p527-018 THE LAST PICTURE.

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“The loveliest thing in life,” says a gifted author, “is
the mind of a young child.” The most sensitive
thing, he might have added, is the heart of a young
artist. Hiding in his bosom a veiled and unspeakable
beauty, the inspired Neophyte shrinks from contact with
the actual, to lose himself in delicious reveries of an ideal
world. In those enchanted regions, the great and powerful
of the earth; the warrior-statesmen of the Elizabethan
era; the steel-clad warriors of the mediæval ages; gorgeous
cathedrals, and the luxuriant pomp of prelates, who had
princes for their vassals; courts of fabled and forgotten
kings; and in the deepening gloom of antiquity, the nude

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Briton and the painted Pict pass before his enraptured
eyes. Women, beautiful creations! warm with breathing
life, yet spiritual as angels, hover around him; Elysian
landscapes are in the distance; but ever arresting his
steps,—cold and spectral in his path,—stretches forth the
rude hand of Reality. Is it surprising that the petty
miseries of life weigh down his spirit? Yet the trembling
magnet does not seek the north with more unerring fidelity
than that “soft sentient thing,” the artist's heart, still
directs itself amid every calamity, and in every situation, towards
its cynosure—perfection of the beautiful. The law
which guides the planets attracts the one; the other is
influenced by the Divine mystery which called the universe
itself into being; that sole attribute of genius—creation.

Few artists escape those minor evils which are almost
a necessary consequence in an exquisitely sympathetic organization.
Fortunately, these are but transient, often
requisite, bringing forth hidden faculties and deeper feelings,
which else might have lain dormant. But iterated
disappointments will wear even into a soul of iron; sadly
I write it, there have been such instances; but a few years
have elapsed since the death of the lamented Haydon;
and later, one nearer and dearer, this side the Atlantic,
was called to an untimely grave.

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Not less true and touching is the tale I have to tell,
although it relates to an earlier period;—

In one of those little villages in the north of England
which still preserve the antiquated customs and pastimes
of past times, there lived, about a century ago, a young
artist by the name of Stanfield. A small freehold estate
barely sufficed to support himself and his aged grandmother.
They resided in a cottage entirely by themselves,
and as he was an orphan and an only child, I need not say
how dear he was to that poor old heart. The border ballads
she would sit crooning to him long winter nights had
been as eloquent to him as a mythology, and many a
“Douglass and Percie,”—many an exploit of “Jonnie Armstrong,”
“Laidlaw,” and “Elliott,” adorned the walls of the
cottage, depicted, it is true, with rude materials and implements,
but sufficiently striking to excite the admiration
of the villagers, who wondered, not so much at the manner
in which the sketches were executed, as at the fact
that such things could be done at all. A beautiful rural
landscape surrounded their home; and a view of the
Solway, the Irish sea, and the distant coast of Scotland,

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doubtless had its effect upon the mind of the young painter.
Many were the gossipings, during his absence from the
cottage, over these early productions of his pencil, and dear
to his aged grandmother the rude praises bestowed upon
them by her rustic neighbors.

At last the Squire called upon him. The meeting was
delightful to both. The enthusiasm and innate refinement
of the young man—the delicate taste, simplicity, and manly
benevolence of the Squire, were mutually attractive. A
commission to paint a picture was given to Stanfield, and
a large apartment in the Manor Hall appropriated to his
use. You may be sure he was untiring in his efforts now.
Room to paint—materials to use—studies on every side—
patronage to reward—happy artist! Nor was the want
of sweet companionship felt by him. At times, a lovely
face startled him at his doorway. Sometimes music,
“both of instrument and singing,” floated up the broad
staircase. Sometimes he found a chance handful of flowers
resting upon his palette. A golden-haired, blue-eyed
vision haunted his dreams, waking or sleeping. Happy,
happy artist! The Squire had an only daughter. Her
name was Blanche. The picture was at last completed.

It happened the great Sir Joshua Reynolds at this time
paid the Squire a visit. Ah! that young heart throbbed

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then, not less with dread than joy. No doubt it was a
crude production, that picture, but youth, with all its
misgivings, is full of hope, and the young artist, in spite
of the wise admonitions of his patron, insisted upon concealing
himself behind the canvas, that he might hear the
candid opinion of the great painter. It is scarcely necessary
to refer to the fact, that Sir Joshua was deaf, and his
voice in consequence, had that sharpness usual in persons
so affected. The expected day arrived. The Squire and
his guests stood before the picture. A sweet voice, like a
thread of gold, sometimes mingled with the praises of the
rest. At last, Sir Joshua spoke. Stanfield listened intently.
He heard his picture condemned. Still he listened,
his heart beating against his side almost audibly; there
might be some redeeming points? Like an inexorable
judge, the old painter heaped objection upon objection,
and that too, in tones, it seemed, of peculiar asperity.
Poor Stanfield felt as if the icy hand of death were laid
upon his heart, and then, with a sickening shudder, fell
senseless upon the floor.

They raised him,—he recovered—was restored to life;
but what was life to him?

From that time, he drooped daily. At last his kind
patron sent him to Rome. There, amid the eternal

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monuments of art, avoiding all companions, immured in his
little studio, he busied himself steadily, but feebly, with a
work which proved to be his last.

It represented a precipitous cliff to the brink of which
a little child had crept. One tiny hand stretched out over
the abyss, and its baby face was turned, with a smile,
towards its mother, from whose arms it had evidently just
escaped. That playful look was a challenge for her to
advance, and she, poor mother, with that deep, dumb
despair in her face, saw the heedless innocent just poised
upon the brink, beyond her reach, and knew that if she
moved towards it a single step, it too would move, to certain
death. But with heaven-taught instinct, she had
torn the drapery from her breast, and exposed the sweet
fountain of life to her infant. Spite of its peril, you felt
it would be saved.

Such was the picture. Day after day, when the artists,
his friends, gathered at their customary meals, his poor,
pale face was seen among them, listless, without a smile,
and seemingly wistful of the end, when he might retire
again to his secluded studio. One day he was missing.
The second came, but he came not. The third arrived—
still absent. A presentiment of his fate seemed to have
infused itself in every mind. They went to his room.

[figure description] Page 019. Image of the artist, seated before his picture, deceased. Peering into the room in the background are a man and woman clinging to each other, as the man holds back the drapery with one hand. Crouched behind them is another woman. There is a glowing light cast over the artist, with the rest of the room being dark and gloomy. On the far wall is a suit of armor and a shield. At his side is a paint palette and various brushes, obviously dropped upon his death.[end figure description]

There, seated in a chair before his unfinished picture, they
found him—dead—his pencil in his hand.

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p527-026 THE BEATING OF THE HEART.

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p527-030 AUNT MIRANDA.

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No matter what people might say of Aunt Miranda,
Rowley and I loved her, not in spite of, but because
of her fine stately ways, which were the natural result of
a nice feeling of honor, that suffering had only rendered
more delicate and sensitive. How often have we caught a
glimpse of her tall, upright figure in church, with asperity
written in sharp lines in every lineament, lurking, as it
were, in the angles of her stiff black silk dress, and plaiting
and pointing the little frill that circled her neck, and
thought how patient, good, and noble she really was, how
much better at heart than many around her, who were
considered kinder and more amiable, because they could
assume the thin, specious gloss of conventional courtesy
whenever it suited them.

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There were great times when Christmas came, and
Rowley and I had to wait until the younger ones had gone
to bed, before we could steal around to Aunt Miranda's, to
bring her to the house, with the great basket full of dolls,
and jumping jacks, and tin horses, and cornucopias, and
ducks that would cry “quaack” and open their bills, when
you squeezed the patent bellows of white kid upon which
they stood. And then, if at any time in the year, would
the old lady put on one of those sweet smiles, which Rowley
and I thought the most heavenly we had ever seen, as
she filled the stockings of her favorites—little curly-headed
Bell, and sturdy Harry, and poor Peter; whom I believe
she loved best, because he had a lame foot which was incurable,
and the handsomest face of all.

Nor do Rowley and I forget how grand and formal she
was with strangers, and how she never unbent herself before
Margaret, her handmaid, who had lived with her for
thirty years and upward, and how Margaret loved her and
looked up to her; and how, when a man came one night
to see Margaret, what a sad face the old lady had until he
was gone; and how, when Margaret came up with a plate
full of apples for us boys, the old lady said, “Margaret,
never do you marry!” and how poor Margaret burst into
tears and said—“It was only a man from her father's which

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were married already, and have four children—two boys
and two girls.”

Rowley and I were cousins, but Aunt Miranda was his
aunt, not mine, nor did I ever call her by that name until
one Sunday afternoon, when Rowley took my hand in his,
and went up to her as she was sitting by the front window,
and said, with his eyes cast down, “Aunt Miranda, mayn't
he call you Aunt Miranda, too?” and the old lady brushed
away the glossy brown hair from his forehead, and kissed
it very softly, and then turned away and looked out of the
window again, and I have called her Aunt Miranda ever
since.

It was difficult for Rowley and me to realize that which
the old lady told us of at times; of her grand parties,
when she was young and gay, and her husband was one of
the richest and handsomest men of his time; of the costly
dresses she used to wear, and the jewels and rouge; and,
most difficult of all to imagine, of her card parties, when
she would sit up until near morning, playing for money,
and not incousiderable sums either, to please her husband,
who wished her to be as fashionable and brilliant as
himself.

Rowley and I used to think, at times, the old lady felt
some pride in recalling these scenes, when she was a

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blooming bride, but she ended always with the sad story of
wreck and ruin which followed; of her gallant and handsome
husband dying of the fever, a bankrupt; and of her
taking nearly all her own property to pay his debts (which
she need not have done), until the last creditor was satisfied;
and then Aunt Miranda was left with a slender pittance
and an only daughter to begin the world anew.

But of that daughter not a word had been spoken for
many a year. Rowley and I could just call to mind a face
possessed of such beauty as children remember like a
dream, and perhaps never find again in life; her name
was no more mentioned by Aunt Miranda, nor did Rowley
or I know any thing except that it was a mystery, not to
be breathed, at home or abroad, to others or ourselves.
We heard once of a Mrs. Dangerfeldt—that was all—
whether living or dead we did not know, and did not dare
to inquire.

One day, when Rowley was lying dangerously ill with
the quinsy sore-throat, I went to ask Aunt Miranda to
come and see him, for he loved to have her by his bedside.
The cellar door, in those days, was never fastened until
night, and as it was Sunday afternoon, I knew Margaret
was at church, so, without giving the old lady the trouble
of coming to the hall door, I opened the cellar softly and

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went down that way. There is something desolate in a
lonely kitchen on Sunday afternoon, when the fires have
died out, and the cat sits, looking wicked and suspicious,
amid the cold ashes on the hearth. I know my footsteps
were as light as pussy's own when I passed through, for I
did not want to disturb the silence which reigned there,
and so, ascending the narrow stairs, I found myself in the
hall. The parlors were open—they too were vacant.
Then it was, while wondering at the solitude, I heard a
sound in the upper room, so unlike any thing I had ever
heard—not a cry of grief, or groan of pain—but a faint,
inarticulate moaning, so different from a human voice, and
yet so unlike that of an animal, that my very flesh crept
with terror. My pores seemed to drink in the sounds as I
stood there, dumb with indefinable dread, and some moments
elapsed before I could collect my thoughts. Then
it came to me that Aunt Miranda might be in a fit, or
something of the kind, and so, without waiting, I bounded
up the stairs and thrust open the door of her apartment.

There was a small black trunk upon the floor, open;
and scattered around it lay several dresses which had evidently
belonged to some little child. But oh, the piercing
lustre of those eyes which glared upon me as she rose from
her knees when I entered! That wild, terrible look, as if

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it would blast me!—I, who had rashly ventured in upon
the mystery which had been buried, as within a tomb, for
so many years! Her cap was thrust back from her high
forehead, and the thick black locks, mingled with gray,
appeared to writhe around her fingers like serpents, as she
came on; her lips working, but uttering no sound, until
her face was so close I could feel her hot breath upon my
cheek—and then stretching forth her fingers as if to clutch
me, her voice came forth in a fierce, passionate sob, and
she fell forward, and rolled over at my feet.

It was the most awful moment in my life, as I stood
there with clasped hands, looking upon the poor, senseless
form before me; instantly I heard a heavy step upon the
stairs; fortunately, it was the faithful Margaret who had
returned, and the blood rushed to my heart with such joy
when I saw her homely, good-natured face, that I well-nigh
swooned with the sudden revulsion.

Some time elapsed before I saw Aunt Miranda again.
It was at night, in my bedroom; a few sticks were smouldering,
and darting fitful gleams of light from the hearth,
upon the looped up curtains of the bed; flickering warmly
within the folds of chintz; and now and then bringing to
view a sickly array of small bottles on the mantel. Rowley
was sitting at the foot of the bed, and beside it,

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holding my fever-wasted hand in her own, with the same sweet,
angelic smile upon her face, which Rowley and I loved so
much, was Aunt Miranda. I had been delirious for some
weeks with the brain fever.

Rowley and I loved each other dearly. We had had
too many bickerings—too many little quarrels—too many
heartfelt reconciliations—for either of us not to know that.
So after we graduated (and Rowley had the valedictory),
we commenced the study of medicine together, with Dr.
Frisbee, and after that was over, put up our two narrow,
black tin signs, with gold letters, on a very white window
shutter, one under the other, in a secluded part of the
town, where practice was plenty, and patients were poor.

How many times Aunt Miranda came to visit us!
She seemed to know all that was going on among the poor
folks in our neighborhood, although she lived in a distant
part of the town; and if she did not abate one jot of her
dignity when with the poor, her efforts to relieve the sufferers
never flagged; there she was, by the bedside, with
the same smile Rowley and I loved so much (that angelic
smile), and often and often a fee was paid us out of her
own pocket, when our services had been more arduous than
usual. It was of no use to refuse it. Aunt Miranda had
an imperative way with her, so lofty, we did not dare to

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contradict it. And her custom (if it might so be called)
was worth more to us than that of all the rest of our patients
put together.

It was a dreary night in mid-winter (how well I remember
it), when Rowley and I met at the door of our office
after the usual rounds among the sick. It was late
too; the only light visible was a sort of luminous halo
which surrounded the cellar window of a baker, far up the
street, who was preparing bread for the morning. Lamps
there were none, but a moon was somewhere, which only
made the gloom palpable the snow did not fall, but swept
through the streets in horizontal lines, blinding and stinging
“like wasps' tails,” as the old watchman said around
the corner. While we stood there knocking the snow off
our feet, a large willow tree was blown down across the
road, and a white ghastly sheet dropt with a lond noise
from the roof of an adjoining house. Rowley and I were
glad to get by the office hearth, on which a few embers kept
a bright look-out among the ashes, and so laying on the
wood we soon had a cheerful hickory fire. Still the wind
growled and mumbled outside, with the dreary accompaniment
of creaking signs and groaning trees; sometimes it
lulled for a moment, only to return with appalling violence—
the house fairly rocked with it, and we could hear the

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snow beating and sifting through the crevices of the windows.
Tired as we were, we did not think of sleep, but sat as
men sometimes will in great storms, telling dismal stories, or
listening to the noises outside, or talking of the poor we had
visited, many of whom were ill provided with shelter against
such pitiless weather. So the time passed on beyond midnight;
the wind by and by went down, but the snow kept
falling softly and fast;—I thought I heard a noise—hush!—
a muffled sound like a watchman's club in the distance—then
another—then voices approaching, we heard heavy steps on
our stoop, and a loud knock at the door. Rowley and I sprang
to our feet in an instant, and putting back the bolt, saw three
men, watchmen, bearing a body; we assisted them in, they
laid him (it was a man) upon our bed, which stood partly
behind the office door; he was not dead, but very nearly so.

Upon examination, we found three wounds in the left
temple; the central one larger than the other two, but
none of them more than the eighth of an inch square, nor
much more than an inch apart—they were deep, however,
as we ascertained by the probe. The largest wept a little
blood with every pulsation; the man was insensible, but
his chest heaved strongly; we knew he could not live long,
in fact in the course of an hour his breathing grew fainter,
and fainter—stopped: he was dead.

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The fatal blow had been given with a weapon so different
from any thing we could imagine, that we had a long
discussion as to the probabilities, as we sat there by the
body alone; for the watchmen had left us to see if they
could follow the track of the murderer. We talked on in
whispers: outside it grew into a dead calm, and now it
was almost daybreak.

“Hush!” said Rowley, “there is some one on the
stoop.”

We listened,—there was a faint tap on the window
shutter. Rowley threw open the office door, stepped into
the hall, and drew the bolt. “What do you want?”—
There was no answer, but I heard a step in the hall: a
man walked past him, and entered the office. As I said
before, the bed was partly hidden by the door, and as the
man walked directly towards me, he did not see that which
lay behind there, close to the wall, on the side opposite to
the fireplace.

He was a tall, and had been a muscular, man, but now
worn down with sickness, or famine, or both; a mass of
brown hair fell from beneath his cap, and mingled with his
bushy whiskers, which met under his throat; his clothes
were poor, miserably so; there was no sign of a shirt at his
neck, or around his broad, bony wrists; yet I did not

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know why, he did not seem a beggar or vagabond; he
had a proud, defiant look, that was far from asking any
thing of the world—in fact, a man you might shrink
from, but could not despise.

“You are a physician?” he said, in a slightly broken
accent, German, I thought. I bowed. “And,” he continued,
placing his hand on his brow as if to recollect
something—“yes—let me see—if you will go—I will take
you there”—he uttered with a sharp emphasis—“myself.
Yet something may happen; it is food, warmth, shelter,
she requires, as well as medicines—take this, you, for fear
of accidents!” He displayed a roll of bills which he
held clutched in his left hand—“stay,” he added, and
taking one or two, which he thrust into an old ragged
pocket, offered the rest to me.

Just then, Rowley shut the office door. The man
turned suddenly—such a look as he gave that bed! There
it lay—the jaws bound up—the white cerements soaked
with blood from the temples, ghastlier, if possible, by
the dull flame of the office candle, and the uncertain
light from the fire. But recovering instantly, with a slight
bow to me, the man said, “Come, you may save a life—an
hour hence may be too late.”

I took my cloak. He opened the door without looking

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again toward the bed. As I passed on, Rowley caught
my arm and whispered, “I suspect that man; had we not
better—”

“No,” I replied. “The dying woman first—that is
something the law takes no cognizance of.” So, wrapping
my cloak closely around me, I followed.

When I stepped out into the street, I was surprised at
the change; the moon was now shining brilliantly in the
heavens, and the hushed snow looked beautiful in her light.
Every roof, wall, and chimney threw down a flat, black
effigy of itself, in sharp, clearly defined shadow on that
white, sparkling ground. Here and there a tree spread its
delicate tracery against the sky; carts, piled up with snow,
stood hub-deep in snow; fences half-buried in snow; piles
of logs, with their black ends projecting from a pyramid of
snow; pumps, with beards of icicles, and crowns of snow;
snow everywhere, on everything, met the eye at every step.
Absorbed as I had been with the events of the night, I could
not help looking with admiration upon this beautiful scene,
which I had come upon so unexpectedly. So, walking on in
silence with my companion, we came close to a man before
I was aware. It was one of the watchmen, who had gone
to look after the track of the murderer.

“Ah, Doctor—another call, hey?”

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“Yes.”

“Waal, we ain't got onto the right scent yet; Bobbins
and Towsey has gone down to the Coroner's; we tracked
him way up beyond the burying ground, and then we kind
o' think he must 'a doubled;” (either it was imagination,
or my companion drew closer to my side)—“but he
can't be fur off. Body down there yet?”—He pointed
toward the office.

“Yes.”

“All right, I hope—dead, I 'spect, hey?”

“Yes.”

“Good night.”

I had a feeling of relief when the watchman uttered
these last words, which I echoed with all my heart. We
passed the bakery, now paling its ineffectual fires, and
struck into a narrow cross-street. It grew darker, for a
cloud crossed the moon—we came to a blind alley or entry—
my companion went in, and I.

The snow had drifted into the alley some distance, but
I soon found myself upon bare boards, rotted in the
centre, forming a sort of gutter, in which my foot caught
more than once as we passed through. Then we came to
a narrow yard, with a high fence; we went up an outside
staircase, so old and flighty it trembled with every step;

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and then turned into a dark passage of the attic through
which we were obliged to grope our way. I must confess,
I felt some trepidation to be alone with such a man, in
such a place. “Duty—courage!” I muttered. The
words went straight to my heart, and I was reassured:
we came to a door which my companion opened, and I
found myself in a little room.

The cloud had passed from the moon, and her light
shone full through the dormer window, casting the outlines
of the casement down upon the floor, which was partly
covered with snow that had blown through the broken
panes. A bed, if bed it could be called, was in one corner,
and as we entered, a figure sat up, and turned its face
toward us and the moonlight.

There have been moments in my life, (and such, I believe,
is the experience of many,) when what was before
me seemed the remembrance only of something seen before—
as if the same thing passed over twice—as if one had a
glimpse of pre-existence, identical with this, but referable
to life beyond the scope of memory; more vivid than any
dream, but more fleeting and mysterious.

Such a feeling I had, when that face turned toward us
and the moonlight. It was that of a woman. Long,
black elf-locks coiled around a face, wasted, it is true, but
still surprisingly beautiful. The brilliant hectic, which

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accompanies certain kinds of fever, was in her cheeks, her
eyes were large, and from the same cause, lustrous; she
gave a smile of recognition, it seemed, which showed a row
of white teeth, and suddenly turning, lifted a bundle from
the bed, which she rocked to and fro.

“It is our little one,” said the man, “wait here; I am
going for something to build a fire.” He turned, and then
I heard his heavy footsteps as he descended the outside
stairs. Frequent as had been my opportunities of seeing
the condition of the poor, nothing I had met with could
compare with the utter barrenness of that apartment. With
the exception of the bed, which lay upon the floor (a miserable
heap of ragged carpet), there was nothing to be
seen; neither table, nor chair, nor plate, nor cup, nor a
single article to cook with; the walls were black with
smoke and dirt, but there was no vestige of a fire; there
was nothing in the room, but the rags, the woman and
her child, and the snow. Yet to me it seemed a recollection
of something seen before.

The man returned now with short pieces of firewood
from the neighboring bakery, and a bright fire sparkled
upon the desolate hearth. Then he laid a loaf tenderly by
her side and said, “She has not tasted such as that for
weeks—but what shall we do, now, Doctor?”

A young physician has need of practice among the

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poor to answer such a question. He may acquire experience
enough in ordinary cases, to obtain a certain degree
of skill in examining the diagnosis of a peculiar complaint.
Sickness is, indeed, a sad visitant among those in comfortable
circumstances, but when it comes accompanied with
penury, cold, and famine; when the fever, or the pestilence,
stalks among the helpless indigent, it is indeed terrible.
Look at the records of the City Inspector, ye who
have abundant means, and believe me, it is a lesson better
worth learning than many a plethoric sermon you listen to
in your velvet-lined pew!

The woman now lay on the floor, motionless, in a sort
of torpor, with her eyes partly open; it did not require
much penetration to discover the symptoms of that visitation
known as the malignant scarlet fever. It had been
vprevalent in our neighborhood, and the cases were unusually
fatal; so I told him, as I rested on my knees by the
bedside. He said nothing, but merely clasped his hands
and pressed them very hard over his eyes.

“Have you nothing,” said I, “to close up those broken
panes, and keep out this bitter cold?”

He took off his poor ragged coat, but I told him my
old cloak would be better, which he accepted thankfully,
and stuffed it into the apertures of the casement. In

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coming back, his foot pushed something through the heap
of snow beneath the window. It was a piece of oak
stick about five feet long, and a few inches in width,
studded with nails driven through it, as if it had been a
cleat or batten, stripped from some old house or box; it
was also broken at one end. He laid it hastily upon the
fire, but it was so saturated with moisture it would not
burn. I knew not why, but I watched with intense interest
the flames idly curling around it.

“How old is this child?” I was looking at the wasted
features of his little girl.

“About four years; our boy was fifteen, he is dead;
I could almost say—thank God.”

“She has not the fever I perceive—if I may take her
with me, I am sure I will find for her a place of shelter.
(I thought of aunt Miranda's.) To move your wife now
would be fatal—we must make her comfortable here if possible.”

He bowed his head slightly. “You can—you will attend
to that, I hope,” he said. “If I am called away, you
have the money I gave you, which use as you think best.”

“Money? you gave me no money,” I replied; “you
offered it but I did not take it—do you not remember when
the office door shut, and you turned around so suddenly?”

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

The man stared at me with a wild unutterable look in
his eyes, which made me shrink back; he clutched his
breast convulsively with his hand, threw open the door, and
staggered out as if struck with a blow. Just then I heard
footsteps on the outside stairs; then a noise; voices; and
a scuffle. I ran out; two men, officers of police, had him
by the arms, but he was swaying them like reeds. Suddenly
one of his assailants slipped, and fell the whole length
of the stairs; in a moment he had lifted the other and
thrown him over the rails, down, perhaps twenty feet, into
the yard below; and then with a bound cleared it himself,
regained his feet, and dashed through the alley. I went
down to assist the policemen. One was stunned by the
fall down the stairs—in fact nearly dislocated his neck;
the other had sprained his ankle and could not walk.

“He's paddled, Jimmy,” said the man with the bad ankle.

Jimmy, who was sitting up on his end in the snow,
assented to the truth of the remark by a short grunt.

“That's the man, Doctor;” growled the policeman, as
I assisted him to rise; “he dropt a roll of bills in your
office, which belonged to dizeezed. Also we found his
pocket-book empty in the street, and a piece of batten,
with three nails, that fits the wownds. Where's that
Barker?” he continued. Barker hopped upon one leg to

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

the side of the staircase, and picked up the batten. I went
up the stairs, took off the now partly-burnt oak stick
from the fire, and found the fractured end fitted exactly
the piece found by the officers. There was no doubt as to
who was the murderer.

It was now broad daylight. One of the officers took a
survey of the room—the woman still lay asleep; then he
assisted his limping companion through the alley; I was
again alone, but Rowley soon joined me. After a brief
recital of the events which had passed, I borrowed his
cloak, wrapped it around the little girl, and leaving him
with the patient, carried my light young burden toward
the house of Aunt Miranda.

Was it not strange that she, the proud, unbending
Aunt Miranda, was the only one of all my acquaintances,
with whom I could take such a liberty? In truth I felt
as if I had been commanded by her to do what I was doing.
Such a thing as her refusing to admit the faint, thin,
ghostly little unfortunate, with its manifold wants—carrying
in its veins, perhaps, a deadly pestilence, never entered
my mind. I was not mistaken; I remember now how
gently, and yet how grandly she took the slight load of
poverty in her arms—not holding it from, but pressing
it to her breast; how, an hour after, I found it wide awake,

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

and seated in her lap, comfortably clad in one of those
dresses I imagined I had seen years before, on a certain
occasion, when my boy's heart seemed shrivelling up with
terror. I had told her the story of the man and his wife,
and asked her advice. She coincided with me that it
would not do to remove the sufferer, but added, “we can
make her room comfortable, I trust,” and then in a stiff,
precise sort of way—“Margaret and I will nurse the poor
creature by turns. Has she no friends, no family
connections here?” she asked, after a pause.

“None, I imagine; surely if she had they would have
some pity for her. Even the poorest might have spared
something for such an abject.”

“I think,” said the old lady, “I will go there now.
Margaret! my shawl and hat; bring the muff too;
it is bitter cold. Let the man stop shovelling the
snow from the walk; give him three blankets and a
pillow, and let him go with me. Do you go on before,”
she continued, looking at me; “you walk faster than I.”
Then she turned to the child with one of those angelic
smiles Rowley and I loved so much, and lifting it gently
from her lap, laid it in a warm little nest she had made for
it on the sofa. I gave her directions how to find the place,
and once more was on my way towards my patient.

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

When I reached the miserable street in which she lived,
I met Rowley. He told me he had procured an old black
wench to act as nurse; “but,” said he, “I fear it will be
of little avail; she has been delirious ever since you left,
and calls in the most piteous way for her child—her `Andy.'
From what I gather, she must have eloped, or something
of the kind, when very young. I never saw any thing
more touching than the way she stretches out her arms
and cries, `Forgive me, mother; forget and forgive, oh my
mother!' I believe too,” continued Rowley, “they were
not married at first, but a year or so after she ran away.
I had some broth made for her, which she ate but little of,
putting it aside and calling `Andy! Andy! here—my child,
my child!' ”

“Andy,” said I, “is a boy's name.”

“So it is,” answered Rowley; “I do not know how to
account for it, but she evidently meant the little girl, for
she kept feeling in the vacant place for her. Sometimes
she would upbraid her, and say, `You have learnt my lesson
by heart, you wicked Andy; but you are worse than I, for
you began younger.' I gave her an anodyne,” continued
Rowley, “but it has had little effect upon her—poor thing;
she cannot live, I fear.”

While we were talking, we saw coming up the street,

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

in the most lofty and dignified manner possible, Aunt Miranda,
followed by the man with the basket and the blankets.
Although her dress was always plain, and never costly,
the old lady had such a way with her you could not mistake
her for a resident of that quarter; nor would you take her
to be a relative, or an acquaintance of the people there. You
felt at once she was on a mission of some kind; and yet
there was nothing about her of the benevolent lady who
might be vice-president of fifty auxiliary sewing societies,
and who, by personal inspection, kept a sharp look-out that
no impostor, in the disguise of a pauper, swallowed any
crumbs that fell from the tables of the humane association
for the relief of the meritorious indigent. There
was not a drop of haughty blood in her veins, nor the
slightest touch of condescension in her manner—with her,
it was one of two things, either real, heart-felt kindness, or
firm, inexorable pride.

When she came up, Rowley and I made her acquainted
with the present state of our patient, and of her anxiety
for the child we had spirited away. We also mentioned
the fact of her speaking of her own mother, and hinted at
the possibility of her having committed some unpardonable
act; such as an elopement without marriage, or the like,
by which she had disgraced her family. We did not go

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

into details, however; once or twice a shadow, as it were,
passed over the face of Aunt Miranda. “Well, well,” she
said, rather sharply, “let us go on, let us go on, and see
what can be done for her—poor creature.”

I have read of officers, who, in the battle-field, preserved
the stiff, erect carriage of the parade ground, but
my doubt about the truth of the story never entirely disappeared
until I saw Aunt Miranda aseend that staircase.
We reached the room—“Shall I leave these here?” said
the man who brought the blankets.

“No—stay until I tell you to go,” replied Aunt Miranda.
He obeyed of course.

If the room looked dismal by moonlight and early
dawn, it was doubly so in the broad, open sunlight. The
walls, begrimed with smoke, and stained with water, that
had trickled from the roof, were full of cracks and crevices;
here and there large pieces of plaster had fallen, exposing
the laths; the floor, no longer hidden by the snow, was
spongy with age, and rotted away in some places, and the
miserable heap which served for a bed, was a sickening
bundle of mouldy rags and fragments of old carpet. “I
never saw such misery,” said Aunt Miranda, looking at me
and clasping her hands.

The poor old blear-eyed wench, who was rocking herself

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

over the fire, got off the stool she had brought with her,
and offered it to Aunt Miranda. The old lady took it with
the tips of her fingers, gave it a shake or two, and sat
down in her lofty way beside the bed. The woman, lying
with her face partly covered, partly turned to the wall, was
muttering something to herself. At last we could make
out these words:—

“The cunning minx when she looked up at me with her
bright, wicked eyes, learned that secret then. She drew
it from me as I suckled her at the breast; drew it from me
when a babe—I learned it, and she learned it. But she
began earlier than I. Why not? The son did so. But
he died in my arms, poor boy, when his race was run. But
Andy I shall see no more. Never, never. That's a lesson
for mothers. Your boys are always your boys, but your
girls are other men's. My mother! my mother! my
mother! Let her pull up the green grass from my grave,
and trample on it, yet I will love her better than my
daughter loves me. Yes, yes. The sun dies and the day
dies, but we keep close to the men we love. Let him beat
me—let me scoop the crust from the swill of our neighbors,
yet we love on. He stole me in the snow, and we'll die in
the snow. There are the bells and the Bays round the
corner; off only for a frolic and a dance—but we never

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

came back. There she sits, with the light burning—waiting
for her daughter—waiting—waiting. There she sits now,
mother, mother, mother! He had a sweet voice once; oh
the songs—the songs that won my heart!” Here she sat
up erect in the bed, and turned her brilliant eyes full upon
Aunt Miranda.

I had been watching that gothic countenance during
the monologue of the poor creature, wrapped in her rags.
I had noticed the gradations which passed over it—first of
patient complaisance, then of pity, then of absorbed interest.
But when those large bright eyes flashed upon Aunt
Miranda, she started with such an instant, terrible look of
recognition—with the history of a whole life of sorrow, as
it were, written on her face in a moment, that it was absolutely
appalling. I read it at once. The mystery had
unfolded itself before me. That inexorable spirit; those
lineaments, saving the slight tremulous motion of the chin,
rigid as sculptured stone; those fixed dilated eyes, were
those of the mother, who, without seeking for, had found,
after seventeen years, in yonder squalid heap, her daughter,
her only child, once her pride, her hope—now, what?

“Do not hurt me,” said the poor creature, shrinking
from her, “I will not harm you for the world.”

I saw the tremulous motion from the chin spread itself

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

over the whole visage of Aunt Miranda. Tears sprang from
her eyes, her pride was unequal to this trial. The foundation
gave way, then the superstructure fell—was submerged
for ever, and above it rose the beautiful rainbow of consolation.
She took the squalor, the misery, the pestilence, the
poor wreek of a life in her arms, and sanctified it with a
mother's pity, and a mother's blessing.

I felt at this time an uncommon moistening of the eyelids;
and the man with the blankets managed to drop his
basket, with a view probably of relieving his mind. As
for the poor wench, she was in a corner, and a paroxysm of
tears.

To tell how our patient recovered, how little Miranda,
or “Andy,” as we called her, budded and bloomed into
womanhood; how the body of Dangerfeldt was found in
the river, near the Dry Dock, that fatal morning, would, I
fear, not add much to my story. But Aunt Miranda grew
in grace, her pride was gone, she became the meekest of
the meek; only upon two occasions, in after life, did she
remind me of her former self: one was that of the marriage
of Margaret, her handmaid, to the man with the
four children (who had lost his wife, by the way); and
the other was, when a sharp, prying, inquisitive little
woman asked her, in a free and easy sort of way, “if the

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

husband of Mrs. Dangerfeldt had not met with some terrible
accident, or something of the kind, when he came to
his end?”

One day, a wet and stormy one I remember, the 24th
of December, Aunt Miranda had bought a large turkey, of
a huckster, in the market. She always bargained for
every thing—paid what she agreed to pay—and kept herself
comfortably within the limits of her income. So she knew
always exactly the state of her finances, which she kept
not in a book, but in a long ash-colored silk purse. When
she came home she found the man had paid her two cents
too much. So back to market goes Aunt Miranda, in a
very nervous state, for fear the man might be off before
she got there. Fortunately the man was there, to whom
she returned the money belonging to him, but unfortunately
she took a cold, from which she never recovered.
It was more like the living, than the dead face, of Aunt
Miranda, that which lay in the coffin, with the smile upon
the face, Rowley and I loved so much—that angelic
smile!

[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]

p527-058 HETABEL. [figure description] Page 053. This page has a beginning of chapter illustration that resembles the epigraph. The image is of a glade filled with trees, grass and rocks. In the distant background is a pond and a house.[end figure description]

THERE'S a deep pond hid in you piny cover
That's garlanded with rose-blooms wild and sweet,
Enwreathed with pensile willows, hanging over
Green, bowery nooks, and many a soft retreat
Where Hetabel and I did often meet.

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

[figure description] Page 055. The top half of the page has an illustration. The image depicts a river down the center of the picture that leads to a bridge in the background, with a full moon directly above surrounded by clouds. On the left side of the river is a small cottage with a water wheel. On the right side is a meadow of grass and pine trees.[end figure description]

[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]

p527-062 ORANGE BLOSSOMS.

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

I DOUBT whether any man, be he young or old, ever attended
the wedding of a young bride without a certain
feeling of awe. To me the service appears more impressive
than that of a funeral. The pall lies upon the poor
pale effigy; we listen to the words of hope and consolation;
the tributary tears fall as the mournful pageant
moves on; the tomb closes; night falls around it; and in
the darkness and silence we turn from the dead, dumb,
voiceless past, to seek new loves and new sympathies with
the living.

