. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Then come the various men of business, exhibiting at once
The lowly, the wretched, the rich man, the proud and haughty,
And all the different degrees of life that mark the creature man.
All hastening, each intent upon his calling,
Some to follow Pleasure's giddy path, and to tread
The ways of folly, reckless, and unmindful of the duty
Which they owe unto their Maker, and their fellow man.'
Now the feeling, the moral, of this, is quite creditable to the writer's heart; but the poetry! 'beg you wouldn't mention it!' * * * Thanks to Hon. Chief Justice Gibson of Pennsylvania, and his brother of the bench, Mr. Justice Rogers, for the honor they have done to the memory of that glorious comedian, 'Old Jefferson!' We cannot quote the inscription upon his new monument, without rendering our own feeble tribute to his genius. The best idea that we have ever seen given of his style is by a writer in the 'Spirit of the Times,' who remarks that 'he was in broad English comedy what Power was in his Irish parts.' This is exactly the comparison. Who that has once seen Jefferson's Dogberry, can ever forget it? What a look he had for the 'malefactors,' when he left 'the bench' to 'examination those plaintiffs' more nearly!—with his white hair, his long nose, and that incomparable eye-brow of his, retreating up his forehead! Why, we are guffawing this moment at the very recollection of the picture! He used to have a part also in a play called 'Who's the Dupe?' if we remember rightly, which was irresistibly comic. A learned student, in love with his daughter, is pitted against a dashing but uneducated young blood, in a recitation in different languages; in which the composite lingo of the latter, in the eyes of the old gentleman, bears away the palm altogether. The old ignoramus's enthusiasm, as the 'words of learned length and thundering sound' come pouring forth, was only eclipsed in humor by the gratification of his antiquarian propensities, in the possession of an old rusty hand-saw, a pair of skeleton tongs, and a rickety gridiron, which he bears triumphantly upon the stage, all having their 'precious past,' and the latter especially venerable for having been employed as a model of the Escurial, by the architect of that edifice! Mr. Washington Irving once remarked to us, in reply to an inquiry whether he had ever seen 'Old Jefferson,' that he had seen him often; and that he had scarcely ever seen his equal, for naturalness of manner and quiet humor, and never his superior in the perfect manner in which he dressed his characters. But we are keeping the reader from the inscription upon his tomb in the Episcopal cemetery at Harrisburg, on the banks of the Susquehannah; 'as beautiful a spot as the god of day ever shone upon:' 'Beneath this marble are deposited the ashes of Joseph Jefferson; an actor whose unrivalled powers took in the whole extent of comic character, from Pathos to heart-shaking Mirth. His coloring was that of Nature; warm, fresh, and enriched with the finest conceptions of genius. He was a member of the Chestnut-street Theatre, Philadelphia, in its high and palmy days; and the compeer of Cooper, Wood, Warren, Francis, and a host of worthies, who like himself are remembered with admiration and praise. He died at Harrisburg, on the fourth of August, 1832, in the sixty-second year of his age.
'I knew him well, Horatio:
A fellow of infinite jest and most excellent fancy.'
We had the wish strong at our heart to oblige our young correspondent at Macon, Georgia. His poetry is 'tolerable,' certainly; but did he ever eat a 'tolerable egg?' There is some analogy in the 'articles.' * * * The stanzas entitled 'The Printer,' in preceding pages, have recalled to mind a few remarks of Ollapod upon 'Newspapers,' which we shall venture to quote in this connection: 'Commend me to a newspaper. Cowper had never seen one of our big sheets, when he called such four-paged folios 'maps of busy life.' They are more; they are life itself. Its ever sounding and resistless vox populi thunders through their columns, to cheer or to subdue, to elevate or to destroy. Let a man do a dirty action, and get his name and deed into the papers, and then go into the street, Broadway for example, and you will see his reception. Why is he shunned as if a noisome pestilence breathed around him? Why does each passer-by curl his lip, and regard him with scorn? Because they have seen the newspaper, and they know him. So, in a contrary degree, is it with honorable and gifted men. The news-prints keep their works and worth before the public eye, and when themselves appear, they are the observed of all observers. Hats are lifted at their approach, and strangers to whom they are pointed out gaze after them with reverence. Success to newspapers! They are liable, it is true, to abuse—as what blessing is not?—but they are noble benefits nevertheless. I have a strong attachment to them, because I deem them a kind of moral batteaux de plaisance, or rail-cars mayhap, wherein you can embark before breakfast, or after dinner, and survey the world and the kingdoms thereof. It is a cheap and right wholesome way of journeying.' * * * What curious things are the fictions of law! Did John Doe or Richard Roe ever make their personal appearance in any court? Were they ever once met in any house, street, or field, public or private? Nay, had they ever the good luck to be born? Who ever encountered Stiles or Jackson, those litigious rascals, who have been playing plaintiff and defendant for so many years, in processes of ejectment? Look too at the gross fibs in all indictments for assault and battery, to say nothing of their tautology. 'Do us the favor to observe:'
'For that the said defendant, on the first day of September, in the year of our Lord 1843, assaulted the said plaintiff, to wit, at New-York, in the county and state of New-York, and then and there spit in the face of the said plaintiff, and with great force and violence seized and laid hold of the said plaintiff by his nose, and greatly squeezed and pulled the same; and then and there plucked, pulled, and tore divers large quantities of hair from and off the head of the said plaintiff; and then and there, with a certain stick and with his fists gave and struck the said plaintiff a great many violent blows and strokes on and about divers parts of his body; and also then and there, with great force and violence, shook and pulled about the said plaintiff, and cast and threw the said plaintiff down to and upon the ground, and then and there violently kicked the said plaintiff, and gave and struck him a great many other blows and strokes; and also then and there, with great force and violence, rent, tore, and damaged the clothes and wearing apparel, to wit, one coat, one waistcoat, one pair of breeches, one cravat, one shirt, one pair of stockings, and one hat, of the said plaintiff, of great value, to wit, of the value of one hundred dollars, which the said plaintiff then and there wore, and was clothed with. By means of which said several premises, the said plaintiff was then and there greatly hurt, bruised, and wounded, and became and was sick, sore, lame, and disordered, and so remained and continued for a long space of time, to wit, for the space of three weeks, then next following; during all which time the said plaintiff thereby suffered and underwent great pain, and was hindered and prevented from performing and transacting his necessary affairs and business, by him during that time to be performed and transacted, and also thereby the said plaintiff was forced and obliged to, and did necessarily pay, lay out, and expend a large sum of money, to wit, the sum of fifty dollars, lawful money of the United States of America, in and about endeavoring to be cured of the bruises, wounds, sickness, soreness, lameness, and disorder aforesaid, occasioned as aforesaid.'
Quære? would the 'waistcoats,' 'breeches,' etc., be numbered, in the case of an old-fashioned Dutchman, wearing eight or ten of each? How are 'precedents' and the 'old English law' on this point? * * * The 'Meadow-Farm Papers' are brought to a conclusion in the present number. The reader will have been struck with the excellent inculcations of the writer, the evident honesty of his purpose, and the simple energy of his style. We thought of him, and the 'Association' he has described, while looking recently at an effective painting of the 'Sylvania Association' in Pike county, Pennsylvania. Whatever the reality may be, the sketch itself of the divided labors of the associated, in the picturesque region they have secured, is beautiful exceedingly. For a moment it rolled back the tide of time, and brought up anew those scenes of nature, the love of which was implanted in us in our youth. Oh! it is an incalculable, sacred blessing, to have lived in the country in boyhood; if for nothing else, that in after years glimpses of its soft green meadows, its breezy hills and leafy woods, may visit the eyes of the imagination, amidst the smoke and dust and din of the city! * * * 'High and Low Coachmen' has a good deal of humor, but we are sorry to say, a good deal also of irreverence for sacred things. We do not wish to speak with lightness of religion, although it would perhaps be 'doing evil that good might come,' in a clever satire like this upon sectarian controversy. It would seem, that at a meeting for granting licenses to several drivers, two old coachmen rise and protest against the admission of two candidates into the ranks of the 'Moral United Hackmen,' on the ground that they hold opinions in relation to coaches, and the driving of the same, which are entirely heretical, and contrary to the canons of the hackney fathers, 'from Jehu and the artist who drove the chariot and horses of Elisha, down to the most eminent coachmen of the present day.' For this charge, the 'Low Coachmen' 'fault' their opponents, (to use the pellucid grammar of modern controversialists,) but they won't be 'faulted' in that manner; and the whole 'establishment' is thus thrown into 'most admired disorder.' * * * A good deal of criticism has lately been expended upon the form and aspect of several of our public and private fountains; and especially upon that bit of 'chaste practice,' the big stone-heap in the Bowling-Green. Chantrey, in a letter to Sir Howard Douglas, has one or two thoughts, from which our Croton engineers, and those whose money employs them, may perhaps derive some hints worthy of consideration: 'I am not aware of any subject on which art has been employed that has given rise to so much costly nonsense and bad taste as fountains. Your idea of water spouting from holes and crevices in the rock-work is pleasing enough; but then rock-work is not fit for a pedestal; and I warn you against adopting the vulgar and disgusting notion of making animals spew water, or the more natural one of the little fountain at Brussels and Carrara. Avoid all these beastly things, whether natural or unnatural, and adopt the more classic and pleasing notion of the ancient river-god with his overflowing urn, the best emblem of abundance.' * * * Well-applied ridicule of that which is in itself ridiculous, and which 'will not, cannot come to good,' is we think justifiable; the end to be obtained sanctifies the means; and it was to such an end, no doubt, that the following rhapsody of strange but impressive vulgar eloquence was noted down by an auditor of a Methodist divine from Shropshire, preaching near Oxford, England, 'to an assembly of the profane.' In the midst of an illustration of 'mysteries suddenly unfolded, descending like lightning by the inspiration of the spirit, and illuminating the darkened soul; moaning old women, watchful with sobs and groans at every divine ejaculation to aid the heaving motions of the spirit, and take heaven by storm;' the minister bursts out into the following sentences: 'I am not one of your fashionable, fine-spoken, mealy-mouthed preachers; I tell you the plain truth. What are your pastimes? Cards and dice, fiddling and dancing, guzzling and guttling! Can you be saved by dice? No! Will the four knaves give you a passport to heaven? No! Can you fiddle yourselves into a good birth among the sheep? No! You will dance yourselves to damnation among the goats! You may guzzle wine here, but you'll want a drop of water to cool your tongues hereafter! Will the prophets say, 'Come here, gamester, and teach us the long odds?' 'Tis odds if they do! Will the martyrs rant and swear, and shuffle and cut with you? No! the martyrs are no shufflers. You will be cut in a way you little expect. Lucifer will come with his reapers and his sickles and forks, and you will be cut down and bound and pitched and carted and housed in hell! I will not oil my lips with lies to please you. I tell you the plain truth. Ammon and Mammon and Moloch are making Bethoron hot for you! Profane wretches! I have heard you wrangle and brawl, and tell one another before me, 'I'll see you d—d first!' But I tell you the day will come, when you will pray to Beelzebub to let you escape his clutches. And what will be his answer? 'I'll see you d—d first!' * * * The 'Evening Reveries of a Book-worm' we desired to publish, for the thoughts which the paper contains; but the style is too 'rambling and desultory;' it is confused. Take the last two pages, for example; the reflections upon 'those who have thought, written, printed, and died,' and see how inferior they are to the reflections contained in Southey's lines 'To my Library,' in an early number of the Knickerbocker:
'My thoughts are with the dead; with them
I live in long past years.
Their virtues love, their faults condemn,
Partake their hopes and fears;
And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with a humble mind.
'My hopes are with the dead; anon
My place with them will be,
And I with them shall travel on,
Through all futurity;
Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.'