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《THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW》
CONTENTS:
Pre?99liｂ?face
The Authors At of Himself
The Voyage
Roscoe
The Wife
Rip Van Winkle
English Writers on America
Rural Life in 9９ｌｉb?England
The Broke
The Art of Book-making
A Royal Poet
The try Church
The Widow and her Son
A Sunday in London
The Boars Head Tavern
The Mutability of Literature
Rural Funerals
The Inn Kit
The Spectre Bridegroom
Westminster Abbey
Chri?９9ｌｉｂ?stmas
The Stage-Coach
Christmas Eve
Christmas Day
The Christmas Dinner
London Antiques
Little Britain
Statf?9９ｌｉｂ?ord-on-Avon
Traits of Indian Character
Philip of Poka
John Bull
The Pride of the Village
The Angler
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
LEnvoy
PREFACE-1
"I have no wife nor children, good or bad, to provide .for. A mere spectator of other mens f藏书网ortunes and adventures, and how they play their parts; which, methinks, are diversely presented unto me, as from a ore or se."
--BURTON.
PREFACE-2
PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION.
THE following papers, with two exceptions, were written in England, and formed but part of an intended series for which I had made notes and memorandums. Before I could mature a plan, however, circumstances pelled me to send them piecemeal to the Uates, where they were published from time to time in portions or numbers. It was not my iion to publish them in England, being scious that much of their tents could be iing only to Ameri readers, and, in truth, beierred by the severity with which Ameri produs had beeed by the British press.
By the time the tents of the ?rst volume had appeared in this occasional mahey began to ?nd their way across the Atlantid to be ied, with many kind ens, in the London Literary Gazette. It was said, also, that a London bookseller inteo publish them in a collective form. I determiherefore, t them forward myself, that they might at least have the be of my superintendend revision. I accly took the printed numbers which I had received from the Uates, to Mr. John Murray, the emi publisher, from whom I had already received friendly attentions, ahem with him for examination, inf him that should he be ined t them before the public, I had materials enough on hand for a sed volume. Several days having elapsed without any unication from Mr. Murray, I addressed a o him, in which I strued his sileo a tacit reje of my work, and begged that the numbers I had left with him might be returo me. The following was his reply:
MY DEAR SIR: I e you to believe that I feel truly obliged by your kind iions towards me, and that I eain the most unfeigned respect for your most tasteful talents. My house is pletely ?lled with workpeople at this time, and I have only an of?ce to transact business in; aerday I was wholly occupied, or I should have done myself the pleasure of seeing you.
If it would not suit me to engage in the publication of your present work, it is only because I do not see that scope iure of it which would enable me to make those satisfactory ats between us, without which I really feel no satisfa in engaging--but I will do all I to promote their circulation, and shall be most ready to attend to any future plan of yours.
With much regard, I remain, dear sir,
Your faithful servant,
JOHN MURRAY.
This was disheartening, and might have deterred me from any further prosecution of the matter, had the question of republication i Britaied entirely with me; but I apprehehe appearance of a spurious edition. I now thought of Mr. Archibald stable as publisher, havireated by him with much hospitality during a visit to Edinburgh; but ?rst I determio submit my work to Sir-Walter (then Mr.) Scott, being enced to do so by the cordial reception I had experienced from him at Abbotsford a fereviously, and by the favorable opinion he had expressed to others of my earlier writings. I accly sent him the printed numbers of the Sketch-Book in a parcel by coach, and at the same time wrote to him, hinting that since I had had the pleasure of partaking of his hospitality, a reverse had taken pla my affairs which made the successful exercise of my pen all-important to me; I begged him, therefore, to look over the literary articles I had forwarded to him, and, if he thought they would bear European republication, to ascertaiher Mr. stable would be ined to be the publisher.
The parcel taining my work went by coach to Scotts address in Edinburgh; the letter went by mail to his residen the try. By the very ?rst post I received a reply, before he had seen my work.
"I was down at Kelso," said he, "when your letter reached Abbotsford. I am now on my way to town, and will verse with stable, and do all in my power to forward your views--I assure you nothing will give me more pleasure."
The hint, however, about a reverse of fortune had struck the quick apprehension of Scott, and, with that practical and ef?t good-will which beloo his nature, he had already devised a way of aiding me. A weekly periodical, he went on to inform me, was about to be set up in Edinburgh, supported by the most respectable talents, and amply furnished with all the necessary information. The appoi of the editor, for which ample funds were provided, would be ?ve hundred pounds sterling a year, with the reasonable prospect of further advahis situation, being apparently at his disposal, he frankly offered to me. The work, however, he intimated, was to have somewhat of a political bearing, and he expressed an apprehension that the to was desired to adopt might not suit me. "Yet I risk the question," added he, "because I know no man so well quali?ed for this important task, and perhaps because it will necessarily bring you to Edinburgh. If my proposal does not suit, you need only keep the matter secret and there is no harm done. `And for my love I pray y me not. If on the trary you think it could be made to suit you, let me know as soon as possible, addressing Castle Street, Edinburgh."
In a postscript, written from Edinburgh, he adds, "I am just e here, and have glanced over the Sketch-Book. It is positively beautiful, and increases my desire to crimp you, if it be possible. Some dif?culties there always are in managing such a matter, especially at the outset; but we will obviate them as much as we possibly ."
The following is from an imperfect draught of my reply, whiderwent some modi?cations in the copy sent:
"I ot express how much I am grati?ed by your letter. I had begun to feel as if I had taken an unwarrantable liberty; but, somehow or other, there is a genial sunshine about you that warms every creeping thing into heart and ?dence. Your literary proposal both surprises and ?atters me, as it evinces a much higher opinion of my talents than I have myself."
PREFACE-3
I the on to explain that I found myself peculiarly un?tted for the situation offered to me, not merely by my political opinions, but by the very stitution and habits of my mind. "My whole course of life," I observed, "has been desultory, and I am un?tted for any periodically recurring task, or any stipulated labor of body or mind. I have no and of my talents, such as they are, and have to watch the varyings of my mind as I would those of a weathercock. Practid training may bring me more into rule; but at present I am as useless fular service as one of my own try Indians or a Don Cossack.
"I must, therefore, keep oy much as I have begun; writing when I , not when I would. I shall occasionally shift my residend write whatever is suggested by objects before me, or whatever rises in my imagination; and hope to write better and more copiously by and by.
I am playing the egotist, but I know er way of answering your proposal than by showing what a very good-for-nothing kind of being I am. Should Mr. stable feel ined to make a bargain for the wares I have on hand, he will ence me to further enterprise; and it will be something like trading with a gypsy for the fruits of his prowlings, who may at oime have nothing but a wooden bowl to offer, and at aime a silver tankard."
In reply, Scott expressed regret, but not surprise, at my deing what might have proved a troublesome duty. He then recurred to the inal subject of our correspondence; entered into a detail of the various terms upon which arras were made between authors and booksellers, that I might take my choice; expressing the most encing ?dence of the success of my work, and of previous works which I had produced in America. "I did no more," added he, "thahe trenches with stable; but I am sure if you will take the trouble to write to him, you will ?nd him disposed to treat your overtures with every degree of attention. Or, if you think it of sequen the ?rst place to see me, I shall be in London in the course of a month, and whatever my experience and is most heartily at your and. But I add little to what I have said above, except my ear reendation to stable to enter into the iation."*
* I ot avoid subjoining in a note a succeeding paragraph of Scotts letter, which, though it does not relate to the main subject of our correspondence, was too characteristiark>.be emitted. Some time previously I had sent Miss Sophia Scott small duodeeri editions of her fathers poems published in Edinburgh in quarto volumes; showing the "nigromancy" of the Ameri press, by which a quart of wine is jured into a pint bottle. Scott observes: "In my hurry, I have not thanked you in Sophias name for the kind attention which furnished her with the Ameri volumes. I am not quite sure I add my own, since you have made her acquainted with much more of papas folly than she would ever otherwise have learned; for I had taken special care they should never see any of those things during their earlier years. I think I have told you that Walter is sweeping the ?rmament with a feather like a maypole and iing the pavement with a sword like a scythe--in other words, he has bee a whiskered hussar ih Dragoons."
Before the receipt of this most obligier, however, I had determio look to no leading bookseller for a launch, but to throw my work before the public at my own risk, a sink or swim acc to its merits. I wrote to that effect to Scott, and soon received a reply:
"I observe with pleasure that yoing to e forth in Britain. It is certainly not the very best way to publish on ones own apt; for the booksellers set their face against the circulation of such works as do not pay an amazing toll to themselves. But they have lost the art of altogether damming up the road in such cases betweehor and the public, which they were once able to do as effectually as Diabolus in John Bunyans Ho>９９lｉｂ?ly War closed up the windows of my Lord Uandings mansion. I am sure of ohing, that you have only to be known to the British public to be admired by them, and I would not say so unless I really was of that opinion.
"If you ever see a witty but rather local publication called Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, you will ?nd some notice of your works in the last he author is a friend of mio whom I have introduced you in your literary capacity. His name is Lockhart, a young man of very siderable talent, and who will sooimately ected with my family. My faithful friend Knickerbocker is to be examined and illustrated. stable was extremely willing to enter into sideration of a treaty for your works, but I foresee will be still more so when
Your name is up, and may go
From Toledo to Madrid.
------And that will soohe case. I trust to be in London about the middle of the month, and promise myself great pleasure in once again shaking you by the hand."
The ?rst volume of the Sketch-Book ut to press in London, as I had resolved, at my own risk, by a bookseller unknown to fame, and without any o>f the usual arts by which a work is trumpeted into notice. Still some attention had been called to it by the extracts which had previously appeared ierary Gazette, and by the kind word spoken by the editor of that periodical, and it was getting into fair circulation, when my worthy bookseller failed before the ?rst month was over, and the sale was interrupted.
At this juncture Scott arrived in London. I called to him for help, as I was stig in the mire, and, more propitious than Hercules, he put his own shoulder to the wheel. Through his favorable representations, Murray was quickly io uake the future publication of the work which he had previously deed. A further edition of the ?rst volume was struck off and the sed volume ut to press, and from that time Murray became my publisher, dug himself in all his dealings with that fair, open, and liberal spirit which had obtained for him the well-merited appellation of the Prince of Booksellers.
Thus, uhe kind and cordial auspices of Sir Walter Scott, I began my literary career in Europe; and I feel that I am but discharging, in a tri?ing degree, my debt of gratitude to the memory of that goldeed man in aowledging my obligations to him. But who of his literary poraries ever applied to him for aid or sel that did not experiehe most prompt, generous, and effectual assistance?
W. I.
SUNNYSIDE, 1848.
THE AUTHORS ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF
I am of this mind with Homer, that as the shat crept out of her shel was tursoones into a toad I and thereby>９９lｉb. was forced to make a stoole to sit on; so the traveller that stragleth from his owne try is in a short time transformed into so monstrous a shape, that he is faio alter his mansion with his manners, and to live where he , not where he would.--LYLYS EUPHUES.
I was always fond of visiting new ses, and strange characters and manners. Even when a mere child I began my travels, and made many tours of discovery intn parts and unknions of my native city, to the frequent alarm of my parents, and the emolument of the town crier. As I grew into boyhood, I extehe range of my observations. My holiday afternoons were spent in rambles about the surrounding try. I made myself familiar with all its places famous in history or fable. I knew every spot where a murder or robbery had been itted, host seen. I visited the neighb villages, and added greatly to my stock of knowledge, by noting their habits and s, and versing with their sages and great men. I even journeyed one long summers day to the summit of the most distant hill, whence I stretched my eye over many a mile of terra inita, and was astoo ?nd how vast a globe I inhabited.
This rambling propensity strengthened with my years. Books of voyages and travels became my passion, and in dev their tents, I ed the regular exercises of the school. How wistfully would I wander about the pier-heads in ?her, and watch the parting ships, bound to distant climes; with what longing eyes would I gaze after their lessening sails, and waft myself in imagination to the ends of the earth!
Further reading and thinking, though they brought this vague ination into more reasonable bounds, only served to make it more decided. I visited various parts of my own try; and had I been merely a lover of ?ne sery, I should have felt little desire to seek elsewhere its grati?cation, for on no try had the charms of nature been more prodigally lavished. Her mighty lakes, her os of liquid silver; her mountains, with their bright aerial tints; her valleys, teeming with wild fertility; her tremendous cataracts, thundering i..n their solitudes; her boundless plains, waving with spontaneous verdure; her broad, deep rivers, rolling in solemn sileo the o; her trackless forests, where vegetation puts forth all its magni?ce; her skies, kindling with the magic of summer clouds and glorious sunshine;--no, never need an Ameri ok beyond his own try for the sublime aiful of natural sery.
But Europe held forth all the charms of storied and poetical association. There were to be seen the masterpieces of art, the re?s of highly cultivated society, the quaint peculiarities of a and local y native try was full of youthful promise; Europe was ri the accumulated treasures of age. Her very ruins told the history of the times gone by, and every mouldering stone was a icle. I loo wander over the ses of renowned achievement--to tread, as it were, in the footsteps of antiquity--to loiter about the ruined castle--to meditate on the falling tower--to escape, in short, from the onplace realities of the present, and lose myself among the shado>藏书网wy grandeurs of the past.
I had, besides all this, an ear desire to see the great men of the earth. We have, it is true, reat men in Ameriot a city but has an ample share of them. I have mingled among them in my time, and been almost withered by the shade into which they cast me; for there is nothing so baleful to a small man as the shade of a great one, particularly the great man of a city. But I was anxious to see the great men of Europe; for I had read in the works of various philosophers, that all animals degeed in America, and man among the number. A great man of Europe, thought I, must therefore be as superior to a great man of America, as a peak of the Alps to a highland of the Hudson; and in this idea I was ed by the parative importand swelling magnitude of many English travellers among us, who, I was assured, were very little people in their own try. I will visit this land of wonders, thought I, ahe gigantic race from which I am degeed.
It has beeher my good or evil lot to have my roving passion grati?ed. I have wahrough different tries and witnessed many of the shifting ses of life. I ot say that I have studied them with the eye of a philosopher, but rather with the sauntering gaze with which humble lovers of the picturesque stroll from the window of one print-shop to another; caught sometimes by the deliions of beauty, sometimes by the distortions of caricature, and sometimes by the loveliness of landscape. As it is the fashion for modern tourists to travel pencil? in hand, and bring home their portfolios ?lled with sketches, I am disposed to get up a few for the eai of my friends. When, however, I look over the hints and memorandums I have taken down for the purpose, my heart almost fails me, at ?nding how my idle humor has led me astray from the great object studied by every regular traveller who would make a book. I fear I shall give equal disappoi with an unlucky landscape-painter, who had travelled on the ti, but following the bent of his vagrant ination, had sketched in nooks, and ers, and by-places. His sketch-book was accly crowded with cottages, and landscapes, and obscure ruins; but he had ed to paint St. Peters, or the Coliseum, the cascade of Terni, or the bay of Naples, and had not a single glacier or volo in his whole colle.
THE VOYAGE.
Ships, ships, I will descrie youAmidst the main,I will e and try you,What you are proteg,And projeg,Whats your end and aim.One goes abroad for merdise and trading,Aays to keep his try from invading,A third is ing home with rid wealthy lading.Hallo! my fancie, whither wilt thou go? OLD POEM.
To an Ameri visiting Europe, the long voyage he has to make is an excellent preparative. The temporary absence of worldly ses and employments produces a state of mind peculiarly ?tted to receive new and vivid impressions. The vast space of waters that separate the hemispheres is like a blank page iehere is no gradual transition by which, as in Europe, the features and population of one try blend almost imperceptibly with those of another. From the moment you lose sight of the land you have left, all is vacy, until you step on the opposite shore, and are lau oo the bustle and ies of another world.
In travelling by land there is a tinuity of se, and a ected succession of persons and is, that carry oory of life, and lessen the effect of absend separation.
We drag, it is true, "a lengthening " at each remove of our pilgrimage; but the is unbroken; we trace it back link by link; and we feel that the last still grapples us to home. But a wide sea voyage severs us at o makes us scious of being cast loose from the secure anche of settled life, a adrift upon a doubtful world. It interposes a gulf, not merely imaginary, but real, between us and our homes--a gulf, subjepest, and fear, and uainty, rendering distance palpable, aurn precarious.
Such, at least, was the case with myself. As I saw the last blue lines of my native land fade away like a cloud in the horizon, it seemed as if I had closed one volume of the world and its s, and had time for meditation, before I opened another.
That land, too, now vanishing from my view, which tained all most dear to me in life; what vicissitudes might occur in it--what ges might take pla me, before I should visit it again! Who tell, whes forth to wander, whither he may be driven by the uain currents of existence; or when he may return; or whether it may be ever his lot to revisit the ses of his childhood?
I said, that at sea all is vacy; I should correct the impression. To one given to day-dreaming, and fond of losing himself in reveries, a sea voyage is full of subjects for meditation; but then they are the wonders of the deep and of the air, and rather tend to abstract the mind from worldly themes. I delighted to loll over the quarter-railing or climb to the main-top, of a calm day, and muse for hours together oranquil bosom of a summers sea; to gaze upon the piles of golden clouds just peering above the horizon, fancy them some fairy realms, and people them with a creation of my own; --to watch the gently undulating billows rolling their silver volumes, as if to die away on those happy shores.
There was a delicious sensation of mingled security and awe with which I looked down, from my giddy height, on the monsters of the deep at their uncouth gambols: shoals of porpoises tumbling about the bow of the ship; the grampus, slowly heaving his huge form above the surface; or the ravenous shark, darting, like a spectre, through the blue waters. My imagination would jure up all that I had heard or read of the watery world beh me; of the ?nny herds that roam its fathomless valleys; of the shapeless mohat lurk among the very foundations of the earth; and of those wild phantasms that swell the tales of ?shermen and sailors.
Sometimes a distant sail, gliding along the edge of the o, would be aheme of idle speculation. How iing this fragment of a world, hastening to rejoin the great mass of existence! What a glorious mo of human iion; which has in a mariumphed over wind and wave; has brought the ends of the world into union; has established an interge of blessings, p into the sterile regions of the north all the luxuries of the south; has diffused the light of knowledge, and the charities of cultivated life; and has thus bound together those scattered portions of the human race, between whiature seemed to have thrown an insurmountable barrier.
We one day descried some shapeless object drifting at a distance.
At sea, every thing that breaks the monotony of the surrounding exparacts attention. It proved to be the mast of a ship that must have been pletely wrecked; for there were the remains of handkerchiefs, by whie of the crew had faste>藏书网hemselves to this spar, to prevent their being washed off by the waves. There was no trace by which the name of the ship could be ascertaihe wreck had evidently drifted about for many months; clusters of shell-?sh had fastened about it, and long sea-weeds ?au its sides. But where, thought I, is the crew? Their struggle has long beehey have gone down amidst the roar of the tempest--their bones lie whitening among the caverns of the deep. Silence, oblivion, like the waves, have closed over them, and no one tell the story of their end.
What sighs have been wafted after that ship! rayers offered up at the deserted ?reside of home! How often has the mistress, the wife, the mother, pored over the daily news, to cate casual intelligence of this rover of the deep! How has expectation darkened into ay--ay into dread--and dread into despair! Alas! not oo may ever return for love to cherish. All that may ever be known, is that she sailed from her port, "and was never heard of more!"
The sight of this wreck, as usual, gave rise to many dismal aes. This articularly the case in the evening, when the weather, which had hitherto been fair, began to look wild and threatening, and gave indications of one of those sudden storms that will sometimes break in upon the serenity of a summer voyage. As we sat round the dull light of a lamp, in the , that made the gloom mhastly, everyone had his tale of shipwred disaster. I articularly struck with a short oed by the captain:
"As I was once sailing," said he, "in a ?out ship, across the banks of Newfoundland, one of those heavy fogs that prevail in those parts re impossible for us to see far ahead, even in the daytime; but at night the weather was so thick that we could not distinguish any object at twice the length of the ship. I kept lights at the mast-head, and a stant watch forward to look out for ?shing smacks, which are aced to anchor of the banks. The wind was blowing a smag breeze, and we were going at a great rate through the water. Suddenly the watch gave the alarm of `a sail ahead!--it was scarcely uttered before we were upon her. She was a small ser, at anchor, with her broadside toward us. The crew were all asleep, and had ed to hoist a light. We struck her just amidships. The force, the size, a of our vessel, bore her down below the waves; we passed over her and were hurried on our course. As the crashing wreck was sinkih us, I had a glimpse of two or three half-naked wretches, rushing from her ; they just started from their beds to be swallowed shrieking by the waves. I heard their drowning cry mingling with the wind. The blast that bore it to our ears, swept us out of all further hearing. I shall never fet that cry! It was some time before we could put the ship about, she was under such headway. We returned, as nearly as we could guess, to the place where the smack had anchored. We cruised about for several hours in the dense fog. We ?red signal-guns, and listened if we might hear the halloo of any survivors: but all was silent--we never saw or heard any thing of them more."
I fess these stories, for a time, put ao all my ?ne fahe storm increased with the night. The sea was lashed into tremendous fusion. There was a fearful, sullen sound of rushing waves and broken surges. Deep called unto deep. At times the blae of clouds overhead seemed rent asunder by ?ashes of lightning which quivered along the foaming billows, and made the succeeding darkness doubly terrible. The thunders bellowed over the wild waste of waters, and were echoed and prolonged by the mountain waves. As I saw the ship staggering and plunging among these r caverns, it seemed miraculous that she regained her balance, or preserved her buoyancy. Her yards would dip into the water; her bow was almost buried beh the waves. Sometimes an impending surge appeared ready to overwhelm her, and nothing but a dexterous movement of the helm preserved her from the shock.
When I retired to my , the awful se still followed me.
The whistling of the wind through the rigging sounded like funereal wailings. The creaking of the masts; the straining and groaning of bulkheads, as the ship labored in the weltering sea, were frightful. As I heard the waves rushing along the side of the ship, and r in my very ear, it seemed as if Death were raging around this ?oating prison, seeking for his prey: the mere starting of a nail, the yawning of a seam, might give him entrance.
A ?ne day, however, with a tranquil sea and fav breeze, soon put all these dismal re?es to ?ight. It is impossible to resist the gladdening in?uence of ?her and fair wind at sea. When the ship is decked out in all her vas, every sail swelled, and careering gayly over the curling waves, how lofty, how gallant, she appears--how she seems to lord it over the deep!
I might ?ll a volume with the reveries of a sea voyage; for with me it is almost a tinual reverie--but it is time to get to shore.
It was a ?ne sunny m whehrilling cry of "land!" was given from the mast-head. those who have experie form an idea of the delicious throng of sensations which rush into an Ameris bosom, when he ?rst es in sight of Europe.
There is a volume of associations with the very is the land of promise, teeming with everything of which his childhood has heard, or on which his studious years have pondered.
From that time, until the moment of arrival, it was all feverish excitement. The ships of war, that prowled like guardian giants along the coast; the headlands of Ireland, stretg out into the el; the Welsh mountains t into the clouds;--all were objects of inteerest. As we sailed up the Mersey, I reoitred the shores with a telescope. My eye dwelt with delight o cottages, with their trim shrubberies and green grass-plots. I saw the mouldering ruin of an abbey overrun with ivy, and the taper spire of a village church rising from the brow of a neighb hill;--all were characteristic of England.
The tide and wind were so favorable, that the ship was eo e at oo her pier. It was thronged with people; some idle lookers-on; others, eager expets of friends or relations. I could distinguish the mert to whom the ship was signed. I knew him by his calculating brow aless air. His hands were thrust into his pockets; he was whistling thoughtfully, and walking to and fro, a small space having been accorded him by the crowd, in defereo his temporary importahere were repeated cheerings and salutations interged between the shore and the ship, as friends happenize each other. I particularly noticed one young woman of humble dress, but iing demeanor. She was leaning forward from among the crowd; her eye hurried over the ship as it he shore, to cate wished-for tenance. She seemed disappointed and sad; when I heard a faint voice call her name.--It was from a poor sailor who had been ill all the voyage, and had excited the sympathy of every one on board. When the weather was ?ne, his messmates had spread a mattress for him on de the shade, but of late his illness had so increased that he had taken to his hammock, and only breathed a wish that he might see his wife before he died. He had been helped on deck as we came up the river, and was now leaning against the shrouds, with a tenance so wasted, so pale, so ghastly, that it was no wonder even the eye of affe did nnize him. But at the sound of his voice, her eye darted on his features: it read, at once, a whole volume of sorrow; she clasped her hands, uttered a faint shriek, and stoing them in silent agony.
All now was hurry and bustle. The meetings of acquaintahe greetings of friends--the sultations of men of business. I alone was solitary and idle. I had no friend to meet, no cheering to receive. I stepped upon the land of my forefathers--but felt that I was a stranger in the land.
ROSCOE.
----In the serviankind to beA guardian god below; still to employThe minds brave ardor in heroic aims,Such as may raise us oer the grovelling herd,
And make us shine for ever--that is life.THOMSON.
ONE of the ?rst places to which a stranger is taken in Liverpool is the Athenaeum. It is established on a liberal and judicious plan; it tains a good library, and spacious reading-room, and is the great literary resort of the place. Go there at what hour you may, you are sure to ?nd it ?lled with grave-looking personages, deeply absorbed iudy of neers.
As I was once visiting this haunt of the learned, my attention was attracted to a person just entering the room. He was advanced in life, tall, and of a form that might once have been anding, but it was a little bowed by time--perhaps by care.
He had a noble Roman style of tenance; a a head that would have pleased a painter; and though some slight furrows on his brow showed that wasting thought had been busy there, yet his eye beamed with the ?re of a poetic soul. There was something in his whole appearahat indicated a being of a different order from the bustling race round him.
I inquired his name, and was informed that it was ROSCOE. I drew back with a９9ｌiｂ?n involuntary feeling of veion.
This, then, was an author of celebrity; this was one of those men whose voices have gone forth to the ends of the earth; with whose minds I have uned even in the solitudes of America.
Aced, as we are in our try, to know European writers only by their works, we ot ceive of them, as of other men, engrossed by trivial or sordid pursuits, and jostling with the crowd of inds in the dusty paths of life. They pass before our imaginations like superior beings, radiant with the emanations of their genius, and surrounded by a halo of literary glory.
To ?nd, therefore, the elegant historian of the Medici mingling among the busy sons of traf?c, at ?rst shocked my poetical ideas; but it is from the very circumstances and situation in which he has been placed, that Mr. Roscoe derives his highest claims to admiration. It is iing to notice how some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage, and w their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles. Nature seems to delight in disappointing the assiduities of art, with which it would rear legitimate dulo maturity; and to glory in the vigor and luxuriance of her ce produs. She scatters the seeds of genius to the winds, and though some may perish among the stony places of the world, and so?99lｉb?me be choked, by the thorns and brambles of early adversity, yet others will now and then strike root even in the clefts of the rock, struggle bravely up into sunshine, and spread over their sterile birthplace all the beauties of vegetation.
Such has been the case with Mr. Roscoe. Born in a place apparently ungenial to the growth of literary talent--in the very market-place of trade; without fortune, family es, or patronage; self-prompted, self-sustained, and almost self-taught, he has quered every obstacle, achieved his way to eminence, and, having bee one of the ors of the nation, has turhe whole force of his talents and in?ueo advand embellish his native town.
Indeed, it is this last trait in his character which has given him the greatest i in my eyes, and induced me particularly to point him out to my trymen. Emi as are his literary merits, he is but one among the many distinguished authors of this intellectual nation. They, however, in general, live but for their own fame, or their own pleasures. Their private history presents no lesson to the world, or, perhaps, a humiliating one of human frailty or insistency. At best, they are proo steal away from the bustle and onplace of busy existeo indulge in the sel?shness of lettered eas; and to revel in ses of mental, but exclusive enjoyment.
Mr. Roscoe, on the trary, has claimed none of the accorded privileges of talent. He has shut himself up in no garden of thought, nor elysium of fancy; but has gone forth into the highways and thhfares of life, he has planted bowers by the wayside, for the refreshment of the pilgrim and the sojourner, and has opened pure fountains, where the lab man may turn aside from the dust a of the day, and drink of the living streams of knowledge. There is a "daily beauty in his life," on which mankind may meditate, and grow better. It exhibits no lofty and almost useless, because inimitable, example of excellence; but presents a picture of active, yet simple and imitable virtues, which are within every mans reach, but which, unfortunately, are not exercised by many, or this world would be a paradise.
But his private life is peculiarly worthy the attention of the citizens of our young and busy try, where literature and the elegant arts must grow up side by side with the coarser plants of daily y; and must depend for their culture, not on the exclusive devotion of time ah; nor the quiing rays of titled patronage; but on hours and seasons snatched from the purest of worldly is, by intelligent and public-spirited individuals.
He has shown how much may be done for a pla hours of leisure by one master-spirit, and how pletely it give its own impress to surrounding objects. Like his own Lorenzo de Medici, on whom he seems to have ?xed his eye, as on a pure model of antiquity, he has interwoven the history of his life with the history of his native town, and has made the foundations of his fame the mos of his virtues. Wherever you go, in Liverpool, you perceive traces of his footsteps in all that is elegant and liberal. He found the tide of wealth ?owing merely in the els of traf?c; he has diverted from it invigorating rills to refresh the garden of literature. By his own example and staions, he has effected that union of erd the intellectual pursuits, so eloquently reended in one of his latest writings;* and has practically proved how beautifully they may be brought to harmonize, and to be each other. The noble institutions for literary and sti?c purposes, which re?ect such credit on Liverpool, and are giving su impulse to the publid, have mostly been inated, and have all been effectively promoted, by Mr. Roscoe; and when we sider the rapidly increasing opulend magnitude of that town, which promises to vie in ercial importah the metropolis, it will be perceived that in awakening an ambition of mental improvement among its inhabitants, he has effected a great beo the cause of British literature.
* Address on the opening of the Liverpool Institution.
In America, we know Mr. Roscoe only as the author; in Liverpool he is spoken of as the banker; and I was told of his having been unfortunate in business. I could not pity him, as I heard some rich men do. I sidered him far above the reach of pity. Those who live only for the world, and in the world, may be cast down by the frowns of adversity; but a man like Roscoe is not to be overe by the reverses of fortuhey do but drive him in upon the resources of his own mind, to the superior society of his own thoughts; which the best of me sometimes to , and to roam abroad in search of less worthy associates.
He is indepe of the world around him. He lives with antiquity, and with posterity: with antiquity, in the sweet union of studious retirement; and with posterity, in the generous aspirings after future renown. The solitude of such a mind is its state of highest enjoyment. It is then visited by those elevated meditations which are the proper aliment of noble souls, and are, like manna, sent from heaven, in the wilderness of this world.
While my feelings were yet alive on the subject, it was my fortuo light on further trar. Roscoe. I was riding out with a gentleman, to view the environs of Liverpool, wheurned off, through a gate, into some ored grounds. After riding a short distance, we came to a spaansion of freestone, built in the Gre style. It was not in the purest style, yet it had an air of elegance, and the situation was delightful. A ?ne lawn sloped away from it, studded with clumps of trees, so disposed as to break a soft fertile try into a variety of landscapes. The Mersey was seen winding a broad quiet sheet of water through an expanse of green meadow land, while the Welsh mountains, blended with clouds, aing into distance, bordered the horizon.
This was Roscoes favorite residence during the days of his prosperity. It had been the seat of elegant hospitality and literary retirement. The house was now silent aed. I saw the windows of the study, which looked out upon the soft sery I have mentiohe windows were closed--the library was gone.
Two or three ill-favored beings were l about the place, whom my fancy pictured into retainers of the law. It was like visiting some classic fountain, that had once welled its pure waters in a sacred shade, but ?nding it dry and dusty, with the lizard and the toad brooding over the shattered marbles.
I inquired after the fate of Mr. Roscoes library, which had sisted of scard fn books, from many of which he had drawerials for his Ita>lian histories. It had passed uhe hammer of the aueer, and was dispersed about the try. The good people of the viity thronged liked wreckers to get some part of the noble vessel that had been driven on shore. Did such a se admit of ludicrous associations, we might imagine something whimsical in this strange irruption in the regions of learning. Pigmies rummaging the armory of a giant, and tending for the possession of ons which they could not wield. We might picture to ourselves some knot of speculators, debating with calculating brow over the quaint binding and illuminated margin of an obsolete author; of the air of intense, but baf?ed sagacity, with whie successful purchaser attempted to dive into the black-letter bargain he had secured.
It is a beautiful i iory of Mr. Rosisfortunes, and one which ot fail to ihe studious mind, that the parting with his books seems to have touched upon his te feelings, and to have been the only circumstahat could provoke the notice of his muse. The scholar only knows how dear these silent, yet eloquent, panions of pure thoughts and i hours bee in the season of adversity. When all that is worldly turns to dross around us, these only retain their steady value. When friends grow cold, and the verse of intimates languishes into vapid civility and onplace, these only tihe unaltered tenance of happier days, and cheer us with that true friendship whiever deceived hope, nor deserted sorrow.
I do not wish to sure; but, surely, if the people of Liverpool had been properly sensible of what was due to Mr. Roscoe and themselves, his library would never have been sold. Good worldly reasons may, doubtless, be given for the circumstance, which it would be dif?cult to bat with others that might seem merely fanciful; but it certainly appears to me su opportunity as seldom occurs, of cheering a noble mind struggling under misfortunes by one of the most delicate, but most expressive tokens of public sympathy. It is dif?cult, however, to estimate a man of genius properly who is daily before our eyes. He bees mingled and founded with other men. His great qualities lose their y; we bee too familiar with the aterials whi the babbr>sis even of the loftiest character. Some of Mr.
Roscoes townsmen may regard him merely as a man of business; others, as a politi; all ?nd him engaged like themselves in ordinary occupations, and surpassed, perhaps, by themselves on some points of worldly wisdom. Even that amiable and uious simplicity of character, which gives the nameless grace to real excellence, may cause him to be undervalued by some coarse minds, who do not know that true worth is always void of glare and pretension. But the man of letters, who speaks of Liverpool, speaks of it as the residence of Roscoe.--The intelligent traveller who visits it inquires where Roscoe is to be seen. He is the literary landmark of the place, indig its existeo the distant scholar.--He is like Pompeys n at Alexandria, t alone in classic dignity.
The following so, addressed by Mr. Roscoe to his books, on parting with them, has already been alluded to. If anything add effect to the pure feeling and elevated thought here displayed, it is the vi, that the who leis no effusion of fancy, but a faithful transcript from the writers heart.
TO MY BOOKS.As one who, destined from his friends to part,Regrets his loss, but hopes again erewhileTo share their verse and enjoy their smile,And tempers as he may af?is dart;Thus, loved associates, chiefs of elder art,Teachers of wisdom, who could once beguileMy tedious hours, and lighteoil, I nn you; nor with fainti;For pass a few short years, or days, or hours,And happier seasons may their dawn unfold,And all your sacred fellowship restore:When, freed from earth, unlimited its powers.Mind shall with mind direunion hold,And kindred spirits meet to part no more.
THE WIFE.
The treasures of the deep are not so preciousAs are the cealed forts of a manLockd up in womans love. I st the airOf blessings, when I came but he house,What a delicious breath marriage sends forth--The violet beds no sweeter! MIDDLETON.
I HAVE often had occasion to remark the fortitude with whien sustain the most overwhelming reverses of fortuhose disasters which break down the spirit of a man, and prostrate him in the dust, seem to call forth all the energies of the softer sex, and give sutrepidity and elevation to their character, that at times it approaches to sublimity. Nothing be more toug, than to behold a soft and tender female, who had been all weakness and dependence, and alive to every trivial roughness, while threading the prosperous paths of life, suddenly rising ial force to be the forter and support of her husband under misfortune, and abiding with unshrinking ?rmhe bitterest blasts of adversity.
As the vine, which has long twis graceful foliage about the oak, and been and been lifted by it into sunshine, will, when the hardy plant is rifted by the thunderbolt, g round it with its caressing tendrils, and bind up its shattered boughs, so is it beautifully ordered by Providehat woman, who is the mere depe and or of man in his happier hours, should be his stay and solace when smitten with sudden calamity; winding herself into the rugged recesses of his nature, tenderly supp the drooping head, and binding up the broke.
I was once gratulating a friend, who had around him a blooming family, knit together iro affe. "I wish you er lot," said he, with enthusiasm, "than to have a wife and children. If you are prosperous, there they are to share your prosperity; if otherwise, there they are to fort you." And, indeed, I have observed that a married man falling into misfortune, is more apt to retrieve his situation in the world than a single one; partly, because he is more stimulated to exertion by the ies of the helpless and beloved beings who depend upon him for subsistence, but chie?y because his spirits are soothed and relieved by domestidearments, and his self-respect kept alive by ?nding, that, though all abroad is darkness and humiliatiohere is still a little world of love at home, of which he is the monarch. Whereas, a single man is apt to run to waste and self-; to fancy himself lonely and abandoned, and his heart to fall to ruin, like some deserted mansion, for want of an inhabitant.
These observations call to mind a little domestic story, of which I was once a witness. My intimate friend, Leslie, had married a beautiful and aplished girl, who had been brought up in the midst of fashionable life. She had, it is true, no fortune, but that of my friend le; and he delighted iicipation of indulging her in every elegant pursuit, and administering to those delicate tastes and fahat spread a kind of witchery about the sex.--"Her life," said he, "shall be like a fairy tale."
The very differen their characters produced a harmonious bination; he was of a romantid somewhat serious cast; she was all life and gladn.９9ｌｉｂ.ess. I have often noticed the mute rapture with which he would gaze upon her in pany, of which her sprightly powers made her the delight: and how, in the midst of applause, her eye would still turn to him, as if there alone she sought favor and acceptance. When leaning on his arm, her slender form trasted ?nely with his tall, manly person. The fond, ?ding air with which she looked up to him seemed to call forth a ?ush of triumphant pride and cherishing tenderness, as if he doated on his lovely burden from its very helplessness.
Never did a couple set forward on the ?owery path of early and well-suited marriage with a fairer prospect of felicity.
It was the misfortune of my friend, however, to have embarked his property in large speculations; and he had not been married many months, when, by a succession of sudden disasters, it was swept from him, and he found himself reduced to almost penury. For a time he kept his situation to himself, a about with a haggard tenance, and a breaki. His life was but a protracted agony; and what re more insupportable was the y of keeping up a smile in the presence of his wife; for he could n himself to overwhelm her with the news. She saw, however, with the quick eyes of affe, that all was not well with him. She marked his altered looks and sti?ed sighs, and was not to be deceived by his sickly and vapid attempts at cheerfulness. She tasked all her sprightly powers and tender blandishments to win him back to happiness; but she only drove the arrow deeper into his soul. The more he saw cause to love her, the more t was the thought that he was soon to make her wretched. A little while, thought he, and the smile will vanish from that cheek--the song will die away from those lips--the lustre of those eyes will be quenched with sorrow and the happy heart whiow beats lightly in that bosom, will be weighed down, like mine, by the cares and miseries of the world.
At length he came to me one day, aed his whole situation in a tone of the deepest despair. When I had heard him through, I inquired: "Does your wife know all this?"--At the question he burst into an agony of tears. "Fods sake!" cried he, "if you have any pity on me doion my wife; it is the thought of her that drives me almost to madness!"
"And why not?" said I. "She must know it sooner or later: you ot keep it long from her, and the intelligence may break upon her in a more startling mahan if imparted by yourself; for the ats of those we love soften the harshest tidings.
Besides, you are depriving yourself of the forts of her sympathy; and not merely that, but also endangering the only bond that keep hearts together--an unreserved unity of thought and feeling. She will soon perceive that something is secretly preying upon your mind; and true love will not brook reserve; it feels undervalued and ed, whehe sorrows of those it loves are cealed from it."
"Oh, but my friend! to think what a blow I am to give to all her future prospects,--how I am to strike her very soul to the earth, by tellihat her husband is a beggar! that she is to all the elegancies of life--all the pleasures of society--to shrink with me into indigend obscurit?y! To tell her that I have dragged her down from the sphere in which she might have tio move in stant brightness--the light of every eye--the admiration of every heart!--How she bear poverty? She has been brought up in all the re?s of opulence. How she bear ? She has been the idol of society. Oh, it will break her heart--it will break her heart!"
I saw his grief was eloquent, and I let it have its ?ow; for sorrow relieves itself by words. When his paroxysm had subsided, and he had relapsed into moody silence, I resumed the subject gently, and urged him to break his situation at oo his wife.
He shook his head mournfully, but positively.
"But how are you to keep it from her? It is necessary she should know it, that you may take the steps proper to the alteration of your circumstances. You must ge your style of living--nay,"
a pang to pass across his tenance, "dohat af?ict you. I am sure you have never placed your happiness in outward show--you have yet friends, warm friends, who will not think the worse of you for being less splendidly lodged: and surely it does not require a palace to be happy with Mary--"
"I could be happy with her," cried he, vulsively, "in a hovel!--I could go down with her into poverty and the dust!--I could--I could--God bless her!--God bless her!" cried he, bursting into a transport of grief and tenderness.
"And believe me, my friend," said I, stepping up, and grasping him warmly by the hand, "believe me, she be the same with you. Ay, more; it will be a source of pride and triumph to her--it will call forth all the latent energies and fervent sympathies of her nature; for she will rejoice to prove that she loves you for yourself. There is irue woma a spark of heavenly ?re, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which kindles up, and beams, and blazes in the dark hour of adversity. No man knows what the wife of his bosom is--no man knows what a ministering angel she is--until he has goh her through the ?ery trials of this world."
There was something in the earness of my manner, and the ?gurative style of my language, that caught the excited imagination of Leslie. I khe auditor I had to deal with; and following up the impression I had made, I ?nished by persuading him to go home and unburden his sad heart to his wife.
I must fess, notwithstanding all I had said, I felt some little solicitude for the result. Who calculate on the fortitude of one whose life has been a round of pleasures? Her gay spirits might revolt at the dark, doath of low humility suddenly pointed out before her, and might g to the sunny regions in which they had hitherto revelled. Besides, ruin in fashionable life is apanied by so many galling morti?cations, to which, in other ranks, it is a stranger. In short, I could not meet Leslie, the m, without trepidation. He had made the disclosure.
"And how did she bear it?"
"Like an angel! It seemed rather to be a relief to her mind, for she threw her arms around my neck, and asked if this was all that had lately made me unhappy.--But, pirl," added he, "she ot realize the ge we must undergo. She has no idea of poverty but in the abstract; she has only read of it iry, where it is allied to love. She feels as yet no privation; she suffers no loss of aced venienor elegancies. When we e practically to experies sordid cares, its paltry wants, its petty humiliations--then will be the real trial."
"But," said I, "now that you have got over the severest task, that of breaking it to her, the sooner you let the world into the secret the better. The disclosure may be mortifying; but then it is a single misery, and soon over: whereas you otherwise suffer it, in anticipation, every hour in the day. It is not poverty, so much as pretehat harasses a ruined man--the struggle between a proud mind and ay purse-the keeping up a hollow show that must soon e to an end. Have the ce to appear poor, and you disarm poverty of its sharpest sting." On this point I found Leslie perfectly prepared. He had no false pride himself, and as to his wife, she was only anxious to to their altered fortunes.
Some days afterwards, he called upon me in the evening. He had disposed of his dwelling-house, and taken a small cottage in the try, a few miles from town. He had been busied all day in sending out furniture. The ablishment required few articles, and those of the simplest kind. All the splendid furniture of his late residence had been sold, excepting his wifes harp. That, he said, was too closely associated with the idea of herself it beloo the little story of their loves; for some of the sweetest moments of their courtship were those when he had leaned over that instrument, and listeo the melting tones of her voice.--I could not but smile at this instance of romantic gallantry in a doating husband.
He was now going out to the cottage, where his wife had been all day superintending its arra. My feelings had bee strongly ied in the progress of his family story, and, as it was a ?ne evening, I offered to apany him.
He was wearied with the fatigues of the day, and, as we walked out, fell into a ?t of gloomy musing.
"Poor Mary!" at length broke, with a heavy sigh, from his lips.
"And what of her," asked I, "has anything happeo her?"
"What," said he, darting an impatient glance, "is it nothing to be reduced to this paltry situation--to be caged in a miserable cottage--to be obliged to toil almost in the menial s of her wretched habitation?"
Has she then repi the ge?
"Repined! she has been nothing but sweetness and good-humor.
Indeed, she seems ier spirits than I have ever known her; she has been to me all love, and tenderness, and fort!"
"Admirable girl!" exclaimed I. "You call yourself poor, my friend; you never were so rich,--you never khe boureasures of excellence you possessed in that woman."
"Oh! but, my friend, if this ?rst meeting at the cottage were over, I think I could then be fortable. But this is her ?rst day of real experience; she has been introduced into a humble dwelling,--she has been employed all day in arranging its miserable equipments,--she has, for the ?rst time, knowigues of domestic employment,--she has, for the ?rst time, looked around her on a home destitute of every thing elegant--almost of every thing ve; and may now be sitting down, exhausted and spiritless, brooding over a prospect of future poverty."
There was a degree of probability in this picture that I could not gainsay, so we walked on in silence.
After turning from the main road up a narrow lane, so thickly shaded with forest-trees as to give it a plete air of seclusion, we came in sight of the cottage. It was humble enough in its appearance for the most pastoral poet; a had a pleasing rural look. A wild vine had overrun one end with a profusion of foliage; a few trees threw their branches gracefully over it; and I observed several pots of ?owers tastefully disposed about the door, and on the grass-plot in front. A small wicket-gate opened upon a footpath that wound through some shrubbery to the door. Just as roached, we heard the sound of music--Leslie grasped my arm; we paused and listened. It was Marys voice singing, in a style of the most toug simplicity, a little air of which her husband eculiarly fond.
I felt Leslies hand tremble on my arm. He stepped forward, to hear more distinctly. His step made a noise on the gravel-walk. A bright beautiful face glanced out at the window, and vanished--a light footstep-was heard--and Mary came tripping forth to meet us. She was in a pretty rural dress of white; a few wild ?owers were twisted in her ?ne hair; a fresh bloom was on her cheek; her whole tenance beamed with smiles--I had never seen her look so lovely.
"My dear Gee," cried she, "I am so glad you are e; I have been watg and watg for you; and running down the lane, and looking out for you. Ive set out a table under a beautiful tree behind the cottage; and Ive been gathering some of the most delicious strawberries, for I know you are fond of them--and we have such excellent cream--and everything is so sweet and still here-Oh!"--said she, putting her arm within his, and looking up brightly in his face, "Oh, we shall be so happy!"
Poor Leslie was overe.--He caught her to his bosom--he folded his arms round her--he kissed her again and again--he could not speak, but the tears gushed into his eyes; and he has often assured me, that though the world has since gone prosperously with him, and his life has, indeed, been a happy one, yet never has he experienced a moment of more exquisite felicity.
RIP VAN WINKLE.
A POSTHUMOUS WRITING OF DIEDRIICKERBOCKER.By Woden, God of Saxons,From whenes Wensday, that is Wodensday,Truth is a thing that ever I will keepUnto thylke day in which I creep intoMy sepulchre--CARTWRIGHT.
[The following Tale was found among the papers of the late Diedriickerbocker, an old gentleman of New York, who was very curious ich History of the provind the manners of the desdants from its primitive settlers. His historical researches, however, did not lie so much among books as among men; for the former are lamentably sty on his favorite topics; whereas he found the old burghers, and still more, their wives, ri that legendary lore, so invaluable to true history.
Wheherefore, he happened upon a gech family, snugly shut up in its low-roofed farm-house, under a spreading sycamore, he looked upon it as a little clasped volume of black-letter, and studied it with the zeal of a bookworm.
The result of all these researches was a history of the province, during the reign of the Dutch governors, which he published some years sihere have been various opinions as to the literary character of his work, and, to tell the truth, it is not a whit better than it should be. Its chief merit is its scrupulous accuracy, whideed was a little questioned on its ?rst appearance, but has since been pletely established; and it is now admitted into all historical colles, as a book of uiohority.
The old gentleman died shortly after the publication of his work; and now that he is dead and go ot do much harm to his memory to say that his time might have been much better employed iier labors. He, however, t to ride his hobby his own way; and though it did now and then kick up the dust a little in the eyes of his neighbors, and grieve the spirit of some friends, for whom he felt the truest deferend affe, yet his errors and follies are remembered "more in sorrow than in anger," and it begins to be suspected, that he never inteo injure or offend. But however his memory may be appreciated by critics, it is still held dear among many folks, whose good opinion is well worth having; particularly by certain biscuit-bakers, who have gone so far as to imprint his likeness on their new-year cakes, and have thus given him a mortality, almost equal to the being stamped on a Waterloo medal, or a Queen Annes farthing.] WHOEVER has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Kaatskill mountains. They are a dismembered branch of the great Appala family, and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and l it over the surrounding try. Every ge of season, every ge of weather, indeed, every hour of the day produces some ge in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains; and they are regarded by all the good wives, far and near, as perfect barometers. When the weather is fair aled, they are clothed in blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky; but sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a of glory.
At the foot of these fairy mountains, the voyager may have descried the light smoke curling up from a Village, whose shingle roofs gleam among the trees, just where the blue tints of the upla away into the fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little village of great antiquity, having been founded by some of the Dutch ists, in the early times of the province, just about the beginning of the gover of the good Peter Stuyvesant (may he rest in peace!), and there were some of the houses of the inal settlers standing within a few years, built of small yellow bricks, brought from Holland, having latticed windows and gable fronts, surmounted with weathercocks.
In that same village, and in one of these very houses (which, to tell the precise truth, was sadly time-worn aher-beaten), there lived, many years since, while the try was yet a province of Great Britain, a simple, good-natured fellow, of the name of Rip Van Winkle. He was a desdant of the Van Winkles who ?gured so gallantly in the chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and apanied him to the siege of Fort Christina.
He ied, however, but little of the martial character of his aors. I have observed that he was a simple, good-natured man; he was, moreover, a kind neighbor, and an obedient henpecked husband. Io the latter circumstance might be owing that meekness of spirit which gained him suiversal popularity; for those me to be obsequious and ciliating abroad, who are uhe discipline of shrews at home. Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and malleable in the ?ery furnace of domestic tribulation, and a curtaiure is worth all the sermons in the world for teag the virtues of patiend long-suffering. A termagant wife may, therefore, in some respects, be sidered a tolerable blessing, and if so, Rip Van Winkle was thrice blessed.
Certain it is, that he was a great favorite among all the good wives of the village, who, as usual with the amiable sex, took his part in all family squabbles, and never failed, whehey talked those matters over in their evening gossipings, to lay all the blame on Dame Van Wihe children of the village, too, would shout with joy whenever he approached. He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to ?y kites and shoot marbles, and told them long stories of ghosts, witches, and Indians. Whenever he went dodging about the village, he was surrounded by a troop of them hanging on his skirts, clambering on his back, and playing a thousand tricks on him with impunity; and not a dog would bark at him throughout the neighborhood.
The great error in Rips position was an insuperable aversion to all kinds of pro?table labor. It could not be for want of assiduity or perseverance; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a Tartars lance, and ?sh all day without a murmur, even though he should not be enced by a single nibble. He would carry a fowling-pie his shoulder, for hours together, trudging through woods and ss, and up hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never refuse to assist a neighbor even in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man in all try frolics for husking Indian , or building stone fehe women of the village, too, used to employ him to run their errands, and to do such little odd jobs as their less obliging husbands would not do for them. In a word, Rip was ready to attend to anybodys business but his own; but as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order, he found it impossible.
In fact, he declared it was of no use to work on his farm; it was the most pestilent little piece of ground in the whole try; everything about it went wrong, in spite of him. His fences were tinually falling to pieces; his cow would either go astray, et among the cabbages; weeds were sure to grow quicker in his ?elds than anywhere else; the rain always made a point of setting in just as he had some out-door work to do; so that though his patrimonial estate had dwindled away under his ma, acre by acre, until there was little more left than a mere patch of Indian and potatoes, yet it was the worst-ditioned farm in the neighborhood.
His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they beloo nobody. His son Rip, an ur begotten in his own likeness, promised to i the habits, with the old clothes, of his father. He was generally seen trooping like a colt at his mothers heels, equipped in a pair of his fathers cast-off galligaskins, which he had much ado to hold up with one hand, as a ?ne lady does her train in bad weather.
Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy mortals, of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat white bread or brown, whichever be got with least thought or trouble, and would rather starve on a penny than work for a pound. If left to himself, he would have whistled life away, in perfect te; but his wife kept tinually dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he was bringing on his family. M, noon, and night, her tongue was incessantly going, and every thing he said or did was sure to produce a torrent of household eloquence. Rip had but one way of replying to all lectures of the kind, and that, by frequent use, had grown into a habit. He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, cast up his eyes, but said nothing. This, however, alrovoked a fresh volley from his wife, so that he was fain to draw off his forces, and take to the outside of the house--the only side which, in truth, belongs to a henpecked husband.
Rips sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as much henpecked as his master; for Dame Van Winkle regarded them as panions in idleness, and even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause of his masters going so often astray. True it is, in all points of spirit be?tting in honorable dog, he was as ceous an animal as ever scoured the woods--but what ce withstand the evil-doing and all-besetting terrors of a womans tohe moment Wolf ehe house, his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground, or curled between his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a sidelong gla Dame Van Winkle, and at the least ?ourish of a broomstick or ladle, he would ?y to the door with yelping precipitation.
Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle as years of matrimony rolled on; a tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with stant use. For a long while he used to sole himself, when driven from home, by frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the village, which held its sessions on a bench before a small inn, designated by a rubid portrait of his Majesty Gee the Third. Here they used to sit in the shade through a long, lazy summers day, talking listlessly over village gossip, or telling endless, sleepy stories about nothing. But it would have been worth any statesmans moo have heard the profound discussions whietimes took place, when by old neer fell into their hands from some passing traveller. How solemnly they would listen to the tents, as drawled out by Derrick Van Bummel, the saster, a dapper learned little man, who was not to be daunted by the most gigantic word in the diary; and how sagely they would deliberate upon public events some months after they had taken place.
The opinions of this junto were pletely trolled by Nicholas Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and landlord of the inn, at the door of which he took his seat from m till night, just moving suf?tly to avoid the sun, and keep in the shade of a large tree; so that the neighbors could tell the hour by his movements as accurately as by a sun-dial. It is true, he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his pipe incessantly. His adherents, however (for every great man has his adherents), perfectly uood him, and knew how to gather his opinions.
When any thing that was read or related displeased him, he was observed to smoke his pipe vehemently, and to send forth, frequent, and angry puffs; but when pleased, he would ihe smoke slowly and tranquilly, a it in light and placid clouds, and sometimes, taking the pipe from his mouth, aing the fragrant vapor curl about his nose, would gravely nod his head in token of perfect approbation.
From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at length routed by his termagant wife, who would suddenly break in uporanquillity of the assemblage, and call the members all to nought; nor was that august personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred from the daring tongue of this terrible virago, who charged him ht with encing her husband in habits of idleness.
Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and his only alternative, to escape from the labor of the farm and the clamor of his wife, was to take gun in hand, and stroll away into the woods. Here he would sometimes seat himself at the foot of a tree, and share the tents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he sympathized as a fellow-sufferer in persecution. "Poor Wolf,"
he would say, "thy mistress leads thee a dogs life of it; but never mind, my lad, whilst I live thou shalt never want a friend to stand by thee!" Wolf would wag his tail, look wistfully in his masters face, and if dogs feel pity, I verily believe he reciprocated the se with all his heart.
In a long ramble of the kind, on a ?umnal day, Rip had unsciously scrambled to one of the highest parts of the Kaatskill mountains. He was after his favorite sport of squirrel-shooting, and the still solitudes had echoed and re-echoed with the reports of his gun. Panting and fatigued, he threw himself, late iernoon, on a green knoll, covered with mountain herbage, that ed the brow of a precipice. From an openiweerees, he could overlook all the lower try for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distahe lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its silent but majestic course, with the re?e of a purple cloud, or the sail of a lagging bark, here and there sleeping on its glassy bosom and at last losing itself in the blue highlands.
Oher side he looked down into a deep mountain glen, wild, lonely, and shagged, the bottom ?lled with fragments from the impending cliffs, and scarcely lighted by the re?ected rays of the setting sun. For some time Rip lay musing on this se; evening was gradually advang; the mountains began to throw their long blue shadows over the valleys; he saw that it would be dark long before he could reach the village; and he heaved a heavy sigh whehought of entering the terrors of Dame Van Winkle.
As he was about to desd, he heard a voice from a distance hallooing: "Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!" He looked around, but could see nothing but a crow winging its solitary ?ight across the mountaihought his fancy must have deceived him, and turned again to desd, when he heard the same cry ring through the still evening air, "Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!"--at the same time Wolf bristled up his back, and giving a low growl, skulked to his masters side, looking fearfully down into the glen. Rip now felt a vague apprehension stealing over him; he looked anxiously in the same dire, and perceived a strange ?gure slowly toiling up the rocks, and bending uhe weight of something he carried on his back. He was surprised to see any human being in this lonely and unfrequented place, but supposing it to be some one of the neighborhood in need of his assistance, he hastened down to yield it.
On nearer approach, he was still more surprised at the singularity of the strangers appearance. He was a short, square-built old fellow, with thick bushy hair, and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique Dutch fashion--a cloth jerkin strapped round the waist--several pairs of breeches, the outer one of ample volume, decorated with rows of buttons down the sides, and bu the knees. He bore on his shoulders a stout keg, that seemed full of liquor, and made signs for Rip to approad assist him with the load. Though rather shy and distrustful of this new acquaintance, Rip plied with his usual alacrity; and mutually relieving each other, they clambered up a narrow gully, apparently the dry bed of a mountain torrent. As they asded, Rip every now and then heard long rolling peals, like distant thuhat seemed to issue out of a deep ravine, or rather cleft between lofty rocks, toward which their rugged path ducted. He paused for an instant, but supposing it to be the muttering of one of those trahunder-showers which often take pla the mountais, he proceeded. Passing through the ravihey came to a hollow, like a small amphitheatre, surrounded by perpendicular precipices, over the brinks of which impending trees shot their branches, so that you only caught glimpses of the azure sky, and the bright evening cloud. During the whole time Rip and his panion had labored on in silence; for though the former marvelled greatly what could be the object of carrying a keg of liquor up this wild mountaihere was something strange and inprehensible about the unknown, that inspired awe, and checked familiarity.
Oering the amphitheatre, new objects of wonder presehemselves. On a level spot in the tre was a pany of odd-looking personages playing at ninepins. They>. were dressed in quaint outlandish fashion; some wore short doublets, others jerkins, with long knives in their belts, and most of them had enormous breeches, of similar style with that of the guides.
Their visages, too, were peculiar; one had a large head, broad face, and small piggish eyes; the face of another seemed to sist entirely of nose, and was surmounted by a white sugar-loaf hat, set off with a little red cocks tail. They all had beards, of various shapes and colors. There was one who seemed to be the ander. He was a stout old gentleman, with a weather-beaten tenance; he wore a laced doublet, broad belt and hanger, high-ed hat aher, red stogs, and high-heeled shoes, with roses ihe whole group reminded Rip of the ?gures in an old Flemish painting, in the parlor of Dominie Van Schaick, the village parson, and which had been brought over from Holland at the time of the settlement.
What seemed particularly odd to Rip was, that though these folks were evidently amusing themselves, yet they maintaihe gravest faces, the most mysterious silence, and were, withal, the most melancholy party of pleasure he had ever witnessed. Nothing interrupted the stillness of the se but the noise of the balls, which, whehey were rolled, echoed along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder.
As Rip and his panion approached them, they suddenly desisted from their play, and stared at him with such a ?xed statue-like gaze, and such strange un..couth, lack-lustre tehat his heart turned within him, and his knees smote together. His panion ied the tents of the keg inte ?agons, and made signs to him to wait upon the pany. He obeyed with fear and trembling; they quaffed the liquor in profound silence, and theuro their game.
By degrees, Rips awe and apprehension subsided. He eveured, when no eye was ?xed upon him, to taste the beverage which he found had much of the ?avor of excellent Hollands. He was naturally a thirsty soul, and was sooed to repeat the draught. Oaste provoked another; and he reiterated his visits to the ?agon so often, that at length his senses were overpowered, his eyes swam in his head, his head gradually deed, and he fell into a deep sleep.
On waking, he found himself on the green knoll whence he had ?rst seen the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes--it was a bright sunny m. The birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure mountain breeze. "Surely," thought Rip, "I have not slept here all night." He recalled the occurrences before he fell asleep. The strange man with the keg of liquor--the mountain ravihe wild retreat among the rocks--the woe-begone party at ninepins--the ?agon--"Oh! that ?agon! that wicked ?agon!"
thought Rip--"what excuse shall I make to Dame Van Winkle?"
He looked round for his gun, but in place of the well-oiled fowling-piece, he found an old ?relock lying by him, the barrel encrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the sto-eaten. He now suspected that the grave roysterers of the mountains had put a trick upon him, and, having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had disappeared, but he might have strayed away after a squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him and shouted his name, but all in vain; the echoes repeated his whistle and shout, but no dog was to be seen.
He determio revisit the se of the last evenings gambol, and if he met with any of the party, to demand his dog and gun.
As he rose to walk, he found himself stiff in the joints, and wanting in his usual activity. "These mountain beds do not agree with me," thought Rip, "and if this frolic, should lay me up with a ?t of the rheumatism, I shall have a blessed time with Dame Van Winkle." With some dif?culty he got down into the glen: he found the gully up which he and his panion had asded the preg evening; but to his astonishment a mountain stream was now foaming down it, leaping from rock to rock, and ?lling the glen with babbling murmurs. He, however, made shift to scramble up its sides, w his toilsome way through thickets of birch, sassafras, and witch-hazel; and sometimes tripped up or entangled by the wild grape vihat twisted their coils and tendrils from tree to tree, and spread a kind of work in his path.
At length he reached to where the ravine had opehrough the cliffs to the amphitheatre; but no traces of such opening remaihe rocks presented a high imperable wall, over which the torrent came tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a broad deep basin, black from the shadows of the surrounding forest. Here, then, poor Rip was brought to a stand.
He again called and whistled after his dog; he was only answered by the g of a ?ock of idle crows, sp high in the air about a dry tree that a sunny precipice; and who, secure in their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at the poor mans perplexities. What was to be dohe m assing away, and Rip felt famished for want of his breakfast. He grieved to give up his dog and gun; he dreaded to meet his wife; but it would not do to starve among the mountains. He shook his head, shouldered the rusty ?relock, and, with a heart full of trouble and ay, turned his steps homeward.
As he approached the village, he met a number of people, but none whom he new, whiewhat surprised him, for he had thought himself acquainted with every one in the try round. Their dress, too, was of a different fashion from that to which he was aced. They all stared at him with equal marks of surprise, and whehey cast eyes upon him, invariably stroked their s. The stant recurrence of this gesture, induced Rip, involuntarily, to do, the same, when, to his astonishment, he found his beard had grown a foot long!
He had ered the skirts of the village. A troop of strange children ran at his heels, hooting after him, and pointing at his gray beard. The dogs, too, not one of which he reized for an old acquaintance, barked at him as he passed. The very village was altered: it was larger and more populous. There were rows of houses which he had never seen before, and those which had been his familiar haunts had disappeared. Strange names were over the doors--strange faces at the windows--everything was strange. His mind now misgave him; he began to doubt whether both he and the world around him were not bewitched. Surely this was his native village, which he had left but a day before. There stood the Kaatskill mountains--there ran the silver Hudson at a distahere was every hill and dale precisely as it had always been--Rip was sorely perplexed--"That ?agon last night,"
thought he, "has addled my poor head sadly!"
It was with some dif?culty that he found the way to his own house, which he approached with silent awe, expeg every moment to hear the shrill voice of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house goo decay--the roof had fallen in, the windows shattered, and the doors off the hinges. A half-starved dog, that looked like Wolf, was skulking about it. Rip called him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. This was an unkind cut indeed.--"My very dog," sighed poor Rip, "has fotten me!"
He ehe house, which, to tell the truth, Dame Van Winkle had always kept i order. It was empty, forlorn, and apparently abahis desolateness overcame all his ubial fears--he called loudly for his wife and children--the lonely chambers rang for a moment with his voice, and then all again was silence.
He now hurried forth, and hasteo his old resort, the village inn--but it too was gone. A large rickety wooden building stood in its place, with great gaping windows, some of them broken, and mended with old hats aicoats, and over the door ainted, "The Union Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle." Instead of the great tree that used to shelter the quiet little Dutn of yore, there now was reared a tall naked pole, with something oop that looked like a red nightcap, and from it was ?uttering a ?ag, on which was a singular assemblage of stars and stripes--all this was strange and inprehensible. He reized on the sign, however, the ruby face of King Gee, under which he had smoked so many a peaceful pipe, but even this was singularly metamorphosed. The red coat was ged for one of blue and buff, a sword was held in the hand instead of a sceptre, the head was decorated with a cocked hat, and underh ainted in large characters, "GENERAL WASHINGTON."
There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, but hat Rip recollected. The very character of the people seemed ged. There was a busy, bustling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the aced phlegm and drowsy tranquillity. He looked in vain for the sage Nicholas Vedder, with his broad face, double , and fair long pipe, uttering clouds of tobaoke, instead of idle speeches; or Van Bummel, the saster, doling forth the tents of an a neer.
In place of these, a lean, bilious-looking fellow, with his pockets full of handbills, was haranguing, vehemently abhts of citizeions--members of gress--liberty--Bunkers hill--heroes of seventy-six-and other words, which were a perfect Babylonish jargon to the bewildered Van Winkle.
The appearance of Rip, with his long, grizzled beard, his rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and the army of women and children at his heels, soon attracted the attention of the tavern politis. They crowded round him, eying him from head to foot, with great curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and, drawing him partly aside, inquired, "on which side he voted?" Rip stared in vat stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear, "whether he was Federal or Democrat." Rip was equally at a loss to prehend the question; when a knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way through the crowd, putting them to the right a with his elbows as he passed, and planting himself before Van Winkle, with one arm akimbo, the other resting on his e, his keen eyes and sharp hat peing, as it were, into his very soul, demanded in an austere tone, "What brought him to the ele with a gun on his shoulder, and a mob at his heels; and whether he meant to breed a riot in the village?"
"Alas! gentlemen," cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, "I am a poor, quiet man, a native of the place, and a loyal subject of the King, God bless him!
Here a general shout burst from the bystanders-"a tory! a tory! a spy! a refugee! hustle him! away with him!" It was with great dif?culty that the self-important man in the cocked hat restored order; and having assumed a tenfold austerity of brow, demanded again of the unknown culprit, what he came there for, and whom he was seeking. The poor man humbly assured him that he meant no harm, but merely came there in search of some of his neighbors, who used to keep about the tavern.
"Well--who are they?--hem."
Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, Wheres Nicholas Vedder?
There was a silence for a little while, when an old man replied, in a thin, piping voice, "Nicholas Vedder? why, he is dead and gohese eighteen years! There was a wooden tombstone in the churchyard that used to tell all about him, but thats rotten and gooo."
"Wheres Brom Dutcher?"
"Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the war; some say he was killed at the st of Stony-Point--others say he was drowned in a squall at the foot of Antonys Nose. I dont know --he never came back again."
"Wheres Van Bummel, the saster?"
"He went off to the wars, too; was a great militia general, and is now in gress."
Rips heart died away, at hearing of these sad ges in his home and friends, and ?nding himself thus alone in the world.
Every answer puzzled him too, by treating of suormous lapses of time, and of matters which he could not uand:
war--gress-Stony-Point;--he had no ce to ask after any more friends, but cried out in despair, "Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle?"
"Oh, Rip Van Winkle!" exclaimed two or three. "Oh, to be sure!
thats Rip Van Winkle yonder, leaning against the tree."
Rip looked, and beheld a precise terpart of himself as he went up the mountain; apparently as lazy, aainly as ragged. The poor fellow was now pletely founded. He doubted his owy, and whether he was himself or another man. In the midst of his bewilderment, the man in the cocked hat demanded who he was, and what was his name?
"God knows!" exclaimed he at his wits end; "Im not myself--Im somebody else--thats me yonder-no--thats somebody else, got into my shoes--I was myself last night, but I fell asleep on the mountain, and theyve ged my gun, and everythings ged, and Im ged, and I t tell whats my name, or who I am!"
The by-standers began now to look at each other, nod, wink signi?tly, and tap their ?ngers against their foreheads.
There was a whisper, also, about seg the gun, and keeping the old fellow from doing mischief; at the very suggestion of which, the self-important man with the cocked hat retired with some precipitation. At this critical moment a fresh, ely ressed through the throng to get a peep at the gray-bearded man.
She had a chubby child in her arms, which, frighte his looks, began to cry. "Hush, Rip," cried she, "hush, you little fool; the old man wont hurt you." The name of the child, the air of the mother, the tone of her voice, all awakened a train of recolles in his mind.