But a bride, in the morning of her days; standing upon
the threshold of a new existence; crowned like a queen
with the virgin coronal, soon to be laid aside, for ever; with
the uncertain future before her; repeating those solemn

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

pledges, and assuming those solemn responsibilities which
belong not to maidenhood; robed in the vestments of innocence,
and giving her young, confiding heart, into the
keeping of another; seems to me a more touching spectacle
than that denoted by the nodding plumes, the sad
procession, and the toll of the funeral bell.

There was more levity and love in Rowley's composition
than in mine; at least they were more easily excited
in him than in me. He was always beside some pretty
girl or other;—at a party he would be smiling and chatting
with, perhaps, half a dozen, while I was only too happy
if I could get into a corner with one. Once or twice I
was reproved for trifling with the affections of certain young
ladies; “I had been too particular in my attentions” they
said. Trifling with affection! I trifle! such a thing as
anybody falling in love with me never suggested itself. If
it had, a glance at the severe, homely face I was obliged to
shave every morning, sufficed to put that conceit out of my
head. Besides, the mere idea of that beautiful mystery
called “a wedding,” was enough to bewilder me. I could
no more have asked Fanny Hazleton (the most intimate
friend I had, except Rowley) to assist me in getting up
some nuptials for the benefit of our friends, than I could

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

have stepped upon the stage and played Romeo to Fanny
Kemble's Juliet. Yet the subject was a favorite one with
Rowley and me as we sat by the office fire; the difference
between us was, he always associated it with some pretty
girl of his acquaintance, but to me it was something illusive,
and remote; suggestive mainly of an ideal white veil,
and an imaginary chaplet of orange flowers.

One evening Rowley took some loose papers from the
table. “Listen,” said he, “and tell me who this reminds
you of—”

“Now,” said Rowley with a smile which poorly concealed
a lurking disquiet, “who did you think of while I
was reading?”

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

“Nobody,” I answered. “I was struck merely with
the beauty of the verses.”

“Oh cousin, cousin!” and Rowley, turning his head a
little, looked at me askance; “tell me; did not a pretty
young lady of our acquaintance come into your mind while
I was reading?”

“No,” I said, “who can you allude to?”

“A very pretty girl,” answered poor Rowley, and added
in rather a tremulous voice, “her name begins with an F.”

“Fanny Hazleton?”

Rowley nodded,—I thought he looked uncommonly
serious.

“Fanny Hazleton?” I repeated, “why Rowley, she is
the last person I would have thought of.”

“Are you serious in what you say?” Rowley was very
much in earnest when he put this question. “Tell me;
Do you mean what you say? Are you not in love with
Fanny—very much in love?”

“Well, Rowley,” I replied, “since you have brought
me to think over the matter, I am not sure but what I
am.”

My cousin sank back in the chair, thrust his hand in
his breast, which I perceived rose and fell with the tide of
emotion, and sighed heavily.

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

“And what if I do love her?” I continued, “there
are not many like her.”

Rowley cast a look at me of the most sorrowful acquiescence.

“But I am afraid Fanny's sentiments towards me, are
not such as would induce her to place her happiness in my
keeping.”

Here a burning stick of wood rolled from the fire almost
to Rowley's feet. He did not move, so I took the tongs
and put it back.

“Rowley, what is the matter? I was only bantering
you. Fanny does not love me; I am sure of that. With
me she is too confiding—too sisterly. Come, cousin, since
you question me I will question you. Are you not in love
with Fanny—very much in love?”

He laid his hot hand upon mine, and pressed it very
hard. Poor Rowley!

At this time the influenza was prevalent in our part
of the town, sometimes attended with all the symptoms
of a severe bilious fever. I remember crawling out
into the warm May sun, after some weeks' confinement, and
imprudently walking so far, I was obliged to get a carriage
to convey me home again. Of course this little bit of unprofessional
practice was followed by a relapse, and it was

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

almost the middle of June before I was again able to go
about. By the advice of two physicians (Rowley and myself),
I took that most agreeable prescription “change of
air,” and found myself much recruited after a few days'
sojourn at Saratoga Springs.

There are few places more captivating to the eye than
the breadth of greenery bounded by the spacious piazzas
of the United States Hotel at Saratoga. In the “leafy
month of June” it is peculiarly so. Leaves, sunshine, and
greensward mingle harmoniously. There is none of the
rush and excitement of fashion—that unhappy consequence
of Eve's endeavor to make herself look a little more
becoming. One loves to loiter around, drinking in the delight
placidly. It is stilly, very stilly, at night; and then,
if perchance you pace the piazza with some pensive maid,
or wander as far as the white temple of Hygeia, standing
silent and beautiful in the moonlight, ten chances to one,
you will ask her a momentous question, and the chances
are about even she will whisper “Yes”—if she love you.

One afternoon, the cars sailed into the dépôt, and soon
after a few travellers came through the broad gate at the
end of the lawn. There were three ladies and a little boy.
The young lady (for the others represented mother and
aunt) carried a shawl upon her arm, and a little Indian

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

basket by the handle, in the most graceful way possible;
I observed, also, she had a pair of full, dark eyes, radiant
with lashes; and a dimple that played upon her cheek like
a sunbeam upon the water.

There was something too, honest, open, and frank in
her face, which you understood at once. It was at the
same time pleasing, good-humored, and independent—I
will not say how handsome.

When the dinner bell sounded, and I took my usual seat
at the table, there were four chairs turned down opposite,
and what I hoped, came to pass—my vis-à-vis was the
young lady with the dimple. All I remember of her dress
was a very graceful line that, sweeping a little below her
white neck, curved from one polished shoulder to the other,
and in the centre of the wave was a large, a very large,
aqua-marine breastpin, holding three little rosebuds, two
white, and one pale red. Spite of all I could do, the aqua-marine
breastpin and the three little rosebuds attracted
my attention so much, I was afraid of giving offence by
looking so often that way, when I heard the small boy ask
his Ma for some champaigne. This indication of early
viciousness not being gratified by Mamma, he repeated his
request so often that, finding he was already a spoiled
chicken, by way of diverting my thoughts from rosebuds

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

and dimples, I whispered Andrew Jackson, who was busy
with the crumb-brush, to take my wine and fill the young
gentleman's glass quietly, when nobody was looking. This
feat being performed rather adroitly, occasioned some surprise
to Master Tom, when he looked around. “Where
did this come from?” he asked, with eyes wide open.

“I believe” said his sister, “you are indebted to the
gentleman opposite;” and then, with a degree of surpassing
grace, she raised the glass, bowed slightly to me, and
touched it with her lips.

Where the conversation began, and where it ended, I
do not now remember. Master Tom was instrumental in
bringing it on—then Mamma followed—and lastly, it was
made bewitching by dimples and rosebuds. Saratoga, Niagara,
and Trenton were the themes; the odorous breath
of June breathed through the window blinds, and at last,
with my heart full of happiness, and my lap full of lint,
I rose and bowed to the departing ladies.

“You will go to Niagara, then, early in the morning?”

I bowed again.

“I hope you will have as pleasant a journey as we have
had;” the dimple played a moment in the cheek—and I
was left solus.

I had promised myself a ride to the lake after dinner;

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

the horse was waiting at the door—and in another moment
he was cantering with me down the broad avenue toward
the spring. A little, black, petulant barb—prancing and
dancing sideways, wrangling with the bit—in all respects
in as good spirits as I was, on that happy afternoon. When
we came back in the twilight, and turned the street at the
side of the hotel, I happened to look up, and there, resting
her head upon her hand, with a book—in a room which was
nearly opposite to mine—was the fair rosebud wearer. At the
same moment my wicked little barb swerved aside at something,
brought me with a crash against an awning post opposite,
and started up the street toward the stable, on a
run. I believe, if it had not been for that friendly act of
pinning me against the post, I would have been unseated.
I looked again toward the window as I limped across
the street, and caught one more glance, which was the
last.

After I had packed my trunk in the evening, for my
early journey next day, I pulled it near the door, which I
left ajar to air the room, for the weather was warm.
When I returned, rather late in the evening, I found lying
upon it, a souvenir; there, as if they had been quickly and
carelessly dropped, were three little rosebuds—two white,
and one pale red!

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

I do not think I dreamed that night of Fanny
Hazleton.

Trenton, with its gorgeous waterfalls; its lofty buttresses
and wide arcades of natural masonry; its shadowed
lapses of waters, here spreading placidly from wall to wall,
there, washing broad levels of stone even and wide enough
for a multitude of carriages; anon, gathering into a black
volume, deep, swift, and terrible as death; and then,
springing from the sharp brink into the light, with its falling
tide of amber and sparkling crystal, induced me to
linger long and lovingly.

How often, after nightfall, did I descend the steep
staircase, alone—for the grandeur of Trenton is felt most
at night—and looking up beyond the enormous walls, hid
in deep shadow, behold the blue woof of the sky, and the
mysterious stars gazing down into the abyss. Then are
the voices of the waters most audible; even at a distance,
amid the shrill and ceaseless chirp of the cicadæ in the
trees, amid the whispering echoes, and the rustling leaves,
blending and deepening; with all, and above all, rises the
melancholy anthem; the solemn doom-tones of Trenton!

And in that solitude my thoughts turned ever homeward,
and my thoughts were of Rowley, and Fanny
Hazleton.

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

In past years, it was a day and night's journey from
Albany to Buffalo; passengers were apt to loiter in the
towns by the way. An old gentleman who was in the cars,
stopped, as I did, for a day, at Syracuse; we fell into conversation:
he intended to stay a day or so at Rochester.
That was my intention also. “And Buffalo as well?”
“Yes.” We agreed to travel together.

I do not know if travelling be apt to make one more
observing than usual, or whether the mind, absolved from
its daily cares, interests itself in surrounding objects for
want of its customary employment. Certain it is, as we
journeyed on, I was more attracted by seeing a white hand
holding a book in front of me, than I ever had been before
by a like object, though Fanny Hazleton's was as white as
it, or any other. The white hand raised the car window
sometimes, but the car window would slide down again.
So, as the white hand did not apply the remedy, that is,
the loop, to keep the vexatious window in its place, another
hand, less white, looped it up to save trouble. “I
was just going to do that myself,” whispered my elderly
companion.

If the glimpses I caught of the white hand while in
action were agreeable, when the book was laid aside, and it
reposed upon the back of the car seat, within reach, it was

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

absolutely absorbing. It was white as a blanched almond,
and as round. The fingers melted into sunset at the tips.
I felt as if I could snatch it up and run off with it. I
forgot all about Fanny Hazleton, the dimple, and the three
rosebuds. I was haunted of a white hand. And I saw my
elderly companion glistening at it through his spectacles.
At last it moved slightly, then adjusted a pretty French bonnet,
and a round, auburn ringlet, like burnt gold, fell down
and danced upon her shoulder. Patter! patter! rain against
the panes! The white hand undid the loop, and then it lay
in her lap. My elderly companion leaned forward a little—
probably to see how it looked beside the other one.

Genesee Falls is a pleasant divertisement between the
larger dramas of Trenton and Niagara. Amid these
grander outlines, any work of man, any thing but primitive
nature, would be strikingly incongruous, but I am not sure
the white torrents from numberless mill-flumes around the
falls of the Genesee do not enhance its beauty. But the
lower falls, unshackled by machinery, are dreamy and delicious;
and as I plucked a wild flower from the cliff, I
thought again of home and Fanny Hazleton.

I was seated on the porch of the hotel, in the cool evening,
with my friend, when a carriage stopped before it,
and a gentleman alighting therefrom, handed out three

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

ladies. The last appeared to be slightly lame. The hand
which rested rather heavily for assistance upon the arm of
the gentleman, was that which has been slightly alluded to.
“I shall want you in the morning to take us to the cars,”
said the gentleman to the coachman.

“What is the matter?” inquired my elderly friend of
the driver, after the party had gone in.

“Sprained her ankle!” promptly responded the man.

Now, a beautiful woman, meeting with an accident, is
always sure to awaken the tenderest solicitude of benevolent
old gentlemen. My companion was not an exception to this
peculiarity. He did inquire, and very anxiously too, of the
gentleman who escorted the ladies, whom he met in the
course of the evening, as to the extent of the disaster.
Fortunately, it was not a serious matter.

Three lovelier women never travelled together since the
invention of railroads, than those who were seated next
morning in the cars, on their way to Buffalo.

The smallest one of the group was married; her companions
were single. Such sweetly-brilliant eyes as the first
turned upon her husband, who sat by her side; and then
the others—tall, and moulded with all of nature's cunning,—
each setting off each—such dark lustres beamed beneath
the long lashes of the Brunette! Such tender witchery

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was half hidden in the full hazels of the Blonde! and in
the lap of the latter, buried in the soft folds of a cambric
kerchief, was the hand, ungloved; like a large blanched
almond; and beside another as white.

We arrived at Buffalo in the evening, and beheld the
thin sickle of the new moon uprising from the broad expanse
of Lake Erie. Next morning, at half-past eight,
when we took the cars for the Falls, the white hand was
leaning upon the arm of the gentleman as seen aforetime.
How I wished it had been my arm! We move off; objects
of interest begin to multiply; Black Rock, and opposite
the remains of Fort Erie, famous for the sortie in the last
war. White-hand points to the place. Tonawanda and
Grand Island, which once promised to be the new Canaan
of the Israelites. Then through the forest, and emerging,
we come again upon the river, and old Fort Schlosser, and
the scene of the burning of the Caroline. “Durfee was
shot near where the post stands,” says the conductor.
White-hand points it out. Now we see Navy Island, and
the white caps uplift their crests above the rapids. Nearer
and nearer we come—house after house glides in view—the
cars stop.

Where is Niagara?

I spent the rest of the day at the Falls, and when I

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returned in the evening, found my travelling companion
quietly smoking, and in conversation with the gentleman
upon whose arm had rested the white hand.

I believe young men once were more modest than they
are in these degenerate times. Certain it is, I had rather
avoided than sought the acquaintance of the gentleman to
whom I was now introduced. Not but what I desired it.
But the very idea of being intrusive there, made me shrink
and blush with shame.

“You have been studying the Falls, I presume?” said
the gentleman, who was a Virginian, as I soon after discovered;
“we missed you at dinner. Would you have
any objection to make one of our party? We propose to
pay a first visit early in the morning.”

Of course I had no objection, and frankly told him so.

“We would like to start at five o'clock.”

I bowed.

Then we discoursed of other matters until bed-time,
when I fell asleep, full of happy dreams of the morrow.

To tell of that early ride in the leafy month of June,
around Goat Island; how we ascended the Tower, and
descended the Biddle staircase; how fearlessly those beautiful
ladies ran out to the very end of the Terrapin bridge;
how, after breakfast, we visited the Church of the

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Tuscarora Indians (for it was Sunday), and saw the old squaws
come in barefooted, fold themselves in their blankets, and
go to sleep just like any other christians; how we looked
down at the whirlpool, and saw the place where a soldier
had leaped two hundred feet into the trees below, and was
not killed; how we crossed to the Canada side, and went
on Table Rock, and under the Horse-shoe fall; how we
saw the gray cloud form from the mist, and slowly sailing
aloft, catch at last the beautiful tints of morning upon its
shoulders; how we visited Lundy's Lane, and Chippewa,
and the clever reply of the Irish driver, who, when he was
asked the question whether the Americans or the British
were successful at Lundy's Lane, answered, as he glanced
around the car, in which were some of Her Majesty's officers,
“there niver was such a fight since the beginning of
the wurrld, but I belave they were about aquil!” I say,
to repeat all this would probably be less interesting to the
reader than it was to me. But the white hand did sometimes
rest upon my arm, nor was the mind of the fair Virginian
less lovely than her outward adornments. So
passed the happy days and evenings beside the ThunderWater.

Fanny Hazleton faded into the remote. Bridal veils
and orange blossoms interrupted my fancies—but they were

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associated with scenes in which I appeared merely as a
spectator. I thought of a white hand, given lovingly and
confidingly to another. I saw the ring glitter between the
beautiful fingers. I pictured to myself some unworthy
representative of manhood, winning a prize whose priceless
value he could neither understand nor appreciate. As the
day of departure drew near, I felt sadder and sadder. It
came at last. The stage for Lewiston was at the door. I
simply bowed farewell to the ladies, with as much calmness
as I could muster. But the fair Virginian rose and said,
“I must shake hands with you, and say how much I am
obliged to you for your kindness.” Then—for the first
time—did I touch that beautiful hand; and then, with a
heart as heavy as lead, I climbed into the stage, and was
soon rolling over the long and weary path that led towards
home.

There is one cure for sadness; a prescription, infallible
for all but the poverty-stricken. If you are in comfortable
circumstances, and withal dissatisfied with your lot—go
among the poor. If you are neglected by those whose
society you covet, or your aspirations are beset with disappointments—
go among the poor. If your strivings to be
better only make you a mark for vulgar natures, if detraction,
envy, and malice induce you to fancy life a burthen,

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still—go among the poor. See what misery is—before you
yourself claim to be miserable. Abandon fruitless sympathies,
confined only to one, and plant them where they are
most needed. My life for it, you will be wiser, nobler,
happier. See what wretchedness really is, before you consider
existence as a disease, which, but for the future,
would be happily alleviated by the pistol or the knife. See
if you can come from the abodes of helpless indigence, and
repeat, “I have nothing to live for.” And even if you
nourish a hopeless passion, if fortune, or position interpose,
or if the one you love love not you, still I repeat—go
among the poor! The visit will give you strength and
consolation; if you are rich in love, behold the means of
employing it where the returns will be still richer.

This philosophy was the result of my visit to Niagara.
And now to Rowley and Fanny Hazleton.

That my cousin was very much admired by the young
ladies was unquestionably true. His handsome face and
figure might have inspired a passion, even had he not been
possessed of better attributes. But with enough to make
almost any one vain, I never detected that element in
Rowley's composition. If he chatted familiarly with the
pretty girls around him, it was because he enjoyed their
society, and his honest, manly, straightforward nature

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never suspected any harm in that, or believed it could
awaken envy in others. But Fanny Hazleton was rarely
found in this merry circle; in fact, she kept aloof from my
cousin, and much as he loved her, what with her refusing
to dance, sometimes for a whole evening, and what with
those engagements he felt bound to make with others, for
fear of giving offence, there was very little show of attention
to her on his part; and if Fanny had a secret partiality
for him, no one had been shrewd enough to discover
it. I must say, I preferred her society to that of any of the
rest; she was so noble, sensible, and womanly; there was
so much in confidence between us, and so often was I beside
her at these little evening parties, that people sometimes
hinted, “that Fanny and a certain person, one of
these days, would be sending around cards, and bride's
cake.”

But Rowley knew better than that; and Fanny only
laughed at the story, and told it to me.

My cousin's passion for Fanny was very much like the
attraction of the planetary bodies; it revolved around, but
never approached its object. To procrastinate the momentous
question, to live suspended, like Mahomet's coffin,
between heaven and earth, is a part of the history of every
one who loves. Rowley put it off from time to time; but

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the arrival of a gentleman in the Havre packet brought
the affair to such a critical pass that my cousin had to
speak,—but we will come to that by and by.

Two young ladies, who figured occasionally at our coteries,
had a brother, younger than themselves, whose absence
in Europe had been the constant theme and staple of their
conversation, at all times, and in all places. First, we
were given to understand, he was brimful of talent, and
immensely literary; then, he had been bearer of dispatches
out, and his services would probably be required by the
government for something else as soon as he got back.
The accounts of his scholarship, by the Misses Bullwinkle
(his sisters), threw a shadow upon the fame of Erasmus;
and the fire of his poetry was at least equal to Lord Byron's,
if not superior. Then he had the kindest heart for
every body, he was so good, so charitable; one sewing society
had absolutely given up its meetings until his return;
besides, he could fence in a superior manner; in fact, so
fond was he of that pastime, he actually taught Miss Bullwinkle
the elder to handle the foils, that he might keep
himself in practice; and—in making a pun! “Oh,” said
the sisters in a breath, “if you could hear him make a
pun, you would laugh fit to kill yourself!”

Of course the arrival of such a prodigy caused no little

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flutter. We were invited to Fanny Hazleton's on Friday
night, and every body went to meet Mr. William Bullwinkle.

I had been visiting a patient that evening, and did not
reach Mrs. Hazleton's until late. When I entered the
rooms, I was promptly carried forward, and introduced to
the man of genius without delay. He was the centre of
an admiring circle, and no doubt had just uttered something
oracular, for his hands were clasped together, and he
was peering around in the faces of his audience, as if he
would say,—that's so—isn't it?” He had a shining, bulbous
forehead, rather scantily thatched with blades of hair;
his face, small, meagre, and yet vulgar, was adorned with
a pair of short, rusty whiskers, and a rag of a moustache;
in all respects not what one would call a face eminently
prepossessing. As for his figure, it was evidently made
up. But in the rapid glance embracing all this, I had
taken in another person, whose attitude and expression put
me at my wit's end. It was Fanny Hazleton. So absorbed
was she with her guest at the moment, she scarcely
noticed me. She seemed to hang upon his words as if their
lingering sweetness still pervaded the atmosphere. I looked
around for Rowley. Pale and silent, my cousin was alone
in a corner, playing with the tassels of the sofa cushion.

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“Why Rowley! what is the matter?”

“Nothing at all,” answered my cousin, “I do not feel
very well.”

If Mr. William Bullwinkle's reputation had not already
preceded him, that evening would have established it. He
had been every where, seen every thing, and met every
body. He brought meerschaums and metaphysics from
Germany; the graces and a correct pronunciation from
Paris; a consummate knowledge of art from Italy; besides
an accordion, and a watch, not larger than a Lima bean,
from Geneva on Lake Leman.

“My intercourse with the aristocracy of England never
allowed me to breathe there, what I am now about to tell
you in confidence,” said Mr. William Bullwinkle, pulling his
rag of a moustache over his under lip; but when I was
presented to the Queen, my keen eye of observance detected
a slight tremor in Her Majesty, and when I kissed
her hand I am certain it trembled a little. I also caught
her eye afterwards, at the opera, which she withdrew at
once; I am sure of this, for I saw it plain as day, through
my lorgnette. But not wishing, as an American, to be
mixed up with any scandal of the court,” he added, drumming
upon his cheek with his fingers, “I took leave of the

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white cliffs of Albion sooner than perhaps I otherwise might
have desired.”

The expression upon my cousin's face, while Mr. Bullwinkle
delivered himself in this gay and festive manner,
was absolutely fiendish.

Not so with Fanny Hazleton. During the rest of the
evening, she kept close by the side of her guest, and at
parting, when the sisters Bullwinkle helped their brother on
with his coat, and tied the worsted around his neck, her
fair fingers, as if emulous of the duty, re-tied it, to keep
him comfortable.

“How did you like Mr. Bullwinkle?” said I to Rowley,
as we walked towards the office.

“He's a perfect jackass!” answered my cousin with a
burst of indignation.

“Did you hear him make a pun?”

“Oh!—him, yes; half a dozen.”

“Any of 'em good?”

“Good?—immense!” this was uttered in a tone intended
to be cool and sarcastic in the highest degree.

“What of his literary ability?”

“Chaff! chaff! a literary chiffonier, who hooks out of
the mire decayed scraps of learning, and thinks them wonderfully
fine in the new gloss he puts upon them.”

“He has written a great deal.”

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“Yes, no doubt; his fecundity is astonishing; I
should call him a literary rabbit.” This was terribly
bitter.

“What is the matter, Rowley?”

“Nothing at all.”

“They say he fences beautifully.”

“I would like to try him with a small-sword.”

If Fanny Hazleton's conduct surprised me on that
Friday evening, what did I think of it when a few weeks
had rolled by, and her acquaintance with the ci-devant
Bearer of Dispatches became strengthened by time? At
every evening party, Mr. Bullwinkle was her escort; if she
danced at all, which she did but rarely, Mr. Bullwinkle
was her partner; if she went to a concert or the theatre,
there was Mr. Bullwinkle as well. Meantime, Rowley,
instead of being the gay, good-humored cavalier, the life
and soul of the social circle, he used to be in old times,
was now downeast and spiritless; following Fanny with
his eyes every where, yet searcely venturing to address her
at all; a shadow of his former self; no longer an object
of adulation, but the subject of pity, or ridicule, or both.
This will never do, my cousin!

Rowley's mother at this time issued cards of invitation
for a small party, to be given in honor of her niece Isabel

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Bassett, who had just arrived from Baltimore. Bell Bassett
was a sprightly, amiable girl of about twenty; exceedingly
pretty withal, and as witty and quick as she was
good-natured. She was engaged to a gentleman of her
native city, but this was a secret known only in the family.
We had been very good friends, and soon after her arrival
I made her acquainted with the unfortunate position of my
cousin's affairs. The result was, after several consultations,
a plot, the success of which mainly depended upon my cousin
Rowley.

“Do you remember,” said I to him one day, “that
scene in Cooper's novel, where the prairie is on fire, and the
means by which the old trapper, Leather Stocking, saves
himself and his companions from the terrible fate which
threatens them?”

“Yes,”—my cousin paid little attention to what I was
saying.

“Do you remember what Leather Stocking says on that
occasion?”

“No.”

“We must make fire fight fire!”

“Well, what then?”

“Fanny Hazleton—”

“Well.”

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“Pretends to like Mr. Bullwinkle.”

“More than pretence, I fancy.”

“We shall see.”

“How?”

“You must fall in love with Bell Bassett.

“Nonsense.”

“And Bell is already prepared to be dreadfully in love
with you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Something that concerns you. Listen. Fanny Hazleton
either does, or does not, love this literary chiffonier.
If she do not, then you may yet win her; but if you were
to propose at the present time you would only be certain
of one thing—”

“A refusal!”

“Prompt. If you gain her, it will not be by coming
like an abject, now. She has too much spirit herself to
overlook the want of it in you. You must stand with her
on level ground. You must once more become gay, light-hearted,
cheerful. You must convince her that such a
thing as this Mr. Bullwinkle could not, by any possibility,
give you an uneasy thought, where she is concerned. If
her apparent liking for him be serious, it is enough to
awaken all your pride and contempt. Do you think him
more worthy of her than yourself?”

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“I do not think him capable of feeling as I do towards
Fanny.”

“A man made up of pretence—”

“And meanness—”

“Spoiled by those foolish sisters—”

“A milk-sop.”

“Who knows as much about poetry as a cat does of
astronomy—”

“The jackass.”

“Not a thing that is genuine about him—”

“Except his conceit.”

“And he to aspire to Fanny Hazleton? No, no, Rowley,
I do not, cannot believe she entertains a thought of
ever having such a man. Come now, do you believe
it?”

“I do not know what to believe.”

“Then we must find out what to believe. We must
get at the true state of the case. Put yourself in my hands—
show every attention to Bell Bassett—treat Fanny politely,
very politely, but as if her actions did not weigh
upon your heart a feather. Then we will soon find out
what is best to be done.”

“Impossible. I cannot be guilty of duplicity.”

“Do not make up your mind too hastily.”

“I am resolved.”

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And so ended my conference with Rowley.

The party came off in due time, and there was Fanny,
accompanied by Mr. Bullwinkle, whom she had asked to
wait upon her. This was rather unexpected, as the families
did not visit. Rowley was pale with anger, his eyes
sparkled with indignation for an instant, and then he was
perfectly cool and self-possessed. He never appeared so
well as he did then, so graceful and dignified. I saw
Fanny once or twice looking at him quite intently. But
the chief object of interest that evening was cousin Bell.
She was one of those miraculous creatures who seem to
possess the power of creating as many charms as the occasion
may require. This evening she was bewitching.
Fanny Hazleton was completely eclipsed. Rowley had
given Bell a little locket which she wore in her belt, and
took good care to whisper one or two, that it was the gift
of her cousin. Then she was by his side whenever an opportunity
presented itself; she petted him; got him interested
in old stories of the times when they were children;
followed him with her eyes wherever he went; sat down
disconsolate when he danced with any other person; in
fact, acted with such consummate skill, it created just
what she wanted—and that was—a great deal of surmise.

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Bell sang very prettily; her voice was of that sympathetic
kind, more admirable and rare, than those whose
chief excellence consists in having a good natural organ
skilfully cultivated. She had just finished a little Italian
air when I overheard Mr. Bullwinkle observe, in his facetious
way—

“Oh, very good, very good. I suppose she sings in
Eyetalion because she's afraid to trust herself with the
English. It is better to run the risk of mispronouncing a
language we don't understand, than to take that risk with
a language we do.”

If my thoughts were at all translated by the look I gave
Mr. Bullwinkle, when I heard this specimen of his wit, I
am sure he could not have felt much complimented. He
laughed, however, in a very silly way, and took no notice
of it. As for Fanny, she blushed deep scarlet.

It was now Rowley's turn to sing, for Bell would
take no denial; so he began that famous old song, by
George Wither:

[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]

Fanny's eyes rested on her lap—the blush deepened.

The bouquet in Fanny's hand trembled as if a little wind
stirred the flowers.

Mr. Bullwinkle's lamp flickered in the socket, and
finally went out. Fanny Hazleton saw only one person in
the rooms, and that was my cousin Rowley. But the story
is not yet told.

[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]

Bell made so many engagements for her cousin, was so
often with him at the balls, concerts, parties; that the
“surmise” grew into a general belief.

One day I received a note. It was from Fanny Hazleton.
A poor family, in great distress, had a sick child, and
she wanted me to prescribe for it. “As I do not know the
number of the house,” it said, “call for me and I will go
with you. P. S. Come yourself.”

I did prescribe for the sick child, and then walked home
with Fanny.

“Your cousin is going to be married?” she said in a
tremulous voice.

“Who says so?”

“Every body. He is engaged to Miss Bassett.”

“Every body says you are engaged to Mr. Bullwinkle.”

“What, him? I detest him! But your cousin and
Miss Bassett?”

“Miss Bassett is engaged—”

“It is true then?”

“To a gentleman in Baltimore, Mr. Savage.”

Fanny threw back her hood, and looked up at the sky,
as if a whole troop of cherubs had flocked out of the zenith.

“Now, my dear, dear cousin, go at once to Fanny
Hazleton's, and do not let the grass grow under your feet!

[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]

And Rowley did go, and six months after, I saw the
wreath of orange blossoms like a crown of glory over Fanny's
fair forehead; and Bell Bassett was the prettiest bridesmaid
that ever waited upon bride.

“And the white-hand?”

“Is a memory like the rose buds!”

p527-094 BUNKER HILL: An Old-Time Ballad.

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p527-100 A CHRONICLE OF THE VILLAGE OF BABYLON.

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In all great actions two elements are indispensable.

First—the task must be exceedingly difficult in order
to develope those heroic qualities—fortitude and perseverance.

Secondly—The result must be an equivalent for the
labor; a consideration which appears to have been overlooked
by all legislators, or it might have prevented most
of the battles, massacres, burnings and bloodshed since the
beginning of the world.

Whether or no I have succeeded in gaining the latter,
posterity shall judge, and as regards the former, I can only
ask of those who have any knowledge of the Babylonii, if any
thing in the shape of information is not exceedingly difficult
to get at among that sage and taciturn people? In

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fact, a genuine Long-Islander, like one of his native oysters,
is held to be of little value unless he can keep his
mouth shut. Judge then of the labor it has cost to bring
into the world this true and impartial history. To search
the misspelt records of the township; to dive into numberless
authorities; to collect the waifs and floating straws
of tradition; to collate, examine, sift, weigh, accept, refuse
and discriminate among these heterogeneous materials, has
been to me a labor of love; and fearing that no other person
will ever undertake the arduous task for the benefit
of posterity, with much brain-work and wasting of the
midnight oil, I have at last perfected this invaluable
work.

Unfortunately there are no authentic antediluvian records
of Babylon. Neither do we find a distinct and reliable
account of such a place among the travels of those ancient
navigators, the Phœnicians; but from the known habits of
that mighty hunter, Nimrod, it is but reasonable to suppose
that after the dispersion of the builders of the tower
of Babel, he would be likely to look out some place to
gratify his peculiar tastes, and the South Side affording
him every facility, he might naturally settle there for the
remainder of his days. Nor is this merely a matter of
conjecture, for there is a vague tradition floating around

[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]

the village to that effect, the most powerful argument in
its favor being this:

“If Nimord did not go to Babylon, where did he go?”

Until this question is satisfactorily answered, I shall
claim the great Assyrian as the founder of the ancient
village of Babylon.

Having thus settled the postdiluvian era of the discovery
of this ancient and renowned village, there still remains,
in mysterious obscurity, a vast interval. I shall
not, after the manner of many historians, attempt to bridge
over this dark period with idle conjecture, but rather let it
remain a shadowy and fathomless sea in silent sublimity,
adding beauty by contrast to the lifelike picture of a later
and more eventful age.

Babylon is bounded north by the railroad, south by
the great South Bay, east by Coquam or Skoquam Creek,
and west by Sunkwam or Great Creek; whether these
fertilizing streams ever received the names of the Euphrates
and Tigris is not known. Yet it is but reasonable to suppose
that the Chaldean monarch gave them these titles in
honor of the ancient city of Confusion. For several thousand
years the descendants of the great hunter occupied
the territory bequeathed to them in peaceful security. The
Syrian merged in the red man; his very language was

[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]

unknown, his origin forgotten; the beautiful oriental Chaldaic
was changed into the barbarous dialect of the Massapequas,
and a rude tribe, “a mere handful of men,” was all that remained
of a nation whose greatness had o'ershadowed the
earth.

But the lapse of centuries had not altered the natural
beauties of the land. The primitive forest still extended
to the verge of the green meadows that bordered the bay.
The antlered deer stooped to drink from the clear streams
that wound their sinuous way through the shadowy woods.
The patient beaver “built his little Venice” upon their
banks, while the elk upheaved his proud neck like a monarch,
and bounded away at the scream of the wild cat or
the cry of the rapacious wolf. The swan rippled with her
snowy bosom the placid waters of the bay; the pelican
reared its rude nest amid the pines, and the plumed and
painted Indian in his slender canoe floated like a dream
upon the transparent bosom of the waters. The Massapequas,
a peaceful piscivorous nation, had but a faint idea of
the glories of war; a night excursion to steal some trifle
from the neighboring Secatouges or the Shinecocks (a tribe
noted for anointing their bodies with the fat of the opossum),
or the laughter-loving Merrikokes, was the extent
of their predatory forays.

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Even these night rambles were unsuited to the genius
of a quiet people; retaliation soon quenched this warlike
spirit; and like the Babylonii of modern days, they preferred
making raids upon the peaceful inhabitants of the
bay—for in those days salmon did abound, yea, plentiful
as shirks and blue fish; and many a black canoe,
with the spearman standing out in bold relief by the light
of his pine-knot torch, could be seen, where now the solitary
tower on Fire Island casts its menacing glare upon the
waves.

Such was the enviable condition of the territory of
Babylon or “Sunkwam,” as it was then denominated, and so
it remained until the discovery of the island of Manhattan,
and the landing of the pilgrim fathers and mothers upon
the famous rock at New Plymouth. It is not my purpose
to repeat these familiar portions of the history of the new
world. The rise and fall of the Dutch dynasty, and the
colonial government of the Puritans are well known to
every man, woman and child in the country. The patient
Netherlander slowly populated the peaceful city of the
Manhattoes. The Pilgrims took possession successively of
Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. But Sunkwam
was reserved for greater things, and therefore her day
came later than the rest. It was not until the middle of

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the seventeenth century, that the first irruption of the
white men into the territory of the Massapequas took
place. The western end of the island nearest New-Amsterdam
had been deliberately settled by the phlegmatic
Dutchmen, while their more mercurial brethren had extended
themselves over the largest portion of the island,
from Montauk Point to the present western boundaries of
Suffolk county. At the latter place an imaginary line had
been drawn defining the limits of the respective settlements,
but in 1642 a party of Orientals started from the
town of Lynn, and, with true Yankee audacity, squatted
themselves at Cow Bay, directly within the boundaries of
the Dutch territory. Now Governor Keift was a little
man, and not over brave for a governor, but like many
other little men he could do a great deal of fighting—at a
distance. So he forthwith dispatched a rascally bailiff, one
Cornelins Van Tienhoven, with directions to capture this
band of “infamous Yankees,” who had dared to come (from
Lynn) “between the wind and his nobility.” Whereupon
the said Cornelius took with him six good men and true,
and after a laborious journey of three weeks, five days and
twenty-three hours, arrived in sight of the embryo colony.
Here he reposed for two days and a half to recover his
wind, and then taking off his coat and tying his suspenders

[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]

around his capacious abdomen, started off alone to take
the settlement by storm, leaving his valiant army behind
as a “corps de reserve.” As luck would have it, just as he
reached the brow of the little hill which rises before Cow
Bay, his foot slipped in something, and he rolled down the
hill toward the ill-fated colony. When the Yankees beheld
this huge Dutch avalanche coming down, and threatening
to demolish the whole of them in a twinkling, they
were seized with a horrible panic, and ran away as if the
devil was after them.* Then, as is the custom with puissant
conquerors, did the aforementioned Cornelius take a
view of the village, which, by the law of nations, had again
become a possession of the States General, and twisting
his mighty moustache, seize and carry off with him the
spoils and prisoners of war, namely: an old woman
with the fever and ague, a yellow-headed baby with gooseberry
eyes, together with a bag of corn meal and a huge
rasher of pork, and march back to Nieuw-Amsterdam

[figure description] Page 102. At the top of the page is an image of Cornelius walking up a hill and turning to glare at the reader. In the background is the image of an elderly, and clearly ill, woman who is tied to Cornelius by a string attached to her wrist. Cornelius has a sword hanging from his waist, which is dragging on the ground, and a musket thrown over his shoulder. Tied to the end of the musket is a wailing infant. The baby is tied by its ankle to the musket and hangs upside down.[end figure description]

like a modern Mexican hero, fresh from the “Halls of the
Montezumas.”

