NUMBER TWO.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE 'KNICKERBOCKER.'
'Sir: At a prayer-meeting held in the house of a friend of mine, in Bleecker-street, one of our most respectable and talented financiers, and who was connected with myself in the late Post-office transaction, of which I have favored you with a development, I was thunder-struck at being shown the last number of your somewhat amusing but reckless Magazine.
'My friend is a subscriber of yours, and was of course greatly agitated and offended at the unexpected and astounding disclosure of the private affair which you have so unwarrantably dished up for the public. As was very natural, he charged me with the authorship of that communication; and as a man of conscientious principle and high moral sense, I was of course unable to deny it. By this time the other gentlemen, our colleagues in said Post-office business, one of whom is in Bangor, the other in Texas, have probably seen the article in question; and you will perceive that I am thus made, through your violation of the sanctity of correspondence, to stand with them in the odious light of an informer.
'Sir, I supposed that your common perception of what is due to the ordinary courtesies of epistolary intercourse rendered it unnecessary for me to desire you not to publish any thing of a personal nature. What is to become of our 'areas and focus,' of our altars and fires? what is to become of the bonds of social faith, the cherished sentiments of domestic communion, the implicit confidence between man and man, if delicate matters of peculiar and single interest are thus to be blurted by an unreflecting conductor of a journal into the face of all mankind and half New-York? To use the emphatic expression of the western settler, who returned from hunting to find his house and family rifled, (rifled in both senses,) and the walls of his cabin plastered with the brains of his wife and children, it is 'a little too ridiculous.'
'The mischief, however, is done, and is past recall. The least you can do is to make what pecuniary compensation you consider due to my outraged sensibilities. Your Magazine is reputed to be profitable, and for the pile of correspondence which I have placed at your disposal the remuneration ought to be generous. I am no judge of poetry, but the quality of the article which I have sent you I have several times heard spoken of as first-rate.
'If you will enclose a draft through the post to the address of 'A. B. C. D. E. F.,' a portion of the fund shall go to soothe the lacerated feelings of my friend in Bleecker-street, and the rest shall be devoted to charitable purposes, or to the temperance cause.
'I had intended to write more fully upon this very vexatious subject, but as the ladies are waiting for me to attend a revival at the Tabernacle this evening, you must allow me to subscribe myself,
'Yours, truly mortified, —— ——.'
Fearless in the discharge of our duties to the public, as an 'able editor,' we have no hesitation in following the example of all able editors, and give to our readers whatever we think will be considered as a fair part of their money's worth. It is very odd that our sensitive correspondent, so keenly alive to the sufferings of his friend, the talented but lacerated financier of Bleecker-street, does not see that the same sympathy which he insists upon would equally apply to the persons abroad, whose letters he has 'so unwarrantably' made public. This, however, is in the true spirit of the age, which is so remarkably obtuse to that proverbial fact in natural history, that the same sauce which suits the female gander is equally adapted to the male goose.
[LETTER SECOND.]
TO THOMAS CARLYLE, ESQUIRE, LONDON.
Herewith a box, a fragrant casket, goes,
Of that loved herb which best in Cuba grows;
You had my promise, Thomas, you remember,
In Fraser's shop, one morning last November,
Of, now and then, a letter from the land
Which cocknies write of ere they understand.
Pick then the choicest of the weeds I send,
(The Custom House will give them to my friend,)
There having paid the duties that accrue,
Permit me thus to pay mine own to you.
And oh! how difficult each London wight
Finds the more Christian duty—not to write;
For John is reckoned taciturn and shy,
Slow of address and sullen in reply;
Bacchus or Ceres, burgundy or ale,
To rouse his fancies are of no avail;
But would you force the fellow's mettle forth,
And of his genius know the pith and worth,
In vain you ply him with inspiring drink,
Give him a bottle, not of beer, but ink:
However tongue-tied, asinine, or dull,
A quill ay proves a cork-screw to his skull.
Hence this poor land so scribbled o'er has been,
'Tis like a window in some country inn,
Where every dolt has chronicled his folly,
His fit of belly-ache or melancholy;
With memorandums of his mutton oft,
And how his bed was hard, his butter soft;
How some John Thompson, on a rainy day,
Found nought to eat, but very much to pay,
And how said Thompson wished himself away.
Ye reverend gods, who guard the household flame,
Lares, Penates, whatsoe'er your name,
What dire subversion of your sway divine
Lets loose all cockneydom to tempt the brine?
Why from the counter and the club-room so
Flock the spruce trader and the Bond-street beau?
Why should the lordling[A] and the Marquis come?
And many a snug possessor of a plum,
Quitting his burrow on the 'Ampstead road,
With wife and trunks be flying all abroad?
Is it in rivers and in rocks to find
Some new sensation for a barren mind?
To mark how Albion's little nook has grown
To kiss the limits of the roasted zone?
From kindred manners, doctrines, men, and sects
To learn a lesson of their own defects?
Or with rapt eye on cataracts to look?
No, their sole passion is—to spawn a book.
From the cold Caspian to the Volga thus
The sturgeons pour pell-mell—a mighty muss![B]
Eager with annual industry to strow
The slimy bottom with whole heaps of roe;
Scarce less I say the multitudinous fry
Each season brings to keep a diary;
Which oft, to give my simile more truth,
Proves 'caviare' to the general tooth.
Ere yet my glance anatomized aright
The insect race that fluttered in my sight,
Oft as the mote-like myriads of Broadway
I scanned, their trim and bearing to survey,
At each third passenger I could not choose
But curl my lip, with frequent pshas! and poohs!
To mark the vanity, the coarse conceit,
That showed the creature's genus to the street.
'Was ever nation like Sienna's vain?'[C]
Says father Dante, in sarcastic strain;
And in my book-learned ignorance I quoted
The line, to fit the follies which I noted.
Surely, quoth I, could emptiness and froth
And the poor pride of superfinest cloth
To more excess be carried than by these
Pert, whiskered, insolent Manhattanese?
But soon I found how poor a patriot I,
'Twas mine own countrymen I saw go by!
