Ci'' / SALAD FOE THE SOLITARY AND THE SOCIAL By FREDERICK SAUNDERS author op 'Mosaics," "Festival op Soxg," and "Evenings with the Sacred Poets." ILLXJSTRATED WITH Fifty-two Original Designs by Eminent Annerican Artists POPULAR EDITION R' NEW YORK THOMAS WPIITTAKER 3 & 3 Bible House 1883 Copyright, 1871, By De Witt C. Lent & Company. CopjTight, 1883, By Thomas Whittaker. f ^>^ ^? PUBLISHER'S PEEFATORY NOTE. The success which this work has already attained, and the place it has secured for itself in English literature, have in- duced the Publisher to issue this improved edition, in the hoj)e that it Avill meet with the same general welcome accorded to the previous editions. THE INGREDIENTS. PAGE Pretjminary Chat 9 Dietetics 13 The Talkative and the Tacitubn 37 Citations prom the Cemeteries ------- 55 A Monologue on Matrimony --.-----79 Curious and Costly Books 105 Something about Nothing 125 Sports and Pastimes .----.-.- 135 Book Craft ----- 151 Last Words op the Illustrious ------- 189 The Mysteries op Medicine 199 Talk about Trees -... 237 The Modern Moloch 249 Infelicities op Authorcrapt .---... 275 The Toilette and its Devotees ------- 291 The Selfish and the Social ..----. 325 The Cycle op the Seasons .-.---.- 343 Pastimes of the Pen ---------- 369 Pulpit Peculiarities ---.------ 385 The Shrines op Genius ---- 407 The Humors of Law 423 Facts and Fancies about Flowers 441 Larcenies op Literature -... 46I The Mute Creation 479 Sleep and its Mysteries - ..----.- 501 A Puff 4.T Parting --..---.--- 519 THE PLATES. The Bards A Baronial Banquet " The Glorious Sirloin " The Talkative and Taciturn.. WMte The Last Word Waud Stoke-Pogeis Church Fredericks The Epitaph Hymen's Procession The Pleasures op Matrimony. Missals and Books The Monk in his Cell The Disappointed Gourmand. . Minerva Crowning Genius Falconry in the Olden Time. Chivalry Guttenberg's First Proof Tke Early Printer " Psyche Waud The Dying Hero " A Case for the Doctors " ABTIST. PAGH Fredericks (Title.) Nasi 13 36 37 54 55 78 79 104 105 134 125 134 Fredericks 135 Waud. 150 Fredericks 151 " 188 189 198 199 The Alchemist Fredericks 236 The Giant Tree of California Dixon 237 The Charter Oak, Runnymede. " 248 The Misers Waud 249 The Secret Treasure-Vault . . Fredericks -74 » Vlll THE PLATES. ARTIST. PAGE Johnson Reading THE " Vicar " Waud 275 The Death op Chatterton Fredericks 290 The Belle op the Season " 291 Study op the Beautiful " 324 The Selfish and the Social. . . Eytynge 325 The Club " 342 The "Rolling Year " Fredericks 343 The Four Seasons " 368 Humors op THE Pen " 369 The Pen and the Sword " 384 Dean Swift IN HIS Pulpit , " 385 Caught Napping " 406 Shakespeare's Birthplace Dixon 407 IHving's Cottage, Sunnyside ... " 422 The Web and its Victims Nasi 423 Grief ;iND Sorrow " 440 Gathering Wild-Flowers Wliite 441 Young Buds and Blossoms Eytynge 460 The Modern Author Waud 461 The Literary Culprit " 478 The Deputation Stevens 479 Dogs op Mount St. Bernard . . . Fredericks 500 The Somnambulist " 501 Sleeping Innocence Matthews 518 The Smoking Club Fredericks 519 A. Puff AT Parting " 526 PRELIMINARY CHAT. " Excellent Salads," as Peter said to Parson Adams, " are to be found in almost every field ; " and these we have garnered from the fer- tile " fields of literature." Salad has this superiority over every other product of culinary art, to wit, — it is suitable to all seasons, as well as all sorts of persons — being a delectable conglomerate of good things — meats, vegetables, acids and sweets, oils, sauces, and a vari- ety of savory condiments too numerous to detail. Nor are we de- terred from attempting its subtle mixture, by the Spanish proverb which insists that four persons are indispensable to the production of a good salad : " A spendthrift for oil, a miser for vinegar, a counsel- lor for salt, and a madman to stir it all up " ! Ou/r salad — a consarcination of many choice things for the literary palate — "Various, that the mind Of desultory man, studious of change And pleased with novelty, may be indulged," will, it is hoped, felicitate the fancy, flatter the taste, and prove an antidote to ennui, or any tendency to senescent foreboding, should ever such mental malady chance to haunt the seclusion of the reader. Its contents are not only various in kind ; variety may also be said to characterize its treatment, which has been attempted some- what philosophically, poetically, ethically, satirically, critically, hypothetically, aesthetically, hyperbolically, psychologically, metaphysi- cally, humorously — and, since brevity is the soul of wit — sententiously. Said Sterne, " I would go fifty miles on foot to kiss the hand of that man whose generous heart will give up the reins of his imagin- 10 PEELIMINARY CHAT. ation into his author's hands — be pleased, he knows not why, and cares not wherefore." Southey remarks that there are some persons who are willing to be pleased, and thankful for being pleased, without thinking it necessary that they should be able to parse their pleasure, like a lesson, or give a rule or reason why they are pleased. It is the aim and design of the following pages to put the reader in this precise condition ; believ- ing, with Sydney Smith, " that all mankind are happier for having been happy ; so that, if you make them happy now, you make them happy twenty years hence by the memory of it." These desultory chapters are the fruitage of many pleasant, recreative hours spent in the highways and by-ways of literature. Whenever a tempting thought-blossom decoyed lis by its alluring beauty, the prize was cap- tured to enrich and grace our collection. Such gleanings may by some be deemed trifles, but ' ' Though high philosophy despise such things, They often give to weightier truths their wings ; Convey a moral, or correct bad taste. Though aptly caUed light learning, stUl not waste. A spark of natiu-s's fire will not despise, A word sometimes makes brighter, lovelier eyes; A flash of wit disarms old care of wrath, A happy line throws beauty in our path ; Though Sages say light learning wisdom stifles, There is delight in stringing useful trifles. " If trifles are facts, they cease to be trivial ; and, in these stirring times, when our allotted leisure is becoming so infinitesimally small, the terse and the epigrammatic are to' be preferred to the diffuse and discursive, in our reading. In grouping together the ingredients of this salad, it has been the aim of the purveyor to mix well the savory with the ci'isp, the spicy with the solid, and thus both tempt the ap- petite, and appease it. It would be great temerity to appropriate to our humble essay the witty analysis of a celebrated author, and pre- tend that " it has profundity without obscurity, perspicuity without PRELEVIINARY CHAT. 11 prolixity, ornament without glare, terseness without barrenness, pene- tration without subtlety, comprehensiveness without digression, and a great number of other things, without a great number of other things." Odd in its plan and arrangement, it consists of many odd sayings and selections, from odd and out-of-the-way authors ; and is fitted for odd half-hours : so that it may be reckoned an odd affair alto- gether ; yet oddities provoke sometimes our risibilities, and promote ou.r amusement. Let us hope this literary oddity may accomplish a like result. In fine, our design is to combine entertainment with instruction, mingling — " Sayings fetched from Sages old, Laws which Holy Writ vmf old, Worthy to be graved in gold ; Lighter fancies not excluding, Blameless wit, with nothing rude in, Sometimes mildly interluding." For we hold with a French dramatist, that " the funds of wit and merriment are not yet exhausted ; that the wings of fancy are not yet clipped, and that our ancestors have not said and sung all our good things." " Salads," according to a modern authority, " refresh without ex- citing, and make people younger." The Salad we offer ought to have this effect, now that it is re-dressed and compounded anew with sundry additional esculents, succulents, and savory condiments ; and we hope everybody will bring^ it — a good appetite. Salads are not generally suited for weak dig^tions, or sickly folk ; yet we have it certified on professional authority that this salad is adapted for the especial cure and comfort of any who may have such malady as that complained of by the author of JElia, who thus piteously portrays his sufferings to Bernard Barton: " Do you know what it is to suc- cumb vmder an insurmountable day-rmire — an indisposition to do any- thing, or to be anything — a total deadness and distaste — a suspension of vitality — an indifference to locality, a numb, soporific good-for- nothingness — an ossification all over, an oyster-like indifference to 12 PRELIMINARY CHAT. passing events — a mind-stupor — a brawny defiance to the needles of a thrashing-in conscience — with a total irresolution to submit to water-gruel processes? " It is to be hoped that it will prove savory to the palate of a goodly number of good-natured guests ; since even frugal fare is rendered relishable by the presence of smiling faces and hapi)y hearts, while the most costly viands often lose their zest where these are not. Foremost among the pleasures of the table are, what an elegant novelist has termed " those felicitous moods in which our animal spirits search, and carry up, as it were, to the surface, our intellectual gifts and acquisitions." The invitation to this repast is, therefore, respectfully tendered to all genial spirits who will bear company with the host. "Oh, herbaceous treat 1 'Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat ; Back to the world he'd turn his weary soul, And plunge his fingers in the Salad-bowl 1 " — Sydney SMITH. ETETICS. 'lease you to dine with us?" There can be no doubt of it, sirs ; the art of eating and drinking took its rise amid the mists of the remotest antiquity ; its history is coeval with that of the race. Unimpaired with the lapse of ages, this art is not likely ever to be superseded, or becomt obsolete. It is, moreover, a proclivity not peculiar to the human family, for it is alike shared by the subordinate orders of creation— ani- li DIETETICS. mals, birds, insects, and the finn}' tribes. Some creatures, in- deed, are even omnivorous, but "Man is a carnivorous production, And must have meals at least once in a day ; He cannot live, like woodcocks, upon suction. But, like the shark and tiger, must have prey !" It is not, indeed, with our physical, as with our mental appe- tite ; for the former is, at least, an intuition, while the latter may be, and not unfrequently is, neglected with impunity. Again, the mind may be fed upon fancy ; but the matter-of- fact stomach imperiously demands something more substan- tial, and will not be put off with dreamy idealizations. A hungi-y stomach is an inexorable creditor, and may not be trifled with ; its demands are not to be evaded. or ignored. It is not strange, therefore, that this habit of eating and drink- ing should become chronic, and cling to us with a tenacity that only ceases with life itself. According to an old saw some persons are said "to. live to eat," while others "eat to live." In either case, then, eating and living go together; and they seem to co-exist very harmoniously. To any one whose mind, or rather body, is in a receptive mood, what sound falls upon the ear more musically, or more gratefully, than that of the dinner-bell ? lat^^Pi " Of a^^K>eals — although I grant the power of pat^^,nd of gold, — Of beauty, flattery, threats — a shilling — no Method 's more sure at moments to take hold Of the best feelings of mankind, which grow More tender, as we every day behold — Than that all-softening, overpowering kneU — The tocsin of the soul — the dinner-bell ! " * * Byron. DIETETICS. 15 The author of Gentle Life — a good English authority — thus portrays John Bull's jpenchant for the good things of the table : " Business may trouble us, politics worry us, and money matters drive us mad ; but we all eat, and eat heartily. If we meet to hear music at the Crystal Palace, it ends in a feast. If we run out of town, we must finish by eating. Do we wel- come a hero ? we give him a dinner ! Do we commence a charity ? a feast inaugurates it ; and the golden crumbs that drop, in the shape of subscription guineas, from the table of Dives, feed Lazarus and his family for many a long day." And, to adopt the remark of a worthy legal and literary author- ity,* whose undoubted Attic, as well as gustatory taste, seem to add emphasis to his words — we might say : " To be of good cheer, partake of good cheer. A great destiny demands a generous diet. The English are the greatest people upon earth — because they are the greatest beef -eaters ! The lazza- roni of Naples are the most degraded of men, because their food is the poorest. What can be expected of a people that live on macaroni?" So much for John Bull; if Brother Jonathan is not his equal in culinary skill, or in epicurean taste, he is by no means insensible to the fascinations of the well- spread table ; if he has any fault, it is that of not making the most of his opportunity. Our worthy friends over seas, indeed, seem to be inspired with the conviction that nothing ^ importance can be insured suc- cess, without the accessory of a good dinner. No wonder, therefore, that it should become one of the permanent institu- tions of their country; and where, may we not ask, is the gustatory art better illustrated ? Wlien Coleridge, who loved not only a good dinner, but also a good listener, was on one occasion dining out, he noticed * C. N. Bovee. 16 DIETETICS. among the company a person, whose silent nods and continued reticence passed for appreciative wisdom, until a trifle dis- turbed the flattering delusion. The servant placed a dish of apple-dumplings on the table, and then his silent friend burst out with the remark — " them's the jockies for me ! " Coleridge said, aside, " I wish Spurzheim could have examined the fel- low's head." The practice of indulging the pleasures of the table accom- plishes a great deal of good in our social life, beside satiat- ing hunger and thirst. It also promotes the courtesies and amenities of home-life ; for a person is on much better terms with himself, and his neighbor, after he has partaken of a generous repast, than before. Diners home, and diners out, are of divers kinds ; some regard a table richly garnished with savory viands with an epicurean relish, others, like the omniv- orous gormandizer, devour their food with the rapacity and impetuosity of beasts of prey. If a dish be delectable to the palate, why not prolong its enjoyment, and make the most of it ? If the libation be nectar, why not lingeringly inhale the aromatic odor? Yet comparatively how few amongst us re- gard the subject in a scientific light, or possess the refinement of fancy, or educated taste, essential to the luxurious indul- gence of the palate of classic times ; we moderns preferring to appease simply the cravings of appetite, by devoting the more solid and substantial viands to the digestive process, rather than gratify our organs of taste with the ingenious combina- tions of which food is susceptible by culinary art. Some horrible monsters have achieved an unenviable notori- ety by their gluttonous habits ; but we have nothing to do with such voracious persons ; they are utter strangers to good taste as well as decency. There is, however, a droll story told of one inordinate eater — which we are tempted to repeat, though not to indorse. When Charles Gustavus, King of Sweden, was DIETETICS, 17 besieging Prague, a boor of a most extraordinary visage de- sired admittance to his tent ; and being allowed to entei", he offered by way of amusement to devour a large hog in his presence. The old general Koenigsmark, who stood by the king's side, hinted to his royal master that the peasant ought to be burnt as a sorcerer. " Sir," said the fellow, irritated at the remark, " if your majesty will but make that old gentleman take off his sword and spnrs, I will eat him before I begin the pig." General Koenigsmark, who, at the head of a body of Swedes, performed wonders against the Anstrians, could not stand this proposal, especially as it was accompanied by a most hideous expansion of the jaws and mouth. Without uttering a word, the veteran turned pale, and impetuously rushed out of the tent, making with all speed for his quarters. Peter the Great was a gourmand of the first magnitude. While in England, on his return from a visit to Portsmouth, the Czar and his party, twenty-one in number, stopped at Godalming, where they ate — at breakfast, half a sheep, a quarter of lamb, ten pullets, twelve chickens, seven dozen of eggs, and salad in proportion, and drank three quarts of brandy and six quarts of mulled wine : at dinner, five ribs of beef, weight three stone; one sheep, fifty-six pounds; three quarters of lamb ; a shoulder and loin of veal boiled ; eight pullets, eight rabbits ; two dozen and a half of sack, and one dozen of claret. This bill of fare is preserved in Ballard's Collection, in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Theodore Hook, in his Gilhert Gurney, describes an odd dinner of which he partook, in the West of England. The soup was a nice sort of veal broth ; at the bottom of the table was a roast loin of veal ; at the top, half a calfs head ; there were four entrees — veal patties, veal coUops, calfs brains, and calf's tongue. One of the guests, who hated veal, apparently waited for the second course, when the fair hostess apolo- 18 DIETETICS. gized : " We have no second course ; the fact is, we killed a calf the day before yesterday, and we are such prudent mana- gers, that we make a point of eating it up while it is good, and nice and fresh, before we begin upon anything else." Smollett's house was often the scene of literary festive gath- erings, his coteries comprising most of the distinguished men of letters of his day ; epicures were they, in a double sense. Dr. Johnson, who was no doubtful authority on the subject, styled a tavern the throne of human felicity ; but it must be remembered, he was accustomed to meet congenial spirits at his clubs, as well as his favorite dishes. The clnbs of London had their prototypes in the symposia of the Greeks, and the convivia of the Romans. These associa- tions were revived in the reign of Queen Anne, and were in the zenith of their glory in the days of Johnson, Addison, Steele, and Garrick. The Mermaid was the earliest on record in London. Raleigh, previously to his unfortunate engage- ment with Cobham, had instituted a meeting of the heatix esprits at the Mermaid, in Friday street. This club combined more talent and genius, perhaps, than ever met together before, or since — Shakspeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden, Cotton, Carew, and many other literary notabilities. Here, in the full flow and conlidence of friendship, the lively and interesting " wit combats " took place between Shakspeare and Jonson, which Beaumont thus refers to : " What things have we seen Done at the Mermaid ! heard words that have been So nimble and so full of subtle flame, As if that every one from whom they came Had meant to put his whole wit into a jest." The Kit-Kat Club, one of the most renowned of the clubs, was originated in the year ITOO, and was the rendezvous of the DIETETICS. 19 nobility as -well as the dilettanti and cognoscenti. "Walpole remarks that its members included not only the wits of the time but the patriots that saved Britain. Although in respect of the rank of its members it surpassed all similar institutions, it was very humble in its origin. But we must not be tempted to dilate, as we could wish, upon club-life among the learned of •old times ; and the reader possibly may be familiar with its Listory. Although the transition is somewhat startling, yet for the «ake of the contrast let us turn from the dainties of the Eng- lish nobility to some of the uncivilized feeding habits of bar- barous nations. The Tartars pull a man by the ear to press him to drink, and they continue this flattering torment till he opens his TQouth, when they clap their hands and dance before him with great glee. No eustom is, perhaps, more amusingly :absurd than that resorted to by the Kamtchatkan when he wishes to make a man his friend. He first invites him to eat ; the host and his guest then strip themselves, in a catin, which is heated to an uncommon degree. "While the visitor is devouring his food, the other busily occupies himself with stirring the fire to produce an increased intensity of heat. The poor guest is doomed to undergo this scorching ordeal, till nature absolutely revolts, and endurance can no longer abide the test, when they compound ! In some instances, it is said, the poor victim of this ardent test of friendship positively becomes a martyr to the ordeal. If he survive, the stranger has, howenier, the right of retaliation allowed him; and he usually requites the kindness of his host with an ardor and zeal, if possible, increased in its intensity, by his own recent involuntary suf- ferings. The Maldivian islanders eat alone ; a habit which probably arises from the primitive and uncivilized custom of barbarous 20 DIETETICS. tribes, who fear lest others who may suffer from as keen an appetite as themselv'es, and who have more strength of consti tution, should come and ravish the whole meal ! The Laplanders live upon the reindeer and bear, their ordi- nary libation being whale-oil, or water in which juniper berries have been infused. It is a well-known climatic peculiarity of countries which lie within or near the arctic circle, that the in- habitants require four or live times as much food as those of temperate climates. At Nova Zembla, from the greater activ- ity and vigor of the digestive organs, Europeans are obliged to follow the example of the natives, by drinking the blood of the reindeer, and eating raw flesh ; the intense cold removing that disgust which such doses w^ould naturally inspire among other people. To inhabitants of warm countries, temperance,, or even occasional abstinence, is therefore no very difficult virtue ; while northern nations, on the contrary, are necessarily voracious to keep up the requisite quantum of caloric. An account of a Chinese entertainment is thus given by Captain Laplace, who attended one of their feasts : " The flrst course was laid out in a great number of saucers, and consisted of various relishes in a cold state, among which were salted earth-worms, prepared and dried, but so cut up that I for- tunately did not know what they were until I had swallowed them; smoked fish and ham, both of them cut up into ex- tremely small slices." John Chinaman, since his advent to our Pacific coast, has, doubtless, improved his taste somewhat, and instead of cats, rats, and dogs being deemed, as heretofore, his daintiest rarities, he is educating his palate for pork and beans, and such like Western varieties. The Caffres, the Bushmen, the cannibals, and other detestable creatures, are all too dis- agreeable to talk about. Our neighbors of Mexico are said to be, like the French, very partial to frogs; the banana, however, forms a principal article of food with them, also the cassava. DIETETICS. 21 •which is extremely nutritive ; but the flesh of monkeys is with the Mexicans, as well as the inhabitants of some of the West India islands, often used, since they have a good supply of that genns in their forests. T\A% jpenchant seems but one remove from absoliite cannibalism, since, when this animal is divested of his skin, the flesh precisely resembles that of a human being. We have not yet finished our catalogue of these rarer deli- cacies of mankind. There are the geophagists, or earth-eaters, and such as subsist on the bark of trees. Incredible as it may seem, the digestive functions of man, in his rudest state, are €ven capable of deriving a species of nutriment from the soil. In New Guinea, and even in some of our own Southern States, these earth-eaters are to be found. We learn from Humboldt that the Ottomaques, on the banks of the Meta and the Orinoco, feed on a fat, unctuous earth, tinged with a little oxide of iron. They collect this clay very careful!}^, distinguishing it by the taste ; they knead it into balls of four or five inches in diam- eter, which they bake slightly before a slow fire. These balls are soaked in waiter when about to be used, and each individual eats about a pound of the material every day. When an English traveller expressed his surprise and disgust at some Arabs eating insects, the men retorted, that it was poor affectation in a person who would swallow raw oysters. Recent experiments in Germany have proved that the wood of various trees may be converted into a nutritious substance. The fibres of the birch, fir, lime, and elm, when dried, ground, and sifted, so as to form a powder, like coarse flour, are not only <}apable of affording wholesome nourishment, but with a little culinary skill constitute very palatable articles of food. Cold water being poured on this wood flour, inclosed in a fine linen bag, it becomes quite milky. Soyer* remarks to the effect that a serious interest is * Pantropheon. 22 DIETETICS. imparted to the diet of a people, if it be true (as he affirm& it is), that the manners, idiosyncrasies, and proclivities of a people are modified to a certain extent by the nature of their diet. It has also, no doubt, its comic interest. If this- could be proved, character might be determined by consult- ing the cook. So that he who has a prevailing preference for mutton, vt^ould of course, in time, partake of a sheepish ex- pression; while another, with a persistent predilection for porky would become hoggish in his manners : but it would not be- safe, perhaps, to pursue the analogy any farther. Speaking of mutton, suggests the remark that a sheep when dead becomes- mutton — all except the head — for who ever inquired for a mutton-head ; while the accepted phrase, shoulder of mutton,, is intelligible to all. There is a droll incident related of a French preacher, who having but partially acquired a knowl- edge of the English tongue, on one occasion, in the course of his sermon, addressed Xihjlock by the endearing epithet — " 3fy dear mutton ! " The reader will pardon the recital of another triviality : A person once asked his guest if he should cut the- loin of mutton saddle-wise? " No," replied the latter, "by all means cut it hridle-wise, for then I may chance to get a hit in my mouth." The mention of mutton at once suggests its- affinit}^, lamb, and its accessory, inint sauce ; and this, again,, the following little pleasantry, given in a recent literary jour- nal.* When Lord Minto was in the Miuistry, a lady of rank^ who was always very inquisitive after political news, inquired after the news of the day. The answer was that " the Hon. Mr. Lamb meets Lord Minto very often at dinner, and some- thino; must be concoctino; " ! Leaving mutton, however, for the present, at any rate^ we might just name some of the other varieties, for exam- * " Notes and Queries." DIETETICS. 23 pie, the flesh of the calf, which we designate veal,' that ol the hog, hacon and ham, and the sports of the chase, game. Speaking of ham, recalls an old conundrum : Do you ask why no man should starve, even on the deserts of Arabia ? Because of the saiid which is there. And do you further in- quire how came the sand which is there ? Know that the tribe of Ham was there hred and mustered ! Passing from solid meats to dessert, we might just refer to a favorite fruit which changes its name still oftener than the above-named meats. When plucked from the vine, w-e call the fruit grapes, when dried, 9'aisins, when in a pudding, _^Zwms, while the juice we extract from them becomes wine. The Romans regarded their supper as their chief meal, as we do the dinner ; it was styled tridinium^iYOvo. three couches on which the guests reclined. The guests commonly were ac- customed to recline upon the couch, leaning upon the left elbow. Their banquets were remarkable for their profusion and costliness. Having exhausted their invention in the confection of stim- ulants for the palate, they called in another sense to their aid ; and by the delicate application of odors and richly-distilled perfumes, these refined voluptuaries aroused the fainting appe- tite, and added a more exquisite and ethereal enjoyment to the grosser pleasures of the board. Among the Komans, flowers formed a very essential article in their festal preparations ; and it is the opinion of Bacchius, that at their desserts the number of flowers far exceeded that of fruits. When J!Tero, whose memory is so inodorous, supped in his golden house, a mingled shower of flowers and odorous essences fell upon him. Nor was it entirely as an object of luxury that the ancients made use of flowers ; they were considered to possess sanative and medicinal qualities. In point of profusion, nothing was equal to that which 24 DIETETICS. reigned at the banquet of Aliasuerus, who " regaled, during six months, all the princes and governors of his state, and kept open house for seven entire days, for all the people of the great town of Suza." The luxiu'ies of the Roman table began at the period of .the battle of Actium, and continued to the reign of Galba. Their delicacies cohsisted of peacocks, cranes, nightingales, veni- son, wild and tame fowls ; they were also fond of iish. The reigning taste was for a profusion of provisions ; whole wild boars were served up, hlled with various small animals and birds of different kinds. The dish was called the Trojan horse, in allusion to the horse filled with soldiers. Fowls and game of all sorts were served up in pyramids, piled up in dishes as broad as modern tables. Lucullus had a particular name for each apartment, with its appropriate table, and a cer- tain scale of expense attached to each. He was equally sumptuous in his wardrobe. A Roman prsetor, who was to give games to the public, re- quested to borrow one hundred purple robes for the actors. Lucullus replied that he could lend him two hundred if he wanted them. Salads were among the table-delicacies of the ancients as well as the moderns — the lactuca, or lettuce, being one of the most common of vegetables. Athenseus refers to its use for salad, and its accompanying condiments. Soyer remarks that from time immemorial the lettuce has occupied a most distinguished place in the kitchen-garden. The Hebrews ate it without preparation, with the Paschal lamb. The opulent Greeks v\'ere very fond of the lettuces of Smyrna, which appeared on their tables at the end of a repast: the Romans, who at first imitated them, decided under Domitian that this favorite dish should be served in the first course with eggs, to excite their appetites. The lettuce possesses a narcotic DIETETICS. 25 virtue, not unnoticed by the ancient physicians. Galen, in hi? old age, mentions that he had not found a better remedy against the wakefulness he was troubled with. Tlie author of Sjparrowgrass Pajyers tells a good story about a salad once concocted, as a test of skill, by an artiste in Philadelphia. Some gentlemen of taste were assembled to regale their palates .on the occasion, and ostensibly all seemed to pass off with success. The next morning the host, whose suspicions were excited, inquired of his domestic what had be- come of a bottle of castor oil which he gave her to put away. " Sure, you said it was castor oil," she replied, " and, ov coorse, I put it in the castor." " I thought so," added our host. " Salad," said Jack Cade (in ShaJcsj)eare), " was born to do me good." Who will dispute such an authority ? For instance, for a fit of indigestion, or dyspepsia, what better specific could be devised than the salad offered herewith ? Or for a fit of mental abstraction, what remedy more readily would restore the party to himself ? Not merely is it possessed of medicinal virtues, it is also appetizing, invigorating, and healthful, well- seasoned, and equally suited to the solitary as the social. In Saxon and mediaeval times the feudal barons of "Merrie England " were as renowned for the splendor of their lavish hospitality as for their military prowess and chivalry. Many a proud castle-home, or grand ancestral hall, resounded with the voice of revelry and music — when the clash of arms and the fierce tumult of mortal strife had, for a time, become hushed. Such a scene of festive banqueting, presided over by some lordly chieftain, with his chivalric retainers, must have been an inspiring spectacle : " For in the lofty arched hall Was spread the gorgeous festival," while stately dames of dazzling beauty mingled with groups 26 DIETETICS. of mailed knights and squires, and liveried warriors and vas- sals, combined to present a coup cfmil of baronial magnificence and splendor rarely surpassed. Queen Elizabeth and her maids-in-waiting exhibited much bravery in the service of the breakfast and dinner. Beef and beer were the staple of the table then, and both have maintained their preferred claims with John Bull even down to the present time, though not at the same meal. James I., who fulminated so fiercely against Tobacco, was rather prodigal in his gastronomic indulgences, for his household ex- penditure is estimated at £100,000, double the amount required for the purpose by his predecessor, Elizabeth. There was more temperance observed during the reign of Charles I., and Cromwell's table was remarkable for its simplicity. The magnificent fete given by the Prince Kegent, at Carl- ton House, in 1811, was the ovi\y experiment ever made at any court of Europe to give a supper to 2000 of the nobility and gentry. The largest entertainment at the most brilliant period of the French monarchy, was that given by the Prince of Conde to the King of Sweden, at Chantilly, when the covers only amounted to 400 ; while, at the fete given by the Prince Regent, covers were laid for 400 in the palace, and for 1600 more in pavilions, in the garden. There was exhibited lavish expenditure on this occasion ; and also the puerile taste of a stream, with gold and silver fish, flowing down the centre of the table. Simplicity of taste distinguishes the royal table at Wind- sor Castle, except on state occasions, when a banquet is given ; then it is a scene of sumptuous splendor.* * The royal plate at Windsor is kept in one tolerably sized room and an ad- joining closet, and valued at 1,750,000Z. sterling ! There is one gold service, formed by George IV., to dine 130 guests; some pieces were taken from the Spanish Armada, some brought from India, Biirmah, China, &c. One vessel belonged to Charles XII., of Sweden, and another to the King of Ava; a pea- DIETETICS. 27 Notable personages have been, like the uncelebrated, remark- able for their fondness for particular articles of diet. Let us name a few instances : Luther, " the solitary monk that shook the world," laid a good foundation for the rough pioneer-work he had to do, by a most substantial supply of fibrous meats, which he lubricated with Rhine wine and Forgan beer, the lager-hier of his day — of which he did not stint himself. But then, it must be lemembered that he had a redoubtable physique to sustain, and a wonderful amount of work to achieve. Charles XIL, of Sweden, was as remarkable for his abstemiousness ; he was content with, indeed, it is said he preferred, above all the attractions of the banquet, plain bread and butter. Napoleon, also, was no gourmand, but, like Yoltaire, was excessively fond of coffee, as Boswell informs us the great lexicographer was of Mrs. Thrall's cups of tea. The Emperor Frederick of Ger- many, and Maximilian II., were alike so inordinately fond of melons, that they both became ultimately victims to the pas- sion. Henry IV. of France, like not a few sovereigns of this western world, indulged largely in oysters. The wits and wor- thies of Shahsjpeare's Merrie England made themselves glo- rious over their spiced sack, and other fragrant potations, to which some of the Elizabethan poets ascribed many of their most inspired utterances. Franklin at one time contemplated practising abstinence from animal food. " I hesitated some time," says he, " be- tween principle and inclination, till at last recollecting that, cock of precious stones, valued at 30,000?. ; and a tiger's head (Tippoo's foot- stool), with a solid ingot of gold for his tongue, and crystal teeth ; numerous and splendidly ornamented gold shields, one made from snuff-boxes, value 8000 guineas ; and thirty dozen of plates, which cost 26 guineas each plate. The magnificent silver wine-cooler, made by RundeU and Bridge for George IV. , is enclosed with plate-glass : its superb chasing and other ornamental work occupied two years, and two full-grown persons may sit in it without inconvenience. 28 DIETETICS. when a cod bad been opened, some small lisb were found in it, I said to myself, if you eat one another, I see no reason why we may not eat you. I accordingly dined on the cod with no small degree of pleasure, and have since continued to eat like the rest of mankind, returning only occasionally to my vege- table plan. How convenient does it prove to be a rational animal, that knows how to find or invent a plausible pretext for whatever it has an inclination to do ! " When Sir Isaac Newton was writing his Princi^ia, he lived on a scanty allowance of bread and water, and vegetable diet. In a letter to a friend. Dr. Parr confesses his love of " hot boiled lobsters, with a profusion of shrimp-sauce." Pope, who was an epicure, would lie in bed for days at Lord Eoling- broke's unless he were told that tliei'e were stewed lampreys for dinner, when he arose instantly and came down to table. A gentleman treated Dr. Johnson to new honey and clouted cream, of which he ate so largely that his entertainer became alarmed. All his lifetime' Dr. Johnson had a voracious attach- ment for a leg of nnitton. Dryden, writing to a lady, declining her invitation to a handsome supper, says : " If beggars might be choosers, a chine of honest bacon would please my appetite more than all the marrow- puddings, for I like them better plain, having a very vulgar stomach." Poets do not, you see, always feed upon fancy. Dr. Fordyce contended that as one meal a day was enough for a lion, it ought to sufhce for a man. Accordingly, for more than twenty years, the Doctor used to eat only a dinner in the whole course of the day. This solitary meal he took regularly at four o'clock, at Dolly's Chop House. A pound and a half of rump steak, naif a broiled chicken, a plate of fish, a bottle of port, a quarter of a pint of brandy, and a tankard of strong ale, satisfied the doctor's moderate wants till four o'clock DIETETICS. 29 next day, and regularly engaged one hour and a half of his time. Dinner over, he returned to his home in Essex street, Strand, to deliver his six o'clock lecture on anatomj^ and chem- istry. Shelley, who had an ineffable contempt for all the sensuali- ties of the table, and, like Newton, used sometimes to inquire if he had dined, was of opinion that abstinence from animal food subtilizes and clears the iutellectual faculties. To coun- teract a tendency to corpulency. Lord Byron, at one period, dined four days in the week on fish and vegetables, and even stinted himself to a pint of claret. If temperate in eating, it does not appear that he was equally conscientious with respect to his libations — especially in that beverage styled gin-and- water, to the inspiration of which some of his lucubrations owe their origin. Burns — the glowing but erratic Burns — was, as is too well known, a wretched instance of the baneful effects of intemperance. Scott used to say, that " greatness of any kind has no greater foe than a habit of drinking." This striking and just remark is, however, only an abridgment of one by Swift, who pro- nounces temperance to be '' a necessary virtue for great men ; since it is the parent of that ease and liberty which are neces- sary for the improvement of the mind, and which philosophy allows to be one of the greatest felicities of life." " If you wish to keep mind clear and body healthy, abstain from fer- mented liquors," is the sage counsel of Sydney Smith. Charles Lamb delighted in roast pig and a draught of porter out of the pewter pot, and he would press his friends, even great men and bashful ladies, to taste the genuine article, fresh drawn at the bar of his favorite little inn at Edmonton. Cole- ridge observes, that " some men are like musical glasses — to produce their finest tones, you must keep them wet." Addi- son's recourse to the bottle as a cure for his taciturnity, finally 30 DIETETICS. induced those intemperate habits which elicited Dr. Johnson's memorable remarks — " In the bottle, discontent seeks for com- fort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness for confidence." It is not unlikely that Addison was first seduced to excess by the manumission which he obtained from the servile timidity of his sober hours. From Chaucer, with his pipe of wine, to the time of Ben Jonson onward, with a few noble exceptions, the laureates seem to have loved the juice of the grape, as well as the Heliconian fount. " Rare Ben " had such a fancy for a particular wine, that it procured for him the sobriquet of the " canary-bird." But the passion for " libations deep " has not been the infirmity of the poets only ; persons of all classes and all times have been its victims. Literary men have proverbially weak digestion, superinduced in most instances, it is true, by their sedentary habits and de- votion to study. The pleasures of the table, indeed, if indulged to excess, entail the penalty of dyspepsia upon all who trans- gress physical law. According to Dr. Doran, more than seventeen hundred works on this prevalent evil of indigestion have been published ; out of this formidable array of curators, perhaps " moderation " is the best and surest specific. Dr. Johnson is said to have observed the good old habit of saying " grace before meat ; " but he often grumbled with his cook, not content wdth his food. It has been well remarked, that " he is an ungracious knave who sits down to a repast without at least a silent acknowledgment to Him without whom there could have been no spreading of the banquet." Such a de- faulter deserves dyspepsia, or no dinner at all. Having thus taken a brief survey of the edibles of various nations, presenting an amusing assemblage of dishes — enough to flatter the most capricious palate of the veriest epicure, we shall leave their more minute discussion to the taste of the DIETETICS. 31 reader ; nothing doubting that John Bull will indulge his pre- dilection for roast beef, plum pudding, and old port, or beer — Monsieur his love for souj> maigre, fricassee, and vin ordi- naire — and Brother Jonathan his preference for everything that is nice, not excepting his down-east dish — pumpkin pie. Samuel Lover's joke of tlie Irishman in France may be familiar to the reader ; the Hibernian, upon being presented with the soup aforesaid, eagerly surveyed its contents, and be- ing about to throw off his coat, was asked what he was at ; he replied, " Faith, I'm going to swim for that bit of mate." He was evidently rather for solids than solutions. An Irishman is almost synonymous with his " pratee ; " it is his mate, as whis- key is his drink. At Manchester there was once convened a society of verdant bipeds, who rejoiced in the title of vegetari- ans, from their custom of eating nothing but vegetables. Their members frequently met for the laudable purpose of masticat- ing mashed potatoes and munching cabbage leaves. At one of these convocations, over two hundred sat down to a table garnished with all varieties of garden stuff — such as sage and onions, beet-root, mushrooms, and parsley, and such like luxuries. A recent English writer thus daintily describes the dessert : " The French epicurean writers say that the dessert should be the girandole or crowning tableau of the dinner. It should surprise, astonish, dazzle, enchant. If the dinner have fully satisfied the sense of taste and the well-balanced appetite, the dessert should address itself to the soul through the eyes. It should rouse sensations of surprise and admiration, and crown the enjoyments that commenced with the removal of the cover of the soup tureen — that Pandora's casket of a bad dinner — that joy and triumph of a successful and tasteful repast." The same sprightly pen continues : " The dessert is meant for the eyes more than the stomach. Yet what bright and pleas- 32 DIETETICS. ant things have been said ' over the walnuts and the wine ; ' what pretty and gallant compliments paid as filberts have been cracked ! How agreeable it is on a winter evening to see a broadside of honest chestnuts bounce and bang from the lower bar of the grate ; what time the miserable and tepid formality of smuggling them in, wrapped in a napkin, has been forgotten for the quiet comfort and enjoyment of a really friendly party ! The dinner is over, its toils, its glories, are past ; we are now in a flowering prairie of idleness, with nothing to do but to try fruits, and to sip at all preserves that are not at discord with our wine." " Take it altogether (conventional as it is), no one would wish the custom of dessert abolished. It is a pleasant little fruit harvest ; but the ladies must no longer be suffered to leave us, now the three-bottle days are gone forever. And if English families would only get into the quiet, enjoyable German way of part-singing, and would teach their young people to sing, dessert would be the best time for a little agreeable, unostenta- tious, cosey, natural music." When Dean Swift was invited to dinner by his friend Lord Bolingbroke, and, as an inducement to accept, was shown the dinner bill, he replied, " A fig for your bill of fare — show me your bill of company." Those who are perfectly versant in forming good dinners are not always equally au fait in their selection of guests ; such companies being often more incon- gruous and less likely to assimilate than the various viands, sauces, and dainties of which the entertainment consists. There must be a sort of adaptation or homogeneousness among the guests assembled — so tliat the old may not be con- founded with the young, the high with the homely, the rough with the refined. Nay, there often occur individuals, who, like an acid and an alkali, though separately pungent, are totally neutralized by a junction. DIETETICS. 33 This is seen iu the ill-assorted dinner-parties occasionally to be met with. " At one table you beliold a judge, brimful of law, brought into contact with a captain of the sea, who abso- lutely spouts salt water. At another, a spinster of the most perpendicular propriety is subjected to the explosions of a bois- terous miss. At a third, a fair one is placed side by side with her quondam faithless adorer. At a fourth, two party oppo- nents glare, like meteors, against each other, from their adverse orbits." At the grand entertainments of the nobility and gentry of England, it is the well-known custom for the servant to an- nounce the names of the guests as they arrive. A greenhorn of a lackey persisted, on several such occasions, in giving to his mistress a title which she did not claim, announcing her and her daughter as the Right Honorable Lady A, and the Honorable Miss A. He was told in future to announce them as — simple Lady A. and plain Miss A. Their astonishment may be im- agined when they found the instructions carried out to the let- ter, while Devonshire House was electrified by the intelligence, that simjple Lady A. and plain Miss -4. were coming up ! A word or two touching libations. The faculty insist that every departure from water in its natural state is an injury to the animal economy. We confess, however, with Parr, John- son, Robert Hall, and other erudite pundits, a decided predi- lection for a good cup of tea. Leigh Hunt discourses in rapturous strain on this topic, where he asks — " Did you ever return home from a journey, cold, wet, and weary, and unexpected, after tea was over, and the tea leaves ejected from the silver? Bright eyes glistened with delight at the sight of you ; perhaps more than one pair, and a silvery voice names the mao-ic word ' tea.' Out of some dozen of these instances, did it ever happen to you — when the tea had been made for you alone — to partake of a cup whose delicious 3 34 DIETETICS. fi'agrance had dwelt ever after on your palate, like a vision of paradise, and of which you have sometimes a difficulty in per- suading yourself that it was not all a dream? Such an instance once occurred to me, not after a journey, but at a dining-out. I left the animals at their accustomed wine, and followed on the track of the girls, some of whom were so full of charms that, had Hebe fallen sick, they might have supplied her place at the board of Jove, without the fair nectar-bearer being missed. It was winter time ; the fire burned brightly, and the rug was so soft and rich that I would not have ex- changed it for the golden fleece which set so many men raving of old. The ottoman on which I reclined might have made an old Roman spurn his supper couch, and the girls gathering around me might have made old Mohammed sulky in his paradise, and all his houris jealous. By all the immortal gods ! that moment might have served as a memorable era in a cen- tury of lives; but it was nothing to what followed. The clustering beauties called for a tale of the wilderness, of ' antres vast, and deserts wild,' and one presses more than the others. I see her now, her Greek face, her glossy hair, her speaking eyes, straight, pencilled, defined, dark brows, long eyelashes, and parted lips, ' discoursing eloquent music' " ' A bargain ! ' I said, as she sat on the ottoman by my side. ' A cup of tea made after mine own fashion, and I will talk till sunrise ! ' " ' Agreed ! ' she replied, and the preparations were made. A hermetically sealed canister was brought, containing a single pound ; not a leaden canister, but one of tin ; not block tin, either, but the pure metal, thin, white, glittering, and crack- ling. Talk of the charms of an uncut novel, indeed ! Give me the opening of such a virgin case, pure as it left China. It was not green tea, it was not black tea ; neither too young nor too old ; not unpleasing with astringence, on the one hand, DIETETICS. 35 nor with the vapid, half-earthly taste of decayed vegetable matter on the other ; it was tea in its most perfect state, full charged with aroma, which, when it was opened, diffused its fragrance through the whole apartment, putting all other perfumes to shame. About an ounce was then rubbed to powder by my fair Hebe, and deposited in its broad, shallow, silver receiver, with just cold water enough to saturate it. After standing twenty minutes, hot water off the hoil, as it is technically called, that is, free from ebullition, was poured on it, amounting in quantity to three-quarters of a pint, and the lid was closely shut down on it, while the cylindrical-shaped tea-cup was placed on the spout to catch the aroma thence issuing. At the expiration of a minute, it was poured out (what a beautiful hand it was !), and the rich globules of essen- tial oil might be seen floating on the surface, a perfect treasure of delight. A small portion of Alderney cream was instantly added, to prevent the escape of the essential oil, and just suffi- cient of the brilliant large-crystallized sugar to neutralize the slight bitter. Oh, heavens ! to sip that most exquisite cup of delight, was bliss almost too great for earth ; a thousand years of rapture all concentrated into the space of a minute, as if the joys of all the world had been skimmed for my peculiar drink- ing — I should rather say imbibing, for to have swallowed that liquid like an ordinary beverage, without tasting every drop, would have been sacrilege." The first English tea dealer was also a tobacconist ; his name was Garway, and his locale Exchange alley. These " weeds of novelty " were costly luxuries at first. Tea was used medicinally, and it was not until the end of the seventeenth century that it was indulged in as a beverage. The first brew- ers of tea were often sorely perplexed with the preparation of the new mystery ; after boiling the tea, " they sat down to eat the leaves, with butter and salt ; " since then, however, the tea 36 DIETETICS. leaves are thrown away, and the beverage, which cheers but not inebriates, has been imbibed instead. The Dutch were the first to discover the utility and vahie of the herb, and when, in 1666, it was first introduced into England, it sold at about three guineas per pound. Here, then, we close our desultory discussion of table deli- cacies, so as to allow a respite for digesture; since without the assimilating process, even the daintiest dishes — though they flatter the palate — may yet superinduce that dire tor- mentor — dyspepsia! All ought, of course, to secure the one and escape the other; and to the despondent valetudinarian our counsel is, " throw physic to the dogs," and address thyself devotedly to the fibrous virtues of the " glorious sirloin." THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN. "Words must be fitted to a man's mouth — ^"twas well said of the fellow that was to make a :;peech for my Lord Mayor, when he desired to take measure of his Lordship's mouth." — Selden. This gift of speech is the electric chain that links mankind together in the social compact ; it is the living medium through which the resources of the realm of thought become an intel- lectual currency. What, indeed, should we be without the en- dowment of this heaven-descended faculty ? If it were not an HibernianisTn, we would say let the dumb reply. Taciturnity 38 THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN. sometimes shelters itself under the specious pretext, that a still tongue indicates a wise head ; but the truth is, there are too many important things to talk about, in the present day, to admit of habitual reticence being ranked among the social virtues. The human voice is the most marvellous, as well as melodi- ous, of all the music of nature. Sweet are the songs of birds, the rich melody of the harp, the vial, and other instruments of sound ; but what are these to the soft, sweet cadences of woman's voice ? Who does not confess to the witchery of her persuasive speech, and who is proof against its potency ? Eye- language is hers, also, and it is full of magic and mystery ; but her voice is irresistible. How deep an interest do we possess in the faculty of speech. The eye is said never to be tired of seeing, nor the ear with hearing, and both organs have enough in this beautiful world of sights and sounds for their delecta- tion ; it is not surprising, therefore, that both should con- stantly crave indulgence. Nor is the gift of speech a less essential endowment of our being. " Talking is the best of all recreations, and a master of the art possesses the most useful and enjoyable of accomplishments. Conversation is designed to be the one long-lasting, never-failing amusement of man- kind. / It is the pleasure that sets in earliest, outlives all vicissi- tudes, and continues ours when we can enjoy nothing else."! What potency has, sometimes, accompanied a few magic words ! Who can estimate their beneficent influence upon hearts sorrow-laden? With what a potent spell do they often dissi- pate the gloom of the sick-chamber, and light up the sad face of suffering humanity ! The cheerful converse of a friend will often tend, more than anything else, to soothe, exhilarate, and expand the heart, and impart an elasticity to the spirit, and a vigor to the vital current, beyond all the skill of the phy- sician. THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN. 39 " Use gentle words, for who can tell the blessings they impart ? How oft they faU (as manna feU), on some nigh-fainting heart. In lonely wilds, by light- winged birds, rare seeds have oft been sown ; j And hope has sprung from gentle words, where only griefs had grown." 3 " Never is the deep, strong voice of man, or the low, sweet voice of woman, finer than in the earnest but mellowed tones of familiar speech, richer than the richest music, which are a de- light while they are heard, which linger still upon the ear in softened echoes, and which, when they have ceased, come long after back to memory, like the murmurs of a distant hj^nn. Oh ! it is very pleasant to listen to such voices, accordant with lofty conceptions and sweet humanities — the soul-breathino-s that now swell with daring imaginations, and then sink into the gentleness of sadness or of pity. I have heard such voices, voices that were music from the soul and to it — the very melody of thought, and of thought that was the very soul of goodness. Beautiful conceptions sang along the syllables, beautiful feel- ings came trickling from the heart in liquid tones. Yery pleasant are such voices, pleasant on the fragrant air of a sum- mer's evening, pleasant by the fire on a winter's night, pleasant in the palace, pleasant in the shanty, pleasant while they last, pleasant to remember, even with sorrow, when they are silent — when their melody shall never, never again attune and sweeten the common air of earth." * By popular consent — at least with one sex — the daughters of Eve are supposed to excel in the use of the vocal organs. "What must have been the severity of the penalty which was self- imposed upon the nuns of that monastery, which in the fifteenth century stood on the site now occupied by Sion House, on the banks of the Thames, near London. Their terrible vow of per- petual silence was, it is said, kept inviolate by means of man- ual and bodily signs ; a manuscript copy of their code of signals, * Henry Giles. 40 THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN. we have been told, is yet in existence. And yet it is affirmed by one of our popular writers that conversation is fast dying out with us — that it will soon become one of the " lost arts ; " that modern men and women are reading themselves into a com- paratively silent race. " Reading is the great delusion of the present time ; it has become a sort of lay piety, according to which the perusal of volumes reckons as good works ; it is, in a word, the superstition of the nineteenth century." * The case is, however, we think, far from hopeless yet ; for so long as our " mother-tongue " remains under the especial patronage of the fair sex, we have little cause to feai'. Hazlitt, strangely enough, considering his cultivated taste and acuteness, confesses that he was " very much of the opinion of that old Scotch gentleman, who owned that he preferred the dullest book he had ever read to the most brilliant conversation it had ever been his lot to hear." Few, indeed, we think, will subscribe to this opinion, even among the lovers of books ; for who does not prefer the freshness and fragrance of the liv- ing flower to the distilled essence of its crushed leaves ? A book, even when it contains the " life-blood of an immor- tal spirit," still is not itself an immortal spirit ; for the builder of a house is greater than the house. Yet, while many men, eminent in learning, have glorified the glorious gift of speech, many also have glorified books, by making them the vehicles of their recorded conversations. What a wealth of learning have we derived from the dialogues of Homer, Socrates, and Cicero, among the ancients ; and those of Johnson, Coleridge, Rogers, Southey, Burke, Mackintosh, Sydney Smith, and a host of others, among the moderns ! Dialogue has also been recog- nized in the Bible as well as in Bunyan's allegory. Talking and conversing are not convertible terms. Coleridge was a magnificent talker, and, therefore, by general consent, his * Harper's Magazine. THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN. 41 friends allowed iiim to Lave it all to himself. On one occa- sion, lie asked Lamb if he had ever heard him preach ; to which he replied, " I have never heard you do anything else." But very few, even among illustrious men, could talk like Coleridge. Johnson was another authoritative talker, who monopolized the privilege to the exclusion of his listeners, among whom was often poor Goldsmith, who, like Boswell, regarded the great lexicographer with a species of awe, and his utterances as oracular. The Johnsonian model would not, however, be popular in our day, the rule of our modern social intercourse being not for the sake of mere gladiatorial display, to achieve a conquest in de- bate, but for mutual entertainment and profit. Johnson and Coleridge were great in monologue, but that is not colloquy ; and great talkers, mei'ely, have been designated " great culprits " in the conversational code of good manners. If good talkers transgress, what shall be charged against another class who talk a great deal, while in effect they say nothing? There are maxims manifold for teaching men to speak, which are comparatively little required, since nature prompts us to utter- ance ; but few suggest the superior wisdom of maintaining a judicious silence, which requires the restraint of reason and prudence. " It is with narrow-souled persons as with narrow- necked bottles — the less they have in them the more noise they make in pouring it out." We have intuitively the art of saying much on a little, whereas few possess the wit to say much in a little. In the art of speaking, as in chemical science, condensation is strength ; and in both cases the result is at- tained by a process of experimental analysis. Presidential addresses and Parliamentary or Congressional harangues are celebrated specimens of the verbose, as well as tlie rhetorical ; and the three memorable words of a classic hero — " Yeni^ Vidi, Vici " — furnish a splendid specimen of the 42 THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN. multum inj>arvo, and an example especially worthy the imita- tion of modern times. William, Prince of Orange, who made such a formidable stand against Spain, and founded the com- monwealth of the United Provinces, was a noble instance of a sagaciously silent man ; hence he is styled " "William the Silent." Let us glance at a few of the less venial sins of the talka- tive — for they are manifold, and to classify them all would re- quire the nice discrimination of an ethical Linnaeus. We begin with the babbler, who is commonly an unhappy personage him- self, for he has meddled too industriously with the affairs of others to enjoy any personal repose or satisfaction. Having made it the great business of his life to betray some hurtful secret, or aspersion on the fair fame and name of his neighbor, no one thinks it worth while to speak well of him. These are the miserable creatures who batten upon the noxious weeds of social life — thrive most upon pestilential rumors and the infectious breath of scandal ; all wholesome truth becomes insipid to their vitiated and depraved appetites ; and like the fabled Upas-tree, they diffuse the breath of poison and disease around them. Dr. Kitto exhibits scandal in its true deformity, where he describes it as " a compound of malignity and simulation ; never urging an opinion with the bold consciousness of ti'uth, but dealing in a monotonous jargon of half -sentences, convey- ing its ambiguities by emphasis ; thus confirming the evil they affect to deplore." Those persons who indulge this ignoble habit, he characterizes as " the hyenas of society, perpetually prowling over reputation, which is their prey ; lamenting, and at the same time enjoying, the ruin they create." The small-talkers may be subdivided into two varieties ; the latter class being accustomed to deal homoeopathically in the diluted gossip of the day. These exhibit exemplary persever- ance in the picking up and purveying of the smallest particles THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN. 43 of chit-chat ; and as they are usually provident of their stores, they make a very little go a great way. These are among insufferable social nuisances — they are both parvenu and ple- beian, and are fit subjects for the " school for adults." The third class of objective talkers are such as find "flavt^s in diamond wit of the first waters — motes in the brightest rays of the mind — and beams in the eyes of Truth." Be your opinions what they may, however undeniable, correct, settled, or well- digested, they are sure to object to them. Let your opinions to- day be to the letter what theirs were yesterday, they instantly challenge their accuracy ; and if they are foiled in their argu- ments, they then turn their objections to the mode in which you have presented them. You speak unaffectedly, and they censure you for mediocrity, plainness, and want of spirit ; talk in ornate phrase, and your style is stilted and artificial ; if your utterance is slow and deliberate, you are a drawling pro- ser ; if quick and fluent, your impetuosity is unendurable, and an equal offence to their immaculate taste. You modestly betray that you are well read in the classics, and they accuse you of pedantry ; you conceal your bibliographical knowledge, and you are at once suspected of gross ignorance, both of men and books. You bring them old opinions, and they doubt whether you have any of your own ; you deal in new ones, and they object to them as unsound. Others are constantly indulging in interrogatives ; all they have to propose is in the catechetical form. These, we need scarcely remark, are of a naturally inquisitive turn of mind ; they are most indefatigable searchers after truth : they are the most diligent in the pursuit of knowledge, and no difficulties im- pede their attainments. Curiosity is said to be a national char- acteristic, at least with the eastern portion of our country ; but it is, perhaps, a universal attribute of the female sex. Women, by the way, are strange enigmas ; for they are most skilful in 44 THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN. extracting secrets ; yet who discover so little tact in retaining them? They are less ingenuous than the Hibernian, who ex- cused himself for revealing a confidential matter committed to him, by frankly avowing that, as he found he could not keep the secret himself, he transferred it to his friend to retain it for him. Exclusive talkers are the bores nf society ; they gen- erally have it all to themselves, and all thei.v own way, for no- body is allowed to " divide the honors " with them. Though you know already everything he is saying, you cannot, by any chance, add to his marvellous stock of information. He is a per- fect cyclopaedia of general knowledge ; and, of course, is abun- dantly competent to instruct the unenlightened wherever he goes. If you essay to relate an anecdote or incident, he snatches it out of your mouth, and tells it for you, with the accompanying embellishments of his own extempore wit ; and should 3"0u urge, after its recital, that his was a different ver- sion of the story, and seek to rehearse it in your own way, he knows the other version as well as you do, and insists upon his own repetition. With such an incorrigible talker, it is a seri- ous mistake to venture any suggestion of the kind, since one anecdote leads by concatenation to a score of others, and thus you unwittingly subject yourself to furtlier annoyance. Another variety of the talkative is the exaggerator, — one who despises the common run of phrases, and deals in grandiloquent terms and high-flown metaphors. He is an extravaganza in the social circle ; everything he utters is invested with hyperlx)le and glowing imagery ; he scorns all colloquial phrases, and re- gards everything below his exalted standard mean and inex- pressive. AVhatever he has to say must be tinted up couleur de rose / yet, while his habitual indulgence in superlatives and expletives gi\^es spirit and force to his descriptions, it is ex- ceedingly dangerous to admit his statements too literally. Even the witty cannot always appreciate his humor, and mat- THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITUEN. 45 ter-of-fact people are at once utterly nonplussed at his extrava- gance. A talker of this class is, however, amusing in com- pany, for people must relax sometimes, or the consequences would prove fatal to their nervous system. That delicate machinery, by the way, has a severe ordeal to pass through in the wear and tear of life. Lord Brougham once said, no man has any right to a nervous system, who does not possess two thousand a year ; and we believe he was not far from just in his discrimination ; for while we pay especial regard to the well-being of the stomach, we sadly neglect our more sensitive nerves. A little nonsense, therefore, occasionally, may not be inadmissible, when it can be thus harmlessly indulged./ Non- sense is to sense as shade to light — it heightens effect./ ' This art of vividly magnifying minor objects into exagger- ated importance, by exhibiting them through a kind of mental microscope, has a charm for the fireside. It presents things in grotesque and monstrous distortion, which cannot fail of ex- citing our risible faculties. Dean Swift was, perhaps, the greatest specimen of this style of talking. This habit, of exag- gerating a statement beyond its exact limits, is one of the most common of colloquial misdemeanors. Some souls seem too big for their bodies — every thing must be in extenso / hence they transcend the restrictive limits of reality, and bound off into the regions of the ideal. Sticklers for matter-of-fact are, perhaps, equally tenacious of the opposite extreme ; and they are no less obnoxious to good taste : they are as rigidly literal as the former are poetical. They evince a false zeal for truth, for they again leap beyond its limits, in their eager pursuit of details. With all their professed antipathy to exaggeration, they become culpable in the very thing they repudiate. The man who would measure a hair or weigh a feather, is as guilty of an hyperbole as he who would transcend the just propor- tions of truth. 46 THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITUEN. Among minor varieties might be classed the slow-talker, whose drawling accents make even the very atmosphere drowsy, and whose provoking prolixity is tantalizing to the most patient of listeners. Then there is the loud talker, whose lack of sense and modesty he vainly thinks to disguise in " sound and fury signifying nothing." There is yet another class, who are in the habit of violating good taste and decorum by the ever-recurring use of outre and unintelligible terms — flowers of speech — exotics from all the living languages, as well as the dead. These scorn the usual phrases of our vernacular, however inapt their adoption may be of foreign terms. The injudicious and excessive use of foreign phrases evinces a very questionable taste, and is characteristic of pedantry and a love of display, which those who value their reputation for scholarship ought scrupulously to avoid. We confess ourselves too charitably inclined to exhibit the foibles incident to another unfortunate class, who are prone to a fatal habit of telling what they have to say inopportunely, or who are frequently liable to perpetrate bad puns, and worse jokes, at which no one can even force a spasmodic laugh, for we all know Dr. Johnson's depreciative estimate of their character. They have but one exclusive privilege, of which most evince a ready pro- clivity to avail themselves — that of laughing at their own point- less puns. Yet Charles Lamb defends this right in the fol- lowing wise : " That a man must not laugh at his own jest is surely the severest exaction ever invented upon the self-denial of poor human nature. This is to expect a gentleman to give a treat without partaking of it, to sit esurient at his own iable, and commend the flavor of his own venison upon the absurd strength of never touching it himself. On the contrary, we love to see a wag taste his own joke to his party." Having disposed of our garrulous friends, what shall we say THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN. 47 of the incommunicative ? — those inane beings who so admirably supply the lack of statuary in the boudoir or library. Among this class are the men of elongated and lugubrious visage, who frown out of existence even the scintillation of a smile, and " shut up " every facetious mouth, however highly charged it may be with intellectual electricity, deferring to the taci- turnity of the British, Sydney Smith remarks, " There is nothr ing which an Englishman more enjoys than the pleasure of sulkiness — of not being forced to hear a word from anybody which may occasion him the necessity of replying. It is not so much that Mr. Bull disdains to talk, as that Mr. Bull has noth- ing to say. His forefathers have been out of spirits for six or seven hundred years ; and, seeing nothing but fog and vapor, he is out of spirits, too ; and when there is no selling or buying, or no business to settle, he prefers being alone and looking at the fire." The taciturn, whatever be their minor idiosyncra- sies, are social dampers ; they repress the utterances of the heart wherever their influence extends. If a man be endued with a tongue and brains, it is fair to infer they were designed for use ; an incorrigible mute, therefore, sins against himself, as well as society. Some persons very modestly shelter them- selves under the plea that their silence is caused by their laborious habit of thinking ; we regard this apology as apocry- phal at the best ; for any man who has, however little, of the Promethean fire in him, must throw off sparks sometimes. Some of these wordless men vainly seek to atone for their provoking silence by assuming an interminable and senseless smile ; others, again, sit in stolid indifference, looking as vapid and unimpressible as they probably are in reality. There is another variety who absurdly obtrude themselves and their private affairs on the attention of a mixed company, than which nothing can be more injudicious or indelicate. Others lie in wait for every opportunity to proclaim their own 48 THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITUEN. adroitness and wit, and are ever on the alert to elicit commen- dation and compliments. Some boast their gift of prescience ; they challenge us to remember they always foretold what would happen in such a case, but none would believe them ; they advised such a person from the beginning, and told him the consequences would be j ust as they happened, but he would have his own way. Others, again, have a singular weakness or vanity of telling their own frailties and faults : " they are the strangest of all strange people— they cannot dissemble ; they own it is a folly — they have lost advantages by it — but if you would give them the world, they cannot help it." To preserve a judicious silence is a very essential requisite in refined and polite society ; this silence is not, of course, sullen or supercilious, but graceful and eloquent. Having taken our exceptions to offenders against good man- ners in the matter of conversation, we will now venture to offer a few hints for the uninitiated. Conversation is one of the polite arts of life, its end and aim being the cultivation of the graces and attractions of social life ; he that possesses con- versational powers in the highest degree, therefore, becomes a most efficient agent in imparting pleasure, and in contributing to the improvement of society. Yery much of our colloquial intercourse, however, consists of mere gossip, and gossip of the most trivial kind — such as the state of the weather, the prevail- ing on dits of the newspapers, and the costumes and domestic affairs of our neighbors, etc. Unless our conversational topics rise to a higher level, with a flavor of the intellectual, sea- soned with a little Attic salt, it will be in vain to hope for im- provement. The fixed conventionalities and phrases of fash- ionable life do little more than add a superficial polish to the inanities and platitudes which form the common staple of ordi- nary social intercourse. Fashionable conversation is, indeed, a sacrifice to etiquette, as that of low-life is to vulgarity ; it is in THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN. 49 the "golden mean" of cultivated society that the best conversers are to be found. Women are invested with privileges in the social circle above those of the opposite sex, for they challenge both your logic and your gallantry. If you confront their opinions with the first, you are silenced by the second ; it is therefore safer to surrender the contest at discretion. Two things seem essential to the possession of good conversa- tional powers — a competent knowledge of men and books, and a felicitous habit of expression ; the former is to be acquired by observation and study ; while the latter is more commonly an intuitive gift. Topics npon which to descant are manifold and various ; the whole realm of nature and art, the boundless re- sources of knowledge, and the numberless incidents, phases, and accidents of human life, as well as the myriad forms of imagery that people the regions of thought and fancy — all supply themes of interesting discussion. What, for example, could afford subjects more pleasing or fertile for a quiet and sociable tete-d- tete than the variegated treasures of Flora, the ever-changing and exquisite beauties of natural scenery, the investigations of pure science, and the accumulated wealth of human lore ? If anecdote and humor are the pearls of polite conversation, the above-named constitute the pure gold for their setting, reflect- ing a tenfold splendor. Those, therefore, who are aufait at repartee, or who fill up the pauses which occur in graver dis- cussions by brilliant flashes of extempore wit, or a piquant story, good-natured sarcasm, or playful satire, achieve no in- considerable service in the social gathering. The circumstan- ces of time, place, and the character of the company, ought, of course, ever to govern the choice of topics, and the manner and method of their presentation. It would be absurd to expound a problem of Euclid to an elderly lady whose sphere of attain- ments never stretched beyond the details of the dormitory or the duties of her domicil ; and it would be equally inconsist 4 50 THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN. ent to attempt a grave dissertation on the treasures bidden in the heart of the earth, to a fair nymph in love, whose interests lie all concentrated and clustered in the devoted heart of her lover. " Talk not to a physician of music, nor of medicine to a fiddler, unless the fiddler should be sick, and the physician at a concert. He that speaks only of such subjects as are fa- miliar to himself, treats the company as the stork did the fox, presenting an entertainment to him in a deep pitcher, out of v^^hich no creature could feed but a long-billed fowl." * Fulsome flattery, and all kinds of extravagant compliment, are as obnoxious to good taste as the baneful practice of in- dulging hadinage, or personal invective. To a well-balanced and educated man, the cultivated society of the opposite sex offers the highest possible attractions ; for, in addition to the advantages to be derived from the interchange of elevated thought and sentiment, the most fascinating arts and graces are exhibited, which exert a reciprocal and powerful influence, im- parting a brilliancy and cliarm to everything that is spoken. If to excel in the art of pleasing be the secret of success in that of conversation, commend us not infrequently to the re- fining elegance and challenging graces of educated women: in such a school of the art, the pupil who should fail of academic honors, would assuredly prove himself unworthy to share them. Among the most delightful of mental recreatives may be classed the exhilarating pleasures of intellectual inter- course ; they constitute the very life-fluid of our social being.. Authors, as a general rule, do not shine with special bril- liancy in the social firmament ; no dazzling coruscations of their wit and wisdom burst upon us like meteoric showers, illumining the darkness. The biographies of men of letters in a great measure confirm this, and confirm also tine suggestion of Haz- litt, where he says: "Authors ought to be read, and not * Jones of Nayland. THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITUEN. 51 heard." Yet there have been some notable exceptions; for instance, Johnson, Mackintosh, Sheridan, Steele, Swift, Ma- caulay, Robert Hall, and Dickens, not forgetting the " golden- mouthed " Coleridge. These were an order of illustrious talkers ; they were as eloquent with their tongue, as with their pen. Madame de Stael was as brilliant as she was ambitious in conversation. On a certain occasion a person was introduced to her, upon whom she was anxious to make an impression. Madame asked a thousand questions, and kept up such an un- ceasing flow of talk that she forgot to wait for any response fi'om her visitor ; when the interview was over, she was asked how she liked her new acquaintance. " Oh, a most delightful personage ; what wit and learning ! '•' was the reply, (the visi- tor was both deaf and dumb ! ) On the other hand, most of the eminent writers who have made such a noise in the world, in past and modern .times, have been mere mutes in the social circle. Such were, among others. Goldsmith, Jeffrey, Dante, Alfieri, Marmontel, Rous- seau, Descartes, Lafontaine, Corneille, Addison, and Butler. Wit on paper seems to be something widely different from that play of words in conversation which, while it sparkles, dies. Charles II. was so charmed with Hvdibras that he sought an introduction, incognito, to Butler, its author ; he found him so dull and incommunicative that he said, at the close of the in- terview, he did not believe so stupid a fellow could have writ- ten so clever a book. Foster, the essayist, speaking of Robert Hall and Coleridge, said : " Hall used language as an emperor. He said to his words, go, and come, imperially, and they obeyed his bidding. Coleridge used his words as a necro- mancer, so aerial and unearthly were their embodiments and subjects." Sir William Temple has well said : " The first ingredient in conversation is truth, the next, good sense, the third, good 52 THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN. humor, and the fourth, wit." In the same spirit, Steele re- marks : " Beauty is never so lovely as when adorned with the smile; so conversation never sits easier upon us than when we now and then discharge ourselves in a symphony of laugh- ter, which may not improperly be called the chorus of conver- sation." But one of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company could reasonably wish had not been said. It is much better to reflect before we speak, than to speak before we reflect. The tongue is a little member, but of prodigious importance to us ; and although it is the willing instrument of love or hate, of peace or war — yet how many are derelict in the duty of its proper government. The tongue is also an index of character ; like the face, it dis- covers the condition — healthy or diseased — of the mind as well as the body ; its curative treatment, therefore, should be both physical and metaphysical. Cato said : " I think it the first vir- tue to restrain the tongue." Sometimes a bridle is as needful for the human tongue as a bit for the horse's mouth, since both occasionally require a " check-rein." There is another way of looking at some reticent people — such unimpeachable persons, for instance, as Hawthorne, Ir- ving, Prescott, Tennyson, and others ; taciturnity is pardonable — nay, profitable — with them, for it means wisdom. It has been said, " There is no sociability like the free companionship of silent men ; " which means that they speak only when they have something to say. These are they who talk the least, and do the most. Among the reticent, there are also shades of differ- ence ; for another variety might be named, of which Thackeray and Theodore Hook, Charles Lamb and Hood, are illustrations. Although they were unrivalled at repartee and humor at the club, yet at a more public assemblage they rarely ventured speechifying. Dickens seems to have been a rare exception to this peculiarity, among the literati, since he was as prompt to THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITURN. 53 improvise a dinner-speech as to furnisli manuscript for the printer. Chaucer was more facetious in his tales than in his talk ; and the Countess of Pembroke used to rally him by say- ing, that his silence was more agreeable to her than his conver- sation. Dryden has confessed that he was dull and saturnine in society ; and even Milton, with his " arabesque mind," was unsocial and occasionally irritable. It seems like a psycho- logical problem, that those who have been so amply endowed with intellectual gifts should be apparently so incapable of imparting the benefit of their acquisition to others. Irving, however, gives a high testimony to the social character of Scott, a tribute, indeed, that might with equal propriety be ap- plied to himself. On his visit to Abbotsf ord, he says of Scott : " His conversation was frank, hearty, picturesque, and dra- matic. He never talked for effect or display, but from the flow of liis spirits, the stores of his imagination. He was as good a listener as a talker ; appreciated everything that others said, however humble might be their rank and pretensions, and was quick to testify his perception of any point in their dis- course. No one's concerns, no one's thoughts and opinions, no one's tastes and pleasures, seemed beneath him. He made himself so thoroughly the companion of those with whom he happened to be, that they forgot, for a time, his vast superi- ority, and only recollected and wondered, when all was over, that it was Scott with whom they had b3en on such familiar terms, in whose society they had felt so perfectly at ease." Lastly, we may just briefly refer to a modern heresy in our social intercourse caused by the rules of etiquette, which make, snch hypocritical pretences, that our so-called fashionable life becomes a mere masquerade. Scarcely any one, in that charmed circle, but acts his part in a theatrical disguise ; and these disguises begin even with the nursery, and continue throughout each successive stage down to the grave. !We are 54 THE TALKATIVE AND THE TACITUBN. therefore not what we seem ;/' and this is in consequence of our artificial, conventional usages, and our surveillance to a false code of morals. Are not these delusions and deceptions — practical moral frauds, and is not our standard of, so called, polite life chargeable with this systematic deceit? "Why should we tolerate, much less approve, deception in speech, any more than in heart . and life ? CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETEEIES. " Where the end of earthly things Lays heroes, patriots, bards, and kings 1 Where, stiif the hand, and still the tongue Of those who fought, and spoke, and sung 1 " Scott. Cemetekies have been poetically styled the " holy suburbs of the Celestial City,-]/-the border land of that better country that lies beyond the river of death ! " The name, Cemetery^ is de- rived from the Greek, and means a sleeping place. As opposed to the Pagan civilizations, the Jews styled their burial-places, — Beth hahaim, — the house of the living : and the same idea of repose or sleeping is indicated by the numerous inscriptions of the catacombs. With most of the nations of Christendom our places of sepulture are indicated by the symbolic Cross, point- ing to a life to come. The Germans designate their burial 56 CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. grounds — Gottes-acJcer, and Longfellow has beautifully em- balmed the name in melodious verse. " God's acre ! yes, that blessed name Imparts Comfort to those, who in the grave have sown The seed that they had garnered in their hearts, Their bread of life, alas ! no more their own ! " These hallowed places have also been styled ^^ Silent Cities.'''' Silent, indeed, are they, although peopled with multitudes of forms once beautiful and surprised with life and vocal with the music of human speech. Even the sweet prattle of infancy, and the tender responses of a mother's enduring love are now no longer heard. Alas ! all voices are hushed in the unbroken stillness of death ! Yet there is a mystic voice from the tomb that comes to the heart sweeter than song. " There is a fond remembrance of the dead, to which we turn, even from the charms of the living." It is this hallowed bond that links the living with the dead, in perpetual memory ; we pay our accus- tomed visits to the sleeping forms of our departed ones, as we do to those who still lend the lig}\t of their smiles, and the mu sic of their kindly speech to bless our earthly life. ; We love to make pilgrimages to these shrines of our affection./ There is scarcely any subject of more touching interest, or one that awakens a deeper sympathy in the human heart. If we may not hold intercourse with the venerated dead, the mind is instinctively beguiled into a reverie so irresistibly bewitching, that we seem to share a silent colloquy with our loved and lost ones. We chant with Campbell, " That's hallowed ground where, mourned and missed, The lips repose our love has kissed ; But Where's their memory's mansion ? la't Yon churchyard bowers ? No ! in ourselves their souls exist, A part of ours." CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 57 Our thoughts are evermore tending to the grave and its mys- teries ; and, like our past hours, troop onward, often unbidden, to the day when we, too, shall attain to the realm of the un- known. Some of our greatest poems, indeed, are monodies and elegiac refrains : yet with the cheering Christian philoso- phy of Wordsworth, we need not hang our harps upon the wil- lows; for " Sin-bUghted though we are, we, too, the reasoning sons of men, From our oblivious winter called, shall rise and breathe again ; And, in eternal summer, lose our three-score years and ten I " The academic groves of Greece wei*e made, in part, the resting-places of their honored dead. Amid these leafy shades, sacred to learning and philosophy, they buried their heroes and poets. In these hallowed precincts Plato and his pupils were accustomed to convene. The first place of worship in the Acropolis of Athens was the sepulchre of Cecrops. It may be fairly inferred, that the tombs of the Athenians were the origin of their temples. The Romans frequently buried their dead on either side of the Appian Way, and over their tombs they were accustomed to place the monumental urn. Decking the graves of the deceased with flowers, was a custom observed among the Greeks and Romans. " In olden time no blossoms were planted where the dead were sleeping, and no grounds were laid out with mounds, ravines, and running streams. The place was only a ' grave- yard,' surrounded with a rough stone-wall, within which bushes and brambles grew in rank luxuriance. But to-day, the army of flowers, with its bright and beautiful banners, has charged upon the thorny hosts of bramble, bush, and briar, and driving them from ' God's acre,' has set a guard of statuary at the gates of the cemetery." * * J. H. Smith. 58 CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. The fragrant flowers, symbolic of undying affection, and of a resurrection — life, make an eloquent and persuasive appeal to bereaved and sorrowing hearts. It is a custom fraught with the most delightful associations ; and induces an elevation of sentiment and a poetry of feeling, equally calculated to mollify our grief, and to invest the sep- ulchre with the kindling emotions of hope and immortality. " We adorn our graves," says Evelyn, " with flowers and re- dolent plants, just emblems of the life of man, which has been compared in the Hoi}'' Scriptures to those fading beauties, whose roots, being buried in dishonor, rise again in glory." " Those token flowers that tell What words could never speak so well," in earlier times were rendered peculiarly expressive of the cir- cumstances of the deceased ; for example, at the funeral of a young girl, the cliaplet- wreath of white roses was borne by one of her own sex and age before the corpse, the token of virgin purity and innocence, and afterwards hung over her accus- tomed seat at the church. The rose was also sometimes blended with- the lily, as the emblem of frail mortality ; the red rose for such as had been remarkable for benevolence; and when it was intended to betoken the hapless loves or sor- rows of the departed, the yew and cypress were used. These simple floral rites seem to belong to the past rather than the present ; and yet instinctively the heart fondly clings to them, and interprets their sentiment. The stately tomb or sculptured mausoleum may impress the eye of the beholder by their artis- tic splendor and magnificence ; but those token flowers, so fi-a- grant and so fair, make their modest yet eloquent appeal to the heart of our common humanity with a power and pathos that is irresistible. How daintily does our great dramatist detail their uses : CITATIONS FROM THE CEilETERIES. 59 "With fairest flowers, Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, m sweeten thy sad grave ; thou shalt not lack The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor The azured harebell, like thy veins ; no, nor The leaf of eglantine ; whom not to slander, Outsweetened not thy breath." Where is the heart, in its gnshings of sorrow, that would not as the unbidden tear bedews the sainted grave, yield to such spontaneous offerings of affection, and bind an osier round the sod ? Who would not say, with Miss Landon, " It may be a weakness, thougli growing out of all that is most redeeming in our nature — the desire that is in us, to make the city of the de- parted beautiful, as well as sacred. The green yew that flings down its shadow, the wild flowers that spring up in the long grass, take away from the desolation ; they are the type and sign of a world beyond themselves. Even as spring brings back the leaf to the bough, the blossom to the grass, so will a more glorious spring return to that which is now but a little human dust." It is good to be sometimes reminded of death, and the grave. A memento mori is not necessarily sad and forbid- ding, nor is the dirge-note always a fearful sound ; for to the mind rightly trained and constituted, they speak of a blissful hereafter, and a glorified existence, for which this is but a state of preparation. Knowing and /eeling this, we may stand in the church-yard without awe or dread, and looking through death's open portals into the regions of everlasting happiness beyond, exclaim : ' ' The first tabernacle to Hope we will buUd, And look for the sleepers around us to rise ; The second to Faith, which ensures it fulfilled ; And the third to the Lamb of the great Sacrifice, Who bequeathed us them both when He rose to the skies." 60 CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. The Christian faith is variously symbolized by the sacred Palm, as emblematic of victory, — the Immortelle, of eternal life, — the Anchor, of hope, — the Psyche, or winged insect rising from the chrysalis, as typical of the resurrection ; and the Cross, as the perpetual emblem of the Christian's earthly con- flict and ultimate triumph. But a truce to the homily ; let us now look at a few of the memorial records, which have been collected from various dis- tant districts of the dead. It was fii-st said, by the great Napo- leon, — and it has been often repeated, — " it is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous" — and this has been not unfi*e- quently verified by the writers of epitaphs. As we con over the absurd conceits, poor puns, and fulsome eulogies that so often disfigure the resting-places of the departed, we almost wonder that the very stones do not cry out against the* folly. What think you, good reader, of the groupings here subjoined ? From Childwaid church-yard, England, this is copied : " Here lies me and my three daughters, Brought here by using Seidlitz waters ; If we had stuck to Epsom salts, We wouldn't have been ia these here vaults." In Norwich cathedral, is the following laconic intimation : " Here lies the body of honest Tom Page, Who died in the thirty-third year of his age." In Islington church-yard, near London, may be seen this dog- gerel triplet : " Pray for the soul of Gabriel John, Who died in the year 1601 : — Or if you don't, it is all one." The following absurd lines are said to be copied from a gravestone at Nettlebed church-yard, Oxfordshire : CITATIONS FROM THE CEIMETERIES. 61 " Here lies father, and mother, and sister, and I, We all died within the space of one short year ; They be all buried at Wimble, except I, And I be buried here." From a gravestone at Northallerton, England, comes the fol- lowing : " Hicjacet Walter Gun, Sometime landlord of the Sun ; Sic transit gloria mundi ! He drank hard upon Friday, That being a high day — Then, took to his bed, and died upon Sunday." Here is another desperate specimen of punning upon a name ; it is upon the tomb of William More, at Stepney, near London : " Here lies one More, and no more than he ; One More, and no more, how can that be ? Why one More, and no more, may lie here alone, But here lies one more, and that's more than one." On the organist of St. Mary Winton College, Oxford : " Here lies one blown out of breath, Who lived a merry life, and died a Merideth ! " In Biddeford church-yard, Devonshire, is, or was, the follow- ing elegantly printed inscription, upon a certain luckless swain, whose name is not given : " The wedding-day appointed was, And wedding- clothes provided, But ere that day did come, alas ! He sickened, and he die did ! " A still swifter summons seems to have been sent by the "King of Terrors" to another, whose record in the church-yard of Seven Oaks, Kent, reads as follows : 62 CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. " Grim Death took me without any warning, I was well at night, and dead at nine in the morning ! " From the same county, the following has been copied : " Here lies the body of Sarah Sexton, Who was a good wife, and never vexed one : I can't say that for her, at the next stone ! " This equivocal compliment referred to his first wife ! The next epitaph has an infusion of common sense in it ; it is cop- ied from Guildford church-j^ard : " Reader, pass on, ne'er waste your time On bad biography, and silly rhyme ; For what I am, this cumbrous clay ensures. And what I was, is no affair of yours." At Bur}' St. Edmund's, Suffolk, there was an old tombstone with this unceremonious inscription : " Here lies Jane Kitchen, Who when her glass was spent, She kick't up her heels And away she went." In Walford church-yard, Warwickshire, is the following on John Randall : " Here old John Randall lies, who counting by his sale. Lived three score years and ten, such virtue was in ale ; Ale was his meat, ale was his drink, ale did his heart revive, And could he stUl have drunk his ale, he still had been alive." In St. Margaret's, Westminster, is the following inscription to the memory of Thomas Churchyard, Laureate to Henry VII. : '' Come, Alecto, and lend me thy torch, To find a church-yard in a church porch ; » Povertie and poetrie this tomb doth enclose, — Therefore, gentlemen, be merrie in prose." CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 63 This expressive epitaph is taken from the old church-yard at Belturbet, Ireland : " Here lies John Higley, whose father and mother were drowned in their passage from America. Had they both lived, they would Tiave been buried here ! " In St. Michael's church-yard, Crooked lane, London, is the following laconic record : " Here lieth, wrapped in clay, The body of William Wray ; — I have no more to say I " The following admonitory voice from a tomb in Thetford church-yard, Norfolk, will at least be perused with interest by the advocates of temperance : " My grandfather lies buried here, My cousin Jane, and two uncles dear ; My father perished with an inflammation in his eyes, My sister dropt down dead in the Minories ; But the reason why I'm here interred, according to my thinkiiig, Is owing to my good living and hard drinking ! Therefore, good people, if you wish to live long, Don't drink too much wine, brandy, gin, or anything strong." In the church-yard of Chigwell, Essex, England, is the fol- lowing inscription : " This disease you ne'er heard tell on, I died by eating too much melon ; Be careful, then, all you that feed, — I Suffered because I was too greedy." Here is an epitaph upon a desperate toper, in a church-yard, at Durham, Eno-land : 64 CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. " Beneath, these stones repose the bones Of Theodosius Grimm, He took his beer from year to year, And then his bier took him." Over the grave where Shakspeare's dust reposes, is inscribed the following well-known quaint adjuration : " Good friend, for Jesvs' sake forbeare, To digge the dvst encloased heare ; Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones, And cvrst be he yt moves my bones." From Handon church-yard, England, comes the following : "Beneath this stone, Tom Crossfield lies. Who cares not now who laughs or cries ; He laughed when sober, and when mellow, Was a harum-scarum harmless fellow ; He gave to none designed offence, So — ' Honi soit qui mal y pense! ' " The subjoined is copied from an old church-yard at Llan- flantwthyl, Wales : " Under this stone lies Meredith Morgan, Who blew the beUows of our church organ ; Tobacco he hated, to smoke most unwilling, Yet never so pleased as when pipes he was filling ; No reflection on him for rude speech could be cast, Though he made our old organ give many a blast. No puffer was he, though a capital blower. He could fill double G, and now lies a note lower." The following is certainly calculated to repress inquisitive- ness: " Here lies Pat. Steele, — that's very thrue ; Who was he ? What was he ? What's that to you ? " CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 65 Byron, it is said, wrote the following lines on John Adams, carrier, of Sonthwell : " Jolm Adams lies here, of the parish of Southwell, A carrier, who carried the can to his mouth well ; He carried so much, and he carried so fast, He could carry no more, so was carried at last ; For the Hquor l\e drank being too much for one, He could not carry off, so he's now carri-on ! " In St. Michael's church-yard, Aberystwith, is the following professional tribute to David Davies, blacksmith : " My sledge and hammer lay reclined. My bellows, too, have lost their wind, Myjires extinct, raj forge decayed. And in the dust, my vice is laid ; My coal is spent, my iron gone. My 7iails are drove, — my work is done." In Selby church-yard, Yorkshire, is the following memorial to one Miles : ' ' This tombstone is a milestone, ah ! how so ? Because, beneath lies Miles, who's nailes below ! " At Crayford church-yard, Kent, may be seen the following, on the tomb of Peter Snell, for thirty-five years Parish Clerk : ' ' The life of this clerk was just three-score and ten, Nearly half of which time he had sang out, amen ! In his youth he married, like other young men ; But his wife died one day — so he chaunted — amen 1 A second he took, — she departed ; — what then ? He married, and buried a third, with — amen ! Thus his joys and his sorrows were treble, but then — His voice was deep bass as he sang out — amen. On the horn he could blow, as well as most men. So ' his horn was exalted,' in blowing — amen ! He lost all his wind, after three-score and ten, And here, with three wives, he waits, tUl again The trumpet shall rouse him, to sing out amen ! " 5 6Q CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. At Gateshead clmrch-yard, Newcastle, is the following : " Here lies Robert Trollop, Who made yon stones roU up, When Death took his soul up His body filled this hole up." In the grounds of Winchester cathedral, is the following epitaph to the memory of Thomas Fletcher : " Here sleeps in peace a Hampshire grenadier, Who caught his death by drinking cold small beer ; Soldiers, be wise, from his untimely fall, And, when you're hot, drink strong or not at all." In Doncaster church-yard — (1816) ! — " Here lies 2 brothers, by misfortin serounded, One died of his wounds, and the other was drownded." At St. Giles', Cripplegate, London, is the following poor attempt at punning : " Under this marble fair Lies the body entombed of Gervaise Aire : He dyed not of an ague fit. Nor surfeited by too much wit. Methinks this was a wondrous death. That Aire should die for want of breath." In Gloucester church-yard, it is said, may be seen the follow- ing: ' ' Two lovelier babes ye ne'er did see Than God Almighty gave to we ; But they were taken with ague fits, And there they Ues as dead as nits." Ah a relief to the ludicrous specimens, just offered, we now turn to that splendid epitaph written, not as it had long been CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 67 believed, by Ben Jonsoii, but by Browne, author of " Britan- nia) s Pastorals^ "We refer to the inscription on the tomb of the Countess of Pembroke : " Underneath this sable hearse Lies the subject of all verse, Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother; Death, ere thou hast slain another Fair and learned, and good as she, Time shaU throw a dart at thee." Ben Jonson wrote, however, this remarkable epitaph on Elizabeth L. II. : " Wouldst thou hear what man can say In a little ? Reader, stay. Underneath this stone doth lie As much beauty as could die ; "Which in life did harbour give To more virtue than doth live ; If, at all, she had a fault, Leave it buried in this vault. One name was Elizabeth, Th' other, let it sleep with death ; Fitter, where it died, to teU, Than that it lived at all, — fareweU." One of the finest epitaphs in our language is Collins' : " How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, By aU their country's wishes blest ! When spring, with dewy fingers cold. Returns to deck their haUowed mould ; She there shall dress a sweeter sod. Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. By fairy hands their kneU is rung ; By forms imseen their dirge is siing ; There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, To bless the turf that wraps their clay ; 68 CITATIONS FROM THE CEIVIETERIES. And Freedom shall awhile repair, To dwell a weeping hermit there ! " In an epitaph on a marine at Chichester, the writer has made an adroit turn from mortal to spiritual warfare : " Here lies a true soldier, whom aU must applaud, Much hardship he suffered at home and abroad ; But the hardest engagement he ever was iu, Was the battle of self iu the conquest of siu ! " Every one knows (or ought to know) Mason's fine epitaph on his young wife, in Bristol Cathedral : " Take, holy earth, all that my soul holds dear ! Take that best gift, which Heaven so lately gave ! To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care Her faded form : she bowed to taste the wave — And died ! " One of the finest homilies on riches ever given was the epitaph written in Latin, in 1579, on John of Doncaster ; we give the translation : "What I spent, I had, What I gave, I have, What I saved, I lost." This epitaph was inscribed on the tombstone of Joe Miller — the individual who is made responsible for such multitudes of poor jokes — who died in 1738, and was buried in the church- yard of St. Clement Danes : " If humor, wit, and honesty could save The humorous, witty, honest, from the grave, The grave had not so soon this tenant found, Whom honesty, and wit, and humor crowned. Or could esteem and love preserve our breath. And guard us longer from the stroke of death, — The stroke of death on him had later fell. Whom all mankind esteemed and loved so well. " CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 69 Charles Lamb, when young, was walking in a churcli-yard with his sister, and noting the eulogistic character of the epitaphs, said, " Mary, where do the naughty people lie ? " That question has not, we believe, been answered. Garrick's epitaph on Quin, in the Abbey Church, at Bath, has not often been exceeded : " The tongue which set the table in a roar, And charmed the public ear, is heard no more ! Closed are those eyes, the harbingers of wit. Which spake before the tongue what Shakspeare writ. Cold is that hand, which ever was stretched forth, At friendship's call, to succor modest worth. Here lies James Quin ! — Deign, reader, to be taught, Whate'er thy strength of body, force of thought ; In Nature's happiest mould, however cast, To this complexion thou must come at last ! " Brief monumental inscriptions are, after all, the most elo- ,quent. What can exceed that of Sir Christopher "VVren, in St. Paul's Cathedral, of which he was the well-known architect : ' ' Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice ! " and we might add that to the memory of Sir Isaac Newton : " Isaacum Newton quem immortalem Testantur tempus, natura, ccelum, mortalem hoc manner Fatetur ! " In the church-yard of St. Anne, Soho, London, is the follow- ing curious epitaph on Theodore, King of Corsica, one of the "Monarchs retired from business ; " it is from the pen of Hor- ace Walpole : " Near this place is interred Theodore, King of Corsica, who died in this parish, December 11, 1756 ; im- mediately after leaving the King's Bench prison, by the bene- fits of the act of Insolvency ; in consequence he registered hia kingdom of Corsica for the use of his creditors. 70 CITATIONS FROM THE CEJEETERIES. " The Grave, great teacher, to a level brings Heroes and beggars, galley-slaves and kings ; But Theodore this moral learned, ere dead ; Fate poured its lessons on his living head, Bestowed a kingdom, and denied him bread. " From Cunwallow church-yard, Cornwall, is taken the fol- lowing inscription, which may be read in four different ways, up or down, backwards or forwards : " ShaU we aU die ? We shaU die aU ! All die shall we, Die aU we shall." The pithy epitaph on Dr. Walker^ author of a work on " English Particles," reads thus : " Here lie Walker's particles" 1 and that on Fuller^ author of " English "Worthies," and other works, is : " Here lies Fuller's earth " I Garrick's celebrated epitaph on Hogarth, in Chiswick church-yard, is as follows : " Farewell, great painter of mankind, Who reached the noblest point of art I Whose pictured morals charm the mind, And through the eye correct the heart ! If genius fire thee, reader, stay — If Nattire touch thee, drop a tear ! If neither move thee, turn away, For Hogarth's honored dust lies here I " As a specimen of the terse and suggestive, we offer the epitaph found in Torrington church-yard, Devon : ' ' She was — but words are wanting to say what : Think what a woman should be — she was that." CITATIONS FROM THE CEIMETEIIIES. 71 In Llangowen church-yard, Wales, is this quaint, admonitory inscription : " Our life is but a summer's day — Some only breakfast, and away. Others to dinner stay, and are fuU fed ; The oldest man but sups and goes to bed. Large his account, who lingers out the day ; "^Tio goes the soonest, has the least to pay ! " In the church-yard of Evesham, in Oxfordshire, is the fol- lowing tribute, " To ye memory of her dear husband, Mr. John Green, gent. 1652 " : " Stay, reader, drop upon this stone One pitying tear, and then begone ! A handsome pUe of flesh and blood Is here sunk down to its first mud ; Which thus in Western rubbish lies, UntU the Eastern Star shaU rise." At Trenton, New Jersey, there may be seen the following beautifully expressive lines, inscribed over the tomb of Mrs. Mary Dunbar, who died in 1808 : " The meed of merit ne'er shall die, Nor modest worth neglected lie. The fame that pious virtue gives. The Memphian monuments outlives. Reader, wouldst thou secure such praise, Go, learn Religion's pleasant ways." Franklin's famous epitaph, so often printed, was probably suggested to his mind, after his recovery from the severe attack of pleurisy, in 1729, The following is a correct copy : " The body of Benjamin Franklin, printer, (like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out, and stript of its lettering and gilding.) lies here food tor worms ! Yet the work itself 72 CITATIONS FROM THE CEJIETERIES. shall not be lost, for it will, as he believed, appear once more, in a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended bj The Author." This grotesque epitaph was not, however, inscribed on his tomb. Perhaps the most witty and satirical of all epitaphs is that one in Bath cathedral, which must be almost sufficient to frighten some nervous invalids from the city : "These walls, adorned with monumental bust, Show how Bath waters serve to lay the dust." Willis thus poetically pictures to us the burial place of Shelley and Keats : " With a cloudless sky, and the most delicious air ever breathed, we sat down upon the marble slab laid over the ashes of poor Shelley, and read his own lament over Keats, who sleeps just below, at the foot of the hill. The cemetery is rudely formed into three terraces, with walks between ; and Shelley's grave, and one without a name, occupy a small nook above, made by the projection of a mouldering wall-tower, and crowded with ivy and shrubs, and a peculiarly fragrant yellow flower, which perfumes the air around for several feet. The avenue by which you ascend from the gate is lined with high bushes of the marsh-rose, in the most luxuriant bloom, and all over the cemetery the grass is thickly mingled with flowers of every hue." In his preface to his lament over Keats, Shelley says : " He was buried in the romantic and lovely Cemetery of the Protestants ; under the pyramid which is the tomb of Astius, and the massy walls and towers, now mouldering and desolate, which formed the circuit of ancient Rome. It is an open space among the ruins, cov- ered in winter with violets and daisies. It might make one in love with death to think that one should he huried in so sweet ajplaceP If Shelley had chosen his own grave at the time, he CITATIONS FROM TKE CEilETEEIES. 73 would have selected the very spot where he has since been laid — the most sequestered and flowery nook of the place he describes so feelingly. In the last verses of the elegy, he speaks of it again with the same feeling of its beauty : " Go thou to Rome, — at once the Paradise, The grave, the city, and the wildemess ; And where its wrecks Uke shattered moiratains rise, And flowering weeds and fragrant copses dreas The bones of Desolation's nakedness, Pass, tUl the spirit of the spot shall lead Thy footsteps to a slope of green access, Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread." The cemetery at Stoke Newington acquires peculiar interest from the circumstance of its having been formed in Abney Park, where Dr. Watts so frequently strolled during his long residence at the hospitable mansion of Sir Thomas Abney. The west of London, and Westminster Cemetery, differ from all the modern burial places around the metropolis. The grounds are very beautifully laid out in the Italian style : its chapel, monuments, and other buildings, are very imposing. The en- closure, in the neighborhood of Highgate, is the North Lon- don Cemetery. Its leading feature is a small chapel, with an octangular and ornamental dome. A beautiful window of painted glass, representing the ascension of our Saviour, adorns its extremity. Column, pyramid, sarcophagus, tomb, vase, and sculptured stone, arrest the eye, while a gigantic mound is seen canopied with a goodly cedar ; and the beautiful Gothic church crowning the brow of the hill, with its heaven-directed spire, peers above the upper verge of this sainted place of graves. Beauty and death appear, in this lovely spot, to have entered into a compact together. Bunhill-fields bm-ial ground, London, has been called the 74 CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. " Campo Santo " of the dissenters ; since the ashes of the great Non-conformist clergy and friends of civil liberty repose there. Among memorable names recorded there are those of Bunyan, De Foe, General Fleetwood, Owen, Goodwin, and Watts, the hymnist, with an innumerable company of others of cherished memory. Kensall Chreen is one of the most beautiful ceme- teries of the British metropolis. The great cemetery of Pere la Chaise was consecrated as a public place of sepulture in 1804 : it derived its present name from the favorite confessor to Louis XrV. and Madame de Maintenon. "Within its boundaries formerly stood an establish- ment belonging to the Jesuits, called the " Maison de Mont Louisy Subsequently, 1763, on the suppression of the order, the estate was sold, and passing into the hands of the public au- thorities, it became applied to its present purpose. How much better is it to place the remains of our loved ones beneath the green sod and the blue canopy of heaven than in crowded crypts and corners of an antique abbey — the open temple of nature than the contracted one of art. In the beautiful open cemetery, festooned with richest foliage, and glorified with sunshine, sweet flowers, and the songs of birds, — all that can neutralize the gloom of death is accomplished, while the faith of immortality is thereby beautifully symbo- lized. To the lovers of rural beauty, the sequestered shades of Greenwood have an indescribable fascination. Standing at the eastern verge of this Necropolis, on Ocean Hill, where the re- mains of the missionary Abeel sleep under a column, we look off through Sycamore Grove, and Grassy Dell, and beyond Highland Avenue, to the elevation, where death won so many, long ago, in the battle of Long Island, and where now sleep, with their brothers of the Revolutionary strife, the heroes who fell in Mexico — all their conflicts ended now, and they in the CITATIONS FROM. THE CEJIETERIES. 76 rest, which would be eternal, but for that last trurupet, which shall startle all the armies to the grand and ultimate review. A more pleasing emotion is awakened as we pause, in that vicinity, by the temple in which art has sought to tell the mournful history of the sudden death of beauty's idol. Miss Canda ; or, near Sylvan Bluff, by the monument which Catliu has reared over the relics of his heroic wife, who for seven years accompanied him on his wild and hazardous journeys among the Red men of the wilderness. There are all condi- tions, all varieties, in death, as in life, and the wanderer in Greenwood turns from the graves we have mentioned to that of the beautiful Indian, Do-ktcm-me, who came to see the white man's palaces, and to die. It is down by the margin of Sylvan Lake, and close by it is the modest column erected to " poor MacDonald Clarke," in whose numbers, if there was " more of madness, and more of melancholy," there was also more Prome- thean fire than glows in some of the works of greater fame. Like our magnificent Greenwood, Mount Auburn is also a beautiful garden of graves : where variegated splendors of nature and art combined arrest the delighted eye on every side. Upland, lawn, and vale, fountain, lake, and sylvan stream, inter- mingled with shaft, stately mausoleum, and sculptured tomb, are everywhere embowered amid the over-arching foliage, while the sod is garnished with floral, fragrant gems of dazzling beauty. Here repose the ashes of many a sainted name ; and here, too, may be found many a touching record of departed worth ; Spurzheim's monument is the first that greets the eye of the visitor as he enters the enclosure. Laurel Hill Cemetery is to Philadelphia what Mount Auburn is to Boston in its natural and artificial beauties. Both Wordsworth and Rogers much admired the stanzas on life, by Mrs. Barbauld, — the last, it is believed, that she wrote. 76 CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. The thought of life looking iu upon you with a glad greeting, is both Christian and cheerful ; for life's glorious resurrection is its second morning. " Life ! we've been long together, Through pleasant and through cloudy weather ; 'Tis hard to part, when friends are dear, — Perhaps, 'twill cost a sigh, a tear : " Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time, Say not ' Good night ! ' but in some brighter clime, Bid me — ' Good morning ' ! " Having conned over a number of mortuary memorials, and epitaphs, sentimental and absurd, serious and trifling, we come to the conclusion, with Pope, that, " Praises on tombs are trifles vainly spent, A man's good name is his best monument." The early Christians inscribed on the tombs of their departed friends the expressive words, " Mors janua Vitce ! " (Death is the gate of Life ! ) And Addison has sung to us of the immor- tality of the soul in a strain worthy of the theme : ' ' The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years ; But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth. Unhurt, amidst the wars of elements, The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds ! " We close our chapter on these mementos of mortality with the following impressive passage from the London Eclectic : " How beautiful is the memory of the dead ! What a holy thing it is in the human heart, and what a chastening influence it slieds upon human life! How it subdues all the harshness that grows up within us in our daily intercourse with the world ! How it melts our unkindness, softens our pride, kindling our CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. 77 deepest love, and waking our highest aspirations ! Is there one who has not some loved friend gone into the eternal world, with whom he delights to live again in memory? Does he not love to sit down in the hushed and tranquil hours of existence, and call around him the face, the form, so familiar and cherished — to look into the eye that mirrored not more clearly his own face than the soul which he loves — to listen to the tones which he loves to listen to, the tones which were once melody in his ear, and have echoed softly in his ear since they were hushed to his senses ? Is there a spirit to which heaven is not brought nearer by holding some kindred soul ? How friend follows friend into the happy dwelling-place of the dead, till we find at length that they who loved us on the heavenly shore are more than they who dwell among us ! Every year witnesses the de- parture of some one whom we knew and loved ; and when we recall the names of all who have been near to us in life, how many of them we see passed into that city which is imperish- able! '' The blessed dead ! how free from stain is our love for them ! The earthly taint of our affections is buried with that which was corruptible, and the divine flame, in its purity, illu- mines our breast We have now no fear of losing them. They are fixed for us eternally in the mansions prepared for our re- union. We shall find them waiting for us, in their garments of beauty. The glorious dead ! how reverently we speak their names! Our hearts are sanctified by their words, which we re- member. How wise they have now grown in the limitless fields of truth ! How joyous they have become, by the undying fountains of pleasure ! The immortal dead ! how unchanging is their love for us ! How tenderly they look down upon us, and how closely they surround our being ! How earnestly they rebuke the evil of our lives. " Let men talk pleasantly of the dead, as those who no longer iS CITATIONS FROM THE CEMETERIES. suffer and are tried — as those who pursue no longer the fleet- ing, but have grasped and secured the real. "With them the fear and the longing, the hope, and the terror, and the pain are past : the fruition of life has begun. How unkind, that when we put away their bodies, we should cease the utterance of their names. The tender-hearted dead who struggle so in parting from us ! why should we speak of them in awe, and remember them only with sighing ? Very dear were they when hand clasped hand, and heart responded to heart. Why are they less dear, when they have grown worthy a higher love than ours ? By their hearth-side, and by their grave-side, in solitude, and amid the multitude, think cheerfully and speak lovingly of the dead." ' ' We die and disappear ! Of myriads passed within the veU, but one Has e'er returned the mystery to clear ! He — God's incarnate Son ! Then was the dark obscure made light, O'er Death and Grave the victory was won, And life immortal brought to light ! " A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. " Oh 1 magic of love I unembellished by you, Has the garden a blush, or the herbage a hue ? Or blooms there a prospect in nature, or art, Like the vista that shinea through the eye to the heart f " — Moore. Although Cupid cannot be said to be young, yet he seems to enjoy perpetual youth, for he is not in the least the worse for wear, — his locks are still golden, his cheeks glowing, and the bright kindling glance of his eye is as radiant as ever ; while his votaries are even more numerous than they have been in any previous age of the world : we therefore venture to hope that our theme may not prove " weary, stale, flat, and unprofit- able," at least to our fair friends. First let us premise that we do not intend to inflict on the reader a grave homily on this delicate subject, but rather a gossiping sketch of the felicities 80 A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. and infelicities of the estate matrimonial, and its counterpart — celibacy, with an accompaniment of illustrative facts and anec- dotes. Marriage has been designated an episode in the life of man, — an epoch in that of woman ; it is certainly a most im- portant crisis in the history of both, for it generally causes a strange metamorphosis in habit and character. " The happy minglement of hearts Where, changed as chemic compounds are, Each with his own existence parts, To find a new one happier far. " The ancients exalted domestic affection into a household god, and one of the most beautiful antiques now preserved is a gem representing the draped figure of a woman worshipping this deity, as it kneels upon a pedestal. Croly wrote the following Bweet lines upon it : " Oh ! love of loves ! to thy white hand is given Of earthly happiness the golden key ! Thine are the joyous hours of winter's even, When the babes cling around their father's knee ; And thine the voice that on the midnight sea Melts the rude mariner with thoughts of home, Peopling the gloom with all he wants to see. Spirit ! I've buUt a shrine ; and thou hast come, And on its altar closed— forever closed, thy plume I " It has been said that while Adam was created without Para- dise, Eve was created within the sacred enclosure, and that consequently the former always retains something of the origi- nal earthiness of his origin ; while woman, " the precious porce- lain of human clay," exhibits more of the refining process, both aa to her physical and moral nature. " If man is the head, woman is the crown. She was formed of a rib out of the side of Adam, to be equal with him,— under A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. 81 the arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved."* The world has, in the main, indorsed the sentiment of this worthy divine. Southey says, " Take away love, and not physical nature only, but the heart of the moral world, would be palsied " This is the salt unto humauitj, That keeps it sweet." Its influence is sedative, sanative, and preservative — a drop of the true elixir, no mithridate so effectual against the infection of vice. Love, it has been said, invented the art of tracing likenesses, and thereby led the way to portrait painting; the cherished idol of our affection being ever imaged on the mental retina, or enshrined within the sacred recesses of the heart, as an idealization. Love, indeed, lends a precious seeing to the eye, and hearing to the ear : all sights and sounds are glorified by the light of its presence. Home, the domain of the affections and the graces, is also the conservator of virtue. The amenities that adorn and beautify our earthly life spring up and flourish within that Eden enclosure — Home. " Here woman reigns — the mother, daughter, wife, Strews with fresh flowers the narrow way of life ; In the clear heaven of her delighted eye An angel guard of loves and graces lie ; Around her knees domestic duties meet, And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet." f From the marriage relation spring those gentle charities and kindly offices of domestic affection which temper the austerities and selfish maxims of the world ; while they serve also to help our faith in a future blissful estate of being, of which they are the type and harbinger. It is the sanctity of the domestic circle^ * Matthew Henry. f Cowper. 82 ' A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. which links heart to heart in a hallowed compact, whence well up those genial affections of our better nature that fertilize the barren wastes of humanity and bless the world. ; If there be a spot on earth over which angels may be supposed fondly to lino-er, and scatter the sweet incense of heavenly blessing, it must be the sanctuary of a consecrated home./' The surest safeguard against interruptions to domestic concord is the habit of wearing a smiling face ; it will prove the panacea for every ill — the antidote for every sorrow ; and who that has felt the luxury of thus conferring happiness, and chasing from the brow a shadow and the heart a grief, would grudge the effort, for so rich a boon ? j There is a magnetic power in a spirit of cheerfulness and good temper. Its influence is as salutary and inspiring in the sphere of home, as sunbeams are to the flowers of the field. Among the most insidious foes to domestic happi- ness and moral health are the tyrannies of fashion, inconsider- ate or unkind words, and the cruelties of scandal : all these are usually found to accompany weak heads, and perverted or pet- rified hearts. What spectacle can be imagined more touchingly beautiful or impressive than that which the marriage ceremo- nial presents ? To witness the voluntary consecration of two intelligent beings, on the altar of mutual faith and affection, — the union of their lives and fortunes in a solemn covenant, which naught but death may dissolve, is indeed a scene of sur- passing interest. That many instances of an infelicitous kind have occurred, cannot be denied, but it is no less true, that in the great majority of cases the marriage union has been pro ductive of the happiest results; and were its claims always properly appreciated, such beneficent effects would ever follow in its train. True it is, as society is constituted, marriage becomes somewhat of a lottery — for its votaries are either the victims of Cupid or cupidity ; in either case, they are under the A MONOLOGUE ON MATEIMONY. 83 blinding influence of passion, and consequently but little sub- ject to the control of reason. An instance in which marriage was literally a lottery, was exemplified in a freak, said to have been enacted by a certain youthful swain in France, who, relying upon his personal at- tractions mainly, actually put himself up as the prize in a lot- tery of ten thousand tickets, of the value of two dollars each. This novel matrimonial expedient created a wondrous sensation among the belles of the French capital ; and the result was, that all sorts of speculation went on among the fair, who eagerly bought up the tickets. A fair young damsel, who speculated merely for the frolic of the thing, became the holder of the prize ticket ; the lucky youth tendered her the pecuniary proceeds of the lottery — $20,000; they became a case of " love at first sight," and within the brief limits of the day. Hymen settled their destiny. The happy marriage, says Steele, is where two persons meet and voluntarily make choice of each other, without principally regarding or neglecting the circumstances of fortune or beauty. ' ' Though fools spiirn Hymen's geutie powers, We, who improve his golden hours, By sweet experience know That marriage, rightly understood, Gives to the tender and the good A paradise below." Singular spectacles — rather we should say, pairs of specta- cles — are occasionally to be seen in our popular promenades — ladies of towering altitude, allied to dwarfish bipeds, who seem as though they were designed rather for the effect of con- trast than equality ; while again similar lofty specimens of the masculine are to be met with, peering into the upper air, drag- ging by their side like abbreviated instances of the feminine ; seemingly to indicate that in resigning themselves to the stern 84 A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. alternative of espousing that (falsely so called) necessary evil, — a wife, they had sagaciously selected the least. Hood's inimit- able pen portrays a calamitous case of the opposite kind, which the reader will possibly remember ; yet we are tempted to in- troduce it here : " Of wedded bliss bards sing amiss, I cannot make a song of it ; For I am small, my wife is tall, And that 's the short and long of it. " When we debate, it is my fate To always have the wrong of it ; For I am smaU, and she is tall, And that 's the short and long of it. " She gives to me the weakest tea. And takes the whole souchong of it, — For I am small and she is tall, And that 's the short and long of it. *' Against my life she'll take a knife, Or fork, and dart the prong of it I For she is taU, and I am small. And that 's the short and long of it." Necessarily there is no occasion for such marked dissimilarity of size in marriage ; but there is no accounting for the eccen- tricities which sometimes control connubial destiny. Neither is there inferiority or superiority between the sexes ; each forms ^ the complement of the other. Man has strength, woman, beauty ; man is great in action, woman in suffering ; man's dominion is in the world, woman's at home ; man represents judgment, woman, mercy. Arthur Helps justly remarks, "i Women are in many things our superiors, in many things our inferiors — our equals, never, f I hold with Coleridge, that there are souls masculine, and souls feminine. If they had been made exactly amenable to our A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. 85 ways of reasoning, they would have too little hold upon us, "Whereas, now, being really resolved to rule, as all we men are. at least in serious matters, we are obliged to guide and govern them — when we do guide and govern them, through their affections, so that we are obliged perpetually to pay court to them, which is a very beautiful arrangement." So, after all, it is a very pleasant vassalage that is imposed upon us by matrimonial bonds. " Never be critical upon the ladies," was the maxim of an Irish peer, remarkable for his homage to the sex. " The only way that a gentleman should look at the faults of a pretty woman is — with his eyes shut ! " Instances, not a few, of disastrous marriages might be quoted, but as their rehearsal would not excite any pleasurable sensa- tions, we shall refrain from the unwelcome task : we may, however, refer to the case of an adroit spinster, who was cute enough to prevent such an apparent catastrophe. A young Scotchman having wooed a pretty buxom damsel, persuaded her to accompany him to a justice of the peace, for the purpose of having the nuptials celebrated. They stood very meekly under the operation, until the magistrate came to that clause which imposes the necessity of subjecting the lady to the rule of her husband. " Say no more about that, sir," interrupted the half -married claimant ; " if this hand remains upon this body, I'll make her obey me." " Are we married yet ? " eag- erly ejaculated the exasperated maiden to the ratiiier of cove- nants between man and woman. "!N"o," responded the wonder- ing justice. "Ah, very well; we will finish the rest another time," she continued, and in a moment more vanished, leaving the astonished swain to console himself for the escape of the bird he thought he had so securely caught and caged. As a counterpart to the foregoing, we might cite the instance of a certain couple of rustics, who presented themselves to the priest as candidates for the holy estate of matrimony. On the 86 A MONOLOGUE ON JIATEIMONY. conclusion of the ceremony, the redoubtable husband, who began to have sundry misgivings at what he had done, said, " Your reverence has tied the knot tightly, I fancy ; but, under favor, may I ask, if so be you could untie it again ? " " Why, no," replied the dominie ; " we never do that on this part of the consecrated ground." "Where then?" eagerly inquired the disconsolate victim. " On that" was the response, pointing to the church-yard. A curious legend is related of Eginhard, a secretary of Charlemagne, and a daughter of the emperor. The secretary fell desperately in love with the princess, who allowed his ad- vances. One winter's night his visit was prolonged to a late hour, and in the meantime a deep fall of snow occurred. If he left, his foot-marks would betray him, and yet to remain longer would expose him, no less, to danger. At length the princess resolved to carry him on her back to a neighboring house, which, it is said, she did. It happened, that from the window of his chamber the emperor witnessed this novel proceeding ; and in the assembly of the lords on the following day, when Eginhard and his daughter were present, he asked what ought to be done to a man who should compel a king's daughter to carry him on her shoulders through frost and snow, on a win- ter's night? They answered that he was worthy of death. The lovers became alarmed, but the emperor, addressing Egin- hard, said, " Hadst thou loved my daughter, thou shouldst have come to me ; thou art worthy of death — but I give thee two lives ; take thy fair porter in marriage, fear God, and love one another." Balzac, the French novelist, exhibits another example of ec- centricity in matrimonial affairs. When Balzac was at the zenith of his fame, he was travelling in Switzerland, and had arrived at an inn, just at the very moment the Prince and Princess Ilanski were leaving it. Balzac was ushered into the A MONOLOGUE ON MATiynyiONY. 87 room they had just vacated, and was leaning from the window to observe their departure, when his attention was arrested by a soft voice at his elbow, asking for a book which had been left behind upon the window seat. The lady was certainly fair, but appeared doubly so in the eyes of the poor author, when she intimated that the book she was in quest of was a pocket edition of his own works. She drew the volume from beneath his elbow, and flew downstairs, obedient to the screaming sum- mons of her husband, who was already seated in the carriage, railing in a loud voice against dilatory habits of women in general, and his own spouse in particular ; and the emblazoned vehicle drove off, leaving the novelist in a state of self-compla- cency the most enviable to be conceived. This was the only occasion upon which Balzac and the Princess Hanski had met, till his subsequent visit to Germany, when he presented himself — as her accepted husband. During these long intervening fifteen years, however, a literary correspondence was steadily kept up between the parties, till at length, instead of a letter containing literary strictures upon his writings, a missive of another kind, having a still more directly personal tendency, reached him from the fair hand of the princess. It contained the announcement of the demise of her husband — the prince, that he had bequeathed to her his domains, and his great wealth — and consequently, that she felt bound to requite him in some measure for his liberality, and had determined upon giving him a successor — in the person of Balzac. It is needless to state that the delighted author waited not a second summons ; they were forthwith united in wedlock, at her chateau on the Rhine, and a succession of splendid fetes celebrated the auspicious event. The following romantic incident of real life has been also ti*aced to Switzerland. Several years since an ill-assorted mar- riage held for a season in unwilling captivity a husband and 88 A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. wife, whose mutual distastes at length became so confirmed, that they resolved upon a separation, and made an appoint- ment with an attorney to meet and sign a deed to that effect. On their way thither, they had to cross a lake, and as it hap pened they both embarked on the same boat. On their pass- age a storm arose, and the boat was upset. The husband, being a good swimmer, soon reached the shore in safety. On looking round to see the fate of his fellow -passengers, he dis- tinguished his wife, still struggling for her life, and in immi- nent danger. A feeling of his early affection returned to him, and plunging again into the water, he swam to her, and suc- ceeded in rescuing her. When she recovered her senses, and learned to whom she owed her life, she threw herself into his arms, and he embraced her with equal cordiality ; they then vowed to bury their differences in oblivion, and their after mar- ried life was no more darkened by the storm-clouds of strife, but brightened and glorified with the sunshine of love. Those who wish to become acquainted with " the loves of the poets," we refer to Mrs. Jameson's pleasant book on that deli- cate subject. We may, however, glance at the eccentric con- duct of Swift in his love matters. His first flame, whom he fantastically christened Yarina, he deserted, after a seven years' courtship : the next he styled Stella, who, although beautiful in person, and accomplished, after a protracted intimacy, he se- cretly married in a garden, although he never resided under the same roof with her, and never acknowledged the union till the day of his death. The third became a similar victim to his selfish hard-heartedness, which, it is said, caused her death. W'th all his wit and genius, such wanton brutality must ever reflect the deepest disgrace upon his character. The following case looks somewhat squally, and indeed possesses so much of the marvellous as to challenge belief. It is that of a gentleman who confesses he first saw his wife in a storm, took her to a A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. 89 ball in a storm, courted her in a storm, then married under tha Bame boisterous circumstances, and lived with her during a like condition, but buried her in pleasant weather. The union of hearts and hands in holj wedlock has given birth to many lu- minous poetic effusions. The briefest exposition we remember to have seen, is the following, which was doubtless intended merely as a love-missive between two ardent souls, whose elec- tive affinities — if spirits may commingle — resolved themselves into a perfect spiritual amalgam. Says our love-sick swain : " My heart to you is given: oh, do give yours to me ; We'll lock them up together, and throw away the key." We remember to have read somewhere an account of a most exemplary instance of conjugal fidelity and devotion, which, if true, is certainly without a parallel. A young noble- man of Genoa, named Marimi, who held large estates in Cor- sica, whither he used to repair every few years to regulate his affairs, had married a beautiful creature, named Monimia, an Italian. They lived for some years in undiminished felicity, till — alas for the mutations of time ! — the devoted husband was compelled no longer to defer a visit to the land of his posses- sions. During his absence, the island being at the time in a state of insurrection, a report reached the ears of the anxious spouse that he had fallen a victim to the popular fury and revolt. About the same time, as he was passing along the har- bor, he overheard some sailors, who had just arrived, talking of the death of a Genoese nobleman's wife, then absent from the republic. The name of his beloved wife was at length men- tioned, when all suspicion yielding to the painful conviction that it was, indeed, she of whom they spoke, he became so over- powered with grief that he swooned away. On his recovery he determined to lose no time in repairing to his home, in order to ascertain the certainty of the report. Strange as it may appear, 90 A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. simultaneously with this, the equally distressed wife resolved upon a similar procedure. They both took ship — one for Cor- sica, the other for Genoa ; a violent storm overtook both vessels, and each was shipwrecked upon a desolate island in the Medi- terranean. Marimi's ship first made land, and the disconsolate widower, wishing to indulge his grief, wandered into the em- bowered recesses of a neighboring wood. Soon afterwards the Grenoese ship lauded Monimia, with one of her maids ; actu- ated by similar emotions, she bent her sorrowing steps to the same retreat. They each heard the other complaining of their bitter fate ; when, moved by a mutual curiosity to see their companion in grief, — judge of their amazement and rapturou& surprise, when they instantl}'^ recognized in each other the ob- ject of their ardent solicitude and affection. One long, strain- ing, and passionate embrace, and they immediately expired! Wordsworth) s beautiful lines describe the highest style of womanhood, with the subtle analysis of the critic, and the Pro- methean fire of the poet : " She was a queen of noble nature's crowning; A smile of hers was like an act of grace ! She had no winsome looks, no pretty frowning, Like gaudy beauties of the vulgar race : But if she smiled, a light was on her face, — A clear, cool kindliness, a lunar beam Of peaceful radiance, silvering in the stream Of human thoughts of unabiding glory, — Not quite awaking truth — not quite a dream, — A visitation bright and transitory." LowelVs epitome of woman's worth is given in a single stanza : " Blessing she is — God made her so ; And deeds of week-day holiness Fall from her, noiseless as the snow ; Nor hath she ever chanced to know That aught were easier than to bless." A MOXOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. 91 And Wordsioorth''s epitome is : " A creature, not too bright or good For hiiman nature's daily food ; — For transient sorrows, simple wiles. Praise, blame, love-kisses, tears, and smiles." Matrimony has, as we have seen, sometimes its squallj weather as well as its sunshine. " A something light as air, — a look, A word unkind or wrongly taken, — O love ! that tempests never shook, A breath, a touch like this, hath shaken. And ruder words will soon rush in To spread the breach that words begin •, And eyes forget the gentle ray They wore in courtship's smiling day ; And voices lose the tone that shed A tenderness o'er aU was said." * Job Caudle, when he died, left a small packet of papers in- scribed, " Curtain Lectures delivered in the course of thirty years, ly Mrs. Margaret Caudle, and Suffered hy Job her hus- handP His case needs no comment, rather condolence. Like a suit at chancery, marriage is likely to last a lifetime ; each is much easier to get into, than get out of, again. A writer in Punch had the audacity thus to estimate matri- mony: " Which is of greater value, — pr'ythee say, — The bridegroom, or the bride ? must the truth be told ? Alas, it must ; the bride is given away, — The bridegroom, often, regularly soldP'' That is indeed a frail bond of affection which would seek to unite hearts and hands together, by the blandishments of beauty merely, without the deep faith of the heart. • * Moore. 92 A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. " 'Tia beauty, that doth oft make women proud ; 'Tis virtue, that doth make them most admired ; 'Tia modesty, that makes them seem divine," This last-named grace seems to have given place to the mod- ern infallible specific — money ; money, in the world's estimate, like charity, covers a multitude of sins. Some rhymester thus sums up the case in the court of Cupid : " Fair woman was made to bewitch : A pleasure, a pain, a disturber, a nurse, A slave or a tyrant, a blessing or curse, — Fair woman was made to be — which ? " " A French woman will love her husband," it has been said, " if he is either witty or chivalrous ; a German woman, if he is constant and faithful ; a Dutch woman, if he does not dis- turb her ease and comfort too much ; a Spanish woman, if he wreaks terrible vengeance upon those who are mider her displeasure ; an Italian woman, if he is dreamy and poetical ; a Russian woman, if he despises all westerners as miserable barbarians ; an English woman, if he succeeds in ingratiating himself with the court and nobility ; and an American woman, if he has — plenty of money ! " " Matches are made for many reasons, — For love, convenience, money, fun, and spite. How many against common sense are treasons ! And few the happy pairs who match aright 1 In the fair breast of some bewitching dame. How many a youth will strive fond love to waken : And when at length successful in his aim. Be first mis-led and afterwards — mis-taken / " In Southern Italy, love-making is, sometimes, carried on by a system of pautomimics, from opposing balconies. A code of significant attitudinizing signals is adopted between the parties ; A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. 93 and although the method is mute, yet, as actions speak louder than words, this silent system seems to answer the purpose well enough for that meridian. That brief episode of romance, courtship, is the spring-tide of life — the May of human existence : fond memory clings to it with cherished and lingering devotion ; for, if at no other period, the heart then reveals its generous sympathies, and the habitual selfishness of our nature is forgotten. If the month posterior to the nuptial ceremony — the honeymoon — is so richly freighted with happiness, it is more than the great dramatist affirms of the period anterior to that event, when he insists, " the course of true love never did run smooth." Emerson has some poetic and forcible words upon this sub- j eot of love ; he says, " Be our experience in particular what it may, no man ever forgets the visitations of that power upon his heart and brain, which created all things new ; which was the dawn in him of music, poetry, and art, — which made the face of nature radiant with purple light, the morning and night of varied enchantments, — when a single tone could thrill the heart, and the most trivial circumstance associated with one form is put in the amber of memory, — when we become all eye when one is present — all memory, when one is gone." Thackeray insists that " it is a good thing for a man to be in love, — it softens his asperities of character and quickens his sensibilities. It is like inoculation, a kind of disease, with a sanative effect resulting from it." The true antidote or specific for love-sickness is, unremitting industry ; since it is when unoccupied that the poor victim is especially vulnerable. It is then that the arch cunning of Cupid usually takes effect, by bringing up the vision of the inamorata in all her bewitching splendor. Yes, it is the lus- trous eye, the smiling lip, or the relievo bust, that does all the mischief. Potential as it is, yet is beauty — " the eye's idol " — 94 A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. often the most evanescent and frail of Heaven's endowments. Notwithstanding its frailty, however, the poet lavishes all his wealth of imagery and pomp of diction, in the celebration of its praises. Mark Antony lost a world for a woman, — bartering empire for the smile of the rare Egyptian queen ! and the Trojan war was traceable to Helen's eyes. "Who has not proved, as Byron beautifully expresses it, — " How feebly words essay To fix one spark of Beauty's heavenly ray ? Who doth not feel, until his failing sight Faints into dimness, with its own delight, — His changing cheek, his sinking heart confess, The might, the majesty of loveliness ! " Love has been compared to debt: both keep their captives awake at night, and in a perpetual state of unrest during the day. This heart-disease has been playfully styled the " tender passion," possibly, either from its softening effects on the brain, or from its prevailing susceptibility with the " softer sex." Like justice, love is supposed to be blind ; the poet says : ' ' Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind." And although his votaries are also, for the most part, the vic- tims of ophthalmic weakness, yet by a law of compensation, love is endowed with a spiritual perception. " Falling in love," as the phi'ase is, is a serio-comic affair ; Cupid is a cunning manoeuvrer and casuist. " He blurs the print of the scholar's book, And intrudes on the maiden's prayer, And profanes the cell of the holy man, In the shape of a lady fair. Love beckons in the painter's dream, Makes music in the poet's metre, A MONOLOGUE OX MATEIMONY. 95 O'er youth and age he reigns supreme ; Can any other sway be sweeter ? And still the songs of all the world Shall celebrate love's endless blisses. While on a neck a tress is curled, And while a red lip pouts for kisses." * Yes, this loving is a great science. Cicero styles it " the philosophy of the lieart," and a later authority calls it " the finest of the fine arts." " In one respect it is the business of life," writes another, " to conjugate the verb to love." In the " battle of life," courtship is the siege or engagement ; the pro- posal, the assault, and marriage, the victory. Once, at Holland House, the conversation turned upon " first love." Tom Moore compared it to a potato, "because it shoots from the eyes." " Or rather," exclaimed Byron, " because it becomes all the less hj paring.''^ It was so in his case. The Hibernian was in earnest, if not in haste, in his love suit for a beauty, when he told her he " could get no sleep o' nights for dhramin' ov her." One of the most concise courtships we have heard of, was the following : An eminent geologist, who was travelling several years ago in a stage-coach, happened to take a seat opposite to a lady. Of course glances were ex- changed, for how could they help so doing ? A code of eye- signals was next adopted, and soon afterwards eye-language was exchanged for verbal conversation. After a few inter- changes about fossils and petrifactions, they began to talk about living objects and subjects, from generalities they descended to specialties and personalities. Said the gentleman, " I am still unmarried ; " quoth the lady, " So am I." No. 1 then replied, " I have sometimes thought of marrying ; " " So have I," responded No. 2. Then a pause ensued. " Suppose we were to marry one another," was then proposed by the man of fossils : * H. S. Clarke. 96 A MONOLOGUE ON JIATRIMONY. " I would love and cherish ; " " and I," said the fair one, " would honor and obey." Two days after, it is said, they did the deed. Punch thus portrays the symptoms of a case of heart-disease or absent-mindedness superinduced thereby, the interlocutor being in evidence : " Tell me, Edward, dost remember how at breakfast, often we Put our bacon in the teapot while we took and fried our tea ? How we went to evening parties on gigantic brewers' drays, How you wore your coats as trousers in those happy, happy days ? How we used to pocket ices when a modest lunch we bought, QuaS the foaming Abemethy, masticate the crusty port ? How we cleaned our boots with sherry, while we drank the blacking dry ? And how we quite forgot to pay for articles we used to buy ? " Yes, falling in love is a queer business ; for instance, a stU" dent leaves college, covered with academic honors, and not a stir in his affections, excepting for his " kith and kin ; " but a fair maiden passes him on his way, and straightway he loses his heart — the victim of a glance from a sunny face. A learned metaphysician, apparently lost to all external things by his abstract studies, walks out from his library, and his eye is suddenly arrested by the vision of a little satin shoe tripping most daintily along ; and this grave epitome of severe learning becomes a ready captive to Cupid's snare! Take another instance : a redoubtable son of Mars, full panoplied for the fight, and panting for victorious fame, enters a gay saloon in a foreign clime, where he meets a Spanish brunette, in her blaze of beauty ; with a twirl of her fan she takes him captive. Who shall give to us a mathematical demonstration of the mystery ? Notwithstanding all that women have charged against us, men, under the counts of "woman's rights," and "woman's wrongs," are they not indispensable to our social happiness? Are they not the " queens of society," whose empire is the A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. 97 heart, and whose sceptre is love ? Of all the tributes ever paid to woman's worth by pen of poet, and they have been neither few nor small, a single line of Scotia's bard is the most com- prehensive : " What signifies the life o' man, An' 'twere not for the lasses, o ? " One of the old dramatists thus touches upon the seductive subject : " Sing of the nature of woman, and the song shall be surely full of variety, — old crotchets and most sweet closes, — it shall be humorous, grave, fantastic, amorous, melancholy, sprightly — one in all, and all in one ! " * But leaving woman as Adam found her, the predestined mistress of the affections, we will refer the reader to the old pop* Gower's chivalric devotion to the maiden of his muse : "What thing she bid me do, I do ; And where she bid me go, I go ; And when she likes to call, I come ; I serve, I bow, I looke, I loute. Mine eye it followeth her about." The human family is divided into two classes, the married and the single ; the former have been often deemed legitimate objects for the raillery and jest, by the advocates of celibacy ; and it is but fair that the opposite party should be permitted a share of the like pleasantry. As a specimen of the former, take the following lines of a most inveterate woman-hater — one of the early printers who flourished during the first half of the sixteenth century. The extraordinary production in which this curious satire occurs is entitled " The scole-howse^ wherein every man may rede a goodlie jprayer of the condycyons of women^^ (fee. This erudite scribe thus apostrophizes the box: * Beaumont. 98 A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. " Trewly some men there be That lyve always in great horroure, And sayth it goth by destynie, — To hang, or wed, — both hath one houre ; And whether it be ! I am well sure Hanging is better of the twaine, — Sooner done and shorter payne ! " It is admitted, on all hands, to be both a delicate and perilous thing, to pry into a woman's age ; and the embarrassment becomes increased in the exact ratio of its advance, especially in the case of an unmarried lady. The precise epoch at which the epithet old may be admissible, is no less involved in mys- tery. It is, therefore, highly expedient to avoid inquisitiveness upon the subject. Possibly the solution of the mystery of woman's age may be found in the fact, that beauty does not always bloom ; and when her dimpled smiles and ruddy hues pass away, it is a vain endeavor to supply their lack by the aid of costly cosmetics and bijouterie. Unmarried maidens ought, of course, to be styled the match- less among the fair, for in more senses than one, the definition is applicable to them. Are they not usually the ministering angels of the social circle ; and are they not the sine qua non in the chamber of sickness? Some of the sweet sisterhood remain unintentionally among the unmarried, and these claim our respectful sympathy ; others there are, known by the epithet coquette, possessing more charms of person than graces of character ; these often fail of matrimonial alliance, from pre- sumption. When too late, these nymphs resort to every expe- dient to avert the unwelcome issue, but in vain ; " love's sweet vocabulary " has been exhausted, and the charms, divinations, and necromancy of Yenus herself have been called into requisi- tion, but potent as they usually are, without the desired effect in their behalf. "We have been accustomed to associate Cupid with simply his bow and quiver full of arrows ; but the queen A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. 99 of love, it seems, can invoke to her aid much more varied and irresistible artillery for captm-ing the citadel of the heart. To enmnerate in full detail these appliances of woman's art, would startle the credulity of the unsuspecting reader. Neither the " gentle moon," nor good old St. Valentine, the tutelar divini- ties of the tender passion, have, in their case, done their office ; who, therefore, can wonder, after such an expenditure of effort and exemplary enduring patience on their part, that our for- lorn fair ones should become the victims of ennui,— or that their once jubilant and joyous features should become tinged with an expression of melancholy. "We hear much of the merry old bachelor, that he is devoid of care, that he is every- where the centre of a charmed circle, and that he is, in a word, a being envied by all, pitied by none. Even Lord Bacon, among others of the literary and learned, insists that mankind is indebted to the unmarried and the childless for its highest benefactions, in the world of science and song. " They are," he adds, " the best of friends, the best masters, and the best servants." The verdict of society has, however, changed since the days of that sage philosopher. Old bachelors have been styled " unproductive consumers ; scissors with but one blade ; bows without fiddles ; irregular noun-substantives, always in the singular number and objective case ; unruly scholars, who, when told to conjugate, always de- cline." Some wag thus apostrophizes the old bachelor: "What a pitiful thing an old bachelor is, with his cheerless house and his rueful phiz, on a bitter cold night, when the fierce winds blow, and when the earth is covered with snow. When his fire is out, and in shivering dread, he slips 'neath the sheets of his lonely bed. How he draws up his toes, all encased in yarn hose, and he buries his nose 'neath the chilly bedclothes ; lest his nose, and his toes, still encased in yarn hose, should chance to 100 A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. get froze. Then he puffs and he blows, and says that he knowa no mortal on earth ever suffered such woes ; and with ahs ! and with ohs ! with his limbs to dispose, so that neither his toes, nor his nose, may be froze — to his slumbers in silence, the bachelor goes ! " Dickens thus piquantly portrays the old bachelor, where he says: "He is cross, cadaverous, odd and ill-natured, — never happy but when he is miserable ; and always miserable when he had the best reason to be happy. The only real comfort of his existence seemed to be, to make everybody about him wretched. If he hated one thing more than another, it was a child ; his antipathies included old women, and doors that would not shut ! " Old bachelors are like those strange wandering fires that seem to have no fixed spheres ; serve no known law in the moral universe, — the purposes of whose existence being a mystery alike to themselves and all about them. Callous to the appeals of nature, insensible to the sweet oratory of woman's eyes and lips, and the rarer attractions of her moral worth; these despisers of the sex deserve their frowns, rather than their approving smiles, and to be placed under the ban of society as its alien, if not its foe. These singular specimens of humanity are in an anomalous condition ; for they are not only isolated in their selfishness, but they have also outlawed themselves from the rights and privileges of domestic life. Apart from its endearing associations and immunities, the marriage relation is constituted the great conservator of human existence ; without it the world would soon become a waste, and the beneficent purposes of its great Author be frustrated. This sentiment we accordingly find to have obtained, as by in- stinct, in all ages. Fines were first levied on unmarried men in Rome, about the middle of the fourth century ; and when pecuniary forfeitures failed to insure obedience to connubial edicts, celibacy was visited by penal punishments. A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. 101 Having indulged our laugh against the bachelor tribe, and the matchless spinster sisterhood, we have a few words to say about bewitching widows — perhaps the most difficult to define of all human enigmas. "Widows, generally speaking, are es- pecially dangerous to the peace of bachelors : having graduated in the school of domestic life, they have become proficients in " the art which conceals art," they have exchanged simplicity for sophistry and seductive contrivance. They do not often say — " no," to an " offer ; " and if the party is timidly backward in coming forward, they have an enchanting habit of meeting him half way. Old Weller in the Piohwick Papers^ warns his impressible eon, Sam^ against their wiles, and affirms, that " one 'Didder is equal to twenty-five single vomen ! " Here is a life-like sketch of a first-class widow : " She is modest, but not bashful, free and easy, but not bold — Like an apple, ripe and mellow, not too young, and not too old ; Half inviting-, half repulsive ; now inviting, now too shy : There is mischief in her dimple, there is danger in her eye ! She can teU the very moment when to sigh and when to smile ; Oh ! a maid is sometimes charming, but a widow all the while. Are you sad ? how very serious will her handsome face become : Are you angry ? she is wretched, lonely, friendless, tearful, dtunb : Are you mirthful ? how her laughter, silver-sounding, will ring out : She can lure, and catch, and play you, as the angler does the trout 1 " So long as fascinating women, be they widows or maidens, still remain amongst us, to light up life's pathway, and to glad- den our eyes, there is hope for bachelors, old or young. So that if even any crusty, rusty old blades, long "laid on the shelf," and deemed beyond all redemption, should thus become owned and polished, their dulness removed, their temper improved — and a new edge being put upon them, they may hereafter cut a better figure in the world, with more comfort to themselves and advantage to their neighbors. The most effectual way to 102 A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. curb a wild youngster, is to bridal him ; and the best way to keep a man in countenance, who is tired of inspecting his own disconsolate visage in the mirrors, is, to turn his gaze towards some smiling vision of beauty, and then, if he may, secure it, as real estate or personal property. Tom Moore once committed an act of petty larceny, by clip- ping a stray ringlet from the head of a young lady, who, on demanding restitution, received from the poet this witty re- " On one sole condition, love, I might be led, With this beautiful ringlet to part, — I would gladly relinquish the lock of your head, Gould I gain but the key to your heart I " Few topics have been made so fruitful a theme of badinage and sarcasm by the wits, as that of marriage. If the old bache- lor is said to become bearish in his isolation, a man of the op- posite class, during courtship, is thought to exhibit a strong resemblance to a goose ; and when this incipient stage is ex- changed for the estate matrimonial, he is honored with the epi- thet sheepish. Some have indulged their vein of irony in verse, a curious specimen of which we subjoin ; it evinces as much ingenuity as wit, for it admits of being read two ways, to convey a directly opposite sentiment. "We transcribe it ac- cording to what we consider its true meaning ; but in order to make it tell the reverse, it will be necessary to alternate the lines, reading the first and third, then the second and fourth : *' That man must lead a happy life Who is directed by a wife ; Who's freed from matrimonial claims. Is sure to suffer for his pains. "Adam could find no solid peace Till he beheld a woman's face ; When Eve was given for a mate Adam was in a happy state. A MONOLOGUE ON MATRIMONY. 103 " In all the female race appears Truth, darling of a heart Bincere : Hypocrisy, deceit, and pride In woman never did reside. " What tongue is able to unfold The worth in woman we behold ? The failings that in woman dwell Are almost imperceptible. ' ' Confusion take the men, I say. Who no regard to women pay. Who make the women their delight Keep always reason in their sight." One of the most eminent of her sex, Mrs. Jameson, referring to the mission of woman, has said : " It is hers to keep alive all those purer, gentler, and more genial sympathies — those refinements in morals, in sentiments, in manners, without which men exposed to the rougher influences of every-day life and in the struggle with this selfish world, might degenerate (do de- generate, for the case is not hypothetical) into mere brutes." Such is the beautiful theory of woman's life-mission — ^preached to her by moralists, sung to her by poets — till it has become the world's creed, and her own faith. The marriage bond has been compared to the " Gordian knot," because it is an inextricable one, which none are supposed to be competent to unloose. In these modern days, however, too many, disregarding the sanctity of this union, wait not for death to dissolve it, but, like Alexander the Great, ruthlessly sunder at will the mystic cord. The wedding-ring, symbolical of the perpetuity of the con- jugal relation, has ever bden the accepted accompaniment of marriage. Its being put on the fourth finger of the left hand, has been continued, from long-established usage, because of the fanciful conceit that from this finger a nerve went direct to the heart. 104 A MONOLOGUE ON IVIATRIMONT. " Little simple, valued thing, made for little finger fair, How much sorrow you may bring, when for lucre you ensnare ! Yet, if heart and hand unite, and if soul to soul be given, — Then the solemn nuptial rite is a sweet foretaste of heaven ! !" Evil portents sometimes scare the happy pair, even after the Gordian knot has been tied. We are not, say you, fair maiden, superstitious on that subject: well, then, that being the case, we will tell you on which day to do the deed : if it has not been already enacted : we subjoin a little advice gratis : Now list the oracle : " On Monday, for wealth ; Tuesday, for health ; "Wednesday, the best day of all ; Thursday for crosses ; Friday, for losses, — Saturday, no luck at all ! " 111,/''''/// CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. " Books are the immortal sons deifying their sires." — Plato. With what rapt enthusiasm will the confirmed bibliomaniac pounce upon, and pore over the scarce legible pages of some antique mouldering manuscript ; or clutch, with miser grasp, a black-letter tome of the olden time. This feeling, though peculiar in its intensity to the class referred to, is yet possessed in degree by most who prefer any claims to a literary taste. An attachment or veneration for books — for books that are books — if not a conclusive test of all mental refinement, is at least its rarely absent concomitant. In the companionship of 106 CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. books, how many immunities do we enjoy, which are denied to us in our intercourse with men : — with unobtrusive modesty, they trespass not upon us, unbidden guests, nor do they ever out- stay their welcome. "When it is remembered, that books pre- sent us with the quintessence of the most cultivated minds, freed, to a great extent, from the alloy of human passion and weakness, and that they are the media of our acquiring the closest proximity and communion with the spirits of the great and good of all ages, it cannot surprise us that books should become such universal favorites. With the historian, for in- stance, we lose sight of our own common-place existence, as we become fired with the enthusiasm of the apparently more noble and illustrious achievements of the mighty dead ; or traverse with the poet the glowing fields of his own ideal world, peopled with the bright creations of fancy ; while, if in more sober mood, we may gather from the grave teacher of ethics the collective wisdom and experience of the past, " Talk of the necromancer of old, with his wand, his charms, and his incantations; what is he to an author? His charm is, that we lift the cover of his book ; his incantation is its pref- ace — his wand, the pen ; but what can equal their power ? The spell is upon us ; the actual world around us is gone." * Honor, then, to those gifted ones who can thus delight and in- struct us ; no praise or reward can be overpaid to them while they are amongst us, nor any homage too great when they have passed away. " The works of an author are his embalmed mind; and grateful to the student's eye are the well-under- stood hieroglyphics on this mental mummy-case, that tell of the worthy preserved therein. What was the extolled art of the Egyptians to this ? Mind and matter — the poet and the mon- arch — Homer and King Cheops ! " * Channing. CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. 107 ' ' There they reign (In loftier pomp than working life had known,) The kings of thought ! — not crowned until the grave. When Agamemnon sinks into the tomb, The beggar Homer mounts the monarch's throne 1 Who of us can teU What he had been, had Cadmus never taught To man the magic that embalms the thought, — Had Plato never spoken from his cell, Or his high harp blind Homer never strung ? — Kinder all earth hath grown since genial Shakspeare sung ? " * At that magic word, — Boohs — what vivid retrospections of bygone years — what summer days of unalloyed happiness, when life was new, — rush on the memory. Who, in recalling the past, does not delight to refer to the pleasures he has ex- perienced in the perusal of some favorite author ? Such inci- dents occur to most, and they constitute bright episodes in the drama of life. Who, in early youth, has not been lost to all external things in the rapt enjoyment of those delectable emanations of genius — The Arahian Nights, Rohinson Crusoe, and the PilgrirrCs Progress, — books of such singular interest as to render them universal favorites. " Books are a guide in youth and an entertainment for age," says an old writer ; " they support us under solitude, and keep us from becoming a burden to ourselves. They help us to for- get the crossness of men and things, and compose our cares and our passions, and lay our disappointments asleep." Books are the fruits and flowers which intellectual husbandry culls from the fields of imagination and reflection ; well-springs from the fountains of truth ; or the pearls and precious metals that are produced from the mental crucible. Deprived of these treasuries of knowledge and wisdom, we should pine for that literary aliment, which is as essential to our mental economy, * Bulwer Lytton. 108 CUEIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. as is animal food to our physical well-being. They constitute the electric chain, that connects and circulates the mental mag- netism of our social life. They are the links that unite the past with the present, and spread out before us the collective intelligence of all time. In the words of an old poet — " Books are a part of man's prerogative, In formal ink, they form and voices hold, That we to them our solitude may give, And make time present travel that of old." Good books, moreover, beguile the sad and sorrowing of their griefs, and especially the Book of books, that binds both worlds, and conducts the pilgrim, as did the pillar of cloud and fire the Israelites of old, to the promised land. " Our religion itself is founded in books," says Bartholin, '"' and without them God is silent, justice dormant, physic at a stand, philosophy lame, letters dumb, and all things involved in Cimmerian darkness." " I confess myself an idolater of this literary religion, and am grateful for the blessed ministry of books. It is a kind of heathenism which needs no missionary funds, no Bible even, to abolish it ; for the Bible itself caps the peak of this new Olym- pus, and crowns it with sublimity and glory. Amongst the many things we have to be thankful for, as the result of mod- ern discoveries, surely this of printed books is the highest of all ; and I for one am so sensible of its merits, that I never think of the name of Guttenberg without feelings of venera- tion and homage." * The literary history of books, although in itself fraught with peculiar interest, as exhibiting tlie progress of the human mind and science, is yet rather collateral to our subject than directly in its line ; since we propose merely to notice some of * Searle's Essay. CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. 109 the more notable specimens of ancient and modern bibliogra- In his curious chapter on early manuscripts, D'Israeli gives the following ludicrous anecdote, illustrative of the pious hor- ror in which the classics were held by the monks. To read a profane author was deemed by the communities not only a very idle recreation, but even regarded by some as a grave offence. To distinguish them, therefore, they invented a disgraceful sign : when a monk inquired for any pagan author, after mak- ing the general sign they used in their manual and silent lan- guage, when they wanted a book, he added a particular one, which consisted in scratching under his ear, as a dog is accus- tomed to do with his paw, " because," said they, " an unbeliev- er is compared to a dog" ! In this manner they expressed an itching for those dogs — Virgil and Horace. Notwithstand- ing the odium with which the writings of these despised heathens were treated by some, there were others of a later date, to be found willing to become their possessors even at enormous cost. The transfer of an estate was sometimes not withheld to secure the boon: while the disposal of a manu- script was considered an event of such importance as to require a public record. Louis XI., in 1471, was compelled to pledge a hundred golden crowns in order to obtain the loan even of the MSS. of an Arabian scribe, named Rasis. Numerous other instances might be cited of a similar class, during the middle ages. For example. Stow informs us Aiat, in 1274, a Bible in nine volumes, finely written, " sold for fifty markes," something like thirty pounds sterling of that time, when ordinary laboring wages were a penny a day. This Bible was afterwards bought by the Earl of Salisbury, after having been taken from the King of France, at the battle of Poictiers. The Countess of Anjou is also said to have paid for 110 CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. a copy of the Homilies of Bishop Huiman two hundred sheep, and other articles of barter. Parnarme, writing to the King of Naples, says, " Ton lately wrote me from Florence that the works of Titus Livius are there to be sold, in very handsome books, and that the price of each is one hundred and twenty crowns of gold. Therefore I entreat your majesty that you cause the same to be bought ; and one thing I want to know of your prudence, whether I or Poggius have done best, — he, that he might buy a country house near Florence, sold Livy, which he had writ in a very fine hand ; or I, that I might purchase the books, have exposed a piece of land for sale ? " In Spain, books were formerly so exceedingly scarce, that one and the same Bible often served for the use of several monasteries. And even the library at Paris down to the four- teenth century possessed only four of the classic authors, — Cicero, Lucan, Ovid, and Boethius. Previous to the invention of type printing, raised words were cut on a block of wood, impressions from which were taken ; and in this way was produced the Biblia Pawperum of the fourteenth century. It consisted of about forty leaves of texts bound together, and was intended, probably, either as a help to the preacher, or the catechumen. A Saxon king once gave away an estate of eight hundred acres of land for a single volume, entitled " Cosmography ; or. The History of the World : " such was the scarcity and value of books in those times. A book was often entailed with as much solemnity as the most valuable estate : thus, at the com- mencement of a breviary of the Bible, there is a memorial, by the donor, the Bishop of Lincoln, of its bestowment to the "library built in the church," etc. Books were deemed of such value in those times, that they were often pledged to learned societies, upon which a deposit CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. Ill was required. Oxford had a chest for books thus pledged, which, if not redeemed by a given day, became the property of the University. In the year 1174, one Walter Prior pur- chased of the monks at Winchester, Bedels Homilies and St. Austin's Psalter, for twelve measures of barley and a pall, on which was embroidered in silver, the history of Birinas con- verting a Saxon king. About the year 1255, Roger de Insula, Dean of York, gave several Latin Bibles to the University of Oxford, on condition that the student who perused them should deposit a cautionary pledge. The scarcity of parchment was one of the principal causes of the destruction of ancient manuscripts ; since it led to the erasure of the more ancient, in order to make the vellum again available. These were known as palimpsests. This barbar- ous practice prevailed most during the three or four centuries which preceded the revival of learning, in the fourteenth cen- tury. Cardinal Mai is believed to have discovered a process for recovering these obliterated MSS. The earliest of illuminated manuscripts are probably the Virgil and Terence in the Library of the Vatican ; and the Homer in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. There exists only one manuscript of Tacitus, it is believed, which was discovered in a monastery in Westphalia. In the Imperial Library at Paris, is the papyrus of Assa, supposed to date about two thou- sand years b.c. The literary treasures of antiquity suffered much from the barbaric hordes, which overran Europe in the fifth and sixth centuries. A learned antiquary observes : " Of the history of Polybius, which once contained forty books, we have now only five. Of the historical library of Diodorus Siculus, fifteen books only remain out of forty, and half of the Roman antiquities of Dionysius Halicarnassus have perished. Of the eighty books 112 CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. of the history of Dion Cassius, twenty-five only remain. Livy's history consisted of one hundred and forty books, and we only possess thirty-five of that historian." During the early epochs of the Christian era, literature under- went the most devastating vicissitudes ; religious intolerance and fanaticism destroyed some of the most precious annals of the past. Jew, Christian, and Pagan alike vented their malice on the productions of genius. Said Omar, " Either these books are in conformity with the Koran, or they are not : if they are, they are useless ; and if not, they are evil : in either event, therefore, let them be de- stroyed." Such was the logic that devoted to destruction seven hundred thousand manuscript volumes of the Alexandrian library ! The earliest public library of which we have any record was that of Osymandyas, who reigned in Egypt six hundred years after the deluge. That of Pisistratus, in Athens, dates five hundred and fifty years b.c. The next was the great Alex- andrian collection ; then followed, in the order of time, the several great libraries of Europe. Among the earliest illuminated MSS., we may mention the renowned Codex Argentetos, so named from its being written in liquid silver, upon violet-colored vellum. It is a magnifi- cent specimen of its kind, and is further remarkable as being the only extended specimen of the Moeso-Gothic known to exist. It exhibits a very close resemblance to printing, although exe- cuted nearly a thousand years prior to the discovery of the art. This choice literary relic was first discovered in the Benedic- tine Abbey of Worden, in Westphalia, about the year 1587 ; it subsequently passed into the possession of Queen Christine, of Sweden, then into that of Yossius, and was finally purchased by a northern Count, Gabriel de la Gardie, for £250, and by him presented to the University of Upsala. CUEIOCJS AND COSTLY BOOKS. 113 Within a few years, an ancient MS. copy of a portion of the New Testament, written in the Francic language, has been discovered at Eheims Cathedral. Its date is the eleventh cen- tury ; and is supposed to have been used in administering the coronation oath to the kings of France. Bede speaks of a magnificent copy of the Gospels in letters of the purest gold, upon leaves of purple parchment. So costly a mode of pro- ducing manuscripts could not have become general in any age ; accordingly we find these magnificent specimens were expressly executed for the nobles and princes of their times, or the higher dignitaries of the Church. An instance of this is to be seen in the superb Prayer BooJc, of a like description with the foregoing, with, the addition of its binding, which was of pure ivory, studded with gems, and, we believe, is yet extant in the celebrated Colbertine library. We next meet with the magnificent Bible, presented by his favorite preceptor, Alcuin, librarian to the Archbishop of York, to the great Charlemagne, after he liad learned to read and write ; (for, although among the wisest men of his age, he even commenced his educational course at the tender age of forty-five.) This remarkable copy of the Bible was in folio size, richly bound in velvet ; its embellishments were of the most superb description, its frontispiece being brilliantly orna- mented with gold and colors, and its text relieved by emblem- atic devices, pictures, initial letters, etc. This curioijs relic produced at auction, in 1836, the sum of fifteen hundred pounds. In our bibliographical researches, we notice many striking illustrations of the indefatigable perseverance and ingenuity of the middle ages. One of the most conspicuous instances of the kind upon record is that of Guido de Jars, who devoted upwards of half a century to the production of a manuscript copy of the sacred Scriptures, beautifully written and illumi- 8 114 CUEIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. nated. He began it in his fortieth year, and did not finish it until his ninetieth (1294). Few who have inspected such rare specimens of monkish taste and toil fail to be struck with their exceeding beauty. One of the most celebrated books in the annals of biblio- graphy is the richly illuminated Missal, executed for the Duke of Bedford, Regent of France in 1430. This rare volume is eleven inches long, seven and a half wide ; it contains fifty- nine large illuminations and above one thousand of smaller size, displayed in brilliant borders of golden foliage, with varie- gated flowers, richly colored and illuminated letters, etc. This relic, after passing through various hands, descended to the Duchess of Portland, whose valuable collection was sold by auction in 1786, when George III. ordered his librarian to bid up to two hundred guineas for it ; but a celebrated collector, Mr. Edwards, purchased the coveted relic, by adding three pounds more. It was subsequently sold, by auction, at Edwards' sale in 1815, and purchased by the Duke of Marlborough, for the enormous sum of £637 155. sterling ! Amongst the numerous, rare, and costly relics contained in the library of the Vatican, is the magnificent Latin Bible, of the Duke of Urbino ; it consists of two large folios, embellished by numerous figures and landscapes, in the ancient arabesque, and is considered a wonderful monument of art. There are also some autograph MS. of Petrarch's "^^m(3," which evince to what an extent he elaborated his versification. The muti- lated parchment scroll, thirty-two feet in length, literally covered with beautiful miniatures, representing the history of Joshua, ornamenting a Greek MS. bearing date about the seventh century, is, perhaps, the greatest literary curiosity of the Vatican. The Menologus, or Greek Calendar, illustrated by four hundred brilliant miniatures, representing the martyr- dom of the saints of the Greek Church, with views of the CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. 115 churches, monasteries, etc., is also curious, as presenting speci- mens of the Byzantium school. Olfric, the Saxon monk, deserves especial mention as having achieved the good work of rendering portions of the Old Tes- tament into his vernacular tongue. ""Whosoever," says he, " shall write out this boke, let him write it according to the Coptic, and for God's love, correct it, that it be not faultie, lest he thereby be discredited and I shent." This worthy died A.D. 1006, at St. Albans; his bones were, in the reign of Canute, removed to Canterbury. Lanfranc was another labo- rious and erudite scribe, to whose industrious toils the Chris- tian world owes much ; and which the perils from prejudices and pious frauds, during eight centuries of superstition and darkness, failed to destroy. He ultimately became primate of England, and patron of its learning. Another eminent guar- dian of the Bible was the worthy Bishop Anselm. It was a noble design on the part of the first printers to rescue from threatened annihilation the great classic works of antiquity. Many of these, as already said, are irretrievably lost ; and those we now possess narrowly escaped a similar fate. The preser- vation of the Holy Scriptures, however, may imdoubtedly be regarded as having been effected through the special interven- tion of Divine Providence. It is on this account that the integrity of the sacred text is regarded as unimpeachable, and its canonical records complete. Distributed in fragments, which were hidden in obscure recesses of monasteries and cloisters, it may well provoke our wonder, that, notwithstand- ing the fierce and continued violence of its professed opponents, this inestimable treasure should yet have descended to us thus complete and perfect. There were upwards of six thousand early copies of the Bible or portions of the Sacred Scriptures, in various languages, in the library of the late Duke of Sussex. 116 CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. Besides sixteen vellum copies of the Vulgate, there were two manuscript Bibles, profusely embellished with about one hun- dred exquisite miniatures, in gold and colors. In another copy there were nearly fift}' illustrative drawings, of a very curious description, one of which represented Adam delving and his spouse spinning ! There is no " note " to indicate the name of the maker of the spinning-wheel. The Duke's rich collection comprised some French, Italian, and Spanish Bibles ; and also an Italian manuscript, entitled *' Historia de Vecchio Testamento," which is decorated with about five hundred and twenty minia- tures. It contained in addition a choice copy of the Bible once Queen Elizabeth's, which she herself embroidered with silver ; and another in Arabic, which once belonged to Tippoo Saib, Horace Walpole's collection, at Strawberry Hill, deserves a passing allusion. The proceeds of the auction sale of this costly library produced nearly thirty-eight thousand pounds. Among its numerous objects of virtu was a magnificent missal, per- fectly unique, and superbly illuminated, being enriched with splendid miniatures by Eaffaelle, set in pure gold and enamel- led, and richl}'^ adorned with turquoises, rubies, etc. The sidea are formed of two matchless cornelians, with an intaglio of the crucifixion, and another Scripture subject; the clasp is set with a large garnet. This precious relic was executed expressly for Claude, Queen of France ; it was bought by the Earl Walde- grave for one hundred and fifteen guineas. Another curious and costly specimen of bibliography was a sumptuous volume, pronounced by the cognoscenti one of the most wonderful works of art extant, containing the Psalms of David written on vellum, embellished by twenty-one inimitable illuminations sur- rounded by exquisite scroll borders of the purest arabesque, of unrivalled brilliancy. Its binding is of corresponding splendor. Its date is about 1537. This little gem produced the sum oi four hundred and twenty guineas. CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. 117 Queen Elizabeth, it appears from Dibdin, was a bibliomaniac of transcendent fame ; her " Oone Gospell Booke, garnished on th' onside with the crucifix," etc., is a precious object to the virtuoso. It was the composition of Queen Catherine Parr, and was enclosed in solid gold ; it hung by a gold chain at her side, and was the frequent companion of the " Yirgin Queen." In her own handwriting at the beginning of the volume, the following quaint lines appear ; " I walke many times into the pleasaunt fieldes of the Holie Scriptures, where I pluckeupthe goodliesome herbes of sentences by pruning ; eate them by readinge ; chawe them by musing ; and laye them up at length in ye state of memorie by gathering them together ; that so, having tasted their sweeteness, I may the lesse perceave the bit- ternesse of this miserable life." This was penned by the Queen, probably while she was in captivity at Woodstock, as the spirit it breathes affords a singular contrast to the towering haughtiness of her ordinary deportment. A melancholy inter- est attaches to everything connected with the career of the hap- less Mary of Scots ; accordingly, we find great value is placed on the missal presented to the Queen by Pius V., and which accompanied her to the scaffold. The illuminations are said to be of extreme beauty. We read of a magnificent missal, nearly three feet in height, still extant in the library at Rouen, which occupied the labor of a monkish devotee upwards of thirty years. D'Israeli also refers to a huge copy of the Koran — probably without a parallel, as to its sise, in the annals of letters. The characters are described as three inches long ; the book itself a foot in thickness, and its other dimensions five feet by three. The celebrated Yaldarfer's (first) edition of Boccaccio's Decameron, — only one complete copy of which is believed to exist, — owes its preservation to the ingenuity of its first posses- sor ; who, during the crusade against classic literature, had it lettered, — " Concilium Tridentinum " / This copy became, 118 CURIOUS AKD COSTLY BOOKS. in 1S12 at an auction sale, the object of an animated contest between the Duke of Marlborough and Earl Spencer, when it became the property of the former. Some years after. Lord Spencer bought it, at the sale of the Marlborough library, for the sum of £875 ! Among the rare literary treasures in the Spencerian library, may be named the five splendid folios of Shakspeare's historical plays, profusely illustrated by the hand of the Countess of Lucan, who devoted sixteen years of pleasure-toil to the completion of this magnificent work. The richly colored illuminations are from the best authorities, and consist of historic scenes and portraits. Dibdin speaks of this matchless production as " ablaze with gold and brilliant colors, from beginning to end " ! Antoine Zarot, an eminent printer at Milan, about 1470, was the first on record who printed the missal. Among other works his execution in colors of the celebrated Missale Roma- mim in folio, afforded a beautiful specimen of the art. The manuscript copy seems to have been of a most dazzling descrip- tion ; every leaf is appropriately ornamented with miniatures, surrounded with exquisitely elaborated borders. Its almost in- numerable initials, which are richly illuminated in gold and colors, render it unsurpassed by any known production of its class. It has been estimated at 250 guineas. The Comjplu- tensian Polyglott, otherwise known as Cardinal Ximenes', deserves a passing notice among the renowned books of by- gone times. This prodigious work was commenced under the auspices of the above-named prelate in 1502, and for fifteen years the labor was continued without intermission ; its entire cost amounted to 50,000 golden crowns ! Of the four large vellum copies, one is in the Yatican, another in the Escurial, and a third was bought at the sale of the McCarthy library, for 600 guineas. About 1572 we meet with another splendid production — CFKIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. 119 the Sjpanish Polyglott, printed by Christopher Plantin. A most magnificent copy upon vellum, in the original binding, was sold in London some thirty years since, for one thousand guineas ! and enormous as was this price, the copy was imperfect, want- ing three out of the ten volumes. Bowyer, the well-known publisher, devoted the leisure hours of nearly a lifetime, in illustrating a copy of Macklin's folio Bible, which on his death was put up at lottery among four thousand subscribers at a guinea each. It contained seven thousand engravings ; bound in forty-five folio volumes ! Another indefatigable collector, Mr. Bell, of Manchester, has even surpassed Bowyer, in the same department. This copy was illustrated with nearly ten thousand engravings, and about eleven hundred original drawings and photographs, to- gether with 360 specimen leaves of old and rare editions of the Holy Scriptures. This sumptuous work comprises sixty-three large folio volumes ! A copy of Clarendon'' s '■^History of the RebellioirC'' was copiously illustrated by Mr. Sutherland, of London, at an ex- pense of nearly ten thousand pounds ! This work, together with Burnet'' s " Reformation^'' containing nineteen thou- sand engravings and drawings, — both, the result of forty years' labor, — are now among the rarities of the Bodleian Library, Oxford. These superb works form sixty-seven uniform vol- umes. Another bibliophile, Mr. G. H. Freeling, illustrated a copy of the " Bibliographical Decameron^'' extending it from three to eleven volumes, which Dibdin considered the most stu- pendous triumph of book-ardor with which he was acquainted. The well-known names of John Nicholls and John Boydell, publishers of London, take prominent rank among the pro- ducers of splendid books ; — they have the credit of having ex- pended the princely sum of £350,000 in fostering and improv- ing the sister arts of painting and engraving. Their magnificent 120 CUEIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. " Shahspeare Gallery " is even to this day a noble monument of their enterprise and skill. The gigantic speculation unfor- tunately failed, superinducing a loss to its projectors of over £100,000. Every one has probably heard of Dugdale's "J/b/i- astioon Anglioanum^'' in eight huge folios, illustrated. Murphy's " Arabian Antiquities of Sjpain^'' a beautiful specimen of art, cost ten thousand guineas in its execution. Its exquisite line engravings discover wonderful Unish. The splendid ceremonial of the coronation of George IV., under the superintendence of the late Sir George Naylor, of the Herald's College, furnishes another illustrious instance of costly bibliography. Notwithstanding the grant of the government of £5,000 towards the expenses, the undertaking also was a great pecuniary failure. It contained a series of magnificent paintings of the royal procession, banquet, etc., comprehending faithful portraits of the leading personages. The subscription price of a copy of the work was fifty guineas. Some years ago, a typographical wonder was exhibited in London, being a sumptuous edition of the New Testament, printed in gold, on porcelain paper of the most immaculate beauty, and, for the first time, on both sides. Two years were occupied in perfecting the work. Only one hundred copies were taken off. The far-famed Oreeh Testament of Erasmus, printed at Basle, 1519, but one copy of which is now known to exist, is in the cathedral of York. That renowned collector, Sir Mark Sykes, was refused the purchase of this rarity at the prodigious offer of one thousand guineas. The most costly undertaking ever attempted by a single in- dividual, of a literary character, which unquestionably the world has yet seen, is the magnificent work on " Mexico^'' by Lord Kingsborough. This stupendous work is said to have been produced at an enormous cost to the author. It is com- CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. 121 prised in seven immense folio volumes, embellished bj about one thousand colored illustrations. An item of sad interest is connected with the publication of this remarkable work. After devoting the princely sum of £60,000 to its production, such was his enthusiasm in the work, that he became involved in debt on its account, and ultimately died in debt. Perhaps, the greatest bibliographic monument ever erected to any author is Hall i well's superb edition of Shakspeare, in seventeen splendid folio volumes. Audubon's great work on the " Birds of America " is the grandest monument of art, of its class, ever produced. These plates, representing the birds, — from the eagle to the humming- bird, — are all life-size, and carefully colored. The engravings were executed in London, at a cost of twenty thousand pounds. The original drawings have been deposited with the New York Historical Society. There are so many great works of art, and archaeological research, that we can but name them briefly. DanieVs Oriental Scenery^ with one hundred and fifty large folio colored drawings, of the ruins of Delhi, Ele- phanta, and Lucknow ; ChampolliorC s Egypt, four folio vol- umes ; NajpoleorCs great work on Egyptian Antiquities, ten folio volumes, a monument of unrivalled magnificence, until Lepsius' superb work on the same subject made its appear- ance, in twelve atlas folios, Piranesi^s sumptuous works on Roman Antiquities, in twenty-one folio volumes, published at Venice, 1778, is an exhaustless treasury of classic art. Perefs Catacomhs of Rome, in five folios, is another superb produc- tion — unrivalled in its department. Another great pictorial wonder is, Sylvestre^s Paleographie Universelle, in four folio volumes, enriched with three hundred brilliant illuminations, fac-similes of the most sumptuous of mediaeval manuscripts. Yet other works of this class are Owen Joneses Illuminxited Boohs of the Middle Ages, folio ; and Count Bastard's work 122 CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. on the same subject, still more lavishly enriched with gold, silver, and brilliantly colored illustrations. Many other great Governmental works have been published, such as that by the Emperor of Russia, entitled " Les Peujples de la Russie^^ and Zahn^s Pomjpeii, in three elephant folios, an instance of lavish devotion to art. But it is impossible to enumerate more, within these prescribed limits. Then there are those great galleries of engravings, from the Louvre and elsewhere, — the spoils of the Napoleonic campaigns — the Musee Frangais, and Musee Royal^ making six folio volumes. The splendid work of Pistolesi, 11 Vaticano, in seven royal folios, containing seven hundred pictures, is worthy of note ; and Count LittcCs Noble Families of Italy ^ printed in princely style at the count's palace, forming five large folio volumes. This superb work is enriched with numerous illum- inations and colored portraits, like ivory miniatures. Splendid as are these costly productions, they are surpassed by some others; such as RajphaeVs Loggie, three folios, — comprising fac-similes of the magnificent frescos of the Vatican, by this prince of painters. Some old books, like old wines, acquire an increased value in proportion to their age. The best copy extant of Caxton's edition of Gower's ^^De Confessione Amantis " — one of the rarest of early printed books, was purchased by a Dublin bookseller, in 1832, with some unimportant volumes, for a mere trifle ; and was sold afterwards for upwards of three hundred pounds ! It is now in the celebrated collection of Lord Spencer, at Al- thorp. The mania for old books still exists in full force, both in the old world and the new. Among celebrated collectors of early and later times, might be named Richard de Bury, au- thor of " Philobiblion," who is supposed to have had the largest library in all England ; Archhishojp Usher ; Sir Thomas Rod- ley, the first founder of a public library ; Francis Douce / Jolm CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. 123 Evelyn^ in whose library was found the Prayer-hooh which Charles I, used as he was led to the scaffold at Whitehall ; Montaigne, the essayist; Oldys, the antiquary; Dr. Parr,' Heber ; Dr. Kloss, of Frankfort ; the Duke of Sussex, whose collections were so rich in Biblical rarities ; the costly library of Earl Spencer, which Dibdin has so ably chronicled ; and lastly that of Southey, the voluminous penman and poet. The richest bindings belong to the age of Charlemagne, and a century or two later. The decorations partook of the barbaric splendor of those days. One such volume presented by that sovereign to the cathedral at Treves, is enriched with Roman ivories and decorative gems. Our American literary collectors have been not a few, but to mention two or three will suffice : James Lenox, who has projected a magnificent library — possibly to compete ultimately with the renowned Astor Library. Mr. Lenox's collection includes many rarities, and the only copy in America of the Mazarine Bible — so called from its having been discovered in the cardinal's library. It is the first book printed with metal types, and cost $2,500. The Astor Library comprises about one hundred and fifty thousand volumes ; a large proportion of which consists of the most valuable national productions of the various countries of Eu- rope — works not to be found elsewhere in America. Several other gentlemen have or had rich private libraries : Sparks / Ticknor, of Boston ; Brown, of Providence ; Peter Force, of "Washington, and Barlow, of New York. Here, then, we terminate our rambles among the literary spoils of past ages, garnered in our great libraries, all over the world. "We have not, however, noted a tithe, nay, a hundredth part, of these art-treasures ; and what we have glanced at, in- deed, seem but just enough to cause us, with " Oliver Twist," to " call for more." Let us, then, with Ohanning thank God for books. " They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and 124: CURIOUS AND COSTLY BOOKS. make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are the true levellers. They give to all who will faithfully use them, the society, the spiritual presence of the best and greatest of our race. No matter how poor I am ; no matter how obscure my dwelling, if the sacred writers will enter and take up their abode under my roof. If Milton will sing to me of Paradise, and Shakspeare open to me the worlds of imagination and the workings of the human heart, and Franklin enrich me with his practical wisdom, I shall not pine for intellectual companion- ship." s 7a SOMETHING ABOUT NOTHING. Scholar, — nothing is not something, or anything; and, although it sounds like a self-evident proposition, yet we are bold to affirm, that nothing is nothiag. Wherever something is not, there is nothing ; yet so far from its being a mere non- entity, nothing is often the result of ranch laborious scholastic and literary effort. It might be deemed, perchance, an im- pertinence, or an infraction of modesty, to lay claim to such a triumphant issue for this our humble essay ; but we are con- soled by the reflection, that Fame's favorites are but few, and her boasted chaplet of glory is really next to — nothing. Some misguided mortals w^aste their whole time in the 126 SOMETHING ABOUT NOTHING. fruitless pursuit of nothing ; and they are successful in the accomplishment of their purpose. Charles Lamb, who was a lover of elegant leisure, once lazily remarked that " the best thing a man can have to do is nothing • and next to that, perhaps, good works ! " " Masterly inactivity " is the distin- guishing characteristic of some persons, who think it the best way of getting through life : yet we are told that laboriously doing nothing actually resulted in the death of the renowned Marshal Turenne. * This invisible nothing is said to fill an exhausted receiver ; and that it is all the same whether it be an empty tumbler, an empty purse, or an empty head. The antiquity of nothing is something considerable, far exceeding that of everything else; for it is evident that if nothing did not go before, something could not follow. Even the eleemosynary tendencies of some individuals result in nothing ; as the case of a certain party, of whom some dona- tion was solicited, clearly attests. " Charity's a private con- cern," said he ; " other gentlemen puts down what they thinks proper, and so do I ; and what I gives, is — nothing to nobody " ! Like the aforesaid, then, we offer nothing, and we trust we shall not be deemed penurious or illiberal, since, if nothing is bestowed, no obligation will be incurred ; and no apology demanded. Everything is of some supposable value and interest to somebody ; but nothing concerns nobody, and is of no value ; yet out of nothing what marvels have sprung into being. Of this remarkable negative noun, — this cipher in figures, this ghostly representative of vacuity, — so long min- gling with our social existence, and yet so mythical, what further can be afiirmed that has not been already stated ? Marvellous and mystical as it is, — ideal as it seems to be, — nothing is yet real ; and, at any rate, it occupies our attention SOMETHING ABOUT NOTHING. 