Chapter XIX (1)

To sum the whole—the close of all.
DEAN SWIFT.

The morning of the next day dawned on few who had pressed their customary couches in the house of Henry Elmore, for the aged sufferer, on the night that intervened, had breathed his last beneath its roof. The body extended on the bed, exhibited, even in death, that mildness and serenity of expression that had characterized his face during the latter portion of his life.

Sorrow could scarcely grieve that one who had outlived the full term of years allotted to man, and drank so deeply of earth’s cup of trial, should, at last, in a moment of unhoped for joy to cheer his exit from life, have finally departed; and Alice felt, as she kissed his cold brow, ere the coffin-lid had closed upon it forever, that her deepest feelings of filial affection could not inspire the wish within her to recall his departed spirit. Tears, many and heavy, it is true, were shed over him, but they fell rather for the sorrows he had passed, than because he was thus summoned in the fullness of time to a world where sorrow could never come.

He was followed to the grave, not only by his relations, but by Henry Elmore and his wife, whose feelings on the occasion were scarcely less deep than their own. In them, the deceased as well as his unhappy companion, had found true and sympathizing friends; and to their unremitting care and attention it was that they had not both sunk, long ere the return of Alice, into the same grave to which the one had now finally departed. Governor H. and his excellent lady likewise attended the funeral with much sympathy, and returned afterward to the house of their niece, to rejoice with Alice on her return, and congratulate her husband on the pardon of which he had been the bearer.

An interesting scene ensued, in which Jessy wept upon the necks of those generous friends, and returned her thanks to them for having so long sought to shield her from the misfortunes of her family. Between Lucy and herself a still more affecting embrace followed. The former, through the strict secrecy of her uncle and aunt, had never suspected that the tender name of sister by which she had known Jessy, was only assumed. But though she received the intelligence in some sorrow, it was scarcely of a heartfelt kind; for both had a consciousness that it was in the name alone that a change could take place, and that in feeling and affection they would ever remain sisters still.

Stanley, too, was present on this occasion. His meeting with Jessy at such a season of deep feeling for her had been tender in the extreme; and although he had not as yet had time for many words in private with the object of his affection, she read in his manner and countenance his deep and ardent sympathy.

The rumor of the strange reunion between the parents and child; of the long seclusion of Lisle and Heath in the wing of Henry Elmore’s house, thereby explaining all the mystery formerly attached to it, soon spread throughout the colony. But it scarcely excited the astonishment which such a romance in real life would create at the present day, for those were periods of tragical confusion and strange catastrophe, for better or for worse, when the rendings asunder of domestic charities were often without an hour’s warning, and where reunions were as dramatic as any exhibited on the stage.

It created little surprise, therefore, when Heath removed to Boston with his gentle and lovely wife, there to reside permanently, or when Jessy Ellet appeared as an inmate of their family.

It was just three months after this removal that Stanley and Jessy were united in marriage. No wedding-party was invited to grace the occasion; but Governor and Mrs. H. and Henry Elmore and his wife were the only guests.

We will now bid the reader adieu, leaving him to imagine that henceforth the fortunes of all of our characters ran in as smooth a tide as is possible in this world. We all know that the stream of actual life flows in an even course with but few. With most it is—romance aside—as our tale has shown it, a confused succession of alternating sensations, sometimes dark and dull of hue, like the clouds of winter, at others, breaking out into the glowing splendor and bright illusions of a dream.

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE JOLLY RIDE.

[WITH A STEEL ENGRAVING.]

OH! for those rides, those jolly, jolly rides,
When my sister and I were young,
When our hearts were bright and our spirits light,
Of sorrow and sin unstung.

When Neddy we bestrode, with our double load,
As good at our need as an Arab steed;
And merrily pricked, though he sulked and kicked,
O’er rivulet, rock and mead.

Alas! for those rides, they are gone, they are past;
Ned and we are grown old and gray;
But thoughts of those times, like Christmas chimes,
In our hearts must ever be gay. H.

* * * * *

BALLADS OF THE CAMPAIGN IN MEXICO. NO. V.

BY HENRY KIRBY BENNER, U. S. A.

WE lay at AQUA NUEVA, sullenly, in stern repose,
Awaiting, with anxiety, the onset of our foes:—
We were few; but what of that? We were men, not one of whom
But was ready, when his country called, to meet a soldier’s doom,
And, looking toward the approaching fight with something like despair,
We were deadly as the lion when the hunter treads his lair.

Our foes, so said our scouts, when they came, at set of sun,
Were led by SANTA ANNA, and were more than five to one;—
They were more than twenty thousand, we, little more than four;
But deadlier fights, we knew, were fought by our ancestors of yore,
When, hand to hand, with axe and bill our fathers clove their way
At Agincourt, and Cressy, and purple Poitiérs.

Our general’s brow was care-worn; his eye leapt like a hound,
Seeking, wherever it rested, the advantage of the ground:
Between us and SALTILLO lay a craggy mountain pass,
With sierra on sierra in many a granite mass—
The plain of BUENA VISTA, where, afterward, we stood
And fought till its ravines and sands were purple with our blood.

When the foe reached AQUA NUEVA—when they found our army gone,
They pressed in marshaled masses, in solid thousands, on;
And noon beheld that river of human souls, for miles,
Like one of their own torrents, sweep through the wild defiles—
So, conscious of their strength, they came, while we, in mute
surprise,
Looked wistfully and earnestly in one another’s eyes.

