. . -.-. I I THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES TEAYEL3 II AMERICA TWO LECTURES DELIVERED TO THE LEEDS MECHANICS INSTITUTION AND LITERARY SOCIETY, DECEMBER STH AND GTH, 1850. BY THE RIGHT HONORABLE THE EARL OF CARLISLE, (LORD MORPETH.) NEW-YOKE: : G. P. PUTNAM, 155 BROADWAY. 1851. BAKER, GODWIN & Co., Printers, No. 1 Spruce St., New- York. Its' TO THE MEMBERS OP THE YORKSHIRE UNION OF MECHANICS' INSTITUTES, BEFORE A BRANCH OP WHICH THESE LECTURES WERE READ, THEY ARE NOW RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, BY THEIR ASSOCIATE AND WELL-WISHER, CARLISLE. Christmas, 1850. 1179568 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. IT may be known to some of those whom I have the pleasure to see around me, that when circumstances to which I need not further allude, occasioned a breach, temporary indeed, and soon repaired, in my connection with the West Riding of Yorkshire, when, as the phrase goes, some of your neighbors, and probably of yourselves, had given me leave to go upon my tra- vels, I thought I could make no better use of this involuntary leisure than by acquiring some personal knowledge of the United States of America. I ac? cordingly embarked in the autumn of the year 1841, and spent about one whole year in North America, having within that period passed nearly over the 6 TKAVKLS IN AMERICA. length and breadth of the Republic, trod at least the soil of twenty-two out of the twenty-six States of which the Union was then composed, and paid short visits to the Queen's dominions in Canada, and to the Island of Cuba. I determined to keep a journal dur- ing my travels, and only at the end of them to decide what should become of it when it was completed. I found it was written in too hurried and desultory a man- ner, and was too much confined to my own daily pro- ceedings, to make it of interest to the public at large ; still more strongly I felt that after having been re- ceived with uniform civility and attention, nay, I may say, with real warmth and openness of heart, I should not wish, even where I had nothing but what was most favorable to communicate, immediately to exhibit my- self as an inquisitive observer of the interior life to which I had been admitted ; and this very feeling would probably have disqualified me for the office of an impartial critic. Now, however, that above eight years have elapsed since my return, in turning over the pages then written, it has seemed to me allowable tp endeavor, for a purpose like the present, to convey TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 7 a few of the leading impressions which I derived from the surface of nature and society as they exhibited themselves in the New World. It must follow necessarily from such limits as could be allowed to me on an occasion of this kind, that any account which I can put together from materials so vast and so crowded, must be the merest superficial skimming of the subject that can be conceived. All I can answer for is, that it shall be faithful to the feel- ings excited at the moment, and perfectly honest as far as it goes. I must premise one point with reference to what I have just now glanced at, the use of indi- vidual names. I came in contact with several of the public men, the historical men they will be, of the American Republic. I shall think myself at liberty occasionally to depart in their instance from the rule of strict abstinence which I have otherwise prescribed to myself, and to treat them as public propeily, so long as I say nothing to their disadvantage. On the other hand, the public men of the United States are not created faultless beings, any more than the public men of other countries ; it must not, therefore, be consid- 8 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. ered when I mention with pleasure any thing which redounds to their credit, that I am intending to present you with their full and complete portraits. It was on the 21st day of October, upon a bright crisp morning, that the Columbia steam-packet, upon which I was a passenger, turned the lighthouse outside the harbor of Boston. The whole effect of the scene was cheerful and pleasing ; the bay is studded with small islands, bare of trees, but generally crowned with some sparkling white building, frequently some public establishment. The town rises well from the water, and the shipping and the docks wore the look of prosperous commerce. As I stood by some Ameri- can friends acquired during the voyage, and heard them point out the familiar villages, and villas, and in- stitutions, with patriotic pleasure, I could not alto- gether repress some slight but not grudging envy of those who were to bring so long a voyage to an end in their own country, amidst their own family, within their own homes. I am not aware I ever again expe- rienced, during my whole American sojourn, the pecu- liar feeling of the stranger. It was, indeed, dispelled TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 9 at the moment, when their flag ship, the Columbus, gave our Columbia a distinguished, and, I thought, touching reception ; the crew manned the yards, cheer- ed, and then the band played, first " God Save the Queen," and then " Yankee Doodle." I spent alto- gether, at two different intervals, about a month in Boston. I look back with fond recollection to its well-built streets the swelling dome of its State-House the pleasant walks on what is termed the common a park, in fact, of moderate size, in the centre of the city, where I made my first acquaintance with the bright winter sunsets of America, and the peculiar transpa- rent green and opal tints which stripe the skies around them the long wooden causeways across the inner harbor, which rather recalled St. Petersburgh to my recollection the newly-erected granite obelisk on a neighboring height, which certainly had no affinity with St. Petersburgh, as it was to mark the spot, sa- cred to an American, of the battle of Bunker's Hill the old elm tree, at the suburban university of Cam- bridge, beneath which Washington drew his sword in 1* 10 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. order to take command of the national army the shaded walks and glades of Mount Auburn, the beau- tiful cemetery of Boston, to which none that we yet have can be compared, but which I trust before long our Chadwicks and Paxtons may enable us to imitate, and perhaps to excel. These are some of my external recollections of Boston ; but there are some fonder still, of the most refined and animated social inter- course of hospitalities which it seemed impossible to exhaust of friendships which I trust can never be ef- faced. Boston appears to me, certainly, on the whole, the American town in which an Englishman of culti- vated and literary tastes, or of philanthropic pursuits, would feel himself most at home. The residence here was rendered peculiarly agreeable to me by a friend- ship with one of its inhabitants, which I had previ- ously made in England ; he hardly yet comes within my rule of exception, but I do not give up the notion of his becoming one of the historical men of his coun- try. However, it is quite open for me to mention some of those with whom, mainly through his introduction, I here became acquainted. There was Mr. Justice TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 11 Story, whose reputation and authority as a commenta- tor and expounder of law, stand high wherever law is known or honored, and who was, what at least is more generally attractive, one of the most generous and sin- gle-hearted of men. He was an enthusiastic admirer of this country, especially of its lawyers; how he would kindle up and flow on if he touched upon Lord Hard wick or Lord Mansfield " Sir," as an American always begins, " on the prairies of Illinois this day Lord Mansfield administers the law of commerce." He had also a very exalted opinion of the Judgments of Lord Stowell, which his own studies and practice had led him thoroughly to appreciate; and I may permit myself to say that he had formed a high esti- mate of the judicial powers of Lord Cottenham. I must admit one thing, when he was in the room few others could get in a word ; but it was impossible to resent this, for he talked evidently not to bear down others, but because he could not help it. Then there was Dr. Channing. I could not hear him preach, as his physical powers were nearly exhausted ; but on one or two occasions I was admitted to his house. 12 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. You found a fragile frame, and a dry manner, but you soon felt that you were in a presence in which nothing that was impure, base, or selfish could breathe at ease. There was the painter, Alston, a man of real genius, who suffices to prove that the domain of the fine arts, though certainly not hitherto the most congenial to the American soil, may be successfully brought, to use their current phrase, into annexation with it. These, alas ! have since my visit, all been taken away. In the more immediate department of letters there are happily several who yet remain Mr. Bancroft, the able and accomplished historian of his own country Mr. Ticknor, who has displayed the resources of a well- stored and accomplished mind in his recent work on the literature of Spain Mr. Longfellow, with whose feeling and graceful poetry many must be acquainted Mr. Emerson, who has been heard and admired in this country and I crown my list with Mr. Prescott, the historian of Ferdinand and Isabella, of Mexico and of Peru, with respect to whom, during the visit he paid to England in the past summer, I had the satisfaction of witnessing how all that was most eminent in this TRAVELS IN AMEKICA. 13 country confirmed the high estimate I had myself formed of his head, and the higher one of his heart. The public institutions of Boston are admirably con- ducted. The Public or Common Schools there, as I believe in New-England generally, are supported by a general rate, to which all contribute, and all may pro- fit by. I am not naturally now disposed to discuss the question, how far this system would bear being trans- planted and ingrafted on our polity ; but it would be uncandid if I did not state that the universality of the instruction, and the excellence of what fell under my own observation, presented to my mind some mortify- ing points of contrast with what we have hitherto ef- fected at home. It is well known that a large propor- tion of the more wealthy and cultivated part of the society of Boston belong to the Unitarian persuasion ; but a considerable number of the middle classes, and especially of the rural population of New-England, comprising the six Northern States of the Union, still retain much of the Puritan tenets and habits of their immediate ancestors, their Pilgrim Fathers. Before I leave Boston, let me add one observation on a lighter 14 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. topic. I lodged at the Tremont Hotel, which was ad- mirably conducted, like very many of those imposing establishments in the chief cities of the Union. Here I learnt that one is apt to receive false impi-essions at first ; I was struck with the clean, orderly, agile ap- pearance of the waiters. " The Americans beat us hollow in waiters," was my inner thought ; on inquir- ing I found that of the twenty-five waiters in the house, four were English and twenty-one Irish. I could not help wishing that a large number of the Irish might come and be waiters for a little while. Within three or four days of my landing I grew im- patient to see the Falls of Niagara without loss of time ; if any sudden event should have summoned me home, I felt how much I should have grudged cross- ing the Atlantic without having been at Niagara, and I also wished to look upon the autumn tints of the American Forest, before the leaves, already beginning to fall, had entirely disappeared. The Western Rail- way, which appeared to me the best constructed that I saw in America, took me to Albany, a distance of 200 miles. The railway carriages, always there called TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 15 cars, consist of long rooms, rather like a dining-room of a steam-packet, with a stove inside, often a most desirable addition in the American winter, and you can change your seat or walk about as you choose. They are generally rougher than our railways, and the whole getting up of the line is of a ruder and cheaper cha- racter ; they do not impede the view as much as with us, as they make no scruple of dashing across or along- side of the main street in the towns or villages through which they pass. But I ought to remark about this as about every thing else, that the work of progress and transformation goes on with such enormous rapidi- ty, that the interval of eight years since my visit will probably have made a large portion of my remarks thoroughly obsolete. The New-England country through which we passed looks cheerful, interspersed with frequent villages and numerous churches bear- ing the mark at the same time of the long winter and barren soil with which the stout Puritan blood of Brit- ain has so successfully contended ; indeed, the only staple productions of a district which supplies seamen for all the Union, and ships over all the world, are 16 TRAVELS IX AMERICA. said to be ice and granite. Albany is the capital of the state of I^ew-York, the Empire State, as its in- habitants love to call it, and it is a name which it de- serves, as fairly as our own old Yorkshire would deserve to be called the Empire Comity of England. It is ra- ther an imposing town, rising straight above the Hud- son river, gay with some gilded domes, and many white marble columns, only they are too frequently ap- pended to houses of very staring red brick. From Albany to Utica the railroad follows the stream of the Mohawk, which recalls the name of the early Indian dwellers in that bright valley, still retaining its swell- ing outline of wood-covered hills, but gay with pros- perous villages and busy cultivation. I was perhaps still more struck the next evening, though it was a more level country, where the railway passes in the midst of the uncleared or clearing forest, and suddenly bursts out of a pine glade or cedar swamp into the heart of some town, probably four, three, or two years old, with tall white houses, well lighted shops, billiard- rooms, &c. ; and emerging, as we did, from the dark shadows into the full moonlight, the wooden spires, TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 17 domes, and porticoes of the infant cities looked every bit as if they had been hewn out of the marble quar- ries of Carrara. I am aware that it is not the received opinion, but there is something both in the outward aspect of this region and the general state of society accompanying it, which to me seemed eminently poeti- cal. What can be more striking or stirring, despite the occasional rudeness of the forms, than all this en- terprise, energy, and life welling up in the desert? At the towns of Syracuse, of Auburn, and of Roches- ter, I experienced the sort of feeling which takes away one's breath ; the process seemed actually going on before one's eyes, and one hardly knows whether to think it as grand as the Iliad, or as quaint as a harle- quin farce. I will quote the words I wrote down at the time : " The moment is not come for me yet, if it ever should come, to make me feel myself warranted in forming speculations upon far results, upon guarantees for future endurance and stability : all that I can now do is to look and to marvel at what is before my eyes. I do not think I am deficient in relish for antiquity and 18 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. association ; I know that I am English, not in a pig- headed adhesion to every thing there, but in heart to its last throb. Yet I cannot be unmoved or callous to the soarings of Young America, in such legitimate and laudable directions too ; and I feel that it is already not the least bright, and may be the most enduring title of my country to the homage of mankind, that she has produced such a people. May God employ them both for his own high glory !" I am bound here in candor to state that I think what I first saw in America was, with little exception, the best of its kind ; such was the society of Boston such was the energy of progress in the western portion of the State of New- York. At Rochester, an odd coincidence occurred to me, striking enough I think to be mentioned, though it only concerned myself. After the arrival of the railway carriage, and the usual copious meal of tea and meat that ensues, I had been walking about the town, which dates only from 1812, and then contained 20,000 in- habitants, and as I was returning to the hotel, I saw the word Theatre written up. Wishing to see every TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 19 thing in a new country, I climbed up some steep stairs into what was little better than a garret, where I found a rude theatre, and ruder audience, consisting chiefly of boys, who took delight in pelting one another. There was something, however, at which I had a right to feel surprised. In a playhouse of strollers, at a town nearly five hundred miles in the interior of America, which, thirty years before, had no existence, thus coming in by the merest chance, I saw upon the drop- scene the most accurate representation of my own house, Naworth Castle, in Cumberland. A great improvement has recently occurred in the nomenclature of this district ; formerly a too classical surveyor of the State of New- York had christened I used the wrong term, had heathenized, to make a new one, all the young towns and villages by the singu- larly inapplicable titles of Utica, Ithaca, Palmyra, Rome ; they are now reverting to the far more appro- priate, and, I should say, more harmonious Indian names, indigenous to the soil, such as Oneida, Onon- daga, Cayuga. I thought my arrival at Niagara very interesting. 