Taylor's poetry or travels, the fact that he came from Quaker stock. As will be more clearly shown in a subsequent chapter, the teachings of the Quakers, and their manner of expression by gesture and phrase, have unconsciously and charmingly crept into the bosom of his best works. It is a great boon to be born of such a physi- cal and mental combination as that of the German soldiers, with all their coolness and braver}^, and the even-tempered. God-fearing Quakers, with all their grace and wisdom. Such intermixture has given to our young nation much of its surprising enterprise and originality, and must, at last, when consolidated into a compact people, produce a nation and a race wholly unlike any other on the earth. It is not known that any of Bayard Taylor's ances- try were literary men, or that any of them were endowed with special genius, beyond that which was necessary to clear the forests, cultivate the soil, man- age manufacturing enterprises, and carry on small mercantile establishments. Solid people, with wide common-sense, industrious hands and generous hearts, they have modestly held their way, doing their simple duty, and, Quaker-like, making no display. BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 21 CHAPTER III. Birth at Kennett Square. — Old Homestead. — The Qaaker Chnrch. The Village. — His Father's Store. — Life ou the Farm. — Mis- chievous School-boy. — Inclination to write Poetry. — Practical Joker. — Studious Youth. — His Parents. — His Brothers and Sisters. Bayard Taylor was born at Kennett Square, Penn., Jan. 11, 1825. His mother, whose maiden name was Rebecca Way, was then twenty-nine years of age, and his father was thirty-one. The house then occupied was a two-story stone-and-mortar structure, such as are yet very common in the farm- ing regions of central Pennsylvania. The house was long and narrow, having a porch that extended along the whole front. The rooms were small and low, but it was considered by the farmers of that time as a very comfortable and respectable home. It was located at the junction of two highways, and near the centre of the little hamlet called the " Square," and sometimes the "Village." But few families resided there in 1825, and the people were all more or less engaged in the cultivation of the soil. The little rude Quaker meeting-house, so box-like and cold in its aspect, was doubtless the centre of attraction, and the desire to be near the house of God, led those devoted 22 LIFE OF BAYAKD TAYLOR. Quakers to build their dwellings on that portion of their lands which lay nearest the church. The village has increased in growth, and now has a population of six or seven hundred, with several churches belonging to other denominations, and very flourishing schools. But the old homestead building, in which Bayard was born, was destroyed by fire in 1876. At the time of his birth, his father kept a miscel- laneous stock of merchandise in one room of his house, and supplied the necessities of the farmers, so far as the small capital of a country store could antici- pate their wants. Situated thirty-five miles from Phil- adelphia, to which place he was compelled to send the produce he received, and in which place he purchased his simple stock of goods, the merchant had a task on his hands which cannot be appreciated or understood in these days of railways, telegraphs, and commercial travellers. One of his neighbors, living in 1872, used to relate how Mr. Taylor, having had a call for two hay-rakes, which he could not supply, drove all the way to West Chester, the distance of a dozen miles, to get those tools for his customer. At the time of Bayard's birth, his parents had been married seven years. Their life had already been subject to many trials, and was fated to meet many more. Of a family of ten children, only one-half the number survived to see mature years. The losses by mercantile ventures, by failing crops, by sickness BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 23 and accidents, often swept away the hard earnings of many a month. Yet they struggled on, industrious and cheerful, keeping themselves and their children ever busy. When Bayard was two or three years old, his father purchased a farm about a mile from the village, and giving up his mercantile avocations, turned his whole attention to farming. On that farm Bayard spent the opening years of his life, and on one section of it did he build his beautiful home of " Cedarcroft." " The beginning and the end is here — The days of youth ; the silvered years." How deeply he loved his home, how sincere his affec- tion for the rolling fields, the chestnut and the walnut woodland, the old stone farm-house, the clumsy barn, the old highway, the acres of corn and wheat, the dis- tant village and its quaint old church, can be seen in a thousand expressions finding place in his published works. His poetical nature opened to his view beau- tiful landscapes and charming associations which oth- ers would not detect. The birds sang in an intelligi- ble lansruas^e ; the leaves on the corn entered into conversation ; the lowing of the cows could be inter- preted ; and the rocks were romantic story-tellers. He loved them all. That farm was his Mecca in all his travels. When he left, he says he promised bird, beast, trees, and knolls, that he would return to them. To the writer, who went to Cedarcroft after 24 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. the poet's death, and who has so long loved and admired his poetry, it seemed as if the trees patiently awaited his return. All things in nature must have loved and trusted him, or they would not have con- fided to him so many of their secrets. Of the pastoral life in Pennsylvania he speaks with pleasing directness in his volume entitled " Home Pastorals." In one place the aged farmer says : — " Well — well ! this is comfort now — the air is mild as May, And yet 'tis March the twentieth, or twenty-first, to-day ; And Reuben ploughs the hill for corn : I thought it would be tough ; But now I see the furrows turned, I guess it's dry enough. I'm glad I built this southern porch ; my chair seems easier here : I haven't seen as fine a spring this five and twenty year. And how the time goes round so quick : a week I would have sworn. Since they were husking on the flat, and now they plough for corn ! Across the level Brown's new place begins to make a show ; I thought he'd have to wait for trees, but, bless me, how they grow ! They say it's fine — two acres filled with evergreens and things ; But so much land ! it worries me, for not a cent it brings. He has the right, I don't deny, to please himself that way, But 'tis a bad example set, and leads young folks astray : Book-learning gets the upper hand, and work is slow and slack, And they that come long after us will find things gone to wrack. Well — I suppose I'm old, and yet it is not long ago When Reuben spread the swath to dry, and Jesse learned to mow, And William raked, and Israel hoed, and Joseph pitched with me, But such a man as I was then my boys will nev^er bo! BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 25 I don't mind William's hankering for lectures and for books, He never bad a farming knack — you 'd see it in bis looks ; But bandsome is tbat bandsome does, and be is well to do : 'Twould ease my mind if I could say the same of Jesse, too. 'Tis like my time is nearly out ; of tbat I 'm not afraid ; I never cbeated any man, and all my debts are paid. Tbey call it rest tbat we shall have, but work would do no barm ; There can't be rivers there, and fields, without some sort o' farm." No description in prose can as well describe his occupation as a boy, as his own lines, in the poem of the "Holly Tree." " The corn was warm in the ground, the fences were mended and made. And the garden-beds, as smooth as a counterpane is laid, Were dotted and striped with green, where the peas and the rad- ishes grew. With elecampane at the foot, and comfrey, and sage, and rue. From the knoll where stood the house, the fair fields pleasantly rolled. To dells where the laurels hung, and meadows of buttercup gold." Such was the farm when he left it, in words of the poet's choosing, and what he found when, after a quarter of a century of wanderings, he can best de- scribe. "Here are the fields again, the soldierly maize in tassel Stands on review, and carries the scabbarded ears in its armpits, Eustling, I part the ranks, — the close, engulfing battalions Shaking their plumes overhead, — and, wholly bewildered and heated. Gain the top of the ridge, where stands, colossal, the pin-oak. Yonder, a mile away, I see the roofs of the village, — 26 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. See tlie crouching front of the meeting-house of the Quakers, Oddly conjoined with the whittled Presbyterian steeple. Right and left are the homes of the slow, conservative farmers, Loyal people and true ; but, now that the battles are over, Zealous for Temperance, Peace, and the Right of Suffrage for Women. Orderly, moral are they, — at least, in the sense of suppression ; Given to preaching of rules, inflexible outlines of duty : Seeing the sternness of life ; but, alas ! overlooking its graces. Let mo be juster : the scattered seeds of the graces are planted Widely apart ; but the trumpet-vine on the porch is a token : Yea, and awake and alive are the forces of love and affection, Plastic forces that work from the tenderer models of beauty." There must be many things in the events of com- mon life which find no voice in poetry, as every life has its prose side. At all events, there were some duties connected with agricultural work which young Bayard never enjoyed. He never was ambitious to follow the plough, or do the miscellaneous odd jobs which perplex and weary a farmer's boy. Yet, like Burns, he worked cheerfully, and wrung more or less poetry out of every occupation. He was a spare, wiry, nervous boy, quick at work, study, or play, and consequently had many leisure moments, when other boys were drudging along with ceaseless toil. His schoolmates, and the only school-teacher now living (1879), who taught him in his boyhood, all agree that he was a mischievous boy. He loved prac- tical jokes, and, in fact, jokes of every kind. But he was ceaselessly framing verses. AVheii his lesson was mastered, which was always in an incredibly BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 27 short space of time after he took up his book, he plunged recklessly into poetry. Verses about the teacher, about snowbanks', about buttercups, about pigs, about courting, funerals, church services, school- mates, and countless other themes filled his desk, pockets, and hat. Often he wrote love letters, couched in the most delicate phraseology, and signing the name of some classmate to them, would send them to astonished ploughboys and blushing maidens. One old gentle- man in West Chester, Penn., always claimed that a set of Bayard's burlesque verses, sent out in that way, induced him to court and marry a girl with whom he had no acquaintance, until the explanation of his tender epistle was demanded by her father. What volumes of poetry he must have written, which never saw the type, and how much more of that which he was in the habit of repeating to himself was left un- written ! The life he led, from his earliest school days, until he was fifteen years of age, Avas that of every farmer's boy in America, who is compelled to work hard through the spring, summer, and au- tumn, and attend the district school in the winter. The only remarkable difierence between Bayard and many other boys, was found in his strong desire to read, and ^his genius for poetry. He gathered the gi'eater part of his youthful education from books, which he read at home, and by himself. He had a noble father, and a lovely mother, God 28 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. bless them ! and they made it as easy for Bayard as they could in justice to the other children. They might not have fully understood the signs of genius which he displayed ; but they put no needless stum- bling-blocks in his way. No better proof of this is needed, than the excellent record of the other children, all of whom hold enviable positions in so- ciety. One brother, Dr. J. Howard Taylor, is a physican, and connected with the health department of the city of Philadelphia ; another, William W. Tay- lor, is a most skilful civil engineer ; while a third, Col. Frederick Taylor, was killed at the battle of Gettysburg, when leading the celebrated Bucktail Regiment of Pennsylvania. Two sisters are living, — Mrs. Annie Carey, wife of a Swiss gentleman; and Mrs. Lamborn, wife of Col. Charles B. Lam- born, of Colorado. Growing up in such a family, as an elder brother, involved much patient toil, and great responsibility. The best tribute to him, in those days, was paid by an old lady, of Reading, Penn., who knew him in his youth, and who summed up her evidence to the writer in the words, "He did all he could." ,J INTELLECTUAL INCLINATION. 29 CHAPTER ly. Unfi tness for Farming. — Love for Books. — Goes to the Academy. — Appearance as a Student. — Love for Geography and History. — Enters a Printing-office. — Genius for Sketching. — Corre- spondence with Literary Men. — Their Advice. — Hon. Charles Miner. — Putnam's Tourist Guide. — Determination to go to Europe. — Dismal Prospects. Joseph Taylor was too intelliorent and observing: not to notice bow unfit was bis son Bayard for tend- ing sbeep, boeing corn, and weeding beds of vege- tables. Tbe intellectual inclination exbibited by tbe boy in every undertaking, and bis frail form, led Mr. and Mrs. Taylor to look about for some occupation for tbeir son more fitting tban the bard drudgery of a farm. Tbe eagerness witb wbicb be devoted bimself to tbe study of sucb books as could tben be secured ; bis scbemes for obtaininsr volumes considered by bis parents, until tben, wbolly beyond tbeir reacb ; bis poems and essays, learned in tbe bayfield, and written out after tbe day's work was done, all confirmed tbem in tbe feeling tbat it was tbeir duty to give up bis assistance on tbe bomestead, and permit bim to follow tbe leading of bis genius. It was witb no little anxiety tbat tbey sent bim " away to scbool " ; for tbey felt tben tbat tbey migbt not 30 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. have their son, as a companion, at home again. Mr. Goss then tausfht an excellent hio'h school at West Chester, the county seat, and to that they sent him for a short time. One of his classmates at that school, now residing in Baltimore, says he remembers dis- tinctly how awkward and rustic Bayard appeared when he first entered the school, and how radical and rapid was the change from the ploughboy to the stu- dent. He became a universal favorite, and was so able to teach, and so ready to help, that he had a large number of scholars following him about half the time, for the purpose of getting assistance at their lessons. Yet he found much time to read other books than those containing his studies, and as in a village of the size of West Chester, there were some small libraries, his desire for reading could be gratified. Geography was his favorite study, and, in the pursuit of informa- tion, he sought out and read so many books relating to the places mentioned in the text-book, that his classmates used to say that " Bayard knows all about his geography without even reading his lessons over." He was soon well acquainted Avith the history of the world, and had the most interesting events con- nected with the wars of Europe fresh in his mind. He read about Edinburgh, London, Paris, Berlin, and Dresden ; of William the Conqueror, Peter the Great, Charlemagne, and Mahomet; of the adventures of the Crusaders, of the wars of the Roses, the Thirty Years' War, and Napoleon's campaigns ; and, with YOUTHFUL ENTERPRISES. 31 each volume, built higher those castles in the air, which many youths construct on the excitement of such themes. It seems astonishing how a boy of fourteen years could appreciate so much of the books he read, when we recall the dulness and dryness which characterized almost every history then extant, and the exceedingly difficult subjects of which they treated. He read, one day, for a few minutes, in Union ville, in 1839, from a book that lay on the mantel-shelf, and although the subject was that of art and the beauty of Eaphael's Madonna and child, he understood it so well, and remembered it so clearly, that, in 1845, when at Dresden, where the picture was exhibited, he was able to recall the words of that description, and the name of the writer. The circumstances in Avhich his parents were placed, made it impossible for them to support him long at school, neither was he inclined to be a charge upon them. He desired to be able to earn money for him- self, both to relieve his parents of the expense, and to furnish means for purchasing books. He was a bold youth. He seemed to fear nothing. He had a sublime faith in his own success, which was not ego- tism nor pride, but an inspiration. Very often, when he had read a book, he would sit down and write to the author ; which fact was not, in itself, so astonishing as the fact that he wrote letters so bright and sensible, that in nearly every case he obtained a courteous, and often a lengthy repl3^ In this way, he made the 32 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. acquaintance of many men well known in the literary circles of America, several of whom were of great assistance to him a few years after. When he was but ten years old, and still on the old farm, he read " Pencillings by the Way," which was a narrative of foreign travel, written by Nathaniel P. Willis, and published in the New York "Mirror," of which Mr. Willis was then an associate editor. Young Bayard soon after entered into a corresponcl- ence with Mr. Willis on literary matters, and contin- ued the interchansre of letters until the death of Mr. Willis, in 1867. In the same manner young Bayard secured the attention, advice, and assistance of Kufus W. Griswold, who edited the "New World" and the "New Yorker," and who, in 1842 and 1843, edited "Graham's Magazine," in Philadelphia. Dr. Gris- wold was also a poet, and in fact had been in every branch of literary work, from writing items in Boston for a weekly paper, through type-setting, reporting, and compiling, to writing sermons as a Baptist minis- ter. He had led a wandering life, had seen much of the world, and was well acquainted, as an editor and reviewer, with all the best works of history, travel, and poetry. From him Bayard received much sensible advice and much encouragement. To him Bayard sent some of his earliest poems, and thus secured their publication. It is probable that Bayard became acquainted with Henry S. Evans, editor of the West Chester " Village PRINTING AND SKETCHING. 33 Record," through some of his poetical contributions to that paper. However that may be, he sought the office of that paper for an opportunity to learn the printer's trade, when it had been decided by his pa- rents to let him OTQ. The " Yillaofe Record " had lono^ been a respected and favorite journal for that county, and had, under the editorial management of Hon. Charles Miner, been the intellectual training-school of many influential and noted men. Mr. Evans was conducting the paper with much ability, and it was then usually considered a great opportunity for any young man if an opening was found for him in the office of that periodical. Yet Bayard did not like the work of a printer, and especially despised the work which naturally fell to his lot as a new apprentice. He took to sketching ; and having added the instruction of a teacher, for a few weeks, to a natural tact for drawing, he "illus- trated " almost everything within reach w^hich had a smooth surface. He caricatured the printers and edi- tors, and brought out the worst features of his asso- ciates in horrible cartoons. He sent to delinquent correspondents pictures of ink-bottles and long quills. He sketched himself in the mirror, and sent the copy to inquiring friends. Far too intent upon drawings, poetry, and travels to make much progress as a print- er, he became tired of the occupation and longed to be free. There came to his hands some time before 34 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. he entered the printmg-office, u small book, intended partly for home reading and partly as a guide-book for European travellers, entitled " The Tourist in Europe." It was written by George P. Putnam, of New York, and told the routes, and described the w^onders to be seen, in a very fascinating way to one like Bayard, whose imagination was already excited to the most enthusiastic pitch. The boy appears to have studied that book with the greatest and most perse- vering zeal. He used it for a plan of reading, and takinsf it bv course, borrowed books' relatino: to the places mentioned by Mr. Putnam, until one by one he had learned the history, occupation, literary achievements, and habits of ever}^ city or town of note in the whole of Europe. Pie made up his mind that he was going to Europe. Just how or when was a mystery. But that he was going soon he had no doubt. He spoke of his trip to England and Ger- many with the confidence of one who has his ticket and letter of credit already in his pocket. Yet he was a penniless boy, who had scarcely seen a ship, and who knew but a few phrases outside of his nativ^e tongue. His friends laughed at him, and gravely told his relatives that if Bayard did not curb his rambling disposition he would become a beggar and a disgrace. Even that chosen schoolmate, whose dark eyes and tresses held more influence over his thoughts and movements than the world knew, or he himself would publicly acknowledge, laughed incredulously as he PREPARATIOXS FOR TRAVEL. 35 told her of his projected visits to the castles, towers, shrines, and battle-fields of Europe and Asia. The months rolled heavily away, and his fingers wearied with the type, and his heart became sad be- cause of the long delay. He began to be ashamed of his boasts, but patiently waited. For two years he studied, planned, prophesied, yearned for a trip to Europe ; having in the meantime made a short and hazardous tramp to the Catskills, with money saved from his clothing allowance as an apprentice. He ventured to write to some ship-owners in Phila- delphia, to ascertain if he could work his pas- sage. He often mentioned his proposed trip to his employer, and asked to be released from his engage- ment and agreement as an apprentice. Mr. Evans only smiled and said that Bayard need not trouble himself about that at present ; it would be all right when the time came for him to go. Thus, with a conviction that he should certainly go, and yet heart- sick at the delay, Bayard reached his nineteenth birthday. 36 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. CHAPTER V. Visited by his Cousin. — Decides to go to Europe witli "his Cousin. — Correspondence with Travellers. — Lack of Money. — Unshaken Confidence. — Publication of Ximena. Bayard had a cousin Frank, or Franklin, whom he held in great respect, and whose subsequent life, as will be seen hereafter, justified the high esteem in which Bayard held him. This young man, a few years older than Bayard, had, by much patience and perseverance, succeeded in obtaining sufficient money to support himself in an economical manner in Ger- many, and had made up his mind to attend the lectures at the university in Heidelberg. " Are you really going, Frank ? " "Yes, Bayard, I am going sure." " Then I am going with you." "But, Bayard, how are you going to get the money to pay your expenses ? " "I do not know where it is coming from, not even for my outfit, but I am going with you." Bayard had written to a great many people, of whom he had heard, asking them about the expense and outfit for a tour in Europe. Some of them had made the journey, and some had completed their prep- FIRST POEMS. 37 arations ; but they all placed the amount so high as to appear like a fabulous sum to the poor apprentice. None placed the fare at less than five hundred dollars, while some of the estimates were as hiofh as eisrhteen hundred dollars. Of course this poor boy could not earn nor borrow either of these amounts. Yet he was confident that in some way he would be able to overcome the difficulty. Dr. Griswold, of whom mention was made in the last chapter, had suggested that it might be wise for Bayard to publish, in small book-form, his sonnets and other poems, and sell them to friends and admirers ; and when he found that Frank was o^oino:, he deter- mined to try that method of raising a little money. He went to some of his old friends and neiofhbors for assistance to print his little volume ; but so little was their faith in the boy they had known from his birth, that they told him they w^ould not encourage him in a scheme so absurd and impracticable. But Bayard only became the more determined with each defeat. He renewed his application to friends more distant, and, as is usually the case, he found they had more confidence than those who looked upon him as the boy they knew on the farm. From those distant friends, living in Philadelphia and West Chester, he at last obtained such assistance as to be able to print a few copies of his poems. He christened his first volume "Ximena, and other Poems," and finding many kindly disposed persons who would like to help 38 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. him Ikj the small .sum asked for the book, but who would have been ashamed to present him with so diminutive an amount, he was enabled to dispose of enough in a few days to pay his expenses and a profit of twenty dollars. Acting upon the advice of Nathaniel P. Willis, he applied to the editors of the various newspapers in Philadelphia for employment as a travelling correspondent ; but letters from Europe were becomiug stale, and correspondence was over- done, so that he was met with discouraging refusals on every hand. Fortunately, some one suggested to him the names of the "Saturday Evening Post," and the "United States Gazette." He was, however, without hope of anything from them. He has since said to his friends, that he then thought as he could not fare any worse than he had done, it would do no harm to try again. His confidence in his final success was so o:reat, that he had made a settlement with Mr. Evans, of the "Villaore Record," and had left the em- ployment of a printer before he had found or thought of a way to secure funds for his intended trip. He had no money, no outfit, no employment ; and yet he was sure he should go. In that condition, and in a state of mind bordering on wonder, because the way which was to open had so long remained shut, this thin, awkward youth walked confidently into the ofl&ce of the "Saturday Evening Post." Mr. S. D. Patterson was then its editor, and, while he was disposed to assist the young man, he did not have much faith iu EAISIKG FUNDS. 39 y his success as a correspondent. Mr. Patterson, how- ever, gave Bayard some encouragement, and the youth, with lighter step, went to the office of the "United States Gazette." Not finding Mr. J. E. Chandler at his editorial room, Bayard went to the editor's residence. Mr. Cliandler was sick in bed ; but he was able to converse with Bayard, and received him very pleasantly. The young man had never met Mr. Chandler before ; but he stated his cause with such frankness and clearness, and showed such confidence in his final triumph, that Mr. Chandler took out his pocket-bouk and gave Bayard fifty dollars, saying that if he sent any letters of sufficient interest they would be inserted in the columns of the "Gazette." Mr. Chandler did not, at the time, care for letters from Europe, and did not expect to publish any ; but, act- ing from the promptings of a generous heart, he freely gave the assistance desired. Of Mr. Chandler's honorable career, more will be said in another chap- ter. On returning to Mr. Patterson, Bayard found him willing to do as he had proposed, and the sum of fifty dollars was added to the gift of Mr. Chandler. Then, as if fortunes, like misfortunes, come not singly, he found a customer for some manuscript poems in a friend of Dr. Griswold, — George R. Graham. From him Bayard received twenty dollars, making the round sum of one hundred and forty dollars with which to begin his journey to the Old World. Bay- 40 LITE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. ard now felt independent and happy. At least lie could get across the Atlantic Ocean. He might have to work as a compositor, or as a common laborer, or even beg for his bread after he arrived on the other side; he did not know, and seemed to care but little. He had encountered a hard fortune here, and con- quered, and he felt sure that he could do as well there. Happy, proud day was it for him when he returned with the money to his home at Kennett Square. Sad day for Mary Agnew. But as she and Bayard were only playmates and schoolmates, she must not appear to be especially grieved. The next thing to be done was to obtain a passport from the United States Government. It could only be obtained in Washington, and as they could not afford the expense of the stages, Frank and Bayard started for Washins^ton on foot. It would seem as if such a journey of one hundred and twenty miles, — in which they walked thirty miles to Port Deposit, thence in a rickety tow-boat to Baltimore, and from that city to Washington, they tramped all night with- out food or drink, — would have discouraged any one from attempting to walk through the countries of Europe. For they must have returned from this first walk footsore and lame in every joint. Yet they came back as full of hope as when they started out, having seen Mr. Calhoun, then Secretary of State, and many other celebrities then inhabiting the capital city, — June, 1844. PARTING WITH FRIENDS. 41 Oh ! those farewells ! To the parents who had watched over him so long, it seemed like losing him forever, so far away and mythical did Europe seem to be. Their lips consented, but their hearts kept rap- ping no, no, no, in rebellious throbs. The brothers and sisters wept with a grief never before so keen, and a dread never before so deep. But to the youth, before whom the great unexplored world lay in its beauty, and who could not then realize, as he did so keenly afterwards, that in all the world he would find no spot so sweet and interesting to him as would be the one he was leaving, it was a joy over which the sadness of parting for a time was but as the shadow of a cloud on the summer sea. High hopes, great aspirations, drove him along, while romantic castles and fortresses, brilliant rivers, heavenly gardens, majestic mountains, wise people, delightful music, ffororeous oralleries of art, and indescribable lands- capes, beckoned him to come. Giddy with anticipa- tion, trembling with conflicting emotions, he stood in the shade of the oak and the hickory of the old home that morning, bidding his loved ones good-by. He was a hero. There was the sense of present loss, and of dansrer to come ; but it weisrhed not with him as against the great ambition of his life. Did he bid Mary Agnew farewell ? Perhaps ! The mature poet will tell us, in his own sweet way, by and by. 42 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. CHAPTER YI. The Contest witli Enemies. — Departure from Philadelpliia. — Friendship of N. P. Willis. — Discouraging Reception. — Inter- view with Horace Greeley. — Searching for a Vessel. — Steerage Passage for Liverpool. — Fellow Passengers. — The Voyage. — The Beauty of the Sea. — Landing at Liverpool. "How rosed with morn, how angel innocent, Thus looking back, I see my lightsome youth! Each thought a wondrous bounty Heaven had lent, And each illusion was a radiant truth ! Each sorrow dead bequeathed a young desire, Each hovering doubt, or cloud of discontent, So interfused with Faith's pervading fire, That to achieve seemed light as to aspire ! " — Taylor. Bayard was not an exception to the universal rule, found true by nearly every scholar, and every success- ful statesman. He was ridiculed by a thoughtless throne:. His success in the matters he undertook sub- jected him to the slights and backbiting of envious simpletons, and everywhere the looks and shrugs of his acquaintances told with what contempt they looked upon his endeavors to be a poet, and to see the world. It was the same old trial, and only those young men who, like Bayard, are able to stand firm against ridicule and envy, ever reach the acropolis of STARTING FOR EUROPE. 43 their ambition. No record has been found of the eifect these things had upon Bayard, or upon the two noble ycung men who were his companions ; but we do know that they turned not from their purpose. Bayard's sensitive nature, his warm heart, his innocent ambition must have felt tlie stings, and, at times in after life, he spoke as one who had not forgotten. How gi-and and honorable the exceptional appearance of the few who were generous and faithful to the poor boy on the threshold of his life ! Taking with them only such baggage as they could carry in their hands, these three young men, — Bay- ard Taylor, Franklin Taylor, and Barclay Pennock. — started for New York the last w^eek in June, 1844. There had been but little delay, notwithstanding the day for departure had been set before Bayard knew where the funds were to come from to defray his expenses. There was a strong hope in Bayard's mind that Mr. N. P. Willis, who had written him such encouraofinsr letters, would be able to assist him in securing employment as a travelling correspondent of some of the New York daily papers. Mr. Willis was widely known, and greatly respected in New York, and, on the arrival of Bayard at his office, he entered heartily into the work of procuring such a situation for his young friend. But foreign correspondence had been as nuich overdone in New York as in Phil- adelphia. So many writers had tried to make a name 44 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOE. by imitating the first successful correspondents, tliat the people were weary with the monotonous story. It was as well known then as it is now% that copyists and imitators are not what a live, active, original news- paper requires. Correspondence from almost any- where could be made interesting and amusing, if the writer would only write naturally, and describe the things he saw in just the light they appeared to him. No one thought that this boy would do anything else but follow in the old track. Hence they wished for none of his writings. One gentleman told him that it was useless to make engagements, for a youth, going into a strange country in that hap-hazard way, would not live to write any letters. Mr. Willis' generous assistance availed Bayard nothing with a people who had so often been compelled to form their own opinion of the people they wished to employ, and who considered themselves the best judges. In the editorial room of the New York " Tribune " sat the editor, whose name is being written higher, on the list of America's great men, by every succeeding year. To his quick eye, there was promise of noble things in the countenance of the boy. He had himself been a venturesome, ambitious, penniless boy, and, like Bayard, he had boldly pushed his boat into the dangerous billows. He may have remembered Ben- jamin Franklin's hazardous trip, as a boy, to Phil- adelphia, for Bayard w^as mentioned by Mr. Willis as a young man from the Quaker city. Whatever may HORACE GREELEY. 45 have been his thoughts, he treated Bayard with his usual consideration, and informed the youth that he was ready to publish and pay for all letters that were worth inserting in the "Tribune." But he solemnly warned Bayard against attempting to write anything until he knew enough about the country to write intelligently. Bayard told Mr. Greeley that he would try to get acquainted with the people of Germany and their institutions, and, as soon as he felt competent, would send a few letters for Mr. Greeley's criticism. The busy editor nodded as the boy thanked him, bade him good-day, and, doubtless, instantly forgot there had ever bcfin such a visitor ; and left the fact in oblivion, until it was brought to mind some months afterwards by the arrival of a letter from Germany. Mr. Willis told Bayard, as he said afterwards, to keep up his courage, and go forward: "The way to Valhalla is broad and smooth to the hero, but narrow and dangerous to the coward." It appears by the brief account which is given in the introduction to his "Views Afoot," published by Putnam & Sons, New York, that the party had a difficult task to find a vessel in which the accommodations, rates of pas- sage, and port of destination were within their plan. They intended at first to take a vessel direct for the Continent; but in such of them as were bound for continental ports, the fare was too high. They were, however, on the point of taking passage in a Dutch sailing vessel, the consignees of which were 46 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. acquaintances of Mr. Willis, and consequently made some reduction in the fares, when an opportunity offered itself for a steerage passage in a vessel bound for Liverpool. In that way, they would be conveyed to England for the sum of twenty-four dollars. But such a passage ! Think of it, ye disconsolate, fault- finding tourists, who lie in the soft beds of a steamer, with fresh air and plenty of light ! Think of it, ye sufferers that occupy the great forward hall of a steamship, and who curse your fate that you arc compelled to take a steerage passage ! What would you do or say should you be crowded into a cabin of rough planks, eight feet long, and seven feet wide, with nine passengers and eight narrow berths, in a clumsy, dirty little sailing vessel ? Yet this was the young adventurer's choice, rather than expend the small sum of twenty-five dollars from his small store. These three boys were compelled, by the terms of passage, to furnish their own provisions and bedding, and the fact that the unexpected honesty and kindness of a warehouse clerk prevented their starting off with- out enough food to last through the voyage, is another proof that "fortune favors the brave." As there was one more adult passenger in the steerage than there were berths. Bayard and his cousin Frank good-naturedly agreed to occupy one together. To the writer, who has frequently crossed the treacher- ous Atlantic, there seems to be no experience so in- conceivably miserable and sickening as a steerage AT SEA. 47 passage in a sailing vessel must be to the landsman. But when to the usual discomforts of dampness, dark- ness, sea-sickness, and strange company, are added the cramps caused by being packed with another passenger like a sandwich into a narrow box, and the absence of fresh air, no tortures of the Inquisition would seem to equal it. Bayard often referred to his first discourairins: sensation of sea-sickness. Comins:, as it always does to the passenger, just as he is taking his last sad look at the fading shores of his native country, it is always a disheartening experience. Bayard shed tears as he began to realize that he was actually afloat upon the wide ocean, and could not if he would return to the land. He has since well said, that had he known more of life, and the dangers of travel, his alarm and discouragement would have been much greater than they were, and of longer duration. Youth borrows no trouble ; hence it is happy and victorious. Of that voyage, and its sufierings, in the ship "Oxford," beginning on the first day of July, and ending at Liverpool on the twenty-ninth of the same month, he made but brief mention ; yet his experience in getting the ship's cook to boil their potatoes, in eating their meals of pilot-bread, and in the company of their English, Scotch, Irish, and German cabin-mates, was most charmingly told in his letters to the " Gazette " and to the "Post," as well as in " Yiews Afoot," to w^hich reference has already been made. His German 48 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. companion was not only a social advantage, but fur- nished the adventurous youths with a pleasant oppor- tunity to get some of the German phrases, and to hear descriptions of the country they were to visit. They were also favored by the captain's permission to use books from the cabin library, which contained several entertaining books of travel and of fiction. The closing days of the voyage appear to have been pleasant in some respects, for the beauty of the sea made a lasting impression upon his mind, and might possibly have been still in his memory when he wrote the lines in his "poems of Home and Travel," running thus : — " The sea is a jovial comrade, He laughs wherever he goes ; His merriment' shines in the dimpling lines That wrinkle his hale repose : He lays himself down at the feet of the Sun, And shakes all over with glee, And the broad-backed billows fall faint on the shore In the mirth of the mighty Sea." It may be that the beauty and joy of the sea ap- peared more remarkable because of the great contrast between its free and wild life, and the crowded and stifled existence of the mortals who witnessed its gam- bols. At all events he was not so delighted with the sea that he could not shout with the others, when the dark outlines of Ireland's mountains appeared through the mist. The sleepless nights, the company of howl- ing Iowa Indians, the musty cabin, the terrible nausea — ARPwIVAL AT LIVERPOOL. 49 all were forgotten in the sight of land, and as the goal grew nearer, the more like a dream became all the disagreeable experiences of the voyage, until when, after tacking from northern Ireland to Scotland, from Scotland to Ireland, and from Ireland to the Isle of Man, they sailed up the Mersey to Liverpool, the in- conveniences of the voyage had wholly faded out, and only the few agreeable incidents remained a reality. They passed the dreaded officials of the custom-house without difficulty, and by the advice of a " wild Eng- lishman," who was one of their travelling companions, they went to the Chorley Tavern, and there enjoyed a bountiful dinner, as only passengers by sea can enjoy them when first they step on shore. Bayard was im- pressed by the sombre appearance of the city, and amused by the use of the middle of the streets for side- walks, and by the pink each man carried in his button- hole. 50 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOB. CHAPTER yn. Departure from Liverpool. — Travels Second-Class. — Arrival at Port . Rush. — The Giant's Causeway. — Lost and in Danger. — Dun- luce Castle. — Effect upon the Travellers. — Condition of the Irish. — Arrival at Dumbarton. — Scaling the Castle Walls. — Walk to Loch Lomond. — Ascent of Ben Lomond. — Loch Katrine. — Visit to Stirling. Bayard and his companions, including the German student, with whom there had sprung up an intimate friendship, left Liverpool on the same day on which they arrived there, having found that they would reach Scotland via the Giant's Causeway, as soon as they could by waiting for the more direct line. With an exercise of common-sense, such as characterizes too few Americans in this day of fashionable travel, they took passage second-class, finding themselves in no way the worse for the temporary inconvenience, while their fare was but one-sixth the amount of a first-class passage. It was not a comfortable night's voyage on the way from Liverpool to Port Rush, in the north of Ireland, starting at ten o'clock in the evening, and arriving at eleven o'clock the next night. It may be that the cold and wet, the crowd of Irish passen- gers, the unvaried diet of bread and cheese, served the purpose of making the shores and bluffs more attractive, giant's causeway. 51 as the mind ntiturally seeks and usually obtains some comfort and recreation in the most doleful surround- ings. It is a glorious thing to look upon those basaltic hexagons of the Giant's Causeway, under any circum- stances. Those enormous natural columns, set side by side, so close as to make a floor along their tops, so strange, so unaccountably symmetrical, fill the soul with awe, and half persuade the least credulous beholder that there were giants in the days of yore, and that they really did build a thoroughfare of these huge prisms across to Scotland. Any traveller contem- plates those matchless piles with surprise, and every sojourner is delighted beyond estimation by the con- tour and echoes of the vast caverns, into which the ocean rolls with such enchanting combinations of sound and motion. But to young men who had seen but little of the world and its natural wonders, and who had sufiered a kind of martyrdom for the sake of visit- ing them, those resounding caverns, and those mighty ruins of gigantic natural temples, must have been inspiring beyond measure. Every traveller recalls with the most clear and grateful remembrance, the first landscapes of Europe, on which rest his ocean- weary eyes. To these young men the landscapes were about their only joy, and they appreciated them accordingly. Bayard seems to have been very enthusiastic. He scrutinized everything and questioned everybody. He let nothing pass him unnoticed, although in his books he left much unmentioned. He clambered into the 52 LIFE OF BAYAKD TAYLOE. lofty recesses of the Causeway, and let himself down into the strange niches. He halloed in the caves for the thunderins: echoes ; he drank three times at the magical Giant's Well. He strayed from the highway that led from Port Eush to the Causeway, to look into the weird nooks which the sea has carved in the mutable shore. Dunluce Castle, with its broken walls and ghastly towers — home of proud Lord Antrim — and home as well of that family's terrible banshee , was the first old ruin which Bayard visited. It stands on the verge of the cragged clifis, with the sea beating about its base, and bellowing in the cavern under it. It is located near the highway which leads from Port Eush to the Causeway. Across the narrow footway, and into these ruins, Bayard rushed most eagerly. The same old man who now shows travellers the battle- ments, and tells to wondering hundreds the tales of tournament and banqueting-hall, was there then, and rehearsed the tale to him. The boy is gone. But the old man, whom Bayard mentions as an old man then, lives on in his dull routine, yet living less in a half century than Bayard lived in a single year. All this was fresh and glorious to the youth, and gave him a very pleasant foretaste of the rich experi- ences in store for him. But, as if the fates conspired to chill his intellectual joys with physical discomforts, a rain came pouring upon them as they returned, the wind blew in fierce gusts, darkness, deep and black, settled upon the land ; they lost their way, and floun- IRISH PEASANTRY. 53 clcrecl about in rauclcly ravines, and barely escaped destruction as they trod the edges of the precipices above the wildest of seas. They became separated from each other, and the howling of winds and waves among the crags was so hideous that they could not for a Ions: time hear each other's call, and the worst ot fears for each other were added to their own dismay. But they somehow blundered upon the ]Dath as it emerged from the wild rocks, and together walked the beach to their hotel, soaking and half frozen. But all those trying experiences fade when the skin is dry, and the sweet sleep of healthy youth comes with its comforting oblivion ; only the gorgeous landscapes, and the romantic places, like the memories of boyhood, remain to shape the dreams. Bayard was shocked by the miserable condition of the Irish peasantry, and his description of their huts, and their appearance, given in his letters, shows great sympathy for their distress, and great disgust at their degraded customs. On his way to Greenock from Port Rush, he fell in with a company of them, who chanced to take the same steamer, and he did not enjoy their drunken and beastly songs and riots. But on his trip from Greenock, up the Clyde to Dumbar- ton, he had more acceptable companionship, and in his book he refers, with a most touching simplicity, to the music of a strolling musician on board the boat, who played "Hail Columbia" and "Home, Sweet Home." 54 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. Old Scotland ! Noble old hills ! Charming lakes, and enchanting valleys ! How like the awakened memories of loved faces, they come back to us when we hear the word "Dumbarton" ! What exciting tales of Baliol, of Wallace, of Bruce, of Queen Mary, of Cromwell, come again as we recall the sugar-loaf rock, on which the remnant of the old fortress stands ! Those bright youths must have feasted on the associa- tions connected with Dumbarton. As they peered from Wallace's tower, handled AYallace's sword, and gazed over the wide landscape, with the sites of battle-fields, castles, palaces, the home of Bruce, the cottage of Wallace, the beautiful valleys of the Clyde and Leven, the majestic Ben Lomond, and the crests of the Highlands, they grew in intellectual stature, and breathed a moral atmosphere as pure as the air that encircled the flagstaff at the summit. There is no education like the actual contact with the scenes connected with heroic self-sacrifice, to train young men for patriots and poets. No discipline is more necessary to the development of a broad and virtuous manhood among any class of young men, than studious travel in foreign countries. To young Bayard, lacking other culture than the few years at the district school, the few months at the academy, and the studious perusal of histories and poems, this experience was of vast importance. Its beneficial effects were seen throughout his life, and frequently show themselves in his editorials, poems, novels, and narratives. DUMBARTON. 55 At Dumbarton, Bayard had his first narrow escape, and he said that when he reached the ground, after dar- ing to scale, for flowers, the precipice up which Wallace climbed with his followers for glory and fatherland, he was in such a tremor of terror, in view of his having so narrowly escaped death, that he could scarcely speak. The unusual strength of a little tuft of wild grass, growing in a crevice of the cliff, had saved him from being dashed to pieces. It must have given him a very vivid impression of the daring feats of those old Scotch warriors, who not only faced these perpendicular walls, but fearlessly encountered the foes at the top. From Dumbarton, Bayard and his friends walked through the valley of the River Leven to Loch Lomond. All his letters and contributions to the newspapers speak of this walk as one of the most enjoyable of all his rambles. Li his "Views Afoot," with which every reader is or should be familiar, he mentions it as a glorious walk. The pastoral beauty of the fields, the clearness of the stream, the ivy- grown towers, the dense forests, the early home of Smollett, whose dashing pen astonished the kingdom in 1748, the summer parks of Scottish noblemen, the mild, soothing August sunshine, were a combination rarely found, and when found as rarely appreciated. These young travellers had been diligent readers, and, when the steamer hurried them over the lake, the appearance of Ben Lomond and Ben Yoirlich, of "Bull's Rock," and Rob Roy's Cave, of Inversnaid 56 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. and Glen Falloch, called up the shades of the Camp- bells, Macgregors, Malcolms, Rothesay s, Macfarlanes, Macphersons ; making each beach and rock along Loch Lomond a feature of romantic interest. With youthful enthusiasm. Bayard clambered to the rugged top of Ben Lomond, having waded through deep morass and thorny thicket, to reach it, and, from that lookout, gazed around on the peaks of lesser mountains, down upon the sweet Lomond lake, away to the oceans on either side of Scotland, discerning the smoke over Glasgow, the dark plains of Ayr, and, but for a mist, the embattled towers of Stirling and Edinburgh. After a short stop, he descended with his old companions, and a new one (he was con- stantly finding new friends), along the slippery, stony slopes ; and, after a dinner of oatmeal cakes and milk at a cottao^e near the base, trud2:ed and waded on through that wild tract of woodland and swam]) to Loch Katrine. There was the home of poetry. The great forests, through which the Clan- Alpine horns had echoed, the dense forest, through which the scarfs and bows did gleam in the old da^^s of the Highland clans, had disappeared. The blossoming heather and bare rocks made a sorry substitute. But to Bayard, whose life was set to poetry, who had so often studied and declaimed of Fitz- James and Roderick Dhu, and who had often dreamed of the Ellen's Isle, and the gathering clans, as Walter Scott described them, it must have been an enchanted spot. One may recite LOCH KATRINE. 57 and analyze for half a century that poem, and may flatter himself that he has detected all its beauty, and under- stands all its historic references ; but one hour on Loch Katrine is worth more than all that. There the reader lives the poem, and it is a part of his being ever more. Bayard felt compensated there for all the sufierings, by sea and by land, which he had experienced. He* gazed fondly upon the glassy, land-locked water; he studied closely the features, manners, and songs of the Highland boatmen, those descendants of the old clans ; he sketched, with the keenest interest, Ben Ann, Ben Venue", the gate of the Trosachs, and the curved lines of the sandy shore, and he awoke the echoes at the Goblin's Cave and Beal-nam-bo. Rich experiences ! In such does the youth develop fast into a cultured manhood. From Loch Katrine, the party walked by way of Loch Yennachar, Coilantogle Ford, and Ben Ledi, to Doune, — the home of royalty during the sixteenth century, and whose old castle is still a majestic ruin. Thence through the plains to Stirling Castle, crowned and battle-honored, and looking down on the valleys of the Forth and Allan AYater, and out upon the bloody fields of Bannockburn and Sherifi'-muir. Havins: inspected the dungeons and halls of the castle, looked with horror upon the spot where royalty murdered a friend, and threw the body to the dogs ; and after contemplating the grave of the girlish martyrs, they hastily took the shortest route to Glas- 58 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. gow, and thence to the home of Burns, where a great celebration, oi* memorial gathering, was to be held, to honor the memory of the "rustic bard," on the banks of his own " Bonnie Doon." VISIT TO AYR. 59 CHAPTER VIII. Visit to the Home of Burns.— The Poet's Cottage.— The Cele- bration. — Walks and Rides in the Rain. — Edinburgh. — Its Associations. — The Teachings of History. — Home of Drum- mond. — Abbotsford. — Melrose. — Jedburgh Abbey. — New- castle-on-Tyne. Bayard's visit to Ayr was the first of a long series of like visitations to the homes of celebrated poets, and being then a novel experience was doubly enjoyed. It may be that the similar occupation, and like inspiration, which characterized both himself and Burns, made the spot more attractive. Had they not both followed the plough through the thick sward ? Had not both milked the co"v\'s ; drove the horses to the water ; planted the corn ; dug up the weeds ; cut the hay, and all the while sang and recited original verses ? Had he not been ridiculed by his playmates, and sneered at by his neighbors, in common with that great poet of Scotland ? To look over the farm on which Burns toiled ; to be shown the spot on which it is claimed Burns over- turned — " That wee bit heap o' leaves and stibble," the home of the "mousie," and to be shown the cottage he was born in, and the scenes which in- 60 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. spired his songs, interesting as they are to the writer of prose, must have been peculiarly satisfactory to him. He does not speak of it, however, with the enthusiasm one would expect, and it is quite prob- able that he was not yet wholly inured to tlip incon- veniences of a wet climate, and could not think or muse in a crowd as satisfactorily as when dry and alone. When he arrived in the town, the streets were filled by an immense throng, and there could have been little satisfaction in trying to fall into poetical dreams. It is a great satisfaction to those of Ba3^ard's friends who have loved him, and put their faith in him, to know that he put himself on record in some of his early let- ters, in no light terms, as having an unutterable disgust for the drunken brawling which went on in the name of Burns that day in Ayr. He felt, with great keenness, the disgrace which every American feels that it is to Scotland, that the old cottage, so sacred for its associations as the birth-place of Burns, should be occupied as a drinking-saloon, and be crowded with intoxicated vagabonds. It seemed like making a dog- kennel of a chapel in St. Paul's. Anything but genius, intellect, or wit characterizes the crowd that usually frequent Burns' Cottage on such days ; and it is said to have been, in 1844, the resort of a more beastly class than are those wretches who get intoxicated there now, and, naturally, on such a great day as that on which Bayard visited it, every Scotsman who indulged at all became furiously drunk. Besides that inconvenience, THE BUENS CELEBRATION. 61 the trustees of the monument, on the clay when so many thousands came to see it and its treasures, voted to lock it up ; and Bayard, with the others, was shut out from its interestins^ collection of relics and memen- toes. Still further, it was so arranged by the marshals of the occasion, that the grand stand, w^ith its literary feast and the ceremonies appurtenant to the occasion, were shut out from the populace to whom the poet sang, and Bayard being only a strange boy, with no more of a title than Herbert Burns had, was obliged to content himself with a seat on the ridc^e of the " bris: o* Doon." He did see old AUoway kirk, and heard its bell. He saw within its ruined walls the rank weeds, and Avithout, the graves of the poet's ancestry. He did have a cheerful pedestrian tour ; for the home of Burns, with Alloway kirk and the bonnie Doon, are three miles from the city of Ayr in open country. He saw the sister and sons of the poet. He heard the assembled thousands sing, " Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon." He saw a grandson of Tam O'Shanter. He had to walk the three miles, returnino: throusrh mud and rain, and he had to stand in an open car, exposed to a driving rain-storm, throughout the two hours' ride by railroad to Glasgow. How different his reception then, as a boy and unknown, from that which he received in his riper age, after his fame was secured, at the home of Germany's greatest poet. We follow Bayard in his first tour in Europe with greater detail than we shall do with other journeys, 62 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. because in this he developed so much of that character which made him famous. History being written, not for the dead, but for the instruction and encourage- ment of the living, should show clearly how a great life was attained, as a guide for similar genius in the days to come. In a volume of hasty sketches like this, we cannot hope to do the work as thoroughly as we should so much love to do it ; but as far as can be done at this early day, we give those events which had the greatest effect upon his life as a writer of prose and poetry. He must have feasted in Edinburgh. Richest store- house in Scotland, for all such as follow letters ! There was the monument to Scott, suggestive of the most beautiful in art, but so insignificant as a reminder of him, while the walls of Salisbury Crags, and the dome of Arthur's Seat, frown beyond and above it. There was Holy rood Palace, with its stains of blood, the couch of the beautiful queen, and the collections of historical relics. No place but the Tower of London has received such attention from gifted and famous lit- erary men. Historians, poets, philosophers, educators, preachers, and lawyers have written and discoursed upon it. There was Calton Hill, with its monuments to great men. There was the great University, and there was the old Castle, that sat like a crown on the head of the city. All had been described by the most facile pens. All were full of living interest, and when Bayard tried to describe them, he found himself EDINBURGH AND ABBOTSFORD. 63 attempting to compete Avith the greatest essayists of the English-speaking world. The Grass Market, where Porteous was executed : Cowgate Street, with its aris- tocratic associations ; St. Giles' Church, with its mem- ories of John Knox and the Heart of Mid-Lothian, were described by him, about which it is a kind of literary sacrilege to speak in other than classic language. It w^as a school that included every other, and Bayard was an apt and diligent scholar. A short distance from Edinburgh, the pedestrians saw the birthplace and hermitage of Drummond. It is a delightful, sequestered chateau, called " Haw- thornden," and in it the poet wrote nearly all his elegant sonnets, and it was there that old Ben Jon- son, after a walk from London, was entertained by Drummond, and Drummond was in turn entertained by Jonson. Going by the way of Galashiels and Selkirk, the party visited Abbotsford and its environs, where the immortal Scott lived and wrote. In the beautiful mansion which Scott built, and in which he wrote his most popular works, they read his manu- scripts ; sat at his desk ; wandered in his gardens ; gazed intently over the wide lawn and the distant Tweed ; scrutinized the enormous variety of relics which had been collected by that antiquarian, to whom kings and queens were glad to become tributary. Thence they walked along the hard and smooth high- way to old Melrose. Ruins they would see in the near England, and on 64 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. the distant continent, which would enclose a dozen abbeys such as this ; Gothic arches they would enter which would make those of Melrose seem as a toy ; and ivy and carving and chancels would be noticed, so much more rich and beautiful, that these would suffer sadly if put in comparison. But nowhere else in all the wide world would they find a locality made more interesting than this. The associations are almost everything. And to the initiated, the great magician, Scott, still speaks in the groined arches, flowering pil- lars, old clock, and willow-like windows. Melrose Abbey is a marked illustration of the power of a master-mind to give influence, life, and interest to inanimate things. Bayard felt this truth and men- tioned it. He read " The Lay of the Last ^Minstrel" in the shadow of the arches, and imagined how the ruins glowed when the grave of the wizard opened and the book was revealed. Who knows but it was there, in the presence of those stirring associations, that he first con- ceived the plan which led him to make classic in poetry and fiction the fields, hills, and Quakers of his native county. Had he lived ten years longer than he did, his loved Kennett might have been as classic in song and story as Abbotsford itself.- From Melrose the young pedestrians walked to Jed- burofh, omittins: the deliofhtful excursion to Drvburi^^h, but passing the home of Pringle, who had been the founder of "Blackwood's Magazine," and who had been also a poet and wanderer like Bayard. While CULTURED TEAVELLERS. 