The foe had wedged us in, when a flag approached our ranks,
While the hovering enemy pressed on whence they might turn our flanks;
’Twas a summons to surrender—a summons unto men
Who had beat their bravest generals, and could do so once again:
We laughed in hearty scorn, for the rawest volunteer
Had grown so anxious for the fight he never thought of fear.

Then came a little pause, and we raised our eyes to heaven,
And prayed in silence that our sins and crimes might be forgiven;
For well we knew that many a heart which now beat high with pride,
Would lie ere night in icy rest along the mountain side.
And then we thought of WASHINGTON, whose spirit, from above,
Was gazing on his children with looks and eyes of love.

In our own green sunny land we were wont to mark the day
Which gave him to his country with many a mimic fray,
And now the thought ran through our souls that this, henceforth,
should be
One which our children after us should hail with songs of glee;
And we gazed in one another’s eyes, and silently we swore
To do such deeds as history had never heard before.

We stood, each in our places, when, on our left, arose
The rattling roll of musketry from our advancing foes;—
They were mounting, troop by troop, the steep sierra’s side:
A moment! and our comrades, with hearty cheers, replied;—
Shot after shot, peal after peal, and we saw their scattered men
Rolling, like leaves before the storm, in terror, down the glen.

The night was cold and damp, but we scarcely felt a chill
As we lay, beside our arms, on the bleak and naked hill;
For our hearts were full of fire at the promise of the fray,
Which, we felt, would try our courage on the fast-approaching day,
While the murmur of the enemy, whose thousands hedged us round,
Came fitfully down the freezing wind, in gusts, along the ground.

At last the dawn arrived, and as the sun began
To kiss the summits of the hills, a thousand sparkles ran
Along the cliffs, like fire-flies on a sultry summer night,
And on the instant, every where was heard the din of fight—
On, like the sea, wave over wave, the army of our foe
Rolled toward our left, and pierced our ranks, and swept the red
plateau.

We paused; we turned; some of us—fled, as the foe in thousands came,
And our guns in vain made breaches; and the air was red with flame:
We were staggering; we retreated; we were beaten; we would yield;
But TAYLOR’S eye shone every where at once along the field,
And the Mississippi volunteers, with BRAGG, dashed madly on;—
We turned, and charged; and once again the purple field was won.

On our left the day was ours, when SANTA ANNA pressed
On our centre, now so weak, with his bravest and his best;
Once more our men retreated, when BRAGG again came on,
And swept their ranks, but vainly; and every hope seemed gone:
Again—again—his cannon roared; again our rifles played,
And we hurled the beaten enemy in horror down the glade!

Night gathered round, and once again we made our bivouac
On BUENA VISTA, whence our foe had failed to drive us back.
On the morrow, wan and worn, but with spirits proud and high,
We would once more win the day, or, like soldiers, fall and die;
And we sunk in silent sleep, with an honest trust in God,
Where we lay the night before, on the cold and cheerless sod

But when the morning came, when the welcome sun arose,
We saw—each seeming in a dream—the files of flying foes;
And we lay on one another’s breasts—clasped one another’s hand,
And wept with joy, for God had saved our gallant little band—
God, and our courage, for we fought like heroes all will say
Who read in coming centuries the records of the fray.

* * * * *

SHAKSPEARE.

ANALYSIS OF ROMEO AND JULIET.

BY H. C. MOORHEAD.

THE judicious critic, whilst insisting on the great and manifold beauties of the plays of Shakspeare, has felt himself constrained to admit that they are marred by grievous faults. Some of these have been laid upon the times in which he wrote; some upon the circumstances of his life; some upon the corruptions of his editors; whilst for others, the most ingenious of his apologists have, with all their zeal, been able to make no rational excuse. Conspicuous among these admitted faults are his “quibbles” and “conceits.” He is charged with marring all his fairest pages with them; and so introducing them as often perversely to destroy the most beautiful creations of his fancy, and in a moment convert the pathetic into the burlesque, and the sublime into the ridiculous. “A quibble,” it has been said, “is the golden apple for which he will always turn aside from his career, or stoop from his elevation. A quibble, poor and barren as it is, gave him such delight that he was content to purchase it by the sacrifice of reason, propriety, and truth. A quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world and was content to lose it.”

Those commentators who have deemed it a duty to vindicate their author at all points and at all hazards, have not failed to repel this strong charge with characteristic earnestness. The great German critic Schlegel, for example, speaking on this subject, offers the following defense, if defense it can be called: “Shakspeare, who was always sure of his object, to move in a sufficiently powerful manner when he chose to do so, has occasionally, by indulging in a freer play, purposely moderated the impressions when too powerful, and immediately introduced a musical alleviation of our sympathy.”

That is to say: Shakspeare, fearing that evil consequences might result from the overwrought sympathies of his auditors, mercifully threw in a quibble here and there to check the dangerous flow of sentiment! as if Paganini or Ole Bull had deemed it necessary to introduce an occasional jar in the midst of their most exquisite strains, lest the sensitive ear should be too powerfully ravished. But this defense is still more injurious than the charge itself; inasmuch as it substitutes for that oblivion of self, that apparent unconsciousness of the great things he was doing, which has been regarded as the highest proof of the serene majesty of his mind, an intolerable arrogance and presumption. Shakspeare, however, we may be sure, was governed by no such motive; he had no apprehension that his nectar would prove too intoxicating, and took no such pains to adulterate and weaken it.