20 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. We had come to Lockport, where there is a chain of magnificent locks, on the Erie Canal, one of the great public works of America, and which has done much to enrich this Empire State of New- York. The surplus of the receipts enabled them to execute a variety of other public works. We arrived too late for the usual public conveyance. The proprietor of the stage coach agreed to give me, with one or two other Englishmen, a lumber wagon to convey us to the Falls. The Colonel, for he was one, as I found the drivers of the coaches often were, drove his team of four horses himself. I generally found the stage-coach driving in the United States indescribably rough, but the drivers very adroit in their steerage, and always calling their horses by their names, and addressing them as reasonable beings, to which they seemed quite to respond. Altogether, the strangeness of the vehicle, the cloudless beauty of the night, the moonlight streaming through the forest glades, the meeting a party of the Tuscarora Indians, who still have a settlement here, the first hearing the noise of Niagara about seven miles off, and the growing excitement of the nearer approach, gave to the whole TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 21 drive a most stirring and enjoyable character. When I arrived at the hotel", the Cataract House, I would not anticipate by any moonlight glimpses the full disclo- sures of the coming day, but reserved my first visit for the clear light and freshened feelings of the morning. I staid five days at Niagara on that occasion ; I visited it again twice, having travelled several thousands of miles in each interval. I have thus looked upon it in the late autumn, in the early spring, and in the full summer. Mrs. Butler, in her charming work on America, when she comes to Niagara says only, " Who can describe that sight ?" and, with these words, fin- ishes her book. There is not merely the difficulty of finding adequate words, but there is a simplicity and absence, as I should say, of incidents in the scenery, or, at least, so entire subordination of them to the main great spectacle, that attempts at description would seem inapplicable as well as impotent. Nevertheless I have undertaken, however inadequately, the attempt to place before you the impressions which I actually de- rived from the most prominent objects that I saw in America. How, then, can I wholly omit Niagara? 22 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. The first view neither in the least disappointed, or sur- prised, but it wholly satisfied me. I felt it to be com- plete, and that nothing could go beyond it ; volume, majesty, might, are the first ideas which it conveys ; on nearer and more familiar inspection I appreciated other attributes and beauties the emerald crest the seas of spray the rainbow wreaths. Pictures and panoramas had given me a correct apprehension of the form and outline ; but they fail, for the same reason as language would, to impart an idea of the whole effect, which is not picturesque, though it is sublime ; there is also the technical drawback in painting of the continuous mass of white, and the line of the summit of the Fall is as smooth and even as a common mill-dam. Do not imagine, however, that the effect could be improved by being more picturesque ; just as there are several trivial and unsightly buildings on the banks, but Niagara can be no more spoiled than it can be improved. You would, when on the spot, no more think of complaining that Niagara was not picturesque, than you would re- mark, in the shock and clang of battle, that a trumpet sounded out of tune. Living at Niagara was not like TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 23 ordinary life ; its not over loud, but constant solemn roar, has in itself a mysterious sound : is not the highest voice to which the Universe can ever listen, compared by inspiration to the sound of many waters? The whole of existence there has a dreamy but not a frivo- lous impress ; you feel that you are not in the common world, but in its sublimest temple. I naturally left such a place and such a life with keen regret, but I was already the last visitor of the year, and the hotels were about to close. I was told that I had already been too late for the best tints of autumn (or fall, as the Americans picturesquely term that season), and that they were at no time so vivid that year as was usual ; I saw, however, great richness and variety of hue ; I think the bright soft yellow of the sugar maple, and the dun red of the black oak, were the most remarkable. These and the beech, the white cedar, the hemlock spruce, the hickory, with oc- casionally the chestnut and walnut, seemed the pre- vailing trees in all this district. I can well imagine a person being disappointed in the American Forest; trees, such as those at Wentworth and Castle Howard 24 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. (may I say ?) seem the exception, and not the rule. The mass of them run entirely to height, and are too thick together, and there is a great deal too much dead fir ; still there is a great charm and freshness in the American forest, derived partly perhaps from associa- tion, when you look through the thick tracery of its virgin glades. On my going back I paid two visits at country houses ; one to an old gentleman, Mr. Wadsworth, most distinguished in appearance, manner, and under- standing, who had settled where I found him fifty years before, when he had not a white neighbor within thirty miles, or a flour mill within fifty ; he lived entirely sur- rounded by Indians, who have now disappeared. On some occasion, there had been a review of a corps of militia. A neighboring Indian Chief had been present, and was observed to be very dejected ; Mr. Wadsworth went up to him, and offered refreshment, which was usually very acceptable, but he declined it. Upon be- ing pressed to say what was the matter, he answered with a deep sigh, pointing to the east, " You are the rising sun" then to the west, "We are the setting." TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 25 The face of the country is now, indeed, changed ; a small flourishing town, the capital of the county, stretches from the gate ; and the house overlooks one of the richest and best cultivated tracts in America, the valley of the Genesee. I fancy that quotations of the price of Genesee wheat are familiar to the fre- quenters of our corn markets. My host was one of the comparatively few persons in the United States who have tenants under them holding farms ; among them I found three Yorkshiremen from my own neighborhood, one of whom showed me what he called the gainest way to the house, which I recognized as a genuine Yorkshire term ; he told me that his landlord was the first nobleman in the country, which is clearly not an Americanism. While on this topic I may men- tion that, on another occasion, I was taken to drink tea at a farmer's house in New England. We had been regaled most hospitably, when the farmer took the friend who had brought me aside, and asked what part of England Lord Morpeth came from ? " From York- shire, I believe," said my friend. "Well, I should not 2 6 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. have thought that from his manner of talking," was the reply. My other visit was to Mr. Van Buren, who had been the last President of the United States, and who, I suspect, shrewdly reckoned on being the next. It seemed, indeed, at that time to be the general expecta- tion among his own, the Democratic, or as they were then commonly called, the Loco-foco party. He was at that time living on his farm of Kinderhook ; the house was modest and extremely well ordered, and nothing could exceed the courtesy or fulness of his conversation. He abounded in anecdotes of all the public men of his country. In his dining room were pictures of Jefferson and General Jackson, the great objects of his political devotion. On my return through Albany, I had an interview with Mr. Seward, then for the second time Governor of the State of New- York. I find that I noted at the time, that he was the first person I had met who did not speak slightingly of the Abolitionists ; he thought they were gradually gaining ground. He had already acted a spirited part on points connected with slavery, especially in a contest TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 27 with the Legislature of Virginia concerning the delivery of fugitive slaves. I approached the city of New- York by the Hudson. The whole course of that river from Albany, as seen from the decks of the countless steamers that ply along it, is singularly beautiful, especially where it forces a passage through the barriers of the Highlands, which, however, afford no features of rugged grandeur like our friends in Scotland ; but though the forms are steep and well-defined, their rich green outlines of waving wood, inclosing in smooth many-curved reaches the sail-covered bosom of the stately river, present nothing but soft and smiling images. I then took up my win- ter quarters at New- York. I thought this, the com- mercial and fashionable, though not the political capital of the Union, a very brilliant city. To give the best idea of it, I should describe it as something of a fusion between Liverpool and Paris crowded quays, long perspectives of vessels and masts, bustling streets, gay shops, tall white houses, and a clear brilliant sky over- head. There is an absence of solidity in the general appearance, but in some of the new buildings they are 28 . TRAVELS IN AMERICA. successfully availing themselves of their ample re- sources in white marble and granite. At the point of the Battery, where the long thoroughfare of Broadway, extending some miles, pushes its green fringe into the wide harbor of New-York, with its glancing waters and graceful shipping, and the limber, long, raking masts, which look so different from onr own, and the soft swelling outline of the receding shores ; it has a special character and beauty of its own. I spent about a month here very pleasantly ; the society appeared to me on the whole to have a less solid and really refined character than that of Boston, but there is more of an- imation, gayety, and sparkle in the daily life. In point of hospitality, neither could outdo the other. Keeping to my rule of only mentioning names which already belong to fame, I may thus distinguish the late Chan- cellor Kent, whose commentaries are well-known to professional readers. He had been obliged, by what I think the very unwise law of the State of New- York, to retire from his high legal office at the premature age of sixty, and there I found him at seventy-eight, full of animation and racy vigor, which, combined with great TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 29 simplicity, made his conversation most agreeable. Washington Irving, a- well-known name both to Amer- ican and English ears, whose nature appears as gentle and genial as his works I cannot well give higher praise: Mr. Bryant, in high repute as a poet, and others. I had the pleasure of making acquaintance with many of the families of those who had been the foremost men in their country, Hamiltons, Jays, Liv- ingstons. I lodged at the Astor House, a large hotel conducted upon a splendid scale ; and I cannot refrain from one, I fear rather sensual, allusion to the oyster cellars of New-York. In no part of the world have I ever seen places of refreshment as attractive every one seems to eat oysters all day long. What signifies more, the public institutions and schools are there also extremely well conducted. The churches of the dif- ferent denominations are very numerous and well filled. It is my wish to touch very lightly upon any point which among us, among even some of us now here, may be matter of controversy ; I, however, honestly think that the experience of the United States tloes not as yet enable them to decide on either side the argu- 30 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. ment between the Established and Voluntary systems in religion ; take the towns by themselves, and I think the voluntary principle appears fully adequate to satisfy all religious exigencies ; then it must be remembered that the class which makes the main difficulty else- where, scarcely if at all exists in America ; it is the blessed privilege of the United States, and it is one which goes very far to counterbalance any drawbacks at which I may have to hint, that they really have not, as a class, any poor among them. A real beggar is what you never see. On the other hand, over their immense tracts of territory, the voluntary system has not sufficed to produce sufficient religious accommoda- tion ; it may, however, be truly questioned, whether any establishment would be equal to that function. This is, however, one among the many questions which the republican experience of America has not yet solved. As matters stand at present, indifference to religion cannot be fairly laid to her charge ; probably religious extremes are pushed farther than elsewhere ; there certainly is a breadth and universality of religious lib- erty which I do not regard without some degree of envy. TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 31 Upon my progress southward, I made a compara- tively short halt at Philadelphia. This fair city has not the animation of New- York, but it is eminently well built, neat and clean beyond parallel. The streets are all at right angles with each other, and bear the names of the different trees of the country ; the houses are of red brick, and mostly have white marble steps and silver knockers, all looking bright and shining under the effect of copious and perpetual washing. It still looks like a town constructed by Quakers, who were its orig- inal founders ; but by Quakers who had become rather dandified. The waterworks established here are de- servedly celebrated ; each house can have as much water as it likes, within and without, at every moment, for about 18s. a year. I hope our towns will be emu- lous of this great advantage. I think it right to say, that in our general arrangements for health and clean- liness we appear to me very much to excel the Ameri- cans,- and our people look infinitely healthier, stouter, rosier, jollier; the greater proportion of Americans with whom you converse would be apt to tell you they were dyspeptic, whether principally from the dry 32 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. quality of their atmosphere, the comparatively little exercise which they take, or the rapidity with which they accomplish their meals, I will not take upon my- self to pronounce. There is one point of advantage which they turn to account, especially in all their new towns, which is, that their immense command of space enables them to isolate almost every house, and thus secure an ambient atmosphere for ventilation. In my first walk through Philadelphia I passed the glittering white marble portico of a great banking establishment, which, after the recent crash it had sustained, made me think of whited sepulchres. Near it was a pile, with a respectable old English appearance, of far nobler association; this was the State House, where the Declaration of American Independence was signed one of the most pregnant acts of which history bears record. It contains a picture of William Penn and a statue of Washington. While I was there, a sailor, from the State of Maine, with a very frank and jaunty air, burst into the room, and in a glow of ardent pat- riotism inquired, " Is this the room in which the Decla- ration of Independence was signed ?" When he found TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 33 that I was an Englishman, he seemed, with real good breeding, to be afraid that he had grated on my feel- ings, and told me that in the year 1814 our flag had waved over the two greatest capitals of the world, Washington and Paris. I looked with much interest at the great Model Prison of the separate system. I was favorably impressed with all that met the eye, but I refrain from entering upon the vexed question of comparison between this and the silent and other sys- tems, as I feel how much the solution must depend upon ever recurring experience. The poor-house, like that at New- York, is built and administered on a very costly scale, and also has a great proportion of foreign- ers as inmates, and of the foreigners a great proportion Irish. This seems to enhance the munificence of the provision for destitution ; at the same time it is not to be forgotten that the foreign labor is an article of nearly essential necessity to the progress of the country. On the only Sunday which I spent in Philadelphia, I went to a church which was not wanting in associations ; the communion plate had been given by Queen Anne, and I sat in the pew of General Washington. I was told 2* 34 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. by some one that his distinguished contemporary, Chief Justice Marshall, said of him, that in contradiction to what was often thought, he was a man of decided genius, but he was such a personification of wisdom, that he never put any thing forward which the occasion did not absolutely require. It seemed to me that there was at Philadelphia a greater separation and exclusive- ness in society, more resemblance to what would be called a fashionable class in European cities, than I had found in America elsewhere. My next brief pause was at Baltimore. At a halt on the railroad on the way thither, I heard a conductor or guard say to a negro, " I cannot let you go, for you are a SLAVE." This was my first intimation that I had crossed the border which divides Freedom from Slavery. I quote from the entry which I made upon noting these words that evening : " Declaration of Independence which I read yesterday pillar of Washington which I have looked on to-day what are ye ?" I must now give myself some little vent. It was a subject which I felt during my whole sojourn in America, as I feel it still, to be paramount in interest TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 35 to every other. It was one on which I intended and endeavored to observe a sound discretion ; we have not ourselves long enough washed off the stain to give us the right to rail at those whom we had originally inoculated with the pest ; and a stranger abundantly experiencing hospitality could not with any propriety interfere wantonly upon the most delicate and difficult point of another nation's policy. I could not, however, fail often and deeply to feel, in the progress of my u> tercourse with many hi that country " Come not, my soul, into their secret ; to their counsel, my honor, be not thou united." At the same tune I wished never to make any compromise of my opinion. I made it a point to pay special