65 passing the Cheviot Hills, the party met an excursion- ist in a carriage, fast asleep, which appeared to amuse Bayard very much. Probably he afterwards saw more amusing scenes than that, wherein travellers did not appreciate their privileges. The writer, as late as the summer of 1878, saw an American who had worked most industriously to lay up the funds to visit Switzer- land, ride up the entire ascent of the glorious Alps at St. Gothard, on the top of a coach, fast asleep. Such marvels does the world of humanity contain. Bayard did not sleep when anything of interest called upon him for investigation, nor when the beauties of nature were to be enjoyed. They crossed the border between Scotland and England, over the battle-fields of the Percys, and by streams that were often, in days past, actually swollen with blood. There, "Marmion," with all its tales historical, and legends mythical, was quoted and lived as only the cultured traveller can live it. There w^as instruction in every scene, every stranger, and every inn. How well Bayard availed himself of their lessons, is illustrated in all his excellent letters on foreign travel, and in his books compiled from them. At Newcastle he noticed a group of miners begging in the streets, and when he heard how they had struck for higher wages, because they could not longer exist on the pittance allowed them, and how they and their families were turned out upon the streets to starve, his indignation was very great, and in his book he utters a prophecy that soon that murmur from the oppressed C)C) LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. people would increase to a roar, and be heard " b}^ the dull ears of power." From Newcastle he went by boat to London, reaching that city in the early morning near the end of August. THE CITY OF LONDON. 67 CHAPTER IX. Visit in London. — Exliibition of Relics. — The Lessons of Travel. — Historical Association. — London to Ostend. — The Cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle. — The Great Cathedral at Cologne. — Voy- age up the Rhine. — Longfellow's " Hyperion." — Visit to Frankfort. — Kind Friends. — Reaches Heidelberg. — Climbing the Mountains. London is a world in itself, as has often boen writ- ten, and, to such an impressible mind as that of Bayard, was a place replete with pleasure and instruc- tion. London instructs by two methods ; one by agreeable, and the other by disagreeable examples. Bayard was equally taught by both. There was West- minster Abbey, with its numberless tombs of the tal- ented and noble ; and there was tlie Tower of London, with its dungeons and beheading blocks. There were tiie palatial residences of the West End, and there the hovels and holes of the AYy ch Street district. There were the great mercantile houses of Holborn and Ke- gent Street, and there were the gambling dens of Drury Lane. There were the magnificent galleries of art, at the Museum, at the Palaces, at Westminster, and at Kensington : and there were the dirty, slimy exhibitions of marred humanity along the wharves of the Thames. There were the zoological wonders of the parks, and 68 LITE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. there were the clog-shows, and cock-pits of the St. Giles Rookery. There was the palace of the Queen, and there the Old Bailey. There was the office of the "Thunderer" (Daily Times), and there were the attics from whence flowed the vilest trash that man ever printed. There were Hyde Park, Regent's Park, St. James Park, and the broad squares ; and there were the filthy alleys and narrow lanes about London Bridge. There were the Rothschilds, and there the poor Micawbers and deserted Nicholas Nicklebys. The richest, the poorest, the best, the worst; the most cultivated, and the most ignorant; the most powerful monarch, and the most degraded fishmongers. Extremes ! Extremes that meet in everything there. They all instruct by teaching the beholder what he ought to be, and Avhat he ought not to be. One sees much in London that ousfht not to have been ; and, strange to relate, many of the relics connected with such thinirs, are exhibited with orreat pride. If there is any one thing above all others, for which the American should be thankful, it is for the fact that the dungeon, the rack, the wheel, the thumb- screw, the guillotine, the gibbet, the headsman's block, the deadly hates of royalty, the cruelty of kings, and the jealousy of queens, have no place in the history of the Republic of the West. Yet there, somehow, the officials and guides who open to the public the records of the past and show visitors their institutions, give the most prominent places to deeds of horrid SCENES IN LONDON. 69 cruelty and shameless murders, as if they took pride in such fearful annals. It would seem as if, had our rulers butchered in cold blood their sons and dausfh- ters ; had they cruelly starved their friends and relatives, we in America would be ashamed of it. It would be regarded as very natural here, if an ancestor was hung and quartered and his head carried about on a pole, to speak of it as seldom as possible. It would appear consistent if, had our national government oppressed the weak, degraded the poor, killed inoffensive cap- tives, and, for selfish ambition, laid waste the cities and fields of an innocent people, we should attempt to bury the remembrance of those deeds so deep as to make a resurrection impossible. But there, in Europe, they appear to revel in the hideous doings of their ancestors, and will show you where human heads or hands were exhibited, and where noble men and women were persecuted to martyrdom, with the air of the circus manager who announces the clown. Who can hear the guide on London Bridge, "Here was posted the bleeding head of Sir William Wallace, the Scotch warrior and patriot, while the quarters of his body were at Stirling, Berwick, Perth, and New- castle," and not curse, with the deepest feeling, the people who murdered one of the greatest and best of men? It is clear that these things made a strong impression upon Bayard, for we find him more frequently and more decidedly praising his own land, as he saw more 70 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. and more of Europe. He saw, also, many of the advantages which European nations enjoy in art, literature, and commerce, and failed not to susrsfest them to his readers. But, unlike those shallow tour- ists, who would ape European manners, and think all European institutions should he at once imported here, his patriotic regard for the institutions and peo- ple of hi's own land, increased with the desire to henefit them. How reverently he speaks of George Washington ; how touchingly does he speak with the European peasants who accost him, of the home of the free beyond the great ocean. A whole week those young men searched the great city for valuable information. They slept and ate in the rudest of taverns, and tramped the city with the workmen and the beggars, but they were gathering the forces for a useful life. Bayard was filled with the sublimity of the mighty human torrent that, like a tide, rolls into London in the mornins:, dashes about the highways during the day, and surges outward at night. He felt the grandeur of St. Paul's, the con- flicting and exciting associations of Westminster, the marvellous feat of tunnellins: under the Thames, the enormous wealth of churches, monuments, halls, and galleries, and carried away with him to the Continent a very complete idea of the institutions and the queer customs of the great metropolis. From London, the party proceeded to Dover, and from thence to Ostend and Bruges. They travelled in AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. 71 the cheapest manner, walking wherever practicable, and going from Bruges to Ghent in a canal-boat, thence by railroad across the border to Aix-la-Chapelle. Here was another treat. The description which he gave in his letters of his visit to the old Cathedral, where rest the remains of Charlemagne, was one of the most vivid recitals to be found in the annals of travel. For some reason, he so abridsred it in his book, as to take away the finest and most original delineations. Every reader of his first narration, who may never have visited Aix-la-Chapelle, can in imagination see the old Cathedral, with its shrines, its antique windows, and the shadows of saints on the floor, and hear the sweet undulations of the organ's solemn peal. While to the traveller who follows him through those aisles, and under those mas^nificent arches, his words £:ive life and language to the pillars, altars, and luminous decora- tions. To the least poetic or sentimental of travellers, it is a solemn place ; and if so to them, how deep and impressive must it have been to a soul so full of emo- tion as that of Bayard ! There he wrote his well- known poem, "The Tomb of Charlemagne." This grand old pile w^as succeeded next day by the great Gothic Cathedral, at Cologne, which was not then finished, is not now completed, and will never see the end of the mason's labors, because the time taken in the construction is so long that the very stone decays, and must be replaced at the base by the time the deli- cate tracery of the towers is set on those skyward 72 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. heights. The structure must be constantly in process of reconstruction, from the bottom, upwards. When Bayard looked upon this wonderful building, w^hich since 1248 had been in an uncompleted state, two hundred and fifty years having been spent in active labor, he said it impressed him most deeply, by w^ay of comparison. Two hundred and forty years before America was discovered, the foundations of that church were laid, and here they are w^orking on it still I By such lessons is an American made to know his place in the history of the world. Had the his- tory of these old lands been less barbarous and cruel, we should feel humble indeed. But in view of w^hat the old folks have done, we may be thankful that we are young, and have our record yet to write. But the fact that we are not so old, so great, so artistic, or so cultured as we have flattered ourselves, is wholesome mformation, and as taught by these old Cathedrals of Europe, is very necessary to the success of our young men. How deeply these things moved Bayard, is seen by the very frequent mention we find in his writings, of aisle, or arch, or dome, or spire. But one of the most attractive spots to that young voyager, in all his wanderings in Europe, he saw while going up the Rhine, from Cologne to Mayence. He viewed with satisfaction the vineyards and villages alona: the banks ; he was charmed w4th the crao^s and crumbling towers of the innumerable old castles which ornament the tops of all the most prominent hills and Longfellow's hypeeion. 73 mountains. The walled cities, the legendary caves and grottos, the most exquisite failles that account for the mh'aculous construction of cliff, and convent, and crusaders' halls, all came upon him as he glided by tliem on the muddy river, as dreams come to the drinker of hashish. But beyond all these in interest to our young wanderer, was the little walled town of Boppart, whose feudal history is nearly lost, but whose romantic connection with Longfellow's " Hyperion," has given it a fresh lease of life. Bayard there recalled his life at home, and his days of anxious waiting; for, had not this same "Hyperion," with entrancing interest, spurred on his hope to one day travel along the Ehine ? Had not this same " Hyperion " given the impulse that started his cousin on such a great journey to the university at Heidelberg ? And were not those houses in the town of Boppart, and was not that cottage the very Inn of the " Star," and might not that woman, near the shore, be "Paul Flemming's" boat- woman? Oh! grand and revered Longfellow ! when we note how many a life, like these, has turned upon the reading of your inspired words, one feels as if to have seen your face and heard your voice^ and to have been beneath the same roof, was an honor greater than kings could bestow ! But Boppart, Lurlei Berg, Oberwisel, Bingen, and Geisenheim were soon left behind, and Mayence, with its Cathedral six centuries old, its walls and for- tresses, welcomed them to its monotonous shades. 74 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. A beautiful trait of Bayard's character comes grace- fully into view as we read his grateful acknowledg- ments of the kindnesses he received. On his first walk in his apprentice days, in Pennsylvania, having determined to see some mountains, although he had to walk two hundred miles to view them, he was kindly served at a well, on the way, by a farmer's girl, who cheerfully drew the bucket from the well and ran for a glass, that he, a dusty, thirsty stranger, might drink without further fatigue ; and in his later years he records the fact in his book, with the sweetest expres- sions of thankfulness. So when he arrived at Frank- fort, and was kindly received and entertained by Mr. Richard S. Willis, the American consul, brother of Bayard's old friend, Nathaniel P. Willis, he sits downat once, and in his letters to his friends, and in his public correspondence, he speaks of the generosity and thoughtfulness of his old friend, and the hospitable and cultured characteristics of his new friend. They were noble friends, who made for him a home at their fireside in Franldbrt, and deserve the thanks of every admirer of Bayard Taylor. His thanks they had throughout a long life, and not only thanks, but grateful deeds. It was Bayard's purpose to go to Heidelberg, with his cousin, and give himself to close study, at the University, or with private tutors ; but just how he was going to obtain the means to pay his expenses was something of an enigma. It may be that his good fortune in the outset made him too confident and AT HEIDELBERG. 75 careless in regard to other undertakings. At all events, his stay in Heidelberg was much shorter than he had at first intended that it should be, and his studies were much more broken and superficial than his letters show he thought they would be. He was not consti- tuted for close, hard, metaphysical study, and made but little attempts in that direction, after he arrived at Heidelberg. He loved the grand old Castle better than the whittled benches of the University. He en- joyed the Kaisersthul and the lesser mountains, far more than the monotonous recital of German theories. The river Neckar called him in its murmurs, the clouds beckoned to him as they flew over the Heligen Berg, the wind called for him as it sighed around the vine- yards of Ziegelhausen, and all thoughts of private, quiet study fled at the summons. So he climbed the mountains. It was always a passion with him to gain an altitude as high as possible, and look out upon the world. He tells how, when a boy, he ventured out of a chamber window in the old farm-house at Kennett, and seeing a row of slats which the carpenters had used for steps in ascending the roof, he sallied forth, and there astride of the roof, gained his first view of a landscape. He said afterward, that the roof appeared to be so high and the view so extensive, that he im- agined he could see Niagara Falls. Whether this inclination to climb up came to him through the stories of his old Swiss nurse, whose bed-time stories were of the mighty Alps and their towering cones, or whether 76 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. it was an hereditary trait in his nature, none may be able to decide. He was certainly prone to go upwards, and had a tendency for horizontal motion equally as strong. He would not remain stationary ; hence, at Heidelberg, he inspected every nook and crevice of the picturesque old Castle, crouched through its conduits, rapped its ponderous tun, scaled its roofless aud crum- bling walls, rushed into the recesses of the adjacent thickets, and tested the celebrated beer at the students' resorts. He joined excursion parties which visited the neighboring mountains, and after he had been there a month, he knew the fields, rocks, trees, val- leys, dells, and peaks, as well as a native, and appears to have loved them with a patriotic regard almost equal to the eldest burgher. FROM HEIDELBERG TO FRANKFORT, 77 CHAPTEE X. study in Frankfort. — Lack of Money. — Different EflTect of Want on Travellers. — Bayard's Privations. — Again sets out on Foot. — Visit to tlie Hartz Mountains. — The Brocken. — Scenes in " Faust." — Locality in Literature. — The Battle-field at Leip- sic. — Auerbach's Cellar. For the purposes of this work, an outline of Bayard's travels is all that can be attempted ; except where some remarkable incident occurred that had an unusual in- fluence on his subsequent life. Leaving Heidelberg in the latter part of October (1844), Bayard walked throuofh the Odenwald to Frankfort, where he could pursue his study of the German language, and observe the customs and characteristics of the people to better advantage and at a less expense. In attempting to see Europe on such a limited allowance of money, he necessarily met with many inconveniences and priva- tions. His sufferings were at times most intense. He knew what it was to fast for whole days ; he felt the pains of blistered bare feet. He was exposed to the severest storms of summer and winter ; he was familiar with the homes of beggary and the hard, swarming beds of third-class taverns. He must have sufiered beyond his own estimate, for, as he so well says, the pains of travel are soon forgotten and the pleasures 78 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. vividly remembered. There was a youthful abandon in his almost reckless adventures which startles the reader of his tours. But yet the pains he felt so keenly, the dangers he encountered so frequently, did not seem to abate his enthusiasm for the great works and beautiful scenes which Europe exhibits. To find ourselves in a strange city, where no one speaks our native language ; where it is not possible that any person can know us or any of our friends ; without money, or food, or work, is one of the most dis- heartening situations that can be imagined. Yet such an experience came often to Bayard. It would seem as if, on some occasions, he ran into such difficulties needlessly and for very wantonness. Yet, as was sometimes the experience of the writer, and from one of which dangerous situations Mr. Taylor generously rescued him, there somehow opens a way out from such ventures, which is found on the very verge of starvation and despair. But the trait of character, which in Bayard commanded such respect, was some- thing so unusual, that his daring example cannot be safely followed by the multitude. It is far better to have a supply of money for the necessarj^ expenses of travel in Europe or Asia, than to run risks for the sake of the romance which Bayard found in such straits. To many tourists, even the parks of Homburg, the castle of Drachenfels, or the palace of the Vatican, would become insignificant baubles before the stronger de- mands of the body for food and raiment. But seldom LITE IN FRAJ^KFOET. 79 did any fatigue or annoyance or loss, abate his wonder- ful zeal in his search for the poetical, the strange, the historical, and the beautiful. Some of his most ex- quisite descriptions of art or nature, were written from notes made when his stomach was empty and his limbs chilled with wet and cold. Such young men are few ; and for one with less perseverance, endurance, or genius to attempt such things on such a scale, would be to meet with disheartening failure. Of his life in Frankfort, during the winter of 1845, he often speaks with great satisfaction. He made excellent progress in the language, and in that under- standing of the habits of the people which Mr. Greeley had so pointedly urged upon him as an ambitious aspirant for the favors of the " Tribune." He comes out of that study a matured thinker. His descriptions assume a more thoughtful tone. His sympathies are more often awakened for the people, and he sees as a man sees, and less juvenile are all his undertakings and communications. He there acquired a love of German poetry, and became acquainted with many of the noted men of Frankfort. He visited the aged Mendelssohn, and tells with charming simplicity how he was received by the composer of " St. Paul" and "Elijah." Thus introduced to German literature, art, and music, he entered again upon his travels at the opening of spring, with new and increasuig appreciativeness. Again, on foot, he went into the untried way of Europe. His first attraction was for the Hartz Moun- 80 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. tains, so intimately connected with Goethe's "Faust," with which Bayard was ah'eady in love, and which he afterwards translated in a masterly manner. So he went through Friedberg and Giessen, into Hesse-Cassel, making the acquaintance of peasants and merchants on his way, and moralizing upon the curious circumstance that the descendants of the Hessians, who fought so doggedly at Brandy- wine, should receive so hospitably the descendant of those who filled the "plains of Trenton with the short Hessian graves." Thence by Miinden, Gottingen and Osterode, enduring sickening fatigues and dangerous exposure, he reached the Brocken mountain, v/here, through thickets, rocks, chasms, snow and cold, he at last rested in a cottage at its summit, amid the associa- tions awakened by the weird tales of witches and the superstitious explanations of that singular illusion, — the " Spectre of the Brocken." If he had any " w^ish " on that "AYalpurgis night," which he passed on the high- est mountain of the Hartz range, it was probably to be relieved of the tortures which his weak frame endured, and from which the physician had failed to relieve him. It would not be surprising if he recited from "Faust" the words of scene IV. : — "Through some familiar tone, retrieving My thoughts from torment, led me on, And sweet, clear echoes came, deceiving A faith bequeathed from childhood's dawn, Yet now I curse whatever entices And snares the soul with visions vain ; THE BROCKEN OF FAUST. 81 "With dazzling cheats and dear devices Confines it in this cave of pain ! Cursed be, at once, the high ambition Wherewith the mind itself deludes ! Cursed be the glare of apparition, That on the finer sense intrudes." We cannot forbear to add another quotation from the same Act, so illustrative is it of Bayard's note- taking life : — " No need to tell me twice to do it ! I think, how useful 'tis to write ; For what one has in black and white, One carries home and then goes through it." His visit to the Brocken was one of the most fas- cinating trips of his whole pedestrian tour, notwith- standing his narrow escape from death in the snow, and from destruction by falling into the partially con- cealed caves that beset his way to the summit. He mentioned Ions: afterward the view he had from the summit-house, through the rifts in the clouds, of the plains and cities of Germany. Thirty cities and sev- eral hundred villages lay within sight, and all of them more or less closely interwoven with the literature of Germany. The plains of Brunswick and Magdeburg stretch away for seventy miles, with all the various shadings of green intermingled with the sparkling sil- ver of stream and lake. It is a scene so grand that no pen could portray its sublimity and no tongue accu- rately convey an idea of its varied beauty. With that 82 LIFE OF BAYAED TAYLOR. romantic persistency which no amount of fatigue over- came, Bayard descended the mountain by that rugged and nerve-shaking path up which Faust was said to have ascended with Mephistopheles ( scene XXI. of Taylor's translation ) who says : — " How sadly rises, incomi)lete and ruddy, The moon's lone disk, with its belated glow, And lights so dimly, that, as one advances. At every step one strikes a rock or tree ! Let us, then, use a Jack-o'-Lantern's glances : I see one yonder, burning merrily. Ho, there ! my Mend ! I '11 levy thine attendance : Why waste so vainly thy resplendence ? Be kind enough to light us np the steep." After which Faust, in a musing mood, looks down from the Brocken heights and replies : — "How strangely glimmers through the hollows A dreary light, like that of dawn ! Its exhalation tracks and follows The deepest gorges, faint and wan. Here steam, there rolling vapor eweepeth ; Here hums the glow through film and haze : Now like a tender thread it creepeth. Now like a fountain leaps and plays. Here winds away, and in a hundred Divided veins the valley braids : There in a corner pressed and sundered, Itself detaches, spreads and fades. Here gush the sparkles incandescent Like scattered showers of golden sand ; — But, see ! in all their height at present. The rocky ramparts blazing stand. " LEIPSIC AND DRESDEN. 83 As Bayard leaped and stumbled down the rocky de- clivity into the narrow gorge that there divides the mountahis to give an outlet for the river Bode, the very difficulties bound him closer to Goethe's writinsrs. He felt again how important a thing it is in literature to connect it by patriotic links with some actual land- scape, and how much more vivid and permanent are the lessons an author would teach when the reader visits the mountains, plains, cities, buildings, and peo- ple mentioned in books of classic worth. Thus learn- ing and growing the young traveller plodded on from inn to inn and village to village. Leipsic, which he reached a day or two after leaving the Brocken, was a place of great interest to Bayard, as it is in fact to all travellers. But the interest in any city or country visited by a tourist depends so much upon his previous reading, and the taste and opportu- nities for reading are so diverse, that it seldom happens that any two persons in the same party enjoy the same scene with equal satisfaction. Bayard had read of Leipsic and Dresden in his boyhood when other boys were catching rab]:)its or playing ball, and as when he sees the great citadel at Magdeburg which once held Baron Trenck a prisoner, so when at Leipsic he looks over the field where Blucher and Schwartzenberg met Napoleon, he is startled with the vividness of the pic- tures in his imagination. Hundreds of thousands rush- inor to combat and scatterino^ in retreat while smoke rolls 84 LITE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. upward from hundreds of cannon and the streams are choked with piles of bloody dead ! There too was Auerbach's Cellar, in which Goethe's Faust and Mephistopheles are so humorously placed. There was the same drinking-saloon, there the descend- ant of the old bar-keeper, and there the same character- istic crowd of loafers, as when Faust and Mephistoph- eles drank there, and when amid songs and jokes, the latter drew all kinds of wine from the gimlet holes in the leaf of the old wooden table. Bayard's estimate of the people appears to have confirmed that of Mephis- topheles who says ( scene Y. ) : — " Before all else I bring thee Mther Where boon companions meet together, To let thee see how smooth life runs away. Here, for the folk, each day 's a holiday : With little wit, and ease to suit them, They whirl in narrow, circling trails, Like kittens playing with their tails : And if no headache persecute them, So loDg the host may credit give, They merrily and careless live. " The peasantry still crowd the cellar, still sing the old lays, and each day tell over again the old legend of Mephistopheles' miraculous exit. " I saw him, with these eyes, upon a wine cask riding Out of the cellar door, just now. " AT DRESDEN. S5 CHAPTER XI. Pictures at Dresden. — Raphael's Madonna. — Bayard's Art Educa- tion. — His Exalted Ideas of Art. — His Enthusiasm. — Visits Bohemia. — Stay in Prague. — The Curiosities of Vienna. — Tomb of Beethoven. — Respect for Religion. — Listens to Strauss. — View of Lintz. — Munich and its Decoratious. — The Home of Schiller. — Poetic Landscapes, and Charming People. — Statue by Thorwaldsen. — Walk to Heidelberg. At Dresden, Bayard visited the picture-gallery, for the purpose of seeing Raphael's Madonna and Child, known as the Madonna di San Sisto. His description of that painting, so unfortunately abridged in his book, was one of the finest examples of art criticism to be found in print. His appreciation of painting and sculpt- ture was remarkable, indeed, for one who never made them a professional study, and whose rude sketches in pencil in his note books, contained nearly all of his undertakings as an amateur. His soul seemed cast in the proper mould for that kind of work, but his hand was never trained to materialize the pictures that filled the galleries of his imagination. He had all those finer sensibilities and acute instincts which fitted him for art in poetry or stone, and he saw in paintings and statuary, beauties or defects which thousands of colder but more studious critics failed to notice. 86 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. He spoke of that Madonna at Dresden, as a painting that moved his whole nature in admiration. He enjoyed it. He feasted on it. He read it as one follows an exciting romance. He felt the power of the picture as Raphael felt it, and seemed to appreciate it even more keenly than the artist. How much satisfaction and delight he found in the enormous collections of art in the Old World, cannot be told or understood by any one whose natural genius leads them not in such a direction. His mental appetite for such things grew so keen, as he went on from city to city and gallery to gallery, that he much preferred to leave his meals un- tasted, than pass a great painting without study. Like the true artist, his mind took in the grand ideals, and his respect and admiration for the divine handiwork in producing man and beast, caused him often to wince under the sujrsfestive and dec^radino^ obtrusiveness of fig-leaves and rude drapery in sculpture. The human form in all its heavenly beauty and godlike majesty, as reproduced in marble by the great artists, was too sacred and pure to him, to be marred by the sugges- tions of sin. No man or woman will ever become an artist, in its highest, noblest sense, until their love for beauty, simplicity, and purity, lifts them above the impressions that are born of ignorance, vulgarity, and sin. Bayard, in after years, thus beautifully wrote of sculpture : — "In clay the statue stood complete, As beautiful a form, and fair. POETRY OF ART. 87 As ever walked a Roman street Or breathed the blue Athenian air ; The perfect limbs, divinely bare, Their old, heroic freedom kept, And in the features, fine and rare, A calm, immortal sweetness slept. O'er common men it towered, a god, And smote their meaner life with shame, For while its feet the highway trod, Its lifted brow was crowned with fiame And purified from touch of blame : Yet wholly human was the face, And over them who saw it came The knowledge of their own disgrace. It stood, regardless of the crowd. And simply showed what men might be : Its solemn beauty disavowed The curse of lost humanity, Erect and proud, and pure and free, It overlooked each loathsome law Whereunto others bend the knee. And only what was noble saw." The blameless spirit of a lofty aim Sees not a line that asks to be concealed By dextrous evasion ; but, revealed As truth demands, doth Nature smite with shame Them, who with artifice of ivy-leaf Unsex the splendid loins, or shrink the frame From life's pure honesty, as shrinks a thief, While stands a hero ignorant of blame ! " Each part expressed its nicely measured share. In the mysterious being of the whole : Not from the eye or lip looked forth the soul, But made her habitation everywhere Within the bounds of flesh ; and Art might steal, As once, of old, her purest triumphs there." 88 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. This appreciation of the inner feelings of the sculptor and painter, is the more astonishing, I)ecause of the unusual disadvantages under which he first studied the works of the ancient masters. Aching limbs, bruised feet, and an empty stomach are not usually aids to the critic in forming a judgment of the symmetry or grace of any work of art. But his enthusiastic recitals of his visits to the celebrated paintings, show no less rapture when he saw them in fatigue and hunger, than when he looked ujjon them in rest and bodily satiety. Thus, most naturally, he became the companion and intimate friend of a large number of the European artists, and was sought and highly esteemed by all the American painters and sculptors whom he met in Europe. He understood them. He sympathized with their enthusiasm and sacrifices ; while a great, cold world went by them without a comforting word or a smile of recognition. Dresden was like a door to his higher art life, and its collection of paintings is worthy of such a place. There were, besides the Sistine Madonna, the "Ascen- sion," by Eaphael Mengs, the "Notte," by Correggio, and galleries of master-pieces by Titian, Da Vinci, Veronese, Del Sarto, Kubens, Vandyck, Lorraine and Teniers ; with sculpture in marble, ivory, bronze and jewels, from Michael Angelo and his cotempora- ries. Being the widest and most diversified collection in Germany, it was eagerly sought by Bayard, and more reluctantly left behind. More grand than the ^iiil!!lli:»!fiiH VISIT TO PRAGUE. 