[TO BE CONTINUED.]
A WISH.
When thou, O Death! shalt wait
Without my gate—
Call not the porter out
With knock and shout:
But still unnoticed bide
The gate beside,
Till Sleep, my oft-time guest,
Doth come in quest
Of me. Quick after her,
Past bolt and bar,
Enter all silently.
Thenceforth for me
The gate thou mayest keep,
That calm-browed Sleep,
So often missed before,
Pass forth no more.
Henrietta R. Eliot.
MADAME PATTERSON-BONAPARTE.
Each year adds fresh interest to this remarkable woman, whose story has been rehearsed in every land, whose personal traits still afford food for social chronicle. Lady Morgan said, "She belongs to history; she lived with kings and princes, philosophers and artists; there is about her a perpetual curiosity and romance." Speeding on to a rounded century of life, she is still moved to eloquent agitation in reciting her wrongs, not merely those sustained at the hands of the Bonapartes, but those inflicted by her father. William Patterson, son of a farmer in Donegal county, Ireland, was at fourteen years of age sent to Philadelphia and placed in the counting-house of Samuel Jackson, a shipping merchant. In 1775 young Patterson embarked his property in vessels trading to France with returning cargoes of powder and arms, for need of which the colonies were crippled. The supply arrived at a critical time, Washington, then before Boston, not having powder wherewithal to fire a salute. Mr. Patterson stopped at the West Indies, where he soon made eighty thousand dollars, coming thence to Baltimore, where he soon acquired a million of dollars and high social position. These facts are minutely set forth in his will, a remarkable document in its complacent personal details. Cataloguing his own virtues, he says: "I have made the fortunes of some, saved others from ruin, and found bread and employment for thousands of my fellow-mortals; and no one could ever say to me, 'Neighbor and friend, you got the advantage of me, you acted ungenerously to me.' The conduct of my daughter Betsey has through life been so disobedient that in no instance has she ever consulted my opinion and feelings: her folly and misconduct have first to last cost me much money;" but yielding to the dictates of his large heart he bequeaths her from his great wealth a few paltry houses and his cellar of wine! De mortuis nil nisi bonum—a humane maxim; but when a man deposits in the public archives his autobiography, we are incited to inquire of what worth may be his self-laudation, and what the animus that winged from the grave so cruel a shaft at his child's good name. That he was of strict integrity in business relations, a citizen of no mean "credit and renown" is true, but beneath this respectable cloak we find on contemporary authority a man close and arbitrary in his family and by no means impeccable in morality. One incident lets in light on his amiable domestic relations. His wife having long expressed a wish for a carriage, he at length imported an English chariot, but no horses were forthcoming, and in answer to her remonstrances he said, "I never promised you any horses;" so the chariot remained in the coach-house for the rest of his life.
Mrs. Patterson came of that sturdy, independent Scotch-Irish race that has peopled Pennsylvania's prosperous valleys. Her grandmother, Mrs. Galbraith, was of remarkable force of character, taking a prominent part in Revolutionary stir, and on one occasion traversing on horseback the then almost wilderness to canvass votes for her husband's election to the Assembly, which she won—whether by robust argument or in the felicitous way of the beautiful duchess of Devonshire is not recorded. To Mrs. Patterson—tender, religious and well cultured—her daughter owes her familiarity with English and French classics, becoming versed in the literature of Queen Anne's Augustan age, and able when ten years old to recite from memory a large portion of that tough morsel, Young's Night Thoughts, a page of which she recently repeated to a friend with the remark that she "had not seen the poem for seventy-five years." She learned Rochefoucauld's Maxims by heart—an unfortunate guide, to whom doubtless she partly owes her cynical appreciation of human motives. She possessed a quick, logical mind and prodigious memory, while passing years developed sparkling wit, fascinating manners and woman's crown of beauty. This gifted child was repressed by her father with strange bitterness, as if unnaturally jealous of her talent. In what consisted her "folly, misconduct and disobedience"? The wayward self-will of a mere girl could hardly merit such stern reprisal. She had barely reached womanhood when she made the marriage on which his heart was set, which he instigated and urged forward, allured by the alliance of his name with that already reechoing through the world, although fully warned of the risk of his daughter being scorned by Napoleon. Previous to her marriage she said to her father, "Suppose the First Consul should refuse to receive me?"—"Do not fear," he replied: "you shall come back to me an honored daughter."