respect to the leading Abolitionists those who had labored or suffered in the cause when I came within reach of them ; at Boston, I com- mitted the more overt act of attending the annual anti- slavery fair, which then was almost considered some- thing of a measure. I was much struck in the distin- guished and agreeable companies which I had the good fortune to frequent, with a few honorable exceptions, at the tone of disparagement, contempt, and anger 36 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. with which the Abolitionists were mentioned ; just as any patrician company, in this country, would talk of a Socialist or a Red Republican. I am, of course, now speaking of the free Northern States ; in the South an Abolitionist could not be known to exist. My impression is, that in the subsequent interval the dislike, the anger, has remained, and may, probably, have been heightened, but that the feeling of slight, of ignoring (to use a current phrase) their very existence, must have been sensibly checked. There were some who told me that they made it the business of their lives to superintend the passage of the runaway slaves through the free States ; they reckoned, at that time, that about one thousand yearly escaped into Canada. I doubt whether the enactment and operation of the Fugitive Slave Bill will damp the ardor of their exer- tions. It may be easy to speak discreetly and plausi- bly about the paramount duty of not contravening the law ; but how would you feel, my countrymen, if a fugitive was at your feet and the man-hunter at the door ? I admit that the majesty of the law is on one side ; but the long deep misery of a whole human life TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 37 is on the other. What you ought to feel is fervent gratitude to the Power which has averted from your shores and hearths this fearful trial, and, let me add, a heartfelt sympathy with those who are sustaining it. At Baltimore I thought there was a more pictu- resque disposition of ground than in any other city of ^he Union : it is built on swelling eminences, commanding views of the widening Chesapeake, a noble arm of the sea. There are an unusual number of public monu- ments for an American town, and hence it has been christened the Monumental City. I found the same hospitality which had greeted me every where, and the good living seemed to me carried to its greatest height ; they have in perfection the terrapin, a kind of land tortoise, and the canvas-back duck, a most unrivalled bird in any country. With reference to the topic I have lately touched upon, a slaveholders' convention was being held at the time of my visit for the State of Maryland. They had been led to adopt this step by their apprehensions both of the increase of the free colored population, and what they termed their demor- alizing action on the slaves. The language, as reported, 38 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. did not seem to have been very violent, but they very nearly subjected to lynch-law a man whom they sus- pected to be a reporter for an abolitionist newspaper. I trust we are not going to copy that system in this country. I dined with the daughter of Charles Car- roll, who, when signing the Declaration of Indepen- dence, was told by a bystander that he would incur no danger, as there were so many of the same name " of Carrollton," he added to his name, and I think it is the only one upon the document which has any ap- pendage. Being thus nobly fathered, it is rather curi- ous that this venerable lady should have been the mo- ther of three English Peeresses. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore was one of the company : he wore his long violet robes, which I have never seen done on similar occasions, either hi Ireland or in this country. From Baltimore I transferred myself to Washing- ton, the seat of Government and capital of the Ameri- can Union. I never saw so strange a place ; it affords the strongest contrast to the regularity, compactness, neatness, and animation of the Atlantic cities I had TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 39 hitherto visited. It is spread over a very large space, in this way justifying the expression of some one who wished to pay it a compliment, but did not know very well what attribute to select, so he termed it a " city of magnificent distances," over which it extends, or rather sprawls ; it looks as if it had rained houses at random, or like half a dozen indifferent villages scat- tered over a goose common. Here and there, as if to heighten the contrast with the meanness of the rest, there are some very handsome public buildings ; and the American Capitol, the meeting-place of the Legis- lature and the seat of empire, though not exempt from architectural defects, towers proudly on a steep ascent, commanding the subject town and the course of the broad Potomac, which makes the only redeeming fea- ture of the natural landscape. In short, while almost every other place which I saw in America, gives the impression of life and progress, Washington not only appears stagnant, but retrograde. No busy commerce circulates in its streets, no brilliant shops .diversify its mean ranges of ill-built houses ; but very few equi- pages move along its wide, splashy, dreary avenues. I 40 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. saw it, too, in the prime of its season, during the sit- ting of Congress. When it is not sitting the members of the Legislature and officers of the Government dis- pose themselves over the breadth of the Union, and leave the capital to the clerks of the public offices, and does it not seem profanation to say it ? the slaves, who are still permitted to inhabit what should right- fully be the Metropolis of Freedom. It is at least gratifying to know that, in the last session of Congress, the slave trade has been abolished in the district of Columbia, the small portion of territory immediately annexed to Washington. When they are here, the members of Congress are mostly packed together in large and very inferior boarding-houses, a great por- tion of them not bringing their wives and families over the immense distances they have to traverse ; hence it also happens that Washington will appear to the stran- ger not merely one of the least thriving but also the least hospitable of American cities. I spent nearly a month there, and it was the only place in which I (what is termed) kept house, that is, I resided in pri- vate lodgings, and found my own food, a method of TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 41 life, however, which, in the long run, has more com- fort and independence than that of the huge hotels. It was a contrast, however, to the large armies of waiters to which I had grown accustomed, to have no one in the house but an old woman and a negro boy, the first of whom my English servant characterized as cross, and the second as stupid. I believe it was the policy of the founders of the Kepublic to place the seat of Government where it would not be liable to be distracted by the turmoil of commerce, or over-awed by the violence of mobs ; we have heard very lately of speculations to remove the seat of the French Govern- ment from Paris. Another cause which has probably contributed to check any designs for the external im- provement and development of Washington, must have been the doubt how far in a nation which is ex- tending its boundaries westward at so prodigious a rate, it will be desirable or possible long to retain as the seat of Government a spot which will have become so little central. What gave most interest to my stay at Washington naturally was the opportunity of attending the sittings 42 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. of Congress. The interior of the Capitol is imposing, as well as the exterior ; in the Centre Hall there were five large pictures, illustrating the prominent points of American history, which must be more agreeable to American than to British eyes. There is also a fine colossal statue of Washington, who is universally and not unduly called the father of his country. The Chamber where the Senate meets is handsome and convenient. The general aspect of the assembly, which (as is well known) shares largely both in the legislative and executive powers of the constitution, is grave and decorous. The House of Representatives, the more popular branch of the Government, returned by universal suffrage, assemble in a chamber of very imposing appearance, arranged rather like a theatre, in shape like the arc of a bow, but it is the worst room for hearing I ever was in ; we hear complaints occa- sionally of our Houses of Parliament, old and new, but they are faultless in comparison. In parts of the House it is impossible to hear any body, in others it answers all the purposes of a whispering gallery, and J have heard members carry on a continuous dialogue TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 43 while a debate was storming around them. Both in the Senate and the House every member has a most commodious arm-chair, a desk for his papers, and a spitting-box, to which he does not always confine him- self. I came very often, and it was impossible to sur- pass the attention I received ; some member's seat in the body of the House was always given to me, and I was at liberty to remain there during the whole of the debate, listen to what was going on, or write my letters, as I chose. The palpable distinction between them and our House of Commons I should say to be this, we are more noisy, and they are more disorderly. They do not cheer, they do not cough, but constantly seve- ral are speaking at a time, and they evince a contemp- tuous disregard for the decisions of their speaker. They have no recognized leaders of the different par- ties, the members of Government not being allowed to have seats in either House of Congress, and the diffe- rent parties do not occupy distinct quarters in the chamber, so that you may often hear a furious wran- gle being carried on between two nearly contiguous members. While I was at Washington, the question 44 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. of slavery, or at least of points connected with slavery, gave the chief color and animation to the discussions in the House of Representatives. Old Mr. Adams, the ex-president of the United States, occupied, with- out doubt, the most prominent position ; he presented a very striking appearance, standing up erect at the age of seventy-three, having once filled the highest post attainable by an American citizen, with trembling hands and eager eyes, in defence of the right of peti- tion, the right to petition against the continuance of slavery in the district of Columbia, with a majority of the House usually deciding against him, and a portion of it lashed into noise and storm. I thought it was very near being, and to some extent it was, quite a sublime position, but it rather detracted from the gran- deur of the effect at least, that his own excitement was so great as to pitch his voice almost into a screech, and to make him more disorderly than all the rest. He put one in mind of a fine old game-cock, and occa- sionally showed great energy and power of sarcasm. I had certainly an opportunity of forming my opinion, as I sat through a speech of his that lasted three days ; TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 45 but then it is fair to mention that the actual sittings hardly last above three hours a day about four, din- ner is ready, and they go away for the day, differing much herein from our practice ; and on this occasion they frequently allowed Mr. Adams to sit down to rest. All the time I believe he was not himself for the dis- continuance of slavery, even in the district of Colum- bia, but he contended that the Constitution had ac- corded the free right of petition. One morning he presented a petition for the dissolution of the Union, which raised a great tempest. Mr. Marshall, of Ken- tucky, a fine and graceful speaker, moved a vote of censure upon him. Another member, whom I need not name, the ablest and fiercest champion whom I heard on the southern or slaveholder side, made a most savage onslaught on Mr. Adams ; then up got that " old man eloquent," and no one could have re- proached him with not understanding how to speak even daggers. His brave but somewhat troublous spirit has passed from the scenes upon which he played so conspicuous a part, but he has left behind him some words of fire, the sparks of which are not yet extinct. 46 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. Nothing came of all this stir; I used to meet Mr. Adams at dinner while it went on, very calm and un- disturbed. After seeing and hearing what takes place in some of these sittings, one is tempted to think that the Union must break up next morning ; but the flame appeared generally to smoulder almost as quickly as it ignited. The debates in the Senate, during the same period, were dignified, business-like, and not very lively ; so it may be judged which House had most attraction for the passing traveller. I heard Mr. Clay in the Senate once, but every one told me that he was labor- ing under feebleness and exhaustion, so that I could only perceive the great charm in the tones of his voice. I think this most attractive quality was still more per- ceivable in private intercourse, as I certainly never met any public man, either in his country or in mine, always excepting Mr. Canning, who exercised such evident fascination over the minds and affections of his friends and followers, as Henry Clay. I thought his society most attractive, easy, simple, and genial, with great natural dignity. If his countrymen made better men Presidents, I should applaud their TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 47 virtue in resisting the spell of his eloquence and at- tractions ; when the actual list is considered, my respect for the discernment elicited by Universal Suffrage does not stand at a very high point. Another great man, Daniel Webster, I could not hear in either House of Congress, because he then filled, as he does now, the high office of Secretary of State ; but it is quite enough to look on his jutting dark brow and cavernous eyes, and massive forehead, to be assured that they are the abode of as much, if not more, intellectual power than any head you perhaps ever remarked. For many, if not for all reasons, I am well content that he should be again at the head of the American Cabinet, for I feel sure that while he is even intensely American, he has an enlightened love of peace, and a cordial sympa- thy with the fortunes and glories of the old, as well as the new Anglo-Saxon stock. The late Mr. Calhoun, who impressed most of those who were thrown in his way with a high opinion of his ability, his honesty, and, I may add, his impracticability, I had not the good fortune to hear in public, or meet in private society. It is well known that his attachment to the maintenance 48 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. of slavery went so far as to lead him to declare that real freedom could not be maintained without it. Among those who at that time contributed both to the credit and gayety of the society of Washington, I can- not forbear adding the name of Mr. Legare, then the Attorney-General of the Union, now unhappily, like too many of those whom I have had occasion to men- tion,. no longer living. He appeared to me the best scholar, and the most generally accomplished man, I met in all the Union. I may feel biassed in his favor, for I find among my entries, " Mr. Legare spoke to- night of Pope as he ought." I have not mentioned what might be thought of a very prominent object at Washington the President of the United States. He resides for his term of office at a substantial plain building, called the White House. Mr. Tyler filled the office when I was there, and ap- peared a simple, unaffected person. Washington is the headquarters of another branch of the Constitu- tion, which works perhaps with less of friction and censure than any other, the Supreme Court of Judica- ture. The large federal questions between State and TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 40 State give great weight and interest to its proceedings. I heard an interesting cause between the States of Maryland and Pennsylvania ; it was an action to try the constitutional validity of an act of the State of Pennsylvania, which gave a trial by jury to the fugitive slave. How this subject pursued and pervaded every thing ! It was argued with great ability on both sides ; it was ultimately ruled against the power of the free States to pass such an act ; and the recent Fugitive Slave Law may probably have arisen out of some such debatable questions of right ; at all events, it has en- tirely swept away the intervention of a jury. The last day of my abode. at Washington was spent becomingly at Mount Yernon, the residence, and now the grave, of Washington. It is well placed on a wooded hill above the noble Potomac, here a mile and a half broad. The tomb is a sad affair for such a man ; ic has an inscription upon it denoting that it was erectd by John Strutters, marble mason ! It is placed under a glaring red building, something between a coach- house and a cage ; the Senate once procured the con- sent of the family to have it removed to the Capitol, 3 50 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. when a bricklayer, a laborer, and a cart arrived to take it off one morning, at which their indignation naturally rose. There are few things remarkable in the house, except the key of the Bastille sent by General Lafayette to General Washington, and a sword sent to him by Frederick the Great, with this address, "From the Oldest General of the age to the Best." I was grati- fied to see a print from my picture of the Three Maries. Did it ever excite the interest and the piety of Wash- ington ? I made a rapid journey, by steamboat and railroad, through the States of Virginia and North Carolina ; the country wore a universal impress of exhaustion, desertion, slavery. It appears to be one of the trials or the cupidity of man, that slavery, notwithstanding all its drawbacks, has a certain degree of adaptation, not I trust in the mercy of God, a necessary adaptation, to the culture of fertile soils in hot climates ; but in sterile or exhausted soils, where the energy of man must be called out to overcome difficulties, it is evident that slavery has no elastic spring or restorative power. Richmond, the capital of Virginia, has a certain re- TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 51 semblance in position to its namesake in Surrey ; I saw the local Legislature in session; it was very full of coarse-looking farmers from the western portion of the State ; it struck me that the acute town lawyers must manage matters much as they choose. I never saw a country so hopeless as all that I passed through in North Carolina a flat, sandy waste of pines, with scarcely a habitation. I spent a fortnight at Charles- ton, the capital of her more energetic sister, South Carolina ; this town and State may be looked upon as the headquarters of the' slaveholding interest; and repeatedly, when they have thought the policy of the North too encroaching either upon questions relating to what they term their peculiar institutions, which is their euphonious description of slavery, or when we should feel a juster sympathy with them, upon ques^ tions relating to the protection of the northern manu- factures in opposition to a liberal commercial policy, they have not only held the very highest tone in favor of a dissolution of the Union, but have proceeded to overt acts of resistance. I am bound to say that I spent my time there very pleasantly ; there was much gayety 52 TRAVELS IN AMERICA* and unbounded hospitally. I have made no disguise of what my opinions upon slavery were, are, and ever must be ; but it would be uncandid to deny that the planter in the Southern States has much more in his manner and mode of intercourse that resembles the English country gentleman than any other class of his countrymen ; he is more easy, companionable, fond of country life, and out-of-door pursuits. I went with a remarkably agreeable party to spend a day at the rice plantation of one of their chief proprietors; he had the credit of being an excellent manager, and his ne- groes, young and old, seemed well taken care of and looked after ; he repelled the idea not of educating them that is highly penal by the law of the State, but of letting them have any religious instruction. I was told by others that there was considerable im- provement in this respect. Many whom I met enter- tained no doubt that slavery would subsist among them for ever ; others were inclined to think that it would wear out. While I was willing not to shut my eyes to any of the more favorable external symptoms or mitigations of slavery, other indications could not TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 53 come across my path without producing deep repug- nance. On the veiy first night of my arrival, I heard the deep sound of a curfew bell ; on inquiry I was told, that after it had sounded every night at about nine o'clock, no colored person, slave or free mark that might be seen in the streets. One morning, accord- ingly, I saw a great crowd of colored persons in the street, and I found they were waiting to see a large number of their color, who had been taken up the night before on their return from a ball, escorted in their ball-dresses from the jail to the court-house. Indeed, it was almost principally with relation to the free blacks that the anomalous and indefensible work- ing of the system appeared there to develope itself. I was told that the slaves themselves looked down upon the free blacks, and called them rubbish. I must not omit to state that I saw one slave auction in the open street, arising from the insolvency of the previous owner ; a crowd stood round the platform, on which sat the auctioneer, and beside him were placed in suc- cession the lots of from one to five negroes. The families seemed to be all put up together; but I ima- 54 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. gine they must often be separated ; they comprised infants and all ages. As far as I could judge, they exhibited great indifference to their changing destiny. I heard the auctioneer tell one old man, whom I could have hardly distinguished from a white person, that he had been bought by a good master. One could not help shuddering at the future lot of those who were not the subjects of this congratulation. I went into the Head Court of Justice at Charleston, and found seven persons present ; five of them were judges, one was the lawyer addressing them, the other was the opposing counsel, who was walking up and down the room. I attended a meeting of the conven- tion of the Episcopal Church of South Carolina; whether it may be for encouragement or warning to those who wish for the introduction or revival of such synods at home, I mention the point then under discussion; it was how far it was proper to show deference for the opinion of the Bishop. In point of neatness, cleanliness, and order, the slave- holding States appeared to stand in about the same relation to the free, as Ireland does to England ; every TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 55 thing appears slovenly, ill-arranged, incomplete ; win- dows do not shut, doors do not fasten ; there is a superabundance of hands to do every thing, and little is thoroughly done. The country round Charleston for scores, and I believe hundreds of miles, is perfectly flat, and full of swamps, but there I had the first indi- cations of the real genius of the South, in the white houses lined with verandahs, the broad-leaved deep green magnolias and wild orange trees in the gardens, the large yellow jessamine and palmetto in the hedges, and the pendent streamers of gray moss on the under branches of the rich evergreen live-oak, which supplies unrivalled timber for ship-building. I left Charleston in a small American mail-packet, for the Island of Cuba. I must not dwell on the voy- age, Vhich, from our being much becalmed, lasted twelve days, double its due ; we were long off the low flat coast of Georgia and Florida, and I felt inclined to say with Goldsmith " And wild Altama echoed to our woe." On the 14th of March we passed under the impreg- 56 TRAVELS IN 7 AMERICA. nable rock of the Castle, called the Moro, and, answer- ing the challenge from its terraced battlements, we found ourselves in the unrivalled harbor of*the Havana. How enchanting, to the senses at least, were the three weeks I spent in Cuba ! How my memory turns to its picturesque forms and balmy skies. During my whole stay, the thermometer scarcely varied from 76 to 78 in the shade. I am disposed to wonder that these re- gions are not more resorted to by our countrymen for enjoyment of life, and escape from death. Nothing was ever so unlike either Europe or America as the Havana ; at least I had never been in Spain, the mother country, which I suppose it most resembles. The courts of the gleaming white houses have a Moorish look, the interiors are much covered with arabesques, and on the outside towards the street they have im- mense open spaces for windows, in which they gener- ally find it superfluous to put any glass ; the carriages are called Volantes, and look as if they had been in- tended to carry Don Quixote. Then how delicious it used to be, late in the evening, under a moonlight we can scarcely imagine, to sit in the square called the TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 57 Place of Arms, where in a space flanked by some gleaming palm-trees, and four small fountains, a gay crowd listened to excellent music from a Spanish mili- tary band. It is certainly the handsomest town I saw in the New World, and gives a great idea of the luxury and splendor of Spain in her palmy days. The billiard rooms and ice saloons streamed with light ; the great theatre is as large and brilliant as almost any hi Europe. Again, how full of interest were some visits I paid in the interior, both to Spanish and American households. I cannot condense my impressions of the scenery better than by repeating some short stanzas which with such influences around me I could not help perpetrating. I hope that while they bear witness to the intoxicating effects of the landscape and the climate, they do not wholly leave out of view the attendant moral. Ye tropic forests of unfading green, Where the palm tapers, and the orange glows. Where the light bamboo weaves her feathery screen, And her tall shade the matchless seyba throws: Ye cloudless ethers of unchanging blue, Save as its rich varieties give way To the clear sapphire of your midnight hue, The burnished azure of your perfect day. 3* 58 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. Yet tell me not my native skies are bleak, That flushed with liquid wealth, no cane-flelds wave; For Virtue pines, and Manhood dares not speak, And Nature's glories brighten round the Slave. Among the country-houses I visited was the sugar estate of one of the chief Creole nobles of the island (I do not know whether my hearers will be aware that the proper meaning of a Creole is a person of European descent born in America) : I was treated there with the most refined and courteous hospitality ; and what a view it was from the terrace of golden cane-fields, and fringing woods, and azure sea ! The treatment of the domestic slaves appeared kind and affectionate, and all the negro children on the estate repeated their cate- chism to the priest, and were then brought in to dance and romp in the drawing-room. Generally there does not appear to be the same amount of repulsion between the white and colored races as in the United States, and there is the pleasant spectacle of their being mixed together in the churches. Still the crying conclusive fact remains, that the average negro population died off in ten years, and had to be recruited by continuous importations, which are so many breaches of the solemn TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 59 treaties between Spain and us. On one coffee estate which I visited (and "generally the coffee cultivation is far lighter than that of the sugar cane), a still darker shade was thrown upon the system, as I was told from a most authentic source that there was great difficulty in preventing mothers from killing their offspring. General Valdez, who was captain-general of the island during my visit, is thought to have exerted himself honestly in putting down the slave trade. I believe it has been as much encouraged as ever under some of his successors. The politics of Cuba are rather deli- cate ground to tread upon just now, and are likely to be continually shifting ; it appeared to me that all the component parties held each other in check, like the people who are all prevented from killing each other in the farce of the Critic. The despotism and exclu- siveness of the mother country were complete ; every one gave the same picture of the corruption and de- moralization which pervaded every department of ad- ministration and justice. The Creoles are prevented from rising against this system, from dread of the negroes rising against them, over and above the large 60 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. Spanish force always kept on foot there ; the Ameri- cans, who have got possession of a large proportion of the estates, do not like to hazard any attempt at an- nexation, without at least adequate aid from other quarters, as they would have to deal with the Spanish army, some of the Creoles, and all the negroes ; and the negroes, the most deeply wronged party of any, would bring down on themselves, in case of any gene- ral rising amongst them, the Spaniards, Creoles, Amer- icans within, and Americans without. May the providence of God reserve for these enchanting shores more worthy destinies than they have ever yet enjoyed ! ; 1 availed myself of the magnificent accommodation of one of our West India line-of-packet steamers, which deposited us at the mouth of the Mississippi. I repined at the course of the vessel, receding from the sun, and at first I thought every thing looked dingy, after the skies and vegetation of the tropics. I missed especially the palm, the cocoa, and the seyba, but there was still the orange tree, and, what they have not in Cuba, the magnolia, a forest tree in full TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 61 blossom : the sugar plantations of Louisiana seemed kept in very trim order : we passed the ground made memorable by the victory of General Jackson over the English, and soon drew up among the numerous tiers of masts and steamboats that line the crescent outline of New Orleans. The good I have to say of New Orleans must be chiefly confined to the St. Charles Hotel, which is the most splendid of its kind that I saw even in the Uni- ted States. When it is at its full complement 560 dine there every day 350 of whom sleep in the house ; there are 160 servants, 7 French cooks ; all the wait- ers, whites Irish, English, French, German, and American ; the very intelligent proprietor of the hotel told me he thought the Irish made the best ; he has them all together every day at noon, when they go through a regular drill, and rehearse the service of a dinner. Nothing can be more distinct than the ap- pearance of the American and French portions of the town ; the American is laid out in broad streets, high houses, and large stores ; the French in narrow streets, which suits a warm climate better perhaps, and a great 62 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. proportion of one-storied houses, which they thought a better security agaist hurricanes. I spent my time not unpleasantly, particularly two days at the planta- tion of an opulent proprietor, where the slaves seemed the subject of much thoughtful attention as far as their physical condition is concerned : the weather at this season, the middle of April, was delicious, but it is the last place in the world I should choose for a residence. For long periods the climate is most nox- ious to human life ; it is the occasional haunt of the yellow fever, the river runs at a higher level than the town, and the putrid swamp is ever ready to ooze through the thin layer of rank soil above it; and, worse than any merely natural malaria, the dregs of the worst type of the French and American character, notwithstanding the more wholesome elements by which their influence is undoubtedly tempered, impart a moral taint to the social atmosphere. Though in my journey henceforward 1 passed over immense spaces, and saw great varieties of scenes and men, yet as it became now more of a matter of real travelling, and did not show me so much of the inner TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 63 social life, it will be a relief to you to hear, especially after the lengthened trespass I have already made on your attention, that I shall get over the remaining ground far more rapidly. I went from New Orleans to Louisville on board the Henry Clay steamer, 1500 miles, which lasted six days ; the first 1100 were on the Mississippi. It is impossible to be on the Father of Waters, as I believe the name denotes, without some emotion ; its breadth hardly appears so imposing as that of many far inferior streams ; at New Orleans it must be under three-quarters of a mile, but its width rather paradoxically increases as you rece !e from its mouth ; its color is that of a murky, pulpy, yellowish mud, but still its full deep brimming volume pleases, chiefly, I suppose, from the knowledge that thus it rolls on for 5000 miles, and waters a valley capable of feeding the world ; there is little break of outline, but the continuous parallel lines of forest are partially dotted, first by the sugar fields of Louisiana, then by the cotton inclosures of the States of Mississippi and Tennessee, then by the rich meadows of Kentucky. For the last 400 miles we left the sovereign river, and 64 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. struck up the Ohio, christened by the French the beau- tiful river, and deserving the name from the swelling wooded slopes which fringe its current ; its soft native name of Ohio, means " the gently flowing." Louis- ville is a flourishing town ; thence I dived into the in- terior of Kentucky, and paid a visit of two or three days to Mr. Clay, at his country residence of Ashland. The qualities which rivet the Senate and captivate his adherents, seemed to me both heightened and softened by his frank, courteous, simple intercourse. He lives with his family in a modest house, among fields of deep red soil and the most luxuriant grass, growing under very thriving and varied timber, the oak, sycamore, locust-tree, cedar, and that beautiful ornament of Ame- rican woods, the sugar maple. He likes showing some English cattle. His countrymen seem to be in the habit of calling upon him without any kind of previous in- troduction. Slavery, generally mild in the pastoral State of Kentucky, was certainly seen here in its least repulsive guise ; Mr. Clay's own negro servant, Charles, was much devoted to him ; he took him with him on a tour into Canada, and when some abolitionists there * TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 65 wanted him to leave his master, " Not if you were to give me both your provinces," was the reply. My next halt was at the White Sulphur Springs in the western portion of Virginia. The season had not yet commenced, early in May, so I was in sole posses- sion of the place. One of my southern friends had kindly placed a delightful little cottage at my disposal, and I enjoyed in the highest degree the unwonted re- pose in the solitude of virgin forests, and the recesses of the green Alleghanies. Here were my brief Fare- well lines to the small temple-like cupola over the bright sulphur well from which I used to drink many times in the day : Hail dome ! whose unpresuming circle guards Virginia's flowing fountain : still may health Hover above thy crystal urn, and bring To cheeks unused their bloom ! may Beauty still Sit on thy billowy swell of wooded hills, And deep ravines of verdure ; may the axe, Improvement's necessary pioneer, Mid forest solitudes, still gently pierce,' . Not bare their leafy bowers ! This votiye lay, Like wreath of old on thy white columns hung, Albeit of scentless flowers from foreign soil, Scorn not, and bid the Pilgrim pass in peace. 