The charge referred to is, in truth, applicable, in any great degree, to but a small number of his plays, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” is one of these, and “Romeo and Juliet” is another, and the chief one. I shall confine my remarks at present to the latter play; and here, it must be confessed, quibbles are introduced into almost every speech: not only the wit, but the sentiment also is every where seasoned with them; and the different personages, “however distressed, have a conceit left them in their misery, a miserable conceit.”

Now this feature, though not peculiar to Romeo and Juliet, is not found in any of the other great tragedies of Shakspeare, it cannot therefore be ascribed to inveterate habit. Neither is any trace of it found in the poem from which the main story, and many of the details and expressions of the play were copied: it was not therefore imitated from his original. The doctrine of Ulrici, however, affords a rational explanation. Quibbles and conceits are a part of the argument of the play, and therefore they are introduced. If they mar its beauties, they help to illustrate its theme, and to this purpose every other consideration is subordinate: for Shakspeare is not content, like other poets with simply moving his readers; but is careful also to cause all the currents of all the emotions he awakens to flow toward a common centre.

What then _is_ the theme of this play? It is not easy to frame a definition strict enough and comprehensive enough to embrace it in all its aspects, and to embrace nothing more; but, in general terms, I believe the subject of the play may be thus stated: _The unrestrained pursuit of the ruling passion or caprice of the moment._

This is the general subject of the whole play, and it is the particular subject of every scene and of every speech. All the winds of passion are let loose, and they blow where they list. Love and hate, hope and fear, courage and despair, and with them the wildest vagaries of fancy and caprice—all are in the field together; yet all move in subordination to the “central idea,” even as the ocean tides are governed by the moon.

All the personages of the play are made to illustrate this subject, each according to his own nature and circumstances. _Romeo_ and _Juliet_ tossed on the stormy sea of ill-starred love, pass from the summit of bliss to despair and death. The hatred of _Montague_ and _Capulet_ is drowned in tears, and from their grief springs reconciliation and friendship. _Mercutio_ is a courtier and a wit, his spirits are always brim-full, and sparkling; and he pursues and runs down every phantom that happens to flit across his mind. His wit, and all his speeches are _entirely_ of this character. He never opens his lips except to utter something fantastical. The _Nurse_, by following _her_ impulses wherever they lead, presents a most ludicrous specimen of _garrulity_. Wherever the “fiery” _Tybalt_ sees any one belonging to the house of Montague his sword instantly leaps from its scabbard. Friar _Laurence_ and the _Prince_ discourse on the subject, and all the inferior characters, as we shall see, adapt themselves to it.

For the purposes of a more minute examination, it will be convenient to group the chief passages under several heads.

1. _Suggestives of the fancy; viz., quibbles, conceits, etc._

The play opens with a dialogue between Samson and Gregory, two servants of Capulet’s. I quote the first few lines:

_Sam._ Gregory, o’ my word, we’ll not _carry coals_. [that is,
_bear injuries_

_Greg._ No, for then we should be _colliers_. [An ancient term
of abuse.

_Sam._ I mean an we be in _choler_ we’ll _draw_.

_Greg._ Ay, while you live _draw_ your neck out of the _collar_.

_Sam._ I _strike_ quickly, being _moved_.

_Greg._ But thou art not quickly _moved_ to _strike_.

_Sam._ A dog of the house of Montague _moves_ me.

_Greg._ To _move_ is—to _stir_; and to be valiant is to _stand
to it_; therefore, if thou art _moved_ thou _runnest away_.

_Sam._ A dog of that house shall _move_ me to _stand_, etc. etc.

And so they proceed until certain followers of the house of Montague entering, an affray ensues. Now two things are to be observed here. The servants reflect the temper of their masters, and quarrel the moment they meet; and their conversation is a mere quibbling upon certain words, pursuing the fanciful suggestions of sound or meaning. Thus the whole subject is presented in the first page.

Very similar to this, though a little more refined, in accordance with the characters of the speakers, is the contest of wit between Mercutio and Romeo, (Act 2d, Scene 4th,) and the former’s description of Benvolio’s aptness to quarrel, (Act 3d, Scene 1st,) “Thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast _hazel_ eyes—what _eye_ but such an _eye_ would _spy out_ such a quarrel,” etc. etc.

The servant who was sent to invite the guests to the supper at Capulet’s, having a paper with a list of their names, talks in the same style about the difficulty of finding out the persons writ there, when he could not read the names that had been writ there; and his misquotations of maxims is every way characteristic of the theme and of the clown. (Act 1st, Scene 2d.)

The _Nurse_ makes her first appearance in the conversation with Lady Capulet about the age of Juliet. (Act 1st, Scene 3d) Instead of answering the question of her mistress directly, which she might have done with a monosyllable, she runs into a long reminiscence respecting her own daughter, her husband, and the “weaning” of Juliet, all matters connected with the subject, and suggested by it, but absurdly minute and complex. She resembles Mercutio in the recklessness with which she pursues her whims, albeit they are of a somewhat different character.

At the first interview between Romeo and Juliet, (Act 1st, Scene 5th,) Romeo happens in addressing her to use the word “pilgrim;” and the whole subsequent conversation consists of quibbles upon this word. In like manner the word _volume_, in Lady Capulet’s description of Paris, suggests all the remainder of her speech:

Read o’er the _volume_ of young Paris’ face
And find delight _writ_ there with beauty’s _pen_.
. . . . . . .
And what obscured in this fair _volume_ lies,
Find _written_ in the _margin_ of his eyes.
This precious _book_ of love, this _unbound_ lover,
To beautify him only lacks a _cover_.
. . . . . . .
That _book_ in many eyes doth show the glory,
That in gold _clasps_ locks in the golden _story_; etc. etc.

