Phalanx Socialist Literature.
After this piece of borrowing and altering from Hoffman, the writer talks a great deal about “the old theme and under-current of Opera—the Body and the Soul—the liberty of Passion in conflict with the Law intensely narrowed down by social custom from God’s great law of universal harmony,” and such like rubbish, and then informs us in a note, with his usual precision, by way of illustrating this “under-current” of “Body and Soul” in “Old Opera theme,” that, strange to say, the first Opera he reads of, and which was produced at Rome in 1600, bore the name of “Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo!”
Now if this were so, it is puzzling to know what it would have to do with all his talk about “the under-current of Body and Soul” in Don Giovanni: but it is not true. The first Opera on record is Euridice, the libretto composed by the poet Rinuccini, the music by the composer Peri. It was presented, as he says, in 1600, but not at Rome—at Florence, on the occasion of the marriage of Mary di Medici with Henri Quatre of France.
In 1600, Emilio del Cavalieri, of Rome, brought out an Oratorio, which was sung in a church in that city, which bore the title “Dell Anima e di Corpo;” and the invention of Recitative dates from these two compositions—the opera Euridice of Peri, and the Sacred Oratorio of Cavalieri. But it answered his purpose to imagine this the other way, and with his usual want of accuracy he applied it—or he was ignorant, and with true transcendental presumption, took it for granted no one knew any more than he did.
Such reviews as this we now write of would be scarcely worth noticing, if it were not for the fact, that they are accepted by the uninstructed, for real bona fide musical criticisms, founded on actual knowledge. One might have expected that Mr. Saroni’s rebuking exposure of his Musical Trinity Article, would have startled the author into something like modesty; and when one sees how reckless he is, it makes one wish that Mr. Saroni would carry his threat into execution, and publish those “certain articles” on Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which bear such a remarkable similarity to Mr. Dwight’s lectures.
M. Bombert says, in his “Life of Mozart,” when speaking of this Opera of Don Giovanni—
“He (Mozart) shines in the awful accompaniment to the reply of the statue—a composition perfectly free from all inflation or bombast—it is the style of Shakspeare in music.”
Now for Mr. Dwight’s patch-work—straightway he snatches up this idea of M. Bombert, and makes use of it thus:
“The splendid sinner’s end is rather melo-dramatic in the Opera, and yet there is a poetic and moral truth in it—and the spectre of the commendatore is a creation fully up to Shakspeare.”
This is literary murder as well as literary theft. Now any one who knows any thing of this Opera will see that the “creation of the commendatore” has nothing remarkable in it, but the Orchestral Accompaniment is one of the grandest things ever composed. Mozart cared very little for the stage part of the affair; and this is proved by the finest music in this Opera being given to the Orchestra. We have heard—we cannot give the authority—but we have read somewhere, that a contemporary critic said that Mozart had put his statue in the Orchestra, and left only the pedestal on the stage—and this is true.
Mr. Dwight gives such an exaggerated, spun-out account of this famous Opera, endeavoring at the same time to gloss over the gross, vulgar, immorality of the plot, with all that confused mysticism peculiar to this Harbinger and Phalanx style of composition, that we will sketch a short matter-of-fact outline of it. Mr. Dwight, with the usual insane transcendental desire to apply an epithet, and make a speech, says, in a short sentence, which he thinks very comprehensive, that it “is an old middle age Catholic story;” making a sort of defense for the shocking immoralities in it, by accusing, impliedly, the strict discipline of the church for the libertine hero’s licentiousness, to whom he applies another string of expletives. In the opening, Mr. Dwight calls him “a large, imposing, generous, fascinating creature.” Now he has him “an elegant, full-blooded, rich, accomplished, and seductive gallant.” A sort of “a love of a man” according to Mr. Dwight’s ideas.
The subject of the story of Don Giovanni was a favorite one in the 17th century—“the middle age Catholic times!” Mr. Dwight talks of, in his off-hand sentence characterizing the story, was a little earlier than that, we think, a trifle of two or three hundred years or so—but let that pass. French, Italian, and Spanish writers all used it. Moliere wrote a famous play on it, “Festin de Pierre,” and from Moliere’s play Da Ponte prepared his libretto.
The story is a decided failure; and a great deal of time, and paper, and manufactured sentiment have been wasted in endeavoring to excuse and even to discover hidden philosophy and a good moral in it. Mr. Dwight is not the first one at this piece of business. If the wish is to make operatic music elevate and refine the public taste, by contributing to the moral purity of our people, composers should not select immoral and wicked plots; and no matter how beautiful the music may be, no audience should tolerate such a degrading story as Don Giovanni. It is full of all sorts of unnatural and disgusting scenes. The opening is very fine, and leads one to expect something tragic and grand.
Don Giovanni, a wicked, reckless libertine, has entered at midnight the house of an old military officer, and is seen at the rising of the curtain rushing out of the door, followed by the beautiful daughter of the commander, who he had intended to add to the list of his victims. A beautiful, rapid duet ensues between this daughter, Donna Anna, and Don Giovanni, she endeavoring to discover the bold ravisher. During this, her old father comes out, sword in hand—a combat ensues—Don Giovanni kills the old officer, and escapes. Then follows a beautiful scena, one of the gems of the Opera, between Donna Anna and her lover, Ottavio. She expresses her grief in heart-rending notes, and with frantic earnestness calls on her lover to avenge the murder. All this promises well, and one would imagine from so grand a commencement, something magnificently tragic was surely to follow. But the whole of the middle part of the Opera is flat and insipid—we are speaking now only of the story—filled with disgusting scenes of Don Giovanni’s gallantries. With a hard and sensual heart, he betrays alike the high and the low—the lady and the maid; he stains the palace and pollutes the peasant’s cot with his wanton treachery and crimes. He goes to a village festival, and selects for another victim, a poor village girl, a bride—Zerlina. This character was one of Madam Malibran’s famous parts, as Donna Anna was of Sontag’s. Zerlina, though properly the second Donna’s character, occupies more room in the Opera than the first soprano, Donna Anna. The famous duet, “La ci darem la mano,” is sung by Don Giovanni and her; and her little coquetries with the libertine lord, and seductive coaxing scenes with her peasant bridegroom, occupy a large portion of the middle part of the Opera.
A Donna Elvira, a discarded wife or mistress it seems to matter little which—of Don Giovanni comes in also. A trying scene ensues between her and Leperello—the impudent, buffoon valet of Don Giovanni—the buffo character of the opera, during which, he tells her of his master’s conquests, while the poor Elvira has to stand mute, and listen to his long, comic piece; which—if she is not a better actress than is generally cast in a third-rate character—makes it very absurd in representation.
After the grand opening scene of the first Act, Donna Anna and her lover Ottavio dwindle down into insignificance. All their frantic declarations of revenge end in nothing, and they content themselves with following the licentious nobleman about in masquerade; once in a while picking him up in the streets, unmasking, and entertaining themselves in berating him. They sing a beautiful trio with Elvira, just before the banquet scene; which is about the only good and useful thing they do in the Opera. For it serves a double purpose—as an English critic suggests—besides pleasing the audience, it gives time to have the stage prepared for the banquet-scene.
Don Giovanni, after flirting with and seducing fine ladies and humble peasant maidens, at last meets with his punishment; but not at the hands of the injured fair ones, or at the more probable ones of the outraged lovers; that would be too reasonable for this most unnatural story, but the grave must yield up its dead, and the infernal regions disclose their horrible secrets. At midnight, again he enters upon the stage—the scene represents a square, containing a marble monument, erected by Donna Anna to the memory of her murdered father. Leporello is with him, frightened to death at the sight of the grave by moonlight, and he declares to his reckless master that the statue moves its head. The bold libertine scoffs at the valet’s cowardice, and by way of bravado, invites the marble statue to sup with him. To his amazement the Statue answers “Yes,” “Si,” and here is that beautiful passage in the music which M. Bombert considers the Shakspearian style in music—it is the Orchestral Accompaniment to the simple reply of the Statue. A little startled, Don Giovanni leaves the stage. But in the next scene he appears as abandoned as ever. What a capital transcendental critic he would have made. He is supping alone, and seems to eat with great goût. During his solitary banquet the Statue enters, according to the engagement. Don Giovanni can scarcely credit his senses; but, bold to the last, receives his remarkable guest with great ceremony. The Statue tells him he has come on a mission of warning, and that he has yet a chance for repentance. Don Giovanni scoffs at the offer, and overcoming his awe, takes the extended hand of the Statue. In an instant, he is struck with the death-pangs—the Statue disappears—and he dies in a vision of endless torments, which is generally represented on the stage by a display of fireworks, giving the vulgar idea of the infernal regions; a place made for the devil and his angels.
Now it is this shameless, coarse libertine that Mr. Dwight in his article, following in the wake of others, strives not only to excuse, but to idealize and elevate.
We have done with the story: let us return for a few moments to Mozart’s part of this Opera—the music. Off of the stage, in a salon or concert-room, the effect of this Opera is most beautiful; for on the stage the immoral, vulgar story, low buffoonery and farce-like appearance of many of the scenes, are sadly at variance with the elevated and almost religious tone of the music, and disgust even a hearty admirer, if he is candid enough to admit it.
Let us here take leave of this subject and of Mr. Dwight: begging of him in future, if he is not able to be original, to at least copy good models of style and morals, and not inflict upon the community his own exaggerated, loose-principled, Boston notions. Luckily, however, his style is so confused and mystified, that much of the injurious effect is lost. We have heard these Boston non-religionists talk, and we know with what goût they “defy the moral” of any matter, to use Mr. Dwight’s own words; then, how can one expect better principles, where such laxity of morals are avowed. The closing sentence in this Don Giovanni article is a pretty fair specimen of this anti-religious, moral-defying kind of literature; indeed, the whole article is—for “passion life,” “innate gospel of joy,” and such English run-mad expressions dance through the whole article, enlivened and varied, once in a while, with some of the fire-engine vernacular.
Shame! shame upon such literature! Mr. Dwight talks of the “divine good of the senses and the passions,” and longs for that “pure and perfect state,” when these grosser parts of our nature “shall be—not dreaded, not suppressed; but regulated, harmonized, made rythmical and safe, and more than ever lifesome and spontaneous, by Law as broad and as deep themselves.” A pretty state of affairs we should have in such a hereafter as these people long for. All this is entirely foreign to our old-fashioned notions of Heaven and a hereafter. It may be the Heaven of an Agapedome, or a Woman’s Rights Convention, but it is not the Heaven of a Christian. And they will find out, sooner or later, that there is a real hereafter—a solemn, and stern judging hereafter; and though they may imagine that their transcendental “Souls, with their capacity for joy and harmony, is of that godlike and asbestos quality,” as to defy punishment, punishment will come, and pretty effectual it will be, and they will see all this “spiritual asbestos quality”—why not gutta percha, just as well—of little account, when they are found with lamps untrimmed, and talents buried in the earth.
Mount Edgecumb.
THE AUTOGRAPH OF GOD.
———
BY GEORGE W. BUNGAY.
———
The thirsty earth, with lips apart,
Looked up where rolled an orb of flame
As though a prayer came from its heart
For rain to come; and lo! it came.
The Indian corn, with silken plume,
And flowers with tiny pitchers filled,
Send up their praise of sweet perfume,
For silver drops the clouds distilled.
The modest grass is fresh and green—
The fountain swells its song again;
An angel’s radiant wing is seen
In every cloud that brings us rain.
There is a rainbow in the sky,
It spans the arch where tempests trod;
God wrote it ere the world was dry—
It is the Autograph of God.
Up where the heavy thunders rolled,
Where clouds on fire were swept along,
The sun rides in a car of gold,
And soaring larks dissolve in song.
The rills that gush from mountains rude,
Flow trickling to the verdant base—
Just like the tears of gratitude
That often steal adown the face.
Great King of peace, deign now to bless—
The windows of the sky unbar;
Shower down the rain of righteousness,
And wash away the stain of war;
Though we deserve the reeking rod,
Smile from thy throne of light on high—
That we may read the name of God,
In lines of beauty on the sky.