89 battle of Napoleon before its gates, and more lasting in their effects, were the historic works of art which Dresden is so proud to possess. From Dresden, Bayard walked to Prague, leaving behind him, as he then thought forever, the cheerful, hospitable, kind-hearted people, with whose kin he afterwards became so intimately and advantageously connected. In Prague, he ascended the heights where the Bohemian kings and Amazon queens used to re- side, heard the solemn mass in one of Europe's most solemn Cathedrals, visited the bridge under which the Saint Johannes floated with the miraculous stars about his corpse, lost himself in the bedlam of Jewish cloth- ing-shops, and then, staff in hand, hastened on over the monotonous plains, and through the highways almost fenced with wretchedly painted shrines, to the Paris of the west, Vienna. There asrain were rare treasures of art on which he might study, and in study, increase in that dignity and expansion of soul which only such contemplation can give. He was delighted to hear the composer Strauss, and his orchestra, and amusingly describes the queer antics of that nervous little musician. He «:azed with awe at the stained banners of the Crusaders, and, with micovered head, listened to the grand chants in St. Stephen's Cathedral ; but his pathetic mention of his visit to the tomb of Beethoven is the most character- istic. There was a most lovable trait in Bayard's character, 90 LIFE OF BAYAED TAYLOR. which became even more prominent in his after jenrs of travel, which deserves mention in this connection. He never railed upon the dead, nor ridiculed the re- ligious belief or acts of devotion of any people, how- ever ignorant or heathenish. He often mentioned, w^ith emotion, the efforts of the darkened human mind to find its Creator and Ruler. He treated with sin- cerest respect every act of devotion performed in his presence, whether by Protestant, Catholic, or Mahom- edan. There was that in his nature, and his early Quaker education, that not only kept him in the paths of morality and on the side of virtue, but through all his writings there runs a thread of faith in God, which cannot be better expressed than by quoting one of his own sweet hymns. " In the peace of hearts at rest, In the child at mother's breast, In the lives that now surround us, In the deaths that sorely wound us, Though we may not understand, Father, we behold Thy hand ! " After leaving Vienna, he went, by the way of Enns to Lintz, which is situated in one of the most pictur- esque landscapes of the Danube. The city is sur- rounded by towers unconnected by walls and has a very romantic history. Bayard in his letters speaks of the rural scenes about Lintz in terms of the highest admiration. It was in these Austrian landscapes that ARRIVAIi AT MUNICH. 91 he composed that poem entitled "The ^yayside Dream," and in which we find the following descriptive lines : " The deep and lordly Danube Goes winding far below ; I see the white-walled hamlets Amid his vineyards glow, And southward, through the ether, shine The Styrian hills of snow. " O'er many a league of landscape Sleeps the warm haze of noon ; The wooing winds come freighted With messages of June, And down among the corn and flowers I hear the water's tune. " The meadow-lark is singing. As if it still were morn ; Within the dark pine-forest The hunter winds his horn, And the cuckoo's shy, complaining note Mocks the maidens in the corn." From Lintz, over hills and by meadows, among the merry farmers and their light-hearted children, they walked on, through Salzburg and Hohenlinden, to Munich, where another magnificent display of paint- ings, sculpture, palaces, parks, and historic local- ities, rewarded him for his long walk and limited supply of food. He had so little money that he was compelled to live on twenty cents a day. There he found the great works of Thorwaldsen, Cornelius, 92 LIFE OF BAYAED TAYLOR. and Scliwanthaler, and copies in marble of almost every celebrated piece of antique sculpture. Tliere were the gorgeous palaces of kings and dukes, the beautifully wrought halls and churches, vvith the spacious avenues and charming parks. No city in the world contains such rich decorations, such unique and profuse ornamentation, or such harmony of design and arrangement, as is shown in the palace halls and public edifices of Munich. How a visit to them sweetens everything else in after life, and how the memory of them ever lis^htens the burden of care ! What Ameri- can could walk those pavements and floors and not yearn for the power to give to his own country some- thing to match those marvellous structures ! Bayard must have felt that impulse in common with others ; but, unlike many others, he kept his promise, which was to awaken a love in ever}' American heart for art in its grand and stable forms ; and many are the promptings and rebukes which we, as a people, have received from his 23en as writer, and from his lips as a lecturer. From Munich, the route chosen by Bayard lay through Augsburg, Ulm, and Wurtemberg, and when he entered the latter country, at Esslingen, he said the very atmosphere was permeated with poetry. He was delighted with the green vales, lofty hills, lovely vineyards, waving forests, and feudal ruins. He was grateful to the kind people, and was made happy by their universal cheerfulness and good-nature. It was WUETEJUBERG AND SCHILLER. 93 the home of Schiller ! There the first nine years of the poet's life were spent, and scarce a nook is there about the interesting old cities which that hoy did not explore. It was toward Wurternberg, as his child- hood's home, Schiller exhibited the greatest regard ; alas, it was there, too, in Stuttgart, that the tyrannical Duke imprisoned him for publishing his first play. There, too, the patriotic Uhland sat in the halls of leg- islation, and wrote those poems which fired the hearts of his countrymen to a brave defence of fatherland. Bayard's happy stay in Esslingen, and his word-pic- tures of its attractions, show the progress which he had already made in his love for that German poetry, of which he was to become so popular an expounder. He praises the river Neckar and its flowery banks, he lauds the people, he portrays the landscapes in the brightest colors which poetry may lend to prose. Bright day ! one he never recalled without exclama- tions of pleasure ! After such interest as he exhibited in the country of Schiller, it is no surprise, the next day after leaving Esslingen, to find him in Stuttgart, looking up into the peusive face of Thorwaldsen's colossal statue of Schiller. So attracted and entranced was he by the interpretation of Schiller, made by the natives, the scenery, and the old home, that when beautiful Stutt- gart opens its avenues, parks, cathedrals, palaces, and galleries to him, he forsakes and neglects them all for this huge but faithfully wrought counterfeit in stone of 94 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. the persecuted singer. To his naturally sentimental and sensitive character, the German poet was revealed in ideals more fascinating than any realities. He studied the face of his brother poet, praised his beauty, repeated a broken stanza of " William Tell," and left the other attractions of Stuttgart unseen. Passing the castle of Ludwigsburg, and skirting the village of Marbach, the birth-place of Schiller, a village then about the size of Kennett now, but obliged to push on for fear of starvation, he w^alked to Betigheim, and thence the next day to his first German home, Heidelberg. yiSIT TO SWITZERLAND. 95 CHAPTEE Xn. starts for Switzerland and Italy. — First View of the Alps. — The Falls of the Rhine. — Zurich. — A Poet's Home. — Lake Lucerne. '■ — Goethe's Cottage. — Scenes in the Life of William Tell. — Ascent of the Aljjs at St. Gothard. — Descent into Italy. — The Cathedral at Milan. — Bayard's Characteristics. — Tramp to Genoa. — Visits Leghorn and Pisa. — Lovely Florence. — De- lightful Visits. — The Home of Art. August 1, 1845, Bayard again started from Frank- fort on his pedestrian wanderings, having made up his mind to visit Switzerland, Florence, Venice, Rome, and perhaps Athens. On this trip his cousin Frank was again his companion. With their knapsacks on their shoulders and staffs in hand they began another pilgrimage, confident and strong. With but a small supply of money, and with but shadowy probabilities of more, they launched out into a world to them un- tried and unknown. With excited imaginations and the keenest anticipations they rose above every dif- ficulty and faced boldly the probabilities of fatigue and want. They made a short stay at Freiburg and entered the Black Forest, passing the Titi Lake and the Feld- berg peak. Bayard's disposition for ascending moun- tains, which inclined him to see the top of everything, led him to go up the cragged side of the Feldberg, from 96 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. the summit of which he could just make out the white crests of the Alps. On the nearer approach to them, and when from the last ran2:es of the hills of tlie Black Forest, they beheld the white Alps in all their inde- scribable grandeur looming up at the other side of the vast plain. Bayard spoke of the patriotic feelings which such a sight must excite in the mind and heart of a Swiss returninor after a lon^^ absence to his native land. He thought of his old nurse and her tales of the Alpine scenery, and of the knolls and vales of his own home. It is no wonder that the Swiss are free and brave and strong. The waterfalls, cliffs, and cloud-piercing mountains fill the soul with a sense of grandeur and glory which tends toward great deeds and fervent patriotism. Who can recall the eternal snows, the towering shafts of rock, the roaring caverns, and sweetest of blue lakes, without the most thrilling emo- tions ! If there are any travellers upon whom the memory of Switzerland brings no such feelings, they are the exceptions. Bayard's nature was such as to enjoy to the full, and sometimes with an intensity that was almost pain, all those sublime exhibitions of the power and majesty of the great Creator. The fall of the Rhine near Schaffhausen hardly met the expectations of these travellers, who had heard their German friends speak in such strong terms of its greatness. It is a most beautiful waterfall, and when viewed from the platform at the base of the cliff beneath the castle, startles the spectatoi with its AT ZURICH. 97 tlinndering plunges and foaming whirlpools. To a native of the same land with Niagara, the Yosemite, and the Yellowstone, its size is insignificant. But its beauty as a picturesque scene, when the high banks, the long rapids, the surging pools beneath, and the jagged rocks that rise through and above the spray and rainbows, are included in the panorama, can be described only in the strongest language. From SchalFhausen they hurried on by the fields of the free and happy Swiss farmers, and along highways that reminded him of his Pennsylvania home, into the city of Zurich. There he carefully noted the charac- ter and customs of the people. He was cheered by their friendly greetings, he was surprised at their in- telligence, he was pleased by the happy faces of the children, and he was proud of the apparent influence of a republic over its people. He visited the cele- brated poet, Freiligrath, at his villa on the shores of the lake, where the young American poet and his elder German brother had a most social talk of Bryant, Longfellow, and Whittier. From Freiligrath's exile home, they walked by the "Devil's Bridge" to the Abbey of Einsiedeln, where the crowd of pilgrims and the sweetest of singers in the church choir made a pleasant and charming impression upon Bayard's mind. Thence by valleys, and mountains, so broken and grand, and by streams so delicately blue that descended to the placid Zug, they journej'ed to Lake Lucerne. There, on the shore, in a charming grotto, upon which 7 98 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. the Eighi and Pilatus look clown, while above and be- yond them the white peaks of the loftier Alps shim- mer in the sunshine above the clouds, AVilliam Tell, the father of Swiss liberty, had his home. There, in an embowered cottage, that peeped from the leaves like a maiden so coy, resided for a long time the poet Goethe ; and there, according to his own account, ^he studied the plot for a poem, but which was afterwards embodied by his friend Schiller in the drama of "Wil- liam Tell." There w^as the rock on which Tell leaped from Gessler's boat ; there grew the linden-tree where Tell shot the apple from the head of his son ; there the chapel of William Tell, and there the hundreds of in- teresting localities connected more or less closely with the early tyranny of Austria and the heroic resistance of the Swiss patriots. Bayard loved the works of Schiller, as, in fact, could hardly be avoided by any one who reads them in the orisfinal ton^^ue and amid the scenes so strikingly described. From Burglen, where Tell was born and where he so heroically died w^hile attempting to save a child from drowning, they marched upward along the banks of the Reuss to Amsteg, and thence along the precipices where the craggy mountains rose thousands of feet above them, and the wild stream surged and raged far, far below them. No scene more wild and overwhelm- ingly grand than that at the "Devil's Bridge," over which they crossed on their way to the summit of St. Gothard. Black chasms yawned at their feet ; enor- ST. GOTHAED. 99 moiis slielvins: rocks huuor threatening]: overhead. Clouds of spray, like steam from huge caldrons, arose from numberless pits, wherein the streams boiled and hissed in their crevice-like channels. The clear air was like wine. The peaks seemed to reach to heaven, and gleamed with celestial purity. The charm of the scenery lifted the mind and awakened the holiest emo- tions, while the balm of health permeated the body, and gave it a strength seemingly supernatural. What person is there who loves not the dear old peaks of Switzerland ! Who has passed the heights of St. Goth- ard and not awakened a glow in his body and an im- pulse in his soul that strengthen him ever after ! But it is not our purpose to portray to the reader the scenes, in the description of which Bayard so much excelled, and hence, making note only of such things as had a marked influence on his life and writ- ings, we hastily follow him in his pilgrimage through the vale of Ticino, over Lago Maggiore, to the gates of Milan, under the clear blue sky of lovely Italy. There the most magnificent marble Cathedral in all the world, when considered as a triumph of art in reproducing the Beautiful, lifted its spires and figures above the roofs of churches and palaces. A bewildering forest of peaks and towers confuse the student of its outline, and innumerable collections of exquisitely wrought groups and statues dishearten and confuse the student of art. Yet the unity of its proportions, and the symmetry of its arches and cornices, were recognized 100 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. by all. Bcayard trod its artistic pavement with feel- ings of awe and admiration. He gazed long upon its aisles and pillars, and crept on tip-toe into the shad- ows of its great altar. It is one of the most solemn things in life to stand in such a temple of genius. The stained windows, with their sacred figures and symbols, the sweet reverberations of the sacred music, the low chant of the priests, the kneeling forms of penitent worshippers, the strength of the workman- ship and vastness of its sombre recesses, awaken sen- sations that sleep in the open air. The naturally vicious and cruel avoid those chancels, and the wise and good gain encouragement from the supreme calm that reigns therein. Bayard enjoyed his stay in Milan and his visits to the Cathedral most heartily, and it was an important experience in the development of his natural character. How his skill in observation, and his interest in everything had increased ! Bright and acute by nature, he saw and noted many things when he first landed, which others would have passed without observing ; but those months of discipline and anxious research had developed this characteristic, until, as he enters Italy, he notices every shrub, every animal, every building, every man, woman and child ; and at a glance passes them under such close scrutiny that he is able, months after, to describe them in all the details of form, color, nature, association, habits, and occupation. How boundless and fathomless is the un- observed about us ! How few notice the myriad of CLOSE OBSERVATION. 101 interesting and enlightening objects and incidents that come within the range of their vision ! The disposi- tion and aptitude for observation is as indispensable to the traveller, as it is convenient to one who plods tlie dull routine of home life. Bayard was naturally discernins: and inclined to investiofate. Such will be the deliberate conclusion of one who studies his life as a whole, although his enemies have sometimes taken advantage of his modest suppressions to accuse him of blindness. Bayard sees a child in the garments of priesthood, and pities him for his solitary life. He meets a jooor woman and notices the texture of her dress, and the scar upon her cheek. He looks at a painting of the Cathedral, and observes that a spire is wanting. He looks at the towers, and compares those creations of art with the more rugged spires of Monte Rosa's ice-crasfs. He laments the is^norance of the people Avhose features advertised their needs. He studies and criticises the shape and position of the Arch of Peace, and the bronze groups that adorn its summit : shops, toy-stands, cabs, soldiers, flowers, priests, dukes, houses, fields, schools, coin, clothing, atmosphere, and food, — all are noticed and laid away for recollection, as without order they attracted his attention. He discovered more worth relating in Milan, than some travellers saw in the whole of Europe.* * As Bayard says of Oss6o in his poem of Mon-da-JMin : — " He could guess The knowledge other minds but slowly plucked. From out the heart of things : to him, as well As to his Gods, all things were possible." 102 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOE. From Milan the party walked to Genoa, going through the battle-fields of Hannibal and the Caesars, along highways once the paved roads of the Roman Empire, and under the shadows of ancient castles whose walls once bristled with the shields of knis^hts and spears of yeomen. It was a glorious, though tedious journey, and by thus travelling in the manner of pilgrims they met the inhabitants at their usual occu- pations, and learned much of the customs and feelings of the common people. Such information comes not through the windows of railroad carriages, nor enters by the portals of grand hotels. Having visited the ducal palaces, cathedrals, and parks of Genoa, he went by boat to Leghorn, and thence to Pisa. There he saw, in the Cathedral, the swin2:in2: chandelier which led Galileo to investi2:ate the laws of gravitation, and satisfied his curiosity by ascending the Leaning Tower, and left the city with those melodies of unearthly sweetness, which the echoes of the Baptistry give forth, still ringing in his ears. After riding all night in a rickety cart, and suf- fering horribly from the terrible storm and jolting conveyance, he entered the sacred precincts of that hallowed city, so beautiful, so dear to the heart of the poet and painter, — Florence. Li his poem, "The Picture of St. John," Bayard thus speaks of that enchanted locality : — " Ah, lovely Florence ! never city wore So shining robes as I on thee bestowed: IN FLOKENCE. 103 For all the rapture of my being flowed Around tliy beauty, filling, flooding o'er The banks of Arno and the circling hills, With light no wind of sunset ever spills From out its saflfron seas ! Once, and no more, Life's voyage touches the enchanted shore." During his stay in Florence, Bayard wi'ote a poem which so clearly expressed his affection for the maiden in Kennett, whom he afterwards married, that many have supposed the fictitious title, by which he addressed her, to be her real name. In that poem he thus re- ferred to Florence : — " Dear Lillian, all I "wished is won! I sit beneath Italia's sun, Where olive orchards gleam and quiver Along the banks of Arno's river. Rich is the soil with fancy's gold ; The stirring memories of old Kise thronging in my haunted vision, And wake my spirit's young ambition." That Italian paradise, situated in the beautiful vale of that most charming river, is perhaps the loveliest spot in all that land. Being the home of such artists as Michael Angelo and Eaphael, the abode of such poets as Dante, and of sucli scientific men as Galileo, it possessed an intense interest because of its associa- tion with them. Being also the seat of the De Medici, of Machiavelli, of Pitti, and the resort of the greatest American poets and sculptors, its themes for verse and prose are almost numberless. There Bayard made a 104 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. stay of several months. He devoted himself to the study of the Italian language, in which he soon be- came proficient, and visited every castle, monastery, amphitheatre, and mountain in the suburbs, and care- fully scrutinized the tombs of Sante Croce, the inlaid work of the Duomo, and those marvels of art in the Pitti and Uffizi galleries. He ever after mentioned his first stay in Florence as a season of the most in- tense delight, and knowing how vast is the field for study and recreation, and his peculiar susceptibility to all the lis^hts and shades of art, we see how full was his heart of the purest and most satisfactory intellectual joy. There he saw Kaphael's " St. John in the Desert," and it is probable that the painting prompted him to write the poem entitled " The Picture of St. John," the scene of which is laid partly in Florence, and is one of his most valued literary productions. There he saw the 3Iadonna deJla Sedia of Raphael, the com- panion piece of the Madonna he saw and so much admired in Dresden. There he saw Titian's Goddess, so radiant with feminine beauty, and there ]\lichael Angelo's first attempt at sculpture ; — ^ so many treasures of art are there, and so many sacred places renowned in history, that the great city gains its living from the visitors and students that fill its hotels, and crowd its churches and museums. Bayard actually loved Flor- ence, and returned to it afterwards with that irresist- ible yearning which a young man feels for the home of his lover. FKOM FLORENCE TO EOME. 105 There remains in all the world but one other place for the artist after he has seen and appreciated Flor- ence. His love for the exquisitely sweet and beautiful is satisfied, — all the tender and delicate links between art and nature can there be seen and felt. An exhi- bition of the mighty, grand, colossal side of art remains ; and to the lover of such exhibitions, and to the romance-seeker who, like Bayard, desires to walk the dusty halls, peopled with the ghosts of half-for- gotten ages, Rome still waits. 106 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. CHAPTER Xm. Visit to Rome. — Attractions of its Ruins. — Bayard's Persistent Searches. — His Limited Means. — Sights and Experiences. — Journey to Marseilles. — Walks to Lyons. — Desperate Circum- stances. — Stay in Paris. — Employment of his Time. — De- parture for London. — Failure to obtain Money or Work. — Seeks a Friend. — Obtains Help from a Stranger. — Voyage to New York. — Arrival Home. Who has entered the aged city of Eome and not felt the power of its thrilling associations? How the doors of history swing open before the traveller, and how sublime the panorama which unfolds to his view ! How swiftly pass the scenes of pomp and the parades of heroes ! It cannot be described. It must be felt to be understood. It requires no very active imag- ination to see again the strong walls, the towers, the gates, the majestic temples, and the superb Capitol rising over all. To be able to walk its paved streets, and wend about its Corinthian porches, and through its marvellous arches ; to rush with the crowds of Romans to a seat in the Coliseum ; to march in the triumphal processions, and to listen to the echo of Cicero's voice among the pillars of the Forum, is no very difficult dream, when the same buildings which saw and heard those things are yet before you. One AT ROME. 107 can stand in the shadows of ancient ruins, when the moon gives light enough to see the outline, but not sufficient to show the scars which the ao^es have gfiven them, and witness again the gatherings of the Roman people, and make out the forms of Cincinnatus, of Scipio, of Marius, of Ciesar, of Cicero, of Augustus, or of Constantine, as their lumbering chariots jolt over the pavements and around the palace walls. The Tiber, which rolls on its ceaseless course, and which saw the faces of Liv}^ Horace, and Virgil, moves by the Tarpeian Rock, and the Campus Martius, with the same eddying playfulness as it exhibited then. New glories gild the clouds, and new temples adorn the adjacent plains. Jupiter gives way to Jehovah, priests of Janus and Venus stand aside for monks and friars to fill their office. The Coliseum crumbles, as St. Paul's lifts its grand facades. Capitolinus falls and St. Peter's fills the bow of heaven. Marvels of an- cient art grow dusty with the ages, while new forms, so divinely conceived, so incomparably wrought, and so immaculate in modesty and matchless in color, spring into being at the call of the later civilization. All is interesting, exciting, glorious ! One walks the streets in dreams, lulled by the musical cadences of the rippling native language. Words cannot convey the feelings awakened by that new sense, which dis- cerns and interprets the ancient and modern associa- tions of Rome. The traveller feels as if he were a com- panion of the great and powerful, of the refined and 108 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. good, who have walked those streets before him, and ever after the words they spoke, and the books they wrote, have a fresh and unabating interest. So Bayard saw the ancient city, although he has described it somewhat differently. Rome was to Florence what the Apollo is to the Venus de Medici, each enhancing the beauty of the other, and losing nothing by comparison. It was near the first of Jan- uary, 1846, when the subject of these sketches entered Rome and took up his al)ocle in a lowly tavern oppo- site the front of the Pantheon. In a most humble, almost beggarly way, he obtained his food at the cheapest places, and walked among those old ruins in the most unobtrusive manner. He was too poor, and earned too little as a newspaper correspondent, to spend aught on the luxuries of Rome. Hence all his his time and attention were on that which pleased the eye and satisfied the mind, rather than upon those things which gratify the appetite or inflate the pride. He walked to the Coliseum by moonlight, and heeded not fatigue. For within its cragged circuit he saw again the excited hosts, the gay ladies about the im- perial throne, the writhing Christian, and the lions with bloody jaws. Or he saw the fiercer human beings engaged in the gladiatorial combat, saw the flash of shields and swords, heard the groan of the dying as it was drowned by the rising shouts for the victor. He searched the hidden recesses of the baths, palaces, arches, prisons, and churches, which remain as remind- VISITS IN ROME. 109 ers of the old city ; he marched far out on the Appian Way and contemplated its tombs and mysterious piles in laborious detail ; he sketched the sph*als of Trajan's Column, and drew a plan of the ancient Capitol. In awe-stricken silence he walked beneath the dome of mighty St. Peters, and marvelled in worshipful mood before those exquisite mosaics. He lingered long and lovingly in the great labyrinth of the Vatican, wept at the sight of some of those great paintings, and bowled wdth respect to the greatest productions of the greatest sculptors. Few w411 give credit to the glowing pic- tures which he draws of the arts in Rome, nor believe the strong assertions we herein make, who have not been there and experienced the same sensations. He visited in pious respect the tombs of Tasso, Keats, and Shelley, and found his way into the studios of the modern artists. He took short trips into the country, and once stopped for the night under the shadows of the Temple of Yesta at Tivoli. Bej^ond Rome he could not go. For once, Dame Fortune turned Jier back upon him. If he would see Naples, Pompeii, and Samos, he must have money. Money he could not get. Grievously disappointed, yet thank- ful for what he had seen, he most devoutly thanks God, and turns northward. At Civita Yecchia to which place he, as usual, walked, he embarked, third class, on a steamboat for Marseilles. The beds were rough planks, the food was drenched like himself, and fleas infested every stitch of 110 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. covering. It stormed, and Bayard might have perished with exposure to the bad weather, had not a sailor taken compassion on him and his companion, and lent them some clothing. That kindness he ever remem- bered, and it may have been in his mind when, after meeting many sailors, he wrote of them : — " They do not act with a studied grace, They do not speak in delicate jihrase, But the candor of heaven is on their face, And the freedom of ocean in all their ways. They cannot fathom the subtle cheats, The lyiug arts that the landsmen learn : Each looks in the eyes of the man he meets, And whoso trusts him, he trusts in turn. But whether they die on sea or shore, And lie under water, or sand, or sod, Christ give them the rest that he keeps in store, And anchor their souls in the harbor of God ! " He arrived at Marseilles with but five dollars for the expense of a journey of five hundred miles on foot. Dark outlook, indeed, on entering for the first time a country with whose language he was iniacquainted. Through rain and mud, sunshine and darkness, he moved on, courageous as ever, and enjoying with the same zest his glimpses of ancient cathedrals and re- nowned localities. At Lyons he received a small amount of money by mail, and at a time when death by starvation seemed but a few hours removed. The \ ENTEES PAEIS. Ill story of his mishaps by land and by water, on his way from Lyons to Paris is a very exciting narration, as he relates them in his " Yiews Afoot," and yet shows the best side of a most terrible experience. But Paris was reached at last, and in the first week of February, 1846, they found a lodging place in the Rue de la Harpe, at the rate of two dollars and eighty cents a month. He lived on twenty cents a day, and in place of a teacher of French, subscribed at a circulating library and picked out the words and phrases by down- right hard study in his tireless and damp attic. For five weeks he studied and rambled and endured priva- tion, learning Paris by heart and finding himself made free and happy by the atmosphere of gayety which per- vades everything there. His favorite resort was the Place de la Concorde, which is an open space at one side of the palace of the Tuileries, and at the foot of that magnificent embowered avenue called the Champs Elysees. There were then, as now, the enchanting groves, with the gardens, concert bowers, and shy booths. There was the obelisk from Luxor, which called Bayard's attention to Egypt and created a strong desire to see that ancient land of the Nile. There were the solid walls of the Tuileries upon one side, the river Seine upon another, while the twin palaces, with the distant front of the Madeleine Church showinsr between them, shut out the populous city on the other. But the pavements, flowers, fountains, bronze figures, ob- elisk and palaces were the least of the attractions 112 LIFE OF BAYAED TAYLOR. which called this persevering young student to that celebrated square. It was there that many of the most important acts in the history of France were performed. It was there that kings were made, and there they were beheaded. It was there that priests had preached , and there that they were murdered. It was there that in the crimson and lurid days of '94, the Red Revo- lutionists each day filled the baskets at the foot of the guillotine with the heads of twoscore and often threescore citizens. Who would surmise that in a city so gay, so cheerful, so imbued wdth the very spirit of pleasure and childlike life, such hideous deeds of blood and destruction could be performed ! Quick- tempered, excitable people, going with the flash of a thought from one extreme to the other. No place in all Paris better exhibits the character of the nation, than the Place de la Concorde. There Bayard often lingered and pondered, seeing clearly through the film of gay attire, garlands of roses, delightful wines, and gorgeous carriages, the dangerous yet often heroic elements, which have so often thrown ofi* the crust of fashion and politeness, and flooded the beautiful city with seething torrents from the deepest hell. He sought out the masterpieces of art in the galleries, cathedrals, and parks, and dwelt long and caressingly upon their entrancing forms, having now passed through a school that left him a comjDetent critic. He gazed after the carriage where Louis Philippe rode in state, and wondered if such a monarchy could endure, PARIS TO LONDON. 113 and with a powerful yearning fuml3lecl the unintelligi- ble leaves of Victor Hugo, Beranger, and Lamartine — not, however, to be long unintelligible. There, again, he was in financial distress, and was saved from great suffering by the unexpected kindness of a merchant, who, like Mr. Chandler and Mr. Patter- son at the beginning of his career, loaned him money, altiiough Bayard was a stranger and could give no securitv. From Paris via Versailles and Rouen, he walked to Dieppe, and, after crossing the Channel, travelled by third-class car to London, where he arrived with but thirty cents in French money. With no money to pay his lodging, with a letter from home in the post-office, on which he could not pay the postage, he made desper- ate attempts to obtain employment as a printer. But the " Trade Unions " were so omnipotent, that no strang- er without a certificate could be set at work Avithout a " strike." At last, when long without his usual meals, and sure of being refused a lodging, he applied to Mr. Put- nam, who was conducting the London agency of the Amer- ican publishing firm, who loaned him five dollars, and he could again eat and sleep. Several weeks of waiting intervened, in which Mr. Putnam kindly kept Bayard in employment, at a salary sufficient to pay his board, before the money came from America to take them home. Even then the captain of the vessel on which he returned with his two friends who started with him nearly two years before, was compelled to take a 8 114 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. promise for a part of tlie fare. Captain Morgan, who commanded the vessel, was one of the noblest men that ever paced a deck, and so popular did he become, that his biography was published thirty years after this passage, in an illustrated number of "Scribner's Maga- zine." Their voyage was a fair one , their landing in New York a happy one ; but no pen except his own can de- scribe the joy of seeing again his own country, and of walkin": at evenino: into the door of that home which he left two years before as a hoy, and to which he then returned a man. EDITS A NEWSPAPER. 115 CHAPTER XIV. Edits a Country Newspaper. — The " Phcenixville Pioneer." — The Discouragements. — The Suspension. — Publishes " Views Afoot. " — Introduction to Literary Men. — Contributes to the ** Literary World." — Becomes an Editor of the New York " Trib- une." — The Gold Excitement of 1849. — Resolves to visit the Eldorado. — Arrival in California. Bayard Taylor's gifts were not such as would con^ tribute toward the success of a country newspaper — so delicate, refined, poetical, and classical, we wonder that he should ever have undertaken so uncongenial a work. The best things-which he could write would be dull as lead to the majority of his readers. The more literary merit his editorials and poems contained, the less likely were they to receive the praise of his sub- scribers. Yet his disposition to work was so inherent in every nerve, that he had not been at home one week from his tour of Europe before he was searching for a place for editorial work or correspondence. Mr. Fred- crick Foster, who was an old acquaintance and who also had been in the office of the West Chester " Village Record," suggested the establishment of a weekly news- paper. As they looked for an opening for such an enter- prise, they hit upon the town of Phoenixville, Pa., as th^ most advantageous locality. Phoenixville was then a 116 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. prosperous village, containing about two thousand in- habitants, twenty-seven miles from Philadelphia and thirty-one miles from Reading. There were rolling- mills, furnaces, and a variety of manufactories in tlie town, and the people constituted an enterprising and unusually vigorous community. There Mr. Taylor and Mr. Foster began the publication of the "Pioneer," and with high hopes and an alarming confidence, waited neither for capital nor subscribers. Mr. Taylor has often related to his friends some most amusing anecdotes connected w^th his life as a country editor. One subscriber wanted a glossary, another wdshed to see the local gossip about John Henry Smith's surprise party, instead of the dull columns of literary reviews. One susfijested that two editors would kill any paper, "wdiile another ventured to assert that he himself would edit the paper for them at three hundred dollars a year and "find shears." It was a difiicult task. To edit the Kew York " Her- ald" woukl have been far easier and better suited to Mr. Taylor's genius. The people of Phoenixville, how- ever, began to appreciate their privileges after the lack of support compelled the young journalists to close their ofifice and suspend the publication of the paper ; and financial aid to re-estal)lish the "Pioneer" was generously oiTered. But one year in such an unappre- ciated labor was enough for Mr. Taylor, and he left Phcenixville, according to his own account, considerably wiser and poorer than he w^as when he entered it. If PUBLISHES A BOOK. 117 any of our readers has attempted to start a literary paper in the country, and passed through the perplex- ities of financial management and rude discouragements, he will need no words to prompt his most hearty sjan- pathy with the work, and the suspension of Mr. Tay- lor's undertaking. To make successful a publication of that character in a scattered and small community, requires a greater diversity of talent, greater manual labor, and a closer study of all-various human nature, than it does to conduct the largest establishments in the limitless field of a great city. Mr. Taylor's expe- rience simply added another illustration of the univer- sal rule. His best articles were unappreciated or be- lieved to be borrowed, and everything hindered the pursuit of that conscientious literary aspiration which feels keenly the failings and improprieties of superficial work. It was in this year that Mr. Taylor prepared, and Mr. Putnam published, his surprisingly attractive volume, entitled "Views Afoot." With such Quaker- like simplicity was it written, and such a noble spirit of poetry prevaded the descriptions of scenery, men, and art, that it leaped into popular favor on the prestige of its advance sheets. Its success was a forcible example of the winning power of simple truth. Its interest will never abate, because he did not assume the pompous airs of an infallible critic, but rather chose to pretend to nothing but describe what he saw as it appeared to him. 118 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. The success of that book introduced him at once into the literary circles of New York, where, with the friendship of Mr. Willis, Mr. Parke Godwin, Mr. Horace Greeley, Mr. William Cullen Bryant, and many others, well known as men of the highest cult- ure, he received a most cordial welcome. He was at once secured by the management of the " Literary World," a periodical issued weekly in New York, and which, from 1847 to 1853, held the highest place in literary criticism and classical composition gained by any American magazine or paper of that period. When he sought employment on the New York "Tribune," in 1848, a place was readily found for him, and he began, by the contribution of small articles, his long and honorable career as one of the editors of that influential journal. in the spring of 1849, Mr. Greeley suggested to Mr. Taylor the importance of having some trustworthy information from the gold regions of California, about which there was then so much excitement. The peo- ple read, with the greatest avidity, every scrap of news or gossip from the gold-fields, and thousands were on their way by steam and by overland mule-trains to seek their fortunes in that Eldorado. At no period of our nation's history, not excepting the agitation at the beginning: of great wars, have the people of this country exhibited such uncontrollable excitement as they displayed at that time. The rich sold their property to the first bidder, and GOLD FEVER. 119 took the first conveyance ; while the poor started on foot, with nothing to preserve them from the starvation which followed in the desert. For a time it appeared as if New Ensrland and the Middle States would be left without sufficient male population to carry on the routine of official duty. In the height of that feverish exodus ]Mr. Taylor decided to fall in with the tide, and drifting with the current, tell the readers of the " Tribune " what he saw and heard. Hence, in June, he took passage on a crowded steamer for Panama, and after a dreadful experience in crossing the Isthmus, steamed up the Pacific Coast and entered the Golden Gate. 120 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOE. CHAPTEE XV. Entrance to California. — The Camp at San Francisco in 1849. — Description of the People. — Gold-Hunters. — Speculations. — Prices of Merchandise. — Visit to the Diggings. — Adventures on the Route. — The First Election. — The Constitutional Con- vention. — San Francisco after Two Months' Absence. — Poetical Descriptions. — Departure for Mexico. — Arrival at Mazatlan. — Overland to the Cajjital. — Adventure with Robbers. — Re- turn to New York. The circumstances under which Mr. Taylor entered California, were in striking contrast with those which surrounded him when he made his first attempt to see the world. For, when he started for his European tour, and throughout the whole period of his stay there, he was hindered and annoyed by the lack of money, and by the lack of acquaintances. Then, he was dependent wholly upon his own earnings and economy for every privilege he enjoj^ed. He had nothing substantial behind him, and nothing certain before him. But in California he moves among the people with the prestige and capital of a powerful journal behind him, and before him the certainty of ample remuneration for all his trials. He is no lonsrer the unknown, uncared-for stripling, whose adventures are regarded as visionary, and whose company was an SAN FRANCISCO. 121 intrusion. He was the Tvelcomed guest of naval offi- cers, of army officers, and invited to the home of the Military Governor, and to the headquarters of Gen. John C. Fremont. When he entered San Francisco, that place was only a miners' camp, composed of tents, barracks, piles of merchandise, and tethered mules. How utterly incomprehensible it seems now to the visitor to that great metropolis, when he reads that, as late as 1849, there were only huts and tents where now stand the palatial business blocks, gorgeous hotels, and miles of residences made of brick and stone ! It was an interesting time to visit the Pacific shore, and most interestingly did Mr. Taylor describe it in his letters, and in his book entitled "Eldorado." The great camp of San Francisco was but a few weeks old when he arrived there ; but, in its boiling humanity, Mr. Taylor noticed Malays, Chinamen, Mexicans, Ger- mans, Englishmen, Yankees, Indians, Japanese, Chilians, Hawaiians, and Kanakas, rushhig, shouting, gesticulating, like madmen. Gold ! Gold ! Gold ! Everything, anything for gold ! Though hundreds lay in the swamps of Panama, dead or dying with the cholera ; although the bleaching bones of many enthusiasts gleamed in the sun on the great American desert ; although thousands had perished in the thickets, snows, and floods of the Sierra Nevada, their eyes never to be gratified with the sight of gold- dust; yet the increasing multitude followed faster, 122 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. and more recklessly in their footsteps. Into such a mass of half-insane humanity, did Mr. Taylor thrust himself, that the world, as well as himself, might profit thereby. Great names were given to the smallest things, and prices larger than the names. The Parker House was a board shanty Avith lodg- insr-rooms at twentv-five dollars a week, and was not more than seventy feet square, but rented to the landlord for one hundred and ten thousand dolkirs a year. Newspapers sold for a dollar each, and nearly every class of merchandise from the Eastern States brought a profit of several thousand per cent. The wages of a common laborer were from fifteen dollars to twenty dollars a day, while real estate went up so fast in price, that few dared to sell, lest the next day should show that they had lost a fortune. One man, who died insolvent, but having, in his name a small tract of land, left after all a million of dollars to his heirs, so much did the lands increase in value before the estate was settled. Fortunes were made in a single day. If a man arrived there w^ith anything to sell, he could put his own price upon it, and dispose of it to the first comer. One man, whose store was a log-cabin with a canvas roof, made five hundred thousand dollars in eight months. Gambling was carried on in an equally masrnificent scale. Greater bets than Baden-Baden or Monaco ever saw, were common-place there. Millions of dollars changed hands every day. Gold was so THE DIGGINGS. 123 plentiful, that boys made immense profits, gathering, out of the dust in the streets, the nuggets and fine gold which had been carelessly allowed to drop from the miners' bags or pockets. From that strangest of all strange medleys, Mr. Taylor travelled, mule-back, through a wild and dan- gerous region, to Stockton, and thence to the produc- tive " dio:2fin2rs " on Mokelumne River. There he saw the miners hard at work gathering the gold in the most primitive manner. The sands found in the dry bed of the river were mixed with gold, while in the crevices and little holes in the rocks, pieces of gold, varying from the size of a five-cent piece to that of a hen's egg, were frequently found. Gold from the sand was gathered by shaking a bowlful of it until the heaviest particles fell through to the bottom ; and by washing away the finer particles of dirt, and picking out the stones with the fingers. Nearly every miner found some gold ; but those who made tlie immense fortunes were quite rare. For many of such as were in luck, and who found great sums, were so sure of finding more, that they squandered what they had discovered, in a manner most unfortunate for them, but very fortunate for those who had found nothing. All the details, experiences, and adventures of these followers of Mammon were exhibited to Mr. Taylor, and the most tempting ofiers made to him to dig for himself. But, true to his employers, he turned from mines " with millions in them," and wrote 124 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. letters for the "Tribune." Over jagged mountains, through thickets of thorns, through muddy rivers, over desert plains, and along routes, dangerous alike from man and beast, he fearlessly pursued his journey of observation, exhibiting many of those character- istics which have distinguished H. M. Stanley, that other great correspondent. Sights he saw that curdled the blood; men he met, pale, haggard, and dying; bones he saw of lost and starved miners ; and the extremes of misery and joy, wealth and poverty, generosity and meanness, faith in God, and worship of the devil, which must have bewildered him. The fact that he had money and social influence did not protect him from the hardships common to all trav- ellers who visited the gold mines of California at that early period. Many nights he slept in the open air, havinsr his sinsrle blanket and the cold earth for a bed. Often he made his couch on a table or the floor in some rude and dirty cabin. Sometimes he was lost in the woods or among the mountains, and frequently suffered Ions: for food and water. He was determined to see the land and its freight of human life in its most prac- tical form, although by so doing he often risked the loss of comfort, of property, and occasionally of his Hfe. One of the most interesting chapters of history to be found in any work connected with life in the United States, is to be found in his simple but graphic account of the first election in California. The rough, disin- BIRTH OF A STATE. 125 tcgrated, and shifting communities of that new land had for a year and a half depended for law and order upon the innate respect for the rights of others to be found in the hearts of a majority of civilized men. Beyond this there were organized in some of the min- ins: towns a vio^ilance committee, and in a few others a judge with almost supreme power was elected by a vote of the people. These officials administered jus- tice by common consent, having no commission or au- thority from the National Government. The enormous crowds of immiirrants which filled towns and cities in a single month made the necessity for some form of State or Territorial government apparent to the least thoughtful. So a few of the more enterprising indi- viduals, advised and assisted by the military authorities, undertook to bring order out of chaos by calling upon the people to elect delegates to a Constitutional Conven- tion. The readiness and systematic manner in which the people of that whole region responded to the call, was one of the most remarkable as well as one of the most instructive popular movements to be found in the annals of freedom. The meeting of that Constitu- tional Convention at Monterey ; the rude accommoda- tions, the ability of the body, the harmony of their de- liberations, and the wisdom of their regulations and provisions, was the subject of many most enthusiastic epistles from the pen of Mr. Taylor. In his celebrated book, now so much prized by the people of California, and by students of American history, he gives many 126 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOE. little details and incidents whicli are left out of other books and so often overlooked by authors and corre- spondents, but which are of inestimable importance in gaining an accurate knowledge of the inside social and political beginnings of that powerful State. He de- scribed the appearance of the building in which the Convention met, gives sketches of the prominent actors in the assembly, and, as if foreseeing how posterity W'Ould like to preserve the memory of that great day, be gives the complexion, color of the hair, stature, and dress of the noted men who held seats. It is as excit- ing as one of Scott's novels to read of the emotion, the tears, among those legislators when the new State was born, and w^heu the "thirty-first" gun was fired from the fort to announce the completion of the great event. Thus, from the consent of the governed in its most literal sense, the officers of the State of California derived their just powers. And without discord, re- bellious or seditious conspiracies, a new government took its place among the empires of the world. The description of that event in his simple, straightforward way was one of Mr. Taylor's best deeds. Yet every incident and scene had its poetic side to him, and, while that phase of his nature did not lead him to exaggeration in prose, it often led him to break into independent poetic efi'usions. He appears to have long looked upon the Pacific coast as a field of poetry and song, for, before he had any idea of visit- ing the country, he wrote several poems, and located POETRY OF TRAVEL. 127 them there. "The Fiofht of Paso del Mar" was one of those early poems, and the scene was the cliff at the entrance to the harbor at Santa Barbara. " Gusty and raw was the morning, A fog hung over the seas, And its gray skirts, rolling inland, Were torn by the mountain trees ; No sound was heard but the dashing Of waves on the sandy bar, When Pablo of San Diego Rode down to the Paso del Mar. The pescad5r, out in his shallop. Gathering his harvest so wide. Sees the dim bulk of the headland Loom over the waste of the tide ; He sees, like a white thread, the pathway Wind round on the terrible wall, Where the faint, moving speck of the rider Seems hovering close to its fall." Most sweetly sang he of the climate, and the pro- lific gifts of nature in California, and one verse of his " Manuela " contains a very vivid and accurate picture of some of California, as seen by many travellers. "All the air is full of music, for the winter rains are o'er. And the noisy magpies chatter from the budding sycamore ; Blithely frisk unnumbered squirrels, over all the grassy slope; Where the airy summits brighten, nimbly leaps the antelope." In a prophetic strain, which has been so often quoted in that land where " The seaward winds are wailing through Santa Barbara's pines, And like a sheatless sabre, the far Pacific shines," 128 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. he foretold, in " The Pine Forest of Monterey," what has already happened in that magic land of sunshine, gold, and miraculous progress. " stately Pines, But few more years around the promontory Your chant will meet the thunders of the sea. No more, a barrier to the encroaching sand Against the surf ye '11 stretch defiant arm, Though with its onset and besieging shock Your firm knees tremble. Never more the wind Shall pipe shrill music through your mossy beards, Nor sunset's yellow blaze athwart your heads Crown all the hills with gold. Your race is past : The mystic cycle, whose unnoted birth Coeval was with yours, has run its sands, And other footsteps from these changing shores Frighten its haunting Spirit. Men will come To vex your quiet with the din of toil ; The smoky volumes of the forge will stain This pure, sweet air ; loud keels will ride the sea, Dashing its glittering sapphire into foam ; Through all her green caiiadas Spring will seek Her lavish blooms in vain, and clasping ye, O, mournful Pines, within her glowing arms, Will weep soft rains to find ye fallen low." He portrayed his California experiences in rhyme, when he sang of "The Summer Camp," and we quote a few lines of it, so appropriate to his departure from San Francisco. " No more of travel, where the flaming sword Of the great sun divides the heavens ; no more Of climbing over jutty steeps that swim WONDERFUL CHANGES. 129 In driving sea-mists, where the stunted tree Slants inland, mimicking the stress of winds When wind is none ; of plain and steaming marsh, Where the dry bulrush crackles in the heat ; Of camps by starlight in the columned vault Of sycamores, and the red, dancing fires That build a leafy arch, efface and build. And sink at last, to let the stars peep through ; Of cauons grown with pine, and folded deep In golden mountain-sides ; of airy sweeps Of mighty landscape, lying all alone Like some deserted world." He mentioned the deep impression of ceaseless progress which the change of a few weeks had made in the srowth of San Francisco. When he re-entered it, after his short stay in the mountains, he could not recognize the streets, while the inhabitants and their manners had undergone a change still more astonish- ing. Where tliere were tents a few days before, now were large buildings of wood, while the log-cabins and Chinese houses had, in many places, given place to structures of brick and stone. Wharves had been built, streets regularly laid out, banks opened, whole- sale stores established, lines of steamers running to the various ports along the coast, and up the rivers ; while the rude, dirty, careless, rushing multitude had assumed a cleanliness and a gravity, unequal oi course to that of an Eastern city, but astonishingly in advance of the previous wildness. Law offices, brokers' boards, smelting establishments, barber-shops, hotels, bakeries, laundries, and news-stands had all been estab- 130 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOK. lished in a confusingly short space of time. The place he found as a frontier camp, he found four months later a swarming yet civilized city, with all the officials, and some of the red tape which characterize older corpora- tions. But San Francisco was not alone in its growth; for Sacramento, San Jose, Monterey, and many other towns and cities, had been as nothing, less than a year before. At the time he left San Fran- cisco, they were populous cities and villages, teeming with a resistless, sleepless activity. To accurately record such a change, to give an anxious public cor- rect information regarding that wonderland, and the fortune of their friends, and to bear a share in the work of establishing such a State, was the task of Mr. Taylor, and most creditably did he perform his part. On leaving California, about the first of January, 1850, he decided to go down the coast to Mazatlan and thence overland through Mexico. He came to that conclusion after long consultations with his friends, none of whom could or dared accompany him, while all told him of robbers, deserts, impassable streams, and dangerous wild beasts which awaited all travellers in that benighted and trackless country. Mr. Taylor would have enjoyed some thrilling adventures ; and the fears of his advisers only made him more decided in his determination to go. So, alone, and with but slight knowledge of the Spanish language, he disem- barked at Mazatlan on the Mexican coast, near the AMONG THIEVES. 131 mouth of the Gulf of California, and with a pair of pistols and a dwarfed mule, started into the unknown wilds of that tropical land. His hardships were many, and his fatigue at times almost unbearable ; but his love for thini^s new and -' CD strange, for the unexplored and unknown, kept him moving perseveringly on through the thickets and ra- vines of upper Mexico. By great skill and consider- able assurance he managed to keep in the good graces of the people he met, and for several days, in the forests and in the villages, he met with very Idnd and hospita- ble treatment. On one occasion, however, he fell among thieves. Before he arrived at the city of Mexico, and while still in the wilderness of the interior of the Mexican hisrh- lands, he was suddenly attacked by three Mexican rob- bers, to whose marauding purposes he could make uq resistance, he having placed such reliance upon the good faith of the natives as to carry his pistol without a cartridge in it. The banditti made him dismount and hand over what little money in coin he happened to have, and after taking such blankets and trinkets as they desired, left him with his hands tied behind him, to get on as best he could. Fortunately they did not want his horse, which he had bought in place of the useless mule, and after extricating himself from his bonds by long struggles, he mounted his horse and rode on to Mexico with his drafts for money all intact. He seems to have placed less reliance on the Mexicans, 132 LIFE or BAYARD TATLOR. after that encounter, and took good care to ride out of range of their muskets and to keep himself supplied with ammunition. His visit to the Mexican capital was an occasion of great interest to him, and brought up freshly and viv- idly the story which Prescott has so well told of the Aztecs and the heroic age of Cortez. No scene in Europe is said to combine such extremes of sweetness and grandeur, of light and shade, of valley and hill, of plain and cragged highland, of land and water, of art and nature, as the valley of Mexico. There he saw the evidences of prehistoric civilization, and looked with curiosity and awe upon the towering fortress of Cha- pultepec, which connects the present with the ages past. However, Mr. Taylor could not stop long in that charming vale, and hastened on over the battle- fields of Scott to Vera Cruz. From Vera Cruz he went by steamer to Mobile, from thence overland to Charleston, S. C, and by way of North Carolina, Virginia, and Washington, to New York, where, about the middle of March, he resume his duties as editor of the " Tribune " with the thought that there he might stay the remainder of his life. riRST LOVE. 133 CHAPTER XYI. The Poet's First Love. — Playmates. — Miss Mary S. Agnew. — His Fidelity. — Poems Inspired by Affection. — Her Failing Health. — Consumption. — His Return to Her. — The Marriage at the Death-bed. — Her Death. — The Poet's Grief. — His Inner Life. — The Story injiis own Ehyme. We now enter upon the most holy ground ever trod by the biographer, — the sacred recesses of the human heart. In the annals of ordinary life, or even in those of many great men, the record of their early love may not be important to the reader. But to the poet, these more subtle and more tender emo- tions are events of the greatest importance. Every heart contains more or less of the poetical sentiment, and the love and marriage of any individual is a matter of great moment to him, although it may not be to his biographer. But here Tve write of a poet. To him, all the strings of human feeling had a clear and unmistakable sound. To him, the undertones ot life played an important part in the harmony of his being. All that was pure and sweet in love he saw. All that was beautiful and lovable in life he felt, with a keenness none but the poet can know. Hence to him, we find, as in the history of the grand poets of ancient days, his love was a holy sentiment, to be 134 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. valued as God's best gift, and to be worshipped as a part of Him. Ill a neighboring farm-house, but a short distance from his father's farm, lived Mary S. Agnew. She was born and reared in the same community, went to the same school, attended the same church, and was a playmate, classmate, and trusted companion. They sought each other in childhood's days, and their friendship ripened into love as imperceptibl}' and surely as the coming and going of the years developed their lives, and pressed them forward into manhood and womanhood. Her dark hair and eyes, her slender form, her lovable disposition, her conscientiousness and purity were presented to him in that strong light, under which all lovers see the merits and virtues of their sweethearts. Added to that w^as the romance and insight of that other sense which poets are said tc possess. He built a shrine to this idol wherever he went, and through all his early years she was, as he said in verse, the representative to him of the good- ness of God. On the farm, he made verses in her honor ; at the Quaker meeting he was thankful for her ; at the parties and social gatherings among the young folks, she was the centre of his thought. Not fool- ishly or blindly did he exhibit his affection. Not extravagantly or obtrusively did he follow his wooing. But his poetry and his prose give here and there a clew to the deep and fervent love of his youthful clays. Some of his very sweetest poetry found its inspiration in FAITHFULNESS. 