Pride in their port, defiance in their gait,
I saw these lords of human kind with hate.
O, altered race! with hair upon your chins,
In your strut Spaniards, Frenchmen in your grins;
The 'snob' and shop-keeper but ill concealed
By boots of Paris, bright and brazen-heeled,
Newmarket coats, and Cashmere's flowery vests,
And half Potosi blazing on your breasts,
Made up of coxcomb, pugilist, and sot—
Are ye true Englishmen? I know ye not!
With what fierce air, how lion-like a swell,
They pace the pavement of the grand hotel;
On each new guest with regal stare look down,
Or strike him dead with a victorious frown;[D]
These are the fools whom I for natives took,
Ere I could read their nation in their look;
Now wiser grown, I recognize each ass
For a true bit of Birmingham's best brass.
In Astor's mansion, where the rich resort,
And exiled Britons toss their daily port,
And sometimes angels condescend to sip
Their balmy hyson with benignant lip,
A nook there is to thirsty pilgrims known,
But sacred to male animals alone,
Where foreign blades receive their morning's whet,
As deep almost in juleps as in debt.
There from the throng it pleases me at times
To pick out subjects for a few odd rhymes.
And who could guess, amid this cloud of smoke,
That yonder things were hearts of British oak;
Or who that knew the country of their birth,
Could by the gilding guess the fabric's worth?
Come, let us dare these lions to attack,
And hang a calf-skin on each recreant back.
Some are third cousins of the penny press,
Skilful a piquant paragraph to dress;
Some in their veins a dash patrician boast—
Them Stülz has banished from their natal coast:
Here sits a lecturer, bearing in his mien
More glories than he bought at Aberdeen.
These are tragedians—wandering stars—and those
Some little nobodies no body knows,
Manchester men, deep read in calicoes.
Thomas, your soul abominates a quack,
Great, small, high, low—the universal pack.
And sure our London is a proper place
Wherein to study and detest the race.
But O, consider in a land like this,
Which owns but one distinction, aim, and bliss;
One only difference, by all confessed,
Betwixt earth's vilest offspring and her best;
One sole ambition for the young and old,
Divine, omnipotent, eternal gold;
Where genius, goodness, head and heart are weighed
By the false balance of delusive Trade,
How small, how impotent is Truth's defence }
Against the strides of that arch-fiend, Pretence, }
The time's worst poison, blight, and pestilence! }
Here, only here, a bold and honest lie
Its full allowance of success will buy.
No sanctity of station, age, or name,
Can check the Charlatan's audacious aim;
'A self-made man' is here a fav'rite phrase,
So self-made talents earn their self-made praise.
Whate'er a freeman claims to be, he is;
He knows all magic and all mysteries;
No matter in what sphere the scoundrel shine,
He made himself, and that's a right divine.
Come, then, ye mountebanks of all degrees,
New Cagliostros! fly beyond the seas;
Fiddlers from Rome, philanthropists from France,
Lords of the lyre, the lancet, and the dance;
Hydropathists, and mesmerisers, come;
Ye who Cremonas and Clementis thrum,
Here build your altars, hang your banners out,
Laurel yourselves, and your own pæan shout;
Assume what little, take what coin you will,
Profess all science, arrogate all skill:
What though no university enroll
Your name and honors on a Latin scroll?
Sure each may constitute himself a college,
And be himself the warrant of his knowledge.
Then at small cost in some gazette obtain
Alike an apotheösis and fane:
Amid its hallowed columns once enshrined,
Converts and worshippers you soon shall find,
Buy of the editor—'tis cheap enough—
The sacred incense of his potent puff;
The public nose will catch the sweet aroma,
Tut! they who advertise need no diploma.
'Good heavens!' methinks I hear my Thomas cry,
'With what a low, derogatory eye
You view the beautiful, primeval shore
Where first-born forests guard the torrent's roar.
What! is there nothing in that lovely land
Mid all that's fair, and excellent, and grand,
Nothing more worthy of a poet's pen
Than sots and rogues and bastard Englishmen?'
Patience! philosopher: as yet I dwell
In the dull echoes of a tavern-bell;
My inspiration is not born of rocks,
Nor meads, nor mountains white with snowy flocks;
Streets and their sights are all that fire me now
To tap the bump ideal of my brow;
Mine ears are thrilled not by Niagara's noise,
But that of drays and cabs and bawling boys;
And scarce the day one quiet hour affords
To fit my fancies with harmonious words;
Yet oft at evening, when the moon is up,
When trees on dew and men on slumber sup,
Along the gas-lit rampart of the bay
In rhymeful mood as undisturbed I stray,
Awhile my present 'whereabout' I lose,
And on my loved ones o'er the water muse.
Sometimes lulled ocean heaves an orient sigh,
Which brings our terrace and its roses nigh;
While each Æolian murmur of the sea
Seems whispering fragrantly of home and thee;
But something soon dispels the pleasing dream,
The fire-fly's flash, the night-hawk's whistling scream,
Or katydid, complaining in the dark,
Or other sound unheard in Regent's Park.
For wheresoe'er by night or noon I tread,
Thought guides me still, like Ariadne's thread,
Through shops and crowds and placard-pasted walls
Till on my brain Sleep's filmy finger falls
And cuts the filament, with gentle knife,
That leads me through this labyrinth of life.
I feel it now, the power of the dull god;
The verse imperfect halts—Thomas, I nod;
'Tis late—o'er Caurus hangs the northern car;
My page is out—and so is your cigar.
T.W.P.
[MEMORIALS]
Who that surveys this span of earth we press,
This speck of life in Time's great wilderness,
This narrow isthmus 'twixt two boundless seas,
The past, the future—two eternities,
Would sully the bright spot, or leave it bare,
When he might build him a proud temple there;
A name that long shall hallow all its space,
And be each purer soul's high resting-place?
[LITERARY NOTICES]
Travels in Egypt, Arabia Petrea, and the Holy Land. By Rev. Stephen Olin, D. D., President of the Wesleyan University. With twelve Illustrations, on Steel. New-York: Harper and Brothers.
The descriptions of the Eastern hemisphere, by enlightened American travellers, are the richest contributions to our native literature; and especially the pictures of Western Asia and Egypt, with which the constant perusal of the Bible has already made us familiar. Hence, the principle declared by Dr. Olin in his preface is undeniable: 'An unexceptionable book of oriental travels is a commentary upon the Bible, whose divine teachings derive from no other source illustrations so pleasing, so popular, and so effective.' This statement is true, not only of the erudite researches made expressly to elucidate the apparent difficulties in the sacred volume, but also of the unpretending notices of the visiter who merely records the objects as they passed before his eyes, and the actual impressions derived from the scenes as he surveyed them. From the first publication of that pioneer work, 'Harmer's Observations,' through all its successors of the same character, the result has been identical; the evidence has been progressively cumulative, to verify the infallible accuracy of the historical details connected with the scriptural archæology; and to American citizens probably the illustrations of antiquity, especially of Palestine, Egypt, and the intermediate Deserts, are the most acceptable; because our native travellers have none of the prejudices and prepossessions with which almost all the European monarchists, and especially those of Britain, are trammelled; and the anti-Asiatic citizens of this republic inspect the 'modern antiques' of the old countries through a medium of original freshness and simplicity, which give to their narrative a peculiar naïveté and vividness, evidently distinguished from the impressions on the minds of Europeans. The correctness of this position is obvious on all the pages of Dr. Olin's interesting volumes; and while he has expressly and designedly excluded all exhibitions of 'critical, philological, and antiquarian learning,' he has yet given us a work which, instead of satiating the desire to know the character of Egypt, Arabia Petrea, and the Holy Land, produces an earnest solicitude for a more extensive and profound acquaintance with those countries, with which all our loftiest mental and devout associations are inseparably conjoined.
It is not an easy task to specify any particular passages which require distinct notice, in volumes where all is so excellently adapted to interest and edify; but we may remark that Dr. Olin's disquisition on Mohammed Ali is the best article that we have seen on that topic. Every pure sensibility of the heart is awakened, as we peruse the writer's transcript of his emotions and reminiscences while roaming along the Red Sea; as he read the decalogue on Mount Sinai; studied the prophecies concerning Edom at Petra; contemplated 'the cave in the field of Macphelah;' chanted the songs of David at Bethlehem; surveyed the 'Potter's field;' 'fell among thieves' near Jericho; bathed over the ruins of 'Sodom and Gomorrah;' walked in the garden of Gethsemane; and explored 'the city of the great King.' From all those subjects, lucid passages of great pathos and elegance might be cited to recommend Dr. Olin's volumes.
The decisively emphatic testimony which he has given to the dignified character and the noble qualifications of all the American Protestant missionaries, is of the highest importance and value, and constitutes a very forcible recommendation of his excellent work to every patriot and philanthropist. It is proper also to add, that the amiable spirit and the expansive benevolence which it every where developes, render it as grateful as it is instructive and refreshing. We cannot, however, better express our judgment of Dr. Olin's volumes, than in a sentiment from his own preface: 'Whether considered in reference to the intellectual tastes and habits produced or fostered by this species of reading, or to the doubtful or pernicious character of the lighter literature which it may supersede, every simple and true account of foreign countries, of their physical or moral peculiarities, manners, institutions, and historical monuments, and of their intellectual and economical condition, brings a valuable contribution to the best interests of education, good morals, and public happiness.' Without doubt such will be the benign effects of the work before us, wherever it is introduced. It will both extend very useful knowledge, and exert a most salutary influence among all who peruse it. Therefore we may hope, to adopt again our author's own language, that 'the fruits of his weakness and affliction will promote the cause which is so dear to his heart,' by the circulation of his travels among Bible classes and Sabbath schools, so that his 'highest ambition may be gratified,' and that 'good reward of his labors' be returned to him in ample abundance, for his perennial enjoyment.
A Memoir of the Construction, Cost, and Capacity of the Croton Aqueduct: Compiled from Official Documents: together with an Account of the Civic Celebration of the Completion of the Great Work, etc. By Charles King. In one volume, royal quarto, pp. 306.
Mr. King, by the production of this elaborate work, has linked his name with one of the most grand and beneficent enterprises of the present century, and the fame of which will be perpetuated so long as the Croton river courses through our streets, or bursts in its freshness from a thousand hydrants, or surges into the serene sky from hundreds of fountains. We can well believe that the extent and variety of research, and the perspicuous collation of relevant facts, which this work exhibits, are the result of a toil which could have been to the author none other than a 'labor of love' for the renown of 'the city of his birth and his affections.' Indeed there is nothing omitted, which could add to the interest or value of the book. A preliminary essay presents us with a cursory but clear and well-arranged examination and description of the chief ancient and modern aqueducts, as well as of the devices for supplying themselves with water, in use among the earliest peoples. The memoir of the Croton Aqueduct is in all respects complete and authentic; and includes, we are glad to perceive, a sketch of the numerous attempts which, from an early day, were made by the citizens of our metropolis to insure a supply of pure and wholesome water. The principal public water-works of other cities and towns of the United States are not forgotten: a general description of them leaves nothing in this regard to be desired. That this excellent record of our crowning glory as a city will attain a wide metropolitan and State circulation, it would be unjust even to doubt; but it should do more; it should be in the hands of the citizens of other cities all over the Union. Emulation of a great local good may thus be stimulated, as well as that just pride of country, which every addition to our public enterprises is so well calculated to inspire. The volume, which is printed with great luxury of type and paper, is embellished with a fine steel engraving of the Croton dam, and three or four minor illustrations. The dedication of the book to the people of New-York, and their representatives in the successive Common Councils, is brief, forcible, and in good taste. In short, the work is an honor alike to the city and to the author.
The Illustrated Edition of the Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments; and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church: according to the use of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America: together with the Psalter, or Psalms of David. Edited by Rev. J. M. Wainwright, D. D. New-York: H. W. Hewet, Publisher.
