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 FROM THE 
 
 BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY 
 
 COLLECTED BY 
 
 BENNO LOEWY 
 
 1854-1919 
 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 3106.A6 
 
 3 1924 022 206 613 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022206613 
 
SELECTIONS 
 
 FROM THE WRITINGS 
 
 HENRY THEODORE TUCKERMAN. 
 
 FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION. 
 
IT HAS BEEN 
 WITH TENDER AND 
 REVERENT HANDS THAT 
 THESE PAPERS HAVE BEEN COL- 
 LECTED FOR PRESERVATION IN THIS 
 MORE- PERMANENT FORM, AND THEY ARE NOW 
 OFFERED TO A FEW CHERISHED 
 FRIENDS IN FAITHFUL AND 
 AFFECTIONATE MEMORY 
 OF THEIR 
 
 BELOVED AUTHOR. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Sicily I 
 
 Cast of Tennyson's Hand 23 
 
 Oswego 24 
 
 Virginia 43 
 
 Presentation Address 84 
 
 Ode to President Lincoln 86 
 
 Ode to Adelaide Ristori 88 
 
 The Dying Model 89 
 
 The Graves at Newport 92 
 
 Lothair and its Author 173 
 
 The Elms of Old Trinity 191 
 
 Literature of Fiction 194 
 
 Obituary — Joseph C. Cogswell, LL.D 302 
 
 " Mrs. Sydney Brooks 307 
 
 Athanase Coquerel, Pere et Fils 311 
 
SELECT WRITINGS. 
 
 SICILY. 
 
 United States Magazine and Democratic Review, July, 1848. 
 
 In Lamartine's admirably written report on the 
 foreign policy of France, when describing the late 
 revolutions in Europe he says : 
 
 " Sicily rose against the domination of Naples. 
 She first claimed her constitution. Irritated by re- 
 fusal, she heroically reconquered her soil and her 
 citadels. Tardy concessions no longer appeased 
 her ; she demanded a complete separation — she 
 convoked her own parliament — she proclaimed her- 
 self mistress of her own destinies, and avenged 
 her long subjection to the Bourbons by declaring 
 that the princes of the House of Naples should be 
 forever excluded from all possibility of succeeding 
 to the constitutional throne of Sicily." 
 
2 SICILY. 
 
 And a celebrated English periodical,* in view of 
 this event, suggests the expediency of the British 
 government taking possession of this largest island 
 in the Mediterranean, for the disinterested purpose 
 of aiding its ignorant inhabitants in the mainte- 
 nance of their political claims, with the, of course, 
 incidental motive of checking the progress of 
 French power in Northern Africa — to accomplish 
 which enterprise it will, we are told, be " un- 
 necessary to recruit one additional drummer, or 
 man a cock-boat the more." 
 
 The contest between the honest recognition of 
 inalienable rights on the part of the republican 
 patriot, and the cold spirit of appropriation and in- 
 terference on that of the Tory journalist, is at once 
 striking and characteristic. It is needless to com- 
 ment upon either ; but the recent successful revolu- 
 tion in Sicily having excited general interest in the 
 actual state and probable fate of that remarkable 
 island, we propose to glance at its resources and 
 condition. 
 
 Few portions of Europe have retained so many 
 traces of their past history. Nothing is more 
 
 * Blackwood's Magazine. 
 
SICILY. 3 
 
 striking to the visitor than the diversities between 
 Italy and Sicily, owing to the comparative exemp- 
 tion of the latter from those influences, which, in 
 modern times, have wrought such essential changes 
 in the moral aspect of Southern Europe. The in- 
 sular position of Sicily has tended to the continu- 
 ance of its original peculiarities. The spirit of the 
 age has but slightly modified its character. We 
 can trace there the distinction of races, the origin of 
 customs, and the effects of climate and institutions 
 more satisfactorily than upon the opposite conti- 
 nent. The tide of emigration, in the present age, 
 has been diverted from the island. Few travellers 
 can afford the time necessary to explore its won- 
 ders, and the length of the quarantines deter many 
 from landing. The English merchants scattered 
 over the different cities, seldom weave permanent 
 ties with the inhabitants, and political restrictions 
 have for many years prevented the rest of the 
 world from exercising among them the legitimate 
 influences of the press. From these and other 
 causes, Sicily presents, to a remarkable degree, 
 normal features ; and some portions are as far be- 
 hind the times in respect to later civilization as was 
 Italy in the days of Montaigne. Hence an interest 
 
4 SICILY. 
 
 attaches to the island superior to that inspired by 
 the more advanced locaUties of Europe. With far 
 less comfort and elegance there is more variety, 
 and if there is less to enjoy there is more to observe. 
 The haunts of nature have been less invaded, and 
 the elements of character less overlaid by conven- 
 tionalities. Accordingly we can define, one by 
 one, the landmarks of the various dynasties that 
 successively ruled the island ; we can detect the 
 signs of a mingled ancestry in the existent popu- 
 lation ; and follow undisturbed the footsteps of an- 
 tiquity, through verdant labyrinths or barren tracts, 
 without constantly feeling her charms dispelled 
 by modern innovation. The only signs of ex- 
 haustion are to be found in the degradation of the 
 masses — the consequence of gross tyranny. In re- 
 gard to native resources, both of soil and character, 
 Sicily is as rich as in her palmiest days. 
 
 At Rome, we can trace the emblems of poly- 
 theism, but they are more striking in this compar- 
 atively isolated region. Heathen deity and Cath- 
 olic saint there grotesquely present their claims : a 
 sarcophagus is used as a drinking trough; Venus 
 and Mary respectively dispute the authenticity of a 
 broken statue ; the loves of Acis and Galatea are 
 
SICILY. S 
 
 recounted by the same peasant who rehearses the 
 miracles of a local divinity enshrined in the latest 
 edition of the calendar ; washerwomen tramp with 
 bare legs in the very stream which tradition assigns 
 as the outlet of the Alpheus ; and the evening 
 breeze, laden with the thyme odors of Hymettus, 
 bears also the echoes of the vesper-bell. We per- 
 ceive this intact condition in the dominant influence 
 of Catholicism. The French revolution, which so 
 materially affected her agency in the rest of Europe, 
 scarcely touched the supremacy of the church in Si- 
 cily. Not less than three hundred thousand persons 
 yet live there on ecclesiastical revenues, and one 
 hundred and seventeen convents exist on the island. 
 We may ascribe the unity and vigor of the recent 
 popular movement to the fact that " Pio Nono " was 
 the watchword of the people. The sea-girded isle 
 retained a more complete allegiance, from habit 
 and association, to the very name of a pontiff, than 
 countries more exposed to the liberal views of the 
 present century could possibly secure. Napoleon's 
 influence was there stayed by like causes. His 
 career made comparatively no signal impress ; and 
 the navy of England was a barrier which effectually 
 protected the insular realm from the encroachments 
 
6 SICILY. 
 
 of his conquering steps. Palermo has been justly 
 named the city of churches. Messina was long the 
 central halting place of crusader and pilgrim. The 
 Norman leaders dedicated their first spoils to erect- 
 ing magnificent temples of religion, and the princes 
 of Aragon, who subsequently became masters of 
 the soil, were actuated by a kindred spirit. The 
 modern capital of the island became the nucleus for 
 princely benefactions, and the traveller now beholds 
 in edifices mosaics, sculptures, paintings, frescoes, 
 and rich sacerdotal vestments, the tributes of Chris- 
 tian knighthood. The brave and pious warriors 
 rejoiced to lay their trophies as an offering both of 
 expiation and worship at the altars of Sicilian 
 churches ; and we can yet recognize devotion to the 
 Roman hierarchy in the splendid ornaments lavished 
 upon the Catholic temples of the land. The crosses 
 which surmount the few towers still remaining of 
 Moorish architecture, still proclaim the flush of 
 grateful conquest. Even the Reformation failed to 
 penetrate the destiny of this island. It is inscribed 
 not only with the hieroglyphics of antiquity, but is 
 redolent with the lingering atmosphere of the palmy 
 days of Catholic sway, as the incense from her 
 censers floats cloud-like amid the architraves and 
 
SICILY. 7 
 
 friezes of her beautiful temples, dispersed by no 
 gale of political enthusiasm or mental reaction. 
 Emblematic of the taste of a distant era, incongruous 
 from the mixture of heathen and Christian symbols, 
 and boasting chiefly the tokens of primitive art, — 
 these gorgeous structures affect the imagination as 
 at once eloquent of conquest and faith ; wedded to 
 the past, they stand in effective contrast to the vivid 
 changes which have either wholly subdued or 
 essentially modified the aspect of other coun- 
 tries. 
 
 Memorable classical fables endear the island to 
 scholars. It is associated with the Sirens and the 
 Cyclops. Scylla and Charybdis — denuded of the 
 horrors attributed to them by olden poets — lure the 
 eyes of the curious voyager as he enters the Faro ; 
 the meadow where Proserpine was " gathering 
 flowers — herself a fairer flower ; " the harvest of 
 fields especially beloved of Ceres ; and the tradi- 
 tionary fount of Arethusa, stir the memory and 
 touch the imagination, however inharmonious may 
 be their present aspect, in comparison with the 
 ideal reminiscences their very names excite. 
 
 But more satisfactory relics of the past are en- 
 countered in the fragmentary temples on the sites 
 
8 SICILY. 
 
 of Agrigentum and Segesta, Taormina and Seli- 
 nuntium. Their majestic and harmonious propor- 
 tions are, in some instances, wholly discernible. 
 Unlike similar remains on the continent, with the 
 exception of those at Paestum, these noble ruins 
 occupy lofty positions in view of extensive and fer- 
 tile scenery, which greatly enhances their impres- 
 siveness and relative beauty. Under favorable 
 combinations of season and weather, no memorials 
 of antiquity are better fitted to inspire either poet 
 or artist. We were confirmed in this opinion by 
 the lamented Cole, whose Sicilian landscapes are as 
 beautiful as they are authentic. One or two struc- 
 tures, also, serve as monuments of the Saracenic 
 rule, while buildings, fortified during the Middle 
 Ages, are scattered thickly along the coast. Thus 
 the fanes of Pagan, Moslem, and Christian eras 
 unite to attest the varied occupancy of that prolific 
 soil, and remind the visitor of the mingled elements 
 of blood and creeds which have formed the charac- 
 ter and destiny of the race around him. 
 
 The Sicilian character offers, indeed, a problem 
 as intricate as its varied origin. The most amiable 
 hospitality, worthy of the most refined epochs and 
 people, coexists with a latent vindictiveness, un- 
 
SICILY. 9 
 
 surpassed among the most ferocious barbarians. 
 A degree of ignorance in regard to the familiar 
 truths of science and history, such as would pro- 
 voke the smile of an English or American child, is 
 found united with a quickness of apprehension and 
 grace of fancy, that in other climes would be 
 deemed prophetic of genius. The keen intelligence 
 of the Greek, the sensitive pride of the Spaniard, 
 the vivacious manners of the French, and the fer- 
 vor of Italian passion alternately baffle the sym- 
 pathetic observer, who strives to define and charac- 
 terize Sicilian life. In the gay saloons of Palermo, 
 surrounded by the trophies of existent civilization, 
 one not unfrequently hears a tale of private ven- 
 geance recently enacted in the neighborhood, the 
 details of which essentially belong to feudal times. 
 Questions of the day are often treated in the spirit 
 of the sixteenth century ; and sometimes an almost 
 childlike simplicity of language, manners, and rea- 
 soning recall the pictures of Arcady. Ingenuous- 
 ness and duplicity, native talent and gross ignorance, 
 gentle, loving manners and pitiless animosity, soft 
 voices and fiery eyes, eloquence and brutality, love 
 and hate, the romantic and the vulgar, continually 
 intimate that the nature of the people, like that of 
 
JO SICILY. 
 
 the soil, is volcanic — rich in material of all kinds, 
 and capable of becoming the fertile source of all 
 that is lovely and useful ; yet liable, also, to fear- 
 ful outbreaks and pernicious and destructive re- 
 sults. There is obviously more consistency, vig- 
 or, and heroism in the Sicilian character than 
 in that of their opposite neighbors. This has 
 been amply evinced in every revolution. It is 
 curious that in each war a heroine has appeared. 
 The Sicilian women partake of the Amazonian 
 spirit. At the famous siege of Messina, they 
 fought on the ramparts. In the struggle with 
 Charles of Anjou, Macalda, wife of Alaimo, cap- 
 tain of the people, made herself a terrible name by 
 her sanguinary and equestrian prowess ; and a 
 large body of the Palermitans were led, during the 
 then late revolt, by a kind of Sicilian Joan of Arc. 
 Indeed, many of the sex were seen brandishing 
 weapons and rejoicing in victory ; and noble ladies 
 tended the wounded, and encouraged by their 
 presence and voices the onset of the populace. 
 
 When Sicily has experienced the mental impetus 
 and culture derivable from liberal institutions and 
 poplar education, the patriotic historian will find it 
 a delightful and philosophic task to write her annals. 
 
SICILY. 1 1 
 
 There are attractive incidents in the rule of the 
 Normans, particularly those which relate to the 
 good King Robert, as he is called ; and no more 
 dramatic chapter occurs in modern warfare than that 
 offered by the tragic scenes of the Sicilian Vespers. 
 The household story of Damon and Pythias ; the 
 tyrannic career of Dionysius ; the facts illustrating 
 the advent of Christianity in that part of the world ; 
 the traditions of Etna, and the many remarkable 
 anecdotes connected with the persecutions of the 
 Neapolitan Kings, and the spirited resistance of the 
 islanders, will furnish themes of no ordinary interest. 
 How far the ancient chronicles may be relied on 
 for statistical information, it is difficult to say ; but 
 their accounts of the populous condition of the isl- 
 and and the state of the arts, are certainly some, 
 what justified by the extensive remains and natural 
 productions of Sicily. A region over which Timoleon 
 reigned ; where Plato and Paul taught ; where the 
 greatest of ancient mechanicians ran from his bath 
 with theory of " Eureka !" and the inventor of pas- 
 toral verse sang, must ever possess a charm for 
 the votaries of philosophy and taste, of truth and 
 idealism. Musical genius, too, has a hallowed asso- 
 ciation with Sicily in the memory of Bellini. 
 
12 SICILY. 
 
 The name of Archimedes is identified with Syra- 
 cuse, and the fate of Catania is interwoven with the 
 different eruptions of the extraordinary mountain, 
 whose snow-capped summit towers like an eternal 
 beacon to the mariner's eye. It was long a drawback 
 to the prosperity of the latter city that she lacked 
 a commodious harbor — a want supplied by the 
 rushing lava, which after reaching the bay, hardened 
 round the shore, as if guided by the hand of art. 
 The extraordinary decadence of the ancient cities, 
 and the growth and improvement of the modern, 
 are subjects fruitful of speculation ; while the fables 
 of the classic era, the events of the Spanish and 
 French invasion, and the more recent fruits of Eng- 
 lish possession, suggest material both for descrip- 
 tion and analysis. 
 
 The modern cities, placed at the two extremities 
 of the island, are not outrivalled in locality by any 
 of the European capitals. Messina, the commer- 
 cial, is built within a fine undulating range of moun- 
 tains, immediately upon the sea. The dwarfed line 
 of palaces fronting the water bears melancholy evi- 
 dence of the ravages of the earthquakes which have 
 laid the city in ruins ; but from the balconies of 
 those dwellings, it is delightful, while inhaling the 
 
SICILY. 13 
 
 sea-breeze on fine summer evenings, to watch the 
 variegated hues that play on the opposite hills of 
 Calabria, or the fitful gleam of the fishermen's 
 torches reflected by the ripples of the Mediterranean, 
 gurgling through the narrow channel which sepa- 
 rates, at this point, the island from the main ; once 
 it is believed there united. The regular plan, noble 
 gateways, and delicious suburbs of Palermo, called 
 the Kingly, from having been the government resi- 
 dence, render it worthy of being the metropolis of 
 Sicily. Less visited and renowned than Naples, it 
 boasts many of the attractions of that fascinating 
 capital ; the same mild voluptuous spring- days ; the 
 same evergreen foliage, briny gale, and thronged 
 streets ; the same fruits, and ices, and chimes ; the 
 same fondness for afternoon rides and musical 
 soirees and " dolce far niente " among the nobility ; 
 and the same witty, unclean, and life-enjoying pop- 
 ulace. As representatives of commercial or manu- 
 facturing towns, we have such places, on the coast, 
 as Marsala and Trapani, the one celebrated for its 
 wine, and the other for its salt works and fisheries ; 
 while, in the interior, are walled villages, presenting 
 a very picturesque aspect at a distance, but filled 
 with the most wretched specimens of humanity, who 
 
14 SICILY. 
 
 seem to combine the filth and poverty of Erin with 
 the half-savage wildness of our border Indians, and 
 almost mob the traveller, as they cluster with hag- 
 gard features and pleading outcries, about his tired 
 mule, unawed by the threats of the guide. Perhaps 
 Theocritus was inspired by the landscape of Sicily 
 to describe the charms of pastoral life, on account 
 of the refreshing contrast between the sterility of 
 the mountains and the fertile beauty of the valleys ; 
 for it is seldom that the traveller experiences a more 
 pleasing transition than that from the sandy tracts 
 of the coast of this island, the stunted furze of a 
 reach of moorland, or the rocky channel of a torrent, 
 to one of the broad teeming vales that suddenly 
 burst upon the eye, with every shade of green, from 
 the gray tint of the olive to the vivid hue of newly- 
 sprung grain. The change instantly awakens Ar- 
 cadian dreams, and fills the imagination with those 
 rural images which bards of all time have conse- 
 crated. Nature is not only bountiful to Sicily, but 
 seems to indulge there in a kind of luxurious ca- 
 price ; so that the naturalist, as well as the poet, 
 enjoys a rare and varied feast. Wild flowers so nu- 
 merous that the most assiduous botanist of the 
 island has not yet completed their nomenclature. 
 
SICILY. I 
 
 deck with the richest colors hill-side and glen. Ii 
 the dry beds of mountain streams is found thi 
 purest amber. Papyrus grows on the banks of thi 
 Anapus. Over the straits of Messina, after thi 
 sunset of mid-summer, there sometimes hover th( 
 most singular forms, some quiescent, and other 
 moving with the greatest rapidity. This occur 
 after both sea and air have subsided from extrem( 
 agitation to entire repose ; and this kind of mirag( 
 is one of the most curious of aerial phenomena, en 
 chanting the fanciful while it baffles the scientific 
 On some of the mineral springs floats a remarkabl] 
 sanative oil ; and an odoriferous salt, at some point 
 of the beach, fills the air for miles with exhilarating 
 perfume. The strata of the hills are composed o 
 the richest and most variegated marble. The honej 
 of Hybla has the delicate zest of embalmed flowers 
 Tortoises bask on the sunny tide ; porcupines bristh 
 in the thickets ; gray oxen, with enormous horns 
 drag home the vintage on rude cars ; in the Fare 
 congregate every species of fish, from the deli 
 cious spada to the relishing sardine. Agates o 
 every conceivable tint are wrought into orna 
 ments. Small gray donkeys wind down the rougl 
 path from Girgenti to the sea, with two larg( 
 
1 6 SICILY. 
 
 cakes of sulphur, fresh from the inexhaustible 
 mines, rudely swung over their backs ; and groups 
 of swarthy fishermen, at Trapani, land millions of 
 tunny-fish in their capacious nets. The green fly, 
 exported under the name of cantharides, and the 
 most productive silkworms, feed on the leafy trees. 
 Orange and lemon groves cluster about the villas ; 
 enormous aloes and Indian figs line the road-side ; 
 vines dangle over trellis and wall ; and woods of 
 cork alternate with tracts of yellow broom such as 
 Shakspeare says : 
 
 " The dismissed bachelor loves, 
 Being lass-lorn." 
 
 The neighborhood of the sea, the presence of vol- 
 canic agencies, the extremes of heat and cold, the 
 excessive rains of winter and draughts of summer, 
 the intense sirocco and copious freshets, occa- 
 sion remarkable atmospheric vicissitudes and elec- 
 tric phenomena. The climate of Sicily is as rich in 
 variety as its soil in products and its inhabitants in 
 character. There are days of early spring positively 
 overwhelming by their splendor. Life palpitates as 
 if germinating anew. A world of pleasurable sen- 
 sations, for the moment, renders mere existence a 
 
SICILY. 17 
 
 felicity. In the rainy season, on the contrary, the 
 animal spirits are repressed to an even mood ; and 
 while the sirocco prevails, utter languor — a kind of 
 conscious death — prostrates the frame. Meteorol- 
 ogy can be studied to great advantage on such an 
 island ; and perhaps there is no better site for an 
 observatory in the world than Etna. It has been 
 noticed that the alternations of the barometer are 
 greater and more rapid here than in many places of 
 the same latitude ; and electricity is more rapidly 
 developed. The thunder-storms of Sicily often 
 equal in grandeur those of the tropics. The variety 
 and humid warmth of the air, or the abundance of 
 electric fluid, certainly have a marked effect upon 
 the health of invalids. Judicious observation could 
 discover a genial residence for almost every species 
 of valetudinarian, in some part of the island. The 
 functions of nature are more easily carried on than 
 in more northern regions ; and there is an obvious 
 difference in this respect, even between Sicily and 
 the continent. Not only do peasants "bring forth 
 in safety " but the most fashionable ladies of Palermo 
 are "themselves again " in a space of time almost 
 incredibly brief. 
 
 But the productiveness of Sicily finds its best 
 3 
 
]8 SICILY. 
 
 exponent in Etna. From the snows which crow 
 the summit — the essential summer luxury both c 
 this island and Malta — to the repeated croj 
 of grain that wave at its base, this extraordinai 
 mountain supplies all intermediate necessities — a 
 the drugs and the dainties for human need. C 
 its volcanic sides, formed of the decomposed la\ 
 of centuries, the grape yields its rarest juice 
 Rice, cane, hemp, and the fruits of the south thei 
 flourish luxuriantly. Higher up, beneath more r< 
 cent lava, mercury, nitre, alum, and vitriol abounc 
 Thus the chestnut-woods of Etna, afford game an 
 fuel, the springs healing waters, the soil pavemei 
 for cities, medicaments for the infirm, spices 1 
 warm, snow to cool, flax for the loom and wine fc 
 the banquet ; while the rosy hues that gather ; 
 evening around the cone, the fitful blaze th; 
 streams upward from its depths against the mic 
 night sky, and the simple grandeur of the moui 
 tain itself, with the thought of its destructive ene 
 gies, its fertile bounty — the beautiful and terrib! 
 associations of its name, render Etna one of th 
 exhaustless wonders of the universe. 
 
 At Nicolosi, the last village you leave on ascen( 
 ing the mountain, dwells Dr. Gemmelaro, the moc 
 
SICILY. 19 
 
 era Empedocles, or philosopher of Etna, who for 
 many years has sedulously observed its phenome- 
 na, recorded its eruptions, gathered specimens from 
 its splintered sides, and watched its wayward oper- 
 ations with a mingled feeling of curiosity and affec- 
 tion. Revered by the peasants for his learning, 
 and gratefully remembered by travellers for his ur- 
 banity, the worthy doctor recounts the feats and 
 speculates on the possible destinies of Etna, in 
 the spirit of a Monkbarns and Sir Humphry 
 Davy combined. Indeed, his real love of science 
 becomes amusing in connection with so decided a 
 virtuoso disposition. His recluse life is consoled by 
 this perpetual vigil. He actually seems to feel a 
 kind of responsibilty on behalf of the ancient vol- 
 cano ; to him it is a magnificent hobby ! He reg- 
 isters the names of all visitors, and has a list of 
 those who, for many years past, have ascended to 
 the crater. We were astonished to find how dis- 
 tinctly he remembered the few Americans enrolled 
 in his album. An hour's gossip with Gemmelaro 
 is a significant part of the excursion. He will 
 show rare crystals or exquisitely colored pumice 
 gleaned in his walks, point out on a map the topo- 
 graphy of Etna, give the dates and particulars of 
 
20 SICILY. 
 
 each eruption, traditions, anecdotes, and travellers' 
 tales, and wind up with sage advice as to the best 
 course to pursue in the arduous undertaking before 
 you ; so that, if your object be to see the sunrise 
 from that lofty height, you go forth from the old 
 man's cottage, beneath the stars, and wind amid 
 the huge masses of black lava, through skeletons 
 of trees, over crackling fragments — on and on, see- 
 ing always before you the broad white cone, and 
 ever and anon, a sudden flash that glitters on the 
 snow and lights up the ebon sea around ; — your 
 mind all the while revolving the wonderful fables, 
 and more wonderful facts, which make Etna so 
 prolific a theme to the scholar, the naturalist, and 
 the poet. 
 
 But this picturesque and exuberant nature is often 
 wholly disenchanted by the squalid and debased 
 condition of humanity. It seems as if the law were 
 immutable which decrees that necessity and opposi- 
 tion alone shall achieve the triumphs of civilization. 
 The signification of " comfort" is almost as un- 
 known in the life of the luxuriant and beautiful 
 South, as is the word to the dulcet vocabulary of 
 the people. After a day's lonely wayfaring in a 
 jolting "lettiga," or on a hard mule, the traveller 
 
SICILY. 21 
 
 finds himself in a small room, whose brick floor and 
 stone walls are stained with dirt, and the atmos- 
 phere is redolent of garlic and smoke. He sits down 
 half-famished to a frugal supper of baked kid, or 
 rabbit, broiled olives, salad of wild asparagus, roast- 
 ed chestnuts and thin wine, and retires, overcome 
 with fatigue, to be tormented until daybreak by 
 millions of industrious fleas. Yet the first breath of 
 the pure morning air, wafted from sea or mountain, 
 revives his fevered pulses, and a scene of verdure or 
 wildness — the dewy flax-blossoms, like little tearful 
 blue eyes ; the thatched encampment of cheese- 
 makers or carbonari, with its curling vapor and wild 
 dogs ; or a flock of goats, with their shepherd, stud- 
 ding a wide range of barren country, beguile him 
 to pleasing reverie. There is a singular melancholy 
 in a pilgrimage like this. Beauty and anguish, 
 fruitfulness and privation, are constantly seen in 
 such intimate contact, that personal discomfort is 
 often forgotten in reflection and sympathy. 
 
 But a few years ago, when our fleet in the Med- 
 iterranean, in search of more desirable winter an- 
 chorage than Mahon, sojourned in the excellent 
 harbor of Syracuse, a deputation of patriots waited 
 upon the American commodore, and offered to de- 
 
22 SICILY. 
 
 liver Sicily to his country, if he would cruise be- 
 tween the island and the main, after they had ex- 
 pelled the Neapolitan troops. The strict neutrality 
 which, since the days of Washington, and with his 
 judicious sanction, has marked our foreign policy, 
 forbade entertaining the proposition ; but a philan- 
 thropic imagination might easily conjure up a de- 
 lightful picture from the bare idea of such an annex- 
 ation, as he fancies how richly the dormant resour- 
 ces of nature and the perverted capacities of man 
 would awaken in that fertile region, under a free, 
 intelligent, and enterprising government. 
 
ON A CAST OF TENNYSON'S HAND. 23 
 
 ON A CAST OF TENNYSON'S HAND. 
 
 Large for his dainty work ; to draw from life 
 
 Its latent music, by magnetic sway, 
 And pulse that throbs with love ; its barren strife. 
 
 With Beauty's subtile melodies o'erlay 
 In dreamful consecration ; yet, perchance. 
 
 This is transcendent Nature — to combine 
 Strong grasp with gentle touch, and thus enhance 
 
 Both will and love. How wondrous firm and fine 
 Is the brain's peerless instrument — the hand ! 
 
 This one hath blessed us all, and scattered wide 
 A soulful largess over sea and land ; 
 
 To clasp the hand of poets is our pride 
 And noble joy ; and we will fondly keep 
 
 This laureate brother's — stretched across the deep. 
 
24 OSWEGO. 
 
 OSWEGO. 
 
 National Magazine, Dec, 1857. 
 
 There is a certain incongruity in the aspect, 
 prospects, and antecedents of Oswego. One of 
 the earliest frontier posts, it had every chance of 
 becoming a great mart ; but later settlements have 
 repeatedly outstripped it in apparent growth, while 
 its natural advantages are unrivalled. The first in- 
 halation of the breeze from the lake whereon it is 
 situated, assures us that we are in a far more salu- 
 brious region than most of the younger cities of 
 Western New York ; the position, arrangement 
 for business, and ancient memories of the place com- 
 bine to excite our anticipations : but we approach 
 it by land, on a railway which intersects a rough 
 and imperfectly cleared region quite behind the fer- 
 tility of the country which divides the other inland 
 cities of the State. On its most elevated site we 
 find a large stone edifice called the United States 
 Hotel, which is unoccupied for want of support ; 
 and yet as you gaze from its piazzas over lake, woods, 
 
OSWEGO. 25 
 
 river, pier, light-house, churches, stores, and dwell- 
 ings, it is difficult to imagine a more desirable sum- 
 mer residence within a day's journey of the metro- 
 polis. Even five miles back the climate is quite 
 different. The pure, bracing air here is at once 
 grateful and invigorating ; yet few seek Oswego, 
 because it is only accessible by a single and unin- 
 viting railroad. Business is proverbially spasmodic ; 
 speculation exceeds regular trade ; and its great 
 material, bread-stuffs, so vary in supply, that this 
 being one of the largest " depots," a transitory ac- 
 tivity is the natural consequence. Yet its trade 
 is greater than that of Buffalo ; it numbers seven- 
 teen thousand inhabitants ; twenty-four thousand 
 dollars were appropriated this year for public edu- 
 cation ; its banking capital is eight hundred thou- 
 sand dollars ; within a few months a fine, new, and 
 handsome stone Episcopal church has been erect- 
 ed, and Gerrit Smith has endowed a free library, 
 which already boasts a substantial building, four 
 thousand admirably selected volumes, and an ade- 
 quate fund invested ; five millions of property is 
 taxed here, which is about one-third of the whole. 
 
 Octogenarian residents speak of the time when 
 they knew Oswego as a thickly wooded place, with 
 4 
 
26 OSWEGO. 
 
 an old and new fort, a single inn, a few stores, and 
 three or four mansions occupied by gentlemen in- 
 duced to take up their abode here because possessed 
 of vast acres, of some of which they disposed for a 
 mere nominal equivalent ; hunting and hospitality, 
 with occasional journeys to New York and Niagara, 
 and some interest in politics, diversified their isolat- 
 ed but agreeable and independent life ; and such 
 of their heirs as retained land realized subsequently 
 large returns. 
 
 Ex-President Van Buren is one of the large land- 
 owners here ; squatters occupy many of his lots, at 
 present unavailable otherwise. 
 
 The lake sailors form a characteristic class of the 
 population, and a vigorous old woman, mother of 
 four captains, gave me a vivid idea of the salubrity 
 of the place, associated with frontier wars, the ex- 
 peditions of Montcalm and Shirley, and the rule of 
 Frontenac and Shirley, with the early development 
 of the great resources of the State after the revolu- 
 tion, and the Canada trade. Fort, mole, pharos, 
 derricks, storehouses, craft of various kinds, facto- 
 ries, and ship-building attest the navigable deposit 
 and transportation facilities of Oswego at the first 
 glance. 
 
OSWEGO. 27 
 
 The recent discussion in the journals of what are 
 called discriminating canal tolls, suggests an impor- 
 tant and peculiar element of its local prosperity. 
 But this was originally, and is forever indicated by 
 the grand inland sea on whose borders it is situat- 
 ed ; and the lover of nature as well as the political 
 economist finds therein a primitive and permanent 
 attraction, whether invested with the gray mist of 
 summer, crystalline in the frosty atmosphere, or 
 arrayed in the most gorgeous and versatile tints, 
 gleaming with the peculiar light of every precious 
 stone in the lapidary's cabinet, under the magic 
 beams of morning, noon, and especially sunset ; or 
 reviving Arctic memories when heaped with masses 
 of ice by gales, stagnant in the azure and glit- 
 tering calm of the intense and still cold of pro- 
 tracted winter ; or heaving up its mailed bosom on 
 the throes of the freshet. 
 
 As the summers are brief, the gardens bloom 
 late, and a profusion of Michigan roses make the 
 front yards and porch columns look gay, and the 
 yellow-rose is abundant. Late in June, along the 
 plank walks and by the neat domiciles, lilacs, 
 sweetbrier, and woodbine make the breeze fragrant, 
 and masses of snow-buds linger into winter. Be- 
 
28 OSWEGO. 
 
 fore the few humble cottages of the old French 
 emigres, many of whose poor descendants yet 
 remain, the fleur-de-lis ornaments a little vege- 
 table patch. Many fine trees lend rural beauty to 
 the streets ; the maple shows its crimson banner, 
 the Virginia woodbine its scarlet drapery, and the 
 mountain ash its orange berries in the autumn. 
 Sometimes the tint of sky and water, as one lingers 
 by the harbor late in the afternoon, recalls the Med- 
 iterranean; the stone mole, the white lighthouse, 
 the vessel on the stocks, and sails picturesquely 
 gleaming on the lake, make up a scene in which 
 Salvator or Stanfield could find desirable material. 
 Here a warehouse and there a fort, far away a 
 steamer on its way to Canada, or a schooner near 
 by entering the bay, hint the successive frontier 
 and commercial importance of Oswego. 
 
 On a fine day it is delightful to explore the little 
 remnant of woods that yet skirts the lake. Along 
 its margin the variegated stones are rounded by 
 the friction of the waves ; here a flat table of rock 
 invites your feet, and there a cape, with trees to 
 the water's edge, reminds us of the days when, in 
 their bosky depths, the Indian sprang from his 
 canoe to seek game or an ambush. The mandrake 
 
OSWEGO. 2 
 
 is yet found in these woods ; as you grope throug' 
 the bushes under the thick boughs of hickory 
 beech, hemlock, and birch, a spongy tract wi' 
 reveal a plant whose leaves are oriental in shape 
 and under their sheltering canopy, closely at 
 tached to the side of the stalk, like a cockade to 
 hat, is a flower like the form of a rose, which look 
 as if sculptured thereon. It is of a creamy white 
 the fruit is developed from the stamen, the stalk i 
 thick and porous, and the contrast of the snow; 
 outline of the flower and the dark green and dain 
 tily shaped leaves, give the mandrake, to 
 stranger's eye, more the air of a rich exotic than an; 
 product of our woods. The columbine nods fron 
 the rifted rock, and wild strawberries abound 
 The dead mouldering trunks, the heaps of browi 
 leaves and rank undergrowth, the myriad of deli 
 cate ferns, glimpses of the lake through the um 
 brage ; its low roar or quick splash, and the twi 
 light and verdure, make it seem as if we were fa 
 away from canals, railways, and trade, until 
 emerging, the orchard and fallow land, the chim 
 ney stacks and locomotive's whistle instantly breal 
 the illusion. Crossing the bridge, a vista of enter 
 prise offers itself along the river's banks ; mills 
 
30 OSWEGO. 
 
 lofty storehouses, barges heaped with bags and 
 barrels of flour, and immense piles of Indian corn, 
 rafts of timber, and boat-loads of salt, the loud, spas- 
 modic puff of the steamtug, announce a busy mart. 
 The old mounds and trenches of Fort Ontario re- 
 main, but the thick walls and barracks were rebuilt 
 ten years ago, and have modernized the structure. 
 From the parapet you look out upon the lake ; and 
 when a light mist hangs over its calm surface, and 
 a fleet of schooners loom through the saffron haze, 
 an effect is produced that would delight a votary of 
 Turner. 
 
 Lake Ontario is remarkable for its rocky bottom 
 and clear waters ; it is the smallest and the deepest of 
 the great lakes ; its beach is either pebbly or a slate 
 ledge ; it is singularly pellucid ; and, taking its color 
 most perfectly from the firmanent, nothing can ex- 
 ceed the diversified and exquisite hues its vast crys- 
 tal mirror reflects, according to the season, from the 
 atmosphere and the sky. The refraction is like that 
 of a mirror. Nowhere in this continent are the sun- 
 sets more splendid and various. The length of time 
 this great body of water is imbibing and giving out 
 the solar heat, accounts for many of the pecuharities 
 of the climate ; high winds prevail ; the winter is 
 
OSWEGO. 31 
 
 long and dreary ; the summers cooler than adjacent 
 places ; and the early autumn delightful. Apple 
 orchards thrive ; white fish are abundant ; the 
 enormous salmon, once so plenty, have disappeared 
 from the river, also most of the game from the 
 woods. After the grass crop, which yields at the 
 average rate of three thousand dollars for every 
 three hundred acres, grazing and vegetable gardens 
 are the most profitable kinds of farming ; the latter, 
 as usual in this country, absurdly neglected, al- 
 though the example of a thrifty Scotchman, who 
 has made a fortune out of a single large garden 
 which, a few years ago, was unproductive pastu- 
 rage, might have stimulated the natives to judi- 
 cious enterprise in this regard. One is here con- 
 tinually reminded of the marketable and economical 
 value of Indian corn, long the chief sustenance of 
 the Aborigines who dwelt here, now the most 
 nourishing food of prairie traveller and Southern 
 negro. The ease with which it is raised, and the 
 adaptation of the soil and climate of the whole con- 
 tinent for its growth render it eminently the grain 
 of America. Barlow sang, in one primitive epic, 
 its charms in the shape of a hasty pudding. A 
 shop in the London Strand dispenses it as the 
 
32 OSWEGO. 
 
 Yankee condiment, and as the crisp hoe-cake it is 
 the relish of a Virginia breakfast. The Indians 
 have a favorite legend explaining its origin as one 
 of the chief gifts of the Great Spirit to man. The 
 green banners and white tassels of the maize, 
 quivering in the breeze and sunshine of June, or 
 the golden ears at harvest, are among the most aus- 
 picious of nature's annual spectacles. It used to be 
 sold by cord in the ear ; in the West is is stored in 
 open houses ; here we see it in barge loads of ker- 
 nels, coming and going on the canals, rising and 
 descending in spouts from the elevators ; it heats 
 intensely from moisture. 
 
 There is one form of maize which is almost pe- 
 culiar as an original commodity here. At every 
 corner grocery in our seaboard cities are to be 
 seen little square boxes, with the Oswego brand 
 thereon, containing what is called " Corn Starch ; " 
 it has become a domestic staple for puddings, and 
 its manufacture is a special industry of this place. 
 For some years the secret whereby maize was con- 
 verted into this nutritious edible, resembling in 
 consistency and appearance when fresh from the 
 housewife's mould, " blanc mange" — except that its 
 color is a pale straw or deep yellow — was the ex- 
 
OSWEGO. 33 
 
 elusive possession of an Englishman, who has made 
 more than one fortune out of his monopoly ; of 
 late, the method has been revealed by one of his 
 workmen, and another establishment thrives be- 
 side its rival. The advantage of Oswego for such 
 a manufacture is obvious ; it is a great mart for 
 Indian corn ; its central position, and the facilities 
 for transportation, are additional benefits. To 
 make starch cheap was long a desideratum ; the 
 ingredient which wrought the miracle in meal is 
 believed to be soda-ash. Experiments of the kind 
 have been partially successful elsewhere ; but the 
 Oswego corn-starch, in quality and quantity, has 
 thus far carried the palm. The yellow kernels 
 having been ground in mills, the meal is thoroughly 
 soaked in vats ; fermentation ensues, and causes 
 an odor far from agreeable to unaccustomed nos- 
 trils ; it leaves a deposit, and is conveyed into 
 other vats, where the chemical agents are mingled, 
 and passing thence in a milky stream, the thick 
 residuum is moulded like bricks or loaves of bread, 
 and resembles cubes of chalk or plaster ; it is ex- 
 posed, in this form, to a graduated heat, and when 
 the moisture is entirely evaporated, the brown sur- 
 face is carefully scraped off, and the snowy block is 
 5 
 
34 OSWEGO. 
 
 papered ; it dries thoroughly after coming from the 
 kiln, and the moment the paper is opened crumbles 
 into beautiful white flakes, like the process of crys- 
 tallization, and is thus transferred to boxes of the 
 capacity of twenty pounds each. The meal is 
 soaked thirty days ; in the original factory, where 
 a hundred men are usually employed, it is esti- 
 mated that fourteen hundred dollars' worth of this 
 article is daily prepared for market ; the addition 
 of eggs, a flavoring extract ; and cooking results in 
 a nutritious pudding. The swill is conveyed to a 
 neighboring distillery, and is turned into whiskey, 
 the surplus feeding a multitude of swine. 
 
 Here, as elsewhere in this State, the water-power 
 and facilities, by their grand scale and communica- 
 tion, impress the visitor with the wonderful union 
 in nature of beauty and use. Oswego is situated 
 at the junction of the magnificent Lake Ontario and 
 the river which gives its name to the city, formerly, 
 and now sometimes called the Onondaga. The 
 waters of no less than eight lakes from the interior 
 flow through this river ; Canandaigua, Crooked, 
 Seneca, Cayuga, Owasco, Skaneateles, Onondaga, 
 and Oneida, with their numerous little tributaries, 
 and they drain a surface of four thousand five hun- 
 
OSWEGO. 35 
 
 dred square miles. Oswego and Ontario are the 
 aboriginal appellations for rapid water and pretty 
 lake. The great advantages of the locality from 
 hydraulic power and commercial position with ref- 
 erence to Canada and the great West, were recog- 
 nized at an early date ; and the French, who always 
 selected frontier posts with a view to military occu- 
 pation, made a rendezvous of Oswego when in July, 
 1696, Frontenac prepared his famous expedition 
 against the Five Nations. This, like the other en- 
 terprises of those colonists, was intended to confine 
 the English to the Atlantic seaboard. The histori- 
 cal process began with trading depots, which were 
 protected by friendly natives ; then as hostilities 
 between the rival Europeans and the Indians, and 
 themselves, respectively, occurred, these posts be- 
 came more and more fortifications, and from serv- 
 ing as landmarks and refuges to fur peddlers, mis- 
 sionaries, and travellers, they subsequently formed 
 the nucleus of populous and prosperous American 
 towns ; thus Pittsburgh marks the site of Fort Du- 
 quesne, and Utica of Fort Schuyler. The son of 
 the famous English bishop, Burnet, who wrote the 
 notable " History of his own Times," while provin- 
 cial governor of New York, built and manned a 
 
36 OSWEGO. 
 
 trading-house and small fort at Oswego, in 1727, in 
 order to gain and keep control of the lakes. Beau- 
 harnais ordered Burnet to relinquish the project, 
 which he declined to do ; and in order to keep the 
 balance of power, and retaliate, took possession of 
 Crown Point and erected Fort Frederick there. 
 While Braddock was on his way to a memorable 
 defeat, Shirley, governor of Massachusetts, at the 
 head of fifteen hundred provincials and Indians, 
 traversed the wilderness between Albany and Os- 
 wego (then a perilous and fatiguing journey), and 
 reached the latter place with his weary followers, 
 to learn the bloody and fatal tidings of Braddock's 
 overthrow, whose successor he became, and instantly 
 strengthened Oswego with two other forts, and be- 
 gan his preparations to make an attack upon Fort 
 Niagara ; his own defeat by Montcalm, and the 
 latter's fall succeeded ; and the ruined forts were 
 long a melancholy sight to the Six Nations. In 
 1757 the English again took possession of Fort On- 
 tario, and two years after it was rebuilt on a larger 
 scale. No action occurred there during the Revo- 
 lution, but "a detachment of rangers and a few In- 
 dians, under Col. St. Leger, were ordered to pene- 
 trate by Oswego to the Mohawk, and capture and 
 
OSWEGO. 37 
 
 hold Fort Schuyler, at the head of boat navigation, 
 and thence re-enforced by Sir Wm. Johnson, with 
 his numerous adherents to join Burgoyne with the 
 main body at Albany. 
 
 At the close of the war Washington sent an expe- 
 dition thither, more for vigilance than conquest. 
 Willett, the leader, attempted to scale the fort, but 
 was obliged to retreat. In 1796 it was given up by 
 the English, according to the treaty of peace. 
 During the last war the British made an unsuccess- 
 ful attempt to seize national property at Oswego, 
 and vented their disappointment, as usual, by wan- 
 ton mischief. And now the trading log-cabin of 
 the pioneers, the frontier post of the hunter, the 
 fort of the rival emigrants, the resort of the friendly 
 and goal of the vindictive savage, the resting-place 
 of the Jesuit missionary, and the weary pilgrim of 
 the wild, the little village of the revolution, is a 
 prosperous city ; massive stone piers, erected by the 
 United States Government, stretch into the lake ; 
 long and solid bridges span the river ; and where 
 Montcalm landed amid a dense forest and on a 
 lonely shore, is the populous centre of commerce, 
 where canal, railway, and steamers unite and dis- 
 tribute the products of the vast inland region, and 
 
38 OSWEGO. 
 
 stimulate productive industry in the varied forms 
 commerce, manufactures, agriculture, and transpc 
 tation. In the midst of the late financial pressur 
 twenty-two grain-laden vessels arrived at Oswe^ 
 in one day, mostly from Chicago, and about tl 
 same time says a local journal : 
 
 "An extraordinary story reaches us, which \ 
 give as we received it. When it was first told 
 we were fully convinced that it was a hoax, b 
 subsequent investigation compels us to say that t] 
 statements come well authenticated, and with eve 
 appearance of truth. The report is, that two me 
 named respectively Ward and Hall, were at wo: 
 down the lake shore, some miles from this cit 
 getting out hoop stuff, when they discovered 
 small keg buried in the sand. This they dug ot 
 and opening it, found it contained sixteen hundr( 
 silver pieces. The coins were of an ancient Fren^ 
 cast, and of the denomination of seven-franc piece 
 valued at one dollar and nine cents each. The tv 
 men with their treasure have left for Philadelphi 
 where they intend to change their coin at the mint 
 
 A dwelling now occupies the site of the moui 
 once captured by Montcalm ; the old fort stood ( 
 a tongue of land at the mouth of the river. A ye 
 
OSWEGO. 39 
 
 or two ago some workmen, while grading what is 
 called Botta Island, found a human skull, the back 
 of which was pierced with a musket ball ; it was 
 found inside slightly flattened. This was doubtless 
 the relic of one of the victims of the fight which oc- 
 curred here, in 1756, between Colonel Broadstreet 
 and his three hundred batteaux men and seven 
 hundred French and Indians. The previous year 
 Shirley had left the same number of men to garrison 
 the fortifications he began here, and Deskau's great 
 object, we are told, in reducing Albany was to 
 " cut off all communication with Oswego." A thrill 
 of trepidation ran through settlements in what is 
 now Western New York when the news sped that 
 Forts Ontario and Oswego were threatened by the 
 French ; and the banners captured at the latter by 
 Montcalm long hung as trophies in the Canada 
 churches ; the aboriginal country of the Five Na- 
 tions was long abandoned to the French. In 1759 
 it was at Oswego that General Prideaux embarked 
 with the large body of regulars and provincials and 
 Sir W. Johnson and his Mohawk braves to invade 
 Niagara. But this was also the scene of more re- 
 cent warlike events. The English fleet on Lake 
 Ontario in 18 14 landed a thousand men and attacked 
 
40 OSWEGO. 
 
 the four hundred who comprised the feeble garri- 
 son of Fort Ontario. Under their leader, Mitchell, 
 they made a gallant resistance, quitting the en- 
 trenchments to fight on the shore ; they killed the 
 favorite officer of the invaders, and did them great 
 mischief; but overpowered by numbers, were 
 obliged at last to surrender. The public store- 
 keeper at that time is still an honored and prosper- 
 ous citizen of Oswego. When asked by the British 
 admiral where the stores were to be found, he de- 
 clined informing him ; whereupon the incensed Sir 
 George seized him by the collar, and, after heaping 
 curses on his head, declared him a prisoner. He 
 asked leave to examine his trunk, but found it had 
 been rifled. He was taken on board the " Prince 
 Regent " a fine frigate, and messed with the offi- 
 cers ; and he found to his surprise, that the highest 
 grade were not gentlemen, as in the American 
 service, but the roughest seadogs. Toward evening 
 Sir George came off, and swore vociferously that 
 his prisoner ought to be hung at the yardarm, for 
 not betraying the whereabouts of the public stores. 
 Colonel Harvey, afterward governor of Canada, 
 and one of Wellington's aides at Waterloo, apolo- 
 gized for this conduct, and said his commander was 
 
OSWEGO. • 41 
 
 irritated by the loss of his brave friend and so many- 
 men in the late action. The captive remained a 
 fortnight on board the frigate. When she lay off 
 Kingston he sent to an old customer there for pay- 
 ment of a bill due him, and with the proceeds 
 bought a piece of linenj which the officers' wives 
 made into shirts for him. Besides thus replenishing 
 his scanty wardrobe he discovered, during the 
 cruise, many facts of the war which history has 
 since ignored or distorted. Commodore Chauncey 
 had attacked the British fleet at the head of the 
 lake with success ; all was going on well and he sig- 
 nalled others of his squadron to join ; but, like 
 Elliott's ship at Lake Erie, they hung back. At this 
 crisis the commodore's gun burst and killed twelve 
 of his own men. Finding himself wholly unsupport- 
 ed, he withdrew, indignant and discomfited. He 
 would not allow the circumstances, which so wholly 
 exculpated him from blame, to be reported at 
 Washington, and so died without the credit for gal- 
 lantry he deserved. On the other hand. Brown, a 
 militia officer, when attacked at Sackett's Harbor, 
 ignominiously decamped from the fort. The Brit- 
 ish, under Prevost, after taking possession, be- 
 lieving the abandonment a trick, and that the Amer- 
 6 
 
42 . OSWEGO. 
 
 icans were lying in ambush among the adjacent 
 thickets behind and around the fort, soon took 
 their departure, when Brown returned and took pos- 
 session. He was applauded as a victor : whereas 
 both parties " ran away !" An incident, which oc- 
 curred during this gentleman's brief captivity on 
 board the royal frigate, illustrates the vicissitudes 
 of war. A boat with American stores, in a dense 
 fog, got into the midst of the English fleet ; the 
 men reported a squadron of boats manned by the 
 enemy, and two hundred men with the commodore's 
 gig were despatched in pursuit. Through the influ- 
 ence of Appleton they were allowed to go up to the 
 head of a creek, and there surrounded, and the 
 whole detachment taken prisoners by the Amer- 
 icans. They learned by the firing on board the 
 frigate that a conflict was going on, and the next 
 morning a flag of truce, sent to obtain the clothes 
 of the prisoners, chagrined them with the news that 
 they had caught a Tartar. 
 
VIRGINIA. 43 
 
 VIRGINIA. 
 
 Continental Monthly, December, 1863. 
 
 One of the most curious and interesting results 
 of that eclectic spirit which has brought into sug- 
 gestive relations the different spheres of human 
 knowledge and inquiry, is the application of geo- 
 grSpliical facts to historical interpretation. The 
 comprehensive researches of Ritter and the scien- 
 tific expositions of Humboldt enable us to recognize 
 the vast influence of local conditions upon social 
 development, and to account for the peculiar traits 
 of special civilization by the distribution of land 
 and water, and the agency of climate and position. 
 In the calm retrospect of the present crisis of our na- 
 tional history, when the philosopher takes the place 
 of the partisan, and the exciting incidents of the 
 present are viewed in the chastened light of the past, 
 it will be seen and felt that a kind of poetical justice 
 and moral necessity made Virginia the scene of civil 
 and physical strife. Of all the States, she repre- 
 sents, both in her annals and her resources, her 
 scenery, and her social character, the average na- 
 
44 VIRGINIA. 
 
 tional characteristics ; natives of each section of the 
 land find within her limits congenial facts of life and 
 nature, of manners and industry ; like her South- 
 ern sisters, she has known all the consequences of 
 slavery — but at certain times and places, free labor 
 has thriven ; commerce and agriculture, the miner, 
 the mariner, the tradesman, not less than the plant- 
 er, found therein scope for their respective voca- 
 tions; the life of the sea-coast; of the mountains, 
 and of the interior valleys — the life of the East, 
 West, and Middle States was there reproduced in 
 juxtaposition with that of the South. Nowhere in 
 the land could the economist more distinctly trace 
 the influence of free and slave labor upon local 
 prosperity ; nowhere has the aristocratic element 
 been more intimately in contact with the demo- 
 cratic. Her colonial record indicates a greater va- 
 riety in the original population than any other prov- 
 ince ; she has given birth to more eminent states- 
 men, has been the arena of more fierce conflicts 
 of opinion, and is associated most directly with 
 problems of government, of society, and of indus- 
 trial experiment. On her soil were first landed 
 African captives ; and when the curse thus entailed 
 was dying out, it was renewed and aggravated by 
 
VIRGINIA. 45 
 
 the inducement to breed slaves for the cotton and 
 sugar plantations. From Virginia flowed the earli- 
 est stream of emigration to the West, whereby 
 a new and mighty political element was added to 
 the Republic ; there are some of the oldest local me- 
 morials of American civilization ; for a long period 
 she chiefly represented Southern life and manners 
 to the North ; placed between the extremes of cli- 
 mate — producing the staples of all the States, ex- 
 cept those bordering on the Gulf — earlier colonized, 
 prominent in legislation, fruitful in eminent men, she 
 was more visited by travellers, more written about, 
 better known, and therefore gathered to and grafted 
 upon herself more of the rich and the reckless ten- 
 dencies and traits of the country ; and became thus 
 a central point and a representative State — which 
 destiny seems foreshadowed by her physical re- 
 sources and her local situation. Except New Eng 
 land, no portion of our country has been more 
 fully and faithfully illustrated as to its scenery, do- 
 mestic life, and social traits, by popular literature, 
 than Virginia. The original affinfty of her colonial 
 life with the ancestral traditions of England, found 
 apt expression in Spenser's dedication of his peer- 
 less allegory to Elizabeth, wherein the baptism of 
 
46 VIRGINIA. 
 
 her remote territory, in honor of her virginal fame, 
 was recognized. The first purely literary work 
 achieved within her borders was that of a classical 
 scholar, foreshadowing the long dependence of her 
 educated men upon the university culture of Great 
 Britain ; and those once admired sketches of sce- 
 nery and character which gave to William Wirt, in 
 his youth, the prestige of an elegant writer, found 
 there both subject and inspiration ; while the 
 American school of eloquence traces its early germs 
 to the bar and legislature of the Old Dominion, 
 where the Revolutionary appeals of Patrick Henry 
 gave it a classic fame. The most prolific and kind- 
 hearted of English novelists, when he had made him- 
 self a home among us and looked round for a de- 
 sirable theme on which to exercise his facile art, 
 chose the Southampton massacre as the nucleus for 
 a graphic story of family life and negro character. 
 The " Swallow Barn " of Kennedy is a genuine 
 and genial picture of that life in its peaceful and 
 prosperous phase, which will conserve the salient 
 traits thereof for posterity, and already has acquir- 
 ed a fresh significance from the contrast its pleasing 
 and naive details afford to the tragic and troublous 
 times which have since almost obliterated the traces 
 
VIRGINIA. 47 
 
 of all that is characteristic, secure, and serene. 
 The physical resources and amenities of the State 
 were recorded with zest and intelligence by Jeffer- 
 son before Clinton had performed a like service for 
 New York, or Flint for the West, or any of the nu- 
 merous scholars and writers of the Eastern States 
 for New England. The very fallacy, whereon trea- 
 son based her machinations and the process of Se- 
 cession was introduced into the Nation's life- 
 blood, found exposition in the insidious fiction of 
 a Virginian — Mr. George Tucker — secretly printed 
 years ago, and lately brought into renewed prom- 
 inence by the rebellion. " Our Cousin Veronica," a 
 graceful and authentic family history, from the pen 
 of an accomplished lady akin to the people and fa- 
 miliar with their life, adds another vivid and sug- 
 gestive delineation thereof to the memorial illustra- 
 tions by Wirt, Kennedy, and James ; while a score 
 of young writers have, in verse and prose, made 
 the early colonial and the modern plantation and 
 watering-place life of the Old Dominion, its his- 
 torical romance and social and scenic features, 
 familiar and endeared ; so that the annals and the 
 aspects of no State in the Union are better known 
 — even to the local peculiarities of life and Ian- 
 
48 VIRGINIA. 
 
 guage — to the general reader, than those of Vir- 
 ginia, from negro melody to picturesque landscape, 
 from old manorial estates to field-sports, and from 
 improvident households to heroic beauties ; and 
 among the freshest touches of the historical and 
 social picture are those bestowed by Irving in some 
 of the most charming episodes of his " Life of 
 Washington." 
 
 When the river on whose banks was destined to 
 rise the capital of the State, received the name of the 
 English monarch in whose reign and under whose 
 auspices the first settlers emigrated, and the Capes 
 of the Chesapeake were baptized by Newport for 
 his sons Charles and Henry, the storm that washed 
 him beyond his proposed goal revealed a land of 
 promise, which thenceforth beguiled adventure and 
 misfortune to its shores. Captain John Smith mag- 
 nified the scene of his romantic escape from the 
 savages: " Heaven and earth," he wrote, " seemed 
 never to have agreed better to frame a place for 
 man's commodious and delightful habitation." To 
 the wonderful reports of majestic forests, rare wild 
 flowers, and strange creatures, such as the opossum, 
 the humming bird, the flying squirrel, and the rattle- 
 snake — to the pleasures of the chase, and the curious 
 
VIRGINIA. 49 
 
 traits of aboriginal life were soon added the attrac- 
 tions of civic immunities and possibilities — free 
 trade, popular legislative rule, and opportunities of 
 profitable labor and social advancement. 
 
 Ere long George Sandys, a highly educated em- 
 ploye of the government, was translating Ovid on 
 the banks of the James River ; industry changed the 
 face of the land ; a choice breed of horses, the 
 tobacco, culture, hunting, local politics, hospital- 
 ity-churches after the old EngHsh model, manor, 
 houses with lawns, bricks, and portraits significant 
 of ancestral models, justified the pioneer's declara- 
 tion that Virginia " was the poor man's best country 
 in the world." Beautiful, indeed, were the natural 
 features of the country as described by the early 
 travellers ; auspicious of the future of the people as 
 it expanded to the eye of hope, when the colony 
 became part of a great and free nation. Connected 
 at the north and east by thoroughfare and water- 
 course with the industrial and educated States of 
 New England, the fertile and commercial resources 
 of New York, and the rich coal lands and agricultu- 
 ral wealth of Pennsylvania, Maryland and the At- 
 lantic providing every facility to foreign trade, and 
 the vast and then partially explored domains of 
 7 
 
so VIRGINIA. 
 
 Kentucky and Ohio inviting the already swelling 
 tide of immigration, and their prolific valleys des- 
 tined to be the granary of the two hemispheres — 
 all that surrounded Virginia seemed prophetic of 
 growth and security ; within, the economist and the 
 lover of nature found the most varied materials ; 
 with three hundred and fifty-five miles of extent, 
 a breadth of one hundred and eighty-five, and a 
 horizontal area of sixty-five thousand six hundred 
 and twenty-four square miles — one district embrac- 
 ing the sea-coast to the head of tidewater, another 
 thence to the Blue Ridge, a third the valley region 
 between the latter range and that of the Alleghanies, 
 and a fourth the counties beyond them — every kind 
 of soil and site, from ocean margin to river slope, 
 from mountain to plain, are included within her 
 limits ; here the roads stained with oxides indica- 
 tive of mineral wealth ; there the valleys plumed 
 with grain and maize ; the bays white with sails ; 
 the forest alive with game ; lofty ridges, serene 
 nooks, winding rivers, pine barrens, alluvial levels, 
 sterile tracts, primeval woods — every phase and 
 form of natural resource and beauty to invite pro- 
 ductive labor, win domestic prosperity, and gratify 
 the senses and the soul. Rivers, whose names were 
 
VIRGINIA. 51 
 
 already historical — the James, the York, the Rap- 
 pahannock, the Potomac, and the peaceful Shen- 
 andoah, flowing through its beautiful valley and 
 connecting the base of the Blue Ridge with the 
 Potomac. Chesapeake Bay, a hundred and ninety 
 miles from its entrance through Maryland and Vir- 
 ginia, on the one side, and the Roanoke, finding an 
 outlet in Albemarle Sound, while the Kanawha and 
 Monongahela, as tributaries of the Ohio, on the 
 other, keep up that communication and natural 
 highway which links, in avast silver chain, the sep- 
 arate political unities of the land. The hills ribbed 
 with fine marble and pierced by salubrious springs ; 
 picturesque natural bridges, cliffs and caves, de- 
 scribed with graphic zest by Jefferson, and the wild 
 and mysterious Dismal Swamp, sung by Moore ; 
 the tobacco of the eastern counties, the hemp of 
 lands above tidewater, the Indian corn, wheat, rye, 
 red clover, barley, and oats, of the interior, and the 
 fine breeds of cattle and horses raised beyond the 
 Alleghany — are noted by foreign and native writers, 
 before and immediately after the Revolution, as 
 characteristic local attractions and permanent eco- 
 nomical resources ; and with them glimpses of ma- 
 norial elegance, hospitality, and culture — which long 
 
S2 VIRGINIA. 
 
 made the life and manners of the State one of the 
 most congenial social traditions of the New World. 
 Yet, as if prophetic of the long political issues of 
 which she was destined to be the scene of conflict, 
 the colonial star of Virginia was early obscured by- 
 misfortune. When John Smith left her shores for 
 the last time in 1609, discontent and disaster had 
 already marred the prospects of the new settle- 
 ment ; and, in half a year, Gates, Somers, New- 
 port arrived to find but sixty colonists remaining, 
 and they resolved to abandon the enterprise ; but 
 on encountering Delaware, they were induced to 
 return, and Jamestown was again the scene of life 
 and labor. Ten years of comparative success en- 
 sued ; and then one hundred and sixty poor 
 women were imported for wives, at a cost of about 
 the same number of pounds of tobacco ; but 
 simultaneously with this requisite provision for 
 domestic growth and comfort, the germ of Vir- 
 ginia's ruin came ; a Dutch vessel entered the 
 James River, bringing twenty African captives, 
 which were purchased by the colonists. Two 
 years later the Indians made a destructive foray 
 upon the thriving village ; the king became alarm- 
 ed at the freedom of political dicussion, dissolved 
 
VIRGINIA. 53 
 
 the Virginia Company, and appointed a governor 
 and twelve councillors to rule the province ; — the 
 father's policy was followed by Charles the First, 
 many of whose zealous partisans found a refuge 
 from Cromwell in the province. At last came the 
 Revolution and the Union. Meantime slavery 
 was dying out ; its abolition was desired ; and 
 had free labor then superseded it, far different 
 would have been the destiny of the fair State ; 
 whose western portion affords such a contrast to that 
 wherein this blight induced improvidence and de- 
 terioration, the tokens whereof were noted by every 
 visitor in the spare and desultory culture of the soil, 
 the neglected resources, the dilapidated fences and 
 dwellings, and the absence of that order and com- 
 fort which inevitably attach to legitimate indus- 
 try and self-reliance. This melancholy perver- 
 sion of great natural advantages was the result of 
 slave breeding for the Southern market. Other- 
 wise Virginia would have continued the prosperous 
 development initiated in her colonial days. The 
 exigencies of the cotton culture, rendered im- 
 mensely profitable by a mechanical invention 
 which infinitely lessened the cost of preparing the 
 staple for the market, had thus renewed and pro- 
 
54 VIRGINIA. 
 
 longed the original and fast-decaying social and 
 political bane of a region associated with the 
 noblest names and most benign prospects. Chief- 
 Justice Marshall aptly described to an English 
 traveller this sad and fatal transition : 
 
 He had seen Virginia the leading State for half 
 his life ; he had seen her become the second, and 
 sink to be the fifth. Worse than this, there was 
 no arresting her decline if her citizens did not put 
 an end to slavery ; and he saw no signs of any in- 
 tention to do so, east of the mountains at least. 
 He had seen whole groups of estates, populous 
 in his time, lapse into waste. He had seen agri- 
 culture exchanged for human stock-breeding, and 
 he keenly felt the degradation. The forest was 
 returning over the fine old estates, and the wild 
 creatures which had not been seen for generations 
 were reappearing ; numbers and wealth were de- 
 clining, and education and manners were degener- 
 ating. It would not have surprised him to be told 
 that on that soil would the main battle be fought 
 when the critical day should come which he fore- 
 saw." 
 
 That day it is our lot to behold. Forced at the 
 point of the bayonet to arrogate to herself the illegal 
 
VIRGINIA. 55 
 
 claims she had vainly sought to establish by pop- 
 ular suffrage, as reserved rights, ia 1787, and the 
 resolutions of 1798, the Secession Ordinance was 
 nominally passed and summarily enforced, despite 
 the protests of the citizens and the v/ithdrawal of 
 the western counties ; and thus the traitors of the 
 Cotton States made Virginia the battle-field be- 
 tween slaveocracy and constitutional government. 
 As early as 1632 a fierce controversy for territorial 
 rights occurred on the Chesapeake, when that por- 
 tion of Virginia, now Maryland, was brought into 
 dispute by Claiborne, who began to trade, notwith- 
 standing the grant which Lord Baltimore had se- 
 cured ; this, the first conflict between the whites, 
 and two Indian massacres, made desolate the re- 
 gions so lately devastated by the civil war. Nor 
 was the original enjoyment of remarkable pohtical 
 rights coincident with American independence ; for, 
 while Charles the Second was an exile and Parlia- 
 ment demoralized, the fugitive king still held nom- 
 inal sway in Virginia ; and when the flight of Rich- 
 ard Cromwell left the kingdom without a head, 
 that distant colony was ruled by its own assembly, 
 and enjoyed free suffrage and free trade ; then 
 came what is called Bacon's rebellion — an effective 
 
56 VIRGINIA. 
 
 protest against oppressive prohibitions. Nor did 
 these civil discords end with the Restoration ; many 
 old soldiers of Cromwell emigrated to Virginia, and 
 under their auspices an insurrection " against the 
 tobacco plot " was organized ; and this was follow- 
 ed by numerous difficulties in home legislation, by 
 violent controversies with royal governors ; depu- 
 ties continually were sent to England to remon- 
 strate with the king against "intolerable grants" 
 and the exportation of jail-birds. Their despotic 
 master over the sea appropriated the lands of the 
 colonists, while their own representatives monopo- 
 lized the profits ; cruel or obstinate was the sway ot 
 Berkeley, Spottswood, Dinwiddle, and Dunmore ; 
 and after the people had succumbed as regards mil- 
 itary opposition, they continued to maintain 
 their rights by legislative action. Under James 
 the Second, Lord Howard repealed many of these 
 conservative acts and prorogued the House of Bur- 
 gesses. A respite attested by glad acclaim marked 
 the accession of William and Mary, and the recall 
 of Howard. Andros was sent over in 1692. The 
 skirmish with Junonville initiated the French war 
 and introduced upon the scene its most hallowed 
 name and character, when Colonel Washington ap- 
 
VIRGINIA. 57 
 
 peared first as a soldier, strove in vain against tlie 
 ignorance and self-will of Dinwiddle, and shared 
 Braddock's defeat, to be signally preserved for the 
 grandest career in history. 
 
 And when the war of the Revolution gave birth 
 to the nation, not only was Virginia the native State 
 of its peerless chief, but some of its memorable 
 scenes and heroes there found scope ; Steuben and 
 Lafayette there carried on military operations, there 
 the traitor Arnold was wounded, Hamilton and 
 Rochambeau gained historic celebrity, and there the 
 great drama was closed by the surrender of Cornwal- 
 lis. In the debates incident to the adoption of the 
 Federal Constitution, there was manifested in Vir- 
 ginia that jealousy of a strong central government, 
 which thwarted the wise advocacy and ignored the 
 prophetic warnings of the best statesmen, thereby 
 confirming the fundamental error destined, years 
 after, to give facility to treasonable usurpation ; the 
 Constitution was only ratified at last by a majority 
 of ten. In the war of 1812, Hampton, Craney 
 Island, White House, and various places on and 
 near the Potomac, since identified with fierce en- 
 counters and forays in the war of the rebellion, 
 
 witnessed gallant deeds in behalf of the republic. 
 8 
 
58 VIRGINIA. 
 
 In 1829 a convention assembled in Virginia to mod- 
 ify the Constitution. Long having the most exten- 
 sive territory and largest slaveholders, the aristo- 
 cratic element disturbed and overmastered demo- 
 cratic principles. During Cromwell's rule, when 
 virtually independent, Virginia proffered a fleet to 
 the fugitive monarch, who, when restored, in grat- 
 itude ordered her arms to be quartered with those 
 of England, Scotland, and Ireland ; in exile even 
 accepted her invitation to migrate thither and as- 
 sume the privileges of royalty ; coins of the Old 
 Dominion yet testify this projected despotism. 
 Instead of Dissenters as in New England, Quakers 
 as in Pennsylvania, or Catholics as in Maryland, 
 Virginia, from her earliest colonization, was identi- 
 fied with the Church of England. It was regarded, 
 says one of her historians, as an " unrighteous 
 compulsion to maintain teachers ; " and what they 
 called religious errors were deeply felt during the 
 regal government ; the children of the more pros- 
 perous were sent to England to be educated ; their 
 pursuits and habits, on returning, were unfavorable 
 to study ; and, therefore, the advantage thus gained 
 was, for the most part, confined to " superficial 
 good manners " and the ideal standard attained that 
 
VIRGINIA. 59 
 
 of " true Britons and true Churchmen ; " the former 
 was a more cherished distinction there than else- 
 where in America. In 1837 was copied from a 
 tombstone in an old-settled part of the State, this 
 inscription : " Here lyes the body of Lieut. Wil- 
 liam Harris, who died May ye 16, 1608 — a good 
 soldier, husband, and neighbor : by birth a Briton." 
 In these facts of the past and normal tendencies 
 we find ample means and motives to account for 
 the anomalous political elements involved in the 
 history — social and civic— of Virginia. While boast- 
 ing the oldest university, where four presidents of 
 the United States were educated, she sustained a 
 slave code which was a bitter satire on civilized 
 society ; the law of entail long prevailed in a com- 
 munity ostensibly democratic, and only by the 
 strenuous labors of Jefferson was church monopoly 
 abolished. It is not surprising, in the retrospect, 
 that her roll of famous citizens includes the noblest 
 and basest names which illustrate the political tran- 
 sitions of the land ; the architects and subverters of 
 free polity, the magnanimous and the perfidious. 
 When the ameliorating influence of time and truth 
 had, in a degree, harmonized the incongruous ele- 
 ments of opinion and developed the economical re- 
 
6o VIRGINIA. 
 
 sources, while they liberalized the sentiments and 
 habitudes of the people ; when, says Cairnes, "slav- 
 ery, by exhausting the soil, had eaten away its own 
 profits, and the recolonization by free settlers had 
 actually begun, came suddenly the prohibition of the 
 African slave trade, and nearly at the same time, the 
 vast enlargement of the field for slavery, by the pur- 
 chase of Louisiana : and these two events made 
 Virginia again profitable as a means for breeding 
 for exportation and sale at the South." 
 
 The future geographer who elaborately applies 
 the philosophy of that science, as interpreted by its 
 modern professors, to our own history, will find in the 
 events of the last few years in Virginia the richest 
 and most impressive illustrations of local and phy- 
 sical causes in determining political and social des- 
 tinies. Between the eastern and western portion 
 of that State it will be demonstrated that nature 
 placed irreconcilable barriers to the supremacy of 
 slave labor and slave property ; and the economical 
 value of each will be shown and tested with em- 
 phatic truth ; so that by the laws of physical geogra- 
 phy the first effect of an appeal to arms to maintain 
 the one, was to alienate, as a civic element, the 
 other, and give birth to a new State by virtue of the 
 
VIRGINIA. 6l 
 
 self-assertion incident to the violation of a normal 
 instinct and necessity of civilization. 
 
 What a change came over the scene when the 
 grave civic interests so long and recklessly involved 
 in the conflict of opinion were submitted to the ar- 
 bitrament of battle ! Along the river on whose 
 shores the ashes of Washington had slept for more 
 than half a century in honored security, batteries 
 thundered upon each passing craft that bore the 
 flag of the nation ; every wood became a slaughter- 
 pen, every bluff" a shrine of patriotic martyrdom ; 
 bridges were destroyed and rebuilt with alacrity ; 
 the sentinel's challenge broke the stillness of mid- 
 night ; the earth was honey-combed with rifle-pits ; 
 camp-fires glowed on the hills ; thousands perished 
 in the marshes ; creeks were stained with human 
 blood ; here sank the trench ; there rose a grave- 
 mound or a fortress ; pickets challenged the wan- 
 derer ; every ford and mountain- pass witnessed the 
 clash of arms and echoed with the roar of artillery ; 
 the raid, the skirmish, the bivouac, the march, and 
 the battery successively spread desolation and 
 death ; Arlington House, full of peaceful trophies, 
 once dear to national pride, was the headquarters 
 of an army ; balloons hung in the sky, whence the 
 
62 VIRGINIA. 
 
 movements of the foe were watched. Gaps and 
 junctions were contested unto death ; obscure towns 
 gained historic names and bloody memories ; and 
 each familiar court-house and village came to be 
 identified with valorous achievements or sanguin- 
 ary disaster. 
 
 And this land of promise, this region which so 
 long witnessed the extremes of political magnanim- 
 ity and turpitude, this arena where the vital ques- 
 tion of labor, as modified by involuntary servitude, 
 and free activity, found its most practical solution 
 — was, and is legitimately, appropriately, and nat- 
 urally, the scene of the fiercest strife, for national 
 existence — where the claims and the climax of free- 
 dom and faith culminated in all the desolation of 
 civil war. A more difficult country for military 
 operations can scarcely be imagined. Early in the 
 struggle it was truly said : 
 
 " Virginia is the Switzerland of the continent — 
 a battle-field every three miles — a range of hills 
 streaming where Hill may retire five miles by five 
 miles till he reaches Richmond — a conquest, un- 
 doubtedly, if the North perseveres, but war at such 
 a cost and with such time as to prolong unnecessar- 
 ily the struggle. The Richmond of the South lies 
 
VIRGINIA. 63 
 
 in the two millions of blacks that are within the 
 reach of the cannons of our gunboats in the rivers 
 that empty into the Gulf." 
 
 How wearisome the delays and how constant the 
 privations of the army of occupation in snch a 
 region, wrote an experienced observer : " Dwelling 
 in huts, surrounded by a sea of mud, may ap- 
 pear to be very romantic — on paper — to some 
 folks, but the romance of this kind of existence 
 with the soldiers soon wears away, and to them 
 any change must necessarily be for the better ; 
 they therefore hail with delight, as a positive relief, 
 the opportunity once more to practise their drill 
 which the recent change of weather has afforded 
 them. For the last three months, the time of the 
 soldier has passed heavily enough, with the long 
 winter nights, and little else to relieve the monot- 
 ony of his life but stereotyped guard duty." 
 
 It would require volumes to describe the ravages 
 of war in Virginia ; let a few pictures, selected 
 from sketches made on the spot, indicate the mel- 
 ancholy aspect of a domain, a few weeks or months 
 ago smiling in peace and productiveness. The 
 following facetious, but faithful statement, though 
 confined to a special district, applies to many : 
 
64 VIRGINIA. 
 
 " The once neat court-house stands by the road- 
 side a monument to treason and rebeUion, deprived 
 of its white picket fence, stripped of window 
 blinds, cases, and dome, walls defaced by various 
 hieroglyphics, the judge's bench a target for the 
 expectorating Yankee ; the circular enclosure occu- 
 pied by the jury was besmeared with mud, and 
 valuable documents, of every description, scattered 
 about the floor and yard — it is, indeed, a sad picture 
 of what an infatuated people will bring upon 
 themselves. In one corner of the yard stands a 
 house of records, in which were deposited all the 
 important deeds and papers pertaining to this sec- 
 tion for a generation past. When our advance 
 entered the building, they were found lying about 
 the floor to the depth of fifteen inches or more, 
 around the door-steps and in the door-yard. It is 
 impossible to estimate the inconvenience and losses 
 which will be incurred by this wholesale destruc- 
 tion of deeds, claims, mortgages, etc. I learned 
 that a squadron of exasperated cavalry, who passed 
 this way not long since, committed the mischief 
 The jail across the way, where many a poor fugi- 
 tive has doubtless been imprisoned for striking out 
 for freedom, is now used as a guard-house. As I 
 
VIRGINIA. 65 
 
 write, the bilious countenance of a culprit is peep- 
 ing through the iron grates of a window, who, may- 
 be, is atoning for having invaded a hen-roost or 
 bagged an unsuspecting pig. Our soldiers have 
 rendered animal life almost extinct in this part of 
 the Old Dominion. Indeed, wherever the army 
 goes, there can be heard on every side the pierc- 
 ing wail of expiring pork, the plaintive lowing of 
 a stricken bovine, or suppressed cry of an unfortu- 
 nate gallinacious." 
 
 Here is a scene familiar to many a Union soldier 
 who gazed at sunset upon the vast encampment : 
 
 "Along the horizon a broad belt of richest 
 amber spreads far away toward the north and south ; 
 and above, the spent, ragged rain-clouds of deep 
 purple, suffused with crimson, were woven and 
 braided with pure gold. Slowly from the face of 
 the heavens they melted and passed away as dark- 
 ness came on, leaving the clear sky studded with 
 stars, and the crescent moon shedding a soft radi- 
 ance below. I climbed to the top of a hill not far 
 off, and looked across the country. On every 
 eminence, in every little hollow almost, were in- 
 numerable lights shining, some thick and countless 
 as stars, indicating an encampment ; others isolated 
 9 
 
66 VIRGINIA. 
 
 upon the outskirts ; here and there the glowing fur- 
 nace of a bakery ; the whole land as far as the eye 
 could see looking like another heaven wherein some 
 ambitious archangel, covetous of creative power, had 
 attempted to rival the celestial splendors of the one 
 above us. There was no sound of drum, or fife, or 
 bugle ; the sweet notes of the ' good-night ' call had 
 floated into space and silence a half hour before ; only 
 on the still air were heard the voices of a band of 
 negroes chanting solemnly and slowly, to a familiar 
 sacred tune, the words of some pious psalm." 
 
 We may realize the effect of the armed occupa- 
 tion upon economical and social life by a few facts 
 noted after a successful raid : 
 
 " In the counties visited there were but few 
 rebels found at home except the very old and the 
 very young. In nine days" travel I did not see 
 fifty able-bodied men who were not in some way 
 connected with the army. Nearly every branch of 
 business is at a stand-still. The shelves in stores 
 are almost everywhere empty ; the shop of the 
 artisan is abandoned and in ruins. The people 
 who were to be seen passively submit to all that 
 emanates from Richmond without a murmur; they 
 are for the most part simple-minded, and ignorant 
 
VIRGINIA. 6^ 
 
 of all that is transpiring about them. An intelli- 
 gent-looking man in Columbia laughed heartily 
 when told that Union troops occupied New Orleans. 
 Jefferson Davis would let them know if such were 
 the fact, and I could not find a man who would 
 admit that the Confederates had ever been beaten 
 in a single engagement. These people do not 
 even read the Richmond papers, and about all the 
 information they do obtain is what is passed about 
 in the primitive style, from mouth to mouth. Be- 
 fore this raid they believed that the Union 
 soldiers were anything but civilized beings, and 
 were stricken with terror when their approach was 
 heralded. Of six churches seen in one day, in 
 only one had there been religious services held with- 
 in six months. One half at least of the dwelling 
 houses are unoccupied, and fast going to decay." 
 
 Not all the land is ill adapted to cool actions and 
 strategy ; there are sections naturally fortified, and 
 those have been the scenes of military vicissitudes 
 memorable, extreme, picturesque, and fatal. Here 
 is an instance : 
 
 "There is no town in the United States which 
 exhibits more deplorably the ravages of war than 
 Harper's Ferry. More than half the buildings are 
 
68 VIRGINIA. 
 
 in ruins, and those now inhabited are occupied by 
 small dealers and peddlers, who follow troops, and 
 sell at exorbitant prices, tarts and tinware, cakes and 
 crockery, pipes and poultry, shoes and shirts, soap 
 and sardines. The location is one of peculiar 
 beauty. The Potomac receives the Shenandoah at 
 this point ; each stream flowing through its own 
 deep, wild, winding valley, until it washes the base 
 of the promontory, on the sides and summit of 
 which are scattered houses and ruins of the town. 
 The rapids of the rivers prevent navigation, and 
 make the fords hazardous. The piers of an iron 
 bridge and a single section still remaining indicate 
 a once beautiful structure, and a pontoon substitute 
 shows the presence of troops. An occasional canal 
 boat suggests a still continued effort at traffic, and 
 transport railcars prove action in the quartermaster's 
 department. The mountains are ' high and hard 
 to climb.' The jagged sides of slate rock rise ver- 
 tically, in many places to lofty heights, inducing the 
 sensation of fear lest they should fall, while riding 
 along the road which winds under the threatening 
 cliffs. The mountains are crowned with batteries, 
 like diadems across the brow, and the Hottentoty- 
 Sibley tents dot the ridges like miniature ant-hills." 
 
VIRGINIA. 69 
 
 But within and around the capital of Virginia 
 cluster the extreme associations of her history ; 
 these memories and memorials of patriotism hallow 
 the soil whereon the chief traitors inaugurated their 
 infamous rule ; the trial of Burr and the burning 
 of the theatre are social traditions which make Rich- 
 mond a name fraught with tragic and political in- 
 terest ; her social and forensic annals are illustrious ; 
 and, hereafter, among the many anomalies of the 
 nation's history, few will more impress the thought- 
 ful reminiscent than that a city eminent for social 
 refinement and long the honored resort of the most 
 eminent American statesmen and jurists, the seat of 
 elegant hospitality and the shrine of national fame, 
 was for years desecrated by the foulest prisons, 
 filled with brave American citizens, who were sub- 
 jected to insults and privations such as only barbari- 
 ans could inflict, for no cause but the gallant de- 
 fence of the national honor and authority against a 
 slaveholder's rebellion. 
 
 But perhaps no coincidence is more inpres- 
 sive in the late experience of a Union soldier in 
 Virginia than the associations there awakened by 
 the recurrence of the anniversary of the birth of her 
 noblest son and our matchless patriot : 
 
^0 VIRGINIA. 
 
 "The 22d of February, 1863 — the anniversary 
 of Washington's birthday — will long be remem- 
 bered," writes one, " by the army of the Potomac. 
 Encamped, as it is, on the very spot where he — 
 ■ whom God made childless that a nation might call 
 him father ' — passed most of his youthful days, the 
 thoughts of all naturally revert to the history of 
 that grand man, and particularly to that part of his 
 early life, when, within the sacred precincts of 
 home, a mother's care laid the foundation of that 
 high moral character which in after life gave tone 
 to both his civil and military career. Within one 
 mile of the spot where I am now writing these lines, 
 George Washington lived from the fourth to the 
 sixteenth year of his age. The river, the hills, and 
 dales, now so familiar to the soldiers composing 
 this army, were the same then as to-day, and were 
 the scene of his early gambols, his youthful joys 
 and sorrows. Over these hills he wandered in the 
 manly pursuits for which he was at that early period 
 distinguished above his fellows, and which pre- 
 pared him for enduring the hardships of the po- 
 sition he was destined to fill; here, too, is where 
 tradition says he accomplished the feat of throwing 
 a stone across the Rappahannock, and here, too. 
 
VIRGINIA. 71 
 
 stood the traditional cherry-tree, about the de- 
 struction of which with his little hatchet he would 
 not utter a falsehood. Yonder, just across the 
 Rappahannock, in a small unostentatious burying 
 ground, the immortal remains of ' Mary, mother 
 of Washington,' were buried— sacred spot, now 
 desecrated by the presence of the enemies of those 
 principles which her honored son spent the energies 
 of his life to establish for the benefit of all man- 
 kind. When we think for what Washington took 
 up arms against the mother country, and what, by 
 his example and teachings, he sought to perpetuate 
 forever, and see the fratricidal hand raised to de- 
 stroy the fair fabric he helped to rear, we feel some- 
 times as though an omnipotent power would here 
 intervene, and here on this sacred spot overthrow 
 the enemies of this land without the further sacri- 
 fice of blood." 
 
 Quite a different and more recent local associa- 
 tion is thus recorded : 
 
 " The second time that I stood here was nigh 
 three years ago, when I spoke to you in relation to 
 John Brown, then in a Virginia jail. How great 
 the result of that idea which he pressed upon the 
 country ! Do you know with what poetic justice 
 
72 VIRGINIA. 
 
 Providence treats that very town where he lay in 
 jail when I spoke to you before. The very man 
 who went down from Philadelphia to bring his body 
 back to his sad relatives, insulted every mile of 
 the road, his Hfe threatened, the bullets whistling 
 around his head — that very man, for eight or ten 
 months, is brigadier-general in command of the 
 town of Charlestown and Harper's Ferry. By 
 order of his superior officers, he had the satisfaction 
 of finding it his duty, with his own right hand, to 
 put the torch to that very hotel into which he had 
 been followed with insult and contumely, as the 
 friend of John Brown ; and when his brigade was 
 under orders to destroy all the buildings of that 
 neighborhood, with reverential care he bade the 
 soldiers stop to spare that engine-house which once 
 sheltered the old hero. I do not know any history 
 more perfectly poetic than of that single local in- 
 stance given us in three short years. Hector Tyn- 
 dale, the friend of John Brown, who went there 
 almost with his life in his right hand, commands, 
 and his will is law, his sword is the guarantee of 
 peace, and by his orders the town is destroyed, 
 with the single exception of that hall which John 
 Brown's presence has rendered immortal." 
 
VIRGINIA. 73 
 
 The graphic details furnished by the army corre- 
 spondents to the daily press of the North, reveal 
 to us in vivid and authentic terms the change which 
 war has wrought in Virginia. The condition of 
 one " fine old mansion" is that of hundreds. On 
 the banks of the Rappahannock and in the vicinity 
 of Fredericksburg is, for instance, an estate, now 
 called the Lacy House, the royal grant whereof is 
 dated 1690. The bricks and the mason work of the 
 main edifice are English ; the situation is beauti- 
 ful ; the furniture, conservatories, musical instru- 
 ments, every trait and resource suggest luxury. 
 After the battle of Fredericksburg, the Lacy House 
 became a hospital ; and a spectator of the scene 
 thus describes it : 
 
 "The parlors, where so often had the fairest and 
 brightest of Virginia's daughters, and her bravest 
 and most chivalric sons met to enjoy the hospital- 
 ities of the liberal host, and to join in the mazy 
 dance ' from eve till rosy morn ' — the dining-room, 
 where so many lordly feasts had been served — the 
 drawing-room, wherein the smiling host and hostess 
 had received so many a welcome guest — the bed- 
 rooms, from the bridal chamber where the eldest 
 
 scion of the house had first clasped in his arms 
 10 
 
74 VIRGINIA. 
 
 the wife of his bosom, to the low attic where the 
 black cook retired after her greasy labors of the 
 day, all were closely crowded with the low iron 
 hospital beds. These halls, which had so often re- 
 echoed the sound of music, and of the gayest voices, 
 and also of those lower but more sacred tones that 
 belong to lovers, now resounded with shrieks of 
 pain, and with the lower, weaker groans of dying 
 men. 
 
 " The splendid furniture was put to strange uses 
 — the sideboard of solid rosewood, made in those 
 honest days before cabinet-makers had learned the 
 rogue's trick of veneering, instead of being filled 
 with generous wines, or with good spirits that had 
 mellowed for years in the cellars, was now crowded 
 in every shelf with forbidding-looking bottles of 
 black draughts, with packages of salt and senna, 
 and with ill-omened piles of raking pills, perhaps 
 not less destructive in their way than shot and shell 
 of a more explosive sort. The butler's pantry and 
 storerooms had their shelves and drawers and boxes 
 filled, not with jellies and marmalades and preserves, 
 and boxes of lemons and preserved ginger and 
 drums of figs, and all sorts of original packages of 
 all sorts of things toothsome and satisfying to the 
 
VIRGINIA. 75 
 
 palate — but even here scammony and gamboge, and 
 aloes and Epsom salts, and other dire weapons, 
 only wielded by the medical profession, had ob- 
 tained exclusive sway. 
 
 " On many a retired shelf, and in many an odd 
 corner, too, I saw neglected cartridge-boxes, cast- 
 off belts, discarded caps, etc., which told, not of the 
 careless and heedless soldier, who had lost his ac- 
 coutrements, but of the ' dead ' soldier, who had 
 gone to a land where it is to be hoped he will have 
 no further use for Minie rifle balls, or pipe-clayed 
 cross-belts. I saw, too, with these other laid aside 
 trappings, dozens and hundreds of Minie and other 
 cartridges, never now to be fired at an enemy by 
 the hand that had placed them in the now discarded 
 cartridge-box. 
 
 "The walls of the various rooms of the Lacy 
 House, like those of most of the old-houses in Vir- 
 ginia, are ceiled up to the top with wood, which is 
 painted white. There is a heavy cornice in each 
 room ; there are the huge old-fashioned fireplaces, 
 the marble mantel-pieces over the same, and in the 
 main dining-room, where it was the custom for the 
 men to remain after dinner, and after the ladies had 
 retired, was a curious feature to be observed, that 
 
^6 VIRGINIA. 
 
 I have never seen but once or twice. Over the 
 marble mantel, but quite within reach, runs a maho- 
 gany framework intended for the reception of the 
 toddy glasses, after the various guests shall have 
 finished the generous liquor therein contained. 
 
 " There are still some vestiges of the family furni- 
 ture remaining — some rosewood and mahogany side- 
 boards, tables, bedsteads, etc., which the family 
 have not been able to remove, and which the occu- 
 pying soldiers have found no use for. The most 
 notable of these articles is a musical instrument, 
 which may be described as a compound harp-organ. 
 It is, in fact, an upright harp, played by keys which 
 strike the wires by a pianoforte action, which has 
 an ordinary piano key-board. This is, in fact, the 
 earliest form of the modern pianoforte. 
 
 "Then, in the same instrument is an organ bel- 
 lows and pipes, the music from which is evoked by 
 means of a separate key-board, the bellows being 
 worked by a foot treadle, like that most detestable 
 abomination known to moderns as a melodeon. Thus 
 in the same instrument the performer is supposed to 
 get the powers and effect both of an upright piano 
 and a small organ. It is perhaps hardly necessary 
 to say that this instrument (which, doubtless, origi- 
 
VIRGINIA. ^^ 
 
 nally cost at least $3,000) is now utterly useless, 
 the wires, many of them, being broken, and the 
 whole machine being every way out of order. 
 The maker's name is set down as ' Longman and 
 Broderup, 26 Cheapside, No. 13 Haymarket, Lon- 
 don.' The poor old thing has doubtless been in 
 Lacy House for more than a hundred years. It has 
 been rudely dragged from its former place of honor, 
 and now stands in the middle of the floor. The 
 spot it formerly occupied has been lately filled by a 
 hospital bed, on which a capital operation was per- 
 formed. The spouting blood from the bleeding 
 arteries of some poor patient has covered the wall 
 with crimson marks. In fact, everywhere all over 
 the house, every wall and floor is saturated with 
 blood, and the whole house, from an elegant gentle- 
 man's residence, seems to have been suddenly trans- 
 formed into a butcher's shamble. The old clock 
 has stopped ; the child's rocking-horse is rotting 
 away in a disused balcony ; the costly exotics in 
 the garden are destroyed, or perhaps the hardiest 
 are now used for horse-posts. All that was elegant 
 is wretched ; all that was noble is shabby ; all that 
 once told of civilized elegance now speaks of ruth- 
 less barbarism." 
 
78 VIRGINIA. 
 
 Take another illustration — that of the incongru- 
 ous juxtaposition of old family sepulchres and 
 fresh soldiers' graves — the associations of the past 
 and the sad memorials of recent strife even among 
 the dead. 
 
 " Yesterday," writes a thoughtful observer, from 
 Stafford Court House, in December, 1862, " for 
 the first time since leaving Harper's Ferry, I met 
 with an evidence of the old-time aristocracy, of 
 which the present race of Virginians boast so much 
 and possess so little. About four miles from here, 
 standing remote and alone in the centre of a vast 
 wood, I found an antiquated house of worship, 
 reminding one of the old heathen temples hidden 
 in the recesses of some deep forest, whither the 
 followers after unknown gods were wont to repair 
 for worship or to consult the oracles. On every 
 side are seen venerable trees overtowering its not 
 unpretentious steeple. The structure is built of 
 brick (probably brought from England), in the form 
 of a cross, semigothic with entrances on three 
 sides, and erected in the year 1794- On entering, 
 the first object which attracted my attention was 
 the variously carved pulpit about twenty-five feet 
 from the floor, with a winding staircase leading to 
 
VIRGINIA. 79 
 
 it. Beneath were the seats for the attendants, 
 who, in accordance with the customs of the old 
 EngHsh Episcopacy, waited upon the dominie. 
 The floor is of stone, a large cross of granite lying 
 in the centre, where the broad aisles intersect. To 
 the left of this is a square enclosure for the vestry- 
 men, whose names are written on the north side of 
 the building. The reader, if acquainted with Vir- 
 ginia pedigrees, will recognize in them some of the 
 oldest and most honorable names of the State — 
 Thomas Fitzhugh, John Lee, Peter Hedgman, 
 Moot Doniphan, John Mercer, Henry Tyler, Wil- 
 liam Mountjoy, John Fitzhugh, John Peyton. On 
 the north hall are four large tablets containing 
 scriptural quotations. Directly beneath is a broad 
 flagstone, on which is engraved with letters of 
 gold, ' In memory of the House of Moncure.' 
 This smacks of royalty. Parallel to it lies a 
 tombstone with the following inscription : ' Sa- 
 cred to the memory of William Robinson, the 
 fourth son of H. and E. Moncure, of Windsor 
 Forest, born the 27th of January, 1806, and died 
 13th of April, 1828, of a pulmonary disease, 
 brought on by exposure to the cold climate of 
 Philadelphia, where he had gone to prepare him- 
 
8o VIRGINIA. 
 
 self for the practice of medicine. Possessed of 
 a mind strong and vigorous, and of a firmness of 
 spirit a stranger to fear, he died manifesting that 
 nobleness of soul which characterized him while 
 living, the brightest promise of his parents, and the 
 fondest hopes of their afflicted family.' 
 
 " Led, doubtless, by the expectation of discover- 
 ing buried valuables, some one has removed the 
 stone from its original position, and excavated the 
 earth beneath. Close by the entrance on the north 
 side are three enclosed graves, where sleep those of 
 another generation. The brown, moss-covered 
 tombstones appear in strong contrast to a plain 
 pine board at the head of a fresh-made grave 
 alongside, and bearing the following inscription : 
 ' Henry Easier, Company H, One Hundred and 
 Eighteenth Pennsylvania Volunteers.' " 
 
 Loyal during the civil war of England, virtually 
 an independent State under Cromwell, it is the 
 remarkable destiny of Virginia, so-called in honor 
 of Queen Elizabeth's unmarried state, to have given 
 birth to the spotless chief who conducted to a tri- 
 umphant issue the American Revolution — to the 
 orator who, more than any individual, by speech 
 alone, kindled the patriotic flame thereof — to the 
 
VIRGINIA. 8 1 
 
 jurist whose clear and candid mind and sagacious 
 integrity gave dignity and permanence to constitu- 
 tional law — and to the statesman who advocated 
 and established the democratic principle and senti- 
 ment which essentially modified and moulded the 
 political character and career of the Republic, and 
 who was the author of that memorable Declara- 
 tion of Independence which became the charter of 
 free nationality. From 1606, when three small 
 vessels sailed for the shores of Virginia under the 
 command of Christopher Newport, and Smith 
 planned Jamestown, to the last pronunciamiento of 
 the rebel congress at Richmond, the documentary 
 history of Virginia includes in charter, code, report, 
 chronicle, plea, and protest, almost every possible 
 element and form of political speculation, civic jus- 
 tice, and seditious arrogance ; and therein the phi- 
 losopher may find all that endears and hallows, 
 and all that disintegrates and degrades the State as 
 a social experiment and as a moral fact ; so that of 
 all the States of the Union, her antecedents, both 
 noble and infamous, indicate Virginia as the most 
 appropriate arena for the last bitter conflict be- 
 tween the great antagonistic forces of civil ordei 
 
 with those of social peace and progress. There, 
 II 
 
82 VIRGINIA. 
 
 where Washington, a young surveyor, became fa- 
 mihar with toil, exposure, and responsibility, he 
 passed the crowning years of his spotless career ; 
 where he was born, he died, and is buried ; where 
 Patrick Henry roamed and mused until the hour 
 struck for him to rouse, with his invincible elo- 
 quence, the instinct of free citizenship ; where Mar- 
 shall drilled his yeomen for battle, and disciplined 
 his judicial mind by study ; where Jefferson wrote 
 his political philosophy and notes of a natural- 
 ist ; where Burr was tried. Clay was born, Wirt 
 pleaded, Nat Turner instigated the Southampton 
 massacre. Lord Fairfax hunted, and John Brown 
 was hanged, Randolph bitterly jested, and Poca- 
 hontas won a holy fame — there treason reared its 
 hydra-head and profaned the consecrated soil with 
 vulgar insults and savage cruelty ; there was the 
 last battle scene of the Revolution, and the first of 
 the Civil War ; there are Mount Vernon, Monticello, 
 and Yorktown, and there also are Manassas, Bull 
 Run, and Fredericksburg ; there are the old grave- 
 yard of Jamestown and the modern Golgotha of 
 Fair Oaks ; there are the noblest tribute art has 
 reared to Washington, and the most loathsome 
 prisons wherein despotism wreaked vengeance on 
 
VIRGINIA. 83 
 
 patriotism ; and on that soil countless martyrs have 
 offered up their lives for the national existence, 
 whose birth-pangs Virginia's peerless son shared, 
 and over whose nascent being he kept such holy 
 and intrepid vigil, bequeathing it as the most sol- 
 emn of human trusts to those nearest to his local 
 fame, by whom, with factious and fierce scorn, it 
 has been infamously betrayed on its own hallowed 
 ground ; whose best renown shall yet be, that it is 
 the scene not only of Freedom's sacrifice, but of 
 her most pure and permanent triumph. 
 
84 PRESENTATION ADDRESS. 
 
 PRESENTATION ADDRESS 
 
 Ladies of the City of New York to the Officers and 
 
 Men of the Twentieth Umited States 
 
 Colored Troops. 
 
 Soldiers : 
 
 We, the mothers, wives, and sisters of the mem- 
 bers of the New York Union League Club, by 
 whose liberahty and intelligent patriotism, and un- 
 der whose dii''ect auspices, you have been organized 
 into a body of National Troops for the defence of 
 the Union, earnestly sympa'thizing in the great 
 cause of Afherican free nationality, and desirous of 
 testifying by some public memorial our profound 
 sense of the sacred object and the holy cause in 
 behalf of which you have enlisted, have prepared 
 for you this banner, at once the emblem of free- 
 dom and of faith, and the symbol of women's best 
 wishes and prayers for our common country, and 
 especially for your devotion thereto. 
 
 When you look at this flag and rush to battle, or 
 stand at guard beneath its sublime motto : " God 
 
PRESENTATION ADDRESS. 85 
 
 and Liberty ! " remember that it is also an emblem 
 of love and honor from the daughters of this great 
 metropolis to her brave champions in the field, and 
 that they will anxiously watch your career, glory- 
 ing in your heroism, ministering to you when 
 wounded and ill, and honoring your martyrdom 
 with benedictions and with tears. 
 
 March 26, 1 864. 
 
ODE TO PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 
 
 ODE 
 
 FOR THE FUNERAL OBSEQUIES OF 
 
 PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 
 April 25, 1865. 
 
 I. 
 Shroud the Banner ! Rear the Cross ! 
 Consecrate a nation's loss ; 
 Gaze on that majestic sleep, 
 Stand beside the bier to weep — 
 Lay the gentle son of toil 
 Proudly in his native soil, 
 Crowned with honor, to his rest. 
 Bear the Prophet of the West ! 
 
 )l. 
 How cold the brow ihat yet doth wear 
 The impress of a nation's care ; 
 How still the heart whose every beat 
 Glowed with compassion's sacred heat ; 
 Rigid the lips whose patient smile 
 Duty's stern task would oft beguile ; 
 Blood quenched the pensive eye's soft light, 
 Nerveless the hand so loth to smite. 
 So meek in rule, it leads, though dead. 
 The people, as in life it led. 
 
ODE TO PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 8/ 
 
 III. 
 O ! let wise and guileless sway 
 Win every recreant's heart to-day, 
 And sorrow's vast and holy wave 
 Blend all our hearts around his grave. 
 Let the faithful bondman's tears — 
 Let the traitor's craven fears, 
 And the people's grief and pride 
 Plead against the fratricide ! 
 Let us throng to pledge and pray 
 O'er the patriot martyr's clay ; 
 Then with solemn faith in Right 
 That made him victor in the fight, 
 Cling to the path he fearless trod, 
 Still radiant with the smile of God ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 Shroud the Banner ! Rear the Cross ! 
 Consecrate a nation's loss ; 
 Gaze on that majestic sleep. 
 Stand beside the bier to weep — 
 Lay the gentle son of toil 
 Proudly in his native soil, 
 Crowned with honor, to his rest, 
 Bear the Prophet of the West! 
 
88 TO ADELAIDE RISTORI. 
 
 To ADELAIDE RISTORI, 
 
 ON HEK 
 
 Benefit Night, New York, November 23, 1866. 
 
 Thv country's genius to the world revealed 
 
 Our western land, and hers the name it bears ; 
 Another bond thy Art's enchantments yield, 
 
 Another fame each nation fondly shares : 
 For while along the chambers of the sea 
 
 Electric \oices call from shore to shore, 
 That Italy is harmonized and free, 
 
 In thy deep tones we greet her soul once more ! — 
 That soul that triumphs o'er relentless Time, 
 
 Melodious breathes in Petrarch's tender lay. 
 Eternal lives in Dante's sculptured line. 
 
 And Venice thrills with Freedom's jo\- to-day ; 
 How blest, Ristori, is thy welcome here ! 
 
 Each spell the artist weaves, the woman doth endear ! 
 
THE DYING MODEL. 89 
 
 THE DYING MODEL. 
 
 A Picture by James E. Freeman. 
 
 As when the artist having wrought awhile, 
 
 Stands back and scans his work with long survey, 
 
 Achieved and unattained to reconcile. 
 
 Till fact with fancy blends and toil with play. 
 
 So Time's perspective, in Rome's hallowed air. 
 From keen pursuit allures her musing guest — 
 
 With tranquil vision all her charms to share — 
 The latent harvest of prolific rest. 
 
 He learns to linger in the path of life 
 To look on Nature with a patient eye, 
 
 Forget awhile the tumult and the strife 
 And feel the beauty of the earth and sky. 
 
 As thus we loitered on an autumn-day, 
 
 A boy with olive cheek and dark-brown eyes, 
 
 Who in the sunshine basked along the way. 
 Became to vagrant hearts a cherished prize. 
 12 
 
go THE DYING MODEL. 
 
 I never look upon a noble boy, 
 
 But hope and fear awake a prescient thrill ; 
 Life's battle yet iinwon, his reckless joy 
 
 O'erleaps the future with confiding will. 
 
 And this young Roman acolyte of art, 
 
 Of boyhood was the gracious type and king, 
 
 Of every phase the destined counterpart, 
 Whose presence seemed a benison to bring : 
 
 When, gleesome feasting on his grapes and crust, 
 A little Bacchus blithe and " debonnaire ;■" 
 
 When, wistful gazing with pathetic trust, 
 An Ismael of the desert sadly fair. 
 
 As in his lustrous orbs arch-fondness gleamed, 
 The ravished painter saw a Cupid near ; 
 
 If awed by faith their saintly fervor beamed, 
 An infant John beside his Lord appear. 
 
 Summer's fierce breath hung over silent Rome, 
 And warned us from the lonely haunts of art, 
 
 To track the Sabine Hills — his native home — 
 With vvayward footsteps and a buoyant heart. 
 
 One eve the plaintive cadence of a psalm 
 Stole from a cottage as we sauntered by ; 
 
 Upon our spirits fell a solemn calm. 
 As if some holy effluence hovered nigh. 
 
THE DYING MODEL. 91 
 
 Within the humble walls a girl bent o'er 
 
 The rustic pallet of a wasted child, 
 Her arm beneath his head, as on the floor 
 
 She, weeping, crouched to hush her anguish wild. 
 
 Apart the mother bowed in rigid woe. 
 
 While, clinging to her skirts, the latest born 
 
 Peered at her hidden face, as if to know 
 
 What made the scene so tearful and forlorn. 
 
 His high brow rising from the fallen hood, 
 With hand upon the lapsing heart-beats laid. 
 
 Beside the lowly couch a friar stood. 
 Upheld a crucifix and softly prayed. 
 
 As to us turned the boy's bright, pleading eyes, 
 Once more their tale of faithful love to tell. 
 
 His artless smile of rapturous surmise 
 Revealed our dying model's last farewell. 
 
92 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 Harper's Magazine, 1869. 
 
 There is a "testimony of the rocks," besides 
 that which appeals to artist and geologist, of which 
 the thoughtful wanderer along the deserted high- 
 ways and quiet fields of Newport, late in the au- 
 tumn, becomes aware. Those neglected landmarks 
 of the past — the gravestones — encountered so often 
 in private domains and in lonely churchyards, in 
 the stillness and solitude of the dying but radiant 
 year, acquire a new emphasis and lure the memory 
 and imagination into the realm of the departed ; 
 their worn inscriptions, names, dates, and tributary 
 legends appealing to historical associations, local 
 memory, and humane sentiment. 
 
 Perhaps a ramble among the graves of Newport 
 will be found to inspire significant recollections and 
 reward a sympathetic survey; for no portion of 
 New England abounds with more varied and inter- 
 esting elements of character and history, of which 
 mortuary relics are often the chief memorials. 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 93 
 
 The most remote of these rehcs of the dead are 
 the Indian mounds, few of which are now discover- 
 able ; yet, within a few years, one was opened on 
 the other side of the bay, and revealed many curi- 
 ous historical vestiges, among them numerous 
 utensils of Dutch manufacture, indicative of the 
 aboriginal trade with Manhattan, when the Narra- 
 gansets exchanged their peltry with the New Am- 
 sterdam burghers for pipes, pipkins, and cutlery. 
 The most melancholy of these last mile-stones of 
 life's journey are the isolated ones on the lonely 
 shore near Brenton's Reef, daily passed by gay 
 equestrians in the summer, for they mark the last 
 resting-place of shipwrecked mariners whose bodies 
 were there cast ashore by the tempest to find a 
 nameless grave in a strange land. 
 
 One of the most attractive, from endearing asso- 
 ciations, of the groups of graves on the island is the 
 burial-ground of St. Mary's, five miles from the 
 town ; for that rural temple recalls the benign pres- 
 ence of the lady who built it and now sleeps in its 
 shadow — a generous and high-toned woman, who 
 for so many years gracefully dispensed the hospital- 
 ities of Oaklands amidst the beautiful trees she had 
 planted in her youth. Who that ever enjoyed her 
 
94 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 greeting can forget the little parlor with its fine 
 paintings, the garden with its odoriferous shrubs, 
 the sweeping branches of the Norway pine, the re- 
 freshing copse of oak-trees, the delectable tea-table 
 with its old-fashioned service and seasonable fruits, 
 the often eminent and memorable guests, and, 
 above all the genial dignity and gracious cheerfulness 
 of the lady of the manor, with her many rural de- 
 pendents, her liberal charities, her fond but humble 
 love of her church, the evening prayer, the kindly 
 chat, the fond welcome, and the sweetness and se- 
 renity of the scene and the visit ? That little cem- 
 etery of St. Mary's was newly consecrated to those 
 who stood there on one of the first beautiful Sab- 
 baths of a recent summer, beside the grave of 
 Sarah Gibbs. The little stone church on the hill, 
 the crowd of well-dressed and sad-looking farmers, 
 the troop of children bringing flowers to scatter 
 on the coffin of their benefactress, the vivid and 
 tearful memories that then and there arose in the 
 hearts of the gathered friends, of her uniform good- 
 ness, noble nature, and Christian womanhood, the 
 impressive rites of the church she so loved and la- 
 bored for, the fresh green of tree and turf, the 
 bright, soft, solemn day, all made up an experience 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 95 
 
 now hallowed to memory, love, and faith. A re- 
 markably appropriate monument has recently been 
 erected over the remains of this venerated lady. 
 It is of the sarcophagus type, of fine granite ; a cross 
 is rounded from the apex in a most graceful man- 
 ner; the monograms "Alpha" and "Omega" are 
 cut in relief upon each end ; on one side is the in- 
 scription : "Sarah Gibbs. Died June 17th, 1847. 
 ^t. 84." On the other: "Founded this church, 
 1 847-" This chaste and original monument was 
 designed by the accomplished American architect, 
 Richard M. Hunt. 
 
 The original emigrants from the "old country" 
 brought with them the family instincts and tradi- 
 tional habitudes of a mature civilization. Next to 
 " freedom to worship God," and the desire of im- 
 proving their position and condition in life, or 
 rather as an essential means and method of securing 
 the latter blessing, they attached great value and 
 interest to the possession of land, not merely as an 
 agricultural resource, but a permanent investment — 
 a home, the scene of domestic sympathy and the 
 nucleus of civil and social dignity and enjoyment. 
 To own land was to have a foothold in the world, to 
 cherish local pride and love, to rear and endear chil- 
 
g6 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 dren, and found ancestral estates. There was an aus- 
 picious conservatism of feeling and practice in those 
 days which, in the view of a rational and loyal nature, 
 reproaches our nomadic habits and the avarice that 
 disintegrates all local attachment and saps all fam- 
 ily pride. The ambition of every honest soul, the 
 joy of every loving heart, was then to have a Home, 
 in the true old English meaning of the word — a 
 home to grow up in, to become identified with, to 
 foregather about for bridal, birthday, and religious 
 festival, to return to from adventurous forays into 
 the great world, to associate with venerable age and 
 joyous infancy and thoughtful manhood, to remem- 
 ber with the dreams of youth, with the mutual cares 
 of life, the triumph and the trial, the cosy comfort 
 and wise counsel, with filial, parental, and fraternal 
 love, with the solemn shadow of bereavement and 
 the glad reunion of prosperity — a home wherein to 
 be born and to die, and within whose familiar, en- 
 deared, and transmitted domain to be buried, and 
 transmitted down. And therefore it was that al- 
 most every farm had its little cemetery. 
 
 Roaming over the fields, one comes upon these 
 neglected graves unexpectedly; climbing upon, a 
 fence he peers down into a small enclosure, and 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 9/ 
 
 among the high grass sees a cluster of old grave- 
 stones with the familiar names of some old Newport 
 family. Strolling through the grounds of a villa 
 he discovers, in a shady nook, the relics of another 
 family burying ground ; sad and significant tokens 
 of that change of property and proprietorship, of 
 times and habitude — common indeed to all places 
 and people — the law of human vicissitude, but 
 nowhere so rapid, complete, and profane as in this 
 busy, eager, self-reliant, prosperous, and irreverent 
 land. 
 
 There is, however, one striking exception to this 
 abandonment and neglect of old family cemeteries 
 in Newport. No sojourner can have passed the 
 Ruggles farm and stone house at the upper extrem- 
 ity of Spring Street, without having noticed with 
 pleasure the neatness and care manifest in the little 
 burying-ground by the roadside. About an acre is 
 enclosed by a handsome stone wall, with an iron 
 gate in the central front, over which is chiselled, in 
 gilt letters, " Coggeshall, 1854." The interior is 
 kept in perfect order — the turf smooth and green ; 
 the stones free from stain, some lateral and others 
 upright, designate the graves of several generations 
 of the family ; in the centre is a granite obelisk, 
 13 
 
98 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 the base of which is inscribed " To the Memory of 
 John Coggeshall, first President of this Colony; 
 died November 27, 1649, ^t. 57." On the upper 
 part is written " Erected by a Lineal Descendant, 
 1855 " — the same who, having thus renewed and 
 embellished the last resting place of his ancestors, 
 by a testamentary provision has insured its contin- 
 ued order and preservation by the civic authorities 
 of Newport. 
 
 The history of religious sects may be recognized 
 in the cemeteries. Thus, in the school-house yard, 
 in Church Street, two or three upright grave- 
 stones hidden amidst bushes and weeds mark the 
 site of the Moravian church, since converted into 
 an Episcopal chapel — the sect having died out in the 
 place. The comparatively few and fresh stones 
 near where the first little Catholic church stood in 
 High Street evidence the late advent of that de- 
 nomination, while the larger area devoted to their 
 dead adjacent to the Island cemetery and the new 
 stone Church with its fine organ, stained glass 
 windows, and crowds of worshippers, prove the 
 rapid increase of Irish emigration to Newport. 
 How different the associations, historical and social, 
 awakened by the Oriental letters of the Hebrew 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 99 
 
 graves, the aristocratic emblems of the Episcopal 
 tombs, the plain household appellatives of the 
 Friends' burying-ground and the thickly-planted 
 crosses inscribed to Patrick, Bridget, or Honora, of 
 the counties of Limerick, or Killarney ! Amidst the 
 versatile influx of sects the Catholics were the 
 last to obtain " a local habitation and a name" here, 
 and now, as elsewhere in the land, they constitute a 
 prevalent and growing element of the population. 
 
 But there is a yet greater sectarian significance in 
 the diversities of the sepulchral inscriptions than 
 that involved in name, nativity, and emblem. The 
 Jews compute time from the creation, and the 
 Christians from the birth of the Saviour, while the 
 Quakers repudiate the Roman calendar, thus, as it 
 were, defining and emphasizing their views of eter- 
 nity by their method of signalizing time ! 
 
 There is another distinction in the graves of the 
 island whereof no record appears : many of the 
 oldest are unmarked even by a hillock — a precau- 
 tion needful in the perilous infancy of the colony to 
 elude the vindictive custom of its savage ene- 
 mies, who, when cognizant of the place of burial, 
 would desecrate the graves to scalp the corpses 
 of the settlers. 
 
lOO THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 Two of " God's Acres," as the Germans so beau- 
 tifully designate the burial-places of their dead, in 
 their vicinity to each other and the Baptist and 
 Quaker meeting-houses, indicate with mute elo- 
 quence the normal elements of local civilization 
 here initiated. The one is a narrow yard where 
 the grass is thick and tangled, and a few dark 
 sepulchral stones, mildewed with age, stand like 
 primitive symbols of the people's growth and 
 grace ; one is of recent date, having been erected 
 to preserve the fading inscription of its more lowly 
 original by the town of Newport in 1839, on the 
 second centennial anniversary of the settlement : 
 "To the memory of William Coddington, Esq., 
 that illustrious man who first purchased this island 
 from the Narraganset Sachems, Canonicus and Mat- 
 inomo, for and on account of himself and seventeen 
 others, his associates in the purchase and settlement. 
 He presided many years as Chief Magistrate of the 
 Island and Colony of Rhode Island, and died, 
 much respected and lamented Nov. i, 1678, aged 
 78 years. " 
 
 Chosen in England as " Assistant of the Bay 
 Colony " in 1630, he accompanied the Governor 
 who brought the charter, and was for a considerable 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. lOI 
 
 period Treasurer of Massachusetts, and a promin- 
 ent merchant of Boston, and is said to have built 
 the first brick house erected there. The civic in- 
 tolerance of the authorities in matters of religion 
 and especially "the proceedings of the Court 
 against Mr. Wheelright " so alienated his .sympa- 
 thies and aroused his indignation, that he sacrificed 
 the prosperous career there opened to him and even 
 "his improvements at Braintree," and sought a 
 more free and congenial home. He took secret 
 counsel with Sir Henry Vane and Roger Williams.* 
 
 * " This island was purchased," says the historian of the State, 
 " through the joint influence of Roger Williams and Sir Henry Vane, 
 in 1637 ; for grass on the other islands, forty fathoms of white peage, 
 ten coats, and twenty hoes to the resident Indians to vacate, and five 
 fathoms of wampum to the local sachems." Many of the leading set- 
 tlers were Puritans from Massachusetts. A whipping-post, stocks, 
 and tavern were soon erected. Among the earliest municipal regula- 
 tions was a game law forbidding deer to be shot for two months 
 "so that the wolves should come after them and be killed." So 
 inimical were the neighboring provinces on account of the "liberty 
 pledge " which included Jews and Pagans as well as different 
 Christians sects, that the inhabitants were obliged to enter into 
 a treaty with the Dutch of Manhattan for provisions and trade. 
 Spring Street was so called on account of a spring on the west side, 
 near where the State House now stands. Thames Street was originally 
 
I02 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 Coddington, a fugitive from the same illiberal 
 spirit, and with a small company, fixed his abode 
 on this salubrious isle, determined that here 
 " Christians of every denomination should lead 
 quiet and peaceable lives, without any interference 
 for their speculative opinions." His name is identi- 
 fied with a just and benign administration, and was 
 gratefully bestowed on a neck and cove of the island. 
 He obtained the early charter for the colony, and 
 those who have studied his career and j:lia'racter 
 rank him high among the primitive magistrates of 
 New England and apostles of freedom ; one of 
 whom has declared that, in 1641 Coddington and 
 his associates enacted the first law^uinntii!g com- 
 plete religious liberty ever eniijPurchasei' the legisla- 
 tion of a civilized nation. * R, Car 
 
 Besides the graves of thelj.-st Governor's kin- 
 dred, and among other ancient memorials, is a 
 
 a marsh. The state seal was a sheaf of arrows, with the motto " Amor 
 vincit omnia." A settled purpose was displayed by the Puritan col- 
 onies, soon after the charter was received by Rhode Island, to set it 
 aside, and active measures were adopted at Plymouth to this end, 
 Portsmouth was the first part of the island settled. 
 * Dr. David King. 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. IO3 
 
 square, low pillar of granite, with cornice and pedi- 
 ment, bearing the inscription : " Here lyeth the 
 body of Henry Bull, Esq''*', late Governor of this 
 Colony, who died Jan. 23, 1693, aged 85." And 
 on the other side: "Anne Clayton, his second 
 wife, and widow of Nicholas Easton, died Jan. 31, 
 1707 " — names still prevalent and honorably asso- 
 ciated with the annals of the infant settlement and 
 its subsequent prosperity. 
 
 A short walk, amidst old wooden dwellings and 
 grass-grown streets, from the graves of the ancient 
 Governors, brings us to a level field of turf inclosed 
 by a light iron paling, and intersected by a few 
 widely separated lines of graves — all comparatively 
 of late date. There is a formality and, as it were, 
 reticence in the aspect of this cemetery charac- 
 teristic of the Friends. Until within a few years it 
 was against the strict rules of the Society to desig- 
 nate the graves of their dead by any visible token or 
 inscription ; hence the broad, unmarked area. And 
 it is curiously indicative of the encroachments of 
 the spirit of the age upon this once rigid sect that 
 now head-stones are allowed, but the record con- 
 fined to the name and date of decease. Those we 
 here behold bear names which are household words 
 
I04 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 in Newport, like Taylor and Townsend, Brindley 
 and Bufifum, Slocum, Anthony, Cozzens, Carr, 
 Wilbur, and Weaver. 
 
 Despite the prohibition as regards mortuary in- 
 scriptions, the registers of the Friends are the most 
 complete and authentic records of births, mar- 
 riages, and deaths. This is a fruit of the method- 
 ical and scrupulous habits of the society. Nor is 
 it the only trait and triumph which the Quaker 
 element imparts to civic life. The order, self-con- 
 trol, and fraternal principles of the Friends had 
 much to do with the progress and peace of old 
 Newport. There is something peculiarly endear- 
 ing in their memory. Costume, mode of address, 
 and suppression of wrath were characteristics that 
 lent a certain exclusiveness and dignity to their 
 palmy days on this island. Frugal, industrious, 
 unimpassioned, their homes were abodes of peace 
 and plenty ; their daughters proverbially beauti- 
 ful ; their hospitality and honor graceful distinc- 
 tions. Charles Lamb, enamored of their silent 
 worship and marvellous equanimity, and smitten 
 with the gentle Hester, was disenchanted by what 
 he deemed their supreme vanity in believing them- 
 selves special recipients of the Holy Spirit. But in 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 105 
 
 all worldly arrangements, this besetting sin was 
 provided against ; and this fact alone must have 
 increased the salient contrast they here afforded 
 of old to the Jews, Episcopalians, French officers, 
 and Baptists. The former's last representatives 
 here made the Friends trustees of their temple and 
 cemetery ; and many of the latter sect joined them 
 when, as governors of the colony, and social as well 
 as thrifty leaders, they so largely illustrated the 
 resources and the reputation of the island. 
 
 Originally driven hither from Boston by the per- 
 secution so tenderly delineated by Hawthorne in 
 his story of the " Gentle Boy," for a hundred and 
 thirty years chief magistrates of the settlement, 
 their names are among the earliest on the grave- 
 stones and in the town records, and among the 
 men whose benefactions and examples, and the 
 women whose traditional loveliness endear the past. 
 Quakerism here, it is justly claimed, was rational, 
 free, and brave. Friends from Rhode Island fought 
 in the Revolution, " under strong temptation." 
 It was at Coddington's house that George Fox 
 held his first meeting in Newport. 
 
 One of the last saints of this order died not long 
 since, and her long and patient illness was cheered 
 14 
 
I06 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 by the sympathy of all sects, who recognized the 
 olden faith, rectitude, and piety in her simple, ear- 
 nest and divine resignation. With her the sweet 
 " thee " and " thou " seem to have died away ; but 
 the yearly meeting still brings its crowd of drab 
 coats and spotless caps, straight waists and broad 
 brims ; and on such an occasion, here in the old scene 
 of their supremacy, our noble Quaker poet humor- 
 ously lamented the falling away of the brethren : 
 
 " There are those who take note that our numbers are 
 small — 
 New Gibbons who write our decline and our fall ; 
 But the Lord of the seed-field takes care of his own, 
 And the world shall yet reap what our sowers have sown. 
 
 " The last of the sect to his fathers' may go. 
 
 Leaving only his coat for some Barnum to show ; 
 But the truth will outlive him, and broaden with years, 
 Till the false dies away, and the wrong disappears." 
 
 The memorials of Hebrew sojourn in Newport 
 are unique among the relics of by-gone times in New 
 England, and among the most striking evidences of 
 the triumphant conservatism of the race. The 
 freshness and order that distinguish the abandoned 
 synagogue and unvisited cemetery reproach the 
 neglected temples and sepulchres of those who trust 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. \0^ 
 
 to local attachment and living kindred to guard their 
 shrines and ashes. With that pervading and in- 
 domitable fidelity which has kept the scattered 
 people intact and their faith vital through ages of 
 exile and oppression, the wealthier survivor by tes- 
 tamentary provision kept " decently and in order " 
 the graves and place of worship here long since de- 
 serted. Touro Street perpetuates the name of the 
 testator, whose thoughtful care for the departed of 
 his race daily suggests itself as a benign evidence of 
 ancient civilization. After the terrible earthquake 
 at Lisbon a company of Jews embarked thence for 
 America ; their precise destination was not settled, 
 and the captain of the vessel on board which they 
 were passengers intended to land them on the Vir- 
 ginia coast. Adverse and violent winds led him to 
 seek refuge in Narraganset Bay. Allured by the 
 tolerant laws and spirit of Newport, the Hebrew 
 emigrants determined to remain there — thus adding 
 a new element to the curious diversity of faith and 
 nativity which signalized the colony. 
 
 Along the crest of the hill on the slope and at the 
 base of which the town is built, a street angle is 
 marked by a plain square granite gateway, over 
 which is cut in bold relief a winged globe, and on 
 
I08 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 the pillars inverted torches, while through the iron 
 railing are seen a few tall hemlocks, a drooping 
 willow, and masses of shrubbery, whence in the soft 
 damp summer evenings exhales garden fragrance, 
 and through the dense foliage, cenotaph, slab, and 
 column glimmer. Neat, silent, and shaded, the 
 little enclosure is passed with a careless glance by- 
 crowds of summer sojourners ; but a poet's eye 
 gleaned an impressive picture and sacred lesson 
 from the "Jewish Cemetery at Newport." * 
 
 " How strange it seems ! These Hebrews in their graves ! 
 Close by the street of this fair sea-port town, 
 Silent beside the never silent waves. 
 At rest in all this moving up and down ! 
 
 " And these sepulchral stones so old and brown, 
 That pave with le^el flags their burial-place. 
 Seem like the tablets of the Law, thrown down, 
 And broken by Moses at the mountain's base. 
 
 * On the 24th of August, 1694, a ship arrived at Newport, Rhode 
 Island, then the principal port of entry, from one of the West India 
 islands with a number of Jewish families on board, of wealth and 
 respectability, who settled there. In a few years a congregation of 
 sixty worshipped in the synagogue, which at length boasted eleven 
 hundred and seventy-five worshippers. Gradually migrating to new 
 States, not a resident Jew is now found in Newport — only their 
 sepulchres remain. 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. lOC 
 
 " The very names recorded here are strange, 
 Of foreign accent and of different climes ; 
 Alvares and Riveriera interchange, 
 With Abraham and Jacob of old times. 
 
 " Closed are the portals of their synagogue 
 No Psalms of David now the silence break, 
 No Rabbi reads the ancient Decalogue, 
 In the grand dialect the Prophets spake." 
 
 Other Jewish emigrants from the West Indies anc 
 elsewhere ■ followed their Portuguese brethren tc 
 Newport ; and in 1763, when sixty families of 
 wealth had settled there, the synagogue was erect 
 ed at a little distance from the cemetery furthei 
 down Touro Street, a square brick edifice on a litth 
 plateau of green turf, substantially fenced in anc 
 always freshly painted and kept in perfect order 
 Over the comparatively new gate is the inscriptioi 
 on a stone entablature: "Erected 5603, from : 
 Bequest made byAbraham Touro." 
 
 Both the advent and the exodus of the Jews a 
 Newport are characteristic ; and so are the few glimp 
 ses contemporary annals afford of their enterprisi 
 and influence. In 1750 Moses Lopez was excusee 
 at his own request, from all civil duties, "on ac 
 count of his gratuitous service to government ii 
 
no THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 translating Spanish documents." Jacob Rod Riv- 
 eriera, one of the fugitives from Lisbon, and his 
 comrades, established a spermaceti oil and candle 
 factory on the island now called Fort Wolcott — the 
 first experiment of the kind in the colonies, and 
 long a monopoly here, and no inconsiderable source 
 of wealth. From Newport the enterprise was car- 
 ried to New Bedford. In the early days of the Lo- 
 pez establishment his employes went out in boats 
 and captured whales off the coast. Moses Lopez 
 at one time owned twenty-seven square rigged 
 vessels, and his correspondence indicates large 
 and honorable commercial relations. For many 
 years Moses Seixas, as cashier of the Newport 
 Bank, disbursed specie to the inhabitants ; while 
 Dr. Stiles loved to stroll along the Parade discuss- 
 ing some point of Oriental wisdom with the learned 
 Rabbi Isaac Carigal. 
 
 The war of the Revolution dispersed the Jewish 
 merchants. Their ships were nearly all taken by 
 the enemy. And in 1799 their temple was desert- 
 ed, though from time to time a few of the race ac- 
 cidentally there congregated to celebrate a feast, 
 marriage, or funeral ; for thej' reverently brought 
 back their dead and laid them to rest with the 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWFORT. Ill 
 
 ashes of their forefathers. Moses Hayes, a highly 
 esteemed commercial man, removed to Boston and 
 was followed by Riveriera. Isaac Touro, the priest, 
 and his two sons went to Jamaica, and one was long 
 established in New Orleans. Aaron Lopez went 
 to Providence, intending to return to Newport, but 
 was accidentally drowned in Scott's Pond, near the 
 former place. Cohen and Seixas, sacerdotal Rabbis, 
 ministered in the synagogues of Richmond and 
 Charlestown ; Jacob Rodriguez, one of the sperma- 
 ceti manufacturers, came back and died here, and 
 the house near them all, long the hospitable abode 
 of Levy, became the home of the gallant Commo- 
 dore Perry, and was occupied by his widow until 
 her death. Thus departed from the old town one 
 after another of the once busy and genial Hebrews, 
 whose memorials are so faithfully conserved. It 
 has become a proverb, since the mercenary apti- 
 tudes of watering-place life have demoralized the 
 natives, that, although not an Israelite remains, Jews 
 abound at Newport. 
 
 In a neglected nook off one of the little frequent- 
 ed streets that run from the centre of the town to 
 the hill, unapparent except when sought out, are 
 clustered the few old graves of the Clifton burying- 
 
112 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 ground, so called from the name of its ancient 
 donor. Rank weeds have overgrown the pathless 
 little inclosure, over which the poor dwellers of the 
 neighborhood spread their washed garments to 
 bleach — the only purpose for which the lonely spot 
 is visited. Yet there, as the weather-stained head- 
 stones declare, is the family tomb and several graves 
 of the Wanton family, which furnished several effi- 
 cient Governors to the colony, and whose annals will 
 illustrate the process and progress through which 
 fortune and position were, even .at that early period, 
 attained in New England by capacity and char- 
 acter. There is a portrait of one of the Governor's 
 wives in the Redwood Library. Originally ship- 
 wrights, and able preachers among the Friends, 
 their rectitude and industry, courage and good 
 sense, advanced them in rank and wealth. The 
 cause and manner of their emigration to Newport, 
 as preserved by the family tradition is characteris- 
 tic of the times and people. 
 
 Edward Wanton had successfully carried on his 
 vocation in Scituate, Massachusetts ; but his zeal 
 as a Quaker made him obnoxious to the other sects, 
 and his non-comphance with the claim for church- 
 rates to the civic prejudice of the people. Hospit- 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. I13 
 
 able and kindly, his house was accessible to all, and 
 it is said that, on one" occasion, several of the tax- 
 collectors dropped in upon him near the dinner- 
 hour, and were invited to partake of that repast ; at 
 the end of which they suddenly took possession of 
 all the silver-ware on the table, and declared their in- 
 tention to retain it until the tithes were paid. This 
 proceeding greatly incensed the two sons of Wan- 
 ton, and their indignation was intensified by several 
 personal allusions to their father's faith by the min- 
 ister of the place, in his Sunday discourse. They 
 determined to seek a more tolerant region, and at 
 the same time punish the author of what they 
 deemed an unjustifiable insult. Accordingly they 
 visited their clerical adversary late in the evening, 
 and administered to him a drubbing ; then rushed 
 away, before an alarm could be given, and mount- 
 ing swift horses, fled without drawing rein until they 
 reached a tavern about half way between Scituate 
 and Newport. While recruiting themselves with 
 a hasty meal some of the minister's flock arrived in 
 hot haste in pursuit ; whereupon they decamped 
 by the back door as the enemy came in at the 
 front, and soon arrived at what Neale, in his history 
 of the Puritans, calls " the Paradise of New Eng- 
 15 
 
114 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 land." Here their craft was in demand, and their 
 creed safe from interference. 
 
 Whether fact or fiction, the spirit thus shown was 
 a family trait; for when, in 1706, a sloop loaded 
 with provisions was taken by a French privateer off 
 Block Island, Captain John Wanton pursued with 
 a volunteer crew, and in two or three hours captured 
 both privateer and prize, and brought them into 
 Newport. This exploit delighted the country and 
 gained naval glory for Rhode Island. Four years 
 previous to this achievement William Wanton had 
 been commissioned, while a shipwright of Ports- 
 mouth, to cruise with the " Greyhound" in Queen 
 Anne's war, and returned after six months from the 
 Gulf of St. Lawrence " crowned with brilliant suc- 
 cess." When Governor Wanton died, in 1733 — 
 and again and again the name appears on the roll 
 of colonial magistrates — it is recorded by the his- 
 torian that " his long career of public service had 
 endeared him to the colonists, and his daring naval 
 exploits won him the regard of his sovereign." 
 And this statement is confirmed by the fact that, 
 when the two brothers were in England, they were 
 received at court, and were presented by the queen 
 with a silver punch-bowl. Moreover an addition 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. II5 
 
 to the family coat-of-arms was made, consisting of, 
 a game-cock alighting on a hawk. 
 
 This union of martial prowess with Friendly 
 tenets was peculiar to the Newport Quakers. One 
 of the earliest of the Wanton name, on this side of 
 the ocean, is believed to have embraced the doc- 
 trine of that sect from the interest excited in his 
 mind when witnessing at Boston, in an official ca- 
 pacity, the earnest testimony of Mary Dyer, who, 
 having visited the capital of the Bay State on a 
 mission of the Spirit, was warned, on her reappear- 
 ance whipped, and, for the third attempt hanged — 
 a martyrdom which drove many from the spiritual 
 tyranny of that colony to the "soul freedom" ini- 
 tiated by Williams at Aquidneck. 
 
 Governor Joseph Wanton was a loyalist, and after 
 being suspended for his lukewarm administration of 
 public sentiment as embodied in local law, in i77S, 
 was finally deposed. Even with this blot on the 
 escutcheon of the Wantons their names stand bright- 
 ly forth on the colonial record. Their services 
 were eminent and their characters superior ; so that 
 the stranger who unexpectedly comes upon their 
 neglected graves, marvels at the public indifference 
 thus manifest, and would fain see a Rhode Island 
 
Il6 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 Old Mortality piously renew the inscription and re- 
 vive the record of their worth. 
 
 Here, too, is the grave of Isaac Rodman — vener- 
 able progenitor of a still faithful race, one of whose 
 saintly descendants not long since left an endeared 
 and placid memory ; and evidently to note the ad- 
 vent of the most dreaded pestilence of the olden 
 time, near by, a stone is inscribed with the name 
 " Pardon Tillinghast, who died of Small-Pox at 
 Coaster's Island, 1775." 
 
 The memory of a daughter of Roger Williams 
 (and wife of Clarke) whose remains are here buried, 
 carries us back to the tolerant dawn of the Isle's 
 prosperity ; while a massive slab of friable slate, 
 whence the inscription is half effaced by time and 
 the elements^, marks the last resting-place of Abra- 
 ham Redwood, and reproaches the recipients of his 
 liberal bequest for their forgetfulness of his sepul- 
 chre. The graceful Doric structure that crowns the 
 adjacent hill is, however, his best monument. No 
 marble effigy or emblazoned shrine equals in per- 
 manence and vital beauty an intellectual legacy, 
 whether the written thought or the means of culture 
 is associated with the beneficence of the departed. 
 
 When the literary club of old Newport — boasting 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 11/ 
 
 such erudite members as Callender, Ellery, Hony- 
 man, and Samuel Johnson, afterwards President of 
 Cohimbia College, New York, and subseqently re- 
 inforced by such brave and genial scholars as 
 Berkeley and Stiles — had long exercised their wits 
 in learned debates and wise social sympathies, the 
 idea of making the association subservient to per- 
 manent intellectual culture by the establishment of 
 a library was confirmed by the prompt generosity 
 of the prosperous merchant from Antigua, an effi- 
 cient promoter of education and charities, whose 
 fortunes had so thriven in the salubrious sea-port. 
 His gift of five hundred pounds for the purchase of 
 books induced the subscription of five thousand by 
 his fellow-citizens for the erection of a building, to 
 which they gratefully gave his name. Insignificant 
 as an enterprise like this would appear now, when 
 the establishment of libraries is a common occur- 
 rence, then it was an event of singular interest and 
 influence. Books were a rare luxury, habitual rea- 
 ders few and scattered ; aspirants for knowledge ill 
 provided with resources, and obliged to seek them 
 across the sea. Not only the mental training but 
 the fortunes of the town were promoted by the 
 little temple, which then stood in rural solitude on 
 
Il8 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 a turf esplanade called the Bowling Green. Men of 
 study and thought were beguiled hither by the 
 privilege. There Dr. Stiles mastered the Hebrew 
 tongue, and luxuriated over a folio copy of Homer ; 
 and Channing, a pure and earnest youth, "spent 
 day after day, and sometimes week after week, 
 amidst the dusty volumes without interruption 
 from a single visitor," in the days of decadence and 
 desertion incident to the commercial eclipse after 
 the Revolution. 
 
 By a rare coincidence at that period of " wooden 
 lanterns," as Tudor calls the old New England meet- 
 ing-houses, graceful designs were obtained for the 
 proposed structure from Peter Harrison, assistant 
 architect of Blenheim ; and for many years it was 
 the only pure exemplar in the Eastern States. A 
 thing of beauty is not only a joy, but an attraction 
 forever ; and this library was the nucleus of bene- 
 factions — first, from Henry Collins, who gave the 
 land ; and long after, from his kinsman, Solomon 
 Southwick, of Albany, who bestowed a land grant 
 of one hundred and twenty acres. Redwood's 
 grandson " of Dorset Place, Marylebone," gave the 
 homestead in Newport, inherited from his grand- 
 father. Baron Hottinguer, the Paris banker, who 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. II9 
 
 married into the Redwood family, sent a good-will 
 token of a thousand francs ; Bishop Berkeley his 
 " Minute Philosopher," and Catherine Macaulay 
 her " History of England." Ogilvie, Rogers, and 
 Hunter successfully advocated its cause. Judah 
 Touro gave two thousand dollars ; and the artist, 
 King, a native of Newport, bequeathed nine ; while 
 as summer residents increased, books flowed in from 
 friends on their travels, author sojourners, and 
 lovers of education and letters, so that the gaps in 
 the goodly array of standard English works made 
 by the ruthless British invaders were gradually 
 filled. The scope of the original charter was ex- 
 panded by increasing the number of proprietors ; 
 and the once exclusive and partially frequented 
 library became a popular reading-room and daily 
 resort, yearly increasing its stores and enlarging its 
 associations of interest and utility, whereof the 
 origin dates from the public spirit of him who sleeps 
 in the Clifton burying-ground. The establishment 
 of the library bears date 1747, and Abraham Red- 
 wood, whose portrait, in the costume of that day, so 
 appropriately adorns the walls, died March 6th, 
 1788, at the age of 79. Truly it was written of him 
 that with an ample fortune he was blessed with " a 
 
I20 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 liberal spirit" which prompted him to encourage 
 useful learning and relieve the distresses of man- 
 kind."* 
 
 The most familiar of the old cemeteries of New- 
 port, to the casual visitor, is the little church-yard 
 of old Trinity, through which the congregation pass 
 to their weekly worship. It is full of historical in- 
 terest, though many of the more ancient memorials 
 must be sought in the records of the parish. t Re- 
 cently some of the most interesting inscriptions have 
 been renewed on fresh stones. Within the old- 
 fashioned edifice, with its high pews and massive 
 sounding board, its quaint pulpit and choir, and the 
 organ bearing the inscription : " The gift of George 
 Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, " are mural tablets in 
 memory of former pastors and endeared members ; 
 and around the portal cluster the graves of those 
 whose names are associated with memorable epochs 
 and events. Here lie buried the Rev. Marmaduke 
 Brown, who died in 1771, and his wife (1767) — the 
 
 * Ne-vvport Herald, 1788. 
 
 f The clock in the steeple was presented to the congi-egation, in 
 1733) ^y JaWeel Brenton, and continued to run without interruption 
 for about icx) years. 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 121 
 
 stone erected by their son, who was born here and 
 died President of Trinity College, Dublin. Learn- 
 ing and piety have characterized the rectors of Trin- 
 ity, from Honyman, who came as a missionary from 
 London in 1704, to Dehon, afterward Bishop of 
 South Carolina, and from Dr. Wheaton's thirty 
 years' ministrations to the brief service of Dr. Vin- 
 ton. One acquainted with the recent history of the 
 venerable church, musing over its historical memen- 
 toes, cannot but rejoice at the prosperous revival of 
 its sacred influencies and memories. 
 
 A small obelisk designates the burial-place of the 
 family of Dr. Hunter, a Scotch physician, who emi- 
 grated to America in consequence of the rebellion 
 of 1745. A rebel at home, he became aTory here ; 
 he was a surgeon of the colonial regiments sent to 
 Crown Point in the French war, delivered the earli- 
 est course of medical lectures in New England, and 
 died while the English had possession of the town. 
 His son was United States Charge at Brazil, and a 
 man of historical taste and liberal culture. 
 
 In the Hunter mansion — still one of the domestic 
 
 landmarks of the olden time, though long since left 
 
 behind by the march of improvement — died the 
 
 young French Admiral whose gravestone is ad- 
 16 
 
122 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 jacent, and bears the name of Carolus Ludovicus 
 D' Arsan De Ternay, and an elaborate Latin inscrip- 
 tion, with the date 1780. He was one of our gal- 
 lant allies who came hither in the squadron of Count 
 d' Estaing, and he was cut off in the dawn of his 
 career, it was believed, through chagrin at the escape 
 of the British fleet. Tradition fondly preserves the 
 fame of the young officer, whose funeral was an ex- 
 ceptional pageant in the annals of the town, nine 
 priests and a corps of marines with foreign and na- 
 tive officers forming the cortege.* 
 
 * " The blockade, whicli obliged the French to remain inactive, 
 had embittered many of them against M. de Ternay, as if it was in his 
 power to control circmnstances and the elements. ' They reproach- 
 ed him,' says the Duke de Lauzun, ' in the squadron and the army, in 
 the most indecent manner.' He knew and deeply felt it. Whether 
 it was the fatigue of the voyage, weariness of command, the influence 
 of climate, or chagiin at being misunderstood, and finding himself 
 blockaded by a superior force and unable to act, he fell ill on the 7th 
 of December, 1780. His malady at first occasioned no anxiety, but 
 on the 1 2th it assumed an aggravated and alarming character, and on 
 the isth he expired, amidst the regrets of all who knew how to appre- 
 ciate his rare qualities, his brilliant military career, and his bravery. 
 France lost in him one of her best marine commanders. He was 
 buried in Newport in the cemetery of the Anabaptists, where Louis 
 Philippe, at a later period, caused a monument to be erected, with an 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 1 23 
 
 One of Lafayette's aides, the Chevalier De Fayel- 
 ler, is also buried here. These foreign names re- 
 mind us of the social influence which the sojourn 
 of the French officers in Newport during and im- 
 mediately subsequent to the Revolutionary war, 
 exerted. Domesticated among the people, a new 
 element was contributed both as regards pastime 
 and opinion. The amiable manners of their guests, 
 their fervent devotion to the gentler sex, and, their 
 fertility of resource in discourse and recreation, left 
 more enduring traces than the initials and love- 
 tokens still descried on the little casements of the 
 older dwellings, and inscribed there with the dia- 
 monds of their rings. Somewhat of French lati- 
 tude in matters of speculation, of ingenuity in the 
 
 inscription wliich recalls all the services he rendered to France." — 
 Etude Historique sur la Marine de Louis XVI. Par Adolphe de 
 Bouclon : Paris, 1866. 
 
 Rochambeau writes : " Je trouvai k mon retour i Newport, le 
 Chevalier de Ternay malade d'une fievre qui ne donnoit aucune in- 
 quietude. Je continual mes reconnoissances sur Boston, od je fus k 
 peine arriv6 que je re9us un courrier du Baron de Viomenil, qui m'ap- 
 prit la mort du Chev. de Ternay. Ses plus grands ennemis ne pour- 
 ront jamais lui refuser una grande probite, et qu'il ne fut un tr^s habile 
 navigateur." — Memoires, i. 260. 
 
124 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 "cuisine" and urbanity of manners lingered after the 
 favored visitors had returned ; while, on the other 
 hand, more than one enthusiastic passage in their 
 memoirs and correspondence testifies to the delec- 
 table impressions made on the gay Gauls by the 
 Quaker beauties of the island. 
 
 Comparatively few as are the head-stones and 
 tablets in this churchyard, to one cognizant of the 
 historical associations connected with the names, 
 vocations, and nativities thereon inscribed, the 
 crowded and weather-stained memorials suggest 
 the prominent events in the local annals of New- 
 port. The foreign consuls and " serchers " of the 
 King's Customs indicate the prosperous commercial 
 epoch not less than the graves of the old merchants 
 like Gibbs, " persevering in Industry, judicious in 
 Enterprise, and faithful in Engagements : " and the 
 origin of the church is associated with Robert Gar- 
 diner, one of its founders, " whose happiness it 
 was to see it completely finished." The frequent 
 emigration from the West India islands of English 
 colonists is testified by many inscriptions : this 
 noting that " one of his Majesty's Council at Gren- 
 ada ; " and that, the fact that " a native of Jamaica " 
 is here buried. The British occupation is signal- 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 1 25 
 
 ized, not less than the French sojourn, by the 
 gravestone of a "Lieutenant of H. B. M.'s Sixty- 
 second regiment of foot," and that of an officer of 
 Marines belonging to his Majesty's Ship " Rose ; " 
 while the names of Brindley and Mason, Goulding 
 and Duncan, Tweedy, Cowley, and Penrose revive 
 the memory of the old colonial society. That of 
 our time is recalled by the familiar name of a sum- 
 mer resident, or the " U. S. N." annexed to that 
 of an American officer. 
 
 The tombstone of Nathaniel Kay, Esq., "a 
 colonial collector," whose name one of the streets 
 of the town still bears, revives the benefactions 
 wherewith his will endowed old Trinity. Kay left 
 an estate on the site of what is known as the Engs 
 house, consisting of several acres of land, "in 
 trust," to erect and maintain a Grammar School, 
 as an appendage to Trinity Church — ^whose rector, 
 as master, was to prepare gratuitously a certain 
 number of youths for college. The building yet 
 stands at the corner of School and Mary Streets. 
 Brown, the Oxford man, son of Rev. Marmaduke, 
 was taught there. Bequests of this kind were the 
 foundation of England's civilization, in the opinion 
 of her scholars. The Kay property was sold in 
 
126 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 1840, for only thirty-three thousand dollars. After 
 the Revolution, the edifice, designed as a classical, 
 was used as a Sunday-school ; the trust fell into 
 neglect, and the now highly valuable land sacri- 
 ficed by a premature sale. Kay's mortuary slab, 
 on the edge of which is cut the name of Bishop 
 Berkeley's infant daughter, buried near, gently 
 brings back the endeared recollection of that be- 
 nign prelate's visit of three years to the colony — in 
 whose subsequent welfare he manifested so lively 
 an interest, and whose local traits and natural 
 charms his letters first made known to Europe, as 
 the single effusion of his Muse commemorates the 
 providential destiny of the land he so wisely appre- 
 ciated. Honyman, the faithful clergyman who wel- 
 comed him to Newport, and whose farm, still called 
 by his name, near Berkeley's rural abode by the 
 Paradise Rocks, lives in history as the scene of the 
 battle whose bulwarks yet furrow the green mead- 
 ows of Honyman's Hill, is, with many of his family, 
 also buried in the churchyard of Trinity. His son 
 was for several years King's attorney. A few 
 symbols yet designate the scene as dear to Tory 
 hearts — a gilded crown, heraldic devices, names 
 that are enrolled in English universities or figure 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 1 27 
 
 in the genealogy of the county nobihty, vividly re- 
 call the old tenacious love and pride that bound the 
 hearts of certain of the colonists to the mother coun- 
 try, and the treasonable sympathy that befriended 
 the English invaders in the war of Independence 
 (in some instances punished by confiscation), scoffed 
 at the departing volunteers as destined for the hal- 
 ter, and maintained a proud exclusiveness among 
 the various sects, as aristocratic representatives of 
 the establishment beyond the sea. 
 
 A more individual representative of the proud 
 and free life of the more adventurous colonists may 
 be found in Godfrey Malbone, whose family monu- 
 ments here cluster. His dwelling-house on the 
 border, though quite inland of the bay, a mile or 
 more from the town, was a famous mansion in 
 colonial times ; not many years ago the huge box 
 hedge and other vestiges of antique ornament gave 
 no inadequate idea of the old-fashioned garden ; 
 on its site some remarkable cedars yet stand. The 
 gilded cornices and rich panel-work of the villa 
 were rare for those days. The stone of which the 
 walls were built was imported from abroad, and is 
 still incorporated in the neat and substantial edifice 
 which occupies its place. Walking once with the 
 
128 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 late hospitable owner of the domain over the lawn, 
 he thrust aside the path gravel with his foot, and 
 showed me the trap-door which led to a subter- 
 ranean passage whose outlet was on the shore — 
 evidently a means of secret communication once 
 used for smuggling and other unlawful purposes. 
 In I74S) two of Malbone's privateers were lost in a 
 gale, and Newport had two hundred widows in 
 consequence. 
 
 Tradition says that buccaneers were here enter- 
 tained, and when heated with wine, enlisted by the 
 sagacious host for a new venture. Large sums 
 were recovered from him in England for his spolia- 
 tions of the Dutch. A branch of his family were 
 long resident in Virginia, and one of them sought 
 to dissuade Washington from embarking in the 
 cause of Independence. The hospitality of God- 
 frey Malbone was as proverbial as his recklessness 
 and his prosperity. Among other tales that have 
 come down to us, it is said that when the " most 
 superb mansion in the colonies" caught fire, he 
 coolly ordered the dinner-table to be removed to 
 the lawn, and continued the feast in sight of his 
 burning house, whose destruction is ascribed to the 
 fastidious pride of his wife, who objected to any 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 1 29 
 
 intrusion of plebeian feet into her elegant drawing- 
 rooms — even to extinguish an imminent conflagra- 
 tion. The fact of the fire is recorded in the Newport 
 Mercury of June 7, 1766, and attributed to a spark 
 from the kitchen chimney and a windy day. 
 
 Godfrey Malbone was one of those adventurous 
 traders, who, ostensibly engaged in regular traffic, 
 sometimes combined therewith a lawless enter- 
 prise,* sending his vessels from Newport to the 
 
 * In the year 1 745 there were ten privateers owned in Newport, 
 as follows : 
 
 1. Ship " Fame," of 24 carriage guns and 176 men. 
 
 2. Brig " Prince Frederick," Peter Marshall, master ; 18 carriage 
 
 guns (nine-pounders), 30 swivels, and 18 blunderbusses, with 
 a crew of 130 men. 
 
 3. One of considerable force, commanded by Captain John Dennis. 
 
 4. One commanded by Captain Carr, name and force not stated. 
 
 5. One commanded by Captain William Dunbar, with a crew of 
 
 70 men. 
 
 6. One named the "Hector," Captain Higgins, force not stated. 
 
 7. One named the " Caesar," Captain Griffith, force not stated. 
 
 8. One commanded by Captain Fry, name and force not defined, 
 g. One commanded by Captain Robert Norris, name and force 
 
 not stated. 
 lo. One commanded by Captain John Sweet, name and force not 
 stated. 
 
 17 
 
130 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 coast of Africa with a cargo of rum, thence to Jam- 
 aica with slaves, and home freighted with molas- 
 ses, with orders to capture a Spanish galleon by 
 the way if circumstances favored. 
 
 Conviviality was the normal habit of such men 
 and those days, and their blood was transmitted 
 by other than legitimate currents. Yet a certain 
 social rank and personal consideration co-existed 
 with this license ; and the second generation be- 
 came more civilized, as in this instance, for God- 
 frey Malbone, the son, an Oxford graduate, built a 
 church in Connecticut ; and Edward Malbone, in 
 a collateral branch of the next generation, was one 
 of the most skilful and refined of artists, and gra- 
 cious and gifted of men. 
 
 Few of the hundreds who pass daily up and 
 down Pelham Street, are conscious of the fact that 
 they are walking over the former extensive domain 
 of Edward Pelham, Esq., whose last will and tes- 
 tament identifies the "Old Mill" on the summit 
 of the hill as his original property — a unique land- 
 mark long the object of archaeological debate, and 
 attributed to the Northmen, but now acknowledged 
 to be the counterpart of similar structures in some of 
 the English counties. It has, however, as one of 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 131 
 
 the rare local antiquities of our country, furnished 
 a suggestive theme to novelist and poet. Cooper 
 availed himself thereof in the " Red Rover," and 
 Longfellow found inspiration therefrom in " The 
 Skeleton in Armor." 
 
 One of the largest dwellings in the street, distin- 
 guished by its heavy and high portico and pillars, 
 is built on the site of an old cemetery which was 
 formerly attached to the church where Hopkins 
 preached, and where he was originally buried. 
 
 Behind a screen of shrubbery in the yard of this 
 mansion are several sepulchral tablets, marking the 
 graves of Governor Arnold and his family. Some 
 of them bear the coat-of-arms of the Pelhams. The 
 earliest legible date is that of 1727, when " Gover- 
 nor Benedict Arnold, of Newport," died. Another 
 Governor's, of the same name, is dated 1740. There 
 is also a slab with the name of Edward Pelham, 
 1774 ; one inscribed Chace, i745 > '^^'^ the latest, 
 John Bannister, 1830. 
 
 These few memorials of the old Congregational 
 burying-ground identify the family sepulture of an 
 historical race in the annals of the island. The 
 Rhode Island Arnolds are a branch of the traitor's 
 ancestry, but of quite diverse character and fame. 
 
132 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 The old colonial flag which belonged to Governor 
 Arnold, and was concealed during. the war of In- 
 dependence, and displayed with the establishment 
 of American liberty, is still preserved, with the ven- 
 erable official chair of state he occupied. It is a 
 noteworthy coincidence that the names of original 
 settlers and prominent early citizens of Newport, 
 many of which are now extinct among the living, 
 not only are preserved on the mortuary records of 
 the graveyard, but are the familiar street nomen- 
 clature. Thus we have " Pelham," " Kay," " Bull," 
 " Dixon," and other streets ; " Brenton's Reef," 
 " Coddington's Cove," " Bannister's Wharf," &c. 
 
 While Channing was wrestling not only with the 
 antagonistic forces of his own soul into " victorious 
 clearness," but with the despairing creed of the 
 old Puritan theology, and reading, with exultant 
 tears, the benign psychology of Price and Hutche- 
 son, another of the representative clergy familiar to 
 him and the Newport community was delving in 
 the theological mine to confirm and intensify that 
 creed, with a singleness of purpose and a disin- 
 terested devotion which won the respect even of 
 those most revolted by his doctrine. In the yard 
 of the Congregational Church in Spring Street, a 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 1 33 
 
 large freestone edifice, beneath a grand old walnut 
 tree, and curtained by a vine of Virginia creeper 
 spreading over the adjacent wall, and in autumn 
 magnificent with scarlet and crimson hues, is a soli- 
 tary grave marked by a broad tablet of massive 
 slate, and thus inscribed : 
 
 " In memory of Samuel Hopkins, Pastor of the 
 First Congregational Church in Newport, who de- 
 parted this life Dec. 20th, 1813, in the 83d year of 
 his age : whose faithful attention to the duties of his 
 pastoral office, and whose valuable writings will 
 recommend his character when this monument, 
 erected by his bereaved flock, shall, with the pre- 
 cious dust it covers, cease to be distinguished." 
 
 A more remarkable combination of implacable 
 theory and benevolent disposition was never, per- 
 haps, exhibited than in Hopkins. Born in Connec- 
 ticut, and a farmer's boy until the age of fifteen, he 
 graduated at Yale, and studied theology with Jona- 
 than Edwards, whose example, doubtless, inspired 
 him with the desire to vindicate the special dogmas 
 he preached by a theological treatise and metaphy- 
 sical arguments. Unattractive as a pulpit orator, 
 poorly supported by a limited parish, but self- 
 reliant, unselfish, and a student by nature and habit, 
 
134 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 he spent nine years upon his dry and dreary work, 
 and received therefor from its publisher nine hun- 
 dred dollars — a sum far exceeding his modest ex- 
 pectations. Some of the old people in Newport 
 recall his tall figure clad in a black gown, girded 
 around the loins with a leather belt, and his black 
 silk skull-cap, as he walked to church followed by 
 a faithful negro sexton. One remembers sitting in 
 the gallery of the bare, cold, " wooden lantern," 
 and watching the lighters coming up the bay, 
 through the high window, while Dr. Hopkins, in a 
 harsh and unmodulated voice, expounded " fore- 
 knowledge, will, and fate," to a small but atten- 
 tive group. The vast importance then attached 
 to polemics, the prevalence of theology as a doc- 
 trine or science, over religion as an experience and 
 a sentiment, are impressively illustrated by the 
 zeal and patience with which this learned and pious 
 man wrought at his system, which, in the estima- 
 tion of those who agree with him, had and still has 
 a vital influence upon religious thought and faith, but 
 which the progress of science and the liberal and com- 
 prehensive range of modern faith and feeling now 
 render an abstract theory in comparison with prac- 
 tical Christian living and earnest religious devotion. 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 1 35 
 
 At all events, there are few of any sect in our 
 day who would not find the elaborate work of 
 Hopkins hard reading. The character of the man 
 was so upright and kindly, that in the popular mind 
 it was separated from that of the writer. His eccen- 
 tricities remind one of Dominie Sampson, and have 
 furnished a female novelist with hints, which she 
 has, however, greatly exaggerated and modified in 
 "The Minister's Wooing." Intrepid in behalf of 
 the right, Hopkins was one of the earliest opponents 
 of slavery and intemperance. Newport Gardiner, 
 the pious black sexton, who taught the singing 
 school, and was his " prote'ge'" and convert, he 
 sent to Liberia as a missionary. 
 
 On one occasion where he heard "Walking 
 Stewart," the famous pedestrian, expressing atheis- 
 tical opinions in the Redwood Library : " You 
 fool," he exclaimed, " were it not for God you 
 could not move a step from where you stand." 
 Three-quarters of his time was passed in study, 
 and but for the thoughtfulness of his parishioners 
 he would have often gone without his dinner. He 
 corresponded with the abolitionists of Europe, and 
 dedicated his " Dialogues concerning the Slavery 
 of the Africans " to the Continental Congress and 
 
136 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 signers of the Declaration of Independence. A 
 professed believer in the eternal damnation of the 
 majority of his race, he yet proclaimed the belief — 
 probably derived from consciousness — in human 
 disinterestedness. Profoundly learned, he was a 
 lover of little children. Tenacious of his personal 
 beliefs, he was indifferent to personal comfort. Art- 
 less in manner and feeling, affectionate in intercourse, 
 patriotic, indefatigable in research, a dauntless and 
 pioneer social reformer, he was, at the same time, 
 the stern expositor of the old theology. " Without 
 his works," writes his biographer, "no one can 
 understand the religious history of New England." 
 Too severe for the moderate Calvinists of Massa- 
 chusetts, where he was first settled, he could not 
 assimilate with the fashionable and convivial society 
 of Newport ; unprepossessing in aspect, but kindly 
 in manner, full of knowledge, abstracted, indigent, 
 candid, cruel in speculation, yet tender in life, his 
 image and career illustrate a phase and form of the 
 clerical character now all but obsolete, }'et original 
 and significant to the student of the past. 
 
 Newport, as the resort and the resource of ex- 
 tremists, early became a nucleus for controversy 
 and creeds as well as for enterprise. " The Aquid- 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 1 37 
 
 neck settlements," says Arnold, " for many years 
 increased more rapidly than those on the main 
 land. The accessions appear to have been, for the 
 most part, from a superior class in point of educa- 
 tion and social standing, which, for more than a 
 century, secured a controlling influence in the col- 
 ony." But, in addition to a better order of culture, 
 the religious element from the first permeated the 
 social life of Newport. " The Aquidneck settlers," 
 says Callender, "were Puritans of the highest 
 form." Yet nowhere did Puritanism become so soon 
 and so essentially modified by tolerant agencies. 
 Winthrop complains that " they gathered a church 
 in a very disordered way ; for they took some excom- 
 municated persons, and others who were members 
 of churches and not dismissed. Mrs. Hutchinson 
 and those of Aquidnay broach new heresies every 
 day." 
 
 One of the sons of Newport, at the Bi-Centennial 
 Celebration of the Settlement, exults in this im- 
 munity from ecclesiastical rule and persecution, as 
 a blessed distinction of the Newport over the Bos- 
 ton colonists. " They scored no Baptists' backs 
 with stripes," he boasts ; " no Quakers languished 
 in their jails ; no witch dangled on their gibbets." 
 
138 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 The Establishment found as much to complain of 
 in this religious tolerance as the Puritans. " Nei- 
 ther Epiphanius's nor Sir Richard Blackmore's Cata- 
 logues," wrote M'Sparran, the Episcopal missionary, 
 " contain more heterodox and different opinions 
 than are to be found ' in this corner.' " 
 
 Hence the winds of doctrine were freely set loose 
 in Newport society of the olden time ; and Hop- 
 kins is the last vigorous and valiant champion of 
 the old Calvinistic theology, unmodified by the 
 subtle and pervasive influences of modern thought 
 and popular education, facilities of human inter- 
 course, and discoveries of recent science. With 
 these agencies, theology, as such, has waned in 
 social estimation. We read its formulas on the old 
 gravestones, but the youth of this generation can- 
 not experience such a discipline as did Channing in 
 his bo}hood here. " When I was a mere child," 
 he writes, " I was quite a theologian, though I 
 hated to hear my elders chop logic according to 
 the fashion of that controversial time." 
 
 Cozy and convivial by contrast are the domestic 
 scenes of this dogmatic warfare. The low ceilings, 
 wainscot panels, the French plate mirrors with 
 heavy frames, the upright hall clock with " Lon- 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 1 39 
 
 don " and perhaps a half-risen moon on the dial, 
 the straight-backed mahogany chairs, old English 
 prints on the walls, the small window-panes often 
 set in cedar-wood, the green painted floors, the 
 snug and sunny window-seats, the broad hall and 
 easy staircase, the high mantels and vast chimney, 
 quaint sideboard, portraits by Stuart, or minia- 
 tures by Malbone, fresh geraniums, ancient sampler 
 — a mourning piece "in memory of Hamilton " — 
 cut-glass decanters, and old silver, are insignia of 
 the old households which vividly contrast with 
 verandas, lawns, croquet grounds, French chairs, 
 marble centre tables, ottomans, photograph albums, 
 and conservatory flowers of the modern villas. 
 
 The largest and most truly representative of the 
 domains of the dead in Newport is what is called 
 the Island Cemetery — a broad and nearly level area 
 extending along the bay near the outskirts of the 
 older part of the town. Roaming through this 
 silent and sequestered field of graves on a cool 
 summer morning, or calm autumn noon, bright and 
 blue glimpses of the bay, flecked here and there 
 with passing sail, win the eye as it is lifted from a 
 monumental inscription ; while, on the other side, 
 weather-stained houses cluster, and in the open 
 
140 THE GRAVES AT XEWPORT. 
 
 country beyond, the brown dome-like hay-ricks and 
 outstretching arms of the old wind-mill towers give 
 a kind of rural picturesqueness to tlie scene, finely 
 contrasted with the mossy gray rocks of the islands. 
 \'ivid tints of evergreens, the orange-breasted rob- 
 ins hopping o\-er the green hillocks, the soft touch 
 of the breeze, the white fleecy clouds sailing through 
 the illimitable and stainless ether, the solitude and 
 the sanctity of the place, combine to deepen curi- 
 osity into awe and soften speculation into tender- 
 ness, as one wanders and reads and muses, with the 
 freshest greetings of Nature blending thus with the 
 \'enerable memorials of mortality. 
 
 Standing on this elevated plateau, in the midst 
 of the dust of generations, and gazing over town, 
 fields, islands, and harbor — all clearly re\'ealed in 
 every detail of form and hue b}- the transparency of 
 the atmosphere and the tempered sunshine — what a 
 mysterious feeling is awakened bj- the thought that 
 Nature's every aspect, feature, and phenomena are 
 identical with those once familiar and dear to the 
 dead around, centuries ago, as to us to-day ; while 
 all the human traits and tokens have undergone so 
 vast and absolute a change ; for some of those 
 whose ashes here repose knew the old town when 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 141 
 
 bale-fires blazed on Sachuest and Windmill hills, 
 in King Philip's war ; when Captain Cook's ship, 
 that had circumnavigated the world, was broken up 
 in the harbor ; when the British sloop of war " Lib- 
 erty " was destroyed there — the first active protest 
 against that tyranny which the war of Independence 
 overthrew ; when discomfited Burgoyne sailed 
 thence with his troops ; or when the Indian's light 
 canoe alone stirred the blue waters, succeeded by 
 the emigrant ship, the buccaneer, the whaler, the 
 merchantman, and, at last, by the American man- 
 of-war and fleets of steamers and yachts — marking 
 the progress of civilization, trade, science, and 
 social luxury, until villa superseded gable-roofed 
 domicile, smooth lawns rough farm-yards, and 
 peripatetic, avaricious land-brokers the old-school 
 merchants ; and the aristocratic nucleus of colonial 
 wealth, enterprise, and hospitality became first a 
 decaying seaport, and then a gay summer sojourn. 
 How much of the local character, the social traits, 
 and the- normal tendencies of the place and people 
 can be discovered among their graves ! Some of 
 the stones are illegible from the corrosion of the 
 elements, others fresh with newly-cut letters. Here 
 is a mound overgrown with rank grass, and there 
 
142 THE GRAVES AT XEWPORT. 
 
 one adorned with lately-gathered flowers ; new and 
 brave monuments of marble, with sculptured fig- 
 ures, rise amidst sunken headstones that long ante- 
 date the Revolution ; elaborate inscriptions appeal 
 to the gazer near simple dates and initials ; every 
 grade of consideration and neglect reasserts, in the 
 home of the dead, the arbitrary distinctions of the 
 living. Here are the elements of history. In 
 yonder corner is this epitaph : 
 
 " Since every tomb an epitaph can have 
 The iNIuses owe their tribute to this grave, 
 And to succeeding ages recommend 
 His worthy name who lived and died their friend : 
 Being full of days and virtue's love and peace, 
 God from his troubles gave him a release. 
 And called him unto the celestial place. 
 Where happy souls view their Creator's face." 
 
 Crude rhymes, indeed, but significant when asso- 
 ciated with him who was buried there in 1675, Wil- 
 liam Jefiferay, one of the regicide judges of Charles 
 I. It is a large slab of gray stone, at the head of 
 which is a skull and crossbones. Nor can we wan- 
 der long without finding tokens of the sea-faring 
 life and its vicissitudes which mould the destiny of 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 143 
 
 dwellers on the coast. Many a stone is dedicated 
 to the memory of an old captain whose name is 
 familiar to sojourners in Newport as that of numer- 
 ous descendants. "Lost at sea" is a common 
 record ; and one shaft is erected " To the memory 
 of eighteen persons who perished by the wreck of 
 the brig ' Rutledge ' from Pictou — here buried, 
 June, 1846." 
 
 As we decipher their epitaphs, we recall some 
 lingering specimen of the old Rhode Island seamen 
 and fishermen still to be found about the wharves. 
 A veteran of the kind died two or three summers 
 ago, who cherished the superstitions of his fathers ; 
 always expected his dying neighbor to "go with 
 the turn of the tide ; " remembered when powdered 
 pigeon gizzards in silk bags or eel-skins were worn 
 round the neck to ward off the falling sickness ; 
 who, in his youth, used to refrain from his fishing 
 expedition when his mates reported having " seen 
 the storm-ship ; " and, as a boy, watched the ox 
 tied at the end of Long Wharf, with shoulders and 
 hind-quarters, ribs and sirloin chalked for purchase 
 by expectant customers before the slaughtering ; 
 and gravely counselled rheumatic people to carry a 
 horse-chestnut in their pockets as an infallible pre- 
 
144 THE GRAVES AT XEWPORT. 
 
 servative. Hardy, credulous, frugal, and brave 
 were those sons of the deep, who fought, and fished, 
 and manned the merchantmen of the old thriving 
 colony. 
 
 Emigration, both in its extent and variet}-, is 
 manifest in the nativities. Such birthplaces as the 
 counties of Devon and Cheshire in England, of 
 Dumfries in Scotland, of Jamaica and the other 
 West India Islands,- indicate the earlier colonists. 
 Then come those who, lingering here from long 
 voyages, made the place their home. Tunis, Spain, 
 Honolulu, and other far-away countries are in- 
 scribed on the last mile-stone of the wanderers. 
 Scattered among them are the names of well-known 
 families of the Southern States, suggestive of their 
 once and long favorite summer resort ; and, at 
 last, recent inscriptions mark the epoch of Cali- 
 fornia emigration from New England — relatives at 
 home placing on sepulchral tablets the record of 
 their kindred's death in the land of gold, whence 
 the)' never returned to gladden with prosperous ad- 
 venture the homes of their childhood. 
 
 Vocation also hath here her chronicles, whence 
 a political economist or local historian can infer 
 the sources of colonial enterprise and civic growth. 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 145 
 
 Prominent are the successful merchants of the 
 pahny days of the colony, whose very gravestones 
 have an air of sohd respectability, and sometimes 
 armorial bearings. We are reminded, as we read, 
 of the period when Newport outrivalled New York 
 as a commercial depot, and her harbor was peopled 
 with craft from every part of the world ; \\'hen 
 distilleries, ship-building, and slaves, privateers, 
 smuggling, eminent foreign visitors, and lavish 
 local hospitality, were identified with her name and 
 fortunes. This latter trait and its convivial habi- 
 tudes may be recognized in many an inscription, 
 wherein the conscience of the writer, forbidding any 
 testimony to the more ascetic merits, indulges in 
 praises of " social and domestic virtues," makes an 
 elegy of "frank and generous" qualities, and un- 
 able to declare that the departed practised self- 
 denial or cherished holy aspirations, finds a com- 
 pensatory tribute in the fact that " he ate not his 
 bread alone." 
 
 Tradition has kept alive the Epicurean fame of 
 not a few of these good fellows who once " set the 
 table in a roar," or quietly sank to sleep beneath 
 it. An eminent native of Newport, whose child- 
 hood knew her days of early and comparatively 
 19 
 
146 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 exceptional luxury, has recorded the fact that his 
 first notion of glory was attached to a black cook. 
 The geese, the sheep, the fish, and game of the 
 sland were famous among " bon-vivants." Tropi- 
 cal products and choice wines were abundantly 
 imported ; political excitement ran high, and Fed- 
 eralists and Jacobins were the only parties, cockades 
 the prevalent emblem of opinion, and " society not 
 wanting in refinement, fond of pleasure, and very 
 cordial." The chief ministers thereto were the 
 prosperous merchants — many of whose names here 
 encountered, are still associated with its social life, 
 or eligibly represented by the third generation, 
 whose household gods and family " prestige " have 
 been transferred to other and more active cities. 
 
 Clerical worthies constituted the influential and 
 ideal type of character in the nascent civilization 
 of America ; partly because the clergy were the 
 educated class, and that at a period when learning 
 and ignorance were more absolutely distinct than 
 now, and a college education the privilege of few ; 
 and partly because of the social importance, if we 
 may so define it, of theological opinion, its identity 
 with the causes and the direction of colonization, 
 and its pervasive sway in all the arrangements of 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 147 
 
 civic life. The novels that portray early Ameri- 
 can society almost invariably have a minister for 
 the hero, and the history of the older churches 
 includes the most salient facts and phases of domes- 
 tic and municipal life. 
 
 We read all this in the graveyard, where the 
 stones of an older date most elaborately celebrate 
 the venerable pastor, or learned theologian, whose 
 name is often historical. The principal cemetery 
 of Newport is no exception to the rule. And it is 
 noteworthy that scarcely one of the good men thus 
 eulogized was a believer in the Vicar of Wake- 
 field's theory of marriage as a single and sacred 
 experiment. " Our husband" might be inscribed 
 on the central stone of many a trio of graves where- 
 in sleep the successive wives of the parsons. Let 
 us linger at two mossy head-stones on which is 
 written : " Mary, the amiable and virtuous relict 
 of Rev. Dr. Ezra Stiles," and Eliza, " consort" of 
 the same — the latter died in 1/75, and the former 
 in 1 801. Of one of these ladies it is recorded in 
 the " Newport Mercury," that on a certain day a 
 bevy of young wornen belonging to her husband's 
 parish met at the parsonage, and spun flax enough 
 to furnish the gudeman with a bountiful supply of 
 
148 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 shirts — a characteristic illustration of the " surprise 
 parties" of those days. 
 
 Dr. Stiles was a remarkable man ; his learning, 
 patriotism, and piety live in benign remembrance ; 
 for he was imbued with genuine public spirit and 
 historical taste. His diary, still preserved in Yale 
 College, of which he was the honored president, 
 contains many valuable data. He promoted sci- 
 ence and education, and was a consistent enthusiast 
 in behalf of religious toleration and civic freedom. 
 He wrote a memoir of the regicides who found 
 refuge and died in New Haven ; was a friend and 
 correspondent of Franklin. He was an antiquarian, 
 a naturalist, and a linguist in disposition, if not in 
 extensive achievement ; he auspiciously influenced 
 General Greene when a youth, emancipated his 
 slave boy from a sense of justice, and was the effi- 
 cient super\'isor of the Redwood Library while a 
 minister of Newport. " Happily settled," says his 
 biographer, " among a people who fully appre- 
 ciated his worth, he found time to continue his 
 literary and scientific studies, for which the library 
 afforded him important facilities, and in the pur- 
 chase of new books his judgment was much relied 
 on." There is a passage in his own self-commun- 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 149 
 
 ing journal which seems to indicate the gentleness 
 and discipline of his nature ; it is in the form of a 
 resolve — " in every station of life to act with judg- 
 ment, prudence, and good humor ; to make the 
 business of life a pleasure as well as an employ- 
 ment ; to be content with the circumstances allot- 
 ted by Providence ; and to live according to the 
 dictates of reason and religion." 
 
 A humbler member of the sacred profession was 
 Father Thurston, whose family name is of frequent 
 occurrence here, a Baptist preacher who eked out 
 his scanty subsistence, on week days, by following 
 the trade of a cooper. He has been accredited 
 with the honor of Newport's pioneer temperance 
 reformer ; for, in the palmy days of the West India 
 trade, scandalized by the reckless use of rum in the 
 town, he refused to make casks — the most lucrative 
 branch of his vocation — and confined his manual 
 toil to milk and water buckets, which conscientious 
 proceeding greatly enhanced the influence of his 
 Sabbath exhortations. 
 
 From Clarke to Callender and Clapp a long line 
 of clergy, ranging through the sects from extreme 
 Calvinist, Baptist, and Methodist to liberal Chris- 
 tians, and eminent for learning, piety, or philan- 
 
ISO THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 thropy — also more or less distinguished for individ- 
 uality and influence — are enrolled on the sepulchral 
 chronicles of Newport. 
 
 It is the best lesson in humane eclecticism and 
 tolerant sympathy thus to read diversities of faith 
 on the last signal posts in life's brief race. Every 
 humble and loving heart thus recalls the endeared 
 rites of the alien sects, now so harmoniously sleep- 
 ing together — if not with reverence, certainly with- 
 out indifference. Impressive seem those long vigils 
 of the Friends waiting the descent of the Spirit, 
 venerable those chaunted psalms of David in the 
 synagogue, and solemn the ancient ritual of the 
 Church of England ; while the unchastened ardor 
 of the Methodist, and the calm intellectuality of 
 the Unitarian, in the retrospect of the churchyard, 
 breed no discordant refrain. 
 
 Those who have witnessed a baptism by immer- 
 sion, on a quiet and balmy Sabbath afternoon, on 
 the shores of yonder beautiful bay, here beside the 
 ashes of one of these faithful pastors, will recall the 
 ceremony as one of sacred beauty. The earnest 
 group on the pebbly beach, the dark-robed figure 
 and perchance spiritually expressive face of the 
 minister slowly leading a young disciple into the 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 151 
 
 sea, the few holy words of consecration, the gentle 
 splash, the rising melody of the hymn that wel- 
 comes another lamb to the fold of the Lord, how 
 much of primitive piety and traditional picturesque- 
 ness and human pathos invests the scene ! 
 
 The proverbial longevity of the natives is appa- 
 rent in the ages recorded, and the salubrity of the 
 climate might be inferred from the frequent occur- 
 rence of such phrases as " after a short illness," or 
 " in the midst of his usefulness," indicating com- 
 parative exemption from those lingering pulmonary 
 attacks to which the more bleak portions of the 
 New England coast are exposed. It is curious to 
 remark the progress of taste in epitaphs : " relict" 
 gradually is superseded by " consort," and finally, 
 by " wife ; " special theological dogmas give place 
 to general religious sentiments ; and in place of 
 some technical formula suggestive of a limited 
 creed, we find the broad, humane, and hopeful 
 lines of our household poet : 
 
 " This life of mortal breath 
 Is but a suburb of the life Elysian, 
 Whose portal we call death." 
 
 In the names of the maids and matrons who here 
 
152 THE GRAVES AT KEWPORT. 
 
 repose, we find, as it were, the key-note of their 
 social environment and culture. Thus the Puritan 
 appellatives — such as Peace, Charity, Bathsheba, 
 and Thankful, and the homely household Polly and 
 Abigail — are superseded, in the era of Fielding 
 and Miss Burney, by Penelope, Diana, Evelina, and 
 Clarissa. 
 
 The simple inscription " Enoch Hazard, Physi- 
 cian," reminds us of the early and special medical 
 fame of Rhode Island. Besides the Quaker-born 
 doctors, Hazard and Rodman, there were Wa- 
 terhouse, Vigneron Hunter, Brett, Ayrault, and 
 other famous practitioners. Near the west gate 
 is the grave of Dr. Senter, who was a man of 
 eminent genius as well as extensive knowledge in 
 his profession, and a correspondent of the Royal 
 Society. 
 
 The Vernon graves are isolated, and represent 
 the old colonial aristocracy. It is a name, indeed, 
 which has perhaps the most endeared of manorial 
 association to an iVmerican, as that of Washington's 
 home on the Potomac, so-called in honor of the 
 admiral with whom his kinsman sailed. The man- 
 sion of the family in Newport is an historical home- 
 stead, associated with the sojourn of the French 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 1 53 
 
 officers in the Revolution and Washington's visit. 
 With him William Vernon corresponded, as well as 
 with Lafayette, Franklin, and Adams. He was 
 Count Rochambeau's genial host, President of the 
 Navy Board at Boston, and sacrificed much for the 
 cause of his country. A staunch and liberal patriot, 
 he died, in 1806, at the age of 87 ; and with him 
 fades the heraldic escutcheon of his ancestral tombs, 
 as the chivalric prestige thereof culminated in re- 
 publican fidelity. 
 
 All the old memoirs note the prevalence of eccen- 
 tric characters in Newport. The seaport facilities 
 of intercourse and the freedom of opinion encour- 
 aged, may have had something to do with this, by 
 inducing a kindly toleration and bringing together 
 extreme specimens of creed and character, and per- 
 haps it was somewhat developed by the hospitable 
 habitudes and versatile enterprise of the place, 
 ranging from theological encroachments to priva- 
 teer adventure. Not without its posthumous evi- 
 dence is the rampant originality of the island ; there 
 are quaint and queer epitaphs enough, of which 
 we transcribe these two illustrations: "The Hu- 
 man Form, respected for its honesty, and known 
 
 for fifty-three years by the appellation of Chris- 
 20 
 
154 THE GRAVES AT XEWPORT. 
 
 topher Ellei}", began to dissolve in the month of 
 February, 1789." 
 
 " If tears, alas, could speak a husband's woe, 
 
 My verse should straight in plaintive numbers flow ; 
 But since thy well-known piety demands 
 A public monument at thy George's hands, 
 O Abigail ! I dedicate this tomb to thee, 
 Thou dearest half of poor forsaken me." 
 
 Although destitute of any quaint epitaph, the 
 gravestones of an old miller's family suggest, by 
 virtue of the name alone, eccentric memories ; for 
 the three aged spinsters — last of their race — only 
 died the other day, and were such pertinacious 
 sympathizers with the past, that their exceptional 
 ways and aspect formed an odd contrast with the 
 flow and fashion of the " living present," as exhib- 
 ited in the life of such a fresh and favorite water- 
 ing-place as Newport. When the father of these 
 strong-minded virgins died, he left them one of the 
 picturesque old wind-mills that are so curious a 
 feature in the level landscape. It was situated in 
 the midst of a meadow overlooking the sea, and 
 within easy access of the heart of the town ; and. 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 1 55 
 
 accordingly, with the fabulous prices good " lots" 
 now command, the broad acres surrounding the 
 mill — long since abandoned to decay — were a for- 
 tune to the venerable maidens. But they shrunk 
 with horror from selling the family land, and pre- 
 ferred to live on the accumulated interest of their 
 stock — carefully saved result of their father's long 
 years of thrift and toil. So quietly and secluded 
 they abode in the little, old wooden house where 
 they were born, wearing the poke bonnets and scant 
 robes in vogue half a century ago ; scorning to sub- 
 stitute lucifer matches for flint, steel, and tinder- 
 box ; rejoicing in the samplers, sideboards, high- 
 backed and broad-seated chairs, moon-faced clock, 
 the ostrich egg suspended from the low ceiling, the 
 rag carpet, and all the other obsolete furniture of a 
 past generation ; declining all overtures for social 
 intercourse ; making a kind of hermitage of their 
 smah domicile, where, with a cat on the rug, a 
 geranium in the window-seat, knitting in hand, and 
 ancient tea-caddy for consolation, year after year 
 the trio "dwelt apart" — fashion's whirl and frivol- 
 ity sounding in their ears, and glimpses of "the 
 world" caught at intervals over the window cur- 
 tains ; only emerging at rare intervals to attend 
 
I $6 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 church, dressed in a style which is only now seen 
 in old prints and pictures. At last, one day, the 
 eldest died of sheer old age ; two days after, the 
 second expired ; and when the last survivor came 
 from the funeral to her solitary home, she re- 
 marked : "I might as well go too ; " and so went 
 to bed and died. In a few weeks the house and 
 its contents were sold ; and the auctioneer's flag 
 won us to an inspection of the premises, which 
 were those of a household in the first ) ears of the 
 Republic ; leather fire-buckets hanging in the entry, 
 high-post bedsteads, chairs with brocade seats, 
 spider-legged tables, rude prints of Dartmoor prison 
 and the American victories of the war of 1812, 
 novels by Smollett, Franklin's " Primer," contro- 
 versial tracts whose very subjects are forgotten, 
 cross-beamed ceilings, wall-paper with Arcadian 
 figures, obsolete shovel, tongs, bellows, and and- 
 irons, Liverpool ware ; the only " modern im- 
 provement " being a contemporary stove ; quaint 
 old nooks where female conservatism triumphed 
 and single-blessedness kept patient and forlorn tryst 
 with the by-gone — the superseded, the outgrown, 
 successfully defying all the encroachments of the 
 " times." 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 1 5/ 
 
 Of the recent monuments, one of the most 
 elaborate in design and execution is placed over 
 the grave of a New York barrister, the friend 
 of Webster, member of the Hone Club, and 
 long prominent both at the bar and in society 
 — Prescott Hall — who came hither several years 
 since, and made a genial shrine of hospitality 
 of the Malbone estate, indulging a taste for agri- 
 culture and natural history, and always interested 
 in the national welfare. He is described as " loyal, 
 manly, generous, warm in his affections, and de- 
 voted in friendship." The monument was erected 
 " by one whose privilege it was to call herself his 
 wife." 
 
 Here and there in the Island Cemetery, .amidst 
 the children of peace and prosperity, of humble 
 toil or maritime adventure, we light upon eloquent 
 memorials of patriotism. A brave race, who loved 
 their country, were the people of this State and 
 island. In proportion to its area no region of the 
 country boasts more heroes. Here we can track 
 their glorious advent or martyrdom from the earliest 
 days of the colony to the war that has just saved 
 the life of the Republic. On several of the ancient 
 stones the words, " A Patriot of the Revolution," 
 
158 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 tell the whole story. Here is one with the name 
 of a gallant officer in the war of 181 2 ; there another, 
 with the inscription of a " Signer of the Declaration 
 of Independence." 
 
 A granite obelisk commemorates a youthful hero, 
 whose personal attractions and brilliant naval re- 
 nown surround his memory, as they did his career, 
 with a halo of romance. It bears this inscrip- 
 tion : " Oliver Hazard Perry : at the age of 27 
 he achieved the victory of Lake Erie, Sept. 10, 
 181 3. Erected by the City of Newport." Within 
 the same enclosure are the remains of his son ; 
 and his epitaph, to all who knew him, has the 
 singular merit and charm of absolute, unexagge- 
 rated, truth, expressed with simplicity and good 
 taste : " Christopher Grant Perry, eldest son of 
 Commodore O. H. Perry, died April, 1854. An 
 upright and good man. He was beloved and valued 
 for his virtue and usefulness ; by his early death 
 this community suffers a great loss ; in the hearts 
 of his family and friends lives daily the memory 
 of his excellence as a sweet consolation in their 
 enduring grief." It is but a few years since the 
 widow of the gallant officer was laid beside him, 
 having through all the years she survived him main- 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 15c 
 
 tained the dignity of his fame and tender loyalty 
 to his memory. Seldom is human worth thus 
 cherished and transmitted. 
 
 From the graves of Revolutionary patriots and 
 heroes of the second war with England, we have 
 but to turn to the fresher walks of the cemetery to 
 encounter the recent memorials of the martyrs oi 
 the war for the Union ; youths of culture and 
 pleasant fortunes, whence they turned magnani- 
 mously to do battle for the right, like him whose 
 modest monument only says : " Frederick Ogden, 
 aged 25 years ; adjutant of the U. S. Cavalry, 
 killed in the battle of Trevellan Station, June 11, 
 1864.'' Or regular army officers, who bravely 
 led and nobly died, like him whose massive yet 
 severely simple column bears this inscription : 
 " Major-General Isaac Ingalls Stevens, who gave 
 to the service of his country a quick and compre- 
 hensive mind, a warm and generous heart, a firm 
 will, and a strong arm ; and who fell while rallying 
 his command at the battle of Chantilly, Va., Sept., 
 1861. This monument is erected as a token of 
 admiration and gratitude by the City of New- 
 port." 
 
 Newport has always been famed for the beauty 
 
l6o THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 of its women. Exquisite complexions — by many 
 ascribed to the clarifying and softening influence of 
 the sea-fogs and the purity of the air — were a local 
 distinction from the old colonial days. Then came 
 the ardent reminiscences of Quaker loveliness, from 
 the French officers, many of whom, long after their 
 sojourn in the island as our genial allies in the war 
 of the Revolution, according to the fashion of their 
 day, wrote their memoirs — egotistical and often 
 melodramatic, but vivacious, candid, and not sel- 
 dom overflowing with kindliness and intelligence ; 
 and, finally, the remarkable constellations of female 
 beauty grouped here annually by the magnetism of 
 a salubrious watering-place, have been the theme 
 of admiration and memorable social enjoyment. 
 There are touching tokens of this local distinction 
 in the records of the departed ; especially for those 
 who have memories thereof to deepen and individ- 
 ualize the mysterious feeling that associates in the 
 heart and imagination beauty and death. Walk- 
 ing here alone with the cool breath of the sea, the 
 fresh tint of the herbage, and the calm glory of the 
 sky, and thinking of the fair and fond whose graces 
 live only in the similitude of art and the frail mem- 
 ory of survivors, we recall Tennyson's lines that 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. l6l 
 
 describe Love and Death meeting in the " thymy 
 plots of Paradise : " 
 
 " You must be gone," said Death, " these walks are mine." 
 
 Love wept, and spread his sheeny vans for flight : 
 Yet, ere he parted, said : " This hour is thine : 
 
 Thou art the shadow of life, and as the tree 
 Stands in the sun and shadows all beneath. 
 
 So in the light of great eternity 
 Life eminent creates the shade of death : 
 
 The shadow passeth when the tree shall fall. 
 But I shall reign forever over all." 
 
 Wiien Polly Lawton's simplicity and grace won 
 the counts and marquises of the French army, and 
 the lovely Miss Champlin danced a minuet with 
 Washington in the old Assembly Room of New- 
 port, and the signet-rings of the Gallic lovers 
 scrawled hearts and initials on the little panes of 
 the casements under the old gable-roofs, the same 
 perpetual romance freshened and idealized the life 
 of youth that made happy the accepted lover or tri- 
 umphant belle now standing in winsome attitude on 
 the croquet lawn, or driving the spirited ponies and 
 dainty landau along the Avenue. 
 
 Frequent are the allusions to personal charms 
 
 21 
 
1 62 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 and gracious traits of female character among the 
 epitaphs of the Island Cemeter}-. Here it is said a 
 wife — " Lies interred, but the memory of her beau- 
 tiful form and noble mind lives in the heart of her 
 husband." Of another is written: " If an assem- 
 blage of all the virtues which dignify and adorn 
 the soul, united to elegance of person and refine- 
 ment of manners, could ha\'e rescued her from 
 death, she had still lived." The reticence and 
 delicacy of this inscription is singularly eloquent : 
 " To those whose fortunes were blended with 
 beings so beautiful, there are still safe from the 
 grasp of death the most cherished and sacred hopes 
 and memories." 
 
 In striking contrast with such associations is the 
 north-west corner of the burial-ground, set apart, 
 many years ago, for negro interments. Yet even 
 there we find historical suggestions. The pros- 
 perous colonial merchants of Newport used to select 
 the most promising specimens from their freshly 
 arrived cargoes of slaves for domestic service ; and 
 hence sprung a superior class of blacks, endeared 
 to the old residents as faithful servants, and not a 
 few eminent in culinary art. One sees every pleas- 
 ant Sunday in the streets of the town a throng of 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 1 63 
 
 well-dressed, intelligent-looking colored people, 
 some of them descendants of the respectable ebon 
 patriarchs of the island, and not unfrequently pros- 
 perous citizens. A lady, walking behind two fe- 
 males elegantly dressed, overheard a warm discus- 
 sion between them as to the comparative merits of 
 Hume and Macaulay as historians. Surprised at 
 this indication of literary taste where fashion reigns, 
 she passed the pair, and glancing back, found they 
 were " colored ladies." A gentleman having occa- 
 sion to seek the abode of his laundress, found a 
 harp and the best modern poets tastefully arranged 
 in her neat little drawing-room. 
 
 Among the epitaphs in the negroes' lot we find 
 tributes to their worth from attached families they 
 served. " Grave and sensible," " useful and pi- 
 ous," " industrious, intelligent, and affectionate," 
 are the commendatory epithets on their grave- 
 stones. Many a traditional " aunt " and " uncle," 
 " images of God carved in ebony," here repose ; 
 and musing by their humble graves, we cannot but 
 remember the wonderful history of their oppressed 
 and redeemed race, from the days when Newport 
 was a "depot" for the slave trade to Lincoln's 
 Proclamation of Emancipation. Among these lowly 
 
l64 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 sepulchres is one -where sleeps the daughter of an 
 African king — Dutchess Quamine. 
 
 There is a more sublime and subtle memory than 
 that of beauty, patriotism, or even character, that 
 haunts the cities of the dead — genius, in the high- 
 est sense of the term, where the legitimate influ- 
 ence of rare gifts has been confirmed by moral 
 harmonj^, and purity adds its elevation and refine- 
 ment to power. On two groups of slabs we read 
 the names of Allston and Channing. Neither the 
 artist nor the divine is here buried ; both sleep at 
 Cambridge, Massachusetts, near the scene of their 
 latest labors ; but this region was their boyhood's 
 home, where their earliest impressions of life and 
 nature were received, and to which they were fond 
 of ascribing the choicest influences of their educa- 
 tion. Playmates, school-comrades, and youthful 
 friends, along these shores they walked in reverie, 
 watching the storm, luxuriating in the sunshine. 
 Allston's rudimentary instruction in painting was 
 derived from a venerable watch-maker of the town, 
 named King,""^ who lent him materials, and taught 
 
 * An old citizen informed me that one day, in a shop, he heard 
 Colonel Malbone say to Samuel King: "I have a boy who shows 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 165 
 
 him to handle pencil and colors in the rear of his shop 
 in Thames street. Meantime the boy feasted his 
 eyes upon the radiant sunsets, the brilliant pebbles, 
 the vivid green of meadows, and softened tints of 
 twilight ; and the youth studied and strolled with 
 the gentle Malbone, and by sympathy and obser- 
 vation, built up within his soul the purpose and 
 pleasure of an artist life. There is a portrait of 
 him at the age of eighteen — one of his first suc- 
 cessful efforts — which long hung in the chamber of 
 a venerable lady resident here, his cherished friend, 
 to whom he gave it. Old-fashioned in costume, 
 the lofty intellectual tone of the face, and the deep 
 luminous color as well as the interest of the like- 
 ness, give the picture a singular charm, enhanced 
 by the fond and reverent memories which the 
 owner cherished of the original. " Of all human 
 
 decided taste for painting — could you give him the benefit of your 
 instructions?" "Withtlie greatest pleasure," replied the artist. 
 "There is a young man from South Carolina in my studio ; they 
 will be companions for each other." This was Washington Allston, 
 who, when at the height of his fame, used to speak gratefully of this 
 first teacher, whose portrait, perhaps the earliest attempt of the 
 pupil, is now in the possession of his descendants. 
 
l66 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 beings I have known," she was wont to say, " there 
 is no one of whose continued existence I feel such 
 a conviction. Allston was ever to me like a spirit ; 
 fitted and attuned to pass into a higher sphere. I 
 think of him there as in his native air." And who 
 that knew him in his later years — the lithe form, 
 the long silvery hair, the prominent lucent eye, his 
 earnest kindliness, his generous appreciation, his 
 wise insight and keen sympathies, the mystic charm 
 of his ghost stories, his intense love of beauty, 
 and exalted idea of life and art — and cannot re- 
 spond to the feeling and faith of his old friend ? 
 Malbone depicted her at seventeen — as exquisite a 
 miniature painting as can be imagined. 
 
 And with his endeared name, Newport is also 
 associated with that of Smibert, the painter who 
 accompanied Dean Berkeley hither, and left sev- 
 eral portraits of American notabilities ; and with 
 Gilbert Stuart, born at Narraganset, on the oppo- 
 site side of the bay, where his father had a famous 
 snuff-mill, and whose favorite residence was New- 
 port — still true to his traditional fame, and familiar 
 with the most characteristic anecdotes of his re- 
 markable career. There he began to copy pictures 
 when only thirteen years old ; and his baptismal 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 1 6/ 
 
 register is in the handwriting of McSparran, one of 
 the first Episcopal missionaries who came from 
 England ; there the young artist met Cosmo Alex- 
 ander, a Scotchman, who took him to Edinburgh ; 
 and dying there, left his pupil to the care of George 
 Chambers ; and thither he gladly returned, after 
 harsh experiences, to study zealously his art, and 
 live with Captain Anthony, his wife's father, who 
 had emigrated from Wales and occupied a farm 
 on this island, which he afterward sold to Bishop 
 Berkeley, who named it Whitehall. 
 
 Gilbert Stuart's earliest teaching was received at 
 the Newport grammar-school. Here were his first 
 artistic triumphs and social enjoyments ; and thence 
 he departed to delineate, with matchless skill and 
 vital individuality, the ancestors of hundreds of fam- 
 ilies, who now cherishthese portraits as their most 
 precious domestic relics and heirlooms. A little 
 while before he died, this great painter came from 
 Boston on a last visit to Newport, so endeared to 
 his youthful associations, and crossed the ferry to 
 Narraganset in order to see his childhood's home 
 once more. He wandered again over the old 
 house where he first drew breath, and when in 
 the northeast bedroom, said to his companion : 
 
l68 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 " In this room my mother always told me I was 
 born." 
 
 Newport has ever been a favorite resort and 
 abode of artists. Feke, the first native educated 
 portrait painter, was born here. Smibert here first 
 set up his easel ; Blackburn, more than a century 
 ago, executed a few memorable likenesses ; Trum- 
 bull sketched and fought on Honyman's Hill ; ]\Ial- 
 bone loved Newport as his birthplace ; Greenough 
 passed many of the last months of his life here ; 
 Staigg, Jane Stuart, Hunt, Dana, Thorndike, and 
 other artists have made it their home. Every sum- 
 mer allures foreign artists hither ; and some of the 
 most characteristic pictures of Kensett, Suydam, 
 Huntington, Haseltine, and others of our landscape 
 painters, have been elaborated from studies of these 
 shores. 
 
 From the art associations inspired by the name 
 of our " old master" on the sepulchral tablets of 
 his kindred, the transition is easy to his brother- 
 in-law Channing, whose grandfather and father are 
 here buried. How the latter's epitaph seems to 
 prophesy his son's peerless illustration of the no- 
 blest principles of Christian faith and freedom : 
 " Wilham Channing, eminent in the profession of 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 169 
 
 the law: died 1793, aged 42 : benevolent in his 
 intercourse with mankind, faithful in friendship : 
 an example of those virtues that endear domestic 
 life : and a zealous supporter of the peace and 
 order of Society and of the institutions of Religion : 
 he was taken in the midst of his usefulness." 
 
 William Ellery Channing was born at New- 
 port. His father, a highly respected lawyer, 
 patriotic citizen, and exemplary man, died when 
 William was ten years old ; but the son soon 
 took his father's place as the head of the family. 
 His mother, Lucy Ellery, a noble woman, whose 
 affection was as vigilant as her character was firm, 
 bequeathed also rare virtues to this child of her 
 love and pride. There is an old square frame-house 
 at the sequestered angle of School and Mary streets, 
 where the Channing family long resided,* and nine 
 children were born and bred. There is an exten- 
 sive garden in the rear, and there used to be a 
 little office at the side where William's lamp was 
 seen burning by the solitary passer far into the night. 
 
 * Recently purchased, repaired, and presented to a. benevolent 
 society of Newport, as a Home for Destitute Children, by Chris- 
 topher Townsend. 
 
