Chapter III (1)

Where Gingham got his classical knowledge, I had not at this time ascertained. Certain it is, he was a very fair classic. But there was one dreadful drawback to his character, and, in a man of his gravity, a strange one: I mean his offensive, horrid practice of making most atrocious Latin puns. A pun in English he viewed with utter contempt. It stirred his bile. No English pun escaped his lips. But for a Latin pun, he scrupled not to lay under contribution even the first-rate Latin poets, Virgil, Ovid--nay, his favourite author, Horace; and if I, influenced by bad example, was weak enough, in an unguarded moment, to commit the same offence, he stole my puns, and made them again as his own.

On the eve of our embarkation we strolled forth, after an early dinner, for a parting view of the sunset from the castle. Walking up town, we met the man of rum, the sleep-murdering Macbeth of the mail-coach. Still he was talking--for want of company, talking to himself. But his eyes were set, half-closed, and dim; his aspect was peculiarly meditative, and his course curvilinear. He had taken on board _plus æquo_ of his own samples. Perceiving our approach, he gave a lurch to clear us. But his legs, being not altogether under management, brought him exactly in the direction which he sought to shun; his stomach, which had already suffered so many assaults in the coach, most unfortunately impinged upon my elbow; and again it was "ugh!" His gummy eyes expanded, and gleamed on us like two fresh-opened oysters. Awhile he gazed with drunken gravity; then, turning round, bent over the roadside gutter, as if about to tumble in, and jocosely imitated the operation of drawing a cork. His organs of vision then assumed a slow movement of horizontal oscillation, and gradually settled on a pastry-cook's shop over the way. Towards this point he directed his zigzag approaches, recommencing his agreeable conference with himself, in terms of which we could catch only the words--"Archimedes--screw--pneumatic chemistry--soda water--pop!" He left with us the odour of a very bad cigar, which led Gingham to remark that he was "backy plenus" in more senses than one.

The influence of bad example is dreadful. Emerging from the town in our way to the castle, we met a merry party, male and female, all equestrians save some six or eight, who occupied the interior and exterior of a post-chaise. Gingham, who saw into a thing at once, pronounced them a wedding party; and a buxom dame, who was mounted on a lively little west country galloway, the bride. "Pony subit conjux," said I. "Yes," said Gingham; "but if that dear lady rides so near the carriage, oh! oh! oh! she will infallibly be capsized! 'Pony sub curru nimium propinqui!'" We reached the hill in time, saw a glorious sunset, and returned to letter-writing, and a light supper on hashed duck.

As Gingham appears more than once upon the stage in the course of my Peninsular adventures, and I should really be sorry to annoy the reader, as much as I was annoyed myself, with his perpetual and abominable perversions of classic latinity, I beg leave to dispose of this part of the subject at once, before we get to sea. Suffice it to say, then, that in the spring of the year 1838, just a quarter of a century after the period of which I am now writing, I once more left London for Falmouth, _en route_ to Lisbon, though with an object far different from that of my voyage now to be recorded, and in a far different capacity. Science, in these five-and-twenty years, had done wonders; and I had secured my passage in London, not by a miserable tub of a sailing packet, but by a well-found and fast Peninsular steamer. The day before the steamer was to start from Falmouth, I walked down to the water's side to take a view of her. On the quay stood Gingham. By one of those strange coincidences which sometimes happen in life, we had again met at Falmouth, and were again to cross the Bay of Biscay in company. I recognised him: he did not recognise me. Time had somewhat changed his look, his dress very little. Its predominant aspect was still white. His nose, too, was unmistakeable. Perceiving at once that he was, like myself, a passenger to the Peninsula, I availed myself of the freedom conceded in such cases, and commenced a conversation by some remark on the steamer.

"I presume, sir," said he, "you are a passenger?"

"Yes, Mr Gingham, and so are you. Glad to meet you." He stared, but admitted the fact.

"But, sir," said he, "you have the advantage of me."

"Well, well," said I, "you'll find me out to-morrow on board the Guadalquivir. Fine ship that. To-morrow, you know, as Horace said, when he was off by the steamer:-'Cras, ingins! iterabimus æquor!"

The effect was instantaneous. Gingham did not speak, he shouted:--"Dine with me: I have got a john dory."

We walked off to the town--I rubbing my shoulder, which Gingham shook, when he shook my hand--he, for a few paces, thoughtful and silent. I expected a burst of sentiment.

"By the bye," said Gingham, "while your hand was in, you might just as well have quoted the _other_ line, for that, also, refers to our voyage."

"The other line?"

"Yes, the other line. Don't you see that pair of rooks flying over the harbour?"

"Rooks fly in droves. I see no rooks."

"Right," said he; "they are a couple of crows."

"But the line from Horace, referring to our voyage?"

"Not only referring to it," said Gingham, "but highly encouraging. 'Nil desperandum two crow duce, et auspice two crow."

"Gingham, you are incorrigible."

To reach the street from the water's side we had to pass through a narrow passage, and there met the stewardess of the steamer, who was going on board. She stalked along in clogs on tiptoe, her left hand gathering up, behind, her cloak, gown, petticoat, &c., while her right hand bore an umbrella one size larger than a parasol, and a reticule one size less than a pannier; emerging from which pannier appeared the ugly mug of an enormous Portuguese red ram cat, the pet of the stewardess, and the constant companion of her Peninsular voyages.

"My cat inter omnes," said Gingham.

* * * * *

But I have rambled, and am a quarter of a century wide of the mark. The period of which I have now to write, the important period to which my present narrative refers, is not the more recent year, 1838, but the remoter year, 1813, glorious in the annals of England; the year that saw the commencement of Napoleon's downfall; the year of triumph and rout beneath the walls of Vittoria; the year of a still sterner and equally successful conflict at St Sebastian; the year, too, that furnished a name for a princess of a royal line, that QUEEN VICTORIA who, in her high estate and royal clemency, remembered and rewarded the long-forgotten and long unrecompensed heroes of those bygone times. In the early spring of that year, 1813, I was there at Falmouth, a raw youth, launched on the wide world in search of adventure, burning to reach the headquarters of the Peninsular army, fully capable of making a fool of myself when I got there, and anxiously waiting for the sailing of the Princess Wilhelmina gun-brig, which, for want of a better, performed the office of Lisbon packet. It was well for me that, at Falmouth, I had already fallen into friendly hands.

On the morning of our embarkation, March the--th, 1813, Gingham went early on board the packet, for his personal baggage was bulky and various, to see to its stowage--part in his berth, part in the hold. It was settled between us that he was to return ashore, that we were to breakfast together at the hotel, and afterwards go off together to the packet, which was still lying in the harbour, and was to sail about noon.

I waited breakfast for Gingham, but no Gingham came. At length I received a long note from him, dated on board the packet. It began by stating that an attempt had been made to impose upon him, and that he was determined not to stand it. The attempted imposition, as I learned from him afterwards, was this:--

Gingham walked down from the hotel to the water's side, and engaged a boat, which was to take him on board the packet for eighteen-pence; he, Gingham, understanding thereby, according to the tenor of many previous bargains at the same rate of payment, that he was to be taken on board, and put on shore again. On this, however, the last day of our abode at Falmouth, the two boatmen, thinking they might safely try it on, and conjecturing also that Gingham's time might possibly be too valuable to be wasted in discussion, determined to take a different view of the subject, and exact a second fare for landing him. The boat reached the packet, Gingham went on board, the boatmen made fast to a harbour-buoy, and waited the result. Gingham went below, made his arrangements, came on deck, and hailed his boat to take him ashore. The elder boatman civilly touched his hat, and remarked, with a winning smile, that they hadn't been paid "nuffin" for bringing him _on board_. Gingham replied, that he should pay as usual when they had got back to the quay. The boatman, courteous as before, again touched his hat, and answered, simpering, "Beg your pardon, sir, but this ear last day, when the peckit's hoff, jeddlemen hol-ways pays bode ways, cumin aboard, and goon back again." "Oh, do they?" said Gingham, and walked down into the cabin, where he quietly wrote his note to me, in a hand that beat copperplate; and breakfasted upon sea biscuit, junk, and ship's cocoa, the steward not having yet got off his stock of groceries for the voyage. Everybody on board knew Gingham, and he had no difficulty in getting his note brought ashore in the ship's boat, without the knowledge of the two 'longshore fellows, who were riding at the buoy, and who still thought they had the best of the bargain--as it is a rule in harbour, or at any rate was in those days, that no private passenger by a packet passed or repassed except by 'longshore boats. Gingham was now all right, and did not care one farthing for the boatmen; for he already had the bulk of his things on board, he was on board himself, and his note advised me respecting his remaining matters ashore. He continued below, having resolved, as he told me afterwards, to keep the boatmen waiting alongside till the packet was off, and then give them ninepence. Meanwhile he sent up, by the steward, an injunction to the people on deck, who enjoyed not a little the false position of the two boatmen, not on any account to let them come on board.

Gingham's note to me, which was, as I have already intimated, a beautiful specimen of commercial penmanship, was to the following effect:--That he was detained on board by his determination to resist a gross imposition; that the laundress had still in her keeping a small quantity of his linen, which she was to bring to the hotel about breakfast-time; that he had settled with the servants that morning; and that the landlady was indebted to him in the sum of two shillings, he having paid his bill the night before, in which bill was included the charge of two shillings for a cold-meat breakfast, which he should not take; that he requested me to get back the two shillings from the landlady; that he would also thank me to receive the linen from the laundress, see that it was correct per invoice, (washing-bill, I presume,) check her account, liquidate it, and bring the linen on board with me.

Meanwhile a circumstance arose, which was of great moment in itself, and gave Gingham a further advantage in his affair with the two Falmouth lads. An extra mail for Lisbon had arrived from London, sent off by despatch to catch the packet before she sailed; and, by management of Gingham's partners, who were influential people, brought Gingham letters on a matter of some importance. These letters were taken off to Gingham by a trusty drab-coated Falmouth "Friend," in another 'longshore boat, and rendered it absolutely requisite that he should go ashore, and perhaps defer his voyage. The packet at this time was surrounded with boats and bustle, the two boatmen still fast to the buoy; and Gingham had no difficulty in returning ashore by the boat which brought off his mercantile friend, without being observed by them. In fact, they were half asleep, still secure, as they thought, of their victim, and affording no small sport to the crew of the packet, who saw how things were going. I shall only mention here, that the communication, received by Gingham from London, related to a grand financial speculation, an idea of his own, having reference to the monetary transactions at headquarters, which were very large, and as well conducted as circumstances permitted, but attended with great difficulties, and considerable loss to the British government. Gingham's plan would have been backed by private capital to any amount. It was knocked on the head by the peace of 1814: but I have more to say about it hereafter.

True to her time, the laundress arrived at the hotel; not bringing, as Gingham had described it, a small quantity of linen, but attended by a man with a barrow, wheeling two large buck-baskets, each piled with an immense heap of shirts, white inexpressibles, white double-breasted dimity waistcoats,--in short every thing white,--a stock for a voyage to China. On the interior of the collar of one of the said white double-breasted dimity waistcoats, I noticed the cypher G G!--No. 37 1 of the fourth dozen! So profuse was Gingham in his provision for the habiliment of his own elegant exterior. I settled with the laundress, engaged the barrow-man to go off with me in charge of the linen, and take back the baskets, finished my breakfast, paid my bill, and went on board. Such was my first embarkation for the Peninsula. Little dreaming that there was a spoke in my wheel, and that some time was still to elapse between my departure from Falmouth and my arrival at the British headquarters, I had longed for the day of the packet's sailing. But now, when the wished-for moment had arrived, a lot of little things, coming upon me at the last, quite put it out of my head that I was quitting my native land, and about to enter on new scenes, mingle with strangers, embark in active life, and master--where alone they could be mastered, on their vernacular soil--two ancient, expressive, and kindred languages, which I had conned rudimentally on the banks of Cam. Nor did I dream that I went to earn a prospective claim to a Peninsular Medal; and jot down mental memoranda, still vividly legible, of all I heard and saw, for the information and amusement of readers then unborn. "Gooin' off to the peckit, sir? Here, Bill, hand the jeddleman's boxes." Then, when we were half way to the brig,--"Wherry 'ot on the worter, sir. Ope you'll be ginnerous a little hextry for the luggidge, sir. Wherry dry work pullin', sir."

Gingham, when I reached the packet, was not on board. The cause of his absence was explained to me by the steward, who assisted in stowing away the contents of the two buck-baskets in Gingham's berth. During this operation, the steward, who fully participated in the antipathy to 'longshore boatmen common to his class, communicated to me, with no small glee, the occurrences of the morning; and begged me to take a sight, when I went on deck, of the two expectant gentlemen at the buoy. There they were, sure enough, very much at their ease--quite satisfied that Gingham would want to be taken ashore again before the packet sailed, that theirs was the boat that must take him, and that they had the game in their own hands.

On deck I met our three breakfast guests of the day before. They greeted me cordially, made many inquiries after Gingham, and introduced me, as a particular old crony of theirs, to Staff-Surgeon Pledget, who had arrived by the mail overnight, and was also a passenger to Lisbon, on his return to the British army. I soon began to perceive that it was a standing rule with my three new acquaintances, regular "Peninsulars," to extract fun from even the most common incidents--in fact, from everybody and everything. Staff-Surgeon Pledget, as able a man in his profession as any staff-surgeon attached to the Peninsular army, was matter-of-fact personified; and the dignified cordiality with which he received an old crony of _theirs_, evidently afforded the three hoaxers extraordinary sport. Major M---- did the presentation with perfect coolness and amenity. Gammon was his element. Mr Commissary Capsicum winked his eye in the richest style of comedy, and nearly made me spoil all by laughing. Captain Gabion looked gravely on, and laughed internally. His sides shook, his elbows twitched, and his countenance wore its usual expression of melancholy.

Presently after was seen approaching a man-of-war's boat, pulling at the steady rate, which indicated that it conveyed an officer of rank. The boat came alongside with a graceful sweep; twelve oars stood upright, as if by magic; and a tall, military-looking man, who had lost an arm, rose, politely took leave of the lieutenant in charge of the boat, ascended the ship's side, with the aid of his single hand, faster than some people perform the same difficult operation with two, and stood on deck. This was the brave Colonel ---- of the cavalry, who was going out with us to rejoin his regiment. He had lost his arm at Oporto, on that memorable occasion when the French, to their astonishment, found the British army on _their_ side of the Douro; and when the British army, too, quite surprised at finding itself, as if by magic, on the _opposite_ bank of a broad, deep, and rapid river, and struck with admiration at the bold conception and skilful execution which had effected the transition under the enemy's nose, with one consent dubbed its illustrious leader "Old Douro." By that title, from that time forward, he was commonly known at headquarters: and is it not a glorious one, so won, and so conferred, and truly worthy of descending in his family? On that occasion, I was told, Colonel ---- charged through the enemy at the head of his regiment, and, as one good turn deserves another, thought he might as well charge back again. It was in this second charge that he lost his arm.

Arrived on deck, the colonel made a somewhat semicircular bow to all of us, and immediately recognised Major M----. His valet followed him, and presently went below. The next moment, the colonel began to take a first view of the vessel, and turned from us for that purpose. Captain Gabion, first nudging Mr Commissary Capsicum, whispered Major M----, "Come, major, give us the colonel." The major, having an arm too many, in a twinkling whipped one behind him, stepped to the gangway, and did the colonel's first appearance to the life. To execute the colonel's recognition of himself, for want of a better substitute, he advanced, with the colonel's three military strides, to _me_. I, carried away by the drollery of the scene, so far forgot myself that I did the major. This caused a general laugh; the colonel turned round, and caught me and the major bowing, grimacing, and shaking hands. He saw at once what had been going on, and laughed too. But the major wished to shift the responsibility. "That Pledget," said he, "keeps us in a constant roar." Mr Staff-Surgeon Pledget looked a little surprised. When the major gave us the colonel's horizontal salutation to the company assembled, Pledget took it all in earnest, and bowed in return.

One other arrival followed. A shore boat came off, having four more passengers--a lady, two gentlemen, and a female attendant. One of the said gentlemen, an Irishman, was the lady's brother: she, in face and form, a perfect specimen of Irish beauty; he, both in person and in feature, all that might be expected in the brother of such a sister. In this respect he presented a remarkable contrast to their fellow-passenger, who was a young Irish officer of the East India Company's navy, and, what made it more remarkable, the accepted swain, as we afterwards had every reason to conclude, of his fair countrywoman. How shall I describe this lovely youth? His head was large; his face prodigiously large and _flat_; his features were ludicrously diminutive. Fancy a full moon seen broad and white through a Shetland mist--in short, a full moon of putty; then fancy, stuck exactly in the centre of this moon, the little screwed-up pug face of a little ugly monkey, and you have him to a T. His two little twinkling eyes, deep sunk beneath the beetling brow of his prominent and massive forehead, and in such close proximity that nothing separated them but the bridge of his nose, were constantly and inquisitively on the move. The nose itself was too insignificant to merit a description. Yet it was not exactly what is called a squashed nose, but a nose without a nib. It conveyed to you, indeed, the painful impression that some unfeeling barber had sliced off its extremity, and left the two unprotected nostrils staring you full in the face, like the open ports of a ship. His ears were like an elephant's,--large, loose, thin, flat, and un-hemmed. His mouth, like that described by a distinguished authoress, "had a physiognomy of its own." Not very observable when quiescent, in speaking it became curiously expressive, and, at times, enormously elongated or strangely curvilinear. It had also, under the same circumstances, another peculiarity. It was a travelling mouth: yes, it travelled. When it talked, it was constantly shifting its position, not only up and down, but sideways and obliquely. In the utterance of a single sentence, it would traverse the whole extent of his face. It was now high, now low; now on this side, now on that. It ranged, at will, the whole breadth of his countenance from ear to ear; so that at times he was all mouth on one side of his face, and no mouth on the other. This gave him the additional advantage, that his profile could maintain a dialogue with you, as well as another man's full face. When conversing with his lady-love, side by side at the dinner-table, he never turned to look at her--he had no need. Viewing her with one eye, like a duck, in tones of deferential tenderness he addressed her from the cheek that was nearest hers. His perfectly well-bred deportment, nay, elegance of manner, his inexhaustible fund of good humour, and amusing waggery, did not, I am sorry to say, prevent his acquiring, and bearing during the voyage, the name of Joey: allusive, I presume, to the feats of mouth performed in those days by the far-famed Grimaldi. The malevolent suspicion, that a title so derogatory was any suggestion of mine, I scorn to notice. To this, however, I do confess, that, ere we had been four-and-twenty hours at sea, as a slight token of my profound veneration for the stateliest and the loveliest of Erin's daughters, I proposed, and it was carried unanimously, that she should bear the name of Juno. And, the colonel having pronounced her brother a perfect Apollo, I also proposed, and it was also carried unanimously, that we should call him Mr Belvidere. But I am anticipating. On the practice of giving sobriquets, so common at headquarters, much remains to be said hereafter. As to the maid-servant, she was a quiet little Irishwoman of about five-and-thirty, in a duffle cloak with pink bows, snug straw bonnet neatly tied under her chin with a pink ribbon, and snow-white cotton stockings, exhibiting a rather broad instep, which led me to conjecture that she had not always worn shoes. Her mistress called her Kitty, and that name she was allowed to keep, as no one on board thought he could improve it.

It is time to get to sea. Gingham, where are you? what are you about? We shall be off, and leave you behind. Noon, our hour of sailing, was now near at hand. The anchor was hove short; the sails were shaking in the wind; the skipper came on board; the foresail was then set; still there was no Gingham. Those talented individuals, the two boatmen, still supposing Gingham was on board, were getting a little uneasy. They were now wide awake, and anxiously peering at the ship with their hands over their eyes, watching every one that came on deck, but watching in vain. Their uneasiness evidently increased, as our remaining time diminished; till at length, as the town clock struck twelve, the capstan was manned. The anchor was then hove to the tune of "Off she goes," performed on a single fife in admirable time, marked by the tread of many feet. The flood-tide was beginning to make; but we didn't care for that, as we had wind enough from the north-east, and to spare. Other sails were now set, and we were beginning to get way; while I was intently eyeing the shore, expecting to see Gingham shove off, and perfectly sure he would come, because he had taken no steps for the re-landing of his baggage.

But I did not look in the right direction. Gingham, detained to the last moment, and then, having settled all things to his satisfaction, at liberty to prosecute his voyage, had made his arrangements with his usual judgment. It was a near thing though. He put off from a part of the town lower down than the quay from which he usually embarked, so as to cut in upon us as we glided down the harbour; and was within a few fathoms of the ship before I saw him. He was then standing upright in his boat, completely absorbed in a London paper, but with one hand waving his umbrella, without looking up, to stop the ship. Stopping the ship was out of the question. Indeed, I fancied the skipper would have been glad to go without him. The boat, coming end on, and not very cleverly handled by the Falmouth fellows, bumped against the side of the ship, which, as she was now under way, they were afraid of missing altogether; and the shock almost pitched Gingham and his umbrella into the water. He came on board amidst general laughter, and the hearty greetings of such of the passengers as knew him--none heartier than mine. "How his green spectacles would have frightened the fishes!" said Mr Commissary Capsicum to Captain Gabion. "Don't joke on such a serious subject," replied the captain; "had he gone over, we should have quitted England without getting a sight of the last London newspaper."

The two worthies, who, still expecting to see Gingham emerge from the cabin, had so long waited for him in vain, were by this time in an awkward predicament. When the ship first began to move, they had no resource but to unmoor from the buoy, out oars, and pull away in company. But this, it was soon clear, would not do. The ship was getting more and more way, and, had they pulled their hearts out, would soon have left them astern; when, as their only chance, they pulled close alongside, and made free with a rope's end that was dragging through the water. This one of them held, after giving it a turn round a bench; while the other kept off the boat from the ship's side by means of the boat-hook. While they were being thus dragged through the water, each, as he could, from time to time touching his hat, each beseechingly simpering, each saying something that nobody could hear, and both anxiously looking for Gingham on deck, to their great surprise they saw him come alongside in another boat, as I have already related; and, before they could say Jack Robinson, he was on board.

After our first greetings, I called Gingham's attention to the disagreeable position of our two friends, who were still holding on alongside, and dragging through the water. Indeed, I was disposed to hold an argument with him on the subject, and thought a different view might be taken of their case. "No, no," said Gingham; "this is the first time any Falmouth man has ever attempted to impose upon me, and I mean it to be the last."

The breeze, no unusual circumstance in such localities, stiffened as we approached the entrance of the harbour, where the high land closes in, and the sea-way is comparatively narrow; and, meeting the swell which came tumbling in from the ocean with the flood-tide, knocked up a little bit of an ugly ripple. The situation of the two boatmen was becoming every moment more awkward. We were now going six knots, (through the _water_, mind you, not _making_ six knots--that, against such a current, was quite beyond our tubby little Wilhelmina's capabilities;) the ripple was gradually becoming nastier; the boatmen, still touching their hats from time to time, still blandly smiling, and still making unheard but pathetic appeals to Gingham's generosity, did not like to let go till they had got _something_; and I really thought the end must be, that their boat would be swamped alongside. At length, Gingham put an end to the farce, by screwing up ninepence in a bit of paper, and throwing it into the boat, telling them it was threepence more than they deserved. They then let go; and we left them poppling up and down, like a cork, in the broken water, and scuffling about in the bottom of the boat for the scattered coin.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] For the benefit of the uninitiated, assistant-deputy-paymaster-general; A. A. D. P. M. G., acting-assistant-deputy-paymaster-general; a long title, but not so long, by four syllables, as that of the letter-carrier of a certain German war-office--Ober-kriegsversammlungrathsverhandlungpapieraufhebergehülfe.

DISENCHANTMENT.

BY DELTA.

I.

Although from Adam stained with crime,
A halo girds the path of time,
As 'twere things humble with sublime,
Divine with mortal blending,
And that which is, with that which seems,--
Till blazoned o'er were Jacob's dreams
With heaven's angelic hosts, in streams,
Descending and ascending.

II.

Ask of the clouds, why Eden's dyes
Have vanished from the sunset skies?
Ask of the winds, why harmonies
Now breathe not in their voices?
Ask of the spring, why from the bloom
Of lilies comes a less perfume?
And why the linnet, 'mid the broom,
Less lustily rejoices?

III.

Silent are now the sylvan tents;
The elves to airy elements
Resolved are gone; grim castled rents
No more show demons gazing,
With evil eyes, on wandering men;
And, where the dragon had his den
Of fire, within the haunted glen,
Now herds unharmed are grazing.[17]

IV.

No more, as horror stirs the trees,
The path-belated peasant sees
Witches, adown the sleety breeze,
To Lapland flats careering:[18]
As on through storms the Sea-kings sweep,
No more the Kraken huge, asleep,
Looms like an island, 'mid the deep,
Rising and disappearing.

V.

No more, reclined by Cona's streams,
Before the seer, in waking dreams,
The dim funereal pageant gleams,
Futurity fore-showing;
No more, released from churchyard trance,
Athwart blue midnight, spectres glance,
Or mingle in the bridal dance,
To vanish ere cock-crowing.[19]

VI.

Alas! that Fancy's fount should cease!
In rose-hues limn'd, the myths of Greece
Have waned to dreams--the Colchian fleece,
And labours of Alcides:--
Nay, Homer, even thy mighty line--
Thy living tale of Troy divine--
The sceptic scholiast doubts if thine,
Or Priam, or Pelides!

VII.

As silence listens to the lark,
And orient beams disperse the dark,
How sweet to roam abroad, and mark
Their gold the fields adorning:
But, when we think of where are they,
Whose bosoms like our own were gay,
While April gladdened life's young day,
Joy takes the garb of mourning.

VIII.

Warm gushing thro' the heart come back
The thoughts that brightened boyhood's track;
And hopes, as 'twere from midnight black,
All star-like re-awaken;
Until we feel how, one by one,
The faces of the loved are gone,
And grieve for those left here alone,
Not those who have been taken.

IX.

The past returns in all we see,
The billowy cloud, and branching tree;
In all we hear--the bird and bee
Remind of pleasures cherish'd;
When all is lost it loved the best,
Oh! pity on that vacant breast,
Which would not rather be at rest,
Than pine amid the perish'd!

X.

A balmy eve! the round white moon
Emparadises midmost June,
Tune trills the nightingale on tune--
What magic! when a lover,
To him, who now, gray-haired and lone,
Bends o'er the sad sepulchral stone
Of her, whose heart was once his own:
Ah! bright dream briefly over!

XI.

See how from port the vessel glides
With streamered masts, o'er halcyon tides;
Its laggard course the sea-boy chides,
All loath that calms should bind him;
But distance only chains him more,
With love-links, to his native shore,
And sleep's best dream is to restore
The home he left behind him.

XII.

To sanguine youth's enraptured eye,
Heaven has its reflex in the sky,
The winds themselves have melody,
Like harp some seraph sweepeth;
A silver decks the hawthorn bloom,
A legend shrines the mossy tomb,
And spirits throng the starry gloom,
Her reign when midnight keepeth.

XIII.

Silence o'erhangs the Delphic cave;
Where strove the bravest of the brave,
Naught met the wandering Byron, save
A lone, deserted barrow;
And Fancy's iris waned away,
When Wordsworth ventured to survey,
Beneath the light of common day,
The dowie dens of Yarrow.

XIV.

Little we dream--when life is new,
And Nature fresh and fair to view,
When throbs the heart to pleasure true,
As if for naught it wanted,--
That, year by year, and ray by ray,
Romance's sunlight dies away,
And long before the hair is gray,
The heart is disenchanted.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] A clearer day has dispelled the marvels, which showed themselves in heaven above and in earth beneath, when twilight and superstition went hand in hand. Horace's

"Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas,
Nocturnos Lemures, portentaque Thessala,"

as well as Milton's

"Gorgons, Hydras, and Chimæras dire,"

have all been found wanting, when reduced to the admeasurements of science; and the "sounds that syllable men's names, on sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses," are quenched in silence, or only exist in what James Hogg most poetically terms

"That undefined and mingled hum,
Voice of the desert, never dumb."

The inductive philosophy was "the bare bodkin" which gave many a pleasant vision "its quietus." "Homo, naturæ minister," saith Lord Bacon, "et interpres, tantum facit et intelligit, quantum de naturæ ordine se vel mente observaverit: nec amplius scit nec potest."--_Nov. Organum_, Aph. I.

The fabulous dragon has long acted a conspicuous part in the poetry both of the north and south. We find him in the legends of Regnar Lodbrog and Kempion, and in the episode of Brandimarte in the second book of the Orlando Inamorato. He is also to be recognised as the huge snake of the Edda; and figures with ourselves in the stories of the Chevalier St George and the Dragon--of Moor of Moorhall and the Dragon of Wantley--in the Dragon of Loriton--in the Laidley Worm of Spindleton Heugh--in the Flying Serpent of Lockburne--the Snake of Wormieston, &c. &c. Bartholinus and Saxo-Grammaticus volunteer us some curious information regarding a species of these monsters, whose particular office was to keep watch over hidden treasure. The winged Gryphon is of "auld descent," and has held a place in unnatural history from Herodotus (_Thalia_, 116, and _Melpomene_, 13, 27) to Milton (_Paradise Lost_, book v.)--

"As when a Gryphon, through the wilderness,
With wingèd course, o'er hill or moory dale,
Pursues the Arimaspian," &c.

[18] Of the many mysterious chapters of the human mind, surely one of the most obscure and puzzling is that of witchcraft. For some reason, not sufficiently explained, Lapland was set down as a favourite seat of the orgies of the "Midnight Hags." When, in the ballad of "The Witch of Fife," the auld gudeman, in the exercise of his conjugal authority, questions his errant spouse regarding her nocturnal absences without leave, she is made ecstatically to answer,

"Whan we came to the Lapland lone,
The fairies war all in array;
For all the genii of the North
War keepyng their holyday.
The warlocke man and the weird womyng,
And the fays of the woode and the steep,
And the phantom hunteris all were there,
And the mermaidis of the deep.
And they washit us all with the witch-water,
Distillit fra the moorland dew,
Quhill our beauty bloomit like the Lapland rose,
That wylde in the foreste grew."

_Queen's Wake_, Night 1st.

"Like, but oh how different," are these unearthly goings on to the details in the Walpurgis Night of Faust (Act v. Scene 1.) The "phantom-hunters" of the north were not the "Wilde Jäger" of Burger, or "the Erl-king" of Goethe. It is related by Hearne, that the tribes of the Chippewas Indians suppose the northern lights to be occasioned by the frisking of herds of deer in the fields above, caused by the hallo and chase of their departed friends.

[19] It is very probable, that the apparitional visit of "Alonzo the Brave" to the bridal of "the Fair Imogene," was suggested to M. G. Lewis, by the story in the old chronicles of the skeleton masquer taking his place among the wedding revellers, at Jedburgh Castle, on the night when Alexander III., in 1286, espoused as his second queen, Joleta, daughter of the Count le Dreux. These were the palmy days of portents; and the prophecy uttered by Thomas of Ercildoune, of the storm which was to roar

"From Ross's hills to Solway sea,"

was supposed to have had its fulfilment in the death of the lamented monarch, which occurred, only a few months after the appearance of the skeleton masquer, by a fall from his horse, over a precipice, while hunting between Burntisland and Kinghorn, at a place still called "the King's Wood-end."

Wordsworth appears to have had the subject in his eye, in two of the stanzas of his lyric, entitled _Presentiments_,--the last of which runs as follows:--

"Ye daunt the proud array of war,
Pervade the lonely ocean far
As sail hath been unfurled,
For dancers in the festive hall
What ghostly partners hath your call
Fetched from the shadowy world."

--_Poetical Works_, 1845, p. 176.

The same incident has been made the subject of some very spirited verses, in a little volume--_Ballads and Lays from Scottish History_--published in 1844; and which, I fear, has not attracted the attention to which its intrinsic merits assuredly entitle it.

ACROSS THE ATLANTIC.[20]

Another book from the active pen of our American acquaintance, the able seaman. The question having been raised whether Mr Herman Melville has really served before the mast, and has actually, like the heroine of a well-known pathetic ballad, disfigured his lily-white fingers with the nasty pitch and tar, he does his best to dissipate all such doubts by the title-page of his new work, on which, in large capitals, is proclaimed that _Redburn_ is "_The Sailor-boy Confessions and Reminiscences of the son of a gentleman in the merchant service_;" and, collaterally, by a dedication to his younger brother, "_now a sailor on a voyage to China_." An unmerited importance has perhaps been given to the inquiry whether Mr Melville's voyages were made on quarterdeck or on forecastle, and are genuine adventures or mere Robinsonades. The book, not the writer, concerns the critic; and even as there assuredly are circumstances that might induce a youth of gentle birth and breeding to don flannel shirt, and put fist in tar-bucket as a merchant seaman, so the probably unpleasant nature of those circumstances precludes too inquisitive investigation into them. We accept Mr Melville, therefore, for what he professes to be, and we accept his books, also, with pleasure and gratitude when good, just as we neglect and reject them when they are the contrary. _Redburn_, we are bound to admit, is entitled to a more favourable verdict than the author's last previous work. We do not like it so well as _Typee_ and _Omoo_; and, although quite aware that this is a class of fiction to which one cannot often return without finding it pall, by reason of a certain inevitable sameness, we yet are quite sure we should not have liked it so well as those two books, even though priority of publication had brought it to a palate unsated with that particular sort of literary diet. Nevertheless, after a decided and deplorable retrogression, Mr Melville seems likely to go a-head again, if he will only take time and pains, and not over-write himself, and avoid certain affectations and pedantry unworthy a man of his ability. Many of the defects of _Mardi_ are corrected in _Redburn_. We gladly miss much of the obscurity and nonsense that abound in the former work. The style, too, of this one is more natural and manly; and even in the minor matter of a title, we find reason to congratulate Mr Melville on improved taste, inasmuch as we think an English book is better fitted with an English-sounding name than with uncouth dissyllables from Polynesia, however convenient these may be found for the purposes of the puff provocative.

_Redburn_ comprises four months of the life of a hardy wrong-headed lad, who ships himself on board a trading vessel, for the voyage from New York to Liverpool and back. As there is no question of shipwreck, storm, pirates, mutiny, or any other nautico-dramatic incidents, during Wellingborough Redburn's voyage out and home; and as the events of his brief abode in England are neither numerous nor (with the exception of one rather far-fetched episode) by any means extraordinary, it is evident that a good deal of detail and ingenuity are necessary to fill two volumes, on so simple and commonplace a theme. So a chapter is devoted to the causes of his addiction to the sea, and shows how it was that childish reminiscences of a seaport town, and stories of maritime adventure told him by his father, who had many times crossed the Atlantic, and visions of European magnificence, and, above all, the frequent contemplation of an old-fashioned glass ship which stood in his mother's sitting-room, and which is described with considerable minuteness, and some rather feeble attempts at the facetious--how all these things combined had imbued young Wellingborough with a strong craving after salt water. Other circumstances concurred to drive him forth upon the world. He hints at family misfortunes. His father had been a merchant at New York, in a flourishing business. Things were now less prosperous. "Some time previous, my mother had removed from New York to a pleasant village on the Hudson river, where we lived in a small house, in a quiet way. Sad disappointments in several plans which I had sketched for my future life; the necessity of doing something for myself, united to a naturally roving disposition, had now conspired within me to send me to sea as a sailor." And yet it would appear that he might have done better than plunge thus recklessly into the hardships and evil associations of a merchantman's forecastle; for he more than half admits that he was erring and wilful, and that he had kind relatives and sympathising patrons, who would have put him in the way of earning a living otherwise. Redburn, however, seems to have been in some respects as precocious as in others we shall presently find him simple and inexperienced. A mere boy, adversity had already converted him into a misanthrope, at an age when most lads are as yet without plans for their future, and know not disappointment in any more important matters than a treat to the play, or an extra week's holiday. The forwardness of the rising generation is remarkable enough in England, and has been amusingly hit off by one of our cleverest caricaturists. In America, therefore, which notoriously goes a-head of the old country in most particulars, and whose inhabitants lay claim to an extraordinary share of railroad and earthquake in their composition, boyish precocity is possibly still more remarkable; and one must not wonder at finding Master Redburn talking in misanthropic vein of the world's treatment of him, how bleak and cheerless everything seemed, and how "the warm soul of him had been flogged out by adversity." This, at an age when the stinging memory of the schoolmaster's taws must still have been tolerably vivid about the seat of his breeks, seems rather absurd to begin with. It was under the influence of such feelings, however, that this infant Timon left his home to cast his lot upon the wide waters. His friends were evidently either very angry with him or very poor; for they allowed him to depart with but one dollar in his pocket, a big shooting-jacket with foxes' heads on the buttons, and a little bundle, containing his entire kit, slung at the end of the fowling-piece which his good-natured elder brother pressed upon him at parting. Thus equipped, he tramps of to the steamer that is to carry him down the Hudson, early on a raw morning, along a muddy road, and through a drizzling rain. The skyey influences will at times affect even the most stoical, and the dismal aspect of external nature makes Master Redburn revert to his blighted prospects--how his soul is afflicted with mildew, "and the fruit which, with others, is only blasted after ripeness, with him is nipped in the first blossom and bud." The blight he complains of is evidently of a most virulent description, for it "leaves such a scar that the air of Paradise might not erase it." As he has just before told us how, whilst walking along, his fingers "worked moodily at the stock and trigger" of his brother's rifle, and that he had thought this was indeed "the proper way to begin life, with a gun in your hand," we feel, upon hearing him croak so desperately, some apprehension for his personal safety, and think his brother would have done as well to have kept his gun. On this last point we quite make up our minds, when we shortly afterwards find him levelling the weapon at the left eye of a steamboat passenger who is so imprudent as to stare at him, and bullying the steward for demanding the fare, (which is two dollars, whereas Redburn has but one,) and looking cat-a-mounts at his less needy fellow-voyagers, because they have the rudeness to enjoy their roast beef dinner, whilst he has had the improvidence to leave home without even a crust in his wallet. It seems the author's aim to start his hero in life under every possible circumstance of disadvantage and hardship; and to do this, he rather loses sight of probability. At last, however, Redburn reaches New York, with gun and bundle, foxes' heads and shooting-jacket, and hastens to visit a friend of his brother's, to whom he is recommended. A kind welcome, good supper, and warm bed, go some way towards dissipating his ill humour; and next morning the friend accompanies him to the docks to seek a ship. But none of his brother's kindnesses prosper him. The gun, as we have seen, has already led him to the verge of homicide, the foxes' heads are yet to be the source of innumerable vexations; and Mr Jones, a silly young man, does more harm than good, by taking the direction of Redburn's affairs, and acting as his spokesman with Captain Riga, of the regular trader, _Highlander_, then loading for Liverpool.

"We found the captain in the cabin, which was a very handsome one,
lined with mahogany and maple; and the steward, an elegant-looking
mulatto, in a gorgeous turban, was setting out, on a sort of
sideboard, some dinner-service which looked like silver, but it
was only Britannia ware highly polished. As soon as I clapped my
eye on the captain, I thought to myself he was just the captain
to suit me. He was a fine-looking man, about forty, splendidly
dressed, with very black whiskers and very white teeth, and what I
took to be a free frank look out of a large hazel eye. I liked him
amazingly."

The scene that ensues is quietly humorous, and reminds us a good deal of Marryat, in whose style of novel we think Mr Melville would succeed. The upshot of the conference is that Redburn ships as a boy on board the Highlander. By vaunting his respectability, and the wealth of his relations, his injudicious friend furnishes Riga with a pretext for withholding the customary advance of pay; and although the sale of the fowling-piece to a Jew pawnbroker produces wherewith to purchase a red woollen shirt, a tarpaulin hat, and jack-knife, Redburn goes on board but slenderly provided. His reception is not very cheering.

"When I reached the deck, I saw no one but a large man in a large
dripping pea-jacket, who was calking down the main-hatches.

"'What do you want, Pillgarlic?' said he.

"'I've shipped to sail in this ship,' I replied, assuming a little
dignity to chastise his familiarity.

"'What for--a tailor?' said he, looking at my shooting-jacket.

"I answered that I was going as a 'boy;' for so I was technically
put down on the articles.

"'Well,' said he, 'have you got your traps aboard?'

"I told him I didn't know there were any rats in the ship, and
hadn't brought any 'trap.'

"At this he laughed out with a great guffaw, and said there must
be hay-seed in my hair.

"This made me mad; but, thinking he must be one of the sailors who
was going in the ship, I thought it wouldn't be wise to make an
enemy of him, so only asked him where the men slept in the vessel,
for I wanted to put my clothes away.

"'Where's your clothes?' said he.

"'Here in my bundle,' said I, holding it up.

"'Well, if that's all you've got,' he cried, 'you'd better chuck
it overboard. But go forward, go forward to the forecastle; that's
the place you live in aboard here.'

"And with that he directed me to a sort of hole in the deck of the
bow of the ship; but looking down, and seeing how dark it was, I
asked him for a light.

"'Strike your eyes together and make one,' said he, 'we don't have
any lights here.' So I groped my way down into the forecastle,
which smelt so bad of old ropes and tar, that it almost made me
sick. After waiting patiently, I began to see a little; and,
looking round, at last perceived I was in a smoky-looking place,
with twelve wooden boxes stuck round the sides. In some of these
boxes were large chests, which I at once supposed to belong to the
sailors, who must have taken that method of appropriating their
'bunks,' as I afterwards found these boxes were called. And so it
turned out.

"After examining them for a while, I selected an empty one, and
put my bundle right in the middle of it, so that there might be no
mistake about my claim to the place, particularly as the bundle
was so small."