Six numbers of this exceedingly beautiful publication are before us; and we hazard little in saying, that when completed it will form one of the most elegant volumes of a kindred character that has ever been produced in this country. The whole work will be concluded in twenty semi-monthly numbers, or within six months from the present time. The illustrations consist of vignettes of a beautiful character and design, and of sacred subjects, from the works of the first masters, adapted to the Epistles and Gospels, and the Psalter. That these will be tasteful and appropriate, may be inferred from the fact that their arrangement and adaptation are confided to the capable supervision of the accomplished editor. The greater part of them will be selected from the English edition of the Pictorial Prayer Book; many others, however, will be added from original drawings, prepared expressly for the work, by Mr. J. G. Chapman. Thus far, they have been engraved in a masterly manner, reflecting additional beauty upon the clear letter-press and pure white paper by which the emulous printer is perpetuating the remembrance of his care and skill. 'As an appropriate companion for the work, Dr. Wainwright will prepare a history of the Liturgy, together with a commentary upon the text and rubrics. This work will be embellished with designs having special reference to the church in this country. It will be comprised in twenty numbers. The whole will form two handsome volumes in royal octavo. Either of these volumes may, however, be taken independently of the other, so arranged as to be bound in a single volume.' The cost of the numbers is but thirty-one cents each! The enterprise has received the warmest eulogiums and recommendations from the entire clergy of New-York and Brooklyn, as well as from the clergy and laymen of other States.
Lays of my Home, and other Poems. By John G. Whittier. In one volume, pp. 122. Boston: William D. Ticknor.
We regard Mr. Whittier as one among the very first of our poets. With one or two eminent exceptions, no one of our best writers excels him in the melody of his verse, and the appositeness and beauty of his imagery. There is, moreover, a depth of feeling, an earnestness and ardor, visible in his later writings, which sufficiently distinguish him from the herd who write verse as they would write an advertisement; stimulated, too often it may be, by the same impulse in the one case as in the other. Mr. Whittier never sits down with a pen in his hand and a sheet of foolscap before him, to 'pump up a feeling' touching some pliable theme or another, as to the precise nature of which he is either entirely ignorant or quite undecided. How many of our rhymists, miscalled poets, differ from our friend in this! Sitting down with a desperate determination to get up an afflatus; to write, and to rhyme, at all events; to secure the requisite number of feet and the required number of necessary lines; is a process of composition which can never result in the production of poetry. A goodly proportion, and the best parts (evidently so deemed by the writer, who has given them the place of honor) of the volume before us appeared originally in the Knickerbocker. Much of the remainder, although not now first published, will be new to many of our readers, to all of whom we cordially commend Friend Whittier's neat and tastefully-executed volume.
[EDITOR'S TABLE]
Early Writings of the late R. C. Sands: Third Notice.—Through the continued kindness of the co-member of the 'Literary Confederacy,' of which the lamented Sands was so bright an ornament, we are enabled to set before our readers another Salmagundi from that gifted writer's facile pen. We have lately touched in these pages upon the character and proceedings of the early Puritans; and as a pleasant illustration of their peculiar views, manners, and customs, we shall venture to select a few passages from 'Salem Witchcraft, an Eastern Tale,' in which Sands's love of the ludicrous and the burlesque is forcibly exhibited. The era of the story is that annus mirabilis, 1692; the scene the town of Salem, (Mass.,) into which a stranger, mounted on a charger, descended from John of Gaunt's ploughing team, enters at a devout gait. This is Faithful Handy, an ordained teacher of the Word, who has 'a recommend' from a reverend brother to Deliverance Hobbes; which 'recommend' in some degree superseded the formalities of courtship in those primitive days. Miss Hobbes was no Hebe, if we may judge from this sketch of her person and features, taken as she turned round, while drawing water at a well, to reconnoitre the new comer: 'She squinted in the peculiar mode described by the poet, 'when one eye looked up, the other looked down;' and was terribly deformed in her person. Nature, in elaborating this rare article, seemed to have been trying an optical experiment; as if to show, by adapting her crooked figure to a parabolical reflector, how symmetry may be produced from the most hideous and uncouth distortion. Her head, shaped like a broad-axe, was garnished with a tuft of red wool, which 'streamed like a meteor to the troubled air,' and would, if transplanted, like the locks of Berenice, have affrighted the nations, threatening pestilence and war. Her green eyes were set deep in her head, and seemed affected, like the grass, by the hot weather. A huge hawked nose covered half her face. Her ears were set like a dog's in the back of her head; and her broad concave cheeks were rivelled with seams, stigmatized with scars, and riddled with the small-pox. Thin skinny lips, and a Bavarian poke of the chin, completed the nomenclature of her charms; and the rest of her person tallied with her face. Such was the dragon that answered in a shrill voice to the parson's inquiries, 'Yes, Deliverance Hobbes lives here; and I am her daughter Beautiful!' This was confirmed by the apparition of the matron herself; who was the exemplar of her daughter's attractions, except that her own charms had become mellowed by age, and contrary to the usual course of nature, matured into something rather less ghastly and horrible. She seemed to be informed of the purport of her visiter's mission; for her first inquiry was: 'Be you the minister that's got a recommend from Hugh Peters?' Faithful groaned in the spirit, as he replied, he was; and as he entered the house, could not repress an inward ejaculation: 'Hugh Peters had not ought to have did this! The Lord deliver me from Deliverance Hobbes, and the Gorgon, her beautiful daughter!' Deliverance expresses her willingness that the preacher should 'keep company with her daughter Beautiful,' in which the latter acquiesces, with a supernatural leer; whereat the preacher is greatly perturbed. 'She is too bitter ornary!' he exclaims, mentally; and even a plentiful repast of bread, butter, milk, hominy, pork, sweet-meats, pumpkin-pie, and onions, cannot blind him to that fact; hence he makes an excuse to depart for a brief season, to visit his friend Goody Mercy Peabody, who lives hard by, promising soon to return:
'Goody Peabody was very glad to see Faithful, whom she had not beheld before since he was a child; and he was much pleased with her daughter Patience, who was the very reverse of Beautiful Hobbes; being a healthy, clean-limbed, tidy, good-natured looking housewife. He now learned that Beautiful was as ugly as she was bitter; being a vast virago, and an intolerable slut. In short, it was soon settled that he should keep company with Patience, and let Beautiful shift for herself. As soon as Faithful had left the mansion of Goody Hobbes, which he did as fast as fear and his horse could carry him, the damsel whom he thus uncourteously shunned, having devoured him and his charger with her eyes, till they were out of the sphere of their vision, incontinently swallowed the remaining segment of the pumpkin-pie to which he had paid his most earnest devoirs, and waddled off to her dressing-room, to adorn her person for his expected return. In about half an hour she made her reäppearance in the parlor, which had been in the mean while swept and garnished. But not as she went out did Beautiful now return. She had exchanged the dishabille in which she was accustomed to perform her domestic duties for the whole paraphernalia of her toilet; and she now appeared arrayed in shreds and patches of as many different colors as are found in the neck of a turkey-cock, and loaded with every article of her wardrobe, which she imagined could give zest to her appearance, or add intensity to her charms. Her fiery locks, condensed to a focus, and curiously entwined with a green riband, much resembled a bunch of carrots dextrously garnished with grass. Her crooked carcase had been, in some measure, straightened by a pair of tight stays, which, reaching to her hips, prevented her, as she sat in a high-backed chair, from making any other than gyral contortions. Goody Hobbes, who had also paid some attention to her charms, sat opposite her daughter, admiring the second edition of her own perfections. Admiration of themselves, and of each other, for a while kept the two paragons silent. The elder at length broke forth: 'I guess it's high time for Faithful to be back.' To which the younger replied, 'I guess so too.' Then says the elder Hobbes, 'I guess there an't no witches and spectres at Punkapog-pond.' 'I guess there an't,' rejoined Beautiful. A long pause now ensued, which was broken by the matron's observing, 'I admire what keeps Faithful so long at Goody Peabody's.' 'I admire so too,' says Beautiful, who, from the bottom of her stays, spoke like one from the tomb. 'I admire how ornary Patience Peabody is,' quoth Deliverance. 'I admire at her too,' quoth Beautiful; 'how bitter she is! They say she has seen the black man.' Another long pause ensued, during which the impatience of the couple manifested itself by agitations, and writhings of their heads and extremities. Faithful not making his appearance, these spasmodic affections increased to universal and horrible convulsions of their whole frames; and they sat like two Pythonesses on their sacred stools, pregnant with inspiration, and looking unutterable things. At length, in the midst of her paroxysm, Deliverance bounced from her seat, exclaiming with vehemence, 'I notion to send Remarkable to see where the minister stays!'
Remarkable Short, a woman six feet in her stockings, and quite 'in keeping' with the Hobbes family, is despatched after Faithful by Deliverance, in these dulcet-words: 'Remarky, I wish you'd go down to Goody Peabody's and look after the minister that ate supper here. I notion that he's forgot that it's time for him to come back and pray, before we go to bed.' Remarkable and her errand were not very courteously received. Goody Peabody said 'she admired what business such a long-shanked, ill-conditioned, bitter-looking body as she, had to be snooping about other people's houses at that time of night; that Faithful was going to keep company with her daughter Patience; that Remarkable had better return to her employer; adding, that if she didn't troop in less than no time, she would see if her help, Preserved Perkins, couldn't help her.' Remarkable, after a series of adventures, arrives at home, and reports progress. Deliverance and her daughter Beautiful receive the intelligence of the defection of the minister in a paroxysm of anger and mortification; which ends in Beautiful's falling back in violent contortions, exclaiming that she is 'bewitched by Patience Peabody!' The village of Salem, it should be premised, was at this period in a woful state of perturbation, if we may believe Cotton Mather, who tells us that 'the devils were walking about the streets with lengthened chains, making a dreadful noise in our ears; and brimstone, even without a metaphor, was making a horrid and an horrible stench in our nostrils. And whoever,' he adds, 'questions any of these things, I hold to be a person of peculiar dirtiness.' If we may believe Mather, therefore, the 'Prince of the Air' and his imps, with an innumerable host of spectres, phantoms, apparitions, and hobgoblins, were let loose upon this devoted place, and at the instigation of old women, potent in witchcraft, were playing their damned pranks upon the inhabitants. Some delighted to stick pins and forks in the tender flesh of innocent babes. Others would grievously torment poor damsels, buffeting and tossing them about in a most lamentable manner. Sometimes they would cause the most serious and sober-minded persons to babble forth unutterable nonsense in all the known languages of the earth, except the Iroquois, in the which, it is said, the devil himself hath no skill. At others, they would excite the worthy townsmen, yea, even the selectmen themselves, to cut the most strange and fantastic capers; performing those evolutions which the Greeks call [Greek: kuzisan] and [Greek: ekkuzisan], now upon their heads they would dance aërial hornpipes and fandangos; and anon going upon all fours, they would bark like a pack of hounds, or bray like a troop of jack-asses. Beside this, brutes, and even inanimate matter, were the subjects of wicked sorcery: gridirons, shovels, and frying-pans, clattered and rang, though touched by no mortal hand; spits before the fire would fly up the chimney in the twinkling of an eye, and anon coming down again, stick in the back-log in a spiteful and portentous manner; and three-legged stools, slipping on one side, would laugh to see the matron whom they had eluded, lie sprawling on the ground. Naughty children would feign themselves bewitched by some person against whom