The Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73,
November, 1863, by Various

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Title: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863

Author: Various

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THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. XII.--NOVEMBER, 1863.--NO. LXXIII.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by TICKNOR AND
FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE SPANIARD AND THE HERETIC.

[In the August number of the "Atlantic," under the title of "The
Fleur-de-Lis in Florida," will be found a narrative of the Huguenot
attempts to occupy that country, which, exciting the jealousy of Spain,
gave rise to the crusade whose history is recorded below.]


The monk, the inquisitor, the Jesuit, these were the lords of
Spain,--sovereigns of her sovereign, for they had formed and fed the
dark and narrow mind of that tyrannical recluse. They had formed and fed
the minds of her people, quenched in blood every spark of rising heresy,
and given over a noble nation to bigotry, dark, blind, inexorable as the
doom of fate. Linked with pride, ambition, avarice, every passion of a
rich, strong nature, potent for good and ill, it made the Spaniard of
that day a scourge as dire as ever fell on man.

Day was breaking on the world. Light, hope, freedom, pierced with
vitalizing ray the clouds and the miasma that hung so thick over the
prostrate Middle Age, once noble and mighty, now a foul image of decay
and death. Kindled with new life, the nations teemed with a progeny of
heroes, and the stormy glories of the sixteenth century rose on awakened
Europe. But Spain was the citadel of darkness,--a monastic cell, an
inquisitorial dungeon, where no ray could pierce. She was the bulwark of
the Church, against whose adamantine front the wrath of innovation beat
in vain. In every country of Europe the party of freedom and reform was
the national party, the party of reaction and absolutism was the Spanish
party, leaning on Spain, looking to her for help. Above all, it was so
in France; and while within her bounds there was a semblance of peace,
the national and religious rage burst forth on a wilder theatre. Thither
it is for us to follow it, where, on the shores of Florida, the Spaniard
and the Frenchman, the bigot and the Huguenot, met in the grapple of
death.

In a corridor of the Escurial, Philip II. was met by a man who had long
stood waiting his approach, and who with proud reverence placed a
petition in the hand of the pale and sombre King. The petitioner was
Pedro Menendez de Aviles, one of the ablest and most distinguished
officers of the Spanish marine. He was born of an ancient Asturian
family. His boyhood had been wayward, ungovernable, and fierce. He ran
off at eight years of age, and when, after a search of six months, he
was found and brought back, he ran off again. This time he was more
successful, escaping on board a fleet bound against the Barbary
corsairs, when his precocious appetite for blood and blows had
reasonable contentment. A few years later, he found means to build a
small vessel in which he cruised against the corsairs and the French,
and, though still little more than a boy, displayed a singular address
and daring. The wonders of the New World now seized his imagination. He
made a voyage thither, and the ships under his charge came back
freighted with wealth. War with France was then at its height. As
captain-general of the fleet, he was sent with troops to Flanders, and
to their prompt arrival was due, it is said, the victory of St. Quentin,
Two years later, he commanded the luckless armada which bore back Philip
to his native shore, and nearly drowned him in a storm off the port of
Laredo. This mischance, or his own violence and insubordination, wrought
to the prejudice of Menendez. He complained that his services were ill
repaid. Philip lent him a favoring ear, and despatched him to the Indies
as general of the fleet and army. Here he found means to amass vast
riches; and, in 1561, returning to Spain, charges were brought against
him of a nature which his too friendly biographer does not explain. The
Council of the Indies arrested him. He was imprisoned and sentenced to a
heavy fine, but, gaining his release, hastened to Madrid to throw
himself on the royal clemency.

His petition was most graciously received. Philip restored his command,
but remitted only half his fine, a strong presumption of his guilt.

Menendez kissed the royal hand; he had still a petition in reserve. His
son had been wrecked near the Bermudas, and he would fain go thither to
find tidings of his fate. The pious King bade him trust in God, and
promised that he should be despatched without delay to the Bermudas and
to Florida with a commission to make an exact survey of those perilous
seas for the profit of future voyagers; but Menendez was ill content
with such an errand. He knew, he said, nothing of greater moment to His
Majesty than the conquest and settlement of Florida. The climate was
healthful, the soil fertile; and, worldly advantages aside, it was
peopled by a race sunk in the thickest shades of infidelity. "Such
grief," he pursued, "seizes me, when I behold this multitude of wretched
Indians, that I should choose the conquest and settling of Florida above
all commands, offices, and dignities which your Majesty might bestow."
Those who think this hypocrisy do not know the Spaniard of the sixteenth
century.

The King was edified by his zeal. An enterprise of such spiritual and
temporal promise was not to be slighted, and Menendez was empowered to
conquer and convert Florida at his own cost. The conquest was to be
effected within three years. Menendez was to take with him five hundred
men, and supply them with five hundred slaves, besides horses, cattle,
sheep, and hogs. Villages were to be built, with forts to defend them;
and sixteen ecclesiastics, of whom four should be Jesuits, were to form
the nucleus of a Floridian church. The King, on his part, granted
Menendez free trade with Hispaniola, Porto Rico, Cuba, and Spain, the
office of Adelantado of Florida for life, joined to the right of naming
his successor, and large emoluments to be drawn from the expected
conquest.

The compact struck, Menendez hastened to his native Asturias to raise
money among his relatives. Scarcely was he gone, when tidings for the
first time reached Madrid that Florida was already occupied by a colony
of French Protestants, and that a reinforcement, under Ribaut, was on
the point of sailing thither. A French historian of high authority
declares that these advices came from the Catholic party at the French
court, in whom all sense of the national interest and honor was
smothered under their hatred of Coligny and the Huguenots. Of this there
can be little doubt, though information also came from the buccaneer
Frenchmen captured in the West Indies.

Foreigners had invaded the territory of Spain. The trespassers, too,
were heretics, foes of God and liegemen of the Devil. Their doom was
fixed. But how would France endure an assault, in time of peace, on
subjects who had gone forth on an enterprise sanctioned by the crown,
undertaken in its name, and under its commission?

The throne of France, where the corruption of the nation seemed gathered
to a head, was trembling between the two parties of the Catholics and
the Huguenots, whose chiefs aimed at royalty. Flattering both, caressing
both, betraying both, playing one against the other, Catherine de
Medicis, by a thousand crafty arts and expedients of the moment, sought
to retain the crown on the heads of her weak and vicious sons. Of late
her crooked policy had drawn her towards the Catholic party, in other
words, the party of Spain; and already she had given ear to the savage
Duke of Alva, urging her to the course which, seven years later, led to
the carnage of St. Bartholomew. In short, the Spanish policy was
ascendant, and no thought of the national interest or honor could
restrain that basest of courts from consigning by hundreds to the
national enemy those whom, itself, it was meditating to immolate by
thousands.

Menendez was summoned back in haste to the court. There was counsel,
deep and ominous, in the chambers of the Escurial. His force must be
strengthened. Three hundred and ninety-four men were added at the royal
charge, and a corresponding number of transport and supply ships. It was
a holy war, a crusade, and as such was preached by priest and monk along
the western coasts of Spain. All the Biscayan ports flamed with zeal,
and adventurers crowded to enroll themselves; since to plunder heretics
is good for the soul as well as the purse, and broil and massacre have
double attraction, when promoted to a means of salvation: a fervor, deep
and hot, but not of celestial kindling; nor yet that buoyant and
inspiring zeal, which, when the Middle Age was in its youth and prime,
glowed in the soul of Tancred, Godfrey, and St. Louis, and which, when
its day was long since past, could still find its home in the great
heart of Columbus. A darker spirit urged the new crusade,--born, not of
hope, but of fear, slavish in its nature, the creature and the tool of
despotism. For the typical Spaniard of the sixteenth century was not in
strictness a fanatic; he was bigotry incarnate.

Heresy was a plague-spot, an ulcer to be eradicated with fire and the
knife, and this foul abomination was infecting the shores which the
Vicegerent of Christ had given to the King of Spain, and which the Most
Catholic King had given to the Adelantado. Thus would countless heathen
tribes be doomed to an eternity of flame, shut out from that saving
communion with Holy Church, to which, by the sword and the whip and the
fagot, dungeons and slavery, they would otherwise have been mercifully
driven, to the salvation of their souls, and the greater glory of God.
And, for the Adelantado himself, should the vast outlays, the vast
debts, of his bold Floridian venture be all in vain? Should his fortunes
be wrecked past redemption through these tools of Satan? As a Catholic,
as a Spaniard, as an adventurer, his course was clear. Woe, then, to the
Huguenot in the gripe of Pedro Menendez!

But what was the scope of this enterprise, and the limits of the
Adelantado's authority? He was invested with power almost absolute, not
merely over the peninsula which now retains the name of Florida, but
over all North America, from Labrador to Mexico,--for this was the
Florida of the old Spanish geographers, and the Florida designated in
the commission of Menendez. It was a continent which he was to conquer
and occupy out of his own purse. The impoverished King contracted with
his daring and ambitious subject to win and hold for him the territory
of the future United States and British Provinces. His plan, as
subsequently developed and exposed at length in his unpublished letters
to Philip II., was, first, to plant a garrison at Port Royal, and next
to fortify strongly on Chesapeake Bay, called by him St. Mary's. He
believed that this bay was an arm of the sea, running northward and
eastward, and communicating with the Gulf of St. Lawrence, thus making
New England, with adjacent districts, an island. His proposed fort on
the Chesapeake, giving access, by this imaginary passage, to the seas of
Newfoundland, would enable the Spaniards to command the fisheries, on
which both the French and the English had long encroached, to the great
prejudice of Spanish rights. Doubtless, too, these inland waters gave
access to the South Sea, and their occupation was necessary to prevent
the French from penetrating thither; for that ambitious people, since
the time of Cartier, had never abandoned their schemes of seizing this
portion of the dominions of the King of Spain. Five hundred soldiers and
one hundred sailors must, he urges, take possession, without delay, of
Port Royal and the Chesapeake.

Preparation for his enterprise was pushed with a furious energy. His
force amounted to two thousand six hundred and forty-six persons, in
thirty-four vessels, one of which, the San Pelayo, bearing Menendez
himself, was of more than nine hundred tons' burden, and is described as
one of the finest ships afloat. There were twelve Franciscans and eight
Jesuits, besides other ecclesiastics; and many knights of Galicia,
Biscay, and the Asturias bore part in the expedition. With a slight
exception, the whole was at the Adelantado's charge. Within the first
fourteen months, according to his admirer, Barcia, the adventure cost
him a million ducats.

Before the close of the year, Sancho de Arciniega was commissioned to
join Menendez with an additional force of fifteen hundred men.

Red-hot with a determined purpose, he would brook no delay. To him, says
the chronicler, every day seemed a year. He was eager to anticipate
Ribaut, of whose designs and whose force he seems to have been informed
to the minutest particular, but whom he hoped to thwart and ruin by
gaining Fort Caroline before him. With eleven ships, then, he sailed
from Cadiz on the 29th of June, 1565, leaving the smaller vessels of his
fleet to follow with what speed they might. He touched first at the
Canaries, and on the eighth of July left them, steering for Dominica. A
minute account of the voyage has come down to us from the pen of
Mendoza, chaplain of the expedition, a somewhat dull and illiterate
person, who busily jots down the incidents of each passing day, and is
constantly betraying, with a certain awkward simplicity, how the cares
of this world and the next jostle each other in his thoughts.

On Friday, the twentieth of July, a storm fell upon them with appalling
fury. The pilots lost head, the sailors gave themselves up to their
terrors. Throughout the night, they beset Mendoza for confession and
absolution, a boon not easily granted, for the seas swept the crowded
decks in cataracts of foam, and the shriekings of the gale in the
rigging drowned the exhortations of the half-drowned priest. Cannon,
cables, spars, water-casks, were thrown overboard, and the chests of the
sailors would have followed, had not the latter, despite their fright,
raised such a howl of remonstrance that the order was revoked. At length
day dawned. At least there was light to die by. Plunging, reeling, half
submerged, quivering under the crashing shock of the seas, whose
mountain ridges rolled down upon her before the gale, the ship lay in
deadly jeopardy from Friday till Monday noon. Then the storm abated; the
sun broke forth; and again she held her course.

They reached Dominica on Sunday, the fifth of August. The chaplain
tells us how he went on shore to refresh himself,--how, while his
Italian servant washed his linen at a brook, he strolled along the beach
and picked up shells,--and how he was scared, first, by a prodigious
turtle, and next by a vision of the cannibal natives, which caused his
prompt retreat to the boats.

On the tenth, they anchored in the harbor of Porto Rico, where they
found two of their companion-ships, from which they had parted in the
storm. One of them was the San Pelayo, with Menendez on board. Mendoza
informs us that in the evening the officers came on board his ship, when
he, the chaplain, regaled them with sweetmeats, and that Menendez
invited him not only to supper that night, but to dinner the next day,
"for the which I thanked him, as reason was," says the gratified
churchman.

Here thirty men deserted, and three priests also ran off, of which
Mendoza bitterly complains, as increasing his own work. The motives of
the clerical truants may perhaps be inferred from a worldly temptation
to which the chaplain himself was subjected. "I was offered the service
of a chapel where I should have got a _peso_ for every mass I said, the
whole year round; but I did not accept it, for fear that what I hear
said of the other three would be said of me. Besides, it is not a place
where one can hope for any great advancement, and I wished to try
whether, in refusing a benefice for the love of the Lord, He will not
repay me with some other stroke of fortune before the end of the voyage;
for it is my aim to serve God and His blessed Mother."

The original design had been to rendezvous at Havana, but, with the
Adelantado, the advantages of despatch outweighed every other
consideration. He resolved to push directly for Florida. Five of his
scattered ships had by this time rejoined company, comprising, exclusive
of officers, a force of about five hundred soldiers, two hundred
sailors, and one hundred colonists. Bearing northward, he advanced by an
unknown and dangerous course along the coast of Hayti and through the
intricate passes of the Bahamas. On the night of the twenty-sixth, the
San Pelayo struck three times on the shoals; "but," says the chaplain,
"inasmuch as our enterprise was undertaken for the sake of Christ and
His blessed Mother, two heavy seas struck her abaft, and set her afloat
again."

At length the ships lay becalmed in the Bahama Channel, slumbering on
the dead and glassy sea, torpid with the heats of a West-Indian August.
Menendez called a council of the commanders. There was doubt and
indecision. Perhaps Ribaut had already reached the French fort, and then
to attack the united force would be a stroke of desperation. Far better
to await their lagging comrades. But the Adelantado was of another mind;
and, even had his enemy arrived, he was resolved that he should have no
time to fortify himself.

"It is God's will," he said, "that our victory should be due, not to our
numbers, but to His all-powerful aid. Therefore has He stricken us with
tempests and scattered our ships." And he gave his voice for instant
advance.

There was much dispute; even the chaplain remonstrated; but nothing
could bend the iron will of Menendez. Nor was a sign of celestial
approval wanting. At nine in the evening, a great meteor burst forth in
mid-heaven, and, blazing like the sun, rolled westward towards the
Floridian coast. The fainting spirits of the crusaders were kindled
anew. Diligent preparation was begun. Prayers and masses were said; and,
that the temporal arm might not be wanting, the men were daily practised
on deck in shooting at marks, in order, says the chronicle, that the
recruits might learn not to be afraid of their guns.

The dead calm continued. "We were all very tired," says the chaplain,
"and I above all, with praying to God for a fair wind. To-day, at about
two in the afternoon, He took pity on us, and sent us a breeze." Before
night they saw land,--the faint line of forest, traced along the watery
horizon, that marked the coast of Florida. But where in all this vast
monotony was the lurking-place of the French? Menendez anchored, and
sent fifty men ashore, who presently found a band of Indians in the
woods, and gained from them the needed information. He stood northward,
till, on the afternoon of Tuesday, the fourth of September, he descried
four ships anchored near the mouth of a river. It was the river St.
John's, and the ships were four of Ribaut's squadron. The prey was in
sight. The Spaniards prepared for battle, and bore down upon the
Lutherans; for, with them, all reformers alike were branded with the
name of the arch-heretic. Slowly, before the faint breeze, the ships
glided on their way; but while, excited and impatient, the fierce crews
watched the decreasing space, and while they were still three leagues
from their prize, the air ceased to stir, the sails flapped against the
mast, a black cloud with thunder rose above the coast, and the warm rain
of the South descended on the breathless sea. It was dark before the
wind moved again, and the ships resumed their course. At half past
eleven they reached the French. The San Pelayo slowly moved to windward
of Ribaut's flag-ship, the Trinity, and anchored very near her. The
other ships took similar stations. While these preparations were making,
a work of two hours, the men labored in silence, and the French,
thronging their gangways, looked on in equal silence. "Never, since I
came into the world," writes the chaplain, "did I know such a
stillness."

It was broken, at length, by a trumpet from the deck of the San Pelayo.
A French trumpet answered. Then Menendez, "with much courtesy," says his
Spanish eulogist, demanded, "Gentlemen, whence does this fleet come?"

"From France," was the reply.

"What are you doing here?" pursued the Adelantado.

"Bringing soldiers and supplies for a fort which the King of France has
in this country, and for many others which he soon will have."

"Are you Catholics or Lutherans?"

Many voices cried together, "Lutherans, of the new religion"; then, in
their turn, they demanded who Menendez was, and whence he came. The
latter answered,--

"I am Pedro Menendez, General of the fleet of the King of Spain, Don
Philip the Second, who have come to this country to hang and behead all
Lutherans whom I shall find by land or sea, according to instructions
from my King, so precise that I have power to pardon none whomsoever;
and these commands I shall fulfil, as you shall know. At daybreak I
shall board your ships, and if I find there any Catholic, he shall be
well treated; but every heretic shall die."

The French with one voice raised a cry of wrath and defiance.

"If you are a brave man, don't wait till day. Come on now, and see what
you will get!"

And they assailed the Adelantado with a shower of scoffs and insults.

Menendez broke into a rage, and gave the order to board. The men slipped
the cables, and the sullen black hulk of the San Pelayo drifted down
upon the Trinity. The French by no means made good their defiance.
Indeed, they were incapable of resistance, Ribaut with his soldiers
being ashore at Fort Caroline. They cut their cables, left their
anchors, made sail, and fled. The Spaniards fired, the French replied.
The other Spanish ships had imitated the movement of the San Pelayo;
"but," writes the chaplain, Mendoza, "these devils run mad are such
adroit sailors, and manoeuvred so well, that we did not catch one of
them." Pursuers and pursued ran out to sea, firing useless volleys at
each other.

In the morning Menendez gave over the chase, turned, and, with the San
Pelayo alone, ran back for the St. John's. But here a welcome was
prepared for him. He saw bands of armed men drawn up on the beach, and
the smaller vessels of Ribaut's squadron, which had crossed the bar
several days before, anchored behind it to oppose his landing. He would
not venture an attack, but, steering southward, skirted the coast till
he came to an inlet which he named St. Augustine.

Here he found three of his ships, already debarking their troops, guns,
and stores. Two officers, Patino and Vicente, had taken possession of
the dwelling of Seloy, an Indian chief, a huge barn-like structure,
strongly framed of entire trunks of trees, and thatched with
palmetto-leaves. Around it they were throwing up intrenchments of
fascines and sand. Gangs of negroes, with pick, shovel, and spade, were
toiling at the work. Such was the birth of St. Augustine, the oldest
town of the United States, and such the introduction of slave-labor upon
their soil.

On the eighth, Menendez took formal possession of his domain. Cannon
were fired, trumpets sounded, and banners displayed, as, at the head of
his officers and nobles, he landed in state. Mendoza, crucifix in hand,
came to meet him, chanting, "_Te Deum laudamus_," while the Adelantado
and all his company, kneeling, kissed the cross, and the congregated
Indians gazed in silent wonder.

Meanwhile the tenants of Fort Caroline were not idle. Two or three
soldiers, strolling along the beach in the afternoon, had first seen the
Spanish ships and hastily summoned Ribaut. He came down to the mouth of
the river, followed by an anxious and excited crowd; but, as they
strained their eyes through the darkness, they could see nothing but the
flashes of the distant guns. The returning light showed them at length,
far out at sea, the Adelantado in hot chase of their flying comrades.
Pursuers and pursued were soon out of sight. The drums beat to arms.
After many hours of suspense, the San Pelayo reappeared, hovering about
the mouth of the river, then bearing away towards the south. More
anxious hours ensued, when three other sail came in sight, and they
recognized three of their own returning ships. Communication was opened,
a boat's crew landed, and they learned from Captain Cosette, that,
confiding in the speed of his ship, he had followed the Spaniards to St.
Augustine, reconnoitred their position, and seen them land their negroes
and intrench themselves.

In his chamber at Fort Caroline, Laudonniere lay sick in bed, when
Ribaut entered, and with him La Grange, Ste. Marie, Ottigny, Yonville,
and other officers. At the bedside of the displaced commandant they held
their council of war. There were three alternatives: first, to remain
where they were and fortify; next, to push overland for St. Augustine,
and attack the invaders in their intrenchments; and, finally, to embark,
and assail them by sea. The first plan would leave their ships a prey to
the Spaniards; and so too, in all likelihood, would the second, besides
the uncertainties of an overland march through an unknown wilderness. By
sea, the distance was short and the route explored. By a sudden blow
they could capture or destroy the Spanish ships, and master the troops
on shore before their reinforcements could arrive, and before they had
time to complete their defences.

Such were the views of Ribaut, with which, not unnaturally, Laudonniere
finds fault, and Le Moyne, judging by results, echoes the censures of
his chief. And yet the plan seems as well-conceived as it was bold,
lacking nothing but success. The Spaniards, stricken with terror, owed
their safety to the elements, or, as they affirm, to the special
interposition of the Holy Virgin. Let us be just to Menendez. He was a
leader fit to stand with Cortes and Pizarro; but he was matched with a
man as cool, skilful, prompt, and daring as himself. The traces that
have come down to us indicate, in Ribaut, one far above the common
stamp: "a distinguished man, of many high qualities," as even the
fault-finding Le Moyne calls him, devout after the best spirit of the
Reform, and with a human heart under his steel breastplate.

La Grange and other officers took part with Laudonniere and opposed the
plan of an attack by sea; but Ribaut's conviction was unshaken, and the
order was given. All his own soldiers fit for duty embarked in haste,
and with them went La Caille, Arlac, and, as it seems, Ottigny, with the
best of Laudonniere's men. Even Le Moyne, though wounded in the fight
with Outina's warriors, went on board to bear his part in the fray, and
would have sailed with the rest, had not Ottigny, seeing his disabled
condition, ordered him back to the fort.

On the tenth, the ships, crowded with troops, set sail. Ribaut was gone,
and with him the pith and sinew of the colony. The miserable remnant
watched his receding sails with dreary foreboding, a foreboding which
seemed but too just, when, on the next day, a storm, more violent than
the Indians had ever known, howled through the forest and lashed the
ocean into fury, Most forlorn was the plight of these exiles, left, it
might be, the prey of a band of ferocious bigots more terrible than the
fiercest hordes of the wilderness. And when night closed on the stormy
river and the gloomy waste of pines, what dreams of terror may not have
haunted the helpless women who crouched under the hovels of Fort
Caroline!

The fort was in a ruinous state, the palisade on the water side broken
down, and three breaches in the rampart. In the driving rain, urged by
the sick Laudonniere, the men, bedrenched and disheartened, labored as
they might to strengthen their defences. Their muster-roll shows but a
beggarly array. "Now," says Laudonniere, "let them which have bene bold
to say that I had men ynongh left me, so that I had meanes to defend my
selfe, give care a little now vnto mee, and if they have eyes in their
heads, let them see what men I had." Of Ribaut's followers left at the
fort, only nine or ten had weapons, while only two or three knew how to
use them. Four of them were boys, who kept Ribaut's dogs, and another
was his cook. Besides these, he had left a brewer, an old
crossbow-maker, two shoemakers, a player on the spinet, four valets, a
carpenter of threescore--Challeux, no doubt, who has left us the story
of his woes,--and a crowd of women, children, and eighty-six
camp-followers. To these were added the remnant of Laudonniere's men, of
whom seventeen could bear arms, the rest being sick or disabled by
wounds received in the fight with Outina.

Laudonniere divided his force, such as it was, into two watches, over
which he placed two officers, St. Cler and La Vigne, gave them lanterns
to go the rounds, and an hour-glass to set the time; while he himself,
giddy with weakness and fever, was every night at the guard-room.

It was the night of the nineteenth of September; floods of rain
bedrenched the sentries on the rampart, and as day dawned on the
dripping barracks and deluged parade, the storm increased in violence.
What enemy could have ventured forth on such a night? La Vigne, who had
the watch, took pity on the sentries and on himself, dismissed them, and
went to his quarters. He little knew what mortal energies, urged by
ambition, avarice, bigotry, desperation, will dare and do.

To return to the Spaniards at St. Augustine. On the morning of the
eleventh, the crew of one of their smaller vessels, lying outside the
bar, saw through the twilight of early dawn two of Ribaut's ships close
upon them. Not a breath of air was stirring. There was no escape, and
the Spaniards fell on their knees in supplication to Our Lady of Utrera,
explaining to her that the heretics were upon them, and begging her to
send them a little wind. "Forthwith," says Mendoza, "one would have said
that Our Lady herself came down upon the vessel." A wind sprang up, and
the Spaniards found refuge behind the bar. The returning day showed to
their astonished eyes all the ships of Ribaut, their decks black with
men, hovering off the entrance of the port; but Heaven had them in its
charge, and again they experienced its protecting care. The breeze sent
by Our Lady of Utrera rose to a gale, then to a furious tempest; and the
grateful Adelantado saw through rack and mist the ships of his enemy
tossed wildly among the raging waters as they struggled to gain an
offing. With exultation at his heart the skilful seaman read their
danger, and saw them in his mind's eye dashed to utter wreck among the
sand-bars and breakers of the lee-shore.

A bold thought seized him. He would march overland with five hundred men
and attack Fort Caroline while its defenders were absent. First he
ordered a mass; then he called a council. Doubtless, it was in that
great Indian lodge of Seloy, where he had made his head-quarters; and
here, in this dim and smoky concave, nobles, officers, priests, gathered
at his summons. There were fears and doubts and murmurings, but Menendez
was desperate. Not the mad desperation that strikes wildly and at
random, but the still red heat that melts and burns and seethes with a
steady, unquenchable fierceness. "Comrades," he said, "the time has come
to show our courage and our zeal. This is God's war, and we must not
flinch. It is a war with Lutherans, and we must wage it with blood and
fire."

But his hearers would not respond. They had not a million of ducats at
stake, and were nowise ready for a cast so desperate. A clamor of
remonstrance rose from the circle. Many voices, that of Mendoza among
the rest, urged waiting till their main forces should arrive. The
excitement spread to the men without, and the swarthy, black-bearded
crowd broke into tumults mounting almost to mutiny, while an officer was
heard to say that he would not go on such a hare-brained errand to be
butchered like a beast. But nothing could move the Adelantado. His
appeals or his threats did their work at last; the confusion was
quelled, and preparation was made for the march.

Five hundred arquebusiers and pikemen were drawn up before the camp.

To each was given a sack of bread and a flagon of wine. Two Indians and
a renegade Frenchman, called Francois Jean, were to guide them, and
twenty Biscayan axe-men moved to the front to clear the way. Through
floods of driving rain, a hoarse voice shouted the word of command, and
the sullen march began.

With dire misgiving, Mendoza watched the last files as they vanished in
the tempestuous forest. Two days of suspense ensued, when a messenger
came back with a letter from the Adelantado announcing that he had
nearly reached the French fort, and that on the morrow, September
twentieth, at sunrise, he hoped to assault it. "May the Divine Majesty
deign to protect us, for He knows that we have need of it," writes the
scared chaplain; "the Adelantado's great zeal and courage make us hope
he will succeed, but for the good of His Majesty's service he ought to
be a little less ardent in pursuing his schemes."

Meanwhile the five hundred had pushed their march through forest and
quagmire, through swollen streams and inundated savannas, toiling
knee-deep through mud, rushes, and the rank, tangled grass,--hacking
their way through thickets of the _yucca_ or Spanish bayonet, with its
clumps of dagger-like leaves, or defiling in gloomy procession through
the drenched forest, to the moan, roar, and howl of the storm-racked
pines. As they bent before the tempest, the water trickling from the
rusty headpiece crept clammy and cold betwixt the armor and the skin;
and when they made their wretched bivouac, their bed was the spongy
soil, and the exhaustless clouds their tent.

The night of Wednesday, the nineteenth, found their vanguard in a deep
forest of pines, less than a mile from Fort Caroline, and near the low
hills which extended in its rear, and formed a continuation of St.
John's Bluff. All around was one great morass. In pitchy darkness,
knee-deep in weeds and water, half starved, worn with toil and lack of
sleep, drenched to the skin, their provision spoiled, their ammunition
wet, their spirit chilled out of them, they stood in shivering groups,
cursing the enterprise and the author of it. Menendez heard an ensign
say aloud to his comrades,--

"This Asturian _corito_, who knows no more of war on shore than an ass,
has ruined us all. By ----, if my advice had been followed, he would have
had his deserts the day he set out on this cursed journey!"

The Adelantado pretended not to hear.

Two hours before dawn he called his officers about him. All night, he
said, he had been praying to God and the Virgin.

"Senores, what shall we resolve on? Our ammunition and provisions are
gone. Our case is desperate." And he urged a bold rush on the fort.

But men and officers alike were disheartened and disgusted. They
listened coldly and sullenly; many were for returning at every risk;
none were in a mood for fight. Menendez put forth all his eloquence,
till at length the dashed spirits of his followers were so far rekindled
that they consented to follow him.

All fell on their knees in the marsh; then, rising, they formed their
ranks and began to advance, guided by the renegade Frenchman, whose
hands, to make sure of him, were tied behind his back. Groping and
stumbling in the dark among trees, roots, and underbrush, buffeted by
wind and rain, and slashed in the face by the recoiling boughs which
they could not see, they soon lost their way, fell into confusion, and
came to a stand, in a mood more savagely desponding than before. But
soon a glimmer of returning day came to their aid, and showed them the
dusky sky, and the dark columns of the surrounding pines. Menendez
ordered the men forward on pain of death. They obeyed, and presently,
emerging from the forest, could dimly discern the ridge of a low hill,
behind which, the Frenchman told them, was the fort. Menendez, with a
few officers and men, cautiously mounted to the top. Beneath lay Fort
Caroline, three gunshots distant; but the rain, the imperfect light, and
a cluster of intervening houses prevented his seeing clearly, and he
sent two officers to reconnoitre. Descending, they met a solitary
Frenchman, a straggler from the fort. They knocked him down with a
sheathed sword, took him prisoner, then stabbed him in cold blood. This
done, and their observations made, they returned to the top of the hill,
behind which, clutching their weapons in fierce expectancy, all the gang
stood waiting.

"Santiago!" cried Menendez. "At them! God is with us!"

And, shouting their hoarse war-cries, the Spaniards rushed down the
slope like starved wolves.

Not a sentry was on the rampart. La Vigne, the officer of the guard, had
just gone to his quarters, but a trumpeter, who chanced to remain, saw,
through sheets of rain, the black swarm of assailants sweeping down the
hill. He blew the alarm, and at his shrill summons a few half-naked
soldiers ran wildly out of the barracks. It was too late. Through the
breaches, over the ramparts, the Spaniards came pouring in.

"Santiago! Santiago! Down with the Lutherans!"

Sick men leaped from their beds. Women and children, blind with fright,
darted shrieking from the houses. A fierce gaunt visage, the thrust of a
pike or blow of a rusty halberd,--such was the greeting that met all
alike. Laudonniere snatched his sword and target, and ran towards the
principal breach, calling to his soldiers. A rush of Spaniards met him;
his men were cut down around him; and he, with a soldier named
Bartholomew, was forced back into the courtyard of his house. Here a
tent was pitched, and as the pursuers stumbled among the cords, he
escaped behind Ottigny's house, sprang through the breach in the western
rampart, and fled for the woods.

Le Moyne had been one of the guard. Scarcely had he thrown himself into
a hammock which was slung in his room, when a savage shout, and a wild
uproar of shrieks, outcries, and the clash of weapons, brought him to
his feet. He rushed past two Spaniards in the door-way, ran behind the
guard-house leaped through an embrasure into the ditch, and escaped to
the forest.

Challeux, the carpenter, was going betimes to his work, a chisel in his
hand. He was old, but pike and partisan brandished at his back gave
wings to his flight. In the ecstasy of his terror, he leaped upward at
the top of the palisade, and, clutching it, threw himself over with the
agility of a boy. He ran up the hill, no one pursuing, and as he neared
the edge of the forest, turned and looked back. From the high ground
where he stood he could see the butchery, the fury of the conquerors,
the agonized gestures of the victims. He turned again in horror, and
plunged into the woods. As he tore his way through the briers and
thickets, he met several fugitives, escaped like himself. Others
presently came up, haggard and wild, like men broke loose from the jaws
of fate. They gathered and consulted together. One of them, in great
repute for his knowledge of the Bible, was for returning and
surrendering to the Spaniards. "They are men," he said; "perhaps when
their fury is over they will spare our lives, and even if they kill us,
it will only be a few moments' pain. Better so than to starve here in
the woods or be torn to pieces by wild beasts."

The greater part of the naked and despairing company assented, but
Challeux was of a different mind. The old Huguenot quoted Scripture, and
called up the names of prophets and apostles to witness, that, in direst
extremity, God would not abandon those who rested their faith in Him.
Six of the fugitives, however, still held to their desperate purpose.
Issuing from the woods, they descended towards the fort, and as with
beating hearts their comrades watched the result, a troop of Spaniards
rushed forth, hewed them down with swords and halberds, and dragged
their bodies to the brink of the river, where the victims of the
massacre were already flung in heaps.

Le Moyne, with a soldier named Grandchemin, whom he had met in his
flight, toiled all day through the woods, in the hope of reaching the
small vessels anchored behind the bar. Night found them in a morass. No
vessels could be seen, and the soldier, in despair, broke into angry
upbraidings against his companion,--saying that he would go back and
give himself up. Le Moyne at first opposed him, then yielded. But when
they drew near the fort, and heard the howl of savage revelry that rose
from within, the artist's heart failed him. He embraced his companion,
and the soldier advanced alone. A party of Spaniards came out to meet
him. He kneeled, and begged for his life. He was answered by a
death-blow; and the horrified Le Moyne, from his hiding-place in the
thickets, saw his limbs hacked apart, thrust on pikes, and borne off in
triumph.

Meanwhile, Menendez, mustering his followers, had offered thanks to God
for their victory; and this pious butcher wept with emotion as he
recounted the favors which Heaven had showered upon their enterprise.
His admiring historian gives it in proof of his humanity, that, after
the rage of the assault was spent, he ordered that women, infants, and
boys under fifteen should thenceforth be spared. Of these, by his own
account, there were about fifty. Writing in October to the King, he says
that they cause him great anxiety, since he fears the anger of God,
should he now put them to death, while, on the other hand, he is in
dread lest the venom of their heresy should infect his men.

A hundred and forty-two persons were slain in and around the fort, and
their bodies lay heaped together on the shore. Nearly opposite was
anchored a small vessel, called the Pearl, commanded by James Ribaut,
son of the Admiral. The ferocious soldiery, maddened with victory and
drunk with blood, crowded to the beach, shouting insults to those on
board, mangling the corpses, tearing out their eyes, and throwing them
towards the vessel from the points of their daggers. Thus did the Most
Catholic Philip champion the cause of Heaven in the New World.

It was currently believed in France, and, though no eye-witness attests
it, there is reason to think it true, that among those murdered at Fort
Caroline there were some who died a death of peculiar ignominy.
Menendez, it is affirmed, hanged his prisoners on trees, and placed over
them the inscription, "I do this, not as to Frenchmen, but as to
Lutherans."

The Spaniards gained a great booty: armor, clothing, and provision.
"Nevertheless," says the devout Mendoza, after closing his inventory of
the plunder, "the greatest profit of this victory is the triumph which
our Lord has granted us, whereby His holy gospel will be introduced into
this country, a thing so needful for saving so many souls from
perdition." Again, he writes in his journal,--"We owe to God and His
Mother, more than to human strength, this victory over the adversaries
of the holy Catholic religion."

To whatever influence, celestial or other, the exploit may best be
ascribed, the victors were not yet quite content with their success. Two
small French vessels, besides that of James Ribaut, still lay within
range of the fort. When the storm had a little abated, the cannon were
turned on them. One of them was sunk, but Ribaut, with the others,
escaped down the river, at the mouth of which several light craft,
including that bought from the English, had been anchored since the
arrival of his father's squadron.

While this was passing, the wretched fugitives were flying from the
scene of massacre through a tempest, of whose pertinacious violence all
the narratives speak with wonder. Exhausted, starved, half-clothed,--for
most of them had escaped in their shirts,--they pushed their toilsome
way amid the ceaseless howl of the elements. A few sought refuge in
Indian villages; but these, it is said, were afterwards killed by the
Spaniards. The greater number attempted to reach the vessels at the
mouth of the river. Of the latter was Le Moyne, who, despite his former
failure, was toiling through the maze of tangled forests when he met a
Belgian soldier with the woman described as Laudonniere's maid-servant,
the latter wounded in the breast, and, urging their flight towards the
vessels, they fell in with other fugitives, among them Laudonniere
himself. As they struggled through the salt-marsh, the rank sedge cut
their naked limbs, and the tide rose to their waists. Presently they
descried others, toiling like themselves through the matted vegetation,
and recognized Challeux and his companions, also in quest of the
vessels. The old man still, as he tells us, held fast to his chisel,
which had done good service in cutting poles to aid the party to cross
the deep creeks that channelled the morass. The united band, twenty-six
in all, were relieved at length by the sight of a moving sail. It was
the vessel of Captain Mallard, who, informed of the massacre, was
standing along-shore in the hope of picking up some of the fugitives. He
saw their signals, and sent boats to their rescue; but such was their
exhaustion, that, had not the sailors, wading to their armpits among the
rushes, borne them out on their shoulders, few could have escaped.
Laudonniere was so feeble that nothing but the support of a soldier, who
held him upright in his arms, had saved him from drowning in the marsh.

Gaining the friendly decks, the fugitives counselled together. One and
all, they sickened for the sight of France.

After waiting a few days, and saving a few more stragglers from the
marsh, they prepared to sail. Young Ribaut, though ignorant of his
father's fate, assented with something more than willingness; indeed,
his behavior throughout had been stamped with weakness and poltroonery.
On the twenty-fifth of September, they put to sea in two vessels; and,
after a voyage whose privations were fatal to many of them, they
arrived, one party at Rochelle, the other at Swansea, in Wales.

In suspense and fear, hourly looking seaward for the dreaded fleet of
John Ribaut, the chaplain Mendoza and his brother priests held watch and
ward at St. Augustine, in the Adelantado's absence. Besides the
celestial guardians whom they ceased not to invoke, they had as
protectors Bartholomew Menendez, the brother of the Adelantado, and
about a hundred soldiers. Day and night, the latter toiled to throw up
earthworks and strengthen their position.

A week elapsed, when they saw a man running towards their fort, shouting
as he ran.

Mendoza went out to meet him.

"Victory! Victory!" gasped the breathless messenger. "The French fort is
ours!" And he flung his arms about the chaplain's neck.

"To-day," writes the latter in his journal, "Monday, the twenty-fourth,
came our good general himself, with fifty soldiers, very tired, like all
those who were with him. As soon as they told me he was coming, I ran to
my lodging, took a new cassock, the best I had, put on my surplice, and
went out to meet him with a crucifix in my hand; whereupon he, like a
gentleman and a good Christian, kneeled down with all his followers, and
gave the Lord a thousand thanks for the great favors he had received
from Him."

In solemn procession, four priests in front chanting the _Te Deum_, the
victors entered St. Augustine in triumph.

On the twenty-eighth, when the weary Adelantado was taking his _siesta_
under the sylvan roof of Seloy, a troop of Indians came in with news
that quickly roused him from his slumbers. They had seen a French vessel
wrecked on the coast towards the south. Those who escaped from her were
some four leagues off, on the banks of a river or arm of the sea, which
they could not cross.

Menendez instantly sent forty or fifty men in boats to reconnoitre.
Next, he called the chaplain,--for he would fain have him at his elbow
to countenance the devilish deeds he meditated,--and embarked, with him,
twelve soldiers, and two Indian guides, in another boat. They rowed
along the channel between Anastasia Island and the main shore; then
landed, struck across the country on foot, traversed plains and marshes,
readied the sea towards night, and searched along-shore till ten o'clock
to find their comrades who had gone before. At length, with mutual joy,
the two parties met, and bivouacked together on the sands. Not far
distant they could see lights. They were the camp-fires of the
shipwrecked French.

And now, to relate the fortunes of these unhappy men. To do so with
precision is impossible, for henceforward the French narratives are no
longer the narratives of eye-witnesses.

It has been seen how, when on the point of assailing the Spaniards of
St. Augustine, John Ribaut was thwarted by a gale which the former
hailed as a divine interposition. The gale rose to a tempest of strange
fury. Within a few days, all the French ships were cast on shore, the
greater number near Cape Canaveral. According to the letter of Menendez,
many of those on board were lost, but others affirm that all escaped but
the captain, La Grange, an officer of high merit, who was washed from a
floating mast. One of the ships was wrecked at a point farther northward
than the rest, and it was her company whose camp-fires were seen by the
Spaniards at their bivouac among the sands of Anastasia Island. They
were endeavoring to reach Fort Caroline, of whose fate they knew
nothing, while Ribaut with the remainder was farther southward,
struggling through the wilderness towards the same goal. What befell the
latter will appear hereafter. Of the fate of the former party there is
no French record. What we know of it is due to three Spanish writers,
Mendoza, Doctor Solis de las Meras, and Menendez himself. Solis was a
priest, and brother-in-law to Menendez. Like Mendoza, he minutely
describes what he saw, and, like him, was a red-hot zealot, lavishing
applause on the darkest deeds of his chief. Before me lie the long
despatches, now first brought to light from the archives of Seville,
which Menendez sent from Florida to the King, a cool record of
atrocities never surpassed, and inscribed on the back with the royal
indorsement,--"Say to him that he has done well."

When the Adelantado saw the French fires in the distance, he lay close
in his bivouac, and sent two soldiers to reconnoitre. At two in the
morning they came back and reported that it was impossible to get at the
enemy, since they were on the farther side of an arm of the sea,
probably Matanzas Inlet. Menendez, however, gave orders to march, and
before daybreak reached the hither bank, where he hid his men in a bushy
hollow. Thence, as it grew light, they could discern the enemy, many of
whom were searching along the sands and shallows for shell-fish, for
they were famishing. A thought struck Menendez, an inspiration, says
Mendoza, of the Holy Spirit. He put on the clothes of a sailor, entered
a boat which had been brought to the spot, and rowed towards the
shipwrecked men, the better to learn their condition. A Frenchman swam
out to meet him. Menendez demanded what men they were.

"Followers of Ribaut," answered the swimmer, "Viceroy of the King of
France."

"Are you Catholics or Lutherans?"

"All Lutherans."

A brief dialogue ensued, during which the Adelantado declared his name
and character. The Frenchman swam back to his companions, but soon
returned, and asked safe conduct for his captain and four other
gentlemen who wished to hold conference with the Spanish general.
Menendez gave his word for their safety, and, returning to the shore,
sent his boat to bring them over. On their landing, he met them very
courteously. His followers were kept at a distance, so disposed behind
hills and clumps of bushes as to give an exaggerated idea of their
force,--a precaution the more needful as they were only about sixty in
number, while the French, says Solis, were above two hundred, though
Menendez declares that they did not exceed a hundred and forty. The
French officer told him the story of their shipwreck, and begged him to
lend them a boat to aid them in crossing the rivers which lay between
them and a fort of their King, whither they were making their way.

Then came again the ominous question,--

"Are you Catholics or Lutherans?"

"We are Lutherans."

"Gentlemen," pursued Menendez, "your fort is taken, and all in it put to
the sword." And in proof of his declaration he caused articles plundered
from Fort Caroline to be shown to the unhappy petitioners. He then left
them, to breakfast with his officers, first ordering food to be placed
before them. His repast over, he returned to them.

"Are you convinced now," he asked, "that what I have told you is true?"

The French captain assented, and implored him to lend them ships in
which to return home. Menendez answered, that he would do so willingly,
if they were Catholics, and if he had ships to spare, but he had none.
The supplicants then expressed the hope, that, at least, they and their
followers would be allowed to remain with the Spaniards till ships could
be sent to their relief, since there was peace between the two nations,
whose kings were friends and brothers.

"All Catholics," retorted the Spaniard, "I will befriend; but as you are
of the New Sect, I hold you as enemies, and wage deadly war against you;
and this I will do with all cruelty [_crueldad_] in this country, where
I command as Viceroy and Captain-General for my King. I am here to plant
the holy gospel, that the Indians may be enlightened and come to the
knowledge of the holy Catholic faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, as the
Roman Church teaches it. If you will give up your arms and banners, and
place yourselves at my mercy, you may do so, and I will act towards you
as God shall give me grace. Do as you will, for other than this you can
have neither truce nor friendship with me."

Such were the Adelantado's words, as reported by a by-stander, his
admiring brother-in-law; and that they contain an implied assurance of
mercy has been held, not only by Protestants, but by Catholics and
Spaniards. The report of Menendez himself is more brief and sufficiently
equivocal:--

"I answered, that they could give up their arms and place themselves
under my mercy,--that I should do with them what our Lord should order;
and from that I did not depart, nor would I, unless God our Lord should
otherwise inspire."

One of the Frenchmen recrossed to consult with his companions. In two
hours he returned, and offered fifty thousand ducats to secure their
lives; but Menendez, says his brother-in-law, would give no pledges. On
the other hand, expressions in his own despatches point to the inference
that a virtual pledge was given, at least to certain individuals.

The starving French saw no resource but to yield themselves to his
mercy. The boat was again sent across the river. It returned, laden with
banners, arquebuses, swords, targets, and helmets. The Adelantado
ordered twenty soldiers to bring over the prisoners by tens at a time.
He then took the French officers aside behind a ridge of sand, two
gunshots from the bank. Here, with courtesy on his lips and murder
reeking at his heart, he said,--

"Gentlemen, I have but few men, and you are so many, that, if you were
free, it would be easy for you to take your satisfaction on us for the
people we killed when we took your fort. Therefore it is necessary that
you should go to my camp, four leagues from this place, with your hands
tied."

Accordingly, as each party landed, they were led out of sight behind the
sand-hill, and their hands tied at their backs with the match-cords of
the arquebuses,--though not before each had been supplied with food. The
whole day passed before all were brought together, bound and helpless,
under the eye of the inexorable Adelantado. But now Mendoza interposed.
"I was a priest," he says, "and had the bowels of a man." He asked,
that, if there were Christians, that is to say Catholics, among the
prisoners, they should be set apart. Twelve Breton sailors professed
themselves to be such; and these, together with four carpenters and
calkers, "of whom," writes Menendez, "I was in great need," were put on
board the boat and sent to St. Augustine. The rest were ordered to march
thither by land.

The Adelantado walked in advance till he came to a lonely spot, not far
distant, deep among the bush-covered hills. Here he stopped, and with
his cane drew a line in the sand. The sun was set when the captive
Huguenots, with their escort, reached the fatal goal thus marked out.
And now let the curtain drop; for here, in the name of Heaven, the
hounds of hell were turned loose, and the savage soldiery, like wolves
in a sheepfold, rioted in slaughter. Of all that wretched company, not
one was left alive.

"I had their hands tied behind their backs," writes the chief criminal,
"and themselves passed under the knife. It appeared to me, that, by thus
chastising them, God our Lord and your Majesty were served; whereby in
future they will leave us more free from their evil sect, to plant the
gospel in these parts."

Again Menendez returned triumphant to St. Augustine, and behind him
marched his band of butchers, steeped in blood to the elbows, but still
unsated. Great as had been his success, he still had cause for anxiety.
There was ill news of his fleet. Some of the ships were lost, others
scattered, or lagging tardily on their way. Of his whole force, but a
fraction had reached Florida, and of this a large part was still at Fort
Caroline. Ribaut could not be far off; and whatever might be the
condition of his shipwrecked company, their numbers would make them
formidable, unless taken at advantage. Urged by fear and fortified by
fanaticism, Menendez had well begun his work of slaughter; but rest for
him there was none; a darker deed was behind.

On the next day, Indians came with the tidings that at the spot where
the French had been found was now another party, still larger. This
murder-loving race looked with great respect on Menendez for his
wholesale butchery of the night before,--an exploit rarely equalled in
their own annals of massacre. On his part, he doubted not that Ribaut
was at hand. Marching with a hundred and fifty men, he reached the inlet
at midnight, and again, like a savage, ambushed himself on the bank. Day
broke, and he could plainly see the French on the farther side. They had
made a raft, which lay in the water, ready for crossing. Menendez and
his men showed themselves, when, forthwith, the French displayed their
banners, sounded drums and trumpets, and set their sick and starving
ranks in array of battle. But the Adelantado, regardless of this warlike
show, ordered his men to seat themselves at breakfast, while he with
three officers walked unconcernedly along the shore. His coolness had
its effect. The French blew a trumpet of parley, and showed a white
flag. The Spaniards replied. A Frenchman came out upon the raft, and,
shouting across the water, asked that a Spanish envoy should be sent
over.

"You have a raft," was the reply; "come yourselves."

An Indian canoe lay under the bank on the Spanish side. A French sailor
swam to it, paddled back unmolested, and presently returned, bringing
with him La Caille, Ribaut's sergeant-major. He told Menendez that the
French were three hundred and fifty in all, on their way to Fort
Caroline; and, like the officers of the former party, begged for boats
to aid them in crossing the river.

"My brother," said Menendez, "go and tell your general, that, if he
wishes to speak with me, he may come with four or six companions, and
that I pledge my word he shall go back safe."

La Caille returned; and Ribaut, with eight gentlemen, soon came over in
the canoe. Menendez met them courteously, caused wine and preserved
fruits to be placed before them,--he had come with well-stocked larder
on his errand of blood,--and next led Ribaut to the reeking Golgotha,
where, in heaps upon the sands, lay the corpses of his slaughtered
followers. Ribaut was prepared for the spectacle; La Caille had already
seen it; but he would not believe that Fort Caroline was taken till a
part of the plunder was shown him. Then, mastering his despair, he
turned to the conqueror.

"What has befallen us," he said, "may one day befall you." And, urging
that the kings of France and Spain were brothers and close friends, he
begged, in the name of that friendship, that the Spaniard would aid him
in conveying his followers home. Menendez gave him the same equivocal
answer that he had given the former party, and Ribaut returned to
consult with his officers. After three hours of absence, he came back in
the canoe, and told the Adelantado that some of his people were ready to
surrender at discretion, but that many refused.

"They can do as they please," was the reply.

In behalf of those who surrendered Ribaut offered a ransom of a hundred
thousand ducats.

"It grieves me much," said Menendez, "that I cannot accept it; for I
have great need of it."

Ribaut was much encouraged. Menendez could scarcely forego such a prize,
and he thought, says the Spanish narrator, that the lives of his
followers would now be safe. He asked to be allowed the night for
deliberation, and at sunset recrossed the river. In the morning he
reappeared among the Spaniards and reported that two hundred of his men
had retreated from the spot, but that the remaining one hundred and
fifty would surrender. At the same time he gave into the hands of
Menendez the royal standard and other flags, with his sword, dagger,
helmet, buckler, and his official seal, given him by Coligny. Menendez
directed an officer to enter the boat and bring over the French by
tens. He next led Ribaut among the bushes behind the neighboring
sand-hill, and ordered his hands to be bound fast. Then the scales fell
from the prisoner's eyes. Face to face his hideous fate rose up before
him. He saw his followers and himself entrapped,--the dupe of words
artfully framed to lure them to their ruin. The day wore on; and, as
band after band of prisoners was brought over, they were led behind the
sand-hill, out of sight from the farther shore, and bound like their
general. At length the transit was complete. With bloodshot eyes and
weapons bared, the fierce Spaniards closed around their victims.

"Are you Catholics or Lutherans? and is there any one among you who will
go to confession?"

Ribaut answered,--

"I and all here are of the Reformed Faith."

And he recited the Psalm, "_Domine, memento mei_."

"We are of earth," he continued, "and to earth we must return; twenty
years more or less can matter little"; and, turning to the Adelantado,
he bade him do his will.

The stony-hearted bigot gave the signal; and those who will may paint to
themselves the horrors of the scene. A few, however, were spared.

"I saved," writes Menendez, "the lives of two young gentlemen of about
eighteen years of age, as well as of three others, the fifer, the
drummer, and the trumpeter; and I caused Jean Ribaut with all the rest
to be passed under the knife, judging this to be expedient for the
service of God our Lord, and of your Majesty. And I consider it great
good fortune that he (Jean Ribaut) should be dead, for the King of
France could effect more with him and five hundred ducats than with
other men and five thousand, and he would do more in one year than
another in ten, for he was the most experienced sailor and naval
commander ever known, and of great skill in this passage to the Indies
and the coast of Florida. He was, besides, greatly liked in England, in
which kingdom his reputation is such that he was appointed
Captain-General of all the British fleet against the French Catholics in
the war between England and France some years ago."

Such is the sum of the Spanish accounts,--the self-damning testimony of
the author and abettors of the crime. A picture of lurid and awful
coloring; and yet there is reason to believe that the truth was more
hideous still. Among those spared was one Christophe le Breton, who was
carried to Spain, escaped to France, and told his story to Challeux.
Among those struck down in the carnage was a sailor of Dieppe, stunned
and left for dead under a heap of corpses. In the night he revived,
contrived to draw his knife, cut the cords that bound his hands, and
make his way to an Indian village. The Indians, though not without
reluctance, abandoned him to the Spaniards. The latter sold him as a
slave; but on his way in fetters to Portugal, the ship was taken by the
Huguenots, the sailor set free, and his story published in the narrative
of Le Moyne. When the massacre was known in France, the friends and
relatives of the victims sent to the King, Charles IX., a vehement
petition for redress; and their memorial recounts many incidents of the
tragedy. From these three sources is to be drawn the French version of
the story. The following is its substance:--

Famished and desperate, the followers of Ribaut were toiling northward
to seek refuge at Fort Caroline, when they found the Spaniards in their
path. Some were filled with dismay; others, in their misery, almost
hailed them as deliverers. La Caille, the sergeant-major, crossed the
river. Menendez met him with a face of friendship, and protested that he
would spare the lives of the shipwrecked men, sealing the promise with
an oath, a kiss, and many signs of the cross. He even gave it in
writing, under seal. Still, there were many among the French who would
not place themselves in his power. The most credulous crossed the river
in a boat. As each successive party landed, their hands were bound fast
at their backs; and thus, except a few who were set apart, they were all
driven towards the fort, like cattle to the shambles, with curses and
scurrilous abuse. Then, at sound of drums and trumpets, the Spaniards
fell upon them, striking them down with swords, pikes, and halberds.
Ribaut vainly called on the Adelantado to remember his oath. By the
latter's order, a soldier plunged a dagger into his heart; and Ottigny,
who stood near, met a similar fate. Ribaut's beard was cut off, and
portions of it sent in a letter to Philip II. His head was hewn into
four parts, one of which was displayed on the point of a lance at each
corner of Fort St. Augustine. Great fires were kindled, and the bodies
of the murdered burned to ashes.

Such is the sum of the French accounts. The charge of breach of faith
contained in them was believed by Catholics as well as Protestants, and
it was as a defence against this charge that the narrative of the
Adelantado's brother-in-law was published. That Ribaut, a man whose good
sense and bravery were both reputed high, should have submitted himself
and his men to Menendez without positive assurance of safety is scarcely
credible; nor is it lack of charity to believe that a miscreant so
savage in heart and so perverted in conscience would act on the maxim,
current among the bigots of the day, that faith ought not to be kept
with heretics.

It was night when the Adelantado again entered St. Augustine. Some there
were who blamed his cruelty; but many applauded. "Even if the French had
been Catholics,"--such was their language,--"he would have done right,
for, with the little provision we have, they would all have starved;
besides, there were so many of them that they would have cut our
throats."

And now Menendez again addressed himself to the despatch, already begun,
in which he recounts to the King his labors and his triumphs, a
deliberate and business-like document, mingling narratives of butchery
with recommendations for promotions, commissary details, and petitions
for supplies; enlarging, too, on the vast schemes of encroachment which
his successful generalship had brought to nought. The French, he says,
had planned a military and naval depot at Los Martires, whence they
would make a descent upon Havana, and another at the Bay of Ponce de
Leon, whence they could threaten Vera Cruz. They had long been
encroaching on Spanish rights at Newfoundland, from which a great arm of
the sea--the St. Lawrence--would give them access to the Moluccas and
other parts of the East Indies. Moreover, he adds in a later despatch,
by this passage they may reach the mines of Zacatecas and St. Martin, as
well as every part of the South Sea. And, as already mentioned, he urges
immediate occupation of Chesapeake Bay, which, by its supposed
water-communication with the St. Lawrence, would enable Spain to
vindicate her rights, control the fisheries of Newfoundland, and thwart
her rival in her vast designs of commercial and territorial
aggrandizement. Thus did France and Spain dispute the possession of
North America long before England became a party to the strife.

Some twenty days after Menendez returned to St. Augustine, the Indians,
enamored of carnage, and exulting to see their invaders mowed down, came
to tell him that on the coast southward, near Cape Canaveral, a great
number of Frenchmen were intrenching themselves. They were those of
Ribaut's party who had refused to surrender. Retreating to the spot
where their ships had been cast ashore, they were endeavoring to build a
vessel from the fragments of the wrecks.

In all haste Menendez despatched messengers to Fort Caroline,--named by
him San Mateo,--ordering a reinforcement of a hundred and fifty men. In
a few days they came. He added some of his own soldiers, and, with a
united force of two hundred and fifty, set forth, as he tells us, on
the second of November, pushing southward along the shore with such
merciless energy that some of his men dropped dead with wading night and
day through the loose sands. When, from behind their frail defences, the
French saw the Spanish pikes and partisans glittering into view, they
fled in a panic, and took refuge among the hills. Menendez sent a
trumpet to summon them, pledging his honor for their safety. The
commander and several others told the messenger that they would sooner
be eaten by the savages than trust themselves to Spaniards; and,
escaping, they fled to the Indian towns. The rest surrendered; and
Menendez kept his word. The comparative number of his own men made his
prisoners no longer dangerous. They were led back to St. Augustine,
where, as the Spanish writer affirms, they were well treated. Those of
good birth sat at the Adelantado's table, eating the bread of a homicide
crimsoned with the slaughter of their comrades. The priests essayed
their pious efforts, and, under the gloomy menace of the Inquisition,
some of the heretics renounced their errors. The fate of the captives
may be gathered from the indorsement, in the handwriting of the King, on
the back of the despatch of Menendez of December twelfth.

"Say to him," writes Philip II., "that, as to those he has killed, he
has done well, and as for those he has saved, they shall be sent to the
galleys."

Thus did Spain make good her claim to North America, and crush the upas
of heresy in its germ. Within her bounds the tidings were hailed with
acclamation, while in France a cry of horror and execration rose from
the Huguenots, and found an echo even among the Catholics. But the weak
and ferocious son of Catherine de Medicis gave no response. The victims
were Huguenots, disturbers of the realm, followers of Coligny, the man
above all others a thorn in his side. True, the enterprise was a
national enterprise, undertaken at the national charge, with royal
commission, and under the royal standard. True, it had been assailed in
time of peace by a power professing the closest amity. Yet Huguenot
influence, had prompted and Huguenot hands executed it. That influence
had now ebbed low; Coligny's power had waned; and the Spanish party was
ascendant. Charles IX., long vacillating, was fast subsiding into the
deathly embrace of Spain, for whom, at last, on the bloody eve of St.
Bartholomew, he was destined to become the assassin of his own best
subjects.

In vain the relatives of the slain petitioned him for redress; and had
the honor of the nation rested in the keeping of her king, the blood of
hundreds of murdered Frenchmen would have cried from the ground in vain.
But it was not so to be. Injured humanity found an avenger, and outraged
France a champion. Her chivalrous annals may be searched in vain for a
deed of more romantic daring than the vengeance of Dominic de Gourgue.

       *       *       *       *       *

WEARINESS.


    O little feet, that such long years
    Must wander on through doubts and fears,
      Must ache and bleed beneath your load!
    I, nearer to the way-side inn
    Where toil shall cease and rest begin,
      Am weary, thinking of your road.

    O little hands, that, weak or strong,
    Have still to serve or rule so long,
      Have still so long to give or ask!
    I, who so much with book and pen
    Have toiled among my fellow-men,
      Am weary, thinking of your task.

    O little hearts, that throb and beat
    With such impatient, feverish heat,
      Such limitless and strong desires!
    Mine, that, so long has glowed and burned,
    With passions into ashes turned,
      Now covers and conceals its fires.

    O little souls, as pure and white
    And crystalline as rays of light
      Direct from heaven, their source divine!
    Refracted through the mist of years,
    How red my setting sun appears,
      How lurid looks this soul, of mine!

       *       *       *       *       *

MRS. LEWIS.

A STORY IN THREE PARTS.

PART III.


XI.

When we returned from our journey, Lulu was among the first to greet us,
and with a cordial animation quite unlike the gentle, dawdling way she
used to have. Indeed, I was struck the first evening with a new impulse,
and a healthful mental current, that gave glow and freshness to
everything she said. Mr. Lewis was gone to Cuba, she told us, and would
be away a month more, but "George" was with her continually, and the
days were all too short for what they had to do. She seemed to have
attacked all the arts and sciences simultaneously, and with an eagerness
very amusing to see. George had begun a numismatic collection for her,
and she had made out an historic table from the coins, writing down all
that was most important under each king's reign. George had brought home
some fine specimens of stones, and had interested her much in
mineralogy. George liked riding, and had taught her to ride; and she now
perpetually made her appearance in her riding-habit and little
jockey-cap, wishing she could do something for me here or there. George
moulded, and taught her to mould; and she was dabbling in clay and
plaster of Paris all the morning. George painted beautifully in
water-colors, and taught her to sketch from Nature, which she often did
now, in their rides, when the days were pleasant enough. George not only
thrummed a Spanish guitar, but liked singing; so music went on with
wonderful force and improvement. Nothing that George liked better than
botany, metaphysics, and micrology. And now Lulu was screaming at
dreadful dragons' heads on a pin's point, or delighted with
diamond-beetles and spiders' eyes. She fairly revelled in the new worlds
that were opened to her eager eye and hungry mind. No more long,
tiresome mornings now. Every hour was occupied. Intelligent smiles
dimpled her beautiful mouth; the weary, unoccupied, childish look
vanished from her eyes; and her talk was animated and animating. For
though she might not tell much that was new, she told it in a new way
and with the fresh light of recent experience. Thus she became in a
wonderfully short time a quite different woman from the Lulu of the
early winter.

We acknowledged that she was become an agreeable companion. In a few
weeks of home-education her soul had expanded to a tropical and rich
growth. This we were talking over one night, when Lulu had been with us,
and when George had come for her and extinguished us with his great
hearty laugh and abundant health and activity, as the sun's effulgence
does a house-candle.

"I don't like that Remington, either," said the minister, after we were
left in this state of darkness.

"But, surely, he has given Lulu's mind a most desirable impulse and
direction. How glad Mr. Lewis will be to see her so happy, so animated,
and so sensible, when he comes home!"

"If that makes him happy, he could have had it before, I suppose. But do
you notice anything unhealthy in this mental cultivation,--anything
forced in this luxuriant flowering? Now the light of heaven expands the
whole nature, I hold, into healthy and proportioned beauty. If anything
is lacking or exuberant, the influence is not heavenly, be sure. What do
you think of this statement?"

"Very sensible, but very Hebrew to me."

"I never thought Lulu's were 'household eyes,'--but now she never speaks
of husband or children, of house or home. Now that is not a suitable
mental condition. Let us hope that this intellectual effervescence will
subside, and leave her some thoughtfulness and care for others, and the
meditation which will make her accomplishments something to enrich and
strengthen, rather than excite and overrun her mind."

"Ah! well, it is only a few weeks, not more than six, since she found
out she had a soul. No wonder she feels she has been such a laggard in
the race, she must keep on the gallop now to make up for lost time."

"But,--about the husband and children?"

"Oh, they will come in in due time and take their true place. She is a
young artist, and hasn't got her perspectives arranged. Be sure they
will be in the foreground presently," said I, cheerfully.

"Let us hope so. For a wife, mother, and house-mistress to be racing
after so many ologies, and ignoring her daily duties, is a spectacle of
doubtful utility to me."

To tell the truth, this want of domestic interest had often struck me
also. One day, as we were talking about my children, Lulu had said that
she believed herself destitute of the maternal instinct; for although
she liked to see the children, of course, yet she did not miss them
when away from her. And after the death of young Lewis, which happened
while they were at Cuba, and which distressed my Johnnie so much that he
could not for a long time bear either books or play, for want of his
beloved playmate, his mother, apparently, did not lament him at all.

"I never liked to have him with me," she said to me,--"partly, I
suppose, because he reminded me of Montalli, and of a period of great
suffering in my life. I should be glad never to think of him again. But
William seemed to love and pity him always. Gave him his name, and
always treated him like an only and elder son. And William is fond of
the little girls, too. I don't mean that I am not fond of them, but not
as he is. He will go and spend a week at a time playing and driving with
them."

Indeed, she very often reminded me of Undine in her soulless days.

As she scarcely went into society, during the absence of Mr. Lewis, Lulu
had time for all this multifarious culture that I have been describing,
and she was gradually coming also to reason and reflect on what she read
and heard, though her appetite for knowledge continued with the same
keenness. Her artistic eye, which naturally grouped and arranged with
taste whatever was about her, stood her in good stead of experience; and
with a very little instruction, she was able to do wonders in both a
plastic and pictorial way.

One day she showed me a fine drawing of the Faun of Praxiteles, with
some verses written beneath. The lines seemed to me full of vigor and
harmony. They implied and breathed, too, such an intimacy with classical
thought, that I was astonished when, in answer to my inquiry, she told
me she wrote them herself.

"How delighted Mr. Lewis will be with this!" I exclaimed, looking at the
beautifully finished drawing; "to think how you have improved, Lulu!"

"You think so?" she answered, with glistening eyes. "I, too, feel that I
have, and am so happy!"

"I am sure Mr. Lewis will be so, too," I continued, persistently.

She answered in a sharp tone, dropping her eyes, and, as it were, all
the joy out of them,--

"Surely, I have told you often enough that Mr. Lewis hates literary
women! I am not goose enough to expect him to sympathize with any
intellectual pursuits of mine. No. Fatima in the harem, or Nourmahal
thrumming her lute under a palm-tree, is his _belle-ideale_; failing
that, a housekeeper and drudge."

I cannot describe the scorn with which she said this. She changed the
subject, however, at once, instead of pursuing it as she would formerly
have done, and soon after left me for a drive over Milton Hills with
George, with a hammer and sketch-book in the chaise.

Mr. Lewis's business in Cuba was prolonged into May. He had estates
there, and desired to dispose of them, Lulu said, so that they might for
the future live entirely at the North, which they both liked better.

I could not help seeing that her affections drifted farther and farther
every week from their lawful haven, and I wished Mr. Lewis safe back
again and overlooking his Northern estates. I guessed how, through her
pride of awakened intellect, Lulu's gratitude had wrought a deep
interest in her cousin. He had rescued her from the idleness and inanity
of her daily life, pointed out to her the broad fields of literary
enjoyment and excellence, and inevitably associated his own image with
all the new and varied occupations with which her now busy days were
filled. The poetry she read he brought to her; the songs she sang were
of his selection. His mind and taste, his observations and reflections,
were all written over every page she read, over every hour of her life.
She had been on a desert island in her intellectual loneliness. She
could hardly help loving the hand that had guided her to the palm-tree
and the fountain, especially when she glanced back at the long sandy
reach of her life.

Naturally enough, I watched and distrusted Mr. Remington, who was a man
of the world, and knew very well what he was about. Of all things, he
dearly loved to be excited, occupied, and amused. Of course, I was not
disturbed about his heart, nor seriously supposed he would get into any
entanglement of the affections and the duties of life, but I thought he
might do a great deal of harm for all that.

At last, in the middle of May, Mr. Lewis returned, having failed in his
desired arrangement for a permanent residence in New England. The first
evening I saw them together without company, I perceived that he was
struck with the new life in Lulu's manner and conversation. He watched
and listened to her with an astonishment which he could not conceal.

I never saw anything like jealousy in Mr. Lewis's manner, either at this
time, or before. He was always tender and dignified, when speaking to or
of her. If he felt any uneasiness now, he did not betray it. In looking
back, I am sure of this. Afterwards, in company, where he might be
supposed to be proud of his wife, he often looked at her with the same
astonishment, and sometimes with unaffected admiration. He could not
help seeing the great change in her,--that the days were taken up with
rational and elegant pursuits, and that the hours were vocal with poetry
and taste. The illuminating mind had brought her tulip beauty into a
brighter and more gorgeous glow, and her movements were full of graceful
meaning. Everything was touched and inspired but the heart. I don't know
that he felt this, or that he missed anything. She had the same easy
self-possession in his presence which she had always had,--the same pet
names of endearment. It was always "Willie, dear," or "Yes, my love,"
which makes the usual matrimonial vocabulary, and which does not reward
study. But he always looked at her with a calm delight, perfectly
satisfied with all she said and did, and with a Southern indolence of
mind and body, that precluded effort. I think he never once lost entire
confidence in her, or was jealous of the hand that had unlocked such
mental treasures for her.

Meanwhile her eager lip quaffed the bright cup so cautiously presented,
and drained it with ever new delight. If it was mingled with delicate
flattery, it only sparkled more merrily; and if there were poison there,
I am sure she never guessed it, even when it burnt in her cheek or
thrilled in her dancing veins.


XII.

The Lewises, with Mr. Remington and a large party of pleasure-seekers,
went about this time on a tour to Quebec and the Falls of Montmorency.
They decided to shut their house in Boston, and Lulu asked me if I would
employ and look after a _protegee_ of hers, in whom she took some
interest. The woman was a tolerable seamstress, she said, and would come
to me the next day. She knew nothing about her except that she was poor
and could sew.

When the woman came in, I was puzzled to think where I could have seen
her, which I was sure I had done somewhere, though I could not recall
the where or when. In answer to my particular inquiries, as she could
give me no references, she told me her husband was living, but was sick
and could do nothing for his family,--in fact, that she and three
children were kept alive by her efforts of various sorts. These were,
sewing when she could get it, washing and scrubbing when she could not.
She was very poorly dressed, but had a Yankee, go-ahead expression, as
if she would get a living on the top of a bare rock.

Still puzzling over the likeness in her face to somebody I had known, I
continued to ask questions and to observe face, manner, and voice, in
hope to catch the clue of which I was in search. When she admitted that
her husband's intemperance had lost him his place and forbade his
getting another, and said his name was Jim Ruggles, "a light broke in
upon my brain." I remembered my vision of the fresh young girl who had
sprung out on our path like a morning-glory, on our way to New York
seven years before. The poor morning-glory was sadly trodden in the
dust. It hadn't done "no good," as the driver had remarked, to forewarn
her of the consequences of marrying a sponge. She had accepted her lot,
and, strangely enough, was quite happy in it. There could be no mistake
in the cheerful expression of her worn face. Whatever Jim might be to
other people, she said, he was always good to her and the children; and
she pitied him, loved him, and took care of him. It wasn't at all in the
fashion the Temperance Society would have liked; for when I first went
to the house, I found her pouring out a glass of strong waters for him,
and handing it to his pale and trembling lips herself. As soon as I was
seated, she locked bottle and glass carefully. Before I left her, she
had given him stimulants of various sorts from the same source, which he
received with grateful smiles, and then went on coughing as before.

"It's no time now for him to be forming new habits," said she, in answer
to my open-eyed surprise; "and it's best he should have all the comfort
and ease he can get. As long as I can get it for him, he shall have it."

She spoke very quietly, but very much as if the same will of her own
which had led her to marry Jim Ruggles, when a gay, dissipated fellow,
kept her determined to give him what he wanted, even to the doubtful
extreme I saw. So she struggled bravely on during the next four weeks of
Jim's existence, keeping herself and her three children on hasty
pudding, and buying for Jim's consumptively craving appetite rich
mince-pies and platefuls of good rich food from an eating-house hard by.
At the end of the four weeks he died most peacefully and suddenly,
having not five minutes before swallowed a glass of gin sling, prepared
by the loving hand of his wife, and saying to her, with a firm, clear
voice, and a grateful smile, "Good Amy! always good!" So the weak man's
soul passed away. And as Amy told me about it, with sorrowful sobs, I
was not ready to say or think she had done wrong, although both her
conduct and my opinion were entirely uncanonical.

Before Mrs. Lewis returned, Amy was one day at my room and asked me when
I expected her back.

"Is Mr. Lewis with her, Ma'am?" said she, hesitatingly.

"Of course; at least, I suppose so. Why, what makes you ask?" said I,
with surprise at her downcast eyes and flushed face.

"I heard he had gone away. And that--_that_ Mr. Remington was there with
her. But you know about it, most likely."

"No, I know nothing about it, Amy."

"It was their old cook told me, Mrs. Butler. And she said,--oh! all
sorts of things, that I am sure couldn't be true, for Mrs. Lewis is such
a kind, beautiful woman! I couldn't believe a word she said!"

In my quality of minister's wife, and with a general distrust of cooks'
opinions, I told Amy that there was always scandal enough, and it was a
waste of time to listen to it. But after she left me, I confess to a
whole hour wasted in speculations and anxious reflections on Amy's
communication, and also to having taken the Dominie away from his sermon
for a like space of time to consider the matter fully.

I was relieved when the whole party came back, and when the blooming,
happy face of Lulu showed that she, at least, had neither thought nor
done anything very bad.

The summer was becoming warm and oppressive in Boston, and we prepared
to take the children and go to Weston for a few weeks. While we should
be among the mountains, the Lewises proposed a voyage to Scotland, and
we hoped that sometime in the early autumn we should all be together
once more. The evening before our departure Mr. Remington and Lulu
spent with us, Mr. Lewis coming in at a later hour. I remember vividly
the conversation during the whole of that last evening we ever passed
together.


XIII.

While Mrs. Lewis and I were chatting in one corner on interests
specially feminine, the Dominie had got Mr. Remington into a
metaphysical discussion of some length. From time to time we heard,
"Pascal's idea seems to be," and then, "The notion of Descartes and all
that school of thinkers"; and feeling that they were plunging quite
beyond our depth, we continued babbling of dry goods, and what was
becoming, till Mr. Remington leaned back laughing to us, and said,--

"What do you think, ladies? or are you of the opinion of somebody who
said of metaphysics, 'Whoever troubles himself to skin a flint should
have the skin for his pains'?"

"But that is a most unfair comparison!" said the minister, eagerly, "and
what I will by no means allow. By so much more as the mind is better
than the body, nay, because the mind is all that is worth anything about
a man, metaphysics is the noblest science, and most worthy"--

"I give in! I am down!" said Remington.

"But what are you disputing about?" said I.

"Oh, only Infinity!" said Remington. "But then you know metaphysics does
not hesitate at anything. I say, it is impossible for the mind to go
back to a first cause, and if the mind of a man cannot conceive an idea,
why of course that idea can never be true to him. I can think of no
cause that may not be an effect."

"Nor of infinite space, nor of infinite time?" said the minister.

"No,--of nothing that cannot be divided, and nothing that cannot be
extended."

"Very good. Perhaps you can't. I suppose we cannot comprehend infinity,
because we are essentially finite ourselves. But it by no means follows
that we cannot apprehend and believe in attributes which we are unable
to comprehend. We can certainly do that."

"No. After you reach your limit of comprehension, you may say, all
beyond that is infinite,--but you only push the object of your thought
out of view. After you have reiterated the years till you are tired, you
say, beyond that is infinite. You only mean that you are tired of
computing and adding."

"Then you cannot believe in an Infinite Creator?" said the minister.

"I can believe in nothing that is not founded on reason. I should be
very glad to believe in an Infinite Creator, only it is entirely
impossible, you see, for the mind to conceive of a being who is not
himself created."

"Yet you can believe in a world that is not created?" said the minister.
"You can believe that a world full of adaptations, full of signs of
intelligence and design, could be uncreated. How do you make that out?"

"There remains no greater difficulty to me," said Remington, "in
believing in an uncreated world than you have in believing in an
uncreated God. Why is it stranger that Chaos should produce harmony than
that Nothing should produce God?"

He looked at us, smiling as he said this, which he evidently considered
unanswerable.

"You are quite right," said my husband, gravely. "It is impossible that
nothing should produce God, and therefore I say God is eternal. It is
not impossible that something should produce the world, and therefore I
believe the world is not eternal. That point is the one on which the
whole argument hangs in my mind."

"It does not become me to dispute a clergyman," said Mr. Remington,
smiling affectedly, as if only courtesy prevented his coming in with an
entirely demolishing argument.

To my great surprise Lulu instantly answered, and with an intelligence
that showed she had followed the argument entirely,--

"I am certain, George, that Mr. Prince has altogether the best of it.
Yours is merely a technical difficulty,--merely words. You can conceive
a thousand things which you can never fully comprehend. And this, too,
is a proof of the Infinite Father in our very reasoning,--that, if we
could comprehend Him, we should be ourselves infinite. As it is, we can
believe and adore,--and, more than that, rejoice that we cannot in this
finite life of ours do more."

"If we believed we could comprehend Him," said I, "we should soon begin
to meddle with God's administration of affairs."

"Yes,--and in fatalism I have always thought there was a profound
reverence," said Lulu.

"Oh, are you going into theological mysteries, too?" said Remington,
with a laugh in which none of us joined; "what care you, Lulu, for the
quiddities of Absolute Illimitation and Infinite Illimitation? After
all, what matters it whether one believes in a God, who you allow to be
the personation of all excellence, if only one endeavors to act up to
the highest conceivable standard of perfection,--I mean of human
perfection,--leaving, of course, a liberal margin for human frailties
and defects? One wouldn't like to leave out mercy, you know."

Whatever might be the real sentiments of the man, there was an air of
levity in his mode of treating the most important subjects of thought
which displeased me, especially when he said, "You adore the
Incomprehensible; I am contented to adore, with silent reverence, the
lovely works of His hand." He pointed his remark without hesitation at
LuLu, who sat looking into the fire, and did not notice him or it.

"You are quite right, Mr. Prince, and my cousin, is quite wrong," said
she, looking up with a docile, childlike expression, at the minister.
"One feels that all through, though one may not be able to reason or
argue about it."

"And the best evidence of all truth, my dear," answered the delighted
Dominie, "is that intuition which is before all reasoning, and by which
we must try reasoning itself. The moral is before the intellectual; and
that is why we preachers continually insist on faith as an illuminator
of the reason."

"You mean that we should cultivate faith," I said.

"Yes: not the faith that is blind, but the faith that sees, that is
positive; that which leads, not that which follows; the faith that
weighs argument and decides on it; in short, the native intuitions which
are a necessary part of the mind."

"I see, and I shall remember," said Lulu. "I shall never forget all you
say, Mr. Prince."

It was this sweet frankness, and the clearness with which her lately
developed intellect acted, that made us begin to respect Lulu as well as
to love her. She seemed to be getting right-minded at last.

When Mr. Lewis came, the conversation turned on other subjects; but it
was quite late at night before we were willing to part with our friends.
The shadow of misgiving which hangs over even short separations was
deeper than usual with me from the thought of the voyage. Lulu had been
so many times across the sea that she had no fear of it; and she went
up-stairs with me to say last words and give last commissions with her
usual cheerfulness. Notwithstanding the relief which I had felt during
the evening from her expressions of a moral and religious kind, I yet
had a brooding fear of the effect of association with a mind so lively
and so full of error as Remington's. What help or what sustaining power
for her there might be in her husband I could not tell; but be it more
or less, I feared she would not avail herself of it. Indeed, I feared
that she was daily becoming more alienated from him, as she pursued
onward and upward the bright mental track on which she had entered. And
it was seeing that she had not yet begun to con the alphabet of true
knowledge, that disturbed me most. If I could have seen her thoughtful
for others, humble in her endeavor after duty, I should have hailed,
rejoicingly, her intellectual illumination. As it was, I could not help
saying to her, anxiously, before we went downstairs,--

"I don't like Mr. Remington's notions at all, my dear!--I don't mean
merely his theological notions, but his ideas of life and duty seem to
me wrong and poor. You will forgive me, if I say, you cannot be too
careful how you allow his views to act on your own sense of right and
wrong."

"What!--George? Oh, dear friend, it is only his nonsense! He will take
any side for the time, only to hear himself talk. But he _is_ the best
fellow that ever breathed. Oh, if you only knew his excellence as well
as I do!"

"My dear Lulu!" I expostulated, greatly pained to see her glowing face
and the almost tearful sparkle of her eyes, as she defended her cousin,
"your husband is a great deal the best guide for you,--in action, and I
presume in opinion. At all events, you are safest under the shadow of
his wing. There is the truest peace for a wife."

Whether she guessed what was in my mind I don't know; I did not try much
to conceal it. But she shook her curls away from her face as if
irritated, and answered in a tone from which all the animation had been
quenched,--

"No. I have been a child. I am one no longer. Don't ask me to go back. I
am a living, feeling, understanding woman! George himself allows it is
perfectly shocking to be treated as I am,--a mere toy! a plaything!"

George again! I could scarcely restrain my impatience. Yet how to make
her understand?

"Don't you see, Lulu, that George ought never to have dared to name the
subject of your and your husband's differences? and do you not see that
you can never discuss the subject with anybody with propriety? If,
unhappily, all is not as you, as we, wish it, let us hope for the effect
of time and right feeling in both; but don't, don't allow any gentleman
to talk to you of your husband's treatment of you!"

Lulu listened in quiet wonderment, while, with agitated voice and
trembling mouth, I addressed her as I had never before done. I had
constantly avoided speaking to her on the subject. She looked at me now
with clear, innocent eyes, (I am so glad to remember them!) and placed
her two hands affectionately on my shoulders.

"I know what you mean,--and what you fear. That I shall say something,
or do something undignified, or possibly wrong. But that, with God's
help, I shall never do. Such happiness as I can procure, aside from my
husband, and which I had a right to expect through him,--such enjoyment
as comes from intellectual improvement and the exercise of my faculties,
this is surely innocent pleasure, this I shall have. And George,--you
must not blame him for being indignant, when he sees me treated so
unworthily,--or for calling Lewis a Pacha, as he always does. You must
think, my dear, that it isn't pleasant to be treated only like a
Circassian slave, and that one may have something better to do in life
than to twirl jewelled armlets, or to light my lord's _chibouk!_"

She looked all radiant with scorn, as she said this,--her eyes flashing,
and her very forehead crimson. I could see she was remembering long
months and years in that moment of indignant anger. Seeing them with her
eyes, I could not say she was unjust, or that her estrangement was
unnatural.

"Now, then, good friend, good bye! Don't look anxious. Don't fear for
me. I am not happy, but I shall know how to keep myself from misery. You
and your excellent husband have done more for me than you know or think;
and I shall try to keep right."

She left me with this, and we parted from both with a lingering sweet
friendliness that dwells still in our memories.

"It would be horrible to be on these terms, if she loved him," said the
minister, that night, after I had told him of our parting interview.

"Well, she don't, you see. Did she ever?"

"With such mind and heart as she had, I suppose. On the other hand, what
did he marry?"

"Grace and beauty--and promise. Of course, like every man in love, he
took everything good for granted."

"The sweetest flower in my garden," said the minister, "should perfume
no stranger's vase, however, nor dangle at a knave's button-hole."

"Because you would watch it and care for it, water and train it, and
make it doubly your own. But if you did neither?"

"I should deserve my fate," said he, sorrowfully.


XIV.

The first letter we received from Mrs. Lewis was from the North of
Scotland, where the party of three, increased to one much larger, were
making the tour of the Hebrides. I cannot say much for either the
penmanship or the orthography of the letter, which was incorrect as
usual; but the abundant beauty of her descriptions, and the fine sense
she seemed to have of lofty and wild scenery, made her journey a living
picture. All her keen sense of external life was brought into activity,
and she projected on the paper before her groups of people, or groups of
mountains, with a vividness that showed she had only to transfer them
from the retina: they had no need of any additional processes. She made
no remarks on society, or inferences from what she saw in the present to
what had been in the past or might be in the future. It was simply a
power of representation, unequalled in its way, and yet more remarkable
to us for what it failed of doing than for what it did.

We could not but perceive two things. One, that she never spoke of
home-ties, or children, or husband: not an allusion to either. The
other, that every hill and every vale, the mounting mist and the resting
shadow, all that gave life and beauty to her every-day pursuits, which
seemed, indeed, all pictorial,--all these were informed and permeated,
as it were, with one influence,--that of Remington. An uncomfortable
sense of this made me say, as I finished the letter,--

"I am sorry for the poor bird!"

"So am I," answered the minister, with a clouded brow; "and the more, as
I think I see the bird is limed."

"How?" I said, with a sort of horrified retreat from the expressed
thought, though the thought itself haunted me.

My husband seemed thinking the matter over, as if to clear it in his own
mind before he spoke again.

"I suppose there is a moral disease, which, through its connection with
a newly awakened and brilliant intellect, does not enervate the whole
character. I mean that this connection of moral weakness with the
intellect gives a fatal strength to the character,--do you take me?"

"Yes, I think so," said I.

"She is lofty, self-poised,--confident in what never yet supported any
one. Pride of character does not keep us from falling. Humility would
help us in that way. Unfortunately, that, too, is often bought dearly. I
mean that this virtue of humbleness, which makes us tender of others and
afraid for ourselves, is at the expense of sorrowful and humiliating
experience."

"You speak as if you feared more for her than I do," said I, struck by
the foreboding look in his face.

"You women judge only by your own hearts, or by solitary instances; and
you forget the inevitable downward course of wrong tendencies. Besides,
she has neither lofty principle nor a strong will. You will think I
mistake here; but I don't mean she has not wilfulness enough. A strong
will generally excludes wilfulness,--and the converse."

This conversation made me nervous.

I had such an intense anxiety for her now, that I could not avoid
expressing it often and strongly in my letters to her. I wondered Lewis
was not more open-eyed. I blamed him for letting her run on so
heedlessly into habits which might compromise her reputation for dignity
and discretion, if no worse. Then I would recall her manner the last
evening she was with us, when, although her want of self-regulation was
very apparent, not less so was the native nobleness and purity of her
soul. I could not think of this "unsphered angel wofully astray" without
inward tears that dimmed the vision of my foreboding heart.

Could Lewis mistake her indifference? Could he avoid suffering from it?
Could he, for a moment, accept her conventional expletives in place of
the irrepressible and endearing tokens of a real love? Could he see what
had weaned her from him, and was still, like a baleful star, wiling her
farther and farther on its treacherously lighted path? Could he
see,--feel?--had he a heart? These questions I incessantly asked myself.

In the last days of summer we went with the children to Nantasket Beach.

We had walked to a point of rocks at some distance from the bay, above
which we lodged, and were sitting in the luxury of quiet companionship,
gazing out on the water.

The ineffable, still beauty of Nature, separated from the usual noises
of actual life,--the brilliant effect of the long reaches of color from
the plunging sun, as it dipped, and reappeared, and dipped again, as
loath to leave its field of beauty,--then the still plash against the
rocks, and the subsidence in murmurs of the retiring wave, with all its
gathered treasure of pebbles and shells,--all these sounds and sights of
reposeful life suggested unspeakable thoughts and memories that clung to
silence. We had not been without so much sorrow in life as does not well
afford to dwell on its own images; and we rose to retrace our steps to
the measure of the eternal and significant psalm of the sea.

As we turned away, we both perceived at once a sail in the distance,
against the western sky. It had just rounded the nearest point and was
coming slowly in with a gentle breeze, when it suddenly tacked and put
out to sea again. It had come so near, however, that with our glass we
saw that it was a small boat, holding two persons, and with a single
sail.

Immediately after, a dead calm succeeded the light wind which had before
rippled the distant waves, and we watched the boat, lying as if asleep
and floating lazily on the red water against the blazing sky,--or
rather, itself like a cradle, so pavilioned was it with gorgeous
cloud-curtains, and fit home for the two water-sprites lying in the
slant sunbeams.

Walking slowly borne, we felt the air to be full of oppressive languor,
and turned now and then to see if the distant sail were yet lightened by
the coming breeze. When we reached the inner bay, we mounted a rock,
from which, with the lessened interval between us, I could distinctly
see the boat. One of the occupants--a lady--wore a dark hat with a
scarlet plume drooping from it. She leaned over the gunwale, dipping her
hands in the blazing water and holding them up against the light, as if
playing rainbows in the sunset. The other figure was busy in fastening
up the sail, ready to catch the first breath of wind.

As we stood looking, the water, which during the last few minutes had
changed from flaming red to the many-colored hues of a dolphin's back,
suddenly turned slate-colored, almost black. Then a low scud crept
stealthily and quickly along the surface, bringing with it a steady
breeze, for perhaps five minutes. We watched the little boat, as it
yielded gracefully to the welcome impetus, and swept rapidly to the
shore. Fearing, however, from the sudden change of weather, that it
would soon rain, we cast a parting look at the boat, and started on a
rapid walk to the house.

This last glimpse of the boat showed us a tall figure standing upright
against the mast, and fastening or holding something to it, while the
lady still played with the water, bending her head so low that the red
plume in her hat almost touched it. She seemed in a pleasant reverie,
and rocked softly with the rocking waves. It was a peaceful
picture,--the sail set, and full of heaven's breath, as it seemed.

Before we could grasp anything,--even if there had been anything to
grasp on the level sand,--we were both taken at once off our feet and
thrown violently to the ground. I had felt the force of water before,
but never that of wind, and had no idea of the utter helplessness of man
or woman before a wind that is really in earnest. It was with a very
novel sense of more than childish incapacity that I suffered the Dominie
to gather up capes, canes, hats, and shawls, and, last of all, an
astonished woman, and put them on their way homewards. However, long
before we reached the house-door we were drenched to the skin. The rain
poured in blinding sheets, and the thunder was like a hundred cannon
about our ears. It was so sudden and so frightful to me that I had but
one idea, that of getting into the piazza, where was comparative safety.
Having reached it, we turned to face the elements. Nothing could be seen
through the thick deluge. The ocean itself, tossing and tumbling in
angry darkness, seemed fighting with the other ocean that poured from
the black wall above, and all was one tumult of thunderous fury. This
elemental war lasted but a short time, and gave place to a quiet as
sudden as its angry burst. It was my first experience of a squall. It is
always difficult for me to feel that a storm is a natural
occurrence,--so that I have a great reverence for a Dominie who stands
with head uncovered, with calm eyes, looking tranquilly out on the
loudest tempest.

"Beautiful! wonderful!" he murmured, as the lightning fiercely shot over
us, and the roar died away in long billows of heavy sound.

Afterwards he told me he had the same unbounded delight in a great storm
as he had at the foot of Niagara, or in looking at the stars on a winter
night: that it stirred in his soul all that was loftiest,--that for the
time he could comprehend Deity, and that "the noise of the thundering of
His waters" was an anthem that struck the highest chords of his nature.
What is really sublime takes us out of ourselves, so that we have no
room for personal terror, and we mingle with the elemental roar in
spirit as with something kindred to us. I guessed this, and meditated on
it, while I stopped my ears and shut my eyes and trembled with
overwhelming terror myself. Clearly, I am a coward, in spite of my
admiration of the sublime. The Dominie, being as good as he is great,
does not require a woman to be sublime, luckily; and I think, as I like
him all the better for his strength, he really does not object to a
moderate amount of weakness on my part, which is unaffected and not to
be helped. When animal magnetism becomes a science, it will be seen why
some spirits revel and soar, and some cower and shrink, at the same
amount of electricity. So the Dominie says now; and then--he said
nothing.


XV.

In the fright, excitement, and thorough wetting, I forgot about the
boat,--or rather, no misgiving seized me as to its safety. But, on
coming to breakfast the next morning, we felt that there was a great
commotion in the house. Everybody was out on the piazza, and a crowd was
gathered a short distance off. Somebody had taken off the doors from the
south entrance, and there was a sort of procession already formed on
each side of these two doors. We went out in front of the house to
listen to a rough fisherman who described the storm in which the little
boat capsized. He had stood on the shore and just finished fastening his
own boat, for he well knew the signs of the storm, when he caught sight
of the little sail scudding with lightning-speed to the landing.
Suddenly it stopped short, shook all over as if in an ague, and capsized
in an instant. The storm broke, and although he tried to discern some
traces of the boat or its occupants, nothing could be seen but the white
foam on the black water, glistening like a shark's teeth when he has
seized his prey. In the early morning he had found two bodies on the
sand. The water, he said, must have tossed them with considerable
force,--yet not against the rocks at all, for they were not disfigured,
nor their clothing much torn. As the man ceased relating the story, the
bodies were brought past us, covered by a piano-cloth which somebody had
considerately snatched up and taken to the shore. They were placed in
the long parlor on a table.

My husband beckoned to me to come to him. Turning down the cloth, he
showed me the faces I dreamily expected to see. I don't know when I
thought of it, but suppose I recognized the air and movement so
familiar, even in the distant dimness. No matter how clearly and fully
death is expected, when it comes it is with a death-shock,--how much
more, coming as this did, as if with a bolt from the clear sky!

In their prime,--in their beauty,--in their pride of youth,--in their
pleasure, they died. What was the strong man or the smiling woman,--what
was the smooth sea, the shining sail,--what was strength, skill,
loveliness, against the great and terrible wind of the Lord?

So here they lay, white and quiet as sculptured stone, and as placid as
if they had only fallen asleep in the midst of the tempestuous uproar.
All the clamor and talking about the house had subsided in the real
presence of death; and every one went lightly and softly around, as if
afraid of wakening the sleepers.

She had never looked so beautiful, even in her utmost pride of health
and bloom. Her dark luxuriant hair lay in masses over brow and bosom,
and her face expressed the unspeakable calm and perfect peace which are
suggested only by the sleep of childhood. The long eyelashes seemed to
say, in their close adherence to the cheek, how gladly they shut out the
tumult of life; and the whole cast of the face was so elevated by death
as to look rather angelic than mortal.

His face was quiet, too,--the manliness and massive character of the
features giving a majestic and severe cast to the whole countenance, far
more elevated than it had while living.

We could only weep over these relics. But where was the deepest mourner?
No one had even seen these two before, or could give any account of
them.

On making stricter inquiry and looking at the books, we found that Mr.
and Mrs. Lewis had arrived first. Mr. Lewis had taken his gun and a
boat, and gone out at once to shoot. The lady had been in her room but a
short time, when another gentleman arrived, wrote his name, and ordered
a boat. She had scarcely seen any one, but the boatman saw her step into
the boat, and described her dress.

A message was at once sent to "the Glades," where Mr. Lewis had gone,
and where he was detained, as we had supposed, by the storm. Before he
reached the house, however, all necessary arrangements were completed
for removing any associations of suffering. No confusion remained; the
room was gently darkened, and the bodies, robed in white, lay in such
peaceful silence as soothes and quiets the mourner.

As the carriage drew up to the door, we both hastened to meet Mr. Lewis,
to take him by the hand, and to lead him, by our evident sympathy, to
accept his terrible affliction with something like composure. In our
entire uncertainty as to his feelings, we could only weep silently, and
hold his hands, which were as cold as death.

He looked surprised a little at seeing us, but otherwise his face was
like stone. His eyes,--they, too, looked stony, and as if all the
expression and life were turned inward. Outwardly, there seemed hardly
consciousness. He sat down between us, while we related all the
particulars of the accident, which he seemed greedy to hear,--turning,
as one ceased, to the other, with an eager, hungry look, most painful
to witness. He made us describe, repeatedly, our last glimpse of the
unconscious victims, and then, pressing our hands with a vice-cold grip,
said, in a dry whisper,--

"Where are they?"

We led him to the door. He went in, and we softly closed it after him.
As we went up-stairs to our own room we heard deep groans of anguish. We
knew that his heart could not relieve itself by tears. My husband read
the "prayer for persons in great affliction," and then we sat silently
looking out on the peaceful sea. In the great stillness of the house, we
heard the calm wave plash up on the smiling sands, and watched the
silver specks in the distance as they hovered over the blue sea. So
soft, so still, it had been the day before,--and where we now saw the
placid wave we had seen it then. Yet there had two lives gone out, as
suddenly as one quenches a lamp.

Thinking, but not speaking, we waited. The report of a pistol in the
house struck us to the heart. I believe we felt sure, both of us, of
what it must be. He had loved her so much! And now we were sure, that in
the tension of his grief, reason had given way. When we saw them next,
there were three where two had been, in the marble calm of death.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE FORMATION OF GLACIERS.


The long summer was over. For ages a tropical climate had prevailed over
a great part of the earth, and animals whose home is now beneath the
Equator roamed over the world from the far South to the very borders of
the Arctics. The gigantic quadrupeds, the Mastodons, Elephants, Tigers,
Lions, Hyenas, Bears, whose remains are found in Europe from its
southern promontories to the northernmost limits of Siberia and
Scandinavia, and in America from the Southern States to Greenland and
the Melville Islands, may indeed be said to have possessed the earth in
those days. But their reign was over. A sudden intense winter, that was
also to last for ages, fell upon our globe; it spread over the very
countries where these tropical animals had their homes, and so suddenly
did it come upon them that they were embalmed beneath masses of snow and
ice, without time even for the decay which follows death. The Elephant
whose story was told at length in the preceding article was by no means
a solitary specimen; upon further investigation it was found that the
disinterment of these large tropical animals in Northern Russia and Asia
was no unusual occurrence. Indeed, their frequent discoveries of this
kind had given rise among the ignorant inhabitants to the singular
superstition already alluded to, that gigantic moles lived under the
earth, which crumbled away and turned to dust as soon as they came to
the upper air. This tradition, no doubt, arose from the fact, that, when
in digging they came upon the bodies of these animals, they often found
them perfectly preserved under the frozen ground, but the moment they
were exposed to heat and light they decayed and fell to pieces at once.
Admiral Wrangel, whose Arctic explorations have been so valuable to
science, tells us that the remains of these animals are heaped up in
such quantities in certain parts of Siberia that he and his men climbed
over ridges and mounds consisting entirely of the bones of Elephants,
Rhinoceroses, etc. From these facts it would seem that they roamed over
all these northern regions in troops as large and numerous as the
Buffalo herds that wander over our Western prairies now. We are
indebted to Russian naturalists, and especially to Rathke, for the most
minute investigations of these remains, in which even the texture of the
hair, the skin, and flesh has been subjected by him to microscopic
examination as accurate as if made upon any living animal.

We have as yet no clue to the source of this great and sudden change of
climate. Various suggestions have been made,--among others, that
formerly the inclination of the earth's axis was greater, or that a
submersion of the continents under water might have produced a decided
increase of cold; but none of these explanations are satisfactory, and
science has yet to find any cause which accounts for all the phenomena
connected with it. It seems, however, unquestionable that since the
opening of the Tertiary age a cosmic summer and winter have succeeded
each other, during which a Tropical heat and an Arctic cold have
alternately prevailed over a great portion of the globe. In the
so-called drift (a superficial deposit subsequent to the Tertiaries, of
the origin of which I shall speak presently) there are found far to the
south of their present abode the remains of animals whose home now is in
the Arctics or the coldest parts of the Temperate Zones. Among them are
the Musk-Ox, the Reindeer, the Walrus, the Seal, and many kinds of
Shells characteristic of the Arctic regions. The northernmost part of
Norway and Sweden is at this day the southern limit of the Reindeer in
Europe; but their fossil remains are found in large quantities in the
drift about the neighborhood of Paris, where their presence would, of
course, indicate a climate similar to the one now prevailing in Northern
Scandinavia. Side by side with the remains of the Reindeer are found
those of the European Marmot, whose present home is in the mountains,
about six thousand feet above the level of the sea. The occurrence of
these animals in the superficial deposits of the plains of Central
Europe, one of which is now confined to the high North, and the other to
mountain-heights, certainly indicates an entire change of climatic
conditions since the time of their existence. European Shells now
confined to the Northern Ocean are found as fossils in Italy,--showing,
that, while the present Arctic climate prevailed in the Temperate Zone,
that of the Temperate Zone extended much farther south to the regions we
now call sub-tropical. In America there is abundant evidence of the same
kind; throughout the recent marine deposits of the Temperate Zone,
covering the low lands above tide-water on this continent, are found
fossil Shells whose present home is on the shores of Greenland. It is
not only in the Northern hemisphere that these remains occur, but in
Africa and in South America, wherever there has been an opportunity for
investigation, the drift is found to contain the traces of animals whose
presence indicates a climate many degree colder than that now prevailing
there.

