XI.
Broad, broad lands are between us, boys,
But our rivers seek the sea,
And by them, in our merriment,
We send good luck to ye:
Good luck to ye, brave mariners!
And mind, my boys, whenever
Ye weary of your ocean life,
Ye're welcome on the river!
[THE 'EMPIRE STATE' OF NEW-YORK.]
BY AN ENGLISHMAN.
The above is but a significant title. New-York justly merits the appellation of the 'Empire State.' Considered only as one of many independent commonwealths linked together in a peaceful union, what an idea must her grandeur convey of the American confederacy; of the strength of the chain which binds together such unwieldy masses, and renders the compact firm and enduring! It is a harmony which, if it continues, will be more wonderful than any save that of the spheres.
We enter into few statistics; we merely state the impressions of an inhabitant of the Old World at taking a general survey of this portion of the New; a glance at those great features which strike the mind of the most casual observer. New-York possesses in herself whatever would be necessary to constitute a great Empire, if distinct and separate; cities, towns, villages, rivers, lakes, mountains, soil, productions, and the most celebrated wonders in the world of nature and art. In extent equal to Great-Britain, she is magnificent in population, dominion, in developed and undeveloped resources. Within her limits Nature has exhausted every element of the beautiful or the sublime. The ocean thunders on her East, and the Great Cataract upon her West. Erie and Ontario are two great seas upon her borders, where the mariner may lose sight of land; whose billows are equal to those of the ocean, in storms which wreck the shipping destined for her provincial ports. The mighty river St. Lawrence, with its thousand islands, separates her from the British possessions on the North. On the North-east stretches Lake Champlain, one hundred and twenty miles, with all its variety of scene, from the low and swampy shore, to the boundary of steep mountains close to the water's edge, or the cliffs where a hollow, murmuring noise is heard when the breeze blows, from the waters splashing in the crannies of the rocks. There are islands encompassed with rocks, shores ornamented with hanging woods, and mountains rising behind each other, range after range, with a magnificence which cannot be described; but richer than all is she, when she receives the waters of Horicon, the loveliest of lakes! It embosoms two hundred islands, and is shadowed on either side by high mountains, while its waves are of such delicious purity as to reveal the slightest object which sparkles upon its bottom at any depth.
New-York has within it the sublime mountain scenery of the Kaätskills, where the eagle wheels over their hoary summits, and the winds receive an edge which sometimes kills the flowers of May in the valley. It has primeval forests where the axe has not sounded, and a few red men yet linger amid their gloom; and it has plains which stretch themselves for miles, like the prairies of the far West. It has solitudes where the foot of man has scarcely trod; and yet for three hundred miles, from the Hudson to the great lakes, it has city after city, town after town, village after village, in one unbroken chain, rising like magic on the borders of lakes or in the heart of vallies, where a few years since reigned the silence of nature; a proud attestation of the superiority of the Saxon race. Situated in a most favored zone, with skies hanging over it for the greatest portion of the year unclouded as those of Italy, it enjoys the four seasons, with their accompanying blessings, in equal distribution; the spring with its gradual advances; the luxury of summer; the autumn with its prodigal abundance; and that which enhances all these, and is likewise full of sublimity, the snows of winter. Whoever has sailed upon its rivers, or clambered its mountain-sides, or descended into its vallies, or gazed upon its cataracts, but most of all, has become acquainted with its works of art, must acknowledge that this is preëminently the Empire State.
But the Bay of New-York, rivalling the noblest in the world for its depth, expansiveness, and beauty of its rising shores, is another feature which deserves to be mentioned; and then we come to a city, destined also to stand in the first class. Accustomed as I had been to entertain an unpardonable prejudice and ignorance concerning the New World, and almost to confound the name of American with the red aborigines, it was with unfeigned surprise that I found myself in such a city, stunned with the hum of her incessant bustle and commerce, in the midst of somewhat fresh but stately buildings, and mingling with the crowds in a thoroughfare, considering its extent, one of the most magnificent in the world. Enthusiasm banished every prejudice. I beheld on all sides the aspect of a luxurious metropolis; well-furnished shops, churches, public buildings, and private dwellings, which would have graced any city of Christendom. Fountains in various parts were throwing up their waters to a great height, and with profuse liberality. A river flowed through the streets, brought from a distance of forty-five miles by an aqueduct, in design and execution one of the most bold, stupendous works of any age or country; yet some of my countrymen, who profess to write books, have not even alluded to it.
Surrounded by so many wonders, I looked for something to remind me of the past; to convince me that all this was not the work of magic, or of a few years. I could not persuade myself that the Indian ever rambled through the forests which covered the site of this city, and that the canoe shot silently over the waters where I beheld such a forest of masts. Just then, attracted by the sound of music, and the eager looks of a crowd, I observed twelve Indians, (among them were some handsome women) standing on a balcony which fronted the main street of the city, wrapped in blankets, with painted faces, and ornamented with a variety of gew-gaws. They were Sioux, who had come on under the care of an agent, and were exhibited as a show. The crowd gazed for a few moments, and passed on with indifference: but it was a spectacle calculated to plunge one into the most serious reverie. Here were the descendants of the original possessors of the soil; the same class of men whom Columbus described when he kissed the soil of which he took possession; children of the same frailties, ornamented in the same manner, the worshippers of the same spirit! Here was the bustling Present; they were the representatives of the Past; the poor children whose fathers once possessed this whole continent, now gazed at, as if they were cannibals from the South Seas! As they stood erect on the balcony, unconscious of the ardent gaze of the crowd, dignified, silent, and unmoved, they seemed to me like antique pictures hung upon a wall, in a garb and costume long since obsolete. They carried with them their arrows and their tomahawks, but these had long ago become powerless against the arts of civilized man. They looked down upon the Saxons, and saw the race which had destroyed their's. Around them the marble and the granite were piled in stately buildings; the columns of Christian temples rose before them, and the interminable streets of a great city. I gazed again at the poor children of the forest, then at the accumulating crowd, and all the evidence of power which I saw around; and the juxtaposition appeared to illustrate most forcibly the forces and resource of two races of men. The twelve Sioux on the balcony, with their blankets, hatchets, and store of arrow-heads, were to the physical strength and arts of the surrounding people what the whole race of the red men is now to the race of the whites.
The greatness of the city of New-York, which is the metropolis of the whole country, belies its provincial name, and its prosperity attests its unrivalled position near the sea. According to the present ratio of its increase, in less than twenty years it will number over half a million of inhabitants, and in less than a century will attain the rank which London now holds. The Old World pours in its wealth perpetually, and it is the great centre and mart of commerce for the New. Thither all the streams of commerce converge and meet. The cold regions of the North, the cotton-growing South, the great valley of the Mississippi, and beyond the Rocky mountains to Astoria, the wild regions of the utmost West contribute to its wealth. But passing by the feature of a great city, what a river has New-York! I refer not to any of those which lie upon her borders, and are shared by other states or nations, but to the Hudson, which is all her own. 'I thank God,' wrote the elegant Irving, soon after his return to his native State, from a long residence abroad, 'I thank God that I was born on the banks of the Hudson! I fancy I can trace much of what is good and pleasant in my own heterogeneous compound, to my early companionship with this glorious river. In the warmth of my youthful enthusiasm, I used to clothe it with moral attributes, and almost to give it a soul. I admired its frank, bold, honest character; its noble sincerity and perfect truth. Here was no specious, smiling surface, covering the dangerous sand-bar or perfidious rock; but a stream deep as it was broad, and bearing with honorable faith the bark that trusted to its waves. I gloried in its simple, quiet, majestic, epic flow; ever straight-forward. Once indeed, it turns aside for a moment, forced from its course by opposing mountains, but it struggles bravely through them, and immediately resumes its straight-forward march. 'Behold,' thought I, 'an emblem of a good man's course through life; ever simple, open, and direct; or if, overpowered by adverse circumstances, he deviate into error, it is but momentary; he soon recovers his onward and honorable career, and continues it to the end of his pilgrimage.' The Hudson is, in a manner, my first and last love; and after all my wanderings, and seeming infidelities, I return to it with a heart-felt preference over all the other rivers in the world. I seem to catch new life, as I bathe in its ample billows, and inhale the pure breezes of its hills. It is true, the romance of youth is past, that once spread illusions over every scene. I can no longer picture an Arcadia in every green valley; nor a fairy land among the distant mountains; nor a peerless beauty in every villa gleaming among the trees; but though the illusions of youth have faded from the landscape, the recollections of departed years and departed pleasures shed over it the mellow charm of evening sunshine.'[B]
We can add little to a picture like this, save the reiteration, that the Hudson is one of the noblest rivers in volume, and that its scenery is the grandest, of any river in the world. The Rhine, through a part of its course, is dreary and uninteresting. The Mississippi is incredible in its length: it rises amid the wintry snows, and passes into the insupportable heats of summer, bearing to another great city of the American union, fifteen hundred miles from New-York, the immense wealth of its valley. It is the Father of Waters. But its stream is always turbid; its shores flat and gloomy; its aspect melancholy, yet suggestive of deep thought. But the Hudson rolls brilliantly from where its thin streams rise in the mountains, until it swells into a magnificent river, and bursts into that noble bay. Here are no castles upon the beetling crags, associated with olden story; or hoary ruins, every stone of which could tell a tale. Here are no ivied turrets, or moss-grown walls, or battlements crowning the rock; yet it lacks not, though it needs not, the charms of history and associations of the past: it needs not the embellishments of romance or pen of the poet; it is grand enough to fill the mind with contemplations of itself. Follow its course in one of those princely boats, miracles of architecture! three hundred feet in length, which rush daily over its surface, swift as the lightning, yet more gracefully than swans—the 'Knickerbocker'! Now it is wide enough for whole navies to ride at anchor; and the distant shores look dim, which afterward approach each other, and present the aspect of gay meadows and cultivated fields. Now it rushes around mountainous promontories, or cuts its passage through immense piles of perpendicular rocks, which stand yawning on either side as if a giant had torn them asunder to let the river pass through. Ossa is piled upon Pelion, Pelion upon Ossa; and from the grandeur or beauty of the neighboring scene, the eye is directed by turns upon the waving outline of distant mountains. They are like the ocean-color, 'darkly, deeply, beautifully blue.' Sometimes the river becomes an expansive bay; then a lovely lake shut in with hills; then a fair and even-flowing stream. Memory can scarcely do justice to that splendid variety of highland and lowland, precipice and verdant field, towns and villages; and the swift boat makes all this one moving panorama.
Nor does the river abate in interest if you follow it two hundred and fifty miles, where its origin is found in the little brooks and delicious streamlets where the trout harbors, or among the thickets where the frightened deer hastens to plunge into the lake. There is a region in the northern part of the State, wild and uninhabited, containing two hundred little lakes. There are to be found scenes of indescribable beauty, to which only the pencil of the painter could do justice; and yet there are few to tell him where to transport his easel. Its pathless wilderness precludes also the huntsman; and deer and an abundance of wild game are secure in the fastnesses which have never been invaded by man. Yet is all this little, compared with the dominions of the Empire State. The traveller who directs his course westward from the Hudson to the great lakes, will pause at every step to wonder at her variety of productions, her endless resources, the magical growth of towns which have some scores of thousands of inhabitants, and yet twenty years ago contained only a few log-cabins of the hunters! The whole space is a series of long, swelling undulations; uplands which slope away for miles insensibly into rich-bottomed vallies, each one possessing its broad, deep lake; and every one of these lakes is a perfect gem. Otsego, Oneida, Skeneateles, Owasco, Cayuga, Seneca, and a score of others are passed in succession; and on the shores of each the lover of the picturesque might spend weeks with profit and delight. With such a prodigality of waters, and especially in the vicinity of the great lakes, the thunder-storms engendered by the summer heats are of terrific grandeur. One would think that the dissolution of nature was at hand. Some one has justly remarked that all things here are on a large scale.
But the memories of the traveller are destined to be effaced, when he hears for the first time the thunders of the Great Cataract, and his eyes are turned to behold the cloud of spray which rises like perpetual incense above its brink. From the sea-shore to Niagara is now scarcely two days of easy travel. Not many years since, to go thither, one was compelled to plod his way through a tangled wilderness, trusting to uncertain pathways, in momentary fear of wild beasts or wilder savages; and when he arrived at the place, nothing but the rapture of the vision could enable him to forget the perils of the journey, and the prospect of the return. One was forced to pass by other sublimities of nature, which are now unseen because they have disappeared; the gloom of forests and gigantic trees, and the tumult of other cascades and waterfalls which are avoided by a more direct route. The transition is most remarkable from the heart of a great city, hundreds of miles distant, to the brink of this stupendous precipice. The forests which used to intervene, are reduced to separate clumps or groups of trees, which whirl round on the verge of the horizon, and disappear, making the head giddy; and one occasionally beholds the trunk or mummy of a gigantic oak prostrate on the ground, preserving its ancient form and semblance, but ashes to the core. This is where the pioneer has been; and these are but the shadows of difficulties which once impeded the traveller at every step.
Oh! the Rapids! the Rapids! It would atone for months of peril, to know the exultation which arises from looking on that congregation of billows! There they come, from the whole chain of lakes and great inland seas, an incalculable host, plunging down a long sloping hill-side, which is the bed of the wide Niagara river near the chasm; storming the foundations of fast-anchored islands, and shattered by the obstructions which they hurry with them, the fragments of the convulsion which burst open the abyss where they leap! They seemed to me infinitely more grand than the sea when it rolls its huge breakers to the shore after a storm. Look onward, and the prospect is alike infinite. The sky and the white crests of waves form the boundary of vision, and seem as if they poured out of the sky, so great is the descent; the waters gorging the wide stream, and impeded at every step by rocks, and concealed caverns, whirl, writhe, and agonize, with a violence of agitation of which it is in vain to endeavor to convey an idea. It is the highest example of wrath and strength in the elements, exerted without any cessation or rest. The sea is upheaved mightily, but it is sometimes calm, and reflects the clear sky. The volcano intermits its fiery grandeur. The conflagration dies in ashes, where its little spark was first kindled. The freshet, which is irresistible in its might, subsides in violence, and permits the flowers to grow up again on the fertile banks, and be imaged in the tranquil stream. The wildest hurricane which bears upward the oak, abates into the musical winds. But here the fury is unceasing; there is only an awful, unnatural calm upon the brink of the precipice. And it is difficult to believe that there is any thing yet behind the curtain, and that all this display of waters, grand as it is, cannot convey the faintest idea of that which remains, and is but the ushering in of a more glorious spectacle.
Think of the gentle river in the valley, with just current enough to preserve its purity, and so visited by the winds that it would not ruffle the swan's breast which reposes upon it so gracefully! Then turn hither for contrast, and look in vain on this mad flood for a single image of peace! Standing on the bridge which spans the American cataract, and stretches to the islet which conducts you to Goat Island, you look down and shudder. Nothing which breathes could be tortured in that flood a moment, and live. Come then and look into the abyss, and see the waters take the last plunge! And here description ceases, for the simple reason that it would be all in vain. With a grand sweeping arch, they roll forward over the ledge, are calm and silent upon the brink, then dashed into atoms on the rocks far below. The white smoke gushes up as from a hot furnace to the sky! Oh what a cataract, and rocks, and river, whirlpools, and awful chasms, solitude and yet communion with spirits, silence and yet 'mighty thunderings!' I thought I had died, and was breathing an immortal life in a new planet, where every surrounding object was more vast and incomprehensible. I listened to a voice which combines all sounds, yet chords with none in nature which it resembles; not with the bass of ocean, not with the winter winds. It is something which connects you palpably with the Past; a carrying of the thoughts and imaginations far backward: like listening to the blast of a trumpet prolonged by an angel from the beginning of time. A storm burst tumultuously above the cataract. The long reverberations of thunder would have terrified in another place; but here they added nothing to the sublime. At last the sunshine, after a little interval, broke out of the clouds, and rain-bows crowned the glory of the scene, whose rich tints were perpetuated when the moon arose. For here on the very spot, in the midst of the violent element, where one might almost doubt the word of Deity that he would not again overwhelm the earth with water, among the manifestations of His presence, sublimer than any but those on Sinai, he has dissipated every doubt, and hung over the whole magnificent scene his perpetual bow of promise.
[GREEN SPOTS IN THE CITY.]
Ye fill my heart with gladness, verdant places,
That 'mid the city greet me as I pass;
Methinks I see of angel steps the traces,
Where'er upon my pathway grows the grass.
I pause before your gates at early morning,
When lies the sward with glittering sheen o'erspread;
And think the dew-drops there each blade adorning,
Are angels' tears for mortal frailty shed.
And ye, earth's firstlings! here in beauty springing,
Erst in your cells by careful winter nursed,
And to the morning heaven your incense flinging,
As at His smile ye forth in joy had burst;
How do ye cheer with hope the lonely hour,
When on my way I tread despondingly;
With thought that He who careth for the flower
Will, in His mercy, still remember me.
Breath of our nostrils, Thou! whose love embraces,
Whose light shall never from our souls depart;
Beneath thy touch hath sprung a green oasis
Amid the arid desert of my heart.
Thy sun and rain awake the bud of promise,
And with fresh leaves in spring-time deck the tree;
That where man's hand hath shut out nature from us,
We by these glimpses may remember Thee.
Mary E. Hewitt.
New-York, June, 1843.
[A DREAM OF CHILDHOOD.]
I dreamed that childhood had returned;
And oh! 't was sweet to roam
Through flowery meads, and birchen groves,
That skirt my lowland home.
Again I chased the butterfly,
And plucked the heather-bell,
And wove a flowery coronal
For one who loved me well.
Again, with bounding step, I ran,
And placed it on his brow;
Again I to the heart was pressed
That's cold and silent now.
I saw with joy the mild eye beam
That never looked unkind;
But with a parent's fondness still
To all my faults was blind.
My dream then changed; yet still I was
That parent's hope and pride;
Though stern realities of life
Forced childhood's joys aside.
I lived, in memory, o'er again,
With bitter tears and sighs,
The hour when, far from home and friends,
I closed his dying eyes.
E'en in that hour of dread and death,
How placidly he smiled;
And left a lasting legacy,
His blessing, for his child!
With agonizing start, I woke,
To feel life's every ill;
Yet, 'mid misfortune's withering blast,
I hear that blessing still:
And echo seems, where'er I rove,
In gilded hall or bower,
To greet me with the voice of love
I heard in that lone hour;
A gleam of bliss amid the gloom
Of sorrow's solitude;
A talisman to draw my thoughts
Where vice dares not intrude.
It oft has checked my wild career
When borne on passion's wing;
For oh! a parent's blessing is
A sweet, a holy thing!
In fancy, oft I follow on
That faint, sweet voice of love,
Till, leaving earth and earthly cares,
I soar to realms above;
And scenes of dazzling brightness rush
On my bewildered sigh:
My spirit feels the Godhead there,
In majesty and might.
And sounds seraphic greet mine ear,
And heavenly anthems swell:
There, 'mid the choir, his voice I hear
Who loved me long and well;
And, as the song of praise is raised,
In cadence sweet and mild,
Again the passing spirit says:
'Almighty! bless my child!'
I. G.
[ANECDOTE OF A BOTTLE OF WINE.]
Trincolo. Oh Stephano! hast any more of this?
Stephano. Out of the moon I do assure thee; I was
The man in the moon, when time was.
Caliban. I have seen thee in her, and I do adore thee;
My mistress shew'd me thee, thy dog, and bush.
I consider the wines of France to bear the same rank in comparison with those of other countries, that the highest order of lyrical effusion sustains in the world of poetry. Ordinary Rhenish wines are it's satires and pasquinades; Port is didactic verse; while among the first growths of the Rheingau, of Madeira, and of Spain, are to be sought the Shakspeares, the Homers, the Miltons, Virgils and Dantes of the wine-crypt.
It is in conformity with this poetical disposition of things, that, when I expect a visit from my friends, I descend into my wine-vault or mount the stairs of my attic. There, with keys in hand, I unloose the spirits of the mighty past, and restore in their happiest temperament and condition, and to their bright and animated destiny, the effulgent glories of the grape.
It was not always thus, dear John! 'I do assure thee,' as my motto says, 'when time was,' a few cobweb'd bottles of old Madeira upon the upper shelf of a chamber closet not too near the surface of the earth, and a case or two, and basket or two, in a distant receptacle, were, in the golden days of thy better manhood, but faint precursors of thy rich and cherished hoards; thy vaulted cellar and thy loaded wine-chamber—fraught as these now are with the result of distant voyages, of curious tastings, of patient research, and of elaborate choice illustrated with a benignant and happy fortune. And yet those were glad days, bright days, precious days; were they not? What a flavor, what a zest the wines wore when thou and I were young! And the cookery! dear Sirs, how well-dressed things were in those days!
We were living in a French boarding-house celebrated for it's cuisine. Our wine of course depended upon our proper self, but I have never met with a better table d'hôte than we were wont to be seated at, particularly upon any intimation to our worthy host that we expected friends, and wished to entertain them with our best. There was nothing of the 'busy hum of preparation,' nor any anxiety about the successful practice of the cook, nor disappointment in the marketing, nor rising in the dawn of morning after a feverish night to acquire, at any cost, the first specimen of the season; nothing of that state of perturbed feeling which a tourist among us well calls 'stirring Heaven and Earth to give a dinner;' but the hour came, the guests were punctual, and we sat down with young hearts, young spirits, and above all, young palates to the board.
Among those few cobweb'd bottles that I have adverted to, upon that upper shelf, in that chamber closet, of that upper story, there might in those days have been discerned one that stood, like a star, APART; the treasured, cherished, garnered bottle that should upon some alba dies occasion grace our bachelor's repast. It was twin bottle to one that had been opened for us in that City of Refuge of good wines, Charleston South Carolina, in those days not less certainly than now, the abode of the hospitable, the accomplished and the brave. Our host there had produced its fellow as a specimen that he was desirous his friends should appreciate. 'Oh Stephano, hast any more of this?'
When I arrived in New-York after ten days and ten nights of continuous posting, (the distance is now accomplished I am told cleverly in three,) the flavour of that wine still regaled my palate; there was a spiritual vineyard flourishing within my heart; the fragrant blossom, the young grape, the purple cluster, the yielding pressure, and the nectareous juice; the autumnal grape-leaf with its magic dyes, and all the long history of joy which it is given to one or two rare specimens of the wines of this life to impart to the spirit of man; to impress upon his nerves; and to be recalled in sensations that make glad the fountains of his heart, and dispense his affections among his fellow men; all these were present to my senses, and delighted me with a varied, an intellectual, and constantly reviving joy. I had never known so perfect a beverage; and I wrote at once to my friend, offering him in exchange any description of wine that he could name to me, bottle for bottle.
He returned for answer an expression of regret that one only bottle remained of the batch; and intreating my acceptance of what I prized so highly, sent it on without delay. This was that lonely bottle, that stood, in vague and uncertain light like a Hero of Ossian, upon that upper shelf, in that chamber closet, of that upper story. Often did I gaze upon it, often apostrophize it, praise it with a recollected gladness, remember its acquirement, delight in its possession, and wonder when the time might come, and when the friends, that should deserve the peerless, the incomparable offering.
Upon a certain memorable day, and punctual to the moment, came a chosen party of my most honored and distinguished friends. The dinner was beyond praise, and all the appointments good. No crowd, no tumult, no excuse, no delay in serving, no vacant seat, no chair with small open hexagons of split rattan to disfigure the person of the guest for three successive days when the dress is thin, or to torture him when the weather is cold with pains which he is ashamed to complain of or even to mention——a practice, Mr. Editor and all who hear me, still obtaining in some houses in New-York, and at times, especially in winter, more abhorrent to the thoughts than is the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, since heat upon a gridiron is in many of its appliances preferable to cold upon sharp rattan. No; each guest had his cushioned chair, 'with ample room and verge enough;' and course after course, and wine after wine, appeared, and was enjoyed, discussed, and quietly disappeared, alike without want or waste.
Well, the time of the repast came for my selected wines: they were all prepared, and all in the finest order and condition. The series was a perfect one; a veritable ladder of transport; up which the spirits of my guests ascended gracefully, step after step, as each higher and higher flavour presented itself to their gratified and entranced palate. At the last, sole remaining bottle of the list, came my Charleston acquisition. It is certainly in bad taste to expatiate upon one's wine from the chair, but as this was the only bottle of it's kind in the world, it seemed necessary to introduce it with a word that should at least perform that ceremony.
I told the story of its acquisition, and expressed the pleasure it gave me to present on this occasion the one remaining bottle of the world. We had been conversing a moment or two before, I remember, on the comparative advantages in drinking wine, between the sip and the throw, and had come to the conclusion, (which I think every man of sense must ultimately arrive at,) that the latter is the true way to enjoy the full aroma of the beverage, and at once to gain that gratifying descent, and that ascent to the wits; in short that satisfying blessedness of taste, which the mere sipper of potations of whatever kind must vainly aspire to know; say what you may to the contrary, Mr. T. G.!
The bottle was uncorked, decanted, and the wine came forth, in the profound silence and expectation of the guests, bright as the beam of your mistress's eye! The attention of all present was so absorbed by their interest in this only bottle, that until every man's glass was filled, hardly a sound was perceptible except the gurgling of the long-necked decanter as it distributed its glorious contents and passed with wings from hand to hand around the board and returned drained to the head of the table. Toasts were at that time in vogue; and as soon as I had said, 'Our hospitable friend in South Carolina, may his own last bottle reward him for the pleasure of this gift,' each man did ample justice to the wine.
How shall I recount the catastrophe that ensued! We are all sinful men born to trouble as the sparks fly upward, and it seemed as if the wine had also dealt ample and instant justice upon us! Every soul present was struck through the heart and liver to the spine! All rose instantly from the table, speechless, aghast, and terrified with the effect! There was a napkin or handkerchief over the mouth of each, and if we could have articulated a word, we might have exclaimed with the sons of the prophets at the feast in Gilgal, 'Oh my Lord, there is death in the pot!'
But it was impossible to relieve ourselves by words; it was literally in tears and groans that the guests made for the door, vanished from the room, escaped from the house, and left me, appalled, transfixed, incapable of utterance, standing at the head of my deserted table, and feeling that 'No man said, 'God bless him!''
For a fortnight, three weeks, a month, no one of my guests had his mouth right! I was afraid to walk in the streets lest I should meet one of them; there was a paralytic stricture in the countenance of each member of that sad party; in some it wore an expostulatory, an admonitory, in some a remonstrant, and in all the look of a much injured person. I must except one gentleman whom however I did not get a glimpse of until six weeks had elapsed. He was a well-bred Frenchman, with all the suavity and grace of manner that belongs to his class and nation. I shall ever feel grateful to him for the first kind word I had received since the discomfiture; though I have sometimes had doubts, judging from the reïnstated appearance of his lips, whether he had taken more than half a glass: 'My dear Sir,' said he, 'when I had the pleasure to dine with you at your very agreeable party, there was one wine that had flavour very exemplary, ma foi!' I acknowledge it, I said. 'I think you did say it was American wine?' I did, I replied. 'What is the name if you please, as I pay much attention to the sujet of wines?' I named it. 'Will you be so very kind as write it in my tablet?' I prepared to comply; and telling him that I was not quite certain of the correct orthography of the word, wrote in large characters, the word, 'Scuppernong.'
John Waters.
[ON THE DEATH OF A CLASSMATE.]
'Oh! what a shadow o'er the heart is flung,
When peals the requiem for the loved and young!'
W. G. Clark.
We waste no sorrow o'er the verdant tomb
When whitened Age is called to meet its doom;
With shattered bark, on life's wild current driven,
The tempest, threat'ning death, but wafts to heaven;
And the freed spirit, borne on eagle wing,
Mounts to the regions of eternal spring.
No; 'tis not Age we mourn; life's course is run,
And soon, at best, must set its sinking sun.
We weep no sad adieu when infant years
Fly this cold vale, where joy still ends in tears;
Ere yet a cloud has dimmed their morning sky
Which hangs outspread so clearly blue on high;
That sky the tempest's wrath will soon deform,
And the day, dawned in sunshine, close in storm.
Oh! who would bid that wandering spirit stay,
Which seeks a fairer realm, a brighter day!
But when th' Avenger in his withering track
Strikes in its bloom the pride of Manhood down,
The heart's sad strings, but faintly echo back
The plaintive murmurings of Sorrow's moan.
'Unhappy youth!' ere life was well begun,
And thy brief day had seen scarce half a sun,
The roses from thy fading cheek have flown,
And Death, the spoiler, marked thee for his own!
[GLEANINGS FROM THE GERMAN.]
BY WILLIAM PITT PALMER.
COUNSEL.
Soul of light in stone enthroned
Is the precious diamond;
Son of light, do thou endure,
Like this gem, still strong and pure!
EPITAPH.
Read, wanderer, a husband's moan:
My wife was young and fair!
Now lies upon her heart a stone,
And mine—is light as air!
ON THE EPITAPHS IN A CHURCH-YARD.
Falsehood, O man! delights thine eye:
Thou teachest even stones to lie!
ON BAVIUS.
Give him to drink of Lethe's wave! why not
Let the poor bard forget that he's forgot?
LADIES' TONGUES.
Frankly, ladies' tongues, confess
Ye must wag perforce:
Faith! the sex might, as I guess,
Without tongues discourse!
THE GRAY-BEARD.
Nearch is blind, and deaf, and lame,
The prey of time's corrosive greed,
And long of crafty heirs the game;
When will the dead man die indeed?
GARLANDS.
Youth, with chaplets grace thy brow,
But the garland choose with care;
Wreathed with laurel fadeth late,
Wreathed with myrtle soon, the hair.
FRIEND AND FOE.
Let warning wisdom's kindly speech
Thy friend his faults and failings show;
But let thy mute example teach
The love of virtue to thy foe.
PLEASURE.
List a mortal's quest, sweet Pleasure!
Why so fleeting?—answer, pray:
Lost as soon as found, thy treasure!
None can thy dear presence stay.
Thank thou, Fate, she cried, whose minions,
All the gods, love me alone;
Were I fashioned without pinions,
They would keep me for their own!
[THE QUOD CORRESPONDENCE.]
Harry Harson.