Various

Although Anna was really much pleased with the majority of her new acquaintances, their manners and conversation, as also their style of dress, so entirely different from what she had been accustomed to, did not escape her criticism, yet, for the sake of her husband, she was resolved to overcome her prejudices, if so they might be called.

Speaking of them one day to Rupert, she said:

“No doubt they are very excellent, worthy people, but it does not appear to me now that I can ever really learn to take any pleasure in their society—yet I hope I shall always treat them with perfect politeness, and kindness too, for they are very warm friends of yours, Rupert.”

“Thank you, Anna—they are indeed good friends of mine, and so will they be, too, of yours, when they know you better; and you also, my dearest, will find that beneath their plain exterior and homely speech they have warm hearts, and minds far above many of those who figure largely in what is termed the best society.”

“I do not doubt it, Rupert,” replied Anna. “Well, I must try to conform myself to their habits, I see, and for your sake I hope they will love me, for it is very plain to me, from some words which one of the good ladies accidentally let fall, that they consider me now a most useless, unprofitable wife—a mere image for a toy-shop, and that I shall prove a perfect stumbling-block in the way of my dear husband’s advancement. Now tell me,” she continued, and tears filled her beautiful eyes, “what can I do to gain their friendship, and convince them that I prize my dear Rupert’s respect and affection too highly not to exert myself to be worthy of them—tell me, Rupert, what I can do?”

“Act yourself, my darling wife,” said Rupert, kissing her, “be as you ever are, kind and lovely. It is true many of my best friends do not approve of my choice, but do not trouble yourself about their approbation—only act in your new sphere as your own good sense and native kindness prompts you, and you will be sure of it. I sometimes think it was cruel in me to woo you away from your home of splendor to this retired, uncongenial spot. I fear you can never be really happy here, and in spite of your love for me, will often sigh for the luxuries you so cheerfully gave up for my sake.”

“O say not so, dear Rupert—I shall be most happy here, indeed I shall—with your love and approbation how can I be otherwise—they will stimulate me to conquer many false notions, inherent from my cradle. I will not deny,” continued Anna, “for I scorn evasion, and will make a clean breast of my follies, that I have already fancied the necessity of many things to render me even comfortable—you smile, Rupert, and there have been moments of ennui, when I have felt almost contempt for things around me—I have even given way to anger at what I at first supposed insolence in Kitty. She is, to be sure, a rough, unmannerly girl, but it is because she has never been taught better; I know she has a kind heart, and that with a little management I shall soon be able to convince her of the impropriety of many things she now does from ignorance—not willfulness.”

“You must be cautious, Anna—Kitty will take umbrage at the slightest hint, and be off without a moment’s warning.”

“No, I think better of her,” said Anna. “We shall see. I have been thinking,” she continued, “how much many mothers are to be blamed for not better preparing their daughters for the duties of domestic life—that sphere where a woman’s usefulness and influence are most felt. There is no denying that almost before little Miss slips her leading-strings, she is taught to regard marriage as the chief aim of her life—she is taught to sing and dance—she has drawing-masters and music-masters, French and Italian—and for what reason? Why is she kept six hours at the piano, and scarcely allowed to speak her mother tongue?—why, that she may get married! That object cared for—the future is left a blank—”

“Yes,” interrupted Rupert, “very much like rigging out a ship with silken sails and tinseled cordage, and then sending her forth on a long voyage without provisions!”

“Exactly, Rupert. To my mind housekeeping in all its branches should be considered as much of an accomplishment in the education of young ladies, as a perfect knowledge of music or any of the fine arts! Had my parents spent one quarter the time and expense upon my acquirements as a wife, which they did to render me fashionable and agreeable in the fastidious eyes of their world, how much better satisfied I should feel—how much more confidence that I have not imposed upon your affection by a total unfitness for the duties of a wife—indeed, my dear Rupert,” said Anna, smiling, “you ran a great risk when you fell in love with me!”

We will not trace the daily walk of our heroine further, but leave it to the reader to fancy from what has already been said, how thickly the thorns mingled with the roses on her path of new married life!

But at the close of one year mark the result—one year of patient trial to our young wife! Many vexations, both real and imaginary, had been hers, yet she loved her husband, and resolved to overcome all the errors of her education, that she might be to him the helpmate—the friend—the beloved companion she felt he deserved. Where there is a will, it is said, there is always a way, and Anna bravely conquered the difficulties which at first presented themselves. Even those who most criticised her first attempts at housekeeping might now have taken lessons themselves from the neatness and order which reigned throughout her establishment.

The rebellious Kitty yielded gradually to the gentle dominion of her charming mistress. Miss Krout sweetened her vinegar visage, and even presented Anna with a jar of pickles of her own preparation, while Mrs. Peerabout acknowledged that the “Doctor’s city wife was wonderful—considerin’!”

May my simple story encourage the young wife to meet those trials in her domestic path, from which none are wholly exempt, with patience and meekness—let her remember that “Love considereth not itself,” and

“That if ye will be happy in marriage,

Confide, love, and be patient: be faithful, firm, and holy.”

WITH AN ENGRAVING.

The Harpers have issued this charming book in a form of appropriate elegance. The paper, printing, binding, and illustrations are all that could be desired. Few volumes have been published during the season more worthy of a place upon the parlor table. The title of the book hardly conveys an idea of its full contents. It is in fact biographical and critical as well as descriptive, and portrays the poets in their homes and haunts, giving copious extracts from their writings, illustrative of their personal character, and tracing the history of their minds as they were influenced by events and circumstances. It must have cost the author much time and labor. Facts and anecdotes have been carefully culled from a wide variety of books, and England, Scotland and Ireland have been personally explored in search of the “homes and haunts.” The latter are described from the author’s own observations. Much interest is given to this portion of the work by a detail of the curious little adventures which occurred to the author in his wanderings, and the strange sort of prosers he found domesticated among places and scenes consecrated by song.

In criticising the writings and character of his band of poets, Howitt is often acute and sympathizing, but occasionally allows his own passions and prejudices to pervert his view. The chapter on Southey is an instance. Howitt is a liberal of the extreme school, and is consequently much of a bigot in politics and religion. Many uncharitable judgments, much heedless invective, and some mean malice, deform his volumes. We should judge him, in spite of his Quaker coat, to be proud and revengeful, and very impudent. The latter quality is as manifest in his praise as denunciation. Were we unfortunate enough to be a living poet, and Mr. Howitt unfortunate enough to include us in his collection, we should have a strange inclination to “insert” a dagger into him, or contrive in some way to break his neck. There is no delicacy in his personal references. Those qualities which make the book piquant to the reader, must be very offensive to the objects of its blame or eulogy. Mr. Howitt tells a great many things and hazards a great many conjectures, in regard to the personal character of late and living poets, which are at once exceedingly interesting and impertinent. To read these portions of his volumes is like getting information from a spy. We devour the narrative and despise the narrator.

The book contains chapters on Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, Cowley, Milton, Butler, Dryden, Addison, Gay, Pope, Swift, Thomson, Shenstone, Gray, Goldsmith, Burns, Cowper, Keats, Shelley, Byron, Coleridge, Scott, Mrs. Hemans, Campbell, Southey, Wordsworth, Wilson, Moore, Rogers, Elliott, Landor, Tennyson, and some dozen others. It will be seen that the work is large in its subject, and that the materials are ample. It would not be fair to test the book by its value as literary history or criticism, though these are largely mixed up with the descriptive portions; but considered as a brilliant series of sketches, half way between familiar chat and refined delineation, it has very great merits, and is full of interest. Some of the anecdotes are excellent. At Stratford, Mr. Howitt saw in a country school a little boy of ten years old, who turned out to be a descendant of Shakspeare’s sister Joan. The father of the lad was wretchedly poor, and kept a low dram shop. Mr. Howitt gave the boy sixpence, and told him he hoped he would make as great a man as his ancestor. The money created a strong sensation in the school, and young Will became a lion. When Howitt was seen in the streets afterward, he was pointed out by the boys as “that gentleman who gave Bill Shakspeare sixpence.”

The chapter on Crabbe is well done. There is one anecdote given about Lord Thurlow, which had escaped our memory. When he presented Crabbe a couple of livings in the church, he accompanied it by the characteristic remark—“By —, you are as like Parson Adams as twelve to a dozen.” The account of Coleridge is replete with anecdotes of his earlier life and his family. His father, an Episcopal clergyman, was a miracle of absent mindedness. His wife once directed him, when he went on a journey, to put on a clean shirt every day. He followed her orders literally, but forgot to remove the one underneath. He came back six-shirt deep. In his sermons he gained vast reputation among the poor and ignorant by quoting Hebrew liberally, they thinking themselves especially favored in hearing “the very words the Spirit spoke in.” For his successor, who addressed them in simple English, they entertained a kind of contempt. At school young Coleridge was very miserable. The author of Cristobel was there a martyr to the itch. His appearance as a boy is indicated by the opinion expressed of him by his master after a whipping. “The lad was so ordinary a looking lad, with his black head, that I generally gave him at the end of a flogging an extra cut; for,” said he, turning to Coleridge, “you are such an ugly fellow.” Coleridge’s first attempt at verse was in commemoration of his maladies at the age of ten:

Tad is schoolboyese for ringworm.

When Coleridge left college he enlisted as a common soldier in the dragoons, under the name of Silas Tomken Comberbache. “Do you think,” said the examining officer, “you could run a Frenchman through the body?” “I don’t know,” replied Coleridge, “as I never tried; but I’ll let a Frenchman run me through before I’ll run away.” “That will do,” was the answer of the officer. He was so bad a horseman that the drill-sergeant had continually to warn the members of his squad—“Take care of that Comberbache! take care of him, for he will rids over you!”

In the chapter on Wordsworth there is a very ingenious attempt to prove the poet a Quaker, both in the doctrine and spirit of his poetry. This is altogether the best thing in the book, and to a high-churchman, like Wordsworth, must be very gratifying. Howitt makes out a good case. At the end he asserts that the writings of the old Quakers “are one mass of Wordsworthianisms.” In some particulars, it is asserted Wordsworth hath not reached the moral elevation of his masters; as in regard to war, “he is martial, and thinks Slaughter God’s daughter. They, very sensibly, set Slaughter down as the daughter of a very opposite personage.”

It would be easy to quote a hundred anecdotes from these volumes, interesting either in themselves, or from their relation to interesting persons. We must, however, refer the reader to the book itself, and can guarantee him a large fund of enjoyment from its perusal.

The best of these poems are but of average ability, and together they make but an indifferent volume. They are deficient in fancy, imagination, melody and originality—four qualities of some importance to the reader, if not to the writer. Mr. Calvert is a scholar, a traveler, has studied the best writers of England, Germany and Italy, has had every advantage of mental culture, and yet has committed the impropriety of publishing a volume which would give no reputation to the poet of a village newspaper. Better things than he has included in his collection are born and forgotten every day. The most readable pieces in the volume are the translations from Goethe. We give a few specimens:

Mr. Calvert has given a few epigrams of his own. The following has point:

Here is a hit at “great statesmen,” a kind of sharp-shooting very popular with literateurs, who are unable to manage men as they can words and verses:

If a reviewer were malicious, he might turn the reasoning in the last line against the author, and conclude that the philosophy it so concisely expresses, made him hope that the world could not do without his own poems.

The popularity of this book in France has been very great. The present translation is from the fourteenth Paris edition, and shines with the author’s last polishing touches. The introductory essay by Headley, on the rise of French Revolutionary eloquence, and the orators of the Girondists, contains much information which the reader of the sketches will find useful. Mr. Colton has ably edited the work, and supplied some fifty pages of biographical addenda.

The work itself is written in sharp, snapping style, each sentence exploding like a percussion cap, and abundantly charged with French enthusiasm and French affectation. The translator has happily seized the spirit of the book, especially its tone of military precision and authoritativeness. The work is comprehensive in its subjects, sketching the prominent orators of the Constituent Assembly, the Convention, the Empire, the Restoration, and the Revolution of July. The portraits of Mirabeau, Danton, Napoleon, M. de Serre, General Foy, Constant, Royer Collard, Manuel, Sauzet, La Fayette, Odillon-Barrot, Dupin, Berryer, Lamartine, Guizot and Thiers, are exceedingly interesting, as introducing us to men who are familiar to everybody by name, but of whose personal appearance and style of oratory few readers have had an opportunity of knowing much, from the descriptions of an independent eye and ear witness. The volume is very readable in spite of its affected conciseness and elaborate rhodomontade, and we have little doubt conveys many accurate impressions of the French politicians and orators whose merits it discusses. We know of few volumes better calculated to give the reader a notion of the modern French mind. Where the author, however, criticises politicians to whom he is opposed in principle, he falls generally short of his mark. He has little notion of the meaning of wisdom as applied to action.

This is an excellent edition of a most valuable and fascinating biography. Its diction has all the charm of Southey’s fluent and graceful style, and the subject is made intensely interesting by the singular felicity of its treatment. No person who has in his nature the slightest religious feeling can read the book without instruction and delight. The present edition is enriched with the notes and observations which Coleridge penciled in his copy of the work. They are exceedingly characteristic, and worth all the rest of the notes put together. The American editor’s remarks are often presumptuous and out of place. They serve no good purpose, except in a few instances where they correct some mistake in matters of fact. As a whole, however, the edition is a very good one, and may be said to supplant all others. It will doubtless have a vast circulation, not merely among the Methodists, but among all classes, literary and sectarian. We will guarantee that no reader who once commences the book can leave it unfinished. It is as interesting as one of Scott’s novels.

This is a captivating little volume, half way between a book for men and a book for boys. It is full of information and interesting anecdotes, contains a number of elegant illustrations, and is written in a style of much simplicity and clearness. The author almost exhausts the subject for the general reader. That portion devoted to the turf is especially racy. The intelligence and humanity of the noble animal have full justice done to them. The volume might be called a voice from the animal kingdom.

The author of this volume is one of those who write history, not from books or hearsay, but from direct observation of events, or from a connection with the actors. The work has, therefore, great value and great freshness. To all who are interested in the vast region to which it relates, it presents strong claims to attention.

Transcriber’s Notes:

Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience. Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Obvious typesetting and punctuation errors have been corrected without note. Other errors have been corrected as noted below. For illustrations, some caption text may be missing or incomplete due to condition of the originals available for preparation of the eBook.

[End of Graham’s Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 2, August 1847]