135 tliat love, and when the volume is published, if ever it is, in which shall appear those sonnets, which have modestly beeu kept thus far from the public gaze, there will be found gems that the world cannot well spare. How sincere, disinterested, and noble was his affection, was proved by his faithful and unabated love, after he had seen the world and its loveliest ladies, and after the cruel hand of disease had chiselled away the round and rosy cheeks, and left, in place of the sparkling, blushing maiden of his early love, a pallid spectre — a shadow of her former self.' In all his wanderings, he never neglected her. In all his most tender writings, her image is more or less clear. In one of his volumes, "The Poet's Journal," he gives a history of his love and sorrow ; of the awakening, after years of death, in the sweetest and most touching of all his poems. He allowed some of his earher verses to see the light of print, wherein he makes mention, indirectly, of Mary S. Agnew. When travelling along the Dan- ube, in 1845, he thus writes : — " Old playmates ! bid me -welcome Amid your brother-band ; Give me the old affection, — The glowing grasp of hand ! I seek no more the realms of old, — Here is my Fatherland. Come hither, gentle maiden, Who weep 'st in tender joy ! 136 LIFE OF BAYAKD TAIXOR. The rapture of thy presence Eepays the world's annoy, And calms the wild and ardent heart Which warms the wandering hoy. Id many a mountain fastness, By many a river's foam, And through the gorgeous cities, ' Twas loneliness to roam ; For the sweetest music in my heart Was the olden songs of home." When in Florence, in 1846, he wrote a poem entitled "In Italy," wherein were the following ex- pressive lines : — " Kich is the soil with Fancy's gold ; The stirring memories of old Else thronging in my haunted vision, And wake my spirit's young ambition. But as the radiant sunsets close Above Val d'Arno's bowers of rose, My soul forgets the olden glory, And deems our love a dearer story. Thy words, in Memory's ear, outchime The music of the Tuscan rhyme ; Thou standest here — the gentle-hearted — Amid the shades of bards departed. I see before thee fade away Their garlands of immortal bay. And tvirn from Petrarch's passion-glances To my own dearer heart-romances." " A single thought of thee effaced The fair Italian dream I chased ; For the true clime of song and sun Lies in the heart which mine hath won." POETRY OF LOVE. 137 When he reached London in 1846, after his long pilgrimage, and when so reduced in funds and friends, he yet had the time and mind to write of her these graceful rhymes : — " I 've -wandered through the golden lands Where art and beauty blended shine — Where features limned by painters' hands Beam from the canvas made divine, And many a god in marble stands, With soul in every breathing line ; And forms the world has treasured long Within me touched the world of song." *' Yet brighter than those radiant dreams Which won renown that never dies — Where more than mortal beauty beams In sybil's lips, and angel's eyes — One image, like the moonlight, seems Between them and my heart to rise. And in its brighter, dearer ray, The stars of Genius fade away." It is an interesting study and one not altogether unprofitable, to follow, through an author's works the marks of his peculiar likes, joys, and sorrows. For in science, philosophy, history or poetry, the feelings of the student will unguardedly creep into his manu- scripts as if between the lines, and often a little word, or a thoughtlessly inserted sentence or comment, will reveal w^hole chapters of a life which has been carefully, scrupulously hidden. So in Bayard Tay- lor's poetry, written on sea and on land, at home and abroad,- in poverty and in affluence, there is a certain 138 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. vein of originality, and certain references to his own life, which, when placed together, give the clew to his inner life, and reveal a charming domestic scene, which cannot be described in prose. One of his characters in " The Poet's Journal," says : — " Dear Friend, one volume of your life I read Beneath these vines : you placed it in my hand And made it mine, — but how the tale has sped Since then, I know not, or can understand From this fair ending only. Let me see The intervening chapters, dark and bright, In order, as you lived them." To which another makes reply in the words below, which so delicately and feelingly refer to his early love, his sorrow at the death of Mary, his first wife, and the bri^rhtness-of the later afiection. To one who has passed through the same trying experience, these lines are marvellously expressive : — " What haps I met, what struggles, what success Of fame, or gold, or place, concerns you less, Dear friend, than how I lost that sorest load I started with, and came to dwell at last In the House Beautiful." " You, who would write ' Besurgam ' o 'er my dead, The resurrection of my heart shall know." " For pain, that only lives in memory. Like battle-scars, it is no pain to show." Then he goes on to recite a tale so like his own, that it needs scarce any change, but to substitute the names ILLNESS OF MISS AGNEW. 139 of himself, and those he loved, for the fictitious names we find in the poems. But, before making farther quotation, the reader should be made acquainted with the circumstances which prompted those illuminated lines. While Mr. Taylor was away. Miss Agnew gradually and surely declined in health, until consumption, with all its terrible certainty and serpent-like stealth, made her its victim. It was one of those unaccountable visitations which sometimes come to the young and beautiful in the midst of joy and perfect content. How sadly the news of her sickness fell upon the heart of her lover, and how tenderly and anxiously he prayed and waited for letters from her, which should contain better tidings, he has himself related. Pale and weak, she greeted him on his return from California, with the prediction that she could not live beyond the falling leaves. No skill, no tender nursing, no charm of an abiding love, could stay the hand of death, which, as unseen and secret as the decay in a rose, gradually stole away her color, her beauty, and her life. He felt that he must lose her ; and the whole world, which had before appeared so bright, became dark and chilly. The test showed that while his ambition led him to see the great nations of the earth, to write poems for posterity, and to write his name in italics on the scrolls of fame, there was one solace, one com- fort, one desire, which included all the others and made them subservient. He was true to his plighted word. 140 LIFE OF BAYARD TATLOR. He had become noted and prosperous, while she had remained at the country farm-house in Kennett. He was the associate of Bryant, Greeley, Webster, and "Willis ; she, the companion of the farmers and Quakers of Chester County. But strong, manly, and honest, his love knew no abatement and his respect felt no check. It is a touching picture — that simple, solemn mar- riage in the room of the patient, an almost helpless in- valid ! He came to redeem his pledge ; and in that simple abode, with death standing just outside the door, with a bride scarce able to whisper that she took him for her lawful spouse, he became a husband. The dim, appealing eyes, the tender little flush in her cheek, the tremor of her thin hand, told the joy in her pure heart, but showed also that her happiness would be as brief as it was sincere. The marriage took place Ojct. 24th, 1850, and on the 21st of the following December his wife died. She lingered much longer than her friends expected. At the marriaofe it was said that she could not live but a very few days. Yet, so soon was it after their union, that the day which is usually the happiest and the day which is usually the gloomiest in a man's life, came to him within ten weeks of each other. A year after her death, he wrote a poem, "Winter Solstice," in which he mentions his bereavement : — " — For wlien the gray autumnal gale Came to despoil the dying year, EXPRESSIONS or GRIEF. 141 Passed with the slow retreating sun, As day by day some beams depart, The beauty and the life of one, Whose love made Summer in my heart. Day after day, the latest flower. Her faded being waned away, More pale and dim with every hour, — And ceased upon the darkest day ! The warmth and glow that with her died No light of coming suns shall bring ; The heart its wintry gloom may hide. But cannot feel a second Spring. O darkest day of all the year ! In vain thou com'st with balmy skies. For, blotting out their azure sphere, The phantoms of my Fate arise : A blighted life, whose shattered plan No after fortune can restore ; The perfect lot, designed for Man, That should be mine, but is no more." Still later, he gave expression to his loneliness in that most pathetic of all his writings, "The Phantom." "Again I sit within the mansion, In the old, familiar seat : And shade and sunshine chase each other O 'er the carpet at my feet." " And many kind, remembered faces Within the doorway come, — Voices, that wake the sweeter music Of one that now is dumb. They sing, in tones as glad as ever. The songs she loved to hear ; They braid the rose in summer garlands, Whose flowers to her were dear. 142 LITE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. And still, her footsteps in the passage, Her blushes at the door, Her timid words of maiden welcome, Come back to me once more." " She stays without, perchance, a moment. To dress her dark-brown hair ; I hear the rustle of her garments, — Her light step on the stair ! " " She tarries long : but lo ! a whisper Beyond the open door. And, gliding through the quiet sunshine, A shadow on the floor ! " " But my heart grows sick with weary waiting As many a time before : Her foot is ever at the threshold, Yet never passes o'er." In his "Picture of St. John" he describes, with a feeling born of experience, a scene like the closing one in the life of his wife. " Day by day Her cheeks grew thin, her footstep faint and slow ; And yet so fondly, with such hopeful play Her pulses beat, they masked the coming woe. Joy dwelt with her, and in her eager breath His cymbals drowned the hollow drums of death ; Life showered its promise, surer to betray. And the fiilse Future crumbled fast away. Aye, she was happy ! God be thanked for this, That she was happy ! — happier than she knew, A TALE OF SORROW. 143 Had even the hope that cheated her been true ; For from her face there beamed such wondrous bliss, As cannot iind fulfilment here, and dies." Nearer the end of the same poem, he writes : — **With cold and changeless face beside her grave I stood, and coldly heard the shuddering sound Of coffin-echoes, smothered underground." And still later he says, as only he can say who has felt it: — " My body moved in its mechanic course Of soulless function : thought and passion ceased, Or blindly stirred with undirected force, — A weary trance which only Time decreased By slow reductions." " A sonnet of that dark hour, written on a leaf of his diary, remains to us, from which we quote two verses : — " Moan, ye wild winds ! around the pane, And fall, thou drear December rain ! Fill with your gusts the sullen day, Tear the last clinging leaves away ! Reckless as yonder naked tree, No blast of yours can trouble me." " Moan on, ye winds ! and pour, thou rain ! Your stormy sobs and tears are vain, If shed for her whose fading eyes. Will open soon on Paradise ; The eye of Heaven shall blinded be, Or ere ye cease, if shed for me." 144: LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. Here is another sad, sad wail, to be found in his " Autumnal Vespers " : — " The liglit is dying out o 'er all the land, And in my heart the light is dying. She, My life's best life, is fading silently From Earth, from me, and from the dreams we planned, Since first Love led us with his beaming hand From hope to hope, yet kept his crown in store. The light is dying out o 'er all the land : To me it comes no more. The blossom of my heart, she shrinks away Stricken with deadly blight : more wan and weak Her love replies in blanching lip and cheek, And gentler in her dear eyes, day by day. God, in Thy mercy, bid the arm delay, Which thro' her being smites to dust my own ! Thou gav 'st the seed Thy sun and showers ; why slay The blossoms yet unblown ? In vain, — in vain ! God will not bid the Spring Replace with sudden green the Autumn's gold ; And as the night-mists, gathering damp and cold, Strike up the vales where water-courses sing, Death's mist shall strike along her veins, and cling Thenceforth forever round her glorious frame : For all her radiant presence, May shall bring A memory and a name." Again, in " The Two Visions," was the low moan of a poet's stricken heart. "Through days of toil, through nightly fears, A vision blessed my heart for years ; And so secure its features grew, My heart believed the blessing true. TELLS HIS OWN STORY. 145 I saw her there, a houseliold dove, III cousuinmated peace of love, And sweeter joy and saiatlier grace Breathed o 'er the beauty of her face." '' That vision died, in drops of woe, In blotting drops, dissolving slow : Now, toiling day and sorrowing night, Another vision fills my sight. A cold mound in the winter snow ; A colder heart at rest below ; A life in utter loneness hurled, And darkness over all the world." How accurately he portrayed his inner life, from the death of Mary to his subsequent marriage, can only be understood by reading his poem of "The Poet's Journal" entire. But, as far as brief quota- tions may give it, we will try to supply enough for the purposes of a book such as this is intended to be. In his despair he writes : — ^' And every gift that Life to rae had given Lies at my feet, in useless fragments trod : There is no justice or in Earth or Heaven : There is no pity in the heart of God." *'I pine for something human, Man, woman, young or old — Something to meet and welcome, Something to clasp and hold. I have a mouth for kisses, But there 's no one to give and take ; I have a heart in my bosom Beating for nobody's sake." 10 146 LIFE OF BAYAED TAYLOR. " The sea might rise and drown me, — Clitfs fall and crnsli my head, — "Were there one to love mo, living, Or weep to see me dead ! " " Last night the Tempter came to me, and said : ' Why sorrow any longer for the dead ? The wrong is done : thy tears and groans are nanght ; Forget the Past, — thy pain hut lives in thought. Night after night, I hear thy cries implore An answer : she will answer thee no more. Give up thine idle prayer that Death may come And thou mayst somewhere find her : Death is dumb To those that seek him. Live : for youth is thine. Let not thy rich blood, like neglected wine, Grow thin and stale, but rouse thyself, at last, And take a man's revenge upon the Past.' " " This heart is flesh, I cannot make it stone : This blood is hot, I cannot stop its flow. These arms are vacant — whereso 'er I go, Love lies in other's arms and shuns my own." "Long, long ago, the Hand whereat I railed In blindness gave me courage to subdue This wild revolt : I see wherein I failed : My heart was false, when most I thought it true, My sorrow selfish, when I thought it pure. For those we lose, if still their love endure Translation to that other land, where Love Breathes the immortal wisdom, ask in heaven No greater sacrifice than we had given On earth, our love's integrity to prove. If we are blest to know the other blest, Then treason lies in sorrow." " I had knelt, in the awful Presence, And covered my guilty head, HIS POEMS. 147 And received His absolution, For my sins toward the dead." " Now first I dare remember That day of death and woe : Within, the dreadful silence, Without, the sun and snow." " When wild azaleas deck the knoll, And cinque-foil stars the fields of home, And winds, that take the white-weed, roll The meadows into foam : Then from the jubilee I turn To other Mays that I have seen, Where more resplendent blossoms burn. And statelier woods are green ; — Mays, when my heart expanded first, A honeyed blossom, fresh with dew ; And one sweet wind of heaven dispersed The only clouds I knew. For she, whose softly-murmured name The music of the month expressed, Walked by my side, in holy shame Of girlish love confessed." " The old, old tale of girl and boy, Repeated ever, never old : To each in turn the gates of joy. The gates of heaven unfold." " So I think, when days are sweetest, And the world is wholly fair. She may sometime steal upon me Through the dimness of the air. With the cross upon her bosom And the amaranth in her hair. 148 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. Once to meet her, all ! to meet her, And to hold her gently fast Till I blessed lier, till she blessed me, - That were happiness, at last : That were bliss beyond our meetings In the autumns of the Past ! " " Still, still that lovely ghost appears, Too fair, too pure, to bid depart ; No riper love of later years Can steal its beauty from the heart. * " Dear, boyish heart that trembled so With bashful fear and fond unrest, — More frightened than a dove, to know Another bird within its nest ! " " Restored and comforted, I go To grapple with my tasks again ; Through silent worship taught to know The blessed peace that follows pain." " If Love should come again, I ask my heart In tender tremors, not unmixed with pain, Couldst thou be calm, nor feel thine ancient smart. If Love should come again ? " Couldst thou unbar the chambers where his nest So long was made, and made, alas ! in vain, Nor with embarrassed welcome chill thy guest. If Love should come again ? " " Have I passed through Death's unconscious birth. In a dream the midnight bare ? I look on another and fairer Earth : I breathe a wondrous air ! " " Is it she that shines, as never before, The tremulous hills above, — Or the heart within me, awake once more To the dawning light of love ? " THE STORY IN RHYME. 149 "Bathed in the morning, let my heart surrender The doubts that darkness gave, And rise to meet the advancing splendor — O Night ! no more thy slave. " *' One thought sits brooding in my bosom, As broodeth in her nest the dove ; A strange, delicious doubt o'ercomes me, — But is it love ? " I see her, hear her, daily, nightly : My secret dreams around her move. Still nearer drawn in sweet attraction ; — Can this be love ? " ^' I breathe but peace when she is near me, — A peace her absence takes away : My heart commands her constant presence : Will hers obey ? " *' ' Canst thou forgive me, Angel mine,' I cried : ' that Love at last beguiled My heart to build a second shrine ? See, still I kneel and weep at thine, But I am human, thou divine ! ' Still silently she smiled. " ' Dost undivided worship claim, To keep thine altar undefiled ? Or must I bear thy tender blame, And in thy pardon feel my shame. Whene'er I breathe another name ? ' She looked at me, and smiled." " No treason in my love I see. For treason cannot dwell with truth But later blossoms crown a tree Too deeply set to die in youth. 150 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. The blighted promise of the old In this new love is reconciled ; For, when my heart confessed its hold, The lips of ancient sorrow smiled ! It brightens backward through the Past And gilds the gloomy path I trod, And forward, till it fades at last In light, before the feet of God, Where stands the saint, whose radiant brow This solace beams, while I adore : Be happy : if thou lovedst not now, Thou never couldst have loved before ! " " Would she, my freedom and my bliss to know, With my disloyalty be reconciled. And from her bower in Eden look below. And bless the Soldan's child ? For she is lost : but she, the later bride, Who came my ruined fortune to restore. Back from the desert wanders at my side, And leads me home once more. If human love, she sighs, could move a wife The holiest. sacrifice of love to make, Then the transfigured angel of thy life Is happier for thy sake ! " *' ' It was our wedding-day A month ago, ' dear heart, I hear you say. If months, or years, or ages since have passed, I know not : I have ceased to question Time. I only know that once there pealed a chime Of joyous bells, and then I held you fast. And all stood back, and none my right denied, And forth we walked : the world was free and wide Before us. Since that day I count my life : The Past is washed away." GREAT GRIEF. 151 CHAPTER XVn. Grief and Despair. — Describes bis Feelings. — Failing Healtb. — Severe Mental Labor. — Decides to go to Africa. — Visits Vien- na. — Arrival at Alexandria. — Sails up tbe Nile. — Scenes in Cairo. — The Pyramids. — Tbe Lovely Nile. — An Important and Pleasant Acquaintance. — A Lasting Friendsbip. — Learning the Language. — Assuming the Costume. — Sights by tbe Way. The great grief which Mr. Taylor felt when his wife died, was so deep and keen that he was for many months unreconciled, and in a mental state somewhat akin to despair. His appearance among his friends, whether at Kennett or in the office of the " Tribune " at New York, did not, however, betray his feelings so much as his private correspondence and occasional poems. He was the sincerest of mourners ; and his natural susceptibility to every shade of emotion made this severe bereavement an occasion of untold suffering. In his endeavors to banish the gloomy spectre, he resorted to hard work. Hence, the first half of the year 1851 was one of the busiest seasons of his life. He wrote early and late. He composed poems and essays, wrote editorials, and edited corre- spondence, some of it being the labor attached to his profession, but a great share of it written to occupy his mind and shut out his affliction. 152 LIFE OF BAYAKD TAYLOPw. His "Rhymes of Travel," which had been published after his return from California, called the attention of the reading public to him as a poet, and there was a stronij demand for another volume. His friends ursfed him to write, his uneasy heart pushed him into work, and the newspapers kept questioning him about the advent of a second volume, until he decided to bring out his book of "Romances, Lyrics, and Songs." There was one poem in that yolume which was very sweet when wholly disconnected with history, but which becomes fascinatinsf and sad as Milton's lament o for his eyesight, when we once know the circumstances and the mental condition in which it was written. Two verses of that poem were printed, as follows : — " Give me music, sad and strong, Drawn from deeper founts than song ; More impassioned, full, and free, Thau the poet's numbers be ; Music which can master thee, Stern enchantress, Memory ! Piercing through the gloomy stress Of thy gathered bitterness, As the summer lightnings play Through a cloud's edge far away. Give me music ; I am dumb ; Choked with tears that never come; Give me music ; sigh or word Such a sorrow never stirred, — Sorrow that with blinding pain Lies like fire on heart and brain. Earth and heaven bring no relief, I am dumb ; this weight of grief Locks my lips ; I cannot cry : Give me music, or I die." STARTING AGAIN. 153 It was tlien that he wrote those pathetic lines, so full of his sadness and so descriptive of his bereavement, that he was never satisfied with a name for them and finally left them without a title, the first couplet of which sufliciently indicates the tenor, — " Moan, ye wild winds ! around the pane, And fall, thou drear December rain! " Such a 'sorrowful heart and such an overworked brain were too great a load for one human body to car- ry. His physical strength had never been remarkable, aud there had been seasons before his visit to Europe when his health seemed permanantly impaired. So when this great strain was made upon his system it began to weaken. To continue the efi()rt was suicidal, and stoutly condemned by his relatives and friends. He then recalled his exhihiratins: walks anions: the Alps and on the plains of Europe. He kindled anew his zeal for adventure. He studied the map of the world to decide where was presented the most fav- orable field for discovery. He wished for rest from sorrow, and rest from close application to literary work. Such a relief could only be found in a climate and among a people wholly difierent from his own. In this choice he was guided somewhat by a fortunate opportunity to cross the Atlantic as a guest and friend, and by the accounts which a literary companion in the office of the "Tribune" gave of the interesting people and scenery along the coast of Palestine and Greece. 154 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. The winter had passed and the soothing winds of summer seemed so grateful and necessary, that he decided to pass the next winter on the Mediterranean, should his health admit of the necessary outlay of strensfth. In writinsr about that undertakinsr after- wards, he said a trip into Africa would furnish good material for a travelling correspondent and hence that continent was selected. "But," he said, "there were other influences acting upon me which I did not fully comprehend at the time, and cannot now describe without going too deeply into matters of private history." But while in Central Africa, enjoying the invigorating breezes along the Nile, he reveals a part of that private history by an incidental exclamation pub- lished in a letter to the " Tribune." " Oh ! what a rest is this from the tantalizing and sorrowful suggestions of civilization." He fled from sorrow — driven into the desert. Having reached Smyrna, on the coast of Asia Minor, by the overland route to Constantinople via Vienna, he re-embarked at that port for Alexandria in Egypt, arriving at the latter place Nov. 1, 1851. We shall not attempt here to give in any satisfactory detail the record of his wanderings in Africa, as they are so charmingly and instructively told in the book which he wrote concerning them, and as no book of travel in Egypt, except a scientific work, can supplant or equal the many which already honor our shelves. The writer having been over a large portion of Mr. A FORTUNATE FEIENDSHIP. 155 Taylor's routes, and feeling much indebted to him for his works, which were often used as guides, has perhaps a greater interest in recording his travels, than the reader would have in going through the story a second time. Hence, for the purposes of this outline sketch of Mr. Taylor's life, we shall introduce only such incidents and facts connected with his wanderings as appear to have some direct or unusual bearing upon his character, or which display some peculiarity of his genius or taste. He said, in a letter to a friend in New York, that he " owed a debt of gratitude " to the Providence which led him, to the country which attracted him, and to the vessel which carried him from Smyrna to Alexandria. That sentiment was awakened in his heart by the way in which some of the important events in his after life pointed back to that trip and to the valuable friend he met there. Mr. Taylor was of a genial, approachable nature, and easily made the acquaintance of any person whom he met. But having German blood in his veins, loving the German language, and entertaining a sincere respect for German literature, he naturally sought the company of the German people. On the very threshold of this trip into Africa he made the acquaintance of a German gentleman, whose culture and geniality made bim a great acquisition in a strange land. They seem to have taken a deep interest in each other from the first time they met. It may be because their condition in life, socially and circumstantially, was so similar; 156 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. but the more reasonable explanation is found in their similar tastes and equal regard for the works of genius and the beauties of nature. It will be like a romance, when told in all its detail, as it might he now, and will be when the present generation passes away. How little could his human understanding comprehend the great results turning upon the simple, commonplace self-in- troduction to a German travelling companion ! This friend, whom he met, and with whom he made the jour- ney up to tlie cataracts of the Nile, was perhaps as remarkable a man as Taylor, and belonged to a family of scholars and long respected agricultural citizens of the German principality of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The chief merit of Mr. Taylor's descriptions lay in their apparent frankness and their charming details. He appeared to think that every reader was acquainted with the works of those great archaeologists, Lepsius and Champollion, and did not attempt to supply to his readers the information they had already given. He seems to have imagined that all the reading public wished to follow him, and he gave such information as the tourist would need. He told about the clothes he purchased in Alexandria, about the fit of his Arab attire, about the cost of a dinner, the conversation between dragomen and boatmen, the personal appearance of his companions, the faithlessness of his guide, the dirty appearance of his boat, and the gorgeous sunset. He described his own sensations and actions with the boldness of one unconscious of any motive to conceal EMBAKKS ON THE NILE. 157 or deceive. He reveals the sorrow of his heart by occasional remarks such as these : " For many months past I had known no mood of mind so peaceful and grateful." — "I am away from reminders of sorrow." — " It is not the beauty of the desert that gratifies me so much, in these days, after all, as the absence of civili- zation." The party, which consisted of Mr. Taylor, the Ger- man companion, and an Italian, engaged one of the Nile boats, at Alexandria, for the trip up the Nile, and after testing the comforts, or misery, of the Egyptian hotels, seeing Cleopatra's Needle ( now in London ) and Pompey's Pillar, which were then as in later years about all that there was to be seen of interest in Alex- andria, they started on their lazy voyage up the won- derful Nile. He wrote with orgeat enthusiasm of the sweet rest he found in a pipe of tobacco, after the man- ner of all habitual smokers. He seems to have had plenty of time to muse and smoke as he slowly ascended the stream. It has often been a subject of wonder that he could afterwards remember so many incidents and the impressions they had made on him, when per- haps weeks of time and some more exciting transactions had intervened. But Mr. Taylor did not wait long be- fore recording his ideas and comments, and was in the habit of keeping a memoranda-book always at hand, and while travelling, noted Avith a pencil any peculiar thou2fht or incident which awakened attention. At Atfeh, which has been for hundreds of years an 158 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. intermediate stopping-place on the highway and river between Alexandria and Cairo, he clambered up into the town and witnessed a marriage procession. He appears to have been inclined to get a near view of the bride ; but the relatives hurried her off, and with cries and threatening gestures drove him back to cover. But he decided that if he could not see the bride, he would do the next best thing, and accordingly visited her Mher. The disconsolate parent w^as being com- forted by a hoarse chant and ajDpeared to be as cheerful as could be expected considering the din. At the town of Nadir he went into a low mud hut, which pretended to be a cafe, and there saw the Egyp- tian fandango danced by the inmates. He records the shape and sound of the musical instruments and with polished and concise language pictured the scene to the reader's eye. This, with the accounts of the im- provements, rates of toll, and the manner of passing the boats by locks, and government officials, with many minor details is told in a manner which, notwithstand- ing the dryness of the subject, makes most fascinating reading. But he counted his entrance into Cairo, the capital of Egypt, as the actual beginning of his tour into Africa. For at Alexandria and along the Nile as fiir as Bourak the people exhibited some traits which con- nect them with the civilized West. But Cairo is wholly Egyptian. The centuries have made no appar- ent changes in the people. The donkeys, the veiled IN CAIEO. 