Robert Toombs stood deservedly high in the traitorous cabal in the Senate; for, to a bold and energetic spirit, great arrogance of manner, and activity, he added a powerful mind and a clear head. In the street, he would strike you as a self-conceited, bullying, contemptuous person, with brains in the inverse proportion to his body, which was large and apparently strong. His manner, when addressing the Senators, had indeed much of an overbearing and insolent spirit; but the impression, in regard to his character, after hearing him speak, was much better than before. There was an indication of strength behind the bullying, blustering air which he put on, which raised one's respect for his attainments. One of the most rabid and uncompromising of secession leaders, and bigoted in his hatred of the North, he was yet, in private, a courteous and hospitable gentleman, and, apparently at least, frank in the expression of opinion. Probably he had as little principle in political and social life as most of his associates in treason; while his great self-reliance, activity, and mental ability gave him a very high position in their confidence. He was tall and stout, though not corpulent; and was very negligent of his toilet and dress. Self-conceit was written on his countenance, and displayed itself in his arrogant assumptions of superiority. But his method of dealing with his Northern opponents was open and bold, although insolent and overbearing, and not like Hunter, Davis, and Benjamin, using ingenious sophistry and hidden sarcasm, cautiously smoothing over their real purpose, by rhetoric and elegant sentiment. Mr. Toombs became early an object of peculiar dislike to Northern men, by the rude ingenuousness with which he announced the last conclusions of his political creed, and the intolerable insolence with which, not heeding the admonitions of his more cautious confederates, he thundered out his anathemas of hatred and vengeance on what he was pleased to call 'Northern tyranny.' It was only when the crisis came, that others unfolded together their base character and their hypocrisy. Davis, who had been fondled by New-Englanders but a year or two since, and Hunter, who had cried for peace and compromise, standing forth at last in the true light of traitors, and thereby proclaiming their past life a game of hypocrisy. Toombs, therefore, who was an original fire-eater, and hence could not be called a hypocrite, has become less an object of hatred to us of the loyal States, than those who, while they sat at the cabinet councils, or were admitted to the confidence of the Executive, or were sent to foreign courts, or presided over the Upper House, were using the power of such high trusts for the consummation of a conspiracy against their country, yet retaining the cant of patriotism and feigning a devotion to the Union. We have dwelt almost exclusively, in the present chapter, upon Senators whose highest honors have been tarnished or obliterated by the gravest of crimes, that of treason toward a vast community. But it has been with the idea that the least should be presented first, and that the greater should close the scene; as in royal processions, the monarch always brings up the rear. We conceive that the great talents which we have acknowledged, and which doubtless all will agree with us in acknowledging, the leaders of the Southern rebellion to possess, only enhance the magnitude of their offense, and serve to illustrate with greater force the enormity of their purposes. That a brainless fanatic like Lord George Gordon, or the Neapolitan fisherman, Massaniello, should stir up tremendous agitation, may be matter for critical study, but is hardly a subject of wonder. But that men gifted with exalted ability, undoubted caution, well-balanced intellect, and apparently refined reason, all of which have been appreciated and acknowledged, should propound an erroneous doctrine of a chaotic system, and proceed to the violence of civil war, on what they must know to be a false and heretical plea, can only remind us of those devils who have been pictured by the matchless art of Milton, of Dante, and of Goethe, as possessing stately intellects with perfectly vicious hearts. We propose, in a future number, if these remarks on public characters are acceptable, to continue our remarks, by introducing the loyal Senators of the last Congress, a band of men who will be found to equal in talent, and immeasurably to surpass in moral rectitude and earnest patriotism, the bad company from whom we now part.
MACCARONI AND CANVAS.
V.
THE GRECO.
The Café Greco, like the belle of many seasons, lights up best at night. In morning, in deshabille, not all the venerability of its age can make it respectable. Caper declares that on a fresh, sparkling day, in the merry spring-time, he once really enjoyed a very early breakfast there; and that, with the windows of the Omnibus-room open, the fresh air blowing in, and the sight of a pretty girl at the fourth-story window of a neighboring house, feeding a bird and tending a rose-bush, the old café was rose-colored.
This may be so; but seven o'clock in the evening was the time when the Greco was in its prime. Then the front-room was filled with Germans, the second room with Russians and English, the third room—the Omnibus—with Americans, English, and French, and the fourth, or back-room, was brown with Spaniards. The Italians were there, in one or two rooms, but in a minority; only those who affected the English showed themselves, and aired their knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon tongue and habits.
'I habituate myself,' said a red-haired Italian of the Greco to Caper, 'to the English customs. I myself lave with hot water from foot to head, one time in three weeks, like the English. It is an idea of the most superb, and they tell me I am truly English for so performing. I have not yet arrive to perfection in the lessons of box, but I have a smart cove of a bool-dog.'
Caper told him that his resemblance to an English 'gent' was perfect, at which the Italian, ignorant of the meaning of that fearful word, smiled assent.
The waiter has hardly brought you your small cup of caffe nero, and you are preparing to light a cigar, to smoke while you drink your coffee, when there comes before you a wandering bouquet-seller. It is, perhaps, the dead of winter; long icicles are hanging from fountains, over which hang frosted oranges, frozen myrtles, and frost-nipped olives, Alas! such things are seen in Rome; and yet, for a dime you are offered a bouquet of camellia japonicas. By the way, the name camellia is derived from Camellas, a learned Jesuit; probably La Dame aux Camélias had not a similar origin. You don't want the flowers.