SONNET X.
TRISAGION.
'Therefore with angels and arch-angels, laud
And magnify His great and glorious Name,
Who, to redeem the world from ruin, came,
Saying: Holy, holy, holy Lord God!
Heaven and earth made clean by Thy dear blood,
Are ever full of Thy great majesty:
All glory be to Thee, O Lord, Most High!'
So sang the angelic choir, the while I stood
Listening the far response: 'Not unto us,
Not unto us, O Lord! but unto Thee
Be all the glory, Lamb of Calvary!
Quoniam tu solus Dominius!'
So Love doth rule—the high behest of heaven:
And Love is ten-fold Love that waits on sins forgiven.
[LITERARY NOTICES.]
The King of the Mountains. From the French of Edmond About, Author of 'The Roman Question,' 'Germaine,' etc. By Mary L. Booth. With an Introduction by Epes Sargent, Esq. In one volume: pp. 300. Boston: J. E. Tilton and Company, Number 601 Washington-street.
Monsieur About is said to have scared His Holiness, the Pope, the kind and benevolent Pio Nono, (if we may trust any of all the numerous portraits and drawings which we have encountered of him,) in his book upon 'The Roman Question.' The author's very name may have had something to do with it. He was 'about'—he was 'areöund': and the 'French' of his cognomen, as pronounced by his countrymen, was in itself suggestive of at least a signal of alarm—'Ah-booh!' But this aside: the book is a remarkable one, in many respects: and like its predecessors from the same pen, it will make an 'abiding mark' among the artistically-transferred literature to our own, from a foreign tongue. This narrative of 'The King of the Mountains' is not at all complicated. Regarded as an artistical picture, we may say with truth that 'the canvas is neither confused nor crowded.' The story is supposed to be told by a young German botanist. He proceeds to Greece with the purpose of herbalizing in the mountains. 'Carried away by a scientific enthusiasm—the most common and the most pardonable—he becomes the prisoner of a remarkable brigand, Hadgi-Stavros, the King of the Mountains. He is not alone in his captivity. An English lady and her daughter—the former a striking portrait of a class of weak and consequential tourists, and the latter a thing to be admired and loved by any German, or any American, for that matter, under the circumstances supposed—are the hero's fellow-prisoners. The greater part of the book is taken up with a description of the character, positions, resources, habits and influence of the brigand chief; the temporary captivity of the party, who are made prisoners for the sake of a large ransom, actually in view of Athens, (such is the state of the government and police of that thriving kingdom!) and their final ransom and escape. But there are other dramatis personæ beside Mrs. Simons, who is a sort of Mrs. Nickleby, an Anglaise pour ire, and Miss Simons, who does not take after her mother. There are down at the Piræus an American named Harris, a young Athenian girl, hight Photini, and a Frenchman whose ruling passions are archæology and philanthropy. 'He had been rewarded by some provincial academy for an essay on the price of paper in the time of Orpheus. Encouraged by his first success, he had made a journey to Greece to collect materials for a work on the quantity of oil consumed by the lamp of Demosthenes while he was writing the second Philippic.' Harris, the American, is evidently a favorite character with M. About. He invests him with all the best attributes of our countrymen, and makes every adventure in which he is a participator honorable to his gallantry and sagacity: 'The first time I dined with this strange fellow I comprehended America. John was born at Vandalia, Illinois. He inhaled at his birth that air of the New World, so vivacious, so sparkling and so brisk, that it goes to the head like champagne wine, and one gets intoxicated in breathing it. I know not whether the Harris family are rich or poor; whether they sent their son to college or left him to get his own education. It is certain that at twenty-seven years he depends only on himself; trusts only to himself, is astonished at nothing, thinks nothing impossible, never flinches, believes all things, hopes all things, tries all things; triumphs in all, rises up again if he falls, never stops, never loses courage.' One of the best of our American critics, Mr. Bryant, remarks of this book: 'No work of modern times, even in an English dress, serves to convey so capital an idea of the style which made Voltaire famous, as this last agreeable romance of the author of 'The Roman Question.' It is just such a story as Talleyrand would have told over his chocolate, and Sydney Smith relished and decorated with impromptu comment.'
The Literary and Professional Works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, and Lord High Chancellor of England. Volume II. of the 'Literary and Professional Works': pp. 454. Boston: Brown and Taggard.
Our first praise of this series of Bacon's works must be paid to that feature which first appeals to us through the eye—its typographical execution, by Houghton, of the 'River-side Press' at Cambridge, near Boston, which may be pronounced fully equal to that of the first English printing in choice library editions of kindred standard works. The volume before us contains, with translations, Bacon's eulogium upon Henry Prince of Wales, and the characters of Julius and Augustus Cæsar—the original Latin, with translation. Also amendments and corrections inserted by Bacon in a manuscript copy of Camden's Annals. Then follow, prefaced by a curious bibliographical note by Mr. Spedding, the 'Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral,' published from 1597 to 1625, (the year before his death,) which exhibit 'the earliest and the latest fruits of Bacon's observation in that field in which its value has been most approved by universal and undiminished popularity. These fifty-eight Essays, so wise and so eloquent in their simple yet forcible diction, occupy the greater portion of the volume, and the editor has translated the Latin quotations and added some necessary notes. There is an appendix to the essays, containing a Fragment of an Essay on Fame; reprints of the first edition of 1597, containing only ten, and of the second edition of 1612, with thirty-eight essays, and two essays attributed to Bacon without authority; but, notwithstanding some similarity of style, marked by Mr. Spedding as spurious. There is, also, Bacon's treatise De Sapientia Veterum, itself a curiously learned book, the translation of which will appear in a future volume. 'Bacon was one of the most remarkable men the world has ever seen. His character is a remarkable compound of the greatest nobleness and the most contemptible meanness. But of his intellect, no two opinions have ever been expressed. If we knew Bacon only by his works, we should be bound to esteem him to be as good as he was undeniably a great man.'
Guesses at Truth. By Two Brothers. From the fifth London edition. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.
The Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are still without rival or peer, notwithstanding that Lacon has given us some good apothegms, and Martin Farquhar Tupper, who undertook to render King Solomon into polite English, has had an amazing 'run.' A good proverb is always acceptable: a poor one vexes us always, because the maker assumes the position of teacher, and has no right to be either stupid or mediocre. To set one thinking is more difficult, and indeed more laudable, than to furnish one with thoughts; as it is more praiseworthy to put one in the way of earning a living, than merely to bestow a charity. It is easy, however, to assume the air oracular; in fact there is more or less strength, prima facia, in a pretentious position; and a platitude let off under cover of high-sounding words may be very imposing. We have in 'Guesses at Truth,' a book of five hundred and fifty-five pages, originally published in England more than thirty years ago by two brothers, clergymen, we believe, and now reprinted by the respectable house of Ticknor and Fields. We have looked carefully through the volume; and for once are forced to differ with the publishers as to the taste of reproducing the book here. With the exception of some very fair criticisms on Shakspeare, Milton, and one or two others, borrowed a good deal from Goethe and Schlegel, and certain extended disquisitions absorbed evidently from Wordsworth and Coleridge, the book is utterly common-place. A good deal of it we remember to have met with in our various newspaper clippings—a good deal we confess never to have before encountered. In 'Guesses at Truth' the French come in for very severe hits from the 'Two Brothers' whenever opportunity serves: they are full of the English prejudices of the last century. Mark the following sagacious comparison: 'The French rivers partake of the national character. [We should think it would be just the reverse.—Ed.] Many of them look broad, grand and imposing, but they have no depth; and the greatest river in the country, the Rhone, loses half its usefulness from the impetuosity of its current!' Hear this precious piece of intelligence: 'France—the only region between Lapland and Morocco where youth is without bloom, and age without dignity!' Here is something new about the 'best talkers in the world:' 'Talk to a dozen Englishmen on any subject: there will be something peculiar and characteristic in the remarks of each. Talk to a dozen Frenchmen: they will all make the very same remark, and almost in the same words.' But let us give the reader a specimen of the more abstract 'Guesses:' 'What a pity it is there are so many words! Whenever one wants to say any thing, three or four ways of saying it run into one's head together; and one can't tell which to choose. It is as troublesome or as puzzling as choosing a ribbon or a husband.' Read the following. It is Blackstonian: 'A use must have preceded an abuse properly so called.' The next strikes us as exceedingly original: 'A little management may often evade resistance which a vast force might vainly strive to overcome.' And this: 'Children always turn toward the light. Oh! that grown-up people in this world would become like little children!' The art-world owes much for what follows: 'A portrait has one advantage over its original: it is unconscious; and so you may admire without insulting it. I have seen portraits which have more.' (Sic.) Here is something worthy a place in the 'Rules of Etiquette:' 'A compliment is usually accompanied by a bow, as if to beg pardon for paying it.' We have puzzled over the following and 'give it up:' 'What way of circumventing a man can be so easy and suitable as a period? The name should be enough to put us on our guard; the experience of every age is not.' Further on we read: 'Truth endues man's purposes with somewhat of immutability.' This reminds us of the cautious writer who stated that 'most men were mortal!'
For further examples of senseless platitudes dictatorially expressed, we refer the reader to the work passim. There is nothing more ridiculous than the deliberate sitting-down to write a book of proverbs and reflections. How unlike the genuine flow of the table-talk of some of our best men or the words of wisdom forced, as it were, from the lips of experience. In short, we are sick of pompous mediocrity on stilts: of that placid egotism which complacently assumes the office of guide and teacher, though incapable of aught but the tedious common-place. We do not want the thoughts of great men passed through such alembics—in fact, we much prefer to dilute our own proverbs if they prove too strong for us.
'Guesses at Truth' is beautifully printed on fine paper with clear type; after the newest style of the accomplished publishers. We regret to say the text is marred by the change of spelling of words ending in ed. Thus we find: reacht, lookt, discust, toucht, fixt, packt, etc., etc.—instead of reached, looked, discussed, touched, fixed, packed. 'As the body to the soul, so the word to the thought,' and we do not believe in thus mutilating what we are led by habit at least to consider a fair proportion.
Professor Valentine Mott's Surgical Cliniques in the University of New-York. Session 1859-60. Reported by Samuel W. Francis, M.D.
This volume, which is gotten up in the best style of typography, and illustrated with many superior engravings, embraces a report of nearly one hundred surgical cases treated by the eminent surgeon, Professor Valentine Mott, M.D. The treatment of the cases is simple and judicious, and they are narrated clearly and concisely. The work is of great practical value and interest to the medical profession, and reflects credit on its able reporter, Dr. Samuel W. Francis. It is embellished with a very accurate portrait of Professor Mott.
Wa-Wa-Wanda: A Legend of Old Orange. In one Volume: pp. 280. New-York: Rudd and Carleton, Corner of Grand and Crosby-streets.
This is a book seriously written, containing the narrative of an old Indian called Winter Pippin. The author, declining the trouble of giving us a measure of his own, which certainly the originality of his work demands, has modestly employed that of Mr. Longfellow's Hiawatha, for which Mr. Longfellow ought to be very grateful.
The book before us—the work, a-hem!—on our table—reader, it's no use; we can't write prose after reading it. We are alone in our sanctum—no friend present to hold us in. We are wound up to a pitch of excitement, the case is desperate, it must come. O shade of Winter Pippin, listen!
Here's a poem as is a poem,
Poem writ for all the ages;
Poem sung by Winter Pippin,
'Winter Pippin—Piping Pippin.'