127 at this present writing, or reading, and consequently we must be, each of us, so far interested in discussing — nothing. But to resume. Although most persons prefer something as the theme of their discourse, by way of variety, and for the sake of steering out of the beaten track, we still insist on nothing. That the origin of this shadowless subject, like much of our legendary lore, is enveloped in the mists of remote an- tiquity, as well as shrouded in the obscurity of modern meta- physics, will not be disputed. It will be further admitted that nothing is a slender peg to hang any ideas upon ; it is pre- mised, therefore, that the expectations of the reader, in this respect, should be restrained within moderate limits, as other- wise it is possible, from paucity of wit on our part, the present attempt at its illustration may prove less than nothing. Nothing, or no thing, is applied either as a noun or adjective — stands for non-existence — non-entity or nihility (from the Latin root nihil). Its antagonistic term is something ; and, although it is like comparing shadow with substance, yet, how- ever invidious the comparison may prove, we are of necessity compelled to adopt the alternative. Talk of the mysteries of metaphysics — what are they as contrasted with the inextricable mazes of this strange, indescribable phantasm ? "What, indeed, can be affii-med of a thing that has no physical existence ? All we can say of it is, that it is not extant, or in legal phrase — non est inventus. In this dilemma, our only escape is to treat it nega- tively ; this indeed seems perfectly consistent with the nature and attributes of our ghostly subject. Again, nothing «5 noth- ing ; not any-thing, but no-thing ; its history consequently is a series of negations — no beginning — no existence — ^no Aid ; and yet, paradoxical as it may sound, nothing is associated with almost everything. It enters into all the sinuosities and diver- sified circumstances of our social economy, as well as links itself with the sublime story of the stellar firmament. In this view, 128 SOMETHING ABOUT NOTHING, our intangible topic begins to assume a seemingly opaque form. For example, the great globe we inhabit is suspended upon nothing ; and as to its original substance, for aught we know to the contrary, it was evoked into being by the Hat of its Divine Author — out of nothing. And as it seems to have puzzled astronomers to determine both the origin and destiny of the moon, conjecture may not go widely astray, if a like mysteri- ous paternity be assigned to that luminous orb the poets and lovers so delight to celebrate. " The ancients have work'd upon each thing in nature, Describ'd its variety, genius, and feature ; They having exhausted all fancy could bring. As nothing is left, why of nothing we sing. — From nothing we came, and whatever our station, To nothing we owe an immense obligation. " Thinking of nothing is some folk's enjoyment, Doing of nothing is many's employment ; The love of this nothing have some folks so strong They say nothing — do nothing all the day long ; Some pass their, time nothing beginning, By nothing losing, and by nothing winning ; Nothing they buy, and nothing they sell, Nothing they know, and nothing they teU. " Thus much in conclusion, we prove pretty plain : Take nothing from nothing, there'll nothing remain ; Thus with this nothing the time out we're spinning, Nothing win sometimes set many folks grinning. ' ' A certain English bishop, on a certain occasion, found, to his surprise, placed on his pulpit, in lieu of his usual written ser- mon, merely some sheets of blank paper — to wit, nothing. His presence of mind, however, furnished him ample material — for he is said to have preached one of the best discourses he ever delivered. He commenced by saying, " Here, my breth- ren, is nothing ; and out of nothing God created the world " I S03IETHING ABOUT NOTHING. 129 Many a sermon has ended in nothing, but this is the only in- stance we remember in which nothing furnished its commence- ment, its substance, and its close. Again, nothing is the very life and soul of many spasmodic jokes. Many things are poetically said to " end in smoke," more may be truthfully said to result in nothing. How many bright and cherished schemes of the devotees of mammon resolve themselves into nothing ! The same may be predicated of the plotting manoeuvres of designing dowagers in the game of husband-hunting, of the hapless adventurer in pursuit of mat- rimony " under difficulties," and of the golden visions of deluded diggers at the auriferous sands of the Pacific. Nothing seems to pervade almost every department of our social existence. Many a man of opvilence will boastingly as- sure yon, he began the world with nothing, and found it first- rate capital ; another less favoi*ed of blind fate or fortune, failing in the like experiment, deplores its delusive cheat, yet still clinging to the deception, keeps next to nothing all his life. Every one, doubtless, remembers the story of the economic individual, whose inventive wit brought his horse to live upon nothing — and, at the same time, to a finish of his existence. If the famishing for the food animal complain of their im- poverished condition, ought not our sympathies to be extended towards those who, though luxuriously cared for in all other respects, pine with intellectual starvation, — whose heads, in- stead of being luminous with undying thoughts, present noth- ing. The remark is no less applicable to the human heart — the fabled shrine of the afPections. What a pleasing and uni- versal fiction is it to suppose that anything of the kind really exists in that sentimental locality — at least, in many instances ! Some, in their vain search for the mysterious organ, wishing to take the most indulgent view of the matter, apologetically sug- 130 SOMETHINa ABOUT NOTHING. ffest, in behalf of the " heartless," " that his heart cannot be in the right place " — the stern truth being, that nothing is there in its stead. Have you ever known any expectant patiently linger and long for the demise of some remarkable instance of longevity, vainly hoping to share some pecuniary immunity ; yet all his patience ending in — nothing ? There is, again, a class of bold individuals who are astonished at nothing — they make noth- ing of a trip across the Atlantic — the grand tour of Europe — a voyage to the Celestials — or an expedition to the El Dorado of the West. Such imperturbable spirits there are, who make nothing of wearing a shabby coat and worse continuations — nothing of breaking their word of honor — or of intruding with- out permission into their neighbor's house, and under the strange hallucination that onewm and tuum are convertible terms, display their fancy in the selection and appropriation of whatever they can most conveniently secure. Again, there are frigid subjects who make nothing <,)f the scorching rays of a meridian summer sun ; others who place the like estimate upon the withering blasts of a northern winter. Some, also, who act as though the profession and acting out of a religious life were nothing — and that time and eternity shared the like estimate. But we shall weary the reader with rambling repetitions ; and truth to say, we do not yet see " the beginning of the end " of our topic. If we may take breath, and venture an anticipatory conclusion, we should say that nothing is ecumenic — and that it is not only antithetical with, but twin-brother of, something ; for nothing negatively, is something — but positively — nothing ; it is yet always in close proximity, or juxtaposition, with — something. Nothing seems to possess advantages over meta- physics, if not indeed over everything else — for the former ad- dresses our reason merely, the latter our senses ; for we can ae^ nothing. Who, hunting a ghost in a haunted room, or any SOMETHING ABOUT NOTHING. 131 -other wild-goose chase, has not returned answer, that he saw nothing? Nothing may be heard, but only when everybody ^nd everything else is silent ; it may also be tasted — for who has not heard the expressively laconic complaint from a dissatisfied palate, that it tastes like nothing. The same may be predi- <;ated of the senses of smelling and feeling. Some, as we be- fore intimated, are impervious to feeling under any calamity ; jet they feel nothing. Such is the immobility of others, that the loss of property, character, friends, or relations, are all nothing to them. Some, again, love nothing; others, more amiable, hate it ; and others, more bold, are said to fear nothing. Some erudite authors fill their ponderous pages in reality with — nothing. What, indeed, could afford more demonstrable evidence of its verity than this present writing — nothing commenced it, noth- ing continued it, and — nothing must close it ; and as tliis brings us to the dilemma of its endless duration, we at once take ref- uge in the following clever " summing up " of a sonnet by an anonymous writer : "Mysterious nothing! how shall I define Thy shapeless, baseless, placeless emptiness ; Nor form, nor color, sound, nor size are thine, Nor words, nor fingers, can thy voice express ; But though we cannot thee to aught compare, A thousand things to thee may likened be, And though thou art with nobody nowhere, Yet half mankind devote themselves to thee. How many books thy history contain, How many heads thy mighty plans pursue, What lab'ring hands thy portion only gain, What busybodies thy doings only do ! To thee the great, the proud, the giddy bend, And, like my sonnet — all in nothing end." "We might here, perhaps, have effected a safe retreat from the entanglement of our knotty topic, were we not desirous of aton- 132 SOMETHING ABOUT NOTHING. ing for our trifling by an attempt to educe a moral from it. Lest some should think we have proved the obverse of what we proposed, and actually made nothing out of nothing, we are frank to confess this is not what we designed, in the treat- ment of this untenable and intractable topic. But to our moral. Some unfortunate persons, there may be, who are accustomed erroneously to construe the term we have so often played upon, as synonymous with others of a very different signification. For instance, those who are addicted to libations deep would have you believe that intoxication is nothing, — so would the purloiner, theft ; the profane, swearing ; the indolent, industry y and the man of violence, murder. *' 'Tis nothing, says the fool; but, says his friend, 'Tis nothing, sir, will bring you to your end ! " And this sagacious couplet ou.ght to bring us to ours, — in the words of a well-remembered classic author, which may be con- strued according to the taste of the reader, without impugning- the modesty of the writer : " Nihil tetigit non omavit ! " Should the reader still be curious to see — nothing, he has- only to close his eyes ; and if, in conclusion, he requires any further description of the aforesaid, we sum all the testimony by stating, that it is that which, ' ' The contented man desires ; The poor man has ; the rich requires ; The miser gives ; the spendthrift saves ; And all must carry to their graves." In our analysis of nothing, we ought not to forget its first syllable no — the second syllable — thing, may speak for itself. Anything is not no-thing ; but a thing is a thing ; this is a self-evident proposition. A contemporary * has so ably discussed * Merchants' Ledger. SOMETHING ABOUT NOTHING. 133 the little negation, that we take the liberty of presenting his strictures to the reader : " A very little word is iVb. It is composed of but two let- ters and only forms a syllable. In meaning it is so definite as to defy misunderstanding. Young lips find its articulation easy. Diminutive in size, evident in import, easy of utterance, frequent in use, and necessary in ordinary speech, it seems one of the simplest and most harmless of all words. Yet there are those to whom it is almost a terror. Its sound makes them afraid. They would expurgate it from their vocabulary if they could. The little monosyllable sticks in their throat. Their pliable and easy temper inclines them to conformity, and fre- quently works their bane. Assailed by the solicitations of pleasure they are sure to yield, for at once and resolutely they will not repeat — Ifo. Plied with the intoxicating cup they sel- dom overcome, for their facile nature refuses to express itself in— iVb. Encountering temptation in the hard and duteous path they are likely to falter and fall, for they have not bold- ness to speak out the decided negative — N'o. Amid the mists of time, and involved in the labyrinthine mazes of error, they are liable to forget eternal verities and join the ribald jest, for they have not been accustomed to utter an emphatic — N'o. " All the noble souls and heroes of history have held them- selves ready, whenever it was demanded, to say — N'o. The poet said — No, to the sloth and indolence which consumed his precious hours, and wove for himself in heavenly song a gar- land of immortality. The martyred hosts said — No, to the pagan powers that demanded a recantation of their faith, and swift from the fire and the torture their souls uprose to the rewards and beatitude of heaven." No-hody, seems by a natural affinity to belong to no-thing, so something ought to be said about it. !Nobody is a most mischievous and meddlesome personage ; 134 SOMETHING ABOUT NOTHING. for he is often engaged in the perpetration of some marvellous- deeds. He is often guilty of arson, murder, and other grand misdemeanors ; lie stirs up strife, and severs firm friends. It is- also true that there are some " bright lights " in his character,, and occasionally he is nobly implicated in some noble acts of beneficence. Possibly, the foregoing talk about nothing may be deemed very nonsensical ; and yet, a little nonsense is, sometimes, ad- missible. Confectionery, at any rate, finds favor with the fair, the sterner despise the dainty trifles. -^<^^ SPORTS AND PASTIMES. " Mirth is the medicine of life, — It cures its ills, it calms its i jnie ; It softly smooths the brow of care. And writes a thousand graces there." It has been justly said that recreation, exactly considered, is an advantage which few, if any, are willing altogether to forego, and which the most severe philosophy does not deny. It is, in- deed, in one form or other, the object of universal pursuit — for without its participation to some extent, life would lose its principal attraction, and mankind would degenerate into the settled gloom of moody melancholy. Relaxation from the severer toils of life is as necessary to human existence, as light is to the physical universe ; without its appropriate indulgence, 136 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. all the pleasant things which impart their thousand charms to our social economy, would at once become eclipsed in the dark- ness of desolation and despair. If it be true that man is the only animal that laughs, is it not fair to infer that, by an occasional indulgence of his risible faculty, he is but fulfilling a part of his destiny ? Very much might be urged in favor of a hearty laugh — it is not only highly exhilarating, but also very infec- tious ; and the doctors tell us, it is an excellent help to digestion and health. Bishop Hall remarks, " Reci-eation is intended to the mind, as whetting is to the scythe, to sharpen the edge of it, which otherwise would grow dull and blunt. He, therefore, that spends his whole time in recreation is ever whetting, never mowing ; as contrarily, he that always toils, and never recre- ates, is ever mowing, never whetting — laboring much to little purpose ; as good no scythe, as no edge. I would so inter- change, that I neither be dull with work, nor idle and wanton with recreation." Every nation, civilized and savage, has its dance, of one kind or another ; its universality proves that it is a natural recrea- tion. It is an excellent muscular exercise, and on this account highly recommended by physicians. It has the advantage, too, that it tends to promote social intercourse between the sexes ; refine and soften the manners of the one, and to give confi- aence to the other. Yet, uniting these advantages, dancing by some is highly condemned, as a misapplication of time, and as calculated to divert the attention from objects of higher im- portance. True, we ought not to let any pleasure occupy too much of our time ; but that youth needs some amusements, no person of age, when he calls to remembrance his own days of joyance, will deny. Still, we admit that, as frequently in- dulged in, by our modern fashionable society, dancing is made the occasion of inducing laxity in both morals and manners. This is its bane. Dancing is the most universal, as well aa one SPORTS AND PASTIMES. 137 of the most ancient of all pastimes. During the earlier ages, it was invested with the sanctity of a religious rite — the Leviti- cal law of the Jews requiring it to be exhibited at the celebra- tion of their solemn feasts; the Psalms of David make fre- quent allusions to the practice ; and, indeed, in the temple at Jerusalem, a stage was erected for these exercises, called the choir — a term still retained in our churches, and now appropri- ated to the singers. The Greeks and Romans adopted dancing at their festivals, after their ancestors, and the practice lias continued uninter- ruptedly down to our own times. The Spartans were most studious in the cultivation of the celebrated Pyrrhic dance. The most celebrated games of the Greeks were the Olympic, the Pythian, the Nemean and the Isthmian. These differed little from each other ; their designations indicating the places where they were held. These games were celebrated with great pomp and magnificence. The most distinguished authors of Greece also obtained prizes at Olympia, for excelling in con- tests, not of physical, but of mental power. Even the red men of the forest have their various dances, devoted to the seasons, hunting and war. No less popular was the well-known Morris dance of Shakspeare's days ; the origin of which is ascribed to the Moors. The Morris dance was not absolutely limited to any period of the year, though it seems to have been con- sidered as most appropriate to Whitsuntide and May-day. Amusements and recreations are an index to character, not only individual, but national ; for in our times of relaxation, we are most apt to throw off life's disguises. " Almost everything else may be lost to a nation's history, but its sports and pastimes ; the diversions of a people being commonly interwoven with some immutable element of the general feeling, or perpetuated by circumstances of climate or locality — these will frequently sur\ive, when every other 138 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. national peculiarity has worn itself out, and fallen into obliv- ion." * As the minds of children, modified by the forms of society, are pretty much the same in all countries, there will be found but little variation in their ordinary pastimes — a remark no less applicable to those nations, which, from their non-advancement in civilization, may be said to have still retained their childhood. Few, if any of our popular pastimes and sports, may be said to be new ; they will be found to be either of Pagan, Jewish, Popish, or Christian origin, modified often by the genius of the times. Some bearing the impress of the chivalric age of the Crusades, or the romantic enthusiasm of the mediaeval times ; and others retaining the characteristics either of the Puritan austerity of England's Commonwealth, or the laxity of the age that followed. The Jews, according to the Mosaic law, were accustomed to observe, in addition to their weekly Sabbaths, thirty holy days. They had other festivals also, not enjoined by their law, such as those of Purim and the Dedication, the last named continu- ing eight days. We do not intend to dilate at length upon these, but simply to take a glance at the more prominent diversions and frolics with which society in former times beguiled itself of its sor- rows, and the severer duties of life. "VVe refrain from tracing our subject back to its earliest origin — the pastimes of a rude age — because they would naturally be expected to partake, in no small degree, of the manners and habits of which they were the reflex. We may infer from our own Indians, that athletic exercises and the chase, were among the primitive di- versions of mankind. We must not, however, be tempted to inquire too curiously concerning these primitive pastimes, if we would judge them by the refinement and taste which character- * Horace Smith. SPORTS aXD pastimes. 139 ize our modern modes of diversion, such as music, the fine arts, the drama, and literary entertainments. Field sports still exist, under certain modifications, as they did under the " Mosaic dispensation : " where we read of Nim- rod, " a mighty hunter," and the progenitor of his class. The chase has supplied a theme for some of the classic writers. Xenophon repudiated hunting, as well as Solon. By the Eo- man law, game was never deemed an exclusive privilege, ex- cept when extending over private lands, when permission was to be obtained of the proprietor. When Rome became over- run by the Goths and Yandals, they perverted the natural rights to a royal one ; a feature still retained in some European States ; the prescriptive right to hunt over certain grounds being vested in the sovereign, or those to whom the crown may delegate it. Edward III. was such a devotee to sports of this kind that even during his hostile engagements with France, he could not refrain from their indulgence. While in the Frencli dominions he had with him, according to Froissart, sixty couple of stag- hounds and as many hare-hounds, every day amusing himself at intervals, with hunting or hawking. He is said to have kept a princely stud of horses and six hundred dogs for this pur- pose. This passion extended itself during the middle ages to the clergy : for Chaucer satirizes the monks, for their predilection for the hunter's horn, over cloistered seclusion ; and even in later times in England, sporting bishops and vicars have not been wanting to provoke the just indignation of society. Queen Elizabeth used to patronize these sports, with a retinue of her courtly dames and lordly knights, even as late as her seventy-seventh year, — at which time it is recorded, " that her majesty was excellently disposed to hunting, for every second 140 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. day she was to be seen on horseback, continuing the sport for a long time." Falconry appears to have been carried to great perfection, and to have been extensively pursued, in the different countries of Europe, about the twelfth century, when it was the favorite amusement, not only of kings and nobles, but of ladies of dis- tinction, and the clergy, who attached themselves to it no less zealously than they had done to hunting, although it was equally included in the prohibitory canons of the church. IS'o person of rank was represented without the hawk upon his hand, as an indisputable criterion of station and dignity: the bird of prey (no inappropriate emblem of nobility in the feudal ages) was never suffered to be long absent from the wrist. In travelling, visiting, or the transaction of affairs of business, the hawk still remained perched upon the hand, which it stamped with dis- tinction. The grand falconer, in full costume, with his falcon perched upon his wrist, was a most picturesque-looking individual : and his attendants, bearing the perches for the hooded birds, made up a busy, animated and excited group. But the sport of hawk- ing, like that of archery, gave way to other pursuits ; and the fowling-piece superseded the hooded hawk which, since the days of Alfred, had been held in such high esteem by the gentle- born and chivalrous spirits of Old England. Edward the Confessor, it is believed, wrote a book on the pas- time which is still extant. In the East, the Persians are skil- ful in training falcons, — birds of prey, a superior kind of hawk, — to hunt all manner of birds, and even gazelles : and in civi- lized Europe generally, a knowledge of the management of hawks was deemed a mark of polite education, and a hawk on the hand marked social position. Hawking had its technology, also, like heraldry. The office of grand falconer of England is still an hereditary service of the crown. The " King's Mews," SPORTS AND PASTIMES. 141 at Charing, derives its name from the building in which the King's hawks were kept, while they mewed or moulted. With respect to archery, it is sufficient to remark that the bow was the most ancient and common of all weapons ; Ish- mael, the wanderer, was an archer — so were the heroes of Homer, and the warriors of most nations. During the Hept- archy, Off rid, son of Edwin, King of Northumberland, was slain by an arrow ; other historic celebrities might be mentioned who shared a similar fate. The Saxons claim the introduc- tion of both the long and cross-bow into Britain ; their succes- sors, the Danes, were also great archers. The well-known story of Alfred the Great in the peasant's cottage, suffering her cakes to burn, was owing to his being en- gaged in preparing his bow and arrows. Of the great power and precision with which arrows may be discharged, we have sufficient evidence, without that afforded by the apocryphal exploits of Robin Hood, or William Tell. Our Indians may be cited as specimens of the wonderful exactness of aim, of which the instrument is susceptible. William Rufus, it will be remembered, was indebted to one of these swift-winged messengers of death, for his dismission from the field of strife : and the famous battles of Cressy and of Agincourt bore testimony to their fatal use. The practice of archery possesses undoubted advantages, in point of health and exercise, over most of the athletic diversions, or field sports, without their objectionable features. Archery is attended with no cruelty : it sheds no innocent blood, nor does it torture harmless animals; charges which lie heavy against some other amusements. The practice of baiting animals, so naturally revolting to our modern taste, seems, in former times, to have been invested with something of the chivaxrous and romantic. These cruel enter- tainments, Julius CsBsar introduced among the Romans ; frorc l42 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. them it was adopted by the Spaniards, the Portuguese, and the English. The Spaniards have been the most conspicuous for their refined cruelties, in connection with this brutal sport; the}^ have also invested its ceremonies with the greatest splendor and pageantry. In the Greek bull-fights, the devoted animals were turned out with an equal number of horsemen, each combatant select- ing his victim. From the following account of a bull-fight in the Coliseum at Rome, 1332, from Muratori, some idea may be formed of the ceremonies and dangers attending those extra- ordinary exhibitions : " A general proclamation, as far as Rimini and Ravenna, in- vited the nobles to exercise their skill and courage in this peri- lous adventure. The Roman ladies were marshalled in three squadrons, and seated in three balconies, which were lined with scarlet cloth. The lots of the champions were drawn by an old and respectable citizen, and they descended into the arena to encounter the wild animals on foot, with a single spear. Amid the crowd were the names, colors, and devices of twenty of the most conspicuous knights of Rome. The combats of the amphitheatre were dangerous and bloody. Every cham- pion successively encountered a wild bull, and the victory may be ascribed to the quadrupeds, since no more than eleven were left on the field with the loss of nine wounded, and eighteen killed on the side of their adversaries. Some of the noblest families might mourn, but the pomp of the funerals in the churches of St. John Lateran, and St. Maria Maggiore, afforded a second holiday to the people, which was, of course, a thing of superior moment. Doubtless it was not in such conflicts that the blood of the Romans should have been shed ; yet in blam- ing their rashness, we are compelled to applaud their gallantry," continues our author, " and the noble volunteers, who display their munificence and risk their lives under the balconies of the SPORTS AND PASTIMES. 143 fair, excite a more generous sympathy than the thousands of captives and malefactors, who were reluctantly dragged to the scene of slaughter." The ceremonies in Spain, commence by a kind of procession in which the combatants, on horse and on foot, appear, after which two alguazils, dressed in perukes and black robes, ad- vance, with great affected gravity, on horseback, and ask the president for the signal for the commencement of the entertain- ment. As the bull rushes in, he is received with loud shouts which rend the air, and tend to excite to frenzy the infuriated beast ; when the picadores or equestrian combatants, dressed in a quaint old Castilian costume, and armed with a long la-nce, wait to meet and repel their antagonist. These encounters re- quire, of course, extraordinary courage and dexterity ; and for- merly they were regarded as marks of honorable ambition and distinction, having sometimes been enlisted in by those of noble blood. Even at the present time hidalgos are said to solicit the honor of fighting the bull on horseback, and they are then pre- viously presented to the audience under the auspices of a patron connected with the court. Should the animal become terror- struck, and seek to avoid his persecutors, if nothing else can awaken his courage and fury, the cry Perros ! jperros ! brings forth new enemies, and huge dogs are let loose upon him. He then tosses the dogs into the air, and although they usually fall down stunned and mangled, they generally renew their attack till their adversary falls. Sometimes the bull, irritated by the pointed steel, gores the horse and overturns his rider, who, when dismounted and disarmed, would be exposed to imminent danger, did not attendant combatants divert the animal's atten- tion by holding before him pieces of cloth of various colors. This act is attended, however, with great peril, the only rescue being by jumping over the barrier, which throws the spectators 144 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. into a chaos of confusion from fear of the rabid animal's mak- ing a direct descent upon themselves. It is to be admitted, however, that the sin of baiting animals does not rest alone with the Spaniards or the ancient Romans, — although the gladiatorial exploits of the cruel monsters, Nero and Commodus, surpass all for their savage brutality. James I., amongst other sapient performances, perpetrated a " Boke of Sports," for the regulation of popular pastimes and amuse- ments, intimating by it what particular kinds of recreation were to be allowed on Sundays and festivals of the church — such as running, vaulting, morris-dancing, etc., and prohibit- ing, upon those days, bowling, bear and bull-baitings. Bishop Burnet, in his " History of his own Times," speaking of this noted monarch, complains that his court fell into much extravagance in masquerading — ^^"both king and court going about masked, going into houses unknown, and dancing there with a great deal of wild frolic." As early as the ninth century, hunting formed an item of education, and was patronized by the nobility. Alfred the Great was an expert hunter at twelve years of age ; and Edward the Confessor, according to the ancient chronicles, " took the great- est delight to follow a pack of swift hounds in pursuit of game, and to cheer them on with his voice." William the Norman, and several of his crowned successors, down to James I., seem to have been alike addicted to the pastime. The last-named individual is said to have divided his time equally betwixt his standish, his bottle and his hunting ; the last had his fair weather, the two former his dull and cloudy. Contemplative men seem to have been fond of amusements accordant with their pursuits and habits. The tranquil recrea- tion of angling has won a preference with many, over more boisterous pm-suits, from the fascinations imparted to it, by the quaint and delightful work of Izaak Walton. Sir Henry SPORTS A^^D PASTIMES 145 Wotton styles angling, " Idle time not idly spent : " to a medi- tative mind, possibly, it may be so, but we think many a de- votee of " fly fishing " will be found to have been much more lavish in his expenditure of time than is warranted by its re- sults. Paley, it may be remembered, was accustomed to in- dulge in this pursuit : he had a portrait painted with a rod and line in his hand. Let us not forget that this art of angling was discoursed of, in one of the earliest books printed in England ; and what is not less remarkable is, that the work was written by a lady. She was Dame Juliana Berners, Prioress of the Nunnery of Sopewell, — the same who wrote on hawking ; but gives prefer- ence to angling, because, he says, " if the angler take fishe, surely, thenne, is there no man merrier than he in hys spyrit." Angling has not only been glorified by Izaak Walton, it may also claim the sanction of Holy Writ, — some of the Apostles having been of the craft. " In this pleasant and harmless Art of Angling, a man hath none to quarrel with but himself," says Izaak Walton, " and he may employ his thoughts in the noblest studies, almost as freely as in his closet- The minds of anglers are usually more calm and composed than others ; and suppose he take nothing, yet he enjoyeth a delightful walk, by pleasant views, in sweet pastures, among odoriferous flowers, which gratify his senses and delight his mind ; " and he adds, " I know no sort of men "less subject to melancholy than the anglers ; many have cast off other recreations and embraced it, but I never knew an angler wholly cast off his affection to his beloved recreation." In the reign of Charles II., ladies used to practise angling, in the canal of St. James' Park, London ; according to Izaak Walton, "their tackle was very beautiful and costly, which they were fond of displaying." The piscatory art being still one of our most popular of pastimes, it is needless to dilate 10 14:6 SPORTS AND PASTBIES. Upon its fascinating attractions. Some invetei'ate anglei*s must, however, have a curious history to give of their experi- ence ; for man}'^ of them have been " odd fish " themselves — flat fish, M'e may say, in some instances, since they will sit on a damp, muddy bank the live-long day, contented if they are but regaled v^dth even the symptoms of a " nibble." We pass now to notice briefly the well-known and popular sport — horse-racing, and its kindred associations. It has been conjectured that these amusements of the turf were in vogue with the Saxons, from the fact that Hugh, the founder of the House of the Capets of France, among other royal gifts, " pre- sented several winning horses, with their saddles and bridles," etc. The sedate John Locke writes as follows : " The sports of England, which perhaps a curious stranger would be glad to see, are horse-racing, hawking and hunting, bowling ; at Marebone and Putney, he may see several persons of quality bowling two or three times a week all the summer ; wrestling in Lincoln's Inn Fields, every evening all summer ; bear and bull-baiting, and sometimes prizes at the Bear-Garden ; shooting in the long bow, and stob-ball in Tothill Fields ; cudgel-playing at several places in the country ; and hurling in Cornwall." Of wrestling and pugilistic games we forbear to speak; modern gymnastics and calisthenics are a meet substitute for the former, since they include all their advantages, in the de- velopment of physical strength, without any of their objection- able features. As a winter sport, skating naturally suggests itself — a diversion mentioned by a monkish writer as far back as 1170. A fast skater, on good ice, will nearly equal the race- horse for a short distance. The London belles may be seen thus sportively employed on a fine winter's day on the Serpen- tine, Hyde Park, and hundreds more on the lakes of our " Central " and " Prospect " Parks, and elsewhere. Like buffalo SPORTS AND PASTIMES. 147 hunting — the most exciting, because hazardous of all sports — however, skating is attended with the occasional risk of a fall on the ice, and sometimes under it, affording the courageous skater the benefit of a cold bath, with the chance of an entailed rheun^ atism, if not, indeed, loss of life itself. From the sug- gestion of a ducking under the ice, one is naturally reminded of swimming or voluntary bathing, than which few expedients are more conducive to health and longevity. The world is now awake to this, and even the faculty are found frank enough to confess the fact, and to recommend frequent ablu- tions. The important utility, in cases of accident, of being able to swim, every one knows, but every one does not acquire the art notwithstanding ; yet it is easy of attainment, and also adds much to the pleasure of bathing. Cramps, crabs, and the chance of becoming food for fishes, are among the doubtful attractions of old Neptune, — healthfulness and vigor to the young, and rejuvenescence to the aged, as well as a delicious physical enjoyment, while in his rough embraces, — are among the positive pleasures. Tennis was a favorite game among the Romans : it is less in vogue in modern times, cricket having to some extent usurped its place. All classes play at it in England. Some years past there was a strong contest between eleven Greenwich pension- ers, with only one leg a-piece, against an equal number of their brethren, who were minus an arm, but the one- legged boys won. As with many other English sports, ladies sometimes join the band of cricketers ; some time ago there was a match played between an equal number of married and unmarried women ; in which the matrons came off victors. There are numerous domestic games and pastimes which might be mentioned, both of pas times and the present; it 148 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. may suffice simply to name the following — chess and cards. An instance of chess upon a large scale is recorded of Don John of Austria, who had a room in his palace which had a pavement of checkered white and black marble; upon this- living men, in varied costumes, moved under his directions, accordino; to the laws of chess. It is also related of a Duke of "Weimar, that he had squares of black and white marble on which he played at chess with real soldiers. A game of chess involves sometimes a sevei*e test of temper; it is said the Swedish maidens used formerly to try the mettle of their hus- bands elect at the chess table, and that this ordeal decided their fate in the affair of matrimony. According to Mr. Basterot, a late French authority, this game was invented during the sixth centurj^ by an Indian Brahmin, called Sisla^ who presented his invention to the reigning monarch, Sirham, requesting as a reward, one grain of wheat for the first square,_ two grains for the second, and four for the third, and so on, in geometrical progression, up to the sixty-fourth ; to reach the amount of this humble request, the author informs us, w^ould require the entire wheat crop of France during one hundred and forty years. Of billiards, dice, and other games usually associated with the practice of gambling, as well as of theatricals in general, it is not necessary to speak, they being already familiar to the reader. Billiards, chess, whist, faro, croquet, draughts and other like games are too well known to require farther mention. D'Israeli has an amusing chapter devoted to the amusements of the learned, from which we shall cite a few facts : Among the Jesuits it was a standing rule of order, that after an application to study of two hours, the mind should be bent by some relaxa-^ tion, however trifling. When Petavius was engaged upon his- " Dogmata Theologica," a work of the most profound erudition^ SPORTS AND PASTIMES. 149 the choice recreation of the learned father was, at the end of every second hour, to twirl his chair for five minutes. Tycho Brahe amused himself with polishing glasses for spectacles and making mathematical instruments. Descartes beguiled him- self of his literary labors, like John Evelyn, Pope, Cowper, and many others, in the cultm'e of flowers. All nations have proved the fallacy of seeking to impose restraints against the necessary recreations of life ; the stern necessities of our mental and physical constitution, have long since determined the fact with the authority of law. " It were unjust and ungrateful to conceive that the amuse- ments of life are altogether forbidden by its beneficent Author. They are ' the wells of the desert ; ' the kind resting-place in which toil may relax, in which the weary spirit may recover its tone, and where the desponding mind may reassume its strength and its hopes. "Even in the scenes of relaxation, therefore, they have a tendency to preserve the dignity of human character, and to fill up the vacant and unguarded hours of life with occupa- tions, innocent, at least, if not virtuous. But their principal effect, perhaps, is upon the social character of man. When, men assemble, accordingly, for the purpose of general happi- ness or joy, they exhibit to the thoughtful eye one of the most pleasing appearances of their original character. They leave behind them, for a time, the faults of their station and the asperities of their temper ; they forget the secret views and the selfish purposes of their ordinary life, and mingle with the crowd around them with no other view than to receive and ■communicate happiness. It is not, therefore, the use of the innocent amusements of life which is dangerous, but the abuse of them ; it is not when they are occasionally, but when they \re constantly pursued ; when the love of amusement degene- 150 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. rates into a passion ; and when, from being an occasional in« dnlgence, it becomes a habitual desire." * Thus the serious side of life is qualified by its mirthful. " The most grave and studious," said Plutarch^ " use feasts and jests and toys, as we do sauce to our meats." * Alison. BOOK CRAFT. " Mightiest of the mighty means, On which the arm of Progress leans — Man's noblest mission to advance, His woes assuage, his weal enhance. His rights enforce, his wrongs redress — Mightiest of the mighty is the Press V—Bowring, The invention of the " art preservative of arts " — Printing, like the faculty of speech, seems to have come to us " like a divine revelation in the history of man ! " We ask — "Whence did the wondrous mystic art arise, Of painting speech, and speaking to the eyes ? " Yet no oracle is responsive to the inquiry ; and all we know is, that the Decalogue was written upon stone tablets, 152 BOOK CRAFT. and that picture-writing or hieroglyphs were in use among the earliest races of mankind. This fact is abundantly indicated by the inscriptions and sculptured stones which everywhere abound amid the ruins, recently exhumed, of Babylon, Phoeni- cia, Chaldea, Egypt, Arabia, and India. Much learned discus- sion has been devoted to the subject of alphabetical writing, also ; there can be little doubt, however, of its being of Divine origin. Seven cities of classic Greece, it will be remembered, con- tended for the honor of being the birth-place of Homer ; and the contest for the honor of giving birth to a discovery, the greatest in the history of the arts of life, is also stoutly con- tended for, by three of the cities of Continental Europe — Haarlem, Mentz, and Frankfort. These rival cities stand like armed champions, challenging each for the prize. Haarlem has erected a statue to Koster ; Mentz has thus immortalized Guttenberg ; while Frankfort has a magnificent monument erected to the memory of the three claimants jointly — Gutten- berg:, Faust and Schseffer. It seems that these three were as- sociated together in the earliest inception and development of the art of Printing ; Faust, or Fust, had no share in the inven- tion of the art, he only advanced funds to enable Guttenbei-g to establish the printing business at Mentz : this was, it is be- lieved, in 1450. Two years later they had a disagreement, and a lawsuit ensued ; and Guttenberg then took into partnership his son-in-law, Schseffer, who had been in their employment, and who had perfected the process of making movable metallic type by the invention of the punch. For several years they kept the printing process a secret, and produced many works, among which was the first printed edition of a classic author — the De Offioiis — of Cicero — a copy of which is in the Astor Library. In 1462, Mentz was sacked, and Faust's establish- BOOK CRAFT. 153 ment was broken up. His workmen were scattered, and bis secret was divulged by tbem in otber countries. In the old library at Strasburg is, or was before the late war, this literary relic — a small folio-volume, comprising the depo- sitions in the famous lawsuit between Faust and Guttenberg, written, it is said, by a contemporary hand. According to recent researches it appears that Haarlem is entitled to the preeminence first claimed for it by Ulric Tell, an eminent printer of Cologne, who is quoted in the Cologne Chronicle of 1499. He ascribes the first discovery of the art to Lawrence Janssen, or Koster, warden of the Cathedral Church at Haarlem, who, one day walking in the woods, amused liimself by cutting letters in the bark of a tree, and taking impressions from them for his children ; and thus his idea of printing was first suggested. He pursued the idea, invented a thicker ink, and soon produced hloch-hooks. The same authority supposes Faust and Guttenberg were first en- gaged as assistants to Koster. Of the truth of the story of Faust's robbery of Koster's printing-office we shall leave our readers to decide. There can be no doubt that the use of cut metal types was achieved at Mentz, where the art received its chief improvements, and mainly by Guttenberg, Faust, and Scheeffer. They concealed their new improvements by ad- ministering an oath of secrecy to all their servants and work- men, till the sacking of the city of Mentz. The prevailing opinion of critics then upon the disputed claims of these con- testants seems to be, that to tlie German triumvirate belongs the honor of having been the first to employ movable metallic types, matrices, and punches, in printing ; and if so, they are entitled to wear their proud laurels. To the invaluable invention of the Press are books, indeed, indebted for their limitless multiplication ; and among the many immunities of our advanced civilization the least is not 154 BOOK CRAFT. the Priuting-press. It is fitting that the advent of the " divine art " should be first sanctified by religion. The first boob ever printed with metal types was the Bible, in Latin, consist- ing of 1,282 pages folio. Though a fii'st attempt, it is beauti- fully printed on very fine paper, and with superior ink. At least eighteen copies of' this famous edition are known to be in existence in the several great libraries of Europe, at the pres- ent time. It is known as the Mazarine Bible; from having been first found in the library of Cardinal Mazarine. A copy cost the purchaser, Mr. Lenox, of New York, some years since, $2,500, but it would bring nearly double that sum now. The nvmiber of Bibles printed between 1450 and 1500 was much larger than is generally supposed ; and among them were several in German. The Pentateuch, and the history of Job, are the most ancient books in the world ; and in profane literature, the works of Homer, Hesiod, and Herodotus. To form an approximate estimate of the value of the Print- ing-press, we have only to contrast our own times with those which preceded its discovery. The dawn of printing was like the outburst of a new revelation ; and, like the dawn of light, it led to the discovery of other great facts and results which otherwise might have never blessed the world. The era of printing introduced the general revival of learning, and the Keformation in Germany. We should tell nothing new to the reader at all conversant with the pleasant and curious antiquities of bibliography, were we to refer to the early materials and fabric of books — the Egyptian papyrus plant, or the Ilerculaneum manuscripts ; * or the waxen tablets of the Greeks and Romans, written with the stylus, which has afforded to our vernacular its two widely *The Greek MSS. in Herculaneum consist of papyrus, rolled, charred,, and matted together by the fire, and are about nine inches long, and one, two, or thre^mches in diameter, each being a volume or separate treatise. BOOK CRAFT. 155 different terms — style and stiletto; or of the metals wliicb were sometimes used for inscribing ; or of the skins first pre- pared at Pergamus, (parchment,) which the Romans, in their luxurious days, used to manufacture in yellow and purple, to receive the characters in liquid gold and silver — a mode con- tinued by the monks in later days, and of which specimens yet exist. The Bark of Trees has been much used for writing upon in every quarter of the globe, and still serves for this purpose in some parts of Asia. In the Sloanian library, London, there are several specimens ; one of writing on bark, folded up in leaves so as to represent a book ; there is also a Nabob's letter on a piece of bark two yards long, richly ornamented in gold. Leaves have also been used for writing upon in most nations. Pliny speaks particularly of the Egyptians writing at first upon leaves. The " sybils' leaves " referred to by Virgil, prove that the use of leaves for writing upon was familiar to the Ro- mans. Diodorus Siculus relates that the judges of Syracuse were accustomed to write the names of those whom they sent into banishment upon the leaves of olive trees. The practice of writing upon the leaves of palm-trees is still prevalent in some parts of the East. Specimens are to be seen in the Brit- ish Museum. In the time of Alexander the Great, the practice of writing on Papyrus was found so convenient that Ptolemy Phila- delphus caused his books to be transcribed on the plant. A book has been curiously defined, " brain preserved in ink," and when there is plenty of the fruit, it is a conserve to tempt the most capricious palate. From the fact that books were written on the bark of trees, came the Latin word liher^ from which we derive our English term " library." " Book " is from the Saxon, " hoG^ a beech-tree. 156 BOOK CRAFT. Hesiod's works were first written on tables of lead — Solon's laws on wooden planks. The wood was sometimes covered with wax, so that the writing could be easily effaced. The Chinese manufacture paper of linen, the fibres of the young bamboo — of the mulberry, the envelope of the silk-worm — of a native tree called chu or ko-chu — but especially of cotton. They were in possession of the art long before it was known in Europe ; and, as Mecca was a sort of depot for the fabrics of China, it is by some very reasonably supposed, that the paper was first brought from that country. Whatever might have been its origin, the art was undoubtedly employed and im- proved by the Arabs, who, in their career of conquest, carried it into Spain, about the beginning of the tenth century. Other accounts ascribe the invention of cotton paper to Greece ; indeed, not only its origin, but the various improve- ments in its manufacture, and the different substitutions of new materials have long been the subject of controversy. Cotton and silk paper were in use at an early period, but linen rags were not used till a.d. 1200. This invention has been placed earlier by some good authorities, but it would appear that they have confounded the cotton with the linen paper. The first paper-mill in England was built by a Ger- man, in 1588, at Dartford, in Kent. Nevertheless, it was not until 1713, that Thomas Watkins, a stationer, brought paper- making to anything like perfection. Between the years 1467 and 1475, printing-offices were opened at Cologne, Augsburg, Nuremberg, and Lubec. Monks, called " Brothers of Common Life," founded printing establishments at Brussels and Louvain, in Belgium, In the year 1467, a press was transported to Eome ; some years afterwards, to Yenice, Milan, and Naples. The printing art reached Paris in 1469. It met with obstacles on the part of copyists, who BOOK CRAFT. 157 feared to lose their means of subsistence ; but the king, Louis XI., protected the printers. The art was conveyed from Haarlem to England in 1468, and by Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury. This prelate sent a merchant named William Caxton, to learn the art. Caxton pre- vailed with Corseilles to go over to Oxford, and there set up a press. Before Caxton left the continent, he translated from the French, and in the year 1471 published at Cologne, the first hook ever jprinted in the English language ; entitled. The Recuyell of the Hystoryes of Troye. "An imperfect copy of this work," says Duppa, " was put up to sale in 1812, when there was a competition amongst men eminent for learning, rank, and fortune ; and, according to their estimation of its value, it was sold for the sum of £1,060 10s." In the year 1474 (having in the meantime returned to England), he published the first hook ever jprinted in England. It was entitled, " The Game and Playe of the Chesse : Translated out of the Frenche, and em- prynted by me William Caxton. Fynysshid the last day of Marche, the yer of our Lord God a thousand four hondred, Ixxiiij." Caxton, who died at the age of 81, in 1491, and who, in ad- dition to having had the honor of introducing into England the " divine art," was an eminent instance of the successful culti- vation of letters, combined with mechanical pursuits. Amidst the onerous charge of an extensive printing office in one of the chapels of Westminster Abbey, containing twenty-four presses, with about a hundred workmen, this indefatigable man actu- ally gave to the world, no fewer than five thousand closely printed folio pages from his own pen, consisting chiefly of translations from the French, or of the stock of his own vernacu- lar literature. About sixty of his books still exist. His just estimate of Chaucer, whose works he first printed, evinces his uncommon critical acumen. On more accounts than one, there- 158 BOOK CRAFT. fore, may Caxton be fitly styled the father of the English press. The well-known names of Pynson, who died 1529 ; "VVynkyn de Worde, in 1534, and Wyer, in 1542, although justly celebrated for the improvements they effected in the typographic art, — the former having first constructed and introduced into use the Ro- man letters, — claim a passing mention. Printing hitherto had been for the most part in Latin ; but the Italians in 1480 began to print with Greek and Hebrew types, and they were the first to use these. In the sixteenth century, according to Dr. Gregory, there appeared various editions of books in Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Armenian, Coptic or Egyptian, characters. Anthony Koburger, of Nuremberg, was a person eminent for his learning as well as for his elegance in printing. He was styled the Prince of printers, and was likewise a very ex- tensive bookseller. Besides a spacious warehouse at Lyons, he had agents in every important city in Christendom, and kept sixteen open shops, with a vast number of warehouses. He printed thirteen editions of the Bible in folio, which are es- teemed as extremely beautiful specimens of the art ; but his chef-d^oeuvre was the German Bible, printed in 1483, folio, the most splendid of all the ancient German Bibles, being embel- lished with many curious wood- cuts. About tlie year 1547, we find honorable mention made of the name of Robert Copland, formerly engaged in Caxton's ofllce ; he was a stationer, printer, author, and translator. The " Rose Garland," in Fleet street, was his well-known residence. An- thony Scoloker was another, who translated several works which he printed, one of which, affording no unequivocal proof, how- ever, of his prophetic skill, was intituled, " A Juste Reck- enyage, or Accompte of the "Whole Number of the Yeares, from the Beginnynge of the Worlde unto the present Yeare of 1547; a Certayne and Sure Declaracion that the "Worlde is at BOOK CRAFT. 159 an ICnde." Robert Stephens, the renowned Parisian printer and scholar, was his contemporary; his erudition as a critic and etymologist, is sufficiently evinced by his great work, " Diction- ariiim sen Latinae LingufB Thesaurus." De Thou, the historian, passed the following merited eulogium upon this distinguished scholar : " IST ot only France, but the whole Christian world, owes more to him than to the greatest warrior that ever ex- tended the possessions of his country ; and greater glory has redounded to Francis I. by the industry alone of Robert Ste- phens, than from all the illustrious, warlike, and pacific under- takings in which he was engaged." We next come, in the order of time, to the name of John Day, the equally prolific printer and parent — having introduced into the world two hundred and forty-five books, and twenty-seven children ! He lived in the neighborhood of Holborn conduit. Richard Grafton, of London, was distinguished alike for his erudition, as well as being an eminent printer. He was a lin- guist, and also the friend of Cranmer and Lord Cromwell. Grafton lived in the house of the Grey Friars, since known as Christ's Hospital. His first work was the English Bible, printed abroad in 1535. In 1545, he printed King Henry YIII.'s Primer, both in La- tin and English, with red and black ink, for which he had a patent, that is inserted at the end. In the first year of Edward YL, Grafton was favored with a special patent, granted to him for the sole printing of all the Statute Books. This is the first patent that is noticed by that diligent and accurate antiquarian. Sir "William Dugdale. An eminent printer was Christopher Plan tin, of Antwerp, who lived in the latter part of the sixteenth century. His ofiices at Antwerp, Germany, and France seem to have been established upon the most magnificent scale, and, like one of his ICO BOOK CKAFT. great predecessors, Stephens, he indulged himself in the luxury of silver types. At one time, he is reported to have paid to his proof-readers and compositors, no less than one hundred golden crowns jp^r diem, no equivocal evidence of the extent of his operations. He also retained, not only in his friendship, but in his employ, a host of the literary men of his day, among the number the renowned De Thou. His chef-d' oeuvre — which has been styled the eighth wonder of the world — was his Bihlia Polyglotta, in eight folio volumes. Then we have the no less illustrious names of Raphelengius, the celebrated scholar, and printer to the University of Ley- den ; and Louis Elzevir, of the same place, (temp. 1595-1616,) the founder of the most learned family of printers that ever adorned the republic of letters. Elzevir is said to have been the first who observed the distinction between the use of the consonant v, and the vowel ^t, (which had been recommended by Ramus and other writers long before, but never regarded,) as also the vowel i from the consonant y. Their name is well- known to scholars, by their exquisite series of minutely printed classics, comprising about one hundred volumes. Aldus Manu- tius, with whom terminated a family of printers scarcely less distinguished in the literary history of their times, extending to upwards of a century, was grandson to the celebrated Aldus. His extraordinary precocity was displayed by the successful publication, of a production from his own pen, in his eleventh year ; and his great work, De Yeterum Notarum Explana tione has not only immortalized his name, but has been long since acknowledged as a standard for reference, by the learned. In the reign of Charles II. we find the name of John Ogilby, geographical printer to the Court, and noted as having written some books. He published a magnificent Bible, with illustra- tions, for which he was remunerated by the British Parliament. Towards the close of the seventeenth century, Palliot, the his- BOOK CRAFT. 161 toriographer, printer, and bookseller to the King of France, was also highly distinguished as a genealogist. As a proof of his untiring perseverance and industry, it is recorded that he left, at his decease, thirteen volumes of manuscripts, in addi- tion to the five folios, which he had already published, the plates of which were likewise executed by his own hands. Con- temporary with him, lived Rothscholtz, the bookseller, of Nu- remberg, whose name is distinguished in the world of letters by his great work, in two volumes quarto, entitled, A Short Essay towards an Ancient and Modern History of Booksellers. In early times, bookselling and printing were not only often combined, but, in some instances, it appears, authorship also was united with these several branches of handicraft. Numerous instances attest the fact, that an afiinity subsists between printing and knowledge, and that printers have them- selves contributed, by their genius, to adorn the annals of their age. Bayle speaks of one who composed and printed a work simultaneously, setting up the types with his hands, as fast as his brain concocted his sentences, without the intervention of manuscript corrections. Lackington, the well-known bookseller, remarks, " Among all the schools where a knowledge of mankind may be acquired, I know of none equal to that of a bookseller's shop, where, if any one have any taste for literature, he may be said to feed his mind, as cooks' and butchers' wives get fat by the smell of meat." It cannot be denied, however, that there are numerous ex- ceptions to this supposed rule ; for the instances of eminent printers and booksellers we have presented, are from the many whose commerce with literature seemed to have awakened little or no sympathy with its pleasures, its pains, or its pursuit. The remark is not less applicable to our own times. In the olden time, prior to the era of printing, the manu- 11 162 BOOK CRAFT. scripts of authors were obliged to be subjected to the ordeal of critical censorship, previous to their being allowed public per- usal; their works being required to be read over before the Universities, for three successive days, or by appointed judges ; when, if approved, copies were allowed to be executed by the monks, scribes, and illuminators. Even in the classical days of Greece and Rome, we find a trade carried on in books ; those works most in demand being multiplied by the scribes and copyists. An exclusive traffic in the manuscripts of those days seems to have been carried on along the shores of the Mediterranean, and the Greek colonies of the Euxine. During the middle ages, the booksellers were styled Statio- narii at the Universities of Paris and Bologna ; they used to sell and loan manuscripts. This was the commencement of the bookselling business. A species of literary censorship, it ap- pears, was first established at Paris, in 1342, when a license from the University was requisite previously to engaging in such business. The booksellers were, in fact, regularly matri- culated by entry on its roll, and considered as its officers ; the prices of all books were also fixed according to a tariff of four sworn booksellers, by the institution ; a fine was imposed for selling an imperfect copy of a work, and a catalogue, with the prices annexed, was further required to be always kept in the shops. This censorship was afterwards invested in the person of Berthold, Archbishop of Mentz, in 1486, and again renewed with greater vigor, with respect to books, by the Council of Trent, in 1546, being subsequently enforced by the Popes, down to 1563, by whom several Indices Librorum Prohihi- toruTTh were issued. In France the censorship was vested in the Chancellor; in England it was exercised by the well-known Star-Chamber ; and after the abolition of that court, by Parlia- ment itself ; it was abolished in England about 1694, although BOOK CEAFT. 163 it still continues in force, we believe, in several of the Conti- nental States. Tlie ji/rst bookseller, so called, on record, was Faustus. He is said to have carried his books for sale, to the monasteries in France and elsewhere ; and the first bookseller who purchased manuscripts for publication, without possessing a press of his own, was John Otto, of Nuremberg. Among eminent bibliopoles, the next name we find in the order of date is that of John Dunton, who lived from 1659- 1733. Of his literary performances, his Life and Errors is the best known. His critical acumen, or good fortune, were certainly not much at fault ; for it is recorded, that of the 600 works which he published, only seven proved unsuccessful. Chiswell, styled for pre-eminence the metropolitan bookseller of England, and whose shrewdness and wit stood the test so admirably, that he is reported never to have issued a bad book, was also, at about the same period, an author of some consider- ation. Contemporary with him, we find the name of the learned linguist and bibliopolist Samuel Smith, the appointed bookseller to the Koyal Society. Thomas Guy, — the founder of " Guy's Hospital " — (whose munificence and philanthropy have immortalized his name, and often invoked the blessing of suffering humanity,) was originally, it will be remembered, a bookseller. John Bagford, an industrious antiquarian bookseller, who lived to the early part of the eighteenth century, was the au- thor of the Collectanea^ bearing his name, contained in the Harleian MSS. of the British Museum. The Tonsons were a race of booksellers who did honor to their profession for integrity, and by their encouragement of learning. Malone published several letters from Dryden to Tonson, and Tonson to Dryden. Tonson displays the trades- man, however, acknowledging the receipt of the Translations 164 BOOK CRAFT. of Ovid, which he had received, with which he was pleased, but not with the price, having only one thousand four hundred and forty-six lines for fifty guineas. Most of the other letters relate to Dryden's translations of Yirgil ; and contain re- peated acknowledgments of Tonson's kind attentions. "I thank you heartily," he says, " for the sherry ; it is the best of the kind I ever drank." The current coin was at that period wretchedly debased. In one letter Dryden says, " I expect forty pounds in good silver, not such as I had formerly. I am not obliged to take gold, neither will I, nor stay for it above four and twenty hours after it is due." In 1698, when Dryden published his Fables, Tonson agreed to give him two hundred and sixty-eight pounds for ten thousand verses ; and to com- plete the full number of lines stipulated, he gave the bookseller the Epistle to his Cousin, and the celebrated Ode. Lintot, Pope's publisher, was also an author ; not to speak of Miller, Evans, Griersson, Motte, and Kuddiman, the last- named a man of profound attainments as a grammarian and critic. The name of Kichardson, author of " Sir Charles Grandison," and other popular works, which have ]3rocured for him the title of the English Rousseau, is well known. Alex- ander Cruden, the compiler of the " Concordance to the Sacred Scriptures," whose stupendous labors turned him mad, was an- other of our category. John Buckley, who lived to about 1746, was a learned lin- guist ; and Paterson, his contemporary, was also author of many works, as well as a book-auctioneer ; he was indeed one of the most prominent bibliopoles of his age. About the same date, we meet with the name of Harris, the author of Lexicon Technicum. Dr. Rees' Cyclojmdia, which extended to forty volumes, quarto, was styled " the pride of booksellers, and the honor of the English nation." BOOK CRAFT. 165 Hutton, of Birmingham, who has been not inaptly styled the English Franklin, from the very depths of obscurity and poverty fought his way single-handed to wealth and literary eminence. His " History of Birmingham " was followed by other productions, including his interesting autobiography. His literary labors were concluded in 1811. In his last book, he says : " I drove the quill thirty years, during which time I wrote and published fourteen books." We might refer to the names of Rush ton, of Liverpool, M'Creery, Debrett, Allan Ramsay the poet, Hansard, Bulmer, Boydell, Griffiths, Harrison, and many others we stay not to enumerate. Worrall, of Bell Yard, who died 1771, was a well-known author-bookseller, as well as the eccentric Andrew Brice, of Exeter, and Sir James Hodges, who lived at the sign of the Looking-Glass, on London Bridge. The names should not be omitted of Faulkner, Gent, Goadby, and also Smellie, the first edition of whose work on philosophy yielded him one thousand guineas, and a revenue of fame. Thomas Os- borne, of Gray's Inn, was also a very eminent bookseller, although, if we are to decide with Dr. Dibdin, not eminent in philological attainments. Boswell relates an amusing circum- stance connected with the professional career of this worthy bibliopole, who, it is said, was inclined to assume an authorita- tive air in his business intercourse. One day, Johnson happen- ing to encounter a similar exhibition of temper, the Doctor became so exasperated, that he actually knocked Osborne down in his shop with a folio, and put his foot upon his neck ; and when remonstrated with on such summary proceeding, he coolly replied, " Sir, he was impertinent to me, and I beat him." Paternoster Row, the great literary emporium of the world, did not assume any importance till the reign of Queen Anne, when the booksellers began to forsake their former principal 166 BOOK CRAFT. mart, Little Britain,* which had become the resort of all the bibliopoles about the time of the renowned John Day, termi- nating with the equally celebrated Ballard. In earlier times Paternoster Row seems to have been more noted for mercers^ lacemen, and haberdashers, for a newspaper periodical of 1707, adds to the list, "the sempstresses of Paternoster Row." We find, however, the record of a solitary member of the craft, one Denham, who lived then and there, at the sign of the Star, as early as 1564, and whose significant motto ran as fol- lows : " Os homini sublime dedit." There also dwelt turners of beads, and they were called Pater- noster makers, from which, of course, this noted place origin- ally derived its name. It is also worthy of notice, that the parish of St. Bride has been, from the days of Pynson, in 1500, down to the days of Strahan, the location of the " King's Printer ; " while the number of those carrying on the profes- sion in this vicinity is singularly numerous, and far beyond the average of any other parish in England, or perhaps the world ; the site seems to have become, from its first intro- duction, the Alma Mater of the printers. Alex. Hogg was moreover reputed a man of considerable learning. He pub- lished numerous standard works in the serial form, and was the first to introduce that convenient, and, for the spread of literature, important mode of publication. He seems to have exhausted the vocabularies of superlatives, to ex- press the beauty, elegance, and magnificence of his editions. * Formerly Breton street, from the mansion of the Duke of Bretagne on. that spot, in more modem times became the ' ' Paternoster Row " of the bookseller; and a newspaper of 1664 states them to have published here with- in four years, 464 pamphlets. Here lived Rawlinson (" Tom Folio" of The Tatler, No. 158), who stuffed four chambers in Gray's Inn so fuU, that his- bed was removed into the passage. BOOK CRAFT. 167 He also was reputed to possess singular tact in revivifying a dull book by rechristening it, and otherwise metamorphosing its contents, when its sale, under its original condition, had ceased ; hence he has been called, the " prince of puffers." Among our notices of eminent bibliopolists we must not omit the name of Andrew Millar, or the laconic missives that passed between him and Dr. Johnson — although the incident may be already familiar to the reader. The great lexicographer having wearied the expectation of the trade for his long-promised work, and no less the patience of his publisher, who had already advanced him, in various sums, the amount of £1,500, he was induced, on receipt of the concluding sheet of his Dictionary, to send to the doctor the following : " A. Millar sends his compliments to Mr. Samuel Johnson, with money for the last sheet of copy of Dictionary, and thanks God he has done with him." To which our author replied, " Samuel Johnson returns compliments to Mr. Andrew Millar, and is very glad to find (as he does by his note), that Mr. A. M. has the grace to thank God for anything." Honorable mention also should be made of a name which has never, perhaps, been eclipsed in the annals of book craft. We refer to that of Nicholls, whose " Literary Anecdotes," as well as his numerous other works, will link his memory to many a distant year, and whose otherwise immense industry and labors, as printer, compiler, and publisher, would scarce require the aid of " Sylvanus Urban " to immortalize his name. The mantle of the sire has descended upon the son, who has published several historical works, and among others, an " Account of the Guildhall, London," historical notices of " Fonthill Abbey," etc. Sotheby, the celebrated book- auctioneer of London, whose establishment, originally founded in 17M, was one of the earliest of its class in London. He was a man of extensive learning and literary acquirements, 168 BOOK CRATT. and had been many years occupied in collecting materials for an elaborate work on the " Early History of Printing." Davy, of Devonshire, once a bookseller of eminence, was afterwards distino-uished for his attainments in biblical litera- ture. John Gough, of Dublin, bookseller, was also author of " A Tour in Ireland," " History of Quakers," and other works. William Harrod was a worthy, but eccentric bookseller, whose pen produced several topographical works. Samuel Rosseau, who, when an apprentice to Nicholls, used to collect old epitaphs, it is said actually taught himself in the intervals of business, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Persian, and Arabic, as well as two or three of the modern languages. Besides this, he edited, in after life, several useful and popular works on elementary education. To name Dodsley, would prove almost his suffi- cient eulogy ; his valuable series of "Annual Registers," and collected edition of " Old Plays," being literary performances sufficient to form a monument to his memory. Nicholson, of Worcester, is another member of the bookselling fraternity, who has added to the ^ores of literature. Constable, the cele- brated publisher of Edinburgh, whose literary taste and great bibliographical knowledge, independently of his having been the originator of the Edinhwrgh Review sufficiently entitles him to notice. Ballantyue, the publisher and confidant of Sir Walter Scott, who was the sprightly author of the " Widow's Lodgings," and other works in the department of elegant lite- rature, in addition to his vast fund of anecdote, is equally enti- tled to distinction ; as well as Blackwood, for many years the editor of the inimitable periodical that still retains his name. James I-ackington — the well-known London bookseller — may be said to have established his claim to our notice from the publication of his " Autobiography." From the shades of ob- scurity, he was indebted to thriftiness and parsimony, no less than to his untiring zeal and exertions, for his ultimate distinc- BOOK CRAFT. 169 tion. If we may not assign to his character any literary eminence, and we do not, his career, at least, was marked by singular eccentricity ; his spacious establishment in Finsbury Square, around which it is said that he actually drove a coach- and-four, contained an immense collection of books. Amons" his many expedients to excite notoriety, was the publication of an advertisement, stating that his coach-house in Old street had been robbed of 10,000 volumes, consisting chiefly of Dr. Watts' *' Psalms and Hymns," a manoeuvre that answered the two- fold purpose of letting the world know that he kept a coach, and that even so large a quantity of books could scarce be missed from his collection. He also had the vanity to hoist a flag at the top of his house as a signal, whenever he arrived from his country seat at Merton. His vanity was certainly very amusing, and excusable when we consider the disadvantages of his humble origin. At ten years old he commenced crying apple-pies in the streets, so that, as he himself intimates, he soon began to make a noise in the world. His success in this, his fii'st essay, induced speedily the exchange of tarts for books ; thus he commenced his busi- ness as a bookseller, which one year yielded him a profit of £5,000. Here we might mention the name of John Trusler, who was distinguished as a doctor, parson, printer, and author ; having fabricated many useful books, and amongst others, an '' Essay on the Rights of Literary Property " — a subject, even at the present day, we regret to find, so very imperfectly un- derstood among the mass of those to whose enjoyment it is made to yield so large a contribution. Davies, in 1817, com- piled and published several amusing bibliographic works, one entitled, An Olio of Biblio(/raphical and Literary Anecdote and A Life of Garrick, which went through several editions. Richard Beatniffe, bookseller, of Norwich, wrote a Tour through Norfolk^ and other works. Parkhurst (Johnson's 170 BOOK CRAFT. friend) was of distinguished repute, and occupied many years in preparing a Talmudic Lexicon ! Upham, of Exeter, also translated sacred books of the Buddhists. Dr. William Rus- sell, who died at the close of the last century, the well-known author of the History of Modern Eurojpe^ was originally ap- prenticed to a bookseller ; a few years after which, he was engaged as a corrector of the press, and subsequently was enabled to devote himself to authorship. His historical works were the product of his maturer years. Whiston, the transla- tor of Josephus, was also in his early days a bookseller. The same mio-ht be remarked of the renowned naturalist, Smellie, equally celebrated as having produced the best edition of Terence. He was, moreover, the antagonist of Hume, the refutation of whose atheistical opinions became the theme of his pen. Walwyn was a bard-bookseller of eminence, " a worthy associate of Dryden." Watton, who kept a shop near St. Dun- stan's many years, published and compiled several excellent works — among them the earliest history we possess of Baronets, occupying five octavo- volumes. Olinthus Gregory also was once a bookseller, at Cambridge, and a teacher of mathematics at the same time, as well as an author. John Lander, brother of the African traveller, was originally a bookseller. Devoting his leisure to literary pursuits, and his mind being inspired with a love of enterprise, he not only ren- dered important services to physical science, by the discovery of a problem which had long baffled the literati of Europe, and which has placed his name among the proudest in the annals of science, but he bequeathed to the world one of the most interesting narratives of travel in the English language. Sir Richard Phillips, of whose elementary writings it is enough comraendatiou to remark, that they were sufficiently productive to become the adequate support of his declining years, was not only the first publisher to introduce a reduction in the price of BOOK CRAFT. 171 books, but the originator of a fund for oppressed debtors — both things speak well for him. In the same category was Booth, of London, whose knowledge of books, critical, not titulary, rendered him eminently distinguished ; his collection was exceedingly rare and extensive. His literary capabilities were so far respected by Malone, the commentator of Shak- speare, that he consigned to him the onerous task of editing and arranging the annotations and remarks for his edition of the great dramatist. He also edited and compiled several doc- uments for his AcGouni of the Battle of Waterloo^ two volumes quarto, which passed through nine editions in less than two years. The race of author-booksellers, far from being extinct, is yet flourishing at the present day ; not a few of those who are emulous of the classic honors of their sires, add a new lustre to the bibliographic history of the nineteenth century. Wil- liam Longman has distinguished himself in the science of en- tomology, a subject that has already successfully engaged his pen. "Wood, the natural history bookseller, is undoubtedly deserving a place among the scientific writers of the day, which his esteemed work, Zoography^ or the Beauties of Nature Displayed, in three large volumes, sufficiently attests. Moxon, in early life, published Christmas, a poem, and a volume of Sonnets, which were so favorably noticed by Kogers, the poet, that a friendship ensued, which since ripened with its growth, and contributed very materially to the success of this enterprising and accomplished publisher for the poets. To the classical reader we need only mention the name of Yalpy, whose edition of the Variorum Classics extended to 161 vols., 8vo., to prove his cultivated taste and liberality of enter- prise. M'Cray has translated and published some beautiful Lyrics from the German ; William Clarke, originally a book- seller, gave to the antiquary an exceedingly curious and 172 BOOK CRAFT. interesting account of libraries, under tlie name of Rejper toriurro Bihliograjphicwm ; and Rodd was the translator of several volumes from the Spanish. One of the best bibliographers was Evans, the auctioneer and bookseller of Pall-Mail ; Dolby, bookseller, gave to the public a work of ingenuity and labor, The Shakspearian Dictionary ,• and Christie, the auctioneer, has also produced four abstruse works, on the taste and literature of the ancient Greeks, which he compiled during the intervals of his business occupation ; Griffith, the bookseller, compiled a catalogue of ancient and modern poetry, entitled Bibliographia Anglo- Poetica y and Dr. Roller and Mr. Bach were both translators and German critics, as well as booksellers. Another conspicuous member of the class was Cochrane, who was for some time an eminent bookseller, and the able and discriminating editor of the Foreign Quarterly Review^ for seven years. He was also selected by the trustees to draw up the catalogue of Sir "Walter Scott's choice and valuable library at Abbotsford — a most delightful labor of love ; and on the formation of the London Library, was, among a host of competitors, unanimously elected to the offices of librarian and secretary. "We might also mention Stewart, the eminent linguist, and linown as the skilful compiler of the celebrated catalogue of Miss Currer's library, which he embellished by drawings from his own pencil. If anyone is sceptical enough, after what has been adduced to the contrary, to assert that the book-selling and printing- business has been wanting in literary distinction, we pity his want of candor, while we further refer him to such names as the following : Arrowsmith, the celebrated map-publisher, and aathor of Ancient and Modern Geography^ as well as several elementary works in geography, some of which, with the former, were used as text-books at Oxford, Cambridge, and BOOK CRAFT. 173 Eton ; Atkinson, of Glasgow, possessed, perhaps, as great an acquaintance with Medical Bibliograjphy as any person of his times, as his curious and unique work on that subject proves. One of the leading medical journals of Europe characterized it as " one of the most remarkable books ever seen — uniting the German research of a Ploquet with the ravings of a Rabelais, the humor of Sterne with the satire of Democritus, tlie learnino- of Burton with the wit of Pindar." It is to be regretted the ingenious author did not live to complete the whole de- sign, Ainsworth, the popular historical novelist, was originally a bookseller, Godwin, author of Caleb Williams^ St. Leon, etc., was once a bookseller ; Rodd, who kept an extensive establishment for the sale of old books, translated the Span- ish Ballads. His shop was the resort of confirmed biblio- maniacs. Nor should the name of John Murray — the friend and pub- lisher of Byron, be omitted in this place. It is not our prov- ince to remark on the distinguished eminence of this gentle- man as a publisher, although in this respect he may unques- tionably be entitled to take the highest rank ; but his well- known literary abilities, and critical taste, equally render him conspicuous, as evinced ia the immense collectioa of valuable works which have issued from his establishment. The excel- lent series of Hand-Boohs, are in part, productions of his son, the present publisher of that name. The name of Talboys, of Oxford, will be remembered by his admirable translation of Adelung's Historical Sketch of Sanscrit Literature, to which he appended copious biblio- graphical notices. He was, moreover, the translator of the very erudite volumes of Professor Heeren, of which he is also the publisher ; his Bihliotheca Classica and Theologica, like- L74: BOOK CRAFT. wise deserve honorable mention for their completeness and excellent scientific arrangement. Hansard, the printer, who wrote Typographia, and another similar work, and who has been also a contributor to the En- cydojpedia Britannica, also was of the fraternity ; as well as West, the author of Fifty Years' Recollections of a Book- seller ; Goodhugh, author of the Library Manual ; Haas, who translated Dr. Krummacher's Blisha^ and Zschokke's History of Switzerland. John Eussell Smith has rendered himself distinguished by his industry, as well as literary taste. His work, Bihliotheca Can- tiana, as well as his Bibliographical List of all Works illus- trating the Dialects of England, evince both his untiring antiquarian research and literary zeal. We come next to a name that has become almost a synonym with antiquarian anecdote — William Hone, the author of Every Bay Booh, and Year Booh. He was originally a bookseller — his collected works would probably fill ten or twelve octavos. His political satires had a prodigious sale. His infidel publications he lived to re- pudiate and publicly to recant, in a work entitled his Early Life and Conversion. Henry G. Bohn deserves to be classed among our author-booksellers ; his catalogue, containing a criti- cal description of 300,000 volumes, in all the languages dear to literature, may be ranked among the most laborious productions of the press of any nation. The Chambers of Edinburgh, editors of the able and valuable works that bear their name, present another noble instance of genius rising superior to all opposing circumstances. They were originally of humble origin — now they are, perhaps, the largest publishers of the age. Their essays are among the choicest of our periodical lit- erature. There is still another name we cannot, in justice, omit to notice : we allude to that of Timperley, whose Ency- BOOK CRAFT. 175 clojpaedia of Literary Anecdote discovers curious labor and re- search : and to which we acknowledge our indebtedness for many curious facts. Charles Knight, the well-known editor of the Pictorial ShaJcesj^eare, of London Illustrated, and other excellent works ; Thomas Miller, once the basket-maker, since poet, novelist, and essayist ; and "William Howitt, whose voluminous writings are too well known to require recital — form a triple coronal in bibliography ; and the lustre they shed upon the brotherhood of booksellers to which they originally belonged, may well atone for the obliquities, discrepancies, and obtuseness, with which the tongue of scandal has sought to darken the fair escutcheon of its fame. Here, then, we ought to pause in our enumeration of literary booksellers and printers ; although the catalogue might be extended to a much greater length. There are three other names, however, we must not omit, in conclusion. In earlier times, Francis de Bure, a bookseller of Paris, wrote, among others, a work of great research and skill, A Treatise on Scarce and Curious Books, in seven large vol- umes. The originator of the great work, Encyclojpedie Metho- dique, which has extended to above 150 volumes, was M. Panckoucke, a Parisian bookseller. Peter Yander, of Leyden, who died 1730, was another eminent instance of an author- bookseller, as his singular work, Galerie du Monde, in QQ folios, sufficiently attests ; and Lascaile, of Holland, was poet and publisher ; and even his daughter so largely inher- ited her father's genius, that she was styled the Dutch Sappho, or tenth muse. The renowned publisher, Tauchnitz, of Leipsic, achieves a great work for the diffusion of literature over continental Europe. His popular series of British Classics alone includes 176 BOOK CRAFT. 1,000 volumes. His publishing establishment is now the largest on the continent of Europe. In the sixteenth century, Trithemius died in Germany, after having, from time to time, assembled the literary world to behold the wonder of that age — a library of two thousand volumes. The first book ever printed in the New World was in the city of Mexico. It was printed in the Spanish language, in the year 1544, and was entitled Doctrina Cfiristiana jper eo los Indes. The first publications made in English, in America, were the FreemarCs Oath, an Almanac for 1639. In 1640 was published the first book, entitled the Bay Psahn Book. It was reprinted in England, where it passed through no less than eighteen editions ; the last being issued in 1754. It was no less popular in Scotland, twenty-two editions of it having been published there. We might mention, among the craft, and with no slight honor, the name of John Foster, a man of great literary attain- ments, a graduate at Harvard University, and liimself an au- thor. At a later date Matthew Carey, and his son and succes- sor, Henry Carey, both of whom have recorded their names in the literary annals of their country, not to omit the name of an author-bookseller, Peter Parley (Goodrich), whose works are alike appreciated in both hemispheres. Isaiah Thomas has written and published a History of Print- ing, a work of considerable reputation ; Drake, the antiquarian bookseller of Boston, besides being a member of several learned societies, was author of the Booh of the Indians and History of Boston. The first printing press set up in America, was " worked " at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1639. The Eev. Jesse Glover procured this press, by " contributions BOOK CRAFT. 177 of friends of learning and religion," in Amsterdam and in Eng- land, but died on his passage to the New World. Stephen Day was the first printer. In honor of his pioneer services Government gave him a grant of three hmidred acres of land. Among his other publications were the New Testa- ment and Baxter's Call, translated into the Indian language, by Elliot, the pioneer Missionary, and printed at great cost. The title might be recommended, on account of its obscurity and high-sounding character, to some of our transcendental writers. It was Wusku- Wuttesthementum ITul-Lordumun Jesus Christ Ntbjppoqjiwussuaenenrriurhy' The whole Bible was printed in this language in 1663. The nation once speaking it, is now extinct. Pennsylvania was the second State to encourage printing. William Bradford went to Pennsylvania, with William Penn, in 1682, and ill 1686 established a printing-press in Philadelphia. In 1692, Bradford was induced to establish a printing-press in New York. He received £40 per annum, and " the privi- lege of printing on his own account." Previous to this time there had been no printing done in the Province of New York. His first issue in New York was a proclamation, bearing date of 1692. Pope satirized some of his publishers and defamed others. * One long word suggests another — the title of a pamphlet (in the possession of the writer), published years ago in London. The title reads : " Chronon- TiotontTwlogos, the most tragical tragedy that ever was tragedized by any com- pany of tragedians. " The two first lines of this effusion read — " Aldeborontiphoscophosnio 1 Where left you Chrononhotonthologos ? " We might name another singular title of a work published in 1661, by Ro- bert LoveU, entitled, '■'■ Panzoologicomineralogia ; a complete history of flnimala and minerals, contain^ the summe of all authors, Galenical and ChymicaU, with the anatomie of man, &c." 12 178 BOOK CRAFT. Johnson knocked one down with a folio. In more lecent times Campbell, when called upon for a toast at a literary dinner, o-ave the health of Napoleon because he had shot a bookseller. One of the wittiest stanzas in Coleridge's DeviVs Walk is that in which the Devil claims kin with a publisher : " For I myself sat like a cormorant once Upon the tree of knowledge." And it was a modern author who made the parable of the Good Samaritan run, " A certain man went down to Paternos- ter Row, and fell among thieves." Next to the desire to know something about the j>ersonnel oi an author, is the interest with which the public regard that in- termediate personage between him and themselves, yclept the publisher. In a subordinate sense, he may justly be considered a member of the literary profession, for he enacts the part of agent for the author and his readers ; and if not an indispen- sable, he is at least a most important auxiliary in these relations. Publishers have, however, not unfrequently been characterized as selfish in their pursuits, and alike injurious to the interest of the author, and the commonwealth of literature. This asper- sion upon their fair fame is at length fast passing away, if in- deed it has not already disappeared. Their position in society, as the purveyors of its literary aliment, is at length appreci- ated. The bookselling fraternity are a set of men, whose movements are for the most part regulated by the question of profit and loss. They deal in books very much as do the pur- veyors of meat and bread, — estimating their mercantile value by the size, if not the weight avoirdupois. The history of " book craft," which yet remains to be written, would form a book of " Chronicles," if less important, scarcely less interest- ing than those of Froissart ; it would abound with strange an- omalies, and curious portraitures. In early times, the monks BOOK CRAFT. 179 — the Gustodes of the learning of their day — combined within themselves both antlior and pnblisher ; if indeed the latter term may be allowed in this case. They were styled the Co7n- mercium Librorxnn^ their office comprehending that of the scribe, as well as the dealer in manuscripts. Between the years 14Y4 and 1600, it has been estimated abont 350 printers flour- ished in England and Scotland alone, and that the products of their several presses amounted in the aggregate to 10,000 dis- tinct productions. * To attempt any computation of their numbers, subsequently, would defy our arithmetical powers. But for booksellers, intellect would die of famine. London is the great Sanhedrim of the author-craft of the world. Lon- don is the very brain of Britain, the centre of its literature, the seat of its intelligence. There is the great emporium of booksellers, that time-honored, and worthy order. Paternos- ter Row has an aroma of paper and print. There is no spot on the globe like it. The London book-trade is divided into the following branches — the general retail bookseller, the dealer in black letter, or second-hand books, the wholesale merchant, who executes country and foreign orders, and the publishing, or manufacturing bookseller. The second class formerly did chiefly congregate in Little Britain — now they are scattered about Holborn, Covent Garden, and the Strand. These are depositories of those choice relics of the olden time, that often tempt such premiums from the bibliomaniac. "While on this point, we cannot refrain from a recollection or * D'lsraeli, in Ms XJuriosities of Idterature, states, that the four ages of typogi'aphy have produced no less than 3,641,960 works ! Taking each work at three volumes, and reckoning' each impression to consist of only 300 copies (a very moderate supposition), the actual amount of volumes which have issued from the presses of Europe, down to the year 1816, appears to be 3,277,640,000 ! 180 BOOK CEAFT. two of the brotherhood. One was named Nunn ; he kept an old book establishment in Great Queen street, and although a singularly large and corpulent personage, was scarcely less re- markable for his activity in early life, than for his austerity and moroseness in its later stages. By his parsimony and patient, application to business, he became ultimately possessed of con- siderable wealth ; and although this was no secret, yet his two daughters, who were (if one may hazard gallantry for truth) remarkably ugly, lived in single blessedness to the very autumn of life; but, strange to add, immediately after the demise of their venerable parenA at the advanced age of eight}'^, they each entered into matrimonial alliances. Old E'unn possessed many peculiarities, and although not particularly remarkable for in- dulging any " sudorous brain-toils " of his o^vn, he jet never appeared so contented, as when immured among his musty tomes. We well remember, his curious custom of crammiiig^ his capacious coat-pockets, which, on one occasion, actually yielded f our-and-twenty octavo volumes. D'Arcy, also a dealer in second-hand and black-letter books^ in Holborn, rendered himself conspicuous, among other eccentricities, for the whim of having women in his establishment, some of whom were de- cidedly pretty ; and what is not less singular, it is said, he regu- lated their remuneration according to the ratio of their personal attractions. He died wealthy, like his eccentric contemporary just alluded to. The wholesale trade has always resided in and near Pater- noster Row ; but the chief house of this class was for many years on London Bridge. Osborne lived under the gateway of Gray's Inn. Tonson opposite the Strand Bridge. Millar, facing St. Clement's Church. Dodsley, on the site of the Shakspeare Gallery, in Pall Mall. Publishers are said to keep the keys of the Temple of Fame, They minister at the altar of learning, and furnish the intel- BOOK CRAFT. 181 lectual wealth of the world. Dr. Johnson considered booksel- lers the patrons of literature, liberal, generous-minded men. Another quaintly asks, " Can a bookseller live, move, and have his being, in an atmosphere of intellect, and not absorb the very soul and spirit of his books through his pores?" An experienced bookseller is often better qualified to judge of a book than all the critics that ever praised or blamed since the days of Diogenes. Comparatively few, however, of the pub- lishing fraternity pretend to critical censorship ; they usually ■defer to the critical judgment of some literary friend, in deter- mining the claims of any work for publiG;ation. In the United States the Press is represented by the illus- trious Franklin, the Bacon of the New World — a triajuncta ill una, printer, author, and philosopher; and who has been thus teGhnioally described by one of the fraternity : " The * of his profession, the type of honesty, the ! of all ; and although the ^^^ of death has put a . to his existence, every § of his life is without a | ." Types have been likened to "A thousand lamps at one lone altar lighted, Turning the night of error into day." Type-setting in early times was not remarkable for its exact- ness and accuracy. In the year 1561, a book was printed, called the Anatomy of the Mass. It had only 172 pages in it ; but the author — a pious monk — was obliged to add fifteen pages to correct the blunders ! These he attributes to the special instigation of the devil, to defeat the work ; and hence may have come the use of the phrase. Printer's Devil. A printer's wife in Germany came to grief, by feloniously meddling with the types. She went into the ofiice by night, and took out the word "lord," in Genesis iii. 16, where Eve is made subject to her husband, and mado the verse read, " he 182 BOOK CRAFT. eliall be thy fool," instead of " lie shall be thy lord." Tradition adds that she was put to death for her wickedness. Some printers of early editions of the Scriptures were so heavily fined as to be utterly ruined, for leaving out the word " not " from one of the Ten Commandments. There is an edition of the Bible, called the " Vinegar Bible," from the parable of the " Yineyard " being printed " vinegar." Among the literary curiosities in a library at Southampton, England, is an old Bible, known as the " Bug Bible," printed by John Daye, 1551, with prologue by Tyndall. It derives its name from the peculiar rendering of the fifth verse in Psalm 91, which reads thus : "So that thou shalt not need to be afraid for any bugs by night." Bookbinding is an art of great antiquity. It is two thou- sand years and more, since Phillatius, a Greek, divided the rolled volume into sheets, and glued these together in the form which is familiar to us. The rolls had been preserved from dust and injury by being kept in cylindrical cases ; and a pro- tection for the book, in its new shape, was soon found to be more necessary than before. This was supplied by securing the leaves between stiff covers, probably of wood at first, and thus began the modern art of bookbinding. Soon the board was covered with leather, making in exter- nal appearance a still nearer approach to the workmanship of our day ; but it was not until the close of the fifteenth century, that the mill-board, which unites lightness with sufiicient strength, was used as the foundation of the book-cover. When the sheet of paper of which a book is made is folded in two leaves, the book is called a folio ; when into four leaves, it is called quarto ; when folded into eight leaves, it is called octavo ; when into twelve leaves, duodecimo, etc. The ancient Romans ornamented the covers of their books very elaborately. Those of wood were carved ; and upon some BOOK CRAFT. 183 of these scenes from plays, and events of public interest were represented. About the commencement of the Christian era leather of brilliant hues, decorated with gold and silver, had come into use. In the Middle Ages the monks exhausted their ingenuity, and frequently, it would seem, their purses, in adorning the covers of those manuscripts, upon which they spent their lives in writing and illuminating. Single figm-es and groups, wrought in solid gold, silver, with enamel, precious stones and pearls, made the outside of the volume correspond to the splendor within. Less expensive works were often bound in oaken boards very richly carved. Kings and wealthy nobles expended much money upon the binding of their libraries. Carved ivory covers, protected by golden corners, and secured by jewelled clasps, were not uncommon, as well as those of velvet, silk brocade, vel- lum, and morocco, elaborately ornamented, after designs made by great artists, and protected with bosses, corners, and clasps of solid gold. The precious stones and metals upon these book-covers cost us the loss of many a more precious volume, for they frequently formed no inconsider- able part of the plunder of a wealthy mansion, in a cap- tured city. Dibdin tells us of one library of thirty thousand volumes — that of Corvinus, King of Hungary — which was de- stroyed on this account by the Turkish soldiers, when Buda was taken, in 1526, Quite an era in the history of bookbinding in England was formed by the publication of the Great Bible, by Grafton, in 1539. In the reign of Henry YIII. the use of gold tooling was introduced, and the designs for some of the rolls are at- tributed to Holbein. Queen Elizabeth herself embroidered velvet and silk book-covers. The art had been carried to a high degree of excellence and finish in France. Many have acquired great renown there, in this department of handicraft 184 BOOK CRAFT. A word touching titles: "The titles of books," writes the author of the Tin Trumpet, "are decoys to catch pur- chasers." There can be no doubt that a happy name to a book is like an agreeable appearance to a man ; but if, in either case, the final do not answer to the first impression, will not our disappointment add to the severity of our judgment? "Let me succeed with my first impression," the bibliopolist will cry, " and I ask no more." The public are welcome to end with condemning, if they will only begin with buying. Most readers, like the tuft-hunters at college, are caught by titles. How inconsistent are our notions of morality ! Ko man of honor would open a letter that was not addressed to him, though he will not scruple to open a book under the same cir- cumstances. Colton's Laoon has gone through many editions, and yet it is addressed " To those who think." Had the author substituted for these words, " Those who think they are think- incf," it might not have had so extensive a sale, although it would have been directed to a much larger class. He has shown address in his address. Scott is known to have profited much by Constable's biblio- graphical knowledge, which was very extensive. The latter christened Kenilworth, which Scott named Cumnor Sail. John Ballantyne objected to the former title, and told Con- stable the result would be " something worthy of the kennel ; " but the result proved the reverse. Mr, Cadell relates that Constable's vanity boiled over so much at this time, on having his suggestions adopted, that, in his high moods, he used to stalk up and down his room, and exclaim, " By Jove, I am all but the author of the Waverley Novels ! " In Butler's Remains it is remarked, that "there is a kind of physiognomy in the titles of books, no less than in the faces of men, by which a skilful obsei-ver will as well know what to expect from the one as the other." BOOK CRAFT. 