The famous garden scene, (Act 2d, Scene 2d,) opens with Romeo’s speech:

He jests at scars that never felt a wound,—
[_Juliet appears above at a window._
But soft! what light from yonder window breaks!
_It is the East, and Juliet is the sun._

This conceit leads to others about the sun, and moon, and stars, and Juliet’s eyes, which occupy the whole speech, and the remainder of the scene is either of a similar character, or distinguished by sudden revulsions of feeling, which I shall notice hereafter. The whole scene is highly illustrative of the theme.

Beautiful as some of the “conceits” of the garden scene are, Mercutio’s description of Queen Mab caps the climax of fantastical analogies:

Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners’ legs,
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
The traces of the smallest spider’s web;
The collars of the moonshine’s watery beams, etc. etc.

He represents her as galloping in this state through lover’s brains, o’er lawyer’s fingers, etc., when the former straight dreams of love, the latter of fees; and each according to his character, that is, their dreams are shaped by the influence of the moment, which is agreeable to the “central idea.” Indeed, this speech is not more remarkable for the exquisite ingenuity and propriety of its comparisons and allusions, than for its perfect adaptation to the general subject of the play.

Similar conceits and quibbles abound throughout the play, in the most beautiful passages, and in the most heart-rending scenes. When Juliet hears that Romeo, her “three-hours husband,” has killed her cousin Tybalt, her _conflicting emotions_ find vent in a string of _antitheses_: “Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical, dove-feathered raven,” etc. In like manner Romeo’s group of contrasts in Act 1st, Scene 1st, is suggested by the juxtaposition of the words “love” and “hate.” Both Romeo and Juliet quibble when relating their griefs to Friar Laurence. The Friar himself quibbles whilst attempting to console them; there is quibbling in the beautiful chamber scene, and in the scene so full of horrors at the church-yard.

Leaving the reader to follow up these suggestions at his pleasure, I proceed to notice some of the passages in which this spirit of _abandonment_ is exemplified in reference to,

2. _Passion, Impulse, etc._

I have already alluded to the _affray_ in the first scene. Romeo’s love for Rosaline is strongly painted in the subsequent part of that, and in the following scene. Benvolio persuades him to go to the feast at Capulet’s, where Rosaline is to sup, promising that by showing him other beauties he will make him “think his swan _a crow_.” Romeo, in reply, makes loud protestations of fidelity to Rosaline, and declares that “the all-seeing sun ne’er saw her match;” and when he finally consents to go, expressly declares his purpose:

I’ll go along, no such sight to be shown,
But to rejoice in splendor of mine own.

That is, in contemplating the beauty of Rosaline. In this, Shakspeare has departed from the original story, in which Romeo goes to the feast, not to _see_, but to endeavor to _forget_ Rosaline. Inasmuch as it presents his fickleness in a stronger light, this variation has been thought to injure the effect of Romeo’s character—for he no sooner sees Juliet than Rosaline is utterly forgotten; her image expelled from his heart, and replaced by the more beauteous image of Juliet. Shakspeare’s object in the variation, in this as in other instances, undoubtedly was, in pursuance of his theme, to make the transition as sudden and as conspicuous as possible. The effect being favorable to his main design, he cared little how it operated in other respects.

Old Capulet, as the revels progress, is filled with the spirit of the occasion. His heart overflows with genial hospitality; and inspired by the array of beauty around him, he descants on the time when he himself “could tell a whispering tale in a fair lady’s ear.” Tybalt, recognising Romeo, a Montague, among the guests, instantly calls out, “Fetch me my rapier!” On this, as on all occasions, the sight of a Montague is with him a sufficient signal for battle. But Capulet, whose ruling passion now is hospitality, rebukes and restrains him:

Let him alone!
I would not for the wealth of all this town,
Here, _in my house_, do him disparagement.

The unrestrained outpouring of the heart in the garden scene, needs only to be referred to. Whatever thought or feeling occurs at the moment drives out all other thoughts and feelings. Juliet dismisses Romeo with a thousand good-nights; then recalls him with passionate exclamations, and then says, “I have forgot why I did call thee back.” Her impatience to hear the Nurse’s report of Romeo’s message, with the Nurse’s tantalizing circumlocutions, (Act 2d, Scene 5th,) and her tumultuous emotions on hearing that her husband, Romeo, had killed her cousin Tybalt, (Act 3d, Scene 2d,) are equally in keeping with the general subject.

The first scene of the third act opens with a quibbling conversation. Presently Tybalt meets Romeo, and on the instant challenges him to fight; but Romeo (who before this has been secretly married to Juliet) declines the challenge, when Mercutio takes up the quarrel, and is slain. Mercutio was a zealous partisan of the house of Montague; but after he receives his mortal wound, yielding to a new influence, he becomes sensible of the folly of the dispute which he has so long helped to maintain; “A plague o’ both your houses!” is his dying exclamation. Romeo, finding his friend killed and his own reputation stained through his forbearance, can restrain himself no longer. The sudden transition of feeling and conduct here, from tame submission to fierce defiance, is one of the finest of the many instances of the kind in the play. When Morok touched the crouching lion with his flaming rod, he instantly bounded up in wrath, and stood erect, majestic, and fearful to look upon. Not less sudden and complete is the change produced in Romeo by the re-entrance of Tybalt.