"What is your name, my good woman?" asked he.
"Judith Cardenier."
"And your fathers name?"
"Ah, poor man, Rip Van Winkle was his name, but its twenty years since he went away from home with his gun, and never has been heard of since,--his dog came home without him; but whether he shot himself, or was carried away by the Indians, nobody tell. I was then but a little girl."
Rip had but one more question to ask; but he put it with a faltering voice:
"Wheres your mother?"
Oh, she too had died but a short time since; she broke a blood-vessel in a ?t of passion at a New-England pedler.
There was a drop of fort, at least, in this intelligehe ho man could tain himself no longer. He caught his daughter and her child in his arms. "I am your father!" cried he-"Young Rip Van Winkle once-old Rip Van Winkle now--Does nobody know poor Rip Van Winkle!"
All stood amazed, until an old woman, t out from among the crowd, put her hand to her broeering u in his face for a moment exclaimed, "sure enough! it is Rip Van Wi is himself. Wele home again, old neighbor. Why, where have you beewenty long years?"
Rips story was soon told, for the whole twenty years had been to him but as one night. The neighbors stared when they heard it; some were seen to wink at each other, and put their tongues in their cheeks; and the self-important man in the cocked hat, who, when the alarm was over, had returo the ?eld, screwed down the ers of his mouth, and shook his head--upon which there was a general shaking of the head throughout the assemblage.
It was determined, however, to take the opinion of old Peter Vanderdonk, who was seen slowly advang up the road. He was a desdant of the historian of that name, who wrote one of the earliest ats of the province. Peter was the most a inhabitant of the village, and well versed in all the wonderful events and traditions of the neighborhood. He recollected Rip at once, and corroborated his story in the most satisfaanner.
He assured the pany that it was a fact, handed down from his aor, the historian, that the Kaatskill mountains had always been haunted by strange beings. That it was af?rmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the ?rst discoverer of the river and try, kept a kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the Half-moon; beited in this way to revisit the ses of his enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river and the great city called by his hat his father had once seen them in their old Dutch dresses playing at ninepins in the hollow of the mountain; and that he himself had heard, one summer afternoon, the sound of their balls, like distant peals of thunder.
To make a long story short, the pany broke up, aur.n expression nation to his fate, or joy at his deliverance.
He used to tell his story to every strahat arrived at Mr.
Doolittles hotel. He was observed, at ?rst, to vary on some points every time he told it, which was, doubtless, owing to his having so retly awaked. It at last settled down precisely to the tale I have related, and not a man, woman, or child in the neighborhood, but k by heart. Some alreteo doubt the reality of it, and insisted that Rip had been out of his head, and that this was one point on which he always remained ?ighty. The old Duthabitants, however, almost universally gave it full credit. Even to this day, they never hear a thuorm of a summer afternoon about the Kaatskill, but they say Hendrick Hudson and his crew are at their game of ninepins; and it is a on wish of all henpecked husbands in the neighborhood, when life hangs heavy on their hands, that they might have a quieting draught out of Rip Van Winkles ?agon.
NOTE.
The foing tale, one would suspect, had been suggested to Mr.
Knickerbocker by a little German superstition about the Emperor Frederick der Rothbart and the Kypphauser mountain; the subjoined note, however, which had appeo the tale, shows that it is an absolute faarrated with his usual ?delity.
"The story of Rip Van Winkle may seem incredible to many, but heless I give it my full belief, for I know the viity of our old Dutch settlements to have been very subjearvellous events and appearances. Indeed, I have heard many straories than this, in the villages along the Hudson; all of which were too well authenticated to admit of a doubt. I have even talked with Rip Van Winkle myself, who, when last I saw him, was a very venerable old man, and so perfectly rational and sistent on every other point, that I think no stious person could refuse to take this into the bargain; nay, I have seen a certi?cate on the subject taken before a try justice, and signed with cross, in the justices own handwriting. The story, therefore, is beyond the possibility of doubt.
"D. K."
POSTSCRIPT.The following are travelling notes from a memorandum-book of Mr.Knickerbocker:The Kaatsberg or Catskill mountains have always been a region full of fable. The Indians sidered them the abode of spirits, who in?uehe weather, spreading sunshine or clouds over the landscape, and sending good or bad hunting seasons. They were ruled by an old squaw spirit, said to be their mother. She dwelt on the highest peak of the Catskills, and had charge of the doors of day and night to open and shut them at the proper hour. She hung up the new moons in the skies, and cut up the old ones into stars. In times ht, if properly propitiated, she would spin light summer clouds out of cobwebs and m dew, ahem off from the crest of the mountain, ?ake after ?ake, like ?akes of carded cotton, to ?oat in the air; until, dissolved by the heat of the sun, they would fall ile showers, causing the grass t, the fruits to ripen, and the to grow an in hour. If displeased, however, she would brew up clouds black as ink, sitting in the midst of them like a bottle-bellied spider in the midst of its web; and when these clouds broke, woe betide the valleys!In old times, say the Indian traditions, there was a kind of Manitou or Spirit, who kept about the wildest recesses of the Catskill mountains, and took a mischievous pleasure in wreaking all kind of evils aions upon the red men. Sometimes he would assume the form of a bear, a panther, or a deer, lead the bewildered hunter a weary chase through tangled forests and amed rocks, and then spring off with a loud ho! ho! leaving him aghast on the brink of a beetling precipice ing torrent.The favorite abode of this Manitou is still shown. It is a rock or cliff on the lo port of the mountains, and, from the ? vines which clamber about it, and the wild ?owers which abound in its neighborhood, is known by the name of the Garden Roear the foot of it is a small lake, the haunt of the solitary bittern, with water-snakes basking in the sun on the leaves of the pond-lilies which lie on the surface. This place was held i awe by the Indians, insomuch that the boldest hunter would not pursue his game within its prects. Once upon a time, however, a hunter who had lost his eed to the Garden Rock, where he beheld a number of gourds placed in the crotches of trees. One of these he seized and made off with it, but in the hurry of his retreat he let it fall among the rocks, when a great stream gushed forth, which washed him away and swept him down precipices, where he was dished to pieces, and the stream made its way to the Hudson, and tio ?ow to the present day, being the identical stream known by the name of the Kaaterskill.
ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA.
Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation, rousting herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle, mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her endazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam.--MILTON ON THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS.
IT is with feelings of deep regret that I observe the literary animosity daily growing up between England and America. Great curiosity has been awakened of late with respect to the Uates, and the London press has teemed with volumes of travels through the Republic; but they seem inteo diffuse error rather than knowledge; and so successful have they been, that, notwithstanding the stant intercourse betweeions, there is no people ing whom the great mass of the British public have less pure information, or eain more numerous prejudices.
English travellers are the best and the worst in the world. Where no motives of pride or i intervene, none equal them for profound and philosophical views of society, or faithful and graphical description of external objects; but wheher the i or reputation of their own try es in collision with that of ahey go to the opposite extreme, and fet their usual probity and dor, in the indulgence of spleic remark, and an illiberal spirit of ridicule.
Heheir travels are more ho and accurate, the more remote the try described. I would place implicit ?den an Englishmans description of the regions beyond the cataracts of the Nile; of unknown islands in the Yellow Sea; of the interior of India; or of any other tract which other travellers might be apt to picture out with the illusions of their fancies. But I would cautiously receive his at of his immediate neighbors, and of those nations with which he is in habits of most frequent intercourse. However I might be disposed to trust his probity, I dare not trust his prejudices.
It has also been the peculiar lot of our try to be visited by the worst kind of English travellers. While men of philosophical spirit and cultivated minds have bee from England to ransack the poles, to pee the deserts, and to study the manners and s of barbarous nations, with which she have no perma intercourse of pro?t or pleasure; it has beeo the broken-down tradesman, the scheming adventure９９ｌib?r, the wandering meic, the Maer and Birmingham agent, to be her oracles respeg America. From such sources she is tent to receive her information respeg a try in a singular state of moral and physical development; a try in whie of the greatest political experiments in the history of the world is now perf; and which presents the most profound and momentous studies to the statesman and the philosopher.
That such men should give prejudicial ats of America, is not a matter of surprise. The themes it offers for plation, are too vast and elevated for their capacities. The national character is yet in a state of fermentation: it may have its frothiness and sediment, but its ingredients are sound and wholesome; it has already given proofs of powerful and generous qualities; and the whole promises to settle down into something substantially excellent. But the causes which are operating tthen and en, and its daily indications of admirable properties, are all lost upon these purblind observers; who are only affected by the little asperities io its present situation. They are capable of judging only of the surface of things; of those matters whie in tact with their private is and personal grati?cations. They miss some of the snug veniences ay forts which belong to an old, highly-?nished, and over-populous state of society; where the ranks of useful labor are crowded, and many earn a painful and servile subsistence, by studying the very caprices of appetite and self-indulgehese minor forts, however, are all-important iimation of narrow minds; which either do not perceive, or will not aowledge, that they are more than terbalanced among us, by great and generally diffused blessings.
They may, perhaps, have been disappointed in some unreasonable expectation of sudden gain. They may have pictured America to themselves an El Dorado, where gold and silver abounded, and the natives were lag in sagacity, and where they were to bee strangely and suddenly rich, in some unforeseen but easy manner.
The same weakness of mind that indulges absurd expectations, produces petulan disappoi. Such persons bee embittered against the try on ?nding that there, as everywhere else, a man must sow before he reap; must wih by industry and talent; and must tend with the on dif?culties of nature, and the shrewdness of an intelligent aerprising people.
Perhaps, through mistaken or ill-directed hospitality, or from the prompt disposition to cheer and tehe stranger, prevalent among my trymen, they may have beeed with unwonted respe America; and, having been aced all their lives to sider themselves below the surface of good society, and brought up in a servile feeling of inferiority, they bee arrogant, on the on boon of civility; they attribute to the lowliness of others their owion; and ue a society where there are no arti?cial distins, and where, by any ce, sudividuals as themselves rise to sequence.
One would suppose, however, that information ing from such sources, on a subject where the truth is so desirable, would be received with caution by the sors of the press; that the motives of these men, their veracity, their opportunities of inquiry and observation, and their capacities for judging correctly, would be rigorously scrutinized, before their evidence was admitted, in such sweepient, against a kindred nation.
The very reverse, however, is the case, and it furnishes a striking instance of human insistenothing surpass the vigilah whiglish critics will examihe credibility of the traveller who publishes an at of some distant and paratively unimportant try. How warily will they pare the measurements of a pyramid, or the description of a ruin; and how sternly will they sure any inaccura these tributions of merely curious knowledge, while they will receive, with eagerness and uating faith, the gross misrepresentations of coarse and obscure writers, ing a try with which their own is placed in the most important and delicate relations. Nay, they will even make these apocryphal volumes text-books, on which to enlarge, with a zeal and an ability worthy of a menerous cause.
I shall not, however, dwell on this irksome and haeyed topior should I have adverted to it, but for the uerest apparently taken in it by my trymen, aain injurious effects which I apprehend it might produce upoional feeling. We attauch sequeo these attacks. They ot do us any essential injury. The tissue of misrepresentations attempted to be woven round us, are like cobwebs woven round the limbs of an infant giant. Our try tinually outgrows them. One falsehood after another falls off of itself. We have but to live on, and every day we live a whole volume of refutation.
All the writers of England united, if we could for a moment suppose their great minds stooping to so unworthy a bination, could not ceal our rapidly growing importand matchless prosperity. They could not ceal that these are owing, not merely to physical and local, but also to moral ca藏书网uses--to the political liberty, the general diffusion of knowledge, the prevalence of sound, moral, and religious principles, which give ford sustained energy to the character of a people, and whi fact, have been the aowledged and wonderful supporters of their own national power and glory.
But why are we so exquisitely alive to the aspersions of England?
Why do we suffer ourselves to be so affected by the ely she has endeavored to cast upon us? It is not in the opinion of England alohat honor lives, aation has its being. The world at large is the arbiter of a nations fame: with its thousand eyes it witnesses a nations deeds, and from their collective testimony is national glory or national disgrace established.
For ourselves, therefore, it is paratively of but little importance whether England does us justice or not; it is, perhaps, of far more importao herself. She is instilling anger ament into the bosom of a youthful nation, to grow with its growth, and strengthen with its strength. If in America, as some of her writers are lab to vince her, she is hereafter to ?nd an invidious rival, and a gigantic foe, she may thank those very writers for having provoked rivalship, and irritated hostility. Every one knows the all-pervading in?uence of literature at the present day, and how much the opinions and passions of mankind are us trol. The mere tests of the sword are temporary; their wounds are but in the ?esh, and it is the pride of the generous tive and fet them; but the slanders of the pen pierce to the heart; they rankle lo in the spirits; they dwell ever present in the mind, and re morbidly sensitive to the most tri?ing collision. It is but seldom that any one overt act produces hostilities between two nations; there exists, most only, a previous jealousy and ill-will, a predisposition to take offerace these to their cause, and how often will they be found tinate in the mischievous effusions of merary writers, who, secure in their closets, and fnominious bread, cod circulate the venom that is to ihe generous and the brave.
I am not laying too much stress upon this point; for it applies most emphatically to our particular case. Over no natiohe press hold a more absolute trol thahe people of America; for the universal education of the poorest classes makes every individual a reader. There is nothing published in England on the subject of our try, that does not circulate through every part of it. There is not a calumny dropt from an English pen, nor an unworthy sarcasm uttered by an English statesman, that does not go to blight good-will, and add to the mass of latement. Possessing, then, as England does, the fountain-head whehe literature of the language ?ows, how pletely is it in her power, and how truly is it her duty, to make it the medium of amiable and magnanimous feeling--a stream where the two nations might meet together and drink in pead kindness. Should she, however, persist in turning it to waters of bitterness, the time may e when she may repent her folly. The present friendship of America may be of but little moment to her; but the future destinies of that try do not admit of a doubt; over those of England, there lower some shadows of uainty.
Should, then, a day of gloom arrive--should those reverses overtake her, from which the proudest empires have not bee--she may look back with regret at her infatuation, in repulsing from her side a nation she might have grappled to her bosom, and thus destroying her only ce for real friendship beyond the boundaries of her own dominions.
There is a general impression in England, that the people of the Uates are inimical to the parent try. It is one of the errors which have been diligently propagated by designing writers. There is, doubtless, siderable political hostility, and a general soreness at the illiberality of the English press; but, collectively speaking, the prepossessions of the people are strongly in favor of England. Indeed, at oime they amounted, in many parts of the Union, to an absurd degree of bigotry. The bare name of Englishman assport to the ?dend hospitality of every family, and too often gave a tra currency to the worthless and the ungrateful. Throughout the try, there was something of enthusiasm ected with the idea of England. We looked to it with a hallowed feeling of tenderness and veion, as the land of our forefathers--the august repository of the mos and antiquities of our race--the birthplad mausoleum of the sages and heroes of our paternal history. After our own try, there was none in whose glory we more delighted--none whose good opinion we were more anxious to possess--oward which our hearts yearned with such throbbings of warm sanguinity. Even during the late war, whehere was the least opportunity for kind feelings t forth, it was the delight of the generous spirits of our try to show that, in the midst of hostilities, they still kept alive the sparks of future friendship.
Is all this to be at an end? Is this golden band of kindred sympathies, so rare between nations, to be broken forever?--Perhaps it is for the best--it may dispel an allusion which might have kept us ial vassalage; which might have interfered occasionally with our true is, and prevehe growth of proper national pride. But it is hard to give up the kiie! and there are feelings dearer than i--closer to the heart than pride--that will still make us cast back a look ret as we wander farther and farther from the paternal roof, and lament the waywardness of the parent that would repel the affes of the child.
Short-sighted and injudicious, however, as the duct land may be in this system of aspersion, recrimination on our part would be equally ill-judged. I speak not of a prompt and spirited vindication of our try, or the kee castigation of her slanderers--but I allude to a disposition to retaliate in kind, to retort sarcasm and inspire prejudice, which seems to be spreading widely among our writers. Let us guard particularly against such a temper; for it would double the evil, instead of redressing the wrong. Nothing is so easy and inviting as the retort of abuse and sarcasm; but it is a paltry and an unpro?table test. It is the alternative of a morbid mind, fretted into petulance, rather than warmed into indignation. If England is willing to permit the mean jealousies of trade, or the rancorous animosities of politics, to藏书网 deprave the iy of her press, and poison the fountain of public opinio us beware of her example. She may deem it her io diffuse error, and engender antipathy, for the purpose of cheg emigration: we have no purpose of the kind to serve. her have we any spirit of national jealousy to gratify; for as yet, in all our rivalships with England, we are the rising and the gaining party. There be o aherefore, but the grati?cation of rese--a mere spirit of retaliation--and even that is impotent. Our retorts are never republished in England; they fall short, therefore, of their aim; but they foster a querulous and peevish temper among our writers; they sour the sweet ?ow of our early literature, and sow thorns and brambles among its blossoms. What is still worse, they circulate through our own try, and, as far as they have effect, excite virulent national prejudices. This last is the evil most especially to be deprecated. Governed, as we are, entirely by public opinion, the utmost care should be taken to preserve the purity of the publid. Knowledge is power, and truth is knowledge; whoever, therefore, knowingly propagates a prejudice, wilfully saps the foundation of his trys strength.
The members of a republic, above all other men, should be did and dispassiohey are, individually, portions of the sn mind and sn will, and should be eo e to all questions of national with calm and unbiassed judgments. From the peculiar nature of our relations with England, we must have more frequent questions of a dif?cult and delicate character with her, than with any other nation,--questions that affect the most acute aable feelings: and as, in the adjustment of these, our national measures must ultimately be determined by popular se, we ot be too anxiously atteo purify it from all latent passion or prepossession.
Opening, too, as we do, an asylum for strangers every portion of the earth, we should receive all with impartiality. It should be our pride to exhibit an example of oion, at least, destitute of national antipathies, and exerg, not merely the overt acts of hospitality, but those more rare and noble courtesies which spring from liberality of opinion.
What have we to do with national prejudices? They are the ie diseases of old tries, tracted in rude and ignorant ages, when nations knew but little of each other, and looked beyond their own boundaries with distrust and hostility.
We, on the trary, have sprung into natioen an enlightened and philosophic age, when the different parts of the habitable world, and the various branches of the human family, have been iigably studied and made known to each other; and we fo the advantages of our birth, if we do not shake off the national prejudices, as we would the local superstitions, of the old world.
But above all let us not be in?uenced by any angry feelings, so far as to shut our eyes to the perception of what is really excellent and amiable in the English character. We are a young people, necessarily an imitative one, and must take our examples and models, in a great degree, from the existing nations of Europe. There is no try more worthy of our study than England. The spirit of her stitution is most analogous to ours. The manners of her people--their intellectual activity--their freedom of opinion--their habits of thinking on those subjects which the dearest is and most sacred charities of private life, are all genial to the Ameri character; and, in fact, are all intrinsically excellent: for it is in the moral feeling of the people that the deep foundations of British prosperity are laid; and however the superstructure may be timeworn, or overrun by abuses, there must be something solid in the basis, admirable ierials, and stable iructure of an edi?ce that so long has towered unshaken amidst the tempests of the world.
Let it be the pride of our writers, therefore, discarding all feelings of irritation, and disdaining to retaliate the illiberality of British authors, to speak of the English nation without prejudice, and with determined dor. While they rebuke the indiscriminating bigotry with whie of our trymen admire and imitate every thing English, merely because it is English, let them frankly point out what is really worthy of approbation. We may thus plagland before us as a perpetual volume of reference, wherein are recorded souions from ages of experience; and while we avoid the errors and absurdities which may have crept into the page, we may draw thence golden maxims of practical wisdom, wherewith tthen and to embellish our national character.
RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND.
Oh! friendly to the best pursuits of man,Friendly to thought, to virtue and to peace,Domestic life in rural pleasures past!COWPER.
THE stranger who would form a correct opinion of the English character, must not e his observations to the metropolis.
He must go forth into the try; he must sojourn in villages and hamlets; he must visit castles, villas, farm-houses, cottages; he must wahrough parks and gardens; along hedges and green lanes; he must loiter about try churches; attend wakes and fairs, and other rural festivals; and cope with the people in all their ditions, and all their habits and humors.
In some tries, the large cities absorb the wealth and fashion of the nation; they are the only ?xed abodes of elegant and intelligent society, and the try is inhabited almost entirely by boorish peasantry. In England, on the trary, the metropolis is a mere gathering-place, eneral rendezvous, of the polite classes, where they devote a small portion of the year to a hurry of gayety and dissipation, and, having indulged this kind of ival, return again to the apparently more genial habits of rural life. The various orders of society are therefore diffused over the whole surface of the kingdom, and the more retired neighborhoods afford spes of the different ranks.
The English, in fact, are strongly gifted with the rural feeling.
They possess a quick sensibility to the beauties of nature, and a keen relish for the pleasures and employments of the try.
This passion seems i in them. Even the inhabitants of cities, born and brought up among brick walls and bustling streets, enter with facility into rural habits, and eviact for rural occupation. The mert has his snug retreat in the viity of the metropolis, where he often displays as much pride and zeal in the cultivation of his ?ower-??garden, and the maturing of his fruits, as he does in the duct of his business, and the success of a ercial enterprise. Even those less fortunate individuals, who are doomed to pass their lives in the midst of din and traf?c, trive to have something that shall remind them of the green aspect of nature. In the most dark and dingy quarters of the city, the drawing-room window resembles frequently a bank of ?owers; every spot capable of vegetation has its grass-plot and ?ower-bed; and every square its mimic park, laid out with picturesque taste, and gleaming with refreshing verdure.
Those who see the Englishman only in town, are apt to form an unfavorable opinion of his social character. He is either absorbed in business, or distracted by the thousand es that dissipate time, thought, and feeling, in this huge metropolis. He has, therefore, too only, a look of hurry and abstra. Wherever he happens to be, he is on the point of going somewhere else; at the moment he is talking on one subject, his mind is wandering to another; and while paying a friendly visit, he is calculating how he shall eize time so as to pay the other visits allotted to the m. An immeropolis, like London, is calculated to make men sel?sh and uing.
In their casual and tra meetings, they but deal brie?y in onplaces. They present but the cold super?ces of character--its rid genial qualities have no time to be warmed into a ?ow.
It is in the try that the Englishman gives scope to his natural feelings. He breaks loose gladly from the cold formalities aive civilities of town; throws off his habits of shy reserve, and bees joyous and free-hearted. He mao collect round him all the veniences and elegancies of polite life, and to banish 藏书网its restraints. His try-seat abounds with every requisite, either for studious retirement, tasteful grati?cation, or rural exercise. Books, paintings, music, horses, dogs, and sp implements of all kinds, are at hand. He puts no straiher upon his guests or himself, but, irue spirit of hospitality, provides the means of enjoyment, and leaves every oo partake acc to his ination.
The taste of the English in the cultivation of land, and in what is called landscape gardening, is unrivalled. They have studied Nature ily, and discovered an exquisite sense of her beautiful forms and harmonious binations. Those charms which, in other tries, she lavishes in wild solitudes, are here assembled round the haunts of domestic life. They seem to have caught her coy and furtive graces, and spread them, like witchery, about their rural abodes.
Nothing be more imposing than the magni?ce of English park sery. Vast lawns that extend like sheets of vivid green, with here and there clumps of gigantic trees, heaping up rich piles of foliage. The solemn pomp of groves and woodland glades, with the deer trooping in silent herds across them; the hare, bounding away to the covert; or the pheasant, suddenly bursting upon the wing. The brook, taught to wind in natural meanderings, or expand into a glassy lake--the sequestered pool, re?eg the quivering trees, with the yellow leaf sleeping on its bosom, and the trout roaming fearlessly about its limpid waters; while some rustic temple, or sylvan statue, grown green and dank with age, gives an air of classictity to the seclusion.
These are but a few of the features of park sery; but what most delights me, is the creative talent with which the English decorate the uious abodes of middle life. The rudest habitation, the most unpromising and sty portion of land, in the hands of an Englishman of taste, bees a little paradise.
With a nicely discriminating eye, he seizes at once upon its capabilities, and pictures in his mind the future landscape. The sterile spot grows into loveliness under his hand; ahe operations of art which produce the effect are scarcely to be perceived. The cherishing and training of some trees; the cautious pruning of others; the nice distribution of ?owers and plants of tender and graceful foliage; the introdu of a green slope of velvet turf; the partial opening to a peep of blue distance, or silver gleam of water;-all these are managed with a delicate tact, a pervadi quiet assiduity, like the magic tougs with which a painter ?nishes up a favorite picture.
The residence of people of fortune and re? in the try, has diffused a degree of taste and elegan rural ey that desds to the lowest class. The very laborer, with his thatched cottage and narrow slip of ground, attends to their embellishment. The trim hedge, the grass-plot before the door, the little ?ower-bed bordered with snug box, the woodbirained up against the wall, and hanging its blossoms about the lattice; the pot of ?owers in the window; the holly, providently planted about the house, to cheat winter of its dreariness, and to throw in a semblance of green summer to cheer the ?reside; all these bespeak the in?uence of taste, ?owing down from high sources, and pervading the lowest levels of the publid. If ever Love, as poets sing, delights to visit a cottage, it must be the cottage of an English peasant.
The fondness for rural life among the higher classes of the English has had a great and salutary effect upoional character. I do not know a ?ner raen than the English gentlemen. Instead of the softness and effeminacy which characterize the men of rank in most tries, they exhibit a union of elegand strength, a robustness of frame and freshness of plexion, which I am ined to attribute to their living so mu the open air, and pursuing so eagerly the invigorating recreations of the try. The hardy exercises produce also a healthful tone of mind and spirits, and a manliness and simplicity of manners, which even the follies and dissipations of the town ot easily pervert, and ever entirely destroy. In the try, too, the different orders of society seem to approach more freely, to be more disposed to blend and operate favorably upon each other. The distins between them do not appear to be so marked and impassable as iies. The manner in which property has been distributed into small estates and farms has established a regular gradation from the noblemen, through the classes of gentry, small landed proprietors, and substantial farmers, down to the lab peasantry; and while it has thus bahe extremes of society together, has infused into eatermediate rank a spirit of independehis, it must be fessed, is not so universally the case at present as it was formerly; the larger estates having, in late years of distress, absorbed the smaller, and, in some parts of the try, almost annihilated the sturdy raall farmers. These, however, I believe, are but casual breaks in the general system I have mentioned.
In rural occupation, there is nothing mean and debasing. It leads a man forth among ses of natural grandeur ay; it leaves him to the ws of his own mind, operated upon by the purest and most elevating of external in?uences. Such a man may be simple and rough, but he ot be vulgar. The man of re?, therefore, ?nds nothiing in an intercourse with the lower orders in rural life, as he does when he casually mingles with the lower orders of cities. He lays aside his distand reserve, and is glad to waive the distins of rank, and to enter into the ho, heartfelt enjoyments of on life. Ihe very amusements of the try bring, men more and more together; and the sound hound and horn blend all feelings into harmony. I believe this is one great reason why the nobility ary are more popular among the inferior orders in England than they are in any other try; and why the latter have endured so many excessive pressures aremities, without repining menerally at the unequal distribution of fortune and privilege.
To this mingling of cultivated and rustic society may also be attributed the rural feeling that runs through British literature; the frequent use of illustrations from rural life; those inparable descriptions of Nature, that abound in the British poets--that have tinued down from "The Flower and the Leaf," of Chaucer, and have brought into our closets all the freshness and fragrance of the dewy landscape. The pastoral writers of other tries appear as if they had paid Nature an occasional visit, and bee acquainted with her general charms; but the British poets have lived and revelled with her--they have wooed her in her most secret haunts--they have watched her mi caprices. A spray could not tremble in the breeze--a leaf could not rustle to the ground--a diamond drop could not patter iream--a fragrance could not exhale from the humble violet, nor a daisy unfold its crimson tints to the m, but it has been noticed by these impassioned and delicate observers, and wrought up into some beautiful morality.
The effect of this devotion of elegant minds to rural occupations has been wonderful on the face of the try. A great part of the island is rather level, and would be monotonous, were it not for the charms of culture; but it is studded and gemmed, as it were, with castles and palaces, and embroidered with parks and gardens. It does not abound in grand and sublime prospects, but rather in little home ses of rural repose and sheltered quiet.
Every antique farm-house and moss-grown cottage is a picture; and as the roads are tinually winding, and the view is shut in by groves and hedges, the eye is delighted by a tinual succession of small landscapes of captivating loveliness.
The great charm, however, of English sery, is the moral feeling that seems to pervade it. It is associated in the mind with ideas of order, of quiet, of sober well-established principles, of hoary usage and reverend . Every thing seems to be the growth of ages ular and peaceful existehe old church of remote architecture, with its low, massive portal; its Gothic tower; its windows rich with tracery and painted glass, in scrupulous preservation; its stately mos of warriors and worthies of the olden time, aors of the present lords of the soil; its tombstones, rec successive geions of sturdy yeomanry, whose progeny still plough the same ?elds, and k the same altar;--the parsonage, a quaint irregular pile, partly antiquated, but repaired and altered iastes of various ages and octs;--the stile and foot-path leading from the churchyard, across pleasant ?elds, and along shady hedgerows, acc to an immemorial right of way;--the neighb village, with its venerable cottages, its public greeered by trees, under which the forefath.99liｂ.t>ers of the present race have sported;--the antique family mansion, standing apart in some little rural domain, but looking down with a proteg air on the surrounding se; all these oures of English landscape evince a calm aled security, a hereditary transmission of homebred virtues and local attats, that speak deeply and tougly for the moral character of the nation.
It is a pleasing sight, of a Sunday m, when the bell is sending its sober melody across the quiet ?elds, to behold the peasantry in their best ?nery, with ruddy faces, and modest cheerfulness, thronging tranquilly along the green lao church; but it is still more pleasing to see them in the evenings, gathering about their cottage doors, and appearing to exult in the humble forts and embellishments which their own hands have spread around them.
It is this sweet home-feeling, this settled repose of affe in the domestic se, that is, after all, the parent of the steadiest virtues and purest enjoyments; and I ot close these desultory remarks better, than by quoting the words of a modern English poet, who has depicted it with remarkable felicity:
Through each gradation, from the castled hall,The city dome, the villa ed with shade,But chief from modest mansions numberless,In town or hamlet, sheltring middle life,Down to the cottaged vale, and straw-roofd shed;This western isle has long been famed for sesWhere bliss domestids a dwelling-place;Domestic bliss, that, like a harmless dove,(Honor and sweet endearment keeping guard,) tre in a little quiet All that desire would ?y for through the earth;That , the world eluding, be itselfA world ehat wants no witnessesBut its own sharers, and approving Heaven;That, like a ?ower deep hid in rock cleft,Smiles, though t is looking only at the sky.** From a poem on the death of the Princess Charlotte, by the Reverend Rann Kennedy, A.M.
THE BROKEN HEART.
I never heardOf any true affe, but t was niptWith care, that, like the caterpillar, eatsThe leaves of the springs sweetest book, the rose.MIDDLETON.
IT is a on practice with those who have outlived the susceptibility of early feeling, or have been brought up in the gay heartlessness of dissipated life, to laugh at all love stories, and to treat the tales of romantic passion as mere ?s of s and poets. My observations on human nature have induced me to think otherwise. They have vinced me that, however the surface of the character may be chilled and frozen by the cares of the world, or cultivated into mere smiles by the arts of society, still there are dormant ?res lurking in the depths of the coldest bosom, which, when onkindled, bee impetuous, and are sometimes desolating in their effects. Indeed, I am a true believer in the bliy, and go to the full extent of his does. Shall I fess it?--I believe in brokes, and the possibility of dying of disappointed love! I do not, however, sider it a malady often fatal to my own sex; but I ?rmly believe that it withers down many a lovely woman into an early grave.
Man is the creature of i and ambition. His nature leads him forth into the struggle and bustle of the world. Love is but the embellishment of his early life, or a song piped iervals of the acts. He seeks for fame, for fortune for spa the worlds thought, and dominion over his fellow-men. But a womans whole life is a history of the affes. The heart is her world; it is there her ambition strives for empire--it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure; sh?e embarks her whole soul iraf?c of affe; and if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless--for it is a bankruptcy of the heart.
To a man, the disappoi of love may occasion some bitter pangs; it wounds some feelings of tenderness--it blasts some prospects of felicity; but he is an active being--he may dissipate his thoughts in the whirl of varied occupation, or may pluo the tide of pleasure; or, if the se of disappoi be too full of painful associations, he shift his abode at will, and taking, as it were, the wings of the m, "?y to the uttermost parts of the earth, a rest."
But womans is paratively a ?xed, a secluded, aative life. She is more the panion of her own thoughts and feelings; and if they are turo ministers o藏书网f sorrow, where shall she look for solation? Her lot is to be wooed and won; and if unhappy in her love, her heart is like some fortress that has been captured, and sacked, and abandoned, a desolate.
How many bright eyes grow dim--how many soft cheeks grow pale--how many lovely forms fade away into the tomb, and none tell the cause that blighted their loveliness! As the dove will clasp its wings to its side, and cover and ceal the arrow that is preying on its vitals--so is it the nature of woman, to hide from the world the pangs of wounded affe. The love of a delicate female is always shy and silent. Even when fortunate, she scarcely breathes it to herself; but when otherwise, she buries it in the recesses of her bosom, and there lets it cower and brood among the ruins of her peace. With her, the desire of her heart has failed--the great charm of existence is at an end.
She s all the cheerful exercises which gladden the spirits, qui the pulses, ahe tide of life ihful currents through the veins. Her rest is broken--the sweet refreshment of sleep is poisoned by melancholy dreams--"dry sorrow drinks her blood," until her enfeebled frame sinks uhe slightest external injury. Look for her, after a little while, and you ?nd friendship weeping over her untimely grave, and w that one, who but lately glowed with all the radiance of health ay, should so speedily be brought down to "darkness and the worm." You will be told of some wintry chill, some casual indisposition, that laid her low;--but no one knows of the mental malady which previously sapped her strength, and made her so easy a prey to the spoiler.
She is like some teree, the pride ay of the grove; graceful in its form, bright in its foliage, but with the worm preying at its heart. We ?nd it suddenly withering, when it should be most fresh and luxuriant. We see it drooping its brao the earth, and shedding leaf by leaf, until, wasted and perished away, it falls even iillness of the forest; and as we muse over the beautiful ruirive in vain to recollect the blast or thunderbolt that could have smitten it with decay.
I have seen many instances of women running to waste and self-, and disappearing gradually from the earth, almost as if they had been exhaled to heaven; and have repeatedly fahat I could trace their deaths through the various desions of ption, cold, debility, languor, melancholy, until I reached the ?rst symptom of disappointed love. But an instance of the kind was lately told to me; the circumstances are well known in the try where they happened, and I shall but give them in the manner in which they were related.
Every one must recollect the tragical story of young E----, the Irish patriot; it was too toug to be soon fotten. During the troubles in Ireland, he was tried, ned, and executed, on a charge of treason. His fate made a deep impression on public sympathy. He was so young--so intelligent--so generous--so brave--so every thing that we are apt to like in a young man. His duder trial, too, was so lofty and intrepid. The noble indignation with which he repelled the charge of treason against his try--the eloquent vindication of his name--and his pathetic appeal to posterity, in the hopeless hour of nation, --all these entered deeply into every generous bosom, and even his enemies lamehe stern policy that dictated his execution.
But there was o whose anguish it would be impossible to describe. In happier days and fairer fortunes, he had won the affes of a beautiful and iing girl, the daughter of a late celebrated Irish barrister. She loved him with the disied fervor of a womans ?rst and early love. When every worldly maxim arrayed itself against him; when blasted in fortune, and disgrad danger darkened around his name, she loved him the more ardently for his very sufferings. If, then, his fate could awaken the sympathy even of his foes, what must have been the agony of her, whose whole soul was occupied by his image? Let those tell who have had the portals of the tomb suddenly closed between them and the being they most loved oh--who have sat at its threshold, as one shut out in a cold and lonely world, whence all that was most lovely and loving had departed.
But then the horrors of such a grave!--shtful, so dishohere was nothing for memory to dwell on that could soothe the pang of separation--none of those tehough melancholy circumstances whidear the parting se--nothing to melt sorrow into those blessed tears, sent like the dews of heaven, to revive the heart in the parting hour of anguish.
To render her widowed situation more desolate, she had incurred her fathers displeasure by her unfortuat, and was an exile from the parental roof. But could the sympathy and kind of?ces of friends have reached a spirit so shocked and driven in by horror, she would have experieno want of solation, for the Irish are a people of quid generous sensibilities. The most delicate and cherishing attentions were paid her by families of wealth and distin. She was led into society, and they tried by all kinds of occupation and amusement to dissipate her grief, and wean her from the tragical story of her loves. But it was all in v藏书网ain. There are some strokes of calamity that scathe and scorch the soul--which pee to the vital seat of happiness--and blast it, never again to put forth bud or blossom.
She never objected to frequent the haunts of pleasure, but was as much alohere as in the depths of solitude; walking about in a sad revery, apparently unscious of the world around her. She carried with her an inward woe that mocked at all the blandishments of friendship, and "heeded not the song of the charmer, charm he never so wisely."
The person who told me her story had see a masquerade.
There be no exhibition of far-gone wretess more striking and painful than to meet it in such a se. To ?nd it wandering like a spectre, lonely and joyless, where all around is gay--to see it dressed out irappings of mirth, and looking so wan and woe-begone, as if it had tried in vain to cheat the poor heart into momentary fetfulness of sorrow. After strolling through the splendid rooms and giddy crowd with an air of utter abstra, she sat herself down oeps of an orchestra, and, looking about for some time with a vat air, that showed her insensibility to the garish se, she began, with the capriciousness of a sickly heart, to warble a little plaintive air. She had an exquisite, voice; but on this occasion it was so simple, so toug, it breathed forth such a soul of wretess--that she drew a crowd, mute and silent, around her aed every oo tears.
The story of one so true and tender could not but excite great i in a try remarkable for enthusiasm. It pletely won the heart of a brave of?cer, who paid his addresses to her, and thought that one so true to the dead, could not but prove affeate to the living. She deed his attentions, for her thoughts were irrevocably engrossed by the memory of her former lover. He, however, persisted in his suit. He solicited not her tenderness, but her esteem. He was assisted by her vi of his worth, and her sense of her owute and depe situation, for she was existing on the kindness of friends. In a word, he at length succeeded in gaining her hand, though with the solemn assurahat her heart was unalterably anothers.
He took her with him to Sicily, hoping that a ge of se might wear out the remembrance of early woes. She was an amiable and exemplary wife, and made an effort to be a happy one; but nothing could cure the silent and dev melancholy that had entered into her very soul. She wasted away in a slow, but hopeless dee, and at length sunk into the grave, the victim of a broke.
It was ohat Moore, the distinguished Irish poet, posed the following lines:
She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps,And lovers around her are sighing:But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps,For her heart in his grave is lying.She sings the wild song of her dear native plains,Every note which he loved awaking--Ah! little they think, who delight irains,How the heart of the minstrel is breaking!He had lived for his love--for his try he died,They were all that to life had entwined him--Nor soon shall the tears of his try be dried,Nor long will his love stay behind him!Oh! make her a grave where the sunbeams rest,When they promise a glorious morrow;Theyll shine oer her sleep, like a smile from the west,From her own loved island of sorrow!
THE ART OF BOOK-MAKING.
If that severe doom of Synesius be true,--"It is a greater offeo steal dead mens labor, than their clothes,"--what shall bee of most writers?BURTONS ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY.
I HAVE often wo the extreme fedity of the press, and how it es to pass that so many heads, on whiature seems to have in?icted the curse of barrenness, should teem with voluminous produs. As a man travels on, however, in the journey of life, his objects of wonder daily diminish, and he is tinually ?nding out some very simple cause for some great matter of marvel. Thus have I ced, in my peregrinations about this great metropolis, to blunder upon a se whifolded to me some of the mysteries of the book-making craft, and at o ao my astonishment.
I was one summers day l through the great saloons of the British Museum, with that listlessness with whie is apt to saunter about a museum in warm weather; sometimes lolling over the glass cases of minerals, sometimes studying the hieroglyphi aian mummy, and some times trying, with nearly equal success, to prehend the allegorical paintings on the lofty ceilings. Wh.９9ｌiｂ.ilst I was gazing about in this idle way, my attention was attracted to a distant door, at the end of a suite of apartments. It was closed, but every now and then it would open, and some strange-favored being, generally clothed in black, would steal forth, and glide through the rooms, without notig any of the surrounding objects. There was an air of mystery about this that piqued my languid curiosity, and I determio attempt the passage of that strait, and to explore the unknions beyond. The door yielded to my hand, with all that facility with which the portals of ented castles yield to the adventurous knight-errant. I found myself in a spacious chamber, surrounded with great cases of venerable books. Above the cases, and just uhe ice, were arranged a great number of black-looking portraits of a authors. About the room were placed long tables, with stands for reading and writing, at which sat many pale, studious personages, p ily over dusty volumes, rummaging among mouldy manuscripts, and taking copious notes of their tents. A hushed stillness reighrough this mysterious apartment, excepting that you might hear the rag of pens over sheets of paper, and occasionally the deep sigh of one of these sages, as he shifted his position to turhe page of an old folio; doubtless arising from that hollowness and ?atulent to learned research.
Now and then one of these personages would write something on a small slip of paper, and ring a bell, whereupon a famil.iar would appear, take the paper in profound silence, glide out of the room, aurn shortly loaded with ponderous tomes, upon which the other would fall, tooth and nail, with famished voracity. I had no longer a doubt that I had happened upon a body of magi, deeply engaged iudy of occult sces. The se reminded me of an old Arabian tale, of a philosopher shut up in an ented library, in the bosom of a mountain, which opened only once a year; where he made the spirits of the place bring him books of all kinds of dark knowledge, so that at the end of the year, when the magic portal once more swung open on its hinges, he issued forth so versed in forbidden lore, as to be able to soar above the heads of the multitude, and to trol the powers of Nature.
My curiosity being now fully aroused, I whispered to one of the familiars, as he was about to leave the room, and begged an interpretation of the strange se before me. A few words were suf?t for the purpose. I found that these mysterious personages, whom I had mistaken fi, were principally authors, and were in the very aanufacturing books. I was, in fact, in the reading-room of the great British Library, an immense colle of volumes of all ages and languages, many of which are now fotten, and most of which are seldom read: one of these sequestered pools of obsolete literature to which modern authors repair, and draw buckets full of classic lore, or "pure English, unde?led," wherewith to swell their own sty rills of thought.
Being now in possession of the secret, I sat down in a er, and watched the process of this book manufactory. I noticed one lean, bilious-looking wight, who sought the most worm-eaten volumes, printed in black letter. He was evidently strug some work of profound erudition, that would be purchased by every man who wished to be thought learned, placed upon a spicuous shelf of his library, or laid open upon his table--but never read. I observed him, now and then, draw a large fragment of biscuit out of his pocket, and gnaw; whether it was his dinner, or whether he was endeav to keep off that exhaustion of the stomach, produced by much p over dry works, I leave to harder students than myself to determine.
There was one dapper little gentleman in bright-colored clothes, with a chirping gossiping expression of tenance, who had all the appearance of an author on good terms with his bookseller.
After sidering him attentively, I reized in him a diligeer-up of miscellaneous works, which bustled off well with the trade. I was curious to see how he manufactured his wares. He made more stir and show of busihan any of the others; dipping into various books, ?uttering over the leaves of manuscripts, taking a morsel out of one, a morsel out of another, "line upon line, precept upo, here a little and there a little." The tents of his book seemed to be as heterogeneous as those of the witches cauldron in Macbeth. It was here a ?nger and there a thumb, toe and blind worms sting, with his own gossip poured in like "baboons blood," to make the medley "slab and good."
After all, thought I, may not this pilfering disposition be implanted in authors for wise purposes? may it not be the way in which Providence has taken care that the seeds of knowledge and wisdom shall be preserved from age to age, in spite of the iable decay of the works in which they were ?rst produced?
We see that Nature has wisely, though whimsically provided for the veyance of seeds from clime to clime, in the maws of certain birds; so that animals, which, in themselves, are little better than carrion, and apparently the lawless plunderers of the orchard and the -?eld, are, in faatures carriers to disperse auate her blessings. In like mahe beauties and ?houghts of a and obsolete authors are caught up by these ?ights of predatory writers, and cast forth, again to ?ourish and bear fruit in a remote and distant tract of time. Many of their works, also, undergo a kind of metempsychosis, and spring up under new forms. What was formerly a ponderous history, revives in the shape of a romance--an old legend ges into a modern play--and a sober philosophical treatise furhe body for a whole series of boung and sparkling essays. Thus it is in the clearing of our Ameri woodlands; where we burn down a forest of stately pines, a progeny of dwarf oaks start up in their place; and we never see the prostrate trunk of a tree mouldering into soil, but it gives birth to a whole tribe of fungi.
Let us not then, lament over the decay and oblivion into whit writers desd; they do but submit to the great law of Nature, which declares that all sublunary shapes of matter shall be limited in their duration, but which decrees, also, that their element shall never perish. Geion after geion, both in animal aable life, passes away, but the vital principle is transmitted to posterity, and the species tio ?ou>rish. Thus, also, do authors beget authors, and having produced a numerous progeny, in a good old age they sleep with their fathers, that is to say, with the authors who preceded them--and from whom they had stolen.
Whilst I was indulging in these rambling fancies I had leaned my head against a pile of reverend folios. Whether it was owing to the sopori?c emanations for these works; or to the profound quiet of the room; or to the lassitude arising from much wandering; or to an unlucky habit of napping at improper times and places, with which I am grievously af?icted, so it was, that I fell into a doze. Still, however, my imagination tinued busy, and ihe same se tinued before my minds eye, only a little ged in some of the details. I dreamt that the chamber was still decorated with the portraits of a authors, but that the number was increased. The long tables had disappeared, and, in place of the sage magi, I beheld a ragged, threadbare throng, such?. as may be seen plying about the great repository of cast-off clothes, Monmouth Street. Whehey seized upon a book, by one of those ingruities on to dreams, methought it turned into a garment of fn or antique fashion, with which they proceeded to equip themselves. I noticed, however, that no one preteo clothe himself from any particular suit, but took a sleeve from one, a cape from another, a skirt from a third, thus deg himself out piecemeal, while some of his inal rags would peep out from among his borrowed ?nery.
There ortly, rosy, well-fed parson, whom I observed ogling several mouldy polemical writers through an eyeglass. He soon trived to slip on the voluminous mantle of one of the old fathers, and having purloihe gray beard of another, endeavored to look exceedingly wise; but the smirking onplace of his te at naught all the trappings of wisdom. One sickly-lookileman was busied embr a very ?imsy garment with gold thread drawn out of several old court-dresses of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Another had trimmed himself magly from an illuminated manuscript, had stuck a nosegay in his bosom, culled from "The Paradise of Dainty Devices," and having put Sir Philip Sidneys hat on one side of his head, strutted off with an exquisite air of vulgar elegance. A third, who was but of puny dimensions, had bolstered himself out bravely with the spoils from several obscure tracts of philosophy, so that he had a very imposing front, but he was lamentably tattered in rear, and I perceived that he had patched his small-clothes with scraps of part from a Latin author.
There were some well-dressed gentlemen, it is true, who only helped themselves to a gem or so, which sparkled among their own ors, without eclipsing them. Some, too, seemed to plate the es of the old writers, merely to imbibe their principles of taste, and to catch their air and spirit; but I grieve to say, that too many were apt to array themselves, from top to toe, ianner I have mentioned. I shall not omit to speak of one genius, in drab breeches and gaiters, and an Arcadian hat, who had a violent propensity to the pastoral, but whose rural wanderings had been ed to the classic haunts of Primrose Hill, and the solitudes of the Regents Park. He had decked himself ihs and ribbons from all the old pastoral poets, and, hanging his head on one side, went about with a fantastical, lackadaisical air, "babbling about green ?eld." But the persohat most struck my attention ragmatical old gentleman in clerical robes, with a remarkably large and square but bald head. He ehe room wheezing and puf?ng, elbowed his way through the throng with a look of sturdy self-?dence, and, having laid hands upon a thick Greek quarto, clapped it upon his head, and swept majestically away in a formidable frizzled wig.
In the height of this literary masquerade, a cry suddenly resounded from every side, of "Thieves! thieves!" I looked, and lo! the portraits about the walls became animated! The old authors thrust out, ?rst a head, then a shoulder, from the vas, looked down curiously for an instant upoley throng, and then desded, with fury in their eyes, to claim their ri?ed property. The se of scampering and hubbub that ensued baf?es all description. The unhappy culprits endeavored in vain to escape with their plunder. On one side might be seen half a dozen old monks, stripping a modern professor; on ahere was sad devastation carried into the ranks of modern dramatic writers. Beaumont and Fletcher, side by side, raged round the ?eld like Castor and Pollux, and sturdy Ben Jonsoed more wohan when a volunteer with the army in Flanders. As to the dapper little piler of farragos mentioned some time since, he had arrayed himself in as many patches and colors as harlequin, and there was as ?erce a tention of claimants about him, as about the dead body of Patroclus. I was grieved to see mao whom I had been aced to look up with awe and reverence, fain to steal off with scarce a rag to cover their nakedness. Just then my eye was caught by the pragmatical old gentleman in the Greek grizzled wig, who was scrambling away in sore affright with half a score of authors in full cry after him. They were close upon his haunches; in a twinkling off went his wig; at every turn some strip of raiment eeled away, until in a few moments, from his domineering pomp, he shrunk into a little, pursy, "choppd bald shot," and made his exit with only a few tags and rags ?uttering at his back.
There was something so ludicrous iastrophe of this learheban that I burst into an immoderate ?t of laughter, which broke the whole illusion. The tumult and the scuf?e were at an end. The chamber resumed its usual appearahe old authors shrunk bato their picture-frames, and hung in shadowy solemnity along the wal?９９lｉｂ.ls. In short, I found myself wide awake in my er, with the whole assemblage of hoazing at me with astonishment. Nothing of the dream had been real but my burst of laughter, a sound never before heard in that grave sanctuary, and so abhorrent to the ears of wisdom, as to electrify the fraternity.
The librarian now stepped up to me, and demanded whether I had a card of admission. At ?rst I did not prehend him, but I soon found that the library was a kind of literary "preserve," subjee-laws, and that no one must presume to hunt there without special lise and permission. In a word, I stood victed of being an arrant poacher, and was glad to make a precipitate retreat, lest I should have a whole pack of authors let loose upon me.
A ROYAL POET.
Though your body be edAnd soft love a prisoner bound,Yet the beauty of your mind her cheor hath found.Look out nobly, then, and dare Eveters that you wear.FLETCHER.
ON a soft sunny m in the genial month of May I made an excursion to Windsor Castle. It is a place full of storied and poetical associations. The very external aspect of the proud old pile is enough to inspire high thought. It rears its irregular walls and massive towers, like a mural around the brow of a lofty ridge, waves its royal banner in the clouds, and looks down with a lordly air upon the surrounding world.
On this m, the weather was of that voluptuous vernal kind which calls forth all the latent romance of a mans temperament, ?lling his mind with musid disposing him to quote poetry and dream of beauty. In wandering through the mag saloons and long eg galleries of the castle I passed with indifference by whole rows of portraits of warriors and statesmen, but lingered in the chamber where hang the likenesses of the beauties which graced the gay court of Charles the Sed; and as I gazed upon them, depicted with amorous, half-dishevelled tresses, and the sleepy eye of love, I blessed the pencil of Sir Peter Lely, which bad thus enabled me to bask in the re?ected rays of beauty. In traversing also the "large green courts," with sunshine beaming on the gray walls and glang along the velvet turf, my mind was engrossed with the image of the tehe gallant, but hapless Surrey, and his at of his ls about them in his stripling days, when enamoured of the Lady Geraldine--
"With eyes cast up unto the maidens tower,
With easie sighs, such as men draw in love."
In this mood of mere poetical susceptibility, I visited the a keep of the castle, where James the First of Scotland, the pride and theme of Scottish poets and historians, was for many years of his youth detained a prisoner of state. It is a large gray tower, that has stood the brunt of ages, and is still in good preservation. It stands on a mound which elevates it above the other parts of the castle, and a great ?ight of steps leads to the interior. In the armory, a Gothic hall furnished with ons of various kinds and ages, I was shown a coat of armor hanging against the wall, which had once beloo James.
Hence I was ducted up a staircase to a suite of apartments, of faded magni?ce, hung with storied tapestry, whied his prison, and the se of that passionate and fanciful amour, which has woven into the web of his story the magical hues of poetry and ?.
The whole history of this amiable but unfortunate prince is highly romantic. At the tender age of eleven, he was sent from home by his father, Robert III., ained for the French court, to be reared uhe eye of the French monarch, secure from the treachery and dahat surrouhe royal house of Scotland. It was his mishap, in the course of his voyage, to fall into the hands of the English, and he was detained prisoner by Henry IV., notwithstanding that a truce existed betweewo tries.
The intelligence of his capture, ing irain of many sorrows and disasters, proved fatal to his unhappy father. "The news," we are told, "was brought to him while at supper, and did so overwhelm him with grief that he was almost ready to give up the ghost into the hands of the servants that attended him. But being carried to his bedchamber, he abstained from all food, and in three days died of hunger and grief at Rothesay."*
* Buan.
James was detained in captivity above eighteen years; but, though deprived of personal liberty, he was treated with the respect due to his rank. Care was taken to instruct him in all the branches of useful knowledge cultivated at that period, and to give him those mental and personal aplishments deemed proper for a prince. Perhaps in this respect his impriso was an advantage, as it enabled him to apply himself the more exclusively to his improvement, and quietly to imbibe that rich fund of knowledge and to cherish those elegant tastes which have given such a lustre to his memory. The picture drawn of him in early life by the Scottish historians is highly captivating, and seems rather the description of a hero of romahan of a character in real history. He was well learnt, we are told, "to ?ght with the sword, to joust, to touro wrestle, to sing and dance; he was an expert medier, right crafty in playing both of lute and harp, and sundry other instruments of musid was expert in grammar, oratory, and poetry."*
* Balleranslation of Hector Boyce.
With this bination of manly and delicate aplishments, ?tting him to shih in active and elegant life, and calculated to give him an intense relish for joyous existe must have been a severe trial, in an age of bustle and chivalry, to pass the spring-time of his years in monotonous captivity. It was the good fortune of James, however, to be gifted with a powerful poeticy, and to be visited in his prison by the choicest inspirations of the muse. Some minds corrode, and grow inactive, uhe loss of personal liberty; row morbid and irritable; but it is the nature of the poet to bee tender and imaginative in the loneliness of ement. He bas upon the honey of his own thoughts, and, like the captive bird, pours forth his soul in melody.
Have you not seen the nightingale,A pilgrim coopd into a cage,How doth she t her woale,In that her lonely hermitage!Even there her charming melody doth prove
That all her boughs are trees, her cage a grove.+ + Roger LEstrange.
Indeed, it is the diviribute of the imagination, that it is irrepressible, unable--that when the real world is shut out, it create a world for itself, and, with a neantic power, jure up glorious shapes and forms and brilliant visions, to make solitude populous, and irradiate the gloom of the dungeon. Such was the world of pomp and pageant that lived round Tasso in his dismal cell at Ferrara, when he ceived the splendid ses of his Jerusalem; and we may sider The Kings Quair,* posed by James during his captivity at Windsor, as another of those beautiful breakings forth of the soul from the restraint and gloom of the prison-house.
The subject of the poem is his love for the lady Jane Beaufort, daughter of the Earl of Somerset, and a princess of the blood-royal of England, of whom he became enamoured in the course of his captivity. What gives it a peculiar value, is, that it may be sidered a transcript of the royal bards true feelings, and the story of his real loves and fortunes. It is not often that sns write poetry or that poets deal in fact. It is gratifying to the pride of a an, to ?nd a monarch thus suing, as it were, for admission into his closet, and seeking to win his favor by administering to his pleasures. It is a proof of the ho equality of intellectual petition, which strips off all the trappings of factitious dignity, brings the didate down to a level with his fellow-men, and obliges him to depend on his own native powers for distin. It is curious, too, to get at the history of a monarchs heart, and to ?nd the simple affes of human nature throbbing uhe ermine. But James had learnt to be a poet before he was a king; he was schooled in adversity, and reared in the pany of his own thoughts.
Monarchs have seldom time to parley with their hearts or to meditate their minds into poetry; and had James been brought up amidst the adulation and gayety of a court, we should never, in all probability, have had such a poem as the Quair.
* Quair, an old term for book.
I have been particularly ied by those parts of the poem which breathe his immediate thoughts ing his situation, or which are ected with the apartment iower. They have thus a personal and local charm, and are given with such circumstantial truth as to make the reader present with the captive in his prison and the panion of his meditations.
Such is the at which he gives of his weariness of spirit, and of the i which ?rst suggested the idea of writing the poem. It was the still mid-watch of a clear moonlight night; the stars, he says, were twinkling as ?re in the high vault of heaven, and "thia rinsing her golden locks in Aquarius." He lay in bed wakeful aless, and took a book to beguile the tedious hours. The book he chose was Boetius solations of Philosophy, a work popular among the writers of that day, and which had been translated by his great prototype, Chaucer. From the high eulogium in which he indulges, it is evident this was one of his favorite volumes while in prison; and i is an admirable text-book for meditation under adversity. It is the legacy of a noble and enduring spirit, puri?ed by sorrow and suffering, bequeathing to its successors in calamity the maxims of sweet morality, and the trains of eloquent but simple reasoning, by which it was eo bear up against the various ills of life. It is a talisman, which the unfortunate may treasure up in his bosom, or, like the good King James, lay upon his nightly pillow.
After closing the volume he turns its tents over in his mind, and gradually falls into a ?t of musing on the ?ess of fortuhe vicissitudes of his own life, and the evils that had overtaken him even in his tender youth. Suddenly he hears the bell ringing to matins, but its sound, chiming in with his melancholy fancies, seems to him like a voice exh him to write his story. In the spirit of poetic errantry he determio ply with this intimatioherefore takes pen in hand, makes with it a sign of the cross to implore a beion, and sallies forth into the fairy-land of poetry. There is somethiremely fanciful in all this, and it is iing as furnishing a striking aiful instance of the simple manner in which whole trains of poetical thought are sometimes awakened and literary enterprises suggested to the mind.
In the course of his poem, he more than once bewails the peculiar hardness of his fate, thus doomed to lonely and inactive life, and shut up from the freedom and pleasure of the world in which the mea animal indulges uraihere is a sweetness, however, in his very plaints; they are the lamentations of an amiable and social spirit at being dehe indulgence of its kind and generous propensities; there is nothing in them harsh nor exaggerated; they ?ow with a natural and toug pathos, and are perhaps rendered more toug by their simple brevity.
They trast ?nely with those elaborate and iterated repinings which we sometimes meet with iry, the effusions of morbid minds siing under miseries of their owing, aing their bitterness upon an unoffending world. James speaks of his privations with acute sensibility, but haviiohem passes on, as if his manlv mind disdaio brood over unavoidable calamities. When such a spirit breaks forth into plaint, however brief, we are aware how great must be the suffering that extorts the murmur. We sympathize with James, a romantic, active, and aplished prince, cut off in the lustihood of youth from all the enterprise, the noble uses, and vigorous delights of life, as we do with Milton, alive to all the beauties of nature and glories of art, when he breathes forth brief but deep-toned lamentations over his perpetual blindness.
Had not James evinced a de?cy of poetic arti?ce, we might almost have suspected that these ls of gloomy re?e were meant as preparative to the brightest se of his story, and to trast with that refulgence of light and loveliness, that exhilarating apa of bird and song, and foliage and ?ower, and all the revel of, the year, with which he ushers in the lady of his heart. It is this se, in particular, which throws all the magic of romance about the old castle keep. He had risen, he says, at daybreak, acc to , to escape from the dreary meditations of a sleepless pillow. "Bewailing in his chamber thus alone," despairing of all joy and remedy, "for, tired of thought, and woe-begone," he had wao the window to indulge the captives miserable solace, of gazing wistfully upon the world from which he is excluded. The window looked forth upon a small garden which lay at the foot of the tower. It was a quiet, sheltered spot, adorned with arbors and green alleys, and protected from the passing gaze by trees and hawthorn hedges.
Now was there made fast by the towers wall,A garden faire, and in the ers setAn arbreen with wandis long and smallRailed about, and so with leaves besetWas all the plad hawthorn hedges k,That lyf* was none, walkyng there forbye,That might within scary wight espye.So thick the branches and the leves grene,Beshaded all the alleys that there were,And midst of every arbht be seen,The sharpe, grene, swete juniper,Growing so fair with branches here and there,That as it seemed to a lyf without,The boughs did spread the arbour all about.And on the small grewistis+ setThe lytel swete nightingales, and sungSo loud and clear, the hymnis secrateOf lovis use, now soft, now loud among,That all the garden and the wallis rung
Right of their song----
* Lyf, Person. + Twistis, small boughs or twigs.
he language of the quotations is generally modernized.
It was the month of May, whehing was in bloom, aerprets the song of the nightio the language of his enamoured feeling:
Worship, all ye that lovers be, this May;For of your bliss the kalends are begun,And sing with us, Away, winter, away.e, summer, e, the sweet season and sun.
As he gazes on the se, and listens to the notes of the birds, he gradually relapses into one of those tender and unde?nable reveries, which ?ll the youthful bosom in this delicious season.
He wonders what this love may be of which he has so often read, and which thus seems breathed forth in the quiing breath of May, aing all nature iasy and song. If it really be so great a felicity, and if it be a boon thus generally dispeo the most insigni?t beings, why is he alo off from its enjoyments?
Oft would I think, O Lord, what may this be,That love is of suoble myght and kynde?Loving his folke, and such prosperitee,Is it of him, as we in books do ?nd;May he oure hertes setten* and unbynd:Hath he upon oure hertes such maistrye?Or is all this but feynit fantasye?Fiff he be of so grete excellenceThat he of every wight hath care and charge,What have I gilt+ to him, or done offense,That I am thrald, and birdis go at large?
* Setten, ine.
+ Gilt, what injury have I doc.
In the midst of his musing, as he casts his eye downward, he beholds "the fairest and the freshest young ?oure" that ever he had seen. It is the lovely Lady Jane, walking in the garden to enjoy the beauty of that "fresh May morrowe." Breaking thus suddenly upon his sight in a moment of loneliness aed susceptibility, she at once captivates the fancy of the romantic prince, and bees the object of his wandering wishes, the sn of his ideal world.
There is, in this charming se, an evident resemblao the early part of Chaucers Knights Tale, where Palamon and Arcite fall in love with Emilia, whom they see walking in the garden of their prison. Perhaps the similarity of the actual fact to the i which he had read in Chaucer may have induced James to dwell on it in his poem. His description of the Lady Jane is given in the picturesque and minute manner of his master, and, being doubtless taken from the life, is a perfect portrait of a beauty of that day. He dwells with the fondness of a lover on every article of her apparel, from the of pearl, sple with emeralds and sapphires, that ed her golden hair, even to the "goodly e of small orfeverye"* about her neck, whereby there hung a ruby in shape of a heart, that seemed, he says, like a spark of ?re burning upon her white bosom. Her dress of white tissue was looped up to enable her to ..walk with more freedom. She was apanied by two female attendants, and about her sported a little hound decorated with bells, probably the small Italian hound of exquisite symmetry which arlor favorite a among the fashionable dames of aimes.
James closes his description by a burst of general eulogium:
In her was youth, beauty, with humble port,Bounty, richesse, and womanly feature:God better knows than my pen report,Wisdom, largesse,+ estate,++ and ing& sure.In every point so guided her measure,In word, in deed, in shape, in tenance,That nature might no more her child advance.
* Wrought gold.
+ Largesse, bounty.
++ Estate, dignity.
& ing, discretion.
The departure of the Lady Jane from the garden puts ao this tra riot of the heart. With her departs the amorous illusion that had shed a temporary charm over the se of his captivity, and he relapses into loneliness, now reenfold more intolerable by this passing beam of unattainable beauty.
Through the long and weary day he repi his unhappy lot, and when evening approaches, and Phoebus, as he beautifully expresses it, had "bade farewell to every leaf and ?ower," he still lingers at the window, and, laying his head upon the cold stone, gives vent to a mingled ?ow of love and sorrow, until, gradually lulled by the mute melancholy of the twilight hour, he lapses, "half-sleeping, half swoon," into a vision, which occupies the remainder of the poem, and in which is allegorically shadowed out the history of his passion.
When he wakes from his trance, he rises from his stony pillow, and, pag his apartment, full of dreary re?es, questions his spirit, whither it has been wandering; whether, indeed, all that has passed before his dreaming fancy has been jured up by preg circumstances, or whether it is a vision inteo fort and assure him in his despondency. If the latter, he prays that some token may be sent to the promise of happier days, given him in his slumbers. Suddenly, a turtledove of the purest whiteness es ?ying in at the window, and alights upon his hand, bearing in her bill a branch illi?ower, on the leaves of which is written, iers of gold, the followience:
Awake! Awake! I bring, lover, I bringThe newis glad, that blissful is and sureOf thy fort; now laugh, and play, and sing,For in the heaveit is thy cure.
He receives the branch with mingled hope and dread; reads it with rapture; and this he says was the ?rst token of his succeeding happiness. Whether this is a mere poetic ?, or whether the Lady Jane did actually send him a token of her favor in this romantic way, remains to be determined acc to the fate or fancy of the reader. He cludes his poem by intimating that the promise veyed in the vision and by the ?ower, is ful?lled by his beiored to liberty, and made happy in the possession of the sn of his heart.
Such is the poetical at given by James of his love adventures in Windsor Castle. How much of it is absolute fact, and how much the embellishment of fancy, it is fruitless to jecture; let us not, however, reject every romantit as inpatible with real life, but let us sometimes take a poet at his word. I have noticed merely those parts of the poem immediately ected with the tower, and have passed over a large part which was in the allegorical vein, so much cultivated at that day. The language, of course, is quaint and antiquated, so that the beauty of many of its golden phrases will scarcely be perceived at the present day, but it is impossible not to be charmed with the genuiiment, the delightful artlessness and urbanity, which prevail throughout it. The descriptions of Nature too, with which it is embellished, are given with a truth, a discrimination, and a freshness, worthy of the most cultivated periods of the art.
As an amatory poem, it is edifying, in these days of coarser thinking, to notice the nature, re?, and exquisite delicacy which pervade it; banishing every gross thought, or immodest expression, and presenting female loveliness, clothed in all its chivalrous attributes of almost supernatural purity and grace.
James ?ourished nearly about the time of Chaucer and Gower, and was evidently an admirer and studier of their writings. Indeed, in one of his stanzas he aowledges them as his masters; and in some parts of his poem we ?nd traces of similarity to their produs, more especially to those of Chaucer. There are always, however, general features of resemblan the works of porary authors, which are not so much borrowed from each other as from the times. Writers, like bees, toll their sweets in the wide world; they incorporate with their own ceptions, the aes and thoughts current in society; and thus each geion has some features in on, characteristic of the age in which it lives.
James belongs to one of the most brilliant eras of our literary history, aablishes the claims of his co９9ｌｉｂ?t>untry to a participation in its primitive honors. Whilst a small cluster of English writers are stantly cited as the fathers of our verse, the name of their great Scottish peer is apt to be passed over in silence; but he is evidently worthy of being enrolled in that little stellation of remote but never-failing luminaries who shine in the highest ?rmament of literature, and who, like m stars, sang together at the bright dawning of British poesy.
Suy readers as may not be familiar with Scottish history (though the manner in which it has of late been woven with captivating ? has made it a universal study) may be curious to learn something of the subsequent history of James and the fortunes of his love. His passion for the Lady Jane, as it was the solace of his captivity, so it facilitated his release, it being imagined by the Court that a e with the blood-royal of England would attach him to its own is. He was ultimately restored to his liberty and , having previously espoused the Lady Jane, who apanied him to Scotland, and made him a most tender aed wife.
He found his kingdom i fusion, the feudal chieftains having taken advantage of the troubles and irregularities of a long interregnum, tthen themselves in their possessions, and place themselves above the power of the laws. James sought to found the basis of his power in the affes of his people. He attached the lower orders to him by the reformation of abuses, the temperate and equable administration of justice, the encement of the arts of peace, and the promotion of every thing that could diffuse fort, petency, and i enjoyment through the humblest ranks of society. He mingled occasionally among the on people in disguise; visited their ?resides; entered into their cares, their pursuits, and their amusements; informed himself of the meical arts, and how they could best be patronized and improved; and was thus an all-pervading spirit, watg with a benevolent eye over the mea of his subjects. Having in this generous manner made himself strong in the hearts of the on people, he turned himself to curb the power of the factious nobility; to strip them of those dangerous immunities which they had usurp..ed; to punish such as had been guilty of ?agrant offences; and t the whole into proper obedieo the . For some time they bore this with outward submission, but with secret impatiend broodiment. A spiracy was at length formed against his life, at the head of which was his own uncle, Robert Stewart, Earl of Athol, who, being too old himself for the perpetration of the deed of blood, instigated his grandson, Sir Robert Stewart, together with Sir Rraham, and others of less o it the deed. They broke into his bedchamber at the Domini vent near Perth, where he was residing, and barbarously murdered him by oft-repeated wounds. His faithful queen, rushing to throw her tender body between him and the sword, was twice wounded in the iual attempt to shield him from the assassin; and it was not until she had been forcibly torn from his person, that the murder was aplished.