185 Generally speaking, this is correct. But the optician who should happen to purchase a book entitled, A New Invention, or a Paire of Cristall Spectacles, hy helpe whereof may he read so small a print, that what twenty sheets of paper will hardly contain shall he discovered in one (1644), would find, to his surprise, that it has nothing to do with his business, but relates to the civil war. So also might mistakes very readily occur with regard to Tooke's Diversions of Purley, which a village book-club is said to have ordered at the time of its publication, under the impression that it was a book of amus- ing games. Some titles are agreeably short, and others wonderfully long. A few years since, a work was issued with the laconic title of It ; and for days previous to its publication, the walls of London were placarded with the words, " Order /i5," " Buy 7?^," "Read It." The naturalist Lovell published a book at Oxford, in 1661, entitled Panzoologicomineralogia, which is nearly as long a word as Rabelais' proposed title for a book, namely, " Antipericatametaparhengedamphicrihrationes ! ! " According to Stowe^s Chronicle, the title of Domesday Booh arose from the circumstance of the original having been carefully preserved in a sacred place at Westminster cloisters, called Domus Dei, or House of God. Authors of the olden time used to puff their own works by afiixing " taking titles " to them ; such as A right merrie and wittie enterlude, verie pleasante to reade, etc. A marvellous wittie treatise, etc. A delectahle, pithie, and, righte profitahle worhe, etc. Addison's Spectator proved so successful, that it provoked Johnson to adopt The Idler and Rambler. A very aruusing blunder was committed by a certain French critic, who, notwithstanding the conventional use of the term, ren- dered it Le Chevalier Errant, and who, afterwards, on meet- ing with the " Colossus of English literature," addressed him 186 BOOK CRAFT. with the astounding and complimentary epithet of Mr. Vaga- bond / A pamphlet, published in 1703, had the following strange title : " The Deformitie of Sin Cured, a sermon preached at St. Michael's, Crooked Lane, before the Prince of Orange, by the Rev. J. Crookshanks. Sold by Matthew Denton, at the Crooked Billet, near Cripj>legate, and by all booksellers." The words of the text are, "Every crooked path shall be made straight." The prince, before whom it was delivered, was de- formed in person ! Many adopted allegorical, fantastic, and absurd titles — such as ^'■ArH adeejpe, Husband f a boulster lecture, stored with all variety of witty jests, merry tales, and other pleasant passages." 1640 ; "iVo^s xijpon Parnassus : a sleepy muse nipt and pincht, though not awakened, etc., by some of the wits of the Universities ; " "J. Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant In- ventions ; garnished and decked with divers dayntie devisis," etc., by T. Proctor. 1578 ; " Coryath Crudities^ hastily gobled up in five moneths' travells in France, Savoy, Italic," etc. 1611; '■'■A fan to drive away flies j' a. iveoXi^e on purga- tory ; '■'■The shop of the spiritual apothecary,^'' '■^Matches lighted hy divine fire^'' " The gun of 'penitence^ etc." One of famous Puritan memory, Sir Humphrey Lind, published a book, which a Jesuit answered by another, entitled, "J. pair of spectacles for Sir Humphrey Lind ;^'' the doughty knight retorted by, "J. case for Sir Humphrey Lindas spectacles^ In 1686 a pamphlet was published in London, entitled " A Most Delectable Sweet Perfumed Nosegay for God's Saints to Smell at." About the year 1649 there was published a work entitled " A pair of Bellows to blow off the Dust Cast upon John Fry," and " Crumbs of Comfort for the Children of the Covenant." A Quaker, whose outward man the authorities thought proper to imprison, published " A Sigh of Sorrow for BOOK CRAFT. 187 the Sinners of Zion, Breathed out of a Hole in the Wall of an Earthly Yessel," known among men by the name of Samuel Fish. About the same time there was also published " The Spiritual Mustard-pot to make the Soul Sneeze with Devotion ; " " Salvation's Yantage-ground, or a Louping-stand for Heavy Believers," Another, " A Shot Aimed at the Devil's Head- quarters through the Tube of the Cannon of the Covenant." Another, " A Reaping-hook Well Tempered for the Stubborn Ears of the Coming Crop ; or, Biscuits Baked in the Oven of Charity, Carefully Conserved for the Chickens of the Church, the Sparrows of the Spirit, and the Sweet Swallows of Salva- tion." In another we have the following copious description of its contents, — " Seven Sobs of a Sorrowful Soul for Sin ; or, The Seven Penitential Psalms of the Princely Prophet David," whereunto are also added William Humino's " Hand- ful of Honeysuckles, and divers Godly and pithy Ditties now newly augmented." It is fortunate for these laborious scribes that they lived in times when they found readers courageous enough to venture beyond their titles. D'Israeli has collected from the dust of departed days, among other curious matters, many amusing particulars respecting the subjects authors have chosen to dilate upon ; shall we glance at a few ? In classic times we have Apuleius and Agrippa, suc- ceeded by many moderns, who, to evince their irony and wit. selected that fabled emblem of wisdom — the ass. One Joshua Barnes wrote a poem with the design of proving the authorship of the Iliad, traceable to King Solomon; and another French critic, Daurat, who lived in the sixteenth cen- tury, pietended, according to Scaliger, to find all the Bible in Homer. Du Guere wi'ote an eulogium on Wigs. Erasmus amused himself by discussing The Praise of Folly, in his work entitled Morice Encomium, which, for the sake of the pun, he 188 BOOK CRAFT. dedicated to Sir Thomas More. Pierriiis' Treatise on Beards^ Ilomer's war between The Frogs and Mice, and Lucian's dis- sertation on A Fly, present a curious triumvirate of classic taste; and Gray's Ode on The Death of a Cat, Pope's verses on A Loch of Hair, and Swift's Meditation on a Broomstick, may serve as their companions in modern times. Goldsmith also sung his Elegy on a mad dog, and Cowper attuned his lute to a dead cat. Having reached such a climax, we conclude our chapter upon Book Craft — a theme of exhaustless interest to all who have any affinity of taste for books, and the intellectual sweets they contain, — since our too lavish indulgence in such refined epicurism might challenge our mental digestion too severely. LAST WOEDS OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS. The last utterances of illustrious personages possess for the living, an enduring and peculiar interest, derived mainly from the controlling influence they once exerte'd in social, religious, literary, artistic, or political life. Yet, as Pliny* justly remarks, the sayings and actions of the most celebrated have not always been the most worthy of admiration. How many among the unostentatiously great have passed away without the loud clarion of fame to glorify their virtues ; and how many more, scarcely less worthy pass away, under eclipse, from the obscur- ing or distorting influence of envy, bigotry, or detraction ! And yet again, what a goodly number of those who have sought to obtain, not the laurel crown of earthly fame, but that crown "that fadeth not away — the crown of life!" Their record is that of the "patience of hope," and the victory of faith. 190 LAST WORDS OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS. " The chamber where the good raan meets his fate Is privileged beyond the common walks Of virtuous life — quite on the verge of Heaven. " The final utterances of sucli persons are eminently worthy of our regard, as being illustrative of character, in its highest moral development. In grouping together these mortuary memoranda, we shall not attempt any order of classification, but simply let each citation speak for itself ; for there is a sacred- ness about the last words and last acts of the dying, which it would be sacrilegious, otherwise, to touch. Their words, too, if ever, must be then, earnest and sincere, since as our great dramatist has said — " Where words are scarce, they're seldom spent in vain, For they breathe truth, that breathe their words in pain ! " The momentous crisis of life's last hour, is one of intensest interest and solemnity. With what profound sympathy do we watch over those dear to us by indescribable ties, as their spirits are about to leave the frail body and pass away, impalpably, to the spirit- world. They seem to be environed with the mystery of the supernatural ; everything concerning their anticipated exit from the body, seems to be shrouded from us by impenetrable and awful mystery — the mystery of the unknown eternity! How intense is the anguish with which we watch the wasting form, the changing of the familiar expression of the face, into an unearthly one ! How eagerl3% as we bend over the couch of the dying, do we watch for the last look, and listen for the last syllable ! How we treasure up those last looks, and last words, as the cherished living mementos of the departed ! Though silent while living, some Christians have become vocal at the closing hour ; while others, who have been demon- strative and eloquent, by lip and life, like "Whitefield, die and make no sign. We must not, however, attach undue value to LAST WORDS OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS. 191 death-bed utterances, as indicative of real character ; sentiments expressed under such circumstances, may be possibly prompted by impulse rather than principle. Nor are we always to rely upon confessions and opinions uttered in life's great emergency, as of final authority ; since such testimonies have occasionally been as confidently expressed against, as in favor of Chris- tianity. Stolid and stoical insensibility may assume the guise of complacency or indifference, as to the future state ; but that is as diverse from the calm confidence of the true Christian, as the counterfeit is to the true coin. Andrew Fuller, whose robust intellect was not likely to be seduced by specious appearances, exclaimed when dying, — " My hope is such that I am not af r.iid to plunge into eternity ! " Could the effect of the most triumphant end be stronger ? Some there are who, in their last moments only, become convinced of the insufiiciency of the world to sustain them in the last conflict of dissolving nature. Such are among the votaries of fashion, who seem to have no conception that the gift of life involved any responsibility for its right use : among this class might be named Selwyn, Walpole, Chesterfield, Maz arine, Madame de Pompadour, and a host more. " "When spirits ebb, when life's enchanting scenes Fade in the view, and vanish from the sight, Will toys amuse ? No ! thrones will then be toys, And earth and skies seem dust upon the scale." There is another class of character, whose final utterances have been avowedly on the side of infidelity ; let us just glance at two of the more prominent of these. Perhaps no one has had more literary homage conferred upon him than Yoltaire ; yet it would be difiicult to discover an individual so richly endowed with intellectual power, yet so utterly despicable in his moral nature. His profanity and blasphemy are too well known, but it may not be so well known that, in his last 192 LAST WOKDS OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS. moments he commanded his philosophical friends to retire. " Begone ! " he exclaimed, " it is you who have brought me to my present state." His physician relates that the Marquis of Richelieu, one of Voltaire's associates, fled from his bed-side, saying that " the furies of Orestes could give but a faint idea of those of Yoltaire ! " The notorious author of " The Age of Reason," when dying, his medical attendant. Dr. Manley, relates that he screamed at being left alone, repeatedly exclaiming, — " O Lord, help me ! O Christ, help me ! " During his sickness, a neighbor having denounced his book, telling him that she had burned it, Paine said, that he wished all who had ever read that book, had been as wise as she ; adding, — " If ever the devil had an agent on earth, I have been one." Pleasant relief it is, to turn from these scenes of hopeless death-beds to the calm serenity of that of the celebrated Matthew Henry, who, when dying said, — " A life spent in the service of God, and communion with Him, is the most comfortable and pleasant life that any one can live in this present world." And his counsel has been indorsed by multitudes of the wisest and noblest of the race, as well as by yet greater multitudes who knew not the wisdom of this world, but who yet were " wise unto salvation." " Is that his death-bed where the Christian lies ? No ! 'tis not his : 'tis death itself there dies ! " Those ever-memorable words — " Lord Jesus ! receive my spirit ! " — with which was committed to the fruitful earth, the life-blood of the protomartyr, Stephen, — so faithful an echo of the cry of Him, who died that a dying world might live, — ^have been themselves re-echoed with the expiring breath of count- less multitudes of souls. Columbus closed his wonderful career with the same devout sentiment, — " In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum LAST WORDS OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS. 193 rrheumP Tasso expired, while uttering the same devout senti- ment in the Italian ; and the saintly George Herbert's last ut- terance was again, almost verbally the same wish ; and lastly a later servant of the sanctuary, the gifted Edward Irving, after repeating the twenty-third Psalm in Hebrew, closed his elo- quent lips and life on earth, with these words, " If I die, I die unto the Lord." We weep, instinctively, over the cold lifeless forms of those we have loved and lost ; and our sadness and sorrow are often- times assuaged or mitigated by the sweet relief of tears. " We miss them when, the board is spread, We miss them when the prayer is said ; But the sadness of this aching love Dims not our ' Father's house ' above." Beyond the charmed circle of the domestic affections, how- ever, there ought to be no inconsolable grief for the departure of the great and good, — no tears but those of gratitude should be- dew their graves ; for though, like the lark, they have soared heavenward, singing as they soar, — they have also enriched us by the legacy they have left of their instructive and beautiful life record. The living and those whom we call dead, are all of one great family ; and those who have passed away from among us have yet bequeathed the wealth of their wisdom to us, as an imperishable possession. John Wesley's last words were, — " The best of all is, God is with us ! " Halyburton's death-scene is described as one of the most rapturous in the history of the church ; such was also the closing hour of the French pastor, Rivet ; such also that of worthy Doctor Donne, who exclaimed " I were miserable, if 1 might not die ! " Among the memorable utterances of this saintly man, just before his departure, was this : " I repent of my life except that part of it which I spent in communion with 13 194 LAST WORDS OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS. God, and in doing good ! " Sir "Walter Scott's last words were a benediction to his sorrowing home-circle, " God bless you all." Sir James Mackintosh, just as he was expiring, expressed nmch in little, for it was but a word, yet how significant a one — " Hajpjpy ! " Our owai revered Washington's last utterance was in a single short sentence, no less expressive — " It is well ! " Tliese are a 'few of the echoes from Christian death-chambers ; how many, in the heroic ages of the church, have made their exit from us, in a sheet of flame, like that dauntless confessor, Bishop Ferrar, in 1555, who, while being chained to the stake, exclaimed, " If I stir, through the pains of my burning, believe not the doctrine I have taught ! " " These taught us how to live; and oh, too high A price for knowledge, taught us how to die ! " " The ruling passion, strong in death," has been often illus- trated : Lord Nelson's last words were : " Tell Collingwood to bring the fleet to an anchor." The demise of Najpoleon^ at St. Helena, which was accompanied by a terrific storm, that tore up by the roots most of the trees at Longwood, was another nota- ble instance. At six o'clock, in the evening of the 5th of May, 1820, having just uttered the significant words, ^^Tete d^armee ! " the great soldier passed forever from the dreams of battle. Cardinal Wolsey's closing hours were characterized by a consis- tent hostility to the Protestant faith, for he said : " Master Kingston, the King should know that if he tolerates heresy, God will take away his Kingdom ! " Erasmus, when dying, exclaimed, — " Domine ! Domine ! fac finem, fac finem ! " Lord Chesterfield, the idol of fashion — as he lay dying, seeing a friend enter his chamber, with his accustomed etiquette, said : " Give Dayroles a chair." Charles L, as he ascended the scaffold at Whitehall, said : " I fear not death, death is not terrible to me ! " LAST WORDS OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS. 195 Lord Roscommon, when about to expire, uttered with the en- ergy of devotion, these two lines of his version of Dies Irce : " My God, my Father, and my friend, Do not forsake me in my end ! " The great Sir Isaac Newton died suddenly and voiceless — in the act of winding up his watch ; and Haller, feeling his own pulse, exclaimed, " The artery ceases to beat," and instantly expired. Goldsmith, when his physician, unable to pronounce a diagnosis of his disease, inquired if his mind was at ease, re- plied,—" No, it is not ! " These were the last sad words of one who had so largely ministered to the intellectual pleasure of the civilized world. Just before Pojpe expired, as he sat in his chair, a friend called to inquire how he was ; " I am dying, sir, of a hundred good symptoms," said the wit. "When a friend called upon Dr. Johnson, during his last sickness, and inquired how he was, he replied in a melancholy tone, " Jam Mori- turus" The dread monster death — on the last day of his ex- istence, came to his mental apprehension envisaged with all the horrors that had so haunted him through life. Many bishops and prominent ministers of religion visited him ; but failed to ^' minister to a mind diseased ; " and it was reserved for an ob- scure clergyman he had formerly known, to suggest that spiri- tual consolation his condition demanded. Klojpstock closed a beautiful life in the act of reciting his own charming verses, descriptive of the death of Mary, the sister of Martha and Laza- rus. This song was chanted at the public funeral of the poet. Ooethe, after more than the usually allotted term of human ex- istence, when met by the summons, was still busy with his pen — the implement, at once, of his pleasure and his power ; and he sank as a child, with the glow of the day's activity yet on his cheek, exclaiming, " More light ! more light ! " Haydn's genius like Southey's and others, was under eclipse before his 196 LAST WORDS OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS. earthly life ceased. In his latter years, when visited by stran- gers, they found him in a room, sitting before a desk, with the melancholy aspect of one who seemed conscious of his lost power. When the war broke out between Austria and France, in 1809, the intelligence roused Haydn, and exhausted the shattered remnant of his remaining strength. The French army advanced with gigantic strides, and at length reached close upon his house ; yet he was carried to his piano, when he sang thrice, as loud as he was able, — " God preserve the Em- peror ! " It was the song of the swan ; while at the piano he fell into a kind of stupor, and expired. There is something strikingly beautiful and touching in the circumstances of the death of his brother-composer Mozart — his sweetest song was the last he sang, '' the Requiem^ He had been employed upon this exquisite piece for several weeks. After giving it its last touch, and breathing into it that undying spirit of song, which was to consecrate it through all time as his " cygnean strain," he fell into a gejitle and quiet slumber. At length, the light footsteps of his daughter Emilie awoke him. " Come hither," said he, " my Emilie — my task is done — the Requiem — my Requiem is finished." " Say not so, dear father," said the gentle girl, interrupting him, as tears stood in her eyes ; " you must be better — you look better, for even now your cheek has a glow upon it. I am sure we will nurse you well again — let me bring you something refreshing." " Do not deceive yourself, my love," said the dying father ; " this wasted form can never be restored by human aid. From Heaven's mercy alone do I look for aid, in this my dying hour. You spoke of refreshment, my Emilie — take these, my last notes — sit down by my piano here — sing them with the hymn of thy sainted mother — let me once more hear those tones which have been so long my solacement and delight." Emilie obeyed ; and with LAST WORDS OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS. 197 a voice enriched with tenderest emotion, sang the following stanzas : " Spirit ! thy labor is o'er ! Thy term of probation is run ; Thy steps are now bound for the untrodden shore ; And the race of immortals begun ! " Spirit ! look not on the strife, Or the pleasures of earth, with regret, — Pause not on the threshold of limitless life I To mourn for the day that is set. " Spirit ! no fetters can bind, No wicked have power to molest ; There, the weary — like thee, the wi-etched shall find A haven, — a mansion of rest, " Spirit ! how bright is the road, For which thou art now on the wing ! Thy home, it will be with thy Saviour and God, There loud hallelujahs to sing ! " As she concluded, she dwelt for a moment upon the low, melancholy notes of the piece, and then turning from the in- strument, looked in silence for the approving smile of her father. It was the still, passionless smile which the rapt and joyous spirit liad left, with the seal of death upon those features. The demise of Beethoven was peculiarly impressive. He had been visibly declining, when suddenly he revived — a bright smile illumed his features, as he softly murmured, "I shall hear in heaven," (he was then deaf,) and then sung in a low, but dis- tinct voice one of his own beautiful German hymns. What a moral grandeur gathers around tlie death-scene of the great and good of earth, when sanctified by a religious faith ; and how fearful the contrast when the departing spirit leaves the world all unprepared, unannealed, unblessed, with all the terrible premonitions of a coming judgment. 198 LAST WORDS OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS. It is refreshing to find some evidences of deep consciousness of the vast solemnity befitting a dying hour, among men en- dowed beyond the average of their race with intellectual strength ; as in the case of Grotius, who, on being asked for his dying admonition, exclaimed, "-5e serious r'' All his vast learning did not allow him to think lightly of the paramount claims of those things which make for our eternal peace. Sir William Jones, one of the most brilliant geniuses that ever lived, affords similar evidence of the right estimate of human learning, compared with the more important concerns of the future world. "It matters not," says Johnson, "how a man dies, but how he lives." And even sceptical Rousseau observes : " The great error is, placing such an estimate on this life, as if our being depended on it, and we were nothing after death." To attach ourselves but slightly to human affairs, is the best method of learning to die. When Garrick showed Dr. John- son his fine house and gardens, at Hampton Court, instead of his replying in the language of fiattery, he exclaimed, " Ah ! David, David, these are the things which make a death-bed terrible." THE MYSTEEIES OF MEDICINE. " Man is a dupable animal. Quacks in medicines, quacks in religion, and quacks in politics know this, and act upon that knowledge. There is scarcely any one who may not, like a trout, be taken by tickling." — Southey. Sm Thomas Beowne has nobly sought to dignify the medical profession ; and it would be undignified in us to attempt to impeach his excellent judgment. There are, however, sundry phases of the Faculty that present points of humor and eccen- tricity so amusing, that to indulge a little merriment over them, cannot but prove an innocent pastime. There is fun enougli in " love, law, and physic," if we seek it out. Any one 200 THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. with an eye for the ludicrous, will not need any specifications in point. Much that is farcical in physic is, by the law of electric affinities, transferred to the phj^sician himself. Jtidging by the latitudinarianism of some practitioners, and the absurd nostrums of empirics and quacks, in all ages, it has been gravely asked, whether doctors are really not the final cause of disease. It is not, of course, to be disputed, that they have been, to no inconsiderable extent, accessory both to the reduction of disease and — of life itself. But for the inherent tendency of mankind to blind credulity and superstition, it may be doubted, whether the profession of medicine would ever have been made the vehicle of such gross absurdities and cunning impostures, as its past, and especially its earlier history reveals. We are not about, however, to cast any imputation upon the science of therapeutics ; our purpose being to glance at some of the wild and monstrous follies, that have so long disputed its claims to the suffrages of society. Medical prac- tice has been defined, for the most part, guessing at nature's intentions and wishes, and then endeavoring to supplement them, by the application of chemical agents. ^ " Nature," says a French philosophical writer, " is fighting with disease ; a blind man armed with a club, — that is, the physician, — comes to settle the difference. He first tries to make peace ; when he cannot accomplish this, he lifts his club and strikes at random. If he strikes the disease, he kills it ; if he strikes nature, he kills the patient." One who himself turned states-evidence on this point, — D'Alembert, — relates, that an individual, after conducting a prominent practice for thirty years, confessed, as his reason for retiring from it, that he was weary of guessing ! An industrious nosologist has estimated, that there are about twenty-four hundred disorders incident to the human frame ! Possibly our great dramatist was not aware to what numerical extent reached " the ills that flesh is heir THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. 201 to," or he would scarcely have so disparagingly suggested that we should " throw physic to the dogs." Or it may possibly have been because there is, according to Punchy " an evident affinity between physic and the dogs, a fact, that shows the master mind of Shakspeare in suggesting the throwing of the former to the latter ; for it is clear that every medicine, like every dog, has its day. Pills have had their popularity, and elixirs have had their run. Lozenges have taken their turn on the wheel of fortune, and even pastes have been stuck to, for a time, by crowds of adherents." Napoleon once said to one of his physicians (Dr. Antom- marchi), " Believe me, we had better leave off all these reme- dies, — life is a fortress that neither you, nor I, know anything about. Why throw obstacles in the way of its defence ? Its own means are superior to all the aj)paratus of your laborato- ries. Medicine is a collection of uncertain prescriptions, the results of which, taken collectively, are more fatal than useful to mankind." The celebrated Zimmerman went from Hanover to attend Frederick the Great, in his last illness. One day the king said to him, " You have, I presume, sir, helped many a man into another world ? " This was rather a bitter j!?*7^ for the doctor ; but the dose he gave the king in return, was a judicious mix- ture of truth and flattery : " Not so many as your majesty, nor with so much honor to myself," was the reply. Colman says, " the medical and military, both deal in death ; " and if true, that two of a trade never agree, it may be the emperor was jealous of his reputation. It has been well said : " The world is peopled by two classes of beings, who seem to be cognate and necessary to each other. Charlatans and dupes exist by a mutual dependence. There is a tacit understanding, that whatever the one invents, the other must believe. All bills which the former draws, the 202 THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. latter comes forward at ouce and honors. One is Prosj)ero, the other his poor slave, Caliban. Let the rogue open shop to dis- pense pills, the simpleton, as soon as he learns the fact, hies to the place, and takes his box of specifics, and complacently walks away with his prize. The knaves seem to consider the world as a rich parish — a large diocese of dunces, into which they have an hereditary and prescriptive right to be installed." Addison, who surrounded himself with all the accessories of fortune, seems to have had a depreciating estimate of the Faculty. These are his words : " If we look into the profes- sion of physic, we shall find a most formidable body of men ; the sight of them is enough to make a man serious, for we may lay it down as a maxim that when a nation abounds in physi- cians, it grows thin of people." This body of men, he com- pares to the British army in Caesar's time — some of them slay in chariots, and some on foot. If the infantry do less execu- tion than the charioteers, it is because they cannot be carried so soon into all quarters, and dispatch so much business in so short a time. Empirics and charlatans are the excrescences of the medical profession ; they have obtained in all ages, yet the healing art is not necessarily the occasion for deception ; nor the operations of witchcraft, charms, amulets, astrology, necromancy, alchemj^, or magic ; although it has its mysteries like other branches of occult science. It is not surprising that men in early ages of civilization, should ascribe the curative art, to the potency of some unseen and supernatural agency, since the diseases incident to the human family were supposed to be the result of the ire of the heathen deities. The Jews are the fii'st people on record who practised the art of healing, which they probably learned from the Egyp- tians ; but the Greeks, who worshipped ^sculapius, as the god THE IMYSTERIES OF MEDICmE. 203 of medicine, lirst reduced that art to a regular system. Hippo- crates, is justly considered the father of physic, being the most ancient author, whose writings on that subject are pre- served. The most celebrated physicians who succeeded him were Asclepiades, Celsus, and Galen. Old astrologers, and the like fraternity, with their mathe- matical marks and zodiacal signs, sought to invest their craft with a mysterious sanctity. Boasting its origin and authority to be heaven-derived, with its blazonry of factitious distinction ; would it be suspected after all, that the curative art is to be traced even to the instinct of the brutes ? For example, the sagacious dog, when indisposed, may be seen to enact liimself the doctor, by a resort to the fields to eat a quantity of prickly grass — an expedient which seldom fails of success, by acting as an emetic. The same with the cat, when she finds herself " a little under the weather," forthwith she sneaks off for some catnip. There is a story related of an Arabian shepherd, who, having observed the goats of his fiock, as often as they browsed upon the coffee-fruit, to skip about and exhibit signs of intoxi- cation, tasting the berry himself, tested the fact. The apes of Abyssinia, in the same way, indicated to their superior masters, the laxative qualities of the cassia fistula. One might almost suppose, therefore, a necessity for the resorting to sorcery, witchcraft, stichomancy, and other mysterious agencies, in order to disguise the humble sources of some elementary branches of our famed medical lore. Egypt, India, and Pales- tine seem to have been blessed with no small supply of the erudite in these matters ; such as pneumatologists, exorcists, magicians, thaumaturgists, and enchanters. These magi com- bined, with their exercise of the healing art for the body, the power of curing psychological maladies, and wdth such an ex- tensive variety of practice, these ancient sages must have made a tolerably good thing of it. In Greece and Rome, sorcery and 204 THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICmE. its kindred arts were extensively resorted to; and even till recent times, such incantations were practised in some of the most polished countries of Europe. Pliny speaks of one Chrysippas, reputed a famous practi- tioner of his day, who gained his notoriety by advocating cab- hages as the panacea for all complaints ! In Egypt, medicine was fettered by absurd regulations. The chief priests confined themselves to the exercise of magic rites and prophecies, which they considered the higher branches of the art, and left the exhibition of remedies to the pastoj)hori, or image-bearers. They were compelled to follow implicitly the medical precepts of the sacred records contained in the " hermetical books," a deviation from which was punish- able with death. From a superstitious dread of evil, and a de- sire to penetrate into futurity, arose the mystic divination of Greece and Rome, as well as that of the Druids. This divina- tion assumed the sanctity of a religious ceremony, and thus priests became invested with a supposed supernatural power for the cure of diseases. Thus, magic and medicine were allied with astrology and religion. Paracelsus was the prince of charlatans ; he styled himself, indeed, the " King of physic " ; and although he professed to have discovered the elixir of life, yet it does not seem to have been available in his own case, for he died at the early age of forty-eight years. Among quaint and marvellous nostrums of the renowned Alhertus Magnus is the following sagacious specific against a faithless memory : " If the harte, eye or brayne of a lapwinge or black plover, be hanged upon a man's necke, it is profitable agaynste forgetf ulnesse, and sharpeth man's understandinge." That notorious old astrologer, Nostradamus of Salon, was of the medical fraternity, and also a mathematician and prophet ! His reputation was established by the publication, in 1555, of THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. 205 a grim folio, comprising his mj'stic prophecies. These attract- ing the notice of Henry II., he sent for the author to Paris to consult him, as also did Catharine de Medici. Among other delusions of past times was that of the royal gift of healing. It has been remarked as singular, that, with the vulgar errors exposed by Sir Thomas Browne, in his Pseudo- doxia Ej^idenfiica^ there should be no mention made of this ; but, from a case related in the Adenochdiradelogia, it would seem that this eccentric but able man had himself faith in the thing. Burton, in his Anatomie of Melancholie, notices many curious recipes and " Bookes of Physicke." One work, en- titled The Queenus Closet Opened, containing " divers things necessary to be knowne, collected out of sundrie olde written bookes, and broughte into one order. The several things here- in contayned may be seen in the bookes and tables follow- inge, written in the yeare of our Lorde God 1610." The work commences* with the ' thirty-three evil dayes " of the yeare, and a general calendai ; there is a curious medley of rules about the weather, astronomical calculations, and prognostica- tions. The first book has this : " A coppye of all such medi- cines wherewith ye noble Countess of Oxenforde, most chari- tably, in her owne person, did manye greate and notable cures upon poor neighboures." The second book is entitled, " Here beginneth a true coppye of such medicines wherewith Mrs. Johan Ounsteade, daughter unto the worshipfule Mr. John Oliffe, Alderman of London, hath cured and healed many f or- lorne and deadlie diseases," etc. An extract from the above will show the then state of medical science. " To take away frekels — take the bloude of an hare, annoynte them with it, and it will doe them away." " For a man or woman that hath lost theire speeche — take wormwood, and stampe it, and tem- per it with water, strayne it, and with a spoone doe of it into theire mouthes." 206 THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. In Andrew Borde's Breviarie of Health, one of the earliest medical works (1547), in the English language, occurs the fol- lowing curious passage respecting love-sickness. " Hereos is the Greke word ; in Latin it is named amor ; in English it is named love-sick ^ and women may have this fickleness as well as men. Toung persons be much troubled with this impedi- ment." After stating the cause of this " infirmitie," he pre- scribes the following remedy : " First I do advertise every per- son not to set to the harte, what another doth set to the heale ; let no man -set his love so far, but that he may withdraw it be- time ; and muse not, but use mirth and merrie company, and be wise and not foolish." The practice of physic, it must be apparent, is easily sus- ceptible of being made the occasion of cheat and imposture. Abernethy, on being appealed to by a patient on behalf of her fanjiied indisposition, had the frankness (after taking his guinea fee) to state that her symptoms merely indicated the ab- sence of health and also of disease, and handing her back a shil- ling, advised her to get a shijpping-rojpe and use it. Walpole says that acute and sensible people are frequently the most easily de- ceived by quacks. A recent writer, referring to the success which generally attends any daring and impudent imposture, remarks : " If the cheat required ingenuity to detect it, there might be some hope for mankind ; but it actually lies con- cealed in its "oery ohviousness^ Physicians were formerly ecclesiastics. A curious instance of preferring the medical to the clerical profession, from the conceit of supposed destiny, is thus related : " Andrew Kudiger, a physician of Leipsic, took it into his head to form an anagram on his name ; and in the words Andreas Rudigerus he found a vocation, namely, ' Arare rus Dei dignus^ Thereupon he concluded that he was called to the priesthood, and began to study theology. Soon after, he THE MYSTERIES OF IVIEDICINE. 207 became tutor to the children of the learned Thomasius. This philosopher one day told him that he had much better apply to medicine, Rudiger admitted his inclination to that profession, but stated that the anagram of his name — which he explained to Thomasius — had seemed to him a divine vocation to the priesthood. ' What a simpleton you are ! ' said Thomasius ; ^ why, 'tis the very anagram of your name that calls you to medicine, Rusdei — i's, wot \hsit t\\Q hu7nal ground f And who ploughs it better than the doctors ? ' In effect, Rudiger turned doctor, unable to resist the interpretation of his anagram." In the year 1Y76, there lived a German doctor, who styled himself, or was called, " the Rain-water doctor " ; all the diseases to which flesh is heir, he professed to cure by this simple agent. Some wonderful cures were, it is said, achieved by means of his application of this fluid, and his reputation spread far and wide ; crowds of maimed and sickly folk flocked to him, seek- ing relief at his hands. What is yet more remarkable still, he declined accepting any fee from his patients ! Nostrums, like Nostradamus, have their day ; when the spe- cific for all diseases, some years hence, was camomile tea, a wag thus sang its virtues : " Let doctors, or quacks, prescribe as they may, Yet none of their nostrums for me ; For I firmly believe — what the old women say That there's nothing like camonule tea ! ' ' In health it is harmless, and, say what you please, One thing is stOl certain with me, It suits equally well with every disease, O, there's nothing like camomile tea. " The cancer and colic, the scurvy and gout, The blues, and all evils d'esprit, When once fairly lodged, can be only forced out By forcing z?i camomile tea !" 208 THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. The laborious professional study of the matriculated pliysi- cian is unsought by the quack ; he, — Pallas-like, all armed from the brain of Jove, — rushes into his reckless practice, " en- cased over in native brass, from top to toe," but wholly desti- tute of the requisite skill for his office. He knows not even the alphabet of medicine ; yet, defiant of reason and responsi- bility, his supposed intuitive wit and arrogance prevail. It has been said, however, with truth, that the followers of quacks are the cause of quackery ; they are the cause of the number- less homicides that have been committed with such impunity. These are sceptics of the faculty, but idolaters of empiricism. These deluded patients persevere with a pertinacity that is in- vincible, till they discover, too late, that they have been advan- cing, backwards. As illustrative of the reckless wickedness of these pseudo-doctors, we present the following instances. The Duke de Rohan, while in Switzerland, had occasion to send for a physician ; the most famous of the day came to him, styling himself Monsieur Thibaud. " Your face," said the Duke, " seems familiar to me ; pray, where have I seen you before ? " " At Paris, perhaps, my Lord Duke," he replied, " when I had the honor to be farrier to your grace's stables. I have now a great reputation as a physician; I treat the Swiss as I used to do your horses, and I find, in general, I succeed as well. I must request your grace not to make me known, for if you do, I shall be ruined ! " There was a notorious charlatan at Paris, some years ago, named Mantaccini, who, after having squan- dered his patrimony, sought to retrieve his fortune by turning quack. He started his carriage, and made tours round the country, pompously professing to effect cures of all diseases with a single touch, or even a look. Failing in this bold essay, he attempted another yet more daring — that of reviving the dead, at will ! To remove all doubt, he declared that, in fifteen days, he would go to the church-yard, and restore to life THE aiySTERIES OF MEDICINE. 209 its inhabitants, though buried fifteen years. This declaration excited a general murmur against the doctor, who, not in the least disconcerted, applied to the magistrate, and requested that he might be put under a guard to prevent his escape, until he should perform his undertaking. The proposition inspired the greatest confidence, and the whole city came to consult the daring empiric, and pm-chase his haume de vie. His consultations were numerous, and he received large sums of money. At length the noted day approached, and the doc- tor's valet, fearing for his shoulders, began to manifest signs of uneasiness. "You know nothing of mankind," said the quack to his servant ; " be quiet." Scarcely had he spoken the words, when the following letter was presented to him from a rich citizen : " Sir, the great operation you are about to perform has broken my rest. I have a wife buried for some time who was a fury, and I am unhappy enough already, with- out her resurrection. In the name of heaven, do not make the experiment. I will give you fifty louis to keep your secret to yourself." Soon after, two dashing beaux arrived, who urged him with the most earnest entreaties not to raise their old father, formerly the greatest miser in the city, as in such an event, they would be reduced to the most deplorable indigence. They offered him a fee of sixty louis ; but the doctor shook his head in doubtful compliance. Scarcely had they retired, when a y<->ung widow, on the eve of matrimony, threw herself at the feet of the quack, and with sobs and sighs, implored his mercy. In short, from morn till night, he received letters, visits, pre- sents, and fees, to an excess which absolutely overwhelmed him. The minds of the citizens were differently and violently agitated ; some by fear, and others by curiosity, so that the mayor of the city waited upon the doctor, and said : " Sir, I have not the least doubt, from my experience of your rare talents, that you will be able to accomplish the resurrection in 14 210 THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. our church-yard, the day after to-morrow, according to your promise ; but I pray you to observe that our city is in the utmost uproar and confusion ; and to consider the dreadful revolution your experiment must produce in every family ; I entreat you, therefore, not to attempt it, but to go away, and thus restore tranquillity to the city. In justice, however, to your rare talents, I shall give you an attestation, in due form, under our seal, that you can revive the dead., and that it was our own fault that we were not eye-witnesses of your power." This certificate, our reliable authority continues, was duly signed and delivered. The illustrious Mantaccini left Lyons for other cities, to work new miracles and manoeuvres. In a short time, he returned to Paris loaded with gold, laughing at the credulity of his victims. One more citation of this kind. Count Cagliostro and his wife made their debut at St. Peters- burg, pretending to a power of conferring perpetual youth — investing old people with rejuvenescence. The countess, who was not more than -twenty, spoke of her son, who had long served in the army. This expedient of making old people young again, could not fail to afPect certain aged ladies, who are exjDert in diminishing instead of adding to their years. This experiment upon popular credulity did not, however, last long ; yet it yielded a golden harvest while it continued. It is related of a certain quack, in a country town in Eng- land, that he resorted to the following expedient, for creating a little notoriety, by way of a start. On his arrival, he an- nounced himself by sending the bell-man — an official of great importance in former times — to disturb the quiet of the honest people of the place, by proclaiming the reward of fifty guineas for the recovery of his pet poodle ; of course, the physician who could be so lavish with his money for such a trifling pur- pose, could not but be a man of preeminence in his profession. Millingen records the curious fact of two miracle-working doc- THE MYSTEKIES OF MEDICINE. 211 tors having taken London by storm, many years ago, who laid claim to the unpronounceable names of Tetrachymagogon and Fellino Guffino Cardimo Cardimao Frames (!), which were plastered about the walls of the city, exciting the amazement and curiosity of the gullible multitude. The next instance we have to introduce to our friends re- joiced in the not uncommon name of Graham, who, in the year 17S2, made a great sensation in London. He was gifted with great fluency of speech, and indulged in towering hyper- bole and bombast, with which he sought to gull the wonder- loving multitude. He opened a splendid mansion in Pall-Mail, which he styled the " Temple of Health." Among other whimsicalities, he, too, pretended to have dis- covered the elixir of life. His terms for this invaluable spe- cific for longevity, were, it is true, rather extravagant for common people, — but, of course, so desirable a boon ought not to be made too cheap. More than one nobleman, it is recorded, actually paid him the enormous fee of one thousand pounds ! Rather an expensive premium for the purchase of a little com- mon sense. This wonderful discovery, however, did not last long; the delusion exploded, — tlie quack himself died, after vainly practising various other mummeries, at the age of fifty- two years — neglected, and despised. Among notable and eccentric physicians of former times, was Jerome Cardan, of Milan, who flourished, and physicked the valetudinarians of the sixteenth century. His life, also, was full of various incidents. After enduring the extreme of misfortune, he rose to the height of professional honor ; he was battling throughout his life, both with men and with books ; so we need not wonder that he became notorious. His name has been placed in succession to that of Galen, who was the great authority, when he made his professional appearance. His first book bore the title, De Malo Medendi 212 THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. Usa — denouncing seventy-two errors in existing practice! Most of his corrections, have been re-corrected by his suc- cessors. Astrology by no means satisfied his thirst for divi- nation. He had a system of Cheiromancy, and was very pro- found on the lines in the human hand, and a science com- pletely his own, which he called Metojposcojpy . The following extract will show that the character and fortunes of an indi- vidual are thus revealed by the lines in his forehead : " Seven lines, drawn at equal distances, one above another, horizontally across the whole forehead, beginning close over the eyes, indicate respectively the regions of the Moon, Mer- cury, Yenus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The signifi- cation of each planet is always the same, and forehead-reading is thus philosophically allied to the science of palmistry." Doctors have, by some, been called a cl'isa of men who live on the misfortunes of their fellow-creatures; by others, the alleviators of life's miseries. Illustrative instances of both abound. Doubtless, many, by potions, but multitudes by pills have been sent out of the world, sooner than they need have gene ; and yet, at this moment, what a pillage is going on among our patients and valetudinarians ! Who has not heard of that triumvirate of pill-princes — Morrison, Moffatt, and Brandreth ; not to refer to the plebeian pill-mongers who prowl about all places, seeking whom they may betray ! One of the most notable instances on record of pill taking, is the following : an eccentric old bachelor, named Jessup, who died in Lincolnshire, in 1817, had such an inordinate appetite for pills, that his apothecary had to sue him at law, for his bill. At the trial the defendant was proved to have taken during twenty-one years (1791-1816), no less than 226,934 pills ; which is at the rate of 10,806 pills a year, or 29 pills each day ! But as the patient began with a less voracious craving, and it In- creased as he proceeded, in the last five years, he took the pills THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. 213 at the rate of 78 a day, and in the year 1814, he swallowed not less than 51,590 ! Notwithstanding this, and the addition of 40,000 bottles of mixture, this pill-devourer extraordinary contrived to live to sixty-five years. One can scarcely swallow the story. One, and not the least of the mysteries of medicine, is its technology ; let ns look at it : for it is a puzzle to all but the initiated', — the disciples of JEsculapius. A recent writer* re- marks that medical lore would lose much of its potency and control over the faith of mankind, were its dicta uttered in the vulgar tongue. The same technical and, to the popular mind, unintelligible verbiage is no less applicable to most of the sci- ences — botany, chemistry, astronomy, natural history, and meta- physics, not to mention law. " A fish-woman was sileijced by the word hypothenuse, applied as an epithet ; and many persons who would have no objection to bleeding, would receive a pro- position to phlebotomize them, with much alarm. The language of the men of medicine is a fearful concoction of sesquipedalian words, numbered by thousands. He was a mere novice who spoke of ' a severe contusion of the integuments under the left orbit, with great extravasation of blood and ecchymosis in the surrounding cellular tissue, which was in a " tunefied state ; " ' — meaning a black eye ! The medical authorities describe, for instance, ' Blood root ' {Sanguinaria Canadensiis) as acrid, emetic, with narcotic and stimulant properties, exj)ectorant, sudorific, alterative, emraenagogue, escharotic, and errhine, ac- cording to the way in which it is used. Its escharotic action renders it beneficial when applied in hypochondriasis. Prickly ash {^anthoxylum Fraxineum) is stimulant, tonic, alterative, and sialogogue, producing heat, arterial excitement, and a ten- dency to diaphoresis." Latin, or " dog-latin," as it has been st^ded, seems to be as essential an accessory to the profession of medicine, as to that of * Putnam's Magazine. 214 THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE, law. So long as mystery has a controlling influence over the untutored mind; tlie practitioners in both these departments of professional life, will, doubtless, adhere to the use of the so- called dead language, as most consistent with the genius of their calling. "We offer, for the sake of change, however, a fugitive prescription, free of charge, and in the vulgar tongue^ — in verse moreover : a poetical prescription to be taken, if re- quired : " Take, take, pill and colocyntli; Aye, sir, your liver is much out of order ; Take, take, rhubarb and ague menth ; Close on acute inflammation you border. Symptoms about your head, Makes me congestion dread. When I take them with the rest in conjunction ; Leave ofE wine, beer, and grog ; Arrowroot aU your prog. Let organs rest to recover their function." "Doctor, what do you think is the cause of this fi'equent rush of blood to my head ? " asked a patient, " O, it is nothing but an effort of iiature," was the reply ; " nature, you know, abhors a vacuum." In the times of the renowned Radcliflfe, the gold-headed cane was the sceptre of authority, among the medical profes- sion. Dignity dwelt in that mysterious symbol, and safeguard^ — for such it was. It served the double purpose of imparting dignity to the doctor, and as a protector against contagious diseases, it being filled with disinfecting herbs, which he ap- plied to his olfactories when with patients. A good joke is re- lated of him and his next door neighbor. Sir Godfrey Kneller and Dr. Radcliffe lived next door to each other, in Bow street, London. Kneller had a fine garden, and as the parties were intimate friends, and the doctor was fond of flowers, the other consented to his having a door intc^ THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. 215 it. Some of the doctor's servants, however, destroyed the flovs^ers, and Sir Godfrey sent word to him, that he would nail up the door ; to which Radcliffe responded thus, " Tell him he may do anything but paint it." " Well," retorted Kneller, " he may say what he will, for I will take anything from him ex- cept physic ! " Another good story is told of Had cliff e : he attended a friend professionally for a year gratuitously, al- though the accustomed fee was uniformly tendered, when he called. On his last visit his friend sq,id, " Doctor, here is a purse in which I have put every day's fee ; and your goodness must not get the better of my gratitude. Take your money." EadcUffe was not proof against the temptation ; so he said, — " Singly, sir, I could have refused them for a twelvemonth ; but altogether, they are irresistible." When the celebrated Dumoulin was on his death-bed, and some of the most eminent physicians of Paris were bemoaning his expected loss to the profession, he said, — " Gentlemen, I shall leave behind me three excellent doctors to supply my ab- sence." Being pressed to name them, as each expected to be included in the trio, he answered, — " Wate?', Exercise^ and DietP Whether we think of it, or not, the weather has not a little to do with the doctors. We often say, — " It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good;" and that means, we suppose, an east-wind. Dr. Alexander, of Princeton, was once asked, if he enjoyed " assurance of faith ? " " Yes," he replied, " except when the wind is in the east ! " We found recently a doctor's reflections on this airy subject, and the direct bearings it has upon his practice : " 111 is the wind, good, that no one doth blow, Taking mankind altogether ; Hail to that wind which blows hard frost and snow, Medico-surgical weather ! Prospects of many a bill and a fee, Suecitate pleasing reflections ; 216 THE MYSTERIES OF IHEDICINE. Ills blown to others, are good blown to me, Namely, thoracic afiEections ; Air-tubes, disorders of ; also, catarrh, Cough, influenza, bronchitis. Peripneumonia's gainful ; so are Phthisis, dyspnoea, pleuritis. Numerous patients, moreover, accrue, Just now, from those inflammations, Which, a peculiar diathesis through, Seize on the articulations. Nerves, muscles, tendons ; rheumatic attacks, Cases, no end, of lumbago, And of the hip that sciatica racks ; Down in my visit-book they go." For the sake of variety, we will glance at some comical patients, the victims of mental illusion, hypochondria, phan- tasm, and monomania. It is scarcely necessary to inquire into the physical causes to which usually these maladies are to be ascribed ; we cite a case, from the numerous instances recorded by Dr. Rush, of mental derangement, and for the accuracy of which he vouches. It was of an unfortunate individual who was possessed with the strange conceit that he was once a calf ; the name of the butcher that killed him being given, who kept a stall in Philadelphia market, at whicli place was sold, without his leave or license, his hodily right and title, previous to his inhabiting his present " fleshly tabernacle." We do not venture into the region of spectral illusions, or ghosts, but we may mention, in passing, the case of a crazy young lady, re- corded by Dr. Ferriar, who fancied herself accompanied by her own apparition, and who may, of course, therefore, justly be said to have been, indeed, often — heside herself. A Lusi- tanian physician had a patient who insisted that he was en- tirely frozen, so that he would sit before a large fire, even dur- ng the dog-days, and yet cry of cold. A dress of rough sb©ep- THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. 217 skins, saturated with aqua vitae, was made for him, and they set him on fire ; he then confessed that he was, for the first time, quite warm — rather too much so ; and thus this genial remedy cured him of his frigidity altogether. The following ludicrous story is told in the London Lancet : " While residing at Rome," says the narrator, " I paid a visit to the lunatic asylum there, and among the remarkable patients was one, pointed out to me, who had been saved, with much difficulty, from inflicting death upon himself by voluntary starvation in bed, under an impression that he was defunct, declaring that dead people never eat. It was soon obvious to all, that the issue must be fatal, when the humane doctor be- thought of the following stratagem: Half-a-dozen of the attendants, dressed in wliite shrouds, and their faces and hands covered with chalk, were marched in single file, with dead silence, into a room adjoining that of the patient, where he observed them, through a door purposely left open, sit down to a hearty meal. ' Hallo ! ' said he, that was deceased, pres- ently to an attendant ; ' who be they ? ' ' Dead men,' was the reply. ' What ! ' rejoined the corpse, ' dead men eat % ' ^To be sure they do, as you see,' answered the attendant. '■ If that's the case ! ' exclaimed the defunct, ' I'll join them, for I'm famished ; ' and thus instantly was the spell broken." A young man had a strange conceit that he was dead, and earnestly begged his friends to bury him. They consented by the advice of the physician. He was laid upon a bier, and car- ried upon the shoulders of men to church, when some pleasant • fellows, ujp to the joke, met the procession, and inquired who it was ; they answered : " And a very good job it is," said one of them, " for the world is well rid of a very bad and vicious character, which the gallows must have had in due course." The pseudo-dead young man, hearing this, popped his head up, and said, they ought to be ashamed of themselves in thus tra- 218 THE MYSTERIES OF JIEDICINE. ducing his fair fame, and if he were only alive, he would thrash them for their insolence. But they proceeded to utter the most disgraceful and reproachful language, — dead flesh and 3lood could no longer bear it ; up he jumps, they run, he after them, until he fell down quite exhausted. He was put to bed ; the violent exertion he had gone through promoted perspira- tion, and he got well. It is pertinent to our subject to refer, perhaps, to the anal- ogy and reciprocal influence of the body and soul — mind and matter. That such analogy exists, and exhibits itself in a most indubitable manner, exerting a most powerful sympathy, none, of course, will question ; were it otherwise, a matter in dis- pute, we might offer many suggestions proposed by various ph}^- sicians and metaphysicians ; but we shall content ourselves by simply quoting a passage on the subject, from Haslam, in his work on Sound Mind. Referring to these curious analogies, he says : " There seems to be a considerable similarity between the morbid state of the instruments of voluntary motion {i. e., the body), and certain affections of the mental powers. Thus, paralysis has its counterpart in the defects of recollection, where the utmost endeavor to remember is ineffectually ex- erted. Tremor may be compared with incapability of fixing the attention ; and this involuntary state of the muscles, ordi- narily subjected to the will, also finds a parallel where the mind loses its influence in the train of thought, and becomes subject to spontaneous intrusions ; as may be exemplified in reveries, dreaming, and some species of madness." Excessive irritation of the brain is the result of inordinate mental excite- ment ; the physical economy thus becomes deranged, and this condition of bodily disease again reacts prejudicially on the mental powers. These effects are more or less observable under different conditions, much depending on organic struc- ture, constitutional predisposition, climate, or the peculiar cir- THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. 219 ciimstances by which the individual may be surrounded. While the effects, however, of this reciprocal influence of mind and matter are apparent, the cause remains unrevealed ; and to this fact may be referred the many ludicrous blunders and wild imaginings of sundry wise-acres, who have sought to ac- count for a matter so occult. So inscrutable and all-pervading is this union and sympathy between the "fleshly tabernacle" and its noble occupant, that in essaying to address any part of the fabric, the dweller is inevitably found to respond to the appeal. Physiologists tell us that our imagination is freest when the stomach is but slightly replenished with food; it is also more healthful in spring than in winter ; in solitude than in company ; and in modulated light, rather than in the full blaze of the noonday sun. Climate affects the temper, because it first influences the muscular system and the animal solids ; and who does not know that our happiness and repose are de- pendent upon the well-balanced condition of the biliary sys- tem. In such cases, it is the province of medicine to rectify the moral, as well as the physical derangement at the same moment of time. An eminent physician at Leyden, Dr. Gau- bius, who styled himself " Professor of the Passions," recites a curious case of a woman, upon whom he repeatedly enacted venesection, being of an inflammable temperament, as avouched by her liege-lord ; which operation, he says, finally induced the happiest i-esults. This notable practitioner was as au fait at metaphysics as medicine ; he cured morals and manners, as well as maladies of the body. Dry den confessed his indebted- ness to cathartics for the propitiating of his muse ; his imagin- ative faculty being thus dependent, as he thought, upon the elasticity of his viscera. And as we before intimated, there are, unquestionably, constitutional moral disorders — such as temporary or periodical fits of passion, or melancholy, as well as other impulsive emotions ; these, for the most part, are in- 220 THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. voluntaiy, or easily provoked under certain exciting circum- stances. A moral patient, who suffers himself to become the wretched victim of intemperance, is sure to need onlj opiates ; and nature, in due time, recovers from the outrage, although he may not from the disgrace. And when some pitiable wight is found suffering from the master-passion, love (a perfect ty- rant in its way, which usually overturns all a man's common sense, and blinds him into the bargain), the unfortunate one is sure to come " right side up," in his sober senses, too, by ad- ministering the process of a cold bath in the river, provided some benevolent bystander rescue him in time to cheat the fishes. A certain Milanese doctor is said to have resorted to a similar expedient for the cure of madness and other distempers. His practice consisted in placing his patients in a great high- walled enclosure, in the midst of which there was a deep well of water, as cold as ice, into which his unfortunate victims were plunged, being secured to a pillar ; when they were thoroughly saturated, and their courage cooled, they were liber- ated. In their bodily fear and shock they generally got rid of their complaints. That was a cold water cure ! The effects of the imagination upon bodily health are al- ready familiar to the reader. Bouchet, a French author of the sixteenth century, states that the physicians at Montpelier, which was the great school of medicine, had every year two criminals, the one living, the other dead, delivered to them for dissection. lie relates that on one occasion they tried what effect the mere expectation of death would produce upon a subject in perfect health, and in order to these experiments, they told the gentleman (for such was his rank), who was placed at their discretion, that, as the easiest mode of taking away his life, they would employ the means which Seneca had chosen for himself, and would there- fore open his veins in warm water. Accordingly, they covered THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. 221 his face, pinched his feet without lancing them, and set them in a footbath, and then spoke to each other as if they saw blood flowing freely, and life departing with it. Then the man re- mained motionless; and when, after awhile, they uncovered his face, they found him dead. Hope and success are finer tonics than any to be found in the apothecaries' shops, and even fear may boast its cures. A German physician, so reads the tale, succeeded in curing an epidemic convulsion, among the children of a poor-house, by the fear of a red-hot poker. The fits had spread by sympathy and imitation ; and this great physician, mistrusting the ordi- nary remedies in so grave a case, heated his instrument, and threatened to burn the first who should fall into a fit. The convulsions did not return. A celebrated scholar was once attacked with fever at a coun- try inn. He was visited by two physicians ; and one of them, supposing from the poverty of his appearance that he would not understand a foreign language, said to the other in Latin, " Let's try an experiment on this poor fellow." As soon as they were gone, the patient got out of bed, hurried on his clothes, scampered off as fast as he could, and was cured of his fever by his fright. In England, some years ago, a girl, being attacked with ty- phus fever, was sent to the hospital. A week afterwards, her brother was seized with the same disease, and was sent to the same institution. The nurses were helping him up the stairs at the hospital. On the way, he was met by some persons who were descending with a coffin on their shoulders. The sick man inquired whose body they were removing, when one of the bearers inadvertently mentioned the girl's name. It was his sister. The brother, horror-struck, sprang from his con- ductors, dashed down stairs, out of the hospital gate, and never stopped running until he had reached home — a distance of 222 THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. twelve miles ! He flung himself on the bed immediately, fell into a sound sleep, and awoke next morning, entirely cured of his illness. Solomon tells us that " a merry heart doeth good, like a medicine," and experience has proved it to be a panacea for many minor ills. Not a few of the Faculty are aware of the fact, and hence they have achieved marvellous cures by their combination of puns, potions, and pills. Among our various maladies, apparently midway between the mental and physical is the headache — a malady by no means uncommon, but which we welcome none the more from its frequency. Like a cold in the head, it is no joke, yet some wag has had the temerity to treat it as one, in the following lyric lines : " A cold in the head ! What need be said Uglier, stupider, more ill-bred : Almost any other disease May be romantic, if you please ; But who can scoff At a very bad cough ? If you have a fever, you're laid on the shelf, To be sure — but then you pity yourself. And your friends' anxiety highly excited, The curtains are drawn, and the chamber lighted, Dimly, and softly, pleasanter f ar. Than the staring sunshine that seems to jar Every nerve into a separate knock, And aU at her mortal calamities mock. ^t * * * * m Who do you suppose Ever pitied a man for blowing hia uo*a ? Yet, what minor trial could ever be worse — Unless it be reading this blundering verse. Never fit to be written, or read : No — nor said, Except by a man — witJi a cold in his head ! ^ THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. 223 Among the long list of cases in the Materia Medica, here is a new and fatal one. During the prevalence of the cholera in Ireland, a soldier, hurrying into the mess-room, told his com- manding officer that his brother had been carried off, two days ago, by a fatal malady, expressing his apprehensions that the whole regiment would be exposed to a similar danger, in the course of the following week. " Good heavens ! " ejaculated the officer, "what, then, did he die of? " " Why, your honor, he died of a Tuesday." Another extraordinary case, chroni- cled by Punchy was that of a voracious individual who bolted a door, and threw up a window ! Many of the phenomena presented by disease are exceeding- ly curious, and even romantic. The disease, commonly known as St. Yitus' dance (chorea), presents some remarkable pheno- mena. The patient becomes a merry Andrew, and twists the face into all kinds of ridiculous forms. A case is mentioned in which a young woman would dance on one leg and hold the other in her hand. When a drum sounded a kind of air, she would dance up to the drum and continue dancing till out of breath. Another would leap, exactly as a fish might do, from the top of a wardrobe five feet high. Another patient, a little girl, would twirl round on her feet like a top. And yet an- other would walk backwards, thereby receiving many falls and bruises. " Such histories," says Sir Thomas Watson, " would sound very like romances, if they were met with in the old authors alone, or if they were not attested by unimpeach- able authority." Such diseases are morbid affections of the nerves, and are well called " the dark corners of pathology." The whole subject of the influence of the nervous system on the organic functions is replete with curious memorabilia. Dr. Brown, of Edinburgh, author of the " Ilorce Suhsecivce,^^ informs us, that " many years ago a countryman called on a physician in New York. He was in the depth of dyspeptic 224 THE MYSTERIES OF JtEDICINE. despair. The doctor gave him some plain advice as to his food, and ended by wiiting a prescription for some tonic, saying, ' Take that and come back in a fortnight.' In ten days Giles came in, blooming and happy, quite well. The doctor was delighted, and not a little prou'^ of his skill. He asked to see what he had given him. Giles said he hadn't got it. ' Where was it ? ' 'I took it, sir.' ' Took it ! What have you done with the prescription ? ' 'I ate it, sir. You told me to take it.'" It is curious that a doctor cannot always be trusted with the diagnosis and prognosis of his own case. The great Dr. Baillie seems to have been a case of this kind. He is said to have died of consumption, and yet to have denied that he was con- sumptive. He did not experience any difficult}'^ in breathing, and argued that, while his breathing was good, his lungs could not be bad. But no medical man now takes this as decisive. Nature, in her bounty, provides a larger space of lung than is necessary, and will long go on with a very small amount of lung, and with very little difficulty in breathing. Another noteworthy case of lung disease is a very different person, the notorious empiric, St. John Long. He professed to cure con- sumption, but in reality, like other similar quacks, he only cured cases of cough and bronchitis with symptoms imitative of those in phthisis. He unquestionably caused death in sev- eral instances by a treatment which would be perfectly harm- less in some cases, but which was fatal to many delicate women. He was himself struck down by consumption, and died at the early age of thirty-seven. One of our most promis- ing doctors in chest complaints. Dr. Hope, who, at an early age, had reached almost the summit of his profession, was prematurely cut off by consumption. Medicine has often very startling surprises in store, which are frequently gloomy enough, though sometimes of a pleasant THE JilYSTERIES OF JIEDICtXE. 225 nature. "We will, in the first place, select some of the former. A clergyman in the neighborhood of Mount Edgecumbe was one day walking very fast, when he was met by his doctor. He explained, in conversation-'vthat he was suffering fi-om pains of indigestion, and was in the habit of taking long walks in order to get rid of them. The medical man insisted on examining him, and then explained to him that he was in fact suffering from aneurism of the heart, and that these long walks were the worst things possible for him ; and was obliged to add that the disease would some day prove suddenly fatal. The statement was sadly verified. He died suddenly while preach- ing in church. A young nobleman in the country' was danger- ously ill with a fever. Physicians were summoned from differ- ent quarters, and the bishop relates that no less a sum than seven hundred guineas was paid to them as fees. All the means used were unavailing, and the patient sank rapidly. When he was quite given over, and left alone to die, he was heard to murmur a request for beer. A large goblet, contain- ing nearly a quart of small beer, was handed to him, which he drained at a draught, and then drank again. He recovered. Burney, in his History of Music, refers to the case of a lady who could hear only while a drum loas heating / insomuch that her husband actually hired a drummer, as a servant, in order to enjoy the pleasure of her conversation. A certain Frenchman, Yigueul de Marville, insists that musical sounds contribute to the health of the body and the mind, assist the circulation of the blood, dissipate vapors, and open the vessels, so that the action of perspiration is freer. He tells a story of a person of distinction, who assured him, that once, being sud- denly seized by violent illness, instead of a consultation of phy- sicians, he immediately called a band of musicians, and theii violins played so well in his inside, " that his viscera became perfectly in tune, and in a few hours were completely be- 15 226 THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. calmed." Naturalists assert that animals are sensible to the charms of the divine art ; why not the biped, man ? The well- known line will occur to the reader, " Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast ; " and the great dramatist predicates moral delinquency where the effect of its dulcet influence is not acknowledged — " The man that hath no nausic in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils." A little plaintive, soothing melody after djnner has long been resorted to as an auxiliary to the digestive process ; the effect is to induce a temporary state of mental quiescence and repose, while it confers all the advantages of sleep with none of its disadvantages. It is "putting the soul in tune," as Milton expresses it, for any subsequent exertion. We have an instance on record of David in his youth, with his harp, striving by the aid of music to cure the mental de- rangement of Saul ; a method of cure in those early times which seems to have been commonly resorted to. Many of the classic writers allude to the practice ; some even proposing it as a certain remedy for a dislocated limb, the gout, or even the bite of a viper. The medicinal properties of music were mani- fold and marvellous. For example : a fever was removed by a song ; deafness, by a trumpet ; and the pestilence chased away by the harmonious lyre ! That deaf people can hear best in a great noise, is a fact alleged by some moderns in favor of the ancient mode of removing deafness by the trumpet. Medical lore would not probably have been so far behind the other sciences, had its professors but husbanded, in a collect- ive form, the experience of the past, as has been the case in most of the other sciences. To begin with Galen, as a starting THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. 227 point, it will be sufficient to remark, that lie reprobated such prescriptions as were composed of any portions of the human body ; and he severely condemned Xenocrates for having in- troduced them, as being worse than useless, as well as positive- ly unjustifiable. Yet these abominable ingredients continued in use till, what may be styled, the reformation of medicine, in the seventeenth century. Human bones were administered internally as a cure for ulcers, and tha bones were to be those of the part affected. The mummery of medicine, with all its cabalistic and unintelligible mysticisms, formed a part of the age which sanctioned such buffoonery. The state of medicine may be considered as the criterion or barometer of the state of morals, as well as science, in a nation. This is evidenced by the igno- rance and degradation of Europe so late, even as the tenth century, when there was scarcely a physician in Spain. Great was Diana of the Ephesians, and we follow suit, for, great are we in our credulity, great in our manifold sufferings, great in our multitudinous quacks, great in the princely for- tunes we bestow npon those vampires who batten upon disease and sorrow. Take up the fii'st newspaper that comes to hand ; look over the advertisements entitled Medical ; is there not a panacea for every disability — consumption, dyspepsia, in short, everything that can make up the total of human wretchedness or human infirmity? How wonderful that death is still the great iconoclast, in spite of potions, ointments, and drops ; in spite of pills that are infallible, in spite of philanthropists who profess to eradicate all the " ills that flesh is heir to," and others that never existed. Yet, after all the empiricism that belongs to medicine, or that is too often associated with it, there is yet very much in it that demands our respect. It is no evidence to the contrary, moreover, that the best practitioners give to their patients the 228 THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. least medicine. Many persons say tliey do not believe in medi- ' cine, yet, like sceptics in religion, they usually are eager enough to seek the aid they can render, in the sick or dying hour. To speak with precision, medicine is an art that involves the ap- plication of many sciences ; and while it is true that the physi- cian may be, or ought to be, master of the situation, when he prescribes for his patient ; that is no reason for paying to him a blind superstitious reverence, as if he were supernaturally endowed. If Hippocrates be regarded as the father of physic, science was then in its infancy, and it is to the collective wisdom and experience of his successors that it owes all its present glory and renown. In justice to the many illustrious benefactors of their age, we must not forget that, although the profession has been dis- graced by empirics and quacks, a host of great names have ennobled it by their virtues, their brilliant attainments and services, as well as their self-denial. Such men have been indeed blessings to their age, and to the world at large; and the fragrant memory of their benevolence and skill, would, of course, go far to redeem the profession they ennobled, from the rebuke of charlatanism. It is to such men as Harvey, Garth, Radcliffe, Meade, Askew, Pitcairn, Baillie, Cullen, Freind,. Linacre, Cains, Hunter, Denman, Velpeau, Liston, Mott, and Brocklesby, the friend of Johnson, with many others of refined literary attainments, that it owes much of its glory. Pope, a few days prior to his decease, records the following- high testimony to the urbanity and courtesy of his medical friends, — "There is no end of my kind treatment from the Faculty ; they are in general the most amiable companions^ and the best friends, as well as the most learned men I know." And Dryden, in the postscript to his translation of Yirgil, speaks in a similar way of the profession. "That I have THE JfYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. 229 recovered," says he, " in some measure the health which I had lost by too much application to this work, is owing, next to God's mercy, to the skill and care of Dr. Guibbons and Dr. Ilobbs, the two ornaments of their profession, whom I can only pay by this acknowledgment." The healino; art is not without its heroes also. Madame de Geulis relates the story of one who, to save his native city from the ravages of the plague, voluntarily surrendered himself a sacrifice. The incident is as follows : " The plague raged vio- lently in Marseilles. Every link of affection was broken ; the father turned from the child, the child from the father ; ingra- titude no longer excited indignation. Misery is at its height %vhen it thus destroys every generous feeling, thus dissolves every tie of humanity ! The city became a desert, grass grew in the streets, a funeral met you at Qvery step. The physicians assembled in a body at the Hotel de Ville, to hold a consulta- tion on the fearful disease, for which no remedy had yet been discovered. After a long deliberation, they decided unani- mously that the malady had a peculiar and mysterious charac- ter, which opening a corpse alone might develop — an operation it was impossible to attempt, since the operator must infallibly become a victim in a few hours, beyond the power of human art to save him, as the violence of the attack would preclude their administering the customary remedies. A dead pause succeeded this fatal declaration. Suddenly a surgeon named Guyon, in the prime of life, and of great celebrity in his pro- fession, rose, and said firmly, ' Be it so : I devote myself for the safety of my country. Before this numerous assembly I swear, in the name of humanity and religion, that to-morrow, at the break of day, I will dissect a corpse, and write down as I proceed what I observe.' " He took with him his instruments, and locking himself up in the room with a dead victim of the disease he finished the 230 THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. dreadful operation, recording in detail liis surgical observa- tions ; he threw the papers into a vase of vinegar, and then sought the lazaretto, where within twelve hours he expired. Noble hero ! he sacrificed his own life for that of his country ! A word or two regarding the modern systems of Ilomceo- pathy and Hydropathy, both which are, as might have been anticipated, obnoxious to the advocates of the old system of Allopathy. The Hahnemannian theory, however, now num- bers among its supporters many intelligent and philosophic minds, although the infinitesimal reduction of its doses to the millionth, billionth, and trillionth part of a grain, is more than enough to stagger the belief of those who have been accus- tomed to solutions by the pailful, and powders in any quantity. The principle of the Homoeopathists is founded in truth and reason, but its administrators require to be well skilled in its doctrines, as their remedial agents include many of the most subtle and powerful poisons. We are for Ilomceopathy on account of its modest inflictions upon the poor, affiicted patient, who, in appealing to the old system, has often as much to abide in his shattered corporeity from the attacks of the cura- tive process, as from the original disease. The logic of the following may be questioned, but it is, of course, intended as a sarcasm : " The Homoeopathic system, sir, just suits me to a tittle, It clearly proves of physic you caimot take too little ; If it be good in aU complaiats to take a dose so small. It surely must be better stiU, to take no dose at aU." There is only one suggestion we have to offer in this con- nection — it is this : ought not the Homoeopathic practitioners to regulate their fees in the ratio of their doses? The cold-water system is rapidly extending its popularity among us. Of mesmerism, and its application to nervous and neuralgic diseases, we shall not pause to notice. The advantages oi THE IVIYSTERIES OF MEDICESTE. 231 chloroform have been so fully discussed by everybody, that we shall simply give the reader a taste of one of these exposi- tions in a kind of mock heroic verse, cut from an English paper : " Take but a snuff at this essence an^sthetical, Dropp'd upon a handkerchief, or bit of sponge, And on your eyelids 'twill clap a seal hermetical, And your senses in a trance that instant plunge, " Then you may be pinch'd and punctured, bump'd and thump'd and whack'd about, Scotch'd, and scored, and lacerated, cauterized, and hacked about ; And though tender as a chick — a Sybarite for queasiness — Flay'd alive, unconscious of a feeling of uneasiness. " Celsus will witness our deft chirurgeons presently. Manage operations as he said they should ; Doiag them safely, speedily, and pleasantly, Just as if the body were a log of wood. ' ' Teeth, instead of being drawn with agonies immeasurable, Now wOl be extracted with sensations rather pleasurable, Chloroform will render quite agreeable the parting with Any useless member the patient has been smarting with." An instance of the disadvantages of this anaesthetical agent is seen in the following incident however, which occurred at Taunton Hospital, where, as a patient was undergoing amputa- tion of a limb while under the influence of chloroform, the nurse let fall the bottle containing the gas, which quickly spread its somniferous effects over the operators, and some time elapsed before they recovered from their partial insensi- bility. There are several distinct varieties among the medical pro- fession ; as the following : First, the silent doctor, who is evidently a lover of creature comforts, and whose taciturn, dignified, and mysterious deportment passes current with the unsuspecting, for profound wisdom. He ingeniously manages 232 THE MYSTERIES OF IVDEDICINB. to secure the greatest number of patients with the fewest possible words. "The silent doctor is a great favorite with the fair sex ; they regard him as Coleridge did his quondam acquaintance of dumpling celebrity, and think that as stillest streams are ofttimes the deepest, so there must be something intensely fascinating in the said doctor, if it only could be dis- covered. Everybody knows, too, how each individual woman believes herself endowed by nature with peculiar faculties for discovering the occult, for unravelling the mysterious ; and who more mysterious than the silent doctor ? " But, leaving him now in their safe keeping, our next illus- tration shall be of the sceptical doctor. Though confessedly against his interest, he is very slow to believe that anything is the matter with anybody. If people are resolved to be quacked, he finds a bread-pill, to be taken four times a day — a safe and wholesome remedy. Still, though mortally averse to old women and nervous invalids, when there is real suffer- ing, the sceptical doctor feels keenly, all the more, perhaps, from his efforts to conceal it. " Of all others, perhaps, the most provoking is the talkative doctor. Well versed in almost every subject, fond of litera- ture, of politics, and of science, it is difficult to keep him to the point, and obtain any definite opinion or practical advice from him. Quite forgetful that you are in actual pain, or grievous discomforture, a single hint or remote allusion is suflacient to draw forth a learned discussion on ancient or mediaeval art, or the marbles of Nineveh." Then, there is another type, which may be styled the mor- bid doctor, who is ever looking at the dark side of a case, and whose visage is long and lugubrious. A vision of such an impersonation of the dismal, is of itself sufficient to shock the nerves of a patient and aggravate his disease, of whatsoever nature it may be. THE IHYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. 233 So mucli, then, for our pleasantries with the gentlemen of the curative art. Let us look, for a moment, at that troublesome personage, whose oft-dilapidated condition makes such onerous demands upon the doctor's skill. Physiologists assert that this " paragon of animals" is physically a machine — a steam-engine — his brain the engine, his lungs the boiler, his viscera the furnace. That he glides along the track of life, often at the fearful speed of sixty or seventy pulsations in a minute, never stop- ping, so long as the machine is in working order. He has -also been compared to a steamship, a chemical laboratory, a distillery, a forcing-pump, a grist-mill, a furnace, an electric telegraph. Man has the power of imitating almost every motion but that of flight. To effect these he has, in maturity and health, 60 bones in his head, 60 in his thighs and legs, 62 in his arms and hands, and 67 in the trunk. He has also 434 muscles. His heart makes 60 pulsations in a minute. There are also three complete circulations of the blood, in the short space of an hour. Who thinks he carries so much about with him ? Whittier observes : " It is the special vocation of the doctor to grow familiar with suffering — to look upon humanity dis- robed of its pride and glory — robbed of all its fictitious ornaments — weak, hopeless, naked — and undergoing the last fearful metempsychosis, from its erect and god-like image, the living temple of an enshrined divinity, to the loathsome clod and the inanimate dust ! Of what ghastly secrets of moral and physical disease is he the depository ! " "With what a sanctity, therefore, is the character of the true physician invested. It has been well said, that the theory and practice of medicine is the noblest and most difficult science in the world ; and that there is no other art for the practice of which tho most thorough education is so essential. 234 THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. Add to this the society of all kinds into whicli the medical man is thrown, the knowledge of human nature he acquires thereby, the many beautiful traits of domestic affection and woman's love, which pass daily before him, the gratitude of some hearts, the cordial fi*iendship of others, the respect to be attained from all — and it will scarcely be denied that the prac- tice of medicine is one of the most interesting and delightful^ as well as responsible, of all professions. In fine, since there is a sacredness in the trust confided to the professor of the healing art, a corresponding fidelity to its claims and responsibilities is indispensably requisite ; and, consequently, he who is recklessly indifferent to these, is guilty of the highest style of crime, in a wanton betrayal of the faith reposed in him. This would exclude quacks. Our own age has made several remarkable discoveries in medical science. Look at the grand discovery of chloroform, which has saved thousands of hours of helpless agony. There is no tale of daring- and discovery more remarkable than the narrative of the hours which Professor Simpson, and his friends in Edinburgh, spent in testing various narcotic agencies, until they became first exhilarated and then insensible, while testing chloroform, and awoke to the conviction that they had now become acquainted with the most powerful anaesthetic known or conceived. The discovery of cod-liver oil has been a boon of the most inestimable kind. Dr. Williams states that in a certain time he prescribed it in eleven thousand cases, and in ninety-five per cent with beneficial results. It is now known that consumption is curable in its earlier stages. The average length of consumptive cases, which used to be two years, is now prolonged to five years. Even where medicine cannot heal, it obtains one of its greatest triumphs in palliating a disorder. There never was a time in the history of medicine THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE. 235 when its soothing and alleviating side was so assiduously and successfully cultivated, as at the present day. Then the knowledge of the human frame daily grows more extensive and exact. Look at Laennec's wonderful discovery of the stethoscope. It is now known that of the three organs which make the tripod of life, brain, lungs, and heart (accord- ing to Bichat's theory, now generally received, death always issues from one of these three avenues), diseases of the heart, which were once thought exceedingly rare, are the most com- mon, and probably the least hurtful. It is half the battle with disease to know accurately what is really the matter with the patient. Harvey had heard the healthy sounds of the heart ; but its morbid sounds inform us now of the nature of its structural defects. The sounds of breathing must, count- less times ere this, have met the ear ; but it was reserved for our own days, to study them so often as to enable every tyro to say what is the state of those great organs, hidden from our view, but so indispensable to life. And so with percussion. Nay, with our eyes we can now behold, for the first time in its living acts, that marvellous mechanism in its most exquisite and joy-inspiring movements, as well as when it is oppressed by disease, which stands as a sentinel at the orifice of the air- passages, and on which the voice and speech primarily depend. Thus much, then, about the mission of medicine and its administrators — the doctors. When we do indulge a little in- trospection, and observe what a marvellous piece of mechanism the " house we live in " is, we ought to be grateful for what- ever aid the wit and skill of the doctor may afford, rather than ridicule his vocation. When we look abroad, and see the surg- ing multitudes that crowd th& streets and lanes of our cities, and remember, that, notwithstanding their gay and flaunting attire and healthy look, that ere to-morrow, or to-morrow- week, many may be summoned to a sick room, the victims of disease, 236 THE IVIYSTERIES OF JIEDICINE. we shall learn the better to prize the province of the kindly physician. ' ' This is the way physicians mend — or end us, Secundum artem — but although -we sneer, In health — we call them to attend us. Without the least propensity to jeer." Byron hits it exactly — when in health, we throw physic to the dogs, and laugh at the doctor ; bnt, when we are pros- trated by disease, when " sickness sits caverned in the hollow eye," we are glad enough to seek his aid, and remunerate him, as far as we can, for it. Some, after having passed under the recuperative process, are ungrateful enough to forget the doctor's fee. TALK ABOUT TREES. What more sublime and spirit-stirring than to " thread the mazy grove," to wander beneath the thick overhanging foliage, penetrating into its embowered recesses ? The impos- ing grandeur of the scene impresses us with a religious awe, and we bow reverently before these visible tokens of the Creator's beneficence and power, as seen in myriad forms of vernal beauty. From the creeping ivy, that clings with fond tenacity to the crumbling ruin, as if to rescue it from the de- stroying touch of Time, to the stately '• kings of the forest," in their leafy grandeur, what a world of wonders is encircled, inviting our astonished gaze. With what infinite variety of beauty is the broad realm of nature decked — what an endless succession of delicate forms do we discover in the spiral grass, the genera of plants, and the ever- varying foliage of trees. The Elm, with its rich pendulous branches, the sturdy oak, the maple, " clad in scarlet and gold," the lioary poplar, the *' tulip-tree," with its brilliant, glossy leaves and blossoms, and 238 TALK ABOUT TREES. many others, with whose generous shade, graceful outline, and exceeding beauty, we all are familiar. As majestic forms of beauty, which none can contemplate, without having the finer sensibilities of their nature brought into exercise, trees may well be regarded with grateful love, if not with a feeling of veneration. Not only did they form the luxurious arbors of repose in Eden, they constituted also the arched and leafy temples of the first worshippers. " The groves were God's first temples." The oratories of the Jews were beneath the shadow of olive trees. The ancient Druids of Gaul, Britain, and Germany were ac- customed to perform their mystic rites and sacrifices in the re- cesses of the forest ; and our Pilgrim Fathers worshipped God under a like canopy. " Do not trees talk — have they not leafy lungs — do they not, at sunrise, when the wind is low, and when the birds are carolling their songs, play sweet music ? Who has ever heard the soft whisper of the green leaves in spring time, on a sunny morn- ing, that did not feel as though rainbow gleams of kindness were running through his heart ? — and then, when the morn- ing-glory, like a nun before the shrine of God, discloses her beautiful face, — and the moss-roses open their crimson lips, sparkling with the nectar that falls fi'om heaven, who does not bless his Maker? — and when autumn comes, the season of ' the sere and yellow leaf,' — when the wheat is in its golden prime, and the corn waves like silken tassels in the charmed air, is not minded of the reaper — Death ? " * Forests have been by a poetic fancy styled " Nature's no- blest- sanctuaries." The over-arching branches of trees first suggested to the skill of the sculptor the delicate fret-work, * De Vere. TALK ABOUT TREES. 239 and arborescent decorations of our ecclesiastical architecture. The leafy column, nave and transept of our grand old cathe- drals, were but the imitations of art, drawn fi*om the leafy soli- tudes of Nature. The trees of the field and forests, are replete with poetic, historic, and sacred associations : the voice of prayer and psalm has oft ascended to Heaven, from beneath their leafy recesses ; and the welkin has also resounded with the clash of arms and the wail of sori-ow beneath their shade. How largely, too, have the classic poets, like Euripides, been indebted to the inspiration of the sylvan groves of Greece, for their themes. The idea, which some amateur naturalists seem to advance, that trees and flowers have intelligence, is not new to poetry, though not accepted by science. Ovid in his Metamorphoses^ and other writers of the classic mythology, hold to it. Few objects in nature are capable of exciting in us emotions more deep and impressive than a majestic tree. If trees, in- deed, had tongues to tell us what they have witnessed, how many a legend of thrilling interest, of patient suffering, heroic achievement, or of deadly strife, might they not rehearse to us ! But theirs is a silent eloquence, and like the music of the spheres, potent and persuasive only to those whose inner ear is attent to their voices. How royally do those patriarchal kings of the forest rear their leaf -crowned heads ; and how sweetly amidst their foliage do the feathered songsters charm the syl- van solitudes with their minstrelsy ; while Flora, with a lavish prodigality, scatters her festive glories alike o'er meadow, copse, hill-side, forest, and field. " Hail, old patrician trees, so great and good I Hail, ye plebeian underwood I Where the poetic birds rejoice, And for their quiet nests and plenteous food, Pay with their grateful voice ! " * * Cowley. 240 TALK ABOUT TREES. The mention of ancestral trees suggests to us those grand old Cedars of Lebanon, with their histories reaching adown the centuries as some conjecture, even to the age of Solomon, and the august and matchless Temple of Jerusalem. The Eastern poets say, "the cedar bears winter in its head, spring on its shoulders, and autumn on its bosom, while summer sleeps at its feet." There is a beautiful legend of the " Tree of Life," which, in the words of John Evelyn^ reads thus : " Trees and woods have twice saved the whole world, — first by the ark, then by the Cross; making full amends for the evil fruit of the tree in Paradise, by that which was borne on the tree at Golgotha ! " The palm, once so prolific in Palestine, but now scarcely to be seen there, is frequently referred to in the Sacred Scrip- tures, historically and allegorically. Palms have been styled " Princes of the Vegetable Kingdom," from the fact that they are the most valuable of all ; every portion — the bark, fruit, leaf, and wood, being available for use. The Palm-tree most abounds in Persia, Syria, Arabia, and the Delta of Egypt, — lands that do not 3'ield much corn. This was regarded as the traditional tree, whose branches sweetened the bitter waters of Marah, as furnishing the festal boughs of the Feast of Taber- nacles, and, as also giving its name to Jericho — the " City of Palms." The Palm became to tlie Jews, and also the Greeks and Pomans, the emblem of Yictory : and it will be remem- bered that our Saviour's entry into Jerusalem was greeted with branches of this tree. The Olive has also its historic associations, sacred and pro- fane. Noah's dove bore an olive leaf ; the Israelites held it in reverence ; and its wood formed the material of the door-posts of the Temple ; while from the Olive also were carved the Cherubins of the Oracle. Among the sacred mountains of Pales- TALK ABOUT TREES. 241 tine was the ever memorable Mount of Olives. As a Chris- tian symbol, the olive branch indicates peace. The Holly, — with which at Christmas tide we are accus- tomed to deck our churches, — was to the ancient races of the North, a sign of the life which preserved nature through the desolations of winter. Southey's well-known lines on the Holly suggest themselves here : " 0, reader ! hast thou ever stood to see the Holly tree ? The eye that contemplates it well, perceives its glossy leaves, Ordered by an Intelligence so wise, As might confound the atheist's sophistries. " Then there is Chaucer's oak, so called from the tradition that it was planted by the hand of the pioneer-poet of England ; it yet stands in Dennington Park, England, for aught we know to the contrary. The oak in the Kew Forest, against which Tyrrell's arrow glanced before it killed William Rufus, which was standing until a century since, has, like the Royal Oak, at Boscobel House, which screened the fugitive King Charles II., disappeared. Wallace's oak, at Torwood, Stirlingshire, under which the hero is believed to have convened and addressed his followers, is still extant. The Charter-oak at Hartford, Con- necticut, believed to have been six hundred years old when the Commonwealth was founded, was so called because in it was concealed the British charter of Governor Andros, in 1687. It fell about a dozen years ago. Another memorable oak was that which stood until 1857, on the bank of the Genesee river, 'New York ; it was pre-historic ; beneath its wide-spread branches, doubtless, many an Indian war-council was held, for its age has been computed at not less than five centuries. At Allonville, in N"ormandy, we are told there is, or was, an aged oak, the trunk of which was so large as to admit of being fitted up as a place of worship. At Kidlington, England, we read of an enormous, hollow oak, which seiwed for a time as the 16 242 TALK ABOUT TREES. village prison, — from which we may infer that the criminal calendar of that quiet hamlet of Oxfordshire, could not have been excessively crowded. If, as tradition says, King John once held his parliament under the great Torworth chestnut, in Gloucestershire, he might have done the same with greater facility under the then, and still existing grand old trees near Datchett, Windsor, adjoining what is known as his " hunting lodge," Another giant oak is on record, known as Damory's, in Dor- setshire, of which the circumference is stated at sixty-eight feet the cavity of the trunk being sixteen feet wide and twenty feet high. It was fitted up for what do you suppose ? — an ale- house, and used as such during the Commonwealth. The re- markable chestnut, on Mount Etna, known as the " Tree of one hundred horses," which has been supposed, from its immense proportions, to be five trees united, has been since ascertained to spring from one root, although it is said to measure two hundred feet in circumference. There is one other legendary tree that deserves mention, — that majestic old Pine, which, until quite recently, stood near Fort Edward, on the Hudson ; for it witnessed the sad fate of the beautiful but hapless Jane McCrea, who, when captured by the Indians, in 1777, lost her life by the very bullet intended for her savage and relentless captors. lS"o one is likely to forget the " rugged elms " and " yew-trees' shade," beneath which repose the ashes of Gray ; or the neighboring " beeches," under whose leafy branches the " Elegy" was born, or indeed the thick grove of overhanging elms that embosom the " ivy-mantled tower " of Upton church. Nor ought we to forget that noble old elm, known as "Washing- ton's elm, since beneath its outstretched arms, the General first stepped forward to his officers and assumed the command of the American forces. There is, or was, until recently, a famous yew-tree near TALK ABOUT TREES. 