[FN] Of more indeed than he was probably aware. Witness the following advertisement in the Boston papers:—
"Red-Jacket.—This celebrated Indian Chief, who has recently attracted so much attention at New-York and the Southern cities, has arrived in this city, and has accepted an invitation of the Superintendent to visit the New-England Museum, this evening, March 21, in his full Indian costume, attended by Captain Johnson, his interpreter, by whom those who wish it can be introduced and hold conversation with him."
Thy garb—though Austria's bosom-star would frighten That medal pale, as diamonds, the dark mine, And George the Fourth wore, in the dance at Brighton, A more becoming evening dress than thine;
Yet 'tis a brave one, scorning wind and weather, And fitted for thy couch on field and flood, As Rob Roy's tartans for the highland heather, Or forest green for England's Robin Hood.
Is strength a monarch's merit?—like a whaler's— Thou art as tall, as sinewy, and as strong As earth's first kings—the Argo's gallant sailors— Heroes in history, and gods in song.
Those strictly personal attractions which most subserved his forensic success, are not unfairly delineated by the same elegant observer. And this is not the only civilized authority to the same effect, for one of the most distinguished public men of the State in which the Chieftain resided, was wont to say that the latter reminded him strongly of the celebrated orator of Roanoke, in his best estate, and that they two were the only orators of nature he had ever heard or seen. "Who will believe?"—-asks the poet—
. . . that, with a smile whose blessing Would, like the patriarch's, sooth a dying hour With voice as low, as gentle, and caressing, As e'er won maiden's lip in moonlight bower;
With look, like patient Job's, eschewing evil; With motions, graceful as a bird's in air; Thou art, in sober truth, the veriest devil That e'er clenched fingers in a captive's hair!
That in thy veins there springs a poison fountain, Deadlier than that which bathes the Upas tree; And in thy wrath a nursing cat o'mountain Is calm as her babe's sleep, compared with thee?