Should you ask us, gentle reader,
Is it twaddle, sorry twaddle?
Is it bosh and utter nonsense,
Nonsense all, not worth the paper,
Or the ink with which 'tis printed?
We should answer, we should tell you,
Buy the book and read it, read it,
Pay your last red dollar for it,
For this song of 'Wa-wa-wanda.'
Say no more, O carping critic!
That our time hath borne no poet;
Poet born to chant the chorus,
Chorus of the mighty Present;
Sing the age—its living genius,
Sing the age—its grand upheavings,
Sleepy nations slow awaking,
Crownless kings with ague shaking;
Sing the night, chased by the morning,
Sing the day that now is dawning.
Mourn no more, O wailing critic!
For HE's come. His name is Pippin,
Winter Pippin—not a Greening,
Not a Golden, but a Pippin—
And he sings in sweetest measure,
Sings this song of 'Wa-wa-wanda.'
(How it rhymes with 'goosey gander.')
Shades of Homer, Shakspeare, Milton!
From your graves rise up and greet him,
Greet him with your heads uncovered,
Beavers doffed, with low obeisance,
All your hats off in his presence.
Minstrel! thou who now art singing,
Singing through this mighty nation,
(Greatest nation in creation,)
Henry Wadsworth, long-drawn FELLOW,
Ye who sang of Hiawatha,
Sang the charming golden legend,
Sang the voices of the darkness,
Cease your singing, hush your fiddle,
Hang your jews-harp on the willows.
Whittier, too, and tuneful Lowell,
Funny Holmes, and graceful Stoddard,
Ye who soar in upper ether,
Feel at home the while you're up there—
Down at once, and fold your pinions,
Fold them, for the Eagle soareth,
Soareth where ye cannot follow.
All ye poets, Yankee poets,
Go to bed and sleep upon it,
Ere again ye sound the cymbals,
Sound the cymbals, wake the echoes
Which have floated o'er the waters,
Floated sweetly o'er the waters,
Till far-distant climes have heard them.
Time and space would surely fail us,
Were we now to show the beauties,
Show the beauties of this poem,
Poem writ for all the ages;
How there lived a cider-maker,
'He, the first of cider-makers;
How his cunning built a saw-mill,
Sawed right through the Western country,
Into cask-staves sawed the forests,
Threw the slabs in the Pacific,
Threw the scrags in the Missouri.'
How he squeezed the juicy apples,
How he loved the juicy cider,
How he thought the world a barrel,
Bound together by a cooper,
Filled with cider to the bung-hole;
How he feared 'twould 'burst its hoops off,
Burst its hoops and split asunder;'
How it didn't split asunder,
But on fire was set one evening,
When the careless sun, retiring,
'Went to sleep and left his candle,
Slept and left his candle burning;
And it caught the chamber-curtains,
Caught and set them all a-blazing.'
How he thought, in month of August,
Draco the meridian straddles,
'Elongates himself to northward,
Nine degrees and twenty northward;
And then thirteen more to westward,
Takes another twist, and downward
Slaps his tail of starry spangles
In the face of Ursa Major.'
How, one day, 'Aurora opened
Not as wide as wont her portals;
And the day-king, Phæton driving,
Ran against and brake the gate-posts:
Day of dash and dark disaster;
And with sun-dogs set, the heavens
Frowned affronted, scowled and scolded.'
'Hold! no more! in mercy spare me!'
Thus the reader now is pleading.
Can it be that taste poetic
From the world has fled forever?
Can such lofty, moving numbers,
Tire the reader in a second,
Tire him in a fleeting second?
Ere we part, O mighty poet!
Poet of the tuneful numbers,
Hear, oh! hear, our meek petition:
Hear an ancient Knickerbocker!
Greatly long we once to see thee,
Once to gaze upon thy visage,
Once to hear the voice that sung it,
Once to press the hand that wrote it,
Once to feel the bumps that thought it,
Once to clip the hair it came through;
(Clip a lock off for a locket.)
Once to tell thee all our wonder,
All our joy at this thy music,
Music sweet as 'Goosey-Gander,'
Music sung of 'Wa-Wa-Wanda,'
Music sung of apple-cider.
Call on us, O mighty Pippin!
At our snug and quiet sanctum,
Sanctum in the second story,
Of the building fifth in number,
Fifth in street that men call Beekman,
In the city known as Gotham;
And—our word is now at stake, Sir,
You our beaver hat can take, Sir,
Take our hat, our cherished beaver!
Lewis' New Gymnastics for Ladies, Gentlemen and Children: and Boston Journal of Physical Culture: a Monthly Journal: pp. 16. Edited by Dr. D. Lewis of Boston.
We have seen only one number of this work; but we are so much pleased with the plan and general execution of this first issue, that we give it a cordial welcome and commend it to the American people as worthy of the most liberal patronage. There is no subject upon which the men and women of our country, and even the professed educators of the rising generation, are more profoundly ignorant than that of physical culture; and until the laws of physical health are better understood and observed, we need not expect much increase in intellectual or moral vigor. We wish to see on this continent a race of noble men and women, alike healthy and robust in body and in mind. Therefore we hail joyfully every instrumentality which wisely aims to improve the race. Dr. Lewis has for many years been devoted to the subject of physical education, and his new and admirable system of gymnastic training has elicited the warmest expressions of approbation from those who have witnessed its beneficent results. We bespeak for his noble enterprise the liberal patronage which it so richly merits. The specimen number of his excellent paper now before us, is alone worth nearly the price of the year's subscription, which is but a single dollar.
Considerations on Some of the Elements and Conditions of Social Welfare and Human Progress: being Academical and Occasional Discourses and Other Pieces. By C. S. Henry, D.D. In one Volume: pp. 415. New-York: D. Appleton and Company.
This volume, the writer admits in the outset, contains some things which are not quite in unison with the tone of popular opinion, particularly in relation to the working of our political institutions, and to our future fortunes as a nation. 'But who is the better lover of his country,' he asks, 'he who lulls the people with soft strains of pleasing adulation, and kindles their fancy with bright pictures of future greatness and glory; or he who tells them of the rocks and dangers which are around them, and of the conditions on which their safety depends?' The author professes to 'love his country as much as any man that breathes;' but he does not think the best way to show it is by perpetual eulogies on our superiority as a nation: he does not think that the best way to make a 'glorious future' of our country sure, is to be forever casting brilliant horoscopes, without a single suggestion of the possibilities of disaster and defeat. 'At all events,' he adds, 'there are enough to flatter our self-love; let one faithful friend be permitted to point out our faults: there are enough to cry peace and safety; let one voice of warning be tolerated.' The discussions of the volume touch upon great problems of human thought, and embrace questions of high scientific and practical interest. Of the themes treated of, there may be mentioned the following: 'The Importance of Elevating the Intellectual Spirit of the Nation;' 'The Position and Duties of the Educated Men of the Country;' 'The True Idea of the University, and its Relation to a Complete System of Public Instruction;' 'California, and the Historical Significance of its Acquisition;' 'The Providence of God the Genius of Human History;' 'Young America: the True Idea of Progress;' together with papers upon 'The Destination of the Human Race,' (a somewhat bold 'subject,' and scarcely capable of safe 'handling,') 'Remarks on Mr. Bancroft's Oration on Human Progress;' 'President-Making,' in 'Three Letters to the Hon. Josiah Quincy,' and a dissertation on 'Politics and the Pulpit.' Here, as our readers may perceive, are ample 'fields of thought:' and in the library at 'Greystones' they have been cultivated to much fructification. Let us give a slight taste of our author's quality: thereabout especially where he speaks, in terse, significant, unmistakable language, in respect of 'The University' proper, with its 'True Idea and Relations.' Observe, please, that he considers 'self-made men' as being deprived, by lack of a truly 'liberal' education, of numerous scholarly 'tools,' by the use of which they might greatly have advanced their 'name and fame.' In these matter-full sentences, reader, you may consider 'Dr. Oldham, of Greystones' ('are you there, old Truepenny?') seated in his beautiful library, now rendered famous, and cogitating upon 'self-made men' and their mistaken judgment, sometimes, in regard to the advantages to be derived from a sound and thorough university education. This is the portrait of one Quintus Queerleigh, able editor of 'The Daily Trumpet:'
'He is politician, philanthropist, social reformer, believer in social progress, in divinity of the people, (except those who differ from him,) believer in every thing more than in the wisdom of the Past. Clever man. Really able. Of manifold abilities. Can write. Can think, too. Says many wise and good things. Honest perhaps. So some think him. Great believer in himself, no doubt; perhaps an honest believer in truth—that which he thinks such. But not a learned man. A self-made man: with the one-sidedness that often belong to such men. He has already in advance opposed you. He bloweth with his trumpet to the people, to warn them against you. He telleth them that Common Schools are for the people: Colleges and Universities are only to pamper the pride of the rich, the grinders of the faces of the people. He bloweth with his Trumpet against the legislators—warning them of the wrath of the people, if they take the people's money to build up or sustain aristocratic institutions, contrary to the Gospel of Progress which the Trumpet proclaimeth: 'Peace on earth; and every man's coat cut the same length with his neighbor's. 'Useless institutions, too,' saith Queerleigh. 'Look at me. Am not I an able editor, politician, social reformer, writer, thinker? No college made me. I made myself. That is the way to make men.'
'Foolish Queerleigh! Foolish able editor! Knowest thou not that there was a stuff in thee, and a spirit that has made thee an exception to the general rule? Few men, perhaps, with thy lack of advantages, would make themselves as able as thou art. But with the advantages thou lackedst, many might. Beside, clever as thou art, able editor, writer, thinker, thou art not a learned man. No disgrace. How shouldst thou be? The thing for thee to be ashamed of is, that thou shouldst decry what thou hast not. For, those who are both as able as thou art, and as learned as thou art not, have said and testified in many ways, from age to age, that learning, high learning and science, and the discipline that comes with them, are good things, and minister to the greater ability of the ablest of able men. Hadst thou started in thy career of life possessed of the manifold culture and accomplishment of a thoroughly educated man, thou mightest have beaten thy actual self as much as thou now beatest many a printer's apprentice with whom thou didst begin thy career.'
Hear, also, what our author saith of one Ptolemy Tongue-End—patriot, democrat, demagogue, orator; who blows with his noisy breath a blast very much in unison with the 'Daily Trumpet:'
'He 'stumpeth' at Ward meetings. Unlike editor Queerleigh, he has no faith in the people, except in their gullibleness—no faith in any thing except the wisdom of buttering his bread with the people's money. So he blows any blast that he thinks may help him to the favor of the sovereign people. He getteth into the legislature, and there opposes, with great wrath and noise, all grants to Colleges—calling them anti-democratic; though he knows in his heart all the while that it is, of all things in the world, the most democratic, that the people should be taxed for the endowment of the highest institutions of learning, free to all, as are the Common Schools—that so the children of the people, out of the pockets of the rich, may receive an education that shall enable them to take their share in the great prizes of life. For nothing is more true than that the great prizes of life (other things being equal) are grasped by those who have the highest, most thorough and liberal education; and without a great and perfect system of free Public Instruction, including the University and the Colleges, as well as the Common Schools, the children of the poor are, as a general rule, condemned to a hopeless disadvantage, in competition with the sons of the rich, in all the higher careers of life. There may be exceptional cases: but such must be the rule. This is so patent and palpable, it seems to me, to every man of common-sense and common candor, that I have little patience with the false and stupid twaddle which hollow-hearted demagogues, like Tongue-end, or hopelessly wrong-headed able editors, like Queerleigh, are perpetually pouring into the ears of the unenlightened masses: putting the Common Schools and Colleges in opposition to each other—as if there was any contradiction between them; as if one was not as necessary as the other, as if every principle of that democracy they prate so about did not require that the State should provide, not only free primary instruction for all the children of the people, but also the highest instruction for all such of the children of the people as desire to go onward and upward into the higher spheres of useful and honorable exertion. Gentlemen, you may boldly join issue with these praters. Expose the foolishness of their hackneyed cant. Keep on doing so: and in due time, if you persevere, you will certainly disabuse the public mind.'