243 Staines, England, which stood prior to the meeting of the Barons at Runny mede, when King John was compelled to grant the Magna Charta. Shakspeare, Milton, and Pope, have each their memorial trees ; the two former, — Mulberry trees, and the latter the Willow. Pope's " weeping willow " sprang from a small twig which the poet received from his friend Lady Montague, at Smyrna, and which he planted near his villa at Twickenham. This tree, which was felled in 1801, was the progenitor of its race in Great Britain, and the United States ; a British officer during the war of the Revolution, having brought over a twig from the tree at Twickenham, which he presented to Mr. Cus- tis, who planted it in his grounds at Abingdon, Virginia, where it took root and flourished, and from which twigs were often transplanted. On her return from France, Mary Queen of Scots brought over with her a little Sycamore tree, which she planted in the gardens of Holyrood ; and from this source, it is said, have sprung the beautiful groves of sycamores now to be seen in Scotland. We might refer to multitudes of other interesting instances ; for example the Holly with its sacred allegoric as- sociations ; and many other notable objects in the grounds at Blenheim, Woburn Abbey, Wotton, Kew Gardens, Hampton Court, Kensington, and Chiswick Botanical Gardens, so rich in exotics from all parts of the globe, — not to speak of the superb grounds at Crystal Palace, Yersailles, St. Cloud, and other notable places. The Dragon-tree of Orotava is described as about seventy- five feet in height and sixteen in circumference at the base. All travellers to Teneriffe visit this gigantic lily. Tradition affirms that it was an object of veneration with the native Guanchos, as the olive and the elm of Ephesus, were to the ancient Greeks. 244 TALK ABOUT TREES. The bark of trees, which is essentially fibrous and cellular tissue, presents a great diversit}' of appearance. This bark consists of a succession of annular layers, which are covered with a thin cuticle or skin. We can only refer to the cork- tree. This beautiful tree, which is a species of oak, and fur- nishes to us one of the most useful commercial products, ac- quires an extraordinary thickness of layer, known as cork. This mass of cork attains by degrees to a considerable thick- ness ; and if not removed, would crack so deeply, as to become unfit for use to which it is devoted. This tree is peculiar to hot climates. Algeria possesses several forests of the cork tree, in course of working. Spain has long been celebrated for its produce. The crops of cork are generally gathered once every eight years. The banyan-tree is considered one of the most remarkable natural phenomena in India, each tree being in itself a grove, and in some instances of prodigious dimen- sions ; while this self-augmenting tree seems to bid defiance to decay. This tree is worshipped by the Hindoos. Humboldt refers to a magnificent specimen of the banyan, the large trunks of which number three hundred and fifty, the smaller ones amounting to about five thousand ; " each of these," he states, "is constantly sending forth branches and hanging roots to form other trunks." Seven thousand persons are said to find ample room to repose under its shade. Among the arborescent marvels of nature, may be mentioned the Baobab tree of tropical Africa, referred to by Livingstone. Its trunk does not exceed fifteen or eighteen feet in height, but its girth is enormous, attaining, as it sometimes does, the circumference of thirty to forty feet. This trunk separates at the summit into branches fifty to sixty feet long, which bend toward the earth at their extremities ; which, seen at a dis- tance, presents the appearance of a huge dome, or ball, of ver- dure, over a circuit of a hundred and sixty feet ! Its flowers TALK ABOUT TREES. 245 are proportioned to its gigantic trunk, — often measuring five by eight inches. The Baobab abounds most in Senegal, where it was first discovered. There is a singular use made of the trunk of this tree, when hollow, by the negroes ; when any of their Guerrots, or musicians and poets die, they bury them within the trunk, and close it up with a plank ; for these su- perstitious people imagine that if they were to bury their sorcerers, as they consider them^ in the earth, they would draw down upon themselves the Celestial malediction. There is something poetic in this custom of a barbarous people, which leads them to bury their poets between heaven and earth, in the side of the vegetable king. The picturesque scenery of San Joaquin and Tulare valleys is on a scale of grandeur surpassing that of Switzerland. Throughout this Alpine region hundreds of lofty peaks rise one above another, the highest reaching an altitude of some 15,000 feet above the water line. The Sierra Nevada mountain-range comprises above one hundred peaks over ten thousand feet high; and one. Mount Shasta, towers in solitary grandeur 7,000 feet above everything in its vicinity, and some others are sup- posed even to exceed this in altitude. And this is not all ; im- agine an entire forest, extending as far as the eye can reach, of trees from eight to twelve feet in diameter, and from two hun- dred to three hundred feet high thickly grouped, their trunks marvellously straight with a dense canopy of branching foliage ; and you may obtain a faint idea of the magnificence of the great forests of California. As far as can be ascertained, the greatest of the mammoth trees of California are the following ; namely, one measuring twenty-seven feet in diameter, — its circumference having been, before it became partially burned at the base, nearly one hun- dred feet, and its height three hundred and thirty feet ! The other, in the Mariposa grove, known as the " grizzly giant," 246 TALK ABOUT TREES. which is estimated at upwards of 500 years old, has a dia meter of thirty feet, and even some of its branches measure six feet in diameter. These Titanic trees liave been botanically named, Sequoia gigantea from Sequoya, a Cherokee chief who invented an Indian alphabet of characters, which the tribe and the missionaries adopted. These California trees are, it is be- lieved, only surpassed by an Australian species ; one of which Miiller, the Botanist, computed to measure four hundred feet in height. Of fruit trees, with which all are familiar, it is needless to speak; we may, however, refer to the date tree, wliich affords to many tribes of Upper Egypt, and to multitudes in other countries, almost their only sustenance. It is a remarkable in- stance of the design of Providence to render most parts of the earth habitable, that the date-palm abounds everywhere on the verge of the vast African desert, where no grain, and scarcely any other tree can grow. Linnaeus asserts that the region of palms was the first country of our race, and that man is essen- tially palmivorous. Burkhardt informs us that date trees often constitute the dowry of an eastern bride. The bread-fruit tree supplies the natives of the Polynesian isles, their principle ar- ticle of diet ; its fruit is as large as a melon, the eatable part white as snow, and when roasted has a sweet taste. The cocoa- nut tree supplies, as we all know, a pleasant kind of food with a milky fluid ; the plantain, or banana, is in the torrid zone what wheat and rice are to other regions. The maple and the beet root, alike supply a saccharine matter, which is used very generally ; and the birch tree yields, by incision, a copious supply of juice, which is made the basis of a light and agree- able wine. The beautiful Spanish chestnut tree, also bears a fruit upon which the people are said largely to subsist ; and we are well acquainted with the article, for when roasted it di- vides the choice with the hazel, the hickory, walnut, the Brazil, TALK ABOUT TREES. 247 and other nuts. Not every buyer, or even seller of sago, knows it to be the heart of a tree, nor that it is used, in Asia for bread. When mature, which is about thirty years' growth, the branches show a yellowish meal ; the tree is then felled, and on splitting it the sago appears, resembling the pith of elder. The eatable sago is the meal parted from the filaments. The coffee plant, or tree, for it sometimes attains to eighteen feet in height, yields the well-known berry, from which we de- rive the delicious beverage, used at breakfast ; its counterpart, the tea plant, also possesses a world-wide fame, and forms the decoction so refreshing to the weary, and is such an indispen- sable accompaniment with the loquacious Johnsons and Pioz- zis of all countries. Thus it will be seen we stand indebted, not only for many internal comforts, but some external advantages also, to the scions of the forest ; and even when trees have served for util- ity, and graceful decoration to the cottage or the landscape, we cut them down for fuel, or convert them to a thousand other important uses, in the construction of ships, houses, and the numerous arts of life. New York City, till recently possessed a relic of olden time in its Stuyvesant pear-tree, which was planted by that notable Dutch Governor, in 1647, and bore fruit until a brief interval of its being cut down in 1860. The tree that inspired the pathetic appeal in its behalf, by George P. Morris, — " Woodman, spare that tree," stood on the spot now forming the corner of St. Paul's, on Church street, between Yesey and Fulton. ' ' Woodman, forbear thy stroke ! cut not its earth-bound ties ; Ob, spare that aged oak, now towering to the skies ! When but an idle boy, I sought its grateful shade ; In all their gushing joy, here, too, my sisters played : My mother kissed me here, — my father pressed my hand, — Forgive this foolish tear, but let that old oak stand 1" 248 TALK ABOUT TREES. The great Elm on Boston Common is of unknown age. It was a great tree when Indian chiefs held council beneath its shadow. The American Elm is an historic tree. Under its shade many interesting scenes have transpired, among them the preaching of Whitefield. It was beneath the shade of a noble elm that William Penn made his celebrated treaty with the Ked Men of the forest, adjoining what is now Philadelphia, or more precisely on a spot now occupied by Kensington, At Trenton, New Jersey, is an interesting Willow tree, it having sprang from a twig brought from the tree that over- shadowed the tomb of Napoleon, at St. Helena. After all we have attempted in these desultory references, much more remains yet unnoticed concerning the marvels of nature, among her shrubs, herbs, plants, mosses, lichens, fungi, and the algae of the world of waters. i0^^ki^- THE MODERN MOLOCH. "What is here? Gold I gold, yellow, glittering, precious gold. Saint-seducing gold ! " Shakspear-i. ' O, cursed love of gold ! when for thy sake The fool throws up his interest in both worlds." Young. The question proposed by little Paul, in Domhey and Son, is suggested by the caption of our chapter — " What's money ? " The reply of many would doubtless be the same as that re- turned to the young querist referred to — a mere mercantile one — namely, that it is currency, specie, and bank-notes, or gold, silver, and copper. But this did not suffice for little Paul ; he repeated his inquiry — " 1 mean what's money, after all ? " This is the question we propose to discuss in an illus- 250 " THE MODEEN MOLOCH. trative way. First as to its material. Gold and silver, styled the precious metals — are both pure, ductile, and malleable, and unaffected by most conditions of atmosphere. They are of intrinsic and positive worth, and were therefore adopted as the standards of valne, to represent all commercial exchanges. According to the Parian Chronicle, a record of the third century before Christ, Phiedon, king of Argos, in order to facilitate commerce, stamped silver money in the island of ^gina, B.C. 895. Money, as to its name, is derived from Juno Moneta, the Roman Temple where it was coined 260 b.c. The most ancient Jewish coins represented a jpo^ of manna, on one side, and AarorCs hlossom^ing rod on the other ; the inscription being in Samaritan. Jewish shekels were Is. 7<^. ; a talent was 3,000 shekels, or £342 3s. 9d sterling. The Egyptians did not coin till the accession of the Ptole- mies, nor the Jews till the age of the Maccabees; the most ancient known coins are the Macedonian, of the date of about 500 years before Christ. Athelstan first established a uniform coin in England. The Egbert silver coins were shillings, thrimsas, pennies, halflhigs, and feorthlings. Gold coin was introduced by Edward III., in six-shilling pieces, nearly equal in size, but not in weight, to modern sovereigns. Nohles followed at 6s. ^d., and became the lawyer's fee. Edward lY. coined angels, with a figure of Michael and the Dragon. Money had its equivalent in salt in Abyssinia — a small sliell called cowry, in Hindostan — dried fish in Iceland — and wam- pum among the North American Indians. Nails were for- merly in use in Scotland, as we learn from Smith's Wealth of Nations. To lack money, it has been remarked, is to lack a passport or admission-ticket into the pleasant places of God's earth — to THE MODERN MOLOCH. 251 much that is glorious and wonderful in nature, and nearly all that is rare, curious, and enchanting in art. Hood's lines suggest a little moralizing : "Gold! gold ! gold! gold! Bright and yellow, hard and cold, Molten, graven, hammered, rolled ; Heavy to get, and light to hold ; Hoarded, bartered, bought, and sold ; Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled ; Spumed by the young, but hugged by the old, To the very verge of the church-yard mould ; Price of many a crime \intold ; Gold ! gold ! gold ! gold ! " What has not man sacrificed upon the altar of Moloch ? his time, his health, his friendships, his reputation, his conscience, and even life itself, and all its great issues. E-ightly used, money is the procurer of the domestic comforts and luxuries, as well as the necessaries of life ; but when inordinately cher- ished and coveted, it becomes the bane of happiness and peace. In the affair of marriage, how much of disaster has it superin- duced — how much of infelicity entailed upon the domestic relations. Fuller wisely insists that it is much better to have your gold in the hand, than in the heart. A man's character is often indicated by his mode of using money. A vain man's motto is " win gold and wear it " — a generous man's " win gold and share it " — a miser's, " win gold and spare it " — a profligate's, "win gold and spend it" — a broker's, " win gold and lend it " — a fool's, " win gold and end it " — a gambler's, " win gold and lose it " — a wise man's, " win gold and use it." "Of all the evil propensities to which human nature is subject, there is no one so general, so insinuating, sc corruptive, and so obstinate, as the love of money. It begins to operate 252 THE MODERN MOLOCH. early, and it continues to the end of li:^e. One of the first lessons which children learn, and one which old men never forget, is the value of money. The covetous seek and guard it for its own sake, and the prodigal himself must first be avari- cious, before he can be profuse. This, of all our passions, is best able to fortify itself by reason, and is the last to yield to the force of reason. Philosophy combats, satire exposes, religion condemns it in vain ; it yields neither to argument, nor ridi- cule, nor conscience." * This love of money, which Holy Scjripture tells us is " the root of all evil," Jeremy Taylor describes as a vertiginous pool, suck- ing all into its vortex, to destroy it. That this love of gold is the master passion of the age, few will question. It is " the age of gold ; " the auriferous sands of the Pacific for the west- ern hemisphere, and those of Australia for the eastern, are incessantly pouring out their treasures to feed the insatiate cravings of avarice. The liturgy " on 'Change " seems to read — Man's chief end is tp make money, and to enjoy it while he can. The votaries of Mammon, however, do not enjoy their possessions — they have no leisure for it, in their ceaseless, toil- some efforts, to augment their fortunes. Thousands in the great city there are, who never look out of the narrow circle of self-interest ; whose decalogue is their arithmetic ; whose Bible is their ledger ; who have so con- tracted, and hardened, and indurated their natures, that in any spiritual estimate, they would only represent so many bags of dollars. It is indispensable, in some cases, that men should have money, for without it they would be worth nothing. This, however, offers no apology for the universal scramble after money. Is this money-mania the highest development of our * Hunter's Biography. THE MODERN MOLOCH. 253 vaunted civilization? — the swnmum honum of human exist- ence ? — the Ultima Thule of human effort ? " The plague of gold strikes far and near, And deep and strong it enters ; The purple cymar which we wear, Makes madder than the centaurs ; Our thoughts grow blank, our words grow strange, "We cheer the pale gold-diggers. Each soul is worth so much on 'Change, And marked, hke sheep, with figures." " Men work for it, fight for it, beg for it, steal for it, starve for it, lie for it, live for it, and die for it. And all the while, from the cradle to the grave, Nature and God are ever thun- dering in our ears the solemn question — ' What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? ' This madness for money is the strongest and the lowest of the pas- sions ; it is the insatiate Moloch of the human heart, before whose remorseless altar all the finer attributes of humanity are sacrificed. It makes merchandise of all that is sacred in human affections ; and even traffics in the awful solemnities of the eternal world." " Gone, the spirit-quickening leaven. Faith and love, and hope in heaven — All that warmed the earth of old. Dead and cold, its pulses flutter ; Weak and old, its parched lips nautter. Nothing nobler, nothing higher Than the tmappeased desire, The quenchless thirst for gold ! " Money is a good servant, but a bad master. It may be accused of injustice towards mankind, inasmuch as there are only a few who make false money, whereas money makes many false men. Mammon is the largest slaveholder in the 254 THE MODERN MOLOCH. world — it is a composition for takiug stains out of character — it is an altar on which self sacrifices to self. ' ' How many a man from love of pelf, To stuff his coffers, starves himself ; Labors, accumulates, and spares. To lay up ruin for his heirs ; Grudges the poor their scanty dole, Saves everything except his soul ; And always anxious, always vexed. Loses both this world and the next ! " Shakspeare defines the sordid passion as — " Worse poison to men's souls, Doing more murders in this loathsome world Than any mortal drug." In the words of Johnson, it is the " Wide- wasting pest ! that rages unconfined, And crowds with crimes the records of mankind ; For gold, his sword the hireling ruffian draws. For gold, the hireling judge distorts the laws ; Wealth heaped on wealth, nor truth nor safety buys, The dangers gather as the treasures rise." "The covetous man lives as if the world were made altogether for him, and not he for the world, to take in everything, and to part with nothing. Charity is accounted no grace with him, nor gratitude any virtue. In short he is a pest and a monster, greedier than the sea, and barrener than the shore." * " The wretch concentered all in self. Living, shall forfeit fair renown. And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung Unwept, unhonored, and unsung." Wealth usually ministers to the baser passions of our nature * South. THE MODERN MOLOCH. 255 — it engenders selfishness, feeds arrogance, and inspires a sense of self -security, and deadens and stultifies the nobler feelings and holier aspirations of the heart. Wealth is a source of end- less discontent ; it creates more wants than it supplies, and keeps its incumbent constantly craving, crafty, and covetous. Lord Bacon says, " I cannot call riches by a better name than the ' baggage ' of virtue. It cannot be spared or left behind, and yet it hindereth the march." " Misery assails riches, as lightning does the highest towers ; or as a tree that is heavy laden with fruit, breaks its own boughs, so do riches destroy the virtue of their possessor." Burton quaintly but forcibly observes, — " Worldly wealth is the devil's bait ; and those whose minds feed upon riches, re- cede in general, from real happiness, in proportion as their stores increase ; as the moon, when she is fullest of light, is furthest from the sun." A miser is, moreover, the most oblivious, as well as the most vindictive of mortals ; he is said to be always f or-getting, and never for-giving. He lives unloved, and dies unlamented. His self-denial is only surpassed by his denial of the poor and des- titute. The miser starves himself in the midst of plenty, that he may feast his imagination on his useless hoards. Avarice, unlike most other passions, becomes more exacting as its victim increases in age. Fielding speaks of a miser, who consoled himself on his death-bed " by making a crafty and advanta- geous bargain concerning his funeral, with an undertaker who had married his only child." There have been examples of misers who have died in the dark to save the cost of a candle. How debasing the passion which can survive every other feel- ing, sear the conscience, and deaden the moral sense ! " Of all creatures upon earth none is so despicable as the miser. He meets with no sympathy. Even the nurse who is hired to at- tend hini in his latest hours, loathes the ghastly occupation, and 256 THE MODERN MOLOCH. longs for the moment of her release ; for although the death- damp is already gathering on his brow, the thoughts of the de- parting sinner are still upon his gold ; and, at the mere jingle of a key, he starts from his torpor in a paroxysm of terror, lest a surreptitious attempt should be made upon the sanctity of his strong box. There are no prayers of the orphan or widow for him — not a solitary voice has ever breathed his name to heaven as a benefactor. One poor penny given away in the spirit of true charity would now be worth more to him than all the world contains ; he has never yet been able to divorce himself from his solitary love of lucre, or to part with one atom of his pelf. And so, from a miserable life — deserted, despised, he passes in- to a dread eternity ; and those whom he has neglected or mis- used, make merry with the hoards of the miser ! " * " Tlie aged man that coffers up his gold, Is plagued with cramps, and gouts, and painful fits, And scarce has eyes his treasure to behold ; But lite stUl pining Tantalus he sits. And useless bams the harvest of his wits ; Having no other pleasure of his gain But torment that it cannot cure his pain." The animating principle of both miser and hog is, of course, selfishness. Both are delvers of the grovelling sort, both are ill-tempered and sometimes cruel. It is noticed by a Swedish writer, that " the hog does not enjoy the society of man, as the dog does. He likes going about by himself, grunting in an un- dertone, which he prefers to raising his voice to its highest pitch." This is eminently true of the miser. He is thoroughly unsocial in his disposition, burrows by himself, and mutters to himself, not daring to raise his voice in manly tones, lest it should draw attention to his ill-gotten gains. * Blackwood. THE MODERN MOLOCH. 257 " Tlie wretched victim of avarice is ever striving to amass wealth by every expedient that will not subject him to the criminal laws, and to place it in security, is the great and ulti- mate object of his pursuit. Mammon is the great idol he wor- ships, and whatever the specious and plausible pretexts he may assume, he pays homage at no other shrine. In his selfish iso- lation, he surrenders himself up to the domination of his de- basing passion — a voluntary exile from the endearing ofiices of friendship, and the gentle charities of domestic and social life. The benio-n and blessed influence of heaven-born Peace sheds not her halcyon rays upon his dark and desolate heart. A miser is one who, though he loves himself better than all the world, uses himself worse : for he lives like a pauper in order that he may enrich his heirs, whom he naturally hates, because he knows they hate him." * At a subscription of the French Academy for some charita- ble object, each contributor putting in a louis d^or^ the collec- tor, by mistake, made a second application to a member noted for his penuriousness — " I have already paid," exclaimed the latter with some asperity. " I beg your pardon," said the ap- plicant, ■' I have no doubt but you paid ; I believe it though I did not see it." " And I saw it, and do not believe it," whis- pered Yoltaire. " Other passions have their holidays," says an old writer, " but avarice never suffers its votaries to rest." " O, cursed love of gold ! when for thy sake The fool throws up his interest in both worlds." " Joshua," said Ambrose, " could stop the course of the sun, but all his power could not stop the course of avarice. The sun stood still, but avarice went on ; Joshua obtained a victory * Horace Smith. 17 258 THE MODERN MOLOCH. when the sun stood still ; but when avarice was at work Joshua was defeated." We have other recorded facts in sacred story illustrative of the crime of cupidity. Achan's covetous humor made him steal that wedge of gold which served to " cleave his soul from God ; " it made Judas betray Christ ; and Absa- lom to attempt to pluck the crown from his father's head. Sands has written a beautiful apostrophe to Poverty, and by way of contrast, we cite a sentence or two : "They have chained the good goddess — they have beaten her and persecuted her ; but they cannot debase her. She has taken refuge in the souls of poets, of peasants, of artists, of martyrs, and of saints. Many children has she had, and many a divine secret lias she taught them. She does all the greatest and most beautiful things that are done in the world ; it is she who cultivates the fields, and prunes the trees — who drives the herds to pasture, singing the while all sweet songs — who sees the day-break, and catches the sun's fi.rst smile. It is she who inspires the poet, and makes eloquent the guitar, the violin, and the flute ; who instructs the dexterous artisan, and teaches him to hew stone, to carve marble, to fashion gold and silver, copper and iron. It is she who supplies oil for the lamp, who reaps the harvest fields, kneads bread for us, weaves our garment* , in summer and winter, and who maintains and feeds the world. It is she who nurses us in infancy, succors us in sorrow and sickness, and attends us to the silent sleeping-place of death. Thou art all gentleness, all patience, all strength and all com- passion. It is thou who dost reunite all thy children in a holy love, givest them charity, faith, hope, O, goddess of Poverty ! " Every man is rich or poor, according to the proportion be- tween his desires and enjoyments. Of riches, as of other things, the pursuit is more than the enjoyment ; "while we consideir them as the means to be used at some future time for the at- tainment of felicity, ardor after them secures us from weari- THE MODERN MOLOCH. 259 ness of ourselves ; but no sooner do we sit down to enjoy our acquisitions, than we find them insuflScient to fill up the vacui- ties of life. We are poor only when we want necessaries ; it is custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superflui- ties. Worthy Izaak Walton has something to say on this subject, too good to be omitted : " I have a rich neighbor that is always so busy that he has no leisure to laugh ; the whole business of his life is to get money, more money that he may still get more. He is still drudging, saying what Solomon says : ' The diligent hand mak- eth rich.' And it is true, indeed ; but he considers not that it is not in the power of riches to make a man happy ; for it was wisely said by a man of great observation, ' that there be as many miseries beyond riches, as on this side of them.' And yet heaven deliver us from pinching poverty, and grant that, having a competency, we may be content and thankful. Let us not repine, or so much as think the gifts of God unequally dealt, if we see another abound in riches, when, as God knows, the cares that are the keys that keep those riches, hang often so heavily at the rich man's girdle, that they clog him with weary days and restless nights, even where others sleep quietly." What material difference is it to us, provided we inhale the perfume of the fragrant flowers, whether they belong to our neighbor or ourself ; or whether the fair estate be the property of and called after the name of another, so we are refreshed with the vision ? We share a community of interest in this re- spect, in all the fair and beautiful things of earth. " For nature's care, to all her children just, With richer treasures and an ampler state Endows at large whatever happy man will deign to use them. His the city's pomp, the rural honors his — 260 THE MODERN MOLOCH. Whate'er adorns the princely dome, the column, and the arch, The breathing marble, and the sculptured gold — Beyond the proud possessor's narrow claim, His tuneful breast enjoys." Man is necessarily a selfish being to a certain extent, but the social principle is no less an attribute of his nature ; and the divine injunction requiring hira to love his neighbor as himself was doubtless imposed for the preservation of the weak and de- pendent, as well as being the palladium of all the virtues. As a class, the poor are, indeed, often prodigal of their gifts, while the affluent are no less penurious; the former may almost be said to rob themselves, while the latter defraud the necessitous of their just claims. To choose between the two conditions, indeed, were not difficult ; the miser sees dazzling visions, and wields the will of others at his nod, but to all other hopes and pleasures he is dead, and cut off from all con- nection with his kind. The miser's ideal sum of happiness is, always, — addition : yet he sometimes finds, at the end of the reckoning, that the sum total is misery. Does not the name import as much — for is there not, at least, an etymological connection between, — miser and misery ? " I am rich enough," says Pope to Swift, " and can afford to give away a hundred pounds a year. I would not crawl upon the earth without doing a little good. I will enjoy the pleasure of what I give, by giving it alive, and seeing another enjoy it. When I die, I should be ashamed to leave enough for a monu- ment, if a wanting friend was above ground." That speech of Pope is enough to immortalize him ; independently of his philosophic verse. The classic page furnishes examples of a noble contempt of wealth, and a virtuous preference of poverty over venality and lust of riches. These, however, are rather exceptions to the THE MODERN MOLOCH. 261 rule which sustains the converse of the proposition ; and be- fore turning to the bright side, let us briefly refer to one oi two instances of the baneful effects of avarice on the human heart. The history of nations, is, indeed, but little more than a chronicle of the crimes engendered by the cupidity of man- kind. The inordinate desire of wealth has been the occasion of more mischief and misery in the world than anything else. Some of the direst evils with which the world has ever been afflicted, have emanated from this source. Iso sooner had Columbus solved the problem of the Western Continent, than the accursed lust of gold began to fire the sordid hearts of his successors. Every species of perfidy, cruelty, and inhumanity towards the aborigines was practised against them, in order to extort from them their treasures. These mercenary wretches forced the natives of Hispaniola so mercilessly to delve and toil for the much-coveted ore, that tliey actually reduced their numbers, within less than half a centurj^, from two millions to about one hundred and fifty. The conquest of Mexico, by Cortez and his followers, impelled by the same insatiable pas- sion, was accompanied with horrors, atrocities, and slaughters, more dreadful and revolting than almost any recorded in the annals of our race. To prepare the way for enjoying the plunder they had in view, the unoffending Indians were butch- ered by thousands ; while carnage and every species of heart- less cruelty marked their progress of spoliation. In the siege of Mexico, no less than a hundred thousand of the natives were sacrificed ; and, as if to add to the effrontery and depra- vity of the act, it was perpetrated under the standard of the Cross, and with the invocation of the God of armies to aid the conquests. The like atrocities characterized the expedition of Pizarro for the conquest of Peru. Under perfidious profes- sions of amity, they captured the Inca, butchering some four thousand of his unresisting; attendants. 262 THE MODERN MOLOCH. The baneful effects of avarice, whether displayed in individ- ual conduct, or among communities of men, are the same. We must content ourselves with referring briefly to a few in- stances of the former, as illustrative of the force of this debas- ing evil. In the year 1790, died at Paris, literally of want, the well- known banker — Ostervald. This miserable victim of this dis- ease, a few days prior to his death, resisted the importunities of his attendant to purchase some meat for the purpose of making a little soup for him. " True, I should like the soup," he said, " but I have no appetite for the meat ; what is to be- come of that ? it will be a sad waste." This poor wretch died possessed of £125,000 sterling. Another desperate case was that of Elwes, whose diet and dress were alike of the most re- volting kind, and whose property was estimated at £800,000 sterling. Among other characteristic incidents related of him? it is said that on the approach of that dread summons which was to divorce him from his cherished gold, he exclaimed, " I will keep my money — nobody shall rob me of my property." We meet with the name of Daniel Dancer, whose miserly propensities were indulged to such a degree, that on one occa- sion, when at the urgent solicitation of a friend, he ventured to give a shilling to a Jew for an old hat — " better as new " — to the astonishment of his friend, the next day he actually retailed it for eighteen pence. He was in the habit of carrying a snuff- box about with him, not for the purpose of regaling his olfac- tory organ, but for what, does the reader suppose ? to collect pinches of the aromatic dust from his snuff-taking friends : and when the box was filled, he would barter its contents for a farthing rushlight ! He performed his ablutions at a neigh- boring pool, drying himself in the sun, to save the extravagant indulo^ence of a towel. Other eccentricities are chronicled of this remarkable " case" — such as lying in bed during the cold THE MODERN MOLOCH. 263 weatber to save the cost of fuel, and eating garbage to save the charges for food : yet this poor mendicant had property to the extent of upwards of £3,000 per annum. There was a Russian merchant — never mind his name, it is too barbarously burdened with consonants to spell or pronounce — who was so prodigiously wealthy, that on one occasion he loaned the Em- press Catherine the Second a million of rubles, although he lived in the most deplorable state of indigence, privation, and wretchedness. He buried his money in casks in his cellar, and was so great a miser that he seemed almost to thrive upon his very passion. He had his troubles, however, for, reposing his trust for the security of his possessions upon the fierceness and fidelity of his favorite dog, his bulwark of safety failed him. The dog very perversely died, and his master was driven to the disagreeable alternative of officiating in the place of the deceased functionary, by imitating the canine service — going his rounds every evening and barking as well as any human dog could be expected to do. M. Yandille, of Paris, was one of the most remarkable in- stances on record of immense wealth being combined with ex- treme ]3enuriousness ; he lodged as high up as the roof would admit, as certain poor poets are said to do, and lived on stale bread and diluted milk ; notwithstanding he possessed great property in the public funds. Chancellor Hardwicke, when worth £800,000, set the same miserly value on a shilling as when he possessed but £100 ; and the great Duke of Marlbo- rough, when near the close of life, was in the habit of exhibit- ing singular meanness to save a sixpence, although his pro- perty was over a million and a half sterling. The cases we have adduced are extreme instances of the influence of avar- ice ; but it should not be forgotten that the principle of cove- tousness is the same in its tendency wherever it exists, and it is only in consequence of the counteracting force of circumstan- 264 THE MODERN MOLOCH. ces that all its victims fail to present the same degree of degra- dation and wretched moral deformity. More recently, we read of an instance which occurred at ITewby, in Westmoreland. This individual, when a young man, became possessed of a little property ; he worked as a laborer, and added to his store ; through a long series of years he scraped and saved, denying himself every comfort and almost real necessaries. During his latter years he lived in a cottage alone, in the most wretched stvle. Several estates had been mortgaged to him ; and a box which he kept at the foot of his bed, and upon which his eyes were fixed when dying, contained money and securities of the value of £20,000. The well-known Nat. Bently (alias Dirty Dick) of London, belongs to this category. This eccentric specimen of humanity was the victim not only to a craving for gold, but also for old iron. "We have a dim recollection of the dingy old shop in Leadenhall street, piled up with heaps of all kinds of old iron and lumber. The last twenty years of his miserable existence were spent in dirt and destitution. Another deplorable case might be cited — that of Thomas Pitt, of Warwickshire. All his solicitude was about his money ; his pulse rose and fell with the public funds. He lived over thirty years ensconced in a gloomy garret, never enlivened with light of lamp or fire, or the cheering smile of friendship. It is reported, that some weeks prior to the sickness which terminated his despicable career, he went to several undertakers in quest of a cheap cof- fin ! As he lived without the regards, so he died without the reo-rets, of his neio-Lbors — a miserable illustration of the cor- rupting influence of cupidity. He left behind him £2,475 in the public funds. Another instance is that of the notorious Thomas Cook. His ruling passion showed itself in all its in- tensity at the close of his life, for on his physician intimating the possibility of his not existing more than five or six days, THE MODERN MOLOCH. 265 with a fierce look of indignation, he protested against the use- less expense of sending him medicine, and charged the doctor never to show his face to him again. This wretched man died unlamented in his 86th year — a long lease shamefully abused and dislionored. His property was estimated at about £130,- 000 ! How horribly debased a man becomes when he surren- ders himself up to the fiendish passion for gain. His influence is moral poison. Audley was another notorious instance. He lived in the days of the Stuarts, and amassed much wealth during the reign of the first Charles, and the Protectorate. He made most of his money by usury and legal chican- ery. On one occasion, having obtained for fifty pounds the debt of an insolvent for £200 — he induced the party under obligation, to sign a contract that he should pay, within twenty years from that time, one penny progressively doubled on the first day of twenty consecutive months, and in case of failure, to forfeit £500. Not suspecting the cunningly devised cheat, the poor debtor recommences business, succeeds, and at the appointed time is called upon by the miser for the instalments. After making several payments, he began to figure up the amount for which he had made him- self liable, in liquidation of his debt of £200. To what sum, do you suppose, would his new liabilities amount ? To no less than £2,180 ? and to what the aggregate sura of all these twen- ty monthly payments ? Why, the enormous total of four thou- sand three hundred and sixty-six pounds, eleven shillings, and three pence ! Misers like to feast their eyes with their treasure, as well as to handle it. We cite an instance from a recent writer,* to this effect. It is an anecdote related of Sir William Smyth, of Bedfordshire. He was immensely rich, but most parsimo- nious and miserlj^ in his habits. At seventy years of age, he * Merryweather. 266 THE MODERN MOLOCH. was entirely deprived of his sight, unable to gloat over his hoarded heaps of gold ; this was a terrible affliction. He was persuaded by Taylor, the celebrated oculist, to be couched ; who was, by agreement, to have sixty guineas if he restored his patient to any degree of sight. Taylor succeeded in his operation, and Sir William was enabled to read and write, without the aid of spectacles, during the rest of his life. But no sooner was his sight restored, than the baronet began to regret that his agreement had been for so large a sum ; he felt no joy as others would have felt, but grieved and sighed over the loss of his sixty guineas. His thoughts were now how to cheat the oculist ; he pretended that he had only a glimmering and could see nothing distinctly ; for which reason, the ban- dage on his eyes was continued a month longer than the usual time. Taylor was deceived by these misrepresentations, and agreed to compound the bargain, and accepted twenty guineas, instead of sixty. At the time Taylor attended him, he had a large estate, an immense sum of money in the stocks, and six thousand pounds in the house. Our last citation exhibits an involuntary case of immolation to Moloch. A miser, of the name of Foscue, who had amassed enormous wealth by the most sordid parsimony and discreditable extor- tion, was requested by the government to advance a sum of money, as a loan. The miser, to whom a fair interest was not inducement sufficiently strong to enable him to part with his treasured gold, declared his incapacity to meet this demand ; he pleaded severe losses, and the utmost poverty. Fearing, how- ever, that some of his neighbors, among whom he was very un- popular, would report his immense wealth to the government, he applied his ingenuity to discover some effectual way of hid- ing his gold, should they attempt to institute a search to ascertain the truth or falsehood of his plea. With great care THE MODERN MOLOCR 267 and secrecy, he dug a great cave in his cellar ; to this recepta- cle for his treasure he descended by a ladder, and to the trap- door he attached a spring-lock, so that, on shutting, it would fasten of itself. By and by the miser disappeared : inquiries were made ; the house was searched ; woods were explored and the ponds were dragged : but no Foscue could they find ; and gossips began to conclude that the miser had fled, with his gold, to some part where, by living incognito, he would be free from the hands of the government. Some time passed on ; the house in which he had lived was sold, and workmen were busily employed in its repair. In the progress of their work they met with the door of the secret cave, with the key in the lock outside. They tlii-ew back the door, and descended with a light. The first object upon which the lamp reflected was the ghastly body of Foscue, the miser, and scattered around him were heavy bags of gold, and ponderous chests of untold treasure; a candlestick lay beside him on the floor. This worshipper of Mammon had gone into his cave, to pay his devoirs to his golden god, and had thus become a sacrifice to his devotion ! Occasionally, these wretched monopolizers of money are really more indulgent to the world than to themselves. Guyot of Marseilles, was a despised tatterdemalion all his life, yet many benefited by his parsimony. His executors, on opening his will, found these remarkable words : " Having observed, from my infancy, that the poor of Marseilles are ill-supplied with water, which can only be procured at a great price, I have cheerfully labored the whole of my life to procure for them this great blessing, and I direct that the whole of my property shall be expended in building an aqueduct for their use " ! We might here glance at the effects of an opposite disposition, as illustrated in a few examples of distinguished benevolence. Alfred the Great, among other noble traits of character, ex- 268 THE MODERN MOLOCH. hibited, on a certain occasion, an instance of exemplary sympathy for suffering, under circumstances which, tested unequivocally the goodness of his heart. Shortly after the retreat from his enemies, a beggar came to his little castle, soliciting alms. The queen informed him that they had but one small loaf remaining, which was insufficient for themselves and their friends, who were gone in quest of food, though with little hope of success. The king replied, " Give the poor Christian one-half of the loaf. He that could feed five thou- sand with five loaves and two fishes, can certainly make that half-loaf suffice for more than our necessity." His fortitude and faith were rewarded, for the messengers and adherents of the monarch soon after returned with a liberal supply of provisions. The late king of Prussia affords another instance of benevolence. On a certain occasion he rang the bell of his cabinet, but, as nobody answered, he opened the door of the ante-chamber, and found his page fast asleep upon a chair. He went np to awake him ; but, on coming nearer, he observed a paper in his pocket upon which something was written. This excited his curiosity. He pulled it out, and found that it was a letter from the page's mother, the contents of wli^cli were nearly as follows : " She returned her son many thanks for the money he had saved out of his salary, and sent to her, and which had proved a very timely assistance. God would cer- tainly reward him for it, and, if he continued to serve God and his king faithfully and conscientiously, he would not fail of success and prosperity in this world." Upon reading this the king stepped softly into his closet, fetched a rouleau of ducats, and put it, with the letter, into the page's pocket. He then rang the bell again, till the page awoke, and came into his closet. " You have been asleep, I suppose ? " said the king. The, page could not deny it, stammered out an excuse (in his embarrassment), put his hand into his pocket, and felt the THE MODERN MOLOCH. 269 rouleau of ducats. He immediately pulled it out, turned pale, and looked at the king with tears in his eyes. " "What is the matter with you?" said the king. "Oh," replied the pao-e, " somebody has contrived my ruin : I know nothing of this money ! " " "What God bestows," resumed the king, " he be- stows in sleep. Send the money to your mother — give my re- spects to her, and inform her that I will take care both of her and you." Take a passage from the Life of Washington : "Reuben Rouzy, of Virginia, owed the general about one thousand pounds. "While President of the United States, one of his agents brought an action for the money ; judgment was ob- tained, and execution issued against the body of the defendant, who was taken to jail. He had a considerable landed estate, but this kind of property cannot be sold in Virginia for debts, unless at the discretion of the owner. He had a large family, and for the sake of his children, preferred lying in jail to selling his land. A friend hinted to him that probably Gen- eral "Washington did not know anything of the proceeding, and that it might be well to send him a petition, with a statement of the circumstances. He did so, and the very next post from Philadelphia, after the arrival of his petition in that city, brought an order for his immediate release, together with a full discharge, and a severe reprimand to the agent, for having acted in such a manner. Poor Rouzy was, in consequence, restored to his family, who never laid down their heads at night without presenting prayers to Heaven for their ' beloved Washington.' Providence smiled upon the labors of the grateful family, and in a few years Rouzy enjoyed the exqui- site pleasure of being able to lay the one thousand pounds, with the interest, at the feet of this truly great man. Wash- ington reminded him that the debt was discharged; Rouzy replied, the debt of his family to the father of their country, 270 THE MODERN MOLOCH. and the preserver of their parent, could never be discharged : and the general to avoid the pleasing importunity of the grate- ful Virginian , who would not be denied, accepted the money, only, however, to divide it among Rouzy's children, which he immediately did." There is an interesting fact related of the hero of Poland, indicative of his customary practice of alms-giving. "Wishing to convey a present to a clerical friend, he gave the commission to a young man of the name of Teltner, desiring him to take the horse which he himself usually rode. On his return, the messeno;er informed Kosciusko that he would never asrain ride his horse unless he gave him his purse at the same time ; and on the latter inquiring what he meant^ he replied : " As soon as a poor man on the road takes off his hat and asks charity, the animal immediately stands still, and will not stir till some- thing is bestowed upon the petitioner ; and as I had no money about me, I had to feign giving in order to satisfy the horse, and induce him to proceed." This noble creature deserved a pension and exemption from active service for the term of his natural life, on account of his superior education and refined moral sensibility. Among the b^ght galaxy of noble names, that of John Howard will ever take prominent rank in the list of benefac- tors. After inspecting the receptacles of crime and poverty throughout Great Britain and Ireland, he left his native coun- try, relinquishing his own ease, to visit the wretched abodes of those who were in want, and were bound in fetters of iron, in other parts of the world. He travelled three times through France, four through Germany, five through Holland, twice through Italy, once through Spain, and Portugal, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, and part of Turkey — occupying a period of about twelve years. Without the few bright spots in the world's arid waste of selfishness, that occasionally irradiate the THE MODERN MOLOCH. 271 gloomy lot of the oppressed and poor, what a dreary life of deprivation and sorrow would be their portion, " He who knows, like St, Paul, both how to suffer need, and how to abound, has a great knowledge ; for if we take account of all the virtues with which money is mixed up — honesty, justice, generosity, charity, frugality, forethought, self-sacrifice — and of their correlative vices, it is a knowledge which goes near to cover the length and breadth of humanity ; and a right measure and manner in getting, saving, spending, giving, tak- ing, lending, borrowing, and bequeathing, would almost argue a perfect man." " "We must not forget that, while some few abuse wealth, there are vastly more who know its appropriate use and worth. "With such, money is the procurer of our common blessings. Money is then the universal talisman, the mainspring of our social system, the lever that moves the world. Some moderns, like Socrates (who wrote in praise of poverty on a table of solid gold), cynically speak against wealth. It is, however, the great motive agent in all departments of the social economy ; helping on the civilization of the world, and ministering not merely to the elegances, but also the essentials of life. Money represents labor. An eloquent writer -j- askll"who can ade- quately describe the triumphs of labor, urged on by the potent spell of money ? It has extorted the secrets of the universe, and trained its powers into myi'iads of forms of use and beauty. From the bosom of the old creation, it has developed anew the creation of industry and art. It has been its task and its glory to overcome obstacles. Mountains have been levelled, and valleys been exalted before it. It has broken the rocky soil into fertile glades ; it has crowned the hill-tops with fruit and verdure, and bound around the very feet of ocean, ridges of golden corn. Up from the sunless and hoary deeps, up * Notes on Life, f Chapin. 272 THE MODERN MOLOCH. from the shapeless quarry, it drags its spotless marbles, and rears its palaces of pomp. It tears the stubborn metals from the bowels of the globe, and makes them ductile to its will. It marches steadily on over the swelling flood, and through the mountain clefts. It fans its way through the winds of ocean, tramples them in its course, surges and mingles them with flakes of fire. Civilizatioij follows in its paths. It achieves grander victories, it weaves more durable trophies, it holds wider sway than the conqueror. His name becomes tainted and his monuments crumble; but labor converts his red battle- fields into gardens, and erects monuments significant of better things. It rides in a chariot driven by the wind. It writes with the lightning. It sits crowned as a queen in a thousand cities, and sends up its roar of triumph from a million wheels. It glistens in the fabric of the loom, it rings and sparkles from the steely hammer, it glories in shapes of beauty ; it speaks in words of power, it makes the sinewy arm strong with liberty, the poor man's heart • rich with content, crowns the swarthy and sweaty brow with honor, and dignity, and peace." We have not mentioned a class who have been styled jpar- ■venu, such as have acquired wealth, and with it the vulgar passion for display. Such characters are to be found in all communities, but especially in those of recent formation. Un- less culture and refinement accompany the possession of great wealth, the deformity is but the more obtrusive. " Worth makes the man, the want of it the fellow, The rest is naught but leather and prunello." A gentleman has been defined " a Christian in spirit that will take a polish." The rest are but plated goods, and, what- ever their fashion, rub them as you may, the base metal will Bhow itself still. Whether in ermine or fustian, there is no disguising char- THE MODERN MOLOCH. 273 acter ; the refined may be seen in the latter, as palpably as the vulgar in the former : " You may daub and bedizen tbe man as you vrill, But the stamp of the vulgar remains on him still." It is from this class that virtuous poverty has most to suffer. These are they who " grind the faces of the poor," who, not- withstanding the proverb that " poverty is no crime," yet treat a man without money as if he were without principle ; who gauge the wit and worth of a man by his wearing-apparel and his wealth ; who deem it absurd for a poor man to assert his possession of intelligence, learning, or, in fact, any endowment whatever. Goldsmith, referring to this depreciating influence of poverty, says, — " A poor man resembles a tiddler, whose music, though liked, is not much praised, because he lives by it ; while a gentleman performer, though the most wretched scraper alive, throws the audience into raptures." The want of money but deprives us of friends not worth the keeping ; it cuts us out of society, to which dress and equipage are the only introduction, and deprives us of a number of need- less luxuries and gilded fetters. That which was so diligently sought by the alchemists of old, the contented man has discovered. Contentment is the true philosopher's stone which transmutes all it touches to gold ; and the divine maxim, that " a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth," is a golden maxim. " Why need I strive or sigh for wealth ? It is enough for me That Heaven hath sent me strength and health, A spirit glad and free ; Grateful these blessings to receive, I sing my hymn at mom and eve." Of all the artificial distinctions which obtain in civilized 18 274 THE MODEEN MOLOCH. life, none are more absolute in their nature, or tyrannical in their effects, than those which divide the poor from the rich. Difference of condition tends more to disturb the harmony of the social compact, and to annihilate the common sympathies of mankind, than anything else in the world. " A poor relation," according to Charles Lamb, " is the most irrelevant thing in nature — an unwelcome remembrancer — a perpetually-recurring mortification — a drain on your purse, a more intolerable dun than your pride — a drawback upon success." INFELICITIES OF AUTHORCRAFT. " A spot near Cripplegate extends — Grub Street, — 'tis called the modem Pindus ; Where (not that bards are never friends) Bards might shake hands from adverse windows." — Sutler. The subject of the present chapter presents some of the various fallacies and foibles of the literary profession. With out attempting a psychological analysis of literary life, we propose simply to group together a few of the more striking idiosyncrasies which seem to be indigenous to great minds. If frailty and fame are twin attributes, one might be tempted to conclude that Nature designed such an allotment as an equi- poise, to silence the envy of those from whom she has with- held her noblest endowments, and to serve as a counteracting 276 INFELICITIES OF AUTHORCRAFT. check to the inordinate self-esteem which their possession might otherwise superinduce. Possession of the creative faculty, says Leigh Hunt, pre- supposes a superiority to adverse circumstances and "low- thouo-hted care." So it was with Fielding, Steele, and others, honorable in lit- erature, and so also with Handel, Mozart, and Weber, in music ; and it is one of the kindly compensations of Nature, b}^ which she contrives to adjust so equitably the good and the evil of this life, that when injury to the individual arises from an excess of sympathy with the mass, that injury is commonly but lightly felt. It is yet affecting to think that during the composition of his great masterpieces, Mozart was scarcely supplied with the necessaries of life ; and Handel's immortal oratorios were produced under similar circumstances. It is supposed, and with great reason, that but for these pre- cise cii-cumstances, men of genius, naturally indolent, would not have achieved so much, or so well ; under more favoi-able auspices tlieir energies would have remained dormant for lack of stimulus. Burns was an instance of an author writing for love, and not for money, for he got little pecuniary reward for his exquisite effusions, and was ever in embarrassments. How many an immortal work that has proved a revenue of enjoyment to the world has been born amid dire affliction and privation! Think of almost all the inventors, in science and soncT, — from Roger Bacon, the friar, to whom we owe the discoveries of gunpowder and the telescope, — down to the in- ventors of the cotton-gin and the sewing-machine. Think, also, of Milton, the prince of poets, — inditing his vision of Paradise in blindness and destitution, — and of Dryden, sunk into neglect in his old age, having died in a garret, in an obscure corner of London. Pity that the awards of fame should come so laggardly to INFELICITIES OF AUTHORCRAFT. 277 her true votaries ; but so it is. In how many cases has it been proven that the only requitals of transcendent genius have been poverty, dishonor, and sometimes an inglorious end ; leaving it to after times to repair the injustice of lordly ignorance and superstitious intolerance! Friar Bacon, the parent of more original discoveries than any one of his day, as already referred to, committed this treason against his contemporaries, and in consequence enlisted their persecution. The storm is better for the development of genius than the calm. "We are told by naturalists, that birds of paradise fly best against the wind ; it drifts behind them the gorgeous train of feathers, which only entangle their flight with the gale. Pure imagination, of which the loveliest of winged creatures is the fitting emblem, seems always to gain a vigor and grace by the tempests it encounters. So the flower, when crushed, emits its richest fragrance ; and the grape, when bruised, the richest wine. To the poor author, the ordeal is severe, while it is yet the procuring cause of much of the intellectual wealth of the world. Fickle Fortune has often dealt unfairly with the sons of genius. They generally get more credit than cash as the awards of their toil. It has been justly claimed for these gifted un- fortunates, that when even Fame will not protect them from Famine, Charity ought. This, certainly, is but just tribute, ndent in Notes and Queries observes that, notwithstanding tx^e mutations of fashion in England, some old habits are still retained with great tenacity. " The Thames watermen rejoice in the dress of the age of Elizabeth, while THE TOILETTE AND ITS DEVOTEES. 319 the royal beef -eaters (biiffetiers) wear that of private soldiers of the time of Henry VII. ; the blue-coat boy, the costume of the reign of Edward YI. ; and the London charity-school girls the plain mob cap and long gloves of the time of Queen Anne. In the brass badge of the cabman we see a retention of a dress of Elizabethan retainers, while the shoulder-knots that once decked an officer now adorn a footman. The attire of a sailor of the reign of William III. is now seen among our fishermen. The university dress is as old as the age of the Smithfield mar- tyrs. The linen bands of the pulpit and the bar are abridg- ments of the falling collar." Shoes with very long points, full two feet in length, were invented by Henry Plantagenet, Duke of Anjou, to conceal an excrescence on one of his feet. Others, on the contrary, adopted fashions to set off their pe- culiar beauties — as Isabella of Bavaria, remarkable for her gallantry and the fairness of her complexion, who introduced the fashion of leaving the shoulders and part of the neck un- covered. A shameful extravagance in dress has been a most venerable folly in spite of the enactment of sumptuary laws. In the reign of Richard II., the dress was sumptuous beyond belief. Sir John Arundel had a change of no less than fifty-two new suits of cloth of gold tissue. Brantome records of Elizabeth, Queen of Philip II. of Spain, that she never wore a gown twice. It cannot be denied that the votaries of fashion too often starve their happiness to feed their vanity and pride. A passion for dress is nothing new ; a satirist thus lampoons the ladies ()f his day: ' ' What is the reason — can you ^ess, Why men are poor, and women thinner ? So much do they for dinner dress, That nothing's left to dress for dinner." It is not women alone that evince a proclivity in this direo 320 THE TOILETTE AND ITS DEVOTEES. tion ; there are as many coxcombs in the world as coquettes. The folly is more reprehensible in the fonner than the latter because it has even less show of excuse. Leigh Hunt says : " Beauty too often sacrifices to fashion.. The spirit of fashion is not the beautiful, but the wilful ; not the graceful, but the fantastic ; not the superior in the abstract, but the superior in the worst of all concretes — the vulgar. It is the vulgarity that can afford to shift and vary itself, opposed to the vulgarity that longs to do so, but cannot. Tlie high point of taste and elegance is to be sought for, not in the most fashionable circles, but in the best-bred, and such as can dis- pense with the eternal necessity of never being the same thing."" The mere devotees of Fashion have been defined as a class- of would-be-refined people, perpetually struggling in a race to escape from the fancied vulgar. Neatness in our costume i& needful to our self-respect ; a person thinks better of himself when neatly clad, and others form a similar estimate of him. It has been quaintly said that " A coat is a letter of credit written with a needle upon broadcloth." Character is indexed by costume. First impressions are thus formed which are not easily obliterated. Taste and neat ness in dress distinguish the refined from the vulgar. Persons of rude feelings are usually roughly attired ; they evince none of the grace and delicacy of the cultivated in intellect, morals and manners. Pride, like laudanum, and other poisonous medicines, is beneficial in small, though injurious in large quantities. No man, who is not pleased with himself, even in a personal sense, can please others, for it is the belief of his own grace that makes him graceful and gracious. If it be a recommendation to dress our minds to the best advantage, and to render our- selves as agreeable as possible, why should it be an objectioD to bestow the same pains upon our personal appearance ? THE TOILETTE AND ITS DEVOTEES, 321 Girard, the famous French painter, when very young, was the bearer of a letter of introduction to Lanjuinais, then of the Council of Napoleon. The young painter was shabbily attired, and his reception was extremely cold ; but Lanjuinais discov- ered in him such striking proofs of talent, good sense, and amiability, that on Girard's rising to take leave, he rose too, and accompanied his visitor to the ante-chamber. The change was so striking that Girard could not avoid an expression of sur- prise. " My young friend," said Lanjuinais, anticipating the inquiry, " we receive an unknown person according to his dress — we take leave of him according to his merit." Ben Jonson, in one of his plays, expresses the same opinion : " Believe it, sir, That clothes do much upon the wit, as weather Does on the brain ; and thence, sir, comes your proverb, The tailor makes the man. " One of our greatest historians says : " Dress is characteristic of manners, and manners are the mirror of ideas." Old coats are essential to the ease of the body and mind ; and some of the greatest achievements of men have been exe- cuted when the owners w^ere in rags. Napoleon wore an old, seedy coat during the whole of the Russian campaign; and Wellington wore one out at the elbow at Waterloo. Poets are proverbial for their penchant for seedy garments. " A hat is the symbol and characteristic of its wearer. It is a sign and token of his avocation, habits, and opinions — the creature of his phantasy. Minerva-like, it bursts forth in full maturity from his brain. Extravagance, pride, cold-hearted- ness, and vulgarity, with many other of the ruling passions, may be detected by its form and fashion. One may ascertain whether a man is whimsical, grotesque, or venially flexible in his taste, by this test. Much may be deduced from the style in which it is worn." 322 THE TOILETTE AOT) ITS DEVOTEES. The celebrated poet and professor, Buschin, who was very careless in his dress, went out in his dressing-gown, and met in the street a citizen with whom he was acquainted. The gen- tleman, however, passed him, without even raising his hat. Divining the cause, the poet hastened home, and put on a cloak of velvet and ermine, in which he again went out, and con- trived once more to moet the same citizen, who this time raised his hat, and bowed profoundly. This made the poet still more angry, when he saw that his velvet cloak claimed more respect than his professorship and poetical fame. He hastened home, threw his cloak on the floor, and stamped on it, saying, " Art thou Buschin, or am I ? " It is a well-known fact that ladies seldom become gray, while the heads of the "lords of creation" are often early in life either bald or gray — sometimes both. Douglas Jerrold tells a piquant joke as follows: " At a private party in London, a lady — who, though in the autumn of life, had not lost all dreams of its spring — said to Jerrold, ' I cannot imagine what makes my hair turn gray ; I sometimes fancy it must be the " essence of rosemary " with which my maid is in the habit of brushing it.' ' I should rather be afraid, madam,' replied the dramatist, * that it is the essence of Time ' (thyme)." " What is life — the flourishing array Of the proud summer meadow which to-day Wears her green flush, and is to-morrow hay." Compared with earlier times, with some slight exceptions, our modern costume certainly has the preeminence : it has been said that to this cause is to be attributed the seeming ab- sence, in our day, of any transcendent instances of remarkable beauty in the fair sex : all may be made up attractively where even Nature has been niggard of her endowments. Dress con- fers dignity and self-satisfaction, besides possessing the advan- THE TOILETTE AND ITS DEVOTEES. 323 tage of attractiveness. "We are startled to hear a man well attired use vulgar speech, but our amazement is materially less- ened if the party be attached to a very menial employment and is enveloped in meaner clothes. Over-fastidiousness at the toilet is, nevertheless, an evil equally to be deprecated : a fop is as much to be despised as a slattern or shrew — both are ob- noxious to good taste. t* Prompted by their loyalty to woman, we find the poets have ever made her charms the inspiring theme of their muse ; not, however, in the realm of song merely has she been celebrated : sober writers in prose have been scarcely less enthusiastic in their laudations. Jeremy Taylor styles woman " the precious porcelain of human clay." Not only is she potent in physical ■endowment — hers is the more enduring excellence of moral beauty, for her heart is the home of the virtues ; and while the fascinations of her personal beauty captivate the sense, our grateful love and veneration do willing homage to her moral excellence and worth. Therefore, with one who felt the mys- tic power of her bewildering charms, we exclaim — "Denied the smile from partial beauty won, Oh, what were man — a world without a sun I " We yet instinctively yield to tlie still more potent influence of her enduring love, her patient faith, and the nameless clus- ters of graces which constitute her moral beauty. * It was a pertinent and forcible saying of the Emperor Na- poleon that " a handsome woman pleases the eye, but a good W'Oman pleases the heart. The one is a jewel, and the other the casket." A contemporary poet has epitomized it all in two flowing stanzas : ' ' What's a fair or noble face, if the mind ignoble be ? What though Beauty, in each grace, may her own resemblance see I Eyes may catch from heaven their spell, hps the ruby's light recall ; In the Home for Love to dweU one gnod feeling's worth them alL 324 THE TOILETTE AND ITS DEVOTEES. " Give me Virtue's rose to trace, honor's Tn'nrniTig glance and mien. Howsoever plain the face, Beauty is where these are seen ! Raven ringlets o'er the snow of the whitest neck may fall ; In the Home for love we know one good feeling's worth them aU ! " Beauty being the theme with which our chapter commenced, it should also conclude it. "We sum up the case, then, as legal gentlemen have it, in the words of an American poetess : " Thou wert a worship in the ages olden, Thou bright-veiled image of divinity, Crowned with such gleams, imperial auvl golden, As Phidias gave to immortality I A type exquisite of the pure Ide?l, Forth shadowed in perfect loveliness — Embodied and existent in the Real, A perfect shape to kneel before and bleas." THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. Which side do yoii propose to advocate ? Is it better to make self the common centre, to which all conceivable interests are to converge ; or, like the sun, to diffuse all around the genial glow of generous sympathy for others ? Do j^ou demur to the form of the proposition, as being too absolute ; and insist that a neutral course, a midway path between the two extremes, is the "golden mean " ? Granted, and that would settle the (pies- tion, were it not the almost inevitable tendency of our frail humanity to drift speedily to the one extreme, but not to the other. If, therefore, self-indulgence is the prevailing proclivity 326 THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. of most people, and self-denial the converse of the proijosi- tion, it may be worth while to try the question in some of its relations, direct and collateral, to ourselves and others. To begin, then, with self, since we profess to know something- about the party, although, perchance, it may be but a superfi- cial acquaintance at best. The personal pronoun I, indeed, cuts a very prominent and important figure in the world, and is of prime significance to each of us respectively. Let us, then^ forget the egotism that is thus more than implied, and proceed with our investigation. It is quite right to stand up for Num- her One, on all occasions, for not only has the individual nu- merical precedence, but the prior claim. It has been justly said, that "self-love is not so vile a thing as self -neglecting. Ton cannot find a more companionable person than yourself ^ if proper attention be paid to the individual. Yourself will go with you wherever you like, and come away when you please — approve your jokes, assent to your propositions, and, in short, be in every way agreeable, if you only learn the art of being on good terms with yourself. This, however, is not so easy as some imagine, who do not often try the experiment. Yourself, when it catches you in company with no other person, is apt to be a severe critic on your faults and foibles, and when you are cen- sured by yourself, it is generally the severest and most intoler- able species of reproof. It is on this account that you are afraid of yourself, and seek any associates, no matter how inferior, whose bold chat may keep yourself from playing the censor. Yourself is likewise a jealous friend. If neglected and slighted, it becomes a hore, and to be left, even a short time, ' by your- self ' is then regarded as actually a cruel penance, as many find when youth, health, or wealth have departed. How in)portant is it then to ' know thyself,' to cultivate thyself, to respect thy- self, to love thyself warmly but rationally. A sensible self is the best of guides, for few commit errors but in broad disregard of THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. 327 its admonitions. It tugs continually at the skirt of men to draw them from their cherished vices. It holds up its shadowy fin- ger in warning when you go astray, and it sermonizes sharply on your sins after they have been committed. Our nature is twofold, and its noblest part is the self to which we refer." Wordsworth' s excellent counsel is meant to be personal : "By aU means, use sometimes to be alone ; Salute thyself ; see what thy soul doth wear ; Dare to look in thy chest, for 'tis thine own, And tumble up and down what thou findest there." Since the longer we live in the world, and the more we test the value of mundane friendships we prove their insecurity, it is better to be fortified against surprisals and disappoint- ments by cherishing a good opinion of, and acquaintance with — one's self. We must not confound 2ij?rojc>er regard for one's own interest with what is usually termed selfishness ; because much that may seem like it may be caused by the peculiar cir- cumstances in which a person may be placed. " O cynic, deem no more the world all base ; And scoff no more with either tongue or pen, — You do not see the face behind the face ! As God exists, there must be noble men ; And many, who to us seem hard and cold, Have sunshine in their hearts as pure as gold ! In the battle of life, a perpetual contest and struggle for the acquisition of its emoluments and prizes is kept up ; so that to enter the lists successful!}^, a man must be fitly panoplied, and thus he may seem to be the very impersonation of selfishness, while, in reality, he may be of just the opposite disposition. Take another point : the question, whether man is capable of performing a purely dismterested action, has long been a topic 328 THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. of dispute witli the metaphysician and the moralist. Doubtless, the most specious and plausible, as well as popular, hypothesis is that of the negative of the proposition. Among others holding to this side, might be mentioned Ilelvetius, Hobbes, and Shaftesbury; while the advocacy of the opposite opin- ion has enlisted the ingenious reasoning and analytical skill of others, with Hazlitt at their head. Without attempting to fol- low the ratiocinative process pursued by these disputants, we shall prefer to leave the question to be determined by the reader. All we would submit is, that while a due regard to one's own interest is a paramount obligation — as self-preserva- tion is the first law of nature — it does not necessarily follow that the rule should be so resolutely insisted upon, and to such an extreme as to absorb all human sympathy for our fellow- men. It is true that inan is an individualism, a separate exis- tence, and yet it is no less true, that he is naturall}^ a gregar- ious being, and governed by a social law, analogous to that of gravitation, by which the physical universe is controlled. This law of moral gravitation is further reflected by the lower orders of creation — animals and birds, and even faintly shadowed in the vegetable kingdom ; all congregate and illustrate the law of electric affinities. It has been well remarked : " The domestic fireside is a sem- inary of infinite importance. It is important because it is un- iversal, and because the education it bestows, being woven in with the woof of childhood, gives form and color to the whole texture of life. There are few who can receive the honors of a college, but all are graduates of the heart. The learning of the university may fade from recollection ; its classic lore may moulder in the halls of memory ; but the simple lessons of home, enamelled upon the heart of childhood, defy the rust of years, and outlive the more mature but less vivid pictures of after days. So deep, so lasting, are the impressions of early THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. 329 life, that you often see a man in the imbecility of age holding fresh in his recollection the events of childhood, while all the wide space between that and the present hour is a forgotten waste." It is an old saying, that charity begins at home ; but this is no reason it should never go abroad ; a man should live with the world as a citizen of the world, and he should cherish charity for his neighbor as well as for his household. Coleridge remarks : " General benevolence is begotten and rendered per- manent by social and domestic affections. Let us beware of that proud philosophy which affects to inculcate ]3hilanthropy while it denounces every home-born feeling by which it is produced and nurtured. The intensity of private attachments encourages, not prevents, universal benevolence. The nearer we approach the sun, the more intense his heat, yet what cor- ner of the system does he not cheer and vivify 'i " The Deity has not only constituted man a social being ; He has also ordained this moral attribute a source of his most ex- quisite enjoyment ; so that he who possesses a spirit of benevo- lence in its highest development is necessarily the happiest of mortals. Some generous-hearted beings there are who seem to devote their lives, and to derive their principal enjoyment in minister- ing to the happiness of their kind : these are the joyous spirits that ever " Make sunshine in a shady place," dispel fi-om the suffering spirit the demon of despair, and re- flect the radiance of celestial love all around, — changing the heart's wilderness of worldly care into a cultured garden of all pleasant things. Despite all efforts to meliorate their condi- tion, however, some people there are who will not consent to be made happy : they find their greatest satisfaction in incessant grumbling, and repining against destiny. Discontent, like a 330 THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. murky cloud impervious to the light of heaven, broods ever upon their horizon, — no matter whether their condition be one of privation or of prosperity, they are alike dissatisfied with their lot. " They err who say life is not sweet, Though cares are long and pleasures fleet ; Though smUes and tears, and sun and storm, Still change life's ever-varying form. The mind that looks on things aright, Sees through the clouds the deep blue light." Cheerfulness is an amulet, a charm that makes us perma- nently contented and happy. A cheerful face is sometimes as good for an invalid as healthy atmosphere. To make a sick man think he is dying, all that is necessary is to look dismal and doleful yourself. Merriment is a safety-valve to the heart overburdened with care. " A smile on the face and kind words on the tongue Will serve you as passports all nations among ; A heart that is cheerful, a spirit that's free, Will cany you bravely o'er life's stormy sea. "Talk not of fortune, talk not of fate — We make our own troubles, however we prate ! This world would be honey where now it is gall. Were we but contented and merry withal ! " The cheerful philosopher enjoys everything as he goes along; he does not fret over every little mistake he encounters on life's pilgrimage. His flow of spirits never slackens till the tide of life has ceased to ebb ; hence he always appears ten years younger than he actually is. His step never loses its elasticity, and his heart glows with a religious love to God and man. Dr. Johnson remarked that a habit of looking on the bright side of every event is better than a thousand pounds a year. THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. 331 Bishop Hall quaintly remarks, " For every bad there might be a worse, and when a man breaks his leg, let him be thankful that it was not his neck ! " When Fenelon's library was on fire, " God be praised," he exclaimed, " that it is not the dwell- ing of some poor man ! " This is the true spirit of submission — one of the most beautiful traits that can possess the human heart. Resolve to see this world on its simny side, and you have almost half won the battle of life at the outset. Of all the bores that are inflicted upon our social life, none is more disagreeable than the sour-tempered man ; he is not content with being miserable himself, but he insists upon mak- ing everybody else so, if he can. It is best not to let such an one have his own w^ay. If he would be content to confine his mutterings and mur- murings to himself, and to maintain a strict seclusion, he might be pardoned and pitied ; but when he thrusts his grievances apon society, he then becomes, as Dogberry eloquently ob- serves, " most tolerable, and not to be endured." " The sour man is always sour ; the milk of human kindness in his breast is curdled — there is no sweetness in the acid prin- ciple of his composition ; nature has given him a quantum sujjlcit of lemon-juice, but has forgotten the saccharine ingre- dient, lie is sour from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same ; in sunshine and moonshine, twilight and gas- light. "When he awakes in the morning, he grumbles because it is time to get up ; his coffee is always too hot or too cold ; his toast and steak either overdone or underdone ; he finds noth- ing satisfactory in the morning papers ; he is always in the op- position, let whatever party be in the ascendant. When he goes out he invariably grumbles at the weather ; if it is a little cool, he calls it Arctic weather ; if it is mild, he compares it to the tropics ; if it drizzles, he declares it rains pitchforks, and a gentle breeze is a hurricane." 332 THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. A man's life divested of the social virtues must necessarily be one of wretchedness ; for they constitute as truly and es- sentially an integral part of his own happiness, as they confer happiness upon those around him : it is suicidal to neglect their cultivation. Philosophers, however, have sought to urge this principle to an unreasonable extreme, by insisting that the universal love of our species was but a fuller development of self-love ; and that consequently no act of pure, disinterested benevolence could possibly exist. Magnanimity and courage, as well as philanthrophy and patriotism, have been classed to- gether under the same category — as merely modifications of this universal self-love. It is the supremacy of wisdom to cherish this passion, or principle, and to submit to its rule under the guidance and authority of reason; for rightly to estimate life is to value it in proportion to the amount of real good it confers. If happiness be the chief good, and of which all are in diligent pursuit, our reason would teach us, that not in blindly obeying the selfish impulses or passions of our na- ture should we attain its possession, but by simply submitting our conduct to the arbitration and test of that reason, irrespec tive of present, personal, or ostensible advantage. Lord Shaftes- bury remarks that a great many people pass for very good- natured persons, for no other reason than because they care about nobody but themselves; and consequently, as nothing annoys them but what touches their own interest, they never irritate themselves unnecessarily about what does not concern them, and seem to be made of the very milk of human kind- ness. This kind of good-nature is, of course, the most con- summate selfishness, partaking, in no small degree, of a love of indolence and exclusive personal indulgence : such individuals are apparently inoffensive and harmless in society, but they are injurious, because in the way. They are drones in the hives of human industry, or if they accumulate, the common weal is THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. 333 little benefited by their acquisition. Hazlitt remarks : " Tour good-natured man is, generally speaking, one who does not like to be put out of his way : and as long as he can help it, that is till the provocation comes home to himself, will not. He does not create fictitious uneasiness out of the distresses of others ; he does not fret and fume, and make himself uncomfortable about things he cannot mend, and that no way concern him, even if he could ; but then there is no one who is more apt to be dis- concerted by what puts him to any personal inconvenience, however trifling ; who is more tenacious of his self-indulgences, however unreasonable ; or who resents more violently any inter- ruption of his ease and comforts, — the very trouble he is put to in resenting it being felt as an aggravation of the injury. A person of this character feels no emotions of anger if you tell him of the devastation of a province, or the massacre of the inhabitants of a town, or the enslaving of a people ; but if his dinner is spoiled, he is thrown into irretrievable consternation and confusion. He thinks nothing can go amiss, as long as he is at his ease, though possibly a pain in his little finger renders him so peevish and impatient that no one can approach his presence." Such are the protean forms of human life, that it is next to impossible for a man to assume the same aspect under its manifold phases, and yet be honest : a disposition like that we have exhibited cannot therefore consist with strict moral integrity. Good nature, on the other hand, has been defined " humanity that costs notliing," for it incurs no risk of martyrdom in any cause, while it sacrifices all on the altar of self-interest. " Self is the medium least refined of all Through which opinion's searching beam can fall ; And passing there, the clearest, steadiest ray WUl tinge its light and turn its line astray." 3oi THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. It may be difficult to analyze the true motive which induces the patriot to serve his country's interest at the seeming ex- pense of his own ; it must be either a pure sentiment of disin- terested patriotism, or that of an ardent love of popular re nown. The same may be said of the philanthropist and the pioneer missionary ; the latter, however, is doubtless actuated by the higher convictions of religious obligation. It is possi- ble also for a man to prefer the interests of his friend to his own, from a feeling of pure benevolence ; although history and experience furnish but few instances of such exalted virtue. It is contended by writers adverse to the proposition, that this benevolence toward others is always found in proportion to the utility they are likely to be of to the party in return. The argument of Hazlitt may be thus briefly stated — that the habitual or known connection between our own welfare and that of others is one great source of our attachment to them, is not denied ; but to insist that it is the exclusive one, and that benevolence has not "a natural basis of its own to rest upon, as well as self-love, is contrary to the dictates of sound reason and human experience. Grant this, and the actual effects which we observe in human life will follow from both princi- ples combined ; for example, take that purest of all earthly loves — the affection of the mother for her child — it cannot be the effect of the good received or bestowed, or the child's power of conferring benefits, or its standing in need of assist- ance. Are not the fatigues which the mother undergoes for the child — its helpless condition, its little vexations, its suffer- ings from ill-health or accidents, additional claims upon mater- nal tenderness, and act as so many causes that tend to increase its devotion ? Again, we not only participate in the successes of our friends, but also in their reverses and trials, not for the reason already assigned, so much as from real regard to their welfare ; benev- THE SELFISH AUD l-HE SOCIAL. 335 olence is not therefore a mere physical reflection of self-love : it is more the result of moral feeling, or at least a combination with this. It is the nature of compassion or pity to forget self, in the commisei'ation of the sufferings of another, and such human hearts yet linger among us. '"Tis a little thing To give a cnp of water ; yet its draught Of cool refreshment drained by fevered lips, May give a shock of pleasure to the frame More exquisite than where nectarian juice Renews the life of joy in happier hours." The best portion of a good man's life consists in such name- less, unrecorded, oft unremembered, little acts of kindness and love. Goldsmith's good nature is illustrated by many characteristic incidents ; here is one : once visiting a poor woman whose sick- ness he plainly perceived was caused by an empty cupboard, he sent her, on his return home, a pill-box containing a few sovereigns, with this inscription on the outside, — " to be taken as occasion may require." Our sympathy, therefore, is not the servile, ready tool of our self-love, but this latter principle is itself subservient to, and overruled by the former, — that is, an attachment to others is a real, independent principle of human action. The only sense, then, in which our sympathy with others can be construed into self-love, must be that the mind is so constituted, that without forethought, or any reflection in itself, or when seeming most occupied witli others, it is still governed by the same universal feeling of which it is wholly unconscious ; and that we indulge in compassion only because and in so far as it coincides with our own immediate gratification. It is doubtless in this sense we are to apply the lines of Pope : 336 THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. ' ' Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake, As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake ; The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds, Another still, and still another speeds ; Friend, parent, neighbor, first its wiU embrace ; His country next — nest the whole human race. " In fine, the argument may be summed up in the Divine re-* quirement, " love thy neighbor as thyself." In proportion as we subordinate the selfish principle, we accelerate our personal enjoyment. The purest pleasure of life is the consciousness of loving and being beloved. " Grant me, Heaven, my earnest prayer — Whether life of ease or care Be the one to me assigned, That each coming year may find Loving thoughts and gentle words Twined within my bosom's chords, And that age may but impart Riper freshness to my heart ! " Again, when the kindly ofiices of friendship and charity are not required, how lavishly, sometimes, are they proffered ; but let the dark shades of adversity gather thickly around us, and vainly and long may we wait for the promised sympathetic aid. Sympathy and self-love are inconsistent ; and we invest man with the attribute of ideas of things out of himself, and to be influenced by them he must . necessarily cease to be a merely selfish agrent. He is then under another law and another ne- cessity, and in spite of himself is forced out of the direct line ot his own interest, both future and present, by other principles inseparable from his nature. THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. 337 " Man, like the generous vine, supported lives ; The strength he gains is from th' embrace he gives. On their own axis, as the planets run, Tet make at once their circle round the sun — So two consistent motions act the soul ; And one regards itself and one the whole. Thus God and nature linked the general frame, And bade self-love and social be the same ! " A smile speaks the universal language. " If I value myself on anything," said Hawthorne, " it is on having a smile that children love." They are such prompt little beings, too ; they require so little prelude ; hearts are won in two minutes, at that frank period, and so long as you are true to them they will be true to you. They use no argument, no bribery. They have a hearty appetite for gifts, no doubt, but it is not for these they love the giver. Take the wealth of the world and lavish it with counterfeited affection ; 1 will win all the children's hearts away from you by empty-handed love. The gorgeous toys will dazzle them an hour ; then their instincts will revert to their natural friends. To love children is to love childhood, instinctively, at what- ever distance, the first impulse being one of attraction, though it may be checked by later discoveries. Unless your heart com- mands at least as long a range as your eye, it is not worth much. " Allow me, gentlemen," said Curran, one evening to a large party, " to give you a sentiment. When a boy, I was one morn- ing playing at marbles in the village of Ball-alley, with a light heart and lighter pocket. The gibe and the jest went gladly round, when suddenly among us appeared a stranger, of a re- markable and very cheerful aspect ; his intrusion was not the least restraint upon our merry little assemblage. He was a benevolent creature, and the days of infancy (after all, the happiest we shall ever see) perhaps rose upon his memory. 23 338 THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. Heaven bless him ! I see his fine form, at the distance of half a century, just as he stood before me in the little Ball-alley, in the day of my childhood. His name was Boyse ; he was the rector of Newmarket. To me he took a particular fancy. I was winning, and full of waggery ; thinking everything that was eccentric, and by no means a miser of my eccentrici- ties ; every one was welcome to a share of them, and I had plenty to spare, after having frightened the company. Some sweatmeats easily bribed me home with him. I learned from Boyse my alphabet and my grammar, and the rudiments of the classics. He taught me all he could, and then he sent me to a school at Middleton. In short, he made me a man. I recollect it was about thirty-five years afterwards, when I had risen to some eminence at the bar, and when I had a seat in Parliament, on my return one day from the Court, I found an old gentleman seated alone in my drawing-room, his feet familiarly placed on each side of the Italian marble chimney-piece, and his whole air bespeaking the consciousness of one quite at home. He turned round — it was my friend of Ball-alley. I rushed in- stinctively into his arms, and burst into tears. Words cannot describe the scene which followed. ' You are right, sir, you are right. The chimney-piece is yours — the pictures are yours — the house is yours. You gave me all I have — my friend — my benefactor ! ' He dined with me ; and in the evening I caught the tear glistening in his fine blue eye, when he saw poor little Jack, the creature of his bounty, rising in the House of Commons to reply to a right honorable. Poor Boyse ! he is now gone ; and no suitor had a longer deposit of practical benevolence in the Court above. This is his wine — let us drink to his memory ! " Southey must have sung from his heart those sweet syllables about the longevity of love : THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. 339 " They sin who tell us love can die : With life all other passions fly, All others are but vanity. But love is indestructible ! Its holy flame forever bumeth, From heaven it came, to heaven retumeth I Too oft, on earth, a troubled ^est. At times deceived, at times opprest ; It is here tried and purified Then hath in heaven its perfect rest. It soweth here with toil and care, But the harvest-time of love is there ! " Charity, or love to our neighbor, is " the best-natured thing and the best-complexioned thing in the world. Let us express this sweet, harmonious afiFection in these jarring times, that sc, if it be possible, we may tune the world into better music." * Sydney Smith asserts that "there is nothing which an Englishman enjoys more than the pleasure of sulkiness — of not being forced to hear a word from anybody which may occasion to him the necessity of replying. It is not so much that Mr. Bull disdains to talk, as that Mr. Bull has nothing to say. His forefathers have been out of spirits for six or seven hundred years, and, seeing nothing but fog and vapor, he is out of spirits, too ; and when there is no selling or buying, or no busi- ness to settle, he prefers being alone, and looking at the fire." Wealth and station are what we call the accidents of life, or rather they are apportioned by Providence ; but love may exist with humble poverty as really as with luxury and pomp. "In ourselves the sunshine dwells, From ourselves the music swells ; By ourselves our life is fed With sweet or bitter daily bread." * Cudworth. 340 THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. Sydney Smith pleasantly remarks, " God has given us wit and flavor, and brightness and laughter and perfumes, to enliven the days of man's pilgrimage, and to charm his pained steps over the burning marie." And our great essayist * wisely insists that "there is no real life but cheerful life." Steele said, " I am persuaded that every time a man smiles, but much more so when he laughs, it adds something to this fragment of life." He has another piquant remark, where he refers to sociality : " Conversation never sits easier upon us than when we now and then discharge ourselves in a symphony of laughter, which may not improperly be called the chorus of conversa- tion." Therefore valetudinarians and long-visaged personages, who prefer to look on the dark side of things, should be sworn, before they enter into company, not to say a word of themselves or their tribulations until the meeting is dissolved. There are some ascetic souls, whose lugubrious looks cast dark shadows wherever they go ; and .whose presence, like the fabled upas tree, diffuses a deadly poison over all the felicities and gayeties of life. Who does not prefer the joyance and the fragrant breath of the warm, jubilant spring, with her gay garniture of flowers and sweet minstrelsy of birds, to the icy breath and solemn desolation of winter ? So a radiant face, all aglow with sunny smiles, and a voice attuned to the music of love, embel- lish and bless with their inspiration all with whom they come in contact. " To laugh is man's prerogative, we say, — It makes the wheels of nature glibber play ; Dull care suppresses, — smooths hfe's thorny way, — Propels the dancing current through each vein, — Braces the nerves, — corroborates the brain, — Moves every muscle, — makes one young again ! " " There is an old-fashioned virtue which often strikes us as * Addison. THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. 341 very little in favor with the people of our time, probably because they do not recognize it as a virtue at all ; and, indeed, it does its work with such a bright face and easy air that among the strenuous, austere brotherhood of duties and merits it may well pass for something else — as a mean and worldly conformity, perhaps. "We name it Complaisance. In fact, we doubt if anybody gives it its proper rank until he misses and feels the want of it. Even the old writers, who had much more pro- nounced ideas on the duty of being pleasant than people have nowadays, hesitate to place it among the moral virtues. True, it renders a superior amiable, an equal agreeable, an inferior acceptable. It sweetens conversation ; it produces good nature and mutual benevolence ; ' it encourages the timorous, soothes the turbulent, humanizes the fierce, and distinguishes a society of civilized persons from a confusion of savages ; ' and yet because it never makes itself disagreeable or unwelcome there is a doubt whether to call it a virtue simple or only a social virtue — that is, a charm, a grace, a fine manner, a performance for the actor's sake. Yet genuine complaisance, as the effusion of a benevolent nature, rendering the sacrifice of personal in- clination and ease a slight, unthought-of thing when set against the general satisfaction, is surely worthy of some considerable estimation even on the score of self-denial. " True complaisance never sleeps where the reisany body to please or to make more comfortable. Politeness is society's method of making things run smooth. Complaisance is a more intimate quality — an impulse to seek points of agreement with others; it is the spirit of welcome, whether to strangers, or to new suggestions, untried pleasures, fresh impressions. It is a belief in the reciprocal services which men, as members of society, can confer on each other — a willingness to confer and to receive; it is toleration, accessibility, and expectation. In fact, it is charity in its social aspect, as concerned with the 342 THE SELFISH AND THE SOCIAL. minor satisfactions and perplexities of life. Conscience is rarely a sleepless influence." * Let us, then, seek to eschew the idea of living exclusively for self^ — narrowing down the sphere of our earthly existence to so ignoble a purpose ; rather ought we to embellish it with the outgushings of a generous good- will to those who are less en- dowed than ourselves. If the Divine maxim be admitted, we enrich ourselves most when most generous in our benefactions to others. How glori- ous a thing it is — the consciousness of doing good ! What a galaxy of the great and good, who have scattered sunshine over the dark places of sorrow and suffering, illumine the scroll of our human history in all ages of the world, — worthy of all imi- tation ! * Saturday Review. THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. " The shadow on the dial's face, that steals, from day to day. With slow, unseen, unceasing pace, moments, and months, and years away ; This shadow, which, in every clime. Since light and motion first began. Hath held its course sublime." Time is so intangible a thing, that the moment we essay to grasp it, it is gone. Although impalpable it is yet real, for, like the circumambient atmosphere, it is ever present with us, although unseen. If we attempt to symbolize it, we fail fully to portray it, and yet images are its only mode of illustration. It is both the longest and the shortest, the swiftest and the 344 THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. slowest ; the most regretted and the least valued ; without which nothing can be done ; that which devours everything, and yet gives existence to everything. " It is the account current with all, in which more are found bankrupt than wealthy, when the balance-sheet is demanded. It marks the rising and the setting sun, spreads over ns the black veil of night, and gilds with gladness the face of day ; it rolls on the revolving seasons, chronicling the deeds of cen- turies ; watching over the birth of infanc}', the ardent aspira- tions of youth, toiling manhood, and the tottering steps of the infirm and aged — his sorrows, loves, and cares, nor forsakes him so long as life shall last." It is always the friend of the virtuous and the true, a tormenting foe to those who abuse the gift ; to the former, it is redolent of fragrant and pleasant memories, — to the latter, of gloomy remorse and despair. " It rolls away, and bears along A mingled mass of right and wrong ; The flowers of love that bloomed beside The margin of life's sunny tide ; The poisoned weeds of passion, torn From dripping rocks, and headlong borne Into that unhorizoned sea — Which mortals call eternity ! " And such is that mysterious myth, named Time, who meas- ures our allotted span, from the cradle to the cofiin, mingles our joys and griefs in the chalice of life, and then terminates it with his scythe, — " A shadow only to the eye, It levels all beneath the sky." Time itself is but a shadow ; it is what is done in time that is the substance. What are twenty-four centuries to the hard rock, more than twenty-four hours to man, or twenty-four min- THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. 