 22 
 
I/O THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 As I lately explored the large square rooms, with 
 their panelled walls and heavy window-frames —the 
 upper casements )-ielding a view of the sea — and 
 looked over the then dreary old garden, the anec- 
 dotes of Channing's filial devotion, his childhood's 
 rectitude and dignity, the stern self-denial of his 
 \-outh, the privations he suffered, and the principles 
 he adopted in manhood, his deep inward struggles, 
 thirst for truth, sense of the beautiful, aspirations 
 for the right, and loyalty to faith and freedom, 
 blended with my vivid memor}- of his pulpit elo- 
 quence, the deep tones of his thrilling voice, the 
 grand sincerity and tender earnestness which seemed 
 to consecrate his ^\•ords and now hallow his image 
 to the imagination. Here, at the dawn of feel- 
 ing and fancy, he " breathed an atmosphere of 
 freedom ; " the beach and the library were his 
 cherished resorts ; thence he went crowned with 
 maternal benedictions, first to Cambridge for his 
 education, and then to Richmond as tutor in the 
 Randolph family, and finally to Boston to minister 
 not so much to a parish, as at the altar of human- 
 ity, and carry into the secret depths of countless 
 hearts a new and consecrating sense of the holy 
 possibilities of our destiny — the sacred rights, du- 
 
THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. I/I 
 
 ties, and progressive capabilities of our nature — 
 the divine intent and consecration of life. The 
 record of his boyhood and youth at Newport coin- 
 cides with his subsequent career. Elastic by tem- 
 perament, earnest in feeling, with 'manly pride and 
 sensitive conscience, his school-fellows called him 
 little King Pepin and the Peacemaker. He was 
 their brave champion, their acknowledged intel- 
 lectual leader — chosen as the juvenile orator on the 
 occasion of Rochambeau's visit when they marched 
 to salute his arrival. Many are the current tradi- 
 tions which prove that as a boy, he was " ignorant 
 of fear," and " had a horror of cruelty," and shared 
 all he had and was, with his comrades. It was this 
 original basis of courage, probity, and generous 
 instincts that made him a man of ethical genius. 
 Strong in mental, he was delicate in physical quali- 
 ties, thus mingling will, intelligence, and sensi- 
 bility, the elements of moral heroism ; therefore 
 was Channing magnetic ; the tremulous earnestness 
 of his tones outweighed all rhetorical artifice ; and 
 his written words by the lucid emphasis of candid 
 conviction, won and warmed such men as Kossuth 
 and Laboulaye, and such women as Joanna Baillie, 
 Mrs. Somerville, and Lucy Aikin. Nowhere is 
 
1/2 THE GRAVES AT NEWPORT. 
 
 the cause of freedom and justice, the essential dig- 
 nity of human nature, and the legitimate progress 
 of society pleaded with more candid and gracious 
 emphasis than in his writings ; their charm is vital, 
 their influence persuasive, though little appreciated 
 among the conventional critics and superficial ob- 
 servers of his own country. 
 
LOTHAIR AND ITS AUTHOR. 1 73 
 
 LOTHAIR AND ITS AUTHOR. 
 
 It falls to the lot of almost all men of insight 
 and sensibility to encounter somewhere a woman 
 whose physical charms are enhanced by wit, senti- 
 ment, or grace ; but in whom these combined at- 
 tractions are rendered ineffective and unsatisfactory 
 for want of heart ; or, more properly, because there 
 is no steadfastness of affection, no harmony and 
 consistency of feeling ; the divine fire is never con- 
 centrated ; its light scintillates but does not warm ; 
 pleasure is given, wonder awakened, interest ex- 
 cited, but no deep confidence, no moral satisfac- 
 tion : and it is a not uncommon experience with 
 lovers of art to encounter a picture wherein they 
 enjoy the skill, the taste, the cleverness of the 
 work, the force and finish of the details, and the 
 knowledge displayed ; but from which no absolute 
 and distinct, no supreme emotion, idea, or endur- 
 ing impression is derived. What such a woman is 
 in society, and such a picture in the world of art, 
 
174 LOTHAIR AND ITS AUTHOR. 
 
 is Disraeli in literature. Admirably equipped, as 
 far as wide culture and worldly knowledge are con- 
 cerned, with imagination, language, a sense of 
 beauty, a fine satirical vein, and a singular tact to 
 use all these endowments to advantage, there is no 
 deep conviction, no ardent purpose, no overmaster- 
 ing sentiment to fuse and forge the rich elements 
 at his command into a vital unity. With the human 
 glow of Fielding, with the historic enthusiasm of 
 Scott, with the solvent humor of Dickens, such 
 traits and gifts as Disraeli's might be easily wrought 
 into " victorious clearness," into permanent types 
 of character, into household precedents of story, 
 into standard literary creations of enduring signifi- 
 cance. Never was there a writer who has more 
 absolutely illustrated the vast possible diversity 
 between brilliancy and earnestness ; not that he 
 ignores so essential a characteristic as the latter in 
 his romantic personages ; but it is so delineated as 
 to seem born of cynicism rather than sympathy ; 
 or rather it is so objective!)' described, and so coolly 
 defined, that the reader feels, the while, as if the 
 hero or heroine were indulging an entusynnisy, as 
 Byron calls it, rather than obeying a faith. We do 
 not mean to apply this remark so much to the indi- 
 
LOTHAIR AND ITS AUTHOR. 175 
 
 vidual passions, especially the loves of Disraeli's 
 characters, which are often tender and true, intense 
 and eager, but to the creeds, the ideals, the mis- 
 sions to which they are ostensibly devoted. While 
 one appreciates the bright touches of sarcasm, the 
 artistic aptitude, the eloquent argument, the graphic 
 and winsome descriptions, and the vivid, trenchant, 
 and suggestive dialogue, which make page after 
 page alive and sparkling, gorgeous and pensive, at 
 the same time he is haunted by a vague sense of 
 want, a consciousness that the scenes, the talk, the 
 people, the protests, the pleas, and the pictures, 
 impressive or fascinating in themselves, are not 
 harmonized, elevated, and vitalized by a purpose, 
 a conviction, in one word, by an integrity of soul 
 in any degree proportioned to the splendor of the 
 materiel or the ideal which such accessories imply. 
 There is no English novelist who more effectually 
 than Disraeli "keeps the word of promise to the 
 mind and breaks it to the heart ; " who entertains 
 so much to convince so little ; who charms so deftly 
 to satisfy so imperfectly ; who is at once so lavishly 
 brilliant and so provokingly not in earnest. 
 
 Speaking in this his last work of the class of 
 clerical propagandists gathered about a favorite 
 
176 LOTHAIR AND ITS AUTHOR. 
 
 and efficient dignitary of the Roman Church, he 
 describes them as " men of bright abihties, not 
 merely men of reading but of the world, learned in 
 the world's ways, and trained to govern mankind 
 by the versatility of their sympathies ; " substitute 
 talents for the latter work, and we have an uncon- 
 scious autobiographic portrait. Disraeli's ideal is in- 
 tellectual dictatorship ; his first triumphs were social ; 
 he made his mark originally as a brilliant conver- 
 sationist. His first novel portrayed elaborately 
 a young and high-born man, who, by the force and 
 flow of his varied talents, became the autocrat of a 
 high social sphere ; in another he prophetically and 
 eloquently delineated the "New Generation" — 
 executed a most striking, and, in the last analysis, 
 true, though highly-colored picture of English so- 
 ciety, interweaving therein the programme and 
 philosophy of a rising party in state and social life, 
 known as " Young England," and of which he was 
 nominally the head. In fact the interest, or, at 
 least, the piquancy of his novels, centres in their 
 fashion, politics, literature, and society, of which 
 he writes with a vigor and a vivacity that appeal 
 alike to the man of letters and the woman of the 
 world ; while interfused therewith are episodes of 
 
LOTHAIR AND ITS AUTHOR. 1 7/ 
 
 poetical beauty, of casual enthusiasm, of compre- 
 hensive and original speculation, which, combined, 
 form the most attractive tableau arid the most ani- 
 mated discourse. But in the very nature of such 
 work as this, the creative is in abeyance ; it is to 
 deeper and more constructive literary achievement 
 what a masterly sketch is to a finished picture ; the 
 dramatic element is but slightly developed ; what 
 there is of plot is subordinate and ineffective. There 
 are portraits many and striking, and the more in- 
 teresting because it is so easy to know, or at least 
 plausibly conjecture, the- living originals ; there are 
 scenes finished up to the highest point ; and the 
 characters, while minutely defined, disappoint al- 
 most invariably in action ; in a word, the style, the 
 scope, the ideas, the separate pictures of Disraeli, 
 and not his complete artistic triumph are what con- 
 stitute the secret of his popularity ; what he has 
 seen in travel, what he has read in books, what he 
 has experienced in society, the question of the day, 
 the fashion of the hour, the author, belle, party, 
 regime, routine, speculation, manners in vogue, are 
 caught up, combined, described, and discussed 
 under the guise of a story which, in itself, is neither 
 remarkable nor captivating, and yet which is made 
 23 
 
178 LOTHAIR AND ITS AUTHOR. 
 
 the framework of a great variety of salient revela- 
 tions and picturesque scenes and social phenomena. 
 
 Heine declared of C'o?ttaj-ini Fleming, that it was 
 the most original work e\'er ^\'ritten ; in Tancred, 
 the East is brought before us with a vi\ddness and 
 a charm almost magnetic ; we feel the solemn in- 
 spiration of Jerusalem, and see the purple glow of 
 an Athenian sunset ; and yet our leading critical 
 journal, in a review of the work, asks what is its 
 use, its significance, its aim ? and, finding no defi- 
 nite moral or satisfactory artistic result, condemns it 
 as an aimless waste of talent. This is a very narrow 
 conclusion : as a picture of oriental travel alone, 
 and an ingenious re\ival of some of the grandest 
 historical associations, the work has a memorable 
 charm. In Henrietta Temple we have a fervid and 
 graceful love-experience ; in Venctia, Byron and 
 Shelley are portrayed ; and Sybil is an eloquently 
 philosophic political novel. 
 
 We have said that throughout his bright, fresh, 
 and fascinating literary art, Disraeli lacks the 
 charm, the dignity, and the solid worth of earnest- 
 ness ; but there is one point where this quality is 
 apparent ; one subject that does seem to enlist 
 genuine feeling ; one idea that awakens personal 
 
LOTHAIR AND ITS AUTHOR. 179 
 
 enthusiasm — that of race ; he never loses an ap- 
 portunity to vindicate its claims, to attest its su- 
 premacy, recognize its influence, and assert its 
 law. If thousands of Anglo-Saxons on both sides 
 of the Atlantic had their prejudices against the 
 Jews modified, or rather anticipated, in childhood, 
 by Miss Edgeworth's tale of Harriitgton and Or- 
 mond, many more readers of our vernacular have 
 not only learned toleration, but admiration for the 
 Hebrews from the eloquent pleas of Disraeli. Their 
 oriental tastes and majestic self-reliance, their in- 
 tense sympathies and heroic loyalty, their ex- 
 ceptional endowments and latent power as an 
 unobtrusive but pervasive social force, their tri- 
 umphs in music and finance, their traditional sacred- 
 ness and intact personality, combined with the 
 resources of beauty, of wealth, and of character, 
 unalloyed by extrinsic influences, and often the 
 more precious and powerful from isolation and 
 retirement — these and every historical distinction 
 and national trait have been embodied, illustrated, 
 proclaimed by this brilliant representative of the 
 race, whose social, political, and literary success 
 memorably emphasizes his argument and advocacy. 
 Who would imagine from the perusal of the ani- 
 
l8o LOTHAIR AND ITS AUTHOR. 
 
 mated and epigrammatic pages of Lothair, that 
 Great Britain was struggling with the most porten- 
 tous problem of civilization — that hopeless mis- 
 ery and chronic discontent were undermining her 
 civic vitality, and making her aristocratic monop- 
 olies and luxury a vast social reproach ? Here no 
 peasant or ouvricr, no tradesman or mechanic, no 
 average industrial citizen appears, only lords and 
 bishops, countesses and bankers, the wealthy, titled, 
 and eminent. So far as describing the lavish re- 
 gime, the splendid accessories, the fashionable 
 manners, the elegance, taste, pride, piety, pleas- 
 ure, and principles of the best exemplars of this 
 exceptional and exclusive class of Englishmen and 
 Englishwomen goes, there is singular vividness, 
 knowledge, art, grace, and truth in the scenes and 
 characters ; though, as regards the last and most 
 important trait, every reader of experience and 
 reflection will make large allowances for exaggera- 
 tion. The " general effect," as the painters say, 
 of Lothair is, as if a fashionable, cultivated, and 
 clever man, moving in the highest circles of Eng- 
 land, should keep notes of the talk, sketch the 
 mansions, grounds, feasts, and costumes ; collect 
 and color the photographs of belles, prelates, and 
 
LOTHAIR AND ITS AUTHOR. l8l 
 
 dukes, and report superficially, but adroitly, the 
 phases of opinion and controversy, from Fenianism 
 to Spiritualism, from free trade to fashion, from 
 Romanism to Radicalism, and then spread out the 
 entire programme in sparkling paragraphs and 
 emphatic tableaux, with the skill of a verbal artist 
 and the vigor and tact of a practised writer. Such 
 is Lothair ; so full and radiant with the high-born 
 and the rich phase of life as to ignore the shadows 
 and dazzle the eyes that would explore them ; not 
 an inkling of the familiar and common-place which 
 Trollope conserves with Flemish art ; not a trace 
 of the struggle and the misery revealed by Dickens 
 and Mrs. Gaskell. Judging the book by Goethe's 
 catholic maxim, that is, by its own law, — as a 
 partial, a special picture — it is striking, graphic, 
 glowing, and suggestive ; it is a limited but genuine 
 reflex of our civilization — its complexity, its incon- 
 gruity, its aimlessness, its materialism, its luxury, 
 and its lack of soulful individuality, consistent faith, 
 and heroic satisfaction. It is not a novel so much 
 as an exposition — political, ecclesiastical, and social 
 — of the times, and of English life in its aristocra- 
 tic bloom. We are carried from London to Rome, 
 from salon to chapel, from garden to feast; we are 
 
1 82 LOTHAIR AND ITS AUTHOR. 
 
 shown Jesuits, patriots, speculators, exiles, finan- 
 ciers, snobs, and statesmen ; but we can get no 
 glimpse of the simple, unconventional, honest, 
 humble life wherewith the artificial mass are leav- 
 ened, or rather counterpoised, in the compensatory 
 problem of human life. Politics and society are 
 Disraeli's main, almost exclusive resources or 
 themes, interpenetrated and illustrated by wide 
 culture, travel, taste, and refined powers of expres- 
 sion ; but unilluminated and unele\ated by any 
 divine principle or prevalent and pure faith and 
 feeling. 
 
 Other men of state have been men of letters ; 
 but the development of the last function has been 
 quite diverse from that of the gifted premier. Ad- 
 dison wrote placid and pleasant essays on manners ; 
 Steele genial ones on social anomalies ; Mackintosh 
 indulged a philosophical vein ; Macaulay was a 
 brilliant reviewer and a vi\id historian ; Praed 
 wrote lively \'erses in the interval of Parliament- 
 ary duties, and Burke analyzed The Sicbliine and 
 Beautiful between his speeches in the House of 
 Commons ; while D'Azeglio composed authentic 
 and artistic historical romances to awaken national 
 patriotism ; but Disraeli combines political with 
 
LOTHAIR AND ITS AUTHOR. 1 8 
 
 literary ambition with a grasp of and eye to th 
 immediate, appealing from the topics of the hou 
 and the social phenomena of the season, to thi 
 curiosity, the pride, the fancy, the taste, the pre 
 judices and proclivities in vogue, and is thus sur 
 of an audience, of eclat, and of profit, pecunian 
 and social. From an elevated point of view thi 
 is not the highest phase and form of popula 
 authorship ; it does not appeal to what is mos 
 true and deep in our sympathies, or what mos 
 concerns the normal welfare of humanity ; it i 
 essentially a local inspiration, its scope is that ol 
 caste ; its philosophy is plausible rather than au 
 thentic ; its charm, like its theme, is mainly conven 
 tional ; there is no naive element, no permanent 
 elemental human interest, by virtue of which th( 
 masterpieces of fiction and the drama survive th^ 
 caprice of the hour, and embody what is essentia 
 and distinctive in character and life. 
 
 The theme or argument in Lothair is the Romai 
 question, as it is developed and modified by Englisl 
 habits of thought, traditions, and tendencies ; th^ 
 Catholic side is presented by Disraeli with remark 
 able impartiality. He repeats what insidious an( 
 enthusiastic Romanists are so fond of advancing 
 
1 84 LOTHAIR AND ITS AUTHOR. 
 
 and does so with eloquence ; but there is nothing 
 new either in his method or his ideas ; the shelter 
 for the soul, the adaptation to human needs, the 
 wise organization, the architectural, pictorial, and 
 melodious blandishments, are set forth winsomely ; 
 but, to our thinking, Hawthorne's brief summary 
 thereof in The Marble Faun is more impressive. 
 Disraeli repeats some of the hackneyed and absurd 
 prejudices about Yankees and Southern gentlemen ; 
 he is most at home on English ground, and his 
 fancy's most successful flights are oriental, Wise- 
 man, Manning, Mazzini, Garibaldi, Madame Mario, 
 — or some one like her — the Earl of Bute, — some 
 well known dukes and duchesses, and numerous 
 other living characters are introduced, more or less 
 disguised ; and this fact has been a chief cause of 
 the instant popularity of Lotliair. But the charm, 
 of this and Disraeli's other writings is personal in 
 another sense ; his will is strong, and it enlists ten- 
 ,aciously his talents ; he is ambitious and industrious, 
 therefore bound to succeed ; deriving from his father 
 a literary culture, recondite and varied, only a 
 social oracle and favorite, a sojourner in Germany, 
 a traveller in the East, and concentrating all these 
 means and experience upon a literary and political 
 
LOTHAIR AND ITS AUTHOR. l8S 
 
 career, he persevered and prospered in an excep- 
 tional manner, and to an unprecedented degree ; 
 from an awkward and neglected, he became a 
 powerful and popular speaker, from a clever young 
 man about town a fashionable romance writer ; 
 from an M.P. a cabinet minister, and finally prem- 
 ier, and this without birth or wealth, in a land 
 where both are deemed essential to success. But 
 he was blessed with rare talents, an indomitable 
 will, and a peerless wife. 
 
 As a political novelist Disraeli has long borne the 
 palm in England ; his readiness, aptitude, fluency, 
 and familiarity with public affairs and society, 
 admirably fit him for the vocation ; yet somewhat 
 of the same fickleness and flexibility which has 
 marked his career as a statesman, detracts from 
 the artistic and human unity of his literary work, 
 which, with all its cleverness and fascination, lacks, 
 as we have said and seen, the complete effect and 
 the enduring significance born of conviction, and 
 soulful, as opposed to intellectual power. Con- 
 sidered as a justification of his "No-Popery" 
 crusade, when he struggled for the disestablishment 
 of the Irish Church, Lothair is decidedly clever, 
 inasmuch as it exposes and illustrates the social 
 24 
 
1 86 LOTHAIR AND ITS AUTHOR. 
 
 traps and wiles whereby the rich and titled in Eng- 
 land are lured into the bosom of the Roman Church. 
 To show up these arts and aims more especially, 
 the hero is drawn as a pure, ingenuous, conscien- 
 tious youth, with a susceptible temperament, upon 
 which the spells of beauty, the glamor of flattery, 
 the cunning of priests, and even the charm of kind- 
 ness act instantly ; indeed, the native worth of Lo- 
 thair is not a little marred by his weakness ; he vi- 
 brates between fair enslavers, philanthropic theories, 
 religious rites — between duty and pleasure, faith 
 and speculation, in a way which singularly exhibits 
 the myriad and inconsequent influences of modern 
 life in its most prosperous and polite phase ; and 
 also the want of concentration and hardihood 
 whereby such an experience is hampered, and 
 character, as such, deprived of robustness and in- 
 dividuality, while gaining in liberal culture and 
 versatile sympathies. Although Lothair aspires 
 to make England religious, and to diminish or 
 ameliorate pauperism, we have little tangible evi- 
 dence of the sufferings and shortcomings of hu- 
 manity, except as subjects of speculation — not 
 an inkling of the terrible pictures which from 
 Crabbe to Dickens have been drawn of the reality ; 
 
LOTHAIR AND ITS AUTHOR. 187 
 
 only arguments, projects, sentimentalizing and the- 
 orizing on the abstract evil ; neither in these gay and 
 glowing scenes of English life do the aristocratic 
 vices or the national stolidity appear, but all is viva- 
 cious, correct, often saintly, rarely sensuous ; the 
 Jesuitical, the fashionable, the proud and prosper- 
 ous element prevails; and amid parks, banquets, 
 clubs, luncheons, court drawing-rooms, conservato- 
 ries, balls, palaces, chapels — Reform, Repentance, 
 Regeneration, and Religion, are introduced as social 
 phenomena, speculative excitements, sources of sen- 
 timent, of argument, of companionship, of descrip- 
 tion, of discussion, it almost seems of pastime ; in- 
 stead of absolute, practical, and pervading interests 
 identified with action, with experience, with sacrifice 
 and soul, and thus overlaying and absorbing, in- 
 stead of being incidental to, the routine, the plati- 
 tudes, the conventionalism, and the ambitious pleas- 
 ures of daily life, — we have the sparkle and not 
 the dregs, the play and not the stagnation, the ac- 
 complishments and not the monotony of English 
 society ; and thus far the picture is partial and 
 superficial indeed, there is a latent levity about 
 Disraeli which diminishes the effects of his clever- 
 ness. 
 
1 88 LOTHAIR AND ITS AUTHOR. 
 
 There are two anecdotes of Disraeli's early career 
 which indicate the method and causes of his success : 
 when electioneering for a seat in Parliament he 
 called O'Connell a blood-thirsty traitor, whereupon 
 the latter retorted that the vituperative candidate 
 might be the legal heir to the impenitent thief on 
 the cross ; for this Disraeli challenged the son of 
 O'Connell, who had espoused his father's quarrel, 
 but the challenge was declined. The incident, 
 however, reminds us that the clever, ambitious 
 man, who from an attorney's clerk became the 
 favorite of London society, a popular novelist, 
 an effective debater, orator, political pamphleteer, 
 leader in the House of Commons, Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, and Prime Minister of England — had 
 wit and wisdom to turn even his Jewish antecedents 
 to account, and make that a distinction which in 
 less able hands would have proved a disability. 
 This remarkable strength of purpose, patient labor, 
 resolute will, is the true secret of Disraeli's success ; 
 through force and facility of intellect, and not by 
 the inspiration of a great soul, he rose, advanced, 
 triumphed over obstacles, and achieved success ; 
 and to what an extent this was the result of will, 
 decision of character applied through talent, may 
 
LOTHAIR AND ITS AUTHOR. 1 89 
 
 be inferred by his deliberate but memorable declar- 
 ation in Parliament, at the age of thirty-two, when 
 he signally failed in his maiden speech : " I am not 
 surprised," he said, " at the reception I have met 
 with. / have begun several times many things, but 
 I have often succeeded at last ; the time will come 
 when you will hear me." In 1839 he was heard 
 with rapt attention, and thenceforth became a 
 power and a personage in the front rank of political 
 life. 
 
 But he was thus through no lofty consistency, 
 no fixed principles, no comprehensive and tena- 
 cious convictions ; and the nickname of " political 
 acrobat " is justly applied to his career. He pre- 
 sents, indeed, the most striking example of what 
 talent and perseverance can do in England, espe- 
 cially if united to personal attractions, tact, worldly 
 wisdom, facility of adaptation, and social prestige. 
 Scarcely can we trace the least genuine aspiration, 
 in the spiritual sense of the word, in his ambitious 
 instincts ; even his sentiment is blended with the 
 love or recognition of power ; his women influence, 
 sway, lure, and charm, not merely for love's sweet 
 sake, but to promote a political triumph, a reli- 
 gious creed, or a social success. 
 
I90 LOTHAIR AND ITS AUTHOR. 
 
 The redeeming trait of Disraeli's genius is his 
 sense of beauty ; this gives its purest charm to his 
 page, makes a peaceful and plaintive interlude in 
 his conventional descriptions, and has kept fresh 
 and vivid, though not elevated and consistent, his 
 perceptions and sympathies amid the material, 
 worldly, artificial, and clever aptitudes, aims, and 
 triumphs of his life. When his venerable, worthy, 
 and learned father still lived, he delighted in the 
 title of " Disraeli the Younger," and perhaps the 
 most remarkable quality of his last novel exhibits, 
 is his claim thereto, at the age of sixty-three, by 
 virtue of the still vigorous and brilliant style, co- 
 pious ideas, and versatile observation, satire, and 
 ideality manifest in the inconclusive and inharmo- 
 nious but bright and suggestive pages of Lothair. 
 
THE ELMS OF OLD TRINITY. I9I 
 
 THE ELMS OF OLD TRINITY. 
 
 Shame on the ruthless hands that tore away 
 The venerable elms, whose graceful domes 
 Of lofty verdure canopied these graves ! 
 Their overarching limbs, through which the sun 
 Flickered with chastened ray, spread like a shield, 
 By Nature interposed to guard the dead ; 
 And waved in dalliance with the fitful wind, 
 Or with it lapsed to monumental calm. 
 What cenotaph that human skill may rear 
 Can with their living symmetry compare ? 
 What tinted window with their emerald ? 
 What roof with their arcade of trailing leaves ? 
 When Spring renewed her miracle, and clad 
 The naked branches in their June array— 
 Their life's revival, to the trusting soul, 
 Prophetic breathed of immortality. 
 Echoes of prayer, the jubilant refrain 
 Of choral anthem, and the organ's peal. 
 Blent with their murmur in the sultry air, 
 While in their verdant depths the locust trilled, 
 And on their sprays blithe swung the yellow bird. 
 
192 THE ELMS OF OLD TRINITY. 
 
 Their grateful umbrage then benignly screened 
 
 The silent church-yard from the noisy street ; 
 
 Their roots were twined around the mould'ring forms 
 
 Laid long ago beside the ancient fane, 
 
 To exiled worshippers the more endeared 
 
 Because of these majestic trees that wore 
 
 A guise familiar to their childhood's home. 
 
 Faith's pioneers and Freedom's martyrs slept 
 
 Beneath their shade ; and under their old boughs 
 
 The wise and brave of generations past 
 
 Walked every Sabbath to the house of God. 
 
 As grief, by time subdued, forgot to weep. 
 
 Still fell their dewy tears ; frost turned to gold 
 
 The leafy fringes of their drooping pall, 
 
 With every breeze a requiem they sighed ; 
 
 In wreaths fantastic swayed above their tops 
 
 The mists of ocean, like funereal plumes ; 
 
 While round their hoary trunk the gray moss crept, 
 
 And softly marked the transit of the years. 
 
 Of old the Church was warder of the tomb. 
 
 Her ban restrained the hand of sacrilege. 
 
 Her shrines were trophies of the saintly dead ; 
 
 And pagan consecration kept the groves 
 
 Serene and sacred ; Reverence is gone, 
 
 Her haunts laid waste ; not life and love alone. 
 
 Bereft of fond seclusion, grow profane, 
 
 But the last home of poor mortality. 
 
 Memory's tender plea, nor beauty's charm, 
 
THE ELMS OF OLD TRINITY. 1 93 
 
 Nor the long vigils of these sylvan kings 
 Could awe the spoiler ; vanished, like a dream 
 Of grace and grandeur, are the stately elms. 
 That cheerful shelter gave the camp of death, 
 And solace to the hearts that mourn their fall. 
 
 Newport, R. I., July, 1871. 
 
 25 
 
194 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 No. I. 
 
 The clerical criticism evoked by the death of 
 Charles Dickens, and the new literary and ethical 
 discussion of fiction as an agency and art, have 
 made it apparent that many even intelligent obser- 
 vers, and not a few professed social critics, have 
 quite an inadequate idea of the actual influence of 
 and prevalent interest in novels, as representations 
 of life and memorials of the past ; still more limited 
 is the number of those who appreciate the histor- 
 ical relations of the subject, or are thoroughly 
 aware of the progressive development of this class 
 and kind of writings. We propose to survey them 
 as a matter of curious literary interest, and endea- 
 vor to analyze their origin and growth until the 
 present remarkable characteristics give new signi- 
 ficance and a much higher and broader aim to the 
 novel of the present day. 
 
 To the scholar and philosopher, the origin, pro- 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 195 
 
 gress, and actual scope of this branch of literature 
 are eminently suggestive, appealing to two normal 
 instincts of humanity, sympathy, and curiosity. 
 " Story," in the form of tradition, ballad, or ro- 
 mance, dates from the earliest time ; it is the first 
 intelligent pastime craved by childhood ; it is the 
 last diversion of age ; the English laureate, casting 
 about him for a theme, a framework or medilim for 
 his tender fancies and noble personification, goes 
 back to the legends of the Round Table, to Arthur 
 and his knights — the time-hallowed romance of 
 primeval Britain. The possibility of homely detail 
 gives the prose story an advantage over the poem, 
 though in spirit both coalesce in popular narrative. 
 Remote as the dawn of history, is that species of 
 writing we call the novel : at first, local legend and 
 national adventure — the Milesian tales — Greek 
 fables, Eastern apologues ; such romances as Hero 
 and Leander blossom, later, into Romeo and Juliet, 
 and the Daphne and Chloes become embodied in 
 Gesta Romanorum ; the classic and oriental fiction 
 is modified by the chivalric spirit of Western Europe, 
 and the knightly romance both embalms and in- 
 spires the heroism of the middle ages : and as the 
 fascinating marvels of the East, permanently repre- 
 
196 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 sented in the "Arabian Nights," formed the oral 
 novel, whereby "raconteurs" of old conciliated 
 despots, and charmed the sons of the desert, so, 
 later, in Italy, " improvvisatori " won applause from 
 fishermen and peasants, and the Italian tales — 
 sources of the English drama — culminated in the 
 finished language of the " Decameron." Epics 
 partook of this narrative charm, and history was 
 embroidered with romance, or identified therewith : 
 then, too, still earlier, was propagated, through 
 Christendom, the spiritual romance, scriptural stories 
 elaborated and emphasized : the saintly legends 
 and " Contes Devots " followed : Plutarch was ro- 
 manticized by classical enthusiasts and playwrights ; 
 and gradually, with the romance of chivalry, of 
 mediaeval love and adventure, intermingled the 
 pastoral element, illustrated by Sidney, Guarini, 
 and Sannazarius : characteristic of the lighter inspi- 
 ration of the Gallic mind were the " Voyages Ima- 
 ginaires " and of the Teutonic imagination — the 
 Fairy tale, while robust, thoughtful, introspective, 
 self-asserting Anglo-Saxon genius, in the person of 
 Shakespeare, drew from and carried to immortal 
 grandeur, truth, and beauty the combined ele- 
 ments of history, romance and human nature itself 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 1 9/ 
 
 in his peerless drama. Thus we can trace, through 
 pagan culture and Christian tradition, from the 
 remote East, along the shores of the Mediterranean, 
 by mosque, castle, camp, convent, tournament, in 
 Tuscan vales, French chateaux, and English home- 
 stead, the dim tradition, the mythological fable, the 
 tale of chivalry, the religious story, the German 
 myth, the Spanish ballad, and the British play — 
 this remote, continuous, pervasive element of fable, 
 fiction, tale — whether improvised, recorded in monk- 
 ish chronicle, or at last embodied in print — fol- 
 lowing the course of history, reflecting the civiliza- 
 tion of successive eras, colored and moulded by the 
 clime which gave it birth, and, in the nineteenth 
 century, diversified and expanded into the novel. 
 
 The marvellous at first predominates, then the 
 heroic, and, at last, sentiment. Persian and Ara- 
 bian tales' are supposed to be derived from India ; 
 in the old Greek love-stories the "lovers are car- 
 ried away by pirates," and at the town of Sciacca, 
 in Sicily, I purchased an old pamphlet recounting 
 the feuds of two rival families of the place in the 
 middle ages, a counterpart of those of the Capulets 
 and Montagues, and illustrative of a theme whence 
 spring countless local and tragic romances. What 
 
198 LITERATURE OF FICTIOX. 
 
 may be called the Ecclesiastical Romance was the 
 offspring of the same period : its origin was monas- 
 tic, and the street story-tellers of Palermo and 
 Naples repeated many a tale borrowed from the 
 Norman and Spanish Moors. In the eleventh cen- 
 tury, the wandering minstrels were the novelists ; 
 Charlemagne, Lancelot, and Tristan were the he- 
 roes ; Scandinavian "sagas," on the one hand, 
 and Italian " novelli " on the other, furnished not 
 only beguiling stories then, but the germ and in- 
 spiration of many of our standard plays and poems ; 
 while the reaction from knightly romance found 
 expression in the first permanent triumph of the 
 humorous novel, when Cervantes " laughed Spain's 
 chivalry away." Then gradually came forth the 
 novel of real life, of manners, of society, of char- 
 acter, differing from the naive, simple, earnest, and 
 romantic narratives of the primitive era, just as the 
 luxurious versatility of our resources and the com- 
 plex relations of our social and civil life differ from 
 the classified, limited, and comparatively uncon- 
 ventional existence of that earlier day. In France, 
 Marivaux and Cre'billon were succeeded by Mar- 
 montel, and he was soon followed by St. Pierre 
 and Chateaubriand ; Nature began to find a place 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 1 99 
 
 in popular romance ; then literary aspiration, as 
 illustrated by Madame de Stael, and the historical 
 novel transplanted from Britain, was worthily re- 
 produced by De Vigny, and pseudo-dramatically 
 by Dumas; and while a host of clever "racon- 
 teurs " painted with piquancy and grace every 
 phase of life and manners in the metropolis of 
 France, from court and " bourgeoise " to student 
 and "grisette" life — De Musset and Feydeau, 
 About, and scores of others — the morbid anatomy 
 of Paris was laid bare by Balzac, and the most 
 complete and finished art applied to novel-writing 
 by Madame Dudevant. 
 
 In England, with the decline of the Drama, rose 
 the Romance in popular esteem. Beginning with 
 what we should now regard as the intolerably 
 coarse tales of Mrs. Behn, and such as Mrs. Manley 
 and Mrs. Hayward made the vehicles of the slow 
 transition from stilted to real life, genuine English 
 sense and humor, honesty and faith, began to loom 
 up through political conflicts and religious zeal ; 
 and " Pilgrim's Progress," and " Robinson Crusoe " 
 memorably ushered in the era of romantic fiction, 
 each in its way being characteristic of the unrefined 
 strength and candid faith of the people. De Foe's 
 
200 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 story became the exemplar and ideal of objective 
 narrative ; for verisimilitude it retains its distinctive 
 fame ; its lesson of self-reliance, its details of ad- 
 venture, its isolated and pious hero, were singularly 
 congenial to the national instincts. The sea and 
 the dissenting chapel, the frugal home and the 
 wandering passion, were then and there the most 
 salient average inspiration of life in England ; and 
 these, or their influence, are the themes of De Foe. 
 His " Memoirs of a Cavalier" widened the ideal 
 of the novel, which Richardson at last - fairly 
 launched upon the world, and exhibited, for the 
 first time, successfully combined in prose fiction, 
 those gradations of life and character, and that 
 insight into the workings of passion and sentiment 
 which distinguish the modern novel from the primi- 
 tive romance ; moreover, he won the common heart 
 because these artistic abilities were exercised on the 
 " side of virtue." Then came Fielding, more lively 
 and genial in tone — more magnetic, with rare 
 knowledge of character, and a faculty of indicating 
 it distinctly, added to an intimate acquaintance 
 with English life. Smollett followed, far less of an 
 artist — rough, eccentric, and exaggerated ; but 
 with his countrymen's favorite element — the sea — 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 201 
 
 for an arena, and many faithful pictures ; some of 
 his characters brutal, but true to time and place. 
 And now, upon the rich but rough soil prepared 
 for it came the dew of sentiment and the breeze of 
 humor— graceful and vivacious elements whereby 
 thenceforth English fiction was destined to be 
 enriched and refined. To Goldsmith and Sterne we 
 trace these benign modifications; and the "Vicar 
 of Wakefield " and " Tristram Shandy " remain im- 
 bued with a fresh and faithful national zest and 
 flavor, which have auspiciously influenced the liter- 
 ature of fiction, and are still dear to all who relish 
 the naive, the pathetic, the true, and the human. 
 
 While in France the first development of the 
 modern novel — that is, fiction, which includes nar- 
 rative, interest, character, sentiment, and the graces 
 of style — is traced to "La Princesse de Cleves," a 
 story both agreeable and purely fictitious, descrip- 
 tive of the era of Henry II. by Madame de Lafay- 
 ette, and " Zayde," in the same vein, soon 
 followed by Voltaire's " Candide," in England the 
 pioneer novelists of sentiment and manners were 
 succeeded by an attempt to modernize the mediae- 
 val romance in Walpole's " Castle of Otranto," to 
 
 daguerreotype social life in the epoch of the Georges 
 26 
 
202 LITERATURE OF IICTION. 
 
 in "Evelina" and Miss Burney's other once 
 popular and still characteristic tales ; and then the 
 romantic element, more or less verging on senti- 
 mentality, found expression in Miss Porter's " Scot- 
 tish Chiefs " and " Thaddeus of Warsaw ;" Monk 
 Lewis dealt extravagantly in the mysterious and 
 morbid ; and Ann Radcliffe added to picturesque 
 and impressive scenic description a sense of and 
 capacity for awakening latent superstition, which, 
 with all her artistic faults, make her individuality 
 in the literature of fiction emphatic and permanent. 
 From the passion for the marvellous and the senti- 
 mentalities of the Minerva press, there was a 
 memorable reaction. William Godwin essayed 
 successfully to make fiction attractive through the 
 medium of other passions than that of love ; and 
 his " Caleb Williams" is a notable landmark in the 
 wide field of English novel writing, not only on 
 this account, but because he introduced an intro- 
 spective and philosophical element. Accustomed, 
 as we are, to greater animation of style and less 
 detail of reflection, the story appears elaborate to 
 tediousness ; but in its day, the thought, the style 
 and the characters won admiration from the 
 thoughtful and patient reader. Sir James Mackin- 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 203 
 
 tosh and other eminent men have recorded their 
 high estimate thereof. And then came that series 
 of domestic tales and illustrations of national life, 
 in which strong common sense and clever local and 
 personal sketches revealed the possible, practical, 
 and authentic scope of the novel. Probably no 
 writer of fiction ever influenced more directly- 
 domestic morals and educational principles than 
 Maria Edgeworth ; her name was endeared and 
 honored in two hemispheres ; but there is in her 
 works a material and unaspiring spirit, an exclu- 
 sively prudent ideal, which revolts warm, youthful 
 sentiment, chills enthusiasm, and, with it, faith; 
 while her purity and practical good sense, her 
 bright perceptions and instinct of usefulness, with 
 her ready wit, make her works standard, and, in their 
 own sphere, suggestive of certain genuine phases 
 of local character and modern life. Good Hannah 
 More essayed to teach morals by tales now quite 
 neglected. But the possibility of uniting a perfectly 
 faithful, and, at the same time, feminine observa- 
 tion ; of delineating the familiar and characteristic 
 so truly as to make them interesting without the 
 glamor of romance or the predominance of senti- 
 ment was reserved for Jane Austen. Her novels. 
 
204 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 without pretence, minutely and artistically repro- 
 duce that every-day experience, that provincial 
 routine, that average character of men and women 
 in a rural English county, which later writers have 
 elaborated but never excelled ; her scope is limited, 
 but within it she is a true artist and a genuine 
 woman ; and no novels of a past generation are 
 reperused more frequently or with greater zest. 
 
 From these several types of fiction ha\e sprung 
 a countless progeny, including pictures of every 
 land, photographs of local manners, illustrations of 
 opinion, vindication of creeds — every form and 
 phase of experience : thus Gait and ]\Iiss Ferrier, 
 Hogg, Allan Cunningham, Wilson and Moir, with 
 many later writers, have depicted the history, hab- 
 its, scenery, domestic traits, the " lights and shad- 
 ows " of Scottish life ; Lady Morgan, Griffin, 
 Lever, and others, of Irish ; Hook, \\'ard, Bulwer, 
 Disraeli, Mrs. Gore, Miss Martineau, Mrs. Trol- 
 lope and her sons, Horace Smith, Brooks, Jerrold, 
 Miss ]\Iulock, Miss Sewall, Marryatt, and scores of 
 others, of English ; Beckford made oriental life, 
 Kingsley heroic inspiration, Mrs. Gaskell humane 
 reforms, Wilkie Collins the latent drama of life, 
 Reade special social abuses, and a host of female 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 205 
 
 novelists, fashionable life in Britain — the theme and 
 inspiration of a longer series of popular fictions — 
 each writer bringing to the work diverse gifts and 
 a singular personality of style ; some remarkable 
 for scholarship, others for tact, this one winning by 
 virtue of pathos, that by satire ; minute fidelity 
 in one case balancing eloquent generalization in 
 another ; and each having a special claim, a pecu- 
 liar charm, and a characteristic talent whereby, 
 while a separate and often enthusiastic allegiance 
 was secured in the world of readers, the liberal, 
 sympathetic and eclectic found in all some trait 
 or triumph, some knowledge or sentiment, some 
 art or idiosyncracy to appreciate with relish or 
 recognize with gratitude. 
 
 The predominance of a special form of intellec- 
 tual activity, no less than its occasional permanent 
 triumph, evinces the popular sway, whereto all 
 clever and ambitious men tend. Thus, in the mid- 
 dle ages, in Italy, to excel in soldiership or art was 
 the dominant passion ; and while a score of im- 
 mortal names signalize the reign of painting and 
 sculpture, hundreds illustrate the prevalence of the 
 vocations. To become a popular novelist has been 
 characteristic, not only of literary, but of political 
 
206 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 and social ambition in our day. Two Englishmen 
 have memorably shown what culture, tact, perse- 
 verance, and cleverness without special gifts for the 
 work, can accomplish — Disraeli and Bulwer. None 
 of the verisimilitude of De Foe, the feudal inspira- 
 tion of Scott, the ability to catch the " living man- 
 ners as they rise " of Miss Burney or Miss Austen ; 
 neither the human sympathies nor the artistic apti- 
 tude, the satirical talent or the dramatic power 
 which made Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, 
 and Charles Reade legitimate " raconteurs," jus- 
 tify the persistent and clever men of the world, of 
 Parliament, and of society — the authors of " Pel- 
 ham " and "The Young Duke" in entering the 
 field of fiction ; it has been their accidental, not 
 their native arena ; and therein they have made 
 evident how much may be accomplished by fer- 
 tility of resource and a resolute will : the one 
 through brilliant pictures of society bound together 
 with no dramatic skill, and vivid scenes of life and 
 nature, not emanating from but grafted upon a thin 
 range of story, yet warmed by eloquence and en- 
 livened by wit and verbal skill — the other through 
 experimental imitation, patient endeavor, wealth of 
 literary material neither fused nor harmonized by 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 20/ 
 
 the art which rounds and reahzes such elements 
 into unity and hfe : episodial noveHsts may Lord 
 Lytton and Mr. Disraeli be justly called ; their 
 characters do not become distinct household favor- 
 ites ; their magnetism is not pervasive like that of 
 Boz, nor their cynicism proverbial as that of " Van- 
 ity Fair ; " but they combine associations, work 
 veins of speculation or fantasy, decorate, declaim, 
 and describe, so as to allure, suggest, impress and 
 dazzle, and thus gain the eye and ear, and feed the 
 appetite for what is curious in character and attrac- 
 tive in situation and eloquent in utterance. Each 
 succeeded after repeated failures in oratory ; one 
 became a successful playwright ; both by pluck 
 and patience, and despite a love of pleasure and 
 frequent physical infirmity, shone in bright, how- 
 ever meteoric glory, in the sphere, not of song, but 
 of the ideal speculatively and skilfully applied to 
 the real. Their versatility alone proves them more 
 clever than gifted, with adaptive rather than orig- 
 inal talent, inspired by circumstances rather than 
 conviction. They have utilized, to the highest 
 degree, all they possessed within and acquired with- 
 out themselves. Disraeli's ideal is intellectual au- 
 tocracy, which he illustrates by romantic sentiment. 
 
208 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 as in " Tancred," and by comic touches, as in 
 " Vivian Grey." Bulwer's ideal is a factitious but 
 richly-endowed gentleman. Both are artificers 
 rather than artists, but so industrious, fanciful, 
 persevering, worldly-wise, and adroit in appealing 
 to sentiment of all kinds, that they are among the 
 most remarkable of conventional magnates in the 
 sphere of popular literature. Thus Lord Lytton 
 has tried his hand at almost every kind of novel — 
 the political, the historical, the naive, after the 
 manner of Sterne, the novel of society, of travel, 
 of taste, and of speculation : and in each has so far 
 succeeded as to interest, amuse, repel and fascinate, 
 vex and vanquish, a very large constituency of 
 readers ; and to do this without the infectious geni- 
 ality, the realistic intensity, the genuine pathos, or 
 the delicate characterization, which have made the 
 reputation and yet endear the works of the masters 
 of fiction, is a triumph of toil and talent, tact and 
 tenacity rarely equalled, and one which demon- 
 strates the value and the charm of this medium and 
 method of literary success. 
 
 It has been said of Kingsley that "his very 
 rhetoric is surcharged to the extent of a vehement 
 mannerism with the phrases of his theology, and 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 209 
 
 there is not one of his novels that has not the 
 power of Christianity for its theme." Indeed, they 
 may be regarded as a conclusive, practical argu- 
 ment in favor of the novel as an ally to the pulpit ; 
 for to the author of " Hypatia " and "Westward 
 Ho ! " is to be distinctly traced that new form of 
 liberaj. Hp\rplonrnent, mental, bodily, and sympathe- 
 tjp^here be better ■.Jtnuscular Christianity, 
 the pages of " Phiirogramme of the subject would 
 Hhis urbane author taplete without taking into view 
 a gTiyne, law, usag phenomenon between the 
 earlier tpast of his English novels — the advent of 
 WaverleyVresidenc) the two contemporaneous and 
 but recentljTy^ricalid authors, in whose exception- 
 ally populariworKfellihe peculiarities and the progress 
 of English fiction culminated — Scott, Dickens, and 
 Thackeray — three names which are most signally 
 representative, not only of the influence, but of the 
 art ; not only of the success, but of the historical, 
 social, and moral significance of this branch of 
 literature in our day. 
 
 The great revolution and the memorable period 
 in the history of modern fiction dates from the 
 popularity of Sir Walter Scott — the founder of the 
 
 historical novel ; and however later criticism may 
 27 
 
2IO LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 challenge his accuracy, his style, and his unaspiring 
 motives, the fact remains that, by applying the 
 charm and the chance of story to the annals and 
 traditions of the past, and imparting thereto the 
 vivid local color and strong national personality 
 which feudal instincts and patriotic love could only 
 inspire, the " Great Unknown " became the. most 
 familiar and endeared of popu^Bs Lord Lyt"S^2 
 country, described, illustrated, jy kind of novel — 
 lowed by his genius, became a ■! naive, after ^gt 
 mind." feociety, of tr~ 
 
 A new dignity as well as zest M in each higu^en to 
 the literature of fiction ; and SBpel and Aple was 
 followed both in Britain and y Sfl )^ Continent, 
 until the historical novel becaml^vast medium of 
 knowledge as well as a favorite source of amuse- 
 ment. Victor Hugo and De Vigny in France, 
 Manzoni, D'Azeglio, and Guerazzi in Italy, scores 
 of more or less clever writers in England, thus 
 embodied the episodes of history, and made 
 architecture, portraits, costume, family and civic 
 documents, local manners and legends, the basis of 
 winsome tales, freighted with national triumphs and 
 trials, which brought the past forth in vital relief 
 and magnetic relations. It has been long the 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 211 
 
 fashion to ridicule the fecundity and monotony of 
 G. P. R. James ; but that is owing more to the 
 rapid succession than to the intrinsic demerits of 
 his novels. They still truly and often attractively 
 picture memorable eras and characters ; apart from 
 formal chronicles, for instance, the times and the 
 men and women of early French history can 
 nowhere be better known and realized than through 
 the pages of " Philip Augustus ; " and the mastery 
 this urbane author had obtained over the details of 
 costume, law, usage, language, and manners in 
 the far past of his own country, was signally proved 
 daring his residence among us, when he wrote an 
 elaborate historical novel illustrative of Monmouth's 
 rebellion, in a secluded New-England village, where 
 he had access to no book which yielded any facts 
 of the period and places so well described. 
 
 In addition to this voluminous writer the school 
 initiated by Sir Walter, in half a century has 
 flooded the circulating libraries with historical 
 novels too numerous to specify, and yet including 
 many authentic, well-studied, and attractively exe- 
 cuted wor-ks. In France, not only was this form of 
 literature suggested by the author of Waverley, 
 but the great literary factions — the classic and 
 
212 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 romantic — found therein their chosen arena and 
 most briUiant scope. 
 
 A curious student of the diverse method of 
 treating a single eminent personage as a subject of 
 literary art, might find a suggestive experience in 
 comparing the portrait of Richelieu, as exhibited 
 in his memoirs, in the formal history of his time, 
 in the popular play of Lord Lytton, and in the 
 two historical romances of James and De Vigny. 
 As to the immediate interest and pervasive charm 
 awakened by the successive novels of Scott, the 
 elders of this generation need no account thereof, 
 as it is the strongest literary association and enthu- 
 siasm of their childhood, and is pleasantly recalled 
 in a lecture delivered by the late genial and lament- 
 ed Judge William Kent to the young men of 
 Albany, and devoted to his early recollections of 
 that city, its society, courts, and amusements. 
 " We saw," he remarks, " by the English papers, 
 that a new work by the author of ' Waverley ' was 
 in the press, perhaps ' Ivanhoe ' or ' Rob Roy : ' 
 we learned next, at a considerable interval, of its 
 arrival in New York ; finally it appeared in Albany 
 entire, and was given to the school-boy for his two 
 dollars, painfully saved up and accumulated through 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 21 3 
 
 many temptations. But the young enthusiast was 
 repaid for his privations and elevated by the en- 
 chanter's spell above sublunary cares; school, 
 tasks, ferules, parental admonitions, were all forgot, 
 as he roamed with Waverley over the Highlands of 
 Scotland, or charged with Ivanhoe in the lists of 
 Templestone, or reclined with Saladin by the 
 Diamond of the Desert, under the sultry sky of 
 Palestine. I confess I feel for Sir Walter the debt 
 of immense and endless gratitude. I traced his 
 subsequent life with filial interest." Such personal 
 tributes abound in the me.moirs of the age, and 
 indicate a scope and reality not of fame merely, 
 but of influence, which vindicates the claim of 
 fiction to that esteem which any potent and perva- 
 sive agency upon human society justifies. I once 
 heard another eminent member of the legal profes- 
 sion describe and define at length the process of 
 constructing and creating a genuine historical novel, 
 taking Scott's as his model : and when he analyzed 
 the means and method, the preparatory study of 
 accessories, the composition or outline of the 
 whole, the grouping, the special characterization, 
 the central figures, the perspective, foregound, dis- 
 tribution of light and shade, subordination of 
 
214 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 parts, dramatic crisis, unity of effect, and vital 
 glow of action and color — I could not but admit 
 that, both as a pure literary achievement and a pro- 
 cess of conscientious art, a first-class work of this 
 order demands a very rare union of mental gifts, 
 moral sympathies and verbal tact, combined with 
 that sublime patience which Bufifon identifies with 
 genius. 
 