they had taken an antipathy, and would kick, sprawl, and bellow, with wonderful agility, until they had succeeded in moving the tender hearts of judge and jury, and had the satisfaction of seeing poor Irishwomen hanged, whom their brogue convicted of infernal colloquies, or some poor old lady ducked and drowned, whom an unlucky squint showed to be possessed of an evil eye. In short, the whole country was in an eminently distressed and bedevilled predicament; and Beautiful Hobbes was a decided victim. A universal twitching assailed her joints; a sheeted paleness usurped her smoke-dried cheeks; the purple faded from the tip of her nose, and the color of her eyes became a dingy yellow; and she exclaimed, amid sobs and hiccups, 'Mother, there is a ball in my throat, and Patience Peabody hurts me!' And she continued to roar lustily, and pray for deliverance from her tormentor. Early next morning the Justice of the County Court is informed that there is a decided case of malignant witchcraft at Goody Hobbes's, where he is wanted immediately, in his judicial capacity. Accompanied therefore by the sheriff, and Cotton Mather and his son, he straitway repairs to the scene of bewitchment: 'When they arrived there, the room was full of people. Deliverance and Remarkable were keeping guard on each side of the bed in which lay Beautiful, who, as soon as the Justice entered, uttered a terrible screech, and fell into hysterics. Mr. Mather junior then walked up to the bed, and passed his hand over the coverlid. They asked him what he felt? He said there was something supernatural there, resembling a rat, and quickly withdrew his fingers, having received a scratch quite across his hand. The mob were now, by command of the Justice, turned out of the room, and Mr. Mather senior made a prayer of half an hour's length; Deliverance every now and then giving her daughter a spoonful of brandy, to keep her quiet. When the prayer was concluded, Beautiful was told to say Amen; but she only made a muttering sort of noise, which sounded more like an imprecation than any thing else. After many ineffectual attempts, they gave over asking her to repeat the word; and the Justice asked her, 'Who hurt her?' She then answered, glibly enough, 'Patience Peabody; she sticks pins in me; and there is her spectre!' This was enough for the Justice, who ordered the sheriff, in a magisterial tone, to seize and hold the body of Patience Peabody until farther notice, at the same time calling out of the window to one of the crowd around the house, to go down to Dr. Drybones, and request his immediate presence. The messenger found that worthy functionary taking his morning walk in the grave-yard which adjoined his dwelling. 'He was a lank, long-visaged figure, skinny and withered up in his person, and who bore a considerable resemblance to one of his own dried preparations. One would imagine from his appearance that he had become assimilated to the spot where he usually perambulated; and where it was said he had sent the greater number of his patients, as if to have them under his more immediate charge.' Dr. Drybones repairs forthwith to the possessed mansion, in a parlor of which the Squire and the two Mathers are awaiting him. After the first salutations, they all repair in a body to the chamber where Beautiful was lying, engaged in her gymnastic exhibitions:
'The Doctor, at the head of the 'posse comitatus,' advanced solemnly up to the bed-side, and protruding his long skinny hand, took hold of the maiden's wrist between the fore-finger and thumb, with the true Esculapian gripe. Then closing his eyes, and holding in his breath, as if to condense all his sensibilities to the ends of his fingers, he began counting the pulsations. In about half a minute he pronounced, in a solemn, sepulchral tone, at each pause pouting out his lips, and smacking them in a curious manner: 'Pulse slow, and frequent; indicating a congestion of the cerebrum, and general plethora, together with a phlogistic diathesis; you understand me, Squire.' 'Oh, perfectly, perfectly; exactly so, Doctor,' replied the Justice, putting on one of his wisest looks; who, though he knew no more than a brewer's horse how a pulse could be slow and at the same time frequent, and also how this indicated a congestion of the cerebrum, yet did not like to confess his ignorance. 'And observe, Squire,' continued the Doctor, who had been lately reading a work on Nosology, and wished to show off a little before the Justice, 'observe, I say, the dilatation of the pupils, and the twitchings of the muscles, and the tossing of the extremities, and the spasmodic affection of the diaphragm, and the tetanic symptoms; you understand me, Squire; a very curious and complicated case, Squire.' The Justice, who at each stop in the Doctor's speech, had put in his usual 'Just so; exactly so; satanic symptoms, no doubt, Doctor;' coincided in this opinion. He also added that he had discovered the witch, and issued a warrant for her apprehension. Mr. Mather senior now came forward, and with a sneering and sarcastic expression of countenance, proposed, that as the Doctor understood the symptoms so well, he should exert himself a little to relieve them; at the same time insinuating that drugs and doctors were mere flea-bites, when opposed to witchcraft. 'Certainly,' replied the Doctor, in his deliberate tones, 'certainly, friend Mather, I shall do to the utmost of my poor abilities to fulfil the nineteen indications which offer. Of which the first is phlebotomy; the second a cleansing emetic; the third a saline cathartic; the fourth a potent anti-spasmodic; the fifth a relaxing sodorifie; the sixth——' 'Now may Satan take both you and your nineteen indications!' interrupted Mather senior, who was much offended by this pedantic and conceited speech; and whose indignation was vehemently aroused by his being called 'friend Mather,' which he considered a downright insult, he having a most horrible antipathy to Quakerism. 'I tell you what, Drybones,' continued he, 'you are a person of a shallow wit, and small capacity for understanding these things; and touching the wonders of the invisible world, I hold you to be little better than an ass. Here Mather junior put in his oar, saying that Drybones was a quack, and an ignoramus, and that he would not trust him to bleed his cow. Drybones, however, who possessed a happy share of equanimity, and who prided himself upon his imperturbable countenance, paid no manner of regard to these discourses; but pulling out an enormous fleam-lancet, and turning to the Justice, exclaimed: 'Now by the blessing of God, will I open the jugular of this damsel!' Then calling for three small porringers, and setting the spring of his lancet, the edge of which he tried upon his thumb-nail, he advanced boldly up to the bed.'