It was the recolle of this romantic tale of former times, and of the golden little poem, which had its birthpla this tower, that made me visit the old pile with more than on i. The suit of armor hanging up in the hall, richly gilt and embellished, as if to ?gure iourney, brought the image of the gallant and romantic prince vividly before my imagination. I paced the deserted chambers where he had posed his poem; I leaned upon the window, and endeavored to persuade myself it was the very one where he had been visited by his vision; I looked out upon the spot where he had ?rst seen the Lady Ja was the same genial and joyous month; the birds were again vying with each other in strains of liquid melody; every thing was bursting into vegetation, and budding forth the tender promise of the year. Time, which delights to obliterate the sterner memorials of human pride, seems to have passed lightly over this little se of poetry and love, and to have withheld his desolating hand. Several turies have gone by, yet the garden still ?ourishes at the foot of the tower. It occupies what was ohe moat of the keep; and, though some parts have been separated by dividing walls, yet others have still their arbors and shaded walks, as in the days of James, and the whole is sheltered, blooming, aired. There is a charm about the spot that has been printed by the footsteps of departed beauty, and secrated by the inspirations of the poet, which is heightened, rather than impaired, by the lapse of ages. It is, ihe gift of poetry, to hallow every pla which it moves; to breathe around nature an odor more exquisite than the perfume of the rose, and to shed over it a tint more magical than the blush of m.
Others may dwell on the illustrious deeds of James as a warrior and a legislator; but I have delighted to view him merely as the panion of his fellow-men, the beor of the huma, stooping from his high estate to sow the sweet ?owers of poetry and song ihs of on life. He was the ?rst to cultivate the vigorous and hardy plant of Scottish genius, which has since bee so proli?c of the most wholesome and highly ?avored fruit. He carried with him into the sterner regions of the north, all the fertilizing arts of southern re?. He did every thing in his power to win his trymen to the gay, the elegant, ale arts, which soften and re?he character of a people, and wreathe a grace round the loftiness of a proud and warlike spirit. He wrote many poems, which, unfortunately for the fulness of his fame, are now lost to the world; one, which is still preserved, called "Christs Kirk of the Green," shows how diligently he had made himself acquainted with the rustic sports and pastimes, which stitute such a source of kind and social feeling among the Scottish peasantry; and with what simple and happy humor he could enter into their enjoyments. He tributed greatly to improve the national musid traces of his tender se and elegant taste are said to exist in those witg airs, still piped among the wild mountains and lonely glens of Scotland. He has thus ected his image with whatever is most gracious and endearing iional character; he has embalmed his memory in song, and ?oated his o after-ages in the rich streams of Scottish melody. The recolle of these things was kindling at my heart, as I paced the silent se of his impriso. I have visited Vaucluse with as muthusiasm as a pilgrim would visit the shri Loretto; but I have never felt more poetical devotion than when plating the old tower and the little garden at Windsor, and musing over the romantic loves of the Lady Jane, and the Royal Poet of Scotland.
THE COUNTRY CHURCH.
A gentleman!What o the woolpack? or the sugar-chest?Or lists of velvet? which is t, pound, or yard,You vend yentry by?BEGGARS BUSH.
THERE are few places more favorable to the study of character than an English try church. I was once passing a few weeks at the seat of a friend who resided in, the viity of ohe appearance of which particularly struck my fancy. It was one of those rich morsels of quaint antiquity, which gives such a peculiar charm to English landscape. It stood in the midst of a try ?lled with a families, and tained within its cold and silent aisles the gregated dust of many noble geions. The interior walls were encrusted with mos of every age and style. The light streamed through windows dimmed with armorial bearings, richly emblazoned in stained glass. In various parts of the church were tombs of knights, and highborn dames, of geous workmanship, with their ef?gies in colored marble. On every side, t?he eye was struck with some instance of aspiring mortality, some haughty memorial which human pride had erected over its kindred dust in this temple of the most humble of all religions.
The gregation was posed of the neighb people of rank, who sat in pews sumptuously lined and cushioned, furnished with richly-gilded prayer-books, and decorated with their arms upon the pew doors; of the villagers and peasantry, who ?lled the back seats and a small gallery beside the an; and of the poor of the parish, who were ranged on benches in the aisles.
The service erformed by a snuf?ing, well-fed vicar, who had a snug dwellihe church. He rivileged guest at all the tables of the neighborhood, and had been the kee fox-hunter in the try, until age and good living had disabled him from doing anything more than ride to see the hounds throw off, and make o the hunting dinner.
Uhe ministry of such a pastor, I found it impossible to get into the train of thought suitable to the time and place; so, having, like many other feeble Christians, promised with my sce, by laying the sin of my own delinquency at another persons threshold, I occupied myself by making observations on my neighbors.
I was as yet a stranger in England, and curious to notice the manners of its fashionable classes. I found, as usual, that there was the least pretensiohere was the most aowledged title to respect. I articularly struck, for instance, with the family of a nobleman of high rank, sisting of several sons and daughters. Nothing could be more simple and unassuming than their appearahey generally came to chur the plai equipage, and often on foot. The young ladies would stop and verse in the ki manner with the peasantry, caress the children, and listen to the stories of the humble cottagers.
Their tenances 99lｉｂ?were open aifully fair, with an expression of high re?, but at the same time a frank cheerfulness and engaging affability. Their brothers were tall, and elegantly formed. They were dressed fashionably, but simply--with strieatness and propriety, but without any mannerism or foppishness. Their whole demeanor was easy and natural, with that lofty grad noble frankness which bespeak free-born souls that have never been checked in their growth by feelings of inferiority. There is a healthful hardiness about real dignity, that never dreads tad union with others, however humble. It is only spurious pride that is morbid aive, and shrinks from every touch. I leased to see the manner in which they would verse with the peasantry about those rural s and ?eld-sports in which the gentlemen of the try so much delight. In these versations there was her haughtiness on the one part, nor servility oher, and you were only reminded of the difference of rank by the habitual respect of the peasant.
In trast to these was the family of a wealthy citizen, who had amassed a vast fortune, and, having purchased the estate and mansion of a ruined nobleman in the neighborhood, was endeav to assume all the style and dignity of an hereditary lord of the soil. The family always came to chur prihey were rolled majestically along in a carriage emblazoned with arms. The crest glittered in silver radiance from every part of the harness where a crest could possibly be placed. A fat an, in a three-ered hat richly laced and a ?axen wig, curling close round his rosy face, was seated on the box, with a sleek Danish dog beside him. Two footmen in geous liveries, with huge bouquets, and gold-headed es, lolled behind. The carriage rose and sunk on its long springs with a peculiar stateliness of motion. The very horses champed their bits, arched their necks, and glaheir eyes more proudly than on horses; either because they had caught a little of the family feeling, or were reined up more tightly than ordinary.
I could not but admire the style with which this splendid pageant was brought up to the gate of the churchyard. There was a vast effect produced at the turning of an angle of the wall--a great smag of the whip, straining and scrambling of the horses, glistening of harness, and ?ashing of wheels through gravel.
This was the moment of triumph and vainglory to the an. The horses were urged and checked, until they were fretted into a foam. They threw out their feet in a prang trot, dashing about pebbles at every step. The crowd of villagers sauntering quietly to church opened precipitately to the right a, gaping in vat admiration. On reag the gate, the horses were pulled up with a suddehat produced an immediate stop, and almost threw them on their haunches.
There was araordinary hurry of the footmen to alight, pull doweps, and prepare everything for the dest oh of this august family. The old citizen ?rst emerged his round red face from out the door, looking about him with the pompous air of a man aced to rule on ge, and shake the Stock Market with a nod. His sort, a ?ne, ?eshy, fortable dame, followed him. There seemed, I must fess, but little pride in her position. She was the picture of broad, ho, vulgar enjoyment. The world went well with her; and she like.he world.
She had ?ne clothes, a ?ne house, a ?ne carriage, ?ne children--everything was ?ne about her: it was nothing but driving about and visiting aing. Life was to her a perpetual revel; it was one long Lord Mayors Day.
Two daughters succeeded to this goodly couple. They certainly were handsome, but had a supercilious air that chilled admiration and disposed the spectator to be critical. They were ultrafashionable in dress, and, though no one could deny the riess of their decorations, yet their appropriateness might be questioned amidst the simplicity of a try church. They desded loftily from the carriage, and moved up the line of peasantry with a step that seemed dainty of the soil it trod on.
They cast an excursive glance around, that passed coldly over the burly faces of the peasantry, until they met the eyes of the noblemans family, when their tenances immediately brightened into smiles, and they made the most profound and elegant courtesies, which were returned in a mahat showed they were but slight acquaintances.
I must not fet the two sons of this inspiring citizen, who came to chur a dashing curricle with outriders. They were arrayed iremity of the mode, with all that pedantry of dress which marks the man of questionable pretensions to style.
They kept entirely by themselves, eying every one askahat came hem, as if measuring his claims to respectability; yet they were without versation, except the exge of an occasional t phrase. They even moved arti?cially, for their bodies, in pliah the caprice of the day, had been disciplined into the absence of all ease and freedom. Art had done everything to aplish them as men of fashion, but Nature had dehem the nameless grace. They were vulgarly shaped, like men formed for the on purposes of life, and had that air of supercilious assumption which is never seen irue gentleman.
I have been rather minute in drawing the pictures of these two families, because I sidered them spes of what is often to be met with in this try--the uending great, and the arrogant little. I have no respect for titled rank, unless it be apanied with true nobility of soul; but I have remarked, in all tries where arti?cial distins exist, that the very highest classes are always the most courteous and unassuming.
Those who are well assured of their own standing are least apt to trespass on that of others; whereas, nothing is so offensive as the aspirings of vulgarity, which thinks to elevate itself by humiliating its neighbor.
As I have brought these families into trast, I must notice their behavior in church. That of the noblemans family was quiet, serious, and attentive. Not that they appeared to have any fervor of devotion, but rather a respect for sacred things, and sacred places, inseparable from good-breeding. The others, on the trary, were in a perpetual ?utter and whisper; they betrayed a tinual sciousness of ?nery, and the sorry ambition of being the wonders of a rural gregation.
The old gentleman was the only one really atteo the service. He took the whole burden of family devotion upon himself; standing bolt upright, and uttering the responses with a loud voice that might be heard all over the church. It was evident that he was one of these thh Churd-king men, who ect the idea of devotion and loyalty; who sider the Deity, somehow or other, of the gover party, and religion "a very excellent sort of thing, that ought to be tenanced a up."
When he joined so loudly in the service, it seemed more by way of example to the lower orders, to show them that, though so great ahy, he was not above being religious; as I have seen a turtle-fed alderman swallow publicly a basin of charity soup, smag his lips at every mouthful and pronoung it "excellent food for the poor."
When the service was at an end, I was curious to withe several exits of my groups. The young noblemen and their sisters, as the day was ?ne, preferred strolling home across the ?elds, chatting with the try people as they went. The others departed as they came, in grand parade. Agaihe equipages wheeled up to the gate. There was again .９９ｌib.the smag of whips, the clattering of hoofs, and the glittering of harness. The horses started off almost at a bound; the villagers again hurried tht a; the wheels threw up a cloud of dust, and the aspirin family was rapt out of sight in a whirlwind.
THE WIDOW AND HER SON.
Pittie olde age, within whose silver hairesHonour and reverence evermore have raind.MARLOWES TAMBURLAINE.
THOSE who are in the habit of remarking such matters must have noticed the passive quiet of an English landscape on Sunday. The clag of the mill, the regularly recurring stroke of the ?ail, the din of the blacksmiths hammer, the whistling of the ploughman, the rattling of the cart, and all other sounds of rural labor are suspehe very farm-dogs bark less frequently, being less disturbed by passing travellers. At such times I have almost fahe wind sunk into quiet, and that the sunny landscape, with its fresh green tints melting into blue haze, ehe hallowed calm.
Sweet day, so pure, so calm, shThe bridal of the earth and sky.
Well was it ordaihat the day of devotion should be a day of rest. The holy repose which reigns over the face of nature has its moral in?uence; every restless passion is charmed down, and we feel the natural religion of the soul gently springing up within us. For my part, there are feelings that visit me, in a try church, amid the beautiful serenity of nature, which I experienowhere else; and if not a mious, I think I am a better man on Sunday than on any other day of the seven.
During my ret residen the try, I used frequently to attend at the old village church. Its shadowy aisles, its mouldering mos, its dark oaken panelling, all reverend with the gloom of departed years, seemed to ?t it for the haunt of solemation; but, being in a wealthy, aristocratieighborhood, the glitter of fashiorated even into the sanctuary; and I felt myself tinually thrown back upon the world, by the frigidity and pomp of the poor worms arouhe only being in the whole gregation eared thhly to feel the humble and prostrate piety of a true Christian oor decrepit old woman, bending uhe weight of years and in?rmities. She bore the traces of somethier than abject poverty. The lingerings of det pride were visible in her appearance. Her dress, though humble ireme, was scrupulously . Some trivial respect, too, had been awarded her, for she did not take her seat among the village poor, but sat alone oeps of the altar. She seemed to have survived all love, all friendship, all society, and to have nothi her but the hopes of heaven. When I saw her feebly rising and bending her aged form in prayer; habitually ing her prayer-book, which her palsied hand and failing eyes could not permit her to read, but which she evidently knew by heart, I felt persuaded that the faltering voice of that poor woman arose to heaven far before the responses of the clerk, the swell of the an, or the ting of the choir.
I am fond of l about try churches, and this was so delightfully situated, that it frequently attracted me. It stood on a knoll, round which a small stream made a beautiful bend and then wound its way through a long reach of soft meadow sery.
The church was surrounded by yew trees, which seemed almost coeval with itself. Its tall Gothic spire shot up lightly from among them, with rooks and crows generally wheeling about it. I was seated there oill sunny m watg two laborers who were digging a grave. They had chosen one of the most remote and ed ers of the churchyard, where, from the number of nameless graves around, it would appear that the i and friendless were huddled into the earth. I was told that the new-made grave was for the only son of a poor hile I was meditating on the distins of worldly rank, which extend thus down into the very dust, the toll of the bell annouhe approach of the funeral. They were the obsequies of poverty, with which pride had nothing to do. A of the plai materials, without pall or other c, was borne by some of the villagers. The sexton walked before with an air of cold indifferehere were no mock mourners irappings of affected woe, but there was one real mourner who feebly tottered after the corpse. It was the aged mother of the deceased, the poor old woman whom I had seeed oeps of the altar.
She was supported by a humble friend, who was endeav to fort her. A few of the neighb poor had joihe train, and some children of the village were running hand in hand, now shouting with unthinking mirth, and now pausing to gaze, with childish curiosity on the grief of the mourner.
As the funeral train approached the grave, the parson ??issued from the church-porch, arrayed in the surplice, with prayer-book in hand, and attended by the clerk. The service, however, was a mere act of charity. The deceased had beeute, and the survivor enniless. It was shuf?ed through, therefore, in form, but coldly and unfeeling. The well-fed priest moved but a few steps from the church door; his voice could scarcely be heard at the grave; and never did I hear the funeral service, that sublime and toug ceremony, turned into such a frigid mummery of words.
I approached the grave. The laced on the ground. On it were inscribed the name and age of the deceased--"Gee Somers, aged 26 years." The poor mother had been assisted to kneel down at the head of it. Her withered hands were clasped, as if in prayer; but I could perceive, by a feeble rog of the body, and a vulsive motion of the lips, that she was gazing on the last relics of her son with the yearnings of a mothers heart.
Preparations were made to deposit the in the earth. There was that bustling stir, which breaks so harshly on the feelings of grief and affe; dires given in the cold tones of business; the striking of spades into sand and gravel; which, at the grave of those we love, is, of all sounds, the most withering. The bustle around seemed to wakeher from a wretched revery. She raised her glazed eyes, and looked about with a faint wildness. As the men approached with cords to lower the into the grave, she wrung her hands, and broke into an agony of grief. The poor woman who attended her took her by the arm endeav to raise her from the earth, and to whisper something like solation: "Nay, now--nay, now--dont take it so sorely to heart." She could only shake her head, and wring her hands, as o to be forted.
As they lowered the body into the earth, the creaking of the cords seemed to agonize her; but when, on some actal obstru, there was a jostling of the , all the tenderness of the mother burst forth, as if any harm could e to him who was far beyond the reach of worldly suffering.
I could see no more--my heart swelled into my throat--my eyes ?lled with tears; I felt as if I were ag a barbarous part in standing by and gazing idly on this se of maternal anguish. I wao another part of the churchyard, where I remained until the funeral train had dispersed.
When I saw the mother sloainfully quitting the grave, leaving behihe remains of all that was dear to her oh, aurning to silend destitution, my heart ached for her. What, thought I, are the distresses of the rich? They have friends to soothe--pleasures to beguile--a world to divert and dissipate their griefs. What are the sorrows of the young?
Their growing minds soon close above the wound--their elastic spirits soon rise beh the pressure--their green and ductile affes soon twine round new objects. But the sorrows of the poor, who have no outward appliao soothe--the sorrows of the aged, with whom life at best is but a wintry day, and who look for no after-growth of joy--the sorrows of a widow, aged, solitary, destitute, m over an only son, the last solace of her years,--these are indeed sorrows which make us feel the impotency of solation.
It was some time before I left the churchyard. On my way homeward, I met with the woman who had acted as forter: she was just returning from apanying the mother to her lonely habitation, and I drew from her some particulars ected with the affeg se I had witnessed.
The parents of the deceased had resided in the village from childhood. They had inhabited one of the cottages, and by various rural occupations, and the assistance of a small garden, had supported themselves creditably and fortably, and led a happy and a blameless life. They had one son, who had grown up to be the staff and pride of their age. "Oh, sir!" said the good woman, "he was such a ely lad, so sweet-tempered, so kind to every one around him, so dutiful to his parents! It did ones heart good to see him of a Sunday, drest out in his best, so tall, sht, so cheery, supp his old mother to church; for she was always fonder of leaning on Gees arm than on her good mans; and, poor soul, she might well be proud of him, for a ?ner lad there was not in the try round."
Unfortunately, the son was tempted, during a year of scarcity and agricultural hardship, to enter into the service of one of the small craft that plied on a neighb river. He had not been long in this employ, when he was entrapped by a press-gang, and carried off to sea. His parents received tidings of his seizure, but beyond that they could learn nothing. It was the loss of their main prop. The father, who was already in?rm, grew heartless and melancholy and sunk into his grave. The widow, left lonely in her age and feebleness, could no longer support herself, and came upon the parish. Still there was a kind feeling towards her throughout the village, and a certain respect as being one of the oldest inhabitants. As no one applied for the cottage in which she had passed so many happy days, she ermitted to remain in it, where she lived solitary and almost helpless. The few wants of nature were chie?y supplied from the sty produs of her little garden, which the neighbors would now and then cultivate for her. It was but a few days before the time at which these circumstances were told me, that she was gathering some vegetables for her repast, when she heard the cottage-door which faced the garden, suddenly opened. A stranger came out, and seemed to be looking eagerly and wildly around. He was dressed in seamens clothes, was emaciated and ghastly pale, and bore the air of one broken by siess and hardships. He saw her and hasteowards her, but his steps were faint and faltering; he sank on his knees before her and sobbed like a child. The poor woman gazed upon him with a vat and wandering eye. "Oh, my dear, dear mother! dont you know your son? your poor boy, Gee?" It was, ihe wreck of her onoble lad; who shattered by wounds, by siess and fn impriso, had, at length, dragged his wasted limbs homeward, to repose among the ses of his childhood.
I will not attempt to detail the particulars of such a meeting, where sorrow and joy were so pletely blended: still, he was alive! he was e home! he might yet live to fort and cherish her old age! Nature, however, was exhausted in him; and if any thing had been wanting to ?nish the work of fate, the desolation of his native cottage would have been suf?t. He stretched himself on the pallet on which his widowed mother had passed many a sleepless night, and he never rose from it again.
The villagers, when they heard that Gee Somers had returned, crowded to see him, every fort and assistahat their humble means afforded. He was too weak, however, to talk--he could only look his thanks. His mother was his stant attendant; and he seemed unwilling to be helped by any other hand.
There is something in siess that breaks down the pride of manhood, that softens the heart, and brings it back to the feelings of infancy. Who that has languished, even in advanced life, in siess and despondency, who that has pined on a weary bed in the and loneliness of a fn land, but has thought oher "that looked on his childhood," that smoothed his pillow, and administered to his helplessness? Oh, there is an enduring tenderness in the love of a mother to a son, that transds all other affes of the heart. It is her to be chilled by sel?shness, nor daunted by danger, nor weakened by worthlessness, nor sti?ed by ingratitude. She will sacri?ce every fort to his venience; she will surrender every pleasure to his enjoyment; she will glory in his fame a in his prosperity; and, if misfortune overtake him, he will be the dearer to her from misfortune; and if disgrace settle upon his name, she will still love and cherish him in spite of his disgrace; and if all the world beside cast him off, she will be all the world to him.
Pee Somers had known what it was to be in siess, and o soothe--lonely and in prison, and o visit him. He could not endure his mother from his sight; if she moved away, his eye would follow her. She would sit for hours by his bed watg him as he slept. Sometimes he would start from a feverish dream, and look anxiously up until he saw her bending over him; when he would take her hand, lay it on his bosom, and fall asleep with the tranquillity of a child. In this way he died.
My ?rst impulse on hearing this humble tale of af?i was to visit the cottage of the mourner, and administer peiary assistance, and, if possible, fort. I found, however, on inquiry, that the good feelings of the villagers had prompted them to do everything that the case admitted; and as the poor know best how to sole each others sorrows, I did not veo intrude.
The Sunday I was at the village church, when, to my surprise, I saw the poor old woman t down the aisle to her aced seat oeps of the altar.
She had made an effort to put on something like m for her son; and nothing could be more toug than this struggle between pious affe and utter poverty--a black ribbon or so, a faded black handkerchief, and one or two more such humble attempts to express by outward signs that grief which passes show. When I looked round upooried mos, the stately hatts, the arble pomp with which grandeur mourned magly over departed pride, and turo this poor widow, bowed down by age and sorrow at the altar of her God, and up the prayers and praises of a pious though a broke, I felt that this living mo of real grief was worth them all.
I related her story to some of the wealthy members of the gregation, and they were moved by it. They exerted themselves to render her situation more fortable, and to lighten her af?is. It was, however, but smoothing a few steps to the grave. In the course of a Sunday or two after, she was missed from her usual seat at church, and before I left the neighborhood I heard, with a feeling of satisfa, that she had quietly breathed her last, and had goo rejoin those she loved, in that world where sorrow is never known and friends are never pa..rted.
A SUNDAY IN LONDON.*
* Part of a sketitted in the preg editions.
IN a preg paper I have spoken of an English Sunday in the try and its tranquillizing effect upon the landscape; but where is its sacred in?uence more strikingly apparent than in the very heart of that great Babel, London? On this sacred day the gigantister is charmed into repose. The intolerable din and struggle of the week are at an end. The shops are shut. The ?res of fes and manufactories are extinguished, and the sun, no longer obscured by murky clouds of smoke, pours down a sober yellow radiao the quiet streets. The few pedestrians we meet, instead of hurrying forward with anxious tenances, move leisurely along; their brow..s are smoothed from the wrinkles of business and care; they have put on their Sunday looks and Sunday manners with their Sunday clothes, and are sed in mind as well as in person.
And now the melodious gor of bells from church towers summons their several ?ocks to the fold. Forth issues from his mansion the family of the det tradesman, the small children in the advaheizen and his ely spouse, followed by the grown-up daughters, with small morocco-bound prayer-books laid in the folds of their pocket-handkerchiefs. The housemaid looks after them from the window, admiring the ?nery of the family, and receiving, perhaps, a nod and smile from her young mistresses, at whose toilet she has assisted.
Now rumbles along the carriage of some magnate of the city, peradventure an alderman or a sheriff, and now the patter of ma annou procession of charity scholars in uniforms of antique cut, and each with a prayer-book under his arm.
The ringing of bells is at an end; the rumbling of the carriage has ceased; the pattering of feet is heard no more; the ?ocks are folded in a churches, cramped up in by-lanes and ers of the crowded city, where the vigilant beadle keeps watch, like the shepherds dog, round the threshold of the sanctuary. For a time everything is hushed, but soon is heard the deep, pervading sound of the an, rolling and vibrating through the empty lanes and courts, and the sweet ting of the aking them resound with melody and praise. Never have I been more sensible of the sanctifying effect of church music than when I have heard it thus poured forth, like a river of joy, through the inmost recesses of this great metropolis, elevating it, as it were, from all the sordid pollutions of the week, and bearing the poor world-worn soul on a tide of triumphant harmony to heaven.
The m service is at an end. The streets are again alive with the gregatiourning to their homes, but soon again relapse into silenow es on the Sunday dinner, which, to the city tradesman, is a meal of some importahere is more leisure for social enjoyment at the board. Members of the family ow gather together, who are separated by the laborious occupations of the week. A school-boy may be permitted on that day to e to the paternal home; an old friend of the family takes his aced Sunday seat at the board, tells over his well-known stories, and rejoices young and old with his well-known jokes.
On Sunday afternooy pours forth its lesions to breathe the fresh air and enjoy the sunshine of the parks and rural environs. Satirists may say what they please about the rural enjoyments of a London citizen on Sunday, but to me there is something delightful in beholding the poor p..t>risoner of the crowded and dusty city ehus to e forth once a week and throw himself upon the green bosom of nature. He is like a child restored to the mothers breast; and they who ?rst spread out these noble parks and mag pleasure-grounds which surround this huge metropolis have do least as much for its health and morality as if they had expehe amount of cost in hospitals, prisons, aentiaries.
THE BOARS HEAD TAVERN, EASTCHEAP.
A SHAKESPEARIAN RESEARCH."A tavern is the rendezvous, the exge, the staple of good fellows. I have heard my great-grandfather tell, how his great-great-grandfather should say, that it was an old proverb when his great-grandfather was a child, that `it was a good wind that blew a man to the wine."MOTHER BOMBIE.
IT is a pious in some Catholic tries to honor the memory of saints by votive lights burnt before their pictures.
The popularity of a saint, therefore, may be known by the number of these s. One, perhaps, is left to moulder in the darkness of his little chapel; another may have a solitary lamp to throw its blinking rays athwart his ef?gy; while the whole blaze of adoration is lavished at the shrine of some beati?ed father of renown. The wealthy devotee brings his huge luminary of wax, the eager zealot, his seven-branched dlestick; and even the mendit pilgrim is by no means satis?ed that suf?t light is thrown upon the deceased unless he hangs up his little lamp of smoking oil. The sequence is, that in the eagero enlighten, they are often apt to obscure; and I have occasionally seen an unlucky saint almost smoked out of tenance by the of?ciousness of his followers.
In like manner has it fared with the immortal Shakespeare. Every writer siders it his bounden duty to light up some portion of his character or works, and to rescue some merit from oblivion.
The entator, opulent in words, produces vast tomes of dissertations; the on herd of editors send up mists of obscurity from their the bottom of each page; and every casual scribbler brings his farthing rushlight of eulogy or research to swell the cloud of inse and of smoke.
As I honor all established usages of my brethren of the quill, I thought it but proper to tribute my mite of homage to the memory of the illustrious bard. I was for some time, however, sorely puzzled in what way I should discharge this duty. I found myself anticipated in every attempt at a new reading; every doubtful line had been explained a dozen different ways, and perplexed beyond the reach of elucidation; and as to ?ne passages, they had all been amply praised by previous admirers; nay, so pletely had the bard, of late, been overlarded with panegyric by a great German critic that it was dif?cult now to ?nd even a fault that had not been argued into a beauty.
In this perplexity I was one m turning over his pages when I casually opened upon the ic ses of Henry IV., and was, in a moment, pletely lost in the madcap revelry of the Boars Head Tavern. So vividly and naturally are these ses of humor depicted, and with such ford sistency are the characters sustaihat they beingled up in the mind with the facts and personages of real life. To few readers does it occur that these are all ideal creations of a poets brain, and that, in sober truth, no suot of merry roisterers ever enlivehe dull neighborhood of Eastcheap.
For my part, I love to give myself up to the illusions of poetry.
A hero of ? that never existed is just as valuable to me as a hero of history that existed a thousand years sind, if I may be excused su insensibility to the on ties of human nature, I would not give up fat Jack for half the great men of a icle. What have the heroes of yore done for me or men like me? They have quered tries of which I do not enjoy an acre, or they have gained laurels of which I do not i a leaf, or they have furnished examples of hair-brained prowess, which I have her the opportunity nor the ination to follow. But, old Jack Falstaff! kind Jack Falstaff! sweet Jack Falstaff! has enlarged the boundaries of human enjoyment; he has added vast regions of wit and good-humor, in which the poorest man may revel, and has bequeathed a never-failing iance of jolly laughter, to make mankind merrier aer to the latest posterity.
A thought suddenly struck me. "I will make a pilgrimage to Eastcheap," said I, closing the book, "and see if the old Boars Head Tavern still exists. Who knows but I may light upon some legendary traces of Dame Quickly and her guests? At any rate, there will be a kindred pleasure in treading the halls once vocal with their mirth to that the toper enjoys in smelling to the empty cask, once ?lled with generous wine."
The resolution was no sooner formed than put iion. I forbear to treat of the various adventures and wonders I entered in my travels; of the haunted regions of Cock Lane; of the faded glories of Little Britain and the parts adjat; erils I ran in Cateaton Street and Old Jewry; of the renowned Guildhall and its two stunted giants, the pride and wonder of the city and the terror of all unlucky urs; and how I visited London Stone, and struck my staff upon it in imitation of that arch-rebel Jack Cade.
Let it suf?ce to say, that I at length arrived in merry Eastcheap, that a region of wit and wassail, where the very names of the streets relished of good cheer, as Pudding Lane bears testimony even at the present day. For Eastcheap, says old Stow, "was always famous for its vivial doings. The cookes cried hot ribbes of beef roasted, pies well baked, and other victuals: there was clattering of pewter pots, harpe, pipe, and sawtrie." Alas! how sadly is the se ged sihe r days of Falstaff and old Stow! The madcap roisterer has given place to the plodding tradesman; the clattering of pots and the sound of "harpe and sawtrie," to the din of carts and the accurst dinging of the dustmans bell; and no song is heard, save, haply, the strain of some syren from Billingsgate, ting the eulogy of deceased mackerel.
I sought, in vain, for the a abode of Dame Quickly. The only relict of it is a boars head, carved in relief in stone, whierly served as the sign, but at present is built into the parting line of two houses which stand oe of the renowned old tavern.
For the history of this little abode of good fellowship I was referred to a tallow-dlers widow opposite, who had been born and brought up on the spot, and was l.9９ｌib?ooked up to as the indisputable icler of the neighborhood. I found her seated in a little back parlor, the window of which looked out upon a yard about eight feet square laid out as a ?arden, while a glass door opposite afforded a distant view of the street, through a vista of soap and tallow dles--the two views, whiprised, in all probability, her prospects in life and the little world in which she had lived and moved and had her being for the better part of a tury.
To be versed in the history of Eastcheap, great and little, from London Stone even unto the Mo, was doubtless, in her opinion, to be acquainted with the history of the universe. Yet, with all this, she possessed the simplicity of true wisdom, and that liberal unicative disposition which I have generally remarked in intelligent old ladies knowing in the s of their neighborhood.
Her information, however, did end far bato antiquity.
She could throw no light upon the history of the Boars Head from the time that Dame Quickly espoused the valiant Pistol until the great ?re of Londo was unfortunately burnt down. It was soon rebuilt, and tio ?ourish uhe old name and sign, until a dying landlord, struck with remorse for double scores, bad measures, and other iniquities which are io the sinful race of publis, endeavored to make his peace with Heaven by bequeathing the tavern to St. Michaels Church, Crooked Laoward the supp of a chaplain. For some time the vestry meetings were regularly held there, but it was observed that the old Boar never held up his head under church gover.
He gradually deed, and ?nally gave his last gasp about thirty years sihe tavern was then turned into shops; but she informed me that a picture of it was still preserved in St.
Michaels Church, which stood just in the rear. To get a sight of this picture was now my determination; so, having informed myself of the abode of the sexton, I took my leave of the venerable icler of Eastcheap, my visit having doubtless raised greatly her opinion of her legendary lore and furnished an important i in the history of her life.
It e some dif?culty and much curious inquiry to ferret out the humble hanger-on to the church. I had to explore Crooked Lane and divers little alleys and elbows and dark passages with which this old city is perforated like an a cheese, or a worm-eate of drawers. At length I traced him to a er of a small court surrounded by lofty houses, where the inhabitants enjoy about as much of the face of heaven as a unity s at the bottom of a well.
The sexton was a meek, acquiesg little man, of a bowing, lowly habit, yet he had a pleasant twinkling in his eye, and if enced, would now and then hazard a small pleasantry, such as a man of his low estate might veo make in the pany of high churchwardens and hty men of the earth. I found him in pany with the deputy anist, seated apart, like Miltons angels, disc, no doubt, on high doal points, aling t>he affairs of the church over a friendly pot of ale; for the lower classes of English seldom deliberate on ay matter without the assistance of a cool tankard to clear their uandings. I arrived at the moment when they had ?heir ale and their argument, and were about to repair to the church to put it in order; so, having made known my wishes, I received their gracious permission to apany them.
The church of St. Michaels, Crooked Laanding a short distance from Billingsgate, is enriched with the tombs of many ?shmongers of renown; and as every profession has its galaxy of glory and its stellation of great men, I presume the mo of a mighty ?shmonger of the olden time is regarded with as much reverence by succeeding geions of the craft, as poets feel on plating the tomb of Virgil or soldiers the mo of a Marlbh or Turenne.
I ot but turn aside, while thus speaking of illustrious men, to observe that St. Michaels, Crooked Lane, tains also the ashes of that doughty champion, William Walworth, Knight, who so manfully clove dowurdy wight, Wat Tyler, in Smith?eld--a hero worthy of honorable blazon, as almost the only Lord Mayor on record famous for deeds of arms, the sns of ey being generally renowned as the most paci?c of all potentates.*
* The following was the a inscription on the mo of this worthy, which, unhappily, was destroyed in the great ?agration.
Hereunder lyth a man of Fame,William Walworth callyd by name:Fishmonger he was in lyfftime here,And twise Lord Maior, as in books appere;Who, with ce stout and manly myght,Slew Jack Straw in Kyng Richards sight.For which act done, and trew e,The Kyng made him knyght intiAnd gave him armes, as here you see,To declare his fad chivaldrie.He left this lyff the yere of odThirteen hundred fourscore and three odd.
An error in the foing inscription has been corrected by the venerable Stow. "Whereas," saith he, "it hath been far spread abroad by vulgar opinion, that the rebel smitten down so manfully by Sir William Walworth, the then worthy Lord Maior, was named Jack Straw, and not Wat Tyler, I thought good to recile this rash-ceived doubt by such testimony as I ?nd in a and good records. The principal leaders, or captains, of the ons, were Wat Tyler, as the ?rst man; the sed was John, or Jack, Straw, etc., etc.--STOWS London.
Adjoining the church, in a small cemetery, immediately uhe back window of what was ohe Boars Head, stands the tombstone of Robert Preston, whilom drawer at the tavern. It is now nearly a tury sihis trusty drawer of good liquor closed his bustling career and was thus quietly deposited within call of his ers. As I was clearing away the weeds from his epitaph the little sexton drew me on one side with a mysterious air, and informed me in a low voice that once upon a time, on a dark wintry night, when the wind was unruly, howling, and whistling, banging about doors and windows, and twirlihercocks, so that the living were frightened out of their beds, and even the dead could not sleep quietly in their graves, the ghost of ho Preston, which happeo be airing itself in the churchyard, was attracted by the well-known call of "Waiter!" from the Boars Head, and made its sudden appearan the midst of a r club, just as the parish clerk was singing a stave from the "mirre garland of Captaih;" to the dis?ture of sundry train-band captains and the version of an itorney, who became a zealous Christian on the spot, and was never known to twist the truth afterwards, except in the way of business.
I beg it may be remembered, that I do not pledge myself for the authenticity of this ae, though it is well known that the churchyards and by-ers of this old metropolis are very mufested with perturbed spirits; and every one must have heard of the Cock Lane ghost, and the apparition that guards the regalia iower which has frightened so many bold sentinels almost out of their wits.
Be all this as it may, this Robert Prestoo have been a worthy successor to the nimbletongued Francis, who attended upon the revels of Prince Hal; to have been equally prompt with his "Anon, anon, sir;" and to have transded his predecessor in hoy; for Falstaff, the veracity of whose taste no man will veo impeach, ?atly accuses Francis of putting lime in his sack, whereas ho Prestoaph lands him for the sobriety of his duct, the soundness of his wine, and the fairness of his measure.* The worthy dignitaries of the church, however, did not appear much captivated by the sober virtues of the tapster; the deputy anist, who had a moist look out of the eye, made some shrewd remark on the abstemiousness of a man brought up among full hogsheads, and the little sexton corroborated his opinion by a signi?t wink and a dubious shake of the head.
* As this inscription is rife with excellent morality, I transcribe it for the admonition of deliapsters. It is no doubt, the produ of some choice spirit who once frequehe Boars Head.
Bacchus, to give the toping world surprise,Produced one sober son, and here he lies.Though reard among full hogsheads, he defydThe charms of wine, and every one beside.O reader, if to justice thou rt ined,Keep ho Preston daily in thy mind.He drew good wiook care to ?ll his pots,Had sundry virtues that excused his faults.You that on Bacchus have the like dependence,Pray copy Bob in measure and attendance.
Thus far my researches, though they threw much light on the history of tapsters, ?shmongers, and Lord Mayors, yet disappointed me in the great objey quest, the picture of the Boars Head Tavern. No such painting was to be found in the church of St. Michaels. "Marry and amen," said I, "here eh my research!" So I was giving the matter up, with the air of a baf?ed antiquary, when my friend the sexton, perceivio be curious ihiive to the old tavern, offered to show me the choice vessels of the vestry, which had been handed down from remote times when the parish meetings were held at the Boars Head. These were deposited in the parish club-room, which had been transferred, on the dee of the a establishment, to a tavern in the neighborhood.
A few steps brought us to the house, which stands No. 12 Miles Lane, bearing the title of The Masons Arms, and is kept by Master Edward Honeyball, the "bully-rock" of the establishment.
It is one of those little taverns which abound in the heart of the city and form the tre of gossip and intelligence of the neighborhood. We ehe barroom, which was narrow and darkling, for in these close lanes but few rays of re?ected light are ele down to the inhabitants, whose broad day is at best but a tolerable twilight. The room artitioned into boxes, each taining a table spread with a white cloth, ready for dihis showed that the guests were of the good old stamp, and divided their day equally, for it was but just one oclock. At the lower end of the room was a clear coal ?re, before which a breast of lamb was roasting. A row ht brass dlesticks aer mugs glistened along the mantelpiece, and an old fashioned clock ticked in one er.
There was something primitive in this medley of kit, parlor, and hall that carried me back to earlier times, and pleased me.
The place, indeed, was humble, but everything had that look of order aness which bespeaks the superintendence of a notable English housewife. A group of amphibious-looking beings, who might be either ?shermen or sailors, were regaling themselves in one of the boxes. As I was a visitor of rather higher pretensions, I was ushered into a little misshapen ba, having at least nine ers. It was lighted by a sky-light, furnished with antiquated leathern chairs, and ored with the portrait of a fat pig. It was evidently appropriated to particular ers, and I found a shabby gentleman in a red nose and oil-cloth hat seated in one er meditating on a half empty pot of porter.
The old sexton had taken the landlady aside, and with an air of profound importance imparted to her my errand. Dame Honeyball was a likely, plump, bustling little woman, and no bad substitute for that paragon of hostesses, Dame Quickly. She seemed delighted with an opportunity to oblige, and, hurrying upstairs to the archives of her house, where the precious vessels of the parish club were deposited, she returned, smiling and courtesying, with them in her hands.
The ?rst she presented me anned iron tobacco-box of gigantic size, out of which, I was told, the vestry had smoked at their stated meetings siime immemorial, and which was never suffered to be profaned by vulgar hands, or used on on occasions, I received it with being reverence, but what was my delight at beholding on its cover the identical painting of which I was i! There was displayed the outside of the Boars Head Tavern, and before the door was to be seen the whole vivial group at table, in full revel, pictured with that wonderful ?delity and force with which the portraits of renowned generals and odores are illustrated on tobacco-boxes, for the be of posterity. Lest, however, there should be any mistake, the ing limner had warily inscribed the names of Prince Hal and Falstaff otoms of their chairs.
On the inside of the cover was an inscription, nearly obliterated, rec that this box was the gift of Sir Richard Gore, for the use of the vestry meetings at the Boars Head Tavern, and that it was "repaired ai?ed by his sucr. John Packard, 1767." Such is a faithful description of this august and venerable relid I questioher the learned Scriblerius plated his Roman shield, or the Knights of the Round Table the long-sought San-greal, with more exultation.
While I was meditating on it with enraptured gaze, Dame Honeyball, who was highly grati?ed by the i it excited, put in my hands a drinking-cup oblet which also beloo the vestry, and was desded from the old Boars Head. It bore the inscription of havihe gift of Francis Wythers, Knight, and was held, she told me, in exceeding great value, being sidered very "antyke." This last opinion was strengthened by the shabby gentleman with the red nose and oilcloth hat, and whom I strongly suspected of being a lineal desdant from the variant Bardolph. He suddenly aroused from his meditation o of porter, and casting a knowing look at the goblet, exclaimed, "Ay, ay! the head dont aow that made that there article."
The great importaached to this memento of a revelry by modern churchwardens, at ?rst puzzled me; but there is nothing sharpens the apprehension so much as antiquarian research; for I immediately perceived that this could be no other than the identical "parcel-gilt goblet," on which Falstaff made his loving but faithless vow to Dame Quickly, and which would, of course, be treasured up with care among the regalia of her domains, as a testimony of that solemn tract.*
* "Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal ?re, on Wednesday, in Whitsun-week, when the prince broke thy head for likening his father to a singing man at Windsor; thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady, thy wife. st thou deny it?"--Henry IV., Part 2.
Mine hostess, indeed, gave me a long history how the goblet had been handed down from geion to geion. She also eained me with many particulars ing the worthy vestrymen who have seated themselves thus quietly oools of the a roisterers of Eastcheap, and, like so many entators, utter clouds of smoke in honor of Shakespeare.
These I forbear to relate, lest my readers should not be as curious in these matters as myself. Suf?ce it to say, the neighbors, one and all, about Eastcheap, believe that Falstaff and his merry crew actually lived and revelled there. Nay, there are several legendary aes ing him still extant among the oldest frequenters of the Masons Arms, which they give as transmitted down from their forefathers; and Mr. MKash, an Irish hair-dresser, whose shop stands oe of the old Boars Head, has several dry jokes of Fat Jacks, not laid down in the books, with which he makes his ers ready to die of laughter.
I now turo my friend the sexton to make some further inquiries, but I found him sunk in pensive meditation. His head had deed a little on one side; a deep sigh heaved from the very bottom of his stomach, and, though I could not see a tear trembling in his eye, yet a moisture was evidently stealing from a er of his mouth. I followed the dire of his eye through the door which stood open, and found it ?xed wistfully on the savory breast of lamb, roasting in dripping riess before the ?re.
I now called to mind that in the eagerness of my redite iigation, I was keeping the poor man from his dinner. My bowels yearned with sympathy, and putting in his hand a small token of my gratitude and goodness, I departed with a hearty beion on him, Dame Honeyball, and the parish club of Crooked Lane--not fetting my shabby, but seious friend, in the oil-cloth hat and copper nose.
Thus have I given a "tedious brief" at of this iing research, for which, if it prove too short and unsatisfactory, I only plead my inexperien this branch of literature, so deservedly popular at the present day. I am aware that a more skilful illustrator of the immortal bard would have swelled the materials I have touched upon to a good mertable bulk, prising the biographies of William Walworth, Jack Straw, and Robert Preston; some notice of the emi ?shmongers of St.
Michaels; the history of Eastcheap, great and little; private aes of Dame Honeyball and her pretty daughter, whom I have not eveioo say nothing of a damsel tending the breast of lamb (and whom, by the way, I remarked to be a ely lass with a foot and ankle);--the whole enlivened by the riots of Wat Tyler, and illuminated by the great ?re of London.
All this I leave, as a rich mio be worked by future entators, nor do I despair of seeing the tobacco-box, and the "parcel-gilt goblet" which I have thus brought to light the subject of future engravings, and almost as fruitful of voluminous dissertations and disputes as the shield of Achilles or the far-famed Portland Vase.
THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE.
A COLLOQUY IMINSTER ABBEY.I know that all beh the moon decays,And what by mortals in this world is brought,In times great periods shall return to nought.I know that all the muses heavenly rays,With toil of sprite which are so dearly bought,As idle sounds, of few or none are sought--That there is nothing lighter than mere praise.DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN.
THERE are certain half-dreaming moods of mind in which we naturally steal away from noise and glare, and seek some quiet haunt where we may indulge our reveries and build our air castles undisturbed. In such a mood I was l about the old gray cloisters of Westminster Abbey, enjoying that luxury of wandering thought whie is apt to dignify with the name of re?e, when suddenly an irruption of madcap boys from Westminster school, playing at football, broke in upon the monastic stillness of the place, making the vaulted passages and mouldering tombs echo with their merriment. I sought to take refuge from their noise by peing still deeper into the solitudes of the pile, and applied to one of the vergers for admission to the library.
He ducted me through a portal rich with the crumbling sculpture of fes, which opened upon a gloomy passage leading to the chapter-house and the chamber in whisday Book is deposited. Just within the passage is a small door on the left. To this the verger applied a key; it was double locked, and opened with some dif?culty, as if seldom used. We now asded a dark narrow staircase, and, pas?sing through a sed door, ehe library.
I found myself in a lofty antique hall, the roof supported by massive joists of old English oak. It was soberly lighted by a row of Gothidows at a siderable height from the ?oor, and which apparently opened upon the roofs of the cloisters. An a picture of some reverend dignitary of the Chur his robes hung over the ?replace. Around the hall and in a small gallery were the books, arranged in carved oaken cases. They sisted principally of old polemical writers, and were much more worn by time than use. In the tre of the library was a solitary table with two or three books on it, an inkstand without ink, and a few pens parched by long disuse. The place seemed ?tted for quiet study and profouation. It was buried deep among the massive walls of the abbey and shut up from the tumult of the world. I could only hear now and then the shouts of the school-boys faintly swelling from the cloisters, and the sound of a bell tolling for prayers eg soberly along the roofs of the abbey. By degrees the shouts of merriment grew fainter and fainter, and at length died away; the bell ceased to toll, and a profound silence reighrough the dusky hall.
I had taken down a little thick quarto, curiously bound in part, with brass clasps, aed myself at the table in a venerable elbow-chair. Instead of reading, however, I was beguiled by the solemn monastic air and lifeless quiet of the place, into a train of musing. As I looked around upon the old volumes in their mouldering covers, thus ranged on the shelves and apparently never disturbed in their repose, I could not but sider the library a kind of literary catab, where authors, like mummies, are piously entombed ao bla and moulder in dusty oblivion.
How much, thought I, has each of these volumes, now thrust aside with sudifference, cost some ag head! how many weary days! how many sleepless nights! How have their authors buried themselves in the solitude of cells and cloisters, shut themselves up from the faan, and the still more blessed face of Nature; aed themselves to painful researd intense re?e! And all for what? To occupy an inch of dusty shelf--to have the titles of their works read now and then in a future age by some drowsy chur or casual straggler like myself, and in ane to be lost even to remembrance. Such is the amount of this boasted immortality. A mere temporary rumor, a local sound; like the tone of that bell which has tolled among these towers, ?lling the ear for a moment, lingering traly in echo, and then passing away, like a thing that was not!
While I sat half-murmuring, half-meditating, these unpro?table speculations with my head resting on my hand, I was thrumming with the other hand upon the quarto, until I actally loosehe clasps; when, to my utter astonishment, the little book gave two or three yawns, like one awaking from a deep sleep, then a husky hem, and at length began to talk. At ?rst its voice was very hoarse and broken, being much troubled by a cobweb whie studious spider had woven across it, and having probably tracted a cold from long exposure to the chills and damps of the abbey. In a short time, however, it became more distinct, and I soon found it an exceedingly ?uent, versable little tome.
Its language, to be sure, was rather quaint and obsolete, and its pronunciation what, in the present day, would be deemed barbarous; but I shall endeavor, as far as I am able, to re in modern parlance.
It began with railings about the of the world, about merit being suffered to languish in obscurity, and other suonplace topics of literary repining, and plained bitterly that it had not been opened for more than two turies--that the dean only looked now and then into the library, sometimes took down a volume or two, tri?ed with them for a few moments, and theurhem to their shelves. "What a plague do they mean?" said the little quarto, which I began to perceive was somewhat choleric--"what a plague do they mean by keeping several thousand volumes of us shut up here, and watched by a set of old vergers, like so maies in a harem, merely to be looked at now and then by the dean? Books were written to give pleasure and to be enjoyed; and I would have a rule passed that the dean should pay each of us a visit at least once a year; or, if he is not equal to the task, let them on a while turn loose the whole school of Westminster among us, that at any rate we may now and then have an airing."
"?t>;Softly, my worthy friend," replied I; "you are not aware how much better you are off than most books of yeion. By being stored away in this a library you are like the treasured remains of those saints and monarchs which lie enshrined in the adjoining chapels, while the remains of their porary mortals, left to the ordinary course of Nature, have long siuro dust."
"Sir," said the little tome, ruf?ing his leaves and looking big, "I was written for all the world, not for the bookworms of an abbey. I was inteo circulate from hand to hand, like reat porary works; but here have I been clasped up for more than two turies, and might have silently fallen a prey to these worms that are playing the very vengeah my iines if you had not by ce given me an opportunity of uttering a few last words before I go to pieces."
"My good friend," rejoined I, "had you beeo the circulation of which you speak, you would lohis have been no more. To judge from your physiognomy, you are now well stri in years: very few of your poraries be at present ience, and those few owe their loy to being immured like yourself in old libraries; which, suffer me to add, instead of likening to harems, you might more properly and gratefully have pared to those in?rmaries attached tious establishments for the be of the old and decrepit, and where, by quiet f and no employment, they often eo an amazingly good-for-nothing old age. You talk of your poraries as if in circulation. Where do we meet with their works? What do we hear of Rrosteste of Lin? No one could have toiled harder than he for immortality. He is said to have written nearly two hundred volumes. He built, as it were, a pyramid of books to perpetuate his name: but, alas! the pyramid has long since fallen, and only a few fragments are scattered in various libraries, where they are scarcely disturbed even by the antiquarian. What do we hear of Giraldus Cambrensis, the historian, antiquary, philosopher, theologian, and poet? He deed two bishoprics that he might shut himself up and write for posterity; but posterity never inquires after his labors.
What of Henry of Huntingdon, who, besides a learned history of England, wrote a treatise on the pt of the world, which the world has revenged by fetting him? What is quoted of Joseph of Exeter, styled the miracle of his age in classical position?
Of his three great herois, one is lost forever, excepting a mere fragment; the others are known only to a few of the curious in literature; and as to his love verses and epigrams, they have entirely disappeared. What is in current use of John Wallis the Francis, who acquired the name of the tree of life? Of William of Malmsbury--of Simeon of Durham--of Be of Peterbh--of John Hanvill of St. Albans--of----"
"Prithee, friend," cried the quarto in a testy tone, "how old do you think me? You are talking of authors that lived long before my time, and wrote either in Latin or French, so that they in a manriated themselves, and deserved to be fotten;* but I, sir, was ushered into the world from the press of the renowned Wynkyn de Worde. I was written in my own native to a time when the language had bee ?xed; and indeed I was sidered a model of pure and elegant English."
(I should observe that these remarks were couched in sutolerably antiquated terms, that I have had in?nite dif?culty in rendering them into modern phraseology.) "I cry you mercy," said I, "for mistaking ye; but it matters little. Almost all the writers of your time have likewise passed intetfulness, and De Wordes publications are mere literary rarities among book-collectors. The purity and stability of language, too, on which you found your claims to perpetuity, have been the fallacious dependence of authors of every age, even back to the times of the worthy Robert of Gloucester, who wrote his history in rhymes of mongrel Saxon.+ Even now many talk of Spensers `well of pure English unde?led, as if the language ever sprang from a well or fountain-head, and was not rather a mere ?uence of various tongues perpetually subject to ges and intermixtures. It is this which has made English literature so extremely mutable, and the reputation built upon it so ?eeting. Uhought be itted to something more perma and ungeable than such a medium, even thought must share the fate of everything else, and fall into decay. This should serve as a check upon the vanity aation of the most popular writer. He ?nds the language in which he has embarked his fame gradually altering and subject to the dilapidations of time and the caprice of fashion. He looks bad beholds the early authors of his try, ohe favorites of their day, supplanted by modern writers. A few shes have covered them with obscurity, and their merits only be relished by the quaint taste of the bookworm. And such, he anticipates, will be the fate of his own work, which, however it may be admired in its day and held up as a model of purity, will in the course of years grow antiquated and obsolete, until it shall bee almost as unintelligible in its native land as aian obelisk or one of those Runiscriptions said to exist in the deserts of Tartary. "I declare," added I, with some emotion, "when I plate a modern library, ?lled with new works in all the bravery of rich gilding and binding, I feel disposed to sit down and weep, like the good Xerxes, when he surveyed his army, pranked out in all the splendor of military array, aed that in one hundred years not one of them would be ience."
* "In Latin and French hath many soueraites had great delyte to endite, and have many hinges ful?lde, but certes there ben some that speaken their poisye in French, of which speche the Fren have as good a fantasye as w ave in hearying of Frens Englishe."--CHAUCERS Testament of Love.
+ Holinshed in his icle, observes, "Afterwards, also, by diligent vell f Geffry Chaucer and John Gowre, iime of Richard the Sed, and after them of John S and John Lydgate, monke of Berrie, our said toong was brought to an excellent passe, notwithstanding that it never came unto the type of perfe until the time of Queen Elizabeth, wherein John Jewell, Bishop of Sarum, John Fox, and sundrie learned and excellent writers, have fully aplished the ornature of the same to their great praise and mortal endation."
"Ah," said the little quarto, with a heavy sigh, "I see how it is: these in modern scribblers have superseded all the good old authors. I suppose nothing is read nowadays but Sir Philip Sidneys Arcadia, Sackvilles stately plays and Mirror fistrates, or the ?ne-spun euphuisms of the `unparalleled John Lyly."
"There yain mistaken," said I; "the writers whom you suppose in vogue, because they happeo be so when you were last in circulation, have long since had their day. Sir Philip Sidneys Arcadia, the immortality of which was so fondly predicted by his admirers,* and which, in truth, was full of houghts, delicate images, and graceful turns of language, is now scarcely ever mentioned. Sackville has strutted into obscurity; and even Lyly, though his writings were ohe delight of a court, and apparently perpetuated by a proverb, is now scarcely known even by name. A whole crowd of authors who wrote and wra the time, have likewise gone down with all their writings and their troversies. Wave after wave of succeeding literature has rolled over them, until they are buried so deep, that it is only now and then that some industrious diver after fragments of antiquity brings up a spe for the grati?cation of the curious.
* "Live ever sweete booke; the simple image of his get, and the golden pillar of his noble ce; and ever notify unto the world that thy writer was the secretary of eloquehe breath of the muses, the honey bee of the dai ?owers of witt and arte, the pith of morale and intellectual virtues, the arme of Bellona in the ?eld, the tongue of Suada in the chamber, the spirits of Practise in esse, and the paragon of excellen print."-Harvey Pierces Supererogation.
"For my part," I tinued, "I sider this mutability of language a wise precaution of Providence for the be of the world at large, and of authors in particular. To reason from analogy, we daily behold the varied aiful tribes of vegetables springing up, ?ourishing, ad the ?elds for a short time, and then fading into dust, to make way for their successors. Were not this the case, the fedity of nature would be a grievanstead of a blessing. The earth would groan with rank and excessive vegetation, and its surface bee a tangled wilderness. In like mahe works of genius and learning dee and make way for subsequent produs. Language gradually varies, and with it fade away the writings of authors who have ?ourished their allotted time; otherwise the creative powers of genius would overstock the world, and the mind would be pletely bewildered in the endless mazes of literature.
Formerly there were some restraints on this excessive multiplication. Works had to be transcribed by hand, which was a slow and laborious operation; they were writteher on part, which was expensive, so that one work was often erased to make way for another; or on papyrus, which was fragile aremely perishable. Authorship was a limited and unpro?table craft, pursued chie?y by monks in the leisure and solitude of their cloisters. The accumulation of manuscripts was slow and costly, and ed almost eo monasteries. To these circumsta may, in some measure, be owing that we have not been inundated by the intellect of antiquity--that the fountains of thought have not been broken up, and menius drowned in the deluge. But the iions of paper and the press have put ao all these restraints. They have made every one a writer, and enabled every mind to pour itself into print, and diffuse itself over the whole intellectual world. The sequences are alarming. The stream of literature has swollen into a torrent--augmented into a river-expanded into a sea. A few turies since ?ve or six hundred manuscripts stituted a great library; but what would you say to libraries, such as actually exist, taining three or four huhousand volumes; legions of authors at the same time busy; and the press going on with fearfully increasing activity, to double and quadruple the number? Unless some unforeseen mortality should break out among the progeny of the Muse, now that she has bee so proli?c, I tremble for posterity. I fear the mere ?uctuation of language will not be suf?t. Criticism may do much; it increases with the increase of literature, and resembles one of those salutary checks on population spoken of by eists. All possible encement, therefore, should be given to the growth of critics, good or bad. But I fear all will be in vai criticism do what it may, writers will write, printers will print, and the world will iably be overstocked with good books. It will soohe employment of a lifetime merely to learn their names. Many a man of passable information at the present day reads scarcely anything but reviews, and before long a man of erudition will be little better than a mere walking catalogue."
"My very good sir," said the little quarto, yawning most drearily in my face, "excuse my interrupting you, but I perceive you are rather given to prose. I would ask the fate of an author who was making some noise just as I left the world. His reputation, however, was sidered quite temporary. The learned shook their heads at him, for he oor, half-educated varlet, that knew little of La?９9lib.in, and nothing of Greek, and had been obliged to run the try for deer-stealing. I think his name was Shakespeare. I presume he soon sunk into oblivion."
"On the trary," said I, "it is owing to that very man that the literature of his period has experienced a duration beyond the ordinary term of English literature. There rise authors now and then who seem proof against the mutability of language because they have rooted themselves in the unging principles of human nature. They are like gigantic trees that we sometimes see on the banks of a stream, which by their vast and deep roots, peing through the mere surfad laying hold on the very foundations of the earth, preserve the soil around them from being swept away by the ever-?owing current, and hold up many a neighb plant, and perhaps worthless weed, to perpetuity.
Such is the case with Shakespeare, whom we behold defying the enents of time, retaining in moderhe language and literature of his day, and giving duration to many an indifferent author, merely from having ?ourished in his viity. But even he, I grieve to say, is gradually assuming the tint of age, and his whole form is overrun by a profusion of entators, who, like clambering vines and creepers, almost bury the noble plant that upholds them."
Here the little quarto began to heave his sides and chuckle, until at length he broke out into a plethoric ?t of laughter that had wellnigh choked him by reason of his excessive corpulency. "Mighty well!" cried he, as soon as he could recover breath, "mighty well! and so you would persuade me that the literature of an age is to be perpetuated by a vagabond deer-stealer! by a man without learning! by a poet! forsooth--a poet!" And here he wheezed forth a of laughter.
I fess that I felt somewhat led at this rudeness, which, however, I pardoned on at of his having ?ourished in a less polished age. I determined, heless, not to give up my point.
"Yes," resumed I positively, "a poet; for of all writers he has the best mortality. Others may write from the head, but he writes from the heart, and the heart will always uand him. He is the faithful portrayer of Nature, whose features are always the same and always iing. Prose writers are voluminous and unwieldy; their pages crowded with onplaces, and their thoughts expanded into tediousness. But with the true poet every thing is terse, toug, or brilliant.
He gives the choicest thoughts in the choicest language. He illustrates them by everything that he sees most striking in nature and art. He enriches them by pictures of human life, such as it is passing before him. His writings, therefore, tain the spirit, the aroma, if I may use the phrase, of the age in which he lives. They are caskets whiclose within a small pass the wealth of the language--its family jewels, which are thus transmitted in a portable form to posterity. The setting may occasionally be antiquated, and require now and then to be renewed, as in .９９lib.he case of Chaucer; but the brilliand intrinsic value of the gems tinue unaltered. Cast a look back over the long reach of literary history. What vast valleys of dulness, ?lled with monkish legends and academical troversies! What bogs of theological speculations! What dreary wastes of metaphysics! Here and there only do we behold the heaven-illumined bards, elevated like beas on their widely-separated heights, to transmit the pure light of poetical intelligence from age to age."*
I was just about to launch forth into eulogiums upon the poets of the day when the sudden opening of the door caused me to turn my head. It was the verger, who came to inform me that it was time to close the library. I sought to have a parting word with the quarto, but the worthy little tome was silent; the clasps were closed: and it looked perfectly unscious of all that had passed. I have been to the library two or three times since, and have endeavored to draw it into further versation, but in vain; and whether all this rambling colloquy actually took place, or whether it was another of those old day-dreams to which I am subject, I have o this moment, been able to discover.
* Thorow earth and waters deepe,The pen by skill doth passe:Aly nyps the worldes abuse,And shoes us in a glasse,The vertu and the viceOf every wight alyve;The honey b that bee doth makeIs not so sweet in hyve,As are the golden levesThat drops from poets head!Which doth surmount our on talkeAs farre as dross doth lead.Churchyard.
RURAL FUNERALS.
Heres a few ?owers! but about midnight more:
The herbs that have oil them cold dew o the nightAre strewings ?ttst fraves----You were as ?owers now withered; even soThese herblets shall, which we upon you strow.CYMBELINE.
AMONG the beautiful and simple-hearted s of rural life which still linger in some parts of England are those of strewing ?owers before the funerals and planting them at the graves of departed friends. These, it is said, are the remains of some of the rites of the primitive Church; but they are of still higher antiquity, having been observed among the Greeks and Romans, and frequently mentioned by their writers, and were no doubt the spontaneous tributes of uered affe, inating long before art had tasked itself to modulate sorrow into song or story it on the mo. They are now only to be met with in the most distant aired places of the kingdom, where fashion and innovation have not been able t in and trample out all the curious and iing traces of the olden time.
In Glamanshire, we are told, the bed whereon the corpse lies is covered with ?owers, a alluded to in one of the wild and plaities of Ophelia:
White his shroud as the mountain snow,Larded all with sweet ?owers;Which be-wept to the grave did go,With true love showers.
There is also a most delicate aiful rite observed in some of the remote villages of the south at the funeral of a female who has died young and unmarried. A chaplet of white ?owers is borne before the corpse by a young girl in age, size, and resemblance, and is afterwards hung up in the church over the aced seat of the deceased. These chaplets are sometimes made of white paper, in imitation of ?owers, and inside of them is generally a pair of white gloves. They are intended as emblems of the purity of the deceased, and the of glory which she has received in heaven.
In some parts of the try, also, the dead are carried to the grave with the singing of psalms and hymns--a kind of triumph, "to show," says Bourne, "that they have ?heir course with joy, and are bee querors." This, I am informed, is observed in some of the northern ties, particularly in Northumberland, and it has a pleasing, though melancholy effect to hear of a still evening in some lonely try se the mournful melody of a funeral dirge swelling from a distance, and to see the train slowly moving along the landscape.
Thus, thus, and thus, we pass roundThy harmless and unhaunted ground,And as we sing thy dirge, we will,The daffodillAnd other ?owers lay uponThe altar of our love, thy stone.HERRICK.
There is also a solemn respect paid by the traveller to the passing funeral in these sequestered places; for such spectacles, among the quiet abodes of Nature, sink deep into the soul. As the m train approaches he pauses, uncovered, to let it go by; he then follows silently in the rear; sometimes quite to the grave, at other times for a few hundred yards, and, having paid this tribute of respect to the deceased, turns and resumes his journey.
The rich vein of melancholy which runs through the English character, and gives it some of its most toug and ennobling graces, is ?nely evidenced in these pathetic s, and in the solicitude shown by the on people for an honored and a peaceful grave. The humblest peasant, whatever may be his lowly lot while living, is anxious that some little respect may be paid to his remains. Sir Thomas Overbury, describing the "faire and happy milkmaid," observes, "thus lives she, and all her care is, that she may die in the spring-time, to have store of ?owers stucke upon her winding-sheet." The poets, too, who always breathe the feeling of a nation, tinually advert to this fond solicitude about the grave. In The Maids Tragedy, by Beaumont and Fletcher, there is a beautiful instance of the kind describing the caprielancholy of a brokeed girl:
When she sees a bankStuck full of ?owers, she, with a sigh, will tellHer servants, what a pretty place it wereTo bury lovers in; and made her maidsBluck em, and strew her over like a corse.
The of decorating graves was oniversally prevalent:
osiers were carefully bent over them to keep the turf uninjured, and about them were planted evergreens and ?owers. "We adorn their graves," says Evelyn, in his Sylva, "with ?owers and redolent plants, just emblems of the life of man, which has been pared in Holy Scriptures to those fadiies whose roots, being buried in dishonor, rise, again in glory." This usage has now bee extremely rare in England; but it may still be met with in the churchyards of retired villages, among the Welsh mountains; and I recolle instance of it at the small town of Ruthven, which lies at the head of the beautiful vale of Clewyd.
I have been told also by a friend, who resent at the funeral of a young girl in Glamanshire, that the female attendants had their aprons full of ?owers, which, as soon as the body was interred, they stuck about the grave.
He noticed several graves which had been decorated in the same manner. As the ?owers had been merely stu the ground, and not plahey had soon withered, and might be seen in various states of decay; some drooping, others quite perished. They were afterwards to be supplanted by holly, rosemary, and other evergreens, whi some graves had grown to great luxuriance, and overshadowed the tombstones.
There was formerly a melancholy fancifulness in the arra of these rustic s, that had something in it truly poetical. The rose was sometimes blended with the lily, to form a general emblem of frail mortality. "This sweet ?ower," said Evelyn, "borne on a branch set with thorns and apanied with the lily, are natural hieroglyphics of itive, umbratile, anxious, and transitory life, which, making so fair a show for a time, is not yet without its thorns and crosses." The nature and color of the ?owers, and of the ribbons with which they were tied, had often a particular refereo the qualities or story of the deceased, or were expressive of the feelings of the mourner. In an old poem, entitled "Corydons Doleful Knell," a lover speci?es the decoratioends to use:
A garland shall be framedBy art and natures skill,Of sundry-colored ?owers,In token of good-will.And sundry-colored ribbonsOn it I will bestow;But chie?y blacke and yelloweWith her to grave shall go.Ill deck her tomb with ?owersThe rarest ever seen;And with my tears as showersIll keep them fresh and green.
The white rose, we are told, la the grave of a virgin; her chaplet was tied with white ribbons, in token of her spotless innoce, though sometimes black ribbons were intermio bespeak the grief of the survivors. The red rose was occasionally used, in remembrance of such as had been remarkable for benevolence; but roses in general were appropriated to the graves of lovers. Evelyn tells us that the was not altogether extin his time, near his dwelling in the ty of Surrey, "where the maidens yearly planted and decked the graves of their defunct sweethearts with rose-bushes."
And Camden likewise remarks, in his Britannia: "Here is also a certain , observed time out of mind, of planting rose-trees upon the graves, especially by the young men and maids who have lost their loves; so that this churchyard is now full of them."
When the deceased had been unhappy in their loves, emblems of a mloomy character were used, such as the yew and cypress, and if ?owers were strewn, they were of the most melancholy colors.
Thus, in poems by Thomas Stanley, Esq. (published in 1651), is the following stanza:
Yet strewUpon my dismall graveSuch s as you have,Forsaken cypresse and yewe;For kinder ?owers take no birthrowth from suhappy earth.
In The Maids Tragedy, a pathetic little air, is introduced, illustrative of this mode of decorating the funerals of females who had been disappointed in love:
Lay a garland on my hearseOf the dismall yew,Maidens, willow branches wear,Say I died true.My love was false, but I was ?rm,From my hour of birth;Upon my buried body lieLightly, gentle earth.
The natural effect of sorrow over the dead is to re?ne and elevate the mind; and we have a proof of it in the purity of se and the ued elegance of thought which pervaded the whole of these funeral observahus it was an especial precaution that sweet-sted evergreens and ?owers should be employed. The iioo have been to soften the horrors of the tomb, to beguile the mind from brooding over the disgraces of perishing mortality, and to associate the memory of the deceased with the most delicate aiful objects in nature. There is a dismal process going on in the grave, ere dust return to its kindred dust, which the imagination shrinks from plating; and we seek still to think of the form we have loved, with those re?ned associations which it awakened when blooming before us in youth ay. "Lay her i the earth," says Laertes, of his virgin sister,
And from her fair and unpolluted ?eshMay violets spring.
Herrick, also, in his "Dirge of Jephtha," pours forth a fragrant ?ow of poetical thought and image, whi a manner embalms the dead in the recolles of the living.
Sleep in thy peace, thy bed of spice,And make this place all Paradise:May sweets grow here! and smoke from henceFat frankinse.Let balme and cassia send their stFrom out thy maiden mo.May all shie maids at wonted hourse forth to strew thy tombe with ?owers!May virgins, when they e to mournMale inse burnUpon thiar! theurnAnd leave thee sleeping in thy urn.
I might y pages with extracts from the older British poets, who wrote when these rites were more prevalent, and delighted frequently to allude to them; but I have already quoted more than is necessary. I ot, however, refrain from giving a passage from Shakespeare, even though it should appear trite, which illustrates the emblematical meaning often veyed in these ?oral tributes, and at the same time possesses that magic of language and appositeness of imagery for which he stands pre-emi.
With fairest ?owers,Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,Ill sweeten thy sad grave; thou shalt not lackThe ?ower thats like thy face, pale primrose; norThe azured harebell like thy veins; no, norThe leaf of eglantine; whom not to slander,Outsweetened not thy breath.
There is certainly something more affeg in these prompt and spontaneous s of Nature than in the most costly mos of art; the hand strews the ?ower while the heart is warm, and the tear falls on the grave as affe is binding the osier round the sod; but pathos expires uhe slow labor of the chisel, and is chilled among the cold ceits of sculptured marble.
It is greatly to be regretted that a so truly elegant and toug has disappeared from general use, as only in the most remote and insigni?t villages. But it seems as if poetical always shuns the walks of cultivated society. In proportion as people grow polite they cease to be poetical. They talk of poetry, but they have learnt to check its free impulses, to distrust its sallyiions, and to supply its most affeg and picturesque usages by studied form and pompous ceremonial. Few pageants be more stately and frigid than an English funeral in town. It is made up of show and gloomy parade:
m carriages, m horses, m plumes, and hireling mourners, who make a mockery of grief. "There is a grave digged," says Jeremy Taylor, "and a solemn m, and a great talk in the neighborhood, and when the daies are ?hey shall be, and they shall be remembered no more." The associate in the gay and crowded city is soon fotten; the hurrying succession of new intimates and new pleasures effaces him from our minds, and the very ses and circles in which he moved are incessantly ?uctuating. But funerals in the try are solemnly impressive. The stroke of death makes a wider spa the village circle, and is an awful event iranquil uniformity of rural life. The passiolls its knell in every ear; it steals with its pervading melancholy over hill and vale, and saddens all the landscape.
The ?xed and ungiures of the try also perpetuate the memory of the friend with whom we onjoyed them, who was the panion of our most retired walks, and gave animation to every lonely se. His idea is associated with every charm of Nature; we hear his voi the echo which he once delighted to awaken; his spirit haunts the grove which he once frequented; we think of him in the wild upland solitude or amidst the pensive beauty of the valley. In the freshness of joyous m we remember his beaming smiles and bounding gayety; and when sober eveniurns with its gathering shadows and subduing quiet, we call to mind many a twilight hour of gealk and sweet-souled melancholy.
Each lonely place shall him restore,For him the tear be duly shed;Beloved till life charm no more,And mournd till pitys self be dead.
Another cause that perpetuates the memory of the deceased in the try is that the grave is more immediately in sight of the survivors. They pass it on their way to prayer; it meets their eyes when their hearts are softened by the exercises of devotion; they linger about it on the Sabbath, when the mind is disengaged from worldly cares and most disposed to turn aside from present pleasures and present loves and to sit down among the solemos of the past. In North Wales the peasantry kneel and pray over the graves of their deceased friends for several Sundays after the interment; and where the tender rite of strewing and planting ?owers is still practised, it is always renewed oer, Whitsuntide, and other festivals, when the seass the panion of former festivity more vividly to mind. It is９９lib? also invariably performed by the relatives and friends; no menials nor hirelings are employed, and if a neighbor yields assista would be deemed an insult to offer pensation.
I have dwelt upon this beautiful rural , because as it is one of the last, so is it one of the holiest, of?ces of love.
The grave is the ordeal of true affe. It is there that the divine passion of the soul mas its superiority to the instinctive impulse of mere animal attat. The latter must be tinually refreshed a alive by the presence of its object, but the love that is seated in the soul live on long remembrahe mere inations of sense languish and dee with the charms which excited them, and turn with shuddering disgust from the dismal prects of the tomb; but it is thehat truly spiritual affe rises, puri?ed from every sensual desire, aurns, like a holy ?ame, to illumine and sanctify the heart of the survivor.
The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal, every other af?i tet; but this wound we sider it a duty to keep open, this af?i we cherish and brood over in solitude.
Where is the mother who would willingly fet the infant that perished like a blossom from her arms though every recolle is a pang? Where is the child that would willingly fet the most tender of parents, though to remember be but to lament? Who, even in the hour of agony, would fet the friend over whom he mourns? Who, evehe tomb is closing upon the remains of her he most loved, when he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of its portal, would accept of solation that must be bought by fetfulness? No, the love which survives the tomb is one of the attributes of the soul. If it has its woes, it has likewise its delights; and when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the geear of recolle, when the sudden anguish and the vulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness, who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? Though it may sometimes throassing cloud over the bright hour of gayety, or spread a deeper sadness over the hour of gloom, yet who would exge it even for the song of pleasure or the burst of revelry? No, there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song.
There is a remembrance of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the living. Oh, the grave! the grave! It buries every error, covers every defect, extinguishes every rese! From its peaceful bosom spring frets and tender recolles. Who look down upon the grave even of an enemy, and not feel a punctious throb that he should ever have warred with the poor handful of earth that lies mouldering before him?
But the grave of those we loved--what a plaeditation!
There it is that we call up in long review the whole history of virtue aleness, and the thousand endearments lavished upon us almost unheeded in the daily intercourse of intimacy; there it is that we dwell upoenderness, the solemn, awful tenderness, of the parting se. The bed of death, with all its sti?ed griefs--its noiseless attendas mute, watchful assiduities. The last testimonies of expiring love! The feeble, ?uttering, thrilling--oh, how thrilling!--pressure of the hand!
The faint, faltering ats, struggling ih to give one more assurance of affe! The last fond look of the glazing eye, turning upon us even from the threshold of existence!
Ay, go to the grave of buried love aate! There settle the at with thy sce for every past be ued--every past endearment unregarded, of that departed being who ever-never--never return to be soothed by thy trition!
If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul or a furrow to the silvered brow of an affeate parent; if thou art a husband, and hast ever caused the fond bosom that ves whole happiness in thy arms to doubt one moment of thy kindness or thy truth; if thou art a friend, and hast ever wronged, in thought or word or deed, the spirit that generously ?ded in thee; if thou art a lover, and hast ever given one ued pang to that true heart whiow lies cold and still beh thy feet,--then be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every ule a will e thronging back upon thy memory and knog dolefully at thy soul: then be sure that thou wilt lie down sorrowing aant on the grave, and utter the unheard groan and pour the unavailing tear, more deep, more bitter because unheard and unavailing.
Then weave thy chaplet of ?owers and strew the beauties of Nature about the grave; sole thy broken spirit, if thou st, with these tender yet futile tributes ret; but take warning by the bitterness of this thy trite af?i over the dead, and heh be more faithful and affeate in the discharge of thy duties to the living.
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In writing the preg article it was not inteo give a full detail of the funeral s of the English peasantry, but merely to furnish a few hints and quotations illustrative of particular rites, to be appended, by way of o another paper, which has been withheld. The article swelled insensibly into its present form, and this is mentioned as an apology for so brief and casual a notice of these usages after they have been amply and learnedly iigated in other works.
I must observe, also, that I am well aware that this of ad graves with ?owers prevails in other tries besides England. Indeed, in some it is much meneral, and is observed even by the rid fashionable; but it is then apt to lose its simplicity and to degee into affectation. Bright, in his travels in Lower Hungary, tells of mos of marble and recesses formed for retirement, with seats placed among bowers of greenhouse plants, and that the graves generally are covered with the gayest ?owers of the season. He gives a casual picture of ?lial piety which I ot but transcribe; for I trust it is as useful as it is delightful to illustrate the amiable virtues of the sex. "When I was at Berlin," says he, "I followed the celebrated If?and to the grave. Mingled with some pomp you might trace much real feeling. In the midst of the ceremony my attention was attracted by a young woman who stood on a mound of earth newly covered with turf, which she anxiously protected from the feet of the passing crowd. It was the tomb of her parent; and the ?gure of this affeate daughter presented a mo more striking than the most costly work of art."
I will barely add an instance of sepulchral decoration that I o with among the mountains of Switzerland. It was at the village of Gersau, which stands on the borders of the Lake of Lue, at the foot of Mount Rigi. It was ohe capital of a miniature republic shut up between the Alps and the lake, and accessible on the land side only by footpaths. The whole force of the republic did not exceed six hundred ?ghting men, and a few miles of circumference, scooped out as it were from the bosom of the mountains, prised its territory. The village of Gersau seemed separated from the rest of the world, aaihe golden simplicity of a purer age. It had a small church, with a burying-ground adjoining. At the heads of the graves were placed crosses of wood or iron. On some were af?xed miniatures, rudely executed, but evidently attempts at likenesses of the deceased.
On the crosses were hung chaplets of ?owers, some withering others fresh, as if occasionally renewed. I paused with i at this se: I felt that I was at the source of poetical description, for these were the beautiful but ued s of the heart which poets are fain to record. In a gayer and more populous place I should have suspected them to have been suggested by factitious se derived from books; but the good people of Gersau knew little of books; there was not a novel nor a love-poem in the village, and I questioher any peasant of the place dreamt, while he was twining a fresh chaplet for the grave of his mistress, that he was ful?lling one of the most fanciful rites of poetical devotion, and that he ractically a poet.
THE INN KITCHEN.
Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?FALSTAFF.
DURING a jourhat I once made through the herlands, I had arrived one evening at the Pomme dOr, the principal inn of a small Flemish village. It was after the hour of the table dhote, so that I was obliged to make a solitary supper from the relics of its ampler board. The weather was chilly; I was seated alone in one end of a great gloomy dining-ro..om, and, my repast being over, I had the prospect before me of a long dull evening, without any visible means of enlivening it. I summoned mine host and requested something to read; he brought me the whole literary stock of his household, a Dutch family Bible, an almana the same language, and a number of old Paris neers. As I sat dozing over one of the latter, reading old news and stale criticisms, my ear was now and then struck with bursts of laughter which seemed to proceed from the kit. Every ohat has travelled on the ti must know how favorite a resort the kit of a try inn is to the middle and inferior order of travellers,.. particularly in that equivocal kind of weather when a ?re bees agreeable toward evening. I threw aside the neer and explored my way to the kit, to take a peep at the group that appeared to be so merry. It was posed partly of travellers who had arrived some hours before in a diligence, and partly of the usual attendants and hangers-on of inns. They were seated round a great burove, that might have been mistaken for an altar at which they were worshipping. It was covered with various kit vessels of resple brightness, among which steamed and hissed a huge copper tea-kettle. A large lamp threw a strong mass of light upon the group, bringing ou藏书网t many odd features in strong relief. Its yelloartially illumihe spacious kit, dying duskily away into remote ers, except where they settled in mellow radian the broad side of a ?itch of ba or were re?ected back from well-scoured utensils that gleamed from the midst of obscurity. A strapping Flemish lass, with long golden pendants in her ears and a necklace with a golde suspeo it, was the presiding priestess of the temple.
Many of the pany were furnis.9９lib?hed with pipes, and most of them with some kind of evening potation. I found their mirth was occasioned by aes which a little swarthy Fren, with a dry weazen fad large whiskers, was giving of his love-adventures; at the end of each of which there was one of those bursts of ho unceremonious laughter in which a man indulges in that temple of true liberty, an inn.
As I had er mode of getting through a tedious blustering evening, I took my seat he stove, and listeo a variety of travellers tales, some very extravagant and most ver dull.
All of them, however, have faded from my treaemory except one, which I will endeavor to relate. I fear, however, it derived its chief zest from the manner in which it was told, and the peculiar air and appearance of the narrator. He was a corpulent old Swiss, who had the look of a veteran traveller. He was dressed in a tarnished green travelling-jacket, with a broad belt round his waist, and a pair of overalls with buttons from the hips to the ankles. He was of a full rubid tenance, with a double , aquiline nose, and a pleasant twinkling eye.
His hair was light, and curled from under an old gree travelling-cap stu one side of his head. He was interrupted more than once by the arrival of guests or the remarks of his auditors, and paused now and then to replenish his pipe; at which times he had generally a roguish leer and a sly joke for the buxom kit-maid.
I wish my readers could imagihe old fellow lolling in a huge arm-chair, one arm a-kimbo, the other holding a curiously twisted tobacco-pipe formed of genuine ecume de mer, decorated with silver and silken tassel, his head cocked on one side, and a whimsical cut of the eye occasionally as he related the following story.
THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM.
A TRAVELLERS TALE.*He that supper for is dight,He lyes full cold, I trow, this night!Yestreen to chamber I him led,This night Gray-steel has made his bed!SIR EGER, SIR GRAHAME, and SIR GRAY-STEEL.
ON the summit .99ｌib.of one of the heights of the Odenwald, a wild and romantic tract of Upper Germany that lies not far from the ?uence of the Main and the Rhihere stood many, many years sihe castle of the Baron Von Landshort. It is now quite fallen to decay, and almost buried among beech trees and dark ?rs; above which, however, its old watch-tower may still be seen struggling, like the former possessor I have mentioo carry a high head and look down upon the neighb try.
The baron was a dry branch of the great family of Katzenellenbogen,+ and ied the relics of the property and all the pride, of his aors. Though the warlike disposition of his predecessors had much impaired the family possessions, yet the baron still endeavored to keep up some show of former state.
The times were peaceable, and the German nobles in general had abaheir inve old castles, perched like eagles s among the mountains, and had built more ve residences in the valleys; still, the baron remained proudly drawn up in his little fortress, cherishing with hereditary ieracy all the old family feuds, so that he was on ill terms with some of his neighbors, on at of disputes that had happened between their great-great-grandfathers.
* The erudite reader, well versed in good-for-nothing lore, will perceive that the above Tale must have been suggested to the old Swiss by a little Frenecdote, a circumstance said to have taken pla Paris.
+ I.e., CATS ELBOW--the name of a family of those parts, and very powerful in former times. The appellation, we are told, was given in pliment to a peerless dame of the family, celebrated for a ?ne arm.
The baron had but one child, a daughter, but Nature, when she grants but one child, always pensates by making it a prodigy; and so it was with the daughter of the baron. All the nurses, gossips, and try cousins assured her father that she had not her equal for beauty in all Germany; and who should know better than they? She had, moreover, been brought up with great care uhe superintendence of two maiden aunts, who had spent some years of their early life at one of the little German courts, and were skilled in all branches of knowledge necessary to the education of a ?ne lady. Uheir instrus she became a miracle of aplishments. By the time she was eighteen she could embroider to admiration, and had worked whole histories of the saints in tapestry with such strength of expression in their tehat they looked like so many souls in purgatory.
She could read without great dif?culty, and had spelled her way through several Church legends and almost all the chivalriders of the Heldenbuch. She had even made siderable pro? writing; could sign her own hout missing a letter, and so legibly that her aunts could read it without spectacles. She excelled in making little elegant good-for-nothing, lady-like kniacks of all kinds, was versed in the most abstruse dang of the day, played a number of airs on the harp and guitar, and knew all the tender ballads of the Minnelieders by heart.
Her aunts, too, having bee ?irts and coquettes in their younger days, were admirably calculated to be vigilant guardians and strict sors of the duct of their niece; for there is no duenna sidly prudent and inexorably decorous as a superannuated coquette. She was rarely suffered out of their sight; never went beyond the domains of the castle unless well attended, or rather well watched; had tinual lectures read to her about strict de and implicit obedience; and, as to the men--pah!--she was taught to hold them at such a distand in such absolute distrust that, unless properly authorized, she would not have cast a glance upon the handsomest cavalier in the world--no, not if he were even dying at her feet.
The good effects of this system were wonderfully apparent. The young lady attern of docility and correess. While others were wasting their sweetness in the glare of the world, and liable to be plucked and thrown aside by every hand, she was coyly blooming into fresh and lovely womanhood uhe prote of those immaculate spinsters, like a rosebud blushing forth among guardian thorns. Her aunts looked upon her with pride aation, and vauhat, though all the other young ladies in the world might go astray, yet thank Heaven, nothing of the kind could happen to the heiress of Katzenellenbogen.
But, however stily the Baron Von Landshort might be provided with children, his household was by no means a small one; for Providence had enriched him with abundance of poor relations.
They, one and all, possessed the affeate disposition on to humble relatives--were wonderfully attached to the baron, and took every possible occasion to e in swarms and ehe castle. All family festivals were orated by these good people at the barons expense; and when they were ?lled with good cheer they would declare that there was nothing oh so delightful as these family meetings, these jubilees of the heart.
The baron, though a small man, had a large soul, and it swelled with satisfa at the sciousness of being the greatest man itle world about him. He loved to tell long stories about the stark old warriors whose portraits looked grimly down from the walls around, and he found no listeners equal to those who fed at his expense. He was much given to the marvellous and a ?rm believer in all those supernatural tales with which every mountain and valley in Germany abounds. The faith of his guests exceeded even his own: they listeo every tale of wonder with open eyes and mouth, and never failed to be astonished, even though repeated for the huh time. Thus lived the Baron Von Landshort, the oracle of his table, the absolute monarch of his little territory, and happy, above all things, in the persuasion that he was the wisest man of the age.
At the time of which my story treats there was a great family gathering at the castle on an affair of the utmost importa was to receive the destined bridegroom of the barons daughter. A iation had been carried oweeher and an old nobleman of Bavaria to uhe dignity of their houses by the marriage of their children. The preliminaries had been ducted with proper punctilio. The young people were betrothed without seeing each other, and the time ointed for the marriage ceremony. The young t Von Altenburg had been recalled from the army for the purpose, and was actually on his way to the barons to receive his bride. Missives had even been received from him from Wurtzburg, where he was actally detained, mentioning the day and hour when he might be expected to arrive.
The castle was in a tumult of preparation to give him a suitable wele. The fair bride had been decked out with unon care.
The two aunts had superintended her toilet, and quarrelled the whole m about every article of her dress. The young lady had taken advantage of their test to follow the bent of her own taste; and fortunately it was a good one. She looked as lovely as youthful bridegroom could desire, and the ?utter of expectatioehe lustre of her charms.
The suffusions that mantled her fad neck, the gentle heaving of the bosom, the eye now and then lost in reverie, all betrayed the soft tumult that was going on in her little heart. The aunts were tinually h around her, for maiden aunts are apt to take great i in affairs of this nature. They were giving her a world of staid sel how to deport herself, what to say, and in what mao receive the expected lover.
The baron was no less busied in preparations. He had, in truth, nothily to do; but he was naturally a fuming, bustling little man, and could not remain passive when all the world was in a hurry. He worried from top to bottom of the castle with an air of in?nite ay; he tinually called the servants from their work to exhort them to be diligent; and buzzed about every hall and chamber, as idly restless and importunate as a blue-bottle ?y on a warm summers day.
In the mean time the fatted calf had been killed; the forests had rung with the clamor of the huhe kit was crowded with good cheer; the cellars had yielded up whole os of Rhein-wein and Ferre-wein; and even the great Heidelberg tun had been laid under tribution. Everything was ready to receive the distinguished guest with Saus und Braus irue spirit of German hospitality; but the guest delayed to make his app９9lib?earance.
Hour rolled after hour. The sun, that had poured his downward rays upon the rich forest of the Odenwald, now just gleamed along the summits of the mountains. The baron mouhe highest tower and strained his eyes in hopes of catg a distant sight of the t and his attendants. Once he thought he beheld them; the sound of horns came ?oating from the valley, prolonged by the mountain-echoes. A number of horsemen were seen far below slowly advang along the road; but when they had nearly reached the foot of the mountain they suddenly struck off in a different dire. The last ray of sunshied, the bats began to ?it by iwilight, the road grew dimmer and dimmer to the view, and nothing appeared stirring in it but now and then a peasant lagging homeward from his labor.
While the old castle of Landshort was in this state of perplexity a very iing se was transag in a different part of the Odenwald.
The young t Von Altenburg was tranquilly pursuing his route in that s-trot way in which a man travels toward matrimony when his friends have taken all the trouble and uainty of courtship off his hands and a bride is waiting for him as certainly as a di the end of his journey. He had entered at Wurtzburg a youthful panion-in-arms with whom he had seen some servi the frontiers--Herman Von Starkenfaust, one of the stoutest hands and worthiest hearts of German chivalry--who was now returning from the army. His fathers castle was not far distant from the old fortress of Landshort, although an hereditary feud rehe families hostile and strao each other.
In the warm-hearted moment nition the young friends related all their past adventures and fortunes, and the t gave the whole history of his intended nuptials with a young lady whom he had never seen, but of whose charms he had received the most enrapturing descriptions.
As the route of the friends lay in the same dire, they agreed to perform the rest of their jourogether, and that they might do it the more leisurely, set off from Wurtzburg at an early hour, the t having given dires for his retio follow and overtake him.
They beguiled their wayfaring with recolles of their military ses and adventures; but the t t to be a little tedious now and then about the reputed charms of his bride and the felicity that awaited him.
In this way they had entered among the mountains of the Odenwald, araversing one of its most lonely and thickly wooded passes. It is well known that the forests of Germany have always been as mufested by robbers as its castles by spectres; and at this time the former were particularly numerous, from the hordes of disbanded soldiers wandering about the try. It will not appear extraordinary, therefore, that the cavaliers were attacked by a gang of these stragglers, in the midst of the forest. They defehemselves with bravery, but were nearly overpowered when the ts retinue arrived to their assistance.
At sight of them the robbers ?ed, but not until the t had received a mortal wound. He was slowly and carefully veyed back to the city of Wurtzburg, and a friar summoned from a neighb vent who was famous for his skill in administering to both soul and body; but half of his skill was super?uous; the moments of the unfortunate t were numbered.
With his dying breath he eed his friend to repair instantly to the castle of Landshort and explaial cause of his not keeping his appoi with his bride. Though not the most ardent of lovers, he was one of the most punctilious of men, and appeared early solicitous that his mission should be speedily and courteously executed. "Uhis is done," said he, "I shall not sleep quietly in my grave." He repeated these last words with peculiar solemnity. A request at a moment so impressive admitted ation. Starkenfaust endeavored to soothe him to ess, promised faithfully to execute his wish, and gave him his hand in solemn pledge. The dying man pressed it in aowledgment, but soon lapsed into delirium--raved about his bride, his es, his plighted word--ordered his horse, that he might ride to the castle of Landshort, and expired in the fancied act of vaulting into the saddle.
Starkenfaust bestowed a sigh and a soldiers tear oimely fate of his rade and then pondered on the awkward mission he had uaken. His heart was heavy and his head perplexed; for he was to present himself an unbidde among hostile people, and to damp their festivity with tidings fatal to their hopes.
Still, there were certain whisperings of curiosity in his bosom to see this far-famed beauty of Katzenellenbogen, so cautiously shut up from the world; for he assionate admirer of the sex, and there was a dash of etricity aerprise in his character that made him fond of all singular adventure.
Previous to his departure he made all due arras with the holy fraternity of the vent for the funeral solemnities of his friend, who was to be buried ihedral of Wurtzburg near some of his illustrious relatives, and the m retinue of the t took charge of his remains.
It is now high time that we should return to the a family of Katzenellenbogen, who were impatient for their guest, and still more for their dinner, and to the worthy little baron, whom we left airing himself och-tower.
Night closed in, but still no guest arrived. The baron desded from the tower in despair. The ba, which had been delayed from hour to hour, could no longer be postpohe meats were already overdohe cook in an agony, and the whole household had the look of a garrison, that had been reduced by famihe baron was obliged relutly to give orders for the feast without the presence of the guest. All were seated at table, and just on the point of eng, when the sound of a horn from without the gate gave notice of the approach of a stranger.
Another long blast ?lled the old courts of the castle with its echoes, and was answered by the warder from the walls. The baron hasteo receive his future son-in-law.
The drawbridge had bee down, and the stranger was before the gate. He was a tall gallant cavalier, mounted on a black steed.
His tenance ale, but he had a beaming, romantic eye and an air of stately melancholy. The baron was a little morti?ed that he should have e in this simple, solitary style. His dignity for a moment was ruf?ed, and he felt disposed to sider it a want of proper respect for the important occasion and the important family with which he was to be ected. He paci?ed himself, however, with the clusion that it must have been youthful impatience which had induced him thus to spur on soohan his attendants.
"I am sorry," said the stranger, "to break in upon you thus unseasonably----"
Here the baron interrupted him with a world of pliments and greetings, for, to tell the truth, he prided himself upon his courtesy and eloquehe stratempted once or twice to stem the torrent of words, but in vain, so he bowed his head and suffered it to ?ow on. By the time the baron had e to a pause they had reached the inner court of the castle, and the stranger was again about to speak, when he was once more interrupted by the appearance of the female part of the family, leading forth the shrinking and blushing bride. He gazed on her for a moment as oranced; it seemed as if his whole soul beamed forth in the gaze aed upon that lovely form. One of the maiden aunts whispered something in her ear; she made an effort to speak; her moist blue eye was timidly raised, gave a shy glance of inquiry oranger, and was cast again to the ground. The words died away, but there was a sweet smile playing about her lips, and a soft dimpling of the cheek that showed her glance had not been unsatisfactory. It was impossible firl of the fond age of eighteen, highly predisposed for love and matrimony, not to be pleased with so gallant a cavalier.
The late hour at which the guest had arrived left no time for parley. The baron eremptory, and deferred all particular versation until the m, ahe way to the untasted ba.
It was served up in the great hall of the castle. Around the walls hung the hard-favored portraits of the heroes of the house of Katzenellenbogen, and the trophies which they had gained in the ?eld, and in the chase. Hacked corselets, splintered jousting-spears, and tattered banners were mingled with the spoils of sylvan warfare: the jaws of the wolf and the tusks of the brinned horribly among crossbows and battle-axes, and a huge pair of antlers branched immediately over the head of the youthful bridegroom.
The cavalier took but little notice of the pany or the eai. He scarcely tasted the ba, but seemed absorbed in admiration of his bride. He versed in a low tohat could not be overheard, for the language of love is never loud; but where is the female ear so dull that it ot catch the softest whisper of the lover? There was a mienderness and gravity in his mahat appeared to have a powerful effect upon the young lady. Her color came a as she listened with deep attention. Now and then she made some blushing reply, and when his eye was turned away she would steal a sidelong gla his romantic tenance, and heave..t> a gentle sigh of tender happiness. It was evident that the young couple were pletely enamored. The aunts, who were deeply versed in the mysteries of the heart, declared that they had fallen in love with each other at ?rst sight.
The feast went on merrily, or at least noisily, for the guests were all blessed with those keen appetites that attend upon light purses and mountain air. The baron told his best and lo stories, and never had he told them so well or with such great effect. If there was anything marvellous, his auditors were lost in astonishment; and if anything facetious, they were sure to laugh exactly in the right place. The baron, it is true, like most great men, was too digo utter any joke but a dull o was always enforced, however, by a bumper of excellent Hockheimer, and even a dull joke at ones own table, served up with jolly old wine, is irresistible. Many good things were said by poorer and keener wits that would not bear repeating, except on similar occasions; many sly speeches whispered in ladies ears that almost vulsed them with suppressed laughter; and a song or two roared out by a poor but merry and broad-faced cousin of the baron that absolutely made the maiden aunts hold up their fans.
Amidst all this revelry the stranger guest maintained a most singular and unseasonable gravity. His tenance assumed a deeper cast of deje as the evening advanced, and, strange as it may appear, even the barons jokes seemed only to render him the more melancholy. At times he was lost in thought, and at times there erturbed aless wandering of the eye that bespoke a mind but ill at ease. His versations with the bride became more and more ear and mysterious. L clouds began to steal over the fair serenity of her brow, and tremors to run through her tender frame.
All this could not escape the notice of the pany. Their gayety was chilled by the unatable gloom of the bridegroom; their spirits were ied; whispers and glances were interged, apanied by shrugs and dubious shakes of the head. The song and the laugh grew less and less frequent: there were dreary pauses in the versation, which were at length succeeded by wild tales and supernatural legends. One dismal story produced aill more dismal, and the baron nearly frightened some of the ladies into hysterics with the history of the goblin horseman that carried away the fair Leonora--a dreadful story which has since been put into excellent verse, and is read and believed by all the world.
The bridegroom listeo this tale with profound attention. He kept his eyes steadily ?xed on the baron, and, as the story drew to a close, began gradually to rise from his seat, growing taller and taller, until in the baroranced eye he seemed almost to tower into a giant. The moment the tale was ?nished he heaved a deep sigh and took a solemn farewell of the pany. They were all amazement. The baron erfectly thuruck.
"What! going to leave the castle at midnight? Why, everything repared for his reception; a chamber was ready for him if he wished to retire."
The stranger shook his head mournfully and mysteriously: "I must lay my head in a different chamber to-night."
There was something in this reply and the tone in which it was uttered that made the baro misgive him; but he rallied his forces aed his hospitable eies.
The stranger shook his head silently, but positively, at every offer, and, waving his farewell to the pany, stalked slowly out of the hall. The maiden aunts were absolutely petri?ed; the bride hung her head and a tear stole to her eye.
The baron followed the strao the great court of the castle, where the black charger stood pawing the earth and sn with impatience. When they had reached the portal, whose deep archway was dimly lighted by a cresset, the stranger paused, and addressed the baron in a hollow tone of voice, which the vaulted roof reill more sepulchral.
"Now that we are a lone," said he, "I will impart to you the reason of my going. I have a solemn, an indispensable e----"
"Why," said the baron, "ot you send some one in your place?"
"It admits of no substitute--I must attend it in person; I must away to Wurtzburg cathedral----"
"Ay," said the baron, plug up spirit, "but not until to-morrow--to-morrow you shall take your bride there."
"No! no!" replied the stranger, with tenfold solemnity, "my e is with no bride--the worms! the worms expect me! I am a dead man--I have been slain by robbers--my body lies at Wurtzburg--at midnight I am to be buried--the grave is waiting for me--I must keep my appoi!"
He sprang on his black charger, dashed over the drawbridge, and the clattering of his horses hoofs was lost in the whistling of the night blast.
The barouro the hall imost sternation, aed what had passed. Two ladies fainted ht, others sied at the idea of having baed with a spectre. It was the opinion of some that this might be the wild huntsman, famous in German legend. Some talked of mountain-sprites, of wood-demons, and of other supernatural beings with which the good people of Germany have been so grievously harassed siime immemorial. One of the poor relatioured to suggest that it might be some sportive evasion of the young cavalier, and that the very gloominess of the caprice seemed to accord with so melancholy a persohis, however, drew on him, the indignation of the whole pany, and especially of the baron, who looked upon him as little better than an in?del; so that he was fain to abjure his heresy as speedily as possible and e into the faith of the true believers.
But, whatever may have been the doubts eaihey were pletely put to an end by the arrival day ular missives ing the intelligence of the young ts murder and his interment in Wurtzburg cathedral.
The dismay at the castle may well be imagihe baron shut himself up in his chamber. The guests, who had e to rejoice with him, could not think of abandoning him in his distress. They wandered about the courts or collected in groups in the hall, shaking their heads and shrugging their shoulders at the troubles of so good a man, and sat loha table, and ate and drank more stoutly than ever, by way of keeping up their spirits.
But the situation of the widowed bride was the most pitiable. To have lost a husband before she had even embraced him--and such a husband! If the very spectre could be so gracious and noble, what must have been the living man? She ?lled the house with lamentatio99liｂ?t>ns.
On the night of the sed day of her widowhood she had retired to her chamber, apanied by one of her aunts, who insisted on sleeping with her. The aunt, who was one of the best tellers of ghost-stories in all Germany, had just been reting one of her lo, and had fallen asleep in the very midst of it. The chamber was remote and overlooked a small garden. The niece lay pensively gazing at the beams of the rising moon as they trembled on the leaves of an aspen tree before the lattice. The castle clock had just tolled midnight when a soft strain of music stole up from the garden. She rose hastily from her bed and stepped lightly to the window. A tall ?gure stood among the shadows of the trees. As it raised its head a beam of moonlight fell upon the tenance. Heaven ah! she beheld the Spectre Bridegroom! A loud shriek at that moment burst upon her ear, and her aunt, who had been awakened by the musid had followed her silently to the window, fell into her arms. When she looked again the spectre had disappeared.
Of the two females, the aunt now required the most soothing, for she erfectly beside herself with terror. As to the young lady, there was something even in the spectre of her lover that seemed endearing. There was still the semblananly beauty, and, though the shadow of a man is but little calculated to satisfy the affes of a lovesick girl, yet where the substance is not to be had even that is soling. The aunt declared she would never sleep in that chamber again; the niece, for once, was refractory, and declared as strongly that she would sleep in no other in the castle: the sequence was, that she had to sleep in it alone; but she dreromise from her aunt not to relate the story of the spectre, lest she should be dehe only melancholy pleasure left her oh--that of inhabiting the chamber over which the guardian shade of her lover kept its nightly vigils.
How long the good old lady would have observed this promise is uain, for she dearly loved to talk of the marvellous, and there is a triumph in being the ?rst to tell a frightful story; it is, howover, still quoted in the neighborhood as a memorable instance of female secrecy that she kept it to herself for a whole week, when she was suddenly absolved from all further restraint by intelligence brought to the breakfast-table one m that the young lady was not to be found. Her room was empty--the bed had not bee in--the windoen and the bird had ?own!
The astonishment and with which the intelligence was received only be imagined by those who have withe agitation which the mishaps of a great man cause among his friends. Even the poor relations paused for a moment from the iigable labors of the trencher, when the aunt, who had at ?rst been struck speechless, wrung her hands and shrieked out, "The goblin" the goblin! shes carried away by the goblin!"
In a few words she related the fearful se of the garden, and cluded that the spectre must have carried off his bride. Two of the domestics corroborated the opinion, for they had heard the clattering of a horses hoofs down the mountain about midnight, and had no doubt that it was the spectre on his black charger bearing her away to the tomb. All present were struck with the direful probability for events of the kind are extremely on in Germany, as many well-authenticated histories bear witness.
What a lamentable situation was that of the poor baron! What a heartrending dilemma for a fond father and a member of the great family of Katzenellenbogen! His only daughter had either been rapt away to the grave, or he was to have some wood-demon for a son-in-laerce a troop of goblin grandchildren. As usual, he was pletely bewildered, and all the castle in an uproar. The men were ordered to take horse and scour every road and path and glen of the Odenwald. The baron himself had just drawn on his jack-boots, girded on his sword, and was about to mount his steed to sally forth on the doubtful quest, when he was brought to a pause by a nearition. A lady was seen approag the castle mounted on a palfrey, attended by a cavalier on horseback. She galloped up to the gate, sprang from her horse, and, falling at the baro, embraced his knees.
It was his lost daughter, and her panion--the Spectre Bridegroom! The baron was astounded. He looked at his daughter, then at the spectre, and almost doubted the evidence of his sehe latter, too, was wonderfully improved in his appearance since his visit to the world of spirits. His dress lendid, a off a noble ?gure of manly symmetry. He was no longer pale and melancholy. His ?ne tenance was ?ushed with the glow of youth, and joy rioted in his large dark eye.
The mystery was soon cleared up. The cavalier (for, in truth, as you must have known all the while, he was no goblin) announced himself as Sir Herman Von Starkenfaust. He related his adveh the young t. He told how he had hasteo the castle to deliver the unwele tidings, but that the eloquence of the baron had interrupted him in every attempt to tell his tale. How the sight of the bride had pletely captivated him and that to pass a few hours near her he had tacitly suffered the mistake to tinue. How he had been sorely perplexed in what way to make a det retreat, until the barons goblin stories had suggested his etric exit. How, fearing the feudal hostility of the family, he had repeated his visits by stealth--had hauhe gardeh the young ladys window--had wooed--had won--had borne away in triumph--and, in a word, had wedded the fair.
Under any other circumstahe baron would have been in?exible, for he was tenacious of paternal authority aly obstinate in all family feuds; but he loved his daughter; he had lamented her as lost; he rejoiced to ?ill alive; and, though her husband was of a hostile house, yet, thank Heaven! he was not a goblin. There was something, it must be aowledged, that did ly accord with his notions of strict veracity in the joke the knight had passed upon him of his being a dead man; but several old friends present, who had served in the wars, assured him that every stratagem was excusable in love, and that the cavalier was entitled to especial privilege, having lately served as a trooper.
Matters, therefore, were happily arrahe baron pardohe young couple on the spot. The revels at the castle were resumed.
The poor relations overwhelmed this new member of the family with loving-kindness; he was so gallant, so generous--and so rich. The aunts, it is true, were somewhat sdalized that their system of strict seclusion and passive obedience should be so badly exempli?ed, but attributed it all to their negligen not having the windows grated. One of them articularly morti?ed at having her marvellous story marred, and that the only spectre she had ever seen should turn out a terfeit; but the niece seemed perfectly happy at having found him substantial ?esh and blood. And so the story ends.
WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
When I behold, with deep astonishment,To famous Westminster how there resorte,Living in brasse or stoney mo,The princes and the worthies of all sorte;Doe not I see reformde nobilitie,Without pt, or pride, or ostentation,And looke upon offenselesse majesty,Naked of pomp or earthly domination?And holay-game of a paionetents the quiet now and silent sprites,Whome all the world which late they stood uponCould not tent nor quench their appetites.Life is a frost of cold felicitie,Ah the thaw of all our vanitie.CHRISTOLEROS EPIGRAMS, BY T. B. 1598.
ON one of those sober and rather melancholy days iter part of autumhe shadows of m and evening almost miogether, and throw a gloom over the dee of the year, I passed several hours in rambling about Westminster Abbey. There was something genial to the season in the mournful magni?ce of the old pile, and as I passed its threshold it seemed like stepping bato the regions of antiquity and losing myself among the shades of fes.
I entered from the inner court of Westminster School, through a long, low, vaulted passage that had an almost subterranean look, being dimly lighted in one part by circular perforations in the massive walls. Through this dark avenue I had a distant view of the cloisters, with the ?gure of an old verger in his blaoving along their shadowy vaults, and seeming like a spectre from one of the neighb tombs. The approach to the abbey through these gloomy monastic remains prepares the mind for its solemn plation. The cloisters still retain something of the quiet and seclusion of former days. The gray walls are discolored by damps and crumbling with age; a coat of hoary moss has gathered over the inscriptions of the mural mos, and obscured the deaths heads and other funeral emblems. The sharp touches of the chisel are gone from the rich tracery of the arches; the roses which adorhe keystones have lost their leafy beauty; everything bears marks of the gradual dilapidations of time, which yet has something toug and pleasing in its very decay.
The sun down a yellow autumnal ray into the square of the cloisters, beaming upon a sty plot of grass in the tre, and lighting up an angle of the vaulted passage with a kind of dusky splendor. From between the arcades the eye glanced up to a bit of blue sky or a passing cloud, and beheld the sun-gilt pinnacles of the abbey t into the azure heaven.
As I paced the cloisters, sometimes plating this mingled picture of glory and decay, and sometimes endeav to decipher the inscriptions oombstones whied the pavemeh my feet, my eye was attracted to three ?gures rudely carved in relief, but nearly worn away by the footsteps of many geions. They were the ef?gies of three of the early abbots; the epitaphs were entirely effaced; the names alone remained, having no doubt been renewed in later times (Vitalis. Abbas.
1082, and Gislebertus Crispinus. Abbas. 1114, and Laurentius.
Abbas. 1176). I remained some little while, musing over these casual relics of antiquity thus left like wrecks upon this distant shore of time, telling no tale but that such beings had been and had perished, teag no moral but the futility of that pride which hopes still to exaage in its ashes and to live in an inscription. A little longer, and even these faint records will be obliterated and the mo will cease to be a memorial.
Whilst I was yet looking down upon the gravestones I was roused by the sound of the abbey clock, reverberating from buttress to buttress and eg among the cloisters. It is almost startling to hear this warning of departed time sounding among the tombs and telling the lapse of the hour, which, like a billow, has rolled us onward towards the grave. I pursued my walk to an arched door opening to the it>..t>or of the abbey. Oerihe magnitude of the building breaks fully upon the mind, trasted with the vaults of the cloisters. The eyes gaze with wo clustered ns of gigantic dimensions, with arches springing from them to su amazi, and man wandering about their bases, shrunk into insigni? parison with his own handiwork. The spaciousness and gloom of this vast edi?ce produce a profound and mysterious awe. We step cautiously and softly about, as if fearful of disturbing the hallowed silence of the tomb, while every footfall whispers along the walls and chatters among the sepulchres, making us more sensible of the quiet we have interrupted.
It seems as if the awful nature of the place presses down upon the soul and hushes the beholder into noiseless reverence. We feel that we are surrounded by the gregated bones of the great men of past times, who have ?lled history with their deeds and the earth with their renown.
A almost provokes a smile at the vanity of human ambition to see how they are crowded together and jostled in the dust; arsimony is observed in doling out a sty nook, a gloomy er, a little portion of earth, to those whom, when alive, kingdoms could not satisfy, and how many shapes and forms and arti?ces are devised to catch the casual notice of the passenger, and save from fetfulness for a few short years a name whice aspired to occupy ages of the worlds thought and admiration.
I passed some time is er, which occupies an end of one of the tras or cross aisles of the abbey. The mos are generally simple, for the lives of literary men afford no striking themes for the sculptor. Shakespeare and Addison have statues erected to their memories, but the greater part have busts, medallions, and sometimes mere inscriptions.
Notwithstanding the simplicity of these memorials, I have always observed that the visitors to the abbey remained lo about them. A kinder and fonder feeling takes place of that cold curiosity ue admiration with which they gaze on the splendid mos of the great and the heroic. They linger about these as about the tombs of friends and panions, for ihere is something of panionship betweehor and the reader. Other men are known to posterity only through the medium of history, which is tinually growing faint and obscure; but the intercourse betweehor and his fellowmen is ever new, active, and immediate. He has lived for them more than for himself; he has sacri?ced surrounding enjoyments, and shut himself up from the delights of social life, that he might the more intimately uh distant minds and distant ages. Well may the world cherish his renown, for it has been purchased not by deeds of violend blood, but by the diligent dispensation of pleasure. Well may posterity be grateful to his memory, for he has left it an ia of empty names and sounding as, but whole treasures of wisdom, bright gems of thought, and golden veins of language.
From Poets er I tinued my stroll towards that part of the abbey which tains the sepulchres of the kings. I wandered among what once were chapels, but which are now occupied by the tombs and mos of the great. At every turn I met with some illustrious name or the izance of some powerful house renowned in history. As the eye darts into these dusky chambers of death it catches glimpses of quaint ef?gies--some kneeling in niches, as if iion; others stretched upoombs, with hands piously pressed together; warriors in armor, as if reposing after battle; prelates, with crosiers and mitres; and nobles in robes and ets, lying as it were in state. In glang over this se, sely populous, yet where every form is so still and silent, it seems almost as if we were treading a mansion of that fabled city where every being had been suddenly transmuted into stone.
I paused to plate a tomb on which lay the ef?gy of a knight in plete armor. A large buckler was on one arm; the hands were pressed together in supplication upon the breast; the face was almost covered by the morion; the legs were crossed, in token of the warriors having been engaged in the holy war. It was the tomb of a crusader, of one of those military enthusiasts who sely mingled religion and romance, and whose exploits form the eg liween fad ?, between the history and the fairytale. There is somethiremely picturesque iombs of these adventurers, decorated as they are with rude armorial bearings and Gothic sculpture. They port with the antiquated chapels in which they are generally found; and in sidering them the imagination is apt to kih the legendary associations, the romantic ?, the chivalrous pomp and pageantry which poetry has spread over the wars for the sepulchre of Christ. They are the relics of times utterly gone by, of beings passed from recolle, of s and manners with which ours have no af?nity. They are like objects from some strange and distant land of which we have ain knowledge, and about which all our ceptions are vague and visionary. There is somethiremely solemn and awful in those ef?gies on Gothibs, extended as if in the sleep of death or in the supplication of the dying hour. They have an effe?nitely more impressive on my feelings than the fanciful attitudes, the over wrought ceits, the allegorical groups which abound on modern mos. I have been struck, also, with the superiority of many of the old sepulchral inscriptions. There was a noble way in former times of saying things simply, a saying them proudly; and I do not knoitaph that breathes a loftier sciousness of family worth and honorable lihan one which af?rms of a noble house that "all the brothers were brave and all the sisters virtuous."
In the opposite trao Poets er stands a mo which is among the most renowned achievements of modern art, but whie appears horrible rather than sublime. It is the tomb of Mrs. Nightingale, by Roubillac. The bottom of the mo is represented as throwing open its marble doors, and a sheeted skeleton is starting forth. The shroud is falling from his ?eshless frame as he launches his dart at his victim. She is sinking into her affrighted husbands arms, who strives with vain and frantic effort to avert the blow. The whole is executed with terrible truth and spirit; we almost fancy we hear the gibbering yell of triumph bursting from the distended jaws of the spectre.
But why should we thus seek to clothe death with unnecessary terrors, and to spread horrors round the tomb of those we love?
The grave should be surrounded by everything that might inspire tenderness and veion for the dead, or that might win the living to virtue. It is the plaot of disgust and dismay, but of sorrow aation.
While wandering about these gloomy vaults and silent aisles, studying the records of the dead, the sound of busy existence from without occasionally reaches the ear--the rumbling of the passing equipage, the murmur of the multitude, or perhaps the light laugh of pleasure. The trast is striking with the deathlike repose around; and it has a strange effect upon the feelings thus to hear the surges of active life hurrying along aing against the very walls of the sepulchre.
I tinued in this way to move from tomb to tomb and from chapel to chapel. The day was gradually wearing away; the distant tread of loiterers about the abbey grew less and less frequent; the sweet-tongued bell was summoning to evening prayers; and I saw at a distahe choristers in their white surplices crossing the aisle aering the choir. I stood before the entrao Henry the Sevenths chapel. A ?ight of steps leads up to it through a deep and gloomy but mag arch. Great gates of brass, richly and delicately wrought, turn heavily upon their hinges, as if proudly relut to admit the feet of ortals into this most geous of sepulchres.
Oering the eye is astonished by the pomp of architecture and the elaborate beauty of sculptured detail. The very walls are wrought into universal or encrusted with tracery, and scooped into niches crowded with the statues of saints and martyrs. Stone seems, by the ing labor of the chisel, to have been robbed of its weight ay, suspended aloft as if by magid the fretted roof achieved with the wonderful minuteness and airy security of a cobweb.
Along the sides of the chapel are the lofty stalls of the Knights of the Bath, richly carved of oak, though with the grotesque decorations of Gothic architecture. On the pinnacles of the stalls are af?xed the helmets and crests of the knights, with their scarfs and swords, and above them are suspeheir banners, emblazoned with armorial bearings, and trasting the splendor of gold and purple and crimson with the cold gray fretwork of the roof. In the midst of this grand mausoleum stands the sepulchre of its founder--his ef?gy, with that of his queeended on a sumptuous tomb--and the whole surrounded by a superbly-wrought brazen railing.
There is a sad dreariness in this magni?ce, this strange mixture of tombs and trophies, these emblems of living and aspiring ambition, close beside mementos which show the dust and oblivion in which all must sooner or later terminate. Nothing impresses the mind with a deeper feeling of lonelihan to tread the silent aed se of former throng and pageant.
On looking round on the vat stalls of the knights and their esquires, and on the rows of dusty but geous bahat were once borne before them, my imagination jured up the se when this hall was bright with the valor ay of the land, glittering with the splendor of jewelled rank and military array, alive with the tread of ma and the hum of an admiring multitude. All had passed away; the silence of death had settled again upon the place, interrupted only by the casual chirping of birds, which had found their way into the chapel and built their s among its friezes and pendants--sure signs of solitariness aion.
When I read the names inscribed on the banners, they were those of men scattered far and wide about the world--some tossing upon distant seas: some under arms in distant lands; some mingling in the busy intrigues of courts and ets,--all seeking to deserve one more distin in this mansion of shadowy honors--the melancholy reward of a mo.
Two small aisles on each side of this chapel present a toug instance of the equality of the grave, which brings down the oppressor to a level with the oppressed and mihe dust of the bitterest eogether. In one is the sepulchre of the haughty Elizabeth; iher is that of her victim, the lovely and unfortunate Mary. Not an hour in the day but some ejaculation of pity is uttered over the fate of the latter, mingled with indignation at her oppressor. The walls of Elizabeths sepulchre tinually echo with the sighs of sympathy heaved at the grave of her rival.
A peculiar melanchns over the aisle where Mary lies buried. The light struggles dimly through windows darkened by dust. The greater part of the place is in deep shadow, and the walls are stained and tinted by time aher. A marble ?gure of Mary is stretched upoomb, round which is an iron railing, much corroded, bearing her national emblem--the thistle.
I was weary with wandering, and sat down to rest myself by the mo, revolving in my mind the chequered and disastrous story of poor Mary.
The sound of casual footsteps had ceased from the abbey. I could only hear, now and then, the distant voice of the priest repeating the evening servid the faint responses of the choir; these paused for a time, and all was hushed. The stillness, the desertion, and obscurity that were gradally prevailing around gave a deeper and more solemn io the place;
For in the silent grave no versation,No joyful tread of friends, no voice of lovers,No careful fathers sel--nothings heard,For nothing is, but all oblivion,Dust, and an endless darkness.
Suddenly the notes of the deep-lab an burst upon the ear, falling with doubled and redoubled iy, and rolling, as it were, huge billows of sound. How well do their volume and grandeur accord with this mighty building! With omp do they swell through its vast vaults, and breathe their awful harmony through these caves of death, and make the silent sepulchre vocal! And now they rise in triumphant acclamation, heaving higher and higher their accordant notes and piling sound on sound. And now they pause, and the soft voices of the choir break out into sweet gushes of melody; they soar aloft and warble along the roof, ao play about these lofty vaults like the pure airs of heaven. Again the pealing an heaves its thrilling thunders, pressing air into musid rolling it forth upon the soul. What long-drawn ces! What solemn sweeping cords! It grows more and more dense and powerful; it ?lls the vast pile and seems to jar the very walls--the ear is stuhe senses are overwhelmed. And now it is winding up in full jubilee--it is rising from the earth to heaven; the very soul seems rapt away and ?oated upwards on this swelling tide of harmony!
I sat for some time lost in that kind of reverie which a strain of music is apt sometimes to inspire: the shadows of evening were gradually thiing rouhe mos began to cast deeper and deeper gloom; and the distant clock again gave token of the slowly waning day.
I rose and prepared to leave the abbey. As I desded the ?ight of steps which lead into the body of the building, my eye was caught by the shrine of Edward the fessor, and I asded the small staircase that ducts to it, to take from thence a general survey of this wilderness of tombs. The shrine is elevated upon a kind of platform, and close around it are the sepulchres of various kings and queens. From this emihe eye looks dowween pillars and funeral trophies to the chapels and chambers below, crowded with tombs, where warriors, prelates, courtiers, and statesmen lie mouldering in their "beds of darkness." Close by me stood the great chair of ation, rudely carved of oak in the barbarous taste of a remote and Gothic age. The se seemed almost as if trived with theatrical arti?ce to produ effect upon the beholder. Here e of the beginning and the end of human pomp and power; here it was literally but a step from the throo the sepulchre. Would not ohink that these ingruous mementos had been gathered together as a lesson to living greatness?--to show it, even in the moment of its proudest exaltation, the and dishonor to which it must soon arrive--how soon that whicircles its brow must pass away, and it must lie down in the dust and disgraces of the tomb, arampled upon by the feet of the mea of the multitude. For, strao tell, even the grave is here no longer a sanctuary. There is a shog levity in some natures which leads them to sport with awful and hallowed things, and there are base minds which delight to revenge on the illustrious dead the abjeage and grovelling servility which they pay to the living. The of Edward the fessor has been broken open, and his remains despoiled of their funereal ors; the sceptre has been stolen from the hand of the imperious Elizabeth; and the ef?gy of Henry the Fifth lies headless. Not a royal mo but bears some proof how false and fugitive is the homage of mankind. Some are plundered, some mutilated, some covered with ribaldry and insult,--all more or less ed and dishonored.
The last beams of day were now faintly streaming through the painted windows in the high vaults above me; the lower parts of the abbey were already ed in the obscurity of twilight. The chapels and aisles grew darker and darker. The ef?gies of the kings faded into shadows; the marble ?gures of the mos assumed strange shapes in the uain light; the evening breeze crept through the aisles like the cold breath of the grave; and even the distant footfall of a verger, traversing the Poets er, had something strange and dreary in its sound. I slowly retraced my ms walk, and as I passed out at the portal of the cloisters, the door, closing with a jarring noise behind me, ?lled the whole building with echoes.
I endeavored to form some arra in my mind of the objects I had been plating, but found they were already falling into indistiness and fusion. Names, inscriptions, trophies, had all bee founded in my recolle, though I had scarcely taken my foot from off the threshold. What, thought I, is this vast assemblage of sepulchres but a treasury of humiliation--a huge pile of reiterated homilies on the emptiness of renown and the certainty of oblivion? It is, ihe empire of death; his great shadowy palace where he sits in state mog at the relics of human glory and spreading dust and fetfulness on the mos of princes. How idle a boast, after all, is the immortality of a ime is ever silently turning over his pages; we are too mugrossed by the story of the present to think of the characters and aes that gave io the past; and each age is a volume thrown aside to be speedily fotten. The idol of to-day pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recolle, and will in turn be supplanted by his successor of tomorrow. "Our fathers," says Sir Thomas Browne, "?nd their graves in our short memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors." History fades into fable; fact bees clouded with doubt and troversy; the inscription moulders from the tablet; the statue falls from the pedestal. ns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand, and their epitaphs but characters written in the dust? What is the security of a tomb or the perpetuity of an embalmment? The remains of Alexahe Great have been scattered to the wind, and his empty sarcophagus is now the mere curiosity of a museum. "The Egyptian mummies, which Cambyses or time hath spared, avariow eth; Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams."*
What then is to ehis pile whiow towers above me from sharing the fate of mightier mausoleums? The time must e when its gilded vaults whiow spring so loftily, shall lie in rubbish beh the feet; when instead of the sound of melody and praise the wind shall whistle through the broken arches and the owl hoot from the shattered tower; when the garish sunbeam shall break into these gloomy mansions of death, and the ivy twine round the fallen n; and the fox-glove hang its blossoms about the nameless urn, as if in mockery of the dead. Thus man passes away; his name passebbr>?.s from record and recolle; his history is as a tale that is told, and his very mo bees a ruin.
* Sir T. Browne.
CHRISTMAS.
But is old, old, good old Christmas gone? Nothing but the hair of his good, gray old head and beard left? Well, I will have that, seeing I ot have more of him.
HUE AND CRY AFTER CHRISTMAS.A man might then beholdAt Christmas, in each hall.９9ｌｉｂ.
Good ?res to curb the cold,A freat and small.The neighbors were friendly bidden,And all had wele true,The poor from the gates were not chiddenWhen this old cap was new.OLD SONG.
NOTHING in England exercises a more delightful spell over my imagination than the lingerings of the holiday s and rural games of former times. They recall the pictures my fancy used to draw in the May m of life, when as yet I only khe world through books, and believed it to be all that poets had pai; and they bring with them the ?avor of those ho days of yore, in which, perhaps with equal fallacy, I am apt to think the world was more homebred, social, and joyous than at present. I regret to say that they are daily growing more and more faint, being gradually worn away by time, but still more obliterated by modern fashion. They resemble those picturesque morsels of Gothic architecture which we see crumbling in various parts of the try, partly dilapidated by the waste of ages and partly lost in the additions and alterations of latter days.
Poetry, however, gs with cherishing fondness about the rural game and holiday revel from which it has derived so many of its themes, as the ivy winds its rich foliage about the Gothic ard mouldering tratefully repaying their support by clasping together their t remains, and, as it were, embalming them in verdure.
Of all the old festivals, however, that of Christmas awakens the stro and most heartfelt associations. There is a tone of solemn and sacred feeling that blends with our viviality and lifts the spirit to a state of hallowed and elevated enjoyment.
The services of the Church about this seasoremely tender and inspiring. They dwell on the beautiful story of the in of our faith and the pastoral ses that apas annou. They gradually increase in fervor and pathos during the season of Advent, until they break forth in full jubilee on the m that brought pead good-will to men. I do not know a grander effeusi the moral feelings than to hear the full choir and the pealing an perf a Christmas anthem in a cathedral, and ?lling every part of the vast pile with triumphant harmony.
It is a beautiful arra, also, derived from days of yore, that this festival, whiorates the annou of the religion of pead love, has been made the season fathering together of family es, and drawing clain those bands of kindred hearts which the cares and pleasures and sorrows of the world are tinually operating to cast loose; of calling back the children of a family who have launched forth in life and wandered widely asunder, once more to assemble about the paternal hearth, that rallying-place of the affes, there to grow young and loving again among the endearios of childhood.
There is something in the very season of the year that gives a charm to the festivity of Christmas. At other times we derive a great portion of our pleasures from the mere beauties of Nature.
Our feelings sally forth and dissipate themselves over the sunny landscape, and we "live abroad and everywhere." The song of the bird, the murmur of the stream, the breathing fragrance of spring, the soft voluptuousness of summer, the golden pomp of autumh with its mantle of refreshing green, and heaven with it deep delicious blue and its cloudy magni?ce,--all ?ll us with mute but exquisite delight, and we revel in the luxury of mere sensation. But in the depth of winter, when Nature lies despoiled of every charm and ed in her shroud of sheeted snow, we turn for rati?cations to moral sources.
The dreariness and desolation of the landscape, the shloomy days and darksome nights, while they circumscribe our wanderings, shut in our feelings also from rambling abroad, and make us more keenly disposed for the pleasure of the social circle. Our thoughts are more trated; our friendly sympathies more aroused. We feel more sensibly the charm of each others society, and are brought more closely >together by dependen each other for enjoyment. Heart calleth unto heart, and we draw our pleasures from the deep wells of loving-kindness which lie in the quiet recesses of our bosoms, and which, wheed to, furnish forth the pure element of domestic felicity.
The pitchy gloom without makes the heart dilate oering the room ?lled with the glow and warmth of the evening ?re. The ruddy blaze diffuses an arti?cial summer and sunshihrough the room, and lights up each tenan a kindlier wele.
Where does the ho face of hospitality expand into a broader and more cordial smile, where is the shy glance of love more sweetly eloquent, than by the winter ?reside? and as the hollow blast of wintry wind rushes through the hall, claps the distant door, whistles about the casement, and rumbles down the ey, what be mrateful than that feeling of sober and sheltered security with which we look round upon the fortable chamber and the se of domestic hilarity?
The English, from the great prevalence of rural habit throughout every class of society, have always been found of those festivals and holidays, which agreeably interrupt the stillness of try life, and they were, in former days, particularly observant of the religious and social rites of Christmas. It is inspiring to read even the dry details whie antiquaries have given of the quaint humors, the burlesque pageants, the plete abandoo mirth and good-fellowship with which this festival was celebrated. It seemed to throw open every door and unlock every heart. It brought the peasant and the peer together, and blended all ranks in one warm, generous ?ow of joy and kindness.
The old halls of castles and manor-houses resounded with the harp and the Christmas carol, and their ample broaned uhe weight of hospitality. Even the poorest cottage weled the festive season with green decorations of bay and holly--the cheerful ?re glas rays through the lattice, inviting the passeo raise the latd join the gossip knot huddled round the hearth99lｉb.t> beguiling the long evening with legendary jokes and oft-told Christmas tales.
One of the least pleasing effeodern re? is the havoc it has made among the hearty old holiday s. It has pletely taken off the sharp tougs and spirited reliefs of these embellishments of life, and has worn down society into a more smooth and polished, but certainly a less characteristic, surface. Many of the games and ceremonials of Christmas have entirely disappeared, and, like the sherris sack of old Falstaff, are beatters of speculation and dispute among entators.
They ?ourished in times full of spirit and lustihood, when men enjoyed life roughly, but heartily and vigorously--times wild and picturesque, which have furnished poetry with its richest materials and the drama with its most attractive variety of characters and manners. The world has beore worldly. There is more of dissipation, and less of enjoyment. Pleasure has expanded into a broader, but a shallower stream, and has forsaken many of those deep and quiet els where it ?owed sweetly through the calm bosom of domestic life. Society has acquired a more enlightened and elegant tone, but it has lost many of its strong local peculiarities, its homebred feelings, its ho ?reside delights. The traditionary s of goldeed antiquity, its feudal hospitalities, and lordly wassailings, have passed away with the baronial castles and stately manor-houses in which they were celebrated. They ported with the shadowy hall, the great oaken gallery, and the tapestried parlor, but are uo the light showy saloons and gay drawing-rooms of the modern villa.
Shorn, however, as it is, of its a aive honors, Christmas is still a period of delightful excitement in England.
It is gratifying to see that home-feeling pletely aroused which holds so powerful a pla every English bosom. The preparations making on every side for the social board that is again to unite friends and kihe presents of good cheer passing and repassing, those tokens ard and quiers of kind feelings; the evergreens distributed about houses and churches, emblems of pead gladness,--all these have the most pleasing effe produg fond associations and kindling benevolent sympathies. Even the sound of the Waits, rude as may be their minstrelsy, breaks upon the mid-watches of a winter night with the effect of perfect harmony. As I have been awakened by them in that still and solemn hour "when deep sleep falleth upon man," I have listened with a hushed delight, and, eg them with the sacred and joyous occasion, have almost fahem into another celestial choir announg pead good-will to mankind.
How delightfully the imagination, when wrought upon by these moral in?ueurns everything to melody ay! The very crowing of the cock, heard sometimes in the profound repose of the try, "telling the night-watches to his feathery dames,"
was thought by the on people to annouhe approach of this sacred festival.
"Some say that ever gainst that season esWherein our Saviours birth is celebrated,This bird of dawning sih all night long;And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad,The nights are wholesome--then no plas strike,No fairy takes, no witch hath power to charm,So hallowd and so gracious is the time."
Amidst the general call to happiness, the bustle of the spirits, and stir of the affes which prevail at this period what bosom remain insensible? It is, ihe season eed feeling--the season for kindling not merely the ?re of hospitality in the hall, but the genial ?ame of charity in the heart.
The se of early love again rises green to memory beyond the sterile waste of years; and the idea of home, fraught with the fragrance of home-dwelling joys, reanimates the drooping spirit, as the Arabian breeze will sometimes waft the freshness of the distant ?elds to the ilgrim of the desert.
Stranger and sojourner as I am in the land, though for me no social hearth may blaze, no hospitable roof throw open its doors, nor the warm grasp of friendship wele at the threshold, yet I feel the in?uence of the season beaming into my soul from the happy looks of those９9liｂ. around me. Surely happiness is re?ective, like the light of heaven, and every tenance, bright with smiles and glowing with i enjoyment, is a mirror transmitting to others the rays of a supreme and ever-shining benevolence. He who turn churlishly away from plating the felicity of his fellow-beings, and sit down darkling and repining in his loneliness when all around is joyful, may have his moments of stroement and sel?sh grati?cation, but he wants the genial and social sympathies which stitute the charm of a merry Christmas.
THE STAGE-COACH.
Omne beneSine poenaTempua est ludendi.Venit horaAbsque moraLibros deponendi.OLD HOLIDAY SCHOOL-SONG.
IN the preg paper I have made some general observations on the Christmas festivities of England, and am tempted to illustrate them by some aes of a Christmas passed in the try; in perusing which I would most courteously invite my reader to lay aside the austerity of wisdom, and to put on that genuine holiday spirit which is tolerant of folly and anxious only for amusement.
In the course of a December tour in Yorkshire, I rode for a long distan one of the public coaches on the day preg Christmas. The coach was crowded, both inside and out, with passengers who, by their talk, seemed principally bound to the mansions of relations or friends to eat the Christmas dinner. It was loaded also with hampers of game and baskets and boxes of delicacies, and hares hung dangling their long ears about the ans box, presents from distant friends for the impendi. I had three ?ne rosy-cheeked school boys for my fellow-passengers inside, full of the buxom health and manly spirit which I have obser>ved in the children of this try.
They were returning home for the holidays in high glee, and promising themselves a world of enjoyment. It was delightful to hear the gigantic plans of the little rogues, and the impracticable feats they were to perform during their six weeks emancipation from the abhorred thraldom of book, birch, and pedagogue. They were full of anticipations of the meeting with the family and household, down to the very cat and dog, and of the joy they were to give their little sisters by the presents with which their pockets were crammed; but the meeting to which they seemed to look forward with the greatest impatience was with Bantam, which I found to be a pony, and, acc to their talk, possessed of more virtues than any steed sihe days of Bucephalus. How he could trot! how he could run! and then such leaps as he would take!--there was not a hedge in the whole try that he could not clear.
They were uhe particular guardianship of the an, to whom, whenever an opportunity presehey addressed a host of questions, and pronounced him one of the best fellows in the world. Indeed, I could not but notice the more than ordinary air of bustle and importance of the an, who wore his hat a little on one side and had a large bunch of Christmas greens stu the buttonhole of his coat. He is always a personage full of mighty care and business, but he is particularly s this season, having so many issions to execute in sequence of the great interge of presents. And here, perhaps, it may not be uable to my untravelled readers to have a sketch that may serve as a general representation of this very numerous and important class of funaries, who have a dress, a manner, a language, an air peculiar to themselves and prevalent throughout the fraternity; so that wherever an English stage-an may be seen he ot be mistaken for one of any other craft or mystery.
He has only a broad, full face, curiously mottled with red, as if the blood had been forced by hard feeding into every vessel of the skin; he is swelled into jolly dimensions by frequent potations of malt liquors, and his bulk is still further increased by a multiplicity of coats, in which he is buried like a cauli?ower, the upper one reag to his heels. He wears a broad-brimmed, low-ed hat; a huge roll of colored handkerchief about his neck, knowingly knotted and tucked in at the bosom; and has in summer-time a large bouquet of ?owers in his buttohe present, most probably, of some enamored try lass. His waistcoat is only of some bright color, striped, and his small-clothes extend far below the ko meet a pair of jockey boots which reach about half his legs.
All this e is maintained with much precision; he has a pride in having his clothes of excellent materials, and, notwithstanding the seeming grossness of his appearahere is still disible that ness and propriety of person which is almost i in an Englishman. He enjoys great sequend sideration along the road; has frequent ferences with the village housewives, who look upon him as a man of great trust and dependence; and he seems to have a good uanding with every bright-eyed try lass. The moment he arrives where the horses are to be ged, he throws down the reins with something of an air and abandons the cattle to the care of the ostler, his duty being merely to drive from oage to another. When off the box his hands are thrust into the pockets of his great coat, and he rolls about the inn-yard with an air of the most absolute lordliness. Here he is generally surrounded by an admiring throng of ostlers, stableboys, shoeblacks, and those nameless hangers-on that i inns and taverns, and run errands and do all kind of odd jobs for the privilege of battening on the drippings of the kit and the leakage of the tap-room. These all look up to him as to an oracle, treasure up his t phrases, echo his opinions about horses and other topics of jockey lore, and, above all, endeavor to imitate his air and carriage. Every ragamuf?n that has a coat to his back thrusts his hands in the pockets, rolls in his gait, talks slang, and is an embryo Coachey.
Perhaps it might be owing to the pleasing serenity that reigned in my own mind that I fancied I saw cheerfulness in every tehroughout the journey. A stage-coach, however, carries animation always with it, and puts the world in motion as it whirls along. The horn, sou the entrance of the village, produces a general bustle. Some hasten forth to meet friends; some with bundles and bandboxes to secure places, and in the hurry of the moment hardly take leave of the group that apahem. In the meahe an has a world of small issions to execute. Sometimes he delivers a hare or pheasant; sometimes jerks a small parcel or neer to the door of a public house; and sometimes, with knowing leer and words of sly import, hands to some half-blushing, half-laughing house-maid an odd-shaped billet-doux from some rustic admirer. As the coach rattles through the village every one runs to the window, and you have glances on every side of fresh try faces and blooming giggling girls. At the ers are assembled juntos of village idlers and wise men, who take their stations there for the important purpose of seeing pany pass; but the sagest knot is generally at the blacksmiths, to whom the passing of the coach is a fruitful of much speculation. The smith, with the horses heel in his lap, pauses as the vehicle whirls by; the cyclops round the anvil suspend their ringing hammers and suffer the iron to grow cool; and the sooty spectre in broer cap lab at the bellows leans on the handle for a moment, as the asthmatigio heave a long-drawn sigh, while he glares through the murky smoke and sulphurous gleams of the smithy.
Perhaps the impending holiday might have given a more than usual animation to the try, for it seemed to me as if everybody was in good looks and good spirits. Game, poultry, and other luxuries of the table were in brisk circulation in the villages; the grocers, butchers, and fruiterers shops were thronged with ers. The housewives were stirring briskly about, putting their dwellings in order, and the glossy branches of holly with their bright-red berries began to appear at the windows. The se brought to mind an old writers at of Christmas preparation: "Noons and hens, besides turkeys, geese, and ducks, with beef and mutton, must all die, for in twelve days a multitude of people will not be fed with a little. Now plums and spice, sugar and honey, square it among pies and broth. Now or never must music be in tune, for the youth must dand sing to get them a heat, while the aged sit by the ?re. The try maid leaves half her market, and must be sent again if she fets a pack of cards on Christmas Eve. Great is the tention of holly and ivy whether master or dame wears the breeches. Did cards behe butler; and if the cook do not lack wit, he will sweetly lick his ?ngers."
I was roused from this ?t of luxurious meditation by a shout from my little travelling panions. They had been looking out of the coach-windows for the last few miles, reizing every tree and cottage as they approached home, and now there was a general burst of joy. "Theres John! and theres old Carlo! and theres Bantam!" cried the happy little rogues, clapping their hands.
At the end of a lahere was an old sober-looking servant in livery waiting for them; he was apanied by a superannuated pointer and by the redoubtable Bantam, a little old rat of a pony with a shaggy mane and long rusty tail, who stood dozing quietly by the roadside, little dreaming of the bustling times that awaited him.
I leased to see the fondness with which the little fellows leaped about the steady old footman and hugged the pointer, whled his whole body for joy. But Bantam was the great object of i; all wao mount at once, and it was with some dif?culty that John arrahat they should ride by turns and the eldest should ride ?rst.
Off they set at last, one on the pony, with the dog bounding and barking before him, and the others holding Johns hands, both talking at ond overp him with questions about home and with school aes. I looked after them with a feeling in which I do not know whether pleasure or melancholy predominated; for I was reminded of those days when, like them, I had knowher care nor sorrow and a holiday was the summit of earthly felicity. We stopped a few moments afterwards to water the horses, and on resuming our route a turn of the road brought us in sight of a try-seat. I could just distinguish the forms of a lady and two young girls in the portico, and I saw my little rades, with Bantam, Carlo, and old John, trooping along the carriage-road. I leaned out of the coach-window, in hopes of witnessing the happy meeting, but a grove of trees shut it from my sight.
In the evening we reached a village where I had determio pass the night. As we drove into the great gateway of the inn, I saw on one side the light of a rousing kit-?re beaming through a window. I entered, and admired, for the huh time, that picture of venieneatness, and broad ho enjoyment, the kit of an English inn. It was of spacious dimensions, hung round with copper and tin vessels highly polished, and decorated here and there with a Christmas green.
Hams, tongues, and ?itches of ba were suspended from the ceiling; a smoke-jack made its ceaseless king beside the ?replace, and a clock ticked in one er. A well-scoured deal table extended along one side of the kit, with a cold round of beef and other hearty viands upon it, over which two foaming tankards of ale seemed mounting guard. Travellers of inferior order were preparing to attack this stout repast, while others sat smoking and gossiping over their ale on two high-backed oakeles beside the ?re. Trim housemaids were hurrying backwards and forwards uhe dires of a fresh bustling landlady, but still seizing an occasional moment to exge a ?ippant word and have a rallying laugh with the group round the ?re. The se pletely realized Poor Robins humble idea of the forts of midwinter:
Now trees their leafy hats do bareTo reverence Winters silver hair;A handsome hostess, merry host,A pot of ale now and a toast,Tobacd a good coal ?re,Are things this season doth require.** Poor Robins Almanack, 1684.
I had not been long at the inn when a post-chaise drove up to the door. A youlema out, and by the light of the lamps I caught a glimpse of a tenance which I thought I knew. I moved forward to get a nearer view, when his eye caught mine. I was not mistaken; it was Frank Bracebridge, a sprightly, good-humored young fellow with whom I had oravelled on the ti. Our meeting was extremely cordial, for the tenance of an old fellow-traveller always brings up the recolle of a thousand pleasant ses, odd adventures, and excellent jokes. To discuss all these in a tra interview at an inn was impossible; and, ?nding that I was not pressed for time and was merely making a tour of observation, he insisted that I should give him a day or two at his fathers try-seat, to which he was going to pass the holidays and which lay at a few miles distance. "It is better thaing a solitary Christmas di an inn," said he, "and I assure you of a hearty wele in something of the old-fashioyle." His reasoning was t, and I must fess the preparation I had seen for universal festivity and social enjoyment had made me feel a little impatient of my loneliness. I closed, therefore, at oh his invitation; the chaise drove up to the door, and in a few moments I was on my way to the family mansion of the Bracebridges.
CHRISTMAS EVE.
Saint Francis and Saint BenedightBlesse this house from wicked wight;From the night-mare and the goblin,That is hight good fellow Robin;Keep it from all evil spirits,Fairies, weezels, rats, as:From curfew timeTo the prime.CARTWRIGHT.
IT was a brilliant moonlight night, but extremely cold; our chaise whirled rapidly over the frozen ground; the postboy smacked his whip incessantly, and a part of the time his horses were on a gallop. "He knows where he is going," said my panion, laughing, "and is eager to arrive in time for some of the merriment and good cheer of the servants hall. My father, you must know, is a bigoted devotee of the old school, and prides himself upon keeping up something of old English hospitality. He is a tolerable spe of what you will rarely meet with nowadays in its purity, the old English try gentleman; for our men of fortune spend so much of their time in town, and fashion is carried so muto the try, that the strong rich peculiarities of a rural life are almost polished away. My father, however, from early years, took ho Peacham* for his textbook, instead of Chester?eld; he determined in his own mind that there was no dition more truly honorable and enviable than that of a try gentleman on his paternal lands, and therefore passes the whole of his time on his estate. He is a strenuous advocate for the revival of the old rural games and holiday observances, and is deeply read in the writers, a and modern, who have treated on the subject. Indeed, his favorite range of reading is among the authors who ?ourished at least two turies since, who, he insists, wrote and thought more like true Englishmen than any of their successors. He eves sometimes that he had not been born a few turies earlier, when England was itself and had its peculiar manners and s. As he lives at some distance from the main road, in rather a lonely part of the try, without any rival gentry near him, he has that most enviable of all blessings to an Englishman--an opportunity of indulging the bent of his own humor without molestation. Being representative of the oldest family in the neighborhood, and a great part of the peasantry being his tenants, he is much looked up to, and in general is known simply by the appellation of `The Squire--a title which has been accorded to the head of the family siime immemorial. I think it best to give you these hints about my worthy old father, to prepare you for any etricities that might otherwise appear absurd."
* Peachams plete Gentleman, 1622.
assed for some time along the wall of a park, and at length the chaise stopped at the gate. It was in a heavy, mag old style, of iron bars fancifully wrought at top into ?ourishes and ?owers. The huge square ns that supported the gate were surmounted by the family crest. Close adjoining was the porters lodge, sheltered under dark ?r trees and almost buried in shrubbery.
The postb a large porters bell, which resouhough the still frosty air, and was answered by the distant barking of dogs, with which the mansion-house seemed garrisoned. An old woman immediately appeared at the gate. As the moonlight fell strongly upon her, I had a full view of a little primitive dame, dressed very mu the antique taste, with a kerchief and stomacher, and her silver hair peeping from under a cap of snowy whiteness. She came curtseying forth, with many expressions of simple joy at seeing her young master. Her husband, it seemed, at the house keeping Christmas Eve in the servants hall; they could not do without him, as he was the best hand at a song and story in the household.
My friend proposed that we should alight and walk through the park to the hall, which was at no great distance, while the chaise should follow on. Our road wound through a noble avenue of trees, among the naked branches of which the moon glittered as she rolled through the deep vault of a cloudless sky. The lawn beyond was sheeted with a slight c of snow, which here and there sparkled as the moonbeams caught a frosty crystal, and at a distance might be seen a thin transparent vapor stealing up from the low grounds and threatening gradually to shroud the landscape.
My panion looked around him with transport. "How often," said he, "have I scampered up this avenue ourning home on school vacations! How often have I played uhese trees when a boy!
I feel a degree of ?lial reverence for them, as we look up to those who have cherished us in childhood. My father was always scrupulous iing our holidays and having us around him on family festivals. He used to dired superintend ames with the striess that some parents do the studies of their children. He was very particular that we should play the old English games acc to their inal form, and sulted old books for pret and authority for every `merrie disport; yet I assure you there never edantry so delightful. It was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his childrehat home was the happiest pla the world; and I value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts a parent could bestow."
We were interrupted by the clamor of a troop of dogs of all sorts and sizes, "mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, and curs of lree," that disturbed by the ring of the porters bell and the rattling of the chaise, came bounding, open-mouthed, across the lawn.
"`----The little dogs and all, Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me!"
cried Bracebridge, laughing. At the sound of his voice the bark was ged into a yelp of delight, and in a moment he was surrounded and almost overpowered by the caresses of the faithful animals.
We had now e in full view of the old family mansion, partly thrown in deep shadoartly lit up by the oonshi was an irregular building of some magnitude, and seemed to be of the architecture of different periods. One wing was evidently very a, with heavy stone-shafted bow windows jutting out and overrun with ivy, from among the foliage of which the small diamond-shaped panes of glass glittered with the moonbeams. The rest of the house was in the French taste of Charles the Seds time, having been repaired and altered, as my friend told me, by one of his aors who returned with that monarch at the Restoration. The grounds about the house were laid out in the old formal manner of arti?cial ?ower-beds, clipped shrubberies, raised terraces, and heavy stone balustrades, ored with urns, a leaden statue or two, and a jet of water. The old gentleman, I was told, was extremely careful to preserve this obsolete ?nery in all its inal state. He admired this fashion in gardening; it had an air of magni?ce, was courtly and noble, aing good old family style. The boasted imitation of Nature in mardening had sprung up with modern republiotions, but did not suit a monarchical gover; it smacked of the leveling system. I could not help smiling at this introdu of politito gardening, though I expressed some apprehension that I should ?nd the old gentleman rather i in his creed. Frank assured me, however, that it was almost the only instan which he had ever heard his father meddle with politics; and he believed that he had got this notion from a member of Parliament who once passed a few weeks with him.
The squire was glad of any argument to defend his clipped yew trees and formal terraces, which had been occasionally attacked by modern landscape gardeners.
As roached the house we heard the sound of musid now and then a burst of laughter from one end of the building. This, Bracebridge said, must proceed from the servants hall, where a great deal of revelry ermitted, and even enced, by the squire throughout the twelve days of Christmas, provided everything was done ably to a usage. Here were kept up the old games of hoodman blind, shoe the wild mare, hot cockles, steal the white loaf, bob apple, and snap dragon; the Yule-clog and Christmas dle were regularly burnt, and the mistletoe with its white berries hung up, to the immi peril of all the pretty housemaids.*
* The mistletoe is still hung up in farm-houses and kits at Christmas, and the young men have the privilege of kissing the girls u, plug each time a berry from the bush. When the berries are all plucked the privilege ceases.
So i were the servants upon their sports that we had t repeatedly before we could make ourselves heard. On our arrival being annouhe squire came out to receive us, apanied by his two other sons--one a young of?cer in the army, home on a leave of absehe other an Oxonian, just from the uy.
The squire was a ?hy-looking old gentleman, with silver hair curling lightly round an open ?orid tenance, in which the physiognomist, with the advantage, like myself, of a previous hint or two, might discover a singular mixture of whim and benevolence.
The family meeting was warm and affeate; as the evening was far advahe squire would not permit us to ge our travelling dresses, but ushered us at oo the pany, which was assembled in a large old-fashioned hall. It was posed of different branches of a numerous family e, where there were the usual proportion of old uncles and aunts, fortable married dames, superannuated spinsters, blooming try cousins, half-?edged striplings, and bright-eyed b-school hoydens.
They were variously occupied--some at a round game of cards; others versing around the ?replace; at one end of the hall was a group of the young folks, some nearly grown up, others of a more tender and budding age, fully engrossed by a merry game; and a profusion of wooden horses, penny trumpets, and tattered dolls about the ?oor showed traces of a troop of little fairy beings who, having frolicked through a happy day, had been carried off to slumber through a peaceful night.
While the mutual greetings were going oween young Bracebridge and his relatives I had time to s the apartment. I have called it a hall, for so it had certainly been in old times, and the squire had evidently endeavored to restore it to something of its primitive state. Over the heavy projeg ?replace was suspended a picture of a warrior in armor, standing by a white horse, and on the opposite wall hung a helmet, buckler, and la one end an enormous pair of antlers were ied in the wall, the branches serving as hooks on which to suspend hats, whips, and spurs, and in the ers of the apartment were fowling-pieces, ?shing-rods, and other sp implements. The furniture was of the cumbrous workmanship of former days, though some articles of modern venience had been added and the oaken ?oor had been carpeted, so that the whole presented an odd mixture of parlor and hall.
The grate had been removed from the wide overwhelming ?replaake way for a ?re of wood, in the midst of which was an enormous log glowing and blazing, and sending forth a vast volume of light a: this, I uood, was the Yule-clog, which the squire articular in having brought in and illumined on a Christmas Eve, acc to a .*
* The Yule-clog is a great log of wood, sometimes the root of a tree, brought into the house with great ceremony on Christmas Eve, laid in the ?replace, and lighted with the brand of last years clog. While it lasted there was great drinking, singing, and telling of tales. Sometimes it was apanied by Christmas dles; but itages the only light was from the ruddy blaze of the great wood ?re. The Yule-clog was to burn all night; if it went out, it was sidered a sign of ill luck.
Herrick mentions it in one of his songs:
e, bring with a noise,My metric, merrie boys,The Christmas Log to the ?ring;While my good dame, sheBids ye all be free,And drink to your hearts desiring.
The Yule-clog is still burnt in many farm-houses and kits9９ｌｉｂ? in England, particularly in the north, and there are several superstitions ected with it among the peasantry. If a squinting person e to the house while it is burning, or a person barefooted, it is sidered an ill omen. The brand remaining from the Yule-clog is carefully put away to light the years Christmas ?re.
It was really delightful to see the old squire seated in his hereditary elbow-chair by the hospitable ?reside of his aors, and looking around him like the sun of a system, beaming warmth and glado every heart. Even the very dog that lay stretched at his feet, as he lazily shifted his position and yawned would look fondly up in his masters face, wag his tail against the ?oor, and stretch himself again to sleep, ?dent of kindness and prote. There is an emanation from the heart in genuine hospitality which ot be described, but is immediately felt and puts the stra o his ease. I had not beeed many minutes by the fortable hearth of the worthy old cavalier before I found myself as much at home as if I had been one of the family.
Supper was announced shortly after our arrival. It was served up in a spacious oaken chamber, the panels of which shoh wax, and around which were several family portraits decorated with holly and ivy. Besides the aced lights, two great wax tapers, called Christmas dles, wreathed with greens, were placed on a highly polished beaufet among the family plate. The table was abundantly spread with substantial fare; but the squire made his supper of frumenty, a dish made of wheat cakes boiled in milk with rich spices, being a standing dish in old times for Christmas Eve. I was happy to ?nd my old friend, minced pie, iinue of the feast and, ?nding him to be perfectly orthodox, and that I need not be ashamed of my predile, I greeted him with all the warmth wherewith we usually greet an old and very genteel acquaintance.
The mirth of the pany was greatly promoted by the humors of an etric personage whom Mr. Bracebridge always addressed with the quaint appellation of Master Simon. He was a tight brisk little man, with the air of an arrant old bachelor. His nose was shaped like the bill of a parrot; his face slightly pitted with the small-pox, with a dry perpetual bloom on it, like a frostbitten leaf in autumn. He had an eye of great quiess and vivacity, with a drollery and lurking waggery of expression that was irresistible. He was evidently the wit of the family, dealing very mu sly jokes and innuendoes with the ladies, and making in?nite merriment by harping upon old themes, which, unfortunately, my ignorance of the family icles did not permit me to enjoy. It seemed to be his great delight during supper to keep a young girl o him in a tinual agony of sti?ed laughter, in spite of her awe of the reproving looks of her mother, who sat opposite. Indeed, he was the idol of the younger part of the pany, who laughed at everything he said or did and at every turn of his tenance. I could not wo it; for he must have been a miracle of aplishments in their eyes. He could imitate Pund Judy; make an old woman of his hand, with the assistance of a burnt cork and pocket-handkerchief; and cut an e >into such a ludicrous caricature that the young folks were ready to die with laughing.
I was let brie?y into his history by Frank Bracebridge. He was an old bachelor, of a small indepe ine, which by careful ma was suf?t for all his wants. He revolved through the family system like a vagrant et in its orbit, sometimes visiting one branch, and sometimes another quite remote, as is often the case with gentlemen of extensive es and small fortunes in England. He had a chirping, buoyant disposition, always enjoying the present moment; and his frequent ge of se and pany prevented his acquiring those rusty, unaodating habits with which old bachelors are so uncharitably charged. He was a plete family icle, being versed in the genealogy, history, and intermarriages of the whole house of Bracebridge, which made him a great favorite with the old folks; he was a beau of all the elder ladies and superannuated spinsters, among whom he was habitually sidered rather a young fellow; and he was master of the revels among the children, so that there was not a more popular being in the sphere in which he moved than Mr. Simon Bracebridge. Of late years he had resided almost entirely with the squire, to whom he had bee a fa, and whom he particularly delighted by jumping with his humor in respect to old times and by having a scrap of an old song to suit every occasion. resently a spe of his last-mentioalent, for no sooner was supper removed and spiced wines and other beverages peculiar to the season introduced, than Master Simon was called on food old Christmas song. He bethought himself for a moment, and then, with a sparkle of the eye and a voice that was by no means bad, excepting that it ran occasionally into a falsetto like the notes of a split reed, he quavered forth a quaint old ditty:
Now Christmas is e,Let us beat up the drum,And call all our neighbors together;And when they appear,Let us make them such cheer,As will keep out the wind and the weather, &c.
The supper had disposed every oo gayety, and an old harper was summoned from the servants hall, where he had been strumming all the evening, and to all appearanf himself with some of the squires home-brewed. He was a kind of hanger-on, I was told, of the establishment, and, though ostensibly a resident of the village, was ofteo be found in the squires kit than his own home, the old gentleman being fond of the sound of "harp in hall."
The dance, like most dances after supper, was a merry one: some of the older folks joined in it, and the squire himself ?gured down several couple with a partner with whom he af?rmed he had da every Christmas for nearly half a tury. Master Simon, who seemed to be a kind of eg liween the old times and the new, and to be withal a little antiquated iaste of his aplishments, evidently piqued himself on his dang, and was endeav to gai by the heel and tadoon, and races of the a school; but he had unluckily assorted himself with a little romping girl from b-school, who by her wild vivacity kept him tinually oretd defeated all his sober attempts at elegance: such are the ill-sorted matches to whitique gentlemen are unfortunately prone.
The young Oxonian, on the trary, had led out one of his maiden aunts, on whom the rogue played a thousand little knaveries with impunity: he was full of practical jokes, and his delight was to tease his aunts and cousins, yet, like all madcap youngsters, he was a universal favorite among the women. The most iing couple in the dance was the young of?cer and a ward of the squires, a beautiful blushing girl of seventeen. From several shy glances which I had noticed in the course of the evening I suspected there was a little kindness growing up between them; and ihe young soldier was just the hero to captivate a romantic girl. He was tall, slender, and handsome, and, like most young British of?cers of late years, had picked up various small aplishments on the ti: he could talk Frend Italian, draw landscapes, siolerably, dance divinely, but, above all, he had been wou Waterloo. What girl of seventeen, well read iry and romance, could resist such a mirror of chivalry and perfe?
The moment the dance was over he caught up a guitar, and, lolling against the old marble ?repla an attitude which I am half ined to suspect was studied, begatle French air of the Troubadour. The squire, however, exclaimed against having anything on Christmas Eve but good old English; upon which the young minstrel, casting up his eye for a moment as if in an effort of memory, struto arain, and with a charming air of gallantry gave Herricks "Night-Piece to Julia:"
Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee,The shooting stars attend thee,And the elves also,Whose little eyes glowLike the sparks of ?re, befriend thee.No Will-o-the-Wisp mislight thee;Nor snake nor slow-worm bite thee;But on thy way,Not making a stay,Since ghost there is o affright thee,The not the dark thee cumber;What though the moon does slumber,The stars of the nightWill lend thee their light,Like tapers clear without number.Then, Julia, let me woo thee,Thus, thus to e unto me,And when I shall meetThy silvery feet,My soul Ill pour into thee.
The song might ht not have been intended in pliment to the fair Julia, for so I found his partner was called; she, however, was certainly unscious of any such application, for she never looked at the singer, but kept her eyes cast upon the ?oor. Her face was suffused, it is true, with a beautiful blush, and there was a gentle heaving of the bosom, but all that was doubtless caused by the exercise of the dance; indeed, so great was her indifferehat she amused herself with plug to pieces a choice bouquet of hot-house ?owers, and by the time the song was cluded the nosegay lay in ruins on the ?oor.
The party now broke up for the night with the kied old of shaking hands. As I passed through the hall on my way to my chamber, the dying embers of the Yule-clog still sent forth a dusky glow, and had it not been the season when "no spirit dares stir abroad," I should have been half tempted to steal from my room at midnight and peep whether the fairies might not be at their revels about the hearth.
My chamber was in the old part of the mansion, the ponderous furniture of which might have been fabricated in the days of the giants. The room anelled, with ices of heavy carved work, in which ?owers and grotesque faces were strangely intermingled, and a row of black-looking portraits stared mournfully at me from the walls. The bed was of rich thought faded damask, with a lofty tester, and stood in a niche opposite a bow window. I had scarcely got into bed when a strain of music seemed to break forth in the air just below the window. I listened, and found it proceeded from a band which I cluded to be the Waits from some neighb village. They went round the house, playing uhe windows. I drew aside the curtains to hear them more distinctly. The moonbeams fell through the upper part of the casement; partially lighting up the antiquated apartment. The sounds, as they receded, became more soft and aerial, and seemed to accord with the quiet and moonlight. I listened and listehey became more and more tender ae, and, as they gradually died away, my head sunk upon the pillow and I fell asleep.
CHRISTMAS DAY.
Dark and dull night, ?ie hence away,And give the honor to this dayThat sees December turnd to May.Why does the chilling winters morneSmile like a ?eld beset with ?Or smell like to a meade new-shorne,Thus on the sudden?--e and seeThe cause why things thus fragrant be.HERRICK.
WHEN I woke the m it seemed as if all the events of the preg evening had been a dream, and nothing but the identity of the a chamber vinced me of their reality.
While I lay musing on my pillow I heard the sound of little feet pattering outside of the door, and a whispering sultation.
Presently a choir of small voices ted forth an old Christmas carol, the burden of which was--
Rejoice, our Saviour he was bornOn Christmas Day in the m.
I rose softly, slipt on my clothes, opehe door suddenly, and beheld one of the most beautiful little fairy groups that a painter could imagi sisted of a boy and two girls, the eldest not more than six, and lovely as seraphs. They were going the rounds of the house and singing at every chamber door, but my sudden appearance frightehem into mute bashfulness. They remained for a moment playing on their lips with their ?ngers, and now and then stealing a shy glance from uheir eyebrows, until, as if by one impulse, they scampered away, and as they turned an angle of the gallery I heard them laughing in triumph at their escape.
Everything spired to produce kind and happy feelings in this stronghold of old-fashioned hospitality. The window of my chamber looked out upon what in summer would have been a beautiful landscape. There was a sloping lawn, a ?ream winding at the foot of it, and a tract of park beyond, with noble clumps of trees and herds of deer. At a distance was a hamlet, with the smoke from the cottage eys hanging over it, and a church with its dark spire in strong relief against the clear cold sky.
The house was surrounded with evergreens, acc to the English , which would have given almost an appearance of summer; but the m was extremely frosty; the light vapor of the preg evening had been precipitated by the cold, and covered all the trees and every blade of grass with its ?ne crystalizations. The rays of a bright m sun had a dazzling effect among the glittering foliage. A robin, perched upoop of a mountain-ash that hung its clusters of red berries just before my window, was basking himself in the sunshine and piping a few querulous notes, and a peacock was displaying all the glories of his train and strutting with the pride and gravity of a Spanish grandee oerrace walk below.
I had scarcely dressed myself when a servant appeared to invite me to family prayers. He showed me the way to a small chapel in the old wing of the house, where I found the principal part of the family already assembled in a kind of gallery furnished with cushions, hassocks, and large prayer-books; the servants were seated on benches below. The old gentleman read prayers from a desk in front of the gallery, and Master Simon acted as clerk and made the responses; and I must do him the justice to say that he acquitted himself with great gravity and de.
The service was followed by a Christmas carol, which Mr.
Bracebridge himself had structed from a poem of his favorite author, Herrick, and it had been adapted to an old church melody by Master Simon. As there were several good voices among the household, the effect was extremely pleasing, but I articularly grati?ed by the exaltation of heart and sudden sally of grateful feeling with which the worthy squire delivered oanza, his eye glistening and his voice rambling out of all the bounds of time and tune:
"Tis Thou that st my glitterih With guiltless mirth,And givest me Wassaile bowles to drinkSpiced to the brink;Lord, tis Thy plenty-dropping handThat soiles my land: And givst me for my bushell sowne,Twice ten for one."
I afterwards uood that early m service was read on every Sunday and saints day throughout the year, either by Mr.
Bracebridge or by some member of the family. It was once almost universally the case at the seats of the nobility ary of England, and it is much to be regretted that the is falling into ; for the dullest observer must be sensible of the order and serenity prevalent in those households where the occasional exercise of a beautiful form of worship in the m gives, as it were, the keyo every temper for the day and attunes every spirit to harmony.
Our breakfast sisted of what the squire denomirue old English fare. He indulged in some bitter lamentations over modern breakfasts of tea and toast, which he sured as among the causes of modern effeminad weak nerves and the dee of old English heartiness; and, though he admitted them to his table to suit the palates of his guests, yet there was a brave display of eats, wine, and ale on the sideboard.
After breakfast I walked about the grounds with Frank Bracebridge and Master Simon, or Mr. Simon, as he was called by everybody but the squire. We were escorted by a number of gentlemanlike dogs, that seemed loungers about the establishment, from the frisking spao the steady old stag-hound, the last of which was of a race that had been in the family time out of mind; they were all obedient to a dog-whistle which hung to Master Simons buttonhole, and in the midst of their gambols would glan eye occasionally upon a small switch he carried in his hand.
The old mansion had a still more venerable look in the yellow sunshihan by pale moonlight; and I could not but feel the force of the squires idea that the formal terraces, heavily moulded balustrades, and clipped yew trees carried with them an air of proud aristocracy. There appeared to be an unusual number of peacocks about the place, and I was making some remarks upon what I termed a ?ock of them that were basking under a sunny wall, when I was gently corrected in my phraseology by Master Simon, who told me that acc to the most a and approved treatise on hunting I must say a muster of peacocks. "In the same way," added he, with a slight air of pedantry, "we say a ?ight of doves or swallows, a bevy of quails, a herd of deer, of wrens, or es, a skulk of foxes, or a building of rooks." He went on to inform me that, acc to Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, we ought to ascribe to this bird "both uanding and glory; for, being praised, he will presently set up his tail, chie?y against the sun, to the i you may the better behold the beauty thereof. But at the fall of the leaf, when his tail falleth, he will mourn and hide himself in ers till his tail e again as it was."
I could not help smiling at this display of small erudition on so whimsical a subject; but I found that the peacocks were birds of some seque the hall, for Frank Bracebridge informed me that they were great favorites with his father, who was extremely careful to keep up the breed; partly because they beloo chivalry, and were i request at the stately bas of the olden time, and partly because they had a pomp and magni?ce about them highly being an old family mansion.
Nothing, he was aced to say, had an air of greater state and dignity than a peacock perched upon an antique stone balustrade.
Master Simon had now to hurry off, having an appoi at the parish church with the village choristers, who were to perform some music of his sele. There was somethiremely agreeable in the cheerful ?ow of animal spirits of the little man; and I fess I had been somewhat surprised at his apt quotations from authors who certainly were not in the range of every-day reading. I mentiohis last circumstao Frank Bracebridge, who told me with a smile that Master Simons whole stock of erudition was ed to some half a dozen old authors, which the squire had put into his hands, and which he read over and over whenever he had a studious ?t, as he sometimes had on a rainy day or a long winter evening. Sir Anthony Fitzherberts Book of Husbandry, Markhams try tes, the Tretyse of Hunting, by Sir Thomas Coe, Knight, Isaac Waltons Angler, and two or three more sut worthies of the pen were his standard authorities; and, like all men who know but a few books, he looked up to them with a kind of idolatry and quoted them on all occasions. As to his songs, they were chie?y picked out of old books in the squires library, and adapted to tuhat were popular among the choice spirits of the last tury. His practical application of scraps of literature, however, had caused him to be looked upon as a prodigy of book-knowledge by all the grooms, huntsmen, and small sportsmen of the neighborhood.
While we were talking we heard the distant toll of the village bell, and I was told that the squire was a little particular in having his household at chur a Christmas m, sidering it a day of p out of thanks and rejoig; for, as old Tusser observed,--
"At Christmas be merry, and thankful withal, A thy poor neighbors, the great with the small."
"If you are disposed to go to church," said Frank Bracebridge, "I promise you a spe of my cousin Simons musical achievements. As tbbr>he church is destitute of an an, he has formed a band from the village amateurs, aablished a musical club for their improvement; he has also sorted a choir, as he sorted my fathers pack of hounds, acc to the dires of Jervaise Markham in his try tes: for the bass he has sought out all the `deep, solemn mouths, and for the tenor the `ling mouths, among the try bumpkins, and for `sweet-mouths, he has culled-with curious taste among the prettiest lasses in the neighborhood; though these last, he af?rms, are the most dif?cult to keep in tune, your pretty female singer being exceedingly wayward and capricious, and very liable to act."
As the m, though frosty, was remarkably ?ne and clear, the most of the family walked to the church, which was a very old building of gray stone, and stood near a village about half a mile from the park gate. Adjoining it was a low snug parsonage which seemed coeval with the church. The front of it erfectly matted with a yew tree that had been trained against its walls, through the dense foliage of which apertures had been formed to admit light into the small antique lattices. As we passed this sheltered he parson issued forth and preceded us.
I had expected to see a sleek well-ditioned pastor, such as is often found in a snug living in the viity of a rich patrons table, but I was disappoihe parson was a little, meagre, black-looking man, with a grizzled wig that was too wide and stood off from each ear; so that his head seemed to have shrunk away within it, like a dried ?lbert in its shell. He wore a rusty coat, with great skirts and pockets that would have held the church Bible and prayer-book: and his small legs seemed still smaller from being planted in large shoes decorated with enormous buckles.
I was informed by Frank Bracebridge that the parson had been a chum of his fathers at Oxford, and had received this living shortly after the latter had e to his estate. He was a plete black-letter hunter, and would scarcely read a work printed in the Roman character. The editions of Caxton and Wynkyn de Worde were his delight, and he was iigable in his researches after such old English writers as have fallen into oblivion from their worthlessness. In deference, perhaps, to the notions of Mr. Bracebridge he had made diligent iigations into the festive rites and holiday s of former times, and had been as zealous in the inquiry as if he had been a boon panion; but it was merely with that plodding spirit with which men of adust temperament follow up any track of study, merely because it is denominated learning; indifferent to its intrinsiature, whether it be the illustration of the wisdom or of the ribaldry and obsity of antiquity. He had pored over these old volumes so intehat they seemed to have beeed into his tenance; which, if the face be indeed an index of the mind, might be pared to a title-page of black-letter.
On reag the church-porch we found the parson rebuking the gray-headed sexton for having used mistletoe among the greens with which the church was decorated. It was, he observed, an unholy plant, profaned by having been used by the Druids in their mystic ceremonies; and, though it might be ily employed in the festive oring of halls and kits, yet it had been deemed by the Fathers of the Church as unhallowed and totally un?t for sacred purposes. So tenacious was he on this point that the poor sexton was obliged to strip down a great part of the humble trophies of his taste before the parson would sent to enter upon the service of the day.
The interior of the church was venerable, but simple; on the walls were several mural mos of the Bracebridges, and just beside the altar was a tomb of a workmanship, on which lay the ef?gy of a warrior in armor with his legs crossed, a sign of his having been a crusader. I was told it was one of the family who had signalized himself in the Holy Land, and the same whose picture hung over the ?repla the hall.
During service Master Simon stood up in the pew aed the responses very audibly, eving that kind of ceremonious devotion punctually observed by a gentleman of the old school and a man of old family es. I observed too that he turned over the leaves of a folio prayer-book with something of a ?ourish; possibly to show off an enormous seal-ring whiriched one of his ?ngers and which had the look of a family relic. But he was evidently most solicitous about the musical part of the service, keeping his eye ?xed ily on the choir, aing time with much gesticulation and emphasis.
The orchestra was in a small gallery, and presented a most whimsical grouping of heads piled one above the other, among which I particularly noticed that of the village tailor, a pale fellow with a retreating forehead and , who played on the clari, and seemed to have blown his face to a point; and there was another, a short pursy man, stooping and lab at a bass-viol, so as to show nothing but the top of a round bald head, like the egg of an ostrich. There were two or three pretty faces among the female singers, to which the keen air of a frosty m had given a bright rosy tint; but the gentlemen choristers had evidently been chosen, like old Cremona ?ddles, more for tohan looks; and as several had to sing from the same book, there were clusterings of odd physiognomies not uhose groups of cherubs we sometimes see on try tombstones.
The usual services of the choir were maolerably well, the vocal parts generally lagging a little behind the instrumental, and some l ?ddler now and then making up for lost time by travelling over a passage with prodigious celerity and clearing more bars than the kee fox-huntbbr>..er to be in at the death. But the great trial was an ahat had been prepared and arranged by Master Simon, and on which he had founded great expectation. Unluckily, there was a blu the very outset:
the musis became ?urried; Master Simon was in a fever; everythi on lamely and irregularly until they came to a chorus beginning, "Now let us sing with one accord," which seemed to be a signal for parting pany: all became discord and fusion: each shifted for himself, and got to the end as well--or, rather, as soon--as he could, excepting one old chorister in a pair of horacles bestriding and ping a long sonorous nose, who happeo stand a litt.9９ｌｉb.le apart, and, being ed up in his own melody, kept on a quavering course, wriggling his head, ogling his book, and winding all up by a nasal solo of at least three bars duration.
The parson gave us a most erudite sermon oes and ceremonies of Christmas, and the propriety of it not merely as a day of thanksgiving but of rejoig, supp the correess of his opinions by the earliest usages of the Church, and enf them by the authorities of Theophilus of Caesarea, St. Cyprian, St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, and a ore of saints and fathers, from whom he made copious quotations. I was a little at a loss to perceive the y of such a mighty array of forces to maintain a point whio one present seemed ined to dispute; but I soon found that the good man had a legion of ideal adversaries to tend with, having in the course of his researches on the subject of Christmas got pletely embroiled in the sectarian troversies of the Revolution, when the Puritans made such a ?erce assault upon the ceremonies of the Church, and poor old Christmas was driven out of the land by proclamation of Parliament.* The worthy parson lived but with times past, and knew but little of the present.
Shut up among worm-eaten tomes iirement of his antiquated little study, the pages of old times were to him as the gazettes of the day, while the era of the Revolution was mere modern history. He fot that nearly two turies had elapsed sihe ?ery persecution of poor mince-pie throughout the land; when plum pe was denounced as "mere popery," and roast beef as anti-christian, and that Christmas had been brought in again triumphantly with the merry court of King Charles at the Restoration. He kindled into warmth with the ardor of his test and the host of imaginary foes with whom he had to bat; he had a stubborn ?ict with old Prynne and two or three other fotten champions of the Roundheads on the subject of Christmas festivity; and cluded by urging his hearers, in the most solemn and affeg mao stand to the traditional s of their fathers a and make merry on this joyful anniversary of the Church.
* From the "Flying Eagle," a small gazette, published December 24, 1652: "The House spent much time this day about the business of the Navy, for settling the affairs at sea, and before they rose, were presented with a terrible remonstrance against Christmas day, grounded upon divine Scriptures, 2 Cor. v. 16; I Cor. xv. 14, 17; and in honor of the Lords Day, grounded upon these Scriptures, John xx. I; Rev. i. 10; Psalms cxviii. 24; Lev.
xxiii. 7, 11; Mark xv. 8; Psalms lxxxiv. 10, in which Christmas is called Anti-christs masse, and those Masse-mongers and Papists who observe it, et sequence of which parliament spent some time in sultation about the abolition of Christmas day, passed orders to that effect, and resolved to sit on the following day, which was only called Christmas day."
I have seldom known a sermon attended apparently with more immediate effects, for on leaving the church the gregation seemed one and all possessed with the gayety of spirit so early enjoined by their pastor. The elder folks gathered in knots in the churchyard, greeting and shaking hands, and the children ran about g Ule! Ule! aing some uncouth rhymes,* which the parson, who had joined us, informed me had been banded down from days of yore. The villagers doffed their hats to the squire as he passed, giving him the good wishes of the season with every appearance of heartfelt siy, and were invited by him to the hall to take something to keep out the cold of the weather; and I heard blessings uttered by several of the poor, which vinced me that, in the midst of his enjoyments, the worthy old cavalier had not fotterue Christmas virtue of charity.
* "Ule! Ule!
Three puddings in a pule;Crauts and cry ule!"
On our way homeward his heart seemed over?owed with generous and happy feelings. As we passed over a rising ground whianded something of a prospect, the sounds of rustic merriment now and then reached our ears: the squire paused for a few moments and looked around with an air of inexpressible benignity. The beauty of the day was of itself suf?t to inspire philanthropy.
Notwithstanding the frostiness of the m the sun in his cloudless journey had acquired suf?t power to melt away the thin c of snow from every southern declivity, and t out the living green which adorns an English landscape even in mid-winter. Large trailing verdure trasted with the dazzling whiteness of the shaded slopes and hollows. Every sheltered bank on which the broad rays rested yielded its silver rill of cold and limpid water, glittering through the dripping grass, a up slight exhalations to tribute to the thin haze that hung just above the surface of the earth. There was something truly cheering in this triumph of warmth and verdure over the frosty thraldom of winter; it was, as the squire observed, an emblem of Christmas hospitality breaking through the chills of ceremony and sel?shness and thawing every heart into a ?ow. He pointed with pleasure to the indications of good cheer reeking from the eys of the fortable farm-houses and low thatched cottages. "I love," said he, "to see this day well kept by rid poor; it is a great thing to have one day in the year, at least, when you are sure of being wele wherever you go, and of having, as it were, the world all throwo you; and I am almost disposed to join with Poor Robin in his maledi on every churlish eo this ho festival:
"`Those who at Christmas do repine, And would fain hence dispatch him, May they with old Duke Humphry dine, Or else may Squire Ketch catchem."
The squire went on to lament the deplorable decay of the games and amusements which were once prevalent at this season among the lower orders and tenanced by the higher, when the old halls of castles and manor-houses were throw daylight; wheables were covered with brawn and beef and humming ale; when the harp and the carol resounded all day long; and when rid poor were alike wele to enter and make merry.* "Our old games and local s," said he, "had a great effe making the peasant fond of his home, and the promotion of them by the gentry made him fond of his lord. They made the times merrier and kinder aer, and I truly say, with one of our old poets,
"`I like them well: the curious preess And all-pretended gravity of those That seek to banish hehese harmless sports, Have thrust away mut hoy."
"The nation," tinued he, "is altered; we have almost lost our simple true-hearted peasantry. They have broken asunder from the higher classes, ao think their is are separate.
They have bee too knowing, and begin to read neers, listen to ale-house politis, and talk of reform. I think one mode to keep them in good-humor in these hard times would be for the nobility ary to pass more time on their estates, mingle more among the try-people, ahe merry old English games going again."
* "An English gentleman, at the opening of the great day--i.e. on Christmas Day in the m--had all his tenants and neighbors enter his hall by daybreak. The strong beer was broached, and the black-jacks went plentifully about, with toast, sugar and nutmeg, and good Cheshire cheese. The Ha (the great sausage) must be boiled by daybreak, or else two young men must take the maiden (i.e. the cook) by the arms and run her round the market-place till she is shamed of her laziness."--Round about our Sea-Coal Fire.
Such was the good squires projeitigating public distent: and, indeed, he had oempted to put his doe in practice, and a few years before had kept open house during the holidays in the old style. The try-people, however, did not uand how to play their parts in the se of hospitality; many uncouth circumstances occurred; the manor was overrun by all the vagrants of the try, and more beggars drawn into the neighborhood in ohan the parish of?cers could get rid of in a year. Sihen he had tented himself with inviting the det part of the neighb peasantry to call at the hall on Christmas Day, and with distributing beef, and bread, and ale among the poor, that they might make merry in their own dwellings.
We had not been long home when the sound of music was heard from a distance. A band of try lads, without coats, their shirt-sleeves fancifully tied with ribbons, their hats decorated with greens, and clubs in their hands, was seen advang up the avenue, followed by a large number of villagers and peasantry.
They stopped before the hall door, where the music struck up a peculiar air, and the lads performed a curious and intricate dance, advang, retreating, and striking their clubs together, keepi time to the music; while one, whimsically ed with a foxs skin, the tail of which ?aunted down his back, kept capering round the skirts of the dand rattling a Christmas box with many antic gesticulations.
The squire eyed this fanciful exhibition with great i and delight, and gave me a full at of its in, which he traced to the times when the Romans held possession of the island, plainly proving that this was a lineal desdant of the sword dance of the as. "It was now," he said, "nearly extinct, but he had actally met with traces of it in the neighborhood, and had enced its revival; though, to tell the truth, it was too apt to be followed up by the rough cudgel play and broken heads in the evening."
After the dance was cluded the whole party was eained with brawn and beef and stout home-brewed. The squire himself mingled among the rustics, and was received with awkward demonstrations of deferend regard. It is true I perceived two or three of the younger peasants, as they were raising their tankards to their mouths, when the squires back was turned making something of a grimace, and giving each other the wink; but the moment they caught my eye they pulled grave faces and were exceedingly demure. With Master Simon, however, they all seemed more at their ease. His varied occupations and amusements had made him well known throughout the neighborhood. He was a visitor at every farmhouse and cottage, gossiped with the farmers and their wives, romped with their daughters, and, like that type of a vagrant bachelor, the humblebee, tolled the sweets from all the rosy lips of the try round.
The bashfulness of the guests soon gave way befood cheer and affability. There is something genuine and affeate in the gayety of the lower orders when it is excited by the bounty and familiarity of those above them; the warm glow of gratitude enters into their mirth, and a kind word or a small pleasantry frankly uttered by a patron gladdens the heart of the dependant more than oil and wine. When the squire had retired the merriment increased, and there was much joking and laughter, particularly between Master Simon and a hale, ruddy-faced, white-headed farmer eared to be the wit of the village; for I observed all his panions to wait with open months for his retorts, and burst into a gratuitous laugh before they could well uand them.
The whole house indeed seemed abao merriment: as I passed to my room to dress for dinner, I heard the sound of musi a small court, and, looking through a window that a, I perceived a band of wandering musis with pandean pipes and tambourine; a pretty coquettish housemaid was dang a jig with a smart try lad, while several of the other servants were looking on. In the midst of her sport the girl caught a glimpse of my face at the window, and, c up, ran off with an air uish affected fusion.
THE CHRISTMAS DINNER.
Lo, now is e our joyfulst feast!Let every man be jolly.Eache roome with yvie leaves is drest,And every post with holly.Now all our neighbours eys smoke,And Christmas blocks are burning;Their ovens they with bakt meats chokeAnd all their spits are turning.bbr>藏书网
Without the door let sorrow lie,And if, for cold, it hap to die,Weel bury t in a Christmas pye,And evermore be merry.WITHERS, Jnveilia.
I HAD ?nished my toilet, and was l with Frank Bracebridge in the library, when we heard a distant thwag sound, which he informed me was a signal for the serving up of the dihe squire kept up old s in kit as well as hall, and the rolling-pin, struck upon the dresser by the cook, summohe servants to carry in the meats.
Just in this nick the cook knockd thrice,And all the waiters in a triceHis summons did obey;Each serving-man, with dish in hand,Marchd boldly up, like our train-band,Presented and away.** Sir John Sug.
The dinner was served up in the great hall, where the squire always held his Christmas ba. A blazing crag ?re of logs had been heaped on to warm the spacious apartment, and the ?ame went sparkling and wreathing up the wide-mouthed ey.
The great picture of the crusader and his white horse had been profusely decorated with greens for the occasion, and holly and ivy had like-wise beehed round the helmet and ons on the opposite wall, which I uood were the arms of the same warrior. I must own, by the by, I had strong doubts about the authenticity of the painting and armor as having beloo the crusader, they certainly having the stamp of more ret days; but I was told that the painting had been so sidered time out of mind; and that as to the armor, it had been found in a lumber-room and elevated to its present situation by the squire, who at oermi to be the armor of the family hero; and as he was absolute authority on all such subjects in his own household, the matter had passed into current acceptation. A sideboard was set out just uhis chivalric trophy, on which was a display of plate that might have vied (at least in variety) with Belshazzars parade of the vessels of the temple: "?agons, s, cups, beakers, goblets, basins, and ewers," the geous utensils of good panionship that had gradually accumulated through many geions of jovial housekeepers. Before these stood the two Yule dles, beaming like two stars of the ?rst magnitude; hts were distributed in branches, and the whole array glittered like a ?rmament of silver.
We were ushered into this baing se with the sound of minstrelsy, the old harper beied on a stool beside the ?replad twanging, his instrument with a vast deal more power than melody. Never did Christmas board display a moodly and gracious assemblage of tehose who were not handsome were at least happy, and happiness is a rare improver of your hard-favored visage. I always sider an old English family as well worth studying as a colle of Holbeins portraits or Albert Durers prints. There is much antiquarian lore to be acquired, muowledge of the physiognomies of former times. Perhaps it may be from having tinually before their eyes those rows of old family portraits, with which the mansions of this try are stocked; certain it is that the quaiures of antiquity are often most faithfully perpetuated in these a lines, and I have traced an old family hrough a whole picture-gallery, legitimately handed down from geion to geion almost from the time of the quest. Something of the kind was to be observed in the worthy pany around me. Many of their faces had evidently inated in a Gothic age, and been merely copied by succeeding geions; and there was otle girl in particular, of staid demeanor, with a high Roman nose and an antique vinegar aspect, who was a great favorite of the squires, being, as he said, a Bracebridge all over, and the very terpart of one of his aors who ?gured in the court of Henry VIII.
The parson said grace, which was not a short familiar one, such as is only addressed to the Deity in these unceremonious days, but a long, courtly, well-worded one of the a school.
There was noause, as if something was expected, when suddenly the butler ehe hall with some degree of bustle:
he was attended by a servant on each side with a large wax-light, and bore a silver dish on which was an enormous pigs head decorated with rosemary, with a lemon in its mouth, which laced with great formality at the head of the table. The moment this pageant made its appearahe harper struck up a ?ourish; at the clusion of which the young Oxonian, on receiving a hint from the squire, gave, with an air of the most ic gravity, an old carol, the ?rst verse of which was as follows
Caput apri deferoReddens laudes Domino.The boars head in hand bring I,With garlands gay and rosemary.I pray you all synge merilyQui estis in vivio.
Though prepared to witness many of these little etricities, from being apprised of the peculiar hobby of mine host, yet I fess the parade with which so odd a dish was introduced someerplexed me, until I gathered from the versation of the squire and the parson that it was meant to represent the bringing in of the boars head, a dish formerly served up with much ceremony and the sound of minstrelsy and song at great tables on Christmas Day. "I like the old ," said the squire, "not merely because it is stately and pleasing in itself, but because it was observed at the college at Oxford at which I was educated. When I hear the old song ted it brings to mind the time when I was young and gamesome, and the noble old college hall, and my fellow-students l about it>..t> black gowns; many of whom, poor lads! are now in their graves."
The parson, however, whose mind was not haunted by such associations, and who was always more taken up with the text than the se, objected to the Oxonians version of the carol, which he af?rmed was different from that sung at college. He went on, with the dry perseverance of a entator, to give the college reading, apanied by sundry annotations, addressing himself at ?rst to the pany at large; but, ?nding their attention gradually diverted to other talk and other objects, he lowered his tone as his number of auditors diminished, until he cluded his remarks in an under voice to a fat-headed old gentlema him who was silently engaged in the discussion of a huge plateful of turkey.*
* The old ceremony of serving up the boars head on Christmas Day is still observed in the hall of Queens College, Oxford. I was favored by the parson with a copy of the carol as now sung, and as it may be acceptable to suy readers as are curious in these grave and learned matters, I give it entire:The boars head in hand bear I,
Bodeckd with bays and rosemary The table was literally loaded with good cheer, and presented aome of try abundan this season of over?owing larders. A distinguished post was allotted to "a sirloin,"
as mine host termed it, being, as he added, "the standard of old English hospitality, and a joint of goodly presence, and full of expectation." There were several dishes quaintly decorated, and which had evidently something traditional in their embellishments, but about which, as I did not like to appear overcurious, I asked no questions.
I could not, however, but notice a pie magly decorated with peacocks feathers, in imitation of the tail of that bird, which overshadowed a siderable tract of the table. This, the squire fessed with some little hesitation, heasant pie, though a peacock pie was certainly the most authentical; but there had been such a mortality among the peacocks this season that he could not prevail upon himself to have one killed.*
And I pray you, my masters, be merryQuot estis in vivioCaput apri defero,Reddens laudes domino.The boars head, as I uand,Is the rarest dish in all this land,Which thus bedeckd with a gay garlandLet us servire tico. Caput apri defero, etc.Our steward hath provided thisIn honor of the King of Bliss,Whi this day to be served isIn Reginensi Atrio. Caput apri defero, etc., etc., etc.
* The peacock was aly i demand for stately eais. Sometimes it was made into a pie, at one end of which the head appeared above the crust in all its plumage, with the beak richly gilt; at the other end the tail was displayed.
Such pies were served up at the solemn bas of chivalry, when knights-errant pledged themselves to uake any perilous enterprise, whence came the a oath, used by Justice Shallow, "by cod pie."
The peacock was also an important dish for the Christmas feast; and Massinger, in his "City Madam," gives some idea of the extravagah which this, as well as other dishes, repared for the geous revels of the olden times:
Men may talk of try Christmasses, Their thirty pound butterd eggs, their pies of carps toheir pheasants drenchd with ambergris: the carcases of three fat wethers bruised fravy to make sauce for a single peacock!
It would be tedious, perhaps, to my wiser readers, who may not have that foolish fondness for odd and obsolete things to which I am a little given, were I to mentioher makeshifts or this worthy old humorist, by which he was endeav to follow up, though at humble distahe quaint s of antiquity. I leased, however, to see the respect shown to his whims by his children aives; who, indeed, entered readily into the full spirit of them, and seemed all well versed in their parts, having doubtless bee at many a rehearsal. I was amused, too, at the air of profound gravity with which the butler and other servants executed the duties assighem, however etric. They had an old-fashioned look, having, for the most part, been brought up in the household and grown into keeping with the antiquated mansion and the humors of its lord, and most probably looked upon all his whimsical regulations as the established laws of honorable housekeeping.
When the cloth was removed the butler brought in a huge silver vessel of rare and curious workmanship, which he placed before the squire. Its appearance was hailed with acclamation, being the Wassail Bowl, so renowned in Christmas festivity. The tents had been prepared by the squire himself; for it was a beverage in the skilful mixture of which he particularly prided himself, alleging that it was too abstruse and plex for the prehension of an ordinary servant. It otation, ihat might well make the heart of a toper leap within him, being posed of the richest and raciest wines, highly spiced and sweetened, with roasted apples bobbing about the surface.*
* The Wassail Bowl was sometimes posed of ale instead of wine, with nutmeg, sugar, toast, ginger, and roasted crabs; in this way the nut-brown beverage is still prepared in some old families and round the hearths of substantial farmers at Christmas. It is also called Lambs Wool, and is celebrated by Herri his "Twelfth Night":
e the bowle fullWith gentle Lambs Wool;Add sugar, nutmeg, and ginger,With store of ale too,And thus ye must doeTo make the Wassaile a swinger.
The old gentlemans whole tenance beamed with a serene look of indwelling delight as he stirred this mighty bowl. Having raised it to his lips, with a hearty wish of a merry Christmas to all present, he sent it brimming round the board, for every oo follow his example, acc to the primitive style, pronoung it "the a fountain of good feeling, where all hearts met together."+ + "The of drinking out of the same cup gave place to each having his cup. Wheeward came to the doore with the Wassel, he was to cry three times, Wassel, Wassel, Wassel, and then the chappell (chaplain) was to answer with a song."--Archoeologia.
There was much laughing and rallying as the ho emblem of Christmas joviality circulated and was kissed rather coyly by the ladies. When it reached Master Simon, he raised it in both hands, and with the air of a boon panion struck up an old Wassail son:
The brown bowle,The merry brown bowle,As it goes round-about-a,FillStill,Let the world say what it will,And drink your ?ll all out-a.The deep e,The merry deep e,As thou dost freely quaff-a,SingFling,Be as merry as a king,And sound a lusty laugh-a.*
* From Poor Robins Almanack.
Much of the versation during diurned upon family topics, to which I was a strahere was, however, a great deal of rallying of Master Simon about some gay ith whom he was accused of having a ?irtation. This attack was enced by the ladies, but it was tihroughout the dinner by the fat-headed old gentlemahe parson with the persevering assiduity of a slow hound, being one of those long-winded jokers who, though rather dull at starting game, are unrivalled for their talents in hunting it down. At every pause in the general versation he renewed his bantering iy much the same terms, winking hard at me with both eyes whenever he gave Master Simon what he sidered a home thrust. The latter, indeed, seemed fond of being teased on the subject, as old bachelors are apt to be, aook occasion to inform me, in an uohat the lady iion rodigiously ?ne woman and drove her own curricle.
The diime passe away in this ?ow of i hilarity, and, though the old hall may have resounded in its time with many a se of broader rout and revel, yet I doubt whether it ever witnessed more ho and genuine enjoyment. How easy it is for one benevolent being to diffuse pleasure around him! and how truly is a ki a fountain of gladness, making everything in its viity to freshen into smiles! The joyous disposition of the worthy squire erfectly tagious; he was happy himself, and disposed to make all the world happy, and the little etricities of his humor did but season, in a mahe sweetness of his philanthropy.
When the ladies had retired, the versation, as usual, became still more animated; many good things were broached which had been thought of during dinner, but which would ly do for a ladys ear; and, though I ot positively af?rm that there was much wit uttered, yet I have certainly heard many tests of rare wit produce much less laughter. Wit, after all, is a mighty tart, pu ingredient, and much too acid for some stomachs; but ho good-humor is the oil and wine of a merry meeting, and there is no jovial panionship equal to that where the jokes are rather small and the laughter abundant.
The squire told several long stories of early college pranks and adventures, in some of which the parson had been a sharer, though in looking at the latter it required some effort of imagination to ?gure such a little dark anatomy of a man into the perpetrator of a madcap gambol. Ihe two college chums presented pictures of what men may be made by their different lots in life. The squire had left the uy to live lustily on his paternal domains in the vigorous enjoyment of prosperity and sunshine, and had ?ourished on to a hearty and ?orid old age; whilst the poor parson, on the trary, had dried and withered away among dusty tomes in the silend shadows of his study. Still, there seemed to be a spark of almost extinguished ?re feebly glimmering itom of his soul; and as the squire hi a sly story of the parson and a pretty milkmaid whom they o on the banks of the Isis, the old gentleman made an "alphabet of faces," which, as far as I could decipher his physiognomy, I verily believe was indicative of laughter; indeed, I have rarely met with an old gentleman that took absolute offe the imputed gallantries of his youth.
I found the tide of wine and wassail fast gaining on the dry land of sober judgment. The pany grew merrier and louder as their jokes grew duller. Master Simon was in as chirping a humor as a grasshopper ?lled with dew; his old songs grew of a warmer plexion, and he began to talk maudlin about the widow. He even gave a long song about the wooing of a hich he informed me he had gathered from an excellent black-letter work entitled Cupids Solicitor for Love, taining store of good advice for bachelors, and which he promised to lehe ?rst verse was to effect.
He that will woo a widow must not dallyHe must make hay while the sun doth shine;He must not stand with her, shall I, shall I,But boldly say, Widow, thou must be mine.
This song inspired the fat-headed old gentleman, who made several attempts to tell a rather broad story out of Joe Miller that at to the purpose; but he always stu the middle, everybody recolleg the latter part excepting himself. The parson, too, began to show the effects of good cheer, having gradually settled down into a doze and his wig sitting most suspiciously on one side. Just at this juncture we were summoo the drawing r99ｌｉｂ?oom, and I suspect, at the private instigation of mine host, whose joviality seemed always tempered with a proper love of de.
After the diable was removed the hall was given up to the younger members of the family, who, prompted to all kind of noisy mirth by the Oxonian and Master Simon, made its old walls ring with their merriment as they played at romping?. games. I delight in witnessing the gambols of children, and particularly at this happy holiday season, and could not help stealing out of the drawing-room on hearing one of their peals of laughter. I found them at the game of blindmans-buff. Master Simon, who was the leader of their revels, and seemed on all occasions to ful?ll the of?ce of that a potehe Lord of Misrule,* was blinded in the midst of the hall. The little beings were as busy about him as the mock fairies about Falstaff, ping him, plug at the skirts of his coat, and tig him with straws.
One ?ne blue-eyed girl of about thirteen, with her ?axen hair all iiful fusion, her frolic fa a glow, her frock half torn off her shoulders, a plete picture of a romp, was the chief tormentor; and, from the slyness with which Master Simon avoided the smaller game and hemmed this wild little nymph in ers, and obliged her to jump shrieking over chairs, I suspected the rogue of being not a whit more blihan was ve.
* At Christmasse there was in the Kinges house, wheresoever hee was lodged, a lorde of misrule or mayster of merie disportes, and the like had ye in the house of every nobleman of honor, ood worshipper were he spirituall or temporall.--STOW.
When I returo the drawing-room I found the paed round the ?re listening to the parson, who was deeply ensced in a high-backed oaken chair, the work of some ing arti?cer of yore, which had been brought from the library for his particular aodation. From this venerable piece of furniture, with which his shadowy ?gure and dark weazen fairably accorded, he was dealing out strange ats of the popular superstitions and legends of the surrounding try, with which he had bee acquainted in the course of his antiquarian researches. I am half ined to think that the old gentleman was himself somewhat tinctured with superstition, as men are very apt to be who live a recluse and studious life in a sequestered part of the try and pore over black-letter tracts, so often ?lled with the marvelous and supernatural. He gave us several aes of the fancies of the neighb peasantry ing the ef?gy of the crusader which lay oomb by the church altar. As it was the only mo of the kind in that part of the try, it had always been regarded with feelings of superstition by the good wives of the village. It was said to get up from the tomb and walk the rounds of the churchyard in stormy nights, particularly when it thundered; and one old woman, whose cottage bordered on the churchyard, had seen it through the windows of the church, when the moon shone, slowly pag up and down the aisles. It was the belief that some wrong had bee unredressed by the deceased, or some treasure hidden, which kept the spirit in a state of trouble alessness. Some talked of gold and jewels buried iomb, over which the spectre kept watch; and there was a story current of a sexton in old times who endeavored to break his way to the at night, but just as he reached it received a violent blow from the marble hand of the ef?gy, which stretched him senseless on the pavement. These tales were often laughed at by some of the sturdier among the rustics, yet when night came on there were many of the stoutest unbelievers that were shy of venturing alone in the footpath that led across the churchyard.
From these and other aes that followed the crusader appeared to be the favorite hero of ghost-stories throughout the viity. His picture, which hung up in the hall, was thought by the servants to have something supernatural about it; for they remarked that in whatever part of the hall you went the eyes of the warrior were still ?xed on you. The old porters wife, too, at the lodge, who had been born and brought up in the family, and was a great gossip among the maid-servants, af?rmed that in her young days she had often heard say that on Midsummer Eve, when it was well known all kinds of ghosts, goblins, and fairies bee visible and walk abroad, the crusader used to mount his horse, e down from his picture, ride about the house, down the avenue, and so to the church to visit the tomb; on which occasion the churost civilly swung open of itself; not that he , for he rode through closed gates, and even stone walls, and had been seen by one of the dairymaids to pass between two bars of the great park gate, making himself as thin as a sheet of paper.
All these superstitions I found had been very much tenanced by the squire, who, though not superstitious himself, was very fond of seeing others so. He listeo every goblin tale of the neighb gossips with in?nite gravity, ahe porters wife in high favor on at of her talent for the marvellous.
He was himself a great reader of old legends and romances, and often lamehat he could not believe in them; for a superstitious persohought, must live in a kind of fairy-land.
Whilst we were all attention to the parsons stories, our ears were suddenly assailed by a burst of heterogeneous sounds from the hall, in which were mingled something like the g of rude minstrelsy with the uproar of many small voices and girlish laughter. The door suddenly ?ew open, and a train came trooping into the room that might almost have been mistaken for the breaking up of the court of Faery. That iigable spirit, Master Simon, in the faithful discharge of his duties as lord of misrule, had ceived the idea of a Christmas mummery or masking; and having called in to his assistahe Oxonian and the young of?cer, who were equally ripe for anything that should occasion romping and merriment, they had carried it into instant effect. The old housekeeper had been sulted; the antique clothespresses and wardrobes rummaged and made to yield up the relics of ?hat had not seen the light for several geions; the younger part of the pany had been privately vened from the parlor and hall, and the whole had been bedizened out into a burlesque imitation of an antique mask.*
* Maskings or mummeries were favorite sports at Christmas in old times, and the wardrobes at halls and manor-houses were often laid under tribution to furnish dresses and fantastic disguisings. I strongly suspect Master Simon to have taken the idea of his from Ben Jonsons "Masque of Christmas."
Master Simohe van, as "A Christmas," quaintly apparelled in a ruff, a short cloak, which had very much the aspect of one of the old housekeepers petticoats, and a hat that might have served for a village steeple, and must indubitably have ?gured in the days of the anters. From uhis his nose curved boldly forth, ?ushed with a frost-bitten bloom that seemed the very trophy of a December blast. He was apanied by the blue-eyed romp, dished up, as "Dame Mince Pie," in the venerable magni?ce of a faded brocade, long stomacher, peaked hat, and high-heeled shoes. The young of?cer appeared as Robin Hood, in a sp dress of Kendal green and a fing cap with a gold tassel.
The e, to be sure, did not bear testimony to deep research, and there was an evideo the picturesque, natural to a young gallant in the presence of his mistress. The fair Julia hung on his arm in a pretty rustic dress as "Maid Marian." The rest of the train had beeamorphosed in various ways; the girls trussed up in the ?nery of the a belles of the Bracebridge line, and the striplings bewhiskered with burnt cork, and gravely clad in broad skirts, hanging sleeves, and full-bottomed wigs, to represent the character of Roast Beef, Plum Pudding, and other worthies celebrated in a maskings.
The whole was uhe trol of the Oxonian in the appropriate character of Misrule; and I observed that he exercised rather a mischievous sway with his wand over the smaller personages of the pageant.
The irruption of this motley crew with beat of drum, acc to a , was the mation of uproar and merriment.
Master Simon covered himself with glory by the stateliness with which, as A Christmas, he walked a mi with the peerless though giggling Dame Mince Pie. It was followed by a dance of all the characters, which from its medley of es seemed as though the old family portraits had skipped down from their frames to join in the sport. Differeuries were ?guring at cross hands and right a; the Dark Ages were cutting pirouettes and rigadoons; and the days of Queen Bess jigging merrily down the middle through a line of succeeding geions.
The worthy squire plated these fantastic sports and this resurre of his old wardrobe with the simple relish of childish delight. He stood chug and rubbing his hands, and scarcely hearing a word the parson said, notwithstanding that the latter was disc most authentically on the a and stately dance of the Pavon, or peacock, from which he ceived the mio be derived.* For my part, I was in a tinual excitement from the varied ses of whim and i gayety passing before me. It was inspiring to see wild-eyed frolid warm-hearted hospitality breaking out from among the chills and glooms of winter, and old age throwing off his apathy and catg once more the freshness of youthful enjoyment. I felt also an i in the se from the sideration that these ?eeting s were posting fast into oblivion, and that this erhaps the only family in England in which the whole of them was still punctiliously observed. There was a quaintness, too, mingled with all this revelry that gave it a peculiar zest: it was suited to the time and place; and as the old manor-house almost reeled with mirth and wassail, it seemed eg back the joviality of loed years.+ * Sir John Hawkins, speaking of the dance called the Pavon, from pavo, a peacock, says, "It is a grave and majestice; the method of dang it aly was by gentlemen dressed with caps and swords, by those of the long robe in their gowns, by the peers in their mantles, and by the ladies in gowns with long trains, the motion whereof, in dang, resembled that of a peacock."--History of Music.
+ At the time of the ?rst publication of this paper the picture of an old-fashioned Christmas in the try ronounced by some as out of date. The author had afterwards an opportunity of witnessing almost all the s above described, existing in ued vigor in the skirts of Derbvshire and Yorkshire, where he passed the Christmas holidays. The reader will ?nd some notice of them ihors at of his sojourn at ead Abbey.
But enough of Christmas and its gambols; it is time for me to pause in this garrulity. Methinks I hear the questions asked by my graver readers, "To urpose is all this? how is the world to be made wiser by this talk?" Alas! is there not wisdom enough extant for the instru of the world?
And if not, are there not thousands of abler pens lab for its improvement? It is so much pleasao please than to instruct--to play the panion rather than the preceptor.
What, after all, is the mite of wisdom that I could throw into the mass of knowledge! or how am I sure that my sagest deduay be safe guides for the opinions of others? But in writing to amuse, if I fail the only evil is in my own disappoi. If, however, I by any lucky ce, in these days of evil, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care uile the heavy heart of one moment of sorrow; if I ow and therate through the gathering ?lm of misanthropy, prompt a benevolent view of human nature, and make my reader more in good-humor with his fellow-beings and himself--surely, surely, I shall not then have writteirely in vain.
LONDON ANTIQUES.
----I do walkMethinks like Guide Vaux, with my dark lanthorn,Stealing to set the town o ?re; i th tryI should be taken for William o the Wisp,Or Robin Goodfellow.FLETCHER.
I AM somewhat of an antiquity-hunter, and am fond of expl London i of the relics of old times.
These are principally to be found in the depths of the city, swallowed up and almost lost in a wilderness of brid mortar, but deriving poetical and romantiterest from the onplace, prosaic world around them. I was struck with an instance of the kind in the course of a ret summer ramble into the city; for the city is only to be explored to advantage in summer-time, when free from the smoke and fog and rain and mud of winter. I had been buffeting for some time against the current of populatioing through Fleet Street. The warm weather had unstrung my nerves and made me sensitive to every jar and jostle and discordant sound. The ?esh was weary, the spirit faint, and I was getting out of humor with the bustling busy throng through which I had tle, when in a ?t of desperation I tore my way through the crowd, plunged into a by-lane, and, after passing through several obscure nooks and angles, emerged into a quaint and quiet court with a grassplot in the tre by elms, a perpetually fresh and green by a fountain with its sparkli of water. A student with book in hand was seated on a stone bench, partly reading, partly meditating on the movements of two or three trim nursery-maids with their infant charges.
I was like an Arab who had suddenly e upon an oasis amid the panting sterility of the desert. By degrees the quiet and ess of the place soothed my nerves and refreshed my spirit.
I pursued my walk, and came, hard by, to a very a chapel with a low-browed Saxon portal of massive and rich architecture.
The interior was circular and lofty and lighted from above.
Around were moal tombs of a date on which were extehe marble ef?gies of warriors in armor. Some had the hands devoutly crossed upon the breast; rasped the pommel of the sword, menag hostility even iomb, while the crossed legs of several indicated soldiers of the Faith who had been on crusades to the Holy Land.
I was, in fact, in the chapel of the Knights Templars, strangely situated in the very tre of sordid traf?d I do not know a more impressive lesson for the many of the world than thus suddenly to turn aside from the highway of busy money-seeking life, and sit down among these shadowy sepulchres, where all is twilight, dust, and f.et-fullness.
In a subsequent tour of observation I entered another of these relics of a "fone world" locked up in the heart of the city. I had been wandering for some time through dull monotonous streets, destitute of anything to strike the eye or excite the imagination, when I beheld before me a Gothic gateway of mouldering antiquity. It opened into a spacious quadrangle f the courtyard of a stately Gothic pile, the portal of which stood invitingly open.
It arently a public edi?ce, and, as I was antiquity-hunting, I ventured in, though with dubious steps.
Meeting no oher to oppose or rebuke my intrusion, I tinued on until I found myself in a great hall with a lofty arched roof and oaken gallery, all of Gothic architecture. At one end of the hall was an enormous ?replace, with woodeles on each side; at the other end was a raised platform, or dais, the seat of state, above which was the portrait of a man in antique garb with a long robe, a ruff, and a venerable gray beard.
The whole establishment had an air of monastic quiet and seclusion, and what gave it a mysterious charm was, that I had not met with a human being since I had passed the threshold.
Enced by this loneliness, I seated myself in a recess of a large bow window, which admitted a broad ?ood of yellow sunshine, checkered here and there by tints from panes of class, while an open caseme in the soft summer air. Here, leaning my bead on my hand and my arm on an old oaken table, I indulged in a sort of reverie about what might have been the a uses of this edi?ce. It had evidently been of monastic in; perhaps one of those collegiate establishments built of yore for the promotion of learning, where the patient monk, in the ample solitude of the cloister, added page to page and volume to volume, emulating in the produs of his brain the magnitude of the pile he inhabited.
As I was seated in this musing mood a small panelled door in an arch at the upper end of the hall ened, and a number of gray-headed old men, clad in long black cloaks, came forth one by one, proceeding in that mahrough the hall, without uttering a word, each turning a pale fae as he passed, and disappearing through a door at the lower end.
I was singularly struck with their appearaheir black cloaks and antiquated air ported with the style of this most venerable and mysterious pile. It was as if the ghosts of the departed years, about which I had been musing, were passing in review before me. Pleasing myself with such fancies, I set out, in the spirit of romao explore what I pictured to myself a realm of shadows existing in the very tre of substantial realities.
My ramble led me through a labyrinth of interior courts and corridors and dilapidated cloisters, for the main edi?ce had many additions and dependencies, built at various times and in various styles. In one open space a number of boys, who evidently beloo the establishment, were at their sports, but everywhere I observed those mysterious old gray men in black mantles, sometimes sauntering alone, sometimes versing in groups; they appeared to be the pervading genii of the place. I now called to mind what I had read of certain colleges in old times, where judicial astrology, geomaneancy, and other forbidden and magical sces were taught. Was this aablishment of the kind, ahese black-cloaked old men really professors of the black art?
These surmises were passing through my mind as my eye glanced into a chamber hung round with all kinds of strange and uncouth objects--implements of savage warfare, strange idols and stuffed alligators; bottled serpents and monsters decorated the mantelpiece; while on the high tester of an old-fashioned bedstead grinned a human skull, ?anked on each side by a dried cat.
I approached tard more narrowly this mystic chamber, which seemed a ?tting laboratory for a neancer, when I was startled at beholding a human tearing at me from a dusky er. It was that of a small, shrivelled old man with thin cheeks, bright eyes, and gray, wiry, projeg eyebrows. I at ?rst doubted whether it were not a mummy curiously preserved, but it moved, and I saw that it was alive. It was another of these black-cloaked old men, and, as I regarded his quaint physiognomy, his obsolete garb, and the hideous and sinister objects by which he was surrounded, I began to persuade myself that I had e upon the arch-mago who ruled over this magical fraternity.
Seeing me pausing before the door, he rose and invited me to enter. I obeyed with singular hardihood, for how did I know whether a wave of his wand might not metamorphose me into some strange monster or jure me into one of the bottles on his mantelpiece? He proved, however, to be anything but a jurer, and his simple garrulity soon dispelled all the magid mystery with which I had enveloped this antiquated pile and its no less antiquated inhabitants.
It appeared that I had made my way into the tre of an a asylum for superanradesmen and decayed householders, with which was ected a school for a limited number of boys. It was founded upwards of two turies sin an old monastic establishment, aained somewhat of the ventual air and character. The shadowy line of old men in black mantles who had passed before me in the hall, and whom I had elevated into magi, turned out to be the pensioners returning from m, servi the chapel.
John Hallum, the little collector of curiosities whom I had made the arch magi, had been for six years a resident of the place, and had decorated this ?nal ling-place of his old age with relid rarities picked up in the course of his life.
Acc to his own at, he had been somewhat of a traveller, having been on France, and very near making a visit to Holland. He regretted not having visited the latter try, "as then he might have said he had been there." He was evidently a traveller of the simple kind.
He was aristocratical too in his notions, keeping aloof, as I found, from the ordinary run of pensioners. His chief associates were a blind man who spoke Latin and Greek, of both which languages Hallum rofoundly ignorant, and a broken-dowleman who had run through a fortune of forty thousand pounds left him by his father, ahousand pounds, the marriage portion of his wife. Little Hallum seemed to sider it an indubitable sign of gentle blood as well as of lofty spirit to be able to squander suormous sums.
P.S.--The picturesque remnant of old times into which I have thus beguiled the reader is what is called the Charter House, inally the Chartreuse. It was founded in 1611, on the remains of an a vent, by Sir Thomas Sutton, being one of those noble charities set on foot by individual muni?ce, a up with the quaintness and sanctity of aimes amidst the modern ges and innovations of London. Here eighty broken-down men, who have seeer days, are provided in their old age with food, clothing, fuel, and a yearly allowance for private expehey diogether, as did the monks of old, in the hall which had been the refectory of the inal vent.
Attached to the establishment is a school for forty-four boys.
Stow, whose work I have sulted on the subject, speaking of the obligations of the gray-headed pensioners, says, "They are not to intermeddle with any busioug the affairs of the hospital, but to attend only to the service of God, and take thankfully what is provided for them, without muttering, murmuring, ing. o wear on, long hair, colored boots, spurs, or colored shoes, feathers in their hats, or any ruf?an-like or unseemly apparel, but such as bees hospital-men to wear." "And in truth," adds Stow, "happy are they that are so taken from the cares and sorrows of the world, and ?xed in so good a place as these old men are; having nothing to care for but the good of their souls, tod, and to live in brotherly love."
For the amusement of such as have been ied by the preg sketch, taken down from my own observation, and who may wish to know a little more about the mysteries of London, I subjoin a modicum of local history put into my hands by an odd-looking old gentleman, in a small brown wig and a snuff-colored coat, with whom I became acquainted shortly after my visit to the Charter House. I fess I was a little dubious at ?rst whether it was not one of those apocryphal tales often passed off upon inquiring travellers like myself, and which have brought eneral character for veracity into sumerited reproaaking proper inquiries, however, I have received the most satisfactory assurances of the authors probity, and indeed have been told that he is actually engaged in a full and particular at of the very iing region in which he resides, of which the following may be sidered merely as a foretaste.
LITTLE BRITAIN.
What I write is most true . . . . . I have a whole booke of cases lying by me, which if I should sette foorth, some grave aus (within the hearing of Bow Bell) would be out of charity with me.NASH.
IN the tre of the great City of London lies a small neighborhood, sisting of a cluster of narrow streets and courts, of very venerable and debilitated houses, which goes by the name of LITTLE BRITAIN. Christ Church School and St.
Bartholomews Hospital bound it on the west; Smith?eld and Long Lane on the north; Aldersgate Street, like an arm of the sea, divides it from the eastern part of the city; whilst the yawning gulf of Bull-and-Mouth Street separates it from Butcher Lane and the regions of e. Over this little territory, thus bounded and desighe great dome of St. Pauls, swelling above the intervening houses of Paternoster Row, Amen er, and Ave-Maria Lane, looks down with an air of motherly prote.
This quarter derives its appellation from having been, in aimes, the residence of the Dukes of Brittany. As London increased, however, rank and fashion rolled off to the west, and trade, creeping on at their heels, took possession of their deserted abodes. For some time Little Britain became the great mart of learning, and eopled by the busy and proli?c race of booksellers: these also gradually deserted it, and, emigrating beyond the great strait of e Street, settled down in Paternoster Row and St. Pauls Churchyard, where they tio increase and multiply even at the present day.
But, though thus fallen into dee, Little Britain still bears traces of its former splendor. There are several houses ready to tumble down, the fronts of which are magly enriched with old oaken carvings of hideous faces, unknown birds, beasts, and ?shes, and fruits and ?owers which it would perplex a naturalist to classify. There are also, in Aldersgate Street, certain remains of what were once spacious and lordly family mansions, but which have in latter days been subdivided into several tes. Here may often be found the family of a petty tradesman, with its trumpery furniture, burrowing among the relics of antiquated ?nery i rambling time-stained apartments with fretted ceilings, gilded ices, and enormous marble ?replaces. The lanes and courts also tain many smaller houses, not on so grand a scale, but, like your small a gentry, sturdily maintaining their claims to equal antiquity.
These have their gable ends to the street, great bow windows with diamond panes set in lead, grotesque carvings, and low arched doorways.*
* It is evident that the author of this iing unication has included, in his general title of Little Britain, man of those little lanes and courts that belong immediately to Cloth Fair.
In this most venerable and sheltered little have I passed several quiet years of existence, fortably lodged in the sed ?oor of one of the smallest but oldest edi?ces. My sitting-room is an old wainscoted chamber, with small panels a off with a miscellaneous array of furniture. I have a particular respect for three or fh-backed, claw-footed chairs, covered with tarnished brocade, which bear the marks of having seeer days, and have doubtless ?gured in some of the old palaces of Little Britain. They seem to me to keep together and to look down with sn pt upon their leathern-bottomed neighbors, as I have seen decayed gentry carry a high head among the plebeian society with which they were reduced to associate. The whole front of my sitting-room is taken up with a bow window, on the panes of which are recorded the names of previous octs for many geions, mingled with scraps of very indiffereleman-like poetry, written in characters which I scarcely decipher, and which extol the charms of many a beauty of Little Britain who has long, long since bloomed, faded, and passed away. As I am an idle personage, with no apparent occupation, and pay my bill regularly every week, I am looked upon as the only indepe gentleman of the neighborhood, and, being curious to learernal state of a unity so apparently shut up within itself, I have mao work my way into all the s as of the place.
Little Britain may truly be called the hearts core of the city, the stronghold of true John Bullism. It is a fragment of London as it was in its better days, with its antiquated folks and fashions. Here ?ourish i preservation many of the holiday games and s of yore. The inhabitants miously eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, hot cross-buns on Good Friday, and roast goose at Michaelmas; they send love-letters on Valentines Day, burn the Pope on the Fifth of November, and kiss all the girls uhe mistletoe at Christmas. Roast beef and plum-pudding are also held in superstitious veion, and port and sherry maintain their grounds as the only true English wines, all others being sidered vile outlandish beverages.
Little Britain has its long catalogue of city wonders, which its inhabitants sider the wonders of the world, such as the great bell of St. Pauls, which sours all the beer when it tolls; the ?gures that strike the hours at St. Dunstans clock; the Mo; the lions iower; and the wooden giants in Guildhall. They still believe in dreams and fortuelling, and an old woman that lives in Bull-and-Mouth Street makes a tolerable subsistence by deteg stolen goods and promising the girls good husbands. They are apt to be rendered unfortable by ets and eclipses, and if a dog howls dolefully at night it is looked upon as a sure sign of death in the place. There are even many ghost-stories current, particularly ing the old mansion-houses, in several of which it is said strange sights are sometimes seen. Lords and ladies, the former in full-bottomed wigs, hanging sleeves, and swords, the latter in lappets, stays, hoops, and brocade, have been seen walking up and down the great waste chambers on moonlight nights, and are supposed to be the shades of the a proprietors in their court-dresses.
Little Britain has likewise its sages and great men. One of the most important of the former is a tall, dry old gentleman of the name of Skryme, who keeps a small apothecarys shop. He has a cadaverous tenance, full of cavities and projes, with a brown circle round each eye, like a pair of horacles. He is much thought of by the old women, who sider him as a kind of jurer because he has two or three stuffed alligators hanging up in his shop and several snakes in bottles. He is a great reader of almanad neers, and is much given to pore over alarming ats of plots, spiracies, ?res, earthquakes, and volic eruptions; which last phenomena he siders as signs of the times. He has always some dismal tale of the kind to deal out to his ers with their doses, and thus at the same time puts both soul and body into an uproar. He is a great believer in omens and predis; and has the prophecies of Robert Nixon and Mother Shipton by heart. No man make so much out of an eclipse, or even an unusually dark day; and he shook the tail of the last et over the heads of his ers and disciples until they were nearly frightened out of their wits. He has lately got hold of a popular legend or prophecy, on which he has been unusually eloquent. There has been a saying current among the a sibyls, who treasure up these things, that when the grasshopper oop of the Exge shook hands with the dragon oop of Bow Church steeple, fearful events would take place. This strange jun, it seems, has as strangely e to pass. The same architect has been engaged lately on the repairs of the cupola of the Exge and the steeple of Bow Church; and, fearful to relate, the dragon and the grasshopper actually lie, cheek by jole, in the yard of his workshop.
"Others," as Mr. Skryme is aced to say, "may go star-gazing, and look for juns in the heavens, but here is a jun on the earth, near at home and under our own eyes, which surpasses all the signs and calculations of astrologers." Sihese portentous weathercocks have thus laid their heads together, wonderful events had already occurred. The good old king, notwithstanding that he had lived eighty-two years, had all at once given up the ghost; another king had mouhe throne; a royal duke had died suddenly; another, in France, had been murdered; there had been radical meetings in all parts of the kingdom; the bloody ses at Maer; the great plot in Cato Street; and, above all, the queen had returo England! All these sinister events are reted by Mr. Skyrme with a mysterious look and a dismal shake of the head; and being taken with his drugs, and associated in the minds of his auditors with stuffed-sea-monsters, bottled serpents, and his own visage, which is a title-page of tribulation, they have spread great gloom through the minds of the people of Little Britain. They shake their heads whehey go by Bow Church, and observe that they never expected any good to e of taking down that steeple, whi old times told nothing but glad tidings, as the history of Whittington and his Cat bears witness.
The rival oracle of Little Britain is a substantial cheesemonger, who lives in a fragment of one of the old family mansions, and is as magly lodged as a round-bellied mite in the midst of one of his own Cheshires. Indeed, he is a man of no little standing and importance, and his renowends through Huggin lane and Lad lane, and even unto Aldermanbury. His opinion is very much taken in affairs of state, havihe Sunday papers for the last half tury, together with the Gentlemans Magazine, Rapins History of England, and the Naval icle.
His head is stored with invaluable maxims which have borhe test of time and use for turies. It is his ?rm opinion that "it is a moral impossible," so long as England is true to herself, that anything shake her: and he has much to say on the subject of the national debt, which, somehow or other, he proves to be a great national bulwark and blessing. He passed the greater part of his life in the purlieus of Little Britain until of late years, when, having bee rid grown into the dignity of a Sunday e, he begins to take his pleasure ahe world. He has therefore made several excursions to Hampstead, Highgate, and other neighb towns, where he has passed whole afternoons in looking back uporopolis through a telescope and endeav to descry the steeple of St.
Bartholomews. Not a stage-an of Bull-and-Mouth Street but touches his hat as he passes, and he is sidered quite a patron at the coach-of?ce of the Goose and Gridiron, St. Pauls Churchyard. His family have been very urgent for him to make an expedition to Mar９9lｉb?gate, but he has great doubts of those new gimcracks, the steamboats, and ihinks himself too advanced in life to uake sea-voyages.
Little Britain has occasionally its fas and divisions, and party spirit ran very high at oime, in sequence of two rival "Burial Societies" bei up in the place. One held its meeting at the Swan and Horse-Shoe, and atronized by the cheesemohe other at the Cod , uhe auspices of the apothecary: it is needless to say that the latter was the most ?ourishing. I have passed an evening or two at each, and have acquired much valuable information as to the best mode of being buried, the parative merits of churchyards, together with divers hints on the subject of patent iron s. I have heard the question discussed in all its bearings as to the legality of prohibiting the latter on at of their durability. The feuds occasioned by these societies have happily died of late; but they were for a long time prevailing themes of troversy, the people of Little Britain beiremely solicitous of funeral honors and of lying fortably in their graves.
Besides these two funeral societies there is a third of quite a different cast, which tends to throw the sunshine of good-humor over the whole neighborhood. It meets once a week at a little old-fashioned house kept by a jolly publi of the name of Wagstaff, and bearing for insignia a resple half-moon, with a most seductive bunch of grapes. The whole edi?ce is covered with inscriptions to catch the eye of the thirsty wayfarer; such as "Truman, Hanbury, and Cos Entire," "Wine, Rum, and Brandy Vaults," "Old Tom, Rum, and pounds," etc. This indeed has been a temple of Bacchus and Momus from time immemorial. It has always been in the family of the Wagstaffs, so that its history is tolerably preserved by the present landlord. It was much frequented by the gallants and cavalieros of the reign of Elizabeth, and was looked into now and then by the wits of Charles the Seds day. But what Wagstaff principally prides himself upon is that Henry the Eighth, in one of his noal rambles, broke the head of one of his aors with his famous walking-staff. This, however, is sidered as rather a dubious and vain-glorious boast of the landlord.
The club whiow holds its weekly sessions here goes by the name of "the R Lads of Little Britain." They abound in old catches, glees, and choice stories that are traditional in the plad not to be met with in any other part of the metropolis.
There is a madcap uaker who is inimitable at a merry song, but the life of the club, and ihe prime wit of Little Britain, is bully Wagstaff himself. His aors were all wags before him, and he has ied with the inn a large stock of songs and jokes, which go with it from geion to geion as heirlooms. He is a dapper little fellow, with bandy legs and pot belly, a red face with a moist merry eye, and a little shock of gray hair behind. At the opening of every club night he is called in to sing his "fession of Faith," which is the famous old drinking trowl from "Gammer Gurtons Needle." He sings it, to be sure, with many variations, as he received it from his fathers lips; for it has been a standing favorite at the Half-Moon and Bunch of Grapes ever si was written; nay, he af?rms that his predecessors have often had the honor of singing it before the nobility ary at Christmas mummeries, when Little Britain was in all its glory.*
* As mine host of the Half-Moons fession of Faith may not be familiar to the majority of readers, and as it is a spe of the current songs of Little Britain, I subjoin it in its inal raphy. I would observe that the whole club always join in the chorus with a fearful thumping oable and clattering of pewter pots.
I ot eate but lytle meate,My stomacke is not good,But sure I thihat I drinkeWith him that weares a hood.Though I go bare, take ye no care,I nothing am a colde,I stuff my skyn so full within,Of joly good ale and olde.Chorus. Backe and syde go bare,Both foote and hand go colde,But, belly, God send thee good ale ynoughe,Whether it be new or olde.I have no rost, but a nut brawoste And a crab laid in the fyre;A little breade shall do me steade,Much breade I not desyre.No frost nor snow, nor winde, I trowe, hurte mee, if I wolde,I am so t and throwly laptOf joly good ale and olde.Chorus. Backe and syde go bare, etc.And Tyb my wife, that, as her lyfe,Loveth well good ale to seeke,Full oft drynkes shee, tyll ye may see,The teares run downe her cheeke. Then doth shee trowle to me the bowle,Even as a mault-worme sholde,And sayth, sweete harte, I took my parte Of this jolly good ale and olde.Chorus. Backe and syde go bare, etc.Now let them dryyll they nod and winke, Even as goode fellowes sholde doe,They shall not mysse to have the blisse, Good ale doth brio;And all poore soules that have scowred bowles,Or have them lustily trolde,God save the lyves of them and their wives,Whether they be yonge or olde.Chorus. Backe and syde go bare, etc.
It would do ones heart good to hear, on a club night, the shouts of merriment, the snatches of song, and now and then the choral bursts of half a dozen discordant voices, which issue from this jovial mansion. At such times the street is lined with listeners, who enjoy a delight equal to that of gazing into a feers window or snuf?ng up the steams of a cook-shop.
There are two annual events which produce great stir aion in Little Britain: these are St. Bartholomews Fair and the Lord Mayors Day. During the time of the Fair, which is held in the adjoining regions of Smith?eld, there is nothing going on but gossiping and gadding about. The late quiet streets of Little Britain are overrun with an irruption of strange ?gures and faces; every tavern is a se of rout and revel. The ?ddle and the song are heard from the taproom m, noon, and night; and at each window may be seen some group of boon panions, with half-shut eyes, hats on one side, pipe in mouth and tankard in hand, fondling and prosing, and singing maudlin songs over their liquor. Even the sober de of private families, which I must say is rigidly kept up at other times among my neighbors, is no proof against this saturnalia. There is no such thing as keeping maid-servants within doors. Their brains are absolutely set madding with Pund the Puppet-Show, the Flying Horses, Signior Polito, the Fire-Eater, the celebrated Mr. Paap, and the Irish Giant. The children too lavish all their holiday money in toys and gilt gingerbread, and ?ll the house with the Lilliputian din of drums, trumpets, and penny whistles.
But the Lord Mayors Day is the great anniversary. The Lord Mayor is looked up to by the inhabitants of Little Britain as the greatest potentate upoh, his gilt coach with six horses as the summit of human splendor, and his procession, with all the sheriffs and aldermen in his train, as the gra of earthly pageants. How they exult in the idea that the king himself dare er the city without ?rst knog at the gate of Temple Bar and asking permission of the Lord Mayor; for if he did, heaven ah! there is no knowing what might be the sequehe man in armor who rides before the Lord Mayor, and is the city champion, has orders to cut down everybody that offends against the dignity of the city; and then there is the little man with a velvet per on his head, who sits at the window of the state coad holds the city sword, as long as a pikestaff. Odds blood! if he once draws that sword, Majesty itself is not safe.
Uhe prote of this mighty poteherefore, the good people of Little Britain sleep in peace. Temple Bar is an effectual barrier against all interior foes; and as tn invasion, the Lord Mayor has but to throw himself into the Tower, call irain-bands, and put the standing army of Beef-eaters under arms, and he may bid de?ao the world!
Thus ed up in its own s, its own habits, and its own opinions, Little Britain has long ?ourished as a sou to this great fungous metropolis. I have pleased myself with sidering it as a chosen spot, where the principles of sturdy John Bullism were garnered up, like seed , to rehe national character when it had run to waste and degeneracy. I have rejoiced also in the general spirit of harmony that prevailed throughout it; for though there might now and then be a few clashes of opinioween the adherents of the cheesemonger and the apothecary, and an occasional feud between the burial societies, yet these were but tra clouds and soon passed away. The neighbors met with good-will, parted with a shake of the hand, and never abused each other except behind their backs.
I could give rare descriptions of snug juing parties at which I have bee, where we played at All-Fours, Pope-Joan, Tom-e-tickle-me, and other choice old games, and where we sometimes had a good old English try dao the tune of Sir Roger de Coverley. Once a year also the neighbors would gather together and go on a gypsy party to Epping Forest. It would have done any ma good to see the merriment that took place here as we baed on the grass uhe trees. How we made the wo with bursts of laughter at the songs of little Wagstaff and the merry uaker! After dioo, the young folks would play at blindmans-buff and hide-and-seek, and it was amusing to see them tangled among the briers, and to hear a ?ne romping girl now and then squeak from among the bushes. The elder folks would gather round the cheesemonger and the apothecary to hear them talk politics, for they generally brought out a neer in their pockets to pass away time in the try. They would now and then, to be sure, get a little warm in argument; but their disputes were always adjusted by refereo a worthy old umbrella-maker in a double , who, never exactly prehending the subject, managed somehow or other to decide in favor of both parties.
All empires, however, says some philosopher or historian, are doomed to ges and revolutions. Luxury and innovation creep in, fas arise, and families now and then spring up whose ambition and intrigues throw the whole system into fusion.
Thus ier days has the tranquillity of Little Britain been grievously disturbed and its golden simplicity of mahreatened with total subversion by the aspiring family of a retired butcher.
The family of the Lambs had long been among the most thriving and popular in the neighborhood: the Miss Lambs were the belles of Little Britain, and everybody leased when Old Lamb had made money enough to shut up shop and put his name on a brass plate on his door. In an evil hour, however, one of the Miss Lambs had the honor of being a lady in attendan the Lady Mayoress at her grand annual ball, on which occasion she wore three t ostrich feathers on her head. The family never got over it; they were immediately smitten with a passion fh life; set up a one-horse carriage, put a bit of gold lace round the errand-boys hat, and have beealk aation of the whole neighborhood ever sihey could no longer be io play at Pope-Joan or blindmans-buff; they could endure no dances but quadrilles, whiobody had ever heard of in Little Britain; and they took to reading novels, talking bad French, and playing upon the piano. Their brother, too, who had been articled to an attorney, set up for a dandy and a critic, characters hitherto unknown in these parts, and he fouhe worthy folks exceedingly by talking about Kean, the Opera, and the "Edinburgh Review."
What was still worse, the Lambs gave a grand ball, to which they ed to invite any of their old neighbors; but they had a great deal of genteel pany from Theobalds Road, Red Lion Square, and other parts towards the west. There were several beaux of their brothers acquaintance from Grays Inn Lane and Hatton Garden, and not less than three aldermens ladies with their daughters. This was not to be fotten or fiven. All Little Britain was in an uproar with the smag of whips, the lashing of in miserable horses, and t?. rattling and jingling of haey-coaches. The gossips of the neighborhood might be seen popping their night-caps out at every window, watg the crazy vehicles rumble by; and there was a knot of virulent old ies that kept a look-out from a house just opposite the retired butchers and sed and criticised every ohat k the door.
This dance was a cause of almost open war, and the whole neighborhood declared they would have nothing more to say to the Lambs. It is true that Mrs. Lamb, when she had no es with her quality acquaintance, would give little humdrum tea-juings to some of her old ies, "quite," as she would say, "in a friendly way;" and it is equally true that her invitations were always accepted, in spite of all previous vows to the trary. Nay, the good ladies would sit and be delighted with the music of the Miss Lambs, who would desd to strum an Irish melody for them on the piano; and they would listen with wonderful io Mrs. Lambs aes of Alderman Plus family, of Portsoken Ward, and the Miss Timberlakes, the rich heiresses of Crutched Friars but then they relieved their sces and averted the reproaches of their federates by vassing at the gossiping vocatiohing that had passed, and pulling the Lambs and their rout all to pieces.
The only one of the family that could not be made fashionable was the retired butcher himself. Ho Lamb, in spite of the meekness of his name, was a rough, hearty old fellow, with the voice of a lion, a head of black hair like a shoe-brush, and a broad face mottled like his own beef. It was in vain that the daughters always spoke of him as "the old gentleman, addressed him as "papa" in tones of in?nite softness, and endeavored to coax him into a dressing-gown and slippers and entlemanly habits. Do what they might, there was no keeping dowcher. His sturdy nature would break through all their glozings. He had a hearty vulgar good-humor that was irrepressible. His very jokes made his sensitive daughters shudder, and he persisted in wearing his blue cotton coat of a m, dining at two oclock, and having a "bit of sausage with his tea."
He was doomed, however, to share the unpopularity of his family.
He found his old rades gradually growing cold and civil to him, no longer laughing at his jokes, and now and then throwing out a ?ing at "some people" and a hint about "quality binding."
This both led and perplexed the ho butcher; and his wife and daughters, with the mate policy of the shrewder sex, taking advantage of the circumsta length prevailed upon him to give up his afternoons pipe and tankard at Wagstaffs, to sit after dinner by himself and take his pint of port--a liquor he detested--and to nod in his chair in solitary and dismal gentility.
The Miss Lambs might now be seen ?aunting along the streets in French bos with unknown beaux, and talking and laughing so loud that it distressed the nerves of every good lady within hearing. They eve so far as to attempt patronage, and actually induced a French dang master to set up in the neighborhood; but the worthy folks of Little Britain took ?re at it, and did so persecute the paul that he was fain to pack up ?ddle and dang-pumps and decamp with such precipitation that he absolutely fot to pay for his lodgings.
I had ?attered myself, at ?rst, with the idea that all this ?ery indignation on the part of the unity was merely the over?owing of their zeal food old English manners and their horror of innovation, and I applauded the silent pt they were so vociferous in expressing for upstart pride, French fashions and the Miss Lambs. But I grieve to say that I soon perceived the iion had taken hold, and that my neighbors, after ning, were beginning to follow their example. I overheard my landlady importuning her husband to let their daughters have one quarter at Frend musid that they might take a few lessons in quadrille. I even saw, in the course of a few Sundays, han ?ve French bos, precisely like those of the Miss Lambs, parading about Little Britain.
I still had my hopes that all this folly would gradually die away, that the Lambs might move out of the neighborhood, might die, ht run away with attorneys apprentices, and that quiet and simplicity might be agaiored to the unity.
But unluckily a rival power arose. An opulent oilman died, a a ith a large jointure and a family of buxom daughters. The young ladies had long been repining i at the parsimony of a prudent father, which kept down all their elegant aspirings. Their ambition, being now no longer restrained, broke out into a blaze, and they openly took the ?eld against the family of the butcher. It is true that the Lambs, having had the ?rst start, had naturally an advantage of them in the fashionable career. They could speak a little bad French, play the piano, dance quadrilles, and had formed high acquaintances; but the Trotters were not to be distanced. When the Lambs appeared with two feathers in their hats, the Miss Trotters mounted four and of twice as ?ne colors. If the Lambs gave a dahe Trotters were sure not to be behindhand; and, though they might not boast of as good pany, yet they had double the number awice as merry.
The whole unity has at length divided itself into fashionable fas uhe banners of these two families. The old games of Pope-Joan and Tom-e-tickle-me are entirely discarded; there is no such thing as getting up an ho try dance; and on my attempting to kiss a young lady uhe mistletoe last Christmas, I was indignantly repulsed, the Miss Lambs having pronou "shog vulgar." Bitter rivalry has also broken out as to the most fashionable part of Little Britain, the Lambs standing up for the dignity of Cross-Keys Square, and the Trotters for the viity of St. Bartholomews.
Thus is this little territory torn by fas and internal dissensions, like the great empire whose bears; and what will be the result would puzzle the apothecary himself, with all his talent at prognostics, to determihough I apprehend that it will terminate ial downfall of genuine John Bullism.
The immediate effects are extremely unpleasant to me. Being a single man, and, as I observed before, rather an idle good-for-nothing personage, I have been sidered the only gentleman by profession in the place. I stand therefore in high favor with both parties, and have to hear all their et sels and mutual backbitings. As I am too civil not to agree with the ladies on all occasions, I have itted myself most horribly with both parties by abusing their oppos. I might mao recile this to my sce, which is a truly aodating one, but I ot to my apprehension: if the Lambs and Trotters ever e to a reciliation and pare notes, I am ruined!
I have determiherefore, to beat a retreat in time, and am actually looking out for some other nes?9９lib?t in this great city where old English manners are still kept up, where French is her eaten, drunk, danced, nor spoken, and where there are no fashionable families of retired tradesmen. This found, I will, like a veteran rat, hasten away before I have an old house about my ears, bid a long, though a sorrowful adieu to my present abode, and leave the rival fas of the Lambs and the Trotters to divide the distracted empire of LITTLE BRITAIN.
STRATFORD-ON-AVON.
Thou soft-?owing Avon, by thy silver stream Of things more than mortal sweet Shakespeare would dream The fairies by moonlight dance round his green bed, For hallowd the turf is which pillowd his head.GARRICK.
TO a homeless man, who has no spot on this wide world which he truly call his own, there is a momentary feeling of something like independend territorial sequence when, after a weary days travel, he kicks off his boots, thrusts his feet into slippers, and stretches himself before an inn-?re. Let the world without go as it may, let kingdoms rise or fall, so long as he has the wherewithal to pay his bill he is, for the time being, the very monarch of all he surveys. The armchair is his throhe poker his sceptre, and the little parlor, some twelve feet square, his undisputed empire. It is a morsel of certainly snatched from the midst of the uainties of life; it is a sunny moment gleaming out kindly on a cloudy day: and he who has advanced some way on the pilgrimage of existenows the importance of husbanding even morsels and moments of enjoyment.
"Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?" thought I, as I gave the ?re a stir, lolled ba my elbow-chair, and cast a plat look about the little parlor of the Red Horse at Stratford-on-Avon.
The words of sweet Shakespeare were just passing through my mind as the clock struck midnight from the tower of the chur which he lies buried. There was a geap at the door, and a pretty chambermaid, putting in her smiling face, inquired, with a hesitating air, whether I had rung. I uood it as a modest hint that it was time to retire. My dream of absolute dominion was at an end; so abdig my throne, like a prudent poteo avoid being deposed, and putting the Stratfuide-Book under my arm as a pillow panion, I went to bed, and dreamt all night of Shakespeare, the jubilee, and David Garrick.
The m was one of those quiing ms which we sometimes have in early spring, for it was about the middle of March. The chills of a long winter had suddenly given way; the north wind had spent its last gasp; and a mild air came stealing from the west, breathing the breath of life into Nature, and wooing every bud and ?ower to burst forth intrand beauty.
I had e to Stratford on a poetical pilgrimage. My ?rst visit was to the house where Shakespeare was born, and where, acc to tradition, he was brought up to his fathers craft of wool-bing. It is a small mean-looking edi?ce of wood and plaster, a true ling-place of genius, which seems to delight in hatg its offspring in by-ers. The walls of its squalid chambers are covered with names and inscriptions in every language by pilgrims of all nations, ranks, and ditions, from the prio the peasant, and present a simple but striking instance of the spontaneous and universal homage of mankind to the great poet of Nature.
The house is shown by a garrulous old lady in a frosty red face, lighted up by a cold blue, anxious eye, and garnished with arti?cial locks of ?axen hair curling from under an exceedingly dirty cap. She eculiarly assiduous in exhibiting the relics with which this, like all other celebrated shrines, abounds.
There was the shattered stock of the very matchlock with which Shakespeare shot the deer on his poag exploits. There, too, was his tobacco-box, which proves that he was a rival smoker of Sir Walter Raleigh: the sword also with which he played Hamlet; and the identical lantern with which Friar Laurence discovered Romeo and Juliet at the tomb. There was an ample supply also of Shakespeares mulberry tree, which seems to have as extraordinary powers of self-multiplication as the wood of the true cross, of which there is enough extant to build a ship of the line.
The most favorite object of curiosity, however, is Shakespeares chair. It stands in a ey-nook of a small gloomy chamber just behind what was his fathers shop. Here he may many a time have sat when a boy, watg the slowly revolving spit with all the longing of an ur, or of an evening listening to the ies and gossips of Stratford dealing forth churchyard tales and legendary aes of the troublesome times of England. In this chair it is the of every ohat visits the house to sit:
whether this be doh the hope of imbibing any of the inspiration of the bard I am at a loss to say; I merely mention the fact, and mine hostess privately assured me that, though built of solid oak, such was the fervent zeal of devotees the chair had to be new bottomed at least on three years. It is worthy of notice also, in the history of this extraordinary chair, that it partakes something of the volatile nature of the Santa Casa of Loretto, or the ?ying chair of the Arabian enter; for, though sold some few years sio a northern princess, yet, strao tell, it has found its way back again to the old ey-er.
I am always of easy faith in such matters, and am ever willing to be deceived where the deceit is pleasant and costs nothing. I am therefore a ready believer in relics, legends, and local aes of goblins and great men, and would advise all travellers who travel for their grati?cation to be the same.
What is it to us whether these stories be true or false, so long as ersuade ourselves into the belief of them and enjoy all the charm of the reality? There is nothing like resolute good-humored credulity in these matters, and on this occasion I went even so far as willingly to believe the claims of mine hostess to a lineal dest from the p..oet, when, unluckily for my faith, she put into my hands a play of her own position, which set all belief in her own sanguinity at de?ance.
From the birthplace of Shakespeare a few paces brought me to his grave. He lies buried in the cel of the parish church, a large and venerable pile, mouldering with age, but richly ored. It stands on the banks of the Avon on an embowered point, and separated by adjoining gardens from the suburbs of the town. Its situation is quiet aired; the river runs murmuring at the foot of the churchyard, and the elms which grow upon its banks droop their branches into its clear bosom. An avenue of limes, the boughs of which are curiously interlaced, so as to form in summer an arched way of foliage, leads up from the gate of the yard to the church-porch. The graves are rown with grass; the gray tombstones, some of them nearly sunk into the earth, are half covered with moss, which has likewise tihe reverend old building. Small birds have built their s among the ices and ?ssures of the walls, and keep up a tinual ?utter and chirping; and rooks are sailing and g about its lofty gray spire.
In the course of my rambles I met with the gray-headed sexton, Edmonds, and apanied him home to get the key of the church.
He had lived in Stratford, man and boy, fhty years, and seemed still to sider himself a vigorous man, with the trivial exception that he had nearly lost the use of his legs for a feast. His dwelling was a cottage looking out upon the Avon and its b meadows, and icture of that ness, order, and fort which pervade the humblest dwellings in this try. A low whitewashed room, with a stone ?oor carefully scrubbed, served for parlor, kit, and hall. Rows of pewter ahen dishes glittered along the dresser. On an old oaken table, well rubbed and polished, lay the family Bible and prayer-book, and the drawer taihe family library, posed of about half a score of well-thumbed volumes. An a clock, that important article of cottage furniture, ticked on the opposite side of the room, with a bright warming-pan hanging on one side of it, and the old mans horn-handled Sunday e oher. The ?replace, as usual, was wide and deep enough to admit a gossip knot within its jambs.
In one er sat the old mans granddaughter sewing, a pretty blue-eyed girl, and in the opposite er erannuated y whom he addressed by the name of John Ange, and who, I found, had been his panion from childhood. They had played together in infancy; they had worked together in manhood; they were now t about and gossiping away the evening of life; and in a short time they will probably be buried together in the neighb churchyard. It is not often that we see two streams of existence running thus evenly and tranquilly side by side; it is only in such quiet "bosom ses" of life that they are to be met with.
I had hoped to gather some traditionary aes of the bard from these a iclers, but they had nothio impart. The long interval during which Shakespeares writings lay in parative has spread its shadow over his history, and it is his good or evil lot that scarcely anything remains to his biographers but a sty handful of jectures.
The sexton and his panion had been employed as carpenters on the preparations for the celebrated Stratford Jubilee, and they remembered Garrick, the prime mover of the fete, who superintehe arras, and who, acc to the sexton, was "a short punch man, very lively and bustling." John Ange had assisted also in cutting down Shakespeares mulberry tree, of which he had a morsel in his pocket for sale; no doubt a sn quier of literary ception.
I was grieved to hear these two worthy wights speak very dubiously of the eloquent dame who shows the Shakespeare house.
John Ange shook his head when I mentioned her valuable and inexhaustible colle of relics, particularly her remains of the mulberry tree; and the old sexton even expressed a doubt as to Shakespeare having been born in her house. I soon discovered that he looked upon her mansion with an evil eye, as a rival to the poets tomb, the latter having paratively but few visitors. Thus it is that historians differ at the very outset, and mere pebbles make the stream of truth diverge into different els even at the fountain-head.
roached the church through the avenue of limes, aered by a Gothic porch, highly ored, with carved doors of massive oak. The interior is spacious, and the architecture and embellishments superior to those of most try churches. There are several a mos of nobility ary, over some of which hang funeral escuts and banners dropping piecemeal from the walls. The tomb of Shakespeare is in the cel. The place is solemn and sepulchral. Tall elms wave before the pointed windows, and the Avon, which runs at a short distance from the walls, keeps up a low perpetual murmur. A ?at stone marks the spot where the bard is buried. There are four lines inscribed on it, said to have been written by himself, and which have in them somethiremely awful. If they are indeed his own, they show that solicitude about the quiet of the grave which seems natural to ?ne sensibilities and thoughtful minds:
Good friend, for Jesus sake, forbeareTo dig the dust inclosed here.Blessed be he that spares these stones,And curst be he that moves my bones.
Just over the grave, in a niche of the wall, is a bust of Shakespeare, put up shortly after his death and sidered as a resemblahe aspect is pleasant and serene, with a ?nely-arched forehead; and I thought I could read in it clear indications of that cheerful, social disposition by which he was as much characterized among his poraries as by the vastness of his genius. The inscriptioions his age at the time of his decease, ?fty-three years--an untimely death for the world, for what fruit might not have been expected from the golden autumn of such a mind, sheltered as it was from the stormy vicissitudes of life, and ?ourishing in the sunshine of popular and royal favor?
The inscription oombstone has not been without its effect.
It has prevehe removal of his remains from the bosom of his native place to Westminster Abbey, which was at oime plated. A few years since also, as some laborers were digging to make an adjoining vault, the earth caved in, so as to leave a vat space almost like an arch, through whiight have reached into his grave. No one, however, presumed to meddle with his remains so awfully guarded by a maledi; a any of the idle or the curious or any collector of relics should be tempted to it depredations, the old sexto watch over the place for two days, until the vault was ?nished and the aperture closed agaiold me that he had made bold to look in at the hole, but could see her nor bones--nothing but dust. It was something, I thought, to have seen the dust of Shakespeare.
o this grave are those of his wife, his favorite daughter, Mrs. Hall, and others of his family. On a tomb close by, also, is a full-length ef?gy of his old friend John be, of usurious memory, on whom he is said to have written a ludicrous epitaph.
There are other mos around, but the mind refuses to dwell on anything that is not ected with Shakespeare. His idea pervades the place; the whole pile seems but as his mausoleum.
The feelings, no longer checked and thwarted by doubt, here indulge in perfect ?deher traces of him may be false or dubious, but here is palpable evidend absolute certainty.
As I trod the sounding pavement there was something intense and thrilling in the idea that iruth the remains of Shakespeare were moulderih my feet. It was a long time before I could prevail upon myself to leave the place; and as I passed through the churchyard I plucked a branch from one of the yew trees, the only relic that I have brought from Stratford.
I had now visited the usual objects of a pilgrims devotion, but I had a desire to see the old family seat of the Lucys at Charlecot, and to ramble through the park where Shakespeare, in pany with some of the roisterers of Stratford, itted his youthful offence of deer-stealing. In this harebrained exploit we are told that he was taken prisoner and carried to the keepers lodge, where he remained all night in doleful captivity. When brought into the presence of Sir Thomas Lucy his treatment must have been galling and humiliating; for it sht upon his spirit as to produce a rough pasquinade which was af?xed to the park gate at Charlecot.*
This ?agitious attack upon the dignity of the knight so insed him that he applied to a lawyer at Warwick to put the severity of the laws in force against the rhyming deer-stalker. Shakespeare did not wait to brave the united puissance of a knight of the shire and a try attorney. He forthwith abahe pleasant banks of the Avon and his paternal trade; wandered away to London; became a hanger-on to the theatres; then an actor; and ?nally wrote for the stage; and thus, through the persecution of Sir Thomas Lucy, Stratford lost an indifferent wool-ber and the wained an immortal poet. He retained, however, for a long time, a sense of the harsh treatment of the lord of Charlecot, and revenged himself in his writings, but in the sportive way of a good-natured mind. Sir Thomas is said to be the inal of Justice Shallow, and the satire is slyly ?xed upon him by the justices armorial bearings, which, like those of the knight, had white luces+ in the quarterings.
* The following is the only staant of this lampoon:
A parliament member, a justice of peace,At home a poor scarecrow, at London an asse,If lowsie is Lucy, as some volke miscalle it,Then Lucy is lowsie, whatever befall it.He thinks himself great;Yet an asse in his state,We allow by his ears but with asses to mate,If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscalle it,Then sing lowsie Lucy whatever befall it.+ The luce is a pike or jack, and abounds in the Avon about Charlecot.
Various attempts have been made by his biographers to soften and explain away this, early transgression of the poet; but I look upon it as one of those thoughtless exploits natural to his situation and turn of mind. Shakespeare, when young, had doubtless all the wildness and irregularity of an ardent, undisciplined, and ued genius. The poetic temperament has naturally something in it of the vagabond. Wheo itself it runs loosely and wildly, and delights ihing etrid litious. It is often a turn up of a die, in the gambling freaks of fate, whether a natural genius shall turn out a great rogue reat poet; and had not Shakespeares mind fortuaken a literary bias, he might have as daringly transded all civil as he has all dramatic laws.
I have little doubt that, in early life, when running like an unbroken colt about the neighborbood of Stratford, he was to be found in the pany of all kinds of odd anomalous characters, that he associated with all the madcaps of the place, and was one of those unlucky urs at mention of whom old men shake their heads and predict that they will one day e to the gallows. To him the poag in Sir Thomas Lucys park was doubtless like a foray to a Scottish knight, and struck his eager, and as yet untamed, imagination as something delightfully adventurous.*
* A proof of Shakespeares random habits and associates in his youthful days may be found in a traditionary ae, picked up at Stratford by the elder Ireland, aioned in his "Picturesque Views on the Avon."
About seven miles from Stratford lies the thirsty little market-town of Bedford, famous for its ale. Two societies of the village yeomanry used to meet, uhe appellation of the Bedford topers, and to challehe lovers of good ale of the neighb villages to a test of drinking. Among others, the people of Stratford were called out to prove the strength of their heads; and in the number of the champions was Shakespeare, who, in spite of the proverb that "they who drink beer will think beer," was as true to his ale as Falstaff to his sack. The chivalry of Stratford was staggered at the ?rst o, and sounded a retreat while they had yet the legs to carry them off the ?eld. They had scarcely marched a mile when, their legs failing them, they were forced to lie down under a crab tree, where they passed the night. It was still standing, and goes by the name of Shakespeares tree.
In the m his panions awaked the bard, and proposed returning to Bedford, but he deed, saying he had enough, having drank with
Piping Pebworth, Dang Marston,Haunted Hilbro, Hungry Grafton,Dudging Exhall, Papist Wicksford,Beggarly Broom, and Drunken Bedford.
"The villages here alluded to," says Ireland, "still bear the epithets thus givehe people of Pebworth are still famed for their skill on the pipe and tabor; Hilbh is now called Haunted Hilbh; and Grafton is famous for the poverty of its soil."
The old mansion of Charlecot and its surrounding park still remain in the possession of the Lucy family, and are peculiarly iing front being ected with this whimsical but eventful circumstan the sty history of the bard. As the house stood at little more than three miles distance from Stratford, I resolved to pay it a pedestrian visit, that I might stroll leisurely through some of those ses from which Shakespeare must have derived his earliest ideas of rural imagery.
The try was yet naked and lea?ess, but English sery is always verdant, and the sudden ge iemperature of the weather was surprising in its quiing effects upon the landscape. It was inspiring and animating to withis ?rst awakening of spring; to feel its warm breath stealing over the seo see the moist mellow earth beginning to put forth the green sprout and the tender blade, and the trees and shrubs, in their reviving tints and bursting buds, giving the promise of returning foliage and ?ower. The cold snow-drop, that little borderer on the skirts of winter, was to be seen with its chaste white blossoms in the small gardens before the cottages. The bleating of the new-dropt lambs was faintly heard from the ?elds. The sparrow twittered about the thatched eaves and budding hedges; the robin threw a livelier o his late querulous wintry strain; and the lark, springing up from the reeking bosom of the meadow, towered away into the bright ?eecy cloud, p forth torrents of melody. As I watched the little songster mounting up higher and higher, until his body was a mere spe the white bosom of the cloud, while the ear was still ?lled with his music, it called to mind Shakespeares exquisite little song in Cymbeline:
Hark! hark! the lark at heavns gate sings,And Phoebus gins arise,His steeds to water at those springs,On chaliced ?owers that lies.And winking mary-buds beginTo ope their golden eyes;With every thing that pretty bin,My lady sweet arise!
Ihe whole try about here is poetic ground: everything is associated with the idea of Shakespeare. Every old cottage that I saw I fancied into some resort of his boyhood, where he had acquired his intimate knowledge of rustic life and manners, and heard those legendary tales and wild superstitions which he has woven like witchcraft into his dramas. For in his time, we are told, it ular amusement in winter evenings "to sit round the ?re, and tell merry tales of errant knights, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfs, thieves, cheaters, witches, fairies, goblins, and friars."*
* Scot, in his "Discoverie of Witchcraft," ees a of these ?reside fancies: "And they have so fraid us with host bull-beggars, spirits, witches, urs, elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, pans, faunes, syrens, kit with the sticke, tritons, taurs, dwarfes, giantes, imps, calcars, jurors, nymphes, gelings, incubus, Robin-goodfellow, the spoorhe mare, the man in the oke, the hell-waihe ?er drake, the puckle, Tom Thombe, hobgoblins, Tom Tumbler, boneless, and such s, that we were afraid of our own shadowes."
My route for a part of the way lay in sight of the Avon, which made a variety of the most fancy doublings and windings through a wide aile valley--sometimes glittering from among willows which fris borders; sometimes disappearing among groves or beh green banks; and sometimes rambling out into full view and making an azure sweep round a slope of meadow-land. This beautiful bosom of try is called the Vale of the Red Horse. A distant line of undulating blue hills seems to be its boundary, whilst all the soft intervening landscape lies in a manner ened in the silver links of the Avon.
After pursuing the road for about three miles, I turned off into a footpath, which led along the borders of ?elds and under hedgerows to a private gate of the park; there was a stile, however, for the be of the pedestrian, there being a public right of way through the grounds. I delight in these hospitable estates, in which every one has a kind of property--at least as far as the footpath is ed. It in some measure reciles a poor man to his lot, and, what is more, to the better lot of his neighbor, thus to have parks and pleasure-grounds thrown open for his recreation. He breathes the pure air as freely and lolls as luxuriously uhe shade as the lord of the soil; and if he has not the privilege of calling all that he sees his own, he has not, at the same time, the trouble of paying for it and keeping it in order.
I now found myself among noble avenues of oaks and elms, whose vast size bespoke the growth of turies. The wind sounded solemnly among their branches, and the rooks cawed from their hereditary s iree-tops. The eye rahrough a long lessening vista, with nothing to interrupt the view but a distant statue and a vagrant deer stalking like a shadow across the opening.
There is something about these stately old avehat has the effect of Gothic architecture, not merely from the pretended similarity of form, but from their bearing the evidence of long duration, and of having had their in in a period of time with which we associate ideas of romantic grandeur. They betoken also the loled dignity and proudly-trated independence of an a family; and I have heard a worthy but aristocratic old friend observe, when speaking of the sumptuous palaentry, that "money could do much with stone and mortar, but thank Heaven! there was no such thing as suddenly building up an avenue of oaks."
It was from wandering in early life among this rich sery, and about the romantic solitudes of the adjoining park of Fullbroke, which then formed a part of the Lucy estate, that some of Shakepeares entators have supposed he derived his noble forest meditations of Jaques and the enting woodland pictures in "As You Like It." It is in lonely wanderings through such ses that the mind drinks deep but quiet draughts of inspiration, and bees intensely sensible of the beauty and majesty of Nature. The imagination kindles into reverie and rapture, vague but exquisite images and ideas keep breaking upon it, and we revel in a mute and almost inunicable luxury of thought. It was in some such mood, and perhaps under one of those very trees before me, which threw their broad shades over the grassy banks and quivering waters of the Avon, that the poets fancy may have sallied forth into that little song which breathes the very soul of a rural voluptuary
Unto the greenwood tree,Who loves to lie with meAnd tune his merry throatUnto the sweet birds note,e hither, e hither, e hither.Here shall he seeNo enemy,But winter and rough weather.
I had now e in sight of the house. It is a large building of brick with stone quoins, and is ihic style of Queen Elizabeths day, having been built in the ?rst year of her reign. The exterior remains very nearly in its inal state, and may be sidered a fair spe of the residence of a wealthy try gentleman of those days. A great gateens from the park into a kind of courtyard in front of the house, ored with a grassplot, shrubs, and ?ower-beds. The gateway is in imitation of the a barba, being a kind of outpost and ?anked by towers, though evidently for mere or, instead of defehe front of the house is pletely in the old style with stone-shafted casements, a great bow-window of heavy stone-work, and a portal with armorial bearings over it carved in sto each er of the building is an octagon tower surmounted by a gilt ball aher-cock.
The Avon, which winds through the park, makes a bend just at the foot of a gently-sloping bank which sweeps down from the rear of the house. Large herds of deer were feeding or reposing upon its borders, and swans were sailing majestically upon its bosom. As I plated the venerable old mansion I called to mind Falstaffs en on Justice Shallows abode, and the affected indifferend real vanity of the latter:
"Falstaff. You have a goodly dwelling and a rich.
Shallow. Barren, barren, barren; beggars all, beggars all, Sir John:--marry, good air."
Whatever may have been the joviality of the old mansion in the days of Shakespeare, it had now an air of stillness and solitude.
The great iron gateway that opened into the courtyard was locked, there was no show of servants bustling about the place; the deer gazed quietly at me as I passed, being no longer harried by the moss-troopers of Stratford. The only sign of domestic life that I met with was a white cat stealing with wary look and stealthy pace towards the stables, as if on some nefarious expedition. I must not omit to mention the carcass of a sdrel crow which I saw suspended against the barn-wall, as it shows that the Lucys still i that lordly abhorrence of poachers and maintain that rigorous exercise of territorial power which was so strenuously maed in the case of the bard.
After prowling about for some time, I at length found my way to a lateral portal, which was the every-day entrao the mansion.
I was courteously received by a worthy old housekeeper, who, with the civility and unicativeness of her order, showed me the interior of the house. The greater part has undergoerations and been adapted to modern tastes and modes of living: there is a ?ne old oaken staircase, and the great hall, that noble feature in an a?９９ｌib? manor-house, still retains much of the appeara must have had in the days of Shakespeare. The ceiling is arched and lofty, and at one end is a gallery in which stands an an. The ons and trophies of the chase, whierly adorhe hall of a try gentleman, have made way for family portraits. There is a wide, hospitable ?replace, calculated for an ample old-fashioned wood ?re, formerly the rallying-place of winter festivity. On the opposite side of the hall is the huge Gothic bow-window, with stone shafts, which looks out upon the courtyard. Here are emblazoned in stained glass the armorial bearings of the Lucy family for many geions, some being dated in 1558. I was delighted to observe in the quarterings the three white luces by which the character of Sir Thomas was ?rst identi?ed with that of Justice Shallow. They are mentioned in the ?rst se of the "Merry Wives of Windsor," where the justice, is in a rage with Falstaff for having "beaten his men, killed his deer, and broken into his lodge." The poet had no doubt the offences of himself and his rades in mind at the time, and we may suppose the family pride and vindictive threats of the puissant Shallow to be a caricature of the pompous indignation of Sir Thomas.
"Shallow. Sir Hugh, persuade me not: I will make a Star Chamber matter of it; if he were twenty John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Sir Robert Shallow, Esq.
Slender. In the ty of Gloster, justice of pead .
Shallow. Ay, cousin Slender, and custalorum.
Slender. Ay, and ratolorum too, and a gentleman born, master parson; who writes himself Armigero in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation, Armigero.
Shallow. Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three hundred years.
Slender. All his successone before him have do, and all his aors that e after him may; they may give the dozen white luces in their coat. . . .
Shallow. The cil shall hear it; it is a riot.
Evans. It is not meet the cil hear of a riot; there is no fear of Got in a riot; the cil, hear you, shall desire to hear the fear of Got, and not to hear a riot; take your vizaments in that.
Shallow. Ha! o my life, if I were young again, the sword should end it!"
he window thus emblazoned hung a portrait, by Sir Peter Lely, of one of the Lucy family, a great beauty of the time of Charles the Sed: the old housekeeper shook her head as she poio the picture, and informed me that this lady had been sadly addicted to cards, and had gambled away a great portion of the family estate, among which was that part of the park where Shakespeare and his rades had killed the deer. The lands thus lost had not beeirely regained by the family even at the present day. It is but justice to this ret dame to fess that she had a surpassingly ?ne hand and arm.
The picture which most attracted my attention was a great painting over the ?replace, taining likenesses of Sir Thomas Lud his family who inhabited the hall iter part of Shakespeares lifetime. I at ?rst thought that it was the vindictive knight himself, but the housekeeper assured me that it was his son; the only likeness extant of the former being an ef?gy upon his tomb in the church of the neighb hamlet of Charlecot.*
* This ef?gy is in white marble, and represents the knight in plete armor. Near him lies the ef?gy of his wife, and oomb is the following inscription; which, if really posed by her husband, places him quite above the intellectual level of Master Shallow:
Here lyeth the Lady Joyce Lucy wife of Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecot in ye ty of Warwick, Knight, Daughter and heir of Thomas A of Sutton in ye ty of Worcester Esquire who departed out of this wretched world to her heavenly kingdom ye 10 day of February in ye yeare of our Lod 1595 and of her age 60 and three. All the time of her lyfe a true and faythful servant of her good God, never detected of any cryme or vice. In religion most sounde, in love to her husband most faythful and true. In friendship most stant; to what in trust was itted unto her most secret. In wisdom excelling. In g of her house, bringing up of youth in ye fear of God that did verse with her moste rare and singular. A great maintayner of hospitality. Greatly esteemed of her betters; misliked of none unless of the envyous. When all is spoken that be saide a woman so garnished with virtue as not to be bettered and hardly to be equalled by any. As shee lived most virtuotisly so shee died most Godly. Set downe by him yt best did knowe what hath byn written to be true.
Thomas Lucye.
The picture gives a lively idea of the e and manners of the time. Sir Thomas is dressed in ruff and doublet, white shoes with roses in them, and has a peaked yellow, or, as Master Slender would say, "a e-colored beard." His lady is seated on the opposite side of the picture in wide ruff and long stomacher, and the children have a most venerable stiffness and formality of dress. Hounds and spaniels are mingled in the family group; a hawk is seated on his per the fround, and one of the children holds a bow, all intimating the knights skill in hunting, hawking, and archery, so indispensable to an aplished gentleman in those days.*
* Bishop Earle, speaking of the try gentleman of his time, observes, "His housekeeping is seen mu the different families of dogs and servitendant on their kennels; and the deepness of their throats is the depth of his discourse. A hawk he esteems the true burden of nobility, and is exceedingly ambitious to seem delighted with the sport, and have his ?st gloved with his jesses." And Gilpin, in his description of a Mr.
Hastings, remarks, "He kept all sorts of hounds that run buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger; and had hawks of all kinds both long and short winged. His great hall was only strewed with marrow-bones, and full of hawk perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers. On a broad hearth, paved with brick, lay some of the choicest terriers, hounds, and spaniels."
I regretted to ?nd that the a furniture of the hall had disappeared; for I had hoped to meet with the stately elbow-chair of carved oak in which the try squire of former days was wont to sway the sceptre of empire over his rural domains, and in which it might be presumed the redoubled Sir Thomas sat enthroned in awful state when the ret Shakespeare was brought before him. As I like to deck out pictures for my owertai, I pleased myself with the idea that this very hall had been the se of the unlucky bards examination on the m after his captivity in the lodge. I fao myself the rural potentate surrounded by his body-guard of butler, pages, and blue-coated serving-men with their badges, while the luckless culprit was brought in, forlorn and chopfallen, in the custody of gamekeepers, huntsmen, and whippers-in, and followed by a rabble rout of try s. I fancied bright faces of curious housemaids peeping from the half-opened doors, while from the gallery the fair daughters of the knight leaned gracefully forward, eyeing the youthful prisoner with that pity "that dwells in womanhood." Who would have thought that this poor varlet, thus trembling before the brief authority of a try squire, and the sport of rustic boors, was soon to bee the delight of prihe theme of all tongues and ages, the dictator to the human mind and was to fer immortality on his oppressor by a caricature and a lampoon?
I was now invited by the butler to walk into the garden, and I felt ined to visit the orchard and harbor where the justice treated Sir John Falstaff and Cousin Silence "to a last years pippin of his own grafting, with a dish of caraways;" but I bad already spent so much of the day in my ramblings that I was obliged to give up any further iigations. When about to take my leave I was grati?ed by the civil eies of the housekeeper and butler that I would take some refreshment--an instance of good old hospitality which, I grieve to say, we castle-hunters seldom meet with in modern days. I make no doubt it is a virtue which the present representative of the Lucys is from his aors; for Shakespeare, even in his caricature, makes Justice Shallow importunate in this respect, as witness his pressing instao Falstaff:
"By cod pye, Sir, you shall not away to-night. . . . . I will not excuse you; you shall not be excused; excuses shall not be admitted; there is no excuse shall serve; you shall not be excused. . . . Some pigeons, Davy, a couple of short-legged hens; a joint of mutton; and any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell `William Cook."
I now bade a relut farewell to the old hall. My mind had bee so pletely possessed by the imaginary ses and characters ected with it that I seemed to be actually living among them. Everything brought them as it were before my eyes, and as the door of the dining-room opened I almost expected to hear the feeble voiaster Silence quavering forth his favorite ditty:
"Tis merry in hall, when beards wag all,And welerry Shrove-tide!"
Ourning to my inn I could not but re?e the singular gift of the poet, to be able thus to spread the magic of his mind over the very face of Nature, to give to things and places a charm and character not their own, and to turn this "w-day world" into a perfect fairy-land. He is ihe true enter, whose spell operates, not upon the senses, but upon the imagination and the heart. Uhe wizard in?uence of Shakespeare I had been walking all day in a plete delusion. I had surveyed the landscape through the prism of poetry, which tinged every object with the hues of the rainbow. I had been surrounded with fancied beings, with mere airy nothings jured up by poetic power, yet which, to me, had all the charm of reality. I had heard Jaques soliloquize beh his oak; had beheld the fair Rosalind and her panion adventuring through the woodlands; and, above all, had been once more present in spirit with fat Jack Falstaff and his poraries, from the august Justice Shallow down to the gentle Master Slender and the sweet Anne Page. Ten thousand honors and blessings on the bard who has thus gilded the dull realities of life with i illusions, who has spread exquisite and unbought pleasures in my chequered path, and beguiled my spirit in many a lonely hour with all the cordial and cheerful sympathies of social life!
As I crossed the bridge over the Avon on my return, I paused to plate the distant chur which the poet lies buried, and could not but exult in the maledi which has kept his ashes undisturbed in its quiet and hallowed vaults. What honor could his name have derived from being mingled in dusty panionship with the epitaphs as and venal eulogiums of a titled multitude? What would a crowded er iminster Abbey have been, pared with this reverend pile, which seems to stand iiful loneliness as his sole mausoleum! The solitude about the grave may be but the offspring of an overwrought sensibility; but human nature is made up of foibles and prejudices, and its best and te affes are mingled with these factitious feelings. He who has sought renown about the world, and has reaped a full harvest of worldly favor, will ?nd, after all, that there is no love, no admiration, no applause, so sweet to the soul as that which springs up in his native place. It is there that he seeks to be gathered in pead honor among his kindred and his early friends. And when the weary heart and failing head begin to warn him that the evening of life is drawing ourns as fondly as does the infant to the mothers arms to sink to sleep in the bosom of the se of his childhood.
How would it have cheered the spirit of the youthful bard when, wandering forth in disgrace upon a doubtful world, he cast back a heavy look upon his paternal home, could he have foreseen that before many years he should return to it covered with renown; that his name should bee the boast and glory of his native place; that his ashes should be religiously guarded as its most precious treasure; and that its lessening spire, on which his eyes were ?xed in tearful plation, should one day bee the bea t amidst the gentle landscape to guide the literary pilgrim of every nation to his tomb!
TRAITS OF INDIAN CHARACTER.
"I appeal to any white man if ever he entered Logans hungry, and he gave him not to eat; if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not."--Speech of au Indian Chief.
THERE is something in the character and habits of the North Ameri savage, taken in e with the sery over which he is aced te, its vast lakes, boundless forests, majestic rivers, and trackless plains, that is, to my mind, wonderfully striking and sublime. He is formed for the wilderness, as the Arab is for the desert. His nature is stern, simple, and enduring, ?tted to grapple with dif?culties and to support privations. There seems but little soil in his heart for the support of the kindly virtues; a, if we would but take the trouble to pee through that proud stoicism and habitual taciturnity which lock up his character from casual observation, we should ?nd him lio his fellow-man of civilized life by more of those sympathies and affes than are usually ascribed to him.
It has bee of the unfortunate abines of Ameri the early periods of ization to be doubly wronged by the white men. They have been dispossessed of their hereditary possessions by merary and frequently wanton warfare, and their characters have been traduced by bigoted and ied writers.
The ists ofteed them like beasts of the forest, and the author has endeavored to justify him in his es. The former found it easier to extermihan to civilize; the latter to vilify than to discrimihe appellations of savage and pagan were deemed suf?t to san the hostilities of both; and thus the poor wanderers of the forest were persecuted and defamed, not because they were guilty, but because they were ignorant.
The rights of the savage have seldom been properly appreciated or respected by the white man. In peace he has too oftehe dupe of artful traf? war he has been regarded as a ferocious animal whose life or death was a question of mere precaution and venience. Man is cruelly wasteful of life when his own safety is endangered and he is sheltered by impunity, and little mercy is to be expected from him when he feels the sting of the reptile and is scious of the power to destroy.
The same prejudices, which were indulged thus early, exist in on circulation at the present day. Certain learned societies have, it is true, with laudable diligence, endeavored to iigate and record the real characters and manners of the Indian tribes; the Ameri gover, too, has wisely and humanely exerted itself to inculcate a friendly and forbearing spirit towards them and to protect them from fraud and injustice.* The current opinion of the Indian character, however, is too apt to be formed from the miserable hordes whifest the frontiers and hang on the skirts of the settlements. These are too only posed of degee beings, corrupted and enfeebled by the vices of society, without beied by its civilization. That proud independence whied the main pillar of savage virtue has been shaken down, and the whole moral fabric lies in ruins. Their spirits are humiliated and debased by a sense of inferiority, and their native ce cowed and daunted by the superior knowledge and power of their enlightened neighbors. Society has advanced upon them like one of those withering airs that will sometimes breed desolation over a whion of fertility. It has eed their strength, multiplied their diseases, and superinduced upon their inal barbarity the low vices of arti?cial life. It has given them a thousand super?uous wants, whilst it has dimiheir means of mere existe has driven before it the animals of the chase, who ?y from the sound of the axe and the smoke of the settlement and seek refuge in the depths of remoter forests a untrodden wilds. Thus do we too often ?nd the Indians on our froo be the mere wrecks and remnants of once powerful tribes, who have lingered in the viity of the settlements and sunk into precarious and vagaboence. Poverty, repining and hopeless poverty, a ker of the mind unknown in savage life, corrodes their spirits and blights every free and noble quality of their natures. They bee drunken, i, feeble, thievish, and pusillanimous. They loiter like vagrants about the settlements, among spacious dwellings replete with elaborate forts, whily rehem sensible of the parative wretess of their own dition. Luxury spreads its ample board before their eyes, but they are excluded from the ba. Plenty revels over the ?elds, but they are starving in the midst of its abundance; the whole wilderness has blossomed into a garden, but they feel as reptiles that i it.
* The Ameri Gover has been iigable in its exertions to ameliorate the situation of the Indians, and to introduce among them the arts of civilization and civil and religious knowledge. To protect them from the frauds of the white traders no purchase of land from them by individuals is permitted, nor is any person allowed to receive lands from them as a present without the express san of gover. These precautions are strictly enforced.
How different was their state while yet the undisputed lords of the soil! Their wants were few and the means of grati?cation within their reach. They saw every one round them sharing the same lot, enduring the same hardships, feeding on the same aliments, arrayed in the same rude garments. No roof then rose but en to the homeless stranger; no smoke curled among the trees but he was wele to sit down by its ?re and join the hunter in his repast. "For," says an old historian of New England, "their life is so void of care, and they are so loving also, that they make use of those things they enjoy as on goods, and are therein so passiohat rather than one should starve through want, they would starve all; thus they pass their time merrily, narding our pomp, but are better tent with their own, whieeem so meanly of." Such were the Indians whilst in the pride and energy of their primitive natures: they resembled those wild plants which thrive best in the shades of the forest, but shrink from the hand of cultivation and perish beh the in?uence of the sun.
In discussing the savage character writers have been too proo indulge in vulgar prejudid passionate exaggeration, instead of the did temper of true philosophy. They have not suf?tly sidered the peculiar circumstances in which the Indians have been placed, and the peculiar principles under which they have been educated. No being acts midly from rule than the Indian. His whole duct is regulated acc to some general maxims early implanted in his mind. The moral laws that govern him are, to be sure, but few; but then he s to them all; the white man abounds in laws ion, morals, and manners, but how many does he violate!
A frequent ground of accusation against the Indians is their disregard of treaties, and the treachery and wantonness with which, in time of apparent peace, they will suddenly ?y to hostilities. The intercourse of the white men with the Indians, however, is too apt to be cold, distrustful, oppressive, and insulting. They seldom treat them with that ?dend frankness which are indispensable to real friendship, nor is suf?t caution observed not to offend against those feelings of pride or superstition which often prompt the Indian to hostility quicker than mere siderations of i. The solitary savage feels silently, but acutely. His sensibilities are not diffused over so wide a surface as those of the white man, but they run in steadier and deeper els. His pride, his affes, his superstitions, are all directed towards fewer objects, but the wounds in?icted on them are proportionably severe, and furnish motives of hostility which we ot suf?tly appreciate. Where a unity is also limited in number, and forms one great patriarchal family, as in an Indian tribe, the injury of an individual is the injury of the whole, and the se of vengeance is almost instantaneously diffused. One cil-?re is suf?t for the discussion and arra of a plan of hostilities. Here all the ?ghting-men and sages assemble. Eloquend superstition bio ihe minds of the warriors. The orator awakens their martial ardor, and they are wrought up to a kind ious desperation by the visions of the prophet and the dreamer.
An instance of one of those sudden exasperations, arising from a motive peculiar to the Indian character, is extant in an old record of the early settlement of Massachusetts. The planters of Plymouth had defaced the mos of the dead at Passo, and had pluhe grave of the Sachems mother of some skins with which it had been decorated. The Indians are remarkable for the reverence which they eain for the sepulchres of their kiribes that have passed geions exiled from the abodes of their aors, when by ce they have been travelling in the viity, have been known to turn aside from the highway, and, guided by wonderfully accurate tradition, have crossed the try for miles to some tumulus, buried perhaps in woods, where the bones of their tribe were aly deposited, and there have passed hours in sileation. In?uenced by this sublime and holy feeling, the Sachem whose mothers tomb had been violated gathered his men together, and addressed them in the followiifully simple and pathetic harangue--a curious spe of Indian eloquend an affeg instance of ?lial piety in a savage:
"When last the glorious light of all the sky was underh this globe and birds grew silent, I began to settle, as my is, to take repose. Before mine eyes were fast closed methought I saw a vision, at which my spirit was much troubled; and trembling at that doleful sight, a spirit cried aloud, Behold, my son, whom I have cherished, see the breasts that gave thee suck, the hands that lapped thee warm ahee oft. st thou fet to take revenge of those wild people who have defaced my mo in a despiteful manner, disdaining our antiquities and honorable s? See, now, the Sachems grave lies like the on people, defaced by an ignoble race. Thy mother doth plain and implores thy aid against this thievish people who have newly intruded on our land. If this be suffered, I shall not rest quiet in my everlasting habitation. This said, the spirit vanished, and I, all in a sweat, not able scarce to speak, began to get some strength and recollect my spirits that were ?ed, aermio demand your sel and assistance."
I have adduced this ae at some length, as it tends to show how these sudden acts of hostility, which have been attributed to caprid per?dy, may often arise from deep and generous motives, which our iion to Indian character and s prevents our properly appreciating.
Anround of violent ainst the Indians is their barbarity to the vanquished. This had its in partly in polid partly in superstition. The tribes, though sometimes called nations, were never so formidable in their numbers but that the loss of several warriors was sensibly felt; this articularly the case when they had been frequently engaged in warfare; and many an instance occurs in Indian history where a tribe that had long been formidable to its neighbors has been broken up and driven away by the capture and massacre of its principal ?ghtihere was a stroation, therefore, to the victor to be merciless, not so much to gratify any cruel revenge, as to provide for future security. The Indians had also the superstitious belief, frequent among barbarous nations and prevalent also among the as, that the manes of their friends who had fallen in battle were soothed by the blood of the captives. The prisoners, however, who are not thus sacri?ced are adopted into their families in the place of the slain, and are treated with the ?dend affe of relatives and friends; nay, so hospitable and tender is their eaihat wheernative is offered them they will often prefer to remain with their adopted brethren rather than ..return to the home and the friends of their youth.
The cruelty of the Indians towards their prisoners has beeened sihe ization of the whites. What was formerly a pliah polid superstition has been exasperated into a grati?cation of vengeahey ot but be sensible that the white mehe usurpers of their a dominion, the cause of their degradation, and the gradual destroyers of their race. They go forth to battle smarting with injuries and indignities which they have individually suffered, and they are driven to madness and despair by the wide-spreading desolation and the overwhelming ruin of European warfare. The whites have too frequently set them an example of violence by burning their villages and laying waste their slender means of subsistence, ahey wohat savages do not show moderation and magnanimity towards those who have left them nothing but mere existend wretess.
We stigmatize the Indians, also, as cowardly and treacherous, because they use stratagem in warfare in prefereo open force; but in this they are fully justi?ed by their rude code of honor. They are early taught that stratagem is praiseworthy; the bravest warrior thinks it no disgrace to lurk in silence, and take every advantage of his foe: he triumphs in the superior craft and sagacity by which he has been eo surprise aroy an enemy. Indeed, man is naturally more proo subtilty than open valor, owing to his physical weakness in parison with other animals. They are endowed with natural ons of defence, with horns, with tusks, with hoofs, and talons; but man has to depend on his superiacity. In all his enters with these, his proper enemies, he resorts tem; and when he perversely turns his hostility against his fellow-ma ?rst tihe same subtle mode of warfare.
The natural principle of war is to do the most harm to our enemy with the least harm to ourselves; and this of course is to be effected by stratagem. That chivalrous ce whiduces us to despise the suggestions of prudend to rush in the face of certain danger is the offspring of society and produced by education. It is honorable, because it is in fact the triumph of lofty se over an instinctive repugo pain, and over those yearnings after personal ease and security which society has ned as ig is kept alive by pride and the fear of shame; and thus the dread of real evil is overe by the superior dread of an evil which exists but in the imagination. It has been cherished and stimulated also by various means. It has beeheme of spirit-stirring song and chivalrous story. The poet and minstrel have delighted to shed round it the splendors of ?, and even the historian has fotten the sravity of narration and broken forth ihusiasm and rhapsody in its praise. Triumphs and geous pageants have been its reward: mos, on which art has exhausted its skill and opules treasures, have beeed to perpetuate a nations gratitude and admiration. Thus arti?cially excited, ce has risen to araordinary and factitious degree of heroism, and, arrayed in all the glorious "pomp and circumstance of war," this turbulent quality has even been able to eclipse many of those quiet but invaluable virtues which silently enhe human character and swell the tide of human happiness.
But if ce intrinsically sists in the de?ance of dangbbr>?er and pain, the life of the Indian is a tinual exhibition of it.
He lives in a state of perpetual hostility and risk. Peril and adventure are genial to his nature, or rather seem necessary to arouse his faculties and to give an io his existence.
Surrounded by hostile tribes, whose mode of warfare is by ambush and surprisal, he is alrepared fht and lives with his ons in his hands. As the ship careers in fearful singlehrough thbbr>.９９lｉｂ?e solitudes of o, as the bird mingles among clouds and storms, and wings its way, a mere speck, across the pathless ?elds of air, so the Indian holds his course, silent, solitary, but undauhrough the boundless bosom of the wilderness. His expeditions may vie in distand danger with the pilgrimage of the devotee or the crusade of the knight-errant. He traverses vast forests exposed to the hazards of lonely siess, of lurking enemies, and pining famiormy lakes, those great inland seas, are no obstacles to his wanderings: in his light oe of bark he sports like a feather on their waves, and darts with the swiftness of an arrow down the r rapids of the rivers. His very subsistence is snatched from the midst of toil and peril. He gains his food by the hardships and dangers of the chase: he s himself in the spoils of the bear, the panther, and the buffalo, and sleeps among the thunders of the cataract.
No hero of a or modern days surpass the Indian in his lofty pt of death and the fortitude with which he sustains his cruelest af?i. Indeed, we here behold him rising superior to the white man in sequence of his peculiar education. The latter rushes to glorious death at the outh; the former calmly plates its approach, and triumphantly e amidst the varied torments of surrounding foes and the protracted agonies of ?re. He even takes a pride in taunting his persecutors and provoking their iy of torture; and as the dev ?ames prey on his very vitals and the ?esh shrinks from the sinews, he raises his last song of triumph, breathing the de?ance of an unquered heart and invoking the spirits of his fathers to withat he dies without a groan.
Notwithstanding the obloquy with which the early historians have overshadowed the characters of the unfortuives, some bright gleams occasionally break through which throw a degree of melancholy lustre on their memories. Facts are occasionally to be met with in the rude annals of the eastern provinces which, though recorded with the c of prejudid bigotry, yet speak for themselves, and will be dwelt on with applause and sympathy when prejudice shall have passed away.
In one of the homely narratives of the Indian wars in New England there is a toug at of the desolation carried into the tribe of the Pequod Indians. Humanity shrinks from the cold-blooded detail of indiscrimichery. In one place we read of the surprisal of an Indian fort in the night, when the wigwams were ed in ?ames and the miserable inhabitants shot down and slain in attempting to escape, "all beiched and ended in the course of an hour." After a series of similar transas "our soldiers," as the historian piously observes, "being resolved by Gods assistao make a ?nal destru of them," the unhappy savages being hunted from their homes and fortresses and pursued with ?re and sword, a sty but gallant band, the sad remnant of the Pequod warriors, with their wives and children te in a s.
Burning with indignation and rendered sullen by despair, with hearts bursting with grief at the destru of their tribe, and spirits galled and sore at the fancied ignominy of their defeat, they refused to ask their lives at the hands of an insulting foe, and preferred death to submission.
As the night drew on they were surrounded in their dismal retreat, so as to render escape impracticable. Thus situated, their enemy "plied them with shot all the time, by which means many were killed and buried in the mire." In the darkness and fog that preceded the dawn of day some few broke through the besiegers and escaped into the woods; "the rest were left to the querors, of which many were killed in the s, like sullen dogs who would rather, in their self-willedness and madness, sit still and be shot through or cut to pieces" than implore for mercy. When the day broke upon this handful of forlorn but dauntless spirits, the soldiers, we are told, entering the s, "saw several heaps of them sitting close together, upon whom they discharged their pieces, laden with ten or twelve pistol bullets at a time, putting the muzzles of the pieces uhe boughs, within a few yards of them; so as, besides those that were found dead, many more were killed and sunk into the mire, and never were minded more by friend or foe."
any ohis plain unvarale without admiring the stern resolution, the unbending pride, the loftiness of spirit that seemed to he hearts of these self-taught heroes and to raise them above the instinctive feelings of human nature?
When the Gauls laid waste the city of Rome, they found the senators clothed in their robes aed with stern tranquillity in their curule chairs; in this mahey suffered death without resistance or even supplication. Such duct was in them applauded as noble and magnanimous; in the hapless Indian it was reviled as obstinate and sullen. How truly are we the dupes of show and circumstance! How different is virtue clothed in purple ahroned in state, from virtue naked aute and perishing obscurely in a wilderness!
But I forbear to dwell on these gloomy pictures. The eastern tribes have long since disappeared; the forests that sheltered them have been laid low, and scary traces remain of them ihickly-settled States of New England, excepting here and there the Indian name of a village or a stream. And such must, sooner or later, be the fate of those other tribes which skirt the frontiers, and have occasionally been inveigled from their forests to mingle in the wars of white men. In a little while, and they will go the way that their brethren have gone before.
The few hordes which still linger about the shores of Huron and Superior and the tributary streams of the Mississippi will share the fate of those tribes that once spread over Massachusetts and ecticut and lorded it along the proud banks of the Hudson, of that gigantic race said to have existed on the borders of the Susquehanna, and of those various nations that ?ourished about the Potomad the Rappahannod that peopled the forests of the vast valley of Shenandoah. They will vanish like a vapor from the face of the earth; their very history will be lost in fetfulness; and "the places that now know them will know them no more forever." Or if, perce, some dubious memorial of them should survive, it may be in the romantic dreams of the poet, to people in imagination his glades and groves, like the fauns and satyrs and sylvaies of antiquity. But should he venture upon the dark story of their wrongs and wretess, should he tell how they were invaded, corrupted, despoiled, driven from their native abodes and the sepulchres of their fathers, hunted like wild beasts about the earth, a down with violend butchery to the grave, posterity will either turn with horror and incredulity from the tale or blush with indignation at the inhumanity of their forefathers. "We are driven back," said an old warrior, "until we retreat no farther--our hatchets are broken, our bows are snapped, our ?res are nearly extinguished; a little longer and the white man will cease to persecute us, for we shall cease to exist!"
PHILIP OF POKANOKET.
AN INDIAN MEMOIR.
As moal bronze unged his look:
A soul that pity touchd, but never shook;Traind from his tree-rockd cradle to his bier,The ?erce extremes of good and ill to brookImpassive--fearing but the shame of fear--stoic of the woods--a man without a tear.CAMPBELL.
IT is to be regretted that those early writers who treated of the discovery alement of America have not given us more particular and did ats of the remarkable characters that ?ourished in savage life. The sty aes which have reached us are full of peculiarity and i; they furnish us with nearer glimpses of human nature, and show what man is in a paratively primitive state and what he owes to civilization.
There is something of the charm of discovery in lighting upon these wild and unexplored tracts of human nature--in witnessing, as it were, the native growth of moral se, and perceiving those generous and romantic qualities which have been arti?cially cultivated by society vegetating in spontaneous hardihood and rude magni?ce.
In civilized life, where the happiness, and indeed almost the existenan depends so much upon the opinion of his fellow-men, he is stantly ag a studied part. The bold and peculiar traits of native character are re?ned away or softened down by the levelling in?uence of what is termed good-breeding, and he practises so may deceptions and affects so many generous ses for the purposes of popularity that it is dif?cult to distinguish his real from his arti?cial character.
The Indian, on the trary, free from the restraints and re?s of polished life, and in a great degree a solitary and indepe being, obeys the impulses of his ination or the dictates of his judgment; and thus the attributes of his nature, being freely indulged, grow singly great and striking.
Society is like a lawn, where every roughness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and where the eye is delighted by the smiling verdure of a velvet surface; he, however, who would study Nature in its wildness and variety must pluo the forest, must explore the glen, must stem the torrent, and dare the precipice.
These re?es arose on casually looking through a volume of early ial history wherein are recorded, with great bitterness, the es of the Indians and their wars with the settlers New England. It is painful to perceive, even from these partial narratives, how the footsteps of civilization may be traced in the blood of the abines; how easily the ists were moved to hostility by the lust of quest; how merciless aerminating was their warfare. The imagination shrinks at the idea of how many intellectual beings were hunted from the earth, how many brave and noble hearts, of Natures sterling age, were broken down and trampled in the dust.
Such was the fate of PHILIP OF POKA, an Indian warrior whose name was oerror throughout Massachusetts and ecticut.
He was the most distinguished of a number of porary sachems whned over the Pequods, the Narragas, the anoags, and the other eastern tribes at the time of the ?rst settlement of New England--a band of native untaught heroes who made the most generous struggle of which human nature is capable, ?ghting to the last gasp in the cause of their try, without a hope of victory or a thought of renown. Worthy of an age of poetry and ?t subjects for local story and romantic ?, they have left scarcely any authentic traces on the page of history, but stalk like gigantic shadows in the dim twilight of tradition.*
* While correg the proof-sheets of this article the author is informed that a celebrated English poet has nearly ?nished an heroi oory of Philip of Poka.
When the Pilgrims, as the Plymouth settlers are called by their desdants, ?rst te on the shores of the New World from the religious persecutions of the Old, their situation was to the last degree gloomy and disheartening. Few in number, and that number rapidly perishing away through siess and hardships, surrounded by a howling wilderness and savage tribes, exposed to the rigors of an almost arctiter and the vicissitudes of an ever-shifting climate, their minds were ?lled with doleful forebodings, and nothing preserved them from sinking into despondency but the stroement ious enthusiasm. In this forlorn situation they were visited by Massasoit, chief sagamore of the anoags, a powerful chief whned reat extent of try. Instead of taking advantage of the sty number of the strangers and expelling them from his territories, into which they had intruded, he seemed at oo ceive for them a generous friendship, aeowards them the rites of primitive hospitality. He came early in the spring to their settlement of New Plymouth, attended by a mere handful of followers, entered into a solemn league of pead amity, sold them a portion of the soil, and promised to secure for them the good-will of his savage allies. Whatever may be said of Indian per?dy, it is certain that the iy and good faith of Massasoit have never been impeached. He tinued a ?rm and magnanimous friend of the white men, suffering them to extend their possessions and tthen themselves in the land, araying no jealousy of their increasing porosperity. Shortly before his death he came once more to New Plymouth with his son Alexander, for the purpose of renewing the ant of pead of seg it to his posterity.
At this ference he endeavored to protect the religion of his forefathers from the encroag zeal of the missionaries, and stipulated that no further attempt should be made to draw off his people from their a faith; but, ?nding the English obstinately opposed to any such dition, he mildly relinquished the demand. Almost the last act of his life was t his two sons, Alexander and Philip (as they had been named by the English), to the residence of a principal settler, reending mutual kindness and ?dence, areating that the same love and amity which had existed between the white men and himself might be tinued afterwards with his children. The good old sachem died in peace, and was happily gathered to his fathers before sorrow came upon his tribe; his children remained behind to experiehe ingratitude of white men.
His eldest son, Alexander, succeeded him. He was of a quid impetuous temper, and proudly tenacious of his hereditary rights and dignity. The intrusive polid dictatorial duct of the strangers excited his indignation, and he beheld with uneasiheir exterminating wars with the neighb tribes. He was doomed soon to incur their hostility, being accused of plotting with the Narragas to rise against the English and drive them from the land. It is impossible to say whether this accusation was warranted by facts or was grounded on mere suspis. It is evident, however, by the violent and overbearing measures of the settlers that they had by this time begun to feel scious of the rapid increase of their power, and to grow harsh and insiderate ireatment of the natives. They despatched an armed force to seize upon Alexander and t him before their courts. He was traced to his woodland haunts, and surprised at a hunting-house where he was reposing with a band of his followers, unarmed, after the toils of the chase. The suddenness of his arrest and the e offered to his sn dignity so preyed upon the irascible feelings of this proud savage as to throw him inting fever. He ermitted to return home on dition of sending his son as a pledge for his re-appearance; but the blow he had received was fatal, and before he reached his home he fell a victim to the agonies of a wounded spirit.
The successor of Alexander was Metamocet, or King Philip, as he was called by the settlers on at of his lofty spirit and ambitious temper. These, together with his well-known energy aerprise, had rendered him an object of great jealousy and apprehension, and he was accused of having always cherished a secret and implacable hostility towards the whites. Such may very probably and very naturally have been the case. He sidered them as inally but mere intruders into the try, who had presumed upon indulgend were extending an in?uence baneful to savage life. He saw the whole race of his trymeing before them from the face of the earth, their territories slipping from their hands, and their tribes being feeble, scattered, and depe. It may be said that the soil was inally purchased by the settlers; but who does not know the nature of Indian purchases in the early periods of ization?
The Europeans always made thrifty bargains through their superior adroitness in traf?d they gained vast accessions of territory by easily-provoked hostilities. An uncultivated savage is never a niquirer into the re?s of law by whi injury may be gradually and legally in?icted. Leading facts are all by which he judges; and it was enough for Philip to know that before the intrusion of the Europeans his trymen were lords of the soil, and that now they were being vagabonds in the land of their fathers.
But whatever may have been his feelings of general hostility and his particular indignation at the treatment of his brother, he suppressed them for the present, rehe tract with the settlers, and resided peaceably for many years at Poka, or as, it was called by the English, Mount Hope,* the a seat of dominion of his tribe. Suspis, however, which were at ?rst but vague and ie, began to acquire form and substance, and he was at length charged with attempting to instigate the various eastern tribes to rise at once, and by a simultaneous effort to throw off the yoke of their oppressors. It is dif?cult at this distant period to assign the proper credit due to these early accusations against the Indians. There roo suspi and an apto acts of violen the part of the whites that gave weight and importao every idle tale. Informers abounded where tale-beari with tenand reward, and the sword was readily uhed when its success was certain and it carved out empire.
* Now Bristol, Rhode Island.
The only positive eviden recainst Philip is the accusation of one Sausaman, a renegado Indian, whose natural ing had been quied by a partial education which he had received among the settlers. He ged his faith and his allegiawo or three times with a facility that evihe looseness of his principles. He had acted for some time as Philips ?dential secretary and sellor, and had enjoyed his bounty and prote. Finding, however, that the clouds of adversity were gathering round his patron, he abandoned his servid went over to the whites, and in order to gain their favor charged his former beor with plotting against their safety. A rigorous iigation took place. Philip and several of his subjects submitted to be examined, but nothing roved against them. The settlers, however, had now gooo far to retract; they had previously determihat Philip was a dangerous neighbor; they had publicly eviheir distrust, and had done enough to insure his hostility; acc, therefore, to the usual mode of reasoning in these cases, his destru had bee necessary to their security. Sausaman, the treacherous informer, was shortly afterwards found dead in a pond, having fallen a victim to the vengeance of his tribe. Three Indians, one of whom was a friend and sellor of Philip, were apprehended and tried, and oestimony of one very questioness were ned and executed as murderers.
This treatment of his subjects and ignominious punishment of his friend ed the pride and exasperated the passions of Philip.
The bolt which had fallen thus at his very feet awakened him to the gathering storm, aermio trust himself no longer in the power of the white men. The fate of his insulted and brokeed brother still rankled in his mind; and he had a further warning iragical story of Miantonimo, a great Sachem of the Narragas, who, after manfully fag his accusers before a tribunal of the ists, exculpating himself from a charge of spirad receiving assuranity, had been per?diously despatched at their instigation. Philip therefathered his ?ghting-men about him, persuaded all strahat he could to join his cause, sent the women and children to the Narragas for safety, and wherever he appeared was tinually surrounded by armed warriors.
Whewo parties were thus in a state of distrust and irritation, the least spark was suf?t to set them in a ?ame. The Indians, having ons in their hands, grew mischievous and itted various petty depredations. In one of their maraudings a warrior was ?red on and killed by a settler.
This was the signal for open hostilities; the Indians pressed to revehe death of their rade, and the alarm of war resouhrough the Plymouth y.
In the early icles of these dark and melancholy times we meet with many indications of the diseased state of the publid. The gloom ious abstra and the wildness of their situation among trackless forests and savage tribes had disposed the ists to superstitious fancies, and had ?lled their imaginations with the frightful chimeras of witchcraft and spectrology. They were much given also to a belief in omens. The troubles with Philip and his Indians were preceded, we are told, by a variety of those awful warnings which freat and public calamities. The perfe of an Indian boeared in the air at New Plymouth, which was looked upon by the inhabitants as a &quious apparition." At Hadley, Northampton, and other towns in their neighborhood "was heard the report of a great piece of ordnance, with a shaking of the earth and a siderable echo."* Others were alarmed on a still sunshiny m by the discharge of guns and muskets; bullets seemed to whistle past them, and the noise of drums resounded in the air, seeming to pass away to the westward; others fahat they heard the galloping of horses over their heads; aain monstrous births which took place about the time ?lled the superstitious in some towns with doleful forebodings. Many of these portentous sights and sounds may be ascribed to natural phenomena--to the northern lights which occur vividly in those latitudes, the meteors which explode in the air, the casual rushing of a blast through the top branches of the forest, the crash of fallen trees or disrupted rocks, and to those other uncouth sounds and echoes which will sometimes strike the ear sely amidst the profound stillness of woodland solitudes. These may have startled some melancholy imaginations, may have been exaggerated by the love for the marvellous, and listeo with that avidity with which we devour whatever is fearful and mysterious. The universal currency of these superstitious fancies and the grave reade of them by one of the learned men of the day are strongly characteristic of the times.
* The Rev. Increase Mathers History.
The nature of the test that ensued was such as too often distinguishes the warfare between civilized men and savages. On the part of the whites it was ducted with superior skill and success, but with a wastefulness of the blood and a disregard of the natural rights of their antagonists: on the part of the Indians it was waged with the desperation of men fearless of death, and who had nothing to expect from peace but humiliation, dependence, and decay.
The events of the war are transmitted to us by a worthy clergyman of the time, who dwells with horror and indignation on every hostile act of the Indians, however justi?able, whilst he mentions with applause the most sanguinary atrocities of the whites. Philip is reviled as a murderer and a traitor, without sidering that he was a true-born prince gallantly ?ghting at the head of his subjects to avehe wrongs of his family, to retrieve the t power of his line, and to deliver his native land from the oppression of usurping strangers.
The project of a wide and simultaneous revolt, if such had really been formed, was worthy of a capaind, and had it not beeurely discovered might have been overwhelming in its sequehe war that actually broke out was but a war of detail, a mere succession of casual exploits and unected enterprises. Still, it sets forth the military genius and daring prowess of Philip, and wherever, in the prejudiced and passionate narrations that have been given of it, we arrive at simple facts, we ?nd him displaying a vigorous mind, a fertility of expedients, a pt of suffering and hardship, and an unquerable resolution that and our sympathy and applause.
Driven from his paternal domains at Mount Hope, he threw himself into the depths of those vast and trackless forests that skirted the settlements and were almost impervious to anything but a wild beast or an Indian. Here he gathered together his forces, like the storm accumulating its stores of mischief in the bosom of the thundercloud, and would suddenly emerge at a time and place least expected, carrying havod dismay into the villages. There were now and then indications of these impending ravages that ?lled the minds of the ists with awe and apprehension. The report of a distant gun would perhaps be heard from the solitary woodland, where there was known to be no white man; the cattle which had been wandering in the woods would sometimes return home wounded; or an Indian or two would be seen lurking about the skirts of the forests and suddenly disappearing, as the lightning will sometimes be seen playing silently about the edge of the cloud that is brewing up the tempest.
Though sometimes pursued and even surrounded by the settlers, yet Philip as often escaped almost miraculously from their toils, and, plunging into the wilderness, would be lost to all search or inquiry until he again emerged at some far distant quarter, laying the try desolate. Among his strongholds were the great ss or morasses which extend in some parts of New England, posed of loose bogs of deep black mud, perplexed with thickets, brambles, rank weeds, the shattered and mouldering trunks of fallen trees, overshadowed by lugubrious hemlocks. The uain footing and the tangled mazes of these shaggy wilds rehem almost impracticable to the white man, though the Indian could thread their labyrinths with the agility of a deer.
Into one of these, the great s of Pocasset Neck, hilip once driven with a band of his followers. The English did not dare to pursue him, fearing to veo these dark and frightful recesses, where they might perish in fens and miry pits or be shot down by lurking foes. They therefore ied the entrao the Neck, and began to build a fort with the thought of starving out the foe; but Philip and his warriors wafted themselves on a raft over an arm of the sea in the dead of night, leaving the women and children behind, and escaped away to the westward, kindling the ?ames of war among the tribes of Massachusett..s and the Nipmuck try and threatening the y of ecticut.
In this hilip became a theme of universal apprehension. The mystery in which he was enveloped exaggerated his real terrors.
He was an evil that walked in darkness, whose ing none could foresee and against whione knew when to be on the alert. The whole try abounded with rumors and alarms. Philip seemed almost possessed of ubiquity, for in whatever part of the widely-extended frontier an irruption from the forest took place, Philip was said to be its leader. Many superstitious notions also were circulated ing him. He was said to deal in neancy, and to be attended by an old Indian witch or prophetess, whom he sulted and who assisted him by her charms and intations. This, indeed, was frequently the case with Indian chiefs, either through their own credulity or to act upon that of their followers; and the in?uence of the prophet and the dreamer over Indian superstition has been fully evidenced i instances of savage warfare.
At the time that Philip effected his escape from Pocasset his fortunes were in a desperate dition. His forces had been thinned by repeated ?ghts and he had lost almost the whole of his resources. In this time of adversity he found a faithful friend in chet, chief Sachem of all the Narragas. He was the son and heir of Miantonimo, the great sachem who, as already mentioned, after an honorable acquittal of the charge of spiracy, had been privately put to death at the per?dious instigations of the settlers. "He was the heir," says the old icler, "of all his fathers pride and insolence, as well as of his malice towards the English;" he certainly was the heir of his insults and injuries and the legitimate avenger of his murder. Though he had forboro take an active part in this hopeless war, yet he received Philip and his broken forces with open arms and gave them the most generous tenand support. This at once drew upon him the hostility of the English, and it was determio strike a signal blow that should involve both the Sachems in one on ruin. A great force was therefathered together from Massachusetts, Plymouth, and ecticut, and was sent into the Narraga try in the depth of winter, when the ss, being frozen and lea?ess, could be traversed with parative facility and would no longer afford dark and imperable fasto the Indians.
Apprehensive of attack, chet had veyed th>e greater part of his stores, together with the old, the in?rm, the women and children of his tribe, to a strong fortress, where he and Philip had likewise drawn up the ?ower of their forces. This fortress, deemed by the Indians impregnable, was situated upon a rising mound or kind of island of ?ve or six acres in the midst of a s; it was structed with a degree of judgment and skill vastly superior to what is usually displayed in Indian forti?cation, and indicative of the martial genius of these two chieftains.
Guided by a renegado Indian, the English peed, through December snows, to this stronghold and came upon the garrison by surprise. The ?ght was ?erd tumultuous. The assailants were repulsed in their ?rst attack, and several of their bravest of?cers were shot down i of st the fortress, sword in hand. The assault was renewed with greater success. A lodgment was effected. The Indians were driven from one post to ahey disputed their ground inch by inch, ?ghting with the fury of despair. Most of their veterans were cut to pieces, and after a long and bloody battle, Philip and chet, with a handful of surviving warriors, retreated from the fort and te ihickets of the surrounding forest.
The victors set ?re to the wigwams and the fort; the whole was soon in a blaze; many of the old men, the women, and the children perished in the ?ames. This last e overcame eveoicism of the savage. The neighb woods resounded with the yells e and despair uttered by the fugitive warriors, as they beheld the destru of their dwellings and heard the agonizing cries of their wives and offspring. "The burning of the wigwams," says a porary writer, "the shrieks and cries of the women and children, and the yelling of the warriors, exhibited a most horrible and affeg se, so that it greatly moved some of the soldiers." The same writer cautiously adds, "They were in much doubt then, and afterwards seriously inquired, whether burning their enemies alive could be sistent with humanity, and the benevolent principles of the gospel."*
* MS. of the Rev. W. Ruggles.
The fate of the brave and generous chet is worthy of particular mention: the last se of his life is one of the inst>?ances on record of Indian magnimity.
Broken down in his power and resources by this signal defeat, yet faithful to his ally and to the hapless cause which he had espoused, he rejected all overtures of peace offered on dition of betraying Philip and his followers, and declared that "he would ?ght it out to the last man, rather than bee a servant to the English." His home beiroyed, his try harassed and laid waste by the incursions of the querors, he was obliged to wander away to the banks of the ecticut, where he formed a rallying-point to the whole body of western Indians and laid waste several of the English settlements.
Early in the spring he departed on a hazardous expedition, with only thirty choseo pee to Seack, in the viity of Mount Hope, and to procure seed to plant for the sustenance of his troops. This little hand of adventurers had passed safely through the Pequod try, and were in the tre of the Narraga, resting at some wigwams near Pautucket River, when an alarm was given of an approag enemy. Having but seven men by him at the time, chet despatched two of them to the top of a neighb hill t intelligence of the foe.
Panic-struck by the appearance of a troop of English and Indians rapidly advang, they ?ed ihless terror past their chieftain, without stopping to inform him of the danger.
chet sent another scout, who did the same. He thewo more, one of whom, hurrying ba fusion and affright, told him that the whole British army was at hand. chet saw there was no choice but immediate ?ight. He attempted to escape round the hill, but erceived and hotly pursued by the hostile Indians and a few of the ?eetest of the English. Finding the swiftest pursuer close upon his heels, he threw off, ?rst his blahen his silver-laced coat a of peag, by which his enemies knew him to be chet and redoubled the eagerness of pursuit.
At length, in dashing through the river, his foot slipped upon a stone, and he fell so deep as to wet his gun. This act so struck him with despair that, as he afterwards fessed, "his heart and his bowels turned within him, and he became like a rotten stick, void of strength."
To such a degree was he unhat, being seized by a Pequod Indian within a short distance of the river, he made ahough a man of great vigor of body and boldness of heart. But on being made prisohe whole pride of his spirit arose within him, and from that moment we ?nd, in the aes given by his enemies, nothing but repeated ?ashes of elevated and prince-like heroism. Being questioned by one of the English who ?rst came up with him, and who had not attained his twenty sed year, the proud-hearted warrior, looking with lofty pt upon his youthful tenance, replied, "You are a child--you ot uand matters of war; let your brother or your chief e: him will I answer."
Though repeated offers were made to him of his life on dition of submitting with his nation to the English, yet he rejected them with disdain, and refused to send any proposals of the kind to the great body of his subjects, saying that he knew none of them would ply. Being reproached with his breach of faith towards the whites, his boast that he would not deliver up a anoag nor the paring of a anoags nail, and his threat that he would burn the English alive in their houses, he disdaio justify himself, haughtily answering that others were as forward for the war as himself, and "he desired to hear no more thereof."
So noble and unshaken a spirit, so true a ?delity to his cause and his friend, might have touched the feelings of the generous and the brave; but chet was an Indian, a being towards whom war had no courtesy, humanity no law, religion no passion: he was o die. The last words of his that are recorded are worthy the greatness of his soul. Wheence of death was passed upon him, he observed "that he liked it well, for he should die before his heart was soft or he had spoken anything unworthy of himself." His enemies gave him the death of a soldier, for he was shot at Stoning ham by three young Sachems of his own rank.
The defeat at the Narraga fortress and the death of chet were fatal blows to the fortunes of King Philip. He made an iual attempt to raise a head of war by stirring up the Mohawks to take arms; but, though possessed of the native talents of a statesman, his arts were teracted by the superior arts of his enlightened enemies, and the terror of their warlike skill began to subdue the resolution of the neighb tribes. The unfortunate chieftain saw himself daily stripped of power, and his ranks rapidly thinning around him. Some were suborned by the whites; others fell victims to hunger and fatigue and to the frequent attacks by which they were harassed. His stores were all captured; his chosen friends were swept away from before his eyes; his uncle was shot down by his side; his sister was carried into captivity; and in one of his narrow escapes he was pelled to leave his beloved wife and only son to the mercy of the enemy.
"His ruin," says the historian, "being thus gradually carried on, his misery was not prevented, but augmehereby; being himself made acquainted with the sense and experimental feeling of the captivity of his children, loss of friends, slaughter of his subjects, bereavement of all family relations, and being stripped of all outward forts before his own life should be taken away."
To ?ll up the measure of his misfortunes, his own followers began to plot against his life, that by sacri?g him they might purchase dishonorable safety. Through treachery a number of his faithful adherents, the subjects of Wetamoe, an Indian princess of Pocasset, a near kinswoman and federate of Philip, were betrayed into the hands of the enemy. Wetamoe was among them at the time, and attempted to make her escape by crossing a neighb river: either exhausted by swimming or starved with cold and hunger, she was found dead and naked he water-side. But persecution ceased not at the grave. Eveh, the refuge of the wretched, where the wicked only cease from troubling, was no prote to this outcast female, whose great crime was affeate ?delity to her kinsman and her friend.
Her corpse was the object of unmanly and dastardly vengeahe head was severed from the body a upon a pole, and was thus exposed at Taunton to the view of her captive subjects. They immediately reized the features of their unfortunate queen, and were so affected at this barbarous spectacle that we are told they broke forth into the "most horrid and diabolical lamentations."
However Philip had borne up against the plicated miseries and misfortuhat surrounded him, the treachery of his followers seemed t his heart and reduce him to despondency. It is said that "he never rejoiced afterwards, nor had success in any of his designs." The spring of hope was broken--the ardor of enterprise was extinguished; he looked around, and all was danger and darkness; there was o pity nor any arm that could bring deliverance. With a sty band of followers, who still remairue to his desperate fortuhe unhappy Philip wandered back to the viity of Mount Hope, the a dwelling of his fathers. Here he lurked about like a spectre among the ses of former porosperity, now bereft of home, of family, and of friend. There needs er picture of his destitute and piteous situation than that furnished by the homely pen of the icler, who is unwarily enlisting the feelings of the reader in favor of the hapless warrior whom he reviles.
"Philip," he says, "like a savage wild beast, having been hunted by the English forces through the woods above a hundred miles backward and forward, at last was driven to his own den upon Mount Hope, where he retired, with a few of his best friends, into a s, which proved but a prison to keep him fast till the messengers of death came by divine permission to execute vengeance upon him."
Even in this last refuge of desperation and despair a sullen grandeur gathers round his memory. We picture him to ourselves seated among his care-worn followers, brooding in silence over his blasted fortunes, and acquiring a savage sublimity from the wildness and dreariness of his lurking-place. Defeated, but not dismayed--crushed to the earth, but not humiliated--he seemed to grow more haughty beh disaster, and to experience a ?erce satisfa in draining the last dregs of bitterness. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune, but great minds rise above it. The very idea of submission awakehe fury of Philip, and he smote to death one of his followers who proposed an expedient of peace. The brother of the victim made his escape, and in reverayed the retreat of his chieftain, A body of white men and Indians were immediately despatched to the s where Philip lay crouched, glaring with fury and despair. Before he was aware of their approach they had begun to surround him. In a little while he saw ?ve of his trustiest followers laid dead at his feet; all resistance was vain; he rushed forth from his covert, and made a headlong attempt to escape, but was shot through the heart by a renegado Indian of his own nation.
Such is the sty story of the brave but unfortunate King Philip, persecuted while living, slandered and dishonored when dead. If, however, we sider even the prejudiced aes furnished us by his enemies, erceive iraiable and loftly character suf?t to awaken sympathy for his fate and respect for his memory. We ?nd that amidst all the harassing cares and ferocious passions of stant warfare he was alive to the softer feelings of ubial love and paternal tenderness and to the generous se of friendship. The captivity of his "beloved wife and only son" are mentioned with exultation as causing him poignant misery: the death of any near friend is triumphantly recorded as a new blow on his sensibilities; but the treachery aion of many of his followers, in whose affes he had ?ded, is said to have desolated his heart and to have bereaved him of all further fort. He atriot attached to his native soil--a prirue to his subjects and indignant of their wrongs--a soldier daring in battle, ?rm in adversity, patient of fatigue, of hunger, of every variety of bodily suffering, and ready to perish in the cause he had espoused. Proud of heart and with an untamable love of natural liberty, he preferred to enjoy it among the beasts of the forests or in the dismal and famished recesses of ss and morasses, rather than bow his haughty spirit to submission and live depe and despised in the ease and luxury of the settlements. With heroic qualities and bold achievements that would have graced a civilized warrior, and have rendered him the theme of the poet and the historian, he lived a wanderer and a fugitive in his native land, a down, like a lonely bark foundering amid darkness and tempest, without a pityio weep his fall or a friendly hand to record his struggle.
JOHN BULL.
An old song, made by an aged old pate,Of an old worshipful gentleman who had a great estate,That kept a brave old house at a bountiful rate,And an old porter to relieve the poor at his gate.With an old study ?lld full of learned old books,With an old reverend chaplain, you might know him by his looks,With an old buttery-hatch worn quite off the hooks,And an old kit that maintained half-a-dozen old cooks.Like an old courtier, etc.--Old Song.
THERE is no species of humor in which the English more excel than that which sists in caricaturing and giving ludicrous appellations or niames. In this way they have whimsically designated, not merely individuals, but nations, and in their fondness for pushing a joke they have not spared even themselves.
One would think that in personifying itself a nation would be apt to picture something grand, heroid imposing; but it is characteristic of the peculiar humor of the English, and of their love for what is blunt, id familiar, that they have embodied their national oddities in the ?gure of a sturdy, corpulent old fellow with a three-ered hat, red waistcoat, leather breeches, and stout oaken cudgel. Thus they have taken a singular delight in exhibiting their most private foibles in a laughable point of view, and have been so successful in their deliions that there is scarcely a being in actual existence more absolutely present to the publid than that etric personage, John Bull.
Perhaps the tinual plation of the character thus drawn of them has tributed to ?x it upoion, and thus to give reality to what at ?rst may have been painted in a great measure from the imagination. Me to acquire peculiarities that are tinually ascribed to them. The on orders of English seem wonderfully captivated with the beau ideal which they have formed of John Bull, and endeavor to act up to the broad caricature that is perpetually before their eyes.
Unluckily, they sometimes make their boasted Bullism an apology for their prejudice rossness; and this I have especially noticed among those truly homebred and genuine sons of the soil who have never migrated beyond the sound of Bow bells. If one of these should be a little uncouth in speed apt to utter impertiruths, he fesses that he is a real John Bull and always speaks his mind. If he now and then ?ies into an unreasonable burst of passion about tri?es, he observes that John Bull is a choleric old blade, but then his passion is over in a moment and he bears no malice. If he betrays a coarseness of taste and an insensibility tn re?s, he thanks Heaven for his ignorance--he is a plain John Bull and has no relish for frippery and kniacks. His very proo be gulled by strangers and to pay extravagantly for absurdities is excused uhe plea of muni?ce, for John is always menerous than wise藏书网.
Thus, uhe name of John Bull he will trive tue every fault into a merit, and will frankly vict himself of being the ho fellow ience.
However little, therefore, the character may have suited in the ?rst insta has gradually adapted itself to the nation, or rather they have adapted themselves to each other; and a stranger who wishes to study English peculiarities may gather much valuable information from the innumerable portraits of John Bull as exhibited in the windows of the caricature-shops. Still, however, he is one of those fertile humorists that are tinually throwing out new portraits and presenting different aspects from different points of view; and, often as he has been described, I ot resist the temptation to give a slight sketch of him such as he has met my eye.
John Bull, to all appearance, is a plain, dht, matter-of-fact fellow, with much less of poetry about him than rich prose. There is little of roman his nature, but a vast deal of strong natural feeling. He excels in humor more than in wit; is jolly rather than gay; melancholy rather than morose; easily be moved to a sudden tear or surprised into a broad laugh; but he loathes se and has no turn fht pleasantry. He is a boon panion, if you allow him in to have his humor and to talk about himself; and he will stand by a friend in a quarrel with life and purse, however soundly he may be cudgelled.
In this last respect, to tell the truth, he has a propensity to be somewhat too ready. He is a busy-minded personage, who thinks not merely for himself and family, but for all the try round, and is most generously disposed to be everybodys champion. He is tinually volunteering his services to settle his neighbors affairs, and takes it i dudgeon if they engage in any matter of sequehout asking his advice, though he seldom engages in any friendly of?ce of the kind without ?nishing by getting into a squabble with all parties, and then railing bitterly at their ingratitude. He unluckily took lessons in his youth in the noble sce of defence, and having aplished himself in the use of his limbs and his ons and bee a perfect master at boxing and cudgel-play, he has had a troublesome life of it ever since. He ot hear of a quarrel between the most distant of his neighbors but he begins intily to fumble with the head of his cudgel, and sider whether his i or honor does not require that he should meddle in the broil. Indeed, he has extended his relations of pride and .polipletely over the whole try that take place without infringing some of his ?nely-spun rights and dignities. Couched in his little domain, with these ?laments stretg forth in every dire, he is like some choleric, bottle-bellied old spider who has woven his web over a whole chamber, so that a ?y ot buzz nor a breeze blow without startling his repose and causing him to sally forth wrathfully from his den.
Though really a good-hearted, good-tempered old fellow at bottom, yet he is singularly fond of being in the midst of tention. It is one of his peculiarities, however, that he only relishes the beginning of an affray; he always goes into a ?ght with alacrity, but es out of it grumbling even when victorious; and though no one ?ghts with more obstinacy to carry a tested point, yet whetle is over and he es to the reciliation he is so much taken up with the mere shaking of hands that he is apt to let his antagonist pocket all that they have been quarrelling about. It is not, therefore, ?ghting that he ought so much to be on his guard against as making friends. It is dif?cult to cudgel him out of a farthing; but put him in a good humor and you may bargain him out of all the money in his pocket. He is like a stout ship which will weather the roughest storm uninjured, but roll its masts overboard9９lｉｂ? in the succeeding calm.
He is a little fond of playing the magni?co abroad, of pulling out a long purse, ?inging his money bravely about at boxing-matches, horse-races, cock-?ghts, and carrying a high head among "gentlemen of the fancy:" but immediately after one of these ?ts of extravagance he will be taken with violent qualms of ey; stop short at the most trivial expenditure; talk desperately of being ruined and brought upon the parish; and in such moods will not pay the smallest tradesmans bill without violent altercation. He is, in fact, the most punctual and distented paymaster in the world, drawing his out of his breeches pocket with in?nite reluce, paying to the uttermost farthing, but apanying every guinea with a growl.
With all his talk of ey, however, he is a bountiful provider and a hospitable housekeeper. His ey is of a whimsical kind, its chief object being to devise how he may afford to be extravagant; for he will begrudge himself a beefsteak and pint of port one day that he may roast an ox whole, broach a hogshead of ale, and treat all his neighbors on the .
His domestic establishment is enormously expensive, not so much from any great outarade as from the great ption of solid beef and pudding, the vast number of followers he feeds and clothes, and his singular disposition to pay hugely for small services. He is a most kind and indulgent master, and, provided his servants humor his peculiarities, ?atter his vanity a little now and then, and do not peculate grossly on him before his face they may manage him to perfe. Everything that lives on him seems to thrive and grow fat. His house-servants are well paid and pampered and have little to do. His horses are sleek and lazy and prance slowly before his state carriage; and his house-dogs sleep quietly about the door and will hardly bark at a housebreaker.
His family mansion is an old castellated manor-house, gray with age, and of a most venerable though weather-beaten appeara has been built upon nular plan, but is a vast accumulation of parts erected in various tastes and ages. The tre bears evident traces of Saxon architecture, and is as solid as ponderous stone and old English oak make it. Like all the relics of that style, it is full of obscure passages, intricate mazes, and dusty chambers, and, though these have been partially lighted up in modern days, yet there are many places where you must still grope in the dark. Additions have been made to the inal edi?ce from time to time, and great alterations have taken place; towers and battlements have beeed during wars and tumults: wings built in time of peace; and out-houses, lodges, and of?ces run up acc to the whim or venience of different geions, until it has bee one of the most spacious, rambling tes imaginable. Aire wing is taken up with the family chapel, a reverend pile that must have been exceedingly sumptuous, and, indeed, in spite of having been altered and simpli?ed at various periods, has still a look of solemn religious pomp. Its walls withioried with the mos of Johns aors, and it is snugly ?tted up with soft cushions and well-lined chairs, where such of his family as are ined to church services may doze fortably in the discharge of their duties.
To keep up this chapel has cost John much money; but he is staun his religion and piqued in his zeal, from the circumstahat many dissenting chapels have beeed in his viity, and several of his neighbors, with whom he has had quarrels, are strong papists.
To do the duties of the chapel he maintains, at a large expense, a pious and portly family chaplain. He is a most learned and decorous personage and a truly well-bred Christian, who always backs the old gentleman in his opinions, winks discreetly at his little peccadilloes, rebukes the children when refractory, and is of great use in exh the tenants to read their Bibles, say their prayers, and, above all, to pay their rents punctually and without grumbling.
The family apartments are in a very antiquated taste, somewhat heavy and often inve, but full of the solemn magni?ce of former times, ?tted up with rich though faded tapestry, unwieldy furniture, and loads of massy, geous old plate. The vast ?replaces, ample kits, extensive cellars, and sumptuous baing-halls all speak of the r hospitality of days of yore, of which the moderivity at the manor-house is but a shadow. There are, however, plete suites of rooms apparently deserted and time-worn, and towers and turrets that are t to decay, so that in high winds there is danger of their tumbling about the ears of the household.
John has frequently been advised to have the old edi?ce thhly overhauled, and to have some of the useless parts pulled down, and the others strengthened with their materials; but the old gentleman always grows testy on this subject. He swears the house is an excellent house; that it is tight aher-proof, and not to be shaken by tempests; that it has stood for several hundred years, and therefore is not likely to tumble down now; that as to its being inve, his family is aced to the inveniences and would not be fortable without them; that as to its unwieldy size and irregular stru, these result from its being the growth of turies and being improved by the wisdom of every geion; that an old family, like his, requires a large house to dwell in; new, upstart families may live in modern cottages and snug boxes; but an old English family should inhabit an old English manor-house.
If you point out any part of the building as super?uous, he insists that it is material to the strength or decoration of the rest and the harmony of the whole, and swears that the parts are so built into each other that if you pull down one, you run the risk of having the whole about your ears.
The secret of the matter is, that John has a great disposition to proted patronize. He thinks it indispensable to the dignity of an a and honorable family to be bounteous in its appois and to be eaten up by depes; and so, partly from pride and partly from kiedness, he makes it a rule always to give shelter and mainteo his superannuated servants.
The sequence is, that, like many other venerable family establishments, his manor is incumbered by old retainers whom he ot turn off, and an old style which he ot lay down. His mansion is like a great hospital of invalids, and, with all its magnitude, is not a whit toe for its inhabitants. Not a nook or er but is of use in housing some useless personage.
Groups of veteran beef-eaters, gouty pensioners, aired heroes of the buttery and the larder are seen lolling about its ways, crawling over its lawns, dozing us tree, or sunning themselves upon the be its doors. Every of?d out-house is garrisoned by these supernumeraries and their families; for they are amazingly proli?d when they die off are sure to leave John a legacy of hungry mouths to be provided for. A mattock ot be struck against the most mouldering tumble-down tower but out pops, from some y or loophole, the gray pate of some superannuated hanger-on, who has lived at Johns expense all his life, and makes the most grievous outcry at their pulling down the roof from over the head of a worn-out servant of the family. This is an appeal that Johns ho heart never withstand; so that a man who has faithfully eaten his beef and pudding all his life is sure to be rewarded with a pipe and tankard in his old days.
A great part of his park also is turned into paddocks, where his broken-down chargers are turned loose to graze undisturbed for the remainder of their existences--a worthy example of grateful recolle which, if some of his neighbors were to imitate, would not be to their discredit. Indeed, it is one of his great pleasures to point out these old steeds to his visitors, to dwell on their good qualities, extol their past services, and boast, with some little vain-glory, of the perilous adventures and hardy exploits through which they have carried him.
He is given, however, to indulge his veion for family usages and family encumbrao a whimsical extent. His manor is ied by gangs of gypsies; yet he will not suffer them to be driven off, because they have ied the place time out of mind and been regular poachers upon every geion of the family. He will scarcely permit a dry branch to be lopped from the great trees that surround the house, lest it should molest the rooks that have bred there for turies. Owls have taken possession of the dovecote, but they are hereditary owls and must not be disturbed. Swallows have nearly choked up every ey with their s; martins build in every frieze and ice; crows ?utter about the towers and per every weather-cock; and old gray-headed rats may be seen in every quarter of the house, running in and out of their holes undauntedly in broad daylight.
In short, John has such a reverence for everything that has been long in the family that he will not hear even of abuses being reformed, because they are good old family abuses.
All these whims and habits have curred woefully to drain the old gentlemans purse; and as he prides himself on punctuality in money matters and wishes to maintain his credit in the neighborhood, they have caused him great perplexity iing his es. This, too, has been increased by the altercations a-burnings which are tinually taking pla his family. His children have been brought up to different callings and are of different ways of thinking; and as they have always been allowed to speak their minds freely, they do not fail to exercise the privilege most clamorously in the present posture of his affairs. Some stand up for the honor of the race, and are clear that the old establishment should be kept up in all its state, whatever may be the cost; others, who are more prudent and siderate, ehe old gentleman to retrench his expenses and to put his whole system of housekeeping on a more moderate footing. He has, indeed, at times, seemed ined to listen to their opinions, but their wholesome advice has been pletely defeated by the obstreperous duct of one of his sons. This is a noisy, rattle-pated fellow, of rather low habits, who s his busio frequent ale-houses--is the orator of village clubs and a plete oracle among the poorest of his fathers tenants. No sooner does he hear any of his brothers mention reform or retrehan up he jumps, takes the words out of their mouths, and roars out for aurn.
When his tongue is once going nothing stop it. He rants about the room; hectors the old man about his spendthrift practices; ridicules his tastes and pursuits; insists that he shall turn the old servants out of dive the broken-down horses to the hounds, send the fat chaplain pag, and take a ?eld-preacher in his plaay, that the whole family mansion shall be levelled with the ground, and a plain one of brid mortar built in its place. He rails at every social eai and family festivity, and skulks away growling to the ale-house whenever an equipage drives up to the door. Though stantly plaining of the emptiness of his purse, yet he scruples not to spend all his pocket-money iavern vocations, and even runs up scores for the liquor over which he preaches about his fathers extravagance.
It may readily be imagined how little such thwarting agrees with the old cavaliers ?ery temperament. He has bee so irritable from repeated crossings that the mere mention of retre or reform is a signal for a brawl between him and the tavern oracle.
As the latter is too sturdy and refractory for paternal discipline, having grown out of all fear of the cudgel, they have frequent ses of wordy warfare, which at times run so high that John is fain to call in the aid of his son Tom, an of?cer who has served abroad, but is at present living at home on half-pay.
This last is sure to stand by the old gentleman, right , likes nothing so much as a rocketing, roistering life, and is ready at a wink or nod to out sabre and ?ourish it over the orators head if he dares to array himself against parental authority.
These family dissensions, as usual, have got abroad, and are rare food for sdal in Johns neighborhood. People begin to look wise and shake their heads whenever his affairs are mentioned.
They all "hope that matters are not so bad with him as represented; but when a mans own children begin to rail at his extravagahings must be badly mahey uand he is med over head and ears and is tinually dabbling with money-lenders. He is certainly an open-handed old gentleman, but they fear he has lived too fast; ihey never knew any good e of this fondness for hunting, rag revelling, and prize-?ghting. In short, Mr. Bulls estate is a very ?ne one and has been in the family a long while, but, for all that, they have known many ?es e to the hammer."
What is worst of all, is the effect which these peiary embarrassments and domestic feuds have had on the poor man himself. Instead of that jolly round corporation and smug rosy face which he used to present, he has of late bee as shrivelled and shrunk as a frost-bitten apple. His scarlet gold-laced waistcoat, which bellied out so bravely in those prosperous days when he sailed before the wind, now hangs loosely about him like a mainsail in a calm. His leather breeches are all in folds and wrinkles, and apparently have much ado to hold up the boots that yawn on both sides of his ourdy legs.
Instead of strutting about as formerly with his three-ered hat on one side, ?ourishing his cudgel, and bringing it down every moment with a hearty thump upon the ground, looking every ourdily in the face, and trolling out a stave of a catch or a drinking-song, he now goes about whistling thoughtfully to himself, with his head drooping down, his cudgel tucked under his arm, and his hands thrust to the bottom of his breeches pockets, which are evidently empty.
Such is the plight of ho John Bull at present, yet for all this the old fellows spirit is as tall and as gallant as ever.
If you drop the least expression of sympathy or , he takes ?re in an instant; swears that he is the richest and stoutest fellow in the try; talks of laying out large sums to adorn his house or buy another estate; and with a valiant swagger and grasping of his cudgel longs exceedingly to have another bout at quarter-staff.
Though there may be something rather whimsical in all this, yet I fess I ot look upon Johns situation without strong feelings of i. With all his odd humors and obstinate prejudices he is a sterlied old blade. He may not be so wonderfully ?ne a fellow as he thinks himself, but he is at least twice as good as his neighbors represent him. His virtues are all his olain, homebred, and ued. His very faults smack of the raess of his good qualities. His extravagance savors of his generosity, his quarrelsomeness of his ce, his credulity of his open faith, his vanity of his pride, and his bluntness of his siy. They are all the redundancies of a rid liberal character. He is like his own oak, rough without, but sound and solid within; whose bark abounds with excresces in proportion to the growth and grandeur of the timber; and whose branches make a fearful groaning and murmuring in the least storm from their very magnitude and luxuriahere is something, too, in the appearance of his old family mansion that is extremely poetical and picturesque; and as long as it be rendered fortably habitable I should almost tremble to see it meddled with during the present ?ict of tastes and opinions. Some of his advisers are no doubt good architects that might be of service; but many, I fear, are mere levellers, who, when they had o to work with their mattocks on this venerable edi?ce, would op until they had brought it to the ground, and perhaps buried themselves among the ruins. All that I wish is, that Johns present troubles may teach him more pruden future--that he may cease to distress his mind about other peoples affairs; that he may give up the fruitless attempt to promote the good of his neighbors and the pead happiness of the world, by dint of the cudgel; that he may remain quietly at home; gradually get his house into repair; cultivate his rich estate acc to his fancy; husband his ine--if he thinks proper; bring his unruly children into order--if he ; rehe jovial ses of a prosperity; and long enjoy on his paternal lands a green, an honorable, and a merry old age.
THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE.
May no wolfe howle; no screech owle stirA wing about thy sepulchre!No boysterous winds or stormes e hither,To starve or witherThy soft sweet earth! but, like a spring,Love kept it ever ?ourishing.HERRICK.
IN the course of an excursion through one of the remote ties of England, I had struto one of those cross-roads that lead through the more secluded parts of the try, and stopped oernoon at a village the situation of which was beautifully rural aired. There was an air of primitive simplicity about its inhabitants not to be found in the villages which lie on the great coach-roads. I determio pass the night there, and, having taken an early dinner, strolled out to enjoy the neighb sery.
My ramble, as is usually the case with travellers, soon led me to the church, which stood at a little distance from the village.
Indeed, it was an object of some curiosity, its old tower being pletely overrun with ivy so that only here and there a jutting buttress, an angle of gray wall, or a fantastically carved or peered through the verdant c. It was a lovely evening. The early part of the day had been dark and showery, but iernoon it had cleared up, and, though sullen clouds still hung overhead, yet there was a broad tract of golden sky in the west, from which the setting sun gleamed through the dripping leaves and lit up all Nature into a melancholy smile. It seemed like the parting hour of a good Christian smiling on the sins and sorrows of the world, and giving, in the serenity of his dee, an assurahat he will rise again in glory.
I had seated myself on a half-suombstone, and was musing, as one is apt to do at this sober-thoughted hour, on past ses and early friends--on those who were distant and those who were dead--and indulging in that kind of melancholy fang which has in it something sweeter even than pleasure. Every now and theroke of a bell from the neighb tower fell on my ear; its tones were in unison with the se, and, instead of jarring, chimed in with my feelings; and it was some time before I recollected that it must be tolling the knell of some enant of the tomb.
Presently I saw a funeral train moving across the village green; it wound slowly along a lane, was lost, and reappeared through the breaks of the hedges, until it passed the place where I was sitting. The pall was supported by young girls dressed in white, and another, about the age of seventeen, walked before, bearing a chaplet of white ?owers--a token that the deceased was a young and unmarried female. The corpse was followed by the parents.
They were a venerable couple of the better order of peasantry.
The father seemed to repress his feelings, but his ?xed eye, tracted brow, and deeply-furrowed face showed the struggle that assing within. His wife hung on his arm, a aloud with the vulsive bursts of a mothers sorrow.
I followed the funeral into the church. The bier laced in the tre aisle, and the chaplet of white ?owers, with a pair of white gloves, was hung over the seat which the deceased had occupied.
Every one knows the soul-subduing pathos of the funeral service, for who is so fortunate as o have followed some one he has loved to the tomb? But when performed over the remains of innod beauty, thus laid low in the bloom of existence, what be more affeg? At that simple but most solemn sig of the body to the grave-"Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust!"--the tears of the youthful panions of the deceased ?owed uraihe father still seemed to struggle with his feelings, and to fort himself with the assurahat the dead are blessed which die in the Lord; but the mother only thought of her child as a ?ower of the ?eld cut down and withered in the midst of its sweetness; she was like Rachel, "m over her children, and would not be forted."
Ourning to the inn I learnt the whole story of the deceased.
It was a simple one, and such as has ofteold. She had been the beauty and pride of the village. Her father had once been an opulent farmer, but was reduced in circumstahis was an only child, and brought up entirely at home in the simplicity of rural life. She had been the pupil of the village pastor, the favorite lamb of his little ?ock. The good man watched over her education with paternal care; it was limited and suitable to the sphere in which she was to move, for he only sought to make her an oro her station in life, not to raise her above it. The tenderness and indulgence of her parents and the exemption from all ordinary occupations had fostered a natural grad delicacy of character that accorded with the fragile loveliness of her form. She appeared like some tender plant of the garden blooming actally amid the hardier natives of the ?elds.
The superiority of her charms was felt and aowledged by her panions, but without envy, for it was surpassed by the unassumileness and winning kindness of her manners. It might be truly said of her:
"This is the prettiest low-born lass, that ever Ran on the green-sward: nothing she does or seems But smacks of something greater than herself;Too noble for this place."
The village was one of those sequestered spots which still retain some vestiges of old English s. It had its rural festivals and holiday pastimes, and still kept up some faint observance of the once popular rites of May. These, indeed, had been promoted by its present pastor, who was a lover of old s and one of those simple Christians that think their mission ful?lled by promoting joy oh and good-will among mankind. Under his auspices the May-pole stood from year to year in the tre of the village green; on Mayday it was decorated with garlands and streamers, and a queen or lady of the May ointed, as in former times, to preside at the sports and distribute the prizes and rewards. The picturesque situation of the village and the fancifulness of its rustic fetes would often attract the notice of casual visitors. Among these, on one May-day, was a young of?cer whiment had beely quartered in the neighborhood. He was charmed with the native taste that pervaded this village pageant, but, above all, with the dawning loveliness of the queen of May. It was the village favorite who was ed with ?owers, and blushing and smiling in all the beautiful fusion of girlish dif?dend delight. The artlessness of rural habits enabled him readily to make her acquaintance; he gradually won his way into her intimacy, and paid his court to her in that unthinking way in which young of?cers are too apt to tri?e with rustic simplicity.
There was nothing in his advao startle or alarm. He never even talked of love, but there are modes of making it more eloquent than language, and which vey it subtilely and irresistibly to the heart. The beam of the eye, the tone of voice, the thousand tendernesses which emanate from every word and look and a,--these form the true eloquence of love, and always be felt and uood, but never described. we wohat they should readily win a heart young, guileless, and susceptible? As to her, she loved almost unsciously; she scarcely inquired what was the growing passion that was abs every thought and feeling, or what were to be its sequences.
She, indeed, looked not to the future. Whe, his looks and words occupied her whole attention; when absent, she thought but of what had passed at their ret interview. She would wander with him through the green lanes and rural ses of the viity. He taught her to see new beauties in Nature; he talked in the language of polite and cultivated life, and breathed into her ear the witcheries of romand poetry.
Perhaps there could not have been a passioween the sexes more pure than this i girls. The gallant ?gure of her youthful admirer and the splendor of his military attire might at ?rst have charmed her eye, but it was not these that had captivated her heart. Her attat had something in it of idolatry. She looked up to him as to a being of a superior order.
She felt in his society the enthusiasm of a mind naturally delicate and poetical, and now ?rst awakeo a keen perception of the beautiful and grand. Of the sordid distins of rank and fortune she thought nothing; it was the difference of intellect, of demeanor, of manners, from those of the rustic society to which she had been aced, that elevated him in her opinion. She would listen to him with charmed ear and downcast look of mute delight, and her cheek would mah enthusiasm; or if ever she ventured a shy glance of timid admiration, it was as quickly withdrawn, and she would sigh and blush at the idea of her parative unworthiness.
Her lover was equally impassioned, but his passion was mingled with feelings of a coarser nature. He had begun the e iy, for he had often heard his brother-of?cers boast of their village quests, and thought some triumph of the kind necessary to his reputation as a man of spirit. But he was too full of youthful fervor. His heart had nbbr>ot yet been rendered suf?tly cold and sel?sh by a wandering and a dissipated life: it caught ?re from the very ?ame it sought to kindle, and before he was aware of the nature of his situation he became really in love.
What was he to do? There were the old obstacles which so incessantly occur in these heedless attats. His rank in life, the prejudices of titled es, his dependence upon a proud and unyielding father, all forbade him to think of matrimony; but when he looked down upon this i being, so tender and ?ding, there urity in her manners, a blamelessness in her life, and a beseeg modesty in her looks that awed down every litious feelingbbr>. In vain did he try to fortify himself by a thousaless examples of men of fashion, and to chill the glow of generous se with that cold derisive levity with which he had heard them talk of female virtue: whenever he came into her presence she was still surrounded by that mysterious but impassive charm of virgin purity in whose hallowed sphere no guilty thought live.
The sudden arrival of orders for the regiment to repair to the ti pleted the fusion of his mind. He remained for a short time in a state of the most painful irresolution; he hesitated to unicate the tidings until the day for marg was at hand, when he gave her the intelligen the course of an evening ramble.
The idea of parting had never before occurred to her. It broke in at once upon her dream of felicity; she looked upon it as a sudden and insurmountable evil, a with the guileless simplicity of a child. He drew her to his bosom and kissed the tears from her soft cheek; nor did he meet with a repulse, for there are moments of mingled sorrow and tenderness which hallow the caresses of affe. He was naturally impetuous, and the sight of beauty apparently yielding in his arms, the ?dence of his power over her, and the dread of losing her forever all spired to overwhelm his better feelings: he veo propose that she should leave her home ahe panion of his fortunes.
He was quite a novi sedu, and blushed and faltered at his own baseness; but so i of mind was his intended victim that she was at ?rst at a loss to prehend his meaning, and why she should leave her native village and the humble roof of her parents. When at last the nature of his proposal ?ashed upon her pure mind, the effect was withering. She did not weep; she did not break forth into reproach; she said not a word, but she shrunk back aghast as from a viper, gave him a look of anguish that pierced to his very soul, and, clasping her hands in agony, ?ed, as if fe, to her fathers cottage.
The of?cer retired founded, humiliated, aant. It is uain what might have been the result of the ?ict of his feelings, had not his thoughts been diverted by the bustle of departure. New ses, new pleasures, and new panions soon dissipated his self-reproad sti?ed his tenderness; yet, amidst the stir of camps, the revelries of garrisons, the array of armies, and even the din of battles, his thoughts would sometimes steal back to the ses of rural quiet and village simplicity--the white cottage, the footpath along the silver brook and up the hawthorn hedge, and the little village maid l along it, leaning on his arm and listening to him with eyes beaming with unscious affe.
The shock which the pirl had received in the destru of all her ideal world had indeed been cruel. Faintings and hysterics had at ?rst shakeender frame, and were succeeded by a settled and pining melancholy. She had beheld from her window the march of the departing troops. She had seen her faithless lover borne off, as if in triumph, amidst the sound of drum and trumpet and the pomp of arms. She strained a last ag gaze after him as the m sun glittered about his ?gure and his plume waved in the breeze; he passed away like a bright vision from her sight, a her all in darkness.
It would be trite to dwell on the particulars of her after story.
It was, like other tales of love, melancholy. She avoided society and wandered out alone in the walks she had most frequented with her lover. She sought, like the stri deer, to weep in silend loneliness and brood over the barbed sorrow that rankled in her soul. Sometimes she would be seen late of an evening sitting in the porch of the village church, and the milk-maids, returning from the ?elds, would now and then overhear her singing some plaity in the hawthorn walk. She became fervent in her devotions at church, and as the old people saw her approach, so wasted away, yet with a hecti and that hallowed air which melancholy diffuses round the form, they would make way for her as for something spiritual, and looking after her, would shake their heads in gloomy foreboding.
She felt a vi that she was hastening to the tomb, but looked forward to it as a place of rest. The silve?99lｉb.r cord that had bouo existence was loosed, and there seemed to be no more pleasure uhe sun. If ever her gentle bosom had eained rese against her lover, it was extinguished. She was incapable of angry passions, and in a moment of saddeenderness she penned him a farewell letter. It was couched in the simplest language, but toug from its very simplicity. She told him that she was dying, and did not ceal from him that his duct was the cause. She eveed the sufferings which she had experienced, but cluded with saying that she could not die in peatil she had sent him her fiveness and her blessing.
By degrees her strength deed that she could no longer leave the cottage. She could only totter to the window, where, propped up in her chair, it was her enjoyment to sit all day and look out upon the landscape. Still she uttered no plaint nor imparted to any ohe malady that reying on her heart. She never eveioned her lovers name, but would lay her head on her mothers bosom and weep in silence. Her poor parents hung in mute ay over this fading blossom of their hopes, still ?attering themselves that it might again revive to freshness and that the bright uhly bloom whietimes ?ushed her cheek might be the promise of returnih.
In this way she was seated between them one Sunday afternoon; her hands were clasped in theirs, the lattice was thrown open, and the soft air that stole in brought with it the fragrance of the clustering honeysuckle which her own hands had traid round the window.
Her father had just been reading a chapter in the Bible: it spoke of the vanity of worldly things and of the joys of heaven: it seemed to have diffused fort and serenity through her bosom.
Her eye was ?xed on the distant village church: the bell had tolled for the evening service; the last villager was lagging into the porch, and everything had sunk into that hallowed stillness peculiar to the day of rest. Her parents were gazing on her with yearnis. Siess and sorrow, which pass shly over some faces, had given to hers the expression of a seraphs. A tear trembled in her soft blue eye. Was she thinking of her faithless lover? or were her thoughts wandering to that distant churchyard, into whose bosom she might soohered?
Suddenly the g of hoofs was heard: a horseman galloped to the cottage; he dismounted before the window; the pirl gave a faint exclamation and sunk ba her chair: it was her repentant lover. He rushed into the house ao clasp her to his bosom; but her wasted form, her deathlike tenance--so wa so lovely in its desolation--smote him to the soul, ahrew himself in agony at her feet. She was too faint to rise--she attempted to exterembling hand--her lips moved as if she spoke, but no word was articulated; she looked down upon him with a smile of unutterable tenderness, and closed her eyes forever.
Such are the particulars which I gathered of this village story.
They are but sty, and I am scious have little y to reend them. In the present rage also for strange i and high-seasoned narrative they may appear trite and insigni?t, but they ied me strongly at the time; and, taken in e with the affeg ceremony which I had just witnessed, left a deeper impression on my mind than many circumstances of a more striking nature. I have passed through the place since, and visited the church again from a better motive than mere curiosity. It was a wintry evening: the trees were stripped of their foliage, the churchyard looked naked and mournful, and the wind rustled coldly through the dry grass.
Evergreens, however, had been planted about the grave of the village favorite, and osiers were bent over it to keep the turf uninjured.
The church-door en and I stepped in. There hung the chaplet of ?owers and the gloves, as on the day of the funeral: the ?owers were withered, it is true, but care seemed to have been taken that no dust should soil their whiteness. I have seen many mos where art has exhausted its powers to awaken the sympathy of the spectator, but I have met with hat spoke more tougly to my heart than this simple but delicate memento of departed innoce.
THE ANGLER.
This day Dame Nature seemd in love,The lusty sap began to move,Fresh juice did stir th embrag vines,And birds had drawn their valentines.The jealous trout that low did lie,Rose at a well-dissembled ?ie.There stood my friend, with patient skill,Attending of his trembling quill.SIR H. WOTTON.
IT is said that man９9ｌiｂ?y an unlucky ur is io run away from his family aake himself to a seafaring life from reading the history of Robinson Crusoe; and I suspect that, in like manner, many of those worthy gentlemen whiven to haunt the sides of pastoral streams with angle-rods in hand may trace the in of their passion to the seductive pages of ho Izaak Walton. I recollect studying his plete Angler several years sin pany with a knot of friends in America, and moreover that we were all pletely bitten with the angling mania. It was early in the year, but as soon as the weather icious, and that the spring began to melt into the verge of summer, we took rod in hand and sallied into the try, as stark mad as was ever Don Quixote from reading books of chivalry.
One of our party had equalled the Don in the fulness of his equipments, being attired cap-a-pie for the enterprise. He wore a broad-skirted fustian coat, perplexed with half a hundred pockets; a pair of stout shoes ahern gaiters; a basket slung on one side for ?sh; a patent rod, a landi, and a score of other inveniences only to be found irue anglers armory. Thus harnessed for the ?eld, he was as great a matter of stare and wonderment among the try folk, who had never seen a regular angler, as was the steel-clad hero of La Mancha among the goatherds of the Sierra Morena.
Our ?rst essay was along a mountain brook among the Highlands of the Hudson--a most unfortunate place for the execution of those piscatory tactics which had been ied along the velvet margins of quiet English rivulets. It was one of those wild streams that lavish, among our romantic solitudes, unheeded beauties enough to ?ll the sketch-book of a hunter of the picturesque. Sometimes it would leap down rocky shelves, making small cascades, over which the trees threw their broad balang sprays and long nameless weeds hung in fringes from the impending banks, dripping with diamond drops. Sometimes it would brawl and fret along a ravine ited shade of a forest, ?lling it with murmurs, and after this termagant career would steal forth into open day with the most placid, demure face imaginable, as I have seen some pestilent shrew of a housewife, after ?lling her home with uproar and ill-humor, e dimpling out of doors, swimming and curtseying and smiling upon all the world.
How smoothly would this vagrant brook glide at such times through some bosom of green meadowland among the mountains, where the quiet was only interrupted by the occasional tinkling of a bell from the lazy cattle among the clover or the sound of a woodcutters axe from the neighb forest!
For my part, I was always a bu all kinds of sport that required either patience or adroitness, and had not angled above half an hour before I had pletely "satis?ed the se,"
and vinced myself of the truth of Izaak Waltons opinion, that angling is something like poetry--a man must be born to it. I hooked myself instead of the ?sh, tangled my line iree, lost my bait, broke my rod, until I gave up the attempt in despair, and passed the day uhe trees reading old Izaak, satis?ed that it was his fasating vein of ho simplicity and rural feeling that had bewitched me, and not the passion fling. My panions, however, were more persevering in their delusion. I have them at this moment before eyes, stealing along the border of the brook where it lay open to the day or was merely fringed by shrubs and bushes. I see the bittern rising with hollow scream as they break in upon his rarely-invaded haunt; the king?sher watg them suspiciously from his dry tree that s the deep black millpond in the ge of the hills; the tortoise letting himself slip sideways from off the stone on which he is sunning himself; and the panic-struck frog plumping in headlong as they approach, and spreading an alarm throughout the watery world around.
I recollect also that, after toiling and watg and creeping about for the greater part of a day, with scarcely any success in spite of all our admirable apparatus,..t> a lubberly try ur came down from the hills with a rod made from a branch of a tree, a few yards of twine, and, as Heaven shall help me! I believe a crooked pin for a hook, baited with a vile earthworm, and in half an hour caught more ?sh than we had nibbles throughout the day!
But, above all, I recollect the "good, ho, wholesome, hungry"
repast which we made under a beech tree just by a spring of pure sweet water that stole out of the side of a hill, and how, when it was over, one of the party read old Izaak Waltons se with the milkmaid, while I lay on the grass and built castles in a bright pile of clouds until I fell asleep. All this may appear like mere egotism, yet I ot refrain from uttering these recolles, which are passing like a strain of music over my mind and have been called up by an agreeable se which I witnessed not long since.
In the ms stroll along the banks of the Alun, a beautiful little stream which ?ows down from the Welsh hills and throws itself into the Dee, my attention was attracted to a group seated on the margin. On approag I found it to sist of a veteran angler and two rustic disciples. The former was an old fellow with a wooden leg, with clothes very much but very carefully patched, betokening poverty holy e by aly maintained. His face bore the marks of former storms, but present fair weather, its furrows had been worn into an habitual smile, his iron-gray locks hung about his ears, and he had altogether the good-humored air of a stitutional philosopher who was disposed to take the world as it went. One of his panions was a ragged wight with the skulking look of an arrant poacher, and Ill warrant could ?nd his way to alemans ?sh-pond in the neighborhood in the darkest night. The other was a tall, awkward try lad, with a lounging gait, and apparently somewhat of a rustic beau. The old man was busy in examining the maw of a trout which he had just killed, to discover by its tents what is were seasonable for bait, and was lecturing on the subject to his panions, eared to listen with in?nite deference. I have a kind feeling towards all "brothers of the angle" ever since I read Izaak Walton. They are men, he af?rms, of a "mild, sweet, and peaceable spirit;" and my esteem for them has been increased since I met with an old Tretyse of ?shing with the Angle, in which are set forth many of the maxims of their inoffensive fraternity. "Take good hede," sayeth this ho little tretyse, "that in going about your disportes ye open no mans gates but that ye shet them again. Also ye shall not use this forsayd crafti disport for no covetouso the encreasing and sparing of your money only, but principally for your solace, and to cause the helth of your body and specyally of your soule."*
I thought that I could perceive ieran angler before me an exempli?cation of what I had read; and there was a cheerful tentedness in his looks that quite drew me towards him. I could not but remark the gallant manner in which he stumped from one part of the brook to another, waving his rod in the air to keep the line fring on the ground or catg among the bushes, and the adroitness with which he would throw his ?y to any particular place, sometimes skimming it lightly along a little rapid, sometimes casting it into one of those dark holes made by a twisted root or ing bank in which the large trout are apt to lurk. In the meanwhile he was giving instrus to his two disciples, showing them the manner in which they should haheir rods, ?x their ?ies, and play them along the surface of the stream. The se brought to my mind the instrus of the sage Piscator to his scholar. The try around was of that pastoral kind which Walton is fond of describing. It art of the great plain of Cheshire, close by the beautiful vale of Gessford, and just where the inferior Welsh hills begin to swell up from among fresh-smelling meadows.
The day too, like that recorded in his work, was mild and sunshiny, with now and then a soft-dropping shower that sowed the whole earth with diamonds.
* From this same treatise it would appear that angling is a more industrious a employment than it is generally sidered: "For when ye purpose to go on your disportes in ?shynge ye will not desyre greatlye many persons with you, which might let you of yame. And that ye may serve God devoutly in saying effectually your able prayers. And thus doying, ye shall eschew and also avoyde many vices, as ydelness, which is principall cause to induce man to many other vices, as it is right well known."
I soon fell into versation with the old angler, and was so mutertaihat, under pretext of receiving instrus in his art, I kept pany with him almost the whole day, wandering along the banks of the stream and listening to his talk. He was very unicative, having all the easy garrulity of cheerful old age, and I fancy was a little ?attered by having an opportunity of displaying his piscatory lore, for who does not like now and then to play the sage?
He had been much of a rambler in his day, and had passed some years of his youth in America, particularly in Savannah, where he had entered into trade and had been ruined by the indiscretion of a partner. He had afterwards experienced many ups and downs in life until he got into the navy, where his leg was carried away by a on-ball at the battle of Camperdown. This was the only stroke of real good-fortune he had ever experienced, for it got him a pension, which, together with some small paternal property, brought him in a revenue of nearly forty pounds. On this he retired to his native village, where he lived quietly and indepely, aed the remainder of his life to the " of angling."
I found that he had read Izaak Walton attentively, and he seemed to have imbibed all his simple frankness and prevalent good-humor. Though he had been sorely buffeted about the world, he was satis?ed that the world, in itself, was good aiful. Though he had been as roughly used in different tries as a poor sheep that is ?eeced by every hedge and thicket, yet he spoke of every nation with dor and kindness, appearing to look only on the good side of things; and, above all, he was almost the only man I had ever met with who had been an unfortunate adventurer in Amerid had hoy and magnanimity enough to take the fault to his own door, and not to curse the try. The lad that was receiving his instrus, I learnt, was the son and heir-apparent of a fat old ho kept the village inn, and of course a youth of some expectation, and much courted by the idle gentleman-like personages of the place.
In taking him under his care, therefore, the old man had probably ao a privileged er iap-room and an occasional cup of cheerful ale free of expense.
There is certainly something in angling--if we could fet, whiglers are apt to do, the cruelties and tortures in?icted on worms and is--that tends to produce a gentleness of spirit and a pure serenity of mind. As the English are methodical even in their recreations, and are the most sti?c of sportsmen, it has been reduced among them to perfect rule and system. Indeed, it is an amusement peculiarly adapted to the mild and highly-cultivated sery of England, where every roughness has been softened away from the landscape. It is delightful to saunter along those limpid streams which wander, like veins of silver, through the bosom of this beautiful try, leading ohrough a diversity of small home sery--sometimes winding through ored grounds; sometimes brimming along through rich pasturage, where the fresh green is mingled with sweet-smelling ?owers; sometimes venturing in sight of villages and hamlets, and then running capriciously away into shady retirements. The sweetness and serenity of Nature and the quiet watchfulness of the spradually bring on pleasant ?ts of musing, which are now and then agreeably interrupted by the song of a bird, the distant whistle of the peasant, or perhaps the vagary of some ?sh leaping out of the still water and skimming traly about its glassy surface. "When I would beget tent," says Izaak Walton, "and increase ?den the power and wisdom and providence of Almighty God, I will walk the meadows by some gliding stream, and there plate the lilies that take no care, and those very many other little living creatures that are not only created, but fed (man knows not how) by the goodness of the God of Nature, and therefore trust in Him."
I ot forbear to give another quotation from one of those a champions of angling which breathes the same i and happy spirit:
Let me live harmlessly, ahe brinkOf Trent or Avon have a dwelling-place:Where I may see my quill, or cork, down sinkWith eager bite of Pike, or Bleak, or Dace;And on the world and my Creator think:Whilst some men strive ill-gotten goods t embrace:And others spend their time in base excessOf wine, or worse, in war or wantonness.Let them that will, these pastimes still pursue,And on such pleasing fancies feed their ?ll;So I the ?elds and meadows green may view,And daily by fresh rivers walk at will,Among the daisies and the violets blue,Red hyath and yellow daffodil.*
On parting with the old angler I inquired after his place of abode, and, happening to be in the neighborhood of the village a few evenings afterwards, I had the curiosity to seek him out. I found him living in a small cottage taining only one room, but a perfect curiosity in its method and arra. It was on the skirts of the village, on a green bank a little back from the road, with a small garden in front stocked with kit herbs and adorned with a few ?owers. The whole front of the cottage was overrun with a honeysuckle. Oop was a ship for a weathercock. The interior was ?tted up in a truly nautical style, his ideas of fort and venience having been acquired on the berth-deck of a man-of-war. A hammock was slung from the ceiling whi the daytime was lashed up so as to take but little room. From the tre of the chamber hung a model of a ship, of his own workmanship. Two or three chairs, a table, and a large sea-chest formed the principal movables. About the wall were stuck up naval ballads, such as "Admiral Hhost,"
"All in the Downs," and "Tom Bowling," intermingled with pictures of sea-?ghts, among which the battle of Camperdown held a distinguished place. The mantel.piece was decorated with sea-shells, over which hung a quadrant, ?anked by two wood-cuts of most bitter-looking naval anders. His implements fling were carefully disposed on nails and hooks about the room. On a shelf was arranged his library, taining a work on angling, much worn, a Bible covered with vas, an odd volume or two of voyages, a nautical almanad a book of songs.
* J. Davors.
His family sisted of a large black cat with one eye, and a parrot which he had caught and tamed and educated himself in the course of one of his voyages, and which uttered a variety of sea-phrases with the hoarse brattling tone of a veteran boatswain. The establishment reminded me of that of the renowned Robinson Crusoe; it was kept i order, everything being "stowed away" with the regularity of a ship of war; and he informed me that he "scoured the deck every m and swept it between meals."
I found him seated on a bench before the door, smoking his pipe in the soft evening sunshine. His cat urring soberly ohreshold, and his parrot describing some strange evolutions in an ir that swung in the tre of his cage. He had been angling all day, and gave me a history of his sport with as much minuteness as a general would talk over a campaign, being particularly animated iing the manner in which he had taken a large trout, which had pletely tasked all his skill and wariness, and which he had sent as a trophy to mine hostess of the inn.
How f it is to see a cheerful and tented old age, and to behold a poor fellow like this, after being tempest-tost through life, safely moored in a snug and quiet harbor in the evening of his days! His happiness, however, sprung from within himself and was indepe of external circumstances, for he had that inexhaustible good-nature which is the most precious gift of Heaven, spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather.
On inquiring further about him, I learnt that he was a universal favorite in the village and the oracle of the tap-room, where he delighted the rustics with his songs, and, like Sindbad, astohem with his stories of strange lands and shipwrecks and sea-?ghts. He was muoticed too by gentlemen sportsmen of the neighborhood, had taught several of them the art of angling, and rivileged visitor to their kits. The whole tenor of his life was quiet and inoffensive, being principally passed about the neighb streams when the weather and season were favorable; and at other times he employed himself at home, preparing his ?shing-tackle for the campaign or manufacturing rods, s, and ?ies for his patrons and pupils among the gentry.
He was a regular attendant at chur Sundays, though he generally fell asleep during the sermon. He had made it his particular request that when he died he should be buried in a green spot which he could see from his seat in church, and which he had marked out ever since he was a boy, and had thought of when far from home on the raging sea in danger of being food for the ?shes: it was the spot where his father and mother had been buried.
I have done, for I fear that my reader is growing weary, but I could not refrain from drawing the picture of this worthy "brother of the angle," who has made me more than ever in love with the theory, though I fear I shall never be adroit in the practice, of his art; and I will clude this rambling sket the words of ho Izaak Walton, by craving the blessing of St.
Peters Master upon my reader, "and upon all that are true lovers of virtue, and dare trust in His providence, and be quiet, and go a-angling."
.
(FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF THE LATE DIEDRIICKERBOCKER.)
A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was,Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye,And of gay castles in the clouds that pays,For ever ?ushing round a summer sky.
Castle of Indolen the bosom of one of those spacious coves whident the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the a Dutavigators the Tappan Zee, and where they alrudently shortened sail and implored the prote of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small market-town or rural port which by some is called Greensburg, but which is menerally and properly known by the name of Tarry Town. This name was given, we are told, in former days by the good housewives of the adjat try from the ie propensity of their husbands to linger about the village tavern on market days. Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert to it for the sake of being precise and authentiot far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley, or rather lap of land, among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull oo repose, and the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity.
I recollect that when a stripling my ?rst exploit in squirrel-shooting was in a grove of tall walnut trees that shades one side of the valley. I had wandered into it at noontime, when all Nature is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of my own gun as it broke the Sabbath stillness around and rolonged and reverberated by the angry echoes. If ever I should wish for a retreat whither I might steal from the world and its distras and dream quiet.ly away the remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little valley.
From the listless repose of the plad the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are desdants from the inal Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of SLEEPY HOLLOW, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighb try. A drowsy, dreamy in?uence seems to hang over the land and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was bewitched by a High German doctor during the early days of the settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held his pos there before the try was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudsoain it is, the place still tinues uhe sway of some witg power that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a tinual reverie. They are given to all kinds of marvellous beliefs, are subject to trances and visions, and frequently see strange sights and hear musid voices in the air. The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions; stars shoot aelare oftener across the valley than in any other part of the try, and the nightmare, with her whole ninefold, seems to make it the favorite se of her gambols.
The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this ented region, and seems to be ander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a ?gure on horseback without a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper whose head had been carried away by a onball in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War, and who is ever and anon seen by the try-folk hurrying along in the gloom of night as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are not ed to the valley, but extend at times to the adjat roads, and especially to the viity of a church at no great distance. Indeed, certain of the most authentic historians of those parts, who have been careful in colleg and collating the ?oating facts ing this spectre, allege that the body of the trooper, having been buried in the churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the se of battle in nightly quest of his head, and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes passes along the Hollow, like a midnight blast, is owing to his beied and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak.
Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which has furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of shadows; and the spectre is known at all the try ?resides by the name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.
It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have mentioned is not ed to the native inhabitants of the valley, but is unsciously imbibed by every one who resides there for a time.
However wide awake they may have been before they ehat sleepy region, they are sure in a little time to ihe witg in?uence of the air and begin to grow imaginative--to dream dreams and see apparitions.
I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud, for it is in such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there embosomed in the great State of New York, that population, manners, and s remain ?xed, while the great torrent of migration and improvement, which is making sucessant ges in other parts of this restless try, sweeps by them unobserved. They are like those little nooks of still water which border a rapid stream where we may see the straw and bubble riding quietly at anchor or slowly revolving in their mimic harbor, undisturbed by the rush of the passing current. Though many years have elapsed sirod the drowsy shades of Sleepy Hollow, yet I questioher I should not still ?nd the same trees and the same families vegetating in its sheltered bosom.
In this by-place of Nature there abode, in a remote period of Ameri history--that is to say, some thirty years since--a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod e, who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, "tarried," in Sleepy Hollow for the purpose of instrug the children of the viity. He was a native of ecticut, a State which supplies the Union with pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth yearly its legions of frontier woodmen and try sasters. The en of e was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and ?at at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snip nose, so that it looked like a weathercock perched upon his spindle o tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the pro?le of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and ?uttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of Famine desding upon the earth or some scarecrow eloped from a ?eld.
His school-house was a low building of one large room, rudely structed of logs, the windows partly glazed and partly patched with leaves of old copybooks. It was most ingeniously secured at vat hours by a withe twisted in the handle of the door and stakes set against the window-shutters, so that, though a thief might get in with perfect ease, he would ?nd some embarrassment iing out---an idea most probably borrowed by the architect, Yost Van Houten, from the mystery of an eel-pot. The school-house stood in a rather lonely but pleasant situation, just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook running close by and a formidable birch tree growing at one end of it. From hehe low murmur of his pupils voices, ing over their lessons, might be heard in a drowsy summers day like the hum of a bee-hive, interrupted now and then by the authoritative voice of the master ione of menace or and, or, peradventure, by the appalling sound of the birch as he urged some tardy loiterer along the ?owery path of knowledge. Truth to say, he was a stious man, and ever bore in mind the golden maxim, "Spare the rod and spoil the child." Ichabod es scholars certainly were not spoiled.
I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of those cruel potentates of the school who joy in the smart of their subjects; on the trary, he administered justice with discrimination rather than severity, taking the burden off the backs of the weak and laying it on those of the strong. Your mere puny stripling, that wi the least ?ourish of the rod, assed by with indulgence; but the claims of justice were satis?ed by in?ig a double portion on some little tough, wrong-headed, broad-skirted Dutch ur, who sulked and swelled and grew dogged and sulleh the birch. All this he called "doing his duty by their parents;" and he never in?icted a chastisement without following it by the assurance, so solatory to the smarting ur, that "he would remember it and thank him for it the lo day he had to live."
When school-hours were over he was even the panion and playmate of the larger boys, and on holiday afternoons would voy some of the smaller ones home who happeo have pretty sisters ood housewives for mothers noted for the forts of the cupboard. I behooved him to keep on good terms with his pupils. The revenue arising from his school was small, and would have been scarcely suf?t to furnish him with daily bread, for he was a huge feeder, and, though lank, had the dilating powers of an anada; but to help out his maintenance he was, acc to try in those parts, boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers whose children he instructed.
With these he lived successively a week at a time, thus going the rounds of the neighborhood with all his worldly effects tied up in a cotton handkerchief.
That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his rustic patrons, who are apt to sider the costs of schooling a grievous burden and sasters as mere drones, he had various ways of rendering himself both useful and agreeable. He assisted the farmers occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms, helped to make hay, mehe feook the horses to water, drove the cows from pasture, and cut wood for the winter ?re. He laid aside, too, all the dominant dignity and absolute sway with which he lorded it in his little empire, the school, and became wonderfully gentle and ingratiating. He found favor in the eyes of the mothers by petting the children, particularly the you; and like the lion bold, which whilom so magnanimously the lamb did hold, he would sit with a child on one knee and rock a cradle with his foot for whole hours together.
In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing-master of the neighborhood and picked up many bright shillings by instrug the young folks in psalmody. It was a matter of no little vanity to him on Sundays to take his station in front of the church-gallery with a band of chosen singers, where, in his own mind, he pletely carried away the palm from the parson.
Certain it is, his voice resounded far above all the rest of the gregation, and there are peculiar quavers still to be heard in that church, and which may even be heard half a mile off, quite to the opposite side of the mill-pond on a still Sunday m, which are said to be legitimately desded from the nose of Ichabod e. Thus, by divers little makeshifts in that ingenious way which is only denominated "by hook and by crook," the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and was thought, by all who uood nothing of the labor of headwork, to have a wonderfully easy life of it.
The saster is generally a man of some importan the female circle of a rural neighborhood, being sidered a kind of idle, gentleman-like personage of vastly superior taste and aplishments to the rough try swains, and, indeed, inferior in learning only to the parson. His appearaherefore, is apt to occasion some little stir at the tea-table of a farmhouse and the addition of a supernumerary dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradvehe parade of a silver tea-pot.
Our man of letters, therefore, eculiarly happy in the smiles of all the try damsels. How he would ?gure among them in the churchyard between services on Sundays, gathering grapes for them from the wild vihat overrun the surrounding trees; reg for their amusement all the epitaphs oombstones; or sauntering, with a whole bevy of them, along the banks of the adjat mill-pond, while the more bashful try bumpkins hung sheepishly back, envying his superior elegand address.
From his half-iti life, also, he was a kind of travelling gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to house, so that his appearance was always greeted with satisfa. He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, for he had read several books quite through, and erfect master of athers History of New England Witchcraft, in which, by the way, he most ?rmly and potently believed.
He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple credulity. His appetite for the marvellous and his powers of digesting it were equally extraordinary, and both had been increased by his residen this spellbound region. No tale was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow. It was often his delight, after his school was dismissed iernoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover b the little brook that whimpered by his school-house, and there over old Mathers direful tales until the gathering dusk of the evening made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes. Then, as he wended his way by s and stream and awful woodland to the farmhouse where he happeo be quartered, every sound of Nature at that witg hour ?uttered his excited imagination--the moan of the whip-poor-will* from the hillside; the boding cry of the tree-toad, that harbinger of storm; the dreary hooting of the screech-owl, or the sudden rustling ihicket of birds frightened from their roost. The ?re-?ies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him as one of unhtness would stream across his path; and if, by ce, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging his blundering ?ight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give up the ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a witchs token. His only resour such occasioher to drown thought or drive away evil spirits, was to sing psalm tunes; and the good people of Sleepy Hollow, as they sat by their doors of an evening, were often ?lled with awe at hearing his nasal melody, "in linked sweetness long drawn out," ?oating from the distant hill or along the dusky road.
* The whip-poor-will is a bird which is only heard at night. It receives its name from its note, which is thought to resemble those words.
Anoth?er of his sources of fearful pleasure was to pass long winter evenings with the old Dutch wives as they sat spinning by the ?re, with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and listen to their marvellous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted ?elds, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless horseman, alloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they sometimes called him. He would delight them equally by his aes of witchcraft and of the direful omens and portentous sights and sounds in the air which prevailed in the earlier times of ecticut, and would frighten them woefully with speculations upon ets and shooting stars, and with the alarming fact that the world did absolutely turn round and that they were half the time topsy-turvy.
But if there leasure in all this while snugly cuddling in the ey-er of a chamber that was all of a ruddy glow from the crag wood-?re, and where, of course, no spectre dared to show its face, it was dearly purchased by the terrors of his subsequent walk homewards. What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path amidst the dim and ghastly glare of a snowy night! With what wistful look did be eye every trembling ray of light streaming across the waste ?elds from some distant window! How often was he appalled by some shrub covered with snow, which, like a sheeted spectre, beset his very path! How often did he shrink with curdling awe at the sound of his own steps on the frosty crust beh his feet, and dread to look over his shoulder, lest he should behold some uncouth being tramping close behind him! And how often was he thrown into plete dismay by some rushing blast howling among the trees, in the idea that it was the Galloping Hessian on one of his nightly scs!
All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the mind that walk in darkness; and though he had seen many spectres in his time, and been more than once beset by Satan in divers shapes in his lonely perambulations, yet daylight put ao all these evils; and he would have passed a pleasant life of it, ie of the devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that was--a woman.
Among the musical disciples who assembled one evening in each week to receive his instrus in psalmody was Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and only child of a substantial Dutch farmer. She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen, plump as a partridge, ripe aing and rosy-cheeked as one of her fathers peaches, and universally famed, not merely for her beauty, but her vast expectations. She was withal a little of a coquette, as might be perceived even in her dress, which was a mixture of a and modern fashions, as most suited to set off her charms. She wore the ors of pure yellow gold which her great-great-grandmother had brought over from Saardam, the tempting stomacher of the olden time, and withal a provokingly short petticoat to display the prettiest foot and ankle in the try round.
Ichabod e had a soft and foolish heart towards the sex, and it is not to be wo that so tempting a morsel soon found favor in his eyes, more especially after he had visited her in her paternal mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel erfect picture of a thriving, tented, liberal-hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, seher his eyes or his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm, but within those everything was snug, happy, and well-ditioned. He was satis?ed with his wealth but not proud of it, and piqued himself upon the hearty abundance, rather thayle, in which he lived. His stronghold was situated on the banks of the Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered, fertile nooks in which the Dutch farmers are so fond of ling. A great elm tree spread its broad branches over it, at the foot of which bubbled up a spring of the softest and sweetest water in a little well formed of a barrel, and then stole sparkling away through the grass to a neighb brook that bubbled along among alders and dwarf willows. Hard by the farmhouse was a vast barn, that might have served for a church, every window and crevice of which seemed bursting forth with the treasures of the farm; the ?ail was busily resounding within it from m to night; swallows and martins skimmed twittering about the eaves; and rows of pigeons, some with ourned up, as if watg the weather, some with their heads uheir wings or buried in their bosoms, and others, swelling, and g, and bowing about their dames, were enjoying the sunshine on the roof. Sleek, unwieldy porkers were grunting in the repose and abundance of their pens, whence sallied forth, now and then, troops of sug pigs as if to snuff the air. A stately squadron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, voying whole ?eets of ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling through the farmyard, and guinea-fowls fretting about it, like ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish, distented cry. Before the barn-door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of a husband, a warrior, and a ?leman, clapping his burnished wings and crowing in the pride and gladness of his heart--sometimes tearing up the earth with his feet, and then generously calling his ever-hungry family of wives and children to enjoy the rich morsel which he had discovered.
The pedagogues mouth watered as he looked upon this sumptuous promise of luxurious winter fare. In his dev minds eye he pictured to himself every roasting-pig running about with a pudding in his belly and an apple in his mouth; the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a fortable pie and tucked in with a coverlet of crust; the geese were swimming in their own gravy; and the ducks pairing cosily in dishes, like snug married couples, with a det petency of onion sauce. In the porkers he saw carved out the future sleek side of ba and juicy relishing ham; not a turkey but he beheld daintily trussed up, with its gizzard us wing, and, peradventure, a necklace of savory sausages; and even bright ticleer himself lay sprawling on his ba a side-dish, with uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which his chivalrous spirit disdaio ask while living.
As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled his great green eyes over the fat meadow-lands, the rich ?elds of wheat, of rye, of buckwheat, and Indian , and the orchards burdened with ruddy fruit, which surrouhe warm te of Van Tassel, his heart yearned after the damsel who was to i these domains, and his imagination expanded with the idea how they might be readily turned into cash and the money ied in immeracts of wild land and shingle palaces in the wilderness. Nay, his busy fancy already realized his hopes, and preseo him the blooming Katrina, with a whole family of children, mounted oop of a wagon loaded with household trumpery, with pots ales danglih, and he beheld himself bestriding a pag mare, with a colt at her heels, setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee, or the Lord knows where.
Wheered the house the quest of his heart was plete.
It was one of those spacious farmhouses with high-ridged but lowly-sloping roofs, built iyle handed down from the ?rst Dutch settlers, the low projeg eaves f a piazza along the front capable of being closed up in bad weather. Uhis were hung ?ails, harness, various utensils of husbandry, as for ?shing in the neighb river. Benches were built along the sides for summer use, and a great spinning-wheel at one end and a at the other showed the various uses to which this important porch might be devoted. From this piazza the w Ichabod ehe hall, whied the tre of the mansion and the place of usual residence. Here rows of resple pewter, ranged on a long dresser, dazzled his eyes.
In one er stood a huge bag of wool ready to be spun; in another a quantity of linsey-woolsey just from the loom; ears of Indian and strings of dried apples and peaches hung in gay festoons along the walls, mingled with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor, where the claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany tables shone like mirrors; andirons, with their apanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops; mock-es and ch-shells decorated the mantelpiece; strings of various-colored birds eggs were suspended above it; a great ostrish egg was hung from the tre of the room, and a er cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immereasures of old silver and well-mended a.
From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these regions of delight the peace of his mind was at an end, and his only study was how to gain the affes of the peerless daughter of Van Tassel. In this enterprise, however, he had more real dif?culties than generally fell to the lot of a knight-errant of yore, who seldom had anything but giants, enters, ?ery dragons, and such-like easily-quered adversaries to tend with, and had to make his way merely through gates of iron and brass and walls of adamant to the castle keep, where the lady of his heart was ed; all which he achieved as easily as a man would carve his way to the tre of a Christmas pie, and then the lady gave him her hand as a matter of course. Ichabod, on the trary, had to win his way to the heart of a try coquette beset with a labyrinth of whims and caprices, which were forever presenting new dif?culties and impediments, and he had to enter a host of fearful adversaries of real ?esh and blood, the numerous rustic admirers who beset every portal to her heart, keeping a watchful and angry eye upon each other, but ready to ?y out in the on cause against any new petitor.
Among these the most formidable was a burly, r, roistering blade of the name of Abraham--or, acc to the Dutch abbreviation, Brom--Van Brunt, the hero of the try round, which rang with his feats of strength and hardihood. He was broad-shouldered and double-jointed, with short curly black hair and a bluff but not unpleasant tenance, having a mingled air of fun and arrogance. From his Herculean frame and great powers of limb, he had received the niame of BROM BONES, by which he was universally known. He was famed freat knowledge and skill in horsemanship, being as dexterous on horseback as a Tartar. He was foremost at all races and cock?ghts, and, with the asdancy which bodily strength acquires in rustic life, was the umpire in all disputes, setting his hat on one side and giving his decisions with an air and tone admitting of no gainsay or appeal. He was always ready for either a ?ght or a frolic, but had more mischief than ill-will in his position; and with all his overbearing roughhere was a strong dash of waggish good-humor at bottom. He had three or four boon panions wharded him as their model, and at the head of whom he scoured the try, attending every se of feud or merriment for miles around. In cold weather he was distinguished by a fur cap surmounted with a ?aunting foxs tail; and when the folks at a try gathering descried this well-know at a distance, whisking about among a squad of hard riders, they always stood by for a squall. Sometimes his crew would be heard dashing along past the farm-houses at midnight with whoop and halloo, like a troop of Don Cossacks, and the old dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen for a moment till the hurry-scurry had clattered by, and then exclaim, "Ay, there goes Brom Bones and his gang!" The neighbors looked upon him with a mixture of awe, admiration, and good-will, and when any madcap prank or rustic brawl occurred in the viity always shook their heads and warranted Brom Bones was at the bottom of it.
This rantipole hero had for some time singled out the blooming Katrina for the object of his uncouth gallantries, and, though his amorous toyings were something like the gentle caresses and endearments of a bear, yet it was whispered that she did not altogether disce his hopes. Certain it is, his advances were signals for rival didates to retire who felt no ination to cross a line in his amours; insomuch, that when his horse was seeo Van Tassels paling on a Sunday night, a sure sign that his master was c--or, as it is termed, "sparking"--within, all other suitors passed by in despair and carried the war into other quarters.
Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod e had to tend, and, sidering all things, a stouter man than he would have shrunk from the petition and a wiser (*)man would have despaired. He had, however, a happy mixture of pliability and perseveran his nature; he was in form and spirit like a supple jack--yielding, but although; though he bent, he never broke and though he bowed beh the slightest pressure, yet the moment it was away, jerk! he was as ered carried his head as high as ever.
To have taken the ?eld openly against his rival would have been madness for he was not man to be thwarted in his amours, any more than that stormy lover, Achilles. Ichabod, therefore, made his advances in a quiet aly-insinuating manner. Under cover of his character of singing-master, he made frequent visits at the farm-house; not that he had anything to apprehend from the meddlesome interference of parents, which is so often a stumbling-blo the path of lovers. Balt Van Tassel was an easy, indulgent soul; he loved his daughter better even than his pipe, and, like a reasonable man and an excellent father, let her have her way ihing. His notable little wife, too, had enough to do to attend to her housekeeping and manage her poultry for, as she sagely observed, ducks and geese are foolish things and must be looked after, but girls take care of themselves.
Thus while the busy dame bustled about the house or plied her spinning-wheel at one end of the piazza, ho Balt would sit smoking his evening pipe at the other, watg the achievements of a little wooden warrior who, armed with a sword in each hand, was most valiantly ?ghting the wind on the pinnacle of the barn.
In the meantime, Ichabod would carry on his suit with the daughter by the side of the spring uhe great elm, or sauntering along iwilight, that hour so favorable to the lovers eloquence.
I profess not to knoomes are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration. Some seem to have but one vulnerable point, or door of access, while otheres have a thousand avenues and may be captured in a thousand different ways. It is a great triumph of skill to gain the former, but still greater proof of generalship to maintain possession of the latter, for the man must battle for his fortress at every door and window. He who wins a thousand os is therefore entitled to some renown, but he who keeps undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette is indeed a hero.
Certain it is, this was not the case with the redoubtable Brom Bones; and from the moment Ichabod e made his advahe is of the former evidently deed; his horse was no longer see the palings on Sunday nights, and a deadly feud gradually arose between him and the preceptor of Sleepy Hollow.
Brom, who had a degree h chivalry in his nature, would fain have carried matters to open warfare, and have settled their pretensions to the lady acc to the mode of those most cise and simple reasoners, the knights-errant of yore--by single bat; but Ichabod was too scious of the superiht of his adversary to ehe lists against him: he had overheard a boast of Bohat he would "double the saster up and lay him on a shelf of his own school-house;"
and he was too wary to give him an opportunity. There was somethiremely provoking in this obstinately paci?c system; it left Brom no alternative but to draw upon the funds of rustic waggery in his disposition and to play off boorish practical jokes upon his rival. Ichabod became the object of whimsical persecution to Bones and his gang h riders. They harried his hitherto peaceful domains; smoked out his singing school by stopping up the ey; broke into the schoolhouse at night in spite of its formidable fastenings of withe and window stakes, and turned everything topsy-turvy; so that the poor saster began to think all the witches in the try held their meetings there. But, what was still more annoying, Brom took all opportunities of turning him into ridicule in presence of his mistress, and had a sdrel dog whom he taught to whine in the most ludianner, and introduced as a rival of Ichabods, to instruct her in psalmody.
In this way, matters went on for some time without produg any material effe the relative situation of the tending powers. On a ?umnal afternoon Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned on the lofty stool whence he usually watched all the s of his little literary realm. In his hand he swayed a ferule, that sceptre of despotic power; the birch of justice reposed on three nails behind the throne, a stant terror to evildoers; while on the desk before him might be seen sundry traband articles and prohibited oed upon the persons of idle urs, such as half-munched apples, popguns, whirligigs, ?y-cages, and whole legions of rampant little paper gamecocks. Apparently there had been some appalling act of justice retly in?icted, for his scholars were all busily i upon their books or slyly whispering behind them with one eye kept upon the master, and a kind of buzzing stillness reighroughout the school-room. It was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a negro in tow-cloth jacket and trowsers, a round-ed fragment of a hat like the ercury, and mounted on the back of a ragged, wild, half-broken colt, which he managed with a rope by way of halter. He came clattering up to the school door with an invitation to Ichabod to attend a merry-making or "quilting frolic" to be held that evening at Mynheer Van Tassels; and, having delivered his message with that air of importand effort at ?ne language which a negro is apt to display oy embassies of the kind, he dashed over the brook, and was seen scampering a the hollow, full of the importand hurry of his mission.
All was now bustle and hubbub ie quiet school-room. The scholars were hurried through their lessons without stopping at tri?es; those who were nimble skipped over half with impunity, and those who were tardy had a smart application now and then in the rear to qui their speed or help them over a tall word.
Books were ?ung aside without being put away on the shelves, inkstands were overturned, behrown down, and the whole school was turned loose an hour before the usual time, bursting forth like a legion of young imps, yelping and racketing about the green in joy at their early emancipation.
The gallant Ichabod now spent at least ara half hour at his toilet, brushing and furbishing up his best, and indeed only, suit of rusty black, and arranging his locks by a bit of broken looking-glass that hung up in the school-house. That he might make his appearance before his mistress irue style of a cavalier, he borrowed a horse from the farmer with whom he was domiciliated, a choleric old Dut of the name of Hans Van Ripper, and, thus gallantly mounted, issued forth like a knight-errant i of adventures. But it is meet I should, irue spirit of romantic stive some at of the looks and equipments of my hero and his steed. The animal he bestrode was a broken-down plough-horse that had outlived almost everything but his viciousness. He was gaunt and shagged, with a ewe ned a head like a hammer; his rusty mane and tail were tangled and knotted with burrs; one eye had lost its pupil and was glaring and spectral, but the other had the gleam of a genuine devil in it. Still, he must have had ?re ale in his day, if we may judge from the name he bore of Gunpowder. He had, in fact, been a favorite steed of his masters, the choleri Ripper, who was a furious rider, and had infused, very probably, some of his own spirit into the animal; for, old and broken down as he looked, there was more of the lurking devil in him than in any young ?lly in the try.
Ichabod was a suitable ?gure for such a steed. He rode with short stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the pommel of the saddle; his sharp elbows stuck out like grasshoppers; he carried his whip perpendicularly in his hand like a sceptre; and as his horse jogged oion of his arms was not uhe ?apping of a pair of wings. A small wool hat rested oop of his nose, for so his sty strip of forehead might be called, and the skirts of his black coat ?uttered out almost to his horses tail. Such was the appearance of Ichabod and his steed as they shambled out of the gate of Hans Van Ripper, and it was altogether su apparition as is seldom to be met with in broad daylight.
It was, as I have said, a ?umnal day, the sky was clear and serene, and Nature wore that rid golden livery which we always associate with the idea of abundahe forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes e, purple, and scarlet. Streaming ?les of wild-ducks began to make their appearance high in the air; the bark of the squirrel might be heard from the groves of beed hickory nuts, and the pensive whistle of the quail at intervals from the neighb stubble-?eld.
The small birds were taking their farewell bas. In the fulness of their revelry they ?uttered, chirping and frolig, from bush to bush and tree to tree, capricious from the very profusion and variety aro..und them. There was the ho cock robin, the favorite game of stripling sportsmen, with its loud querulous note; and the twittering blackbirds, ?ying in sable clouds; and the golden-winged woodpecker, with his crimso, his broad black get, and splendid plumage; and the cedar-bird, with its red-tipt wings and yellow-tipt tail and its little monteiro cap of feathers; and the blue jay, that noisy b, in his gay light-blue coat and white under-clothes, screaming and chattering, bobbing and nodding and bowing, and pretending to be on good terms with every songster of the grove.
As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way his eye, ever open to every symptom of ary abundance, ranged with delight over the treasures of jolly Autumn. On all sides he beheld vast store of apples--some hanging in oppressive opulen the trees, some gathered into baskets and barrels for the market, others heaped up in rich piles for the cider-press. Farther on he beheld great ?elds of Indian , with its golden ears peeping from their leafy coverts and holding out the promise of cakes and hasty pudding; and the yellow pumpkins lyih them, turning up their fair round bellies to the sun, and giving ample prospects of the most luxurious of pies; and anon he passed the fragrant buckwheat-?elds, breathing the odor of the beehive, and as he beheld them soft anticipations stole over his mind of dainty slapjacks, well buttered and garnished with honey or treacle by the delicate little dimpled hand of Katrina Van Tassel.
Thus feeding his mind with many sweet thoughts and "sugared suppositions," he journeyed along the sides of a range of hills which look out upon some of the goodliest ses of the mighty Hudson. The sun gradually wheeled his broad disk down into the west. The wide bosom of the Tappan Zee lay motionless and glassy, excepting that here and there a gentle undulation waved and prolohe blue shadow of the distant mountain. A few amber clouds ?oated in the sky, without a breath of air to move them.
The horizon was of a ?ne golden tint, ging gradually into a pure apple green, and from that into the deep blue of the mid-heaven. A slanting ray lingered on the woody crests of the precipices that some parts of the river, giving greater depth to the dark-gray and purple of their rocky sides. A sloop was l in the distance, dropping slowly down with the tide, her sail hanging uselessly against the mast, and as the re?e of the sky gleamed along the still water it seemed as if the vessel was suspended in the air.
It was toward evening that Ichabod arrived at the castle of the Heer Van Tassel, which he found thronged with the pride and ?ower of the adjat try--old farmers, a spare leathern-faced race, in homespun coats and breeches, blue stogs, huge shoes, and mag pewter buckles; their brisk withered little dames, in close crimped caps, long-waisted showns, homespuicoats, with scissors and pincushions and gay calico pockets hanging oside; buxom lasses, almost as antiquated as their mothers, excepting where a straw hat, a ?ne ribbon, or perhaps a white frock, gave symptoms of city innovation; the sons, in short square-skirted coats with rows of stupendous brass buttons, and their hair generally queued in the fashion of the times, especially if they could procure an eel-skin for the purpose, it beieemed throughout the try as a potent nourisher and strengthener of the hair.
Brom Bones, however, was the hero of the se, having e to the gathering on his favorite steed Daredevil--a creature, like himself full of metal and mischief, and whio o himself could manage. He was, in faoted for preferring vicious animals, given to all kinds of tricks, which kept the rider in stant risk of his neck, for he held a tractable, well-broken horse as unworthy of a lad of spirit.
Fain would I pause to dwell upon the world of charms that burst upon the enraptured gaze of my hero as he ehe state parlor of Van Tassels mansion. Not those of the bevy of buxom lasses with their luxurious display of red and white, but the ample charms of a gech try tea-table in the sumptuous time of autumn. Such heaped-up platters of cakes of various and almost indescribable kinds, known only to experienced Dutch housewives! There was the doughty doughnut, the tenderer oily koek, and the crisp and crumbling cruller; sweet cakes and short cakes, ginger cakes and honey cakes, and the whole family of cakes. And then there were apple pies and peach pies and pumpkin pies; besides slices of ham and smoked beef; and moreover delectable dishes of preserved plums and peaches and pears and quinces; not to mention broiled shad and roasted chis; together with bowls of milk and cream,--all mingled higgledy-piggledy, pretty much as I have eed them, with the motherly teapot sending up its clouds of vapor from the midst. Heavehe mark! I want breath and time to discuss this ba as it deserves, and am too eager to get on with my story. Happily, Ichabod e was not in so great a hurry as his historian, but did ample justice to every dainty.
He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart dilated in proportion as his skin was ?lled with good cheer, and whose spirits rose with eating as some mens do with drink. He could not help, too, rolling his large eyes round him as he ate, and chug with the possibility that he might one day be lord of all this se of almost unimaginable luxury and splendor. Thehought, how soourn his back upon the old school-house, snap his ?ngers in the face of Hans Van Ripper and every gardly patron, and kiy iti pedagogue out of doors that should dare to call him rade!
Old Baltus Van Tassel moved about among his guests with a face dilated with tent and good-humor, round and jolly as the harvest moon. His hospitable attentions were brief, but expressive, being ed to a shake of the hand, a slap on the shoulder, a loud laugh, and a pressing invitation to "fall to ahemselves."
And now the sound of the musi the on room, or hall, summoo the dahe musi was an old gray-headed negro who had beei orchestra of the neighborhood for more than half a tury. His instrument was as old and battered as himself. The greater part of the time he scraped on two or three strings, apanying every movement of the bow with a motion of the head, bowing almost to the ground and stamping with his foot whenever a fresh couple were to start.
Ichobod prided himself upon his dang as much as upon his vocal powers. Not a limb, not a ?bre about him was idle; and to have seen his loosely hung frame in full motion and clattering about the room you would have thought Saint Vitus himself, that blessed patron of the dance, was ?guring before you in person. He was the admiration of all the negroes, who, having gathered, of all ages and sizes, from the farm and the neighborhood, stood f a pyramid of shining black faces at every door and window, gazing with delight at the se, rolling their white eyeballs, and showing grinning rows of ivory from ear to ear. How could the ?ogger of urs be otherwise than animated and joyous? The lady of his heart was his partner in the dance, and smiling graciously in reply to all his amorous oglings, while Brom Bones, sorely smitten with love and jealousy, sat brooding by himself in one er.
When the dance was at an end Ichabod was attracted to a knot of the sager folks, who, with old Van Tassel, sat smoking at one end of the piazza gossiping over former times and drawing out long stories about the war.
This neighborhood, at the time of which I am speaking, was one of those highly favored places which abound with icle and great men. The British and Ameri line had run near it during the war; it had therefore been the se of marauding and ied with refugees, cow-boys, and all kinds of border chivalry. Just suf?t time had elapsed to enable each storyteller to dress up his tale with a little being ?, and in the indistiness of his recolle to make himself the hero of every exploit.
There was the story of Doffue Martling, a large blue-bearded Dut, who had nearly taken a British frigate with an old iron nine-pounder from a mud breastwork, only that his gun burst at the sixth discharge. And there was an old gentleman who shall be nameless, being too rich a myo be lightly mentioned, who, itle of Whiteplains, being an excellent master of defence, parried a musket-ball with a small sword, insomuch that he absolutely felt it whiz round the blade and glance off at the hilt: in proof of which he was ready at any time to show the sword, with the hilt a little bent. There were several more that had been equally great in the ?eld, not one of whom but ersuaded that he had a siderable hand in bringing the war to a happy termination.
But all these were nothing to the tales of ghosts and apparitions that succeeded. The neighborhood is ri legendary treasures of the kind. Local tales and superstitions thrive best in these sheltered, loled retreats but are trampled under foot by the shifting throng that forms the population of most of our try places. Besides, there is no encement fhosts in most of our villages, for they have scarcely had time to ?nish their ?rst nap and turn themselves in their graves before their surviving friends have travelled away from the neighborhood; so that wheurn out at night to walk their rounds they have no acquaintance left to call upon. This is perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear of ghosts except in our loablished Dutunities.
The immediate causes however, of the prevalence of supernatural stories in these parts, was doubtless owing to the viity of Sleepy Hollow. There was a tagion in the very air that blew from that haunted region; it breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams and fancies iing all the land. Several of the Sleepy Hollow people were present at Van Tassels, and, as usual, were doling out their wild and wonderful legends. Many dismal tales were told about funeral trains and m cries and wailings heard and seen about the great tree where the unfortunate Major Andre was taken, and which stood in the neighborhood. Some mention was made also of the woman in white that hauhe dark glen at Raven Rock, and was often heard to shriek on winter nights before a storm, having perished there in the snow. The chief part of the stories, however, turned upon the favorite spectre of Sleepy Hollow, the headless horseman, who had been heard several times of late patrolling the try, and, it was said, tethered his horse nightly among the graves in the churchyard.
The sequestered situation of this church seems always to have made it a favorite haunt of troubled spirits. It stands on a knoll surrounded by locust trees and lofty elms, from among which its det whitewashed walls shine modestly forth, like Christian purity beaming through the shades of retirement. A gentle slope desds from it to a silver sheet of water bordered by high trees, between which peeps may be caught at the blue hills of the Hudson. To look upon its grass-grown yard, where the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at least the dead might rest in peace. On one side of the church extends a wide woody dell, along, which raves a large brook among broken rocks and trunks of fallen trees. Over a deep black part of the stream, not far from the church, was formerly thrown a wooden bridge; the road that led to it and the bridge itself were thickly shaded by ing trees, which cast a gloom about it even in the daytime, but occasioned a fearful darkness at night.
Such was one of the favorite haunts of the headless horseman, and the place where he was most frequently entered. The tale was told of old Brouwer, a most heretical disbeliever in ghosts, how he met the horsemaurning from his foray into Sleepy Hollow, and was obliged to get up behind him; how they galloped over bush and brake, over hill and s, until they reached the bridge, when the horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw old Brouwer into the brook, and sprang away over the tree-tops with a clap of thunder.
This story was immediately matched by a thrice-marvellous adventure of Brom Bones, who made light of the galloping Hessian as an arrant jockey. He af?rmed that ourning one night from the neighb village of Sing-Sing he had beeaken by this midnight trooper; that he had offered to race with him for a bowl of punch, and should have won it too, for Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow, but just as they came to the church bridge the Hessian bolted and vanished in a ?ash of ?re.
All these tales, told in that drowsy uoh which men talk in the dark, the tenances of the listeners only now and then receiving a casual gleam from the glare of a pipe, sank deep in the mind of Ichabod. He repaid them in kind with large extracts from his invaluable author, ather, and added many marvellous events that had taken pla his native state of ecticut and fearful sights which he had seen in his nightly walks about Sleepy Hollow.
The revel now gradually broke up. The old farmers gathered together their families in their wagons, and were heard for some time rattling along the hollow roads and over the distant hills.
Some of the damsels mounted on pillions behind their favorite swains, and their light-hearted laughter, mingling with the clatter of hoofs, echoed along the silent woodlands, sounding fainter and fainter until they gradually died away, and the late se of noise and frolic was all silent aed. Ichabod only lingered behind, acc to the of try lovers, to have a tete-a-tete with the heiress, fully vihat he was now on the high road to success. assed at this interview I will not pretend to say, for in fact I do not know.
Something, however, I fear me, must have gone wrong, for he certainly sallied forth, after nreat interval, with an air quite desolate and chop-fallen. Oh these women! these women!
Could that girl have been playing off any of her coquettish tricks? Was her encement of the poor pedagogue all a mere sham to secure her quest of his rival? Heaven only knows, not I! Let it suf?ce to say, Ichabod stole forth with the air of one who had been sag a hen-roost, rather than a fair ladys heart. Without looking to the right or left to notice the se of rural wealth on which he had so often gloated, he went straight to the stable, and with several hearty cuffs and kicks roused his steed most uncourteously from the fortable quarters in which he was soundly sleeping, dreaming of mountains of and oats and whole valleys of timothy and clover.
It was the very witg time of night that Ichabod, heavy-hearted and crestfallen, pursued his travel homewards along the sides of the lofty hills which rise above Tarry Town, and which he had traversed so cheerily iernoon. The hour was as dismal as himself. Far below him the Tappan Zee spread its dusky and indistinct waste of waters, with here and there the tall mast of a sloop riding quietly at anchor uhe land. In the dead hush of midnight he could evehe barking of the watch-dog from the opposite shore of the Hudson; but it was so vague and faint as only to give an idea of his distance from this faithful panion of man. Now and then, too, the long-drawn crowing of a cock, actally awakened, would sound far, far off, from some farm-house away among the hills; but it was like a dreaming sound in his ear. No signs of life occurred near him, but occasionally the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of a bull-frog from a neighb marsh, as if sleeping unfortably and turning suddenly in his bed.
All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard iernoon now came crowding upon his recolle. The night grew darker and darker; the stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally had them from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and dismal. He was, moreover, approag the very place where many of the ses of the ghost-stories had been laid. In the tre of the road stood an enormous tulip tree which towered like a giant above all the other trees of the neighborhood and formed a kind of landmark. Its limbs were gnarled and fantastic, large enough to form trunks for ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the earth and rising again into the air. It was ected with the tragical story of the unfortunate Andre, who had been taken prisoner hard by, and was universally known by the name of Major Aree. The on people regarded it with a mixture of resped superstition, partly out of sympathy for the fate of its ill-starred namesake, and partly from the tales of strange sights and doleful lamentations told ing it.
As Ichabod approached this fearful tree he began to whistle: he thought his whistle was answered; it was but a blast sweeping sharply through the dry branches. As he approached a little nearer he thought he saw something white hanging in the midst of the tree: he paused and ceased whistling, but on looking more narrowly perceived that it lace where the tree had been scathed by lightning and the white wood laid bare. Suddenly he heard a groan: his teeth chattered and his knees smote against the saddle; it was but the rubbing of one huge bough upon another as they were swayed about by the breeze. He passed the tree in safety, but new perils lay before him.
About two hundred yards from the tree a small brook crossed the road and ran into a marshy and thickly-wooded glen known by the name of Wileys S. A few rough logs, laid side by side, served for a bridge over this stream. On that side of the road where the brook ehe wood a group of oaks and chestnuts, matted thick with wild grape-vihrew a cavernous gloom over it. To pass this bridge was the severest trial. It was at this identical spot that the unfortunate Andre was captured, and uhe covert of those chestnuts and vines were the sturdy yeomen cealed who surprised him. This has ever since been sidered a hauream, and fearful are the feelings of the schoolboy who has to pass it aloer dark.
As he approached the stream his heart began to thump; he summoned up, however, all his resolution, gave his horse half a score of kicks in the ribs, and attempted to dash briskly across the bridge; but instead of starting forward, the perverse old animal made a lateral movement and ran broadside against the fence.
Ichabod, whose fears increased with the delay, jerked the reins oher side and kicked lustily with the trary foot: it was all in vain; his steed started, it is true, but it was only to pluo the opposite side of the road into a thicket of brambles and alder bushes. The saster now bestowed both whip and heel upoarveling ribs of old Gunpowder, who dashed forward, snuf?ng and sn, but came to a stand just by the bridge with a suddehat had nearly sent his rider sprawling over his head. Just at this moment a plashy tramp by the side of the bridge caught the sensitive ear of Ichabod. In the dark shadow of the grove on the margin of the brook he beheld something huge, misshapen, black, and t. It stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantister ready t uporaveller.
The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head with terror. What was to be doo turn and ?y was now too late; and besides, what ce was there of esg ghost oblin, if such it was, which could ride upon the wings of the wind?
Summoning up, therefore, a show of ce, he demanded in stammering ats, "Who are you?" He received no reply. He repeated his demand in a still mitated voice. Still there was no answer. Once more he cudgelled the sides of the in?exible Gunpowder, and, shutting his eyes, broke forth with involuntary fervor into a psalm tune. Just then the shadowy object of alarm put itself in motion, and with a scramble and a bound stood at on the middle of the road. Though the night was dark and dismal, yet the form of the unknown might now in some degree be ascertained. He appeared to be a horseman of large dimensions and mounted on a black horse of powerful frame. He made no offer of molestation or sociability, but kept aloof on one side of the road, jogging along on the blind side of old Gunpowder, who had now got over his fright and waywardness.
Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight panion, ahought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones with the Galloping Hessian, now quied his steed in hopes of leaving him behind. The stranger, however, quied his horse to an equal pace. Ichabod pulled up, and fell into a walk, thinking to lag behind; the other did the same. His heart began to sink within him; he endeavored to resume his psalm tune, but his parched tongue clove to the roof of his mouth and he could not utter a stave. There was something in the moody and dogged silence of this pertinacious panion that was mysterious and appalling. It was soon fearfully ated for. On mounting a rising ground, which brought the ?gure of his fellow-traveller in relief against the sky, giganti height and muf?ed in a cloak, Ichabod was horror-stru perceiving that he was headless! but his horror was still more increased on that the head, which should have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of the saddle. His terror rose to desperation, he rained a shower of kicks and blows upon Gunpowder, hoping by a sudden movement to give his panion the slip; but the spectre started full jump with him. Away, then, they dashed through thid thin, stones ?ying and sparks ?ashing at every bound. Ichabods ?imsy garments ?uttered in the air as he stretched his long lank body away over his horses head in the eagerness of his ?ight.
They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy Hollow; but Gunpowder, who seemed possessed with a demon, instead of keeping up it, made an opposite turn and plunged headlong down hill to the left. This road leads through a sandy hollow shaded by trees for about a quarter of a mile, where it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story, and just beyond swells the green knoll on which stands the whitewashed church.
As yet the panic of the steed bad given his unskillful rider an apparent advantage in the chase; but just as he had got halfway through the hollow the girths of the saddle gave away and he felt it slipping from under him. He seized it by the pommel and endeavored to hold it ?rm, but in vain, and had just time to save himself by clasping old Gunpowder round the neck, when the saddle fell to the earth, and he heard it trampled under foot by his pursuer. For a moment the terror of Hans Van Rippers assed across his mind, for it was his Sunday saddle; but this was no time for petty fears; the goblin was hard on his haunches, and (unskilled rider that he was) he had much ado to maintain his seat, sometimes slipping on one side, sometimes on another, and sometimes jolted on the high ridge of his horses back-boh a violehat he verily feared would cleave him asunder.
An opening irees now cheered him with the hopes that the church bridge was at hand. The waveriion of a silver star in the bosom of the brook told him that he was not mistaken.
He saw the walls of the church dimly glaring uhe trees beyond. He recollected the place where Brom Bones ghostly petitor had disappeared. "If I but reach that bridge,"
thought Ichabod, "I am safe." Just then he heard the black steed panting and blowing close behind him; he even fahat he felt his hot breath. Another vulsive ki the ribs, and old Gunpowder sprang upon the bridge; he thundered over the resounding planks; he gaihe opposite side; and now Ichabod cast a look behind to see if his pursuer should vanish, acc to rule, in a ?ash of ?re and brimstone. Just then he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeavored to dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It entered his ium with a tremendous crash; he was tumbled headlong into the dust, and Gunpowder, the black steed, and the goblin rider passed by like a whirlwind.
The m the old horse was found, without his saddle and with he bridle under his feet, soberly cropping the grass at his masters gate. Ichabod did not make his appeara breakfast; dinner-hour came, but no Ichabod. The boys assembled at the school-house and strolled idly about the banks of the brook but no saster. Hans Van Ripper now began to feel some uneasiness about the fate of poor Ichabod and his saddle. An inquiry was set on foot, and after diligent iigation they came upon his traces. In one part of the road leading to the church was found the saddle trampled in the dirt; the tracks of horses hoofs, deeply dented in the road and evidently at furious speed, were traced to the bridge, beyond which, on the bank of a broad part of the brook, where the water ran deep and black, was found the hat of the unfortunate Ichabod, and close beside it a spattered pumpkin.
The brook was searched, but the body of the saster was not to be discovered. Hans Van Ripper, as executor of his estate, examihe bundle which tained all his worldly effects. They sisted of two shirts and a half, two stocks for the neck, a pair or two of worsted stogs, an old pair of corduroy small-clothes, a rusty razor, a book of psalm tunes full of dogs ears, and a broken pitch-pipe. As to the books and furniture of the school-house, they beloo the unity, excepting athers History of Witchcraft, a New England Almanad a book of dreams and fortuelling; in which last was a sheet of foolscap much scribbled and blotted in several fruitless attempts to make a copy of verses in honor of the heiress of Van Tassel. These magic books and the poetic scrawl were forthwith sigo the ?ames by Hans Van Ripper, who from that time forward determio send his children no more to school, that he never knew any good e of this same reading and writing. Whatever mohe saster possessed--and he had received his quarters pay but a day or two before--he must have had about his person at the time of his disappearance.
The mysterious event caused much speculation at the chur the following Sunday. Knots of gazers and gossips were collected in the churchyard, at the bridge, and at the spot where the hat and pumpkin had been found. The stories of Brouwer, of Bones, and a whole budget of others were called to mind, and when they had diligently sidered them all, and pared them with the symptoms of the present case, they shook their heads and came to the clusion that Ichabod had been carried off by the galloping Hessian. As he was a bachelor and in nobodys debt, nobody troubled his head any more about him, the school was removed to a different quarter of the hollow and another pedagogue reigned in his stead.
It is true an old farmer, who had been down to New York on a visit several years after, and from whom this at of the ghostly adventure was received, brought home the intelligehat Ichabod e was still alive; that he had left the neighborhood, partly through fear of the goblin and Hans Van Ripper, and partly in morti?cation at having been suddenly dismissed by the heiress; that he had ged his quarters to a distant part of the try, had kept school and studied law at the same time, had been admitted to the bar, turned politi eleeered, written for the neers, and ?nally had been made a justice of the Ten Pound Court. Brom Booo, who shortly after his rivals disappearance ducted the blooming Katrina in triumph to the altar, was observed to look exceedingly knowing whehe story of Ichabod was related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at the mention of the pumpkin; which led some to suspect that he knew more about the matter than he chose to tell.
The old try wives, however, who are the best judges of these matters, maintain to this day that Ichabod irited away by supernatural means; and it is a favorite story often told about the neighborhood round the interevening ?re. The bridge became more than ever an object of superstitious awe, and that may be the reason why the road has been altered of late years, so as to approach the church by the border of the mill-pond. The schoolhouse, beied, sooo decay, and was reported to be haunted by the ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue; and the plough-boy, l homeward of a still summer evening, has often fancied his voice at a distance ting a melancholy psalm tune among the tranquil solitudes of Sleepy Hollow.
POSTSCRIPT FOUND IN THE HANDWRITING OF MR. KNICKERBOCKER.
THE preg tale is given almost in the precise words in which I heard it related at a Corporatioing of the a city of Manhattoes, at which were present many of its sagest and most illustrious burghers. The narrator leasant, shabby, gentlemanly old fellow in pepper-and-salt clothes, with a sadly humorous face, and one whom I strongly suspected of being poor, he made such efforts to be eaining. When his story was cluded there was much laughter and approbation, particularly from two or three deputy aldermen who had been asleep the greater part of the time. There was, however, oall, dry-looking old gentleman, with beetling eyebrows, who maintained a grave and rather severe face throughout, now and then folding his arms, ining his head, and looking down upon the ?oor, as if turning a doubt over in his mind. He was one of your wary men, who never laugh but upon good grounds--when they have reason and the law on their side. When the mirth of the rest of the pany had subsided and silence was restored, he leaned one arm on the elbow of his chair, and stig the other akimbo, demanded, with a slight but exceedingly sage motion of the head and tra of the brow, what was the moral of the story and what it went to prove.
The story-teller, who was just putting a glass of wio his lips as a refreshment after his toils, paused for a moment, looked at his inquirer with an air of in?nite deference, and, l the glass slowly to the table, observed that the story was intended most logically to prove--
"That there is no situation in life but has its advantages and pleasures--provided we will but take a joke as we ?nd it; "That, therefore, he that runs races with goblin troopers is likely to have rough riding of it.
&quo, for a try saster to be refused the hand of a Dutch heiress is a certaio high preferment iate."
The cautious old gentleman knit his brows tenfold closer after this explanation, being sorely puzzled by the ratioation of the syllogism, while methought the one in pepper-and-salt eyed him with something of a triumphant leer. At length he observed that all this was very well, but still he thought the story a little oravagant--there were one or two points on which he had his doubts.
"Faith, sir," replied the story-teller, "as to that matter, I dont believe one-half of it myself."
D. K.
LENVOY.*
Go, little booke, God send thee good passage,And specially let this be thy prayere,Unto them all that thee will read or hear,Where thou art wrong, after their help to call,Thee to corre any part or all. CHAUCERS Belle Dame sans Mercie.
IN cluding a sed volume of the Sketch Book the Author ot but express his deep sense of the indulgeh which his ?rst has been received, and of the liberal disposition that has been evio treat him with kindness as a stranger. Even the critics, whatever may be said of them by others, he has found to be a singularly gentle and good-natured race; it is true that each has in turn objected to some one or two articles, and that these individual exceptions, taken in the aggregate, would amount almost to a total nation of his work; but then he has been soled by that what one has part９9lｉｂ.icularly sured another has as particularly praised; and thus, the ens bei off against the objes, he ?nds his work, upon the whole, ended far beyond its deserts.
* Closing the sed volume of the Londoion.
He is aware that he runs a risk of forfeiting much of this kind favor by not following the sel that has been liberally bestowed upon him; for where abundance of valuable advice is given gratis it may seem a mans own fault if he should go astray. He only say in his vindication that he faithfully determined for a time to govern himself in his sed volume by the opinions passed upon his ?rst; but he was soht to a stand by the trariety of excellent sel. One kindly advised him to avoid the ludicrous; ao shuhetic; a third assured him that he was tolerable at description, but cautioned him to leave narrative alone; while a fourth declared that he had a very pretty knack at turning a story, and was really eaining when in a peive mood, but was grievously mistaken if he imagined himself to possess a spirit of humor.
Thus perplexed by the advice of his friends, who ea turn closed some particular path, but left him all the world beside te in, he found that to follow all their sels would, in fact, be to stand still. He remained for a time sadly embarrassed, when all at ohe thought struck him to ramble on as he had begun; that his work being miscellaneous and written for different humors, it could not be expected that any one would be pleased with the whole; but that if it should tain something to suit each reader, his end would be pletely answered. Few guests sit down to a varied t.?able with an equal appetite for every dish. One has a horror of a roasted pig; another holds a curry or a devil in utter abomination; a third ot tolerate the a ?avor of venison and wild-fowl; and a fourth, of truly mase stomach, looks with sn pt on those kniacks here and there dished up for the ladies. Thus each article is in ned in its turn, a amidst this variety of appetites seldom does a dish go away from the table without being tasted and relished by some one or other of the guests.
With these siderations he veo serve up this sed volume in the same heterogeneous way with his ?rst; simply requesting the reader, if he should ?nd here and there something to please him, to rest assured that it was written expressly for intelligent readers like himself; but eing him, should he ?nd anything to dislike, to tolerate it, as one of those articles which the author has been obliged to write for readers of a less re?aste.
To be serious: The author is scious of the numerous faults and imperfes of his work, and well aware how little he is disciplined and aplished is of authorship. His de?cies are also increased by a dif?dence arising from his peculiar situation. He ?nds himself writing in a strange land, and appearing before a public which he has been aced from childhood tard with the highest feelings of awe and reverence. He is full of solicitude to deserve their approbatio ?nds that very solicitude tinually embarrassing his powers and depriving him of that case and ?dence which are necessary to successful exertion. Still, the kindness with which he is treated ences him to go on, hoping that in time he may acquire a steadier footing; and thus he proceeds, half venturing, half shrinking, surprised at his own good-fortune and w at his own temerity.天涯在线书库《www.tianyabook.com》