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   :PG.Id: 35412
   :PG.Title: My Unknown Chum
   :PG.Released: 2011-02-27
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Juliet Sutherland, Katherine Ward, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
   :DC.Creator: Charles Bullard Fairbanks
   :MARCREL.ctb: Henry Garrity
   :DC.Title: My Unknown Chum
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1912
   :coverpage: images/cover.jpg

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=============================
My Unknown Chum "*Aguecheek*"
=============================

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   This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
   almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
   re-use it under the terms of the `Project Gutenberg License`_
   included with this eBook or online at
   http://www.gutenberg.org/license.

   

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      Title: My Unknown Chum
      
      Author: Charles Bullard Fairbanks
      
      Release Date: February 27, 2011 [EBook #35412]
      
      Language: English
      
      Character set encoding: UTF-8

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      \*\*\* START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY UNKNOWN CHUM \*\*\*

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      Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Katherine Ward, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.

      |

      


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   | MY
   | UNKNOWN CHUM
   | "AGUECHEEK"

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   | WITH A FOREWORD
   | BY HENRY GARRITY

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   | NEW YORK
   | THE DEVIN-ADAIR COMPANY
   | 1930
   |
   |
   | *THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIFTH THOUSAND*
   |
   |
   | Copyright, 1912, by
   | :small-caps:`The Devin-Adair Company`
   |
   | *All rights reserved by The Devin-Adair Co.*
   |
   | :small-caps:`Printed in U. S. A.`

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   | A perfect woman, nobly planned,
   | To warn, to comfort, and command;
   | And yet a spirit still and bright
   | With something of an angel light.

.. contents:: CONTENTS
   :depth: 2

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FOREWORD
========

.. epigraph::

   | *Life is too short for reading inferior books.*
   |
   |     :small-caps:`Bryce.`


In 1878 a letter of introduction to Mr. S—— of
Detroit was instrumental in securing for me the
close friendship of a man some twenty years my
senior—a man of unusual poise of mind and of such
superb character that I have ever looked upon him
as a perfect type of Newman's ideal gentleman.

My new friend was fond of all that is best in art
and literature. His pet possession, however, was an
old book long out of print—"Aguecheek." He spoke
to me of its classic charm and of the recurring pleasure
he found in reading and rereading the delightful
pages of its unknown author, who saw in travel, in
art, in literature, in life and humanity, much that
other travellers and other writers and scholars had
failed to observe—seeing all with a purity of vision,
a clearness of intellect, and recording it with a grace
and ease of phrase that suggest that he himself had
perhaps been taught by the Angelic Doctor referred
to in the closing lines of his last essay.

A proffered loan of the book was eagerly accepted.
Though still in my teens, I soon became a convert to
all that my cultured friend had said in its praise.

With the aid of a Murray Street dealer in old
books, I was fortunate enough to get a copy for myself.
I read it again and again. Obliged to travel
much, I was rarely without its companionship; for I
knew that if other reading-matter proved uninteresting,
I could always find some new conversational
charm in the views and words of the World-Conversant
Author.

Fearing that I weighed the merits of the work
with a mental scale wanting in balance, I asked
others what they thought of it. Much to my surprise,
they had never even heard of it. In fact, in
these thirty-four years I have found but three persons
who knew the book at all. Recently at The
Players I asked Mr. Evert Jansen Wendell if he
knew "Aguecheek." "Why," said he, "it was in my
hands only yesterday. It is in my library—my dramatic
library." The late John E. Grote Higgens,
President of the St. George Society, knew its interesting
pages well; and it is, I am assured, a "prized
unit" in the library of His Eminence Cardinal
Farley.

I lent my copy to young and old, to men and
women of various professions and to friends in the
world of commerce. The opinion of all might be
summed up in the appreciation of a well-known Monsignor—himself
an observant traveller and an ardent
lover of "real" literature. Returning the book, he
said, "I have read it with the greatest of pleasure,
and have turned to it often. I could read it a hundred
times. It is a great book. Its fine humor, its
depth, its simplicity and high ideals, commend it to
all, especially the highly educated—the scholar."

Charles B. Fairbanks is the reputed author, but
the records show that he died in 1859, when but
thirty-two years old—an age that the text repeatedly
discredits. Whether written by Mr. Fairbanks or
not, the modest author hid his identity in an obscure
pen-name that he might thus be free to make his book
"his heart in other men's hands."

Some necessary changes have been made in the
text. In offering the book to the public and in reluctantly
changing the title, I am but following the
insistent advice of friends—critics and scholars—whose
judgment is superior to my own. No one
seemed to know the meaning of "Aguecheek"
(taken, no doubt, from a character in "Twelfth
Night"), and few could even spell or pronounce
the word; moreover, there is not the remotest connection
between title and text. The old book has
been the best of comrades, "the joy of my youth, the
consolation of my riper years." If the new name
lacks dignity as well as euphony, the reader will, I
am sure, understand and appreciate the spirit of
affection that inspired "My Unknown Chum."

   | :small-caps:`Henry Garrity.`

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SKETCHES OF FOREIGN TRAVEL
==========================

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A PASSAGE ACROSS THE ATLANTIC
-----------------------------


"To an American visiting Europe for the first
time," saith Geoffrey Crayon, "the long voyage
which he has to make is an excellent preparative."
To the greater proportion of those who
revisit the old world, the voyage is only an interval
of ennui and impatience. Not such is it to the writer
of this sentence. For him the sea has charms which
age cannot wither, nor head winds abate. For him
the voyage is a retreat from the cares of business, a
rest from the pursuit of wealth, and a prolonged reminiscence
of his youthful days, when he first trod
the same restless pathway, and the glories of England
and the Continent rose up resplendent before
him, very much as the gorgeous city in the clouds
looms up before the young gentleman in one of the
late lamented Mr. Cole's pictures. For it is a satisfaction
to him to remember that such things were,—even
though the performances of life have not by
any means equalled the promises of the programme
of youth,—though age and the cares of an increasing
family have stifled poetry, and the genius of Romance
has long since taken his hat.

The recollections of youthful Mediterranean voyages
are a mine of wealth to an old man. They have
transformed ancient history into a majestic reality
for him, and the pages of his dog's-eared Lemprière
become instinct with life as he recalls those halcyon
days when he reclined on deck beneath an awning,
and gazed on Crete and Lesbos, and the mountains
that look on Marathon. Neither age nor misfortune
can ever rob him of the joy he feels when he
looks back to the cloudless afternoon when he passed
from the stormy Atlantic to that blue inland sea,—when
he saw where Africa has so long striven to
shake hands with Europe,—and thrilled at the
thought that the sea then glowing with the hues of
sunset was once ploughed by the invincible galleys of
the Cæsars, and dashed its angry surges over the
shipwrecked Apostle of the Gentiles.

It is rather a pleasant thing to report one's self on
board a fine packet ship on a bright morning in May—the
old portmanteau packed again, and thoughts
turned seaward. There is a kind of inspiration in
the song of the sailors at the windlass, (that is, as
many of them as are able to maintain a perpendicular
position at that early period of the voyage;) the very
clanking of the anchor chains seems to speak of
speedy liberation, and the ship sways about as if
yearning for the freedom of the open sea. At last
the anchor is up, and the ship swings around, and soon
is gliding down the channel; and slowly the new gasometer,
and Bunker Hill Monument, and the old
gasometer (with the dome) on Beacon Hill, begin
to diminish in size. (I might introduce a fine misquotation
here about growing "small by degrees, and
beautifully less," but that I don't like novelties in a
correspondence like this.) The embankments of
Fort Warren seem brighter and more verdurous than
ever, and the dew-drops glitter in the sunbeams, as
dear Nellie's tears did, when she said good-by, that
very morning. Then, as we get into the bay, the
tocsin calls to lunch—and the appetite for lobsters,
sardines, ale, and olives makes us all forget how
much we fear lest business of immediate importance
may prevent an early return to the festive mahogany.
And shortly after, the pilot takes his leave, and with
him the small knot of friends, who have gone as far
as friendship, circumstances, and the tide will allow.
And so the voyage commences—the captain takes
command—and all feel that the jib-boom points towards
Motherland, and begin to calculate the distance,
and anticipate the time when the ship shall be
boarded by a blue-coated beef-eater, who will take
her safely "round 'Oly'ead, and dock 'er." The day
wears away, and the sunset finds the passengers well
acquainted, and a healthy family feeling growing up
among them. The next morning we greet the sea
and skies, but not our mother earth. The breeze is
light—the weather is fine—so that the breakfast is
discussed before a full bench. Every body feels well,
but sleepy, and the day is spent in conversation and
enjoyment of the novelty of life at sea. The gentle
heaving of the ocean is rather agreeable than otherwise,
and the young ladies promenade the deck, and
flatter themselves that they have (if I might use such
an expression) their sea legs on. But the next day
the gentle heaving has become a heavy swell,—locomotion
is attended with great difficulties,—the process
of dressing is a severe practical joke,—and the
timorous approach to the breakfast table and precipitous
retreat from it, are very interesting studies
to a disinterested spectator. The dining-saloon is
thinly populated when the bell rings—the gentlemen
preferring to lounge about on deck—they have slight
headaches—not seasick—of course not—the gentleman
who had taken eight sherry cobblers was not
intoxicated at all—it was a glass of lemonade, that
he took afterwards, that disagreed with him and
made his footing rather unsteady. But Neptune is
inexorable, and exacts his tribute, and the payers
show their receipts in pale faces and dull eyes,
whether they acknowledge it or no; and many a poor
victim curses the pernicious hour that ever saw him
shipped, and comes to the Irishman's conclusion that
the pleasantest part of going away from home is the
getting back again.

But a few days suffice to set all minds and stomachs
at rest, and we settle down into the ordinary
routine of life at sea. The days glide by rapidly, as
Shakspeare says, "with books, and work, and healthful
play," and as we take a retrospective view of the
passage, it seems to be a maze of books, backgammon,
bad jokes, cigars, *crochet*, cribbage, and conversation.
Contentment obtains absolute sway,
which even ten days of head winds and calms cannot
shake off. Perhaps this is owing in a great measure
to the good temper and gentlemanly bearing of the
captain, who never yielded to the temptation, before
which so many intrepid mariners have fallen, to
speak in disrespectful and condemnatory terms of
the weather. How varied must be the qualities
which make a good commander of a packet ship;
what a model of patience he must be—patience not
only with the winds, but also with variable elements
of humanity which surround him. He must have a
good word for every body and a smiling face, although
he knows that the ship will not head her
course by four points of the compass on either tack;
and must put aside with a jest the unconscious professional
gentleman whose hat intervenes between
his sextant and the horizon. In short, he must possess
in an eminent degree what Virgil calls the *suaviter
in* what's-his-name with the *fortiter in* what-d'ye-call-it.
I am much disposed to think that had
Job been a sea captain with a protracted head wind,
the land of Uz would not have attained celebrity as
the abode of the most patient of men.

An eminent Boston divine, not long since deceased,
who was noted alike for his Johnsonian style and his
very un-Johnsonian meekness of manner, once said to
a sea captain, "I have, sir, in the course of my professional
career, encountered many gentlemen of your
calling; but I really must say that I have never been
powerfully impressed in a moral way by them, for
their conversation abounded in expressions savouring
more of strength than of righteousness; indeed, but
few of them seemed capable of enunciating the simplest
sentence without prefacing it with a profane
allusion to the possible ultimate fate of their visual
organs, which I will not shock your fastidiousness by
repeating." The profanity of seafaring men has
always been remarked; it has been a staple article for
the lamentations of the moralist and the jests of the
immoralist; but I must say that I am not greatly surprised
at its prevalence, for when I have seen a
thunder squall strike a ship at sea, and every effort
was making to save the rent canvas, it has seemed to
me as if those whose dealings were with the elements
actually needed a stronger vocabulary than is required
for less sublime transactions. To speak in
ordinary terms on such occasions would be as absurd
as the Cockney's application of the epithets "clever"
and "neat" to Niagara. I am not attempting to
palliate every-day profanity, for I was brought up in
the abhorrence of it, having been taken at an early
age from the care of the lady "who ran to catch me
when I fell, and kissed the place to make it well,"
and placed in the country under the superintendence
of a maiden aunt, who was very moral indeed, and
who instilled her principles into my young heart with
wonderful eloquence and power. "Andrew," she
used to say to me, "you mustn't laugh in meetin';
I've no doubt that the man who was hung last week
(for this was in those unenlightened days when the
punishment of crime was deemed a duty, and not a
sin) began his wicked course by laughing in meetin';
and just think, if you were to commit a murder—for
those who murder will steal—and those who steal
will swear and lie—and those who swear and lie will
drink rum—and then if they don't stop in their sinful
ways, they get so bad that they will smoke cigars and
break the Sabbath; and you know what becomes of
'em then."

The ordinary routine of life at sea, which is so irksome
to most people, has a wonderful charm for me.
There is something about a well-manned ship that
commands my deepest enthusiasm. Each day is
filled with a quiet and satisfactory kind of enjoyment.
From that early hour of the morning when the captain
turns out to see what is the prospect of the day,
and to drink a mug of boiling coffee as strong as
aquafortis, and as black as the newly-opened fluid
Day & Martin, from No. 97, High Holborn, to that
quiet time in the evening when that responsible functionary
goes below and turns in, with a sententious
instruction to the officer of the watch to "wake him
at twelve, if there's any change in the weather,"
there is no moment that hangs heavy on my hands.
I love the regular striking of the bells, reminding me
every half hour how rapidly time and I are getting
on. The regularity with which every thing goes on,
from the early washing of the decks to the sweeping
of the same at four bells in the evening, makes me
think of those ancient monasteries in the south of
Europe, where the unvarying round of duties creates
a paradise which those who are subject to the unexpected
fluctuations of common life might be pardoned
for coveting. If the rude voices that swell the
boisterous chorus which hoists the tugging studding-sail
up by three-feet pulls, only imperfectly remind
one of the sounds he hears when the full choir of the
monastery makes the grim arches of the chapel vibrate
with the solemn tones of the Gregorian chant,
certainly the unbroken calmness of the morning
watch may well be allowed to symbolize the rapt
meditation and unspoken devotion which finds its
home within the "studious cloister's pale"; and I may
be pardoned for comparing the close attention of the
captain and his mates in getting the sun's altitude and
working out the ship's position to the "examination
of conscience" among the devout dwellers in the convent,
and the working out of the spiritual reckoning
which shows them how much they have varied from
the course laid down on the divine chart, and how
far they are from the wished-for port of perfection.

I have a profound respect for the sea as a moral
teacher. No man can be tossed about upon it without
feeling his impotence and insignificance, and having
his heart opened to the companions of his danger
as it has never been opened before. The sea brings
out the real character of every man; and those who
journey over its "deep invisible paths" find themselves
intrusting their most sacred confidences to the
keeping of comparative strangers. The conventionalities
of society cannot thrive in a salt atmosphere;
and you shall be delighted to see how frank and
agreeable the "world's people" can be when they are
caught where the laws of fashion are silent, and what
a wholesome neglect of personal appearances prevails
among them when that sternest of democrats,
Neptune, has placed them where they feel that it
would be folly to try to produce an impression. The
gentleman of the prize ring, whom Dickens introduces
looking with admiration at the stately Mr.
Dombey, gave it as his opinion that there was a way
within the resources of science of "doubling-up" that
incarnation of dignity; but, for the accomplishment
of such an end, one good, pitching, head-sea would be
far more effectual than all the resources of the
"manly art." The most unbending assumption could
not survive that dreadful sinking of the stomach, that
convulsive clutch at the nearest object for support,
and the faint, gurgling cry of "*stew'rd*" which announces
that the victim has found his natural level.

A thorough novitiate of seasickness is as indispensable,
in my opinion, to the formation of true manly
character, as the measles to a well-regulated childhood.
Mentally as well as corporeally, seasickness
is a wonderful renovator. We are such victims of
habit, so prone to run in a groove, (most of us in a
groove that may well be called a "vicious circle,")
that we need to be thoroughly shaken up, and made
to take a new view of the *rationale* of our way of
life. I do not believe that any man ever celebrated
his recovery from that marine malady by eating the
pickles and biscuit which always taste so good on
such an occasion, without having acquired a new set
of ideas, and being made generally wiser and better
by his severe experience. I meet many unamiable
persons "whene'er I take my walks abroad," who
only need two days of seasickness to convert them
into positive ornaments to society.

But, pardon me; all this has little to do with the
voyage to Liverpool. The days follow each other
rapidly, and it begins to seem as if the voyage would
stretch out to the crack of doom, for the head wind
stands by us with the constancy of a sheriff, and when
that lacks power to retard us we have a calm. But
the weather is beautiful, and all the time is spent in
the open air. Nut brown maids work worsted and
crochet on the cooler side of the deck, and gentlemen
in rusty suits, with untrimmed beards, wearing the
"shadowy livery of the burning sun," talk of the
prospects of a fair wind or read innumerous novels.
The evenings are spent in gazing at a cloudless sky,
and promenading in the moonshine. Music lends its
aid and banishes impatience; my young co-voyagers
seem not to have forgotten "Sweet Home," and the
"Old Folks at Home" would be very much gratified
to know how green their memory is kept.

At length we all begin to grow tired of fair
weather. The cloudless sky, the gorgeous sunrises
and sunsets, and the bright blue sea, with its lazily
spouting whales and its lively porpoises playing
around our bows,—grow positively distasteful to us;
and we begin to think that any change would be an
agreeable one. We do not have to wait many days
before we are awaked very early in the morning, by
the throwing down of heavy cordage on deck, and
the shouts of the sailors, and are soon aware that we
are subject to an unusual motion—as if the ship were
being propelled by a strong force over a corduroy
road constructed on an enormous scale. Garments,
which yesterday were content to hang in an orderly
manner against the partitions of one's state-room,
now obstinately persist in hanging at all sorts of
peculiar and disgraceful angles. Hat boxes, trunks,
and the other movables of the voyager manifest
great hilarity at the change in the weather, and dance
about the floor in a manner that must satisfy the most
fastidious beholder. Every timber in the ship groans
as if in pain. The omnipresent steward rushes about,
closing up sky-lights and dead lights, and "chocking"
his rattling crockery and glassware. On deck the
change from the even keel and the clear sunlight of
the day before is still more wonderful. The colour
of the sky reminds you of the leaden lining of a tea-chest;
that of the sea, of the dingy green paper
which covers the same. The sails, which so many
days of sunshine have bleached to a dazzling whiteness,
are now all furled, except those which are necessary
to keep some little headway on the ship. The
captain has adorned his manly frame with a suit of
India rubber, which certainly could not have been
selected for its gracefulness, and has overshadowed
his honest face with a sou'wester of stupendous proportions.
With the exception of occasional visits to
the sinking barometer, he spends his weary day on
the wet deck, and tries to read the future in the
blackening waves and stormy sky. The wheel, which
heretofore has required but one man, now taxes the
strength of two of the stoutest of our crew;—so hard
is it to keep our bashful ship heading up to that rude
sea, and to "ease her when she pitches." The breakfast
suffers sadly from neglect, for every one is engrossed
with the care of the weather. At noon there
is a lull for half an hour or so, and, in spite of the
threats of the remorseless barometer, some of our
company try to look for an amelioration in the
meteorological line. But their hopes are crushed
when they find that the wind has shifted one or two
points, and has set in to blow more violently than
before. The sea, too, begins to behave in a most
capricious and disagreeable style. When the ship
has, with a great deal of straining and cracking,
ridden safely over two mighty ridges of water, and
seems to be easily settling down into a black valley
between two foam-capped hills, there comes a sudden
shock, as if she had met the Palisades of the
Hudson in her path—a crackling, grating sound,
like that of a huge nutmeg-grater operating on a
coral reef, a crash like the combined force of all the
battering-rams of Titus Flavius Vespasianus on one
of the gates of Jerusalem,—and a hundred tons of
angry water roll aft against the cabin doors, in a
manner not at all agreeable to weak nerves. For a
moment the ship seems to stand perfectly still, as if
deliberating whether to go on or turn back; then,
realizing that the ship that deliberates in such a time
is lost, she rises gracefully over a huge pile of water
which was threatening to submerge her.

The afternoon wears away slowly with the passengers.
They say but little to one another, but look
about them from the security of the wheel-house as if
they were oppressed with a sense of the inestimable
value of strong cordage. As twilight approaches,
and all hands are just engaged in taking supper, after
having "mended the reefs," the ship meets a staggering
sea, which seems to start every timber in her
firm-set frame, and our main-top-gallant-mast breaks
off like a stick of candy. Such things generally happen
just at night, the sailors say, when the difficulties
of clearing away the broken rigging are increased by
the darkness. Straightway the captain's big, manly
voice is heard above the war-whoop of the gale, ringing
out as Signor Badiali's was wont to in the third
act of Ernani. The wind seems to pin the men to the
ratlines as they clamber up; but all the difficulties are
overcome at length; the broken mast is lowered
down, and snugly stowed away; and before nine
o'clock all is quiet, except the howling wind, which
seems to have determined to make a night of it. And
such a night! It is one of those times that make one
want one's mother. There is little sleeping done
except among the "watch below" in the forecastle,
who snore away their four hours as if they appreciated
the reasoning of Mr. Dibdin when he extols
the safety of the open sea as compared with the town
with its falling chimneys and flying tiles, and commiserates
the condition of the unhappy shore-folks in
such a tempestuous time. The thumping of the sea
against our wooden walls, the swash of water on
deck as the ship rolls and pitches as you would think
it impossible for any thing addicted to the cold water
movement to roll or pitch, and over all the wild,
changeless, shrieking of the gale, will not suffer sleep
to visit those who are not inured to such things.
Tired of bracing up with knee, and hand, and heel,
to keep in their berths, they lie and wonder how
many such blows as that our good ship could endure,
and think that if June gets up such gales on the
North Atlantic, they have no wish to try the quality
of those of January.

Morning comes at last, and every heart is cheered
by the captain's announcement, as he passes through
the cabin, that the barometer is rising, and the
weather has begun to improve. Some of the more
hopeful and energetic of our company turn out and
repair to the deck. The leaden clouds are broken
up, and the sun trying to struggle through them; but
to the inexperienced the gale appears to be as severe
as it was yesterday. All the discomfort and danger
of the time are forgotten, however, in the fearful
magnificence of the spectacle that surrounds us. As
far as the eye can reach it seems like a confused field
of battle, where snowy plumes and white flowing
manes show where the shock of war is felt most
severely. To watch the gathering of one of those
mighty seas that so often work destruction with the
noblest ships,—to see it gradually piling up until it
seems to be impelled by a fury almost intelligent,—to
be dazzled by its emerald flash when it erects its
stormy head the highest, and breaks into a field of
boiling foam, as if enraged at being unable to reach
us;—these are things which are worth all the anxiety
and peril that they cost.

The captain's prognostications prove correct.
Our appetites at dinner bear witness to them; and
before sunset we find our ship (curtailed of its fair
proportion, it is true, by the loss of its main-top-gallant-mast)
is under full sail once more. The next
day we have a few hours' calm, and when a light
breeze does spring up, it comes from the old easterly
quarter. It begins to seem as if we were fated to sail
forever, and never get any where. But patience
wears out even a head wind, and at last the long-looked-for
change takes place. The wind slowly
hauls to the south, and many are the looks taken at
the compass to see how nearly the ship can come up
to her course. Then our impatience is somewhat
allayed by speaking a ship which has been out twelve
days longer than our own—for, if it be true, as
Rochefoucauld says, that "there is something not
unpleasing to us in the misfortunes of our best
friends,"—how keen must be the satisfaction of finding
a stranger-companion in adversity. The wind,
though steady, is not very strong, and many fears
are expressed lest it should die away and give Eurus
another three weeks' chance. But our forebodings
are not realized, and a sunshiny day comes when we
are all called up from dinner to see a long cloud-like
affair, (very like a whale,) which, we are told, is the
Old Head of Kinsale. Straightway all begin to talk
of getting on shore the next day; but when that
comes, we find that we are drawing towards Holyhead
very rapidly, as our favourable wind has increased
to a gale—so that when we have got round
Holyhead, and have taken our pilot, (that burly
visitor whose coming every one welcomes, and whose
departure every one would speed,) the aforesaid
pilot heaves the ship to, and, having a bed made up
on the cabin floor, composes himself to sleep. The
next morning finds the gale abated, and early in the
forenoon we are running up to the mouth of the
river. The smoke (that first premonitory symptom
of an English town) hangs over Liverpool, and
forms a strong contrast with the bright green fields
and verdant hedges which deck the banks of the
Mersey. The ship, after an immense amount of vocal
power has been expended in that forcible diction
which may be termed the marine vernacular, is got
into dock, and in the afternoon a passage of thirty-three
days is concluded by our stepping once more
upon the "inviolate island of the sage and free," and
following our luggage up the pier, with a swing in
our gait which any stage sailor would have viewed
with envy. The examination at the Custom House
is conducted with a politeness and despatch worthy of
imitation among the officials of our Uncle Samuel.
The party of passengers disperses itself about in various
hotels, without any circumstance to hinder their
progress except falling in with an exhibition of Punch
and Judy, which makes the company prolific in
quotations from the sayings of Messrs. Codlin and
Short, and at last the family which never had its
harmonious unity disturbed by any thing, is broken
up forever.

Liverpool wears its old thriving commercial look—perhaps
it is a few shades darker with smoke. The
posters are on a more magnificent scale, both as regards
size and colour, than ever before, and tell not
only of the night's amusements, but promise the acquisition
of wealth outrunning the dreams of avarice
in lands beyond the farthest Thule. Melbourne and
Port Philip vie in the most gorgeous colours with
San Francisco; and the United States seem to have
spread wide their capacious arms to welcome the
down-trodden Irishman. Liverpool seems to be the
gate to all the rest of the world. I almost fear to
walk about lest I should find myself starting off, in a
moment of temporary insanity, for Greenland's icy
mountains, or India's coral strand.

.. ——File: 029.png




LONDON
------


Dull must he be of soul who could make the
journey from Liverpool to the metropolis in
the month of June, and not be lifted above himself
by the surpassing loveliness of dear mother Nature.
Even if he were chained to a ledger and cash book—if
he never had a thought or wish beyond the broker's
board, and his entire reading were the prices
current—he must forget them all, and feel for the
time what a miserable sham his life is—or he does
not deserve the gift of sight. It is Thackeray, I
think, who speaks somewhere of the "charming
friendly English landscape that seems to shake hands
with you as you pass along"—and any body who has
seen it in June will say that this is hardly a figurative
expression. I used to think that it was my enthusiastic
love for the land of the great Alfred which
made it seem so beautiful to me when I was younger;
but I find that it wears too well to be a mere fancy
of my own brain. People may complain of the humid
climate of England, and curse the umbrella which
must accompany them whenever they walk out; but
when the sun does shine, it shines upon a scene of
beautiful fertility unequalled elsewhere in the world,
and which the moist climate produces and preserves.
And then, too, it seems doubly grateful to the eyes of
one just come from sea. The bright freshness of
the whole landscape, the varied tints of green, the
trim hedges, the luxuriant foliage which springs from
the very trunks of the trees, and the high state of
cultivation which makes the whole country look as if
it had been swept and dusted that morning,—all
these things strike an American, for he cannot help
contrasting them with the parched fields of his own
land in summer, surrounded by their rough fences
and hastily piled-up stone walls. The solidity of the
houses and cottages, which look as if they were built,
not for an age, but for all time, makes him think of
the country houses of America, which seem to have
grown up in a night, like our friend Aladdin's, and
whose frailty is so apparent that you cannot sneeze
in one of them without apprehending a serious calamity.
Then the embankments of the railways
present not only a pleasant sight to the eye of the
traveller, but a pretty little hay crop to the corporation;
and at every station, and bridge, and crossing,
wherever there is a switch to be tended, you see the
neat cottages of the keepers, and the gardens thereof—the
railway companies having learned that the expenditure
of a few hundred pounds in this way saves
an expenditure of many thousands in surgeons' bills
and damages, and is far more satisfactory to all concerned.

What a charming sight is a cow—what a look of
contentment she has—ambitious of nothing beyond
the field of daily duty, and never looking happier
than when she comes at night to yield a plenteousness
of that fluid without which custards were an impossibility!
Wordsworth says that "heaven lies about
us in our infancy"—surely he must mean that portion
of the heavens called by astronomers the Milky Way.
It is pleasant to see a cow by the side of a railway—provided
she is fenced from danger—to see her lift
her head slowly as the train goes whizzing by, and
gaze with those mild, tranquil eyes upon the noisy,
smoke-puffing monster,—just as the saintly hermits
of olden times might have looked from their serene
heights of contemplation upon the dusty, bustling
world. The taste of the English farmers for fine
cattle is attested by a glance at any of their pastures.
On every side you see the representatives of Alderney's
bovine aristocracy; and scores of cattle crop
the juicy grass, rivalling in their snowy whiteness any
that ever reclined upon Clitumno's "mild declivity of
hill," or admired their graceful horns in its clear
waters. Until I saw them, I never comprehended
what farmers meant when they spoke of "neat
cattle."

What an eloquent preacher is an old church-tower!
Moss-crowned and ivy-robed, it lifts its head, unshaken
by the tempests of centuries, as it did in the
days when King John granted the Great Charter or
the holy Edward ruled the realm, and tells of the
ages when England was one in faith, and not a poor-house
existed throughout the land. Like a faithful
sentinel, it stands guard over the humbler edifices
around it, and warns their inhabitants alike of their
dangers and their duties by the music of its bells.
Erect in silent dignity, it receives the first beams of
the morning, and when twilight has begun to shroud
every thing in its neighbourhood, the flash of sunset
lingers on its gray summit. It looks down with sublime
indifference upon the changing scene below, as if
it would reproach the actors there with their forgetfulness
of the transitoriness of human pursuits, and
remind them, by its unchangeableness, of the eternal
years.

At last we draw near London. A gentleman,
whose age I would not attempt to guess,—for he was
very carefully made up, and boasted a deportment
which would have excited the envy of Mr. Turveydrop,
senior,—so far forgot his dignity as to lean
forward and inform me that the place we were passing
was "'Arrow on the 'Ill," which made me forget
for the moment both his appearance and his uncalled-for
"exasperation of the haitches." Not long
after, I found myself issuing from the magnificent
terminus of the North Western Railway, in Euston
Square, in a cab marked V. R. 10,276. The cab and
omnibus drivers of London are a distinct race of
beings. Who can write their natural history? Who
is competent to such a task? The researches of a
Pritchard, a Pickering, a Smyth, would seem to
cover the whole subject of the history of the human
species from the anthropophagi and bosjesmen to the
drinkers of train oil in the polar regions; but the cabmen
are not included. They would require a master
mind. The subject would demand the patient investigation
of a Humboldt, the eloquence of a
Macaulay, and the humour of a Dickens—and even
then would fall short, I fear, of giving an adequate
idea of them. Your London cab driver has no idea
of distance; as, for instance, I ask one the simple
question,—

"How far is it to the Angel in Islington?"

"Wot, sir?"

I repeat my interrogatory.

.. ——File: 033.png

"Oh, the Hangel, sir! Four shillings."

"No, no. I mean what distance."

"Well, say three, then, sir."

"But I mean—what distance? How many miles?"

"O, come, sir, jump in—don't be 'ard on a fellow—I
'aven't 'ad a fare to-day. Call it 'arf a crown,
sir."

Leigh Hunt says somewhere that if there were
such a thing as metamorphosis, Dr. Johnson would
desire to be transformed into an omnibus, that he
might go rolling along the streets whose very pavements
were the objects of his ardent affection. And
he was about right. What better place is there in
this world to study human nature than an omnibus?
All classes meet there; in the same coach you may
see them all—from the poor workwoman to the genteelly
dressed lady, who looks as if she disapproved
of such conveyances, but must ride nevertheless—from
the young sprig, who is constantly anxious lest
some profane foot should dim the polish of his
boots, to the urbane old gentleman, who regrets his
corpulence, and would take less room if he could.
And then the top of the omnibus, which usually carries
four or more passengers, what a place is that to
see the tide of life which flows unceasingly through
the streets of London! I know of nothing which can
furnish more food for thought than a ride on an
omnibus from Brompton to the Bank on a fine day.
It is a pageant, in which all the wealth, pomp, power,
and prosperity of this world pass before you; and for
a moral to the whirling scene, you must go to the
nearest churchyard.

London is ever the same. The omnibuses follow
each other as rapidly as ever up and down the
Strand, the white-gloved, respectable-looking policemen
walk about as deliberately, and the tail of the
lion over the gate of Northumberland House sticks
out as straight as ever. The only great change visible
here is in the newspapers. The tone of society
is so different from what it was formerly, in all that
concerns France, that the editors must experience
considerable trouble in accustoming themselves to the
new state of things. Once, France and Louis Napoleon
furnished Punch with his chief materials for
satire and amusement, and if any of the larger and
more dignified journals wished to let off a little ill
humour, or to say any thing particularly bitter, they
only had to dip their pens in *Gaul*; but times are
changed, and now nothing can be said too strong in
favour of "our chivalric allies, the French." The
memory of St. Helena seems to have given place to
what they call here the *entente cordiale*, which those
who are acquainted with the French language assure
me means an agreement by which one party contracts
to "play second fiddle" to another, through fear that
if he does not he will not be permitted to play at all.

To the man who thoroughly appreciates the Essays
of Elia, and Boswell's Life of Johnson, London
can never grow tiresome. He can never turn a corner
without finding "something new, something to
please, and something to instruct." Its very pavements
are classical. And there is nothing to abate,
nor detract from, such a man's enthusiasm. The
traveller who visits the Roman Forum, or the Palace
of the Cæsars, experiences a sad check when he finds
his progress impeded by unpoetical obstacles. But
in London, all is harmonious; he sees on every side,
not only that which tells of present life and prosperity,
but the perennial glories of England's former
days. Would he study history, he goes to the Tower,
"rich with the spoils of time"; or to Whitehall,
where mad fanaticism consummated its treasonable
work with the murder of a sovereign; or to the towering
minster, to gaze upon the chair in which the
monarchs of a thousand years have sat; or to view
the monuments, and read the epitaphs, of that host of

   | "Bards, heroes, sages, side by side,
   | Who darkened nations when they died."

Is he a lover of English literature? Here are scenes
eloquent of that goodly company of wits and
worthies, whose glowing pages have been the delight
of his youth and the consolation of his riper years;
here are the streets in which they walked, the taverns
in which they feasted, the churches where they
prayed, the tombs where they repose.

And London wears well. To revisit it when age
has sobered down the enthusiasm of youth, is not
like seeing a theatre by daylight; but you think almost
that you have under-estimated your privileges.
How well I remember the night when I first arrived
in the metropolis! It was after ten o'clock, and I
was much fatigued; but before I booked myself in
my hotel, or looked at my room, I rushed out into
the Strand, "with breathless speed, like a soul in
chase." I pushed along, now turning to look at
Temple Bar, now pausing to take breath as I went
up Ludgate Hill. I saw St. Paul's and its dome before
me, and I was satisfied. No, I was not satisfied;
for when I returned up Fleet Street, I looked
out dear old Bolt Court, and entered its Johnsonian
precincts with an awe and veneration which a devout
Mussulman, taking the early train for Mecca, would
gladly imitate. And then I posted down Inner Temple
Lane, and looked at the house in which Charles
Lamb and his companions held their "Wednesday
nights"; and, going still farther, I saw the river—I
stood on the bank of the Thames, and I was satisfied.
I looked, and all the associations of English
history and literature which are connected with it
filled my mind—but just as I was getting into a fine
frenzy about it, a watchman hove in sight, and the
old clock chimed out eleven. So I started on, and
soon reached my hotel. I was accosted on my way
thither by a young and gayly dressed lady, whom I
did not remember ever to have seen before, but who
expressed her satisfaction at meeting me, in the most
cordial terms. I told her that I thought that it must
be a mistake, and she responded with a laugh which
very much shocked an elderly gentleman who was
passing, who looked as if he might have been got up
for the part of the uncle of the unhappy G. Barnwell.
I have since learned that such mistakes and personal
misapprehensions very frequently occur in London in
the evening.

Speaking of Temple Bar, it gratifies me to see that
this venerable gateway still stands, "unshaken, unseduced,
unterrified," by any of the recent attempts
to effect its removal. The old battered and splashed
doors are perhaps more unsightly than before; but
the statues look down with the same benignity upon
the crowd of cabs and omnibuses, and the never-ending
tide of humanity which flows beneath them,
as they did upon the Rake's Progress, so many years
ago. The sacrilegious commissioners of streets long
to get at it with their crows and picks, but the shade
of Dr. Johnson watches over the barrier of his
earthly home. It is not an ornamental affair, to be
sure, and it would be difficult for Mr. Choate, even,
to defend it against the charge of being an obstruction;
but its associations with the literature and history
of the last two or three centuries ought to entitle
its dingy arches to a certain degree of reverence,
even in our progressive and irreverent age. The
world would be a loser by the demolition of this ancient
landmark, and London, if it should lose this,
though it might still be the metropolis of the British
empire, would cease to be the London of Johnson
and Goldsmith, of Addison and Pope, of Swift and
Hogarth.

Perhaps some may think, from what I have said
in the commencement of this letter, that my enthusiasm
has blinded me to those great moral and social
evils which are apparent in English civilization; but
it is not so. I love England rather for what she has
been than for what she is; I love the England of
Alfred and St. Edward; and when I contrast the
present state with what it might have been under a
succession of such rulers, I cannot but grieve. Truly
the court of St. James under Victoria is not what it
was under Charles II., nor even under Mr. Thackeray's
favourite hero, "the great George IV.,"—but
are not St. James and St. Giles farther apart than
ever before? Is not Lazarus looked upon as a
nuisance, which legislation ought, for decency's sake,
to put out of the way? What does England do for
the poor? Nothing; absolutely nothing, if you except
a system of workhouses, compared with which
prisons are delightful residences, and which seems to
have been intended more for the punishment of poverty
than as a work of charity. No; on the contrary,
she discountenances works of charity; when a few
earnest men among the clergy of her divided church
make an effort in that direction, there is an outcry,
and they must be put down; and their bishops, whose
annual incomes are larger than the whole treasury of
Alfred, admonish them to beware how they thus
imitate the superstitions of the middle ages. No;
your Englishman of the present day has something
better to do than to look after the beggar at his doorstep;
he is too respectable a man for that; he pays
his "poor rates," and the police must order the thing
of shreds and patches to "move on"; his progress
must not be impeded, for his presence is required at
a meeting of the friends of Poland, or of Italy, or of
a society for the abolition of American slavery, and
he has no time to waste on such common, every-day
matters as the improvement of the miserable
wretches who work his coal mines, or of those quarters
of the town where vice parades its deformity
with exulting pride, and the air is heavy with pestilence.
There is proportionably more beggary in
London at this hour than in any continental city. And
such beggary! Not the comfortable, jolly-looking
beggars you may see in Rome or Naples, who know
that charity is enjoined upon the people as a religious
duty, but the thin, pallid, high-cheeked supplicants,
whose look is a petition which tells a more effective
story than words can frame of destitution and starvation.

But there is another phase of this part of London
life, sadder by far than that of mere poverty. It is
an evil which no attempt is made to prevent, and so
great an evil that its very mention is forbidden by the
spirit of this age of "superficial morality and skin-deep
propriety." I pity the man who can walk
through Regent Street or the Strand in the evening,
unsaddened by what he shall see on every side. How
ridiculous do our boasts of this Christian nineteenth
century seem there! Here is this mighty Anglo-Saxon
race, which can build steam engines, and telegraphs,
and clipper ships, which tunnels mountains,
and exerts an almost incredible mastery over the
forces of nature,—and yet, when Magdalene looks
up to it for a merciful hand to lift her from degradation
and sin, she finds it either deaf or powerless.
There is a work yet to be done in London which
would stagger a philanthropist, if he were gifted
with thrice the heroism, and patience, and self-forgetfulness
of a St. Vincent of Paul.

I cannot resist the inclination to give in this connection
a passage from the personal experience of a
friend in London, which, had I read it in any book
or newspaper, I should have hesitated to believe.
One evening, as he was passing along Pall Mall, he
was addressed by a young woman, who, when she
saw that he was going to pass on and take no notice
of her, ran before him, and said in a tone of the
most pathetic earnestness,—

"Well, if you'll not go with me, for God's sake,
sir, give me a trifle to buy bread!"

.. ——File: 040.png

Thus appealed to, and somewhat shaken by the
voice and manner, he stopped under a gaslight, and
looked at the speaker. Vice had not impressed its
distinctive seal so strongly upon her as upon most of
the unfortunate creatures one meets in London's
streets; indeed, there was a shade of melancholy on
her face which harmonized well with her voice and
manner. So my friend resolved to have a few words
more with her, and buttoning up his coat, to protect
his watch and purse, he told her that he feared she
wanted money to buy gin rather than bread. She
assured him that it was not so, but that she wished to
buy food for her little child, a girl of two or three
years. Then he asked how she could lead such a life,
if she had a child growing up, upon whom her example
would have such an influence; and she said
that she would gladly take up with an honest occupation,
if she could find one,—indeed, she did try to
earn enough for the daily wants of herself and child
with her needle, but it was impossible,—and her only
choice was between starvation and the street. At
that time she said that she was learning the trade of
a dressmaker, and she hoped that before long she
should be able to keep herself above absolute necessity.
Encouraged by a kind word from my friend,
she went on in a simple, womanly manner, and told
him of her whole career. It was the old story of
plighted troth, betrayed affection, and flight from
her village home, to escape the shame and reproach
she would there be visited with. She arrived in London
without money, without friends, without employment,—without
any thing save that natural womanly
self-respect which had received such a severe blow:—necessity
stared her in the face, and she sank before
it. My friend was impressed by the recital of
her misfortunes, and thinking that she must be sincere,
he took a sovereign from his purse and gave it
to her. She looked from the gift to the giver, and
thanked him again and again. He continued his
walk, but had not gone more than three or four rods,
when she came running after him, and reiterated her
expressions of thankfulness with a trembling voice.
He then walked on, and crossed over to the front of
the Church of St. Martin, (that glorious soldier who
with his sword divided his cloak with the beggar,)
when she came after him yet again, and seizing hold
of his hand, she looked up at him with streaming
eyes, and said, holding the sovereign in her
hand,—

"God bless you, sir, again and again for your kindness
to me! Pray pardon me, sir, for troubling you
so much—but—but—perhaps you meant to give me a
shilling, sir,—perhaps you don't know that you gave
me a sovereign."

How many models of propriety and respectability
in every rank of life,—how many persons who have
the technical language of religion constantly on their
lips,—how many of those who, nurtured amid the
influences of a good home, have never really known
what temptation is,—how many such persons are
there who might learn a startling lesson from this
fallen woman, whom they seem to consider themselves
religiously bound to despise and neglect! I
have a great dread of these severely virtuous people,
who are so superior to all human frailty that they
cannot afford a kind word to those who have not the
good fortune to be impeccable. But we all of us, I
fear, need to be reminded of Burns's lines—

   | "What's done we partly may compute,
   | But know not what's resisted."

If we thought of this, keeping our own weaknesses
in view, which of us would not shrink from judging
uncharitably, or casting the first stone at an erring
fellow-creature? Which of us would dare to condemn
the poor girl who preserved so much of the
spirit of honesty in her degradation, and to commend
the negative virtues which make up so many of what
the world calls good lives?

.. ——File: 043.png




ANTWERP AND BRUSSELS
--------------------


It is a very pleasant thing to get one's passport
*viséd* (even though a pretty good fee is demanded
for it,) and to make preparations for leaving
London, at almost any time; but it is particularly
so when the weather has been doing its worst for a
fortnight, and the atmosphere is so "thick and slab"
that to compare it to pea-soup would be doing that
excellent compound a great injustice. It is very
pleasant to think of getting out from under that
blanket of smoke and fog, and escaping to a land
where the sun shines occasionally, and where the
manners of the people make a perpetual sunshine
which renders you independent of the weather. If
there ever was a day to which that expressive old
Saxon epithet *nasty* might be justly applied, it was
the one on which I left the greasy pavements of London,
and (after a contest with a cabman, which
ended, as such things generally do, in a compromise)
found myself on board one of the fast-sailing packets
of the General Steam Navigation Company, at St.
Catharine's Wharf, just below the esplanade of the
Tower. The beautiful banks of the river below the
city, the fine pile of buildings, and the rich foliage of
the park at Greenwich, seemed to have laid aside
their charms, and shrouded themselves in mourning
for the death of sunshine. The steamer was larger
than most of those which ply in the Channel; but the
crowded cabins and diminutive state-rooms made me
think with envy of the passengers from New York to
Fall River that afternoon. And there was a want
of attention to those details which would have improved
the appearance of the boat greatly—which
made me wish that her commander might have
served his apprenticeship on Long Island Sound or
on the Hudson.

The company was composed of about the usual
admixture of English and foreign beauty and manliness;
and the English, French, Dutch, and German
languages were confounded in such a manner as to
bring to mind the doings of the committee on the
construction of public works recorded in Genesis.
Among the crowd of young Cockneys in jockeyish-looking
caps, with travelling pouches strapped to
their sides, there was a rather tall gentleman in a
clerical suit, with his throat covered with the usual
white bandages. His highly respectable look, and
the eminently "evangelical" expression of the corners
of his mouth, made me feel quite sure that I had
found a character. He had three little boys with
him; and as far as appearance went, he might have
been Dickens's model for Dr. Blimber, (the principal
of that celebrated academy where they had
mental green peas and intellectual asparagus all the
year round,) for he had the eye of a pedagogue "to
threaten and command," and his fixed look was the
one which my old schoolmaster's face wore when he
turned up his wristbands, and, taking his ruler, said,
"I am very sorry, Andrew; but you know that it is
for your good." His conversation savoured so
strongly of the dictionary, that, even if I had been
blind, I should have said that the speaker had spent
years in correcting the compositions of ingenuous
youth. I shall not forget his look of wonder when
he asked one of the engineers what was the matter
with a dog that was yelping about the deck, and received
for a reply that he tumbled off the quarter
deck, and was *strained in the garret*. However, I
enjoyed two or three hours' conversation with him
very much—if it could be called conversation when
he did all the talking.

Towards evening, when we found ourselves in the
open sea, the south-westerly swell rolled up finely
from the Goodwin Sands, and produced a scene to
remind a disinterested spectator of Punch's touching
pictorial representation of the commencement of the
continental tour of Messrs. Brown, Jones, and Robinson.
I soon perceived that a conspicuous collection
of white bowls, which adorned the main saloon,
was not a mere matter of ornament. The amount of
medicine for the prevention or cure of seasickness,
which was taken by my fellow-voyagers from flat
bottles covered with wicker-work, would have astonished
the most ardent upholder of the old allopathic
practice. But all the pitching and rolling of the
steamer, and the varied occupations of the passengers,
did not interfere with my repose. I slept as
soundly in my narrow accommodations as if I had
been within hearing of the rattling of the omnibuses
of my native city.

The next morning I was out in good season; and
though I do not consider myself either "remote,"
"unfriended," "melancholy," or "slow," I found myself
upon the "lazy Scheldt," with Antwerp's heaven-kissing
spire climbing up the hazy perspective. The
banks of the Scheldt are not very picturesque; indeed,
a person of the strongest poetical susceptibilities
might approach Flanders without the slightest
apprehension of an attack of his weakness. I could
not help congratulating myself, though, on having
been spared to see the country which was immortalized
by the profanity of a great military force.

We Americans usually consider ourselves up to the
times, and are prone to sneer at Russia for being
eleven days behind the age; but we do not yet "beat
the Dutch" in progress, for they are half an hour in
advance, as I found, very soon after landing, that all
the church clocks, with a great deal of formality and
precision, struck nine, when the hands only pointed
to half past eight; and I noted a similar phenomenon
while I was taking breakfast an hour after. Antwerp
is a beautiful old city, and its quiet streets are very
pleasant, after the tumult and roar of London; but—there
is one drawback—it is too scrupulously clean.
I almost feared to walk about, lest I should unknowingly
do some damage; and every door-handle and
bell-pull had a most unhospitable polish, which
seemed to say with the placards in the Crystal
Palace, "Please not to handle." Cleanliness is a
great virtue; but when it is carried to such an extent
that you cannot find your books and papers which
you left carefully arranged yesterday on your table,—when
it gets to be a monomania with man or
woman,—it becomes a bore. How strangely the
first two or three hours in a Dutch town strike a
stranger!—the odd, high-gabled houses, the queer
head-dresses, (graceful because of their very ungracefulness,)
the wooden shoes, and the language,
which sounds like English spoken by a toothless person.
But one very soon gets accustomed to it. It is
like being in an Oriental city, where the great variety
of costumes and languages, and the different manners
of the people, make up an *ensemble* which a stranger
thinks will be a lasting novelty; but on his second day
he finds himself taking about as much notice of a
Persian caravan as he would of a Canton Street or
Sixth Avenue omnibus.

I might here indulge in a little harmless enthusiasm
about this grand old cathedral of Antwerp. I
might talk about the "long-drawn aisle and fretted
vault," and give an elaborate description of it,—its
enormous dimensions and artistic glories,—if I did
not know that any reader who desires such things can
find them set down with greater exactness than becomes
me, in any of the guide books for Belgium. I
spent the greater proportion of my waking hours in
Antwerp under the solemn arches of that majestic
old church. I wonder, shall we ever see any thing in
America to remind us even faintly of the glories of
Antwerp, Cologne, Rouen, Amiens, York, or Milan?
I fear not. The ages that built those glorious piles
thought less of fat dividends than this boastful nineteenth
century of ours, and their religion was not the
mere one-day-out-of-seven affair that the improved
Christianity of to-day is. The architects who conceived
and executed those marvels of sublimity never
troubled themselves with our popular query, "Will it
pay?" any more than Dante interrupted the inspiration
of his *Paradiso*, or Beethoven the linked
harmony of his matchless symphonies, with their
solicitude about the amount of their copyright. No;
their work inspired them, and while it reflected their
genius, it imparted to them something of its own
divine dignity. Their art became religion, and its
laborious processes acts of the most fervent devotion.
But we have reformed all that, and now inspiration
has to give way to considerations of the
greatest number of "sittings," that can possibly be
provided, and if the expenses of the sacred enterprise
can be lessened by contriving accommodation for
shops or storage in the basement, who does not rejoice?
There are too many churches nowadays built
upon the foundation of the *profits*, leaving the apostles
entirely out of the question.

But while I lament our want of those wonderful
constructions whose very stones seem to have grown
consciously into forms of beauty, I must record my
satisfaction at the improvement in architectural taste
which is visible in most of our cities at home. If we
must have banks, and railway stations, and shops, it
is some compensation to have them made pleasant to
our sight. Buildings are the books that every body
unconsciously reads; and if they are a libel on the
laws of architecture, they will surely vitiate in time
the taste of those who become familiarized to their
deformity. Dr. Johnson said, that "if a man's
hands were dirty, his thoughts would be dirty"; and
it may be declared, with much more reason, that
those who are obliged to look, day after day, at
ungraceful, mean, and unsubstantial objects, lose, by
degrees, their sense of the beautiful and the harmonious,
and set forth, in the poverty of their minds,
the meanness of their surroundings.

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On one account I have again and again blessed the
star that guided me to Antwerp,—that is, for the
pleasure afforded me by its treasures of art. I have,
in times past, fed fat my appetite for the beautiful in
the galleries of Italy, and therefore counted but little
on the contents of the museum and churches of this
ancient city. Do not be frightened, beloved reader;
I am not going to launch out into the muddy stream
of artistic criticism. I despise most of that which
passes current under that dignified name, as heartily
as you do. Even the laurels of Mr. Ruskin cannot
rob me of a moment's repose. I cannot if I would,
nor would I if I could, talk learnedly about pictures.
So I can safely promise not to bore you with any
"breadth of colouring," and to keep very "shady"
about *chiaro 'scuro*. I only wish to say that he who
has never been in Antwerp does not know who
Rubens was. He may know that an industrious
painter of that name once lived, and painted (as I
used to think, judging from most of his works that I
had seen elsewhere) a variety of fat, flaxen-haired
women; but of Rubens, the great master, the painter
of the Crucifixion, and the Descent from the Cross,
he is as ignorant as a fourth-form boy in the public
schools of Patagonia. It is worth a month of seasick
voyaging to see the works of Rubens and Vandyck
which Antwerp possesses; and the only regret
connected with my visit there has been, that I could
not give more days to the study of them than I could
hours.

It is but fifteen miles from Antwerp to Mechlin,
or Malines, (as the people here, in the depths of
their ignorance, insist upon calling it,) and as a representative
of a nation whose sole criterion is success,
and whose list of the cardinal virtues is headed
by Prosperity, I felt that it would be a grievous sin
of omission for me not to stop and visit that thriving
old town. It did not require much time to walk
through its nice, quiet streets, and look at the pictures
and wood carvings in its venerable churches.
The white-capped and bright-eyed lace-makers sat in
windows and doorways, their busy fingers forming
fabrics, the sight of which would kindle the fire of
covetousness in any female heart. Three hours in
Mechlin sufficed to make me about as well acquainted
with it as if I had daily waked up its echoes with the
creaking of my shoes, until their thick soles were
worn out past all hope of tapping. Selecting one of
the numerous railways that branch out from Mechlin,
like the reins from the hand of a popular circus
rider in his favourite "six-horse-act," the "Courier
of St. Petersburg," I took a ticket for Brussels, and
soon found myself spinning along over these fertile
plains, whose joyous verdure I had not sufficient time
to appreciate before I found myself in the capital of
Belgium.

And what a charming place this city of lace and
carpets is! Clean as a parlour, not a speck nor a stain
to be seen any where, with less of Dutch stiffness
and more of French ease, so that you do not feel so
much like an intruder as in most other strange cities.
Brussels is a kind of vestibule to Paris; its streets, its
shops, its public edifices are all reflections in miniature
of those of the French metropolis. It has long
seemed to me so natural a preparation for the
meridian splendours of Paris, that to go thither in
any other way than through Brussels, is as if you
should enter a saloon by a back window, rather than
through the legitimate front door. In one respect I
prefer Brussels to Paris; it is smaller, and your mind
takes it all in at once. In the French capital, its very
vastness bewilders you. You are in the condition of
the gentleman whose wife was so fat that when he
wished to embrace her, he was obliged to make two
actions of the feat, and use a bit of chalk to insure
the proper distribution of his caress. But in Brussels
every thing is so harmoniously and compactly combined,
that you can enjoy it all at once. How does
one's mind treasure up his rambles through these fair
streets and gay arcades, his leisurely walks on these
spacious boulevards, or under the dense shade of this
lovely park, his musings in this fine old church of Ste.
Gudule, whose gorgeous windows symbolize the
heavenly bow, and whose air of devotion is eloquent
of the undying hope which abides within its consecrated
precincts! How one looks back years after
leaving Brussels, and conjures up, in his memory, its
public monuments, from that exceedingly diminutive
and peculiar statue near the Hôtel de Ville, which
has pursued its useful and ornamental career for so
many centuries, to the heroic equestrian figure of
Godfrey of Bouillon, in the Place Royale! How
vividly does one remember the old Gothic hall,
which has remained unchanged during the many
years that have passed since the Emperor Charles V.
there laid down the burden of his power, and exchanged
the throne for the cloister.

One of the most delightful recollections of my
term of residence in Brussels, is of a bright summer
day, when I made an excursion to the field of Waterloo.
Some Englishmen have established a line of
coaches for the purpose—real old fashioned coaches,
with a driver and a guard, which latter functionary
performed Yankee Doodle most admirably on his
melodious horn as we rattled out of town. The
roadside views cannot have changed much since the
night when the pavement shook beneath the heavy
artillery and thundering tramp of Wellington's
army. The forest of Soignies (or, to use its poetical
name, Arden) looked as it might have looked before
it was immortalized by a Tacitus and a Shakspeare;
and its fresh foliage was "dewy with Nature's tear-drops,"
over our two coach loads of pleasure-seekers,
just as Byron describes it to have been over the
"unreturning brave," who passed beneath it forty
years ago. Our party was shown over the memorable
field by an old English sergeant who was in the
battle; a fine bluff old fellow, and a gentleman withal,
who, though his head was white, had all the enthusiasm
of a young soldier. It was the most interesting
trip of the kind that I ever made, far surpassing
my expectations, for the ground remains literally *in
statu quo ante bellum*. No commissioners of highways
have interfered with its historical boundaries.
It remains, for the most part, under cultivation, as it
was before it became famous, and the grain grows,
perhaps, more luxuriantly for the chivalric blood
once shed there. There they are, unchanged, those
localities which seem to so many mere inventions of
the historian, Mont St. Jean, the farm of La Haye
Sainte, the château of Hougoumont, the orchard
with its low brick wall, over which the chosen troops
of France and England fought hand to hand, and the
spot where the last great charge was made, and the
spell which held Europe in awe of the name of Napoleon,
and made that name his country's watchword,
and the synonyme of victory, was broken
forever. Perhaps I err in saying forever, for France
is certainly not unmindful of that name even now.
That showery afternoon, when the great conqueror
saw his veterans, against whom scores of battle
fields, and all the terrors of a Russian campaign,
proved powerless, cut to pieces and dispersed by a
superior force, to which the news of coming reënforcements
gave new strength and courage,—that
very afternoon a boy, without a thought of battles or
their consequences, was playing in the quiet grounds
of the château of Malmaison. If Napoleon could
have looked forward forty years, if he could have
foreseen the romantic career of that child, and
followed him through thirty years of exile, imprisonment,
and discouragement, until he saw him reëstablish
the empire which was then overthrown, and
place France on a higher pinnacle of power than she
ever knew before, how comparatively insignificant
would have seemed to him the consequences of that
last desperate charge! If he could have seen that it
was reserved to his nephew, the grandchild of his
divorced but faithful Josephine, to avenge Waterloo
by an alliance more fatal to England's prestige than
any invasion could be, and that the armies which had
that day borne such bloody witness to their unconquerable
daring, would forty years later be united to
resist the encroachments of the power which first
checked him in his career of victory, he would have
had something to think of during that gloomy night
besides the sad events that had wrought such a fearful
change in his condition.

I returned to Brussels in the afternoon, meditating
on the scenes I had visited, and repeating the five
stanzas of Childe Harold in which Byron has commemorated
the battle of Waterloo. In the evening
I read, with new pleasure, Thackeray's graphic
Waterloo chapter in Vanity Fair, and dreamed all
night of falling empires and "garments rolled in
blood." And now I turn my face towards Italy.

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GENOA AND FLORENCE
------------------


It is a happy day in every one's life when he commences
his journey into Italy. That glorious
land, "rich with the spoils of time" above all others,
endeared to every heart possessing any sense of the
beautiful in poetry and art, or of the heroic in history,
rises up before him as it was wont to do in the
days of his youth, when Childe Harold's glowing
numbers gave a tone of enthusiasm to his every
thought, and filled him with longings, for the realization
of which he hardly dared to hope. For the
time, the commonest actions of the traveller seem to
catch something of the indescribable charm of the
land to which he is journeying. The ticketing of
luggage and the securing of a berth on board a
steamer—occupations which are not ordinarily considered
particularly agreeable—become invested with
an attractiveness that makes him wonder how he
could ever have found them irksome. If he approaches
Italy by land from France or Switzerland,
with what curiosity does he study the varied features
of the Piedmontese landscape! He recognizes the
fertile fields which he read about in Tacitus years
ago, and endeavours to find in the strange dialect
which he hears spoken in the brief stops of the diligence
to change horses, something to remind him
even faintly of the melodious tongue with whose accents
Grisi and Bosio had long since made him familiar.
Meanwhile his imagination is not idle, and his
mind is filled with historical pictures drawn from the
classical pages which he once found any thing but
entertaining. Though he may be fresh from the
cloudless atmosphere of fair Provence, he fancies
that the sky is bluer and the air more pure than he
ever saw before.