159 women, the fierce Arabs, the water-skins, the fountains, the slaves, the pahns, the white domes, and the low shops revive the historical associations and personify the Past. Like an oasis in the adjacent desert was the Hotel d'Europe. But it served to impress the reality of these surroundings more forcibly upon the travellers. With a readiness and enjoyment which his companions did not share, he accustomed himself to the manners and appearance of the people, and it was scarcely a day before Mr. Taylor would smoke his perfumed chi- bouk, sit cross-legged, and eat with his fingers like a native Arab. He rode the little donkeys as well as any citizen of Cairo, and was even more reckless than they, if that were possible, as he rode through the mar- ket-places at a furious speed. The Egyptians, like the Germans, Italians, French, Hungarians, and Syrians, felt a kind of fellowship for Mr. Taylor, and admired his good-sense in appreciating and adopting so man}^ of their customs. He was the acquaintance and confi- dential friend of a dozen old Arabs before he had been two days in Cairo. He was a lover of mankind. He sympathized with them all. As the Shereef of Mecca rides by, Mr. Taylor admires his dignity and his im- posing retinue. As a marriage procession files through the streets, he comments on the playing of the flutes, the crimson robes of the bride, and the diadem, with the simplicity of a country maiden in America. He enjoys the athletic tricks of the showmen, the skill of the swordsmen, the voices of the singers, the zeal of 160 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. the beo^ofars, and the endurance of the laborers. He is one of the same human family. They know it, and feel it, and he is welcome. The German acquaintance, who had not intended to go farther than Cairo, was so delighted with Mr. Tay- lor's companionship and Mr. Taylor was so interested in him, that he decided to go up the Nile as far as Assouan, which was on the border of the Central African coun- tries. Mr. Taylor speaks wdth sentiments of enthusi- astic thankfulness of his o^ood fortune in thus securin2f a travelling companion, whose tastes and sentiments were so akin to his own. He little thou2:ht then, that while trying to shut out his sorrow by voluntary exile, he was opening the door to a second love. Mr. Tay- lor's singular admiration and love for his companion is almost unaccountable, unless we adopt some theory of foreordination or providential design. A most interesting, amusing, and friendly trip they had up the stream, for thousands of years so historic, in a boat manned by ten boatmen, and of which they were the commanders. Neither of them had ever been in Egypt before, but their maps and guide-books, coupled with their early historical training, made the localities along their route seem more familiar to them than to the dragomen, who made it a business to guide travellers. Thay named their boat the " Cleopatra," ran up the Stars and Stripes to the peak, and, with contented minds but active brains, enjoyed to the full the stransre scenes and historic ruins which showed o ON THE NILE. 161 themselves on every hand. They first visited the Pyr- amids, where Mr. Taylor gratified his taste for climb- ing heights, and nearly killed himself by rushing down. With characteristic regard for those who were to come after him, Mr. Taylor rebuked the importunities of the backsheesh-loving Arabs about the Pj^ramids, and obtaining no satisfaction from them, he reported them to the chief, who compelled the greedy desper- adoes to submit to a severe whipping. They visited ancient Memphis, which the French explorer, Mariette, was then exhuming, and trod the pavements over which had passed the feet of Menes, Amasis, Pharaoh, Strabo, and Cambyses. They were hospitably entertained by the great antiquarian, and felt that such a visit was ample reward for all their outlay. From Memphis they proceeded to Siout, and on the way talked, composed, and sung the praises of Father Nile. It may be that Mr. Taylor's mood, which he so often mentions, had an influence upon his taste, or it may be that the season was one peculiarly adapted to the exhibition of beauty in the Nile, but the writer, in a later year, was not so charmed by the scenery and river as Mr. Taylor appears to have been. No other traveller has written such glowing encomiums upon the Nile as Mr. Taylor recorded in his letters, and either he appreciated nature more than otlicr travellers, or there was something in his circumstances which placed a halo of beauty about the palms and meadows. In the " Nilotic Drinking-Song " Mr. Taylor said : — 11 162 LIFE OF BAYAPwD TAYLOR. " Cloud never gave birth, nor cradle the Earth, To river so strand and fair as this is : Not the waves that roll us the gold of Pactolus, Nor cool Cephissus, nor classic Ilissus. The lily may dip Her ivory lip, To kiss the ripples of clear Eurotas ; But the Nile brings balm From the myrr and palm, And the ripe, voluptuous lips of the lotus. The waves that ride on his mighty tide Were poured from the urns of unvisited mountains ; And their sweets of the South mingle cool in the mouth, With the freshness and sparkle of Northern fountains. Again and again The goblet we drain — Diviner a stream never Nereid swam on : For Isis and Orus Have quaffed before us, And Ganymede dipped it for Jujjiter Ammon." His admiration was not spasmodic, for he always mentioned the Nile as the most majestic of rivers. To the majority of travellers, however, the hoary ruins of might}^ cities, the tombs of priests, and the p^^ramids of kings are so much more exciting and mysterious, that the Nile is itself of secondary importance. Yet, Mr. Taylor, with all his interest in the river, did not have less in the celebrated localities and ancient remains. He ascended many honeycombed mountains, to creep among the bones of men who lived thirty-five hundred years ago. He gazed with a yearning inter- est upon the broken columns of unknown temples, and COSTUME AND LANGUAGE. 163 dreamed of their former grandeur, while apathetically overseeing the aifairs of his little monarchy over which he kept floating the Stars and Stripes. He became so absorbed in the climate, the people, and the history of the land, that he soon adopted the full costume of the country and became henceforth an Arab with the others. He was marvellously quick in picking up the words and phrases of any language, and soon, with the aid of a small phrase-book, he could readily converse with the natives along the shore. These characteristics made it safe and pleasant for him to travel where many others would have found only misery and death. 164 X.irE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. CHAPTER XVin. Moslem Worsliip. — Scenery of the Nile. — Fellowship with the People. — The Temple of Dendera. — Mr. Taylor's Enthusi- asm. — Luxor. — Karnak. — The Extent of Ancient Thebes. — The Tombs and Statues. — The Natives. — Arrives at Assouan. — The Island of Philse. — Separation of the Friends. — Starts for the White Nile. — Trip through the Desert. — Again on the Nile. — Reception by the People and Officials. — Visits Ancient Meroe. Mr. Taylor's sympathy with all mankind led him to regard with sincere respect the daily religious ceremo- nies whicli his Moslem boatmen performed, with their faces toward Mecca. He often mentioned their punc- tuality and apparent sincerity, and contrasted it with some of the formal, half-hearted proceedings in some Christian churches. His regard for conscientious wor- ship, whicli appeared to characterize the ignorant Arabs, appears more striking to persons wlio have travelled the same route over which Mr. Taylor went, for it is so common a sight to see bigoted, conceited Europeans ridiculing the prostrations, prayers, and gestures of the worshippers. The writer most keenly regrets having been compelled to witness the caricaturing of a Moslem at prayer, by a coarse, hard-hearted, brutal Christian countryman, while the sad and shocked LIFE OX THE NILE. 165 believers in Mahomet stood by, scarce able to resist the temptation to throw the Frank into the Nile. In the lovable, noble character of Mr. Taylor, there was no inclination to ridicule the conscientious belief of any man, and instinctively he kept silent and patiently endured the delay when the call to prayer took his employees from their labor. In return for his sincere regard for them, he received the love and most faith- ful service of the natives. They stole nothing from him. They shielded him from enemies and affection- ately cared for his health. Thus, with friends for boatmen, an admirer for a guide, and a most agreeable comrade for a travelling companion, he floated along, inhaling from every breeze the essence of health and comfort. The banks were covered with the richest and rarest verdure, for it was the Egyptian spring. There were luxuriant grasses, palms and sugar-cane ; there flourished wheat, cotton, maize, hemp, indigo, tobacco, oranges, olives, and dates, springing from the richest soil which civilized man has yet seen. Harvests came and went in confused succession ; the ripe fruit with blossom ; threshing-floors piled with ripe dourra, while around, the new wheat seeking the sunlight, betokened a bounty munificent and inexhaustible. So prolific and speedy was the growth of the crops that the peo- ple could not, with their rude implements, avail them- selves of the full benefits of one harvest before its rank successors forced them to turn their labor into other 166 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOE. channels. Then, as noAV, the fields, for miles inland from the river, were checkered with canals, and the rude water-wheel and awkward " well-sweep " wer^ kept in constant motion to supply the vast amount of water necessary to the irrigation of hundreds of square miles. There were goats, mules, horses, and a variety of fowl, and in the wild nooks a grand collection of birds of the gayest songs and plumage. The sky was clear, the air balmy, the breezes cool and light, the cabin of their boat was spacious, and their beds com- fortable. It was "a soothing experience for an aching heart." In the first week of December they arrived at Den- dera, where stands in majestic comj^leteness one of the most ancient temples of Egypt. It has for thousands of years been half buried in the earth, and at one time must have been nearly hid by the shifting sands of the desert which once surrounded the pile. The impres- sion which the gigantic columns, sixty feet high, and the enormous blocks of stone, eight feet thick, gave to them, is doubtless shared in some degree by all travel- lers. As he walked through the shadowy recesses, each aperture seeming like a deep cave in a rocky mountain, he was filled with a solemn sense of awe and sadness, which so overwhelmed him that he peered about the avenues in silence, and involuntarily stood on tip-toe. The sombre grandeur of the mas- sive masonry, the sacred associations connected with the ancient worship of Osiris and Isis, the wonderful DENDERA AND THEBES. 167 tales of wars, tyrannies, famines, plagues, Eameses, Moses, Pharaoh, Alexander, Ptolemy, Cambyses, and Napoleon, which those lofty statues could tell if their symmetrical lips could speak, awaken indescribable emotions, deep, thrilling, and permanent. Mr. Tay- lor saw a grace and an artistic merit in the stone fig- ures, and in the hieroglyphics that adorned the tem- ple, which few travellers detect or admit. To many travellers the figures on those old porches and halls seem rude and often out of proportion, and the writer confesses to having been one of the latter class. But Mr. Taylor's appreciating scrutiny may be accounted for on the basis that with his poetical instincts and thorough culture in art, there were beauties in those works of ancient sculptors, latent to others, but appar- ent and striking to him. But there is no disagreement as to the unspeakable solemnity of the place and the gloom of its lonely halls. The next night they reached Luxor, and caught the first glimpse of those interesting ruins by moonlight. There, silent and stately, arose the great Colonnade. There, quietly recalling the ancients, stood the twin Obelisk to the one at which Mr. Taylor had often looked in the Place de la Concorde in Paris, when as a boy he dreamed of distant Egypt. For seven miles around the Temple of Luxor are the ruins of ancient Thebes, within which were once the temples of Kar- nak, Luxor, Goorneh, Memnonium, and hundreds more, which now cumber the otherwise fertile plains. 168 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. Thebes, with its hundred gates, with its countless armies, with its wise men, its Colossus that sang in the morning sunlight, its avenues of sphinxes and gods in stone, lay broken, spurned, and dead before them. The same moon looked down on them that gazed on the priests of Isis and the palace of its Caesars. No one can imagine anything so solemn and grand as to stand in the moon- light on the haunted plains of ancient Thebes ! One may have thought the Coliseum at Rome impressive beyond description when seen in the favorable light of an autumn moon, but Avhen compared with Thebes it is tame and insis^nificant. As^es and asres before the rape of the Sabines, these temples had been constructed. They saw the morning of civilization ; but now they are ruined and useless, the night seems best fitted for an appreciative view of them. Among the mighty colonnades whose columns are broken and falling, and around o^iijantic remains of ancient statues carved from a mountain of stone, Mr. Taylor wandered for two whole days. He scrutinized closely the long rows of ancient tombs, and stood in the rocky grave of Ra- meses I. The pictures on the walls of the tombs, the kind of rock, the original shape of the temples, the employments of the ancient races, the blue sky over- head, the clear atmosphere around, together with sketches of history and poetical allusions, shared in the interesting letters which Mr. Taylor wrote from Thebes. Such scenes contain an inspiration and an education which make scholars and statesmen of such RUINS OF THEBES. 169 as love history and appreciate the lessons those ruins teach. To one of Mr. Taylor's disposition, a visit to such a place was a privilege not to be lightly thrown away. He investigated everything, and in a manner borderins: on recklessness he descended throu^^h small holes into dark subterranean* tombs, and with equal har- dihood walked the crumbling? roofs and cornices of the lofty ruins. He looked with disgust on the evidences of spoliations which were to be seen in splintered columns and fragments of ancient frescoes, and which were the work of scientific explorei*s. He regarded with a jealous anxiety the evidences of vandalism and decay, and wished sincerely that time and man would allow those precious relics of the old regime to remain forever intact. He appears to have regarded those massive wrecks as half-human, and sympathized with their forsaken and friendless condition. But in all this antiquarian excitement, which usually occupies the undivided attention of less enthusiastic travellers, Mr. Taylor neglected not the living. He witnessed with interest the graces of the Arabian dancing-girls, noticed the features of the beggar-boys, the methods of teaching children the Koran, and the worn appearance of the water-carriers. Leaving Luxor, they spent three or four days as- cending the river to Assouan, and in visiting the vil- lages, old temples, half-buried cities, and gorgeously decorated tombs in the mountain-sides, which are almost numberless in the valley of Upper Egypt. At 170 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. Assouan, he was most cordially received by the Gov- ernor and was given a friendly greeting by all the officials he met. From that town he made several excursions with his German friend, the most interest- inir of which was that to the cataract of the Nile and the island of Philoe. There he saw the celebrated temple of the time of the Ptolemies, which he looked upon as modern, because it was not over twenty-two hundred years old. But he felt sufficient interest in the ruins of the old city to describe that marvellous colonnade which has astonished so many visitors to the island of Phila3. The reader of his letters can detect, however, in Mr. Taylor's description of columns, aisles, roofs, walls, capitals, sculptures, monoliths, and colossi, a vein of sadness which may have colored his views. At all events the ruins of Philse did not impress him as they seem to have affected other vis- itors. The fact that he was so soon to part with a companion for whom he felt a love like that of Jona- than for David, may have had more or less influ- ence upon his capacity to enjoy scenery or the re- mains of antiquity : for the writer looked upon Philse as one of the most interesting localities of the lower Nile, and cannot but regard the ruined temple as one of the grandest in Egypt. They visited the fields, villages, the tombs, the ancient quarry, wherein half-sculptured statues and columns still remain unmoved, and after a day of antiquarian research they rode back to their boat, as he said "with heavy hearts." The next day PARTING AT ASSOUAN. 171 came the hour of parting ; and these two men, one a young man, the other an elderly gentleman, who had been utter strangers forty days before, now clung to each other with the sincerest brotherly love and parted in tears. How little did Mr. Taylor thhik, as he saw the boat sailing away for Cairo with the Saxe- Coburg colors at the peak, where he had so long kept the Stars and Stripes, that they would meet again in the sunny southern lands of Europe, and that another person would join their company for life and make up what he termed "a sacred triad." He thought then that the parting might be for all time. He was going into an unknown wilderness, while his friend sousrht a^^ain the lands of civilization : it was a long time before either could dispel the gloom which their separation left about them. Mr. Taylor took another boat at Assouan and pro- ceeded to Korosko, where, with the assistance of the Governor and a wild Arab chieftain, whose friendship was purchased by presents and sociability, he secured the necessary camels and outfit for a trip across the desert. It was a hazardous undertaking for a stranger, alone, unknown, to traverse the desert. If he was murdered, none of the authorities would care, nor would his death become known. He might contract the terrible fever. He was liable to be eaten by wild beasts, and he ran great risk of dying of thirst or hun- ger on the hot sands of a trackless desert. The way had been travelled many times before, but was all the 172 LITE OF BAYARD TAYXOR. more dangerous because of the opportunity it gave robbers to lie in wait for tourists. But he unhesitat- ingly entered upon the journey, trusting in the friend- ship of his Nubian and Arabian servants, and in his own ability to withstand the heat of the sands and the attacks of African fever. Camping in the desert sands, riding a dromedary in the scorching sun, living upon rudely prepared food, drinking lukewarm water, with the sight of bones and carcasses by the way to warn him, and the occasional appearance of sickly re- turning caravans to dishearten him, he passed that arm of the desert between the first cataract of the Nile and Abou-Hammed. Thence his little caravan of six cam- els followed the winding river to a small town. El Mekheyrcf, where he dismissed his friendly companions, excepting one, who had accompanied him from Cairo, and set sail again on the Nile. Everywhere he was received with kindness and hospitality by the natives and by the Governors. His servants were so much interested in his welfare that they told the natives that he was a high official in the country from which he came, and he was treated with the respect the Eastern people think is due to persons of high rank. All dis- claimers from him were considered to be actuated by feelings of modesty and elevated him in the estimation of his entertainers. His visit to Meroe was an interesting episode in his long pilgrimage, although he did not make such dili- gent search as an antiquarian among its crumbling MERGE. 173 Trails as he had done in some of the other ancient cities. Yet his descriptions of that phice are most vivid pic- tures and convey an idea of the topography of the capital of that ancient kingdom in a manner most readable to the stranger and very important to students of history. 174 LIFE OF BAYAED TAYLOE. CHAPTER XIX. From Meroe to Khartoum. — Twenty-seventh Birth-day. — Desire to Explore Central Africa. — Ascent of the White Nile. — Ad- venture with the Savage Shillooks. — Visits the Natives. — Re- turn to Khartoum. — Crossing the Desert. — Partmg with Friends. — Descent of the Nile. — Arrival at Cairo. The journey from Meroe to IQiartoum on the Ethi- opian Nile, Mr. Taylor enjoyed very much, having lit- tle to do but amuse the sailors and be in turn amused with stories of Mohammed, of Haroun-al-Raschid, and the oriental wonders contained in songs and traditions. The climate gave him health, his genial good-nature brought him friends, and his experience would supply the necessities of life in after years. There were nar- row escapes from animals, men, and treacherous rapids ; but he had become accustomed to such things, and assumed enousrh of the Arab character to exclaim with them, at each escape, "It is the will of Allah." The day before he arrived at Khartoum was Mr. Taylor's twenty-seventh birth-day. Having letters to many of the officials of Khartoum, which was a military and tradhig station at the junc- tion of the Blue and the White Nile, he received a cordial welcome, which made him feel at once that he was amons: friends. He was then at the extreme outskirts THE WILDS OF AFRICA. 175 of civilization. All beyond was dark and unknown. Trading: caravans consistins: of Arabs and natives often visited the interior, and small boats frequently went farther up the Nile for purposes of traffic. But there was little known about the people, the topography of the country, or of the course of the Nile. There was a Catholic mission at Khartoum, where the mis- sionaries treated Mr. Taylor with great consideration and kindness. Some of them had made exploring excursions into the wilds of Central Africa, and it was his hope that he could get into some expedition with them during that season. But in that he was disap- pointed. None of the missionaries were intending to visit the tribes to the south that season, and no other suitable opportunity presented itself. He did not give up the hope of seeing the unexplored regions of the interior, until he had exhausted every means in his power for procuring a fit escort. The unfortunate com- bination of circumstances, which prevented him from searching for the sources of the Nile, postponed the revelations which he would have made, until they were unfolded by another newspaper correspondent, H. M. Stanley. So persistent was Mr. Taylor in his purpose to travel beyond the boundaries of the known, that he resolved to go up the White Nile alone, except a few servants. He had met Captain Peele, whose accounts of the curi- osities to be found farther inland made him the more anxious to get a glimpse beyond. So he hired a boat, 176 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. and amid the doubts of his servants and the missrivinsrs of his new-found friends, he set sail up the White Nile. He could not hire the boatmen for a long voyage, as they feared the fierce cannibals of the interior, and as they were going beyond the protection of any military force. Trusting to his persuasive powers, he started with them, deciding to go just as far as he could get them to accompany him. On a lone river, where no other sail was to be seen ; in a wilderness, where even the human beings were as the lions and hyenas ; with no friend of his own race near him, he sailed on, in confidence, never seeming to think that he might die there alone and never be heard of by his relatives again. Crocodiles, hippopotami, and girafies flourished there, and man was the play- thinir of both elements and beasts. Throus^h the wildest scenery, among the strangest birds and animals, he pursued his course, trembling night and day lest his crew should at any moment refuse to go farther. At last they came to the country of the Shillooks. That wild tribe of negroes was known to the boatmen through nursery tales and traditional stories, wherein the savages were given very bad names ; and when Mr. Taylor informed them that he purposed to visit the village of those horrid man-eaters, they regarded him with looks of the most profound astonishment. But with a hardihood that by its boldness secured ac- quiescence, he commanded them to row him to the banks of the Nile, where the long rows of primitive THE WHITE NILE. 177 huts were to be seen. Througli captives and merchants the kingdom of the Shillooks had become partially known, and a kind of jargon, like the pigeon-English of the Chinese, served the purposes of communication. One of Mr. Taylor's company could talk with them slightly, and with him as an interpreter, and another servant for a protector, he walked boldly into the vil- lage of the savages, taking no weapons, lest he should create suspicion. But they received him coldly and with much show of suspicion and treachery. It was a most dangerous experiment, and it is a matter of won- der that he was allowed to depart. There were largo numbers of armed men around him, brandishing spears and clubs, and demanding of him all sorts of impossible presents. But with a calmness and seeming confidence, Mr. Taylor smoked with the chief, and exchanged presents with the subordinate officials, until they became friendly and docile, laying down their weapons and conversing cheerfully through the interpreter. Yet they laid a plan for plundering the party, and would at the last perhaps have murdered the whole crew, had not Mr. Taylor most adroitly and coolly foiled them in their desisrus. All attempts to persuade his men to go farther were useless. No urging, no promise of gifts, no threats would induce them to sail farther south, as they be- lieved that it was but a little way to " the end of the world." How eagerly he yearned for some chance to explore the country beyond, he often mentioned in 13 178 LIFE OF BAYAED TAYLOR. after life. He was at the centre of a miglity conti- nent. Locked and bolted it had been for all the ages, and it appeared as if the door was now open and he had only to walk in to discover its treasures. But alas ! he could not go on alone. He could not swim the length of the river, nor find his way among the ele- phants and lions of the jungle. The boat turned back toward Khartoum, and he had no choice but to return with it. However, he made the most of the trip, and fre- quently visited the shore and had some very pleasant and instructive interviews with the tribes who live in that region. At one place he visited a village of the Hassaniyehs, and contrary to the experience of many other travellers, he was cordially invited to their circle and treated with sincere hospitality. He mentioned in his book the dance of welcome which the young women of the village performed before him, and de- scribed with interesting detail their motions, features, forms, voices, and habits. Thus, with visits to sav- ages, interviews with wild beasts, and exquisite views of the wildest scenery ever beheld by man, he floated back to the friends and dwellings of Ivhartoum. His stay in Khartoum, on his return, was brief, because of the approaching sickly season ; but every hour of his time, when awake, was occupied in visit- ing and being visited. Native chiefs, Arab merchants, holy men of the Moslem faith. Catholic priests, prin- cesses, soldiers, consuls, boatmen, and tame lions, m THE DESEET. 179 seemed equally at home in his presence ; and his stay was a most delightful one for all concerned. His parting with his friends at Khartoum was akin to the separation of life-long friends, or the breaking of a family circle. To him the whole world was kin. From Khartoum he travelled in a caravan of camels, chartered by him for an escort, leaving the Nile and striking into the desert. With camel-drivers hard to control, with a burning sun overhead, and sands nearly as hot beneath, he traversed the desert unharmed. Once he slept with a deadly snake under his blanket, unconscious of his fearful danger until he rolled up his blanket in the morning. The open air, the free sun, sleeping on the sand, and eating the coarse food of the natives, gave him a vigor and healthy delight which inconveniences and dangers could not overcome. Sometimes the heat was so intense that the skin of his face peeled oiF, and once or twice he felt the effects of " the desert intoxication," resulting from the monotonous scene and terrible heat. It was a dizzy sensation, and is often thought to be a symptom of dangerous disease. Changing camels at intermediate stations, and visiting the ruins of ancient cities and fortresses, where he found them cropping out of the sand or adorning some rugged mountain, he travelled on to Abdom, Dongola and Wady-Halfa, where he embarked in a boat for As- souan. His parting with his old dromedary, and with his guides, at Wady-Halfa, is mentioned by him with 180 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. the same regret that he experienced in leaving his other friends. But his fore well, in Cairo, to his trusted servant Achmet, who had been his faithful companion from Cairo up the Nile and back, drew tears from the eyes of both. His voyage from Wady-Halfa to Cairo was so nearly like his trip up the Nile, that for the purposes of this work it is necessary only to say that he visited many scenes and many ruins which were omitted on his way lip the river, and refreshed his memory by a second visit to the most celebrated localities. He met many travelers, and heard from civilization again, arriving in the capital of Egypt on the first day of April, 1852, in excellent spirits and in good health, save a trouble- some soreness of the eyes, caused by the reflection of the sun on the water. The thin and frail body had assumed a fullness and strength surprising to note, and the broken heart had so accustomed itself to its load of grief that the weight seemed lighter than at first. On the Nile he wrote a poem containing among others, these expressive lines : — " Mysterious Flood, — that through the silent sands Hast wandered, century on century. Watering the length of green Egyptian lands, Which were not, but for thee, — " " Thou guardest temple and vast pyramid, Where the gray Past records its ancient speech ; But in thine unrevealing breast lies hid What they refuse to teach." THE NILE. 181 " What were to thee the Osirian festivals T Or Memnon's music on the Theban plain ? The carnage, when Cambyses made thy halls Kuddy with royal slain ? " " In thy solemnity, thine awful calm, Thy grand indifference of Destiny, My soul forgets its pain, and drinks the balm Which thou dost proffer rae." — Taylor. 182 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOK. CHAPTER XX. Departure from Egypt. — A Poet in Palestine. — Difference in Trav- ellers. — Mr. Taylor's Appreciation. — First View of Tyre. — Route to Jerusalem. — The Holy City. — Bath in the Dead Sea. — Appearance of Jerusalem. — Samaria. ^ — Looking down upon Damascus. — Life in the eldest City. — The Bath. — Dose of Hashish. — Being a Turk among Turks. " The Poet came to the Land of the East, When Spring was in the air : The earth was dressed for a wedding feast, So young she seemed, and fair ; And the poet knew the Land of the East — His soul was native there. All things to him were the visible forms Of early and precious dreams, — Familiar visions that mocked his quest Beside the Western streams. Or gleamed in the gold of the clouds, unrolled In the sunset's dying beams." — Taylor, 1852. If there is any land where every grain of sand and every blade of grass is pervaded by thrilling associa- tions, that land is Palestine. Especially and peculiarly animated are its hills and vales to a poet such as Taylor proved to be. It may be that some superficial and matter-of-fact people who have visited the Holy Land in the hot season, have not felt the charm of IN PALESTINE. 183 its sacredness, owing to heat, barrenness, vermin, and beggars. There may be a small class of icono- clastic jokers, who, caring not how holy or tender the theme, never fail to use it for ridicule, if it suits their humoristic purpose. But the large class of travellers who visit Jerusalem and the country round about, feel the inspiring presence of the Past, and enjoy in an inde- scribable fullness the associations connected with it. In a higher and nobler degree, the mind imbued with poetic images, a ready imagination, and a keen discernment of beauty in landscape or history, will avail itself of the great opportunities for pleasure and profit which such a land supplies. In this sense Mr. Taylor enjoyed a great advantage. He made his physical being so subordinate to his mental, that no fatigue, no hunger, no thirst, no annoyance from beg- gars, nor fears of robbers, could interfere with the appreciation of the beautiful. How greatly he enjoyed his visit to Palestine, none but intimate friends ever knew. In his letters, he often gave way to enthusi- atic expressions, and in his book, often gave very vivid descriptions of what had been, as well as that which then existed. But a fear of exasfo^eration throusrh praise, and a modest misgiving lest his poetical fancy should not suit his readers, led him to write in a more prosy vein than he talked. In conversation with friends in Germany and America, and often in his lectures, after he had finished his tours, he graphically pictured the impressive events of the past connected 184 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. with Palestine, which seemed to pass like a panorama before him. To him, such a land would be full of interest, whether he trod its fields at a time of the year when it was luxuriant, or at a season when the sun and simoon have made it a desert. To lie upon its burnin and made for the coral reef, which separates the north- ern from the lower channel. The tide was nearly out, and the water was very shoal on all the approaches to the reef. We found, however, a narrow channel wind- ing between the groves of mimic foliage, and landed on the spongy rock, which rose about a foot above the water. Here the little pools that seamed the surface 234 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. were alive with crabs, snails, star-fish, sea-prickles, and numbers of small fish of the intensest blue color. We found several handsome shells clinging to the coral. But all our efi'orts to secure one of the fish failed. The tide was ebbing so fast that we were obliged to return for fear of grounding the boat. We hung for some time over the coral banks, enraptured with the beautiful forms and colors exhibited by this wonderful vegetation of the sea. The coral grew in rounded banks, with the clear, deep spaces of water between, resembling, in miniature, ranges of hills covered with autumnal forests. The loveliest tints of blue, violet, pale-green, yellow, and white gleamed through the waves. And all the varied forms of vegetable life were grouped together along the edges of clifis and preci- pices, hanging over the chasms worn by currents be- low. Through those paths and between the stems of the coral groves, the blue fish shot hither and thither like arrows of the purest lapis-lazuli : and others of a dazzling emerald color, with tails and fins tipped with gold, eluded our chase like the green bird in the Arabian story. Far down below in the dusky depth of the waters we saw now and then some large brown fish hovering stealthily about the entrances to the coral groves, as if lying in wait for their bright little inhab- itants. The water was so clear that the eye was deceived as to its depths and we seemed now to rest on the branching tops of some climbing forest, now to hang suspended as in mid air between the crests of two HIS KEPORTS. 235 opposing ones. Of all the wonders of the sea, which have furnished food for poetry and foble, this was as- suredly the most beautiful." That trait, which characterized Mr. Taylor, accounts in a measure for the inclination of all persons who met him to hold his companionship and acquaintance. As Mr. Taylor's esteemed friend, Mr. E. P. Whipple, of Boston, once beautifully remarked of another, Mr. Taylor was sought by men, "because they learned more of the world and its beauties through his eyes than through their own." His services in giving an accurate idea of the countries they explored were in- valuable, because it was not only necessary to visit those countries and open their ports to commerce, but it was also necessary to give to the American people such a idea of the advantages and conveniences of trade as to induce them to enter upon it. Nothing could be clearer than his views of life in these islands, nothing more complete than his enumeration of the products, manufactures, and needs of the countries they visited. The publication in full of all his notes and observations as suggested to the Naval Department by the officers of the Squadron at the time, would have given our people a better understanding of the impor- tance of the commerce and the character of the people, than any other report could do. However, the Com- modore used a great many pages of Mr. Taylor's jour- nal while making his report to the United States Gov- ernment. 236 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. Mr. Taylor was detailed to attend nearly every important excursion, and was a most hearty and perse- vering explorer. He pushed into the interior of an unknown jungle, intent on finding new flowers, new minerals, or new animals. He ascended every moun- tain which was accessible, and ventured into every cave that could be reached by boat or foot. The Great Loo-Choo Island became familiar to him, and its flora and fauna were indelibly catalogued in his mind, Avhile the varied views of mountain, vale, forest, bay, and sea were engraved upon his memory. By his good nature and kindly regard for the welfare of the Loo- Choo natives when they met, he contributed not a little toward the safety and success of the exploration in that island. From Loo-Choo the fleet sailed to the Bonin Islands, where a harbor suitable for a depot of supplies was found and land purchased by the Commodore for jTovernment buildincfs should his choice of a harbor be confirmed. The ships returned to Loo-Choo and pro- ceeded directly to the bay of Yeddo in Japan. For two hundred years that important nation had preserved its exclusiveness, and had become almost as unknown to the western nations as an undiscovered continent. Almost every commercial nation had, from time to time, attempted to secure a footing for a trad- ing-post or a harbor for their vessels. In every instance they had failed, and the civilized world had looked upon Japan as a countrj^ scaled beyond hope IN JAPAN. 237 of breaking. It must have appeared to every one, jncluding the Commodore himself, that the under- taking in which he was engaged was an especially diffi- cult enterprise. How could he hope to succeed where England, Portugal, Holland, Italy, and Eussia had fiiiled? Yet he succeeded beyond anything the most hopeful had desired ; and as a result of his expedition a mighty nation and a fertile country were restored to the family of nations. In that expedition Mr. Taylor took a deep interest, and w^th great enthusiasm wrote letters to his home descriptive of Fusiyama, Kanagawa, and the scenery around Yeddo Bay. During the long delay made by the Japanese authorities, to impress the Commodore with their dignity, he was engaged with eye and ear and pen in the service of his country. With the devo- tion which marked all his undertakings, he noted everything which passed under his scrunity, in order that the Commodore might be informed of every detail. Many travellers pass months at Yokohama, Yeddo, or Nagasaki, making investigations and excur- sions, without finding out so much of interest as Mr. Ta^dor saw in a single day. That natural and acquired acuteness of observation, and that intuitive compre- hension which made him so conspicuous, are well wor- thy of study and imitation by all persons who are ambitious to excel, whether engaged in travelling or in any other occupation. So thoroughly had he dis- ciplined himself in the inspection of all that sur- 238 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. rounded him, that when he arrived in Japan, the ships, the junks, the people, their dress, their customs, their food, their language, the vegetation, the minerals, the animals, the birds, the landscapes, the bays, the prom- ontories, the islands, the sea, the air, the sky, the stars, the wind, and the sunlight were each and all full of sus^o^estions and valuable instruction. One could not follow Mr. Taylor's writings in the closing years of his travels without becoming conscious of ignorance and short-sightedness concerning the com- monest things of life. It made his readers feel, often- times, when they discovered how much he had noticed which they had overlooked, as boys feel when a play- mate finds a silver dollar on a spot which they have passed and repassed without his good luck ; with the difference, however, that Mr. Taylor's good fortune in that respect was the result of hard work and careful culture. After the close of the preliminary negotiations, and a hasty survey of the bay of Yeddo, the fleet departed on a short cruise to Hong-Kong, in order to give the Japanese emperor time to think over the propositions which the United States Government had made to His Majesty. The trip to Hong-Kong, by way of the Loo-Choo Islands, was without special incident, and on the 7th of Auo^ust he was ao^ain in the harbor which he had left in the month of March. For five months he had known what it was to be a seamen and made subject EETURN TO HONG-KONG. 239 to the strict orders enforced on a man-of-war. It was a fresh experience. He was keen enough to recognize the merits and faiUngs of naval discipline and naval drill. He saw that many imiDrovements might be made in both. He thought, furthermore, that the ships themselves might be constructed on a better pattern. Hence, he boldly recomimended changes whenever the opportunity came for him to speak through the public prints. He had become much attached to the officers and men of his ship, and parted with them at Hon2:-Kono: with the feelins: of sincere res^ret. He had made it his home on board, and had been so contented and so kindly treated that he felt the pangs of homesickness as he shook hands and went over the side for the last time. Although he had enlisted for the usual term of years, as the laws of the United States recognized no shorter term, and ran the risk of being held to the terms of his enlistment, j^et there was a tacit under- standing between him and the Commodore that he should be allowed to resign when the fleet returned to Macao. Consequently, when he presented at that port his resignation it was promptly accepted, and he became a civilian again. He found it nearly as awk- ward to be a landsman as he had at first to be a sailor, and often looked out on the great men-of-war, as they lay at anchor, with an indescribable yearning to tread their decks. From Macao, he made excursions to Hong-Kong 240 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. and Canton, finding friends that pleased him, and an aristocratic snobbery that displeased him, in the for- mer place, and dirt, vice, and cheating in the latter, which made him further disgusted with the Chinese race. In Canton, as elsewhere, he spoke of them in strong terms, condemning their importation into the United States in a manner to please the bitterest hater of the Celestials to be found on our Pacific coast. Yet he visited the shops, practised the "pig- eon English," visited the great temple of Honan, tested the power of opium by smoking it himself, made a tour into the country, interested himself in the foreign factories and the local government, and made the acquaintance of many enterprising foreign merchants. But his aversion to the Chinese, doubt- less intensified by the wild rumors of barbarous deeds then current on account of the rebellion, was not abated after he had seen the great metropolis ; and he frankly admitted, in his letters and in his book, that he was glad to get away from China. At Canton, he took passage in a sailing vessel bound for New York, that being his most direct and least expensive route. He was anxious to return to the United States, because he had been absent over two years, and because of some financial arrangements which he considered it important to make. He felt also that if he should publish a record of his travels in the form of books, the sooner they were issued after his letters had appeared in the " Tribune," the better RETURN TO AMERICA. 241 for the publishers unci for himself. In this undertak- ing, however, he was much delayed. The ship in which he sailed, passed the Philippine Islands and the coast of Java, and rounding the Cape of Good Hope, stopped for water at the isle of St. Helena. The body of the EQi])eror Napoleon had been removed to Paris, but Mr. Taylor found it a very interesting and romantic spot. He was as much shocked, however, by the desecration of the spot by the practical herd-keepers, as he was by the profanity of the machine-rhymester who marred the grotto of the poet Camoens at Macao with a doggerel composi- tion. Mr. Taj'lor felt the absurdity of such profana- tions, as none but poetical natures can feel them. From St. Helena, the voyage was not unusually eventful, and after one hundred and one days at sea, and with Mr. Taylor nearly that number of days engaged in writing and correcting, they arrived in New York on the 20th of December, 1853. His wel- come to New York and to his old home was one of the most pleasant experiences of his life, and he often mentioned it as beins^ as excitins: as the event of his first return when he walked into the old homestead in his German walking-suit. 16 242 lilFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. CHAPTEE XXV. Takes up the Editorial Pen. — Publication of His "Poems of the Orient." — His Books of Travel. — Lecturing before Lyceums. — Friendship of Richard H. Stoddard. — Private Correspondence. — Love of Fun. — Resolves to Build a Home at Kennett. — Charges of Intemperance. — Preparations for a Third Trip to Europe. — Acquaintance with Thackeray. Immediately upon his return from China, he entered again the traces for hard and long literary work. He had written poems, and snatches of poems, verses, and couplets in his spare hours as a traveller, and his note-book and guide-books were full of such impul- sive productions, written on the margin and on the fly-leaves. Those scattered compositions he desired to reduce to satisfactory and convenient shape for publication. Some of them had been written on the seas, some on the Nile, one in Spain, one in Constanti- nople, one in Jerusalem, two in Gotha, and several in railways and steamboats. The thought of publishing them in the form of a book, was suggested to him by one of his intimate friends in New York, — either Mr. Stoddard or Mr. Ripley, — his intention having been to publish them from time to time in some 23eri- odical, in much the same manner as he had contributed to the "Union Magazine," some eight years before. HIS PUBLICATIONS. 243 But he had sufficient appreciation of his own genius to act promptly on such a suggestion of his friends, and the first few weeks after his return were occupied with that work, in addition to the work of arranging and correcting his unpublished letters to the "Tribune." When he had completed the " Poems of the Orient," it was published by Ticknor & Fields, of Boston, as a companion volume to the "Rhymes of Travel," and "Book of Romances," both of which were united in one volume, in 1856, under the title of "Poems of Home and Travel." In the preparation of these poems, he was greatly assisted by the kindly and dis- creet criticism of his friend Stoddard, which he not only acknowledged in the remarkable dedication "From Mount Tmolus," but mentioned it to his relatives with expressions of thankfulness. The pub- lic owe a debt to Mr. Stoddard for his generosity and hospitality to Mr. Taylor, as well as for the beautiful poems and truthful biographies which he has written. A true man is a friendly critic, if a critic at all. Such was Richard H. Stoddard. Mr. Taylor was then called into a new work by a curious public, who wished to see the man who had wandered so far, and had seen so much of this great earth. Hence he was repeatedly called upon to lecture in various cities of the Eastern and Middle States. His financial condition was not so prosperous as to pre- clude the possibility of future needs, and as the invitations to lecture were accompanied by very liberal 244 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. offers in the way of remuneration, he accepted many of them. It was, however, an uncongenial occupa- tion. Public speaking had never been recognized as one of his great gifts, and the great masses who gather on such occasions, gather more for amusement than study. They wished to see how he appeared. The ladies desired to know if he was handsome, well dressed, and what was the color of his eyes and hair. The men wished to see if he had become a foreigner in speech or manner. The boys wanted to hear bear stories, and the girls of wild giraffes and affectionate gazelles. Not that the public desired to hear pure nonsense ; but that it wished its lessons very much diluted. The polished essays of Mr. Taylor, with their poetical language and refinement of expression, were of little or no account, and a vieAV of his portly phy- sique, and the right to say that they had seen him, and heard him, satisfied the greater portion. To him, such audiences were not agreeable. Whenever he could find a friend like O'Brien or Stoddard, he enjoyed reading his own productions ; but to be set up as a show, had in it no such satisfaction. Being also very much engaged in preparing his books of travel, and in writing for the "Tribune," often writing on the railway trains, and in hotels, he was weary, and could not enter into the labor of public teaching with the zest which might otherwise have been expected of him. Yet, in point of numbers, and financial returns, his tour, during the winter of 1854, was successful, HIS CORRESPONDENTS. 245 and the harvest for the season of 1855 promised to be still larger. In addition to the work already mentioned, he had a great number of private correspondents, whose letters he answered with astonishing punctuality. jMen in Egypt, China, England, Germany, California, and the United States, sent him letters of inquiry about the best routes, and cheapest outfit for travel. To which he replied as fully as he could, always remembering the like favors done him when in the printing-office at West Chester. There was a large number of friendly acquaintances in many parts of the world who desired to sustain a correspondence with him, and, (jften, his desk at the " Tribune " had piled upon it as many as fourscore letters, brought by a single mail. It seems incredible when we think of the amount of writing Mr. Taylor did during the years of 1854 and 1855. Owing to the great amount of work which could not be postponed, and the fact that the "Tribune" had the moral right to his letters before he offered them for sale m the form of a book, the last of his three volumes of travel did not appear until August, 1855. At one time, he entertained the idea of publishing a book of songs, and consulted with his publisher con- cerning the probal)le success of such a volume. But havino: had his attention called to the fact that the veriest trash answered the purpose of musical com- posers fully as well as sterling poetry, he abandoned 246 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. the idea. The thought was probably suggested to him by the writings of Thomas Moore, vrhose "Lalla Rookh" was frequently brought to muid while Mr. Taylor was writing out the chapters of his book, wherein he described his visit to Agra and Delhi in India. The objections which he found to a volume of songs, seemed equally applicable to single productions which might be included in such a category, and he not only suppressed many he had written, but cau- tiously cut out verses in such as had been pri-nted, before he allowed them to be published again. He went so far as to request that the song for which he obtained the Jenny Lind prize in 1850, should be kept forever out of print. Some of these are said to be among his papers in Germany, where his body now lies, and the writer sincerely wishes to see them all in print at a day not very remote, together with the epistolary poems and friendly sonnets which have been sent by him to the distinguished scholars and poets who enjoyed his friendship. It will take time to gather them, but, when collected, will make the best of read- ing, and will show the joyous, simple, sincere char- acter of the poet, as no amount of prose can do. As early as October, 1854, Mr. Taylor conceived the idea of buildins: a summer residence near the old homestead at Kennett. It may have been a purpose entertained in his youth, for he often mentions, directly and indirectly, in his early writings, the s^^enery and the people about his home at Kennett But in that LOVE OF HOME. 247 year the idea appears to have assumed the form of a possibility, for he wrote to one of his old schoolmates, who resided that autumu in Jersey City, saying that he bes^an to see his wav for a house of his own at Kennett. The letter set in circulation the report that he was soon to be married ; but he had kept his own counsel so well, and held aloof so stu- diously from the company of ladies, that none of the gossips could possibly hint at the person of his choice. This loyalty to his home and desire to return to it like a weary bird to its nest, was a beautiful trait of his character, and testifies strongly to his natural goodness of heart. For it will be found that the noblest men of all ages and professions have loved the homes of their childhood, while the selfish, narrow, barbarous, and mean, universally regard their early associations with neglect or contempt. A touching scene arises before the writer, as he reaches this theme, and the tears will come to the eye and cheek ! Away in that German land sleeps the son and brother. The romantic home at Kennett, stands cosy, yet stately, among the winter-stricken trees. Inside are the dear ones whom neither years, nor honors, nor wanderings have induced him to for- get — the father and the mother in the mansion of their son. There is the sister, whose feet, after years of absence, tread again the paths of home. There the visitor feels the gloom of a distant death. Windows that flashed with light; drawing-rooms that were 248 LIFE OF BAYArwD TAYLOR. made charming by the cheex'fal faces of the great and good, are now suggestive of sadness and disaster. The cold winds shake the dry vines, and cry around its cornices. The loved ones are there, — waiting, waiting for him to come home ! He never disap- pointed them before. Why comes he not? Why do not his letters come with the mail ? " Moan, ye wild winds ! around the pane, And fall thou drear December rain ! " Ah, we know the meaning now of those sad words. For we have lived them too ! Ever looking forward to the time when he could give his parents a more luxurious home, feeling most keenly the rapid strides of time, as he looked upon their wdiitening locks, unwilling to prosper alone, and promoting ever the welfare of those he loved, he strove with an unchangeable determination to accumu- late sufficient money to build a house near the old farm, that should be a home for all, and a resting-place for himself. To this, in part, was due his incessant work through the years of 1854 and 1855. His books brought him a considerable return ; he received a reasonable compensation as editor and lecturer, and he had lifted the load of debt which the " Phoenixville Pioneer " had bequeathed to him, but which no one believed he was able to pay ; and could look forward to a competency and, perhaps, to wealth. Yet, in all his work, there was a cheerfidness that seemed to srive rest while the SOCIAL HABITS. ^ 249 work went on. He often indulged in fun, was ever joking with his friends, and indulging in playful pranks with his acquaintances. Usuall}^ however, his face- tiousness was itself a method of self-discipline, — a different kind of work. He used to visit his friends whenever an evening couki be spared from necessary hibor, and spend the hours in writing and exchanging humorous burlesques, acrostics, sonnets, and parodies. Sometimes he woukl " race " with his literary friends in writing lines of poetry on a given subject, and although, as he afterward acknowledged, he often came in second best, yet he enjoyed the sport and the satis- faction of the victor none the less. The same fun- loving, mischievous, kind-hearted boy, who enjoyed writing extravagant verses, and sending them to his schoolmates, walked the streets of New York in 1855. Time had given discretion, sorrow had given reserve ; but the fun bubbled out whenever the waters w^ere moved. His mirth was less ostentatious, but not less hearty. Loving a bottle of beer, or wine, for the sake of sociability^, for in his younger days it was universally considered a necessity, he never drank to excess, nor was ever regarded by his companions as an intemperate man. Envious simpletons have some- times accused him of intemperate habits during those two years ; but so well-known and frank was his life, that it would have been then, as it certainly is now, a waste of time to deny so absurd a statement. So- called temperance men are often the most intemperate 250 LIFE or BAYARD TAYLOR. people known in public life. As temperance, in fact, consists of temperance in all things, as well as in the use of intoxicating drinks, the real temperance people of America will discourage alike the excess in the use of stimulants, and that excess in the use of epithets and misrepresentation, which, by the resulting reaction, encourages the use of that which Ihey wish to prohibit. Intemperate speeches, like intemperate laws, and intemperate drinking, are to be condemned and avoided by all who believe the Highest Moral Stand- ard known to man. It is exceedingly intemperate to circulate a falsehood about any person, and especially of one of our own American family, who has done so much for our nation, and " never wished harm to any man." It had long been Mr. Taylor's wish to take his sisters and brother to Europe with him, in order that they might enjoy those scenes which had pleased him so much ; and he had often mentioned, in his letters to them from abroad, how much more he would enjoy the advantages of travel, if they could be with him to share in his pleasure. He was too generous to desn*e the exclusive enjoyment of anything, and was espe- cially anxious that those related to him should reap the benefits of all his labors. Hence, in the spring of 1856 (not without correspondence with one in Gotha, how- ever), he arranged his plans for another series of excursions in Europe, and persuaded his sisters and brother to accompany him. GOES TO ENGLAND. 251 It was during those two years of labor that he made the acquaintance of many of the distinguished literary men of Massachusetts, and in one of those years — 1855 — he secured the acquaintance and friendship of Wil- liam Makepeace Thackeray, who visited this country then for the second time, and delivered his lono:- remembered lectures on the "English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century," and "The Four Georges." So well known, and so much respected had Mr. Tay- lor become, that he was sought by the great of both continents, and when he departed for Europe, in the spring of 1856, the kind wishes of thousands of America's representative men and women went with him, and a welcome awaited him on the shores of England from as many more. 252 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. CHAPTER XXVI. Visit to Europe. — Eeception iu England. — Company in Cliarge. — Starts for Sweden. — Stockholm. — The Dangerous Ride. — The Severe Cold. — Arrival in Lapland. — First Experience with Canoes and Reindeers. — Becomes a Lapp. — The Extreme North. — The Days Avithout a Sun. — " Yankee Doodle." — The Return. — Study iu Stockholm. — Return to Germany and London. — Embarks for Norway. — Meets his Friend at Christiania. — The Coast of Nor- way. — The Midnight Sun. — Trip across Norway and Sweden. — Return to Germany. Without bringing the living into a notoriety which they certainly do not seek, and which might be un- pleasant for them, we cannot give an extended accomit of that summer trip of Mr. Taylor and his friends in the countries of Europe, already so familiar to him. He devoted himself to the welfare of his companions, and appeared to enjoy himself exceedingly. England appeared brighter and more attractive than he supposed it possible ; and his pleasure in visiting historical places was doubled by the fact that he had others to appreciate and enjoy it with him. His sisters inherited enough of that same instinctive comprehension of vegetable nature, and enough of that fellowship with kindred human nature, to regard the landscapes and the people as he had regarded them, and made, as he wrote to his friends in Philadelphia, wonderfully RECEPTION IN ENGLAND. 253 observing travellers. Other friends there were, who, with his brother, made up a pleasant party, over which ^h\ Taylor was for the time the guide and protector. He visited many places where he had never been before, but he had studied his theme so closely during his previ- ous visits to Europe that even in strange places he felt the gratification of one who had been there before, and to whom each scene and relic was familiar. His little party was often interrupted by the calls made upon him to attend dinner-parties and select gather- ings of literary people ; but he was not a neglectful escort. His acquaintance with the men and women of London whose names are known to all readers of En^^- lish literature, was promoted very much by the kind- ness of Mi\ Thackeray, who spared no pains to intro- duce Mr. Taylor into that " charmed circle." No one can appreciate the pleasure there was in being introduced to the authors of whom the world has said so much, unless he has followed them like a friend through their various volumes and learned to love them there. Historians, essayists, biographers, poets, musical com- posers, and scientific authors clasped his hand in London and welcomed him to their homes and their love. At last he felt that he had reached the heisrhts for which he had been strivinsf, and was resTftrded as an equal by those whose plane of thought he had so lonsr striven to reach. But that feelinsr had its reac- tion, for he often examined himself and repeated to himself his published poetry, and, as he described it 254 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. himself, wondered what there could be in it worthy of reproduction in Old England. His association with the master-minds of England opened to him a wider field of literature, and impressed him with the impor- tance of writing something loftier and more artistic than anything he yet had undertaken. To that task he turned all the forces of his nature ; so that on leav- ing England his friends noticed through all his vivacity and unceasing attention a tendency to abstraction ; as though some important theme unspoken was upper- most in his mind. He was searching for an ideal which should not copy Tennyson, nor Wordsworth, nor Browning, but should equal theirs in conception and execution. He felt that irresistible yearning for the highest poetical work, which is the surest indica- tion of ofenius. He was not e