_Ben._ Here comes the bloody Tybalt back again.
_Rom._ Alive! in triumph! and Mercutio slain:
Away to heaven, respective lenity,
And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now.

The chamber scene (Act 3d, Scene 5th) is filled with the expression of spontaneous and characteristic emotions. The dialogue between Romeo and Juliet at the beginning is the most exquisitely beautiful passage of the play; and there is none more illustrative of the theme. The art with which the contending passions are depicted is only surpassed by the beauty of the imagery and the melody of the diction. In the same scene Capulet urges the marriage between Juliet and Paris, and on her refusal, forgetting his former declaration that his consent would lie “within her scope of choice”—alive only to the rebellion against his authority—displays a degree of rudeness and violence which the pride and the habit of dominion alone can account for. The Nurse being consulted by Juliet in this emergency, and not being moved by either passion or principle, considers very literally what course would be most _expedient_ under all the circumstances; and, since Romeo is “as good as dead,” advises her to marry Paris. Juliet’s reply to this advice comes like a flash of lightning—

Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!
. . . . Go, counsellor,
Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.

By the Friar’s advice, Juliet at length consents to marry Paris, and then Capulet is filled with impotent glee—being as absurd now in his joy as he lately was in his anger. When Juliet the next morning is found apparently dead, the lamentations of the several persons present (each of whom indulges his own proper emotions) are singularly in character. Capulet—the “rich” Capulet, as he is often styled in the play—bewails the loss of his “heir;” Lady Capulet mourns for her “only child;” Paris for his “love in death;” whilst the Nurse indulges her grief in boisterous and empty vociferation—

O wo! O woful, woful, woful day!
Most lamentable day! most woful day
That ever, ever I did yet behold!
O day! O day! O day! O hateful day.

The musicians who had come to play at the wedding are about to retire, when Peter enters and engages them in a quibbling conversation; and in the course of it recites the following verses, which are also made to inculcate the great sentiment of the play, _the readiness with which the mind submits to passing influences_:

When griping grief the heart doth wound,
And doleful dumps the mind oppress,
Then music, with her silver sound,
With speedy help doth lend redress.

The same idea pervades the scene in which the Apothecary is introduced. Romeo’s description of him is prefaced by this pertinent reflection:

O _mischief_! thou art swift
To enter in the thoughts of _desperate_ men!

The word “desperate” here refers to his own circumstances, but he immediately applies it to the Apothecary, and describes his _desperate poverty_: and hence infers his readiness to do a _desperate_ deed:

Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness,
And fear’st to die?

The next scene (Act 5th, Scene 2d) is a very short one, and is wholly occupied with a conversation between Friar Laurence and Friar John, in which the latter relates that he had failed to carry the letter to Romeo, as he had promised, because the “searchers of the town,” suspecting that he had been in a house where “the infectious pestilence did reign,” locked him up, etc. The “central idea” is found here also—in the allusion to the pestilence, and the alarm which the mere rumor of it inspires.

_Dreams_ are several times introduced in the course of the play, and in every instance the dream is shaped either by some passing influence, or by a coming event, which thus “casts its shadow before.” In Mercutio’s description of Queen Mab, the “fairies’ midwife,” she is represented as “delivering” the dreamers of their various fancies. In the closing scene Balthazer tells the Friar that as he slept under a yew-tree he dreamt that his master (Romeo) and another fought, and that his master killed him; which was the fact. And this bearing in sleep, and dreaming of what is actually passing, is a phenomenon which, I presume, has happened to every one. Again, Romeo says, (Act 5th, Scene 1st,) “I dreamt my lady came and found me dead,” etc.—which afterward happened. In our day, this, I suppose, would be called clairvoyance.

But I must hasten to notice another point of view in which the subject is presented.

3. _Didactic expositions of the theme._

With a mere reference to Montague’s description of his son’s _humors_, in the first scene, I pass to the following speech of Benvolio in the second scene:

Tut man! one fire burns out another’s burning,
One pain is lessened by another’s anguish;
Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;
One desperate grief cure with another’s languish;
Take thou some new infection to thy eye,
And the rank poison of the old will die.

And thus throughout the play one passion, sentiment, or whim, is constantly _succeeding_ and _driving out_ another.

Friar Laurence, as becomes his sacred character, preaches moderation wherever he appears, and constantly labors to restrain the headstrong passions of others. He first appears (Act 2d, Scene 3d) soliloquizing in his cell. After describing “flecked darkness” as reeling like a drunkard “from forth day’s path-way,” he falls into reflections on the constitution of nature. He finds a principle of good and a principle of evil in every thing that lives on the earth. And according to its fair use or abuse the one or the other of these principles prevails. Deliberation and reserve are inculcated; his mission is, to endeavor to stem the impetuous torrent that dashes around him. Thus when Romeo threatens to kill himself (Act 3d, Scene 3d) the friar paints his inconsiderate folly in most graphic and animated language.

What, rouse thee man! Thy Juliet is alive
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;
There art thou happy; Tybalt would kill thee
But thou slewest Tybalt; there art thou happy too;
The law, that threatened death, becomes thy friend,
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy;
A pack of blessings lights upon thy back;
Happiness courts thee in her best array;
But, like a misbehaved and sullen wench,
Thou poutest upon thy fortune and thy love;
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.

Very similar to this is his speech to the mourners over the body of Juliet, supposed by all but him to be dead.

The prince acts a similar part, and in the last scene, declares his determination to inquire into all the circumstances, “And know their spring, their head, their true descent,” before passing judgment; whereupon the friar recapitulates the whole story. As he tells nothing but what was known to the reader before, his long speech would seem to be superfluous; but does not the moral of the piece consist in this deliberate investigation after so much impulsive and inconsiderate conduct; and the final reconciliation of the rival houses, when grief has brought them to _reflection_?

If this imperfect sketch should induce the reader to take up Romeo and Juliet, and study it in the point of view I have indicated, he will find a thousand illustrations of the “central idea,” which it has been impossible, in this brief paper, to notice; and he will find a principle of order in this seeming chaos—that all these quibbles and conceits, these headlong passions, and conflicting emotions are made to harmonize and serve a common purpose.

* * * * *

JACOB’S LADDER.

E. J. EAMES.

OH! beautiful ascending, and descending,
Were your bright footsteps ’twixt the earth and sky;
Celestial visitants, in love attending
On the tired trav’ler, to whose dreaming eye
Came radiant glimpses of that far Elysian,
Whose glories now are hid to mortal vision.
A gleam of pinions—solemn harmonies—
The stony pillow—the dim haunted sod—
And to the sleeper—what dread mysteries
Awe his high heart? How sinks the _Voice of God_
Deep in his soul! Yes, God in veiled glory
Appears, His “ancient cov’nant” to renew;
And angel-tongues record the sacred story
Which o’er the Patriarch such rich splendor threw!

But never more, as in the days departed,
Will ye return to gladden this dull earth:
What burning tears to human eyes have started
Since last ye moved ’mid forms of mortal birth.
And though no more, in glorious raiment clad,
May God, or angel-guest, to man appear,
Unseen they walk the world, and hov’ring near
Their _spiritual presence_ makes earth’s children glad.
And still the mystic ladder is erected,
Whereon bright missioned spirits come and go—
Bearing unto the worn and world-dejected,
A precious balm for all life’s want and wo.
Still unto us high promises are given,
And holiest hopes, to lead our hearts to Heaven.

* * * * *

BASS AND BASS FISHING.

BY FRANK FORESTER.

THE STRIPED BASS. (LABRAX LINEATUS. _Cuvier._)

ROCK FISH. _Southern States and Delaware River._—BARRE FISH. _St.
Lawrence._

THIS noble fish, a member of a tribe known in almost every region of the globe, is, as an individual, peculiar to the waters of North America, not being found in any other part of the world; while his geographical range here, being very extensive, covers most if not all the rivers, bays, lagoons and beaches from the Capes of Florida to the Estuary of the St. Lawrence; in which great frith he is found, slightly modified from the Atlantic type, and known as the Barre Fish.

He must not be confounded with the Sea Bass, as he has been by Dr. Smith, the author of the Fishes of Massachusetts, who takes Dr. Mitchell severely to task for naming him _Bodianus Mitchilli_; accusing the Doctor of extreme arrogance and presumption in assuming the discovery and right of naming a fish, which he—Smith—alledges to be known to every fisherman and naturalist of every European coast; whereas, in reality, the fact is precisely as stated by Dr. Mitchell.

The Striped Bass is a very beautiful fish, of the order _Acanthopterygii_, or thorny finned fishes, and of the family _Pereidæ_; which may be distinguished from the soft finned tribes, by having the whole of the first dorsal fin supported by strong, sharp, spinous rays, by a single strong spine in front of the second dorsal, one in front of the ventrals, and three in front of the anal fin. The operculum, or gill-cover, has a serrated edge and two flat spines. Its dental system is very complete and formidable, on the maxillaries, palatine-bones, and tongue, as it is essentially a carnivorous fish, preying indiscriminately on most of the smaller finny inhabitants of the waters, as also on their spawn, and on some of the smaller crustaceæ, as crabs and shrimps.

In color he is bright and silvery, bluish brown, with copperish reflections on the back, and eight, or sometimes though rarely nine, parallel stripes of dark brownish purple—the fourth of these is ordinarily consentaneous with the lateral line, though sometimes the fifth. Those above it run from the head to the origin of the tail, and are by far the darkest; those below are fainter, and die away at about two-thirds the length of the belly.

The pectoral fins have sixteen rays, the ventrals one spinous and five soft rays, the anal three spinous and eleven soft rays, the first dorsal nine spinous, the second one spinous and twelve soft, the caudal seventeen soft rays.

The Sea Bass, which is of the same order and family, _Pereidæ_, is purely a sea fish, never entering estuaries or rivers, and never being taken in other than salt waters, on the outer bars and sea-banks, whereas the Striped Bass, like the Salmon, though salt water is necessary to him, in order to give vigor to his constitution, and perhaps to enable him to reproduce his species, is taken without distinction in the clear cold spring-waters of the river-heads, in the brackish slack-waters of the broad estuaries, in the strong, whirling salt eddies of sea-channels, such as Hellgate, and the inlets from the ocean to the inner bays, and lastly in the tumbling and flashing surfs on all the outer beaches, from those, I believe, of Hatterns, alone all the coasts north-eastward to those of Jersey and Long Island; on which they are taken with the squid and the seine from July to November, of rare excellence, and in great abundance.

The river runs of the Striped Bass are very singular, and though I will not say unaccountable—by no means accounted for. So soon as the Smelt, Shad, and Herring enter the river-mouths and estuaries, the Striped Bass is found following them; and in every different water it appears that he acts on a peculiar and instinctive principle. Where, when, or how he spawns no man knows or has written.