66 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. % I had, at this time, much travelling in the stage coaches, and I found it amusing to sit by the different coachmen, who were generally youths from the East- ern States, pushing their way in life, and full of fresh and racy talk. One said to me, lamenting the amount of debt which the State through which we were tra- velling had incurred, " I suppose your State has no debt," a compliment I could not quite appropriate. Another, who probably came from New- York, where they do not like to use the word Master in speaking of their employers, but prefer an old Dutch name, Boss, said to me, " I suppose the Queen is your Boss now." I again turned my face to the West, and passed Cincinnati, which, together with all that I saw of the State of Ohio, seemed to me the part of the Union where, if obliged to make the choice, I should like best to fix my abode. It has a great share of all the civili- zation and appliances of the old settled States of the East, with the richer soil, the softer climate, the fresher spring of life, which distinguish the West. It had be- sides to me the great attraction of being the first Free State which I reached on my return from the region of TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 67 Slavery, and the contrast in the appearance of prosperity and progress is just what a friend of freedom would always wish it to be. One of my visitors at Cincinnati told me he remembered when the town only contained a few log cabins ; when I was there it had 50,000 in- habitants. I shall not easily forget an evening view from a neighboring hill, over loamy cornfields, woody knolls, and even some vineyards, just where the Miami River discharges its gentle stream into the ample Ohio. I crossed the States of Indiana and Illinois, looked for the first time on the wide level and waving grass of a prairie stopped a short time at St. Louis, once a French station, now the flourishing capital of the State of Mis- souri. I passed the greatest confluence of rivers on the face of our globe, where the Mississippi and Missouri blend their giant currents ; the whole river ought pro- perly to have gone by the name of the Missouri, as it is by far the most considerable stream, its previous course before the junction exceeding the entire course of the Mississippi both before and after it ; it is the Mis- souri, too, which imparts its color to the united stream, and for two or three miles you distinguish its ochrer TRAVELS IN AMERICA. colored waters as they line the hitherto clear current of the Upper Mississippi. At Jacksonville, in Illinois, I was told a large colony of Yorkshiremen were set- tled, anrl I was the more easily induced to believe it, as it seemed to me about the most thriving and best cultivated neighborhood I had seen. I embarked at Chicago on the great lakes : but here I must desist from pursuing my devious wanderings on those large inland seas, and on the opposite shore of Canada. Many thou- sands of miles have I steamed away over Lakes Michi- gan, Huron, Erie, Ontario ; the Rideau Canal, the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers ; some of these I traversed twice, and they supplied some of the most interesting and picturesque features of my long journeyings. I should have scrupled in any case to touch upon the politics of Canada, and indeed my pauses at any fixed spot were too short to qualify me for the attempt, even if it had been desirable. It is a magnificent region, es- pecially its western portion happy in climate, soil, and scenery. I will, however, only attempt to dash off two slight sketches from my Canadian recollections. Here is the first. I stood in a terraced garden on the sum- TRAVELS IV AMERICA. 69 mit of a high promontory, running with a steep angle into the basin made by the river St. Lawrence, of which it is no exaggeration to say that the water is as clear, bright, and, above all, green as any emerald ; here, up- on I believe the most imperial sita in the world, stand the citadel and city of Quebec : the shipping was lying in great quantity close under the rocky steep, and was dotted for a considerable way along the shining river ; in front was the island of Orleans, well-shaped and full-peopled ; ridge upon ridge beyond, ending with Cape Tourment, descended on the river ; the shore on either side gleamed with white villages, and the town below seemed to climb or almost leap up the straight precipice, broken with high convent roofs and glittering tinned spires. The flag of England waved upon the highest bastion that crowned the rock, the band of the Queen's Guards was playing in the garden, the clearest blue of western skies was above my head, and, rising above the whole glowing scene, was the commemorative pillar to that General Wolfe, who on this spot transferred to us Englishmen, by his own victory and death, and with the loss of forty-five men, the mastery of a continent. 70 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. The only other scene I will attempt to sketch shall be in the centre of Lake Huron, on one of its countless islands. I am justified in using that epithet, since not long ago our Government ordered a survey to be made of the islands ; they counted 40,000, and then gave it lip ; and some of these were of no contemptible size, one of them being ninety miles long. I was one of a party which at that time went annually up the lake to attend an encampment of many thousand Indians, and make a distribution of presents among them. About sunset our flotilla of seven canoes, manned well by In- dian and French Canadian crews drew up ; some of the rowers cheering the end of the day's work with snatches of a Canadian boat-song. We disembarked on some rocky islet which, as probably as not, had never felt the foot of man before ; in a few moments the utter solitude had become a scene of bustle and business, carried on by the sudden population of some sixty souls ; tents had been pitched in which we were to sleep ; small trees had been cut for fuel ; fires had been lighted round which the motley crews were pre- paring the evening meal ; some were bathing in the TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 71 transparent little bays, some standing on a jutting piece of cliff, fishing ; and here and there an Indian in the water, motionless, watching with an intent gaze, a spear in his hand ready to dart on his prey be- neath. A large oil-cloth had been spread for our party on a convenient ledge of rock ; hot pea soup, hot fish, the chase of the day, and large cold rounds of beef, showed that, though we were in the desert, we did not fare like anchorites ; and the summer moon rose on the scattered fires, and the gay bivouac, and the snatches of song and chorus that from time to time woke the unaccustomed echoes of Lake Huron. Entering the United States again, I made a rapid journey, by Lakes Champlam and George, by Ticon- deroga and Saratoga, historic names ; spent four very delightful days in most attractive society in a New England village, revived the beauteous impressions of the Hudson, and, taking leave of friends not soon to be forgotten, on the quay of New- York, left the hospitable shore. You will have perceived, that in these desultory notes I have not attempted to pronounce any formal 72 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. judgment upon the American people, or the great ex- periment they are conducting in the face of the world. The extreme diversity of habits, manners, opinions, feelings, race, and origin, in the several parts of the wide extent of country I traversed, would render the difficulty, great in any case, of such an undertaking, still more subtle and complicated. The striking con- trasts in such a shifting and variegated aspect of soci- ety, make me feel that any such general and dashing summary could only be attempted after the fashion of a passage which I have always much admired in Gib- bon, where, wishing to give a fair view of the poetical character of Claudian, he sums up separately his mer- its and defects, and leaves his reader to strike the just balance. In some such mode it might be stated that North America, viewed at first with respect to her nat- ural surface, exhibits a series of scenery, various, rich, and, in some of its features, unparalleled ; though she cannot, on the whole, equal Europe in her mountain elevations, how infinitely does she surpass her in rivers, estuaries, and lakes. This variegated surface of earth and water is seen under a sky warm, soft and balmy TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 73 in some clear, blue, and brilliant in all its latitudes, with a transparency of atmosphere which Italy does not reach, with varieties of forest growth and foliage unknown to Europe, and with a splendor of hues in autumn before which painting must despair. With respect to the moral aspect, I naturally feel the diffi- culty of any succinct or comprehensine summary in- finitely heightened. The feature which is the most obvious, and probably the most enviable, is the nearly entire absence, certainly of the appearance, and, in a great degree, of the reality of poverty ; hi no part of the world, I imagine, is there so much general ease and comfort among the great bulk of the people, and a gushing abundance struck me as the prominent cha- racteristic of the land. It is not easy to describe how far this consideration goes to brighten the face of na- ture, and give room for its undisturbed enjoyment. Within a mere span of time, as compared with the general growth and progress of nations, the industry, at once steady and persevering, of the inhabitants, has cleared enormous tracts of forest, reared, among their untrodden glades, spacious and stately cities, opened 4 74 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. new highways through the swamp and the desert, cov- ered their unequalled rivers with fleets of steamboats and craft of eveiy form, given an extension to canals beyond all previous experience, and filled land and water with hardy miracles of successful enterprise. The traveller, wafted with marvellous ease by steam- boats and railways over prodigious spaces, cannot but indulge in what may appear a mere superficial satisfac- tion at the accommodation he meets with in the hotels of the principal cities, which are regulated on a scale, and with a splendor and even cleanliness which he will find scarcely rivalled in the capitals of Europe. How- ever absorbed in the pursuits of business, agriculture, and trade, the citizens of these young republics may be, and though it would seem to be their obvious voca- tion in life to cultivate almost boundless wastes, and connect almost interminable distances, circles are nev- ertheless to be found among them, which in point of refined and agreeable intercourse, of literary taste, and general accomplishment, it would be difficult for the same capitals of the elder world to surpass ; the Bench and Bar, as well as other professions, can boast both of TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 75 the solid and brilliant qualities by which they are adorned; and while Tnuch occurs in Congress that must be deemed rough and unseemly, the chords of high and generous feeling are frequently struck within its walls to accents of noble eloquence ; in the univer- sal fluency of their public speaking they undoubtedly surpass ourselves. In rural life I doubt whether the world caji produce more examples of quiet simplicity and prosperous content than would be found, I might say most prominently, in the embowered villages of New England, or the sunny valleys of Pennsylvania. I am sure that I am not wanting in respect for the operative classes of this district, but I cannot conceal from myself that the appearance of the female factory population of Lowell presents some points of favorable contrast. Among the more opulent portion of society, an idle man without regular profession or fixed pur- suit is the exception which excites observation and surprise. The purity of the female character stands deservedly high, and society has been deemed by some to be rendered less agreeable by the rigid devotion of the young married women to their households and 10 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. nurseries. It is something to have travelled nearly over the whole extent of the Union, without having encountered a single specimen either of servility or in- civility of manner ; by the last I intend to denote intentional rudeness. Elections may seem the univer- sal business, topic, and passion of life, but they are, at least with but few exceptions, carried on without any approach to tumult, rudeness, or disorder ; those which I happened to see were the most sedate, unimpassioned processes I can imagine. In the Free States, at least, the people at large bear an active, and I believe, on the whole, a useful part in all the concerns of internal government and practical daily life ; men of all classes, and especially of the more wealthy and instructed, take a zealous share in almost every pursuit of useful- ness and philanthropy ; they visit the hospitals and asylums, they attend the daily instructions of the schools, they give lectures at lyceums and institutes. I am glad to think that I may be treading in their foot- steps on this occasion. I have already mentioned with just praise the universal diffusion and excellent quality of popular education, as established especially in the TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 77 States of New England, the powerful Empire State of New- York, and, I may add, the prosperous and as- piring State of Ohio. Without venturing to weigh the preponderating recommendations or deficiencies of the Voluntary System, I may fairly ask, what other communities are so amply supplied with the facilities of public worship for all their members ? The towns, old and young, bristle with churches ; they are almost always well filled; the Sabbath, in the Eastern and Northern States at least, is scrupulously observed, and with the most unbounded freedom of conscience, and a nearly complete absence of polemical strife and bit- terness, there is apparently a close unity of feeling and practice in rendering homage to God. Though it would appear difficult, and must certainly be ungracious, to paint the reverse side of such a country and such a people, a severe observer would not be long at fault. With respect to their scenery itself, while he could not deny that within its vast ex- panse it contained at times both sublimity and beauty, he might establish against it a charge of monotony, to which the immense continuities of the same surfaces. *T8 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. whether of hill, valley, wood, lake, or river the straight unbroken skirt of forest, the entire absence of single trees, the square parallelograms of the cleared spaces, the uniform line of zig-zag fences, the staring squareness of the new wooden houses, all powerfully contribute. In regard to climate, without dwelling on such partial influences as the malaria which desolates the stunted pine-barrens of North Carolina, and ban- ishes every white native of South Carolina from their rice-plains during the entire summer, the hot damps which festoon the trees on the southern coast with a funeral drapery of gray moss, the yellow fever which decimates the quays of New Orleans, and the feverish agues which line the banks of the Mississippi, it would be impossible to deny the violent alternations of tem- perature which have a more general prevalence, and it is certain that much fewer robust forms and ruddy complexions are to be seen than in our own more even latitudes. Passing from the physical to the moral at- mosphere, amidst all the vaunted equality of the American freemen, there seemed to be a more implicit deference to custom, a more passive submission to what TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 79 is assumed to be the public opinion of the day or hour, than would be paralleled in many aristocratic or even despotic communities. This quiet acquiescence in the prevailing tone, this complete abnegation of individual sentiment, is naturally most perceptible in the domain of politics, but I thought that it also in no inconsider- able degree pervaded the social circle, biassed the de- cisions of the judicial -bench, and even infected the solemn teachings of the pulpit. To this source may probably in some measure be traced the remarkable similarity in the manners, deportment, conversation, and tone of feeling, which has so generally struck travellers from abroad in American society. Who that has seen, can ever forget the slow and melancholy si- lence of the couples who walk arm-in-arm to the ta- bles of the great hotels, or of the unsocial groups who gather round the greasy meals of the steamboats, lap up the five minutes' meal, come like shadows, so de- part ? One of their able public men made an obser- vation to me, which struck me as pungent, and per- haps true, that it was probably the country in which there was less misery and less happiness than in any 80 TRAVKL8 IN AMERICA. other of the world. There are other points of man- ners on which I am not inclined to dilate, but to which it would at least require time to be reconciled. I may just intimate that their native plant of tobacco lies at the root of much that we might think objectionable. However necessary and laudable the general devotion to habits of industry and the practical business of life may be, and though there are- families and circles in which no grace, no charm, no accomplishment, are wanting, yet it cannot be denied, that among the na- tion at large, the empire of dollars, cents, and mate- rial interests, holds a very preponderating sway, and t that art and all its train of humanities exercise at pre- sent but an enfeebled and restricted influence. If we ascend from social to political life, and From manners to institutions, we should find that the endless cycles of electioneering preparations and contests, although they may be carried on for the most part without the riot- ous turbulence, or overt bribery, by which they are sometimes but too notoriously disgraced among our- selves, still leave no intermission for repose in the pub- lic mind ; enter into all the relations of existence ; sub- TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 81 ordinate to themselves every other question of internal and foreign policy ; lead their public men, I will not say their best, but the average of them, to pander to the worst prejudices, the meanest tastes, the most ma- lignant resentments