The Mathers interposed, however, and 'prevented the effusion of blood;' it being considered by the strict Puritans as much a matter of heresy for a doctor to interfere with a case of witchcraft, as it is for a physician at the present day to treat one of canine rabies by what is called 'regular practice.' The Justice and the Mathers, after the doctor had left the house, departed together, discussing on their way many serious topics and profound questions concerning witchcraft, sorcery, enchantments, good and bad spirits, apparitions, and such grave matters; in which the elder Mather displayed so much and such various learning upon his general theme, that it quite overpowered the Justice; who at last interposed, saying, petulantly: 'Well, for my part I don't know nothing about these things, and always did. A little law is all that I know.' The Squire having arrived at home, is informed by the sheriff that he has Patience in custody; when, accompanied by his 'divine friends,' the man of law proceeds with magisterial dignity to his hall of justice, where he finds a great mob of people, and hears the dolorous shrieks of sundry frantic-looking women, which he finds on inquiry to proceed 'from Abigail Williams and her gossips, who are roaring out because Patience hurts them.' 'Ha!' said the Justice, 'I begin to smell a rat. That Abigail Williams has borne testimony in every case of witchcraft that has occurred in this town since the beginning of the troubles thereof; and if she had been pinched, and pricked, and bruised, half so much as she says she has, she must have been a corpse long ago.' 'Pray, young woman,' said he, addressing himself to Patience; 'what is the matter with Beautiful Hobbes?' 'I do not know,' said Patience; 'I reckon she is crazy.' 'But why does she cry out against you, for putting the black man upon her?' 'I do not desire to spend my judgment thereon,' answered she. The worthy magistrate seemed puzzled what to say next, and turning to Doctor Mather, inquired, 'what was his judgment touching the question, whether the devil could torment in the shape of a virtuous person?' Mather made answer, 'that he should be proud to communicate his poor opinion thereof at a more seeming time; but held it best, under correction, to proceed with the business in hand.' 'Well,' said the Squire, 'I believe there is no more to be said. I must make out this young woman's mittimus, and have her confined until the grand jury sit.' Faithful interposes for his lady-love, remonstrates against her imprisonment, and offers to undertake to make Beautiful repent her accusations before night, if he might be allowed a private interview with her; at which proposition Mather expressed himself shocked, and severely reproved Faithful for desiring to have infernal communication with a woman accused of witchcraft. When the Justice and his reverend guests had gone back to discuss the question, whether the devil could torment in the shape of a good man, the crowd proceeded to the sheriff's house, the women ranting, roaring, and screaming; the bedevilled Abigail Williams, among the rest, walking as if afflicted by Saint Vitus, screeching in the most painfully distressing tone, and ever and anon falling into apparent convulsions; the mob the while mingling their groans and dolorous wailings, as if Pandemonium had broken loose in good earnest, and Satan had come again upon the earth like a roaring lion. Meantime Faithful bends his way to Dame Hobbes's, to remonstrate with the possessed Beautiful. He reaches the mansion:
'With a trembling hand he ventured to open the door, after he had knocked several times in vain. Through the smoke which filled the apartment, he saw the elder female seated by the fireside, with her chin resting on her palms, and a stump of a pipe in her mouth. Remarkable was lying, seemingly dead drunk, upon the floor, and snoring like fifty bull-frogs; and Beautiful, in a short gown and petticoat, was sitting on the side of the bed, discussing a large bowl of bean-soup. The old woman took no notice of Faithful, but continued smoking her pipe with great sang-froid; but the eyes of Beautiful twinkled with emotion at his appearance. With a mixed expression of countenance, where pleasure and surprise at beholding the preacher curiously blended with the bitter twist given her visage by the hot soup, she motioned him to sit down beside her. He obeyed with the dubious air of one who seats himself with a half-formed resolution of suffering the extraction of a grinder. She edged up to him, and asked him if he would have some soup; but he declined the offer with a graceful wave of the hand, telling her that he came to have a little private conversation with her. At this, Beautiful told him to say what he had to say, as Remarkable was too drunk, and her mother too sleepy, to overhear him. The preacher now commenced a long and animated expostulation with the damsel, on her conduct, in which he mingled threats and promises, reproofs and entreaties, in a subtle and orator-like manner. Beautiful at first heard him with great impatience, and seemed convulsed with inward emotion; now stifling a rising sob, and now gulping down a spoonful of the soup. He at last seemed to hit upon an argument that fixed her attention; for all at once she became quite calm, and as soon as he had finished, wonderful to relate, promised to behave herself, and not be bewitched any more. Upon this he departed, telling her that the Justice was coming in the evening to see how she did, and bidding her be careful, and mind what he had told her.'
Accordingly, when evening arrives, Faithful accompanies the Justice and the sheriff to Goody Hobbes's mansion, which the 'visiting party' enter with faces as long and serious as if they had come to a funeral. The Justice breaks silence, by asking Beautiful how she finds herself, to which she responds, 'I notion I feel better this evening, and am not bewitched any more.' 'Then,' quoth the Justice, 'I guess you was crazy this morning.' 'I guess I was,' answers Beautiful. The final result is, that Patience Peabody is liberated, and Remarkable Short and Preserved Perkins, who have 'conspired against the general peace,' cut a remarkable figure in the stocks; where, being obliged to endure each other's company for two hours side by side, they contracted an affection for that position; 'their passions vacillated from the extreme of hate to that of love; a sneaking partiality arose between them; Preserved afterward married Remarkable, and a curious couple they were.' Faithful carried back his blooming bride, with whom he lived a long life of peace and innocence. 'They had thirteen children; the first was called Welcome, and the last Content; and their posterity inherit the land to this day.'
Many of our readers, who never had the good fortune to hear the elder Kean, will thank us for the annexed striking picture by Sands, of his personation of Shylock, in 'The Merchant of Venice.' It was written for the 'Literary Journal,' a thin monthly pamphlet, which closed its very brief existence some twenty-five years ago:
'Kean's manner in the first part is that of the miserly, calculating Jew; and it is not until the entrance of Antonio, that we suspect him of aught worse than usury. The sight of Antonio kindles his hatred, and he exclaims, 'Cursed be my tribe, if I forgive him!' We tremble for the merchant, and shudder, as with a sudden change of countenance he smooths the wrinkle of hate from his brow, and turns to his victim with, 'Rest you fair, good Signior.' The speech in which he recounts the bitter scorn, the personal indignities he has received from Antonio, was finely given. It was not said entirely in anger; beneath his indignation could be discerned a malignant pleasure; and when he said, 'Well, then, it now appears you need my help,' his eyes seemed to flash with ferocious joy. The conciliating and jesting manner he assumed while settling the terms of the contract, was admirable, and the performance of the whole scene was without a fault. The passage most deserving praise, in the next act in which he appears, is the trembling eagerness with which he receives the news of Antonio's loss, as he exclaims, almost breathless: 'What, what, what! Ill luck, ill luck?' And even, while in his impious rapture, he thanks God, he still doubtingly asks, 'Is it true; is it true?' But it is in the trial scene that this gifted actor puts forth his strength. With what an unmoved air he listened to the Duke's exhortation to be merciful! His reply was not spoken with violence, in the loudness of anger, but with a horrid calmness in a subdued but chilling manner; and he asked, 'Are you answered?' in a tone of bitter irony. So fiendish a countenance we wish never to look upon, except when we know it is assumed, as when he sharpened the ready knife, and cried with a serpent hiss, 'To cut the forfeiture from that bankrupt there!' We almost quaked before the glance of his demon eye, as he seemed to gloat upon his victim. As he gazed on Antonio, his lips were slightly curled by the bitter smile of satisfied malice; his eyes were bright and distended with the joy of his revengeful anticipations; yet he neither spoke nor moved. We pass over many points, to notice his answer to Portia's suggestion, of sending for a surgeon, lest Antonio bleed to death. 'Is it so nominated in the bond?' And the expression with which he raises his eyes from the paper, and says, with a smile which a devil might own, 'I cannot find it—'tis not in the bond.' As the court proceeds to award the sentence in his favor, his face becomes lighted by exultation; his whole form seems to throb with joy; he bares his hands, and grasps the knife, with convulsive eagerness. But who can do justice to the sudden transition of his manner, the horror-struck, doubting air, the fixed rigid countenance, with which he hears the forbidding clause? When he finds utterance, it is but a sentence of four words which he pronounces. But how are they pronounced! The fingers which had clenched the knife gradually unloose their grasp, and fall nerveless and slowly by his side; the disappointed, dejected, almost exhausted tone, in which he with difficulty articulates 'Is that the law?' Surely this was the perfection of acting. We have beheld Cooke's representation of this character with delight, and have dwelt upon it with pleasure. But, great as it was, compared to Kean's, it appears a cold performance. Indeed, Mr. Kean approaches nearer to Garrick than any actor since his time. Kemble has more majesty; Cooke possesses more physical power, and though not a good, yet a finely-modulated voice. Cooper has great advantages both of person and voice; but they are all deficient in that astonishing variety of expression, that power of reaching men's hearts, and causing them to tremble, which distinguishes Mr. Kean.'
Kean's power over the feelings of his audiences seems scarcely to have been surpassed by any actor that ever trod the stage. Hosts of admirers speak of him even now with unabated enthusiasm.
The subjoined beautiful reflections and yet more admirable poetry are from an essay based oddly enough upon a version of one of the monosyllabic poems of Ausonius; a string of verses, in which the last monosyllable of each line forms the first of the next, and the first is the same as the last; so that they may be read over and over again without end. 'We take it,' writes Sands, 'as a good motto for a paper which we mean to write, without having any precise notion on what subject we shall descant. We mean to make, on something or other, 'a few plain and practical remarks,' as the Rev. Mr. —— says, when he means to preach a sermon five quarters of an hour long.' The paper thus lightly commenced, closes as follows:
'A MAN who lives out his threescore and ten years, or lingers beyond that period, must, in the common course of events, see the ordinary revolutions affected by time and death. At the middle of his career, he sees a flourishing family around him; friends and connections formed in his advancing course; attachments begun in sympathy, and cemented by interest. He lives on; and his children are scattered by the accidents of mortality, and their graves are in different countries. His friends have vanished from their former haunts, and the places that knew them, now know them no more for ever. 'He asks of the solitudes, where are they? and the hollow echo answers, Where?' There is no one to sympathize with his remembrances of the past; his infirmities become a grievance, or he thinks them so, to those around him; and he still feels that lingering attachment to life, which answers the philosopher's question, an mors malum sit, with the powerful evidence of consciousness. Hope and Memory delude the pilgrim in his journey, by the false colors with which they paint the scene before and behind him. 'Man never is, but always to be blest;' and as the future, depicted by the fancy only, presents unmingled visions of delight, the past, mellowed by time, loses the little inconveniences which jarred discordantly with the passing music of pleasure; and its remembrance makes us regret what when present we neglected. It was under the influence of such reflections, that the following lines were composed. They were written in a prophetic hour by one who died young, and willing to depart:
Delusive world! whose phantom throng
Still flit, with juggling smiles, along,
To cheat the aching sense;
Where, as in man's primeval tongue,
Joy hath no present tense!
Joy, decked in unsubstantial hues,
The impatient fool for e'er pursues,
Till when the form is nigh,
The enchantress fair no more he views,
And all her colors fly.
But lo! 'tis there! 'tis there, again!
He starts anew, on quest as vain—
The enchantress is not there!
But like a vampyre from the tombs,
Behind, once more, the form assumes
Its station in the air.
Thus Hope and Memory still delude;
Now with the future's fancied good,
Now with the fancied past;
Till comes eternal night to brood
Above them both at last!
While thus I mused, I heard a voice
Of sweet and solemn tone:
'O child of clay!' it said, 'rejoice,
Nor woo despair alone.
'For know thine age hath reached its prime:
There is a race of men
Who do but hail life's summer-time,
And sink to earth again.
With one swift flame their being burns,
And soon their dust to dust returns'—
Blest Spirit! tell me—when?
Again the voice of music spoke:
'There is a happier sphere,
Where neither hope nor memory mock,
Yet joy is present there;
And dreaming souls to bliss have woke'—
Blest Spirit! tell me—where?
'Thou may'st with equal eye behold
Hours, days, and years behind thee rolled,
Grasping each present Now;
Nor dread the moment yet to come,
Nor weep o'er pleasure's mental tomb'—
Blest Spirit! tell me—how?
Although we find ourselves 'at the end of the tether,' we cannot resist the inclination to present the following forceful lines. Possibly the sentiment may be deemed heretical by the very imaginative and the young; but even such, if tasteful and discriminating persons, cannot choose but admire the melody of the verse, and the beauty of the imagery: