Kitabı oku: «Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850.», sayfa 27
THE ORPHAN'S VOYAGE HOME
The men could hardly keep the deck,
So bitter was the night;
Keen northeast winds sang through the shrouds,
The deck was frosty white;
While overhead the glistening stars
Put forth their points of light.
On deck, behind a bale of goods,
Two orphans crouch'd, to sleep;
But 'twas so cold, the youngest boy
In vain tried not to weep:
They were so poor, they had no right
Near cabin doors to creep.
The elder round the younger wrapt
His little ragged cloak,
To shield him from the freezing sleet,
And surf that o'er them broke;
Then drew him closer to his side,
And softly to him spoke:
"The night will not be long" – he said,
"And if the cold winds blow,
We shall the sooner reach our home,
And see the peat-fire glow;
But now the stars are beautiful —
Oh, do not tremble so!
"Come closer! – sleep – forget the frost —
Think of the morning red —
Our father and our mother soon
Will take us to their bed;
And in their warm arms we shall sleep."
He knew not they were dead.
For them no father to the ship
Shall with the morning come;
For them no mother's loving arms
Are spread to take them home:
Meanwhile the cabin passengers
In dreams of pleasure roam.
At length the orphans sank to sleep
All on the freezing deck;
Close huddled side to side – each arm
Clasp'd round the other's neck.
With heads bent down, they dream'd the earth
Was fading to a speck.
The steerage passengers have all
Been taken down below,
And round the stove they warm their limbs
Into a drowsy glow;
And soon within their berths forget
The icy wind and snow.
Now morning dawns: the land in sight
Smiles beam on every face!
The pale and qualmy passengers
Begin the deck to pace,
Seeking along the sun-lit cliffs
Some well known spot to trace.
Only the orphans do not stir,
Of all this bustling train:
They reached their home this starry night!
They will not stir again!
The winter's breath proved kind to them,
And ended all their pain.
But in their deep and freezing sleep,
Clasp'd rigid to each other,
In dreams they cried, "The bright morn breaks,
Home! home! is here, my brother!
The Angel Death has been our friend —
We come! dear Father! Mother!"
[From the Autobiography of Leigh Hunt.]
LORD BYRON, WORDSWORTH, AND CHARLES LAMB
In this house, Lord Byron continued the visits which he made me in prison. Unfortunately, I was too ill to return them. He pressed me very much to go to the theatre with him; but illness, and the dread of committing my critical independence, alike prevented me. His lordship was one of a management that governed Drury-lane Theatre at that time, and that were not successful. He got nothing by it, but petty vexations and a good deal of scandal.
Lord Byron's appearance at that time was the finest I ever saw it. He was fatter than before his marriage, but only just enough so to complete the elegance of his person; and the turn of his head and countenance had a spirit and elevation in it, which, though not unmixed with disquiet, gave him altogether a very noble look. His dress, which was black, with white trowsers, and which he wore buttoned close over the body, completed the succinctness and gentlemanliness of his appearance. I remember one day, as he stood looking out of the window, he resembled in a lively manner the portrait of him by Phillips, by far the best that has appeared; I mean the best of him at his best time of life, and the most like him in features as well as expression. He sat one morning so long, that Lady Byron sent up twice to let him know she was waiting. Her ladyship used to go on in the carriage to Henderson's nursery ground, to get flowers. I had not the honor of knowing her, nor ever saw her but once, when I caught a glimpse of her at the door. I thought she had a pretty, earnest look, with her "pippin" face; an epithet by which she playfully designated herself.
It was here also I had the honor of a visit from Mr. Wordsworth. He came to thank me for the zeal I had shown in advocating the cause of his genius. I had the pleasure of showing him his book on my shelves by the side of Milton; a sight which must have been the more agreeable, inasmuch as the visit was unexpected. He favored me, in return, with giving his opinion of some of the poets his contemporaries, who would assuredly not have paid him a visit on the same grounds on which he was pleased to honor myself. Nor do I believe, that from that day to this, he thought it becoming in him to reciprocate the least part of any benefit which a word in good season may have done for him. Lord Byron, in resentment for my having called him the "prince of the bards of his time," would not allow him to be even the "one-eyed monarch of the blind." He said he was the "blind monarch of the one-eyed." I must still differ with his lordship on that point; but I must own, that, after all which I have seen and read, posterity, in my opinion, will differ not a little with one person respecting the amount of merit to be ascribed to Mr. Wordsworth; though who that one person is, I shall leave the reader to discover.
Mr. Wordsworth, whom Mr. Hazlitt designated as one who would have had the wide circle of his humanities made still wider, and a good deal more pleasant, by dividing a little more of his time between his lakes in Westmoreland and the hotels of the metropolis, had a dignified manner, with a deep and roughish, but not unpleasing voice, and an exalted mode of speaking. He had a habit of keeping his left hand in the bosom of his waistcoat; and in this attitude, except when he turned round to take one of the subjects of his criticism from the shelves (for his contemporaries were there also), he sat dealing forth his eloquent but hardly catholic judgments. In his "fathers house," there were not "many mansions." He was as skeptical on the merits of all kinds of poetry but one, as Richardson was on those of the novels of Fielding.
Under the study in which my visitor and I were sitting was an archway, leading to a nursery-ground; a cart happened to go through it while I was inquiring whether he would take any refreshment; and he uttered, in so lofty a voice, the words, "Any thing which is going forward," that I felt inclined to ask him whether he would take a piece of the cart. Lamb would certainly have done it. But this was a levity which would neither have been so proper on my part, after so short an acquaintance, nor very intelligible perhaps, in any sense of the word, to the serious poet. There are good-humored warrants for smiling, which lie deeper even than Mr. Wordsworth's thoughts for tears.
I did not see this distinguished person again till thirty years afterward; when, I should venture to say, his manner was greatly superior to what it was in the former instance; indeed, quite natural and noble, with a cheerful air of animal as well as spiritual confidence; a gallant bearing, curiously reminding one of a certain illustrious duke, as I have seen him walking some dozen years ago by a lady's side, with no unbecoming oblivion of his time of life. I observed, also, that he no longer committed himself in scornful criticisms, or, indeed, in any criticisms whatever, at least as far as I knew. He had found out that he could, at least, afford to be silent. Indeed, he spoke very little of any thing.
Walter Scott said, that the eyes of Burns were the finest he ever saw. I can not say the same of Mr. Wordsworth; that is, not in the sense of the beautiful, or even of the profound. But certainly I never beheld eyes that looked so inspired or supernatural. They were like fires half burning, half smouldering, with a sort of acrid fixture of regard, and seated at the further end of two caverns. One might imagine Ezekiel or Isaiah to have had such eyes.
Charles Lamb had a head worthy of Aristotle, with as fine a heart as ever beat in human bosom, and limbs very fragile to sustain it. There was a caricature of him sold in the shops, which pretended to be a likeness. Procter went into the shop in a passion, and asked the man what he meant by putting forth such a libel. The man apologized, and said that the artist meant no offense. There never was a true portrait of Lamb. His features were strongly yet delicately cut: he had a fine eye as well as forehead; and no face carried in it greater marks of thought and feeling. It resembled that of Bacon, with less worldly vigor and more sensibility.
