It needs but to add, in respect of the volume which we have been considering, that it is worthy of the name and fame of Cooper, and worthy of the name and fame of his present publishers.
[EDITOR'S TABLE.]
Editorial Historical Narrative of the Knickerbocker Magazine: Number Nineteen.—Our last number of this 'Narrative-History' was shorter by some eight pages than its predecessors: so that we had no space to finish our consideration of the 'Ollapodiana Papers,' which we now resume, in connection with other early writings for the Knickerbocker. The few brief passages which we quoted, did not afford a fair example of the variety, the change of mood and manner which this short but admirable series displayed. A passage in the remarks of the author of the paper in the last North-British Review,' elsewhere noticed in these pages, admirably and truly represents the characteristics of Willis Gaylord Clark's mind and pen, in these popular papers: 'The man who can laugh as well as weep is most a man. The greatest humorists have also been the most serious seers, and men of most earnest heart. And all those who have manifested the finest perfection of spiritual health have enjoyed the merry sun-shine of life, and wrought their work with a spirit of blithe bravery.' The very last chapter of 'Ollapodiana,' written when the writer was prostrated by the illness from which he never recovered, was as felicitous and mirth-moving as any of the numbers which preceded it: and yet the pathos which characterized his sadder musings, as he drew near and nearer to the grave, failed not to draw tears from many a sympathetic soul. We pass to a few more brief and characteristic passages.
As Willis approached the end of his earthly pilgrimage, his thoughts grew solemn, deep, mournful possibly, but yet not sad. Thus he says, in the last number but one of Ollapodiana:
'It is no long time, respected reader, since we communed together. Yet, how many matters have happened since that period, which should give us pause, and solemn meditation! We are still extant; the beams of our spirit still shine from our eyes; yet there are many who, since last my sentences came to yours, have drooped their lids forever upon things of earth. Numberless ties have been severed; numberless hearts rest from their pantings, and sleep, 'no more to fold the robe o'er secret pain.' All the deceits, the masks of life, are ended with them. Policy no more bids them to kindle the eye with deceitful lustre; no more prompts to semblance, which feeling condemns. They are gone!—'ashes to ashes, and dust to dust;' and when I think of the numbers who thus pass away, I am pained within me; for I know from them that our life is not only as a dream which passeth away, but that the garniture, or the carnival of it, is indeed a vapor, sun-gilt for a moment, then colored with the dun hues of death, or stretching its dim folds afar, until their remotest outlines catch the imperishable glory of eternity. Such is life; made up of successful or successless accidents; its movers and actors, from the cradle to three-score-and-ten, pushed about by Fate not their own; aspiring but impotent; impelled as by visions, and rapt in a dream—which who can dispel?'
We cite the following here, to show still farther the solemnity of his musings, and mellifluous perfection of his versification. Mark how the liquid sounds melt into melody in the lines which ensue:
'You must know, reader, that there lieth, some three miles or so from Brotherly Love—a city of this continent, a delectable city—a place of burial, 'Laurel Hill' by name. On a sweeter spot the great sun never threw the day-spring of the morning, nor the blush of the evening west. There the odors and colors of nature profusely repose; there, to rest of a spring or summer afternoon, on some rural seat, looking at trees, and dancing waters, and the like, you would wonder at that curious question addressed of Dean Swift, on his death-bed, to a friend at his side: 'Did you ever know of any really good weather in this world?' You would take the affirmative. Well, thus I sang:
'Here the lamented dead in dust shall lie,
Life's lingering languors o'er—its labors done;
Where waving boughs, betwixt the earth and sky,
Admit the farewell radiance of the sun.'Here the long concourse from the murmuring town,
With funeral pace and slow, shall enter in;
To lay the loved in tranquil silence down,
No more to suffer, and no more to sin.'And here the impressive stone, engraved with words
Which Grief sententious gives to marble pale,
Shall teach the heart, while waters, leaves and birds
Make cheerful music in the passing gale.'Say, wherefore should we weep, and wherefore pour
On scented airs the unavailing sigh—
While sun-bright waves are quivering to the shore,
And landscapes blooming—that the loved should die?'There is an emblem in this peaceful scene:
Soon, rainbow colors on the woods will fall;
And autumn gusts bereave the hills of green,
As sinks the year to meet its cloudy pall.'Then, cold and pale, in distant vistas round,
Disrobed and tuneless, all the woods will stand:
While the chained streams are silent as the ground,
As death had numbed them with his icy hand.'Yet, when the warm soft winds shall rise in spring,
Like struggling day-beams o'er a blasted heath;
The bird returned shall poise her golden wing,
And liberal nature break the spell of death.'So, when the tomb's dull silence finds an end,
The blessed Dead to endless youth shall rise;
And hear the archangel's thrilling summons blend
Its tones with anthems from the upper skies.'There shall the good of earth be found at last,
Where dazzling streams and vernal fields expand;
Where Love her crown attains—her trials past—
And, filled with rapture, hails the better land!''Thus I strummed the old harpsichord, from which I have aforetime, at drowsy hours and midnight intervals, extracted a few accidental numbers, (more pleasant doubtless to beget than read,) 'sleepless myself, to give to others sleep!''
'Well, that is the only way to write without fatigue, both to author and reader. In all that pertains to the petty businesses which bow us to the routine of this work-day world, I am as it were at home. I am distinctly a mover in the great tide of Action sweeping on around me; yet when I enter into the sanctuary of the Muses, lo! at one wave of the spiritual wand, this 'dim and ignorant present' disappears. I breathe a rarer atmosphere. Visions of childhood throng upon my soul; the blue mountain-tops; the aerial circles of far-off landscapes; the hazy horizon of ocean-waters; the wind-tossed verdure of summer; the hills that burst into singing; and the sweet harmonies of nature—Universal Parent!—all appeal to my spirit. This dismemberment of the ideal from the actual, is a fountain of enjoyment, which whoso knows not, has yet the brightest lessons of life to learn. He has yet to enter that fairy dominion which seems the intermediate territory betwixt the airy realms conceived of in this world, and the more radiant glories of the 'undiscovered country.''
Yet in the succeeding number we find the writer indulging in such whimsical imaginings as the following: