Chapter II: The Champion (3)

As sweet that mother’s loving tones
Their warbled music shed,
As though in proud baronial hall,
O’er silken cradle-bed;
No more the pomps and gauds of life
Maintained their strong control,
For holy love’s new gift had shed
Fresh greenness o’er her soul.

And when the husband from his toil
Returned at closing day,
How dear to him the lowly home
Where all his treasures lay.
“O, Ellinor! ’tis naught to me,
The hardship or the storm,
While thus thy blessed smile I see,
And clasp our infant’s form.”

No secret sigh o’er pleasures lost
Convulsed their tranquil breast,
For where the pure affections dwell
The heart hath perfect rest.
So fled the Summer’s balmy prime,
The Autumn’s golden wing,
And Winter laid his hoary head
Upon the lap of Spring.

Yet oft, with wily, wary step,
The red-browed Indian crept
Close round his pale-faced neighbor’s home,
And listened while they slept;
But fierce Wingina, lofty chief,
Aloof, their movements eyed,
Nor courteous bowed his pluméd head,
Nor checked his haughty stride.

John White leaped from his vessel’s prow,
He had braved the boisterous sea,
And boldly rode the mountain-wave—
A stalwart man was he.
John White leaped from his vessel’s prow,
And joy was in his eye;
For his daughter’s smile had lured him on
Amid the stormiest sky.

Where were the roofs that flecked the green!
The smoke-wreaths curling high?
He calls—he shouts—the cherished names,
But Echo makes reply.
“Where art thou, Ellinor! my child!
And sweet Virginia Dare!
O, silver cloud, that cleaves the blue
Like angel’s wing—_say where!_

“Where is the glorious Saxon vine
We set so strong and fair?”
The stern gray rocks in mockery smiled,
And coldly answered “_where!_”
“Ho! flitting savage! stay thy step,
And tell—” but light as air
He vanished, and the falling stream
Responsive murmured—“_where!_”

So, o’er the ruined palisade,
The blackened threshold-stone,
The funeral of colonial hope,
That old man wept—alone!
And mournful rose his wild lament,
In accents of despair,
For the lost daughter of his love,
And young Virginia Dare.

* * * * *

=REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.=

_The Poetical Works of Fitz Greene Halleck. New Edition.
Redfield: Clinton Hall, New York._

This is a new and very beautiful edition, the most beautiful that has ever been published, of one of the sweetest, most elaborately finished, most expressive and original poets of America. No one can read Halleck, without being at once impressed with the sense that he is a writer entirely _sui generis_ and most peculiar; not merely imitating no one, but resembling no one, and—

“Si liceat magnis componere parva”—

Like the notorious Andrew Jackson Allen, himself alone.

Mr. Bryant we have never heard accused of imitation; yet it is notorious that his style, elaborate, didactic, stately, sometimes magniloquent, sometimes magnificent, always as brightly polished and always as cold as a Toledo rapier’s blade, always arousing admiration, and at times awe, but rarely awakening sympathy, but never calling forth a tear, closely resembles that of many English poets, none of them his inferior, the most remarkable of whom are Thompson of the Seasons, and Young of the Night Thoughts; and Wordsworth; and although I acquit him wholly of any premeditated design to follow in any of their footsteps, I still hold it as an undoubted truth, that unless those three great didacticians had written before him, Bryant would not have written, at least as he has written. Not that I design or desire to underrate his talent, or detract from his well-earned laurels; for I admire him as a grand, calm, pure, and at times almost sublime, English writer; but that no passage ever caused me a thrill in the veins, a tear in the eye, or a flush on the cheek; and that his want of honest human sympathies renders the report of his fame greater than the reality of his popularity.

Longfellow, again, principally I believe from mere base malignity on the part of his would-be critics, and vile envy of his superiority, has been falsely accused of plagiarism, and most unjustly charged with copying Keats, Shelley, and Tennyson, with the former two of whom he has nothing whatever in common, while he resembles the latter only in the perfect flow of his inimitable rhythm, and the really artificial, but most seemingly inartificial, structure of his smooth versification; in all of which he as far excels his supposed model, as he does in expression, simplicity and force, not of diction only but of thought, and in the fire of his quick and vivid fancy.

Of Halleck, on the contrary, though he alone has successfully followed Byron in the half-lyric, half-comic vein of Don Juan and Fanny; even as Byron alone followed that of Whistlecraft—though in the fineness of his fancy, in the neat finish and epigrammatic turn of his antithetical verses, in his playful wit, and felicitous turns of natural pathos, he rivals if not equals Moore—it has never been said, never could be said, that he resembles, much less copies, either Moore or Byron, or any other poet of ancient times or modern.

The most observable characteristics of Halleck are the exquisite grace with which he glides from the purest and sweetest sentiments into the most delicate, yet most pungent wit; in the playfulness of his fancy; the truth of his humanity; and the epigrammatic terseness of his smaller compositions. Such as—

Green be the turf above thee
Friend of my better days!
None knew thee but to love thee,
None named thee but to praise—

An elegy of which it can be truly said, as of how few persons through all time, that there is not one idea wanting, or one superfluous; not one word that could be altered without injuring the beauty and force of the ensemble.

The most frequently quoted of Mr. Halleck’s poems, are “The Death of Bozzaris,” and “Alnwick Castle,” the latter perhaps the most generally popular of all his writings. But, in my judgment, the best, beyond all doubt, is “The Field of the Grounded Arms;” which, because it is entirely beyond the low sphere of New York poetical criticism, as being writ in unrhymed lyric lines, has been little praised or noticed, in proportion to its real merits, which are of the highest.

The same exquisite power and felicity in the fitness of wording, noticed above, of the lines “On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake,” and the terseness of phraseology, in which Mr. Halleck clearly surpasses every contemporaneous poet, native or foreign, is here most conspicuous; as is the perfect harmony, which causes unrhymed metric lines, which some wiseacres would doubtless call rhythmic prose, to read melodious and sonorous as the most perfect rhymed lyrics. My limits will not allow me to quote this beautiful poem, breathing the true fire of honest and impartial patriotism and love of country; and, as it is already long before the public, and known to all judicious readers, I prefer to pass on to a long extract from an unpublished poem on “Connecticut,” the poet’s birth-place and heart’s home, a portion of which is now for the first time suffered to see the light.

“Connecticut” is in our poet’s favorite measure, the decasyllabic stanza of eight lines, and in his favorite vein, the serio-humorous style of “Fanny.” I confess, for my own part, that I prefer the simple-serious to the semi-comic semi-sentimental strain; for a sweet fall of pathos melting into a dying close, and then abruptly terminated by a sarcasm or a sneer, rather strikes me with a jarring violence, like that arising from a musical discord, than charms me by the contrast it affords. Admiration, at the dexterity of the versifier, mingles too largely with vexation at the violence done to the harmony of beauty.

But of Mr. Halleck’s genial and various genius no component part is more clearly marked than his hearty pantagruelism, which finds something humorous in the deepest of sentiments, which must have its shot at every folly as it flies, and which must vent its sarcasm at the weak point, even in what it most admires; and never, it must be said, was wit of the most pointed less ill-natured, humor more fairy-like and fanciful, or sarcasm more softly veiled in dewy flowers of immortal verse.

His biting satires on the grim old Puritans, quaint and cruel, godly and greedy, forgiving any thing to no men except their own pet sins to themselves, most clamorous for tolerance to their own creed, most intolerant to that of all others, are most refreshing in this age of cant and fulsome section-adulation.

The following stanzas, in a bolder vein, following up his expedition of Mather’s mendacity, are as sublime as they are bold and independent—

XVII.

No: a born Poet at his cradle fire
The Muses nursed him as their bud unblown,
And gave him, as his mind grew high and higher,
Their ducal strawberry leaf’s unwreathed renown.
Alas! that mightiest masters of the lyre,
Whose pens above an eagle’s heart have grown,
In all the proud nobility of wing,
Should stoop to dip their points in passion’s poison spring.

XVIII.

For Milton, weary of his youth’s young wife,
To her, to king, to church, to law untrue,
Warred for divorce and discord to the knife,
And proudest wore his plume of darkest hue:
And Dante, when his Florence, in her strife,
Robbed him of office and his temper, threw
’Mongst friends and foes a bomb-shell of fierce rhymes,
Shivering their names and fames to all succeeding times.

The two closing stanzas of this fragment are so perfectly, chastely and inimitably beautiful, that they induce a strong hope that Mr. Halleck’s fastidious judgment—for it is neither indolence of habit, nor difficulty of composition, which keeps our poet for periods so long and tedious behind the curtain, but the severe taste and chariness of his muse, which causes him to reject as unworthy of his pen what most writers would rejoice to put forward as the cope-stone of their renown—will suffer him ere long to give us his “Connecticut” entire.

XXIV.

Beneath thy star, as one of the THIRTEEN,
Land of my lay! through many a battle’s night,
Thy gallant men stepped, steady and serene,
To that war-music’s stern and strong delight.
Where bayonets clenched above the trampled green,
Where sabres grappled in the ocean fight;
In siege, in storm, on deck or rampart, there
They hunted the wolf Danger to his lair,
And sought and won sweet peace, and wreaths for Honor’s hair.

XXV.

And with thy smiles, sweet Peace, came woman’s, bringing
The Eden sunshine of her welcome kiss,
And lover’s flutes, and children’s voices singing
The maiden’s promised, matron’s perfect bliss,
And heart and home-bells blending with their ringing
Thank-offerings borne to holier words than this,
And the proud Queen of Glory’s laurel leaves,
And gold, the gift to Peace, of Plenty’s summer sheaves.

Honor and health to Halleck, and may he speak to us in the high-hearted, honest music of his soul oftener than heretofore; and let him rest assured he cannot speak to us too often or too long. Valeto.

* * * * *

_Mysteries; or Glimpses of the Supernatural. By Charles Wyllys
Elliott. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo._

The publication of this volume is timely. It goes over the whole field appropriated to oracles, astrology, dreams, demons, ghosts, spectres, and the like, with long chapters on the Salem Witchcraft, the Cock-lane Ghost, the Rochester Knockings and the Stratford Mysteries. The rules of evidence in relation to such marvels are also clearly stated. Mr. Elliott’s style is somewhat affected, but his information gives evidence of research, and the circulation of his book may produce good. Every thing which will tend in the slightest degree to scare away the late importations of vulgar vagabonds from the “spiritual world,” ironically so called, is worthy of patronage. We are not, of course, so audaciously incredulous as to doubt the reality of “the spirits,” but we sincerely hope that the Maine Liquor Law, in its most stringent provisions, may be applied to them; for such a set of unfleshed drivelers and disembodied nuisances never before attempted to convey to mortal ears the gossip of ghost-land.

A curious story is related in Mr. Elliott’s book, on the authority of Southey. We cannot forbear quoting it as an illustration of the way that John Bull experiences supernatural fear. “In 1702 Whiston predicted that the comet would appear on Wednesday, 14th October, at five minutes after five in the morning, and that the world would be destroyed by fire on the Friday following. His reputation was high, and the comet appeared. A number of persons got into boats and barges on the Thames, thinking the water the safest place. South Sea and India stock fell. A captain of a Dutch ship threw all his powder into the river, that the ship might not be endangered. At noon, after the comet had appeared, it is said that more than one hundred clergymen were ferried over to Lambeth, to request that proper prayers might be prepared, there being none in the church service. People believed that the day of judgment was at hand, and some acted on this belief, as if some temporary evil was to be expected. On Thursday more than 7,000 kept mistresses were publicly married. There was a prodigious run kept on the bank; Sir Gilbert Heathcote, at that time head director, issued orders to all the fire offices in London, requiring them to keep a good look-out, and have a particular eye on the Bank of England.” The run on the bank, and the orders of Sir Gilbert, in view of the world’s being destroyed by fire, are touches of practical humor, which the most daring humorist would hardly have ventured to imagine.

* * * * *

_The Works of Shakspeare: the Text Carefully Restored according
to the First Editions; with Introductions, Notes Original and
Selected, and a Life of the Poet. By the Rev. H. N. Hudson, A.
M. Boston: James Monroe & Co. Vol. 5, 12mo._

The present volume of Mr. Hudson’s beautiful edition of Shakspeare contains King Richard II., the first and second parts of Henry IV., and Henry V. The introductions, especially those to Henry IV., are probably the ablest of the editor’s many able disquisitions. The analysis of Prince Henry, Hotspur, Glendower, and, above all, Falstaffe, are in Mr. Hudson’s most matured style, both of thought and expression. They are positive additions to critical literature. No editor of Shakspeare, no critic of character, has ever approached the masterly dissection of Falstaffe given in this volume. The fat knight’s great intellect has perfect justice done to it, while his humor is richly set forth. Mr. Hudson says very finely of him, that he has “all the intellectual qualities that enter into the composition of practical wisdom, without one of the moral.” Of his sensuality, it is remarked: “The animal susceptibilities of our nature are in him carried up to their highest pitch, and his several appetites hug their respective objects with exquisite gust. Moreover, his speech borrows additional flavor and effect from the thick foldings of flesh which it oozes through; therefore he glories in his much flesh, and cherishes it as being the procreant cradle of jests; if he be fat, it enables his tongue to drop fatness; and in the chambers of his brain all the pleasurable agitations that pervade the structure below are curiously wrought into mental delectation. With how keen and inexhaustible a relish does he pour down sack, as if he tasted it all over and through his body to the ends of his fingers and toes! Yet who does not see that he has far more pleasure in discoursing about it than in drinking it? And so it is through all the particulars of his enormous sensuality. And he makes the same use of his vices and infirmities; nay, he often exaggerates and caricatures those he has, and sometimes affects those he has not, that he may suck the same profit from them.”

* * * * *

_The Book of Snobs. By William M. Thackeray. New York: D.
Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 18mo._

These biting and brilliant squibs were originally published in Punch. In their collected form they will take their place among the most characteristic of Thackeray’s works. This volume, in short, contains the philosophy of Snobbism, as Vanity Fair and Pendennis contain its illustrations in life. But while these sketches are philosophical, the philosophy teaches by example. We have city snobs—military, clerical and literary snobs—party-giving, dinner-giving, dining-out snobs—whig snobs, tory snobs, radical snobs—snobs in the country and snobs on the continent—university snobs, club snobs, and regal snobs. The result is that the author, in snobbing the race, at last becomes almost a snob himself—as it was said of Mr. Brownson, that he was so much of a protestant that he protested himself out of protestantism. Thackeray’s definition of a snob is “he who meanly admires mean things.”

The “Snob Royal” is one of the best essays in the volume. “In a country,” says Thackeray, “where snobs are in the majority, a prime one, surely, cannot be unfit to govern. With us they have succeeded to admiration. For instance, James I. was a snob, and a Scotch snob; than which the world contains no more offensive creature. He appears not to have had one of the good qualities of a man—neither courage, nor generosity, nor honesty, nor brains; but read what the great divines and doctors of England said about him! Charles II., his grandson, was a rogue, but not a snob; while Louis XIV., his old square-toes of a contemporary—the great worshiper of big-wiggery—has always struck me as a most undoubted and royal snob.” In George the Fourth he also finds a regal snob. “With the same humility with which the footmen at the King’s Arms gave way before the Plush Royal, the aristocracy of the English nation bent down and truckled before Georgius, and proclaimed him the first gentleman in Europe. And it’s a wonder to think what is the gentlefolks opinion of a gentleman when they gave Georgius such a title.”

