Wilt thou take measure of such minds as those,
Or sound, with plummet-line, the Artist-Heart?
Mrs. Norton.
Its holy flame forever burneth,
From Heaven it came, to Heaven returneth;
Too oft on Earth a troubled guest,
At times deceived, at times opprest,
It here is tried and purified,
Then hath in Heaven its perfect rest!
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest time of Love is there.
Southey.
“Paul Talbot is in the city of wonders. Ivy-girdled ruins of the time-embalming Past are lying in the distance. Lofty cathedrals, rich in votive offerings of surpassing magnificence, surround him on every side. Stately palaces, their long galleries filled with the noblest works of the mighty minds of old, are baring their treasures to his gaze. The ‘dew-dropping coolness’ of the marble fountain, breathes new vigor into his frame. He is excited—bewildered—‘dazzled and drunk with beauty,’ and for weeks Paul wandered about Rome and its environs, half forgetful that his lot was still to struggle and to toil.
“When roused to action, he threw himself heart and soul into his art, and the consequence was a long and severe illness, brought on by that absorbing devotion which often kept him at his pursuits until the morning dawn peering into his room reminded him that he was weary and overtasked. For months he lay wasted by sickness, helpless at times as a feeble child, but nature triumphed over disease, and he wandered once more beneath the blue sky, and felt the kiss of the balmy air upon his pallid cheek.
“With a return to health, Paul returned with renewed ardor to his task, until the picture on which he had long and earnestly labored was at length completed. He had chosen for his subject a scene representing the Hermit Peter exhorting the people to join the crusaders. Standing in the midst, with one arm outstretched, and the other raised to heaven, was seen the enthusiast. On either side, were grouped mailed knights and stalwart forms, the tillers of the soil. One gentle lady, like the weeping Andromeda, was clinging to her lord, and a villager’s wife held up her child for his father’s last fond kiss. So animated and life-like was the figure of the preacher—so eager and intense the emotion betrayed by the assembled multitude—that you listened to hear the eloquence that roused all Europe, and sent prince, peer, and peasant to rescue the holy sepulchre from the hand of the Infidel, to cast down the crescent of Mohammed, and to raise the cross of Christ.
“And now came that fame for which the young painter had toiled, and to which he had looked forward as his highest guerdon. Crowds were daily drawn to his atelier, and artists who had themselves won a world-wide renown, bestowed their warmest praises upon the ‘Hermit’ of Paul Talbot.
“The following winter Paul passed in Florence, and there his picture was purchased by a Florentine merchant, at a price which relieved the artist from fear of pecuniary embarrassment. Paul was requested to visit the house of the merchant, and select the most fitting place to display the work of which the fortunate possessor was so justly proud. He went, and in the picture-gallery of the wealthy Florentine was opened a new page in the artist’s book of life.
“Poets and painters have ever an eye for beauty in women; and when Carlotta D. entered the apartment, leaning on the arm of her father, Paul started as if one of the bright visions of his ideal world stood suddenly embodied before him. The lady, too, was for a moment half-embarrassed—for the fame of the young painter had reached her ears, and, womanlike, she had been wondering if report spoke truly when it ascribed to him the dark clustering locks, and the lustrous eyes of her own sunny south.
‘Love’s not a flower that grows on the dull earth;
Springs by the calendar; must wait for sun—
For rain; matures by parts—must take its time
To stem, to leaf, to bud, to blow. It owns
A richer soil, and boasts a quicker seed!
You look for it and see it not: and lo!
E’en while you look the peerless flower is up,
Consummate in the birth!’
“Was it strange that Paul and Carlotta, both worshipers of the beautiful, with souls alive to the most holy sympathies of our nature, was it strange that they should love?
“Paul had hitherto lived for his art alone. Painting was the mistress he had ever wooed with intense passion, but now another claimed his homage, and he bowed with a fervor little less than idolatrous at woman’s shrine. Such a love could not long remain concealed. The father of Carlotta, a vain and purse-proud man, hoping by his wealth to obtain a husband for his daughter among some of the haughty but decayed nobility, frowned on the artist, and forbade him his house. In secret the lovers plighted their troth, and parted, not knowing when they should meet again.
“Paul left Florence with the resolve to win not fame alone, but wealth.
“At Rome he was enrolled a member of the Academy of St. Luke, under Overbeck—the spiritually-minded Overbeck—who himself the son of a poet, has enriched his art with the divinely poetical conceptions of his own pencil. At Munich, one of his pictures was shown by Cornelius to the king of Bavaria, and purchased by that munificent patron of art at a price far exceeding the painter’s expectations. At Vienna a similar success attended him, and he returned to Florence after an absence of six years, with fame, and wealth enough for the foundation of a fortune.
“From Carlotta he had rarely heard, but he knew her heart was his, and he had that faith in her character as a true woman, which made him believe that no entreaties or commands of her father would induce her to wed another. And Paul was right—Carlotta D. still remained unmarried. In her the budding loveliness of the girl had expanded into the fuller beauty of the woman, but Talbot was sadly altered. The feverish excitement—the continued toil—the broken rest—the anxiety of thought to which he had been subjected, undermined his health, and planted the seeds of that insidious disease, which, while it wastes the bodily strength, leaves the mind unimpaired, and the hope of the sufferer buoyed to the last. The father of Carlotta finding that neither persuasion nor coercion could make his high-souled daughter barter her love for a title, consented at last that she should become the bride of the artist; but many said the wily Florentine had given his consent the more readily, because he saw that Paul would not long be a barrier in the way of his ambition.
“Paul Talbot had buffeted the adverse waves of fortune; he had gained renown in a land filled with the most exquisite creations of the gifted; he had won a promised bride. Whence, in that bright hour loomed the one dark cloud that blotted the stars from the sky? Could it be the shadow of the tomb? Was death interweaving his gloomy cypress with the laurel on the painter’s brow? Oh, no, no—he was but weary—he only wanted rest, and his powers would again be in full vigor. Then, with Carlotta at his side—with her smile to cheer him on—he would aim higher, and yet higher in his art.
“And the young wife was deceived. Although a nameless dread, a dark prescience lay heavy at her heart, she yet thought the bright flush on the cheek of Paul a sign of returning health. How tenderly and anxiously she watched lest he should fatigue himself at his easel, and how gently she chid, and lured him from his task into the open air of their beautiful garden.
“One of the days thus passed had been deliciously mild, and, although mid-winter, in that heavenly climate where flowers are ever blooming in the open air, each breeze was laden with the heavy odor of the orange blossom, and the fainter perfume of the Provence rose. Stepping lightly from the balcony where Paul and she had been seated watching the piled-up masses of crimson, of purple, and of gold that hung like regal drapery round the couch of the western sun, Carlotta pushed aside the opening blossoms of the night-jasmine which intercepted her reach, and gathering a handful of rose-buds, carried them to Paul. He took the flowers from his wife, and looking mournfully upon them, said, ‘When we cross the waters to visit my native land, we will take with us some of your precious roses, beloved, and beautify my mother’s silent home; and now,’ he continued, twining his arm round her waist, and leading her to the harp, ‘sing me that little song I wrote while yet a student in old Rome.’ Pressing her lips upon his brow, Carlotta seated herself, and sung the song, which she had set to music. The air was soft and melancholy, and the sweet tones of the singer were tremulous with emotion.
Fill high the festive bowl to-night,
In memory of former years,
And let the wine-cup foam as bright
As ere our eyes were dimmed with tears.
Pledge, pledge me those whose joyous smile
Around our happy circle shone,
Whose genial mirth would hours beguile,
Which, but for them, were sad and lone.
Those hours, those friends, those social ties,
They linger round me yet,
Like twilight clouds of golden dyes,
When summer suns have set.
Then fill the bowl—but while you drink,
In silence pledge all once so dear,
Nor let the gay ones round us think
We sigh for those who are not here.
“‘My dear Paul,’ said his wife, smiling through the tears with which, in spite of her efforts to repress them, her eyes were suffused, ‘this sad song should be sung on the last night of the year, the night for which it was composed. It should be sung while the student-band of artists stood around, each holding the flower-wreathed goblet from which he might quaff in silence, while his heart-memories were wandering back to fatherland. Let me sing,’—she paused on seeing the deep melancholy depicted on her husband’s countenance—‘nay, forgive me for jesting, love, I know with whom are your thoughts to-night, and will not ask you to listen to a lighter strain.’
“A month went by winged with love and hope. Paul found himself growing weaker, but he looked forward to a sea-voyage as a sure means of restoring him to health. Carlotta was hastening her preparatory arrangements, willing to leave her home, willing to brave the perils of the deep, in the belief that old Ocean’s life-inspiring wave would prove the fabled fountain of youth to her beloved. She had never seen consumption in any of its varied and sometimes beautiful forms. She knew not that the eye could retain its lustre, that the cheek could glow with more than its usual brightness, that the heart could be lured by a false hope, until, like a red leaf of the forest, dropping suddenly from the topmost bough, the doomed one fell, stricken down in an unthought of moment by the stern destroyer.
“One morning, when Paul had remained much longer than usual in his apartment, Carlotta sought him for the purpose of whiling him abroad.
“He was lying asleep on a couch, where he must have thrown himself from very weariness, as one of the brushes with which he had been painting had fallen from his hand upon the floor. His wife softly approached. She stooped and kissed his lips. He opened his eyes, smiled lovingly upon her, and pointed to the picture.
“‘You have made me too beautiful, dearest; this must be a copy of the image in your heart.’
“‘Ah, I have not done you justice, you are far more lovely, my own wife, yes, far more lovely—my mother—my mother—’ repeated Paul, dreamily. It was evident his thoughts were wandering.
“‘You are exhausted, dear love; but sleep now, and I will watch beside you.’
Carlotta knelt down and laid her cheek on his. Afraid of disturbing him, some minutes elapsed ere she again raised her head and turned to look upon the sleeper. She took the hand that hung listlessly by his side. It was cold, and she thought to warm it by pressing it to her lips—to her cheek—to her heart. She bent her ear close to the sleeper—there was no sound; she laid her lips on his—oh, God! where was the warm breath? A horrible dread came over her, and unable from the intensity of her agony to utter any cry, she sunk down and gazed fixedly in her husband’s face, realizing the heart-touching thoughts of the poet.
‘And still upon that face I look,
And think ’twill smile again,
And still the thought I cannot brook
That I must look in vain.’
“And thus were they found by her father, who was the first to enter the apartment. Paul quite dead—Carlotta lying to all appearance lifeless at his side—and before them the unfinished picture.
“When the fond wife was restored to consciousness, and felt the full weight of that misery that was crushing out her young life, her reason became unsettled. It was very sad to see her wandering from room to room as if in search of some lost object, often stopping to unfold, and then folding again, the garments prepared for their journey. She would frequently rise with a sudden start, walk hurriedly to the window, and stand for a long time in an attitude of fixed attention, then mournfully shaking her head to and fro, would slowly resume her accustomed seat, and in a low voice repeat ‘not yet—not yet—Paul still lingers in Rome.’ Carlotta remained in this melancholy state during the time I was in Florence, but a letter received since my return home informs me that after a short interval, in which reason resumed her sway, the sufferer calmly departed, coupling the name of her beloved with the rest and the bliss of Paradise.
“The wretched father was filled with self-upbraidings. But for him, he said, Paul Talbot might have been living, and his daughter living, happy in each other’s love. He spoke truly. To gratify his ambition, Paul had overtasked the powers of life. The frail shrine was consumed by the flame which for years had been scorching and burning into the heart and soul of the artist. Too late had he obtained his reward. Too late had Carlotta’s father consented to her union with Paul. Too late had the old man found that by his daughter’s alliance with a man of genius, a greater lustre would have shone upon his house than could ever be reflected from his glittering hoard.”
Here ended my friend’s narration, and while with him I lamented the fate of genius, I could not forbear blaming the conduct of the wealthy Florentine. Nor could I help thinking, that too often the golden ears betray the ass, while wisdom, virtue, talent, constitute the only real greatness.
———
BY HENRY MORFORD.
———
Little that moves the pulse of youth and joy
My wayward heart bends downward to confess;
Little of virtue, without some alloy
To make my good deeds vain and valueless;
Though the world pass me, trusting and deceived,
Though sunny smiles glitter where frowns have been,
There is a spirit in my bosom grieved,
Before whose eyes I may not draw the screen;
And here, when I am sad, she folds her wings
To warble of lost hopes and past desires,
My heart-strings loosen as the spirit sings,
And cooling tears drop on my wasting fires.
And then I know that I have turned away
From the proud picture that my fancy drew,
That I am passing further every day
From my own standard of the good and true;
We go not to the grave as we arise
From childhood’s slumbers, in the outward face,
And the soul, looking out from human eyes,
Becomes corrupt and bitter in the race.
I deemed that I should pass into my age
As I began, warm, generous and kind,
And pausing here upon life’s second stage,
I turn and look upon a cankered mind!
I have o’erstepped my bound—I have passed by
The goal that none may pass and yet be pure,
The pole star has grown glimmering to my eye,
And meteors have become my spirit’s lure—
So from one failing step we come to tread
Paths that in early youth we swore to shun,
So, from the blue sky shining overhead,
The whispering angels leave us, one by one.
I have past by the goal; ’tis hard to pause,
And, but for pride, I should shake hands with Vice.
Trample on Virtue’s desecrated laws,
And with my own dishonor pay the price.
Wo to us, when our pride becomes our truth
And hollow-hearted selfishness our trust,
With age’s avarice creeping over youth,
And clothing all things in corroding rust!
Pride is frail hold on virtue, yet ’tis all
That binds me to one deed of human hope;
Let me forget my pride and I shall fall
So low contempt will lose me in its scope!
How long shall this frail pride support my name?
How long ere malice o’er my head shall creep.
And touch me with the fangs of his dark shame,
And lure me, with his serpent eyes, to sleep?
I know not that I shall forget my kind,
Nor shame the form I owe to human birth;
I know not but the foaming of my mind
May leave a legacy of good to earth;
But I am saddened when I think that all
Of the world’s plaudit flows from my deceit,
And that the eyes that love me would recall
Their pleasant looks, could they but trace my feet!
The heart’s confession bears the curse of years,
To be without a pure thought at my side,
And if I fall lament me not with tears,
But think that time has shorn away my pride!
Painted by C. L. Eastlake R. A. Engraved by W. E. Tucker
CHRIST WEEPING OVER JERUSALEM.
CHRIST WEEPING OVER JERUSALEM.
———
BY JOSEPH E. CHANDLER.
———
[SEE ENGRAVING.]
“How beautiful upon the mountain are the feet of those that bring glad tidings,” is the language of elder Scripture, and how often has the heart of man responded to the truth of the declaration, as the eye has caught the earnest smile and noted the lightness of feet that distinguish the bearer of pleasing intelligence.
The great poet of nature hath, in the spirit of the above comment, remarked that the bearer of unwelcome news has “but a losing office.” And thousands of those who have been messengers of good to the great, the wealth-possessing and honor-conferring among men, have found themselves ennobled and sometimes enriched, for the simple narrative of an event in which they had no share, and of which they knew little more than the report which they had received from others and delivered where it was greatly desired.
We know that the text of Scripture which we have placed at the beginning of these remarks has allusion to tidings of greater joy, of more gladness, than all the bulletins of battles and statements of victories which the hastened dispatch bearer has ever conveyed to the awaiting monarch—more lovely and more desired than messages of love and tokens of reciprocation which the herald of man’s affection and woman’s deep, late-told love ever conveyed. The triumph of the conqueror of armies must be short and partial—the love of the most devoted perishes, at least with the object, if it is not quenched by its own fitful sallies. But the glad tidings which hasten and beautify the feet of those who come over the mountain of our offences is of life-long endurance, and enters into the eternity for which it prepares.
There is a picture in this number of the Magazine to which we are alluding, and to which we mean to refer when we talk of messengers of glad tidings. We know that the common reader will look at the title, and, if he recollects the narrative, he will be startled at the idea of “glad tidings,” when sorrow and tears were on the face of the messenger, bodings of terrible afflictions were in his mind, and their nearness was being foretold.
Are these glad tidings? Do such messages make beautiful the bearer? Can we rejoice at the overwhelming evil that is to befall the “City of Peace,” and sweep away the temple of the Most High, and give to famine, to violence, to dishonor and to death the sons and the daughters of the people of God?
But if these evils were the consequences of crimes, if the destroyer were but an instrument in the hand of omnipotent love to waste the destroyed, and to be himself the object of a similar wrath, that the “peace” which the great messenger was to bring on earth might have an abiding place, in consequence of the terrible things which he only foretold—surely the feet of such an one are beautiful. He brings salvation, while he only foretells destruction; he makes the wrath of man, which he prophecies, the instrument to produce that love and peace of which he is the real author.
There had been much confusion in the city in consequence of reports brought to the principal ecclesiastical and civic officers, of the unusual proceedings of citizens at a short distance beyond the place, where palm branches had been strewn in the highway, and garments spread out, upon which the hoofs of the rider’s animal were to tread—tokens of remarkable respect, which seemed to look treasonable to the foreign power, that directed the political affairs, and to the native priests who directed the spiritual concerns—the forum and the temple were agitated; the viceroy and the high-priest each started at such evidences of neglect of fealty. Rome and Jerusalem both felt that there was an antagonistic power operating, if not directly against, at least incidentally hostile to them; and Rome and Jerusalem—the conqueror and the conquered—joined in efforts to suppress the evil. Each would have crushed the power of the other, but both would unite to repel a power that was hostile to both. Each would have bruised the mailed arm of the other, but both trembled at what would have healed the breast of each.
There had been a scene of triumph—but He who had been the object of the huzzas of the multitude that thronged his way with tokens of obedience—head obedience, with little of heart in the offering—he had sat unmoved by outward demonstration of feeling for the acclamations of those who thronged his path. Another mission was his—another triumph was desired—another evidence of popular feeling was to be experienced, and in a little time he separated from the multitude, and ascending the mount, at whose base he had stood, he sat down with the four or five that were with him, and gazed abroad upon the outstretched scene below them.
It was a beautiful evening. Behind them the dust which had not yet subsided since the people had thronged the roads with songs of triumph, was reflecting the light of the declining sun. Beneath them was the Valley of Jehoshaphat, the terrible seat of judgment and dread; and beyond was the beloved city, stretched out in the repose of the evening sun, which was reflected by numerous gorgeous domes; and the busy hum of business came up to the quiet summit of Olivet, as if to bear to those who rested here the story of man’s heedlessness of his life’s great end.
They were Jews that thus looked out, the leader and the followers, Hebrews of Hebrews, and they loved the land of their birth and the city of their nation’s boast. Every affection of the human heart was enlisted for the beautiful towns and sacred edifices, and all the outspread loveliness of the country’s hills and valleys; and as the sun seemed to pour surpassing splendor upon the place, and as youth and beauty went forth to seek their pleasures, and age toiled upward toward the temple for the evening sacrifice, and all that was seen, and all that the heart suggested, appealed to the patriotic affection of the four—they looked to see whether the loveliness of the scene would not light up an unwonted smile upon the face of their Master, who was looking intently upon the city.
But there was no smile. The deep thought that rested on his brow, and the tear that glistened in his eye, showed that the past and the future were with him. That all the blessings which had been pronounced upon Jerusalem, and all the promises made in her behalf, all the sins which she had committed, and which God had pardoned, and all the negligence against which she had been warned, and for which pardon had been presented; all her thoughtlessness now, and all the uncomprehended miseries which were in her path, were in one group in his mind—and the sound of the destroyer and the desolation of the conquered stood before him—the famine that wasted the people and the fire that destroyed the temple were there, and as he remembered how He would have sheltered them from the consequences of their own follies, and how they despised his love; how he would have shielded and comforted the sons and daughters of that city of his love, but they refused, He wept—wept human tears—wept tears of earthly fondness, that came bursting up from his heart—deep agony marked his face when gathering the recollection of all the promises which had accompanied their probation, the glories by which they had been invited to goodness—he exclaimed, “But now they are forever hidden from thine eyes.”
What a mission was that the Master assumed—what an experience was that of his intimate followers. The many listened to his heavenly doctrine and love—many were astonished at the miracles that marked his public ministry, that made the temple and the wayside clinics where his divine skill was exhibited, and drew the people from their synagogues and altars, to offer at the street corners the sacrifice of enlightened hearts and the homage of soul admiration. But these, the favored few, the elders and chosen ones of his little flock stood with him in the terrible moments, when the office of his mission was not exercised on others, but came to be ministered on himself—three of them witnessed the tears at the grave of a friend—they saw with trembling awe the glory of his transfiguration with Moses and Elias—and now these stood there solemn, trembling witnesses of an agony of affliction that wrung tears for others from Him who could look down upon the garden that was to be the scene of a trial which human eyes could not witness and live—who could look forward to the hall of infamy that was to witness his mockery, to the winding way of sorrow in which he was to bear his cross, and upward to the eminence where the work was to be consummated. The tears were not for himself. He wept for the misery of those who should procure the agonizing passion.
The artist has chosen this moment for his picture. It was a bold thought—but it was a good one—what the pen records may not the pencil illustrate, and is not the lesson of that most instructive hour brought closer home to the heart by the representation of the scene which the sacred historian describes? How well the artist has executed his task is not for us to say. Indeed such a picture is in its conception so full of suggestion, that we may safely leave to the painter’s professional pride the finishing of his work according to the canons of his art. The moment that we recognize the subject, the moment we catch the time, the place and the office, we lose sight of all that the pen has written or the pencil attempted to delineate, and acknowledge that our hearts, our fancy have taken hold of all and borne us back to the awful hour—we do not pause to look at features or position on the canvas, but at once we kneel in imagination at a distance from the consecrated group, and as Olivet and Sinai and Calvary meet the eye, and the temple gleams in the light of the setting sun, we inquire what is the thought, the high, mighty thought that swells upward in the heart of the Master there? Alas! who shall know? Who could conceive? Eternities are in his mind, and all the vast concerns of angels and of men are before him; and yet for one city, one erring city, one little spot upon the great map of the universe, he fixes his eyes, and over its fate he weeps tears of earthly sorrow—weeps not that one stone of the temple shall not be left upon the other—weeps not that all the monuments of his nation’s glory shall be wasted, and that the ploughshare of the infidel shall upturn the sacred soil. Not for these did he weep—but that those children of the Father, whom he “would have gathered as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings,” should be destroyed by the sword, and the virtue of the daughters of his people should be the derision and spoil of the conqueror. They were human tears—but divine sympathies!
And in that scene of wounded love, when the foreseeing, or the foredwelling of his higher nature made the present of his human exposure terrible—in that hour of sympathy and sorrow, the favored and the intimate were his companions. Theirs was not yet the gift of foreknowledge—they lived only in the present, and knew only of the past. Little indeed could they comprehend the agony of the Master, as they could not foresee the cause. Their highest gift was faith—they could believe—they could confide—they could listen with silent assurance—and however contradictory might appear the words of the Teacher and the circumstances of the times, they had learned from rebukes and experience to trust to the former. And as they follow with their eyes the mournful bend of the Master’s gaze, as they melted before the weeping of the sinless and loving, they bowed in meek assent to the terrible anathema foretold, and, not being authorized to give, or to proclaim it, they meekly sighed the maranatha, and left the work to God.
You see some of the multitude pressing up toward the Master, but not upon him. You see, too, in the distance, woman with her face set toward Him to whom her heart is given. Woman following but not approaching. The first evidence of personal suffering would have brought her to his side—the first chance of offering homage would have taken her to his feet. It is woman, too, in her beautiful office—her heart is with the Master—it is good for her to stand where she may be called. He may not indeed speak to her, but virtue might go forth from him and bless her—and so she had brought with her a little child. It seemed not meet to her that she should seek Jesus and her child not be led to him. She had indeed heard the Master say, in regard to some others, “suffer little children to come unto me,” and how did she know, standing afar off though she might be—standing in awe and reverence—how did she know but when his moment of bitter sorrow had passed away, the Master might turn and smile on her—and take her little child in his arms and bless him—so had he done to others—and so she was willing to await, willing to stand and see what the Lord would do.
But in the immediate scene of tears and solemn wailing woman is not found. Where are those that followed his steps? Where are those who ministered to his wants? Alas! the scene was not for such hearts. It was the last sacrifice of national feeling; humanity acknowledges the claim—for mental mortal agony at events to come there was no consolation.
It was for woman to make beautiful her mission by her implicit faith; it was for woman to minister to his physical wants; her humility would find a delightful office when she bathed his feet with her tears, and her faith had comforting expression when she wiped them with the hairs of her head. Woman’s care provided the household comforts which humanity needed, and woman’s piety sat self-abased, yet gathered strength at the Master’s feet as he opened the oracles of truth. Woman wept for him as he bore his cross upward to Calvary; and woman lingered at the foot of that cross when others had fled; and it was woman that came earliest to kneel at the sepulchre. Where service was to be performed, where faith was to be tried, where physical wants were to be supplied, and physical suffering assuaged, there woman was to be found. But where the agony of mental passion was to be endured; where the unspeakable and the incomprehensible were to be exhibited, woman was not. Her mission of faith and love required no such exercise, her feelings demanded no such purification.
We have done. The picture which we give is suggestive, and we hope that it will suggest more to others than we have been able to express; because to such a scene as the artist represents, when the heart or fancy enters it is lost in amazement. A thousand thoughts crowd, less for utterance than for existence, and we feel that when there is more than earthly love, more than earthly interest, the idea must be more than human, and expression will be infinitely short of the conception.
HUMAN INFLUENCE.
———
BY MARIE ROSEAU.
———
Oh! deem not thou canst lightly err,
And none may bear its weight but thee:
There’s none on earth who stands alone,
None so devoid of sympathy,
But that each fault will wing a dart
To pierce some gentle, feeling heart.
Oh! say not that no sin of thine
Will cause another, weaker one,
To fall, or stumble by the way—
By following thee his soul undone—
Drawn to the very depths of shame:
Then on whose head shall rest the blame?
Oh! say not thou art far too weak
To help some brother poor and frail,
Whose footsteps falter by the way—
Whose burthened strength begins to fail—
Thy words of hope may sooth his grief,
Thy hand, though weak, may bring relief.
Perchance some weary spirit mourns,
In bitterness of grief e’en now,
That thus in bonds, by error wrought,
So strong a soul as thine should bow—
That thou, of all the world shouldst stray
From wisdom’s straight and pleasant way.
Perchance e’en now thy many faults
Stand in some wand’ring brother’s road,
That but for thee his feet would tread
The path of wisdom and of God—
Who, but for thee, or for thy sin,
A victor’s glorious crown might win.
Oh! none there are whose deeds and words
May not exert an influence wide,
There is no hand that hath not strength
Some wand’rer from the way to guide:
No voice with tones too weak to bless
Some hapless brother in distress.
HONOR TO WHOM HONOR IS DUE.
A TALE OF OLDEN TIMES.
———
BY MRS. LYDIA JANE PEIRSON.
———
Grenada had fallen. The miserable remnant of a once powerful nation, driven from the cities of their glorious empire, hunted by an untiring zeal to destroy, crowded at length into their chief stronghold, the city of their regal power—the birth-place and the sepulchre of a long race of puissant monarchs—had endured all the miseries of siege, of famine, and of slaughter; had endured with an invincible determination to die rather than yield; and they had died by the sword, by hunger and thirst, by despair, by pestilence; and their rich and magnificent city had been sacked, plundered, ravaged, made the prey of soldiers, greedy for spoil, thirsting for the blood of an infidel foe, exasperated by resistance, and maddened by fanatical zeal. Grenada had fallen; the Moors were no longer a nation of the earth. Ferdinand and Isabella, weary of war, and satiated with conquest, were reposing in state at Santa Fe, or San Felipe, with every demonstration of triumph, every show of thanksgiving to the God of battles. The days were divided between the most gloriously marshaled tournaments and the most magnificent religious processions; the nights were devoted to the masquerade and the mass; the whole world seemed vocal, now with strains of triumphant martial music, now with the no less lofty Te Deum, or Gloria in Excelsis. All was joy and gladness, triumph and gratitude. The temporary palace was shining like the fabled palace of Aladdin, builded of the gold and gems of the genii world. In all the apartments the magic of regal magnificence was displayed in the taste of the most approved style of art. Tapestries of regal blue and Tyrian purple, broidered and fringed with scarlet, green and gold, in the inimitable style of the artists of Babylon, swept from the lofty ceilings to the velvety carpels of the marble pavements which were rich with tufted work of flowers of every hue, while in the recesses of the windows, where the tapestries were looped aside with cords of the richest dyed and braided silks, entwined with strings of glittering gems, and heavy with tassels of feathery silk and drops of gold and diamonds, were placed beautifully enameled vases of the porcelain of Italia, supporting branches of artificial flowers and fruits of immense value. From the daisy, with its petals of pearl and eye of platted gold, to the rose of Damascus, formed of flashing rubies, and dewed with purest diamonds; from the rich clusters of grapes of amethyst, to the golden pear and nectarine, beryl and sardonix. Doors opened upon seemingly interminable vistas of trees and flowering shrubs, intermingled with candelabras of gold, wrought into the semblance of tall plants, bearing flowers of crystal and purest porcelain of every delicate tint, each of which was a lamp, burning perfumed oil, and giving out rich fragrance with its mellowed light; while birds of every clime, from the stately pea-fowl to the minutest lady-bird, admirably imitated in enameled gold and precious stones, were fixed upon elastic sprays, swaying to every breath, and chirping forth melody from little organs, played upon by their own tremulous motions, and so perfect was the workmanship that their forms and notes were hardly to be distinguished from those of the real birds that walked or flew amongst them in the gay parterres.
Amid all this enchantment moved groups of richly habited men and women; dons and cavaliers, in their blazing military costumes, and dark-eyed donnas, in soft silks, rich velvets, and transparent muslins of India, ornamented with brilliants, plumes, or flowers, each as her fancy dictated. Some were dancing to lively music, some listening to soft melodies and songs of love; some were grouped around the beautifully imitated trees, on which ripe fruits of every clime seemed to hang in nature’s wild profusion; some clustered around statues, which presented baskets and trays of the choicest viands; others again rested beside fountains which threw up jets of perfumed wine, which, as it descended in drops, displayed rainbows of inimitable splendor, painted by colored lights arranged for the purpose, while here and there a youthful couple, walking apart, and apparently unconscious of all the surrounding splendor, betrayed the tender topic of their sweet communings.
Could discontent and heaviness of heart exist amid all this wealth and splendor and apparent happiness? or do all these fail to satisfy the yearnings of the immortal mind? In a retired part of the gardens, where a few dark evergreens clustered over a natural spring of living water, stood a man apparently forty years of age, plainly habited in rich black velvet, which displayed to the best advantage a form of manly mould and exquisite symmetry. His beaver lay beside him on the turf, and his noble head thus exposed, displayed the perfection of nature’s statuary. His high and expansive forehead, strongly marked and delicately moulded features, dark, piercing and restless eyes, bespoke genius to conceive, energy to prosecute, perseverance to complete achievement of lofty daring. But there was an expression of melancholy around his perfect mouth, and his dark brows had acquired a contraction which proved that he was familiar with disappointment, and the contumely of inferior souls. Wrapped in deep thought he seemed, except that from time to time, as he lifted his eyes and glanced up the vista, there flashed from their dark depths the impatience of a mighty spirit, baffled of its aim, chained in its flight, and misunderstood in the darkness of surrounding ignorance. A figure, elastic with the buoyancy of joy, advanced toward him, a warm hand clasped his, and a glad voice exclaimed, “Courage, my friend, she has consented to see you, to listen to your plea, to weigh your arguments, and decide upon your claims to patronage. Courage, I say, for if she listen to you, she will espouse your cause.” A light, intense, but momentary, flashed over the face of the dark-browed man, as he pressed the hand of his messenger, exclaiming, “Thank you—to me you are, indeed, San Angel!”
Gradually the gay groups disappeared from the scene of magnificent enchantment; the lights went out one by one, like stars at the approach of day; the voices of melody ceased amongst the pavilions, and in the echoing halls, and silence seemed resuming her natural empire over the night.
In a retired apartment of the royal palace sat Isabella of Castile, with her two young daughters. The beauty of the queen was of a style to command respect rather than admiration, obedience rather than love. Majesty was in her form and mien, pride sat on her brow, and in her tones and gestures lived an authority which none dared question or disobey. Well was it for herself and those around her that she was governed by the nicest principles of honor; that her whole life was swayed by the most fervent and conscientious devotional feelings; so that as a queen, as a wife, and as a mother, she was above reproach.
Her eldest daughter, the Lady Isabella, inherited with her mother’s name, a large portion of her personal and mental qualities; but while one was a woman and a queen, the other was a young princess, proud, impatient of control or contradiction, and delighting in magnificence and admiration. Her younger sister, the Lady Joanna, though she had a fine form and regular features, with the dark, languid eyes of her country, was destitute of that grace and vivacity which is the great charm in woman’s character. The warm blood never gave a living glow to the dark olive of her complexion, and it was seldom that the deep fringes of her eyelids were lifted sufficiently to allow those with whom she conversed to mark the beautiful and flitting shadows of the deep and sweet emotions of her loving spirit.
“Oh, mother!” cried the young Isabella, her whole person radiant with the spirit’s light, “oh, mother, what a glorious thing it is to be a queen’s daughter; to live in such magnificence, to be an object of admiration and worship, to listen while gay and noble cavaliers extol one’s beauty and accomplishments; but, mother, it is my highest glory that I am your child, your namesake, and like you in mind and person. Oh, how my heart swelled last night as I heard men speak of the truly royal Isabella of Castile. But, mother, I am not quite as noble-souled as you, for I heard them tell that in your girlhood, when the discontented nobles and people would have placed you on your brother’s throne, you utterly refused to consent to his being deposed, and only allowed yourself to be declared his successor. I could not have been so moderate; oh, I long to be a queen like you.”
“A queen!” murmured Joanna, who occupied a cushion at her mother’s feet, “a queen,” and her voice was low and sweet as the murmur of a guitar, when its strings are moved by the orange-scented breeze alone. “I would be queen of one loving heart alone. I ask no kingdom beyond a quiet home, with one to love me, dearly, truly, unchangingly, as I could love again. Oh, mother, I am weary of all this noise and show; my heart grows sick, as I mark these glorious things, and feel that they are spoils of war, relics of a fallen power, trophies of a victory achieved by bloodshed, fire, famine, and pestilence. Do not frown, dear mother, my queen; but I cannot help thinking of the loving hearts, and beautiful women, and tender babes that perished in Grenada. They were infidels, but they had human hearts; they loved, and were beloved, and, oh, what bitter sundering of holy ties was in that devoted city. I cannot rejoice in such dreadful victory; I dare not thank our merciful Father in Heaven that he has permitted our armies to inflict such a vast amount of misery, not only on our armed foes, but on their helpless and innocent families.”
The queen’s countenance was troubled; she regarded her daughters alternately. “Alas! my children,” she said at length, “I foresee unhappiness for you both. Isabella’s spirit will never be satisfied with power and grandeur; and your heart, Joanna, will never be filled with the love for which alone it asks. It is possible to be beautiful, honored, and a mighty queen, and yet be very miserable—oh, very miserable! Leave me now, my children, for the hour of audience is at hand; and I am to listen to a strange suitor and weigh a mighty project.”
Queen Isabella sat in her private audience-chamber, surrounded by her nobles. There was a shadow on her brow deeper than the shade of business cares; and it was remarked by her counsellors that every article of the spoils of the fallen Moors had been removed from her apartments.
Presently San Angel and his friend, Columbus, were ushered to the royal presence. The great adventurer wore the same plain habit of black velvet, but appeared infinitely more noble in that dress than did any of the embroidery-decked cavaliers in the royal presence. Columbus was no stranger to courts and princes, yet as he bent his knee before Isabella of Castile, he felt to pay her the homage of the soul, and she thought that she had never until then looked upon true greatness.
“Rise,” she said, “and speak what you have to say.”
He stood before her calm, collected, and with the air of a man having full confidence in himself; and his speech, which at first was hesitating and low, soon flowed in a torrent of strong eloquence, betraying the tide of the deep spirit which thus poured out its speculative treasures.
“Madam,” he said, “you behold me, a native of Genoa, a suitor to your majesty for aid, not to prosecute an idle enterprise to attain for myself gay baubles, or the yellow gold that lies like a heavy chain upon the souls of its votaries, but to prosecute a great and glorious enterprise, of the success of which I am morally certain, and which will be an inestimable benefit to the whole world, and add, if it be possible, new honors to the name of Isabella of Castile. Madam, the teachings of science, as well as my apprehension of the goodness and wisdom of our bountiful Creator, have led me to a firm conviction that all the unexplored surface of this vast globe is not, cannot be, a barren waste of waters. I know that there are vast islands, probably a great continent, sufficient to balance the lands that now compose the world, lying away in the western ocean. These unknown lands I would discover and explore. Or even if such do not exist, as we know that the earth is globular in form, I shall at least discover a passage to India through the western ocean, and so add a glory to the crown of Castile which shall eclipse the lustre which recent navigators have given to Portugal. This is the age of naval enterprise and great discoveries; let the most important exploit of this age live with the name of Queen Isabella on the historic page forever and forever.