of the people ; at each change of administration incite the new rulers to carry the spirit of proscription into every department of the public ser- vice, from the Minister at a great foreign court, to the postmaster of some half-barbarous outpost, thus tending to render those whose functions ought to with- draw them the most completely from party influences the most unscrupulous partisans ; and would make large masses welcome war and even acquiesce in ruin, if it appeared that they could thus counteract the an- tagonist tactics, humiliate the rival leader, or remotely influence the election of the next President. It is al- ready painfully felt, that as far as the universal choice of the people was relied on to secure for the highest office of the state the most commanding ability or the most signal merit, it may be pronounced to have failed. There may be less habitual and actual noise in Con- gress than in our own Parliament, but the time of the 4* 82 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. House of Representatives, not without cost to the con- stituent body which pays for their services, is contin- uously taken up, when not engrossed by a speech of some days' duration, with wrangles upon points of or- der and angry recrimination ; the language used in de- bate has occasionally sounded the lowest depths of coarse and virulent acrimony, and the floor of the Legislative Hall has actually been the scene of violent personal rencounter. The manners of the barely civi- lized West, where it has been known that counsel challenge judges on the bench, and Members of the Legislature fire off rifles at the Speaker as he sits in the chair, would appear to be gradually invading the very inner shrine of the Constitution. Having done justice to the strictness and purity of morals which distinguish many of the more settled portions of the continent, it cannot be concealed that the reck- less notions and habits of the vagrant pioneers of the West, evinced as these are by the practices of gam- bling, drinking, and licentiousness, by an habitual disre- gard of the Sabbath, and by more constant swearing than I ever heard any where else, fearfully disfigure TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 83 that great valley of the Mississippi, destined inevitably, at no distant day, to be the preponderating section of the entire Union. It is at this day impossible to go into any society, especially of the older and more thoughtful men, some of whom may themselves have borne an eminent part in the earlier struggles and ser- vice of the commonwealth, without hearing the dege- neracy of modern times, and the downward tendency of all things, despondingly insisted upon. At the pe- riod of my visit, besides the numerous instances of indi- vidual bankruptcy and insolvency, not, alas ! peculiar to the New World, the doctrine of repudiation, offi- cially promulgated by sovereign States, had given an unpleasing confirmation to what is perhaps the pre- vailing tendency among retired politicians. I have re- served for the last topic of animadversion the crowning evil the capital danger the mortal plague-spot Slavery. I have not disclaimed the original responsi- bility of my own country in introducing and riveting it upon her dependencies ; I do not disguise the porten- tous difficulties in the way of adequate remedy to the great and growing disease, But what I cannot shut 84 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. my eyes on is, that while it lasts, it must still continue, in addition to the actual amount of suffering and wrong which it entails on the enslaved, to operate with terrible re-action on the dominant class, to blunt the moral sense, to sap domestic virtue, to degrade in- dependent industry, to check the onward march of en- terprise, to sow the seeds of suspicion, alarm, and ven- geance in both internal and external intercourse, to distract the national councils, to threaten the perma- nence of the Union, and to leave a brand, a ^bye-word, and a jest upon the name of Freedom. Having thus endeavored, without consciousness of any thing mis-stated or exaggerated, though of much that is wanting and incomplete on either side, to sum up the good and the bad, I leave my hearers to draw their own conclusions from the whole ; there are large materials both for approval and attack, ample grounds both for hope and fear. Causes are occasionally at work which almost appear to portend a disruption of the Federal Union ; at the same time a strong senti- ment of pride about it, arising partly from an honest patriotism, partly from a feeling of complacency in its TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 85 very size and extent, may tend indefinitely to postpone any such pregnant result ; but whatever may be the solution of that question, whatever the issue of the future destinies assigned to the great American Repub- lic, it is impossible to have contemplated her extent, her resources, the race that has mainly peopled her, the institutions she has derived or originated, the liber- ty which has been their life-blood, the industry which has been their offspring, and the free Gospel which has been published on her wide plains and wafted by her thousand streams, without nourishing the belief, and the hope, that it is reserved for her to do much, in the coming generations, for the good of man and the glory of God. THE POETRY OF POPE. I HAVE undertaken to read a paper on " The Poetry of Pope." My hearers, however, will be sorely disap- pointed, and my own purpose will have been singularly misconstrued, if any expectation should exist that I am about to bring any fresh matter or information to the subject with which I am about to deal. Such means of illustration, I trust, may be amply supplied by Mr. Croker, who has announced a new edition of Pope, a task for which both his ability and his long habits of research appear well to qualify him. As little is it within either my purpose or my power to present you with any novelty of view, or originality of theory, either upon poetry in general? or the poetry of Pope in par- 88 THE POETRY OF POPE. ticular. The task that I have ventured, perhaps rashly, to impose upon myself, has a much more simple, and, I am willing to hope, less personal aim. It is briefly this. It has seemed to me for a very long time, I should say from about the period of my own early youth, that the character and reputation of Pope, as a poet, had sunk, in general contemporary es- timation, considerably below their previous, and their proper level. I felt ruffled at this, as an injustice to an author whom my childhood had been taught to admire and whom the verdict of my maturer reason approved. I lamented this, because I thought that the extent of this depreciation on the one side, and of the preferences which it necessarily produced on the other, must have a tendency to mislead the public taste, and to misdirect , the powers of our rising minstrels. I allow myself the satisfaction of thinking that there are already manifest some symptoms of that re-action, which, whenever real merit or essential truth is con- cerned, will always ensue upon unmerited depression. ( I remember, too, that it s^ve me quite a refreshing sensation to find, during my travels in the United States THE POETRY OF POPE. 89 of America, that among some of the most literary and cultivated portions of that great community (although I would not more implicitly trust to young America than I would to Young England on this point), the reverence for Pope still partook largely of the sounder original faith of the parent land. I fear, however, that there is still enough of heresy extant among us, to justify one, who considers himself a true worshipper, who almost bows to the claim of this form of Popish infallibility, in making such efforts as may be within his power to win back any doubtful or hesitating votary to the abandoned shrine. The attitude, then, in which I appear before you on the present occasion, is this. I look on myself as a counsel, self-constituted it is true, but for whose sin- cerity the absence of any fee may be considered as a sufficient guarantee ; and here, then, in the short space which can be allowed by this Court for the business of the defence, I consider myself bound to put before you such pleas as I may think best calculated to get a ver- dict from you on my side of the case. The best plan, which, as it appears to me, I can THE POETRY OF POPE. adopt for disarming any reasonable suspicion on the part of my jurors (all, I feel sure, candid and enlight- ened men), as well as for doing justice to my own character as a critic, is to state frankly what I do not claim for my client, the late Alexander Pope. I do not, then, pretend to place him on the very highest pedestal of poetry, among the few foremost of the tuneful monarchs and lawgivers of mankind. Confining ourselves to our own country, I do not of course, ask you to put him on a level with the universal, undispu- ted, unassailable supremacy of Shakspeare nor with Milton, of whom Mr. Macaulay, whom this town once honored itself by making its representative, has lately thus beautifully spoken : " A mightier spirit, unsubdued by pain, danger, poverty, obloquy, and blindness, meditated, undisturbed by the obscene tumult which raged all around, a song so sublime and so holy, that it could not have misbe- come the lips of those ethereal beings whom he saw, with that inner eye which no calamity could darken, flinging down on the jasper pavement their crowns of amaranth and gold." THE POETRY OF POPE. 91 I fancy that some might wish to make a further re- serve for the gentle fancy of Spenser, though the ob- solete character of much of his phraseology, and the tediousness inseparable from all forms of sustained allegory, must, I apprehend, in these days, very con- siderably contract the number of his readers. Nay, I can quite allow for the preference being given to Pope's more immediate predecessor, Dryden, whose composi- tions, though assuredly less finished and complete, un- doubtedly exhibit a more nervous vein of argumenta- tive power, and a greater variety of musical rhythm. When I have mentioned these august names, I have mentioned all, writing in the English tongue, who, in my humble apprehension, can possibly be classed before Pope. I may observe, that in this estimate I appear to be confirmed by the present Commissioners of Fine Arts, who, in selecting the Poets from whose works subjects for six vacant spaces in the new Palace of Westminster were to be executed by living artists, named Chaucer (who by his antiquity as well as his merits was properly appointed to lead the line of English THE POETRY OF POPE. bards), Shakspeare, Spenser, Milton, Dryden, and , Pope. Though I conceive, and you will readily concur, that the case I am endeavoring to make good must be mainly established by my client's own precise words, and the anticipated pleasure of quoting them to atten- tive ears has been, perhaps, my chief inducement to undertake the office which I am now fulfilling, yet I consider it will not be out of place for the object I have in view, especially before an audience of a nation which much delights in, and is indeed much ruled by, pre- cedent, if I should quote a few approved authorities (had time permitted I might have availed myself of a great number), merely for the purpose of showing that if you should be pleased to side with me in this issue, we shall find ourselves in company of*which we shall have no need to be ashamed. I shall also thus furnish a proof of what I have stated above, th'at I am not straining after originality or novelty of remark ; indeed, I feel that I shall make way in proportion as the testimony I adduce proceeds from lips more trustworthy than my own. THE POETRY OF POPE. 93 What says Savage, a poet himself of irregular, but no mean genius ? He thus speaks of Pope : " Though gay as mirth, as curious thought sedate, As elegance polite, as power elate, Profound as reason, and as justice clear, Soft as persuasion, yet as truth severe, As bounty copious, as persuasion sweet, Like nature various, and like art complete ; So fine her morals, so sublime her views, His life is almost equalled by his muse." Part of this commendation, I must admit, appears even to me overstrained. Some of Pope's composi- tions are marred by occasional coarseness and indeli- cacy, and his mind and character, I fear it must be allowed, were at times disfigured by envy, resentment, and littleness. Compared, however, with most of his predecessors of the reign of Charles II., and with many of his own contemporaries, both his muse and his life may have been deemed decent and severe. He seems himself, at all events, to have indulged in this estimate of the tenor of his own productions : 94 THE POETRY OF POPE. " Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow, That tends to make one honest man my foe, Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear, Or from the soft-eyed virgin steal a tear." I return to my authorities. I do not quote Bishop Warburton, as he was the avowed apologist, as well as executor and editor, of Pope. Dr. Joseph Warton, who wrote an essay on the genius and writings of Pope, chiefly with a view of proving what I have admitted above, that he ought not to be ranked in the highest class of our native poets, and who appears to wish, as I certainly do not, to have a hit at him whenever he can, concedes, however, thus much to him : " In the species of poetry wherein Pope excelled, he is superior to all mankind, and I only say that this species of poetry is not the most excellent one of the art. He is the great poet of reason, the first of ethi- cal authors in verse." Dr. Johnson, in his well-known and most agreeable life of Pope, says thus : THE POETRY OF POPE. 95 " Of his intellectual character, the constituent and fundamental principle" was good sense ;" and then, " Pope had likewise genius, a mind active, ambitious, and adventurous, always investigating, always aspiring, in its widest searches longing to go forward, in its highest flights still wishing to be higher." And at the close of the masterly contrast which he draws between Dryden and Pope, he thus sums it up: " If the flights of Dryden are higher, Pope con- tinues longer on the wing ; if of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope is the heat more regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with fre- quent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight." Mason, also a poet and very accomplished man,who had done so much in editing and illustrating the works of another most eminent and admirable master of his art (I refer to Gray), has shown what an exalted esti- mate he had formed of Pope, in the passage where he reproaches him for the undue praise which he had 96 TriE POETRY OF POPfi. lavished on the famous Henry St. John, Lord Boling- broke : " Call we the shade of Pope from that blest bower, Where throned he sits with many a tuneful sage ; Ask, if he ne'er repents that luckless hour, When St. John's name illumined glory's page. Ask, If the wretch who dared his honor stain, Ask, if his country's, his religion's foe, Deserved the wreath that Marlboro' failed to gain, The deathless meed, he only/could bestow ?" George, Lord Lyttelton, another poet himself, calls him " The sweetest and most elegant of English poets, the severest chastizer of vice, and the most persuasive teacher of wisdom." How speaks Campbell, the author of the Pleasures of Hope, and the Battle of the Baltic ? If any one is entitled to speak of what true poetry is, that right will not be denied to Thomas Campbell. He calls Pope, " a genuine poet," and says with true discrimi- nation : " The public ear was long fatigued with repetitions THE POETRY OF POPE. 97 of 1 his manner ; but if "we place ourselves in the situa- tion of those to whom his brilliancy, succinctness, and animation were wholly new, we cannot wonder at their / being captivated to the fondest admiration." I will only further cite from the poets whom 'many of us remember in our own day, one still more illus- trious name. The fervid, wayward, irregular muse of Lord Byron, presented the strongest points of contrast with the measured, even, highly-trained, smoothly- polished, temperament of Pope. What did Lord j Byron think of Pope ? He terms him, " The most perfect and harmonious of poets he, who, having no fault, has had reason made his reproach. It is this very harmony which has raised the vulgar and atro- cious cant against him (Lord Byron was fond of using strong language) : because his versification is perfect, it is assumed that it is his only perfection ; be- cause his truths are so clear, it is asserted that he has no invention ; and because he is always intelligible, it is taken for granted that he has no genius. I have loved and honored the fame and name of that illustri- ous and unrivalled man, far more than my own paltry 5 98 THE POETRY OF POPE. renown, and the trashy jingle of that crowd of schools and upstarts who pretend to rival or even surpass him. Sooner than a single leaf should be torn from his laurel, it were better that all which these men, and that I, as one of their set, have ever written, should line trunks." There is another and more general testimony to the reputation, at least, if not to the actual merits of Pope, which may be here mentioned ; this is, the extent to which his lines are quoted as familiar maxims and illus- trations of the daily incidents of life, and the common meanings of men, quoted often probably by persons who have little knowledge or recollection where the words are to be found. I am inclined to believe that, in this respect, and it is one not to be considered slightingly, he would be found to ocupy the second place, next, of course, to the universal Shakspeare himself. Allow me to cite a few instances. When there has been a pleasant party of people, either in a convivial or intellectual view I wish we might think it of our meeting this evening we say that it has been " The feast of reason, and the flow of soul." TTIE POETRY OF POPE. 99 How often are we warned I have sometimes even heard the warning addressed to Mechanics' Institutes, that " A litlle learning is a dangerous thing/' How often reminded, " An honest man's the noblest work of God," Or, with nearly the same meaning, " Who taught the useful science, to be good." There is a couplet which I ought to carry in my own recollection " What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards ? Alas ! not all the blood of all the Howards." It is an apt illustration of the offices of hospitality, " Welcome the coming, speed the going guest.'* How familiar is the instruction, " To look, through Nature, up to Nature's God^ 1 100 THE POETRY OF POPE. As rules with reference to composition, " The last and greatest art the art to blot." " To snatch a grace beyond the reach of art ;" And then as to the best mode of conveying the instruc- tion, " Men must be taught as if you taught them not." There is the celebrated definition of wit : " True wit is nature to advantage dressed ; What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed." Do you want to illustrate the importance of early edu- cation ? You observe, " Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined." Do you wish to characterize ambition somewhat favor- ably ? You call it, u The glorious fault of angels and of gods." Or Describing a great conqueror, " A mighty hunter, and his prey was man." THE POETRY OF POPE. 101 Do you seek the safest rule for architecture or garden- ing? tt Consult the genius of the place in all ;" Or, with exquisite good sense, " 'Tis use alone that sanctifies expense, And splendor borrows all her rays from sense." Are you tempted to say any thing rather severe to your wife or daughter, when she insists on a party of pleasure, or an expensive dress ? You tell her, " That every woman is at heart a rake." And then, if you wish to excuse your own submission, you plead " If to her share some female errors fall, Look on her face and you'll forget them all." How often are we inclined to echo the truth " That fools rush in where angels fear to tread," And this too, u That gentle dnlness often loves a joke." 102 THE POETRY OF POPE. Who has not felt this to be true ? " Hope springs eternal in the human breast ; Man never is, but always to be blest." When an orator, or a Parliamentary candidate in which last capacity I have often appeared before some of you wishes to rail at absolute governments, he talks of % " The monstrous faith of many made for one." Then there are two maxims, one in politics and one in religion, which have both been extensively found fault with, but the very amount of censure proves what alone I am now attempting to establish, not the truth or justice of Pope's words, but their great vogue and currency : " For forms of government let fools contest ; Whate'er is best administered is best: For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight ; His can't be wrong whose life is in the right." It is now time to judge Pope from his own works, THE POETRY OF POPE, 103 by which, of course, his place in the estimate of posteri- ty must finally stand. I shall pass hurriedly by his earlier compositions. He tells us himself of the precocity of his genius ; " I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came." But his very youthful productions, on the whole, appear to be more remarkable for their dates than their intrin- sic merits. He wrote his Pastorals at sixteen. Inde- pendently of the age at which they were written, they appear to me trivial, forced, out of keeping with the English soil and life to which they are by way of being assigned. One piece of praise is justly their due ; after the publication of these verses by a youth, we may call him a boy, of sixteen, I do not see why a rugged or inharmonious English verse need ever again have been written ; and what is more, I believe very- few such have been written. Mr. Macaulay says on this point, " From the time when the Pastorals appeared, heroic versification became matter of rule and compass, and, before long, all artists were on a level." It was surely better that this level should be one upon which the 104 THE POETRY OF POPE. reader could travel smoothly along, without jolts or stumbles. In the short poem of the Messiah, I do justice to the stately flow of verse upon the highest of human themes. Both Dr. Johnson and Dr. Warton give it a decided preference over the Pollio of Virgil, which is concerned with topics of close and wonderful similarity. I do not know how far they are right, but I feel quite sure that both the Pollio of Virgil and the Messiah of Pope fall immeasurably below the prose translation of Isaiah in our Bibles. Windsor Forest appears to be on the whole a cold production. It contains some good lines on the poet Earl of Surrey " Matchless his pen, victorious was his lance, Bold in the lists, and graceful in the dance" an extremely pretty account of the flight and plumage of a^heasant, a very poetical list of the tributaries of the Thames, and some well-sounding verses on the Peace of Utrecht, then recently concluded, from which in the early part of this year I was induced to quote THE POETRY OF POPE. 105 some lines which I thought very apposite to the pro- posed Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, at London, in 1851 : " The time shall come, when, free as seas or wind, Unbounded Thames shall flow for all mankind, Whole nations enter with each swelling tide. And seas but join the regions they divide ; Earth's distant ends our glories shall behold, And the new world launch forth to meet the old." The Odes written by Pope are decidedly of an infe- rior caste. I need not say how inferior to the immor- tal Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, by Dryden, who preceded or how inferior to Gray or Campbell, who have fol- lowed him. The Ode, perhaps, of every species of poetical composition, was the most alien to the genius of Pope ; its character is rapt, vehement, abrupt ; his is composed, polished, methodical ; his haunt would not be the mountain top, or the foaming cataract, but the smooth parterre and the gilded saloon. You may prefer one bent of mind, as you would one form of scenery ; the question with which I now invite you to deal is, not in what style Pope wrote, but in the style 5* 106 THE POETRY OF POPE. which he chose, and for which his nature best fitted him, how far he excelled. Among the very youthful productions of Pope, there were also some adaptations from Chaucer, Ovid, and one or two more ancient authors ; in point of execution they are only distinguished by their smooth versifica- tion, and the matter of them ought to have forbidden the attempt. In speaking as I have done of many of Pope's earlier compositions, however I may assume myself to be a devoted admirer partisan if you should so please to term it I conceive that I have at least shown' that hitherto I am no indiscriminate praiser, who thinks that every thing which proceeds from his favorite must be perfect. On the contrary, though his facility in writing verses was almost precocious, the complete mastery of his art seems to have been gradually and laboriously developed. " So regular my rage," was the descrip- tion which he has himself applied to his own poetry. It was not so much " the pomp and prodigality of heaven," which have been allotted to a few ; it was rather, in the edifice of song which he has reared, that THE POETRY OF POPE. 107 nicety of detail, and that completeness of finish, where every stroke of the hammer tells, and every nail holds its exact place. His early friend and admirer, Walsh, seems accu- rately to have discerned the path of excellence which was open for him, when he told him that there was one way in which he might excel any of his predeces- sors, which was by correctness, for though we had be- fore him several great poets, we could boast of none that were perfectly correct. Pope justified the advice, and if correctness is not the highest pi-aise to which a poet can aspire, it is no mean distinction to show how an author can be almost faultlessly correct, and almost as invariably the reverse of all that is tame, mean, or flat. There come, however, among compositions which in any one else would most strictly be called early, a few which will not bear to be dismissed with such a hasty or superficial notice. The Essay on Criticism was written when he was twenty or twenty-one years old, and as such it appears a positive marvel. But he had now entered a field on which he was quite a master 108 THE POETRY OF POPE. the domain of good sense and of good taste, applied to the current literature of a scholar, and the common topics of life. Very soon after, however, as if to show that if he had willed it, he could have exercised as full a mastery over the region of light fancy and sportive imagery, as of sober reflection and practical wisdom, he wrote what is termed a heroi- comic poem, the Rape of the Lock. Dr. Johnson calls this the most exquisite example of ludicrous poetiy, though I do not think the word ludi- crous a happy epithet of the Doctor's; Dr. Warton calls it the best satire extant ; and we are told that Pope himself considered the intermixture of the ma- chinery of the sylphs with the ac.tion of the story, as the most successful exertion of his art. As my busi- ness to-night is more with Pope on the whole as a poet, than with the details and the conduct of his single poems, I must not suffer myself to linger on the details of this delicious work. It is so finished and nicely fitted together, that it would scarcely answer to sepa- rate any isolated passages from the context ; besides, exquisite as the entire poem is, yet, the subject beino- THE POETRY OF POPE. 109 professedly trivia], any single extract might appear de- ficient in importance and dignity. The whole is as sparkling as the jewelled cross upon the bosom of the heroine, On her white breast a sparkling cross she bore, Which Jews might kiss, and Infidels adore." It is as stimulating as the pinch of snuff he so com- pactly describes, " The pungent grains of titillating dust." But there was one other chord of the poetic lyre which Pope, still young in years, had yet to show his power to strike, and it is the most thrilling in the whole compass of song the poetry of the passions and the heart. To this class I assign the Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady, and the ever memorable Epistle from Eloisa to Abelard. A few words will suffice here for the Elegy ; its moral tendency cannot be defended, as it appears, incidentally at least, to ex- cuse and consecrate suicide. In its execution it com- bines in a high degree poetic diction with pathetic 110 THE POETRY OF TOPE. feeling. I must pause longer on the Epistle from Eloisa to Abelard. I ought, however, before I give vent to the full glow of panegyric, to make two ad- missions ; one, that a sensitive delicacy would have avoided the subject ; the other, that the matter is not original, but is supplied in great degree by the actual letters of the distinguished and unfortunate pair who gave their name to the epistle. Where the adaptation, however, is so consummate, this makes a very slight deduction from the merit of the author. The poem is not long, but in point of execution it appears to me one of the most faultless of human compositions ; every thought is passion, and every line is music. The strug- gle between aspiring piety and forbidden love forms its basis, and the scenery and accessories of monastic life and the Roman Catholic ritual, furnish a background highly congenial, solemn, and picturesque. I must endeavor to justify my panegyric by a few quotations. The commendation of letter-writing is well known. It seems to me still more applicable since the introduction of the penny stamp. THE POETRY OF POPE. Ill " Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid, Some banish'd lover, or some captive maid ; They live, they speak, they breathe what love inspires, Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires, The virgin's wish without her fears impart, Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart ; Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul, And waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole." I give the description of the Convent founded by Abelard : "You raised these hallowed walls ; the desert smiled, And Paradise was opened in the wild. No weeping orphan saw his father's stores Our shrines irradiate, or emblaze the floors ; No silver saints, by dying raisers given, Here bribe the rage of ill-requited heaven ; But such plain roofs as piety could raise, And only vocal with the Maker's praise." There is the same scene colored by Eloisa's own state of mind : " But o'er the twilight groves and dusky caves, Long sounding aisles, and intermingled graves, Black Melancholy sits, and round her throws A death-like silence and a dreud repose. 112 THE POETRY OF POPE. Her gloomy presence saddens all the scene, Shades every flower, and darkens every green, Deepens the murmur of the falling floods, And breathes a browner horror o'er the woods." This is surely eminently poetical and expressive. She refers to the happier destiny of the nun who is entirely true to her vocation : ' How happy is the blameless vestal's lot, The world forgetting, by the world forgot ! Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind ! Each prayer accepted, and each wish resigned ; Labor and rest that equal periods keep, Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep ; Desires composed, affections ever even, Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to heaven." Let me give the description of her first acquaintance with Abelard : ''Thou know'st how guiltless first I met thy flame, When love approached me under friendship's name ; My fancy formed thee of angelic kind, Some emanation of th' All-beauteous mind. Those smiling eyes, attempering every ray, Shone sweetly lambent with celestial day. Guiltless I gaz'd ; heaven listened while you sung, And truths divine came mended from that tongue." THE POETRY OF POPE. 113 In that beautiful line, the force of human passion seems to obtain the mastery over the concerns of an- other life ; but I will close my extracts from this poem with the wishes she forms for their last meeting, in which piety appears finally to predominate over pas- sion : " Thou. Abelard ! the last sad office pay, And smooth my passage to the realms of day. See my lips tremble, and my eyeballs roll, Suck my last breath, and catch my flying soul! Ah no in sacred vestments raay'st thou stand, The hallowed taper trembling- In thy hand. (You remark all the force in that word " trembling ;" in the next line, observe how the words " present " and " lifted " carry on the drama of the scene) : Present the cross befoE. 115 Chase, have been thought to convey a better notion of this Homeric twang than can be gathered from all the polished couplets of Pope. Cowper (an honored name) tried a more literal version in blank verse, which certainly may be said to represent more closely at least the simplicity of the original. Let us, however, come to the practical test as Lord Byron has asked con- cerning these two translations, " Who can ever read Cowper, and who will ever lay down Pope, except for the original ? As a child I first read Pope's Homer with a rapture which no subsequent work could ever afford, and children are not the worst judges of their own language." It is no mean praise that it is the channel which has conveyed the knowledge of Homer to the general English public, not to our scholars, of course. Though it is far less to the purpose how I felt about this as a child, than how Lord Byron felt, I too remember the days (I fear, indeed, that the anec- dote will savor of egotism, but I must not mind the imputation of egotism, if it illustrates my author), when I used to learn Pope's Iliad by heart behind a screen, while I was supposed to be engaged on lessons of 116 THE POETRY OF POPE. more direct usefulness ; and I fancy that I was under the strange hallucination at the time that I had got by heart the four first books. I do not mention this as a profitable example, but in order to show the degree in which this translation was calculated to gain the mas- tery over the youthful mind. All the poems of Pope, to which I have already re- ferred, belong to that period of life which, in all ordi- nary cases, would be called youth. I believe that they must have have been nearly altogether completed be- fore he was thirty. Those which I may further have to quote from (in doing which I shall hardly think it necessary to observe so much separate order between the different poems as heretofore), were the fruits of his matured years and settled powers. They hence- forth fall under one class of composition, that which treats of men, their manners, and their morals ; they are comprised under the titles of satires and moral essays. He himself speaks of the bent which his genius now adopted, " That not in fancy's maze he wandered long, But stooped to truth, and moralized his sonjf," THfe POETRY OF POPE. llV Upon which I again feel happy to find myself in full acquiescence with Lord Byron, who says, " He should have written, rose to truth. In my mind the highest of all poetry is ethical poetry, as the highest of all earthly subjects must be moral truth." Lord Bolingbroke and Bishop Atterbury, certainly no mean judges of intellectual merit, declared that the strength of Pope's genius lay eminently and peculiarly in satire. What shall I, then, single out as an illustra- tion of his satiric vein ? The character of Lord Hervey, under the name of Sporus, is cited by Lord Byron as a specimen of his rich fancy (generally, but most erro- neously, assumed to be the quality in which Pope was chiefly deficient), and with this specimen of fancy Lord Byron defied all his own contemporaries to compete. That it does manifest injustice at least to the abilities of Lord Hervey, will be acknowledged by all who have read his very entertaining memoirs lately published ; but moreover, able and brilliant as it is, it is too dis- agreeable to repeat. Let me quote, then, his famous character of Addison, who had given offence to him, whether with good reason or not it is no part of my 118 THE POETRV OF POPfi. present purpose, nor would it be in my power, to de^ cide. Pope thought that Addison had treated him slightingly and superciliously, and I believe took spe- cially amiss the kind of notice he had bestowed upon the Rape of the Lock. He speaks of him under the name of Atticus ; you will remark the consummate skill with which he first does justice to his genius, and then detracts from its lustre. It is also a great proof of the cleverness of the satire, that, sincere as our