But these organic remains are not the only evidence of the geological
winter. There are a number of phenomena indicating that during this
period two vast caps of ice stretched from the Northern pole southward
and from the Southern pole northward, extending in each case far toward
the Equator,--and that ice-fields, such as now spread over the Arctics,
covered a great part of the Temperate Zones, while the line of perpetual
ice and snow in the tropical mountain-ranges descended far below its
present limits. As the explanation of these facts has been drawn from
the study of glacial action, I shall devote this and subsequent articles
to some account of glaciers and of the phenomena connected with them.

The first essential condition for the formation of glaciers in
mountain-ranges is the shape of their valleys. Glaciers are by no means
in proportion to the height and extent of mountains. There are many
mountain-chains as high or higher than the Alps, which can boast of but
few and small glaciers, if, indeed, they have any. In the Andes, the
Rocky Mountains, the Pyrenees, the Caucasus, the few glaciers remaining
from the great ice-period are insignificant in size. The volcanic,
cone-like shape of the Andes gives, indeed, but little chance for the
formation of glaciers, though their summits are capped with snow. The
glaciers of the Rocky Mountains have been little explored, but it is
known that they are by no means extensive. In the Pyrenees there is but
one great glacier, though the height of these mountains is such, that,
were the shape of their valleys favorable to the accumulation of snow,
they might present beautiful glaciers. In the Tyrol, on the contrary, as
well as in Norway and Sweden, we find glaciers almost as fine as those
of Switzerland, in mountain-ranges much lower than either of the
above-named chains. But they are of diversified forms, and have valleys
widening upward on the slope of long crests. The glaciers on the
Caucasus are very small in proportion to the height of the range; but on
the northern side of the Himalaya there are large and beautiful ones,
while the southern slope is almost destitute of them. Spitzbergen and
Greenland are famous for their extensive glaciers, coming down to the
sea-shore, where huge masses of ice, many hundred feet in thickness,
break off and float away into the ocean as icebergs. At the Aletsch in
Switzerland, where a little lake lies in a deep cup between the
mountains, with the glacier coming down to its brink, we have these
Arctic phenomena on a small scale; a miniature iceberg may often be seen
to break off from the edge of the larger mass, and float out upon the
surface of the water. Icebergs were first traced back to their true
origin by the nature of the land-ice of which they are always composed,
and which is quite distinct in structure and consistency from the marine
ice produced by frozen sea-water, and called "ice-flow" by the Arctic
explorers, as well as from the pond or river ice, resulting from the
simple congelation of fresh water.

Water is changed to ice at a certain temperature under the same law of
crystallization by which any inorganic bodies in a fluid state may
assume a solid condition, taking the shape of perfectly regular
crystals, which combine at certain angles with mathematical precision.
The frost does not form a solid, continuous sheet of ice over an expanse
of water, but produces crystals, little ice-blades, as it were, which
shoot into each other at angles of thirty or sixty degrees, forming the
closest net-work. Of course, under the process of alternate freezing and
thawing, these crystals lose their regularity, and soon become merged in
each other. But even then a mass of ice is not continuous or compact
throughout, for it is rendered completely porous by air-bubbles, the
presence of which is easily explained. Ice being in a measure
transparent to heat, the water below any frozen surface is nearly as
susceptible to the elevation of the temperature without as if it were in
immediate contact with it. Such changes of temperature produce
air-bubbles, which float upward against the lower surface of the ice and
are stranded there. At night there may come a severe frost; new ice is
then formed below the air-bubbles, and they are thus caught and
imprisoned, a layer of air-bubbles between two layers of ice, and this
process may be continued until we have a succession of such parallel
layers, forming a body of ice more or less permeated with air. These
air-bubbles have the power also of extending their own area, and thus
rendering the whole mass still more porous; for, since the ice offers
little or no obstacle to the passage of heat, such an air-bubble may
easily become heated during the day; the moment it reaches a temperature
above thirty-two degrees, it melts the ice around it, thus clearing a
little space for itself, and rises through the water produced by the
action of its own warmth. The spaces so formed are so many vertical
tubes in the ice, filled with water, and having an air-bubble at the
upper extremity.

Ice of this kind, resulting from the direct congelation of water, is
easily recognized under all circumstances by its regular
stratification, the alternate beds varying in thickness according to the
intensity of the cold, and its continuance below the freezing-point
during a longer or shorter period. Singly, these layers consist of
irregular crystals confusedly blended together, as in large masses of
crystalline rocks in which a crystalline structure prevails, though
regular crystals occur but rarely. The appearance of stratification is
the result of the circumstances under which the water congeals. The
temperature varies much more rapidly in the atmosphere around the earth
than in the waters upon its surface. When the atmosphere above any sheet
of water sinks below the freezing-point, there stretches over its
surface a stratum of cold air, determining by its intensity and duration
the formation of the first stratum of ice. According to the alternations
of temperature, this process goes on with varying activity until the
sheet of ice is so thick that it becomes itself a shelter to the water
below, and protects it, to a certain degree, from the cold without. Thus
a given thickness of ice may cause a suspension of the freezing process,
and the first ice-stratum may even be partially thawed before the cold
is renewed with such intensity as to continue the thickening of the
ice-sheet by the addition of fresh layers. The strata or beds of ice
increase gradually in this manner, their separation being rendered still
more distinct by the accumulation of air-bubbles, which, during a hot
and clear day, may rise from a muddy bottom in great numbers. In
consequence of these occasional collections of air-bubbles, the layers
differ, not only in density and closeness, but also in color, the more
compact strata being blue and transparent, while those containing a
greater quantity of air-bubbles are opaque and whitish, like water
beaten to froth.

A cake of pond-ice, such as is daily left in summer at our doors, if
held against the light and turned in different directions, will exhibit
all these phenomena very distinctly, and we may learn still more of its
structure by watching its gradual melting. The process of decomposition
is as different in fresh-water ice and in land-or glacier-ice and that
of their formation. Pond-ice, in contact with warm air, melts uniformly
over its whole surface, the mass being thus gradually reduces from the
exterior till it vanishes completely. If the process be slow, the
temperature of the air-bubbles contained in it may be so raised as to
form the vertical funnels or tubes alluded to above. By the anastomosing
of these funnels, the whole mass may be reduced to a collection of
angular pyramids, more or less closely united by cross-beams of ice, and
it finally falls to pieces when the spaces in the interior have become
for numerous as to render it completely cavernous. Such a breaking-up of
ice is always caused by the enlargement of the open spaces produces by
the elevated temperature of the air-bubbles, these spaces being
necessarily more or less parallel with one another, and vertical in
their position, owing to the natural tendency of the air-bubbles to work
their way upward till they reach the surface, where they escape. A sheet
of ice, of this kind, floating upon water, dissolves in the same manner,
melting wholly from the surface, if the process be sufficiently rapid,
or falling to pieces, if the air-bubbles are gradually raised in their
temperature sufficiently to render the whole mass cavernous and
incoherent. If we now compare these facts with what is known of the
structure of land-ice, we shall see that the mode of formation in the
two cases differs essentially.

Land-ice, of which both the ice-fields of the Arctics and glaciers
consist, is produced by the slow and gradual transformation of snow into
ice; and though the ice thus formed may eventually be as clear and
transparent as the purest pond- or river-ice, its structure is
nevertheless entirely distinct. We may trace these different processes
during any moderately cold winter in the ponds and snow-meadows
immediately about us. We need not join an Arctic exploring expedition,
nor even undertake a more tempting trip to the Alps, in order to
investigate these phenomena for ourselves, if we have any curiosity to
do so. The first warm day after a thick fall of light, dry snow, such as
occurs in the coldest of our winter weather, is sufficient to melt its
surface. As this snow is porous, the water readily penetrates it, having
also a tendency to sink by its own weight, so that the whole mass
becomes more or less filled with moisture in the course of the day.
Daring the lower temperature of the night, however, the water is frozen
again, and the snow is now filled with new ice-particles. Let this
process be continued long enough, and the mass of snow is changed to a
kind of ice-gravel, or, if the grains adhere together, to something like
what we call pudding-stone, allowing, of course, for the difference of
material; the snow, which has been rendered cohesive by the process of
partial melting and regelation, holding the ice-globules together, just
as the loose materials of the pudding-stone are held together by the
cement which unites them.

Within this mass, air is intercepted and held inclosed between the
particles of ice. The process by which snow-flakes or snow-crystals are
transformed into grains of ice, more or less compact, is easily
understood. It is the result of a partial thawing, under a temperature
maintained very nearly at thirty-two degrees, falling sometimes a little
below, and then rising a little above the freezing-point, and thus
producing constant alternations of freezing and thawing in the same mass
of snow. This process amounts to a kind of kneading of the snow, and
when combined with the cohesion among the particles more closely held
together in one snow-flake, it produces granular ice. Of course, the
change takes place gradually, and is unequal in its progress at
different depths in the same bed of recently fallen snow. It depends
greatly on the amount of moisture infiltrating the mass, whether derived
from the melting of its own surface, or from the accumulation of dew or
the falling of rain or mist upon it. The amount of water retained within
the mass will also be greatly affected by the bottom on which it rests
and by the state of the atmosphere. Under a certain temperature, the
snow may only be glazed at the surface by the formation of a thin, icy
crust, an outer membrane, as it were, protecting the mass below from a
deeper transformation into ice; or it may be rapidly soaked throughout
its whole bulk, the snow being thus changed into a kind of soft pulp,
what we commonly call slosh, which, upon freezing, becomes at once
compact ice; or, the water sinking rapidly, the lower layers only may be
soaked, while the upper portion remains comparatively dry. But, under
all these various circumstances, frost will transform the crystalline
snow into more or less compact ice, the mass of which will be composed
of an infinite number of aggregated snow-particles, very unequal in
regularity of outline, and cemented by ice of another kind, derived from
the freezing of the infiltrated moisture, the whole being interspersed
with air. Let the temperature rise, and such a mass, rigid before, will
resolve itself again into disconnected ice-particles, like grains more
or less rounded. The process may be repeated till the whole mass is
transformed into very compact, almost uniformly transparent and blue
ice, broken only by the intervening air-bubbles. Such a mass of ice,
when exposed to a temperature sufficiently high to dissolve it, does not
melt from the surface and disappear by a gradual diminution of its bulk,
like pond-ice, but crumbles into its original granular fragments, each
one of which melts separately. This accounts for the sudden
disappearance icebergs, which, instead of slowly dissolving into the
ocean, are often seen to fall to pieces and vanish at once.

Ice of this kind may be seen forming every winter on our sidewalks, on
the edge of the little ditches which drain them, or on the summits of
broad gateposts when capped with snow. Of such ice glaciers are
composed; but, in the glacier, another element comes in which we have
not considered as yet,--that of immense pressure in consequence of the
vast accumulations of snow within circumscribed spaces. We see the same
effects produced on a small scale, when snow is transformed into a
snowball between the hands. Every boy who balls a mass of snow in his
hands illustrates one side of glacial phenomena. Loose snow, light and
porous, and pure white from the amount of air contained in it, is in
this way presently converted into hard, compact, almost transparent ice.
This change will take place sooner, if the snow be damp at first,--but
if dry, the action of the hand will presently produce moisture enough to
complete the process. In this case, mere pressure produces the same
effect which, in the cases we have been considering above, was brought
about by alternate thawing and freezing,--only that in the latter the
ice is distinctly granular, instead of being uniform throughout, as when
formed under pressure. In the glaciers we have the two processes
combined. But the investigators of glacial phenomena have considered too
exclusively one or the other: some of them attributing glacial motion
wholly to the dilatation produced by the freezing of infiltrated
moisture in the mass of snow; others accounting for it entirely by
weight and pressure. There is yet a third class, who, disregarding the
real properties of ice, would have us believe, that, because tar, for
instance, is viscid when it moves, therefore ice is viscid because it
moves. We shall see hereafter that the phenomena exhibited in the onward
movement of glaciers are far more diversified than has generally been
supposed.

There is no chain of mountains in which the shape of the valleys is more
favorable to the formation of glaciers than the Alps. Contracted at
their lower extremity, these valleys widen upward, spreading into deep,
broad, trough-like depressions. Take, for instance, the valley of
Hassli, which is not more than half a mile wide where you enter it above
Meyringen; it opens gradually upward, till, above the Grimsel, at the
foot of the Finster-Aarhorn, it measures several miles across. These
huge mountain-troughs form admirable cradles for the snow, which
collects in immense quantities within them, and, as it moves slowly down
from the upper ranges, is transformed into ice on its way, and compactly
crowded into the narrower space below. At the lower extremity of the
glacier the ice is pure, blue and transparent, but, as we ascend, it
appears less compact, more porous and granular, assuming gradually the
character of snow, till in the higher regions the snow is as light, as
shifting, and incoherent, as the sand of the desert. A snow-storm on a
mountain-summit is very different from a snow-storm on the plain, on
account of the different degrees of moisture in the atmosphere. At great
heights, there is never dampness enough to allow the fine snow-crystals
to coalesce and form what are called "snow-flakes." I have even stood on
the summit of the Jungfrau when a frozen cloud filled the air with
ice-needles, while I could see the same cloud pouring down sheet of rain
upon Lauterbrunnen below. I remember this spectacle as one of the most
impressive I have witnessed in my long experience of Alpine scenery. The
air immediately about me seemed filled with rainbow-dust, for the
ice-needles glittered with a thousand hues under the decomposition of
light upon them, while the dark storm in the valley below offered a
strange contract to the brilliancy of the upper region in which I stood.
One wonder where even so much vapor as may be transformed into the
finest snow should come from at such heights. But the warm winds,
creeping up the sides of the valleys, the walls of which become heated
during the middle of the day, come laden with moisture which is changed
to a dry snow like dust as soon as it comes into contact with the
intense cold above.

Currents of warm air affect the extent of the glaciers, and influence
also the line of perpetual snow, which is by no means at the same level
even in neighboring localities. The size of glaciers, of course,
determines to a great degree the height at which they terminate, simply
because a small mass of ice will melt more rapidly, and at a lower
temperature, than a larger one. Thus, the small glaciers, such as those
of the Rothhorn or of Trift, above the Grimsel, terminate at a
considerable height above the plain, while the Mer de Glace, fed from
the great snow-caldrons of Mont Blanc, forces its way down to the bottom
of the valley of Chamouni, and the glacier of Grindelwald, constantly
renewed from the deep reservoirs where the Jungfrau hoards her vast
supplies of snow, descends to about four thousand feet above the
sea-level. But the glacier of the Aar, though also very large, comes to
a pause at about six thousand feet above the level of the sea; for the
south wind from the other side of the Alps, the warm sirocco of Italy,
blows across it, and it consequently melts at a higher level than either
the Mer de Glace or the Grindelwald. It is a curious fact, that in the
valley of Hassli the temperature frequently rises instead of falling as
you ascend; at the Grimsel, the temperature is at times higher than at
Meyringen below, where the warmer winds are not felt so directly. The
glacier of Aletsch, on the southern slope of the Jungfrau, and into
which many other glaciers enter, terminates also at a considerable
height, because it turns into the valley of the Rhone, through which the
southern winds blow constantly.

Under ordinary conditions, vegetation fades in these mountains at the
height of six thousand feet, but, in consequence of prevailing winds,
and the sheltering influence of the mountain-walls, there is no
uniformity in the limit of perpetual snow and ice. Where currents of
warm air are very constant, glaciers do not occur at all, even where
other circumstances are favorable to their formation. There are valleys
in the Alps far above six thousand feet which have no glaciers, and
where perpetual snow is seen only on their northern sides. These
contrasts in temperature lead to the most wonderful contrasts in the
aspect of the soil; summer and winter lie side by side, and bright
flowers look out from the edge of snows that never melt. Where the warm
winds prevail, there may be sheltered spots at a height of ten or eleven
thousand feet, isolated nooks opening southward where the most exquisite
flowers bloom in the midst of perpetual snow and ice; and occasionally I
have seen a bright little flower with a cap of snow over it that seemed
to be its shelter. The flowers give, indeed, a peculiar charm to these
high Alpine regions. Occurring often in beds of the same kind, forming
green, blue or yellow patches, they seem nestled close together in
sheltered spots, or even in fissures and chasms of the rock, where they
gather in dense quantities. Even in the sternest scenery of the Alps
some sign of vegetation lingers; and I remember to have found a tuft of
lichen growing on the only rock which pierced through the ice on the
summit of the Jungfrau. The absolute solitude, the intense stillness of
the upper Alps is most impressive; no cattle, no pasturage, no bird, nor
any sound of life,--and, indeed, even if there were, the rarity of the
air in these high regions is such that sound is hardly transmissible.
The deep repose, the purity of aspect of every object, the snow, broken
only by ridges of angular rocks, produce an effect no less beautiful
than solemn. Sometimes, in the midst of the wide expanse, one comes upon
a patch of the so-called red snow of the Alps. At a distance, one would
say that such a spot marked some terrible scene of blood, but, as you
come nearer, the hues are so tender and delicate, as they fade from deep
red to rose, and so die into the pure colorless snow around, that the
first impression is completely dispelled. This red snow is an organic
growth, a plant springing up in such abundance that it colors extensive
surfaces, just as the microscopic plants dye our pools with green in the
spring. It is an _Alga_ well known in the Arctics, where it forms wide
fields in the summer. With the above facts before us concerning the
materials of which glaciers are composed, we may now proceed to
consider their structure more fully in connection with their movements
and the effects they produce on the surfaces over which they extend. It
has already been stated that the ice of the glaciers has not the same
appearance everywhere, but differs according to the level at which it
stands. In consequence of this we distinguish three very distinct
regions in these frozen fields, the uppermost of which, upon the sides
of the steepest and highest slopes of the mountain-ridges, consists
chiefly of layers of snow piled one above another by the successive
snowfalls of the colder seasons, and which would remain in uniform
superposition but for the change to which they are subjected in
consequence of a gradual downward movement, causing the mass to descend
by slow degrees, while new accumulations in the higher regions annually
replace the snow which has been thus removed to an inferior level. We
shall consider hereafter the process by which this change of position is
brought about. For the present it is sufficient to state that such a
transfer, by which a balance is preserved in the distribution of the
snow, takes place in all glaciers, so that, instead of increasing
indefinitely in the upper regions, where on account of the extreme cold
there is little melting, they permanently preserve about the same
thickness, being yearly reduced by their downward motion in a proportion
equal to their annual increase by fresh additions of snow. Indeed, these
reservoirs of snow maintain themselves at the same level, much as a
stream, into which many rivulets empty, remains within its usual limits
in consequence of the drainage of the average supply. Of course, very
heavy rains or sudden thaws at certain seasons or in particular years
may cause an occasional overflow of such a stream; and irregularities of
the same kind are observed during certain years or at different periods
of the same year in the accumulations of snow, in consequence of which
the successive strata may vary in thickness. But in ordinary times
layers from six to eight feet deep are regularly added annually to the
accumulation of snow in the higher regions,--not taking into account, of
course, the heavy drifts heaped up in particular localities, but
estimating the uniform average increase over wide fields. This snow is
gradually transformed into more or less compact ice, passing through an
intermediate condition analogous to the slosh of our roads, and in that
condition chiefly occupies the upper part of the extensive troughs into
which these masses descend from the loftier heights. This region is
called the region of the _neve_. It is properly the birthplace of the
glaciers, for it is here that the transformation of the snow into ice
begins. The _neve_ ice, though varying in the degree of its compactness
and solidity, is always very porous and whitish in color, resembling
somewhat frozen slosh, while lower down in the region of the glacier
proper the ice is close, solid, transparent, and of a bluish tint.

But besides the differences in solidity and in external appearance,
there are also many other important changes taking place in the ice of
these different regions, to which we shall return presently. Such
modifications arise chiefly from the pressure to which it is subjected
in its downward progress, and to the alterations, in consequence of this
displacement, in the relative position of the snow- and ice-beds, as
well as to the influence exerted by the form of the valleys themselves,
not only upon the external aspect of the glaciers, but upon their
internal structure also. The surface of a glacier varies greatly in
character in these different regions. The uniform even surfaces of the
upper snow-fields gradually pass into a more undulating outline, the
pure white fields become strewn with dust and sand in the lower levels,
while broken bits of stone and larger fragments of rock collect upon
them, which assume a regular arrangement, and produce a variety of
features most startling and incomprehensible at first sight, but more
easily understood when studied in connection with the whole series of
glacial phenomena. They are then seen to be the consequence of the
general movement of the glacier, and of certain effects which the course
of the seasons, the action of the sun, the rain, the reflected heat from
the sides of the valley, or the disintegration of its rocky walls, may
produce upon the surface of the ice. In the next article we shall
consider in detail all these phenomena, and trace them in their natural
connection. Once familiar with these facts, it will not be difficult
correctly to appreciate the movement of the glacier and the cause of its
inequalities. We shall see, that, in consequence of the greater or less
rapidity in the movement of certain portions of the mass, its centre
progressing faster than its sides, and the upper, middle, and lower
regions of the same glacier advancing at different rates, the strata
which in the higher ranges of the snow-fields were evenly spread over
wide expanses, become bent and folded to such a degree that the
primitive stratification is nearly obliterated, while the internal mass
of the ice has also assumed new features under these new circumstances.
There is, indeed, as much difference between the newly formed beds of
snow in the upper region and the condition of the ice at the lower end
of a glacier as between a recent deposit of coral sand or a mud-bed in
an estuary and the metamorphic limestone or clay slate twisted and
broken as they are seen in the very chains of mountains from which the
glaciers descend. A geologist, familiar with all the changes to which a
bed of rock may be subjected from the time it was deposited in
horizontal layers up to the time when it was raised by Plutonic agencies
along the sides of a mountain-ridge, bent and distorted in a thousand
directions, broken through the thickness of its mass, and traversed by
innumerable fissures which are themselves filled with new materials,
will best be able to understand how the stratification of snow may be
modified by pressure and displacement so as finally to appear like a
laminated mass full of cracks and crevices, in which the original
stratification is recognized only by the practical student. I trust in
my next article I shall be able to explain intelligibly to my readers
even these extreme alterations in the condition of the primitive snow of
the Alpine summits.

       *       *       *       *       *

TWO SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF BLONDEL.


SCENE I.--_Near a Castle in Germany._

    'Twere no hard task, perchance, to win
      The popular laurel for my song;
    'Twere only to comply with sin,
      And own the crown, though snatched by wrong:
    Rather Truth's chaplet let me wear,
     Though sharp as death its thorns may sting;
    Loyal to Loyalty, I bear
     No badge but of my rightful king.

    Patient by town and tower I wait,
     Or o'er the blustering moorland go;
    I buy no praise at cheaper rate,
     Or what faint hearts may fancy so:
    For me, no joy in lady's bower,
      Or hall, or tourney, will I sing,
    Till the slow stars wheel round the hour
      That crowns my hero and my king.

    While all the land runs red with strife,
      And wealth is won by peddler-crimes,
    Let who will find content in life
      And tinkle in unmanly rhymes:
    I wait and seek; through dark and light,
      Safe in my heart my hope I bring,
    Till I once more my faith may plight
      To him my whole soul owns her king.

    When power is filched by drone and dolt,
      And, with caught breath and flashing eye,
    Her knuckles whitening round the bolt,
      Vengeance leans eager from the sky,--
    While this and that the people guess,
      And to the skirts of praters cling,
    Who court the crowd they should compress,--
      I turn in scorn to seek my king.

    Shut in what tower of darkling chance
      Or dungeon of a narrow doom,
    Dream'st thou of battle-axe and lance
      That for the cross make crashing room?
    Come! with strained eyes the battle waits
      In the wild van thy mace's swing;
    While doubters parley with their fates,
      Make thou thine own and ours, my king!

    Oh, strong to keep upright the old,
      And wise to buttress with the new,
    Prudent, as only are the bold,
      Clear-eyed, as only are the true,
    To foes benign, to friendship stern,
      Intent to imp Law's broken wing,--
    Who would not die, if death might earn
      The right to kiss thy hand, my king?


SCENE II.--_An Inn near the Chateau of Chalus._

    Well, the whole thing is over, and here I sit
      With one arm in a sling and a milk-score of gashes,
    And this flagon of Cyprus must e'en warm my wit,
      Since what's left of youth's flame is a head flecked with ashes.
    I remember I sat in this very same inn,--
      I was young then, and one young man thought I was handsome,--
    I had found out what prison King Richard was in,
      And was spurring for England to push on the ransom.

    How I scorned the dull souls that sat guzzling around,
      And knew not my secret nor recked my derision!
    Let the world sink or swim, John or Richard be crowned,
      All one, so the beer-tax got lenient revision.
    How little I dreamed, as I tramped up and down,
      That granting our wish one of Fate's saddest jokes is!
    I had mine with a vengeance,--my king got his crown,
      And made his whole business to break other folks's.

    I might as well join in the safe old _tum_, _tum_:
      A hero's an excellent loadstar,--but, bless ye,
    What infinite odds 'twixt a hero to come
      And your only too palpable hero _in esse_!
    Precisely the odds (such examples are rife)
      'Twixt the poem conceived and the rhyme we make show of,
    'Twixt the boy's morning dream and the wake-up of life,
      'Twixt the Blondel God meant and a Blondel I know of!

    But the world's better off, I'm convinced of it now,
      Than if heroes, like buns, could be bought for a penny,
    To regard all mankind as their haltered milch-cow,
      And just care for themselves. Well, God cares for the many;
    And somehow the poor old Earth blunders along,
      Each son of hers adding his mite of unfitness,
    And, choosing the sure way of coming out wrong,
      Gets to port, as the next generation will witness.

    You think her old ribs have come all crashing through,
      If a whisk of Fate's broom snap your cobweb asunder;
    But her rivets were clinched by a wiser than you,
      And our sins cannot push the Lord's right hand from under.
    Better one honest man who can wait for God's mind,
      In our poor shifting scene here, though heroes were plenty!
    Better one bite, at forty, of truth's bitter rind
      Than the hot wine that gushed from the vintage of twenty!

    I see it all now: when I wanted a king,
      'Twas the kingship that failed in myself I was seeking,--
    'Tis so much less easy to do than to sing,
      So much simpler to reign by a proxy than _be_ king!
    Yes, I think I _do_ see: after all's said and sung,
      Take this one rule of life and you never will rue it,--
    'Tis but do your own duty and hold your own tongue,
      And Blondel were royal himself, if he knew it!

       *       *       *       *       *

NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT.


Chancing to take a memorable walk by moonlight some years ago, I
resolved to take more such walks, and make acquaintance with another
side of Nature. I have done so.

According to Pliny, there is a stone in Arabia called Selenites,
"wherein is a white, which increases and decreases with the moon." My
journal for the last year or two has been _selenitic_ in this sense.

Is not the midnight like Central Africa to most of us? Are we not
tempted to explore it,--to penetrate to the shores of its Lake Tchad,
and discover the source of its Nile, perchance the Mountains of the
Moon? Who knows what fertility and beauty, moral and natural, are there
to be found? In the Mountains of the Moon, in the Central Africa of the
night, there is where all Niles have their hidden heads. The expeditions
up the Nile as yet extend but to the Cataracts, or perchance to the
mouth of the White Nile; but it is the Black Nile that concerns us.

I shall be a benefactor, if I conquer some realms from the night,--if I
report to the gazettes anything transpiring about us at that season
worthy of their attention,--if I can show men that there is some beauty
awake while they are asleep,--if I add to the domains of poetry.

Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day. I soon
discovered that I was acquainted only with its complexion; and as for
the moon, I had seen her only as it were through a crevice in a shutter,
occasionally. Why not walk a little way in her light?

Suppose you attend to the suggestions which the moon makes for one
month, commonly in vain, will it not be very different from anything in
literature or religion? But why not study this Sanscrit? What if one
moon has come and gone, with its world of poetry, its weird teachings,
its oracular suggestions,--so divine a creature freighted with hints for
me, and I have not used her,--one moon gone by unnoticed?

I think it was Dr. Chalmers who said, criticizing Coleridge, that for
his part he wanted ideas which he could see all round, and not such as
he must look at away up in the heavens. Such a man, one would say, would
never look at the moon, because she never turns her other side to us.
The light which comes from ideas which have their orbit as distant from
the earth, and which is no less cheering and enlightening to the
benighted traveller than that of the moon and stars, is naturally
reproached or nicknamed as moonshine by such. They are moonshine, are
they? Well, then, do your night-travelling when there is no moon to
light you; but I will be thankful for the light that reaches me from the
star of least magnitude. Stars are lesser or greater only as they appear
to us so. I will be thankful that I see so much as one side of a
celestial idea, one side of the rainbow and the sunset sky.

Men talk glibly enough about moonshine, as if they knew its qualities
very well, and despised them,--as owls might talk of sunshine. None of
your sunshine!--but this word commonly means merely something which they
do not understand, which they are abed and asleep to, however much it
may be worth their while to be up and awake to it.

It must be allowed that the light of the moon, sufficient though it is
for the pensive walker, and not disproportionate to the inner light we
have, is very inferior in quality and intensity to that of the sun. But
the moon is not to be judged alone by the quantity of light she sends to
us, but also by her influence on the earth and its inhabitants. "The
moon gravitates toward the earth, and the earth reciprocally toward the
moon." The poet who walks by moonlight is conscious of a tide in his
thought which is to be referred to lunar influence. I will endeavor to
separate the tide in my thoughts from the current distractions of the
day. I would warn my hearers that they must not try my thoughts by a
daylight standard, but endeavor to realize that I speak out of the
night. All depends on your point of view. In Drake's "Collection of
Voyages," Wafer says of some Albinos among the Indians of Darien,--"They
are quite white, but their whiteness is like that of a horse, quite
different from the fair or pale European, as they have not the least
tincture of a blush or sanguine complexion.... Their eyebrows are
milk-white, as is likewise the hair of their heads, which is very
fine.... They seldom go abroad in the daytime, the sun being
disagreeable to them, and causing their eyes, which are weak and poring,
to water, especially if it shines towards them; yet they see very well
by moonlight, from which we call them mooneyed."

Neither in our thoughts in these moonlight walks, methinks, is there
"the least tincture of a blush or sanguine complexion," but we are
intellectually and morally Albinos,--children of Endymion,--such is the
effect of conversing much with the moon.

I complain of Arctic voyages that they do not enough remind us of the
constant peculiar dreariness of the scenery, and the perpetual twilight
of the Arctic night. So he whose theme is moonlight, though he may find
it difficult, must, as it were, illustrate it with the light of the moon
alone.

Many men walk by day; few walk by night. It is a very different season.
Take a July night, for instance. About ten o'clock,--when man is asleep,
and day fairly forgotten,--the beauty of moonlight is seen over lonely
pastures where cattle are silently feeding. On all sides novelties
present themselves. Instead of the sun, there are the moon and stars;
instead of the wood-thrush, there is the whippoorwill; instead of
butterflies in the meadows, fire-flies, winged sparks of fire!--who
would have believed it? What kind of cool, deliberate life dwells in
those dewy abodes associated with a spark of fire? So man has fire in
his eyes, or blood, or brain. Instead of singing-birds, the
half-throttled note of a cuckoo flying over, the croaking of frogs, and
the intenser dream of crickets,--but above all, the wonderful trump of
the bull-frog, ringing from Maine to Georgia. The potato-vines stand
upright, the corn grows apace, the bushes loom, the grain-fields are
boundless. On our open river-terraces, once cultivated by the Indian,
they appear to occupy the ground like an army,--their heads nodding in
the breeze. Small trees and shrubs are seen in the midst, overwhelmed as
by an inundation. The shadows of rocks and trees and shrubs and hills
are more conspicuous than the objects themselves. The slightest
irregularities in the ground are revealed by the shadows, and what the
feet find comparatively smooth appears rough and diversified in
consequence. For the same reason the whole landscape is more variegated
and picturesque than by day. The smallest recesses in the rocks are dim
and cavernous; the ferns in the wood appear of tropical size. The
sweet-fern and indigo in overgrown wood-paths wet you with dew up to
your middle. The leaves of the shrub-oak are shining as if a liquid were
flowing over them. The pools seen through the trees are as full of light
as the sky. "The light of the day takes refuge in their bosoms," as the
Purana says of the ocean. All white objects are more remarkable than by
day. A distant cliff looks like a phosphorescent space on a hill-side.
The woods are heavy and dark. Nature slumbers. You see the moonlight
reflected from particular stumps in the recesses of the forest, as if
she selected what to shine on. These small fractions of her light remind
one of the plant called moon-seed,--as if the moon were sowing it in
such places.

In the night the eyes are partly closed, or retire into the head. Other
senses take the lead. The walker is guided as well by the sense of
smell. Every plant and field and forest emits its odor now,--swamp-pink
in the meadow, and tansy in the road; and there is the peculiar dry
scent of corn which has begun to show its tassels. The senses both of
hearing and smelling are more alert. We hear the tinkling of rills which
we never detected before. From time to time, high up on the sides of
hills, you pass through a stratum of warm air: a blast which has come up
from the sultry plains of noon. It tells of the day, of sunny noon-tide
hours and banks, of the laborer wiping his brow and the bee humming amid
flowers. It is an air in which work has been done,--which men have
breathed. It circulates about from wood-side to hill-side, like a dog
that has lost its master, now that the sun is gone. The rocks retain all
night the warmth of the sun which they have absorbed. And so does the
sand: if you dig a few inches into it, you find a warm bed.

You lie on your back on a rock in a pasture on the top of some bare hill
at midnight, and speculate on the height of the starry canopy. The stars
are the jewels of the night, and perchance surpass anything which day
has to show. A companion with whom I was sailing, one very windy, but
bright moonlight night, when the stars were few and faint, thought that
a man could get along with _them_, though he was considerably reduced in
his circumstances,--that they were a kind of bread and cheese that never
failed.

No wonder that there have been astrologers,--that some have conceived
that they were personally related to particular stars. Du Bartas, as
translated by Sylvester, says he'll

         "not believe that the Great Architect
    With all these fires the heavenly arches decked
    Only for shew, and with these glistering shields,
    'T awake poor shepherds, watching in the fields,"--

he'll

    "not believe that the least flower which pranks
    Our garden-borders or our common banks,
    And the least stone that in her warming lap
    Our Mother Earth doth covetously wrap,
    Hath some peculiar virtue of its own,
    And that the glorious stars of heaven have none."

And Sir Walter Raleigh well says, "The stars are instruments of far
greater use than to give an obscure light, and for men to gaze on after
sunset"; and he quotes Plotinus as affirming that they "are significant,
but not efficient"; and also Augustine as saying, "_Deus regit inferiora
corpora per superiora_": God rules the bodies below by those above. But
best of all is this, which another writer has expressed: "_Sapiens
adjuvabit opus astrorum quemadmodum agricola terrae naturam_": A wise man
assisteth the work of the stars as the husbandman helpeth the nature of
the soil.

It does not concern men who are asleep in their beds, but it is very
important to the traveller, whether the moon shines brightly or is
obscured. It is not easy to realize the serene joy of all the earth,
when she commences to shine unobstructedly, unless you have often been
abroad alone in moonlight nights. She seems to be waging continual war
with the clouds in your behalf. Yet we fancy the clouds to be _her_ foes
also. She comes on magnifying her dangers by her light, revealing,
displaying them in all their hugeness and blackness,--then suddenly
casts them behind into the light concealed, and goes her way triumphant
through a small space of clear sky.

In short, the moon traversing, or appearing to traverse, the small
clouds which lie in her way, now obscured by them, now easily
dissipating and shining through them, makes the drama of the moonlight
night to all watchers and night-travellers. Sailors speak of it as the
moon eating up the clouds. The traveller all alone, the moon all alone,
except for his sympathy, overcoming with incessant victory whole
squadrons of clouds above the forests and lakes and hills. When she is
obscured, he so sympathizes with her that he could whip a dog for her
relief, as Indians do. When she enters on a clear field of great extent
in the heavens, and shines unobstructedly, he is glad. And when she has
fought her way through all the squadron of her foes, and rides majestic
in a clear sky unscathed, and there are no more any obstructions in her
path, he cheerfully and confidently pursues his way, and rejoices in his
heart, and the cricket also seems to express joy in its song.

How insupportable would be the days, if the night, with its dews and
darkness, did not come to restore the drooping world! As the shades
begin to gather around us, our primeval instincts are aroused, and we
steal forth from our lairs, like the inhabitants of the jungle, in
search of those silent and brooding thoughts which are the natural prey
of the intellect.

Richter says, that "the earth is every day overspread with the veil of
night for the same reason as the cages of birds are darkened, namely,
that we may the more readily apprehend the higher harmonies of thought
in the hush and quiet of darkness. Thoughts which day turns into smoke
and mist stand about us in the night as light and flames; even as the
column which fluctuates above the crater of Vesuvius in the daytime
appears a pillar of cloud, but by night a pillar of fire."

There are nights in this climate of such serene and majestic beauty, so
medicinal and fertilizing to the spirit, that methinks a sensitive
nature would not devote them to oblivion, and perhaps there is no man
but would be better and wiser for spending them out of doors, though he
should sleep all the next day to pay for it, should sleep an Endymion
sleep, as the ancients expressed it,--nights which warrant the Grecian
epithet _ambrosial_, when, as in the land of Beulah, the atmosphere is
charged with dewy fragrance, and with music, and we take our repose and
have our dreams awake,--when the moon, not secondary to the sun,

           "gives us his blaze again,
    Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day.
    Now through the passing cloud she seems to stoop,
    Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime."

Diana still hunts in the New-England sky.

    "In heaven queen she is among the spheres;
      She, mistress-like, makes all things to be pure;
    Eternity in her oft change she bears;
      She Beauty is; by her the fair endure.

    "Time wears her not; she doth his chariot guide;
      Mortality below her orb is placed;
    By her the virtues of the stars down slide;
      By her is Virtue's perfect image cast."

The Hindoos compare the moon to a saintly being who has reached the last
stage of bodily existence.

Great restorer of antiquity, great enchanter! In a mild night, when the
harvest or hunter's moon shines unobstructedly, the houses in our
village, whatever architect they may have had by day, acknowledge only a
master. The village street is then as wild as the forest. New and old
things are confounded. I know not whether I am sitting on the ruins of a
wall, or on the material which is to compose a new one. Nature is an
instructed and impartial teacher, spreading no crude opinions, and
flattering none; she will be neither radical nor conservative. Consider
the moonlight, so civil, yet so savage!

The light is more proportionate to our knowledge than that of day. It is
no more dusky in ordinary nights than our mind's habitual atmosphere,
and the moonlight is as bright as our most illuminated moments are.

    "In such a night let me abroad remain
    Till morning breaks, and all's confused again."

Of what significance the light of day, if it is not the reflection of an
inward dawn?--to what purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if the
morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is merely garish and glaring.

When Ossian, in his address to the Sun, exclaims,--

    "Where has darkness its dwelling?
    Where is the cavernous home of the stars,
    When thou quickly followest their steps,
    Pursuing them like a hunter in the sky,--
    Thou climbing the lofty hills,
    They descending on barren mountains?"

who does not in his thought accompany the stars to their "cavernous
home," "descending" with them "on barren mountains"?

Nevertheless, even by night the sky is blue and not black; for we see
through the shadow of the earth into the distant atmosphere of day,
where the sunbeams are revelling.

       *       *       *       *       *

ANDANTE.

BEETHOVEN'S SIXTH SYMPHONY.


    Sounding above the warring of the years,
    Over their stretch of toils and pains and fears,
          Comes the well-loved refrain,
          That ancient voice again.

    Sweeter than when beside the river's marge
    We lay and watched, like Innocence at large,
          The changeful waters flow,
          Speaks this brave music now.

    Tender as sunlight upon childhood's head,
    Serene as moonlight upon childhood's bed,
          Comes the remembered power
          Of that forgotten hour.

    The little brook with merry voice and low,
    The gentle ripples rippling far below,
          Talked with no idle voice,
          Though idling were their choice.

    Now through the tumult and the pride of life,
    Gentler, yet firmly soothing all its strife,
          Nature draws near once more,
          And knocks at the world's door.

    She walks within her wild, harmonious maze,
    Evolving melodies from doubt and haze,
          And leaves us freed from care,
          Like children standing there.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE BROTHERS.


Doctor Franck came in as I sat sewing up the rents in an old shirt, that
Tom might go tidily to his grave. New shirts were needed for the living,
and there was no wife or mother to "dress him handsome when he went to
meet the Lord," as one woman said, describing the fine funeral she had
pinched herself to give her son.

"Miss Dane, I'm in a quandary," began the Doctor, with that expression
of countenance which says as plainly as words, "I want to ask a favor,
but I wish you'd save me the trouble."

"Can I help you out of it?"

"Faith! I don't like to propose it, but you certainly can, if you
please."

"Then give it a name, I beg."

"You see a Reb has just been brought in crazy with typhoid; a bad case
every way; a drunken, rascally little captain somebody took the trouble
to capture, but whom nobody wants to take the trouble to cure. The wards
are full, the ladies worked to death, and willing to be for our own
boys, but rather slow to risk their lives for a Reb. Now you've had the
fever, you like queer patients, your mate will see to your ward for a
while, and I will find you a good attendant. The fellow won't last long,
I fancy; but he can't die without some sort of care, you know. I've put
him in the fourth story of the west wing, away from the rest. It is
airy, quiet, and comfortable there. I'm on that ward, and will do my
best for you in every way. Now, then, will you go?"

"Of course I will, out of perversity, if not common charity; for some of
these people think that because I'm an abolitionist I am also a heathen,
and I should rather like to show them, that, though I cannot quite love
my enemies, I am willing to take care of them."

"Very good; I thought you'd go; and speaking of abolition reminds me
that you can have a contraband for servant, if you like. It is that fine
mulatto fellow who was found burying his Rebel master after the fight,
and, being badly cut over the head, our boys brought him along. Will you
have him?"

"By all means,--for I'll stand to my guns on that point, as on the
other; these black boys are far more faithful and handy than some of the
white scamps given me to serve, instead of being served by. But is this
man well enough?"

"Yes, for that sort of work, and I think you'll like him. He must have
been a handsome fellow before he got his face slashed; not much darker
than myself; his master's son, I dare say, and the white blood makes him
rather high and haughty about some things. He was in a bad way when he
came in, but vowed he'd die in the street rather than turn in with the
black fellows below; so I put him up in the west wing, to be out of the
way, and he's seen to the captain all the morning. "When can you go up?"

"As soon as Tom is laid out, Skinner moved, Haywood washed, Marble
dressed, Charley rubbed, Downs taken up, Upham laid down, and the whole
forty fed."

We both laughed, though the Doctor was on his way to the dead-house and
I held a shroud on my lap. But in a hospital one learns that
cheerfulness is one's salvation; for, in an atmosphere of suffering and
death, heaviness of heart would soon paralyze usefulness of hand, if the
blessed gift of smiles had been denied us.

In an hour I took possession of my new charge, finding a
dissipated-looking boy of nineteen or twenty raving in the solitary
little room, with no one near him but the contraband in the room
adjoining. Feeling decidedly more interest in the black man than in the
white, yet remembering the Doctor's hint of his being "high and
haughty," I glanced furtively at him as I scattered chloride of lime
about the room to purify the air, and settled matters to suit myself. I
had seen many contrabands, but never one so attractive as this. All
colored men are called "boys," even if their heads are white; this boy
was five-and-twenty at least, strong-limbed and manly, and had the look
of one who never had been cowed by abuse or worn with oppressive labor.
He sat on his bed doing nothing; no book, no pipe, no pen or paper
anywhere appeared, yet anything less indolent or listless than his
attitude and expression I never saw. Erect he sat, with a hand on either
knee, and eyes fixed on the bare wall opposite, so rapt in some
absorbing thought as to be unconscious of my presence, though the door
stood wide open and my movements were by no means noiseless. His face
was half averted, but I instantly approved the Doctor's taste, for the
profile which I saw possessed all the attributes of comeliness belonging
to his mixed race. He was more quadroon than mulatto, with Saxon
features, Spanish complexion darkened by exposure, color in lips and
cheek, waving hair, and an eye full of the passionate melancholy which
in such men always seems to utter a mute protest against the broken law
that doomed them at their birth. What could he be thinking of? The sick
boy cursed and raved, I rustled to and fro, steps passed the door, bells
rang, and the steady rumble of army-wagons came up from the street,
still he never stirred. I had seen colored people in what they call "the
black sulks," when, for days, they neither smiled nor spoke, and
scarcely ate. But this was something more than that; for the man was not
dully brooding over some small grievance; he seemed to see an
all-absorbing fact or fancy recorded on the wall, which was a blank to
me. I wondered if it were some deep wrong or sorrow, kept alive by
memory and impotent regret; if he mourned for the dead master to whom he
had been faithful to the end; or if the liberty now his were robbed of
half its sweetness by the knowledge that some one near and dear to him
still languished in the hell from which he had escaped. My heart quite
warmed to him at that idea; I wanted to know and comfort him; and,
following the impulse of the moment, I went in and touched him on the
shoulder.

In an instant the man vanished and the slave appeared. Freedom was too
new a boon to have wrought its blessed changes yet, and as he started
up, with his hand at his temple and an obsequious "Yes, Ma'am," any
romance that had gathered round him fled away, leaving the saddest of
all sad facts in living guise before me. Not only did the manhood seem
to die out of him, but the comeliness that first attracted me; for, as
he turned, I saw the ghastly wound that had laid open cheek and
forehead. Being partly healed, it was no longer bandaged, but held
together with strips of that transparent plaster which I never see
without a shiver and swift recollections of the scenes with which it is
associated in my mind. Part of his black hair had been shorn away, and
one eye was nearly closed; pain so distorted, and the cruel sabre-cut so
marred that portion of his face, that, when I saw it, I felt as if a
fine medal had been suddenly reversed, showing me a far more striking
type of human suffering and wrong than Michel Angelo's bronze prisoner.
By one of those inexplicable processes that often teach us how little we
understand ourselves, my purpose was suddenly changed, and though I went
in to offer comfort as a friend, I merely gave an order as a mistress.

"Will you open these windows? this man needs more air."

He obeyed at once, and, as he slowly urged up the unruly sash, the
handsome profile was again turned toward me, and again I was possessed
by my first impression so strongly that I involuntarily said,--

"Thank you, Sir."

Perhaps it was fancy, but I thought that in the look of mingled surprise
and something like reproach which he gave me there was also a trace of
grateful pleasure. But he said, in that tone of spiritless humility
these poor souls learn so soon,--

"I a'n't a white man, Ma'am, I'm a contraband."

"Yes, I know it; but a contraband is a free man, and I heartily
congratulate you."

He liked that; his face shone, he squared his shoulders, lifted his
head, and looked me full in the eye with a brisk--

"Thank ye, Ma'am; anything more to do fer yer?"

"Doctor Franck thought you would help me with this man, as there are
many patients and few nurses or attendants. Have you had the fever?"

"No, Ma'am."

"They should have thought of that when they put him here; wounds and
fevers should not be together. I'll try to get you moved."

He laughed a sudden laugh,--if he had been a white man, I should have
called it scornful; as he was a few shades darker than myself, I suppose
it must be considered an insolent, or at least an unmannerly one.

"It don't matter, Ma'am. I'd rather be up here with the fever than down
with those niggers; and there a'n't no other place fer me."

Poor fellow! that was true. No ward in all the hospital would take him
in to lie side by side with the most miserable white wreck there. Like
the bat in AEsop's fable, he belonged to neither race; and the pride of
one, the helplessness of the other, kept him hovering alone in the
twilight a great sin has brought to overshadow the whole land.

"You shall stay, then; for I would far rather have you than my lazy
Jack. But are you well and strong enough?"

"I guess I'll do, Ma'am."

He spoke with a passive sort of acquiescence,--as if it did not much
matter, if he were not able, and no one would particularly rejoice, if
he were.

"Yes, I think you will. By what name shall I call you?"

"Bob, Ma'am."

Every woman has her pet whim; one of mine was to teach the men
self-respect by treating them respectfully. Tom, Dick, and Harry would
pass, when lads rejoiced in those familiar abbreviations; but to address
men often old enough to be my father in that style did not suit my
old-fashioned ideas of propriety. This "Bob" would never do; I should
have found it as easy to call the chaplain "Gus" as my tragical-looking
contraband by a title so strongly associated with the tail of a kite.

"What is your other name?" I asked. "I like to call my attendants by
their last names rather than by their first."

"I've got no other, Ma'am; we have our masters' names, or do without.
Mine's dead, and I won't have anything of his about me."

"Well, I'll call you Robert, then, and you may fill this pitcher for me,
if you will be so kind."

He went; but, through all the tame obedience years of servitude had
taught him, I could see that the proud spirit his father gave him was
not yet subdued, for the look and gesture with which he repudiated his
master's name were a more effective declaration of independence than any
Fourth-of-July orator could have prepared.

We spent a curious week together. Robert seldom left his room, except
upon my errands; and I was a prisoner all day, often all night, by the
bedside of the Rebel. The fever burned itself rapidly away, for there
seemed little vitality to feed it in the feeble frame of this old young
man, whose life had been none of the most righteous, judging from the
revelations made by his unconscious lips; since more than once Robert
authoritatively silenced him, when my gentler hushings were of no avail,
and blasphemous wanderings or ribald camp-songs made my cheeks burn and
Robert's face assume an aspect of disgust. The captain was a gentleman
in the world's eye, but the contraband was the gentleman in mine;--I was
a fanatic, and that accounts for such depravity of taste, I hope. I
never asked Robert of himself, feeling that somewhere there was a spot
still too sore to bear the lightest touch; but, from his language,
manner, and intelligence, I inferred that his color had procured for him
the few advantages within the reach of a quick-witted, kindly treated
slave. Silent, grave, and thoughtful, but most serviceable, was my
contraband; glad of the books I brought him, faithful in the performance
of the duties I assigned to him, grateful for the friendliness I could
not but feel and show toward him. Often I longed to ask what purpose was
so visibly altering his aspect with such daily deepening gloom. But I
never dared, and no one else had either time or desire to pry into the
past of this specimen of one branch of the chivalrous "F.F.Vs."

On the seventh night, Dr. Franck suggested that it would be well for
some one, besides the general watchman of the ward, to be with the
captain, as it might be his last. Although the greater part of the two
preceding nights had been spent there, of course I offered to
remain,--for there is a strange fascination in these scenes, which
renders one careless of fatigue and unconscious of fear until the crisis
is passed.

"Give him water as long as he can drink, and if he drops into a natural
sleep, it may save him. I'll look in at midnight, when some change will
probably take place. Nothing but sleep or a miracle will keep him now.
Good night."

Away went the Doctor; and, devouring a whole mouthful of gapes, I
lowered the lamp, wet the captain's head, and sat down on a hard stool
to begin my watch. The captain lay with his hot, haggard face turned
toward me, filling the air with his poisonous breath, and feebly
muttering, with lips and tongue so parched that the sanest speech would
have been difficult to understand. Robert was stretched on his bed in
the inner room, the door of which stood ajar, that a fresh draught from
his open window might carry the fever-fumes away through mine. I could
just see a long, dark figure, with the lighter outline of a face, and,
having little else to do just then, I fell to thinking of this curious
contraband, who evidently prized his freedom highly, yet seemed in no
haste to enjoy it. Doctor Franck had offered to send him on to safer
quarters, but he had said, "No, thank yer, Sir, not yet," and then had
gone away to fall into one of those black moods of his, which began to
disturb me, because I had no power to lighten them. As I sat listening
to the clocks from the steeples all about us, I amused myself with
planning Robert's future, as I often did my own, and had dealt out to
him a generous hand of trumps wherewith to play this game of life which
hitherto had gone so cruelly against him, when a harsh, choked voice
called,--

"Lucy!"

It was the captain, and some new terror seemed to have gifted him with
momentary strength.

"Yes, here's Lucy," I answered, hoping that by following the fancy I
might quiet him,--for his face was damp with the clammy moisture, and
his frame shaken with the nervous tremor that so often precedes death.
His dull eye fixed upon me, dilating with a bewildered look of
incredulity and wrath, till he broke out fiercely,--

"That's a lie! she's dead,--and so's Bob, damn him!"

Finding speech a failure, I began to sing the quiet tune that had often
soothed delirium like this; but hardly had the line,

    "See gentle patience smile on pain,"

passed my lips, when he clutched me by the wrist, whispering like one in
mortal fear,--

"Hush! she used to sing that way to Bob, but she never would to me. I
swore I'd whip the Devil out of her, and I did; but you know before she
cut her throat she said she'd haunt me, and there she is!"

He pointed behind me with an aspect of such pale dismay, that I
involuntarily glanced over my shoulder and started as if I had seen a
veritable ghost; for, peering from the gloom of that inner room, I saw a
shadowy face, with dark hair all about it, and a glimpse of scarlet at
the throat. An instant showed me that it was only Robert leaning from
his bed's-foot, wrapped in a gray army-blanket, with his red shirt just
visible above it, and his long hair disordered by sleep. But what a
strange expression was on his face! The unmarred side was toward me,
fixed and motionless as when I first observed it,--less absorbed now,
but more intent. His eye glittered, his lips were apart like one who
listened with every sense, and his whole aspect reminded me of a hound
to which some wind had brought the scent of unsuspected prey.

"Do you know him, Robert? Does he mean you?"

"Lord, no, Ma'am; they all own half a dozen Bobs: but hearin' my name
woke me; that's all."

He spoke quite naturally, and lay down again, while I returned to my
charge, thinking that this paroxysm was probably his last. But by
another hour I perceived a hopeful change, for the tremor had subsided,
the cold dew was gone, his breathing was more regular, and Sleep, the
healer, had descended to save or take him gently away. Doctor Franck
looked in at midnight, bade me keep all cool and quiet, and not fail to
administer a certain draught as soon as the captain woke. Very much
relieved, I laid my head on my arms, uncomfortably folded on the little
table, and fancied I was about to perform one of the feats which
practice renders possible,--"sleeping with one eye open," as we say: a
half-and-half doze, for all senses sleep but that of hearing; the
faintest murmur, sigh, or motion will break it, and give one back one's
wits much brightened by the brief permission to "stand at ease." On this
night, the experiment was a failure, for previous vigils, confinement,
and much care had rendered naps a dangerous indulgence. Having roused
half a dozen times in an hour to find all quiet, I dropped my heavy head
on my arms, and, drowsily resolving to look up again in fifteen minutes,
fell fast asleep.

The striking of a deep-voiced clock woke me with a start. "That is one,"
thought I, but, to my dismay, two more strokes followed; and in
remorseful haste I sprang up to see what harm my long oblivion had done.
A strong hand put me back into my seat, and held me there. It was
Robert. The instant my eye met his my heart began to beat, and all along
my nerves tingled that electric flash which foretells a danger that we
cannot see. He was very pale, his mouth grim, and both eyes full of
sombre fire,--for even the wounded one was open now, all the more
sinister for the deep scar above and below. But his touch was steady,
his voice quiet, as he said,--

"Sit still, Ma'am; I won't hurt yer, nor even scare yer, if I can help
it, but yer waked too soon."

"Let me go, Robert,--the, captain is stirring,--I must give him
something."

"No, Ma'am, yer can't stir an inch. Look here!"

Holding me with one hand, with the other he took up the glass in which I
had left the draught, and showed me it was empty.

"Has he taken it?" I asked, more and more bewildered.

"I flung it out o' winder, Ma'am; he'll have to do without."

"But why, Robert? why did you do it?"

"Because I hate him!"

Impossible to doubt the truth of that; his whole face showed it, as he
spoke through his set teeth, and launched a fiery glance at the
unconscious captain. I could only hold my breath and stare blankly at
him, wondering what mad act was coming next. I suppose I shook and
turned white, as women have a foolish habit of doing when sudden danger
daunts them; for Robert released my arm, sat down upon the bedside just
in front of me, and said, with the ominous quietude that made me cold to
see and hear,--

"Don't yer be frightened, Ma'am: don't try to run away, fer the door's
locked an' the key in my pocket; don't yer cry out, fer yer'd have to
scream a long while, with my hand on yer mouth, before yer was heard.
Be still, an' I'll tell yer what I'm goin' to do."

"Lord help us! he has taken the fever in some sudden, violent way, and
is out of his head. I must humor him till some one comes"; in pursuance
of which swift determination, I tried to say, quite composedly,--

"I will be still and hear you; but open the window. Why did you shut
it?"

"I'm sorry I can't do it, Ma'am; but yer'd jump out, or call, if I did,
an' I'm not ready yet. I shut it to make yer sleep, an' heat would do it
quicker 'n anything else I could do."

The captain moved, and feebly muttered, "Water!" Instinctively I rose,
to give it to him, but the heavy hand came down upon my shoulder, and in
the same decided tone Robert said,--

"The water went with the physic; let him call."

"Do let me go to him! he'll die without care!"

"I mean he shall;--don't yer interfere, if yer please, Ma'am."

In spite of his quiet tone and respectful manner, I saw murder in his
eyes, and turned faint with fear; yet the fear excited me, and, hardly
knowing what I did, I seized the hands that had seized me, crying,--

"No, no, you shall not kill him! it is base to hurt a helpless man. Why
do you hate him? He is not your master?"

"He's my brother."

I felt that answer from head to foot, and seemed to fathom what was
coming, with a prescience vague, but unmistakable. One appeal was left
to me, and I made it.

"Robert, tell me what it means? Do not commit a crime and make me
accessory to it. There is a better way of righting wrong than by
violence;--let me help you find it."

My voice trembled as I spoke, and I heard the frightened flutter of my
heart; so did he, and if any little act of mine had ever won affection
or respect from him, the memory of it served me then. He looked down,
and seemed to put some question to himself; whatever it was, the answer
was in my favor, for when his eyes rose again, they were gloomy, but not
desperate.

"I _will_ tell you, Ma'am; but mind, this makes no difference; the boy
is mine. I'll give the Lord a chance to take him fust; if He don't, I
shall."

"Oh, no! remember, he is your brother."

An unwise speech; I felt it as it passed my lips, for a black frown
gathered on Robert's face, and his strong hands closed with an ugly sort
of grip. But he did not touch the poor soul gasping there behind him,
and seemed content to let the slow suffocation of that stifling room end
his frail life.

"I'm not like to forget that, Ma'am, when I've been thinkin' of it all
this week. I knew him when they fetched him in, an' would 'a' done it
long 'fore this, but I wanted to ask where Lucy was; he knows,--he told
to-night--an' now he's done for."

"Who is Lucy?" I asked hurriedly, intent on keeping his mind busy with
any thought but murder.

With one of the swift transitions of a mixed temperament like this, at
my question Robert's deep eyes filled, the clenched hands were spread
before his face, and all I heard were the broken words,--

"My wife,--he took her"--

In that instant every thought of fear was swallowed up in burning
indignation for the wrong, and a perfect passion of pity for the
desperate man so tempted to avenge an injury for which there seemed no
redress but this. He was no longer slave or contraband, no drop of black
blood marred him in my sight, but an infinite compassion yearned to
save, to help, to comfort him. Words seemed so powerless I offered none,
only put my hand on his poor head, wounded, homeless, bowed down with
grief for which I had no cure, and softly smoothed the long neglected
hair, pitifully wondering the while where was the wife who must have
loved this tender-hearted man so well.

The captain moaned again, and faintly whispered, "Air!" but I never
stirred. God forgive me! just then I hated him as only a woman thinking
of a sister woman's wrong could hate. Robert looked up; his eyes were
dry again, his mouth grim. I saw that, said, "Tell me more," and he
did,--for sympathy is a gift the poorest may give, the proudest stoop to
receive.

"Yer see, Ma'am, his father,--I might say ours, if I warn't ashamed of
both of 'em,--his father died two years ago, an' left us all to Marster
Ned,--that's him here, eighteen then. He always hated me, I looked so
like old Marster: he don't,--only the light skin an' hair. Old Marster
was kind to all of us, me 'specially, an' bought Lucy off the next
plantation down there in South Car'lina, when he found I liked her. I
married her, all I could, Ma'am; it warn't much, but we was true to one
another till Marster Ned come home a year after an' made hell fur both
of us. He sent my old mother to be used up in his rice-swamp in Georgy;
he found me with my pretty Lucy, an' though young Miss cried, an' I
prayed to him on my knees, an' Lucy run away, he wouldn't have no mercy;
he brought her back, an'--took her, Ma'am."

"Oh! what did you do?" I cried, hot with helpless pain and passion.

How the man's outraged heart sent the blood flaming up into his face and
deepened the tones of his impetuous voice, as he stretched his arm
across the bed, saying, with a terribly expressive gesture,--

"I half murdered him, an' to-night I'll finish."

"Yes, yes,--but go on now; what came next?"

He gave me a look that showed no white man could have felt a deeper
degradation in remembering and confining these last acts of brotherly
oppression.

"They whipped me till I couldn't stand, an' then they sold me further
South. Yer thought I was a white man once;--look here!"

With a sudden wrench he tore the shirt from neck to waist, and on his
strong brown shoulders showed me furrows deeply ploughed, wounds which,
though healed, were ghastlier to me than any in that house. I could not
speak to him, and, with the pathetic dignity a great grief lends the
humblest sufferer, he ended his brief tragedy by simply saying,--

"That's all, Ma'am. I've never seen her since, an' now I never shall in
this world,--maybe not in t' other."

"But, Robert, why think her dead? The captain was wandering when he said
those sad things; perhaps he will retract them when he is sane. Don't
despair; don't give up yet."

"No, Ma'am, I guess he's right; she was too proud to bear that long.
It's like her to kill herself. I told her to, if there was no other way;
an' she always minded me, Lucy did. My poor girl! Oh, it warn't right!
No, by God, it warn't!"

As the memory of this bitter wrong, this double bereavement, burned in
his sore heart, the devil that lurks in every strong man's blood leaped
up; he put his hand upon his brother's throat, and, watching the white
face before him, muttered low between his teeth,--

"I'm lettin' him go too easy; there's no pain in this; we a'n't even
yet. I wish he knew me. Marster Ned! it's Bob; where's Lucy?"

From the captain's lips there came a long faint sigh, and nothing but a
flutter of the eyelids showed that he still lived. A strange stillness
filled the room as the elder brother held the younger's life suspended
in his hand, while wavering between a dim hope and a deadly hate. In the
whirl of thoughts that went on in my brain, only one was clear enough to
act upon. I must prevent murder, if I could,--but how? What could I do
up there alone, locked in with a dying man and a lunatic?--for any mind
yielded utterly to any unrighteous impulse is mad while the impulse
rules it. Strength I had not, nor much courage, neither time nor wit for
stratagem, and chance only could bring me help before it was too late.
But one weapon I possessed,--a tongue,--often a woman's best defence;
and sympathy, stronger than fear, gave me power to use it. What I said
Heaven only knows, but surely Heaven helped me; words burned on my lips,
tears streamed from my eyes, and some good angel prompted me to use the
one name that had power to arrest my hearer's hand and touch his heart.
For at that moment I heartily believed that Lucy lived, and this earnest
faith rousted in him a like belief.

He listened with the lowering look of one in whom brute instinct was
sovereign for the time,--a look that makes the noblest countenance base.
He was but a man,--a poor, untaught, outcast, outraged man. Life had few
joys for him; the world offered him no honors, no success, no home, no
love. What future would this crime mar? and why should he deny himself
that sweet, yet bitter morsel called revenge? How many white men, with
all New England's freedom, culture, Christianity, would not have felt as
he felt then? Should I have reproached him for a human anguish, a human
longing for redress, all now left him from the ruin of his few poor
hopes? Who had taught him that self-control, self-sacrifice, are
attributes that make men masters of the earth and lift them nearer
heaven? Should I have urged the beauty of forgiveness, the duty of
devout submission? He had no religion, for he was no saintly "Uncle
Tom," and Slavery's black shadow seemed to darken all the world to him
and shut out God. Should I have warned him of penalties, of judgments,
and the potency of law? What did he know of justice, or the mercy that
should temper that stern virtue, when every law, human and divine, had
been broken on his hearthstone? Should I have tried to touch him by
appeals to filial duty, to brotherly love? How had his appeals been
answered? What memories had father and brother stored up in his heart to
plead for either now? No,--all these influences, these associations,
would have proved worse than useless, had I been calm enough to try
them. I was not; but instinct, subtler than reason, showed me the one
safe clue by which to lead this troubled soul from the labyrinth in
which it groped and nearly fell. When I paused, breathless, Robert
turned to me, asking, as if human assurances could strengthen his faith
in Divine Omnipotence,--

"Do you believe, if I let Marster Ned live, the Lord will give me back
my Lucy?"

"As surely as there is a Lord, you will find her here or in the
beautiful hereafter, where there is no black or white, no master and no
slave."

He took his hand from his brother's throat, lifted his eyes from my face
to the wintry sky beyond, as if searching for that blessed country,
happier even than the happy North. Alas, it was the darkest hour before
the dawn!--there was no star above, no light below but the pale glimmer
of the lamp that showed the brother who had made him desolate. Like a
blind man who believes there is a sun, yet cannot see it, he shook his
head, let his arms drop nervelessly upon his knees, and sat there dumbly
asking that question which many a soul whose faith is firmer fixed than
his has asked in hours less dark than this,--"Where is God?" I saw the
tide had turned, and strenuously tried to keep this rudderless life-boat
from slipping back into the whirlpool wherein it had been so nearly
lost.

"I have listened to you, Robert; now hear me, and heed what I say,
because my heart is full of pity for you, full of hope for your future,
and a desire to help you now. I want you to go away from here, from the
temptation of this place, and the sad thoughts that haunt it. You have
conquered yourself once, and I honor you for it, because, the harder the
battle, the more glorious the victory; but it is safer to put a greater
distance between you and this man. I will write you letters, give you
money, and send you to good old Massachusetts to begin your new life a
freeman,--yes, and a happy man; for when the captain is himself again, I
will learn where Lucy is, and move heaven and earth to find and give her
back to you. Will you do this, Robert?"

Slowly, very slowly, the answer came; for the purpose of a week, perhaps
a year, was hard to relinquish in an hour.

"Yes, Ma'am, I will."

"Good! Now you are the man I thought you, and I'll work for you with all
my heart. You need sleep, my poor fellow; go, and try to forget. The
captain is still alive, and as yet you are spared that sin. No, don't
look there; I'll care for him. Come, Robert, for Lucy's sake."

Thank Heaven for the immortality of love! for when all other means of
salvation failed, a spark of this vital fire softened the man's iron
will until a woman's hand could bend it. He let me take from him the
key, let me draw him gently away and lead him to the solitude which now
was the most healing balm I could bestow. Once in his little room, he
fell down on his bed and lay there as if spent with the sharpest
conflict of his life. I slipped the bolt across his door, and unlocked
my own, flung up the window, steadied myself with a breath of air, then
rushed to Doctor Franck. He came; and till dawn we worked together,
saving one brother's life, and taking earnest thought how best to secure
the other's liberty. When the sun came up as blithely as if it shone
only upon happy homes, the Doctor went to Robert. For an hour I heard
the murmur of their voices; once I caught the sound of heavy sobs, and
for a time a reverent hush, as if in the silence that good man were
ministering to soul as well as sense. When he departed he took Robert
with him, pausing to tell me he should get him off as soon as possible,
but not before we met again.

Nothing more was seen of them all day; another surgeon came to see the
captain, and another attendant came to fill the empty place. I tried to
rest, but could not, with the thought of poor Lucy tugging at my heart,
and was soon back at my post again, anxiously hoping that my contraband
had not been too hastily spirited away. Just as night fell there came a
tap, and opening, I saw Robert literally "clothed and in his right
mind." The Doctor had replaced the ragged suit with tidy garments, and
no trace of that tempestuous night remained but deeper lines upon the
forehead and the docile look of a repentant child. He did not cross the
threshold, did not offer me his hand,--only took off his cap, saying,
with a traitorous falter in his voice,--

"God bless you, Ma'am! I'm goin'."

I put out both my hands, and held his fast.

"Good bye, Robert! Keep up good heart, and when I come home to
Massachusetts we'll meet in a happier place than this. Are you quite
ready, quite comfortable for your journey?"

"Yes, Ma'am, yes; the Doctor's fixed everything; I'm goin' with a friend
of his; my papers are all right, an' I'm as happy as I can be till I
find"--

He stopped there; then went on, with a glance into the room,--

"I'm glad I didn't do it, an' I thank yer, Ma'am, fer hinderin'
me,--thank yer hearty; but I'm afraid I hate him jest the same."

Of course he did; and so did I; for these faulty hearts of ours cannot
turn perfect in a night, but need frost and fire, wind and rain, to
ripen and make them ready for the great harvest-home. Wishing to divert
his mind, I put my poor mite into his hand, and, remembering the magic
of a certain little book, I gave him mine, on whose dark cover whitely
shone the Virgin Mother and the Child, the grand history of whose life
the book contained. The money went into Robert's pocket with a grateful
murmur, the book into his bosom with a long look and a tremulous--

"I never saw _my_ baby, Ma'am."

I broke down then; and though my eyes were too dim to see, I felt the
touch of lips upon my hands, heard the sound of departing feet, and knew
my contraband was gone.

When one feels an intense dislike, the less one says about the subject
of it the better; therefore I shall merely record that the captain
lived,--in time was exchanged; and that, whoever the other party was, I
am convinced the Government got the best of the bargain. But long before
this occurred, I had fulfilled my promise to Robert; for as soon as my
patient recovered strength of memory enough to make his answer
trustworthy, I asked, without any circumlocution,--

"Captain Fairfax, where is Lucy?"

And too feeble to be angry, surprised, or insincere, he straightway
answered,--

"Dead, Miss Dane."

"And she killed herself, when you sold Bob?"

"How the Devil did you know that?" he muttered, with an expression
half-remorseful, half-amazed; but I was satisfied, and said no more.

Of course, this went to Robert, waiting far away there in a lonely
home,--waiting, working, hoping for his Lucy. It almost broke my heart
to do it; but delay was weak, deceit was wicked; so I sent the heavy
tidings, and very soon the answer came,--only three lines; but I felt
that the sustaining power of the man's life was gone.

"I thought I'd never see her any more; I'm glad to know she's out of
trouble. I thank yer, Ma'am; an' if they let us, I'll fight fer yer till
I'm killed, which I hope will be 'fore long."

Six months later he had his wish, and kept his word.

Every one knows the story of the attack on Fort Wagner; but we should
not tire yet of recalling how our Fifty-Fourth, spent with three
sleepless nights, a day's fast, and a march under the July sun, stormed
the fort as night fell, facing death in many shapes, following their
brave leaders through a fiery rain of shot and shell, fighting valiantly
for "God and Governor Andrew,"--how the regiment that went into action
seven hundred strong came out having had nearly half its number
captured, killed, or wounded, leaving their young commander to be
buried, like a chief of earlier times, with his body-guard around him,
faithful to the death. Surely, the insult turns to honor, and the wide
grave needs no monument but the heroism that consecrates it in our
sight; surely, the hearts that held him nearest see through their tears
a noble victory in the seeming sad defeat; and surely, God's benediction
was bestowed, when this loyal soul answered, as Death called the roll,
"Lord, here am I, with the brothers Thou hast given me!"

The future must show how well that fight was fought; for though Fort
Wagner still defies us, public prejudice is down; and through the
cannon-smoke of that black night the manhood of the colored race shines
before many eyes that would not see, rings in many ears that would not
hear, wins many hearts that would not hitherto believe.

When the news came that we were needed, there was none so glad as I to
leave teaching contrabands, the new work I had taken up, and go to nurse
"our boys," as my dusky flock so proudly called the wounded of the
Fifty-Fourth. Feeling more satisfaction, as I assumed my big apron and
turned up my cuffs, than if dressing for the President's levee, I fell
to work on board the hospital-ship in Hilton-Head harbor. The scene was
most familiar, and yet strange; for only dark faces looked up at me from
the pallets so thickly laid along the floor, and I missed the sharp
accent of my Yankee boys in the slower, softer voices calling cheerily
to one another, or answering my questions with a stout, "We'll never
give it up, Ma'am, till the last Reb's dead," or, "If our people's free,
we can afford to die."

Passing from bed to bed, intent on making one pair of hands do the work
of three, at least, I gradually washed, fed, and bandaged my way down
the long line of sable heroes, and coming to the very last, found that
he was my contraband. So old, so worn, so deathly weak and wan, I never
should have known him but for the deep scar on his cheek. That side lay
uppermost, and caught my eye at once; but even then I doubted, such an
awful change had come upon him, when, turning to the ticket just above
his head, I saw the name, "Robert Dane." That both assured and touched
me, for, remembering that he had no name, I knew that he had taken mine.
I longed for him to speak to me, to tell how he had fared since I lost
sight of him, and let me perform some little service for him in return
for many he had done for me; but he seemed asleep; and as I stood
reliving that strange night again, a bright lad, who lay next him softly
waving an old fan across both beds, looked up and said,--

"I guess you know him, Ma'am?"

"You are right. Do you?"

"As much as any one was able to, Ma'am."

"Why do you say 'was,' as if the man were dead and gone?"

"I s'pose because I know he'll have to go. He's got a bad jab in the
breast, an' is bleedin' inside, the Doctor says. He don't suffer any,
only gets weaker 'n' weaker every minute. I've been fannin' him this
long while, an' he's talked a little; but he don't know me now, so he's
most gone, I guess."

There was so much sorrow and affection in the boy's face, that I
remembered something, and asked, with redoubled interest,--

"Are you the one that brought him off? I was told about a boy who nearly
lost his life in saving that of his mate."

I dare say the young fellow blushed, as any modest lad might have done;
I could not see it, but I heard the chuckle of satisfaction that escaped
him, as he glanced from his shattered arm and bandaged side to the pale
figure opposite.

"Lord, Ma'am, that's nothin'; we boys always stan' by one another, an' I
warn't goin' to leave him to be tormented any more by them cussed Rebs.
He's been a slave once, though he don't look half so much like it as me,
an' I was born in Boston."

He did not; for the speaker was as black as the ace of spades,--being a
sturdy specimen, the knave of clubs would perhaps be a fitter
representative,--but the dark freeman looked at the white slave with the
pitiful, yet puzzled expression I have so often seen on the faces of our
wisest men, when this tangled question of Slavery presents itself,
asking to be cut or patiently undone.

"Tell me what you know of this man; for, even if he were awake, he is
too weak to talk."

"I never saw him till I joined the regiment, an' no one 'peared to have
got much out of him. He was a shut-up sort of feller, an' didn't seem to
care for anything but gettin' at the Rebs. Some say he was the fust man
of us that enlisted; I know he fretted till we were off, an' when we
pitched into old Wagner, he fought like the Devil."

"Were you with him when he was wounded? How was it?"

"Yes, Ma'am. There was somethin' queer about it; for he 'peared to know
the chap that killed him, an' the chap knew him. I don't dare to ask,
but I rather guess one owned the other some time,--for, when they
clinched, the chap sung out, 'Bob!' an' Dane, 'Marster Ned!'--then they
went at it."

I sat down suddenly, for the old anger and compassion struggled in my
heart, and I both longed and feared to hear what was to follow.

"You see, when the Colonel--Lord keep an' send him back to us!--it a'n't
certain yet, you know, Ma'am, though it's two days ago we lost
him--well, when the Colonel shouted, 'Rush on, boys, rush on!' Dane tore
away as if he was goin' to take the fort alone; I was next him, an' kept
close as we went through the ditch an' up the wall. Hi! warn't that a
rusher!" and the boy flung up his well arm with a whoop, as if the mere
memory of that stirring moment came over him in a gust of irrepressible
excitement.

"Were you afraid?" I said,--asking the question women often put, and
receiving the answer they seldom fail to get.

"No, Ma'am!"--emphasis on the "Ma'am,"--"I never thought of anything but
the damn' Rebs, that scalp, slash, an' cut our ears off, when they git
us. I was bound to let daylight into one of 'em at least, an' I did.
Hope he liked it!"

"It is evident that you did, and I don't blame you in the least. Now go
on about Robert, for I should be at work."

"He was one of the fust up; I was just behind, an' though the whole
thing happened in a minute, I remember how it was, for all I was yellin'
an' knockin' round like mad. Just where we were, some sort of an officer
was wavin' his sword an' cheerin' on his men; Dane saw him by a big
flash that come by; he flung away his gun, give a leap, an' went at that
feller as if he was Jeff, Beauregard, an' Lee, all in one. I scrabbled
after as quick as I could, but was only up in time to see him git the
sword straight through him an' drop into the ditch. You needn't ask what
I did next, Ma'am, for I don't quite know myself; all I'm clear about
is, that I managed somehow to pitch that Reb into the fort as dead as
Moses, git hold of Dane, an' bring him off. Poor old feller! we said we
went in to live or die; he said he went in to die, an' he's done it."

I had been intently watching the excited speaker; but as he regretfully
added those last words I turned again, and Robert's eyes met
mine,--those melancholy eyes, so full of an intelligence that proved he
had heard, remembered, and reflected with that preternatural power which
often outlives all other faculties. He knew me, yet gave no greeting;
was glad to see a woman's face, yet had no smile wherewith to welcome
it; felt that he was dying, yet uttered no farewell. He was too far
across the river to return or linger now; departing thought, strength,
breath, were spent in one grateful look, one murmur of submission to the
last pang he could ever feel. His lips moved, and, bending to them, a
whisper chilled my cheek, as it shaped the broken words,--

"I would have done it,--but it's better so,--I'm satisfied."

Ah! well he might be,--for, as he turned his face from the shadow of the
life that was, the sunshine of the life to be touched it with a
beautiful content, and in the drawing of a breath my contraband found
wife and home, eternal liberty and God.

       *       *       *       *       *


THE SAM ADAMS REGIMENTS IN THE TOWN OF BOSTON.--CONCLUDED.[1]

THE REMOVAL.


"I have been in constant panic," wrote Franklin in London to Dr. Cooper
in Boston, "since I heard of troops assembling in Boston, lest the
madness of mobs, or the interference of soldiers, or both, when too near
each other, might occasion some mischief difficult to be prevented or
repaired, and which might spread far and wide."

The people wore indignant at the introduction of the troops, and the
crown officials were arrogant and goading; but so wise and forbearing
were the popular leaders, that, for ten months, from October, 1768, to
August, 1769, no detriment came to their cause from the madness of mobs
or the insolence of soldiers. The Loyalists, in this public order, saw
the wholesome terror with which military force had imbued the community;
they said this "had prevented, if it had not put a final period to, its
most pestilential town-meetings": but they termed this quiet "only a
truce procured from the dread of the bayonet"; and they held that
nothing would reach and suppress the rising spirit of independence but a
radical stroke at the democratic element in the local Constitution. They
relied on physical force to carry out such a policy, and hence they
looked on the demand of the people for a withdrawal of the troops as
equivalent to a demand for the abandonment of their policy and the
abdication of the Government. The partial removal already made caused
great chagrin. The report, at first, was hardly credited in British
political circles, and, when confirmed, was construed into inability,
inconsistency, and concession by the Administration, and a sign that
things were growing worse in America.

General Gage had withdrawn the Sixty-Fourth and Sixty-Fifth Regiments,
the detachment of the Fifty-Ninth, and the company of artillery, which
left the Fourteenth Regiment under Lieutenant-Colonel Dalrymple and the
Twenty-Ninth under Lieutenant-Colonel Carr,--the two regiments which
Lord North termed "the Sam Adams Regiments,"--not enough, if the
Ministers intended to govern by military force, and too many, if they
did not intend this. They continued under General Mackay until he left
for England, when the command devolved on Lieutenant-Colonel Dalrymple,
the senior officer, under whom they had landed, who was exacting, severe
in his judgment on the Patriots, and impatient of professional service.
Commodore Hood and his family also sailed for Halifax. Both Mackay and
Hood, aiming at reconciliation, and liberal in non-essentials, easily
won the general good-will. The disuse of the press-gang, which even
"Junius" was now justifying, and which England had not learned to
abominate, but which rowelled the differently trained mind of the
Colonies, was regarded as a great concession to personal liberty; and
the discontinuance of parades and horse-racing on Sundays was accepted
as a concession to a religious sentiment that was very general, and
which, so far from deserving the sneer of being hypocritical, indicated
the wide growth of respect for things noble and divine. These officers
seemed, at least, to steer clear of political matters, to keep to the
line of their profession, and to make the best of an irksome duty. They
lived on good terms with the popular leaders, were invited to visit the
common-schools with the Selectmen, appeared at the public festivals,
and, on their departure, were handsomely complimented in both the Whig
and Tory journals for the manner in which they had discharged their
duties. They were, however, no mere lookers-on, and their official
representations and conclusions were no more far-reaching than those of
their superiors. Hood, from Halifax, wrote in harsh terms of Boston,
although he put on record severe and true things of that chronic local
infliction, the Commissioners of the Customs. His official letters,
printed this year, were open to sharp criticism, which they received in
the journals. Not, however, until the publication of the Cavendish
Debates was it known that General Mackay, who was regarded as uncommonly
liberal, received every personal attention, and was the most
complimented by the press, stood up in the House of Commons, soon after
his arrival in England, and maligned Boston in severe terms. He charged
the town with being without government; said it was tyrannized over by a
set of men hardly respectable, in point of fortune; and even had the
hardihood to say that some of the troops he commanded there had been
sold for slaves!

Boston, now a subject of speculation in Continental courts, as well as
of abuse in Parliament, was destined to undergo a still severer trial
for the succeeding seven months, from August, 1769, to March, 1770,
during the continuance of the two remaining regiments. This was an
eventful period, characterized by violent agitation in the Colonies to
promote a repeal of the revenue acts and an abandonment of the
intermeddling and aggressive policy of the Ministry; and it was marked
by uncommon political activity in Boston. The popular leaders, as
though no British troops were lookers-on, and in spite, too, of the
protests and commands of the crown officials, steadily guided the
deliberations of the people in Faneuil Hall; and at times the disorderly
also, in violations of law and personal liberty that can never be
justified, intrepidly carried out their projects. The events of this
period tended powerfully to inflame the public mind. The appeals of the
Patriots, through the press, show their appreciation of the danger of an
outbreak, and yet their determination to meet their whole duty. They
endeavored to restrain the rash among the Sons of Liberty within the
safe precincts of the law; yet, repelling all thought of submission to
arbitrary power, they strove to lift up the general mind to the high
plane of action which a true patriotism demanded, and prepare it, if
need were, for the majestic work of revolution.

The executive, during an interval thus exciting and important, was in a
transition-state, from Francis Bernard to Thomas Hutchinson. It was
semi-officially announced in the journals, when the Governor sailed for
England, that the Administration had no intention of superseding his
commission; and it was intimated that the Lieutenant-Governor would
administer the functions of the office until the return of the chief
magistrate to his post. These officials, for nine years, had been warm
personal friends and intimate political associates. Indeed, so close had
been their private and public relations, that Bernard ascribed the
origin of his administrative difficulties to his adoption of the
quarrels of Hutchinson. For a long time, the Governor had been seeking
and expecting something better in the political line than his present
office, as a substantial recognition of his zeal; and he had urged, and
was now urging, the selection of the Lieutenant-Governor for his
successor in office. He represented that Hutchinson was well versed in
the local affairs,--knew the motives of the Governor,--warmly approved
the policy of the Ministry,--had been, on critical occasions, a trusted
confidential adviser,--and, in fact, had become so thoroughly identified
with public affairs, that, of the two officials, he (Hutchinson) was the
most hated by the faction, which the Governor seemed to consider a
special recommendation. He favored this appointment as a measure that
would be equivalent to an indorsement of his own administration, and
therefore a compliment to himself and a blow at the faction. "It would
be," he said, "a peculiarly happy stroke; for while it would discourage
the Sons of Liberty, it would afford another great instance of rewarding
faithful servants to the Crown."

Thomas Hutchinson, descended from one of the most respected families of
New England, and the son of an honored merchant of Boston, was now
fifty-seven years of age. He was a pupil at the Old North Grammar
School, and was graduated at Harvard College, when he entered upon a
mercantile life. He was not successful as a merchant. Thus early,
however, he evinced the untiring industry that marked his whole career.
He had a decided political turn, and, with uncommon natural talent, had
the capacity and the ambition for public life. An irreproachable private
character, pleasing manners, common-sense views of things, and politics
rather adroit than high-toned, secured him a run of popular favor and
executive confidence so long that he had now (1769) been thirty-three
years uninterruptedly engaged in public affairs; and he confessed to his
friends that this concern in politics had created a hankering for them
which a return to business-pursuits could not overcome. He had reason to
be gratified at the tokens of public approbation. He was so faithful to
the municipal interests as a Selectman that the town intrusted him with
an important mission to England, which he satisfactorily executed; his
wide commercial knowledge, familiarity with constitutional law and
history, decided ability in debate, and reputed disinterestedness, gave
him large influence as a Representative in the General Court; he showed
as Councillor an ever ready zeal for the prerogative, and thus won the
most confidential relations with so obsequious a courtier as Bernard; as
Judge of Probate, he was attentive, kind to the widow, accurate, and won
general commendation; and as a member of the Superior Court, he
administered the law, in the main, satisfactorily. He had been Chief
Justice for nine years, and for eleven years the Lieutenant-Governor. He
had also prepared two volumes of his History, which, though rough in
narrative, is a valuable authority, and his volume of "Collections" was
now announced. His fame at the beginning of the Revolutionary
controversy was at its zenith; for, according to John Adams, "he had
been admired, revered, rewarded, and almost adored; and the idea was
common that he was the greatest and best man in America." He was now,
and had been for years, the master-spirit of the Loyalist party. It Is
an anomaly that he should have attained to this position. He had had
practical experience, as a merchant, of the intolerable injustice of the
old mercantile system, and yet he sided with its friends; he had dealt,
as a politician, to a greater degree than most men, with the rights and
privileges which the people prized, conceded that they had made no ill
use of them, and yet urged that they ought to be abridged; as a patriot,
when he loved his native land wisely, he remonstrated against the
imposition of the Stamp Tax, and yet he grew into one of the sturdiest
of the defenders of the supremacy of Parliament in all cases whatsoever.
He exhibited the usual characteristics of public men who from unworthy
considerations change their principles and desert their party. No man
urged a more arbitrary course; no man passed more discreditable
judgments on his patriot contemporaries; and if in that way he won the
smiles of the court which he was swift to serve, he earned the hatred of
the land which he professed to love. The more his political career is
studied, the greater will be the wonder that one who was reared on
republican soil, and had antecedents so honorable, should have become so
complete an exponent of arbitrary power.

Hutchinson was not so blinded by party-spirit or love of money or of
place as not to see the living realities of his time; for he wrote that
a thirst for liberty seemed to be the ruling passion, not only of
America, but of the age, and that a mighty empire was rising on this
continent, the progress of which would be a theme for speculative and
ingenious minds in distant ages. It was the vision of the cold and clear
intellect, distrusting the march of events and the capacity and
intelligence of the people, he had no heart to admire, he had not even
the justice to recognize, the greatness that was making an immortal
record,--the sublime faith, the divine enthusiasm, the dauntless
resolve, the priceless consciousness of being in the right, that were
the life and inspiration of the lovers of freedom. He conceded, however,
that the body of the people were honest, but acted on the belief,
inspired by wrong-headed leaders, that their liberties were in danger;
and while, with the calculation of the man of the world, he dreaded, and
endeavored to stem, still, with a statesman's foresight, he appreciated
and held in respect, the mysterious element of public opinion. He felt
that it was rising as a power. He saw this power already intrenched in
the impregnable lines of free institutions. Seeking to know its springs,
he was a close and at times a shrewd observer, as well from a habit of
research, in tracing the currents of the past, as from occupying a
position which made it a duty to watch the growth of what influenced the
present. His letters, very voluminous, deal with causes as well as with
facts, and are often fine tributes to the life-giving power of vital
political ideas, from the pen of a subtle and determined enemy.

When the executive functions devolved on Hutchinson, it had been
semi-officially announced that the Ministry, wholly out of commercial
considerations, intended to propose, at the next session of Parliament,
a repeal of a portion of the revenue acts; and the Patriots were
pressing, with more zeal than ever, the non-importation agreement, in
the hope of obtaining, as matter of constitutional right, a total
repeal. To enforce this agreement, the merchants had held a public
meeting in Faneuil Hall, adopted a series of spirited resolves, and
adjourned to a future day; and Hutchinson's first important
gubernatorial decision had reference to this meeting. He had urged the
necessity of troops to sustain the authority of the Government. He had
awarded to them the credit of preventing a great catastrophe. He had
written that they would make the Boston saints as tame as lambs. It was
his settled conviction that the Americans never would set armies in the
field against Great Britain, and if they did, that "a few troops would
be sufficient to quell them." He was now importuned to use the troops at
his command to disperse the merchants' meeting at its adjournment. He
held that this meeting was contrary to law. He characterized its
resolves as contemptuous and insolent, and derogatory to the authority
of Parliament. He never grew weary of holding up to reprobation the
objects which the merchants had in view. And his political friends now
asked him to make good his professions by acts. But he declined to
interfere with this meeting. The merchants proceeded to a close with
their business. Hutchinson's explanation of his course to the Ministry,
on this occasion, applies to the popular demonstrations which took
place, at intervals, down to the military crisis. "I am very sensible,"
are his words, "that the whole proceeding is unwarrantable; but it is so
generally countenanced in this and in several of the Colonies, and the
authority of Government is so feeble, that an attempt to put a stop to
it would have no other effect than still further to inflame the minds of
the people. I can do no more than represent to your Lordship, and wait
for such instructions as may be thought proper." And he continued to
present these combinations of the merchants as "a most certain evidence
of the lost authority of Government," and as exhibiting "insolence and
contempt of Parliament." But he complains that they were not so much
regarded in England as he expected they would be, and that he was left
to act on his own judgment. He soon saw pilloried in the newspapers the
names of a son of Governor Bernard and two of his own sons, in a list of
Boston merchants who "audaciously counteracted the united sentiments of
the body of merchants throughout North America by importing British
goods contrary to agreement."

The Lieutenant-Governor again kept quiet, as a town-meeting went on,
which he watched with the keenest interest, freely commented on in his
letters, and which is far too important to be overlooked in any review
of these times. William Bollan, the Colonial Agent in London, sent to
the popular leaders a selection from the letters of Governor Bernard,
General Gage, Commodore Hood, and others, bearing on the introduction of
the troops, which were judged to have aspersed the character, affected
the rights, and injured the interests of the town. Their publication
made a profound impression on the public mind, and they became the theme
of every circle. At one of the political clubs, in which the Adamses,
the Coopers, Warren, and others were wont to discuss public affairs,
Otis, in a blaze of indignation, charged the crown officials with
haughtiness, arbitrary dispositions, and the insolence of office, and
vehemently urged a town-meeting. One was soon summoned by the Selectmen,
which deliberated with dignity and order, and made answer to the
official indictment in a strong, conclusive, and grand "Appeal to the
World," and appointed, as a committee to circulate it, Thomas Cushing,
Samuel Adams, Joseph Warren, Richard Dana, Joshua Henshaw, Joseph
Jackson, and Benjamin Kent,--men of sterling character, and bearing
names that have shed lustre on the whole country. Reason and truth,
thus put forth, exerted an influence. Hutchinson felt the force of this.
"We find, my Lord, by experience," he advised Lord Hillsborough, October
19, 1769, "that associations and assemblies pretending to be legal and
constitutional, assuming powers that belong only to established
authority, prove more fatal to this authority than mobs, riots, or the
most tumultuous disorders; for such assemblies, from erroneous or
imperfect notions of the nature of government, very often meet with the
approbation of the body of the people, and in such case there is no
internal power which can be exerted to suppress them. Such case we are
in at present, and shall probably continue in it until the wisdom of
Parliament delivers us from it."

It would be difficult to say what power the people now assumed that
belonged only to established authority; they assumed only the right of
public meeting and of liberty of discussion, which are unquestionable in
every free country; but the ruling spirit of Hutchinson is seen in this
fine tribute to the instrumentality of the town-meeting, for he regarded
the American custom of corporate presentation of political matters as
illegal, and the power of Parliament as sufficient to meet it with pains
and penalties. As the committee already named sent forth the doings of
the town, they said, (October 23, 1769,) "The people will never think
their grievances redressed till every revenue act is repealed, the Board
of Commissioners dissolved, and the troops removed."

A few days after this the Lieutenant-Governor was obliged to deal with a
mob, which grew out of the meanness of importers, whose selfish course
proved to be a great strain on the forbearing policy of the popular
leaders. The merchants on the Tory side, among whom were two of
Hutchinson's sons, persisted in importing goods; and he writes, with a
good deal of pride, as though it were meritorious, that since the
agreement was formed these two sons had imported two hundred chests of
tea, which they had been so clever as to sell. But such was the public
indignation at this course, that they, too, were compelled to give in to
the non-importation agreement; and Hutchinson's letters are now severer
than ever on the Patriots. He characterizes "the confederacy of
merchants" as a very high offence, and the Sons of Liberty as the
greatest tyrants ever known. But as he continually predicted a crisis,
he said, "I can find nobody to join with me in an attempt to discourage
them." He adds, "If any tumults should happen, I shall be under less
difficulty than if my own children had been the pretended occasion of
them; and for this reason Dalrymple tells me he is very glad they have
done as they have." The immediate occasion of the mob was the dealing of
the people with an informer on the twenty-eighth of October. They got
track of him about noon, and, after a long search, found him towards
evening, when they immediately prepared to tar and feather him. It was
quite dark. A formidable procession carted the culprit from one quarter
of the town to another, and threatened to break the windows of all
houses which were without lights. The Lieutenant-Governor summoned such
of the members of the Council as were at hand, and the justices of the
county, to meet him at the Council-Chamber; he requested Dalrymple to
order the force under his command "to be ready to march when the
occasion required"; and he "kept persons employed to give him immediate
notice of every new motion of the mob." Dalrymple, with a soldier's
alacrity, complied with the official request; but the mob went on its
course, for "none of the justices nor the sheriff," writes Hutchinson,
"thought it safe for them to restrain so great a body of people in a
dark evening,"--and the only work done by the soldiers was to protect
Mien, the printer, who, being goaded into discharging a pistol among the
crowd, fled to the main guard for safety. The finale of this mob is thus
related by Hutchinson:--"Between eight and nine o'clock they dispersed
of their own account, and the town was quiet."

The intrepid and yet prudent course of the popular leaders and of the
people, in standing manfully for the common cause in presence of the
British troops, was now eliciting the warmest encomiums on the town from
the friends of liberty in England and in the Colonies. The generous
praise was copied into the local journals, and, so far from being
received with assumption, became a powerful incentive to worthy action.
"Your Bostonians," a Southern letter runs, "shine with renewed lustre.
Their last efforts were indeed like themselves, full of wisdom,
prudence, and magnanimity. Such a conduct must silence every pretended
suspicion, and baffle every vile attempt to calumniate their noble and
generous struggles in the cause of American Liberty." "So much wisdom
and virtue," says a New-Hampshire letter, "as hath been conspicuous in
the Bostonians, will not go unrewarded. You will in all respects
increase until you become the glory of New England, the pride of British
kings, the scourge of tyrants, and the joy of the whole earth," "The
patriotism of Boston," says another letter, "will be revered through
every age." One of these tributes, from a Southern journal, in the
Boston papers of December 18, 1769, runs,--"The noble conduct of the
Representatives, Selectmen, and principal merchants of Boston, in
defending and supporting the rights of America and the British
Constitution, cannot fail to excite love and gratitude in the heart of
every worthy person in the British empire. They discover a dignity of
soul worthy the human mind, which is the true glory of man, and merits
the applause of all rational beings. Their names will shine unsullied in
the bright records of Panic to the latest ages, and unborn millions will
rise up and call them blessed."

This eulogy on Boston is a great fact of these times, and therefore
ought to have a place in a history of them. It was not of a local cast,
for it appears in several Colonies and in England; it was not a
manufacture of politicians, for it is seen in the private letters of the
friends of constitutional liberty which have come to light subsequently
to the events; it was not a transient enthusiasm, for the same strain
was continued during the years preceding the war. The praise was
bestowed on a town small in territory and comparatively small in
population. Such were the cities of Greece in the era of their renown.
"The territories of Athens, Sparta, and their allies," remarks Gibbon,
"do not exceed a moderate province of France or England; but after the
trophies of Salamis or Plataea, they expand in our fancy to the gigantic
size of Asia, which had been trampled under the feet of the victorious
Greeks." No trophies had been gathered in an American Plataea; there had
been no great civic triumph; there was no hero upon whom public
affection centred; nor was there here a field on which to weave a web of
court-intrigue, or to play a game of criminal ambition;--there was,
indeed, little that common constructors of history would consider to be
history. Yet it was now written, and made common thought by an
unfettered press,--"Nobler days nor deeds were never seen than at this
time."[2] This was an instinctive appreciation of a great truth; for
the real American Revolution was going on in the tidal flow of thought
and feeling, and in the formation of public opinion. A people inspired
by visions of better days for humanity, luxuriating in the emotions of
hope and faith, yearning for the right, mastering the reasoning on which
it was based, were steadily taking their fit place on the national
stage, in the belief of the nearness of a mighty historic hour. And
their spontaneous praise was for a community heroically acting on
national principles and for a national cause. Because of this did they
predict that unborn millions would hold up the men of Boston as worthy
to be enrolled in the shining record of Fame.

As the new year (1770) came in, the people were looking forward to a
meeting of the General Court, always a season of peculiar interest, and
more so now than ever, for it was certain that the debates in this body
would turn on the foremost local subject, the removal of the troops. But
the subject was no longer merely local, for it had become a general
issue, one affecting not only Boston and Massachusetts, but other towns
and Colonies, and the interest felt in the controversy was wide and
deep. "In this day of constitutional light," a New-York essay copied
into a Boston newspaper runs, "it is monstrous that troops should be
kept, not to protect the right, but to enslave the continent." While it
was thus put by the journals, the policy was meant to be of this
significance by the Ministry; and the letters printed for the first time
in this monograph attest the accuracy of the Patriot judgment. On purely
local grounds, also, the presence of the troops continued to be
deplored. "The troops," Dr. Cooper wrote, January 1, 1770, "greatly
corrupt our morals, and are in every sense an oppression. May Heaven
soon deliver us from this great evil!" Samuel Adams said, "The troops
must move to the Castle; it must be the first business of the General
Court to move them out of town"; and James Otis said. "The Governor has
the power to move them under the Constitution." Hutchinson endeavored to
conciliate the people by making arrangements with General Gage for a
removal of the main guard from its location near the Town-House, being
informed that this might satisfy the greater part of the members.

Having taken this precaution, Hutchinson was really anxious for a
meeting of the General Court. He was in great uncertainty both as to
public and private affairs. He knew now that Bernard was not to return,
but he did not know who was to be the successor; he conjectured that it
might be "that the government was to be put on a new establishment, and
a person of rank appointed Governor"; and he confessed that he was
"ignorant of the Ministerial plan" as to the Colonies. The Legislature
was appointed to convene on the tenth of January. But the November
packet from England, happening to make an uncommonly short passage,
brought him a peremptory order, which he received on the evening of the
third of January, to prorogue the time of the sitting of the General
Court; and the journals of the next morning contain his Proclamation,
setting forth that "by His Majesty's command" the Legislature was
prorogued to the second Wednesday in March. "I guess," Hutchinson
writes, "that the Court is prorogued to a particular day with an
intention that something from the King or the Parliament shall be then
laid before them." "Some of the distant members will be on their journey
before the Proclamation reaches them; and if the packet had not had a
better passage than common, my orders would have found the Court
sitting." As a consequence of this unlooked-for prorogation, the main
guard continued to be stationed near the Town-House, until a portion of
it played its tragic part on the memorable fifth of March.

The Lieutenant-Governor was apprehensive that this sudden prorogation
would cause a great clamor; but he judged that the popular leaders were
rather humbled and mortified than roused and enraged by it; and he soon
expressed the conviction that this was the right step. But the favorite
organ of the Patriots, the "Boston Gazette," in its next issue, of
January the eighth, indicates anything but humility. Through it James
Otis, John Hancock, and Samuel Adams spoke kindling words to a community
who received words from them as things. Otis, in a card elicited by
strictures on the "unmanly assault, battery, and barbarous wounding" of
himself by Robinson, declared that "a clear stage and no favor were all
he ever wished or wanted in court, country, camp, or city"; Hancock, in
a card commenting on the report that he had violated the merchants'
agreement, "publicly defied all mankind" to prove the allegation, and
pledged his cooeperation "in every legal and laudable measure to redress
the grievances under which the Province and the Continent had so long
labored"; and Samuel Adams, under the signature of "Vindex," tested the
legality of the prorogation by the terms of the Charter, and adjured
every man to make it the subject of his contemplation. "We all
remember," are his weighty words, "that, no longer ago than last year,
the extraordinary dissolution by Governor Bernard, in which he declared
he was purely Ministerial, produced another assembly, which, though
legal in all its proceedings, awaked an attention in the very soul of
the British empire." He claimed that a Massachusetts executive ought to
act from the dictates of his own judgment. "It is not to be expected
that in ordinary times, much less at such an important period as this,
any man, though endowed with the wisdom of Solomon, at the distance of
three thousand miles, can be an adequate judge of the expediency of
proroguing, and in effect of putting an end to, an American legislative
assembly."

The Lieutenant-Governor had now to meet the severest pressure brought to
bear on him by the Tory faction for the employment of the troops,
occasioned by a violation on the part of his sons of their agreement as
to a sale of goods. They had stipulated with the merchants that an
importation of teas made by them should remain unsold, and, as security,
had given to the committee of inspection the key of the building in
which it was stored. Yet they secretly made sales, broke the lock, and
delivered the teas. This was done when the non-importation agreement was
the paramount measure,--when fidelity to it was patriotism, was honor,
was union, was country,--and when all eyes were looking to see Boston
faithful. "If this agreement of the merchants," said "Determinatus" in
the "Boston Gazette," "is of that consequence to all America which our
brethren in all the other governments and in Great Britain itself think
it to be,--if the fate of unborn millions is suspended upon it, verily
it behooves not the merchants only, but every individual of every class
in city and country to aid and support them, and peremptorily to insist
upon its being strictly adhered to. And yet what is most astonishing is,
that some two or three persons, of very little consequence in
themselves, have dared openly to give out that they will vend the goods
they have imported, though they have solemnly pledged their faith to the
body of merchants that they should remain in store till a general
importation takes place." The merchants met in Faneuil Hall in a large
and commanding gathering; for it was composed of the solid men of the
town. After deliberation, they proceeded in a body to the residence of
the Lieutenant-Governor to remonstrate against the course of his sons.
Meantime, the ultra Loyalists pressed him to order the troops to
disperse the meeting; the Commissioners savagely urged, that "there
could not be a better time for trying the strength of the government";
and others said, "It were best to bring matters to extremities." The
commanding officers of the troops now expected work, and prepared for
it. Dalrymple dealt out twelve rounds of cartridges to the men. But
Hutchinson involuntarily shrank from the bloody business of this
programme. He tried other means than force. He appealed to the justices
of the peace, and through the sheriff he commanded the meeting, in His
Majesty's name, to disperse. But the intrepid merchants, in a written
paper, in Hancock's handwriting, averred that law warranted their
proceeding; and so they calmly adhered to the action that patriotism
dictated. Hutchinson at length sent for the Moderator, William Phillips,
of fragrant Revolutionary renown and of educational fame, and stipulated
to deposit a sum of money to stand for the tea that had been sold, and
to return the balance of it to the store. The concession was accepted.
In explanation of his course, and with special reference to the action
of the Commissioners in this case, Hutchinson pleaded a want of power,
under the Constitution, to comply with their demand. "They did not
consider the Constitution," he remarked, "and that by the Charter I can
do nothing without the Council, the major part of whom are against me,
and the civil magistrates, many of whom made a part of the body which
was to be suppressed; so that there could not have been a worse occasion
[to call out the troops], and I think anything tragical would have set
the whole Province in a flame, and maybe spread farther."

Thus Hutchinson, as well as Franklin, dreaded the effect of a serious
collision between the citizens and the troops. At this time the feeling
was one of sullen acquiescence in their presence. "Molineaux," he says,
February 18, 1770, "to whom the Sons of Liberty have given the name of
Paoli, and some others, are restless; but there seems to be no
disposition to any general muster of the people again." And yet the
newspapers were now crowded with unusually exciting matter, and so
continued up to the first week in March: articles about the Liberty-Pole
in New York being cut down by the military and replaced in a triumphal
procession by the people; about McDougal's imprisonment for printing
free comments on the Assembly for voting supplies to the troops; the
famous address of "Junius" to the King, in which one count is his
alienation of a people who left their native land for freedom and found
it in a desert; the details of the shooting, by an informer, of
Christopher Snider, the son of a poor German, and of the imposing
funeral, which moved from the Liberty-Tree to the burial-place. The
importers now feared an assault on their houses; whereupon soldiers were
allowed as a guard to some, while others slept with loaded guns at their
bedsides. These things deserve to be borne in mind; for they show how
much there was to exasperate, when the popular leaders were called upon
to meet a paroxysm without a precedent in the Colonies.

It seemed to the Patriots astonishing that the Ministry persisted in
keeping troops in Boston. There was no spirit of resistance to law;
there was no plot maturing to resist the Government; the avocations of
life went on as usual; the popular leaders, men of whom any community
might be proud, averred that their opposition to public measures had
been prudent and legal, and that they had not taken "a single step that
could not be fully justified on constitutional grounds"; and the demand
in the public prints was continuous to know what the troops were wanted
for, and how they were to be used. On the other hand, the ultra
Loyalists as continuously represented that the town was full of a
rebellious spirit, was a nest of disorder, and threatened the leaders in
it with transportation. Hutchinson seems to have apprehended that this
misrepresentation had been carried so far as to be suicidal; for he
advised Lord Hillsborough, that, "in matters that had no relation to the
dispute between the Kingdom and the Colonies, government retained its
vigor, and the administration of it was attended with no unusual
difficulty." This is to the point, and conclusive. This was the truth on
which the popular leaders rested; and hence it seemed to them a marvel
that the Ministry, to use the words of Samuel Adams, should employ
troops only "to parade the streets of Boston, and, by their ridiculous
merry-andrew tricks, to become the objects of contempt of the women and
children."

It would be a tedious and profitless task to go over the bickerings and
quarrels that occurred between the inhabitants and the soldiers. The
high-spirited citizens, on being challenged in their walks, could not
keep their temper; the roughs, here as in every place, would have their
say; and the coarse British soldier could not be restrained by
discipline; yet in all the brawls, for seventeen months, not a gun was
fired in an affray. Fist had been met with fist, and club with club; and
not unfrequently these quarrels were settled in the courts. The nature
of such emergency as would justify the troops in firing on the people
was acutely discussed in the newspapers, and undoubtedly the subject was
talked about in private circles and in the political clubs. "What shall
I say?" runs an article in the "Gazette." "I shudder at the thought.
Surely no provincial magistrate could be found so steeled against the
sensations of humanity and justice as wantonly to order troops to fire
on an unarmed populace, and more than repeat in Boston the tragic scene
exhibited in St. George's Fields." It was a wanton fire on an unarmed
populace that was protected against; and the protest was by men who
involuntarily shrank from mob-law as they would from the hell of
anarchy. They apprehended an impromptu collision between the people and
the troops; they knew that an illegal and wanton fire on the people
would produce such collision; the danger of this result formed,
undoubtedly, a large portion of the common talk; and the frequency and
manner in which the subject was discussed elicited from General Gage the
rather sweeping remark, that every citizen in Boston was a lawyer. Every
citizen was interested in the support of public liberty and public
order, and might well regard with deep concern the threats that were
continually made, which, if executed, would disturb both. Hutchinson, in
one of his letters, thus states the conclusions that were reached:--"Our
heroes for liberty say that no troops dare to fire on the people without
the order of the civil magistrate, and that no civil magistrate, would
dare to give such orders. In the first part of their opinion they may be
right; in the second they cannot be sure until they have made the
trial."

On Friday, the second of March, in the forenoon, as three soldiers were
at Gray's Ropewalks, near the head of India Wharf, they were asked by
one of the workmen to empty a vault. Sharp altercation followed this
insult, and the soldiers went off, but soon returned with a party of
their comrades, when there was a challenge to a boxing-match, and this
grew into a fight, the rope-makers using their "wouldring-sticks," and
the soldiers clubs and cutlasses. It proved to be the most serious
quarrel that had occurred. Lieutenant-Colonel Carr, commander of the
Twenty-Ninth, which, Hutchinson said, was composed of such bad fellows
that discipline could not restrain them, made a complaint to the
Lieutenant-Governor relative to the provoking conduct of the rope-maker
which brought on the affray; and thus this affair became the occasion of
political consultation, which tended to intensify the animosity between
the parties.

On Saturday, the report was circulated that the parties who were engaged
in this affray would renew the fight on Monday evening; on Sunday, Carr
and other officers went into the ropewalk, giving out that they were
searching for a sergeant of their regiment; but though on these days
there was much irritation, the town was comparatively quiet.

On Monday, the Lieutenant-Governor laid the complaint of
Lieutenant-Colonel Carr before the Council, and asked the advice of this
body, which gave rise to debate about the removal of the
troops,--members freely expressing the opinion, that the way to prevent
collisions between the military and the people was to withdraw the two
regiments to the Castle. No important action was taken by the Council,
although the apprehension was expressed that the ropewalk affair might
grow into a general quarrel. And it is worthy of remark, that, ominous
as the signs were, the Lieutenant-Governor took no precautionary
measures, not even the obvious step of having the troops restrained to
their barracks. His letters, and, indeed, his whole course, up to the
eventful evening of this day, indicate confidence in the opinion that
there was no intention on the part of the popular leaders to molest the
troops, and that the troops, without an order from the civil authority,
would not fire on the citizens.

Nor was there now, as zealous Loyalists alleged, any plan formed by the
popular leaders, or by any persons of consideration, to expel the troops
by force from the town, much less the obnoxious Commissioners of the
Customs; nor is there any evidence to support the allegation on the
other side, that the crown officials, civil or military, meditated or
stimulated an attack on the inhabitants. The Patriots regarded what had
occurred and what was threatened, like much that had taken place during
the last seventeen months, as the motions of a rod of power needlessly
held over the people to overawe them, serving no earthly good, but
souring their minds and embittering their passions; the crown officials
represented this chafing of the free spirit at the incidents of military
rule as a sign of the lost authority of Government and of a desire for
independence. Among the fiery spirits, accurately on both sides the
mob-element, the ropewalk affair was regarded as a drawn game, and a
renewal of the fight was desired on the ground that honor was at stake;
while to spirit up the roughs among the Whigs, to use Dr. Gordon's
words,--"the newspapers had a pompous account of a victory obtained by
the inhabitants of New York over the soldiers there in an affray, while
the Boston newspapers could present but a tame relation of the result of
the affray here." These facts account satisfactorily for the intimations
and warnings given during the day to prominent characters on both sides,
and for the handbill that was circulated in the afternoon. The course
things took fully justifies the remark of Gordon, that "everything
tended to a crisis, and it is rather wonderful that it did not exist
sooner, when so many circumstances united to hasten its approach."

There was a layer of ice on the ground, a slight fall of snow during the
day, and a young moon in the evening. At an early hour, as though
something uncommon was expected, parties of boys, apprentices, and
soldiers strolled through the streets, and neither side was sparing of
insult. Ten or twelve soldiers went from the main guard, in King Street,
across this street to Murray's Barracks, in Brattle Street, about three
hundred yards from King Street; and another party came out of these
barracks, armed with clubs and cutlasses, bent on a stroll. A little
after eight o'clock, quite a crowd collected near the Brattle-Street
Church, many of whom had canes and sticks; and after a spell of
bantering wretched abuse on both sides, things grew into a fight. As it
became more and more threatening, a few North-Enders ran to the Old
Brick Meeting-House, on what is now Washington Street, at the head of
King Street, and lifted a boy into a window, who rang the bell. About
the same time, Captain Goldfinch, of the army, who was on his way to
Murray's Barracks, crossed King Street, near the Custom-House, at the
corner of Exchange Lane, where a sentinel had long been stationed; and
as he was passing along, he was taunted by a barber's apprentice as a
mean fellow for not paying for dressing his hair, when the sentinel ran
after the boy and gave him a severe blow with his musket. The boy went
away crying, and told several persons of the assault, while the Captain
passed on towards Murray's Barracks, but found the passage into the yard
obstructed by the affray going on here,--the crowd pelting the soldiers
with snowballs, and the latter defending themselves. Being the senior
officer, he ordered the men into the barracks; the gate of the yard was
then shut, and the promise was made that no more men should be let out
that evening. In this way the affray here was effectually stopped.

For a little time, perhaps twenty minutes, there was nothing to attract
to a centre the people who were drawn by the alarm-bell out of their
homes on this frosty, moonlight, memorable evening; and in various
places individuals were asking where the fire was. King Street, then, as
now, the commercial centre of Boston, was quiet. A group was standing
before the main guard with firebags and buckets in their hands; a few
persons were moving along in other parts of the street; and the sentinel
at the Custom-House, with his firelock on his shoulder, was pacing his
beat quite unmolested. In Dock Square, a small gathering, mostly of
participants in the affair just over, were harangued by a large, tall
man, who wore a red cloak and a white wig; and as he closed, there was a
hurrah, and the cry, "To the main guard!" In another street, a similar
cry was raised, "To the main guard!--that is the nest!" But no assault
was made on the main guard. The word went round that there was no fire,
"only a rumpus with the soldiers," who had been driven to their
quarters; and well-disposed citizens, as they withdrew, were saying,
"Every man to his home!"

But at about fifteen minutes past nine, an excited party passed up Royal
Exchange Lane, (now Exchange Street,) leading into King Street; and as
they came near the Custom-House, on the corner, one of the number, who
knew of the assault on the apprentice-boy, said, "Here is the soldier
who did it," when they gathered round the sentinel. The barber's boy now
came up and said, "This is the soldier who knocked me down with the
butt-end of his musket." Some now said, "Kill him! knock him down!" The
sentinel moved back up the steps of the Custom-House, and loaded his
gun. Missiles were thrown at him, when he presented his musket, warned
the party to keep off, and called for help. Some one ran to Captain
Preston, the officer of the day, and informed him that the people were
about to assault the sentinel, when he hastened to the main guard, on
the opposite side of the street, about forty rods from the Custom-House,
and sent from here a sergeant, a very young officer, with a file of
seven men, to protect the sentinel. They went over in a kind of trot,
using rough words and actions towards those who went with them, and,
coming near the party round the sentinel, rudely pushed them aside,
pricking some with their bayonets, and formed in a half-circle near the
sentry-box. The sentinel now came down the steps and fell in with the
file, when they were ordered to prime and load. Captain Preston almost
immediately joined his men. The file now numbered nine.

The number of people here at this time is variously estimated from
thirty to a hundred,--"between fifty and sixty" being the most common
statement. Some of them were fresh from the affray at the barracks, and
some of the soldiers had been in the affair at the ropewalks. There was
aggravation on both sides. The crowd were unarmed, or had merely sticks,
which they struck defiantly against each other,--having no definite
object, and doing no greater mischief than, in retaliation of
uncalled-for military roughness, to throw snowballs, hurrah, whistle
through their fingers, use oaths and foul language, call the soldiers
names, hustle them, and dare them to fire. One of the file was struck
with a stick. There were good men trying to prevent a riot, and some
assured the soldiers that they would not be hurt. Among others, Henry
Knox, subsequently General, was present, who saw nothing to justify the
use of fire-arms, and, with others, remonstrated against their
employment; but Captain Preston, as he was talking with Knox, saw his
men pressing the people with their bayonets, when, in great agitation,
he rushed in among them. Then, with or without orders, but certainly
without any legal form or warning, seven of the file, one after another,
discharged their muskets upon the citizens; and the result indicates the
malignity and precision of their aim. Crispus Attucks, an intrepid
mulatto, who was a leader in the affair at Murray's Barracks, was killed
as he stood leaning and resting his breast on a stout "cord-wood stick";
Samuel Gray, one of the rope-makers, was shot as he stood with his hands
in his bosom, and just as he had said, "My lads, they will not fire";
Patrick Carr, on hearing the alarm-bell, had left his house full of
fight, and, as he was crossing the street, was mortally wounded; James
Caldwell, in like manner summoned from his home, was killed as he was
standing in the middle of the street; Samuel Maverick, a lad of
seventeen, ran out of the house to go to a fire, and was shot as he was
crossing the street; six others were wounded. But fifteen or twenty
minutes had elapsed from the time the sergeant went from the main guard
to the time of the firing. The people, on the report of the guns, fell
back, but instinctively and instantly returned for the killed and
wounded, when the infuriated soldiers prepared to fire again, but were
checked by Captain Preston, and were withdrawn across the street to the
main guard. The drums beat; several companies of the Twenty-Ninth
Regiment, under Colonel Carr, promptly appeared in the street, and were
formed in three divisions in front of the main guard, the front division
near the northeast corner of the Town-House, in the kneeling posture for
street-firing. The Fourteenth Regiment was ordered under arms, but
remained at their barracks.

The report now spread that "the troops had risen on the people"; and the
beat of drums, the church-bells, and the cry of fire summoned the
inhabitants from their homes, and they rushed through the streets to the
place of alarm. In a few minutes thousands collected, and the cry was,
"To arms! to arms!" The whole town was in the utmost confusion; while in
King Street there was, what the Patriots had so long predicted, dreaded,
and vainly endeavored to avert, an indignant population and an
exasperated soldiery face to face. The excitement was terrible. The care
of the popular leaders for their cause, since the mob-days of the Stamp
Act, had been like the care of their personal honor: it drew them forth
as the prompt and brave controlling power in every crisis; and they were
among the concourse on this "night of consternation." Joseph Warren,
early on the ground to act the good physician as well as the fearless
patriot, gives the impression produced on himself and his co-laborers as
they saw the first blood flowing that was shed for American liberty.
"Language," he says, "is too feeble to paint the emotions of our souls,
when our streets were stained with the blood of our brethren, when our
ears were wounded by the groans of the dying, and our eyes were
tormented by the sight of the mangled bodies of the dead." "Our hearts
beat to arms; we snatched our weapons, almost resolved by one decisive
stroke to avenge the death of our slaughtered brethren."

Meantime the Lieutenant-Governor, at his residence in North Square,
heard the sound of the church-bell near by, and supposed it was an alarm
of fire. But soon, at nearly ten o'clock, a number of the inhabitants
came running into the house, entreating him to go to King Street
immediately, otherwise, they said, "the town would be all in blood." He
immediately started for the scene of danger. On his way, in the
Market-Place, he found himself amidst a great body of people, some armed
with clubs, others with cutlasses, and all calling for fire-arms. He
made himself known to them, but pleaded in vain for a hearing; and, to
insure his safety, he retreated into a dwelling-house, and thence went
by a private way into King Street, where he found an excited multitude
anxiously awaiting his arrival. He first called for Captain Preston; and
a natural indignation at a high-handed act is expressed in the stern and
searching questions which the civilian put to the soldier, bearing on
the vital point of the subordination of the military to the civil power.

"Are you the commanding officer?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Do you know, Sir, you have no power to fire on any body of people
collected together, except you have a civil magistrate with you to give
orders?"

Captain Preston replied,--

"I was obliged to, to save the sentry."

So great was the confusion that Preston's reply was heard but by few.
The cry was raised, "To the Town-House! to the Town-House!" when
Hutchinson, by the irresistible violence of the crowd, was forced into
the building, and up to the Council-Chamber; and in a few minutes he
appeared on the balcony. Near him were prominent citizens, both
Loyalists and Whigs; below him, on the one side, were his indignant
townsmen, who had conferred on him every honor in their power, and on
the other side, the regiment in its defiant attitude. He could speak
with eloquence and power; throughout this strange and trying scene he
bore himself with dignity and self-possession; and as in the stillness
of night he expressed great concern at the unhappy event, and made
solemn pledges to the people, his manner must have been uncommonly
earnest. "The law," he averred, "should have its course; he would live
and die by the law." He promised to order an inquiry in the morning, and
requested all to retire to their homes. But words now were not
satisfactory to the people; and those near him urged that the course of
justice had always been evaded or obstructed in favor of the soldiery,
and that the people were determined not to disperse until Captain
Preston was arrested. In consequence, Hutchinson ordered an immediate
court of inquiry. The Patriots also entreated the Lieutenant-Governor to
order the troops to their barracks. He replied, that it was not in his
power to give such an order, but he would consult the officers. They now
came on to the balcony,--Dalrymple of the Fourteenth Regiment being
present,--and after an interview with Hutchinson returned to the troops.
The men now rose from their kneeling posture; the order to "shoulder
arms" was heard; and the people were greatly relieved by seeing the
troops move towards their barracks.

The people now began to disperse, but slowly, however. Meanwhile, the
court of inquiry on Captain Preston was in session, and, after an
examination that lasted three hours, he was bound over for trial. Later,
the file of soldiers were also arrested. It was three o'clock in the
morning before the Lieutenant-Governor left the scene of the massacre.
And now all, excepting about a hundred of the people, who formed
themselves into a watch, left the streets. Thus wise action by the crown
officials, the activity of the popular leaders, and the habitual respect
of the people for law, proved successful in preventing further carnage.
"It was Royal George's livery," said Warren, "that proved a shield to
the soldiery, and saved them from destruction." Hence, a contemporary
versifier and participator in these scenes was able to write,--

    "No sudden rage the ruffian soldier bore,
    Or drenched the pavements with his vital gore;
    Deliberate thought did all our souls compose,
    Till veiled in gloom the low'ry morning rose."

During the night, the popular leaders sent expresses to the neighboring
towns, bearing intelligence of what had occurred, and summoning people
from their beds to go to the aid of Boston; but as the efforts to
restore quiet were proving successful, the summons was countermanded.
This action accounts for the numbers who, very early in the morning of
the sixth of March, flocked into the town. They could learn details of
the tragedy from the actors in it,--could see the blood, the brains
even, of the slaughtered inhabitants,--could hear the groans of the
wounded,--could view the bodies of the dead. This terrible revelation of
the work of arbitrary power, to a people habitually tender of regard for
human life, naturally shocked the sensibilities of all; and thus the
public temper was again wrought up to a fearful pitch of indignation. It
required the strongest moral influence to restrain the rash, and to
guide in the forms of law a righteous demand for a redress of grievance
and for future security.

The Lieutenant-Governor, during the night, had summoned such members of
the Council as were within reach to meet in the Council-Chamber in the
morning; and on joining them, he found the Selectmen, with most of the
justices of the county, waiting for him, to represent, as he says,
"their opinion of the absolute necessity of the troops being at a
distance, that there might be no intercourse between the inhabitants and
them, in order to prevent a further effusion of blood." Such was the
logic of events which now forced the seventeen months' question of the
removal of the troops on the civil and military authorities with an
imperativeness that could not be resisted.

The question, however, came up now in a new shape. To put it in the
simplest way, and in the very words used on that day,--the people were
so excited by the shedding of blood on the preceding night, that they
were resolved no longer to acquiesce in the decision of the constituted
authorities as to the troops; but, failing in other means, they were
determined to effect their removal by force, let the act be deemed
rebellion or otherwise. Not that any conspiracy existed; not that any
plan had been matured to do this; but circumstances had transferred the
question from the domain of reason to that of physical force; and the
only point with the crown officials, during this whole day's
deliberations, was, whether they would be justified in what appeared to
them lowering the national standard at the demand of a power which they
habitually represented as "the faction," or whether they might venture
to take the responsibility of resisting the demand and of meeting the
consequences. Well might John Adams say, "This was a dangerous and
difficult crisis."

The Selectmen expressed to the Lieutenant-Governor the opinion, that
"the inhabitants would be under no restraint whilst the troops were in
town." "I let them know," Hutchinson says, "that I had no power to
remove the troops." They also informed him that they had been requested
to call a town-meeting, which was the special dread of Hutchinson. As
the settled determination of the people became revealed, the anxiety of
the Lieutenant-Governor naturally deepened as to what the day might
bring forth; and he sent for Colonels Dalrymple and Carr to be present
in Council and act as military advisers. But the discussions here were
interrupted by the entrance of a messenger from another assembly,
bearing the ominous summons for the immediate presence among them of the
Selectmen.

This summons invites attention to the movements of the people, who had
been constantly coming in from the neighboring towns, and had now
gathered in great numbers in and around Faneuil Hall, to use
Hutchinson's words, "in a perfect frenzy." It was, however, the general
disposition, volcanic as were the elements, to act with caution,
deliberation, and in a spirit of unity, and, doubtless, with the
consideration that the eyes of the friends of their cause were upon
them, and the name and fame of Boston were at stake. The hours passed,
and no warrant appeared calling a town-meeting; when, at eleven o'clock,
the town-records say, "the freeholders and other inhabitants" held a
meeting, "occasioned, by the massacre made in King Street by the
soldiery." The town-clerk, William Cooper, acted as the chairman. This
true and intrepid patriot held this office forty-nine years, which
speaks for his fidelity to duty, intelligence, devotion to principle,
and moral worth. "The Selectmen," his clear, round record reads, "not
being present, and the inhabitants being informed that they were in the
Council-Chamber, it was voted that Mr. William Greenleaf be desired to
proceed there and acquaint the Selectmen that the inhabitants desire
and expect their attendance at the Hall." This was virtually a command,
and the Selectmen immediately repaired thither. Thomas Cushing was
chosen the Moderator. He was now the Speaker of the House of
Representatives; and though not of such shining abilities as to cause
him to be looked up to in Boston as a leader, and of the moderate class
of Patriots, yet, by urbanity of manner, a high personal character,
diligent public service, and fidelity to the cause, he won a large
influence. It was next voted that Constable Wallace wait upon the
Reverend Dr. Cooper and acquaint him that the inhabitants desired him to
open the meeting with prayer. This great divine was a brother of the
town-clerk, and the pastor of the Brattle-Street Church. He was devoted
to the Patriot cause, and on the most confidential terms with the
popular leaders; and besides being rich in genius and learning, he had,
says Dr. Eliot, a gift in prayer peculiar and very excellent. He
complied with the request, but no reporter has transmitted the words of
this righteous man, or described this solemn assembly, as fervent prayer
now went up for country.

The meeting next voted to invite any citizen to give information of the
massacre of the preceding evening, "that the same might be minuted by
the town-clerk"; whereupon several persons related details of the
tragedy. One said he heard a soldier, after the firing, say, that "the
Devil might give quarter, he should give none"; another said he heard a
soldier say, that "his officer told him, that, if the soldiers went out
that night, they must go armed and in companies"; another related a
soldier's story of a scheme formed to kill the inhabitants; another
said, he "descried a soldier who struck down the inhabitants." These
homely words are life-like glimpses of the spirit of the hour. No speech
could have been more eloquent, because none could have been better
calculated to deepen the general conviction and minister to the common
emotion. However, so many witnesses were ready to testify, that it was
found to be impracticable to hear all; and a committee was appointed to
receive and digest the evidence.

Samuel Adams addressed this remarkable meeting. He spoke with a pathos
peculiar to himself. His manner, naturally impressive, was rendered more
so by the solemnity of the occasion, and every heart was moved. The
great hour demanded dignity and discretion in unison with firmness, and
they were combined in the action of the meeting. It resolved that the
inhabitants would submit no longer to the insult of military rule. A
committee of fifteen was chosen to wait on the Lieutenant-Governor, and
acquaint him that it was the unanimous opinion of the meeting that the
inhabitants and soldiery could no longer dwell together in safety, and
that nothing could be rationally expected to restore the peace of the
town and prevent additional scenes of blood and carnage but the
immediate removal of the troops; and to say, further, that they most
fervently prayed his Honor that his power and influence might be exerted
in order that this removal might be instantly effected. This committee
well represented the intelligence, the patriotism, the varied interests,
and whatever there was of true greatness in Boston. The meeting now
dissolved; when the Selectmen issued a warrant for a regular
town-meeting to convene at the same place, at three o'clock in the
afternoon.

It was about noon when the Lieutenant-Governor received the committee of
the town at the Council-Chamber, the Council being in session. I have
found no details of what was said by the committee at this interview, in
urging a compliance with the demand. Hutchinson said he was not prepared
to reply, but would give an answer in writing, when the committee
withdrew into another room; and he gives glimpses of what then occurred.
"I told the Council," he says, "that a removal of the troops was not
with me; and I desired them to consider what answer I could give to
this application of the town, whilst Colonel Dalrymple, who had the
command, was present." Some of the members, who were among the truest
Patriots, urged a compliance, when the Lieutenant-Governor declared that
"he would upon no consideration whatever give orders for their removal."
The result reached this morning was an advice for the removal of one
regiment, in which the commanding officer concurred. As Hutchinson rose
from this sitting, he declared that "he meant to receive no further
application on the subject."

Things wore a gloomy aspect during the interval between the session of
the Council and the time of the afternoon meeting; for the natural
effect of the unbending tone of the crown officials was to give firmness
to the determined spirit of the people. There were consultations between
members of the Council, the popular leaders, and the commanding
officers; and now the very men who were branded as incendiaries, enemies
of Great Britain, and traitors, were again seen quietly endeavoring to
prevent a catastrophe. Hutchinson, in his History, says it was intimated
to members of the Council, that, though the commanding officer should
receive no authoritative order to remove all the troops, yet the
expression of a desire by the Lieutenant-Governor and Council that it
should be done would cause him to do it; and on this basis Hutchinson
was prevailed upon to meet the Council in the afternoon. This was a
great point gained for the popular cause.

At three o'clock, Faneuil Hall was filled to overflowing with the
excited population assembled in legal town-meeting. Thomas Cushing was
again chosen the Moderator; but the place would hold only about thirteen
hundred, and the record reads, "The Hall not being spacious enough to
receive the inhabitants who attended, it was voted to adjourn to Dr.
Sewall's meeting-house,"--the Old South. The most convenient way for the
people would be to pass into King Street, up by the Council-Chamber, and
along what is now Washington Street, to the church. As they went, no
mention is made of mottoes or banners or flags, of cheers or of jeers.
Thomas dishing said his countrymen "were like the old British commoners,
grave and sad men"; and it was said in the Council to Hutchinson, "That
multitude are not such as pulled down your house"; but they are "men of
the best characters," "men of estates and men of religion," "men who
pray over what they do." With similar men, men who feared God and were
devoted to public liberty, Cromwell won at Marston Moor; and so striking
was the analogy, that at this hour it virtually forced itself on the
well-read Hutchinson: for men of this stamp had once made a revolution
in Boston, and as he looked out on this scene, perhaps scanned the
concourse who passed from Faneuil Hall to the Old South, and read in
their faces the sign of resolute hearts, he judged "their spirit to be
as high as was the spirit of their ancestors when they imprisoned
Andros, while they were four times as numerous." As the burden of
official responsibility pressed heavily on him, he realized that he had
to deal with an element far more potent than "the faction" which
officials had long represented as composing the Patriot band, and that
much depended on dealing with it wisely. This was not a dependent and
starved host wildly urging the terrible demand of "Bread or blood"; nor
was it fanaticism in a season of social discontent claiming
impossibilities at the hand of power: the craving was moral and
intellectual: it was an intelligent public opinion, a people with
well-grounded and settled convictions, making a just demand on arbitrary
power. Was such public opinion about to be scorned as though it were but
a faction, and by officials who bore high the party-standard? And were
men of such resoluteness of character and purpose about to be involved
in a work of carnage? or would the wielders of British authority avoid
the extremity by concession? Boston, indeed America, had seen no hour of
intenser interest, of deeper solemnity, of more instant peril, or of
truer moral sublimity; and as this assembly deliberated with the sounds
of the fife and drum in their ears, and with the soldiery in their
sight, questions like these must have been on every lip,--and they are
of the civil-war questions that cause an involuntary shudder in every
home.

The Old South was not large enough to hold the people, and they stood in
the street and near the Town-House awaiting the report of the committee
of fifteen, chosen in the morning. The Lieutenant-Governor was now at
the Council-Chamber, where, in addition to Colonels Dalrymple and Carr,
there had been summoned Captain Caldwell of the Rose frigate; and
Hutchinson would, he says, have summoned other crown officers, but he
knew the Council would not consent to it. He took care to repeat to the
committee, he says, the declaration which he had made in the morning to
the Selectmen, the Justices, and the Council,--that "the ordering of the
troops did not lie with him." As the committee, with Samuel Adams at the
head, appeared on the Town-House steps, the people were in motion, and
the word passed, "Make way for the committee!" Adams uncovered his head,
and, as he went towards the church, he bowed alternately to those on
each side of the lane that was formed, and repeated the words, "Both
regiments or none." The answer of the Lieutenant-Governor to the morning
demand for a total removal of the troops was read to the meeting in the
church. It was to the effect, that he had conferred with the commanders
of the two regiments, who received orders from the General in New York,
and it was not in his power to countermand these orders; but the Council
desired their removal, and Colonel Dalrymple had signified that because
of the part which the Twenty-Ninth Regiment had taken in the differences
it should be placed without delay in the barracks at the Castle, and
also that the main guard should be removed; while the Fourteenth
Regiment should be so disposed and laid under such restraint that all
occasion for future differences might be prevented. And now resounded
through the excited assembly, from a thousand tongues, the words, "Both
regiments or none!"

A short debate occurred, when the answer was voted to be unsatisfactory.
Then another committee was chosen. It was resolved that John Hancock,
Samuel Adams, William Molineaux, William Phillips, Joseph Warren, Joshua
Henshaw, and Samuel Pemberton be a committee to inform the
Lieutenant-Governor that it was the unanimous opinion of the people that
the reply was by no means satisfactory, and that nothing less would
satisfy them than a total and immediate removal of the troops. This
committee was one worthy of a great occasion. Hancock, Henshaw, and
Pemberton, besides being individually of large and just influence from
their ability, patriotism, worth, and wealth, were members of the Board
of Selectmen, and therefore represented the municipality; Phillips, who
had served on this Board, was a type of the upright and liberal
merchant; Molineaux was one of the most determined and zealous of the
Patriots, and a stirring business-man; Warren, ardent and bold, of
rising fame as a leader, personified the generous devotion and noble
enthusiasm of the young men; Adams, though not the first-named on the
committee, played so prominent a part in its doings, that he appears as
its chairman. He was so widely and favorably known now that he was
addressed as "the Father of America." Of middling stature, plain in
dress, quiet in manner, unpretending in deportment, he exhibited nothing
extraordinary in common affairs; but on great occasions, when his deeper
nature was called into action, he rose, without the smallest
affectation, into an upright dignity of figure and bearing,--with a
harmony of voice and a power of speech which made a strong impression,
the more lasting from the purity and nervous eloquence of his style and
the logical consistency of his argument. Such were the men selected to
speak and act for Boston in this hour of deep passion and of high
resolve.

The committee, about four o'clock, repaired to the Council-Chamber. It
was a room respectable in size and not without ornament and historic
memorials. On its walls were representatives of the two elements now in
conflict,--of the Absolutism that was passing away, in full-length
portraits of Charles II. and James II. robed in the royal ermine, and of
a Republicanism which had grown robust and self-reliant, in the heads of
Belcher and Bradstreet and Endicott and Winthrop. Around a long table
were seated the Lieutenant-Governor and the members of the Council with
the military officers,--the scrupulous and sumptuous costumes of
civilians in authority, gold and silver lace, scarlet cloaks, and large
wigs, mingled with the brilliant uniforms of the British army and navy.
Into such imposing presence was now ushered the plainly attired
committee of the town.

At this time the Lieutenant-Governor, a portion of the Council, the
military officers, and, among other officials now in the Town-House,
though not in the Council, the Secretary of the Province, were sternly
resolved to refuse compliance with the demand of the people. On the vote
of the meeting being presented to the Lieutenant-Governor, Adams
remarked at length on the illegality of quartering troops on the
inhabitants in time of peace and without the consent of the legislature,
urged that the public service did not require them, adverted with
sensibility and warmth to the late tragedy, painted the misery in which
the town would be involved, if the troops were suffered to remain, and
urged the necessity of an immediate compliance with the vote of the
people. The Lieutenant-Governor, in a brief reply, defended both the
legality and the necessity of the troops, and renewed his old assertion
that they were not subject to his authority. Adams again rose, and
attention was riveted on him as he paused and gave a searching look at
the Lieutenant-Governor. There was in his countenance and attitude a
silent eloquence that words could not express; his manner showed that
the energies of his soul were roused; and, in a tone not loud, but deep
and earnest, he again addressed himself to Hutchinson, "It is well
known," he said, "that, acting as Governor of the Province, you are, by
its Charter, the Commander-in-Chief of the military forces within it,
and, as such, the troops now in the capital are subject to your orders.
If you, or Colonel Dalrymple under you, have the power to remove one
regiment, you have the power to remove both; and nothing short of their
total removal will satisfy the people or preserve the peace of the
Province. A multitude, highly incensed, now wait the result of this
application. The voice of ten thousand freemen demands that both
regiments be forthwith removed. Their voice must be respected,--their
demand obeyed. Fail, then, at your peril, to comply with this
requisition. On you alone rests the responsibility of the decision; and
if the just expectations of the people are disappointed, you must be
answerable to God and your country for the fatal consequences that must
ensue. The committee have discharged their duty, and it is for you to
discharge yours. They wait your final determination." As Adams, while
speaking, intently eyed Hutchinson, he says, "I observed his knees to
tremble; I saw his face grow pale; and I enjoyed the sight."

A spell of silence followed this appeal. Then there was low
conversation, to a whisper, between the Lieutenant-Governor and Colonel
Dalrymple, who, in the spirit of the unbending soldier, was for
resisting this demand, as he had been for summary proceedings in the
case of the meetings. "It is impossible for me," he had said this
afternoon, "to go any further lengths in this matter. The information
given of the intended rebellion is sufficient reason against the removal
of His Majesty's troops." But he now said in a loud tone, "I am ready to
obey your orders," which threw the responsibility on Hutchinson. All the
members of the committee urged the demand. "Every one of them,"
Hutchinson says, "deliberately gave his opinion at large, and generally
gave this reason to support it,--that the people would most certainly
drive out the troops, and that the inhabitants of the other towns would
join in it; and several of the gentlemen, declared that they did not
judge from the general temper of the people only, but they knew it to be
the determination, not of a mob, but of the generality of the principal
inhabitants; and they added, that all the blood would be charged to me
alone, for refusing to follow their unanimous advice, in desiring that
the quarters of a single regiment might be changed, in order to put an
end to the animosities between the troops and the inhabitants, seeing
Colonel Dalrymple would consent to it." After the committee withdrew,
the debates of the Council were long and earnest; and, as they went on,
Hutchinson asked, "What protection would there be for the Commissioners,
if both regiments were ordered to the Castle?" Several said, "They would
be safe, and always had been safe." "As safe," said Gray, "without the
troops as with them." And Irving said, "They never had been in danger,
and he would pawn his life that they should receive no injury." "Unless
the troops were removed," it was said, "before evening there would be
ten thousand men on the Common." "The people in general," Tyler said,
"were resolved to have the troops removed, without which they would not
be satisfied; that, failing of other means, they were determined to
effect their removal by force, let the act be deemed rebellion or
otherwise." As the Council deliberated, the people were impatient, and
the members were repeatedly called out to give information as to the
result, This at length was unanimity. This body resolved, that, to
preserve the peace, it was absolutely necessary that the troops should
be removed; and they advised the Lieutenant-Governor to communicate that
conclusion to Colonel Dalrymple, and to request that he would order his
whole command to Castle William.

The remark of Dalrymple, as well as the decision of the Council, became
known to the people, and the word passed round, "that Colonel Dalrymple
had yielded, and that the Lieutenant-Governor only held out." This
circumstance was communicated to Hutchinson, and he says, "It now lay
upon me to choose that side which had the fewest and least difficulties;
and I weighed and compared them as well as the time I had for them would
permit. I knew it was most regular for me to leave this matter entire to
the commanding officer. I was sensible the troops were designed to be,
upon occasion, employed under the direction of the civil magistrate, and
that at the Castle they would be too remote, in most cases, to answer
that purpose. But then I considered they never had been used for that
purpose, and there was no probability they ever would be, because no
civil magistrate could be found under whose directions they might act;
and they could be considered only as having a tendency to keep the
inhabitants in some degree of awe, and even this was every day
lessening; and the affronts the troops received were such that there was
no avoiding quarrels and slaughter." Still he hesitated substantially to
retract his word; for now a request from him, he knew, was equivalent to
an order; and before he determined, he consulted three officers of the
crown, who, though not present in the Council, were in the building, and
the Secretary, Oliver. All agreed that he ought to comply with the
advice of the Council. He then formally recommended Colonel Dalrymple to
remove all the troops, who gave his word of honor that he would commence
preparations in the morning for a removal, and that there should be no
unnecessary delay in quartering both regiments at the Castle.

It was dark when the committee bore back to the meeting the great report
of their success. It was received with expressions of the highest
satisfaction. What a burden was lifted from the hearts of the Patriots!
They did not, however, regard their work as quite done. They voted that
a strong watch was necessary through the night, when the committee who
had waited on the Lieutenant-Governor tendered their services to make a
part of the watch, and the whole matter was placed in their hands as "a
committee of safety." They were authorized to accept the service of such
inhabitants as they might deem proper. The meeting, then dissolved. A
few days after, the two regiments were removed to the Castle.

The withdrawal of the troops caused great surprise in England, and long
deliberations by the Ministry. "It is put out of all doubt," Governor
Bernard wrote Hutchinson, "that the attacking the soldiers was
preconcerted in order to oblige them to fire, and then make it necessary
to quit the town, in consequence of their doing what they were forced to
do. It is considered by thinking men wholly as a manoeuvre to support
the cause of non-importation." The Opposition termed it an indignity put
upon Great Britain, and called upon the Ministry to resent it upon a
system, or to resign their offices. Lord Barrington, who approved of the
soldiers' retiring to the Castle, said, that, "where there was no
magistracy there should be no soldiers; and if they intended to have
soldiers sent there again, they should provide for a magistracy, which
could not be done but by appointing a royal Council, instead of the
present democratical one." The Government were perplexed; but the
expectation was general, that General Gage, without waiting for orders
from the Government, would send a reinforcement to Boston, and order the
whole of the troops into the town. "Every one," Governor Bernard wrote,
"without exception, says it must be immediately done. Those in
opposition are as loud as any. Lord Shelburne told a gentleman, who
reported it to me, that it was now high time for Great Britain to act
with spirit." The Governor advised Hutchinson, that, should it turn out
that he had been successful in preventing Captain Preston from being
murdered by the mob, "Government might be reconciled to the removal of
the troops." There was much outside clamor, and those who indulged in it
could not reconcile to themselves "six hundred regular troops giving way
to two or three thousand common people, who, they say, would not have
dared to attack them, if they had stood their ground"; and this class
regarded the affair "as a successful bully." Colonel Barre, in the House
of Commons, disposed of the question in a few words: "The officers
agreed in sending the soldiers to Castle William; what Minister will
dare to send them back to Boston?"

These events stirred the public mind in the Colonies profoundly. The
Spirit evinced by the people of Boston in the whole transaction raised
the town still higher in the estimation of the Patriots; annual
commemorative orations kept alive the tragic scene; and thus the
introduction of the troops, the question involved in their removal, and
the massacre and triumph of the people, contributed powerfully to bring
about that change in affections and principles which finally resulted in
American Independence.

       *       *       *       *       *

WET-WEATHER WORK.

BY A FARMER.


IV.

We are fairly on English ground now; of course, it is wet weather. The
phenomena of the British climate have not changed much since the time
when the rains "let fall their horrible pleasure" upon the head of the
poor, drenched outcast, Lear. Thunder and lightning, however, which
belonged to that particular war of the elements, are rare in England.
The rain is quiet, fine, insinuating, constant as a lover,--not wasting
its resources in sudden, explosive outbreaks.

During a foot-tramp of some four hundred miles, which I once had the
pleasure of making upon English soil, and which led me from the mouth of
the Thames to its sources, and thence through Derbyshire, the West
Riding of Yorkshire, and all of the Lake counties, I do not think that
the violence of the rain kept me housed for more than five days out of
forty. Not to say that the balance showed sunshine and a bonny sky; on
the contrary, a soft, lubricating mist is the normal condition of the
British atmosphere; and a neutral tint of gray sky, when no wet is
falling, is almost sure to call out from the country-landlord, if
communicative, an explosive and authoritative, "Fine morning, this,
Sir!"

The really fine, sunny days--days you believed in rashly, upon the sunny
evidence of such blithe poets as Herrick--are so rare, that, after a
month of British travel, you can count them on your fingers. On such a
one, by a piece of good fortune, I saw all the parterres of Hampton
Court,--its great vine, its labyrinthine walks, its stately alleys, its
ruddy range of brick, its clipped lindens, its rotund and low-necked
beauties of Sir Peter Lely, and the red geraniums flaming on the
window-sills of once royal apartments, where the pensioned dowagers now
dream away their lives. On another such day, Twickenham, and all its
delights of trees, bowers, and villas, were flashing in the sun as
brightly as ever in the best days of Horace Walpole or of Pope. And on
yet another, after weary tramp, I toiled up to the inn-door of "The
Bear," at Woodstock; and after a cut or two into a ripe haunch of
Oxfordshire mutton, with certain "tiny kickshaws," I saw, for the first
time, under the light of a glorious sunset, that exquisite velvety
stretch of the park of Woodstock, dimpled with water, dotted with
forest--clumps, where companies of sleek fallow-deer were grazing by the
hundred, where pheasants whirred away down the aisles of wood, where
memories of Fair Rosamond and of Rochester and of Alice Lee
lingered,--and all brought to a ringing close by Southey's ballad of
"Blenheim," as the shadow of the gaunt Marlborough column slanted across
the path.

There are other notable places, however, which seem--so dependent are we
on first impressions--to be always bathed in a rain-cloud. It is quite
impossible, for instance, for me to think of London Bridge save as a
great reeking thoroughfare, slimy with thin mud, with piles of umbrellas
crowding over it, like an army of turtles, and its balustrade steaming
with wet. The charming little Dulwich Gallery, with its Bonningtons and
Murillos, I remember as situated somewhere (for I could never find it
again of my own head) at a very rainy distance from London, under the
spout of an interminable waterfall. The guide-books talk of a pretty
neighborhood, and of a thousand rural charms thereabout; I remember only
one or two draggled policemen in oil-skin capes, and with heads slanted
to the wind, and my cabby, in a four-caped coat, shaking himself like a
water-dog, in the area. Exeter, Gloucester, and Glasgow are three great
wet cities in my memory,--a damp cathedral in each, with a damp-coated
usher to each, who shows damp tombs, and whose talk is dampening to the
last degree. I suppose they have sunshine in these places, and in the
light of the sun I am sure that marvellous gray tower of Gloucester must
make a rare show; but all the reports in the world will not avail to dry
up the image of those wet days of visit.

Considering how very much the fair days are overbalanced by the dirty,
thick, dropping, misty weather of England, I think we take a too sunny
aspect of her history: it has not been under the full-faced smiles of
heaven that her battles, revolutions, executions, and pageants have held
their august procession; the rain has wet many a May-day and many a
harvesting, whose traditional color (through tender English verses) is
gaudy with yellow sunshine. The revellers of the "Midsummer Night's
Dream" would find a wet turf eight days out of ten to disport upon. We
think of Bacon without an umbrella, and of Cromwell without a
mackintosh; yet I suspect both of them carried these, or their
equivalents, pretty constantly. Raleigh, indeed, threw his velvet cloak
into the mud for the Virgin Queen to tread upon,--from which we infer a
recent shower; but it is not often that an historical incident is so
suggestive of the true state of the atmosphere.

History, however, does not mind the rain: agriculture must. More
especially in any view of British agriculture, whether old or new, and
in any estimate of its theories or progress, due consideration must be
had for the generous dampness of the British atmosphere. To this cause
is to be attributed primarily that wonderful velvety turf which is so
unmatchable elsewhere; to the same cause, and to the accompanying even
temperature, is to be credited very much of the success of the
turnip-culture, which has within a century revolutionized the
agriculture of Kugland; yet again, the magical effects of a thorough
system of drainage are nowhere so demonstrable as in a soil constantly
wetted, and giving a steady flow, however small, to the discharging
tile. Measured by inches, the rain-fall is greater in most parts of
America than in Great Britain; but this fall is so capricious with us,
often so sudden and violent, that there must be inevitably a large
surface-discharge, even though the tile, three feet below, is in working
order. The true theory of skilful drainage is, not to carry away the
quick flush of a shower, but to relieve a soil too heavily saturated by
opening new outflows, setting new currents astir of both air and
moisture, and thus giving new life and an enlarged capacity to lands
that were dead with a stagnant over-soak.

Bearing in mind, then, the conditions of the British climate, which are
so much in keeping with the "wet weather" of these studies, let us go
back again to old Markham's day, and amble along--armed with our
umbrellas--through the current of the seventeenth century.