It is a great advantage to enter Italy from the
sea. In this way you perceive more clearly the national
characteristics, and enter at once into the
Italian way of life. You avoid in this way that
gradual change from one pure nationality to another,
which is eminently unsatisfactory. You do not weary
yourself with the mixed population and customs of
those border towns which bear about the same relation
to Italy that Boulogne, with its multitude of
English residents, bears to France. It was my good
fortune when I first visited Italy, years ago, to make
the voyage from America direct to the proud city of
Genoa. Fifty-five weary days passed away before
the end of the voyage was reached. Twenty-six of
those days were spent in battling with a terrible
north-easter, before whose might many a better craft
than the one I was in went down into the insatiable
depths. My Italian anticipations kept me up through
all the cheerlessness of that time. The stormy sky,
the wet, the cold, and all the discomfort could not
keep from my mind's eye the vineyards, palaces,
churches, and majestic ruins which made up the Italy
I had looked forward to from childhood. My first
sight of that romantic land did somewhat shock, I
must acknowledge, my preconceived notions. I was
called on deck early one December morning to see
the land which is associated in most minds with perpetual
sunshine. Facing a biting, northerly blast, I
saw the maritime range of the Alps covered with
snow and looking as relentless as arctic icebergs. My
disappointment was forgotten, however, two mornings
after, when Genoa, wearing "the beauty of the
morning," lay before our weather-beaten bark. It
was something to remember to my dying day—that
approach to the city of palaces. Surrounded by its
amphitheatre of hills crested on every side with
heavy fortifications, its palaces, and towers, and
domes, and terraced gardens rising apparently from
the very edge of that tideless sea, there sat Genoa,
surpassing in its splendour the wildest imaginings of
my youth. I shall never forget the thrill that ran
through every fibre of my frame, when the sun rose
above those embattled ridges, and poured his flood
of saffron glory over the whole wonderful scene,
and the bells from a hundred churches and convents
rang out as cheerily as if the sunbeams made them
musical, like the statue in the ancient fable, and there
was no further need of bell ropes. The astonishment
of Aladdin when he rubbed the lamp and saw
the effects of that operation could not have equalled
mine, when I saw Genoa put on the light and life of
day like a garment. It was like a scene in a theatrical
pageant, or one of the brilliant changes in a
great firework, so instantaneous was the transition
from the subdued light and calmness of early morning
to the activity and golden light of day. All the
discomfort of the eight preceding weeks was forgotten
in the exultation of that moment. I had
found the Italy of my young dreams, and my happiness
was complete.

This time, however, I entered Italy from the
north. I pass by clean, prosperous-looking Milan,
with its elegant churches, and its white-coated Austrian
soldiers standing guard in every public place.
I have not a word of lament to utter at seeing a
stranger force sustaining social order there. It is
better that it should be sustained by a despotism far
more cruel than that of Austria, than to become the
prey of that sanguinary anarchy which is dignified in
Europe with the name of republicanism. The most
absolute of all absolute monarchies is to be preferred
to the best government that could possibly be built
upon such a foundation as Mazzini's stiletto. Far
better is the severest military despotism than the irresponsible
tyranny of those who deny the first principles
of government and common morality, and who
seem to consider assassination the chief of virtues
and the most heroic of actions. I pass by that magnificent
cathedral, with its thousands of pinnacles and
shining statues piercing the clear atmosphere like the
peaks of a stupendous iceberg, and its subterranean
chapel, glittering with precious metals and jewels,
where, in a crystal shrine, repose the relics of the
great St. Charles, and the lamps of gold and silver
burn unceasingly, and symbolize the shining virtues of
the self-forgetful successor of St. Ambrose, and the
glowing gratitude of the faithful Milanese for his
devotion to the welfare of their forefathers.

I lingered among the attractions of Genoa for a
few days. I enjoy not only those magnificent palaces
with their spacious quadrangles, broad staircases,
and sculptured façades, but those narrow, winding
streets of which three quarters of the city are composed—so
narrow indeed that a carriage never is
seen in them, and a donkey, pannier-laden, after the
manner of Ali Baba's faithful animal, compels you to
keep very close to the buildings. Genoa is the very
reverse of Philadelphia. Its streets are as narrow
and crooked as those of Philadelphia are broad and
straight. The Quaker City was always a wearisome
place to me. Its rectangular avenues—so wide that
they afford no protection from the wintry blast nor
shelter from the canicular sunshine, and as interminable
as a tale in a weekly newspaper—tire me out.
They make me long for something more social and
natural than their straight lines. Man is a gregarious
animal. It is his nature to snuggify himself.
But the Quaker affects a contempt for snugness, and
includes Hogarth's line of beauty among the worldly
vanities which his religion obliges him to shun.
Every time I think of Philadelphia my disrespect for
the science of geometry is increased, and I find myself
more and more inclined to believe the most unkind
things that Lord Macaulay can say about Mr.
Penn, its founder. Cherishing such sentiments as
these, is it wonderful that I find Genoa a pleasant
city? I enjoy its gay port, its thronged market place,
its sumptuous churches, with gilded vaults and panels,
and checkered exteriors, its well-dressed people,
from the bluff coachman, who laughed at my attempts
to understand the Genoese dialect, to the
devout feminines in their graceful white veils, which
give the whole city a peculiarly festive and nuptial
appearance: but it must be acknowledged, that the
up-and-down-stairsy feature of the town is not grateful
to my gouty feet.

I must not weary you, dear reader, with any
attempts to describe the delightful four days' journey
from Genoa to Florence, in a *vettura*. The
Cornice road, with its steep cliffs or trim villas on one
side, and the clear blue Mediterranean on the other,—those
pleasant old towns, pervaded with an air of
respectable antiquity, Chiavari, Sestri, Sarzana,
Spezzia, with its beautiful gulf, whose waters looked
so pure and calm that it was difficult to think that
they could ever have swallowed poor Percy Shelley,
and robbed English literature of one of its brightest
ornaments,—Pietra Santa, Carrara, with its queer
old church, its quarries, its doorsteps and window-sills
of milk-white marble, and its throng of artists,—the
little marble city of Massa Ducale, nestling
among the mountains,—the vast groves of olives,
whose ash-coloured leaves made noontide seem like
twilight,—all these things would require a great expenditure
of time and rhetoric, and therefore I will
not even allude to them.

Neither will I tire you with any reference to my
brief sojourn in Pisa. I will not tell how delightful
it was to perambulate the clean streets of that peaceful
city,—how I enjoyed the view from the bridges,
the ancient towers and domes, and the lofty palaces,
whose fair fronts are mirrored in the soft-flowing
Arno. I will not attempt to describe the enchantment
produced by that noble architectural group,—the
Cathedral, the Baptistery, the Campanile, and
the Campo Santo,—nor the joy I felt on making a
closer acquaintance with that graceful tower, whose
inexplicable dereliction from the perfect uprightness
which is inculcated as a primary duty in all similar
structures, was made familiar to me at an early age,
through the medium of a remarkable wood-cut in my
school Geography. I will not tell how I fatigued my
sense with the forms of beauty with which that glorious
church is filled,—how refreshing its holy quiet
and subdued light were to my travel-worn spirit,—nor
how the majestic cloisters of the Campo Santo,
with their delicate traceries, antique frescoes, and
constantly varying light and shade, elevated and
purified my heart of the sordid spirit of this mean,
practical age, until I felt that to live amid such scenes,
and to be buried at last in the earth of Palestine,
under the shade of those solemn arches, was the only
worthy object of human ambition.

I entered Florence late in the afternoon, under
cover of a fog that would have done credit to London
in the depths of its November nebulosity. It
was rather an unbecoming dress for the style of
beauty of the Tuscan capital,—that mantle of chill
vapour,—but it was worn but a few hours, and the sun
rose the next morning in all his legitimate splendour,
and darted his rays through as clear and frosty an
atmosphere as ever fell to the lot of even that
favoured country. I have once or twice heard the
epithet "beautiful" applied to this city; indeed, I will
not be sure that I have not met with it in some book
or other. It is, in fact, the only word that can be
used with any propriety concerning this charming
place. It is not vast like Rome, nor is the soul of its
beholder saddened by the sight of mighty ruins, or
burdened with the weight of thousands of years of
heroic history. It does not possess the broad Bay of
Naples, nor is it watched over by a stupendous volcano,
smoking leisurely for want of some better occupation.
But it lies in the valley of the Arno, one of
the most harmonious and impressive works of art
that the world has ever seen, surrounded by natural
beauties that realize the most ecstatic dreams of
poesy.

*Firenze la bella!* Who can look at her from any
of the terraced hills that enclose her from the rude
world, and deny her that title? That fertile plain
which stretches from her very walls to the edge of
the horizon—those picturesque hills, dotted with
lovely villas—those orchards and vineyards, in their
glory of gold and purple—that river, stealing noiselessly
to the sea—and far away the hoary peaks of
the Apennines, changing their hue with every hour of
sunlight, and displaying their most gorgeous robes,
in honour of the departing day,—I pity the man who
can look upon them without a momentary feeling of
inspiration. The view from Fiesole is consolation
enough for a life of disappointment, and ought to
make all future earthly trials seem as nothing to him
who is permitted to enjoy it.

And then, those domes and towers, so eloquent of
the genius of Giotto and Brunelleschi and of the public
spirit and earnest devotion of ages which modern
ignorance stigmatizes as "dark,"—who can behold
them without a thrill? The battlemented tower of
the Palazzo Vecchio—which seems as if it had been
hewn out of solid rock, rather than built up by the
patient labour of the mason—looks down upon the
peaceful city with a composure that seems almost intelligent,
and makes you wonder whether it appeared
the same when the signiory of Florence held their
councils under its massive walls, and in those dark
days when the tyrannous factions of Guelph and
Ghibelline celebrated their bloody carnival. The
graceful Campanile of the cathedral, with its coloured
marbles, seems too much like a mantel ornament
to be exposed to the changes of the weather.
Amid the other domes and towers of the city rises
the vast dome of the cathedral, the forerunner of
that of St. Peter's, and almost its equal. It appears
to be conscious of its superiority to the neighbouring
architectural monuments, and merits Hallam's description—"an
emblem of the Catholic hierarchy
under its supreme head; like Rome itself, imposing,
unbroken, unchangeable, radiating in equal expansion
to every part of the earth, and directing its
convergent curves to heaven."

There is no city in the world so full of memories
of the middle ages as Florence. Its very palaces,
with their heavily barred basement windows, look as
if they were built to stand a siege. Their sombre
walls are in strong contrast with the bloom and sunshine
which we naturally associate with the valley of
the Arno. Their magnificent proportions and the
massiveness of their construction oppress you with
recollections of the warlike days in which they were
erected. You wonder, as you stand in their courtyards,
or perambulate the streets darkened by their
overhanging cornices, what has become of all the
cavaliers; and if a gentleman in "complete steel"
should lift his visor to accost you, it would not startle
you so much as to hear two English tourists with the
inevitable red guide-books under their arms, conversing
about the "Grand Juke." Wherever one
may turn his steps in Florence, he meets with some
object of beauty or historical interest; yet among all
these charms and wonders there is one building upon
which my eyes and mind are never tired of feeding.
The Palazzo Riccardi, the cradle of the great Medici
family, is not less impressive in its architecture
than in its historic associations. Its black walls have
a greater charm for me than the variegated marbles
of the Duomo. It was built by the great Cosmo de'
Medici, and was the home of that family of merchant
princes in the most glorious period of its history,
when a grateful people delighted to render to its
members that homage which is equally honourable to
"him that gives and him that takes." The genius of
Michel Angelo and Donatello is impressed upon it.
It was within those lofty halls that Cosmo and his
grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent, welcomed pontiffs
and princes, and the illustrious but untitled
nobility of literature and art, which was the boast of
their age. The ancient glories of the majestic pile
are kept in mind by an inscription which greets him
who enters it with an exhortation to "reverence with
gratitude the ancient mansion of the Medici, in
which not merely so many illustrious men, but Wisdom
herself abode—a house which was the nurse of
revived learning."

I wonder whether any one ever was tired of strolling
about these old streets and squares. At my time
of life, walking is not particularly agreeable, even if
it be not interfered with by either of those foes to
active exercise and grace of movement—rheumatism
or gout; but I must acknowledge that I have found
such pleasure in rambling through the familiar
streets of this delightful city, that I have taken no
note of bodily fatigue, and have forgotten the crutch
or cane which is my inseparable companion. It is all
the same to me whether I walk about the streets, or
loiter in the Boboli Gardens, or listen to the delicious
music of the full military band that plays daily for
an hour before sunset under the shade of the Cascine.
They all afford me a kind of vague pleasure—very
much that sort of satisfaction which springs from
hearing a cat purr, or from watching the fitful blaze
of a wood fire. I have no fondness for jewelry, and
the great Kohinoor diamond and all the crown
jewels of Russia could not invest respectable uselessness
or aristocratic vice with any beauty for me, nor
add any charm to a bright, intelligent face, such as
lights up many a home in this selfish world; yet I
have spent hours in looking at the stalls on the
Jeweller's Bridge, and enjoying the covetous looks
bestowed by so many passers-by upon their glittering
contents.

There are some excellent bookstalls here, and I
have renewed the joys of past years and the memory
of Paternoster Row, Fleet Street, Holborn, the
Strand, and of the quays of Paris, in the inspection
of their stock. I have a strong affection for bookstalls,
and had much rather buy a book at one than in
a shop. In the first place it would be cheaper; in the
second place it would be a little worn, and I should
become the possessor, not only of the volume, but of
its associations with other lovers of books who
turned over its leaves, reading here and there, envying
the future purchaser. For books, so long as they
are well used, increase in value as they grow in age.
Sir William Jones's assertion, that "the best monument
that can be erected to a man of literary talents
is a good edition of his works," is not to be denied;
but who would think of reading, for the enjoyment
of the thing, a modern edition of Sir Thomas
Browne, or Izaak Walton? Who would wish to
read Hamlet in a volume redolent of printers' ink
and binders' glue? Who would read a clean new
copy of Robinson Crusoe when he might have one
that had seen service in a circulating library, or had
been well thumbed by several generations of adventure-loving
boys? A book is to me like a hat or coat—a
very uncomfortable thing until the newness has
been worn off.

It is in the churches of Florence that my enthusiasm
reaches its meridian. This solemn cathedral,
with its richly dight windows,—whose warm hues
must have been stolen from the palette of Titian or
Tintoretto,—makes me forget all earthly hopes and
sorrows; and the majestic Santa Maria Novella and
San Lorenzo, with their peaceful cloisters and treasures
of literature and art, appeal strongly to my
religious sensibilities, while they completely satisfy
my taste. And then Santa Croce, solemn, not merely
as a place of worship, but as the repository of the
dust of many of those illustrious men whose genius
illumined the world during the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries! I have enjoyed Santa Croce particularly,
because I have seen more of the religious
life of the Florentine people there. For more than
a week I have been there every evening, just after
sunset, when the only light that illuminated those
ancient arches came from the high altar, which appeared
like a vision of heaven in the midst of the
thickest darkness of earth. The nave and aisles of
that vast edifice were thronged: men, women, and
children were kneeling upon that pavement which
contains the records of so much goodness and greatness.
I have heard great choirs; I have been thrilled
by the wondrous power of voices that seemed too
much like those of angels for poor humanity to listen
to; but I have never before been so overwhelmed as
by the hearty music of that vast multitude.

The galleries of art need another volume and an
abler pen than mine. Free to the people as the sunlight
and the shade of the public gardens, they make
an American blush to think of the niggardly spirit
that prevails in the country which he would fain persuade
himself is the most favoured of all earthly
abodes. The Academy, the Pitti, the Uffizi, make
you think that life is too short, and that art is indeed
long. You wish that you had more months to devote
to them than you have days. Great as is the pleasure
that I have found in them, I have found myself
lingering more fondly in the cloisters and corridors
of San Marco than amid the wonderful works that
deck the walls of the palaces. The pencil of Beato
Angelico has consecrated that dead plastering, and
given to it a divine life. The rapt devotion and holy
tranquillity of those faces reflect the glory of the
eternal world. I ask no more convincing proof of
the immortality of the soul, than the fact that those
forms of beauty and holiness were conceived and
executed by a mortal.

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It is enough to excite the indignation of any reflective
Englishman or American to visit Florence,
and compare—or perhaps I ought rather to say contrast—the
facts which force themselves upon his attention,
with the prejudices implanted in his mind by
early education. Surely, he has a right to be astonished,
and may be excused if he indulges in a little
honest anger, when he looks for the first time at the
masterpieces of art which had their origin in those
ages which he has been taught to consider a period of
ignorance and barbarism. He certainly obtains a new
idea of the "barbarism" of the middle ages, when he
visits the benevolent institutions which they have
bequeathed to our times, and when he sees the admirable
working of the *Compagnia della Misericordia*,
which unites all classes of society, from the
grand duke to his humblest subject, in the bonds of
religion and philanthropy. He may be pardoned,
too, if he comes to the conclusion that the liberal arts
were not entirely neglected in the age that produced
a Dante and a Petrarch, a Cimabue and a Giotto,—not
to mention a host of other names, which may not
shine so brightly as these, but are alike superior to
temporal accidents,—and he cannot be considered
unreasonable if he refuses to believe that the ages
which witnessed the establishment of universities like
those of Paris, Oxford, Cambridge, Prague, Bologna,
Salamanca, Vienna, Ferrara, Ingolstadt,
Louvain, Leipsic, &c., were quite so deeply sunk in
darkness, or were held in an intellectual bondage so
utterly hopeless, as the eulogists of the nineteenth
century would persuade him. The monuments of
learning, art, and benevolence, with which Florence
is filled, will convince any thinking man that those
who speak of the times I have alluded to as the "dark
ages," mean thereby the ages concerning which they
are in the dark; and admirably exemplify in their
own shallow self-sufficiency the ignorance they would
impute to the ages when learning and all good arts
were the handmaids of religion.

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ANCIENT ROME
------------


The moment in which one takes his first look at
Rome is an epoch in his life. Even if his education
should have been a most illiberal one, and he
himself should be as strenuous an opponent of pontifical
prerogatives as John of Leyden or Dr. Dowling,
he is sure to be, for the time, imbued in some
measure with the feelings of a pilgrim. The sight of
that city which has exercised such a mighty influence
on the world, almost from its very foundation, fills
his mind with "troublings of strange joy." His
vague notions of ancient history assume a more distinct
form. The twelve Cæsars pass before his
mind's eye like the spectral kings before the Scotch
usurper. The classics which he used to neglect so
shamefully at school, the historical lessons which he
thought so dull, have been endowed with life and interest
by that one glance of his astonished eye. But
if he loved the classics in his youth,—if the wanderings
of Æneas and the woes of Dido charmed instead
of tiring him,—if "Livy's pictured page," the polished
periods of Sallust and Tacitus, and the mighty
eloquence of Cicero, were to him a mine of delight
rather than a task,—how does his eye glisten with
renewed youth, and his heart swell as his old boyish
enthusiasm is once more kindled within it! He feels
that he has reached the goal to which his heart and
mind were turned during his purest and most unselfish
years; and if he were as unswayed by human
respect as he was then, he would kneel down with the
travel-worn pilgrims by the wayside to give utterance
to his gratitude, and to greet the queen city of the
world: *Salve, magna parens!*

I shall not easily forget the cloudless afternoon
when I first took that long, wearisome ride from
Civita Vecchia to Rome. There was no railway in
those days, as there is now, and the diligence was of
so rude and uncomfortable a make that I half suspected
it to be the one upon the top of which Hannibal
is said to have crossed the Alps, (*summâ
diligentiâ*.) I shared the *coupé* with two other sufferers,
and was, like them, so fatigued that it seemed
as if a celestial vision would be powerless to make
me forgetful of my aching joints, when (after a
laborious pull up a hill which might be included
among the "everlasting hills" spoken of in holy writ)
our long-booted postilion turned his expressive face
towards us, and banished all our weariness by exclaiming,
as he pointed into the blue distance with his
short whip-handle, "*Ecco! Roma! San Pietro!*"

A single glance of the eye served to overcome all
our fatigue. There lay the world's capital, crowned
by the mighty dome of the Vatican basilica, and we
were every moment drawing nearer to it. It was
evening before we found ourselves staring at those
dark walls which have withstood so many sieges,
and heard the welcome demand for passports, which
informed us that we had reached the gate of the city.

I was really in Rome,—I was in that city hallowed
by so many classical, historical, and sacred associations,—and
it all seemed to me like a confused
dream. Twice, before the diligence had gone a hundred
yards inside the gate, I had pinched myself to
ascertain whether I was really awake; and even after
I passed through the lofty colonnade of St. Peter's,
and had gazed at the front of the church and the
vast square which art has made familiar to every
one, and had seen the fountains with the moonbeams
flashing in their silvery spray, I feared lest something
should interrupt my dream, and I should wake to
find myself in my snug bedroom at home, wondering
at the weakness which allowed me to be seduced into
the eating of a bit of cheese the evening before. It
was not so, however; no disorganizing cheese had
interfered with my digestion; it was no dream; and
I was really in Rome. I slept soundly when I reached
my hotel, for I felt sure that no hostile Brennus lay
in wait to disturb the city's peace, and the grateful
hardness of my bed convinced me that all the geese
of the capital had not been killed, if the enemy
should effect an entrance.

There are few people who love Rome at first sight.
The ruins, that bear witness to her grandeur in the
days of her worldly supremacy, oppress you at first
with an inexpressible sadness. The absence of any
thing like the business enterprise and energy of this
commercial age makes English and American people
long at first for a little of the bustle and roar of
Broadway and the Strand. The small paving stones,
which make the feet of those who are unaccustomed
to them ache severely, the brick and stone floors of
the houses, and the lack of the little comforts of
modern civilization, render Rome a wearisome place,
until one has caught its spirit. Little does he think
who for the first time gazes on those gray, mouldering
walls, on which "dull time feeds like slow fire
upon a hoary brand," or walks those streets in which
the past and present are so strangely commingled,—little
does he realize how dear those scenes will one
day be to him. He cannot foresee the regret with
which he will leave those things that seem too common
and familiar to deserve attention, nor the glowing
enthusiasm which their mention will inspire in
after years; and he would smile incredulously if any
one were to predict to him that his heart, in after
times, will swell with homesick longings as he recalls
the memory of that ancient city, and that he will one
day salute it from afar as his second home.

I make no claims to antiquarian knowledge; for I
do not love antiquity for itself alone. It is only by
force of association that antiquity has any charms for
me. The pyramids of Egypt would awaken my respect,
not so much by their age or size, as by the
remembrance of the momentous scenes which have
been enacted in their useless and ungraceful presence.
Show me a scroll so ancient that human science can
obtain no key to the mysteries locked up in the
strange figures inscribed upon it, and you would
move me but little. But place before me one of those
manuscripts (filled with scholastic lore, instinct with
classic eloquence, or luminous with the word of eternal
life) which have come down to us from those
nurseries of learning and piety, the monasteries of
the middle ages, and you fill me with the intensest
enthusiasm. There is food for the imagination hidden
under those worm-eaten covers and brazen
clasps. I see in those fair pages something more
than the results of the patient toil which perpetuated
those precious truths. From those carefully penned
lines, and brilliant initial letters, the pale, thoughtful
face of the transcriber looks upon me—his contempt
of worldly ambition and sacrifice of human consolations
are reflected there—and from the quiet of his
austere cell, he seems to dart from his serene eyes a
glance of patient reproach at the worldlier and more
modern age which reaps the fruit of his labour, and
repays him by slandering his character. Show me a
building whose stupendous masonry seems the work
of Titan hands, but whose history is lost in the twilight
of the ages, so that no record remains of a time
when it was any thing but an antique enigma, and its
massive columns and Cyclopean proportions will not
touch me so nearly as the stone in Florence where
Dante used to stand and gaze upon that dome which
Michel Angelo said he would not imitate, and could
not excel.

Feeling thus about antiquities, I need not say that
those of Rome, so crowned with the most thrilling
historical and personal associations, are not wanting
in charms for me. Yet I do not claim to be an antiquarian.
It is all one to me whether the column of
Phocas be forty feet high or sixty,—whether a ruin
on the Palatine that fascinates me by its richness and
grandeur, was once a Temple of Minerva or of
Jupiter Stator; or whether its foundations are of
travertine or tufa. I abhor details. My enjoyment
of a landscape would be at an end if I were called
upon to count the mild-eyed cattle that contribute so
much to its picturesqueness; and I have no wish to
disturb my appreciation of the spirit of a place consecrated
by ages of heroic history, by entertaining
any of the learned conjectures of professional antiquarians.
It is enough for me to know that I am
standing on the spot where Romulus built his straw-thatched
palace, and his irreverent brother leaped
over the walls of the future mistress of the nations.
Standing in the midst of the relics of the grandeur of
imperial Rome, the whole of her wonderful history
is constantly acting over again in my mind. The
stern simplicity of those who laid the foundations of
her greatness, the patriotic daring of those who extended
her power, the wisdom of those who terminated
civil strife by compelling the divided citizens to
unite against a foreign foe, are all present to me. In
that august place where Cicero pleaded, gazing upon
that mount where captive kings did homage to the
masters of the world, your mere antiquarian, with
his pestilent theories and measurements, seems to me
little better than a profaner. When I see such a one
scratching about the base of some majestic column in
the Forum (although I cannot but be grateful to
those whose researches have developed the greatness
of the imperial city,) I do long to interrupt him, and
remind him that his "tread is on an empire's dust."
I wish to recall him from the petty details in which
he delights, and have him enjoy with me the grandeur
and dignity of the whole scene.

The triumphal arches,—the monuments of the cultivation
of those remote ages, no less than of the
power of the state which erected them,—the memorials
of the luxury that paved the way to the decline
of that power—all these things impress me with
the thought of the long years that intervened between
that splendour and the times when the seat of
universal empire was inhabited only by shepherds
and their flocks. It wearies me to think of the long
centuries of human effort that were required to bring
Rome to its culminating point of glory; and it affords
me a melancholy kind of amusement to contrast the
spirit of those who laid the deep and strong foundations
of that prosperity and power, with that of
some modern sages, to whom a hundred years are a
respectable antiquity, and who seem to think that
commercial enterprise and the will of a fickle populace
form as secure a basis for a state as private
virtue, and the principle of obedience to law. I know
a country, yet in the first century of its national existence,
full of hope and ambition, and possessing
advantages such as never before fell to the lot of a
young empire, but lacking in those powers which
made Rome what she was. If that country, "the
newest born of nations, the latest hope of mankind,"
which has so rapidly risen to a power surpassing in
extent that of ancient Rome, and bears within itself
the elements of the decay that ruined the old empire,—wealth,
vice, corruption,—if she could overcome
the vain notion that hers is an exceptional case, and
that she is not subject to that great law of nature
which makes personal virtue the corner-stone of national
stability and the lack of that its bane, and could
look calmly upon the remains of old Rome's grandeur,
she might learn a great lesson. Contemplating
the patient formation of that far-reaching
dominion until it found its perfect consummation in
the age of Augustus, (*Tantæ molis erat Romanam
condere gentem*,) she would see that true national
greatness is not "the hasty product of a day"; that
demagogues and adventurers, who have made politics
their trade, are not the architects of that
greatness; and that the parchment on which the constitution
and laws of a country are written, might as
well be used for drum-heads when reverence and
obedience have departed from the hearts of its
people.

A gifted representative of a name which is classical
in the history of the drama, some years ago gave
to the world a journal of her residence in Rome.
She called her volume "A Year of Consolation"—a
title as true as it is poetical. Indeed I know of nothing
more soothing to the spirit than a walk through
these ancient streets, or an hour of meditation amid
these remains of fallen majesty. To stand in the
arena of the Coliseum in the noonday glare, or when
those ponderous arches cast their lengthened shadows
on the spot where the first Roman Christians
were sacrificed to make a holiday for a brutalized
populace,—to muse in the Pantheon, that changeless
temple of a living, and monument of a dead, worship,
and reflect on the many generations that have
passed beneath its majestic portico from the days of
Agrippa to our own,—to listen to the birds that sing
amid the shrubbery which decks the stupendous
arches of the Baths of Caracalla,—to be overwhelmed
by the stillness of the Campagna while the
eye is filled with that rolling verdure which seems in
the hazy distance like the waves of the unquiet sea—what
are all these things but consolations in the
truest sense of the word? What is the bitterest grief
that ever pierced a human heart through a long life
of sorrows, compared to the dumb woe of that
mighty desolation? What are our brief sufferings,
when they are brought into the august presence of a
mourner who has seen her hopes one by one taken
from her, through centuries of war and rapine, neglect
and silent decay?

Among all of Rome's monuments of antiquity,
there are few that impress me so strangely as those
old Egyptian obelisks, the trophies of the victorious
emperors, which the pontiffs have made to contribute
so greatly to the adornment of their capital. It is
almost impossible to turn a corner of one of the principal
streets of the city without seeing one of these
peculiar shafts that give a fine finish to the perspective.
If their cold granite forms could speak, what
a strange history they would reveal! They were witnesses
of the achievements of a power which reached
its noonday splendour centuries before the shepherd
Faustulus took the foundling brothers into his cottage
on the banks of the Tiber. The civilization of
which they are the relics had declined before the
Roman kings inaugurated that which afterwards reclaimed
all Europe from the barbarians. Yet there
they stand as grim and silent as if they had but yesterday
been rescued from the captivity of the native
quarry, and had never seen a nobler form than those
of the dusty artisans who wrought them—as dull and
unimpressible as some of the stupid tourists whom I
see daily gazing upon these glorious monuments, and
seeing only so much brick and stone.

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MODERN ROME
-----------


Acknowledging as I do the charms which
the Rome of antiquity possesses for me, it
must still be confessed that the Rome of the present
time enchants me with attractions scarcely less potent.
Religion has consecrated many of the spots
which history had made venerable, and thus added a
new lustre to their associations. I turn from the
broken columns and gray mouldering walls of old
Rome to those fanes, "so ancient, yet so new," in
which the piety of centuries has found its enduring
expression. Beneath their sounding arches, by the
mild light of the lamps that burn unceasingly around
their shrines, who would vex his brain with antiquarian
lore? We may notice that the pavement is
worn away by the multitudes which have been drawn
thither by curiosity or devotion; but we feel that
Heaven's chronology is not an affair of months and
years, and that Peter and Paul, Gregory and Leo,
are not mere personages in a drama upon the first
acts of which the curtain long since descended. Who
thinks of antiquity while he inhabits that world of
art which Rome encloses within her walls? Those
are not the triumphs of a past age alone; they are
the triumphs of to-day. The Apollo's bearing is not
less manly, its step not less elastic, than it was in that
remote age when its unknown sculptor threw aside
his chisel and gazed upon his finished work. To-day's
sunshine is not more clear and golden than that
which glows in the landscapes of Claude Lorraine,
though he who thus made the sunbeams his servants
has been sleeping for nearly two centuries in the
dusty vaults of *Trinita de' Monti*. Were Raphael's
deathless faces more real while he was living than
they are now? Were Guido's and Domenichino's
triumphs more worthy of admiration while the paint
was wet upon them? or were the achievements of
that giant of art, Michel Angelo, ever more wonderful
than now? No; these great works take no note
of time, and confer upon the city which contains them
something of their own immortality.

I have heard people regret that so many of our
artists should expatriate themselves, and spend their
lives in Rome or Florence. To me, however, nothing
seems more natural; and if I were a painter, or a
sculptor, I feel certain that I should share the common
weakness of the profession for a place of residence
in harmony with my art. What sympathy can
a true artist feel with a state of society in which he is
regarded by nine people out of ten as a useless
member, because he does not directly aid in the production
of a given quantity of grain or of cloth?
Every stroke of his brush, every movement of his
hands in moulding the obedient clay, is a protest
against the low, mean, materialistic views of life
which prevail among us; and it is too much to ask of
any man that he shall spend his days in trying to live
peaceably in an enemy's camp. When figs and dates
become common articles of food in Lapland, and the
bleak sides of the hills of New Hampshire are
adorned with the graceful palm tree and the luxuriant
foliage of the tropics, you may expect art to
flourish in a community whose god is commerce, and
whose chief religious duty is money-getting.

Truly the life of an artist in Rome is about as near
the perfection of earthly happiness as is commonly
vouchsafed to mortal man. The tone of society, and
all the surroundings of the artist, are so congenial
that no poverty nor privation can seriously interfere
with them. The streets, with their architectural
marvels, the trim gardens and picturesque cloisters of
the old religious establishments, the magnificent
villas of the neighbourhood of the city, and the vast,
mysterious Campagna, with its gigantic aqueducts
and its purple atmosphere, and those glorious galleries
which at the same time gratify the taste of the
artist and feed his ambition,—these are things which
are as free to him as the blessed sunlight or the water
that sparkles in the countless fountains of the Holy
City. I do not wonder that artists who have lived
any considerable time in Rome are discontented with
the feverish restlessness of our American way of life,
and that, after "stifling the mighty hunger of the
heart" through two or three wearisome years in our
western world, they turn to Rome as to a fond
mother, upon whose breast they may find that peace
which they had elsewhere sought in vain.

The churches of Rome impress me in a way which
I have never heard described by any other person. I
do not speak of St. Peter's, (that "noblest temple
that human skill ever raised to the honour of the
Creator,") nor do I refer to those other magnificent
basilicas in which the Christian glories of eighteen
centuries sit enthroned. These have a dignity and
majesty peculiarly their own, and the most thoughtless
cannot tread their ancient pavement without
being for the time subdued into awe and veneration.
But the parish churches of Rome, the churches of the
various religious orders and congregations, and
those numerous little temples which are so thickly
scattered through the city, attract me in manner
especially fascinating. There is an air of cosiness
and at-home-ativeness about them which cannot be
found in the grander fanes. Some of them seem by
their architectural finish to have been built in some
fine street or square, and to have wandered off in
search of quiet to their present secluded positions.
It is beneath their arches that the Roman people may
be seen. Before those altars you may see men, women,
and children kneeling, their lips scarcely moving
with the petitions which are heard only in another
world. No intruding tourists, eye-glassed and Murrayed,
interfere with their devotions, and the silence
of the sacred place is unbroken, save by the rattling
of a rosary, or at stated times by the swell of voices
from the choir chapel. These are the places where
the real power of the Catholic religion makes itself
felt more unmistakably than in the grandest cathedrals,
where every form and sound is eloquent of
worship. I remember with pleasure that once in
London, as I was passing through that miserable
quarter which lies between Westminster Abbey and
Buckingham Palace, I was attracted by the appearance
of a number of people who were entering a narrow
doorway. One or two stylish carriages, with
crests upon their panels, and drivers in livery, stood
before the dingy building which seemed to wear a
mysterious air of semi-cleanliness in the midst of the
general squalour. I followed the strange collection
of the representatives of opulence and the extremest
poverty through a long passage-way, and found myself
in a large room which was tastefully fitted up for
a Catholic chapel. The simplicity of the place,
joined with its strictly ecclesiastical look, the excellent
music, the crowded and devout congregation, and
the almost breathless attention which was paid to the
simple and persuasive eloquence of the preacher,
who was formerly one of the chief ornaments of the
established church, whose highest honours he had
cast aside that he might minister more effectually to
the poor and despised,—all these things astonished
and delighted me. To see that church preserving,
even in its hiddenness and poverty, its regard for the
comeliness of God's worship, and adorning that
humble chapel in a manner which showed that the
spirit which erected the shrines of Westminster,
Salisbury and York, had not died out, carried me
back in spirit to the catacombs of Rome, where the
early Christians left the abiding evidences of their
zeal for the beauty of the house of God. I was at
that time fresh from the continent, and my mind was
occupied with the remembrance of the gorgeous
churches of Italy. Yet, despite my recollection of
those "forests of porphyry and marble," those altars
of *lapis lazuli*, those tabernacles glittering with gold,
and silver, and precious stones, and those mosaics
and frescoes whose beauty and variety almost fatigue
the sense of the beholder,—I must say that it gave
me a new sense of the dignity and grandeur of the
ancient Church, to see her in the midst of the poverty
and obscurity to which she is now condemned in
the land which once professed her faith, and was
once thickly planted with those institutions of learning
and charity which are the proudest monuments of
her progress. A large ship, under full sail, running
off before a pleasant breeze, is a beautiful sight; but
it is by no means so grandly impressive as that of the
same ship, under close canvas, gallantly riding out
the merciless gale that carried destruction to every
unseaworthy craft which came within its reach.

I am not one of those who lament over the millions
which have been expended upon the churches of
Rome. I am *not* inclined to follow the sordid principle
of that apostle who is generally held up rather
as a warning than an example, and say that it had
been better if the sums which have been devoted to
architectural ornament had been withheld and given
to the poor. Religion has no need, it is true, of
these visible splendours, any more than of set forms
and modes of speech. For it is the heart that believes,
and loves, and prays. But we, poor mortals,
so enslaved by our senses, so susceptible to external
appearances, need every thing that can inspire in us
a respect for something higher than ourselves, or
remind us of the glories of the invisible, eternal
world. And can we doubt that He who praised the
action of that pious woman who poured the precious
ointment upon His sacred head, looks with complacency
upon the sacrifices which are made for the
adornment of the temples devoted to His worship?
Is it a right principle that people who are clad in expensive
garments, who are not content unless they
are surrounded by carved or enamelled furniture,
and whose feet tread daily on costly tapestries,
should find fault with the generous piety which has
made the churches of Italy what they are, and should
talk so impressively about the beauty of spiritual
worship? I have no patience with these advocates
for simplicity in every thing that does not relate to
themselves and their own comforts.

   | "Shall we serve Heaven with less respect
   | Than we do minister to our gross selves?"

I care not how simple our private houses may be, but
I advocate liberality and splendour in our public
buildings of all kinds, for the sake of preserving a
due respect for the institutions they enshrine. I remember,
in reading one of the old classical writers,—Sallust,
I think,—in my young days, being greatly
impressed by his declaration that private luxury is a
sure forerunner of a nation's downfall, and that it is
a fatal sign for the dwellings of the citizens to be
spacious and magnificent, while the public edifices
are mean and unworthy. Purely intellectual as we
may think ourselves, we are, nevertheless, somewhat
deferential to the external proprieties of life, and I
very much doubt whether the most reverential of us
could long maintain his respect for the Supreme
Court if its sessions were held in a tap-room, or for
religion, if its ministers prayed and preached in pea-jackets
and top-boots.

Displeasing as is the presence of most of the English-speaking
tourists one meets in Rome, there are
two places where they delight to congregate, which
yet have charms for me that not even Cockney vulgarity
or Yankee irreverence can destroy. The
church of the convent of *Trinità de' Monti* wins me,
in spite of the throng that fills its nave at the hour of
evening every Sunday and festival day. Some years
since, when I first visited Rome, the music which was
heard there was of the highest order of merit. At
present the nuns of the Sacred Heart have no such
great artistes in their community as they had then,
but the music of their choir is still one of those things
which he who has once heard can never forget. It is
the only church in Rome in which I have heard
female voices; and, though I much prefer the great
male choirs of the basilicas, there is a soothing simplicity
in the music at *Trinità de' Monti* which goes
home to almost every heart. I have seen giddy and
unthinking girls, who laughed at the ceremonial they
did not understand, subdued to reverence by those
strains, and supercilious Englishmen reduced to the
humiliating necessity of wiping their eyes. Indeed,
the whole scene is so harmoniously impressive that
its enchantment cannot be resisted. The solemn
church, lighted only by the twilight rays, and the
tapers upon the high altar,—the veiled forms of the
pious sisterhood and their young pupils in the grated
sanctuary,—the clouding of the fragrant incense,—the
tinkling of that silvery bell and of the chains of
the swinging censer,—those ancient and dignified
rites,—and over all, those clear, angelic voices praying
and praising, in litany and hymn—all combine to
make up a worship, one moment of which would
seem enough to wipe away the memory of a lifetime
of folly, and disappointment, and sorrow.

The Sistine Chapel is another place to which I am
bound by an almost supernatural fascination. My
imperfect eyesight will not permit me to enjoy fully
the frescoes that adorn its lofty walls; but I feel that
I am in the presence of the great master and some of
his mightiest conceptions. I do not know whether
the chapel is most impressive in its empty state, or
when thronged for some great religious function. In
the former condition, its fine proportions and its
simplicity satisfy me so completely, that I hardly
wish for the pomp and splendour which belong to it
on great occasions. I know of nothing more grand
than the sight of that simple throne of the Sovereign
Pontiff, when it is occupied by that benignant old
man, to whom more than two hundred millions of
people look with veneration as to a father and a
teacher,—and surrounded by those illustrious prelates
and princes who compose a senate of moral and
intellectual worth, such as all the world beside cannot
parallel. Those venerable figures—those gray hairs—those
massive foreheads, and those resplendent
robes of office, seem to be a part of some great historical
picture, rather than a reality before my eyes.
There is nothing more severe in actual experience,
or more satisfactory in the recollection, than Holy
Week in the Sistine Chapel. The crowd, the fatigue,
and the presence of so many sight-seers, who have
come with the same feeling that they would attend an
opera or a play, are not calculated to increase one's
bodily comfort, or to awaken the sentiments proper
to so sacred a season as that which is then commemorated.
But after these have passed away, there remains
the recollection, which time does not diminish,
but makes more precious, of that darkening chapel
and the bowed-down heads of the Pope and cardinals,
of the music, "yearning like a god in pain," of
the melodious woe of the *Miserere*, the plaintive
majesty of the Lamentations and the Reproaches,
and the shrill dissonance of the shouts of the populace
in the gospel narrative of the crucifixion. These
are things which would outweigh a year of fatigue
and pain. I know of no greater or more sincere
tribute to the perfections of the Sistine choir, and the
genius of Allegri and Palestrina, than the patience
with which so many people submit to be packed, like
herring in a box, into that small chapel. But old and
gouty as I am, I would gladly undergo all the discomforts
of that time to hear those sounds once
more.

I hear some people complain of the beggars, and
wonder why Rome, with her splendid system of
charities for the relief of every form of suffering,
permits mendicancy. For myself, I am not inclined
to complain either of the beggars or of the merciful
government, which refuses to look upon them as
offenders against its laws. On the contrary, it appears
to me rather creditable than otherwise to
Rome, that she is so far behind the age, as not to
class poverty with crime among social evils. I have
a sincere respect for this feature of the Catholic
Church; this regard for the poor as her most
precious inheritance, and this unwillingness that her
children should think that, because she has organized
a vast system of benevolence, they are absolved of
the duty of private charity. In this wisdom, which
thus provides for the exercise of kindly feelings in
alms-giving, may be found one of the most attractive
characteristics of the Roman Church. This, no less
than the austere religious orders which she has
founded, shows in what sense she receives the beatitude,
"Blessed are the poor in spirit." And the same
kind spirit of equality may be seen in her churches
and cathedrals, where rich and poor kneel upon the
same pavement, before their common God and
Saviour, and in her cloisters, and universities, and
schools, where social distinctions cannot enter.

When I walk through the cloisters of these venerable
institutions of learning, or gaze upon the ancient
city from *Monte Mario*, or the Janiculum, it seems
to me that never until now did I appreciate the
world's indebtedness to Rome. Dislike it as we may,
we cannot disguise the fact, that to her every Christian
nation owes, in a great measure, its civilization,
its literature, and its religion. The endless empire
which Virgil's muse foretold, is still hers; and, as one
of her ancient Christian poets said, those lands which
were not conquered by her victorious arms are held
in willing obedience by her religion. When I think
how all our modern civilization, our art, letters, and
jurisprudence, sprang originally from Rome, it appears
to me that a narrow religious prejudice has
prevented our forming a due estimate of her services
to humanity. To some, the glories of the ancient
empire, the memory of the days when her sovereignty
extended from Britain to the Ganges, and her
capital counted its inhabitants by millions, seem to
render all her later history insignificant and dull; but
to my mind the moral dignity and power of Christian
Rome is as superior to her old military omnipotence
as it is possible for the human intellect to conceive.
The ancient emperors, with all their power, could
not carry the Roman name much beyond the limits of
Europe; the rulers who have succeeded them have
made the majestic language of Rome familiar to two
hemispheres, and have built up, by spiritual arms, the
mightiest empire that the world has ever seen. For
me, Rome's most enduring glories are the memories
of the times when her great missionary orders civilized
and evangelized the countries which her arms
had won, when her martyrs sowed the seed of
Christianity with their blood, and her confessors illumined
the world with their virtues; when her pontiffs,
single-handed, turned back barbarian invasions,
or mitigated the severities of the feudal age, or protected
the people by laying their ban upon the tyrants
who oppressed them, or defended the sanctity of
marriage, and the rights of helpless women against
divorce-seeking monarchs and conquerors. These
things are the true fulfilment of the glowing prophecy
of Rome's greatness, which Virgil puts into the
mouth of Anchises, when Æneas visits the Elysian
Fields, and hears from his old father that the mission
of the government he is about to found is to rule
the world by moral power, to make peace between
opposing nations, to spare the subject, and to subdue
the proud:

   | "Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento;
   | Hæ tibi erunt artes, pacisque imponere morem,
   | Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos."

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ROME TO MARSEILLES
------------------


The weather was fearfully hot the day of my
departure from Rome. The sun was staring
down, without winking, upon that wonderful old
city, as if he loved the sight. The yellow current of
old Father Tiber seemed yellower than ever in the
glare. Except from sheer necessity, no person
moved abroad; for the atmosphere, which early in
the morning had seemed like airs from heaven, before
noon had become most uncomfortably like a
blast from the opposite direction. The Piazza di
Spagna was like Tadmor in the wilderness. Not a
single English tourist, with his well-read Murray
under his arm, was to be seen there; not a carriage
driver broke the stillness of the place with his polyglot
solicitations to ride. The great staircase of
*Trinità de' Monti* seemed an impossibility; to have
climbed up its weary ascent under that broiling sun
would have been poor entertainment for man or
beast. The squares of the city were like furnaces,
and made one mentally curse architecture, and bless
the narrow, shady streets. The soldiers on guard at
the gates and in the public places looked as if they
couldn't help it. Now and then a Capuchin monk,
in his heavy, brown habit, girded with the knotted
cord, toiled along on some errand of benevolence,
and made one marvel at his endurance. Occasionally
a cardinal rolled by in scarlet state, looking as if
he gladly would have exchanged the bondage of his
dignity and power for a single day of virtuous liberty
in linen pantaloons.

Traffic seemed to have departed this life; there
were no buyers, and the shopkeepers slumbered at
their counters. The *cafés* were shrouded in their
long, striped awnings, and seemed to invite company
by their well-wet pavement. A few old Romans
found energy enough to call for an occasional ice or
lemonade, and talked in the intervals about *Pammerstone*,
and his agent, Mazzini. How the sun blazed
down into the Coliseum! Not a breath of air stirred
the foliage that clothes that mighty ruin. Even the
birds were mute. To have crossed that broad arena
would have perilled life as surely as in those old days
when the first Roman Christians there confessed
their faith. On such a day, one's parting visits must
necessarily be brief; so I left the amphitheatre, and
walked along the dusty *Via Sacra*, pausing a moment
to ponder on the scene of Cicero's triumphs, and of
so many centuries of thrilling history, and coming to
the conclusion that, if it were such a day as that when
Virginius in that place slew his dear little daughter,
the blow was merciful indeed. The market-place in
front of the Pantheon, usually so thronged and
lively, was almost deserted. The fresh, bright vegetables
had either all been sold, or had refused to
grow in such a heat. But the Pantheon itself was
unchanged. There it stood, in all its severe grandeur,
majestic as in the days of the Cæsars, the embodiment
of heathenism, the exponent of the worship
of the old, inexorable gods,—of justice without
mercy, and power without love. Its interior seemed
cool and refreshing, for no heat can penetrate that
stupendous pile of masonry,—and I gathered new
strength from my short visit. It was a fine thought
in the old Romans to adapt the temples of heathenism
to the uses of Christianity. The contrasts suggested
to our minds by this practice are very striking.
When we see that the images of the old revengeful
and impure divinities have given place to those of the
humble and self-denying heroes of Christianity, that
the Saviour of the world stretches out His arms upon
the cross, in the place from which the haughty Jupiter
once hurled his thunderbolts, we are borne at
once to a conclusion more irresistible than any that
the mere force of language could produce. One of
our own poets felt this in Rome, and expressed this
same idea in graceful verse:—

   | "The goddess of the woods and fields,
   |   The healthful huntress undefiled,
   | Now with her fabled brother yields
   |   To sinless Mary and her Child."

But I must hurry on towards St. Peter's. There
are three places in Rome which every one visits as
soon as possible after he arrives, and as short a time
as may be before his departure—the Coliseum, the
Pantheon, and St. Peter's. The narrow streets between
the Pantheon and the Bridge of St. Angelo
were endurable, because they were shady. It was
necessary to be careful, however, and not trip over
any of the numerous Roman legs whose proprietors
were stretched out upon the pavement in various picturesque
postures, sleeping away the long hours of
that scorching day. At last the bridge is reached
Bernini's frightful statues, which deform its balustrades,
seem to be writhing under the influence of the
sun. I am quite confident that St. Veronica's napkin
was curling with the heat. The bronze archangel
stood as usual upon the summit of the Castle of St.
Angelo. I stopped a few moments, thinking that he
might see the expediency of sheathing his sword and
retreating, before he should be compelled, in the *confusion*
of such a blaze as that, to *run* away; but it was
useless. I moved on towards St. Peter's, and he still
kept guard there as brazen-faced as ever. The great
square in front of the basilica seemed to have
scooped up its fill of heat, and every body knows that
it is capable of containing a great deal. The few
persons whom devotion or love of art had tempted
out in such a day, approached it under the shade of
its beautiful colonnades. I was obliged to content
myself with the music of one of those superb fountains
only, for the workmen were making a new
basin for the other. St. Peter's never seemed to me
so wonderful, never filled me up so completely, as it
did then. The contrast of the heat I had been
in with that atmosphere of unchangeable coolness,
the quiet of the vast area, the fewness of people moving
about, all conspired to impress me with a new
sense of the majesty and holiness of the place. The
quiet, unflickering blaze of the numerous lamps that
burn unceasingly around the tomb of the Prince of
the Apostles seemed a beacon of immortality. To one
who could at that hour recall the bustle and turmoil
of the Boulevards of Paris, or of the Strand, or of
Broadway, the vast basilica itself seemed to be an
island of peace in the tempestuous ocean of the
world. I am not so blind a lover of Gothic architecture
that I can find no beauty nor religious feeling in
the Italian churches. I prefer, it is true, the "long-drawn
aisle and fretted vault," and the "storied windows
richly dight"; but I cannot for that reason
sneer at the gracefully turned arches, the mosaic
walls and domes rich in frescoes and precious marbles,
that delight one's eyes in Italy. Both styles are
good in their proper places. The Gothic and Norman,
with their high-pitched roofs, are the natural
growth of the snowy north, and to attempt to transplant
them to a land where heat is to be guarded
against, were as absurd as to expect the pine and fir
to take the place of the fig tree and the palm. Talk
as eloquently as we may about being superior to external
impressions, I defy any man to breathe the
quiet atmosphere of any of these old continental
churches for a few moments, without feeling that he
has gathered new strength therefrom to tread the
thorns of life. Lamartine has spoken eloquently on
this theme: "Ye columns who veil the sacred asylums
where my eyes dare not penetrate, at the foot of
your immovable trunks I come to sigh! Cast over
me your deep shades, render the darkness more obscure,
and the silence more profound! Forests of
porphyry and marble! the air which the soul breathes
under your arches is full of mystery and of peace!
Let love and anxious cares seek shade and solitude
under the green shelter of groves, to soothe their
secret wounds. O darkness of the sanctuary! the eye
of religion prefers thee to the wood which the breeze
disturbs! Nothing changes thy foliage; thy still
shade is the image of motionless eternity!"

.. ——File: 096.png

There was not time to linger long. The pressure
of worldly engagements was felt even at the shrine
of the apostles. I walked about, and tried to recall
the many splendid religious pageants I had there witnessed,
and wondered sorrowfully whether I should
ever again listen to that matchless choir, or have my
heart stirred to its depths by the silver trumpets that
reëcho under that sonorous vault in the most solemn
moment of religion's holiest rite. Once more out in
the clear hot atmosphere which seemed hotter than
before. The Supreme Pontiff was absent from his
capital, and the Vatican was comparatively empty.
The Swiss guards, in their fantastic but picturesque
uniform, were loitering about the foot of the grand
staircase, and sighing for a breath of the cool air of
their Alpine home. I took a last long gaze at that
grand old pile of buildings,—the home of all that is
most wonderful in art, the abode of that power which
overthrew the old Roman empire, inaugurated the
civilization of Europe, and planted Christianity in
every quarter of the globe,—and then turned my
unwilling feet homewards. In my course I passed
the foot of the Janiculum Hill: it was too hot, however,
to think of climbing up to the convent of Sant'
Onofrio—though I would gladly have paid a final
visit to that lovely spot where the munificence of
Pius IX. has just completed a superb sepulchre for
the repose of Tasso. So I crossed the Tiber in one
of those little ferry boats which are attached to a
cable stretched over the river, and thus are swung
across by the movement of the current,—a labour-saving
arrangement preëminently Roman in its character,—and
soon found myself in my lodgings
However warm the weather may be in Rome, one
can keep tolerably comfortable so long as he does not
move about,—thanks to the thick walls and heavy
wooden window shutters of the houses,—so I found
my room a cool asylum after my morning of laborious
pleasure.

At last, the good byes having all been said, behold
me, with my old portmanteau, (covered with its
many-coloured coat of baggage labels, those trophies
of many a hard campaign of travel,) at the office of
the diligence for Civita Vecchia. The luggage and
the passengers having been successfully stowed away,
the lumbering vehicle rolled down the narrow streets,
and we were soon outside the gate that opens upon
the old Aurelian Way. Here the passports were
examined, the postilions cracked their whips, and I
felt indeed that I was "banished from Rome." It is
a sad thing to leave Rome. I have seen people who
have made but a brief stay there shed more tears on
going away than they ever did on a departure from
home; but for one who has lived there long enough
to feel like a Roman citizen—to feel that the broken
columns of the Forum have become a part of his
being—to feel as familiar with St. Peter's and the
Vatican as with the King's Chapel and the Tremont
House—it is doubly hard to go away. The old city,
so "rich with the spoils of time," seems invested with
a personality that appeals most powerfully to every
man, and would fain hold him back from returning
to the world. The lover of art there finds its choicest
treasures ever open to him; the artist there finds an
abundance of employment for his chisel or his brush;
the man of business there finds an asylum from the
vexing cares of a commercial career; the student of
antiquity or of history can there take his fill amid the
"wrecks of a world whose ashes still are warm," and
listen to the centuries receding into the unalterable
past with their burdens of glory or of crime; the
lover of practical benevolence will there be delighted
by the inspection of establishments for the relief of
every possible form of want and suffering; the enthusiast
for education finds there two universities and
hundreds of public schools of every grade, and all as
free as the bright water that sparkles in Rome's
countless fountains; the devout can there rekindle
their devotion at the shrines of apostles and martyrs,
and breathe the holy air of cloisters in which saints
have lived and died, or join their voices with those
that resound in old churches, whose pavements are
furrowed by the knees of pious generations; the admirer
of pomp, and power, and historic associations
can there witness the more than regal magnificence
of a power, compared to which the houses of Bourbon
or of Hapsburg are but of yesterday; the lover
of republican simplicity can there find subject for
admiration in the facility of access to the highest
authorities, and in the perfection of his favourite
elective system by which the supreme power is perpetuated.
There is, in short, no class of men to
whom Rome does not attach itself. People may
complain during their first week that it is dull, or
melancholy, or dirty; but you generally find them
sorry enough to go away, and looking back to their
residence there as the happiest period of their existence.
Somebody has said,—and I wish that I could
recall the exact words, they are so true,—that when
we leave Paris, or Naples, or Florence, we feel a
natural sorrow, as if we were parting from a cherished
friend; but on our departure from Rome we
feel a pang like that of separation from a woman
whom we love!

At last Rome disappeared from sight in the dusk
of evening, and the discomforts of the journey began
to make themselves obtrusive. The night air in Italy
is not considered healthy, and we therefore had the
windows of the diligence closed. Like Charles Lamb
after the oyster pie, we were "all full inside," and a
pretty time we had of it. As to respiration, you
might as well have expected the performance of that
function from a mackerel occupying the centre of a
well-packed barrel of his finny comrades, as of any
person inside that diligence. Of course there was a
baby in the company, and of course the baby cried.
I could not blame it, for even a fat old gentleman
who sat opposite to me would have cried if he had
not known how to swear. But it is useless to recall
the anguish of that night: suffice it to say that for
several hours the only air we got was an occasional
vocal performance from the above-mentioned infant.
At midnight we reached Palo, on the sea coast,
where I heard "the wild water lapping on the crag,"
and felt more keenly than before that I had indeed
left Rome behind me. The remainder of the journey
being along the coast, we had the window open,
though it was not much better on that account, as we
were choking with dust. It was small comfort to see
the cuttings and fillings-in for the railway which is
destined soon to destroy those beastly diligences, and
place Rome within two or three hours of its seaport.

.. ——File: 100.png

At five o'clock in the morning, after ten toilsome
hours, I found myself, tired, dusty, and hungry, in
Civita Vecchia, a city which has probably been the
cause of more profanity than any other part of the
world, including Flanders. I was determined not to
be fleeced by any of the hotel keepers; so I staggered
about the streets until I found a barber's shop
open. Having repaired the damage of the preceding
night, I hove to in a neighbouring *café* long enough
to take in a little ballast in the way of breakfast.
Afterwards I fell in with an Englishman, of considerable
literary reputation, whom I had several times
met in Rome. He was one of those men who seem
to possess all sorts of sense except common sense.
He was full of details, and could tell exactly the
height of the dome of St. Peter's, or of the great
pyramid,—could explain the process of the manufacture
of the Minié rifle or the boring of an artesian
well, and could calculate an eclipse with Bond or
Secchi,—but he could not pack a carpet-bag to save
his life. That he should have been able to travel so
far from home alone is a fine commentary on the
honesty and good nature of the people of the continent.
I could not help thinking what a time he would
have were he to attempt to travel in America. He
would think he had discovered a new nomadic tribe
in the cabmen of New York. He had come down to
Civita Vecchia in a most promiscuous style, and
when I discovered him he was trying to bring about
a union between some six or eight irreconcilable
pieces of luggage. I aided him successfully in the
work, and his look of perplexity and despair gave
way to one of gratitude and admiration for his deliverer.
Delighted at this escape from the realities of
his situation, he launched out into a profound dissertation
on the philosophy of language and the formation
of provincial dialects, and it was some time
before I could bring him down to the common and
practical business of securing his passage in the
steamer for Marseilles. Ten o'clock, however,
found us on board one of the steamers of the *Messageries
Imperiales*, and we were very shortly after
under way. We were so unfortunate as to run aground
on a little spit of land in getting out of port, as we
ran a little too near an English steamer that was
lying there. But a Russian frigate sent off a cable to
us, and thus established an alliance between their flag
and the French, which drew the latter out of the
difficulty in which it had got by too close a proximity
to its English neighbour.

It was a beautiful, cloudless day, and reminded me
of many halcyon days I had spent on that blue Mediterranean
in other times. It reminded me of some
of my childhood's days in the country in New England,—days
described by Emerson where he says
that we "bask in the shining hours of Florida and
Cuba,"—when "the day, immeasurably long, sleeps
over the broad hills and warm, wide fields,"—when
"the cattle, as they lie on the ground, seem to have
great and tranquil thoughts." It was on such a day
that I used to delight to pore over my Shakspeare,
undisturbed by any sound save the hum of the insect
world, or the impatient switch of the tail, or movement
of the feet, of a horse who had sought the same
shade I was enjoying. To a man who has been
rudely used by fortune, or who has drunk deep of
sorrow or disappointment, I can conceive of nothing
more grateful or consoling than a summer cruise in
the Mediterranean. "The sick heart often needs a
warm climate as much as the sick body."

My English friend, immediately on leaving port,
took some five or six prescriptions for the prevention
of seasickness, and then went to bed, so that I had
some opportunity to look about among our ship's
company. There were two men, apparently companions,
though they hardly spoke to each other,
who amused me very much One was a person of
about four feet and a half in height, who walked
about on deck with that manner which so many diminutive
persons have, of wishing to be thought as
tall as Mr. George Barrett. He boasted a deportment
that would have made the elder Turveydrop
envious, while it was evident that under that serene
and dignified exterior lay hidden all the warm-heartedness
and geniality of that eminent philanthropist
who was obliged to play a concerto on the violin to
calm his grief at seeing the conflagration of his native
city. The other looked as if "he had not loved
the world, nor the world him"; he was a thin, bilious-looking
person, and seemed like a whole serious
family rolled into one individuality. I felt a great
deal of curiosity to know whether he was reduced to
that pitiable condition by piety or indigestion. I felt
sure that he was meditating suicide as he gazed upon
the sea, and I stood by him for some time to prevent
his accomplishing any such purpose, until I became
convinced that to let him take the jump, if he pleased,
would be far the more philanthropic course of action.
There was a French bishop, and a colonel of
the French staff at Rome, among the passengers, and
by their genial urbanity they fairly divided between
them the affections of the whole company. Either of
them would have made a fog in the English Channel
seem like the sunshine of the Gulf of Egina. I picked
up a pleasant companion in an Englishman who had
travelled much and read more, and spent the greater
part of the day with him. When he found that I was
an American, he at once asked me if I had ever been
to Niagara, and had ever seen Longfellow and
Emerson. I am astonished to find so many cultivated
English people who know little or nothing
about Tennyson; I am inclined to think he has ten
readers in America to one in England, while the English
can repeat Longfellow by pages.

After thirty hours of pleasant sailing along by
Corsica and Elba, and along the coast of France,
until it seemed as if our cruise (like that of the widow
of whom we have all read) would never have an
end, we came to anchor in the midst of a vast fleet
of steamers in the new port of Marseilles. The
bustle of commercial activity seemed any thing but
pleasant after the classical repose of Rome; but the
landlady of the hotel was most gracious, and when I
opened the window of my room looking out on the
Place Royale, one of those peripatetic dispensers of
melody, whose life (like the late M. Mantalini's
after he was reduced in circumstances) must be "one
demnition horrid grind," executed "Sweet Home"
in a manner that went entirely home to the heart of
at least one of his accidental audience.

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MARSEILLES, LYONS, AND AIX IN SAVOY
-----------------------------------


If the people of Marseilles do not love the Emperor
of the French, they ought to be ashamed
of themselves. He has so completely changed the
aspect of that city by his improvements, that the man
who knows it as it existed in the reign of Louis Philippe,
would be lost if he were to revisit it now. The
completion of the railway from Paris to Marseilles
is an inestimable advantage to the latter city, while
the new port, in magnitude and style of execution, is
worthy of comparison with the splendid docks of
London and Liverpool. The flags of every civilized
nation may be seen there; and the variety of costumes
and languages, which bewilder one's eyes and
ears, assure him that he is in the commercial metropolis
of the Mediterranean. The frequency of steam
communication between Marseilles and the various
ports of Spain, Italy, Africa, and the Levant, draws
to it a large proportion of the travellers in those
directions. I believe that Marseilles is only celebrated
for having been colonized by the Phocæans,
or some such people, for having several times been
devastated by the plague, and for having been very
perfectly described by Dickens in his Little Dorrit.
The day on which I arrived there was very like the
one described by Dickens; so if any one would like
further particulars, he had better overhaul his Little
Dorrit, and, "when found, make note of it."

The day after my arrival I saw a grand religious
procession in the streets of the city. The landlady
of my hotel had told me of it, but my expectations
were not raised very high, for I thought that after
the grandeur of Rome, all other things in that way
would be comparatively tame. But I was mistaken;
the procession fairly rivalled those of Rome. There
were the same gorgeous vestments, the same picturesque
groupings of black robes and snowy surplices,
of mitres and crosiers and shaven crowns, of
scarlet and purple and cloth of gold, the same swinging
censers and clouds of fragrant incense, the same
swelling flood of almost supernatural music. The
municipal authorities of the city, with the staff of the
garrison, joined in the procession, and the military
display was such as can hardly be seen out of France.
I have often been struck with the facility with which
the Catholic religion adapts itself to the character of
every nation. I have had some opportunity of observation;
I have seen the Catholic Church on three out
of the four continents, and have every where noticed
the same phenomenon. Mahometanism could never
be transplanted to the snowy regions of Russia or
Norway; it needs the soft, enervating atmosphere of
Asia to keep it alive; the veranda, the bubbling fountain,
the noontide repose, are all parts of it. Puritanism
is the natural growth of a country where the
sun seldom shines, and which is shut out by a barrier
of water and fog from kindly intercourse with its
neighbours. It could never thrive in the bright
south. The merry vine-dressers of Italy could never
draw down their faces to the proper length, and
would be very unwilling to exchange their blithesome
*canzonetti* for Sternhold and Hopkins's version.
But the Catholic Church, while it unites its professors
in the belief of the same inflexible creed, leaves
them entirely free in all mere externals and national
peculiarities. When I see the light-hearted Frenchman,
the fiery Italian, the serious Spaniard, the cunning
Greek, the dignified Armenian, the energetic
Russian, the hard-headed Dutchman, the philosophical
German, the formal and "respectable" Englishman,
the thrifty Scotchman, the careless and
warm-hearted Irishman, and the calculating, go-ahead
American, all bound together by the profession
of the same faith, and yet retaining their
national characteristics,—I can compare it to nothing
but to a similar phenomenon that we may notice in
the prism, which, while it is a pure and perfect crystal,
is found on examination to contain, in their perfection,
all the various colours of the rainbow.

The terminus of the Lyons and Mediterranean
Railway is one of the best things of its kind in the
world. I wish that some of our American railway
directors could take a few lessons from the French.
The attention paid to securing the comfort and
safety of the passengers and the regularity of the
trains would quite bewilder him. Instead of finding
the station a long, unfinished kind of shed, with two
small, beastly waiting rooms at one side, and a
stand for a vender of apples, root beer, and newspapers,
he would see a fine stone structure, several
hundred feet in length, with a roof of iron and glass.
He would enter a hall which would remind him of
the Doric hall of the State House in Boston, only
that it is several times larger, and is paved with
marble. He would choose out of the three ticket
offices of the three classes, where he would ride, and
he would be served with a promptness and politeness
that would remind him of Mr. Child in the palmy
days of the old Tremont Theatre, while he would
notice that an officer stood by each ticket office to see
that every purchaser got his ticket and the proper
change, and to give all necessary information. Having
booked his luggage, he would be ushered into one
of the three waiting rooms, all of them furnished
in a style of neatness and elegance that would greatly
astonish him. He might employ the interval in the
study of geography, assisted by a map painted on one
side of the room, giving the entire south of France
and Piedmont, with the railways, &c., and executed
in such a style that the names of the towns are legible
at a distance of fifteen or twenty feet. Two or three
minutes before the hour fixed for the starting of the
train, the door would be opened, and he would take
his seat in the train with the other passengers. The
whole affair would go on so systematically, with such
an absence of noise and excitement, that he would
doubt whether he had been in a railway station at all,
until he found himself spinning along at a rapid rate,
through long tunnels, and past the beautiful panorama
of Provençal landscape.

The sun was as bright as it always is in fair
Provence, the sky as blue. The white dusty roads
wound around over the green landscape, like great
serpents seeking to hide their folds amid those hills.
The almond, the lemon, and the fig attracted the attention
of the traveller from the north, before all
other trees,—not to forget however, the pale foliage
of that tree which used to furnish wreaths for Minerva's
brow, but now supplies us with oil for our
salads. Arles, with its old amphitheatre (a broken
shadow of the Coliseum) looming up above it, lay
stifled with dust and broiling in the sun, as we hurried
on towards Avignon. It does not take much time to
see that old city, which, from being so long the abode
of the exiled popes, seems to have caught and retained
something of the quiet dignity and repose of
Rome itself. That gloomy old palace of the popes,
with its lofty turrets, seems to brood over the town,
and weigh it down as with sorrow for its departed
greatness. Centuries have passed, America has been
discovered, the whole face of Europe has changed,
since a pontiff occupied those halls; and yet there it
stands, a monument commemorating a mere episode
in the history of the see of St. Peter.

Arriving at Lyons, I found another palatial station,
on even a grander scale than that of Marseilles.
The architect has worked the coats of arms of the
different cities of France into the stone work of the
exterior in a very effective manner. Lyons bears
witness, no less than Marseilles, to the genius of the
wonderful man who now governs France. It is a
popular notion in England and America, that the
enterprise of Napoleon III. has been confined to the
improvement of Paris. If persons who labour under
this error would extend their journeyings a little beyond
the ordinary track of a summer excursion, they
would find that there is scarcely a town in the empire
that has not felt the influence of his skill as a statesman
and political economist. The *Rue Imperiale* of
Lyons is a monument of which any sovereign might
be justly proud. The activity of Lyons, the new
buildings rising on every side, and its look of prosperity,
would lead one to suppose that it was some
place that had just been settled, instead of a city
with twenty centuries of history. The Sunday, I was
glad to see, was well observed; perhaps not exactly
in the style which Aminadab Sleek would commend,
but in a very rational, Christian, un-Jewish manner.
The shops were, for the most part, closed, the
churches were crowded with people, and in the afternoon
and evening the entire population was abroad
enjoying itself—and a cleaner, better-behaved, happier-looking
set of people I never saw. The excessive
heat still continues. It is now more than two
months since I opened my umbrella; the prospects of
the harvest are good, but they are praying hard in
the churches for a little rain. During my stay at
Lyons, I lived almost entirely on fresh figs, and
plums and ices. How full the *cafés* were those sultry
evenings! How busy must the freezers have been
in the cellars below! I read through all the newspapers
I could lay my hands on, and then amused
myself with watching the gay, chattering throng
around me. How my mind flew across the ocean
that evening to a quiet back parlour at the South
End! I could see the venerable Baron receiving a
guest on such a night as that, and making the weather
seem cool by contrast with the warmth of his hospitality.
I could see him offering to his perspiring
visitor a release from the slavery of broadcloth, in
the loan of a nankeen jacket, and then busying himself
in the preparation of a compound of old Cochituate,
(I had almost said old Jamaica,) of ice, of
sugar, yea, of lemons, and commending the grateful
chalice to the parched lips of his guest. Such an
evening in the Baron's back parlour is the very
ecstasy of hospitality. It is many months since that
old nankeen jacket folded me in its all-embracing
arms, but the very thought of it awakes a thrill of
pleasure in my heart. When I last saw it, "decay's
effacing fingers" had meddled with the buttons
thereof, and it was growing a trifle consumptive in
the vicinity of the elbows; but I hope that it is good
for many a year of usefulness yet, before the epitaph
writer shall commence the recital of its merits with
those melancholy words, *Hic jacet!* Pardon me,
dear reader, for this digression from the recital of
my wanderings; but this jacket, the remembrance of
which is so dear to me, is not the trifle it may seem
to you. It is, I believe, the only institution in the
world of the same age and importance, which has
not been apostrophized in verse by that gifted bard,
Mr. Martin Farquhar Tupper. If this be not celebrity,
what is it?

In one of the narrow streets of Lyons I found a
barber named Melnotte. He was a man somewhat
advanced in life, and I feel sure that he addressed a
good-looking woman in a snowy white cap, who
looked in from a back room while I was having my
hair cut, as Pauline. Be that as it may, when he had
finished his work, and I walked up to the mirror to
inspect it, he addressed to me the language of Bulwer's
hero, "Do you like the picture?" or words to
that effect. I cannot help mistrusting that Sir Edward
may have misled us concerning the ultimate
history of the Lady of Lyons and her husband. But
the heat was too intolerable for human endurance;
so I packed up, and leaving that fair city, with its
numerous graceful bridges, and busy looms whose
fabrics brighten the eyes of the beauties of Europe
and America, and lighten the purses of their chivalry,—leaving
Our Lady of Fourvières looking
down with outstretched hands from the dome of her
lofty shrine, and watching over her faithful Lyonnese,—I
turned my face towards the Alpine regions.

The Alps have always been to me what Australia
was to the late Mr. Micawber—"the bright dream
of my youth, and the fallacious aspiration of my
riper years." I remember when I was young, long
before the days of railways and steamers, in the
times when a man who had travelled in Europe was
invested with a sort of awful dignity—I remember
hearing a travelled uncle of mine tell about the Alps,
and I resolved, with all the enthusiasm of boyhood,
thenceforward to "save up" all my Fourth of July
and Artillery Election money, until I should be able
to go and see one. When the Rev. James Sheridan
Knowles (he was a wicked playactor in those days)
produced his drama of William Tell, how it fed the
flame of my ambition! How I longed to stand with
the hero once again among his native hills! How I
loved the glaciers! How I doted on the avalanches!
But age has cooled the longings of my heart for
mountain excursions, and robbed my legs of all their
climbing powers, so that if it depends upon my own
bodily exertions, the Vale of Chamouni will be entirely
unavailable for me, and every mount will be to
me a blank. The scenery along the line of railway
from Ambérieu to Culoz on the Rhone is very grand.
The ride reminded me of the ride over the Atlantic
and St. Lawrence road through the White Mountains,
only it is finer. The boldness of the cliffs and
precipices was something to make one's heart beat
quick, and cause him to wonder how the peasants
could work so industriously, and the cattle feed so
constantly, without stopping to look up at the magnificence
that hemmed them in.

At Culoz I went on board one of those peculiar
steamers of the Rhone—about one hundred and
fifty feet in length by ten or twelve in width. Our
way lay through a narrow and circuitous branch of
the river for several miles. The windings of the
river were such that men were obliged to turn the
boat about by means of cables, which they made fast
to posts fixed in the banks on either side for that purpose.
The scenery along the banks was like a dream
of Paradise. To say that the country was smiling
with flowers and verdure does not express it—it was
bursting into a broad grin of fertility. Such vineyards!
Not like the grape vine in your back yard,
dear reader, nailed up against a brick wall, but large,
luxuriant vines, seeming at a loss what to do with
themselves, and festooned from tree to tree, just as
you see them in the scenery of Fra Diavolo. And
then there were groups of people in costumes of picturesque
negligence, and women in large straw hats,
and dresses of brilliant colours, just like the chorus
of an opera. The deep, rich hue of the foliage particularly
attracted my notice. It was as different
from the foliage of New England as Winship's Gardens
are from an invoice of palm-leaf hats. Beyond
the immediate vicinity of the river rose up beautiful
hills and cliffs like the Palisades of the Hudson. Let
those who will, prefer the wild grandeur of our
American mountain scenery; there is a great charm
for me in the union of nature and art. The careful
cultivation of the fields seems to set off and render
more grand and austere the gray, jagged cliffs that
overlook them. As the elder Pliny most justly remarks,
(lib. iv. cap. xi. 24,) "It requires the lemon
as well as the sugar to make the punch."

After about an hour's sail upon the river, we came
out upon the beautiful Lake of Bourget. It was
stirred by a gentle breeze, but it seemed as if its
bright blue surface had never reflected a cloud. All
around its borders the trees and vines seemed bending
down to drink of its pure waters. Far off in the
distance rose up the mighty peaks of the Alps—their
snow-white tops contrasting with the verdure of their
sides. They seemed to be watching with pleasure
over the glad scenes beneath them, like old men
whose gray hairs have been powerless to disturb the
youthful freshness and geniality of their hearts.

At St. Innocent I landed, and underwent the custom
house formalities attendant upon entrance into
a new territory. The officials were very expeditious,
and equally polite. I at first supposed that the letters
V. E., which each of them bore conspicuously on his
cap, meant "*very empty*,"—but it afterwards occurred
to me that they were the initials of his majesty,
the King of Sardinia. A few minutes' ride over
the "Victor Emmanuel Railway" brought me to the
beautiful village of Aix. It is situated, as my friend
the Lyonnese barber would say, in "a deep vale shut
out by Alpine hills from the rude world." It possesses
about 2500 inhabitants; but that number is
considerably augmented at present, for the mineral
springs of Aix are very celebrated, and this is the
height of "the season." There is a great deal of
what is called "society" here, and during the morning
the baths are crowded. It is as dull as all watering
places necessarily are, and twice as hot. I think
that the French manage these things better than we
do in America. There is less humbug, less display of
jewelry and dress, and a vast deal more of common
sense and solid comfort than with us. The *cafés* are
like similar establishments in all such places—an
abundance of ices and ordinary coffee, and a plentiful
lack of newspapers. I have found a companion,
however, who more than makes good the latter deficiency.
He is an Englishman of some seventy years,
who is here bathing for his gout. His light hair and
fresh complexion disguise his age so completely that
most people, when they see us together, judge me,
from my gray locks, to be the elder. He is one of the
most entertaining persons I have ever met—he knows
the classics by heart,—is familiar with English,
French, Italian, German, and Spanish literature,—speaks
nine languages,—and has travelled all over
the world. He is as familiar with the Steppes of
Tartary as with Wapping Old Stairs,—has imbibed
sherbet in Damascus and sherry cobblers in New
York, and seen a lion hunt in South Africa. But his
heart is the heart of a boy—"age cannot wither nor
custom stale" its infinite geniality. He cannot pass
by a beggar without making an investment for eternity,
and all the babies look over the shoulders of
their nurses to smile at him as he walks the streets.
I mention him here for the sake of recording one of
his opinions, which struck me by its truth and originality.
We were sitting in a *café* last evening, and,
after a long conversation, I asked him what he
should give as the result of all his reading and observation
of men and things, and all his experience,
if he were to sum it up in one sentence. "Sir," said
he, removing his meerschaum from his mouth, and
turning towards me as if to give additional force to
his reply, "it may all be comprised in this: the world
is composed of two classes of men—natural fools
and d—d fools; the first class are those who have
never made any pretensions, or have reached a just
appreciation of the nothingness of all human acquirements
and hopes; the second are those whose belief
in their own infallibility has never been disturbed;
and this class includes a vast number of every rank,
from the profound German philosopher, who thinks
that he has fathomed infinity, down to that young
fop twirling his moustache at the opposite table, and
flattering himself that he is making a great impression."

Savoy, as every body knows, was once a part of
France, and it still retains all of its original characteristics.
I have not heard ten words of Italian since
I arrived here, and, judging from what I do hear and
from the tone of the newspapers, it would like to
become a part of France again. The Savoyards are
a religious, steady-going people, and they have little
love either for the weak and dissolute monarch who
governs them, or for the powerful, infidel prime minister
who governs their monarch. The high-pitched
roofs of the houses here are suggestive of the snows
of winter; but the heat reminds me of the coast of
Africa during a sirocco. How true is Sydney
Smith's remark, "Man only lives to shiver or perspire"!
The thermometer ranges any where from
80° to 90°. Can this be the legitimate temperature
of these mountainous regions? I am "ill at these
numbers," and nothing would be so invigorating to
my infirm and shaky frame as a sniff of the salt
breezes of Long Branch or Nantasket.

.. ——File: 117.png




AIX TO PARIS
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There is no need of telling how disgusted I
became with Aix-les-Bains and all that in it is,
after a short residence there. How I hated those
straw-hatted people who beset the baths from the
earliest flush of the aurora! How I detested those
fellows who were constantly pestering me with offers
(highly advantageous, without doubt) of donkeys
whereon to ride, when they knew that I didn't want
one! How I abominated the sight of a man (who
seemed to haunt me) in a high velvet-collared coat
and a bell-crowned hat just overtopping an oily-looking
head of hair and bushy whiskers—who looked,
for all the world, as if he were made up for Sir Harcourt
Courtly! How maliciously he held on to the
newspapers in the *café*! How constantly he sat
there and devoured all the news out of them through
the medium of a double tortoise-shell eye-glass,
which always seemed to be just falling off his nose!
How I abhorred the sight of those waiters, who
looked as if the season were a short one, and time
(as B. Franklin said) was money! How stifling was
the atmosphere of that "seven-by-nine" room for
which I had to pay so dearly! How hot, how dusty,
how dull it was, I need not weary you by telling;
suffice it to say, that I never packed my trunk more
willingly than when I left that village. I am very
glad to have been there, however, for the satisfaction
I felt at leaving the place is worth almost any
effort to obtain. The joy of departure made even
the exorbitant bills seem reasonable; and when I
thought of the stupidity and discomfort I was escaping
from, I felt as if, come what might, my future
could only be one of sunshine and content. Aix-les-Bains
is one of the pleasantest places to leave that I
have ever seen. I can never forget the measureless
happiness of seeing my luggage ticketed for Paris,
and then taking my seat with the consciousness that
I was leaving Aix (not *aches*, alas!) behind me.

The Lake of Bourget was as beautiful and smiling
as before—only it did seem as if the sun might have
held in a little. He scorched and blistered the passengers
on that steamboat in the most absurd manner.
He seemed never to have heard of Horace,
and was consequently entirely ignorant of the propriety
of maintaining a *modus* in his *rebuses*. The
scenery along the banks of the Rhone had not
changed in the least, but was as romantic and theatrical
as ever. At Culoz I was glad to get on shore,
for like Hamlet, I had been "too much i' the sun";
so I left the "blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone,"
(which the late Lord Byron, with his usual disregard
of truth, talks about, and which is as muddy as a
Medford brick-yard,) and took refuge in the hospitality
of a custom house. Here I fell into a meditation
upon custom house officers. I wonder whether
the custom house officers of France are in their
leisure hours given to any of the vanities which delight
their American brethren. There was one lean,
thoughtful-looking man among those at Culoz who
attracted my attention. I tried ineffectually to make
out his bent from his physiognomy. I could not
imagine him occupying his leisure by putting any
twice-told tales on paper—or cultivating Shanghai
poultry—or riding on to the tented field amid the
roar of artillery at the head of a brigade of militia,—and
I was obliged, in the hurry of the examination
of luggage, to give him up.

I had several times, during the journey from Aix,
noticed a tall, eagle-eyed man, in a suit of gray, and
wearing a moustache of the same colour, and while
we were waiting for the train at Culoz, I observed
that he attracted a great deal of attention: his bearing
was so commanding, that I had set him down as
being connected with the military interest, before I
noticed that he did not bear arms, for the left sleeve
of his coat hung empty and useless by his side; so I
ventured to inquire concerning him, and learned that
I was a fellow-traveller of Marshal Baraguay d'Hilliers.
I must do him the justice to say that he did not
look like a man who would leave his arms on the
field.

We were soon whirling, and puffing, and whistling
along through the tame but pleasing landscape of
France. Those carefully-tilled fields, those vineyards
almost overflowing with the raw material of
conviviality, those interminable rows of tall trees
which seem to give no shade, those farm-houses,
whose walls we should in America consider strong
enough for fortifications, those contented-looking
cattle, those towns that seem to consist of a single
street and an old gray tower, with a dark-coloured
conical top, like a candle extinguisher,—all had a
good, familiar look to me; and the numerous fields
of Indian corn almost made me think that I was on
my way to Worcester or Fitchburg. I stopped for a
while at Macon, (a town which I respect for its contributions
to the good cheer of the world,) and
hugely enjoyed a walk through its clean, quiet streets.
While I was waiting at the station, the express train
from Paris came along; and many of the passengers
left their places (like Mr. Squeers) to stretch their
legs. Among them was a man whose acquisitive eye,
black satin waistcoat, fashionable hat, (such as no
man but an American would think of travelling in,)
and coat with the waist around his hips, and six or
eight inches of skirt, immediately fixed my attention.
Before I thought, he had asked me if I could speak
English. I set him at his ease by answering that I
took lessons in it once when I was young, and he
immediately launched out as follows: "Well, this is
the cussedest language I ever did hear. I don't see
how in *the* devil these blasted fools can have lived so
long right alongside of England without trying to
learn the English language." The whistle of the
engine cut short the declaration of his sentiments,
and he was whizzing on towards Lyons a moment
after. Whoever that man may have been, he owes it
to himself and his country to write a book. His
work would be as worthy of consideration as the
writings of two thirds of our English and American
travellers, who think they are qualified to write about
the government and social condition of a country
because they have travelled through it. Fancy a
Frenchman, entirely ignorant of the English tongue,
landing at Boston, and stopping at the Tremont
House or Parker's; he visits the State House, the
Athenæum, Bunker Hill, the wharves, &c. Then on
Sunday he wishes to know something about the religion
of these strange people; so he goes across the
street to the King's Chapel, and finds that it is
closed; so he walks down the street in the burning
sun to Brattle Street, where he hears a comfortable,
drony kind of sermon, which seems to have as composing
an effect upon the fifty or a hundred persons
who are present as upon himself. In the afternoon
he finds his way to Trinity Church, (somebody having
charitably told him that that is the most genteel
place,) and there he hears "our admirable liturgy"
sonorously read out to twenty or thirty people, all of
whom are so engrossed in their devotions that the
responses are entirely neglected. Having had
enough of what the Irishman called the English lethargy,
he returns to his lodgings, and writes in his
note-book that the Americans seldom go to church,
and when they do, go there to sleep in comfortable
pews. Then he makes a little tour of a fortnight to
New Haven, Providence, Springfield, &c., and returns
to France to write a book of travels in New
England. And what are all his observations worth?
I'll tell you. They are worth just as much, and give
exactly as faithful a representation of the state of
society in New England, as four fifths of the books
written by English and American travellers in
France, Spain, and Italy, do of the condition of
those countries.

I have encountered many interesting studies of
humanity here on the continent in my day. I have
met many people who have come abroad with a
vague conviction that travel improves one, and who
do not see that to visit Europe without some preparation
is like going a-fishing without line or bait.
They appear to think that some great benefit is to be
obtained by passing over a certain space of land and
water, and being imposed upon to an unlimited extent
by a horde of *commissionnaires*, *ciceroni*, couriers,
and others, who find in their ignorance and lack
of common sense a source of wealth. I met, the
other day, a gentleman from one of the Western
States, who said that he was "putting up" at
Meurice's Hotel, but didn't think much of it; if it
had not been for some English people whom he fell
in with on the way from Calais, he should have gone
to the Hôtel de Ville, which he supposed, from the
pictures he had seen, must be a "fust class house"! I
have within a few hours seen an American, who could
not ask the simplest question in French, but thinks
that he shall stop three or four weeks, and learn the
language! I have repeatedly met people who told
me that they had come out to Europe "jest to see the
place." But it is not alone such ignoramuses as these
who merit the pity or contempt of the judicious and
sensible. Their folly injures no one but themselves.
The same cannot be said, however, of the authors of
the numerous duodecimos of foreign travel which
burden the booksellers' counters. They have supposed
that they can sketch a nation's character by
looking at its towns from the windows of an express
train. They presume to write about the social life
of France or Italy, while they are ignorant of any
language but their own, and do not know a single
French or Italian family. Victims of a bitter prejudice
against those countries and their institutions,
they are prepared beforehand to be shocked and disgusted
at all they see. Like Sterne's Smelfungus,
they "set out with the spleen and jaundice, and every
object they pass by is discoloured or distorted."
Kenelm Digby wisely remarks that one of the great
advantages of journeying beyond sea, to a man of
sense and feeling, is the spectacle of general travellers:
"it will prevent his being ever again imposed
upon by these birds of passage, when they record
their adventures and experience on returning to the
north."

Dijon is a fine old city. Every body knows that
it used to be the capital of Burgundy, but to the general
reader it is more particularly interesting as being
the place to which Mrs. Dombey and Mr. Carker
fled after the elopement. There is a fine cathedral
and public library, and the whole place has an eminently
Burgundian flavour which makes one regret
that he got tired so soon when he tried to read Froissart's
Chronicles. There is a church there which
was desecrated during the old revolution, and is now
used as a market-house. It bears an inscription
which presents a satirical commentary on its recent
history: "*Domine, dilexi decorem domus tuæ!*" The
Dijon gingerbread (which the people, in their ignorance
and lack of our common school advantages,
call *pain d'épice*) would really merit a diploma from
that academy of connoisseurs, the Massachusetts
House of Representatives. But Dombey and Dijon
are all forgotten in our first glimpse of the "gay
capital of bewildering France." There lay Paris,
sparkling under the noonday sun. The sight of its
domes and monuments awoke all my fellow-travellers:
shabby caps and handkerchiefs were exchanged
for hats and bonnets, which gave their wearers an
air of respectability perfectly uncalled for. We were
soon inside the fortifications, which have been so
outgrown by the city that one hardly notices them;
and, after the usual luggage examination, I found
myself in an omnibus, and once more on the Boulevards.

And what a good, comfortable home-feeling it
was! There were the old, familiar streets, the well-known
advertisements, painted conspicuously, in
blue, and green, and gold, on what would else have
been a blank, unsightly wall, and inviting me to purchase
cloths and cashmeres; there were the same
ceaseless tides of life ebbing and flowing through
those vast thoroughfares, the same glossy beavers,
the same snowy caps and aprons, the same blouses,
the same polite, *s'il vous-plaît, pardon, m'sieur*, take-it-easy
air, that Paris, as seen from an omnibus window,
always presents. We rolled through the Rue
St. Antoine, and it was hard to realize that it had
ever been the theatre of so much appalling history.
I tried to imagine the barricades, the street ploughed
up by artillery, and that heroic martyr, Archbishop
Affre, falling there, and praying that his blood might
be the last shed in that fratricidal strife; but it was
useless; the lively present made the past seem but
the mere invention of the historian. All traces of
the frightful scenes of 1848 have been effaced, and
the facilities for barricades have been disposed of in
a way that must make red republicanism very disrespectful
to the memory of MacAdam. As we passed
a church in that bloody locality, a wedding party
came out; the bridegroom looked as if he had taken
chloroform to enable him to get through his difficulties,
and the effect of it had not entirely passed off.
The bride (for women, you know, have greater
power of endurance than men) seemed to take it
more easily, and, beaming in the midst of a sort of
wilderness of lace, and gauze, and muslin, like a
lighthouse in a fog, she tripped briskly into the carriage,
with a bouquet in her hand, and happiness in
her heart. Before the bridal party got fairly out of
sight, a funeral came along. The white pall showed
that it was a child who slept upon the bier; for the
Catholic church does not mourn over those who are
removed from the temptations of life before they
have known them. The vehicles all gave way to let
the little procession pass, the hum seemed to cease
for a moment, every head was uncovered, even the
porter held his burden on his shoulder with one hand
that he might pay his respects to that sovereign to
whom even republicans are obliged to bow, and the
many-coloured hats of the omnibus drivers were
doffed. I had often before noticed those striking
contrasts that one sees in a capital like Paris; but to
meet such a one at my very entrance impressed me
deeply. Such is Paris. You think it the liveliest
place in the world, (and so it is;) but suddenly you
come upon something that makes you thoughtful, if
it does not sadden you. Life and death elbow and
jostle each other along these gay streets, until it
seems as if they were rivals striving to drive each
other out. I entered a church a day or two since.
There was a funeral at the high altar. The black
vestments and hangings, the lighted tapers, the solemn
chant of the *De profundis* were eloquent of
death and what must follow it. I was startled by
hearing a child's cry, and looking round into the
chapel which served as a baptistery, there stood two
young mothers who had just received their infants
from that purifying laver which made them members
of the great Christian family. I never before had
that beautiful thought of Chateaubriand's so forced
upon me—"Religion has rocked us in the cradle of
life, and her maternal hand shall close our eyes,
while her holiest melodies soothe us to rest in the
cradle of death."

There are, without doubt, many persons, who can
say that in their pilgrimage of life they have truly
"found their warmest welcome at an inn." My experience
outstrips that, for I have received one of
my most cordial greetings in a *café*. The establishment
in question is so eminently American, that I
should feel as if I had neglected a sacred duty, if I
did not describe it, for the benefit of future sojourners
in the French capital, who are hereby requested
to overhaul their memorandum books and make a
note of it. It does not boast the magnificence and
luxury of the *Café de Paris*, Véry's, the *Trois Frères
Provençaux*, nor of Taylor's; nor does it thrust itself
forward into the publicity of the gay Boulevards,
or of the thronged arcades of the *Palais
Royal*. It does not appeal to those who love the
noise and dust of fashion's highway; for them it has
no welcome. But to those who love "the cool,
sequestered path of life," it offers a degree of quiet
comfort, to which the "slaves of passion, avarice,
and pride," who view themselves in the mirrors of
the *Maison Dorée*, are strangers. You turn from
the *Boulevard des Italiens* into the *Rue de la Michodière*,
which you perambulate until you come to number
six, where you will stop and take an observation.
Perhaps wonder will predominate over admiration.
The front of the establishment does not exceed
twelve feet in width, and the sign over the door
shows that it is a *Crêmerie*. The fact is also adumbrated
symbolically by a large brass can, which is set
over the portal. In one of the windows may be
observed a neatly-executed placard, to this effect:—

   | :small-caps:`Aux Américains`
   |    Spécialité.
   |
   |   Pumpkin Pie.

"Enter—its vastness overwhelms thee not!" On
the contrary, having passed through the little front
shop, you stand in a room ten or twelve feet square—just
the size of Washington Irving's "empire," in
the Red Horse Inn, at Stratford. This little room
is furnished with two round tables, a sideboard, and
several chairs, and is decorated with numerous
crayon sketches of the knights of the aforesaid round
tables. You make the acquaintance of the excellent
Madame Busque, and order your dinner, which is
served promptly and with a motherly care, which
will at first remind you of the time when your bib
was carefully tied on, and you were lifted to a seat
on the family Bible, which had been placed on a
chair, to bring the juvenile mouth into proper relations
with the table.

.. ——File: 128.png

Nothing can surpass the home feeling that took
possession of me when I found myself once more in
Madame Busque's little back room at No. 6, *Rue de
la Michodière*. How cordial was that estimable
lady's welcome! She made herself as busy as a cat
with one chicken, and prepared for me a "tired
nature's sweet restorer" in the shape of one of her
famous omelets. The old den had not changed in
the least. Madame Busque used to threaten occasionally
to paint it, and otherwise improve and embellish
it; but we always told her that if she did any
thing of that kind, or tried to render it less dingy, or
snug, or unpretending, we would never eat another
of her pumpkin pies. Not all the mirrors and magnificence
of the resorts of fashion can equal the quiet
cosiness of Madame Busque's back room. You meet
all kinds of company there. The blouse is at home
there, as well as its ambitious cousin, the broadcloth
coat. Law and medicine, literature and art, pleasure
and honest toil, meet there upon equal terms. Our
own aristocratic Washington never dreamed of such
a democracy as his calm portrait looks down upon in
that room. Then we have such a delightful neighbourhood
there. I feel as if the charcoal woman of
the next door but one below was some relation to me—at
least an aunt; she always has a pleasant word
and a smile for the frequenters of No. 6; and then it
is so disinterested on her part, for we can none of us
need any of her charcoal. I hope that no person
who reads this will be misled by it, and go to Madame
Busque's *crêmerie* expecting to find there the
variety which the restaurants boast, for he will be
disappointed. But he will find every thing there of
the best description. My taste in food (as in most
other matters) is a very catholic one: I can eat beef
with the English, garlic and onions with the French,
sauerkraut with the Germans, macaroni with the
Italians, pilaf with the Turks, baked beans with the
Yankees, hominy with the southerners, and oysters
with any body. But as I feel age getting the better
of me day by day, I think I grow to be more and
more of a pre-Raphaelite in these things. So I crave
nothing more luxurious than a good steak or chop,
with the appropriate vegetables; and these are to be
had in their perfection at Madame Busque's. My
benison upon her!

The canicular weather I suffered from in the south
followed me even here. I found every body talking
about the extraordinary *chaleur*. Shade of John
Rogers! how the sun has glared down upon Paris,
day after day, without winking, until air-tight stoves
are refrigerators compared to it, and even old-fashioned
preaching is outdone! How the asphalte sidewalks
of the Boulevards have melted under his rays,
and perfumed the air with any thing but a Sabæan
odour! The fragrance of the linden trees was entirely
overpowered. The thought of the helmets of
the cavalry was utterly intolerable. Tortoni's and
the *cafés* were crowded. Great was the clamour for
ices. Greater still was the rush to the cool shades of
the public gardens, or the environs of Bougival and
Marly. At last, the welcome rain came hissing down
upon these heated roofs; and *malheur* to the man
who ventures out during these days without his umbrella.
It has been a rain of terror. It almost spoilt
the great national *fête* of the 15th; but the people
made the best of it, and, between the free theatrical
performances at sixteen theatres, the superb illuminations,
and the fireworks, seemed to have a very
merry time. I went in the morning to that fine lofty
old church, (whose Lady Chapel is a splendid monument
of Couture's artistic genius,) St. Eustache,
where I heard a new mass, by one M. L'Hôte. It
was well executed, and the orchestral parts were particularly
effective. After the mass, the annual *Te
Deum* for the Emperor was sung. The effect of the
latter was very grand; indeed, when it was finished,
I was just thinking that it was impossible for music
to surpass it, when the full orchestra and two organs
united in a burst of harmony that almost lifted me
off my feet. I recognized the old Gregorian anthem
that is sung every Sunday in all the churches, and
when it had been played through, the trumpets took
up the air of the chant, above the rest of the accompaniment,
and the clear, alto voice of one of those
scarlet-capped choir-boys rang out the words, *Domine,
salvum fac imperatorem nostrum, Napoleonem*,
in a way that seemed to make those old arches
vibrate, and wonderfully quickened the circulation in
the veins of every listener. It was like the gradual
mounting and heaving up of a high sea in a storm
on the Atlantic, which, when it has reached a pitch
you thought impossible, curls majestically over, and,
breaking into a creamy foam, loses itself in a transitory
vision of emerald brilliancy, that for the
moment realizes the most gorgeous and improbable
fables of Eastern luxury. It made even me, notwithstanding
my prejudices in favour of republicanism,
forget the spread eagle, and my free (and
easy) native land, and for several hours I found
myself singing that solemn anthem over in a most
impressive manner. *Vive l'Empereur!*

.. ——File: 132.png




PARIS
-----


This is a wonderful city. It seems to me, as I
ride up and down the gay Boulevards on the
roof of an omnibus, or gaze into the brilliant shop-windows
of the Palais Royal, or watch the happy
children in the garden of the Tuileries, or stand
upon the bridges and take in as much as I can at once
of gardens, palaces, and church towers—it seems to
me like a great theatre, filled with gay company, to
whom the same grand spectacle is always being
shown, and whose faces always reflect something of
that brilliancy which lights up the gorgeous, never-ending,
last scene of the drama. I know that the
play has its underplot of vicious poverty and crime,
but they shrink from the glare of the footlights and
the radiance of the red fire that lights up the scene.
Taken in the abstract—taken as it appears from the
outside—Paris is the most perfect whole the world
can show. It was a witty remark of a well-known
citizen of Boston, touching the materialistic views of
many of his friends, that "when good Boston people
die, they go to Paris." I know many whose highest
idea of heaven would find its embodiment in the
sunshine of the Place de la Concorde or the gas light
of the Rue de Rivoli. Paris captivates you at once.
In this it differs from Rome. You do not grow to
love it; you feel its charms before you have recovered
from the fatigue of your journey—before you
have even reached your hotel, as you ride along and
recognize the buildings and monuments which books
and pictures have made familiar. In Rome all is
different. Michel Angelo's mighty dome, to be sure,
does impress you, as you come to the city; but when
you enter, the narrow streets are such a contrast to
the broad, free campagna you have just left, that
you feel oppressed and cramped as you ride through
them. You find one of the old temples kept in repair
and serving as a custom house; this is a damper
at the outset, and you sigh for something to revive
the ancient customs of the world's capital. You
walk into the Forum the next day, musing upon the
line of the twelve Cæsars, and your progress is arrested,
and your sense of the dramatic unities of
your position deeply wounded, by an unamusing and
prosaic clothes-line. You keep on and try to recall
Cicero, and Catiline, and Jugurtha, and Servius Tullius,
and Brutus, and Virginius,—but it is useless, for
you find a cow feeding there as quietly as if she were
on the hills of Berkshire. The whole city seems sad
and mouldy, and out of date, and you think you will
"do the sights" as rapidly as possible, and then be
off. But before many days you find that all is
changed. The moss that clothes those broken walls
becomes as venerable in your sight as the gray hairs
upon your mother's brow; the ivy that enwreathes
those old towers and columns seems to have wound
itself around your heart and bound it forever to that
spot. Clothes-lines, dirt, and all the inconveniences
inseparable from the older civilization of Rome,
fade away. The Forum, the Palace of the Cæsars,
the Appian Way, all become instinct with a new—or
rather with their old life; and you feel that you
are in the Rome of Livy and Sallust,—you have
found the Rome of which you dreamed in boyhood,
and you are happy. With Paris, as I have said, you
are not obliged to serve such an apprenticeship. You
have read of Paris in history, in novels, in guide-books,
in the lucubrations of the whole tribe of correspondents—you
recognize it at once on seeing it,
and accept it for all that it pretends to be. And you
are not deceived. And this, I apprehend, is the
reason why we never feel that deep, clinging affection
for Paris that we do for that "goddess of all the
nations, to whom nothing is equal and nothing second"—that
city which (as one of her prophet-poets
said) shall ever be "the capital of the world, for
whatever her arms have not conquered shall be hers
by religion." You feel that Paris is the capital of
Europe, and you bow before it as you would before
a sovereign whose word was law.

I wonder whether every body judges of all new
things by the criterion of childhood, as I find myself
constantly doing. Whatever it may be, I apply to it
the test of my youthful recollections of something
similar, and it almost always suffers by the process.
Those beautiful architectural wonders that pierce
the sky at Strasburg and Antwerp will bear no comparison,
in point of height, with the steeple of the
Old South as it exists in the memory of my childhood.
I have never seen a picture gallery in Europe
which awakened any thing like my old feelings on
visiting one of the first Athenæum exhibitions many
years ago. Those wonderful productions of Horace
Vernet, in which one may read the warlike history of
France, are nothing compared to my recollections of
Trumbull's "Sortie of Gibraltar," as seen through
an antediluvian tin trumpet which considerably interfered
with my vision, but which I thought it was
necessary to use. I have visited libraries which antedated
by centuries the discovery of America,—I
have rambled over castles which seemed to reëcho
with the clank of armour and the clarion calls of the
old days of chivalry,—I have walked through the
long corridors and halls of the Vatican with cardinals
and kings,—I have mused in church-crypts and
cloisters, in whose silent shade the dead of a thousand
years reposed,—but I have never yet been impressed
with any thing like the awe which the old
Athenæum in Pearl Street used to inspire into my
boyish heart. Pearl Street in those days was as
innocent of traffic and its turmoil as the quiet roads
around Jamaica Pond are now. A pasture, in which
the Hon. Jonathan Phillips kept a cow, extended
through to Oliver Street, and handsome old-fashioned
private houses with gardens around them occupied
the place of the present rows of granite
warehouses. The Athenæum, surrounded by horse-chestnut
trees, stood there in aristocratic dignity and
repose, which it seemed almost sacrilegious to disturb
with the noise of our childish sports. There
were a few old gentlemen who used to frequent its
reading-room, whose white hair, (and some of them
even wore knee breeches and queues and powder,)
always stilled our boyish clamour as we played on
the grass-plots in the yard. To some of these old
men our heads were often uncovered,—for children
were politer in those days than now,—and to our
young imagination it seemed as if they were sages,
who carried about with them an atmosphere of
learning and the fragrance of academic groves.
They seemed as much a part of the mysterious old
establishment as the books in the library, the dusty
busts in the entries, or the old librarian himself.
Sometimes I used to venture into those still passages,
and steal a look into that reading-room whose quiet
was never broken, save by the wealthy creak of some
old citizen's boots, or by the long breathing of some
venerable frequenter of the place, enjoying his afternoon
nap. In later years I came to know the
Athenæum more familiarly; the old gentlemen lost
the character of sages and became estimable individuals
of quiet tastes, who were fatiguing the Massachusetts
Hospital Life Insurance Company by
their long-continued perusal of the Daily Advertiser
and the Gentleman's Magazine; but my old impression
of the awful mystery of the building remains to
this day. I mourned over the removal to the present
fine position, and I seek in vain amid the stucco-work
and white paint of the new edifice for the charm
which enthralled me in the old home of the institution.
Some people, carried away by the utilitarian
spirit of the age, may think that it is a great improvement;
but to me it seems nothing but an unwarrantable
innovation on the established order of things,
and a change for the worse. Where is the quiet of
the old place? Younger and less reverential men
have risen up in the places of the old, and have destroyed
all that rendered the old library respectable.
The good old times when Dr. Bass, the librarian, sat
on one side of the fireplace, and the late John Bromfield
(with his silk handkerchief spread over his
knees) on the other, and read undisturbed for hours,
have passed away. A hundred persons use the library
now for one who did then; and I am left to
feed upon the memory of better times, when learning
was a quiet, comfortable, select sort of thing, and
mutter secret maledictions on the revolutionary spirits
who have made it otherwise.

But pardon me, dear reader,—all this has little to
do with Paris, except by way of illustration of my
remark that the youthful standard of intellectual
weights and measures is the only infallible one we
ever know. But Paris is something by itself: it overrides
all standards of greatness or beauty, and all
preconceived notions of itself, and addresses itself
with confidence to every taste. Ladies love Paris as
a vast warehouse of jewelry and all the rich stuffs
that hide the crinoline from eyes profane. Physicians
revel in its hospitals, and talk of "splendid
operations," such as make the unscientific change
colour.

Paris is a world in itself. Here may the Yankee
find his pumpkin-pie and sherry-cobblers, the Englishman
his *rosbif*, the German his sauerkraut, the
Italian his macaroni. Here may the lover of dramatic
art choose his performance among thirty
theatres, and he who, with Mr. Swiveller, loves "the
mazy," will find at the Jardin Mabille a bower
shaded for him. Here the bookworm can mouse
about, in more than twenty large public libraries, and
spend weeks in the delightful exploration of countless
book-stalls. Here the student of art can read the
history of France on the walls of Versailles, or,
revelling in the opulence of the Louvre, forget his
studies, his technicalities, his criticisms, in contemplation
of the majestic loveliness of Murillo's "sinless
Mother of the sinless Child." Here may "fireside
philanthropists, great at the pen," compare their
magnificent theories with the works of delicate ladies
who have left the wealth they possessed and the
society they adorned, for the humble garb of the Sister
of Charity and a laborious ministry to the poor,
the diseased, and the infirm, and meditate in the cool
quadrangles of hospitals and benevolent institutions,
founded by saints, and preserved in their integrity
by the piety of their disciples. Here may the man
who wishes to look beyond this brilliant world, find
churches ever open, inviting to prayer and meditation,
where he may be carried beyond himself by the
choicest strains of Haydn and the solemn grandeur
of the Gregorian Chant,—or may be thrilled by the
eloquent periods of Ravignan or Lacordaire, until
the unseen eternal fills his whole soul, and the visible
temporal glories of the gay capital seem to him the
transient vanities they really are.

How few people really know Paris! To most
minds it presents itself only as a place of general
pleasure-seeking and dissipation. I have seen many
men whose only recollections of Paris were such as
will give them no pleasure in old age, who flattered
themselves that they knew Paris. They thought
that the whole city was given up to the folly that
captivated them, and so they represent Paris as one
vast reckless masquerade. I have seen others who,
walking through the thronged *cafés* and restaurants,
have felt themselves justified in declaring that the
French had no domestic life, and were as ignorant of
family joys as their language is destitute of a single
Word to express our good old Saxon word "home";
not knowing that there are in Paris thousands of
families as closely knit together as any that dwell in
the smoky cities of Old England, or amid the bustle
and activity of our new world. Good people may
turn up their eyes, and talk and write as many jeremiads
as they will about the vanity and wickedness
of Paris; but the truth is, that this great Babel has
even for them its cheering side, if they would but
keep their eyes open to discover it. Let them visit
the churches on the vigils of great feasts, and every
Saturday, and see the crowds that throng the confessionals:
let them rise an hour or two earlier than
usual, and go into any of the churches, and they will
find more worshippers there on any common weekday
morning than half of the churches in New England
collect on Sundays. Let them visit that
magnificent temple, the Madeleine, and see the freedom
from social distinctions which prevails there:
the soldier, the civilian, the rich and the poor, the
high-bred lady, the servant in livery, and the negress
with her bright yellow and red kerchief wound
around her head, are there met, on an equality that
free America knows not of.

The observance of the Sunday is a sign of the
times which ought not to be overlooked. Only a few
years ago, and suspension of business on Sunday was
so uncommon that notice was given by a sign to that
effect on the front of the few shops whose proprietors
indulged in that strange caprice. The signs
(like certain similar ones on apothecary shops in
Boston, to the effect that prescriptions are the only
business attended to on the first day of the week)
used to seem to me like a bait to catch the custom of
the godly. But the signs have passed away before
this movement, inaugurated by the Emperor, who
forbade labour on the public works on Sunday, and
preached up by the late Archbishop of Paris and the
parish clergy. There are few shops in Paris that do
not close on Sunday now—at least in the afternoon.
And this is done by the free will of the trades-people:
it is not the result of a legislative enactment. The
law here leaves all people free in regard to their religious
duties. The shops of the Jews, of course,
are open on Sunday, for they are obliged to close on
Saturday, and of course ought not to be expected to
observe two days. Of course, too, the public galleries,
and gardens, and places of amusement are all
open; God forbid that the hard-faring children of
toil should be cheated out of any innocent recreation
on the only free day they have by any attempts to
judaize the Christian Sunday into a sabbath. It is a
great mistake to suppose that people can be made
better by diminishing the sources of innocent pleasure.
No; if the Sunday be made a hard, uninteresting
day, when smiling is a grave impropriety, and a
hearty laugh a mortal sin, children will begin by
disliking the day, and end by despising the religion
that made it gloomy. But provide the people with
music in the public parks on Sunday afternoon and
evening,—make the day a cheerful, happy time to
those who are ingulfed in the carking cares of life all
the rest of the week,—make it a day which children
shall look forward to with longing, and you will find
that the people are better, and happier, and thriftier
for the change. You will find that the mechanic or
labourer, instead of lounging away his Sunday in a
grog-shop, (for the business goes on even though
the front door may be barred and the shutters
closed,) will be ambitious to take his wife and children
to hear the music, and will after a time become
as well behaved as the common run of people. It is
better to use the merest worldly motives to keep men
in the path of decency, than to let them slide away to
perdition because they refuse to listen to the more
dignified teachings of religion.

I have been much impressed by a visit to a large,
but unpretentious-looking house in the Rue du Bac—the
"mother-house" of that admirable organization,
the Sisters of Charity. It was not much of a visit, to
be sure—for not even my gray hairs and respectable
appearance could gain for me an admission beyond
the strangers' parlour, the courtyard, and the cool,
quiet chapel. But that was enough to increase my
respect and admiration for those devoted women.
The community there consists of *six hundred* Sisters
of Charity, whose whole time is occupied in taking
care of the sick, and needy, and neglected in the
hospitals and asylums, and in every quarter of the
city. You see them at every turn, going quietly
about their work of benevolence, and presenting a
fine contrast to some of our noisy theorists at home.
I may be in error, but it strikes me that that community
is doing more in its present mode of action
to advance the true dignity and "rights" of the sex,
than if it were to resolve itself into a convention,
after the American fashion. I was somewhat anxious
to inquire whether any of the sisters of the community
had ever taken to lecturing or preaching in
public; but the modest and unassuming manner of all
those whom I saw, rendered such a question unnecessary.
I fear that oratory is sadly neglected among
them; with this exception, and perhaps the absence
of a certain strong-mindedness in their characters, I
think that they will compare very favourably with
any of our distinguished female philanthropists.
They wear the same gray habit and odd-shaped
white bonnet that the Sisters of Charity wear in Boston.
While we praise the self-forgetful heroism of
Florence Nightingale as it deserves, let us not forget
that France sent out her Florence Nightingales to
the Crimea by fifties and hundreds—young and delicate
women, hiding their personality under the common
dress of a religious order, casting aside the
names that would recall their rank in the world,
unencouraged in their beneficence by any newspaper
paragraphs, and unrewarded save by the sweet consciousness
of duty done. The Emperor Alexander,
struck by the part played in the Crimean campaign
by the Sisters of Charity, has recently asked the
superior of the order to detail five hundred of the
sisters, for duty in the hospitals of Russia. It is
understood that the request will be complied with so
far as the number of the community will permit.

If I were asked to sum up in one sentence the
practical result of my observations of men and manners
here on the continent, I should say that it was
this: We have a great deal to learn in America concerning
the philosophy of life. I do not mean that
philosophy which teaches us that "it is not all of life
to live," but the philosophy of making ninety-three
cents furnish the same amount of comfort in America
that five francs do in Paris. The spirit of centralization
is stronger here than in any American
city: (it is too true, as Heine said, that to speak of
the departments of France having a political opinion
as distinguished from Paris, "is to talk of a man's
legs thinking;") and there is no reason why people
of moderate means should not be able to live as
respectably, comfortably, and economically in our
cities as here, if they will only use a little common
sense. The model-lodging-house enterprise was a
most praiseworthy one, but it seems to have been
confined only to the wants of the most necessitous
class in the community. There is, however, a large
class of salesmen, and book-keepers, and mechanics,
on salaries of six hundred to twelve or fourteen hundred
dollars, whose position is no less deserving of
commiseration. When the prices of beefsteak and
potatoes went up so amazingly a few years ago,
there were few salaries that experienced a similar
augmentation. The position of the men on small
salaries therefore became peculiar, not to say unpleasant,
as rents rose in the same proportion as
every thing else. Any person, familiar with the rents
of brick houses for small families in most of the
Atlantic cities, will see how difficult it is for such
people as these to live within their means. Now, the
remedy for this evil is a simple one, but it requires
some public-spirited men to initiate it. Suppose that
a few large, handsome houses, on the European
plan, (that is, having a suite of rooms, comprising
a parlour, dining-room, two or three bedrooms, and
a kitchen, on each floor,) were built in any of our
great thoroughfares,—the ground floors might be
used for shops,—for there is no reason why respectable
people should any more object to living over
shops there, than on the Boulevards. Such houses,
it is easy to see, would be good paying property to
their owners, as soon as people got into that way of
living; and when salaried men saw that they could
get the equivalent, in comfort and available room, to
an ordinary five hundred dollar house for half that
rent, in a central situation, depend upon it, they
would not be long in learning how to live in that
style. The advantages of this plan of domestic life
are numerous and striking. Housekeeping would be
disarmed of half its difficulties; the little kitchen
would furnish the coffee and eggs in the morning and
the tea and toast at night—the dinner might be ordered
from a neighbouring restaurant for any hour—for
such establishments would increase with the
increase of apartments. The dangers of burglary
would be diminished, for the housekeeper would
have only the door leading to the staircase to lock
up at night. The washing would be done out of the
house, and the steam of boiling suds, and all anxiety
about clothes-lines, and sooty chimneys, and windy
weather would thereby be avoided. Thousands of
people would be liberated from the caprice and petty
tyranny of the railroad directors, whose action has
so often filled our newspapers with resolutions and
protests, and, so far as Boston is concerned, its peninsula
might be made the home of a population of
three hundred thousand instead of a hundred and
eighty thousand persons. The most rigidly careless
person can hardly fail to become a successful housekeeper,
when the matter is made so easy as it is by
the European plan. The plan, too, not only simplifies
the mysteries of domestic economy, but it snuggifies
one's establishment wonderfully, and gives it a
home feeling, such as what are called genteel houses
nowadays wot not of. The change has got to come—and
the sooner it does, the better it will be for our
cities, and many of their people, who have been
driven into remote and unpleasant suburbs by high
rents, or who are held back from marriage by the
expenses of housekeeping conducted on the present
method.

.. ——File: 146.png




PARIS—THE LOUVRE AND ART
-------------------------


It is an inestimable advantage to an idle man to
have such a place as the Louvre ever open to
him. The book-stalls and print-shops of the quays,
those never-failing sources of pleasure and of
extravagance in a small way, cannot be visited with
any satisfaction under the meridian sun; the shop
windows, a perpetual industrial exhibition, grow tiresome
at times; the streets are too crowded, the gardens
too empty; the reading rooms are close; the
newspapers are stupid; and what remains? Why,
the Louvre opens its hospitable doors, and, blessing
the memory of Francis I., the tired wanderer enters,
and drinks in the refreshing coolness of those quiet
and spacious halls. If he is an antiquarian, he
plunges deep into the arcana of ancient Egypt, and
emulates the great Champollion; if he is a student
of history, he muses on the sceptre of Charlemagne,
or the old gray coat and coronation robes of the first
Napoleon; if he is devoted to art, he travels through
that wilderness of paintings and statuary, and thinks
and talks about *chiaro 'scuro*, "breadth of colour,"
or "bits of foreshortening." But if he be a man of
simple tastes, who detests technicalities, and enjoys
all such things in a quiet, general sort of way, without
knowing exactly what it is that pleases him,—he
goes through room after room, now stopping for an
instant before a set of antique china, now speculating
on the figure he should cut in one of those old suits
of armour, and finally settling down in a chair before
some landscape by Cuyp or Claude, in which the
artist seems to have imprisoned the sunbeams and
the warm, fragrant atmosphere of early June; or
else he seats himself on that comfortable sofa before
Murillo's masterpiece, and contemplates the supernal
beauty and holy exaltation of the face of her
whom Dante calls the "Virgin Mother, daughter of
her Son." He is surrounded by artists, engaged in
a work that seems to verify the old maxim, *Laborare
est orare*,—each one striving to reproduce on his canvas
the effects of the angel-guided pencil of Murillo.

I find it useless for me to attempt to visit the
Louvre systematically, as most people do. I have
frequently tried to do it, but it has ended by my
walking through one or two rooms, and then taking
up my position before Murillo's Conception, and
holding it until the hour came for closing the gallery.
When I was young, I used to think what a glorious
thing it would have been to have felt the thrill of joy
that filled the heart of the discoverer of America, or
the satisfaction of Shakspeare when he had finished
Hamlet or Macbeth, or of Beethoven when he had
completed his seventh symphony; but all that covetousness
of the impossible is blotted out by my envy
of the great Spanish painter. What must have been
the deep transport of his heart, when he gazed upon
the heavenly vision his own genius had created! He
must have felt

   |     "——like some watcher of the skies,
   |   When a new planet sails into his ken,
   | Or like stout Cortez, when, with eagle eyes,
   |   He stared at the Pacific.——"

.. ——File: 148.png

In spite of all my natural New England prejudice,
I cannot help admiring and loving that old Catholic
devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Its humanizing
effects can be seen in the history of the middle ages,
and they are felt amid all the bustle and roar of this
irreverent nineteenth century. Woman cannot again
be thought the soulless being heathen philosophy
considered her; she cannot again become a slave, for
she is recognized as the sister of her who was chosen
to make reparation for the misdeeds of Mother Eve.
I am strongly tempted to transcribe here some lines
written in pencil on the fly-leaf of an old catalogue
of the museum of the Louvre, and found on the sofa
before Murillo's picture. The writer seems to have
had in mind the beautiful conclusion of the life of
Agricola by Tacitus, where the great historian says
that he would not forbid the making of likenesses in
marble or bronze, but would only remind us that
such images, like the forms of their originals, are
frail and unenduring, while the beauty of the mind is
eternal, and can be perpetuated in the manners of
succeeding generations better than by ignoble materials
and the art of the sculptor. The lines appear
to be a paraphrase of this idea.

   | O blest Murillo! what a task was thine,
   |   That Mother to portray whose beauty mild
   | Combined earth's comeliness with grace divine,—
   |   To whom our God and Saviour as a child
   |   Was subject—upon whom so oft He smiled!
   | Yet not less happy also in my part,—
   |   For I, though in a world by sin defiled,
   | Though lacking genius and unskilled in art,
   | May paint that blessed likeness in a contrite heart.

.. ——File: 149.png

Art is the surest and safest civilizer. Popular
education may be so perverted as only to minister to
new forms of corruption, but art purifies itself; it has
no Voltaires, and Rousseaus, and Eugene Sues,—for
painting and sculpture, like poetry, refuse to be
made the handmaids of vice or unbelief. Open your
galleries of art to the people, and you confer on them
a greater benefit than mere book education; you give
them a refinement to which they would otherwise be
strangers. The boor, turned loose into civilized
society, soon catches something of its tone of politeness;
and those who are accustomed to the contemplation
of forms of ideal beauty will not easily be
won by the grossness and deformity of vice. A fine
picture daily looked at becomes by degrees a part of
our own souls, and exerts an influence over us of
which we are little aware. Some English writer—Hazlitt,
I think—has said, that if a man were thinking
of committing some wicked or disgraceful action,
and were to stop short and look for a moment at
some fine picture with which he had been familiar,
he would inevitably be turned thereby from his purpose.
It is to be hoped that the time is not far distant
when each of our great American cities shall
possess its gallery of art, which (on certain days of
the week, at least) shall be as free to all well-behaved
persons as the public parks themselves. We
may not boast the artistic wealth of Rome, Florence,
Paris, Dresden, or any of the old capitals of Europe;
but the sooner we make a beginning, the better it will
be for our galleries and our mob. We need some
more effectual humanizer than our educational system.
Reading, writing, and ciphering are great
things, but they are powerless to overcome the rudeness
and irreverence of our people. Our populace
seems to lack entirely the sense of the beautiful or
the sublime. As Charles Lamb said, "They have,
alas! no passion for antiquities—for the tomb of
king or prelate, sage or poet. If they had, they
would no longer be the rabble." It is too true that
the attempts which have been made to open private
gardens to the enjoyment of the public have resulted
in the most shameful abuses of privilege, and that
flowers are stolen from the graves in our cemeteries;
but there is no reason for giving our people up as
past praying for, on the score of politeness and common
decency. They must be educated up to it: some
abuses may occur at first, but a few salutary lessons on
the necessity of submission to authority will rectify
it all, and our people will, in the course of time, become
as well-behaved as the people of France or
Italy.

I am no antiquarian. I do not love the antique
for antiquity's sake. It must appeal to me through
the medium of history, or not at all. Etruscan relics
have no other charm for me than their beauty of
form. I care but little for Egyptian sarcophagi or
their devices and hieroglyphics, and I would not go
half a mile to see a wilderness of mummies. Whenever
I feel a longing for any thing in the Egyptian or
heathen line, I can resort to Mount Auburn, with its
gateway—and this thought satisfies me; so that I
pass by all such things without feeling that I am a
loser. With such feelings, there are many of the
halls of the Louvre which I only walk through with
an admiring glance at their elegance of arrangement.
A few days since, in wandering about there, I found
a room which I had never seen before, and which
touched me more nearly than any thing there, except
the paintings. It has been opened recently. I had
been looking through the relics of royalty with a considerable
degree of pleasure,—meditating on the
armour of Henry the Great, the breviary of St.
Louis, and the worn satin shoe which once covered
the little foot of Marie Antoinette,—and was about
to leave, when I noticed that a door was open which
in past years I had seen closed. I pushed in, and
found myself in a vast and magnificent apartment, on
the gorgeously frescoed ceiling of which was emblazoned
the name—which is a tower of strength to
every Frenchman—*Napoleon*. Around the room, in
elegant glass cases, were disposed the relics of the
saint whom Mr. Abbott's bull of canonization has
placed in red letters in the calendar of Young America.
Leaving aside all joking upon the attempts to
prove that much-slandered monarch a saint, there
was his history, written as Sartor Resartus would
have written it, in his clothes. There was a crayon
sketch of him at the age of sixteen; there was a
mathematical book which he had studied, the case of
mathematical instruments he had used; there was the
coat in which he rode up and down the lines of
Marengo, inspiring every heart with heroism, and
every arm with vigour; the sword and coat he wore
as First Consul; the glittering robes which decked
him when he sat in the chair of Clovis and Charlemagne,
the idol of his nation, and the terror of all
the world besides; the stirrups in which he stood at
Waterloo, and saw his brave legions cut up and dispersed;
and, though last, not least, there was the old
gray coat and hat in which he walked about at St.
Helena, and the very handkerchief which in his
dying hour wiped the chill dew of eternity from his
brow. There were many things besides—there were
his table and chair; his camp bed on which he rested
during those long campaigns; his gloves, his razor
strap, his comb, the clothes of his little son, the
"King of Rome," and the bow he played with; the
saddles and other presents which he received during
his expedition to the East, and his various court
dresses—but the old gray coat was the most attractive
of all. It was a consolation to notice that it had
lost a button, for it showed that though its wearer
was an anointed emperor, he was not exempt from
the vicissitudes of common humanity. I sat down
and observed the people who visited the room, and I
noticed that they all lingered around the old coat.
It made no difference whether they spoke English,
French, German, or any other tongue; there was
something which appealed to them all; there was a
common ground, where the student and the enthusiastic
lover of high art could join in harmonious
feeling, even with the practical man, who would not
have cared a three-cent piece if Praxiteles and Canova
had never sculptured, or Raphael and Murillo
had never seen a brush. It required but a slight
effort to fill the room up of the absent hero, and to
"stuff out his vacant garments with his form," and
perhaps this very thing tended to make the entire
exhibition a sad one. It was the most melancholy
commentary on human glory that can be imagined.
It ought to be placed in the vestibule of a church, or
in some more public place, and it would purge a
community of ambition. What a sermon might Lacordaire
preach on the temporal and the eternal, with
the sword and the coronation robes of Napoleon I.
before him!

The interest which I have seen manifested by so
many people in the relics of Napoleon I. has afforded
me considerable amusement. I have lately
seen so much ridicule cast upon the relics of the
saints preserved in many of the churches of Italy, by
people of the same class as those who lingered so
reverentially before the glass cases of the Napoleon
room in the Louvre, that I cannot help thinking how
rare a virtue consistency is.

Perhaps it may be owing to some weakness in my
mental organization, but I cannot acknowledge the
propriety of honouring the burial-places of successful
generals, and, at the same time, think the shrines
of the saints worthy of nothing but ridicule and
desecration. I found myself, a few years ago, looking
with grave interest at an old coat of General
Jackson's, which is preserved in the Patent Office at
Washington; and I cannot wonder at the reverence
which some people pay to the garments of a martyr
in the cause of religion. I cannot understand how it
may be right and proper to celebrate the birthdays
of worldly heroes, and "rank idolatry" to commemorate
the self-denying heroes of Christianity. I cannot
join in the setting-up of statues of generals and
statesmen, and condemn a similar homage to the
saints by any allusions to the enormity of making a
"graven image." In fine, if it is right to adorn and
reverence the tomb of the Father of his Country,
(and what American heart does not acknowledge its
propriety?) it certainly cannot be wrong to beautify
and venerate the tomb of the chief apostle, and the
shrines of saints and martyrs who achieved for themselves
and their fellow-men an independence from a
tyranny infinitely worse than that from which Washington
liberated America.

I have recently been visiting the three great monuments
of the reign of Napoleon III.—the completed
Louvre, the Bois de Boulogne, and the Halles Centrales.
As to the first, those who remember those
narrow, nasty streets, which within six years were
the approaches to the Louvre and the Palais Royal,
and those rickety old buildings reminding one too
strongly of cheese in an advanced stage of mouldiness,
that used to intrude their unsightly forms into
the very middle of the Place du Carrousel,—those
who recollect the junk shops that seemed more fitting
to the neighbourhood of the docks than to the entrance
to a palace and a gallery of art,—feel in a
manner lost, when they walk about the courtyards of
the noble edifice which has taken the place of so
much deformity. If the new wings of the Louvre
had been built in one range instead of quadrangles,
they would extend more than half a mile! Half a
mile of palace, and a palace, too, which in building
has occupied one hundred and fifty sculptors for the
past five years! Those who have not visited Paris
within five years will recollect the Bois de Boulogne
only as a vast neglected tract of woodland, which
seemed a great waste of the raw material in a place
where firewood is so expensive as it is here. It is
now laid out in beautiful avenues and walks, the
extent of which is said to be nearly two hundred
miles. You are refreshed by the sound of waterfalls
and the coolness of grottos, the rocks for the formation
of which were brought from Fontainebleau,
more than forty miles distant from Paris. You walk
on, and find yourself on the shores of a lake, a mile
or two in length, with two or three lovely islands in
it, and in whose bright blue waters thousands of
trout are sporting. That wild waste, the old Bois de
Boulogne, which few persons but duellists ever visited,
has passed away, and in its place you find the
most magnificent park in the world. It is indeed a perfect
triumph of landscape gardening. It is nature itself,
not in miniature, but on such a scale as to deceive
you entirely, and fill you with the same feeling of
admiration that is awakened by any striking natural
beauty. The old French notions of landscape gardening
seem to have been entirely cast aside. The
carriage roads and paths go winding about so that
the view is constantly changing, and the trees are
allowed to grow as they please, without being tortured
into fantastic shapes by the pruning knife. The
banks of the lake have been made irregular, now
steep, now sloping gently to the water's edge, and in
some places huge jagged rocks have been most naturally
worked in, while ivy has been planted around
them, and in their crevices those weeds and shrubs
which commonly grow in such places. You would
about as readily take Jamaica Pond to be artificial as
this lovely sheet of water and its surroundings. The
Avenue de l'Impératrice is the road from the Arc de
Triomphe to the Bois de Boulogne. It is half or
three quarters of a mile in length, and is destined to
be one of the most striking features of Paris. It is
laid out with spacious grass plots, with carriage ways
and ways for equestrians and foot passengers, with
regular double rows of trees on either side. Many
elegant château-like private residences already adorn
it, and others are rapidly rising. An idea of its
majestic appearance may be had from the fact that
its entire width from house to house is about four
hundred feet. The large space around the Arc de
Triomphe is already laid out in a square, to be called
the Place de l'Europe, and the work has already
been commenced of reducing the buildings around it
to symmetry. The Halles Centrales, the great central
market-house of Paris, has just been opened to
the public. It is built mainly of iron and glass. As
nearly as I could judge of its size, I should think it
would leave but little spare room if it were placed in
Union Park, New York. It is about a hundred feet
in height, and so well ventilated that it is hard to
realize when there that one is under cover. A wide
street for vehicles runs through its whole length,
crossed by others at equal intervals. I have called
these three public improvements the great monuments
of the reign of Napoleon III.; not that I
would limit his good works to these, but because
these may be taken as conspicuous illustrations of his
care, no less for the amusements than for the bodily
wants of his people, and of his zeal for the promotion
of art and the adornment of his capital. But
these noble characteristics of the Emperor deserve
something more than a mere passing notice, and may
well form the subject of my next letter.

.. ——File: 157.png




NAPOLEON THE THIRD [1]_
-----------------------

There is a period in the life of almost every
man which may justly be termed the romantic
period. I do not mean the time when a youth, whose
heart is as yet unwarped by the selfishness of the
world, and his brow unclouded by its trials and its
sorrows, thinks that the performance of his life will
fully come up to the glowing programme he then
composes for it; neither do I refer to the period
when, in hungry expectation, we clutched eagerly at
the booksellers' announcements of the last productions
of the eloquent Bulwer, or of the inexhaustible
James. But I refer to the time when childhood forgets
its new buttons in reading how poor Ali Baba
relieved his wants at the expense of the wicked
thieves; how Whittington heard Bow Bells ring out
the prophecy of his greatness; how fierce Blue Beard
punished his wife's curiosity; and how good King
Alfred merited reproof by his forgetfulness of the
herdsman's supper. This is the true period of
romance in the lives of all of us; for then all the
romance that we read is clothed with the dignity of
history, and all our history is invested with the
charm of romance. This happy period does not lose
its attractions, even when we outgrow the credulity
of childhood; for the romance of history captivates
us when we no longer are subject to the sway of the
novelist; and we leave Mr. Thackeray's last uncut,
until we can finish a newspaper chapter in the history
of these momentous times.

.. [1] The author must plead guilty to a little hesitation (induced by the
   present aspect of European affairs) about incorporating this paper on
   the French Emperor, written some three years since, in his work. He
   feels, however, that, whatever may be the issue of the present contest in
   Europe, the services of Napoleon III. to France and to civilization are
   a part of history; and he has no wish to disguise his satisfaction at having
   been one of the first Americans who confronted the vulgar prejudices
   of his countrymen against that remarkable man, and publicly recognized
   the wonderful talents which have placed France at the head of all civilized
   nations.

We know how eagerly we pursue the vicissitudes
of fortune which have marked the career of so many
of the world's heroes; and this will teach us how
future generations will read the history of the present
century. Surely the whole range of romance
presents no parallel to the simple history of the wonderful
man who now governs France. It is easy to
see that his varied fortunes will one day perform a
conspicuous part in that juvenile classical literature
of which I have spoken; and perhaps it may not be
unprofitable, dear reader, for us to endeavour to
raise ourselves above the excitement of partisanship
and the influences of old prejudices, and look upon
his career as may the writers of the twenty-fifth century.

It is a popular error in America to regard Louis
Napoleon as a singular combination of knavery and
half-wittedness. Even Mr. Emerson, in his *English
Traits*, so far forgets the kindliness of his nature as
to call him a "successful thief." The English journalists
once delighted to ridicule him as the "nephew
of his uncle," and the shadow of a great name, and
Punch used to represent him as a pygmy standing
upon the brim of his uncle's hat, and wondering how
he could ever fill it; but he has lived down ridicule,
and they have long since learned that there is such a
thing as the possibility of a mistake in judgment,
even among journalists and politicians. It is time
that we Americans got over a notion which has long
since been exploded on this side of the Atlantic. I
know that I am flying in the face of those who believe
in the plenary inspiration of the New York Tribune,
when I claim for the Emperor any thing like patriotism
or capacity as a statesman. I know that the
Greeleian, "philanthropic" code exacts that we
should *not* "give the prisoner the benefit of the
doubt," and that when any one whom we dislike does
any good, we should attribute it to nothing but a
selfish or ambitious motive. I know that this new-fangled
love of all mankind requires us to hate those
who differ from us politically, and never to lose an
opportunity to blacken their characters and diminish
their reputation; and therefore I make all due allowances
for the refusal of the Tribune, and journals of
the same amiable family, to see the truth. In April,
1856, I was waiting for a train in a way station on
the Worcester Railroad. A sun-burned, hard-working
man was reading the news of the proclamation of
peace at Paris from a penny paper, and he commented
upon it to two or three others who were present,
as follows: "Well, I don't know how 'tis, but it
seems to *me* that we've been most almightily mistaken
about this 'ere *Lewis* Napoleon. We used to
think he was a shaller kind o' feller any how, but it
really looks now, judging from the *position* of
France in *European* affairs, as if he was turning out
to be altogether the *biggest dog in that tanyard*!"
The old fellow's conclusion was a true one, though
his rhetoric would not have been commended at
Cambridge; and it is to prevent this conclusion forcing
itself upon the public sense, that the sympathizers
with socialism have been labouring ever
since. We are told that it is our duty as Americans
and republicans to wish for the overthrow of Napoleon
and his empire, and the establishment of the
*république démocratique et sociale*. Now, having
received my political principles from another source
than the Tribune, I may be pardoned for having a
prejudice in favour of allowing the people of France
to govern France; and, as they elected Louis Napoleon
President in 1848 by more than five millions
of votes, and in 1851 chose him dictator (in their
fear of the very party which the Tribune wishes to
see in power) by more than *seven* millions of votes,
and finally, in 1852, made him their Emperor by a
vote of more than seven millions against a little more
than three hundred thousand, we may suppose
France to have expressed a pretty decided opinion
on this matter. The French empire rests upon the
very principle that forms the basis of true republicanism—universal
suffrage. Louis Napoleon restored
that principle after it had been suppressed or
restricted, and proved himself a truer republican
than his opponents. For nine years, Napoleon has
been sustained by the people of France with a
unanimity such as the United States never knew, except
in the election of Washington as first President,
and his majority has increased every time that he has
appealed to the people. It is idle to say that there are
parties here that are opposed to him; it would be a
remarkable phenomenon if there were not. But
there is a more united support here for the Emperor
than there is in our own country for the constitution
of the United States, and any right-minded man
would regret a revolutionary movement in one country
as much as in the other.

If there was ever a position calculated to test the
capabilities of its occupant, it was that in which Louis
Napoleon found himself when he obeyed the voice
of the French people, and accepted the presidency of
the French republic. Surrounded by men holding
all kinds of political opinions, from the agrarian
Proudhon to the impracticable Louis Blanc, and men
of no political opinions whatever,—he found himself
obliged to use all the power reposed in him by
the constitution, to keep the government from falling
asunder. History bears witness to the fact that republican
governments deteriorate more rapidly than
those which are based upon a less changeable foundation
than the popular will. But there was little
danger of the French republic deteriorating, for it
was about as weak and unprincipled as it could be in
its very inception. There were a few men of high
and patriotic character in the Assembly, but (as is
generally the case) their voices were drowned amid
the clamourings of a crowd of radical journalists and
ambitious *littérateurs*, whose only bond of union was
a fierce hatred of law and religion, and a desire for
the spoils of office. These were the men with whom
Napoleon had to deal. They had favoured his election
to the presidency, for, in their misapprehension
of his character, they thought him the mere shadow
of a name, and expected under his government to
have all things their own way. But they were not
long in discovering their mistake.

His conduct soon showed that he was the proper
man for the crisis. That unflinching republican,
General Cavaignac, had before pointed out the dangers
to all European governments, and to civilization
itself, that would spring from the continuance of the
sanguinary and sacrilegious Roman Republic; and
Napoleon, accepting his suggestions, took immediate
measures to put an end to the atrocities which
marked the sway of Mazzini and his assassins in the
Roman States. [2]_ The success which attended these
measures is now a part of history. There is a kind
of historical justice in this part of Napoleon's career
which must force itself upon every reflecting mind.
From the day when St. Remy told his royal convert,
Clovis, to "burn what he had adored, and adore
what he had burned," the monarch of France had
always been considered the "eldest son of the
Church." The Roman Pontiff was indebted to Pepin
and Charlemagne for those possessions which rendered
him independent of the secular power. In the
hour of need it was always to the Kings of France
that he looked for aid; and whether he sought aid
against the oppressors of the Holy See or the infidel
possessors of the Holy Sepulchre, he seldom appealed
to them in vain. It was meet, therefore, that
Napoleon should inaugurate his power by thus reviving
the ancient traditionary spirit of the French
monarchy; for he could not better prove his worthiness
to sit on the throne which had been occupied by
so many generous and heroic spirits, than by fighting
the battles of the Church they loved so well.

.. [2] Lest I should be thought guilty of speaking rashly with regard to the
   anarchy which Napoleon destroyed in 1849 at Rome, I take the liberty to
   transcribe a few extracts from the constitution of the Society of "Young
   Italy," which will give some idea of the principles upon which the Roman
   Republic rested. I translate from the edition published at Naples, by
   Benedetto Cantalupo.

   ":small-caps:`Article I.` The Society is established for the entire destruction
   of all the governments of the peninsula, and for the forming of Italy into
   a single state, under a republican government.

   ":small-caps:`Art. II.` In consequence of the evils attendant upon absolute government,
   and the still greater evils of constitutional monarchy, we ought
   to join all our efforts to establish a single and indivisible republic.

   ":small-caps:`Art. XXX.` Those members who shall disobey the commands of
   the Society, or who shall reveal its mysteries, shall be poniarded without
   remission.

   ":small-caps:`Art. XXXI.` The secret tribunal shall pronounce sentence in such
   cases as the preceding, and shall designate one or more of the brethren
   to carry it into instant execution.

   ":small-caps:`Art. XXXII.` The brother who shall refuse to execute a sentence
   thus pronounced shall be considered as a perjurer, and as such shall be
   immediately put to death.

   ":small-caps:`Art. XXXIII.` If the victim condemned to punishment should
   succeed in escaping, he shall be pursued unremittingly into anyplace whatever,
   and shall be struck as by an invisible hand, even if he shall have
   taken refuge on the bosom of his mother, or in the tabernacle of Christ.

   ":small-caps:`Art. XXXIV.` Each secret tribunal shall be competent not only
   to condemn the guilty to death, but also to put to death all persons so
   sentenced."

The foreign and domestic policy which the Prince-President
pursued excited at the same time the anger
of the ultra republican faction, and the hopes of the
religious and conservative portion of society. Order
was restored, and an impetus was given to commercial
enterprise and to the arts of peace such as France
had not known since the outbreak of 1848. Still the
discordant elements of which the Assembly was composed,
were a just cause of alarm to all friends of
good order, and all parties, conservative and radical,
regarded the existing state of affairs as a temporary
one. Napoleon saw that the only obstacle in the
path of the nation to peace and prosperity was the
Assembly—the radicals of the Assembly that the
Prince-President was the only obstacle to their plans
of disorganization and anarchy; and they also saw
that, if the question were allowed to go to the people
at the expiration of Napoleon's term of office, he
would surely be reëlected, and that his policy would
be triumphantly confirmed. So, as the time drew
near for the new election, the struggle between the
President and the Assembly—between order and
anarchy—grew more and more severe. Plots were
formed against Napoleon, and were just ripening for
execution, when, on the second of December, 1851,
he terminated the suspense of the nation by seizing
and throwing into prison all the chief conspirators
against the public peace, and then appealed to the
people to sustain him in his efforts to preserve his
country from the state of anarchy towards which it
seemed to be hastening. The people answered
promptly and with good will to the call, and Napoleon
gained an almost bloodless victory.

But we are told that by the *coup d'état*, "Napoleon
violated his oath to sustain the constitution of the
republic—that he is a perjurer, and all his success
cannot diminish his crime." So might one of the old
loyalists have said about our own Washington. "He
was a British subject—by accepting a commission
under Braddock, he formally acknowledged his
allegiance to the crown—by drawing his sword in
the revolution, he violated not only his fidelity as a
subject, but his honour as a soldier." And what
would any American reply to this? He would say
that Washington never bound himself to violate his
conscience, and that conscientiously he felt bound to
defend the old English principles of free government
even against the encroachments of his own
rightful sovereign. And so, with equal reason, it
may be said of Louis Napoleon, when the term of
his presidency was approaching, and the radical
members of the Assembly were forming conspiracies
to dispose of him so as to prevent his reëlection, he
was bound in conscience, as the chief ruler of his
country, to prevent the anarchy that must result from
such a movement. And how could he do this save by
dissolving the Assembly and appealing to the people
as he did? The constitution was nullified by the
plots of the Assembly, and France in 1851 was really
without a government, until the *coup d'état* inaugurated
the present reign of public prosperity and
peace. The *coup d'état* was not only justifiable—it
was praiseworthy. When the prejudices and party
spirit of the present time shall have passed away, the
historian will grow eloquent in speaking of that fearless
and far-sighted statesman, who, when his country
was threatened with a repetition of the civil strife
which had too often shaken her to her centre, threw
himself boldly upon the patriotism of the people
with those noble words, "The Assembly, instead of
being what it ought to be, the support of public
order, has become a nest of conspiracies. It compromises
the peace of France. I have dissolved it;
and I call upon the whole people to judge between it
and myself."—The *coup d'état* excited the anger
only of the socialists and of those partisans of the
houses of Bourbon and Orléans who loved those
families more than they loved their country's welfare;
for they saw, by the revival of business, that
confidence in the stability of the government was established,
and that Napoleon had obtained a place in
the affections of the French people from which he
could not easily be dislodged.

From this dictatorship, which the dangers of the
time had rendered necessary, it was an easy transition
to the empire, and Louis Napoleon found his
succession to the throne of his uncle confirmed by
almost the unanimous vote of the French people. It
was a tribute to the man, and to his public policy,
such as no ruler in modern times has ever received,
and for unanimity is unparalleled in the history of
popular elections. His marriage followed quickly
upon the proclamation of the empire; and in this, as
in all his acts, we can discern his manly and independent
spirit. He sought not to ally himself with
any of the royal families of Europe, for he felt himself
to be so sure of his position, that he could without
risk consult his affections rather than policy or
ambition.

The skilful diplomacy which led to the alliance
with England, the campaign in the Crimea, and the
repulse of Russia, are too fresh in every body's recollection
to bear any repetition. So far as they concern
Napoleon III., the world is a witness to his matchless
coolness and determination. What could be
grander than the heroic inflexibility he displayed in
the face of the accumulated disasters of that campaign,
and the murmurs of his allies! Misfortune
only seemed to nerve him to more vigorous effort.
During that terrible winter of 1854-5, he appeared
more like a fixed, unvarying law of nature than a
man,—so immovable was he in his opposition to
those who, pressed by the unlooked-for difficulties of
the time, counselled a change of policy. The successful
termination of the siege of Sebastopol, however,
proved the justice of his calculations, and, while conquering
monarchs in other times have been content to
see the negotiations for peace made in some provincial
town, or in a city of some neutral state, the proud
satisfaction was conceded to him by Russia of having
the peace conferences held in his own capital.

But while commemorating the success of his efforts
to raise his country to a commanding position among
the nations, we must not forget the great enterprises
of internal improvement which he has set on foot
within his empire. Who can recall what Paris was
under Louis Philippe, or the time of the republic,
and compare it with the Paris of to-day, without admiring
the genius of Napoleon III.? Who does not
recognize a wonderful capacity for the administration
of government in the Emperor, when he sees
that nearly all of these great improvements (unlike
those of Louis XIV., which impoverished the nation)
will gradually but surely pay for themselves by
increasing the amount of taxable property? Indeed,
the improvements in the city of Paris alone are on so
vast a scale as to be incomprehensible to any one
unacquainted with that capital. If Napoleon were
to-day to fall a victim to that organization of republican
assassins which is known to exist in France, as
well as in the other states of Europe, he would leave,
in the Louvre, in the Bois de Boulogne, in the new
Boulevards, and the extension of the Rue de Rivoli,
together with the countless other public works which
now adorn Paris, testimonials to the splendour of
his brief reign, such as no monarch ever left before:
of him, as of Sir Christopher Wren, it might be truly
said, "*Si quæris monumentum, circumspice*."

But we must not think that Napoleon has confined
his exertions to the improvement of Paris alone.
Not a single province of his empire has been neglected
by him, and there is scarcely a town that has
not felt the influence of his policy. The foreign
commerce of France has been wonderfully increased
by him, and his favourite project for a ship canal
through the Isthmus of Suez is now numbered among
the probabilities of the age. When it is considered
what a narrow strip of land separates the Red Sea
from the Mediterranean, and what an immense advantage
such a canal would be to all the countries
bordering on the latter, it is not wonderful that Napoleon
should find so many friends among the
sovereigns of Europe. He has not built the magnificent
new port of Marseilles merely for the accommodation
of the Mediterranean coasting trade
of his empire. His far-seeing eye looks upon those
massive quays covered with merchandise from every
quarter of the Orient, brought, not around the
stormy Cape, nor by the toilsome caravan over the
parching desert, but by the swift steamers of the
*Messageries Impériales* from every port of India,
through the waters which, centuries ago, rolled back
and opened a path of safety to the chosen people of
God.

If the old proverb be true, that a man is known by
the company he keeps, it is equally true, on the other
hand, that a statesman may be rightly known by examining
the character of his opponents. And who
are the opponents of Napoleon III.? With the exception
of a few partisans of the Bourbons, (whose
opposition to the Napoleon dynasty is an hereditary
complaint,) they are radical demagogues, who delight
to mislead the fickle multitude with the words,
"Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity," on their lips,
but the designs of anarchy and bloodshed in their
hearts. Their ranks are swelled by a number of
visionary "philanthropists," and a large number of
newspaper scribblers deprived of their occupation by
Napoleon's salutary laws against abuse of the liberty
of the press, and lacking ambition to earn an honest
livelihood. Among them may be found a few literary
men of high reputation, who have espoused some
impracticable theory of government, and would
blindly throw away their well-earned fame, and shed
the last drop of their ink in forcing it upon an unwilling
nation.

Slander, like Death, loves a shining mark. The
fact cannot be doubted, if we look at the lives of the
greatest and best men the world has ever seen. In
truth, a large part of the heroism of the noblest
patriots, and the purest philanthropists, has been
created by the necessity they have been under to bear
up against the obloquy with which enmity or envy
has assailed them. The Emperor Napoleon is, beyond
a doubt, the best abused man in Christendom.
There probably never existed a man whose every act
and every motive have been more studiously misrepresented
and systematically lied about than his.
It cannot be wondered at, either; for he exercises too
much power in the state councils of Europe, and fills
too large a space in the public eye, not to be assailed
by those whose evil prophecies have been falsified by
his brilliant reign, and whose lawless schemes have
been frustrated by his unexampled prudence and
firmness.

And what right has he to complain? If St. Gregory
VII. were obliged to submit for centuries to
being represented as an ambitious self-seeker and
unscrupulous politician, instead of a wise and far-seeing
pontiff, a vanquisher of tyrants, and a self-denying
saint; if St. Thomas of Canterbury be held
up, in hundreds of volumes, as a monster of ingratitude
towards a beneficent sovereign, and a haughty
and overbearing supporter of prelatical tyranny, instead
of a martyr, in defence of religious liberty
against the encroachments of the civil authority; if
Cardinal Wolsey be held up to public scorn as a
proud and selfish prince of the Church, a glutton, and
a wine-bibber, instead of a skilful administrator of
government, a liberal patron of learning, and all
good arts, and the sole restrainer of the evil passions
of the most shameless tyrant who ever sat upon the
English throne; if Cardinal Richelieu be handed
down from generation to generation, painted in the
blackest colours, as a scheming politician, in whose
heart, wile and cruelty were mixed up in equal parts,
instead of a sagacious and inflexible statesman, and
a patriot who made every thing (even his religion)
bend to his devotion to the glory of his beloved
France; if these great men have been thus misrepresented
in that history which De Maistre aptly calls
"a conspiracy against truth," I do not think that
Napoleon III. can reasonably complain of finding
himself denounced as a tyrant, a perjurer, and a victim
of all the bad passions that vex the human heart,
instead of a liberator of his country from that many-headed
monstrosity, miscalled the *République Française*,
an unswerving supporter of the cause of law
and religion, and the architect of the present glory
and prosperity of France. It must be a great consolation
to the Emperor, under the slanders which
have been heaped upon him, to reflect that their
authors and the enemies who hate him worst, are,
for the most part, infidels and assassins, and enemies
of social order. Whatever errors a man may commit,
he cannot be far from the course of right so long
as he is hated and feared by people of that desperate
stamp. The ancient adage tells us that "a cat may
look at a king"; and it is, perhaps, a merciful provision
of the law of compensation that the base
reptiles which fatten on the offal of slander are permitted
to trail their slime over a name which is the
synonyme of the power and glory of France.

When the prejudices of the present day shall have
died out, the historian will relate how devoted Napoleon
III. was to every thing that concerned his
country's welfare. He will tell of his ceaseless care
for the most common wants of his people, and of his
vigilance in enforcing laws against those who
wronged the poor by their dishonest dealings in the
necessaries of life. He will relate how promptly he
turned his back upon nobles and ambassadors to visit
some of his people who had been overwhelmed by a
terrible calamity, and will describe the kind, fatherly
manner in which he went among them, carrying succour
and consolation to all. He will not compare the
Emperor to his great warrior-uncle; he will *contrast*
the two. He will show how the uncle made all
Europe fear and hate him, and how the nephew converted
his enemies into allies; how the uncle manured
the soil of Europe with the bones of his soldiers, and
the nephew, having given splendid proofs of his
ability to make war, won for himself the title of "the
Pacificator of Europe"; how the uncle, through his
hot-headed ambition, finally made France the prey of
a hostile alliance, and the nephew brought the representatives
of all the European powers around him in
his capital to make peace under his supervision.

The man who, after thirty years of exile and six
years of close imprisonment, can take a country in
the chaotic condition in which France found itself
after the revolution of 1848, and reorganize its government,
place its financial affairs on a better footing
than they have been before within the memory of
man, double its commerce, and raise it to the highest
place among the states of Europe, cannot be an ordinary
man. In 1852, the Emperor said, "France, in
crowning me, crowns herself;" and he has proved
the literal truth of his words. He has given France
peace, prosperity, and a stable government. He has
imitated Napoleon I. in every one of his great and
praiseworthy actions in his civil capacity, while he
has not made a single one of his mistakes. And if
"he that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that
taketh a city," this remarkable man, whose self-control
is undisturbed by his most unparalleled success,
is destined to be known in history as Napoleon the
Great.

.. ——File: 173.png

The character of Napoleon III. is marked by a
unity and a consistency such as invariably have distinguished
the greatest men. We can see this consistency
in his fidelity to the cause of law and order,
whether it be manifested in his services as a special
constable against the Chartists of England, or as the
chief magistrate of his nation against the Chartists
of France. And to this conspicuous virtue of steadfastness
he adds a wonderful universality of acquirements
and natural genius. We see him contracting
favourable loans and averting impending dangers in
the monetary affairs of France, and it would seem as
if his early life had been spent amid the clamours of
the Bourse; we see him concentrating troops in his
capital against the threats of the revolutionists, or
designing campaigns against the greatest military
powers of Europe; we see him maintaining a perfect
composure in the midst of deadly missiles which were
expected to terminate his reign and dynasty, and it
would seem as if the camp had always been his home,
and the dangers of the battle-field his familiar associations;
we see him buying up grain to prevent
speculators from oppressing his people during a season
of scarcity, or imprisoning bakers for a deficiency
in the weight of their loaves, or regulating the sales
of meats and vegetables,—and it would seem as if
he always had been a prudent housekeeper and a profound
student of domestic economy; we see him laying
out parks, projecting new streets and public
buildings, and we question whether he has paid most
attention to architecture, engineering, or landscape-gardening;
we see him visiting his subjects when they
have been overwhelmed by a great calamity, and he
would seem to have been a disciple of St. Thomas
of Villanueva, or of St. Vincent of Paul; we see him
taking the lead amid the chief statesmen and diplomatists
of the world, we read his powerful state
papers and speeches, and we wonder where he acquired
his experience; we see him, in short, under all
circumstances, and it appears that there is nothing
that concerns his country's welfare or glory too difficult
for him to grapple with, nor any thing affecting
the happiness of his poorest subject trivial enough
for him to overlook. By his advocacy of the cause
of the Church, he has won a place in history by the
side of Constantine and Charlemagne; by his internal
policy and care for the needs of his subjects, his
name deserves to be inscribed with those of St. Louis
and Alfred. The language which Bulwer has put
into the mouth of Cardinal Richelieu might be used
by Napoleon III., and would from him be only the
language of historical truth:—

   |       "I found France rent asunder,
   | Sloth in the mart and schism within the temple,
   | Brawls festering to rebellion, and weak laws
   | Rotting away with rust— \* \* \* \*
   | *I have re-created France*, and from the ashes
   | Civilization on her luminous wings
   | Soars phoenix-like to Jove!"


.. footnotes:: Footnotes
   :class: smaller

.. ——File: 175.png




THE PHILOSOPHY OF FOREIGN TRAVEL
--------------------------------


Foreign travel is one of the most useful
branches of our education, but, like a great
many other useful branches, it appears to be "gone
through with" by many persons merely as a matter
of course. It is astonishing how few people out of
the great number constantly making the tour of
Europe really carry home any thing to show for it
except photographs and laces. Foreign travel ought
to rub the corners off a man's character, and give
him a polish such as "home-keeping youth" can never
acquire; yet how many we see who seem to have increased
their natural rudeness and inconsiderateness
by a continental trip! Foreign travel ought to soften
prejudices, religious or political, and liberalize a
man's mind; but how many there are who seem to
have travelled for the purpose of getting up their
rancour against all that is opposed to their notions,
making themselves illustrations of Tom Hood's remark,
that "some minds resemble copper wire or
brass, and get the narrower by going farther." Foreign
travel, while it shows a man more clearly the
faults of his own country, ought to make him love
his country more dearly than before; yet how often
does it have the effect of making a man undervalue
his home and his old friends! There must be some
general reason why foreign travel produces its legitimate
fruits in so few instances; and I have, during
several European tours, endeavoured to ascertain it.
I am inclined to think that it is a general lack of
preparation for travel, and a mistaken notion that
"sight-seeing" is the chief end of travelling. The
expenses of the passage across the Atlantic are diminishing
every year, and when the motive power in
electricity is discovered and applied, the expense of
the trip will be a mere trifle; and in view of these
considerations, I feel that, though I might find a
more entertaining subject for a letter, I cannot find a
more instructive one than the philosophy of European
travel.

Concerning the expense of foreign travel, there
are many erroneous notions afloat. There are hundreds
of persons in America—artists, and students,
and persons of small means—who are held back
from what is to them a land of promise, by the mistaken
idea that it is expensive to travel in Europe.
They know that Bayard Taylor made a tour on an
incredibly small sum, and they think that they have
not his tact in management, nor his self-denial in
regard to the common wants of life; but if they will
put aside a few of their false American prejudices,
they will find that they can travel in Europe almost
as cheaply as they can live at home. In America, we
have an aristocracy of the pocket, which is far more
tyrannical, and much less respectable, than any aristocracy
of blood on this side of the water; for every
man feels an instinctive respect for another who can
trace his lineage back to some brave soldier whose
deeds have shone in his country's history for centuries;
but it requires a peculiarly constituted mind to
bow down to a man whose chief claim to respect is
founded in the fact of his having made a large fortune
in the pork or dry goods line. Jinkins is a rich
man; he lives in style, and fares sumptuously every
day. Jones is one of Jinkins's neighbours; he is not
so rich as Jinkins, but he feels a natural ambition to
keep up with him in his establishment, and he does
so; the rivalry becomes contagious, and the consequence
is, that a score of well-meaning people find, to
their dismay, at the end of the year, that they have
been living beyond their means. Now, if people wish
to travel reasonably in Europe, the first thing that
they must do is to get rid of the Jones and Jinkins
standard of respectability. I have seen many people
who were content to live at home in a very moderate
sort of way, who, when they came to travel, seemed
to require all the style and luxury of a foreign prince.
Such people may go all over Europe, and see very
little of it except the merest outside crust. They
might just as well live in a fashionable hotel in America,
and visit Mr. Sattler's cosmoramas. They resemble
those unfortunate persons who have studied
the classics from Anthon's text-books—they have got
a general notion, but of the mental discipline of the
study they are entirely ignorant. But let me go into
particulars concerning the expenses of travelling. I
know that a person can go by a sailing vessel from
Boston to Genoa, spend a week or more in Genoa
and on the road to Florence, pass two or three weeks
in that delightful city, and two months in Rome, then
come to Paris, and stay here two or three weeks,
then go to London for a month or more, and home
by way of Liverpool in a steamer, for less than four
hundred dollars; for I did it myself several years
ago. During this trip, I lived and travelled respectably
all the time—that is, what is called respectably
in Europe. I went in the second class cars, and in
the forward cabins of the steamers. Jones and
Jinkins went in the first class cars and in the after
cabins, and paid a good deal more money for the
same pleasure that cost me so little. I know, too,
that a person can sail from Boston to Liverpool,
make a summer trip of two months and a half to
Paris, *via* London and the cities of Belgium, and
back to Boston *via* London and Liverpool, for a
trifle over two hundred and fifty dollars. A good
room in London can be got for two dollars and a
half a week, in Paris for eight dollars a month, in
Rome and Florence for four dollars a month, and
in the cities of Germany for very considerably less.
And a good dinner costs about thirty cents in London,
thirty-five in Paris, fifteen to twenty-five in
Florence or Rome, and even less in Germany.
Breakfast, which is made very little of on the continent,
generally damages one's exchequer to the extent
of five to ten cents. It will be seen from this
scale of prices that one can live very cheaply if he
will; and, as the inhabitants of a country may be supposed
to know the requirements of its climate better
than strangers, common sense would dictate the
adoption of their style of living.

I need not say that some knowledge of the French
language is absolutely indispensable to one who
would travel with any satisfaction in Europe. This
is the most important general preparation that can
be made for going abroad. Next after it, I should
place a review of the history of the countries about
to be visited. The outlines of the history of the
different countries of Europe, published by the English
*Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge*,
are admirably adapted to this purpose. This gives
a reality to the scenes you are about to visit that they
would not otherwise possess; it peoples the very
roadside for you with heroes. And not only does it
impart a reality to your travels, but history itself
becomes a reality to you, instead of being a mere
barren record of events, hard to be remembered. At
this time, when the neglect of classical studies is
apparent in almost every book, newspaper, and magazine,
I am afraid that I shall be thought somewhat
old-fashioned and out of date, if I say that some
acquaintance with the Latin classics is necessary before
a man can really enjoy Italy. Yet it is so; and
it will be a great satisfaction to any man to find that
Horace and Virgil, and Cicero and Livy, are something
more than the hard tasks of childhood. Should
a man's classical studies, however, be weak, the
deficiency can be made up in some measure by the
judicious use of translations, and by Eustace's Classical
Tour. Murray's admirable hand-books of
course will supply a vast amount of information; but
it will not do to trust to reading them upon the spot.
Some preparation must be made beforehand,—some
capital is necessary to start in business. "If you
would bring home the wealth of the Indies, you must
carry out the wealth of the Indies." It would be
well, too, for a person about to visit Europe to prepare
himself for a quieter life than he has been leading
at home. I mean, to tone himself down so as to
be able to enjoy the freedom from excitement which
awaits him here. It is now more than a year since I
left America, and likewise more than a year since I
have seen any disorderly conduct, or a quarrel, or
even have heard high words between two parties in
the street, or have known of an alarm of fire. In
the course of the year, too, I have not seen half a
dozen intoxicated persons. When we reflect what a
fruitful source of excitement all these things are in
America, it will be easy to see that a man may have,
comparatively, a very quiet life where they are not
to be found. It will not do any harm, either, to prepare
one's self by assuming a little more consideration
for the feelings of others than is generally seen
among us, and by learning to address servants with
a little less of the imperious manner which is so common
in America. Strange as it may seem, there is
much less distinction of classes on the continent, than
in republican America. You are astonished to find
the broadcloth coat and the blouse interchanging the
civilities of a "light" in the streets, and the easy,
familiar way of servants towards their masters is a
source of great surprise. You seldom see a Frenchman
or an Italian receive any thing from a servant
without thanking him for it. Yet there appears to
be a perfectly good understanding between all parties
as to their relative position, and with all their
familiarity, I have never seen a servant presume
upon the good nature of his employer, as they often
do with us. We receive our social habits in a great
measure from England, and therefore we have got
that hard old English way of treating servants, as if
our object was to make them feel that they are inferiors.
So the sooner a man who is going to travel
on the continent, can get that notion out of his head,
and replace it with the continental one, which seems
to be, that a servant, so long as he is faithful in the
discharge of his duties, is quite as respectable a member
of society as his employer, the better it will be
for him, and the pleasanter will be his sojourn in
Europe.

One of the first mistakes Americans generally
make in leaving for Europe is, to take too much
luggage. Presupposing a sufficiency of under-clothing,
all that any person really needs is a good, substantial
travelling suit, and a suit of black, including
a black dress coat, which is indispensable for all occasions
of ceremony. The Sistine Chapel is closed to
frock coats, and so is the Opera—and as for evening
parties, a man might as well go in a roundabout as
in any thing but a dress coat. Clothing is at least one
third cheaper in Europe than it is with us, and any
deficiency can be supplied with ease, without carrying
a large wardrobe around with one, and paying the
charges for extra luggage exacted by the continental
railways.

Let us now suppose a person to have got fairly off,
having read up his classics and his history, and got
his luggage into a single good-sized valise,—let us
suppose him to have got over the few days of seasickness,
which made him wish that Europe had been
submerged by the broad ocean (as Mr. Choate
would say) or ever he had left his native land,—and
to have passed those few pleasant days, which every
one remembers in his Atlantic passage, when the ship
was literally getting along "by degrees" on her
course,—and to have arrived safely in some European
port. The custom house officers commence
the examination of the luggage, looking especially
for tobacco; and if our friend is a wise man, he will
not attempt to bribe the officers, as in nine cases out
of ten he will increase his difficulties by so doing, and
cause his effects to be examined with double care; but
he will open his trunk, and, if he have any cigars,
will show them to the examiner, and if he have not,
he will undoubtedly be told to close it again, and will
soon be on his way to his hotel. I suppose him to
have selected a hotel before arriving in port—which
would be done by carefully avoiding those houses
which make a great show, or are highly commended
in Murray's guide-books. He will find a neat, quiet
European hotel a delightful place, after the gilding
and red velvet of the great caravanseries of his native
country. If he is going to stop more than a
single night, he will ask the price of the room to
which he is shown, and if it seems too expensive, will
look until he finds one that suits him. When he has
selected a room, and his valise has been brought up,
he will probably observe that the servant (if it is
evening) has lighted both of the candles on the
mantel-piece. He will immediately blow one of them
out and hand it to the waiter, with a look that will
show him that he is dealing with an experienced
traveller, who knows that he has to pay for candles
as he burns them. When he leaves the hotel,
he will make it a principle always to carry the unconsumed
candle or candles with him, for use as occasion
may require; for it is the custom of the country,
and will secure him against the little impositions
which are always considered fair play upon outsiders.
It is possible that he will find, when he goes to wash
his hands, that there is no soap in the wash stand,
and will thank me for having reminded him to carry
a cake with him rolled up in a bit of oiled silk. When
he wishes to take lodgings in any city, he will be
particular to avoid that part of the town where English
people mostly do inhabit, and will be very shy of
houses where apartments to let are advertised on a
placard in phrases which the originator probably intended
for English. He will look thoroughly before
he decides, and so will save himself a great deal of
dissatisfaction which he might feel on finding afterwards
that others had done much better than he.
Besides, "room-hunting" is not the least profitable,
nor least amusing part of a traveller's experience.
He will, when settled in his rooms, attend in person
to the purchase of his candles and his fuel, and to the
delivery of the same in his apartments; for by so
doing he will save money, and will see more of the
common people of the place.

Of course he will see all the "sights" that every
stranger is under a sort of moral obligation to see,
however much it may fatigue him; but he must not
stop there. He must not think, as so many appear
to, that, when he has seen the palaces, and picture
galleries, and gardens, and public monuments of a
country, he knows that country. He must try to see
and know as much as he can of the people of the
country, for they (Louis Quatorze to the contrary,
notwithstanding) are the state. Let him cultivate
the habit of early rising, and frequent market places
and old parish churches in the twilight of the morning,
and he will learn more of the people in one
month than a year of reading or ordinary sight-seeing
could teach him. Let him choose back alleys,
instead of crowded and fashionable thoroughfares
for his walks; when he falls in with a wandering
musician and juggler, exhibiting in public, let him
stop, not to see the exhibition, but the spectators;
when he goes to the theatre, let him not shut himself
up in the privacy of a box, but go into the pit, where
all he will see and hear around him will be full as
amusing as the performance itself; and when he uses
an omnibus, let him always choose a seat by the
driver, in preference to one inside. I have learnt
more of the religious character of the poorer class in
Paris, by a visit to a little out-of-the-way church at
sunrise, than could be acquired by hours of conversation
with the people themselves. And I have learned
equally as much of the brutality and degradation of
the same class in England, by going into a gin-shop
late at night, calling for a glass of ale, and drinking
it slowly, while I was inspecting the company.
There is many a man who travels through Europe,
communicating only with hotel keepers, couriers, and
ciceroni, and learning less of the people than he
could by walking into a market-place alone, and buying
a sixpence worth of fruit. Yet such men presume
to write books, and treat not merely of the governments
of these countries, but of the social condition
of the people! I once met a man in Italy, who could
not order his breakfast correctly in Italian, who
knew only one Italian, and he was the waiter who
served him in a restaurant; and yet this man was a
correspondent of a respectable paper in Boston, and
had the effrontery to write column after column upon
Italian social life, and to speak of political affairs as
if he were Cardinal Antonelli's sole confidant. There
are such people here in Paris now, who send over to
America, weekly, batches of falsehood about the
household of the Tuileries, which the intelligent public
of America accepts as being true; for it seems to
be a part of some people's republicanism to believe
nothing but evil of a ruler who wears a crown. I
need not say in this connection, that the traveller who
wishes to enjoy Europe must put away the habit (if
he be so unfortunate as to have it) of looking upon
every thing through the green spectacles of republicanism,
and regarding that form of government as
the only one calculated to benefit mankind. He must
remember that the government of his own country is
a mere experiment, compared with the old monarchies
of Europe, and he must try to judge impartially between
them. He must judge each system by its results,
and if on comparison he finds that there is really
less slavery in his own country than in Europe; that
the government is administered more impartially;
that the judiciary is purer; that there is less of mob
law and violence, and less of political bargaining and
trickery, and that life and property are more secure
in his own country than they are here,—why, he will
return to America a better republican than before,
from the very fact of having done justice to the governments
of Europe.

As I have before said, it is better for a traveller to
endeavour to live as nearly as possible in the manner
of the inhabitants of the country in which he is sojourning.
I do not mean that he should feel bound
to make as general a use of garlic as some of the
people of Europe do, for in some places I verily
believe that a custard or a blanc mange would be
thought imperfect if they were not seasoned with
that savory vegetable; but, *ceteris* being *paribus*, if
the general manner of living were followed, the traveller
would find it conducive to health and to economy.
The habits of life among every people are not
founded on a mere caprice; and experience proves
that under the warm sun of Italy, a light vegetable
diet is healthier and more really invigorating than
all the roast beef of Old England would be.

In Europe, no man is ever ashamed of economy.
Few Englishmen even shrink from acknowledging
that they cannot afford to do this or that, and on the
continent profuseness in the use of money is considered
the sure mark of a *parvenu*. Every man is free
to do as he pleases; he can travel in the first, second,
or third class on the railways, and not excite the surprise
of any body; and whatever class he may be in,
he will be treated with equal respect by all. It is well
to bear this in mind, for, taken in connection with the
principle of paying for one's room and meals separately
according to what one has, it puts it within
one's power to travel all over Europe for a ridiculously
small sum. You can live in Paris, by going
over into the Latin quarter, on thirty cents a day,
and be treated by every body, except your own countrymen,
with as much consideration as if you abode
among the mirrors and gilding of the Hôtel de
Louvre. Not that I would advise any one to go
over there for the sake of saving money, and live on
salads and meats in which it is difficult to have confidence,
when he can afford to do better. I only wish
to encourage those who are kept from visiting Europe
by the idea that it requires a great outlay of
money. You can live in Europe for just what you
choose to spend, and in a style of independence to
which America is a total stranger. Every body does
not know here what every body else has for dinner.
You may live on the same floor with a man for
months and years, and not know any more of him
than can be learned from a semi-occasional meeting
on the staircase, and an interchange of hat civilities.
This seems so common to a Frenchman, that it would
be considered by him hardly worth notice; but to any
one who knows what a sharp look-out neighbours
keep over each other in America, it is a most pleasing
phenomenon. It is indeed a delightful thing to live
among people who have formed a habit of minding
their own business, and at the same time have a spirit
of consideration for the rights and feelings of their
neighbours.

If, in the above hints concerning the way to travel
pleasantly and cheaply in Europe, I have succeeded
in removing any of the bugbear obstacles which hold
back so many from the great advantages they might
here enjoy, I shall feel that I have not tasked my
poor eyes and brain for nothing. We are a long
way behind Europe in many things, and it is only by
frequent communication that we can make up our
deficiencies. It cannot be done by boasting, nor by
claiming for America all the enterprise and enlightenment
of the nineteenth century. Neither can it be
done by setting up the United States as superior to
every historical precedent, and an exception to every
rule. Most men (as the old French writer says) are
mortal; and we Americans shall find that our country,
with all its prosperity and unequalled progress,
is subject to the same vicissitudes as the countries we
now think we can afford to despise; and that our history
is

   |     "——but the same rehearsal of the past—
   | First Freedom, and then Glory; when that fails,
   | Wealth, vice, corruption,—barbarism at last."

No, we cannot safely scorn the lesson which
Europe teaches us; for if we do, we shall have to
learn it at the expense of much adversity and wounding
of our pride. Every American who comes
abroad, if he knows how to travel, ought to carry
home with him a new idea of the amenities of life,
and of moderation in the pursuit and the use of
wealth, such as will make itself felt in the course of
time, and make the fast living and recklessness of
authority and tendency to bankruptcy of the present
day, give way to a spirit of moderation and obedience
to law such as always produces private prosperity
and public stability.

.. ——File: 189.png




PARIS TO BOULOGNE
-----------------


It was a delicious morning when I packed my trunk
to leave Paris. Indeed it was so bright and
cloudless that it seemed wrong to go away and leave
so fine a combination of perfections. It was more
than the "bridal of the earth and sky"; it was the
bridal of all the created beings around one and their
works with the sky. The deep blue of the heavens,
the glittering sunbeams, the clean streets, the fair
house fronts, the gay shop windows, the white caps,
and shining morning faces of the *bonnes* and market
women, the busy, prosperous look of the passers by,
were all blended together in one harmonious whole,
more touching and poetical than any scene of mere
natural beauty that the dewy morn, "with breath all
incense and with cheek all bloom," ever looked upon.
"Earth hath not any thing to show more fair."
Others may delight in communing with solitary nature,
and may rave in rhyme about the glories of
woods, lakes, mountains, and Ausonian skies; but
what is all that compared to the awakening of a great
city to the life of day? What are the floods of
golden light that every morning bathe the mountain
tops, and are poured down into the valleys and fields
below, compared to the playing of the sunbeams in
the smoke from ten thousand chimneys, and the din
of toil displacing the silence of night? I have seen
the sunsets of the Archipelago—I have seen Lesbos
and Egina clad in those robes of purple and gold,
which till then I had thought were a mere figment of
the painter's brain—I have enjoyed that "hush of
world's expectation as day died"—I have often
drunk in the glory of a cloudless sunrise on the Atlantic,
and even now my heart leaps up at the remembrance
of it; but after all, commend me to the deeper
and more sympathetic feelings inspired by the dingy
walls and ungraceful chimney-pots of a metropolis.
Thousands of human hearts are there, throbbing
with hope, or joy, or sorrow,—weighed down perchance
by guilt; and humanity with all its imperfections
is a noble thing. A single human heart, though
erring, is a grander creation than the Alps or the
Andes, for it shall outlive them. It is moved by aspirations
that outrun the universe, and possesses a
destiny that shall outlive the stars. It is the better
side of human nature that we see in the early morning
in large cities. Vice flourishes best under the
glare of gas-lights, and does not salute the rising sun.
The bloated form, the sunken eye, the painted cheek,
shrink from that which would make their deformity
more hideous, and hide themselves in places which
their presence makes almost pestilential. Honest,
healthful labour meets us at every step, and imparts
to us something of its own hopefulness and activity.
We miss the dew-drops glittering like jewels in the
grass, but the loss is more than made up to us by the
bright eyes of happy children, helping their parents
in their work, or sporting together on their way to
school.

There was a time when I thought it very poetical
to roam the broad fields in that still hour when the
golden light seems to clasp every object that it meets,
as if it loved it; but of late years a comfortable sidewalk
has been more suggestive of poetry and less
productive of wet feet. Give me a level pavement
before all your groves and fields. The only *rus* that
wears well in the long run is *Russ in urbe*. Nine
tenths of all the fine things in our literature concerning
the charms of country life, have been written, not
beneath the shade of overarching boughs, but within
the crowded city's smoke-stained walls. Depend
upon it, Shakespeare could never have written about
the moonlight sleeping on the bank any where but in
the city; had the realities of country life been present
to him, he would have rejected any such metaphor,
for he loved the moonlight too dearly to subject it to
the rheumatic attack that would inevitably have
followed such a nap as that. It is with country life
very much as it is with life at sea. Mr. Choate, who
pours out his noblest eloquence on the glories and
romance of the sea, seldom sees the outside of his
state-room while he is out of sight of land, and all his
glowing periods are forgotten in the realities of his
position. So, too, the man who wishes to destroy
the poetry and romance of country life, has only to
walk about in the wet grass or the scorching heat, or
to be obliged to pick the pebbles out of his shoes, or
a caterpillar off his neck, or to be mocked at by unruly
cattle, or pestered by any of the myriads of
insect and reptiles which abound in every well-regulated
country.

The excellent Madame Busque (*la dame aux
pumpkin pies*) had prepared for me a viaticum in
the shape of a small loaf of as good gingerbread as
was ever made west of Cape Cod—a motherly attention
quite in keeping with her ordinary way of taking
care of her customers. All who frequent the *crêmerie*
are her *enfans*, and if she does not show them
every little maternal attention, and tie a bib upon
every one's neck, it is only that we may know better
how to behave when we are beyond the reach of her
kindly hand. Fortified with the gingerbread, I found
myself whirling out of the terminus of the Northern
Railway, and Paris, with its far-stretching fortifications,
its domes and towers, and its windmill-crowned
Montmartre, was soon out of sight.

The train was very full, and the weather very
warm. Two of my car-companions afforded me a
good deal of amusement. They were a fat German
and his wife. He was one of the jolliest old gentlemen
I ever had the good fortune to travel with. His
silvery hair was cropped close to his head, and he
rode along with his cuffs turned up and his waistcoat
open. He seemed to feel that he was occupying a
good deal of room; but he was the only one there
who felt it. No one of us would have had his circumference
reduced an inch, but we should all of us have
delighted to put a thin man who was there out by the
roadside. His wife—a bright-eyed little woman,
whose hair was just getting a little silvery—had a
small box-cage in which she carried a large, intelligent-looking
parrot. Before we had gone very far,
the bird began to carry on an animated conversation
with its mistress, but finally disgusted her and surprised
us all by swearing in French and German at
the whole company, with all the vehemence of a regiment
of troopers. The lady tried hard to stop him,
but it was useless. The old gentleman (like a great
many good people who would not swear themselves,
but rather like to hear a good round oath occasionally)
seemed to enjoy it intensely, and laughed
till the tears rolled down his cheeks. At noon the
worthy pair made solemn preparations for a dinner.
A basket, a carpet-bag, and sundry paper parcels
were brought out. The lady spread a large checked
handkerchief over their laps for a table cloth, and
then produced a staff of life about two feet in length,
and cut off a good thick slice for each of them.
Cheese was added to it, and also a species of sausage
about a foot in length, and three inches in diameter.
From these they made a comfortable meal—not eating
by stealth, as we Americans should have done—but
diving in heartily, and chatting together all the
while as cosily as if they had been at home. A bottle
of wine was then brought out from the magic carpet-bag,
and a glass, also a nice dessert of peaches and
grapes. There was a charming at-home-ativeness
about the whole proceeding that contrasted strongly
with our American way of doing such things, and all
the other passengers apparently took no notice of it.

We arrived at Boulogne in the midst of a storm
as severe as the morning had been serene. So fair
and foul a day I have not seen. An omnibus whisked
me to a hotel in what my venerable grandmother
used to call a *jiffy*, and I was at once independent of
the weather's caprices. A comfortable dinner at the
*table d'hôte* repaired the damages of the journey,
and I spent the evening with some good friends,
whose company was made the more delightful by
the months that had separated us. The storm raged
without, and we chatted within. The old hotel
creaked and sighed as the blast assailed it, and I
dreamed all night of close-reefed topsails.

   | "'Tis a wild night out of doors;
   | The wind is mad upon the moors.
   | And comes into the rocking town,
   | Stabbing all things up and down:
   | And then there is a weeping rain
   | Huddling 'gainst the window pane;
   | And good men bless themselves in bed;
   | The mother brings her infant's head
   | Closer with a joy like tears,
   | And thinks of angels in her prayers,
   | Then sleeps with his small hand in hers."

Having in former years merely passed through
Boulogne, I had never known before what a pleasant
old city it is. Its clean streets and well-built houses,
and the air of respectable antiquity which pervades
it, make a very pleasant impression upon the mind.
As you stand on the quay, and look across at the
white cliffs on the other side of the Channel, which
are distinctly visible on a clear day, the differences in
the character of the two nations so slightly separated
from one another, strike you more forcibly than ever.
The very fish taken on the French side of the channel
are different from any that you see in England; and
as to the fishwomen, whose sunburnt legs, bare to the
knee, are the astonishment of all new-comers,—go
over all Europe, and you will find nothing like them.
That superb cathedral, the shrine of our Lady of
Boulogne, upon which the storm of the first French
revolution beat with such fury, is now beginning to
wear a look of completion. Its dome, one of the
loftiest and most graceful in the world, is a striking
and beautiful feature in the view of the city. For
more than twelve centuries this has been a famous
shrine. Kings and princes have visited it, not with
the pomp and circumstance of royalty, but in the
humble garb of the pilgrim. Henry VIII. made a
pilgrimage hither in his unenlightened days, before
the pious Cranmer had taught him how wicked it was
to honour the Mother whom his Saviour honoured,
and how godly and just it was to divorce and put to
death the mothers of his children. Here it was that
the heroic crusader, Godfrey, kindled the flame of
that devotion which nerved his arm against the foes
of Christianity, and added a new lustre to his
knightly fame. It is a fashion of the present day to
sneer at the age of chivalry and the crusades, and
some of our best writers have been enticed into the
following of it. While we have so many subjects
deserving the treatment of the satirist, at our very
doors,—while we have the fashionable world to
draw upon,—while we can look around on political
parsons, professional philanthropists and patriots,
politicians who talk of principle, and followers who
are weak enough to believe in them—it would really
seem as if we might allow the crusaders and troubadours
to rest. Supposing, for the sake of argument,
Christianity to be a true religion,—supposing
it to be a fact that eighteen hundred years ago the
plains of Palestine were trodden by the blessed feet
that were "nailed for our advantage on the bitter
cross"—the redemption of the land which had been
the scene of the sacred history, from the sacrilegious
hands of the Saracens, was certainly an enterprise
creditable to St. Louis, and Richard the lion-hearted,
and Godfrey, and the other gentlemen who sacrificed
so much in it. It was certainly as respectable an undertaking
as any of the crusades of modern times,—as
that of the Spaniards in America, the English in
India, or the United States in Mexico,—with this
exception, that it was not so profitable. I am afraid
that some of our modern satirists are lacking in the
spirit of their profession, and allow themselves to be
made the mouthpieces of that worldly wisdom which
it is their office to rebuke. I can see nothing to sneer
at in the crusader exiling himself from his native
land, and forfeiting his life in the defence of the
Holy Sepulchre; indeed, I am inclined to respect a
man who makes such a sacrifice to a conscientious
conviction: it is a noble conquest of the visible temporal
by the unseen eternal. I can well understand
how such efforts for the protection of a mere empty
tomb would seem worthy of laughter and ridicule to
those who can find no food for satire in the *auri sacra
fames* which has been the motive of modern foreign
expeditions. It would be well for the world could
we bring back something of that age of chivalry
which Edmund Burke regretted so eloquently. We
need it sorely; for we are every day sliding farther
down from its high standard of honour and of unselfish
devotion to principle.

There is a little fishing village about a mile and a
half from Boulogne, on the sea coast towards Calais,
which is celebrated in history as having been the
scene of the landing of Prince Louis Napoleon and
his companions in their unsuccessful attempt to overthrow
the government of Louis Philippe. Napoleon
III. has not distinguished the spot by any memorial;
but he has erected a colossal statue of Napoleon I.
on the spot where that insatiable conqueror, with his
mighty army around him, looked longingly at the
coast of England. There is something of a contrast
between the day thus commemorated and that on
which the "nephew of his uncle" received Queen
Victoria at Boulogne, when she visited France. It
must have been a great satisfaction to Louis Napoleon,
after his life of exile, and particularly after
the studied neglect which he experienced from the
English nobility, to have welcomed the British Queen
to his realm with that kiss which is the token of
equality among sovereigns. Waterloo must have
been blotted out when he saw the Queen—in whose
realm he had served the cause of good order in the
rank of special constable—bending down at his knee
to confer upon him the order of the garter.

In spite of its geographical situation, Boulogne
can hardly be considered a French town. The police
department and the custom house are in the hands of
the French, to be sure; but in the course of a walk
through its streets, you hear much more of the English
than of the French language. You meet those
brown shooting jackets, and checked trousers, and
thick shoes and gaiters that are at home every where
in the "inviolate island of the sage and free." You
cannot turn a corner without coming upon some of
those beefy and beery countenances which symbolize
so perfectly the genius of British civilization, and
hearing the letter H exasperated to a wonderful degree.
Every where you see bevies of young ladies
wearing those peculiar brown straw hats, edged with
black lace, with a brown feather put in horizontally
on one side of the crown, a style of head dress to
which the French and Italians have given the name
of "*Ingleesh spoken here*." There is a large class
among the English population of Boulogne upon
which the disinterested spectator will look with interest
and with pity. I mean those unfortunate persons
who have been obliged by "force of circumstances"
and the importunity of creditors to exile
themselves for a time from their native land. You
see them on every side; and all ranks in society are
represented among them, from the distinguished-looking
man, with the tortoise-shell spectacles, who
ran through his wife's property at the club, to the
pale, unhappy-looking fellow in the loose thread
gloves and sleepless coat. You can distinguish them
at a glance from their fellow-countrymen who have
gone over for purposes of recreation, the poor devils
walk about with such an evident wish to appear to be
doing something or going somewhere. The condition
of the prisoners, or rather the "collegians," in
the old Marshalsea prison, must have been an enviable
one, compared to these unfortunates, condemned
to gaze at the cliffs of Old England from a
distance, and wait vainly for something to turn up.

The arrival and departure of the English steamers
is the only source of excitement that the quiet city
of Boulogne possesses. I was astonished to find,
after being there a day or two, what an interest I
took in those occurrences. I found myself on the
quay with the rest of the foreign population of the
town, an hour before the departure of the boat, to
make sure, like every body else there, that not a
traveller for England should escape my notice. Besides
the pleasure of inspecting the motley crowd of
spectators, I was gratified one day to see the big,
manly form and good-natured ugly face of Thackeray,
following a leathern portmanteau on its path
from the omnibus to the boat. The great satirist
took an observation of the crowd through his spectacles
as if he were making a mental note, to be overhauled
in due season, and then hurried on board, as if
he longed to get back to London among his books.
He had been spending the warm season at the baths
of Hombourg. But the great excitement of the day
is the arrival of the afternoon boat from Folkestone.
It is better as an amusement than many plays that I
have seen, and it has this advantage, (an indispensable
one to a large part of the English population of
Boulogne,) that it costs nothing. During the days
when I was there, the equinoctial gale was in full
blow, and, of course, there was a greater rush than
usual to the quay. It was necessary to go very early
to secure a good place. From the steamer to the
passport office, a distance of two or three hundred
feet, ropes were stretched to keep back the spectators,
forming an avenue some thirty feet wide.
Through this the wretched victims of the "chop sea"
of the Channel were obliged to pass, and listen to the
remarks or laughter which their pitiable condition
excited among the crowd of their disinterested countrymen.
Any person who has ever been seasick can
imagine what it would be to go on shore from a boat
that has just been pitching and rolling about in the
most absurd manner, and try to walk like a Christian,
with the eyes of several hundred amusement-seeking
people fixed upon him. Sympathy is entirely
out of the question. The pallid countenance and
uncertain step, as if the walker were waiting for the
pavement to rise to meet his foot, excite nothing but
mirth in the spectators. The whole scene, including
the lookers-on, was one of the funniest things I ever
saw. The observations of the crowd, too, were well
calculated to heighten the effect. "Ease her when
she pitches," cried out a youngster at my side, as an
old lady, who was supported by a gentleman and a
maid servant, seemed to be trying to accommodate
herself to the motion of the street, and testify her
love for *terra firma* by lying down. "Hard a' starboard,"
shouted another, as a gentleman, with a felt
hat close reefed to his head with a white handkerchief,
sidled along up the leeward side of the passage
way. "That 'ere must 'a been a sewere case of sickness,"
said a little old man, in an advanced state of
seediness, as a tall man, looking defiance at the
crowd, walked ashore with a carpet-bag in his hand,
and an expression on his face very like that of Mr.
Warren, in the farce, when he says, "Shall I slay him
at once, or shall I wait till the cool of the evening?"
"Don't go yet, Mary," said a young gentleman in a
jacket and precocious hat, to his sister, who seemed
to fear that it was about to begin to rain again,—"don't
go yet; the best of all is to come; there's a fat
lady on board who has been *so* sick—we must wait
to see her!" And so they went on, carrying out in
the most exemplary manner that golden rule which,
applied to the period of seasickness, enjoins upon us
that we shall do unto others just as others would do
to us.

.. ——File: 201.png

It is no joke to most people to cross the Channel at
any time, but to cross it on the tail-end of the equinoctial
storm is far from being a humorous matter. I
had crossed from almost all the ports between Havre
and Rotterdam in former years; so I resolved to try
a new route in spite of the weather, and booked myself
for a passage in the boat from Boulogne to London,
direct. The steamer was called the Seine; and
when we had once got into the open sea, a large part
of the passengers seemed to think that they were
*insane* to have come in her. She was a very good
sea-boat, but I could not help contrasting her with
our Sound and Hudson River steamers at home. If
the "General Steam Navigation Company" were to
import a steamer from America like the Metropolis
or the Isaac Newton, there would be a revolution in
the travelling world of England. The people here
would no longer put up with steamers without an
awning or any shelter from sun or rain. After they
had enjoyed the accommodations of one of our great
floating hotels, they would not think of shutting
themselves up in the miserable cabins which people
pay so dearly for here. But to proceed: when we
got fairly out upon the *nasty* deep, I ventured to
gratify my curiosity, as a connoisseur in seasickness,
by a visit to the cabin. If I were in the habit of writing
for the newspapers, I suppose I should say that
the scene "baffled description." It certainly was one
that I shall not soon forget. The most rabid republican
would have been satisfied with the equality that
prevailed there. The squalls that assailed us on deck
were nothing compared to the demonstrations of a
whole regiment of infantry below, who were illustrating,
in a manner worthy of Retsch, one of the
first lines in Shakespeare's Seven Ages. Ladies of
all ages were keeled up on every side in various postures
of picturesque negligence, and with a forgetfulness
of the conventionalities of society quite charming
to look upon. The floor, where it was unoccupied by
prostrate humanity, was nearly covered with hatboxes,
and bonnets, and bowls, and anonymous articles
of crockery ware, which were performing a
lively quadrille, being assisted therein by the motion
of the ship. But a little of such sights, and sounds,
and smells as these goes a great way with me, and I
was glad to return to the wet deck. They had managed
to rig a tarpaulin between the paddle-boxes,
and there I took refuge until the rain ceased. It was
comparatively pleasant weather when we sailed past
Walmer Castle, where that old hero died on whom
all the world has conferred the title of "The Duke";
and of course there was no rough sea as soon as we
got into the Downs. Black-eyed Susan might have
gone on board of any of the fleet of vessels that were
lying there without discolouring her ribbons by a
single dash of spray. Ramsgate and Margate (the
Newport and Cape May of England) looked full of
company as we sailed by them, and crowds of bathers
were battling with the surf. The heavy black yards
of the ships of war loomed up at Sheerness in the
distance, and suggested thoughts of Nelson, and
Dibdin, and Ben Bowlin. Now and then we passed
by some splendid American clipper ship towing up or
down the river, and I felt proud of my nationality as
I contrasted her graceful lines and majestic proportions
with the tub-like models of British origin that
every where met my eye. The dock-yards of Woolwich
seemed like a vast ant-hill for numbers and
busy life. Greenwich, with its fine architecture and
fresh foliage in the distance, was most grateful to
my eyes; and it was pleasing to reflect, as I passed the
observatory, that I could begin to reckon my longitude
to the westward, for it made me feel nearer
home.

.. ——File: 204.png




LONDON
------


No man can really appreciate the grandeur of
London until he has approached it from the
sea. The sail up the river from Gravesend to London
Bridge is a succession of wonders, each one
more overwhelming than that which preceded it.
There is no display of fortifications; but here and
there you see some storm-tossed old hulk, which, having
finished its active career, has been safely anchored
in that repose which powder magazines always enjoy.
As the river grows narrower, the number of
ships, steamers, coal barges, wherries, and boats of
every description, seems to increase; and as you sail
on, the grand panorama of the world-wide commerce
of this great metropolis unfolds before you,
and you are lost, not so much in admiration as in
astonishment. Woolwich, Greenwich, Rotherhithe,
Bermondsey, Blackwall, Millwall, Wapping, &c.,
follow rapidly in the vision, like the phantom kings
before the eyes of the unfortunate Scotch usurper,
until one is temped to inquire with him, whether the
"line will stretch out to the crack of doom." The
buildings grow thicker and more unsightly as you
advance; the black sides of the enormous warehouses
seem to be bulging out over the edge of the wharves
on which they stand; far off, beyond the reach of the
tides, you see the forests of masts that indicate the
site of the docks. The bright green water of the
Channel has been exchanged for the filthy, drain-like
current of the Thames. Hundreds of monstrous
chimneys belch forth the smoke that constitutes the
legitimate atmosphere of London. Every thing
seems to be dressed in the deepest mourning for the
cruel fate of nature, and you look at the distant hills
and bright lawns, over in the direction of Sydenham,
with very much of the feeling that Dives must have
had, when he gazed on the happiness of Lazarus
from his place of torment. Every thing presents a
most striking contrast to the clean, fair cities of the
continent. Paris, with its cream-coloured palaces
adorning the banks of the Seine, seems more beautiful
than ever as you recall it while surrounded by
such sights, and sounds, and smells, as offend your
senses here. The winding Arno, and the towers, and
domes, and bridges, of Florence and Pisa, seem to
belong to a celestial vision rather than to an earthly
reality, as you contrast them with the monuments of
England's commercial greatness. At last, you come
in sight of London Bridge, with its never-ceasing
current of vehicles and human beings crossing it; and
your amazement is crowned by realizing that, notwithstanding
the wonders you have seen, you have
just reached the edge of the city, and that you can
ride for miles and miles through a closely-built labyrinth
of bricks and mortar, hidden under the veil of
smoke before you.

And what a change it is—from Paris to London!
To a Frenchman it must be productive of a suicidal
feeling. The scene has shifted from the sunny
Boulevards to the blackened bricks and mortar,
which neither great Neptune's ocean, nor Lord Palmerston's
anti-smoke enactment can wash clean. In
the place of the smiling, good-humoured Frenchman,
you have the serious, stately Englishman. One
misses the wining courtesy of which a Frenchman's
hat is the instrument, and the ready *pardon* or *merci*
is heard no more. The beggary, the drunkenness,
and the depravity, so apparent on every side, appall
one. Paris *may* be the most immoral city in the
world; but there, vice must be sought for in its own
haunts. Here in London, it prowls up and down in
the streets, seeking for its victims. Put all the other
European capitals together, and I do not believe that
you could meet with so much to pain and disgust you
as you would in one hour in the streets of London.
And yet, with all this staring people in the face here,
how do they go to work to remedy it? They pass
laws enforcing the suspension of business on Sundays,
and when they succeed in keeping all the shutters
closed, by fear of the law, they fold their arms,
and say, "See what a godly nation is this!" If this
is not "making clean the outside of the cup and platter,"
what is it? For my part, I much prefer that
perfect religious liberty which allows each man to
keep Sunday as he pleases; and the recent improvement
in the observance of the day in France is all the
more gratifying, because it does not spring from any
compulsory motive. Let the Jews keep the *Sabbath*
as they are commanded to in the Old Testament; but
*Sunday* is the Christian's day, and Sunday is a day of
festivity and rejoicing, and not of fasting and penitential
sadness.

Despite the smoke, and the lack of continental
courtesy which is felt on arriving from France, despite
the din and hurry, I cannot help loving London.
The very names of the streets have been mad classical
by writers whose works are a part of our own
intellectual being. The illustrious and venerable
names of Barclay and Perkins, of Truman, Hanbury,
and Buxton, that meet our eyes at every corner, are
the synonymes of English hospitality and cheer. It
is a pleasure, too, to hear one's native language
spoken on all sides, after so many months of French
twang. The hissing and sputtering English seems
under such circumstances to be more musical than the
most elegant phrases of the Tuscan in the mouth of
a dignified Roman. Even the omnibus conductors'
talk about the "Habbey," the "Benk," 'Igh 'Olborn,
&c., does not offend the ear, so delightful does it
seem to be able to say beefsteak instead of *biftek*.
The odour of brown stout that prevails every where
is as fragrant as the first sniff of the land breeze
after a long voyage. Temple Bar is eloquent of the
genius of Hogarth, whose deathless drawings first
made its ugly form familiar to your youthful eyes in
other lands. The very stones of Fleet Street prate of
Dr. Johnson and Goldsmith. You walk into Bolt
Court, and if you feel as I do the associations of the
place, you eat a chop in the tavern that stands where
stood the house of Dr. Johnson. Then you cross
over the way to Inner Temple Lane, and mourn over
the march of improvement when you see that its
sacrilegious hand is sweeping away a row of four
brick houses, which, dilapidated and unsightly as
they may appear, are dear to every lover of English
literature. In No. 1, formerly dwelt Dr. Johnson;
in No. 4, Charles Lamb. You walk into the Temple
Church, and muse over the effigies of the knights
who repose there in marble or bronze, or go into the
quiet Temple Gardens, and meditate on the wars of
the red and white roses that were plucked there centuries
ago, before the iron fences were built. It
would be as difficult to pluck any roses there now as
the most zealous member of the Peace Society could
wish. You climb up Ludgate Hill, getting finely
spattered by the cabs and omnibuses, and find yourself
at St. Paul's. You smile when you think that
that black pile of architecture, with its twopenny fee
of admission, was intended to rival St. Peter's, and
your smile becomes audible when you enter it, and
see that while the images of the Saviour and the
Saints may not be "had and retained," the statues of
admirals and generals are considered perfectly in
place there. You walk out with the conviction that
consistency is a jewel, and tread a pavement that is
classical to every lover of books. Paternoster Row
receives you, and you slowly saunter through it. Nobody
walks rapidly through Paternoster Row. Situated
midway between the bustle and turmoil of
Ludgate Hill and Cheapside, it is a kind of resting-place
for pedestrians. They breathe the more quiet
air of bookland there, and the windows are a temptation
which few loiterers can withstand.

The old church of St. Mary le Bow reminds you
that you are at the very centre of Cockneydom, as
you walk on towards the Bank and the Exchange.
Crossing the street at the risk of your life through a
maze of snorting horses and rattling wheels, you get
into Cornhill. Here the faces that you see are a
proof that the anxious, money-getting look is not confined
to the worshippers of the almighty dollar. You
push on until you reach Eastcheap. How great is
your disappointment! The very name has called up
all your recollections of the wild young prince and his
fat friend—but nothing that you see there serves to
heighten your Shakespearean enthusiasm. Coal-heavers
and draymen make the air vocal with their
oaths and slang, which once resounded with the
laughter of Jack Falstaff and his jolly companions.
No Mistress Quickly stands in the doorway of any
of the numerous taverns. The whole scene is a great
falling-off from what you had imagined of Eastcheap.
The sanded floors, the snowy window curtains,
the bright pewter pots, have given way to dirt
and general frowsiness. You read on a card in a
window that within you can obtain "a go of brandy
for sixpence, and a go of gin for fourpence," and
that settles all your Falstaffian associations. You
stop to look at an old brick house which is being
pulled down, for you think that perhaps its heavy
timbered ceilings, and low windows, and Guy
Fawkesy entries date back to Shakespeare's times;
but you are too much incommoded by the dust from
its crumbling walls to stop long, and you leave the
place carrying with you the only reminder of Falstaff
you have seen there—you leave with *lime in your
sack*!

I know of nothing better calculated to take down
a man's self-esteem than a walk through the streets
of London. To a man who has always lived in a
small town, where every second person he meets is an
acquaintance, a walk from Hyde Park corner to
London Bridge must be a crusher. If that does not
convince him that he is really of very little importance
in the world, he is past cure. The whirl of
vehicles, the throngs upon the sidewalks, seem to
overwhelm and blot out our own individuality.
Xerxes cried when he gazed upon his assembled
forces, and reflected that out of all that vast multitude
not one person would be alive in a hundred
years. Xerxes ought to have ridden through Oxford
Street or the Strand on the top of an omnibus.
Spitalfields and Bandanna (two places concerning
the geography of which I am rather in the dark)
could not have furnished him with handkerchiefs to
dry his eyes.

I was never so struck with the lack of architectural
beauty in London as I have been during this
visit. There are, it is true, a few fine buildings—Westminster
Abbey, St. Paul's, Somerset House,
&c.; but they are all as black as my hat, with this
soot in which all London is clothed; so there is really
very little beauty about them. The new Houses of
Parliament are a fine pile of buildings, certainly, and
the lately finished towers are a pleasing feature in
the view from the bridges; but they are altogether
too gingerbready to wear well. They lack boldness
of light and shade; and this lack is making itself
more apparent every day as the smoke of the city is
enveloping them in its everlasting shade. Buckingham
Palace looks like a second rate American hotel,
and as to St. James, the barracks at West Point are
far more palatial than that. It is not architecture,
however, that we look for in London. It has a
charm in spite of all its deformities,—in spite of its
climate, which is such an encouragement to the umbrella
makers—in spite of its smoky atmosphere,
through which the sun looks like a great copper ball—in
spite of the mud, which the water-carts insure
when the dark skies fail in the discharge of their
daily dues to the metropolis. London, with all thy
fogs, I love thee still! It is this great agglomeration
of towns which we call London—this great human
family of more than two millions and a half of
beings that awakens our sympathy. It is the fact
that through England we Americans trace our relationship
to the ages that are past. It is the fact that
we are here surrounded by the honoured tombs of
heroes and wise men, whose very names have become,
as it were, a part of our own being. These are
the things that bind us to London, and which make
the aureola of light that hangs over it at night time
seem a crown of glory.

But we must not forget that there is a dark side to
the picture. There is a serious drawback to all our
enthusiasm. Poverty and vice beset us at every step.
Beggary more abject than all the world besides can
show appeals to us at every crossing. The pale
hollow cheek and sunken eye tell such a story of want
as no language can express. The mother, standing
in a doorway with her two hungry-looking children,
and imploring the passers-by to purchase some of the
netting work her hands have executed, is a sight that
touches your heart. But walk into some of those
lanes and alleys which abound almost under the
shadow of the Houses of Parliament and the royal
residence,—slums "whose atmosphere is typhus, and
whose ventilation is cholera,"—and the sentiment of
pity is lost in one of fear. There you see on every
side that despair and recklessness which spring from
want and neglect. Walk through Regent Street, and
the Haymarket, and the Strand in the evening, and
you shall be astonished at the gay dresses and painted
cheeks that surround you. The rummy atmosphere
reëchoes with profanity from female lips. From
time to time you are obliged to shake off the vice and
crinoline that seek to be companions of your walk.

There is a distinguished prize-fighter here—one
Benjamin Caunt. He keeps a gin shop in St. Martin's
Lane, and rejoices in a profitable business and
the title of the "Champion of England." He transacted
a little business in the prize-fighting line over
on the Surrey side of the river a few days ago, and is
to sustain the honour of England against another
antagonist to-morrow. During the entire week his
gin shop has been surrounded by admiring crowds,
anxious to catch a glimpse of the hero. And such
crowds! It would be wronging the lowest of the race
of quadrupeds to call those people beastly and brutal
wretches. Most Americans think that the Bowery
and Five Points can rival almost any thing in the
world for displays of all that is disgusting in society;
but London leaves us far behind. I stopped several
times to note the character of Mr. Caunt's constituents.
There were men there with flashy cravats
around necks that reminded me of Mr. Buckminster's
Devon cattle—their hair cropped close for obvious
reasons—moving about among the crowd, filling the
air with damns and brandy fumes. There were
others in a more advanced stage of "fancy" existence—men
with all the humanity blotted out of them, not
a spark of intellect left in their beery countenances.
There were women drabbled with dirt, soggy with
liquor, with eyes artificially black. There were children
pale and stunted from the use of gin, or bloated
with beer, assuming the swagger of the blackguards
around them, and looking as old and depraved as
any of them. It seemed as if hell were empty and all
the devils were there. The police—those guardians
of the public weal, who are so efficient when a poor
woman is trying to earn her bread by selling a few
apples—so prompt to make the well-intentioned
"move on"—did not appear to interfere. They evidently
considered the street to be blockaded for a
just cause, and looked as if, in aiding people to get a
look at the Champion of England, they were sustaining
the honour of England herself.

And this is the same England that assumes to
teach other nations the science of benevolence. This
is the same England that laments over the tyranny of
continental governments, and boasts of how many
millions of Bibles it has sent to people who could not
read them if they would, and would not if they
could. This is the same England that turns up the
whites of its eyes at American slavery, and wishes
to teach the King of Naples how to govern. Why,
you can spend months in going about the worst quarters
of the continental cities, and not see so much of
vice and poverty as you can in the great thoroughfares
of London in a single day. There is vice
enough in every large city, as we all know; but in
most of them it has to be sought for by its votaries—in
London it goes about seeking whom it may devour.
The press of England may try to advance the interests
of a prime minister anxious to get possession of
Sicily by slandering Ferdinand of Naples; but every
body knows, who has visited that fair kingdom, that
there are few monarchs more public spirited and
popular with all classes of their subjects than he.
Every body knows that there is no class in that community
corresponding to the prize-fighting class in
London—that the horrors of the mining districts are
unknown there, and that an English workhouse
would make even an Englishman blush when compared
with those magnificent institutions that relieve
the poor of Italy. I had rather be sold at auction in
Alabama any day than to take my chance as a denizen
of the slums of London, or as a worker in the
coal mines. I have no patience with this telescopic
philanthropy of the English, while there are abuses
all around them so much greater than those that disgrace
any other civilized country. What can be more
disgusting than this pharisaical cant—this thanking
God that they are not as others are—extortioners
and slaveholders—when you look at the real condition
of things? Englishmen always boast that their
country has escaped the revolutionary storm which
has so many times swept over Europe during this
century, and would try to persuade people that there
is little or no discontent here. The fact is, the lower
classes in this country have been so ground down by
the money power and the force of the government,
and are so ignorant and vicious, that they cannot be
organized into a revolutionary force. Walk through
Whitechapel, and observe the people there—contrast
them with the *blouses* in the Faubourg St. Antoine—and
you will acknowledge the truth of this.
The people in the manufacturing districts in France
are, indeed, far from being models of morality or of
intellectual culture; but they have retained enough of
the powers of humanity to make them very dangerous,
when collected under the leadership of
demagogues of the school of Ledru Rollin. But the
farming districts of France have remained comparatively
free from the infection of socialism and infidelity.
The late Henry Colman, in his agricultural
tour, found villages where almost the entire population
went to mass every morning, before commencing
the labour of the day. But the degradation of the
labouring classes of England is not confined to the
manufacturing towns; the peasantry is in a most
demoralized condition: the Chartist leaders found
nearly as great a proportion of adherents among the
farm labourers as among the distressed operatives
of Birmingham and Sheffield; and Mormonism
counts its victims among both of those neglected
classes by thousands. It is, perhaps, all very well for
ambitious orators to make the House of Commons
or Exeter Hall resound with their denunciations of
French usurpations, Austrian tyranny, Neapolitan
dungeons, Russian serfdom, and American slavery;
but thinking men, when they note these enthusiastic
demonstrations of philanthropy, cannot help thinking
of England's workhouses, the brutalized workers
in her coal mines and factories, and her oppressive
and cruel rule in Ireland and in India; and it strikes
them as strange that a country, whose eyesight is
obstructed by a beam of such extraordinary magnitude,
should be so exceedingly solicitous about the
motes that dance in the vision of its neighbours.

.. ——File: 217.png




ESSAYS
======

.. ——File: 219.png




STREET LIFE
-----------


Thomas Carlyle introduces his philosophical
friend, Herr Teufelsdröckh, to his
readers, seated in his watch-tower, which overlooks
the city in which he dwells; and from which he can
look down into that bee-hive of human kind, and see
every thing "from the palace esplanade where music
plays, while His Serene Highness is pleased to eat
his victuals, down to the low lane where in her doorsill
the aged widow, knitting for a thin livelihood,
sits to feel the afternoon sun." He draws an animated
picture of that busy panorama which is ever
unrolling before Teufelsdröckh's eyes, and moralizes
upon the scene in the spirit of a true poet who has
struck upon a theme worthy of his lyre. And, most
assuredly, Thomas is right. The daisies and buttercups
are all very well in their way; but, as raw material
for poetry, what are they to the deep-furrowed
pavement and the blackened chimney-pots of a city!
In spite of all our pantheistic rhapsodies, man is the
noblest of natural productions, and the worthiest
subject for the highest and holiest of poetic raptures.
My old friend, the late Mr. Wordsworth, delighted
to anathematize the railway companies, and raved
finely about Nature never betraying the heart that
loves her; he said that

   |       "——the sounding cataract
   | Haunted him like a passion: the tall rock,
   | The mountain and the deep and gloomy wood,
   | Their colours and their forms, were then to him
   | An appetite;—"

and confessed that to him

   |   "——the meanest flower that blows could give
   | Thoughts that too often lie too deep for tears."

Yet notwithstanding all this, he was constrained to
acknowledge when he stood upon Westminster
Bridge, and saw the vast, dingy metropolis of Britain
wearing like a garment the beauty of the morning,
that

   | "Earth has not anything to show more fair,—
   | Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
   | A sight so touching in its majesty."

When I was a young man, it was my delight to
brush with early steps the dew away, and meet the
sun upon the upland lawn. There was a romantic
feeling about it that I liked, and I did not object to
wet feet. But I have long since put away that depraved
taste, although the recent application of
India rubber to shoeing purposes has obviated the
inconvenience of its gratification. Now, I am contented
if I can find a level pavement and a clean
crossing, and will gladly give up the woods and
verdant fields to less prosaic and more youthful people.
Your gout is a sad interferer with early poetical
prejudices—but in my own case it has shown me that
all such things, like most of our youthful notions, are
mere fallacies. It has convinced me that the poetical
abounds rather in the smoky, narrow streets of cities,
than in the green lanes, the breezy hills, and the
broad fields of the country. Like the toad, ugly and
venomous, that fell disease is not without its jewel.
It has reconciled me to life in town, and has shown
me all its advantages and beauties.

If it be true that "the proper study of mankind is
man," then are the crowded streets of the city more
improving and elevating to us (if rightly meditated
upon) than the academic groves. If you desire society,—in
a city you may find it to your taste, however
fastidious you may be. If you are a lover of
solitude, where can you be more solitary than in the
very whirl of a multitude of people intent upon their
own pursuits, and all unknown to you! That honey-tongued
doctor, St. Bernard, said that he was never
less alone than when alone—a sentiment which, in its
reversed form, might be uttered by any denizen of a
metropolis. I always loved solitude: the old monastic
inscription was always a favourite motto of
mine:—

   | "O beata solitudo!
   | O sola beatitudo!"

But I have never found any solitude like the streets
of a large city. I have walked in the cool, quiet
cloister of *Santa Maria degli Angeli*, built amid the
ruins of the baths of Diocletian, and—though my
footfall was the only sound save the rustling of the
foliage, and the song of the birds, and the bubbling
of a fountain which seemed tired with its centuries of
service, and which seemed to make the stillness and
repose of that spacious quadrangle more profound—I
could not feel so perfectly alone there as I have
often felt in the thronged Boulevards or the busy
Strand. Place a mere worldling in those holy precincts,
and he would summon mentally around him
the companions of his past pleasures, and his worldliness
would be increased by his thus being driven to
his only resources for overcoming the ungrateful
quiet of the place. Introduce a religious man to
those consecrated shades, and his devotion would be
quickened; he would soon forget the world which he
had not loved and which had not loved him, and his
face would soon be as unwrinkled, his eye as serene,
as those of the monks who dwell there. But place
either of them in the most crowded thoroughfare of
the city, and the worldling would be made for a time
as meditative as the other. When I was a child, I
delighted to watch the busy inhabitants of an ant-hill,
pursuing their various enterprises with an intentness
almost human; and I should be tempted to
continue my observations of them, were it not that
the streets of my native city offer me a similar, but a
more interesting study. Xerxes, we are told, shed
tears when he saw his army drawn up before him,
and reflected that not one of all that mighty host
would be alive a century after. Who could ride from
Paddington to London Bridge, through the current
of human life that flows ceaselessly through the
streets of that great city, without sharing somewhat
in the feelings of that tender-hearted monarch?

What are all the sermons that ever were preached
from a pulpit, compared to those which may be
found in the stones of a city? When we visit Pompeii
and Herculaneum, we are thrilled to notice the
ruts made by the wheels of chariots centuries ago.
The original pavement of the Appian Way, now for
some distance visible, carries us back more than almost
any of the other antiquities of Rome, to the
time when it was trodden by captive kings, and re-echoed
with the triumphal march of returning conquerors.
I pity him in whom these things awaken
no new train of thought. The works of man have
outlived their builders by centuries, and still remain
a solemn testimony to the power and the nothingness
which originated them. Nineveh, Thebes, Troy,
Carthage, Tyre, Athens, Rome, London, Paris, have
won the crown in their turn, and have passed or will
pass away. The dilapidated sculptures of the former
have been taken to adorn the museums of the latter,
and crowds have gazed and are gazing on them with
curious eyes, unmindful of their great lesson of the
transitoriness of the glory of the world. These are,
indeed, "sermons in stones"; but, like most other
sermons, we look rather at their style of finish, than
at the deep meaning with which they are so pregnant.

But I did not take up my pen to write about dead
cities; I have somewhat to say about the life that
now renders the streets of our own towns so pleasant,
and makes us so forgetful of their inevitable
fate. I am not going to claim for the street life of
our new world the charms which abound in the ancient
cities of Europe. We are too much troubled
about many things, and too utilitarian to give
thought to those lesser graces which delight us
abroad, and which we hardly remember until we
come home and miss them. Our street architecture,
improved though it may have been within a few
years, is yet far behind the grace and massive symmetry
of European towns. Our builders and real
estate owners need to be reminded that it costs no
more to build in good taste than in bad; that brick
work can be made as architectural as stone; and that
architecture is a great public instructor, whose works
are constantly open to the public eye, and from
which we are learning lessons, good or bad, whether
we will or not. I think it is Goethe who calls architecture
frozen music. I am glad to see these tall
piles rearing their ornamented fronts on every side
of us, even though they are intended for purposes of
trade; for every one of them is a reproach to the
untasteful structures around it, and an example
which future builders must copy, if they do not surpass.
The quaint beauty which charms us in Rouen,
and in the old towns of Belgium,—the high pitched
gables leaning over, as if yearning to get across the
narrow street,—these all belong to another age, and
we may not possess them; but the architecture
which, in its simplicity or its magnificence, speaks its
adaptedness to our climate and our social wants, is
within our reach, and is capable of making our cities
equal to any in the world.

I have a great liking for streets. In the freshness
of morning, the glare of noonday, and the coolness
of evening, they have an equal charm for me. I like
that market-carty period of the day, before Labour
has taken up his shovel and his hoe, before the sun
has tipped the chimneys with gold, and reinspired the
dolorous symphony of human toil, just as his earliest
beams were wont to draw supernal melodies from
old Memnon's statue. There is a holy quiet in that
hour, which, could we preserve it in our minds, would
keep us clear from many a wrong and meanness, into
which the bustle and the heat of passion betray us,
and would sanctify our day. In that time, the city
seems wrapped in a silent ecstasy of adoration. The
incense of its worship curls up from innumerous
chimneys, and hangs over it like the fragrant cloud
which hovers over the altars where saints have
prayed, and religion's most august rites have been
celebrated for centuries. In the continental cities,
large numbers of people may be seen at that early
hour repairing to the churches. They are drawn together
by no spasmodic, spiritual stimulation; they
do not assemble to hear their fellow-sinners tell with
nasal twang how bad they were once, and how good
they are now, nor to implore the curse of Heaven
upon those who differ from them in their belief or
disbelief. They kneel beneath those consecrated
arches, joining in a worship in which scarce an audible
word is uttered, and drawing from it new
strength to tread the thorns of life. In our own
cities, too, people—generally of the poorer classes—may
be seen wending their way in the early morning
to churches and chapels, humbler than the marble
and mosaic sanctuaries of Europe, but one with them
in that faith and worship which radiates from the
majestic Lateran basilica, (*omnium urbis et orbis
ecclesiarum mater et caput*,) and encircles the world
with its anthems and supplications.

A little later in the morning, and the silence is
broken by the clattering carts of the dispensers of
that fluid without which custards would be impossible.
The washing of doorsteps and sidewalks, too,
begins to interfere with your perambulations, and to
dim the lustre which No. 97, High Holborn, has imparted
to your shoes. Bridget leans upon her wet
broom, and talks with Anne, who leaves her water-pail
for a little conference, in which the affairs of the
two neighbouring families of Smith and Jenkins receive,
you may be sure, due attention. Men smoking
short and odorous pipes, and carrying small, mysterious-looking
tin pails, begin to awaken the echoes
with their brogans, and to prove him a slanderer who
should say they have no music in their soles. Newspaper
carriers, bearing the damp chronicles of the
world's latest history bestrapped to their sides, hurry
along, dispensing their favours into areas and doorways,
seasoning my friend Thompson's breakfast
with the reports of the councils of kings, or with the
readable inventions of "our own correspondent," and
delighting the gentle Mrs. Thompson with a full list
of deaths and marriages, or another fatal railway
accident. Then the omnibuses begin to rattle and
jolt along the streets, carrying such masculine loads
that they deserve for the time to be called mail
coaches. Later, an odour as of broiled mackerel
salutes the sense; school children, with their shining
morning faces, begin to obstruct your way, and the
penny postman, with his burden of joy and sorrow,
hastens along and rings peremptorily at door after
door. Then the streets assume by degrees a new
character. Toil is engaged in its workshops and in
by-places, and staid respectability, in its broadcloth
and its glossy beaver, wends its deliberate way to its
office or its counting-house, unhindered by aught that
can disturb its equanimity, unless, perchance, it meets
with a gang of street-sweepers in the full exercise of
their dusty avocation.

.. ——File: 226.png

Who can adequately describe that most inalienable
of woman's rights—that favourite employment
of the sex—which is generally termed *shopping*?
Who can describe the curiosity which overhauls a
wilderness of dress patterns, and the uncomplaining
patience of the shopman who endeavours to suit the
lady so hard to be suited,—his well-disguised disappointment
when she does not purchase, and her husband's
exasperation when she does? Not I, most
certainly, for I detest shops, have little respect for
fashions, lament the necessity of buying clothes, and
wish most heartily that we could return to the
primeval fig-leaves.

I love the by-streets of a city—the streets whose
echoes are never disturbed by the heavy-laden
wagons which bespeak the greatness of our manufacturing
interests. Formerly the houses in such
streets wore an air of sobriety and respectability, and
the good housewifery which reigned within was symbolized
by the bright polish of the brass door-plate,
or bell-pull, or knocker. Now they are grown more
pretentious, and the brass has given place to an outward
and visible sign of silver. But the streets
retain their old characteristics, and are strangers to
any sound more inharmonious than the shouts of
sportive children, or the tones of a hand-organ. I do
not profess to be a musical critic, but I have been
gifted by nature with a tolerable idea of time and
tune; yet I am not ashamed to say that I do not
despise hand-organs. They have given me "Sweet
Home" in the cities of Italy, Yankee Doodle in the
Faubourg St. Germain; and the best melodies of
Europe's composers are daily ground out under my
windows. I have no patience with these canting people
who talk about productive labour, and who see in
the organ-grinder who limps around, looking up expectantly
for the remunerating copper, only a vagabond
whom it is expedient for the police to counsel
to "move on." These peripatetic dispensers of harmony
are full as useful members of society as the
majority of our legislators, and have a far more
practical talent for organization. Douglas Jerrold
once said that he never saw an Italian image merchant,
with his Graces, and Venuses, and Apollos at
sixpence a head, that he did not spiritually touch his
hat to him: "It is he who has carried refinement into
the poor man's house; it is he who has accustomed
the eyes of the multitude to the harmonious forms of
beauty." Let me apply these kindly expressions of
the dead dramatist and wit to the organ-grinders.
They have carried music into lanes and slums, which,
without them, would never have known any thing
more melodious than a watchman's rattle, and have
made the poorest of our people familiar with harmonies
that might "create a soul under the ribs of
death." Occasionally their music may be instrumental
in producing a feeling of impatience, so that I
wish that their "Mary Ann" were married off, and
that Norma would "hear," and make an end of it;
but my better feelings triumph in the end, and I
would not interfere with the poor man's and the
children's concert to hear a strain from St. Cecilia's
viol. Let the grinders be encouraged! May the evil
days foretold in ancient prophecy never come among
us, when the grinders shall cease because they are
few!

.. ——File: 224.png

It is at evening that the poetic element is found
most abundant in the streets of cities. There is to
me something of the sublime in the long lines of glittering
shop-windows that skirt Regent Street and the
Boulevards. Dr. Johnson exhorted the people who
attended the sale of his friend Thrale's brewery,
to remember that it was not the mere collection of
boilers, and tubs, and vats which they saw around
them, for which they were about to bargain, but "the
potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of
avarice"; and, in a similar spirit, I see in the shop
windows not merely the silks and laces, and the other
countless luxuries and wonders which delight the eye
of taste and form the source of wealth to multitudes,
but a vast exposition of the results of that industry,
which, next to religion and obedience to law, is the
surest foundation of national greatness, and which
shows us, behind the frowning Providence that laid
on man the curse of labour, the smiling face of divine
beneficence. There, in one great collection, may be
seen the fruits of the toil of millions. To produce
that gorgeous display, artists have cudgelled their
weary brains; operatives have suffered; ship-masters
have strained their eyes over their charts and daily
observations, and borne patiently with the provoking
vagaries of the "lee main brace"; sailors have
climbed the icy rigging and furled the tattered topsails
with hands cracked and bleeding; for that, long
trains of camels freighted with the rich products of
the golden East, "from silken Samarcand to cedared
Lebanon," have toiled with their white-turbaned
drivers across the parching desert; thousands of busy
hands have plied the swift shuttle in the looms of
Brussels, and Tournai, and Lyons; and thousands in
deep and almost unfathomable mines have suffered a
living death. Manchester and Birmingham have
been content to wear their suit of mourning that
those windows may be radiant and gay. The tears,
and sweat, and blood of myriads have been poured
out behind those shining panes transmuted into
shapes that fill the beholder with wonder and delight.
"In our admiration of the plumage we forget the
dying bird." Nevertheless, above the roar and
bustle of those whirling thoroughfares, above the
endless groan and "infinite fierce chorus" of manhood
ground down, and starving in bondage more cruel
because it does not bear the name of slavery, I hear
the carol of virtuous and well-rewarded labour, and
the cheerful song of the white-capped lace-makers of
Belgium and the vine-dressers of Italy reminds me
that powerful wrong does not have every thing its
own way even in this world.

I did intend to have gone farther in my evening
walk; but time and space alike forbid it. I wished to
leave the loud roaring avenues for those more quiet
streets, where every sight and sound speak of domestic
comfort, or humble fidelity, or patient effort;
where the brilliancy of splendid mansions is but imperfectly
veiled by rich and heavy draperies; where
high up gleams the lamp of the patient student,
happy in his present obscurity because he dreams of
coming fame; and where the tan on the pavement
and the mitigated light from the windows are
eloquent of suffering and the sleepless affection that
ministers to its unspoken wants. But I must stop.
If, however, I have shown one of my readers, who
regrets that he is obliged to dwell in a city, that there
is much that is beautiful in paved streets and smoke-stained
walls, and that, if we only open our eyes to
see them, even though the fresh fields and waving
woods may be miles away, the beauties of nature
daily fold us in their bosom,—I shall feel that I have
not tasked my tired brain and gouty right hand entirely
in vain.

.. ——File: 221.png




HARD UP IN PARIS
----------------


Money, whatever those who affect misanthropy
or a sublime superiority to all temporal
things may say to the contrary, is a very
desirable thing. We all enjoy the visit of the great
Alexander to the contented inhabitant of the imperishable
tub, who was alike independent of the good
will and displeasure of that mighty monarch; we
sympathize with all the bitter things that Timon says
when he is reduced from wealth to beggary; and we
are never tired of lamenting, with Virgil, that the
human heart should be such an abject prey to this
accursed hunger for gold. I am not sure that Horace
would not be dearer to us, if he had lived in a "three-pair-back"
in some obscure street, and his deathless
odes had been inspired by fear of a shrewish landlady
or an inexorable sheriff, instead of being an
honoured guest at the imperial court, and a recipient
of the splendid patronage of a Mæcenas and an
Augustus. Poetical justice seems to require a setting
of the most cheerless poverty for the full development
of the lustre of genius. At least, we think so,
at times;—though, under it all, admire as we may the
successful struggles of the want-stricken bard,—we
do not envy him his penury. We should shrink from
his gifts and his fame, if they were offered to us with
his sufferings. For underneath our abstract magnanimity
lurks the conviction that money is by no
means a bad thing, after all. Our enthusiasm is
awakened by contemplating the self-forgetful career
of Francis of Assisi, who chose Poverty for his bride,
and whose name is in benediction among men, even
six centuries after he entered into possession of that
kingdom which was promised to the poor in spirit;
and, if we should chance to see a more modern bearer
of that Christian name, who worshipped the wealth
which the ancient saint despised; who trampled down
honest poverty in his unswerving march towards opulence;
who looked unmoved upon the tears of the
widow and the orphan; who exercised his sordid
apostolate even to the last gasp of his miserable life;
and whose name (unblessed by the poor, and unhonoured
by canonization) became, in the brief period
that it outlived him, a byword and a synonyme of
avarice,—we should not fail to visit his memory with
a cordial malediction. But, in spite of all our veneration
for Francis, the apostle of holy poverty, and of
loathing for his namesake, the apostle of unholy
wealth, we cannot help wishing that we had a little
more of that which the Saint cast away, and the miser
took in exchange for his soul.

A little more—that is the phrase—and there is no
human being, rich or poor, who does not think that
"a little more" is all that is needed to fill up the
measure of his earthly happiness. It is for this that
the gambler risks his winnings, and the merchant
perils the gains of many toilsome years. For this,
some men labour until they lose the faculty of enjoying
the fruit of their exertions; and this is the *ignis
fatuus* that goes dancing on before others, leading
them at last into that bog of bankruptcy from which
they never wholly extricate themselves. Enough is
a word unknown in the lexicon of those who have
once tasted the joy of having money at interest, and
there are very few men who practically appreciate
the wisdom of the ancient dramatist who tells us that

   | "He is most rich who stops at competence,—
   | Not labours on till the worn heart grows sere,—
   | Who, wealth attained, upon some loftier aim
   | Fixes his gaze, and never turns it backward."

"Give me neither poverty nor riches," has been my
prayer through life, as it was that of the ancient
sage; and it has always been my opinion that a man
who owns even a single acre of land within a convenient
distance of State Street or of the Astor House,
is just as well off as if he were rich. My petition has
been answered: but it must be confessed that when I
mouse in the book shops, or turn over the rich portfolios
of the print dealers, I feel that I am poor indeed.
I do not envy him who can adorn the walls of
his dwelling with the masterpieces of ancient or
modern art on their original canvas; but I do crave
those faithful reproductions which we owe to the
engraver's skill, and which come so near my grasp
as to aggravate my covetousness, and make me speak
most disrespectfully of my unelastic purse.

Few people have spent any considerable time
abroad without being for a season in straitened circumstances.
A mistake may have been made in reckoning
up one's cash, or a bill may be longer than was
expected, or one's banker may temporarily suspend
payment; and suddenly he who never knew a moment's
anxiety about his pecuniary affairs finds himself
wondering how he can pay for his lodgings, and
where his next day's beefsteak is coming from. It
was my good fortune once to undergo such a trial in
Paris. I say good fortune—for, unpleasant as it was
at the time, it was one of the most precious experiences
of my life. I do not think that a true, manly
character can be formed without placing the subject
in the position of a ship's helm, when she is in danger
of getting aback; to speak less technically, he must
(once in his life, at least) be *hard up*.

I was younger in those days than I am now, and
was living for a time in the gay capital of France.
My lodgings were in one of those quiet streets that
lead to the *Place Ventadour*, in which the Italian
Opera House stands. My room was about twelve
feet square, was handsomely furnished, and decorated
with a large mirror, and a polished oaken floor
that rivalled the mirror in brilliancy. Its window
commanded an unobstructed view of a court-yard
about the size of the room itself; but, as I was pretty
high up (on the second floor coming down) my light
was good, and I could not complain. As I write, it
seems as if I could hear the old *concierge* blacking
boots and shoes away down at the bottom of that
well of a court-yard, enlivening his toil with an occasional
snatch from some old song, and now and then
calling out to his young wife within the house, with a
clear voice, "Marie!"—the accent of the final syllable
being prolonged in a preternatural manner.
And then out of the same depths came a melodious
response from Marie's blithesome voice, that made
me stop shaving to enjoy it—a voice that seemed in
perfect harmony with the cool breath and bright sky
of that sunny spring morning. Marie was a representative
woman of her class. I do not believe that
she could have been placed in any honest position,
however high, that she would not have adorned. Her
simplicity and good nature conciliated the good will
of every one who addressed her, and I have known
her quiet, lady-like dignity to inspire even some loud
and boastful Americans, who called on me, with a
momentary sentiment of respect. They appeared
almost like gentlemen for two or three minutes after
speaking with her. Upon my honour, sir, it was
worth considerably more than I paid for my room to
have the privilege of living under the same roof with
such a cheery sunbeam—to see her seated daily at the
window of the *conciergerie* with a snow-white cap on
her head and a pleasant smile on her face; to interrupt
her sewing, with an inquiry whether any letters
had come for me, and be charmed with her alacrity
in handing me the expected note, and the key of
*numero dix-huit*. Her nightly *Bon soir, M'sieur*, was
like a benediction from a guardian angel; her vivacious
*Bon jour* was an augury of an untroubled day;
it would have made the darkest, foggiest November
afternoon seem as bright, and fresh, and exhilarating
as a morning in June. These are trifles, I know,
but it is of trifles such as these that the true happiness
of life is made up. Great joys, like great griefs, do
not possess the soul so completely as we think, as
Wellington victorious, or Napoleon defeated, at
Waterloo, would have discovered, if, in that great
hour, they had been visited with a twinge of neuralgia
in the head, or a gnawing dyspepsia.

The influenza, or *grippe*, as the French call it, is
not a pleasant thing under any circumstances; but I
think of a four days' attack, during which Marie attended
to my wants, as a period of unmixed pleasure.
She seemed to hover about my sick bed, she moved
so gently, and her voice (to use the words of my
former cherished friend, S. T. Coleridge,) was like

   |     "——a hidden brook
   |   In the leafy month of June,
   | That to the sleeping woods all night
   |   Singeth a quiet tune."

"Was it that Monsieur would be able to drink a little
tea, or would it please him to taste some cool lemonade?"
*Hélas!* Monsieur was too *malade* for that;
but the kind attentions of that estimable little woman
were more refreshing than a Baltic Sea of the
beverage that cheers but does not inebriate, or all the
aid that the lemon groves of Italy could afford. Marie's
politeness was the genuine article, and came
right from her pure, kind heart. It was as far removed
from that despicable obsequiousness which
passes current with so many for politeness, as old-fashioned
Christian charity is from modern philanthropy.

But—pardon my garrulity—I am forgetting my
story. In a moment of kindly forgetfulness I lent a
considerable portion of my available funds to a
friend who was short, and who was obliged to return
to America, *via* England. I was in weekly expectation
of a draft from home that would place me once
more upon my financial legs. One, two, three weeks
passed away, and the letters from America were distributed
every Tuesday morning, but there was none
for me. It gave me a kind of faint sensation when
the clerk at the banker's gave me the disappointing
answer, and I went into the reading-room of the
establishment to read the new American papers, and
to speculate upon the cause of the unremitting neglect
of my friends at home. I shall never forget my
feelings when, in the third week of my impecuniosity,
I found my exchequer reduced to the small sum of
eight francs. I saw the truth of Shakespeare's words
describing the "consumption of the purse" as an incurable
disease. I had many acquaintances and a
few friends in Paris, but I determined not to borrow
if it could possibly be avoided. Five days would
elapse before another American mail arrived, and I
resolved that my remaining eight francs should carry
me through to the eventful Tuesday, which I felt
sure would bring the longed-for succor. I found a
little dingy shop, in a narrow street behind the
Church of St. Roch, where I could get a breakfast,
consisting of a bowl of very good coffee and piece of
bread (I asked for the end of the loaf) for six sous.
My dinners I managed to bring down to the sum of
twelve sous, by choosing obscure localities for the
obtaining of that repast, and confining myself to
those simple and nutritious viands which possessed
the merit attributed to the veal pie by Samuel
Weller, being "werry fillin' at the price." Sometimes
I went to bed early, to avoid the inconveniences
of a light dinner. One day I dined with a friend at
his lodgings, but I did not enjoy his hospitality; I felt
guilty, as if I had sacrificed friendship to save my
dwindling purse. The coarsest bread and the most
suspicious beef of the Latin Quarter would have been
more delicious to me under such circumstances than
the best ragout of the Boulevards or the Palais
Royal.

Of course, this state of things weighed heavily
upon my spirits. I heard Marie tell her husband
that Monsieur l'Anglais was *bien triste*. I avoided
the friends with whom I had been used to meet, and
(remembering what a sublime thing it is to suffer and
be strong) sternly resolved not to borrow till I
found myself completely gravelled. It grieved me
to be obliged to pass the old blind man who played
the flageolet on the *Pont des Arts* without dropping
a copper into his tin box; but the severest blow was
the being compelled to put off my obliging washerwoman
and her reasonable bill. The time passed
away quickly, however. The *Louvre*, with its treasures
of art, was a blessed asylum for me. It cost me
nothing, and I was there free from the importunities
of distress which I could not relieve. In the halls of
the great public library—now the *Bibliothèque Impériale*—I
found myself at home. Among the studious
throng that occupied its vast reading rooms, I
was as independent as if my name had been Rothschild,
or the treasures of the Bank of France had
been at my command. The master spirits with
whom I there communed do not ask what their
votaries carry in their pockets. There is no property-test
for admission to the privileges of their
companionship. I felt the equality which prevails in
the republic of letters. I knew that my left hand
neighbour was not, in that quiet place, superior to
me on account of his glossy coat and golden-headed
cane, and that I was no better than the reader at my
right hand because he wore a blouse. I jingled my
two or three remaining francs in my pocket, and
thought how useless money was, when the lack of it
was no bar to entrance into the hallowed presence of

   | "Those dead but sceptred sovereigns who still rule
   | Our spirits from their urns."

I shall not soon forget the intense satisfaction with
which I read in the regulations of the library a strict
prohibition against offering any fees or gratuities
whatever to its blue-coated officials.

At last the expected Tuesday morning came. My
funds had received an unlooked-for diminution by
receiving a letter from my friend whose wants had
led me into difficulty. He was just embarking at
Liverpool—hoped that my remittance had arrived in
due season—promised to send me a draft as soon as
he reached New York—envied my happiness at remaining
in Paris—and left me to pay the postage on
his valediction. It would be difficult for any disinterested
person to conceive how dear the thoughtless
writer of that letter was to me in that unfortunate
hour. Then, too, I was obliged to lay out six of
those cherished copper coins for a ride in an omnibus,
as I was caught in a shower over in the vicinity
of St. Sulpice, and could not afford to take the risk of
a rheumatic attack by getting wet. I well remember
the cool, business-like air with which that relentless
*conducteur* pocketed those specimens of the French
currency that were so precious in my sight. Yet, in
spite of these serious and unexpected drains upon my
finances, I had four sous left after paying for my
breakfast on that memorable morning. I felt uncommonly
cheerful at the prospect of being relieved
from my troubles, and stopped several minutes after
finishing my coffee, and conversed with the tidy shopwoman
with a fluency that astonished both of us. I
really regretted for the moment that I was so soon
to be placed in funds, and should no longer enjoy her
kindly services. I chuckled audibly to myself as I
pursued my way to the banker's, to think what an
immense joke it would be for some skilful Charley
Bates or Artful Dodger to try to pick my pocket just
then. An ancient heathen expecting an answer from
the oracle of Delphos, a modern candidate for office
awaiting the count of the vote, never felt more oppressed
with the importance of the result than I did
when I entered the banking-house. My delight at
having a letter from America put into my hands
could only be equalled by my dismay when I opened
it, and found, instead of the draft, a request from a
casual acquaintance who had heard that I might
possibly return home through England, and who, if
I did, would be under great obligations if I would
take the trouble to procure and carry home for him
an English magpie and a genuine King Charles
spaniel!

I did not stop to read the papers that morning.
As I was leaving the establishment, I met its chief
partner, to whom I could not help expressing my
disappointment. He was one of your hard-faced,
high-cheek-boned Yankees, with a great deal of
speculation in his eyes. I should as soon have
thought of attempting the cultivation of figs and
dates at Franconia as of trying to get a small loan
from *him*. So I pushed on into those busy streets
whose liveliness seemed to mock my pitiable condition.
I had come to it at last. I had got to borrow.
A physician, who now stands high among the faculty
in Boston, was then residing in Paris, and, as I had
been on familiar terms with him, I determined to
have recourse to him. He occupied two rooms in
the fifth story of a house in the Rue St. Honoré. His
apartments were more remarkable for their snugness
than for the extent of accommodation they afforded.
A snuff-taking friend once offered to present the doctor
with one of his silk handkerchiefs to carpet that
parlour with. But the doctor's heart was not to be
measured by the size of his rooms, and I knew that
he would be a friend in need. The *concierge* told
me that the doctor had not gone out, and, in obedience
to the instructions of that functionary, I
mounted the long staircase and *frapped* at the door
of that estimable disciple of Galen. It was not my
usual thrice-repeated stroke upon the door; it was a
timid and uncertain knock—the knock of a borrower.
The doctor said that he had been rather short himself
for a week or two, but that he should undoubtedly
find a letter in the General Post that morning
that would place him in a condition to give me a lift.
This was said in a manner that put me entirely at my
ease, and made me feel that by accepting his loan I
should be conferring an inestimable favour upon
him. As we walked towards the Rue Jean Jacques
Rousseau, I amused him with the story of the preceding
week's adventures. He laughed heartily, and
after a few minutes I joined with him, though I must
say that the events, as they occurred, did not particularly
impress me as subjects for very hilarious
mirth. The doctor inquired at the *poste restante* in
vain. His friends had been as remiss as mine, and
we had both got to wait another week. The doctor
was not an habitually profane man, but as we came
through the court-yard of the post office, he expressed
his anxiety as to what the devil we should do.
He examined his purse, and found that his available
assets amounted to a trifle more than nineteen
francs. He looked as troubled as he had before
looked gay. I generously offered him my four remaining
coppers, and told him that I would stand by
him as long as he had a centime in his pocket. Such
an exhibition of magnanimity could not be made in
vain. We stopped in front of the church of Our
Lady of Victories, and took the heroic resolve to
club our funds and go through the week of expectation
together. And we did it. I wish that space
would allow of my describing the achievements of
that week. Medical books were cast aside for the
study of domestic economy. I do not believe that a
similar sum of money ever went so far before, even
in Paris. We found a place in a narrow street, near
the Odeon, where fried potatoes were sold very
cheap; we bought our bread by the loaf, as it was
cheaper—the loaves being so long that the doctor
said that he understood, when he first saw them, why
bread was called the staff of life. We resorted to all
sorts of expedients to make a franc buy as much as
possible of the necessaries of life. We frequented
with great assiduity all places of public amusement
where there was no fee for admission. The public
galleries, the libraries, the puppet shows in the
Champs Elysées, were often honoured with our presence.
We made a joke of our necessities, and carried
it through to the end. The next Tuesday morning
found us, after breakfasting, on our way to the post
office, with a franc left in our united treasury. I had
begun to give up all hopes of our ever getting a letter
from home, and insisted upon the doctor's trying his
luck first. He was successful, but the severest part of
the joke came when he found that his letter (contrary
to all precedent) was not postpaid. The polite
official at the window must have thirty-two sous for
it, and we had but twenty. Our laughter showed him
the whole state of the case, and we left him greatly
amused at our promises to return soon, and get the
desirable prize. My application at the banker's was
successful, too, and before noon we were both prepared
to laugh a siege to scorn. I paid the rosy-cheeked
washerwoman, bought Marie a neat crucifix
to hang up in the place of a very rude one in her
*conciergerie*, out of sheer good humour; and that
evening the doctor and I laughed over the recollections
of the week and a good dinner in a quiet restaurant
in the Palais Royal.

.. ——File: 245.png




THE OLD CORNER
--------------


The human heart loves corners. The very
word "corner" is suggestive of snugness and
cosy comfort, and he who has no liking for them is
something more or less than mortal. I have seen
people whose ideas of comfort were singularly crude
and imperfect; who thought that it consisted in keeping
a habitation painfully clean, and in having every
book or paper that might give token of the place
being the dwelling of a human being, carefully out of
sight. We have great cause for thankfulness that
such people are not common, (for a little wholesome
negligence is by no means an unpleasant thing,) so
that we can say that mankind generally likes to snuggify
itself, and is therefore fond of a corner. This
natural fondness is manifested by the child with his
playthings and infantile sports, in one of which, at
least, the attractions of corners for the feline race
are brought strongly before his inquisitive mind.
And how is this liking strengthened and built up as
the child increases in secular knowledge, and learns
in the course of his poetical and historical researches
all about the personal history of Master John
Horner, whose sedentary habits and manducation of
festive pastry are famous wherever the language of
Shakespeare and Milton is spoken!

This love of nooks and corners is especially observable
in those who are obliged to live in style and
splendour. Many a noble English family has been
glad to escape from the bondage of its rank, and has
found more real comfort in the confinement of a
Parisian *entresol* than amid the gloomy grandeur of
its London home. Those who are condemned to
dwell in palaces bear witness to this natural love of
snugness, by choosing some quiet sunny corner in
their marble halls, and making it as comfortable as if
it were a cosy cottage. Napoleon and Eugenie delight
to escape from the magnificence of the Tuileries
to that quiet and homelike refuge for people who
are burdened with imperial dignity, amid the thick
foliage and green alleys of St. Cloud. Even in that
mighty maze, the Vatican, the rooms inhabited by
the Sovereign Pontiff are remarkably comfortable
and unpalatial, and prove the advantages of smallness
and simplicity over gilding and grandeur, for
the ordinary purposes of life. An American gentleman
once called on the great and good Cardinal
Cheverus, and while talking with him of his old
friends in America, said that the contrast between
the Cardinal's position in the episcopal palace of
Bordeaux and in his former humble residence when
he was Bishop of Boston, was a very striking one.
The humble and pious prelate smiled, and taking his
visitor by the arm, led him from the stately hall in
which they were conversing, into a narrow room
furnished in a style of austere simplicity: "The
palace," said he, "which you have seen and admired
is the residence of the Cardinal Archbishop of Bordeaux;
but this little chamber is where John Cheverus
*lives*."

Literary men and statesmen have always coveted
the repose of a corner where they might be undisturbed
by the wranglings of the world. Twickenham,
and Lausanne, and Ferney, and Rydal Mount
have become as shrines to which the lover of
books would fain make pilgrimages. Have we not a
Sunnyside and an Idlewild even in this new land of
ours! Cicero, in spite of his high opinion of Marcus
Tullius, and his thirst for popular applause, often
grew tired of urban life, and was glad to forsake the
*Senatus populusque Romanus* for the quiet of his
snug villa in a corner of the hill country overlooking
Frascati. And did not our own Tully love to fling
aside the burden of his power, and find his Tusculum
on the old South Shore? In the Senate Chamber or
the Department of State you might see the Defender
of the Constitution, but it was at Marshfield that
Webster really lived. Horace loved good company
and the entertainment of his wealthy patrons and
friends, but he loved snugness and quiet even more.
In one of his odes he apostrophizes his friend Septimius,
and describes to him the delight he takes in
the repose of his Tiburtine retreat from the bustle of
the metropolis, saying that of all places in the world
that corner is the most smiling and grateful to
him:—

   | Ille terrarum mihi præter omnes
   | Angulus ridet.

If we look into our hearts, I think we shall most
of us find that we have a clinging attachment to some
favourite corner, as well as Mr. Horatius Flaccus.
There is at least one corner in the city of Boston,
which has many pleasant associations for the lover
of literature. Allusion was made a few days since,
in an evening paper, to the well-known fact that the
old building at the corner of Washington and School
Streets was built in 1713, and is therefore older by
seventeen years than the Old South Church. That
little paragraph reminded me of some passages in
the history of that ancient edifice related to me by an
ancestor of mine, for whom the place had an almost
romantic charm.

The old building (my grandfather used to tell
me) was originally a dwelling-house. It had the
high wainscots, the broad staircases, the carved cornices,
and all the other blessed old peculiarities of
the age in which it was built, which we irreverently
have improved away. One hundred years ago the
old corner was considered rather an aristocratic place
of residence. It was slightly suburban in its position,
for the town of Boston had an affection for Copp's
Hill, and the inhabitants clustered about that sacred
eminence as if the southern parts of their territory
were a quicksand. Trees were not uncommon in the
vicinity of the foot of School Street in those days,
and no innovating Hathorne had disturbed the quiet
of the place with countless omnibuses. The old corner
was then occupied by an English gentleman
named Barmesyde, who gave good dinners, and was
on intimate terms with the colonial governor. My
venerated relative, to whom I have already alluded,
enjoyed his friendship, and in his latter days delighted
to talk of him, and tell his story to those who
had heard it so often, that Hugh Greville Barmesyde,
Esquire, seemed like a companion of their own
young days.

.. ——File: 249.png

Old Barmesyde sprang from an ancient Somersetshire
family, from which he inherited a considerable
property, and a remarkable energy of character. He
increased his wealth during a residence of many
years in Antigua, at the close of which he relinquished
his business, and returned to England to
marry a beautiful English lady to whom he had
engaged himself in the West Indies. He arrived in
England the day after the funeral of his betrothed,
who had fallen a victim to intermittent fever. Many
of his relations had died in his absence, and he found
himself like a stranger in the very place where he had
hoped to taste again the joys of home. The death of
the lady he loved so dearly, and the changes in his
circle of friends, were so depressing to him, that he
resolved to return to the West Indies. He thought
it would be easier for him to continue in the associations
he had formed there than to recover from the
shock his visit to England had given him. So he
took passage in a brig from Bristol to Antigua, and
said farewell forever, as he supposed, to his native
land. Before half the voyage was accomplished, the
vessel was disabled: as Mr. Choate would express it,
a north-west gale inflicted upon her a serious, an immedicable
injury; and she floated a wreck upon the
foamy and uneven surface of the Atlantic. She was
fallen in with by another British vessel, bound for
Boston, which took off her company, and with the
renewal of the storm she foundered before the eyes
of those who had so lately risked their lives upon her
seaworthiness. When Mr. Barmesyde arrived in
Boston, he found an old friend in the governor of
the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Governor
Pownall had but lately received his appointment
from the Crown, and being a comparative stranger
in Boston, he was as glad to see Mr. Barmesyde as
the latter was to see him. It was several months before
an opportunity to reach the West Indies offered
itself, and when one did occur, Mr. Barmesyde only
used it to communicate with his agent at Antigua.
He had given up all ideas of returning thither, and
had settled down, with his negro servant Cato, to
housekeeping at the corner of School Street, within
a few doors of his gubernatorial friend.

Governor Pownall's term of office was not a long
one, but even when he was removed, Mr. Barmesyde
stuck faithfully to the old corner. He had found
many warm friends here, and could no longer consider
himself alone in the world. He was a man of
good natural powers, and of thorough education. He
was one of those who seem never to lose any thing
that they have once acquired. In person he was tall
and comely, and my grandfather said that he somewhat
resembled General Washington as he appeared
twenty-five years later, excepting that Mr. Barmesyde's
countenance was more jolly and port-winy.
From all I can learn, his face, surmounted by that
carefully-powdered head of hair, must have resembled
a red brick house after a heavy fall of snow. If
Hugh Barmesyde had a fault, I am afraid it was a
fondness for good living. He attended to his marketing
in person, assisted by his faithful Cato, who
was as good a judge in such matters as his master,
and who used to vindicate the excellence of his master's
fare by eating until he was black in the face.
For years there were few vessels arrived from England
without bringing choice wines to moisten the
alimentary canal of Mr. Barmesyde. The Windward
Isles contributed bountifully to keep alight the festive
flame that blazed in his cheery countenance, and to
make his flip and punch the very best that the province
could produce. Every Sunday morning Mr.
Barmesyde's best buckles sparkled in the sunbeams
as he walked up School Street to the King's Chapel.
Not that he was an eminently religious man, but he
regarded religion as an institution that deserved encouragement
for the sake of maintaining a proper
balance in society. The quiet order and dignity of
public worship pleased him, the liturgy gratified his
taste, and so Sunday after Sunday his big manly voice
headed the responses, and told that its possessor had
done many things that he ought not to have done,
and had left undone a great many that he ought to
have done.

Mr. Barmesyde was not a mere feeder on good
things, however; he had a cultivated taste for literature,
and his invoices of wine were frequently accompanied
by parcels of new books. The old gentleman
took a great delight in the English literature of that
day. Fielding and Smollett were writing then, and
no one took a keener pleasure in their novels than he.
He imported, as he used to boast, the first copy of
Dr. Johnson's Dictionary that ever came to America,
and was never tired of reading that stately and
pathetic preface, or of searching for the touches of
satire and individual prejudice that abound in that
entertaining work. His well-worn copy of the Spectator,
in eight duodecimo volumes, presented by him
to my grandfather, now graces one of my book
shelves. His books were always at the service of his
friends, who availed themselves of the old gentleman's
kindness to such an extent that his collection
might have been called a circulating library. But it
was not merely for the frequent "feast of reason and
flow of soul" that his friends were indebted to him.
He was the very incarnation of hospitality. I am
afraid that my excellent grandparent had an uncommon
admiration for this trait in the old fellow's
character, for a frequent burning twinge in one of
the toes of my right foot, and occasionally in the
knuckles of my left hand, reminds me of his fondness
for keeping his legs under Mr. Barmesyde's festive
mahogany. A few years ago, when a new floor was
laid in the cellar at the old corner, a large number of
empty bottles was discovered, whose appearance bore
witness to the previous good character of the place
as a cellar. Some labels were also found bearing
dates like 1697, 1708, 1721, &c. To this day the
occupants of the premises take pleasure in showing
the dark wine stains on the old stairs leading to the
cellar.

But Mr. Barmesyde's happiness, like the *gioia de
profani*, which we have all heard the chorus in the
last scene of Lucrezia Borgia discordantly allude to,
was but transient. The dispute which had been
brewing for years between the colonies and the
mother country, began to grow unpleasantly warm.
Mr. B. was a stanch loyalist. He allowed that injustice
had been done to the colonies, but still he
could not throw off his allegiance to his most religious
and gracious king, George III., Defender of
the Faith. He was ready to do and to suffer as
much for his principles as the most ardent of the revolutionists.
And he was not alone in his loyalty.
There were many old-fashioned conservative people
in this revolutionary and ismatic city in those days as
well as now. The publication in this city of a translation
of De Maistre's great defence of the monarchical
principle of government, (the Essay on the
Generative Principle of Political Constitutions,) and
of the late Mr. Oliver's "Puritan Commonwealth,"
proves that the surrender of Cornwallis and the
formation of the Federal Constitution did not destroy
the confidence of a good many persons in the
truth of the principles on which the loyalists took
their stand. The unfortunate occurrence in State
Street, March 5, 1770, gave Mr. B. great pain. He
regretted the bloodshed, but he regretted more
deeply to see many persons so blinded by their hatred
of the king's most excellent majesty, as to defend
and praise the action of a lawless mob just punished
for their riotous conduct. The throwing overboard
of the tea excited his indignation. He stigmatized
it (and not without some reason on his side) as a
wanton and cowardly act,—a destruction of the
property of parties against whom the town of Boston
had no cause of complaint,—a deed which proved
how little real regard for justice and honour there
might be among those who were the loudest in their
shrieks for freedom. Of course he could not give
utterance to these sentiments without exciting the ire
of many people; and feeling that he could no longer
safely remain in this country, he concluded to return
to England. In the spring of 1774, Hugh Greville
Barmesyde gave his last dinner to a few of the faithful
at the old corner, and sailed the next day with a
sorrowing heart and his trusty Cato for the land
of his birth. He spent the remainder of his days in
London, where he died in 1795. He was interred
in the vault belonging to his family, in the north
transept of the Parish Church of Shepton Mallet, in
Somersetshire, where there is still a handsome tablet
commemorating his many virtues and the inconsolable
grief of the nephews and nieces whom his decease
enriched.

Some of the less orderly "liberty boys" bore witness
to the imperfect sympathy that existed between
them and the late occupant of the old corner, by
breaking sundry panes of glass in the parlour windows
the night after his departure. The old house,
during the revolutionary struggle, followed the common
prosaic course of ordinary occupancy. There
was "marrying and giving in marriage" under that
steep and ancient roof in those days, and troops of
clamorous children used to play upon the broad stone
steps, and tarnish the brasses that Cato was wont to
keep so clean and bright. In the latter part of the
last century the old house underwent a painful transformation.
An enterprising apothecary perverted it
to the uses of trade, and decorated its new windows
with the legitimate jars of various coloured fluids.
It is now nearly half a century since it became a bookstore.
Far be it from me to offer any disturbance to
the modesty of my excellent friends, Messrs. Ticknor
and Fields, by enlarging upon the old corner in
its present estate. It were useless to write about any
thing so familiar. They are young men yet, and
must pardon me if I have used the prerogative of age
and spoken too freely about their old establishment
and its reminiscences. I love the old corner, and
should not hesitate to apply to it the words of Horace
which I have quoted above. I love its freedom from
pretence and ostentation. New books seem more
grateful to me there than elsewhere; for the dinginess
of Paternoster Row harmonizes better with literature
than the plate glass and gairish glitter of Piccadilly
or Regent Street.

The large looking-glass which stands near the
Washington Street entrance to the old corner used
to adorn the dining-room where Mr. Barmesyde
gave so many feasts. It is the only relic of that
worthy gentleman now remaining under that roof.
If that glass could only publish its reflexions during
the past century, what an entertaining work on the
curiosities of literature and of life it might make!
It is no ordinary place that may boast of having been
the familiar resort of people like Judge Story, Mr.
Otis, Channing, Kirkland, Webster, Choate, Everett,
Charles Kemble and the elder Vandenhoff with their
gifted daughters, Ellen Tree, the Woods, Finn,
Dickens, Thackeray, James, Bancroft, Prescott,
Emerson, Brownson, Dana, Halleck, Bryant, Hawthorne,
Longfellow, Holmes, Lowell, Willis, Bayard
Taylor, Whipple, Parkman, Hilliard, Sumner, Parsons,
Sprague, and so many others whose names will
live in literature and history. It is a very pleasant
thing to see literary men at their ease, as they always
are around those old counters. It is a relief to find
that they can throw off at times the dignity and restraint
of authorship. It is pleasant to see the lecturer
and the divine put away their tiresome
earnestness and severe morality, and come down to
the jest of the day. It refreshes one to know that
Mr. Emerson is not always orphic, and that the
severely scholastic Everett can forget his elegant and
harmonious sentences, and descend to common prose.
For we can no more bear to think of an orator living
unceasingly in oratory than we could of Signorina
Zanfretta being obliged to remain constantly poised
on the *corde tendue*.

The bust of Sir Walter Scott has filled the space
above the mirror I have spoken of, for many years.
It is a fine work of Chantrey's, and a good likeness
of that head of Sir Walter's, so many *stories* high
that one can never wonder where all his novels came
from. Except this specimen of the plastic art, and
one of Professor Agassiz, there is little that is ornamental
in the ancient haunt. The green curtain that
decorates the western corner of the establishment is
a comparatively modern institution. It was found
necessary to fence off that portion of the shop for
strict business purposes. The profane converse of
the world cannot penetrate those folds. Into that
*sanctissimum sanctissimorum* no joke, however good,
may enter. What a strange dispensation of Providence
is it, that a man should have been for years
enjoying the good society that abounds at that corner,
and yet should seem to have so little liking for a
quiet jest as the estimable person who conceals his
seriousness behind that green curtain!

But every thing must yield to the law of nature,
and the old corner must share the common lot. Some
inauspicious night, the fire-alarm will sound for District
III.; hoarse voices will echo at the foot of
School Street, calling earnestly on No. 3 to "hold
on," and No. 9 to "play away"; where erst good
liquor was wont to abound water will more abound,
and when the day dawns Mr. Barmesyde's old house
will be an unsightly ruin,—there will be mourning
and desolation among the lovers of literature, and
wailing in the insurance offices in State Street. When
the blackened ruins are cleared away, boys will pick
up scraps of scorched manuscripts, and sell them
piecemeal as parts of the original copy of Hiawatha,
or Evangeline, or the Scarlet Letter. In the fulness
of time, a tall, handsome stone or iron building will
rise on that revered site, and we lovers of the past
shall try to invest it with something of the unpretending
dignity and genial associations of the present
venerable pile, which will then be cherished among
our most precious memories.

.. ——File: 258.png




SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF THEATRE ALLEY
-------------------------------------


We are all associationists. There is no man
who does not believe in association in some
degree. For myself, I am firm in the faith. Let me
not be misunderstood, however; I do not mean that
principle of association which the late Mr. Fourier
advocated in France, and Mr. Brisbane in America.
I do not believe in the utopian schemes which have
been ground out of the brains of philosophers who
mistake vagueness and impracticability for sublimity,
and which they have misnamed association.
The principle of association to which I pay homage
is one which finds a home in every human heart. It
is that principle of our nature which, when the bereaved
Queen Constance was mourning for her
absent child, "stuffed out his vacant garments with
his form." It is that principle which makes a man
love the scenes of his boyhood, and which brings
tears to the eyes of the traveller in a foreign land,
when he hears a familiar strain from a hand organ,
however harsh and out of tune. Even the brute
creation seems to share in it; the cat is sure to be
found in her favourite place at the fireside, while the
tea kettle makes music on the hob; the dog, too, (let
Hercules himself do what he may,) will not only
have his day, but will have his chosen corner for repose,
and will stick to it, however tempting you may
make other places by a superabundance of door mats
and other canine furniture. And the tired cart horse,
when his day's labour is over, and he finds himself
once more in the familiar stall, with his provender
before him—do you not suppose that the associations
of equine comfort by which he is surrounded
are dearer to him than any hopes of the luxury and
splendour of Her Britannic Majesty's stables at
Windsor could be? Ask him if he would leave his
present peck of oats for the chances of royal service,
and a red-waistcoated, white-top-booted groom to
wait upon him, and I will warrant you that he will
answer *nay*!

There is no nation nor people that is free from
this bondage of association. We treasure General
Jackson's garments with respectful care in a glass
case in the Patent Office at Washington; in the
Louvre, you shall find preserved the crown of
Charlemagne and the old gray coat of the first Napoleon;
and at Westminster Abbey, (if you have the
money to pay your admission fee,) you may see the
plain old oaken chair in which the crowned monarchs
of a thousand years have sat. Go to Rome, and
stand "at the base of Pompey's statua," and association
shall carry you back in imagination to the time
when the mighty Julius fell. Stand upon the grassy
mounds of Tusculum, and you will find yourself
glowing with enthusiasm for Cicero, and wonder how
you could have grown so sleepy over *Quousque tandem*,
&c., in your schoolboy days. Climb up the Trasteverine
steep to where the convent of San Onofrio
suns itself in the bright blue air of Rome, and while
the monks are singing the divine office where the
bones of Tasso repose, you may fill your mind with
memories of the bard of the crusades, in the chamber
where his weary soul found the release it craved.
Go to that fair capital which seems to have hidden
itself among the fertile hills of Tuscany; walk
through its pleasant old streets, and you shall find
yourself the slave of many pleasing associations. The
very place where Dante was wont to stand and gaze
at that wondrous dome which Michel Angelo said
he was unwilling to copy and unable to excel, is
marked by an inscription in the pavement. Every
street has its associations that appeal to your love of
the beautiful or the heroic. Walk out into the lively
streets of that city which stands at the head of the
world's civilization, and you are overwhelmed with
historic associations. You seem to hear the clatter
of armed heels in some of those queer old alleys, and
the vision of Godfrey or St. Louis, armed for the
holy war, would not astonish you. The dim and
stately halls of the palaces are eloquent of power,
and you almost expect to see the thin, pale, thoughtful
face of the great Richelieu at every corner. Over
whole districts, rebellion, and anarchy, and infidelity,
once wrote the history of their sway in blood, and
even now, the names of the streets, as you read them,
seem to fill you with terrible mementoes.

But to us, Americans, connected as we are with
England in our civilization and our literature, how
full of thrilling associations is London! From
Whitehall, where Puritanism damned itself by the
murder of a king, to Eastcheap, where Mistress
Quickly served Sir John with his sherris-sack; from
St. Saviour's Church, where Massinger and Fletcher
lie in one grave, to Milton's tomb in St. Giles's, Cripplegate,
there is hardly a street, or court, or lane, or
alley, which does not appeal by some association to
the student of English history or literature. He
perambulates the Temple Gardens with Chaucer; he
hears the partisans of the houses of York and Lancaster,
as they profane the silence of that scholastic
spot; he walks Fleet Street, and disputes in Bolt
Court with Dr. Johnson; he smokes in the coffee-houses
of Covent Garden with Dryden and Pope,
and the wits of their day; he makes morning calls in
Leicester Square and its neighbourhood, on Sir Philip
Sidney, Hogarth, Reynolds, and Newton; he buys
gloves and stockings at Defoe's shop in Cornhill;
and makes excursions with Dicky Steele out to Kensington,
to see Mr. Addison. Drury Lane, despite
its gin, and vice, and squalour, has its associations.
The old theatre is filled with them. They show you,
in the smoky green-room, the chairs which once were
occupied by Siddons and Kemble; the seat of Byron
by the fireside in the days of his trusteeship; the mirrors
in which so many dramatic worthies viewed
themselves, before they were called to achieve their
greatest triumphs.

Every where you find men acknowledging in their
actions their allegiance to this great natural law.
Our own city, too, has its associations. Who can
pass by that venerable building in Union Street,
which, like a deaf and dumb beggar, wears a tablet
of its age upon its unsightly front, without recalling
some of the events that have taken place, some of the
scenes which that venerable edifice has looked down
upon, since its solid timbers were jointed in the year
of salvation 1685? Who can enter Faneuil Hall
without a quickening of his pulse? Who can walk by
the old Hancock House, and not look up at it as if
he expected to see old John (the best writer on the
subject of American independence) standing at the
door in his shad-bellied coat, knee-breeches, and powdered
wig? Who can look at the Old South Church
without thinking of the part it played in the revolution,
and of the time when it was obliged to yield its
unwilling horsepitality to the British cavalry? Boston
is by no means deficient in associations. Go to
Brattle Street, to Copp's Hill, to Mount Washington,
to Deer Island,—though it must be acknowledged,
the only association connected with the
last-named place is the Provident Association.

If there be a fault in the Yankee character, I fear
it is a lack of sufficient respect for the memory of the
past. Nature will have her way with us, however
we may try to resist her and trample old recollections
under foot. We worship prosperity too much; and
the wide, straight streets of western cities, with the
telegraph posts standing like sentinels on the edge of
the sidewalks, and a general odour of pork-packing
and new houses pervading the atmosphere, seem to
our acquisitive sense more beautiful than the sculptured
arch, the moss-grown tower, the quaint gable,
and all the summer fragrance of the gardens of the
Tuileries or the *Unterdenlinden*. I am afraid that
we almost deserve to be classed with those who (as
Mr. Thackeray says) "have no reverence except for
prosperity, and no eye for any thing but success."

Many are kindled into enthusiasm by meditating
upon the future of this our country,—"the newest born
of nations, the latest hope of mankind,"—but for
myself I love better to dwell on the sure and unalterable
past, than to speculate upon the glories of the
coming years. While I was young, I liked, when at
sea, to stand on the top-gallant forecastle, and see
the proud ship cut her way through the waves that
playfully covered me with spray; but of late years
my pleasure has been to lean over the taffrail and
muse upon the subsiding foam of the vessel's wake.
The recollection even of storms and dangers is to
me more grateful than the most joyful anticipation
of a fair wind and the expected port. With these
feelings, I cannot help being moved when I see so
many who try to deaden their natural sensibility to
old associations. When the old Province House
passed into the hands of the estimable Mr. Ordway,
I congratulated him on his success, but I mourned
over the dark fate of that ancient mansion. I respected
it even in its fallen state as an inn,—for it
retained much of its old dignity, and the ghosts of
Andros and his predecessors seemed to brush by you
in its high wainscoted passages and on its broad staircases;
but it did seem the very ecstasy of sacrilege to
transform it into a concert-room. I rejoiced, however,
a few years since, when the birthplace of B.
Franklin, in Milk Street, was distinguished by an
inscription to that effect in letters of enduring stone.
That was a concession to the historic associations of
that locality which the most sanguine could hardly
have expected from the satinetters of Milk Street.

But I am forgetting my subject, and using up my
time and ink in the prolegomena. My philosophy of
association received a severe blow last week. It was
a pleasant day, and I hobbled out on my gouty timbers
for a walk. I wandered into Franklin Place,
but it was not the Franklin Place of my youth. The
rude hand of public improvement had not been kept
even from that row of houses which, when I was a
boy, was thought an ornament to our city, and was
dignified with the name of the Tontine Buildings.
Franklin Place looked as if two or three of its front
teeth had been knocked out. I walked on, and my
sorrow and dismay were increased to find that the
last vestige of Theatre Alley had disappeared. It
was bad enough when the old theatre and the residence
of the Catholic bishops of Boston were swept
away: I still clung to the old alley, and hoped that it
would not pass away in my time—that before the old
locality should be improved into what the profane
vulgar call sightliness and respectability, I should (to
use the common expressions of one of our greatest
orators, who, in almost every speech and oration
that he has made for some years past, has given a
sort of obituary notice of himself before closing)
have been "resting in peace beneath the green sods
of Mount Auburn," or should have "gone down to
the silent tomb."

Do not laugh, beloved reader, at the tenderness of
my affection for that old place. There is a great
deal of romance of a quiet and genial kind about
Theatre Alley. As I first remember it, commerce
had not encroached upon its precincts; no tall warehouses
shut out the light from its narrow footway,
and its planks were unencumbered by any intrusive
bales or boxes. Old Dearborn's scale factory was
the only thing to remind one of traffic in that neighbourhood,
which struck a balance with fate by becoming
more scaley than before, when Dearborn and
his factory passed away. The stage door of the theatre
was in the alley, and the walk from thence,
through Devonshire Street, to the Exchange Coffee
House, which was the great hotel of Boston at that
time, was once well known to many whose names are
now part of the history of the drama. How often
was I repaid for walking through the alley by the
satisfaction of meeting George Frederick Cooke, the
elder Kean, Finn, Macready, Booth, Cooper, Incledon,
old Mathews, or the tall, dignified Conway—or
some of that goodly company that made Old
Drury classical to the play-goers of forty years
ago.

The two posts which used to adorn and obstruct
the entrance to the alley from Franklin Street, when
they were first placed there, were an occasion of indignation
to a portion of the public, and of anxiety
and vexation to Mr. Powell, the old manager. That
estimable gentleman had often been a witness to the
terror of the children and of those of the weaker sex
(I hope that I shall be forgiven by the "Rev. Antoinette
Brown" for using such an adjective) who
sometimes met a stray horse or cow in the alley; so
he placed two wooden posts just beyond the theatre,
to shut out the dreaded bovine intruders. But the
devout Hibernians who used to worship at the
church in Franklin Street could not brook the placing
of any such obstacles in their way to the performance
of their religious duties; and they used to cut the
posts down as often as Mr. Powell set them up,
until he took refuge in the resources of science, and
covered and bound them with the iron bands which
imprisoned them up to a very recent period.

Old Mr. Stoughton, the Spanish consul, used to
occupy the first house in Franklin Street above the
alley, behind which his garden ran back for some
distance. How little that worthy gentleman thought
that his tulip beds and rose bushes would one day
give place to a dry goods shop! Señor Stoughton
was one of the urbanest men that ever touched a hat.
If he met you in the morning, the memory of his
bland and gracious salutation never departed from
you during the day, and seemed to render your sleep
sweeter at night. He always treated you as if you
were a prince in disguise, and he were the only person
in the secret of your incognito. He enjoyed the
intimate friendship of that great and good man, Dr.
Cheverus, the first Bishop of Boston, who was afterwards
transferred to the archiepiscopal see of Bordeaux,
and decorated with the dignity of a Prince of
the Church. He, too, often walked through the old
alley. The children always welcomed his approach.
They respected Don Stoughton; Bishop Cheverus
they loved. His very look was a benediction, and
the mere glance of his eye was a *Sursum corda*. That
calm, wise, benignant face always had a smile for the
little ones who loved the neighbourhood of that humble
Cathedral, and the pockets of that benevolent
prelate never knew a dearth of sugar plums. Years
after that happy time, a worthy Protestant minister
of this vicinity—who was blessed with few or none
of those prejudices against "Romanism" which are
nowadays considered a necessary part of a minister's
education—visited Cardinal Cheverus in his palace
at Bordeaux, and found him keenly alive to every
thing that concerned his old associations and friends
in Boston. He declared, with tears in his eyes, and
with that air of sincerity that marked every word he
spoke, that he would gladly lay down the burden of
the honour and power that then weighed upon him,
to return to the care of his little New England flock.
Now, Cardinal Cheverus was a man of taste and of
kind feelings, and I will warrant you that when he
thought of Boston, Theatre Alley was included
among his associations, and enjoyed a share in his
affectionate regrets.

Mrs. Grace Dunlap's little shop was an institution
which many considered to be coexistent with the
alley itself. It was just one of those places that seem
in perfect harmony with Theatre Alley as it was
twenty-five years ago. It was one of those shops
that always seem to shun the madding crowd's ignoble
strife, and seek a refuge in some cool sequestered
way. The snuff and tobacco which Mrs.
Dunlap used to dispense were of the best quality, and
she numbered many distinguished persons among her
customers. The author of the History of Ferdinand
and Isabella was often seen there replenishing his
box, and exchanging kind courtesies with the fair-spoken
dealer in that fragrant article which is productive
of so many bad voices and so much real
politeness in European society. Mrs. Dunlap herself
was a study for an artist. Her pleasant face, her
fair complexion, her quiet manner, her white cap,
with its gay ribbons, rivalling her eyes in brightness,
were all in perfect keeping with the scrupulous neatness
and air of repose that always reigned in her
shop. Her parlour was as comfortable a place as
you would wish to see on a summer or a winter day.
It had a cheerful English look that I always loved.
The plants in the windows, the bird cage, the white
curtains, the plain furniture, that looked as if you
might use it without spoiling it, the shining andirons,
and the blazing wood fire, are all treasured in my
memory of Theatre Alley as it used to be. Mrs.
Dunlap's customers and friends (and who could help
being her friend?) were always welcome in her parlour,
and there were few who did not enjoy her simple
hospitality more than that pretentious kind
which sought to lure them with the pomp and vanity
of mirrors and gilding. Her punch was a work of
art. But I will refrain from pursuing this subject
further. It is no pleasure to me to harrow up the
feelings of my readers by dwelling upon the joys of
their *præteritos annos*.

When Mrs. Dunlap moved out of the alley, its
glory began to decline. From that day its *prestige*
seemed to have gone. Even before that time an attempt
had been made to rob it of its honoured name.
Signs were put up at each end of it bearing the inscription,
"Odeon Avenue"; but the attempt was
vain, whether it proceeded from motives of godliness
or of respectability; nobody ever called it any
thing but Theatre Alley. At about that time nearly
all the buildings left in it were devoted to the philanthropic
object of the quenching of human thirst. We
read that St. Paul took courage when he saw *three*
taverns. Who can estimate the height of daring to
which the Apostle of the Gentiles might have risen
had it been vouchsafed to him to walk through Theatre
Alley. One of the most frequented resorts there
rejoiced in the name of "The Rainbow"—an auspicious
title, certainly, and one which would attract
those who were averse to the cold water principle.
Some of the places were below the level of the alley,
and verified, in a striking manner, the truth of Virgil's
words, *Facilis descensus taverni*. Among certain
low persons, not appreciative of its poetic
associations, the alley at that time was nicknamed
"Rum Row"; and he was considered a hero who
could make all the ports in the passage through, and
carry his topsails when he reached Franklin Street.
Various efforts were made at that period to bring the
alley into disrepute. Among others, a sign was put
up announcing that it was *dangerous passing* through
there; I fear that Father Mathew would have
thought a declaration that it was dangerous *stopping*,
to have been nearer the truth. But the daily deputations
from the Old Colony and Worcester Railways
could not be kept back by any signs, and the alley
echoed to their multitudinous tramp every morning.
Mr. Choate, too, was faithful to the alley through
good and evil report, and while there was a plank
left, it was daily pressed by his India rubbers. To
such a lover of nature as he, what shall take the place
of a morning walk through Theatre Alley!

But *venit summa dies et ineluctabile tempus*, and
the old alley has been swept away. During the past
century how many thousands have passed through
it! how many anxious minds, engrossed with schemes
of commercial enterprises, how many hearts weary
with defeat, how many kind, and generous, and
great, and good men, who have passed away from
earthly existence, like the alley through which they
walked! But while I mourn over the loss, I would
not restore it if I could. When so many of its old
associations had been blotted out; when low dram-drinking
dens had taken the place of the ancient,
quiet dispensatories of good cheer; when grim and
gloomy warehouses, with their unsocial, distrustful
iron shutters, had made the warm sunlight a stranger
to it,—it was time for it to go. It was better that it
should cease to exist, than continue in its humiliation,
a reproach to the neighbourhood, and a libel upon
its ancient and honourable fame.

.. ——File: 271.png




THE OLD CATHEDRAL
-----------------


In many people who have been abroad, the mere
mention of the old city of Rouen is enough to
kindle an enthusiasm. If you would know why this
is,—why those who are familiar with the cathedrals
of Cologne, Milan, Florence, and the basilicas of
Rome, have yet so deep a feeling about the old capital
of Normandy,—the true answer is, that Rouen,
with its Gothic glories and the thrilling history of the
middle ages written on its every stone, was the first
ancient city that they saw, and made the deepest impression
on their minds. They had left the stiff
and unsympathetic respectability of Boston, the tiresome
cleanliness of Philadelphia, or the ineffable
filth of New York behind them; or perchance they
had been emancipated from some dreary western
town, whose wide, straight, unpaved streets seemed
to have no beginning and to end nowhere; whose
atmosphere was pervaded with an odour of fresh
paint and new shingles, and whose inhabitants would
regard fifty years as a highly respectable antiquity,—and
had come steaming across the unquiet Atlantic
to Havre, eager to see an old city. A short railway
ride carried them to one in which they could not turn
a corner without seeing something to remind them
of what they had seen in pictures or read in books
about the middle ages. The richly-carved window
frames, the grotesque faces, the fanciful devices, the
profusion of ornament, the shrines and statues of
the saints at the corners of the streets, and all the
other picturesque peculiarities of that queer old city,
filled them with wonder and delight. Those fantastic
gables that seemed to be leaning over to look
at them, inspired them with a respect which all the
architectural wonders and artistic trophies of the
continent are powerless to disturb.

It was not my fortune thus to make acquaintance
with Rouen. I had several times tasted the pleasure
of a continental sojourn. The streets of several of
the great European capitals were as familiar to me
as those of my native city. Yet Rouen captivated
me with a charm peculiarly its own. I shall not easily
forget the delicious summer day in which I left Paris
for a short visit to Rouen. That four hours' ride
over the Western Railway of France was full of
solid enjoyment for every sense. The high cultivation
of that fertile and unfenced country—the farmers
at work in the sunny broad-stretched fields—the
hay-makers piling up their fragrant loads—the château-like
farm houses, looking as stately as if they
had strayed out of the city, and, getting lost, had
thought it beneath their dignity to inquire the way
back—and those old compactly built towns, in each
of which the houses seem to have nestled together
around a moss-grown church tower, like children at
the knees of a fond mother,—made up a scene which
harmonized admirably with my feelings and with the
day, "so calm, so cool, so bright, the bridal of the
earth and sky." My fellow-passengers shared in
the general joy which the blithesomeness of nature
inspired. We all chatted merrily together, and a
German, who looked about as lively as Scott's Commentaries
bound in dark sheep-skin, tried to make a
joke. So irresistible was the contagion of cheerfulness,
that an Englishman, who sat opposite me, so
far forgot his native dignity, as to volunteer the remark
that it was a "nice day."

At last we began to consult our watches and time
tables, and, after a shrill whistle and a ride through
a long tunnel, I found myself, with a punctuality by
which you might set your Frodsham, in the station at
Rouen. I obeyed the instructions of the conductor
to *Messieurs les voyageurs pour Rouen* to *descendez*,
and was, in a very few minutes, walking leisurely
through narrow and winding streets, which I used to
think existed only in the imaginations of novelists
and scene-painters. I say walking, but the fact is, I
did not know what means of locomotion I employed
in my progress through the town. My eyes and
mind were too busy to take cognizance of any inferior
matters. My astonishment and delight at all
that met my sight was not so great as my astonishment
and delight to find myself astonished and delighted.
I had seen so many old cities that I had no
thought of getting enthusiastic about Rouen, until I
found myself suddenly in a state of mental exaltation.
I had visited Rouen as many people visit
churches and galleries of art in Italy—because I had
an opportunity, and feared that in after years I
might be asked if I had ever been there. But, if a
dislike to acknowledge my ignorance led me to
Rouen, it was a very different sentiment that took
possession of me as soon as I caught the spirit of the
place. The genius of the past seemed to inhabit
every street and alley of that strange city. I half expected,
whenever I heard the hoofs of horses, to find
myself encompassed by mailed knights; and if Joan
of Arc, with her sweet maidenly face beaming with
the inspiration of religious patriotism, had galloped
by, it would not have surprised me so much as it did
to realize that I—a Yankee, clad in a gray travelling
suit, with an umbrella in my hand, and drafts to a
limited amount on Baring Brothers in my pocket—was
moving about in the midst of such scenes, and
was not arrested and hustled out of the way as a
profane intruder.

Wandering through the mouldy streets without
any definite idea whither they led, and so charmed
by all I saw, that I did not care, I suddenly turned a
corner and suddenly found myself in a market-place
well filled with figures, which would have graced a
similar scene in any opera-house, and facing that
stupendous cathedral which is one of the glories of
France. I do not know how to talk learnedly about
architecture; so I can spare you, dear reader, any
criticism on the details of that great church. I have
no doubt that it is full of faults, but my unskilful eyes
rested only on its beauties. I would not have had it
one stroke of the chisel less ornate, nor one shade
less dingy. I could not, indeed, help thinking what
it must have been centuries ago, when it was in all
the glory of its fresh beauty; but still I rejoiced that
it was reserved for me to behold it in the perfected
loveliness and richer glory of its decay. Never until
then did I fully appreciate the truth of Mr. Ruskin's
declaration, that the greatest glory of a building is
not in its sculptures or in its gold, but in its age,—nor
did I ever before perfectly comprehend his eloquent
words touching that mysterious sympathy which we
feel in "walls that have long been washed by the
passing waves of humanity."

After lingering for a while before the sacred edifice,
I entered, and stood within its northern aisle.
Arches above arches, supported by a forest of massive
columns, seemed to be climbing up as if they
aspired to reach the throne of Him whose worship
was daily celebrated there. The sun was obscured by
a passing cloud as I entered, and that made the ancient
arches seem doubly solemn. The stillness that
reigned there was rendered more profound by the
occasional twitter of a swallow from some "jutty
frieze," or "coigne of vantage," high up above my
head. I walked half way up the aisle, and stopped
on hearing voices at a distance. As I stood listening,
the sun uncovered his radiant face, and poured his
golden glory through the great western windows of
the church, bathing the whole interior with a prismatic
brilliancy which made me wonder at my presumption
in being there. At the same moment a
clear tenor voice rang out from the choir as if the
sunbeams had called it into being, giving a wonderful
expression to the words of the Psalmist, *Dominus
illuminatio mea et salus mea; quem timebo*. Then
came a full burst of music as the choir took up the
old Gregorian Chant—the universal language of
prayer and praise. As the mute groves of the Academy
reëcho still the wisdom of the sages, so did that
ancient church people my mind with forms and scenes
of an age long passed away. "I was all ear," and
those solemn strains seemed to be endowed with the
accumulated melody of the *Misereres* and *Glorias* of
a thousand years.

I have an especial affection for an old church, and
I pity with all my heart the man whom the silent
eloquence of that vast cathedral does not move. The
very birds that build their nests in its mouldering
towers have more soul than he. Its every stone is a
sermon on the transitoriness of human enterprise and
the vanity of worldly hopes. Beneath its pavement
lie buried hopes and ambitions which have left no
memorial but in the unread pages of forgotten historians.
Richard, the lion-hearted, who made two
continents ring with the fame of his valour, and
yearned for new conquests, was obliged at last to
content himself with the dusty dignity and obscurity
of a vault beneath those lofty arches which stand
unmoved amid the contentions of rival dynasties and
the insane violence of republican anarchy.

But it was not merely to write of the glories of
Rouen and its churches, that I took up my neglected
pen. The old cathedral of which I have now a few
kind words to say, does not, like that of Rouen, date
back sixteen centuries to its foundation; neither is it
one of those marvels of architecture in which the conscious
stone seems to have grown naturally into
forms of enduring beauty. No great synods or councils
have been held within its walls; nor have its humble
aisles resounded daily with the divine office
chanted by a chapter of learned and pious canons.
Indeed it bears little in its external appearance that
would raise a suspicion of its being a cathedral at all.
Yet its plain interior, its simple altars, and its unpretentious
episcopal throne, bear witness to the abiding-place
of that power which is radiated from the shrine
of the Prince of the Apostles—as unmistakably as if
it were encrusted with mosaics, and the genius of
generations of great masters had been taxed in its
adornment.

The Cathedral of Boston is the last relic of Franklin
Street as I delight to remember it. One by one,
the theatre, the residence of the Catholic bishops,
and the old mansions that bore such a Berkeley
Square-y look of respectability have passed away;
and the old church alone remains. Tall warehouses
look down upon it, as if it were an intruder there, and
the triumphal car of traffic makes its old walls tremble
and disturbs the devotion of its worshippers. An
irreverent punster ventured a few months since to
suggest that, out of regard to its new associations, it
ought to be rededicated under the invocation of St.
Casimir, and to be enlarged by the addition of a
chapel built in honor of St. Pantaleone.

   |     Quid non mortalia pectora cogis,
   | Joci sacra fames!

But it is well that it should follow the buildings with
which it held companionship through so many quiet
years. The charm of the old street has been destroyed,
and the sooner the last monument of its
former state is removed the better it will be. The
land on which it stands formerly belonged to the
Boston Theatre corporation. It was transferred to
its present proprietorship in the last week of the last
century, and the first Catholic church in New England
was erected upon it. That church (enlarged
considerably by the late Bishop Fenwick) is the one
which still stands, and towards which I feel a veneration
similar in kind to that inspired by the cathedrals
of the old world. Even now I remember with pleasure
how I used to enjoy an occasional visit to that
strange place in my boyhood. "Logic made easy"
and "Geometry for Infant Schools" were things unknown
in my young days. I was weaned from the
Primer and Spelling-book with the Arabian Nights'
Entertainments, and the works of Defoe, Goldsmith,
Addison, and Shakespeare. Therefore the romantic
instinct was not entirely crushed out of my youthful
heart, and it would be difficult, dear reader, for you
to conceive how much I found to feed it on, within
those plain brick walls.

The lamp which used to burn constantly before the
altar, until an anxiety for "improvement" removed it
out of sight behind the pulpit, filled me with an indescribable
awe. I was ignorant of its meaning, and
for years was unaware that my childish reverence
for its mild flicker was a blind homage to one of the
profoundest mysteries of the Catholic faith. I remember
to this day the satisfaction I took in the
lighting of those tall candles, and what a halo of
mysterious dignity surrounded even the surpliced
boys grouped around that altar. That strange ceremonial
surpassed my comprehension. The Latin, as
I heard it sung there, was pronounced so differently
from what I had been taught at school, that it was all
Greek to me. Yet, when I saw the devotion of that
congregation, and the pious zeal of the devoted
clergymen who built that church, I could not call their
worship "mummery," nor join in the irreverent
laughter of my comrades at those ancient rites.
There was something about them that seemed to fill
up my ideal of worship—a soothing and consoling
influence which I found nowhere else.

I never entertained the vulgar notion of a Catholic
priest. Of course my education led me to regard the
dogmas of the Roman Church with any thing but a
friendly eye; but my ideas of the clergy of that
Church were not influenced by popular prejudice. I
was always willing to believe that Vincent de Paul,
and Charles Borromeo, and Fénelon were what they
were, *in consequence* of their religion, rather than *in
spite* of it, as some people, who make pretensions to
liberality, would fain persuade us. When I recall
the self-denying lives of the two founders of the
Catholic Church in Boston,—Matignon and Cheverus,—I
wonder that the influence of their virtues
has not extended even to the present day, to soften
prejudice and do away with *irreligious* animosity.
They were regarded with distrust, if not with hatred,
when they first came among us to take charge of that
humble flock; but their devotedness, joined with
great acquirements and rare personal worth, overcame
even the force of the great Protestant tradition
of enmity towards their office. Protestant admiration
kept pace with Catholic love and veneration in
their regard, and when they built the church which is
now so near the term of its existence, there were few
wealthy Protestants in Boston who did not esteem
it a privilege to aid them with liberal contributions.
The first subscription paper for its erection was
headed by the illustrious and venerable name of John
Adams, the successor of Washington in the presidency
of the United States.

.. ——File: 280.png

The memory of the first Bishop of Boston, Dr.
Cheverus, is (for most Bostonians of my age) the
most precious association connected with the Cathedral.
He was endeared to the people of this city by
ten years of unselfish exertion in the duties of a missionary
priest, before he was elevated to the dignity
of the episcopate. His unwillingness to receive the
proffered mitre was as characteristic of his modest
and humble spirit, as the meekness with which he
bore his faculties when the burden of that responsibility
was forced upon him. His "episcopal
palace," as he used facetiously to term his small and
scantily-furnished dwelling, which was contiguous to
the rear of the church, was the resort of all classes of
the community. His simplicity of manner and ingenuous
affability won all hearts. The needy and
opulent, the learned and illiterate, the prosperous
merchant and the Indians in the unknown wilds of
Maine, found in him a father and a friend. Children
used to run after him as he walked down Franklin
Place, delighted to receive a smile and a kind
word from one whose personal presence was like a
benediction.

His face was the index of a pure heart and a great
mind. It was impossible to look at him without recalling
that fine stanza of the old poet.—

   | "A sweete attractive kind of grace,
   | A full assurance given by lookes,
   | Continuall comfort in a face,
   | The lineaments of Gospel bookes;—
   | I trow that countenance cannot lie
   | Whose thoughts are legible in the eye."

.. ——File: 281.png

One of the ancient Hebrew prophets, in describing
the glories of the millennial period, tells us that
upon the bells of the horses shall be the words, *Holiness
unto the Lord*—a prophecy which always reminded
me of Cheverus; for that divine inscription
seemed to have been written all over his benign
countenance as with the luminous pen of the rapt
evangelist in Patmos.

But Bishop Cheverus was not merely a good man—he
was a great man. He did not court the society
of the learned, for his line of duty lay among the
poor; but, even in that humble sphere, his talents
shone out brightly, and won the respect even of
those who had the least sympathy with the Church to
which his every energy was devoted. Boston valued
him highly; but few of her citizens thought, as they
saw him bound on some errand of mercy through her
streets, that France envied them the possession of
such a prelate, that the peerage of the old monarchy
was thought to need his virtuous presence, and that
the scarlet dignity of a Prince of the Church was in
reserve for that meek and self-sacrificing servant of
the poor. Had he been gifted with prophetic vision,
his humility would have had much to suffer, and his
life would have been made unhappy, by the thought
of coming power and honour. He had given the best
part of his life to Boston, and here he wished to die.
He had buried his friend and fellow-labourer, Dr.
Matignon, in the Church of St. Augustine at South
Boston, and when he placed the mural tablet over the
tomb of that venerable priest, he left a space for his
own name, and expressed the hope that, as they had
lived together harmoniously for so many years, they
might not in death be separated. It was a strange
sight to see more than two hundred Protestants
remonstrating against the translation of a Catholic
bishop from their city, and speaking of him in such
terms as these: "We hold him to be a blessing and a
treasure in our social community, which we cannot
part with, and which, without injustice to any man,
we may affirm, if withdrawn from us, can never be
replaced." And when he distributed all that he possessed
among his clergy, his personal friends and the
poor, and left Boston as poor as he had entered it,
with the single trunk that contained his clothes when
he arrived, twenty-seven years before,—public admiration
outran the power of language. Doctrinal
differences were forgotten. Three hundred carriages
and other vehicles escorted him several miles
on the road to New York, where he was to embark.

Of his life as Bishop of Montauban, Archbishop
of Bordeaux, a Peer of France, and a Cardinal, there
is not space for me to speak. Suffice it to say, that
amid all the dignities to which he was successively
promoted, he lived as simply and unostentatiously as
when he dwelt in Franklin Street; and that in time
of pestilence and public distress he showed the same
unbounded charity which caused his departure from
Boston to be considered a public calamity. To the
last day of his life he maintained his interest in his
American home, and would gladly have relinquished
all his dignities to return and minister at the altar of
the church he here erected. Throughout France he
was honoured and beloved, even as he had been in
the metropolis of New England, and a nation sorrowed
at his death. Full as his life was of good
works, it was not in his eloquence, nor his learning,
nor in the pious and charitable enterprises which he
originated, that the glory of Cardinal Cheverus consisted;
it was in the simplicity of his character and
the daily beauty of his life:—

   | "His thoughts were as a pyramid up-piled,
   | On whose far top an angel stood and smiled,
   | Yet in his heart he was a little child."

The gentle and benevolent spirit of that illustrious
prelate has never departed from the church he built.
When Channing died, and was buried from the
church which his eloquence had made famous, the
successor of Cheverus caused the bell of the neighbouring
Cathedral to be tolled, that it might not
seem as if the Catholics had forgotten the friendly
relations which had existed between the great Unitarian
preacher and their first bishop. And when
the good Bishop Fenwick was borne from the old
Cathedral, with all the pomp of pontifical obsequies,
his courtesy and regard for Dr. Channing's memory
was not forgotten, and the bell which was so lately
removed from the tower, where it had swung for
half a century, joined with that of the Cathedral in
giving expression to the general sorrow, and proved
that no dogmatic differences had disturbed the
kindly spirit which Channing inculcated and had exemplified
in his blameless life.

Of the later history of the Cathedral of the Holy
Cross I may not speak. My youthful respect for it
has in no degree diminished, and I shall always consider
it a substantial refutation of the old apothegm,
"Familiarity breeds contempt." There are, I doubt
not, those who regard that old edifice with deeper
feelings than mine. Who can estimate the affection
and veneration in which it is held by those who may
there have found an asylum from harassing doubts,
who have received from that font the joy of a renovated
heart, and from that altar the divine gift which
is at the same time a consolation for past sorrows
and a renewal of strength to tread the rough path of
life!

I am told that it will not probably be long before
the glittering cross which the pure-hearted Cheverus
placed upon the old church will be removed, and the
demolition of his only monument in Boston will be
effected. Permit me to conclude these reminiscences
with the expression of the hope that the new Cathedral
of Boston will be an edifice worthy of this
wealthy city, and that it may contain some fitting
memorial of the remarkable man who exercised his
beneficent apostolate among us during more than a
quarter of a century. The virtues which merited the
gratitude of the poor and the highest honours which
pontiffs and kings can bestow, ought not to go uncommemorated
in the city which witnessed their development,
and never hesitated to give expression to its
love and veneration for their possessor. But whatever
the new Cathedral may be,—however glorious
the skill of the architect, the sculptor, and the painter
may render it,—there are those in whose affections it
will never be able to replace the little unpretending
church which Cheverus built, and which the remembrance
of his saintly life has embalmed in all their
hearts.

.. ——File: 285.png




THE PHILOSOPHY OF SUFFERING
---------------------------

.. epigraph::

   |               I am old,
   | And my infirmities have chained me here
   | To suffer and to vex my weary soul
   | With the vain hope of cure. \* \* \*
   | Yet my captivity is not so joyless
   | As you would think, my masters. Here I sit
   | And look upon this eager, anxious world,—
   | Not with the eyes of sour misanthropy,
   | Nor envious of its pleasures,—but content,—
   | Yea, blessedly content, 'mid all my pains,
   | That I no more may mingle with its brawlings.


Human suffering is an old and favourite
theme. From the time when the woes of Job
assumed an epic grandeur of form, and the adventures
and pains of Philoctetes inspired the tragic
muse of Sophocles, down to the publication of the
last number of the *London Lancet*, there would seem
to have been no subject so attractive as the sufferings
of poor humanity. Literature is filled with their
recital, and, if books were gifted with a vocal power,
every library would resound with wailings. Ask
your neighbour Jenkins, who overtakes you on your
way to your office, how he is, and it is ten chances to
one that he will entertain you with an account of his
influenza or his rheumatism. It is a subject, too,
which age cannot wither nor custom stale. It knows
none of the changes which will at times dwarf or
keep out of sight all other themes. The weather,
which forms the raw material of so much conversation,
is nothing compared to it. There is nothing
which men find so much pleasure in talking about as
their own ailments. The late Mr. Webster, of
Marshfield, was once stopping for a single day in a
western city, where he had never been before, and
where there was a natural curiosity among many of
the inhabitants to see the Defender of the Constitution.
He therefore set apart two hours before the
time of his departure for the reception of such persons
as might seek the honour of a shake of his
hand. The reception took place in one of the parlours
of a hotel, the crowd filing in at one door, being
introduced by the mayor, and making their exit by
another. In the course of the proceedings, a little
man, with a lustrous beaver in one hand and a gold-headed
cane in the other, and whose personal apparel
appeared to have been got up (as old Pelby
would have said) without the slightest regard to expense,
and on a scale of unparalleled splendour,
walked forward, and was presented by the mayor as
"Mr. Smith, one of our most eminent steamboat
builders and leading citizens." Mr. Webster's large,
thoughtful, serene eyes seemed to be completely
filled by the result of the combined efforts of the
linen-draper, the tailor, and the jeweller, that confronted
him, and his deep voice made answer—"Mr.
Smith, I am happy to see you. I hope you are well,
sir." "Thank you, thir," said the leading citizen, "I
am not very well. I wath tho unfortunate ath to
take cold yethterday by thitting in a draught. Very
unpleathant, Mr. Webthter, to have a cold! But
Mrs. Smith thays that the thinks that if I put my
feet in thome warm water to-night, and take thome-thing
warm to drink on going to bed, that I may get
over it. I thertainly hope tho, for it really givth me
the headache, and I can't thmell at all." Mr. Webster
expressed a warm interest in Mr. Smith's case,
and a hope that Mrs. Smith's simple medical treatment
would result beneficially, and then turned with
undisturbed gravity to the next citizen, who, with
some six hundred others, was anxiously waiting his
turn. We are all like Mr. Smith. We laugh, it is
true, at his affectations, but we are as likely to force
our petty ailments upon a mind burdened with the
welfare of a nation; and we never tire of hearing
ourselves talk about our varying symptoms. Politeness
may hold us back from importuning our friends
with the diagnosis of our case, but our self-centred
hearts are all alike, and a cold in the head will
awaken more feelings in its victim than the recital of
all the horrors of the hospital of Scutari. Nothing
can equal the heroic fortitude with which we bear
the sufferings of our fellows, or the saintliness of our
pious resignation and acquiescence in the wisdom of
the divine decrees when our friends are bending under
their afflictive stroke.

I wish to say a few words about suffering. Do not
be afraid, beloved reader, that I am going to carry
you into rooms from which the light is excluded, and
which are strangers to any sound above a whisper,
or the casual movement of some of the phials on the
mantel-piece. I am going to speak of suffering in its
strict sense of pain,—bodily pain,—and sickness is
not necessarily accompanied with pain. I cannot regard
your sick man as a real sufferer. His fever
rages, and he tosses from side to side as if he were
suffering punishment with Dives; but from the incoherent
phrases which escape from his parched lips,
you learn that his other self is rapt in the blissfulness
that enfolds Lazarus. He prattles childishly of
other lands and scenes—he thinks himself surrounded
by friends whose faces once were grateful to his
sight, but who long since fell before the power with
which he is struggling—or he fancies himself metamorphosed
into a favourite character in some pleasant
book which he has lately read. After a time he
wakes forth from his delirium, but he cannot even
then be called a sufferer. On the contrary, his situation,
even while he is so entirely dependent upon
those around him, is really the most independent one
in the world. His lightest wish is cared for as if his
life were the price of its non-accomplishment. All
his friends and kinsmen, and neighbours whom he
hardly knows by sight, vie with each other in trying
to keep pace with his returning appetite. He is the
absolute monarch of all he surveys. There is no one
to dispute his reign. The crown of convalescence is
the only one which does not make the head that
wears it uneasy. He has nothing to do but to satisfy
his longings for niceties, to listen to kind words from
dear friends, to sleep when he feels like it, and to
get better. I am afraid that we are all so selfish and
so enslaved by our appetites, that the period of convalescence
is the pleasantest part of life to most
of us.

Therefore I shut out common sickness, fevers, and
the like, from any share in my observations on suffering.
If you ask me what I should be willing to consider
real bodily pain,—since I am unwilling to allow
that ordinary sick men participate in it,—I should
say that you can find it in a good, old-fashioned attack
of rheumatism or gout. I think it was Horace
Walpole who said that these two complaints were
very much alike, the difference between them being
this: that rheumatism was like putting your hand or
foot into a vice, and screwing it up as tight as you
possibly can, and gout was the same thing, only you
give the screw one more turn. It is no flattery to
speak of the victim to either of these disorders as a
sufferer. The rheumatic gout is a complaint which
possesses all the advantages and peculiarities which
its compound title denotes. It unites in itself all the
potentiality of gout and all the ubiquity of rheumatism.
Its characteristics have been impressed
upon me in a manner that sets at defiance that weakness
of memory which generally accompanies old
age. Sharp experience, increasing in sharpness as
my years pile up, makes that complaint a specialty
among my acquirements. These stinging, burning,
cutting pains deserve the superlative case, if any
thing does. Language (that habitual bankrupt) is
reduced to a most abject state when called upon to
describe rheumatic gout. The disease does not seem
to feel satisfied with poisoning your blood by its
aciduousness, it makes your flesh tingle and burn,
and, like the late Duke of Wellington, does not rest
until it has conquered the bony part. The very bone
seems to be crumbling wherever the demon of gout
pinches. There are moments in the life of every
gouty man when it seems as if nothing would be so refreshing
as to indulge for a while in the use of that
energetic diction, savouring more of strength than
of righteousness, which is common among cavalry
troops and gentlemen of the seafaring profession,
but which, in society, is considered to be a little in
advance of the prejudices of the age. No higher
encomium could be passed upon a gouty man than to
say that, with all his torments, he never swore, and
was seldom petulant. But there are very few whose
merits deserve this canonization.

But gout, with all its pains, has yet its redeeming
characteristics. That great law of compensation
which reduces the inequalities of our lot, and makes
Brown, Jones, and Robinson come out about even in
the long run, is not inoperative here. The gout is
painful, but its respectability is unquestionable. It is
the disease of a gentleman. It is a certificate of good
birth more satisfactory than any which the Heralds'
College or the Genealogical Association can furnish.
It is but right, too, that the man who can date back
his family history to Plymouth or Jamestown in this
country, and to Runnymede on the other side of the
Atlantic, should pay something for such a privilege.
A man may never have indulged in "the sweet poison
of the Tuscan grape" himself, but can he reasonably
complain of an incontrovertible testimony to the fact
that his ancestors lived well! *Chacun à son goût*:
for myself, I should much prefer my honoured family
name, with all its associations with the brave
knight who made it famous, accompanied by the only
possession which I have received by hereditary right,
to the most unequivocal state of health burdened
with such a name as Jinkins.

.. ——File: 291.png

Mentally and spiritually, the gout is far from
being a useless institution. It ripens a man's judgment,
and prunes away the radical tendencies of his
nature. It will convert the wildest of revolutionists
into the stiffest of conservatives. It teaches a man
to look at things as they really are, and not as enthusiasm
would have them represented. No gouty man
would ever look to the New York Tribune as the
exponent of his religious or political creed. His
complaint has a positive character, and it makes him
earnest to find something positive in religion and
politics. The negativeness of radicalism tires him.
He deprecates every thing like change. He thinks
that religion, and society, and government were established
for some better end than to afford a perpetual
employment to the destructive powers of
visionary reformers and professional philanthropists.
He longs to find constancy and stability in
something besides his inexorable disorder.

There is another disorder which people generally
seem to consider a very trifling affair, but which any
one who knows it will allow to be productive of the
most unmistakable pain. I refer to neuralgia. Who
pities a neuralgic person? Any healthy man, when
asked about it, will answer in his ignorance that it is
"only a headache." But ask the school teacher,
whose throbbing head seems to be beating time to
the ceaseless muttering and whispering of her scholars
as they bend over their tasks—ask the student,
whose thoughts, like undisciplined soldiers, will not
fall into the ranks, and whose head seems to be occupied
by a steam engine of enormous power, running
at the highest rate of pressure, with the driver
sitting on the safety-valve—ask them whether neuralgia
is "only a headache"! Who can tell the
cause of the prevalence of this scourge? whether it
proceeds from our houses overheated with intolerable
furnaces and anthracite coal, or from our treacherous
and unconstant climate so forcibly described by
Choate: "Cold to-day; hot to-morrow; mercury at
eighty degrees in the morning, with wind at south-west;
and in three hours more a sea turn, with wind
at east, a thick fog from the very bottom of the
ocean, and a fall of forty degrees of Fahrenheit."
The uncertainty which seems to attend all human
science, and the science of medicine in particular, envelops
this mysterious disease, and thousands of us
are left to suffer and wonder what the matter is.

But all of these pains, gouty, neuralgic, and
otherwise, have yet their sweet uses, and like the vile
reptile Shakespeare tells us of, are adorned with a
precious jewel. The old Roman emperors in the
hour of triumph used to have a slave stand behind
them to whisper in their ear, from time to time, the
unwelcome but salutary truth that they were but
mortal men. Even now, on the occasion of the enthronement
of a Pope, a lighted candle is applied to
a bunch of flax fixed upon a staff, and as the smoke
dissipates itself into thin air before the newly-crowned
Pontiff, surrounded as he is by all the emblems
of religion and all the insignia and pomp of
worldly power, the same great truth of the perishableness
of all mortal things is impressed upon his
mind by the chanting of the simple but eloquent
phrase, *Sic transit gloria mundi*. But we neuralgic
and gouty wretches need no whispering slave nor
smoking flax to remind us of our frailty and the
transientness of our happiness and glory. We carry
with us a monitor who checks our swelling pride, and
teaches us effectually the brevity of human joys. We
are very apt, in our impatience and short-sightedness,
to think that if we had the management of the world
and the dispensation of pleasure and suffering, every
thing could be conducted in a much more satisfactory
manner. If it were so, we should undoubtedly carry
things on in the style of a French restaurant, so that
we could have *pain à discretion*. But on the whole,
I am inclined to think that we had better leave these
matters to the management of that infinite Power
which gives us day by day our daily pain, and from
which we receive in the long run about what is meet
for us. I hope that I shall not be thought ill-bred or
profane in using such expressions as these. At my
time of life it is too late to begin to murmur. A few
twinges more or less are nothing when the hair
grows gray and the eye is dimmed with the mists of
age. The man who knows nothing of the novitiate
of patience—who has passed through life without
the chastening discipline of bodily pain—has missed
one of the best parts of existence. To suffer is one
of the noblest prerogatives of human nature. Without
suffering, life would be robbed of half its zest,
and the thought of death would drive us to despair.

When I was a young man, and gave little thought
to the gout and the other ills that vex me at present,
I saw a wonderful exhibition of patience, which I
now daily recall to mind, and wish I could imitate.
I was sojourning in Florence, that lovely city, whose
every association is one of calm and satisfactory
pleasure undisturbed by any thing like bodily suffering.
I enjoyed the friendship of a young American
amateur artist of unquestioned talent, but whose
artistic efforts were interfered with by the frequent
attacks of a serious and excruciating disorder. It
was considerable time after I made his acquaintance
before I knew that he was an invalid. I noticed his
lameness, but whenever we met he wore a smiling
face, and had a cheerful word for every body. One
evening I called in at his quiet lodgings near the
Lung' Arno, and found a party of some six or eight
Americans talking over their recollections of home.
He was entertaining them with the explanation of an
imaginary panorama of New England, and a musical
friend threw in illustrative passages from the piano
in the intervals. The parlour resounded with our
laughter at his irresistible fun; but in the midst of it
all, he asked us to excuse him for a moment, and
went into his bedroom. After a little while, another
engagement calling me away, I went into his chamber
to speak with him before leaving. I found him lying
upon his bed, writhing like Laocoön, while great
drops stood upon his brow and agony was depicted
on his patient face. He resisted all my attempts to
do any thing for him; the attack had lasted all day,
but was at some times severer than at others; he
should feel better soon, and would go back to his
friends; I had better not stop with him, as it might
attract their attention in the parlour, &c. So I took
my leave. The next morning I met one of his
friends, who told me that he returned to his company
a few minutes after my departure, and entertained
them for an hour or more with an exhibition
of his powers of wit and humour, which eclipsed
all his previous efforts. Poor S. C.! His weary
but uncomplaining spirit laid down that crippled
body, which never gave aught but pain to its possessor,
three or four years ago, and passed, let us hope,
into a happier state of existence, which flesh and
blood, with their countless maladies and dolours,
may not inherit.

The traveller in the south of Europe frequently
encounters, in his perambulations through the streets
and squares of cities, a group of people gathered
around a monk, who is discoursing to them of those
sublime truths which men are prone to lose sight of
in their walks abroad. The style of the sermon is
not, it is true, what we should look for from Newman,
or Ravignan, or Ventura, but it has in it those
fundamental principles of true eloquence, simplicity
and earnestness; and the coarse brown habit, the
knotted cord, and the pale, serene, devout face of
the preacher, harmonize wondrously with the self-denying
doctrine he teaches, and give a double force
to all his words. His instructions frequently concern
the simple moral duties of life and the exercise of the
cardinal virtues, which he enforces by illustrations
drawn from the lives of canonized saints, who won
their heavenly crown and their earthly fame of
blessedness by the practice of those virtues. Allow
me to close my sermon on suffering in the manner of
the preaching friars, though I may not draw my
illustrations from the ancient martyrologies; for I
apprehend that it will be more in keeping with the
serious character of this essay to take them from another
source. We have all laughed at Dickens's
characters of Mark Tapley and Mr. Toots. The
former was celebrated for "keeping jolly under disadvantageous
circumstances," and seemed to mourn
over those dispensations of good fortune which detracted
from his credit in being jolly. The latter was
never known to indulge in any complaint, but met
every mishap and disappointment with a manly resignation
and the simple remark, "It's of no consequence."
Even when he was completely ingulfed in
misfortunes, when Pelion seemed to have been
heaped upon Ossa, and both upon him, he did not
give way to despair. He only gave utterance more
fervently to his favourite maxim, "It's of no consequence.
Nothing is of any consequence whatever!"
Now, laugh at it as we may, this is a great truth. It
is the foundation of all true philosophy—of all practical
religion. A few years more, and what will it
avail us to have bargained successfully, to have lived
in splendour, to have left in history a name that shall
be the synonyme of power! A few years, and what
shall we care for all our present sufferings and the
light afflictions which are but for a moment! May
we not say with Solomon, that "All is vanity," and
with poor Toots, that "Nothing is of any consequence
whatever"? Now, if there are any people
who are likely to arrive at this satisfactory conclusion,
and who need the consolation imparted by the
reception and full appreciation of the deep truth it
contains, it is the gouty, and rheumatic, and neuralgic
wretches whom I have had in mind while writing this
paper. Let me, in conclusion, as one who has had
some experience, and is not merely theorizing, exhort
all such persons to meditate upon the lives of
the two great patterns of patience whom I have
brought forward as examples; and to bear in mind
that it is only through the resignation of Toots, that
they can attain to the jollity of Tapley. Likewise let
me counsel those who may be passing through life
unharmed by serious misfortune and untrammelled
by bodily pain, never to lose sight of that striking
admonition of old Sir Thomas Browne's, "Measure
not thyself by thy morning shadow, but by the extent
of thy grave; and reckon thyself above the earth, by
the line thou must be contented with under it."

.. ——File: 298.png




BOYHOOD AND BOYS
----------------


Human nature is a very telescopic "institution."
It delights to dwell on whatever is
most distant. Lord Rosse's famous instrument
dwindles down to a mere opera glass if you compare
it with the mental vision of a restless boy, looking
forward to the time when he shall don a tail-coat and
a beaver hat. How his young heart swells with
pride as he anticipates the day when he shall be his
own master, as the phrase is—when he shall be able
to stay out after nine o'clock in the evening, and to
go home without being subjected to the ignominy of
being escorted by a chambermaid! If he be of a
particularly sanguine temperament, his wild imagination
is rapt in the contemplation of the possibility of
one day having his name in the newspapers as secretary
of some public meeting, or as having made a
vigorous speech at a political caucus where liberty of
speech runs out into slander, and sedition is mistaken
for patriotism,—or perhaps even of being one day a
Common Councilman, or a member of the Great and
General Court. A popular poet of the present day
has expressed the same idea in a less prosaic manner:—

   | "Not rainbow pinions coloured like yon cloud,
   | The sun's broad banner o'er his western tent,
   | Can match the bright imaginings of a child
   | Upon the glories of his coming years:"—

and another bard avers that human blessings are
always governing the future, and never the present
tense,—or something to that effect. The truth of
this nobody will deny who has passed from the boxes
of childhood upon the stage of manhood which so
charmed his youthful fancy, and finds that the heroes
who dazzled him once by their splendid achievements
are mere ordinary mortals like himself, whom
the blindness or caprice of their fellows has allowed
to be dressed in a little brief authority; that the
cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces he used to
gaze on from afar, prove, on a closer inspection, to
be mere deceptions of paint and canvas, and that he
has only to look behind them to see the rough bricks
and mortar of every-day life.

The voyager who sails from the dark waters of
the restless Atlantic into the deep blue Mediterranean,
notices at sunset a rich purple haze which rises
apparently from the surface of that fair inland sea,
and drapes the hills and vales along the beautiful
shore with a glory that fills the heart of the beholder
with unutterable gladness. The distant, snow-covered
peaks of old Granada, clad in the same bright
robe, seem by their regal presence to impose silence
on those whom their majestic beauty has blessed
with a momentary poetic inspiration which defies all
power of tongue or pen. It touches nothing which it
does not adorn, and the commonest objects are transmuted
by its magic into fairy shapes which abide ever
after in the memory. Under its softening influence,
the dingy sail of a fisherman's boat becomes almost
as beautiful an object to the sight as the ruins of the
temple which crowns the height of Cape Colonna.
But when you approach nearer to that which had
seemed so charming in its twilight robes, your poetic
sense is somewhat interfered with. You find the
fishing boat as unattractive as any that anchor on the
Banks from which we obtain such frequent discounts
of nasty weather, and the shore, though it may still
be very beautiful, lacks the supernal glory imparted
to it by distance. It is very much after this fashion
with manhood, when we compare its reality with our
childish expectations. We find that we have been
deceived by a mere atmospheric phenomenon. But
the destruction of the charm which age had for our
eyes as children, is compensated for by the creation
of a new glory which lights up our young days, as we
look back upon them with the regret of manhood,
and realize that their joys can never be lived over
again.

Pardon me, gentle reader, for all this prosing. I
have been reading that pleasant, hearty book, "Tom
Brown's School Days at Rugby," during the past
week, and it has set me a-thinking about my own boyhood;
for, strange as it may seem, there was a time
when this troublesome foot was more familiar with
the football and the skate than with gout and flannel,—and
Tom Brown's genial reminiscences have revived
the memory of that time most wonderfully.
There was considerable fun in Boston in my childhood,
even though most of the faces which one met
in Marlboro' Street and Cornhill were such as might
have appropriately surrounded Cromwell at Naseby
or Marston Moor. There were many people, even
then, who did not regard religion as an affair of
spasmodic emotions, and long, bilious-looking faces,
and psalm-singing, and neck-ties. They thought
that, so long as they were honest in their dealings,
and did not swear to false invoices at the customhouse,
and did as they would be done by, and lived
virtuously, that He to whom they had been taught by
parental lips to pray, would overlook the smaller
offences—such as an occasional laugh or a pleasant
jest—into which weak nature would now and then
betray them. I cannot help thinking that they were
about right, though I fear that I shall be set down as
little better than one of the wicked by Stiggins, Chadband,
Sleek & Co.

Yes, there was a good deal of fun among the boys
in those old days. Boys will be boys, however serious
the family may be; and if you take away their marbles,
some other "vanity" will be sure to take their
place. What jolly times we used to have Artillery
Election! How good the egg-pop used to taste, in
spite of the dust of Park Street, which mingled itself
liberally with the nutmeg! How we used to save up
our money for those festive days! How hard the
arithmetic lessons seemed, particularly in the days
immediately preceding vacation! How dreary were
those long winters; and yet how short and pleasant
they seemed to us! for we loved the runners, and
skates, and jingling bells, and, as Pescatore, the Neapolitan
poet, sings, "though bleak our lot, our hearts
were warm."

Newspapers were not a common luxury in those
times, and I suppose that I took as little notice of
passing events as most children; yet I well remember
the effect produced upon my mind one dark, threatening
afternoon, near the close of the last century, by
the announcement of the death of General Washington.
I had been accustomed to hear him talked about
as the Father of his Country; I had studied the
lineaments of his calm countenance, as they were set
forth for the edification of my patriotism on some
coarse handkerchiefs presented to me by a public-spirited
aunt, until I began to look upon him as
almost a supernatural being. If I had been told that
the Old South had been removed to Dorchester
Heights, or that the solar system was irreparably
disarranged, I should not have been more completely
taken aback than I was by that melancholy intelligence.
I need not say that afterwards, when I grew
up and found that Washington was not only a mortal
like the rest of us, but that he sometimes spelt incorrectly
enough to have suited Noah Webster, (the
inventor of the American language,) my supernatural
view of that estimable general and patriot was
very materially modified. I remember, too, how
much I used to hear said about an extraordinary man
who had risen up in France, and who seemed to be
bending all Europe to his will. I never shall forget
my astonishment on finding that Marengo was not a
man, but a place. The discovery shamed me somewhat,
and afterwards I always read whatever newspapers
came in my way. When some slow tub of a
packet had come across the ocean, battling with the
nor'-westers, and was announced to have made a
"quick passage of forty-eight days," how eagerly I
followed the rapid fortunes of the first Napoleon!
His successes, as they intoxicated him, dazzled and
bewildered my boyish imagination. I understood the
matter imperfectly, but I loved Napoleon, and delighted
to repeat to myself those stirring names,
Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram, &c. How I hated Russia
after the disastrous campaign of 1812! (By the
way, the exhibition of the Conflagration of Moscow,
which used to have its intermittent terms of exhibition
here some years since, always brought back all
my youthful feelings about the old Napoleon; the
march of the artillery across the bridge, in the foreground
of the scene, the rattling of the gun carriages,—that
most warlike of all warlike sounds,—the
burning city, the destruction of the Kremlin, all
united in my mind to form a sentiment of admiration
and sympathy for the baffled conqueror. If that admirable
show were to be revived once more, I should
be tempted to take a season ticket to it, for I have no
doubt that it would thrill me just as it did before my
head could boast of a single gray hair.) Nor was
my admiration for Napoleon's old marshals much
below that which I entertained for the mighty genius
who knew so well how to avail himself of their surpassing
bravery and skill. I felt as if the unconquerable
Murat, Lannes, Macdonald, Davoust, were my
dearest and most intimate friends. The impetuous
Ney, "the bravest of the brave," as his soldiers
called him; and the inflexible Masséna, "the favourite
child of victory," figured in all my dreams,
heading gallant charges, and withstanding deadly
assaults, and occupied the best part of my waking
thoughts. I do not doubt that there is many a schoolboy
nowadays who has dwelt with equal delight on
the achievements of Scott and Taylor, of Canrobert,
Bosquet and Pélissier, of Fenwick Williams and
Havelock, and poor old Raglan, (that brave man
upon whom the Circumlocution Office tried to fasten
the blame of its own inefficiency, and who died
broken-hearted, a melancholy illustration of the
truth of Shakespeare's lines,—

   | "The painful warrior, famouséd for fight,
   | After a thousand victories once foiled,
   | Is from the book of honour razéd quite,
   | And all the rest forgot for which he toiled,")

and who cherishes them as I did the heroes of half a
century ago.

But, as I was saying, Tom Brown's happy reminiscences
of Rugby have awakened once more all my
boyish feelings; for New England has its Rugby, and
many of the readers of the old Rugby boy's pleasant
pages will grow enthusiastic with the recollection of
their schoolboy days at Exeter,—their snowballings,
their manly sports, their mighty contests with the
boys of the town,—and, though they may not claim
the genius of the former head-master of Rugby for
the guardian of their youthful sports and studies,
will apply all of the old boy's praises of Dr. Arnold
to the wise, judicious, and lovable Dr. Abbot.

I always cherished an unbounded esteem for boys.
The boy—the genuine human boy—may, I think,
safely be set down as the noblest work of God. Pope
claims that proud distinction for the honest man, but
at the present time, the nearest we can come to such
a mythological personage as an honest man, (even
though we add Argand burners, expensive Carcels,
Davy safeties, and the Drummond light to the officially
recognized lantern of Diogenes,) is a real
human boy, without a thought beyond his next holiday,
with his heart overflowing with happiness, and
his pockets chock full of marbles. Young girls cannot
help betraying something of the in-dwelling
vanity so natural to the sex; you can discern a self-consciousness
in their every action which you shall
look for in vain in the boy. Bless your heart!—you
may dress a real boy up with superhuman care, and
try to impress on his young mind that he is the pride
of his parents, and one of the most remarkable
beings that ever visited this mundane sphere, and he
will listen to you with becoming reverence and docility;
but his pure and honest nature will give the lie
to all your flattery as soon as your back is turned, and
in ten minutes you will find him kicking out the toes
of his new boots, or rumpling his clean collar by
"playing horse," or using the top of his new cap for
a drinking vessel, and mixing in with the Smiths, and
Browns, and Jinkinses, on terms of the most unquestioned
equality. The author of Tom Brown says
that "boys follow one another in herds like sheep,
for good or evil; they hate thinking, and have rarely
any settled principles." This is undoubtedly true;
but still there is a generous instinct in boys which is
far more trustworthy than those sliding, and unreliable,
and deceptive ideas which we call settled principles.
The boy's thinking powers may be fallible,
but his instinct is, in the main, sure. There is no
aristocracy of feeling among boys. Linsey-woolsey
and broadcloth find equal favour in their eyes. What
they seek is just as likely to be found under coarse
raiment as under purple and fine linen. If their companion
is a real good feller, even though he be a son
of a rich merchant or banker, he is esteemed as
highly as if his father were an editor of a newspaper.

The nature of the boy is full of the very essence of
generosity. The boys who hide away their gingerbread,
and eat it by themselves,—who lay up their
Fourth of July five-cent pieces, for deposit in that
excellent savings institution in School Street, instead
of spending them for the legitimate India crackers of
the "Sabbath Day of Freedom,"—are exceptions
which only put the general rule beyond the pale of
controversy. The real boy carries his apple in one
of his pockets until it is comfortably warm, and he
has found some companion to whom he may offer a
festive bite; for he feels, with Goethe, that

   | "It were the greatest misery known
   | To be in paradise alone;"

and if, occasionally, when he sees his friend gratifying
his palate with a fair round specimen of the same
delicious fruit, he asks for a return of his kindness,
with a beckoning gesture, and a free and easy—"I
say, you know me, Bill!"—he is moved thereto by no
mere selfish liking for apples, but by a natural sense
of friendship, and of the excellence of the apostolic
principle of community of goods. This spirit of
generosity may be seen in the friendships of boys,
which are more entire and unselfish than those by
which men seek to mitigate the irksomeness of life.
There are more Oresteses and Pyladeses, more Damons
and Pythiases, at twelve years of age than at
any later period of life. The devotedness of boyish
friendship is peculiar from the fact that it is generally
reciprocal. In this it is superior to what we
call love, which, if we may believe the French
satirist, in most instances consists of one party who
loves, and another who allows himself or herself to
be loved. This phenomenon has not escaped the
notice of that great observer of human nature,
Thackeray.

"What generous boy," he asks, "in his time has
not worshipped somebody? Before the female enslaver
makes her appearance, every lad has a friend
of friends, a crony of cronies, to whom he writes
immense letters in vacation; whom he cherishes in his
heart of hearts; whose sister he proposes to marry
in after life; whose purse he shares; for whom he
will take a thrashing if need be; who is his hero."

The generosity, and all the priceless charms of
boyhood, rarely outlive its careless years of happiness.
They are generally severely shaken, if not
wholly destroyed, when the youth enters upon that
crepuscular period of manhood in which his jacket
is lengthened into a sack, and he begins to take his
share in the conceit, and ambition, and selfishness of
full-grown humanity. It is sad to think that a human
boy, like the morning star, full of life and joy, may
be stricken down by death, and all his hilarity stifled
in the grave; but to my mind it is even more melancholy
to think that he may live to grow up, and be
hard, and worldly, and ungenerous as any of the rest
of us. For this latter fate is accompanied by no consolations
such as naturally assuage our sorrow when
an innocent child is snatched from among his playthings,—when
"death has set the seal of eternity
upon his brow, and the beautiful hath been made permanent"
I have seen few men who would be willing
to live over again their years of manhood, however
prosperous and comparatively free from trouble they
may have been; but fewer still are those whom I have
met, in whose memory the records of boyhood are
not written as with a sunbeam. No, talk as we may
about the happiness of manhood, the satisfaction of
success in life, of gratified ambition, of the possession
of the Mary or Lizzie of one's choice,—what is
it all compared to the unadulterate joy of that time
when we built our card houses, and made our dirt
pies, or drove our hoops, unvexed by the thoughts
that Jinkins's house was larger than ours, or by any
anxiety concerning the possibility of obtaining our
next day's mutton-chop and potatoes? Except the
momentary pain occasioned by the exercise of a magisterial
rattan upon our persons, or an occasional
stern reproof from a hair-brush or the thin sole of a
maternal shoe, that halcyon period is imperturbed,
and may safely be called the happiest part of life.

My venerated friend, Baron Nabem, who has
been through all these "experiences," and therefore
ought to know, insists upon it that no man really
knows any thing until he is forty years old. For
when he is eighteen or twenty years of age, he esteems
himself to be a sort of combination of the
seven wise men of Greece in one person, with Humboldt,
Mezzofanti, and Macaulay thrown in to make
out the weight; at twenty-five, his confidence in his
own infallibility begins to grow somewhat shaky; at
thirty, he begins to wish that he might really know a
tenth part as much as he thought he did ten years
before; at thirty-five, he thinks that if he were added
up, there would be very little to carry; and at forty
the great truth bursts upon him in all its effulgence
that he is an ass. There are some who reach this
desirable state of self-knowledge before they attain
the age specified by the Baron; other some there are
who never reach it at all,—as we all see numerous
instances around us,—but these are mere exceptions
strengthening rather than invalidating the common
rule. It is a humiliating acknowledgment, but if we
consider the uncertainty of all earthly things, if we
try the depth of the sea of human science, and find
how easy it is to touch bottom any where therein, if
we convince ourselves of the impenetrability of the
veil which bounds our mental vision,—I think that
we shall be obliged to allow that the recognition of
our own nothingness and asininity is the sum and perfection
of human knowledge. Now, Solomon tells
us that he who increases knowledge increases sorrow;
and it naturally follows that when a man has
reached the knowledge which generally comes with
his fortieth year, he is less happy than he was when
he wrapped himself in the measureless content of his
twentieth year's self-deception. And it follows, too,
most incontrovertibly, that he is happier when unpossessed
by that exaggerated self-esteem which rendered
the discovery of his fortieth year necessary to
him; and when is that time, if not during the careless,
happy years of boyhood?

The period of boyhood has been shortened very
considerably within a few years; and real boys are
becoming scarce. They are no sooner emancipated
from the bright buttons which unite the two principal
articles of puerile apparel, than they begin to pant
for virile habiliments. Their choler is roused if they
are denied a stand-up dickey. They sport canes.
They delight to display themselves at lectures and
concerts. Their young lips are not innocent of
damns and short-sixes; and they imitate the vulgarity
and conceit of the young men of the present day so
successfully that you find it hard to believe that they
are mere children. Since this period of dearth in the
boy market set in, of course the genuine, marketable
article has become more precious to me. I remember
seeing an old physician in Paris, who was as true
a boy as any beloved twelve-year-old that ever
snapped a marble or stuck his forefinger into a preserve
jar on an upper shelf in a china closet. A
charming old fellow he was, too. He used to stop to
see the boys play in the gardens of the Tuileries, and
I knew him once to spend a whole afternoon in the
avenue of the Champs Elysées looking at the puppet
shows and other sights with the rest of the youngsters.
He told me afterwards that that was one of
the happiest days of his life; for he had felt as if he
were back again in the pleasant time before he knew
any thing of that most uncertain of all uncertain
things—the science of medicine; and he doubted
whether any boy there had enjoyed the cheap amusement
more than himself. I envied him, for I knew
that he who retained so much of the happy spirit of
boyhood could not have outlived all of its generosity
and simplicity. "Once a man and twice a child,"
says the old proverb; and I cannot help thinking that
if at the last we could only recall something of the
sincerity, and innocence, and unselfishness of our
early life, second childhood would indeed be a
blessed thing.

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JOSEPHINE—GIRLHOOD AND GIRLS
-----------------------------


A bright-eyed, fair, young maiden, whose
satchel I should insist upon carrying to school
for her every morning if I were half a century
younger, came to me a day or two after the publication
of my last essay, and, placing her white, taper
fingers in my rough, Esau-like hand, said, "I liked
your piece about the boys very much; and now I hope
that you'll write something about girls." "My dear
Nellie," replied I, "if I should do that I should lose
all my female acquaintances. I have a weakness for
telling the truth, and there are some subjects concerning
which it is very dangerous to speak out 'the
whole truth and nothing but the truth.'" The gentle
damsel smiled, and looked

   | "Modest as justice, and did seem a palace
   | For the crown'd truth to dwell in,"

as she still urged me on, and refused to see any danger
in my giving out the plainest truth about girlhood.
*She* had no fear, though all the truth were
told; and I suppose that if we had some of Nellie's
purity and gentleness remaining in our sere and
selfish hearts, we should be much better and happier
men and women, and should dread the truth as little
as she does. But I must not begin my truth-telling
by seeming to praise too highly, though it must be
confessed, even at my time of life, if I were to describe
the charming young person I have referred to,
with the merciless fidelity of a daguerreotype and an
absence of hyperbole worthy of the late Dr. Bowditch's
work on Navigation, I should seem to the
unfortunate "general reader" who does not know
Nell, to be indulging in the grossest flattery, and
panting poesy would toil after me in vain. So I will
put aside all temptations of that kind, and come down
to the plain prose of my subject.

There is, in fact, very little that can be said about
girlhood. Those calm years that come between the
commencement of the bondage of the pantalettes and
emancipation from the tasks of school, present few
salient points upon which the essayist (observe he
never so closely) may turn a neat paragraph. They
offer little that is startling or attractive either to
writer or reader,—

   | "As times of quiet and unbroken peace,
   | Though for a nation times of blessedness,
   | Give back faint echoes from the historian's page."

The rough sports of boyhood, the out-door life which
boys always take to so naturally, and all their habits
of activity, give a strength of light and shade to their
early years which is not to be found in girlhood. It
is not enough to say that there is no difference in
kind, but simply one in degree,—that the years of
boyhood are calm and happy, and that those of girlhood
are so likewise,—that the former resemble the
garish sunshine, and the latter the mitigated splendour
of the moon; for the characters of boys seem to
be struck in a sharper die than those of girls, which
gives them an absoluteness quite distinct from the
feminine grace we naturally look for in the latter.
The free-hearted boy, plunging into all sorts of fun
without a thought of his next day's arithmetic lesson,
and with a charming disregard of the expense of
jackets and trousers, and the gentle girl, who clings
to her mother's side, like an attendant angel, and
contents herself with teaching long lessons to docile
paper pupils in a quiet corner by the fireside, are
representatives of two distinct classes in the order of
nature, and (untheologically, of course, I might add)
of grace. There is not a greater difference between
a hockey and a crochet needle than there is between
them.

I have, as a general thing, a greater liking for
boys than for girls; for the vanity so common to all
mankind is not developed in them at so early an age
as in the latter. Still I must acknowledge that I have
seen some splendid exceptions, the mere recollection
of which almost tempts me to draw my pen through
that last sentence. Can I ever forget—I can never
forget—one into whose years of girlhood the beauty
and grace of a long, pure life seemed to have been
compressed? It was many years ago, and I was
younger than I am now—so pardon me if I should
seem to catch a little enthusiasm of spirit from the
remembrance of those days. Like the ancient Queen
of Carthage, *Agnosco veteris vestigia flammæ*. I
was living in London at that time, or rather at
Hampstead, which had not then become a mere
suburb of the great metropolis, but was a quiet town,
whose bright doorplates, and well-scoured doorsteps,
and clean window curtains contrasted finely with the
dingy brick walls of its houses, and impressed the
visitor with the general prosperity and quiet respectability
of its inhabitants. In my daily walks to and
from the city, I frequently met a gentleman whose
gray hairs and simple dignity of manners always
attracted me towards him, and exacted from me an
involuntary tribute of respectful recognition. One
day he overtook me in a shower, and gave me the
benefit of his umbrella and his friendship—for an
intimacy which ended only with his death commenced
between us from that hour. He was a gentleman of
good family and education, who had seen thirty
years of responsible service in the employ of the
Honourable East India Company, had attained a
competency, and had forsworn Leadenhall Street for
a pension and a quiet retreat on the heights of Hampstead.
His wife was a lady of cultivated tastes,
whose sober wishes never learned to stray from the
path of simple domestic duty, and the presence of
the books in which she found her daily pleasures.

   | "Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam;
   | True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home."

Their only child, "one fair daughter, and no more,"
was a gentle and merry-hearted creature, who, in the
short and murky days of November, filled that cottage
with a more than June-like sunshine. Her
parents always had a deep sympathy with that unfortunate
Empress of France whose dismission from
the throne was the commencement of the downward
career of the first Napoleon, and bore witness to it
by giving her name to their only child. They lived
only three or four doors from my lodgings, and there
were few days passed after the episode of the umbrella
in which I did not find a welcome in their quiet
home. Their daughter was their only idol, and I
soon found myself a convert to their innocent system
of paganism. We all three agreed that Josey was
the incarnation of all known perfections, and the
lapse of forty years has not sufficed to weaken that
conviction in my mind. She had risen just above the
horizon of girlhood, and the natural beauty of her
character made the beholder content to forget even
the promise of her riper years. I do not think she
was what the world calls handsome. I sometimes
distrust my judgment in the matter of female beauty;
indeed, some of my candid friends have told me that
I had no judgment in such things. Well, as I was
saying, Josey was not remarkable for personal
beauty—in fact, I think I remember some persons of
her own sex who thought her "very plain"—"positively
homely"—and wondered what there was attractive
about her. There are circumstances under
which I should not have hesitated to attribute such
remarks to motives of envy and jealousy; but as they
came from girls whose attractions of every kind were
far below those of the gentle creature whom they delighted
to criticise, how can I account for them?
Josey's complexion was dark—her forehead, like
those of the best models of female comeliness among
the ancients, low. Her teeth were pearly and uniform,
and her clear, dark eyes seemed to reflect the
happiness and hope which were the companions of
her youth. Her beauty was not of that kind which
consists in mere regularity of features; it was far
superior to that. You could discern under those
traits, none of which were conspicuous, a combination
of mental and social qualities which were far
above the fleeting charms that delight so many, and
which age, instead of destroying, would increase and
perfect. She was quiet and gentle, without being
dull or moody; light-hearted and cheery, without
being frivolous; and witty, without being pert or conceited.
Her unaffected goodness of heart found
many an opportunity of exercise. I often heard of
her among the poor, and among those who needed
words of consolation even more than the necessaries
of life. It was her delight to intercede with the
magistrate who had inflicted a punishment on some
disorderly brother of one of her poor clients, and to
obtain his pardon by promising to watch over him
and insure his future good behaviour; and there
were very few, among the most reckless, who were
not restrained by the thought that their offences
would give pain to the kind-hearted girl who had so
willingly become their protector.

During the months that I lived at Hampstead my
intercourse with that excellent family was as familiar
as if I had been one of their own kindred. A little
attack of rheumatism, which confined me to my lodging
for a fortnight or three weeks, proved the constancy
of their friendship. The old gentleman came
daily to see me—told me all the news from the city,
and read to me; the mother sent me some of her
favourite books; and Josey came to get assistance in
her Latin and French, and brought me sundry little
pots of grape jelly and other preserves, which tasted
all the sweeter for being the work of her fair hands.
It was a sad parting when I was called away to
America—sad for me; for I told them that I hoped
that my absence from England would be but temporary,
when I felt inwardly that it might extend to
several years.

Two or three months after my arrival at home, I
received a letter from the old gentleman, written in
his deliberate, round, clerk-like style, informing me
of his wife's death. A note was enclosed from Josey,
in which she described with her pencil the spot where
her mother was buried in the old churchyard, and
told me of her progress in her studies. More than a
year passed by without my hearing from them at all,
two or three of my letters to them having miscarried.
Nearly seven years elapsed before I visited England
again. Two years before that, I had read the decease
of the old gentleman, in a stray London newspaper.
I had written to Josey, sympathizing with
her in her desolation, but had received no answer.
So, the day after my arrival in London, I determined
to make a search for the beloved Josey. I
went to Hampstead, and my heart beat quicker as I
approached the cottage where I had spent so many
happy hours. My throat felt a little choky, as I recognized
the neat bit of hedge before the door, the
graceful vine which overhung it, and the familiar
arrangement of the flower pots in the frames outside
the windows; but my hopes received a momentary
check when I found a strange name on the plate
above the knocker. I knocked, and inquired concerning
the former occupants of the house. After a
severe effort to overcome the Bœotian stupidity of
the housemaid, she ushered me into the little breakfast
room, and said she would "call her missus."
Almost before I had time to look about me, Josey
entered the room. The little girl whose Latin exercises
I had corrected, and who had always lived in
my memory as she appeared in those days, suddenly
came before me

   | "A perfect woman, nobly planned,
   | To warn, to comfort, and command;
   | And yet a spirit still and bright
   | With something of an angel light."

Yet she was hardly changed at all. She had lost
none of those charming qualities which had made the
thought of her precious to me during long years of
absence. She had gained the maturity and dignity
of womanhood without losing any of the simplicity
and light-heartedness of girlhood. She was married.
Her husband was a literary man of considerable
reputation. Though only in middle age, he was
a great sufferer with the gout. He was, generally
speaking, a patient man; but I found, after I became
intimate with him, that his pains sometimes made
him express himself with a force of diction somewhat
in advance of the religious prejudices of his
gentle Josey, who tended him and ministered to his
wants like an angel, as she was. But excuse me for
wandering so far from my theme. To make a long
story short, Josey went to Italy with her husband,
who had been ordered thither by his physicians, and
I never saw her afterwards. She deposited her husband's
remains in the cemetery where those of Shelley
and Keats repose, and found for two or three
years a consolation for her bereaved spirit in residence
in that city which more than all others proclaims
to our unwilling hearts the vanity and
transitoriness of this world's hopes, and the glory of
the unseen eternal. Years after, I met one of her
husband's friends in Paris, who told me that some
four years after his death, she had entered a convent
of a religious order devoted to the reclaiming of the
degraded of her sex, in Brussels. There she had
found a fitting occupation for the natural benevolence
of her heart, and the peace which the world could
not give. She had concealed the glory of her good
works under her vow of obedience—her personality
was hidden under the common habit of her Order—the
very name which was so dear to me had been
exchanged for another on the day that saw her covered
with the white veil of the novice. I was about
returning to England from the continent when I
heard this, and I resolved to take Belgium's fair
capital in my route. I found the convent readily
enough, and waited in its uncarpeted but scrupulously
clean parlour some time for the Lady Superior. She
was a lady of dignified mien, with the clear complexion,
the serene brow, and the dovelike eyes so
common among nuns, and her face lighted up, as she
spoke, with a gentle smile, which seemed almost like
a presage of immortality. I explained my errand,
and she told me that the good English sister had
been dead more than a year. The intelligence pained
me, and it gave me a feeling of self-reproach to
notice that the nun, who had been with her in her last
hour, spoke of her as if she had merely passed into
another part of the convent we were in. The Superior,
perceiving my emotion, conducted me through
the garden of the convent to a shady corner of the
grounds, where there were several graves. She
stopped before a mound, over which a rose bush bent
affectionately, as if its white blossoms craved something
of the purity which was enshrined beneath it.
At its head was a simple wooden cross, on which was
inscribed the name of "Sister Helen Agnes," the
date of her death, and the common supplication that
she might rest in peace; and that was the only memorial
of Josey that remained to me.

I have not forgotten, dear reader, that I am writing
about girls; but having brought forward one who
always seemed to me to be about as near perfection
as it is vouchsafed to poor humanity to approach, I
could not help following her to the end, and showing
how she went from a beautiful girlhood to a still
more beautiful womanhood, and a death which all
of us might envy; and how lovely and harmonious
was her whole career. For I feel that the consideration
of the contrast which most of the young female
readers of these pages will discover between themselves
and Josey, will do them some good.

I do not know of a more quietly funny sight than
a group of school-girls, all talking as fast as their
tongues can wag, (forty-woman power,) and clinging
inextricably together like a parcel of macaroni, *à
la Napolitaine*. Their independence is quite refreshing.
Lady Blessington in her diamonds never
descended the grand staircase at Covent Garden
Opera House with half the consciousness of making
a sensation, that you may notice in these school-girls
whenever you take your walks abroad. It is delightful
to see them step off so proudly, and look you in
the face so coolly, thinking all the time of just nothing
at all. Their boldness is the boldness of innocence;
for perfect modesty does not even know how to
blush. How vain they grow as they advance in their
teens! How careful they are that the crinoline
"sticks out" properly before they venture on the
road to school! If Mother Goose (of blessed memory)
could take a look into this world now, she
would wish to revise her ancient rhyme to her
patrons,—

   | "Come with a whoop—come with a call," &c.,—

for she would find that it is now their custom to come
with a *hoop* when they come for a call.

When unhappy Romeo stands in old Capulet's
garden, under the pale beams of the "envious moon,"
and watches the unconscious Juliet upon the balcony,
he utters, in the course of his incoherent soliloquial
apostrophe, these remarkable words concerning that
interesting young person:—

   | "She speaks, yet she says nothing."

I have seen many young ladies of Juliet's time
of life in my day of whom the same thing might
be said. They indeed speak, yet say nothing. Yet
take them on such a subject as the trimming of
a new bonnet for Easter Sunday, or any of those entertaining
topics more or less connected with the
adornment of their persons, and how voluble they
are! To the stronger sex, which of course cares
nothing about dress, being entirely free from vanity,
the terms used in their never-ending colloquies on
such themes are mere unmeaning words; but I must
do the gentler side of humanity the justice to say that
they are not all vanity, as their fathers and husbands
find to their dismay, when the quarterly bills come in,
that gimp, and flounces, and trimming generally,
have a real, tangible existence.

How sentimental they are! In my young days
albums were all the rage among young ladies; but
now they seem to be somewhat out of date, and
young ministers have taken their place. What pains
will they not take to get a bow from the Rev. Mr.
Simkins! They swarm around him after service,
like flies around the bung of a molasses cask.
Raphael never had such a face as his; Massillon
never preached as he does. What a wilderness of
worsted work are they not willing to travel over for
his sake! How do they exhaust their inventive faculties
in the search after new patterns for lamp mats,
watch cases, pen wipers, and slippers to encase the
feet at which they delight to sit! But when Simkins
marries old Thompson's youngest daughter and a
snug property, he finds a sad abatement in his popularity.
The Rev. Mr. Jenkins, a young preacher
with a face every whit as milk-and-watery as his own,
succeeds to the throne he occupied, and reigns in his
stead among the volatile devotees; and Simkins then
sees that his popularity was no more an evidence of
the favour his preaching of the gospel found among
those thoughtless young people than was the popularity
of the good-looking light comedian, after
whom the girls ran as madly as they did after his
own white neckerchief and nicely-brushed black
frock coat.

.. ——File: 323.png

Exaggeration is one of the great faults of girlhood.
Whatever meets their eyes is either "splendid"
or "horrid." They delight to exaggerate their
likes and dislikes. Self-restraint seems to be a term
not contained in their lexicon. They take a momentary
fancy to a young man, and flatter him with their
smiles until some new face takes his place in their
fleeting memory. In this way many young hearts are
frittered away in successive flirtations before their
possessors have reached womanhood. But it would
be wrong to confine action from mere blind impulse
and exaggeration to young girls alone. I think it is
St. Paul who gives us some good counsel about
"speaking the truth in love." I fear that very few
victims of the tender passion, from Pyramus and
Thisbe down to Petrarch and Laura, and from the
latter couple down to Mr. Smith with Miss Brown
hanging on his arm,—who have not sadly needed the
advice of the Apostle of the Gentiles. I have seen
very few people in my day who really speak the
truth in love. Therefore I will not blame girls for
a fault which is common to all mankind.

Impulse is commonly supposed to be inconsistent
with cunning; but in most girls I think the two things
are singularly combined. I am told that there is an
academy in this city, frequented by many young women,
known as the School of Design. The fact is a
gratifying one to me; for my observation of girlish
nature had led me to suppose that there were very
few indeed of the young ladies of these days who
required any tuition in the arts of design. I hail the
fact as a good omen for the sex. Action from impulse
carries its young victims to the extremes of
good and evil. Queen Dido is a fair type of the
majority of her sex. Defeated in their hopes, they
are willing to make a funeral pile of all that remains
to them. But there is a spirit of generosity in them
which does not find a place in the hearts of men. It
was the part of Eve to bring death into this world,
and all our woe, by her inquisitiveness and credulity;
but it was reserved for Adam to inaugurate the
meanness of mankind by laying all the blame to his
silly little wife. The accusation ought to have blistered
Adam's cowardly tongue.

But I am making a long preachment, and yet I
have said very little. I must leave my young friends,
however, to draw their own lessons from the portrait
I have given of one whose perfections would
far outweigh the silliness and vanity of a generation
of girls. Let them take the gentle Josey as the
model of their youth, and they will not wish to sculpture
their later career after any less perfect shape.
There will then be fewer heartless flirts, fewer vain
exhibitors of the works of the milliner and dressmaker
parading the streets, and more true women
presiding over the homes of America. The imitation
of her virtues will be found a better preservative
of beauty than any *eau lustrale*; for it will create a
beauty which "time's effacing fingers" are powerless
to destroy, and give to those who practise it a serene
and lovely old age, whose recollection of the past,
instead of awakening any self-reproach, shall be a
source of perpetual benediction.

.. ——File: 325.png




SHAKESPEARE AND HIS COMMENTATORS
--------------------------------


It was a favourite wish of the beneficent Caligula
that all mankind had but one neck, that he might
finish them off at a single chop. It would ill comport
with my known modesty, were I to lay claim to any
thing like the all-embracing humanity of the old
Roman philanthropist; but I must acknowledge that
I have frequently felt inclined to apply his pious aspiration
to the commentators on Shakespeare. Impatience
is not my prevailing weakness; but these
pestilent annotators have often been instrumental in
convincing me that I am no stoic. I have frequently
regretted the days of my youth, when no envious
commentary obscured the brilliancy of that genius
which has consecrated the language through which it
finds utterance, and made it venerable to the scholars
of all lands and ages. My love of Shakespeare, like
the gout which has been stinging my right foot all
the morning, is hereditary. My revered grandmother
was very fond of solid English literature.
She had not had, it is true, the advantages which the
young people of the present day rejoice in; she had
not studied in any of those seminaries which polish
off an education in a most Arabian-Nightsy style of
expedition, and send a young lady home in the middle
of her teens, accomplished in innumerous ologies,
and knowing little or nothing that is really useful, or
that will attract her to intellectual pursuits or pleasure
in after life. She had acquired what is infinitely
better than the superficial omniscience which is so
much cultivated in these days. The more active
duties of life pleased her not; and Shakespeare was
the never-failing resource of her leisure hours. Mr.
Addison's Spectator was for her a "treasure of contentment,
a mine of delight, and, with regard to
style, the best book in the world." I shall never forget
that happy day (anterior even to the jacket era
of my life) when she took me upon her knee, and
read to me the speeches of Marullus, and Mark
Antony, and Brutus. In that hour I became as sincere
a devotee as ever bent down before the shrine
of Shakespeare's genius. Nor has that innocent
fanaticism abated any of its ardour under the weight
laid upon me by increasing years. The theatre has
lost many of its old charms for me. The friendships
of youth—the only enduring intimacies, for our
palms grow callous in the promiscuous intercourse of
the world, and cannot easily receive new impressions—have
either been terminated by that inexorable
power whose chilling touch is merciless alike to love
and enmity, or have been interfered with by the varying
pursuits of life. But Shakespeare still maintains
his wonted sway, and my loyalty to him has not been
disturbed by any of the revolutionary movements
which have made such changes in most other things.
Martin Farquhar Tupper has written, but I am so
old-fashioned in my prejudices that I find myself
constantly turning to my Shakespeare, in preference
even to that gifted and proverbially philosophic
bard.

.. ——File: 327.png

But I am wandering. From the day I have mentioned,
Robinson Crusoe was obliged to abdicate,
and England's "monarch bard" (as Mr. Sprague
calls Anne Hathaway's husband) reigned in his
stead. I first devoured the Julius Cæsar. I say
"devoured," for no other word will express the
eager earnestness with which I read. The last time
I read that play through, it was "within a bowshot
where the Cæsars dwelt," and but a few minutes'
walk from the palace which now holds great Pompey's
statua, at whose foot the mighty Julius fell.
Increase of appetite grew rapidly by what it fed on,
and I was not long in learning as much about the
black-clad prince, the homeless king, the exacting
usurer, the fat knight and his jolly companions, the
remorseful Thane, and generous, jealous Moor, as
I knew about Brutus and the other red republican assassins
of imperial Rome. My love of Shakespeare
was greatly edified by a friendship which I formed
in my earliest foreign journeyings. It was before
the days of railways,—which, convenient as they are,
have robbed travelling of half its zest, by rendering
it so common. I had been making a little tour
through the north of France. I had admired the
white caps and pious simplicity of the peasants of
Normandy, and had drunk in that exaltation of soul
which the lofty nave of the majestic Cathedral of
Amiens always imparts, and was about returning to
Paris, when a rheumatic attack arrested my progress
and prolonged my stay in the pleasant city of Douai.
I there met accidentally with an English monk of
that grand old Benedictine order, whose history for
more than twelve centuries has been the history of
civilization, and literature, and religion. He was
descended from one of those old families which refused
to modify their creed at the demand of a
divorce-seeking king. He was a man of clear intellect
and fascinating simplicity of character. He
seemed to carry sunshine with him wherever he went.
He occupied a professional chair in the English College
attached to the Benedictine Monastery at Douai,
and when his class hours were ended, he daily came
to visit me. His sensible and sprightly conversation
did more towards untying the rheumatic knots in
my poor shoulder, than all the pills and lotions for
which *M. le Médecin* charged me so roundly. When
I visited him in his cell, I found that a well-worn
copy of Shakespeare was the only companion of his
Breviary, his Aquinas and St. Bernard on his study
table. He loved Shakespeare for himself alone. He
never used him as a lay figure on which he might
display the drapery of a pedant. He hated commentators
as heartily as a man so sincerely religious
can hate any thing except sin, and was as earnest in
his predilection for Shakespeare, "without note or
comment," as his dissenting fellow-countrymen
would have wished him to be for a similar edition of
the only other inspired book in the world. He had
his theories, however, concerning Shakespeare's
characters, and we often talked them over together;
but I must do him the justice to say that he never
published any of them. I always regarded this fact
as a splendid evidence of the entireness of his self-abnegation,
and of his extraordinary advancement in
the path of religious perfection. Many have taken
the three monastic vows by which he was bound, and
have lived up to them with conscientious fidelity; but
few scholars have studied Shakespeare as he did, and
yet resisted the temptation to tell the world all about
it in a book.

Mousing the other day in the library of a venerable
citizen of Boston, who is no less skilled in the
gospel (let us hope) than in the law, I stumbled over
a seedy-looking folio containing *A Treatise of Original
Sinne*, by one Anthony Burgesse, who flourished
in England something more than two centuries ago.
One of the discoloured fly-leaves of this entertaining
tome informed me, in a hand-writing which resembled
a dilapidated rail-fence looked at from the window
of an express train, that *Jacobus Keith me
possedit, An. Dom. 1655*; and also bore this inscription,
so pertinent to my present theme: "Expositors
are wise when they are not otherwise." I feel that it
is safe to leave my readers to make the application of
this apothegm to the Shakespearean annotators of
their acquaintance, so few of whom are wise, so
many otherwise. I think it was the late Mr. Hazlitt
who said (and if it was not, it ought to have been)
that if you desire to know to what sublimity human
genius is capable of ascending, you must read Shakespeare;
but that if you seek to ascertain to what a
depth of imbecility the intellect of man may be
brought down, you must read his commentators.

Notwithstanding the low estimate which I am inclined
to place upon the labour of the majority of the
commentators on Shakespeare, still I have often felt
a strong temptation to enroll myself among them.
Not all their stupidity in explaining things which are
clear to the meanest capacity, not all their pedantry
in elucidating matters which are simply inexplicable,
not all their inordinate voluminousness, could quench
my ambition to fasten my roll of waste paper to the
bob (already so unwieldy) of the Shakespearean
kite. Others have soared into fame by such means;
why should not I? We ought not to study Shakespeare
so many years for nothing, and I feel that a
sacred duty would be neglected if the result of my
researches were withheld from my suffering fellow-students.
But let me be more merciful than other
commentators; let me confine my remarks to a single
play. From that one you may learn the tenor of my
theories concerning the others; and if you wish for
another specimen, I shall consider that I have
achieved an unheard-of triumph in this department
of literature.

The tragedy of *Hamlet* has always been regarded
as one of the most creditable of Shakespeare's performances.
It needs no new commendation from
me. Dramatic composition has made great progress
within the two hundred and sixty years that have
elapsed since Hamlet was written, yet few better
things are produced nowadays. We may as well
acknowledge the humiliating fact that Hamlet, with
all its age, is every whit as good as if it had been
written since Lady Day, and were announced on the
playbills of to-morrow night, with one of Mr. Boucicault's
most eloquent and elaborate prefaces. The
character of Hamlet has been much discussed, but,
with all due respect for the genius of those who have
fatigued their reader with their treatment of the
subject, I would humbly suggest that they are all
wrong. Hamlet resembles a picture which has been
scoured, and retouched, and varnished, and restored,
until you can hardly see any thing of the original.
Critics and commentators have bedaubed the original
character so thoroughly, and those credulous
people who rejoice that Chatham's language is their
mother tongue, have heard so much of their estimate
of Hamlet's character, that they receive them on
faith, flattering themselves all the while that they
are paying homage to the Hamlet of Shakespeare.
High-flown philosophy exerts its powers upon the
theme, and Goethe gives it as his opinion that the
dramatist wished to portray the effects of a great
action, imposed as a duty upon a mind too feeble for
its accomplishment, and compares it to an oak
planted in a china vase, proper to receive only the
most delicate flowers, and which flies to pieces as
soon as the roots begin to strike out.

Now let us drop all this metaphysical and poetical
cant, and go back to the play itself. Shakespeare
will prove his own best expositor, if we read him
with docile minds, having previously instructed ourselves
concerning the history of the time of which he
wrote. There is a tradition common in the north of
Ireland that Hamlet's father was a native of that
country, named Howndale, and that he followed the
trade of a tailor; that he was captured by the Danes,
in one of their expeditions against that fair island,
and carried to Jutland; that he married and set up in
business again in that cold region, but that he afterwards
forsook the sartorial for the regal line, by
usurping the throne of Denmark. The tradition
represents him to have been a man of violent character,
a hard drinker, and altogether a most unprincipled
and unamiable person, though an excellent
tailor. Now, if we take the old chronicle of Saxo
Grammaticus, (*Historia Danorum*,) from which
Shakespeare drew the plot for his tragedy, we shall
find there little that does not harmonize with this
tradition. Saxo Grammaticus tells us that Hamlet
was the son of Horwendal, who was a famous pirate
of Jutland, whom the king, Huric, feared so much,
that, to propitiate him, he was obliged to appoint
him governor of Jutland, and afterwards to give
him his daughter Gertrude in marriage. Thus he
obtained the throne. The old Irish name, Howndale,
might easily have been corrupted into Horwendal
by the jaw-breaking Northmen, and for the rest,
the Danish chronicle and the Irish tradition are perfectly
consistent. That there was frequent communication
at that early period between Denmark and
Ireland, I surely need not take the trouble to prove.
All the early chronicles of both of those countries
bear witness to it. It was to the land evangelized by
St. Patrick that Denmark was indebted for the blessings
of education and the Christian faith. But the
visits of the Danes were not dictated by any holy
zeal for the salvation or mental advancement of
their benefactors, if we may believe all the stories of
their piratical expeditions. An Irish monk of the
great monastery of Banchor, who wrote very good
Latin for the age in which he lived, alludes to this
period in his country's history in a poem, one line of
which is sometimes quoted, even now:—

   |     *Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.*
   | "Time was, O Danes, we feared your gifts."

The great Danish poet, Œhlenschlæger, makes frequent
allusions in the course of his epic, *The Gods of
the North*, to the relations that once existed between
Denmark and Ireland, and to the fact that his native
land received from Ireland the custom of imbibing
spirituous liquors in large quantities.

Hamlet's Irish parentage would naturally be concealed
as much as possible by him, as it might
prejudice his claims to the throne of Denmark;
therefore we can hardly expect to find the ancient
legend confirmed in the play, except in a casual manner.
The free, outspoken, Irish nature would make
itself known occasionally. Thus we find that when
Horatio tells him that "there's no offence," he rebukes
him with

   | "Yes, *by St. Patrick*, but there is, Horatio!"

There certainly needs no ghost come from the grave
to tell us that no true-born Scandinavian would have
sworn in an unguarded moment by the Apostle of
Ireland. Again, when Hamlet thinks of killing his
uncle, the wrongful king, he apostrophizes himself
by the name which he probably bore when he assisted
his father (whose death he wishes to avenge)
in his shop in Jutland:—

   | "Now, might I do it, Pat, now he is praying."

Then, too, he speaks to Horatio of the "funeral
baked meats" coldly furnishing forth the marriage
table at his mother's second espousal. The custom
of baking meats is as well known to be of Irish origin,
as that of roasting them is to be peculiar to the
northern nations of continental Europe.

.. ——File: 334.png

The frequent allusions in the course of the play to
drinking customs not only prove that Hamlet descended
from that nation whose hospitality is its
greatest fault, but that he and his family were far
from being the refined and philosophic people some
of the commentators would have us believe. Thus
he promises his old companion,—

   | "We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart,"—

which the most prejudiced person will freely allow
to be truly a *Corkonian* phrase. This frailty of the
family may be seen throughout the play. In the last
scene, it is especially apparent. All the royal family
of Denmark seem to have joined an intemperance
society. The queen even, in spite of her husband's
remonstrances, joins in the carousal. Hamlet, too,
while he is dying, starts up on hearing Horatio say,
"Here's yet some liquor left," and insists upon the
cup being given to him. I know that it may be urged,
on the other hand, that in the scene preceding the
first appearance of the ghost before Hamlet, he indulges
in some remarks which would prove him to
have entertained sentiments becoming his compatriot,
the noble Father Mathew. Speaking of the
custom of draining down such frequent draughts of
Rhenish, he pronounces it to his mind

   |                       "a custom
   | More honoured in the breach than the observance."

It must be remembered that the occasion on which
this speech was uttered was a solemn one. Under
such supernatural circumstances old Silenus or the
King of Prussia himself might be pardoned for growing
somewhat homiletic on the subject of temperance.
The conclusion of this speech has given the
commentators a fine chance to exercise their ingenuity.

   |                       "The dram of bale
   | Doth all the noble substance often doubt
   | To his own scandal."

They have called it the "dram of base," the "dram
of eale," &c., and then have been as much in the dark
as before. Some have thought that Shakespeare intended
to have written it "the dram of Bale," as a
sly hit at Dr. John Bale, the first Protestant Bishop
of Ossory in Ireland, who was an unscrupulous
dram-drinker as well as dramatist, for he wrote a
play called "Kynge Johan," which was reprinted
under the editorial care of my friend, Mr. J. O.
Halliwell, by the Camden Society, in 1838. But this
attempt to make it reflect upon the Ossory prelate is
entirely uncalled for. A little research would have
showed that *bale* was a liquor somewhat resembling
our whiskey of the true R. G. brand, the consumption
of which in the dram-shops of his country the
Prince Hamlet so earnestly deplored. The great
Danish philosopher, V. Scheerer Homboegger, in
his autobiography, speaks of it, and says that like all
the Danes he prefers it to either wine or ale, or
water even: *Der er vand, her er vun og oel,—men
allested BAELE drikker saaledes de Dansker.* (Autobiog.
II. xiii. Ed. Copenhag.)

As to the proofs that Hamlet's family was closely
connected with the tailoring interest, they are so
thickly scattered through the entire tragedy, and are
so apparent even to the casual reader, that, even if
I had room, it would only be necessary to mention a
few of the principal ones. In the very first scene in
which he is introduced, Hamlet talks in an experienced
manner about his "inky cloak," "suits of solemn
black," "forms" and "modes," and tries to
defend himself from the suspicion which he feels is
attached to him by many of the courtiers, by saying
plainly, "I know not *seams*." This first speech of
Hamlet's is a key to the wanton insincerity of his
character. His mother has begged him to change
his clothes,—to "cast his nighted colour off,"—and
he answers her requests with, "I shall *in all my best*
obey you, madam;" yet it is notorious that he heeds
not this promise, but wears black to the end of his
career.

He repeatedly uses the expressions which a tailor
would naturally employ. His figures of speech frequently
smell of the shop. As, for instance, he says
to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, "The appurtenance
of welcome is fashion and ceremony. Let me
comply with you in this garb;" in the scene preceding
the play he declares that, though the devil himself
wear black, he'll "have a suit of sables." In the
interview with his mother, who may be supposed not
to have forgotten the early history of the family, he
uses such figures with still greater freedom:—

   | "That monster *custom* who all sense doth eat
   | Of *habit's* devil, is angel yet in this;
   | That to the use of actions fair and good
   | He likewise gives a *frock* or *livery*,
   | That aptly is put on."

In his instruction to the players he speaks of tearing
"a passion to *tatters*, to very *rags*" and says of certain
actors that when he saw them it seemed to him
as if "some of nature's *journeymen* had made men
and not made them well." In the fourth act, he calls
Rosencrantz a *sponge*.

What better evidence of the skill of Hamlet and
his father in their common trade can we have than
that afforded by the fair Ophelia, who speaks of the
Prince as "the glass of fashion and the mould of
form"? In the chamber scene with his mother,
Hamlet is taken entirely off his guard by the sudden
appearance of his father's ghost, whom he apostrophizes,
not in the set phrases which he used when
Horatio and Marcellus were by, but as "*a king of
shreds and patches*". Old Polonius does not wish
his daughter to marry a tailor, but is too polite to tell
her all of his objections to Lord Hamlet's suit; so he
cloaks his reasons under these figures of speech, instead
of telling her, out of whole cloth, that Hamlet
is a tailor, and the match will never do:—

   | "Do not believe his vows, for they are brokers,
   | Not of that dye which there in vestments show,
   | But implorators of unholy suits," &c.

Some late editions of the Bard make the second line
of this passage read,—

   | "Not of that die which their investments show,"——

which is as evident a corruption of the text as any of
those detected by the indefatigable Mr. Payne Collier.

If any further proof is needed of a matter which
must be clear to every reasoning mind, it may be
found in that solemn scene in which the Prince, oppressed
by the burden of a life embittered and defeated
in its highest aims, meditates suicide. Now,
if there is a time when all affectation of worldly rank
would be likely to be forgotten and swallowed up in
the contemplation of the terrible deed which occupies
the mind, it is such a time as this. And here we
find Shakespeare as true as Nature herself. The
soldier, weary of life, uses the sword his enemies
once feared, to end his troubles. Hamlet's mind
overleaps the interval of his princely life, and the
weapon which is most naturally suggested by his
youthful career is "*a bare bodkin*."

Had I not already written more than I intended
on this subject, I might go on with many other evidences
of the truth of my view of this remarkable
character. I did wish also to show that Hamlet was
a most disreputable character, and by no means entitled
to the sympathy or admiration of men. Suffice
it to say that he was, even to his last hour, fonder of
drink than became a prince (except perhaps a Prince
Regent)—that he treated Ophelia improperly—that
he often spoke of his step-father in profane terms—that
he indulged in the use of profane language even
in his soliloquies, as for example,—

   |         "The spirit I have seen
   | May be a devil; and the devil hath power
   | To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
   | Out of my weakness, and my melancholy,
   | (As he is very potent with such spirits)
   | Abuses me too,—damme!"

His familiarity with the players likewise is an incontrovertible
proof of his depravity; for the theatrical
people of Denmark in his age were not what the
players of our day are. They were too often people
of loose and reckless lives, careless of moral and
social obligations, and whose company would by no
means be acceptable to a truly philosophic prince.

If this pre-Raphaelite sketch of Hamlet's character
should seem unsatisfactory, it can be filled out
by a perusal of the play itself, if the reader will only
cast aside the trammels which the commentators
have placed in his way. It may be a new view to most
of my readers; but I am convinced that the theory,
of which I have given an outline, is fully as tenable
as many of the countless conjectural essays to which
that matchless drama has given rise. If it be untrue,
why, then we must conclude that all similar theories,
though they may be sustained by as many passages as
I have adduced in support of my Hibernico-sartorial
hypothesis, are equally devoid of a foundation of
common sense. If my theory stands, I have the satisfaction
of having connected my name (which would
else be soon forgotten) with one of Shakespeare's
masterpieces; and that is all that any commentator
has ever done. And if my theory proves false, it
consoles me to think that the splendour of the genius
which I so highly reverence is in no wise obscured
thereby; for the stability and grandeur of the temple
cannot be impaired by the obliteration of the ambitious
scribblings and chalk-marks with which some
aspiring worshippers may have defaced its portico.

.. ——File: 340.png




MEMORIALS OF MRS. GRUNDY
------------------------


Of all the studies to which I was ever impelled in
my youth, either by fear of the birch or by the
hope of the laurel or the bays, mythology was perhaps
the most charming. It was refreshing, after
trying in vain to conjugate a verb, and being at last
obliged to decline it—after adding up a column of
figures several times, and getting many different results,
and none of them the right one—and after
making a vain attempt to comprehend the only algebraic
knowledge that ever was forced into my
unmathematical brain, viz., that *x* equals an unknown
quantity,—it was, I say, refreshing to turn over the
leaves of my Classical Dictionary, and revel among
the gods and heroes whose wondrous careers were
embalmed in its well-thumbed pages. Lemprière
was the great magician who summoned up before
my delighted eyes the denizens of a sphere where
existence was unvexed by any pestilent arithmetics,
and where the slavery of the inky desk was unknown.
It always seemed to me as if the knowledge that I
gained out of those enchanted chronicles not only
improved my mind, but made my body more robust;
for I joined in the chase, fought desperate battles, as
the gods willed it, and breathed all the while the
pure, invigorating air of old Olympus. The consecrated
groves were the dwelling-place of my mind,
and I became for a time a sharer in the joys of beings
in whom I believed with all the ardour and simplicity
of childhood. I enjoyed my mythological
readings all the more because they did not generally
find favour with my school companions, most of
whom vindicated their nationality by professing
their affection for the Rule of Three. One of them,
I remember, was especially severe on the uselessness
of the studies in which I took pleasure. He, *parcus
deorum cultor, et infrequens*, could get no satisfaction
out of the books in which I revelled; if *he* had got to
study or read, he could not afford to waste his brains
over the foolish superstitions of three thousand years
ago. He did not care how much romance and poetic
beauty there might be in the ancient mythology:
what did it all come to in the end? It didn't pay.
It was a humbug. Our paths in life separated when
we graduated from jackets and peg-tops. He remained
faithful to his boyish instincts, and pursued
the practical as if it were a reality. After a few
years his face lost all its youthful look; an intense
spirit of acquisitiveness gleamed in his calculating
eye, and an interest table seemed to be written in the
lines of his care-worn countenance. We seldom had
any conversation in our after years, for he always
seemed to be under some restraint, as if he feared
that I wished to borrow a little money of him, and
he did not wish to refuse for the sake of the old time
when we sat at the same desk, although he knew that
my note was good for nothing. His devotion to his
deity, the practical, did not go unrewarded. He became
like the only mythological personage whom he
would have envied, had he known any thing of the
science he despised. His touch seemed to transmute
every thing into gold. His speculations during the
war of 1812 were all successful. Eastern lands
harmed him not. The financial panic of 1837 only
put money in his purse. He rolled up a large fortune,
and was happy. He looked anxious, but of
course he was happy. What man ever devoted his
life to the working out of the dreams of his youth
in the acquisition of riches, and succeeded beyond his
anticipations, without being very happy? But, if his
gains were something practical and real, his losses
were doubly so. Each one of them was as a dagger
stuck into that sere heart. His only son gave him
much trouble by his wild life, and, what touched him
still more, wasted the money he had laboured to pile
up, at the gaming tables of Baden. I saw him walking
down Tremont Street the other day, looking care-worn
and miserable, and I longed to ask him what
he thought of the real and practical after trying
them. He would certainly have been willing to
acknowledge that there is more reality in the romance
and poetry of mythology than in the thousands which
he invested in the Bay State Mills. His practical life
has brought him vanity and vexation of spirit, while
the old Lemprière, which he used to treat so contemptuously,
flourishes in immortal youth, unhurt
amid the wreck of fortunes and the depreciation of
stocks.

But I am not writing an essay on mythology. I
wish to treat of one who is sometimes considered a
myth, but who is a living and breathing personality
like all of us. This wide-spread scepticism is one of
the most fatal signs of the times. Because the late
Mrs. Sairey Gamp supposed herself justified in cultivating
a little domestic mythology in the shade of the
famous Mrs. Harris, are we to take all the personages
who have illustrated history as myths and
unrealities? Shade of Herodotus, forbid it! There
are some unbelieving and irreverent enough to doubt
whether there is really such a person as Mrs. Partington;
other some there are so hardened in their
incredulity as to question the existence of the individual
who smote Mr. William Patterson, and even
of the immortal recipient of the blow himself.
Therefore we ought not to think it strange that the
lady whose name adorns the title of this article
should not have escaped the profane spirit of the
age.

Unfortunately for us, Mrs. Grundy is no myth,
but a terrible reality. She is a widow. The late Mr.
Grundy bore it with heroic patience as long as he
could, and then, by a divine dispensation in which he
gladly acquiesced, was relieved of the burden of life.
If he be not happy now, the great doctrine of compensation
is nought but a delusion and a sham. If
endless happiness could only be attained through
such a purgatory as poor Grundy's life, few of us,
I fear, would yearn to be counted among the elect.
Martyrs, and confessors, and saints of every degree
have won their crowns of beatitude with comparative
ease; if they had been subjected to a twenty years'
novitiate with Mrs. Grundy and her tireless tongue,
they would have found how much more terrible that
was than the laborious life or cruel death by which
they passed from earth, and fewer bulls of canonization
would have received the Seal of the Fisherman.
I have heard from those who were acquainted with
that estimable and uncomplaining man that he married
for love. His wife was a person of considerable
attractions, of an inquiring turn of mind, and of
uncommon energy of character. In her care of his
household there was nothing of which he might with
reason complain. She kept a sharp look-out over all
those matters in which the prudent housewife delights
to show her skill; her table was worthy to receive
regal legs beneath its shining mahogany and
spotless cloth, and I have even heard that her husband
never had occasion to curse mentally over the
lack of a shirt-button. Yet was Giles Grundy,
Esquire, one of the most miserable of men. Of what
avail was it to him that his wife could preserve
quinces, if she could not preserve her own peace of
mind? What did it matter how well she cured hams,
if she always failed so miserably in curing her
tongue? What profit was it that her accounts with
her butcher and grocer were always correctly kept, if
her accounts of all her neighbours constantly overran
and kept her and her spouse in a perpetual state
of moral bankruptcy? What difference did it make
how well she took care of her own family, if they
were to be kept in an unending turmoil by her solicitude
concerning that of every body else?

If you had visited Mrs. Grundy, and remarked
the brightness of the door-knocker, the stair-rods, the
andirons, and every other part of her premises that
was susceptible of polish, and the scrupulous cleanliness
that held absolute sway around her, you would
have sworn that she was gifted with the hundred
arms of Briareus: if you had listened for fifteen
minutes to her observations of men and things, you
would have had a conviction amounting to absolute
certainty that she possessed the eyes of Argus. Nobody
ever doubted that she was a most religious
person. She attended to all her religious duties with
most edifying exactness. She was always in her seat
at church, and could tell you, to a bonnet ribbon, the
dress of every person who honoured the sacred edifice
with his or her presence. If you would know
who of the congregation were so lacking in fervour
of spirit as to neglect to bow in the creed, or to commit
the impropriety of nodding during the sermon,
Mrs. Grundy could give you all the information you
could wish. She carried out the divine precept to the
letter: she watched as well as prayed. But her religion
did not waste itself in mere devotional ecstasy;
it took the most attractive form of religion—that of
active benevolence. And her pious philanthropy was
not of that exclusively telescopic character that looks
out for the interests of the Cannibal Islands and the
king thereof, and cannot understand that there is
any spiritual destitution nearer home. She subscribed,
it is true, to support the missionaries with
their wives and numerous children, who were devoted
to the godly work of converting the Chinese
and the Juggernauts; but she did something also in
the way of food and flannel for the victims of want
in her own neighbourhood. She established a sewing
circle in the parish where she lived, and never appeared
happier than when busily engaged with her
female companions in their weekly task and talk. I
am afraid that there was other sowing done in that
circle besides plain sewing. The seeds of domestic
unhappiness and strife were carried from thence into
all parts of the parish. Reputations as well as garments
took their turn among those benevolent ladies,
and were cut out, and fitted, and basted, and sewed
up, and overcast. The sewing circle was Mrs.
Grundy's confessional. Do not misapprehend me—I
would not asperse her character by accusing her of
what are known at the present day as "Romanizing
tendencies"; for she lived long before the "scarlet
fever" invaded the University of Oxford and carried
off its victims by hundreds; and nobody ever suspected
her of any desire to tell her own offences in
the ear of any human being. No, she detested the
Roman confessional in a becoming manner; but she
upheld, by word and example, that most scriptural
institution, the sewing circle—the Protestant confessional,
where each one confesses, not her own sins,
but the sins of her neighbours. Mrs. Grundy's success
with her favourite institution encouraged others
to emulate her example; and now sewing circles are
common wherever the mother tongue of that benevolent
lady is spoken. It must in justice be acknowledged
that there are few institutions of human
invention which have departed from the spirit of
their original founder so little as the sewing circle.

Yet, in spite of all her virtues as a housekeeper, a
philanthropist, and a Christian, Mrs. Grundy had
her enemies. Some people were uncharitable enough
to say that she was the cause of more trouble than
all the rest of the female population of the town.
They accused her of setting herself up as a censor,
and giving judgments founded upon hearsay testimony
rather than sound legal evidence. They even
said that she made her visits among the poor a cloak
for the gratification of her inquisitiveness; and, if it
is ever pardonable to judge of the motives of a fellow-being,
I think that, in consideration of their exasperation,
they must be excused for making so
unkind a charge, it seemed to be so well founded.
Far be it from me to say that Mrs. Grundy ever wilfully
misrepresented. She would have shrunk instinctively
from a falsehood. But she delighted to
draw inferences; and no fact or rumour ever came to
her without being classified properly in her mental
history of her neighbours, and being made to shed its
full influence upon her next conversation. It is
astonishing how much one pair of eyes and ears will
do in the collection of information when a person is
devoted to it in earnest. In her younger days, Mrs.
Grundy had taken pleasure in watching her neighbours
and keeping up a running commentary on their
movements; as she advanced in life, it became her
business. Her efforts in that way were rather in the
style of an amateur up to the time of her marriage;
afterwards she adopted a professional air. She
placed herself at her favourite window, ornamenting
its seat with her spools, and though she stitched
away with commendable industry, nothing escaped
her that came within range of her keen powers of
observation.

If Mr. Brown called on Mrs. White over the
way, Mrs. Grundy set it down as a remarkable occurrence:
if he repeated his visit a week later, she would
not declare it positively scandalous, but it was evident
that her nicer sense of propriety was deeply
wounded: if he passed by the door without calling, it
was clear that there had been a falling out—that
Mrs. White had seen the error of her ways, or that
her husband had, and had given Brown a warning.
If a stranger was seen exercising Jones's bell-pull on
two consecutive days, this indefatigable woman allowed
not her eyes to sleep nor her eyelids to slumber
until she had satisfied herself concerning his name
and purpose. If Mr. Thompson waited upon pretty
Miss Jenkins home in a shower, and treated her
kindly and politely, (and who could do otherwise
with a young angel in blue and drab, who might
charm a Kaffir or a Sepoy into urbanity?) Mrs.
Grundy straightway instituted inquiries among all
the neighbours as to whether it was true that they
were engaged. After this fashion did Mrs. Grundy
live. Her words have been known to blast a reputation
which under the sunshine of prosperity and the
storms of misfortune had sustained itself with equal
grace and honour. It was useless to bring up proofs
of a life of integrity against her sentence or her
knowing smile. There was no appeal from her
decision. Not that she was uncharitable,—only it
did seem as if she were rather more willing to believe
evil of her neighbours than good; and she appeared
slow to trust in the repentance of any one who had
ever fallen into sin, especially if the person were of
her own sex. I am not complaining of this peculiarity;
we must be circumspect and strict, and mercy is
a quality too rare and divine to be wasted on every
trivial occasion. But I cannot help thinking that, if
the penitent found it as hard to gain the absolving
smile of that Power to which alone we are answerable
for our misdeeds as to reinstate himself in the
good graces of Mrs. Grundy, how few of us could
have any hope of the beatific vision!

Mrs. Grundy had great influence; she was respected
and feared. People found that she would
give her opinion *ex cathedra*, and that, however unfounded
that opinion might be, there were those who
would reëcho it until common repetition gave it the
force of truth; so they tried to conciliate her by
graduating their actions according to what they supposed
would be her judgment. When this was seen,
she began to be envied by some who had once hated
her, and her idiosyncrasies were made the study of
many of her sex who longed to share her empire
over the thoughts and actions of their fellow-creatures.
Thus, by a sort of multiplex metempsychosis,
were Mrs. Grundy's virtues perpetuated, and she
was endowed with a species of omnipresence. In
this country Mrs. Grundy is a power. She is the
absolute sovereign of America. Her reign there is
none to dispute. Our national motto ought to be,
instead of *E pluribus unum*, "What will Mrs. Grundy
say?" There is no class in our community over
which she does not exercise more or less power. Our
politicians, when they cease to regard their influence
as a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder, act,
not from any fixed principles, but with a single eye to
the good will of Mrs. Grundy. If a man is buying a
house, it is ten chances to one that Mrs. Grundy's
opinion concerning gentility of situation will carry
the day against cosiness and real comfort. If your
wife or daughter goes to buy a dress, Mrs. Grundy's
taste will be consulted in preference to the durability
of the fabric or the condition of your purse. Mrs.
Grundy dictates to us how we shall furnish our
houses, and prescribes to us our whole rule of life.
Under her stern sway, multitudes are living beyond
their means, and trying to avert the bankruptcy and
unhappiness that inevitably await them. It is not
merely in the management of temporal affairs that
Mrs. Grundy makes her power felt. Her vigilance
checks many a generous impulse, stands between the
resolution to do justice and its execution, and is a
fruitful source of hypocrisy. She presides over the
pulpit; the power of wardens and vestrymen is swallowed
up by her; and the minister who can dress up
his weekly dish of moral commonplaces so as not to
offend her discriminating taste deserves to retain his
place, and merits the unanimous admiration of the
whole sewing circle. She is to be found in courts of
law, animating the opposing parties, and enjoying
the contest; actions of slander are an agreeable recreation
to her; petitions for divorce give her unmixed
joy. Like the fury, Alecto, so finely described
by Virgil, Mrs. Grundy can arm brothers to deadly
strife against each other, and stir up the happiest
homes with infernal hatred; to her belong a thousand
woful arts—*Sibi nomina mille, mille nocendi
artes*. Mrs. Grundy's philanthropy confines itself
to no particular class; it is universal. Nothing that
relates to human kind is alien to her. There is nothing
earthly so high that she does not aspire to control
it, nor any thing too contemptible for her not to wish
to know all about it.

Mrs. Grundy is omnipresent. Go where you will,
you cannot escape from her presence. She stands
guard unceasingly over your front door and back
windows. Her watchful eye follows you whene'er
you take your walks abroad. Your name is never
mentioned that she is not by, and seriously inclined
to hear aught that may increase her baleful stock of
knowledge. It is all the same to her whether you
have lived uprightly or viciously; beneath her Gorgon
glance all human actions are petrified alike. And
if she does not succeed in sowing discord around your
hearthstone, and in driving you to despair and self-murder,
as she did poor Henry Herbert the other
day, it will be because you are not cursed with his
fiery sensitiveness, and not because she lacks the will
to do it.

There is but one way in which the Grundian yoke
can be thrown off. We must treat her as the English
wit treated an insignificant person who had insulted
him; we must "let her alone severely." We pay a
certain kind of allegiance to her if we take notice of
her for the purpose of running counter to her notions.
We must ignore her altogether. It is true,
this requires a great deal of moral courage, particularly
in a country where every body knows every
body else's business; but it is an easier task to acquire
that courage than to submit patiently to Mrs.
Grundy's dictation and interference. Who shall
estimate the happiness of that millennial period
when we shall cease to ask ourselves before our
every action, "What will Mrs. Grundy say?" and
shall begin in earnest to live up to the golden rule
that counsels us to mind our own business? When
that day comes, what a world this will be! How
will superficial morality and skin-deep propriety,
envy and uncharitableness, be diminished! How
will contentment, and mutual good will, and domestic
peace be augmented! Think on these things, O
beloved reader; mind your own business, and the day
is not far distant when, for you at least, the iron
sceptre of Dame Grundy shall be powerless, and the
spell broken that held you in so humiliating a thraldom.

.. ——File: 353.png




THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE
----------------------


Life is what we make it. The same scenes wear
a very different appearance to an ingenuous
youth "in the bright morning of his virtues, in the
full spring blossom of his hopes," and to the disappointed
wretch who gazes on them "with the eyes of
sour misanthropy." The horse that was turned by
his benevolent owner into a carpenter's shop, with a
pair of green spectacles prefixed to his nose, and
mistook the dry pine shavings for his legitimate
fodder, was very much in the condition of a youth
looking upon life and yielding to the natural enthusiasm
of his unwarped spirit. Like the noble brute,
however, the young man is undeceived as soon as he
tries to sustain himself with the vanities which look
so tempting and nutritious. He may, like a Wolsey,
a Charles V., or a Napoleon, attain to the heights of
power before the delusive glasses drop off; but even
though the moment be delayed until he lies gasping
in the clutch of that monarch to whom the most absolute
of sovereigns and the most radical of republicans
alike must yield allegiance, it is sure to come,
and show him the ashes that lay hid beneath the fair,
ripe-looking rind of the fruit he climbed so high to
obtain. Life passes before us like a vast panorama,
day by day and year by year unrolling and disclosing
new scenes to charm us into self-forgetfulness. At
one time, we breathe the bracing air of the mountains;
at another, our eyes are gladdened by the sight
of sunshiny meadows, or of fertile and far-reaching
prairies; and then the towered city, with its grove of
masts and its busy wharves, makes all mere natural
beauty seem insignificant in comparison with the
enterprise and ambition of man; until, at last, the
canvas is rolled away, the music ceases, the lights are
put out, and we are left to realize that all in which
we delighted was but an illusion and a "fleeting
show."

Nevertheless, in spite of the vanities that surround
us,—in spite of the sublime world-sickness of
Solomon and the Preacher, and the fierce satire of
Juvenal, (who was as anxious to ascertain the precise
weight of Hannibal as if that illustrious *dux* had
been a prize-fighter,)—there is considerable reality
in life. The existence of so much sham and make-believe
implies the existence of the real and true. Sir
Thomas Browne tells us that "in seventy or eighty
years a man may have a deep gust of the world";
and it were indeed melancholy if any one with hair
as gray as mine should look despairingly over the
field of human existence and effort, and cry, "All is
barren."

Life, as I have before said, is whatever we choose
to make it. Its true philosophy is that divine art
which enables us to transmute its every moment into
the pure gold of heroic and changeless immortality.
Without that philosophy, it is impossible for the
world not to seem at times as it did to the desponding
Danish prince, "a sterile promontory," and a "foul
and pestilent congregation of vapours." Without it,
life is like an elaborate piece of embroidery, looked
at from the wrong side; we cannot but acknowledge
the brilliancy of some of its threads, and the delicate
texture of the work, but its lack of system, and of
any appearance of utility, fatigues the mind that
hungers after perfection, and tempts it to doubt the
divine wisdom and goodness from which it originated.
With it, however, we gaze with admiration
and awe upon the front of the same marvellous work.
Our sense is no longer puzzled by any straggling
threads, or loose ends; the exquisite colours, the contrast
of light and shade, and the perfect symmetry
and harmony of the design, fill the heart of the beholder
with wonder and delight, and draw him
nearer to the source of those ineffable perfections
which are but imperfectly symbolized in the marvels
of the visible universe.

The philosophy which can do all this is *sincerity*.
"I think sincerity is better than grace," says Mr. T.
Carlyle; and the Scotch savage is right. All the
amenities of life that spring from any other source
than a true heart, are but gratuitous hypocrisy. The
kind-hearted knight whom I have already quoted
showed how highly he esteemed this virtue when he
said, "Swim smoothly in the stream of nature, *and
live but one man*." This double existence, that most
of us support,—that is, what we really are, and what
we wish to be considered,—is the source of many of
our faults, and most of our vexation and wretchedness.
He is the truly happy man who forgets that
"appearances must be kept up," and remembers only
that "each of us is as great as he appears in the sight
of his Creator, and no greater." A great French
philosopher has truly said, "How many controversies
would be terminated, if the disputants were obliged
to speak out exactly what they thought!" And
surely he might have gone farther in the same line of
thought; for how much heartburning, domestic unhappiness,
dishonesty, and shameful poverty might
be prevented, if my neighbour Jinkins and his wife
were content to pass in the world for what they are,
instead of assuming a princely style of living that
only makes their want of true refinement more apparent,
and if Johnson and his wife could be induced
not to imitate the vulgar follies of the Jinkinses!
Believe me, incredulous reader, there is more wisdom
in old Sir Thomas's exhortation to "live but one
man" than appears at first sight.

But to leave this great primary virtue, which policy
teaches most men to practise, though they love it
not,—there are two or three principles of action
which I have found very useful in my career, and
which form a part of my philosophy of life. The
first is, never to anticipate troubles. Many years
ago, I was travelling in a part of our common country
not very thickly settled, and, coming to a place
where two roads met, I applied, in my doubt as to
which one I ought to take, to an old fellow (with a
pair of shoulders like those of Hercules, and a face
on which half a century of sunshine, and storm, and
toddies had made an indelible record) who was repairing
a rickety fence by the wayside. He scanned
me with a look that seemed to take in not only my
personal appearance, but the genealogy of my brave
ancestor, who might have fallen in a duel if he had
not learned how "to distinguish between the man and
the act," and then directed me to turn to the left, as
that road saved some three or four miles of the distance
to the farm-house to which I was journeying.
As it was spring-time, I manifested some anxiety to
know whether the freshets, which had been having
quite a run of business in some parts of the country,
had done any damage to a bridge which I knew I
must cross if I took the shorter road. He sneered at
my forethought, and said he supposed that the bridge
was all right, and that I had better "go ahead, and
see." I was acting upon his advice, when a shout from
his hoarse, nasal voice caused me to look back. "I
say, young man," he bawled out to me, "never cross
a bridge till you come to it!" There was wisdom in
the old man's rough-spoken sentence—"solid chunks
of wisdom," as Captain Ed'ard Cuttle would fain
express it—and it sank deep into my memory. There
are very few of us who have not a strong propensity
to diminish our present strength by entertaining
fears of future weakness. If we could content ourselves
to "act in the living present,"—if we could
keep these telescopic evils out of sight, and use all
our energies in grappling with the difficulties that
actually beset our path,—how much more we should
achieve, and how greatly would our sum of happiness
be increased!

Another most salutary principle in my philosophy
is, never to allow myself to be frightened until I have
examined and fairly established the necessity of such
a humiliation. I adopted this principle in my childhood,
being led to it in the following manner: I was
visiting my grandfather, who lived in a fine old mansion-house
in the country, with high wainscotings,
capacious fireplaces, heavy beams in the ceilings, and
wide-arching elms overshadowing the snug porch
where two or three generations had made love.
Sixty years and more have elapsed since that happy
time, yet it seems fresher in my memory than the
events of only quarter of a century back. My grandfather
was a lover of books, and possessed a good
deal of general information. He thought it as advisable
to keep up with the history of his own times
as to be skilled in that of empires long since passed
away. It is not to be wondered at that he should
have treasured every newspaper—especially every
foreign journal—that he could lay his hands upon.
It was under his auspices that I first read the dreadful
story of the Reign of Terror, and acquired my
anti-revolutionary principles.

I shall never forget the bright autumnal afternoon
when the mail coach from Boston brought a package
of books and papers to my grandfather. It was the
last friendly favour, in fact the last communication,
that he ever received from his old Tory friend, Mr.
Barmesyde, whom I mentioned with respect in a
former essay; for that genial old gentleman died in
London not long after. The parcel had made a
quick transit for those days, Mr. Barmesyde's letter
being dated only forty-six days before it was opened
by my grandsire, and we enjoyed the strong fragrance
of its uncut contents together. The old gentleman
seized upon a copy of Burke's splendid Essay
on the French Revolution, which the package contained,
and left me to revel in the newspapers, which
were full of the dreadful details of that bloody
Saturnalia. I got leave from my grandfather (who
was so deep in Burke that he answered me at random)
to sit up an hour later than usual. Terrible as
all the things of which I read seemed to my young
mind, there was a fascination about the details of
that sanguinary orgie that completely enchanted me.
My imagination was full of horrible shapes when I
was obliged to leave the warm, cheerful parlour, and
Robespierre, Danton, and Marat were the infernal
chamberlains that attended me as I went up the
broad, creaking staircase unwillingly to bed. A fresh
north-west breeze was blowing outside, and the sere
woodbines and honeysuckles that filled the house
with fragrance, and gave it such a rural look in summer,
startled me with their struggles to escape from
bondage. Had it been spring, my young imagination
was so excited that I should have feared that they
might imitate the insurgents of whom I had been
reading and begin to shoot! In the night my troubled
slumbers were disturbed by a noise that seemed to
me louder than the discharge of a heavy cannon. I
sat up in the high, old-fashioned bed, and glared
around the room, which was somewhat lighted by the
beams of the setting moon. There was no mistake
about my personal identity—I was neither royalist
nor jacobin; there was no doubt that I was in the best
"spare chamber" of my grandfather's house, and
not in the Bastile, and that the dark-looking thing in
the corner was a solid mahogany chest of drawers,
and not a guillotine; but all these things only served
to increase my terror when I noticed a dark form
standing near the foot of the bed and staring at me
with pale, fiery eyes. I rubbed my own eyes hard,
and pinched myself severely, to make sure that I was
awake. The room was as still as the great chamber
in the pyramid of Cheops. I could hear the old clock
tick at the foot of the stairs as plainly as if I had
been shut up in its capacious case. In the midst of
my perturbation it made every fibre of my frame
tremble by striking *one* with a solemn clangour that
I thought must have waked every sleeper in the
house. The stillness that followed was deeper and
more terrifying than before. I heard distinctly the
breathing of the monster at the foot of the bed. I
tried to whistle at the immovable shape, but I had
lost the power to pucker. At last, I formed a desperate
resolution. I knew that, if the being whose
big, fierce eyes filled me with terror were a genuine
supernatural fiend, it was all over with me, and I
might as well give up at once. But, if perchance a
human form were hid beneath that dreadful disguise,
there was some room for hope of ultimate escape.
To settle this point, therefore, became necessary to
my peace of mind, and I determined that it should
be done. Bending up "each corporal agent to the
terrible feat," I slid quietly out of bed. The monster
was as motionless as before, but I noticed that his
head was covered with a white cloth, which made his
head seem ghastlier than ever. Setting my teeth
firmly together, and clinching my little fists to persuade
myself that I was not afraid, I made the last,
decisive effort. I walked across the room, and stood
face to face with that formidable shape. My grandfather's
best coat hung there against the wall, its
velvet collar protected from the dust by a white
cloth, and the two gilt buttons on its back glittering
in the moonlight. This was the tremendous presence
that had appalled me. The weakness in the knees,
the chattering of my teeth, and the profuse perspiration
which followed my recognition of that harmless
garment, bore witness to the severity of my fright.
Before I crawled back into the warm bed, I resolved
never in future to yield to fear, until I had ascertained
that there was no escape from it; and I have
had many occasions since to act upon that principle.

Speaking of fear, a friend of mine has a favourite
maxim, "Always do what you are afraid to do;" to
which (in a limited sense, so far as it relates to
bodily fear) I subscribed even in my boyhood. I
was returning one evening to my grandfather's
house, during one of my vacation visits, and yielded
to the base sentiment of timidity so far as to choose
the long way thither by the open road, rather than to
take the short cut, through the graveyard and a little
piece of woodland, which was the ordinary path in
the daytime. I pursued my way, thinking of what I
had done, until I got within sight of the old mansion
and its guardian elms, when shame for my own cowardice
compelled me to retrace my steps a quarter of
a mile or more, and take the pathway I had so foolishly
dreaded. The victory then achieved has lasted
to this hour. Dead people and their habitations have
not affrighted me since; indeed, some grave men
whom I have met have excited my mirth rather than
my fears.

But overcome our fears and our propensity to
borrow trouble, as we may,—in spite of all our
philosophy, life is a severe task. I have heard of a
worthy Connecticut parson of the old school, who
enlarged upon the goodness of that Providence
which dealt out time to a man, divided into minutes,
and hours, and days, and months, and years, instead
of giving it to him, as it were, in a lump, or in so
large a quantity that he could not conveniently use it!
Laugh as much as you please, gentle reader, at the
seeming absurdity of the venerable divine, but do not
neglect the great truth which inspired his thought.
Do not forget what a great mercy it is that we are
obliged to live but one day at a time. Do not overlook
the loving kindness which softens the memory
of past sorrows, and conceals from us those which
are to come. I have no respect for that newest
heresy of our age, which pretends to read the secrets
of the unseen world, nor any sympathy with those
morbid minds that yearn to tear away the veil which
infinite wisdom and mercy hangs between us and the
future. With all our boasted learning we know little
enough; but that little is far too much for our happiness.
How many of our trials and afflictions could
we have borne, if we had been able to foresee their
full extent and to anticipate their combined poignancy?
Truly we might say with Shakespeare,—

   |               "O, if this were seen,
   | The happiest youth—viewing his progress through,
   | What perils past, what crosses to ensue—
   | Would shut the book, and sit him down and die."

He only is the true philosopher who uses life as
the usurer does his gold, and employs each shining
hour so as to insure an ever-increasing rate of interest.
He does not bury his gift, nor waste it in frivolity.
Like the old Doge of Venice, he grows old
but does not wear out: *Senescit, non segnescit*. And
he truly lives twice, as an old classical poet expresses
it, inasmuch as he renews his enjoyment of the past
in the recollection of his good actions and of pleasures
"such as leave no sting behind."

.. ——File: 364.png




BEHIND THE SCENES
-----------------


There is no pleasure so satisfactory as that
which an old man feels in recalling the happiness
of his youthful days. All the woes, and anxieties,
and heart-burnings that disturbed him then have
passed away, and left only sunshine in his memory.
And this retrospective enjoyment increases with
every repeated recital, until the scenes of his past
history assume a magnificence of proportion that bewilders
the narrator himself, and sets the principles
of optics entirely at defiance. It is with old men
looking back on their younger days very much as it
is with people who have travelled in Italy. How do
the latter glow with enthusiasm at the mere mention
of the "land of the melting lyre and conquering
spear"! How do their eyes glisten as they tell of the
time when they mused among the broken columns of
the Forum, or breathed the air of ancient consecration
under the majestic vaults of the old basilicas, or
walked along the shores of the world's most beautiful
bay, and watched the black form of Vesuvius
striving in vain to tarnish with its foul breath the
blue canopy above it! They have forgotten their
squabbles with the *vetturini*, the draughtless chimneys
in their lodgings, and the dirty staircase that
conducted to them; the fleas, with all the other disagreeable
accompaniments of Italian life, have fled
into oblivion; and Italy lives in their memories only
as a land of gorgeous sunsets, and of a history that
dwarfs all other human annals. And so it is with an
old man looking back upon his youth: he forgets
how he cried over his arithmetic lessons; how unfilial
his feelings were when his governor refused him permission
to set up a theatre in the cellar; how sheepishly
he slunk through all the back alleys on the day
when he first mounted a tail-coat and a hat; how
unhappy he was when he saw his heart's idol, Mary
Smith, walking home from school with his implacable
foe, Brown; how his head used to ache after those
*noctes cœnæque deûm* with his club at the old Exchange
Coffee House; and what a void was created
in his heart when his crony of cronies was ordered off
by a commission from the war department. There
is no room in his crowded memory for such things as
these. Sitting by his fireside, as I do now, he recalls
his youth only as a season of bats and balls, and
marbles, of sleds, and skates, and bright buttons, and
clean ruffled collars, of Christmas cornucopias of
hosiery, and no end of Artillery Elections and
Fourths of July, with coppers enough to secure the
potentiality of obtaining egg-pop to an alarming extent.

How he fires up if you mention the theatre to him!
He will allow that Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Warren are
most excellent in their way; but bless your simple
heart, what is the stage now compared to what it
was in the first part of this century? And he is about
right. It is useless for us, who remember the old
Federal Street playhouse, and the triumphs of Cooke
and the great Kean, to try to go to the theatre now.
Our new theatre is more stately and splendid than
Old Drury was, but our players do not reach my
youthful standard. I miss those old familiar faces
and voices that delighted me in times long past, and
the stage has lost most of its charms. I can find my
best theatrical entertainment here at home. I call
up from among the shadows that the flickering firelight
casts upon the wall, the tall, knightly figure of
Duff, the brisk, busy, scolding Mrs. Barnes, the
sedate and judicious Dickson, the grotesque Finn,
the stately and elegant Mrs. Powell, looking like the
personification of tragedy, and bluff old Kilner, fat
and pleasant to the sight, and with that hearty laugh
that made all who heard it love him.

What is the excitement occasioned by the Ellsler
or Miss Lind compared to that which attended the
advent of the elder Kean? What crowds used to
beset the box office in the ten-footer next to the theatre,
from the earliest dawn until the opening! I
often think, when I meet some of our gravest and
grayest citizens in their daily walks, what a figure
they cut now compared with the days when they
were fighting their way into the box office of the old
theatre! Talk of enthusiasm! What are all our
political campaigns and public commemorations
compared with that evening during the last war with
Great Britain, when Commodore Bainbridge came
into Boston Bay after his victory over the Java!
That admirable actor, the late Mr. Cooper, was
playing Macbeth, and interrupted his performance
to announce the victory.

But, pardon me, I did not sit down here to lose
myself in the reminiscences of half a century ago.
Let me try to govern this truant pen, and keep it
more closely to my chosen theme. Do you remember,
beloved reader, your second visit to the theatre?
If you do, cherish it; let it not depart from you, for
in the days that are in store for you, when age and
infirmity shall stand guard over you, and you are
obliged to find all your pleasures by your fireside, the
memory of your second play will be very precious to
you. You will find, on looking back to it through a
vista of sixty years or more, that all the pleasure you
then enjoyed was placed on the credit side of your
account, and has been increasing by a sort of moral
compound interest during the long years that you
have devoted to delights less innocent, perhaps, and
certainly less satisfactory, or to the pursuit of objects
far more fleeting and unreal than those which
then fascinated your youthful mind. I say your
"second play," for the first dramatic performance
that the child witnesses is too astonishing to afford
him its full measure of gratification. It is only after
he has told his playmates all about it, and imitated
the wonderful hero who rescued the beautiful lady
in white satin, and dreamed of the splendour of the
last great scene, when all the persons of the drama
stood in a semicircle, and the king, with a crown of
solid gold upon his head, addressed to the magnanimous
hero the thrilling words,—

   | "It is enough: the princess is thine own!"—

and all the characters struck impressive attitudes,
and the curtain descended upon a tableau lighted up
by coloured fires of ineffable brilliancy,—it is only
after all these things have sunk deep into the young
mind, and he has resolved to write a play himself,
and never to rest satisfied until he can bring down the
house with the best of the actors he has seen, that
he fully appreciates the entertainment which has
been vouchsafed to him.

What a charm invests the place where we made
our first acquaintance with the drama! It becomes
an enchanted spot for us, and I doubt if the greatest
possible familiarity in after life can ever breed contempt
for it in our hearts. For my own part, I
regarded the destruction of the old theatre in Federal
Street, and the erection of warehouses on its
hallowed site, as a positive sacrilege. And I cannot
pass that spot, even at this late day, without mentally
recurring to the joys I once tasted there. Perhaps
some who read this may cherish similar sentiments
about the old Tremont Theatre, a place for which I
had as great a fondness as one can have for a theatre
in which he did not see his first play. The very mention
of it calls up its beautiful interior in my mind's
eye,—its graceful proscenium, its chandeliers around
the front of the boxes, its comfortable pit, where I
enjoyed so much good acting, and all the host of
worthies who graced that spacious stage. Mr. Gilbert
was not so fat in those days as he is now, nor
Mr. Barry so gray. What a picturesque hero was
old Brough in the time when the Woods were in their
golden prime, and the appearance of the Count
Rodolpho on the distant bridge was the signal for a
tempest of applause! Who can forget how Mr.
Ostinelli's bald head used to shine, as he presided
over that excellent orchestra, or how funny old
Gear's serious face looked, as he peered at the house
through those heavy, silver-bowed spectacles? Perhaps
for some of my younger readers the stage of
the Museum possesses similar charms, and they will
find themselves, years hence, looking back to the
happy times when Mr. Angier received their glittering
quarters, and they hastened up stairs, to forget
the wanderings of Æneas and the perplexities of
arithmetic in the inimitable fun of that prince-regent
among comedians, Mr. William Warren.

But wherever we may have commenced our dramatic
experience, and whatever that experience may
have been, we have all, I am sure, felt the influence
of that mysterious charm which hangs over the stage.
We have all felt that keen curiosity to penetrate to
the source of so much enjoyment. Who has not had
a desire to enter that mysterious door which conducts
the "sons of harmony" from the orchestra to the
unknown depths below the stage? It looks dark and
forbidding, but we feel instinctively that it is not so,
when we see our venerated uncle Tom Comer carrying
his honest and sunshiny face through it so often.
That green curtain, which is the only veil between
us and a world of heroes and demigods,—how enviously
do we look at its dusty folds! With what
curiosity do we inspect the shoes of varied make and
colour that figure in the little space between it and
the stage! How do we long to follow the hero who
has strutted his hour upon the stage into the invisible
recesses of P. S. and O. P., and to know what takes
the place of the full audience and the glittering row
of footlights in his eyes when he makes his exit at the
"upper entrance, left," or through the "door in flat"
which always moves so noiselessly on its hinges! I
think that the performance of the "Forty Thieves"
awakened this curiosity in my mind more than almost
any other play. I longed to inspect more closely
those noble steeds that came with such a jerky gait
over the distant mountains, and to know what produced
the fearful noise that attended the opening of
the robbers' cave. I believed in the untold wealth
that was said to be heaped up in those subterranean
depths, but still I wished to look at the "cavern goblet,"
and see how it compared with those that
adorned the cases of my excellent friends, Messrs.
Davis and Brown. I can never forget the thrill that
shot through me when Morgiana lifted the cover of
the oil jar, and the terrible question, "Is it time?"
issued from it, nor my admiration for the fearlessness
of that self-possessed maiden when she answered
with those eloquent and memorable words,
"Not yet, but presently." I believed that the compound
which Morgiana administered so freely to the
concealed banditti was just as certain death to every
mother's son of them as M. Fousel's *Pabulum Vitæ*
is renewed life to the consumptives of the present
day; and, years after I had supposed my recollections
of the "Forty Thieves" to have become very
misty and shapeless, I found myself startled in an
oriental city by coming upon several oil jars of the
orthodox model, and I astonished the malignant and
turbaned Turk who owned them, and amused the
companion of my walks about Smyrna, by lifting the
lid of one of them, and quoting the words of Morgiana.
My superstitions concerning that pleasant
old melodrama of course passed away when I became
familiar with the theatre by daylight, and
was accustomed to exchange the compliments of
the morning with the estimable gentleman who
played Hassarac; but the illusion of its first performance
has never been entirely blotted from
my mind.

Some years ago it was my privilege to visit a place
which is classical to every lover of the drama and its
literature. Drury Lane Theatre, now that its ancient
rival, Covent Garden, has passed away, and
been replaced by a house exclusively devoted to the
lyric muse, is the only theatre of London which is
associated in every mind with that host of geniuses
who have illustrated dramatic art from the times of
Garrick to our own. That gifted and versatile actor,
Mr. Davenport, who stands as high in the favour of
the English as of the American public, conducted me
through that immense establishment. We entered
the door, which I had often looked at with curiosity
as I passed through the long colonnade of the theatre,
encountering several of those clean-shaven personages
in clothes that would be much refreshed if
they were allowed to take a nap, and, after traversing
two or three dark corridors, found ourselves
upon the stage. The scene of so many triumphs as
have there been achieved is not without its attractions,
even though it may look differently *en déshabille*
from what it does in the glitter of gaslight.
The stage which has been trod by the Kembles, the
Keans, Siddons, Macready, Young, Palmer Dowton,
Elliston, Munden, Liston, and Farren, is by no
means an ordinary combination of planks. We
know, for Campbell has told us, that

   | "——by the mighty actor brought,
   |   Illusion's perfect triumphs come;
   | Verse ceases to be airy thought,
   |   And sculpture to be dumb."

.. ——File: 372.png

Yet what a shadowy, intangible thing the reputation
of a great actor would seem to be! We simply know
of him that in certain characters his genius held the
crowded theatre in willing thraldom, and made the
hearts of hundreds of spectators throb like that of
one man. Those who felt his wondrous power have
passed away like himself; and all that remains of
him who once filled so large a space in the public eye
is an ill-written biography or a few hastily penned
sentences in an encyclopædia.

I was too full of wonder at the extent of that vast
stage, however, to think much of its ancient associations.
Those lumbering stacks of scenery that filled
a large building at the rear of the stage, and ran over
into every available corner, told the story of the
scenic efforts of Old Drury during nearly half a century.
How many dramas, produced "without the
slightest regard to expense," and "on a scale of unparalleled
splendour," must have contributed to the
building up of those mighty piles! The labyrinthine
passages, the rough brick walls, darkened by time
and the un-Penelope-like spiders of Drury Lane,
were in striking contrast to the stage of that theatre
as it appears from the auditorium. The green-room
had been placed in mourning for the "goodlie companie"
that once filled it, by the all-pervading, omnipresent
smoke of London. Up stairs the sight was
still more wonderful. The space above the stage
was crowded full of draperies, and borders, and
dusty ropes, and wheels, and pulleys. Davenport
enjoyed my amazement, and led me through a darksome,
foot-wide passage above the stage, through
that wilderness of cordage to the machinists' gallery.
Take all the rope-walks that you have ever visited,
dear reader, and add to them the running gear of
several first-class ships, and you may obtain something
of an idea of the sight that then met my view.
I have often heard an impatient audience hiss at
some trifling delay in the shifting of a scene. If they
could see the complicated machinery which must be
set in motion to produce the effects they desire, their
impatience would be changed to wonder at the skill
and care which are so constantly exerted and make
so few mistakes. A glance into two or three of the
dressing-rooms, and a hasty visit to the dark maze of
machinery beneath the stage for working the trapdoors,
completed my survey of Old Drury, and I left
its ancient walls with an increased respect for them,
and a feeling of self-gratulation that I was neither
an actor nor a manager.

Not long after the above visit, I availed myself of
an opportunity to make a similar inspection of the
*Théâtre Français*, in the Palais Royal at Paris. The
old establishment is not so extensive as that of Drury
Lane, but its main features are the same. There
was an air of government patronage about it which
was apparent in its every department. The stage
entrance was through a long and well-lighted corridor
that might have led to a banking-house. Its
green-room was a luxurious saloon, with a floor of
tessellated walnut and oak, waxed and polished so
highly that you could see your figure in it, and could
with difficulty avoid becoming a lay figure upon it.
Its frescoed ceiling and gilded cornices, its immense
mirrors, and its walls covered with the portraits of
several generations of players, whose genius has
made the very name of that theatre venerable
throughout the civilized world, were very different
from most of the green-rooms that I had seen. In
the ancient colleges in Italy the walls of the classrooms
are hung with portraits of the distinguished
scholars, illustrious prelates, and sometimes of the
canonized saints, who once studied under their time-honoured
roofs. In the same spirit, the green-room
of the *Théâtre Français* is adorned with busts and
pictures; and the chairs that once were occupied by a
Talma, a Mars, and a Rachel are held in honour in
the place where their genius received its full development.
The dressing-rooms of the brilliant company
which sustains the high reputation of that house are
in perfect keeping with its green-room. Each of the
leading actors and actresses has a double room, furnished
in a style of comfortable elegance. In the
wardrobe and property rooms, the imperial patronage
is visible in the richness of the stage furniture
and the profusion of dresses made of the costliest
silks and velvets. The stage, however, is very much
like that of any other theatre. There were the same
obscure passages, the same stupendous collection of
intricate machinery, and the same mysterious odour,
as of gas and musty scenery, pervaded the whole. I
was permitted to view all its arcana, from the wheels
that revolve in dusty silence eighty or ninety feet
above the stage to the ponderous balance weights
that dwell in the darkness of the second and third
stories below it; and enjoyed it so keenly that I regretted
to be told that I had seen all, and to find myself
once more in the dazzling sunshine of the Rue
de Richelieu.

.. ——File: 375.png

We are accustomed to speak of the theatre as a
repository of shams and unrealities, and to contrast
it with the actualities of every-day life. I hope that
you will excuse me, gentle reader, for venturing to
deny the justice of all such figures of speech. They
are as false as that common use of the expressions
"sunrise" and "sunset," when we know that the sun
does not really rise or set at all. No, it is the theatre
that is the reality, and the life we see on every side
the sham. The theatre is all that it pretends to be—a
scenic illusion; and if we compare it to the world
around us, with its loving couples, my-dearing each
other before folks, and exchanging angry words over
the solitary tea-tray,—its politicians, seeking nominations
and votes, and then reluctantly giving up their
private interests and comforts for the "public good,"
(as the spoils of office are facetiously termed,)—its
so-called ministers of the gospel, who speak of an
offer of increased salary as "an opportunity to labour
in a wider sphere of usefulness,"—and its funerals,
where there is such an imposing show of black crape
and bombazine, but where the genuine mourning
commences only after the reading of the will of the
deceased,—I am sure that we shall be justified in
concluding that the fictitious affair which we try to
dignify with the title of "real life" is a far less respectable
illusion than the mimic scene that captivates
us in the hours of relaxation.

.. ——File: 376.png




THE PHILOSOPHY OF CANT
----------------------


Be not dismayed, kind reader,—I have no intention
of impressing you for a tiresome cruise in
the high and dangerous latitudes of German metaphysics;
nor do I wish to set myself up as a critic of
pure reason. In spite of Noah Webster and his inquisitorial
publishers, I still cherish a partiality for
correct orthography; and I would not be understood
as referring in the caption of this article to the celebrated
founder of the transcendental school of
philosophy. I cannot but respect Emmanuel Kant as
a remarkable intellectual man; and I hope to be pardoned
for saying that his surname might properly be
anglicized, by spelling it with a C instead of a K.
Neither did I allude to the useful art of saying "No"
opportunely, which an excellent friend of mine
(whose numerous virtues are neutralized by his propensity
to fabricate puns in season and out of season)
insists upon denominating the "philosophy of can't."
That faculty which is, in more senses than one, a
negative virtue, is unhappily a much harder thing to
find than the vice of which I have a few words to say.

I do not mean cant in the worse sense of the word,
as exemplified in the characters of Pecksniff, Stiggins,
Chadband, and Aminadab Sleek, nor even in those
of that large school of worshippers of propriety and
bond-servants of popular opinion, who reverse the
crowning glory of the character of Porcius Cato, and
prefer to seem, rather than to be, good. The cant I
allude to is the technical phraseology of the various
virtues, which some people appear to think is the
same thing as virtue itself. They do not remember
that a greasy bank-note is valueless save as the representative
of a given quantity of bullion, and that pious
and virtuous language is of no account except its full
value be found in the pure gold of virtue stored away
in the treasure-chambers of the heart. For such cant
as this I have less respect than for downright hypocrisy;
for there is something positive about the character
of your genuine villain, which certainly does
not repel me so strongly as the milk-and-watery
characteristics of that numerous class of every-day
people who (not being good enough to serve as examples,
nor bad enough to be held up as warnings)
are of no use whatever in their day and generation.
What possible solace can he who deals in the set
phrases of consolation administer to the afflicted
spirit in that hour, when (even among the closest
friends) "speech is silver, but silence is golden"?

There is scarcely a subject upon which men converse,
in which this species of cant does not play its
part; but there are some matters in which it makes
itself so conspicuous that I cannot resist the temptation
to pay particular attention to them. And, as the
subject is rather an extensive one, I will parley no
longer in its vestibule, but pull off my overcoat, and
make myself at home in its front parlour. I wish to
make a few observations on cant as it manifests itself
in regard to morality, philanthropy, religion, liberty,
and progress. My notions will excite the sneers of
some of my younger readers, I doubt not, and perchance
of some older ones; but, while I claim the
privilege of age in speaking out my mind, I shall try
to avoid the testiness which senility too often manifests
towards those who do not respect its opinions.
Convinced that mine are true, I can afford to emulate
"Messire de Mauprat" in his patience, and wait to
see my fellow-men pass their fortieth birthday, and,
leaving their folly and enthusiasm behind them, come
round to my position.

The cant of Morality is so common that it is mistaken
by many excellent people for morality itself.
To leave unnoticed the people who consider it very
iniquitous to go to the theatre, but perfectly allowable
to laugh at Mr. Warren on the stage of the
Museum; who enjoy backgammon, but shrink from
whist with holy horror; and who hold up their hands
and cry out against the innocent Sunday recreations
of continental Europe, yet think themselves justified
in reading their Sunday newspapers and the popular
magazines, or talking of the style of the new bonnets
which made their first appearance at the morning
service,—to say nothing about the moralists of this
school, I am afraid that the prevailing notions on
matters of greater import than mere amusement are
not such as would stand a very severe moral test.
When I see so much circumspection with regard to
external propriety, joined with such an evident want
of principle, it seems to me as if the Ten Commandments
of the Old Law had been superseded by an
eleventh: *Thou shalt not be found out*. When I see
people of education in a city like Boston, dignifying
lust under the title of a spiritual affinity, and characterizing
divorce as obedience to the highest natural
law,—and still more, when I see how little surprise
the enunciation of such doctrines occasions,—I no
longer wonder at infidelity, for I am myself tempted
to ask whether there is any such thing as abstract
right or abstract wrong, and to question whether
morality may not be an antiquated institution, which
humanity is now sufficiently advanced to dispense
with. It is a blessed thing that we have not the
power to read one another's hearts. To pass by the
unhappiness it would cause us, what changes it would
occasion in our moral classifications! How many
men, clad in picturesque and variegated costumes,
are labouring in the public workshops of Charlestown,
or Sing Sing, or Pentonville, who, if the heart
were seen, would be found worthier by far than some
of those ornaments of society who are always at the
head of their pews, and whose names are found
alike on false invoices and subscription lists for evangelizing
some undiscovered continent! What a different
balance would be struck between so-called
respectability in its costly silks and its comparative
immunity from actual temptation, and needy wantonness
displaying its rouge and Attleborough jewelry
all the more boldly because it feels that the ban of
society is upon it!

And this brings me to the cant of Philanthropy.
That excellent word has been so shamefully abused
of late years, by being applied to the empirical
schemes of adventurers and social disorganizers, that
you cannot now say a much worse thing of a man
than that he is a "philanthropist." That term ought
to designate one of the noblest representatives of the
unselfish side of human nature; but to my mind, it
describes a sallow, long-haired, whining fellow, who
has taken up with the profession of loving all men in
general, that he may better enjoy the satisfaction of
hating all men in particular, and may the more effectually
prey upon his immediate neighbours; a monomaniac,
yet with sufficient "method in his madness"
to make it pay a handsome profit; a knave whose
telescopic vision magnifies the spiritual destitution of
Tching-tou, and can see nothing wanting to complete
our Christian civilization but a willingness to contribute
to the "great and good work," and whose
commissions for disbursing the funds are frightfully
disproportionate to the amount collected and the
work done. But there is a great deal of the cant of
philanthropy passing current even among those who
have no respect for the professional philanthropist.
With all possible regard for the spirit of the age, I
do not believe that modern philanthropy can ever be
made to take the place of old-fashioned Christian
charity. Far be it from me to underrate the benevolent
efforts which are made in this community; but I
cannot help seeing that while thousands are spent in
alms, we lack that blessed spirit of charity which imparted
such a charm to the benevolent institutions of
the middle ages. They seemed to labour among the
poor on the principle which Sir Thomas Browne laid
down for his charities—"I give no alms to satisfy the
hunger of my brother, but to fulfil and accomplish
the will and command of my God; I draw not my
purse for his sake that demands it, but His that enjoined
it." We irreverent moderns have tried to
improve upon this, and the result is seen in legal enactments
against mendicancy, in palatial prisons for
criminals, and in poorhouses where the needy are
obliged to associate with the vicious and depraved.
The "dark ages" (as the times which witnessed the
foundation of the greatest universities, hospitals, and
asylums the world ever saw, are sometimes called)
were not dark enough for that.

Do what we may to remedy this defect in our
solicitude for the suffering classes, the legal view of
the matter will still predominate. We may imitate
the kindliness of the ancient times, but we cannot
disguise the fact that pauperism is regarded not only
as a great social evil, but as an offence against our
laws. While this is so, we shall labour in vain to
catch the tone of the days when poverty was ennobled
by the virtues of the apostolic Francis of
Assisi and the heroic souls that relinquished wealth
and power to share his humble lot. The voice of our
philanthropy may be the voice of Jacob, but the hand
will be the hand of Esau. That true gentleman and
kind-hearted knight whom I have already quoted,
had no patience with this contempt for poverty which
was just growing into sight in his time, but is now so
common; and he administered to it a rebuke which
has lost none of its force by the lapse of more than
two hundred years: "Statists that labour to contrive
a commonwealth without poverty, take away the object
of charity, not understanding only the commonwealth
of a Christian, but forgetting the prophecy
of Christ."

In making any allusion to religious cant, I am sensible
that I tread on very dangerous ground. Still,
in an essay on such a subject as the present, revivalism
ought not to go unnoticed. God forbid that a
man at my time of life should pen a light word
against any thing that may draw men from their
worldliness to a more intimate union with their Creator.
But the revival extravagances which last year
made the profane laugh and the devout grieve, merit
the deprecation of every person who does not wish
to see religion itself brought into contempt. I do not
believe in the application of the high-pressure system
to the spiritual life. Some persons seem to regard a
religious excitement as an evidence of a healthy
spiritual state. As well might they consider a fever
induced by previous irregularity to be a proof of
returning bodily health. As the physician of the
body would endeavour to restore the patient to his
normal state, so too the true physician of the soul
would labour to banish the religious fever from the
mind of his patient, and to plant therein the sure
principles of spiritual health—a clearly-defined dogmatic
belief, and a deep conviction of the sinfulness
of sin. We all need to be from time to time reminded
that true religion is not a mere effervescence,
not a vain blaze, but a reality which reflects something
of the unchangeable glory of its divine Author.
It is not a volcano, treasuring within its bosom a
fierce, destructive element, sullenly smouldering and
smoking for years, and making intermittent exhibitions
of a power as terrible as it is sublime. No; it is
rather a majestic and deep-flowing river, taking its
rise amid lofty mountains whose snowy crags and
peaks are pure from the defilement of our lower
world, fed from heaven, bearing in its broad current
beauty, and fertility, and refreshment, to regions
which would else be sterile and joyless, and emptying
at last into a shoreless and untroubled sea, whose
bright surface mirrors eternally the splendour of the
skies.

That the cant of Liberty should be popular with
the American tongue is not, perhaps, to be wondered
at. A young nation,—which has achieved its own
independence in a contest with one of the most powerful
governments in the world,—which has grown
in territory, population, and wealth beyond all historical
precedent,—and which has a new country for
its field of action, so that its progress is unimpeded
by the relics of ancient civilization or the ruins of
dead empires,—could not reasonably be expected to
resist all temptations to self-glorification. The
American eagle is no mere barnyard fowl—content
with a secure roost and what may be picked up within
sight of the same. He is the most insatiable of birds.
His fierce eye and bending beak look covetous, and
his whole aspect is one of angry anxiety lest his prey
should be snatched from him, or his dominion should
be called in question. In this regard he differs greatly
from his French relative, who squats with such a
conscious air of superiority on the tops of the regimental
standard-poles of the imperial army, and surveys
the forest of bayonets in which he makes his nest
as if he felt that his power was undisputed. And
we Americans are not less uneasy and wild than the
bird we have chosen for our national emblem, and
appear to think that the essential part of liberty consists
in keeping up an endless talk about it. Our
cant of freedom needs to be reminded of Tom
Hood's observation concerning religious cant:—

   | "'Tis not so plain as the old hill of Howth,
   |   A man has got his bellyful of meat,
   | Because he talks with victuals in his mouth!"

.. ——File: 384.png

With all our howling about liberty, we Americans
are abject slaves to a theory of government which
we feel bound to defend under all circumstances, and
to propagate even in countries which are entirely
unfitted for it. This constitutional theory is a fine
thing to talk about; few topics afford so wide a range
to the imaginative powers of a young orator. It is
not therefore to be wondered at, that the subject
should be so often forced upon us, and that so many
startling contrasts should be drawn between our governmental
experiment and the thousand-years-old
monarchies of Europe. These comparisons (which
some people who make republicanism such an article
of faith, that they must find it hard to repeat the
clause of the Lord's prayer, "Thy *kingdom* come,"—are
so fond of drawing) remind me of the question
that was discussed in the Milesian debating society—"Which
was the greatest man, St. Patrick or the
Fourth of July?" and the conclusions drawn from
them are very like the result of that momentous
debate, which was decided in the affirmative.

For my own part, I have got past the age when
eloquence and poetry are of much account in matters
of such vital importance as government. When I
buy a pair of overshoes, my first object is to get something
that is water-proof. So, too, in the matter of
government, I only wish to know whether the purposes
for which government is instituted—the protection
of the life, property, and personal liberty of
its subjects—are answered; and, if they are, I am
ready to swear allegiance to it, not caring a splinter
of a ballot-box whether it be founded on hereditary
succession or a roll of parchment, or whether its
executive authority be vested in a president, a king,
or an emperor. That is the best government which
is best administered; it makes little difference what
you call it, or on what theory it is built. I love my
country dearly, and yield to no one in my loyalty to
her government and laws; but (pardon me for being
so matter-of-fact, and seemingly unpatriotic) I would
willingly part with some of this boasted liberty of
ours, to secure a little more wisdom in making laws,
and a good deal more strength in executing them. I
count the privilege of talking politics and of choosing
between the various political adventurers who aspire
to be my rulers, as a very insignificant affair compared
with a sense of security against popular violence
and the dishonesty of dealers in the necessaries
of life. And I cannot help thinking, that for the
inhabitants of a country where there is little reverence
for authority or willing obedience to law,
where the better class of the citizens refuse to take
any part in politics, and where the legislative power
is enthroned, not in the Senate, nor in the House of
Representatives, but in the Lobby,—for the inhabitants
of such a country to boast of their liberty
aloud, is the most absurd of all the cants in this canting
world.

Little as I respect the cant of liberty, I care even
less for the cant of Progress. I never had much patience
with this worship of the natural sciences, which
is rapidly getting to be almost the only religion
among certain cultivated people in this quarter. I
remember in my boyhood startling by my scientific
apathy a precocious companion who used to bother
his brains about the solar system, and one useless
ology and another, in the precious hours which ought
to have been devoted to Robinson Crusoe and the
Arabian Nights' Entertainments. He had been
labouring hard to explain to me the law of gravitation,
and concluded with the bold statement that,
were it not for that law, an apple, with which he had
been illustrating his theory, instead of falling to the
earth, might roll off the unprotected side of this sublunary
sphere into the abyss of space,—or something
to that effect. He could not conceal his contempt for
my want of scientific ardour, when I asked him
whether he should really care if it did roll off, so long
as there was a plenty left! I did wrong to joke him,
for he was a good fellow, in spite of his weakness.
It is many years since he figured himself out of this
unsatisfactory world, into a state of existence where
vision is clearer even than mathematical demonstration,
and where *x* does not "equal the unknown quantity."

Pardon this digression: in complaining of the
vaunted progress of this rapid age, I am making little
progress myself. It appears to me that the people
who laud this age so highly either do not know what
true progress is, or suffer themselves to mistake the
means for the end. Your cotton mills, and steam engines,
and clipper ships, and electric telegraphs, do
not constitute progress; they are means by which it
may be attained. If gunpowder, immediately after
its invention, had been devoted to the indiscriminate
destruction of mankind, could such an invention have
justly been termed progress? If the press were used
only to perpetuate the blasphemies and indecencies
of Mazzini and Eugene Sue, who would esteem
Gutenberg and Fust as benefactors, or promoters of
true progress? And if the increased facilities for
travel, and the other inventions on which this age
prides itself, only tend to make men's minds narrower
by absorbing them in material interests, and
their souls more mean by giving them the idol of
prosperity to worship, then is this nineteenth century
a century of progress indeed, but in the wrong direction.
And if our mode of education only augments
the ratio of crime among the lower class, and makes
superficial pretenders of the higher orders of society,
it is not a matter which will justify our setting ourselves
quite so high above past ages and the rest of
the world.

I cannot see what need nor what excuse there is for
all this bragging. A great many strong men lived
before Agamemnon,—and after him. We indeed do
some things that would astonish our forefathers; but
how are we superior to them on that account? We
enslave the lightnings of heaven to be our messengers,
and compel the sun to take our portraits; but if
our electric wires are prostituted to the chicanery of
trade or politics, and the faces which the sun portrays
are expressive of nothing nobler than mercantile
shrewdness and the price of cotton, the less we
boast of our achievements, the better. Thucydides
never had his works puffed in a newspaper, Virgil
and Horace never poetized or lectured for a lyceum;
Charlemagne never saw a locomotive, nor did St.
Thomas Aquinas ever use a friction match. Yet this
unexampled age possesses, I apprehend, few historians
who would not shrink from being compared
with the famous Greek annalist, few poets worthy
to wear the crowns of the friends of the great Augustus,
few rulers more sagacious and firm than the first
Emperor of the West, and few scholars who would
not consider it a privilege to be taught by the
Angelic Doctor.

True progress is something superior to your puffing
engines and clicking telegraphs, and independent
of them. It is the advancement of humanity in the
knowledge of its frailty and dependence; the elevation
of the mind above its own limited acquirements,
to the infinite source of knowledge; the cleansing of
the heart of its selfishness and uncleanness; in fact,
it is any thing whatever that tends to assimilate man
more closely to the divine Exemplar of perfect manhood.


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