CRITICAL NOTICES.
PAUL ULRIC.
Paul Ulric: Or the Adventures of an Enthusiast. New York: Published by Harper & Brothers.
These two volumes are by Morris Mattson, Esq. of Philadelphia, and we presume that Mr. Mattson is a very young man. Be this as it may, when we called Norman Leslie the silliest book in the world we had certainly never seen Paul Ulric. One sentence in the latter, however, is worthy of our serious attention. "We want a few faithful laborers in the vineyard of literature, to root out the noxious weeds which infest it." See page 116, vol. ii.
In itself, the book before us is too purely imbecile to merit an extended critique—but as a portion of our daily literary food—as an American work published by the Harpers—as one of a class of absurdities with an inundation of which our country is grievously threatened—we shall have no hesitation, and shall spare no pains, in exposing fully before the public eye its four hundred and forty-three pages of utter folly, bombast, and inanity.
"My name," commences Mr. Mattson, "is Paul Ulric. Thus much, gentle reader, you already know of one whose history is about to be recorded for the benefit of the world. I was always an enthusiast, but of this I deem it inexpedient to say much at present. I will merely remark that I possessed by nature a wild and adventurous spirit which has led me on blindly and hurriedly, from object to object, without any definite or specific aim. My life has been one of continual excitement, and in my wild career I have tasted of joy as well as of sorrow. [Oh remarkable Mr. Ulric!] At one moment I have been elevated to the very pinnacle of human happiness, at the next I have sunk to the lowest depths of despair. Still I fancied there was always an equilibrium. This may seem a strange philosophy to some, but is it the less true? The human mind is so constituted as always to seek a level—if it is depressed it will be proportionately elevated, if elevated it will be proportionately depressed. But" says Mr. U., interrupting himself, "I am growing metaphysical!" We had thought he was only growing absurd.
He proceeds to tell us of his father who was born in Lower Saxony—who went, when only a year old, to England—who, being thrown upon the parish, was initiated into the mysteries of boot cleaning—who, at the age of ten, became a vender of newspapers in the city of London—at twelve sold potatoes in Covent Garden—at fifteen absconded from a soap-boiler in the Strand to whom he had been apprenticed—at eighteen sold old clothes—at twenty became the proprietor of a mock auction in Cheapside—at twenty-five was owner of a house in Regent Street, and had several thousand pounds in the Funds—and before thirty was created a Baronet, with the title of Sir John Augustus Frederick Geoffry Ulric, Bart., for merely picking up and carrying home his Majesty King George the Fourth, whom Mr. U. assures us upon his word and honor, his father found lying beastly drunk, one fine day, in some gutter, in some particular thoroughfare of London.
Our hero himself was born, we are told, on the borders of the Thames, not far from Greenwich. When a well grown lad he accompanies his father to the continent. In Florence he falls in love with a Countess in her thirty-fifth year, who curls his hair and gives him sugar-plums. The issue of the adventure with the Countess is thus told.
"You have chosen them with much taste," said the Countess; "a beautiful flower is this!" she continued, selecting one from among the number, "its vermillion is in your cheeks, its blue in your eyes, and for this pretty compliment I deserve a —— you resist eh! My pretty, pretty lad, I will! There! Another, and you may go free. Still perverse? Oh, you stubborn boy! How can you refuse? One—two—three! I shall devour you with kisses!"
* * * * *
* * * * *
We have printed the passage precisely as we find it in the book—notes of admiration—dashes—Italics—and all. Two rows of stars wind up the matter, and stand for the catastrophe—for we hear no more of the Countess. Now if any person over curious should demand why Morris Mattson, Esq. has mistaken notes of admiration for sense—dashes, kisses, stars and Italics for sentiment—the answer is very simple indeed. The author of Vivian Grey made the same mistake before him.
Indeed we have made up our minds to forward Ben D'Israeli a copy of Paul Ulric. He will read it, and if he do not expire upon the spot, it will do him more real service than the crutch. Never was there a more laughable burlesque of any man's manner. Had Mr. Mattson only intended it as a burlesque we would have called him a clever fellow. But unfortunately this is not the case. No jackdaw was ever more soberly serious in fancying herself a peacock, than our author in thinking himself D'Israeli the second.
"Every day," says Paul after the kissing scene, "filled me with a new spirit of romance. I had sailed upon the winding streams of Germany; I had walked beneath the bright skies of Italy; I had clambered the majestic mountains of Switzerland." His father, however, determines upon visiting the United States, and taking his family with him. His reasons for so doing should be recorded. "His republicanism" says Paul, "had long rendered him an object of aversion to the aristocracy. He had had the hardihood to compare the salary of the President with the civil list of the king—consequently he was threatened with an indictment for treason! My mother suggested the propriety of immediately quitting the country."
Mr. Mattson does not give us an account of the voyage. "I have no disposition," says his hero, "to describe a trip across the Atlantic—particularly as I am not in a sentimental mood—otherwise I might turn over the poets, and make up a long chapter of extracts from Moore, Byron, and Rogers of the Old World, or Percival, Bryant, and Halleck of the New." A range of stars accordingly, is introduced at this crisis of affairs, and we must understand them to express all the little matters which our author is too fastidious to detail. Having sufficiently admired the stars, we turn over the next leaf and "Land ho!" shouts one of the seamen on the fore-topsail yard.
Arrived in Philadelphia, Mr. Ulric (our hero's father) "is divided," so says Mr. Mattson, "between the charms of a city and country life." His family at this time, we are told, consisted of five persons; and Mr. U. Jr. takes this opportunity of formally introducing to us, his two sisters Eleanor and Rosaline. This introduction, however, is evidently to little purpose, for we hear no more, throughout the two volumes, of either the one young lady or the other. After much deliberation the family fix their residence in "Essex, a delightful country village in the interior of Pennsylvania;" and we beg our readers to bear in mind that the surprising adventures of Paul Ulric are, for the most part, perpetrated in the immediate vicinity of this village.
The young gentleman (notwithstanding his late love affair with the Countess) is now, very properly, sent to school—or rather a private tutor is engaged for him—one Lionel Wafer. A rapid proficiency in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, music, dancing, and fencing, is the result; "and with these accomplishments," says the young calf, "I believed myself fitted for the noise and bustle of the world." Accordingly, his father having given him a flogging one afternoon, he determines upon running away. In two days he "arrives in one of the Atlantic cities." Rambling about the streets he enters into conversation with a sharper, who succeeds in selling him, for forty dollars, a watch made of tinsel and put together with paste. This and subsequent adventures in the city form the best portion of the book—if best should be applied, in any way, to what is altogether abominable. Mr. Ulric goes to the theatre, and the play is Romeo and Juliet. The orchestra "breaks forth in full chorus" and our hero soliloquizes. We copy his soliloquy with the end of placing before our readers what we consider the finest passage in Mr. Mattson's novel. We wish to do that gentleman every possible act of justice; and when we write down the few words to which we allude, and when we say that they are not absolutely intolerable, we have done all, in the way of commendation, which lies in our power. We have not one other word of praise to throw away upon Paul Ulric.
"Oh Music!—the theme of bards from time immemorial—who can sing of thee as thou deservest? What wondrous miracles hast thou not accomplished? The war-drum beats—the clarion gives forth its piercing notes—and legions of armed men rush headlong to the fierce and devastating battle. Again, the drum is muffled, and its deep notes break heavily upon the air, while the dead warrior is borne along upon his bier, and thousands mingle their tears to his memory. The tender lute sounds upon the silvery waters, and the lover throws aside his oar, and imprints a kiss upon the lips of his beloved. The bugle rings in the mountain's recesses, and a thousand spears are uplifted for a fearful and desperate conflict. And now the organ peals, and, with its swelling notes, the soul leaps into the very presence of the Deity."
Our hero decides upon adopting the stage as a profession, and with this view takes lessons in elocution. Having perfected himself in this art, he applies to a manager, by note, for permission to display his abilities, but is informed that the nights are engaged for two months ahead, and it would be impossible for him to appear during the season. By the influence, however, of some hanger-on of the theatre, his wishes are at length gratified, and he is announced in the bills as "the celebrated Master Le Brun, the son of a distinguished English nobleman, whose success was so unprecedented in London as to have performed fifty nights in succession at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane"—a sentence in which we are at a loss to discover whether the English nobleman, or the English nobleman's son, or the success of the English nobleman's son is the distinguished performer in question.
Our adventurer succeeds in his debût, and is in a fair way of becoming a popular performer, when his prospects are suddenly nipped in the bud. His valet one morning announces a Sir Thomas Le Brun, and Sir Thomas Le Brun proves to be that worthy gentleman Sir John Augustus Frederick Geoffry Ulric, Baronet. A scene ensues. Paul screams, and Sir John clenches his fist. The father makes a speech, and the son makes a speech and a bow. At length they fly into each other's arms, and the drama closes by the old personage taking the young personage home in his carriage. In all this balderdash about the stage, there is not one original incident or idea. The same anecdotes are told, but in infinitely better language, in every book of dramatic reminiscences since the flood.
Our author now indulges in what we suppose to be satire. The arrows of his wit are directed, with much pertinacity at least, against one Borel Bunting, by which name it strikes us that Mr. M. wishes to indicate some poor devil of an editor in bonâ fide existence—perhaps some infatuated young person who could not be prevailed upon, by love or money, to look over the MS. of Paul Ulric. If our supposition be true, we could wish Mr. Borel Bunting no better revenge than what the novelist has himself afforded by this public exposure of his imbecility. We must do our readers the favor of copying for their especial perusal, a portion of this vehement attack.
There has been much speculation as to the birthplace of Borel; (in this respect he somewhat resembled Homer) but if I have been correctly informed it was in one of the New England States. Further than this I cannot particularize. When he came to Essex he managed to procure a situation in a counting-house, which afforded him the means of support as well as leisure for study. He did not overlook these advantages, and gradually rose in public estimation until he became the editor of the Literary Herald. This gentleman was deeply read in the classics, and had also perused every novel and volume of poetry from the earliest period of English literature down to the present. Such had been his indefatigable research, that there was not a remarkable passage in the whole range of the Waverley fictions, or indeed any other fictions, to which he could not instantly turn. As to poetry, he was an oracle. He could repeat the whole of Shelley, Moore, and Wordsworth, verbatim. He was a very Sidrophel in his acquirements. He could tell
"How many scores a flea would jump;"
he could prove, also, "that the man in the moon's a sea Mediterranean," and
| "In lyric numbers write an ode on His mistress eating a black pudding." |
He composed acrostics extempore by the dozen; we say extempore, though it was once remarked that he was months in bringing them to maturity. He was inimitable, moreover, in his pictures of natural scenery. When a river, or a mountain, or a waterfall was to be sketched, Borel Bunting, of all others, was the man to guide the pencil. He had the rare faculty of bringing every thing distinctly before the mind of the reader—a compliment to which a majority of his brother scribes are not entitled.
Borel Bunting possessed also a considerable degree of critical acumen. Southey was a mere doggerelist; Cooper and Irving were not men of genius: so said Borel. Pope, he declared, was the first of poets, because Lord Byron said so before him. Tom Jones, he contended, was the most perfect specimen of a novel extant. He was also willing to admit that Goldsmith had shown some talent in his Vicar of Wakefield.
In a word, Borel's wonderful acquirements secured him the favorable attention of many distinguished men; and at length (as a reward of his industry and merit) he was regularly installed in the chair editorial of the "Literary Herald," an important weekly periodical, fifteen inches in diameter. His salary, it is supposed, was something less than that received by the President of the United States.
The Literary Herald, Borel (or rather, Mr. Bunting—we beg his pardon) considered the paragon of perfection. No one could ever hope to be distinguished in literature who was not a contributor to its columns. It was the only sure medium through which young Ambition could make its way to immortality. In short, (to use one of Bunting's favorite words,) it was the "nonpareil" of learning, literature, wit, philosophy, and science.
Mr. Bunting corresponded regularly with many distinguished individuals in Europe. I called upon him one morning, just after the arrival of a foreign mail, when he read me portions of seven letters which he had just received. One was from Lafayette, another from Charles X., a third from the author of a fashionable novel, a fourth from Miss L——, a beautiful poetess in London, a fifth from a German count, a sixth from an Italian prince, and a seventh from Stpqrstuwsptrsm, (I vouch not for the orthography, not being so well acquainted with the art of spelling as the learned Borel,) a distinguished Russian general in the service of the great "Northern Bear."
The most unfortunate charge that was ever preferred against Borel, in his editorial capacity, was that of plagiarism. He had inserted an article in his paper over his acknowledged signature, entitled "Desultory Musings," which some one boldly asserted was an extract from Zimmerman on Solitude; and, upon its being denied by the editor, reference was given to the identical page whence it was taken. These things boded no good to the reputation of the scribe; nevertheless, he continued his career without interruption, and, had he lived in the days of Pope, the latter might well have asked,
| "Who shames a scribbler? break one cobweb through, He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew: Destroy his fib or sophistry, in vain, The creature's at his dirty work again— * * * * * Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines." |
Mr. Ulric now indulges us with another love affair, beginning as follows: "Oh thou strange and incomprehensible passion! to what canst thou be compared? At times thou art gentle as the zephyr; at others thou art mighty as the tempest. Thou canst calm the throbbing bosom, or thou canst fill it with wilder commotion. A single smile of thy benign countenance calleth new rapture to the anguished heart, and scattereth every doubt, every fear, every perplexity. But enough of this." True.
A young lady falls into a river or a ditch, (our author says she was fishing for a water-lily) and Mr. Ulric is at the trouble of pulling her out. "What a charming incident!" says Mr. Mattson. Her name is Violet, and our susceptible youth falls in love with her. "Shall I ever," quoth Paul, "shall I ever forget my sensations at that period?—never!!" Among other methods of evincing his passion he writes a copy of verses "To Violet," and sends them to the Literary Herald. All, however, is to little purpose. The lady is no fool, and very properly does not wish a fool for a husband.
Our hero now places his affections upon the wife of a silk-dyer. He has a rival, however, in the person of the redoubted editor, Borel Bunting, and a duel ensues, in which, although the matter is a hoax, and the pistols have no load in them, Mr. Mattson assures us that the editor "in firing, lodged the contents of his weapon in the ground a few inches from his feet." The chapter immediately following this adventure is headed with poetical quotations occupying two-thirds of a page. One is from Byron—another from All's Well that Ends Well—and the third from Brown's Lecture on Perpetual Motion. The chapter itself would form not quite half a column such as we are now writing, and in it we are informed that Bunting, having discovered the perpetual motion, determines upon a tour in Europe.
The editor being thus disposed of, Mr. Mattson now enters seriously upon the business of his novel. We beg the attention of our readers while we detail a tissue of such absurdity, as we did not believe it possible, at this day, for any respectable bookseller to publish, or the very youngest of young gentlemen to indite.
Let us bear in mind that the scene of the following events is in the vicinity of Philadelphia, and the epoch, the present day. Mr. Ulric takes a stroll one May morning with his gun. "Nature seems to be at rest," &c.—"the warbling of birds," &c.—"perched among trees," &c. was all very fine, &c. "While gazing," says Paul, "upon these objects," (that is to say, the warbling of the birds) "I beheld a young and beautiful female trip lightly over the grass, and seat herself beneath a willow which stood in the middle of a park." Whereupon our adventurer throws himself into an attitude, and soliloquizes as follows.
"It seems that there is an indescribable something in the features of many women—a look, a smile, or a glance of the eye—that sends the blood thrilling to the heart, and involuntarily kindles the flame of love upon its altar. It is no wonder that sages and philosophers have worshipped with such mad devotion at the shrine of beauty! It is no wonder that the mighty Pericles knelt at the feet of his beloved Aspasia! It is no wonder that the once powerful Antony sacrificed his country to the fatal embraces of the bewitching Cleopatra! It is no wonder that the thirst for glory cooled in the heart of the philosophic Abelard, when he beheld the beauty of the exquisite Heloise! It is no wonder, indeed, that he quitted the dry maxims of Aristotle to practise the more pleasing precepts of Ovid! But this is rhapsody!" It is.
The lady is dressed in white, (probably cambric muslin,) and Mr. Mattson assures us that her features he shall not attempt to describe. He proceeds, however, to say that her "eyes are hazel, but very dark," "her complexion pure as alabaster," her lips like the lips of Canova's Venus, and her forehead like—something very fine. Mr. Ulric attempts to speak, but his embarrassment prevents him. The young lady "turns to depart," and our adventurer goes home as he came.
The next chapter commences with "How mysterious is human existence!"—which means, when translated, "How original is Mr. Mattson!" This initial paragraph concludes with a solemn assurance that we are perishable creatures, and that it is very possible we may all die—every mother's son of us. But as Mr. M. hath it—"to our story." Paul has discovered the mansion of the young lady—but can see no more of the young lady herself. He therefore stands sentinel before the door, with the purpose "of making observations." While thus engaged, he perceives a tall fellow, "with huge black whiskers and a most forbidding aspect," enter the house, in a familiar manner. Our hero is, of course, in despair. The tall gentleman could be no other than the accepted lover of the young lady. Having arrived at this conclusion, Paul espies a column of smoke in the woods, and after some trouble discovers it to proceed from "a log dwelling which stood alone, with its roof of moss, amid the silence and solitude of nature." A dog barks, and an old woman makes her appearance.
This old lady is a most portentous being. She is, however, a little given to drinking; and offers our hero a dram, of which Mr. Mattson positively assures us that gentleman did not accept.
"Can you tell me," says Paul, "who lives in the stone house?"
"Do you mean the Florence mansion," she asked.
"Very like—who is its owner?"
"A man of the same name—Richard Florence."
"Who is Richard Florence?"
"An Englishman; he came to this country a year or two ago."
"Has he a wife?"
"Not that I know of."
"Children?"
"An only daughter."
"What is her name?"
"Emily."
"Emily!—Is she beautiful?"
"Very beautiful!"
"And amiable?"
"Her like is not to be found."
"What," [exclaims our hero, perhaps starting back and running his fingers through his hair]—"what are all the fleeting and fickle pleasures of the world! what the magnificent palaces of kings, with their imperial banquetings and gorgeous processions! what, indeed, are all the treasures of the earth or the sea, in comparison with the pure, the bright, the beautiful object of our young and innocent affections!!!"
The name of the old hag is Meg Lawler, and she favors Mr. Ulric with her private history. The morality of her disclosures is questionable—but "morals, at the present day, quoth Mr. Mattson, are rarely sought in works of fiction, and perhaps less rarely found." The gentleman means more rarely. But let us proceed. Meg Lawler relates a tale of seduction. It ends in the most approved form. "I knew," says she, "that the day of sorrow and tribulation was at hand, but alas, there was no saving power!" Here follows a double range of stars—after which, the narrative is resumed as follows.
Dame Lawler paused, and turning upon me her glaring and blood-shot eyes exclaimed—
"Do you think there is a punishment hereafter for the evil deeds done in the body?"
"Such," I replied, "the divines have long taught us."
"Then is my destroyer writhing in the agonies of hell!!"
Mr. Ulric is, of course, electrified, and the chapter closes.
Our hero, some time after this, succeeds in making the acquaintance of Miss Emily Florence. The scene of the first interview is the cottage of Meg Lawler. Mr. U. proposes a walk—the lady at first refuses, but finally consents.
"There were two paths," says our hero, "either of which we might have chosen: one led into the forest, the other towards her father's house. I struck into the latter—but she abruptly paused."
"Shall we continue our walk?" I asked, observing that she still hesitated.
"Yes," she at length answered; "but I would prefer the other path"—that is to say the path through the woods—O fi, Miss Emily Florence! During the walk, our hero arrives at the conclusion that his beloved is "some unfortunate captive whose fears, or whose sense of dependence, might render it imprudent for her to be seen in the society of a stranger." In addition to all this, Dame Lawler has told Mr. U. that "she did not believe Emily was the daughter of Mr. Florence"—hereby filling the interesting youth with suspicions, which Mr. Mattson assures us "were materials for the most painful reflection."
On their way home our lovers meet with an adventure. Mr. Ulric happens to espy a—man. Miss Emily Florence thus explains this momentous occurrence. "There is a band of robbers who have their retreat in the neighboring hills—and this was no doubt one of them. They are headed by a brave and reckless fellow of the name of Elmo—Captain Elmo I think they call him. They have been the terror of the inhabitants for a long time. My father went out sometime ago with an armed force in pursuit of them, but could not discover their hiding place. I have heard it said that they steal away the children of wealthy parents that they may exact a ransom." Once more we beg our readers to remember that Mr. Mattson's novel is a Tale of the Present Times, and that its scene is in the near vicinity of the city of Brotherly Love.
Having convinced her lover that the man so portentously seen can be nobody in the world but "that brave and reckless fellow" Captain Elmo, Miss Florence proceeds to assure Mr. U. that she (Miss Florence) is neither afraid of man nor the devil—and forthwith brandishes in the eyes of our adventurer an ivory-hilted dagger, or a carving-knife, or some such murderous affair. "Scarcely knowing what I did," says our gallant friend, "I imprinted a kiss (the first—burning, passionate, and full of rapture) upon her innocent lips, and—darted into the woods!!!" It was impossible to stand the carving-knife.
As Mr. U. takes his way home after this memorable adventure, he is waylaid by an old woman, who turns out to be a robber in disguise. A scuffle ensues, and our hero knocks down his antagonist—what less could such a hero do? Instead however of putting an end at once to his robbership, our friend merely stands over him and requests him to recite his adventures. This the old woman does. Her name is Dingee O'Dougherty, or perhaps Dingy O'Dirty—and she proves to be one and the same personage with the little man in gray who sold Mr. U. the tinsel watch spoken of in the beginning of the history. During the catechism, however, a second robber comes up, and the odds are now against our hero. But on account of his affectionate forbearance to Dingy O'Dirty no farther molestation is offered—and the three part with an amicable understanding.
Mr. Ulric is now taken ill of a fever—and during his illness a servant of Mr. Florence having left that gentleman's service, calls upon his heroship to communicate some most astounding intelligence. Miss Florence, it appears, has been missing for some days, and her father receives a letter (purporting to be from the captain of the banditti) in which it is stated that they have carried her away, and would only return her in consideration of a ransom. Florence is requested to meet them at a certain spot and hour, when they propose to make known their conditions. Upon hearing this extraordinary news our adventurer jumps out of bed, throws himself into attitude No. 2, and swears a round oath that he will deliver Miss Emily himself. Thus ends the first volume.
Volume the second commences with spirit. Mr. U. hires "three fearless and able-bodied men to accompany and render him assistance in the event of danger. Each of them was supplied with a belt containing a brace of pistols, and a large Spanish knife." With these terrible desperadoes, our friend arrives at the spot designated by the bandit. Leaving his companions near at hand, he advances, and recognizes the redoubted Captain Elmo, who demands a thousand pounds as the ransom of Miss Emily Florence. Our hero considers this too much, and the Captain consents to take five hundred. This too Mr. U. refuses to give, and with his three friends makes an attack upon the bandit. But a posse of robbers coming to the aid of their leader, our hero is about to meet with his deserts when he is rescued by no less a personage than our old acquaintance Dingy O'Dirty, who proves to be one of the banditti. Through the intercession of this friend, Mr. U. and his trio are permitted to go home in safety—but our hero, in a private conversation with Dingy, prevails upon that gentleman to aid him in the rescue of Miss Emily. A plot is arranged between the two worthies, the most important point of which is that Mr. U. is to become one of the robber fraternity.
In a week's time, accordingly, we behold Paul Ulric, Esq. in a cavern of banditti, somewhere in the neighborhood of Philadelphia!! His doings in this cavern, as related by Mr. Mattson, we must be allowed to consider the most laughable piece of plagiarism on record—with the exception perhaps of something in this same book which we shall speak of hereafter. Our author, it appears, has read Gil Blas, Pelham, and Anne of Gierstein, and has concocted, from diverse passages in the three, a banditti scene for his own especial use, and for the readers of Paul Ulric. The imitations (let us be courteous!) from Pelham are not so palpable as those from the other two novels. It will be remembered that Bulwer's hero introduces himself into a nest of London rogues with the end of proving his friend's innocence of murder. Paul joins a band of robbers near Philadelphia, for the purpose of rescuing a mistress—the chief similarity will be found in the circumstances of the blindfold introduction, and in the slang dialect made use of by either novelist. The slang in Pelham is stupid enough—but still very natural in the mouths of the cutthroats of Cockaigne. Mr. Mattson, however, has thought proper to bring it over, will I nill I, into Pennsylvania, and to make the pickpockets of Yankeeland discourse in the most learned manner of nothing less than "flat-catching," "velvet," "dubbing up possibles," "shelling out," "twisting French lace," "wakeful winkers," "white wool," "pig's whispers," and "horses' nightcaps!"
Having introduced his adventurer à la Pelham, Mr. Mattson entertains him à la Gil Blas. The hero of Santillane finds his cavern a pleasant residence, and so does the hero of our novel. Captain Rolando is a fine fellow, and so is Captain Elmo. In Gil Blas, the robbers amuse themselves by reciting their adventures—so they do in Paul Ulric. In both the Captain tells his own history first. In the one there is a rheumatic old cook—in the other there is a rheumatic old cook. In the one there is a porter who is the main obstacle to escape—in the other ditto. In the one there is a lady in durance—in the other ditto. In the one the hero determines to release the lady—in the other ditto. In the one Gil Blas feigns illness to effect his end, in the other Mr. Ulric feigns illness for the same object. In the one, advantage is taken of the robbers' absence to escape—so in the other. The cook is sick, at the time, in both.
In regard to Anne of Gierstein the plagiarism is still more laughable. We must all remember the proceedings of the Secret Tribunal in Scott's novel. Mr. Mattson has evidently been ignorant that the Great Unknown's account of these proceedings was principally based on fact. He has supposed them imaginary in toto, and, seeing no good reason to the contrary, determined to have a Secret Tribunal of his own manufacture, and could think of no better location for it than a cavern somewhere about the suburbs of Philadelphia. We must be pardoned for giving Mr. Mattson's account of this matter in his own words.
Dingee disappeared, [this is our old friend Dingy O'Dirty] Dingee, [quoth Mr. Mattson,] disappeared—leaving me for a time alone. When he returned, he said every thing was in readiness for the ceremony, [the ceremony of Mr. Ulric's initiation as a robber.] The place appointed for this purpose was called the 'Room of Sculls'—and thither, blindfolded, I was led.
'A candidate for our order!' said a voice, which I recognized as O'Dougherty's.
'Let him see the light!' exclaimed another in an opposite direction. The mandate was obeyed, and I was restored to sight.
I looked wildly and fearfully around—but no living object was perceptible. Before me stood an altar, hung about with red curtains, and ornamented with fringe of the same color. Above it, on a white Banner, was a painting of the human heart, with a dagger struck to the hilt, and the blood streaming from the wound. Directly under this horrible device, was written, in large letters,
THE PUNISHMENT OF THE UNFAITHFUL.
Around, wherever I turned my eyes, there was little else to be seen but skeletons of human bodies—with their arms uplifted, and stretching forward—suspended in every direction from the walls. One of them I involuntarily touched, and down it came with a fearful crash—its dry bones rattling upon the granite floor, until the whole cavern reverberated with the sound. I turned from this spectacle, and opposite beheld a guillotine—the fatal axe smeared with blood; and near it was a head—looking as if it had just been severed from the body—with the countenance ghastly—the lips parted—and the eyes staring wide open. There, also, was the body, covered, however, with a cloth, so that little was seen except the neck, mangled and bloody, and a small portion of the hand, hanging out from its shroud, grasping in its fingers a tablet with the following inscription:
THE END OF THE BETRAYER.
I sickened and fell. When I awoke to consciousness I found myself in the arms of O'Dougherty. He was bathing my temples with a fragrant liquor. When I had sufficiently recovered, he put his mouth close to my ear and whispered—'Where is your courage man? Do you know there is a score of eyes upon you?'
'Alas! I am unused to such scenes—I confess they have unmanned me. But now I am firm; you have only to command, and I will obey.'
'Bravo!' exclaimed O'Dougherty, 'you must now be introduced to the high priest of our order. He has taken his seat at the altar—prepared for your reception. I will retire that you may do him reverence—trusting soon to hail you as a brother.'
The curtains about the altar had been grouped up, and there, indeed, sat the high dignitary in all his splendor. He was closely masked, and reclined in a high-backed chair, with his head turned carelessly to one side, with an expression of the most singular good humor. At that moment, also, there issued from numerous recesses, which I had not hitherto observed, a number of grotesque-looking shapes, not unlike the weird sisters in Macbeth, who quietly took their stations around the apartment, and fixed upon me their fearful and startling gaze. Their garments were hanging in shreds—an emblem, perhaps, of their own desperate pursuits. Their faces were daubed with paint of various colors, which gave them a wild and fiendish aspect. Each one grasped a long knife, which he brandished furiously above his head, the blades sometimes striking heavily together. They then sprang simultaneously forward, forming themselves into a circle, while one stationed himself as the centre, around whom they slowly moved with dismal and half-suppressed groans. They continued this ceremony until some one exclaimed—
'Bring forth the dead!'
'Bring forth the dead!'—they all repeated, until the cavern rang with a thousand echoes.
The banditti now stood in a line, stretching from one end of the room to the other, and remained some time in silence. Directly a dead body—mutilated and bloody—was borne by some invisible agency into our presence. It rested upon a bier—without pall or other covering—a spectacle too horrible for description. I thought, at first, that it was some optical delusion—but, alas! it proved a fearful reality—a dread and reckless assassination, prompted by that hellish and vindictive spirit, which appeared so exclusively to govern the ruffians with whom I was voluntarily associated. The victim before me was a transgressor of their laws; and this punishment had been dealt out to him as the reward of his perfidy. Life, to all appearance, was extinct; but the sluggish and inert clay still remained, as if in mockery of all law—all humanity—all mercy.
'Behold the traitor!'—exclaimed one of the number.
'Behold the traitor!'—they all repeated in concert.
'Bear away the dead!'—commanded the priest at the altar.
'Bear away the dead! bear away the dead!'—was reiterated in succession by every tongue, until the lifeless body disappeared—and with it the fiendish revellers who had sported so terrifically in its presence.
We have only to say, that if our readers are not absolutely petrified after all this conglomeration of horrors, it is no fault either of Paul Ulric's, Morris Mattson's, or Dingy O'Dirty's.
Miss Emily Florence is at length rescued, and with her lover, is rowed down some river in a skiff by Dingy, who thus discourses on the way. We quote the passage as a specimen of exquisite morality.
"Had I the sensibility of many men, a recollection of my crimes would sink me into the dust—but as it is, I can almost fancy them to be so many virtues. I see you smile; but is it not a truth, that every thing of good and evil exists altogether in idea? The highwayman is driven by necessity to attack the traveller, and demand his purse. This is a crime—so says the law—so says society—and must be punished as our wise men have decreed. Nations go to war with each other—they plunder—burn—destroy—and murder—yet there is nothing wrong in this, because nations sanction it. But where is the difference between the highwayman, in the exercise of a profession by which he is to obtain a livelihood, and a nation, with perhaps less adequate cause, which despoils another of its treasures, and deluges it in blood? Is not this a proof that our ideas of immorality and wickedness are derived in a great measure from habit and education?" "The metaphysical outlaw," [says our hero,] "the metaphysical outlaw here concluded his discourse." [What an excessively funny idea Mr. Mattson must have of metaphysics!]
Having left the boat, taken leave of Dingy O'Dirty, and put on a pair of breeches, Miss Florence now accompanies our adventurer to a village hard by. Entering a tavern the lovers seat themselves at the breakfast table with two or three other persons. The conversation turns upon one Mr. Crawford, a great favorite in the village. In the midst of his own praises the gentleman himself enters—"and lo!" says Mr. Ulric, "in the person of Mr. Crawford, I recognized the notorious Captain Elmo!" The hue and cry is immediately raised, but the Captain makes his escape through a window. Our hero pursues him to no purpose, and in returning from the pursuit is near being run over by a carriage and six. The carriage doors happen to be wide open, and in the vehicle Mr. Ulric discovers—oh horrible!—Miss Emily Florence in the embrace of the fellow with the big whiskers!
Having lost his sweetheart a second time, our adventurer is in despair. But despair, or indeed any thing else, is of little consequence to a hero. "It is true," says Paul, "I was sometimes melancholy; but melancholy with me is as the radiant sunlight, imparting a hue of gladness to every thing around!!" Being, therefore, in excellent spirits with his melancholy, Mr. Ulric determines upon writing a novel. The novel is written, printed, published, and puffed. Why not?—we have even seen "Paul Ulric" puffed. But let us hasten to the dénouement of our tale. The hero receives a letter from his guardian angel, Dingy O'Dirty, who, it appears, is in England. He informs Mr. U. that Miss Florence is in London, for he (Dingy O'Dirty) has seen her. Hereupon our friend takes shipping for that city. Of course he is shipwrecked—and, of course, every soul on board perishes but himself. He, indeed, is a most fortunate young man. Some person pulls him on shore, and this person proves to be the very person he was going all the way to London to look for—it was Richard Florence himself. What is more to the purpose, Mr. F. has repented of promising Miss Emily to the fellow with the big whiskers. Every thing now happens precisely as it should. Miss E. is proved to be an heiress, and no daughter of Florence's after all. Our hero leads her to the altar. Matters come rapidly to a crisis. All the good characters are made excessively happy people, and all the bad characters die sudden deaths, and go, post haste, to the devil.
Mr. Mattson is a very generous young man, and is not above patronizing a fellow-writer occasionally. Some person having sent him a MS. poem for perusal and an opinion, our author consigns the new candidate for fame to immortality at once, by heading a chapter in Paul Ulric with four entire lines from the MS., and appending the following note at the bottom of the page.
From a MS. poem entitled "Drusilla," with which we have been politely favored for perusal. It is a delightful work, and shows the writer to be a man of genius and reflection. We hope it will not be long before the lovers of poetry are favored with this production; it will win deserved celebrity for its author.
And as a farther instance of disinterestedness, see this conversation between Mr. Mattson's hero, and a young lady in London who wrote for the annuals.
"What do you think of D'Israeli's novels?"—asked she.
"Excellent! Excellent!" I replied, "especially Vivian Grey: take for example the scene in the long gallery between Vivian, and Mrs. Felix Lorraine."
"Admirable!"—returned the young lady, "but, by the way, how do you like Bulwer?"
"Well enough," I answered.
"Pray, Mr. Ulric, how many female writers of distinction have you in America? Honest old Blackwood tells us of but two or three."
"And who are they?"
"Miss Gould, Miss Sedgwick, and Mrs. Sigourney."
"He should have added another—Miss Leslie."
We fancy it is long since Miss Leslie, Miss Gould, Miss Sedgwick, Mrs. Sigourney, Lytton Bulwer, and Ben D'Israeli have been so affectionately patted on the back.
Of Mr. Mattson's style the less we say the better. It is quite good enough for Mr. Mattson's matter. Besides—all fine writers have pet words and phrases. Mr. Fay had his "blisters"—Mr. Simms had his "coils," "hugs," and "old-times"—and Mr. M. must be allowed his "suches" and "so muches." Such is genius!—and so much for the Adventures of an Enthusiast! But we must positively say a word in regard to Mr. Mattson's erudition. On page 97, vol. ii, our author is discoursing of the novel which his hero is about to indite. He is speaking more particularly of titles. Let us see what he says.
"An ill-chosen title is sufficient to condemn the best of books. Never does an author exhibit his taste and skill more than in this particular. Just think for a moment of the Frenchman's version of Doctor Johnson's 'Rambler' into 'Le Chevalier Errant,' and what was still more laughable, his innocently addressing the author by the appellation of Mr. Vagabond! By the way, the modern fanatics were somewhat remarkable in the choice of their titles. Take for example the following—'The Shop of the Spiritual Apothecary' and 'Some fine Baskets baked in the Oven of Charity, carefully conserved for the Chickens of the Church, the Sparrows of the Spirit, and the Sweet Swallows of Salvation.'"
Having admired this specimen of deep research, let us turn to page 125, vol. ii. Mr. Ulric is here vindicating himself from some charges brought against his book. Have patience, gentle reader, while we copy what he says.
"In the first place we are accused of vulgarity. In this respect we certainly bear a strong resemblance to Plautus, who was censured by the satirical Horace for the same thing. Next come Ignorance, Vanity, and Stupidity. Of the first two, the classic reader will not forget that Aristotle (who wrote not less than four hundred volumes) was calumniated by Cicero and Plutarch, both of whom endeavored to make it appear that he was ignorant as well as vain. But what of our stupidity? Socrates himself was treated by Athenæus as illiterate; the divine Plato, called by some the philosopher of the Christians, by others the god of philosophers, was accused by Theopompus of lying, by Aristophanes of impiety, and by Aulus Gellius of robbery. The fifth charge is a want of invention. Pliny has alleged the same thing of Virgil—and surely it is some consolation to know that we have such excellent company. And last, though not least, is plagiarism. Here again Naucrates tells us that Homer pillaged some of his best thoughts from the library at Memphis. It is recorded, moreover, that Horace plundered from the minor Greek poets, and Virgil from his great prototype, Homer, as well as Nicander, and Apollonius Rhodius. Why then should we trouble ourselves about these sweeping denunciations?"
What a learned man is Morris Mattson, Esq.! He is intimately versed not only in Horace, Aristotle, Cicero, Plutarch, Virgil, Homer, Plato, Pliny, and Aristophanes—but (credat Judæus!) in Nicander, Aulus Gellius, Naucrates, Athenæus, Theopompus, and Apollonius Rhodius! I. D'Israeli, however, the father of Ben D'Israeli aforesaid, is (we have no hesitation in saying it,) one of the most scoundrelly plagiarists in Christendom. He has not scrupled to steal entire passages verbatim from Paul Ulric! On page 1, vol. ii, second edition, of 'The Curiosities of Literature,' in a chapter on Titles, we have all about Dr. Johnson, Le Chevalier Errant, and Mr. Vagabond, precisely in the language of Mr. Mattson. O thou abandoned robber, D'Israeli! Here is the sentence. It will be seen, that it corresponds with the first sentence italicized in the paragraph (above) beginning 'An ill-chosen title, &c.' "The Rambler was so little understood, at the time of its appearance, that a French Journalist has translated it 'Le Chevalier Errant,' and a foreigner drank Johnson's health one day, by innocently addressing him by the appellation of Mr. Vagabond!" And on page 11, of the same volume, we perceive the following, which answers to the second sentence italicized in the paragraph above mentioned. "A collection of passages from the Fathers is called 'The Shop of the Spiritual Apothecary'—one of these works bears the elaborate title 'Some fine Baskets baked in the Oven of Charity, carefully conserved for the Chickens of the Church, the Sparrows of the Spirit, and the Sweet Swallows of Salvation.'" There can be no doubt whatever of D'Israeli's having pilfered this thing from Paul Ulric, for Mr. Mattson having, inadvertently we suppose, written Baskets for Biscuits, the error is adopted by the plagiarist. But we have a still more impudent piece of robbery to mention. The whole of the erudition, and two-thirds of the words in the paragraph above, beginning 'In the first place we are accused of vulgarity,' &c. is to be found on page 42, vol. i, second edition, of The 'Curiosities!' Let us transcribe some of D'Israeli's words in illustration of our remark. We refer the reader for more particular information to the book itself.
"Horace censures the coarse humor of Plautus—Aristotle (whose industry composed more than four hundred volumes) has not been less spared by the critics. Diogenes Laertius, Cicero and Plutarch have forgotten nothing that can tend to show his ignorance, his ambition, and his vanity—Socrates, considered as the wisest, and most moral of men, Cicero treated as an usurer, and the pedant Athenæus as illiterate—Plato, who has been called, by Clement of Alexandria, the Moses of Athens; the philosopher of the Christians by Arnobius, and the god of philosophers by Cicero; Athenæus accuses of envy; Theopompus of lying; Suidas of avarice; Aulus Gellius of robbery; Porphyry of incontinence, and Aristophanes of impiety—Virgil is destitute of invention, if we are to give credit to Pliny—Naucrates points out the source (of the Iliad and Odyssey,) in the library at Memphis, which, according to him, the blind bard completely pillaged—Horace has been blamed for the free use he made of the minor Greek poets. Even the author of his (Virgil's) apology, has confessed that he has stolen, from Homer, his greatest beauties, from Apollonius Rhodius many of his pathetic passages, and from Nicander hints for his Georgics."
Well, Mr. Mattson, what have you to say for yourself? Is not I. D'Israeli the most impudent thief since the days of Prometheus?
In summing up an opinion of Paul Ulric, it is by no means our intention to mince the matter at all. The book is despicable in every respect. Such are the works which bring daily discredit upon our national literature. We have no right to complain of being laughed at abroad when so villainous a compound, as the thing we now hold in our hand, of incongruous folly, plagiarism, immorality, inanity, and bombast, can command at any moment both a puff and a publisher. To Mr. Mattson himself we have only one word to say before throwing his book into the fire. Dress it up, good sir, for the nursery, and call it the "Life and Surprising Adventures of Dingy O'Dirty." Humph!—Only think of Plato, Pliny, Aristotle, Aristophanes, Nicander, Aulus Gellius, Naucrates, Athenæus, Theopompus and Apollonius Rhodius!!
MARTIN'S GAZETTEER.
A New and Comprehensive Gazetteer of Virginia, and the District of Columbia: containing a copious collection of Geographical, Statistical, Political, Commercial, Religious, Moral and Miscellaneous Information, collected and compiled from the most respectable, and chiefly from original sources; by Joseph Martin. To which is added a History of Virginia from its first settlement to the year 1754: with an abstract of the principal events from that period to the independence of Virginia, written expressly for the work, by a citizen of Virginia. Charlottesville: Published by Joseph Martin. 1835.
We ought to have noticed this book sooner. Mr. Martin deserves well of the country for having laid the foundation, amidst numerous obstacles, of a work of great utility and importance. In his preface, he disavows all pretension to literary attainment, and claims only the merit of enterprise and perseverance in the execution of his design. He is entitled to all the rewards of a bold pioneer, struggling with pecuniary difficulties, and, we might add, with public indifference, in amassing a large amount of valuable information—interesting to almost every man in the Commonwealth. It is one of the evils attendant upon a high state of political excitement in any country, that what is really and substantially good, is forgotten or neglected. The resources of our great Commonwealth are immense, and if we could once get the public mind into a condition favorable to their full development, the most important consequences might be expected to follow. Societies and associations for collecting information in the various departments of moral and physical science, have abounded in most countries having the least pretension to civilization; and even in some of the States of our confederacy, it is known that an enlightened spirit of inquiry exists on the same subject. Our own state indeed, boastful as it is of its early history, the renown of some of its sons, and its abundant natural advantages, has nevertheless, we are pained to admit, manifested too little of that public spirit which has animated other communities. Of late, indeed, some signs have been exhibited of a more liberal and resolute course of action, and we are not without hope that these efforts will be crowned by highly useful and practical results.
It is because Mr. Martin has been obliged to rely principally upon individual contributions, in order to obtain which he must necessarily have used great diligence, and submitted to much pecuniary sacrifice, that we think him entitled to a double portion of praise. Few individuals would, under such circumstances, have incurred the risk of failure; and our wonder is, not that the work is not perfect, but that, contending with so many disadvantages, it should have so nearly accomplished what has been long a desideratum in Virginia literature. Our limits will not permit any thing like a minute analysis of its contents. The arrangement of the volume strikes us as superior to the ordinary alphabetical plan; and although there is much repetition even in its present form, much more we think has been avoided. That part of the General Description of the State, which especially treats of the climate, is admirably well written; and, considering the scantiness of the author's materials, owing to the general neglect of meteorological observations in Virginia, his reasoning is clear, forcible, and philosophical. In the Sketch which is given of the county of Louisa, we think we can recognize a pen which has not unfrequently adorned the pages of the "Messenger"—and the History of the State from its earliest settlement, appended to the work, is written with vigor and ability, and, as far as we can judge, with accuracy. If Mr. Martin is sustained by public liberality, which we earnestly hope will be the case, he will not only be enabled, in the next edition, to correct such imperfections as may be found to exist in the present, but to engraft a large amount of additional information, derived from authentic sources. The report of Professor Rogers, for example, on the Geology of Virginia, made to the present Legislature, will shed much light on the mineral resources of the State; and the report of the President and Directors of the Literary Fund, embracing as it does, detailed information with respect to all our literary institutions, will greatly illustrate the means in operation for diffusing the blessings and benefits of education. The statistical tables, too, can be revised and corrected in another edition; and we doubt not that many individuals into whose hands the work may fall, will voluntarily contribute such suggestions and improvements as their means of information will authorize. Such a work to the man of business, and to the traveller, and indeed to the general reader, is invaluable, and we heartily recommend it to public patronage.
ROSE-HILL.
Rose-Hill: A Tale of the Old Dominion. By a Virginian. Philadelphia: Key & Biddle.
This is an unpretending little duodecimo of about two hundred pages. It embraces some events connected with two (fictitious) families in the Western section of Virginia during the Revolution. The chief merit of the work consists in a vein of piety and strict morality pervading its pages. The story itself is interesting, but not very well put together, while the style might be amended in many respects. We wish the book, however, every success.
CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL.
1. An Eulogy on the Life and Character of John Marshall. Delivered at the request of the Councils of Philadelphia, on the 24th of September, 1835. By Horace Binney. pp. 55.
2. A Discourse on the Life, &c. of John Marshall, L.L.D. Pronounced on the 15th of October, 1835, at the request of the Suffolk Bar (Boston.) By Joseph Story, L.L.D., and published at their request, pp. 70.
3. An Oration on the Life and Character of John Marshall, late Chief Justice of the United States, pronounced before the Citizens of Alexandria, D. C. August 12, 1835. By Edgar Snowden. Published by request of the Committee of Arrangements.1
1 The late hour at which we have received this pamphlet, has prevented us from speaking as fully as we intended of its distinguished merits. It would have given us great pleasure to have embodied, in the text of this article, portions of Mr. Snowden's Oration—an Oration justly entitled to companionship with the Discourse of Judge Story, and the Eulogy of Mr. Binney. We must now, however, at this late day, confine ourselves to a general expression of commendation, and a short extract from the conclusion of the Oration.
"But the 'good' of Marshall is not interred with his bones. It lives after him, and will live after him in all time to come. The incense of virtue which he burned upon his country's altar, will continue to rise to heaven, and diffuse itself throughout the land for all following generations. When our children shall read the story of his life, they will find it one which, in its purity and beauty, cannot be surpassed by the history of any other man of our age. And who can calculate the extent of the influence of such a character upon the hearts and minds of this people, and even upon the future destinies of this country, in regulating the dispositions of those who aspire and those who are called to the high places of the nation? Who can say that it will not pervade the moral atmosphere, so as to correct many of those evil tendencies which we now see constantly developing themselves. We want such men as Marshall to rise up in our midst, and shed around the chastened light of their influence. The glare of military fame, and the glittering trappings of power, dazzle but too often to delude those who gaze at them with admiration. But upon the mellow radiance of his virtues we can all look with unclouded eyes—we can all dwell with unmingled satisfaction."
A formal criticism upon these discourses, is the least of our intentions in placing them at the head of this article. Not that they are either unworthy of criticism, or incapable of abiding its test: but that, slight and unpretending as they are in their form and guise, the consideration which their uncommon literary merits would otherwise ensure them, is in great part lost, in the overshadowing magnitude of their subject. To be engrossed by beauties or defects (if there are defects) in the style of a shilling pamphlet, when its theme is "the Life, Character and Services" of one who blended the benevolence and purity of Hale, the piercing and comprehensive genius of Mansfield, and the logical power of Erskine; and who, in the majestic simplicity of varied yet harmonious greatness, as we verily believe, is next to Washington; would be to imitate Seneca's grammarian, who in reading Virgil, thinks only of longs and shorts—disregarding all the charms of incident, and all the glories of imagery. What we have to say of the discourses, therefore, shall be little more, than that they are worthy of their authors; who by these productions, if THESE stood alone, have shown minds proof against the cramping tendencies of a profession, so much better fitted (according to Mr. Burke) to quicken and invigorate, than to open and liberalize the intellect. All of them have given narratives, crowded with interesting particulars; and, what might not have been expected from his less intimate association with the deceased, Mr. Binney seems to have acquired a larger store of these, than Judge Story. The latter, however, (what might have been as little expected from his grave judicial station, so long occupied) has adorned his pages more highly, with the flowers and graces of style.
But our main design in bringing them before our readers, is to present, at the smallest possible expense of labor to ourselves, an outline of his life, and a just view of his character, whose talents and virtues they have both so successfully commemorated. With this intent, we purpose making large extracts from the discourses; and even where we do not literally quote, we are willing to be regarded as merely paraphrasing them,—for by far the most of the incidents we are about to give, are drawn from no other source. We agree, with Lord Bacon, that in general, it is "only the meaner sort of books" that should be thus hashed and read at second-hand; and that "distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things." But stinted time and space oblige us here to be content with a rifacimento, in which we trust our readers may still find much of the savor of the viands whence we make our extracts.
JOHN MARSHALL was born Sept. 24th, 1755, in Fauquier County, Virginia—a little more than two months after Braddock's defeat; and was the eldest of fifteen children, of Thomas Marshall, who was a colonel in the continental line of the Revolutionary Army, remarkable for courage, and for strength of mind. His courage was signalized at the Battles of Trenton and Brandywine; his regiment, at the latter, bearing the brunt of the attacking column led by Cornwallis in person. Though greatly outnumbered, it "maintained its position without losing an inch of ground, until both its flanks were turned, its ammunition nearly expended, and more than half the officers and one third of the soldiers were killed or wounded. Col. Marshall, whose horse had received two balls, then retired in good order to resume his position on the right of his division, but it had already retreated."2 The heroism of such a father, could not be lost upon the son.
2 1. Marshall's Washington, 158.
The sparsely peopled region in which he lived, co-operating with a narrow fortune, afforded Col. Marshall but little opportunity for sending his children to school; and he was compelled to be almost exclusively himself their teacher. In his eldest son he early implanted a taste for English literature; "especially for poetry and history." At the age of twelve, John had transcribed the whole of Pope's Essay on Man, and some of his Moral Essays; and had committed to memory many of the most interesting passages of that distinguished poet.
"The love of poetry, thus awakened in his warm and vigorous mind, soon exerted a commanding influence over it. He became enamored of the classical writers of the old English school, of Milton, and Shakspeare, and Dryden, and Pope; and was instructed by their solid sense and beautiful imagery. In the enthusiasm of youth, he often indulged himself in poetical compositions, and freely gave up his leisure hours to those delicious dreamings with the muses, which (say what we may) constitute with many the purest source of pleasure in the gayer scenes of life, and the sweetest consolation in the hours of adversity.
"One of the best recommendations, indeed, of the early cultivation of a taste for poetry, and the kindred branches of literature, is, that it does not expire with youth. It affords to maturer years a refreshing relaxation from the severe cares of business, and to old age a quiet and welcome employment, always within reach, and always bringing with it, if not the charms of novelty, at least the soothing reminiscences of other days. The votary of the muses may not always tread upon enchanted ground; but the gentle influences of fiction and song will steal over his thoughts, and breathe, as it were, into his soul the fragrance of a second spring of life.
"Throughout the whole of his life, and down to its very close, Mr. Marshall continued to cultivate a taste for general literature, and especially for those departments of it, which had been the favorite studies of his youth. He was familiar with all its light, as well as its more recondite, productions. He read with intense interest, as his leisure would allow, all the higher literature of modern times; and, especially, the works of the great masters of the art were his constant delight."—[Judge Story.]
The entire compatibility of such a love for elegant literature with "the severe logic and closeness of thought, which belonged to" Judge Marshall's character, is well vindicated by Judge Story's observations, as well as by many illustrious examples. Among them may be named William Wirt. The flowery complexion of his writings, his evident delight in works of fancy, and the extraordinary graces of his oratory, made the multitude believe him to be "of imagination all compact." But he was in truth far more profoundly versed in the dry, intricate lore of his profession, and by far more capable of thridding its nicest subtleties, than thousands, whose whole minds have been occupied with its "mystic, dark, discordant" tomes. We have been told by one who knew him intimately, that there were few harder students than Mr. Wirt: and that our informant had known him repeatedly sit for six or seven hours at a time, intensely engaged in examining a single question of law; and this too, at a period of his life when the world thought him little more than a frothy declaimer, a spouter of poetry, and an inditer of light newspaper essays. But to return—Judge Story presents us most pleasing views of Col. Marshall's character, derived from conversations with his more distinguished son:
"I have often heard the Chief Justice speak of him in terms of the deepest affection and reverence."... "Indeed, he never named his father, without dwelling on his character with a fond and winning enthusiasm. It was a theme, on which he broke out with spontaneous eloquence; and in the spirit of the most persuasive confidence, he would delight to expatiate on his virtues and talents. 'My father,' he would say with kindled feelings and emphasis, 'my father was a far abler man than any of his sons. To him I owe the solid foundation of all my own success in life.' Such praise from such lips is inexpressibly precious. I know not whether it be most honorable to the parent, or to the child. It warms, while it elevates our admiration of both."
There is great truth in the remark, that children reared among numerous brothers and sisters are the more apt, on that account, to make good men and women. The kindly affections are more exercised; emulation, tempered by such love as prevents its festering into malignity, stimulates to greater activity of body and of mind; each one has less expectation of hereditary fortune—that great palsier of useful energies; and each comes in for less of that parental fondness, which, when concentrated upon one, or two, or three children, so often spoils their characters, and embitters their lives. To the influence of this truth upon young Marshall's destinies, add the judicious training and admirable example of an intelligent father, and the hardy, active life he led, in a wild and mountainous region abounding in game—and many of the best traits in his character, as well as much of his subsequent eminence, are at once accounted for.
At fourteen, he was sent to Westmoreland, one hundred miles off, where for a year he was instructed in Latin by a clergyman named Campbell, and where James Monroe was one of his fellow students. Returning then to his father's house, he, for another year, received instruction in Latin from a Scotch clergyman named Thompson; "and this was the whole of the classical tuition he ever obtained."3 By the assistance of his father, however, and the persevering efforts of his own mind, he continued to enlarge his knowledge, while he strengthened his body by "hardy, athletic exercises in the open air. He engaged in field sports; he wandered in the deep woods; he indulged his solitary meditations amidst the wildest scenery of nature; he delighted to brush away the earliest dew of the morning."... "It was to these early habits in a mountainous region, that he probably owed that robust and vigorous constitution, which carried him almost to the close of his life with the freshness and firmness of manhood."4
3 Mr. Binney.
4 Judge Story.
About his eighteenth year, when he had commenced the study of the Law, the lowering aspect of affairs between the Colonies and Great Britain attracted his notice, and he devoted himself chiefly to the acquiring of military skill, in a volunteer corps of the neighborhood. At length news came, of the battle of Lexington. A militia company, in which he held a commission, was ordered to assemble at a place ten miles from his father's house. Mr. Binney says, "A kinsman and contemporary, who was an eye witness of this scene, has thus described it to me:—"
"It was in May, 1775. He was then a youth of nineteen. The muster field was some twenty miles distant from the Court House, and a section of country peopled by tillers of the earth. Rumors of the occurrences near Boston, had circulated with the effect of alarm and agitation, but without the means of ascertaining the truth, for not a newspaper was printed nearer than Williamsburg, nor was one taken within the bounds of the militia company, though large. The Captain had called the company together, and was expected to attend, but did not. John Marshall had been appointed Lieutenant to it. His father had formerly commanded it. Soon after Lieutenant Marshall's appearance on the ground, those who knew him clustered about him to greet him, others from curiosity and to hear the news.
"He proceeded to inform the company that the Captain would not be there, and that he had been appointed Lieutenant instead of a better:—that he had come to meet them as fellow soldiers, who were likely to be called on to defend their country, and their own rights and liberties invaded by the British:—that there had been a battle at Lexington in Massachusetts, between the British and Americans, in which the Americans were victorious, but that more fighting was expected:—that soldiers were called for, and that it was time to brighten their fire arms, and learn to use them in the field;—and that if they would fall into a single line, he would show them the new manual exercise, for which purpose he had brought his gun,—bringing it up to his shoulder. The sergeants put the men in line, and their fugleman presented himself in front to the right. His figure, says his venerable kinsman, I have now before me. He was about six feet high, straight and rather slender, of dark complexion—showing little if any rosy red, yet good health, the outline of the face nearly a circle, and within that, eyes dark to blackness, strong and penetrating, beaming with intelligence and good nature; an upright forehead, rather low, was terminated in a horizontal line by a mass of raven-black hair of unusual thickness and strength—the features of the face were in harmony with this outline, and the temples fully developed. The result of this combination was interesting and very agreeable. The body and limbs indicated agility, rather than strength, in which, however, he was by no means deficient. He wore a purple or pale-blue hunting-shirt, and trowsers of the same material fringed with white. A round black hat, mounted with the bucks-tail for a cockade, crowned the figure and the man.
"He went through the manual exercise by word and motion deliberately pronounced and performed, in the presence of the company, before he required the men to imitate him; and then proceeded to exercise them, with the most perfect temper. Never did man possess a temper more happy, or if otherwise, more subdued or better disciplined.
"After a few lessons, the company were dismissed, and informed that if they wished to hear more about the war, and would form a circle around him, he would tell them what he understood about it. The circle was formed, and he addressed the company for something like an hour. I remember, for I was near him, that he spoke at the close of his speech of the Minute Battalion, about to be raised, and said he was going into it, and expected to be joined by many of his hearers. He then challenged an acquaintance to a game of quoits, and they closed the day with foot races, and other athletic exercises, at which there was no betting. He had walked ten miles to the muster field, and returned the same distance on foot to his father's house at Oak Hill, where he arrived a little after sunset."
"This is a portrait," to which, as we can testify with Mr. Binney, "in simplicity, gaiety of heart, and manliness of spirit," John Marshall "never lost his resemblance. All who knew him well, will recognize its truth to nature."
In the summer of 1775, he was appointed a Lieutenant in the "Minute Battalion;" and having been sent, in the next autumn, to defend the country around Norfolk against a predatory force under Lord Dunmore, he, on the 9th of December, had a full and honorable share in the successful action at the Great Bridge, which resulted in Lord D.'s defeat, and flight to his ships. In July 1776, being made lieutenant in the 11th Virginia Regiment in the Continental Service, he marched to the Middle States, where, in May 1777, he was promoted to a captaincy. Remaining constantly in service from this time until the close of 1779, he participated largely and actively in the most trying difficulties of the darkest period of the Revolution. He was in the skirmish at Iron Hill, and the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth. "He was one of that body of men, never surpassed in the history of the world, who, unpaid, unclothed, unfed,—tracked the snows of Valley Forge with the blood of their footsteps in the rigorous winter of 1778, and yet turned not their faces from their country in resentment, or from their enemies in fear."5 Acting often as Deputy Judge Advocate, he formed a wide acquaintance and influence among his brother officers. "I myself," says Judge Story, "have often heard him spoken of by these veterans in terms of the highest praise. In an especial manner, the officers of the Virginia Line, (now, 'few and faint, but fearless still') appeared almost to idolize him." During this period of his service he became acquainted with Gen. Washington and Col. Hamilton.
5 Mr. Binney.
In the winter of 1779, Captain Marshall was sent to Virginia as a supernumerary, to take the command of such men as the State Legislature might entrust to him. He used this opportunity, to attend a course of Law-Lectures, delivered by Mr. (afterwards Chancellor) Wythe, in William & Mary College; and Mr. (afterwards Bishop) Madison's Lectures on Natural Philosophy. In the following summer, he was licensed to practise Law; and in October, rejoined the army. It was probably on this occasion, that he went on foot from Virginia to Philadelphia, in order to be inoculated for the small pox; travelling at the rate of thirty-five miles daily. On his arrival, (as we learn from one to whom he related the incident,) he was refused admittance into one of the hotels, on account of his long beard and shabby clothing. He continued in the army till the end of Arnold's invasion of Virginia; when, there being still a redundancy of officers in the Virginia line, he resigned his commission, and devoted himself to his Law studies. The courts were then silenced in Virginia, by the tumult of War. As soon as they were opened, after the capture of Cornwallis, Mr. Marshall commenced practice.
"But a short time elapsed after his appearance at the bar of Virginia, before he attracted the notice of the public. His placidity, moderation, and calmness, irresistibly won the esteem of men, and invited them to intercourse with him;—his benevolent heart, and his serene and at times joyous temper, made him the cherished companion of his friends;—his candor and integrity attracted the confidence of the bar;—and that extraordinary comprehension and grasp of mind, by which difficulties were seized and overcome without effort or parade, commanded the attention and respect of the Courts of Justice. This is the traditionary account of the first professional years of John Marshall. He accordingly rose rapidly to distinction, and to a distinction which nobody envied, because he seemed neither to wish it, nor to be conscious of it himself."6
6 Mr. Binney.
6 Mr. Binney.
In April 1782, he was chosen a member of the House of Delegates, in the Virginia Legislature; and in the next autumn, of the Executive Council. In January 1783, he married Miss Ambler, daughter of Jacquelin Ambler, then Treasurer of Virginia. To this lady he had become attached while in the army; and their union of nearly fifty years, amid the most devoted affection, was broken by her death, about three years before his own. Having fixed his residence in Richmond, he resigned his seat in the Council, the more closely to pursue his profession; but his friends and former constituents in Fauquier, nevertheless, elected him again to represent them in the Legislature. In 1787, he was chosen to represent the city of Richmond.
Times of civil trouble had now come, teeming with dangers hardly less than those which had beset the country ten years before. The Confederation, by which the States were united, was found too feeble a bond of union, and a still feebler means of concurrent action. It could resolve, legislate, and make requisitions upon the States; but had no power to effectuate its resolutions, laws, or requisitions. It could contract debts, but not lay taxes of any kind to pay them. It could declare war, but not raise armies to wage it. It could make treaties, but not so as to regulate commerce—perhaps the most frequent and important aim of treaties. Each State had the determining of its own scale of duties on imports; the power of coining money, and of emitting paper-money at pleasure: conflicting revenue-laws, therefore, and a disordered currency, made "confusion worse confounded." The public debt, incurred by the revolution, was unpaid. More than three hundred millions of continental paper money were unredeemed; and having depreciated to the value of one dollar for every hundred, had ceased to circulate. Public credit was nearly at an end: private credit, by the frequent violation of contracts, was at an equally low ebb: the administration of civil justice was suspended, sometimes by the wilful delinquency of the courts, sometimes by state-laws, restraining their proceedings. Commerce, Agriculture, Manufactures—industry of every kind,—were crippled. "Laws suspending the collection of debts; insolvent laws; instalment laws; tender laws; and other expedients of a like nature, which, every reflecting man knew would only aggravate the evils, were familiarly adopted, or openly and boldly vindicated. Popular leaders, as well as men of desperate fortunes, availed themselves (as is usual on such occasions) of this agitating state of things to inflame the public mind, and to bring into public odium those wiser statesmen, who labored to support the public faith, and to preserve the inviolability of private contracts." To strengthen the arm of the general government, and invest it with larger powers over the commerce, the money, and the foreign and mutual relations of the States—was believed by most people to be the only remedy for these intolerable evils. Mr. Marshall concurred with Gen. Washington, Mr. Madison, and the majority of their countrymen, in approving of this remedy; and as a member of the State Legislature, advocated the call of a Convention, to revise the Articles of Confederation. Whether they should be so altered, as to increase materially the powers of the Federal Government—was a question which in most of the State Legislatures elicited strenuous debates; and no where more, than in the Legislature of Virginia. The men of this day have little idea, how strong were the gusts of discussion at that momentous period. "It is scarcely possible," says Judge Story, "to conceive the zeal, and even animosity, with which the opposing opinions were maintained." The dissolution or continuance of the Union, was freely discussed: one party boldly advocating the former, as necessary to prevent the destruction of State-sovereignty; the other party pleading for UNION, as not only the sole cure for the immeasurable ills which were then afflicting the land, but as indispensable to the preservation of Liberty itself, in the several States. And Union, it was alleged, could not be preserved but by a more vigorous central government.
Mr. Marshall, not then thirty years old, shared largely in the discussions which shook both the Legislative hall, and the popular assemblies, of Virginia, on this great question. Mr. Madison, with whom he served several years in the House of Delegates, fought "side by side, and shoulder to shoulder" with him, through the contest: and "the friendship, thus formed between them, was never extinguished. The recollection of their co-operation at that period served, when other measures had widely separated them from each other, still to keep up a lively sense of each other's merits. Nothing, indeed, could be more touching to an ingenuous mind, than to hear from their lips, in their latter years, expressions of mutual respect and confidence; or to witness their earnest testimony to the talents, the virtues, and the services of each other."7
7 Judge Story.
It was in these debates, that Mr. Marshall's mind acquired the skill in political discussion, which afterwards distinguished him, and which would of itself have made him conspicuous as a parliamentarian, had not that talent been overshadowed by his renown in a more soberly illustrious, though less dazzling career. Here, too, it was, that he conceived that deep dread of disunion, and that profound conviction of the necessity for closer bonds between the States, which gave the coloring to the whole texture of his opinions, upon federal politics in after life.
The Convention was at length called; and its product, the present Federal Constitution, was submitted for ratification to the States. In most of them, Conventions were likewise called, to adopt or reject it. Mr. Marshall, though the people of his county were decidedly opposed to the new Constitution, and though he avowed on the hustings his determination to support it, was elected to the Virginia Convention by a considerable majority. In that body, he took an effective, if not a leading part. Three able speeches of his, in behalf of the Constitution, appear in Mr. Robertson's report of the Debates: Speeches, seconding with "masculine logic, the persuasive talents of George Nicholas, the animated flow of Governor Randolph, the grave and sententious sagacity of Pendleton, the consummate skill and various knowledge of Madison."8 After an earnest and powerful struggle of 25 days, the Constitution was agreed to, by a majority of but ten votes—89 to 79. This result is supposed to have been promoted, by the news, received while the Convention sat, that nine states had come to a similar decision. The accession of Virginia to that number, already large enough to give the instrument validity among the adopting states, ensured its complete success; and was hailed by its friends with the liveliest joy.
8 Judge Story.
Judge Story depicts in vivid colors, the happy effects of the Government thus established, upon our prosperity: and exults over the falsified apprehensions of those who, clinging "with an insane attachment" to the former confederation, and "accustomed to have all their affections concentrated upon the State governments," saw in the new system "but another name for an overwhelming despotism." Undoubtedly, the state of things which preceded the change, was as bad as, with such a people, it could well be. Undoubtedly, the new government did very much, to retrieve our national credit and honor; to make us respected abroad, tranquil and prosperous at home. But still, not all is due to the Government. A people, animated with the spirit of freedom, enlightened enough to see their interests, and enterprising enough to pursue them strenuously,—inhabiting, too, a country not peopled to the extent of a thousandth part of its immense capabilities—would thrive and grow powerful in spite of what almost any government could do to impede their onward march. In the body politic there is, what physicians ascribe to the body natural, a vis medicatrix Naturæ, by which the wounds of War, the desolations of Pestilence, and all the ills flowing from the blunders of charlatan statesmen, are healed and made amends for. Few are so bigoted as not to admit, that the self-healing energies of our country have thus at some times prevailed over the hurtful tendencies of the measures adopted by her rulers. There is nevertheless a force and beauty in Judge Story's picture of her happiness, that make it worthy of insertion:
"We have lived," says he, "to see all their fears and prophecies of evil scattered to the winds. We have witnessed the solid growth and prosperity of the whole country, under the auspices of the National Government, to an extent never even imagined by its warmest friends. We have seen our agriculture pour forth its various products, created by a generous, I had almost said, a profuse industry. The miserable exports, scarcely amounting in the times, of which I have been speaking, in the aggregate, to the sum of one or two hundred thousand dollars, now almost reach to forty9 millions a year in a single staple. We have seen our commerce, which scarcely crept along our noiseless docks, and stood motionless and withering, while the breezes of the ocean moaned through the crevices of our ruined wharves and deserted warehouses, spread its white canvass in every clime; and, laden with its rich returns, spring buoyant on the waves of the home ports; and cloud the very shores with forests of masts, over which the stars and stripes are gallantly streaming. We have seen our manufactures, awakening from a deathlike lethargy, crowd every street of our towns and cities with their busy workmen, and their busier machinery; and startling the silence of our wide streams, and deep dells, and sequestered valleys. We have seen our wild waterfalls, subdued by the power of man, become the mere instruments of his will, and, under the guidance of mechanical genius, now driving with unerring certainty the flying shuttle, now weaving the mysterious threads of the most delicate fabrics, and now pressing the reluctant metals into form, as if they were but playthings in the hands of giants. We have seen our rivers bear upon their bright waters the swelling sails of our coasters, and the sleepless wheels of our steamboats in endless progress. Nay, the very tides of the ocean, in their regular ebb and flow in our ports, seem now but heralds to announce the arrival and departure of our uncounted navigation. We have seen all these things; and we can scarcely believe, that there were days and nights, nay, months and years, in which our wisest patriots and statesmen sat down, in anxious meditation to devise the measures which should save the country from impending ruin."
9 The exports of cotton alone, in the year ending Sept. 30th, 1834, were $49,448,000—Reviewer.
9 The exports of cotton alone, in the year ending Sept. 30th, 1834, were $49,448,000—Reviewer.
The Constitution being adopted, Mr. Marshall was prevailed on by his countrymen, to serve again in the Legislature till 1792; although the claims of a growing family and a slender fortune had made him wish, and resolve, to quit public life, and devote himself exclusively to his profession. He was wanted there by the friends of the new system, to defend its administration against the incessant attacks made upon it by a powerful and hostile party. This party consisted of those who had resisted the change, because they thought the proposed government too strong. Now that it was adopted, they naturally sought, by construing the grants of power to it with literal strictness, to prevent, as far possible, the dangers to Liberty with which they deemed it pregnant. Their opponents, on the other hand, having long regarded weakness in the centre as the great subject of just apprehension, constantly aimed, by an enlarged and liberal (or, as it has since been called a latitudinous) interpretation of those grants of power, to render them in the highest degree counteractive of the centrifugal tendency, which they so much dreaded. This controversy probably raged most hotly in Virginia. It is hard to forbear a smile at the characteristic fact, that "almost every important measure of President Washington's administration was discussed in her Legislature with great freedom, and no small degree of warmth and acrimony."10 We applaud and honor the stand which Virginia has always taken, as a centinel on the watch-tower of popular liberty and state-sovereignty, to guard against federal usurpation. It is a duty, allotted to the State Legislatures by the enlightened advocates of the Constitution who wrote "The Federalist:" a duty which it were well if her sister states had performed with something like Virginia's fidelity and zeal. But she has indiscreetly suffered this one subject too much to monopolize her attention: and we are amongst those who think this a main reason, why, with a surface and resources the most propitious of all the states to internal improvement, she lags so far behind the rest in works of that kind; and why, with a people pre-eminently instinct with the spirit of liberty, and enjoying unwonted leisure for acquiring knowledge, she has five times as many ignorant sons and daughters, as New York or Massachusetts. She ought to have looked well to her foreign relations, without losing sight of her domestic interests. We hail, with joy, the change which is now taking place in this respect. We trust that she and her statesmen, hereafter, when all attention is claimed for any one point in the vast field of their duties, will adopt the spirit of the reply which Mr. Pope (not Homer) puts into Hector's mouth, when he was advised to fix himself as a guard at one particular gate of Troy:
| ———"That post shall be my care; Nor that alone, but all the works of war." |
10 Judge Story.
From 1792 to 1795, Mr. Marshall devoted himself exclusively and successfully to his profession. Washington's Reports, shew him to have enjoyed an extensive practice in the Court of Appeals of Virginia. During this time, also, he did not withdraw himself from politics so entirely, but that he took a prominent part at public meetings, in support of Gen. Washington's Proclamation of Neutrality. He advocated this measure, orally and in writing: and Resolutions approving it, drawn up by him, were adopted by a meeting of the people of Richmond. In 1795, when Jay's Treaty was the absorbing theme of bitter controversy, Mr. Marshall was again elected to the House of Delegates, "not only without his approbation, but against his known wishes." Virginia, as usual, was the Flanders of the war. Her popular meetings, and her Legislature, rung with angry discussions. Even the name of Washington could not screen the treaty from reprobation. It was denounced at a meeting in Richmond, at which Chancellor Wythe presided, as insulting, injurious, dangerous, and unconstitutional: but the same citizens, at a subsequent meeting, were prevailed upon by a masterly speech of Mr. Marshall, to adopt resolutions of a contrary tenor, "by a handsome majority."11 Lest his popularity might suffer, he was urged by his friends not to engage in any Legislative debates upon the obnoxious Treaty. He answered, that he would make no movement to excite such a debate; but if others did so, he would assert his opinions at every hazard. The opposition party soon introduced condemnatory resolutions. Among other arguments against the treaty, it was alleged, that the executive could not, constitutionally, make a commercial treaty; since it would infringe the power given to Congress, to regulate commerce: and this was relied upon as a favorite and an unanswerable position. "The speech of Mr. Marshall on this occasion," says Judge Story, "has always been represented as one of the noblest efforts of his genius. His vast powers of reasoning were displayed with the most gratifying success. He demonstrated, not only from the words of the Constitution and the universal practice of nations,12 that a commercial treaty was within the scope of the constitutional powers of the executive; but that this opinion had been maintained and sanctioned by Mr. Jefferson, by the Virginia delegation in Congress, and by the leading members of the Convention on both sides. The argument was decisive. The constitutional ground was abandoned; and the resolutions of the assembly were confined to a simple disapprobation of the treaty in point of expediency.... The fame of this admirable argument spread through the union. Even with his political enemies, it enhanced the estimate of his character; and it brought him at once to the notice of some of the most eminent statesmen, who then graced the councils of the nation."
11 Judge Story.
12 We confess a little surprise, at seeing, here, any deduction of authority to the American Executive "from the practice of other nations." If we mistake not, a certain famous Protest of a certain President, was censured mainly for deducing power to its author from that source.—Reviewer.
Being called to Philadelphia in 1796, as counsel in an important case before the Supreme Court of the United States, he became personally acquainted with many distinguished members of Congress. He expressed himself delighted with Messrs. Cabot, Ames, Sedgwick, and Dexter of Massachusetts, Wadsworth of Connecticut, and King of New York. To these, his great speech on the treaty could not fail to recommend him: and (as he says in a letter) "a Virginian, who supported, with any sort of reputation, the measures of the government, was such a rara avis, that I was received by them all with a degree of kindness, which I had not anticipated. I was particularly intimate with Mr. Ames; and could scarcely gain credit with him, when I assured him, that the appropriations [for the treaty] would be seriously opposed in Congress." They were opposed; and passed only after a stormy debate of several weeks: and passed even then, with a declaration of a right, in Congress, to withhold them if it pleased. President Washington about this time offered him the post of Attorney General of the United States; which he declined, as interfering with his lucrative practice. But he continued in the Virginia Legislature. There, federal politics occupied the usual share of attention. A resolution being moved, expressing confidence in the virtue, patriotism, and wisdom of Washington, a member proposed to strike out the word wisdom. "In the debate," says the Chief Justice himself, "the whole course of the Administration was reviewed, and the whole talent of each party brought into action. Will it be believed, that the word was retained by a very small majority? A very small majority of the Virginia Legislature, acknowledged the wisdom of General Washington!"
The appointment of Minister to France, as successor to Mr. Monroe, was offered him by the President, and declined. The French Government, however, refusing to receive General Pinckney, who was appointed in his stead, Messrs. Marshall, Pinckney, and Gerry, were sent by President Adams as envoys extraordinary to that country. The Directory refused to negotiate. But though the direct object of the embassy was thus foiled, much was effected in showing France to be in the wrong, by the official papers which the envoys addressed to her minister of foreign relations—the since famous Talleyrand: "Models of skilful reasoning, clear illustration, accurate detail, and urbane and dignified moderation."13 "They have always been attributed to Mr. Marshall. They bear internal marks of it. We have since become familiar with his simple and masculine style,—his direct, connected, and demonstrative reasoning—the infrequency of his resort to illustrations, and the pertinency and truth of the few which he uses—the absence of all violent assertion—the impersonal form of his positions, and especially with the candor, as much the character of the man as of his writings, with which he allows to the opposing argument its fair strength, without attempting to elude it, or escape from it, by a subtlety. Every line that he has written, bears the stamp of sincerity; and if his arguments fail to produce conviction, they never raise a doubt, nor the shadow of a doubt, that they proceed from it.
13 Judge Story.
"The impression made, by the despatches of the American ministers was immediate and extensive. Mr. Marshall arrived in New York on the 17th of June, 1798. His entrance into this city on the 19th, had the eclat of a triumph. The military corps escorted him from Frankford to the city, where the citizens crowded his lodgings to testify their veneration and gratitude. Public addresses were made to him, breathing sentiments of the liveliest affection and respect. A public dinner was given to him by members of both houses of Congress 'as an evidence of affection for his person, and of their grateful approbation of the patriotic firmness with which he sustained the dignity of his country during his important mission;' and the country at large responded with one voice to the sentiment pronounced at this celebration, 'Millions for defence, but not a cent for tribute.'"14
14 Mr. Binney.
Once more, he resumed his practice of the Law, with renewed determination to leave it no more. He was, however, so urgently entreated by General Washington (who sent for him to Mount Vernon for the purpose) to become a candidate for Congress, that he did so; and was elected, in 1799, after a severe contest. Whilst a candidate, President Adams offered him a seat upon the Bench of the Supreme Court; but he declined it. He had not been three weeks in Congress, when, by a fortune as striking as it was mournful, it became his lot to announce to the House, the death of Washington. Never could such an event have been told in language more impressive or more appropriate.
"Mr. Speaker—The melancholy event, which was yesterday announced with doubt, has been rendered but too certain. Our Washington is no more. The hero, the patriot, and the sage of America; the man on whom in times of danger every eye was turned, and all hopes were placed, lives now, only in his own great actions, and in the hearts of an affectionate and afflicted people."
Having briefly alluded to the achievements and services of the deceased, he concluded by offering suitable resolutions, for honoring "the memory of the man, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." The resolutions had been drawn by General Henry Lee, whom a temporary absence hindered from presenting them. With characteristic modesty, Mr. Marshall, in the account of this transaction given by him as biographer of Washington, omits all mention of his own name; saying only, that "a member rose in his place," &c. That House of Representatives abounded in talents of the first order for debate: and none were more conspicuous than those of John Marshall. Indeed, where the law or constitution was to be discussed, "he was confessedly the first man in the House. When he discussed them, he exhausted them: nothing more remained to be said; and the impression of his argument effaced that of every one else."... "Upon such topics, however dark to others, his mind could by its own clear light
———'sit in the centre, and enjoy bright day.'"15
15 Mr. Binney.
His speech upon the case of Jonathan Robbins, was a striking example. This man, a subject of Great Britain, had committed a murder on board a British frigate, and then fled to the United States. Being demanded by the British Government, President Adams caused him to be surrendered, under a clause in Jay's treaty. The act was furiously assailed by the opposition: and a resolution of censure was introduced into the House of Representatives by Mr. Livingston. The speech of Mr. Marshall on this occasion was perhaps one of the most masterly ever delivered in Congress. "It has all the merits, and nearly all the weight of a judicial sentence."16 "It may be said of that speech, as was said of Lord Mansfield's celebrated Answer to the Prussian Memorial, it was Reponse sans replique—an answer so irresistible, that it admitted of no reply. It silenced opposition; and settled then, and forever, the points of national law, upon which the controversy hinged."17
16 Ib.
17 Judge Story.
He was not in Congress when the famous Sedition Law passed: but he had the merit of voting to repeal the most obnoxious section of it; in opposition to all those, with whom he generally concurred. In May, 1800, he was appointed Secretary of War: but before his entry upon the duties of that office, a rupture occurring between the President and Col. Pickering, he was made Secretary of State in lieu of the latter. It is honorable both to him and his predecessor, that the delicate position in which they stood towards each other, did not interrupt their harmony: but they retained, while both lived, a warm and cordial friendship. Even during the few months that he held this office, Mr. Marshall evinced great ability, in discussing several important questions between our country and England. "It is impossible to imagine a finer spirit, more fearless, more dignified, more conciliatory, more true to his country, than animates his instructions to Mr. King,"18 the American Minister in London. "His despatch of September 20th, 1800, is a noble specimen of the first order of State papers, and shows the most finished adaptation of parts for the station of an American Secretary of State."19
18 Mr. Binney.
19 Ib.
On the 31st of January, 1801, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States: "not only without his own solicitation, (for he had in fact recommended another for the office,) but by the prompt and spontaneous choice of President Adams, upon his own unassisted judgment. The nomination was unanimously confirmed by the Senate."20
20 Judge Story.
It is a remarkable, yet not an extraordinary fact, that his induction into that high office which he so illustriously filled, is precisely the juncture in his life at which, for the purposes of striking narrative, his biography ends. That part of his career, the most signalized by enduring monuments of his intellectual power, and the most adorned by the winning graces of his daily actions, is precisely that in which it is hardest to find glaring incidents, that stand forth boldly on the page, and rivet the reader's mind. "Peace" indeed, as Milton said to Cromwell,—
|
"Peace hath her victories No less renowned than War;" |
and few men have achieved more signal ones, than he who may be said to have built up a national Jurisprudence for the Union, by the strength of his own genius: but such triumphs ring not in the common ear, and glitter not in the common eye. Even History often forgets to chronicle them in her bloodstained page: that page, which is too mere a picture of crimes and misery—where the peaceful and innocent crowd never appear, but give place to the profligate votaries of perverted ambition—and which, like tragedy, is languid and distasteful, unless enlivened by atrocious deeds, and horrid sufferings.21 We shall not attempt, then, to protract our account of the last thirty-five years of Judge Marshall's life. It was spent in the diligent, and upright, as well as able discharge of his official duties; sometimes presiding in the Supreme Court at Washington, sometimes assisting to hold the Circuit Federal Courts, in Virginia, and North Carolina. His residence was in Richmond, whence it was his frequent custom to walk out, a distance of three or four miles, to his farm, in the county of Henrico. He also had a farm in his native county, Fauquier; which he annually visited, and where he always enjoyed a delightful intercourse with numerous relations and friends. Twice, in these thirty-five years, he may be said to have mingled in political life, but not in party politics.
21 "En effet l'histoire n'est que le tableau des crimes et des malheurs: la foule des hommes innocents et paisibles disparait toujours sur ces vastes théâtres: les personnages ne sont que des ambitieux pervers. Il semble que l'histoire ne plaise que comme la tragedie, qui languit si elle n'est animée par les passions, les forfaits, et les grandes infortunes."—L'Ingenu, Ch. 10.
In 1828, he was delegated, with others from the city of Richmond, to a convention held in Charlottesville, for the purpose of devising a proper system of internal improvements, for the State; to be recommended to the Legislature: and he took a becoming part in the deliberations of that enlightened body.
In 1829, he was chosen to represent the city in the Convention which met in October of that year, to revise and amend the State Constitution. Here was exhibited a spectacle, one of the most affecting in our day, of three men—Madison, Monroe, and Marshall,—who having assisted in establishing the liberties and creating the government of their country, and having filled her highest stations, were now consulting with a later generation, upon the means of rendering that government purer, more durable, and more productive of happiness. Mr. Monroe was nominated by Mr. Madison as President of the Convention; and, having been unanimously chosen, was conducted by Mr. Madison and Mr. Marshall to the chair. During the three months of the session, Judge Marshall repeatedly engaged in debate: displaying still that power of reasoning, with that bland courtesy of manner, which had always distinguished him. His voice was now become extremely feeble; so that those who sat far off could not hear him: no sooner therefore did he rise, than the members would press towards him, and strain with outstretched necks and eager ears, to catch his words. The basis of representation, and the structure of the judiciary, were the subjects upon which he chiefly spoke. The difficulties of adjusting the former, so as to satisfy both the east and the west—the irritated feelings which began to appear on both sides—and the imminent dread which the patriot felt, of a division of the state—will not soon be forgotten. It was when a compromise of the difference was proposed, that the Chief Justice displayed his greatest power. Towards the close of a speech, which was at the time regarded as an unrivalled specimen of lucid and conclusive reasoning, he said, he "hailed that auspicious appearance, with all the joy with which an inhabitant of the polar regions hails the re-appearance of the sun, after his long absence of six tedious months." It was of a position maintained by him in this speech, and which, an opposing orator said, had been overthrown by Mr. —— of Augusta, that John Randolph declared, "The argument of the Chief Justice is unshaken, and unanswerable. It is as strong as the fortress of Gibraltar. Sir, the fortress of Gibraltar would be as much injured by battering it with a pocket pistol, as that argument has been affected by the abortive and puny assault of the gentleman from Augusta." The great Roanoke orator's esteem and admiration for the Chief Justice (although, on federal politics, they widely differed) amounted almost to idolatry. An amicable contest between them one day, on the floor of the Convention, furnished him an occasion for paying to the latter a tribute as beautiful, as it was simple and just. The Chief Justice, thinking that some remark of his had been understood by Mr. Randolph as personally unkind, arose with earnestness to assure him that it was not so intended. Mr. R. as earnestly strove to quiet Judge M.'s uneasiness, by assuring him that he had not understood the remark as offensive. In their eagerness, the one to apologize, and the other to show that no apology was necessary, they interrupted each other two or three times: at length Mr. R. effectually silenced his friend, by saying, "I know the goodness of his heart too well to have supposed it possible that he could have intended to give me pain. Sir, I believe, that like 'My Uncle Toby,' he would not even hurt a fly."
A visiter in Richmond during the Convention, being at the market one morning before sunrise, saw the Chief Justice of the United States, in the blue-mixed woollen stockings and the plain black suit (far from superfine) which he usually wore, striding along between the rows of meat and vegetables, catering for his household; and depositing his purchases in a basket, carried by a servant. But it was his frequent custom to go on this errand, unattended; and nothing was more usual, than to see him returning from market at sunrise, with poultry in one hand, and a basket of vegetables in the other. So beautifully, by a simplicity which pervaded his words, his actions, his whole life, did he illustrate the character of a republican citizen and magistrate!
No man more highly relished social, and even convivial enjoyments. He was a member of the club, which for 48 summers has met once a fortnight near Richmond, to pitch quoits and mingle in relaxing conversation: and there was not one more delightedly punctual in his attendance at these meetings, or who contributed more to their pleasantness: scarcely one, who excelled him in the manly game, from which the "Quoit-Club" drew its designation. He would hurl his iron ring of two pound's weight, with rarely erring aim, fifty-five or sixty feet; and, at some chef-d'œuvre of skill in himself or his partner, would spring up and clap his hands, with all the light-hearted enthusiasm of boyhood. Such is the old age, which follows a temperate, an innocent, and a useful life! We extract from the American Turf Register of 1829, the following entertaining account of this Club.
During a recent visit to Richmond, in Virginia, I was invited to a "Barbecue Club," held under the shade of some fine oaks, near "Buchanan's Spring," about a mile distant from the town. I there met with about thirty of the respectable inhabitants of Richmond, with a few guests. The day was a fine one, and the free and social intercourse of the members rendered it peculiarly pleasant.
This Club is probably the most ancient one of the sort in the United States, having existed upwards of forty years. It originated in a meeting, every other Saturday, from the first of May until the month of October, of some of the Scotch merchants who were early settlers in that town. They agreed each to take out some cold meats for their repast, and to provide a due quantity of drinkables, and enjoy relaxation in that way after the labors of the week. They occasionally invited some others of the inhabitants, who finding the time passed pleasantly, proposed in the year 1788 to form a regular club, consisting of thirty members, under a written constitution, limiting their expenses each day by a sort of sumptuary law which prohibited the use of wine and porter.
The Virginians, you know, have always been great limitarians as to constitutional matters. Whenever a member died or resigned, (but there have been very few resignations,) his place was filled by balloting for a new one, who could not be elected without the concurrence of two-thirds of the club. It is said that for many years no vacancy occurred, and a sort of superstitious sentiment was prevalent, that to become a member of the club, was to insure longevity. The Arch Destroyer, however, at length appeared in all his strength, and made such havoc, that only one of the original members (the venerable Chief Justice of the United States,) is now surviving.
The club consists of judges, lawyers, doctors, and merchants, and the Governor of the Commonwealth has a general invitation when he enters into office. What gave additional interest to this body, some years ago, was the constant attendance (as honorary members) of two venerable clergymen—one of the Episcopal, and the other of the Presbyterian church, who joined in the innocent pastime of the day. They were pious and exemplary men, who discerned no sin in harmless gaiety. Quoits and backgammon are the only games indulged in, and one of the clergymen was for many years "cock of the walk" in throwing the discus. They are gone to their account, and have left a chasm that has not been filled.
Some years ago, an amendment was made to the constitution, which admits the use of porter. Great opposition was made to this innovation, and the destruction of the club was predicted as the consequence. The oppositionists, however, soon became as great consumers of malt and hops as their associates, and now they even consent to the introduction of wine at the last meeting of every year, provided there be "a shot in the locker." The members each advance ten dollars to the treasurer at the beginning of the season, and every member is entitled to invite any strangers as guests, on paying into the general fund one dollar for each; while the caterers of the day, consisting of two members in rotation, preside, and have the privilege of bringing each a guest (either citizen or non-resident,) at free cost. On the day I was present, dinner was ready at half past three o'clock, and consisted of excellent meats and fish, well prepared and well served, with the vegetables of the season. Your veritable gourmand never fails to regale himself on his favorite barbecue—which is a fine fat pig, called "shoot," cooked on the coals, and highly seasoned with cayenne—a dessert of melons and fruits follows, and punch, porter and toddy are the table liquors; but with the fruits comes on the favorite beverage of the Virginians, mint julep, in place of wine. I never witnessed more festivity and good humor than prevail at this club. By the constitution, the subject of politics is forbidden, and each man strives to make the time pleasant to his companions. The members think they can offer no higher compliment to a distinguished stranger, than to introduce him to the club, and all feel it a duty to contribute to his entertainment. It was refreshing to see such a man as Chief Justice Marshall, laying aside the reserve of his dignified station, and contending with the young men at a game of quoits, with all the emulation of a youth.
Many anecdotes are told of occurrences at these meetings. Such is the partiality for the Chief Justice, that it is said the greatest anxiety is felt for his success in the game by the bystanders; and on one occasion an old Scotch gentleman was called on to decide between his quoit and that of another member, who after seemingly careful measurement, announced, "Mister Mareshall has it a leattle," when it was visible to all that the contrary was the fact. A French gentleman (Baron Quenet,) was at one time a guest, when the Governor, the Chief Justice, and several of the Judges of the High Court of Appeals, were engaged with others, with coats off, in a well-contested game. He asked, "if it was possible that the dignitaries of the land could thus intermix with private citizens," and when assured of the fact, he observed, with true Gallican enthusiasm, that "he had never before seen the real beauty of republicanism."
In Judge Marshall's yearly visits to Fauquier, where the proper implements of his favorite sport were not to be had, he still practised it among his rustic friends, with flat stones for quoits. A casual guest at a barbecue in that county—one of those rural entertainments so frequent among the country people of Virginia—soon after his arrival at the spot, saw an old man emerge from a thicket which bordered the neighboring brook, carrying as large a pile of these flat stones as he could hold between his right arm and his chin: he stepped briskly up to the company, and threw down his load among them, exclaiming, "There! Here are quoits enough for us all!" The stranger's surprise may be imagined, when he found that this plain and cheerful old man was the Chief Justice of the United States! Nor was the bonhommie, with which he could descend to the level of common life, restricted to his intercourse with men and women: he was often a pleasing companion even to children. One, whose first recollection of him referred to his triumphal entry (for such it was) into Richmond, on his return from France, and who, as a printer's boy, afterwards for several years was carrier of a newspaper to him, describes him as "remarkably fond of boys' company—always chatty—and always pleasant." The reminiscent, having been transferred to Washington in 1800, while Mr. M. was Secretary of State, says, "again did the pleasing office of serving him with the 'Washington Federalist' devolve on me. He resided in a brick building hardly larger than most of the kitchens now in use. I found him still the same plain, unostentatious John Marshall: always accessible, and always with a smile on his countenance when I handed him the 'Federalist.' His kindness of manner won my affections; and I became devotedly attached to him."
Even from this early period the reminiscent may date the commencement of an intercourse and correspondence with the Chief Justice, which endured uninterruptedly for many years, until the period of his lamented death. The unaffected and childlike simplicity of manner, action, and thought which pervaded, as the sunlight pervades the atmosphere, every moment of this truly great man's existence, and which, indeed, formed, in no little degree, the basis of his greatness, sufficed to render the intercourse of which we speak, an intercourse of the most kindly, unembarrassed, and intimate nature; and one which afforded opportunities for a more particular knowledge of the strictly private and familiar habitudes of the man, than has fallen to the lot of many who, perhaps, were better entitled to his confidence. The reminiscent would here acknowledge, not only with gratitude, but with pride, the innumerable, yet unobtrusive acts of generous assistance and advice, for which he is indebted to the friendship of Chief Justice Marshall.
When, to all these engaging traits of character, we add that his charitable benefactions were as large as his mind, and as unostentatious as his life; and that in his dealings he was so scrupulously just, as always to prefer his own loss to the possibility of his wronging another; it can be no wonder, that despite the unpopularity of his federo-political opinions, he was the most beloved and esteemed of all men in Virginia.
The influence of Judge Marshall upon the decisions of the Supreme Court, in cases requiring a determination of the limits set by the Constitution to federal power, will be deemed salutary or pernicious, according as the mind which contemplates it is biassed towards the one or the other school of opinions on that subject—towards the strict, or towards the liberal (what its opponents term the licentious) construction. Having been profoundly—perhaps exaggeratedly—impressed with a dread of the evils attending a feeble government for the Union, he had advocated the new Constitution originally, and maintained the liberal interpretation of it afterwards, as indispensable to the integrity and wholesome action of our system. Opinions which he had thus held for thirteen years, and which had become fixed more and more deeply in his mind by his numberless able vindications of them, he could not be expected to throw aside when he ascended the Bench. They pervaded his decisions there; and such was the influence of his gigantic intellect, that, although, as Chief Justice, his vote had no more legal authority than that of any other Judge, and although most of his associates were deemed, at their appointments, maintainers of the strict construction,—the Supreme Court took its tone from him; and in almost every instance where the controversy turned upon the boundaries between federal and state authority, as fixed by the Constitution, its determination tended to enlarge the former, and to circumscribe the latter. Never, probably, did any judge, who had six associates equal to himself in judicial authority, so effectually stamp their adjudications with the impress of his own mind. This may be read, in the generous pleasure with which the best and ablest22 of those associates dwells upon the inestimable service done to the country, in establishing a code of Constitutional Law so perfect, that "His proudest epitaph may be written in a single line—Here lies the Expounder of the Constitution of the United States." It may be read in the glowing page, where Mr. Binney, resolving the glory of the Court in having "explained, defended and enforced the Constitution," into the merits of its presiding judge, declares himself "lost in admiration of the man, and in gratitude to Heaven for his beneficent life." It may be read in the many volumes of Reports, where, whensoever a question of constitutional law was to be determined, the opinion of Judge Marshall is found, almost without exception, to be the opinion of the Supreme Court.
22 Judge Story.
We shall make but one more extract from Mr. Binney's admirable Eulogy.
He was endued by nature with a patience that was never surpassed;—patience to hear that which he knew already, that which he disapproved, that which questioned himself. When he ceased to hear, it was not because his patience was exhausted, but because it ceased to be a virtue.
His carriage in the discharge of his judicial business, was faultless. Whether the argument was animated or dull, instructive or superficial, the regard of his expressive eye was an assurance that nothing that ought to affect the cause, was lost by inattention or indifference; and the courtesy of his general manner was only so far restrained on the Bench, as was necessary for the dignity of office, and for the suppression of familiarity.
His industry and powers of labor, when contemplated in connection with his social temper, show a facility that does not generally belong to parts of such strength. There remain behind him nearly thirty volumes of copiously reasoned decisions, greater in difficulty and labor, than probably have been made in any other court during the life of a single judge! yet he participated in them all; and in those of greatest difficulty, his pen has most frequently drawn up the judgment; and in the midst of his judicial duties, he composed and published in the year 1804, a copious biography of Washington, surpassing in authenticity and minute accuracy, any public history with which we are acquainted. He found time also to revise it, and to publish a second edition, separating the History of the American Colonies from the Biography, and to prepare with his own pen an edition of the latter for the use of schools. Every part of it is marked with the scrupulous veracity of a judicial exposition; and it shows moreover, how deeply the writer was imbued with that spirit which will live after all the compositions of men shall be forgotten,—the spirit of charity, which could indite a history of the Revolution and of parties, in which he was a conspicuous actor, without discoloring his pages with the slightest infusion of gall. It could not be written with more candor an hundred years hence. It has not been challenged for the want of it, but in a single instance, and that has been refuted by himself with irresistible force of argument, as well as with unexhausted benignity of temper.
To qualities such as these, he joined an immoveable firmness befitting the office of presiding judge, in the highest tribunal of the country. It was not the result of excited feeling, and consequently never rose or fell with the emotions of the day. It was the constitution of his nature, and sprung from the composure of a mind undisturbed by doubt, and of a heart unsusceptible of fear. He thought not of the fleeting judgments and commentaries of men; and although he was not indifferent to their approbation, it was not the compass by which he was directed, nor the haven in which he looked for safety.
His learning was great, and his faculty of applying it of the very first order.
But it is not by these qualities that he is so much distinguished from the judges of his time. In learning and industry, in patience, firmness, and fidelity, he has had his equals. But there is no judge, living or dead, whose claims are disparaged by assigning the first place in the department of constitutional law to Chief Justice Marshall.
For several years past, Judge Marshall had suffered under a most excruciating malady. A surgical operation by Dr. Physick of Philadelphia, at length procured him relief; but a hurt received in travelling, last spring, seems to have caused a return of the former complaint, with circumstances of aggravated pain and danger. Having revisited Philadelphia, in the hope of again finding a cure, his disease there overpowered him; and he died, on the 6th of July, 1835, in the 80th year of his age, surrounded by three of his children. His eldest son, Thomas, journeying to attend his death bed, had been killed by the fall of a chimney in Baltimore, but eight days before.
The love of simplicity and the dislike of ostentation, which had marked Chief Justice Marshall's life, displayed itself also in his last days. Apprehensive that his remains might be encumbered with the vain pomp of a costly monument and a laudatory epitaph, he, only two days before his death, directed the common grave of himself and his consort, to be indicated by a plain stone, with this simple and modest inscription:
"John Marshall, son of Thomas and Mary Marshall, was born on the 24th of September, 1755, intermarried with Mary Willis Ambler the 3d of January, 1783, departed this life the —— day of —— 18—."
All the just renown with which his great name might have been emblazoned, simplified into the three circumstances, of birth, marriage, and death, which would equally suit the grave-stone of the humblest villager!
We cannot better conclude this article than by copying two delineations of its subject, sketched by hands which, years before him, were mouldering in the grave: sketched, it seems to us, with so much elegance and truth, that any extended account of Judge Marshall could hardly be deemed complete without them. The first was drawn thirty years ago: the other, less than twenty.
"The ..... ....... of the United States," says Mr. Wirt, in The British Spy, "is, in his person, tall, meager, emaciated: his muscles relaxed, and his joints so loosely connected, as not only to disqualify him, apparently, for any vigorous exertion of body, but to destroy every thing like harmony in his air and movements. Indeed, in his whole appearance, and demeanor; dress, attitudes, gesture; sitting, standing, or walking; he is as far removed from the idolized graces of Lord Chesterfield, as any other gentleman on earth. His head and face are small in proportion to his height: his complexion swarthy; the muscles of his face, being relaxed, make him appear to be fifty years of age, nor can he be much younger: his countenance has a faithful expression of great good humor and hilarity; while his black eyes—that unerring index—possess an irradiating spirit, which proclaims the imperial powers of the mind that sits enthroned within.
"This extraordinary man, without the aid of fancy, without the advantages of person, voice, attitude, gesture, or any of the ornaments of an orator, deserves to be considered as one of the most eloquent men in the world; if eloquence may be said to consist in the power of seizing the attention with irresistible force, and never permitting it to elude the grasp, until the hearer has received the conviction which the speaker intends.
"His voice is dry and hard; his attitude, in his most effective orations, was often extremely awkward; while all his gesture proceeded from his right arm, and consisted merely in a perpendicular swing of it, from about the elevation of his head, to the bar, behind which he was accustomed to stand.
"As to fancy, if she hold a seat in his mind at all, his gigantic genius tramples with disdain, on all her flower-decked plats and blooming parterres. How then, you will ask, how is it possible, that such a man can hold the attention of an audience enchained, through a speech of even ordinary length? I will tell you.
"He possesses one original, and almost supernatural faculty: the faculty of developing a subject by a single glance of his mind, and detecting at once, the very point on which every controversy depends. No matter, what the question: though ten times more knotty than 'the gnarled oak,' the lightning of heaven is not more rapid or more resistless, than his astonishing penetration. Nor does the exercise of it seem to cost him an effort. On the contrary, it is as easy as vision. I am persuaded, that his eyes do not fly over a landscape and take in its various objects with more promptitude and facility, than his mind embraces and analyzes the most complex subject.
"Possessing while at the bar, this intellectual elevation, which enabled him to look down and comprehend the whole ground at once, he determined immediately and without difficulty, on which side the question might be most advantageously approached and assailed. In a bad cause, his art consisted in laying his premises so remotely from the point directly in debate, or else in terms so general and so specious, that the hearer, seeing no consequence which could be drawn from them, was just as willing to admit them as not; but, his premises once admitted, the demonstration, however distant, followed as certainly, as cogently, as inevitably, as any demonstration in Euclid.
"All his eloquence consists in the apparently deep self-conviction, and emphatic earnestness of his manner; the correspondent simplicity and energy of his style; the close and logical connexion of his thoughts; and the easy gradations by which he opens his lights on the attentive minds of his hearers. The audience are never permitted to pause for a moment. There is no stopping to weave garlands of flowers, to hang in festoons, around a favorite argument. On the contrary, every sentence is progressive; every idea sheds new light on the subject; the listener is kept perpetually in that sweetly pleasurable vibration, with which the mind of man always receives new truths; the dawn advances with easy but unremitting pace; the subject opens gradually on the view; until, rising, in high relief, in all its native colors and proportions, the argument is consummated, by the conviction of the delighted hearer."
The following observations on the intellectual character of Judge Marshall, are from the pen of FRANCIS W. GILMER—one who, had he not been prematurely cut off by the hand of death, would have ranked with the foremost men of his age and country.
"His mind is not very richly stored with knowledge; but it is so creative, so well organized by nature, or disciplined by early education, and constant habits of systematic thinking, that he embraces every subject with the clearness and facility of one prepared by previous study to comprehend and explain it. So perfect is his analysis, that he extracts the whole matter, the kernel of inquiry, unbroken, clean, and entire. In this process, such are the instinctive neatness and precision of his mind, that no superfluous thought, or even word, ever presents itself, and still he says every thing that seems appropriate to the subject. This perfect exemption from needless incumbrance of matter or ornament, is in some degree the effect of an aversion to the labor of thinking. So great a mind, perhaps, like large bodies in the physical world, is with difficulty set in motion. That this is the case with Mr. Marshall's, is manifest, from his mode of entering on an argument, both in conversation and in public debate. It is difficult to rouse his faculties: he begins with reluctance, hesitation, and vacancy of eye: presently, his articulation becomes less broken, his eye more fixed, until, finally, his voice is full, clear, and rapid, his manner bold, and his whole face lighted up, with the mingled fires of genius and passion: and he pours forth the unbroken stream of eloquence, in a current deep, majestic, smooth and strong. He reminds one of some great bird, which flounders and flounces on the earth for a while, before it acquires impetus to sustain its soaring flight."
EMILIA HARRINGTON.
The Confessions of Emilia Harrington. By Lambert A. Wilmer. Baltimore.
This is a duodecimo of about two hundred pages. We have read it with that deep interest always excited by works written in a similar manner—be the subject matter what it may—works in which the author utterly loses sight of himself in his theme, and, for the time, identifies his own thoughts and feelings with the thoughts and feelings of fictitious existences. Than the power of accomplishing this perfect identification, there is no surer mark of genius. It is the spell of Defoe. It is the wand of Boccacio. It is the proper enchantment of the Arabian Tales—the gramarye of Scott, and the magic of the Bard of Avon. Had, therefore, the Emilia Harrington of Mr. Wilmer not one other quality to recommend it, we should have been satisfied of the author's genius from the simple verisimilitude of his narrative. Yet, unhappily, books thus written are not the books by which men acquire a contemporaneous reputation. What we said on this subject in the last number of the Messenger, may be repeated here without impropriety. We spoke of the Robinson Crusoe. "What better possible species of fame could the author have desired for that book than the species which it has so long enjoyed? It has become a household thing in nearly every family in Christendom. Yet never was admiration of any work—universal admiration—more indiscriminately or more inappropriately bestowed. Not one person in ten—nay, not one person in five hundred has, during the perusal of Robinson Crusoe, the most remote conception that any particle of genius, or even of common talent, has been employed in its creation. Men do not look upon it in the light of a literary performance. Defoe has none of their thoughts; Robinson all. The powers which have wrought the wonder, have been thrown into obscurity by the very stupendousness of the wonder they have wrought. We read, and become perfect abstractions in the intensity of our interest—we close the book, and are quite satisfied we could have written as well ourselves."
Emilia Harrington will render essential services to virtue in the unveiling of the deformities of vice. This is a deed of no questionable utility. We fully agree with our author that ignorance of wrong is not security for the right; and Mr. Wilmer has obviated every possible objection to the "Confessions," by a so cautious wording of his disclosures as not to startle, in warning, the virtuous. That the memoirs are not wholly fictitious is more than probable. There is much internal evidence of authenticity in the book itself, and the preface seems to hint that a portion at least of the narrative is true—yet for the sake of human nature it is to be hoped that some passages are overcolored. The style of Mr. Wilmer is not only good in itself, but exceedingly well adapted to his subjects. The letter to Augustus Harrington is vigorously written, and many long extracts might be taken from the book evincing powers of no ordinary kind.
Within a circle of private friends, whom Mr. Wilmer's talents and many virtues have attached devotedly to himself, and among whom we are very proud in being ranked, his writings have been long properly appreciated, and we sincerely hope the days are not far in futurity when he will occupy that full station in the public eye to which his merits so decidedly entitle him. Our readers must all remember the touching lines To Mira, in the first number of our second volume—lines which called forth the highest encomiums from many whose opinions are of value. Their exquisite tenderness of sentiment—their vein of deep and unaffected melancholy—and their antique strength, and high polish of versification, struck us, upon a first perusal, with force, and subsequent readings have not weakened the impression. Mr. W. has written many other similar things. Among his longer pieces we may particularize Merlin, a drama—some portions of which are full of the truest poetic fire. His prose tales and other short publications are numerous; and as Editor of the Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post, he has boldly and skilfully asserted the rights of independent criticism, speaking, in all instances—the truth. His Satiric Odes in the Post, over the signature of Horace in Philadelphia, have attracted great attention, and have been deservedly admired.
We copy with true pleasure from the editorial columns of a Baltimore contemporary, (for whose opinions we have the highest respect, even when they differ from our own,) the following notice of Emilia Harrington. It will supersede the necessity of any farther comment from ourselves.
"This book is one of a class the publication of which is considered by many as objectionable. The lifting up of the veil which covers crime; crime of the most disgusting and debasing character—is thought by moralists of the present day to be an act of questionable utility. This opinion has gained strength from the intemperate zeal of too many who have thought fit to publish flauntingly to the world the result of their startling discoveries while penetrating the haunts of corruption and vice, instead of silently moving on in the cause of Christian benevolence, and, when called upon for disclosures, giving information in such a way as not to startle the virtuous into shrinking, nor cause the vicious to raise the hue and cry against them. From the objection of ultraism the 'Confessions' are to a great extent free—although in some few instances the author has allowed himself a latitude which it would have been as well not to have taken.
"Apart from the character of the book, it possesses for us no trifling interest. Our thoughts run back continually from its pages to the gifted young author, prematurely gray; nor can we conquer a gathering sadness of feeling as we contemplate him bending wearily beneath the accumulating weight of adverse circumstances—broken in spirit, and yet uncomplaining. That the writer of this book possesses talents of an order far superior to many of twice his reputation, we have long been convinced, and yet he is scarcely known. Ten years ago his promise of future success in the walks of literary fame was flattering, almost beyond example; but, who can struggle against the ills of life—its cares, its privations and disappointments—with the added evils which petty jealousy and vindictive malice bring in to crush the spirit,—and not, in the very feebleness of humanity, grow weak and weary. And thus it seems in a measure to have been with the author of this book; he has not now the healthy vigor which once marked his production—the playful humor, nor the sparkling wit; and why—as continual dropping will wear away the hardest rock, so will continued neglect, and disappointment, and care, wear away the mind's healthy tone and strength of action. And yet, after all, may we not be mistaken in this. Is not the unobtrusive volume before us a strong evidence of unfailing powers of mind, which, though aiming at no brilliant display, acts with order, conciseness, and a nicely balanced energy? It is even so. One great attribute of genius is its power of identifying itself with its hero, and never losing sight of all the relations which it now holds to the world in its new character; and this identity has been well kept up by Mr. Wilmer—so much so, that in but few instances do we forget that the writer is other than the heroine of the tale."
AMERICAN IN ENGLAND.
The American in England. By the Author of "A Year in Spain." 2 vols. New York. Harper and Brothers.
Lieutenant Slidell's very excellent book, "A Year in Spain," was in some danger of being overlooked by his countrymen when a benignant star directed Murray's attention to its merits. Fate and Regent Street prevailed. Cockney octavos carried the day. A man is nothing if not hot-pressed; and the clever young writer who was cut dead in his Yankee-land habiliments, met with bows innumerable in the gala dress of a London imprimatur. The "Year in Spain" well deserved the popularity thus inauspiciously attained. It was the work of a man of genius; and passing through several editions, prepared the public attention for any subsequent production of its author. As regards "The American in England," we have not only read it with deep interest from beginning to end, but have been at the trouble of seeking out and perusing a great variety of critical dicta concerning it. Nearly all of these are in its favor, and we are happy in being able to concur heartily with the popular voice—if indeed these dicta be its echoes.
We have somewhere said—or we should have somewhere said—that the old adage about "Truth in a well" (we mean the adage in its modern and improper—not in its antique and proper acceptation) should be swallowed cum grano salis at times. To be profound is not always to be sensible. The depth of an argument is not, necessarily, its wisdom—this depth lying where Truth is sought more often than where she is found. As the touches of a painting which, to minute inspection, are 'confusion worse confounded' will not fail to start boldly out to the cursory glance of a connoisseur—or as a star may be seen more distinctly in a sidelong survey than in any direct gaze however penetrating and intense—so there are, not unfrequently, times and methods, in which, and by means of which, a richer philosophy may be gathered on the surface of things than can be drawn up, even with great labor, c profundis. It appears to us that Mr. Slidell has written a wiser book than his neighbors merely by not disdaining to write a more superficial one.
The work is dedicated to John Duer, Esq. The Preface is a very sensible and a sufficiently well-written performance, in which the Lieutenant while "begging, at the outset, to be acquitted of any injurious prejudices" still pleads guilty to "that ardent patriotism which is the common attribute of Americans, a feeling of nationality inherited with the laws, the language, and the manners of the country from which we derive our origin, and which is sanctioned not less by the comparison of the blessings we enjoy with those of other lands, than by the promptings of good feeling, and the dictates of good taste." It is in the body of the book, however, that we must seek, and where we shall most assuredly find, strong indications of a genius not the less rich, rare, and altogether estimable for the simplicity of its modus operandi.
Commencing with his embarkation at New York, our author succeeds, at once, in rivetting the attention of his readers by a succession of minute details. But there is this vast difference between the details of Mr. Slidell, and the details of many of his contemporaries. They—the many—impressed, apparently, with the belief that mere minuteness is sufficient to constitute force, and that to be accurate is, of necessity, to be verisimilar—have not hesitated in putting in upon their canvass all the actual lines which might be discovered in their subject. This Mr. Slidell has known better than to do. He has felt that the apparent, not the real, is the province of a painter—and that to give (speaking technically) the idea of any desired object, the toning down, or the utter neglect of certain portions of that object is absolutely necessary to the proper bringing out of other portions—portions by whose sole instrumentality the idea of the object is afforded. With a fine eye then for the picturesque, and with that strong sense of propriety which is inseparable from true genius, our American has crossed the water, dallied a week in London, and given us, as the result of his observations, a few masterly sketches, with all the spirit, vigor, raciness and illusion of a panorama.
Very rarely have we seen any thing of the kind superior to the "American in England." The interest begins with the beginning of the book, and abides with us, unabated, to the end. From the scenes in the Yankee harbor, to the departure of the traveller from England, his arrival in France, and installment among the comforts of the Hotel Quillacq, all is terse, nervous, brilliant and original. The review of the ship's company, in the initial chapter of the book is exceedingly entertaining. The last character thus introduced is so peculiarly sketched that we must copy what the author says about him. It will serve to exemplify some of our own prior remarks.
"Let me not forget to make honorable mention of the white-headed little raggamuffin who was working his passage, and who, in this capacity, had the decks to sweep, ropes to haul, chickens and pigs to feed, the cow to milk, and the dishes to wash, as well as all other jobs to do that belonged to no one in particular. As a proof of good will, he had chopped off the tails of a dandy, velvet-collared, blue coat, with the cook's axe, the very first day out. This was performed at the windlass-bits, in full conclave of the crew, and I suspected at the suggestion of a roguish man-of-war's-man, a shipmate of mine. The tails were cut just below the pocket flaps, which gave them a sort of razee look, and, in conjunction with the velvet collar, made the oddest appearance in the world, as he would creep, stern first, out of the long-boat after milking the cow. Blow high or blow low, the poor boy had no time to be sea-sick. Sometimes he would get adrift in the lee scuppers and roll over in the water, keeping fast hold of the plates he was carying to the galley."
Some incidents at sea—such as the narrow escape from running down a brig, and the imminent danger incurred by an English pilot—are told with all the gusto of a seaman. Among other fine passages we may particularize an account of British sailors on shore at Portsmouth—of a family group on board a steamer—of the appearance of the Kentish coast—of the dangers of the Thames—of the Dover coach—of some groups in a London coffee-room—of a stand of hackney-coaches—of St. James' Park—of a midnight scene in the streets—of the Strand—of Temple-Bar—of St. Paul's and the view from the summit—of Rothschild—of Barclay and Perkins' Brewery—of the Thames' Tunnel—of the Tower—of the Zoological Gardens—of Robert Owen—of the habits of retired citizens—and of the rural tastes of Englishmen. A parallel between Regent Street and Broadway brings the two thoroughfares with singular distinctness to the eye of the mind—and in the way of animated and vivid description we can, at this moment, remember nothing in the whole range of fact or fiction much superior to the Lieutenant's narrative of his midnight entrance into London. Indeed we can almost pardon a contemporary for speaking of this picture as sublime. A small portion of it we copy—but no just idea of its total effect can be thus gathered—an effect depending in a great measure upon the gradual manner in which it is brought about.
"I know nothing more exhilirating than to be suddenly ushered in the night into a populous quarter of a great city. My recollection readily conjures up the impressions made upon me under similar circumstances in entering Paris, Madrid, Brussels, Milan, or gay and lively Naples. The lower classes, with their good humor, their quaint drollery and sprightliness, there offer the most agreeable objects of contemplation. Here, however, there was in the corresponding classes nothing pleasing, or even picturesque. All seemed in search of food, of the means of intemperance, and of gratifying low and brutal passions. The idea of amusement had evidently no place. The streets swarmed with abandoned women, filthy in their dress, open, brutal, and indecent in their advances. In the places of the guitar, the serenade, the musical cries of chesnut-women, lemonade-sellers, and watermen, the sounds here were harsh and grating: uttered in words ill pronounced and nasally prolonged, or in an unintelligible and discordant slang which I no longer recognized as belonging to my own language. In the place of skilful musicians performing the favorite airs of Mozart or Rossini, or the witty colloquies of the sententious Punchinello, the poor were invited, in the nasal twang of clamorous mountebanks to amuse themselves by a sight of the latest cases of seduction, murder, suicide, and hanging, represented in the shadows of the camera obscura. The dark masses of dwelling-houses had a confined, narrow, gloomy, and lugubrious aspect. They were of brick, without window-sills of marble or other colored stone; unpainted, and unenlivened by blinds. They were closely shut, and the glimpses of cheerfulness and domestic comfort exhibited in our streets were here unseen. All the shops were open to the weather: Many of them having the whole front removed, and gas-lights blazing and streaming like great torches, rather than with the puny and flickering illumination seen in ours. The articles were completely exposed to view at the side of the street; clothing, provisions, crockery, hardware; whatever is necessary to the wants of man. The druggists, with their variegated vases, as with us, cast the Iris hues of their nauseous mixtures into the street. Sellers of cheap goods exposed them in the windows, with their price labelled. The butchers hung out beef, pork, sausages, and enormous coarse sheep, in a nearly whole state, with sometimes the price affixed to the inferior portions, in order that the poor might judge whether the price they had received for their day's labor, would compass a meal of meat; or whether they should seek a diet more suited to their means, of a neighboring potato-merchant: or whether to turn in despair, as many of the most wretched seemed to do, to accept the flattering invitation of the magnificent gin-palace at the corner. It was the most splendid building in the neighborhood; built with some little architectural elegance, whose effect was magnified by the unadorned character and gloomy air of the surrounding edifices. A beautiful gas-light, in a richly ornamented lamp, stood as an inviting beacon, visible in many diverging directions. The windows were glazed with costly plate-glass, bearing inscribed, in illuminated letters, the words—gin at three-pence—generous wines hot-spiced;—and the door surrounded by stained panes of rich dye, having rosettes, bunches of grapes, and gay devices."
There are some few niaiseries in the work before us, which, although insufficient to affect its character as a whole, yet constitute a weak point in what otherwise is beautiful, and cause us to regret sincerely, the accidents which have admitted them. We may mention, in especial, the too frequent introduction of the monosyllable "how," in such sentences as "they told how"—"it was related how"—"I was informed how," &c. Mr. Slidell will find, upon self-scrutiny, that he has fallen into this habit through the sin of imitation. The Lieutenant, too, suffers his work to savor far too strongly of the ship, and lets slip him no opportunity of thrusting upon the public attention the fact of his particular vocation—insisting, indeed, upon this matter with a pertinacity even ludicrous—a pertinacity which will be exemplified in the following passage:
"Unaccustomed as I had been in the larger vessels, in which I had sailed of late, to be thus unceremoniously boarded on the hallowed region of the quarter-deck, this seemed to me quite a superfluous piece of impertinence. The remains of my sentiment were at once washed away, and not minding a little honest salt-water, I betook myself forthwith to the substantial comfortings of the repast, which I found smoking on the cabin table. Dinner was over: tea and conversation had followed; the evening was already far advanced, and I began to yield to the sleepy sensation which the familiar roll of the sea inspired. Before turning in I ascended to the companionway to breathe the fresh air, and see what progress we were making. Familiar as I was with the sight of ships in every possible situation, I was much struck with the beauty of the scene."
Again. Although the author evinces, in theory, a very laudable contempt for that silly vanity so often inducing men to blazon forth their intimacy with the distinguished; and although, in the volumes now before us, he more than once directs the arrows of his satire at the infirmity—still he is found not altogether free from it himself; and, in one especial instance, is even awkwardly uneasy, lest we should remain ignorant of his acquaintance with Washington Irving. "I thought," quoth the Lieutenant, when there was no necessity for thinking about any such matter, "I thought of the 'spectral box-coats' of my inimitable friend Geoffrey Crayon; and would have given the world in that moment of despondency, for one of his quiet unwritten jokes, or one friendly pressure of his hand."
Upon Mr. Slidell's mechanical style we cannot bring ourselves to look with favor. Indeed while running over, with some astonishment, a few of his singularly ill-constructed sentences, we begin to think that the sentiments expressed in the conclusion of his Preface are not, as we at first suspected, merely the common cant of the literateur, and that his book is actually, as he represents it to be, "the result of an up-hill journey," and "a work which he regards with a feeling of aversion." What else than great tedium and utter weariness with his labor, could have induced our author to trust such passages as the following to the critical eye of the public?
"The absence of intellectual and moral culture, in occupations which rendered it unnecessary for those who worked only to administer food to themselves and profit or luxury to the class of masters, could only account for the absence of forehead, of the ornamental parts of that face which was moulded after a divine model."
We perused this sentence more than once before we could fathom its meaning. Mr. Slidell wishes to say, that narrowness of forehead in the rabble is owing to want of mental exercise—they being laborers not thinkers. But from the words of our author we are led to conclude that some occupations (certainly very strange ones) rendered it unnecessary for those who worked, to administer food to themselves—that is, to eat. The pronoun "it," however, will be found, upon examination, to refer to "moral culture." The repetition of the word "only" is also disagreeable, and the entire passage is overloaded with verbiage. A rigid scrutiny will show that all essential portions of the intended idea are embodied in the lines Italicised. In the original sentence are fifty-four words—in our own eighteen—or precisely one third. It follows, that if all the Lieutenant's sentences had been abridged in a similar manner—a process which would have redounded greatly to their advantage—we might have been spared much trouble, and the public much time, trouble, and expense—the "American in England" making its appearance in a duodecimo of one hundred and ninety-two pages, rather than in two octavos of five hundred and seventy-six.
At page 122, vol. I, we have what follows.
"My situation here was uncomfortable enough; if I were softly cushioned on one side, this only tended, by the contrast, to increase the obduracy of a small iron rod, which served as a parapet to protect me from falling off the precipice, over which I hung toppling, and against which I was forced with a pressure proportioned to the circumstances of my being compressed into a space somewhat narrower than myself; the seat having doubtless been contrived to accommodate five men, and there being no greater anatomical mistake than to suppose there would be more room because four of them were women."
'If I were,' in this sentence, is not English—but there are few persons who will believe that "if" does not in all instances require the subjunctive. In the words "a small iron rod which served as a parapet to protect me from falling off the precipice over which I hung, and against which I was forced," &c. let us say nothing of the injudicious use of the word parapet as applied to a small iron rod. Passing over this, it is evident, that the second relative pronoun "which," has for its antecedent, in strict syntactical arrangement, the same noun as the first relative pronoun "which"—that is to say, it has the word "precipice" for its antecedent. The sentence would thus imply that Mr. Slidell was forced against the precipice. But the actual meaning (at which we arrive by guessing) is, that Mr. Slidell was forced against the iron rod. In the words "I was forced with a pressure proportioned to the circumstances of my being compressed into a space," &c. let us again be indulgent, and say as little as possible of the tautology in "pressure" and "compressed." But we ask where are the circumstances spoken of? There is only one circumstance—the circumstance of being compressed. In the conclusion of the passage where the Lieutenant speaks of "a seat having doubtless been contrived to accommodate five men, and there being no greater anatomical mistake than to suppose there would be more room because four of them were women," it is quite unnecessary to point out the "bull egregious"—a bull which could have been readily avoided by the simple substitute of "persons" for "men."
We must be pardoned for copying yet another sentence. We will do so with the single remark that it is one of the most ludicrously ill-arranged, and altogether ungainly pieces of composition which it has ever been our ill fortune to encounter.
"I was not long in discovering that the different personages scattered about the room in such an unsocial and misanthropic manner, instead of being collected about the same board, as in France or my own country, and, in the spirit of good fellowship and of boon companions, relieving each other of their mutual ennuis, though they did not speak a word to each other, by which they might hereafter be compromised and socially ruined, by discovering that they had made the acquaintance of an individual several grades below them in the scale of rank, or haply as disagreeably undeceived by the abstraction of a pocket-book, still kept up a certain interchange of sentiment, by occasional glances and mutual observation."
Such passages as the foregoing may be discovered passim in "The American in England." Yet we have heard Mr. Slidell's English called equal to the English of Mr. Irving—than which nothing can be more improbable. The Lieutenant's book is an excellent book—but then it is excellent in spite of its style. So great are the triumphs of genius!
CONTI.
Conti the Discarded: with Other Tales and Fancies. By Henry F. Chorley. 2 vols. New York: Published by Harper and Brothers.
Mr. Chorley has hitherto written nothing of any great length. His name, however, is familiar to all readers of English Annuals, and in whatever we have seen from his pen, evidences of a rare genius have been perceptible. In Conti, and in the "Other Tales and Fancies" which accompany it, these evidences are more distinct, more brilliant, and more openly developed. Neither are these pieces wanting in a noble, and, to us, a most thrillingly interesting purpose. In saying that our whole heart is with the author—that the deepest, and we trust, the purest emotions are enkindled within us by his chivalric and magnanimous design—we present but a feeble picture of our individual feelings as influenced by the perusal of Conti. We repeat it—our whole heart is with the author. When shall the artist assume his proper situation in society—in a society of thinking beings? How long shall he be enslaved? How long shall mind succumb to the grossest materiality? How long shall the veriest vermin of the Earth, who crawl around the altar of Mammon, be more esteemed of men than they, the gifted ministers to those exalted emotions which link us with the mysteries of Heaven? To our own query we may venture a reply. Not long. Not long will such rank injustice be committed or permitted. A spirit is already abroad at war with it. And in every billow of the unceasing sea of Change—and in every breath, however gentle, of the wide atmosphere of Revolution encircling us, is that spirit steadily yet irresistibly at work.
"Who has not looked," says Mr. Chorley in his Preface, "with painful interest on the unreckoned-up account of misunderstanding and suspicion which exists between the World and the Artist? Who has not grieved to see the former willing to degrade Art into a mere plaything—to be enjoyed without respect, and then cast aside—instead of receiving her high works as among the most humanizing blessings ever vouchsafed to man by a beneficent Creator? Who has not suffered shame in observing the Artist bring his own calling into contempt by coarsely regarding it as a mere engine of money getting, or holding it up to reproach by making it the excuse for such eccentricities or grave errors as separate him from the rest of society?"
That genius should not and indeed cannot be bound down to the vulgar common-places of existence, is a maxim which, however true, has been too often repeated; and there have appeared on earth enough spirits of the loftiest and most brilliant order who have worthily taken their part in life as useful citizens, affectionate husbands, faithful friends, to deprive of their excuse all such as hold, that to despise and alienate the world is the inevitable and painfully glorious destiny of the highly gifted.
Very few of our readers, it may be, are acquainted with a particular class of works which has long exercised a very powerful influence on the private habits and character, as well as on the literature of the Germans. We speak of the Art Novels—the Kunstromanen—books written not so much in immediate defence, or in illustration, as in personification of individual portions of the Fine Arts—books which, in the guise of Romance, labor to the sole end of reasoning men into admiration and study of the beautiful, by a tissue of bizarre fiction, partly allegorical, and partly metaphysical. In Germany alone could so mad—or perhaps so profound—an idea have originated. From the statement of Mr. Chorley, we find that his original intention was to attempt something in the style of the Kunstromanen, with such modifications as might seem called for by the peculiar spirit of the British national tastes and literature. "It occurred to me, however," says he, "that the very speculations and reveries which appeared to myself so delicious and significant, might be rejected by the rest of the world as fantastic and overstrained." Mr. C. could never have persevered in a scheme so radically erroneous for more than a dozen pages; and neither the world nor himself will have cause to regret that he thought proper to abandon the Art Novels, and embody his fine powers and lofty design in so stirring and so efficient a series of paintings as may be found in the present volumes.
A single passage near the commencement of Conti, will afford to all those who feel and think, direct evidence of the extraordinary abilities of Mr. Chorley. Madame Zerlini is an Italian prima donna, who becoming enamored of Colonel Hardwycke, an Englishman, accompanies him to England as his mistress, and after living with him for twelve years, and bearing him a son, Julius, dies suddenly upon hearing of his intention to marry.
"A strange scene greeted his eyes (those of Julius) as he entered the spacious hall, which, as its windows fronted the east, was already beginning to be dusky with the shadows of twilight. On the lowest step of the stairs lay, in violent hysterics, one of the women servants—she was raving and weeping, half supported by two others, themselves trembling so as to be almost powerless.
"'And here's Master Julius, too!' exclaimed one of the group which obstructed his passage, 'and my master gone away—no one knows for how long. Lord have mercy upon us!—what are we to do, I wonder?'
"'Don't go up stairs!' shrieked the other, leaving her charge, and endeavoring to stop him. 'Don't go up stairs—it is all over!'
"But the boy, whose mind was full of other matters, and who, having wandered away in the morning, before the delirium became so violent, had no idea of his mother's imminent danger, broke from them without catching the meaning of their words, and forced his way up stairs, towards the great drawing room, the folding doors of which were swinging open.
"He went in. Madame Zerlini was there—flung down upon a sofa, in an attitude which, in life, it would have been impossible for her to maintain for many moments. Her head was cast back over one of the pillows, so far, that her long hair, which had been imperfectly fastened, had disengaged itself by its own weight, and was now sweeping heavily downward, with a crushed wreath of passion flowers and myrtles half buried among it. Every thing about her told how fiercely the spirit had passed. Her robe of scarlet muslin was entirely torn off on one shoulder, and disclosed its exquisitely rounded proportions. Her glittering negligé was unclasped, and one end of it clenched firmly in the small left hand, which there was now hardly any possibility of unclosing. Her glazed eyes were wide open—her mouth set in an unnatural, yet fascinating smile; her cheek still flushed with a more delicate, yet intense red than belongs to health; and the excited boy, who was rushing hastily into the room, with the rapid inquiry, 'Where is Father Vanezzi?' stood as fixed on the threshhold, with sudden and conscious horror, as if he had been a thing of marble."
It is not our intention to analyze, or even to give a compend of the Tale of Conti. Such are not the means by which any idea of its singular power can be afforded. We will content ourselves with saying that, in its prevailing tone, it bears no little resemblance to that purest, and most enthralling of fictions, the Bride of Lammermuir; and we have once before expressed our opinion of this, the master novel of Scott. It is not too much to say that no modern composition, and perhaps no composition whatever, with the single exception of Cervantes' Destruction of Numantia, approaches so nearly to the proper character of the dramas of Æschylus, as the magic tale of which Ravenswood is the hero. We are not aware of being sustained by any authority in this opinion—yet we do not believe it the less intrinsically correct.
The other pieces in the volumes of Mr. Chorley are, Margaret Sterne, or The Organist's Journey—an Essay on the Popular Love of Music—Rossini's Otello—The Imaginative Instrumental Writers, Haydn, Beethoven, &c.—The Village Beauty's Wedding—Handel's Messiah—and A few words upon National Music—all of which papers evince literary powers of a high order, an intimate acquaintance with the science of music, and a lofty and passionate devotion to its interests.
NOBLE DEEDS OF WOMAN.
Noble Deeds of Woman. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and Blanchard.
These are two neat little volumes devoted to a theme of rich interest. From the Preface, or rather from the date and place of date of the Preface, we may form a guess that the work was originally published in London, and that the present edition is merely a reprint. There is nothing in the title-page or in the body of the book indicative of its derivation. But be the "Noble Deeds of Woman" English or American, we recommend them heartily to public attention.
The content-table is thus subdivided: Maternal Affection—Filial Affection—Sisterly Affection—Conjugal Affection—Humanity—Integrity—Benevolence—Fortitude. Under each of these separate heads are collected numerous anecdotes in the manner of the Brothers Percy. Of course it will be impossible to speak of them as a whole. Some are a little passés—for the most part they are piquant and well selected—a few are exceedingly entertaining and recherchés. From page 139, vol. i, we select one or two paragraphs which will be sure to find favor with all our readers. We rejoice in so excellent an opportunity of transferring to our columns a document well deserving preservation.
During the late war between the Turks and the Greeks, some American ladies, touched by the hardships and sufferings of the latter people, presented them with a ship containing money, and various articles of wearing apparel, wrought by their own hands; an offering which, under their forlorn situation, must have been highly acceptable to the unfortunate Greeks.
The letter of Mrs. Sigourney, of Hartford, Connecticut, to the Ladies' Greek Committee of that place, to accompany the contributions prepared for the Archipelago, was as follows:
"United States of America, March 12, 1828. The ladies of Hartford, in Connecticut, to the ladies of Greece.
"Sisters and Friends,—From the years of childhood your native clime has been the theme of our admiration: together with our brothers and our husbands we early learned to love the country of Homer, Aristides, of Solon, and of Socrates. That enthusiasm which the glory of ancient Greece enkindled in our bosoms, has preserved a fervent friendship for her descendants. We have beheld with deep sympathy the horrors of Turkish domination, and the struggle so long and nobly sustained by them for existence and for liberty.
"The communications of Dr. Howe, since his return from your land, have made us more intimately acquainted with your personal sufferings. He has presented many of you to us in his vivid descriptions, as seeking refuge in caves, and, under the branches of olive trees, listening for the footsteps of the destroyer, and mourning over your dearest ones slain in battle.
"Sisters and friends, our hearts bleed for you. Deprived of your protectors by the fortune of war, and continually in fear of evils worse than death, our prayers are with you, in all your wanderings, your wants and your griefs. In this vessel (which may God send in safety to your shores) you will receive a portion of that bounty wherewith He hath blessed us. The poor among us have given according to their ability, and our little children have cheerfully aided, that some of you and your children might have bread to eat, and raiment to put on. Could you but behold the faces of our little ones brighten, and their eyes sparkle with joy, while they give up their holidays, that they might work with their needles for Greece; could you see those females who earn a subsistence by labor, gladly casting their mite into our treasury, and taking hours from their repose that an additional garment might be furnished for you; could you witness the active spirit that pervades all classes of our community, it would cheer for a moment the darkness and misery of your lot.
"We are inhabitants of a part of one of the smallest of the United States, and our donations must therefore, of necessity, be more limited than those from the larger and more wealthy cities; yet such as we have, we give in the name of our dear Saviour, with our blessings and our prayers.
"We know the value of sympathy—how it arms the heart to endure—how it plucks the sting from sorrow—therefore we have written these few lines to assure you, that in the remoter parts of our country, as well as in her high places, you are remembered with pity and with affection.
"Sisters and friends, we extend across the ocean our hands to you in the fellowship of Christ. We pray that His Cross and the banner of your land may rise together over the Crescent and the Minaret—that your sons may hail the freedom of ancient Greece restored, and build again the waste places which the oppressor hath trodden down; and that you, admitted once more to the felicities of home, may gather from past perils and adversities a brighter wreath for the kingdom of Heaven.
"LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY,
"Secretary of the Greek Committee of Hartford, Connecticut."
BULWER'S RIENZI.
Rienzi, The Last of the Tribunes. By the Author of "Eugene Aram," "Last Days of Pompeii," &c. &c. Two Volumes in one. Philadelphia: Republished by E. L. Carey and A. Hart.
We have long learned to reverence the fine intellect of Bulwer. We take up any production of his pen with a positive certainty that, in reading it, the wildest passions of our nature, the most profound of our thoughts, the brightest visions of our fancy, and the most ennobling and lofty of our aspirations will, in due turn, be enkindled within us. We feel sure of rising from the perusal a wiser if not a better man. In no instance are we deceived. From the brief Tale—from the "Monos and Daimonos" of the author—to his most ponderous and labored novels—all is richly, and glowingly intellectual—all is energetic, or astute, or brilliant, or profound. There may be men now living who possess the power of Bulwer—but it is quite evident that very few have made that power so palpably manifest. Indeed we know of none. Viewing him as a novelist—a point of view exceedingly unfavorable (if we hold to the common acceptation of "the novel") for a proper contemplation of his genius—he is unsurpassed by any writer living or dead. Why should we hesitate to say this, feeling, as we do, thoroughly persuaded of its truth. Scott has excelled him in many points, and "The Bride of Lammormuir" is a better book than any individual work by the author of Pelham—"Ivanhoe" is, perhaps, equal to any. Descending to particulars, D'Israeli has a more brilliant, a more lofty, and a more delicate (we do not say a wilder) imagination. Lady Dacre has written Ellen Wareham, a more forcible tale of Passion. In some species of wit Theodore Hook rivals, and in broad humor our own Paulding surpasses him. The writer of "Godolphin" equals him in energy. Banim is a better sketcher of character. Hope is a richer colorist. Captain Trelawney is as original—Moore is as fanciful, and Horace Smith is as learned. But who is there uniting in one person the imagination, the passion, the humor, the energy, the knowledge of the heart, the artist-like eye, the originality, the fancy and the learning of Edward Lytton Bulwer? In a vivid wit—in profundity and a Gothic massiveness of thought—in style—in a calm certainty and definitiveness of purpose—in industry—and above all in the power of controlling and regulating by volition his illimitable faculties of mind, he is unequalled—he is unapproached.
As Rienzi is the last, so it is the best novel of Bulwer. In the Preface we are informed that the work was commenced two years ago at Rome, but abandoned upon the author's removing to Naples, for the "Last days of Pompeii"—a subject requiring, more than Rienzi, the advantage of a personal residence within reach of the scenes described. The idea of the present work, however, was never dismissed from the writer's mind, and soon after the publication of "Pompeii" he resumed his original undertaking. We are told that having had occasion to look into the original authorities whence are derived all the accounts of modern historians touching Rienzi, Mr. B. was induced to believe that no just picture of the Life or Times of that most remarkable man was at present in the hands of the people. Under this impression the novelist had at first meditated a work of History rather than of Fiction. We doubt, however, whether the spirit of the author's intention is not better fulfilled as it is. He has adhered with scrupulous fidelity to all the main events in the public life of his hero; and by means of the relief afforded through the personages of pure romance which form the filling in of the picture, he has been enabled more fully to develop the private character of the noble Roman. The reader may indeed be startled at the vast difference between the Rienzi of Mr. Bulwer, and the Rienzi of Sismondi, of Gibbon, and of Miss Mitford. But by neither of the two latter are we disposed to swear—and of Sismondi's impartiality we can at no moment be certain. Mr. B., moreover, very justly observes that as, in the work before us, all the acts are given from which is derived his interpretation of the principal agent, the public, having sufficient data for its own judgment, may fashion an opinion for itself.
Generally, the true chronology of Rienzi's life is preserved. In regard to the story—or that chain of fictitious incident usually binding up together the constituent parts of a Romance—there is very little of it in the book. This follows necessarily from the character of the composition—which is essentially Epic rather than Dramatic. The author's apology seems to us therefore supererogative when he says that a work which takes for its subject the crimes and errors of a nation and which ventures to seek the actual and the real in the highest stage of action or passion can rarely adopt with advantage the melo-dramatic effects produced by a vulgar mystery. In his pictures of the Roman populace, and in those of the Roman nobles of the fourteenth century—pictures full at all times of an enthralling interest—Mr. B. professes to have followed literally the descriptions left to us.
Miss Mitford's Rienzi will of course be remembered in reading that of Bulwer. There is however but one point of coincidence—a love-intrigue between a relative of the hero and one of the party of the nobles. This, it will be recollected, forms the basis of the plot of Miss M. In the Rienzi of Bulwer, it is an Episode not affecting in any manner either the story itself, or the destinies of the Tribune.
It is by no means our intention to give an analysis of the volume before us. Every person who reads at all will read Rienzi, and indeed the book is already in the hands of many millions of people. Any thing, therefore, like our usual custom of a digest of the narrative would be superfluous. The principal characters who figure in the novel are Rienzi himself—his brother, whose slaughter by a noble at the commencement of the story, is the immediate cause of Rienzi's change of temper and consequent exaltation—Adrian di Castello, a young noble of the family of Colonna but attached to the cause of the people—Martino di Porto the chief of the house of the Orsini—Stephen Colonna, the chief of the house of the Colonna—Walter de Montreal, a gentleman of Provence, a knight of St. John, and one of the formidable freebooters who at the head of large "Companies" invaded states and pillaged towns at the period of Rienzi's Revolution—Pandulfo di Guido a student, whom, under the appellation of Pandolficcio di Guido, Gibbon styles "the most virtuous citizen of Rome"—Cecco del Vecchio a smith—Giles D'Albornoz of the royal race of Arragon—Petrarch the poet, and the friend of Rienzi—Angelo Villani—Irene, the sister of the Tribune and betrothed to Adrian di Castello—Nina, Rienzi's wife—and Adeline, the mistress of Walter de Montreal.
But as was said before, we should err radically if we regard Rienzi altogether in the light of Romance. Undoubtedly as such—as a fiction, and coming under the title of a novel, it is a glorious, a wonderful conception, and not the less wonderfully and gloriously carried out. What else could we say of a book over which the mind so delightedly lingers in perusal? In its delineations of passion and character—in the fine blending and contrasting of its incidents—in the rich and brilliant tints of its feudal paintings—in a pervading air of chivalry, and grace, and sentiment—in all that can throw a charm over the pages of Romance, the last novel of Bulwer is equal, if not superior, to any of his former productions. Still we should look at the work in a different point of view. It is History. We hesitate not to say that it is History in its truest—in its only true, proper, and philosophical garb. Sismondi's works—were not. There is no greater error than dignifying with the name of History a tissue of dates and details, though the dates be ordinarily correct, and the details indisputably true. Not even with the aid of acute comment will such a tissue satisfy our individual notions of History. To the effect let us look—to the impression rather than to the seal. And how very seldom is any definite impression left upon the mind of the historical reader! How few bear away—even from the pages of Gibbon—Rome and the Romans. Vastly different was the genius of Niebuhr—than whom no man possessed a more discriminative understanding of the uses and the purposes of the pen of the historiographer. But we digress. Bearing in mind that "to contemplate"—ιςορειν1—should and must be allowed a more noble and a more expansive acceptation than has been usually given it, we shall often discover in Fiction the essential spirit and vitality of Historic Truth—while Truth itself, in many a dull and lumbering Archive, shall be found guilty of all the inefficiency of Fiction.
1 History, from ιςορειν, to contemplate, seems, among the Greeks, to have embraced not only the knowledge of past events, but also Mythology, Esopian, and Milesian fables, Romance, Tragedy and Comedy. But our business is with things, not words.
Rienzi, then, is History. But there are other aspects in which it may be regarded with advantage. Let us survey it as a profound and lucid exposition of the morale of Government—of the Philosophies of Rule and Misrule—of the absolute incompatibility of Freedom and Ignorance—Tyranny in the few and Virtue in the many. Let us consider it as something akin to direct evidence that a people is not a mob, nor a mob a people, nor a mob's idol the idol of a people—that in a nation's self is the only security for a nation—and that it is absolutely necessary to model upon the character of the governed, the machinery, whether simple or complex, of the governmental legislation.
It is proper—we are persuaded—that Rienzi should be held up in these many different points of view, if we desire fully to appreciate its own merits and the talents of Mr. Bulwer. But regard it as we will, it is an extraordinary work—and one which leaves nothing farther to accomplish in its own particular region. It is vastly superior to the "Last Days of Pompeii"—more rich—more glowing, and more vigorous. With all and more than all the distinguishing merits of its noble predecessor, it has none of its chilliness—none of that platitude which (it would not be difficult to say why) is the inevitable result of every attempt at infusing warmth among the marble wildernesses, and vitality into the statue-like existences, of the too-distantly antique.
We will conclude our notice of Rienzi with an Extract. We choose it not with any view of commending it above others—for the book has many equally good and some better—but to give our readers—such of them as have not yet seen the novel, an opportunity of comparing the passage with some similar things in Boccaccio. We may as well say that in all which constitutes good writing the Englishman is infinitely the superior. What we select is Chapter V, of the sixth Book. Irene, the betrothed of the noble Roman Adrian di Castello, being in Florence during the time of the Great Plague, is sought by her lover at the peril of his life. Overpowered by a fever he meets with Irene—but his delirium prevents a recognition. She conveys him to one of the deserted mansions, and officiates as his nurse. Having thrown aside her mantle, under the impression that it retained the infection of the Pestilence, it is found and worn by another.
THE ERROR.
For three days, the three fatal days, did Adrian remain bereft of strength and sense. But he was not smitten by the scourge which his devoted and generous nurse had anticipated. It was a fierce and dangerous fever, brought on by the great fatigue, restlessness, and terrible agitation he had undergone.
No professional mediciner could be found to attend him but a good friar, better perhaps skilled in the healing art than many who claimed its monopoly, visited him daily. And in the long and frequent absences to which his other and numerous duties compelled the monk, there was one ever at hand to smooth the pillow, to wipe the brow, to listen to the moan, to watch the sleep. And even in that dismal office, when, in the frenzy of the sufferer, her name, coupled with terms of passionate endearment, broke from his lips, a thrill of strange pleasure crossed the heart of the betrothed, which she chid as if it were a crime. But even the most unearthly love is selfish in the rapture of being loved! Words cannot tell, heart cannot divine, the mingled emotions that broke over her when, in some of those incoherent ravings, she dimly understood that for her the city had been sought, the death dared, the danger incurred. And as then bending passionately to kiss that burning brow, her tears fell fast over the idol of her youth, the fountains from which they gushed were those, fathomless and countless, which a life could not weep away. Not an impulse of the human and the woman heart that was not stirred; the adoring gratitude, the meek wonder thus to be loved, while deeming it so simple a merit thus to love;—as if all sacrifice in her were a thing of course,—to her, a virtue nature could not paragon, worlds could not repay! And there he lay, the victim to his own fearless faith, helpless—dependent upon her—a thing between life and death, to thank, to serve—to be proud of, yet to protect—to compassionate, yet revere—the saver, to be saved! Never seemed one object to demand at once from a single heart so many and so profound emotions; the romantic enthusiasm of the girl!—the fond idolatry of the bride—the watchful providence of the mother over her child.
And strange to say, with all the excitement of that lonely watch, scarcely stirring from his side, taking food only that her strength might not fail her,—unable to close her eyes—though, from the same cause, she would fain have taken rest, when slumber fell upon her charge—with all such wear and tear of frame and heart, she seemed wonderfully supported. And the holy man marvelled, in each visit, to see the cheek of the nurse still fresh, and her eye still bright. In her own superstition she thought and felt that Heaven gifted her with a preternatural power to be true to so sacred a charge: and in this fancy she did not wholly err;—for Heaven did gift her with that diviner power, when it planted in so soft a heart the enduring might and energy of Affection! The friar had visited the sick man, late on the third night, and administered to him a strong sedative—"This night," said he to Irene, "will be the crisis—should he awaken, as I trust he may, with a returning consciousness, and a calm pulse, he will live—if not, young daughter, prepare for the worst. But should you note any turn in the disease, that may excite alarm, or require my attendance, this scroll will inform you where I am if God spare me still, at each hour of the night and morning."
The monk retired and Irene resumed her watch.
The sleep of Adrian was at first broken and interrupted—his features, his exclamations, his gestures, all evinced great agony whether mental or bodily—it seemed, as perhaps it was, a fierce and doubtful struggle between life and death for the conquest of the sleeper. Patient, silent, breathing but by long-drawn gasps, Irene sate at the bed-head. The lamp was removed to the further end of the chamber, and its ray, shaded by the draperies, did not suffice to give to her gaze more than the outline of the countenance she watched. In that awful suspense, all the thoughts that hitherto had stirred her mind lay hushed and mute. She was only sensible to that unutterable fear which few of us have been happy enough not to know. That crushing weight under which we can scarcely breathe or move, the avalanche over us, freezing and suspended, which we cannot escape from, with which, every moment, we may be buried and overwhelmed. The whole destiny of life was in the chances of that single night! It was just as Adrian at last seemed to glide into a deeper and serener slumber, that the bells of the death-cart broke with their boding knell the palpable silence of the streets. Now hushed, now revived, as the cart stopped for its gloomy passengers, and coming nearer and nearer after every pause. At length she heard the heavy wheels stop under the very casement, and a voice deep and muffled calling aloud "Bring out the dead!" She rose, and with a noiseless step, passed to secure the door, when the dull lamp gleamed upon the dark and shrouded forms of the Becchini.
"You have not marked the door, nor set out the body," said one gruffly, "but this is the third night! He is ready for us!"
"Hush, he sleeps—away, quick, it is not the Plague that seized him."
"Not the Plague," growled the Becchino in a disappointed tone, "I thought no other illness dared encroach upon the rights of the gavocciolo!"
"Go, here's money, leave us."
And the grisly carrier sullenly withdrew. The cart moved on, the bell renewed its summons, till slowly and faintly the dreadful larum died in the distance.
Shading the lamp with her hand, Irene stole to the bed-side, fearful that the sound and the intrusion had disturbed the slumberer. But his face was still locked, as in a vice, with that iron sleep. He stirred not—his breath scarcely passed his lips—she felt his pulse, as the wand lay on the coverlid—there was a slight heat—she was contented—removed the light, and, retiring to a corner of the room, placed the little cross suspended round her neck upon the table, and prayed—in her intense suffering—to Him who had known death, and who—Son of Heaven though he was, and Sovereign of the Seraphim—had also prayed, in his earthly travail, that the cup might pass away.
The morning broke, not, as in the north, slowly and through shadow, but with the sudden glory with which in those climates Day leaps upon earth—like a giant from his sleep. A sudden smile—a burnished glow—and night had vanished. Adrian still slept; not a muscle seemed to have stirred; the sleep was even heavier than before; the silence became a burthen upon the air. Now, in that exceeding torpor so like unto death, the solitary watcher became alarmed and terrified. Time passed—morning glided to noon—still not a sound nor motion. The sun was mid-way in heaven—the friar came not. And now again touching Adrian's pulse, she felt no flutter—she gazed on him, appalled and confounded; surely nought living could be so still and pale. "Was it indeed sleep, might it not be ——." She turned away, sick and frozen; her tongue clove to her lips. Why did the father tarry—she would go to him—she would learn the worst—she could forbear no longer. She glanced over the scroll the monk had left her: "From sunrise," it said, "I shall be at the Convent of the Dominicans. Death has stricken many of the brethren." The Convent was at some distance, but she knew the spot, and fear would wing her steps. She gave one wistful look at the sleeper, and rushed from the house. "I shall see thee again presently," she murmured. Alas! what hope can calculate beyond the moment. And who shall claim the tenure of "The Again!"
It was not many minutes after Irene had left the room, ere, with a long sigh, Adrian opened his eyes—an altered and another man; the fever was gone, the reviving pulse beat low indeed, but calm. His mind was once more master of his body, and, though weak and feeble, the danger was past, and life and intellect regained.
"I have slept long," he muttered—"and oh such dreams—and methought I saw Irene, but could not speak to her; and while I attempted to grasp her, her face changed, her form dilated, and I was in the clutch of the foul grave-digger. It is late—the sun is high—I must be up and stirring. Irene is in Lombardy. No, no; that was a lie, a wicked lie—she is at Florence—I must renew my search."
As this duty came to his remembrance, he rose from the bed—he was amazed at his own debility; at first he could not stand without support from the wall—by degrees, however, he so far regained the mastery of his limbs, as to walk, though with effort and pain. A ravening hunger preyed upon him; he found some scanty and light food in the chamber, which he devoured eagerly. And with scarce less eagerness laved his enfeebled form and haggard face with the water that stood at hand. He now felt refreshed and invigorated, and began to indue his garments, which he found thrown on a heap beside the bed. He gazed with surprise and a kind of self-compassion upon his emaciated hands and shrunken limbs, and began now to comprehend that he must have had some severe but unconscious illness. "Alone too," thought he, "no one near to tend me! Nature my only nurse! But alas! alas! how long a time may thus have been wasted, and my adored Irene——quick, quick, not a moment more will I lose."
He soon found himself in the open street; the air revived him; and that morning, the first known for weeks, had sprung up the blessed breeze. He wandered on very slowly and feebly till he came to a broad square, from which, in the vista, might be seen one of the principal gates of Florence, and the fig-trees and olive-groves beyond. It was then that a pilgrim of tall stature approached towards him as from the gate; his hood was thrown back, and gave to view a countenance of great but sad command; a face, in whose high features, massive brow, and proud, unshrinking gaze, shaded by an expression of melancholy more stern than soft, Nature seemed to have written majesty, and Fate disaster. As in that silent and dreary place, these two, the only tenants of the street, now encountered, Adrian stopped abruptly, and said in a startled and doubting voice: "Do I dream still, or do I behold Rienzi?"
The pilgrim paused also, as he heard the name, and gazing long on the attenuated features of the young lord, said: "I am he that was Rienzi! and you, pale shadow, is it in this grave of Italy that I meet with the gay and high Colonna? Alas, young friend," he added in a more relaxed and kindly voice, "hath the Plague not spared the flower of the Roman nobles? Come, I, the cruel and the harsh tribune, I will be thy nurse: he who might have been my brother, shall yet claim from me a brother's care."
With these words, he wound his arm tenderly round Adrian; and the young noble, touched by his compassion, and agitated by the surprize, leant upon Rienzi's breast in silence.
"Poor youth," resumed the Tribune, for so since rather fallen than deposed he may yet be called, "I ever loved the young; (my brother died young!) and you more than most. What fatality brought thee hither?"
"Irene!" replied Adrian falteringly.
"Is it so, really? Art thou a Colonna, and yet prize the fallen? The same duty has brought me also to the City of Death. From the farthest south—over the mountains of the robber—through the fastnesses of my foes—through towns in which the herald proclaimed in my ear the price of my head—I have passed hither, on foot and alone, safe under the wings of the Almighty One. Young man, thou shouldst have left this task to one who bears a wizard's life, and whom Heaven and Earth yet reserve for an appointed end!"
The Tribune said this in a deep and inward voice; and in his raised eye and solemn brow might be seen how much his reverses had deepened his fanaticism, and added even to the sanguineness of his hopes.
"But," asked Adrian, withdrawing gently from Rienzi's arm, "thou knowest, then, where Irene is to be found, let us go together. Lose not a moment in this talk—time is of inestimable value, and a moment in this city is often but the border to eternity."
"Right," said Rienzi, awakening to his object. "But fear not; I have dreamt that I shall save her, the gem and darling of my house. Fear not—I have no fear."
"Know you where to seek," said Adrian, impatiently; "the convent holds far other guests."
"Ha! so said my dream!"
"Talk not now of dreams," said the lover, "but if you have no other guide, let us part at once in quest of her; I will take yonder street, you take the opposite, and at sunset let us meet in the same spot."
"Rash man," said the Tribune, with great solemnity, "scoff not at the visions which Heaven makes a parable to its Chosen. Thou seekest counsel of thy human wisdom; I, less presumptuous, follow the hand of the mysterious Providence, moving even now before my gaze as a pillar of light, through the wilderness of dread. Ay, meet we here at sunset, and prove whose guide is the most unerring. If my dream tell me true, I shall see my sister living, ere the sun reach yonder hill, and by a church dedicated to St. Mark."
The grave earnestness with which Rienzi spoke, impressed Adrian with a hope his reason would not acknowledge. He saw him depart with that proud and stately step to which his sweeping garments gave a yet more imposing dignity, and then passed up the street to the right hand. He had not got half way when he felt himself pulled by the mantle. He turned and saw the shapeless mask of a Becchino.
"I feared you were sped, and that another had cheated me of my office," said the grave-digger, "seeing that you returned not to the old prince's palace. You don't know me from the rest of us, I see, but I am the one you told to seek——"
"Irene!"
"Yes, Irene di Gabrini, you promised ample reward."
"You shall have it."
"Follow me."
The Becchino strode on, and soon arrived at a mansion. He knocked twice at the porter's entrance; an old woman cautiously opened the door. "Fear not, good aunt," said the grave-digger, "this is the young lord I spoke to thee of. Thou sayest thou hadst two ladies in the palace, who alone survived of all the lodgers, and their names were Bianca di Medici, and—what was the other?"
"Irene di Gabrini, a Roman lady. But I told thee this was the fourth day they left the house, terrified by the deaths within it."
"Thou didst so—and was there any thing remarkable in the dress of the Signora di Gabrini?"
"Yes, I have told thee, a blue mantle, such as I have rarely seen, wrought with silver."
"Was the broidery that of stars, silver stars," exclaimed Adrian, "with a sun in the centre."
"It was!"
"Alas! alas! the arms of the Tribune's family! I remember how I praised the mantle the first day she wore it—the day on which we were betrothed!" And the lover at once conjectured the secret sentiment which had induced Irene to retain so carefully a robe so endeared by association.
"You know no more of your lodgers?"
"Nothing."
"And is this all you have learnt, knave?" cried Adrian.
"Patience. I must bring you from proof to proof, and link to link, in order to win my reward. Follow, Signor."
The Becchino then passing through the several lanes and streets, arrived at another house of less magnificent size and architecture. Again he tapped thrice at the parlor door, and this time came forth a man withered, old, and palsied, whom death seemed to disdain to strike.
"Signor Astuccio," said the Becchino, "pardon me; but I told thee I might trouble thee again. This is the gentleman who wants to know, what is often best unknown—but that's not my affair. Did a lady—young and beautiful—with dark hair, and of a slender form, enter this house, stricken with the first symptom of the plague, three days since?"
"Ay, thou knowest that well enough—and thou knowest still better—that she has departed these two days; it was quick work with her, quicker than with most!"
"Did she wear any thing remarkable?"
"Yes, troublesome man, a blue cloak with stars of silver."
"Couldst thou guess aught of her previous circumstances?"
"No, save that she raved much about the nunnery of Santa Maria dei Pazza, and bravos, and sacrilege."
"Are you satisfied, Signor?" asked the grave-digger, with an air of triumph, turning to Adrian. "But no, I will satisfy thee better, if thou hast courage. Wilt thou follow?"
"I comprehend thee; lead on. Courage! what is there on earth now to fear?"
Muttering to himself—"Ay, leave me alone. I have a head worth something; I ask no gentleman to go by my word; I will make his own eyes the judge of what my trouble is worth." The grave-digger now led the way through one of the gates a little out of the city. And here under a shed sat six of his ghastly and ill-omened brethren, with spades and pick-axes at their feet.
His guide now turned round to Adrian, whose face was set and resolute in despair.
"Fair Signor," said he, with some touch of lingering compassion, "wouldst thou really convince thine own eyes and heart; the sight may appal, the contagion may destroy thee,—if, indeed, as it seems to me, Death has not already written 'mine' upon thee."
"Raven of bode and woe," answered Adrian, "seest thou not that all I shrink from is thy voice and aspect? Show me her I seek, living or dead."
"I will show her to you, then," said the Becchino, sullenly, "such as two nights since she was committed to my charge. Line and lineament may already be swept away, for the Plague hath a rapid besom; but I have left that upon her by which you will know the Becchino is no liar. Bring hither the torches, comrades, and lift the door. Never stare; it's the gentleman's whim, and he'll pay it well."
Turning to the right, while Adrian mechanically followed his conductors,—a spectacle whose dire philosophy crushes as with a wheel all the pride of mortal man—the spectacle of that vault in which earth hides all that on earth flourished, rejoiced, exulted—awaited his eye!
The Becchino lifted a ponderous grate, lowered their torches (scarcely needed, for through the aperture rushed, with a hideous glare, the light of the burning sun,) and motioned to Adrian to advance. He stood upon the summit of the abyss and gazed below.
* * * * *
* * * * *
It was a large, deep and circular space, like the bottom of an exhausted well. In niches cut into the walls of earth around, lay, duly confined, those who had been the earliest victims of the plague, when the Becchino's market was not yet glutted, and priest followed, and friend mourned, the dead. But on the floor below, there was the loathsome horror! Huddled and matted together,—some naked, some in shrouds already black and rotten,—lay the later guests, the unshriven and unblest! The torches, the sun, streamed broad and red over corruption in all its stages, from the pale blue tint and swollen shape, to the moistened undistinguishable mass, or the riddled bones, where yet clung, in strips and tatters, the black and mangled flesh. In many the face remained almost perfect, while the rest of the body was but bone; the long hair, the human face, surmounting the grisly skeleton. There, was the infant, still on the mother's breast; there, was the lover stretched across the dainty limbs of his adored! The rats (for they clustered in numbers to that feast,) disturbed, not scared, sate up from their horrid meal as the light glimmered over them, and thousands of them lay round, stark and dead, poisoned by that they fed on! There, too, the wild satire of the grave-diggers had cast, though stripped of their gold and jewels, the emblems that spoke of departed rank;—the broken wand of the Councillor; the General's baton; the Priestly Mitre! The foul and livid exhalations gathered like flesh itself, fungous and putrid, upon the walls, and the——
* * * * *
* * * * *
But who shall detail the ineffable and unimaginable horrors that reigned over the Palace where the Great King received the prisoners whom the sword of the Pestilence had subdued.
But through all that crowded court—crowded with beauty and with birth, with the strength of the young and the honors of the old, and the valor of the brave, and the wisdom of the learned, and the wit of the scorner, and the piety of the faithful—one only figure attracted Adrian's eye. Apart from the rest, a late comer—the long locks streaming far and dark over arm and breast—lay a female, the face turned partially aside, the little seen not recognisable even by the mother of the dead,—but wrapped round in that fatal mantle, on which, though blackened and tarnished, was yet visible the starry heraldry assumed by those who claimed the name of the proud Tribune of Rome. Adrian saw no more—he fell back in the arms of the grave diggers: when he recovered, he was still without the gates of Florence—reclined upon a green mound—his guide stood beside him—holding his steed by the bridle as it grazed patiently on the neglected grass. The other brethren of the axe had resumed their seat under the shed.
"So you have revived; ah! I thought it was only the effluvia; few stand it as we do. And so, as your search is over, deeming you would not be quitting Florence if you have any sense left to you, I went for your good horse. I have fed him since your departure from the palace. Indeed I fancied he would be my perquisite, but there are plenty as good. Come, young Sir, mount. I feel a pity for you, I know not why, except that you are the only one I have met for weeks who seem to care for another more than for yourself. I hope you are satisfied now that I showed some brains, eh! in your service, and as I have kept my promise, you'll keep yours."
"Friend," said Adrian, "here is gold enough to make thee rich; here too is a jewel that merchants will tell thee princes might vie to purchase. Thou seemest honest, despite thy calling, or thou mightest have robbed and murdered me long since. Do me one favor more."
"By my poor mother's soul, yes."
"Take yon—yon clay from that fearful place. Inter it in some quiet and remote spot—apart—alone! You promise me—you swear it—it is well. And now help me on my horse."
"Farewell Italy, and if I die not with this stroke, may I die as befits at once honor and despair—with trumpet and banner round me—in a well-fought field against a worthy foe!—save a knightly death nothing is left to live for!"
Here, in many incidents of extraordinary force—in the call of the Becchini on the third night—in the most agonizing circumstance of Irene's abandonment of Adrian—in the bodily weakness and mental prostration of that young nobleman—in the desolation of the streets—in the meeting with Rienzi—in the colossal dignity of the words, "I am he that was Rienzi!"—in the affectionate attention of the fallen hero—and lastly, in the appalling horror of the vault and its details—may be seen and will be felt much, but not all, of the exceeding power of the "Last of the Tribunes."
ROGET'S PHYSIOLOGY.
Animal and Vegetable Physiology, considered with reference to Natural Theology. By Peter Mark Roget, M.D. Secretary to the Royal Society, &c. &c. 2 vols, large octavo. Philadelphia: Republished by Carey, Lea, and Blanchard.
As we have no doubt that the great majority of our readers are acquainted with the circumstances attending the publication of the Bridgewater Treatises, we shall content ourselves with a very brief statement of those circumstances, by way of introduction to some few observations respecting this, the fifth of the Series.
Francis Henry, Earl of Bridgewater, who died some time in the beginning of the year 1829, directed certain Trustees mentioned in his Will, to invest eight thousand pounds sterling in the public funds, which eight thousand pounds, with the interest accruing, was to be under the control of the President, for the time being, of the Royal Society of London. The money thus invested, was to be paid by the President to such person or persons as he, the President, should appoint to "write, print and publish, one thousand copies of a work, On the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation; illustrating such work by all reasonable arguments, as, for instance, the variety and formation of God's creatures, in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms; the effect of digestion, and thereby of conversion; the construction of the hand of man, and an infinite variety of other arguments; as also by discoveries ancient and modern, in arts, sciences, and the whole extent of literature." The profits of the works were to be paid to the authors.
Davies Gilbert, Esq. being President of the Royal Society, advised with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and "a nobleman immediately connected with the deceased," in regard to the best mode of carrying into effect the design of the testator. It was finally resolved to divide the eight thousand pounds among eight gentlemen, who were to compose eight Treatises as follows. Thomas Chalmers, D.D. Professor of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh, was to write on "The Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man,"—John Kidd, M.D. F. R. S. Regius Professor of Medicine in the University of Oxford, on "The Adaptation of External Nature to the Physical Condition of Man,"—William Whewell, M.A. F. R. S. Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, on "Astronomy and General Physics considered with reference to Natural Theology,"—Sir Charles Bell, K. G. H. F. R. S. L. and E. on "The Hand: its Mechanism and Vital Endowments as Evincing Design,"—Peter Mark Roget, M.D. Fellow of and Secretary to the Royal Society, on "Animal and Vegetable Physiology,"—William Buckland, D.D. F. R. S. Professor of Geology in the University of Oxford, on "Geology and Mineralogy,"—William Kirby, M.A. F. R. S., on "The History, Habits, and Instincts of Animals"—and William Prout, M.D. F. R. S., on "Chemistry, Meteorology, and the Function of Digestion, considered with Reference to Natural Theology."
However excellent and praiseworthy the intention of the Earl of Bridgewater, and however liberal the sum bequeathed, there can be little doubt that in the wording of his bequest, in the encumbering of the work so nobly proposed with a specification of the arguments to be employed in its execution, he has offered a very serious impediment to the fulfilment of the spirit of his design. It is perhaps, too, a matter of regret, that the introduction of the words "person or persons" in the paragraph touching the contemplated publication, should have left it optional with the President of the Royal Society to divide the eight thousand pounds among so many. We are sorry that the eight treatises were determined upon for several reasons. First, we do not believe any such arrangement to have been contemplated by the testator—his words "write, print, and publish one thousand copies of a work," &c., inducing the opinion that one single book or treatise was intended: and we the rather hold to this belief, as it might easily be proved (we will speak farther of this hereafter,) that the whole argument set forth in the words of the Testament, and indeed the whole arguments of the whole eight Treatises now published, might have been readily discussed in one connected work of no greater bulk than the Physiology whose title forms the heading of this article. In the second place—the bequest of the eight thousand pounds, which en masse, is magnificent, and which might thus have operated as a sufficient inducement for some one competent person to devote a sufficiency of time to the steady and gradual completion of a noble and extraordinary work—this bequest, we say, is somewhat of a common-place affair when we regard it in its subdivision. Thirdly, one thousand pounds is but little for the labor necessary in a work like any one of the Treatises, and we are mistaken if the "profits of the sales" meet in any degree either the merits or the expectations of the respective authors. If they do, however, it is a matter altogether foreign to and apart from the liberality of the testator—a liberality whose proper development should have been scrupulously borne in view by the Trustee. Fourthly—the result of the combination of a number of intellects is seldom in any case—never in a case like the present—equal to the sum of the results of the same intellects laboring individually—the difference, generally, being in precise ratio with the number of the intellects engaged. It follows that each writer of a Bridgewater Treatise has been employed at a disadvantage. Lastly—an accurate examination of the nature and argument of each Treatise as allotted, will convince one a priori that the whole must, in any attempt at a full discussion, unavoidably run one into the other—this indeed in so very great a degree that each Treatise respectively would embody a vast quantity of matter, (handled in a style necessarily similar) to be found in each and all of the remaining seven Treatises. Here again is not only labor wasted by the writers—but, by the readers of the works, much time and trouble unprofitably thrown away. We say that this might have been proved a priori by an inspection of the arguments of the Treatises. It has been fully proved, a posteriori, by the fact: and this fact will go far in establishing what we asserted in our first reason for disapproving of the subdivision—to wit: that the whole argument of the whole eight Treatises might have been readily discussed in one connected work of no greater bulk than the Physiology now before us.
We cannot bring ourselves to think Dr. Roget's book the best of the Bridgewater series, although we have heard it so called. Indeed in the very singular and too partial arrangement of the subjects, it would have been really a matter for wonder if Dr. Whewell had not written the best, and Sir Charles Bell the worst of the Treatises. The talents of Dr. Roget, however, are a sufficient guarantee that he has furnished no ordinary work. We are grieved to learn from the Preface that his progress has been greatly impeded by "long protracted anxieties and afflictions, and by the almost overwhelming pressure of domestic calamity."
The chief difficulty of the Physiologist in handling a subject of so vast and almost interminable extent as the science to which his labors have been devoted—a science comprehending all the animal and vegetable beings in existence—has evidently been the difficulty of selection from an exuberance of materials. He has excluded from the Treatise—(it was necessary to exclude a great deal)—"all those particulars of the natural history both of animals and plants, and all description of those structures, of which the relation to final causes cannot be distinctly traced." In a word, he has admitted such facts alone as afford palpable evidence of Almighty design. He has also abstained from entering into historical accounts of the progress of discovery—the present state of Physiological science being his only aim. The work is illustrated by nearly 500 wood cuts by Mr. Byfield, and references in the Index to passages in the volumes where terms of mere technical science have been explained. Appended are also a catalogue of the engravings, and a tabular view of the classification of animals adopted by Cuvier in his "Regne Animal" with examples included. This Table is reprinted from that in the author's "Introductory Lecture on Human and Comparative Physiology," published in 1826. Such alterations, however, have been introduced as were requisite to make the Table correspond with Cuvier's second edition.
CAREY'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
We have been delighted with the perusal of this book, and consider it one of the most instructive as well as one of the most amusing of autobiographies. The ruling feature of the work is candor—a candor of the rarest and noblest description. The author has not scrupled, or even hesitated, in a single instance to declare, without prevarication, the truth and the whole truth, however little redounding to his own credit. Nor in the details so frankly laid before the eye of the public, are the many—very many other excellent qualities less manifest, which have exalted the autobiographer to so enviable a station in the opinions of his fellow-citizens. In the whole private and public course of Mr. Mathew Carey, from that chivalrous Essay against Duelling, of which he has rendered so amusing an account in the commencement of his "Life," to the more important yet equally Quixottic publication of the Olive Branch, the strictest scrutiny can detect nothing derogatory to the character of "the noblest work of God, an honest man." His energy, his high-mindedness, and his indomitable perseverance, will force themselves upon the most casual observer. It is not surprising that, with qualifications so well adapted for success in life, Mr. C. should have been enabled finally to set at defiance the innumerable obstacles which obstructed his path. Indeed, although few men have labored under greater incidental disadvantages, very few have been better prepared to overcome them by both moral and physical constitution.
There is much in these Memoirs of Mr. Carey, which will bring to the mind of the reader Benjamin Franklin, his shrewdness, his difficulties, and his indefatigability. It is therefore almost unnecessary to add, that apart from its other merits, the Autobiography now before us has all the value so unequivocally due to good example. Its perusal cannot well fail of having a salutary effect upon those who struggle with adversity—of imparting a salutary strength to all who grow feeble under the pressure of the innumerable harassing cares which encumber and weigh so ponderously upon the "man of the world." It may, indeed, if rightly considered, have a still more beneficial influence. It may incite to good deeds. It may induce a love of our fellow-men, in many bosoms hitherto self-hardened against the urgent demands of philanthropy. What so likely to bring about a kindly spirit in any human heart as the contemplation of a kindly spirit in others?
It is perhaps already known to many that Mr. Carey was born in Dublin in 1760. His hatred of oppression, which broke out, as early as his seventeenth year, in the "Essay against Duelling," to which we have already alluded, and which, in 1779, rendered him obnoxious to the British Government, and forced him into a temporary exile, at length, in 1784, made it necessary for him to abandon his country altogether, and seek an asylum in America. He arrived in Philadelphia, greatly embarrassed in his pecuniary circumstances; and an incident by means of which he obtained relief, has proved of so deep interest to ourselves, that we cannot but think it may prove equally so to our readers. We copy the following from page 10 of the Autobiography.
Behold me now landed in Philadelphia, with about a dozen guineas in my pocket, without relation, or friend, and even without an acquaintance, except my compagnons de voyage, of whom very few were eligible associates.
While I was contemplating a removal into the country, where I could have boarded at about a dollar or a dollar and a quarter a week, intending to wait the arrival of my funds, a most extraordinary and unlooked-for circumstance occurred, which changed my purpose, gave a new direction to my views, and, in some degree, colored the course of my future life. It reflects great credit on the Marquess de La Fayette, who was then at Mount Vernon, to take leave of Gen. Washington. A young gentleman of the name of Wallace, a fellow passenger of mine, had brought letters of recommendation to the General; and having gone to his seat to deliver them, fell into the Marquess's company, and in the course of conversation, the affairs of Ireland came on the tapis. The Marquess, who had, in the Philadelphia papers, seen an account of my adventures with the Parliament, and the persecution I had undergone, inquired of Wallace, what had become of the poor persecuted Dublin printer? He replied, "he came passenger with me, and is now in Philadelphia," stating the boarding house where I had pitched my tent. On the arrival of the Marquess in this city, he sent me a billet, requesting to see me at his lodgings, whither I went. He received me with great kindness; condoled with me on the persecution I had undergone; inquired into my prospects;—and having told him that I proposed, on receipt of my funds, to set up a newspaper, he approved the idea, and promised to recommend me to his friends, Robert Morris, Thomas Fitzsimons, &c. &c. After half an hour's conversation, we parted. Next morning, while I was at breakfast, a letter from him was handed me, which, to my very great surprise, contained four one hundred dollar notes of the Bank of North America. This was the more extraordinary and liberal, as not a word had passed between us on the subject of giving or receiving, borrowing or lending money. And a remarkable feature in the affair was, that the letter did not contain a word of reference to the enclosure.
In the course of the day I went to his lodgings, and found that he had, an hour or two previously, departed for Princeton, where Congress then sat, having been in some measure driven from Philadelphia, by a mutiny among the soldiers, who were clamorous for their pay, and had kept them in a state of siege for three hours in the State House. I wrote to him to New York, whither, I understood, he had gone from Princeton, expressive of my gratitude in the strongest terms, and received a very kind and friendly answer.
I cannot pass over this noble trait in the character of the illustrious Marquess, without urging it strongly on the overgrown wealthy of our country, as an example worthy of imitation. Here was a foreign nobleman, who had devoted years of the prime of his life, and greatly impaired his fortune, in the service of a country, separated by thousands of miles distance from his native land. After these mighty sacrifices, he meets, by an extraordinary accident, with a poor persecuted young man, destitute of friends and protectors—his heart expands towards him—he freely gives him means of making a living without the most remote expectation of return, or of ever again seeing the object of his bounty. He withdraws from the city to avoid the expression of the gratitude of the beneficiary. I have more than once assumed, and I now repeat, that I doubt whether in the whole life of this (I had almost said) unparalleled man, there is to be found any thing, which, all the circumstances of the case considered, more highly elevates his character.1
1 It is due to myself to state, that though this was in every sense of the word a gift, I regarded it as a loan, payable to the Marquess's countrymen, according to the exalted sentiment of Dr. Franklin, who, when he presented a bill for ten pounds to the Rev. Mr. Nixon, an Irish Clergyman, (who was in distress in Paris, and wanted to migrate to America,) told him to pay the sum to any Americans whom he might find in distress, and thus "let good offices go round." I fully paid the debt to Frenchmen in distress—consigned one or two hogsheads of tobacco to the Marquess, (I believe it was two, but am uncertain,) and, moreover, when in 1824, he reached this country, with shattered fortunes, sent him to New York, a check for the full sum of four hundred dollars, which he retained till he reached Philadelphia, and was very reluctant to use, and finally consented only at my earnest instance.
1 It is due to myself to state, that though this was in every sense of the word a gift, I regarded it as a loan, payable to the Marquess's countrymen, according to the exalted sentiment of Dr. Franklin, who, when he presented a bill for ten pounds to the Rev. Mr. Nixon, an Irish Clergyman, (who was in distress in Paris, and wanted to migrate to America,) told him to pay the sum to any Americans whom he might find in distress, and thus "let good offices go round." I fully paid the debt to Frenchmen in distress—consigned one or two hogsheads of tobacco to the Marquess, (I believe it was two, but am uncertain,) and, moreover, when in 1824, he reached this country, with shattered fortunes, sent him to New York, a check for the full sum of four hundred dollars, which he retained till he reached Philadelphia, and was very reluctant to use, and finally consented only at my earnest instance.
The annexed little anecdote, which Mr. Carey justly considers an instance of the truest pathos, we must be pardoned for inserting as an appropriate pendant to the above.
To an importunate mendicant, whom I had sometimes relieved, I said one day, on giving him a trifle—"Do not let me see you again for a long time." He conformed to the direction, and refrained from applying for about seven months. At length he ventured to bring and hand me a billet, of which I annex a copy verbatim et literatim.
"Sir—You desired me, last time you relieved me, not to call for a long time. It was a few days after Easter. To a wretch in distress 'it is a very long time.'
Yours gratefully,
Nov. 14.
R. W."
At page 21, is an account of a publication, some of whose predictions were certainly imbued with a rare spirit of prophecy.
In October 1786, I commenced, in partnership with T. Siddons, Charles Cist, C. Talbot, W. Spotswood, and J. Trenchard, the Columbian Magazine. In the first number, I wrote four pieces, "The Life of General Greene," "The Shipwreck, a Lamentable Story, Founded on Fact," "A Philosophical Dream," and "Hard Times, a Fragment."
The Philosophical Dream was an anticipation of the state of the country in the year 1850, on the plan of Mercier's celebrated work, "The Year 2500." Some of the predictions, which at that period must have been regarded as farcical, have been wonderfully fulfilled, and others are likely to be realized previous to the arrival of the year 1850. I annex a few of them, which may serve to amuse the reader.
"Pittsburg, Jan. 15, 1850. The canal which is making from the river Ohio, to the Susquehanna, and thence to the Delaware, will be of immense advantage to the United States. If the same progress continues to be made hereafter as has been for some time past, it will be completed in less than two years."
This was probably the first suggestion of the grand project of uniting the waters of the Delaware with those of the Ohio. It preceded by four years the project of the financier, Robert Morris, and his friends, to unite the Delaware with the Schuylkill and the Susquehanna, which was broached in 1790.
"Pittsburg, Jan. 15. Delegates from the thirtieth new state, laid off a few months since by order of Congress, lately arrived at Columbia; and on producing their credentials, were received into the Federal Council.
"Charleston, April 15. No less than 10,000 blacks have been transported from this state and Virginia, during the last two years, to Africa, where they have formed a settlement near the mouth of the river Goree. Very few blacks remain in this country now: and we sincerely hope that in a few years every vestige of the infamous traffic carried on by our ancestors in the human species, will be done away.
"Richmond, April 30. By authentic advices from Kentucky, we are informed,—that 'no less than 150 vessels have been built on the river Ohio, during the last year, and sent down that river and the Mississippi, laden with valuable produce, which has been carried to the West Indies, where the vessels and their cargoes have been disposed of to great advantage.'
"Boston, April 30. At length the canal across the Isthmus of Darien is completed. It is about sixty miles long. First-rate vessels of war can with ease sail through. Two vessels belonging to this port, two to Philadelphia, and one to New York, sailed through on the 20th of January last, bound for Canton, in China.
"Columbia, May 1. Extract from the Journals of Congress.—'Ordered that there be twenty professors in the University of Columbia, in this city; viz. of Divinity, of Church History, of Hebrew, of Greek, of Humanity, of Logic, of Moral Philosophy, of Natural Philosophy, of Mathematics, of Civil History, of Natural History, of Common and Civil Law, of the Law of Nature and Nations, of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, of Botany, of Materia Medica, of Physic, of Chemistry, of Anatomy, and of Midwifery.'"
Philadelphia, Oct. 1, 1786.
There is much characteristic simplicity in Mr. Carey's manner of telling the anecdote annexed.
In travelling from New York to Philadelphia, some years since, the slenderness of my knowledge of the French led me into a most egregious error, and excited the displeasure of a splendid French lady who was in the stage. She had lived a long time in New York, and yet spoke the English language very imperfectly. I told her she ought to speak English constantly, when she was in company with English or Americans: that this was the only way in which she could acquire it. "Monsieur," says she, "j'ai honte," I am ashamed; literally, "I have shame." Reiterating her own word, I replied, "Madame, je croyais que les dames Françoises n' avaient pas de honte"—whereas I ought to have said, as I really meant, "mauvaise honte." She was exasperated, and told me indignantly that the French ladies had as much "shame" (meaning modesty) as the Americans; and that there was more immorality practised in New York than in Marseilles, of which she was a native, or in Martinique, where she had long resided. It was in vain that I repeatedly pledged my honor that I had not meant to affront her; that I was led into error solely by repeating her own word. It was equally in vain that I appealed to some of the passengers who understood French, who testified that the mistake was perfectly natural, and was justified by the imperfection of my knowledge of her language. Nothing could pacify her, and after several vain attempts, I relinquished the hope of soothing her feelings, and she scarcely spoke another word during the rest of the journey.