IF I WERE A SMILE.
———
BY RICHARD COE.
———
If I were a smile, a beautiful smile,
I would play o’er the infant’s face,
And stamp such an heavenly impress there
That never a tinge of sorrow or care
Should ever its beauty efface,
To appear the while,
If I were a smile, a beautiful smile.
If I were a sigh, a sorrowing sigh,
In the breast of a maiden fair;
I would speed me on angel wings above,
And lie like a beautiful wounded dove
At the feet of my Saviour there,
Till he heard my cry,
If I were a sigh, a sorrowing sigh.
If I were a tear, a bright, pearly tear,
In the eye of a Christian mild;
I would flow at the sight of keen distress,
As the dew-drop falls on the earth to bless,
To calm the heart from tumult wild
Were my task so dear,
If I were a tear, a bright, pearly tear.
But as I am neither a smile nor sigh,
Nor even a tear pearly bright;
But an humble poet singing the while,
The world of its sorrows and to beguile,
I’ll scatter my songs with delight
To the passer-by,
Till smiles take the place of the tear and sigh.
A TRUE IRISH STORY.
———
BY REDWOOD FISHER.
———
“Erin-Go-Bragh,” the celebrated Irish song of an exiled patriot—Why it was written by a Scotchman, with an interesting account of Campbell the poet, and some account of Gen. A. McC——n, the Irish Patriot.
O, sad is my fate, said the heart-broken stranger:
The wild deer and wolf to a covert can flee,
But I have no refuge from famine and danger,
A home and a country remain not for me.
Ah! never again in the green shady bowers,
Where my forefathers lived, shall I spend the sweet hours,
Or cover my harp with the wild woven flowers,
And strike the sweet numbers of Erin-go-bragh.
See Campbell’s Poems.
In the year 1810, a native of Philadelphia resided in the city of Altona, and became intimately acquainted with Gen. McC——, who commanded the Irish patriots at the battle of Ballanahench.
The general was a real Irish gentleman, with a heart alive to every refined sympathy of human nature, and warmly attached to Americans and the American character. Never can it be forgotten by those who were so happy as to share his confidence, how his fine manly countenance would light up, as he listened to the answers his questions would draw forth, when inquiring into the private characters of any of our revolutionary sages or soldiers.
Often would the tears start into his eyes, when, at the social bowl, some unpublished anecdote would be elicited of the daring of Putnam, the Hannibal-like qualities of Greene and Marion, the persevering bravery of Rifle Morgan, or the daring of General Wayne in his battles with the savage foe.
His whole soul would appear to flash from his expressive eye, and he would burst forth with the exclamation: “Oh, Erin, oh my beloved country, from which, alas! I am banished, when will heroes such as these arise and burst the bands by which thou art enslaved?—Will a just God never hear thy prayers? Will the groans of enslaved millions, will the agonies of a brave and generous people never reach thy throne, and call down thy vengeance upon her persecutors? Excuse me,” he would say, “excuse the companion of the Emmets, the McNevens, and others, who were confined with me in Fort George, in Scotland, from whence I was transported hither—banished! What a word! banished from the home of my childhood—torn from the land where my forefathers dwelt!” On one occasion of this kind, when the most of the company had retired, in his own hospitable mansion, he invited his Philadelphia friend to remain and hear the sad story of his life.
He rose from the table, and going to a book-case, he produced a copy of Campbell’s poems, and turning to the beautiful song of Erin-go-bragh—“there,” said he, “is my history, I am the original Erin-go-bragh. My countrymen, I am told, often inquire how it happened that a Scotchman should write this national, this glowing account of the wrongs of my devoted countrymen. Listen to me, and I will truly tell you the whole story—that is, if I can tell it! If I can sufficiently compose myself, you shall hear it; and should you survive me you may publish it, that the mystery may be solved and the world may know how the heart of a Scotch poet was touched with the holy sympathy of our common nature, and has placed on record, in the most exalted and touching numbers, the feelings of an Irish exile. While confined in the fortress of Fort George I was, without any knowledge of what was to be my fate, conveyed to a seaport and put on board of an English frigate, to be banished I knew not whither!” (The name of the port of embarkation and of the vessel were given, but are not now remembered.) “On board of this vessel was Campbell, the Scotch poet, then about to make his pedestrian tour on the continent of Europe. It was not long before we became intimately acquainted, and as you may suppose my whole heart was filled with wo.
“During our passage to this place, we had many and very close conversations, pending which I poured into his attentive ear, in impassioned language, the sad—the overwhelming woes of my countrymen, and particularly my own hard fate.
“We were not very long in reaching our destination—we landed together at Altona, and what was my surprise to find my companion as destitute of money as myself. I had been hurried away without the knowledge of my friends, who had no intimation of my banishment, and coming from close confinement, was not overburdened with a wardrobe, much less with the necessary funds for decency, to say nothing of comfort.
“Campbell was as poor as myself, and in this condition we entered a very common inn, and were ushered into a room, not very well furnished, having nothing but an oaken table and a very few common chairs. We seated ourselves at opposite sides of the table, and gazed at each other with no enviable feelings, when, on examining our exchequer, we found the whole sum in the treasury amounted to no more than a crown. We called for a candle, for it was growing dark, and ordered, in consonance with our finances, a small bottle of rum. The light came, and you must believe me when I tell you it was a dip candle stuck in a black bottle. There was something so ludicrous in this, and in our general circumstances, that we both indulged in a hearty laugh, applying ourselves to the ‘Cruise Keen Lawn’ to keep up for a time the tone of our feelings.
“As our spirits were operated upon by the wretched liquor, which we drank more to drown the rising sigh than for any partiality for it, Campbell called for pen, ink, and paper. ‘Mr. McC.’ said he, ‘your story has deeply interested me, and a kind of notion has arisen that I should like to put it upon paper.’
“In a little time a miserable ink-horn was produced, and something which was called paper, but it was so stained, and otherwise disfigured, it seemed almost impossible, with the wretched pen that accompanied it, that legible characters could be traced upon it; and I could but indulge in my risible propensities, at the idea of any attempt to write with such materials.
“But the soul of the poet had been aroused, and he bade me again to refresh his memory with my tale, which I did by replying to such questions as he from time to time propounded to me. Every now and then he would pause, and pledge me in the tin cup with which we were furnished, for glasses there were none; when he would again commence to write, and before he had finished, so potent were the draughts in which we had indulged, that some of the last lines ran in any other direction than parallel to each other.
“At last he finished his labors, and the result of them was the song of Erin-go-bragh, the very song printed in his works, and which I now hand to you.
“This is a true history of that inimitable production, more full of feeling, in my opinion, than any thing he has ever written before or since.
“Read it to me,” said the general, “for if the king would withdraw the act which banished me, the object nearest my Irish heart, I could not read that song aloud!”
Such was the story told to the writer, as nearly as it can be remembered, after a lapse of thirty-eight years. There are yet living in this city several persons who will recognize it, and an appeal to them for the accuracy with which it is here told, would confirm it in every particular; its only defect being the absence of power in the writer to impart to his readers any thing of the enthusiasm with which General McC. related it—nor the heart-stirring emotion ever exhibited by him when it became, as it often did, the subject of conversation.
As the reader may feel desirous to know what was subsequently the fate of the real and original Erin-go-bragh, he may be told that his friends found out where he was, remitted him funds, that he embarked in a profitable pursuit, and ever after lived in comparative affluence.
The story of his marriage is of so romantic a nature, that as he is now no more, and there is therefore no impropriety in giving it publicity, the writer is tempted to narrate it, as he has often listened to it from the lips of the general, at his own hospitable board, in the presence of his wife.
“ ‘There she is,’ he would say, ‘she is my preserver!’ Campbell and myself continued in our lodgings, and with Saturday night came the bill of expenses, but alas! our means were exhausted.
“When the bill for the first week was presented to us, ‘Well,’ said the poet to me, ‘what do you propose to do, general?’ To which I replied, ‘Do!—what do I propose to do, did you ask me? I might put the same question to you—but no! let an Irishman alone for getting out of a scrape. I will call up the landlord, and tell him our story; adding, that I expect ere long my relatives will find out whither I have been sent, and it cannot be, but that in a short time funds will be sent to me.’ Suiting the action to the word, I rang the bell, the landlord appeared, and I gave him our story in a few words, for though a German, he was well acquainted with our language. ‘An Irish general,’ said the apparently incredulous Boniface, ‘and a Scotch poet!’ He left us with the exclamation, and after he had gone, I proposed a walk, to which my companion assenting, we strolled around the city of Altona, and returned to our lodgings, without having met with any occurrence worthy of remark. Being somewhat fatigued, and having no book, or other means of occupation, we retired to our humble chamber, which had in it two single beds, by no means luxurious.
“Another week of anxiety passed away, and no advices reached me. The poet and myself were in a considerable stew. Another bill was presented, and to our great surprise we found our host very lenient indeed. He made no remark when presenting it—simply asked me had I received my funds, and on expressing my mortification that my reply must be in the negative, he left me with a polite bow.
“ ‘The accommodations,’ said the poet, ‘are here none of the best, but our host is an honest fellow, we have inspired him with confidence, and he appears content to wait!’
“I know not how it was, but I felt a strange sensation come over me, a feeling that relief was at hand. So strongly was I impressed with this belief that I communicated it to my friend, who laughed out at what he called my Irish modest assurance.
“ ‘Relief,’ he said, ‘may come when your relations hear of you, but my word for it, that will not be soon. No, no, there is no relief, and I must leave you for my continental tour.’
“He however yielded to my solicitation to walk, which was always my resource, and as we left the house, I said to him, ‘Campbell, when we come back I shall hear something.’
“ ‘If you do,’ said he, ‘it may be in the shape of a dun for our unpaid bills.’
“ ‘You will see,’ I replied; when we sallied forth, and were gone perhaps an hour. On returning to our room, judge of the sensation I experienced when I discovered on the oaken table, a neat envelope directed, in a female hand, ‘To Gen. A. McC.’ With an eagerness much more easily conceived than described, I broke the seal—not a line of manuscript did it contain—but for a moment my heart leaped with joy, for I found within the envelope a Schleswig Holstein bank bill of twenty dollars! Although my surprise was without bounds—‘Did I not tell you,’ said I to my friend, ‘that relief was at hand?’
“Our treasury was now replenished, and we had a fruitful subject of conversation. Addressing himself to his attentive listener, ‘I wish,’ said the general, ‘you could have seen the stride with which I paced up and down that room.’ Never in my whole eventful life had I such commingled sensations. My pride was gratified, that I could now discharge our indebtedness to our host, while I suffered the deepest humiliation in the reflection, that I was considered an object of charity by some unknown person! My curiosity was at fault to determine who it could be, and I shall never forget Campbell’s looks as he exclaimed, ‘You have conquered here, if you could not in Ireland. But it is Cupid who has been your aid. The hand-writing, the neatness of the billet, and its diminutive proportions, all declare it to be a billet-doux. My word for it, your Irish complexion and figure have taken captive the heart of some fair lady!’ This idea greatly added to my embarrassment, but the pride of being enabled to discharge our indebtedness, overcame for the moment all my other sensations, and strutting up to the bell, I rang it with so much violence, that our landlord ran up in an instant, and demanded to know what was the matter? ‘Bring your bill,’ said I, ‘that I may at once discharge it.’ I thought this would be the most agreeable intelligence I could give him. What, then, was our joint surprise, when he replied, ‘That, gentlemen, is of no kind of importance; I pray of you give yourselves no uneasiness on that score—you can pay me at your convenience.’ Saying this, he departed, leaving my friend and myself more deeply involved in the mystery which had not only supplied us with money, but which had also placed us in such ample credit.
“ ‘You see,’ said the poet, ‘you are known, and Cupid has taken you under his special protection. Let us call for wine, and pledge him, and the sweet heart he has enlisted in your service, in a bottle of the very best the house affords. Would for her sake and our own it were nectar!’