345 utes to the ephemera ? " Are there not periods in our own exist- ence," writes an ingenious thinker, " in which space, computed by its measure of thoughts, feelings, and events, mocks the penury of man's artificial scale and comprises a lifetime in a day." " I asked an aged man, a man of cares, Wrinkled and curved, and white with hoary hairs : ' Time is the warp of life,' he said, ' Oh teU The young, the fair, the gay, to weave it welL" I asked the ancient, venerable dead — Sages who wrote, and warriors who bled : From the cold grave a hoUow murmiir flowed — ' Time sowed the seed we reap in this abode.' I asked a dying sinner, ere the tide Of life had left his veins : ' Time,' he replied, ' I've lost it — ah, the treasure ! ' and he died. I asked the golden sun and silver spheres. Those bright chronometers of days and years ; They answered — ' Time is but a meteor's glare,' And bade me for eternity prepare. I asked the seasons, in their annual round. Which beautify or desolate the ground : And they replied (no oracle more wise) : 'Tis Folly's blank, and "Wisdom's highest prize.' " * Shakespeare thus inimitably portrays " old father Time," and his various progressive journeys with us : " Time travels in divers paces, with divers persons ; I'll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal. He trots hard with a young maid, between the contract of her marriage, and the day it is solemnized ; if the interim be but a se'nnight. Time's pace is so hard, that it seems the length of seven years. He ambles with a priest that lacks Latin, and a rich man that tath not the gout — for the one sleeps easily, because he cannot * Marsden. 346 THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. study ; and the other lives merrily, because he feels no pain ; the one lacking the burden of lean and wasteful learning — the other knowing no burden of heavy, tedious penury ; then Time arables withal. He gallops with a thief to the gallows — for, though he go softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there. He stays still with lawyers in the vacation — for they sleep between term and term, and then they perceive not how Time moves." Time is portrayed with wings to indicate his rapid flight, and if he strew our pathway with life's spring flowers, he also brings, too swiftly, its wintry frosts and desolation. He is also represented with a scythe, to notify that he mows down all alike — the young and the old, the refined and the vulgar, the good and the bad. " Even such is Time that takes on trust, Our youth, our joys, our all we have, And pays us but with age and dust ; Who, in the dark and silent grave. When we have wandered all our ways, Shuts up the story of our days." * The earliest expedient for reckoning time seems to have been the sundial. Allusion to its use is to be found in Holy Writ. Herodotus informs us that the Greeks borrowed the inven- tion from the Babylonians. The sundial was first used at Rome, about 300 B.C. Prior to that time there was no division of the day into hours, but only sun-rising and sun-setting, hefore and after mid-day. The Tdejpsydra^ or water-clock, was introduced at Rome, 157 B.C. It served its purpose in all weathers, while the dial, of course, depended upon the sun. There is a dial in the Temple Gardens, London, upon which * Raleigh. THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. 347 is inscribed the admonitory line for loiterers, " Begone about your business." One of the oldest clocks in England is in the Palace of Hampton Court. It still works well, and wears well, like old father Time himself. One of the best clocks now in London is that of the Royal Exchange. That placed in the Clock Tower of the New Houses of Parliament is an eight-day one, and strikes the hour on a bell weighing nearly ten tons ; it chimes tlie quarter upon eight bells, and shows the time upon four dials, about thirty feet in diameter. The length of the minute-hand of the clock of St. Paul's Cathedral is 8 feet, and its weight 75 lbs. ; the length of the hour-hand is 5 feet 5 inches, and its weight 44 lbs. The diameter of the dial is 18 feet. The diameter of the bell is ten feet, and its weight four tons and a quarter. It is never used except for the striking of the hour, and for tolling at the deaths and funerals of any of the Royal family, the Bishops of London, the Deans of St. Paul's, and the Lord Mayor, should he die during mayoralty. The astronomical clock at Strasburg is composed of three parts, respectively dedicated to the measure of time, to the calendar, and to astronomical movements. The first thing to be created was a central moving power, communicating its motion to the whole of its mechanism. The motive power, which is itself a very perfect and exact timepiece, indicates on an outer face the hours and their subdivisions, as well as the days of the week ; it strikes the hours and the quarters, and puts in motion divers allegorical figures. Watches were first introduced at the close of the fifteenth century. Watchmaking has been carried to great perfection by the Swiss, French, and English. Some minute watches have been constructed of less than half an inch diameter. A watch has been facetiously designated as the image of 348 THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. modesty, since it always holds its hands before its face, and however good its works may be, it is always running itself down A word respecting Almanacs. Some suppose the term to be Arabic, others give it a Teutonic origin, from the words al and moan, the moon. Others again assign it a Saxon derivation. In 1472 the earliest European almanac was issued from the press ; and, before the end of that century, they became com- mon on the Continent. In England they were not in general use until the middle of the sixteenth century. The almanac, in its simple form as a calendar, agrees in many respects to i\\e fasti or festival-roll of the Romans. The word calendar comes from the Latin verb calare, to call, or calens, its participle, on account of the custom of the pontiffs summoning the people to apprise them of the festivals occur- ring in each respective month ; these occasions are designated dies calendcB — the calends or first days of the month. Such was the beginning of our almanac. The fasti seems to be an extension of the primitive religious calendar, and to the pagan feast-days added the days on which the magistrates were elected and held court. This was its first civil form. The calendar of the almanac now in use is an improvement on that of Romulus. He divided the year into ten months, beginning with March. His year consisted of 304 days. Numa improved on Romulus, and added two mouths, January to the beginning, and February to the end of the year. In 452 B.C., the Decemvirs placed February after January, and fixed the order of the months. The year at this time consisted of 365 J days. According to the imperfect mode of reckoning by the Romans, after the addition of the months of January and February, e.g. 452, the twenty-fourth of February was called the sixth before the calends of March, sexto calendas. In the intercalary year this day was repeated and styled Ms sexto cal- THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. 349 eitdas — whence we derive the term bissextile. The correspond- ing term leap-year is, however, infelicitously applied, inasmuch as it seems to intimate that a day was leaped over, instead of being thrust in, which is the fact. It may be remarked that in the ecclesiastical calendar, the intercalary day is still in- serted between the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth of February. Bissextile, or leap-year, therefore contains three hundred and sixty-six days, and occurs every fourth year. Leap-year is, ac- cording to traditionary lore, invested with sundry privileges and immunities to the fair. The Comic Almanac says, " it takes three springs to make one leap-year.^'' Sosigenies, the astronomer, induced Caesar to abolish the lunar year, and regulate time by the sun. Gregory the Thir- teenth, in 1582, corrected the calendar, and placed it on its present basis. The Gregorian calendar was received at once by all the Roman Catholic States of Europe. The Protestant powers refused, for some time, to adopt it. England did not receive it till 1752. In that year, the Julian calendar, or old style, was abolished, and the Gregorian, or new style, adopted. This was done by dropping eleven days, the excess of the Julian over the true solar time. Russia still adheres to the old. A prominent feature of the earlier almanacs was the prog- nostications respecting the weather, calculated from the various phases of the moon. The divisions of time into periods of seven days have been made in all ages, and are as old as the creation. The Chinese, the Egyptians, the Arabs, and other Oriental nations, as well as the Jews, counted in this way. The word " week " is taken from the Saxon language and means seven days, the same as in ours. Some people suppose that the number seven was chosen because the ancients knew of only seven planets, and because they believed the planets had a great deal of influence over human affairs, they named 350 THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. one day in honor of each, and so obtained the names of the days and their division at the same time. "We have kept a part of these names and changed the others for words taken from the Saxon deities. The days of Mars, Jupiter, Mercury, and Yenus have been called Tuesday, Wed- nesday, Thursday, and Friday, from Tuesco, Woden, Thor, and Friga, the Mars, Jupiter, and Venus of the Saxons. The day on which the week begins is not always the same. Among the Jews the Sabbath was made to fall on the seventh day. Among Christians the first day was set apart as a Sab- bath. The changes of the moon evidently caused the next division of time into months. A year is the period in which the sun makes his circuit of the heavens. There has been a good deal of confusion from the attempt to make the periods of time correspond precisely with the revolu tions of the heavenly bodies. The moon makes more than twelve revolutions in a year, and the year itself is a little more than three hundred and sixty- five days ; so while it would make no difference for short periods, yet in centuries these fractions would amount to quite a sum. From time to time the year has been pushed forward, so to speak, by adding enough days to make up deficiencies. The names of the months have come to us from the Romans. With them March was the first month (and for a while they had only ten) and December the tenth, November the ninth, October the eighth. They soon found that ten months made a short year, and so added two — January and February — from the names of two of their gods. The fifth and sixth were afterward changed to July and August, in honor of two em- perors. An exact computation of time is very important, and learned THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. 351 men have always endeavored to avoid mistakes. Corrections have been made from time to time, until a system almost per- fect has been established. Among the ancient nations the day began at sunrise and con- tinued till its light expired : others supposed their day to com- mence at sunset. The Arabians, again, make theirs to begin at noon, with all navigators and astronomers : while we, in com- mon with the ancient Egyptians, and most of the modern Eu- ropeans, date from midnight, which, allowing of all the waking hours of day to come together, is manifestly the most conve- nient and rational. The ancients were accustomed to group together the various clusters of stars ; these groups, which they termed constellations, they gave the names of celebrated per- sonages of their day, and others they named after such birds, beasts, or insects as seemed to be portrayed in the space de- scribed by these stellar objects. The divisions of the heavens designated, to some extent, the seasons of the year, and hence the origin of the signs of the zodiac. January is a name which is derived from Janus^ who was in classic mythology the tutelary deity that presided over this gate of the New Year. Janus was represented with two faces, looking in opposite directions — to the past and the future. The temple in Rome, erected to his memory, was always kept open in time of war. It was closed only three times during the lapse of seven hundred years. It was closed at the time of the birth of Christ, for then the whole world was at peace. ^' He cometli, the elder-bom child of the yeax, With a turbulent voice, and a visage austere ; But his cold, callous hand, and his boreal breath, Prepare for new life the low relics of death ; A changeling in temper, but ever sublime. Is this moody, mad offspring of stem winter-time." New Year's Day has been, from time immemorial, kept as a 352 THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. day of rejoicing. By the Greeks it was a solemn festival : by the Komans, one of feasting and congratulation. Throughout Christendom it is kept as a holiday. Bells are rung at mid- night to celebrate the exit of the old, and the advent of the new year. Despite its icy breath and frigid aspect, rugged winter seems to be prophetic of a joyous new existence, as those who have become frosted with age appear for the time to have acquired a spirit of rejuvenescence. It forms a sort of resting-place in the progress of life's journey, from which we all persuade our- selves, however we may deprecate the past, that the future is gilded with Iris hopes of happiness. If the external aspect of nature appear cheerless and chilly, the scene is but the more heightened by the contrast of the sunny smiles and generous hospitalities of the happy fireside of kindred and friends. There is something picturesque as well as grateful in this time- honored custom of commemorating the nativity of the year, by acts of beneficence atid votive offerings to friendship. Friendly interchange of visits, congratulations and the pre- sentation of gifts, seem to have been in vogue in every age. The ancient Druids were accustomed to cut the sacred mistle- toe, with a golden knife, in a forest dedicated to the gods, and to distribute its branches with much ceremony, as new-year's gifts to the people. Of the special holidays and festivals of this month, the first in order is that of Circumcision — a festival of the Komish Church, and adopted also by the Episcopacy since the year 1550. The next festival in the Calendar is that styled Ejpijph- any, or Twelfth-day — indicating the manifestation of Christ to the Gentile world, which event is ascribed to this date. This holiday used to be characterized in Saxon times by the wassail-howl— Q. spiced decoction, deriving its name from wcbs- THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. 353 TicbI (be healthy), the toast the sturdy old Saxons adopted on the occasion of their libations. The second, and briefest of the family of months, Febru- ary, derives its name from Februo, to purify ; hence Februa- rius, the appellation assigned by the Romans to the expiatory sacrifices they were accustomed to offer at this season. Pisces, the constellation over which Neptune was supposed to preside, was regarded by the ancients as the last of the winter signs, and was represented under the figure of two fishes; but at present it is the first in order of the stellar groups of the zo- diac, presiding over the vernal equinox. The Saxon name for this month was sprout-kele, also sal- monath, or pancake month, from their custom of offering cakes to the sun, for his increasing power. Midway in this month comes the festival of St. Valentine. All we know of him is that he was canonized in consequence of his having suffered martyrdom in the third century, under the Emperor Claudius. Some have conjectured that the custom of devoting this day to Cupid is traceable to the ancient Romans, whose festivals, called Lupercalia, were celebrated about this time. On these occasions, amidst a variety of ceremonies, the names of young women were placed in a box, from which they were drawn by a band of devotees, as chance determined. The practical joking which prevails so universally on the day in question, the love of fun and caricature with Cupid, is of comparatively modern date. Formerly, love-making among om* sober progenitors wore a much more grave and demure as- pect: it was not a matter to be trifled with, that of Knking hearts and hands, with the joint fortunes or misfortunes of life. "Oh love ! how potent is thy sway ; Thou'rt terrible, indeed, to most men ! But once a year there comes a day When thou tormentest chiefly postmen. 23 354: THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. " Oh hard indeed the lot must be Of him who wears thy galling fetters ! But e'en more miserable he Who must go round with all thy letters." Without pretending to estimate the obligations of many of the devotees of Hymen to this worthy saint's influence, the fes- tival, occurring half -way in this most inclement and unpopular month, certainly tends to beguile many of its objectionable ac- companiments — snow, sleet, and that worst of all kinds of weather — a penetrating thaw, against which even a suit of mail may be said to be scarcely impervious. Shrove -Tuesday regulates most of the movable feasts. It is the next after the first new moon in the month of February, and follows the first Sunday in Lent. Formerly, the people were expected to prepare themselves for Lent by confessing themselves ; hence the word shrove. Ash- Wednesday is the first day of Lent, supposed to have been so called from a custom in the Church of sprinkling ashes that day on the heads of the penitents. March is so called from Mars, the pagan god of war. The Saxons called it lenct monath, or length month, be- cause the days then begin to exceed in length the nights. Lenct, now called Lent, means spring. March is a rude, boisterous month, possessing many of the chai-acteristics of winter, yet it gives us the fii'st announcement and foretaste of spring. What can equal the delight of the heart at the very first glimpse of spring — the first peeping of buds and green herbs ? It is like a new life infused into our bosoms. A spirit of tenderness — a burst of freshness and lux- ury of feeling possesses us ; and though fifty springs have broken upon us, their joy, unlike many joys of time, is not an atom impaired. True it is that blustering, rude Boreas causes boisterous ex- THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. 355 citement about this time, as if seeking to awaken Nature from her long sleep of winter ; while dusty particles scorn all local habitation, performing fantastic gyrations in the air, to the se- rious discomfiture of our physical organs, especially the optical and olfactory. The dry winds of lusty March, however they may be depre- cated for their personal incivilities, are nevertheless useful to the purposes of agriculture. Its zodiacal sign, Aries, was as- signed to this, originally the first month of the year, because the ancients considered the ram as the father of the fleecy flock which afforded them both food and raiment. St. David's Day is celebrated by the Welsh as commemora- tive of their patron saint : it occurs on the first of the month. We now come to the festival held in honor of the tutelar saint of Ould Ireland — Saint Patrick — who, according to ancient lore, in the year of grace 433 landed near Wicklow, having, it is said, been born at Kilpatrick, Scotland. His glo- rious memory is mnemonized by the well-known Shamrock. The real name of this notable apostle of the Irish was Maen- wyn. Pope Celestine gave him his ecclesiastical patronymic of PatricuSj when he consecrated him as bishop to Ireland in A.D. 433. Originally there was a dispute, according to Lover, as to the true anniversary of this renowned saint, some suppos- ing the eighth and others the ninth to be the correct date : the humorist, however, represents a priest as settling the difiiculty as follows: ' ' Says he, ' Boys, don't be fighting for eight or for nine ; Don't be always dividing — but sometimes combine. Combine eight with nine, and seventeen is the mark. So let that be his birthday.' 'Amen,' says the clerk. So they all got blind drunk — which completed their bliss, And we keep up the practice from that day to this. " Palm Simday is the first Sunday before Easter, so 356 THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. called in commemoration of Christ's entering into Jerusalem, eight days before the Passover. The Passover of the Jewa closely agrees with the time when the sun crosses or passes over the equator, an event that could hardly fail to be cele- brated with rites and ceremonies by a people so devoted to as- tronomy as the Egyptians, who had educated Moses. Pascha was the primitive term, the English name passover being de- rived from Godi'^jpassing over the houses of the Israelites and sparing their first-born, when those of the Egyptians were put to death. The first of April was by the Romans consecrated to Yenus, the goddess of beauty, as the earth begins at this time to be arrayed in her beautiful garments and bedeck herself with flowers. The month of April is one of alternating smiles and tears. By some writers it has been designated the sweetest of the aerial sisters, because it ushers in the " delicate-footed May." "Sighing, stonniiig, singing, smiling, With her raany moods beguiling, April walks the wakening earth. Wheresoe'er she looks and lingers, Wheresoe'er she lays her fingers. Some new charm starts into birth." * This month, it will be recollected, is introduced by the equi- vocal practice of imposing upon our credulity, under the style and title of April-fooling. Be very circumspect on this day of attending to gratuitous advice, given in the street, respecting your costume or personal appearance. Do not heed any officious person who may insist upon your picking up anything he may imagine you to have dropped. * J. C. Prince, THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. S57 About the middle of April the sun enters Taurus — a con- stellation which includes one hundred and forty-one stars, the principal of which is Aldebaran, of the first magnitude ; it also comprises two remarkable representations, viz. : the Pleiades and the Hyades. Alcyone, the principal star in the Pleiades, is supposed by Prof. Madler to be the grand central sun in the universe. Good Friday^ designed to commemorate the crucifixion, is religiously regarded as a solemn festival. At St. Peter's, at Rome, it is kept up in the service of the TenebrcB — a cere- monial representing the entombment of the Saviour. Cross- buns used on this day are in imitation of the ecclesiastical eulogia, or consecrated loaves, formerly bestowed in the church as alms, or given to those who, from any impediment, could not receive the host. It will be remembered that popular superstition has marked this day of the week (Friday) as " un- lucky." If Friday was ever ill-omened, its reputation is sufiiciently redeemed, for it was on that day that Columbus discovered the New World, that George Washington was born, and that the Pilgrim fathers reached the Plymouth rock. " The flowery May, who from her green lap throws The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose." Thus sung the " blind old bard," and a right fruitful theme has this " queen month " of the calendar been to the many wor- shippers of the muse, from the days of old Chaucer down to our own. May seems to be the bridal season of heaven and earth, and the whole month the honeymoon. " Buds are filling, leaves are sweUing, flowers on field, and bloom on tree : O'er the earth, and air, and ocean, Nature holds her jubilee." 358 THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. Wordsworth thus daintily pictures forth the harbingers of spring : "Pansies, lilies, kingcups, daisies, Let them live upon their praises ; Long as there's a sun that sets, primroses wiU have their glory — Long as there are violets, they wiU have a place in story." The rural festivities of the May-queen are no longer seen^ but the denizens of New York, for the special benefit of the landlords, have substituted a custom instead, of a most moving and exciting character ; we refer to their curious passion for changing their habitations on that day. On this eventful day, the entire community is in a transition state. Like a busy swarm of ants, people are hurrying to and fro, hither and thither, in the most amusing confusion, each eagerly in quest of his new abode. This singular fancy for change of habita- tion seems peculiar to our locomotive people of New York. The zodiacal sign of May is Gemini (the twins), named Castor and Pollux, who are fabled to have appeared to sailors in storms with lambent fires on their heads, as propitious to the mariner. May is synonymous with sunny weather ; the state of the weather, by the way, is an ever-fruitful theme of discourse with all sorts of people at all sorts of times. It seems ever uppermost in our thoughts, or upon the tip of the tongue. " It is worthy of note when two friends meet together The first topic they start is the state of the weather — It is always the same, both with young and with old : 'Tis either too hot, or else 'tis too cold, 'Tis either too wet, or else 'tis too dry. The glass is too low, or else 'tis too high ; But if all had their wishes once jumbled together, No mortal on earth could exist in such weather." We now approach the rosy month of June. It was by the THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. 359 Romans called Junius^ in honor of tlie ^outh who served Regulns in the war ; or it was more probably derived from Juno, the goddess of heaven. The Saxons gave it the name of weyd-monath, from the German weiden, to pasture. This is the season for fresh and fragrant flowers — those gaudy and brilliant gems Is"ature bedecks herself withal : the very air is perfumed with their rich odors, and, in the words of Coleridge,^ " Many a hidden brook, in this leafy month of June, To the sleeping woods aU night singeth a quiet tune." Toward the close of the month, that pleasant rural occupa- tion, hay -making, commences: the country now begins to assume a most beautiful aspect — here the corn is already begin- ning to peep out, here the meadows are mown and cleared, and here again the grass still waves in all the rich luxuriance of wild flowers. We have now completed just half the circuit of the calen- dar, and it is high noon of the year ; suppose we indulge in a brief homily upon Time — by way of tempering our trifling, and in order to save our sobriety from shipwreck. How im- portant is it that we duly value the passing moment — all we can boast of Time in possession — yet are we not ever prone rather to indulge vain regrets for the past, or eager anticipa- tions for the future ? " The past ! what is it but a gleam which memory faintly throws ? The future ! 'tis the fairy dream that hope and fear compose. The present ! is the Hghtning glance that comes and disappears : Thus life ia but a moment's trance of memories, hopes, and fears ! " "Spare minutes are the gold-dust of time," says a quaint author ; " of all portions of our life they are the most to be 360 THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. guarded and watc^hed, for they are the gaps through which idleness tempts us astray." An impartial review of the past is fraught with instruction to the future : " 'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours, And ask them what report they bore to heaven." Midsummer, also, naturally reminds us of the meridian of life — a point in our history when we may, with advantage, take a retrospective, as well as a prospective survey ; when the premonitions of an occasional gray hair, or wrinkle on the brow, are too decisive to be mistaken. " The more we live, more brief appear Our life's succeeding stages : A day to childhood seems a year, And years like passing ages. Heaven gives our years of fading strength Indemnifying fleetness ; ■ And those of youth a seeming length. Proportioned to their sweetness." * The sultry summer month of July is now come, — when Sol is in the ascendant, and in his glowing ardor to entertain his guests, gives to all creation such an ardent greeting. PuncKs humorous apostrophe is too good to be omitted in this place : it runs in this wise : " Well done, thou glorious orb ! well done, indeed, Thou sun ; for nature now is one great feast, Roasted, and boiled, and fried, and baked, by thee. Thy fire hath boUed the fishes ia the streams ; Roasted the living mutton on the Downs ; Fried aU the parsley on its very bed ; And baking the potatoes under ground, Hath cooked them growing ; so that men may dig 'Taters aU hot ! " * Campbell. THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. 361 This month is distiuguished by its Dog-days. That every dog has his day^ is an admitted axiom, but why the canine fraternity at large should thus monopolize this particular part of the calendar, we cannot divine ; and as we prefer not to dog- matize^ we respectfully refer the reader to an old authority, and a witty dog into the bargain — Dog-herry. Whether it is that they expect to run mad with impunity during this term, to the terror of all mayors and municipalities ; or whether it is because all the rest of the year they get kicked out of sight, that this brief interval is secured for their jubilee, we are alike unable to determine ; and must, therefore, leave the learned in such matters to decide, and shall be content to con-cur in their decision. Tom Hood has something to add on the subject, which we subjoin : "Most do^edly I do maintain, and hold the dogma true — That four-legged dogs although we see we've some that walk on two, Among them there are clever dogs — a few you'd reckon mad, While some are very jolly dogs and others very sad. I've heard of physic thrown to dogs, and very much incline. To think it true, for we've a pack who only bark and w(h)ine." The zodiacal sign of the month is Sirius, which is apparently one of the largest objects in the sidereal heavens. St. Swithin's Day is memorable from the tradition that, if there should be rain on that day, it would continue for forty days afterward. The " glorious Fourth " is the national birthday of Freedom in the United States, when the Sovereign people indulge in the exercise of the " largest liberty," and by way of canonizing the goddess disturb the quiet air with incessant booming of guns, firing of pistols, and rushing of rockets. The golden August now bursts upon us — that gorgeous 302 THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. month, most rife with all sorts of delicious fruits and sheaves of garnered grain. This month is introduced by Lammas-day — one of the great thanksgiving festivals of former time : and it closes under the saintly patronage of Jerome. Harvest- home, the rustic jubilee of rural life, also belongs to this glorious month. August was called Sextilis by the Romans, from its being the sixth month in their calendar, until the Senate compli- mented Augustus by naming it after him, because he had then first entered upon his consulship, having subdued Egypt to the Roman dominion ! The Saxons called this month arn-monath, more rightly barn-monath, indicating the filling of barns with corn. The zodiacal sign of the month — that of Yirgo — the Virgin . St. Bartholomew's Day occurs on the 24:th of this month : and it possesses a sad notoriety for its connection with the hor- rible butchery of 1572, in Paris. The splendor of the- summer months now gives place to the sober tints of russet autumn. A pastoral writer observes, "Autumn, yet with her hand grasped in the feeble clasp of Summer, as if the latter were loth to depart, still retains much green hanging about the woods, and much blue and sunshine about the sky and earth. But the leaves are rustling in the forest paths, the harvest-fields are silent, and the heavy fruit that bows down the branches proclaims that the labor of Summer is ended — that her yellow- robed sister has come to gather in and garner the rich treasures she has left behind." Hope, who looked with a cheerful countenance upon the landscape of Spring, has departed. Instead of watching each green and flowery object, day by day, as it budded and blos- somed, we now see only the traces of slow and sure decay, the green fading, bit by bit, until the leaves become like the skele- THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. 363 ton wings of an insect, the wind blowing through those places which were before marked with azure, and crimson, and gold. The sun himself seems growing older; he rises later from hia bed in the morning, and returns to rest earlier in the evening, and seems not to have that strength which he possessed when he rose in the youthful vigor of Spring, and the bright and cheerful manhood of Summer ; for his golden eyes seem clouded, and his breath thick and heavy, as he struggles through the surrounding fog. All these are marks of the sea- sons, telling us that tlie year is growing gray, and slowly tot- tering towards the darkness and grave-like silence of Winter. Seasons — Punch suggests that an assertion so frequently made, that it is impossible to arrest the flight of Time, is alto- gether erroneous, for who is there that cannot stop a minute. " A moral character is attached to autumnal scenes — the leaves falling like our years, the flowers fading like our hours, the clouds fleeting like our illusions, the light diminishing like our intelligence, the sun growing colder like our affections, the rivers becoming frozen like our lives — all bear secret relations to our destinies." * The name September, being derived from Sej>tem, seven, indicates its order in the Roman Calendar, prior to the Julian reform. The zodiacal sign is the constellation of Libra, or the Balance ; because when the sun entered this asterism it seemed to hold the days and nights in equilibrio, giving the same pro- portion of light as darkness to tlie inhabitants of all parts of the globe. The transition from autumnal richness to the desolation of winter is gradual, almost imperceptible, like our own advanc- ing years. Miller, the poet, thus writes about it : " Forest scenery never looks so beautiful as in Autumn. It is then that Nature seems to have exhausted all the fantastic * Chateaubriand. 364: THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. colors of her palette, and to have scattered her richest red, brown, yellow, and purple upon the foliage. Every gust of wind that now blows brings down thousands of golden-colored acorns, that come pattering like little feet among the fallen leaves, leaving empty their smooth, round, hollow cups, from which the old poets in their fables framed the drinking vessels of the fairies." October is from the Latin octo, eight ; with the Saxons it was styled winterfyllith — winter beginning. The principal Saints' days of this month are those of St. Dennis — who, according to the legend, walked two miles with his head in his hand, after it had been cut off — and of St. Crispin, the patron of the shoe-making fraternity. One of the Comio Almanaos attempts the facetious on this month, in the following playful stanzas : " The sum of Summer is cast at last, And carried to Wintry season, And the frightened leaves are leaving us fast. If they stayed it would be high trees-on. The sheep, exposed to the rain and drift, Are left to all sorts of wethers^ And the ragged young birds must make a shift Until they can get new feathers." In noting the chronicles of Time, we find "The pale, descending year, yet pleasing still;" for although the sere a«id yellow leaf now greets us, where a short time since all was verdant, and Nature has doffed her gay attire, yet is there great beauty even in the blanched and frozen landscape, which dull spirits deem all dreary, desolate, and dead. Shelley's exquisite dirge is known to many readers ; it may not be to all ; listen : " The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying. THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. 365 And the year On the eaxth, her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead, Is lying, Come months, come away, from November to May, In your saddest array ; Follow the bier of the dead, cold year. And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre." November is the next month we reach ; its name being de- rived from novem — nine. All-Souls Day occurs on the second of this month — conse- crated to the memory of those saintly personages of yore, to the invocation of whom the Church had not assigned any par- ticular date. The closing day of November is St. Andrew's ; St. Cecilia has also conferred a ghostly honor on this month, as well as upon music. "We close our notice of this notable month with a brief but elegant passage from the pen of that sunny and healthful writer, Leigh Hunt. " November," he says, " with its loss of verdure, its frequent rains, the fall of the leaf, and the visible approach of winter, is undoubtedly a gloomy month to the gloomy, but to others its brings but pensiveness — a feeling very far from being destitute of pleasure ; and if the healthiest and most imaginative of us may feel their spirits pulled down by reflections connected with earth, — its mortalities and its mis- takes, we shall but strengthen ourselves the more to make strong and sweet music with the changeful but harmonious movements of nature." December, from Decern — ten. The Saxons named it winter- monath. We have watched the progress of the year, from its birth to its death. We have watched the procession of the sister months, and in their course the successive seasons — the bright, brilliant, and evanescent glories of the joyous spring, the gor 866 THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. geous sunsets of tlie sultrj summer, the rich exuberance of fruit-bearing autumn ; and now we are fairly in companionship with the frigid winter, with its brief days and prolonged nights. "We are reminded here of a very literal reason once rendered, in reply to the inquiry, as to the cause of the length of days in summer, and their brevity in winter ; namely, that it the na- ture of heat to expand, and of cold to contract. Punch thus refers to the frozen desolation of winter : ' ' There is a stoppage in the currency Of all the streams, which cannot liquidate Their tribute to the sea. The frozen soU, Hard up, no more repays the husbandman. Each object, crusted o'er with rime and snow — Seems whitewashed. Of their furniture the trees Are stripped ; and everywhere distringas reign. On one vast picture of insolvency We gaze around ; and did we not repose In Mother Earth's resources confidence Should see no prospect of a dividend Of sixpence in the pound ! " 'November and Y)QQ,errhher are called the embers of the dying year. The famous festival of St. ISTieholas — " the boy-bishop," and the tutelar saint of childhood — is celebrated on the sixth. Dreary, indeed, would this ice-clad month be, were it not for the glowing associations of its merry Christmas, with its holly and mistletoe, and the gladsome gatherings and rejoicings of social life. What bright visions of joyous faces, well-spread tables, and happy firesides, does it kindle up in the memory ; and with what glowing and grateful contrast does the dreary desolation without invest the radiant and jubilant scenes of the domestic hearth. The hearty and generous hospitality which characterizes Christmas celebrations — with the old, orthodox THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. 367 accessories of that delicious conglomerate of all good things — plnin-pudding, and its accompaniment, the glorious sirloin — • are enough to tempt the veriest anchorite to participate in Epicurean delights ; for surely the palate that could not appre- ciate, nay, luxuriate over such dainty and delectable dishes, must have become sadly perverted and depraved. The term Christmas is derived from the Latin Church — it is properly Christi Massa (the Mass of Christ). In former times, the celebration of Christmas began in the latter part of the previous day — Christmas Eve. The house was first decked with holly, ivy, and other evergreens. Candles of an uncommon size were then lighted under the name of Christ- mas candles ; an enormous log, called the Yule log, or Christ- mas block, was laid upon the fire, while the people sat round, regaling themselves with beer. In the course of the night small parties went about from house to house, singing what were called Christmas Carols, commemorative of the nativity of our Lord. Twelfth-day — the anniversary of the adoration of the magi — occurs on the twelfth day after Christmas. Many curious customs are associated with its celebration, in Great Britain and on the Continent. Thus we find in the Gentleman's Mag- azine for 1759, in the record for January : " Being Twelfth- day, his majesty went to the Chapel Royal, with the usual solemnity, and offered gold, myrrh, and frankincense, in three purses, at the altar, according to ancient custom." Time is the universal talent, subjecting every man living to a chai'ge and an account. Within its circles all our other talents turn. They are the wheels within this great wheel, whose united movement causes it to revolve, for, as they are duly exercised, Time is successfully employed. It is the entail of humanity, come down to us as our inalienable heritage ; and, as in the law of primogeniture, unencumbered with our 368 THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS. father's debts. May we prove sucli wise occupants and inheri- tors of this valuable property, that, whatever may be the passing anxieties of its tenure, we may realize its profits here- after I " 'Tis not for man to trifle 1 Life is brief, And sin is here. Oar age is but the falling of a leaf, A dropping tear. We have no time to sport away the hours ; AH must be earnest in a world like ours. " Not many lives, but only one have we; One, only one — How sacred should that one life ever be — That narrow span ! Day after day filled up with blessed toil, Hour after hour still bringing in new spoiL" PASTIMES OF THE PEN. " Of all writers, the poet," wrote Washington Irving, " be- comes the most fascinated with his gentle vocation. Others may write from the head, but he writes from the heart, and the heart will always understand him. His writings contain the spirit, the aroma, if I may use the phrase, of the age in which he lives. They ^re caskets which enclose within a small com- pass the wealth of the language — its family jewels, which are thus transmitted in a portable form to posterity." " There is a pleasure in poetic pains," we have been told ; and not seldom have the votaries of the muse had to learn in suffering what they teach in song; yet what poet has not strung his lyre to the honor of his muse, and with Chaucer rather have " At his bedde's head A twenty bokes, clothed in blacke and red, Of Aristotle, and his phylosophie, Than robes rich, or fiddle, or psalterie." 24 370 PASTIMES OF THE PEX. The pleasures of writing are among the chief incentives to authorship. There are millions of men, says Byron, who have never written a book, but few who have written only one. "Literature," says a modem essayist, "has its solitary pleas- ures, and they are Tnany / it has also its social pleasures, and they are more. In the olden time, when life went on its way less swiftly, men of meditative character had leisure for retirement and study ; and albeit they indulged somewhat in verbose prolixity, yet they did the world some service, for they gathered for us many a sweet flower of rhetoric and of poesy, the sweets of which we have since sought to distil, although the blossoms have faded away. The domestic life of genius has afforded many touching in- stances of happy contentment under privation, and of the heroic pursuit of knowledge under difiiculties; because sus- tained and inspired by a devotion to study. Who would not like "to have seen Richardson reading chap- ters of his novels to his listening friends, in his favorite grotto ; or Sterne, by his own fireside with his daughter copying, and his wife knitting ; or Scott, with his favorite dogs, amid the antique armorial insignia of his sanctum, at Abbotsford ; or Dickens, in his, at Gadshill, surrounded with the multitudinous creations of his fertile fancy ? Then think of Milton, in his blindness, in- diting those majestic measures concerning a Paradise Lost and Regained. Humble yet stately as to his worldly aspect, but how imperial as to his mental ; and how good as well as great ! Like Shakespeare, Burke and Goldsmith, in their respective depart- ments, what have they not achieved and what does not the world owe to their genius ? Scott and Goethe alike confessed their obligations to the Vicar of WaJtefield ; and it has been welcomed, like the Pit- griiji's Progress, with smiles and tears by myriads of readers. PASTIMES OF THE PEN. 371 It has been well said, therefore, that " Books are not seldom talismans and spells." With most of the poets, Homer, Spenser, and Shakespeare have been ever favorite books. Alexander the Great is said to have slept with a copy of Homer under his pillow. Plutarch's Lives was one of Franklin's favorite works, as his own practical maxims have been of many in later times. Cobbett's earliest choice of a book was Swift's Tale of a Tub ; and strangely enough it seems to have had a quicken- ing influence upon his mind. He seems to have been delighted with it, carrying it about with him wherever he went. Three of Byron's favorite books were, Burton's Anatomy of Melan- choly^ D'Israeli's Literary Character^ and Scott's Novels. "Who does not remember that fairy book, the Arabian Nights, and the exploits of Don Quixote f In spite of all mutations, the cadences of the true muse must live still in the sweet echoes that reverberate through the caverns of human thought. The poet's forms of speech are deathless, for in him " Language was a perpetual Orphic song, Which ruled, with D^dal harmonie, a throng Of thoughts and forms." Let US now note some of the curious modes in which writers have indulged their quaint conceits and felicitous thoughts. About the middle of the seventeenth century, the scribes, or rather those whose ambition was not of the most soaring ordei', used to divert themselves and rack their inventive powers by torturing and twisting their verses into odd devices and shapes, expressive of the themes they discussed — as might be expected, to the serious detriment of their poetic merit. Many of these fantastic performances were of grotesque or even ludicrous de- scription. 372 PASTIMES OF THE PEN. It was the literary humor of a certain Maecenas, when he en- tertained his scribes, to place at the head of the table those who had published huge folios, next to them authors in quarto, and below them the octavos and duodecimos. As specimens of in- genious trifling, we might mention the minute document pre- sented to Queen Elizabeth. It comprised the Decalogue, Creed, and Lord's Prayer, all beautifully written in the compass of a finger-nail. Yet the early scribes found it much easier to write up to a folio than down to a duodecimo ; for the condensing process was an art with which they were wliolly unacquainted. The fancy for alliteration is far from being a novelty ; it prevailed among the Elizabethan poets, and the yet earlier ballads and nursery ditties, which, although they still remain with us, date back as far as the renowned " Peter Piper," who is said to have " picked a peck of pickled peppers," and that other worthy, " Theophilus Thistlethwaite," who thoughtlessly " thrust three thousand thistles through the thick of his thumb ! " Many, indeed, of our poets occasionally indulged in this allit- erative fancy; for example, Southey, in his Falls of LodorSy and Edgar Poe, in his rhythmical Bells. One of the most ingenious, if not the most ingenious, of alliterative poems in our language, is the following, the authorship of which is, we be- lieve, unknown. It is entitled the " Siege of Belgrade." " An Austrian army, awfully arrayed, Boldly, by battery, besieged Belgrade ; Cossack commanders cannonading come, • Dealing destruction's devastating doom ; Every endeavor engineers essay, For fame, for fortune fighting — furious fray ! Generals 'gainst generals grapple — gracious God I How honors Heav'n heroic hardihood ! Infuriate, indiscriminate, in ill. Kinsmen kill kindred, kindred kinsmen kill ! Labor low levels longest, loftiest lines; PASTIMES OF THE PEN. 373 Men march 'mid mounds, 'mid moles, 'mid murd'rous mines; Now noisy, noxious numbers notice naught Of outward obstacles opposing ought ; Poor patriots ! partly purchas'd, partly press'd, Quite quaking, quickly ' quarter, quarter' quest. Reason returns, reUgious right redounds, Suwarrow stops such sanguinary sounds ; Truce to thee Turkey ! triumph to thy train ! Unjust, unwise, unmerciful Ukraine ! Vanish vain victory ! — vanish victory vain ! Why wish we warfare ? wherefore welcome were Xerxes, Ximenas, Xanthus, Xavier, Yield, yield, ye youths ! ye yeomen yield your yell ! Zeno's, Zarpater's, Zoroaster's zeal ; Attracting all, arms against acts appeal." As affording an illustration of the union of sound and sense, we select from many other examples the following well-known lines of Pope : " When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The words, too, labor, and the line moves slow : Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, — Flies o'er the imbending com, and skims along the main." Even the grave Dr. Johnson could relax occasionally from his severer studies, as the following lines attest : ' ' If the man who turnips cries Cry not when his father dies, 'Tis a proof that he had rather Have a turnip than his father ! " As an ingenious play upon words and sounds, rather than a collection of " wise saws," we cite the chorus to a popular London street song : " I saw Esau kissing Kate, And the fact is, we all three saw ; For I saw Esau, he saw me, And she saw — I saw Esau ! " 374 PASTIMES OP THE PEN. We offer another example of the use of a word in a variety of senses and witty combinations : " He took her fancy when he came, He took her hand, he took a kiss, He took no notice of the shame That glowed her happy face at this ; He took to coming afternoons, He took an oath he'd ne'er deceive, He took her master's silver spoons ! And after that — he took his leave." The following is from one of Quarles' Emblems : " We sack, we ransack to the utmost sands, Of native kingdoms, and of foreign lands ; We travel sea and soil, we pry, we prowl. We progress and we prog, from pole to pole." Some writer, referring to this old scribe, observes that " he is neither prolix, prosy, or pragmatic, though often queer, quaint, and querulous." So it seems he minds hiss's if not his cj^s. The celebrated cacophonous couplet, on Cardinal "Wolsey, is ingenious, each word, in each line, beginning and continuing with the same letter : ' ' Begot by butchers, but by bishops bred. How high his Honor holds his haughty head ! " Ingenious literary trifling, it may be called ; but we must remember that much of it owes its origin to monkish seclusion, or the quiet of the scholar's hermitage ; we may well excuse an occasional indulgence in such trivialities. Monastic life must have been a monotonous one at the best, and needed something to beguile it of its tedium. Here is an example of what has been called Concatenation, or PASTIIVIES OF THE PEN. 375 cliaiu verses, in whicli the last phrase of eveiy line is the first of the following : " The longer life, the more offence : The more offence, the greater pain ; The greater pain, the less defence ; The less defence, the lesser gain ; The loss of gain long iU doth try, Wherefore, come, death, and let me die ! Come, gentle death, the ebb of care ; The ebb of care, the flood of life ; The flood of life, the joyful fare ; The joyful fare, the end of strife ; The end of strife, that thing wish I, Wherefore, come, death, and let me die ! The merit of the following specimen of monastic verse con- sists in its being alike acrostic^ mesostic, and telestic : " Inter cuncta micans " Igniti sidera coeH ExpeUit tenebras E toto Phoebus ut orbE Sic ceecas removet JESUS caliginis umbraS Vivificansque simul Vero prsecordia motV Solem justitise." Sese probat esse beatiS." The following translation preserves the acrostic and mesostic, thongh not the telestic form of the original : " In glory, see the rising sun, Illustrious orb of day, Enlightening heaven's wide expanse, Expel night's gloom away. So light into the darkest soul, JeSus, Thou dost impart UpUfting thy life-giving smiles, Upon the deadened heart, Sun, Thou of righteousness divine. Sole King of saints Thou art." Perhaps the most remarkable anagram known is that on the Latin of Pilate's question to the Saviour, " Quid est Veritas ? — ^Est vir qui adest. An anagram, which is a species of literary trifling, is the 376 PASTIMES OF THE PEN. transposition of the letters of a sentence into a new combina- tion, still retaining its characteristic applicability. Some of the old monkish scribes, known as the lipogram- matists, used to beguile their leisure by composing a poem on a given subject, from wliich some particular letter of the alphabet should be excluded. Gregorio Leti jDresented a dis- course to the Academy of the Humorists at Rome, wherein the letter r was excluded ; and a friend having requested a copy, as a literary curiosity, he replied by a copious answer of seven pages, written in the same manner. Another description of eccentric poetry that might be men- tioned is that wherein every word of a poem begins with the same letter ; of which the Pugna Porcorum is an instance, containing about three hundred lines, every word of which begins with the letter^. Macaronio poetry is a mixing of words from different lan- guages, like a dish of macaroni ; in its more general accepta- tion it includes alliterative verse and other peculiar and affected styles of writing. For example, the line of Ennius : ' O Tite, tute, Tati, tibi tanta, Tyranne, tulisti." And the following, which has been attributed to Prof. Per- son: " Cane decane cane, ne tu cane cane decane, De cane sed canis cane decane cane." A monk of the Benedictine order, Folengi, of Venice (better known as Merlin), was a noted writer of this kind of poetry in Latin. lie lived during the first half of the sixteenth century. In later times, Drummond of IlaM^thornden wrote the first British macaronic poem ; then followed Dr. Geddes (1737- 1802), who wa-ote several small volumes of this kind of litera- ture. PASTIMES OF THE PEN. 377 Porson once observing that be could pun on any subject, a person present defied him to do so on the Latin gerunds, which, however, he immediately did in the following admirable coup- let: " When Dido found jEneas would not come, She sat in silence, and was Di-do-dum." The anagram is formed by the transposition of the letters of a name, by which a new word or phrase of some characteristic sio^nificance with the former is formed. One of the most sue- cessful specimens is that by Dr. Burney on Horatio JVelson, — Honor est a JSTilo, — referring to his celebrated victory. One of the most skilful anagrams known was that on Ma- gliahechi, by Pere Finardi : Antonius Magliabechius — Is unus hibliotheca magna. Among ingenious literary fabrications. Swift's celebrated Latin puns deserve a prominent place, for they have never been excelled. This species of composition consists of Lathi words, and allowing for false spelling and the running the words into each other, makes good sense in English as well as Latin. For example — " Apud in is almi de si re, "A pudding is all my desire, Mimis tres I ne ver re qui re, My mistress I never require, Alo veri findit a gestis, A lover I find it a jest is, His miseri ne ver at restis." His misery never at rest is." " Mollis abuti, "Moll is a beauty, Has an acuti. Has an acute eye, No lasso finis. No lass so fine is, Omni de armistress. Oh my dear mistress, Cantu disco ver, Can't you discover, Meas alo ver ? " Me as a lover." Here is another waif belonging to the same class : " There was a bard in sad quandary, To find the rhyme for Tipperary ; \ 378 PASTIMES OF THE PEN. He hunted through the dictionary, But found no rhyme for Tipperary ; He rummaged the vocabulary, But still no rhyme for Tipperary ; He applied unto his mother Mary, To know the rhyme for Tipperary ; But she, good woman, knew her dairy, But not the rhyme for Tipperary." Among rhythmical puns may be cited the Hnes attributed to the bard of Avon, whether correctly or not, we need not stay to inquire. We subjoin the first and third stanzas only: " Would ye be taught, ye feathered throng, With love's sweet notes to grace your song. To pierce the heart \vith thrilling lay, Listen to mine Anne Hathaway 1 She hath a way to siug so clear, Phoebus might, wondering, stop to hear 1 To melt the sad, make blithe the gay. And nature charm, Anne hath a way ; She hath a way, Anne Hathaway : To breathe delight, Anne hath a way." ****** Talk not of gems, the orient list. The diamond, topaz, amethyst, The emerald mild, the ruby gay. Talk of my gem — Anne Hathaway ! She hath a way, with her bright eye, Their various lustre to defy — The jewel she, the foil, they. So sweet to look, Anne Hathaway ; She hath a way, Anne Hathaway : To shame bright gems Anne hath a way ! " Here is another poetical play upon a name not unworthy of PASTIMES OF THE PEN. 379 a place here. It is an epigram upon a lady rejoicing in the name of Rain : the author is not known : " While shivering beaux at weather rail, — Of frost and snow, and wind and hail. And heat and cold complain ; My steadier mind is always bent, On one sole object of content, I ever wish for Rain ; Hymen, thy votary's prayer attend, His anxious hope and suit befriend. Let him not ask in vain ; His thirsty soul, his parched estate, His glowing breast commiserate — In pity give him — Rain ! " Here are a few more eccentricities of the pen, which have been styled Paronomasia (which is the short for play upoE words) : " Write, we know is written right, Then we see it written — write ; But when we see it written wright, "We know it is not %vritten right : For write, to have it written right. Must not be written, right or wright. Nor yet should it be written rite ; — But write, for so 'tis ^vritten right. " "Now, that is a word, that may often be joined. For that that may be doubled is clear to the mind ; And that that that is right, is as plain to the view. As that, ilmt tliat that we use, is rightly used, too. And that that that tlmt that line has in it, is right — In accordance with grammar — is plain in our sight. " ' ' Schott and Willing did engage in duel fierce and hot ; Schott shot Willing ^villingly, and Willing he shot Schott. The shot Schott shot made Willing quite a spectacle to see. While WiUing's willing shot went right through Schott's anatomy. 380 PASTIMES OF THE PEN. " I cannot bear to see a bear bear down upon a hare, "When bare of hair he strips the hare, for hare I cry, ' forbear ' 1 " As an instance of echo-versifying, Addison's song is note- worthy : "Echo, tell me, while I wander o'er this fairy plain to prove him, If my shepherd still grows fonder, ought I, in return, to love him ? Eclu) — Love him, love him. " If he loves, as is the fashion, shotdd I churlishly forsake him ? Or, in pity to his passion, fondly to my bosom take him ? EcJw — Take him, take him. ' Hei'e is another example : " Has Phoebe not a heavenly brow ? Is it not white as pearl — as snow ? Ass! no! ' ' Her eyes — was ever such a pair ? Are the stars brighter than they are ? They are! " Echo, thou liest, — but can't deceive me ; Her eyes eclipse the stars, — beUeve me — Leave me ! ' ' But come, thou saucy, pert romancer. Who is as fair as Phoebe ? answer ! Ann, Sir!^* The line from Gray's " Elegy," " The ploughman homeward plods his weary way," has been found to admit of eighteen transpositions, without destroying the rhyme, or altering the sense ; the reader will be content with the following : " The weary ploughman plods his homeward way. The weary ploughman homeward plods his way. The ploughman, weaiy, plods his homeward way. The ploughman, weary, homeward plods his way. Weary the ploughman plods his homeward way. Weary the ploughman homeward plods his way. Homeward the ploughman plods his weary way. Homeward the weary ploughman plods his way. Homeward the ploughman, wearj-, plods his way. PASTI5IES OF THE PEN. 381 The homeward ploughman weary plods his way. The homeward ploughman plods his weary way." The following mongrel stanzas afford a good instance of Mosaic verse : " The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, In every clime, from Lapland to Japan ; To fix one spark of beauty's heavenly ray The proper study of mankind is man. " Tell ! for you can, what is it to be wise, Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain ? ' The man of Ross ! ' each lisping babe replies. And drags, at each remove, a length'ning chain. " Ah ! who can tell how hard it is to climb Far as the solar walk or milky- way ? Procrastination is the thief of time, Let Hercules himself do what he may. " 'Tis education forms the common mind, The feast of reason and the flow of soul ; I must be cruel only to be kind, And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole. •' Syphax ! I joy to meet thee thus alone, Where'er I roam, whatever lands I see ; A youth to fortune and to fame unknown, In maiden meditation fancy free. " Pity the sorrows of a poor old man, Whose beard descending swept his aged breast ; Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, Man never is, but always to be blest." Here is another specimen of literary ingenuity. Two words of opposite meanings, spelled with exactly the same letters, form a Telestick ; that is, the letters beginning the lines — when 882 PASTIMES OF THE PEN. united — were to give one of the words, aud the letters at the end were to produce the other — thus : " U-nite and untie are the same — so say yo-U N-ot in wedlock, I wean, has the unity bee-N I-n the drama of marriage, each wandering gou-T T-o a new face would fly — all except you and I, E-ach seeking to alter the spdl in their scen-E." Hood, the " prince of punsters," never exceeded, perhaps, the following adroit surprises of this one stanza : " His death^ which happened in his berthy At forty odd befeU ; They went and told the sexton, and The sexton tolled the bell." Scott said once that some of his friends were bad accountants^ but excellent hooh-Jceepers. Hood has some witty lines on the subject of literary larceny : " How hard, when those who do not wish to lend — that's lose — their books, Are snared by anglers — folks that fish with literary hooks, Who call and take some favorite tome, but never read it through. They thus complete their set at home, by making one of you 1 I, of my Spenser^ quite bereft, last winter sore was shaken ; Of Lamb, Pve but a quarter left, nor could I save my Bacon. They picked my Locke, to me far more than Brahma's patent worth ; And now my losses I deplore, without a Home on earth ! My life is wasting fast away — I suffer from these shocks And though I've fixed a lock on Gray, there's gray upon my locks." We ought to supplement the foregoing with Punches advice under such circumstances, to wit : " Never lend your books." Hood's Nocturnal Sketch is a successful illustration of a triple .rhyme. Most bards are content with one rhyme at the end of the line, but here we have three, without weakening the sense. "Even has come, and from the dark park, harkl The signal of the setting sun — one gun J PASTIMES OF THE PEN. 383 And six is sounding from the chime, — prime time To go and see the Drury Lane Dane slata; Or hear Othello's jealous doubt spout out, Or Macbeth raving at that shade-made blade : Or in the small Olympic pit, sit split, Laughing at Liston, while you quiz his phiz ! Anon, Night comes — and with her wings, brings things Such as, with his poetic tongue, Young sung : The gas upblazes with its bright, white Ught, And paralytic watchmen prowl, howl, growL Now puss, while folks are in their beds, treads leads, And sleepers grumble — " drat that cat ! " Who in the gutter catterwauls, squalls, mauls. Some feline foe, and screams in shrill iU-wiU. While nurse-maid in a nightmare rest, chest-pressed, Dreameth of one of her old flames, James Grames ; And that she hears — what faith is man's — Anne's banns. And his, from Reverend Mr. Rice, twice, thrice ! White ribbons flourish, and a stout shout out. That upward goes, shows Rose knows those beaux's woes ! " At the commencement of our desultory gossip concerning the eccentricities of the pen we referred to some of the pet- books of authors ; we all have our especial book-loves — books that nestle closely around our affections, and which through life we cling to with the ardor of a first-love. Do we err, gentle reader, in suspecting that such literary loves are thine? That some select favorites occupy the place of honor on the shelves of thy library ? Were we to venture a conjecture as to who these favorites of thine may be, we should instinctively be guided by our own choice. Does not honest Izaak Walton belong to the category ? For a sequestered place and hour whc could be preferred before him — so replete with genial sentiment and sagacious aphorism? Do not Haz- litt, Leigh Hunt, and Charles Lamb form a triumvirate of wor- thies unsurpassed in belles-lettres? For winter's fireside or summer-time ramble who can offer to us pleasanter matter of 384 PASTIMES OF THE PEN. discourse than Elia ; so charged with electric wit and subtle humor ? And are not the delightful collectanea of literary cu- riosities of D'Israeli an inexhaustible resource of intellectual pleasure ? If, a- weary and toil-w^orn, we turn from the din and turmoil of the world, what can be devised better suited to be- guile our cares into peace ; and if we can excuse their prolixity, are there not also Montaigne, and Burton ; seed-books for cen- turies of later writers and rife as ever with curious and saga- cious facts and fancies. Then, again, we do not forget the essayists and novelists, Irving, Dickens, and Bulwer ; and the priesthood of song, from Shakespeare to Tennyson and Long- fellow, Yes, we subscribe to the sentiment of the poet where he sings : " Oh, sweet 'twill be — or hope would so believe, When close round life its fading tints of eve To turn again, our earlier volumes o'er, And love them then, because we've loved before, And inl y bless the waning hour that brings A will to lean once more on simple things. If this be weakness, welcome life's decline, If this be second childhood, be it mine," PULPIT PECULIARITIES. The " odor of sanctity " which attaches to the office of the Christian ministry has ever claimed and received the deference of mankind. The ancient seers, prophets, and patriarchs who were commissioned to make known the will of the Supreme, under the impulse of a direct inspiration, were regarded as supernatu rally endowed, and their utterances deemed oracular. A commission divinely authorized and invested with such moral grandeur, demands a corresponding elevation of character — intellectual, moral, and religious — in those who assume its functions ; and the world naturally looks for these accessories. "A parson," writes George Herbert, "is the deputy of 25 386 PULPIT PECULIARITIES. Christ for the reducing of man to the obedience of God." He further quaintly adds : " His apparel is plain, but reverend, and clean without spots or dust ; the purity of his mind breaking out and dilating itself, even to his body, clothes, and habi- tation." This remark of Herbert probably originated the saying that " cleanliness is next to godliness," which has been ascribed to John Wesley. Some regard the clerical profession with a blind, super^i- tious reverence — these are the victims of priestcraft. There are others with equal absurdity, who deem it the asylum of infatuation and indolence — these are the sceptical and profane. A third class are those who appreciate its worth, and who ven- erate the sacred office, regarding it as Heaven's expedient for securing the moral elevation and happiness of the race ; an institution of the highest importance to man's present and eternal well-being. That the embassj' -v^^ith which the Christian minister is charged is one of difficulty, is undeniable, for it has to contend against the moral forces constantly in operation in the human heart, which are antagonistic to its claims. Yet the sacredness of its sanctions may well fire the zeal of its advocate, and ren- der him superior to all opposition. Among the early Christians the modern style of preaching was reversed ; the preacher generally delivered his exhortation in a sitting posture, while the congregation heard him standing, Chrysostom preached in this manner. It is related even of Constantine the Great that he did not resume his seat during a long sermon by Eusebius, and that all the assembly followed his example. The old English name, parson, is supposed to be a corrup- tion of person, the person — by eminence. Fuller remarks that the Scriptures give four names to Christians, taken from the four cardinal graces : Saints, for their holiness ; believers, for PULPIT PECULIARITIES. 387 their faith ; brethren^ for their love ; discvples, for theii' knowledge. The clergy were originally styled clerks, from the ISTorman custom of their judges being chosen from the sacred order. In the first century, they were distinguished by the titles of presbyter and bishops. Cliurch music is supposed to have been first introduced by Gregory the Great, a.d. 602, Church- steeples were originally parochial fortresses. Sydney Smith tlius defines the object of preaching : " It is constantly to remind mankind of what mankind is constantly forgetting ; not to supply the defects of human intelligence, but to fortify the feebleness of human resolutions ; to recall mankind from the by-paths where they turn, into the path of salvation which all know but few tread." The aims and topics of the pulpit have been eloquently con- densed by Talfourd. We transcribe the passage : " The subjects of the pulpit have «ever been varied from the day the Holy Spirit visibly descended on the first advocates of the gospel in tongues of fire. They are in no danger of being exhausted by frequency, or changed with the vicissitudes of mortal fortune. They have immediate relation to that eter- nity, the idea of which is the living soul of all poetry and art. It is the province of the preacher of Christianity to develop the connection between this world and the next; to watch over the beginning of a course that will endure forever, and to trace the broad shadows cast from imperishable realities on the shift- ing scenery of earth. The mysteries of our being, life and death, both in their strange essences and in their sublimer re- lation, are topics of their ministry. There is nothing affecting in the human conditions, nothing majestic in the affections, nothing touching in the instability of human dignities, the fragility of loveliness, or the heroism of self-saci-ifice, which ig not a theme suited to their high purposes. It is theirs to dwell 388 PULPIT PECULIARITIES. on the oldest history of the world ; on the beautiful simplicity of the patriarchal age ; on the stern and awful religion, and marvellous story of the Hebrews ; on the glorious visions of the prophets and their fulfilment ; on the character, miracles, and death of the Saviour ; on all the wonders and all the beauty of the Scriptures." What a sermon should be, may be gathei-ed from the follow- ing : " It should be brief ; if lengthy, it will steep our hearts in apathy, our eyes in sleep. It should be warm, a living altar- coal, to melt the icy heart and charm the soul. It should be simple, practical and clear ; no fine-spun theory to charm the ear. It should be tender and affectionate, as His warm theme, who wept lost Salem's fate. It should be mixed with many an ardent prayer, to reach the heart, and fix and fasten there." We are as much under law to religion as to morals. " Mor- ality, without religion, is only a kind of dead reckoning — an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea, by measuring the distance we have to run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies." " Oratio est clavis diei, et sera noctisj'^ — the key of the day, and the lock of the night, is prayer. This was the beautiful saying of a monk of olden time, and it is fragrant for all sea- sons. Luther said : " Prayer, meditation, and temptation make a minister." Another vigorous phrase of his is well known — ''Bene orasse, hene studuisse^'' — to pray well, is to study well. Prayer is not, however, the solemn duty of the clergy alone, but of all ; the common privilege of dependent creatures. An old writer has quaintly said : " God looks not at the oratory of our prayers, how eloquent they are ; nor at their geometry, how long they are ; nor at their arithmetic, how many they are ; nor at their logic, how methodical they are ; but he looks at their sincerity, how spiritual they are." PULPIT PECULIARITIES. 389 A Neapolitan monk, named Gabrielle Barlette, wished on one occasion to rebuke the distracting thoughts which too often be- set men when engaged in prayer. He ilhistrated the point by introducing a priest engaged in his morning devotions, and say- ing, "Pater noster qui es in coelis " — (I say, lad, saddle the horse, I'm going to town to-day !) sanctificatur nomen tuum — (Cathe- rine, put the pot on the fire), fiat voluntas tua — (take care, the cat's at the cheese), panem nostrum quotidianum — (mind the white horse has his feed of oats). This seems like double deal- ing, and yet it does not necessarily follow that these monks of old meant to be undevout ; it was rather the natural result of formalism. " Texts have always been regarded with curiosity and inter- est, have been selected from worthy and unworthy motives ; they have been applied and misapplied, and made the vehicles for personal and political allusions ; with wilful ingenuity and unscriptural spirit, they have been turned into jokes, twisted into puns, and treated with as little scruple as though they had been the words of heathen poets ; they have been manipulated by abbreviated quotations, and tortured with false emphasis, in order to present oddities and incongruities by no means in ac- cordance with the original terms ; and we can hardly wonder at. so much attention being drawn to the text that it fi*e- quently eclipses the sermon in the memory of its hearers." Whitefield once gave as his text, " There came unto Him cer- tain lawyers ; " and then apparently detected his purposed mis- quotation, and said, " not certain lawyers, but a certain lawyer. It was wonderful that even one lawyer should have been found to do this ; it would have been perfectly incredible had there been more ; " the point of this lying in the circumstance that some lawyers were present who had expressly come there to scoff at him. A Shrewsbury dissenting minister preached a funeral ser- mon for the Rev. John Angell James, of Birmingham, from 390 PULPIT PECULIARITIES. the combined texts, " A man sent from God whose name waa John. I saw the Angel fly in the midst of heaven. James the servant of God." The first portion of this text is also said to have been used by the Archbishop of Yienna, when he preached before John Sobieski, King of Poland, who had de- livered Vienna from the Turks. " There is no fool like the foolhardy," was the text of the Rev. Dr. Williamson, who had a quarrel with a parishioner named Hardy. " Adam, where art thou ? " was the text of the probation sermon of Mr. Low, who, with a Mr. Adam, was a candidate for a lectureship ; " Lo, here I am ! " was the responsive text of his rival, Mr. Adam. When Dr. Motmtain, longing for a vacant bishopric, preaclied before Charles II., his text was, " If thou hadst faith as a grain of mustard-seed, and said unto this mountain, be thou removed and cast into the see, it should be done." When Dr. Bradon was rector of Etham in Kent, the text he one day took to preach from was, " Who art thou ? " Just at the instant a military functionary, somewhat verdant, supposing the question addressed to himself, was marching up the middle aisle of the church, and replied, " I am, sir, an oflScer of the 17th regiment of foot, on a ' recruiting party here ' ! " A certain bishop, in a sermon to his parishioners, repeated the above text, " All flesh is grass." The season was Lept, and a few days afterward he encountered one of his flock, who appeared to have something on his mind. " The top of the mornin' to 3^our riverence," said Terence ; " did I fairly under- stand your riverence to say,' All flesh is grass,' last Sunday ? " " To be sure you did," replied the bishop, " and you're a here- tic if you doubt it." " Oh, I don't doubt anything your river- ence says," was the reply, " but I wish to know whether in this Lint time I could not be after havin' a small piece of hafe by way of a salad ? " An eccentric dominie, Mathew Byles, of Boston, Mass., in PULPIT PECULIAKITIES. 391 1776, seems to have been as inveterate a joker as. Sjdnej> Smith. Upon a fast day, Dr. Byles had negotiated an ex- change with a country clergyman. Upon the appointed morn- ing, each of them — for vehicles were not common then — pro- ceeded on horseback to liis respective place of appointment. Dr. Byles no sooner observed his brother clergyman ap- proaching, at a distance, than he applied the whip, put his horse into a gallop, and with his canonicals flying all abroad, passed his friend at full run. ""What is the matter?" he ex- claimed, raising his hand in astonishment ; " why so fast, Brother Byles?" To which the doctor without slackening his speed replied over his shoulder, " It is fast day ! " As he was once occupied in nailing some list upon his doors, to exclude the cold, a parishioner said to him, " The wind bloweth wheresoever it listeth, Dr. Byles." " Yes, sir," replied the doc- tor, " and man listeth wheresoever the wind bloweth." Byles was arrested as a Tory, and subsequently tried, con- victed, and sentenced to confinement on board a guard-ship, and to be sent to England with his family in forty days. This sen- tence was changed, by the board of war, to confinement in his ovra house. A guard was placed over him. After a time the sentinel was removed, afterward replaced, and again removed, when the doctor exclaimed, that he had been guarded, re- garded, aiul disregarded. He called his sentry his ohserv-O/- tory. The two celebrated divines and scholars. Doctors South and Sherlock, were once disputing on some religious subject, when the latter accused his opponent of using his wit in the contro- versy. " Well," said South, " suppose it had pleased God to give you wit, what would you have done ? " Among the eccentricities of the pulpit we ought not to omit the temperance lecture ascribed to a Mr. Dodd, of Cambridge, England. On one occasion, when challenged to preach against 392 PULPIT PECULIARITIES. intoxication, he delivered the following unpremeditated short sermon, under a tree, by the roadside, from the word tnalt. He commenced by stating that lie had chosen a short text, which could not be divided into sentences, there being none ; nor into words, there being but one ; he therefore divided it into letters, thus: M, is moral, A, is allegorical, L, ia literal, T, is theological. His exposition ran as follows : The moral is to teach you good manners ; therefore, M, my masters, A, all of you, L, leave off, T, tippling. The allegorical is, when one thing is spoken of, and another meant. The thing spoken of is malt, the thing meant is the spirit of malt, which you make, M, your meat. A, your apparel, L, your liberty, and T, your trust. The literal is, according to the letters, M, much, A, ale, L, little, T, trust. The theological is, according to the effects it works in some, M, murder, in others. A, adultery, in all, L, looseness of life, and in many, T, treachery. A certain minister had a custom of writing the heads of his discourse on small slips of paper, which he placed on the Bible before him, to be used in succession. One day, when he was explaining the second head, he got so excited in his discourse that he caused the ensuing slip to fall over the edge of the pul- pit, though unperceived by himself. On reaching the end of his second head, he looked down for the tliird slip ; but, alas ! it was not to be found. " Thirdly," he cried, looking round him with great anxiety. After a little pause, " Thirdly," again he exclaimed ; but still no thirdly appeared, " Thirdly, I say, my brethren," pursued the bewildered clergyman ; but not another word could he utter. At this point, while the congregation were partly sj^mpathizing in his distress, and partly rejoicing in such a decisive instance of the impropriety of using notes in the preaching — which has always been an unpopular thing in the Scotch clergy — an old woman rose up and thus addressed the PULPIT PECULIARITIES. 393 preacher : " If I' a nae mista'eiij sir, I saw thirdly flee out at the east window a quarter of an hour 83'ne." Frederick the Great being informed of the death of one of his chaplains took the following method of ascertaining the merits of one of the candidates for the appointment. He told the applicant that he would himself furnish him with a text the following Sunday, when he was to preach at the royal chapel, from which he was to make an extempore sermon. The cler. gyman accepted the proposition. The whim of such a proba- tionary discourse was spread abroad widely, and at an early hour the royal chapel was crowed to excess. The king arrived at the end of the prayers, and on the candidate's ascending the pulpit, one of his majesty's aides-de-camp presented him with a sealed paper. The preacher opened it and found nothing therein ; turning the paper on both sides, he said : " My breth- ren, here is nothing, and there is nothing ; out of nothing God created all things ; " and proceeded to deliver a discourse upon the wonders of Creation. The following anecdote illustrates the peculiarities of charac- ter of western pioneer life, as well as of a certain " presiding elder," Peter Cartwright. When the State of Illinois was admitted into the Union it was as a free State. Not long after the question was largely discussed 'whether the Consti- tution of the State should not be so amended as to permit slavery. Cartwright, who then resided in Tennessee, was a strong opponent of slavery, and determined to remove to Illi- nois to take part in the settlement of the question. So he was appointed " Presiding Elder " over a district about as large as England. He kept his appointments, and after preaching on Sunday was wont to announce that on Monday he would deliver a " stump speech." He soon became regarded as a poli- tician, and no little auger was excited against him. One day coming to a ferry across the river, where he was not personally 394 PULPIT PECFLIARITIES. known, he heard the ferrj-man holding forth to a crowd in bit- ter terms against that "old renegade," — prefixing snndrj em- phatic expletives to that flattering term — Pete Cartwright, declaring that he would drown him if he ever came that way. After a while Peter engaged the ferry-man to put him over. They were alone in the boat, and when they had reached the cen- tre of the stream, in full sight of the shore, the preacher, throw- ing the bridle of his horse '^'"er a post, ordered the ferry-man to put down his pole. " What is the matter ? " asked the ferry man. "You have just been making free with my name and threatening to drown me in the river. I want to give you a chance to do so." "You are Pete Cartwright, are yon?" " My name is Peter Cartwright," i-eplied the preacher. The ferry-man, nothing loath, laid down his pole, and the contest began. The preacher proved the better man, and seizing his antagonist by the nape of the neck and the seat of his nether garments, plunged him three times under water. Then hold ing his head out of the water, he asked, " Did you ever pray ? " " No," was the reply. " Then it is time you should." The ferry-man refused, and down went his head under water, and there it was held long enough, as Peter thought, to conquer his reluctance. He raised him up and repeated his demand. " Let me breathe," gasped the ferry-man. " Give me a few min- utes to think about it." " Not a moment," and under went his nead again. The inquiry was again put when the ferry -man's head was next raised, " Will you pray now % " " Yes, I'll do anything," and the fellow obediently repeated the Lord's Prayer, after the dictation of Cartwright. " Now let me up," he added. " No, not yet," replied the inexorable Peter. " You must make me three promises before I let you up. First, you must promise to pray every night and morning as long as you live ; then you must promise to put every Methodist preacher who comes along over the rivor for nothing ; and lastly, you PULPIT PECULIARITIES. 395 must promise hereafter to attend every meeting of the Method- ists Iield within four miles of you." The whole transaction took place in full view of the ferry-man's comrades on the shore, but the intervening river insured " fair play," and the ferry-man felt himself in Cartwright's hands. lie promised faithfully to do all that was demanded of him.* Rather a remarkable incident is related of the preaching of Dr. Lyman Beecher. Many 3^ears ago he was engaged to officiate in Ohio ; it was in the depth of winter, and the roads were nearly impassable with snow, yet the doctor pur- sued his journey, and, on reaching the church, found not a single individual there. With his characteristic decision of purpose he ascended the pulpit and waited the arrival of his congregation. One solitary person at length entered, and the doctor commenced the service. At the conclusion he hast- ened to greet his auditor, but he had vanished. Some score of years subsequently the parties accidentally met, when the pleasing fact was communicated to the doctor that that ser- mon had proved the means of his conversion, and that he had since become himself a minister over a larofe cone:re£ra- tion. Louis XIV. said one day to Massillon, after hearing him preach at Versailles : " Father, I have heard many great ora- tors in this chapel ; I have been highly pleased with them ; but for you, whenever I hear you, I go away displeased wit) myself, for I see more of my own character." This has been considered the finest encomium ever bestowed upon a preacher. There are many amusing things related of the notorious ortw tor, Henley : One day at a coffee-house he met a friend, when the following dialogue ensued : " Pray what has become oi * MilburiL 396 PULPIT PECULIARITIES. our old friend, Smith ? " said Henley; " I have not seen him for several years." " I really do not know," was the reply ; " the last time I lieard of him he was at Ceylon, or some of our other settlements in the West Indies." " My good sir, in one sentence there are two mistakes ; Ceylon is not one of our settlements, and it is situated in the East Indies, not the West." " That I deny," said the gentleman, with some heat. " More shame for you," responded Henley. " I will engage to bring a boy of eight years old who will confute you." " Well, be it where it may, thank God, I know very little about these sort of things ! " " What ! you thank God for your ignorance, do you ? " "I do, sir," answered the gentleman, in a violent rage; " what then ? " " Sir, you have a great deal to be thank- ful for," was Henley's sarcastic reply. Among incorrigible punning parsons may be named Dr. Barton, who, when the fellows of his college wished to have an organ in the chapel, said, "I put a stoj> to it!" It is said two friends, Mr. Crowe and Mr. Rooke, were invited to dine with him, where they met with a Mr. Birdmore. " Allow me, Crowe and Rooke, to introduce to you one Bird more," he ex- claimed. He married his niece to a gentleman of the hope- ful name of Buckle : " Ah ! " lie said, " a pair of Buckles." Hearing that a valetudinarian, who had recovered his health by a diet of milk and eggs, had espoused a wife, he is reported to have said, "So you have been egged on to matrimony; I hope the yolce will sit easy on you." During: the reis^n of Charles II. it was the fashion to in- dulge to excess the habit of humorous preaching. Sterne seems to have revived the custom, and South's discourses sparkle perpetually with wit and pun. Eccentricities and angularities of character are not excluded from the clerical profession of modern times any more than the past. The well-known name of Rowland Hill has long been PULPIT PECULIARITIES. 397 associated with pulpit peculiarities. This worthy ecclesiastic was once preachiug for a charitable institution, when a note was handed up to the pulpit asking whether it would be con- sistent for a bankrupt to contribute. Mr. Hill referred to the note and, of course, decided against such an act, but added, " I would advise all who are not insolvent not to pass the plate without giving, lest they should be considered bankrupt. On another occasion, when preaching at St. John's, "Wapping, he said, " I am come to preach to great sinners, notorious sinners, wajpping sinners." One wet Sunday he noticed some persons crowding into Surrey Chapel to be sheltered from a shower of rain, and he thus referred to the circumstance: "Some people are blamed for making religion a cloak^^ he said, " but I do not think those are much better who make it an umbrella." Many other stories told of this remarkable man are fictitious, among them those which reflected upon his wife's love of dress, and that of throwing his Bible at a sleeper. A dissenting minister once complaining of the dealing he met with from an ecclesiastical hoard, to Rowland Hill, observed that "for his part he did not see the difference between a board and a bench," meaning that the rule of his board was as stringent as that of the bishops. " Pardon me, my friend," replied Hill, " I will show you a most essential difference between the two : A board is a bench that has no legs to stand upon^ With many strong points of character he combined notions prodigiously odd. One of those commonly called Antinomians one day called on Eowland Hill to call him to account for his too severe and legal gospel. " Do you, sir," asked Eowland, " hold the ten commandments to be a rule of life to Chris- tians ? " " Certainly not," replied the visitor. The minister rang the bell, and on the servant making his appearance, he quietly added, "John show that man the door, and keep your S9S PULPIT PECULIARITIES. eye on liiiri until lie is beyond the reach of every article of wearing apparel or other property in the hall ! " There is a great difference between occasionally introducing an illustration, which may serve its end, though slightly tinc- tured with the comic, and that depraved taste which would desecrate the sacred desk by the exhibitions of buffoonery. A minister should never be insensible to the claims of his mission as it is taught in that " Book, wherein his Saviour's Testament, Written with golden letters, rich and brave : A work of wondrous grace, and able souls to save." There is a story told of a popular preacher of London, whose genius was displayed more in reproducing the thoughts and words of others than in the use of his own. His sermons were replete with petty larcenies : but as fashionable audiences are not proverbial for proficiency in pulpit lore, his ministerial misdemeanors were for some time carried on with impunity. On one occasion, however, he was detected. A grave old gentle- man well-posted came one Sunday, and seating himself close to the pulpit, enacted the inquisitor. The preacher had scarcely finished liis third sentence before the stranger muttered loud enough to be heard by those near him, " That's Sherlock ! " The preacher frowned, but went on. He was glibly proceed- ing when the tormentor again interrupted him with, " That's Tillotson ! " Our clerical plagiarist bit his lip and paused, but again thought it better to proceed with his discourse. A third exclamation of " That's Blair ! " was, however, too much, and completely exhausted his patience. Leaning over the pul- pit, he said : " Fellow, if you do not hold your tongue you shall be turned out ! " Without altering a muscle of his coun- tenance, the imperturbable censor looked up at the incumbent of the pulpit, and retorted, " That's his own ! " PULPIT PECULIARITIES. 399 A certain Yorkshire clergyman, who, when asked if he stud- ied tlie fathers before he began to write his sermons, said, *'No, I rather study the tnothers, for they have the greater need of comfort and encouragement." A clergyman once preached rather a long sermon from the text, " Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting." After the congregation had listened about an hour, some began to get weary and went out ; others soon followed, greatly to the annoyance of the minister. Whereupon he stopped his sermon and said, " That is right, gentlemen ; as fast as you are weighed pass out." No one else passed. Robert Hall, on one occasion, being disgusted by the egotism and conceit of a preacher, who, with a mixture of self-compla- cency and impudence, challenged his admiration of a sermon, was provoked to say, " Yes, there was one very fine passage in your discourse, sir." " I am rejoiced to hear you say so — which was it ? " was the reply. " Why, sir," said Hall, " it was the passage from thejpulpit to the vestryT Some divines are often too deeply read in theology to apj^re- ciate the full grandeur and the proper tendencies of religion. Losing the abstract in the concrete, the comprehensive in the technical, the principal in its accessories. Such are in the pre- dicament of the rustic who could not see London for the houses. Others, claiming to be religious teachers and superiors,^ might have done better service in a different department of duty. A dull and illiterate leader will produce his kind in those over whom he presides, since he but administers theological opiates to them, confirming them in their apathy, ignorance, and bigotry. How few divines dare venture ^o become original ; fewer still have we of rational enthusiasts. " How comes it," demanded a bishop, of Garrick, " that I, in expounding divine doctrines, produce so little effect upon my 400 PULPIT PECULIARITIES. congregation, while you can so easily rouse the passions of your auditors by the representation of fiction ? " The answer was short and pithy : " Because I recite falsehoods as if they were true, while you deliver truths as if they were fiction." Robert Hall, even, admitted that he was tormented with the desire of preaching better than he did. He was for greater earnestness and zeal. It was said of Rowland Hill's preach- ing, that his ideas, like Baxter's, came hot from the heart. This is effective preaching. Keble sweetly suggests — " Love on the Saviour's dying head, Her spikenard drops, unblamed, may pour ; May mount his cross, and wrap him dead, In spices from the golden shore. Risen, may embalm his sacred name With all a painter's art, and all a minstrel's flame." Steele observes : " When a man has no design but to speak plain truth he may say a great deal in a very narrow com- pass. The true pulpit style is that which brings the intellect down through the heart, and melts all its precious metals in that glowing furnace. Prolixity in preaching is an ancient heresy of the priesthood. As if conscious of this weakness, the Greek and Latin fathers used hour-glasses in their pulpits to admonish them when to wind up. George Herbert says : " The pai-son exceeds not an hour in preaching, because all ages have thought that a competency." Southey cites a passage from the church records, in 1564, of St. Catharine's, Aldgate, Lon- don, which is as follows: " Paid for an hour-glass that hanged by the pulpit when the preacher doth make a sermon, that He may know how the hour passeth away." There are few things against which a preacher should be more guarded than prolixity. "Nothing can justify a long sermon. If it be a good one it need not be long ; and if it be a bad one it ought not to be long." Luther, in the enumera- PULPIT PECULIARITIES. 401 tion of nine qualities of a good preacher, gives as the sixth, " That he should know when to stop." Boyle has an essay on patience under long preaching. John Aylmer, bishop of London in the time of Queen Eliza- beth, having a congregation not so attentive as they ought to have been, began reading the Bible in the Hebrew. The strange sounds disturbed the sleepers, who awoke one after another; and when the minister perceived this, after he ad- monished them for their indifference to the Bible in the vul- gar tongue, he proceeded with his sermon. The sin of sleeping during divine service is of no modem date. In Henry VII.'s Chapel, Westminster Abbey, there were ingeniously contrived stalls for preventing the drowsy monks indulging a nap. A celebrated clergyman once told his parishioners he should reserve the best efforts of his mind for rainy days — the worse the weather the better should be his sermons — and he kept his word. The consequence naturally was that his church was never so well filled as in wet weather, and the harder tJie rain poured down the more the people flocked in, until it finally became his practice to include in his prayers rainy Sundays ! A well-known clerical personage was on one occasion found in a pew instead of a pulpit, listening to a dull and prolix dis- course, when he began to grow sleepy. " You were caught napping," said a friend, " and I suppose cannot tell me what the sermon was about ? " " Yes I can," he replied ; " it was about an hour too long ! " Dean Swift, whom our artist has so well sketched, once preached at Dublin Cathedral, from Acts xx. 9 : " And there sat in the window a certain young man, named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep," etc. " I have chosen these words," he said, " with a design, if possible, to disturb some part of this audience of half an hour's sleep ; for the convenience and 26 402 PULPIT PECULIARITIES. exercise whereof this place, at this season of the day, is very much celebrated. The accident which happened to the young man in the text hath not been sufficient to discourage his suc- cessors ; but because the preachers now in the world, however they may exceed Paul in the art of setting men to sleep, do extremely fall short of him in the working of miracles, there- fore men are become so cautious as to choose more safe and convenient stations and postures for taking their repose, with- out hazard of their persons, and upon the whole matter choose rather to trust their destruction to a miracle than their safety." Robert Hall's afternoon sermons — masterly as they were — were attended by a very small yet appreciative audience, which he once described as consisting equally of those who were asleep and those who were going to sleep ! Sydney Smith once said, in speaking of the prosy nature of some sermons, " they are written, as if sin were to be taken out of man, like Eve out of Adam — by putting him to sleep." Dr. Barrow once preached so long that all his congregation dropped off, leaving the sexton and himself alone. The sexton finding the doctor apparently no nearer a conclusion, said to him, "Sir, here are the keys; please to lock up the church when you get through your discourse." A somewhat peculiar expedient was adopted by a minister in New York, some years since, while holding forth to his con- gregation in a style that ought to have kept them awake. Suddenly he stopped in his discourse, and said, " Brethren, I have preached about half of my sermon, and I perceive that twenty-five or thirty of my congregation are fast asleep. I shall postpone the delivery of the remainder of it until they wake up ! " There was a dead pause for about five minutes, during which time the sleepers awoke, when the preacher resumed. Another instance might be cited which proved no less effective. A worthy divine, in a church at Norwich, PULPIT PECULIARITIES. 403 Connecticut, observing many sleeping, paused awhile and then said, " I come now to the third head of my discourse, to which I ask the serious and candid attention of all who are not asleejp,^^ emphasizing the last word. " Benevolence," said Sydney Smith, in a charity sermon, " is a sentiment common to human nature. A never sees B in distress without wishing C to relieve him." Once when preaching a charity sermon, he repeated the assertion that, of all nations. Englishmen were most distin- guished for generosity and the love of their species. The collection happening to be inferior to his expectations, he said that he had evidently made a great mistake, for that his expression should have been that they were distinguished for the love of their specie. Franklin, in his " Memoirs," bears witness to the extraordinary effect which was produced by Whitelield's preaching in Amer- ica, and relates an anecdote equally characteristic of the preacher and of himself. "I happened," he says, "to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I perceived he intended to Unish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the copper. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver ; and lie finished so admirably that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector's dish, gold and all." We have referred to prolix preachers and jocular preachers, as well as drowsy congregations ; but we have not alluded to one of the modern clerical innovations, whose aim it is to su- persede the simplicity and integrity of Divine worship. We refer to the Ritualistic part}'' in the Episcopal Church, which Punch portrays as, LatitudinaHans, Platitudinarians, and 404 PULPIT PECULIARITIES. Attitudinaria7is ! The same authority also points these perti nent questions : "Friend Ritualist, how cau a cope Encourage any Christian hope ? And what advantage hath a stole To render his immortal soul ? Aught can a chasuble conduce To any spiritual use ? In what way can an alb relate To anybody's future state Or Dalmatics concern hereafter ? No more expose thyself to laughter." Sydney Smith said : " Puseyism consists of inflections and genuflections, posture and imposture, bowing to the east and curtesying to the west." Dean Swift has the following pointed remarks about absen- tees from church : " There is no excuse so trivial that will not pass upon some men's consciences, to excuse their attendance at the public worship of God. Some are so unfortunate as to be always indisposed on the Lord's day, and think nothing so unwholesome as the air of a church. Others have their affairs so oddly contrived as to be always unluckily prevented by busi- ness. With some it is a great mark of wit and deep under- standing to stay at home on Sabbath. Others again discover strange fits of laziness, which seize them particularly on that day and confine them to their beds. Others are absent out of mere contempt for religion. And, lastly, there are not a few who look upon it as a day of rest ; therefore claim the privilege of their cattle to keep the Sabbath by eating, drinking, and sleeping, after the toil and labor of the week." Coleridge, referring to the theological literature of the sev- enteenth century, asserts it as his conviction " that in any half dozen sermons of Donne or Taylor there are more thoughts, more facts and images, more incitements to inquiry and intel- PULPIT PECULIARITIES. 405 lectual effort, than are presented to the congregations of our day in as many churches or meetings during twice as many months. The very length of the discourses with which these rich souls of wit and knowledge fixed the eyes, ears, and hearts of their crowded congregations are a source of wonder to us. The pulpit may be styled the palladium of the world's vir- tue — the conservator of its liberties, the panacea for its woes, and the prophecy of its future restoration and glory. Its pre- rogative is to exert a paramount power over the human heart. Its themes are sublime and momentous — the arcana of science are rendered tributary to its teachings, because the works illus- trate the Will of the Supreme. This mission of the gospel it was that fired the zeal of that worthy of old, whose eloquent apj)eals " shook Areopagus and reverberated through the Fo- rum." " The Christian priesthood, although the temptation incident to conventional elevation may have served to develop among them many of the subtler forms of evil latent in the undisci- plined heart, is yet lustrous with many virtues. What sweet- ness has baptized tlie clerical fimction in the past ! What for- titude, what self-denial, what patience, what labor in season and out of season, have been the heritage of the great mass of these men ! What stores of learning have they accumulated ; what splendid additions have they made to the best literature of every land ; how they have enriched the sciences by their ob- servation and studious inquiries ; how they have kept the flame of patriotism aglow ; how they have encouraged the generous ambition of youth and directed it to worthy and useful ends ; how they have dignified the family altar and cherished the purity of women and diffused through society the charm of honest and gentle manners ; all these things must be cordially acknowledged by every one competent to speak on the ques- tion." This tribute to the pulpit is by Dr. Chapin. 406 PULPIT PECULIAEITIES. " Religion," said Webster, " is the tie that connects man with his Maker and holds him to His throne. A man with no sense of relio-ious duty is he whom the Scriptures describe in such terse but terrific language, as living 'without God in the world.'" " Come, blest religion, then, and with thee bring Peace on thy smile, and healing on thy wing." *l^ THE SHRINES OF GENIUS. "The love Of mighty minds doth hallow, in the core Of human hearts, the iruin of a wall Where dwelt the wise and wondrous." — Byron. Theee is a low-roofed, antique room belonging to an old pile, situated in the very heart of old England, to which multitudes of pilgrim feet are ever tending from all parts of the civilized globe. Among these spell-bound hosts are most of the illustri- ous sons of science and song, seeking to do homage at that hum- ble homestead, as though it were the " Mecca of the Mind," the great central shrine of genius ; and such indeed it really is ! It is now nearly three centuries since that great literary luminary that first dawned upon us there, left the sphere of earth ; and yet such is the spell of his traiftcendent genius that his name and fame shed a greater intellectual glory to-day over the world 408 THE SHRINES OF GENmS. than ever they have done before ! A rudely painted sign-board projects from the front of that small, mean-looking edifice to tell us that the immortal Shakespeare was born there. The walls of the room of his nativity are so closely covered over with names and inscriptions, in almost every language, as to re- semble at a distance spiders' webs. On the memorable twenty- third of April, 1616, the poet was left sleeping, as to his mortal part, in the church which had witnessed his baptism and his marriage. The closing scene of his own life-drama claims for us a deeper and more touching interest than that of any of those renowned creations of his genius that so charm the world. Washington Irving thus beautifully describes the grave of Shakespeare : " The inscription on the tombstone has not been," he remarks, " without its effect ; it has prevented the removal of his remains from the bosom of his native place to Westmin- ster Abbey, which was at one time contemplated. A few years since, as some laborers were digging to make an adjoining vault, the earth caved in so as to leave a vacant space almost like an arch, through which one might have reached into his grave. No one, however, presumed to meddle with his remains, so awfully guarded by a malediction ; and lest any of the idle or curious, or any collector of relics, should be tempted to commit depredations, the old sexton kept watch over the place for two days until the vault was finished and the aperture closed again. He told me that he had made bold to look in at the hole, but could see nothing but dust ! It was something, I thought, to have seen the dust of Shakespeare ! " In the chancel of Strat- ford Church are Shakespeare's monumental bust and grave, already noted ; near by are also the house of Anne Hathaway, the lady of his love, and the fine old historic relic of feudal and Elizabethan times, Kenilworth Castle ; triple attractions, either of which, one would suppose, were sufficient to stir the dullest spirits to enthusiasm and pilgrimage. It is a grateful fact to THE SHRINES OF GENIUS. 409 note, that this Shakespearian shrine is to be guarded henceforth with a religious care; for had it not been purchased by the Shakespearian Society of London, the destroying touch of Time would otherwise have soon made it his prey. Pilgrimages have ever been made to the shrines of those who have filled the world with their fame. Not alone do men make toilsome pil- grimage to the sacred sites of Palestine, once hallowed by the presence of " Divinity veiled in humanity ; " or the devotees of Mahomet make their annual visit to Mecca ; there are yet greater multitudes who love to do honor to the memory of the good and great among men — such as, having enriched our earthly life by the ministry of song or the revelations of sci- ence, or in some other forms, have become the benefactors of the race, and beautified and glorified our human existence. If we refer to the ancient world, think of Babylon, Nineveh, Baalbec, Egypt, and Holy Land. Who, visiting the shores of the Mediterranean, does not gaze with peculiar interest upon the *pots made memorable by the pens of the classic authoi-s? Who, when passing through the meadows of Mantua, or amid the groves of Umbria, or on the rocky heights of Tivoli, does not recall the glowing pages of Horace, Virgil, and Tibullus ^ He, indeed, is little to be envied, who can traverse the plain of Marathon or the pass of Thermopylae unmoved. Who can Avander with Byron amid the ruins of the Forum or the Coliseum, and not feel his heart stirred to its depths with the clustered memories of the past ? Think of Florence, of Yenice, and the manifold historic and literary memorials of France, Spain, Belgium, and Germany, with its glorious. Rhine. Nor forget the storied castles, homes, and abbeys of Old England and Scotland in the days of their ancient chivalry. It is not our purpose to make an imaginative tour to the historic sites and shrines of the world, but merely to instance the more interesting of the literary localities of the land of Shakespeare. 410 THE SHRINES OF GENIUS. How potent is the influence of association. The home of childhood — however humble — becomes invested with a thou- sand endearing charms, which cluster around the heart with sweet and enduring tenacity, compared with which the most ravishing beauties of nature or glittering blandishments of art lose all their witchery and force. This feeling, which seems closely allied to that of consanguinity, love, or friendship, transfers itself to inanimate objects, times, and places, which the presence of those once loved or venerated may have hal- lowed ; thus transforming them into sainted shrines, at which memory loves to be the devoted worshipper. Everything con- nected with the children of genius awakens our sympathy — the places where they have dwelt and labored in thought, which have witnessed their sufferings and mental anguish and given birth to the brilliant creations of intellect, acquire a sacredness and an interest unknown to any other. ' ' More sweet than odors caught by him who sails Near spicy shores of Araby the blest, — A thousand times more exquisitely sweet The freight of holy f eeUng which we meet In thoughtful moments, wafted on the gales From fields where good men walk, or bowers wherein they rest." * It is a noteworthy fact, that men of genius have usually — seemingly in accordance with their lofty, sky-ward aspirations — produced their first and greatest works in a garret ! Gold- smith, with a host of others known to fame, being in evi- dence. The reader will think kindlier of these obscure places as he recalls Johnson's fine reflections on local associations ; when the scenes we visit suggest the men or the deeds which have left their celebrity to the spot. We are in the presence of their fame and feel its influence ! It was with this feeling that Pope, one day, meeting with a * Wordsworth. THE SHRINES OF GENIUS. 411 friend in the Hayraarket desired him to enter a little shop, where, going up three pair of stairs into a small room, the poet said, " In this garret Addison wrote." We can liardly venture to travel out of the domain of our English literature in search of these cherished memorials, or we might refer to the house of Rubens at Antwerp, and that of Michael Angela and also the decorated memorial of Galileo, near Florence. No matter how rude and unattractive may be the spot, if but the light of genius has glorified it, it becomes henceforth a sa- cred shrine, Greece, with all her classic glory, is to the stu- dent doubly endeared because Homer, Plato, and Phidias were among the nobles of her soil. And great as were the im- perial splendors of her Caesars, Italy derives yet greater lus- tre from the imperishable names of Raphael, Titian, and Mi- chael Angelo, in painting; and from Cicero,Yirgil, Dante, Tasso, Petrarch, and Ariosto, in song. And in our own day the same is no less true : we instinctively think of Stratford, as the home of Shakespeare ; of Abbotsford, as thatof Scott; and of Mossgiel, as that of the peasant-poet of Scotland. The Kingdom of Mind is the true sovereignty ; and such is the loyal tribute paid to it in all ages and climes. Most of the literary magnates of the Elizabethan age were accustomed to congregate at inns and hostelries — the Mitre, the Mermaid, and others, in the nooks and corners of old London. It was at the Mitre tavern that Johnson imbibed his port, and Boswell chronicled his patron's oracular wisdom. And on the opposite side of Fleet street, at No. 8 in Bolt Court, the great lexicographer lived and died, after leaving Gough square, where he lost his wife. The house no longer exists. Johnson's intemperate taste for tea is well-known : and it is on record that a lady on one occasion poured Qut for him seventeen cups ; the cups were small, how- * Mark Leman. il2 THE SHKINES OF GENIUS. e\'er.* The " Rainbow," formerly called the "Devil" tavern, facing Chancery lane, was the rendezvous of Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson with his boon companions in hilarious mirth. Here, and at the Mermaid also, might have been seen Raleigh, Spen- ser, Sydney, Pope, Addison, Swift, and others of their class and time. At No. 3 Ivy lane, leading to the great book mart. Paternoster row, there was formerly a tavern, frequented by the literati of those days, where, according to the Sj>ectator, " was held the Humdrum Club, who used to sit together, smoke their pipes, and say nothing till midnight." Franklin worked at Wall's Printing-house in 1725, situated in Portugal street, Lincoln's Inn Fields ; he lodged at a house facing the Catho- lic chapel, in Duke street. Milton was born in Bread street, Cheapside : the house was burned in the fire of London. The house in which Milton re- sided between the years 1651 and 1659 existed only a few years back, at No. 18 York street, Westminster. Chalfont, in Buck- inghamshire, was another residence of Milton, in which he composed " Paradise Regained." The mulberry-tree planted by Milton is still flourishing in the pleasant garden of Christ's College, Cambridge, where it was planted by the youthful student. Its fertility appeared to have undergone no change ; in the summer of 1835 it was laden with fruit. The birthplace of " Paradise Lost " was at a house in Hol- born that looked into "Red Lion Fields" (now Red Lion square). In that dim, obscure spot was born the noble Eng- lish epic. " Pope's house at Binfield has been pulled down, but the poet's parlor still exists as a part of the present mansion erected on the spot. A patch of the great forest, near Biniield, has been honorably preserved, under the name of Pope's Wood. His house at Twickenham is gone, the garden is bare, but the cele- THE SHRINES OF GENIUS. 413 brated grotto remains, stript, however, of all that gave it pic- turesqueness, grace, and beauty. " Cowper's house, at Olney, is still standing in the same ru- inous state so humorously described by the poet ; his parlor is occupied as a girl's school. The summer house in the garden, in which he used to sit conning his verses, also remains, its walls covered with visitors' names. His residence in the neigh- borino; villao-e of Weston has been much altered, but is still beautiful, with a profusion of roses about it." The Borough of Southwark, south of the Thames, is mem- orable for its Tabard, the hostlerie of Chaucer's " Canter- bury Pilgrims," and the wits of the olden time ; although little if any of the old building now exists. In its precincts once stood the well-remembered Globe theatre, of which Shake- speare was at one time proprietor. Shakespeare's first appear- ance in public was as an attendant at the door of this theatre, which stood near Bankside. Bankside is also full of interest, from the fact of its being the spot where the great dramatist lived during his stay in London. Near the Globe were the Bear Gardens, where Elizabeth, her nobles and ladies, used to solace their tender sensibilities with the elegant sport of bear- hunting. Two other early dramatists, Beaumont and Fletcher, also lived near neighbors with the great dramatist. The mortal remains of Fletcher and Massinger rest within the time-honored walls of St. Saviour's. " Our cathedrals and old churches," observes "Willmott, " gray with the rust of centuries, speak to the heart through the eye. Death is never unlovely, but meets us with the Gospel upon his lips and the garland of hope upon his forehead. Addison might well delight to pass an afternoon among the tombs of Westminster Abbey. The truest and most cheering eloquence speaks from the grave of piety. The white marble monument of William of Wykeham is a livelier exhortation to Christian 414 THE SHRINES OF GENIUS. benevolence than a philosophic treatise upon generosity. If we delight to keep green the graves of our poets, who have be- guiled with their music the sorrows of life, our feelings become enlivened by purer elevation when lingering by the sepulchres of those who have ministered to us of the oracles of heavenly wisdom. "We call to mind their hallowed example of holy liv- ing — their illuminated wisdom, their chastened temper, and their serene and happy exit from a life of sorrow and self-de- nial, which was to them " a baptism unto immortality." Among the proud temples of Fame, the grand old Abbey of Westminster stands pre-eminent, with its clustered glories of gloomy, regal pomp and splendor. Westminster Abbey is it- self a vast mausoleum, enriched with the proudest spoils of the Destroyer. Here repose the ashes of potentates and poets, he- roes and historians, martyrs and confessors. The very walls are histories, illustrated by monumental bust and sculptured shrine. In the " Poets' Corner " sleep the remains of England's great- est bards — from Chaucer' to Campbell ; of Ben Jonson and the Elizabethan dramatists ; and of Addison and the essayists and philosophers. Here, too, is that marvel of sculptured skill — Henry the Seventh's Chapel ; with its gorgeously fretted pend- ants and vaulted ceiling ; its knightly bannerets, and last, but not least, the sumptuous tomb of the founder, and those of the rival queens — Elizabeth and Mary Stuart — now at peace — side by side ! Henry the Seventh's magnificent tomb was rivalled by the grand mausoleum of Halicarnassus, one of the seven wonders of the world, which, however, in the twelfth century, being overthrown by an earthquake, became a mass of ruins. At Agra, Northern Ilindostan, is that marvel of eastern splen- dor, the Taj Mahal, the chef-d^muvre of Saracenic art. This superb specimen of Oriental splendor was erected by the Em- peror Shah Jehan, as a mausoleum for his deceased Avife. It THE SHRINES OF GENIUS. 415 is said to have cost a fabulous sum, equal to nearly sixteen mil- lions of dollars. What illustrious vanity ! " All the greatness, the pride, the cruelty, and the ambition of man," said one who knew how little worth were worldly honors,* " are covered over by death with these two narrow words — Hio Jacet! " The poets whose lyres are now all unstrung have still be- queathed to us the rich legacy of their sweet songs, which, like the music of the sylvan streams they loved so well, are ever charming us with their melody. Westminster Abbey boasts its " Poets' Corner " and St. Paul's has its " Painters' Corner " ; for here in the crypt of the cathe- dral rest the remains of England's great painters — Reynolds, Lawrence Barry, Opie, West, Fuseli, and Turner. In Kensall Green Cemetery repose the ashes of a multitude of eminent characters, including Sydney Smith, Allan Cunningham, Thack- eray, and Kemble ; and in Norwood Cemetery, among many other celebrities, Talfourd and Douglas Jerrold. Adieu, then, and peace to these gifted sons of genius ; theirs is an immortality of fame ; for the world has indeed been enriched by their hav- ing passed a brief lifetime in it. Of how much of sorrow have they beguiled us, what lessons of wisdom have they not taught us by their bright visions of spiritual beauty and cherished hopes of a life beyond. Then there are other shrines of memory : Waller, in Bea- consfield churchyard ; Butler, in St. Paul's, Covent Garden ; Young, at Welwyn in Hertfordshire ; Burns, in St. Michael's, Dumfries ; Byron, in the church of Ilucknall, near Newstead ; Crabbe, at Trowbridge ; Scott, at Dryburgh Abbey ; Southey, in Crosthwaite church, near Keswick ; and Wordsworth, in the churchyard at Grasmere, hard by the lake he so loved. D]'y den's house was in Fetter lane, Lc ndon ; the stately old * Sir Walter Raleigh. 416 THE SHRINES OF GENIUS. building was noticeable by its two grim-looking lions in stone, over the door. Goldsmith has hallowed a dingy spot in London by his resi dence there ; it is called Green Arbor Court, Old Bailey. Here Oliver resided in the outset of his career, ere his fame dawned upon the world ; and here he wrote those amusing papers, which were afterwards collected under the title of " The Citizen of the "World." The author was writing in a wretched, dirty room, in which there was but one chair ; and when he, from civility, offered it to his visitors, he himself was obliged to sit in the window. This house was the last in the alley, looking on a descent known by the name of " Breakneck-stairs." East Smithfield was the birthplace of that rare poet of the elder school, Spenser. The checkered career of the gentle au- thor of the Faerie Queene is familiar to the reader — his resi- dence, Kilcolman Castle, Ireland — its being fired by the pop- ulace — his return to England — poverty and disasters, and subsequent death, in an obscure lodging-house in King street, Westminster. His death was more honored than his life ; for, says Camden, "his hearse was attended by poets ; and mournful elegies and poems, with the pens that wrote them, were thrown into his tomb, in Westminster Abbey." Lord Bacon has bequeathed the memory of his noble genius to Gray's Inn, where he lived and wrote. The corner of Fleet street and Chancery lane witnessed the advent of the poet Cowley. Two renowned painters, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Hogarth, immortalized their art in Leicester square, at the house since called the Sabloniere Hotel. Byron was born in Holies street. Cavendish square. He wrote his " Siege of Corinth " in a house in Piccadill}^, opposite the Green Park. Most of his productions were composed in Greece and other parts of the Continent. It was in one of these aerial abodes, already referred to, that THE SHEINES OP GENIUS. 417 Butler wrote his " Hudibras," which, while it contributed to th^e convulsive merriment of the court and all classes of readers, left its ill-fated author to pine under the inconvenient prospect of starvation. It is grateful to reflect, however, that all are not found dom- iciled in these upper regions. Some, on the contrary, moved not in the upper stories, but among the upper circles of society ; such as Pliny, in early times, and Voltaire, Pope, Kogers, and others, among the moderns. Others, again, have appeared under the most obscure circumstances and bounded into noto- riety by the force of their genius. Of this class we might mention Keats, the most " poetical of poets," who was born in a stable at Moorfields, London. Let us pay the j)assing tribute of sympathy at that shrine of suffering genius, the last abode of poor Chatterton, whom Wordsworth describes as "the sleepless boy who perished in his pride ! " After enduring the pangs of mortal hunger for three days he destroyed himself, in an obscure house in Brooke street, Holborn. At Bristol Cathedral there is a beautiful monument to his memory; another illustration of the sad neglect with which the children of genius are suffered to pass away from among us : they ask bread and we give them — a stone ! In Salisbury Court lived Thomas Sackvill, Earl of Dorset, the precursor of Spenser. Here also resided Richardson, where he kept his printing-office. The Temple is eminently classic in its associations. Crown-office Row, Temple, was the birth- place of Charles Lamb : he styles it in his " Elia " — " Cheer- ful Crown-office Row, place of my kindly engender." Many illustrious names cluster about these antique buildings, such as Raleigh, Selden, Clarendon, Congreve, Wycherly, Fielding, Burke, Johnson, Cowper, Rowe, Beaumont, Ford, and Gold- smith, who had chambers here. Addison, it will be remembered, lived and died at Holland 27 418 THE SHRIXES OF GENIUS. House. It was at Holland House, of which he became possessed by marriage, that Addison, in the fine couplet of Tickell, ' ' Taught us how to Kve ; and, oh ! too high A price for knowledge, taught us how to die ! " Cowley's name is associated with Chertsey and Barn Elms, both in the county of Surrey. The house at Chertsey, we be- lieve, yet remains, somewhat modernized. Over the door is a small tablet of stone on which is inscribed, ' ' Here the last accents fell from Cowley's tongue. " Grub street is replete with literary memories, inelegant as its name is ; it is called Milton street, and is in the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, near Bunhill fields. Many of its old houses remain as they were in the time of Charles II. In Covent Garden Market is a spot around which genius seems to have loved to hover. In Tavistock house, Johnson first met his devoted biographer, Boswell ; close by was Will's coffee house, at which place Addison and his confreres used to meet. Not far off was also Evans's Club and the "Savage Club," the frequent rendezvous of the writers and actors of their day. It is impossible to enumerate even the most noted names, in our rapid survey of the shrines of genius ; they are scattered all over British soil. There are a few names we have omitted, however, which it seems like treason to loyalty to ignore: Charles Lamb, who lived sometime and died — not at Enfield, as has been supposed by some — but at Edmonton ; his grave is in the church-yard of that pleasant retreat. Mrs. Barrett Brown- ing, who lived and wrote and died at sunny Florence ; Mrs. Hemans, whose grave is in St. Anne's church-yard, Dublin ; Dr. Chalmers, whose mortal part sleeps in the cemetery at Grange, near Morningside ; and the saintly and eloquent Ed- THE SHRINES OF GENIUS. 419 ward Irving, whose dust rests beneath the crypt of Glasgow Cathedral. Also the mighty though mystic Coleridge, who lived, died, and was buried at Highgate, near London ; Cowper, '' the Christian household poet of England," whose ashes rest at East Durham church-yard; Hood, "the prince of punsters," and, may we not add, of pathos, whose monument stands in Kensall Green Cemetery. Among the historic sites of London there are not many which <;an lay claim to more venerable associations than the Bunhill- fields burial-ground in Finsbury. It was first used for interment at the time of the Great Plague, and is the site of the " great pit in Finsbury," spoken of in Defoe's narrative. Old Bunhill-fields burying-ground is rich in memories of eminent men. Among the celebrated graves of this " Campo. Santo of the Dissenters," may be mentioned those of De Foe, the well-known author of " Robinson Crusoe," John Bunyan, Isaac Watts, General Fleetwood, George Fox, the first of the Quakers, and Stothard, the great painter. Dickens' last residence was Gadshill, Rochester, near London Here he died in the midst of his work, and of his days, sud- denly, to the great sorrow of a world of readers. This was the Gadshill of Shakespeare's time, and here passed Chaucer and his pilgrims, and Falstaff and his lawless crew ; and here followed the future bard of Avon, shaping the ancient ballad of the "Robbery at Gadshill" into one of those "jewels," as Tennyson defines them, "which sparkle in the forefinger of Time." In another direction, amid the luxuriant foliage of Stoke- Pogeis, Buckinghamshire, is Gray's church-yard, almost sur- rounded with high fir-trees covered with ivy, which impart a pleasing gloom in summer to the spot. It is impossible to ap- proach it without feeling that it is a spot calculated to have in- spired the poet with those feelings which drew from him his 420 THE SHRINES OF GENIUS. beautiful and well-known " Elegy." Here he wrote, here he wandered, and here he was buried. But where is his monu- ment ? We look for it in vain, either in the church or church- yard. There is, indeed, the tomb of "the careful, tender mother of many children, one of whom had the misfortune to survive her." That child was Thomas Gray, the poet. In that simple tomb his ashes repose, with those of the mother he so affectionately loved. Our artist has given us a beautiful sketch of the scene. Ireland claims a passing allusion : if its literary localities are less numerous, they are scarcely less interesting. To begin with the metropolis : there is Glasnevin, with its recollections of Tickell, Parnell, and the rest of that brilliant circle which there met ; there is Swift's birthplace in Hoey's Court, and his tomb in St. Patrick's ; there is 12 Dorset street, where Sheridan first drew his breath, and Aungier street, wliere his biographer, Thomas Moore, was born. And how many a one — even the admirer of her poetry — passes 20 Dawson street, without think- ing of Mrs. Hemans; yet in that house the "falcon-hearted dove" folded its wing and fell asleep, and in the vaults of St. Anne's Church, hard by, her mortal remains are laid. Thomson's natal place was Ednam, near Kelso, Scotland ; he removed thence to Southdean, where he is supposed to have indited his justly celebrated "Seasons;" afterward he re- paired to a house near Richmond. His remains rest in Rich- mond Church, where a brass tablet is erected to his memory. But in our rapid survey of the shrines of old England we had well-nigh forgotten those of our own land. When gliding along the placid Hudson, why do we instinctively bend our gaze as we near Tarrytown, to a little thickly-embowered nook, with its vine-clad cottage nestling in its bosom ? Along the grand old wooded and rocky borders of this noble river are many more imposing and picturesque vistas and views than THE SHRINES OF GENIUS. 421 this modest ravine presents ; here is a shrine of genius — it is Sunnyside, the home of Washington Irving. Grand and spirit- stirring as are foreign sites and shrines, there is yet a home- interest for us in the spot that our foremost representative in American letters has consecrated to memory. "We visit the grave of his sleeping dust in the rural cemetery of his legend- ary " Sleepy Hollow," to pay the tribute of loving remem- brance to his genial and gifted character. Irving is no more with us, but he has bequeathed to us a cherished possession, the fruits of his exalted genius, and the pleasant memory of his exemplary life. Stretching up the river a few miles is another memorial spot, Willis's "Idlewild," amid whose picturesque ravines some of the poetic prose and glowing verse of that well-known and elegant wi'iter emanated. His life-tours of Europe were to him a kind of perpetual phantasmagoria. Every one knows, or is supposed to know, the resting-place of the great and good Washington, at Mount Vernon, which is indicated by a beautiful marble sarcophagus ; and also that of Franklin, with its plain epitaph, at the corner of Fifth and Arch streets, Philadelphia. The tomb of Jefferson, at Monti- cello, in Virginia, is another shrine of memory for the Ameri- can tourist. Among memorable sites in New York City we should not omit to mention the old Dutch Church, for some years used as the New York Post Office. It was in the old wooden steeple of this church that Franklin performed his first experiments in electricity. Dirty and dingy as it is, who would not look at the old belfry with a new interest as the starting-point of that luminous train which now encircles the globe, and by which we communicate with our antipodes with almost the celerity of thought ? We shall never forget the historic memories of old Faneuil Hall, Boston ; or Independence Hall, with its daunt 422 THE SHRINES OF GENroS. less " Declaration of Independence." Memory is busy, also, with the locale of Longfellow, at his historic mansion, Cam- bridge, Massachusetts; with that of the veteran of the Amei-i- can muse, Bryant, at his rustic home, Roslyn, Long Island ; and with that of Emerson, at Concord : not to speak of others- of like fame in our literary world — Motley, Bancroft, Hildreth ; Lossing, in history, and Holmes, Saxe, and Lowell, in song. And, lastly, let us not forget those other worthies, now passed away — Audubon, Prescott, Paulding, Hawthorne, Everett^ Cooper, and Webster, the undesigned prophecy of whose words — " I still li ve " — are so applicable to all. THE HUMOKS OF LAW. Law, legally considered, and in hrief^ is jurisprudence, and this again may be distinguished as civil, ecclesiastical, and criminal. But there are sundry other kinds of law ; to wit : that which pertains to the universe at large, gravitation, and the laws of physical, social, and civil life. Law is indeed in- dispensable to the well-being of society, since a lawless condi- tion is one of anarchy and confusion. "Liberty is born of law^^ for " true liberty is the power of doing that which the law permits." But as there is a comic phase to most things, we find that even the stern inflexible, and severe gravity of law is not with- 424: THE HUMORS OF LAW, out its ludicrous aspect. Let us glance at some of its humors and absurdities ; careful, meanwhile, that our pleasantries do not betray us into a lawsuit for libel or impeachment for con- tempt of court ; albeit, neither might be in accordance with equity or justice. For much as we are disposed to revere the majesty of law, we would keep at a respectful distance from its clutches, lest we become unwittingly entangled in its meshes and toils. Therefore we must be discreet in handling our sub- ject, ior not only are we admonished by an old ditty that law is litigation and tergiversation, but mystification and a mon- strous delusion ; so that — " If fond of pure vexation, Latin, and botheration, We're just in a situation To enjoy a suit at law." Law is law — and, as in such, and so forth, and hereby, and aforesaid, provided always, nevertheless, notwithstanding. Law is like a blistering plaster — it is a great irritator, and only to be used in cases of great extremity. Law, again, is compared to a country-dance ; people are led up and down in it until they are thoroughly tired. Law is like a book of surgery ; there are a great many terrible cases in it. Law always expresses itself with true grammatical precision^ never confounding moods, tenses, cases, or genders, except, indeed, when a woman happens accidentally to be slain, then the verdict brought in is manslaughter. The essence of law is altercation, for the law can altercate, fulminate, deprecate, irritate, and go on at any rate. " Law is like longitude, about never completely yet found out; Though practised notwithstanding. 'Tis like the fatalist's strange creed, which justifies a wicked deed, ■yiTiLLe sternly reprimanding ! " THE HUMORS OF LAW. 425 " Law has been compared to fire ; since those who meddle with it generally burn their fingers. Law is like a sieve ; you may see through it — but you will be considerably reduced before you get through it. It is to the litigant what the poul- terer is to the goose — it plucks and it draws him; but here the simile ends, for the litigant, unlike the goose, never gets trusty although he may be roasted and dishedP Human laws are designed mainly to protect absolute rights ; the laws, or the lawyers, however, often interfere with what seems absolutely right, till there is nothing absolutely left of the original right — and absolute wrong is of necessity the con- sequence. Those reputed allies — equity and justice — seem, in these boasted days of " progress," not only to have repudiated their avowed relationship, but even to have wellnigh lost all kind of respect for each other. But we must remember that Justice is hlind, although she balances the scales. It is with law as with physic : so long as diseases and discord disturb the social fabric, legal pacification and pills seem to be indispensa- ble. We must all have our share of trials in this life ; but trial by jury should by all means be avoided. An amusing paper on the " Legerdemain of Law-craft," thus defines an honest counsel : " He is not double-faced, like Janus, to take a retaining fee from plaintiff, and afterward a back-handed bribe from the defendant : nor so double-tongued that one may purchase his pleading, and the other, at the same or a larger price, his silence. . . . He does not play the empiric with his client, and put him on the rack to make him bleed more freely, casting him into a swoon with frights of a judgment, and then reviving him again with a cordial- writ of error, or the choice elixir of an injunction." The scene presented at a court of justice {i.e. law) is one of strange interest. It is there human nature may be studied with great effect. The passions of men are not only brought into 426 THE, HUMORS OF LAW. play — they riot in dire confusion. The cupidity and cunning of counsel, the qualms and querulousness of the clients, the stern immobility of the judge, the officiousness of the crier, and the stolid indifference of those ominous individuals who are to decide the fate of the contending parties, contrast broadly with the vulgar curiosity evinced by the promiscuous crowd. A suit at law is, beyond all controversy, a most uncomfortable one — it unfits a man for everything else ; it disturbs his peace, wastes his money, and too often ruins his reputation. The very term, suit at law, is, by the way, a misnomer; for it frequently strips a man of all he has, and he seldom gets any re-dress. The law courts are not unfrequently the scene of severe gladiatorial rhetoric between counsel, on the diamond-cut- diamond principle. In a London court a counsel for the defendant, in an action, after dissecting his antagonist's speech and deducing inferences diametrically opposite to him, observ- ing him wince under the infliction, cruelly intensified hi& discomfiture by adding, "My learned friend on the other side shakes his head (emphasizing the word), but I don't know that there's much in that ! " Counsellor Lamb, an old man when Lord Erskine was at the height of his reputation, was a man of timid manners and nervous temperament, and usually prefaced his plea with an apology to that effect. On one occasion, when opposed to Erskine, he happened to remark that he felt himself growing more and more timid as he grew older. " No wonder,'^ replied the witty but relentless barrister, "every one knows that the older a lamh grows the more sheepish he becomes." Brow-beating of witnesses is an old standing charge against counsel. The poor victim of legal torture is placed on the stand, and after having undergone the most exhaustive process of pumping, by the one counsel, he is handed over to the cross- THE HUMORS OF LAW. 427 examiner, who ingeniously endeavors to make him contradict the testimony he has just given. If even law were proved to be a positive good, we have so much of it that it has come to be a positive evil. Added to its countless statute-books, its codes, civil, common, and canon, we have such voluminous commentaries as no mortal man can comprehend or even read. This prodigality of law has proved the occasion of an equally prolific race of lawyers, scarcely any two of whom interpret law alike. "We have looked enough at the negative side of law ; but where it is made synonymous with equity and justice, it is in- vested with the sanctions of Divinity. One of the old divines, Hooker, said of law that " her seat is the bosom of God and her voice the harmony of the universe." The ancients, as a proof of their reverence for law and justice, represented their goddess, Themis, as the daughter of Heaven and Earth — of Heaven, as typical of her purity and holiness — of Earth, as representing her abode and sphere of action. To denote her strength she was of Titanic origin ; as an appreciation of her consequence she was placed by the side of Jupiter. Well may we congratulate ourselves when we remember that the laws of Draco, the Pandects of Justinian, and the Decretals of Gregory are now among the things that were, and that we live in an age when men know and realize what are their rights and can defend them. If any one would like to see the form of a barrister's or rather a lawyer's " declaration " in an action, here is one : " The pleadings state that John-a-Gull, With enA/y, wrath, and malice full, With swords, knives, sticks, staves, fist, and bludgeon, Beat, bruised, and wounded John-a-Gudgeon ! First count's for that with divers jugs, — To wit : twelve pots, twelve cups, twelve mugs, 42H THE HUMORS OF LAW. Of certain viilgar drink, called toddy, Said Gull did sluice said Gudgeon's body. The second count's for other toddy. Thrown by said Gull on Gudgeon's body,- To wit, his gold-laced hat, and hair on. And clothes, which he had then and there on, — To wit : twelve jackets, twelve surtouts, Twelve pantaloons, twelve pair of boots ; Which did thereby much discompose Said Gudgeon's mouth, eyes, ears, and nose, Back, stomach, neck, thighs, feet, and toes ; By which, and other wrongs unheard of, His clothes were spoiled, and life despaired of." Lord Eldon was renowned for his doubting propensity. Many were the squibs, in prose and verse, of which this Fabius of Chancellors was the subject. It is stated that during his chancellorship, such was his high sense of rectitude, that he is said to have retained counsel, in some instances, five, ten, and even twenty years (according to the capacity of the purse of the parties concerned), rather than venture a rash judgment in some equity cases. The longest suit on record, in England, is that of the heirs of Sir Thomas Talbot and the heirs of Lord Berkeley, respecting some property in the county of Gloucester. It began at the close of the reign of Edward IV., and was depending until the beginning of that of James L, when it was finally com- pounded — being a period of not less than one hundred and twenty years ! Erskine once met a grandiloquent barrister who delighted in flowery language. Perceiving that his ankle was tied up, Er- skine asked the cause. " Why, my dear sir," answered the wordy lawyer, " I was taking a romantic ramble in my broth- er's grounds, when, coming to a gate, I had to climb over it, in doing which I came in contact with the uppermost bar and have grazed the epidermis of my shin, attended with a slight extravasation of blood." " You may thank your stars," replied THE HUMORS OF LAW. 429 Erskine, " that your brother's gate was not as lofty as your style or you must have broken your neck." Slieridan was one day much annoyed by a fellow-member of the House of Commons, who kept crying out every minute? '' Hear ! hear ! " In describing a political contemporary that wished to play rogue, but had only sense enough to act fool, he took occasion to exclaim with great emphasis : " Where, where shall we find a more foolish knave or a more knavish fool than he ? " " Hear ! hear ! " was shouted by the trouble- some member. Sheridan turned round, and thanking him for the prompt information, sat down amid a general roar of laugh- ter. We meet with punning pleaders and sarcastic counsellors in abundance ; so the reader, it is hoped, will relish their jokes and repartees " hereinafter following." To refrain from multi- plying instances of the ludicrous in law is, indeed, no easy mat- ter, since the recollection of the names even of prominent members of the Irish bar are so suggestive of fun. Who can think of Philpott, Shiel, Curran, and Norbury, without recol- lecting their jokes ? Curran was engaged in a legal argument ; behind him stood his colleague, a gentleman whose person was remarkably tall and slender, and who had originally intended to take orders. The judge observing that the case under discussion involved a question of ecclesiastical law — " Then," said Curran, " I can refer your lordship to a high authority behind me, who was once intended for the Church, though, in my opinion, he was fitter for the steeple." " No man," said a wealthy but weak- headed barrister, " should be admitted to the bar who has not an independent landed property." " May I ask, sir," said Cur- ran, " how many acres make a wise-acre ? " On another occa- sion he was asked, " Could you not have known this boy to be my son from his resemblance to me?" Curran answered, " Yes, sir, the maker's name is stamped upon the blade." Being 430 \ THE HUMORS OF LAW. asked again, "what an Irish gentleman, just arrived in Eng- land, could mean by perpetually putting out his tongue ? " he answered, " I suppose he's trying to catch the English accent." Plunkett, while pleading one day, observing the hour to be late, said it was his wish to proceed with the trial if the jury would set. " Sit, sir," said the judge, correcting him, " not set ; hens set." " I thank you, my lord," was the reply. Shortly after the judge had occasion to observe, " that if such were the case, he feared the action would not lay" " Zie, my lord," said the barrister, " not lay ; hens lay." A British lawj^er was engaged some time since to defend a man who had been charged with theft. Assuming the prerog- ative of his position, the counsel, in a private interview with his client, said to him, " Now, Patrick, as I am to defend you I want you to tell me frankly whetlier you are guilty or not. Did you steal the goods ? " " Faith, then," said Pat, " I s'pose T must tell yez. In troth, I did stale 'em ! " " Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself to come here and disgrace your country by stealing ? " said the honest counsel. " In troth, sir, maybe I ought ; but, then, if I didn't stale, you wouldn't have the honor and credit of getting me off ! " It may be remembered, a curious instance occurred of a wit- ness confounding a counsel, at Gloucester, England, some years ago. The witness, on being asked his name, gave it Ottiwell "Woodd. He pronounced it hurriedly several times, as the learned counsel did not seem to catch it. " Spell it, sir, if you please," he said, somewhat angrily ; the witness complied thus : " O, tt, i, w, e, 11, W, oo, dd." The spelling more con- founded the counsel than ever, and in his confusion, amid the riotous laughter of the court, he took the witness aside to help him to spell it after him. O'Connell was once examining a witness, whose inebriety, at the time to which the evidence referred, it was essential to his THE HUMORS OF LAW. 431 client's case to prove. lie quickly discovered the man's char- acter. He was a fellow who may be described as "half -foolish with roguery." " Well, Darby, you told the truth to this gen- tleman ? " " Yes, your honor. Counsellor O'Connell." " How do you know my name ? " " Ah ! sure every one knows our own jpathriotP " Well, you are a good-humored, honest fel- low ; now tell me. Darby, did you take a drop of anything that day ? " " Why, your honor, I took my share of a pint of spirits." " Your share of it ; now, by virtue of your oath, was not your share of it all hut the pewter? " "Why, then, dear knows, that's true for you, sir." The court was convulsed at both question and answer. Here is an instance of his ready tact and infinite resource in the defence of his client. In a trial at Cork for murder the principal witness swore strongly against the prisoner. He particularly swore that a hat, found near the place of the mur- der, belonged to the prisoner, whose name was James. " By virtue of your oath, are you sure that this is the same hat ? " " Yes." " Did you examine it carefully before you swore, in your information, that it was the prisoner's ? " "I did." " Now let me see," said O'Connell, as he took up the hat and began to examine it carefully in the inside. He then spelled aloud the name of James, slowly, and repeated the question as to whether the hat contained the name; when the respondent promptly replied, " It did." " Now, my lord," said O'Connell, holding up the hat to the bench, " there is an end of the case — there is no name whatever inscribed in the hat." The result was, of course, acquittal. The following anecdote of two eminent pleaders, Pinckney and Emmet, we copy from the Knickerhocker : it is an admir- able rebuke upon those who suppose that irony, sarcasm, and invective constitute the essentials of forensic eloquence. "We do not know when we have encountered a more forci 432 THE HUMORS OF LAW. ble exemplification of the truth, 'that a soft answer turneth away wrath,' than is afforded in the ensuing anecdote : On one occasion in the Supreme Court of the United States, the eloquent Irish exile, Emmet, and the distinguished orator, Pinckney, were on opposite sides in an important cause, and one which the latter had much at heart. In the course of the argument he made some offensive personal observations on Emmet, with a view of irritating him and weakening his reply. Emmet sat quiet and endured it all. It seemed to have sharp- ened his intellect without having irritated his temper. When the argument was finished, he said : ' Perhaps he ought to notice the remarks of the opposite counsel, but this was a species of warfare in which he had the good fortune to have little experience and one in which he never dealt — he was willing that his learned opponent should have all the advan- tages he promised himself from the display of his talents in that way. When he came to this country he was a stranger, and was happy to say that from the bar generally and the court universally he had experienced nothing but politeness and even kindness. He believed the court would do him the justice to say that he had said or done nothing in this cause to merit a different treatment. He had always been accustomed to admire and even reverence the learning and eloquence of Mr. Pinckney, and he was the last man from whom he should have expected personal observations of the sort the court had just witnessed. He had been in early life taught by the high- est authority not to return railing for railing. He would only say that he had been informed that the learned gentleman had filled the highest ofiice his covmtry could bestow at the court of St. James. He was very sure that he had not learned his breeding in that school.' " The court and the bar were delighted ; for Mr. Pinckney was apt to be occasionally a little too overbearing. When we THE HUMORS OF LAW. 433 take into consideration the merit of resistance against the natural impulse of a warm Irish temperament, we must admire still more the manner adopted by Mr, Emmet. Mr. Pinckney afterward tendered the most ample apology. ' The manner/ said he, ' in which Mr. Emmet has replied, reproaches me by its forbearance and urbanity, and could not fail to hasten the repentance which reflection alone would have produced, and which 1 am glad to have so public an occasion of avowing, I offer him a gratuitous and cheerful atonement : cheerful because it puts me to rights with myself, and because it is tendered not to ignorance and presumption, but to the highest worth, intellect, and morals, enhanced by such eloquence as few may hope to equal ; to an interesting stranger whom ad- versity has tried, and affliction struck severely to the heart ; to an exile whom any country might be proud to receive and every man of a generous temper would be ashamed to offend.' " Special pleaders sometimes resort to curious expedients for producing an effect on the sympathies of the jury — a body of men distinguished alike for their acute sensibilities and criti- cal sagacity. In a criminal case, in which the culprit was arraigned upon a charge of manslaughter, which seemed to bear very much against the prisoner, the counsel held up his little child, who was crying aloud, as an eloquent appeal to the jury in his behalf. This might have answered very well had not one of their number put the pertinent question to the youngster, " "What are you crying for ? " when the artless reply was, " He pinched me, sir." As no one denies that the bar has been ever distinguished for eloquence, it is not needful for us to cite a list of luminous names to prove the fact. Rather would we present the follow- ing curious case of an attorney, who was possessed of a won- derful facility in " facing both ways." A Scottish advocate, we have forgotten his name, having on a certain occasion drank 28 434 THE HUMORS OF LAW. rather too freely, was called on unexpectedly to plead in a cause in which he had been retained. The lawyer mistook the party for whom he was engaged, and to the great amazement of the agent who had feed him, and to the absolute horror of the poor client, who was in court, he delivered a long and fer- vent speech directly opposite to the interests he had been called upon to defend. Such was his zeal that no whispered remonstrance, no jostling of the elbow, could stop him. But just as he was about to sit down the trembling client, in a brief note, informed him that he had been pleading for the wrong party. This intimation, which would have disconcerted most men, had a very different effect on the advocate, who, with an air of infinite composure, resumed his oration. " Such, my lords," said he, " is the statement which you will probably hear from my learned brother on the opposite side in this cause. I shall now, therefore, beg leave, in a few words, to show your lordships how utterly untenable are the principles and how dis- torted are the facts upon which this very specious statement has proceeded." The learned gentleman then went over the whole ground, and did not take his seat until he had completely and energetically refuted the whole of his former j)leading. We pause not to notice any of the peculiarities of pleading, in connection with briefs — those legal documentary instru- ments, usually more remarkable for their expansion and^verbos- xty than anything else. In early times pleading was carried on without the aid of briefs. Sterne insinuates that attorneys are to lawyers what apothe- caries are to physicians — only that they do not deal in scruples! Attorneys and lawyers in our courts are convertible terms. Having referred to briefs, we are reminded of the opposite. We have not dilated upon " the law's delay." The topic is, however, too trite to talk about — let an instance suffice. The fault, in some instances, rests more with the client than THE HUMORS OF LAW. ,435 the counsel : the judicial reports exhibit many such absurdi- ties. In the Chancery Court of England, the case of ISTarty vs. Duncan occurred, in which suit actually two thousaTid pounds sterling were expended in determining which party was liable to paint a board and whitewash a sign ! "We have at our hand a case, and as it is a very striking one, we may as well introduce it with the view of adding force to our observations. A lawyer, retained in a case of assault and battery, was cross-examining a witness in relation to the force of a blow struck : " Wliat kind of a blow was given ? " "A blow of the common kind." " Describe the blow." " I am not good at description." " Show me what kind of a blow it was." " I cannot." " You must." " I wont." The lawyer appealed to the court. The court told the witness that if the counsel in- sisted upon his showing what kind of a blow it was, he must do so. " Do you insist upon it % " asked the witness. " I do." " Well, then, since you compel me to show you, it was this kind of a blow ! " at the same time suiting the action to the word, and knocking over the astonished disciple of Coke upon Littleton. Is this authentic, say you ? Deponent saith not. In this connection we have yet another case to present, in which the irritating and too irritable counsel was completely nonplussed. It is as follows : " 1 call upon you," said the counsellor, " to state distinctly upon what authority you are prepared to swear to the mare's age." " Upon what authority ? " said the ostler, interroga- tively. " You are to reply to, and not to repeat the questions put to you." " I doesn't consider a man's bound to answer a question afore he's time to turn it in his mind." " Nothing can be more simple, sir, than the question put. I again repeat it : ' Upon what authority do you swear to the animal's age ? ' " " The- best authority," responded the witness, gruffly. " Then 436 THE HUMOKS OF LAW. why such evasion ? Why not state it at once ? " " Well, then? if you must have it." " Must ! I will have it," vociferated the counsellor, interrupting the witness. " Well, then, if you must and will have it," rejoined the ostler, with imperturbable grav- ity, " why, then, I had it myself from the mare's own mouth." A simultaneous burst of laughter rang through the court. We do not intend to reproduce any of the instances of matri- monial infelicity, that, alas, too frequently occur, and are re- ported by the periodical press with such heightened effect. We have, however, at hand a case of desertion by a faithless swain, bearing the suspicious name of Bachelor, for breach of promise of marriage. A number of the defendant's love-letters were produced, in which the fluctuations of his love were very amusingly exhibited. His first epistles terminated with, " Yours, J. B. ; " then fired up to " My ever dearest Maria ; " afterward they softened into " My Darling ; " then cooled into " Dear Maria ; " then formalized into " Dear Miss Rogers ; " and broke off with the " following announcement : " You wish to know how I intend to settle ; all I can say is that I cannot be more settled than I am." The following bit of the humorous once occurred in a Dub- lin court. Judge : " Pray, my good man, what passed between you and the prisoner ? state it to the court." " Och, thin, plase yer worship," says Pat, " sure I sees Phelan on tlie top of a wall. ' Paddy,' says he ; ' what ? ' says I ; ' here,' says he ; ' where,' says I ; ' whist ! ' says he ; ' hush,' says I : and that is all I know about it, plase yer worship." After this lucid testimony Pat was dismissed without further questioning. Sometimes a simple rustic proves more than a match for the tactics of learned counsel. Some years ago, at the Lincoln Assizes, the temper of the examining counsel was somewhat tried by a certain timid witness whose testimony'could scarcel}' be heard. After this there appeared upon the stand one who THE HUMORS OF LAW. 437 seemed to be "simplicity personified. "Kow, sir," said the learned representative of law, in a loud voice, " I hope we shall have no difficulty in making you speak up." " I hope not, sir," was shouted, or rather bellowed out by the witness, that startled the whole court out of its propriety. " How dare you speak in that way, sir," said the counsel. " Please, zur, I cannot speak any louder, zur," replied the astonished witness, attempting to shout even louder than before. " Pray, have you been drink- ing this morning ? " screamed out the man of law, quite losing his self-control. " Yes, zur," was the reply. " And what have yon been drinking ? " " Coffee, zur." " And what did you have in your coffee, sir ? " shouted the exasperated lawyer. "A spoon, zur," was the answer, amid the roars of the whole court. A member of the New York Bar was once asked by a man in the street, whether a five-dollar bill which he showed to him was a good one. " Yes," was the reply, putting the bank-note into his pocket. The interrogator thanked him, and asked him to return the note. All he got was, " I never give an opinion under five dollars." Names are sometimes significant, professionally, as in the instance of the well-known legal firm, in New York — Ketchum and Cheatham. As the combination was found to be provocative of risible curiosity the firm changed it so as to read thus : " I. Ketchum and U. Cheatham ! " (their Christian names being respectively Isaac and Uriah.) A certain judicial functionary on the confines of our western clearings once confessed, in the simplicity of his heart, that he could decide well enough upon a case when he heard one side, but it bothered him to listen to both. That seems to have been the case with that renowned doubter. Chancellor Eldon ; so we need not wonder that a lesser luminary should be lost in the fog. 438 THE HUMORS OF LAW. In a county town of Georgia a man named Knott was tried and his case was indeed a knotty one, for the judge even was unable to decide upon the verdict rendered, whether to pro- nounce sentence or not. The Jury found "the prisoner, Knott, guilty ! " Judge Story and Edward Everett once met at a public din- ner in Boston, when the first-named offered as a toast the fol- lowing: "Fame follows merit where Everett goes." The retort courteous was no less felicitdus : " To whatever height judicial learning may attain in this country, there will be al- ways one Story higher." This reminds us of a similar in- stance, when Prof. Longfellow met Mr. Longworth ; and on the host introducing them to each other, the professor remarked that their names bore some resemblance, but were suggestive of the old maxim, that " worth makes the man, the want of it, the fellow." Judge Peters, of Philadelphia, on one occasion referring to a witness, said he had a vegetable head. " How so," was the inquiry. " He has carroty hair, reddish cheeks, a turnujp nose, and a sage look," was the reply. The same facetious functionary asked his friend Condy for a book. The latter replied, " With pleasure ; I will send it to you." " That," said he, " will be truly condescending'''' (Condy- sending). On another occasion a counsel so tormented a witness by cross-examination that he called for water; the judge exclaimed, " I thought you would pump him dry." Sir Boyle Roche has been made responsible for several irre- sistible jokes. For instance ; he it was who first gave utterance to that sagacious aphorism, " Single misfortunes never come alone ; and the greatest of all is generally followed by a much greater." He ordered his shoemaker on one occasion to make one boot larger than the other to suit his gouty foot. They THE HUMORS OF LAW. 439 were brought home to him, and as he was trying them on he exclaimed, " I told you to make one larger than the other, and you have done exactly the reverse, for you have made one smaller than the other." During the troublous times in which he lived property and life were deemed insecure. He wrote once to a friend : " You may judge of our state when I tell you that I write this with a pistol in each hand and a sword in the other ! " He it was who, in the exuberance of his loyalty, described that remarkable performance in gymnastics, when he declared that he " stood prostrate at the feet of his sovereign ! " It was he who first suggested that " we should not put ourselves out of the way to do anything for posterity, for what has posterity done for us ? " " And by posterity," he continued, " I do not mean our ancestors, but those who are to come immediately after them ! " At a trial in the Court of King's Bench, in 1833, between certain music publishers as to an alleged piracy of an arrange- ment of the song of The Old English Gentleman^ Cooke, the actor, was subpoenaed as a witness by one of the parties. On his cross-examination, by Sir James Scarlett, afterward Lord Abin- ger, for the opposite side, that learned counsel questioned him thus : " Kow, sir, you say that the two melodies are the same, but different ; now what do you mean by that, sir ? " To this Tom promptly answered : " I said that the notes in the two copies were alike, but with a different accent, the one being in com- mon time, the other in six-eight time ; and consequently, the position of the accented notes was different." " Now, pray sir, don't beat about the bush, but explain to the jury, who are supposed to know nothing about music, the meaning of what you call accent." Cooke : " Accent in music is a certain stress laid upon a particular note, in the same manner as you would lay a stress upon any given word for the purpose of being bettei uo THE HUMORS OF LAW. understood. Thus, if I were to say ' you are an ass,'' it rests on ass ; but if I were to say, ^Yoic are an ass,' it rests on you, Sir James." Shouts of laughter by the whole court followed this repartee. Silence at length having been obtained, the judge, with much seeming gravity, accosted the counsel thus : " Are you satisfied. Sir James ? " Sir James (who had become scarlet in more than name), in a great huff, said, " The witness may go down." After all we have to urge against the law, we beg to ac- knowledge allegiance to its high authority ; and, as to its ad- ministrators, let the words of an old epigram speak for us : " When we've nothing to dread from the law's sternest frowns, We all laugh at the barristers' wigs, bags, and gowns ; But as soon as we want them to sue or defend, Then their laughter begins, and our mirth's at an end." FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS " The bright mosaics, that with storied beauty The floor of nature's temple tesselate." — Horace Smith. " A PASSION for flowers," wrote Mrs. Hemaus, " is, i really think, the only one which long sickness leaves untouched witli its chilling influence. Often, during a weary illness, have I looked upon new books with perfect apathy, when, if a friend has sent me a few flowers, my heart has leapt up to their dreamy hues and odors, with a sudden sense of renovated childhood — which seems to me one of the mysteries of our being." To a cultivated taste, indeed, flowers ever present the rarest attrac- tions, and the most fascinating charms. Many-tinted and many-voiced, they are associated with all that we share in the 442 FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWEES. poetry and romance of life : — they deck, alike, the sunny, joy ous hours of youth, the Eden bliss of the bridal, and the saintly associations of the burial. To these, and all life's minor scenes, they impart a glory and a splendor unapproachable by all the appliances of art. " Barren, indeed, were this world of ours Denied the sweet smile of the beautiful flowers," — since they not only adorn and enrich the various phases of our earthly life with their myriad forms of beauty, but they perfume the very atmosphere of our being with their fragrant breath, and when a-weary, gladden the heart that is open ta their appeal. "Not a tree, A plant, a leaf, a blossom but contains A f oUo volume. . We may read, and read. And read again, and stiU find something new, Something to please, and something to instruct, E'en in the noisome weed." Poets and painters have ever delighted to portray the charms of nature, under whatever phase or aspect she presents them ; as much when decked in the silvery sheen of winter, as when arrayed in the prismatic hues of the vernal spring — when the meadows are gemmed with buttercups and daisies, and the glorious trees of the forest are bursting into new life and leafy beauty. With one exception — that of love — no subject has, to a like extent, challenged the rich and quaint device of the votaries of the muse. How pleasant an hour might we while away by citations of the pleasurable passages of the poets, who have luxuriated over the treasures of Flora ! Leigh Hunt thus delicately makes vocal the fairy tribes: * FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. 443 " We are tlie sweet flowers, bom of sunny showers ; Think (whene'er you see us, what our beauty saith) — Utterance mute and bright of some unknown delight. We fill the air with pleasure, by our simple breath ; All who sec us, love us ; we befit all places ; Unto sorrow we give smiles, — and unto graces, gfraces ! " The silent, yet persuasive appeals of the radiant and per- fumed flowers were lovingly heeded by the bards of old, who tuned their lyre to the sweetest melody whenever they sang, their praises ; Chaucer, Spenser, and their illustrious successors in the priesthood of song, down to the pastoral poet, Wordsworth, have derived no little of their inspiration therefrom. It was that bard of Kydal lake that confessed they stirred within him " thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." Listen to his chant, — how daintily he syllables their names : " Pansies, lilies, kingcups, daisies ; Let them live upon their praises ; Long as there 's a sun that sets Primroses will have their glory ; Long as there are violets, They will have a place in story." Flowers have not only a symbolical language and literature, they also indicate, as in an illuminated calendar, the procession of the months and the changes of the seasons. The woods and fields, the meadows and the water-courses, and the rocks and hills, are alike bedecked and beautified with these floral gems. They are the gorgeous illuminations of the book of nature, and the interpreters of her mysteries. A few there are, even in this prosaic age, who, with Leigh Hunt, confessed to a faith in the fairy lore of the sweet flowers ; and who among the mists of the moonlit dell, or by the margin of some sylvan 444 FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. stream, see sylphs and genii nestling amidst the modest flowers Did our great dramatist dream, when he sang : " I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows ; Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine, With sweet musk roses and with eglantine ; There sleeps Titania, sometime of the night Lulled in these flowers with dances and deUght ! " But leaving the elfin tribe, let us bend our gaze upon the fairy flowers themselves, awhile. Their very name is suggestive of all that is fresh and fragrant in nature. The gems that sparkle in her diadem — the rich embroidery and glittering adornments of her gayest and her simplest robes — the pearls, the rubies, the diamonds, the sapphires, the gorgeous jewels that enrich and beautify creation — are they not the sweet flowers ? Who loves not flowers ? The highest and the lowli- est, the rich and the humble, those who are gifted with high intellect, and those of limited capacity — all unite in this one sweet sense of the beautiful. It is a sad house, that has no flowers in it ; a hard and harsh soul who can let the glorious summer-time glide away, and find no pleasure in looking upon these choicest gifts of nature. A poetic fancy will indulge a sweet colloquy with these beautiful " terrestrial stars." The flowers are, indeed, holy things, their teachings are re- plete with sagacious suggestions, " And he is happiest who hath power To gather wisdom from a flower. And wake his heart, in every hour. To pleasant gratitude." Horace Smith, in his beautiful Plymn, thus apostrophizes them : FACTS AJSTD FANCIES ABOUT FLOW^EKS. 445 ' ' Your voiceless lips, O flowers ! are living preachers, Each cup a pulpit, every leaf a book. Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers From loneliest nook. " Were I in churchless solitudes remaining, Far from all voice of teachers or divines, — My soul would find in flowers of God's ordaining — Priests, Sermons, Shrines ! " Floral language is a beautiful system of symbolism — a bril- liant code of hieroglyphics ; and to those who can scan their mystic meaning, how eloquently they speak ! Many there are, however, whose ears are not attent, and whose souls are not attuned to the soft music of their speech. To such an one : ' ' The primrose by the water's brim A yellow primrose is to him, And it is nothing more ! " " There are two books," says Sir Thomas Browne, " from whence I collect my divinity ; besides that written one of God, another of His servant, nature, that universal and public manu- script that lies expanded unto the eyes of all. Surely the heathens knew better how to join and read these mystical letters, than we Christians, who cast a more careless eye on these common hieroglyphics, and disdain to suck divinity from the flowers of nature." " Te poetry of woods ! romance of fields ! Nature's imagination bodied bright ! Earth's floral page, that high instruction yields ! — For not, oh, not alone to charm our sight. Gave God your blooming forms, your leaves of light. Ye speak a language which loe yet may learn — A divination of mysterious might ! And glorious thoughts may angel-eyes discern Flower-writ in mead and vale, where'er man's footsteps turn." 446 FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWEES. With what a rich profusion of variegated and glowing beauty has the beneficent Creator bedecked forest, field, and meadow ! Not only is this prodigal display of floral gems to be seen gar- nishing the cultivated garden and the gay parterre ; but even the wayside, the wild heath, and the rugged mountain-side are alike glorified with the presence of the beautiful buds and blossoms. "Everywhere about us are they glowing — Some, like stars, to tell us spring is bom ; Others, their blue eyes with tears o'erflowiug, Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn. Not alone in Spring's armorial bearing, And in Summer's green emblazoned fields, But ia arms of brave old Autumn's wearing, In the centre of his brazen shield ; Not alone in her vast dome of glory, Not on graves of bird and beast alone. But iu old cathedrals high and hoary, On the tombs of heroes, carved in stone ; In the cottage bf the rudest peasant ; In ancestral homes, whose crumbling towers. Speaking of the Past unto the Present, Tell us of the ancient Games of flowers." * Flowers are, indeed, meet objects of our reverence as well as admiration ; for are they not the wondrous manifestations of the infinite wisdom and power, as well as beneficence, of the Creator ; and what a lesson of the " Fatherhood of God " did He " who spake as never man spake " open unto us from the pale petals of the Lily. How many glowing floral allegories from the book of Nature have been embalmed in the book of Grace. How dormant and obtuse must that mind be, that fails to derive a feeling of elevating and refined delight from the con- templation of these pearly gems, that grace the bosom of our Mother Earth — the jewelry with which Heaven has so richly * Longfellow. FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. 447 adorned her ! Yet too many there are, " in the close city pent," for whom these gay and brilliant things possess nc charms ; they prefer the sordid pursuit of gold, to the soul- elevating study of Nature in all her enamelled beauty; yet what can be more deliciously refreshing to the vision than to gaze upon her ever-vaiying charms ? Woman, from her iiner sensibilities and keener appreciation of the beautiful, possesses an innate passion for buds and blos- soms, and these emblems of innocence, grace, and beauty natu- rally enlist her sympathies. She is indeed, herself, the queenly blossom of Paradise, and her peerless charms find their nearest emblems in the blushing tints, the nectar sweets, and glowing beauties of Flora. Hence the fitting grace with which she prefers to cull from the leafy temple of the goddess, the rarest gems to heighten her fascinations, rather than costly pearls or the dazzling decorations of art. Flowers, it will be recollected, are used for national emblems : thus, that of England is the rose, the queen of flowers ; France has adopted the iris ; Ireland, the shamrock ; and Scotland, the thistle. The imitative art has ever been devoted to the arrangement and combination of these cherished objects. The designs that flowers have afforded to painting, sculpture, and architecture also furnish a fruitful theme. In the distribution of honors and badges of distinction, Nature is generally appealed to ; poets were crowned with bays, and conquerors with laurel ; and of the several heraldic decorations, many of the emblems are derived from Flora. On the triumphant return of a victorious hero, garlands of gay flowers are wreathed and dispensed by fair hands. There are certain rural festivals of ancient origin, a few of which are still extant in some parts of Europe, at which the resources of Flora 4A8 FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. are called into requisition ; such as that of the May Queen, the festival of the Rose, Harvest Home, etc. Augustine once said, " When no one asks me what is Time, I know it very well ; but I do not know it when I am asked." " One might say as much of a Flower — of its beauty, at least, which is the prey of Time," — was the remark of Rousseau. We do not, of course, refer to its botanical definition, but its poetical — for is not the poetry of the plant its highest trans- formation of beauty ? " The flowers all tell to thee a sacred, mystic story, How moistened earthy dust can wear celestial glory ! On thousand stems is found the love-inscription graven, How beautiful is earth when it can image heaven." * To be a lover of flowers, it is not indispensable that one should be a floriculturist, or a botanist, but it is necessary to have a soul for the beautiful. Flowers are always oh the sunny side of things ; and we, too, should certainly keep there as much as we possibly can. " Happy are they," said Gray, " who can create a rose-tree, or erect a honeysuckle." "Who can fail to respond to the senti- ment? Linnaeus constructed a dial of flowers, indicative of their times of expanding and closing, by planting them in such a manner as that at each succeeding hour a blossom should unfold. As the thrice-welcome harbinger of spring, the Snowdrop first claims our notice. Look at its pleasing contrast of white and green, symbolizing, at once, the livery of winter and of spring ; suggestive, too, of death and the resurrection. The pale, gentle snowdrop teaches us all the sweet lesson of trust and patience, when memory is picturing the cherished past; hope, by its floral emblem, is thus pointing us onward to the * Riikert. FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. 449 glorified future. Among the first-born flowers of spring, also, is the Daisy (day's eye) ; it is the poets' favorite ; from Chaucer to Burns and Wordsworth have its praises been chanted. It is supposed to have been so called from the nature of its blossom, which expands at the dawn of day and closes at sun- set. A poetical superstition is attached to this flower, which is found to grace both mountain and meadow, and which Words- worth designates " the Pearl of Spring," which makes it a test of friendship. It is a custom with simple-hearted rustics, when they wish to ascertain whether a professed attachment is sincere, for the trysting parties to pull off, one by one, the white rays of the flowers, saying alternately, " Does he love me ? " " Does he not? " until they stripped off all the rays of the daisy. If the first appeal happens to occur at the last ray, the conclu- sion is believed to be auspicious. The contemplation of flowers is a theme rife with interest to all classes : the child, fascinated by their exceeding beauty, is delighted to gather them into a bright bouquet ; the fair maiden seeks to employ the expressive symbols to reveal the gentle emotions of her heart ; while the lover of nature luxuri- ates over their variegated cliarms, or scans with inquisitive gaze their manifold mysteries. " In Eastern lands they talk in flowers, And tell in a garland their loves and cares : Each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers, . On its leaves a mystic language bears." Well might Izaak Walton exclaim, as he reclined on a prim- rose bank, and bent his enraptured eye upon the enamelled meadow before him, "I regard them as Charles, the Emperor did Florence : that they are too pleasant to be looked upon except on holidays." 29 450 FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. With the Primrose we are apt instinctively to associate rural sights and sounds ; it is so suggestive of a thatched cottage in a woody dell, a rippling stream, and the rustic accessories of peaceful pastoral life. The " meek and soft-eyed Primrose " is, in the vocabulary of Flora, expressive of youthful bloom. The generic name of this flower is derived from primus, it being one of the firstlings of the spring. Let us now cull a bunch of fresh violets, and take a glance at their wondrous beauty. Yiolets are among the sweetest flowers that deck the woods. * These exquisite little woodland fairies have inspired many poetic pens, and many have sung their modest charms in melodious numbers. Not to speak of their exquisite aroma, it is impossible to look into their deep cups vrithout being struck with their rare beauty. And we no sooner become impressed with this feeling, than we begin to recollect what Shakspeare has said about them — what beautiful and passionate pictures they have formed, and what lovable spots they nestle in, in the realm of song. That theYiolet was a favorite with Shakespeare, is evident by the beautiful simile he makes Perdita deliver in the Winter'' s Tale : " Violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, Or Cytherea's breath." And Milton makes echo to dwell amongst Yiolets : " Sweet echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen] By slow Meander's margent green, And in the violet-embroidered vale." Then we have to notice the Pansy (from Pensee, thought) : " Styled by sportive fancy's better choice A Thxmglitr—the Heart's Ease — or Forget-me-not, Decking alike the peasant's garden plot, And castle's proud parterre." FACTS AKD FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. 451 The tints of this variable flower are even more numerous than the names that have been bestowed upon it ; and these are some half a dozen more than we have given above. The Wallflower^ in floral language, is the emblem of fidelity in misfortune, fi-om the fact that it is found attached to walls and ruins. There is another little favorite flower of Shake- speare, which he so daintily introduces in one of Ariel's songs of the Tempest : " Where the bee sucks, there lurk I ; In a cowslip's bell I lie ; , There I couch -when owla do cry." The Narcissus is the generic name of a beautiful family of bulbs so celebrated by the ancient poets under that name ; but the moderns have, with Herrick at their head, chosen to fiing their praises under the name — Daffodil. Here we have his beautiful lines : " Fair Daffodils, we weep to see you haste away so soon; As yet the early-rising sun has not attained his noon : Stay, stay, until the hastening day Has run but to the even-song ; And, having prayed together, we Will go with you along." Another species of this group, distinguished by its rush- like foliage, is known as the Jonquil / this is the most fragrant of all the varieties of the genus. The haunts of these flowers are the shady banks of rivulets and streams ; hence their my- thological name. The Hyacinth has also been ever a pet flower with the poets, from Homer down to our own times. Crowns of Hyacinth were worn by the young Greek Yirgins who assisted at the nuptial ceremony. One of the varieties of this flower is called the Blue-bell, from the bell-shape and color of its blossoms. 452 FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. Then there are those queenly spring blossoms, the sweet- scented Anemone / and " the pearl-like buds " of the odorous May, or Hawthorn, symbolical of conjugal love. The Tulip, with its numerous varieties of color, has been^ fi'om time immemorial, in the East, the token-flower indicative of a declaration of love. The Lily has seemed to acquire some- what " an odor of sanctity " from the fact that our Lord made it the occasion of his beautiful appeal to our trust and faith in the divine Providence. Keats thus refers to this delicate flower : " No flower amid the garden fairer grows, Than the sweet Lily of the lowly vale, The queen of flowers ! " How gracefully its perfumed bells are suspended on the stem, and how glowing the contrast of its snowy corollas with its bright green leaves! The Fleur-de-lis (a contraction of Fleur de Louis) has no afiinity with the Lily, but is known as the Iris y it has long been emblematically used in France as part of the national arms. But we have not alluded to the grand array of Pinks, Car- nations, and Gillyflowers, the full-blown beauties of the sum- mer months. These gay flowers are almost as great favorites as the Hose. The prismatic Larhsjpur claims also a place among the most brilliant favorites of Flora. The Dahlia, sa named after the Swedish botanist, DaJil, is a native of tlie marshes of Peru ; the number of its known varieties is, we be- lieve, over five hundred. But it is time we did homage to that most regal of flowers — the queenly Bose — " The sweetest flower That ever drank the amber shower." The Rose of Sharon, one of the most exquisite of flowers in FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. 453 shape and hue, has not only a Bibh'cal association, but it is re- garded by the Orientals as a symbol of the resurrection, from the fact that when the blossom dies, it is carried by the wind elsewhere, and again takes root, and blossoms. The origin of the rose's hue has been made the subject of a beautiful legend by Carey, thus : " As erst, in Eden's blissful bowers, Young Eve surveyed her countless flowers, An opening rose of purest white She marked, with eye that beamed delight ; Its leaves she kissed, and straight it drew From Beauty's lip the vermeil hue ! " The rose is replete with legendary lore; it was the fa- vorite flower at classic festivals ; showers of roses adorned the couches of the guests at Cleopatra's sumptuous banquet to Mark Antony. It was also used as an emblem of chivalry by the knights of the middle ages. The rival factions of the Houses of York and Lancaster, which entailed some thirty years' civil war in England, wore as their respective insignia, the white and red rose. And the name Rosary^ from rosa, was first given to a string of beads, in 1571, in memory of the victory of the Christians over the Turks. Mary Queen of Scots sent to E.on- sard, for his beautiful poetry on this clief-d)ce,uvre of the vege- table kingdom, a magnificent rose of silver, valued at five hundred guineas. " There is one circumstance connected with the rose, which renders it a more true and striking emblem of earthly pleasure than any other flower — it hears a thorn. While its odorous breath is floating on the summer gale, and its blushing cheek, half hid amongst the sheltering leaves, seems to woo and yet shrink from the beholder's gaze, touch but with adventurous hand the garden queen, and you are pierced with her protect- 454 FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. ing thorns ; would you pluck the rose and weave it into a gar- land for the brow you love best, that brow will be wounded." * The rose is, moreover, in floral rhetoric, symbolical of the tender passion ; and its blushing beauty is well deserving of the honor, for what other gem in the diadem of Flora pos- sesses " Such blaze of beauty as translates To dullest hearts the dialect of love " ? But we have to turn from this stately and peerless flower, although much more miglit be said or sung in its praise. It has been well said that " in the East men care little for the flowers of rhetoric, while the women are well versed in the rhetoric of flowers. A bouquet is a discourse, with its exordium and its peroration ; each blossom is a Ciceronian period. The most delicate shades of sentiment, the most subtle ideas of the heart's metaphysics, can all be expressed in the language of flowers." t One of the most curious and interesting specimens of the floral kingdom is the so-called " Kesurrection-flower." When closed it resembles a poppy-head, but when its blossoms are expanded it looks somewhat like the Passion-flower, with radia- tions like a star. Its botanical history is somewhat involved in obscurity. It has been supposed to be a type or variety of the long-lost Rose of Jericho, also called the Rose of Sharon and Star of Bethlehem, from the fact that it presents some resem- blance to, the flower sculptured on two of the tombs of the Crusaders, in the Temple Church, London. There is a Califor- nian plant also called by the same name, from the fact that its root and fibres are contracted and of brown color when kept from moisture, but after being put into water, the leaves in a short time become green again. The Scarlet Pimpernel is one of the " English Cottager's " favorite flowers ; for it serves * Mrs. Ellis. t So. Lit. Miss. , 7. FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. 455 him for a time-teller as well as an indicator of the weather ; upon the approach of rain it closes itself up. A similar sensi- tiveness to rain and the return of evening is observable also in the familiar Morning-glory^ or Convolvulus^ with its many- colored blossoms. The part from which the aroma proceeds is various in differ- ent plants ; most frequently it exists in the blooming corolla ; it is thus with the honeysuckle, the hawthorn, and many others. Sometimes it is found in the herbage, as the sweet- brier, the sweet woodruff, or the ground ivy ; it is even occa- sionally in the root. So pungent is the scent of some flowers, that persons of a nervous temperament are unable to inhale it without suffering acute pain ; some will be affected with headache by the smell of mignonette, the hawthorn, the lily, the lilac, and the laburnum. The fragran(;e yielded by some plants, when crushed, has suggested many beautiful images to poets : Moore alludes to this circumstance when, referring to the only consolation in sorrow, he says : "And thou canst heal the broken heart, Which lite the plants that throw Their fragrance from the wounded part, Breathe sweetness out of woe." Leigh Hunt has the following genial passage touching the perfume of flowers : " What world of mystery everywhere hangs about us and within us! Who can, even in imagination, penetrate to the depths of the commonest of the phenomena of our daily life % Take, for instance, one of those pots of Narcissi. We have ourselves had a plant of the variety known as soleil d'or, in flower, in a sitting-room for six weeks, during the depth of winter, giving forth the whole of that time, without (so far as we know) ceasing, even during sleep (for we need hardly tell our readers that plants do sleep), the same full stream of fra- 456 FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. grance. Love itself does not seem to preserve more absolutely its wealth, while most liberally dispensing it ! That fragrance has a material basis, though we cannot detect it by our finest tests. What millions of millions of atoms must go to the for- mation of even a single gust, as it were, of this divine floAver- breath! Yet this goes on, through seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, and ceases only with the health of the flower petals. Where, then, in these petals — these thin, unsubstantial cream-flakes — may we look to find stored up all these in- exhaustible supplies! Where, indeed? and if they are not stored up, but newly created as given forth — is not that even more wonderful ? Would that any one could show us the nature and modes of operation of such miraculous chemis- try." Both the Egyptian Lotus and the Water Lily expand their blossoms in the sunshine, and during the day only, closing them towards evening, when they recline on the surface of the water, or sink beneath it. The jessamine, also, with its dark green leaves, and little silver stars, saluting us with its delicious scent, and impregnating the surrounding atmosphere with odoriferous sweets, has been the recognized symbol of poetic sentiment with the bards of all ages. Jessica, the French naturalist, says he was intoxicated with delight when first he discovered that fragrant blossom — the Heliotrope, on the mountains of the Cordilleras. When first introduced to France, no vase was thought too expensive or precious for the growth of this odorous plant. Like the " Morning-glory," or Convolvulus, and the sensitive plant, there are other fiowers and herbs, which close up their leaves and blossoms during the night and re-open them with the return of day. This has been called " the sleep of plants." The slightest touch of the " Sensitive Plant," however, causes its FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLO WEES. 457 leaves suddenly to collapse. SSCEfe' fine lines come to our mem- ory here : ' ' A sensitive plant in a garden grew, And the young winds fed it with silver dew ; And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light, And closed them beneath the kisses of night ! " The Victoria Regia, or gigantic "Water-lily, is unrivalled among the aquatic flowers. The entire plant measures about twenty feet; it is a native of Central America, and is found upon the marshes of the Amazon and its tributaries. This superb plant was discovered about forty years ago ; and a colossal illustrated volume, descriptive of a beautiful specimen of this lily, at the Botanical Gardens, Kew, England, has been published by Hooker. D'Orbigny describes the one he saw as overspreading nearly a mile of water with its huge, round, and curiously mar- gined leaves, among which glittered here and there the magni- ficent white and pink flowers, scenting the air with their deli- cious fragrance. One of these gigantic leaves measured six feet five inches in diameter, and was as heavy as a man could carry ; and yet these leaves float by means of air-cells, contained in their thick, projecting, innumerable nerves. Its seeds, when roasted, form a valuable article of food, and resemble maize. One of the most splendid of the Cactus species is the Cereus Grandijlorus, or Night-blooming Cereus, the blossoms of which begin to expand about sunset, and are fully blown about mid- night. During its short continuance, there is scarcely any flower of greater known beauty. When several of these magnificent flowers are open at once upon a single plant, they seem like stars shining out in all their lustre. Of all objects of the vegetable kingdom, the ivy is perhaps one of the most poetical. It is at once suggestive of some ancient religious fane, or some venerable ruin, some old cathedral or monastic remains; for around such cherished 458 FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. relics of the past it loves to cliug and to beautify with its luxuriant and fanciful festoons. We all remember Dickens's beautiful tribute to it : " Oh ! a dainty plant is the Ivy green, that creepeth o'er ruins old ! sfe 3(e i)e 3)c a|e aK :]e The brave old plant in its lonely days shall fatten upon the past ; For the stateliest building man can raise is the Ivy's food at last ! Creeping where no life is seen, A rare old plant is the Ivy green." The American Aloe, of the Pine-tree tribe, is a gorgeous evergreen: its flower-stem is from twenty to thirty feet in height; when in flower it is of surpassing beauty. It was formerly supposed to blossom once in a century (and hence it was sometimes called the Century Plant), and then to die ; but it usually flowers about every tenth year. We are all familiar with the Witch-hazel, and its mystic cu- rative virtues. Here is an apostrophe to it : " Mysterious plant ! whose golden tresses wave With a sad beauty in the dying year. Blooming amid November's frost severe. Like the pale corpse-light o'er the recent grave ! If shepherds tell us true, thy word hath power, With gracious influence, to avert the harm Of ominous planets, and the fatal charm Of spirits wandering at the midnight hour ; And thou canst point where buried treasures lie. But yet to me thou art an emblem high Of patient virtue, to the Christian given, Unchang'd and bright, when all is dark beside ; Our shield from wild temptations, and our guide To treasures for the just laid up in heaven." In the economy of nature plants give out small portions of carbonic acid gas at night; but during the day they absorb it, retaining its carbon, and thus restore the equilibrium of the atmosphere, by again exhaling the oxygen. FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. 450 Many interesting particulars might be adduced toucliing the botanic history of ornamental plants — for instance, the almost infinite variety of their leaves and blossoms. Some leaves are smooth, others are hairy on their surface — which latter kind, when laden with dew, glisten like diamonds in the sun's ray. Leaves are, in the vegetable kingdom, what lungs are in the animal ; this may be readily ascertained by placing a young vine-leaf over a wine glass, when, if it be a hot day, you will very soon find the glass quite damp, and in the course of a short time the moisture, from the emitted perspiration, will run down in drops. It is the chemical action of light upon leaves and stems that causes their green color ; if kept a long period in darkness, they would become white or colorless. Flowers were not only used for personal decoration among the Romans ; they were made the accessories of religion. Their priests, altars, and even their sacrifices were adorned with these delicate emblems. Their statues were also crowned with them : hence Yenus is sometimes represented wearing roses, Juno with the lily, and Ceres with her hair entwined with wheat and poppies. The bridal wreath is still the beauti- ful emblem of innocence and truth. The Cypress, in all na- tions an emblem of sorrow, was used by the Romans to deck the dwellings of the deceased, because, if once cut down, that plant will not spring up again ; it had, therefore, a true signifi- cance in their case, since they believed death to be an eternal sleep; with the more cheering faith of Christianity, the ever- green is the emblem. The custom of garnishing the graves of the departed with flowers is a universal and felicitous one — full of eloquent appeals to the heart of sorrowing survivors ; for while they form expressive emblems of the frailty of the present, are they not also the brilliant prophecy of a glorious immortality ? Many of the choicest of Flora's beauties liave been christened 4G0 FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. with sacred memorial names by the early botanists. Thus we have : Holy Rhood-fLower, Mary-gold, Passion-flower, Cross of Jerusalem, the Cross of Malta, etc. The floral nomenclature of more modern times is more for the poetic sentiment : Forget, me-not. Fox-glove {i.e., folks' or fairy glove), Daisy (day's eye), Night-shade, Heart's Ease, etc. Adieu, then, to the sweet sisterhood of the fairy Flowers, and let our farewell tribute be a paean of praise to their Great Author, who has so lavishly beautified our pathway of life with their fragrance and their smiles. " Full dull the eye, and dull the heart, that cannot feel how fair, Amid aU beauty, beautiful their dainty blossoms are." LITERAET LARCENIES. "For out of the olde fieldes, as men saithe, Cometh all this newe com fro yere to yere : And out of olde bookes, in good faithe, Cometh all this newe science that men lere." — Chancer. Okiginality has been defined " unconscious or undetected imitation." " As for originality," wrote Byron, in Iiis journal, " all pretentions to it are ridiculous ; ' there is nothing new un- der the sun.' " Moore, once observing Byron with a book full of paper-marks, asked him what it was. " Only a book," he answered, " from which I am trying to crib; as I do whenever I can, and that's the way I get the character of an original poet." 462 LITERARY LARCENIES. " Though in imputing to himself premeditated plagiarism," ob- serves his biographer, " he was, of course, but jesting ; it was, I am inclined to think, his practice, when engaged in the com- position of any work, to excite thus his vein, by the perusal of others on the same subject." " When I was a young man," says Goldsmith, " being anxious to distinguish myself, I was perpetually starting new propositions ; but I soon gave this over, for I found that generally what was new was false. Strictly speaking, we may be original without being new; the thought may be our own, and yet commonplace." On the other hand, it must be admitted, with Pollok, that while " the siccaneous critic or the meagre scribbler may hang his head in despair, and murmur out that what can be done is done already ; yet he who has drank of Castalia's fount, and listened to the mighty voice of the Parnassian sisters, and who casts his bold eye on Creation, inexhaustible as its Maker, and catches inspiration while he gazes ; will take the lyre in his hand, delight with new melody the ear of mortals, and write his name among the immortal in song." Many, if not most, of the poets can scarcely plead guiltless of the charge of plagiarism, if not in its direct sense, at least in some of its modified forms. .There may be accidental coinci- dences of thought and resemblances of expression on the one part, and there are on the other hand a class of commonly re- ceived words and ideas which are, indeed, the current coin of the republic of letters, A writer may, therefore, be a frequent plagiarist and yet in other respects exhibit undoubted origin- ality. "Montaigne borrowed largely from Seneca and Plu- tarch ; and what he has copied, without acknowledgment, from them, Charron and Corneille have adopted in the same unscru- pulous manner from him. Pascal, who is generally reckoned one of the most original thinkers of the seventeenth century, is described as surpassing all others by his daring feats of plagiar- LITERARY LARCENIES. 463 ism. In a single chapter of his Pensees^ Nodier has pointed out seven or eight instances of this species of theft ; and for further examples he invites the curious reader to a compari- son of the Pensees with the Essays of Montaigne." Emerson assumes that it is the duty and the province of great minds to adopt the thoughts of others — to embalm them for fu- turity — to take the roughly-hewn blocks from the thought-mines of others and fashion them into mosques, feudal towers, or pyr- amids, as the loving, chivalrous, or sublime spirit of the builder may suggest. This communistic appropriation of ideas — this building from another's quarry, is a species of free-masonry, that may some- times be more free than welcome. It has been gravely asked who are original thinkers ; even those who rank as philosophical writers, adopt the opinions of their predecessors — some favorite theory of a former age ; and having espoused it, they indorsed the new creed with an enthu- siasm as zealous as if it were one of their own creation. There are a few noble exceptions to the rule, however, for the honor of learning ; the daring Florentine, for instance : a large propor- tion of our modern literature might be, with advantage to all parties, suppressed, since it possesses in the main but the ques- tionable merit of a metamorphoses. The remark ascribed to Pope Ganganelli, that all books in the known world might be comprised in six thousand folio vol- umes, if filled with original matter, was, we think, an ex- tremely liberal estimate. One age battens upon its predecessor with gnome-like rapa- city and thus a host of pseudo-authors acquire an undeserved reputation. Homer, Dante, Rabelais, and Shakespeare, Cha- teaubriand styles the great universal individualities and great parent geniuses, who appear to have nourished all others. The first fertilized antiquity ; .i^Eschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, Hor- 464 LITERAEY LARCENIES. ace, Aristophanes, and Virgil were his sons. Dante, in like manner, was the father of modern Italy, from Petrarch to Tasso. Rabelais created the literature of France ; Montaigne, La Fontaine, Moliere, descended from him ; while England owes nearly all to Shakespeare and Bacon, People often deny the authority of these supreme masters — they rebel against them, proclaim their defects, but with as much propriety as one might the spots on the sun's disc ; they even accuse them of tedious- ness, and sometimes absurdity, while in the very act of robbing them and decking themselves in their spoils. The student in his literary progress will derive no small in- terest in discovering, as he inevitably will, if he goes deep enough, the hidden germs of many of the happiest expressions which adorn the pages of our distinguished writers. Almost every author of any standing in the ranks of litera- ture may be regarded as a borrower, in a greater or less degree, from the commonwealth of letters. Even Shakespeare, Milton, Gray, are frequently indebted to their predecessors in " boke- craf t ; " the latter to the classic writers. Butler compares a literary plagiarist to an Italian thief, who never robs but he murders to prevent discovery. Another defi- nition, somewhat akin, describes the plagiarist as a " purloiner, who filches the fruit that others have gathered and then throws away the basket." After all that may be urged on the score of accidental coin- cidences of thought and expression, it cannot be questioned that there has been perpetrated a vast amount of literary fraud. Could we invoke the spirits of the departed, what pitiless plaints would be preferred against the spoliations of many a modern scribe, who, to avoid the trouble of tliinking for him- self has chosen the more summary mode of allowing others to do so for him. Tet, after all, who should complain, when such LITERAEY LARCENIES. 465 a vast economy of time and trouble mav be achieved by the labor-saving process. A writer, it is observed, may steal after the manner of bees, without wronging anybody ; but the theft of the ant, which takes away the whole grain of corn, is not to be imitated. A French writer* observes, " To take from the ancients, and make one's advantage of what they have written, is like pirating be- yond the line ; but to steal from one's contemporaries, by sur- reptitiously appropriating to one's self their thoughts and pro- ductions, is like picking people's pockets in the open street." Instances of petty larceny are undoubtedly more numerous than such as may be styled cases of grand literary larceny ; and we have even heard it advocated as a meritorious virtue in a writer, when he shall abstract from a previous author some ac- knowledged beauty, either of rhetoric or thought, and afresh incorporate it as his own, on the plea that a gem may often lie long obscured, and acquire redoubled lustre by the skill of the artist in the resetting. A strong resemblance may occur between two writers, if not indeed a strict identity both of ideas and language, which may be purely accidental; but this must be an occurrence exceed- ingly rare. A bold or beautiful thought is sometimes likely so to impress the imagination as to exist in the memory long after its paternity is forgotten, and thus become ingrafted into the mind so as to seem part of itself; such a case would certainly admit of great extenuation in the criminal code of literary jur- isprudence. Literary frauds of various kinds have been practised by in- genious fabricators in almost every age and every civilized country. Supposititious books and literary impostures by scores, have ever been floating on the tide of Time. * Vayer. 30 466 LITERARY LARCENIES. Let us glance rapidly at some of the more noteworthy poetic parallels, accidental or plagi .iristic. Perhaps Shakespeare's prolific muse has been more laid under contribution by literary filchers than any other writer of mod- em times ; for instance, it is apparent that Pope's oft-quoted lines, " Honor and shame from no condition rise, Act well your part, there all the honor lies," were but another rendering of the same thought, expressed not less forcibly, by the great dramatic bard — " From lowest place when virtuous things proceed, The place is dignified by the doer's deed." Byron, in Childe Harold, has the image of a broken mirror to show how a broken heart multiplies images of sorrow. But the same simile is in Burton. Giordano Bruns said that the first people of the world should rather be called the youngsters than the ancients. Lord Bacon (a great plagiarist) makes use of the very same idea. Addison speaks of the stars " forever singing as they shine." Sir Thomas Browne talks of " the singing constellations ; " though both have followed the idea expressed in the Scripture. Shelley speaks of Death and his brother Sleep. The thought is taken from Sir Thomas Browne. Goldsmith's well-known line, — " Man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long," — was evidently taken from Young, who, in his Night Thoughts, says : " Man wants but Uttle, nor that little long." That hackneyed line in Campbell's Pleasures of Hojpe, " Like angel visits, few and far between," LITERARY LARCENIES. 467 is borrowed almost literally from Blair's Grave, where we have— -" its visits, Like those of angels, short axid far between." * Pope, again, was not innocent of the charge, as may be seen in one or two examples : " Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies. And catch the manners living as they rise ; Laugh when we must, be candid when we can, And vindicate the ways of God to man." Dryden's lines, in Absalom, read, ' ' While he with watchful eye Observes and shoots their treasons as they fly." And Milton supplies Pope's last line, in the following : ' ' That to the height of this great argument I may assert eternal Providence And justify the ways of God to men ? " Against his celebrated "Essay on Criticism," Lady Wort- ley Montague has preferred a far more serious accusation : she writes, " I admired Mr. Pope's ' Essay on Criticism,' at jBj-st very much, because I had uotthen read any of the ancient critics, and did not know that it was all stolen.^'' * Wilmott contends that this beautiful conceit originated with Norris of Ben ton, in his poem, entitled Tlie Parting. The stanza reads : " How fading are the joys we dote upon ; Like apparitions seen and gone ; But those who soonest take their flight Are the most exquisite and strong. Like angels' visits short and bright ; Mortality's too weak to bear them long." 468 LITERARY LARCENIES. The couplet, " Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As to be hated, needs but to be seen," is evidently traceable to a passage from Leighton. Pope's famous line, " The proper study of mankind ie man," which Charron had said before him, is evidently a trans- fer from Pascal's " Pensees," — " I'etude de I'homme, puisque c'est celle qui lui est propre." The origin of the thought is prob- ably traceable to Xenophon. Again, in his " Essay on Criticism," we have the couplet, •' A little learning is a dangerous thing ; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring ; " which has its source in Lord Bacon's " Essay on Atheism : " "A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion. Pope's " Vital spark of heavenly flame " is evidently derived from Hadrian's lines, also from a fragment of Sappho, and later still Flatman's lines on a departing spirit. Gray's classic Elegy is said to be a kind of literary mosaic. Its beautiful thoughts are taken from the Greek and Latin au- thors, and also from Dante. One of the finest stanzas of the Elegy is but a free translation of the Latin couplet : ' ' Plurima gemma latet caeca tellure sepulta ; Plurima neglecto fragrat odore rosa." Gray's lines are : " Full many a gem, of purest ray serene. The dark, unf athomed caves of ocean bear ; Full many a flower is bom to blush unseen. And waste its sweetness on the desert air." LITERARY LARCENIES. 469 Even Cowper seems to have taken that oft-quoted line, " England, witli all thy faults, I love thee still," from Churchill's " Farewell : " " Be England what she wiU, With all her faults, she is my country still." Byron, again, in his " Bride of Abydos," imitates a song in Goethe's " Wilhelm Meister." The former commences, " Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime." And the latter reads : " Know'st thou the land where the lemon-trees bloom, Where the gold orange glows in the deep thicket's gloom." Campbell seems to have had a couplet from Pope's " Battle of the Frogs and Mice," in his mind when he wrote his " Pleas- ures of Hope." The former reads : " When front to front the marching armies shine. Halt ere they meet, and form the lengthening line ;" and Campbell's lines are : " When front to front the bannered hosts combine. Halt ere they close, and form the dreadful line." The plagiarism of Campbell from an elder poet, Vaughan, ia worthy of being cited : (CampbeWs.) " When o'er the green, undeluged earth. Heaven's covenant thou didst shine ; How came the icorld^s gray fathers forth, To watch thy sacred sign." 470 LITERARY LARCENIES. ( VaugTutn's.) * ' StiU young and fine ! but what is still in view We slight as old and soiled, though fresh and new : How bright wert thou, when Shem's admiring eye Thy biirrung, flaming arch did first descry ; When Zerah, Nahor, Haram, Abra,m, Lot, The youthful world's gray fathers, in one knot, Did, with intentive looks watch every hour For thy new light, and trembled at each shower ! " The occasional conceits in this black-letter bard, coupled with his earnest straightforwardness and sincerity, compensate us for the absence of the rich embellishment of Campbell. We cannot forbear quoting, from the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, Byron's well-known lines on the death of Kirke White, because the most beautiful figure in them seems evidently copied from Waller, We commence with Byron : " 'Twas thine own genius gave the fatal blow, And helped to plant the wound that laid thee low 1 So the struck eagle, stretched upon the plain. No more through rolling clouds to soar again. Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart, And winged the shaft that quivered in his heart : Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel, He nursed the pinion which impelled the steel, While the same plumage that had warmcJ. his nest, Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast ! " Waller's stanza, which expresses a similar sentiment, is as follows : " That eagle's fate and mine are one, Which on the shaft that made him die Espied a feather of his own Wherewith he'd wont to soar so high. " In Thomas Moore's poetic epistle. Corruption, the same figure also occurs : LITERAEY LARCENIES. 471 " Like a young' eagle, who has lent his plume To fledge the shaft by which he meets his doom, See their own feathers plucked to wing the dart. Which rank corruption destines for their heart." Moore has been charged with liberal plagiarisms upon Beran- ger, as well as being a close copyist of some of his other contemporaries in vernacular verse, a detailed account of which was given in Blackwood some years ago, exhibiting a series of specifications amounting to sixty-five ! The fine moral poem of the " Hermit," by Parnell, is taken from Martin Luther's tale of a hermit, who murmured against the decrees of Divine Providence. What Sterne has not plagiarized, we shall not stay to notice, notwithstanding he counterfeited most excellent coin. He has been charged with pilfering from Burton, Rabelais, Montaigne, Bayle, and others. Scott was always esteemed an original writer, but Lord Jeffrey, in reviewing his works, said : " Even in him the traces of imitation are obvious and abundant." The best couplet of Tickell's best poem is in his elegy on Addison : " He taught us how to live, and oh ! too high The price of knowledge, taught us how to die ! " Now compare the following, from Sandys' AngloruTn Spec- ulum : " I have taught you, my dear flock, for above thirty years, how to live ; I wish to show you, in a very short time, how to die." See also Goldsmith's " Village Clergyman," for another and later rendering of the idea. As for Coleridge, he stole in such an opiatic way, and so totally forgot from whence he stole, that in many editions of his poems epigrams from Schiller and Goethe are still inserted without acknowledgment ; and he actually to his dying day believed that Faust was an old idea of his own. 472 LITERARY LARCENIES. Fuller thus beautifully depicts the last moments of a dying saint : " Drawing near her death, she sent most pious thoughts as harbingers to heaven ; and her soul saw a glimpse of happiness through the chinks of her sickness-broken body." And "Waller versifies the same beautiful idea : " The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, Lets in new light through chinks that time has made. Stronger by weakness, wiser men become, As they draw near to their eternal home. " Addison and Pope may be said to " divide the honors " as to the authorship of the line — "Rides on the whirlwind, and directs the storm," since it appears in the writings of both. Some critics have supposed that even Milton's " Paradise Lost " was suggested by De Bartas's " Divine Weekes ; " while others, with greater plausibility, trace its origin to Avitus, one of the Fathers of the Church, who wrote Latin poems on the Creation, the Fall, etc. There is yet another conjecture that the works of Yondel, the Shakespeare of Holland, may have suggested the idea of our Englisli epic. His "Lucifer" ap- peared some fourteen years before the " Paradise Lost " of Milton. The principal resemblances between them, however, consist in the subjects selected, and the names of some of the characters introduced into our great epic. Another literary censor, Landor, suggests that Milton was indebted to a Latin drama, entitled " Sarcotidos," written by Grotius ; as there are evident parallels both in structure and thought between the productions. Even Shakespeare, " the blameless idol of all intellectual men," is charged, as intimated, with having stolen his plots from earlier dramatists and the Italian poets. LITERARY LARCENTES. 473 The literary faux-pas of a once celebrated chemist, by his work on CheTnical Tests, is known to the scientific in both hemispheres. He published a work on poisons, entitled Death in the Pot, which at first bid fair to yield its author a moderately good revenue of fame and fortune, but for the dis- covery which was soon made, that it consisted of a series of pil- fered pages, torn out of old books in the British Museum ; he was tried upon a criminal suit for felony, and although for- mally acquitted, yet so strong was the impression of his guilt that he was compelled to retire from observation. The departments of law, physic, and theology have not been exempt from literary pilferers ; even Biblical commentators are not innocent of this charge, as we learn from the preface tc Cobbin's " Condensed Commentary." He there says : " All the commentators have drawn largely from the Fathers, especially from St. Augustine ; and most of them have made common property of Patrick, South, and Whitby. Henry has made very free use with Bishop Hall and others, and Scott has again enriched himself abundantly from Henry ; Poole ex- hausted the continental writers, while Gill, unlike the others, acknowledges his obligations." The number of commentators is great ; yet if the uncopied portions were to be collected, they would, perhaps, occupy a single duodecimo. Akenside first published his Pleasures of Imagination anonymously ; and very soon after a pretender, of the name of Eolt, actually had the impudence to go over to Duhlin and publish an edition of that fine poem with his own name at- tached to it as the author. The " Man of Feeling," by Mac- kenzie, was also originally published under the assumed name of Eccles, who borrowed the manuscript on pretence of perus- ing it. This rogue succeeded to such an extent in his impos- ture, that the real author found at first great trouble in estab- lishing his just claim to its authorship before the world. 474: LITERARY LARCENIES. Hunter's " Captivity among the Indians " is a pure fabrica cation; yet it acquired considerable notoriety in London, some fifty years ago, and its author was lionized by the public. Sir Everard Home was a notorious instance of wholesale literary fraud, upon the celebrated Dr. Hunter's writings, which formed the basis of Home's pretended " Lectures before the Royal Col- lege of Surgeons." Next of kin to literary thefts may be classed impostures ; and of these we might mention as prominent instances, Chatterton's " Rowley Poems," Macpherson's " Poems of Ossian," L'eland'& " Shakespeare Forgeries," Landor's " Trial of Shakespeare for Deer-stealing," and several others of French origin. The Ossian poems were once so admired by the French, that they were thought to rival many of the prominent productions- of the British Muse. Napoleon is said to have made them hi& constant study. A mysterious individual (we shall never know who he was^ or whence he came ; for George PsalTnanazar was his assumed name) is supposed to have been a native of Provence. He was educated among the Jesuits, and after some years travelled over Germany and elsewhere, disguised as a mendi- cant, or pilgrim. When he reached England he gave himself out as a Japanese from the island of Formosa. Pie died at the age of eighty-three, in the year 1763. He was not only a literary forger of manuscripts, but an inventor of a language, of a chirography, and indeed of an imaginary island called Formosa. His autobiography is one of the most curious and romantic pieces of writing extant. The work appeared in 1704, and was speedily translated into French and German ; and for nearly a century this ingenious fabrication was quoted by savans as an authority ! Ireland, with far less talent than Psalmanazar, displayed yet the greater audacity in his attempt to counterfeit Shakespeare ; and yet he LITERARY LARCENIES. 475 had adroitness sufficient to dupe the learned world for a sea- son, for many of its representatives were only too eager to pay liberally for even fac-similes of these pseudo-Shakespearean manuscripts. It is doubtful if such devout consternation and enthusiastic admiration were ever enkindled among the cognoscenti and dilettanti of the civilized world, as were caused by his fabrica- tions. Dr. Parr has, we believe, the credit of having detected the fraud. The literary forgeries of Chatterton were induced by the cold neglect with which he fouAd his own original effusions were received ; and yet Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, Southey, Wordsworth, and other great poets, have lauded Chatterton as a precocious and remarkable genius. Keats dedicated his " Endymion " to his memory, and Wordsworth styled him " The marvellous boy, The sleepless soul that perished in its pride." Poor Chatterton wrote graceful verses at the early age of eleven ; at sixteen he produced his " Rowley Poems ; " at nine- teen his life was embittered by terrible privation, and suicidal death soon after succeeded. These literary forgeries have, however, from their great merit, become incorporated into our " English " literature, after having provoked among the learned an unusually prolonged discussion and controversy. One of the most deeply interesting biographies we ever read was that of the poet Chatterton. His brief but hapless career was crowded with touching incidents. Not long since a celebrated French savant was victimized by an ingenious imposture, which cost him, it is said, some 20,000 francs. It was the so-called discovery of a valuable collection of manuscripts by Pascal, on some pretended scientific discovery. Cases of literary freebooting and 476 LITERARY LARCENIES. fraud crowd upon us ; but we must content ourselves with what has been already adduced, for fear we become sceptical as to the existence of any remaining integrity in the world of letters; and possibly the reader may even begin to suspect the integrity of the present writing. We lately met with an amusing Booh of Blunders, in which is given an expose of the anachronisms and errors of syntax or fact, committed by some of our prominent authors ! To quote some of these literary bulls and blunders might be amusing, as presenting some points of humor for their absurdity. Many of these literary curiosities will surprise the reader also on account of their paternity. Byron says in " Childe Harold's Pilgrimage : " "I stood in Yenice, on the Bridge of Sighs, a palace and a prison on each hand." Meaning the Ducal palace on the one hand and the State prison on the other. Instances of grammatical blunders not a few might be cited against accredited writers ; but we pass them over. There are also the anachronisms of Shakespeare, which occur in Corio- lanus, King Lear, Macbeth^ and King John. In the iirst-named play, the error consists in making Cato contemporary with Coriolanus, whereas the former lived two centuries later ! In the King Lear occurs the line, " If it be nothing, I shall not want spectacles." Now Lear was an early Anglo-Saxon King, and spectacles were known only to the 14th century. Again, Macbeth was killed in 1054 and King John be- gan his reign in 1199, while the battle of Cressy, where cannon were first used, occurred in 1346 ; and yet Shakespeare antici- pates, in both these plays, the use of cannon. In " Julius Caesar " and the " Comedy of Errors " are similar errors of date. We should scarcely suspect Milton of a bull, yet in Para- dise Lost Adam is represented as one of his own sons, and Eve one of her own daughters : LITERAEY LARCENIES. 477 " Adam, the goodliest man of men since bom, His sons, — the fairest of Iter daughters. Eve." Nor is the classic English of Addison free from such blem ishes ; in his Oato we read, " So the pure limpid stream, when/owZ vnth stains Of rushing torrents and descending rains." And in his " Letter from Italy " he thus mingles up his metaphorical allusions : " I bridle in my struggling muse with pain, That longs to launch into a bolder strain." What connection is there between a horse and a ship ? Even the learned lexicographer, Dr. Johnson, has been detected of similar blunders ; to wit, the following : " Every monumental inscription should be in Latin ; for that being a dead language, it will always live ! " And again in the following lines : " Nor yet perceived the vital spirit fled, But still fought on, nor knew that he was dead/ " Some of these illustrations are as paradoxical as the infatu- ated faction in one of the Irish rebellions, who, to revenge themselves of a prominent banker, actually burned all his bank-notes that they could find. Having thus taken a brief glance at prominent cases of liter- ary fraud, we are tempted to inquire whether there is such a thing in existence as absolute moral honesty. The earliest in- dications of childhood afford us no very conclusive evidence in its behalf, however guileless the incipient knavery, while among the unsophisticated rangers of the forest, similar de- velopments of a natural law of secretiveness are no less obser- vable. The governing impulse of the robber seems but the exuberant outgrowth of the very principle, otherwise known by 478 LITERARY LARCENIES. the less objectionable epithet — covetousness ; and we cannot but conclude that he must be an ingenious sophist who can adduce any substantial reasons against their positive identity. If, then, they are convertible terms, it is solely to our conventional usase we must ascribe the fact that both are not alike visited by penal enactment. How far such a course may conflict with our notions of abstract justice we, leave the reader to decide, since to both we admit an eager, if not an equal, proclivity. " In the crowd, May it please your excellency, your thief looks Exactly like the rest, or rather better ; 'Tis only at the bar, and in the dungeon. That wise men know your felon by his features." THE MUTE CREATION. We do not propose any metaphysical or psychological inquiry as to whether animals possess reasoning powers ; but rather to group together for our amusement some of the illus- trative instances whicli seem to favor such a conclusion. Vol- umes have been written about the economy of the ants, and the monarchy of the bees, as well as of sagacious dogs and their doings, cats and their cunning ways, parrots and their prattle, and monkeys and their comic manoeuvres. Let us then con over some of these curious connecting links in the great chain of creation, with its boasted lord — the "paragon of animals." 480 THE MUTE CREATION. Instinct seems to be the incipient state of reason, although the instinctive sensations of which animals are the subjects cannot be properly classed in the same category with the ideas or the rationative process of the human mind. Here is the dividing line between instinct and reason, and yet it is difficult for the metaphysician to define the boundaries of each, since, as in the several kingdoms of nature — animal, vegetable, mineral — they seem to commingle where they unite. The instinct of animals, it has been urged, is limited to memory enlightened by experience ; the intelligence of man, on the contrary, is unrestricted and free. This constitutes his superiority. Hence, animals are stationary, while man is progressive. Beavers construct their habitations, birds their nests, bees their hives, and the spider its web, with an admira- ble ingenuity ; but the most sagacious of them cannot apply their skill to purposes beyond the sphere of their particular wants, nor do any of them improve in the smallest degree on their predecessors. Exactly as they respectively built at the time of the ci*eation, so will they continue to build nntil the end of time. On the other hand man is dependent on education ; he is the most helpless of animals in infancy; for he has to be taught to eat, to speak, and to walk. Aristotle concludes there " are between man and animals faculties in common, near and analogous." He ascribes to the elephant the character of being the most teachable and tama- ble: but he adds, "one sole animal, man, can reflect and deliberate." Flourens contends that there is a direct opposition between instinct and intelligence, the former being blind, necessary, and invariable, while the latter is elective, conditional, and changeable. Horses learn to obey man, and understand some of his words; this intelligence, in a qualified sense, is the THE MUTE CREATION. 481 result of experience and instruction or training. Monkeys and cats are taught to drink tea, elephants to fii-e pistols, don- ke3's and pigs to find cards or numbers. If brutes are not invested with reasoning powers — though Plutarch, Montaigne, and others have sought to establish the fact — something very analogous to this they seem to possess ; indeed, it is difficult to account for the proofs of sagacity and intelligence which in some instances they evince, on any other hypothesis. Thus serpents are said to obey the voice of their masters ; the trum- peter-bird follows us owner like a spaniel ; and the jacana acts as a guard to poultry, preserving them in the fields from birds of prey, and escorting them home regularly at night. For the better illustration of our subject we shall now adduce some illustrative anecdotes ; and, as the dog is a very general favorite, we propose, first, thus to exemplify not only his superior sagacity but his exemplary fidelity. A remarkable illustration of canine sagacity is related by Chambers, which is substantially as follows : A gentleman of Suffolk, on an excursion with his friend, was attended by a Newfoundland dog, which soon became the subject of conver- sation. As a test of the animal's sagacity his master put a mark upon a shilling, and after showing it to the dog he put it under a large stone by the roadside. After riding some three miles distant the master made a signal to the dog to return and fetch the coin. He turned back, the gentlemen rode on and reached home, but to their surprise and disap- pointment, the hitherto faithful messenger did not return during the day. It afterward appeared that he had gone to the place where the shilling was deposited, but the stone being too large for him to remove, he had stayed howling at the place, till a horseman riding by, attracted by his seeming distress, dismounted, removed the stone, and seeing the shilling, put it into his pocket. The dog followed the rider some twenty miles, 31 482 THE MUTE CREATION. remained undisturbed in the room where he supped, and on his retiring for the night followed him to his bed, beneath which he secreted himself. When fairly asleep the dog made for his pantaloons containing his money, and rushed with his booty out the window, which, on account of the heat, had been left partly open, and thus made his way home. Besides the shilling, the gentleman's nether garments contained a purse full of money and a watch. These were afterward advertised and reclaimed. Sir Walter Scott tells us, among other anecdotes of the kind, of a dog called Dandle^ that seemed to know much that was said in his presence. On a certain night his master, returning home later than usual, found the family had retired to bed ; and not finding the boot-jack in its usual place he said to his dog, "Dandie, I cannot find my boot-jack; search for it." The dog, quite sensible of what was spoken, scratched at the room door, which his master opened, pro- ceeded to a distant part of the house, and soon returned carry- ing in his mouth the boot-jack, which his master had left that morning under the sofa. In a village near Caen, Normandy, lived in domestic dis- quiet an ill-assorted couple : and one day the husband, with evil intent, took his refractory spouse for a walk, and seeing a sparkling stream near at hand, he affected thirst and stooped down to drink, and then induced his " better half " to do the same. Which, no sooner had she done, than he tried to push her into the river, when she would have been drowned bad it not been for the prompt assistance of her faithful dog. The noble animal seized the assassin by the throat and would not relinquish his hold, thus saving the life of his mistress. We have all heard of the famous dogs of St. Bernard, and of their marvellous exploits in the rescue of Alpine travellers when overtaken with the snow-storm. Early in the present century one of these noble creatures was decorated with a THE MUTE CREATION. 483 medal in reward for having saved the lives of no less than twenty-two snow-bound tourists. So keen is the sense of smell possessed by these dogs, that although a perishing man lie beneath a snow-drift to the depth of several feet, they will detect the spot, scrape away the snow with their feet, make a howling that will be heard at a great distance, and exert them- selves to the utmost in his behalf. An anecdote is told of one of these dogs that found a child whose mother had just been destroyed by an avalanche ; the child, alive and unhurt, was in some way induced to get upon the dog's back, and was thus safely conveyed to the Hospice. The aptitude of the Newfoundland dog to take to the water and rescue drowning persons is no less proverbial. We shall give but an instance or two. A person while bathing at Portsmouth was seized with cramp and struggling for his life. A Newfoundland dog on the dock, seeing the man sinking, plunged into the water and saved his life, while two boatmen were debating about what was to be done. Take another incident of a more recent date. Two children were playing on the banks of a canal near Pimlico, London ; the younger of them fell into the water and the elder plunged in with the hope of saving him. Both sank; and just at the moment a Newfoundland dog was looking on, and rushing to the rescue, he soon brought up one and then the other safe to shore. The happy father gave a dinner-party in commemora- tion of the event, at which the noble dog was a specially-invited guest ! At Mecklenburgh some years since a traveller witnessed the following: After dinner the landlord of the inn placed on the floor a large dish of soup and gave a loud whistle. Im- mediately there came into the room a mastiff, an Angora cat, an old raven, and a remarkably large rat with a bell about its neck. They all four went to the dish, and, without disturbing 484 THE MUTE CREATION. each other, fed together ; after which the three reclined on the rug, the raven hopping among them. Dogs may be treated <:?<9^matically or cursorily, as the case may demand. Dogs are of various orders, — " both puppy, mon- grel, whelp, and hound, and curs of low degree." Some ani- mals are styled "lucky dogs," some "jolly dogs," and some again are " literary dogs," and deal in doggerel ditties, or dog- latin. Some are also unprincipled dogs ; Goldsmith speaks of a dog, which, to gain some private ends, went mad and bit the man " ! Although we cannot find any explanation of the fact, yet it exists, that our dumb neighbors — the dogs — have a method of makino; themselves understood to each other. Otherwise what are we to say to the two following instances : A gentleman who was occasionally in the habit of visiting London from a distant county performed the journey on horseback, accompanied by a favorite little terrier dog, which he left at an inn at some dis- tance from London, until his return. On one occasion, on calling for his dog, the landlady told him that it was lost, for it had a fierce encounter with a large house-dog, and was sadly worsted in the fight, so that it was supposed he had gone away and died. After a few days he again made his appearance, accompanied witli another dog, bigger than his enemy, on whom they both made such an attack that he was nearly killed. Here is another illustration : There was a little spaniel which had been found lame by a surgeon at Leeds, who carried the poor animal home, bandaged up his leg, and after three days sent him away. The dog returned to the surgeon's house every morning till his leg was perfectly well. Several months after- ward the spaniel again presented himself, in company with another dog, which had also been lamed ; and he intimated, as well as piteous and intelligent looks could intimate, that he desired the surgeon's good offices for his friend. THE MUTE CREATION. 485 There is a story told of a person who, being desirous of get- ting rid of his dog, took it along with him in a boat, and rowing out into the river Seine, threw it overboard. The poor animal repeatedly struggled to regain the boat, but was as often beaten off ; till at length, in the attempts tobafSe the efforts of the dog, the man upset the boat, and he fell into the water. No sooner, however, did the generous brute see his master struggle in the stream than he forsook the boat, and held him above water till assistance arrived, and thus saved his life. Was not this dog morally superior to his owner in thus return- ing good for evil ? Here is another example of generosity : A favorite house-dog, left to the care of its master's servants, at Edinburgh, while he was himself in the country, would have been starved by them had it not had recourse to the kitchen of a friend of its master's, which it occasionally visited. Not con- tent with indulging himself simply in this streak of good- fortune, this liberally-minded animal, a few days subsequently, falling in with a poor solitary duck, and possibly deeming it to be in destitute circumstances, caught it up in his teeth and carried it to the well-stored larder that had so amply supplied his own necessities. He laid the duck at the cook's feet, with many polite movements of his tail — that most expressive of canine features — then scampered off, with much seeming com- placency at having given his hostess this substantial proof of his grateful sense of favors received. Our illustrations of canine instinct or intelligence would be incomplete were we to omit the following : A gentleman was missed in London, and was supposed to have met with some foul play. No clue could be obtained to the mystery till it was gained from observing that his dog continued to crouch down before a certain house. The animal would not be induced to leave the spot, and it was at length inferred that he might be waiting for his master. The house, hitherto above suspicion^ 4:86 THE MUTE CREATION. was searched, and the result was the discovery of the body of the missing individual,' who had been murdered. Cats, categorically considered, present some curious char- acteristics, as distinct from those of dogs ; they are often treacherous and sly ; whereas dogs are demonstrative, out- spoken, and frank in disposition and character. Cats are not overdone with brain power ; dogs are sagacious and intel- ligent. Dogs, civilized dogs, evince surprising attachment to their masters; cats, on the contrary, are attached to places rather than persons. The balance of the virtues, we think, will be found against the feline and in favor of the canine. Some dogs, indeed, have acquired a kind of literary cele- brity from having been the favorites of distinguished men : Scott had his, so had Byron, and Lord Eldon actually pensioned his favorite poodle. Thus much, then, concerning cats and curs : and possibly the reader will con-cur with our conclusions ? There used to be seen in London streets what was called the " Happy Family," a curious collection of domesticated animals and birds, among which Pussy figured conspicuously in the centre of the cage, with becoming gravity, while canaries and other singing birds perched upon her back, and mice, rats, rabbits, and other creatures were all mingled together in perfect harmony — all their natural antipathies seemingly annihilated by educational training. Cats, after all that may be alleged against them or their claws, have yet been celebrated in books. "We have the charming story of " Puss in Boots," and the fairy tale of " Whittington and his Cat." Then there is the legend of the hapless " Kilkenny Cats." Besides, Egyptians em- balmed and Chinese ate cats. Of all the curious institutions of charity ever heard of, is the cat asylum at Aleppo, which is attached to one of the mosques there, and was founded by a misanthropic old Turk, who, being possessed of large granaries, was much annoyed by rats THE MUTE CREATION. 487 and mice, to rid himself of which he employed a legion of cats ; they rendered such effective service against his assailants, that it is said, he left an endowed asylum for sickly and destitute cats. Puss has yet somehow got mixed up with witches and wizards, with ghosts and goblins ; moreover she is charged with terrible crimes, such as sucking the breath out of babies, and other horrible things. But who would believe such charges, to look at her sleek and sober face, and green, glassy eyes ? More dainty and delicate are pussy's tastes and manners than those of dogs ; and they are, therefore, preferred and admitted to the companionship of maiden ladies and elderly spinsters. Cowper, the pensive poet, had a penchant for Pussy, as well as hares and rabbits ; and Petrarch was so fond of the animal, that on the death of his cat he had it embalmed. Johnson, " Ursus Major " though he has been styled, had his feline favor- ite, and such was his fondness for her, that when on one occa- sion she fell ill, he administered personally to her wants, feed- ing her upon a dish of oysters for sever?J days. Instances of personal attachment of the cat are on record ; one of these is the following: A lady residing in France had a favorite which constantly lay at her feet, seemingly always ready to defend her. It never molested the birds which its mistress kept ; it would not even take food from any person but herself. At the lady's death the cat was removed from her chamber, but it made its way there again the next morning, and kept pacing about the room, crying most pite- ously, as if lamenting its mistress. After the funeral it was found stretched on her grave, apparently having died from ex- cess of grief. The following anecdote of combined attach- ment and sagacity rivals anything that has been told even of the dog : " In the summer of 1800 a physician of Lyons was requested to inquire into a murder that had been committed on 488 THE MUTE CREATION. a woman of that city. He accordingly went to the residence of the deceased, where he found her extended lifeless on the floor and weltering in her blood. A large white cat was mounted on the cornice of a cupboard ; there he sat motion- less, with his eyes fixed on the corpse. There he continued till the following day, when the room was filled with the officers of justice; and as soon as the suspected persons were brought in, the cat's eyes glared with increased fury, his hair bristled, and he darted into the middle of the room, where he stopped for a moment to gaze at them, and then precipitately retreated. The countenances of the assassins were discon- certed, and they now, for the first time, . during the whole course of the horrid business, felt their atrocious audacity for- sake them." * Cats difter as much in character as human beings do ; and like human beings, their character is very much to be predi- cated from their countenances. Southey, in his " Doctor," gives a curious chapter upon the cats of his acquaintance — a chapter in which humor and natural history are agreeably min- gled together ; he was evidently a close observer of the habits of poor puss, and took much delight in the whims, frolics, and peculiarities of his favorites. The elephant, unwieldly and uncouth as he seems, pre- sents some remarkable features of character, combining the fidelity of the dog, the endurance of the camel, and the docility of the horse, with singular sagacity, prudence, and courage. In one of the accounts of Indian warfare, a body of artillery was described as proceeding up a hill, and the great strength of elephants was found highly advantageous in drawing up the guns. On the carriage of one of these guns, a little in fi'ont of * Chambera' Miscellany. THE MUTE CREATION. 489 the wheels, sat an artillery man, resting himself. An elephant, drawing another gun, was advancing in regular order close be- hind. Whether from falling asleep, or over-fatigue, the man fell fi'om his seat, and the wheel of the gun-carriage, with its heavy gun, was just rolling over him. The elephant, compre- hending the danger, and seeing that he could not reach the body of the man with his trunk, seized the wheel by the top, and, lifting it up, passed it carefully over the fallen man, and set it down on the other side. An Oriental traveller furnishes some amusing incidents respecting the docility and sagacious- ness of this monstrous creature. In his journeys, he says, if he wished to stop to admire a beautiful prospect, the animal re- mained immovable until his sketch was finished ; if he wished for mangoes growing out of his reach, this faithful servant selected the most fruitful branch, and, breaking it off with his trunk for him, accepted very thankfully of any part for him- self, respectfully and politely acknowledging the compliment by raising his trunk three times above his head, in the manner of Oriental obeisance. Docile as he is, this noble quadruped seems conscious of his superior strength over the rest of the brute creation. Take yet another example of the shrewd wit of this colossal creature. Some men were teasing an elephant they were con- veying across a river. In the boat that was towed alongside they had a dog which began to torment it by pulling its ears. The elephant was resolved to resent the impertinence, and what do you suppose was her expedient ? She filled her pro- boscis with water, and then deluged the whole party. At fii'st the men laughed at the manoeuvre, but she persisted until they were compelled to bale to keep from sinking ; when seeing this she redoubled her efforts, and it is said she certainly would have swamped the boat had the passage across been prolonged a few minutes further. Thus much — althougb 490 THE MUTE CREATION. much more might be presented — in behalf of the noble quali- ties of the elephant. We have heard and read about " learned pigs ; " but as their physiognomical development does not indicate much in that direction, and further, as their habits are untidy, we shall not introduce the parties to our readers. The love of fun seems to be inherent with the monkey tribe. Dr. Guthrie relates the following amusing anecdote: Jack, as he was called, seeing his master and some companions drinking, with those imitative powers for which his species is remarkable, finding half a glass of whiskey left, took it up and drank it off. It flew, of course, to his head. Amid their loud roars of laughter he began to skip, hop, and dance. Jack was drunk. Next day, when they went, with the intention of repeating the fun, to take the poor monkey from his box, he was not to be seen. Looking inside, there he lay, crouching in a corner. ' Come out ! ' said his master. Afraid to disobey, he came, walking on three legs — the fore-paw that was laid on his forehead saying, as plain as words could do, that he had a headache. Having left him some days to get well and resume his gayety, they at length carried him off to the old scene of revel. On entering, he eyed the glasses with manifest terror, skulking behind the chair ; and on his master ordering him to drink, he bolted, and he was on the house-top in a twinkling. They called him down. He would not come. His master shook the whip at him. Jack, astride on the ridge-pole, grinned defiance. A gun, of which he was always much afraid, was pointed at this disciple of temperance ; he ducked his head and slipped over to the back of the house ; upon which, seeing his predicament, and less afraid apparently of the fire than the fire-water, the monkey leaped at a bound on the chimney-top, and, getting down into a flue, held on by his fore-paws. He would rather be singed than drunk. He THE MUTE CREATION. 491 triumphed, and, although his master kept him for twelve years after that, he never could persuade the monkey to taste another drop of whiskey." Good temperance monkey that. Mrs. Lee, the naturalist, tells us of one belonging to her eldest daughter, which seemed to know he could master the cliild, " and did not hesitate to bite and scratch her whenever she pulled him a little harder than he thought proper. I pun- ished him," she adds, "for each offence, yet fed and caressed him when good ; by which means I possessed an entire ascend- ancy over him." The same writer also gives an interesting account of a monkey which a man in Paris had trained to a variety of clever tricks. "I met him one day," says she, "sud- denly, as he was coming up the drawing-room stairs. He made way for me by standing in an angle, and when I said, ' Good-morning,' took off his cap, and made me a low bow. ' Are you going away ? ' I asked ; ' where is your passport ? ' Upon which he took from the same cap a square piece of paper, which he opened and showed to me. His master told him my gown was dusty, and he instantly took a small brush from his master's pocket, raised the hem of my dress, cleaned it, and then did the same for my shoes. He was perfectly docile and obedient ; when we gave him something to eat he did not cram his pouches with it, but delicately and tidily devoured it ; and when we bestowed money on him he imme- diately put it into his master's hands." A ludicrous story is told of a French monkey, belonging to Father Cassabon, who was in the habit of carefully locking him up on the Sabbath. The animal, however, made his escape one Sunday and contrived to secret himself in a crevice behind the priest's pulpit. The church service com- menced, and presently a boy was seen by the dominie to laugh right in his face ; this unseemly behavior was of course frowned upon from the pulpit, and checked by his mother, 492 THE MUTE CREATION. who was seated with him. Soon she caught the infection, and indeed it sj)read rapidly throughout the entire congregation, notwithstanding the terrible anathemas with which such con- duct was visited by the astonished and perplexed parson. Finding all eyes directed to the sounding-board over his pul- pit, the unfortunate priest looked there, when, to his dismay, he saw his irreverent monkey grinning at him, and mimicking him to the life. Naturalists tell us that the wonderfully minute organization of the insect tribes comprises brain, nervous, and glandular systems, and that in consequence their instructive intelligence is inferred. The ants, for instance, the models of industry and ingenuity, afford astonishing intelligence in the construction of their cells and the procuring of their food. The bees exhibit a yet more surprising example of mimic human life, in their gregarious habits and constructive skill, as well as in the social friendships and feuds and organized battles ; not to speak of the architectural wonders of these animals, so often described, nor of the cares of the \vorkers for the little larvae. The finny tribes are hidden from our gaze because sub- merged ; but thej'^ have instincts, and, for aught we know to the contrary, social affections, and skill in the construction of their nests. The pike, and especially the cod, are said to be easily tamed, and in some instances trained to follow to the bank of a river even their human friends. Sir Walter Scott being once asked whether fishes possessed less sensibility tlian man, said, " it is a delicate question, and one which fishes alone would be able to solve." Mr. Jesse mentions a parrot which, when pleased, would laugh most heartily, and then cry out, " Don't make me laugh so : I shall die, I shall die." The bird would also mimic sob- bing, and exclaim, " So bad, so bad ; got such a cold." If any one hajjpened to cough, he would call out, "What a bad cold ! " THE MUTE CREATION. 493 Take another illustration : Mrs. Lee, in her " Anecdotes," states that one day her gardener was struck by the strange con- duct of a robin, which the man had often fed. The bird flut- tered about him in so strange a manner — now coming close, then hurrying away, always in the same direction — that the gardener followed its retreating movements. The robhi stopped near a flower-pot and fluttered over it in great agitation, A nest had been formed there containing several young ones ; and close by was discovered a snake, intent doubtless upon making a meal of the brood. The man saw the reason of the bird's con - duct, and carried off the snake, upon which the redbreast ex- pressed its joy by a burst of song and triumphant flutterings. The incident carries its own comment : the bird sought protec- tion from its foe, and, having succeeded in obtaining it, did more than some bipeds do — sang his thanks in return. The same authority relates the case of an unprincipled Mag- pie, who belonged to a toll-keeper in an English county town ; the bird having often heard the words, " gate ahoy," learned to pronounce them himself; and finding that his mistress always went out to the gate whenever the call was made, he mimicked the sound so perfectly that on one occasion he induced her to leave her dinner, when the bird instantly flew to the table and made free with its dainties. This trick he practised again, but he was at length found out in the fraud. It was a clear case of obtaining food under false pretences ; yet what an ingenious theft it was. Even the goose, which is not the accepted symbol of wisdom, has been much slandered, if the story related by a recent au- thority* be admitted in evidence. " In Germany an aged blind woman was led to church every Sunday by a gander, which dragged her along, holding her gown in his beak. As soon as the old woman was seated in her pew the gander retired to the * Menault. 494: THE MUTE CREATION. cliurcli-yard to feed upon the grass, and when the service was ended he conducted his mistress to her home ! " But it is among the mammalia that we are to look for the closest approximation to, and understanding of, the human race. Jackson relates an instance of the sagacity of the horse : " The animal had been carelessly shod, and probably suffered pain in consequence. The creature seems to have been quite aware of the proper remedy, for a few days after the shoeing operation the farrier was amazed to see the horse approach the door of the workshop and hold up the hoof. An inspection soon showed the nature of the fault, which being rectified, the ani- mal went off satisfied." The clever manner in which this horse escaped from its meadow was as follows : having no means of unlocking the gate he had actually lifted one end off the hinges with his teeth, and was thus able to get through. Numerous anecdotes of the fidelity and sagacity of the horse are given, one of which we transcribe ; it is as follows : " On one occasion a farmer was returning to his home near Edin- burgh, from a jovial meeting, where he had been very liberal in his potations. After riding some distance on horseback he became somewhat drowsy, when he had the misfortune to fall from the saddle. His fall was, however, so easy that it did not rouse him from his sleepy fit and he felt quite contented to rest where he had alighted. His faithful steed, on being eased of his burden, instead of scampering home, stood and kept a watch all night over his prostrate master, whom some early wayfarers discovered next day still sleeping. They attempted to replace him on the saddle, but every attempt to come near him was resolutely opposed by the grinning teeth and ready heels of his faithful and determined guardian." Even the donkey is a misunderstood and much injured ani- mal, as well as the poor unoffending, innocent sheep ; for both THE MUTE CREATION. 495 have much more intelligence than we are accustomed to sup- pose, even though they may not be brilliant, A good story is told of the donkey of a Lancashire carrier. The master was accustomed to stop at a public house for ale, a little of which was always kindly given to his quadruped. Af- ter a time the carrier turned teetotaler, but the animal objected to the change, for whenever he came to the aforesaid alehouse he insisted, as heretofore, in stopping, and no expostulation of his master could prevent it. The publican, who held teetotalism to be the eighth deadly sin, at length persuaded the good-na- tured master actually to purchase the ale now, not to please himself, but his ass, as he felt himself responsible to the poor brute for first teaching him the evil habit. The ass sank as a moralist, but rose as a genius by the force of his will. It was an honor, some even thought, to have such a donkey in the district. The "busy bee" is so familiar to all that it will not be necessary for us to refer to its peculiarity of structure, further than to state that the worker is invested with an extra stomach, which is called the honey-bag, in which it deposits the sweets or saccharine matter it collects from blossoms, fruits, and flow- ers. " The most profound philosopher, equally with the most incurious mortals," says Kirby, " is struck with astonishment on inspecting the interior of a bee-hive : he beholds a city in miniature. He sees this city divided into regular streets, these streets composed of houses constructed on the most exact geometrical principles, and the most symmetrical plan — some serving for storehouses for food, others for the habitations of the citizens, and a few, much more extensive than the rest, destined for the palaces of the sovereign. He perceives that the substance of which the whole city is built is one which man, with all his skill, is unable to fabricate ; and that the edifices are such as the most expert artist would find himself 496 THE MUTE CREATION. incompetent to erect : yet the whole is the work of a society of mere insects ! " A number of honeycombs, composed of cells for the most part hexagonal or six-sided, regularly applied to each other's sides, and arranged in two strata or layers, placed end to end, are fixed to the upper part and sides of the interior of the hive. These combs are arranged vertically at a small distance from each other, so that the cells composing them are placed in a horizontal position, and have their openings in different direc- tions. The distance between the combs is about half an inch, sufiicient to allow two . bees to pass each other easily : besides these vacancies, the combs are here and there pierced with holes, which serve as a means of communication from one comb to another. Many amusing if not extravagant stories are given by naturalists respecting the exceeding loyalty of bees to their queen ; their passion for monarchy indeed brings them into near connection with the ants. The following anecdote will illustrate this : " A young girl of my acquaintance," says the narrator, " was greatly afraid of bees, and she became com- pletely cured of her timidity by the following incident. A swarm having come off, I observed the queen alight by herself at a little distance from the apiary. I immediately called my little friend, that I might show her the queen ; she wished to inspect her more closely ; so, having caused her to put on her gloves, I gave the queen into her hand. "We were in an in- stant surrounded by the whole bees of the swarm. In this emergency I encouraged the girl to be steady, bidding her to be silent and to fear nothing, and remaining myself close by her. I then made her stretch out her right hand, which held the queen, and covered her head and shoulders with a very thin handkerchief: the swarm soon fixed on her hand, and hung from it as from the branch of a tree. The little girl was THE liIUTE CREATION. 497 delighted beyond measure at the novel sight, and so entirely freed from all fear, that she bade me uncover her face. The spectators were charmed by the interesting spectacle. At length I brought a hive, and shaking the swarm from the child's hand, it was lodged in safety, and without inflicting a single wound." The delicate fabric of the spider's web is a miracle of skill ; although so fine as to be scarcely visible without the aid of a microscope, the spider's thread is nevertheless composed, not of a single line, as is usually supposed, but, as we learn from good authority, of not less than four thousand strands. And this is true with respect to spiders not larger than a grain of sand, as well as the largest specimens. The gauze-like texture of the web of the house-spider, as well as the beautiful net more com- monly found among the foliage, composed of a series of con- centric circles, united by radii diverging from the centre, are both exquisite specimens of insect skill. " Man thinks that he stands unrivalled as an architect, and that his productions far transcend the works of the inferior order of animals. He would be of a different opinion did he attend to the history of insects ; he would find that many of them have been architects from time immemorial ; that they had their houses divided into various apartments, and contain- ing staircases, elegant arches, domes, colonnades, and the like. No feminine ornament is more prized and costly than lace, the invention and fabrication of which seems the exclusive claim of the softer sex. But even here they have been anticipated by these little industrious creatures, which often defend their help- less chrysalides by a most singular covering — and as beautiful as singular — of lace. Other arts have been equally forestalled by these insects. We imagine that nothing short of human intellect can be equal to the construction of a diving-bell or air-pump — yet a spider is in the daily habit of using the one, 32 498 THE MUTE CREATION. and what is more, one exactly similar in principle to ours, but more ingeniously contrived ; by means of which she resides unwetted in the bosom of the water, and procures the neces- sary supplies of air by a much more simple process than our al- ternating buckets — and the caterpillar of a little moth knows how to imitate the other, producing a vacuum, when necessary for its purposes, without any piston besides its own body. " If we think with wonder of the populous cities which have employed the united labors of man for many ages to bring them to their full extent, what shall we think of the white ants, which require only a few months to build a metropolis capable of containing an infinitely greater number of inhabit- ants than even the imperial Nineveh, Babylon, or Pekin, in all their glory?"* That insects should thus have forestalled us in our inven- tions ought to urge us to pay a closer attention to them and their ways than we have hitherto done ; since it is not at all improbable that the result would supply useful hints for the improvement of our arts and manufactures, and perhaps be the clue to some beneficial discoveries. Although parrots are excessively amusing in their small talk, yet, as they cannot be supposed to be conscious of what they say, we can only refer to them here, en passant^ on the ground that they bear some seeming analogy, in this respect, to some human talkers. Mrs. Lee, in her " Anecdotes of Birds," mentions the instance of a parrot that had lost one of its legs, and no sooner did any one remark this, or ask how it had been lost, than it replied : " I lost my leg in the merchant service ; pray remember the lame." The following story has often been recited before, but it will bear repeating : " A tradesman who had a shop in the Old * Kirby. THE MUTE CREATION. 499 Bailey, London, opposite Newgate prison, kept two parrots, a green and a gray. The green parrot was taught to speak when there was a knock at the street-door ; the gray, whenever the bell rang ; but they only knew two short phrases of English. The house in which they lived had an old-fashioned, project- ing front, so that the first floor could not be seen from the pavement on the same side of the way, and, on one occasion, they were left outside the window by themselves, when some one knocked at the street-door. ' Who is there ? ' said the green parrot. ' The man with the leather,' was the reply ; to which the bird answered, ' Oh ! oh ! ' The door not being opened, the stranger knocked a second time. ' Who is there ? ' said green poll. ' Who is there ? ' exclaimed the man. ' Why don't you come down ? ' ' Oh, oh ! ' repeated the parrot. This so enraged the stranger that he rang the bell furiously. ' Go to the gate,' said a new voice, which belonged to the gray parrot. ' To the gate ? ' repeated the man, who saw no such entrance, and who thought that the servants were bantering him. ' What gate ? ' he asked, stepping back to view the prem- ises. "' New-gate,' responded the gray, just as the angry appli- cant discovered who had been answering his summons." Parrots have been known to mimic the sound of planing a deal board, the mewing of a cat, or the barking of a dog, so ac- curately as to deceive the closest observers. The predilection of animals for particular persons was once the means of deciding, very amusingly, a case before a court of justice. It was at a Dublin police-office, and the object of dispute was a pet parrot which had been stolen from a Mr. Davis and sold to a Mr. Moore. The plaintiff, taking the bird upon his finger, said, " Come, old boy, give me a kiss," which the parrot instantly did. A youth, in the defendant's interest, remarked that this proved nothing, as the parrot would kiss 500 THE MUTE CREATION. anybody. "You had better not try," remarked the plaintiff. Nevertheless the young man asked the parrot to kiss him. Poll, Judas-like, advanced as if to give the required salute, but seized the youth's lip and made him roar with pain. This fact, and the parrot's obeying the plaintiff in several other requisitions, caused it to be instantly ordered into the posses- sion of its original master. Here we close our remarks about the winged and walking things of earth, whose characteristic developments are so sug- gestive of moral instruction to us ; and although the lessons they teach are fraught with deepest interest, and cannot but reflect a beneficial influence, yet it is to be feared but too many are found inaccessible to their power and inaudible to their teaching. d if^ni . ^S ^ ^Sl IHt H 1 ^1 11^ ^^^. 'J 1 1 j^^^^l^TJIMaBBMBi ■ 1 1 1 \ illllf"^^ ' 1 i m\ ^" HH 1^ 1 1 ■11 I lifl f ^Hi H 1 1 1 1 1 IH il mBiimM i^^H HB ^B Hh i K imii i^M ^H H R ^K 1 ^^'iii lllliBiiwBBIIIwiM ^^^LJ 1 O^^^Sm HR ^^^"^Z ffl ^ffi 1 ^H SJ B B H w 1 ^^n ^^^m ^^p ^n In w wi ^^ ^^^^^^^B^^ ^-^^j^^Si '-'-'^Wn a^^iBwi^nuDd BaJW^ tHIII ' II M fll 1 VK 1 SLEEP AND ITS MYSTERIES. "O sleep ! the certain knot o£ peace, — The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe : The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release, The impartial judge between the high and low." — Sir P. Sidney. What is the phenomenon we call sleep, — that is the ques- tion? We ask the physiologist, and he gives us its diagnosis, but that is all. Blumenbach attributed it to a diminished flow of arterial blood to the brain, but Elliotson, his commentator, suggests that this slower circulation is the effect, not the cause of sleep. Indeed, although much learned discussion has been devoted to the subject, sleep is yet a profound puzzle to us. 502 SLEEP KNB ITS MYSTERIES. Bocrliaave speaks of a German physician or metaphysician who held to the drowsy theorj^, that sleep was the natural con- dition of man; but his own experience bore witness against him, for he is said to have slept himself at last into an apoplexy. It is, however, safe to affirm that sleeping and wak- ing are the two great phenomena of our existence. It is also patent to all that our bodies, like our watches, require winding up, or they will run down and stop ! The mainspring of the one, however, has to be treated differently to that of the other, because its mechanism is differently constructed. In attempt- ing a little familiar talk about so soporific as ubject as sleep, we must be careful on our part not to put the reader under the somnolent influence of the drowsy god Morpheus. " Half our days we pass in the shadow of the earth," says Sir Thomas Browne, " and the brother of death extracteth a third part of oar lives." Rest and activity make up the existence we call life ; their alternation is as inexorable a law as that of day and night. Our physical system recuperates principally during sleep, because then it is that nutrition goes on most actively ; it is then also, as the doctors say, that " the brain feeds." Some writers call sleep a temporary metaphysical death. Shakespeare beautifully says, " Our little life is rounded by a sleep." Cervantes piquantly remarks, " It covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a cloak." Saxe adds a stanza : ' ' ' God bless the man who first invented sleep ! ' So Sancho Panza said, and so say I ! And bless him also, that he didn't keep His great discovery to himself, or try To make it — as the lucky fellow might — A close monopoly, by 'patent-right.' " Sleep, then, being a fixed institution of humanity as well as of animals, and, in part at least, of the vegetable kingdom, is, like the air we breathe, an indispensable blessing. We are not SLEEP A^D ITS MYSTEEIES. 503 apt to estimate too highly the priceless boon : yet were its gentle visitations but intermitted even for a night or two in succession, we should be better fitted to form an idea of its inestimable value. When wearied with the day's drudgery and turmoil, how inexpressibly grateful is it to surrender our- selves to its sweet oblivion. The quiet hour of wonted repose steals upon us like a charm, and we yield ourselves to its mollifying and soothing influence as the universal pf.nacea. It has been said that, "In perfect sleep there is no consciousness. It has been therefore called with truth the image of death. It is a tempo- rary death, as far as concerns all action and motion which lie under the power of our will. But although the brain is at rest, tiie heart and lungs continue their tasks, because they are pre- sided over by a department of the nervous system, which acts independently of the brain. The brain is the seat of conscious- ness, and from it all the nerves which originate and control voluntary motions more or less directly take their rise." There is also a state of coma, or abnormal sleep ; which is, indeed, a preternatural or morbid condition of lethargy, in- duced by natural or artificial causes. Collateral with sleep may be also mentioned hysteria, trance, catalepsy, syncope, paralysis, magnetic sleep, and epilepsy, which last is caused by a stoppage of the electric currents centring in the spine. If sleep be such an essential restorative to our physical and mental systems, how terrible upon criminals must be the tor- ture of the Chinese punishment of preventing it. The victim is kept awake by guards alternately watching: death super- venes, usually, after from twelve to twenty days' endurance. The most unfavorable condition for sleep cannot prevent its approach. Coachmen slumber on their boxes, and couriers on their horses, while soldiers fall asleep on the field of battle, amidst all the noise of artillery and the tumult of war. Dur- 504 SLEEP AND ITS MYSTERIES. ilia: the retreat of Sir Joliii Moore several of the British soldiers were reported to have fallen asleep on the march, and yet they continued walking onward. The most violent pas- sions and excitement of mind cannot preserve even powerful minds from sleep ; thus Alexander the Great slept on the field of Arbela, and Napoleon on that of Austerlitz. Noises, which serve at first to drive away sleep, soon become indispensable to its existence ; thus a stage-coach stopping to change horses wakes all the passengers. The proprietor of an iron forge who slept close to the din of hammers, forges, and blast fur- naces, would awake if there was any interruption to them during the night ; and a sick miller, who had his mill stopped on that account, passed sleepless nights till the mill resumed its noise. Leigh Hunt furnishes some pleasant thoughts upon the sub- ject, from which we cite a passage. " It is a delicious moment, certainly," he writes, " that of being well nestled in bed and feeling tliat you shall drop gently to sleep. The good is to come, not past ; the limbs have just been tired enough to ren- der the remaining in one posture delightful ; the labor of the day is done. A gentle failure of the perceptions comes creep- ing over one ; the spirit of consciousness disengages itself more and more, with slow and hushing degrees, like a mother de- taching her hand from her sleeping child ; the mind seems to have a balmy lid over it, like the eye ; 'tis closing — more clos- ing — 'tis closed. The mysterious spirit has gone to make its airy rounds. " The day emphatically belongs to earth : we yield it with- out reluctance to care and labor. AVe toil, we drudge, we pant, we play the hack-horse ; we do things smilingly from which we recoil in secret ; we pass by sweet spots and rare faces that our ver}^ heart yearns for, without betraying the effort it costs; and thus we drag through the twelve long hours, disgusted almost, but gladdened withal, that the mask SLEEP AND ITS SrZSTERIES. 505 will have an end, and the tedious game be over, and onr visor and our weapons be laid aside. But the night is the gift of heaven; it brings freedom and repose; its influence falls coolly and gratefully upon the mind as well as the body ; and when drops the extinguisher upon the light which glimmers upon the round, untouched pillow, we, at the same time, put out a world of cares and perplexities." But for this wonted repose how monotonous and wearisome would life become ; not man alone, but all nature would begin to faint and die, like the seared foliage of autumn. This ne- cessity for periodical repose seems to be an essential law of all animated life, with scarce a single exception. The feathered tribe cease their minstrelsy as the shades of eventide spread over the face of all things — a type of sleep itself with its closed eyelids. All seek their needed rest. Instances on record of protracted sleep are both numerous and interesting ; but we can notice one or two only. It is stated in the records of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, that " a woman slept continuously from the first of July until the eighth of August. During the first seven days she continued motionless, and exhibited no inclination to eat ; after which time she would move her hand to her mouth, signifying a wish for food, which was given to her. She evinced no symptom of hearing till about four days prior to her recovery. During tliis long interval of nearly forty days and nights, she contin- ued in a state of unconsciousness." In the somnolent state, life can be sustained by a small portion of food. " In the middle of the last century a young Frenchwoman, at Toulouse, had, for half a year, fits of lengthened sleep, varying from three to thirteen days each. About the same time, a girl at Newcastle-on-Tyne slept fourteen weeks without waking; and the waking process occupied three days to complete. Doc- tor Blanchet, of Paris, mentions the case of a lady who slept for 506 SLEEP AND ITS MYSTERIES. twenty days together wlien she was about eighteen years of age, fifty days when she was about twenty, and had nearly a whole year's sleep, from Easter Sunday, 1862, till March, 1863 ; during this long sleep (which physicians call hysteric coma) she was fed with milk and soup, one of her front teeth being extracted to obtain an opening into her mouth. Cognate with sleep is the phenomenon we call dreams. Phy- sics and metaphysics, psychology and other occult sciences, have been appealed to for a solution of the mystery, but in vain. Dreams cannot be called echoes of our waking-thoughts, be- cause they do not reflect them with any uniformity ; indeed it is but rarely they do so. Dreams seem to be sometimes engen- dered of a disturbed digestion and also of a morbid state of mental excitement. "We do not know much more than the an- cients about dreams ; although such multitudes have been in dreamland, is it not strange that it yet remains a terra incog- nita f Physiologists now incline to the theory that all dream, and dream at all times throughout their sleep ; which has been heretofore a debatable point with the doctors. Few, however, remember their dreams, if they do always dream in sleep. Of the class of dreams suggested by previous mental preoccupa- tion, there are many recorded incidents. It is undeniable that some men have been smarter when they were asleep than when they were awake. Chess-players, metaphysicians, and mathe- maticians often dream to good purpose. Sir Thomas Browne confesses that he could grapple with metaphysical difficulties better in his dreams than in his waking hours. Napier is said to have dreamed out the science of logarithms. There seem to be a mystery and fascination connected with the subject, from the fact that dreams are involuntary and in some instances are prophetic of evil or good fortune. Then, again the strange incongruities which characterize most dreams — memory and imagination mingling their wildest flights iu SLEEP AND ITS IIYSTERIES. 507 defiance of reason and common sense. On the other hand some, like Coleridge, have had remarJiably intellectual dreams ; his gorgeous poem of Kubla Khan for example. Sartini, a cele- brated violinist, composed one of his famous sonatas in a dream. Condorcet, having once left his calculations in an unfinished state, took up the thread of them in a dream, and finished them. It is in the nocturnal hours of sleep that conscience some- times holds her court of inquest upon crime. " The Furies still follow Orestes ; " and where the culprit has escaped convic- tion at a human tribunal, conscience has occasionally become his accuser to bring him to judgment. Visions nocturnal have been the divinely appointed media of communication in the patriarchal age, and it was doubtless owing to these real events that a superstitious veneration for dreams has obtained in all times among the nations of the world. Many surprising instances of prophetic dreams and premonitions have been collected by writers, which tend to keep alive a belief in their supernatural origin. Dr. Abercrombie says he is enabled to give the following anecdote as entirely authentic : " A lady dreamed that an aged female relative had been mm-dered by a black servant, and the dream occurred more than once. She was then so strangely impressed by it that she went to the house of the lady to whom it related, and prevailed upon a gentleman to watch in an ad- joining room the following night. About three o'clock in the morning, the gentleman, hearing footsteps on the stairs, left his place of concealment, and met the servant carrying up a quantity of coals. Being questioned as to where he was going, he replied, in a confused manner, that he was going to mend his mistress' fire, which, at three o'clock in the morning, in the middle of summer, was evidently impossible ; and, on further investigation, a strong knife was found concealed beneath the coals." " Another lady," he says, " dreamed that a boy, her 508 SLEEP AND ITS 5IYSTERIES. nephew, had been drowned along with some young companions with whom he had been engaged to go on a sailing excursion in the Frith of Forth. She sent for him in the morning, and prevailed on him to give up his engagement. His companions went and w^ere all drowned." The alarm with regard to the disappearance of Maria Martin was brought to its height by the mother dreaming, three suc- cessive nights, that her daughter had been murdered and buried in the Red Barn. Upon this, search was made, the floor taken up, and the murdered body discovered. The story is fully related in Chambers'^ Journal for 1832. That many remarkable and well-attested dreams have been reconcilable to after events, is beyond question — niglit visions and night promptings which could not be explained by any theory of connection of ideas, or " imperfect recollections," or revival of associations utterly forgotten by the waking senses. On the contrary, new images have been evolved in slumber, apparently pointing toward future events, or seeming to con- vey awful w^arnings against unsuspected dangers, or suggesting remedies for evils long endured ; and numerous are the cases wherein results have been in unison with the supposed augury. But it is not so much in reference to the causes and general nature of dreams, as to their supposed power of divination, that a few words are devoted to them in the present pages. " We know, pretty well now," says 'Horace Walpole, in one of his letters, " that dreams which used to pass for predictions are imperfect recollections." Be this as it may, the oneirocritics, when baffled in their attempts to establish any similitude between the " auguries " of sleep and subsequent or preceding facts, turn about, and vindicate the pi-ophetic character of dreams by dissimilitude and contrariety. Thus, they are certain to be right, one way or the other. A gravestone-cutter of Wakefield, in Yorkshire, desiring to SLEEP AKD ITS MYSTERIES. 509 finish the epitaph on a certain tombstone, left his home one evening for the church, in which he was permitted occasionally to work. Having arrived there, he set down his lantern, and lighting another candle, resumed his rather gloomy task. Midnight approached, and still his work was not completed. On a sudden, a strange noise, as of the utterance of " hiss ! " or " hush ! " startled him. He looked round, but nothing was seen— not even a bat, or owl flitting athwart the upper dark- ness. Kecovering from his surprise, Peter concluded he had been deceived, and plied his chisel with fresh vigor. In a few minutes, however, the ominous word was again audible. He once more searched, but in vain, for the cause of so uncommon a sound ; and, being at length terrified, was about to quit the church when a sense of duty withheld him, and he renewed his work, which was completed as the clock struck twelve. "While, with downcast head, intently examining the epitaph he had cut, the dreadful word, " hush ! " came louder than ever on his ear. Peter was now fairly appalled. He concluded that he himself was summoned to the grave — that in fact he had been carving his own " Hic Jacet." Tottering home he went to bed, but could not sleep. Next morning his wife, happening to observe his wig, ex- claimed, " O, Peter ! what hast thou been doing to burn all tlie hair off one side of thy wig ? " " Ah, God bless thee ! " vociferated the stone- cutter, jumping out of bed ; " thou hast cured me with that word." The mysterious midnight sound was occasioned by the friz- zling of Peter's wig, as it accidentally came in contact with the candle, while he bent over his work ; and the discovery thus made afforded many a jest and laugh." * * " Hone's Year-Book." 510 SLEEP AND ITS MYSTERIES. Somnambulism appears to differ from dreaming chiefly in the degree in which the bodily functions are affected ; in the former the will seems to control the body, and its organs are more susceptible of the mental impressions. The incipient form of somnambulism shows itself in talking in sleep : this is sometimes a dangerous disease, as occasionally the most impor- tant secrets are, by the very party himself, involuntarily revealed — which in his waking moments he would reserve with especial care. The second stage of the phenomenon, from which indeed it derives its name, is that of walking during sleep. ^Numerous remarkable instances of sleep-walking are to be met with ; one of the most singular of which we remember to have read, years ago, was that of a certain restless youth, who, so impetuous was he to obey the impulse of his noctur- nal vision, rushed from his bed to the street, clad only in the usual drapery of the dormitory, and was found pursuing his route in the London streets at midnight, till some humane guardian of a policeman startled him from his state of dreamy complacency, and remonstrated with him as to the paucity of his apparel, etc. Dr. Blacklock, the blind poet, on one occasion, arose fi'om his bed, to which he had retired at an early hour, came into the room where his family were assembled, conversed with them, and afterward entertained them with a pleasant song ; after he awoke he had not the least knowledge or recollection of what he had done. Two instances of sleep-swimming might be mentioned. " I went out," says Franklin, " to bathe in Martin's salt-water hot- bath, in Southampton, and, floating on my back, fell asleep, nearly an hour by my watch, without sinking or turning — a thing I never did before, and should hardly have thought possible." A man was disporting himself in the water about a hundi-ed yards from the shore ; he was discovered by the SLEEP AND ITS JIYSTERIES. 511 watchmen at two o'clock in the morning. The revenue boat's crew pushed off and succeeded in rescuing him : but, strange to say, he had no idea of his perilous situation, and it was a hard matter to persuade him that he was not in his bed. The man had left his home at midnight, and walked through a difficult and to him dangerous road over two miles, and had actually swam more than a mile before he was picked up.* Dr. Abercrombie relates some curious instances of persons having performed literary exploits during a state of somnolency ; among others he speaks of a certain member of a foreign uni- versity, who, after having devoted himself during his waking hours to the composition of some verses, which, however, he had not been able to complete, seems to have been honored with more success in a visitation from his muse during his nocturnal slumbers ; for the following night he arose in his sleep, finished his poetic performance, and exulting in his suc- cess returned again contentedly to his couch — all in a state of unconsciousness. Take another case, from the same source : it is one even more remarkable — and we might add a tax upon credulity were it not given by so respectable an authority. It is that of a young botanical student who resided at the house of his profes- sor in London, and who was zealously devoted to his pursuit, having indeed just received the highest botanical prize from a public institution. One night, about an hour after he had gone to bed, having returned from a long botanical excursion, his master, who was sitting in his room below, heard a person coming down stairs with a heavy measured step, and on going into the passage found his pupil with nothing on him but his hat and his shirt, his tin case swung across his shoulders, and a large stick in his hand. " His eyes were even more open than * Macnish. 512 SLEEP AND ITS MYSTERIES. usual," says the narrator, " but I observed he never directed them to me or to the candle which I held. While I was con- templating the best method of getting him to bed again, he commenced the following dialogue : ' Are you going to Green- wich, sir?' ' Yes, sir.' ' Going by water, sir ? ' ' Yes, sir.' ' May I go with you, sir ? ' ' Yes, sir ; but I am going directly, there- fore please to follow me.' Upon this I walked up to his room, and he followed me without the least error in stepping up the stairs. At the side of his bed, I begged he would get into the boat, as I must be off immediately. I then removed the tin case from his shoulders, his hat dropped off, and he got into bed, observing, ' he knew my face very well — he had often seen me at the river's side.' A long conversation then ensued between him and the supposed boatman, in which he understood all that was said to him, and answered quite correctly respect- ing botanical excursions to Greenwich made by the professor and his pupils ; and named a rare plant he had lately had, of which the superintendent of the botanic garden had seen only one specimen in his .life, and the professor only two. After some further conversation, he was asked whether he knew who had gained the highest botanical prize ; when he named a gentleman, but did not name himself. ' Indeed,' was the re- ply, ' did he gain the highest prize ? ' To this he made no answer. He was then asked, ' Do you know Mr. ,' naming himself. After much hesitation he replied, ' If I must confess it, my name is .' This conversation lasted three-quarters of an hour, during which time he never made an irrelevant answer, and never hesitated, excepting about the prize and his own name. He then lay down in bed, saying ' he was tired, and would lie upon the grass till the prof essor came ; ' but he soon sat up again and held a long conversation with another gentleman who then came into the room ; when he again understood everything that was said t :> him, to which he answered no less readily and SLEEP AND ITS MYSTERIES. 513 accurately, sometimes uttering long sentences without tlie least hesitation. After a conversation of about an hour, he said, ' It is very cold on this grass, but I am so tired I must lie down.^ lie soon after laid down and remained quiet during the rest of the night. Next morning he had not the least knowledge of what had passed, and was not even aware of having dreamed of anything whatever." Psychologists tell us that somnambulism is " a condition in which certain senses and faculties are suppressed, or rendered thoroughly impassive, while others prevail in most unwonted exaltation." The phenomenon resembles in. part what sometimes occurs in reading ; when we continue reading with our mind diverted to some other subject. All cases of absence of mind belong to this category. It is the opinion of some writers that the brain cannot entertain two distinct ideas simultaneously : it cannot think and determine at the same moment of time. Those somnambulists who wander about in streets, or (like Amina, in Bellini's opera) walk along narrow planks in peril- ous situations, have the nmscular sense, whatever it may be,, effectively awake. The sense of fear is asleep, whatever els©' may be awake. Some somnambulists start off while asleep to attend to their regular work, though under very irregular cir- cumstances. There was a rope-maker in Germany who often fell asleep when at work, and either continued his work in a proper way, or uselessly re-made cordage already finished. Sometimes when walking long distances he was similarly over- taken with sleep; he went on safely, avoiding horses and carriages, and timber lying in the road. On one occasion he fell asleep just as he got on horseback ; yet he went on, rode through a shallow river, allowed his horse to drink, drew ap his legs to prevent his feet from being wetted, passed iirongh a crowded market-place, and arrived safely at the 33 514 SLEEP AND ITS MYSTERIES. house of an acquaintance ; his eyes were closed the whole time, and he awoke just after reaching the house. Some of our readers may not be familiar with the legend of the beautiful opera La Sonnamhula, and as our artist has portrayed the heroine of the story, we present a brief outline of the plot. A certain nobleman visiting his estates in Switzerland, but unrecognized by the peasantry, stoj)ped at an inn where he was told that a ghost haunted the house nightly, to the terror of the villagers. Retiring to the room prepared for him, about mid- night he is startled by the somnambulist Amina, a village-maiden who is betrothed to Elvino ; she enters his room in her night- dress, and is discovered by the peasantry, to the detriment of her reputation and the dismay of her lover. The following night, however, the mystery is explained — when Amina is seen to repeat her nocturnal visit at the inn, emerge from it with her candle in hand, and pursue her way over a dilapidated and deserted bridge at the imminent risk of her life. The bridge breaks down, but she makes a miraculous leap over the chasm, and the intense fright awakening her, tlie erratic wanderings of the maiden are at once accounted for. The lovers are then married, the nobleman gives the dowry, and the village is again restored to its wonted peace and happiness. In Poyntz's World of Wonders, we find, among other remarkable citations, the following instance recorded of an accomplished somnambulist, the circumstances of which are attested by a beneficed member of the Roman Catholic Clhurch : ' In the college where he was educated was a young seminarist who habitually walked in his sleep, and while in a state of somnambulism used to sit down to his desk and compose the most eloquent sermons ; scrupulously erasing, effacing, or inter- lining, whenever an incorrect expression had fallen from his pen. Though his eyes were apparently fixed upon the paper SLEEP AND ITS MYSTEEIES. 515 when he wrote, it was clear that they exercised no optical functions ; for he wrote just as well when an opaque sub- stance was interposed between them and the sheet of paper. Sometimes an attempt was made to remove the paper, in the idea that he would write upon the. desk beneath. But it was observed that he instantly discerned the change, and sought another sheet of paper as nearly as possible resembling the former one. At other times a blank sheet of paper was substi- tuted by the bystanders for the one on which he had been writing ; in which case, on reading over, as it were, his compo- sition, he was sure to place the corrections, suggested by the perusal, at precisely the same intervals they would have oc- cupied in the original sheet of manuscript. This young priest, moreover, was an able musician ; and was seen to compose several pieces of music while in a state of somnambulism, drawing the lines of the music-paper for the purpose with a ruler, and pen and ink, and filling the spaces with his notes with the utmost precision, besides a careful adaptation of the words in vocal pieces. On one occasion the somnambulist dreamed that he sprang into the river to save a drowning child ; and on his bed he was seen to imitate the movement of swim- ming. Seizing the pillow, he appeared to snatch it from the waves and lay it on the shore. The night was intensely cold ; and so severely did he appear affected by the imaginary chill of the river as to tremble in every limb ; and his state of cold and exhaustion, when roused, was so alarming, that it was judged necessary to administer wine and other restoratives." A case is related of a woman in Edinburgh Infirmary, who during her paroxysms not only mimicked the manner of her medical attendants, but repeated correctly some of their pre- scriptions in Latin. A yet more singular instance of the kind is on record, described by Dr. Dyce, of Aberdeen, namely, that of a young girl subject to fits of somnolency, during which she 516 SLEEP AND ITS IVIYSTERIES. was in the habit of talking of things that seemed to pass be- fore her like a dream, and was not at the time sensible of any- thing that was said to her. At one time she would lay out the table for breakfast, and repeatedly dress herself and the children, all the while being in a state of unconsciousness. The memory plays some strange tricks with sleep-walkers. A military officer, after a hard day of much marching and little eating, was told that there would be some hot soup ready at midnight ; he threw himself down to rest, requesting to be called at the supper hour ; next morning he knew nothing of the fact that he had really been called, and had really had his share of the soup. The two portions of sleep had been welded together in his mind, and he was not conscious of the interval that had separated them. Doctor Abercrombie notices the case of a woman who carried on a somnambulistic conversation in a remarkable way. She would, when asleep, relate events of the preceding day (like the young lady mentioned in a for- mer paragraph), with this peculiarity — that she repeated everj'^- thing which she herself had said, but " regularly left intervals in her discourse corresponding to the periods when the other party was supposed to be speaking ; and she also left intervals between different conversations, shorter in reality, but corre- sponding in relative length to the intervals which liad, in fact, taken place." She repeated in her sleep nearly everything which she had uttered during the day, whether good or bad, but left blank spaces of time for everything that had been said to her by other persons. She was scarcely ever known to re- peat anything that she had read ; the muscular and audible act of speaking was the one thing that reproduced itself in this way. A curious case occurred at Yauxhall, London, in 1843, which is related by a recent authority : * " A servant in a respect- * Binns. SLEEP AND ITS MYSTERIES. 517 able family got up in the middle of the night, cleaned the kit- chen, the knives and forks, and washed the dog. The latter, probably not relishing such copious ablution in the dark, made direct for the chamber of his mistress, awoke her, and, by some sagacious intimations, induced her to search for the servant, whom she forthwith conducted to bed without her being awake," " Well may sleep present us fictions, since our waking moments teem With sucli fanciful convictions as make life itself a dream ! Half our daylight faith's a fable, — sleep disports with phantoms too. Seeming, in their turn, as stable as the world we wake to view ! " Some find their wits much keener while fast asleep than when " wide awake." " Mankind," says a quaint writer, " are so generally indisposed to think, that such drowsy souls really make the world a vast dormitory. The heaven-appointed des- tiny under which they are placed seems to protect them fi-om reflection ; there is an opium sky stretched over all the world which continually rains soporifics." As this is the boasted age of progress, sleepers will probably be aroused by the din of the locomotive, and the world in its dotage at last begin to think. Undue indulgence of sleep may cheat us of much of our brief life ; but the listlessness of an undisciplined mind may accom- plish as great a wrong upon us, and with as wily an artifice. An admonitory paragraph from a recent homilist, and the reader may dream over our dissertation, if found to be suffi- ciently soporific : " The mere lapse of years is not life. To eat, drink, and sleep ; to be exposed to darkness and the light ; to pace around in the mill of habit, and turn the wheel of wealth ; to make reason our book-keeper, and turn thought into an implement of trade — this is not life. In all this but a poor fraction of the unconsciousness of humanity is awakened ; and the sanctities 518 SLEEP AND ITS JIYSTERIES. Still slumber wliicli make it most worth while to be. Knowl- edge, truth, love, beauty, goodness, faith, aloue can give vital- ity to the mechanism of existence ; the laugh of mirth which vibrates through the heart, the tears which freshen the dry wastes within, the music that brings childhood back, the prayer that calls the future near, the doubt which makes us meditate, the death wJiich startles us with mystery, the hardship which forces us to struggle, the anxiety that ends in trust — are the true nourishment that end in being." " Dreams do divide our being;' they become A portion of ourselves, as of our time, And look like heralds of eternity ; They pass like spirits of the past — they speak Like sibyls of the future ; they have power — The tyranny of pleasure, and of pain." ^y A PUFF AT PAKTING. Not unfrequently the after-thought, that suggests the post script, contains the most important item of the whole communi- cation ; however this may prove in the present instance — our pen seems reluctant to resign its office, without a few words supplementary — a brief tete-d-tete with our excellent friends who have shared our literary repast. So, with permission, we will adjourn for a short season to our domestic divan, and regale ourselves with the fragrant aroma of that soothing seda- tive — the weed. Its magic power to cement good friendship and to foster good-feeling is admitted the world over, from the roving red men of the West, to the indolent Turk of the 520 A PUFF AT PARTING. East; it cannot fail, therefore, to secure ours — a consummation devoutly to be wished. A great dignitary of the Church once remarked, that "happi- ness was no laughing matter." We agree with the opinion ; and as friendship and happiness are next of kin, we do not, of course, intend to trifle with so serious a subject. " A companion that feasts the company with wit and mirth, and leaves out tlie sin which is usually mixed with them, is the man," said worth}'^ Izaak Walton / who adds : " And let me tell you, good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue." We thank this genial old gentleman for de- fining our aim and position so well, since it leaves us nothing further to urge in the way of apology ; so now let us talk about the witching weed. Notwithstanding the fulminations of its foes. Tobacco — which may be said to be in almost everybody's mouth — can never fail to be a favorite resource and pastime of mankind. Yet popular as it is at present, the " pipe of peace " has been the occasion of much discord and disputation, in past times. In 1623 the crusade against the weed was headed by the Pope him? elf, who thundered his anathema of excommunication against all smokers ; and in Turkey, even, smoking was a capital crime. In Russia the weed was forbidden to be used under severe penalties ; and in the Canton of Berne its prohibition was even incorporated with the Decalogue ! The " plant divine " has, indeed, passed through scenes of dire persecution, alike from Pagan and Christian powers: yet, notwithstanding all their opposition, although blackened by calumny, the pipes have not yet been put out. " O Plant divine, — potent plant ! Let others for the laurel-garland pant — Content with my rich meed, I'll sit me do\vn, Nor ask for fame, nor heroes' high renown." A PUFF AT PARTING. 321 Tobacco has been styled "the anodyne of povea-ty," while the bowl of the pipe has been characterized as the " bowl that cheers, but not inebriates." A writer in the North British Review^ referring to the beneficial influence of the pipe, re- marks, that " much angry bitter feeling is puffed out and dis- sipated with the fumes of the tobacco. On the whole, there- fore, the pipe is not an offence, but a protection to woman. Among the sunbeams let into the cottage, not the least is the poor man's pipe." The pipe is also one great medium of fra- ternization ; it expands the heart with generous emotions and stimulates the mind to noble and earnest thoughts. The man who smoTies has been said to "think like a sage, and to act like a Samaritan ! " Even among the uncivilized, the Calumet is the accepted symbol of peace and good-will : let not the pipe, then, be blackened with reproach and aspersion. " Since life and the anxieties that share Our hope and trust, are smoke and dust, Give me the smoke and dust that banish care : The rolled leaf bring Which, from its ashes, phoenix-like, can spring — The fragrant leaf, whose magic balm Can, like Nepenthe, aU our sorrows charm." With the clubs of London in olden times, the tobacco-box was the accepted symbol of the brotherhood. "We have a glimpse, presented to us at the head of our chapter, of the jovial scene, in which the long clay pipes figure so conspicu- ously, and send forth such clouds of fragrant incense to genius and good fellowship. The history and mystery of smoking is a tlieme of imperish- able interest ; for although it is environed by a somewhat cloudy atmosphere, it nevertheless is associated with some of the best feelings of our nature, and the best specimens of humanity. " So you see the drift, sir, you take it, — you smoke ?" Fasci- 522 A PUFF AT PARTING. nating, indeed, as are woman's ways and wiles, to lead us poor mortals captive ; the " witching weed " seems to possess quite as potent a charm over us. Bulwer Lytton thus compares these two magnetizing powers : " He who doth not smoke, hath either known no griefs, or ref useth himself the softest consolation next to that which comes from Heaven. ' What softer than woman?' whispers the young reader. Young reader ! woman teazes us, as well as consoles ! Woman makes half the sorrows she boasts the privilege to console. Woman consoles, it is true, while we are young and handsome ; when we are old and ugly, woman snubs and scolds us ! On the whole, then, woman in this scale, and the weed in that, Jupiter hang out thy balance and weigh them both ; and if thou give the preference to woman, all I can say is, the next time Juno ruffles thee, O Jupiter, try the weed ! " To be loyal to the weed, however, does not necessarily in- volve the repudiation of woman ; rather let ns do fitting hom- aare to the claims of both. Sir Walter Raleigh has the credit of having introduced tobacco into England in 1585 ; but some authorities claim the honor for Sir Francis Drake. Jean Nicot, the French ambas- sador at Portugal, sent some specimens of the herb as a present to Catherine de Medici. Its botanical name is derived from this incident ; and its popular name, tobacco, is, according to Humboldt, from the Haytien name for the pipe or instrument the natives used for smoking the herb. Besides the " Counterblast" of King James, there were some hundred other treatises,, and among them one by Sylvestre, in 1641, so quaint that we give the title : " Tobacco battered, and the pipes shattered, about their ears, that idolize so base and barbarous a weed, or at least-wise overlove so loathsome a ranitie," etc. Another authority, Burton^ in his " Anatomic of Melancholic " designates it " The divine, rare, superexcellent A PUFF AT PARTING. 523 tobacco, which goes far beyond all the panaceas, portable gold and philosopher's stone, — a sovereign remedy for all diseases," etc. We owe something, indeed, to those early defenders of the pipe, and the liberty of smoking which they have bequeathed to lis. " Let who -wHl rave, — we smokers know thy worth ; Our classic wits have sung tobacco's praise, And given to many a page of wisdom birth, Beneath thine argent clouds and ruby rays ! Full many a charm, my pipe, I've found in thee, — Thou healing balm, — thou mithridatic weed ! From foul aspersion not to set thee free, — Had been a black ingratitude indeed !" Among the illustrious fraternity of smokers we find a galaxy of great names, such as Sir Isaac Newton, Sir Henry Wotton, Izaak Walton, Napoleon, Johnson, Milton, and hosts of others whose names are on the scroll of fame. Dr. Parr, an octo- genarian, smoked, it is said, sometimes a score of pipes a day ! One day dining at a friend's house, he made signals to his host for a pipe. " I hope you will excuse me," interposed the lady of the house, " but I cannot permit smoking in my drawing-room." " Why not, madam ? " responded the discom- forted doctor; "I have smoked a pipe with my sovereign ! " " Notwithstanding that, sir, I never will allow my rooms to be defiled with the nauseous smell of tobacco," was the rejoinder. " Madam," — " Sir," — " Madam, you are," — quickly echoed through the apartments. " I hope, sir, you will not express any rudeness," said the inexorable lady, when the former, raising his voice to full concert pitch, cried out, " Madam, you are the greatest tohacco-stojypeT in all England ! " Charles Lamb was a confirmed smoker, yet he determined to give it up, and so he wrote his " Farewell to Tobacco." " I have had it in my head," he wrote to Wordsworth, " to write this poem these two years ; 524 A PUFF AT PARTING. but tobacco stood in its own light when it gave me headaches that prevented my singing its praises." Dr. Parr, the twenty- pipes man, once asked Lamb how he acquired so prodigious a smoking power. " I have acquired it," he replied, " by toiling after it, as some men toil after virtue." Farr made the cele- brated Robert Hall a proselyte to the pipe. One day he surprised his friend enveloped with a cloud}'^ atmosphere, and exclaimed, " Ah ! I find you, again, at your old idol." " Yes," said Hall, " hurning it ! " " Than my homely, oblivious pipe, I find no greater solace," wrote a valetudinarian, " during my dark hours of afiiiction ! " What would become of the weary and the heavy-laden, the oppressed with toil — the mariner at sea, or the soldier on the field of conflict — were they denied the solace of the weed ? Prince Frederick William, of Prussia, it is said, founded a kind of College, at Berlin, for smoking and good fellowship. Apart from its positive enjoyment, the pipe or cigar is often an im- portant aid to our social intercourse ; for are there not often inextricable dilemmas and perplexing pauses in conversation which the parenthetical puff relieves ? There are many varieties of the smoking fraternity, some smoke mechanically, and from fixed habit, without much enjoy- ment of the pastime ; while others linger luxuriously over their weed, and surrender themselves to all its intoxicating fascination. These are they who exclaim. Eureka, to a choice Havana, and become oblivious to everything else. Of all classes of smokers the Turks are the most entitled to consideration and gratitude for the refinements they have blended with the use of the weed. The Turk seems most to catch its deep inspiration, as he reclines upon his velvet otto- man, and inhales the fragrant odors of the leaf, through his rose-scented chibook. He looks the very impersonation of luxurious indolence — he is most prodigal of his time in the A PUFF AT PARTING. 525 ndulgence of a pastime which has indeed become a passion — Dut possibly he has nothing else to do. Thus much, then, pertaining to pipes and their patrons : a word or two, now, touching snuff-taking ; which took its rise during the reign of Louis XI Y,, when even ladies attached to the court of that monarch indulged in its use. Imagine the advanced minds of the fair sex — the belles ^' of the period " — snuffing — " up to snuff " ! For the rougher sex it may be all very well, and not to be sneezed at. Many an old-time notability indeed took snuff, and plenty of it Lamb pays tribute thus : ' ' Roses, violets, are but toys For the smaller sort of boys, Or for greener damsels meant ; Snuff, thou'rt the only manly scent ! " In former times the tobacconists of England used to display their wit on their envelopes ; they also used signs on which they attempted the facetious. A tobacconist who lived on Tower hill, named Farr, put the following notice over his shop : ''^The best tobacco by Farr ! " A short time afterward appeared a rival, who opposed him, with ^^ Better tobacco than the best tobacco by Farr ! " Let this suffice, then, touching " That glorious weed. Dear to mankind, whate'er his race, his creed, Condition, color, dweUing, or degree ; From Zembla's snows to parched Arabia's sands. Loved by all lips, and common to all hands ! HaU, sole cosmopohte ! Tobacco, haU ! " Having thus reached the climax of our fragrant and volatile subject — the " plant divine " — that sweet, oblivious antidote to grief and care — we take our leave of it, with the conviction, that bewitching as is its aroma, yet, unlike our Salad, it all ends in smoke ! 526 A PUFF AT PARTING. True, the one is most fascinating to the olfactory nerve, but the other flatters and felicitates the palate. The one is ethe- real and impalpable ; the other substantial, real. The first is undoubtedly vei'j seductive and delicious ; but the latter Tnay stand the test that Homer is said to have claimed for true poetry — that, ten times repeated, it should still please. So, gentle critics, in applyiugthat test, wheresoever generosity may prompt, please to remember, that notes of admiration as well as kindly criticism will be strictly in order. Farewell.