As his frame, so was his genius. It was as fit for thought as could be, and equally as unfit for action; and this rendered him melancholy, apprehensive, humorous, and willing to make the best of every thing as it was, both from tenderness of heart and abhorrence of alteration. His understanding was too great to admit an absurdity; his frame was not strong enough to deliver it from a fear. His sensibility to strong contrasts was the foundation of his humor, which was that of a wit at once melancholy and willing to be pleased. He would beard a superstition, and shudder at the old phantasm while he did it. One could have imagined him cracking a jest in the teeth of a ghost, and then melting into thin air himself, out of a sympathy with the awful. His humor and his knowledge both, were those of Hamlet, of Molière, of Carlin, who shook a city with laughter, and, in order to divert his melancholy, was recommended to go and hear himself. Yet he extracted a real pleasure out of his jokes, because good-heartedness retains that privilege when it fails in every thing else. I should say he condescended to be a punster, if condescension had been a word befitting wisdom like his. Being told that somebody had lampooned him, he said, "Very well, I'll Lamb-pun him." His puns were admirable, and often contained as deep things as the wisdom of some who have greater names; such a man, for instance, as Nicole the Frenchman, who was a baby to him. He would have cracked a score of jokes at him, worth his whole book of sentences; pelted his head with pearls. Nicole would not have understood him, but Rochefoucault would, and Pascal, too; and some of our old Englishmen would have understood him still better. He would have been worthy of hearing Shakspeare read one of his scenes to him, hot from the brain. Commonplace found a great comforter in him as long as it was good-natured; it was to the ill-natured or the dictatorial only that he was startling. Willing to see society go on as it did, because he despaired of seeing it otherwise, but not at all agreeing in his interior with the common notions of crime and punishment, he "dumb-founded" a long tirade one evening, by taking the pipe out of his mouth, and asking the speaker, "Whether he meant to say that a thief was not a good man?" To a person abusing Voltaire, and indiscreetly opposing his character to that of Jesus Christ, he said admirably well (though he by no means overrated Voltaire, nor wanted reverence in the other quarter), that "Voltaire was a very good Jesus Christ for the French." He liked to see the church-goers continue to go to church, and wrote a tale in his sister's admirable little book (Mrs. Leicester's School) to encourage the rising generation to do so; but to a conscientious deist he had nothing to object; and if an atheist had found every other door shut against him, he would assuredly not have found his. I believe he would have had the world remain precisely as it was, provided it innovated no farther; but this spirit in him was any thing but a worldly one, or for his own interest. He hardly contemplated with patience the new buildings in the Regent's Park: and, privately speaking, he had a grudge against official heaven-expounders, or clergymen. He would rather, however, have been with a crowd that he disliked, than felt himself alone. He said to me one day, with a face of great solemnity, "What must have been that man's feelings, who thought himself the first deist?" Finding no footing in certainty, he delighted to confound the borders of theoretical truth and falsehood. He was fond of telling wild stories to children, engrafted on things about them; wrote letters to people abroad, telling them that a friend of theirs had come out in genteel comedy; and persuaded George Dyer that Lord Castlereagh was the author of Waverley! The same excellent person walking one evening out of his friend's house into the New River, Lamb (who was from home at the time) wrote a paper under his signature of Elia, stating, that common friends would have stood dallying on the bank, have sent for neighbors, &c., but that he, in his magnanimity, jumped in, and rescued his friend after the old noble fashion. He wrote in the same magazine two lives of Liston and Munden, which the public took for serious, and which exhibit an extraordinary jumble of imaginary facts and truth of by-painting. Munden he made born at "Stoke Pogeis: " the very sound of which was like the actor speaking and digging his words. He knew how many false conclusions and pretensions are made by men who profess to be guided by facts only, as if facts could not be misconceived, or figments taken for them; and, therefore, one day, when somebody was speaking of a person who valued himself on being a matter-of-fact man, "Now," said he, "I value myself on being a matter-of-lie man." This did not hinder his being a man of the greatest veracity, in the ordinary sense of the word; but "Truth," he said, "was precious, and not to be wasted on every body."
Lamb had seen strange faces of calamity; but they did not make him love those of his fellow-creatures the less. Few persons guessed what he had suffered in the course of his life, till his friend Talfourd wrote an account of it, and showed the hapless warping that disease had given to the fine brain of his sister.
AMERICAN VANITY
We are not at all surprised at what in this country is most foolishly called the conceit and vanity of the Americans. What people in the world have so fine, so magnificent a country? Besides that, they have some reason to be proud of themselves. We have given the chief features of their eastern and inland territory; if the reader has any imagination for ideas of this kind, let him picture to himself what will be the aspect of things when the tide of population has crossed the long range of the Rocky Mountains, and, occupying the valleys of the western coast, has built other Bostons and New Yorks in the harbors of Oregon and California. This tide of population is now advancing along a line of more than a thousand miles, at the rate of eighteen miles a year; and each year, as the population behind becomes larger, the number of new settlers is increased, and the rate of advance is accelerated. This vast crowd of ever-onward-pressing settlers is not formed of the same materials as the inhabitants of an European province: that is, there are not at its head a few intelligent, but delicately-brought-up men of capital, while all the rest are ignorant laborers; but every one of these pioneers of civilization can handle the ax and the rifle, and can "calculate." If ever these magnificent dreams of the American people are realized – and all that is wanted for their realization is that things should only go on as they have been going on for the last two centuries – there will be seated upon that vast continent a population greater than that of all Europe, all speaking the same language, all active-minded, intelligent, and well off. They will stand, as it were, the centre of the world, between the two great oceans, with Europe on one hand and Asia on the other. With such a future before him, we must pardon the Yankee if we find a little dash of self-complacency in his composition; and bear with the surprise and annoyance which he expresses at finding that we know so little of himself or of his country. Our humble opinion is that we ought to know better.
Great as is the influence which America has already had upon Europe, we conceive that this is a mere intimation of the influence which it is destined to have upon the world. —Frazer's Mag.
MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS
The domestic events of the month (which, in accordance with requests from many quarters, this Magazine will hereafter regularly record) have not been numerous or very important. The Invasion of Cuba, by a force collected, organized, armed, officered, and disciplined within the United States, and the successful repulse of that invasion, have been the leading topic of comment. The expedition, 300 in number, left New Orleans, under command of General Lopez, on the 25th of April and the 2d of May, and landed at Cardenas on the morning of the 19th of May. A brief struggle ensued between the invaders and the troops, in which the latter were repulsed, the governor captured, his palace plundered, and a large quantity of public money seized. The invaders had counted upon accessions to their ranks from the Spanish army, and from the disaffected inhabitants. In this, however, they were entirely disappointed, and Lopez accordingly re-embarked on the steamer which had taken him thither, and with a few of his followers, made his escape to the United States, leaving the great body of his adherents to the tender mercies of the authorities of Cuba. Lopez has been arrested at New Orleans, and awaits trial on charge of having violated the United States neutrality act of 1818: and a good deal of interest is felt in the disposition which the Cuban authorities will make of the prisoners who have fallen into their hands. It seems that a Spanish steamer captured two vessels in the Mexican waters, laden with men whom they suspected of having intended to join the invading expedition, and took them into Havana. The President of the United States has made a peremptory demand for the release of these prisoners, and declares that a clear distinction must be made between those proved guilty of actual participation, and those suspected of an intention to join, in the invasion. The result of this demand is not yet known. It is not believed, however, that the Cuban authorities will pursue a course of unnecessary or unjust rigor, as it could scarcely fail to involve them in serious difficulties with the United States.
Both Houses of Congress are still engaged in debating the various questions growing out of slavery. In the House a bill for the immediate admission of California is pending, and debate upon it has been closed; but a decisive vote is evaded from day to day. Whenever that can be reached, there will probably be found to be a majority in favor of the bill. In the Senate a bill is pending which provides: 1. For the admission of California; 2. For organizing territorial governments for New Mexico and Utah, without any provision on the subject of slavery; and 3. For paying Texas a sum not specified, for relinquishing her claim to a part of New Mexico. The bill has been very fully and very ably discussed, and votes have been taken upon a great number of amendments to it, the most important of which was one prohibiting slavery forever from these territories. This was offered by Senator Seward of New York, and rejected, 33 to 23. It is believed that the final vote will be taken upon the hill before many days: the chances are in favor of its passage.
The attention of Congress has been so thoroughly occupied with these bills, that no other business of any importance has been transacted or even entertained. The general subject of slavery, which gives to them all their interest, has entered largely into the public discussions of the month. Mr. Webster has written a letter to the citizens of Newburyport, Mass., upon the wrong done to the South by refusing to surrender their fugitive slaves, urging the necessity for a more stringent law, and expressing the opinion, that there is nothing, either in the spirit or the letter of the Constitution, requiring a jury trial to determine the question of slavery, when an alleged fugitive is seized. This letter has elicited a reply from Hon. Horace Mann, of the House, also from Massachusetts, which enforces the contrary opinion, with abundant and vehement rhetoric and cogent argument. Prof. Stuart, of Andover, has also published a pamphlet in support of Mr. Webster's views on the general subject. – The convention of delegates intended to represent the slave-holding states, called some months since, met at Nashville, Tenn., on the 3d of June, and adjourned after a session of ten days. Judge Sharkey, of Mississippi, presided. The attendance was thin, delegates being present from less than half the districts interested, and they having been elected by less than a tenth of the popular vote. Resolutions were adopted, affirming the claims of the slave-holding states, and the convention adjourned to meet again six weeks after the adjournment of Congress, then to take such action as the legislation of the present session may render necessary. – A new paper called "The Southern Press" has been established at Washington, for the express purpose of advocating the interests of slavery. It is under the patronage of 57 southern members of Congress, and is intended to abstain from partisan discussions. – The subject of slavery also influences the action of the State Legislatures, which are in session, to a great extent. In the Connecticut Senate, resolutions approving of the bill pending in the U.S. Senate were rejected, 16 to 6. The Legislature has made two unsuccessful efforts to elect a U. S. Senator, in place of Mr. Baldwin, whose term expires with this session. – Senator Dickinson, of New York, received from his political friends the compliment of a public dinner in the city of New York, on the 17th ult. – Hon. Edward Gilbert, Member of Congress elect from California, attended a public dinner at Albany, the place of his early residence, on the 4th. In an eloquent speech which he made upon that occasion, he expressed the ardent attachment of California to the Union, and the determination of her people not to permit slavery to be introduced within her limits. – A convention in Ohio, to revise the Constitution of that state, is now in session. The tendency of its action, so far as it is developed, has been toward greater equality and democratic freedom. – A similar convention is also in session in Michigan. – Gov. Crittenden of Kentucky, recently visited Indiana by special invitation of Gov. Wright, of that state. The two being political opponents, and the visit being in some sense of an official character, the circumstance has attracted a good deal of attention. The reception of Gov. Crittenden was public, and very happy greetings were exchanged on both sides. Gov. C. made a very eloquent speech, expressing the value of the American Union and the devotion of the American people to its preservation. – The anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill was celebrated with great éclat at Boston, on the 17th. The Oration was delivered by the Hon. Edward Everett, and was one of his most finished and eloquent efforts. – The treaty between Great Britain and the United States, negotiated at Washington, has been ratified by the Senate. It is highly honorable to both countries, and advantageous to the interests of commerce throughout the world. The neutrality of the Isthmus, in case of war, is mutually guaranteed. – The war between Faustin and the Dominicans is still continued: a vessel fitted out at New York, and laden with cannon and munitions of war, for the emperor, has been seized by the U. S. authorities, and detained for violation of the neutrality act of 1818.
Our intelligence from California is to the 1st of May. Trade was dull but was receiving an impulse from the reopening of the season for mining. The Legislature had adjourned after passing a large number of bills. One of its most important acts was one imposing a tax of $25 per month upon every foreigner who should dig for gold in the mines. The measure was vindicated on grounds of justice as well as from the necessities of the state treasury: difficulty was apprehended in some quarters in attempting to carry it out. – Public meetings had been held in regard to the unjust delay to which the application of the state for admission into the Union, is subjected by Congress. Intimations were thrown out that the state would withdraw her application and maintain her independence, unless action should be had: but they do not express any thing like the general sentiment of the people. – New veins of gold had been discovered – new towns commenced, and emigrants continued to arrive. Several heavy failures had occurred, but business generally was good.
From the Isthmus of Panama we have news to the 1st of June. A serious riot had occurred there between the emigrants and the natives in which two or three were killed on each side. It grew out of the arrest of a negro boy on charge of theft, and a supposition on the part of the natives that the Americans intended to hang him. Such an incident, however, indicates an unpleasant state of feeling between the parties. Quiet, however, had been restored.
Of Literary and Scientific Intelligence there is not much. Notices of the most important books published during the month will be found in another department of this Magazine. The question of the Unity of the Human Race has been recently revived by some incidental remarks made at Charleston, S. C., by Prof. Agassiz of Harvard, which were opposed to that theory. Dr. Smyth, a learned divine of that city, wrote a book in refutation of the Professor; and we observe that the latter has pursued the matter still farther in a lecture subsequently delivered at Boston. He does not enter, however, into any full discussion of the subject, but takes occasion to disavow the intention imputed to him, of designing to question the authenticity or authority of the Mosaic Record.
Prof. Lewis, of Union College, has published an Address delivered there some months since, in which he reviews with great ability the theories and schemes so abundant at the present day, of which Nature, Progress, and Ideas are the common watchwords. He treats them all as branches of Naturalism and as in direct hostility to the Scriptural doctrine of the Divine government. The discourse is marked by the scholarship, vigor, and clear analysis which characterize all the productions of this distinguished writer. – Bishop Hughes has also entered the lists against the prevalent Socialism of the day; not, however, in an original work but by causing to be reprinted the French work of the Abbé Martinet, entitled "Religion in Society," and by writing an introduction to it. – A new book on California, by Rev. Walter Colton, is soon to be issued. Even in the multiplicity of books upon this subject that have recently been given to the public, one from Mr. Colton's pen can hardly fail to attract and reward attention. – A work on the Logic and Utility of Mathematics, by Prof. Davies, is announced by Barnes & Co. Prof. D. is singularly happy in presenting mathematical truth clearly and attractively to the mind, and we anticipate, in this new work upon the characteristic advantages of his favorite studies, a production that will be widely useful, in promoting juster views of Education and better modes for its successful prosecution. – Prof. Bartlett of the West Point Academy, announces a new work on Natural Philosophy, for the use of Colleges, which will be of value. – Mr. E. D. Mansfield of Cincinnati, a clear, strong and judicious writer, has also in press, a Treatise on American Education, which will be pretty certain to contain a good many practical suggestions worthy of attention. – The Reader of the opening article in this number of the New Monthly Magazine, will be glad to learn that an edition of the writings of De Quincey is soon to be issued from the Boston press of Ticknor, Reed and Fields. No living English writer equals De Quincey in his peculiar department; in acute analytical power, and in the precision with which he uses language. He does not write for the masses – but to literary men, persons of cultivated taste and a critical habit, an edition of his Essays and multifarious sketches will be exceedingly acceptable. We presume, however, that nothing like a complete collection of his writings can be made. – An illustrated Edition of Longfellow's Evangeline is also announced, and a new volume of Poems by John G. Whittier, one of the most vigorous and masculine of living poets. Like other poets of the day, Mr. Whittier addicts himself somewhat overmuch to hobbies, and his present volume is to be mainly made up of Poems upon Labor. – Lowell, also, has a new Poem in press, called The Nooning. – A new volume by Rev. Henry Giles, entitled Christian Thoughts on Life, is announced. Mr. Giles is an exceedingly fluent, vigorous and brilliant writer. – A spicy controversy has grown out of a needless fling at the memory of John Jacob Astor, in a lecture delivered some months since by the Hon. Horace Mann. Mr. C. A. Bristed, grandson of the deceased Mr. Astor, has replied to it in a pungent letter, vindicating his kinsman's character and assailing with a good degree of vigor and success some of the radical theories propounded by Mr. Mann. – A new play, entitled The Very Age, by E. S. Gould, is in press, and will soon be issued by the Appletons. It is said to be a sharp and successful hit at sundry follies which have too mush currency in society. – A good deal of public interest has been excited by the announcement of an alleged scientific discovery made by Mr. Henry M. Paine, of Massachusetts. He claims to have established the positions that Water is a simple substance: that hydrogen gas is produced by the combination of positive electricity, and oxygen by the combination of negative electricity, with water; and that by passing the hydrogen thus obtained through spirits of turpentine in its natural state, it becomes carbonized and will support combustion. The practical result claimed from the discovery is the ability to furnish light and heat indefinitely at a merely nominal expense. The importance of it, if it prove to be real, can not well be overrated. The possibility of the thing, however, is peremptorily denied by scientific men, and it must be evident to all that it directly contradicts scientific principles that have been regarded as fundamental. Practical experiment alone, made under proper restrictions and scientific supervision, can determine its reality. If established the revolution it would produce in the economy of life would not be greater than that which would result from it in the received theories of science.