As we have said, there is much matter for thoughtful consideration in the compass of this handsomely-executed book; and we again commend it to the acceptance of our readers.
Pages and Pictures: From the Writings of J. Fenimore Cooper. With Notes by Susan Fenimore Cooper. In one Volume: pp. 400. New-York: W. A. Townsend and Company.
It is with even something more than 'unusual pleasure' that we call the attention of our readers to 'Pages and Pictures:' the superb work of Miss Susan Fenimore Cooper, just issued by those enterprising and tasteful publishers, Messrs. W. A. Townsend and Company, at Number 46 Walker-street, a locality where book-men 'most do congregate.' It is but simple justice to say, that no work so profusely and beautifully illustrated, and with such unlimited expenditure for paintings, engravings, paper, printing and binding, has ever been issued in this country. The engravings alone, executed from precious original pictures in the very highest style of the art of celature, we are assured, cost over ten thousand dollars! The paper, fine and delicate in tint, is of the firm consistence of 'Bristol-Board,' the ne plus ultra of printing-paper: and of the binding we can only say that it is exceedingly tasteful—exceedingly beautiful. From a carefully-considered and elaborate review of this excellent work, by George Ripley, Esq., we make the annexed brief but interesting extract. As touching the work by which Mr. Cooper first became popularly known to his countrymen as an American novelist, it is well worthy of preservation in these pages:
'The plan of this volume has the attraction of novelty, and it is executed, not only in the spirit of filial affection, but with sound judgment, evincing the mingled frankness and reserve which were due to the relation between the subject and the editor. It consists of a selection of episodes from the writings of Mr. Cooper, illustrative of the different phases of his mind, and of the characteristics of his respective productions. In connection with these extracts, the editor has added a large amount of original matter, explaining the origin and history of Mr. Cooper's most important works, and giving a variety of biographical incidents and reminiscences, which serve to throw light on the personal career of the distinguished novelist.
''The Spy' was the first work which bore the unmistakable impress of Mr. Cooper's genius, and laid the deep foundations of his fame. The scene of this story was laid in Westchester, where he then lived, and it is not difficult to describe the local circumstances by which it was suggested. The incidents of the Revolution had not ceased to be the topics of conversation among the people of the neighborhood. Many who had taken an active part in the great struggle still survived. The gray-haired house-wife, as she sat at the wheel, spinning her thread of flax or wool, would talk of the armies she had seen passing her father's door in her girlhood. There was scarcely a farm-house in the country which had not been ravaged by Cow-boys, Hessians, or Skinners. Homes had been destroyed by fire; good yeoman blood had been shed; life had been taken; husband, father, or brother had fallen in some unrecorded skirmish, the hero of a rustic neighborhood. At the foot of the hill on which stood Mr. Cooper's cottage, there was the dwelling of a small farmer, who loved to visit his genial neighbor, telling stories of old times, and fighting over his battles with fresh interest, aroused by the spirited questions, the intelligent sympathy of his host. Other yeomen of the vicinity often joined the social circle. As they drank their glass of cider, picked over their hickory-nuts, or pared their Newtown pippin, all had some family tradition to relate of hairbreadth escape, of daring feat, of harried fields, of houses burned.
'But higher sources than these contributed to the leading idea of the new books. Visits to Bedford were very frequent at that period. One pleasant Summer's afternoon, while sitting on the broad piazza of the house, Judge Jay and Mr. Cooper were listening to the conversation of the venerable John Jay, as he related different facts connected with the history of the Revolution. From an incident which he then described, illustrating the services of a class of men who, in their patriotic zeal, were of the greatest importance in obtaining information for the Commander-in-Chief, the character of Harvey Birch was suggested. Strolling peddlers, staff in hand and pack on back, were more common visitors at the country-houses of that day than at present. It was after the visit of one of these men, a Yankee peddler of the old sort, that the lot in life of Harvey Birch was decided: he was to be a spy and a peddler. The novel was completed with great rapidity, and on its publication in September, 1821, immediately attracted general attention, and met with the most brilliant success. It was found on every table, and enjoyed by all classes of readers. In Europe, the 'Spy' was received with great favor, and was soon translated into French. Miss Edgeworth expressed herself very warmly in its praise, and sent a complimentary message, through a common friend, to the author, declaring that she liked 'Betty Flanagan' particularly, and that an Irish pen could not have drawn her better. The history of the other principal works of Mr. Cooper is given, interspersed with biographical details, of perpetual interest. We thus have the man and his writings combined in a graphic portraiture, which illustrates the strong individuality of the one and the characteristic boldness and vigor of the other.'
It needs but to add, in respect of the volume which we have been considering, that it is worthy of the name and fame of Cooper, and worthy of the name and fame of his present publishers.
[EDITOR'S TABLE.]
Editorial Historical Narrative of the Knickerbocker Magazine: Number Nineteen.—Our last number of this 'Narrative-History' was shorter by some eight pages than its predecessors: so that we had no space to finish our consideration of the 'Ollapodiana Papers,' which we now resume, in connection with other early writings for the Knickerbocker. The few brief passages which we quoted, did not afford a fair example of the variety, the change of mood and manner which this short but admirable series displayed. A passage in the remarks of the author of the paper in the last North-British Review,' elsewhere noticed in these pages, admirably and truly represents the characteristics of Willis Gaylord Clark's mind and pen, in these popular papers: 'The man who can laugh as well as weep is most a man. The greatest humorists have also been the most serious seers, and men of most earnest heart. And all those who have manifested the finest perfection of spiritual health have enjoyed the merry sun-shine of life, and wrought their work with a spirit of blithe bravery.' The very last chapter of 'Ollapodiana,' written when the writer was prostrated by the illness from which he never recovered, was as felicitous and mirth-moving as any of the numbers which preceded it: and yet the pathos which characterized his sadder musings, as he drew near and nearer to the grave, failed not to draw tears from many a sympathetic soul. We pass to a few more brief and characteristic passages.
As Willis approached the end of his earthly pilgrimage, his thoughts grew solemn, deep, mournful possibly, but yet not sad. Thus he says, in the last number but one of Ollapodiana:
'It is no long time, respected reader, since we communed together. Yet, how many matters have happened since that period, which should give us pause, and solemn meditation! We are still extant; the beams of our spirit still shine from our eyes; yet there are many who, since last my sentences came to yours, have drooped their lids forever upon things of earth. Numberless ties have been severed; numberless hearts rest from their pantings, and sleep, 'no more to fold the robe o'er secret pain.' All the deceits, the masks of life, are ended with them. Policy no more bids them to kindle the eye with deceitful lustre; no more prompts to semblance, which feeling condemns. They are gone!—'ashes to ashes, and dust to dust;' and when I think of the numbers who thus pass away, I am pained within me; for I know from them that our life is not only as a dream which passeth away, but that the garniture, or the carnival of it, is indeed a vapor, sun-gilt for a moment, then colored with the dun hues of death, or stretching its dim folds afar, until their remotest outlines catch the imperishable glory of eternity. Such is life; made up of successful or successless accidents; its movers and actors, from the cradle to three-score-and-ten, pushed about by Fate not their own; aspiring but impotent; impelled as by visions, and rapt in a dream—which who can dispel?'
We cite the following here, to show still farther the solemnity of his musings, and mellifluous perfection of his versification. Mark how the liquid sounds melt into melody in the lines which ensue:
'You must know, reader, that there lieth, some three miles or so from Brotherly Love—a city of this continent, a delectable city—a place of burial, 'Laurel Hill' by name. On a sweeter spot the great sun never threw the day-spring of the morning, nor the blush of the evening west. There the odors and colors of nature profusely repose; there, to rest of a spring or summer afternoon, on some rural seat, looking at trees, and dancing waters, and the like, you would wonder at that curious question addressed of Dean Swift, on his death-bed, to a friend at his side: 'Did you ever know of any really good weather in this world?' You would take the affirmative. Well, thus I sang:
'Here the lamented dead in dust shall lie,
Life's lingering languors o'er—its labors done;
Where waving boughs, betwixt the earth and sky,
Admit the farewell radiance of the sun.'Here the long concourse from the murmuring town,
With funeral pace and slow, shall enter in;
To lay the loved in tranquil silence down,
No more to suffer, and no more to sin.'And here the impressive stone, engraved with words
Which Grief sententious gives to marble pale,
Shall teach the heart, while waters, leaves and birds
Make cheerful music in the passing gale.'Say, wherefore should we weep, and wherefore pour
On scented airs the unavailing sigh—
While sun-bright waves are quivering to the shore,
And landscapes blooming—that the loved should die?'There is an emblem in this peaceful scene:
Soon, rainbow colors on the woods will fall;
And autumn gusts bereave the hills of green,
As sinks the year to meet its cloudy pall.'Then, cold and pale, in distant vistas round,
Disrobed and tuneless, all the woods will stand:
While the chained streams are silent as the ground,
As death had numbed them with his icy hand.'Yet, when the warm soft winds shall rise in spring,
Like struggling day-beams o'er a blasted heath;
The bird returned shall poise her golden wing,
And liberal nature break the spell of death.'So, when the tomb's dull silence finds an end,
The blessed Dead to endless youth shall rise;
And hear the archangel's thrilling summons blend
Its tones with anthems from the upper skies.'There shall the good of earth be found at last,
Where dazzling streams and vernal fields expand;
Where Love her crown attains—her trials past—
And, filled with rapture, hails the better land!''Thus I strummed the old harpsichord, from which I have aforetime, at drowsy hours and midnight intervals, extracted a few accidental numbers, (more pleasant doubtless to beget than read,) 'sleepless myself, to give to others sleep!''
'Well, that is the only way to write without fatigue, both to author and reader. In all that pertains to the petty businesses which bow us to the routine of this work-day world, I am as it were at home. I am distinctly a mover in the great tide of Action sweeping on around me; yet when I enter into the sanctuary of the Muses, lo! at one wave of the spiritual wand, this 'dim and ignorant present' disappears. I breathe a rarer atmosphere. Visions of childhood throng upon my soul; the blue mountain-tops; the aerial circles of far-off landscapes; the hazy horizon of ocean-waters; the wind-tossed verdure of summer; the hills that burst into singing; and the sweet harmonies of nature—Universal Parent!—all appeal to my spirit. This dismemberment of the ideal from the actual, is a fountain of enjoyment, which whoso knows not, has yet the brightest lessons of life to learn. He has yet to enter that fairy dominion which seems the intermediate territory betwixt the airy realms conceived of in this world, and the more radiant glories of the 'undiscovered country.''
Yet in the succeeding number we find the writer indulging in such whimsical imaginings as the following:
'Observe, my friend, I am not writing against time; so let us slowly on. My impressions of the old gentleman are sometimes extremely fantastic. I was looking the other day at a playful young cat, just emerging from the fairy time of kittenhood; something between the revelry of the fine mewer, and the gravity without the experience of the tabby. Now one would think that no great subject for contemplation. It would be looked upon by the million as inferior to astronomy. But it is the connection of the events having reference to the quadruped which renders her of interest. Time will expand her person, increase her musical powers, and bring her admirers. In her back, on winter evenings, will sleep a tolerable imitation of the lightnings of heaven. She will make great noise o' nights, and lap at interdicted cream. So much for her exterior—her love-passages and obstreperous concerts. But look within! That compact embodiment of ligaments and conduits, now treading gingerly over those fading leaves, and grapes of purple, what may they not be hereafter? Whose hearts may they not thrill, when strung on the sonorous bridge of a cremona, guided to softest utterances by the master hand? How many memories of youth, and hope, and fond thoughts, and sunny evenings, and bowers by moonlight, radiant with the beams of Cynthia, and warm with the sweet reflex of Beauty; the heart, touched by the attempered entrail, rosin-encompassed and bow-bestrid, may bound in age with recollections of departed rapture. And all from what? Smile not at the association, my friend—from Time and cat-gut.'
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
''Twas a new idea to me, that conveyed of late by the author of 'Leslie,' surnamed Norman, that the only things you see, after crossing the Atlantic, which you have seen before, are the orb of day, sometimes vulgarly called Phœbus or the sun, the chaste Regent of the Night or Luna, that greenhorns sometimes denominate the moon, and those jewels of heaven—'doubloons of the celestial bank,' as a Spanish poet calls them—sometimes named stars, by plain uninitiated persons. These, it seems, are the only old acquaintances a man meets abroad. They are not to be put by. A man may curse his stars, indeed, but he cannot cut them. As well might the great sea essay 'to cast its waters on the burning Bear, and quench the guards of the ever-fixéd pole.' Therefore shall I learn henceforth yet more to love those dazzling planets, fixed or errant, because in no long time I may meet them in Philippi. Precious then to me will be their bright companionship! Milky feelings will come over me, as I scrutinize the via lactea, with upturned eyes; conscious will be the moon; inexpressibly dear every glimpse of the lesser lights that rule the night with modest fires. Without the slightest premonitory symptoms of astrology, and being withal no horologe consulter, I yet do love the stars. Rich, rare and lustrous, they win my gaze, and look into my soul.'
In the twenty-sixth number, the last of the series, there is the same combination of the humorous and the pathetic, which constituted the variety and the charm of the Ollapodiana Papers. With these brief passages we close our 'labor of love' and duty to the literary memory of our departed twin-brother.
'How do you bear yourself, my friend and reader, on the subject of winter generally? What are 'your views?' If you are young and sanguine, with no revulsions or tempests of the heart to remember, I will warrant that you like old Hyem, and patronize that most windy individual, Boreas, of that ilk. Well, you have a free right to your opinion, and if you held it two years or less ago, you had the honor to agree with me. But I confess on that point a kind of warped idiosyncrasy; an unaccountable change of opinion. The truth is, reader, between you and me, there is not much dignity in winter, in a city. When, in the country, you can look out upon the far-off landscapes, the cold blue hills rising afar, and where a snow-bank is really what it is cracked up to be; where the blast comes sounding to your dwelling over a sweep of woods, and lakes, and snowy fields, for miles of dim extension, there is some grandeur in the thing. But what is it to hear a blast, half-choked with the smoke and soot of the city, wheezing down a contemptible chimney-pot, or round a corner, where the wind, that glorious emblem of freedom, has no charter at all to 'blow out' as he pleases, but is confined by the statute of brick-and-mortar restrictions?'
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
'I have turned this subject of steam-music extensively over in my mind, of late; and I have married myself to the idea, after a very short courtship, that it is a kind of thing that must go on. At the first blush, indeed, it might appear chimerical; but I ask the skeptic why the steam-whistle of a locomotive should not discourse in tones more soft and winning? Why cannot a locomotive ask a cow to leave a railroad track in a politer manner than in that discordant shriek, which excites the animal's indignation, and awakens her every sentiment of quadrupedal independence? I protest against such conduct. We presume a locomotive to buzz, and vapor, and deport itself pragmatically; but its conversation by the way ought to be chastened into something like propriety: and please Apollo, I think it will. I once saw an animal of this stamp killed instantly by the crushing transit of a train; and I thought I saw in the singular turn of her upper lip, as her torn-out heart lay yet palpitating on the rails, a peculiar curl of disdain, in her dying moments, at the treatment she had won. I put this down, because I hope 't will be remembered as a warning to whistlers in especial, and the great generation of calves unborn.'
'On one of those warm April-like afternoons, with which, in our Philadelphia meridian, the fierce February chose to delight us, as if by contrast, I sat by my open window, which commands, through and over pleasant trees, fine glimpses of the country: and
'As the red round sun descended,
Mid clouds of crimson light,'I began to feel coming upon me the influence of a reverie. For a long time, my good friend whom I 'occupy' at present with this matter, I have had my day-dreams sadly broken in upon; in the few roses I have gathered, I have found the cypress mingling among their faded leaves; and a voice, as from the lowly leafiness of an autumnal wilderness, has spoken of the lost and of the past. Why is it, that though the mind may wander, the heart can never forget? Well could I say with him who sings so well:
'Thou unrelenting Past!
Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain;
And fetters, sure and fast,
Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.'In thy abysses hide
Beauty and excellence unknown; to thee
Earth's wonder and her pride
Are gathered as the waters to the sea!'And there they rest in dust and cold obstruction! Oh! that those who walk about in the beauty of the morning, with the greenness of earth around them, and the mysterious vitality which makes the elements in their nostrils, would think of this; considering truly their coming end!'
Among our frequent and always welcome early contributors, in prose and verse, was Lewis W. Mansfield, Esq. Our old readers will recal the papers which appeared from his pen, under the signature of 'Julian.' His prose was more felicitous than his verse; although in the 'Morning Watch,' and other of his poems, there were many noble passages. The subjoined will afford an example of his humorous prose:
'It would be amusing, if one could laugh at any thing so sad, to observe the humors of the few who think upon the bearings of this solemn time. In the year to be, there are many to come, many to go, and but few to tarry; yet all have their ambitions of a life-time; those even, to whom the stars have grown dim, and life become almost a mockery under Heaven, dashing into the coming day with something of the old zest; while the many, the oi polloi, who have not yet made their grand move, are now ready, and think that therefore the earth is to take a new route in creation: forgetting that the old round must be the round forever. Nights sleepless with joy, nights sleepless with pain, nights long with watching, feverish thought; crime that stings like an adder, and nights short, with perfect rest; days long and weary, days bright and dashing, hot and cold, wet and dry, and days and nights with all of these—as hath been in the time that's past, and will be in the time to come.
'There is something very pitiable in these humors; indeed very laughable, if your mouth is shaped to that effect; but as it happens with me to-night, my mouth refuses to twitch except in one direction. Its corners have the 'downward tendencies.' Perhaps it is because this is with me the anniversary of a day upon the events of which are hanging the movements of all after-life; it may be this, and there may be thereto added the coloring of a winter's day. The wind howls about the house-tops, and the air pierces like needles; even the stars, when they look down in thousands, as the rack goes by, seem to shiver in their high places; yet perhaps there is nothing so personal in all that, considering that just so the wind howled last night, and may for a month to come; but oh! as I am a nervous man, and look back upon the circling months, and feel the sting here and the stab there, in that galvanic battery; and as I look forward with eager eye, and ear open to the faintest whisper of the dim to-morrow, it is not as the stars shiver from excess of light, but with a shudder at the heart from the cooler blood of —— Good night, my kind Editor: that sentence is quite too long already, and there are some things too personal to tell.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
'P. S.—Whoop! hurrah! Light is upon the world again! Where are you, my dear friend? I say, Sir, I was an ass—do you hear?—an ass, premature, wise before my time, a brute, a blockhead! Did I talk of dust and ashes? O Sir! I lied multitudinously. Every nerve, every muscle that didn't try to strangle me in that utterance, lied. No, Sir; let me tell you it's a great world; glorious—magnificent; a world that can't be beat! Talk of the stars and a better world, but don't invite me there yet. Make my regrets, my apology to Death, but say that I can't come; 'positive engagement; happy some other time, but not now.' Oh! no; this morning is quite too beautiful to leave; and beside, I would rather stay, if only to thank God a little longer for this glorious light, this pure air that can echo back my loudest hurrah. And then, my boy——But haven't I told you? Why, Sir, I've got a boy!—a boy! ha, ha! I shout it out to you—a Boy; a ten-pounder, and the mother a great deal better than could be expected! And, I say, my old friend, it's mine! Hurrah and hallelujah forever! O Sir! such legs, and such arms, and such a head!—and he has his mother's lips! I can kiss them forever! And then, Sir, look at his feet, his hands, his chin, his eyes, his every thing, in fact—so perfect! Give me joy, Sir: no you needn't either, I am full now; I run over; and they say that I ran over a number of old women, half-killed the mother, pulled the doctor by the nose, and upset a 'pothecary shop in the corner; and then didn't I ring the tea-bell? Didn't I blow the horn? Didn't I dance, shout, laugh, and cry altogether? The women say they had to tie me up. I don't believe that; but who is going to shut his mouth up when he has a live baby? You should have heard his lungs, Sir, at the first mouthful of fresh air; such a burst! A little tone in his voice, but not pain; excess of joy, Sir, from too great sensation. The air-bath was so sudden, you know. Think of all his beautiful machinery starting off at once in full motion; all his thousand outside feelers answering to the touch of the cool air; the flutter and crash at the ear; and that curious contrivance the eye, looking out wonderingly and bewildered upon the great world, so glorious and dazzling to his unworn perceptions; his net-work of nerves, his wheels and pulleys, his air-pumps and valves, his engines and reservoirs; and within all, that beautiful fountain, with its jets and running streams dashing and coursing through the whole length and breadth, without either stint or pause—making altogether, Sir, exactly ten pounds avoirdupois!
'Did I ever talk brown to you, Sir, or blue, or any other of the devil's colors? You say I have. Beg your pardon, Sir, but you—are mistaken in the individual. I am this day, Sir, multiplied by two. I am duplicate. I am number one of an indefinite series, and there's my continuation. And you observe, it is not a block, nor a block-head, nor a painting, nor a bust, nor a fragment of any thing, however beautiful; but a combination of all the arts and sciences in one; painting, sculpture, music, (hear him cry,) mineralogy, chemistry, mechanics, (see him kick,) geography, and the use of the globes, (see him nurse;) and withal, he is a perpetual motion—a time-piece that will never run down! And who wound it up? But words, Sir, are but a mouthing and a mockery.
'When a man is nearly crushed under obligations, it is presumed that he is unable to speak; but he may bend over very carefully, for fear of falling, nod in a small way, and say nothing; and then, if he have sufficient presence of mind to lay a hand upon his heart, and look down at an angle of forty-five degrees, with a motion of the lips, unuttered poetry, showing the wish and the inability, it will be (well done) very gracefully expressive. With my boy in his first integuments, I assume that position, make the small nod aforesaid, and leave you the poetry unuttered.'
We hope our readers will soon welcome 'Julian' as heartily to our pages as they were wont to do aforetime.
Story of 'The Little Black Slipper.'—The spirited sketch of 'The Little Black Slipper,' which ensues—the beautiful manuscript of which is a treasure to our compositors—was accompanied by a characteristic notelet from our esteemed friend and correspondent, 'H. P. L.,' of Philadelphia, to the following purport: 'The accompanying MS., the production of my amiable friend, Mr. James O'Fistian, of Castle-Bangeroary, details a little incident in his 'Careerings and Loaferings in Other Lands,' and—among other ladies. I have copied it and corrected it from his original MS., but can lay no claim to its vitality. Its publication would prove a jubilition to its author:'
'Said I, 'Harry, where did you get that slipper?' Said he, 'James, this is the tale:
'If any thing will alleviate the little miseries of a two days' diligence-journey, it is having as pretty, good-natured, and cosmopolitan a little widow for your opposite travelling companion, as I had from Cordova on the Guadalquivir, to Madrid on the Manzanares. Tumbling into the 'interior' of a diligence at two o'clock of a June morning after a few hours spent in a vain attempt to sleep, rendered vain and profane by a legion of those tirailleurs du diable, long-horned mosquitoes, one is by no means as serene in temper as one should be. The writer was savage that morning; and not until the mayoral (conductor) had brought a light to see if the passengers were all properly packed in, revealing the cheerful little face of a pretty woman opposite to him, did his good nature shine out as a patent reflector and dissipate the fog of discontent.
''A long journey before us: let us make ourselves comfortable,' said the lady, the departing mayoral with light just enabling me to see that there was a smile on her face. Then there was a shaking of black silk skirts, Gracias a Dios! there were no steel or whalebone petticoats on her blessed form; two little feet sought refuge on my side; two good-sized ones searched for an asylum on her side the diligence; and behold, we were disposed to be friends for life. I don't know whether Tupper, in his 'Proverbial Philosophy,' mentions under the head of 'Friendship' that it is 'a travelling shawl,' but in his next edition he'd better do it, you know, because it is! At least that morning, when I spread mine over my legs, and extended the courtesy to the limbs (Lingua Americana) of the fair widow, she accepted the woollen with a kind acknowledgment that made me feel blessedly pleased with myself and with her. The bells of the eight mules pulling the diligence were jingling; the postillion on the right leader had settled himself in his saddle; the arriero had hold of the reins; the mayoral jumped into his seat in the Imperial; and the zugal, holding his calañes hat tight on his head, sprung out of the door of the diligence-office, uttering fearful yells and cracking his whip with the ferocity of a mad monkey; when—creak, bang, slide, slip! and we were launched on our journey to Madrid.
'I went to sleep and had a pleasant dream of being a cherubim, the kind that flew round Noah when he was building the Ark, and had no legs! and having a dear little pair of gaiter boots for wings; while I had for a companion, another æronaut with large black eyes, a propos of which—
'I never loved a dear gazelle,
And gazed upon its soft, black eyes,
But what it turned out a d—— sell—
A damsel heaving gentlest sighs'—who was all thy's and thou's. In addition to black eyes, she had black hair and a travelling-shawl, and she had feet; and both the tiny little ones were somehow thrust into the pockets of my shooting-coat, and —— I woke up and found that there were a pair of little, high-heeled, black slippers, with white silk stockings attached, resting on the cushion by my side. You may talk about dream-books, and explanations of dreams, but such bona-fide realizations please me most: and I looked down at them and determined they should be mine if I had to go a hand on them—matrimonially of course, à la mode de 'I'd offer thee this hand of mine,' with piano accompaniment.
'But she woke up, and as the sun was now shining brightly, she saw me regarding those 'leather mice,' whereupon she at once hid them, not by rudely withdrawing them, but by cuddling them up under one end of the travelling-shawl; which end was in close proximity with my pantaloons pocket. Now reader fancy my feelings nursing a pair of twins like those; belonging to a very pretty woman—moreover a widow.
''Buenas dias, Señor!' It was so cheerfully, pleasantly spoken, and with such a winning smile, and the dark eyes beamed so softly under the long black eye-lashes, that it elicited all the writer's stock of amiability in return. It came out in conversation that the lady was from Seville, was a widow, and her first name was Juanita, (tal y tal, or So-and-So;) and as I had passed many pleasant days in Seville, and bore away gay souvenirs of 'The Marvel,' we were soon in earnest chat about its wonders and beauties. She was charmingly naïve in conversation, and showed in every remark, what is an exception with Spanish ladies—an intelligent and animated disposition. At Bailen, where we dined, I lost my heart when I handed her from the diligence—beside, she faintly pressed my hand with her gloved hand, and showed me those feet!
'There is no use doing things in a hurry, so I determined, as we were yet thirty-six hours from Madrid, to wait until we were within three hours of the city before I formally proposed for her heart, hand, and high-heeled shoes. Ay, que gusto, que placer!
'Again was the old diligence en route; again the shades of night were on us, and cool air brought out the travelling-shawl; and again a joint partnership was entered into between Juanita and me. Somehow, near Las Navas de Tolosa, the diligence gave a fearful lurch, and Juanita was pitched nearly into my arms; seems to me, she must have assisted the shock, else how, in all the darkness of night, for it must have been nearly ten o'clock, and raining, could I have kissed her and taken charge of her for nearly a minute, while the diligence was coming to time?
'QUIEN SABE!
That's the way to get over the difficulty in Spain; in Italy with a—
'CHI LO SA!
or to hunt it up to head-quarters in Arabic:
'MA AHRIF!
if you want it at home:
'WHO KNOWS!
That was a rose-colored rainy night—the diligence pitched several times with equal success.
'I made up mind to turn Spaniard, buy one of those velvet tiles, a black lamb-skin jacket, knee-breeches, pounds of silver waistcoat and coat buttons, leather gaiters with long leather fringe; learn to roll cigarritas and become a cigarrista. Go twice a week to the Circo Gallistico, 'where roosters do combat;' bet my duros on the winning gallo, (not gall oh! but on the contrary;) attend every bull-fight, and mass once a week, to keep my hand in; dance the bolero; drink aguardiente very cautiously; shoot red-legged partridges all the year round, and, to sum up, come out strong as a full-blooded majo! either this or edit a paper in Madrid progresisto.
'Again the morning broke and up came the sun illumining our breakfast at Valdepeñas, where the wine comes from, at least the baptismal name to table-wine half over Spain. I determined to edit a paper in Madrid, progresisto!
'The day wheeled by until we arrived at Tembléque, where our diligence was wheeled on to a railroad-car, and we were to make the fifteen leagues between there and Madrid with great diligence by steam. Tembléque means a diamond pin; it sticks me with pain when I think of it, for there, yes there! Juanita was lost to me (as a wife) forever.
'At Tembléque, while taking a hurried lunch, I saw a bill announcing a bull-fight to come off in Madrid next day, and was glad to be able to enjoy this amusement once more; on my return to the diligence, I communicated to the widow the interesting fact.
''O jala!' said she, 'how I do love bull-fights! And to see Cuchares with the capa in one hand and sword in the other, Hésoos! he is a spada; but you should have seen Juan, (pronounce Whan,) he always killed first blow. Ay Caramba! there was a man for you—and such clothes and such legs—poor soul! that last black bull from the mountains was too much for him—too much, too much!' and here the widow paid a tribute of two tears to his memory, and flourished her little hands and white cambric disconsolately.
'This Juan did not please me, although he had succumbed to the bull, and was gone where good bull-fighters go; the tribute to his memory made me a little-slightly jealous. But concealing my feelings, I asked as unconcernedly as possible: 'Well, who was Juan?'
''Juan?' replied the dear widow, 'Juan? why, he was my husband!'
'Farewell, orange-flower wreaths, white lace veils, and slow on—farewell, ideas matrimonial. I, Harry Buttons de Buttonville, marry a bull-fighter's widow! By the shadow of my respectability, never!
''Juanita, I never can be thine!' said I, in a burst of feeling.
''Ay Caramba! but you will see me home in a carriage, when I arrive at Madrid, won't you?' asked the widow.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
'I did—and she gave me the slipper.'
'Working-Men' at Home and Abroad.—We encounter the following passage in a recent editorial letter from abroad, in 'Wilkes' Spirit of the Times.' He is speaking of the little town of Veviers, a place containing some thirty thousand inhabitants, (with a large suburban population,) on the road thenceward from Paris to Cologne: a city, as Mr. Wilkes remarks, that has more need of 'Cologne-water' than any which he has ever visited. That was Coleridge's impression, also; since the multitudinous seas, he thought, could never wash the river clean again, that 'washed' the town of Cologne:
'Veviers is devoted mainly to cloth manufacture, in which it employs some fifty thousand hands, who work from twelve to fifteen hours a day, and who are drilled to as close a discipline as the convicts in a prison, or slaves at an oar. A few work in their houses, but the greater number labor in large shops, the various lofts of which are filled with men and women, who seldom look up from their looms, and who never venture to speak, except by permission of the overseer. This silent system is terrible to the mind as well as body; but there is no power on the part of the oppressed to resist, for a discharge from an establishment is a condemnation to starvation, since, according to a convention among the employers, none will hire a man whom another has turned off. This of course reduces the working classes to a state of absolute vassalage, and wherever such a regulation exists, they may be said to breathe only by the sufferance of their employers. Attempts have been made at different times by certain manufacturers, to introduce this system in the United States, but the atrocious project has always been defeated with infamy to the inventors. The working people of Veviers, those at least who labor in the factories, are remarkable for their downcast look, and the first curse seems to be written in heavy lines upon their brows. They go along like men without hope, as if life were a penalty, and the only expiration of their term of condemnation were to arrive with death. Ah! if these poor people could but see an American mechanic, with his bright eye, erect head, and proud and cheerful carriage, they would understand the value of liberty at a glance, and increase their hours of toil till they could earn enough to enable them to escape into an atmosphere where they may breathe and live.'
Such are the thoughts which we love to see entertained by observant Americans travelling abroad.
The 'North British' on American Humor.—A favorite and popular correspondent of our Magazine once wrote for these pages a paper upon 'Wit and Humor,' separately considered and artistically contrasted: but he has been out-written and out-argued, by a most admirable and evidently competent critic in the last 'North-British Review,' in an article upon 'American Humor.' In quoting from it, we really feel 'l'embarras des richesses'—the embarrassment of riches—for it is full and conclusive upon every point which it touches; while, as to the manner of the reviewer, there cannot possibly be but one opinion. But listen to him, please, in a few segregated passages:
'The influence of healthy Wit and Humor is a benign one, if it comes to us at times, and kindly makes us forget sad thoughts and cankering cares; makes the oldest feel young and fresh, and turns the wrinkles of our sorrow into ripples of laughter. Shakspeare, who mirrored our whole humanity, did not leave the laugh out of its reflected face. He tells us, 'Your merry heart goes all the day;' and he knew how much the merry heart may have to carry. 'We may well be refreshed,' says Jeremy Taylor, 'by a clean and brisk discourse, as by the air of Campanian wines, and our faces and our heads may well be anointed and look pleasant with wit, as with the fat of the Balsam tree.' Humor not only has an earlier beginning than Wit, but it has also a far wider range. It will reach the uneducated as well as the educated; and among the former may often be found very unctuous humorists. In the earlier history of nations and literatures, when life is strong and thought is unperplexed, we get writers full enough in force, and direct enough in expression, to touch nature at most points. Hence the earlier great writers reach the depths of tragedy, and the breadths of humor. In their times they see the full play of the outward actions in which Life expresses itself: all those striking contrasts of life; those broad lights and bold shadows of character which, as they cross and re-cross in the world's web, make rare and splendid patterns for the tragic poet and humorist. It would have been perfectly impossible for the wit of Punch to have been produced in any other time than ours, or in any other place and societary conditions than those of London. No past time could have given us Thomas Hood.... Wit deals more with thoughts, and Humor with outward things. Wit only reaches characteristics, and therefore it finds more food in a later time and more complex state of society. Humor deals with character. The more robust and striking the character, the better for humor: hence the earlier times, being more fruitful in peculiar character, are most fruitful in humor. Wit is more artificial, and a thing of culture; Humor lies nearer to nature. Wit is oftenest shown in the quality of the thought; Humor by the nature of the action. With Wit, two opposite and combustible qualities of the thought are brought into contact, and they explode in the ludicrous. Humor shows us two opposite personal characters which mingle, and dissimilitude is dove-tailed in the laughable.... One of Wit's greatest elements of success is surprise. Indeed, sometimes when your surprise is over, you find nothing else; you have been cheated upon false pretences. Not so with Humor. He is in no hurry. He is for 'keeping it up.' He don't move in straight lines but flows in circles. He carries you irresistibly along with him. With Wit you are on the 'qui vive;' with Humor you grow glorious. If brevity be the soul of Wit, the soul of Humor is longevity.
'Humor makes as much of its subject as possible. It revels in exaggeration; it reigns in Brobdignag. Wit is thinner; it has a subtler spark of light in its eye, and a less carnal gush of jollity in its laugh. It is, as we often say, very dry. But Humor rejoices in ample physical health; it has a strong ruddy nature, a glow and glory of sensuous life, a playful overflow of animal spirits. As the word indicates, Humor has more moisture of the bodily temperament. Its words drop fatness, its face oozes with unctuousness, its eyes swim with dews of mirth. As stout people often make the best dancers and swimmers, so Humor relies on size. It must have 'body,' like good old wine. Humor has more common human feeling than Wit; it is wealthiest, wisest, kindliest. Lord Dudley, the eccentric, said pleasantly to Sydney Smith: 'You have been laughing at me constantly, Sydney, for the last seven years, and yet in all that time, you have never said a single thing to me that I wished unsaid.'... Humor, like imagination, pours itself out, strong and splendid as flowing gold, with oneness and continuity. Wit twinkles and corruscates, gleams and glances about the subject. Humor lightens right to the heart of the matter at once, without by-play. Wit will show you the live sparks rushing red-rustling from the chimney, and prettily dancing away in the dark, a 'moment bright, then gone forever.' But Humor shall give you a pleasanter peep through the lighted window, and show you the fire glowing and ruddy—the smiling heart of home—shining in the dear faces of those you love, who are waiting to overflow in one warm embracing wave of love the moment the door is opened for your coming. Wit teases, tickles, and titillates. But Humor floods you to the brim with measureful content. Wit sends you a sharp, sudden, electric shock, that leaves you tingling from without. Humor operates from within, with its slow and prolonged excitation of your risible soul. Wit gives you a quick, bright nod, and is off. 'What's, going on?' said a bore to Douglas Jerrold. 'I am,' said he. That is just what Wit does. You must be sharp, too, in taking the hit. The most obvious characteristic of American humor is its power of 'pitching it strong,' and drawing the long bow. It is the humor of exaggeration. This consists of fattening up a joke until it is rotund and rubicund, unctuous and irresistible as Falstaff himself, who was created by Shakspeare, and fed fat, so as to become for all time the very impersonation of Humor. There are many differences betwixt the Wit and Humor of different nations. German humor generally goes ponderously upon all fours. French esprit is intangible to the English mind. Irish humor is often so natural that its accidents look intentional. The Scotch have been said not to understand a joke. Undoubtedly they have not the Cockney quickness necessary to catch some kinds of word-wit. But where will you find richer, pawkier humor?'
We commend the entire article, from which these brief passages are taken, to the notice and admiration of our readers. It is one of the most attractive papers in the entire number.
Gossip with Readers and Correspondents.—A Boston correspondent, 'A Believer in Phrenology,' must look again, and 'mark, learn, and digest' what it was that Ollapod said in our last, as to the 'science' of Phrenology. Its 'general principles' he admitted; it was only its 'infinitesimal detail' which he satirized. Phrenology, let us say to our 'Believer,' has always had a 'fair show' in the pages of the Knickerbocker; 'else wherefore breathe we in a Christian land?' For the 'New-York Observer,' a religious journal, states that pious probulgences are to 'rule' hereafter as a clerical test in our Church; an exaggerated 'explication,' of course, of the remarks of an able Episcopal contemporary. But as for ourselves, have we not been 'through the mill?' 'Slightuously!' Ask our friends, Fowler and Wells, leaders in 'Bumpology,' else. Were we not 'manipulated?' Did we not lie down in a box like a coffin, and were we not then and there covered, from our 'burst' upward, with a Plaster-of-Paris hasty-pudding? Did not the operation 'fix' us? Rather! It was solemn at first, and upward to the mouth, such was the expression, in the sudden 'solidarity' of our 'mug;' but when Mr. Fowler directed his assistant to use a spoon in feeding us with the white pudding, and not to suffocate us by stopping up our nostrils, we began to laugh; but the laughing muscles stopped short off at the junction with the lugubrious fixed plaster. We saw the result next day, in the show-window of Mr. Fowler, on the Nassau street side of Clinton-Hall. There we were, large as life, labelled and sandwiched between Robinson, the New-Brunswick murderer, and Colonel James Watson Webb, of the 'Courier and Enquirer' daily journal. Haven't we 'suffered' for the 'science' of Phrenology? 'Probably!' 'Phrenology,' says our 'down-east' correspondent, 'can no longer be laughed at.' 'We caänt be laughed at!' is the amusing 'objugatory' of an English Cockney in a modern play; but people will laugh at the marvels which are said to accompany the development of even the smallest and thickest-set organs of the human head. When Gall and Spurzheim were in 'Edinboro,' had established the first Phrenological Society in Great-Britain, and were gaining 'converts' only by slow degrees, they and their confrères were 'laughed at' to something more than 'their hearts' content.' On one occasion, we remember, a dry Scottish wag bought from a countyman a vegetable lusus natura, in the shape of a big Swedish turnip, which presented in perfection the features and 'developments' of a not very good-looking but remarkably 'intellectual' human head. He had a mould made from it, and sent a plaster image to the new Phrenological Society, as a 'cast from the head of Professor Thornipson, a learned Swede of Sockholm!' The bait took; a chart was made at once of the 'cerebral protuberances;' lectures were delivered upon its characteristics; and two or three officers and savants of the Society were overjoyed to find corresponding 'bumps' on their own craniums! Edinburgh, inappreciative of fun though the Scotch are said to be, gave one loud guffaw when the diverting 'trick' was exposed in the 'Courant' by the shrewd joker who perpetrated it, But a propos of 'Bumpology;' our Cedar-Hill neighbor, 'the Colonel,' tells a capital story thereanent, which we will essay to jot down: One day, in the weekly newspaper of a small village in 'old Chatauque,' there appeared an advertisement, setting forth that Professor Feelover, Practical Phrenologist, had arrived, and stood ready to examine heads, give 'certified charts' of character, lecture, and give lessons upon the 'Science.' He 'put up' at the principal hotel, which he found a 'good 'stand' for business,' for a week had passed on, since the paper came out, yet not a solitary person had inquired for the Professor. Tired of this indifference to 'science,' he was broodingly 'fetching a walk' in the outskirts of the village, when a 'slow,' green-looking young countryman entered the hotel, and addressing the landlord, said: 'Be yeöu the Phrenologist that feels of folkses' heads, and gives a receipt for what's inside on 'em?' 'Yes,' answered the fat, good-natured Boniface, who loved a joke better than his dinner; 'yes, I 'm the man.' 'What d' yeöu tax?' 'Half a dollar.' 'Wal, go ahead.' The landlord seated his 'patient,' and directed his clerk at the desk to take down, in two columns, the result. He fumbled, and pinched, and pressed the head of his wincing customer, calling out at the same time the subjoined developments:
| Gullibility, | 16 | Verticality, | 19 |
| Reverence, | 7 | Shallowness, | 18 |
| Assininity, | 24 | Ideality, | 4 |
| Caution, | 3 | Exteriority, | 1 |
| Noodleity, | 10 | Quantity, | 13 |
| Philoprogenitiveness, | 9 | Horizontality, | 5 |
| Combativeness, | 1 | Benevolence, | 8 |
| Color, | 2 | Inertness, | 11 |
| Sound, | 13 | Rotundity, | 6 |
'There, that'll do; got 'em all down? Now add 'em up!' said the landlord, without moving a muscle. 'Comes out exactly even!' said the clerk; 'eighty-five in each column.' 'Why,' exclaimed Boniface, looking down contemptuously upon his astonished 'customer,' you haven't got any character at all; you don't want any chart; you'd be ashamed to show it the second time; I should be ashamed even to keep it. I never saw such a case in all my large experience; 'comes out even!'—a perfect blank! Why, you must be the 'Damphool' that Mr. Doesticks describes!' With great shamefacedness the 'customer' arranged his disordered locks, put on his hat, and departed a sadder but a wiser man.' * * * A correspondent of The New-York Observer, writing from Wales, in regard to the great religious revival which is prevailing among the workmen in the lead-mines of Conroy, says: 'Some of the miners established 'An Underground Prayer-Meeting,' and assembled at it in large numbers, continuing to praise and pray for several hours. It was followed by extraordinary effects; and the result was 'a wonderful reformation in the morals and character of the miners.' One writing from the 'Gogian Lead-Mines,' says: 'Prayer-meetings are held here far below the surface of the earth. The 'clefts of the rocks,' in which they assemble for prayer and praise, seem to remind them of the 'cleft' in another rock, even Christ, in which the sinner is permitted to behold the divine glory:
'Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.'
The men work in companies; and there is not a company without its prayer-meeting under ground. It is delightful to hear the voice of melody and praise ascending to heaven from the very bowels of the earth. 'Out of the depths cried I unto Thee,' may literally be said of this subterranean 'Great Awakening.' There was but one person working in the mine who was not a converted subject of the revival, and his conversion was made the subject of daily 'fervent prayer.'' The very reverse of this, was the foundation of a most interesting story which we remember having heard when a boy, some twenty years ago. It was connected with one of the coal-mines of England, and was, if we remember rightly, to the following purport: A young miner, who led a most exemplary life, who was a Christian by 'profession,' by 'precept,' and by 'example,' was in the daily habit of retiring from the mouth of the mine with the mid-day meal which his wife had prepared, and which his little son had brought to him in a small tin vessel, together with a worn and dingy copy of the New Testament, from which he always read a chapter before touching his dinner. One of his every-day maxims, whatever might happen, was: 'It is all for the best: it is well ordered: It is All for the Best.' One day, while reading and 'pondering' his customary 'Book of Books,' a vagrant dog passed along, seized his 'tin' dinner and ran off with it: his fellow-miners jeering and shouting, 'Is the loss of thy Dinner, too, Joe, 'for the best?'' After having their laugh out, and while their comrade was racing around after the canine delinquent, the bell rang, and the 'operatives' descended into the mine. Meantime, unable to overhaul the dog-thief, the 'victim' had returned, and was nearing the mine, when a loud explosion and fire and smoke issuing from the wide open fissure in the ground, revealed the ignited 'Fire-Damp' and its inevitable, awful accessories! Not a man of all his late jeering companions was rescued from that terrible subterranean 'consuming fire!' And how natural was the exclamation—the story, we remember, was in verse—which poured from his over-burthened, grateful heart:
'How could it appear to a short-sighted sinner,
That my life should be saved by the loss of my dinner.'
The simple 'Working-Man's Lesson' involved in this anecdote, and the 'fulness of faith' which it embodies, are not unworthy of remembrance and of heed. It impressed us forcibly. * * * 'Tom Hood' once mentioned, 'in his own way,' his experience in crossing the Great Desert. He 'came to grief in the journey by means of 'getting off the track' of antecedent camelian-caravans. They had nothing to eat and less to drink, on their hot and toilsome journey. They encountered a 'simoom,' which a Yankee sailor described as 'a Boston East Wind boiled;' there was a mirage, too, in which they saw, far off on the level rim of the desert, camels and 'men as trees walking.' Long was their journey over the burning sands: and Hood narrates that the travellers were reduced to the greatest straits. Hunger and Thirst—terrible tyrants—asserted their prerogatives. 'On the dim, faint line toward Cairo,' says Hood, 'we thought we saw a well in the desert: for much people were gathered together far beyond us upon the level, sultry plain. We approached; we joined them: but only to be again, for the third time, most grievously disappointed.' 'It is no joke,' he adds, 'to be without food or water in an Egyptian desert. When we were at the worst, we went in ballast with the soles and uppers of the newest shoes in the caravan; and we were enabled to slake our burning thirst by a second-hand 'swig' at the cistern of a freshly-deceased and still warm camel, which had 'given out' early in the journey, and had now 'given in:'' This was certainly a bad state of affairs; but when we read the hardships of recent African travel, as recorded by the German African explorer, Dr. Krapf, in his 'Researches in Eastern Africa,' we could no longer deem the story fabulous. The good Doctor had succeeded in making his escape from an attack, which had been made upon himself and his party, by a band of sable 'salvages;' he had wandered far: was 'weary and way-worn,' and had lain down behind a bush, for protection against the keen wind which blew over the plain, from which he had no protection save the dry grass which he spread under and over his body. After a fitful slumber, he awoke unrefreshed, 'and started again.' 'I felt,' he says, 'the pangs of hunger and thirst: the water in my telescope-case ran out, and that in the barrels of my gun, which I had not drunk, had been lost on my way, as the bushes had torn out the grass stoppers, and so I lost a portion of the invaluable fluid, which, in spite of the gunpowder flavor imparted to it by the barrels, thirst had rendered delicious. My hunger was so great that I tried to chew leaves, roots, and elephant's excrement to stay it: and when day broke, to break my fast on ants.' Night came on; and he travelled on until day-light. Soon after day-break, he saw four immense rhinoceroses feeding behind some bushes ahead of him: they 'stared at him, but did not move.' 'Coming presently,' he mentions, to a 'sand-pit,' with a somewhat moistish surface, 'like as a hart panteth for the water-brooks,' I anticipated the precious fluid; I dug into the sand for it, but only to meet with disappointment: so I put some of the wet sand in my mouth, which only increased my thirst.' What ensues could not be better told than in the brave explorer's own words: 'About noon I came upon the dry and sandy bed of the river, which we must have crossed to the south-west only a few days before. Scarcely had I entered its bed when I heard the chattering of monkeys, a most joyful sound, for I knew that there must be water wherever monkeys appear in a low-lying place. I followed the course of the bed, and soon came to a pit dug by the monkeys in the sand, in which I found the priceless water. I thanked God for this great gift; and having quenched my thirst, I first filled my powder-horn, tying up the powder in my handkerchief, and then my telescope-case, and the barrels of my gun. To still the pangs of hunger, I took a handful of powder and ate it with some shoots of a young tree which grew near the water; but they were very bitter.' Such 'experiences' as these will serve to show how much the world owes to our indefatigable modern explorers, self-denying, self-abrogating men, like Livingstone and Krapf, who scarcely 'set their life at a pin's fee' in pursuing unwearied their laborious and painful researches. * * * Observe now how this old friend of ours could write, if he would. In the pauses of his avocation as President of a Bank in 'Old Erie,' he drops us a hasty note, in which he says: 'At times I feel chock-full of unwritten words, and say to myself: 'I only wish I had the use of a stenographic amanuensis for about an hour or so. I would create an article worth an hour's existence.' I wish I could only stop growing older; I don't mind having time 'roll on,' for I shouldn't want to be always living at the same moment; but I don't care about rolling on with it, and finally being rolled off or 'dumped' off. I frequently smile at the consolatory remark of the divine to his hearers, that they had great cause to be thankful that Death was at the end of life instead of the beginning, for this fortunate arrangement of Providence gave them time to prepare for the event. Now such reasoning appears at the first glance quite ludicrous; and yet when you analyze it you will find there is a great deal of force in it. I have scratched this off in the midst of my financial correspondence, and you are lucky not to find any 'dollars and cents' in it.' We wish 'E. P.' would come to the 'scratch' often. * * * James Sunney, the 'Atmospherical Poet,' in our last, and the 'Blooming Bard' of a 'Blossoming Hotel,' in previous 'issoos,' is a man without envy of his inspired brothers in art. Song, to be sure, is his specialite; but music hath charms also wherewith to soothe his savage breast. We do not jest, on the contrary, we ask especial attention to the following fervent tribute, paid by Mr. Sunney to the musical powers of our friend and cosmopolitan correspondent, Colonel Pipes, of Pipesville, otherwise known as Stephen C. Massett, Esq., the popular vocalist, lecturer, and raconteur. Instantaneously the 'Colonel' dispatches to us the flattering missive, or missile; as like unto a non-resistant catapult it was 'precipitated' from the o'ercharged brain of the appreciative poet. We feel with 'Pipes:' for, as Editor of the Knickerbocker, we too have been 'indorsed' by Sunney, as a man, take us by and large, 'not likely to be met with by any body in a hurry!' But we keep our readers from the 'Letter from James Sunney, 'Blossoming Bard' of the 'Blooming Hotel,' to Colonel Pipes, the Ripened Reciter and Vocalist.' Hear him for his cause, and 'hold your yawp,' till he has said what he has got to say. Can't you do that much? 'Sa-a-y?' Try it:
'New-York, Nov. 12, 1860.
'Dear Sir: It affords me great pleasure to acknowledge the delicacy of delight and joy I felt while perusing the many songs composed and sung by you, at the palacious rooms in London and elsewhere. The presses of Great Britain has certainly paid a great tribute to your mental capacity and physical ability, as a vocalist superior to Russell, whose name was entitled to record on the first pages of history. You are certainly a man of high standing and respectability, whose intellectual faculties has added much to the brilliancy of youth, taste, and grandeur. I rejoice at the testimony bore to your character by some of the most eminent and distinguished writers in Ewrop. Melody of the feathered songsters could not warble with more harmony through the refractive powers of the Atmosphere, than did your voluble fluency vociferate in the grand 'Adelaide of Australia.' As an elocutionist, your name is eminently combined with the ablest men of the age; and elevated to a higher degree than my pen is able to expound. At the same time I cannot refrain from any thing that has a tendency to morality without giving it my humble but human approbation.
'Yours respectfully,
'James Sunney.'
Where is our sable friend and correspondent of the Louisville Hotel? That colored orator and model letter-writer must look to his sesquipedalian fame. But this aside. The above, Mr. Sunney, is fine prose; but you must look to your poetic 'bays:' not a span of spanking 'bays,' Mr. Sunney, on the Bloomingdale-Road, but the laurel greens by which 'bards,' although quite unlike yourself, were wont to be crowned. We repeat that you must look to this kind of 'bays,' because there is a fellow-bard, a Yankee, yet a kindred spirit, down in Maine, who can rhyme you 'out o' house and home.' He is the 'Bard of Misery,' and hence, of course, a most miserable poet. Where Sorrow dwells, there is his country. He revels especially in marine disasters: there he 'expands and bourgeons.' A friendly 'Devil,' (no 'Goblin-Damned,' we'll be sworn,) writing to us from a newspaper printing-office in Bangor, Maine, says: 'Will you kindly permit me to approach your Most Excellent Ma'—gazine, of which I am a constant reader, with a little contribution which I have picked up from the many similar 'favors' which we have had the honor of printing for the 'Son of the Muse,' whose effusions, somehow, don't seem to what-they-call 'Take:' but I expect these passages will.' Our modest, welcome correspondent is right: the 'passages' which he has marked for us must 'take.' For example: only a few 'brief stanzas' from the 'poem' depicting 'Levi P. Willey's Last Voyage to Cubey.' Levi had, 'by all accounts,' a hard time. 'A few' of his 'experiences' are recorded in the lines which we annex: Eben Babbidge being the name of the skipper, 'as he sailed, as he sailed:'
'In eighteen hundred and fifty-nine,
It was to me a solemn time:
To a port in Cuba I did go;
What happened there you shall know.
'As God would have it so to be,
I was cook on board the open sea;
I was at work, the crew did know,
And from my lungs fresh blood did flow.
'Unto the captain I did go,
He did for me all that he know;
He called the mate and all the crew,
And for the doctor they did go.
'In due time the doctor came
To stop the blood and ease my pain;
He said that I must go on shore,
And stop a day, or two, or more.
'And the Spanish people there
Did use me well, I do declare;
Five days on shore I did remain,
Then went on board the brig again.
'My captain was so kind and good,
He done for me all that he could,
He is a kind and generous man,
Would always lend a helping hand.
'Scott Cookson was our second mate,
As to my friends I will relate;
He was loved and honored too,
By the captain, mate, and the crew.
'Roscoe, and George, and Frederick, too,
That was the names of all the crew;
They were smart and noble boys,
To reef topsails it was their joys.
'When our brig was ready for to sail,
We was blest with a pleasant gale;
As God would have it so to be,
We came to Boston in America.
'When we arrived in Boston town,
We got a bed for to lie down,
For I was tired and very weak,
I had been three days without sleep.
'The next morning, at seven o'clock,
We made bargain with the truck,
Across the city for to go,
To the Eastern Main Depo.
'From Boston to Camden I came,
My lungs were weak and racked with pain,
To the doctor I went straightway,
He gave me some relief without delay.'
Still more 'terrible' are the 'Verses on the Loss of the Lady Elgin Steamboat,' 'composed by A. W. Harmon,' the 'gifted' author of the foregoing animated lines. Our extract must be brief: but we can assure our readers that the entire 'lot' is fully equal to the subjoined 'sample:'
'Come old and young, pray now attend
To the sad tale that I've now penned,
About the Lady Elgins fate,
And her disaster on the lake.
'Captain John Wilson, with courage brave,
Esteem'd by all on land or wave,
Associated in many minds,
And memories of the choisest kinds.
'At the moment the ships together came,
Music and dancing were the game;
But in one instant all was still,
In thirty minutes the steamer filled!
'Whether they were not aware
Of their sad danger and despair,
Or whether their appalling fate,
Them speachless made, I cannot state.
'A boat was lowered with the design,
If possible, the leak to find:
To stop the leak was our intent,
But in one half-hour down she went.
'The noble Captain firm and brave,
Is thus supposed in trying to save
That mother and her child he fell
And died beneath the foaming swell.'
The 'verses' are too horrible to bear farther quotation: 'The lake with fabrics did abound, and human beings floated round,' is the opening of a most miserable picture. Sunney, you have a 'rival near your throne.' * * * A CLEVER correspondent, dating from 'Saline Mines, Illinois,' sends us the following amusing specimen of 'Keeping Score by Double-Entry.' It will be a 'nut' for book-keepers:
'You know Elije Scroggins, up here in White County? Yes? Well, about six years ago, Elije kept a kind of 'one-horse' grocery on the edge of 'Seven-mile Pararie.' I don't think he kept much beside 'bald-faced, thirty-day whiskey,' and may-be some ginger-brandy. Times were 'mighty tight,' and not much money stirring in that settlement; so Elije had to credit most of his customers till corn-gathering time, or till fur was good; and, as he had no 'book learning,' he used to make some kind of a mark for his different 'patrons' on a clapboard which he kept for the purpose, and then chalk down 'the drinks' against them as they got them, which in some cases was pretty often. One day there was a 'big meeting' appointed at the 'Possum Ridge school-house,' about five miles from Elije's, and his wife persuaded him to go: so on Sunday morning they gathered up the children and 'toted' off to meeting to 'make a day of it.' Along through the day some of the neighbors getting a 'leetle dry,' went over to Elije's to 'moisten their clay,' and finding the door shut, and nobody about, they were somewhat alarmed, and 'didn't know but some body was either sick or dead;' so they pushed in to see about it, and finding things all right, they concluded that Elije and his 'old woman' had gone off on a visit; so they took a drink all around, out of friendly feeling to him, and were about going off, when one of them caught sight of the tally-board stuck under the rafter, and pulled it down: and either out of pure devilment, or thinking it an easy way to pay off a score, gave it a wipe, and stuck it back again. In the evening, when Elije got back, he had occasion to look at his accounts for some purpose or other, when to his great amazement and dismay, he found it considerably 'mixed!' He scratched his head over it for some time, evidently trying to make it out, and finally calling his wife in he showed it to her, and said: 'There, that's what a man gets for going off and neglecting his business.' On the whole, however, he got over it pretty quietly for him, for Elije use to swear 'mightily' 'when his back was up.' He didn't have much to say now, though, but sat with his chin on his hands, and his elbows on his knees, looking in the fire all the evening: but on Monday morning he got up 'bright and early,' and taking down the clap-board, gave it a good wash, and began very industriously to figure away upon it. Two or three times during the morning his wife looked in, and he was still working away at it; and at dinner-time, when she came to call him, she ventured to ask how he was getting on. 'Well,' said he, holding the tally-board off at arms'-length, and looking at it very earnestly, with his head on one side, 'I don't know as I've got as much charged as I had, but I've got it on better men!''
'A new way to make old debts!' * * * How suddenly, how unexpectedly, in a Winterish Day in the Country, comes up the 'fond remembrance' of days and friends that are no more! As one walks mid-leg deep amidst the damp-rustling leaves, listens to the moaning of the winds, and watches the red sunlight dying into shadow between the folds of the hills over the broad river, the sad hours of memory come up in long review:
'I felt the leaves were shed,
I felt the birds were dead:
And on the earth I snowed the winter of my soul!'
Expressive words, and only too true! * * * Not less than a 'good many' readers of the Knickerbocker can 'place' the parties who figure in this little anecdote, which we are assured is entirely authentic: 'A young lady named Taylor, meeting a former acquaintance named Mason, at a party, where the latter was assuming any quantity of importance in consequence of her wealth, and who did not deign to notice her, revenged herself by stepping into the group surrounding the haughty belle, and thus addressing her, with the most winning smile: 'I have been thinking, my dear Miss Mason, that we ought to exchange names.' 'Why, indeed?' 'Because my name is Taylor, and my father was a mason; and your name is Mason, and your father was a tailor.' There was a scene then; but there was no help for it. * * * 'I was exceedingly amused,' writes a Boston friend, 'by your double-brace of 'The Practical Jokes of the late Colonel E. L. Snow.' I knew that original 'Joker' well. There was never any mischief in his fun: it was always harmless and always good-natured. I spent a winter four years ago in your 'Great Metropolis,' and saw much of 'The Colonel' in the very barber's shop which you designate. One cold blustering morning he came in, and as he took his seat in the 'operator's chair,' he said, with a 'wondering' expression of countenance: 'That is a strange thing about the Fountain: it's frozen over sixty feet high!' 'Is that so?' asked three or four gentlemen, seated on a sofa, waiting their 'turn.' 'Yes: it's a fact: I saw it myself before I came in.' Out they rushed, to the Park Fountain, which at that time used to throw up its white column of water into the clear, cold air. Pretty soon they came back 'disgusted,' and looking daggers at Snow, 'It's all a lie!' they said: 'the Fountain is playing eighty feet high: Humbug!' 'No humbug at all,' responded the 'Colonel:' 'I meant the Fountain in Union-Square! It's a good deal more than sixty feet high from here; and I saw it frozen solid not more than half-an-hour ago!' 'The laugh' was on the other side now: but the victims were good-natured fellows, and laughed as heartily as the rest. On another occasion, upon entering the shop, I found Snow 'in the chair,' with a very lugubrious countenance 'on him,' as the Irish have it. 'That was a terrible thing,' said he, 'which happened on the Harlem Railroad this morning!' 'What was that?' asked several 'voices.' 'Why,' explained Snow, 'the entire New-Haven train, of eight cars, ran over four men and a young lady.' 'They were instantly killed, of course?' 'No: miraculous as it may seem, not a single life was lost!' 'Why, how was that?' 'Well, they were under the Harlem Bridge, when the train passed over them, and not a car touched them! Cur'ous, wasn't it?' * * * Thanks to our old Boyhood's Friend, 'J. B. B.,' for his notelet, written in our absence at the desk of our town-sanctum. One 'plum' in it we are going to transfer to our own 'pudding:' 'I met an old school-mate in the cars last evening, who gave me an amusing anecdote of a character who lived in Pittsfield, (Mass.;) a man full of hearty humor—his name S—— P——, Jr. He was at Cleveland; and recognizing a nephew across the street, hailed him, as he was walking along in solemn mood: and as he took his hand he said: 'Well, Tom, I understand you have sold out entirely and gone into a new business: taken up the Millerite business, eh!' 'Well, Uncle Lem.,' was the reply, 'what would you do if you certainly expected the Last Day would come at twelve o'clock to-day?' 'Why, Tom,' said Lem., laughing, 'I'll tell you what I would do: I would just work till five minutes before twelve, and then I'd wash up!'' Not a bad reply to a 'hard question!' * * * Can any of our readers or correspondents inform us who is the author of the ensuing stanzas? They are certainly very beautiful: and their melody and fervor lead us to think that they may be from the pen of Rev. Mr. Bonar, from whom we have heretofore quoted two or three exquisite effusions. These lines bear this motto, from Isaiah: 'I will lead thee in the paths they have not known:'
'How few who, from their youthful day,
Look on to what their life may be;
Painting the visions of the way
In colors soft and bright and free;
How few who to such paths have brought
The hopes and dreams of early thought!
For God, through ways they have not known,
Will lead His own.
'The eager hearts, the soul of fire,
Who pant to toil for God and man;
And view with eyes of keen desire
The upland way of toil and pain;
Almost with scorn they think of rest,
Of holy calm, of tranquil breast,
But God, through ways they have not known,
Will lead them home.
'A lowlier task on them is laid—
With love to make the labor light;
And there their beauty they must shed
On quiet homes and lost to sight.
Changed are their visions high and fair,
Yet calm and still they labor there;
For God, through ways they have not known,
Will lead His own.
'The gentle heart that thinks with pain,
It scarce can lowliest tasks fulfil;
And if it dared its life to scan,
Would ask but pathway low and still;
Often such lowly heart is brought
To act with power beyond its thought:
For God, through ways they have not known,
Will lead His own.
'And they, the bright, who long to prove,
In joyous path, in cloudless lot,
How fresh from earth their grateful love
Can spring without a stain or spot—
Often such youthful heart is given
The path of grief, to walk in Heaven:
For God, through ways they have not known.
Will lead His own.
'What matter what the path shall be?
The end is clear and bright to view;
We know that we a strength shall see,
Whate'er the day may bring to do.
We see the end, the house of God,
But not the path to that abode;
For God, through ways they have not known,
Will lead His own.'
These fervent lines are 'poetry.' * * * Mr. Charles L. Elliott, the eminent portrait-painter, was safely delivered of the subjoined remark, at a quarter to four of the clock, on the afternoon of February the twenty-second, while crossing the Hudson River. He commenced as follows: said he: The epitaphs which you quote in a late number of the Knickerbocker, remind me of a verbal one which my father once heard. An old fellow, a coarse, ill-grained Dutchman, died one day. He was a disagreeable man, and a bad neighbor: even the children feared and disliked him. One of his neighbors asked him just before his death, if he was ready to go, to which he answered: 'Yes.' 'Well,' was the rejoinder, 'if you are willing to die yourself, all your neighbors are willing you should.' At the grave, even, there was no one to say a good word for him, except one good-hearted old German, who remarked, as he turned away to go home: 'Well, he vas a goot shmoker!'' This was the 'shmoker's only epitaph. * * * A friend mentioned to us the other evening an amusing example of 'A Dutchman's Reliance on Providence.' There had been a great drought in the county of Columbia: no rain had fallen for the space of two or three months; and all the upland fields were parched and dry: insomuch that great fears were entertained that there would be an utter failure of the usual crops. In this extremity, a meeting was called of all devout citizens of that particular 'rural district,' to offer up Prayers for Rain to the 'Lord of the Harvest.' One honest old Dutchman who had a large farm, stated his 'views' to the meeting in this way: 'Dere ish some vields along der hills dere, dat ish pooty dry: I wis you bray for some rain on dem: but you needn't bray for any mores vater on der moisht black ground under der hills dere; 'cause corn moosht grow on dem vields any how!' The 'argument' was effective! * * * Among the Public Lecturers of the Season we may mention the name of our correspondent, and country neighbor, Mr. William Wirt Sikes. His lectures are upon attractive themes, are well written, and he delivers them with entire effect. The subjects of four, which we have seen mentioned, are: 'The Beautiful,' 'William Wirt,' 'The Noble Life,' 'Insanity.' Mr. Sikes' address is, Nyack on the Hudson. * * * 'A Conundrum by Induction,' must have cost a good deal of hard work to make:
Why is a bee-hive like a bad potato?
Because a bee-hive is a bee-holder:
And a beholder is a spectator,
And a speck-tater is a bad potato!
'Apt,' for a metaphysician. * * * We call attention to the advertisement elsewhere of 'The Cosmopolitan Art-Journal. It has succeeded in securing the liberal favor of the public, having reached a circulation of nearly forty thousand copies. 'The Falstaff,' which it furnishes as a premium picture, is an excellent work of art, and cannot fail of a very wide diffusion. * * * The Editorial Correspondence of The Knickerbocker,' extending through a period of over twenty years, will be commenced in our next. Having to gain nearly a month's time in the advance preparation of the present number, we have not found the requisite leisure to do justice to the opening paper.