* * * * *

_Outlines of English Literature. By Thomas B. Shaw, B. A. A new
American edition, with a Sketch of American Literature. By Henry
T. Tuckerman. Philadelphia: Blanchard & Lea. 1 vol. 12mo._

This compact duodecimo volume is an admirable guide to English and American literature. Mr. Shaw’s work has been extensively circulated in England and America, and well deserves its reputation. It is well-written, evinces a well-trained study of the great English writers, and abounds in information and judicious criticism. It clearly conveys to the reader, uninformed in literary history, accurate ideas of the sliding-scale of English reputations. Mr. Tuckerman’s sketch of American literature occupies fifty closely-printed pages, and is a model of compactness of style and distinctness of judgment. From a few of his critical estimates we should feel inclined to dissent, and it would be strange, indeed, if any two persons could agree in opinion on the merits of the scores of authors coming within the scope of the editor’s plan; but, as a whole, the judgments evince a genial and catholic taste, unbiassed by prejudice, and combining both the disposition and the power to decide justly. The critic’s discrimination is exhibited equally in his criticisms on works of the understanding and works of the imagination. The style is remarkably condensed; every word tells; yet the sweet and fluent ease of Mr. Tuckerman’s diction gives no evidence of purchasing brevity at any sacrifice of grace. The book deserves an extensive circulation as the best and most available introduction to English and American literature.

* * * * *

_Pierre; or The Ambiguities. By Herman Melville. New York:
Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo._

This work is generally considered a failure. The cause of its ill-success is certainly not to be sought in its lack of power. None of Melville’s novels equals the present in force and subtlety of thinking and unity of purpose. Many of the scenes are wrought out with great splendor and vigor, and a capacity is evinced of holding with a firm grasp, and describing with a masterly distinctness, some of the most evanescent phenomena of morbid emotions. But the spirit pervading the whole book is intolerably unhealthy, and the most friendly reader is obliged at the end to protest against such a provoking perversion of talent and waste of power. The author has attempted seemingly to combine in it the peculiarities of Poe and Hawthorne, and has succeeded in producing nothing but a powerfully unpleasant caricature of morbid thought and passion. Pierre, we take it, is crazy, and the merit of the book is in clearly presenting the psychology of his madness; but the details of such a mental malady as that which afflicts Pierre are almost as disgusting as those of physical disease itself.

* * * * *

_The Men of the Time, or Sketches of Living Notables. New York:
Redfield. 1 vol. 12mo._

This is a thick duodecimo volume of some six hundred closely printed pages, devoted to clear and concise biographies of men whose names are now before the world. The number of notables is nearly nine hundred, and it contains almost every name of reputation in Europe or America. The labor of its compilation must have been great, as the editor has diligently explored the recondite as well as obvious sources of information. In most of the American biographies the information has been obtained at first hand. The collection comprises living authors, architects, artists, composers, demagogues, divines, dramatists, engineers, journalists, merchants, novelists, philanthropists, poets, politicians, savants, statesmen, travelers, voyagers and warriors. The biographies vary in length according to the importance of the subject, some of them being admirably and critically written, giving estimation of character as well as narratives of events. It is a book which should be in every house. The newspaper itself cannot be thoroughly understood without a reference to this volume.

* * * * *

_Dombey and Son. By Charles Dickens. New York: Harper &
Brothers. 2 vols. 12mo._

This is a cheap, elegant, and finely illustrated edition of Dickens’ celebrated novel, which we trust will be followed by an edition of his other works in the same form. “Dombey and Son,” though defective in plot, and with some blunders in characterization, is still brimful of the author’s genius, and contains many scenes and characters which cannot fade from the reader’s memory. Dombey, Carker, Major Bagstock and Edith, are apt to be bores when they are not caricatures, but Florence, little Paul, Captain “Ed’ard Cuttle,” Toots and Susan Nipper, are acquaintances which, once made, are a possession forever. As there is no complete American edition of Dickens’ works in a convenient readable form, we trust that the Harper’s will give us one modeled on the present volumes.

* * * * *

=SIPS OF PUNCH.=

* * * * *

=FASHION PLATE.=

Illustration.—A charming morning dress is thus formed: a dress of _barège_, of silk pattern, with three _volants_ trimmed with a small quilling _à la vieille_, and open in front, displaying a lace trimmed neckerchief, (Mechlin lace,) while two small _volants_ finish the sleeves; the last surmounted by a quilling similar to that of the body of the dress.

The morning pardessus is also worn with a dress of percale, likewise embroidered; _volant_ and sleeves in English embroidery; the front is trimmed in the same manner; the body is ornamented with a double plait in the stuff, and above the _volant_, and which replaces the braiding, generally placed on pardessus of tissue. Lastly, are models of sleeves trimmed with lace, one with two open _volants_; the other closed at the wrist, and trimmed with a _manchette_ of lace.

MANTILLE A LA DUCHESSE.

The edge of front is from 3 inches at the top to 34 at the bottom; the shoulder seam is from 9 to 13¼; the bottom of front is sloped from 34 to 10¼; the curved line from 10¼-5¾-5⅛-5 is then cut; the edges of the piece in which the armhole is cut are then vandyked—the straight lines forming the vandykes are 1¼ long; this piece is then brought over the other part of the front as far as the dotted line, which indicates the place where it should be sewn; the edges of the vandykes are finished by a narrow trimming, and there is a small button in each point; the bottom of front is trimmed with a double row of lace from 34 to 10¼, being the only part of the front which is trimmed with lace.

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=Transcriber’s Notes:=

Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Punctuation has been corrected without note. Other errors have been corrected as noted below. For illustrations, some caption text may be missing or incomplete due to condition of the originals used for preparation of the ebook.

Page 343, gaseous envelop environs ==> gaseous envelope environs Page 345, parallel of 25° degrees ==> parallel of 25° is Page 345, winds are are not found ==> winds are not found Page 345, by permament north ==> by permanent north Page 346, constant eastterly winds ==> constant easterly winds Page 346, though maritine adventure ==> though maritime adventure Page 346, found themselve borne ==> found themselves borne Page 347, where it orignated ==> where it originated Page 347, along the Gaudalquivir ==> along the Guadalquivir Page 352, Cape Lopez in 1° degree south ==> Cape Lopez in 1° south Page 360, BY BON GUALTIER ==> BY BON GAULTIER Page 362, Chronogloical science ==> Chronological science Page 363, debilitated body politc ==> debilitated body politic Page 363, razors where unheard of ==> razors were unheard of Page 364, Affghans and other races ==> Afghans and other races Page 370, performs a rapid piroutte ==> performs a rapid pirouette Page 383, is usless to attempt ==> is useless to attempt Page 402, fish is almost ominipresent ==> fish is almost omnipresent Page 402, and peal it down ==> and peel it down Page 408, growth and strenghtened ==> growth and strengthened Page 408, for a mo- moment ==> for a moment Page 412, how had Mable pined ==> how had Mabel pined Page 412, and Mable determined ==> and Mabel determined Page 413, Oh Mable, my love ==> Oh Mabel, my love page 415, where Mable Dacre sat ==> where Mabel Dacre sat Page 420, Richard eat with a feeling ==> Richard ate with a feeling Page 421, and carry it it home ==> and carry it home Page 425, Henry the Black, in 1036 ==> Henry the Black, in 1056 Page 425, token of his investure ==> token of his investiture Page 425, battle of Wolskieur may not be correct name Page 428, cost you to dear ==> cost you too dear Page 431, guid wife Jenie Burns ==> guid wife Jeanie Burns Page 434, heart’s corroding fire’s ==> heart’s corroding fires Page 436, speak there uninteruptedly ==> speak there uninterruptedly Page 439, which has accidently ==> which has accidentally Page 443, of home human sympathies ==> of honest human sympathies Page 443, inimitable rythm, and ==> inimitable rhythm, and Page 445, poets, politicians, savans ==> poets, politicians, savants