 The most superficial observer of English life and 
 character sees and feels — clearly and deeply, in 
 proportion to his insight and sympathy — that the 
 great need to insure any approaches to social re- 
 generation is some method or means of fusion, 
 some influence that will melt away the veil spun by 
 ages of caste and class, of feudal tradition and 
 national reserve, whereby the prosperous and the 
 degraded, the wealthy and indigent, are not only 
 kept apart, but made to live in mutual oblivion of, 
 or indifference to, the duties and the compassion 
 which humanity dictates and Christianity demands. 
 An American in England, when he turns from the 
 solemn charm of the cathedral, the winsome ver- 
 dure of the country, or the splendor of metropolitan 
 wealth and fashion, continually and instinctively 
 meditates a problem which one of them thus ex- 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 215 
 
 presses : "I wonder how many people live and die 
 in the workhouse, having no other home, because 
 other people have a great deal more home than 
 enough ? " Now this momentous question has 
 been met ineffectually by partial legislation, by 
 agrarian doctrines, by formal pulpit appeals ; un- 
 solved practically it may and must long remain, 
 but, meantime, the only way to evade its fatal pres- 
 sure, to ward off its desperate encroachments, is to 
 awaken and secure individual co-operation, a sense 
 and sentiment of responsibility among the favored 
 of fortune ; in a word, to kindle and propagate 
 " good-will to men." Literary art has often essayed 
 this human emprise ; Crabbe laid bare, in verse, 
 the life of the poor ; publicists and philanthropists 
 have arrayed the statistics of crime and misery in 
 portentous detail ; preachers have elaborated the 
 ethics of charity from the Gospel ; but sturdy, 
 reticent, obtuse John Bull went on his way with 
 stolid indifference. Charles Dickens found and 
 used the needed solvent for this social hardihood — 
 he applied humor to fiction, and the latter to life, 
 thereby winning as he warmed, teaching as he 
 amused, convincing as he reported, — for, after all, 
 he was, from first to last, essentially and primarily, 
 
2l6 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 in a high artistic sense, a reporter — the medium of 
 reveaHng to one-half the world the knowledge of 
 how the other half lived ; others preceded, accom- 
 panied, and followed him in the vocation, some 
 with artistic, others with satiric force and fealty ; 
 but he added to an artist's equipment the power of 
 caricature, the tact of communication, such an eye 
 for the ridiculous as gave birth to merriment, while 
 simultaneously the grave fact beneath the surface, 
 the central truth of human brotherhood, glowed 
 through and around the picturesque, the comic, and 
 the characteristic ; and so he brought the extremes 
 of English life face to face — not reproachfully or 
 dogmatically, but graciously, earnestly, tenderly — 
 making every comfortable and prosperous house- 
 hold feel and know what possible help and happi- 
 ness may radiate from benevolent affection, humble 
 trust, faithful love, cheerful self-reliance ; and how 
 the individual exercise of these virtues can brighten 
 life, elevate destiny, purify and pacify the restless 
 soul. Thus he freshly and memorably demonstra- 
 ted the normal fact that lies at the basis of all 
 genuine poetry and all impressive fiction, and 
 which has been well stated by our own most finished 
 romance-writer: "The great conservative is the 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 21/ 
 
 heart, which remains the same in all ages ; so that 
 commonplaces of a thousand years' standing are as 
 effective as ever ; " and not the less truly has the 
 same introspective mind recognized the latent 
 source of such human creations as "make the whole 
 world kin," as not to be evolved from mere will 
 and cleverness, but in art, as in life — " a happiness 
 which God out of His pure grace mixes up with 
 only the simple-hearted, best efforts of men." Not 
 only by virtue of humor did this friend of humanity 
 break through the strongholds of conventualism, 
 and bear his message to power and prosperity in 
 behalf of poverty and serfdom, but he eminently 
 illustrated the requirements and the results of true 
 art ; he largely possessed the dramatic instinct — 
 could enact as well as draw a character, and had 
 but to collect the materials, in order, by means of 
 this gift and aptitude, to vitalize his subject ; and 
 how patiently, with what method and magnetism, 
 he sought and found both the still and real life he 
 was thus to embody ! No painter ever wandered 
 about the Alps, or haunted Italy to seek and seize 
 their marvellous pictures with more eager observa- 
 tion than Charles Dickens explored the highways 
 
 and byways of his native land, nervously walking 
 '28 
 
21 8 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 to and fro, here and there, and gathering up into 
 his brain every phase and feature, to be wrought 
 into reaHstic verisimihtude, and made ahve by- 
 dramatic vivacity. To understand how the modern 
 novel has expanded into an authentic reflection of 
 actual life, and risen to a mission of social amelio- 
 ration, we have but to follow the author of " Pick- 
 wick," first as a keen and persistent observer, then 
 as a faithful and emphatic reporter, and finally as a 
 humanitarian and a humorist in artistically com- 
 bining and reproducing the facts, follies, aspirations, 
 degradations, wrongs, graces, and benignities of 
 human life. Some of its scenes he never mastered, 
 many of its class refinements he missed, and often 
 there is extravagance in his caricature ; but these 
 are casual defects ; the peculiar genius of the man, 
 and especially the spirit he was of, brought to a 
 triumphant culmination the art and influence of the 
 modern novel, because he combined with other 
 requisites, those rare and rich elements of humor 
 and sympathy, whereby his work became more 
 prevalent and popular, and his name more of a 
 household word where the English language is 
 spoken, than any predecessor or contemporary, 
 however superior in culture or peerless in special 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 219 
 
 qualities. Such is the vantage-ground which 
 Humanity secures to Fame ; her interpreters and 
 representatives are her legitimate priests, whereof 
 Shakespeare is the chief; and, however humble 
 their scope, the heart-inspired limner of life, living, 
 is the recognized friend of the people ; and dying, 
 is " gathered to the kings of thought." 
 
 As the magic wand of humor at once enchanted 
 a vast audience for Dickens while still in the vigor 
 and flush of youth, the keener and colder spell of 
 satire simultaneously gathered for Thackeray a host 
 of admirers. He attained success through a weary 
 ordeal, and reached it when the world had been too 
 much with him, and its pleasures and disappoint- 
 ments had sharpened wit and hardened sentiment, 
 so that he interpreted life from a somewhat cynical 
 stand-point, and dealt with the embittered and reck- 
 less, the selfish and the weak elements of human 
 nature, with an emphasis as remarkable in its way 
 as the sympathetic and fresher inspiration of his 
 illustrious contemporay. Besides experience, 
 which furnished Thackeray with the studies of 
 character, he had the artistic endowment — not that 
 which gives birth to the exquisitely beautiful, but 
 to the conventionally true, the morally grotesque, 
 
220 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 the morbidly perverted ; he delineated that social 
 monstrosity — a selfish woman — to the life ; he satir- 
 ized a stage-struck youth ; he photographed the 
 decayed gentleman, the clever and unscrupulous 
 adventurer, the man of the world ; the form and 
 phase of humanity which a wandering life, the at- 
 mosphere of clubs and studios, the habit of " taking 
 off" people with pen and pencil, bring to light ; 
 and his " Vanity Fair" marks a new and incisive 
 era of the English novel — more piquant to jaded 
 sensibilities, and more in accordance with the ma- 
 terialism and sordidness of the age, than more be- 
 nign and romantic fiction. 
 
 The fact that two such popular representatives 
 of diverse schools of fiction were contemporaneous 
 has been productive of rich and curious literary 
 results ; it has given birth to countless imitators of 
 both, and it has elicited the most trenchant and ex- 
 haustive criticism ; but, after all the comparative 
 and more or less antagonistic estimates of Dickens 
 and Thackeray, they ought no more to be com- 
 pared, intrinsically, than the eminent painters whom 
 we are content to accept on their individual merits 
 as belonging to distinct schools. Let it be admit- 
 ted, with the critics, that Thackeray is " terse and 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 221 
 
 idiomatic," " closer and harder," while Dickens is 
 " diffuse and luxuriant," and " looser and richer ; " 
 that Thackeray has more clearness and finish in his 
 landscapes, and Dickens more " visual weirdli- 
 ness ; " that the one excels in " bracing sense," and 
 the other in "sentiment;" that Thackeray " sees 
 the mean at the root of everything," and is the 
 philosopher of " profoundly-reasoned pococurant- 
 ism " and the satirist of snobs, while Dickens dis- 
 covers the genial element in the rudest nook of life 
 and character, and advocates the philosophy of 
 " antipuritanism " — they vindicate respectively their 
 own individuality ; and the tone of their writings is 
 a genuine evolution of consciousness, authentically 
 indicative of the two sides of human experience — 
 the cynical and the genial, the " blase " and the 
 spontaneous, the critical and the benign, the real 
 and the ideal. 
 
 It is frequently asserted by critics, and especially 
 by British reviewers, that American life and history 
 are too new, crude, and monotonous to afford the 
 requisite scope and inspiration for novels of any rich- 
 ness of characterization or picturesque flavor. No 
 statement can be more superficial or unsustained. 
 The aboriginal, colonial, border, pohtical, and some 
 
222 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 aspects of the social life of America, include vast 
 possibilities of romantic fiction and original local 
 limning ; her multiform civilization, her variety 
 of climate, her scenery, the spirit of independence, 
 self-reliance, enterprise, experiment and freshness 
 incident to a new, free and vast country, and the 
 representative nationalities born and bred of Euro- 
 pean emigration, yield a wild and salient field of 
 descriptive, narrative, and dramatic material. That 
 this has been but imperfectly cultivated by the 
 novelists of the land is true ; the discouragements 
 to exclusive literary pursuits are many, even where 
 the requisite talent exists ; yet a candid seeker 
 will find numerous and but partially-appreciated 
 exemplars of fiction, based on and illustrative of 
 American life, annals, manners, and character. It 
 would not be a difficult task to collect quite a 
 library of tales which faithfully embody the traits, 
 trials, sentiment, vicissitudes, and forms of family 
 and individual existence peculiar to this continent. 
 Even during our brief career as a nation we have 
 produced writers in this department that unite a 
 European reputation with a home and household 
 popularity. Brockden Brown wrote when no pop- 
 ular taste for light literature had been developed ; he 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 223 
 
 was an isolated author, yet he left a series of fiction 
 still remarkable for their verisimilitude, their intro- 
 spective vein, and a certain local and logical power ; 
 ventriloquism, pestilence, and human individuality 
 are therein very curiously illustrated — not with elab- 
 orate art, but with reflection, with acumen, and im- 
 aginative skill. Soon after, Richard Dana, senior, 
 and Washington Irving wrote finished and pathetic 
 tales, some of which have a classical grace. Many 
 of his countrymen of the present generation think 
 of Cooper only as an unwelcome critic of their 
 faults, and the author of those later novels which 
 were but partially vitalized by his genius. But his 
 pictures of colonial and revolutionary days, his 
 delineations of forest and pioneer life, and his sea 
 stories have a veracity, a freshness, and an origi- 
 nality, which have made the scenery and the primi- 
 tive people of his native land familiar all over 
 Europe ; they have a genuine native force and 
 flavor, and they conserve aspects and traits, scenes 
 and characters of virgin vigor, interest, and signifi- 
 cance. His " Leatherstocking " and " Tom Cof- 
 fin " are original and emphatic creations. Paulding 
 has quaintly and truly illustrated the early Dutch 
 life of New York ; Melville both the romance and 
 
224 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 the science of the whale fishery ; Holmes certain 
 local and personal facts and phases of New Eng- 
 land, whose more simple and rural resources and 
 characters found a truthful and gracious interpreter 
 in Catharine Sedgwick ; Charles Hoffman has writ- 
 ten a most suggestive and historical romance of 
 the Mohawk Valley ; John P. Kennedy has most 
 charmingly photographed the colonial life of Mary- 
 land and the manorial life of Virginia ; Flint, that 
 of the earlier settlers of the West ; Simms, of the 
 South ; Dr. Bird, of Kentucky as well as Mexico ; 
 and the sanguinary struggle which laid slavery in 
 its grave was ushered in by the world-wide recog- 
 nition of its enormities induced by the vivid story 
 of Mrs. Stowe : while a crude, but singularly pow- 
 erful and plaintive record of the most vital local 
 coloring and latent human interest, from the pen of 
 Sylvester Judd, inspired the most artistic illustra- 
 tions yet produced by a native limner ; in dealing 
 with the weird and marvellous, Poe struck a new 
 and fascinating vein in the literature of fiction ; 
 while to the solid basis of local history and man- 
 ners, Hawthorne brought the deepest psychological 
 insight, the most intense human sympathy, and the 
 highest literary finish, thereby creating standard 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 225 
 
 romances of New England. Scores of popular 
 writers, in other departments have experimented 
 in the same field among us ; some anonymously, 
 and many with but partial success, and yet each 
 contributing an element, quality, or grace, which, 
 by perseverance or auspicious circumstances, might 
 easily have blossomed into as acknowledged merit 
 as distinguish their productions in fields more con- 
 genial to their powers ; Allston, Dunlap, Wirt, 
 Longfellow, Motley, Willis, Wallace, Mitchell, Es- 
 ten Cooke, Bayard Taylor, Kimball, Fay, Beecher, 
 and scores of popular tale-writers, are instances. 
 William Ware's classical romances are fine exem- 
 plars of reproductive scholarship, imbued with 
 chaste expression and pure sentiment. And it 
 would be easy to enumerate a bevy of female writ- 
 ers who have enriched and elevated juvenile litera- 
 ture in this department, and exhibited, in brief 
 narratives, an observant, sympathetic, and some- 
 times characteristic invention and taste worthy of 
 adepts in fiction. 
 29 
 
226 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 No. II. 
 
 FEMALE NOVELISTS. 
 
 Even this, our casual survey of the Field of Fic- 
 tion, indicates a remarkable and interesting fact, 
 viz., that the most characteristic and benign ele- 
 ments of the modern novel owe their origin to the 
 tact, intuitive insight, minute observation, and ten- 
 der heart of woman. Herein she has found an ap- 
 propriate and congenial sphere, and memorably- 
 vindicated both the intellect and influence of her 
 sex. Clever female writers, in this department, 
 have long been recognized and renowned ; but few 
 are aware of the original claims and interesting de- 
 velopment of what may be called the romance of 
 society as initiated and advanced by womanly ge- 
 nius. Her perception, satire, sprightliness, senti- 
 ment, and sense, first gave the example and the 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 22/ 
 
 impulse, and ever since have enlarged and elevated 
 the sphere of fiction. If, at first, an overstrained 
 sensibility and an exclusive romanticism, through 
 her, made this class of books objectionable, nobly 
 did she lead the reaction and illustrate the reform. 
 Hallam traces the modern novel to Calprenede 
 and Madame Scuderi ; " Poligandre " appeared in 
 1632; "Grand Cyrus'' and " Clelia," each ten 
 volumes, in 1635 ; and " Cassandra " in 1642. The 
 " Princesse de Cleves," says Sainte Beuve, by Mad- 
 ame de Lafayette, "has survived them all, and re- 
 mains the first, in point of time, of our delightful fic- 
 tions." Thenceforth it was felt and admitted that 
 "any moderately-refined and sensitive soul, who 
 shall dare to write unaffectedly, possesses the mate- 
 rials for a good novel." Although the pioneer female 
 novelist of England was not so pure and gracious 
 as the French, her coarseness v/as rarely imitated, 
 and soon entirely forgotten in the refinements of 
 her successors. It is a singular proof of the uncon- 
 scious sway of average taste and ethics over indi- 
 vidual instincts, that Scott's friend, the old lady for 
 whom he procured a copy of Mrs. Aphra Behn's 
 once popular novels, " found it impossible to endure, 
 at the age of four-score, what, at sixteen, she, like all 
 
228 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 the fashionable world of the time, had perused with- 
 out an idea of impropriety." Much of Aphra's 
 want of delicacy was owing, indeed, to the age in 
 which she lived ; she was one of the playwrights of 
 the Restoration ; Charles II. was her admiration, 
 and employed her as a spy in Holland, where she 
 elicited important information from Dutch lovers, 
 whom she ridiculed in her private correspondence. 
 Her first experience was a visit to Surinam, where 
 her father had the appointment of lieutenant-gen- 
 eral, and though he died before reaching his post, 
 the brief sojourn of his daughter filled her mind 
 with tropical pictures which she effectively repro- 
 duced in " Oroonoko," one of the earliest English 
 novels in vogue. Speculative as regards matters 
 of faith, handsome, early a widow, fond of pleasure, 
 a coquette, and breathing an atmosphere more or 
 less licentious, whatever were her personal virtues 
 or vices, over both which time has drawn a veil, 
 there was little in her surroundings or in her experi- 
 ence to chasten and elevate, and much to pervert 
 and demoralize. Her ideal of fiction was very nar- 
 row, however glowing, and she soon acquired the 
 reputation of " a female Wycherley." "As love," 
 she declares, " is the most noble and divine passion 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 229 
 
 of the soul, so it is that to which we justly attribute 
 all the satisfactions of life, and without it man is 
 unfinished and unhappy." Upon this text Aphra 
 Behn expatiated, to the apparent delight of her 
 contemporaries and the scandal of later genera- 
 tions ; but without a talent adequate to preserve 
 from neglect either play, tale, or novel ; descriptive 
 merits chiefly redeem the latter, which now only 
 serve as landmarks of obsolete taste. 
 
 Sarah Fielding, a sister of the famous Henry, 
 translated Xenophon, and published a story which 
 Richardson revised. It was modelled on the nar- 
 rative style, of which " Gil Bias " is the best exem- 
 plar ; of its hero it has been truly said that he is 
 utterly " apathetic," except from sensitiveness to 
 right and wrong ; "for then began that moral pur- 
 pose " which distinguishes English fiction, exhibited 
 with a " naivete and prolixity wearisome to the 
 modern reader ; character was subordinate, dialogue 
 lacked point and ease, sentiment was the inspira- 
 tion ; but, however superseded, this early woman's 
 story marks the transition from the coarse to the 
 refined in fiction ; its title at once suggests its range 
 and methods : " The Adventures of David Simple, 
 containing an account of his Travels through the 
 
230 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 City of London and Westminster, in the search of 
 a real friend, by a Lady." This method of string- 
 ing adventures upon a voyage of discovery is 
 peculiar to the early English novel, and has been 
 more or less followed to the present time, from 
 " Ccelebs in Search of a Wife" and " Dr. Syntax 
 in Search of the Picturesque," to " Japhet in 
 Search of a Father." In 1752, was born a female 
 writer who, very early, and with spontaneous in- 
 stinct, began to search for character — for traits of 
 society — the record whereof expanded and vitalized 
 the novel into new significance. When fifteen years 
 old, Fanny Burney kept a journal, wherein she 
 noted the piquant and absurd things said and 
 done around her ; and, watching the actors from 
 Mrs. Garrick's box, composed scenes and incidents 
 adapted to them, according to her quick though 
 childish fancy ; both processes were the unconscious 
 intuitions of an embryo novelist, which, when she 
 was twenty-six, suddenly blossomed to life in 
 " Evelina." Keen and constant observation won 
 the materials, and a lively, satirical mind rendered 
 them effective in description. Cool and self-pos- 
 sessed, bright and social, this demure and " petite " 
 daughter of an accomplished musical professor. 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 23 1 
 
 who had the "entree" into the best London society, 
 was admirably endowed and situated to glean in 
 the rich harvest field of fiction; her pictures of 
 manners and character, drawn from life, established 
 the fame of the novel of society. The pet of Dr. 
 Johnson, a maid of honor to Queen Charlotte, the 
 wife and widow of a noble French "emigre " the 
 " protege" of a literary clique, familiar with Gar- 
 rick and Hannah More, Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Monta- 
 gue, and Mrs. Chapone — admired by Burke and 
 Reynolds, Sheridan and Erskine, acquainted with 
 Madame de GenHs, Talleyrand, De Stael, and Cha- 
 teaubriand, and the survivor of all the best loved, 
 Fanny Burney had every social privilege and con- 
 temporary encouragement. 
 
 Her novel of " Cecilia " so interested Mrs. Delany 
 that, through her, an introduction to the Queen 
 obtained the appointment which, after five years of 
 wearisome etiquette, she resigned to recruit her 
 health. She had not the robustness of Fielding, 
 nor the grace of Goldsmith ; indeed, never seems 
 to have known youth in its unalloyed freshness and 
 feeling ; but she had a realistic sense ; she could 
 see clearly, if not deeply, and hear with discrimina- 
 tion ; and she lived in the most close and constant 
 
232 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 relations with the representative people of her time 
 — literary, political, fashionable, artistic, and courtly; 
 and authentically transferred their portraits, talk, 
 and traits, more effectively than the experiment 
 had ever been tried before, and thus not only set a 
 fascinating example of observant and correct social 
 learning, but did this without an inkling of the 
 grossness and dulness of her masculine rivals ; if 
 cold, she was pure ; if satirical, she was delicate ; 
 and therefore widened the range and clarified the 
 atmosphere of popular fiction. 
 
 Dr. Franklin once called to see the author of 
 " Evelina," and she long regretted her absence 
 from home, which deprived her of the pleasant privi- 
 lege of conversing with the American patriot and 
 philosopher. At Streatham she was a favorite; 
 Mrs. Thrale first recognized her merit, declaring 
 she liked the new novel better than Madame Ricco- 
 boni's tales ; and Boswell's idol one day astonished 
 the somewhat prudish authoress by a chaste salute. 
 From 1752 to 1840 she knew all the pleasures and 
 piquancy of English and French society, at Passy 
 and in London, was more or less courted and cared 
 for, suffered privations, and attained distinction, 
 and met bereavements, which made her life one of 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 233 
 
 as much vicissitude as of fame. There is something 
 pathetically characteristic of her temperament and 
 mind in the remark, in her diary, after the death 
 of D'Arblay, her high-toned, loyal, and accom- 
 plished husband, with whom she had so long shared 
 exile, straitened means, domestic comfort, and so- 
 cial honor. Standing with her boy — not destined 
 to long life — beside the dead father, she writes : 
 "The sight of his stillness kept me from distrac- 
 tion. Sacred he appeared ; and his stillness, I 
 thought, should be mine and be inviolable." 
 
 But the human mind craves more romantic food ; 
 the imagination has needs as imperative as the per- 
 ceptive faculties ; and scarcely was the successful 
 novel of society born when that of the picturesque 
 and poetical came forth, happily also from a wo- 
 manly, though comparatively uncultured source. 
 In the year 1764, a Gothic story excited unusual 
 interest, because it was discovered to be from the 
 vivacious pen of Horace Walpole ; and, in imita- 
 tion of his " Castle of Otranto," Clara Reeves 
 wrote and pubhshed "The Old English Baron." 
 However defective it may appear in the light of 
 later and highly artistic pictures of mediaeval and 
 feudal life, this tale appealed then successfully to 
 30 
 
234 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 the innate love of the marvellous and the adven- 
 turous in remote baronial life ; long after it ceased 
 to interest adults, it was the delight of the young. 
 The sphere it occupied, the feeling to which it was 
 addressed, were singularly congenial to a " little 
 lady " — Anne Ward — of refined but limited educa- 
 tion, who had, at the age of twenty-three, married 
 an Oxford graduate, the proprietor and editor of 
 a leading London journal, who fortunately appre- 
 ciated and encouraged his ^^"ife's talents and tastes. 
 Unlike Fanny Burney, Mrs. Radcliffe never enjoyed 
 any literary society of note, lived secluded from 
 the fashionable world, was thoroughly domestic in 
 her habits, and beyond the comforts and amenities 
 of a sequestered English home, was indifferent to 
 external excitements, except those of travel, which 
 was her chief recreative resource ; and this was 
 owing in no small measure to her delight in scen- 
 ery, her love of old traditional edifices, and that 
 zest of adventure for which a journey into new 
 scenes is almcst the only expedient available to 
 modern civilization. So vivid was the imaginative 
 faculty, so large, as phrenologists would say, the 
 organ of marvellousness, that, without the disci- 
 pline of study, with little knowledge of books, and 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 235 
 
 still less of life and society, Mrs. Radcliffe, sitting 
 by the fire through the long, lonely evenings, wait- 
 ing for her husband, whose editorial labors often 
 detained him far into the night, absorbed her con- 
 sciousness, and occupied her time by imaginative 
 composition, of which the fruit was a series of ex- 
 traordinary narratives — the most " impressive," 
 Scott declared, ever written in the same vein — 
 often incorrect in a topographical and utterly vague 
 in an historical point of view, rarely successful in 
 distinct or remarkable characterization, and far 
 from ingenious in what may be called the mechan- 
 ism of the wonderful, and yet so picturesque in 
 their scenic and so magnetic in their emotional 
 traits as to impart to the reader both the sentiment 
 and the sensation born in the writer's imagination. 
 We doubt if she could have achieved this result, 
 had she, as some of her critics desire, been more 
 highly educated ; we doubt if literary accomplish- 
 ment could have coexisted with such "naive" 
 emotion, or if more familiarity with life and society 
 would not have checked her infectious " abandon " 
 when dealing with awe and tenderness, and describ- 
 ing the supernatural. She is an instance of what 
 womanly delicacy can do to atone for inadequate 
 
236 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 training, of how a natural instinct of the human 
 heart can find effective expression even without 
 much culture or experience, provided the natural 
 sensitiveness and refinement of a woman's nature 
 are intact. Mrs. Radcliffe's inspiration was a gen- 
 uine sensibility to the beautiful, the wonderful, the 
 adventurous. How little an " eleve " of art, she 
 was, in this regard, a child of Nature, whose voice, 
 however latent, she inly heard and emphatically 
 interpreted ; thus adding to the English novel, 
 already rich in social pictures, the ineffable charm 
 of imaginative, picturesque, and inspiring impres- 
 sions, long since neglected for more finished and 
 artistic creations, but still instinct with a native 
 force and feeling that mark an era in English fiction. 
 And yet so unambitious and modest, as well as con- 
 tented of soul, was Anne Radcliffe that, after writ- 
 ing her remarkable romances (the first in 1789), 
 after leading thousands of thrilled hearts and 
 haunted minds through " The Romance of the 
 Forest," " The Mysteries of Udolpho," and " The 
 Sicilian Romance," giving eight years to a kind of 
 novel-writing which more than any other is the 
 offspring of a fine imagination, and creating for the 
 English school of fiction at least, verbal landscape. 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 237 
 
 as a vital element thereof, she laid aside her pen, 
 gave years to the enjoyment of travel in Britain 
 and on the continent, noting faithfully her impres- 
 sions, and returned home to such complete retire- 
 ment that she was currently believed to be dead 
 years before her demise. 
 
 A vv'oman of quite diverse experience next added 
 to the social romantic pictures and marvellous ele- 
 ments of English fiction, thus effectively contributed 
 by her s'ex, one not less essential — the pathos in- 
 volved in that conflict of pride and tenderness, of 
 perversity and passion, which so complicates and 
 deepens the sentiment of love. Elizabeth Simp- 
 son, born in 1756, to beauty and intelligence added 
 the varied experience of life incident to the dra- 
 matic profession ; the wife and early the widow of 
 Inchbald, an actor of only average merit, and cor- 
 rect in morals, she combined with rare sensibility a 
 capricious temper, with benevolent instincts, self- 
 will, with womanly charms a somewhat perverse 
 disposition : undisciplined by education, and famil- 
 iar with all the shifts and vicissitudes of a London 
 stage life and limited pecuniary resources, she was 
 brought in contact with human nature under various 
 aspects ; with many poor relations, to whom her 
 
238 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 kindness was constant and self-sacrificing ; isolated 
 and independent, childless, with maternal feelings 
 strong in her heart, attractive, coquettish, yet 
 chaste and benign, after having written some par- 
 tially successful plays, she went to work, as she 
 confesses, not without much difficulty, owing to the 
 want of literary training, to tell a story which she 
 had in her mind, and the tone, if not man}- of the 
 traits, of which were born in her consciousness. A 
 singular directness of purpose, a sincere desire to 
 make the facts and the feeling of the narrative real, 
 seem to have answered, in some respects at least, 
 as well as consummate art. Here, as in former 
 instances, womanly qualities imbued the tale with 
 reality, gave it emotional life. It is the first exam- 
 ple of that play of character, that alternation of 
 moods and motives, that struggle between pride 
 and vanity, love and reflection, which, intimately 
 revealed, has such fascination in its processes and 
 results for the sympathetic reader. Miss Milner 
 is a character in the psychological sense, and so is 
 her priest lover, Doniforth. Only a woman of 
 sensibility and experience could have so minutely 
 detailed the life of their hearts, revealed the secret 
 of their consciousness, and made the history of 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 239 
 
 their passion so affecting. Open to criticism on 
 many points, both hterary and artistic, as is "The 
 Simple Story," its appeal to what is tender and 
 true in human nature is so genuine that the cool 
 analyst is disarmed, and lured to recognition of 
 the faith and feeling, the fondness and despair, in 
 two eager, exacting, devoted, but perverse human 
 hearts. The magnetism of the story is its "pathos," 
 wherein few works of fiction excel this of Mrs. 
 Inchbald's, who gave to this quality a new charm, 
 and a hitherto unappreciated value as a means and 
 method of imparting vital human interest to fiction. 
 " Nature and Art," though similar in tone, is less 
 complete and impressive in this regard. " The 
 Simple Story " marks a transition period in novel 
 writing, when the mutual interaction of character, 
 softened and inspired by sentiment, creates a new 
 world of emotional experience. 
 
 But this notable triumph of sentiment ushered in 
 what is far more akin to English character^— a reac- 
 tion to sense ; and the very medium which was 
 identified with romance became that whereby the 
 understanding was to be evoked into ascendancy. 
 Maria Edgeworth, descended from a race which 
 historically includes the extremes of opinion — from 
 
240 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 " Protestant Henry" to the " Abbe" whose bene- 
 diction soothed the death-pang of l^ouis XVI. — 
 went to Ireland when a young girl, and even then 
 saw clearly before her an educational mission, not 
 only as the daughter of a landed proprietor bent 
 on the strict performance of his duties in the midst 
 of an ignorant peasantry, and in an impoverished 
 country, but as one of a large household of chil- 
 dren whose instruction was to be mainly domestic. 
 One of the first and strongest convictions of her 
 mind was the expediency of controlling the ardor 
 of temperament to which so much of the improvi- 
 dence and so many of the misfortunes of the land 
 were to be ascribed. Reason and conscience were 
 to be developed, enthusiasm and passion restrained. 
 To teach a much-needed lesson of industry, hon- 
 esty, and obedience, Maria Edgeworth wrote a 
 series of juvenile books, which, in both Old and 
 New England, half a century ago, were not only 
 the delight of the nursery, but the admiration ot 
 the drawing-room, so that hers was a household 
 name and fame in two hemispheres. Her prudential 
 ideal was quite accordant with Puritan proclivities : 
 and not until long after she had captivated and in- 
 fluenced countless families, " regimes," did it dawn 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 24I 
 
 upon the second thought of youth that, by so ex- 
 clusive a rehance on " self-interest, rightly under- 
 stood," the spontaneous, the aspiring, the self-for- 
 getting enthusiasm of the soul were made frigid by 
 calculation and formalized by rule. Still the good 
 achieved was incalculable, though the aim was too 
 material and the scope too narrow ; and, above all, 
 the motive was high and pure, the example invalu- 
 able, and the execution more clever than any 
 preceding experiment of the kind. And when 
 Miss Edgeworth turned from childhood to society, 
 when she essayed to paint the life of men and 
 women, utility still guided her pen ; in novels, as 
 in juvenile tales, she aimed at inculcating practical 
 truth, advocating morality, demonstrating the 
 superiority of sense over sentiment as a motive of 
 action and a means of prosperity. Such a fixed 
 purpose is opposed to the glow of passion, but not 
 to the gleam of fancy ; it deprecates vague emotion, 
 but it gives scope to vigorous and vivid pictures 
 of actual life and manners. And it is the high and 
 peculiar distinction of Maria Edgeworth that she 
 first clearly conceived and effectively illustrated 
 national life in fiction, a new and noble advance in 
 this kind of literature. Her " Castle Rackrent," 
 31 
 
242 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 by its true and interesting delineation of actual 
 Irish life, and its authentic portraits of Irish charac- 
 ter, became a memorable precedent. Sir Walter 
 Scott frankly and gracefully acknowledged that the 
 example of Miss Edgeworth led to the publication 
 of " \\'averley," and inspired him with the desire 
 and purpose of doing for Scottish what she had 
 done for Irish life, scenery, manners, and history. 
 Thus to a woman we owe another and most impor- 
 tant feature of the modern novel. As to the sources 
 of her peculiar merits and demerits as a writer of 
 fiction, apart from a rare and quick intelligence, a 
 keen observation, and a power of vigorous and 
 fluent expression, the)- are to be found in her ex- 
 ceptional life. Her taste was formed, her mental 
 development guided, and her literary experiments 
 encouraged, bj^her father — a man of sense, of e.x- 
 perience, of conscientiousness, but eminently prac- 
 tical and egotistic. His knowledge of life made up 
 for her ignorance of the world : his utilitarian prin- 
 ciples and example confirmed in her the growth of a 
 " manly understanding ;" his four marriages, and his 
 theory that friendship and good sense were the best 
 guarantees of matrimonial happiness and propriety, 
 rather than passion, its legitimate vestibule, did 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 243 
 
 much to chasten and cool whatever latent romance 
 on the subject nestled in the kind, true heart of the 
 daughter. There is, perhaps, no instance more 
 illustrative of the possible modification of female 
 instincts and the development of woman's intellect 
 by intimate association with one of the other sex 
 in study, affairs, domestic duties, and literary work, 
 than that of Miss Edgeworth. Filial confidence, 
 respect, and sympathy made this influence para- 
 mount and pervasive. Judgment and wisdom are 
 her most obvious qualities ; wholly unaffected, 
 free from vanity, her mind became strong and 
 active ; she had no lovers, nor, apparently, wished 
 for any ; her domestic attachments and duties 
 seemed to fill up the circle of her being ; she wrote, 
 not to indulge a vein of tenderness, nor to win 
 sentimental admirers, not to romanticize, but to 
 utilize life. The scenes of her work were the same 
 whence Goldsmith drew his picture of " The Deser- 
 ted Village," but how diverse the tones and hues 
 thereof to the consciousness of each ! And yet in 
 the vigorous style of Maria Edgeworth there is an un- 
 mistakable womanly quality. She gave to novel-wri- 
 ting a certain robust and wholesome character ; she 
 made it the vehicle of practical truth ; she stripped 
 
244 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 therein the illusions from vulgarity, meanness, du- 
 plicity, and arrogance, however concealed by out- 
 ward elegance of manner or the blandishments 
 of wealth and rank ; she illustrated the serenity of 
 conscience and the dignity and power of self-reli- 
 ance ; she preached the gospel of common-sense 
 and made emphatic the triumph of prudence ; and 
 what this achievement lacked in imaginative 
 charm was atoned for by wit, by vivacity, and a 
 certain grace eminently feminine. As an artist she 
 has bequeathed authentic and suggestive pictures 
 of local manners vital with truth and spirit, such jis 
 will permanently serve for reference and illustration, 
 as well as afford a gracious and instructive resource 
 to lovers of standard fiction ; while to their author 
 belongs the distinctive fame of having founded the 
 national novel. 
 
 Two endeared representatives of the novels of 
 sense and sentiment intervened both to emphasize 
 and refine the characteristics thus auspiciously in- 
 itiated. Amelia Opie, almost as destitute of prac- 
 tice and style in literature as Mrs. Inchbald, wrote 
 several works of fiction, chiefly in the form of tales, 
 distinguished by a like tenderness and a pious 
 spirit ; she also owed her success to a womanly 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 245 
 
 power of engaging the feelings of the reader inde- 
 pendent of dramatic skill or high finish. What the 
 stage did for the author of " The Simple Story," 
 the assizes held at Norwich, her early home, seems 
 to have effected for the author of " Father and 
 Daughter " — given the insight and knowledge of 
 critical events and moving experience. Mrs. Opie's 
 father was a physician, her husband a portrait-paint- 
 er, and she herself became a Quakeress, though 
 the latter creed did not prevent her mingling freely 
 with and fully enjoying society. With some of the 
 foibles, she possessed an uncommon share of the 
 sweet and true sympathies of her sex ; and by 
 virtue thereof " knew how to appeal to the heart." 
 Pretty, kindly, and vivacious, she was not what we 
 now call a " superior woman" in the intellectual 
 sense of the phrase, neither was she " literary," as 
 that term is used to indicate knowledge of books ; 
 and still less had she any claim to the title of philo- 
 sophical, for not by erudition, nor deep thought, 
 nor high culture, did she attain popularity in fiction ; 
 but, like her peerless sisters in the art, derived her 
 " simple, natural pathos of every-day life " from 
 her genuine and pure womanly instincts. 
 
 Jane Austen, on the other hand, owes her excep- 
 
246 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 tional fame to acute observation and patient art ; 
 not that she was deficient in the grace and gentle- 
 ness of a true woman, but because she had a very 
 clear perception of whatever came under her obser- 
 vation, and a singular faithfulness and nicety in its 
 verbal reproduction. She first impressively made 
 evident the possibility of making pictures of life 
 interesting by virtue of fidelity of delineation in- 
 stead of novelty of incident ; conscious of her 
 limited range of experience, and wise as well as 
 modest in her ambition, she was content to work 
 carefully on such materials as she could fully com- 
 mand — the life characters and scenes of a rural 
 vicarage and countrj' town amid which she was 
 born and bred. To an inartistic mind, probabl)', 
 no sphere would seem more hopeless for romance 
 or even characterization ; but Jane Austen made up 
 for its commonplace routine and narrow interests 
 by the minute study and apt use of its traits and 
 transitions ; she was wont to call her experiments 
 " miniature work," because of the small space, the 
 comp'aratively narrow field wherein she was content 
 to find her subjects. But the delicacy of her touch, 
 the accuracy of her drawing, and the truth of her 
 traits, made up for any lack of grandeur of variety in 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 247 
 
 the composition. Her culture was that of a gentlewo- 
 man of her day. Dr. Johnson was her favorite prose 
 and Cowper her chosen poetic writer ; she appreci- 
 ated the moral wisdom of the one and the domestic 
 philosophy of the other ; the want of refinement 
 in Fielding repelled her ; and while she considered 
 Richardson tiresome, she had a decided partiality 
 for " Sir Charles Grandison." Of Nature, she cer- 
 tainly was not an enthusiastic votary: her "tab- 
 leaux " of character and sketches of life are so pre- 
 dominant that, unlike Mrs. RadclifTe, she neither 
 felt nor included the picturesque as an adjunct to 
 the human element in fiction. Like Maria Edge- 
 worth, she seems to have been inspired with a con- 
 viction that sentiment is the bane of her sex, and 
 sentimentality the normal weakness of fictitious 
 writing ; so she gently, but none the less effectually, 
 satirize^ them in her novels, showing how often the 
 imagination deludes in estimating character, and 
 how completely passion blinds the judgment ; to 
 bring the latter into play, and vindicate its ordeal 
 in the fortunes of her heroines, was Miss Austen's 
 great aim ; and this she did through no climax or 
 concentration, no dramatic transitions, or startling 
 catastrophes, but in a very practical way, and by 
 
248 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 ordinary processes ; for her characters are the 
 reverse of extraordinarj' — average types of rural 
 gentry, creatures of provincial habits, moulded by 
 the conventionalities, excited by the gossip and 
 trained by the virtues of English life, such as it was 
 sixty or a hundred years ago in the shire-towns and 
 country homes. We read these quiet, and now 
 somewhat quaint, but minutely -authentic records 
 with curious interest, because it is like living at that 
 period and among these people ; they make us not 
 so much imagine as nealize that life ; and, in doing 
 so, we recognize a true artist in Jane Austen, and 
 one who first fairly illustrated the wonderful effects 
 of delicacy — both in observation and description — 
 in analyzing the sway of motives and exhibiting the 
 superiority of wisdom even in" what are called " af- 
 fairs of the heart," which, according to this clever 
 and gracious writer, should also be affairs of the 
 head. The very titles of these cabinet-studies of 
 character show at once the tact and scope of this 
 sequestered, observant, apt, pure, and modest 
 woman, who appears to have been a household 
 avorite, as ingenious with her hands as her tongue, 
 nice with the needle, and equally inventive as a 
 children's story-teller, cheerful, affectionate, religi- 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 249 
 
 ous — a fine specimen of the English lady of the 
 middle class— in the most refined circle of that 
 wholesome, rational, and uneventful country life, 
 which is the most salubrious perhaps of our day. 
 Probably false sentiment and exaggerated romance 
 have never found a more insinuating antidote than 
 that so deftly applied in " Sense and Sensibility," 
 " Pride and Prejudice," and the other novels of 
 Jane Austen. 
 
 The advent of a very different writer closed, or 
 rather carried on to the present, the charming line 
 of female novelists. In 1778, Sydney Owenson 
 was born on the Irish Sea ; her father was Celtic, 
 her mother English ; the attractive child of an 
 actor, " petite," like Fanny Burney and Maria 
 Edgeworth, with expressive eyes and a lively tem- 
 perament, she made her " debut" as a novelist in 
 " The Wild Irish Girl," which, with all its extrava- 
 gance, had a beauty of detail and a freshness and 
 genuineness about it that evinced rare descriptive 
 power. As the wife of an English surgeon. Lady 
 Morgan soon became as well known in society as 
 in literature ; was famed and persecuted as a po- 
 litical essayist; her "Travels" soon eclipsed her 
 novels ; and in London, Paris, and Milan she was 
 32 
 
2 so LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 the centre of literary, political, and more or less 
 fashionable circles ; and enjoyed a remarkable so- 
 cial prestige to extreme old age. It is the dis- 
 tinction of Lady Morgan to have given a decided 
 impulse to the vivacious and speculative element 
 in fiction. 
 
 This remarkable female accomplishment and 
 equipment in novel writing culminated in the writ- 
 ings of Madame Dudevant, who has been declared 
 by competent critics the most influential, if not the 
 most characteristic, of modern French authors. 
 Unfortunately for her immediate cosmopolitan ap- 
 preciation, she first wrote and published, with the 
 reckless enthusiasm of a social reformer and wronged 
 woman, with a license and an audacity that shocked 
 readers of Anglo-Saxon principles ; and it is only 
 during the last few years that her transcendant mer- 
 its have been justly recognized by the English and 
 Americans. As her mind worked itself clear of the 
 first passionate protest, her artistic powers attained 
 a scope, a dignity, and a grace which mark an era, 
 not only in the literature of fiction, but in the intel- 
 lectual sway of her sex. Not only are many of her 
 novels wholly free from objection on account of 
 immoral tendencies, but not a few nobly illustrate 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 25 I 
 
 vital truths, delineate life, character, and art, opin- 
 ion, society, and vocation, and vindicate essential 
 principles with a finished and lucid eloquence un- 
 surpassed in our day. George Sand is now appre- 
 ciated as an " artiste interieure plut6t qu' exte- 
 rieure ; " and as a woman "si simple, si bonne, si 
 familiere, si peu excentrique," that the partial and 
 prejudiced estimate once in vogue has all but dis- 
 appeared ; her errors are forgotten in the excel- 
 lence of her mature achievements, and the calm 
 and gracious tenor of her later years. She justly 
 remarks to one of her correspondents, in allusion to 
 the gross exaggerations and misapprehensions of 
 which she was long the subject : " Our work of 
 analysis, to all who engage in it seriously involves 
 the necessity both of self-devotion and self-de- 
 fence." We must discriminate, even while we con- 
 demn, the works of one thus conscious of an artistic 
 aim and mission, and whose industry, earnestness, 
 and loyalty to conviction and an ideal, should ab- 
 solve her from vulgar censure. There is need of 
 charity and insight in realizing the process through 
 which such a nature gradually but certainly lifts 
 itself out of and above evil into good, and redeems 
 the bad results of temperament and circumstances 
 
252 LITERATURE OF FICTIOX. 
 
 by rectitude and aspiration ; the cause of freedom, 
 progress, and truth is immeasurably her debtor, and 
 the pure and high nature of EHzabeth Browning 
 bravely and truly defined her as a "large-brained 
 woman and large-hearted man." Comprehensive 
 and exquisite is the art that can draw so " naTve " a 
 rustic portrait as "La petite Fadette," and anahze 
 and illustrate the musical soul and sense of " Consu- 
 elo ; '' give us such a Flemish and dramatic picture 
 of winter in the north as " L'Homme de Niege," and 
 the psychology of a special vocation, with all its ac- 
 cessories and intimate atmosphere as in such books 
 as " Les Maitres Sonneurs " and " Les Maitres Mo- 
 saistes," wherein the local tints and tones are as deli- 
 cately authentic as the individual life is magnetic to 
 the reader's consciousness. If her love-romances are 
 too free and fervid, thej- are often intensely true to 
 fact and character ; and what revelation of modern 
 conventional life is comparable in accurate detail 
 and salient verity to her " Horace ? " Who has suc- 
 ceeded in an analytical development and descrip- 
 tion of passion in its latent soulful experience as 
 well as external conflicts and conditions, equal to 
 " Lucrezia Floriane?" We have referred to the 
 rare combination of qualities requisite for absolute 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 253 
 
 success in the literature of fiction ; and it is because 
 George Sand more completely possesses them that 
 she bears the palm ; first of all, her insight is deep 
 and keen ; then her imagination is rich and re- 
 fined ; to the quick and patient observation of a 
 woman, she adds the reflective concentration of a 
 masculine intellect ; intuitive tact is united in her 
 with rare method and indomitable industry, and 
 the skill and eye of an artist are adjuncts of broad 
 human sympathies and aspirations for advancement 
 and amelioration ; from which capacities and cul- 
 ture results thorough work, clearly defined as to 
 its plan, earnestly conceived as to its purpose, 
 carefully executed as to its art ; and, withal, so 
 versatile that it includes the elucidation and illus- 
 tration of each extreme of social condition, of every 
 prominent question in economy, politics, and reli- 
 gion, and an infinite diversity of scene and senti- 
 ment. Such, in a generous view, are the literary 
 claims of George Sand, which unite and comple- 
 ment the traits and triumphs of the novelistic art ; 
 for we are as much charmed by her sense as her 
 sentiment, her picturesqueness as her sympathy, 
 her psychological as her pictorial skill ; by the 
 outHne as by the atmosphere of her story, by the 
 
254 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 originality as by the human truth of her characters, 
 by her satire as by her pathos, by her method as 
 by her style ; that is, one or other of these ele- 
 ments of fiction continually rises to our minds in 
 peerless force or beauty, until we know and feel 
 the creative, complete, and harmonious presence 
 and power of a great artist. Yet, such a statement 
 as this, while it accounts for the admirable execu- 
 tion of her works, does not explain their influence 
 and individuality ; these we believe to be mainly 
 owing, in the last analysis, to her " love of and 
 faith in Nature," not merely through sentiment as 
 a mysterious source of beauty, but through science 
 as a means of knowledge, and through sympath}- 
 as an inspiration of truth. The native tastes, the 
 prevalent habits, the real life of George Sand are 
 identified with Nature ; therein she finds her most 
 congenial refreshment, her freest scope ; the feeling 
 and the wisdom therein born overflow in descrip- 
 tion, give vitality to local pictures, harmonize and 
 humanize alike her personal experience and her 
 written thought. It is by virtue of this perception 
 and love of the natural that she has carried forward 
 into detailed and dominant expression and influ- 
 ence the instinctive reaction to the true, the human, 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 255 
 
 the progressive, and the free, so memorably ini- 
 tiated by Rousseau. 
 
 The more profound and artistic development of 
 fiction thus manifested in France, has been signally 
 exemplified in England by Mrs. Lewes and Char- 
 lotte Bronte, of the rich and rare combination of 
 characterization and scenic power in the former, we 
 have already spoken ; and the latter so deeply re- 
 cognized the necessity of intense personal experi- 
 ence to make true and vital the literature of fiction, 
 that no praise or pelf could lure her into new ex- 
 periments, when life had yielded no fresh material, 
 and consciousness no new revelation. What she 
 had really known and felt — that isolated, self-reliant, 
 needy, and latent passionate existence of solitary 
 moor and homely personage and haunting aspira- 
 tions — she had drawn with earnest authenticity, 
 showing how much there is in the least adventurous 
 human life — if it is but soulful — to interest the 
 world ; and what dramatic power may exist in the 
 lonely, brave, honest, and resolute heart of a girl, 
 whose spirit has never been cowed by conventionali- 
 ties, nor her instincts perverted by artificial diffusion. 
 
 To these eminent names on the recent roll of 
 female novelists, what a number may be added of 
 
256 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 pleasant or plaintive, bright or graceful, tender or 
 true women, who have carried on and expanded 
 the literature of fiction, each having a distinctive 
 claim to gratitude and fame, and nearly all morally 
 unexceptionable ; some strongly indi\idual in aim ; 
 others identified with special spheres and places ; 
 and many endeared as household favorites ; in the 
 fashionable romance — such writers as Mrs. Gore, 
 Lady Fullerton, Lady Blessington, and Caroline 
 Lamb ; in the domestic — Mrs. Oliphant, Mrs. 
 Craik ; in novels of character — Miss Yonge and 
 Julia Kavanagh ; in the educational — Grace Aguilar, 
 Miss Jewsbury, and Miss Sewall ; from Mrs. 
 Marsh's pathetic to Miss Martineau's practical 
 stories; from the "naive" pictures of Mrs. and 
 the Continental sketches of Miss Edwards ; from 
 the days of Miss Lee's "Canterbury Tales" to 
 Mrs. Shelley's philosophical romance ; from that 
 winsome interplay of character which, while mi- 
 nutely describing German middle-class life, shows 
 how a true-hearted maiden of that race took the 
 conceit out of an English youth and made a man 
 of him, through love, in "The Initials," to the 
 amusing incarnation of special humanities in Miss 
 Ferrier's "Inheritance" and "Marriage;" from 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 257 
 
 Mary Brunton to Ellen Picl<ering, from Holme Lee 
 to Mary Mitford, from Madame de Genlis to Mrs. 
 Hofland, from Letitia Landon to Mrs. Gray, Mrs. 
 Hall, and Miss Broughton — a host of clever women, 
 more or less artistic, have made fiction a sphere 
 both of utility and entertainment. And a glance 
 at the catalogue of their writings, from the days of 
 Charlotte Smith to our own, would recall a surpris- 
 ing amount and quality of literary talent and hu- 
 mane influence, and demonstrate what congenial 
 scope and characteristic inspiration the literature of 
 fiction has proved to the women of modern times ; 
 nay, it would serve as one of the most suggestive 
 studies of the sex, and indicate their latent traits 
 and possible triumphs better than volumes of spec- 
 ulation on differences of mental organization or of 
 advocacy of woman's rights. It is the noble dis- 
 tinction of literature that therein she can find range, 
 eminence, and influence, and still preserve intact 
 the sanctity and charm of womanhood. 
 33 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 No. III. 
 
 TRAITS AXD IXFLUENXE. 
 
 Recreative reading is the most facile distrac- 
 tion, the most available entertainment of our day ; 
 exclusively pursued, it is enervating ; occasionally, a 
 salubrious pastime. Novels are in vogue because 
 they afford a requisite counterpoise to tlie prevalent 
 materialism and prosaic absorption in affairs. To 
 an extent and in a manner few realize, popular fic- 
 tion has become a resource whereby monotonous, 
 toilsome, and baffled lives secure a compensatory 
 respite. Herein romance finds scope or vent ; 
 through the imaginary we soften the actual ; and by 
 losing ourselves awhile in the fortunes, the trials, 
 the triumphs, the loves, and sorrows of a fictitious 
 character, or by identifying our sympathies \\ ith 
 what is heroic and interesting therein, beguile us of 
 the thing we are. It is remarkable that the most 
 judicial minds and the sternest workers are most 
 addicted to this recreative literature. Judge Par- 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 2 59 
 
 sons, of Massachusetts, was, says his son, "an 
 insatiable student, and, after learning his lesson, 
 would turn for his amusement to a mathematical 
 problem or a novel." Sir James Mackintosh read 
 and criticised novels on his voyage to India. Daniel 
 Webster was long accustomed to read " Robinson 
 Crusoe " once through annually. W. L. Marcy, 
 when Secretary of State, spent most of his leisure 
 in novel-reading. I have observed a Tuscan coun- 
 tess, who had lost her estate in the first Napo- 
 leon's time, and become devout, seeking her chief 
 earthly comfort in romance-reading, exactly as I 
 have known a New England Presbyterian widow, 
 who eschewed all profane amusements, do the same ; 
 it was the only warm tint in their colorless lives. 
 The hardest-working artist of my acquaintance used 
 to go home worn out from his studio to have his 
 fancies refreshed, as he lay on a couch, by hearing 
 his wife read a novel. A popular preacher adopted 
 the same course, and thereby kept himself " au 
 courant " with the latent sentiment and dramatic 
 vicissitudes of life, whence he drew his inspiration. 
 That literary epicurean. Gray, the English poet, 
 declared it was heaven to read "new" novels 
 through a " rainy day." Time and place have, in- 
 
26o LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 deed, much to do with the relish of fiction. As a 
 general rule, the magnetism of the story is greatly 
 increased when the reader's immediate local associ- 
 ation are as far as possible removed from its record- 
 ed scenes. I remember how attractive seemed 
 Cooper's forest pictures and border heroes when 
 contemplated in a mediaeval city of Italy ; how 
 much more quaint and emphatic was Irving's 
 humor resorted to in an old Sicilian "palazzo;" 
 and with what tender pride, as well as picturesque- 
 ness, came forth Hawthorne's New England 
 romance amid the trophies of old European civili- 
 zation. Hazlitt records, with infinite zest, the cir- 
 cumstances under which he first read " The Simple 
 Story." So memorable is this pastime, that Dr. 
 Newman says, in his " Reminiscences," that he used 
 to wish the Arabian tales were true, and that they 
 made his imagination run on " unknown influences " 
 — a fact of early consciousness derived from fiction 
 which is curiously suggestive of his future spiritual 
 development. Equally characteristic is the regret 
 expressed by Cobbett at the loss, when a youth, of 
 his first favorite in the same branch of literature; 
 books and men alike diverse — the one aspiring and 
 ideal, the other matter-of-fact and practical ; Swift's 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 261 
 
 "Tale of a Tub" charmed the one, and "The 
 Arabian Nights " the other, both influencing the 
 growth, or, at least, the tone and tendencies of 
 their minds, and revealing their native tastes and 
 traits by the law of spontaneous attraction. Gray- 
 lays stress on the "freshness" of the novel as a 
 condition of its enjoyment ; and of all forms of 
 literature it is the one most frequently cited in evi- 
 dence of its mutability. Ephemeral as are most 
 novels, however, genius and artistic skill are as con- 
 servative in this as in other spheres of human 
 activity ; the standard romances of every country 
 are not only books which no gentleman's library 
 can be without, but they are continually reprinted, 
 commented on, referred to, and more or less re- 
 perused. Whatever changes may occur in popular 
 taste, as regards style and subject, the genuine in 
 historic manners, the true in characterization, and 
 the authentic in narrative and sentiment, survive. 
 There is a peculiar and new pleasure in reading a 
 Waverley novel after a long interval ; and when 
 we accidentally take up a volume of Miss Burney 
 or Miss Austen, perhaps for lack of something more 
 recent at hand, we are transported into a by-gone 
 society, and catch glimpses of so many normal and 
 
262 LITERATURE OF FICTIOX. 
 
 delicate traits of human nature that the old story- 
 has a new zest and significance. As graphic me- 
 morials of the past, the best novels have thus a 
 standard value and a perpetual charm, and often 
 attract by virtue of the ver}' contrast they exhibit 
 to current fiction. Meantime the tide thereof flows 
 on unceasingly, and the mere fact of the constant 
 demand and supply should lead both philosophers 
 and philanthropists to recognize the vast influence of, 
 and appreciate and seek to elevate the universal 
 taste for, the literature of fiction. The French novel, 
 good or bad, real or artificial, is an established fact, 
 an habitual resource, a positive social and literary 
 agency, and, therefore to be criticised and cultured 
 into purer development, as it has already attained a 
 peerless artistic force and finish. And besides these 
 tasteful and handy volumes, scattered about in bou- 
 doirs and on study tables, who travels on the Con- 
 tinent of Europe without a few of those neat little 
 quartos that Tauchnitz of Leipsic, makes the con- 
 venient caskets of English fiction ? or, in America, 
 without the latest number of the " Library of Select 
 Novels ?" What countless copies of the expensive 
 three-volume London article does Rludie distribute 
 on the day of publication ! and what a lively trade 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 263 
 
 the " colporteurs " drive on railways, and the news- 
 men at their stalls, in the same economical and 
 delectable commodity ! Some future Buckle will 
 enrich the statistics whence a philosophy of life is 
 to be deduced, by the records of circulating libra- 
 ries, and the kind of novel most in favor at certain 
 periods, as no inadequate test of local civilization, 
 according as " Picciola " or " Guy Livingstone," 
 " Pickwick" or " Pendennis," bears the palm, and 
 the dime or dollar novel is the best speculation. 
 A remarkable evidence of the prominence and 
 popularity of fiction in our day over every other 
 species of writing, may be found in the fact that 
 even grave political journals — the highest of their 
 class — find it expedient to append a serial novel, by 
 a favorite author, to their serious lucubrations and 
 the news of the day. The " feuilleton " is a daily 
 witness to the intimate relations between fiction and 
 fact in modern life. 
 
 It would be a curious study to reckon and reason 
 of the failures in novel-writing ; writers successful 
 in other spheres are often ambitious to excel in 
 this, and many partially succeed. But the various 
 qualities indispensable to a complete triumph are 
 seldom united, and even those who have made 
 
264 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 their mark in the literature of fiction are often 
 notably deficient in some particular. Thus de- 
 scriptive talent may be quite inferior to dramatic, 
 a knowledge of the world unblended with senti- 
 ment ; the creative far below the speculative in- 
 stinct ; to paint society may be out of the power 
 of an admirable "raconteur" of adventure; the 
 refined sympathy that interprets womanhood ut- 
 terly wanting to the skilful scenic limner. It is 
 with writing as with painting ; there are those who 
 can delineate still-life admirably and yet lack the 
 historic grasp ; and the most rare faculty of all is 
 that which can develop naturally human individ- 
 uality. Character is the test in novel-writing as in 
 life, and it is mainly by originality and ability 
 therein that renown is secured ; and this is doubt- 
 less, in the last analysis, the secret of the permanent 
 and prevalent charm of fiction. It interests us all ; 
 we are forced to study character in our social rela- 
 tions ; justly to interpret it is a Christian science ; 
 how often our peace depends thereon ! "If such 
 a trait were only absent, or such a one possessed ! " 
 sighs the anxious mother or the baffled lover ; and 
 to catch, clarify, mould, and harmoniously combine 
 the latent and superficial traits of character, and so 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 265 
 
 incarnate them by verbal art, is the great evidence 
 of genius in fiction. 
 
 And the hterature of fiction has created the most 
 famihar, suggestive, and endeared gallery of por- 
 traits, not closed like those of the aristocracy to the 
 people, but open to and haunted by the world. 
 Apart from the originality and interest of each 
 " counterfeit presentment," beyond the historical 
 significance of lineaments, accessories, and cos- 
 tume, these human individualities, so authentic and 
 intelligible, so well known and distinct, serve as 
 permanent types of character, acknowledged illus- 
 trations of specific virtues, vices, oddities, humors 
 — authorized impersonations to which we instinc- 
 tively refer as precedents, over which we rejoice 
 as near and dear, or from which we recoil as alien, 
 often more so, than actual existences. What could 
 we do without them ? How desolate would be the 
 domain of fancy and the household chambers of the 
 heart, how limited the range of comparison and 
 the number of intimate exemplars, in the study of 
 character or the illustration of life, deprived of 
 these embodiments and ideals ! In English fiction 
 especially, what a precious set of good fellows, 
 each identified by some humorous or personal trait, 
 34 
 
266 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 but all distinguished by humane sympathies, from 
 Sir Roger de Coverley, Squire AUworthy, and 
 Parson Adams, to Uncle Toby and Pickwick ; 
 what a bevy of noble and winsome women do we 
 know and love through Sir Walter — from Flora 
 Mclvor, Rebecca, and Di Vernon to Jeannie Deans 
 and Lucy Ashton ; what brave and naive sailors 
 cheer and charm the life of sea and shore in the 
 persons and presence of Long Tom Coffin and 
 Captain Cuttle ; what loyal and amusing servants 
 brighten menial life in Caleb Balderstone and Sam 
 Weller ; what opposite but authentic clerical types 
 of character are Dr. Primrose, Yorick, Honyman, 
 and Stiggins ; what genuine types of the silly and 
 the shrewish in woman are Mrs. Nickleby and Mrs. 
 Proudie ; how redolent of the American woods and 
 pioneer honesty and hardihood is Leatherstocking ; 
 what grotesque specimens of the old-style peda- 
 gogue, localized and vitalized, are Ichabod Crane 
 and Dominie Sampson ; how permanently sym- 
 bolic of the real and ideal are Don Quixote and 
 Sancho Panza — of the self-seeking girl of the period 
 in Becky Sharpe — of the extremes of the genial and 
 the unscrupulous in military character are Captain 
 Shandy and Dalgetty ; what new worlds to the im- 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 267 
 
 agination are Brobdignag, Utopia, and the Happy 
 Valley ; how delectably human are the widow 
 Wadman and the wife Amelia ; what a prose Lear is 
 Pere Goriot, how noble a melancholy is Ravens- 
 wood's ; what a conservative effigy is Rip Van 
 Winkle, and what typical contrast between jollity 
 and hypocrisy are Mark Tapley and Uriah Heep ! 
 The villains of fiction are equally representative, 
 and crime and sensuality are discriminated to the 
 popular mind by the depraved, as are courage and 
 honor by the heroic characters of popular fiction. 
 Schedoni and Lovelace, Fagin, Jingle, Quilp, and 
 Sikes, with their kindred, illustrate every shade of 
 recklessness and villany, and from subtle cruelty to 
 licentious selfishness, and from roguery to murder ; 
 we have in this " universal exhibition" all profes- 
 sional varieties : such popular doctors as Slop, An- 
 tonio, and Amboyne ; such legal types as Glossin, 
 Gammon, Pleydell, and Fogg ; venerable humorists 
 like Old Mortality and Edie Ochiltree, youthful 
 ones such as Dick Swiveller : lovable children — 
 Pearl, Nell, and Paul Dombey : monstrous victims 
 of physical wrong, and wrong compensated by spir- 
 itual endowment, like Quasimodo and Smike : 
 landmarks and watchwords of the visionary and 
 
268 LITERATURE OF FICTION, 
 
 the plausible, of sentimental selfishness and latent 
 temper, and generous instinct and lowly wisdom, 
 mingled and married, spontaneous and secreted, in 
 such creatures and creations as Micawber and Peck- 
 sniff, Boythorn, Rosa Dartle, and Cheeryble : from 
 Tiny Tim to Topsy, from Pelham to Mantilini, 
 from Titmouse to Bagstock, from Joseph Andrews 
 to Toots, from Evelina to Miss Bennet, from Con- 
 sualo to Jane Eyre — every form, phase, perversity, 
 aspiration, trait, and tone of human nature is thus 
 memorably incarnated. 
 
 The errors in regard to natural productions, 
 topography, and historical facts, and especially 
 with reference to our own country, into which pop- 
 ular writers fall for lack of knowledge and research 
 are curious. One author speaks of Franklin as 
 having been President of the United States ; Mrs. 
 Radcliffe makes one of her characters in " The 
 Sicilian " look down from Etna upon Palermo, 
 whence it is distant more than a hundred miles ; 
 Chateaubriand, in " Atala," and Campbell, in 
 " Gertrude," draw largely upon imagination for the 
 fruits, flowers, and birds of the Southern States : 
 Annie Thomas in a recent novel, alluding to the 
 Judge and the Haymaker in Whittier's " Maud 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 269 
 
 Muller," attributes the poem to Holmes ; and 
 George Sand, in " Mauprat," describing Virginia, 
 speaks of the " singing of the joyous parroquets," 
 and tells us of a young physician, her hero's friend, 
 who established himself in Boston with Dr. Cooper, 
 who had secured him a position in the library of 
 the Society of Philadelphia. These and similar 
 inadvertencies have become rare, as novel-writing 
 has grown to be a careful study, requiring for its 
 successful achievement as much patient accuracy as 
 historical writing, and often involving the same 
 visits of observation to distant localities, collating 
 of authorities, and examination of documents. It 
 appears that many of the works which served Car- 
 lyle while writing his dramatic and picturesque 
 " History of the French Revolution " were lent by 
 him to Dickens for his illustrative story thereof; and 
 the novelist derived no little inspiration from the 
 wonderful verbal pictures of the historian, and was 
 wont to discipline his own style by the narrative 
 and psychological eloquence of De Quincey ; while 
 the more elaborate and subtle delineations of senti- 
 ment in modern fiction may be traced in memor- 
 able instances to the example of Richter. 
 
 There is a companionable spirit in the best popu- 
 
270 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 lar novels which has much to do with their charm. 
 Temperament seems as requisite to attract and re- 
 tain sympathy in writing as in character ; and 
 animal spirits are a great adjunct of talent in nar- 
 rative. There is something infectious in the genial 
 tone of favorite " raconteurs." We feel as if we 
 had accompanied Charles Lever amid his jovial 
 or contemplative wanderings through Ireland and 
 over the continent. The cordial fluency, the " bon- 
 homie," the half-speculative and half-observant tone 
 of his pictures assimilate with our moods and minds 
 by virtue of the very qualities that make a pleasant 
 man's society agreeable, or an intelligent and hu- 
 morous talker delightful. Sterne's invocation to 
 his readers, that they surrender themselves confi- 
 dently to his guidance, is needless in such cases. 
 We instinctively give in to the gracious "aban- 
 don " of the author. It is the human fusing the 
 intellectual ; and the personal traits, which inti- 
 mate friends find in what may be called the sym- 
 pathetic school of novelists, as distinguished from 
 the merely philosophical or artistic, are precisely 
 those which win and warm us in their writings. 
 Hence emanates what may be called the atmos- 
 phere of fiction ; it is social and magnetic. It 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 27 1 
 
 overflows in Fielding and Dickens, and it makes 
 the Irish good-fellowship, wit and warmth of the 
 author of " Charles O'Malley," a personal and in- 
 timate bond whereby we follow the decadence of a 
 family or its hero with compassionate interest, and 
 partake the zest of adventure, the hilarity of a feast, 
 or the gloom of baffled ambition and love, as if 
 they were the experience of one near and dear to 
 us ; we seem to have talked with instead of reading 
 " Boz " and " CorneHus O'Dowd ; " and Edmond 
 About's vivacity of style is the same liveliness of 
 spirits and impressionable temper that make the 
 best French companionship seductive or amusing. 
 
 A glance at the titles and authors of the " Lib- 
 rary of Select Novels," published during the last 
 thirty years in England and America, will recall a 
 long list of authors whose works in this sphere 
 display, not only remarkable ability of various de- 
 gree and kinds, but in many instances, have per- 
 manent literary value and a decided originality 
 which leads to their frequent reperusal. Apart 
 from his novels of social life in its casual aspects, 
 Bulwer-Lytton has effectively reproduced the 
 career of Rienzi, the remote days of Harold, and 
 the last of Pompeii, with other historic romances 
 
2/2 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 born of research and eloquent exposition : a vivid 
 book of adventures is that of " The Younger Son," 
 by Trelawney ; Hope's "Anastasius" is a perma- 
 nent picture of the East; Mrs. Shelley's "Frank- 
 enstein " a unique speculative romance ; Lockhart's 
 " Valerius," a faithful story of old Rome ; while 
 Disraeli's series of novels, considered as exclusive 
 " tableaux " of prosperous and aristocratic England, 
 as vindications of Jewish character, as transcripts 
 of life, talk, politics, fashion, scenery, manners, 
 traditions and tendencies, in the Orient and in 
 Britain, have a sparkle and a vigor which, with all 
 their defects, make them at once picturesque and 
 philosophically suggestive ; of quite diverse spirit 
 are the productions of Kingsley, which exhibit with 
 manly emphasis the possible heroic side of modern- 
 life, as Theodore Hook does of its comic and gro- 
 tesque phases. From Wilkie Collins lovers of the 
 marvellous derive, as from the dramatic essence of 
 the records of police in the great centres of civiliza- 
 tion, all the excitement of a sensational melodrama 
 made zestful by the insight of a masterly detective. 
 From the days of Maturin and Cumberland to those 
 of Horace and James Smith, Grattan, Robert Ward, 
 Saunders, Shirley Brooks, and their many clever 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 2/3 
 
 contemporaries, the English novel has been, and is, 
 the favorite and pervasive form of popular literature, 
 adapting itself to every class, gathering specific au- 
 diences, representing every grade of talent; for 
 while the authors of " Pelham" and " The Young 
 Duke" are favorites in saloon and boudoir, Rey- 
 nolds and Ainsworth have their ardent admirers 
 among the people ; and the costly three volumes 
 from Murray or Longman are counterpoised by 
 penny numbers and yellow covers ; and it is the 
 distinction of this kind of literature in Great Britain 
 that, from the time of De Foe to that of Dickens, 
 there always have been novelists who, either by the 
 honest art of their narrative, or the humane grasp 
 of their characterization, have included among their 
 readers the two extremes of society. The progress 
 of taste and the transitions of aim in English and 
 Continental novels, as well as the different kinds 
 and classes of fiction, are at once suggested by the 
 catalogue of a circulating library ; from the taking 
 name of the hero or heroine, " Evelina " or " Tre- 
 maine," we look back to "The Affianced One," 
 from a query or maxim like " Never too Late to 
 Mend," "What will He do with It?" or "Put 
 Yourself in His Place," to " Ccelebs in Search of 
 35 
 
274 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 a Wife," and, while a tramp in the slums is deep in 
 " The Vest-maker's Apprentice, or the Vampire 
 of Society," a lady at the West End is absorbed 
 by " On the Heights " or piqued by " Lothair." It 
 may be said of narrative, as of pictorial art — talent 
 therefor is abundant, but genius most rare ; yet the 
 average style is characteristic ; " Robinson Crusoe" 
 is as indigenous to Britain as " Marion Lescault" to 
 France, " Don Quixote " to Spain, or "Undine" 
 to Germany, and the difference of tone between 
 "Paul and Virginia" and "The Vicar of Wake- 
 field " is precisely what exists between English and 
 French sentiment. And that human nature has al- 
 ways been the same, is nowhere more apparent 
 than in the normal appetite for honors no culture 
 can tame, and to which there are always writers 
 who minister — Monk Lewis at one time. Miss Brad- 
 don or Mrs. Wood at another. Yet lighter excite- 
 ments now satisfy, as the popularity of novels with- 
 out one stirring incident proves. However oratory 
 or music may oversway the quiet process of read- 
 ing, this is the most insinuating and pervasive 
 medium of sentiment, the most fascinating organ 
 of opinion, the most available revelation of char- 
 acter: hence its wide and often deep influence. 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 2/5 
 
 scarcely yet appreciated by educational philoso- 
 phers. 
 
 Subjective writers can only vitalize fiction by the 
 inspiration of personal experiences ; and the best of 
 any popular series of novels will usually be found 
 to owe its superiority to some vivid reminiscence. 
 Not a few standard works of fiction are autobiogra- 
 phies : consciousness rather than observation affords, 
 if not the material, at least the magnetism of the 
 tale. This latter and rare quality is often the one 
 thing needed for success ; scores of literary crafts- 
 men who can describe effectively, construct piquant 
 or passionate dialogues, and even draw correct and 
 original outlines of character, fail to attain to unity 
 of conception and vital color, because no intensely 
 sympathetic process has given life to the figures and 
 scenes. Such novels resemble certain ambitious 
 historical pictures, wherein the drawing, grouping, 
 costume, and composition are skilful and authentic, 
 but destitute of the expression which alone leads to 
 all these traits and accessories, the reality which is 
 essential to all genuine art. So requisite, indeed, is 
 this personal sentiment — this basis of experience — 
 that Biography, in its more natural later develop- 
 ment, has suggested some of the greatest improve- 
 
2^6 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 ments in modern fiction. After reading the signifi- 
 cant details of such lives as those of Johnson, Nel- 
 son, Alfieri,' Cellini, Haydon, or Gowper, we are 
 impatient of artificial and weak portraiture in fiction. 
 Even writings other than memoirs, but strongly 
 imbued with the individuality and idiosyncrasies of 
 their authors, tend to raise and intensify the stand- 
 ard of popular fiction. Our intimate knowledge of 
 Lamb and De Quincey, revealed in their essays, 
 make insipid and half-defined personages in novels 
 more insignificant and uninteresting. History and 
 Poetry also have, in our day at least, lent a noble 
 ideal to Romance ; the animated and picturesque 
 scenes of the past, which Macaulay has delineated 
 and Tennyson arrayed in subtle beauty ; the elo- 
 quent generalizations of Carlyle, and the aesthetic 
 discrimination of Hazlitt ; Wordsworth's elaborate 
 interpretation of the influence of Nature upon Hu- 
 manity ; Ruskin's glowing illustrations of her rela- 
 tions to art, and of the latter to life, and such social 
 critics and literary purveyors as Hunt and Sidney 
 Smith, Coleridge and Buckle, Arnold and Sainte 
 Beuve, diverse as they are in scope and method, 
 have, by elevating the style and refining the graces 
 of thought and language, gradually purified and 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 277 
 
 enlarged the average taste of readers, and given a 
 kind of artistic model which even those who osten- 
 sibly write merely to amuse are obliged more or 
 less to follow and emulate. Hence the remarkable 
 advance in literary excellence of the modern novel. 
 But however much the form and style of fiction 
 have changed, the modification in its substance and 
 essence is still more remarkable. It may be stated 
 as a general fact that a hundred years ago and less 
 the purpose and meaning of a novel were confined 
 to sentiment and adventure. To trace the birth, 
 growth, and triumph or defeat of a passion — and 
 that invariably love — and to narrate romantic or 
 perilous incidents, was regarded as the whole duty 
 of the novelist. With the progress of science, the 
 increase of education, and the consequent great 
 complexity and uniformity of modern civilization, 
 the ideal or literal record thereof, which is now the 
 object of novel-writing, has grown, in the same 
 degree, more versatile, more subtle, and more sig- 
 nificant ; so that a critical study of the literature of 
 fiction would yield no inadequate revelation of the 
 characteristic traits and tendencies, the events and 
 spirit of the age. Thus the stiff, however elegant, 
 figure of Sir Charles Grandison gave place to the 
 
2/8 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 supple and selfish dandyism of Pelham, or the melan- 
 choly pride and passion of Ravenswood ; the formal 
 instructiveness of Telemachus is vivified into gra- 
 cious humor which introduced such new and signifi- 
 cant adjectives into English speech as Shandean and 
 Pickwickian ; and being regarded as a somewhat 
 sentimental pastime, the novel attained so decided a 
 rank in the annals of written thought, that in Italy 
 the " Promessi Sposi," in Germany " Wilhelm 
 Meister," and in France " Corinne," are recognized 
 illustrations of a transition period in the history of 
 national literature. 
 
 The practical effects of fiction, its influence as 
 a literary force acting on society, are but inade- 
 quately appreciated. We have got beyond the 
 traditional " b6te noire" which once associated the 
 novel with romantic allusions, whereby young wo- 
 men were sentimentalized into ruin, and life made 
 to wear no other aspect than the arena of love ; 
 rigid moralists then condemned novel-reading as 
 enervating to the mind, and productive of such false 
 views of life as to breed discontent with its reali- 
 ties, and transform the healthy thought to dreamful 
 vagaries ; this era of Laura Matilda is past. Not 
 only is love but a single and often a subordinate 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 2/9 
 
 element of the modern novel, but so far from being 
 absorbing, exclusive, and insanely intense, it is 
 comparatively calm and calculating, or at least pa- 
 tient, and not always persistent, and its interest is 
 often dependent upon psychological phenomena 
 incident to its struggles and progress, rather than 
 upon the wild and ardent pursuit of its object in 
 the face of almost insurmountable difficulties, and 
 through violent extremes of exaltation and despair. 
 In our day this passion, so long the staple of ro- 
 mance, is modified by considerations which more 
 primitive romancers and lovers would have scorned ; 
 it is self-contained, self-controlled, and thoroughly 
 respectable ; it has the complex motives and the 
 transition states which belong to modern life ; con- 
 ventionalism, political and religious causes, social 
 uniformity, the tyranny of public opinion, the va- 
 riety of personal and social interests, all combine 
 to make love, like life itself, more complicated as to 
 motive, less individual, more reflective, and conse- 
 quently less romantic than of old ; its utterances 
 and its sacrifices, as depicted in the old novels, 
 shock the heroines of this generation as extrava- 
 gant and absurd; the age of " one idea" is passed, 
 and so also has that of one passion ; instances to 
 
28o LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 the contrary are memorably exceptional. No better 
 illustration of this tempering of the master-passion, 
 both in real life and its reflection in popular fiction, 
 is needed than the fact that Anthony TroUope's 
 accepted representation of the English girl of to- 
 day portrays her as vacillating between two or 
 three admirers, uncertain to the last as to her own 
 feelings, and apparently easily reconciled to what- 
 ever matrimonial fate is hers at last. In fact, the 
 interest — not a very strong or exciting one at the 
 best — of this new species of love-tales arises not, 
 as of yore, from the intensity and persistence of 
 the passion, but from its vacillations ; not from the 
 conflict with portentous obstacles, but from the 
 due consideration of very commonplace ones ; and 
 it is not the fierce struggles of the tender passion, 
 or the happy union of the pair, whose very unro- 
 mantic fortunes we so patiently follow through 
 pages of Flemish detail, that wins our sympathies, 
 but the graphic truth of this elaborate report of 
 modern life — the artistic authenticity of the domes- 
 tic interiors and average characters ; in novels, as 
 in daily experience, we feel that the heroic and the 
 romantic have given place to the scientific age. 
 So various and typical have become this class of 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 28 1 
 
 writings that they may be considered as represen- 
 tative of almost every interest and problem of 
 modern life. The political novel, originating with 
 More's " Utopia," and attaining its most con- 
 ventional and immediate significance in Disraeli's 
 " Coningsby," and its like ; the national novel, as 
 manifest in such tales as are wrought in Germany 
 from local legends, in France from Parisian social 
 phenomena, and in England from the Hogarth- 
 like pictures of Dickens, and finding authentic ex- 
 pression in the favorite fictions of all countries ; 
 the fashionable, the rural, the legal, the ecclesi- 
 astical, the artistic, philosophic, classic, romantic, 
 sensational, and psychological novel, are distinct 
 forms of the same branch of literature, and in the 
 masterpieces thereof are interfused. It is because 
 of its versatility of fiction, ranging from the " naltve," 
 faith-like " Pilgrim's Progress" to worldly artifice, 
 like " Pelham ; " from refined delineation of man- 
 ners, such as that of Jane Austen, to the coarse me- 
 lodrama of Dumas ; from the highest literary skill 
 of a George Sand to the rude but profound charac- 
 terization which redeems the rough work of Syl- 
 vester Judd ; from the art of George Eliot to the 
 
 insight of Nathaniel Hawthorne ; and from the 
 36 
 
282 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 startling incidents of Reade to the gentle spiriting 
 of Saintine — it is because of this wide range and 
 curious contrast that, next to the weather, novels 
 are the most available and suggestive topic of aver- 
 age and random talk; for they cover the whole 
 ground of general conversation, and give scope, 
 if not inspiration, to every taste and conviction ; 
 they are vehicles of opinion, not less than " tab- 
 leaux " of society, elaborations of history as well as 
 sketches of local manners ; they are reflective and 
 descriptive, and, above all, emphatically present 
 for recognition and analysis an infinite variety of 
 human character, the most interesting and sugges- 
 tive of all subjects, whether of discussion or of sym- 
 pathy. In two quite diverse circles, and at a long 
 interval of time, I recall the long arguments, the 
 salient allusions, the genial inspiration, both of wit 
 and sentiment, of which two very different, but 
 each in its way thoroughly genuine and character- 
 istic novels — " Inheritance " and "The Initials" — 
 were the prolific occasion. As subjects of literary 
 criticism, and especially of retrospective compari- 
 son, works of fiction are the best landmarks of 
 taste. I once saw a venerable lady engaged in 
 the, to her, most interesting experiment of trying 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 283 
 
 to reperuse the favorite novel of her youth, after 
 having imbued her mind with all the wit and wis- 
 dom of recent literature. She had obtained from 
 an old library " The Children of the Abbey," the 
 secret idol of her maiden days, and seemed to doubt 
 her own identity when she read once more the 
 phrases which thrilled her young heart, now so 
 meaningless and absurd : " She screamed, and 
 would have fallen, had he not caught her in his 
 arms." How vapid compared to Rebecca's re- 
 sponse on the dizzy edge of the tower : " The 
 Jewish maiden would rather trust her soul with 
 God than her honor with the Templar!" The 
 old idea of novel-reading is justly and gracefully 
 described by Charles Sprague in his metrical essay 
 on Curiosity : 
 
 " Look now, directed by yon candle's blaze 
 Where the false shutter half its trust betrays ; 
 Mark that fair girl reclining in her bed. 
 Its curtains round her polished shoulders spread ; 
 Dark midnight reigns, the storm is up in power, 
 What keeps her waiting at that dreary hour ? 
 See where the volume on her pillow lies. 
 Claims Radcliffe or Chapone those frequent sighs ? 
 'Tis some wild legend ; now her kind eye fills, 
 
284 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 And now cold terror every fibre thrills ; 
 
 Still she reads on, in fiction's labyrinth lost. 
 
 Of tyrant fathers and of true love crossed ; 
 
 Of clanking fetters, low, mysterious groans. 
 
 Blood-crusted daggers and uncoffined bones, 
 
 Pale, gliding ghosts and fingers dropping gore, 
 
 And blue flames dancing round a dungeon-door ; 
 
 While every shadow that withdraws her look, 
 
 Glares in her face — the goblin of her book ; 
 
 Still on the leaves her cowering eye is cast. 
 
 On all sh« feasts, yet lingers for the last ; 
 
 Counts what remain, now sighs there are no more. 
 
 And now even these half tempted to skip o'er ; 
 
 At length the bad all killed, the good all pleased, 
 
 Her thirsting curiosity appeased, 
 
 She shuts the dear, dear book that made her weep, 
 
 Puts out the light, and turns away to sleep." 
 
 Even in the days when novels dealt less directly 
 with social evils, and portrayed only specific and 
 limited phases of civilized life, their practical results 
 were obvious ; they influenced fashion ; they ini- 
 tiated tastes ; they created ideals. The romance 
 of exile found popular recognition through " Eliza- 
 beth of Siberia," and " Thaddeus of Warsaw ; " 
 the sentiment of " Pamela," and the manners oi 
 Sir Charles Grandison, found hosts of imitators ; 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 285 
 
 the names of Miss Burney's heroines prevailed, and 
 may now be read on the tombstones of old and 
 new England. In France, Madame de Lafayette, 
 and afterward Madame de Genlis, influenced domes- 
 tic education and female epistolary style. " Rob- 
 inson Crusoe " lured thousands of boys to the sea. 
 And in our own times how " Werther" and " Or- 
 tis," with their prolific offspring, fostered amorous 
 despair and suicidal sacrifice, while Goethe's " Elec- 
 tive Affinities " struck the key-note of that free 
 love which has since found so many disciples ! To 
 complete and emphasize this picture of English fic- 
 tion, Macaulay cites Fielding's parsons and squires ; 
 streets and " salons," toilets and dishes in Paris 
 were, and are yet, named from the characters of 
 popular fiction. Mrs. Radcliffe is responsible for 
 more superstitious fancies and ghostly experience 
 than what is called modern spiritualism. Madame 
 de Stael created a standard of intellectual enthu- 
 siasm to which the literary ambition of her sex 
 aspired in emulating " Delphine" and " Corinne." 
 The duel in " Charles O'Malley" has taught many 
 a novice how to come off triumphant and unscathed 
 in the first ordeal; " Pelham " not only embodied 
 but encouraged a cynical type of dandyism ; and. 
 
286 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 a few years ago, all the romantic girls of the two 
 hemispheres were on the look-out for dissipated 
 and skeptical men of middle age, with latent senti- 
 ment to be developed, and latent virtue to be 
 revealed, through such a process as "Jane Eyre" 
 so successfully applied to Rochester. 
 
 But the distinctive moral aim and achievement 
 of the novel of our day is " Reform." Herein this 
 once contemned and often superficially estimated 
 branch of literature has accomplished miracles, and 
 established a very strong claim upon the sympathy, 
 respect, and admiration of Christian humanitarians. 
 When Crabbe's roughly-graphic pictures of English 
 poverty and low life appeared, his poems won the 
 patronage of comprehensive minds, like that of 
 Burke, as fitted to rouse the rich to a sense of their 
 duty to the poor, and make vividly apparent the 
 brutal degradation which eats like a canker into the 
 heart of Anglo-Saxon civilization. But how much 
 wider the scope and deeper the lesson of the novel- 
 ist ! Dickens alone has done more to enlighten 
 public sentiment, and reveal social abuses, and awa- 
 ken sympathy for the down-trodden and the neg- 
 lected in his own country, than all her Parliaments 
 and preachers. Such phrases as " Dotheboys 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 287 
 
 ^all," "Circumlocution Office," and "Barnacles," 
 lave proved watchwards of reform. The inhuman 
 ieprivations of Yorkshire boarding-schools, the 
 ;ruel misery of parish workhouses, the destruc- 
 ive delays of Chancery courts, the tyranny of 
 )fficial, the hardihood of mercantile, the sufferings 
 )f vagrant, and the possible moral beauty of jum- 
 )le life in England, have been so elaborately, em- 
 jhatically, dramatically portrayed by this gifted 
 vriter that those in authority have been shamed 
 nto the correction of abuses previously deemed 
 permanent and unmitigable evils ; while the pros- 
 perous have been moved to noble sympathy, and 
 :he wronged to heroic self-assertion. And who shall 
 estimate the probable practical result of Charles 
 R.eade's exposition of the heretofore unmolested 
 ;raft and cruelty of avaricious relatives in depriv- 
 ng innocent and rational fellow-beings of their 
 iberty under the false plea of insanity ? or his tragic 
 md fascinating illustration of the murderous ty- 
 ranny of trades-unions ? The whole " morale " of 
 economy of factory-life in Britain, its influence on 
 lealth, on character, domestic habits, childhood 
 md society, has been grimly but faithfully dehnea- 
 ;ed in Mrs. Gaskell's stories ; and if we carefully 
 
288 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 scan the entire stones of modern popular novels, 
 we shall find that scarcely a trait or temptation, a 
 tendency or abuse, which demands reform in actual 
 civilization, but has found truthful manifestation 
 therein, and been made the subject of most effec- 
 tive pleas and protests. And the ethics of romance , 
 the philosophy of modern fiction, has done, and is 
 doing, a yet more subtle and delicate work ; it 
 aspires not only to reform patent social wrongs and 
 prevalent social evils, but, by the alchemy of art, to 
 represent and analyze the highest functions and the 
 latent significance of life. Where has music found 
 more exquisite psychological interpretation, as a 
 medium of scientific and aesthetic experience, than 
 in the novels of George Sand and Miss Shep- 
 hard ? What cartoon or programme of mediaeval 
 life affords a more vivid or authentic picture there- 
 of, than "Romola" and the "Cloister and the 
 Hearth ? " Through what chronicle can we so sym- 
 pathetically follow the tragic vicissitudes of the 
 French Revolution on both sides of the channel, as 
 in the " Tale of Two Cities ; " and how inadequate 
 is any formal history to impart a clear conception 
 of social life in Queen Anne's day, compared with 
 " Henry Esmond ? " Many a traveller gazes curi- 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 289 
 
 ously from the car windows upon that marshy re- 
 gion of France where the people have to walk on 
 stilts ; but, to the world in general, the characteris- 
 tic life of that singular region was a " terra incog- 
 nita" till About painted its minutest details in 
 " Maitre Pierre." As we lunch at an inn of York 
 or Salisbury, after having examined with awe and 
 dehght their grand old Gothic-Christian temples, 
 and glanced at some quaint figure and clerical garb 
 in the street, how instinctively we desire to under- 
 stand the life, to appreciate the social phenomena 
 of a cathedral town in our fatherland, as distin- 
 guished from a metropolitan or manufacturing dis- 
 trict, how curious we are to appreciate the influence, 
 routine and results of this exceptional ecclesiastical 
 life and society ! The problem is solved for us, the 
 revelation is made to our consciousness as fully and 
 as truly as it could be by years of personal obser- 
 vation, in the novels of Anthony Trollope ; we have 
 only to begin with the " Warden," to haunt " Bar- 
 chester Towers," and become familiar with " Fram- 
 ley Parsonage," and what the average English 
 curate, vicar, deacon, canon, and bishop are ; here 
 they work, act, and feel ; what their duties, ambi- 
 tions, comforts, trials, traits, and homes are ; all 
 37 
 
290 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 becomes as familiar to us as household words. The 
 average knowledge of life in Europe existing in 
 this country is mainly derived from novels ; even 
 those who have travelled abroad owe their associa- 
 tions and their acquaintance with local details and 
 national traits to this source. Goethe's " Wilhelm 
 Meister," forty years ago, guided the sympathies 
 of American students in Germany, and to-day we 
 realize the peasant and courtly life of her small 
 principalities through Auerbach and his contempo- 
 rary novelists ; while the legendary romance of the 
 land has filled our imagination, and from the pages 
 of Tieck, Hoffmann, Grimm, Zschokke, and their 
 brother authors of fiction. Sweden was but vague- 
 ly appreciated until Fredrika Bremer revealed to 
 us her domestic interiors ; and the provincial and 
 Parisian life of France, in all its varieties, with all its 
 normal and casual traits, is more intimately familiar 
 to the reader of Balzac, George Sand, and the 
 many French novelists of the last twenty years, 
 than to the most observant unlettered native. Nor 
 can we find a better illustration at once of the ver- 
 bal skill, the artistic audacity, and the melodramatic 
 egotism, which so sharply distinguish Gallic from 
 Saxon genius in fiction, than in the novels of Victor 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 29 1 
 
 Hugo. Even Russia is beginning to make herself 
 known through this medium ; and old Spain is to 
 our imagination what she is painted in " Gil Bias " 
 and "Don Quixote;" Scotland as romanticized 
 by Scott ; and Denmark as reflected in the naive 
 genius of Hans Andersen ; while the shadowy mar- 
 vel and mystery of the "Wandering Jew," as 
 depicted by Dore, .finds substantial embodiment in 
 the picturesque and dramatic story of Eugene Sue. 
 And if we have sojourned in youth in Italy, become 
 somewhat domesticated in one of her ancient and 
 artistic cities, and hived delectable memories there- 
 of, which it refreshes us to brighten when hampered 
 and oppressed by the bustle of materialism of our 
 new country, how most effectually can we work the 
 miracle ? What enchanter's wand will bring back 
 at a touch the scenes so fondly remembered ? That 
 of the novelist : if it be the historical aspect we 
 crave, Manzoni, Guerrazi, Rosini, or Azeglio, take 
 us into the midst of Lombard famine and pestilence, 
 or, to the " Siege of Florence," murmur in our 
 willing ears the anthems of San Marco, or lead our 
 reverent steps to the studio of Angelo, until all the 
 wit, patriotism, and piety of the middle ages are 
 revived in architecture, and aims, in art, and hero- 
 
292 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 ism, and faith. If, on the other hand, it is for the 
 familiar scenes of our experience we long — the life 
 of to-day, the street, shop, palazzo, church, peas- 
 ant, priest, fair one, artist, greeting, grace, pas- 
 time and passion of modern Tuscan or Roman life — 
 then Adolphus Trollope, Hawthorne, Andersen, or 
 Rufini, will so picture every phase and feature 
 thereof that we are as completely transported to 
 those endeared and characteristic scenes as if waft- 
 ed on the magic carpet of the Eastern tale. Many, 
 indeed, of the greatest triumphs of modern fiction, 
 as a means and method of reproducing what is 
 memorably or locally significant, originate in the 
 application of artistic principles to romantic litera- 
 ture. It is by virtue of this comparatively recent 
 experiment that so many regions of the world, so 
 many peculiar forms of human life, and special 
 kinds of natural scenery and phenomena, are laid 
 open for the intimate knowledge and the aesthetic 
 enjoyment of readers separated from them by seas 
 and mountains ; often isolated from all possibility 
 of acquaintance therewith by personal observation. 
 A philosopher, referring to this tendency of our 
 times to details in verbal as well as pictorial art, 
 remarks : " The subjective spirit, causing a percep- 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 293 
 
 tion of the duty of exactness, has contributed to 
 foster a realistic taste in art, which requires such 
 minuteness of treatment that a work of fiction so 
 constructed, while preserving the freshness of 
 Nature, may violate moral perspective." Of all the 
 novelists of the day the one who has best succeed- 
 ed in combining this photographic exactness with 
 the requisite scope of general effect is George 
 Eliot. Through her we know the " midland home- 
 steads " of England as accurately, as regards their 
 still-life, as if depicted by an old Flemish artist ; 
 smithy, and cart-horses, cottage windows, road, 
 garden, dairy, kitchen, stream, orchard, urchin, 
 cattle, rickyard, park, and paddock — every object of 
 the landscape and household is drawn and colored 
 to the life with the conscientious fidelity of a pre- 
 Raphaelite ; and yet the very names of " Adam 
 Bede " and "The Mill on the Floss " wake to the 
 memory from the midst of all these fresh and faith- 
 ful details above and beyond, though so absolutely 
 identified with them, the strong, salient, pervasive 
 individualities of character, which dominate while 
 they take their color from the still-life. 
 
 Sainte Beuve and other aesthetic critics trace the 
 spirit and feeling whence arose the public opinion 
 
294 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 which ushered in the French Revolution and the 
 modern humanitarian ideas to the influence of " La 
 Nouvelle Helolse " and its author — " that sensibili- 
 ty," observes the former, " which towards the close 
 of the eighteenth century, and chiefly through the 
 influence of Jean-Jacques, became dominant in all 
 young hearts ; " and Madame de Stael used to say 
 that the abduction of Clarissa Harlowe was one of 
 the events of her youth. A more clear and "naitve " 
 exposition of the state of France just before the 
 Revolution, the process and progress thereof, and 
 the facts of life among the peasantry during the 
 career of Napoleon, can nowhere be found than in 
 the series of graphic romances of reality from the 
 combined pens of Erckmann and Chatrian. Pop- 
 ular interest in the so-called modern science of 
 political economy was first awakened in England by 
 Miss Martineau's tales illustrative of that subject. 
 Washington AUston sought weird inspiration for 
 his pencil in the " pity and terror" embodied in 
 Ann Radcliffe's novels. Manzoni made Lake Como 
 and its environs classic ground by his " Promessi 
 Sposi," and Saint Pierre invested the Isle of France, 
 as Mauritius used to be called, with a permanent 
 charm by his "Paul and Virginia;" while the 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 295 
 
 venerable cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris wears 
 a new human and historical significance since Victor 
 Hugo made it the nucleus and inspiration of his- 
 toric fiction. Even the oldest nursery-tales, which 
 have been the mysterious delight of successive gen- 
 erations of children, have been expanded and 
 revived into fresh suggestiveness by the apt and 
 graceful pen of Miss Thackeray ; and, as we write, 
 that ever-renewed problem — the conflict between 
 the medieval intolerance of the Roman Church and 
 modern civilization, which the Itahan patriot soldier 
 and the English politician so diversely grapple with 
 — has found in each an instinctive resource for 
 popular protest and appeal in Garibaldi's "novella" 
 of "Cliela" and Disraeli's "Lothair." No finer 
 analysis of rationalism and Romanism can be 
 named than that elaborated in one of George Sand's 
 novels. The high walls of the Brussels " pensions " 
 no longer conceal their interior life since the Bronte 
 sisters have delineated it with Flemish detail and 
 impassioned insight. Mendacity has been nomen- 
 clated by Mrs. Opie, and Balzac has made patent the 
 worth of la femme de trente ans. Such instances 
 of the magic results of this species of literature in 
 enlarging our minute knowledge, and giving shape 
 
296 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 and impulse to practical ideas, as well as latent sen 
 timent, might be indefinitely extended. They 
 memorably exemplify the truth that the novel in it; 
 most comprehensive sense, and as a record of social 
 life and local character, forms a connecting link 
 more elaborate than song and more subtile than 
 history, between the ages, reflecting and conserving 
 their traits, and yielding that " touch of Nature 
 which makes the whole world kin." 
 
 A striking evidence of this normal agency o( 
 popular fiction is before us in the " Note Book " of 
 our own most accomplished "raconteur," who, in 
 view of his baffled and patient novitiate, must have 
 experienced a singular complacency in accidentally 
 encountering his, at last, recognized romances as 
 the literary ornaments of an ancient home of genius 
 in his fatherland. "The chimney-pieces," writes 
 Hawthorne, "were carved and emblazoned, and 
 all, so far as I could judge, was in perfect keeping ; 
 so that, if a prince or noble of three centuries ago 
 were to lodge at Newstead Abbey, he would 
 hardly know that he had strayed out of his own 
 century ; and yet he might have known, as there 
 are volumes of poetry and light literature in these 
 royal bedchambers ; and in that of Henry VIII. 1 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 297 
 
 >aw ' The House of the Seven Gables ' and ' The 
 scarlet Letter.' " 
 
 It would be well for those disposed to undervalue 
 ;he literature of fiction, as such, to consider the in- 
 structive origin and great antiquity, as well as pre • 
 /alence, of the narrative element of " story " as a 
 "orm and phase of written and oral expression. 
 Strictly speaking, Homer was a ballad-novelist ; 
 Dante and Milton cast in this shape their immortal 
 religious poems ; and the simile of Tasso, in the 
 Dpening stanza of " Jerusalem Delivered," of the 
 medicinal cup with the honeyed rim, is applicable 
 to all allegories and fables as well as to legendary 
 and ethical tales ; Chaucer's "Canterbury Pilgrims," 
 Spenser's " Faerie Queen," and Shakespeare's 
 peerless characterizations are moulded from and 
 into story ; and although such standard poetical 
 works are so much more grand and gracious' than 
 the modern novel, a kindred quality — that which 
 appeals to curiosity, to the passion for adventure, 
 to the fortunes and fate of heroes and heroines, and 
 the influence of events on character, makes the two 
 species, in a manner and to a degree, homogene- 
 ous ; so that the modern novel is a prose epic, or may 
 be such in force and finish. Hence it has marked 
 38 
 
298 LITERATURE OF PICTIOX. 
 
 an era in letters as well as its more ambitious kin- 
 dred — the classic and romantic schools in France, 
 the decline of chivalry in Spain, and the Puritan 
 era in England ; ,for the kind of reading which now 
 takes us from May Fair to Belgravia first sprung to 
 vigorous life most appropriately in Cheapside and 
 Bedford Jail, through Bunyan and De Foe ; while 
 for st)de, scientific analysis and refinement of sen- 
 timent, to say nothing of artistic ability, Balzac 
 and George Sand represent most effectively the 
 traits and tendencies of the French mind. 
 
 So capable is the novel of atmosphere as well as 
 outline, that it best conserves what is most un- 
 translatable, almost incomprehensible to foreigners 
 — English humor ; and so elastic and adaptive is 
 the vehicle of fiction, that the solemn "morale" 
 of Hannah More and Dr. Johnson, the lightsome 
 comedy of Hook and Lever, the hilarious vulgar- 
 ism of Smollett, and the delicate touch of Jane 
 Austen find therein adequate expression. Com- 
 pare Moore's " Zeluco," a popular novel in 1786, 
 with " Ivanhoe " and " Vanity Fair," and what an 
 entire contrast of style, subject, and sympathy ! 
 Nor is this variety less evident in the motive oi 
 novel writers : for, from being always artistic, it is 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 299 
 
 not unfrequently personal ; almost every mind, if 
 at all fluent and introspective, has its own novel — 
 that is, the reproduction in story of individual 
 experience — vaguely conceived ; and not a few 
 cherish the purpose of utterance thereof. The in- 
 ducement to novel-writing is often satiric. Field- 
 ing wrote to ridicule Richardson, Miss Austen to 
 expose the sentimentality of her contemporary 
 romance-writers ; Disraeli has pilloried, in fiction, 
 his political opponents ; Lady Bulwer revenged 
 thereby her conjugal wrongs, real or imaginary ; 
 and Madame Dudevant and Alfred de Musset's 
 brother savagely exposed the details of a love- 
 quarrel in " EUe et Lui " and " Lui et EUe;" 
 while Thackeray took off the Tyburn Plutarchs in 
 his "Catharine." " Hudibras " is narrative or 
 novelist in form as well as " Rasselas " and " Gul- 
 liver," a notable instance of the union of satire and 
 story. 
 
 And yet to the same popular form turns " The 
 Man of Feeling," as well as " The Man of Sense." 
 Mackenzie, Rousseau, Mrs. Inchbald, Goldsmith, 
 and Wilson, imbue the novel with sentiment, 
 " naltve " or romantic, with as much confidence and 
 aptitude as Swift and Thackeray with caustic humor, 
 
300 LITERATURE OF FICTION. 
 
 Plumer Ward with social knowledge, or Charles 
 Reade with dramatic incident ; so that in an eclectic 
 point of view, and through candid retrospect and 
 observation of the whole ancient, vast, and prolific 
 field of story, we recognize therein a vital literary 
 element or indication of the "solidarite humaine," 
 indicated not only by its exposition and conserva- 
 tion of the normal and evanescent in life, manners 
 and character, but by the almost scientific divisions 
 of subjects which include every rank, profession, 
 class and phenomena, just as do clubs, newspapers, 
 saloons, churches, streets, districts, and other con- 
 ventional distinctions of modern society. 
 
 There are two classes who dppose novel-reading 
 and disparage novel-writing — those who profess a 
 high intellectual ideal of literature and would ex- 
 clude fictitious narrative therefrom as beneath its 
 dignity, and those who regard imaginary adven- 
 tures as too frivolous and false to occupy a virtu- 
 ous, far less a religious mind. The former objec- 
 tors are, for the most part, ignorant of the progress 
 and purification, the enlargement and refinement, 
 the art and science, the "morale" and benignity, 
 of this kind of reading which they wilfully ignore ; 
 and the latter lose sight, not only of the direct 
 
LITERATURE OF FICTION. 3OI 
 
 truth and pure sentiment thus inculcated, but fail to 
 estimate the vast moral benefit of that sympathy 
 fostered by the best fiction which wins the thoughts 
 from self, and opens the mind and heart to a fresh 
 recognition of, and relation to, humanity. 
 
302 JOSEPH G. COGSWELL, LL.D. 
 
 JOSEPH G. COGSWELL, LL.D. 
 
 Although several years have elapsed since Dr. 
 Cogswell retired from the office of Librarian of the 
 Astor Library, to pass the remainder of his life 
 with his kindred in Massachusetts, occasional visits 
 and correspondence have kept his influence and his 
 friendships intact among the many who knew and 
 loved him in this city ; and to these the tidings of 
 his demise, which took place on Sunday, November 
 26, 1 87 1, however to be expected in the course of 
 nature, will bring a deep sadness and sense of keen 
 bereavement. He was one of the few men of cul- 
 ture in our busy land who possess the instinct of 
 intellectual hospitality. He was a consistent and 
 constant purveyor in the fields of knowledge. De- 
 void of both literary and personal ambition, which 
 are so apt to absorb in selfish isolation the gifts 
 and graces of the mind, he gave to sympathy what 
 so many cultivated men give to self. In early life 
 this noble feeling found vent in educational experi- 
 ments and activity, and later in bibliography. He 
 
JOSEPH G. COGSWELL, LL.D. 303 
 
 bad the happy faculty of enlisting the intelligent 
 co-operation of those around him in enterprises for 
 the advancement of learning and the pursuit of 
 truth. He won the confidence of the young, and 
 ministered to the best aspirations of the mature and 
 aged. His love of letters was eminently disinter- 
 ested ; his literary tastes were singularly social. 
 He had the zest without the inquisiti-veness of the 
 collector, the affinities without the pride of the 
 scholar. His heart was as warm and as constant 
 as his intellect was well balanced and active. 
 Hence his influence was as auspicious as attractive. 
 The youths he taught, fifty years ago, at North- 
 ampton, cherished his good-will and maintained 
 their personal affection through life. He not only 
 had the wisdom to conceive and the patience to 
 collect the library with which his name is so hon- 
 orably associated, but the tact and the persuasion 
 to induce its founder to initiate the noble institu- 
 tion, and his son to enlarge and complete it into a 
 grand monument of private beneficence. No man 
 ever more fully and faithfully appreciated the worth 
 of friendship. He never forgot its sacred obliga- 
 tions ; and it was a great privilege to those honored 
 by his regard to recognize and cultivate it with 
 
304 JOSEPH G. COGSWELL, LL.D. 
 
 unabated zeal and affection. But a few years ago 
 the survivors of his school, who could be brought 
 together at a brief notice, in Boston gave their 
 dear old master a dinner, at which some of our 
 most eminent professional men bore grateful testi- 
 mony to their intellectual obligations and private 
 affection. His old pupils from the South sought 
 him out, on their annual visits to this region, to 
 renew their expressions of fealty. He delighted 
 to aid the researches of inquirers in every sphere 
 who sought information at the fair temple of know- 
 ledge over which he so benignly presided in his 
 later years. He was the favored guest in the 
 homes of the fair and the gifted ; and the children 
 of the friends of his youth looked up to him with 
 filial partiality. A gentle nature, his culture was 
 harmonized and hallowed by character. 
 
 Dr. Cogswell was born at Ipswich, Mass., in the 
 year 1786 ; in 1806 he was graduated at Harvard 
 University. Ten years after, he joined his friends 
 George Ticknor and Edward Everett in Europe, 
 and passed some years in continental travel and 
 study at the German Universities ; his attention 
 was specially given to educational problems and 
 bibliography. On his return to the United States, 
 
JOSEPH G. COGSWELL, LL.D. 305 
 
 he was appointed Librarian and Professor of Geo- 
 logy and Mineralogy at Harvard; and, in 1823, 
 established, in conjunction with Mr. George Ban- 
 croft, the Round Hill School at Northampton. 
 The plan of this seminary was novel, and based on 
 an examination of the German and English sys- 
 tems of education. It was attended by students 
 from all parts of the United States, many of whom 
 have since attained distinction in every sphere of 
 life ; and no institution among us exerted so great 
 an influence in advancing the aim and enlarging 
 the scope of academic culture. After quitting this 
 field of labor, he took charge of a somewhat similar 
 institution in Raleigh, N. C. In 1830 he became 
 editor of " The New York Review," one of the 
 ablest critical journals then established in America. 
 Becoming the intimate friend and companion of 
 John Jacob Astor, he arranged with him the plan 
 of the Astor Library, was appointed a trustee of 
 the fund for its creation, and went abroad to exam- 
 ine the public libraries in Europe, and select and 
 purchase the books. The care, discrimination, 
 economy, and judgment with which he fulfilled his 
 mission, during these visits abroad, are attested by 
 the character of the works collected, their arrange- 
 39 
 
306 JOSEPH G. COGSWELL, LL.D. 
 
 ment, and the extraordinary knowledge he dis- 
 played as to their history, comparative value, and 
 respective significance. He gave the Astor Library 
 his own valuable series of works relating to bibli- 
 ography, as he had before united, with a friend 
 in presenting his Alma Mater with a rare cabinet 
 of minerals and numerous plants for the botanica 
 department. Dr. Cogswell found in the Astoi 
 Library a congenial shrine and vocation. There 
 for several years he ministered to the seekers aftei 
 knowledge with an urbanity, patience, and insighl 
 that made him an intellectual benefactor. But al 
 these gracious duties and indefatigable labors nevei 
 interfered with, but enriched his social life. Hi: 
 anecdotes of eminent men, with whom he had en- 
 joyed intercourse, were full of interest. His con- 
 versation abounded in rare information, curious 
 incidents, and delightful associations. The fresh- 
 ness of his feelings and the affluence of his mine 
 made old age as rich in resources as it was magneti( 
 in fellowship ; and he passed away full of years anc 
 honor, and crowned with the esteem and affectioi 
 of more than one generation of friends, to whom hi: 
 example is as precious as his memory is endeared. 
 
THE LATE MRS. SYDNEY BROOKS. 307 
 
 THE LATE MRS. SYDNEY BROOKS. 
 
 ED AT Newport, R. I., on the Evening of Novem- 
 ber 30, 1871, Frances Dehon, Wife 
 OF Sydney Brooks. 
 
 This sad event terminates a rare and beautiful so- 
 il ministry, which those virho intimately shared will 
 iver cease to remember with affectionate gratitude. 
 When a gifted and exemplary friend, remarkable 
 r wide intelligence, disinterested sympathy, and 
 eerful companionship, is taken away, with no 
 [ipse of mind, with unabated freshness of heart, 
 d with faith in God and heaven, undimmed by 
 lysical decay, however the bereaved may suffer 
 d mourn, there is reason for patient resignation, 
 d for hopeful memory, which chastens all selfish 
 rrow. But there is also a lesson imparted to 
 rviving love and to fond remembrance which 
 ould not be lightly cherished. She whose de- 
 rture we so keenly regret was subjected to a test 
 character which only the most pure, kind and 
 thful natures can bear unscathed. 
 
308 THE LATE MRS. SYDNEY BROOKS. 
 
 Her life was singularly prosperous and happy, so 
 much so that, in her last hours, she deemed it un- 
 christian to complain of the summons that desolated 
 a household and saddened a host of friends, depriv- 
 ed society of an ornament, and life of a benignant 
 presence. 
 
 To what causes may we ascribe her exceptional 
 influence and her reign of love ? To unswerving 
 principles of duty, to a just and generous disposi- 
 tion, to a wise culture and a true heart. 
 
 Educated at a period when female accomplish- 
 ments were more solid, and serener than those to 
 which the present generation aspires, she acquired 
 a knowledge and appreciation of English literature, 
 under the teachings of that fine scholar and gen- 
 tleman. Dr. Park, who, recognizing her capacity, 
 delighted in storing her mind with the choicest ex- 
 amples of our vernacular. 
 
 To this wholesome discipline and resource wen 
 soon added the best fruits of continental travel ir 
 Europe. 
 
 At the soirees of Mme. Recamier, at the vilh 
 of a highly educated Italian family on Lag< 
 Maggiore, in the highest circles of London, he 
 mind expanded and became enriched with acquisi 
 
THE LATE MRS. SYDNEY BROOKS. 309 
 
 tions and associations that made her the genial 
 companion of the most cultivated foreigners, while 
 her friends and connections at home included men 
 who stood high on the roll of American scholars 
 and statesmen. 
 
 Hence an uncommon breadth and versatility of 
 mind made her society as charming as it was 
 cheering. 
 
 With an inborn love of study and conversation 
 she united a sense of social duty, which made her 
 a centre and a magnet to kindred minds. Nor was 
 this all. She deeply felt the obligations arising from 
 independent position to promote the happiness 
 of others, old and young, rich or poor. Unselfish 
 by nature, with a rectitude of purpose which noth- 
 ing could modify, she moved in the domestic circle 
 and amid her chosen friends with a cordial, con- 
 sistent, cheerful sympathy that made her hospitali- 
 ties delightful, and her home a scene of undying 
 enjoyment. 
 
 There every variety of character finds a congen- 
 ial atmosphere — the friends of her youth, the man 
 of letters, the benign physician, the beloved pastor, 
 the naval and army officer, the noble exile, the 
 man of science and of society, the beautiful woman, 
 
3IO THE LATE MRS. SYDNEY BROOKS. 
 
 the budding girl, the ingenuous youth, the child and 
 the venerable in years — all were conscious of a 
 welcome, were magnetized by a companionship and 
 cheered by a kindness experienced nowhere else. 
 
 Few in this world so often and so instinctively 
 made "sunshine in a shady place" for the lonely, 
 the discontented and baffled. 
 
 While outwardly pursuing the conventional 
 course which custom and wealth prescribe to the 
 life of society, she yet obeyed a higher love, and 
 was true to a nobler mission as daughter, wife, and 
 friend ; to what extent, and how thoroughly, is 
 known only to those who now feel themselves bereft 
 of a comfort, a charm or a cheer which can never 
 be equally supplied to their hearts again. Social 
 benignities like these, so habitual and so vivid, are 
 what redeem life to the consciousness of the intel- 
 ligent and the true-hearted. Let us be grateful 
 they have been ours, and cherish the example, now 
 that it is hallowed by a death met with the tran- 
 quil trust of faith and love. 
 
 The departure of this valued friend was followed, in the course of 
 a few days, by the writer's own sudden and unlooked-for death, 
 which took place on the 17th Dec, 1871. 
 
ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 311 
 
 ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 
 
 (These papers were found in the author's desk, after his death, and 
 appeared in the " Liberal Christian," in the year 1872.) 
 
 No. L 
 
 The worst of the recent disasters in France, 
 traced to their original source, arose from supersti- 
 tion and scepticism. These blights withered the 
 moral force essential to civil purity and power. 
 What of intellectual life modified the prevalent sen- 
 sualism was unelevated by faith : the " spiritufelle" 
 element was unhallowed by the spiritual. In other 
 words, truth was in abeyance ; disbelief in God crea- 
 ted distrust in humanity ; hence the crushing influ- 
 ence of superior physical resources invading the in- 
 adequate self-reliance pervading France. Observers 
 of moral sensibility had long recognized these facts, 
 prophesied a fatal climax, anticipated an imminent 
 Nemesis. During the materially brilliant but morally 
 indigent years that preceded, one of the few hopeful 
 agencies at work, one of the rare effective protests 
 heard, one of the exceptional appeals to absolute 
 
312 ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 
 
 principles, to genuine faith, to sacred means and meth- 
 ods, came from a Protestant pulpit ; around it clus- 
 tered strangers from far and pure shrines of personal 
 faith, and a steadfast, devoted group of the earnest 
 and true of the people of that frivolous and fashion- 
 able centre of modern civilization. For thirty years 
 a voice of sincerity, of conviction, of aspiration, and 
 of trust rose steadfastly there, above the murmurs 
 of discontent, the shouts of revelry, the persiflage 
 of caprice. That voice was potent because it was 
 sincere, consoling because it was sympathetic, au- 
 thoritative because it was true. A strange anomaly 
 when we consider it — the simple fact that, in a capi- 
 tal identified with unscrupulous pleasure and in- 
 credulous science, the form of speech which, in 
 countries where it is most universal, has so rarely 
 attained, in modern times, to the permanent charm 
 and dignity of a branch of effective literature, 
 should so triumph where it was least congenial to na- 
 tional taste and social habit. Eight volumes of the 
 sermons of Athanase Laurent Charles Coquerel, 
 his select utterances between the years 1819 and 
 1832, finished in style, forcible in argument, tender 
 in tone and harmonious in deep convictions, attest 
 the fidelity and the genius of a preacher whose 
 
ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 313 
 
 words have been translated into English, German, 
 and Dutch, and are a part of the standard religious 
 literature of the age. For a similar phenomenon 
 elsewhere the best parallel may be found in the 
 discourses of Channing and Robertson. The equip- 
 ment and facility indicated by this fact were, indeed, 
 manifest in other literary and rhetorical labors. 
 M. Coquerel for two years was a legislator. M. 
 Dupin, the President of the Chamber of Deputies, 
 attempted to ridicule his pleas for a Republic based 
 on free religion ; but subsequent events have con- 
 firmed the theory with melancholy emphasis, until 
 now the least philosophic minds recognize the fact 
 that, to attain to civic integrity and freedom. French- 
 men must be able to trust each other, and to do so 
 must believe in something besides Comte's hier- 
 archy, and maintain a faith with a more vital basis 
 than conventional church traditions. In the cause 
 of popular education the same accomplished worker 
 also wrote of" Orthodoxie Moderne, Christianisme 
 Experimentale ; " collated and classified , sacred 
 biography, recorded an analytical history of the 
 Bible, edited liberal religious journals, advocated 
 moderate republicanism in the councils of the 
 
 nation, and by pen and voice and pastoral sympathy 
 40 
 
314 ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 
 
 and service, fostered pure and primitive Christianity 
 in countless hearts. 
 
 It was as a preacher, in the most significant mean- 
 ing of the word, that he felt his true scope and duty. 
 To proclaim, illustrate and enforce the vital truths, 
 the pure spirit of Christianity, was the great end 
 and aim of his life. It was a mission which involv- 
 ed almost a single-handed conflict with a conven- 
 tional and impractical creed, with a stolid indiffer- 
 ence and a positive scepticism ; for, such in a broad 
 view, was the state of things in the capital of 
 France. Nowhere had Romanism so completely 
 degenerated into hollow observance, and nov/here 
 had utter disbelief attained so wide a supremacy 
 And what were the means and method of M. Co- 
 querel's preaching ? Rare natural intelligence, a 
 generous culture and a devout heart. The last was 
 his best and most characteristic inspiration ; and it 
 is a curious question how and where so genuine an 
 exemplar of the gentle and earnest piety we asso- 
 ciate with the most unsophisticated yet aspiring 
 natures, found this original impulse, the early na- 
 ture, the primal direction leading to so gracious 
 and holy a result ? As far as mere doctrinal theol- 
 ogy is concerned and the habit of self-reliance in 
 
ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 315 
 
 religious inquiry, the mystery is easily solved. 
 Born of a Protestant family, a son of the Reformed 
 Church, he imbibed the essential principles thereof 
 in childhood and confirmed them by the studies of 
 his youth. But the spirit he was of came from that 
 tender trust in God with which learning and intel- 
 lectual aptitudes having nothing to do. This be- 
 nign and auspicious endowment for the Christian 
 ministry may be distinctly traced to those who had 
 the charge of his boyhood, who fostered into " vic- 
 torious clearness" the religious instincts of his soul. 
 Early bereft of maternal care, his domestic educa- 
 tion was a labor of love to two accomplished and 
 conscientious women, the sisters of his mother. 
 One of them is well known in literature, although 
 of the several volumes of poetry from her pen 
 which appeared in London, between the years 1782 
 and 1815, not one maintains a place in current me- 
 trical literature. But she was something more than 
 a graceful versifier ; taste and necessity combined to 
 make her an assiduous worker in the field of letters. 
 She first translated the works of Humboldt into Eng- 
 lish, and the "Personal Narrative " of Bonpland. 
 Yet, by that inevitable law which tests intellectual 
 products in all time, the two productions which 
 
3l6 ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 
 
 have preserved the name and consecrated the mem- 
 ory of this industrious writer and noble woman 
 are the offspring of what was most real in her ex- 
 perience of life and most vital in the sentiments of 
 her heart — Letters and a Hymn ; the former are 
 among the most authentic contemporary records of 
 the French Revolution. She sympathized with the 
 Girondists, and was imprisoned and in danger of 
 sharing their tragic fate. What she saw in those 
 terrible days, what she heard and knew, what hap- 
 pened to her friends ; in a word, the facts of the time 
 noted by her simplicity and truth, are still referred 
 to by historians and philosophers, and familiar to 
 average readers. And the pure and pious utter- 
 ances of her muse, chastened by sorrow and con- 
 fiding in God, is a lyrical prayer dear to all sects, 
 cherished in all Christian households, consecrated 
 by tender and devout memories to many hearts. 
 No wonder that, years after the death of Helen 
 Maria Williams, her nephew, become a renowned 
 preacher, was deeply moved to hear sung in an 
 English church : " Whilst Thee I Seek, Protecting 
 Power." Listening to that hymn, it is easy to 
 imagine the kind of religious atmosphere familiar 
 to Athanase Coquerel's childhood. It was vital. 
 
ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 31/ 
 
 natural, instinctive, free, and faithful ; not dogmatic, 
 cheerless, and conventional ; a sentiment of the 
 heart, not a doctrine of the head. Thenceforth 
 faith was never alienated in his soul from love, from 
 duty, and from hope, but harmonized and hallowed 
 thereby. Hence he appealed to the affections ; he 
 recognized the paternity of God, the supremacy of 
 conscience, the brotherhood of Christ. These prin- 
 ciples, this spirit were, in his view, the only hope 
 and foundation of civil freedom, the only resources 
 for individual peace and progress, the only hope of 
 humanity. Actuated by these convictions, inspired 
 by this spirit, he preached with authority, persua- 
 sion, sincerity, success. His method was to tho- 
 roughly master his theme by meditative sympathy, 
 arrange its discussion clearly, prepare an analysis 
 thereof, and then give free, clear, impressive ex- 
 pression thereto, from an ever-fluent, ever-apposite 
 vocabulary, correct, appropriate, and effective. 
 
 The example of M. Coquerel is another evidence 
 of the truth that the inculcation of religious truth 
 is a vital process only when inspired by soulful 
 piety ; that learning, facility of discourse, rhetori- 
 cal gifts, however effective in other spheres, are but 
 the framework and medium of pulpit eloquence. 
 
3l8 ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 
 
 which is essentially born and bred in a faith of the 
 heart ; and this, in the instance before us, though 
 instinctive, received its auspicious direction and con- 
 firmation from the influence of a pure, devout, en- 
 lightened woman. The tone of his early culture 
 was Anglo-Saxon far more than Gallic. Though 
 born in Paris, he spoke English before French. 
 His ancestors were non-conformists in religion ; 
 freedom and faith were domestic traditions. Lau- 
 rence Coquerel, a florist of Rouen, was an ardent 
 Jansenist. He gave his children a religious educa- 
 tion, and his younger daughter was named for the 
 pious mother of St. Augustine, Monica ; she was 
 the earliest convert to Protestantism, and married 
 Augustine Du Fosse, of a Jansenist family. He was 
 the well-known author of numerous writings against 
 the Trinity. Exiled to England, he found shelter and 
 sympathy from the wife of an English army officer, 
 Charles Williams ; and when Du Fosse recovered 
 his estate he frequently enjoyed the society of his 
 old benefactors at the Chateau Du Fosse. After 
 many pleasant sojourns there they established them- 
 selves in France. Their intimate relations with a 
 nephew of Madame Du Fosse led to his marriage 
 with Ceciha WiUiams, who thus became the mother 
 
ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 319 
 
 of Athanase Coquerel. At her decease, as we have 
 seen, his aunts Persis and Helen assumed the care 
 of the gifted boy. The latter was proud of her 
 Scotch ancestry, and loved to relate the fact that 
 they had fought under the banner of the Covenant- 
 ers ; while she impressed upon her nephew the 
 rather complacent assurance that one of his progen- 
 itors had married the daughter of a Rochelle mer- 
 chant, who took refuge in England after the revo- 
 cation of the Edict of Nantes. Thus Huguenot or 
 Covenanter blood was the familiar family tradition 
 and pride of his childhood, to which he was instinc- 
 tively faithful. 
 
 Nor was the intellectual atmosphere of his boy- 
 hood and youth less auspicious. Helen Maria 
 Williams enjoyed a literary reputation exceptional 
 in those days, when female celebrities in letters were 
 rare, especially among English women. Some 
 of' her verses had been translated by two members 
 of the French Academy, while her letters on the 
 Revolution were extensively circulated and highly 
 esteemed, she having ardently shared its aspira- 
 tions and deeply deplored its horrible crimes and 
 fatal issue. Her " salon " was frequented by emi- 
 nent men, such as the two Cheniers, Ginguene, the 
 
320 ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 
 
 poet Lebrun, Bernardin St. Pierre, the painter 
 Gerard, Bishop Gregoire, Kosciusko, Say, especi- 
 ally Humboldt, whose fourteen volumes she trans- 
 lated, and who was her correspondent for many 
 years, and continued to the last faithful in her affec- 
 tions to her nephews Charles and Athanase. The 
 former, after his preliminary study for the ministry, 
 preferred to become a lay writer, and is well known 
 for his admirable Protestant and literary works, and 
 as an efficient and accomplished journalist. They 
 never forgot their obligations to their pious kins- 
 women. To their memory Athanase dedicated his 
 " Poetiques de I'Ancien Testament." After having 
 surveyed the Bible history, and evoked its most 
 hallowed names in an introduction, he ends with 
 the verse : 
 
 " A ma memoire fidele, 
 Chacun des ces noms rappelle 
 De femmes qui m'aimaient les premieres legons." 
 
 Helen Williams had given an asylum to St. 
 Etienne, when his head was in danger ; other 
 friends who sheltered him paid the forfeit of their 
 lives for so doing. When imprisoned in the Lux- 
 embourg he held family worship every night with 
 
ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 32 1 
 
 his fellow-captives ; and, besides this heroic alli- 
 ance with a religious reformer, she, in later and 
 more fearful times, found a devoted friend in M. 
 Monod f^ere ; and, ever eluding the bitter con- 
 troversies which ensued in the next generation, the 
 latter's son never quite forgot the affectionate mem- 
 ories of childhood. Thus the literary renown, the 
 ancestral traditions, the personal experience, the 
 private convictions, and the social relations of 
 Coquerel's nearest and dearest relatives, were iden- 
 tified with the best intellectual culture and the most 
 free and fervid Christian faith. 
 
 After a course of instruction in pension at Ge- 
 neva, the brothers Coquerel entered the divinity- 
 school at Montauban in 181 1. Athanase com- 
 pleted his studies in less than five years, and went 
 to Paris, where he found his kinswomen in very 
 difficult circumstances. The fall of the first empire 
 had so reduced their means that he had recourse to 
 his pen for their support. In this painful situation 
 he declined the pastoral office for which his talent 
 as a speaker, and his equal knowledge of French 
 and English, especially befitted him. Called to the 
 Reformed Church of St. Helen, he refused because 
 he could not conscientiously subscribe the Thirty- 
 41 
 
322 ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 
 
 nine Articles — a condition of his ordination. He 
 determined to commit himself to no formal creed. 
 
 When the third secular celebration of the anni- 
 versary of the Reformation occurred, on the 2d 
 of November, 1817, the young minister occupied 
 the orator's chair. His sermon breathed the same 
 comprehensive view and liberal tone which subse- 
 quently ever inspired his discourse. Nominated 
 as preacher to the Walloon Church of Amsterdam, 
 his success in Holland was immediate and com- 
 plete. He officiated at two neighboring churches 
 much frequented by university students, before 
 whom he was invited to give regular annual ser- 
 mons. While this distinction was flattering to the 
 Walloon communion, the Synod of the Reformed 
 Church of Holland found a technical difficulty in the 
 way of his permanent settlement. By a law of their 
 organization, an unsettled French pastor could not 
 officiate in their churches without a previous theo- 
 logical examination ; he was accused also of too 
 advanced doctrines. The Amsterdam, Leyden, and 
 Utrecht Consistories absolved him from the rule ; 
 hence a somewhat violent controversy. Some were 
 for maintaining the engagement with him, and 
 others for abandoning it. While he declined sub- 
 
ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 323 
 
 mitting to an examination in a foreign country, he 
 offered to treat all theological questions submitted 
 in writing. To confute the charge of vague or 
 inadequate belief, he published his first volume of 
 sermons in Amsterdam, in 1819, and ten years 
 afterwards a second. When, all difficulties being 
 obviated, he was formally nominated to the pas- 
 torate, he declined from conscientious scruples ; 
 he felt the need of more thorough theological pre- 
 paration, and resolved on a more critical study of 
 the Scriptures. One of the results of this investi- 
 gation was his " Biographic Sacree," which ap- 
 peared in French at Paris, revised, in 1837, and the 
 following year in German. It was originally pub- 
 lished between 1821 and 1826, in four volumes, 
 and not only signally illustrates his talent, but also 
 the scientific school then prevalent in Holland. 
 The work breathes a warm and liberal faith and 
 elevated thoughts, and proved eminently influen- 
 tial towards the unification of the Church. In 
 conjunction with his brother, Coquerel also wrote 
 for and edited the " Annales Protestantes " and the 
 " Revue Protestante ;" while he prepared and pub- 
 lished his able work on hieroglyphics. During his 
 Amsterdam pastorate many other useful writings 
 
324 ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 
 
 emanated from his pen. He commenced those 
 admirable treatises — " Histoire de la Providence ; " 
 " Dieu dans I'Histoire ; " " Religion Chretienne," 
 and " Christianisme Experimental." He also made 
 a translation of Mrs. Barbauld's " Hymns for Chil- 
 dren ; " she was the friend of his venerated Aunt 
 Helen. This last and tender labor of love, indicates 
 the early and consistent interest which Coquerel 
 manifested in the religious education of the young. 
 Happy in his own domestic life, of a tender and 
 devoted nature, it was through the affections that 
 he most ably advocates faith in God and justice to 
 man. On one occasion, when he preached at the 
 Hague, before the Royal family, his eloquent plea 
 for the duties and sanctions involved in " L'Avenir 
 de nos Enfants," deeply affected the Princess of 
 Orange, sister of the Emperor Alexander, and after- 
 wards queen. She sought his acquaintance and 
 obtained a copy of the sermon. While family love 
 thus inspired his heart with a piety born of the 
 most pure faith, he consistently avoided dogmatic 
 entanglements on the one hand and encroachments 
 on his individuality on the other, as we have seen in 
 his refusal of pastorates and repudiation of creeds 
 likely to interfere with the simplicity and truth 
 
ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 32$ 
 
 of his free and earnest religious belief and min- 
 istry. 
 
 At length a sense of duty to his children, so 
 powerless in the future without patrimony, and the 
 necessities of his female relations in Paris, forced 
 upon him the conviction that he must, however 
 reluctantly, abandon the field of usefulness which 
 success and kindness had so endeared at Amster- 
 dam, and emigrate to Paris for a more permanent 
 position and a wider range of activity. But those 
 who had listened from week to week to his rare 
 eloquence, who had found such comfort in his sym- 
 pathy, such wisdom in his counsel, and such pleasure 
 in his society, refused to accept his resignation, 
 while they appreciated the just motives of his 
 course. One day a deputation brought him a port- 
 folio containing twenty-two thousand francs, and 
 urged him to bring his kinswomen to Amsterdam, 
 and not to desert his flock. This prompt and gen- 
 erous action, so honorable to both, enabled the 
 beloved preacher to reconcile his duty with his incli- 
 nation, and he continued in Holland his noble ca- 
 reer of Christian service and devotion. Between the 
 years 1825 and 1827 successive bereavements wrung 
 his heart and saddened his household. His father 
 
326 ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 
 
 died at Fosse, one of his sons was taken from him, 
 and a few days after his wife and oldest daughter. 
 After this afflictive episode in his life, the need of 
 God became intense to his consciousness and his 
 preaching acquired a realistic fervor which inspired 
 with new force and clearness the preacher and 
 deepened the sensibilities of the man. He found 
 himself at the age of thirty a widower and father 
 of three children, the youngest an infant and the 
 eldest but four years of age. He married again 
 some years after, and so wise and fortunate was his 
 choice, that when in 1852 he celebrated with his 
 family the twenty-fifth anniversary of his wedding 
 day, the eldest of his children earnestly thanked him 
 for having given them a mother who had proved 
 the greatest blessing of their lives. An incident 
 occurred during his residence in Holland, the mem- 
 ory of which is preserved by a medal awarded him 
 by the Humane Society. Walking one morning, 
 along the quays, he saw a poor woman slip from a 
 plank and disappear beneath a vessel ; diving, at 
 once, he succeeded in rescuing her in an insensible 
 condition at the risk of his life. For twelve years 
 he remained faithful and cherished at his post in 
 Amsterdam ; but his name had become endeared 
 
ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 327 
 
 to his brethren in Paris, and he was earnestly called 
 to the reformed ministry in his native city. It was 
 a sphere of influence to which he was singularly 
 adapted ; the need of such an expositor of liberal 
 and vital Christianity was great. On the demise of 
 the Professor of Evangelical Morality at the school 
 of Montauban, he had been nominated as his suc- 
 cessor ; but Cuvier urged his claims to the Consis- 
 tory of Paris and he became a pastor there, and for 
 thirty years resisted every attempt to detach him 
 from a work which he felt to be of the greatest 
 worth, and to which, in mental gifts, character, 
 sympathy, and devotion he was singularly adapted. 
 
328 ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 
 
 ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 
 No. IL 
 
 Although reorganized in 1787 by St. Etienne, 
 the Reformed Protestant Church of Paris in 1830 
 was but a germ. The Bourbons had but half 
 favored the restoration of the Reformers, who, 
 in 1830, had but two churches and four pastors. 
 The day on which Coquerel entered, the Bourbons 
 were about to quit Paris ; barricades obstructed 
 the passage of vehicles ; the omnibuses, then few 
 in number, had all gone to Rambouillet, filled with 
 men and women, most of them armed and in pur- 
 suit of Charles X. 
 
 " We saw," says Coquerel fils, " the strange 
 cortege return, dragging into the court of the Palais 
 Royal the gilded coaches of the fallen family." 
 The new order of things gave to Protestantism 
 more liberty and greater development. The non- 
 Romanist worship, which under the Restoration 
 was dependent on the Minister of the Interior and 
 
ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 329 
 
 the Department of the Fine Arts, was now attached 
 to the " Minist^re des Cultes." Having deeply at 
 heart the progress and prosperity of his church, M. 
 Coquerel devoted thereto all his energy to give to 
 the reformed Communion an expansion and influ- 
 ence which it had never attained since the revoca- 
 tion of the Edict of Nantes. Preaching he fairly 
 regarded as the most requisite and fruitful means 
 and method to this end, and gave thereto all his 
 faculties. Usage then required that the pastor who 
 occupied the orator's chair on Sunday should re- 
 peat his discourse eight days after in that of Sainte 
 Marie. This temple was then neglected ; it had 
 not even double doors, and the preacher saw from 
 the elevation of his pulpit the passing voitures of the 
 Rue Saint Antoine ; the noise, the cold, the repeti- 
 tion of a sermon but lately delivered, turned aside 
 even the faithful from the uninviting sanctuary. M. 
 Coquerel determined not to preach duplicate ser- 
 mons, but to bring his most persuasive eloquence 
 to this meagre congregation. The result was, that 
 when he occupied the pulpit, until then forlorn, the 
 little church of the Visitandines, where, under Louis 
 XIV., Marcaran and others had drawn numerous 
 
 auditors, was filled to its utmost capacity long be- 
 42 
 
330 ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 
 
 fore the hour of service ; the power of his arguments 
 even allured many Romanists, and not a year 
 passed but added from among them to his prose- 
 lytes. Others, perhaps many, have better realized 
 the French standard of classical oratory, but his 
 eloquence was that of the soul, of ardent conviction ; 
 his fervent piety, his vital hopes, his sympathetic 
 faith were magnetic and passed into the conscious- 
 ness of his auditors ; nor was this a casual triumph ; 
 for many years he carried on the holy work with 
 rare energy and undiminished vigor. Persuaded, 
 like St. Paul, that " le foi vient de I'oule," he re- 
 garded his first duty as a minister of Christ to com- 
 municate this faith to his brethren ; to rouse their 
 souls by his words. In Paris the complex elements 
 of life and the interruptions of a great capital forced 
 him to cease from written and have recourse to oral 
 discourse. He became an adept in improvisation, 
 but such as was prepared for by long study and pa- 
 tient meditation. He framed a clear analysis of 
 his discourse, systematically defined and empha- 
 sized, trusting to his command of language for the 
 details of expression. In half a century he preached 
 two thousand sermons. The text of his first, Jan- 
 uary 4th, 1 81 3, at Montauban, are the same words 
 
ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 33 1 
 
 which his widow, fifty-three years later, had in- 
 scribed upon the letters which announced his death 
 to his friends : " Blessed are the dead that die in the 
 Lord, for they rest from their labors, and their 
 works do follow them." 
 
 Besides the brief political career of M. Coquerel, 
 which won him a decoration of the Legion of Honor 
 and a few eminent friendships ; besides the writings 
 already enumerated, many casual productions, at 
 intervals, mark some auspicious digressions from 
 strictly professional to publicist work. Thus we 
 have his letters to Guizot on the latter's article in the 
 Revue Francaise, " DU Catholicisme, du Protes- 
 
 TANTISME ET DE LA PHILOSOPHIE EN FRANCE" 
 (1838) ; to a pastor on the organization of the re- 
 formed Churches, and numerous articles on public 
 and religious questions in the journals of the day. 
 In 1836 a pious mechanic, through him, founded 
 another place of reformed worship by his will. This 
 church may be regarded as a characteristic monu- 
 ment of M. Coquerel's ministry. Could all the ten- 
 der associations, all the oratorical triumphs, all the 
 social inspiration thereof be recorded, his life would 
 be found as full of personal interest as it was of pro- 
 fessional usefulness and honor. Yet it was not free 
 
332 ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 
 
 from trials other than those incident to average ex- 
 perience. 
 
 Whoever is cognizant of the struggle between 
 bigotry and liberalism in the New England con- 
 gregations seventy years ago, and can imagine how 
 much more practically painful it would have been 
 if organization had given authority to church argu- 
 ment with proscription, may realize, without the sad 
 details, what the gentle and earnest soul of Coquerel 
 suffered under the narrow and unjust decrees of a 
 kind of ecclesiastical system which could affront or 
 dismiss at will, and which was opposed to that indi- 
 vidual freedom and independence of dogma which 
 belongs to liberal as opposed to technical Christi- 
 anity. The last days of this good, gifted, efficient, 
 and beloved pastor were darkened by fraternal in- 
 justice, if such an incongruous term may be allowed, 
 but partially atoned for by tardy recantation and 
 unavailing penitence. " We are permitted," writes 
 his son, " to forget these circumstances while think- 
 ing only of the testimonies of love, gratitude, and 
 veneration which came from all quarters, the 
 obscure and the renowned, the poor and the rich, 
 from the friends of his youth and those he had con- 
 soled and instructed." 
 
ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 333 
 
 The liberal doctrines of M. Coquerel thus placed 
 him in opposition to the exclusive Calvinists, who 
 reproached him with repudiating the doctrine of 
 predestination. These attacks, instead of diminish- 
 ing, increased his popularity. In fact, he became 
 the most influential, consistent, and religious repre- 
 sentative of rational Christianity, which, in the opin- 
 ion of the best observers and those who appreciate 
 an intelligent and devout faith, is the only possible 
 means whereby skepticism on the one hand, and su- 
 perstition on the other, can be purified and elevated 
 into the belief in and fidelity to the principles and 
 the practice of piety and progress, now perversely 
 divided and baffled in the mind and heart of modern 
 France. M. Coquerel's course in public life con- 
 firms the pure authority of his precepts and his plead- 
 ings ; for, with all his Protestant zeal, he was tolerant 
 and forbearing towards the Romanists as a legislator, 
 and conjointly with his colleague, M. J. Bouriguier 
 proposed the total abolition of capital punishment. 
 
 The infirmities of age, an overworked brain, and 
 a domestic affliction at last warned him to withdraw 
 from or modify his labors of love. He required 
 and received assistance in his duties. On the 17th 
 of May, 1867, he heard of the death of his son, Dr. 
 
334 ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 
 
 Jean Charles Coquerel, director of the Hospital of 
 Saint Denis, He de la Reunion. The previous 19th 
 of April he had delivered what proved his last ser- 
 mon, from his favorite text, the dying words of Jesus, 
 " Mother, behold thy son," to the last recogniz- 
 ing the affections as the source and sanction of 
 piety. The last discourse he composed was entitled 
 D'alterite de la moisson, from Matthew xiii. 28. 
 Although he bore his parental bereavement with 
 Christian fortitude, it made repose, at his advanced 
 age, more essential than ever. Martin and Mon- 
 tador took his place repeatedly ; but he feared to 
 abuse their kindness, and, wishing to preach on the 
 20th of June, he prepared a discourse on the only 
 subject which could occupy his thoughts, based on 
 the First Epistle of the Corinthians, 15th chapter 
 and 19th verse. At work he heroically suppressed 
 his grief By Friday he succeeded in writing out 
 the analysis, which he expected to elaborate in the 
 pulpit. But it was not to be. He had, during the 
 night following, his first attack of cerebral conges- 
 tion, which put an end to his active ministry. He 
 died on the 8th of January, 1868. 
 
 The mantle of the father had fallen on the son. 
 In 1843 M. Coquerel pere, had engaged in a re- 
 
ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 335 
 
 ligious ceremony which gave him great happiness. 
 He consecrated, at Nismes, his firstborn to the Chris- 
 tian ministry. Sixty-eight pastors, differing in opin- 
 ion, placed hands in benediction upon two candi- 
 dates — M. Coquerel fils, and M. Dardier. The 
 venerable father of the latter made the prayer, and 
 the elder Coquerel delivered the sermon. This 
 memorable day is fondly remembered at Nismes ; 
 those present recall with emotion the eloquent 
 fervor and the ardent faith with which the venerated 
 pastor of Paris dedicated his son to the Christian 
 ministry. 
 
 The intellectual fecundity and ethical enterprise 
 of Athanase Coquerel fils, independent of his 
 strictly pastoral works, are suggested by the vari- 
 ety and scope of his publications. Their mere titles 
 indicate that his sympathy and service touched on 
 each point of the horizon of humanity, as preacher, 
 publicist, lecturer, critic, and orator. Such free- 
 dom of mental action, combined with so finished 
 a style and so true a Christian faith, is exceptional 
 in France. We have instances enough of men de- 
 voted to their creed and politicians to their sys- 
 tems ; but few of scholars who know how to minis- 
 ter to the poor ; authors whose aim is elevated, yet 
 
336 ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 
 
 related to the immediate ; critics who seize on great 
 principles while analyzing special details. M. 
 Coquerel uttered, with pen and voice, his convic- 
 tions during the siege and the Commune, a prac- 
 tical man of the people, a patriotic pleader for 
 self-control and freedom. Yet he discussed in the 
 lecture-room, in more peaceful times, with tran- 
 quil insight of a philosopher, the relation of God 
 to religion, and his exposition of Rembrandt as 
 the aesthetic representation of the Reformation is 
 a masterpiece of graceful and gracious criticism. 
 On the other hand, his researches threw new light 
 on the famous case of Jean Calas, a martyr to Ro- 
 manist bigotry, of which he made an historical 
 study as thorough as it is lucid and satisfactory. In 
 the same department of inquiry we may refer to his 
 treatise on St. Bartholomew, on the life and opin- 
 ions of his ancestor, Du Fosse ; his valuable con- 
 tributions towards the history of the Reformed 
 Church, that of the Credo, the origin of Roman 
 Catholicism ; his studies on the topography of Jeru- 
 salem ; his letter to Renan on his " Life of Christ ; " 
 his edition of Voltaire's "Letters on Toleration," 
 and the part he took and is taking in the new French 
 translation of the Bible ; and that of his exposition of 
 
ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 337 
 
 the Life of Samuel Lawler and the Huguenots in 
 England, etc. The occasion of some of his memor- 
 able discourses are singularly interesting, as when 
 his eloquence was united to that of Laboulaye at 
 the meeting commemorative of emancipation in the 
 United States, and when he was invited to deliver 
 an address in honor of Mendelssohn, and the re- 
 formation on the anniversary of the latter. So ef- 
 fective and desirable have been the regular sermons 
 of Coquerel fils, that besides five volumes of col- 
 lected homilies thirty have been separately called 
 for and widely disseminated. He has passed easily 
 and consistently from the pulpit to the rostrum, 
 from the Cirque Nationale to the Club de la Porte 
 St. Martin, from the lecture-room to the columns of 
 a liberal journal, from ministering to the ignorant 
 and poor to the society of the gifted and prosper- 
 ous, in each sphere, on all occasions, true to his 
 convictions, faithful to humanity, reverent of and 
 confiding in God — the advocate and the illustrator 
 of freedom, progress, and faith. Artists have been 
 among the most devoted of his congregations, and 
 men of science found hope and trust from the words 
 of both /^r^ and ;?/j. He prayed over the grave 
 of Ary Scheffer, and fed the homeless children of 
 43 
 
338 ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 
 
 Paris when famine and feud, invasion and civic 
 strife had desolated its dwellings. 
 
 The education of Athanase Coquerel f,ls was at 
 first superintended by his father ; at the age of nine- 
 teen he commenced his theological studies at Gene- 
 va, where he remained three years, and then went 
 to Strasbourg, whence he graduated as a doctor of 
 divinity. Appointed Chaplain to the College of 
 Henry IV. at Paris, he had previously been ordained 
 colleague to the venerable pastor of Nismes, where 
 he ministered effectively for fifteen years. Besides 
 the educational chaplaincy which called him to Paris, 
 he became the assistant of Mr. Martin in his pasto- 
 rate and preaching ; but in 1864 the renomiiiation 
 was refused him because of his advanced and liberal 
 views. Thus his clerical experience was a parallel 
 to that of his father. During all this time, that is, 
 for a period of twenty-three years, M. Coquerel filled 
 the office of chaplain to the College Chaptal — a 
 municipal institution devoted to commercial training 
 — and bringing under his influence a large number 
 of youths of the middle class. The intervals of his 
 professional life have, as we have seen, been devot- 
 ed to authorship ; his pen is rarely idle, and as a 
 publicist and critic he has eminently prolonged and 
 
ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 339 
 
 emphasized the example of his father as an advocate 
 of free principles in government and rehgion. For 
 several years past he has preached regularly at the 
 little church of St. Andre Cite d'Antin, No. 29. 
 Here he is collecting a free library and superintends 
 no less than three schools — a Sunday, day, and 
 orphan school. A reading-room is connected with 
 the church, which will probably hereafter be fre- 
 quented by the American Protestants resident in 
 Paris, as it will be furnished with the leading Amer- 
 ican journals ; besides which M. Coquerel intends 
 to preach occasionally in English. His church was 
 the nucleus of benevolent activity during the late 
 siege and Commune. He was chosen to distribute 
 a portion of the funds raised in this community for 
 the relief of the Parisians after the siege. He con- 
 tinued regularly to preach and publish his liberal 
 weekly journal during these dark and perilous days. 
 His experience then and there, as related in his lec- 
 tures, was of the most exciting and painful kind — 
 now officiating at the funeral of a man of science, 
 with the Prussian shells bursting over and around 
 him, and now arguing at a public meeting in favor 
 of law and order ; one day ministering to the dy- 
 ing, and another dispensing food to the famished. 
 
340 ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 
 
 Worn out with labor and privation he visited our 
 shores and arrived at midsummer. At Newport, 
 R. I., he received a cordial welcome from many of 
 his father's old friends, and preached his first ser- , 
 mon in English in the church of Rev. C. T. Brooks. 
 He began by saying that the names of Roger Wil- 
 liams and William Channing were household words 
 in his father's house, and his discourse charmed the 
 audience by its able and clear exposition, its pure 
 and fluent English, and its persuasive appeals. Since 
 then M. Coquerel has addressed large assemblies at 
 Chicago and Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Port- 
 land, and elsewhere ; he has preached and lectured 
 about fifty times during the past three months, 
 chiefly in English, but occasionally in French. He 
 has done this for the benefit of his suffering country- 
 men, and will carry to France a substantial though 
 inadequate proof of American sympathy. Circum- 
 stances were unpropitious to his mission. The first 
 feeling of compassion for the victims of the war had 
 subsided or found vent in the contributions forward- 
 ed last spring. Then the Chicago fire and the ex- 
 citing elections of November preoccupied all hearts 
 and drained the purses of the wealthy. Still the 
 visit of M. Coquerel has been an occasion of much 
 
ATHANASE COQUEREL, PERE ET FILS. 341 
 
 pleasure and utility. Wherever he went he made 
 friends. The most intelligent and generous of our 
 people extended to him a cordial hospitality. A 
 lively interest in his noble work has been awakened 
 in countless hearts, which cannot fail to be trans- 
 ferred to our countrymen in Paris. He leaves be- 
 hind him numerous allies, and the most pleasant 
 and affectionate memories.