“The wine was ordered, and it was long before it made its appearance, for it was a fluid unknown within the precincts of our habitation; but it came at last, and though none of the best, never was the choicest Burgundy drunk with greater gusto, or a toast given with a more hearty glee than inspired us till we finished the second bottle.
“Time now passed more pleasantly. The second Saturday brought another note, addressed in the same hand-writing, containing a second bank-note of the same amount. Finding our finances so much improved we took better lodgings, and indulged ourselves with more of the creature comforts, for the unknown benefactor found us out in our new abode, and continued the supply, which enabled us to do so.
“I think,” continued the general, “it was in the fourth week that I was returning to my lodgings alone, in the dusk of the evening, when one of the flag-stones of the pavement being somewhat raised above its fellows, caused me to strike it with my foot, and being thus thrown from my equilibrium, I fell against the porch of a dwelling, in which was seated a lady, who did not attract my attention until I heard a voice, a sweet voice, which inquired if I was hurt. A voice in my native tongue uttering sounds of sympathy would have been accompanied with a charm, come from whom it might; but imagine the ecstasy with which I was thrilled when I heard the sweet voice which addressed me, and knew it to be from the lips of a fair daughter of the Emerald Isle—in plain English, an Irish woman.
“ ‘I hope you are not hurt, general?’
“ ‘General!’ she knows me then, thought I.
“ ‘Come,’ said she, ‘and rest yourself in the porch.’
“I could no longer contain myself. I had been dining out with an acquaintance—for I had by this time made one or two acquaintances—and the generous wine I had imbibed had opened my heart, alive as it was, to any and every accent of kindness to an exile. I could contain myself no longer.
“Tell me,” said I, “by what blessed influence I have been thus brought to listen to the sweet sympathizing accents of a country-woman, and one who appears to know me: for if I mistake not, you addressed me by my title—the sad, sad title which calls up all my afflictions, and revives the sad fate of my companions in a strife which failed to benefit our beloved country, proved fatal to one of the best men, and sent me hither a wandering exile.”
“There,” said he, pointing to his wife, then present, “there sits the angel of mercy, who poured into my attentive ears—till they reached my inmost soul—accents attuned to the most holy of all earthly consolations: accents of sympathy for me, and the most noble and heroic sentiments, applauding the course of our dear native land.”
“Now,” said the lady, “I pray of you do not get into your heroics:” and addressing their guest, she continued—“Receive what he says with many allowances, for on this subject he is insane. I forgive him, for he has suffered much in the cause of that dear land from which we both derive our birth; and you who know him know that he never thinks or speaks of dear Erin and his exile—of a spot for which he is ready to shed the last drop of his blood—that his whole soul is not on fire. Of this he may talk to you; and if you will listen to him he will do so till to-morrow’s sun shall warm you with his meridian rays—but I forbid him to talk of me and of our union.”
“Forbid!” said the husband, “there is no such word in the vocabulary. I will tell this to our friend, for you know I love him. I will tell him how you courted me, and how you saved me, and made me what I am, your happy husband.”
To this the fond wife would reply, deprecating the continuance of his narrative, which, however, did not prevent him from doing ample justice to every incident which occurred; from the time of their first accidental meeting as here related, until Hymen had sealed a union which had made both husband and wife as happy as they could be under the circumstances of his banishment. This was an eternal source of chagrin and mortification to his heroic soul; and never could Ireland be named within his hearing, that the tear did not start in his eye.
The substance of his love affair was, that the lady of whom we have spoken was an Irish lady, who had come when a young woman with her parents to Altona, had married a young German, who did not long survive their union. She was left in very comfortable circumstances, and hearing from the keeper of the inn that a person was an inmate with him, calling himself an Irish general, who had been banished, and who had not heard from his friends, and was without funds, she had sent him the weekly supply which so much astonished the poet and the general. The innkeeper—knowing the lady to be an Irish woman—had gone to consult her as to the probability of the general’s story, and had been told to withhold nothing, and that she would be responsible. Often did she tell the writer that she sent the money without any expectation of ever seeing the recipient, who was represented to her as so fine-looking in person, that he could not be an impostor. She believed him to be a veritable Irishman in distress, and—that was enough—had she never seen him, he was a countryman of hers, and had a right to any thing she could do for him—happy to have been furnished with an object to call forth her patriotic feelings, to exercise them in his behalf was her greatest delight. Pure accident had given her a knowledge of who was the cause of calling them forth, and his heart was touched and hers responded to his love—they had been several years married when the writer became an inmate with them—their home was the abode of peace and contentment, and a hospitality that knew no limits.
It was enough that their guest was an American to call forth all their patriotic feelings: and many were there—besides the writer of this imperfect sketch of so noble a character—that can join with the writer in esteeming it a high honor, and a source of extreme gratification to have been permitted to know and to enjoy the society of the “Original Erin-go-bragh.”
His sentence of banishment was remitted many years after the period here spoken of; and he was permitted again to return to the home of his childhood, and the land of his forefathers, for which he had bled, and for the redemption of which he was ever ready to lay down his life—but it was not so ordered. He died in peace, and was buried in the tomb of his ancestors. General Anthony McCann was the veritable and original “Erin-go-bragh.”
TO MISS LIGHT UNDERWOOD.
———
BY J. R. BARRICK.
———
I have been out this lovely eve,
With Nature’s self to muse,
While pleasant thoughts fell gently on
My heart like falling dews;
And every star and every flower
That gave their presence to the hour,
And every voice of melody,
Seemed laden with sweet thoughts of thee.
I mused upon thy deep, high soul
Of intellect and grace:
I mused on all the loveliness
Of thy fair form and face:
And thy bright smile unto my dreams
Came stealing like the glow that beams
From sky and star, in waves of light
Upon the far, dim shades of night.
With every tone of moonlight sound,
With every breeze of balm,
With every fountain, lake and stream,
So beautiful and calm,
With every cloud, with every star,
And every sound borne from afar,
Thy voice seemed mingling with the whole,
Of Music’s self the life and soul.
And as I gazed up to the sky,
And on the earth below,
My thoughts went back a few brief months,
’Mid saddening scenes of wo:
When thou wert lost in rayless night,
A wanderer from the sense of sight,
When Nature’s self had ceased to cheer
Thy high heart with her beauty dear,
I mused on the long night of wo
That thou wert doomed to share,
When not a hope was left to beam
Upon thy dark despair:
I thought how sad it was to be
From earth and sky shut out like thee,
To pine beneath a cloud of gloom,
Hung o’er thee, like a raven’s plume.
But now thou art restored again,
To former sense of sight,
And lookest back with fearful gaze
On that remembered night:
And happy in thy mind’s high powers
Thou rangest Thought’s Elysian bowers,
And canst behold with joyous eyes,
The wide, green earth, and free blue skies.
THE CONDOR HUNT.[[2]]
———
BY LIEUT. WM. F. LYNCH.
———
In each division of the American Continent, nature seems to have carried on her operations with boundless magnificence, and upon a gigantic scale. Chateaubriand, reclining by his watch-fire on the banks of the Niagara, where the thunders of its cataract were only interrupted by the startling yell of the Iroquois, could yet feel, in the midst of tumult, the amazing silence and solitude of the North American forest. And the hardy mariner, whose bark has escaped the perils of the Southern sea, and is wafted along the western coast of Chili, looks with no less admiration upon the fertile plains gradually receding into the swell of the Andes, which literally lifts its smoking craters and towering eminences above the clouds, and upon its snow-capped and sunny summits, scarcely feels the undulations of the storms which gather and burst around its waist.
With the stars and stripes of the Union floating from the mast-head of our frigate, we were sailing along that part of the coast of Chili, where the waving line of the Andes rounds within a short distance of the Pacific, and were unusually solicitous, after the perils and privations of a tempestuous sea-voyage, to tread upon a soil on which nature, from her horn of abundance, has poured forth the choicest of her gifts.
Older sailors than ourselves had spoken of the generous hospitality of the Spanish colonists, and there were historical associations connected with this favored land, well calculated to render a visit agreeable. Who that has been nurtured in the lap of freedom, would not long to look upon the only race of native people on the western continent who had never been subdued, and who, to this day, tread the soil of their forefathers unvanquished and invincible?
The Araucanians, who inhabit the southern portion of this delightful country, like the Saxons of the European continent, are the only native race who have successfully repelled every invader, and who, happier than the Saxon, still rejoice in their unbridled freedom.
Neither Diego Almagro, with his brutal treachery, nor Valverde, with his unsparing cruelty, could ever subdue or intimidate a race of freemen whose liberties still survive the frequent convulsions by which they have been agitated. The flame of freedom among this gallant people, like the volcanoes of their native mountains, seems destined to burn on for ever unextinguished. But I proposed to speak of the Condor Hunt on the plains of Chili.
Every one has heard of the Condor or Great Vulture of the Andes, rivaling in natural history, the fabled feats of the Roc of Sinbad. Even the genius of Humboldt has failed to strip this giant bird of its time-honored renown, and his effort to reduce the Chilian Condor to the level of the Lammergyer of the Alps, is a signal failure.
Although he has divested this mountain-bird of all its fictitious attributes, and stripped a goodly portion of romantic narrative of its wildest imagery, yet the Condor still floats in the solitude of the higher heavens, the monarch of the feathered race. The favorite abiding-place of this formidable bird is along a chain of mountains in our southern continent, whose summits, lifted far above the clouds, are robed in snow, which a torrid sun may kiss but never melt. Above all animal life, and beyond the limit of even mountain vegetation, these birds delight to dwell, inhaling an air too highly attenuated to be endured by other than creatures peculiarly adapted to it. From the crown of these immense elevations they slowly and lazily unfold their sweeping pinions, and wheeling in wide and ascending circles, they soar upward into the dark blue vault of heaven, until their great bulk diminishes to the merest speck, or is entirely lost to the aching sight of the observer.
“All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.
There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast—
The desert and illimitable air—
Lone wandering—but not lost.
Thou art gone—the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form.”
In those pure fields of ether, unvisited even by the thunder-cloud, regions which may be regarded as his own exclusive domain, the Condor delights to sail, and with piercing glance survey the surface of the earth, toward which he never stoops but at the call of hunger. Surely this power to waft and to sustain himself in the loftiest regions of the air—the ability to endure, uninjured, the exceeding cold attendant upon such remoteness from the earth, and to breathe with ease in an atmosphere of such extreme rarity—together with the keenness of sight that, from such vast heights can minutely scan the objects beneath, as well as the formidable powers of this bird, when the herds are scattered before him; were sufficiently admirable to entitle the Condor to our attention, and to give us promise of goodly sport in the approaching Condor or Lasso Hunt.
A large landed proprietor, a descendant of one of the early Spanish patentees, to whom we had been indebted for abundant supplies of fruit and provisions, as well as for numberless civilities, conveyed to us at length the welcome tidings that the Condor, numerous as the sands of the shore had stooped from his sublime domain, to the base of the mountain, and that the hunt would commence in the morning.
The sun had scarcely risen in the heavens, when our party of from twenty-five to thirty, sprang from the boats to the beach. The plain before us ran in a gently ascending slope to the base of the hill about one mile distant. The hunt was up—and the field in the distance was dotted with scampering herds of cattle and groups of horsemen, mingled in one dusty mêlée, the sight of which lent wings to our speed, as vaulting into the deep Spanish saddles, prepared by our worthy host, we sprang onward to the field of blood. Impelled by the cravings of resistless appetite, the Condor, regardless of danger, pressed forward to assail the herds of the plain; while the watchmen, having sounded the alarm, the numerous population turned out, as well to protect their cattle, as to hunt the mountain-bird—the Chilian’s manly pastime.