James I., that conceited old pedant, whose "Counterblast to Tobacco" has
worked the poorest of results, seems to have had a nice taste for
fruits; and Sir Henry Wotton, his ambassador at Venice, writing from
that city in 1622, says,--"I have sent the choicest melon-seeds of all
kinds, which His Majesty doth expect, as I had order both from ray Lord
Holderness and from Mr. Secretary Calvert." Sir Henry sent also with the
seeds very particular directions for the culture of the plants, obtained
probably from some head-gardener of a Priuli or a Morosini, whose melons
had the full beat of Italian sunshine upon the south slopes of the
Vicentine mountains. The same ambassador sends at that date to Lord
Holderness "a double-flowering yellow rose, of no ordinary nature";[3]
and it would be counted of no ordinary nature now, if what he avers be
true, that "it flowreth every month from May till almost Christmas."

King James took special interest in the establishment of his garden at
the Theobald Palace in Hertfordshire: there were clipped hedges, neat
array of linden avenues, fountains, and a Mount of Venus within a
labyrinth; twelve miles of wall encircled the park, and the soldiers of
Cromwell found fine foraging-ground in it, when they entered upon the
premises a few years later. The schoolmaster-king formed also a guild of
gardeners in the city of London, at whose hands certificates of capacity
for garden-work were demanded, and these to be given only after proper
examination of the applicants. Lord Bacon possessed a beautiful garden,
if we may trust his own hints to that effect, and the added praises of
Wotton. Cashiobury, Holland House, and Greenwich gardens were all noted
in this time; and the experiments and successes of the proprietor of
Bednall-Greene garden I have already alluded to. But the
country-gentleman, who lived upon his land and directed the cultivation
of his property, was but a very savage type of the Bedford or
Oxfordshire landholders of our day. It involved a muddy drag over bad
roads, after a heavy Flemish mare, to bring either one's self or one's
crops to market.

Sir Thomas Overbury, who draws such a tender picture of a "Milke-Mayde,"
is severe, and, I dare say, truthful, upon the country-gentleman. "His
conversation," says he, "amongst his tenants is desperate: but amongst
his equals full of doubt. His travel is seldome farther than the next
market towne, and his inquisition is about the price of corne: when he
travelleth, he will goe ten mile out of the way to a cousins house of
his to save charges; and rewards servants by taking them by the hand
when hee departs. Nothing under a _sub-poena_ can draw him to
_London_: and when he is there, he sticks fast upon every object, casts
his eyes away upon gazing, and becomes the prey of every cut-purse. When
he comes home, those wonders serve him for his holy-day talke. If he goe
to court, it is in yellow stockings: and if it be in winter, in a slight
tafety cloake, and pumps and pantofles."

The portrait of the smaller farmer, who, in this time, tilled his own
ground, is even more severely sketched by Bishop Earle. "A plain country
fellow is one that manures his ground well, but lets himself lye fallow
and unfilled. He has reason enough to do his business, and not enough to
be idle or melancholy.... His hand guides the plough, and the plough his
thoughts, and his ditch and land-mark is the very mound of his
meditations. He expostulates with his oxen very understandingly, and
speaks _gee_, and _ree_, better than English. His mind is not much
distracted with objects, but if a good fat cow come in his way, he
stands dumb and astonished, and though his haste be never so great, wilt
fix here half an hours contemplation. His habitation is some poor
thatched roof, distinguished from his barn by the loop-holes that let
out smoak, which the rain had long since washed through, but for the
double ceiling of bacon on the inside, which has hung there from his
grand-sires time, and is yet to make rashers for posterity. He
apprehends Gods blessings only in a good year, or a fat pasture, and
never praises him but on _good ground_."

Such were the men who were to be reached by the agricultural literature
of the day! Yet, notwithstanding this unpromising audience, scarcely a
year passed but some talker was found who felt himself competent to
expound the whole art and mystery of husbandry.

Adam Speed, Gent., (from which title we may presume that he was no
Puritan,) published a little book in the year 1626, which he wittily
called "Adam out of Eden." In this he undertakes to show how Adam, under
the embarrassing circumstance of being shut out of Paradise, may
increase the product of a farm from two hundred pounds to two thousand
pounds a year by the rearing of rabbits on furze and broom! It is all
mathematically computed; there is nothing to disappoint in the figures;
but I suspect there might be in the rabbits.

Gentleman Speed speaks of turnips, clover, and potatoes; he advises the
boiling of "butchers' blood" for poultry, and mixing the "pudding" with
bran and other condiments, which will "feed the beasts very fat."

The author of "Adam out of Eden" also indulges himself in verse, which
is certainly not up to the measure of "Paradise Lost." This is its
taste:--

    "Each soyl hath no liking of every grain,
    Nor barley nor wheat is for every vein;
    Yet know I no country so barren of soyl
    But some kind of come may be gotten with toyl.
    Though husband at home be to count the cost what,
    Yet thus huswife within is as needful as that:
    What helpeth in store to have never so much,
    Half lost by ill-usage, ill huswifes, and such?"

The papers of Bacon upon subjects connected with rural life are so
familiar that I need not recur to them. His particular suggestions,
however sound in themselves, (and they generally are sound,) did by no
means measure the extent of his contribution to the growth of good
husbandry. But the more thorough methods of investigation which he
instituted and encouraged gave a new and healthier direction to
inquiries connected not only with agriculture, but with every
experimental art.

Thus, Gabriel Platte, publishing his "Observations and Improvements in
Husbandry," about the year 1638, thinks it necessary to sustain and
illustrate them with a record of "twenty experiments."

Sir Richard Weston, too, a sensible up-country knight, has travelled
through Flanders about the same time, and has seen such success
attending upon the turnip and the clover culture there, that he urges
the same upon his fellow-landholders, in a "Discourse of Husbandrie."

The book was published under the name of Hartlib,--the same Master
Samuel Hartlib to whom Milton addressed his tractate "Of Education," and
of whom the great poet speaks as "a person sent hither [to England] by
some good Providence from a far country, to be the occasion and
incitement of great good to this island."

This mention makes us curious to know something more of Master Samuel
Hartlib. I find that he was the son of a Polish merchant, of Lithuania,
was himself engaged for a time in commercial transactions, and came to
England about the year 1640. He wrote several theological tracts, edited
sundry agricultural works, including, among others, those of Sir Richard
Weston, and published his own observations upon the shortcomings of
British husbandry. He also proposed a grandiose scheme for an
agricultural college, in order to teach youths "the theorick and
practick parts of this most ancient, noble, and honestly gainfull art,
trade, or mystery." The work published under his name entitled "The
Legacy," besides notices of the Brabant husbandry, embraces epistles
from various farmers, who may be supposed to represent the progressive
agriculture of England. Among these letters I note one upon "Snaggreet,"
(shelly earth from river-beds); another upon "Seaweeds"; a third upon
"Sea-sand"; and a fourth upon "Woollen-rags."

Hartlib was in good odor during the days of the Commonwealth; for he
lived long enough to see that bitter tragedy of the executed king before
Whitehall Palace, and to hold over to the early years of the
Restoration. But he was not in favor with the people about Charles II.;
the small pension that Cromwell had bestowed fell into sad arrearages;
and the story is, that he died miserably poor.

It is noticeable that Hartlib, and a great many sensible old gentlemen
of his date, spoke of the art of husbandry as a mystery. And so it is; a
mystery then, and a mystery now. Nothing tries my patience more than to
meet one of those billet-headed farmers who--whether in print or in
talk--pretend to have solved the mystery and mastered it.

Take my own crop of corn yonder upon the flat, which I have watched
since the day when it first shot up its little dainty spears of green,
until now it spindles has been faithfully ploughed and fed and tilled;
but how gross appliances all these, to the fine fibrous feeders that
have been searching, day by day, every cranny of the soil,--to the broad
leaflets that, week by week, have stolen out from their green sheaths to
wanton with the wind and caress the dews! Is there any quick-witted
farmer who shall tell us with anything like definiteness what the
phosphates have contributed to all this, and how much the nitrogenous
manures, and to what degree the deposits of _humus_? He may establish
the conditions of a sure crop, thirty, forty, or sixty bushels to the
acre, (seasons favoring); but how short a reach is this toward
determining the final capacity of either soil or plant! How often the
most petted experiments laugh us in the face! The great miracle of the
vital laboratory in the plant remains to mock us. We test it; we humor
it; we fondly believe that we have detected its secret: but the mystery
stays.

A bumpkin may rear a crop that shall keep him from starvation; but to
develop the _utmost_ capacity of a given soil by fertilizing appliances,
or by those of tillage, is the work, I suspect, of a wiser man than
belongs to our day. And when I find one who fancies he has resolved all
the conditions which contribute to this miracle of God's, and can
control and fructify at his will, I have less respect for his head than
for a good one--of Savoy cabbage. The great problem of Adam's curse is
not worked out so easily. The sweating is not over yet.

If we are confronted with mystery, it is not blank, hopeless, fathomless
mystery. Our plummet-lines are only too short; but they are growing
longer. It is a lively mystery, that piques and tempts and rewards
endeavor. It unfolds with an appetizing delay. Every year a new secret
is laid bare, which, in the flush of triumph, seems a crowning
development; whereas it presently appears that we have only opened a new
door upon some further labyrinth.

Throughout the seventeenth century, the progress in husbandry, without
being at any one period very brilliant, was decided and constant. If
there was anything like a relapse, and neglect of good culture, it was
most marked shortly after the Restoration. The country-gentlemen, who
had entertained a wholesome horror of Cromwell and his troopers, had,
during the Commonwealth, devoted themselves to a quiet life upon their
estates, repairing the damages which the Civil War had wrought in their
fortunes and in their lands. The high price of farm-products stimulated
their efforts, and their country-isolation permitted a harmless show of
the chivalrous contempt they entertained for the _novi homines_ of the
Commonwealth. With the return of Charles they abandoned their estates
once more to the bailiffs, and made a rush for the town and for their
share of the "leeks and onions."

But the earnest men were at work. Sainfoin and turnips were growing
every year into credit. The potato was becoming a crop of value; and in
the year 1664 a certain John Foster devoted a treatise to it, entitled,
"England's Happiness increased, or a Sure Remedy against all Succeeding
Dear Years, by a Plantation of Roots called Potatoes."

For a long time the crop had been known, and Sir Thomas Overbury had
made it the vehicle of one of his sharp witticisms against people who
were forever boasting of their ancestry,--their best part being below
ground. But Foster anticipates the full value of what had before been
counted a novelty and a curiosity. He advises how custards, paste,
puddings, and even bread, may be made from the flour of potatoes.

John Worlidge (1669) gives a full system of husbandry, advising green
fallows, and even recommending and describing a drill for the putting in
of seed, and for distributing with it a fine fertilizer.

Evelyn, also, about this time, gave a dignity to rural pursuits by his
"Sylva" and "Terra," both these treatises having been recited before the
Royal Society. The "Terra" is something muddy,[4] and is by no means
exhaustive; but the "Sylva" for more than a century was the British
planter's hand-book, being a judicious, sensible, and eloquent treatise
upon a subject as wide and as beautiful as its title. Even Walter
Scott,--himself a capital woodsman,--when he tells (in "Kenilworth") of
the approach of Tressilian and his Doctor companion to the neighborhood
of Say's Court, cannot forego his tribute to the worthy and cultivated
author who once lived there, and who in his "Sylva" gave a manual to
every British planter, and in his life an exemplar to every British
gentleman.

Evelyn was educated at Oxford, travelled widely upon the Continent, was
a firm adherent of the royal party, and at one time a member of Prince
Rupert's famous troop. He married the daughter of the British ambassador
in Paris, through whom he came into possession of Say's Court, which he
made a gem of beauty. But in his later years he had the annoyance of
seeing his fine parterres and shrubbery trampled down by that Northern
boor, Peter the Great, who made his residence there while studying the
mysteries of ship-building at Deptford, and who had as little reverence
for a parterre of flowers as for any other of the tenderer graces of
life.

The British monarchs have always been more regardful of those interests
which were the object of Evelyn's tender devotion. I have already
alluded to the horticultural fancies of James I. His son Charles was an
extreme lover of flowers, as well as of a great many luxuries which
hedged him against all Puritan sympathy. "Who knows not," says Milton,
in his reply to the [Greek: EIKON BASIAIKE], "the licentious remissness
of his Sunday's theatre, accompanied with that reverend statute for
dominical jigs and May-poles, published in his own name," etc.?

But the poor king was fated to have little enjoyment of either jigs or
May-poles; harsher work belonged to his reign; and all his
garden-delights came to be limited finally to a little pot of flowers
upon his prison-window. And I can easily believe that the elegant,
wrong-headed, courteous gentleman tended these poor flowers daintily to
the very last, and snuffed their fragrance with a Christian gratitude.

Charles was an appreciative lover of poetry, too, as well as of Nature.
I wonder if it ever happened to him, in his prison-hours at Carisbrooke,
to come upon Milton's "L'Allegro," (first printed in the very year of
the Battle of Naseby,) and to read,--

        "In thy right hand lead with thee
    The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty;
    And if I give thee honor due,
    Mirth, admit me of thy crew
    To live with her, and live with thee,
    In unreproved pleasures free;
    To hear the lark begin his flight,
    And, singing, startle the dull night,
    From his watch-tower in the skies,
    Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
    Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
    And at my window bid good-morrow,
    Through the sweetbrier, or the vine,
    Or the twisted eglantine."

How it must have smitten the King's heart to remember that the tender
poet, whose rhythm none could appreciate better than he, was also the
sturdy Puritan pamphleteer whose blows had thwacked so terribly upon the
last props that held up his tottering throne!

Cromwell, as we have seen, gave Master Hartlib a pension; but whether on
the score of his theological tracts, or his design for an agricultural
college, would be hard to say. I suspect that the hop was the
Protector's favorite among flowering plants, and that his admiration of
trees was measured by their capacity for timber. Yet that rare masculine
energy, which he and his men carried with them in their tread all over
England, was a very wakeful stimulus to productive agriculture.

Charles II. loved tulips, and befriended Evelyn. In his long residence
at Paris he had grown into a great fondness for the French gardens. He
afterward sent for Le Notre--who had laid out Versailles at an expense
of twenty millions of dollars--to superintend the planting of Greenwich
and St. James. Fortunately, no strict imitation of Versailles was
entered upon. The splendors of Chatsworth Garden grew in this time out
of the exaggerated taste, and must have delighted the French heart of
Charles. Other artists have had the handling of this great domain since
the days of Le Notre. A crazy wilderness of rock-work, amid which the
artificial waters commit freak upon freak, has been strewed athwart the
lawn; a stately conservatory has risen, under which the Duke may drive,
if he choose, in coach and four, amid palm-trees, and the
monster-vegetation of the Eastern archipelago; the little glass temple
is in the gardens, under which the Victoria lily was first coaxed into
British bloom; a model village has sprung up at the Park gates, in which
each cottage is a gem, and seems transplanted from the last book on
rural ornamentation. But the sight of the village oppresses one with a
strange incongruity; the charm of realism is wanting; it needs a
population out of one of Watteau's pictures,--clean and deft as the
painted figures; flesh and blood are too gross, too prone to muddy
shoes, and to--sneeze. The rock-work, also, is incongruous; it belongs
on no such wavy roll of park-land; you see it a thousand times grander,
a half-hour's drive away, toward Matlock. And the stiff parterres,
terraces, and alleys of Le Notre are equally out of place in such a
scene. If, indeed, as at Versailles, they bounded and engrossed the
view, so that natural surfaces should have no claim upon your eye,--if
they were the mere setting to a monster palace, whose colonnades and
balusters of marble edged away into colonnades and balusters of
box-wood, and these into a limitless extent of long green lines, which
are only lost to the eye where a distant fountain dashes its spray of
golden dust into the air,--as at Versailles,--there would be keeping.
But the Devonshire palace has quite other setting. Blue Derbyshire hills
are behind it; a grand, billowy slope of the comeliest park-land in
England rolls down from its terrace-foot to where the Derwent, under
hoary oaks, washes its thousand acres of meadow-vale, with a flow as
charming and limpid as one of Virgil's eclogues. It is such a setting
that carries the great quadrangle of Chatsworth Palace and its flanking
artificialities of rock and garden, like a black patch upon the face of
a fine woman of Charles's court.

This brings us upon our line of march again. Charles II. loved stiff
gardens; James II. loved stiff gardens; and William, with his
Low-Country tastes, out-stiffened both, with his

    "topiary box a-row."

Lord Bacon has commended the formal style to public admiration by his
advocacy and example. The lesson was repeated at Cashiobury by the most
noble the Earl of Essex (of whom Evelyn writes,--"My Lord is not
illiterate beyond the rate of most noblemen of his age"). So also that
famous garden of Moor-Park in Hertfordshire, laid out by the witty
Duchess of Bedford, to whom Dr. Donne addresses some of his piquant
letters, was a model of old-fashioned and stately graces. Sir William
Temple praises it beyond reason in his "Garden of Epicurus," and
cautions readers against undertaking any of those irregularities of
garden-figures which the Chinese so much affect. He admires only
stateliness and primness. "Among us," he says, "the Beauty of Building
and Planting is placed chiefly in some certain Proportions, Symmetries,
or Uniformities; our Walks and our Trees ranged so as to answer one
another, and at exact Distances."

From all these it is clear what was the garden-drift of the century.
Even Waller, the poet,--whose moneys, if he were like most poets, could
not be thrown away idly,--spent a large sum in levelling the hills
about his rural home at Beaconsfields. (We shall find a different poet
and treatment by-and-by in Shenstone.)

Only Milton, speaking from the very arcana of the Puritan rigidities,
breaks in upon these geometric formalities with the rounded graces of
the garden which he planted in Eden. There

                         "the crisped brooks,
    Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold
    With mazy error under pendent shades,
    Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed
    Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice Art
    In beds and curious knots, but Nature boon
    Poured forth profuse on hill and dale and plain."

Going far behind all conventionalities, he credited to Paradise--the
ideal of man's happiest estate--variety, irregularity, profusion,
luxuriance; and to the fallen estate, precision, formality, and an
inexorable Art, which, in place of concealing, glorified itself. In the
next century, when Milton comes to be illustrated by Addison and the
rest, we shall find gardens of a different style from those of Waller
and of Hampton Court.

And now from some look-out point near to the close of the seventeenth
century, when John Evelyn, in his age, is repairing the damages that
Peter the Great has wrought in his pretty Deptford home, let us take a
bird's-eye glance at rural England.

It is raining; and the clumsy Bedford coach, drawn by stout Flemish
mares,--for thorough-breds are as yet unknown,--is covered with a
sail-cloth to keep the wet away from the six "insides." The grass,
wherever the land is stocked with grass, is as velvety as now. The wheat
in the near county of Herts is fair, and will turn twenty bushels to the
acre; here and there an enterprising landholder has a small field of
dibbled grain, which will yield a third more. John Worlidge's drill is
not in request, and is only talked of by a few wiseacres who prophesy
its ultimate adoption. The fat bullocks of Bedford will not dress more
than seven hundred a head; and the cows, if killed, would not overrun
five hundred weight. There are occasional fields of sainfoin and of
turnips; but these latter are small, and no ridging or hurdling is yet
practised. From time to time appears a patch of barren moorland, which
has been planted with forest-trees, in accordance with the suggestions
of Mr. Evelyn, and under the wet sky the trees are thriving. Wide
reaches of fen, measured by hundreds of miles, (which now bear great
crops of barley,) are saturated with moisture, and tenanted only by
ghost-like companies of cranes.

The gardens attached to noble houses, under the care of some pupil of
Wise, or of Parkinson, have their espaliers,--their plums, their
pears,[5] and their grapes. These last are rare, however, (Parkinson
says sour, too,) and bear a great price in the London market. One or two
horticulturists of extraordinary enterprise have built greenhouses,
warmed, Evelyn says, "in a most ingenious way, by passing a brick flue
underneath the beds."

The lesser country-gentlemen, who have no establishments in town, rarely
venture up, for fear of the footpads on the heath, and the insolence of
the black-guard Cockneys. Their wives are staid dames, learned at the
brew-tub and in the buttery,--but not speaking French, nor wearing hoops
or patches. A great many of the older exotic plants have become
domesticated; and the goodwife has a flaming parterre at her door,--but
not valued one half so much as her bed of marjoram and thyme. She may
read King James's Bible, or, if a Non-Conformist, Baxter's "Saint's
Rest"; while the husband regales himself with a thumb-worn copy of "Sir
Fopling Flutter," or, if he live well into the closing years of the
century, with De Foe's "True-born Englishman."

Poetic feeling was more lacking in the country-life than in the
illustrative literature of the century. To say nothing of Milton's
brilliant little poems, "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," which flash all
over with the dews, there are the charming "Characters" of Sir Thomas
Overbury, and the graceful discourse of Sir William Temple. The poet
Drummond wrought a music out of the woods and waters which lingers
alluringly even now around the delightful cliffs and valleys of
Hawthornden. John Dryden, though a thorough cit, and a man who would
have preferred his arm-chair at Will's Coffee-House to Chatsworth and
the fee of all its lands, has yet touched most tenderly the "daisies
white" and the spring, in his "Flower and the Leaf."

But we skip a score of the poets, and bring our wet day to a close with
the naming of two honored pastorals. The first, in sober prose, is
nothing more nor less than Walton's "Angler." Its homeliness, its calm,
sweet pictures of fields and brooks, its dainty perfume of flowers, its
delicate shadowing-forth of the Christian sentiment which lived by old
English firesides, its simple, artless songs, (not always of the highest
style, but of a hearty naturalness that is infinitely better,)--these
make the "Angler" a book that stands among the thumb-worn. There is good
marrowy English in it; I know very few fine writers of our times who
could make a better book on such a subject to-day,--with all the added
information, and all the practice of the newspaper-columns. What Walton
wants to say he says. You can make no mistake about his meaning; all is
as lucid as the water of a spring. He does not play upon your wonderment
with tropes. There is no chicane of the pen; he has some pleasant
matters to tell of, and he tells of them--straight.

Another great charm about Walton is his childlike truthfulness. I think
he is almost the only earnest trout-fisher I ever knew (unless Sir
Humphrey Davy be excepted) whose report could be relied upon for the
weight of a trout. I have many excellent friends--capital
fishermen--whose word is good upon most concerns of life, but in this
one thing they cannot be confided in. I excuse it; I take off twenty per
cent. from their estimates without either hesitation, anger, or
reluctance.

I do not think I should have trusted in such a matter Charles Cotton,
although he was agricultural as well as piscatory,--having published a
"Planter's Manual." I think he could, and did, draw a long bow. I
suspect innocent milkmaids were not in the habit of singing Kit
Marlowe's songs to the worshipful Mr. Cotton.

One pastoral remains to mention, published at the very opening of the
year 1600, and spending its fine forest-aroma thenceforward all down the
century. I mean Shakspeare's play of "As You Like It."

From beginning to end the grand old forest of Arden is astir overhead;
from beginning to end the brooks brawl in your ear; from beginning to
end you smell the bruised ferns and the delicate-scented wood-flowers.
It is Theocritus again, with the civilization of the added centuries
contributing its spangles of reason, philosophy, and grace. Who among
all the short-kirtled damsels of all the eclogues will match us this
fair, lithe, witty, capricious, mirthful, buxom Rosalind? Nowhere in
books have we met with her like,--but only at some long-gone picnic in
the woods, where we worshipped "blushing sixteen" in dainty boots and
white muslin. There, too, we met a match for sighing Orlando,--mirrored
in the water; there, too, some diluted Jaques may have "moralized" the
excursion for next day's "Courier," and some lout of a Touchstone (there
are always such in picnics) passed the ices, made poor puns, and won
more than his share of the smiles.

Walton is English all over; but "As You Like It" is as broad as the sky,
or love, or folly, or hope.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE FRENCH STRUGGLE FOR NAVAL AND COLONIAL POWER.


In comparison with our national misfortunes all beside seems trifling.
Else nothing would so fasten our attention as the French invasion and
conquest of Mexico. A dependency of France established at our door! The
most restless, ambitious, and warlike nation in Europe our neighbor! Who
shall tell what results, momentous and lasting, may follow in the train
of such events?

What is the explanation of this conquest? Is it the freak of an
ambitious despot? Or is it only a stroke in the line of a settled
policy? one fact, which we see, amid a great number of facts which we do
not see?

This particular enterprise comes close to us. It affronts our pride and
tramples upon our political traditions. It establishes, what we did not
wish to see on this Western Continent, another foreign jurisdiction. But
for more than twenty-five years France has been engaged in a series of
like enterprises. In places not so near to us, by the same arbitrary
methods, she has already achieved conquests as important. With
soft-footed ambition, she has planted her flag and reared her
strongholds on spots full of natural advantages. But the aim is the same
everywhere: the reestablishment of her lost colonial and naval power.
And the hope of France is, that in the race for mercantile and naval
greatness she may yet challenge and vanquish the Sovereign of the Seas.

       *       *       *       *       *

The peace of 1815 left France with her naval and colonial power broken
apparently beyond hope. Even in the thirteen years preceding that peace
England had taken or destroyed not less than six hundred of her
war-ships. In the Mediterranean, on the Atlantic, amid the islands of
the West Indies, in the far-off golden East, wherever contending, fleet
against fleet, or ship with ship, everywhere she had been vanquished and
driven from the sea. That boundless colonial empire, of which Dupleix in
the East dreamed, and for whose establishment in the West Montcalm
fought and died, had shrunk to a few fishing-ports off the Gulf of St.
Lawrence, a few sugar-islands in the West Indies, and some unarmed
factories dotting the coasts of Africa and the shores of Hindostan, and
existing by British grace and permission. To so low an estate had fallen
that towering ambition which thought to exercise uncontrolled dominion
over this continent, to rule with more than regal sway the rich islands
and peninsulas of Asia, and to dictate peace to fallen England from the
guns of her armadas. After five wars waged with no craven spirit in less
than three-quarters of a century, after she had exhausted every resource
and more than once banded against her island foe every naval power in
Europe, she was forced to succumb to British perseverance and to the
gallantry of British sailors. The peace, which came not a moment too
soon, found her with a navy literally annihilated, and with little
remaining of her colonial empire but the memory. When we compare this
hopeless failure with the mercantile activity and naval force of Modern
France,--when we call up, in imagination, her new colonies, the germs
almost of empires,--we cannot admire too much the courage and energy
which have called into existence such magnificent resources. To what are
we to attribute this stupendous change? What have been the methods of
this growth? By what steps has this grand progress from weakness to
strength been achieved?

       *       *       *       *       *

In such a work of restoration, France had everything to create,--ships,
armaments, machinery, and sailors even, to replace those who had fallen
in the front of battle. To produce capacity of production was her first
work,--to establish new ports or replenish old ones, to build docks, to
rear workshops, to gather materials. This is what she has been doing.
Silently and steadily she has been laying the foundations of maritime
greatness. Her ports, in everything which contributes to naval
efficiency,--in size, in mechanical appliances, in concentration upon
one spot of all the trades and all the resources necessary for the
construction and repair of war-ships,--excel all other naval depots in
the world.

This is no exaggeration. There is the port of Cherbourg. Originally it
was little more than an open bay, hollowed by the waters of the English
Channel in the French coast, with a rocky shore exposed to every
northern blast. But it was situated just where France needed a harbor,
midway on her northern coast, facing England. Across this open bay, as a
chord subtends its arc, a gigantic sea-wall has been stretched. Built in
deep water more than a mile from the head of the bay, it extends almost
from shore to shore. It is nearly three miles long. It is scarcely less
than nine hundred feet wide at its base. Rising from the bed of the sea
sixty-six feet, it is firm enough to bear up fortresses strong as human
engineering can rear. This is the famous _digue_ of Cherbourg. Its
construction has been a seventy years' battle with the elements. Many
times the waves have destroyed the work of years. Once a furious tempest
swept away the whole superstructure, with its forts, armaments,
barracks, and even garrison. But failure has only awakened fresh energy,
and it stands now complete and rooted in the sea like a reef. At each
end of the _digue_, between it and the main land, are broad
ship-channels, affording a free passage at all tides to the largest
ships. Thus science has called into existence a safe harbor, protected
from the assaults of the sea by its granite barrier,--protected none the
less from man's assaults by the concentric fire of more than six hundred
guns.

This is but the exterior of Cherbourg. In the bosom of the rocky cliffs
of its western shore three basins or docks have been hewn with gigantic
toil. The first, finished in 1813, is 950 feet long, 768 feet wide, and
55 feet deep, and will hold securely fifteen ships of the line. The
second, of somewhat smaller dimensions, was completed in 1829, and will
float a dozen ships. The third, far larger than either, was opened with
great ceremony in 1858: it is 1365 feet long, 650 feet wide, and 60 feet
deep, and will contain eighteen or twenty ships of the largest size. On
the sides of these basins are twelve building-slips and seven docks. And
radiating from them, and in close contiguity, are arsenals, storehouses,
timber-yards, ropewalks, sail-lofts, bakeries, and machine-shops capable
of turning out marine engines, anchors, cables, and indeed every piece
of iron-work which enters into the construction of a ship. It is no vain
boast that an army of a hundred thousand men can be embarked any fine
morning at Cherbourg, and that the fleet necessary for its transport can
be built and armed and equipped and protected to the hour of its
departure in this fortified haven.

Yet Cherbourg is but one of five ports equally efficient, equally
protected, and equally furnished with the products of mechanic and
nautical invention. Brest, L'Orient, and Rochefort, on the west, have
far greater natural and scarcely less acquired advantages; while the old
port of Toulon on the Mediterranean, old only in name, has been so
enlarged and strengthened, that it can supply for the southern waters
all and more than Cherbourg does for the northern. One fact will show to
what an extent this power of naval production has been carried. In these
five ports are some eighty building-slips or houses, and twenty-five
docks, and, connected with them, all the materials, all the trades, all
the labor-saving machines, all the mechanical forces, which the
nineteenth century knows. If she wished, France could build at the same
time forty ships of the line and forty frigates, while twenty-five more
were undergoing repairs. The result of all this activity is, that, in
extent, in completeness, in concentration of forces upon the right spot,
the naval ports and dockyards of France are absolutely unequalled. And
the work goes on. To-day twenty-two thousand men are employed upon naval
works. Within six months a wet dock has been completed at Toulon, and
another at L'Orient, while at Brest great ranges of workshops are
hastening to completion; and it is whispered that at Cherbourg another
basin is, like its predecessors, to be chiselled out of the solid rock.

       *       *       *       *       *

Do we ask now what France has gained, in fleets and armaments, from this
immense work of preparation? Everything. Not to dwell upon
sailing-ships, which the progress of invention has made of inferior
worth, she has a steam-navy second to that of no power in Europe. Her
present ruler has fully appreciated the importance of that new element
in naval warfare, steam,--an element all the more important to France,
that it tends to lower the value of mere seamanship, in which she has
always been deficient, and to increase the value of scientific knowledge
and training, in which she has ever been with the foremost. For ten
years her energy has been tasked to produce steamships of the greatest
power and of the finest models. Since 1852 her ships of the line have
increased from two to forty, and her frigates from twenty-one to
forty-six. A fleet has thus been created which is numerically equal to
that of England, and which, so far as these things depend upon the
stanchness of the ships and the weight of the armaments, is perhaps in
force and efficiency superior.

If we turn our attention to iron-clad ships, we shall see best displayed
the sagacity, energy, and secretiveness of Louis Napoleon. In the
Crimean War, three floating batteries covered with iron slabs, and each
mounting eighteen fifty-pounders, silenced the Russian fort at Kinburn.
This was a lesson it would seem that any one might learn. Louis Napoleon
did not fail to learn it. If a ship can be made invulnerable, or nearly
so, in every part, then of what avail is that strategy which secures
choice of position, and which, of old, almost decided the battle? Will
not he come off victor who can produce guns from which the heaviest shot
may be hurled at the highest velocity, and gunners who shall launch them
on their errand of destruction with the greatest accuracy? The French
emperor has fairly overreached his island rivals. While they were
experimenting, he laid the keels of two iron-clads of six thousand tons
burden. In 1859 he ordered the construction of twenty steel-clad
frigates and fifty gunboats. Lord Clarence Paget declared in debate last
March, that, while England had, finished or constructing, only sixteen
iron-clad frigates, France had thirty-one. And even this takes no
account of floating-batteries and gunboats, wholly or in part protected,
and of which, if we are to trust her papers, France has an almost
fabulous number.

       *       *       *       *       *

But who shall man this fleet? Where are the skilful mariners to make
efficient these tremendous elements of naval power? It was Lord Nelson,
I think, who exclaimed, when he saw the stanch ships of Spain, "Thank
God, Spaniards cannot build men!" The recent changes in naval
construction, decreasing perhaps the relative worth of mere seamanship,
may have made the exclamation less pertinent than of old. But, after
all, on the rude and stormy ocean, proverbially fickle and uncertain,
nothing can take the place of sailors,--of brave and skilful men,
trained by long struggle with wind and wave, calm in danger, apt in
emergencies, finding the narrow path of safety where common eyes see
only peril and ruin. France understands tins. She knows how many of her
past humiliations can be traced directly to defective seamanship. But
where to seek the remedy? How to find or make sailors fit to contend
with those who were almost born and bred on the restless surge? By what
methods, with a slender commercial marine and a people reluctant to
encounter the hardships and dangers of sea-life, to fill up the scanty
roll of her able seamen? That is the problem France had to solve; and
she has done everything to solve it,--but remove impossibilities.

The first counsel of wisdom was to make the number of her sailors
greater. France has, at the most liberal estimate, only one hundred and
fifty thousand men at all conversant with the sea; while England has,
including boatmen, fishermen, coasters, and sailors of long voyages, the
enormous number of eight hundred thousand. Remove this disproportion and
you settle the whole question. Unfortunately, this is a matter in which
government can do but little, while national tastes and habits do
everything. No despotism can make a commercial marine where no
commercial spirit is. And no voice, charm it ever so wisely, can draw
the peasant of France from his vine-clad hills and plains. The French
rulers have done what they could. They have fostered, with a steady and
liberal hand, the fisheries. Every spring, twenty thousand men have set
sail to that best nursery of seamanship,--the Banks of Newfoundland.
These men are paid a bounty by Government, and, in return, are subjected
to a naval discipline, and, upon an emergency, are liable at a moment's
notice to enter into the naval service. To quicken mercantile
enterprise, by which alone mariners can be called into existence,
enormous subsidies have been paid to the great lines of steamers to
Brazil and the East. And the yearning for colonies, which in our day has
led to almost simultaneous attempts to found settlements in both
hemispheres and in all waters, has no doubt for a leading cause the
desire to build up a mercantile marine, and with it a numerous body of
expert seamen. If these efforts have not accomplished all that their
projectors could wish, it is not because their plans lacked sagacity,
but because it is hard to put the genius of the sea into the breasts of
men who are essentially landsmen.

To increase the number of French sailors would unquestionably be the
best possible method of adding to French naval power. But suppose that
this cannot be done. Supposes that there is in the heart of the French
people an invincible attachment to the soil, which makes them deaf to
every siren of the sea. What is the next counsel of wisdom? This, is it
not? To make what sailors you have efficient and available for naval
emergencies. In this respect the French authorities have achieved an
entire success. Every sailor, nay, every man whose employment savors at
all of maritime life, though he be only a boatman plying the river, or a
laborer in harbor or dock, is enrolled in what is called the marine
inscription,--thenceforward in all times of need to be called into
active service. This puts the whole seafaring population at the disposal
of Government. Nor is this all. Regular drafts are made upon the seamen;
and it is computed that in every period of nine years all the sailors of
France serve in their turn in the navy. They are trained in all that
belongs to naval duty: in the use of ships' guns, in the sailing of
great ships, and in the evolutions of fleets. No matter how sudden the
call, or from what direction the sailors are taken, no French fleet
leaves or can leave port with a crew of green hands.

The training which is given to sailors actually in service is an equally
important matter. The French Admiralty keeps no drones in its employ;
certainly it does not promote them to places of trust. Honors are won,
not bought. Every step up, from midshipman to admiral, must be the
result of honorable service, and actual proficiency both in the theory
and practice of a sailor's profession. The modern French naval officer
is master of his business, fit to compete with the best skill of the
best maritime races. Then the sailors themselves are trained. Even in
time of peace, twenty-five thousand are kept in service. Gathered on
board great experimental fleets, officers and men alike are schooled in
all branches of nautical duty. In port or out of it, they are not idle.
Every day a prescribed routine of exercise is rigidly enforced. Great
have been the results. The French sailor of 1863 is not a reproduction
of the sailor of 1800. In alertness, in knowledge, in silent obedience,
he is a great improvement upon his predecessor. Actual experiment shows
that a French crew will weigh anchor, spread and furl sail, replace
spars or running-ringing, lower or raise topmasts, or perform any other
duty pertaining to a ship, with as much celerity as the crew of any
other nation. And no confusion, no babbling of many voices, such as the
British writers of the last generations delighted to describe, mars the
beauty of the evolutions. One mind directs, and one voice alone breaks
the stillness. Since the Crimean War, the English speak with respect of
French seamanship; and though they do not believe that it is equal to
their own, they do not scruple to allow that a naval battle would be
disputed now with a fierceness hitherto unknown.

All that sagacity and experience would prompt has been attempted. All
that training and discipline can do has already been accomplished. Yet
there is one source of weakness for which there can be no remedy. France
has no naval reserves. And if she war with England, she will need them.
To put her marine on a war-basis would require all her available seamen.
To fill the gaps of war, she has not, and she cannot have, until a truly
commercial spirit grows up in the hearts of her people, the multitudes
of reserved men, more familiar with the sea than the land, such as swarm
in English ports. Yet, with every deduction, her capacity of naval
production, her strong fleets, and her trained seamen make her a naval
power whose might no one can estimate, and whose assault any nation may
well shun by all means except the sacrifice of honor and rights.

       *       *       *       *       *

If now we turn from the naval progress of France to her recent colonial
enterprises, we shall find fresh evidence that she has resumed that
contest which came to so disastrous a close fifty years ago. The old
dream of colonial empire has come back again. This was inevitable. A
great nation like France cannot always drink the cup of humiliation.
With an ambition no less high and arrogant than that which pervades the
British mind, she would plant far and wide French ideas and
civilization. While England has colonies scattered in every part of the
habitable globe, while Holland has almost monopolized the rich islands
of the Eastern Archipelago, and while even Spain has Manila in the East
and Cuba in the West, it could hardly be expected that France, the equal
of either, and in some respects the superior of all, should rest content
with a virtual exclusion from everything but her narrow
home-possessions.

And then, however disguised, there is in the heart of France an intense
naval rivalry of England. Though the stern logic of events has been
against her more than once, she does not accept the verdict. She means
to revise it with a strong hand. But she must have a navy, and a navy
cannot exhibit its highest vigor, unless it have a just foundation in an
energetic, wide-ranging commerce. And such a commerce cannot exist
except it have its depots and its agencies, its outlets and its markets,
everywhere. Above all, we are to seek the source of this new colonial
ambition in the character and purposes of that singular man who controls
the destinies of France. Not even his enemies would now question his
ability. The power he wields in Europe, the impression he has stamped
upon its policy, the skill with which he has made even his foes minister
to his greatness, all bear witness to it. But no one can study him in
the light of the past and not see that his is no ordinary ambition. To
be the ruler of one kingdom does not fill out its measure. To be the
arbiter of the fortunes of states, the genius who shall change the
current of affairs and shape the destiny of the future,--to exercise a
power in every part of the globe, and to have a name familiar in every
land and beneath every sun,--this is his ambition. No wonder that under
such a ruler France has embarked in a career of colonial aggrandizement
whose limit no one can foresee. The same hand which curbed the despot of
the North, and made the fair vision of Italian unity a solid reality,
may well think to place a puppet king on the throne of the Aztecs, or to
carve rich provinces out of Farther India.

       *       *       *       *       *

France made her first practical essay in colonization by her conquest of
Algiers. A Dey once said to an English consul, "The Algerines are a
company of rogues, and I am their captain." The definition cannot be
improved. That such a power should have been permitted to exist and
ravage is one of the anomalies of modern history. Yet within the memory
of living men this hoard of pirates flaunted its barbarism in the face
of the civilization of the nineteenth century. But in 1830 the Dey
filled the cup of wrath to the brim. He inflicted upon the French
consul, in full levee, the gross insult of a blow in the face. The
expedition sent to revenge the insult showed upon what a hollow
foundation this savage power rested. The army landed without opposition.
In five days it swept before it in hopeless rout the wreck of the
Algerine forces. In three weeks it breached and captured the corsair's
strongholds. The history of the French occupation of Algeria is a tale
of unceasing martial exploits, by which France has extended her empire
six hundred miles along the shores of the Mediterranean, and inland
fifty miles,--two hundred miles, according, we had almost said, to the
position of the last Arab or Kabyle raid and insurrection.

Whatever else Algeria may or may not have done for France, it certainly
has furnished a field whereon to train soldiers. Here seventy-five
thousand men, day and night, have watched and fought a wily foe. Here
all the great soldiers of the Empire, Arnand, Pelissier, Canrobert,
Bosquet, have won their first laurels. Here, amid the exigencies of wild
desert and mountain campaigning, has grown up that marvellous body of
soldiers, the Zouaves: "picked men, short of stature, broad-shouldered,
deep-chested, bull-necked," agile as goats, tolerant of thirst and
hunger, outmarching, outfighting, and outenduring the Desert Arab; men
who have never turned their backs upon a foe. Subtract from the army of
Louis Napoleon the heroes of Algeria, and you leave behind a body out of
which the fiery soul has fled.

The commercial results are not quite so satisfactory. The exports,
indeed, have risen to fifteen millions of dollars, and the imports to
twenty-five millions more; while some two hundred thousand Europeans
have made their home in the Colony, and a few hundred square miles have
been subjected to European culture. But as the yearly cost of the
occupation is fifteen million of dollars, the net profit cannot be
great. Algeria, however, is the safety-valve of France, giving active
employment to the idle, the discontented, and the revolutionary; and the
Government, on that account, may consider that the money is well
expended.

One consequence of the occupation of Algeria has generally been
overlooked,--its naval result. Hitherto France had absolutely no good
port in the Mediterranean (if we except those of Corsica) but Toulon and
Marseilles. It was absolutely less at home in its own sea than England.
The new conquest gave it a strip of coast on the southern border of the
sea, but no port. The harbor of Algiers, with the exception of a little
haven artificially protected and capable of holding insecurely a dozen
vessels, was much like that of Cherbourg, an open bay, facing northward.
The storms sweep it with such fury that not less than twenty vessels
have been driven ashore in one gale. But the French genius seems to
delight in such struggles for empire with the waves. Almost with the
taking of the citadel the engineer began his work. Two jetties, as they
are called, were pushed out from the land into deep water,--one from
the mole on the north, half a mile long, and the other from Point
Bab-Azoum on the south, a third of a mile long. In 1850 these were so
far complete as to inclose a safe harbor of two hundred acres. But not
content, the French have already planned, and possibly are now finished,
still other works, by which the perilous roadstead outside this harbor
shall be transformed into a secure anchorage of sixteen hundred acres.
Past events warrant us in believing that these improvements will be
pursued with no slack hand, until astonished Europe finds another
Cherbourg, a safe harbor, ample means of repair, and frowning guns to
repel all invaders. Imprudent Young France, indeed, whispers now that
Algiers makes the Mediterranean a French lake. But that is a little
premature. While Gibraltar and Malta hold safely their harbors, and
England's naval power is unbroken, no nation can truly make this boast.

       *       *       *       *       *

The next enterprise of France was hardly so creditable to her as the
Algerine conquest. Midway in the Pacific is the island of Tahita or
Otaheite,--as fair a gem as the sun ever looked down upon. The soft and
balmy air,--the undulating surface, rising to mountains and sinking into
deep valleys, luxuriant with tropical verdure,--the distant girdle of
coral reefs, which holds the island set in a circlet of tranquil blue
waters,--the gentle and indolent temper of the natives,--have all
conspired to throw an air of romance around the very name Otaheite. The
Christian world is bound to it by another tie. For thither came
Protestant missionaries, drawn by the reports of the tractable
disposition of the islanders, and labored with such success that in 1817
the king and all his subjects espoused Christianity.

Into this island Eden discord came in the guise of a Roman catechist,
who was sent thither for the express purpose of proselyting. As if aware
of the nature of his ungracious task, he disguised his real character.
But he was detected, and, together with a companion who had joined him,
was dismissed from the island by Queen Pomare, who dreaded the sectarian
strife his presence would awaken. This was her whole offence. Four years
later, in 1838, when the whole transaction might well have been
forgotten, Captain De Petit Thouars appeared in the French frigate
Venus, and demanded and obtained satisfaction in the sum of two thousand
piastres Spanish, and freedom for Catholic worship. In two subsequent
visits, though no new offence had been given, he increased the severity
of his demands, first putting the island under a protectorate, and
finally, in 1843, taking full possession of it as a French colony. The
helpless Queen appealed to Louis Philippe, who returned the island, but
reaffirmed the protectorate.

This same French protectorate is a rare piece of ponderous irony. The
French governor collects all export and import duties, writes all
state-papers, assembles and dismisses the island legislature according
to his good pleasure, doles out to the Queen a yearly allowance of a
thousand pounds, puts her in duress in her own house, if her conduct
displeases him, and will not allow her to see strangers, except by his
permission. Few will believe that zeal for the honor of the Catholic
Church prompted Louis Philippe to inflict so disproportioned a
punishment. That the island is the best victualling-station in the South
Pacific is a far greater sin, and one for which there could be in
covetous eyes no adequate punishment, except that seizure which is so
modestly termed a protectorate.

       *       *       *       *       *

Pass now from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean. There is the little rocky
island of St. Paul, situated in the same latitude as Cape Town and
Melbourne; and, planted with singular accuracy equidistant from the two,
it is the only place of shelter in the long route between them. Its
harbor, if harbor it may be called, is the most secure, the most
secluded, and the most romantic, perhaps, in the whole world. St. Paul
is of volcanic origin. It is, indeed, little more than an extinct
crater with a narrow rim of land around it to separate it from the sea.
Through this rim the waters of the great Indian Ocean have cut a
channel. The crater has thus become a beautiful salt lake, a mile in
diameter, clear, deep, almost circular, and from whose border, on every
side, rise the old volcanic walls draped in verdure. The strait
connecting it with the sea is but three hundred feet wide, and at high
tide ten feet deep,--thus affording an easy passage for small vessels
into this most delightful seclusion; and no doubt the strait might be so
deepened as to float the largest ships. St. Paul is not at present much
frequented. But in a sea which is every year becoming more populous with
the commerce of every nation, who shall tell what such a central station
may become? Its title was somewhat uncertain. England thought she held
it as a dependency of Mauritius. But in 1847 the governor of Bourbon,
with a happy audacity, took possession of it, as an outpost of his own
island, and planted a little French colony of fishermen. We have not
heard that the assumption has been disputed.

       *       *       *       *       *

No doubt, most of our readers may have observed in the daily prints
occasional allusions to the French War in Cochin China. Probably few
have understood the full meaning of the facts so quietly chronicled.
Perhaps none have dreamed that they were reading the first notices of a
new Eastern conquest, which, in extent and importance, may yet be second
only to that which has already been achieved by the British in
Hindostan. Yet so it is. The Cambodia is the largest river in Southern
Asia, and, together with the smaller and parallel river of Saigon,
drains a tract of not less than five hundred thousand square miles. The
region for which the French have been contending includes the provinces
which cluster around the mouths of these two rivers, and command them.
No position could be happier. For while on the one hand it controls the
outlet of a river stretching up into a rich and fertile country eighteen
hundred miles, on the other it projects into the Chinese Sea at a point
nearly midway between Singapore and Hong Kong, and so secures to its
possessor a just influence in that commercial highway. The ostensible
cause of the war in this region was the murder of a French missionary.
If this was ever the real cause, it long since gave way to a settled
purpose of conquest.

In the latter part of the year 1862 the Emperor of Cochin China was
forced to cede to France the coveted provinces. Already new
fortifications have arisen at Saigon, and dock-yards and coal-depots
been established, and all steps taken for a permanent occupation of the
territory. The following advertisement appeared in the London "Times"
for January 23, 1863,--"Contract for transportation from Glasgow to
Saigon of a floating iron dock in pieces. Notice to ship-owners. The
administration of the Imperial Navy of France have at Glasgow a floating
iron dock in pieces, which they require to be transported from that port
to Saigon, Cochin China. The said dock, with machinery, pumps, anchors,
and instruments necessary to its working, will weigh from two thousand
to twenty-five hundred tons. Ship-owners disposed to undertake the
transport are requested to forward their tenders to the Minister of
Marine and Colonies previous to the fifth of February next." Now, if we
consider that the news of the cession of these provinces did not reach
France until the close of the year 1862, that this advertisement is
dated January 23, 1863, and that a dock of the magnitude described could
hardly be constructed short of many months, we shall be satisfied, that,
long before any definite articles of peace had been proposed, the
Emperor had settled in his own mind just what region he would annex to
his dominions.

       *       *       *       *       *

We shall not need much argument to convince us that the subjugation of
Mexico does not, either in character or methods, differ much from other
acts of the French ruler. Nevertheless, the details are curious and
instructive. It must be allowed that Mexico had given the Allies causes
of offence. She left unpaid large sums due from her to foreign
bond-holders. The subjects of the allied powers, temporarily resident in
Mexico, were robbed by forced loans, and sometimes imprisoned, and even
murdered. To redress these grievances, an expedition was fitted out by
the combined powers of England, France, and Spain. The objects of the
expedition were, first, to obtain satisfaction for past wrongs, and,
second, some security against their recurrence in the future. It was
expressly agreed by all parties, that the Mexicans should be left
entirely free to choose for themselves their own form of government.
Later events would seem to prove that England and Spain were sincere in
their professions.

Everything went on smoothly until the capture of Vera Cruz. Then the
French Emperor unfolded secret plans which were not contained in the
original programme. They were these: To take advantage of the weakness
of the United States to establish in Mexico a European influence; to
take possession of its capital city; and thence to impose upon the
Mexican people a government more agreeable than the present to the
Allies. England and Spain retired from the expedition with scarcely
concealed disgust, declaring, in almost so many words, that they did not
come into Mexico to rob another people of their rights, but to gain
redress and protection for their own subjects. Louis Napoleon does not
even seek to conceal his intentions from us. "We propose," he says, "to
restore to the Latin race on the other side of the Atlantic all its
strength and prestige. We have an interest, indeed, in the Republic of
the United States being powerful and prosperous; but not that she should
take possession of the whole Gulf of Mexico, thence to command the
Antilles as well as South America, and to be the only dispenser of the
products of the New World." This is plain enough. What will be the final
form of settlement we do not even conjecture. It is probable that the
Emperor does not himself know. With our fortunes so unsettled, and with
so many European jealousies to conciliate, even his astute genius may
well be puzzled as to the wisest policy. But it is of no consequence
what particular government France may impose upon the conquered
State,--monarchical, vice-regal, or republican,--Maximilian, a
Bonaparte, or some one of the seditious Mexican chiefs. In either case,
if the French plan succeeds, the broad country which Cortes won and
Spain lost, will be virtually a dependency of France.

       *       *       *       *       *

Even while we write, France has embarked in yet other schemes of
colonial aggrandizement. She has just purchased the port of Oboch on the
eastern coast of Africa, near the entrance of the Red Sea. The place is
not laid down upon the maps; nor is its naval and commercial importance
known; but its proximity to Aden suggests that it may be intended as a
checkmate to that English stronghold. In the great island of Madagascar
she is founding mercantile establishments whose exact character have not
as yet been divulged; but experience teaches us that these enterprises
are likely to be pursued with promptness and vigor.

Thus France is displaying in colonial affairs an aggressive activity
which was scarcely to have been expected. To what extent she may perfect
her plans no one can prophesy. That she will be able to girdle the earth
with her possessions, and rear strongholds in every sea, is not
probable. England has chosen almost at her leisure what spots of
commercial advantage or military strength she will occupy; and the whole
world hardly affords the material for another colonial system as wide
and comprehensive.

       *       *       *       *       *

There is one consideration which ought not to be overlooked. It is this:
the relations which Louis Napoleon has succeeded in maintaining between
himself and that power which had the most interest in defeating his
schemes, and the most ability to do it. Under the Bourbons, the whole
policy of France was based upon a principle of settled and unchangeable
enmity to England. As a result, war always broke out while French
preparations were incomplete; and the concentrated English navy swept
from the sea almost every vestige of an opposing force. The present
French emperor has adopted an altogether different course. He has sought
the friendship of England. He has multiplied occasions of mutual action.
He has sedulously avoided occasions of offence. Kinglake, in his
"Crimean War," intimates that Louis Napoleon desired this alliance with
England and her noble Queen to cover up the terrible wrongs by which he
had obtained his authority. It is more likely far that he sought it in
order that under its shadow he might build himself up to resistless
power: just as an oak planted beneath the shade of other trees grows to
strength and majesty only to cut down its benefactors.

This proposal for alliance was unquestionably received by the English
people at first with feelings akin to disgust. The memory of the bad
faith by which power had been won, of the wrongs and exile of the
greatest statesmen and soldiers of France, and of the red carnage of the
Boulevards, was too recent to make such a friendship attractive. Though
acceptance of it might be good policy, yet it could not be yielded
without profound reluctance. But soon this early sentiment gave way to
something like pride. It was so satisfactory to think that the allied
powers were wellnigh irresistible; that they had only to speak and it
must be done; that they could dictate terms to the world; that they
could scourge back even the Russian despot, seeking to pour down his
hordes from the icy North to more genial climes. It is hardly
surprising, then, that men came to congratulate themselves upon so
favorable an alliance, and concluded to overlook the defect in his title
in consideration of the solid benefits which the occupant of the French
throne conferred.

But this feeling could not last. When the people of England saw how
inevitably Louis Napoleon reaped from every conflict some selfish
advantage, how the Crimean War gave him all the prestige, and the
Italian War the coveted province of Nice, they began to doubt his fair
professions. And this jealousy is fast deepening into fear. The English
people have an instinct of approaching danger. Any one can see that the
"_entente cordiale_" is not quite what it once was. When a British Lord
of Admiralty can rise in his place in Parliament, and, after alluding to
the powerful and increasing naval force of France, add,--"I say that any
Ministry who did not act upon that statement, and did not at once set
about putting the country in the position she ought to occupy in respect
to her navy, would deserve to be sent to the Tower or penitentiary,"--we
may be sure that England has as much jealousy as trust, and perhaps
quite as much alarm as either.

But we have only to look at her acts to know what England is thinking.
For six years she has been engaged in an unceasing war with
France,--not, indeed, with swords and bayonets, but as really with her
workshops and dockyards. She has tasked these to their uttermost to
maintain and increase her naval superiority. And this is not the only
evidence we have of her true feeling. The building of new fortifications
for her ports, and the enlargement and strengthening of the old
defences, all tell the same story of profound distrust. "Plymouth has
been made secure. The mouth of the Thames is thought to be impregnable."
That is the way English papers write. Around Portsmouth and Gosport she
has thrown an immense girdle of forts. We may think what we will of
Cherbourg, England views it in the light of a perpetual menace. To the
proud challenge she has sent back a sturdy defiance. Right opposite to
it, on her nearest shore, she has reared a "Gibraltar of the Channel."
If you take your map, you will perceive, facing Cherbourg, and
projecting from the southern coast of England, the little island of
Portland, which at low tide becomes a peninsula, and is connected with
the main land by Chesil Bank, a low ridge of shingle ten miles long. On
the extreme north of this island, looking down into Weymouth Bay, is a
little cluster of rocky hills, rising sharply to a considerable height,
and occupying, perhaps, a space of sixty acres. This is where the
fortress, or Veme, as it is called, is built. On the northern side, the
cliff lifts itself up from the waters of the bay almost in a
perpendicular line, and is absolutely inaccessible. On all other sides
the Veme has been isolated by a tremendous chasm, which makes the dry
ditch of the fort. This chasm has been blasted into the solid rock, and
is nowhere less than a hundred feet wide and eighty feet deep. At the
angles of the fortress it widens to two hundred feet, and sinks beneath
the batteries in a sheer perpendicular of one hundred and thirty feet.
Two bastions jut from the main work into it, protecting it from approach
by a terrible cross-fire. All the appointments are upon the same scale.
The magazines, the storehouses, the water-tanks, are built to furnish
supplies for a siege, not of months, but of years. On every side the
rocky surface of the hills has been shaved down below the level of its
guns; so that there is not a spot seaward or landward that may not be
swept by its tremendous batteries. Such is this remarkable stronghold
which is rising to completion opposite Cherbourg. Yet it is but one of
several strong forts which are to protect the single harbor of Weymouth
Bay. Was this Titanic work reared in the spirit of trust? Does it speak
of England's hope of abiding friendship with France? No; it tells us
that beneath seeming amity a deadly struggle is going on,--that every
dock hollowed, every ship launched, every colony seized, and every
fortress reared, is but another step in a silent, but real, contest for
supremacy.

When this hidden fire shall burst forth into a devouring flame, when
this seeming alliance shall change into open enmity and bitter war, no
one can prophesy. But no doubt sooner or later. For between nations, as
well as in the bosom of communities, there are irrepressible conflicts,
which no alliances, no compacts, and no motives of wisdom or interest
can forever hold in check. And when it shall burst forth, no one can
foretell what its end shall be. That dread uncertainty, more than all
these things else, keeps the peace. We can but think that the naval
preeminence of England has grown out of the real character of her people
and of their pursuits,--and that the same causes which, in the long,
perilous conflicts of the past, have enabled her to secure the
sovereignty of the seas, will strengthen her to maintain that
sovereignty in all the conflicts which in the future may await her. But,
whatever may be the result, to whomsoever defeat may come, nothing can
obliterate from the pages of history the record of the sagacity,
perseverance, and courage with which the French people and their ruler
have striven to overcome a maritime inferiority, whose origin, perhaps,
is in the structure of their society and in the nature of their race.

       *       *       *       *       *

SOMETHING LEFT UNDONE.


    Labor with what zeal we will,
      Something still remains undone,
    Something, uncompleted still,
      Waits the rising of the sun.

    By the bedside, on the stair,
      At the threshold, near the gates,
    With its menace or its prayer,
      Like a mendicant it waits:

    Waits, and will not go away,--
      Waits, and will not be gainsaid.
    By the cares of yesterday
      Each to-day is heavier made,

    Till at length it is, or seems,
      Greater than our strength can bear,--
    As the burden of our dreams,
      Pressing on us everywhere;

    And we stand from day to day
      Like the dwarfs of times gone by,
    Who, as Northern legends say,
      On their shoulders held the sky.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE GREAT INSTRUMENT.


Early in the month of November the mysterious curtain which has hidden
the work long in progress at the Boston Music Hall will be lifted, and
the public will throng to look upon and listen to the GREAT ORGAN.

It is the most interesting event in the musical history of the New
World. The masterpiece of Europe's master-builder is to uncover its
veiled front and give voice to its long-brooding harmonies. The most
precious work of Art that ever floated from one continent to the other
is to be formally displayed before a great assembly. The occasion is one
of well-earned rejoicing, almost of loud triumph; for it is the crowning
festival which rewards an untold sum of devoted and conscientious labor,
carried on, without any immediate recompense, through a long series of
years, to its now perfect consummation. The whole community will share
in the deep satisfaction with which the public-spirited citizens who
have encouraged this noble undertaking, and the enterprising; and
untiring lover of science and art who has conducted it from the first,
may look upon their completed task.

What is this wondrous piece of mechanism which has cost so much time and
money, and promises to become one of the chief attractions of Boston and
a source of honest pride to all cultivated Americans? The organ, as its
name implies, is _the instrument_, in distinction from all other and
less noble instruments. We might almost think it was called
organ as being a part of an unfinished _organism_, a kind of
Frankenstein-creation, half framed and half vitalized. It breathes like
an animal, but its huge lungs must be filled and emptied by alien force.
It has a wilderness of windpipes, each furnished with its own vocal
adjustment, or larynx. Thousands of long, delicate tendons govern its
varied internal movements, themselves obedient to the human muscles
which are commanded by the human brain, which again is guided in its
volitions by the voice of the great half-living creature. A strange
cross between the form and functions of animated beings, on the one
hand, and the passive conditions of inert machinery, on the other! Its
utterance rises through all the gamut of Nature's multitudinous voices,
and has a note for all her outward sounds and inward moods. Its thunder
is deep as that of billows that tumble through ocean-caverns, and its
whistle is sharper than that of the wind through their narrowest
crevice. It roars louder than the lion of the desert, and it can draw
out a thread of sound as fine as the locust spins at hot noon on his
still tree-top. Its clustering columns are as a forest in which every
music-flowering tree and shrub finds its representative. It imitates all
instruments; it cheats the listener with the sound of singing choirs; it
strives for a still purer note than can be strained from human throats,
and emulates the host of heaven with its unearthly "voice of angels."
Within its breast all the passions of humanity seem to reign in turn. It
moans with the dull ache of grief, and cries with the sudden thrill of
pain; it sighs, it shouts, it laughs, it exults, it wails, it pleads, it
trembles, it shudders, it threatens, it storms, it rages, it is soothed,
it slumbers.

Such is the organ, man's nearest approach to the creation of a true
organism.

But before the audacious conception of this instrument ever entered the
imagination of man, before he had ever drawn a musical sound from pipe
or string, the chambers where the royal harmonies of his grandest vocal
mechanism were to find worthy reception were shaped in his own
marvellous structure. The _organ_ of hearing was finished by its Divine
Builder while yet the morning stars sang together, and the voices of the
young creation joined in their first choral symphony. We have seen how
the mechanism of the artificial organ takes on the likeness of life; we
shall attempt to describe the living organ in common language by the aid
of such images as our ordinary dwellings furnish us. The unscientific
reader need not take notice of the words in parentheses.

The annexed diagram may render it easier to follow the description.

[Illustration]

The structure which is to admit Sound as a visitor is protected and
ornamented at its entrance by a light movable awning (the external ear).
Beneath and within this opens a recess or passage, (_meatus auditorium
externus_,) at the farther end of which is the parchment-like
front-door, D (_membrana tympani_).

Beyond this is the hall or entry, H, (cavity of the _tympanum_,) which
has a ventilator, V, (Eustachian tube,) communicating with the outer
air, and two windows, one oval, _o_, (_fenestra ovalis_,) one round,
_r_, (_fenestra rotunda_,) both filled with parchment-like membrane, and
looking upon the inner suite of apartments (labyrinth).

This inner suite of apartments consists of an antechamber, A,
(vestibule,) an arched chamber, B, (semicircular canals,) and a spiral
chamber, S, (_cochlea_,) with a partition, P, dividing it across, except
for a small opening at one end. The antechamber opens freely into the
arched chamber, and into one side of the partitioned spiral chamber. The
other side of this spiral chamber looks on the hall by the round window
already mentioned; the oval window looking on the hall belongs to the
antechamber. From the front-door to the oval window of the antechamber
extends a chain, _c_, (_ossicula auditus_,) so connected that a knock on
the first is transmitted instantly to the second. But as the round
window of the spiral chamber looks into the hall, the knock at the
front-door will also make itself heard at and through that window, being
conveyed along the hall.

In each division of the inner suite of apartments are the watchmen,
(branches of the auditory nerve,) listening for the approach of Sound.
The visitor at length enters the porch, and knocks at the front-door.
The watchmen in the antechamber hear the blow close to them, as it is
repeated, through the chain, on the window of their apartment. The
impulse travels onward into the arched chamber, and startles its
tenants. It is transmitted into one half of the partitioned spiral
chamber, and rouses the recumbent guardians in that apartment. Some
portion of it even passes the small opening in the partition, and
reaches the watchmen in the other half of the room. But they also hear
it through the round window, not as it comes through the chain, but as
it resounds along the hall.

Thus the summons of Sound reaches all the watchmen, but not all of them
through the same channels or with the same force. It is not known how
their several precise duties are apportioned, but it seems probable that
the watchmen in the spiral chamber observe the pitch of the audible
impulse which reaches them, while the others take cognizance of its
intensity and perhaps of its direction.

Such is the plan of the organ of hearing as an architect might describe
it. But the details of its special furnishing are so intricate and
minute that no anatomist has proved equal to their entire and exhaustive
delineation. An Italian nobleman, the Marquis Corti, has hitherto proved
most successful in describing the wonderful _key-board_ found in the
spiral chamber, the complex and symmetrical beauty of which is
absolutely astonishing to those who study it by the aid of the
microscope. The figure annexed shows a small portion of this
extraordinary structure. It is from Koelliker's well-known work on
Microscopic Anatomy.

[Illustration]

Enough has been said to show that the ear is as carefully adjusted to
respond to the blended impressions of sound as the eye to receive the
mingled rays of light; and that as the telescope presupposes the lens
and the retina, so the organ presupposes the resonant membranes, the
labyrinthine chambers, and the delicately suspended or exquisitely
spread-out nervous filaments of that other organ, whose builder is the
Architect of the universe and the Master of all its harmonies.

Not less an object of wonder is that curious piece of mechanism, the
most perfect, within its limited range of powers, of all musical
instruments, the _organ_ of the human voice. It is the highest triumph
of our artificial contrivances to reach a tone like that of a singer,
and among a hundred organ-stops none excites such admiration as the _vox
humana_; a brief account of the vocal organ will not, therefore, be out
of place. The principles of the action of the larynx are easily
illustrated by reference to the simpler musical instruments. In a flute
or flageolet the musical sound is produced by the vibration of a column
of air contained in its interior. In a clarionet or a bassoon another
source of sound is added in the form of a thin slip of wood contained in
the mouth-piece, and called the _reed_, the vibrations of which give a
superadded nasal thrill to the resonance of the column of air.

The human organ of voice is like the clarionet and the bassoon. The
windpipe is the tube containing the column of air. The larynx is the
mouth-piece containing the reed. But the reed is double, consisting of
two very thin membranous edges, which are made tense or relaxed, and
have the interval between them through which the air rushes narrowed or
widened by the instinctive, automatic action of a set of little muscles.
The vibration of these membranous edges (_chordae vocales_) produces a
musical sound, just as the vibration of the edge of a finger-bowl
produces one when a wet finger is passed round it. The cavities of the
nostrils, and their side-chambers, with their light, elastic
sounding-boards of thin bone, are essential to the richness of the tone,
as all singers find out when those passages are obstructed by a cold in
the head.

The human voice, perfect as it may be in tone, is yet always very
deficient in compass, as is obvious from the fact that the bass voice,
the barytone, the contralto, and the soprano have all different
registers, and are all required to produce a complete vocal harmony. If
we could make organ-pipes with movable, self-regulating lips, with
self-shortening and self-lengthening tubes, so that each tube should
command the two or three octaves of the human voice, a very limited
number of them would be required. But as each tube has but a single
note, we understand why we have those immense clusters of hollow
columns. As we wish to produce different effects, sometimes using the
pure flute-sounds, at other times preferring the nasal thrill of the
reed-instruments, we see why some of the tubes have simple mouths and
others are furnished with vibratory tongues. And, lastly, we can easily
understand that the great interior spaces of the organ must of
themselves furnish those resonant surfaces which we saw provided for, on
a small scale, in the nasal passages,--the sounding-board of the human
larynx.

       *       *       *       *       *

The great organ of the Music Hall is a choir of nearly six thousand
vocal throats. Its largest windpipes are thirty-two feet in length, and
a man can crawl through them. Its finest tubes are too small for a
baby's whistle. Eighty-nine _stops_ produce the various changes and
combinations of which its immense orchestra is capable, from the purest
solo of a singing nun to the loudest chorus in which all its groups of
voices have their part in the full flow of its harmonies. Like all
instruments of its class, it contains several distinct systems of pipes,
commonly spoken of as separate organs, and capable of being played alone
or in connection with each other. Four _manuals_, or hand key-boards,
and two _pedals_, or foot key-boards, command these several
systems,--the _solo_ organ, the _choir_ organ, the _swell_ organ, and
the _great_ organ, and the _piano_ and _forte_ pedal-organ. Twelve pairs
of bellows, which it is intended to move by water-power, derived from
the Cochituate reservoirs, furnish the breath which pours itself forth
in music. Those beautiful effects, for which the organ is incomparable,
the _crescendo_ and _diminuendo_,--the gradual rise of the sound from
the lowest murmur to the loudest blast, and the dying fall by which it
steals gently back into silence,--the _dissolving views_, so to speak,
of harmony,--are not only provided for in the swell-organ, but may be
obtained by special adjustments from the several systems of pipes and
from the entire instrument.

It would be anticipating the proper time for judgment, if we should
speak of the excellence of the musical qualities of the great organ
before having had the opportunity of hearing its full powers displayed.
We have enjoyed the privilege, granted to few as yet, of listening to
some portions of the partially mounted instrument, from which we can
confidently infer that its effect, when all its majestic voices find
utterance, must be noble and enchanting beyond all common terms of
praise. But even without such imperfect trial, we have a right, merely
from a knowledge of its principles of construction, of the preeminent
skill of its builder, of the time spent in its construction, of the
extraordinary means taken to insure its perfection, and of the liberal
scale of expenditure which has rendered all the rest possible, to feel
sure that we are to hear the instrument which is and will probably long
remain beyond dispute the first of the New World and second to none in
the Old in the sum of its excellences and capacities.

The mere comparison of numbers of pipes and of stops, or of external
dimensions, though it gives an approximative idea of the scale of an
organ, is not so decisive as it might seem as to its real musical
effectiveness. In some cases, many of the stops are rather nominal than
of any real significance. Even in the Haarlem organ, which has only
about two-thirds as many as the Boston one, Dr. Burney says, "The
variety they afford is by no means what might be expected." It is
obviously easy to multiply the small pipes to almost any extent. The
dimensions of an organ, in its external aspect, must depend a good deal
on the height of the edifice in which it is contained. Thus, the vaulted
roof of the Cathedral of Ulm permitted the builder of our Music-Hall
organ to pile the _facade_ of the one he constructed for that edifice up
to the giddy elevation of almost a hundred feet, while the famous
instrument in the Town Hall of Birmingham has only three-quarters of the
height of our own, which is sixty feet. It is obvious also that the
effective power of an organ does not depend merely on its size, but that
the perfection of all its parts will have quite as much to do with it.
In judging a vocalist, we can form but a very poor guess of the compass,
force, quality of the voice, from a mere inspection of the throat and
chest. In the case of the organ, however, we have the advantage of being
able to minutely inspect every throat and larynx, to walk into the
interior of the working mechanism, and to see the adaptation of each
part to its office. In absolute power and compass the Music-Hall organ
ranks among the three or four mightiest instruments ever built. In the
perfection of all its parts, and in its whole arrangements, it
challenges comparison with, any the world can show.

Such an instrument ought to enshrine itself in an outward frame that
should correspond in some measure to the grandeur and loveliness of its
own musical character. It has been a dream of metaphysicians, that the
soul shaped its own body. If this many-throated singing creature could
have sung itself into an external form, it could hardly have moulded one
more expressive of its own nature. We must leave to those more skilled
in architecture the detailed description of that noble _facade_ which
fills the eye with music as the voices from behind it fill the mind
through the ear with vague, dreamy pictures. For us it loses all
technical character in its relations to the soul of which it is the
body. It is as if a glorious anthem had passed into outward solid form
in the very ecstasy of its grandest chorus. Milton has told us of such a
miracle, wrought by fallen angels, it is true, but in a description rich
with all his opulence of caressing and ennobling language:--

    "Anon out of the earth a fabric huge
    Rose, like an exhalation, with the sound
    Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet,
    Built like a temple, where pilasters round
    Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid
    With golden architrave; nor did there want
    Cornice or frieze with bossy sculptures grav'n."

The structure is of black walnut, and is covered with carved statues,
busts, masks, and figures in the boldest relief. In the centre a richly
ornamented arch contains the niche for the key-boards and stops. A
colossal mask of a singing woman looks from over its summit. The
pediment above is surmounted by the bust of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Behind this rises the lofty central division, containing pipes, and
crowning it is a beautiful sitting statue of Saint Cecilia, holding her
lyre. On each side of her a griffin sits as guardian. This centre is
connected by harp-shaped compartments, filled with pipes, to the two
great round towers, one on each side, and each of them containing three
colossal pipes. These magnificent towers come boldly forward into the
hall, being the most prominent, as they are the highest and stateliest,
part of the _facade_. At the base of each a gigantic half-caryatid, in
the style of the ancient _hermae_, but finished to the waist, bends
beneath the superincumbent weight, like Atlas under the globe. These
figures are of wonderful force, the muscular development almost
excessive, but in keeping with their superhuman task. At each side of
the base two lion-_hermae_ share in the task of the giant. Over the base
rise the round pillars which support the dome and inclose the three
great pipes already mentioned. Graceful as these look in their position,
half a dozen men might creep into one of them and lie hidden. A man of
six feet high went up a ladder, and standing at the base of one of them
could just reach to put his hand into the mouth at its lower part, above
the conical foot. The three great pipes are crowned by a heavily
sculptured, ribbed, rounded dome; and this is surmounted, on each side,
by two cherubs, whose heads almost touch the lofty ceiling. This whole
portion of the sculpture is of eminent beauty. The two exquisite cherubs
of one side are playing on the lyre and the lute; those of the other
side on the flute and the horn. All the reliefs that run round the lower
portion of the dome are of singular richness. We have had an opportunity
of seeing one of the artist's photographs, which showed in detail the
full-length figures and the large central mask of this portion of the
work, and found them as beautiful on close inspection as the originals
at a distance.

Two other lateral compartments, filled with pipes, and still more
suggestive of the harp in their form, lead to the square lateral towers.
Over these compartments, close to the round tower, sits on each side a
harper, a man on the right, a woman on the left, with their harps, all
apparently of natural size. The square towers, holding pipes in their
open interior, are lower than the round towers, and fall somewhat back
from the front. Below, three colossal _hermae_ of Sibyl-like women
perform for them the office which the giants and the lion-shapes perform
for the round towers. The four pillars which rise from the base are
square, and the dome which surmounts them is square also. Above the dome
is a vase-like support, upon which are disposed figures of the lyre and
other musical symbols.

The whole base of the instrument, in the intervals of the figures
described, is covered with elaborate carvings. Groups of musical
instruments, standing out almost detached from the background, occupy
the panels. Ancient and modern, clustered with careless grace and quaint
variety, from the violin down to a string of sleigh-bells, they call up
all the echoes of forgotten music, such as the thousand-tongued organ
blends together in one grand harmony.

The instrument is placed upon a low platform, the outlines of which are
in accordance with its own. Its whole height is about sixty feet, its
breadth forty-eight feet, and its average depth twenty-four feet. Some
idea of its magnitude may be got from the fact that the wind-machinery
and the swell-organ alone fill up the whole recess occupied by the
former organ, which was not a small one. All the other portions of the
great instrument come forward into the hall.

In front of its centre stands Crawford's noble bronze statue of
Beethoven, the gift of our townsman, Mr. Charles C. Perkins. It might be
suggested that so fine a work of Art should have a platform wholly to
itself; but the eye soon reconciles itself to the position of the
statue, and the tremulous atmosphere which surrounds the vibrating organ
is that which the almost breathing figure would seem to delight in, as
our imagination invests it with momentary consciousness.

As we return to the impression produced by the grand _facade_, we are
more and more struck with the subtile art displayed in its adaptations
and symbolisms. Never did any structure we have looked upon so fully
justify Madame de Stael's definition of architecture, as "frozen music."
The outermost towers, their pillars and domes, are all _square_, their
outlines thus passing without too sudden transitions from the sharp
square angles of the vaulted ceiling and the rectangular lines of the
walls of the hall itself into the more central parts of the instrument,
where a smoother harmony of outline is predominant. For in the great
towers, which step forward, as it were, to represent the meaning of the
entire structure, the lines are all curved, as if the slight discords
which gave sharpness and variety to its less vital portions were all
resolved as we approached its throbbing heart. And again, the half
fantastic repetitions of musical forms in the principal outlines--the
lyre-like shape of the bases of the great towers, the harp-like figure
of the connecting wings, the clustering reeds of the columns--fill the
mind with musical suggestions, and dispose the wondering spectator to
become the entranced listener.

The great organ would be but half known, if it were not played in a
place fitted for it in dimensions. In the open air the sound would be
diluted and lost; in an ordinary hall the atmosphere would be churned
into a mere tumult by the vibrations. The Boston Music Hall is of ample
size to give play to the waves of sound, yet not so large that its space
will not be filled and saturated with the overflowing resonance. It is
one hundred and thirty feet in length by seventy-eight in breadth and
sixty-five in height, being thus of somewhat greater dimensions than the
celebrated Town Hall of Birmingham. At the time of building it, (1852,)
its great height was ordered partly with reference to the future
possibility of its being furnished with a large organ. It will be
observed that the three dimensions above given are all multiples of the
same number, thirteen, the length being ten times, the breadth six times
and the height five times this number. This is in accordance with Mr.
Scott Russell's recommendation, and has been explained by the fact that
vibrating solids divide into _harmonic lengths_, separated by _nodal
points_ of rest, and that these last are equally distributed at aliquot
parts of its whole length. If the whole extent of the walls be in
vibration, its angles should come in at the nodal points in order to
avoid the confusion arising from different vibrating lengths; and for
this reason they are placed at aliquot parts of its entire length. Thus
the hall is itself a kind of passive musical instrument, or at least a
sounding-board, constructed on theoretical principles. Whatever is
thought of the theory, it proves in practice to possess the excellence
which is liable to be lost in the construction of the best-designed
edifice.

       *       *       *       *       *

We have thus attempted to give our readers some imperfect idea of the
great instrument, illustrating it by the objects of comparison with
which we are most familiar, and leaving to others the more elaborate
work of subjecting it to a thorough artistic survey, and the rigorous
analysis necessary to bring out the various degrees of excellence in its
special qualities, which, as in a human character, will be found to mark
its individuality. We shall proceed to give some account of the manner
in which the plan of obtaining the best instrument the Old World could
furnish to the New was formed, matured, and carried into successful
execution.

It is mainly to the persistent labors of a single individual that our
community is indebted for the privilege it now enjoys in possessing an
instrument of the supreme order, such as make cities illustrious by
their presence. That which is on the lips of all it can wrong no
personal susceptibilities to tell in print; and when we say that Boston
owes the Great Organ chiefly to the personal efforts of the present
President of the Music-Hall Association, Dr. J. Baxter Upham, the
statement is only for the information of distant readers.

Dr. Upham is widely known to the medical profession in connection with
important contributions to practical science. His researches on typhus
fever, as observed by him at different periods, during and since the
years 1847 and 1848, in this country, and as seen at Dublin and in the
London Fever Hospital, were recognized as valuable contributions to the
art of medicine. More recently, as surgeon in charge of the Stanley
General Hospital, Eighteenth Army Corps, he has published an account of
the "Congestive Fever" prevailing at Newborn, North Carolina, during the
winter and spring of 1862-63. We must add to these practical labors the
record of his most ingenious and original investigations of the
circulation in the singular case of M. Groux, which had puzzled so many
European experts, and to which, with the tact of a musician, he applied
the electro-magnetic telegraphic apparatus so as to change the rapid
consecutive motions of different parts of the heart, which puzzled the
eye, into successive _sounds_ of a character which the ear could
recognize in their order. It was during these experiments, many of which
we had the pleasure of witnessing, that the "side-show" was exhibited of
counting the patient's pulse, through the wires, at the Observatory in
Cambridge, while it was beating in Dr. Upham's parlor in Boston. Nor
should we forget that other ingenious contrivance of his, the system of
_sound-signals_, devised during his recent term of service as surgeon,
and applied with the most promising results, as a means of
intercommunication between different portions of the same armament.

In the summer of 1853, less than a year after the Music Hall was opened
to the public, Dr. Upham, who had been for some time occupied with the
idea of procuring an organ worthy of the edifice, made a tour in Europe
with the express object of seeing some of the most famous instruments of
the Continent and of Great Britain. He examined many, especially in
Germany, and visited some of the great organ-builders, going so far as
to obtain specifications from Mr. Walcker of Ludwigsburg, and from
Weigl, his pupil at Stuttgart. On returning to this country, he brought
the proposition of procuring a great instrument in Europe in various
ways before the public, among the rest by his "Reminiscences of a Summer
Tour," published in "Dwight's Journal of Music." After this he laid the
matter before the members of the Harvard Musical Association, and,
having thus gradually prepared the way, presented it for consideration
before the Board of Directors of the Music-Hall Association. A committee
was appointed "to consider." There was some division of opinion as to
the expediency of the more ambitious plan of sending abroad for a
colossal instrument. There was a majority report in its favor, and a
verbal minority report advocating a more modest instrument of home
manufacture. Then followed the anaconda-torpor which marks the process
of digestion of a huge and as yet crude project by a multivertebrate
corporation.

On the first of March, 1856, the day of the inauguration of Beethoven's
statue, a subscription-paper was started, headed by Dr. Upham, for
raising the sum of ten thousand dollars. At a meeting in June the plan
was brought before the stockholders of the Music Hall, who unanimously
voted to appropriate ten thousand dollars and the proceeds of the old
organ, on condition that fifteen thousand dollars should be raised by
private subscription. In October it was reported to the Directors that
ten thousand dollars of this sum were already subscribed, and Dr. Upham,
President of the Board, pledged himself to raise the remainder on
certain conditions, which were accepted. He was then authorized to go
abroad to investigate the whole subject, with full powers to select the
builder and to make the necessary contracts.

Dr. Upham had already made an examination of the best organs and
organ-factories in New England, New York, and elsewhere in this country,
and received several specifications and plans from builders. He
proceeded at once, therefore, to Europe, examined the great English
instruments, made the acquaintance of Mr. Hopkins, the well-known
organist and recognized authority on all matters pertaining to the
instrument, and took lessons of him in order to know better the handling
of the keys and the resources of the instrument. In his company, Dr.
Upham examined some of the best instruments in London. He made many
excursions among the old churches of Sir Christopher Wren's building,
where are to be found the fine organs of "Father Smith," John Snetzler,
and other famous builders of the past. He visited the workshops of Hill,
Gray and Davidson, Willis, Robson, and others. He made a visit to Oxford
to examine the beautiful organ in Trinity College. He found his way into
the organ-lofts of St. Paul's, of Westminster Abbey, and the Temple
Church, during the playing at morning and evening service. He inspected
Thompson's _enharmonic_ organ, and obtained models of various portions
of organ-structure.

From London Dr. Upham went to Holland, where he visited the famous
instruments at Haarlem, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam, and the organ-factory
at Utrecht, the largest and best in Holland. Thence to Cologne, where,
as well as at Utrecht, he obtained plans and schemes of instruments; to
Hamburg, where are fine old organs, some of them built two or three
centuries ago; to Lubeck, Dresden, Breslau, Leipsic, Halle, Merseburg.
Here he found a splendid organ, built by Ladergast, whose instruments
excel especially in their tone-effects. A letter from Liszt, the
renowned pianist, recommended this builder particularly to Dr. Upham's
choice. At Frankfort and at Stuttgart he found two magnificent
instruments, built by Walcker of Ludwigsburg, to which place he repaired
in order to examine his factories carefully, for the second time. Thence
the musical tourist proceeded to Ulm, where is the sumptuous organ, the
work of the same builder, ranking, we believe, first in point of
dimensions of all in the world. Onward still, to Munich, Bamberg,
Augsburg, Nuremberg, along the Lake of Constance to Weingarten, where is
that great organ claiming to have sixty-six stops and six thousand six
hundred and sixty-six pipes; to Freyburg, in Switzerland, where is
another great organ, noted for the rare beauty of its _vox-humana_ stop,
the mechanism of which had been specially studied by Mr. Walcker, who
explained it to Dr. Upham.

Returning to Ludwigsburg, Dr. Upham received another specification from
Mr. Walcker. He then passed some time at Frankfort examining the
specifications already received and the additional ones which came to
him while there.

At last, by the process of exclusion, the choice was narrowed down to
three names, Schultze, Ladergast, and Walcker, then to the two last.
There was still a difficulty in deciding between these. Dr. Upham called
in Mr. Walcker's partner and son, who explained every point on which he
questioned them with the utmost minuteness. Still undecided, he
revisited Merseburg and Weissenfels, to give Ladergast's instruments
another trial. The result was that he asked Mr. Walcker for a third
specification, with certain additions and alterations which he named.
This he received, and finally decided in his favor,--but with the
condition that Mr. Walcker should meet him in Paris for the purpose of
examining the French organs with reference to any excellences of which
he might avail himself, and afterwards proceed to London and inspect the
English instruments with the same object.

The details of this joint tour are very interesting, but we have not
space for them. The frank enthusiasm with which the great German
organ-builder was received in France contrasted forcibly with the
quiet, not to say cool, way in which the insular craftsmen received him,
gradually, however, warming, and at last, with a certain degree of
effort, admitting him to their confidence.

A fortnight was spent by Dr. Upham in company with Walcker and Mr.
Hopkins in studying and perfecting the specification, which was at last
signed in German and English, and stamped with the notarial seal, and
thus the contract made binding.

A long correspondence relating to the instrument followed between Dr.
Upham, the builder, and Mr. Hopkins, ending only with the shipment of
the instrument. A most interesting part of this was Dr. Upham's account
of his numerous original experiments with the natural larynx, made with
reference to determining the conditions requisite for the successful
imitation of the human voice in the arrangement called _vox humana_. Mr.
Walcker has availed himself of the results of these experiments in the
stop as made for this organ, but with what success we are unable to say,
as the pipes have not been set in place at the time of our writing. As
there is always great curiosity to hear this particular stop, we will
guard our readers against disappointment by quoting a few remarks about
that of the Haarlem organ, made by the liveliest of musical writers, Dr.
Burney.

"As to the _vox humana_, which is so celebrated, it does not at all
resemble a human voice, though a very good stop of the kind; but the
world is very apt to be imposed upon by names; the instant a common
hearer is told that an organist is playing upon a stop which resembles
the human voice, he supposes it to be very fine, and never inquires into
the propriety of the name, or exactness of the imitation. However, with
respect to our own feelings, we must confess, that, of all the stops
which we have yet heard, that have been honored with the appellation of
_vox humana_, no one in the treble part has ever reminded us of anything
human, so much as the cracked voice of an old woman of ninety, or, in
the lower parts, of Punch singing through a comb." Let us hope that this
most irreverent description will not apply to the _vox humana_ of our
instrument, after all the science and skill that have been expended upon
it. Should it prove a success like that of the Freyburg organ, there
will be pilgrimages from the shores of the Pacific and the other side of
the Atlantic to listen to the organ that can _sing_: and what can be a
more miraculous triumph of art than to cheat the ear with such an
enchanting delusion?

Before the organ could be accepted, it was required by the terms of the
contract to be set up at the factory, and tested by three persons: one
to be selected by the Organ Committee of the Music-Hall Association, one
by the builder, and a third to be chosen by them. Having been approved
by these judges, and also by the State-Commissioner of Wuertemberg,
according to the State ordinance, the result of the trial was
transmitted to the President and Directors of the Music-Hall
Association, and the organ was accepted.

The war broke out in the mean time, and there were fears lest the vessel
in which the instrument might be shipped should fall a victim to some of
the British corsairs sailing under Confederate colors. But the Dutch
brig "Presto," though slow, was safe from the licensed pirates, unless
an organ could be shown to be contraband of war. She was out so long,
however,--nearly three months from Rotterdam,--that the insurance-office
presidents shook their heads over her, fearing that she had gone down
with all her precious freight.

"At length," to borrow Dr. Upham's words, "one stormy Sunday in March
she was telegraphed from the marine station down in the bay, and the
next morning, among the marine intelligence, in the smallest possible
type, might be read the invoice of her cargo thus:--

    "'Sunday Mar. 22

    "'Arr. Dutch brig Presto, Van Wyngarten, Rotterdam, Jan. 1.
    Helvoet, 10th Had terrific gales from SW the greater part of the
    passage. 40 casks gin JD & M Williams 8 sheep Chenery & Co 200
    bags coffee 2 casks herrings 1 case cheese W. Winsel 1 organ JB
    Upham 20 pipes 6 casks gin JD Richards 6 casks nutmegs J Schumaker
    20 do gin 500 bags chickory root Order,' etc., etc.

"And this was the heralding of this greatest marvel of a high and noble
art, after the labor of seven years bestowed upon it, having been tried
and pronounced complete by the most fastidious and competent of critics,
the wonder and admiration of music-loving Germany, the pride of
Wuertemberg, bringing a new phase of civilization to our shores in the
darkest hour of our country's trouble."

It remains to give a brief history of the construction of the grand and
imposing architectural frame which we have already attempted to
describe. Many organ-fronts were examined with reference to their
effects, during Dr. Upham's visits of which we have traced the course,
and photographs and sketches obtained for the same purpose. On
returning, the task of procuring a fitting plan was immediately
undertaken. We need not detail the long series of trials which were
necessary before the requirements of the President and Directors of the
Music-Hall Association were fully satisfied. As the result of these, it
was decided that the work should be committed to the brothers Herter, of
New York, European artists, educated at the Royal Academy of Art in
Stuttgart. The general outline of the _facade_ followed a design made by
Mr. Hammatt Billings, to whom also are due the drawings from which the
Saint Cecilia and the two groups of cherubs upon the round towers were
modelled. These figures were executed at Stuttgart; the other carvings
were all done in New York, under Mr. Herter's direction, by Italian and
German artists, one of whom had trained his powers particularly to the
shaping of colossal figures. In the course of the work, one of the
brothers Herter visited Ludwigsburg for the special purpose of comparing
his plans with the structure to which they were to be adapted, and was
received with enthusiasm, the design for the front being greatly
admired.

The contract was made with Mr. Herter in April, 1860, and the work,
having been accepted, was sent to Boston during the last winter, and
safely stored in the lecture-room beneath the Music Hall. In March the
_Great Work_ arrived from Germany, and was stored in the hall above.

"The seven-years' task is done,--the danger from flood and fire so far
escaped,--the gantlet of the pirates safely run,--the perils of the sea
and the rail surmounted by _the good Providence of God_."

The devout gratitude of the President of the Association, under whose
auspices this great undertaking has been successfully carried through,
will be shared by all lovers of Art and all the friends of American
civilization and culture. We cannot naturalize the Old-World cathedrals,
for they were the architectural embodiment of a form of worship
belonging to other ages and differently educated races. But the organ
was only lent to human priesthoods for their masses and requiems; it
belongs to Art, a religion of which God himself appoints the
high-priests. At first it appears almost a violence to transplant it
from those awful sanctuaries, out of whose arches its forms seemed to
grow, and whose echoes seemed to hold converse with it, into our gay and
gilded halls, to utter its majestic voice before the promiscuous
multitude. Our hasty impression is a wrong one. We have undertaken, for
the first time in the world's history, to educate a nation. To teach a
people to know the Creator in His glorious manifestations through the
wondrous living organs is a task for which no implement of human
fabrication is too sacred; for all true culture is a form of worship,
and to every rightly ordered mind a setting forth of the Divine glory.

This consummate work of science and skill reaches us in the midst of the
discordant sounds of war, the prelude of that blessed harmony which will
come whenever the jarring organ of the State has learned once more to
obey its keys.

God grant that the _Miserere_ of a people in its anguish may soon be
followed by the _Te Deum_ of a redeemed Nation!

       *       *       *       *       *

THE KING'S WINE.


    The small green grapes in countless clusters grew,
    Feeding on mystic moonlight and white dew
    And mellow sunshine, the long summer through:

    Till, with blind motion in her veins, the Vine
    Felt the delicious pulses of the wine,
    And the grapes ripened in the year's decline.

    And day by day the Virgins watched their charge;
    And when, at last, beyond the horizon's marge
    The harvest-moon dropt beautiful and large,

    The subtile spirit in the grape was caught,
    And to the slowly dying Monarch brought
    In a great cup fantastically wrought,

    Whereof he drank; then straightway from his brain
    Went the weird malady, and once again
    He walked the Palace free of scar or pain,--

    But strangely changed, for somehow he had lost
    Body and voice: the courtiers, as he crost
    The royal chambers, whispered,--"_The King's Ghost_!"

       *       *       *       *       *

MONOGRAPH FROM AN OLD NOTE-BOOK; WITH A POSTSCRIPT.

"ERIPUIT COELO FULMEN, SCEPTRUMQUE TYRANNIS."


In a famous speech, made in the House of Lords, March 16, 1838, against
the Eastern slave-trade, Lord Brougham arrests the current of his
eloquence by the following illustrative diversion:--

"I have often heard it disputed among critics, which of all quotations
was the most appropriate, the most closely applicable to the
subject-matter illustrated; _and the palm in generally awarded to that
which applied to Dr. Franklin the line in Claudian_,--

    'Eripuit fulmen coelo, mox sceptra tyrannis';

yet still there is a difference of opinion, and even that citation,
admirably close as it is, has rivals."

The British orator errs in attributing this remarkable verse to
Claudian; and he errs also in the language of the verse itself, which he
fails to quote with entire accuracy. And this double mistake becomes
more noticeable, when it appears not merely in the contemporary report,
but in the carefully prepared collection of speeches, revised at
leisure, and preserved in permanent volumes.[6]

The beauty of this verse, even in its least accurate form, will not be
questioned, especially as applied to Franklin, who, before the American
Revolution, in which it was his fortune to perform so illustrious a
part, had already awakened the world's admiration by drawing the
lightning from the skies. But beyond its acknowledged beauty, this verse
has an historic interest which has never been adequately appreciated.
Appearing at the moment it did, it is closely associated with the
acknowledgment of American Independence. Plainly interpreted, it calls
George III. "tyrant," and announces that the sceptre has been snatched
from his hands. It was a happy ally to Franklin in France, and has ever
since been an inspiring voice. Latterly it has been adopted by the city
of Boston, and engraved on granite in letters of gold,--in honor of its
greatest child and citizen. It may not be entirely superfluous to
recount the history of a verse which has justly attracted so much
attention, and which, in the history of civilization, has been of more
value than the whole State of South Carolina.

From its first application to Franklin, this verse has excited something
more than curiosity. Lord Brougham tells us that it is often discussed
in private circles. There is other evidence of the interest it has
created. For instance, in an early number of "Notes and Queries"[7]
there is the following inquiry:--

    "Can you tell me who wrote the line on Franklin, '_Eripuit_,'etc.?

    "HENRY H. BREEN.

    "_St. Lucia_."

A subsequent writer in this same work, after calling the verse "a
parody" of a certain line of antiquity, says,--"I am unable to say who
adapted these words to Franklin's career. Was it Condorcet?"[8] Another
writer in the same work says,--"The inscription was written by
Mirabeau."[9]

I remember well a social entertainment in Boston, where a most
distinguished scholar of our country, in reply to an inquiry made at the
table, said that the verse was founded on the following line from the
"Astronomicon"[10] of Manilius,--

    "Eripuit Jovi fulmen, viresque tonandi."

John Quincy Adams, who was present, seemed to concur. Mr. Sparks, in his
notes to the correspondence of Franklin, attributes it to the same
origin.[11] But there are other places where its origin is traced with
more precision. One of the correspondents of "Notes and Queries" says
that he has read, but does not remember where, "that this line was
_immediately_ taken from one in the 'Anti-Lucretius' of Cardinal
Polignac."[12] Another correspondent shows the intermediate
authority.[13] My own notes were originally made without any knowledge
of these studies, which, while fixing its literary origin, fail to
exhibit the true character of the verse, both in its meaning and in the
time when it was uttered.

The verse cannot be found in any ancient writer,--not Claudian or
anybody else. It is clear that it does not come from antiquity, unless
indirectly; nor does it appear that at the time of its first production
it was in any way referred to any ancient writer. Manilius was not
mentioned. The verse is of modern invention, and was composed after the
arrival of Franklin in Paris on his eventful mission. At first it was
anonymous; but it was attributed sometimes to D'Alembert and sometimes
to Turgot. Beyond question, it was not the production of D'Alembert,
while it will be found in the Works of Turgot,[14] published after his
death, in the following form:--

    "Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis."

There is no explanation by the editor of the circumstances under which
the verse was written; but it is given among poetical miscellanies of
the author, immediately after a translation into French of Pope's "Essay
on Man," and is entitled "Inscription for a Portrait of Benjamin
Franklin." It appears that Turgot also tried his hand in these French
verses, having the same idea:--

    "Le voila ce mortel dont l'heureuse industrie
    Sut enchainer la Foudre et lui donner des loix,
    Dont la sagesse active et l'eloquente voix
    D'un pouvoir oppresseur affranchit sa Patrie,
    Qui desarma les Dieux, qui reprime les Rois."

The single Latin verse is a marvellous substitute for these diffuse and
feeble lines.

If there were any doubt upon its authorship, it would be removed by the
positive statement of Condorcet, who, in his Life of Turgot, written
shortly after the death of this great man, says, "There is known from
Turgot but one Latin verse, designed for a portrait of Franklin";[15]
and he gives the verse in this form:--

    "Eripuit coelo fulmen, mox sceptra tyrannis."

But Sparks and Mignet, in their biographies,[16] and so also both the
biographical dictionaries of France,--that of Michaud and that of
Didot,--while ascribing the verse to Turgot, concur in the form already
quoted from Turgot's Works, which was likewise adopted by Ginguene, the
scholar who has done so much to illustrate Italian literature, on the
title-page of his "Science du Bon-Homme Richard," with an abridged Life
of Franklin, in 1794, and by Cabanis, who lived in such intimacy with
Franklin.[17] It cannot be doubted that it was the final form which this
verse assumed,--as it is unquestionably the best.

To appreciate the importance of this verse, as marking and helping a
great epoch, there are certain dates which must not be forgotten.
Franklin reached Paris on his mission towards the close of 1776. He had
already signed the Declaration of Independence, and his present duty was
to obtain the recognition of France for the new power. The very clever
Madame Du Deffant, in her amusing correspondence with Horace Walpole,
describes him in a visit to her "with his fur cap on his head and his
spectacles on his nose," in the same small circle with Madame de
Luxembourg, a great lady of the time, and the Duke de Choiseul, late
Prime-Minister. This was on the thirty-first of December, 1776.[18] A
pretty good beginning. More than a year of effort and anxiety ensued,
brightened at last by the news that Burgoyne had surrendered at
Saratoga. On the sixth of February, 1778, the work of the American
Plenipotentiary was crowned by the signature of the two Treaties of
Alliance and Commerce by which France acknowledged our Independence and
pledged her belligerent support. On the fifteenth of March, one of these
treaties, with a diplomatic note announcing that the Colonies were free
and independent States, was communicated to the British Government, at
London, which was promptly encountered by a declaration of war from
Great Britain. On the twenty-second of March, Franklin was received by
the King at Versailles, and this remarkable scene is described by the
same feminine pen to which we are indebted for the early glimpse of him
on his arrival in Paris.[19] But throughout this intervening period he
had not lived unknown. Indeed, he had become at once a celebrity.
Lacretelle, the eminent French historian, says, "By the effect which
Franklin produced, he appears to have fulfilled his mission, not with a
court, but with a free people. His virtues and renown negotiated for
him."[20]

Condorcet, who was a part of that intellectual society which welcomed
the new Plenipotentiary, has left a record of his reception. "The
celebrity of Franklin in the sciences," he says, "gave him the
friendship of all who love or cultivate them, that is, of all who exert
a real and durable influence upon public opinion. At his arrival he
became an object of veneration to all enlightened men, and of curiosity
to others. He submitted to this curiosity with the natural facility of
his character, and with the conviction that in this way he served the
cause of his country. It was an honor to have seen him. People repeated
what they had heard him say. Every _fete_ which he consented to receive,
every house where he consented to go, spread in society new admirers,
_who became so many partisans of the American Revolution_.... Men whom
the works of philosophy had disposed secretly to the love of liberty
were impassioned for that of a strange people. A general cry was soon
raised in favor of the American War, and the friends of peace dared not
even complain that peace was sacrificed to the cause of liberty."[21]
This is an animated picture by an eye-witness. But all authorities
concur in its truthfulness. Even Capefigue--whose business is to
belittle all that is truly great, and especially to efface those names
which are associated with human liberty, while, like another Old
Mortality, he furbishes the tombstones of royal mistresses--is yet
constrained to bear witness to the popularity and influence which
Franklin achieved. The critic dwells on what he styles his "Quaker
garb," "his linen so white under clothes so brown," and also the
elaborate art of the philosopher, who understood France and knew well
"that a popular man became soon more powerful than power itself"; but he
cannot deny that the philosopher "fulfilled his duties with great
superiority," or that he became at once famous.[22]

The arrival of Franklin was followed very soon by the departure of the
youthful Lafayette, who crossed the sea to offer his generous sword to
the service of American liberty. Our cause was now widely known. In the
thronged _cafes_ and the places of public resort it was discussed with
sympathy and admiration.[23] And so completely was Franklin recognized
as the representative of new ideas, that the Emperor Joseph II. of
Austria,--professed reformer as he was,--on one of his visits to France
under the travelling-name of Count Falkenstein, is reported to have
firmly avoided all temptation to see him, saying, "My business is to be
a Royalist,"--thus doing homage to the real character of Franklin, in
whom the Republic was personified.

Franklin was at once, by natural attraction, the welcome guest of that
brilliant company of philosophers who exercised such influence over the
eighteenth century. The "Encyclopedie" was their work, and they were
masters at the Academy. He was received into their guild. At the famous
table of the Baron D'Holbach, where twice a week, Sunday and Thursday,
at dinner, lasting from two till seven o'clock, the wits of that time
were gathered, he found a hospitable chair. But he was most at home with
Madame Helvetius, the widow of the rich and handsome philosopher, whose
name, derived from Holland, is now almost unknown. At her house he met
in social familiarity D'Alembert, Diderot, D'Holbach, Morellet, Cabanis,
and Condorcet, with their compeers. There, also, was Turgot, the
greatest of all. There was another person in some respects as famous as
any of these, but leading a very different life, whom Franklin saw
often,--I refer to Caron de Beaumarchais, the author already of the
"Barbier de Seville," as he was afterwards of the "Mariage de Figaro,"
who, turning aside from an unsurpassed success at the theatre, exerted
his peculiar genius to enlist the French Government on the side of the
struggling Colonies, predicted their triumph, and at last, under the
assumed name of a mercantile house, became the agent of the Comte de
Vergennes in furnishing clandestine supplies of arms even before the
recognition of Independence. It is supposed that through this popular
dramatist Franklin maintained communications with the French Government
until the mask was thrown aside.[24]

Beyond all doubt, Turgot is one of the most remarkable intelligences
which France has produced. He was by nature a philosopher and a
reformer, but he was also a statesman, who for a time held a seat in the
cabinet of Louis XVI., first as Minister of the Marine, and then as
Comptroller of the Finances. Perhaps no minister ever studied more
completely the good of the people. His administration was one constant
benefaction. But he was too good for the age in which he lived,--or
rather, the age was not good enough for him. The King was induced to
part with him, saying, when he yielded,--"You and I are the only two
persons who really love the people." This was some time in May, 1776; so
that Franklin, on his arrival, found this eminent Frenchman free from
all the constraints of a ministerial position. The character of Turgot
shows how naturally he sympathized with the Colonies struggling for
independence, especially when represented by a person like Franklin. In
a prize essay of his youth, written in 1750, when he was only
twenty-three years of age, he had foretold the American Revolution.
These are his remarkable words on that occasion:--

"Colonies are like fruits, which do not hold to the tree after their
maturity. Having become sufficient in themselves, they do that which
Carthage did, _that which America will one day do_."[25]

One of his last acts before leaving the Ministry was to prepare a memoir
on the American War, for the information of the Comte de Vergennes, in
which he says "that the idea of the absolute separation of the Colonies
and the mother-country seems infinitely probable; that, when the
independence of the Colonies shall be entire and acknowledged by the
English, there will be a total revolution in the political and
commercial relations of Europe and America; and that all the
mother-countries will be forced to abandon all empire over their
colonies, to leave them entire liberty of commerce with all nations, and
to be content in sharing with others this liberty, and in preserving
with their colonies the bonds of amity and fraternity."[26] This memoir
of the French statesman bears date the sixth of April, 1776, nearly
three months before the Declaration of Independence.

On leaving the Ministry, Turgot devoted himself to literature, science,
and charity, translating Odes of Horace and Eclogues of Virgil, studying
geometry with Bossut, chemistry with Lavoisier, and astronomy with
Rochon, and interesting himself in every thing by which human welfare
could be advanced. Such a character, with such an experience of
government, and the prophet of American independence, was naturally
prepared to welcome Franklin, not only as philosopher, but as statesman
also.

But the classical welcome of Turgot was partially anticipated,--at least
in an unsuccessful attempt. Baron Grimm, in that interesting and
instructive "Correspondance," prepared originally for the advantage of
distant courts, but now constituting one of the literary and social
monuments of the period, mentions, under date of October, 1777, that the
following French verses were made for a portrait of Franklin by Cochin,
engraved by St. Aubin:--

    "C'est l'honneur et l'appui du nouvel hemisphere;
    Les flots de l'Ocean s'abaissent a sa voix;
    Il reprime ou dirige a son gre le tonnerre;
    Qui desarme les dieux, peut-il craindre les rois?"

These verses seem to contain the very idea in the verse of Turgot. But
they were suppressed at the time by the censor on the ground that they
were "blasphemous,"--although it is added in a note that "they concerned
only the King of England." Was it that the negotiations with Franklin
were not yet sufficiently advanced? And here mark the dates.

It was only after the communication to Great Britain of the Treaty of
Alliance and the reception of Franklin at Versailles, that the seal
seems to have been broken. Baron Grimm, in his "Correspondance,"[27]
under date of April, 1778, makes the following entry:--

"A very beautiful Latin verse has been made for the portrait of Dr.
Franklin,--

    'Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis.'

It is a happy imitation of a verse of the 'Anti-Lucretius,'--

    'Eripuitque Jovi fulmen, Phoeboque sagittas.'"

Here is the earliest notice of this verse, authenticating its origin.
Nothing further is said of the "Anti-Lucretius"; for in that day it was
familiar to every lettered person. But I shall speak of it before I
close.

Only a few days later the verse appears in the correspondence of Madame
D'Epinay, whose intimate relations with Baron Grimm--the subject of
curiosity and scandal--will explain her early knowledge of it. She
records it in a letter to the very remarkable Italian Abbe Galiani,
under date of May 3d, 1778.[28] And she proceeds to give a translation
in French verse, which she says "D'Alembert made the other day between
sleeping and waking." Galiani, who was himself a master of Latin
versification, and followed closely the fortunes of America, must have
enjoyed the tribute. In a letter written shortly afterwards, he enters
into all the grandeur of the occasion. "You have," says he, "at this
hour decided the greatest question of the globe,--that is, if it is
America which shall reign over Europe, or Europe which shall continue to
reign over America. I would wager in favor of America."[29] In these
words the Neapolitan said as much as Turgot.

A little later the verse appears in a different scene. It had reached
the _salons_ of Madame Doublet, whence it was transferred to the
"Memoires Secrets de Bachaumont," under date of June 8th, 1778, as "a
very beautiful verse, proper to characterize M. Franklin and to serve as
an inscription for his portrait." These Memoirs, as is well known, are
the record of conversations and news gathered in the circle of that
venerable Egeria of gossip;[30] and here is evidence of the publicity
which this welcome had already obtained.

The verse was now fairly launched. War was flagrant between France and
Great Britain. There was no longer any reason why the new alliance
between France and the United States should not be placed under the
auspices of genius, and why the same hand which had snatched the
lightning from the skies should not have the fame of snatching the
sceptre from King George III. The time for free speech had come. It was
no longer "blasphemous."

But it will be observed that these records of this verse fail to mention
the immediate author. Was he unknown at the time? Or did the fact that
he was recently a cabinet-minister induce him to hide behind a mask?
Turgot was a master of epigram,--as witness the terrible lines on
Frederick of Prussia; but he was very prudent in conduct. "Nobody," said
Voltaire, "so skilful to launch the shaft without showing the hand." But
there is a letter from no less a person than D'Alembert, which reveals
something of the "filing" which this verse underwent, and something of
the persons consulted. Unhappily, the letter is without date; nor does
it appear to whom it was addressed, except that the "_cher confrere_"
seems to imply that it was to a brother of the Academy. This letter will
be found in a work which is now known to have been the compilation of
the Marquis Gaetan de La Rochefoucauld,[31] entitled, "Memoires de
Condorcet sur la Revolution Francaise, extraits de sa Correspondance et
de celle de ses Amis."[32] It is introduced by the following words from
the Marquis:--

"It is known how Franklin had been feted when he came to Paris, because
he was the representative of a republic. The philosophers, especially,
received him with enthusiasm. It may be said, among other things, that
D'Alembert lost his sleep; and we are going to prove it by a letter
which he wrote, where he put himself to the torture in order to versify
in honor of Franklin."

The letter is then given as follows:--

    "_Friday Morning_.

    "MY DEAR COLLEAGUE,--You are acquainted with the Franklin  verse,--

      'Eripuit coelo fulmen, _mox sceptra_ tyrannis.'

    You should surely cause it to be put in the Paris paper, if it is
    not there already.

    "I should agree with La Harpe that _sceptrumque_ is better: first,
    because _mox sceptra_ is a little hard, and then because _mox_,
    according to the dictionary of Gesner, who collects examples,
    signifies equally _statim_ or _deinde_, which causes a double
    meaning, _mox eripuit_ or _mox eripiet_.

    "However, here is how I have attempted to translate this verse for
    the portrait of  Franklin:--

    'Tu vois le sage courageux
    Dont l'heureux et male genie
    Arracha le tonnerre aux dieux
    Et le sceptre a la tyrannie.'

    If you find these verses sufficiently supportable, so that people
    will not laugh at me, you can put them into the Paris paper, even
    with my name. I shall honor myself in rendering this homage to
    Franklin, but on condition that you find the verses _printable_.
    As I make no pretension on account of them, I shall be perfectly
    content, if you reject them as bad.

    "The third verse can be put,--_A ravi le tonnerre aux cieux_, or
    _aux dieux_."

From this letter it appears that the critical judgment of La Harpe,
confirmed by D'Alembert, sided for _sceptrumque_ as better than _mox
sceptra_.

But the verse of Turgot was not alone in its testimony. There was an
incident precisely contemporaneous, which shows how completely France
had fallen under the fascination of the American cause. Voltaire, the
acknowledged chief of French literature in the brilliant eighteenth
century, after many years of busy exile at Ferney, in the neighborhood
of Geneva, where he had wielded his far-reaching sceptre, was induced,
in his old age, to visit Paris once again before he died. He left his
Swiss retreat on the sixth of February, 1778, the very day on which
Franklin signed the Alliance with France, and after a journey which
resembled the progress of a sovereign, he reached Paris on the twelfth
of February. He was at once surrounded by the homage of all that was
most illustrious in literature and science, while the theatre, grateful
for his contributions to the drama, vied with the Academy. But there
were two characters on whom the patriarch, as he was fondly called,
lavished a homage of his own. He had already addressed to Turgot a most
remarkable epistle in verse, the mood of which may be seen in its title,
"Epitre a un Homme"; but on seeing the discarded statesman, who had
been so true to benevolent ideas, he came forward to meet him, saying,
with his whole soul, "Let me kiss the hand which signed the salvation of
the people." The scene with Franklin was more touching still. Voltaire
began in English, which he had spoken early in life, but, having lost
the habit, he soon charted to French, saying that he "could not resist
the desire of speaking for one moment the language of Franklin." The
latter had brought with him his grandson, for whom he asked a
benediction. "God and Liberty," said Voltaire, putting his hands upon
the head of the child; "this is the only benediction proper for the
grandson of Franklin." A few days afterward, at a public session of the
Academy, they were placed side by side, when, amidst the applause of the
enlightened company, the two old men rose and embraced. The political
triumphs of Franklin and the dramatic triumphs of Voltaire caused the
exclamation, that "Solon embraced Sophocles." But it was more than this.
It was France embracing America, beneath the benediction of "God and
Liberty." Only a few days later, Voltaire died. But the alliance with
France had received a new assurance, and the cause of American
Independence an unalterable impulse.

Turgot did not live to enjoy the final triumph of the cause to which he
had given such remarkable expression. He died March 30th, 1781, several
months before that "crowning mercy," the capture of Cornwallis, and
nearly two years before the Provisional Articles of Peace, by which the
Colonies were recognized as free and independent States. But his
attachment to Franklin was one of the enjoyments of his latter
years.[33] Besides the verse to which so much reference has been made,
there is an interesting incident which attests the communion of ideas
between them, if not the direct influence of Turgot. Captain Cook, the
eminent navigator, who "steered Britain's oak into a world unknown," was
in distant seas on a voyage of discovery. Such an enterprise naturally
interested Franklin, and, in the spirit of a refined humanity, he sought
to save it from the chances of war. Accordingly, he issued a passport,
addressed "To all captains and commanders of armed ships, acting by
commission from the Congress of the United States of America, now in war
with Great Britain," where, after setting forth the nature of the voyage
of the English navigator, he proceeded to say,--"This is most earnestly
to recommend to every one of you, that, in case the said ship, which is
now expected to be soon in the European seas on her return, should
happen to fall into your hands, you would not consider her as an enemy,
nor suffer any plunder to be made of the effects contained in her, nor
obstruct her immediate return to England; but that you would treat the
said Captain Cook and his people with all civility and kindness,
affording them, as common friends to mankind, all the assistance in your
power which they may happen to stand in need of."[34] This document
bears date March 10th, 1779. But Turgot had anticipated Franklin. At the
first outbreak of the war, he had submitted a memoir to the French
Government, on which it was ordered that Captain Cook should not be
treated as an enemy, but as a benefactor of all European nations.[35]
Here was a triumph of civilization, by which we have all been gainers;
for such an example is immortal in its influence.

There is yet another circumstance which should be mentioned, in order to
exhibit the identity of sympathies in these two eminent persons. Each
sought to marry Madame Helvetius: Turgot early in life, while she was
still Mademoiselle Ligniville, belonging to a family of twenty-one
children, from a chateau in Lorraine, and the niece of Madame de
Graffigny, the author of the "Peruvian Letters"; Franklin in his old
age, while a welcome guest in the intellectual circle which this
widowed lady continued to gather about her. Throughout his stay in
France he was in unbroken relations with this circle, dining with it
very often, and adding much to its gayety, while Madame Helvetius, with
her friends, dined with him once a week. It was with tears in his eyes
that he parted from her, whom he never expected to see again in this
life; and on reaching his American home, he addressed her in words of
touching tenderness:--"I stretch out my arms towards you,
notwithstanding the immensity of the seas which separate us, while I
wait the heavenly kiss which I firmly trust one day to give you."[36]

But the story of the verse is not yet finished. And here it mingles with
the history of Franklin in Paris, constituting in itself an episode of
the American Revolution. The verse was written for a portrait. And now
that the ice was broken, the portrait of Franklin was to be seen
everywhere,--in painting, in sculpture, and in engraving. I have
counted, in the superb collection of the Bibliotheque Imperiale at
Paris, nearly a hundred engraved heads of him. At the royal exposition
of pictures the republican portrait found a place, and the name of
Franklin was printed at length in the catalogue,--a circumstance which
did not pass unobserved at the time; for the "Espion Anglais," in
recording it, treats it as "announcing that he began to come out from
his obscurity."[37] The same curious authority, describing a festival at
Marseilles, says, under date of March 20th, 1779,--"I was struck, on
entering the hall, to observe a crowd of portraits representing the
insurgents; but that of M. Franklin especially drew my attention, on
account of the device, '_Eripuit coelo_,' etc. This was inscribed
recently, and _every one admired the sublime truth_."[38] Thus
completely was France, not merely in its social centre, where fashion
gives the law, but in its distant borders, pledged to the cause of which
Franklin was the representative.

As in the halls of science and in popular resorts, so was our
Plenipotentiary even in the palace of princes. The biographer of the
Prince de Conde dwells with admiration upon the illustrious character
who, during the great debate and the negotiations which ensued, had
fixed the regards of Paris, of Versailles, of the whole kingdom
indeed,--although in his simple and farmer-like exterior so unlike those
gilded plenipotentiaries to whom France was accustomed,--and he
recounts, most sympathetically, that the Prince, after an interview of
two hours, declared that "Franklin appeared to him above even his
reputation."[39] And here again we encounter the unwilling testimony of
Capefigue, who says that he was followed everywhere, taking possession
of "hearts and minds," and that "his image, under the simple garb of a
Quaker, was to be found at the hearth of the poor and in the boudoir of
the beautiful";[40]--all of which is in harmony with the more
sympathetic record of Lacretelle, who says that "portraits of Franklin
were everywhere, with this inscription, _Eripuit coelo_, etc., _which
the Court itself found just and sublime_."[41]

But it was at court, even in the precincts of Versailles, that the
portrait and the inscription had their most remarkable experience. Of
this there is an authentic account in the Memoirs of Marie Antoinette by
her attendant, Madame Campan. This feminine chronicler relates that
Franklin appeared at court in the dress of an American farmer. His flat
hair without powder, his round hat, his coat of brown cloth contrasted
with the bespangled and embroidered dresses, the powdered and perfumed
hair of the courtiers of Versailles. The novelty charmed the lively
imagination of French ladies. Elegant _fetes_ were given to the man who
was said to unite in himself the renown of a great, natural philosopher
with "those patriotic virtues which had made him embrace the noble part
of Apostle of Liberty." Madame Campan records that she assisted at one
of these _fetes_, where the most beautiful among three hundred ladies
was designated to place a crown of laurel upon the white head of the
American philosopher, and two kisses upon the cheeks of the old man.
Even in the palace, at the exposition of the Sevres porcelain, the
medallion of Franklin, with the legend, "_Eripuit coelo_", etc., was
sold directly under the eyes of the King. Madame Campan adds, however,
that the King avoided expressing himself on this enthusiasm, which, she
says, "without doubt, his sound sense made him blame." But an incident,
called "a pleasantry," which has remained quite unknown, goes beyond
speech in the way of explaining the secret sentiments of Louis XVI. The
Comtesse Diane de Polignac, devoted to Marie Antoinette, shared warmly
the "infatuation" with regard to Franklin. The King observed it. But
here the story shall be told in the language of the eminent lady who
records it:--"Il fit faire a la manufacture de Sevres un vase de nuit,
an fond duquel etait place le medaillon avec la legende _si fort en
vogue_, et l'envoya en present d'etrennes a la Comtesse Diane."[42] Such
was the exceptional treatment of Franklin, and of the inscription in his
honor which was so much in vogue. Giving to this incident its natural
interpretation, it is impossible to resist the conclusion, that the
French people, and not the King, sanctioned American Independence.

The conduct of the Queen on this special occasion is not recorded;
although we are told by the same communicative chronicler who had been
Her Majesty's companion, that she did not hesitate to express herself
more openly than the King on the part which France took in favor of the
independence of the American Colonies, to which she was constantly
opposed. A letter from Mario Antoinette, addressed to Madame de
Polignac, under the date of April 9th, 1787, declares unavailing regret,
saying,--"The time of illusions is past, and to-day we pay dear on
account of our infatuation and enthusiasm for the American War."[43] It
is evident that Marie Antoinette, like her brother Joseph, thought that
her "business was to be a Royalist."

But the name of Franklin triumphed in France. So long as he continued to
reside there he was received with honor, and when, after the achievement
of Independence, and the final fulfilment of all that was declared in
the verse of Turgot, he undertook to return home, the Queen--who had
looked with so little favor upon the cause which he so grandly
represented--sent a litter to receive his sick body and carry him gently
to the sea. As the great Revolution began to show itself, his name was
hailed with new honor; and this was natural, for the great Revolution
was the outbreak of that spirit which had risen to welcome him. In
snatching the sceptre from a tyrant he had given a lesson to France.
His death, when at last it occurred, was the occasion of a magnificent
eulogy from Mirabeau, who, borrowing the idea of Turgot, exclaimed from
the tribune of the National Assembly,--"Antiquity would have raised
altars to the powerful genius, who, for the good of man, embracing in
his thought heaven and earth, _could subdue lightning and tyrants_."[44]
On his motion, France went into mourning for Franklin. His bust was a
favorite ornament, and, during the festival of Liberty, it was carried,
with those of Sidney, Rousseau, and Voltaire, before the people to
receive their veneration.[45] A little later, the eminent medical
character, Cabanis, who had lived in intimate association with Franklin,
added his testimony, saying that the enfranchisement of the United
States was in many respects his work, and that the Revolution, the most
important to the happiness of men which had then been accomplished on
earth, united with one of the most brilliant discoveries of physical
science to consecrate his memory; and he concludes by quoting the verse
of Turgot.[46] Long afterwards, his last surviving companion in the
cheerful circle of Madame Helvetius, still loyal to the idea of Turgot,
hailed him as "that great man who had placed his country in the number
of independent states, and made one of the most important discoveries of
the age."[47]

But it is time to look at this verse in its literary relations, from
which I have been diverted by its commanding interest as a political
event. Its importance on this account must naturally enhance the
interest in its origin.

The poem which furnished the prototype of the famous verse was
"Anti-Lucretius, sive de Deo et Natura," by the Cardinal Melchior de
Polignac. Its author was of that patrician house which is associated so
closely with Marie Antoinette in the earlier Revolution, and with
Charles X. in the later Revolution, having its cradle in the mountains
of Auvergne, near the cradle of Lafayette, and its present tomb in the
historic cemetery of Picpus, near the tomb of Lafayette, so that these
two great names, representing opposite ideas, begin and end side by
side. He was not merely an author, but statesman and diplomatist also,
under Louis XIV. and the Regent. Through his diplomacy a French prince
was elected King of Poland. He represented France at the Peace of
Utrecht, where he bore himself very proudly towards the Dutch. By the
nomination of the Pretender, at that time in France, he obtained the hat
of a cardinal. At Rome he was a favorite, and he was also, with some
interruptions, a favorite at Versailles. His personal appearance, his
distinguished manners, his genius, and his accomplishments, all
commended him. Literary honors were superadded to political and
ecclesiastical. He succeeded to the chair of Bossuet at the Academy. But
he was not without the vicissitudes of political life. Falling into
disgrace at court, he was banished to the abbacy of Bonport. There the
scholarly ecclesiastic occupied himself with a refutation of Lucretius,
in Latin verse.

The origin of the poem is not without interest. Meeting Bayle in
Holland, the ecclesiastic found the indefatigable skeptic most
persistently citing Lucretius, in whose elaborate verse the atheistic
materialism of Epicurus is developed and exalted. Others had already
answered the philosopher directly; but the indignant Christian was moved
to answer the poet through whom the dangerous system was proclaimed. His
poem was, therefore, a vindication of God and religion, in direct
response to a master-poem of antiquity, in which these are assailed. The
attempt was lofty, especially when the champion adopted the language of
Lucretius. Perhaps, since Sannazaro, no modern production in Latin verse
has found equal success. Even before its publication, in 1747, it was
read at court, and was admired in the princely circle of Sceaux. It
appeared in elegant, editions, was translated into French prose by
Bougainville, and into French verse by Jeanty-Laurans, also most
successfully into Italian verse by Ricci. At the latter part of the last
century, when Franklin reached Paris, it was hardly less known in
literary circles than a volume of Grote's History in our own day.
Voltaire, the arbiter of literary fame at that time, regarding the
author only on the side of literature, said of him, in his "Temple du
Gout,"--

    "Le Cardinal, oracle de la France,
    Reunissaut Virgile avec Platon,
    _Vengeur du ciel et vainqueur de Lucrece_."

The last line of this remarkable eulogy has a movement and balance not
unlike the Latin verse of Turgot, or that which suggested it in the poem
of Polignac; but the praise which it so pointedly offers attests the
fame of the author; nor was this praise confined to the "fine frenzy" of
verse. The "Anti-Lucretius" was gravely pronounced the "rival of the
poem which it answered,"--"with verses as flowing as Ovid, sometimes
approaching the elegant simplicity of Horace and sometimes the nobleness
of Virgil,"--and then again, with a philosophy and a poetry combined
"which would not be disavowed either by Descartes or by Virgil."[48]

Turning now to the poem itself, we shall see how completely the verse of
Turgot finds its prototype there. Epicurus is indignantly described as
denying to the gods all power, and declaring man independent, so as to
act for himself; and here the poet says, "Braving the thunderous
recesses of heaven, _he snatched the lightning from Jove and the arrows
from Apollo_, and, liberating the mortal race, ordered it to dare all
things,"--

    "Coeli et tonitralia templa lacessens,
    _Eripuit fulmenque Jovi, Phoeboque sagittas_;
    Et mortale manumittens genus, omnia jussit
    Audere."[49]

To deny the power of God and to declare independence of His commands,
which the poet here holds up to judgment, is very unlike the life of
Franklin, all whose service was in obedience to God's laws, whether in
snatching the lightning from the skies or the sceptre from tyrants; and
yet it is evident that the verse which pictured Epicurus in his impiety
suggested the picture of the American plenipotentiary in his double
labors of science and statesmanship.

But the present story will not be complete without an allusion to that
poem of antiquity which was supposed to have suggested the verse of
Turgot, and which doubtless did suggest the verse of the
"Anti-Lucretius." Manilius is a poet little known. It is difficult to
say when he lived or what he was. He is sometimes supposed to have lived
under Augustus, and sometimes under Theodosius. He is sometimes supposed
to have been a Roman slave, and sometimes a Roman senator. His poem,
under the name of "Astronomicon," is a treatise on astronomy in verse,
which recounts the origin of the material universe, exhibits the
relations of the heavenly bodies, and vindicates this ancient science.
It is while describing the growth of knowledge, which gradually mastered
Nature, that the poet says,--

    "Eriputque Jovi fulmen, viresque tonandi."[50]

The meaning of this line will be seen in the context, which, for
plainness as well as curiosity, I quote from a metrical version of the
first book of the poem,[51] entitled, "The Sphere of Marcus Manilius
made an English Poem, by Edward Sherburne," which was dedicated to
Charles II.:--

    "Nor put they to their curious search an end
    Till reason had scaled heaven, thence viewed this round
    And Nature latent in its causes found:
    Why thunder does the suffering clouds assail;
    Why winter's snow more soft than summer's hail;
    Whence earthquakes come and subterranean fires;
    Why showers descend, what force the wind inspires:
    From error thus the wondering minds uncharmed,
    _Unsceptred Jove, the Thunderer disarmed_."

Enough has been said on the question of origin; but there is yet one
other aspect of the story.

The verse was hardly divulged when it became the occasion of various
efforts in the way of translation. Turgot had already done it into
French; so had D'Alembert. M. Nogaret wrote to Franklin, inclosing an
attempted translation, and says in his letter,--"The French have done
their best to translate the Latin verse, where justice is done you in so
few words. They have appeared as jealous of transporting this eulogy
into their language as they are of possessing you. But nobody has
succeeded, and I think nobody will succeed."[52] He then quotes a
translation which he thinks defective, although it appeared in the
"Almanach des Muses" as the best:--

    "Cet homme que tu vois, sublime en tous les tems,
    Derobe aux dieux la foudre et le sceptre aux tyrans."

To this letter Dr. Franklin made the following reply:[53]--

    "_Passy, 8 March, 1781_.

    "SIR,--I received the letter you have done me the honor of writing
    to me the 2d instant, wherein, after overwhelming me with a flood
    of compliments, which I can never hope to merit, you request my
    opinion of your translation of a Latin verse that has been applied
    to me. If I were, which I really am not, sufficiently skilled in
    your excellent language to be a proper judge of its poesy, the
    supposition of my being the subject must restrain me from giving
    any opinion on that line, except that it ascribes too much to me,
    especially in what relates to the tyrant, the Revolution having
    been the work of many able and brave men, wherein it is sufficient
    honor for me, if I am allowed a small share. I am much obliged by
    the favorable sentiments you are pleased to entertain of me.

    "With regard, I have the honor to be, Sir, etc.,

    "B. FRANKLIN."

In his acknowledgment of this letter M. Nogaret says,--"Paris is pleased
with the translation of your '_Eripuit_,' and your portrait, as I had
foreseen, makes the fortune of the engraver."[54] But it does not appear
to which translation he refers.

Here is another attempt:--

    "Il a par ses travaux, toujours plus etonnans,
    Ravi la foudre aux Dieux et le sceptre aux tyrans."

There are other verses which adopt the idea of Turgot. Here, for
instance, is a part of a song by the Abbe Morellet, written for one of
the dinners of Madame Helvetius:[55]--

    "Comme un aigle audacieux,
    Il a vole jusqu'aux cieux,
    _Et derobe le tonnerre_
    Dont ils effrayaient la terre,
      Heureux larcin
    De l'habile Benjamin.

    "L'Americain indompte
    _Recouvre sa liberte_;
    Et ce genereux ouvrage,
    Autre exploit de notre sage,
      Est mis a fin
    Par Louis et Benjamin."

Mr. Sparks found among Franklin's papers the following paraphrastic
version:[56]--

    "Franklin sut arreter la foudre dans les airs,
    Et c'est le moindre bien qu'il fit a sa patrie;
      Au milieu de climats divers,
      Ou dominait la tyrannie,
    Il fit regner les arts, les moeurs, et le genie;
      Et voila le heros que j'offre a l'univers."

Nor should I omit a translation into English by Mr. Elphinstone:--

    "He snatched the bolt from Heaven's avenging hand,
    Disarmed and drove the tyrant from the land."

In concluding this sketch, I wish to say that the literary associations
of the subject did not tempt me; but I could not resist the inducement
to present in its proper character an interesting incident which can be
truly comprehended only when it is recognized in its political
relations. To this end it was important to exhibit its history, even in
details, so that the verse which has occupied so much attention should
be seen not only in its scholarly fascination, but in its wide-spread
influence in the circles of the learned and the circles even of the
fashionable in Paris and throughout France, binding this great nation by
an unchangeable vow to the support of American liberty. Words are
sometimes things; but never were words so completely things as those
with which Turgot welcomed Franklin. The memory of that welcome cannot
be forgotten in America. Can it ever be forgotten in France?


POSTSCRIPT.

And now the country is amazed by the report that the original welcome of
France to America and the inspired welcome of Turgot to Franklin are
forgotten by the France of this day, or, rather let me say, forgotten by
the Emperor, whose memory for the time is the memory of France. It is
said that Louis Napoleon is concerting an alliance with the Rebel
slavemongers of our country, founded on the recognition of their
independence, so that they may take their place as a new power in the
family of nations. Indeed, we have been told, through the columns of the
official organ, the "Moniteur," that he wishes to do this thing. Perhaps
he imagines that he follows the great example of the last century.

What madness!

The two cases are in perfect contrast,--as opposite as the poles, as
unlike as Liberty and Slavery.

The struggle for American Independence was a struggle for Liberty, and
was elevated throughout by this holy cause. But the struggle for
Slavemonger Independence is necessarily and plainly a struggle for
Slavery, and is degraded throughout by the unutterable vileness of all
its barefaced pretensions.

The earlier struggle, adopted by the enlightened genius of France, was
solemnly placed under the benediction of "God and Liberty." The present
struggle, happily thus far discarded by that same enlightened genius,
can have no other benediction than "Satan and Slavery."

The earlier struggle was to snatch the sceptre from a kingly tyrant. The
present struggle is to put whips into the hands of Rebel slavemongers
with which _to compel work without wages_, and thus give wicked power to
vulgar tyrants without number.

The earlier struggle was fitly pictured by the welcome of Turgot to
Franklin. But another spirit must be found, and other words must be
invented, to picture the struggle which it is now proposed to place
under the protection of France.

The earlier struggle was grandly represented by Benjamin Franklin, who
was already known by a sublime discovery in science. The present
struggle is characteristically represented by John Slidell, whose great
fame is from the electioneering frauds by which he sought to control a
Presidential election; so that his whole life is fitly pictured, when it
is said, that he thrust fraudulent votes into the ballot-box, and whips
into the hands of task-masters.

The earlier struggle was predicted by Turgot, who said, that, in the
course of Nature, colonies must drop from the parent stem, like ripe
fruit. But where is the Turgot who has predicted, that, in the course of
Nature, the great Republic must be broken, in order to found a new power
on the corner-stone of Slavery?

The earlier struggle gathered about it the sympathy of the learned, the
good, and the wise, while the people of France rose up to call it
blessed. The present struggle can expect nothing but detestation from
all who are not lost to duty and honor, while the people of France must
cover it with curses.

The earlier struggle enjoyed the favor of France, whether in assemblies
of learning or of fashion, in spite of its King. It remains to be seen
if the present struggle must not ignobly fail in France, still mindful
of its early vows, in spite of its Emperor.

Where duty and honor are so plain, it is painful to think that even for
a moment there can be any hesitation.

Alas for France!

       *       *       *       *       *

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.


_History of Spanish Literature._ By GEORGE TICKNOR. In Three Volumes.
Third American Edition, corrected and enlarged. Boston: Ticknor &
Fields.

The first edition of this work was published in 1849, in three volumes
octavo, and it is hardly necessary for us to add, that it was received
with very great favor both at home and abroad. Indeed, we may go
farther, and say that it was received with the highest favor by those
who were best qualified to pronounce upon its merits. The audience which
it addressed was small at home, and not numerous anywhere; for the
literature of Spain, in general, does not present strong attractions to
those who are not natives of the Peninsula. In our country, at the time
of its publication, there was hardly a man competent to examine and
criticize it; and in Europe, outside of Spain itself, the number of
thorough Spanish scholars was and is but small, and of these a large
proportion is found in Germany. But by these, whether in Germany,
France, or England, Mr. Ticknor's History was received with a generous
and hearty admiration which must have been to him as authentic a token
of the worth of his book as the voice of posterity itself. But, of
course, it was exposed to the severest trial in Spain, the people of
which are intensely national, loving their literature, like everything
else which belongs to them, with a passionate and exclusive love, and
not disposed to treat with any tenderness a foreign writer who should
lay an incompetent hand upon any of their great writers, though in a
friendly and liberal spirit. But by the scholars and men of letters in
Spain it was greeted with a kindliness of welcome which nothing but the
most substantial excellence could have assured. Universal assent to the
views of a foreigner and a Protestant was not to be expected: this or
that particular judgment was questioned; but no one said, or could say,
that Mr. Ticknor's History was superficial, or hastily prepared, or
prejudiced, or wanting in due proportions. On the other hand, a most
hearty tribute of admiration was paid to its thorough learning, its
minute and patient research, its accurate judgments, its candid temper
and generous spirit. Cultivated Spaniards were amazed that a foreigner
had so thoroughly traced the stream of their literature from its
fountain-heads, omitting nothing, overlooking nothing, and doing justice
to all.

Such a work could never attain any very wide popularity, and this from
the nature of its subject. To the general reader books about books are
never so attractive as histories and biographies, which deal with the
doings of men, and glow with the warmth of human interests. But every
man of literary taste, though but superficially acquainted with Spanish
literature, could recognize the merits of Mr. Ticknor's work, its
philosophical spirit, its lucid arrangement, its elegant and judicious
criticisms, and its neat, correct, and accurate style. He could not fail
to see that the works of Bouterwek and Sismondi were, by comparison,
merely a series of graceful sketches, with no claim to be called a
complete and thorough history. It took its place at once as the highest
authority in any language upon the subject of which it treated, as the
very first book which everybody would consult who wanted any information
upon that subject.

The present edition of the "History of Spanish Literature" is by no
means identical with those which have preceded it. It omits nearly the
whole of the inedited, primitive Castilian poems which have heretofore
filled about seventy pages at the end of the last volume; and in other
parts of the work a corresponding, and even more than a corresponding,
amount of new matter has been introduced, which will, it is believed, be
accounted of greater interest than the early poetry it displaces. These
additions and changes have been derived from very various sources. In
the first place, Mr. Ticknor was in Europe himself in 1856 and 1857, and
visited the principal libraries, public and private, in England, France,
Germany, and Italy, in which any considerable collection of Spanish
books was to be found, and by examination of these supplied any wants
there might be in his own very ample stores. In the second place, his
History has been translated into German and Spanish, the former version
being illustrated with notes by Dr. Ferdinand Wolf, perhaps the best
Spanish scholar in Germany, and the latter by Don Pascual de Gayangos,
one of the best scholars in Spain. From the results of the labors of
these distinguished annotators Mr. Ticknor has taken--with generous
acknowledgment--everything which, in his judgment, could add value,
interest, or completeness to the present revised edition. And lastly, in
the period between the publication of the first edition and the present
time much has been done for the illustration of Spanish literature, both
in the Peninsula and out of it. This is due in part to the interest in
the subject which Mr. Ticknor himself awakened; and in Spain it is one
of the consequences of the rapid progress in material development and
vital energy which that country has been making during the last fifteen
years. New lives of some of its principal writers have been published,
and new editions of their works have been prepared. From all these
sources a very ample supply of new materials has been derived, so that,
while the work remains substantially the same in plan, outline, and
spirit, there are hardly three consecutive pages in it which do not
contain additions and improvements. We will briefly mention a few of the
more prominent of these.

In the first volume, pages 446-455, the life of Garcilasso de la Vega is
almost entirely rewritten from materials found in a recent biography by
Don Eustaquio Navarrete, which Mr. Ticknor pronounces "an important
contribution to Spanish literary history." The writer is the son of the
learned Don Martin Navarrete.

In the second volume, pages 75-81, many new and interesting facts are
stated in regard to the life of Luis de Leon, derived from a recently
published report of the entire official record of his trial before the
Inquisition, of which Mr. Ticknor says that it is "by far the most
important authentic statement known to me respecting the treatment of
men of letters who were accused before that formidable tribunal, and
probably the most curious and important one in existence, whether in
manuscript or in print. Its multitudinous documents fill more than nine
hundred pages, everywhere teeming with instruction and warning on the
subject of ecclesiastical usurpations, and the noiseless, cold, subtle
means by which they crush the intellectual freedom and manly culture of
a people."

In the same volume, pages 118-119, some new and interesting facts are
stated which prove beyond a doubt, that Lope de Vega was actuated by
ungenerous feelings towards his great contemporary, Cervantes. The
evidence is found in some autograph letters of Lope, extracts from which
were made by Duran, and are now published by Von Schack, an excellent
Spanish scholar.

In the same volume, page 191, is a copy of the will of Lope de Vega,
recently discovered, and obtained from the late Lord Holland.

In the same volume, pages 354-357, is a learned bibliographical note
upon the publication and various editions of the plays of Calderon.

In the third volume, Appendix B., pages 408-414, is a learned
bibliographical note on the Romanceros.

In the same volume, Appendix C., pages 419-422, is an elaborate note on
the Centon Epistolario, in reply to an article by the Marques de Pidal.

In the same volume, Appendix D., pages 432-434, is a new postscript on
the clever literary forgery, _El Buscapie_.

At the close of the third volume there are seven pages giving a brief
and condensed account of the several works connected with Spanish
literature which have been published within two or three years past, and
since the stereotype plates for the present work were cast.

The present edition is in a duodecimo, instead of an octavo form, and is
sold at a less price than the previous ones.

In the closing sentences of the preface to this edition, Mr. Ticknor
says: "Its preparation has been a pleasant task, scattered lightly over
the years that have elapsed since the first edition of this work was
published, and that have been passed, like the rest of my life, almost
entirely among my own books. That I shall ever recur to this task again,
for the purpose of further changes or additions, is not at all probable.
My accumulated years forbid any such anticipation; and therefore, with
whatever of regret I may part from what has entered into the happiness
of so considerable a portion of my life, I feel that now I part from it
for the last time. _Extremum hoc munus habeto_." This is a very natural
feeling, and gracefully expressed; but whatever of sadness there may be
in parting from a book which has so long been a constant resource, a
daily companion, may in this case be tempered by the thought that the
work, as now dismissed, is so well founded, so symmetrically
proportioned, so firmly built, as to defy the sharpest criticism--that
of Time itself.

       *       *       *       *       *

RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC
MONTHLY.


The History, Civil, Political, and Military, of the Southern Rebellion,
from its Incipient Stages to its Close. Comprehending, also, all
Important State-Papers, Ordinances of Secession, Proclamations,
Proceedings of Congress, Official Reports of Commanders, etc., etc. By
Orville J. Victor. New York. James D. Torrey. Vols. I. and II. 8vo. pp.
viii., 531; viii., 537. per vol. $2.50.

Biographical Sketches of Illinois Officers engaged in the War against
the Rebellion of 1861. By James Grant Wilson, Major commanding Fifteenth
Illinois Cavalry. Enlarged Edition. Illustrated with Portraits. Chicago,
James Barnet. 8vo. paper. pp. 120. 50 cts.

Leaves from the Diary of an Army-Surgeon; or, Incidents of Field, Camp,
and Hospital Life. By Thomas T. Ellis, M.D., late Post-Surgeon at New
York, and Acting Medical Director at Whitehouse, Va. New York. John
Bradburn. 12mo. pp. 312. $1.00.

The Actress in High Life: An Episode in Winter Quarters. New York. John
Bradburn. 12mo. pp. 416. $1.25.

Americans in Rome. By Henry P. Leland. New York. Charles T. Evans. 12mo.
pp. 311. $1.25.

The Castle's Heir: A Novel in Real Life. By Mrs. Henry Wood. In Two
Volumes. Philadelphia. T.B. Peterson & Brothers. 8vo. paper. pp. 144,
260. $1.00.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The circumstances connected with the introduction of the
British troops into Boston will be found related in the "Atlantic
Monthly" for June, 1862; and the number for the following August
contains a view of the relation of the question of removal to the
arbitrary policy contemplated for the Colonies.]

[Footnote 2: Boston, printed in the "Gazette" of February 12, 1770. A
letter printed in the "Boston Evening Post," October 9, 1789, from
London, received by the last ship, after eulogizing "the noble stand of
the colonists," says, "I am charmed with the prudent conduct of the
Bostonians in particular, and that you have been able lo preserve so
much tranquillity among you, while the spirits of the people must have
been so soured and agitated by oppression. You have certainly very wise
and prudent men concerned in the conduct of your affairs." A Tory view
of Boston in these times, (by "Sagittarius,") is as follows:--"The
Town-Meeting at Boston is the hot-bed of sedition. It is there that all
their dangerous insurrections are engendered; it is there that the flame
of discord and rebellion was first lighted up and disseminated over the
Provinces; it is therefore greatly to be wished that Parliament may
rescue the loyal inhabitants of that town and Province from the
merciless hand of an ignorant mob, led on and inflamed by
self-interested and profligate men."]

[Footnote 3: _Reliq. Wotton._, p. 317, et seq.]

[Footnote 4: Of clay he says, "It is a cursed step-dame to almost all
vegetation, as having few or no meatuses for the percolation of
alimental showers."]

[Footnote 5: Sir William Temple gives this list of his pears:--Blanquet,
Robin, Rousselet, Pepin, Jargonel; and for autumn: Buree, Vertlongue,
and Bergamot.]

[Footnote 6: Brougham's _Speeches_, Vol. II. p. 233.]

[Footnote 7: Vol. IV. p. 443, First Series.]

[Footnote 8: _Notes and Queries_, Vol. V. p. 17.]

[Footnote 9: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 10: Lib. I. v. 104.]

[Footnote 11: Sparks's _Works of Franklin_, Vol. VIII. p. 538.]

[Footnote 12: _Notes and Queries_, Vol. V. p. 549, First Series.]

[Footnote 13: _Ibid_. Vol. V. p. 140. See, also, _Ibid._ Vol. V. p. 571;
Vol. VI. p. 88; _Dublin Review_ for March, 1847, p. 212; _Quarterly
Review_ for June, 1850.]

[Footnote 14: _Oevres de Turgot_, Tom. IX. p. 140.]

[Footnote 15: _Oeuvres de Condorcet_, par O'Connor, Tom. V. p. 162.]

[Footnote 16: Sparks's _Works of Franklin_, Vol. VIII. p. 537; Mignet,
_Notices et Portraits_, Tom. II. p. 480.]

[Footnote 17: Cabania, _Oeuvres_, Tom. V. p. 251.]

[Footnote 18: _Lettres de Madame Du Deffant_, Tom. III. p. 367.]

[Footnote 19: _Ibid_. Tom. IV. p. 35.]

[Footnote 20: Lacretelle, _Histoire de France_, Tom. V. p. 90.]

[Footnote 21: _Oeuvres de Condorcet_, par O'Connor, Tom. V. pp. 406,
407.]

[Footnote 22: Capefigue, _Louis XVI_, Tom. II. pp. 12, 13, 42, 49, 50.
The rose-water biographer of Diane de Poitiers, Madame de Pompadour, and
Madame du Barry would naturally disparage Franklin.]

[Footnote 23: Mignet, _Notices at Portraits_, Tom. II. p. 427.]

[Footnote 24: _La Gazette Secrete_, 15 Jan. 1777; Capefigue, _Louis
XVI._, Tom. II. p. 15.]

[Footnote 25: _Oeuvres de Turgot_, Tom. II. p. 66.]

[Footnote 26: _Oeuvres de Turgot_, Tom. VIII. p. 496.]

[Footnote 27: Vol. X. p. 107.]

[Footnote 28: _Memoires de Madame D'Epinay_, Tom. III. p. 431.]

[Footnote 29: Galiani, _Correspondance_, Tom. II. p. 275, _Lettre de 25
Juillet_, 1778. Nobody saw America with a more prophetic eye than this
inspired Pulcinello of Naples. As far back as the eighteenth of May,
1776, several weeks before the Declaration of Independence, he
wrote,--"The epoch is come for the total fall of Europe and its
transmigration to America. Do not buy your house in the Chaussee
d'Antin, but at Philadelphia. The misfortune for me is that there are no
abbeys in America." Tom. II. p. 203. See also Grimm, _Correspondence_,
Tom. IX. p. 285 (1776).]

[Footnote 30: The dictionaries of Michaud and Didot concur in the date
of her death; but there is reason to suppose that they are both
mistaken.]

[Footnote 31: See Querard, _La France Litteraire_, article _La
Rochefoucauld_.]

[Footnote 32: Tom. I. p. 168.]

[Footnote 33: _Oeuvres de Turgot_, Tom. I. p. 416.]

[Footnote 34: Franklin, _Works_, by Sparks, Vol. V. p. 124.]

[Footnote 35: _Oeuvres de Turgot_, Tom. I. p. 414; Tom. IX. p. 416;
_Oeuvres de Condorcet_, Tom. V. p. 162.]

[Footnote 36: Cabanis, _Oeuvres_, Tom. V. p. 261; Mignet, _Notices et
Portraits_, Tom. II. p. 475. See, also, Morellet, _Memoires_, Tom. I. p.
290. Cabanis and Morellet both lived for many years under the hospitable
roof of Madame Helvetius. It is the former who has preserved the
interesting extract from the letter of Franklin. Nobody who has visited
the Imperial Library at Paris can forget the very pleasant autograph
note of Franklin in French to Madame Helvetius, which is exhibited in
the same case with an autograph note of Henry IV. to Gabrielle
d'Estrees.]

[Footnote 37: Tom. II. p. 83. See, also, p. 337.]

[Footnote 38: Tom. II. p. 465. See, also, the letter of the Marquis de
Chastellux to Professor Madison on the Fine Arts in America, where the
generous Frenchman recommends for all our great towns a portrait of
Franklin, "with the Latin verse inscribed in France below his portrait."
Chastellux, _Travels in North America_, Vol. II. p. 372.]

[Footnote 39: Chambelland, _Vie du Prince de Bourbon-Conde_, Tom. I. p.
374.]

[Footnote 40: Capefigue, _Louis XVI._, Tom. II. pp. 49, 50.]

[Footnote 41: Lacretelle, _Histoire de France pendant le 18me Siecle_,
Tom. V. p. 91. The historian errs in putting this success in 1777,
before the date of the Treaty; and he errs also with regard to the
Court, if he meant to embrace the King and Queen.]

[Footnote 42: _Memoires sur Marie Antoinette_, par Madame Campan, Tom.
I. p. 251.]

[Footnote 43: _Bulletin de l'Alliance des Arts_, 10 Octobre, 1843. See
also Goncourt, _Histoire de Marie Antoinette_, p. 221.]

[Footnote 44: Grimm, _Correspondance_, Tom. XVI. p. 407.]

[Footnote 45: Louis Blanc, _Histoire de la Revolution_, Tom. VI. pp.
234, 316.]

[Footnote 46: Cabanis, _Oeuvres_, Tom. V. p. 251.]

[Footnote 47: Morellet, _Memoires_, Tom. I. p. 290.]

[Footnote 48: _L'Anit-Lucrece_, traduit de Bougainville, _Epitre
Dedicatoire, Discours Preliminaire_, p. 69.]

[Footnote 49: Lib. I. v. 95.]

[Footnote 50: Lib. I. v. 104. _Tonandi_ is sometimes changed to
_tonantis_, and also _tonanti_. (See _Notes and Queries_, Vol. V. p.
140.)]

[Footnote 51: It is understood that there is a metrical version of this
poem by the Rev. Dr. Frothingham of Boston, which he does not choose to
publish, although, like everything from this refined scholar, it must be
marked by taste and accuracy.]

[Footnote 52: Sparks's _Works of Franklin_, Vol. VIII. p. 538, note.]

[Footnote 53: Ibid. p. 537.]

[Footnote 54: Sparks's _Works of Franklin_, Vol. VIII. p. 539, note.]

[Footnote 55: Morellet, _Memoires_, Tom. I. p. 288. Nothing is more
curious with regard to Franklin than these _Memoires_, including
especially the engraving from an original design by him. In some copies
this engraving is wanting. It is, probably, the gayeties here recorded,
and, perhaps, the "infatuation" of the court-ladies, that suggested the
scandalous charges which Dr. Julius has strangely preserved in his
_Nordamerikas Sittliche, Zustaende_, Vol. I. p. 98.]

[Footnote 56: Sparks's _Works of Franklin_, Vol. VIII. p. 539, note.]






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