But this little circumstance was productive of a great
result, for one of the aforesaid Yankees, Hosea Carl by

[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]

name, ran straight across the island and never drew breath
until he came in sight of the pleasant waters of the Great
South Bay. Here he beheld the wigwams of the renowned
Massapequas, and finding them to be an indolent devil-may-care
set of savages, forthwith took them under his
kindly protection. It was on this memorable day, namely,
the twenty-third of May, 1642, that the first blue-fish
was eaten by a white man within the precincts of Sunkwam,
or Sunquam as it is sometimes erroneously spelt.
Nor must I omit to relate that this same Hosea Carl had
in his waistcoat pocket some pumpkin seeds, which he
planted without delay, for the pumpkin is the mystic symbol
of the Yankees, and the planting thereof gives as good
a title to the soil as right of possession by flag-staff, or any
other ingenious invention by which barbarous tribes are
taught to respect the rights and claims of civilized nations.
Being thus in a manner under the shade of his own vine
and fig-tree, Hosea sent a faithful copperhead, Squidko by
name, to hunt up his wife, who had fled before the terrible
splutter-damns of Cornelius Von Tienhoven, like a struck
wild-fowl at the sound of a rusty gun.

The daguerreotype painted upon the memory of Squidko
was a perfect likeness, and in a few days the hapless fugitive
was found. Hosea then made a “clearing,” and before

[figure description] Page 104.[end figure description]

many years a small tribe of musquito-bitten, saffron-headed
Hoseas, surrounded the parental clapboards. About two
years after this memorable epoch, certain Indians who had
been committing various depredations, were attacked by
the famous Captain John Underhill, in the palisado called
Fort Neck, about eight miles from Babylon, and utterly
routed with much slaughter. Now this said John Underhill
was not only a terrible fellow among the savages, but
he used to raise the devil's delight in every village where
he happened to be quartered, for he was a great favorite
with the fair sex (which is always the case with warriors
and other noted characters), and although doubtless an
innocent man, yet the viperous tongue of slander will
assail the purest and the most virtuous. Hence we
find it recorded in Thompson's admirable History of
Long Island, out of Hutchinson, that “before a great
assembly at Boston on a lecture day and in the court-house,
he sat upon a stool of repentance, with a white cap on his
head; and with many deep sighs, a woful countenance, and
abundance of tears, owned his wicked way of life, and
besought the church to have compassion on him, and deliver
him out of the hands of Satan.” Which after all was
only a general and not a specific acknowledgment of any
one sin with which he had been charged, for doth he not

[figure description] Page 105.[end figure description]

affirm when he had been privately dealt with for incontinency—
That “the woman being very young and beautiful,
and withal of a jovial spirit and behaviour, he did daily
frequent her house, and was divers times found there alone
with her, the door being locked on the inside, and confessed
that it was ill, because it had the appearance of evil in it;
but that the woman was in great trouble of mind and sore
temptation, and that he resorted to her to comfort her;
and that when the door was found locked upon them they
were in private prayer together?”—an explanation which
ought to be perfectly satisfactory to every reasonable mind.

Moreover, doth not the following extract from his letter
to his “Worthee and Beloved friend, Hansard Knowles,”
clearly show that the times, and not the man were in
error?

“They propounded that I was to be examined for carnally
looking after one Mistris Miriam Wilbore, at the lecture
in Boston when Master Shepherd expounded. This
Mistris Wilbore hath since been dealt with for coming to
that lecture with a pair of wanton open-worked gloves, slit
at the thumbs and fingers, for the purpose of taking snuff.
For, as Master Cotton observed, for what end should these
vain openings be, but for the intent of taking filthy snuff?
and he quoted Gregory Nazianzen upon good works. How

[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]

the use of the good creature tobacco, can be an offence, I
cannot see. Master Cotton said, `Did you not look upon
Mistris Wilbore?' I confessed that I did. Master Peters
then sayd, `Why did you not look at sister Newell, or sister
Upham?' I sayd `Verelie, they are not desyrable women,
as to temporal graces.' Then Hugh Peters and all cryed, `It
is enough, he hath confessed,' and so passed excommunication.”
Now I would like to know what would become of
our modern church-gallants if they were liable to be excommunicated
upon such charges?

Having thus redeemed the character of this jolly bacholor
from the foul aspersions of a cynical age, it but remains
for me to say, that from him sprang the present race
of Underhills, who are to be found by every shady hill-side
on Long Island; men celebrated all over the face of the
earth for their morality and bravery.

The first Yankee discoverer of Sunkwam did not remain
there long without having neighbors. The Smiths, the
Seamans, the Hicks, the Willetts, the Coopers and the
Udells, planted themselves side by side with the primitive
adventurer; and about this time the family of the Snedicors,
springing up earth-born, the Lord-knows-how, began
to overrun the country like a wild cucumber-vine, and
finally shot up in a single night in the hitherto purely

[figure description] Page 107.[end figure description]

Yankee village of Sunkwam. The Orientals initiated the
Indians in the mysteries of rum, gunpowder, pumpkinpies
and jewsharps, and the Indians rewarded their instructors
with plentiful grants of land and prodigious clambakes.
On the fourth of July, 1657, Tackapausha, the
sachem of the Massapequas, made a treaty with the Dutch
Governor, by which Sunkwam became nominally a province
of the Nieuw Netherlandts; but the conquest of the latter
place, in 1664, by the English, restored the settlers to that
liberty which they had lost only in name. And now
peace and serenity was with Sunkwam. The conical wigwams
of the savages were giving place to the clapboard
castles of the industrious Yankees. Here and there a
snowy sail careered over the bay where erst had been seen
only the bark canoe of the aborigine. Population thrived,
agriculture flourished: the sportive cucumber meandered
among the green corn, the peaceful pumpkin rolled its fair
round proportions on the sunny slopes; and the commerce
of Sunkwam spread like a battalia of white moths over the
neighboring bays and inlets.

Such was the happy condition of Babylon an hundred
and fifty years ago; it is a picture I am never weary of
contemplating. Let me lay aside my pen, and look upon
it with the delight of a father who gazes upon his

[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]

firstborn with those exquisite feelings known only to the parental
heart!

It was toward the close of the seventeenth century that
the redoubtable Captain Kidd, of pious memory, dropped
anchor off the fertile shores of Long Island. The purpose
of the expedition, which was to put an end to the robberies
upon the high seas; the fruit of his experience with these
modern “Vikings,” which ended in his becoming a pirate
himself; and his end at Execution Dock in 1701, are well
known to every one; but on board of his vessel he had
many innocent persons, who were subordinate officers, seamen,
and the like, shipped with no other motive than that
of serving their king, the press-gang, and their country.
Among those who had become pirates by compulsion was
the sailing-master of the vessel, one Jacob O'Lynn; probably
a lineal descendant of that famous Bryan O'Lynn,
who had

Be that as it may, Lynn (for he was an Englishman,
and had dropped the Hibernic `O') was a warm-hearted,
double-fisted, square-chested sea-dog, who did not care the

[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]

toss of a biscuit who he served under, if there was plenty
of fighting and the liquor was good. His chief amusement
was playing on an enormous conch-shell, given him by
some princess on the coast of Africa, who had taken a
fancy to his broad shoulders and manly proportions; and
his favorite position was to get astride of the bowsprit,
blowing his enormous conch like a jolly triton playing
“Come o'er the Sea” before Queen Amphitrite; from
whence he received the name of “Conch Lynn,” since corrupted
into “Conklin.” It is necessary to be particular in
these matters, because they are the stepping-stones of all true
history. But this said Conch Lynn, disliking exceedingly
the customs of those sea anti-renters, the pirates, took an
opportunity while Kidd was asleep, after a hard day's drinking,
strapped his beloved conch-shell around his neck, filled
his pockets with doubloons and jewels, dropped overboard,
swam ashore, and landed high and dry on the beach at
Fire Island. Here he blew a terrific blast upon his conch-shell
in honor of his safe arrival, the sound of which killed
a whole flock of snipe who were skippereering along the
beach; then turning a somerset in his joy, and making
telegraphic signals with his legs, whereby he lost many
jewels and other valuables out of his jacket-pockets, he
swam and waded across the bay, and finally landed safe

[figure description] Page 110.[end figure description]

at Sunkwam. Here he was sumptuously entertained by
the inhabitants, and royally feasted upon skillipots and
snappers, beaver-tail, baked quohaugs, blue-fish, mossbunkers,
and other delicacies, washed down with copious
libations of switchel and hard cider; and being of a domestic
turn of mind, he took possession of a deserted
wigwam, hired a buxom-looking squaw for a housekeeper,
and in the fulness of his heart kept up an infernal blarting
upon his conch-shell from morning till night. This hideous
concerto was more than the Sunkwamites had bargained
for; accordingly, in a very eloquent remonstrance, now in
the possession of the Historical Society of Babylon, they
requested him “right lovingely either to cease blowinge
ye aforesaid konke, whereby ye peace of ye community had
beene much endamaged, or to take his d—d shell and
blow it without ye jurisdiction of ye colony.” As might be
expected, the jolly sailing-master took offence at this, and
shaking the dust off his shoes, departed from the place as
mad as a bear with a sore head. After trudging for two
or three miles across the swamps and pine-barrens, he
turned round and gave them a parting blast upon his seatrumpet
that sounded like the famous horn of Orlando at
the dolorous rout of Roncesvalles; then settling himself in
the interior, he married out of sheer spite, and begat the

[figure description] Page 111.[end figure description]

numerous race of Conklins, who are renowned for blowing
their own trumpets even to this day. Nay, it is asserted
that the sound of his conch-shell can be heard even now
swelling upon the wind across the bay whenever there is a
storm brewing to the southward. Still the little settlement
thrived in spite of these untoward mishaps, and it was
christened Huntington-South, in honor of the great hunter
who had founded it.

It is delightful to review the manners and customs of
this little colony. Every one assisted his neighbor; the
laws were administered with strict impartiality, and I have
quoted from the aforesaid “History of Long Island” the
following record as a specimen of what evenhanded justice
was in those patriarchal days.

“Town-Court, Oct. 23, 1662.—Stephen Jervice, an
attorney in behalf of James Chichester, plf., vs. Tho.
Scudder, deft., action of ye case and of batery. Deft. says
that he did his endeavor to save ye pigg from ye wolff, but
knows no hurt his dog did it; and as for ye sow, he denys
ye charge. Touching ye batery, striking ye boye, says he
did strike yee boye, but it was for abusing his daughter.
Ye verdict of ye jury is, that deft.'s dog is not fitt to be
cept, but ye acsion fails for want of testimony; but touching
ye batery, ye jury's verdict pass for plff., that deft. pay

[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]

him ten shillings for striking ye boye, and ye plff. to pay
five shillings for his boye's incivility.' Having thus found
a verdict against the dog, the plaintiff and the defendant,
the jury were allowed to proceed to their respective
homes.

And now, even as a laborer after a hard day's work
stretches himself and slumbers in tranquillity, did the little
town of Huntington-South enjoy a long period of repose.
The old settlers were gathered in the silent folds where all
must slumber—the Indians melted from the land like snow
before the sun in April. Piece by piece the land had been
purchased by the whites; nor must I omit to mention the
story of Sally Higbee, “who didd receive a notable tracte
of land from one Smackatagh, by reasonne of a kisse which
he did begge of herr, and which she bestowde in consideracion
of havinge the said lande given tow herr by the salvage;”
and also the manner in which one Jones did outjump
an Indian for a wager (the latter staking forty square
miles of good land against a barrel of hard cider), and being
a springy varlet, and full of quicksilver, did thereby win
the same from him by a foot and a half. With the exception
of such events, Huntington-South slumbered on for
above a century. The war of the revolution broke out and
rolled like a sea of fire around her scrub-oak barriers; but

[figure description] Page 113.[end figure description]

she knew it not, and even to this day, it is said, some of
the inhabitants pray devoutly for the restoration of King
Charles the Second, of blessed memory.

At last the nineteenth century dawned upon the world.
Voluminous as are the records of this period, one important
circumstance has escaped the notice of every historian.
Seizing upon this event with the joy of one who has found
a treasure, and scarcely credits the evidence of his senses,
I shall forthwith reveal how Sunkwam came to be christened
by the name it now bears. In 1801, one Nat. Conklin
(or Conkelynge) kept a store in the village, and transacted
a profitable business with the inhabitants. At the
same time an Irishman, Billy Callighan by name, had a
similar establishment for the vending of rum, red herrings,
tape, tobacco, mackerel, molasses, cod-fish and calicoes.
“Huntington-South” had always been a stumbling-block in
the way of the native orthographists (I myself have seen
more than seventeen different ways of spelling it, every
one of them wrong), so this merry little Irishman, in honor
of his native city, determined to name it Dublin! But
Aunt Phœbe Conklin, a lineal descendant of the doughty
Jacob, settled her spectacles firmly upon the tip of her
indefatigable nose, took a sharp pinch of snuff out of a
testy-looking little box, clapped the box in her side pocket,

[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]

and with her thumb and fore-finger tightly pinched
together, as if she held the weasand of the presumptuous
Billy Callighan squeezed between them, declared she would
not have it so: “And since the place wants a name,” said
she, “I'll name it: I'll call it Babylon!—because there's
always so much `babbling' going on there!” And thereupon
she took out a red bandanna, and sounded a terrific
blast with her nose, that was like unto the sound of the
mighty conch-shell of her valorous ancestor. So the village
became Babylon by sound of trumpet!

Nor must I now omit to describe the nominatrix of this
puissant village. She was a tall, spare, mathematical-looking
lady, with a face like a last will and testament, with
amen! written in every corner. Moreover, she was bedlight
in a crimp-cap and white short-gown, with a black silk
kerchief pinned crossways over her neck, and a quilted
calico petticoat, that by dint of repeated washing looked
like the ghost of a defunct dolphin.

Meanwhile, one Thompson, who was likewise an aspirant
for fame, must needs have his say in the matter; and
being of a milky disposition, of wonderful good-nature, and
wishing every body well in the world, would fain give Babylon
a more euphonious title; so he called together all the
inhabitants, had a grand “pow-wow” at his house, and

[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]

spent several dollars in the purchase of sundry gallons of
corn-whiskey, apple-jack and New-England rum, with
which the company became wonderfully mellow. Then,
after much preliminary backing-and-filling, he proposed—
in a terribly long-winded speech, which the limits of the
work will not permit me to give entire—“that the village,
being a quiet, peaceful little place, where all were `Unitas
Fratrum,' should be henceforth known and denominated
as Harmony;” which was unanimously ratified upon the
spot by all present. This important ceremony over, the
Harmonians proceeded to the more serious business of the
night, and took unto themselves sundry juleps, slings, toddies,
etc. Then, according to the records of the time, did
they become bucked, boozy, bunged up, corned, sprung,
swipesy, swizzled, soaked, smashed, slewed, sewed-up, sick,
mellow, maudlin, hot, funny, toddied, top-heavy, halfsnapped,
keeled-up, drunken, inebriated, intoxicated, one
eye open, in liquor, weeping, shouting, swearing, roaring,
flabbergasted, all talking at once, kicked, cuffed, torn,
fisted; in a word, they made as infernal an uproar as ever
had been made at the building of the veritable tower of
Babel upon the plains of Shinar! But how vain are human
efforts to contend with fate! The sun rose in the
morning, and breaking several panes of glass in the

[figure description] Page 116. At the bottomof the page is a chapter ending illustration. The image depicts various elements of “vice,” including three pipes resting on a box of tobacco, a corkscrew, a carafe of wine, a silver pitcher, an array of cigars, and a variety of glasses holding liquors.[end figure description]

windows of the east, looked through and smiled in peaceful
serenity upon the slumbering village. And lo and behold;
it was Babylon still, and so it has remained even to the
present day. Having thus brought this philosophical and
philological history to the beginning of the present century,
I lay aside my pen. I pass over, as apocryphal, the
popular rumor of Babylon having been once named “Dogville;”
but justice to the Babylonii demands that I should
affirm, upon the word of an historian, that since the unfortunate
issue of the “christening,” they have continued and
still remain A Strictly Temperance People.

p527-122 THE SEASONS.

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p527-126 OLD BOOKS.