From the midst of a canopy of dust, spread wide over the plain, there came forth sounds of noisy conflict, resembling the heady current of a “foughten field;” and mountain and hill-side were shaken by the shouts of the hunters, the tramp of scampering horsemen, and the bellowing of enraged and affrighted cattle. The Condor, alone, rapid as the cassowary of the desert, pursued in silence his destined prey. As we rapidly approached, we perceived one of the herd bursting from the western extremity of the cloud of dust, lashing his bleeding side with his tail, and his blood-shotten eyes starting wildly from their sockets, while foaming at the mouth, he bellowed loudly with pain. With a wonderful unity of purpose, he alone was closely pursued by the whole flock of birds, who, disregarding the other animals, seemed to follow, as with a single will, this stricken one, who was at the same time cautiously avoided by his terrified companions. Like all gregarious birds, the Condor appeared to have a leader, who, rushing at their head, into the midst of the herd, pounced with his greedy beak upon this devoted animal, the fattest and the sleekest of the multitude, and tore a piece of flesh from his side. Attracted by the sight or the scent of blood, the whole flock, like a brood of harpies, joined in the mad pursuit. Swift of foot as the fleetest racer, they kept close to his side, ever and anon striking with unerring sagacity at his eyes.
Tell me not of the gladiators of martial Rome, or of the Tauridors of modern Seville—they were pastimes for children, compared with the thrilling excitement of the Condor Hunt. Away they fled, and away we hurried in the chase. A thousand horsemen were wheeling rapidly in pursuit—a thousand cattle, terrified and frantic, swept over the plain—and a thousand Condors mingled in the crowd—until, by the rapid movement, herd and Condor were again hidden from the view in clouds of dust. A loud shout soon after attracted us to the scene of conflict. Bursting forth once again from the cloud of dust into which he had vainly rushed, the devoted animal plunged madly forward, yet more closely followed by the whole field of vultures. Black with dust, and streaming with blood from a hundred wounds inflicted by the remorseless beaks of his pursuers, he still fled onward, but with diminished speed. As if looking to man for assistance in his extremity, he rushed through the midst of our cavalcade, and the Condor, regardless of our presence, hung upon his side, or followed in his foot-prints.
From the altered movement of the animal after he had passed us, with his head on high, plunging and blundering over the uneven ground, it was evident that his course was no longer directed by sight. His eyes were gone—they had been torn from their bleeding sockets!
Wearied and panting, his tongue hangs from his mouth, and every thirsty beak is upon it. Still onward he flies, hopeful of escape—and onward presses the Condor, secure of his prey. The animal now appeared to be dashing for the water, but his declining speed and unequal step rendered it doubtful whether he could reach it. He seemed suddenly to despair of doing so, for wheeling round with one last and desperate effort, he gathered himself up in the fullness of his remaining strength, and rushed into the midst of the herd, as if he sought by mingling in the living mass, to divert the attention of his pursuers. But the mark and the scent of blood was upon him, and on the track of blood the Condor is untiring and relentless. Beast and bird once again were lost to view beneath the curtain of dust which overspread the trembling plain. But, in a few moments, pursued by every bird, he broke from the midst of the herd, and made a few desperate plunges toward the water, and reeling onward, fell at length bleeding and exhausted, on the very margin of the sea!
“Sternitur exanimisque tremens procumbit humis bos.”
In an instant he was buried up among his pursuers, his flesh torn off, yet quivering, by hungry beaks, and his smoking entrails trailed upon the ground. In the distance, on the verge of the horizon, the last of the herd might still be discerned, flying upon the wings of the wind from the fate of their companion.
Our host gave the signal, and we hurried to the spot to rescue the carcass, with a view to visit upon the Condor vengeance for the mischief he had done, and the blood he had spilled. At our near approach they took reluctantly and lazily to wing, and wheeling in oblique circles, they were soon seen floating over the crest of the mountain, dark specks in the firmament. The hunters, prepared with stakes about seven feet in length, commenced driving them in the ground, a few inches apart, and in a circular form around the carcass, leaving a small space open. As soon as we retired from the spot, the birds descended upon the plain, and entering the inclosure, renewed their feast, and again took wing. In the course of a few hours, the huntsmen returned, and throwing into the pen an additional supply of food, drove down other stakes in the open space, leaving just sufficient room for the admission of the Condor.
The birds, more numerous than ever, returned to their filthy banquet.
Meanwhile, having refreshed our horses, and partaken of the hospitality of our worthy host, we once more took the field for vengeance on the gorged and lazy foe. As the wings of these birds have a sweep of seventeen feet, they are not readily unfurled, so that when the Condor has alighted on the plain, he is only enabled to rise by running over a space of fifteen or twenty rods, and gradually gathering wind to lift himself on high. While in the midst of their ravenous feast, a few of the hunters warily approached and closed the opening; and thus, unable to soar aloft from a spot so confined and crowded, the Condors were captive. But a Chilian scorns thus to slay a foe. Armed with a lasso, each of the natives sits upon his horse, eagerly awaiting the turning loose of half a dozen birds from the inclosure.
They are out—and away scamper the Condor, fleet as the winds of heaven—and away, in rapid pursuit, wheels the mounted Chilian, swinging around his head the noose of the unerring lasso, which, falling upon the neck of the bird, makes him captive. The line is played out, and away sweeps the powerful bird, and away the practiced horseman after him. Springing upward, the Condor now unfolds his wings and flutters in such width of circle as the rope will permit—and now shoots perpendicularly upward—and now falls headlong, and is trailed exhausted on the ground.
The lengthened shadows of evening had fallen along the plain before the sport was up, and the last Condor was captured. We returned to our ship, well pleased with the entertainment, and swinging into our hammocks sunk into deep slumber, for which the exercise of the day had prepared us—but our sleep was not too sound for refreshing visitations from friends far away,
“O’er the glad waters of the dark blue sea.”
| [2] | From Naval Life, published by Chas. Scribner, N. Y. |
BEAUTIE.
———
BY MRS. E. J. EAMES.
———
Thou wert a worship in the ages olden,
Thou bright-veiled image of divinity;
Crowned with such gleams, imperial and golden,
As Phidias gave to Immortality!
A type exquisite of the pure Ideal,
Forth shadowed in perfect loveliness—
Embodied and existent in the Real,
A peerless shape to kneel before, and bless!
With the world’s childhood didst thou spring to being!
A thing of light!—a felt divinity!
A stainless spirit, born of Love undying,
Nurst in that Eden of an earlier day.
Thence wandering on the morn of thy awakening,
Like a Dream-vision through the world didst go,
Filling its darkness with bright things, and making
The wild waste blossom, and the desert glow.
Still o’er the Earth, thy shining foot-prints tarry,
Upon the mountain-tops thy step yet strays;
Through the rich woods thy rainbow plume floats airy,
And on the sea thy form of glory plays!
Thy purple pinions fan the brow of morning;
Thy sun-bright splendors on the noonday rest,
Eve wears the silvery veil of thy adorning,
And night by thee in queenly robes is drest.
Oh, Beautie! still doth thy bright spirit linger
In the green vale where Jove was nurst of old:
Where the Babe Thunderer listened to the singer
Of “many-fountained Ida,” as ’tis told!
Still hauntest thou the violet-crowned city—
The Trojan Mountain, and the Cretan Hill?
Wanders thy soul yet, in the Syren’s ditty—
Speaks forth thy heart from the Lost Glory still?
We have rare legends of thy marvelous presence—
In Egypt’s Queen and bright Zenobia’s form;
In lovelorn Sappho thrilled thine airiest essence—
In proud Aspasia’s intellectual charm!
Nor was thy soul (through Raphael’s pencil) wanting
In Fornarina’s soft seraphic face!
And, thanks to Petrarch, Laura’s form is haunting
Our hearts with dreams of rare and breathing grace.
Once more! thou art the well-beloved of Nature!
Thine empire sweet, is o’er the grand old earth;
And well thy soft hand printeth on each feature
The brightness of thine own Immortal birth!
Thou touchest with rich hues and scents the blossom;
With emerald lines thou pencilest each leaf;
Pearlest with dew the lonely flower-bells bosom,
And flingest thy glory o’er the golden sheaf.
Joy to thy presence, all-pervading spirit!
Well may we worship at thy magic shrine;
There is no gift that mortals may inherit
So favored and god-blest, and dear as thine.
And still to me, thy worshiper, oh, Beautie!
Come as a guest divine—an angel-friend;
Give me to see thee, in each darker duty,
And radiate my life-path to the end!
WHAT GLORY COSTS THE NATION.
In the February number, we gave a short extract from Upham’s Manual of Peace, in relation to the cost of the Army and Navy of the United States. That article has brought out an officer of the Navy, with the following—in which we get abuse for facts, and sharp sentences for figures. We can stand a moderate amount of flaying without blubbering, and have no faith in the theory that a drop of ink will raise a blister, except upon persons exceedingly thin-skinned. But our correspondent, who takes a narrow view of both time and figures, appears to think the question a new one, and settled by his article, and both Upham and Graham demolished.
“Sir,—Freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, are among the best privileges guarantied by a republican form of government; but freedom of speech is not to be taken as a license to state for fact what is not true without possibility of contradiction. Nor is freedom of speech to be construed into a privilege of saying sharp or impertinent and impudent things with impunity. It has been said as a rule, ‘joke as much as you please, but never trespass on fact,’ which means, when you fall into an error, you are bound to correct it.
“With these notions fresh upon me, I venture to point out an erroneous statement in the first page of the February number of Graham, which is calculated to prejudice a large number of people against the Navy and Army of the country. Graham (Upham) states that the cost of maintaining the Army and Navy of the United States is equal to eighty per cent., that is, four-fifths of the entire revenue. This must strike every reflecting mind to be an expense so enormous as to render it desirable to be rid of both Army and Navy. But the statement is entirely erroneous, as a moment’s thought will show. If four-fifths of the revenue are absorbed in maintaining the Army and Navy, only one fifth is left to meet the expense of the ‘civil list,’ president and officers of the cabinet, foreign ministers and consuls, custom-house officers, light-houses, etc. etc.
| “The total expenditure for the Navy and Marine Corps, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1850, was | $5,523,722 83 | ||
| The expenditure for the Army about | 6,476,278 17 | ||
| —————— | |||
| Total, | $12,000,000 00 | ||
| The revenue for the same period was | $47,421,748 90 |
“So that in round numbers, the expense of the Army and Navy together, is about one-fourth, or twenty-five per cent. of the revenue instead of 80 per cent., as stated, which is an excess of at least 55 per cent.
“It should not be forgotten, however, that twenty-five per cent. of the whole revenue for military establishments is a large proportion; but without these establishments, it is possible we might soon be entirely without revenue, because our commerce, without a navy, would be open to the depredation of pirates of all nations, and might be crippled if not totally destroyed.
“The expense of keeping a dog may be considerable; but if that dog protects us from thieves and burglars, the money spent for his maintenance may be regarded as money well laid out.
“The expense of the military establishments is not their fault or sin; but the evil is to be attributed to the ignorance of mankind. When the whole world becomes educated and instructed, all wars will be conducted with pen and ink, and aid of arithmetic. Sensible men, while in their senses, never cut each other’s throats for differences of opinion; they argue the difference; and he who has most logic and good sense, is always willing to ‘do to others as he would others should do unto him.’
“Therefore, friend Graham (Upham) continue to teach your readers TRUTH, and they will acquire so strong a sense of justice, as to do away with any necessity for fighting among themselves or against others.”
Well, we will “continue to teach our readers truth,” and the advice points a moral. Navy officers are bad logicians!—but are a pretty good set of fellows so long as they are paid well for the fighting that may be done, in the next generation; and are allowed to say themselves, that “the expense of the military establishments is to be attributed to the ignorance of mankind,” without using any means to enlighten mankind upon the subject.
Since our correspondent finds fault with us, or Upham, about his facts and figures, we give him the following from a gentleman[[3]] who has paid some attention to the matter, and ask him to look the question in the face fairly, and answer the arguments and figures, and if he makes out but a partial case, we will publish his reply, however sharp and acrid.
I do not propose to dwell upon the immense cost of War itself. That will be present to the minds of all, in the mountainous accumulations of debt, piled like Ossa upon Pelion, with which Europe is pressed to the earth. According to the most recent tables to which I have had access, the public debt of the different European States, so far as it is known, amounts to the terrific sum of $6,387,000,000, all of this the growth of War! It is said that there are throughout these states, 17,900,000 paupers, or persons subsisting at the expense of the country, without contributing to its resources. If these millions of the public debt, forming only a part of what has been wasted in War, could be apportioned among these poor, it would give to each of them $375, a sum which would place all above want, and which is about equal to the average value of the property of each inhabitant of Massachusetts.
The public debt of Great Britain reached in 1839 to $4,265,000,000, the growth of War since 1688! This amount is nearly equal to the sum-total, according to the calculations of Humboldt, of all the treasures which have been reaped from the harvest of gold and silver in the mines of Spanish America, including Mexico and Peru, since the first discovery of our hemisphere by Christopher Columbus! It is much larger than the mass of all precious metals, which at this moment form the circulating medium of the world! It is sometimes rashly said by those who have given little attention to this subject, that all this expenditure was widely distributed, and therefore beneficial to the people; but this apology does not bear in mind that it was not bestowed in any productive industry, or on any useful object. The magnitude of this waste will appear by a contrast with other expenditures; the aggregate capital of all the joint stock companies in England, of which there was any known record in 1842, embracing canals, docks, bridges, insurance companies, banks, gas-lights, water, mines, railways, and other miscellaneous objects, was about $835,000,000; a sum which has been devoted to the welfare of the people, but how much less in amount than the War Debt! For the six years ending in 1836, the average payment for the interest on this debt was about $140,000,000 annually. If we add to this sum, $60,000,000 during this same period paid annually to the army, navy and ordnance, we shall have $200,000,000 as the annual tax of the English people, to pay for former wars and to prepare for new. During this same period there was an annual appropriation of only $20,000,000 for all the civil purposes of the Government. It thus appears that War absorbed ninety cents of every dollar that was pressed by heavy taxation from the English people, who almost seem to sweat blood! What fabulous monster, or chimera dire, ever raged with a maw so ravenous? The remaining ten cents sufficed to maintain the splendor of the throne, the administration of justice, and the diplomatic relations with foreign powers, in short, all the proper objects of a Christian State.[[4]]
Thus much for the general cost of War. Let us now look exclusively at the Preparations for War in time of peace. It is one of the miseries of War, that, even in peace, its evils continue to be felt by the world, beyond any other evils by which poor suffering Humanity is oppressed. If Bellona withdraws from the field, we only lose the sight of her flaming torches; the bay of her dogs is heard on the mountains, and civilized man thinks to find protection from their sudden fury, only by inclosing himself in the barbarous armor of battle. At this moment the Christian nations, worshiping a symbol of common brotherhood, live as in entrenched camps in which they keep armed watch, to prevent surprise from each other. Recognizing the custom of War as a proper Arbiter of Justice, they hold themselves perpetually ready for the bloody umpirage.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to arrive at any exact estimate of the cost of these preparations, ranging under four different heads; the Standing Army; the Navy; the Fortifications and Arsenals; and the Militia or irregular troops.
The number of soldiers now affecting to keep the peace of European Christendom, as a Standing Army, without counting the Navy, is upward of two millions. Some estimates place it as high as three millions. The army of Great Britain exceeds 300,000 men; that of France 350,000; that of Russia 730,000, and is reckoned by some as high as 1,000,000; that of Austria 275,000; that of Prussia 150,000. Taking the smaller number, suppose these two millions to require for their annual support an average sum of only $150 each, the result would be $300,000,000, for their sustenance alone; and reckoning one officer to ten soldiers, and allowing to each of the latter an English shilling a day, or $87 a year, for wages, and to the former an average salary of $500 a year, we should have for the pay of the whole no less than $256,000,000, or an appalling sum-total for both sustenance and pay of $556,000,000. If the same calculation be made, supposing the forces to amount to three millions, the sum-total will be $835,000,000! But to this enormous sum another still more enormous must be added on account of the loss sustained by the withdrawal of two millions of hardy, healthy men, in the bloom of life, from useful, productive labor. It is supposed that it costs an average sum of $500 to rear a soldier; and that the value of his labor, if devoted to useful objects, would be $150 a year. The Christian Powers, therefore, in setting apart two millions of men, as soldiers, sustain a loss of $1,000,000,000 on account of their training; and $300,000,000 annually, on account of their labor, in addition to the millions already mentioned as annually expended for sustenance and pay. So much for the cost of the standing army of European Christendom in time of Peace.
Glance now at the Navy of European Christendom. The Royal Navy of Great Britain consists at present of 557 ships of all classes; but deducting such as are used for convict ships, floating chapels, coal depots, the efficient navy consists of 88 sail of the line; 109 frigates; 190 small frigates, corvettes, brigs and cutters, including packets; 65 steamers of various sizes; 3 troop-ships and yachts; in all 455 ships. Of these there were in commission in 1839, 190 ships, carrying in all 4,202 guns. The number of hands employed was 34,465. The Navy of France, though not comparable in size with that of England, is of vast force. By royal ordinance of 1st January, 1837, it was fixed in time of peace at 40 ships of the line, 50 frigates, 40 steamers, and 190 smaller vessels; and the amount of crews in 1839, was 20,317. The Russian Navy consists of two large fleets in the Gulf of Finland and the Black Sea; but the exact amount of their force and their available resources has been a subject of dispute among naval men and politicians. Some idea of the size of the navy may be derived from the number of hands employed. The crews of the Baltic fleet amounted in 1837, to not less than 30,800 men; and those of the fleet in the Black Sea to 19,800, or altogether 50,600. The Austrian Navy consisted in 1837, of 8 ships of the line, 8 frigates, 4 sloops, 6 brigs, 7 schooners or galleys, and a number of smaller vessels; the number of men in its service in 1839, was 4,547. The Navy of Denmark consisted at the close of 1837, of 7 ships of the line, 7 frigates, 5 sloops, 6 brigs, 3 schooners, 5 cutters, 58 gun-boats, 6 gun-rafts, and 3 bomb-vessels, requiring about 6,500 men to man them. The Navy of Sweden and Norway consisted recently of 238 gun-boats, 11 ships of the line, 8 frigates, 4 corvettes, 6 brigs, with several smaller vessels. The Navy of Greece consists of 32 ships of war, carrying 190 guns, and 2,400 men. The Navy of Holland in 1839 consisted of 8 ships of the line, 21 frigates, 15 corvettes, 21 brigs, and 95 gun-boats. Of the immense cost of all these mighty Preparations for War, it is impossible to give any accurate idea. But we may lament that means, so gigantic, should be applied by European Christendom to the erection in time of Peace, of such superfluous wooden walls!
In the Fortifications and Arsenals of Europe, crowning every height, commanding every valley, and frowning over every plain and every sea, wealth beyond calculation has been sunk. Who can tell the immense sums that have been expended in hollowing out, for the purposes of War, the living rock of Gibraltar? Who can calculate the cost of all the Preparations at Woolwich, its 27,000 cannons, and its hundreds of thousands of small arms? France alone contains upward of one hundred and twenty fortified places. And it is supposed that the yet unfinished fortifications of Paris have cost upward of fifty millions of dollars!
The cost of the Militia or irregular troops, the Yeomanry of England, the National Guards of Paris, and the Landwehr and Landsturm of Prussia, must add other incalculable sums to these enormous amounts.
Turn now to the United States, separated by a broad ocean from immediate contact with the great powers of Christendom, bound by treaties of amity and commerce with all the nations of the earth; connected with all by the strong ties of mutual interest; and professing a devotion to the principles of Peace. Are the Treaties of Amity mere words? Are the relations of commerce and mutual interest mere things of a day? Are the professions of Peace vain? Else why not repose in quiet, unvexed by Preparations for War?
Enormous as are the expenses of this character in Europe, those in our own country are still greater in proportion to the other expenditures of the Federal Government.
It appears that the average annual expenditure of the Federal Government for the six years ending with 1840, exclusive of payments on account of debt, were $26,474,892. Of this sum the average appropriation each year for military and naval purposes amounted to $21,328,903, being eighty per cent. of the whole amount! Yes; of all the annual appropriations by the Federal Government, eighty cents in every dollar were applied in this irrational and unproductive manner. The remaining twenty cents sufficed to maintain the Government in all its branches, Executive, Legislative, and Judicial, the administration of justice, our relations with foreign nations, the post-office and all the light-houses, which—in happy useful contrast with any forts—shed their cheerful signals over the rough waves beating upon our long and indented coast, from the bay of Fundy to the mouth of the Mississippi. A table of the relative expenditure of nations, for military Preparations in time of Peace, exclusive of payments on account of the debts, presents results which will surprise the advocates of economy in our country. These are in proportion to the whole expenditure of Government:
In Austria, as 33 per cent.,
In France, as 38 per cent.,
In Prussia, as 44 per cent.,
In Great Britain, as 74 per cent.,
In the United States, as 80 per cent.![[5]]
To this magnificent waste by the Federal Government, may be added the still larger and equally superfluous expenses of the Militia throughout the country, placed recently by a candid and able writer, at $50,000,000 a year![[6]]
By a table[[7]] of the expenditures of the United States, exclusive of payments on account of the Public Debt, it appears, that, in the fifty-three years from the formation of our present Government, from 1789 down to 1843, $246,620,055 have been expended for civil purposes, comprehending the executive, the legislature, the judiciary, the post office, light-houses, and intercourse with foreign governments. During this same period $368,626,594 have been devoted to the military establishment, and $170,437,684 to the naval establishment; the two forming an aggregate of $538,964,278. Deducting from this sum the appropriations during three years of war, and we shall find that more than four hundred millions were absorbed by vain Preparations in time of peace for War. Add to this amount a moderate sum for the expenses of the Militia during the same period, which, as we have already seen, have been placed recently at $50,000,000 a year; for the past years we may take an average of $25,000,000; and we shall have the enormous sum of $1,335,000,000 to be added to the $400,000,000; the whole amounting to seventeen hundred and thirty-five millions of dollars, a sum beyond the conception of human faculties, sunk under the sanction of the Government of the United States in mere peaceful Preparations for War; more than seven times as much as was dedicated by the Government, during the same period, to all other purposes whatsoever!
From this serried array of figures the mind instinctively retreats. If we examine them from a nearer point of view, and, selecting some particular part, compare it with the figures representing other interests in the community, they will present a front still more dread. Let us attempt the comparison.
Within a short distance of this city (Boston) stands an institution of learning, which was one of the earliest cares of the early forefathers of the country, the conscientious Puritans. Favored child of an age of trial and struggle, carefully nursed through a period of hardship and anxiety, endowed at that time by the oblations of men like Harvard, sustained from its first foundation by the paternal arm of the Commonwealth, by a constant succession of munificent bequests and by the prayers of all good men, the University of Cambridge now invites our homage as the most ancient, the most interesting, and the most important seat of learning in the land; possessing the oldest and most valuable library, one of the largest museums of mineralogy and natural history—a School of Law, which annually receives into its bosom more than one hundred and fifty sons from all parts of the Union, where they listen to instruction from professors whose names have become among the most valuable possessions of the land—a School of Divinity, the nurse of true learning and piety—one of the largest and most flourishing Schools of Medicine in the country—besides these, a general body of teachers, twenty-seven in number, many of whose names help to keep the name of the country respectable in every part of the globe, where science, learning, and taste are cherished—the whole presided over at this moment by a gentleman, early distinguished in public life by his unconquerable energies and his masculine eloquence, at a later period, by the unsurpassed ability with which he administered the affairs of our city, and now in a green old age, full of years and honor, preparing to lay down his present high trust.[[8]] Such is Harvard University; and as one of the humblest of her children, happy in the recollection of a youth nurtured in her classic retreats, I cannot allude to her without an expression of filial affection and respect.
It appears from the last Report of the Treasurer, that the whole available property of the University, the various accumulations of more than two centuries of generosity, amounts to $703,175.
Change the scene, and cast your eyes upon another object. There now swings idly at her moorings, in this harbor, a ship of the line, the Ohio, carrying ninety guns, finished as late as 1836 for $547,888; repaired only two years after, in 1838, for $223,012; with an armament which has cost $53,945; making an amount of $834,845,[[9]] as the actual cost at this moment of that single ship; more than $100,000 beyond all the available accumulations of the richest and most ancient seat of learning in the land! Choose ye, my fellow-citizens of a Christian state, between the two caskets—that wherein is the loveliness of knowledge and truth, or that which contains the carrion death.
I refer thus particularly to the Ohio, because she happens to be in our waters. But in so doing I do not take the strongest case afforded by our Navy. Other ships have absorbed still larger sums. The expense of the Delaware in 1842, had been one million and fifty-one thousand dollars.
Pursue the comparison still further. The expenditures of the University during the last year, for the general purposes of the College, the instruction of the Under-graduates, and for the Schools of Law and Divinity, amount to $46,949. The cost of the Ohio for one year in service, in salaries, wages, and provisions, is $220,000; being $175,000 more than the annual expenditures of the University; more than four times as much. In other words, for the annual sum which is lavished on one ship of the line, four institutions, like Harvard University, might be sustained throughout the country!
Still further let us pursue the comparison. The pay of the Captain of a ship like the Ohio, is $4,500 when in service; $3,500, when on leave of absence, or off duty. The salary of the President of the Harvard University is $2,205; without leave of absence, and never being off duty!
If the large endowments of Harvard University are dwarfed by a comparison with the expense of a single ship of the line, how much more must it be so with those of other institutions of learning and beneficence, less favored by the bounty of many generations. The average cost of a sloop of war is $315,000; more, probably, than all the endowments of those twin stars of learning in the Western part of Massachusetts, the Colleges at Williamstown and Amherst, and of that single star in the East, the guide to many ingenuous youth, the Seminary at Andover. The yearly cost of a sloop of war in service is above $50,000; more than the annual expenditures of these three institutions combined.
I might press the comparison with other institutions of Beneficence, with the annual expenditures for the Blind—that noble and successful charity, which has shed true lustre upon our Commonwealth—amounting to $12,000; and the annual expenditures for the Insane of the Commonwealth, another charity dear to humanity, amounting to $27,844.
Take all the Institutions of Learning and Beneficence, the precious jewels of the Commonwealth, the schools, colleges, hospitals and asylums, and the sums, by which they have been purchased and preserved, are trivial and beggarly, compared with the treasures squandered within the borders of Massachusetts, in vain preparations for War. There is the Navy Yard at Charleston, with its stores on hand, all costing $4,741,000; the Fortifications in the harbors of Massachusetts, in which incalculable sums have been already sunk, and in which it is now proposed to sink $3,853,000 more;[[10]] and besides the Arsenal at Springfield, containing in 1842, 175,118 muskets, valued at $2,999,998,[[11]] and which is fed by an annual appropriation of about $200,000; but whose highest value will ever be, in the judgment of all lovers of truth, that it inspired a poem, which in its influence shall be mightier than a battle, and shall endure when arsenals and fortifications have crumbled to the earth. Some of the verses of this Psalm of Peace may happily relieve the detail of statistics, while they blend with my argument.
Were half the power that fills the world with terror,
Were half the wealth, bestowed on camp and courts,
Given to redeem the human mind from error,
There were no need of arsenals and forts.
The warrior’s name would be a name abhorred!
And every nation that should lift again
Its hand against its brother, on its forehead
Would wear for evermore the curse of Cain!
Look now for one moment at a high and peculiar interest of the nation, the administration of justice. Perhaps no part of our system is regarded, by the enlightened sense of the country, with more pride and confidence. To this, indeed, all the other concerns of Government, all its complications of machinery are in a manner subordinate, since it is for the sake of justice that men come together in states and establish laws. What part of the Government can compare in importance, with the Federal Judiciary, that great balance-wheel of the Constitution, controlling the relations of the States to each other, the legislation of Congress and of the States, besides private interests to an incalculable amount? Nor can the citizen, who discerns the True Glory of his country, fail to recognize in the judicial labors of Marshall, now departed, and in the immortal judgments of Story, who is still spared to us—cerus in cœlum redeat—a higher claim to admiration and gratitude than can be found in any triumph of battle. The expenses of the administration of justice throughout the United States, under the Federal Government, in 1842—embracing the salaries of the judges, the cost of juries, court-houses, and all officers thereof, in short, all the outlay by which justice, according to the requirements of Magna Charta, is carried to every man’s door—amounted to $560,990, a larger sum than is usually appropriated for this purpose, but how insignificant compared with the cormorant demands of the Army and Navy!
Let me allude to one more curiosity of waste. It appears, by a calculation founded on the expenses of the Navy, that the average cost of each gun, carried over the ocean, for one year, amounts to about fifteen thousand dollars; a sum sufficient to sustain ten or even twenty professors of Colleges, and equal to the salaries of all the Judges of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts and the Governor combined!
Such are a few brief illustrations of the tax which the nations constituting the great Federation of civilization, and particularly our own country, impose on the people in time of profound peace, for no permanent, productive work, for no institution of learning, for no gentle charity, for no purpose of good. As we wearily climb, in this survey, from expenditure to expenditure, from waste to waste, we seem to pass beyond the region of ordinary calculation; Alps on Alps arise, on whose crowning heights of everlasting ice, far above the habitations of man, where no green thing lives, where no creature draws its breath, we behold the cold, sharp, flashing glacier of War.
In the contemplation of this spectacle the soul swells with alternate despair and hope; with despair, at the thought of such wealth, capable of rendering such service to Humanity, not merely wasted but given to perpetuate Hate; with hope, as the blessed vision arises of the devotion of all these incalculable means to the purposes of Peace. The whole world labors at this moment with poverty and distress; and the painful question occurs to every observer, in Europe more than here at home—what shall become of the poor—the increasing Standing Army of the Poor. Could the humble voice that now addresses you, penetrate those distant counsels, or counsels nearer home, it would say, disband your Standing Armies of soldiers, apply your Navies to purposes of peaceful and enriching commerce, abandon your Fortifications and Arsenals, or dedicate them to works of Beneficence, as the statue of Jupiter Capitolinus was changed to the image of a Christian saint; in fine, utterly forsake the present incongruous system of armed Peace.
That I may not seem to press to this conclusion with too much haste, at least as regards our own country, I shall consider briefly, as becomes the occasion, the asserted usefulness of the national armaments which it is proposed to abandon, and shall next expose the outrageous fallacy—at least in the present age, and among the Christian Nations, of the maxim by which alone they are vindicated, that in time of Peace we must prepare for War.
What is the use of the Standing Army of the United States? It has been a principle of freedom, during many generations, to avoid a standing army; and one of the complaints in the Declaration of Independence was, that George III. had quartered large bodies of troops in the colonies. For the first years after the adoption of the Federal Constitution—during our weakness, before our power was assured, before our name had become respected in the family of nations, under the administration of Washington—a small sum was deemed ample for the military establishment of the United States. It was only when the country, at a later day, had been touched by martial insanity, that, in unworthy imitation of monarchical states, it abandoned the true economy of a Republic, and lavished the means which it begrudged to the purposes of Peace, in vain preparation for War. It may now be said of our army, as Dunning said of the influence of the crown, it has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished. At this moment there are, in the country, more than fifty-five military posts. It would be difficult to assign a reasonable apology for any of these—unless, perhaps, on some distant Indian frontier. Of what use is the detachment of the second regiment of Artillery in the quiet town of New London in Connecticut? Of what use is the detachment of the first regiment of Artillery in that pleasant resort of fashion, Newport? By their exhilarating music and showy parade they may serve to amuse an idle hour, but it is doubtful if emotions of a different character will not be aroused in generous bosoms. Surely, he must have lost something of his sensibility to the true dignity of human nature, who, without regret and mortification, can observe the discipline, the drill, the unprofitable marching and counter-marching—the putting guns to the shoulder and then dropping them to the earth—which fill the lives of the poor soldiers, and prepare them to become the rude, inanimate parts of that machine, to which an army has been likened by the great living master of the Art of War. And this sensibility must be more offended by the spectacle of a chosen body of ingenuous youth, under the auspices of the Government, amidst the bewitching scenery of West Point, painfully trained to these same fantastic and humiliating exercises—at a cost to the country since the establishment of this Academy, of upwards of four millions of dollars.
In Europe, Standing Armies are supposed to be needed to sustain the power of Governments; but this excuse cannot prevail here. The monarchs of the Old World, like the chiefs of the ancient German tribes, are upborne by the shields of the soldiery. Happily with us the Government springs from the hearts of the people, and needs no janizaries for its support.
But I hear the voice of some defender of this abuse, some upholder of this “rotten borough” of our Constitution, crying, the Army is needed for the defense of the country! As well might you say that the shadow is needed for the defense of the body; for what is the army of the United States but the feeble shadow of the power of the American people? In placing the army on its present footing, so small in numbers compared with the forces of the great European States, our Government has tacitly admitted its superfluousness for defense. It only remains to declare distinctly, that the country will repose in the consciousness of right, without the wanton excess of supporting soldiers, lazy consumers of the fruits of the earth, who might do the State good service in the various departments of useful industry.
What is the use of the Navy of the United States? The annual expense of our Navy, during recent years, has been upward of six millions of dollars. For what purpose is this paid? Not for the apprehension of pirates; for frigates and ships of the line are of too great bulk to be of service for this purpose. Not for the suppression of the Slave Trade; for under the stipulations with Great Britain, we employ only eighty guns in this holy alliance. Not to protect our coasts; for all agree that our few ships would form an unavailing defense against any serious attack. Not for these purposes, you will admit, but for the protection of our Navigation. This is not the occasion for minute calculations. Suffice it to say, that an intelligent merchant, who has been extensively engaged in commerce for the last twenty years, and who speaks, therefore, with the authority of knowledge, has demonstrated in a tract of perfect clearness, that the annual profits of the whole mercantile marine of the country do not equal the annual expenditure of our Navy. Admitting the profit of a merchant ship to be four thousand dollars a year, which is a large allowance, it will take the earnings of one hundred ships to build and employ for one year a single sloop of War—one hundred and fifty ships to build and employ a frigate, and nearly three hundred ships to build and employ a ship of the line. Thus more than five hundred ships must do a profitable business, in order to earn a sufficient sum to sustain this little fleet. Still further, taking a received estimate of the value of the mercantile marine of the United States at forty millions of dollars, we find that it is only a little more than six times the annual cost of the navy; so that this interest is protected at a charge of more than fifteen per cent. of its whole value! Protection at such price is more ruinous than one of Pyrrhus’s victories!
| [3] | Orations and Speeches by Charles Sumner, vol. I, page 71. |
| [4] | I have relied here and in subsequent pages upon McCulloch’s Commercial Dictionary; The Edinburgh Geography, founded on the works of Malte Brun and Balbi; and the calculations of Mr. Jay in Peace and War, p. 16, and in his Address before the Peace Society, pp. 28, 29. |
| [5] | I have verified these results by the expenditures of these different nations, but I do little more than follow Mr. Jay, who has illustrated this important point with his accustomed accuracy.—Address, p. 30. |
| [6] | Jay’s Peace and War, p. 13. |
| [7] | American Almanac for 1845, p. 143. |
| [8] | Hon. Josiah Quincy. |
| [9] | Document No. 132, House of Representatives, 3rd session, 27th Congress. |
| [10] | Document; Report of Secretary of War; No. 2. Senate, 27th Congress, 2nd session; where it is proposed to invest in a general system of land defenses $51,677,929. |
| [11] | Exec. Documents of 1842-43, Vol. I. No. 3. |
LINES ON SOME VIOLETS,
LEFT UPON MY DESK WHILE I WAS AT A FUNERAL.
He brought these violets yester eve,
While I was with the dead,
And when I hither came to grieve,
To me they meekly said—
“Let not thy gentle heart-founts flow
For her who is at rest,
But joy and sing for all who go
To sit among the Blest.
“Weep for thyself, and not for her,
Child of melodious Grief!
And pray thy angels, hovering near,
To make Life’s journey brief.
“For now we hear thy spirit beat
With bleeding plumes its grate,
And treading with impatient feet,
Like one that could not wait.
“Like one who, pale ’mid dungeon gloom,
Paces his scanty floor,
Awaiting till the jailer come
To ope his prison-door!”
E. ANNA LEWIS.
Painted by J. Martin
THE DESTRUCTION OF SODOM.
[WITH A STEEL ENGRAVING.]
———
BY MARGARET JUNKIN.
———
The fair, broad plains of Jordan, rich with all
Their wealth of summer fruitage, stretched themselves
Beneath the orient day. The haunting mists
Still folded to their bosoms the hushed streams,
O’er which they had kept night-watch. Flocks and herds
Dotting the green, fresh pastures stirless lay,
While shepherds slept beside them.
Peacefully
The morning twilight slowly raised its lids
On the devoted city, quiet now,
With its wild midnight orgies overworn—
As from its gate a little band stole forth
With fearful footsteps, and affrighted gaze
Turned ever upward to the clear, deep heavens,
Where all the stars were fading into day.
A light, irradiate as the astral glow
Of planetary lustre, marked the brows
Of those who guided them—betokening
Angelic nature, as in the quick haste
Of their divine commission fast they urged
The trembling lingerers. They pressed the speed
Of the old man, bewildered and amazed
By weakening terror, and they caught the hands
Which the distracted mother madly wrung,
To think upon her children left behind,
’Mid the doomed multitude, and drew her on
With gentle violence: they cheered the flight
Of the twain daughters, who, aghast with fear,
Were fain to lay their foreheads in the dust,
In palsied helplessness. With the sweet power
Of angel eloquence—with sympathies
That yearned above their poor humanity
In Christ-like tenderness, they hasted still
Their lagging steps.
“Escape ye, for your lives
Look not behind you! neither tarry ye
In all the verdant plain:—Escape, escape
Safe to the mountain, lest ye be consumed:”
The level sunbeams slant athwart the plain
Through the long shadows of the flying group—
Yet the destruction lingered; yet the sky
Gave forth no presage of the coming wrath.
The sward, dew-beaded, yielded to their tread
Never more softly, and the bannered palms
Playfully dallied with the morning breeze.
Doubt grew to strength within the mother’s soul,
Beneath the firmamental quietude;
And though the angel’s clasp was on her hand,
She backward looked, with longing, loving gaze,
Incredulous of evil, to the roofs
And lines of fair, white walls, that glittering lay
Serene in the pure dawn. The rigid hand
Dropped icy from the angel’s—the stark form
Stood fixed, and motionless, and marble pale—
A ghostly monument of unbelief.
Dumb with the tracking fear that suffered not
A moment’s waste in sorrow—on they pressed
And gained the place of refuge. Then they turned,
Breathless and tottering, with their straining eyes
Clouded with horror, and their lips apart
In speechless eagerness, and awful dread,
Toward the distant city.
The calm morn
Seemed sliding downward to abysmal night:
All Nature’s face grew sickly: through the plain,
The fell simoom came sweeping like a fiend,
Twisting the tallest palm-trees, as their stems
Were lithest summer reeds, and wrenching up
Centurial cedars. Silver-threaded streams
Grew to a leaden blackness: tempest-clouds,
Lurid with fiery fringes, marshaled all
Their most terrific grandeur, and rolled on
In thunderous darkness, till the funeral heavens
Thrilled to the shock, and the fast-anchored earth
Seemed throbbing in the agitated swell
Of fathomless ether. Sulphurous, forked flames,
Like myriads of avenging swords, flashed out
Above the guilty cities, and the shriek
Of frantic multitudes came roaring on
In dismal howls, as if the eternal pit
Had emptied forth its demons. The hot wrath
Of God’s fierce anger rained with scathing breath
The deluge-fire of a descending hell—
And in the flaming sheets, the stately towers—
The lofty mausoleums—the proud walls—
The rich abodes of princes—and the homes
Of Heaven-defying wickedness, were wrapped
As in a fitting cerement.
When the strength
Of the spent storm of fury died away,
And the ghast ministers of wrath drew off
Their fearful hosts from that grim battle-field—
The holy Patriarch, who had sought by prayer
To turn aside the vengeance, stretched his view
Across the plains of Jordan; but no walls
Gleamed in the early sunshine; no fair flocks
Studded the bleak, swart slopes; no waving trees
Bent to the morning wind. Destruction swooped,
Like a fierce raven screaming o’er its prey,
Above the desert-waste: the seething smoke
Hung, pall-like, round the ruins: and he bowed
His head in sad yet meek submissiveness
Before the righteous judgments of his God.
EMINENT YOUNG MEN.—NO. I.
BENJAMIN H. BREWSTER
In our last number we proposed to give a short biographical sketch of Benjamin Harris Brewster, as the first of a series of rapid portraits of such eminent young men as chance and association have made us intimate with, that we might thereby incite in the minds of some of the young men amongst our readers a laudable ambition to excel, and arouse that latent energy of character which is the foundation of all true personal greatness in America.
Benjamin Harris Brewster is a lineal descendant on his father’s side of Elder William Brewster, whose name is embalmed in all true hearts as the intrepid ruling elder in that Band of Heroes and unbending worshipers of freedom of conscience, who landed from the Mayflower at Plymouth, in December 1620. The heroism of Brewster, Robinson and others of that immortal band of brave men and women, prior to their embarkation at Holland, are facts of history, and as familiar to every student as their subsequent trials and dauntless energy in braving them.
Mr. Brewster’s family were originally from New Jersey. A descendant of Elder Brewster’s removed from Plymouth to New Jersey, and there Mr. B. H. Brewster, his great-grandson, was born. In his mother’s family a great-grandfather—a Duval, was a refugee Huguenot—“one of that handful of whom the world was not worthy, who without stain, without reproach, were crushed to the dust, were delivered up to the rack, the scourge, the dungeon, the stake, as if accursed of Heaven, until at last a weeping and bleeding remnant of them found their way to our land and poured into our veins the rich stream of Huguenot blood.” Thus from both sides of his house he inherits rich, old democratic blood. Puritan and Huguenot blood. Blood that an American may be proud of. His ancestors assisted in planting that holy seed of Liberty which has sprung into so mighty a tree, and under whose thick spreading branches the oppressed of all nations find shelter.
Mr. Brewster was born in Salem county, New Jersey, during a transient residence of his parents in that place. When only a few months old his parents returned to their former residence in Philadelphia, where he has ever since lived. He early gave promise of great quickness of intellect, but from his earliest childhood he was particularly remarkable for strict truthfulness and integrity—he scorned a lie, even an evasion, though it might save him the dreaded humiliation of punishment. “Manly, straightforward, upright,” were words always applied to him by those who knew him in youth, and these qualities made him a stay and a comfort to his family at an age when most young men are dependents.
He left the preparatory school of Dr. Wiltbank at fourteen and entered the University of Pennsylvania, but was removed from it six months after to Princeton College, where he graduated at the age of eighteen years, and commenced the study of law in this city, in the office of Eli K. Price, Esq. In 1837, at the age of 21 years, he became a member of the Philadelphia bar. Starting on the road of life in that most arduous of all professions, the law, with few friends, he early exhibited those peculiar traits of fitness for his profession that so speedily placed him among its leaders. His success has been remarkable—not in the sense of the world generally—but in the substantial character of his business, and in his position among his brethren of the bar. He early saw the door of distinction open to him, and resolved to pass its threshold and make for himself an honorable name. With that industry and energy that are part of his character, he speedily, while yet a young man, rose in his profession, and took a prominent place among the best of that bar, long since acknowledged to be the strongest in the country. His mind is Analytical in an eminent degree, it perceives and grasps with a quickness, oftentimes wonderful, the strong points of a case, which are lucidly put before the jury. He uses little ornament, as we usually understand it, though he has at times shown his ability to wield that most effective of all the orator’s weapons; he presents in a brief, sententious style, with all the force that such a style is so naturally fitted for the gist of his case. His forte as a lawyer is before the court in banc upon a question of law—the forum that tests the real ability of so many—where mere speech-making—the tinsel and clap-trap of the profession pass at their real value, and where mind alone is the genuine currency—where educated minds are to be taught, altered, or convinced. In this department of his profession Mr. Brewster is at home, and brings to bear on the argument of his cases, all the powers of his peculiarly well-stored mind. He is by no means, however, deficient before a jury, as many of our citizens will recollect, in recalling to mind his many triumphs in this city. While he is kind to his colleagues, he is respectful but independent in his bearing toward the Court, but permitting no undue interference in his or his client’s business, yet giving to all the respect that position or talents should demand.
Mr. Brewster’s appearance before the Court is impressive. Thoughtful, earnest, and of fine manners, he at once impresses you with the importance of his cause, and that that which he is about to say is the result of no passing thought, but of care and deliberation—graceful and dignified in his manner he yet becomes, when warm with his subject, vehement without losing his self-possession, oftentimes treading a little out of his path to indulge in a pleasantry to relieve the dry detail of legal discussion, still maintaining the thread and course of his argument. Always courteous in an eminent degree to his adversary, high-toned and honorable in all his intercourse with the world, he exhibits it in argument, by refusing at all times to pervert facts, to overstrain or misstate the well-settled law of the land. He is ready and apt; exhibiting his readiness, and the ability with which he has prepared his case by the prompt answers of points against him suggested during argument by the Court or his adversary.
Mr. Kingman, the highly talented and veteran correspondent of the New York Journal of Commerce, said of him, “His (Mr. Brewster’s) manner is happy and winning—his voice mellow and flowing, and, as Mr. Wirt used to say of one of his favorites, he can render interesting to any auditory the dryest legal citation by the magical effect of his tasteful reading.” His talents as a lawyer have drawn him from our local courts, and the scenes of his greatest success have been in that “strongest of Courts” the Supreme Court of the United States at Washington. In a case that now presents itself to our mind, he more than distinguished himself—we mention, we are sure, from its public character, and the importance of the questions involved to all, a familiar case, when we name “The United States vs. The County of Philadelphia.” It involved the great constitutional question of the right of a State Government to tax the unceded realty of the United States necessary for the purposes of the Federal Government. This was a question particularly suited to the turn of mind of Mr. Brewster, and it was to be argued before a Court, the ablest and the brightest in the land. His argument elicited from all parts the highest and the warmest praise. The New York Tribune, a paper of high character for ability and impartiality, says, that “a long, elaborate, and powerful argument was delivered before the Supreme Court yesterday by Benjamin H. Brewster, of Philadelphia, which has produced a great impression in our legal circles, and secured at once for Mr. Brewster the reputation of being one of the ablest constitutional lawyers in the country. The principle to be defined and settled in the case in which Mr. B. is engaged, is of the highest importance, and the whole country is certainly greatly indebted to the learning and eloquence of that gentleman for the convincing manner in which he pointed out and defined the rights of the States, and the ability with which he defended those rights against Federal encroachment.” The New York Journal of Commerce said of it, “Mr. Brewster’s argument necessarily embraced some detail, and some citations, and various illustrations, and still he managed to bring it all within the compass of less than two hours. Mr. Brewster is a rising star, and destined at no distant day to become a shining light of the federal tribunal.” And these are but two, selected at random from a host of such compliments. The result showed the truth of these views of Mr. Brewster’s argument.