Our rivers he enters from the Delaware eastward from the first of March and later as the season offers, and makes up to the clear, cool spring-waters of the rivers near their heads. At that time he may be fished for, in the Delaware and in all the rivers in which the Shad run up and spawn, with _shad-roe_ FATALLY.

In waters up which the Shad does not run this bait is useless.

Thus, for instance, at Macomb’s Dam, Kingsbridge, and all the Harlæm River and Hellgate, in the neighborhood of New York, shad-roe is _useless_; because the Shad do not spawn there, and the Bass _know_ it. While in the Passaic, at Belleville Bridge and Acquanonck, up to both which places these fish run, there is a certainty of taking them with this bait, because Shad do spawn in the Passaic.

Therefore, in all rivers up which Shad run, the true and best bait for the Striped Bass is the shad-roe.

This must be prepared thus. The roe of the female fish—that is the _hard_ roe—must be taken, cleaned, washed, and washed again, and then potted down with two ounces of salt to every half pound of roe, pressed close into a stone pot and hermetically sealed. After three months it will be fit for use; when it must be cut out of the pot like cheese, fastened on the hook in a small lump, and tied to it by a lapping of light-colored floss silk, or raveled hemp.

At this same time, in tideways such as Hellgate and the like, crab is the best and most killing bait on a line by rod and reel fishing, with weight enough to keep your crab within three inches of the bottom; thus you shall take abundance of moderate sized fishes—the best by all odds on the table—but if you aim at the thirty and forty pounders, you must take that hideous and disgusting fishy reptile, _the real squid_, armed with a strong cod-hook, on a heavy hempen line, trolled from the stern of a boat slowly pulled against stream.

The Bass will strike at a gaudy fly, or a spun minnow, at the latter every where, at the first seldom, and I believe casually; though if you do hook him look out, for he shall try your line, and strain your tackle to the utmost, and if you land even a three pounder on a single gut with fly or minnow trolled, you have done great work.

The favorite haunts of the Striped Bass, whence his provincial name of Rock Fish, are stony, gravelly, or rocky reefs, or sunken piers and dams which cause eddies, in the vicinity of which his prey are to be found darting about in the greatest abundance, and in such localities he is often taken with the rod and reel in great numbers, running from two and a half to seven pounds in weight, which is the best size for the table.

The Bass is a bold and fierce biter; and when he takes the bait he does it with a will, and there is no occasion for giving him line or time wherein to pouch the bait before striking, as you must do with the European Pike, and the American Pickerel and Mascalonge.

In the Harlæm river he is fished for with a stout rod and reel, a strong line of at least three hundred feet, and crab or shrimp bait, or sometimes a shiner or spearling hooked through the back-fin with a large-sized Limerick hook armed upon gimp. A sinker is used in this mode of fishing, and the bait should be suspended at some distance from the bottom, and allowed to swim about at his own sweet will.

When _struck_ the Bass does not leap out of water, like the trout or salmon, but he is decidedly a run-away fish, taking twice as much line—pound weight for yard length—as the Salmon, and, though not so fierce or furious, requiring as much skill to handle. You must give him your line inch by inch, as sparingly as possible, heading him _down_ stream if you can, and wearing him out always by concession and persuasion.

So much for him in the spring. How far he goes up the rivers in his spring run, we know not, nor presume to say. Killed he has been in October at Milford, Delaware, prime, and in good condition, but I think not running up to spawn himself, but rather to eat the roe of the shad which do run thitherward up to spawn.

After July and from thence to September they disappear from among us of the rivers, and during that period they are taken constantly by _squidding_, as it is called, that is to say, by using a large sized Limerick-hook, _shanked_ with a piece of bright tin, mother-of-pearl, or ivory, attached to a long cod-line wound upon a card, in the rapid swirling eddies among rocks in the great outer tideways, and yet more readily in the wild, thundering surfs of the outside beaches. I have seen them taken thus off Shrewsbury Inlet, near Sandy-Hook, to the weight of sixty or seventy pounds; but it is a laborious, wet, and dirty toil, and cannot in anywise be regarded as a sport.

The line, without a rod, is whirled round the head, and the squid delivered, without a splash in the water, if it so may be, and then dragged in hand over hand, the fish striking with his whole power, and being mastered by main force.

Late in the autumn the Bass run in again, for what purpose we know not, save this, that the growth and comparative size of the fry as taken not justifying our believing that they breed in fresh rivers—we must consider them to be in pursuit of prey.

In the Delaware they are trolled for gnostically and rightfully, with a minnow, shiner, or young shad, baited on a double hook, armed on a treble gut with two swivels, a trolling-rod, and good Conroy’s reel—this is the true and scientific way of doing it.

The best rod for this sport is the regular trolling, or, as it is otherwise called, _barbed_ rod. It should be twelve feet long, the butt of stout ash, the second and third joints of hickory, and the fourth of lance-wood. It should by no means have rings, but the new patent rail-road guides, five in number, exclusive of the funnel guide at the tip. It is a very good plan to have a double set of guides, on the opposite sides of the rod, for the stress is so great in this kind of fishing that in time the best rods will acquire a curvature, and lose their elasticity. This is easily counteracted by changing the line from side to side, and thus reversing the action.

The best trolling-rods are made by George Karr, of Grand Street, and Ben Welch, of Cherry St., New York.

The reel should be a simple one, large enough to contain one hundred yards of line.

This truly sporting mode of killing the Striped Bass is not used in New York, where, in fact, there are few fishermen, except _fly_ fishermen—some very good, although, like angel visits—or pot fishermen.