[figure description] Page 121.[end figure description]

I LOVE old books. It is to get below the transitory
surface of the present, the alluvial stratum of literature,
to stand upon the primitive rock, the gray, and ancient
granite of the early world. It is to commune with the
Spirit of the Past, to roll back the universe through cycle
and epicycle. The haze of antiquity hangs over a collection
of old books, in which the shapes of the departed are
reflected, like the gigantic shadows on the Brocken. Reprints
have none of it—you lose the vital elixir in the
transmutation. Here lies great Hollingshead!—black-letter
edition of 1569 (so the colophon tells us), dog's-eared
with the weight of three centuries. Did William Cecil,
Lord Burleigh, ever bend his sagacious head over these
clear pages? Did Raleigh?—Bacon?—Essex?—

[figure description] Page 122.[end figure description]

Spenser? Or did Elizabeth, with tears of pity, read the touching
story of Lady Jane Grey, here painted with such
minute fidelity, and turn again to marble when the deathwarrant
was brought for her signature that was to consign
to the block, her kinswoman of Scotland—the lovely, royal,
Mary Stuart? Yonder “standard library edition” is a
faithful copy, but this book was cotemporary with Shakspeare;
this was extant before the Armada. This volume
was read, these identical leaves turned over, ere the first
spiral of tobacco smoke wound upward in the clear English
air, or Ireland was conscious of its chief national blessing—
the potato!

I trust it will not be considered pedantic if I aver I
love old books because of their quaintness in typography
and orthography. Who would like to see sweet, silvery
Spenser, or scholastic Burton (great finger-post of antiquity,
pointing to all manner of shady lanes and forgotten
by-paths of learning), shorn of their exuberance?
Who feel not, when reading these tawny pages of Tattlers
and Spectators (printed in Queen Anne's time) something
that recalls vividly Will's Coffee House, and taciturn Addison,
and great, little Alexander Pope, and the inexorable
satirist of St. Patrick's, and skeptical Bolingbroke, and
Richard Steele, hiding from a dirty bailiff in an obscure

[figure description] Page 123.[end figure description]

room, to pen a paragraph—haply to pay for his dinner,
haply to be admired by all posterity.

Whatsoever belongs to Latin and Greek, interested me
most at an earlier period of life. As a boy, I looked up
to “large-handed Achilles,” and Livy's beautiful narrations,
with unfeigned delight. Later in youth, I found
new worlds in German literature, in Spanish, Italian; but
never affected much the French. As a man now, in this
autumnal season of life, I love best our mother tongue.

Poor Tom Churchyard composed these verses before
Shakspeare was born! Spenser's Fairy Queen was published
nineteen years after his death. Almost all we know
of English poetry (except Chaucer's) is limited to that
written between his time and ours. What was there before
that period to merit such encomiums? Surely it is
well to inquire. Poor Tom Churchyard!—

[figure description] Page 124.[end figure description]

I love old books. Here lies a folio copy in three volumes,
of Congreve, a matchless specimen of typography;
every letter distinct and delicate, “and poured round all”
a broad, creamy margin of immaculate purity. What a
commentary upon the text! Licentious Congreve in the
vestments of chastity!—There is a sturdy quarto. Run
it over. Blackstone! with marginal pen and ink notes by
Aaron Burr. What is this underscored?

“In a land of liberty it is extremely dangerous to make a distinct
order of the profession of arms.”

“Emulation, or virtuous ambition is a spring of action which,
however dangerous or invidious in a mere republic, or under a despotic
sway, will certainly be attended with good effects under a free
monarchy.”

On the title-page is inscribed,
Aaron Burr
1797
The Blennerhassett conspiracy transpired nine years after,
in 1806. Did those little sentences suggest that, or was

[figure description] Page 125.[end figure description]

the thought latent before? It seems to me the history
of Aaron Burr is written in that scratch of his pen.

Here, resting against Strangford's Camoens, is a Review
of the text of Milton, “by Dr. Zachary Pearce, Bp. of
Rochester.” So we are informed by an autograph in pale
ink, in Elia's clerkly hand. How carefully this book was
read by him! Not an error of the printer (and there are
many) but what is corrected; not a wrong point, comma,
or semicolon (and there are many) but what is amended.
Incomparable Elia! Gentle Charles Lamb! That book
is dearer to me than the most sumptuous edition of modern
days—even including mine own!

Methinks D'Israeli, in his Chapter on Prefaces, might
have noticed those two which stand, like a forlorn hope, in
front of yonder towering volumes. Sylvester is one—his
commentator wrote the other. “And who is Sylvester?”
Gentle reader (I take it you are a lady), doubtless you
have read Macaulay's Battle of Ivry? Du Bartas, a
French knight who fought under Henry of Navarre in that
battle, laid aside his sword, after the fray, to tell the tale
of Ivry with his pen. He also wrote “The Divine Week,”
both of which were translated by Joshua Sylvester, a
famous English poet, whose works were thought worthy
of encomiastic verses by Ben Jonson, Daniel, Davis of

[figure description] Page 126.[end figure description]

Hereford, and many other eminent writers of the time of
King James. I. The Divine Week is the first rude sketch
of Paradise Lost. Yonder book was published when Milton
was thirteen years old, and printed in the very street
in which he lived.

“Things unattempted yet in verse or prose,”—

This little old Bible was in my grandfather's knapsack
at the battle of Bunker Hill. It looks as though it had
stood the brunt of the fight. Printed in 1741, by Thomas
Watkins, one of his Majesty's printers, to which is added
“a collection of Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, for
the use, edification and comfort of the saints, in publick
and private, especially in New England.” The Saints of
King George the Second were canonized by King George
the Third. Methinks I can see the dissolute soldiery landing
at Moulton's Point, with havoc in their eyes and curses
in their hearts, marching toward that redoubt, to be swept
down by the steady fire of the New England saints, who,
had they been as well provided with powder, as with bibles,
might have written the first and last chapter of the revolution
on the bloody page of Bunker Hill, June 17th,

[figure description] Page 127.[end figure description]

1775. Beside it, clasped in a kind of reverential awe, is
“Nathaniel Morton's New England's Memorial, 1669!”

“The Mayflower's Memories of the brave and good”—

“Sonnets, To Sundry Notes of Musicke, by Mr. William
Shakespeare,” in shattered sheepskin! What can
be said of Mr. William Shakspeare? If his commentators
(including Mr. Verplanck, the most learned, as
well as the most philosophical) had left any thing to be
said, that stripling volume might suggest there were some
things of Shakspeare which had not yet found their way
in modern editions. Perhaps my short-sightedness never
discovered them therein? Nevertheless, I have searched
diligently.

Red-letter title-pages! Rubrics of the past century!
Twelve volumes by Dr. Swift, Dr. Arbuthnot, Mr. Pope,
and Mr. Gay! What was young America doing when
these were being discussed in the boxes of Will's CoffeeHouse?
For these books saw the light three-quarters of

[figure description] Page 128.[end figure description]

an age after “The Memorial of Nathaniel Morton, Secre-tary
to the Court for the Jurisdiction of New Plymouth.”
What was young America doing, while Pope was writing
the Dunciad? and the Mayflower (the ark of a new cove-nant)
had rotted to the keelson, perhaps an hundred years
before. Settling Georgia! Suffering from the Choctaws!
Receiving that distinguished metaphysician, Dr. George
Berkely, afterward Bishop of Cloyne! And Swift—great
political economist, amid the parturient throes of a new
world writes—“The Power of Time.”

I cannot help turning to this old volume of tracts by
the Lord Bishop of Cloyne, containing “Odes,” “Thoughts
on Tar Water,” “Essays to prevent the ruin of Great
Britain,” etc., to quote part of these prophetic lines on
“the prospect of planting arts and learning in America.”

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I love old books. Those nine volumes of Tristram
Shandy, which stand in tarnished gold, like the slender
pipes of some Lilliputian organ, are a legend and a mystery.
Some thirty years since an old English gentleman came
to this country with a choice collection of curious books,
among which (it was darkly whispered) there were many
from Sterne's library. These were part of that collection,
(gift of the gifted C. L. E.) whose various dates indicate,
year after year, the progress of the work. Illustrated too
by Hogarth's own hand! Thus should kindred genius go
down in loving companionship to posterity. “Fragmenta
Aurea” of Sir John Suckling helps fill the niche, with
Cotton, Sedley, Dorset, Etherege, Halifax, and Dr. Donne.
Rare companions, mad wags, airy, pathetic, gay, tender,
witty, and ludicrous; jostling, pious John Selden, with his
mouth full of aphorisms.

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“Her feet beneath her petticoat,
Like little mice stole in and out,
As if they feared the light,”
sings Sir John; and his neighbors, lay and clerical,
respond—


“I can love both fair and brown;
Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betrays;
Her who loves loneness best, and her who sports and plays;
Her whom the country formed, and whom the town;
Her who believes, and her who tries;
Her who still weeps with spongy eyes,
And her who is dry cork, and never cries.”
Samuel Daniel clasps his brown wings below in mute
sympathy with the melancholy Cowley. “Samuel—Daniel,”
why should he not bear the names of two prophets?

I love old books. The yellow leaves spread out before
me as a ripened field, and I go along—gleaning—like
Ruth in the sunny fields of Bethlehem. Yet I would not
have too many. Large libraries, from the huge folios at
the base (grim Titans), rearing aloft, to the small volumes
on the upper shelves, a ponderous pyramid of lore, oppress
the brain. When I look round upon my shining cohorts—
the old imperial guard of English literature (with sundry

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conscripts, promoted to the front ranks)—I feel, with
honest pride, how jealous I am that none appear unworthy
of such company. So is it with friends. We like a
small and choice collection. After these come books. A
friend is worth twenty libraries, yet I hate to lose one
book with whom I have been familiar many years. I
have not yet forgiven the Curate, Master Barber, and the
Housekeeper, for destroying


— “Amadis de Gaul,
Th' Esplandians, Arthurs, Palmerins, and all
The learned library of Don Quixote:”
that choice little anthology of rare flowers.

New books (unbending vestals) require too much labor
in the wooing; and to go armed with an ivory spatula,
like a short, Roman sword, piercing one's way through
the spongy leaves of an uncut volume, is an abomination.
An old book opens generously; spreading out its arms, as
it were, “wi' a Highland welcome;” giving

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Yet a young book, at times, is worth the wooing. I
have seen such, growing up under mine own eyes; which
reminds me of a friend of mine, who once dandled that
upon his knee which afterward became his wife.

I have an ancient manuscript—. But I forbear.

When I open an old volume, and hear the words of
wisdom from the lips of age; listening, as it were, to “a
voice crying from the ground,” methinks it is as the sound
of a midnight wind sighing through the branches of an
oak—a hoary centenarian! Ah, reader! keep to thy
books; especially old books! They are like the pool of
Bethesda, healing and comforting. In the words of quaint
Burton, I take leave of thee;

p527-138 A BABYLONISH DITTY.

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p527-142 THE FIRST OYSTER-EATER.

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The impenetrable veil of antiquity hangs over the antediluvian
oyster, but the geological finger-post points
to the testifying fossil. We might, in pursuing this subject,
sail upon the broad pinions of conjecture into the remote,
or flutter with lighter wings in the regions of fable,
but it is unnecessary: the mysterious pages of Nature are
ever opening freshly around us, and in her stony volumes,
amid the calcareous strata, we behold the precious mollusc—
the primeval bivalve,

Yet, of its early history we know nothing. Etymology
throws but little light upon the matter. In vain have
we carried our researches into the vernacular of the maritime

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Phœnicians, or sought it amid the fragments of Chaldean
and Assyrian lore. To no purpose have we analyzed the
roots of the comprehensive Hebrew, or lost ourselves in the
baffling labyrinths of the oriental Sanscrit. The history
of the ancient oyster is written in no language, except in
the universal idiom of the secondary strata! Nor is this surprising
in a philosophical point of view. Setting aside the
pre-Adamites, and taking Adam as the first name-giver,
when we reflect, that Adam lived IN-land, and therefore
never saw the succulent periphery in its native mud, we
may deduce this reasonable conclusion: viz, that as he
never saw it, he probably never NAMED it—never!—not
even to his most intimate friends. Such being the case,
we must seek for information in a later and more enlightened
age. And here let me take occasion to remark, that
oysters and intelligence are nearer allied than many persons
imagine. The relations between Physiology and Psychology
are beginning to be better understood. A man might
be scintillant with facetiousness over a plump “Shrewsbury,”
who would make a very sorry figure over a bowl of watergruel.
The gentle, indolent Brahmin, the illiterate Laplander,
the ferocious Libyan, the mercurial Frenchman, and
the stolid (I beg your pardon), the stalwart Englishman,
are not more various in their mental capacities than in

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their table æsthetics. And even in this Century, we see
that wit and oysters come in together with September, and
wit and oysters go out together in May—a circumstance
not without its weight, and peculiarly pertinent to the subject-matter.
With this brief but not irrelevant digression,
I will proceed. We have “Ostreum” from the Latins,
“Oester” from the Saxons, “Auster” from the Teutons,
“Ostra” from the Spaniards, and “Huitre” from the French—
words evidently of common origin—threads spun from
the same distaff! And here our archæology narrows to a
point, and this point is the pearl we are in search of: viz.,
the genesis of this most excellent fish.

“Words evidently derived from a common origin.”
What origin? Let us examine the venerable page of history.
Where is the first mention made of oysters? Hudibras
says:

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This is the first mention in the classics of oysters; and
we now approach the cynosure of our inquiry. From this
we infer that oysters came originally from Britain. The
word is unquestionably primitive. The broad open vowelly
sound is, beyond a doubt, the primal, spontaneous
thought that found utterance when the soft, seductive
mollusc first exposed its white bosom in its pearly shell to
the enraptured gaze of aboriginal man! Is there a question
about it? Does not every one know, when he sees an
oyster, that that is its name? And hence we reason that
it originated in Britain, was latinized by the Romans, replevined
by the Saxons, corrupted by the Teutons, and
finally barbecued by the French. Oh, philological ladder by
which we mount upward, until we emerge beneath the
clear vertical light of Truth!! Methinks I see the First
Oyster-Eater! A brawny, naked savage, with his wild
hair matted over his wild eyes, a zodiac of fiery stars tattooed
across his muscular breast—unclad, unsandalled, hirsute
and hungry—he breaks through the underwoods that margin
the beach, and stands alone upon the sea-shore, with

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nothing in one hand but his unsuccessful boar-spear, and
nothing in the other but his fist. There he beholds a
splendid panorama! The west all a-glow; the conscious
waves blushing as the warm sun sinks to their embraces;
the blue sea on his left; the interminable forest on his
right; and the creamy sea-sand curving in delicate tracery
between. A Picture and a Child of Nature! Delightedly
he plunges in the foam, and swims to the bald erown of
a rock that uplifts itself above the waves. Seating himself
he gazes upon the calm expanse beyond, and swings his
legs against the moss that spins its filmy tendrils in the
brine. Suddenly he utters a cry; springs up; the blood
streams from his foot. With barbarous fury he tears up
masses of sea moss, and with it clustering families of testacea.
Dashing them down upon the rock, he perceives a
liquor exuding from the fragments; he sees the white pulpy
delicate morsel half-hidden in the cracked shell, and instinctively
reaching upward, his hand finds mouth, and
amidst a savage, triumphant deglutition, he murmurs—
Oyster!! Champing, in his uncouth fashion, bits of shell
and sea-weed, with uncontrollable pleasure he masters this
mystery of a new sensation, and not until the gray veil of
night is drawn over the distant waters, does he leave the
rock, covered with the trophies of his victory.

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We date from this epoch the maritime history of England.
Ere long, the reedy cabins of her aborigines clustered
upon the banks of beautiful inlets, and overspread her
long lines of level beaches; or pencilled with delicate
wreaths of smoke the savage aspect of her rocky coasts.
The sword was beaten into the oyster-knife, and the spear
into oyster rakes. Commerce spread her white wings
along the shores of happy Albion, and man emerged at
once into civilization from a nomadic state. From this
people arose the mighty nation of Ostrogoths; from the
Ostraphagi of ancient Britain came the custom of Ostracism—
that is, sending political delinquents to that place where
they can get no more oysters.

There is a strange fatality attending all discoverers. Our
Briton saw a mighty change come over his country—a change
beyond the reach of memory or speculation. Neighboring
tribes, formerly hostile, were now linked together in bonds
of amity. A sylvan, warlike people had become a peaceful,
piscivorous community; and he himself, once the lowest
of his race, was now elevated above the dreams of his ambition.
He stood alone upon the sea-shore, looking toward
the rock, which, years ago, had been his stepping-stone to
power, and a desire to revisit it came over him. He stands
now upon it. The season, the hour, the westerly sky,

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remind him of former times. He sits and meditates. Suddenly
a flush of pleasure overspreads his countenance; for
there just below the flood, he sees a gigantic bivalve—
alone—with mouth agape, as if yawning with very weariness
at the solitude in which it found itself. What I am
about to describe may be untrue. But I believe it. I
have heard of the waggish propensities of oysters. I have
known them, from mere humor, to clap suddenly upon a rat's
tail at night; and, what with the squeaking and the clatter,
we verily thought the devil had broke loose in the
cellar. Moreover, I am told upon another occasion, when
a demijohn of brandy had burst, a large “Blue-pointer” was
found, lying in a little pool of liquor, just drunk enough to
be careless of consequences—opening and shutting his
shells with a “devil-may-care” air, as if he didn't value
anybody a brass farthing, but was going to be as noisy as
he possibly could.

But to return. When our Briton saw the oyster in
this defenceless attitude, he knelt down, and gradually
reaching his arm toward it, he suddenly thrust his fingers
in the aperture, and the oyster closed upon them with a spasmodic
snap! In vain the Briton tugged and roard; he
might as well have tried to uproot the solid rock as to
move that oyster! In vain he called upon all his heathen

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gods—Gog and Magog—elder than Woden and Thor;
and with huge, uncouth, druidical d—ns consigned all
shell-fish to Nidhogg, Hela, and the submarines. Bivalve
held on with “a will.” It was nuts for him certainly.
Here was a great, lubberly, chuckle-headed fellow, the destroyer
of his tribe, with his fingers in chancery, and the
tide rising! A fellow who had thought, like ancient Pistol,
to make the world his oyster, and here was the oyster
making a world of him. Strange mutation! The poor
Briton raised his eyes: there were the huts of his people;
he could even distinguish his own, with its slender spiral of
smoke; they were probably preparing a roast for him;
how he detested a roast! Then a thought of his wife, his
little ones awaiting him, tugged at his heart. The waters
rose around him. He struggled, screamed in his anguish;
but the remorseless winds dispersed the sounds, and ere the
evening moon arose and flung her white radiance upon the
placid waves, the last billow had rolled over the First Oys
ter-Eater!

I purpose at some future time to show the relation existing
between wit and oysters. It is true that Chaucer (a
poet of considerable promise in the fourteenth century) has
alluded to the oyster in rather a disrespectful manner; and
the learned Du Bartas (following the elder Pliny) hath

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accused this modest bivalve of “being incontinent,” a charge
wholly without foundation, for there is not a more chaste
and innocent fish in the world. But the rest of our poets
have redeemed it from these foul aspersions in numberless
passages, among which we find Shakspeare's happy allusion
to

“Rich honesty dwelling in a POOR house.”

And no one now, I presume, will pretend to deny, that
it hath been always held

“Great in mouths of wisest censure!”

In addition to a chapter on wit and oysters, I also may
make a short digression touching cockles.

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p527-152 AN EVENING REVERY.

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p527-156 ON THE HABITS OF IRISHMEN.

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The Green island of Erin, which should more properly
be called the Red island of Ire, is situated off the
northwest coast of England. It is about two hundred
and seventy-eight miles in length, by one hundred and
fifty-five in breadth, differing therein from the brogue of
the country, which is as broad as it is long. It is inhabited
by a race known familiarly as Irishmen. Its principal
exports are linens, whiskey, and emigrants, the two latter
usually going together, the former by itself. It is also
famous for its breed of bulls, specimens of which, pontifical
and otherwise, may be found in any history of Erin:
passim.

Ireland is also celebrated for its wit and poverty: two

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words which have become synonyms in almost every language.
Its cleanliness is proverbial, the very pigs being as
clean, if not cleaner, than their owners; while in regard
to honesty, we are assured by Swift “that the children
seldom pick up a livelihood by stealing until they arrive
at six years old;” although he confesses they get the
rudiments much earlier. The cultivation of vegetables
is an object of national interest in Ireland, especially the
shamrock and shillelah; the latter, in fact, may be seen
flourishing all over the island. As to vermin, if there be
any truth in history, St. Patrick gave them their quietus
in the year 526; then, or thenabout: I am not critical
as to the exact date, but a traditional something to that
effect has been running in every Irishman's head since the
epoch of the Saint's visit in that century.

Ireland is also famous for sobriety, although the Maine
Law has not yet been introduced: “for how,” says Pat,
“can we have a `Maine Law' upon an island? Besides,
we could only carry it out at the point of the bayonet,
which would be the biggest bull poor Paddy ever yet
made in the way of philanthropy!” But there is another
reason. It is embodied in a legend of St. Patrick, and a
legend with an Irishman is as good as an axiom with a
mathematician. It is this:—

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Perhaps no people in the world possess more of the
“amor patriæ” than the inhabitants of this interesting
country. Thousands come to our shores every week who
would live or die for ould Ireland, but who would neither
live nor die in ould Ireland: it being a notion with Pat
that the best way to enjoy himself at home is by going
abroad. This patriotic and philosophical sentiment has
been sometimes emulated in the land of the free and the
home of the brave.

In foreign climes two arts, two sciences, engage the
attention of the Hibernian: Horticulture and Architecture.
Passing along the streets, the spectator is struck
with façades of beautiful buildings in process of erection,
adorned with picturesque Paddies in alto relievo, or beholds
them swarming on domes like bees, excavating like moles,
bridging and damming like beavers, and like

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“The bird of summer
The temple-haunting martlet,”
approving “each jutty, frieze, buttress, and coign of vantage,
by his loved mansionry.” “Where they most breed
and haunt (says Shakspeare) I have observed the air is
delicate!”

Horticulture is a passion with Paddy. It is himself
that makes his way through the world with Pomona in his
arms. Strip him of his hoe, cast his hod to the winds, let
every rung of his ambitious ladder be scattered to the corners
of the earth, and Pat has still a resource. See him
laden with golden oranges, with fragrant bananas, with
cocoa-nuts that resemble his own head when clipped with
the sheep-shears, with embossed and spiky pines! Not
indigenous, but tropical fruits; exotics, like himself. And
did any living being ever see him eat a fruit? Never!
To him they are sacred. As well might you persuade the
circumcised Levite to eat the shew-bread.

Pat believes in the usefulness of meat, but was there
ever seen an Irish butcher? His tender disposition prevents
him trafficking in his household gods. He is more
than a Brahmin in that respect. If you live in the country
and lose your cow, or a favorite ram stray from the
fold, look for it among your Irish neighbors. In those

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rude cottages, displaying on their outer walls the ragged
ensigns of poverty, is hidden the jewel of charity. From
pure compassion your Io, or Aries, has probably been sheltered
in the most comfortable and secluded part of some
Irishman's barn.

Irish mechanics are not common. To be sure there are
tailors and shoemakers who speak the language of Brian
Borheime, but they puzzle not their heads with more abstruse
and scientific mechanical pursuits. Many as we find
perishing annually by steamboat and railroad disasters, no
Hibernian has ever bethought himself of any thing to prevent
the explosion of boilers. If he did, in all probability
he would get it on the wrong end, and make matters worse
instead of better. Whether it arise from his haughty
Spanish or Scythian blood, I know not, but Pat has never
made one useful invention since the beginning of the
world: and in calamities like the above, as he has done
nothing for his fellows, his loss is not considered as a public
disaster: they give a list of the rest of the sufferers,
and the Paddies are usually thrown in.

I am inclined to believe Pat will find “Stame” a more
powerful antagonist than his present ally, and enemy,
England. To be sure he is often found on the track of
improvements, but the ratio of his velocity is not in

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proportion to the square of the distance. The consequence is
an affair with the cow-catcher, in which he usually comes
off second best. This however might be easily obviated by
keeping outside the rails; but his ruthless enemy, like the
grim Afrite in the eastern tale, ever assumes new shapes,
the most formidable of which is the most recent. Stame
enters the arena, with a mighty pair of arms and a mighty
shovel, in the shape of an excavator! How can a real
Paddy compete with a steam-paddy? One convulsive
throb of the iron museles, and a ton of earth drops from
the enormous spade!

I have touched on, or rather hinted at, two virtues
peculiar to Patrick—honesty and sobriety: but there is
yet an unnamed virtue belonging to him, which everybody
will recognize. It is his modesty. An Irish blush is the
most cunning sleight of Nature's hand.

p527-162 LA BELLA ENTRISTECIDA.

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RENDERED FROM THE SPANISH OF J. Q. SUZARTE.

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p527-166 ON THE HABITS OF SCOTCHMEN.

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Scotland, or North Britain, is a vast country, not
quite so large as Ireland. In length, the kingdoms are
about equal, but Scotland is less broad, being exceeding
narrow in some parts. In this respect, a Scotchman is a
fair epitome of his country. His shibboleth, however, is
sufficiently comprehensive for mercantile purposes.

The reason why Scotchmen admire their own language,
is because they are Scotchmen. “I do not know,” says a
friend, “a more remarkable instance of self-complacency
than that of a Scotchman priding himself upon mispronouncing
the English tongue.” This opinion is invidious
and incorrect, as will be seen by reasons which follow:

It must strike every one acquainted with this sagacious

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people, that the chief national characteristic is—absence of
all pretence. Hence arose their zeal in the cause of the
Pretender. For it is a common proof that men are apt to
admire in others those qualities which they possess not
themselves. How else account for those Jacobin spasms,
those musical manifestations from flatulent bag-pipes,
which welcomed “Royal Charlie,” the Papist, among the
blue-nosed Presbyters of the land of Knox? Had they
not been sufficiently roasted, toasted, grilled, seared,
branded, and devilled by the Stuart, sixty years before?
Was there no elder remaining whose memory could reach
as far as the days and deeds of Claverhouse? None
whose taste for music had been seriously impaired by the
demands levied upon their auricular organs by that fascinating
cavalier? It is impossible to solve the problem,
except by the above reason.

I admire this warlike nation. None love so much to
breathe the sulphurous clouds of war as the Scotchman.
The smell of brimstone reminds him of home. He comes
from his glorious mountains, and goes into the fight barebreeched.
Simple in his diet, he finds content in a manger;
and his admiration of the thistle is only emulated by
that patient animal so touchingly spoken of in the Sentimental
Journey. “Nemo me impune lacessit: touch me

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not with impunity: if thou dost, thou shalt scratch for it,”
is his motto. Wrapped in his plaid and his pedigree;
revelling in kilts and kail brose; alike ready with his
claymore and usquebaugh; with much in his skull and
more in his mull; in Highland or Lowland; whether on
the barren heath or no less barren mountain, who can help
loving Sawney, the child of poetry and poverty? Coleridge
loved him, Charles Lamb loved him, Dr. Johnson
loved him, Junius loved him, Sydney Smith loved him, and
I love Sawney, and my love is disinterested. Bless his
diaphanous soul! who can help it?

Scotchmen differ from their Celtic neighbors in some
respects. Pat is a prodigal; his idea of a friend is
“something to be assisted;” a joke is the key to his
heart. Sawney, on the contrary, is vera prudent; a
friend means “something from which to expect assistance;”
and a joke with him is a problem beyond the
œdipus. An Irishman's idea of a head is something to
hit; a Scotchman's is something to be scratched. I do
not know of such a thing extant as an Irish, or Scotch
Jew. Thriftless Paddy with thrifty Mordecai would make
a compound bitter as salt; but a Scotch Jew, I fancy,
would be a hard hand to drive a bargain with.

Who has not heard of Scottish hospitality? Did you,

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reader, ever have a Highland welcome? If not, I will tell
you what it is. It is a tune upon the national violin; the
only thing a stranger gets and carries away from the land
o' cakes.

There is a great difference between the Highland and
the Lowland Scot. This, however, is not so evident when
they migrate, and get their local peculiarities worn away
by attrition with civilized life. Yet there is, and always
has been, a difference between them. We, who live amid
a population more checkered than the most elaborate specimen
of tartan plaid, care very little whether a man's name
begin with a “Mac” or not, that being interesting only to
the directory publisher, and not bearing at all upon social
or fashionable life. But the question assumes a different
aspect when Mr. Ferguson recognizes in Mr. McFingal a
descendant of some former McFingal, who, in a moment
of playful levity, came down from Ben this, or Ben that,
with his kilted Kernes and Gallowglasses, in the manner
so beautifully described by young Norval, and at one fell
swoop carried off all his (Mr. Ferguson's) ancestral Ferguson's
owsen and kye, his Eryholmes and Ayrshires, his
lambies and hoggies, yowes, and whatsoever else of farmstock
and implements lay handy and convenient, without
so much as leaving his note of hand for the same.

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Nor does Mr. McFingal feel a throb of joy at meeting
a descendant of that Ferguson who, with a sma' band in
hodden gray, burked his ancestral McFingal, when in all
the glory of clan-plaid and sporran, the old gentleman was
looking very like a male Bloomer without pantalettes, and
reminded him of previous little familiarities by hanging
him to the nearest tree (if he found one large enough),
for fear he might never get another chance. These trifling
family bickerings, however, rarely disturb the outward
manifestations of courtesy: Mr. F. meets Mr. McF. with
the utmost apparent cordiality; although, I fear, each
have a secret impulse which had better be left hidden in
the Scotch mists of dubiety.

One faculty peculiar to Scotland is the gift of second-sight.
A remarkable dilation of the pupil when a Scotchman
sees a shilling makes it appear in his eyes as large as
two shillings. This is second-sight. To it may be ascribed
his wonderful abstemiousness. A red herrin in his ecstatic
vision becomes glorified—it rises to the majesty of a silver
salmon; a spare-rib expands to a sirloin, and a bannock o'
barley meal enlarges to the dimensions of a bride's-cake.
“You never see,” says Mr. Strahan to Dr. Johnson, “you
never see people dying of hunger in Scotland, as you often
do in England.” “That,” replied the Doctor, “is owing to

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the impossibility of starving a Scotchman.” This anecdote,
which I give upon the authority of James Boswell, Esq.,
Laird of Auchinleek, will be readily understood, if we accept
the above postulate.

That second-sight is a source of great gratification to
Scotchmen is unquestionably true, but there is one exception.
Very few of that “volant tribe of bards,” I take
it, covet much a second sight of their own country. In
support of this opinion, let me mention a circumstance
which occurred some years ago in England. A Scotchman,
for some offence, was sentenced, in one of the criminal
courts, to be hanged; but his countrymen, in a petition as
long as his pedigree, besought the King to commute the
sentence, to which His Majesty graciously acceded, ordering
him to be transported instead. When Sawney heard
of this little diversion in his favor, in place of expressing
any signs of joy, he turned, with misery written in every
lineament of his face, and asked where the King intended
to send him. “To Botany Bay,” was the answer. “Gude
bless his saul,” said Sawney, brightening up at once; “I
was afeard I was to be sent hame again!”

I look forward to acquiring a taste for Scottish poetry
as one of the pleasing accomplishments of my old age.
What I mean, is that written in the melodious dialect of

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the land of Hogg. Scottish prose, I regret to say, has
scarcely an existence, owing to the fact that every scholar
in North Britain endeavors to learn English as speedily
as possible, in order to fulfil his destiny; for to write
a History of England seems to be the height of
Scotch literary ambition. It is a singular fact, but for
the disinterested labors of their brethren in the North,
Englishmen would scarcely know any thing of their own
country.

Pride of birth is another happy attribute of Sawney.
No matter how unkindly the north wind may whistle
through his tattered breeks; no matter if he have not a
bawbee in his loof, nor parritch in his pot, he looks back
through the haze of antiquity, and beholds his illustrious
Forbears—like a string of onions reversed, with the biggest
ones on top, and the little ones following at a respectful
distance.

There is something so naïve in Tennant's life of Allan
Ramsay, that I cannot help bringing it in here, by way
of an episode:

“His step-father, little consulting the inclination of
young Allan, and wishing as soon as possible, and at any
rate, to disencumber himself of the charge of his support,
bound this nursling of the muse apprentice to a wig-maker.

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Lowly as this profession is, it has been vindicated by one
of Ramsay's biographers into comparative dignity, by separating
it from the kindred business of barber, with which
it is vulgarly and too frequently confounded. Ramsay was
never, it seems, a barber; his enemies never blotted him
with that ignominy; his calling of `skull-thacker,' as he
himself ludicrously terms it, was too dignified to be let
down into an equality with the men of the razor. Thus,
from the beginning, his business was with the heads of men!”

If this be not getting cleverly out of a bad business, I
do not understand Scotch. Having vindicated the young
“skull-thatcher” from the sharp practice of men of the
razor, it will not be out of place to lift him a notch higher
by another quotation from the same book: “His mother,
Alice Bower, was daughter of Allan Bower, a gentleman
of Derbyshire, whom Lord Hopetown had brought to
Scotland to superintend his miners. In his lineage,
therefore, our poet had something to boast of, and though
born to nae lairdship,” (he means `not worth a rap,') “he
fails not to congratulate himself on being sprung from the
loins of a Douglas.”

In the Tropics there are certain porous vessels, through
which fluids, no matter how impure, distil in bright drops,

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without showing any taint of the offensive contact. In
like manner, it is easy to imagine the blood of a Douglas
percolating through the clay of a wig-maker, and descending
to a late posterity in all its original splendor.
Methinks I see it centuries hence, running its devious
course through paupers and scavengers; through poets and
pickpockets; rusting in jails, and stagnating in almshouses,
but finally blazing out in pristine lustre—flashing
on panels—glittering on harness—blazing in plaids: the
same old feudal blood of the Red Douglas, which throbbed
in the heart of Allan Ramsay, the skull-thatcher, and
author of one of the sweetest lyrical dramas in the
language!

With this grand flourish of bagpipes, I drop the curtain.
In the words of my old friend, “May ye be as wise
as a serpent, and as cannie as a dove.”

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p527-176 THE LOCKET: AN ANCIENT BALLAD.

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p527-180 ON SOCIETIES FOR AMELIORATING THE CONDITION OF THE RICH.

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IT hath long been a matter of surprise to me, that amidst
a multitude of benevolent institutions we have none
for ameliorating the condition of the rich. A large class is
certainly left out of the sphere of popular charity, which,
from a careful examination of the smallest camels in various
menageries, and a personal inspection of John Hemming
and Son's best drilled-eyed cambrics, seems to stand
more in need of our sympathies than any people under the
sun. We may also observe, when one of these highly-respected
citizens is on his way to the other world, he is generally
followed by an unusual concourse of clergymen; and

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this, like a consultation of physicians, would appear to indicate
that the person was in more than ordinary peril, and
therefore needed greater care and skill than one within the
reach of customary medicines.

I am impelled to make this suggestion more particularly
now, from the fact that this class is growing upon us:
the evil is spreading, and to a greater extent than many
good people imagine. I have been surprised lately to find
persons whom I did not imagine worth a copper, freely acknowledging
themselves to be wealthy; and others, of
whose poverty I had not a doubt, confessing, with some
little tribulation and blushing, there was no truth in that
report; that money was with them, yea, abundantly.
Such being the case, a common sense of humanity should
induce us to relieve our opulent brethren from a portion of
their distress, in order to prevent extension of the mischief.
“Homo sum; nihil humani à me alienum puto.” We, who
belong to the ancient and honorable order of poverty, must
not be neglectful of such claims upon us. Yet we should
do it tenderly and affectionately; not haughtily, and with
an air of superiority, but with a grace.

“Poverty,” saith Austin, “is the way to heaven, the
mistress of philosophy, the mother of religion, virtue, sobriety,
sister of innocency and an upright mind.” True—

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I dispute not the words of the Father: but need we therefore
exult and vaingloriously contemn those who have
the misfortune to be rich? Should we not rather take
them by the hand, and show them the way to be better,
wiser, happier? Should we not teach them that riches
are only relative blessings; poverty a positive one? Should
we let them struggle on for years and years in a wrong
path, without endeavoring to pluck them “as brands from
the burning?”

Riches are only relative: Apax is rich, but Syphax is
richer: by-and-by, some rude, illiterate fellow, who went
to California with a spade on his shoulder, returns with
money enough to eclipse both. Our little domestic flashes
of wealth pale their ineffectual fires before the dazzling opulence
of the India House; nay, show like poverty itself,
compared with that treasury of empires, which seems to
realize


—“the royal state which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus or of Ind.”
And yet Tempus edax rerum: its ingots and tissues, its
barbaric pearl and gold, will be scattered; oblivion will set
its seal upon it; obscurity, with dust and ashes— Stay—

The India House has a name connected with it—an
humble and unpretending name—whose influence will

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draw pilgrims thither while one crumbling stone rests
upon another; and when the very ground where it now
stands shall be forgotten, when its illustrious line of nameless
nabobs lie neglected with the common multitude,
upon that ancient edifice will rest, like a sunset glory,
the fame of Charles Lamb.

I know many are jealous of position, and derive no little
self-respect from what they call their “circumstances.”
But how mutable is pecuniary fame! Must not the mere
wealthy occupy a position comparatively degraded in the
presence of the wealthier? And how do our wealthiest
show beside those nabobs of the India House—those eastern
magnificats? Very like paupers, I fancy. Should it
not then awaken the sympathies of the benevolent—the
unfortunate situation of those “creatures of circum
stance?”

There are those, rich as well as poor, superior to this,
and with such, this humane proposition has nothing to do.
Refinement and courtesy adorn opulence; benevolence
moves in a wider sphere, rare accomplishments and exquisite
taste are more attainable, when liberal means unite
with liberal uses. But ignorance and vulgarity, meanness
and pretence, are hideous in gilded trappings. For
the benefit of this class I make the suggestion.

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It is not in my nature to cast reflections. I could
scarcely forgive the spiteful allusion of H— the other
day to a certain Gothic building, which he called “the
ecclesiastical rattle for grown-up children;” an epithet
unworthy of a poor man glorying in the power of his literary
affluence. No, far be it from me to countenance
uncharitable reflections: let us remember we are all human,
it is man's nature to err, many cannot help being
rich; and souls vibrating between the opera-house and
such places as the one above alluded to, drifting as it were
upon tides of harmony any whither, are objects—not of
our derision—but of our pity.

My intention had been to refer to the miseries of the
rich in this paper, but a mere allusion to so fruitful a subject
will doubtless suggest enough to awaken the sympathies
of the benevolent. Avarice—mere avarice, in itself—
is bad enough; a powerful astringent, it produces constipation
of the mind, from whence comes ignorance, the
mother of mischief. But Avarus dies and endows benevolent
institutions, and thereby the world is bettered. It
is the tinsel show of real or affected wealth; its currents
of folly, its ebbs and flows, tides, eddies and whirlpools;
its generations, rising up in young misses who have not
left off the rocking motion acquired in the cradle; its

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squab-dandies, stilting along on legs you might thrust in
your double-barrel gun; its elders, with a reversion in
Greenwood for the benefit of their heirs; it is this show,
this pageant, which appears to the philanthropist pitiable
beyond the mimic efforts of the stage, the fictions of imagination,
or the supplications of the professional pauper
who begs, with God knows how much, content in his heart.

I fear I also may be amenable to the charge of

— “boasting poverty, with too much pride,”

I propose to the benevolent, to establish societies for
ameliorating the condition of the rich. I would suggest
that a board of directors be appointed, with visiting committees,
to inquire into the condition of the more opulent
families, to call upon them personally, and give such advice
and assistance as their several cases seem to require.

To the board of visitors, I would refer the motto above
quoted:


“The quality of merey is not strained:
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is TWICE blessed;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”
Therefore take what you can, and be merciful.

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I would recommend an asylum to be provided for those
whose opulence is excessive, and at the same time whose
mental incapacity prevents them taking proper care of
themselves.

I would suggest the purchase of substantial woollen
garments for those who need them; gymnasiums for
youth; and that a proper care be had for the moral
culture of both sexes.

But, above all, I suggest the immediate organization
of the society. The miseries of the rich afford so copious
a field for the exercise of true benevolence, that I leave
the matter to those more experienced and better able to
advise than the writer.

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p527-188 WHERE IS THE HOLY TEMPLE?

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p527-190 ALLITERATION.

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“Why the art of poetry should be so much neglected,
and the inferior art of music so extensively cultivated
in this age of intelligence?” is a question more easily
asked than answered. There are many young ladies, and
young gentlemen, able to discourse, almost pedantically, of
chromatics and dynamics; of staccatos and appoggiaturas;
who would not be ashamed to confess they had not the remotest
idea of an iambus, or a dactyl. I speak now of
the elementary principles of those arts; of acquaintance
with the mechanism, by which certain effects are produced
in either. I do not think a mere knowledge of the catechism
of verses sufficient to create a Byron or a Shakspeare.
I am sure cultivation in music has produced very
few Mozarts or Rossinis, this side the Atlantic. But

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if we aspire neither to be great poets, nor great composers,
why devote so much attention to acquire the art of the latter,
and neglect entirely the art of the first?

Why not understand the iambic measure as well as
common time?

Why not a trochee as well as a crotchet?

Why not language in its divinest form as well as
sound?

Why not cultivate conversation as well as music?

The essays of Edgar A. Poe, and “Imagination and
Fancy,” by Leigh Hunt, are not only valuable, but agreeable
text-books, relating to an art, a knowledge of which
should be one of the indispensable requisites of polite education.
As for the cast-aside prosodies of the school-room,
they had better be left where they are. They hold freedom
of expression in bondage and load invention with shackles.
They are retrospective, not introspective. They teach us
what has been done, not what may be done.

Imagination and fancy, pathos and humor, are born, not
made.* But these rare gifts take various forms of expression.
The poet sees a moonlight and describes it. The
painter paints it. Harmony is translated differently by

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sculpture and music. But the same feeling for, or sense of
beauty, pervades either and all.

Imagination takes a poetic form through versification.
Ben Jonson, in his “Discoveries,” observes this. “A poem,
as I have told you, is the work of the poet; the end
and fruit of his labor and study. Poesy is his skill or
craft of making; the very fiction itself, the reason or form
of the work. And these three voices differ as the thing
done, the doing, and the doer; the thing feigned, the
feigning and the feigner; so the poem, the poesy (or versification),
and the poet.”

Versification is made up of many elements. In this
art as in others, certain latent principles exist, even in the
rudest productions. These have been more or less developed
by various poets in various ages. To one of these elements,
which is in truth only a minor embellishment, I purpose
to devote this essay.

That alliteration, as an element of the art, has been
carefully studied by almost all English poets, must be obvious
to every reader of English poetry. The illustrations
I shall present, by way of simplifying the matter will be
confined to a single letter of the alphabet. The liquid consonant
“L” will suit the purpose best, because it is a favorite,
and justly so, on account of its euphony.

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“The letter L,” says Ben Jonson, “hath a half-vowelish
sound,” and “melteth in the sounding.” Many of the
softest words in our language hold it (so to speak) in solution.
Amiable, voluble, golden, silvery, gentle, peaceful,
tranquil, glide, glode, dimple, temple, simple, dulcet,
blithely, vernal, tendril, melody, lute, twinkle, lonely,
stilly, valley, slowly, lithe, playful, linger, illusion, lovely,
nightingale, philomel, graceful, slumber, warble, pool, pensile,
silken, gleam, lull, are all more or less expressive of
softness, sweetness, and repose. To this may be objected,
that the word “hell!” with its double consonants, is suggestive
of neither. This is not because the word itself is
at fault; the meaning becomes confounded with the sound.
A friend suggests “that if hell were the name of a flower,
it would be thought beautiful.” “Helen” is a pretty
female name, and it is united with the story of her who
won the golden apple on Mount Ida—the loveliest woman
of the world.

Are not drowsily, dreamily, lullaby, super-euphonisms?

“How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!”

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“That kiss went tingling to my very heart.
When it was gone, the sense of it did stay;
The sweetness cling'd upon my lips all day.”
“Cling'd upon my lips!”—exquisite Dryden!

Do we not apprehend, in these lines of Tennyson, a
sense of beauty quite as dependent upon the melody as
upon the image?—


“Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.”
Our own great poet, Drake, alliterates in the musicallest
verses;—


“And in Aluga's vale below
The gilded grain is moving slow,
Like yellow moonlight on the sea,
When waves are swelling peacefully.”
Coleridge's famous stanza begins—

“A damsel with a dulcimer.”

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“And softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain's top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.”
Coleridge again—


“Her gentle limbs she did undress
And lay down in her loveliness.”
Of which Leigh Hunt remarks, “the very smoothness and
gentleness of the limbs, is in the series of the letter l's.”

“A lady so richly clad as she,
Beautiful exceedingly.”
Let us take a few examples from Milton:—

“Lap me in soft Lydian airs.”
“In notes with many a winding bout
Of linkéd sweetness long drawn out.”
In Gray's Elegy we find—


“Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.”
A marvellous collocation of l's.

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It lingers throughout the pages of Shelley—

There are many instances in Spenser; I will quote
one as an ensample:

“The gentle warbling wind low answeréd to all.”

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How glibly the pen of that old gourmand, Ben Jonson,
wrote—

Milton again—


“To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair.”
Need I point out the charming echo in these lines?
Sometimes there is a musical ring in repetition—

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I might, in addition to these, make other selections,
from various writers, but it is scarcely necessary. Doubtless
many will suggest themselves to the reader. It is
easy to quote texts in support of any theory, however fanciful;
but these selections, embracing some of the most
celebrated lines in the language, remarkable for sweetness
and fluency, have one property in common—they are all
alliterations of the letter 1.

“And would you infer from that,” quoth the reader,
“it is necessary to have such alliterations in every poem,
to make it pass muster?”

By no means; I wish only to direct your attention to
one element, which, as I have said before, is but a minor
embellishment in versification. I have taken up a single letter—
you have the whole alphabet before you, with imagination,
fancy, humor, pathos, and sentiment to boot. If
we do not know the value of a trochee, an anapæst, or an

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iambus, then, as far as we are concerned, have Shakspeare,
Milton, and Spenser written poetry in vain. They might
as well have limited themselves to prose.

“And do you think those great poets made these alliterations
knowingly and systematically?”

Amigo mio, either they knew what they were doing, or
they did not. If they merely blundered into beauty, then
their merits have been somewhat overrated. I am inclined
to believe those master weavers of verse understood the fabric,
woof and warp, quite as well as any threadbare critic
or grammarian—perhaps better.

The poetic student will find many valuable hints in
Ben Jonson's “Discoveries,” from which I have quoted
briefly. I will conclude this essay (the amusement of a
long winter evening) by another excerpt from the same
source. He says, speaking of poetry—

“The study of it (if we will trust Aristotle) offers to
mankind a certain rule and pattern of living well and happily,
disposing us to all civil offices of society. If we will
believe Tully, it nourisheth and instructeth our youth, delights
our age, adorns our prosperity, comforts our adversity,
entertains us at home, keeps us company abroad,
travels with us, watches, divides the time of our earnest
and sports, shares in our country recesses and recreations,

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insomuch as the wisest and best learned have thought her
the absolute mistress of manners, and nearest of kin to
virtue. And whereas they entitle philosophy to be a rigid
and austere poesy; they have, on the contrary, styled
poetry a duleet and gentle philosophy, which leads on and
guides us by the hand to action, with a ravishing delight,
and incredible sweetness.”

O rare Ben Jonson!

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p527-202 ALBUM VERSES.

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LOVE WITHOUT HOPE.

Love without hope! poor cheerless flower

Come, in this hapless bosom rest:

Whisper, at midnight's weary hour,

“Though unrequited, not unblest.”

Teach me to love, and yet forego;

Teach me to wish, and yet forbear;

To hopeless live, and hopeless know

The dead, dumb, sweetness of despair.

Thus, in the calm lake's peaceful breast

The golden clouds reflected rest;

But the mad waves more rashly woo,

And lose the image they pursue.

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TO SARAH.

&hebwife;, in the ancient Hebrew,

Meaneth “mistress, dame, or wife,”

So it seems your fate is settled,

For the matrimonial life.

Home, they say, is next to heaven,

That's a thing well understood;

And, I think, Miss Sally —

You can make the adage good.

But, while life is in its spring-time,

Keep that little heart of thine

Like some precious relic, hidden

In a pilgrim-worshipped shrine.

Though, from lips of fondest lover,

Words of soft persuasion breathe,

Let ten years at least roll over

Ere you wear the orange-wreath.

Ten good years, and then I'll wager

Twenty thousand pounds upon it,

Sweeter maid than Sarah, never

Blushed beneath a bridal bonnet.

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TO MARY.

Dear Mary, though these lines may fade,

And drop neglected in the dust,

Yet what I wish, my little maid,

Will surely come to pass, I trust.

May all that's purest, rarest, best,

Be imaged ever in thy heart;

And may thy future years attest

Thee innocent, as now thou art.

Fair seem the flowers, fair seems the spring,

Bright shines the sun—the starry band,

Life flies, with inexperienced wing,

O'er blooming fields of Morning-land.

But where you rosy summit glows

Forbear to tempt the aspiring flight,

For storms those painted clouds enclose,

And tempests beat yon glittering height.

Ah, no—the illusive wish forego—

This precept learn, by nature given,

From mountain's tops, we gaze below,

But in the vales, we look to heaven.

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Then be thy guide the golden truth;

Keep thou thy heart serene and young;

And in thy age, as in thy youth,

Thou'lt still be loved and still be sung.

p527-206 THE LAY-FIGURE.

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IN the ancient city of Cordova, in one of its narrowest
streets (the Calle de San Pedro), there formerly lived
an aged artist, by name Don Diego Gonzales. The two
things he most prized in the world were his daughter and
a lay-figure, the latter being at that time the only one in
the city. And sooth to say, his passion for his lay-figure
was such that it was produced in all his pictures, which
made them to be sought after as those of an original and
unique school, different from any thing in nature; in fact,
so much enamored was he of this thing of wood, canvas,
and sawdust, that he scarcely thought of his daughter,
whose eyes were like brown garnets, her waist like the
stalk of a lily, and her lips like the cleft in a rose with the
early dew on it. Truly the fable of Pygmalion was

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revived in Calle de San Pedro, in the ancient city of Cordova.

Not far from his studio there lived a young painter,
who had often seen the beautiful Isadora (for such was the
name of Don Diego's daughter), as she went to mass and
confession, and oftentimes he had sought in vain to pierce
through the gloom of her lattice with his eyes, or meet her,
in his visits to the old man. But all his efforts ended in
disappointment, until, by dint of laying siege in regular
form, that is by sonnets and sighs, accompanied by catgut
and wire, he succeeded in ensnaring the bird; I mean, he
gained her heart completely. The old man took no notice
of these tender affairs, so much occupied was he with his
lay-figure. But for all that, Don Juan de Siempreviva
knew very well there was no hope of obtaining Don Diego's
consent; the old man's experience with artists being such
that I verily believe he would almost have burnt his beloved
lay-figure before he would have given his daughter
to the best of that profession in Cordova. Knowing, however,
that kindness of heart was a prominent trait in Don
Diego's character, Don Juan laid a plan to gain his ends.

It was, to get the loan of the lay-figure; and by dint
of perseverance, not unmixed with flattery, he succeeded.
Now, as it was the custom of Don Diego, after breakfast and

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prayers to sit in his studio absorbed in his work until siesta,
and as most of the time the head of the lay-figure was
covered by a cloth to keep it from the flies, it was agreed
that Isadora should adopt the dress of the figure, cover
her head with the cloth, take its place some morning,
and thus be carried off by four stout porters to the lodgings
of Don Juan, where the priest and all things being ready,
the knot could be tied, and a trip to Madrid, followed by
penitence and forgiveness, would make a very pretty little
romantic affair, without doing harm to any body.

The expected morning came at last, and you may be
sure Don Juan waited with some impatience for his prize.
At last the porters entered, bearing it upon a narrow platform,
and as soon as their backs were turned, he drew with
impatience the cloth from the face, and beheld not the
beautiful Isadora, but the waxen features of the lay-figure!
Isadora not being able to effect the change in time, the
lay-figure was borne away, and I assure you the old man
could not have vented more lamentable groans had it been
in reality the body of his own daughter.

Now surprising as it may seem, soon after, Don Juan
became as much enamored of the lay-figure as Don Diego
had been. It was the subject of all his studies, and the
ideal that found a place in all his productions, so that the

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connoisseurs of Cordova were puzzled with every new picture,
some pronouncing it to be a genuine Gonzales, while
others as stoutly maintained it to be a Siempreviva. In
the meanwhile the beautiful Isadora, utterly neglected,
pined alone within her chamber, without so much as a
word or look from the faithless Don Juan. And the end
of it was, there arose a deadly hatred between the old and
the young artist concerning the lay-figure; and there was a
hostile meeting in the Paseo, outside the walls, in which
Don Diego was killed; and soon after Don Juan being apprehended
and executed, the beautiful Isadora died of grief.
Her tomb is in the burial-place behind the great cathedral,
with this inscription;

But the lay-figure still remains; and to this day you
can find copies of it in many pictures in and out of Cordova.

p527-210 To—.

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“BRING,” saith the Hindoo wife, “the flame,”

“And pile the crackling faggots high;

In joy and woe, in pride and shame,

With thee I lived—with thee I'll die—

In streams of fire my soul shall be

Upborne to thee!”

So, round my heart, consuming love

The dark, funereal pyre uprears;

Onward the rolling moments move,

And Death—the Merciful! appears,—

But oh—the bitter pang! to be

Removed from thee.

Oh, could my heart again be still,

Though 'twere the grave that held my mould,

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I'd seek the shadowed mystery,—

The silent chamber, dark and cold;—

Yet life—dear life! would priceless be

If shared with thee.

But now, the flames to ashes turn;

The wine to blood—oh ghastly sight!

The pall half drapes the sculptured urn

Where faintly burns yon spectral light,

And shadowy phantoms beckon me

Away—from thee.

Come to the house! 'tis deadly still—

Sombre, and low, and chill, and wet,

With earth-worms writhing o'er the sill,

Earthy, and mouldy, smelleth it;

'Tis mine—my mansion reared for me

By thee!—By thee!

p527-212 MY BOY IN THE COUNTRY.

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METHINKS I see his head's round, silky crop,

Like a blown thistle's top!

Or watch him walk—with legs stretched wide apart,

Dragging a small red cart;

Or hear his tiny treble, chirp in play,

With, “O go way!”

Or, where the crystal eddies swirl the sand,

I see him stand

To plump the polished pebbles in the brook

With steadfast look,

While his wee, waggling head, with nothing on it

But a sun-bonnet,

Looks like the picture of a Capuchin

A round frame in.

Now with his tender fist he rubs his eye:

“Plague take that fly!”

p527-213

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Or hovering Bessy claps a sudden veto

On some moschito

While he lies sleeping, in his shaded crib,

Sans stocking, bib;

His toes curled up so sweet that I could eat 'em,

How could I beat him?

How lay a finger on that soft brown skin,

With many a blue vein interspersed therein?