His argument in this now famous case, was not published, notwithstanding the urgent request of many friends that it should be—with a modesty that we think false, but which is usually the attendant upon real ability, he was contented with having done work well without seeking by parade to make it the medium of pecuniary benefit. His character does not, of course, stand upon this case alone, as the records of the court at Washington will show, though, in truth, it might stand on a less secure foundation. Almost as a necessary consequence of Mr. Brewster’s professional life, he has been more or less identified with the various political questions of the day. Early in life he attached himself from conviction to the Democratic party, and steadily since, “through good and evil report,” he has adhered to and defended with voice and pen, the interest and doctrines of that party. He was a senatorial delegate from Pennsylvania to the Baltimore Convention of 1844, and was the mover of the “two-third rule” in that Convention, to which fact Mr. Polk unquestionably owed his nomination. Shortly after the inauguration, Mr. Polk tendered him, unsolicited, the judicial appointment of Cherokee Commissioner. This Mr. Brewster accepted. It was an arduous and responsible position, requiring great industry and ability to discharge faithfully. By his course as Commissioner, he won the esteem and respect of the suitors, and saved to the government, from the jaws of rapacious speculators, millions of dollars. He received at the expiration of the term for which the office was enacted, the thanks and approval of the President.
Mr. Brewster is a warm supporter of the political views of Gen. Cass, and is, perhaps, the most efficient, both with voice and pen, of the many friends of that distinguished statesman in Pennsylvania. Differing widely, as we do, from Mr. Brewster in political sentiment, we can yet bear testimony to the intrepid conduct of the man, his high-hearted courage in the cause of his friend, and his energetic endeavors to secure the ultimate triumph of General Cass in the next Baltimore Convention. And although we cannot vote for General Cass, we can almost wish him success for the sake of seeing Mr. Brewster’s earnest and manly efforts crowned with success. If General Cass has many such friends—and Mr. Brewster’s friendship is of personal intimacy—he must have qualities that most politicians deny opponents and rivals, for we are satisfied that no man can attach to himself heartily, any number of men of intellectual force such as Brewster has, without possessing qualities of head and heart far above the grade of many aspiring candidates for the presidency.
Since his retirement from connection with the administration of Mr. Polk, Mr. Brewster has been engaged so much in the active pursuits of his profession as to prevent his giving much of his time to active politics, though often since by his pen, he has shown his interest in the great questions that have been lately agitating the country; and whenever the interests of General Cass are in jeopardy, his voice is heard in council, and his pen, lightning-winged, flies to the rescue.
Having thus hastily glanced at Mr. Brewster’s position as a lawyer and a public man, and used, as we confess we have done, the opinions and sentiments of more than one member of the Philadelphia bar in high standing, and the unsolicited endorsement of men high in his party, let us take a closer view of the man—of his personal character, the proud arch and basis of the structure, and tell, with all the freedom of an intimate friend, what we feel we ought to say, both in justice to our readers, to give them a fair view of the man, and to Mr. Brewster, to show how great have been his achievements against formidable odds.
Mr. Brewster has inherited in an eminent degree the endurance and high courage of his ancestors. His path has been a rough one, with an accumulation of difficulties besetting him on all sides, at the very threshold of boyhood, which would have prostrated almost any other man. But he at that early age made a resolute front, and met and pressed struggling through all opposition.
He in early life met with an accident, the scars from which still linger upon his countenance. This, in the opinion of the timid and ill-advised, was sufficient for them to urge him into a more quiet and secluded profession than that of an advocate. But they little knew, these weak ones, the dauntless bravery of his soul—the fearless, determined purpose, the iron will of the man. His motto has been, from early boyhood, and his life has illustrated it nobly—“There is nothing unconquerable to him that dares.” His whole life has been one of struggles, of resolves and of victories. His manly self-possession under all disasters, his vehement purpose to overcome, in spite of fate and circumstances, have given an impetuosity and daring to his character which enable him to overleap the impossibilities of other men. Had he submitted to the dictation of the doubtful, regarded the counsel of the timid-wise, his lofty soul would have been dwarfed, his heroic will chafing for action in seclusion, would have made him a misanthrope—a pining and peevish companion, a cynic toward man and a snarler at Providence—the plague of a household, a weariness unto himself.
But with the true courage which faces disasters, the inborn greatness which judges of its own capacity to endure, with an eye fixed upon the successful future, which lifts its blazing front to the gaze of true genius, he spurned all control, and consulting the inward teachings of his own spirit, he resolved, he dared and he has triumphed. With a manly heart, lifted in its gigantic resolves above all mere considerations of self—obeying all of its generous and noble impulses, he has from early manhood devoted his energies to build a paradise around those he loves—to render his home the abode of all that refines, of Art, Music and Society—to gather around him those who appreciated his manhood, and to impart by all the delicate and tender relations and attentions of a son and a brother, the largest amount of happiness which domestic life can afford. With what a royalty of soul he has done all this, let those answer who have spent their most delightful hours in his drawing-rooms—where the stern lawyer, the energetic champion of political principles and rights has unbended, and let loose the bounding joyousness of the man—where his heart has let off its bubbles in very glee, and where the exhaustless stores of his memory are poured out in wantonness, and his imagination and wit flash and play in perfect abandonment. No man who has not enjoyed his intimacy, his confidence and his friendship, can make any just estimate of his ability or worth.
As a conversationalist, it has not been our fortune to meet with many who are his equals, either in the readiness or the variety of his topics, the fine play of his fancy, or the mellow flow of his words. There is not at this bar, a man of his years, who is his equal in scholarship—who has accumulated so vast a mass of curious learning. Upon all questions of History, Philosophy or Biography—he is the referee among his friends. His accuracy is singularly nice—no event of which he has read, seems ever to escape the tenacious grasp of his memory. No quotation from the Classics, apt at the moment, is ever wanting to illustrate or point an anecdote or a sentence. His knowledge of old English literature is thorough, and his acquaintance with the modern familiar and full. He is, in all respects a thorough student—stealing the hours which others devote to idle pleasure or indolent sleep, to enlarge his stores of knowledge and make broader and surer the foundations of intellectual power.
The defect of Mr. Brewster’s character has been the terrible impetuosity of his impulses, which would carry him to the gates of Hades in pursuit of a foe, and through a burning river in support of a friend—frequently, too, without stopping to ask whether either was worth the sacrifice. Hence, he has sometimes become the assailant and the champion, without the clearest notions as to which side victory justly belonged. These impulses, too, were as quick as they were strong. The lightning was not more sudden than his wrath—nor more certain in its destructiveness. No man made an enemy of him and escaped the well-timed blow. But his vengeance was rarely garnered, but blazed out in a fury which lent additional terror to the funeral pile of his victim. His generous sentiments are easily touched. His time, his talents, his whole soul are given to the cause of a friend. There is no halfway-house on the road to his heart—the door is fast shut, or the whole of the spacious apartments are thrown open, and the visitor is received amid a blaze of light from every genial corner.
Mr. Brewster has recently been abroad, and travel, which is so often a test of character, has improved him. He returns from Europe with his energy of soul held in check—his feelings are composed and chastened—his manner is subdued to a more Christian serenity—his voice has not its old, impetuous volume—the rushing heat of passion comes from his lips with less of its scorching severity. Life has broader aims in his eyes than formerly—the hour and to-day, are less important—the immediate success less looked to—the distant future is lived for more earnestly, with wiser hopes of a happy present hereafter. All this comes upon us—his old associate—with a force the greater, because we have been less with him, of late; and the gradual, familiar growing of these better purposes of soul have been less visible to us—they burst upon us like a strain of pure music when discord has suddenly been stilled. Mr. Brewster, himself, is a happier man—his old exuberant gayety is a well-tempered serenity and joyousness—the picture has been toned down, and the artist dwells upon it as a diviner effort of the Creator.
Mr. Brewster has nothing to do now but to wait!—high honors will come to him unsolicited. His position is assured. His ability, his integrity, his earnest energy of soul for the right and the true, open the pathway for all that the ambition of a Christian has a right to look for. This is Prophecy—the Inspiration which Truth impresses upon the soul.
G. R. G.
SORRENTO.
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BY C. P. CRANCH.
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On such a blue and breezy summer’s day,
The winds seem charmed that wander round this bay.
The waves that murmur on the sunward beach,
Whisper of things beyond the Present’s reach.
Each winged bark that skims along the sea
Seems gliding like a dream of mystery.
Light of far Grecian days comes glimmering through
This pure crystaline sky of cloudless blue.
Here are the rocks where gold-haired syrens sang;
Here Tasso’s harp in later ages rang.
Over the sacred waves the purple isles
Answer the heavens with their serenest smiles:
Round yonder point, steep Capri with her caves;
Beyond, where the sky kisses the far waves,
Those amethystine sisters of the sea,
Prochyta and the blue Inarime.
Along the shore from Baia’s rained towers
To marble Pompeii, half embalmed in flowers,
Stretches the chain of towns along the sea;
And gleaming in the midst, proud Napoli
Sits like a young and pearl-crowned ocean queen
Gazing into her mirror of clear green.
And over all the bodeful genius
Of this fair clime—fire-eyed Vesuvius
Frowns, the sole troubled spirit of the scene—
And even him the distance makes serene.
All this I see from my still summer home,
A bower where nought but peace and beauty come.
Geraniums and roses round me bloom—
From orange-groves, amid whose verdant gloom
Gold fruit and silver flowers together shine,
Come orient odors. A thick blossoming vine
Shadows the terrace where, even as I write,
The wind snows down the olive-blossoms white.
Above, the birds’ sweet and unwearied song;
Beneath, the ocean whispers all day long.
Sometimes, when morning lights the rippling waves
Below the steep rocks and the ocean caves,
The sunshine weaves a net of flickering gleams.
Fit to entrap a Syren in her dreams.
There tangled braids of ever-changing light
In golden mazes glitter up the sand,
And underneath, the rocks and pebbles bright
Glow like rich jewels of the Eastern land.
Well might such sweet, transparent waters hold
Tritons and nymphs with locks of liquid gold;
For nothing were too beautiful to be
Born from the pure depths of this summer sea.
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Four moons have passed—and nights and days have flown
Cloudless—a summer of an orient tone,
Since my unequal pen essayed to tell
Brief passages of what I loved so well.
Above me now, where blossoms fell in spring,
Large purple grapes hang thickly clustering;
The fig-tree near, with ample leaves displayed,
Shelters its sweet, cool fruit beneath their shade.
Still hang the oranges upon their stems,
Whose dark green foliage makes them glow like gems.
The cypresses by yonder convent wall
Shoot up as freshly green, as stately tall,
And there the drowsy vesper-bell ne’er tires
Calling to prayers the brown-robed, bearded friars.
Down on the beach, content with slender gain,
Still drag their nets the red-capped fishermen.
Still glide the days as fair—the nights more cool,
The sea is still as ever beautiful;
And yonder purple mount, towering as proud
Still blends its light smoke with the flying cloud.
And now, ere I these pleasant scenes resign,
I would yet linger o’er and make them mine.
I would remember every odorous breeze
That wafted incense from these orange-trees—
The roses clustering on their leafy stalks,
Dropping their faint leaves in the garden walks—
The sweet geraniums and the passion flowers
Entwined with multifloras—the noon hours
When underneath the oaks I watched the sea
Rippling below me calm and dreamily.
The hueless olives where the full moon came
Kindling behind them with a holy flame,
Touching their pale leaves with mysterious sheen
And shimmering o’er old boughs of silvery green—
Above, the inextinguishable lights
That made all nights in heaven like festal nights,
That seemed too holy for frail men to keep,
And yet too costly to be spent in sleep.
O lovely nights and days! too quickly flown;
Leave me the memory of your sweetest tone.
O ocean! long I’ve lingered on thy shore,
Lulled by thy whisper, wakened by thy roar.
Ere I depart and see no more thy face,
Let me retain some sign of thy embrace—
Not pearls nor painted shells, nor coral rare,
But dreams of Beauty. So the goddess fair,
Who rules all hearts, and fills the Olympian home,
Rose in a sea-shell from thy glittering foam—
Sprang an immortal to the blaze of day,
And wide o’er gods and men extends her sway.
THE CARIBOO; OR AMERICAN REIN-DEER.
THE GAME OF THE SEASON.
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BY FRANK FORESTER, AUTHOR OF “FIELD SPORTS OF AMERICA,” “FISH AND FISHING,” ETC.
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