There the crab and the shrimp, with a _dobber_, as the pot fishermen call it, is the weapon, and the best wielder of it is he who brings the most and heaviest fish to _pot_, with the most violence and the least skill.

The autumn being past, the Striped Bass retires for the winter to the mud-holes, which he loves, the soft, warm coves at the mouths of rivers and estuaries, wherein he lurks requiescent until spring again calls his prey into the rivers, and himself out of his lurking-places.

These be his times, his seasons, his baits, and his places; as to his local habitation, and the place where he deposits and brings up his children, nobody distinctly knowing, we shall be exceeding glad to receive facts whereon to constitute something approaching to that which is unwritten—the complete natural history of the Bass.

* * * * *

THE SMOKER.

BY THOMAS S. DONOHO.

[WITH AN ENGRAVING.]

I SAW him after dinner,
And his face was like the sun,
When wearily he goes to rest,
His long day’s journey done.
The beef had made it hot,
And the wine had made it red,
And a cloud was all around it,
Like a curtain round a bed.

His chair was tilted back,
And his feet were on the wall,
And the sorrows of the world
Did not trouble him at all!
For though he toiled and puffed,
Like an engine, or a stove,
Yet smiled amid his labors
This “cloud-compelling Jove!”

Again I passed his dwelling,
In the darkness of the night;
And still I knew the Smoker,
Like a glow-worm, by his light.
His head was still thrown back,
And his feet were still on high,
And he had a most peculiar look
From out his half-shut eye.

’Twas morning; and I saw him,
This great _Vesuvius_ man,
And o’er the news-full paper
His misty vision ran;
For still the fire was there,
And still the smoke was thick:
And I remembered me the tales,
Whose hero was—Old Nick!

I wondered if he slept?
Or ever went about?
Or was he only some machine—
For what? Ah, there’s the doubt!
Though puffing, always puffing,
He never seemed _to go_:
What good he did by staying there
Is more than yet I know.

A beggar-boy craved charity—
The Smoker “blessed his stars!”
And said, “_he had no change to spare_”—
Then sent for more cigars!
The patient wife at last complains;
He gruffly bids her cease:
“My home’s a bell; it’s very hard
I cannot _smoke_ in peace!”

* * * * *

THE MAIDEN’S COMPLAINT AGAINST LOVE.

BY ENNA DUVAL.

ONCE, on a sunny day,
Love came to dwell with me,
I stroked his downy wings,
And gave him kisses free.

How joyous sped the hours,
While Love with me did stay;
The fluttering tiny thing,
Drove Care’s dark form away.

I laughed, I danced, I sang—
How mad and wild my glee,
While blesséd little Love
Dwelt willingly with me.

Alas! one gloomy morn,
The wicked, willful fay,
That I so fondly cherished,
Took wing and fled away.

I shed sad, bitter tears,
While Care looked on with scorn;
At last I sped to Venus,
To tell my grievous wrong.

The goddess frowned upon me,
And Psyche blushing wept,
When saucy little Cupid
My charges sad thus met.

“She wearied me with kisses,
And held me pris’ner fast,
Blame not, O mother Venus,
I broke her bonds at last.”

* * * * *

“THE SMOKER.”]

See Page 410.

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE FINE ARTS.

EXHIBITION OF HUNTINGTON’S WORKS.—One of the halls of the Art Union Building in New York, has been occupied for some time by an exhibition of the collected works of Mr. HUNTINGTON. They are about one hundred and twenty in number. Some of them are his very earliest efforts, necessarily crude, having been executed in his college days, when his incipient passion for art, interfered materially with his progress in the classics. But as the artist himself observes, “the early blundering attempts of beginners in art, are not as painful as those of musical performers, or as insipid as the stammerings of incipient poets. The lamest groupings of a young painter are often amusing, and sometimes show what INMAN used to call ‘good intentions.’” It appears to us a very interesting feature in this exhibition, that we are able to trace the progress and development of Mr. HUNTINGTON’S talent. Thus we have “_Ichabod Crane flogging a Scholar_,” his first attempt at composition in 1834, which we may contrast with “_Mercy’s Dream_,” or the “_Christiana and Children_” the two paintings upon which his fame most securely rests. The gradual formation of his present pure style may be distinctly traced through his successive works.

We find in the collection more landscapes than we thought Mr. H. had painted, but he explains the matter by stating that during his early professional career, while engaged as an assistant to a portrait painter, “putting in back grounds,” he was seized upon by an enthusiastic speculator who was about to erect a city on the Hudson river, at Verplanck’s Point, then a wooded retreat of great beauty. This enthusiast was a generous lover of art, and kept HUNTINGTON during an entire summer, in that vicinity, taking views, and in his close study of nature was then fostered a love for landscape, which he has never forgotten. The artist himself says, of his subsequent works of this kind, that they will not bear the test of a close comparison with nature. They are rather hints and dreams of situations and effects, which he beseeches the visitor to look at lazily and listlessly, through the half-closed eye, and not to expect that truth and reality, which should be found in the works of the professed landscape painter. We cannot agree with the modest artist in his criticism upon himself—on the contrary, we think _there is_ much of that marvelous force and brightness which rivets the attention to COLE’S paintings; of the freshness and atmosphere in which lie the fertile meadows—far stretching distances—the sturdy oaks and beeches, with rich masses of foliage, in DURAND’S calm, expansive compositions, and all of the silvery lightness in moving clouds and transparent running brooks, which the veteran DOUGHTY would magically call into being on the canvas.