re- spect is both for the genius and character of Addison, it is impossible to go through this piece of dissection without believing that it must have touched upon some points of real soreness. il Peace to all such ! but were there one whos True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires ; Blest with each talent and each art to please, And bora to write, converse, and live with ease: Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate for arts that caus'd himself to rise ; Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the real to sneer ; THE POETRY OF POPE. 119 % Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike ; Alike reserv'd tt> blame or to commend, A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend ; Dreading e'en fools, by flatterers besieg'd, And so obliging, that he ne'er oblig'd ; Like Cato, give his little Senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause ; While wits and templars ev'ry sentence raise, And wonder with a foolish face of praise Who but must laugh, if such a man there be? Who would not weep, if Atticus were he 1" Then I will take the character of the able, versatile, and unprincipled Duke of Wharton : " Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days, Whose ruling passion was the lust of praise : Bom with whate'er cculd win it from the wise, Women and fools must like him, or he dies ; Tho' wondering senates hung on all he spoke, The club must hail him master of the joke. [This couplet has been applied to the celebrated Mr. Sheridan, and does not ill suit the author of the speeches on Warren Hastings' trial, and the School for Scandal,] 120 THE POETRY Of POPE. Thus with each gift of nature and of art, And wanting nothing but an honest heart, Grown all to all, from no one vice exempt ; And moet contemptible, to shun contempt ; His passion still, to covet general praise, His life, to forfeit it a thousand ways; A constant bounty which no friend has made ; An angel tongue, which no man can persuade ; A fool, with more of wit than hah" mankind, Too rash for thought, for action too refined ; A tyrant to the wife his heart approves, A rebel to the very king he loves ; He dies, sad outcast of each church and state, And, harder still ! flagitious, yet not great. Ask you why Wharton broke through every rule? Twas all for fear the knaves should call him fool." I have given the characters of two men ; fairness demands that at least I should give you one of a wo- man. I take that of Chloe, which, unlike the two last, has not, that I am aware, been ascertained to belong to any actual person, but most of us will feel that we have known people, to whom some parts of it at least might fit ; " Yet Chloe sure -was formed without a spot- Nature in her then err'd not, but forgot. TttE POETRY OP POPE. 121 ' With ev'ry pleasing, ev'ry prudent part, ' Say what does Chloe want ?' She wants a heart. She speaks, behaves, and acts just as she ought ; But never, never reached one generous thought. Virtue she finds too painful an endeavor, Content to dwell in decencies for ever. So very reasonable, so unmoved, As never yet to love, or to be loved. . She, while her lover pants upon her breast, Can mark the figures on an Indian chest : And when she sees her friend to deep despair, Observes how much a chintz exceeds mohair. Forbid it heaven, a favor or a debt She e'er should cancel ! but she may forget. Safe is your secret still in Chloe's ear ; But none of Chloe's shall you ever hear. Of all her Dears she never slandered one, But cares not if a thousand are undone. Would Chloe know if you're alive or dead ? She bids her footman put it hi her head. Chloe is prudent ! Would you too be wise, Then never break your heart when Chloe dies." Having thus attempted to do justice to Pope's powers of satire, I must not omit to mention what I consider to be another of his felicities almost of an opposite character, though I have perceived with plea- 6 122 THE POETRY OF POPE. sure since I noted this topic, that I have been antici- pated in the same line of remark by the late Mr. Hazlitt; I say with pleasure, because that ingenious person was one of the guides and favorites of a school the most opposed in theory and practice to that of Pope ; I allude to the extreme tact, skill, and delicacy with which he conveys a compliment, and frequently embodies in one pregnant line or couplet a complete panegyric of the character he wishes to distinguish. Let me instance this by a few examples. Sometimes the compliment appears merely to be thrown out al- most as it were by chance to illustrate his meaning. So of the Duke of Chandos, whom at another time he is supposed to have intended to ridicule under the character of Timon : "Thus gracious Chandos is beloved at sight" Then of Lord Cornbury : " Would ye be blest ? despise low joys, low gains, Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains." Of General Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia : THE POETRY OF POPE. 123 " One driv'n by strong benevolence of soul, Shall fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole." These have reference to manly virtues ; sometimes there is the same oblique reference to female claims : " Hence Beauty, waking all her tints, supplies An angel's sweetness, or Bridgewater's eyes." At other times the eulogium is more direct. Take that fine application to Lord Gobham of the effect of man's ruling passion, developing itself in death, which he has been pursuing through a number of instances, the man of pleasure, the miser, the glutton, the cour- tier, the coquette, all, for the most part, under circum- stances derogatory to the pride of human nature, when he thus sums them up : " And you, brave Cobham, to the latest breath Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death ; Such, in these moments, as in all the past, ' Oh, save my country, Heaven !' shall be your last." How beautiful is the couplet to Dr. Arbuthnot, his physician and friend : TTtE POETRY OP POPE. " Friend of my life ! which did not you prolong, The world had wanted many an idle song." How ingenious that to the famous Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, on being desired to write some lines in an album with his pencil : " Accept a miracle instead of wit, See two dull lines by Stanhope's pencil writ." How happy is the allusion to Lord Peterborough, who made a brilliant campaign in Spain within a wonder- fully short time. He represents him as assisting to lay out his grounds : " And he whose lightning pierced th' Iberian lines Now forms my quincunx, and now ranks my vines, Or tames the genius of the stubborn plain, Almost as quickly as he conquered Spain." He always speaks of Murray, the great Lord Mansfield, with pride and affection. It is true that one of the worst lines he ever wrote is about him, the second in this couplet : " Graced as thou art with all the power of words, So known, BO honored, at the House of Lords, " THE POETRY OF POPE. 125 An instance how much delicacy it requires to introduce with effect familiar names and things ; sometimes it tells with great force ; here it is disastrously prosaic ; we almost forgive it, however, when he turns from the Palace of Westminster to the Abbey opposite : " Where Murray, long enough his country's pride, Shall be no more than Tully, or than Hyde." He again alludes to the aptitude for poetical composi- tion which Murray had exhibited, and also to the talent for epigram which he assumes that the great orator Pulteney would have displayed if he had not been en- grossed by politics. " How sweet an Ovid, Murray, was our boast ; How many Martials were in Pulteney lost." These were for the most part his political friends, but when he mentions Sir Robert Walpole, to whom his friends, more than himself, were virulently opposed, how respectful and tender is the reproach, how adroit and insinuating the praise : 126 THE POETRY OF POPE. " Been him I have, but in his happier hour, Of social pleasure, ill exchanged for power, Seen him, uncumbered with a venal tribe, Smile without art, and win without a bribe." I might adduce many other instances ; I might quote at full length the noble epistle to Lord Oxford, but I will sum up this topic with that striking passage in which, while he enumerates the persons who encour- aged and fostered his earlier productions, he presents us with a gallery of illustrious portraits, sometimes conveys by a single word an insight into their whole character, and concludes the distinguished catalogue with the name of that St. John whom he uniformly regarded with feelings little short of idolatry, and which, however misplaced and ill-grounded, have even in themselves something of the poetical attribute : " But why then publish ? Granville the polite, And knowing Walsh would tell me I could write ; Well-natured Garth, inflamed with early praise, And Congreve loved, and Swift endured, my lays. (Observe how the gentle and amiable Congreve THE POETRY OF POPE. 127 " loved," and the caustic and cynical Swift " en- dured.") The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield, read, E'en mitred Rochester would nod the head, (said to have been the ordinary symptom of Bishop Atterbury being pleased; then comes the swelling climax,) And St. John's self, great Dryuen's friend before, With open arms received one Poet more. Happy the studies, when by these approved, Happier the author, when by these beloved." I feel that I ought not entirely to omit all mention of the long satiric poem of the Dunciad, upon which Pope evidently bestowed much care and labor ; but it is throughout disfigured by great ill-nature, and by a per- vading run of unpleasant and unsavory images. There is much spirit in the account of the young high-born Dunce, who makes, what is called, the Grand Tour : " Europe he saw, and Europe saw him too ;" and tells how he 128 THE POETRY OF POPE. "Judicious drank, and, greatly daring, dined." There is a luscious kind of burlesque softness in these lines, " To happy convents, bosomed deep in vines, Where slumber abbots, purple as their wines ; To isles of fragrance, lily-silvered vales, Diffusing languor in the panting gales ; To lands of singing and of dancing slaves, Love-whispering woods, and lute resounding waves." One of the most distinguishing excellencies of Pope is the vividness which he imparts to all the pictures he presents to the mind, and which he attains by always making use of the very most appropriate terms which the matter admits. This, in conjunction with his won- derful power of compression, which he has probably carried further than any one before or since, gives a terseness and completeness to all he says, in which he is unrivalled. As instances of this perfect picture painting, I would refer you, as I must not indefinitely indulge in long citations, to the descriptions, all in the same Epistle on Riches, of the Miser's House, the THE POETRY OF POPE. 129 Man of Ross's charities, and of the death of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham*: " In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung, The floors of plaister, and the walls of dung, On once a flock bed, but repaired with straw, With tape-tied curtains, never meant to draw, The George and Garter dangling from that bed Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, Great Villiers lies alas ! how changed from him, That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim !" If any should object that this is all very finished and elaborate, but it is very minute only miniature paint- ing after all, what do you say to this one couplet on the operations of the Deity ? " Builds life on death, on change duration found?, And gives the eternal wheels to know their rounds." I would beg any of the detractors of Pope to furnish me with another couple of lines from any author what- ever, which inclose so much sublimity of meaning within such compressed limits, and such precise terms. I must cite another passage, in which he ventures on the same exalted theme, with somewhat more enlarge- THE POETRY OF POPE. merit ; it would be impossible, however, for you to hear it, and bring against it any charge of diffuseness : " All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body nature is, and God the soul ; That, changed through all, and yet in all the same, Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame ; Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees, Lives through all life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent, (There is a couplet indeed.) Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal parl, As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart ; As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, As the rapt seraph that adores and burns : To Him no high, no low, no great, no small ; He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all." Let me invite your attention to the few following lines on the apportionment of separate instincts or qualities to different animals, and be good enough to observe how the single words clench the whole argu- ment. They are as descriptive as the bars of Haydn's music in the Oratorio of the Creation : THE POETRY OF POPE. 131 " What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme, The mole's dimturtain, and the lynx's beam ; Of smell, the headlong lioness between, And hound sagacious on the tainted green ; Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood, To that which warbles through the vernal wood ; The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine, Feels at each thread, and lives along the line." What a couplet again is that ! It is only about a spider ; but I guarantee its immortality. If I set down the Terse, the Accurate, the Complete, the pungency of the Satiric point, the felicity of the well-turned Compliment, as the distinctive features of Pope's poetical excellence, it should not escape us that there are occasions when he reaches a high degree of moral energy and ardor. I have purposely excluded from our present consideration all scrutiny and dissec- tion of Pope's real inner character. I am aware, that, taking it in the most favorable light, it can only be re- garded as formed of mixed and imperfect elements ; but I cannot refuse to myself the belief that when the Poet speaks in such strains as these, they in some de- gree reflect and embody the spirit of the Man. I 132 THE POETRY OF POPE. quote from his animated description of the triumph of vice : " Let Greatness own her, and she's mean no more ; Her birth, her beauty, crowds and courts confess, Chaste matrons praise her, and grave bishops bless ; In golden chains the willing world she draws, And hers the Gospel is, and hers the laws ; Mounts the tribunal, lifts her scarlet head, And sees pale virtue carted in her stead. Lo ! at the wheels of her triumphal car, Old England's genius, rough with many a scar, Dragg'd in the dust ! his arms hang idly round , His flag inverted trails along the ground !" And, again, with more special reference to himself, " Ask you what provocation I have had ? The strong antipathy of good to bad. When truth or virtue an affront endures, Th' affront is mine, my friend, and should be yours. Yes, 1 am proud, I must be proud to see, Men not afraid of God, afraid of me : Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne, Yet touch 'd and sham'd by ridicule alone. O sacred weapon ! left for truth's defence, Sole dread of folly, vice, and insolence ! THE POETRY OF POPE. 133 To all but heav'n-directcd hands deny'd, The muse may^ive thee, but the gods must guide : Rev'rent I touch thee ! but with honest zeal ; To rouse the watchmen of the public weal, To virtue's work provoke the tardy Hall, And goad the prelate slumbering in his stall. Let envy howl, while heav'n's whole chorus sings, And bark at honor not conferr'd by kings ; Let flatt'ry sick'ning see the incense rise, Sweet to the world, and grateful to the skies : Truth guards the poet, sanctifies the line, And makes immortal, verse as mean as mine." My limits, more than my materials, warn me that I must desist. As, however, with reference to the single object which I have all along had in view, I think it more politic that I should let the words of Pope, rather than my own, leave the last echoes on your ear, I should like to conclude this address with his own con- cluding lines to perhaps the most important and highly wrought of his poems, the " Essay on Man." They appear to me calculated to leave an appropriate im- pression of that orderly and graceful muse, whose at- tractions I have, feebly I know and inadequately, but with the honesty and warmth of a thorough sincerity, 134 THE POETRY OF POPE. endeavored to place before you ; if I mistake not, you will trace in them, as in his works at large, the same perfect propriety of expression, the same refined sim- plicity of idea, the same chastened felicity of imagery, all animated and warmed by that feeling of devotion for Bolingbroke, which pervaded his poetry and his life : " Come then, my friend ! my genius ! come along ; Oh master of the poet, and the song! And while the muse now stoops, or now ascends, To man's low passions, or their glorious ends, Teach me, like thec, in various nature wise, To fall with dignity, with temper rise ; Form'd by thy converse, happily to steer Prom grave to gay, from lively to severe ; Correct with spirit, elegant with ease, Intent to reason, or polite to please. Oh ! while along the stream of time thy name Expanded flies, and gathers all its fame ; Bay, shall my little bark attendant'sail, Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale ? When statesmen, heroes, kings, in dust repose Whose sons shall blush their fathers were thy foes, Shall then this verse to future age pretend Thou wert my guide, philosopher and friend, TilE POETRY OF POPE. 135 That urg'd by thce, I turn'd the tuneful art From sounds to things, from fancy to the heart ; For wit's false mirror held up nature's light ; Show'd erring pride, whatever is, is right : That reason, passion, answer one great aim ; That true self-love and social are the same ; That virtue only makes our bliss below ; And all our knowledge is ourselves to know." Gentlemen of the jury, that is my case. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. AM 7 4-9 JUN29 1 '9?8 INTERLIBPtARY Y O K ', LOANS Due One week fro a receipt M Form L9-20m-7,'61(C1437s4)444 // LJ 3 1158 00315 1213 A 001 236 936 9 BE! mxmma HHii KiH Hii mai *?.'.? MM