NEWPORT, FROM FORT ADAMS.
[CHAPTER XXII.]
NEWPORT OF AQUIDNECK.
"This castle hath a pleasant seat: the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses."—Macbeth.
Newport is an equivoque. It is old, and yet not; grave, though gay; opulent and poor; splendid and mean; populous or deserted. As the only place in New England where those who flee from one city are content to inhabit another, it is anomalous.
In his "Trois Mousquetaires" Alexander Dumas makes his giant, Porthos, encounter a ludicrous adventure. The guardsman is the complacent possessor of a magnificent golden sword-belt, the envy of his comrades, until on one unlucky day it is discovered that the half concealed beneath his cloak is nothing but leather; whereupon some sword-thrusts occur. It was M. Besmeaux, afterward governor of the Bastile, who was the real hero of the sword-belt—half gold, half leather—that Dumas has hung on the shoulders of his gigantic guardsman.
Newport's ocean side is belted with modern villas, costly, showy, and ornate. They mask the town in splendid succession, as if each had been built to surpass its neighbor. This is the Newport of to-day. Behind it, old, gray, and commonplace by comparison, is the Newport of other days. The difference between the two is very marked. The old town is the effete body into which the new is infusing young blood, warming and invigorating it into new life. If the figure were permissible, we should say the Queen of Aquidneck had drunk of the elixir of life, so unexampled is the rapidity with which she transfigures herself.