“Madam, I know that I am no idle dreamer, no speculative theorist; I seek to confirm by actual discovery the truths which reason and religion proclaim to my mind as indisputable. And yet I have found no soul capable of understanding mine; no rich prince or noble willing to risk a few thousands for an incalculable benefit to the whole world through all the years to come, and a fame which shall live until the sun burns out in the great temple of the blue ether. You will ask why I, a citizen of Genoa, a rich and powerful state, find it necessary to solicit the aid of foreign powers. I have said I find no souls capable of understanding mine. The great ones of my dear native city have pronounced me a framer of illusive theories. I would have won for her an imperishable honor; she would not receive it at my hand. Filled with sorrow and indignation, I then turned toward Portugal, encouraged by her recently acquired reputation as a patron of adventurous navigators. Her great ones listened to my suit, amused with hopes, and delayed to give me a definite answer; and while I waited and strove to convince them of the rationality of my speculations, they treacherously drew from me all my grounds of belief in the existence of another continent, my intended method of discovery, with the direction I meant to steer, and all the information I could give concerning my projected voyage; and, indeed, madam, you will find it hard to believe such infamy, they fitted out a fleet secretly, which sailed, failed of its object, encountered storms, and returned, asserting that they had done all that navigators could do, and that my theory is false and futile. Thus I have been cheated out of three years of my existence, while my ardent soul is burning out its habitation. Then I thought of England. I sent my brother to lay my project before her royal Henry. Years have passed, and yet he has not returned. Madam, I know that the lands of which I have spoken do exist. I know that I am able to search them out in the world of dark waters which has wrapped them from our knowledge since the world began. I know that I can reach them, for God has raised me up and endowed me as his instrument to affect these great discoveries, and he will preserve my life, and guide me by his almighty power. I have petitioned your august consort, but he is occupied by other matters, or swayed by those who would prevent me from achieving that which they dare not undertake themselves, who would withhold from me the honors which they have not courage and ability to achieve for themselves. On you, therefore, illustrious madam, now rest my ardent hopes. Surely amid all this magnificence, the small sum necessary for my outfit would not be felt. And in the event of my success, which I deem certain, would not the vast and rich territory thus added to the dominions of Castile and Aragon, bring millions of revenue for every hundred expended on my expedition. I beseech your highness, listen to my plea; I am like a strong eagle, longing to scale the pinnacle of a lofty mountain, but bound by a heavy chain in a dark and miry valley, I am wearing out my life in a vain effort to spread my shackled pinions to the glorious sunlight. Let your royal bounty remove these shackles, give me the means, and say to me go, explore the ocean, discover new worlds, and take possession in the name of Isabella, the illustrious queen of Castile. Let me go, in pity to my restless spirit. Let me go and win everlasting honors for myself and the age, and for my royal patroness.”
Queen Isabella had listened with evident interest, her dark eyes flashed, and her cheeks burned with excitement. She extended her beautiful hand to the suppliant. “I grant your prayer,” she said; “I will furnish funds for your voyage. This display of magnificence is not at my command. It belongs to our nobles, our churches, our officers and soldiers. You behold here the spoils of the vanquished, which must reward the vanquishers. It is possible to be poor in the midst of regal splendor. But I have jewels which are at my own disposal, which add nothing to my power or my happiness. I will dispose of them, and give you the means to prosecute your project to discover new worlds amid the wilderness of waves, and win that undying fame which you deem within your reach.”
Low on his knees fell the joyful adventurer, and poured out his gratitude in few but forceful words.
Looks of scorn, contempt, and bitter enmity were fixed upon the adventurous Genoese by the courtiers who surrounded her majesty, and it was evident that her presence alone restrained them from openly expressing their hatred of him, and disapproval of her decision. One cavalier in particular ground his teeth with rage, and muttered his vow of eternal enmity to him whose soul so overreached all human intellect had heretofore achieved.
But Isabella’s royal word was pledged, and her powerful eloquence had won her regal Ferdinand of Aragon to espouse the cause of Columbus, and associate his name with hers in patronage of his great adventure. But the man of mighty soul had departed on his limitless voyage, and his scoffers continued to clamor against him, and predict the utter failure of his project, and destruction of his fleet and crews.
Ferdinand and Isabella were holding their court in Barcelona, when a courier arrived with intelligence that Columbus with his fleet had made the harbor of Palos, from which he sailed about ten months previous. Various rumors followed the announcement, rumors of glory, and gold, and territories, rich and blooming as the garden of Eden. Then gushed in clamorous torrents the bitter waters of envy, hatred, and detraction; but Isabella heeded not their clamors, but awaited with hope and exultation the arrival of her protÉgÉ.
At length a triumphant train approached the city. Loud shouts swelled up to heaven from the excited multitudes; the city poured out her torrents of living creatures to meet the mighty man who had wrested a world from the untraversed ocean floods.
The monarchs, in their most glorious apparel, sat upon their throne in the magnificently furnished reception hall of their palace home.
The procession approached; a herald announced the great discoverer. He entered the presence, and the monarchs arose and stood to greet him.
With him came natives of his new world, with their strange features and unheard of complexions—habited in the grotesque costume of their native clime. In beautiful caskets and vases were borne gold, unwrought, and fashioned into curious ornaments, fruits and flowering plants, and strangely beautiful specimens of verdure and foliage, with articles of the manufacture of those far-off lands—all things strange to the admiring beholders, and different from aught that the eastern continent produced. All was wonder, admiration and delight, except in the black habitations of envy and murderous hate. But Columbus had achieved his triumph—he had discovered a new world; he had triumphed over the malice of his enemies, he had won for himself an imperishable fame; but he laid all his glories at the feet of his royal patroness, Isabella of Castile, without whose aid the mighty soul of enterprise would have worn itself out in vain endeavors to spread its glorious pinions. Oh, that every mighty mind could find an Isabella.
Ought not the name of Isabella to be forever associated with that of Columbus, as without her aid he could never have crossed the Atlantic? Should not the honor of the discovery of the western world rest alike upon him who conceived, and her who enabled him to execute the mighty project? And yet the fame of Columbus is wide as the world, and eternal as the lands to which he opened the way across the billows; while she who gave wings to his genius and power to his arm is almost forgotten.
But I would wed her name to his forever by christening this great and hitherto nameless republic, by the appropriate and euphonious title of Columbella. Thus would I give honor to whom honor is due.
EGERIA.
———
BY MARY L. LAWSON.
———
In a soft, still summer twilight,
When the sunset’s golden beam
Gleamed behind the cold gray mountain,
With a misty haze between,
When the stars were faintly breaking,
One by one, upon the sky,
And the winds that whispered near me
Were as gentle as a sigh,
’Neath a mossed and gnarled oak,
With its branches ivy-bound,
Where the mingled sweets of flowers
Threw a breathing perfume round,
There a lovely dream stole o’er me,
’Twas life’s sweetest, last, and best;
Bright Egeria, lost Egeria,
Thou hast left my lonely breast.
I have sought the spot full often
In the morning, in the noon,
In the chill and bleak December,
In the rosy light of June;
And when floods of silvery moonlight
O’er the valley slept serene,
While its pale and silent splendor
Mocked my spirit’s restless dream.
Yet I linger as of old—
Still I seek the shadowed lake,
And the mountains stern and drear,
Where the Alpine glaciers break;
There I watch the storm-god rise,
But I wander on in vain;
Bright Egeria, lost Egeria,
Will we never meet again.
’Mid my deep and yearning sadness,
With enrapturing thought I dwell
On the scenes whose hues are melting
Into memory’s mystic spell;
But my gladness hath departed,
For I tremblingly pursue
The beloved yet changing phantom
That still fades before my view;
Aerial music floats around,
Aerial voices meet mine ear,
And my sighs are oft repeated
By soft echoes hovering near;
And from visions half ethereal—
Mad with hope—I wildly start—
But thy footsteps, lost Egeria,
Are the beatings of my heart.
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH AND THE BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
———
BY FAYETTE ROBINSON.
———
(Continued from page 141.)
We had almost forgotten to speak of another class, important though youthful, of the saucy, petted and spoiled pages. They, too, are gone, and not one of them survived the eighteenth century. The Almanac of the Empire, it is true, bears the names of thirty-two pages, and that of the restoration of seventy-two; but all this means nothing, for the last page, who really was what he professed to be, and who was the most celebrated of his class, was named Cherubim, and was born April 27, 1784.
The following is his portrait.
The old Duke of Lauraguais said that the first English frock worn in France had been the death-blow of the French nobility, one of the most numerous of the grades of which had been the first to adopt it. The Marquises, with their proverbial love of change, began from that time to transform their modes, and effected it so rapidly that their brocade garments were soon only found on the stage, or in the bals-costumÉs. This frock, (fr. froc,) which had so disadvantageous an influence, was a kind of loose gown, with pockets on the inside, and without any tightness at the waist. It was cut lengthwise with the cloth, and though first without a collar, ultimately acquired one. The dress of the age in other respects remained long unaltered, though its accessories, such as buttons, plaits, etc., were constantly changing. The coats first were made to button all the way up, and then only from the pockets up: finally buttons were not used at all. After some lapse of time loops were used, which clasped the narrow coat over the often portly tournure in the most ridiculous manner. Waistcoats then were waistcoats, not gilets, but substantial coats without sleeves. The wardrobe of a gentleman also contained another garment called a veston, covered with lace and broderie, a volant, which was always single-breasted, various kinds of redingotes, such as the roquelaure, the houppelande, etc., all of which were made of every conceivable material and color. The above are the general characteristics of costume, all the variations of which we cannot be expected to describe any more than the botanist is to count every leaf on a tree.
Black, now the ne plus ultra of dress, was then worn only by procureurs, authors, small landholders, and, in a word, all persons who were negligent in their toilette. It was the index of restricted means, and of mourning, when the most obscure bourgeois dressed himself like a count or marquis.
The greatest variety of colors were worn, and contrasts which now would seem most repulsive were every day met with. A scarlet velvet coat, with a black collar and steel buttons, sulphur-colored breeches and blue-striped hose were considered in very good taste about 1785. Boue de Paris (brick-dust color) and London smoke were worn in both London and Paris in 1786, and in 1788, a color known by the repulsive name of beef' s-blood was the extremity of fashion. Waistcoats had all kinds of names, taken from operas, such as Figaro, Coeur-de-Lion, etc. Handkerchiefs aux adieux de Fontainebleu were worn; neither of these, however, seem to have differed materially from other waistcoats and handkerchiefs.
This was the age of cravats, made of fine lawn or baptiste richly laced, with hanging ends; peruques À la Grecque, with three buckles; the sword and plumed hat. Some persons also wore the stockinet breeches, by the side of which Adam’s fig-leaf was decent.
The following is a group altogether characteristic of that age in which the redingote, the coiffure À la Grecque, and plumed hat all appear:
None now can take an interest in all the mysteries of powder and coiffure, with their high-sounding names À la BrigadiÈre, À la Sartine, À trois marteaux, etc., they are gone forever, and when the great Leonard fled to Russia after the execution of the king were forgotten in Paris. It will be remembered that other capitals always copied the costumes of the French capital, and that in speaking of Paris we describe the costume of Europe.
Grave reflections do not belong to the history of so frivolous a thing as costume, but any one may see that it is impossible to avoid making a comparison, not only between the costumes, but the ideas of the past and present. The decay of the luxury of the old monarchy was but the forerunner of the fall of the monarchy itself, so that rightly enough Dumourier echoed the prophecy of its ruin, made by an old gentleman-usher who saw the great Roland appear before the king with shoes with strings instead of buckles. We have brought down the history of costume to the verge of a revolution, all the terrors of which luxury survived, and there may be those who think the crisis in the midst of which France is, may pass away, and things yet a second time resume their old state. This cannot be the centre of fashion is destroyed, and cannot be again created. France has more serious things to attend to, and though all the world submitted to French dictation, it is scarcely probable that it will bow itself to another sceptre. France cannot resume her sway. In 1792 the dispersed court bore away with it all the splendor and magnificence of the past, and left a void which the republic could not fill. In 1830 noblesse, as a cast, had disappeared, but an opulent class yet remained, who had grown accustomed to dictate in fashion. In the year 1848 the revolution was more complete, and all have other things to do besides thinking of periwigs and shoe-buckles.
Among the causes which tended in the eighteenth century to modify French costume, by assimilating all classes, we must in the first place mention the influence of what is now called Anglo-mania. Even as far back as Louis XV., the young nobles had become accustomed to visit England, where they acquired new habits if not new ideas. England for a time was the sovereign of fashion, and hats were worn À la Tamise instead of À la Seine. The nobles, in imitation of the English, ruined themselves by extravagance in horses and equipages. Quarrels arose about the good looks of jockeys, and princes of the blood and dukes transformed themselves into coach-drivers. Marie Antoinette even took pride in the dexterity with which she handled the whip and reins of a pony-phaeton. The revolution has naturalized in France many political phrases, but long before that French ears and the French palate had grown used to punch, or ponche as they called it, and both sexes had become accustomed to cover up their costume with the redingote, or English riding-coat. Tea canes and hats were ultimately adopted, also from England.
The revolution in England, and the round-head ideas it evolved, had much simplified English costume, and by the Anglo-mania this simplicity was now reflected back on France, and continued to as late a day as the revolution. In 1786 the English costume was frequently seen in the streets of Paris, and contributed in a great degree to dissipate the air of pretension which yet animated French society. The English boot was adopted almost universally, and gaiters became as common as in London. The loose locks of the English sailors were also imitated, and this was a severe blow on the old costume, an important portion of which was the coiffure. The three-cornered cocked was replaced by the jockey’s round hat, a ridiculous and ungainly thing which no taste can make becoming, and no art make comfortable. The probability, however, is that it will become universal, and that some day all the world will wear this head-piece.
This mutual imitation continued until the adoption of Napoleon’s Continental system, which, as is well known, separated England from all intercourse with Europe. When peace had put an end to the long wars this system had occasioned, and Englishmen again came on the Continent, their appearance struck each other as supremely ludicrous, as the apparition of one of our own grandfathers in the gigantic waistcoat and the bag wig they wore would seem to us in a modern drawing-room.
Before, however, an universal costume had been adopted the revolution came. Fortunes were swept away, palaces lost, and the people who inhabited them dispersed. We here lose sight of powdered hair forever, for both sexes cut their hair short, and shoes with strings were universally adopted. The reign of terror came, sans-culottism was the rage. The red cap of liberty, the houppelande of red worsted, or the carmagnole usurped the place of the plumed hat and the graceful roquelaure. Open shirt collars and a knotted stick, like the Irish shilelah, were indispensible accompaniments to this dress, an admirable representation of which is to be seen in the making up of James Wallack, senior, for one of his many admirable impersonations, called David Duvigne, in that pretty two act drama of the “Hazard of the Die.” This costume is scarcely worthy of remark, except on account of the red Italian cap, a garment far more graceful than our hat, but proscribed on account of the horrors enacted by those who wore it. It, however, never was worn except in France, and we may well enough drop it here forever.
Yet people must not think there was no richness of costume during the republic. There was as much extravagance as ever, only every one dressed according to his own whim. There were fops, too, called Muscadins incroyables and mervilleux, who aped the manners of the old marquis. One great trait of these was they were all near-sighted, and could not pronounce the letter R. They were the prototypes of our own dandies, as may be seen by the following specimen:
This costume was imitated over all the world, and, except in the hat, breeches and ribbons at the knee, does not differ greatly from the dress of our own day.
[To be continued.
THE ADVENTURES OF A MAN
“WHO COULD NEVER DRESS WELL.”
———
BY M. TOPHAM EVANS.
———
“Hang it!” I exclaimed, as I thrust the poker violently into the grate, and slammed myself into an arm-chair before the fire, “I am the most unfortunate rascal in the world!”
I had just returned from the Hon. Mrs. Scatter’s squeeze. I can’t imagine why it should be the case, but it seems to be my unlucky destiny either to be thrust or to thrust myself eternally into the most inappropriate places possible. What the deuce should have taken me there? I know that I have no business at such assemblies—yet, oh, Julia!
She waltzed with that fool, Fitzcrocky. The fellow hasn’t a particle of brain, but such a moustache! And then the style of his dress. With what elegant ease he sports his habiliments! Such perfect taste in their arrangement, and so harmonious the tout ensemble! Then look at me. They were whispering. He cast a sneering glance at my exterior. I know she laughed at me. Zounds, I could tear my hair to tatters!
I never could dress well. If I have a handsome and well-made coat, the vest and pants are sure to be of the most unsuitable colors. That infernal tailor, I verily believe, takes every advantage to make me appear disadvantageously; and I could swear that he palms all his unsaleable remnants upon me. Let me see how he has figged me out for what I intended to be the victorious campaign of this evening. Scipio, wheel up that cheval glass. Gods and fishes! A purple coat with silver filagree buttons—a white satin vest—scarlet under ditto—light drab pantaloons, and a check cravat! Black silk stockings and pumps with rosettes. Jupiter and Moses! Why I look like one of Bunbury’s caricatures! Tregear’s shop-window never exhibited such a monster. No wonder they laughed at me. Ha! ha! By Jove, I can’t help laughing at myself, and it’s no joking matter, after I had laid myself out to make a deep impression.
There, Scipio, draw the curtains and go. Stay; hand me the brandy-bottle and some cigars before you make your final exit. I might as well get drunk, and by that means bury my woes in a temporary oblivion, despite of all temperance societies.
Give me my dressing-gown, and pitch this infernal coat out at the window. Ha! here’s another specimen of my undeniable taste. What man, save myself, would ever encase himself in a brocade of a pattern like a bed-curtain. No matter; your Persian says it is all takdeer—destiny. All this, I presume, was fore-ordained—it must have been predestined, this atrocious, villainous piece of business, and I suppose I can’t help it. Scipio, go to bed.
Scipio retired, and I was left alone. The night was dark and confoundedly cold. I picked up a volume. It was Peter Schlemihl. I lighted a cigar, and mixing some strong brandy-and-water, I applied myself to the business which the reader has been previously informed I had in contemplation.
But all would not do. I could not succeed in my intention. I smoked one Dos Amigos after another, and quaffed glass after glass of Seignette. The more I drank, in the more odious light did I appear to myself. I ruminated upon Julia’s flirtation with Fitzcrocky. I attempted to analyze the causes of my abominable want of taste in the components of costume.
“Deuce take me!” at last I cried, exhausted, and half mad with vexation, “I wish to Heaven that I could exchange this unlucky carcass with some more fortunate individual, whose kinder stars may have granted him a comelier body and a more recherchÉ taste in its decoration than my miserable self!”
Scarcely had I spoken these words when a gentle cough attracted my attention. I looked up. Opposite to me there sat a gentleman of the most prepossessing exterior. He had drawn up a lounge to the side of the grate, and was seated, with patient politeness, as if in expectation of drawing my attention to himself. He was attired in a neat and elegant suit of black, which fitted him À merveille. A dark maroon velvet vest, buttoned tightly to his chest, and falling over into a rolling collar, displayed his linen of superb make and texture, fastened by a small diamond pin. His cravat was tied with a prim precision; his boots and gloves would have driven Staub and Walker to despair. His hat was of the most appropriate block, and a cambric handkerchief, delicate as the web of Arachne, and scented with bouquet du roi, was occasionally applied to his nose, in the most graceful manner. The contour of his face was perfect Grecian, and a mass of wavy chestnut-hair was negligently disposed over his forehead. He wore neither whisker nor moustache.
For some time I sat in silent amazement, wondering how my guest had procured his entreÉ, inasmuch as I knew that all the doors were locked and bolted, and that my janitor had gone to bed some hour and a half previous to the stranger’s appearance. He sat in equal silence. Presently he arose, and pouring out a glass of brandy, he swallowed it in a twinkling, bowing to me with infinite gravity. He next produced a long and slender meerschaum from his pocket, lighted it with a pastille ambreÉ and resuming his seat, his eyes traveled over my attire from head to foot, with an air of well-bred curiosity. My bile began to work.
“May I ask, sir,” said I, “what is the meaning of this unusual visit?”
The stranger, carelessly desisting from his investigation, expelled a mouthful of smoke, and with a kind of concealed chuckle, which I did not half like, replied,
“Pray, sir, may I, without infringing upon propriety, inquire of you, who is your tailor?”
My hand inadvertently sought the decanter, and I had a vague idea of hurling it at my visiter’s head. One moment’s reflection, together with a glance at the well-made and sinewy form before me, determined me to waive hostilities.
“I cannot imagine, sir,” I replied, with severe dignity, “your motives in making any such inquiry.”
“Oh, a mere trifle. I was anxious to become acquainted with the name of your fashioner, who, to judge from the appearance of your habiliments, must possess a most exquisite taste.”
For a moment, I had suspicions that my amis inconnu was quizzing me. I eyed him narrowly, but the expression of his face was that of respectful earnestness, mingled with some curiosity. Not the slightest trace of a quiz could be detected upon his immovable aspect.
“If you are really anxious to know,” said I, and I confess I fell naturally gratified, for it was the first compliment I had ever heard addressed to my taste, “I can refer you to Cabbage & Stickem, Oxford street.”
“I could almost wish to exchange my vile taste in costume for your more original and certainly more refined style,” said the stranger, without moving a single muscle of his face.
“And I,” I cried, seizing him by the hand, “highly as I feel flattered by such a declaration, would willingly make such an exchange, if it were possible to do so.”
“We shall find it very possible,” replied the stranger. “Come, let us take a glass to our better acquaintance. I am charmed to have it in my power to confer an obligation upon a gentleman like yourself, especially when it meets so exactly with my own inclinations.”
“Egad,” said I, as we hob-nobbed very cordially together, “I am agreed to make the exchange directly.”
I had no sooner said the word than I felt a most violent blow at the back of my head. On my recovery, for it almost stunned me, I was stupefied with astonishment, upon looking up, to behold myself sitting at my ease, and smoking with great insouciance, upon the very seat which I had previously occupied in propria persona.
“Be so good, worthy sir,” said I, or the figure I saw seated in my-arm chair, “to look in yonder glass, and you will discover that your wishes have been complied with.”
I stepped to the cheval, and to my unspeakable amazement and joy, viewed in the reflection the person of the elegant gentleman with whom I had exchanged exteriors.
“I hope,” said the personage who rejoiced in my original ugliness and odious garments, “that this exchange is entirely to your satisfaction?”
I could have hugged him, for I was almost beside myself with delight.
“How can I thank you for your kindness,” I exclaimed, for my old attire looked doubly ridiculous to my new optics. “I do assure you, sir, that I am forever at your service.”
“That’s it,” said the gentleman with a peculiar smile, which in the plenitude of my joy I did not notice at the time, although I recollected it afterward perfectly well. “And now, as it grows late, I will bid you good evening.”
As he spoke, I saw my ancient figure walk quietly out at the door. I don’t know, but I thought I heard him laugh a little after closing it. For my own part I was so elated, that I could not think of going to bed, so I sat drinking and singing, building castles in the air, and ruminating upon the magnificent figure which I should oppose against the fascinations of Fitzcrocky, in the eyes of Julia. I determined, with the afternoon of that day, to commence my triumphal progress in her affections. In fact, I never noticed how time slipped by, and when the entrance of some one at the door aroused me, and I collected my scattered senses, it was at least four hours after sunrise.
“Gollamighty!” exclaimed the voice of Scipio. “What de debbil we got heah? Trange man in massa’s bed-room, and he not up yit. What you want, eh? He some tief—some robber.”
“Why you old fool,” said I, “don’t you see it’s me—myself?”
“Who me?—what dat, eh? Debbil tak me if I no b’lieve dat he has murdered massa and teal all de spoons! Help! murder!”
“What do you mean, you old villain!” cried I. “Do you want to bring in the whole neighborhood?” and seizing a candlestick, I leveled it at his woolly pate.
“What do you mean, you scoundrel, by abusing my servant?” roared a voice from the bed. I looked in that direction. There was my head protruded from the curtains, surmounted by a red night-cap, and a clenched fist was violently shaken at me from the same purlieu.
“Turn him out, Scipio!” I shouted.
“Turn him out!” repeated my Eidolon, if I may so term him.
“Turn who out!” queried Scipio, in a state of profound bewilderment.
Perfectly frantic with rage, I flew toward the bed, eager for a pugilistic encounter, when the door was thrown open, and my old housekeeper, with pallid visage, peeped into the apartment. I determined to make an appeal to her.
“Am I, or am I not your master, Nancy?” said I, in a very melancholy tone.
“You my master! Come up, mister himperence,” replied Nancy. “My master is in yonder bed, young man. Run, Sip, and call a policeman. He’ll make you know your master, jail-bird.”
“Ah!” thought I, “it’s all up, I see. That fellow’s me, and I’m somebody else, but hang me if I know who. Well, as I don’t choose to take a morning airing at Hatton Garden, I might as well abdicate at once. But,” cried I, “you scoundrel, you shall pay for this.”
“Turn him out, Sip!” grunted my former voice from the bed. How hateful it sounded! “Turn him out, and don’t let me be disturbed till twelve. My head aches confoundedly.”
I sneaked out of my own room like a detected pickpocket, Nancy and Scipio attending me down stairs, and delivering a brace of running lectures upon the evil courses which I was pursuing, admonishing me likewise of the certain and ignominious end which awaits such depraved and dissolute characters as I was presumed to be. At the foot of the stairs, Scipio insisted upon searching me, an operation to which, crest-fallen as I was, I did not pretend to make the slightest opposition. I was then dismissed in the same manner with Master Candide from the chÂteau of Thonderdentronck, namely with grands coups de pied dans le derriÈre, pretty well administered by a brace of sturdy valets, whom Scipio had summoned to his assistance from a neighboring area.
This ejection from my own mansion took place about half past nine o’clock. In the first impulses of my rage and despair, I resolved to apply to my friends, in order to establish my identity by their testimonies. It was early; too early in fact to find any of them up, and I was fain to stroll the streets until the lingering hands of the clock should signify the proper and canonical hour of rising. So I patrolled Hyde Park for an hour or so, until my insides began to give me very unequivocal tokens of their desire for breakfast. Rage, as well as love and all other sublunary matters, must yield to the calls of hunger. I entered a coffee-house in Upper Brook street, and ordered my morning meal. I drank a couple of cups of tea, ate a French roll and a modicum of raw beefsteak, and walked to the bar to pay my bill. I put my hand into my pocket in search of my purse. It was not there. I tried another, and another, and yet another pocket. Horrid to relate, I could not meet with the smallest coin of the realm! The waiter began to look very black, and I could overhear the monosyllable “bilk” ground out between his teeth in a tone which indicated profound aversion and contempt. My hair fairly stood on end. Nevertheless I thought it best to brazen it out.
“Do you see, my good fellow,” said I, and I assure you, I spoke in a very bland and courteous tone, “I have most unaccountably forgotten my purse—”
“Gammon!” was the very significant response of the Ganymede. “How d’ye know you ever had one?”
“Confound your impudence, fellow!” said I, nettled by the coolness of the query. “What d’ ye mean by insulting a gentleman?”
“More like a swell out o’ luck,” growled the servitor. “Come, young ’un, this here kind of a job’s no go. Post the cole, my boy, or it’ll be the worse for somebody.”
As luck would have it, I thought of my diamond breastpin, and taking that article of jewelry from my shirt front, I offered it to the waiter.
“Blast your Brummagem traps!” quoth that gentleman. “D’ ye think I don’t know a diamond from a Bristol stone, or gold from pinchbeck?”
It was pinchbeck, by Jupiter!
The waiter must have been touched by the despair depicted upon my countenance. With a grim smile,
“Come, my fine chap,” said he, “if you are a bilk, it’s plain that you’re a new hand at the trade, and I don’t care about being too hard upon you. Give me your wipe, and I’ll let you off for this time, but you take care you doesn’t come the swell mob again over this ’ere house, that’s all.”
My heart was too full for speech. I gave him my handkerchief with a profound sigh, and throwing the pinchbeck breastpin into the coal-scuttle, I vanished with all convenient speed.
Leaving the coffee-house, I espied my crony, Dick Buffers, across the street. To join him was but the work of a moment.
“Hollo, Dick!” said I, slapping him heartily upon the shoulder. This was the irrepressible outpouring of a bosom, into which a ray of light, imparted by hope, had penetrated, cheering the darksome abode with its enlivening presence. Quickly was my joy turned into sorrow.
“What do you mean, sir?” said Dick, drawing himself up with magnificent reserve. “Do you mean to insult me?”
“Come, Dick,” said I, in a sort of whimper, for I was really becoming very much alarmed, “don’t put a strange face on the matter. It isn’t possible that you don’t know your old friend, Flashington Highflyer? Why we only parted at midnight, and dined together no later than yesterday.”
“Highflyer!” said Buffers. “To be sure I know him, and very well, too. We undoubtedly did dine together yesterday, although I cannot account for your knowledge of the fact. But it will take even more than your impudence to convince me that you are the man. You must be either drunk or a fool. Flashington Highflyer! ha! ha! Your very dress convicts you of a lie.”
Buffers might have spared this sarcasm.
“Upon my honor, Richard Buffers,” said I, solemnly, while the tears actually stood in my eyes, “I am that most unfortunate man.”
“You are? Why, the man’s mad! View that looking glass in yonder shop-window, and if you haven’t been looking into the glass too often this morning already, you will discover that your countenance bears not the slightest resemblance to that of Mr. Highflyer, that is, if you are at all acquainted with the physiognomy of the gentleman to whose name you have laid claim.”
I stepped to the window. One glance was sufficient. Oh! how I cursed my super-lunatic folly, and how I longed for my former shape.
“Egad, it’s true,” I soliloquized. “It’s all correct, as my Yankee friends have it. That rascal has got into possession of my goods and chattels, as well as of my person, and has left me nothing in return but a most confoundedly disagreeable sense of my own individuality. What a horrid piece of business to be sure!”
I turned. Dick was gone.
“Who am I, then?” was my next very natural self interrogatory.
It was needless to disturb my remaining acquaintance for proofs of my identity, as, indeed, if any body had demanded of me my address, I should have been amazingly puzzled to give it. I turned about, entirely reckless of whither I went. Twelve, one o’clock went by. I met many of my acquaintance, but there was no recognition. I was in despair, and could have sat down upon the curb-stone and wept. My walk procured me one thing, it is true, namely, a very good appetite; but I could have readily dispensed with that, inasmuch as I was painfully conscious that, without pawning my coat, I was utterly unable to satisfy the cravings of hunger.
The hours rolled on. The force of habit, I presume, led me to Hyde Park once more. All the world was abroad. Beauty, rank and fashion were collected in one splendid, aristocratic mass. Carriages and four, with servants in gorgeous liveries; every variety of vehicle, from the dashing tandem to the humbler carriage and pair, tilburies, buggy-wagons, and cabs thronged and thundered around the ring. Horsemen dashed along the carriage-ways, and pedestrians crowded the footpaths. I sat down upon a bench and mechanically surveyed the scene. Every well-known face, which was wont to greet me with smiles, but which now bestowed upon me, en passant, but a vacant stare, struck a pang to my heart. My despair would have been uncontrollable, and I should have groveled and bit the ground with fury, but an innate self-respect, and a desire to appear to every possible advantage, qualities which I presume I gained together with my once admired, but now odiously detested figure, prevented me from making such an exhibition, although I verily believe that I was haunted with demoniac incitements to perform all manner of curious antics.
The crowd was now at its thickest. A chariot, with servants in splendid liveries, which I immediately recognized as my own, whirled onward. Julia was seated in it by myself, or the devil in my shape. There I was, perfectly plain to behold. The face, the form were the same, but the dress superlatively exquisite, and beautifully adapted to the figure. The turn-out of Fitzcrocky dashed by at the same time. He glared furiously upon my happy representative. With matchless insinuation this latter ogled and flirted with Julia. She returned his smiles with eyliads of incipient affection. As they passed me by, the fellow who had thus impudently usurped my figure and property winked—yes, he absolutely winked at me. My veins boiled with rage. Shrieking out a fearful oath, I seized a fragment of paving-stone and hurled it frantically at him. A scream, a rush, and I turned and fled, without stopping to ascertain the amount of damage inflicted by my missile, and ran as if the furies had been after me. But I ran not alone. A dense crowd of policemen, servants and gentleman on horseback dashed in pursuit. Never did fugitive from the galleys exert his legs with a better will, or with more effect, than I did. Timor additit alas. On I rushed, amidst the clamor, and dust, and clatter of the yelling multitude, as if the avenger of blood had been behind me. I had been a sportsman, and never did a Leicestershire fox lead a squad of Meltonians such a circumbendibus as I did my pursuers. One by one they gave in—the noise died away gradually, and I was safe.
When partially recovered, I found myself within a queer, dark-looking old court, in the neighborhood of Hertford street and Brick Lane. I was surrounded by a multitude of crazy, loitering, reeking houses, apparently the abodes of no living beings, save Jew clothesmen, oyster venders, pawnbrokers, and gin dealers. A squalid, miserable, broken-down dog-kennel it was too! Tattered children ran about, dabbling in the filthy gutters, indulging in the mockery of play. Rough looking men, wrapped in heavy pea-coats and coarse jackets, with red and bloated faces, lounged about the doors of the various dealers, and haggard, wretched-looking women might have been descried entering the dens of the pawnbrokers, in hopes to raise some pittance of money for the purchase of food or liquor, by pledging paltry articles of dress or furniture. I sat down on the pavement side and stared around me. The scene was altogether dissimilar to any thing I had been in the habit of witnessing, and it was an interesting though a painful novelty. Good God! the misery, and wretchedness, and grinding poverty, deadening to the heart, which exist in large cities, within ken of opulence, of luxury and of splendor! O! could the voice of these wretched throngs be heard, in its collected wailing, what a cry of despairful agony would go up to the throne of the Everlasting! Dead souls in living sepulchres, stalking their gloomy round of poverty, neglect and wo—uneducated, ungodly, famine-stricken—what hope is there for them in this world, and, word of horror, what in the next!
As I sat in revery, some one tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up. A stout, heavily built man, with a pimpled and swollen face, attired in a rough drab over-coat, with leather gaiters and hob-nailed bootees, stood beside me.
“Hollo, gen’l’mn Bill,” quoth this interesting parsonage. “Vy, vot brings you in these parts?”
I knew the fellow at first glance, but, by Jupiter, I had never seen him before.
“Well, old fellow,” said I, with a hilarity that disgusted me, although Heaven knows I couldn’t help it, “what news from your ken?”
“I’tell thee vot,” said Gabriel Sooterkins, for the gentleman was familiarly known by that appellation, “a’ter this night, Billy, my bo, you had better change your tramp. The beaks ’ave nabbed Ikey about that ’ere job on Saffron Hill, and they say he’s peached upon it. Confound the trade, say I, if pals can’t be true to one another.”
I recollected perfectly the matter he alluded to. It was a burglary committed upon an old miser, who had fixed his dwelling in that delicate abode, and I very well remembered, now that Mr. Gabriel Sooterkins mentioned it, that I had been the head and front of the offending, and that Ikey and himself were accomplices in the business.
An exceedingly reputable exchange of persons I had made.
“Well,” said I, “if it’s done it can’t be helped, you know, and I’m off this night,” although I had not the most remote idea of where I was going.
“If I’d a known vere you vos,” said Mr. Sooterkins, “I’d ha’ blowed this here spot o’ work afore. But step in here. I’ve a vord or two to say to you, for I s’pose there’s very little dust at the bottom of your fob.”
Mr. Sooterkins plunged downward into a dingy cellar, and I followed him very obediently.
The place into which I accompanied him was a filthy diving, or slap-bang shop, in which retreat was collected as motley an assemblage as the imagination of man can conceive. A long table extended from one end of the cellar to the other, covered with pewter mugs and dishes, cheap crockery ware, and knives and forks, which latter implements were chained to the table. A very satisfactory idea of the morals of the guests might be gathered from this circumstance; although, indeed, if that hint had been wanting, the variety of villany stamped upon the faces of the profligate crew which surrounded the table, gave proof satisfactory that they were not of that number who rank with the honest of this world.
Mr. Sooterkins nodded to this amiable assembly upon entering, and I obeyed his example, inasmuch as I recognized among these gentlemen some very familiar acquaintances. We were received in a remarkably hilarious manner, and some of the most jovial of our friends pressed their regards rather closely, by playing off two or three practical jokes upon Mr. Sooterkins. The application of a quart pot to the head of the most forward of these wits sent him howling into a corner, and, to my unspeakable satisfaction, put a very sudden conclusion to the incipient merriment.
“Take that,” growled Sooterkins, “and now, as you gen’l’mn seems to be so ’ighly delighted at this here cheerful occasion, you’ll just ’ave the goodness to leave me and my pal to our own cards for a brace of minnits. You see, Bill, ve must speak to Sal, and git posted up on this last score. Hollo! Sal! you old limb of Satan, move yer shanks this way, I tell ye!”
A withered crone, who seemed to be the mistress of the cellar, came hobbling forward, being thus politely conjured to appear.
“Wot!” said she, extending her wrinkled hand to me. “Gentleman Bill here! Here’s a sight for sore eyes!”
“Dight your gab,” interrupted Sooterkins. “Bill’s here, but he’ll be obliged to cut and run this darkey, for the beaks are a’ter him ’bout that job of Ikey’s. Now he’s got no stump, and the devil a mag have I, so you must fork over, for the purchase wot come in vos fairly vorth double as much nor you paid for it. Bill, and Ikey, and I, are all in fur the business, but the blackguard daren’t peach on me, ’cause if he gits off from this scrape, I knows enough of other matters about him to bring him to a hemp crawat wery speedily. You’ve got the plunder, you old hag, and it’s only fair as you should come down with the tin for the tramp.”
“Ah, Gabe,” said the old woman, “you will drive hard bargains with me. But I can’t well refuse for the pretty face of him.”
Singular as it may appear. I felt gratified by the compliment of the hag.
“Yes, mother,” said I, “change of air is good for the constitution, and I’ll cheat Jack Ketch of his fees in spite of fate for this bout.”
“How much can you do vith?” queried Mr. Sooterkins, who had lighted a fragment of a clay pipe, and commenced to smoke most industriously.
“Ten pounds will carry me on to Portsmouth,” said I, for the localities and resources of roguery were fast becoming familiar to me.
“Too much,” grumbled the crone. Gabe was about to make a savage reply, when two females descended the ladder, and entered the cellar.
“By my forks!” whistled Gabe. “This ’ere is just wot I hoped vouldn’t ’appen; but these cussed gals is everlastin’ly a riggin a man, till he trots over the Old Bailey valls on a vooden oss.”
“Bill!” cried one of the females, recognizing and running to me. “Is it you, Bill? I’ve been over the whole of this blessed town after you, for I heard that Ikey Solomon had let all out, and I feared that you were caught. But, thank Heaven, you’re safe—you’re safe!”
With an hysterical burst of laughter, the girl threw her arms around me and embraced me tightly. Her laughter gradually ceased, and gave way to a violent fit of weeping.
Amazed at first, and not knowing what she could mean, the truth began to break upon me. Poor girl! The burglar’s mistress! What a world of guilt and wo are in those words! Her face was handsome, but oh! how deadly pale, save on the summit of the cheek-bones, where the fire of the hectic blazed. Her large, dark orbs were sunken, and gleamed like the reflected glow of a furnace from their deep cavities. Her apparel, which was a shade or two better than that of her companion, and her language, which showed her to be superior to the wretched assemblage around us, told a tale of sorrow—which, although a common tale, struck deeply on my heart.
“Hang it, Bess,” said Sooterkins, endeavoring to push the girl away, “vot dost mean, crying and sniveling about a chap ven his wery life hangs on his speed in gettin’ out o’Lunnun? Stand aside, thou foolish jade, and let me have my say out vith him.”
“Stand by, Bess dear,” said I, “and I will speak with you directly.”
The girl obeyed.
“Now then,” said Sooterkins, “As I’ve vormed the ten pounds out o’ Sal, all you’ve got to do is this. Be off now, d’rectly, and take all the by cuts till you’re out o’ town, snug in the fields. I’ve a friend as goes down on the mail in the morning, and mind, give him this jark. He’ll be down on the sly with you, for my sake. Then pull for Common Hard, and off over the Channel, till this ’ere job blows by. Lose no time, the night’s dark, and make forward like the wind.”
“And Bess?” said I, for the girl’s affection had interested me, and the emotions of my burglar friend began to quicken in my breast.
“Pshaw!” said Sooterkins, “why canst not mind thine own affairs, and let the girl alone?”
“I must speak to her before I go, Gabe,” I replied. “What she is, I have made her, and it would break my heart to leave her thus.”
“Speak, then, fool, and be spry about it.”
“Bess,” said I, stealing my arm around the waist of the unfortunate girl, “I must be off for Portsmouth.”
“Are you going, Bill?” she said, in a low and tremulous voice, as she lifted her eyes anxiously to mine; and that expression cut me to the soul, keen as a knife, “I never shall see you again.”
“Hush, dearest, you must not speak so. We shall see each other soon, and live as happy days as ever.”
The eyes of the young girl became suffused with tears.
“Happy! No, Bill, I never shall know happiness again. I have been weak and ill of late. I’m dying, Bill, and I know it. Before you will dare to return here, I shall be laid, in the parish shell, cold enough in the grave of a pauper. Do you remember the little cottage near the Downs? Ah! those were my happy days. Then I was innocent, but you—but I wont speak of that, dearest, for I would not distress you.”
“Nay, Bess, compose yourself—”
“In the sleep of death? There is no other composure for me. You are going, and the strings of my heart snap as I look upon you for the last time. Oh! through misery and crime, Bill—and we have been miserable and criminal—I have loved you, dearer than the light of heaven! But, dearest, if you do escape and return, quit this awful life, for the sake of her whom you once vowed never to abandon—quit this den of villainy, and for God’s sake, oh, never enter it again!”
The tears gushed from my eyes at this appeal, and my whole frame was shaken.
“I promise—I swear it,” whispered I.
“Thank you, dearest. Take this little ring. You know its history. And now, for the last time, this kiss. Farewell!”
Her head sunk upon her breast. Bestowing an embrace upon her, I darted from her side, and sprang up the steps of the cellar. At the foot I paused for a moment. Bess had hidden her face in her lap, and the heaving of her breast, plainly perceptible through its thin covering, testified the agony of her spirit.
The labyrinths of the dark and dingy by-streets seemed familiar to me as the interior of my own house. In fact, I was becoming rapidly identified with the character, as well as with the person of the burglar. But as I sped on, the recollection of my former condition was forcibly recalled, as I came upon a tailor’s shop, ostentatiously placed at the corner of a well lighted street. The view of that shop acted as a talisman. It recalled me to a due sense, and to a most painful recollection of the transactions of the preceding night, and of my rencontre in Hyde Park with the usurper of my rights. I recollected perfectly well that I had received an invitation to a grand gala at Lord Flannery’s for this evening, of which I doubted not for an instant that my representative would avail himself. Julia, I also knew, had promised to be there. Curiosity, no less than jealousy, spurred me on. I felt a strong desire to see in what manner and to what advantage I should appear. I determined to make my way to his lordship’s, forgetting that if the police laid eyes upon me, I should dangle most loftily from the front of Newgate or the Old Bailey.
Onward I strode until I reached Grosvenor Square, from near which point I had started on my morning peregrinations. It was past eleven o’clock. I stationed myself in front of Lord Flannery’s mansion, where the glow of lights, crowds of liveried menials, and the sound of music indicated the commencement of the rout. Equipage after equipage rolled up, and depositing their inmates at the door, drove off in rapid succession. Crowds of fashionables swarmed the apartments. I waited for Julia’s arrival until my patience was nearly exhausted, and I was upon the point of giving the matter up in despair, when a magnificent turn-out drove up to the door, and Flashington Highflyer, Esquire, descended from the vehicle, attired in a most recherchÉ evening dress, and handed out—proh pudor!—the Honorable Miss Julia Adeliza Dashleigh!
I was petrified with astonishment. There was the figure which had excited her laughter but the previous night, and which was evidently the present object of her favorable regard. As the pair passed me, the light from the hall shone strongly upon my features. My representative gave me, en passant, a most facetious dig in the small ribs with his elbow, and suddenly clapping his hands upon his pockets, exclaimed,
“There are thieves here! I have lost my snuff-box and my handkerchief!”
“Dear Mr. Highflyer!” said Julia, with a winning glance.
“Secure this fellow,” said the hateful scoundrel, for whose crimes I was penitently atoning, pointing to me. “He has a suspicious look. Bring him into the hall. Come, dearest Julia, I will attend you to the dressing-room, and will then return to examine this man.”
Instantly I was pounced upon by a police officer, assisted by a dozen servants, and in spite of my cries and protestations of innocence, was dragged into the hall. Mr. Highflyer was not long in making his appearance.
“Search him, officer,” said he, as he drew out his tooth-pick, and planted himself in a very Lara-like style, with his back to the banisters.
“You infernal, thieving, rope-cracking black-guard!” I roared, goaded to the very verge of insanity by these accumulated misadventures.
“Gag him,” said my tormentor. “Have you found any thing, officer?”
“All right, sir,” replied that functionary, “Is this here vipe yours?”
Shocking to relate, the missing articles were found upon me!
“That handkerchief is mine, as well as the snuff-box. I shall appear to prosecute. Off with him to Bow Street. A p-r-e-e-tt-y good-looking chap for a pickpocket,” continued he, as he turned his head with a supercilious smile, and examined me through his eye-glass. The smile gave way to a sneer of the most diabolical description as he ascended the staircase. I had never thought myself so confoundedly ugly as I did at that moment.
Of course I was dragged off to the police-office, upon the charge of robbing myself. All that I could say would be of no avail, therefore I kept a most stoical silence. Having arrived at our destination, I was walked in before the head of the police, who, after a long and scrutinizing survey of my person, whispered an officer, who went out. I was then desired, or rather commanded, to extend my wrists to another officer, who placed upon them a very ornamental, but not very agreeable appendage, in the shape of a pair of manacles. I had subsided into a dogged, sullen, almost unconscious state of mind, and was becoming, in fact, very careless as regarded consequences. Half an hour had elapsed, when the officer who had spoken with the chief of police, returned. He whispered the presiding functionary, who grinned approvingly.
“Well, my kiddy,” said he, “the Saffron-Hill job warn’t enough for you, eh? But I’ve caged you now, bird, and you’ll be made to sing plenty loud for that matter, outcepting this altogether.”
“I never heerd the like of this lark,” said the under-strapper. “It’s a rigler demeanin’ of the trade. Here’s one of your Jimmy burglary swells come down to a-sneak of a pickpocket!”
It would be a work of supererogation to detail the variety of insults and the tortures of mind that I was forced to undergo from my appearance before the magistrate the next morning, until my final trial at the Old Bailey upon the charge of burglary. I had heard nothing of my ingenious tyrant, who was evidently, at the time I saw him last, in a very fair way to lead my lady-love to the altar. Nor, indeed, had I any opportunity of hearing from him. I saw no persons save my keeper, and a little, seedy, Jew attorney, whom I discovered to be in pay of the gang of which I was a worthy member. After various consultations with this gentleman, who informed me that he would be able, in spite of the veracious testimony of the respectable Mr. Ikey Solomons, to produce a satisfactory alibi, it was decided that I was to put in the plea of Not Guilty.
The day of trial arrived, after a weary and solitary residence within the walls of my prison of a month. None of the gang came near me, and I could never learn any tidings of Bess. At the appointed time, I was escorted into the court, and being duly arraigned, the charge was read to me, in that agreeable nasality of tone peculiar to the clerks of all legal tribunals. During this process, to which I paid not the least attention, I espied a newspaper lying by the side of the dock. I picked it up, and was vacantly pouring over the columns, unseen by my jailers, when my attention was riveted by the following paragraph, which filled my breast with horror and despair.
“Married, by the Right Rev. Doctor Dumfungle, at St. Martin’s in the Fields, Flashington Highflyer, Esq., to the Hon. Julia Adeliza, daughter of Sir Poins Dashleigh, Bart.”
The climax to my sorrows had then arrived. The whole man was quelled within me. Spectators, judge and jury were all forgotten, and the tide of my woes rushed irresistibly onward, overwhelming me in the vortex. The question was put in the usual form, “guilty or not guilty?” Life had cloyed with me. I longed to occupy a resting place where I should be secure from the scorn and the persecutions of the world. The grave offered this refuge, and I gladly embraced it.
I therefore rose from my seat, and replied to the query of the clerk, “guilty.”
My attorney fairly fell under the table with astonishment. The whole assemblage seemed utterly confounded at my audacity, and a voice was heard above the general buz of tongues, which I recognized as appertaining to my acquaintance, Mr. Sooterkins.
“Vell, by blazes, h’aint you gone and done it!”
Of course I was sentenced to be hanged. Day after day dragged on its weary course, and as I gazed at the gray walls of my dungeon, my heart seemed to harden like the stone itself. In vain did the ministers of the gospel strive to arouse me from my apathy. All was cold and dead within me. The day before that which was fixed for my execution, to my extreme surprise, Mr. Flashington Highflyer entered my cell.
For some time indignation chained up my tongue. I experienced a choking sensation as I stared furiously upon my visiter, whose countenance was drawn out into the most hypocritical length. This did not very long continue, for the solemn visage which he had chosen to exhibit at his entrance soon gave place to a most malicious and devilish sneer.
“Well,” said he, with an odious chuckle, “my fine fellow, how d’ye like your bargain?”
“Avaunt, fiend!” I exclaimed. He certainly manifested no symptoms of departure, but lolling upon my bunk, produced a Havana from his mother-of-pearl cigar-case, and igniting it by means of a Lucifer, commenced to smoke with great sang froid.
“Pretty pleasant lodgings, those of yours, my old chap, but your wardrobe was horridly low and vulgar. In fact, I was compelled to make a bonfire of all your old clothes, before I could manage to put it into tolerable order.”
“You infernal scoundrel!” I roared, goaded to madness by this last insult. “I told you that you should pay for your rascality, and, by heaven, you shall pay for it now!”
As I spoke, I rushed upon him and grappled tightly with him. He resisted strenuously, but rage had nerved me with the strength of a dozen men, and seizing him by the throat, we rolled upon the ground together.
“Ya—ya—yough! Gollamity, massa, what you do? Want fur choke Sip?—oh, murder! murder!”
I looked with bewildered eyes around me. I had upset the table, tumbled from my chair upon the floor, and had grappled poor Scipio by the throat, until his eye-balls protruded an inch from his head.
“Hollo!” I cried, “where the devil am I?”
“Why, you home, be sure, massa,” replied Scipio, whimpering from the effects of the rough salutation I had bestowed upon him, “and be broad daylight, and you no bin to bed yit.”
I looked at the decanter. It was empty.
“Oh!” ejaculated I.
The odious apparel of the preceding night still decked my person and strewed the room. There was a sickening odor of stale tobacco-smoke hovering through the chamber, and, with a very clear perception that I should require a tumbler of Hock and soda to reinvigorate the inner man, I arrived at the comfortable conclusion that I was still in propria persona, the “man who could never dress well.”
P. S. I’m off to Paris. Fitzcrocky has Julia’s promise. A pea-green coat with gilt buttons, and a scarlet satin lining has done my business.
———
BY J. BAYARD TAYLOR.
———
Fill the cup from some secretest fountain,
Under granite ledges, deep and low,
Where the crystal vintage of the mountain
Runs in foam from dazzling fields of snow!
Some lost stream, that in a woodland hollow
Coils, to sleep its weariness away,
Hid from prying stars, that fain would follow,
In the emerald glooms of hemlock spray.
Fill, dear friend, a goblet cool and sparkling
As the sunlight of October morns—
Not for us the crimson wave, that darkling
Stains the lips of olden drinking-horns!
We will quaff, beneath the noontide glowing,
Draughts of nectar, sweet as faery dew;
Couched on ferny banks, where light airs blowing,
Shake the leaves between us and the blue.
We will pledge, in breathless, long libation,
All we have been, or have sworn to be—
Fame, and Joy, and Love’s dear adoration—
Summer’s lusty bacchanals are we!
Fill again, and let our goblets, clashing,
Stir the feathery ripples on the brim:
Let the light, within their bosoms flashing,
Leap like youth to every idle limb!
Round the white roots of the fragrant lily
And the mossy hazels, purple-stained,
Once the music of these waters chilly
Gave return for all the sweetness drained.
How that rare, delicious, woodland flavor
Mocked my palate in the fever hours,
When I pined for springs of coolest savor,
As the burning Earth for thunder-showers!
In the wave, that through my maddened dreaming
Flowed to cheat me, fill the cups again!
Drink, dear friend, to life which is not seeming—
Fresh as this to manhood’s heart and brain!
Fill, fill high! and while our goblets, ringing,
Shine with vintage of the mountain-snow,
Youth’s bright Fountain, clear and blithely springing.
Brims our souls to endless overflow!
THE PLANTATION OF GENERAL TAYLOR.
[SEE ENGRAVING.]
We present our readers this month with the first of a series of views which, by permission, we have caused to be engraved expressly for this Magazine, from Mr. John R. Smith’s celebrated Panorama of the Mississippi River. It represents the cotton plantation belonging to the recently elected President of the U. S., General Zachary Taylor. It is situated on the eastern branch of the Mississippi River, in Jefferson county, Mississippi, seven miles below the town of Rodney, between the estates of James Suggett, on the north, and Colonel Barker, on the south. The view embraces the overseer’s house, the cottages of the laborers, with a small portion of the broad acres which are comprised in the plantation. The spot is interesting, not only as being the property and the occasional residence of a distinguished public man, but as affording a specimen of those cotton estates, the culture of which exerts so important an influence on the commercial and financial destinies of the republic.
Plantation of General Taylor
FANCIES ABOUT A LOCK OF HAIR.
———
BY S. D. ANDERSON.
———
What is this dream that o’er me now
Comes with its bright and sunny spell,
As starlight falls on childhood’s brow?
Haply this lock of hair can tell.
Ah me! how thoughts of early years
Are linked with this dear gift of thine—
The doubts, the memories, and the tears
That cluster round this bygone shrine.
The air seems filled with boyhood’s flowers,
The perfume of the summer fields;
The dreams and gladness of the hours
That freshness to our pathway yields.
Times when the heart was glad and young,
A thousand scenes of love and truth,
That, rose-like, from our track have sprung,
Amid the dreamy times of youth.
Hours when each gushing fount of life
Leaped high amid this desert wild,
Come angel-like to calm the strife,
As once they did when Eden smiled.
Not often on life’s beaten track
Come such rich summer times,
To bring the heart’s pure sunshine back,
Like old remembered rhymes.
But now I see, deep in a wood,
Two lovers ’neath the trees so hoary;
She, blushing to the solitude
Beneath his simple touching story;
Her sweet face coyly turned away,
To hide the thoughts that on her cheek
Are mantling like the wakened day
Upon the mountain’s highest peak.
And he, perhaps some poet who
Had filled the world with golden dreams,
Hopes, that around his path upgrew,
As wild flowers deck the singing streams.
And thus, as hand in hand they go,
He tells her much we may not hear—
How his heart swelled to overflow
Under a sky so dark and drear—
How on the soul came Care and Pain,
Twin-sisters of the soulless Real,
The race and haggle for the gain
That those who win the world must feel.
The striving to become a part
Of that great sea whose tideings ever
Bears on its waves each manly heart,
That, struggling, droops its pinions never.
And now there is a bridal throng
Slow winding through the moss-grown aisle;
The ring, the vow, the nuptial song—
From age a tear, from youth a smile.
A cot with jessamine-covered door,
A streamlet singing all the day,
And on the dew-bespangled floor
A thousand golden sunbeams play.
Gay groups of happy children there,
The old oak and the breathless swing,
The shouts of laughter on the air,
The chaplets that the young girls bring.
All’s gone! except these gushing tears,
Sad relics of the joyous past,
The shrines that memory uprears
To shield the incense from the blast.
Some sleep beneath the ocean’s wave,
Some ’neath the flowers that loved ones tend,
Others have found an early grave
Where stranger skies above them bend,
And she, the cherished one, she sleeps
Beneath the violet-covered earth,
Where spring-time’s earliest cloudlet weeps
And roses have a dewy birth.
Enough, she sleeps—would that my dreams
Could rest forever by her side,
As peaceful as the morning beams
Are pillowed on the sleeping tide.
THE PRECIOUS REST.
———
BY RICHARD COE, JR.
———
Once on a lovely summer day,
I saw a little child at play,
While in a garden straying—
Till suddenly I heard him say,
“I am tired with playing!”
Then running to his father he
Laid down his head upon his knee,
And slept, oh! how contentedly?
So life is but a summer day,
And man—a little child at play—
While through the world a-straying:
And often, too, we hear him say,
“I am tired with playing!”
Till hast’ning to his Father, he
Lays down his head upon his knee,
And rests, oh! how contentedly!
WILD-BIRDS OF AMERICA.
———
BY PROFESSOR FROST.
———
This singular bird is found throughout the greater portion of the United States, and by the notes from which it derives its name is known to almost every farmer. The species was long considered identical with the Night Hawk; but this fallacy was fully exposed by Wilson. The Whip-poor-will appears in the Middle States toward the end of April, when its low, sad wail, may be heard at evening along the creeks and by the woods of the country. So peculiarly mournful is this sound that the ignorant almost invariably consider it an omen of approaching evil. By the Indians it is regarded as a spirit-voice, boding death or perhaps national calamity. The bird articulates pretty distinctly the syllables whip-poor-will, the first and last being uttered with great emphasis. A kind of chuckling sound sometimes precedes the principal tone. At these times the bird is generally on the wing, flying close to the ground in the manner of swallows, and sometimes skimming around houses. The notes of the Whip-poor-will are continued until about midnight, and on fine moonlight nights until morning. The shady banks of creeks and rivulets are favorite haunts. During the day they remain in the darkest parts of the forest, hushed to silence like owls, and apparently annoyed at the presence of sunlight. The cry of the Whip-poor-will is not heard after the middle of June; and early in September it departs for the south.
The Whip-poor-will is nine inches and a-half long, of a beautiful mottled-brown, relieved by other colors. It is noted for an extravagantly large mouth, beset on each side with thick bristles, and for a very strong bill. The female is less in size than the male, and rather lighter colored. She begins to lay toward the middle of May, choosing for this purpose a dry situation, covered with brush, decayed leaves, etc., but building no nest. The eggs are two in number, dark and marbled. The young appear early in June.
The Goatsucker, Night Hawk, and seventeen other species belong to the same genus as the Whip-poor-will. Of these fifteen belong to America. Nuttall has the following remarks on some of these.
“But if superstition takes alarm at our familiar and simple species, what would be thought by the ignorant of a South American kind, large as the Wood Owl, which, in the lonely forests of Demerara, about midnight, breaks out, lamenting like one in deep distress, and in a tone more dismal even than the painful hexachord of the slothful Ai. The sounds like the expiring sighs of some agonizing victim, begin with a high, loud note, ‘ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! ha! ha!’ each tone falling lower and lower, till the last syllable is scarcely heard, pausing a moment or two between this reiterated tale of seeming madness.
“Four other species of the Goat-sucker, according to Waterton, also inhabit the tropical wilderness, among which is included our present subject. Figure to yourself the surprise and wonder of the stranger who takes up his solitary abode for the first night amidst these awful and interminable forests, when, at twilight, he begins to be assailed familiarly with a spectral equivocal bird, approaching within a few yards, and then accosting him with ‘who-are-you, who—who—who are you?’ Another approaches, and bids him, as if a slave under the lash, ‘work-away, work—work—work-away!’ A third, mournfully cries, ‘willy come go, willy—willy—willy come go!’ and as you get among the highlands, our old acquaintance vociferates, ‘whip-poor-will, whip—whip—whip-poor-will!’ It is, therefore, not surprising that such unearthly sounds should be considered in the light of supernatural forebodings issuing from spectres in the guise of birds.”
This lively and beautiful bird is widely diffused through the United States under the names of Oriole, Hanging-Bird, Golden Robin, Fire Bird, and Baltimore Bird. According to Catesby, the latter name originates from the colors of its plumage being the same as that of Lord Baltimore’s livery. It is seven inches in length. The head, throat, and upper part of the back, are black, and the remaining portions bright orange, inclining to vermilion on the breast, with some white among the feathers of the wings. The colors of the female are less bright than those of the male, and she is somewhat smaller. The male does not acquire his full plumage until the third spring, undergoing in the intermediate time many singular changes.
The Oriole family are distinguished for the singular manner of building. “For this purpose,” says Wilson, “he generally fixes on the high-bending extremities of the branches, fastening strong strings of hemp or flax round two forked twigs, corresponding to the intended width of the nest. With the same materials, mixed with quantities of loose tow, he interweaves or fabricates a strong, firm kind of cloth, not unlike the substance of a hat in its raw state, forming it into a pouch of six or seven inches in depth, lining it substantially with various soft substances well interwoven with the outward netting, and lastly, finishes with a layer of horse-hair; the whole being shaded from the sun and rain by a natural pent-house or canopy of leaves.” The solicitude of the Baltimore to obtain proper materials for his nest, often leads him to commit depredations on the farmer’s hemp, or the thread and silk of the housewife. Skeins of these materials have been found in the nest after its being deserted by the young.
According to Nuttall, the Oriole possesses a propensity to imitate other birds. He is particular in describing their natural notes. “The mellow-whistled notes which they are heard to trumpet from the high branches of our tallest trees and gigantic elms, resemble at times, tshippe-tshayia too too, and ’tshippee-’tshippee, too too, (with the two last syllables loud and full.) These notes are also varied so as to resemble ’tsh, ’tsh ’tsheet shoo tshoo tshoo,[2] also tsh, ’tsheefa ’tsheefa tshoo and ’k’tÚfatÚf a tÚf a tÉa kerry.[3] Another bird I have occasionally heard to call for hours, with some little variation, tu teo teo teo too, in a loud, querulous, and yet almost ridiculously merry strain. At other intervals, the sensations of solitude seem to stimulate sometimes a loud interrogatory note, echoed forth at intervals, as k’rry kerry? and terminating plaintively k’rry k’rry tu, the voice falling off very slenderly in the last long syllable, which is apparently an imitation from the Cardinal Grosbeak, and the rest is derived from the Crested Titmouse, whom they have heard already in concert as they passed through the warmer states. Another interrogatory strain which I heard in the spring of 1830, was precisely ’yip ’k’rry, ’yip ’yip k’rry, very loud and oft repeated. Another male went in his ordinary key, tsherry tsherry, tshipee tsh’rry, notes copied from the exhaustless stock of the Carolina Wren, (also heard on his passage,) but modulated to suit the fancy of our vocalist. The female likewise sings, but less agreeably than the male.”
This particularity in describing sounds which are almost indescribable may seem frivolous to some of our readers, but those who have ever listened to the melting notes of the Baltimore Oriole will pardon this accurate observer of nature the attempt.
The common food of the Oriole is insects, especially a species of small beetle. They are said to love the honey in the blossoms of trees. If domesticated, they must still be fed on animal food, principally minced meat, soaked in milk. When adult, they will also eat fruit-cakes and meal. They are not difficult to tame, and form a pleasant pet. Their eggs are four or five in number, white, with dark lines and spots. In the Southern States they sometimes raise two broods; but further northward only one. The Oriole extends over the continent as far south as Brazil, where hundreds of nests are found in every forest.
THE PINE-TREE.
———
BY CAROLINE MAY.
———
How dear to my heart and my memory
Is that old majestic evergreen tree!
It stands like the guardian of our cot
Time-honored friend! it shall ne’er be forgot,
For I’ve spent bright hours of glee,
And of quiet rest
More deeply blest,
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.
A rose-tree lived ’neath this agÉd one,
Concealed from the noontide rays of the sun,
And ’twas sweet to mark in his resting hour,
(The only time he could look on the flower,)
How he smiled on her lovingly,
Till her rosy hue
Still rosier grew,
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.
Up by its trunk I would stand and lean,
Gazing with rapture upon the soft scene,
(On the feathery-outlined isle that lay
Where the river and stream together play,)
For beauty and love seemed to be
Everywhere felt,
The spirits that dwelt
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.
And, laid at its feet, I oft tried to read,
But the breeze would play with my book, and plead
For my heart and ear, in a witching song
Which I could not resist, for ’twas never long,
And plaintive as plaintive could be;
So I listened, and sighed
When the sweet breeze died
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.
And there in the quiet I fain would rhyme,
And weave loving lays with a measured chime,
But my thoughts, as wild as the birds, would fly
From the beautiful earth to the beautiful sky
Unfixed, unfettered, and free,
In a dreamy joy
Which naught could destroy,
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.
I loved to be up on a merry May morn,
When musical sounds and bright clouds were born,
And join in the earliest chant of praise,
Which all that had life seemed glad to raise,
The clear carols of gushing glee
The birds would make,
Just at day-break,
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.
And I loved in the summer twilight dim,
To sing with my sister some holy hymn,
And watch the green shades as they deeper grew,
And a strange mysterious darkness threw;
And most dearly I loved to see
O’er the wavy grass
The night-wind pass,
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.
Then since I have loved both in shape and shine
Under its sheltering boughs to recline—
Since what I once love I love to the end,
Be it tree, bird or flower—book, music or friend—
When death cometh I fain would be
There laid to sleep,
Lowly and deep,
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.
GEMS FROM LATE READINGS.
