Chapter VI: Front Matter (6)

Makes an advance movement of 22′ 30″, presenting a diameter of 3.7″. Is evening star during the month, setting at the following times: On the 2nd at 1:07 a. m.; on the 16th at 12:12 a. m.; and on the 30th at 11:14 p. m. On the 14th at 3:00 p. m., is 90° east of the sun; on the 1st at 3:54 p. m., is 3° 21′ north of the moon, and again on the 28th at 11:42 p. m., 3° 21′ north of the moon.

One of the odd things in astronomy is the story of the satellites of Uranus. In a work published as recently as 1852, we are gravely told that Uranus “is attended by _six_ moons or satellites, which revolve about him in different periods, and at various distances. Four of them were discovered by Dr. Herschel and two by his sister, Caroline Herschel, with the promise of more to be discovered;” and then we are given their distances from the planet, and also their times of revolution, which vary from 224,000 to 1,556,000 miles as to distance, and from five days, twenty-one hours, twenty-five minutes, twenty seconds to one hundred and seven days, sixteen hours, thirty-nine minutes, fifty-six seconds, as to times of revolution. But now we are told Herschel’s “satellites have been sought for in vain, both with Mr. Lassell’s great reflectors and with the Washington twenty-six inch refractor, all of which are optically more powerful than the telescopes of Herschel. There may be additional satellites which have not yet been discovered; but if so, they must have been too faint to have been recognized by Herschel.” Our latest information on this subject gives four satellites named Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon, in order outwardly from the planet, and their periodic times, respectively, 2.52, 4.14, 8.7, and 13.46 days; the credit of discovering the two outer ones being given to Herschel and that of the two inner being divided between Mr. Lassell and Mr. Struve.

NEPTUNE

Will be one of our morning stars, rising at 3:35, 2:45, and 1:48 a. m., on the 1st, 15th, and 30th, respectively. His motion, 58′ 39″ direct; diameter, 2.5″.

TO BLOSSOMS.

By R. HERRICK.

Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,
Why do ye fall so fast?
Your date is not so past,
But you may stay yet here awhile
To blush and gently smile,
And go at last.

What, were ye born to be
An hour or half’s delight,
And so to bid good-night?
’Twas pity Nature brought ye forth
Merely to show your worth,
And lose you quite.

But you are lovely leaves, where we
May read how soon things have
Their end, though ne’er so brave:
And after they have shown their pride
Like you, awhile, they glide
Into the grave.

THE SOLDIERS’ HOME.

By OLIVER W. LONGAN,

Adjutant General’s Office, War Department.

Visitors to Washington, whether for the purpose of meeting friends, or, as strangers to “see the sights,” are moved by common impulse to find their greatest gratification in all day tours from building to building, and from point to point, where the wonders of the place are to be found, and no ordinary matter can distract the attention from the one object which is the topic for discussion and arrangement through all the indoor hours of morning and evening while the visit lasts. Even the dreary drizzling rain which fairly divides the time with the sunshine of this weather-wise day can not dampen the ardor of the tourist, and on foot or on wheel the round is pursued regardless of fatigue and discomfort. Indeed, there is something of heroism both in the appearance and feeling manifest in the mien and move of the travelers as they walk about the streets or “climb to the dome,” and after the wearied guest has departed and the family physician is called in to prescribe a tonic or stimulant for an exhausted nature upon which the duty of guide has been imposed in the days just past, he will invariably remark with exasperating irony which almost makes the patient determine never again to truthfully reveal the cause of infirmity, “of course you climbed to the dome.”

The purpose being to invite the reader to the “dome” as the first point of view, a few words of description are offered. The dome of the capitol building is a conspicuous object from all parts of the city and affords a standpoint from which to obtain the best prospect of all the city and surrounding country. This fact, and because it fills a picture of beauty in a vista from a particular spot in the grounds of the Soldiers’ Home, introduces it into this article.

From a balcony on the top of the dome, two hundred and sixteen feet from the ground, on the eastern front of the capitol, the eye takes in a scene of which Humboldt remarked, “I have not seen a more charming panorama in all my travels.” West at a distance of nearly three miles is Arlington. The mansion, which was once the home of Robert E. Lee, resembles, in the distance, the “Hall in the Grove.” Behind it is the city of the dead, a _home_ for the remains of about 15,000 soldiers. North a little more than three miles is the home of the living soldier. The clock tower appears to be the only sign of habitation upon a well wooded hill.

As one of the many places of interest which receives the attention and merits the praise of visitors as a spot “beautiful for situation,” a brief history and description is offered to the readers of THE CHAUTAUQUAN, but in neither will there be found any of the mellowness of age which is possessed by old-world places nor of the power which belongs to

“Things of earth, which time hath bent,
A spirit’s feeling; and where he hath lent
His hand, but broke his scythe.
…
For which the palace of the present hour
Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower.”

The credit of the origin of the movement to establish a retreat for the old and disabled soldiers of the United States army, appears to be due to Hon. James Barbour, Secretary of War under John Quincy Adams. In a report dated November 26, 1827, he suggests the founding of an army asylum. A report was made upon the subject by the Committee on Military Affairs in the House of Representatives May 21, 1828, and another February 27, 1829. Except the collection of some data upon the subject nothing further appears to have been done until in 1839 General Robert Anderson, “the hero of Fort Sumter,” reviewed the work and submitted his plans and views to a number of older and more experienced officers of the army. Their responses indicate the high degree of favor with which they looked upon the project, but their words of foreboding in pointing out the difficulties to be surmounted in bringing a measure through the Congress to give it a legal status gave evidence that their estimate of strategy did not confine its use to the military department. Receiving but little more than good wishes for his encouragement, the dauntless captain (such was the rank then held by General Anderson) went knocking at the doors of Congress, and a communication addressed by him February 12, 1840, to Hon. John Reynolds, M. C., embodying the details of his plan became the basis of a favorable report by the House Military Committee January 7, 1841, in which, after setting forth the usage of the service and the improvement which would follow an act which should give the faithful soldier “the confidence of comfortable provision for his old age when he shall be worn out in his country’s service,” the committee declare it to be a “high gratification” to recommend to the “favorable consideration of Congress the admirable plan submitted by Captain Anderson—a plan which imposes no additional burden on the community, but merely provides that the savings of the soldier, in the vigor of his age, may afford him a shelter in the times of his infirmity or old age.”

Never did an apple afloat more provokingly elude a youth, as with hands resolutely clasped behind him, he bent over the tub of water and endeavored to take it with his teeth, than did the object of Captain Anderson play away from successful accomplishment. The experience of people who have sought the favor of the law-making or executive powers to obtain an object of personal good for themselves or others has taught them that, as old people look over their spectacles to see the movement on the other side, so do the servants of the public over the object presented to measure the strength of the impelling power, and that attitude is apt to remain unchanged until the impulsion becomes dynamic when the direction of view is turned into, and through the matter urged upon them. Something of this character must have been the experience of those pleading the cause of the “old soldier” for about twelve years. General Winfield Scott made special mention of the subject and strongly recommended it in his annual report dated November 20, 1845, and again in a report dated November 3, 1849, he says:

“While the army under my command lay at Pueblo a part of the summer of 1847, an humble petition to Congress in favor of an asylum … for the benefit of _enlisted_ men was drawn up and signed by, I believe, every commissioned officer.… In connection with that petition I beg to add the following facts: On the capture of the city of Mexico, by the same army, I levied a contribution upon the inhabitants of $150,000, in lieu of pillage, to which the city, by the usages of war, was, under the circumstances, liable.” The disposition of this money was accounted for in a letter to the Secretary of War, dated at Mexico February 6, 1848, in which was enclosed a draft for $100,000, concerning which the letter says: “I hope you will allow the draft to go to the credit of an _army asylum_, and make the subject known, in the way you deem best, to the military committee of Congress. That sum is, in small part, the price of the American blood so gallantly shed in this vicinity.” Quoting again from the report of November 3, 1849: “The draft was made payable to me; and, in order to place the deposit beyond the control of any individual functionary whatever, I endorsed it, ‘The Bank of America will place the within amount to the credit of _army asylum, subject to the order of Congress_.’” The remainder of the report is an earnest protest against the disposition of the draft (which the Secretary of War had caused to be turned into the United States treasury), and a renewed “petition that Congress may appropriate the whole to an _army asylum_ for the worn out or decayed _enlisted_ men (regulars and volunteers) yet in service, or who may have been honorably discharged therefrom.” Thus, all along the line the history shows the difficulties which confronted the friends of the soldier, while within the citadel the feeling of opposition was strong enough to evoke the following from a member of the House of Representatives, in a letter to General Anderson, dated January 31, 1851:

“The prejudices of the House against the army are strong, and stupid and undiscriminating opposition is made to all changes which do not propose to cut down the army. I am not hopeful of the success of any measure—of the number in contemplation—that looks to the improvement of the army.” This language was descriptive of a most remarkable state of feeling, else the honorable member erred greatly in thinking that in the face of the recent achievements in Mexico the national legislature would strike down the bruised and broken battalions which had brought untold wealth to the people, as well as glory to the national standard. The action of a few weeks later indicated that however strong was the prejudice against the army there was a power somewhere which operated to protect and advance the interests so long and faithfully urged upon Congress in favor of the “army asylum,” and on the 3d of March, 1851, the approval of the President was given to “An Act to found a military asylum for the relief and support of invalid and disabled soldiers of the army of the United States.” The law constituted the general-in-chief commanding the army and seven other general officers a board of commissioners with the necessary powers for carrying out the purposes of the act, and provided for the detail of officers from the army for the position of governor, deputy governor, and secretary and treasurer, for each site which should be established. It gave the right of admission to benefit in the asylum to all discharged soldiers of twenty years’ service, and all disqualified by wounds received or disease contracted in the service and in the line of military duty—excepting deserters, mutineers, habitual drunkards and convicted felons—and required the discharge from the asylum of those who, being under fifty years of age, should recover their health so as to be fit again for military duty. By the same act a specific appropriation of money (including the levy made by General Scott upon Mexico), amounting to $183,110.42, was made to establish the asylum, and for its future maintenance provision was made to devote all monies derived from stoppages and fines by courts-martial, from pay forfeited by deserters, and from the effects of deceased soldiers unclaimed for three years—the latter to be subject to demand of legal heirs at any time—also from a deduction of twenty-five cents per month from each enlisted soldier, giving the volunteers or those belonging to organizations raised for a limited period the option of permitting the deduction from their pay to be made or not, as they chose, but making it obligatory in effect upon the _regular_ soldier. An amendment to this law was made March 3, 1859, which changed the name of the institution to the “Soldiers’ Home,” reduced the number of commissioners to _three_, reduced the monthly deduction from the pay of the soldiers to twelve and one-half cents per month, and required pensioners to surrender their pensions to the Home while they should remain in and receive its benefits. Another amendment was made March 3, 1883, which made the Board of Commissioners to consist of the general-in-chief commanding the army, the commissary general, the adjutant general, the judge advocate general, the quartermaster general, the surgeon general, and the governor of the Home (all _ex-officio_), and provided for the pensions of inmate pensioners to be held in trust for their benefit, or to be paid to their parents, wives or children. With the exception of these amendments the provisions of the original law remain in force.

The first commissioners, with General Scott as the senior officer, lost no time in selecting a location for the “asylum.” Parcels of ground on every side in the immediate vicinity of Washington City were offered at prices varying from $50 to $350 per acre. A portion of Mount Vernon was also offered at $1,333.33 per acre. Two tracts north of the city, containing a total of 256 acres, were purchased for $57,500. On one of these tracts were good buildings, one of which, “the mansion,” is now a summer residence for the President of the United States. Additions of ground since made to the original purchase have increased the number of acres to 500. The tract is nearly seven-eighths of a mile wide for about half its length from the southern boundary, which is irregular. The north half is reduced in width by a change of direction of the eastern boundary running westward about 400 yards. The western boundary nearly opposite the same point changes its course and runs northeast until it meets the eastern boundary at a point about one mile and three-eighths from the south line. In this north point nearly all of the buildings are situated. The ground is nearly level, being the broad top of a ridge which, upon the east side just outside the Home grounds, is of quite abrupt descent. A public road cuts off about fifteen acres, a portion of which is devoted to a national cemetery, while the remaining portion is a hillside grove in which, within a year past, a platform and seats have been erected for use on “decoration day.” Within the main grounds a pear orchard covers the “point,” and the first building near it is the library. The building was originally intended for a billiard room and bowling alley, and is the only building upon the grounds upon which the genius of the architect “run to waste.” The main building a few yards south of the library was the first one erected after the purchase of the grounds for an asylum. It was commenced in 1852 and completed in 1857. It is of white marble, the front structure 151⅓ feet long by 57 feet wide, four stories high, with a clock tower in the center of the south front. A rear wing from the center covers nearly equal ground with the front. In the basement are the kitchens, store rooms, offices, smoking rooms, etc. Upon the first floor is the dining room, large enough to seat 340 men. The remainder of this floor, and all the other floors, is devoted to sleeping rooms, and of these—except in the matter of ventilation of a few of the upper rooms—it may be said that they are as nearly perfect for the uses intended as can well be made. Single beds, wire and hair mattresses, clean and comfortable clothing of woolen and linen, clean uncarpeted floors and pure air, a box or locker for each man, make up a sum of comfort for the lodging of one accustomed only to the blanket and the bunk, which is well nigh perfect, and not to be found for the same person in the most luxurious bed-chamber wealth could provide. On the east of the main building is the annex used principally as a dormitory. On the same side are the stables and shops, the former too close for a well regulated institution. Upon the west and next the main building is the mansion, the dwelling of the former proprietor, and now the summer residence of the President. It has been remodeled, and very little of the original appearance of the building which a few years since was almost buried in vines, is left. Directly south from the mansion and main building the ground falls off gradually for half a mile, while on either side the ridge extends in a graceful sweep for about five hundred yards to bluffs somewhat abrupt, but not enough so to mar the beauty of rounded form. Upon the western ridge going southward from the mansion are the following objects in their order: The office building, a one story brick structure, where the commissioners meet at least once every month; the governor’s residence, and next the deputy governor’s residence, both large, roomy, and comfortable double houses of the same material as the “main building,” and of design in harmony with it. Next is a double building of brick occupied by the treasurer and the attending surgeon. These buildings all have a back-ground of woods which extends with the gradually sloping hill to the highway which here forms the western boundary of the grounds. The next object upon the western avenue is a portrait statue of General Scott, which was erected in 1874 upon a point of the ridge, which here extends to the east so as to make one side of a basin formed with the lower ground south of the mansion. The statue is bronze, ten feet high, upon a granite pedestal placed in the center of a mound, around which is a circular drive for carriages. The figure is represented in uniform, with a military cloak, fastened at the throat and thrown back from the right shoulder; head uncovered, left arm slightly bent and the hand resting on the thigh, the right hand upon the breast and thrust under the partly open coat. The position is one of dignified repose. No strain of feeling is aroused in the observer, such as is felt in looking upon the various equine figures in the city, upon which is perpetuated in the figure of the officer, the tension of nerve and alertness which almost prompts an effort to break the spell and give the dead their rest.

Standing beside the statue, or seated upon the rustic bench close by, a view may be obtained which the visitor who has leisure may enjoy for an indefinite time. The city lies not far below. The eye can cover it all at one gaze. The dome of the capitol stands high above every other object—except that shaft of marble which bids fair to soon become the Washington monument—and far beyond is the broad Potomac, whose course is in the direction of view, and carries the eye on and on until objects become indistinct. Perhaps an officer close by may be observed lazily reclining upon the grass, while a soldier stands near him waving in various directions a white flag with a square block of color in the center. Presently the officer takes a small telescope from the earth beside him, and leveling it in a direction west of the city, looks steadily for a minute or two, lowers the glass and apparently writes down the result of his observation in a memorandum book. Looking in the same direction as did the officer the sight will be just strong enough to discern a flag-staff upon the top of the hills on the other side of the Potomac, perhaps five or six miles away. Curiosity may be gratified by a few questions, and from the answers it will be learned that the flag-staff marks the spot known as Fort Meyer, Virginia, the station of the United States signal corps, and the operation just witnessed was simply a practice lesson in transmitting a message by the use of the small flag, the motions of which to right, to left, to front, or by circle, indicated the letters or words of the message. A practice day upon this spot, by the signal men, is a diversion for many an old soldier whose monotonous life is greatly relieved even by a pantomime. A little east of south from the statue, about 400 yards distant, is Barnes’ Hospital, named for General Joseph K. Barnes, deceased, late surgeon-general of the army, who was the senior officer of the commissioners of the Home, when the hospital was built nearly eight years ago. It is a model hospital in every respect, and has received unqualified approval from the foremost medical men of Europe, as well as of America. It is full of patients all the time. It was intended to accommodate sixty, but the average number is about eighty. Some are ailing, some are waiting, some of sight or limb are wanting, all are forever done with the fullness of physical life, and the surgeon looks upon them as his children, whose every want he must attend. Three hundred yards farther south is the portion of the grounds known as “Harewood,” an estate of 191 acres added to the Home by purchase in 1872. A good portion of it is woods, through which are beautiful drives winding into labyrinths for one unaccustomed to them, for at three different points a stranger will be bewildered by following a well-worn track which returns upon itself, and may be traversed many times before some objects begin to have a familiar look. One of these places is bounded by a drive which is as irregular as would be the loop of a lasso thrown from the hand and permitted to drop upon the ground, an oblong irregular figure, from the northern end of which is the capitol “vista.” Through the woods for a distance of 500 or 600 yards an opening has been cut just wide enough, and trimmed just high enough to admit a view of the dome of the capitol, which is invisible from points a step or two on either side of a particular spot. With the aid of very little imagination one may think the eye rests upon the temple in the new city which has been pictured in misty glory by so many artists.

Upon the “Harewood” grounds are the principal farm and dairy buildings. The cottage now occupied by the farmer was, in some of the years of war, the summer home of the “great war secretary,” Edwin M. Stanton, the man who in the war times inspired more fear amongst his subordinates by the promptness and severity of his punishments for delinquencies than ever visited the same persons in the presence of an active foe. And yet when he stood upon the steps of the north front of the old War Department building, now gone down with him to the dust, and tried on that memorable 3d of April, 1865, to speak congratulatory words concerning the news which had come over the wires from the hand of President Lincoln, at City Point, Va., of a broken Rebellion and an evacuated Confederate capitol, his eyes were so full of tears that he did not see that the crowd which stood about and before him was composed of his apparently demoralized officers and clerks who had abandoned their desks and swarmed from the building by the windows as well as the doors; or, if he did see them, his voice was too much broken with the emotions, which were stronger than his stout heart, to permit him to administer a rebuke to those who almost without exception, at some time in the months and years just past, contributed their share to the result, and many had brought away the marks of the sacrifice.

The work of farming is confined to the products of a market garden, which can not be purchased for the purposes of the Home in as good condition as they can be raised upon the ground. The dairy is the most important institution of the Home, and the herd of from forty to fifty Alderney and Holstein cattle is by no means the least amongst the matters of interest to be seen upon the grounds. The work of the dairy is done by men. The cooking for the inmates, nursing the sick, and indeed all the indoor work usually done by women is done by men. Some of the employes are “civilians,” so called to distinguish them from inmates who are employed upon light work.

There are five principal gates or entrances to the Home grounds; two upon the east side and three upon the west side. At each is a lodge and a gate-keeper. The first on the east is the Harewood gate, entering upon the grounds already mentioned, of the same name. From it the “East drive,” after a serpentine course westward for about 500 yards up a pretty sharp grade, turns northward, and as it passes along east of the central portion of the grounds affords the finest view of the open country, the drive being upon high ground and the view unobstructed across the entire place. From the same gate “Corcoran Avenue,” flanked on both sides by magnificent rows of shade trees, leads into the woods. “Sherman” gate is near the north point opposite the cemetery; “Scott” gate, or as familiarly known, “Eagle” gate because of the immense iron eagles upon the gate pillars, is directly opposite “Sherman” gate, and both lead to the buildings only a few steps distant. There is a large gate a few steps west of the Scott statue so little used as not to be dignified with a name. The most important gate is one nearest the city upon the west side. It is reached by an avenue from “Seventh Street Road,” a continuation of the most important street running north and south in Washington. The avenue is the property of the Home, although the land on either side is owned by private parties. It is called “Whitney Avenue,” and the gate bears the same name. The ornaments upon the gate pillars or piers, which are of brick capped with stone, are large vases said to be copies of a vase designed by Thorwaldsen. The first view upon entering this gate is the one which may properly be called the “prettiest” when the word is used as meaning an appearance which gives momentary pleasure, but may not be remembered as one would remember the scenery and lake at Chautauqua. About two hundred feet from the gate are two little lakes which serve to assure the visitor that there really is real water on the place. By artificial means one of these lakes is held at a level about ten feet above the other, and by pipes carried to the center of the lower, a pretty, single jet fountain is formed. The north end of the upper lake is crossed by a substantial iron bridge, and the south end of the lower one is covered by a short granite span. Between the two all effort to find any satisfaction in the waste (?) of water is futile. But for miniatures they are really pretty, and with the three swans bumping up against the green shore as they float backward and swim forward, the half dozen white ducks with their heads in the mud and their dozen red legs and feet in the air in active effort to kick themselves farther into the mud, and the two wild geese, domesticated by the loss of part of a pinion each, as they stand sullenly by looking like fettered savages, all combine to afford a diversion which may not be found anywhere else by the visitor.

The drives throughout the grounds will afford a ride of ten or eleven miles without going twice over the same spot, except at crossings. They are beautiful, hard, well kept, graveled courses. The gutters are models, and of themselves works of beauty, as they are paved with selected stone, nearly white, nearly of a size, and none much larger than a large egg, all in their natural form or shape. But it all affords but little genuine good to the old soldier. If he ventures out upon the road his walk is beset with dangers, and a sudden fright from a dashing team almost upon him drives away all gratification he might receive by looking from a place of safety upon the handsome equipages whirling by. Except the “short cuts” through the grass—and these are few and under prohibition—there is but one foot-path of any length in the grounds, and that is of brick, between the main building and the hospital. In most cases, to traverse this, is not even a matter of melancholy pleasure. The many privileges ready made for the citizens of Washington, without care or cost to them, are no doubt appreciated by them, but if a due weight of appreciation could be given to the cost, both original in money and cumulative in deprivation to those whose right it is to use them, the use of extended drives in a beautiful park away from the heat and dust of the streets, and yet so near as to be at the door, would lead all the rest.

The Soldiers’ Home in the District of Columbia is unquestionably a grand institution, and in providing creature comforts, can probably not be improved upon, but it fails to meet a want which is known and recognized by the authorities having it in charge. Perhaps the one word which will best express it is _diversion_, not in the sense of amusement, but to take one away from his melancholies and permit no reaction. The inmates are men who have formed habits which grew under circumstances of constantly recurring excitement.

They are able to understand that the best years of their lives have passed, and that the best powers of their bodies have been used, while nearly half of the allotted time of life, as measured by the number of their years, ought to still be to their credit, but they feel in some way that their hands are empty. True, they have every comfort for animal life, and in the little red stone chapel, the three services every Sunday are more than they ever knew before as a provision for their spiritual welfare, and they have the same freedom from care to which they have been accustomed through their military life, but each one sees that all he has is shared by five hundred others, and in it all he has no single part over which he can exercise individual control, not even himself. Everything tells him his work is done, and there is no more in the give and take of life over which he can plan and work. Discontent is inevitable, and until some plan is devised for bringing the military service, or most of its features, to the Home, and having there a counterpart of the camp and its duties, not to be imposed as set tasks, but to be taken up and directed by the men who all their lives have been under direction, and ought now to enjoy the privilege of apparent control, a remedy will probably not be found. It took years to overcome in a measure the dislike and suspicion with which the old soldier regarded the Home. It was a manifestation of interest in him which was new and unusual, and by him untried. Progress has been made in the past years toward overcoming the matters which may be mentioned as difficulties in the problem of how to take care of men who ought to be simply aided in taking care of themselves by supplying them to a proper extent with means or material, and throwing upon them sufficient responsibility to create the _occupation_, which is the greatest need of the institution. This will gradually be worked out, and then the Home will be what it should, a place for work and life, and less of a place for waiting and death.

EIGHT CENTURIES WITH WALTER SCOTT.

By WALLACE BRUCE.

It has been truly said that Walter Scott’s novels have done more to warm the hearts of the English people toward their northern brethren than any other influence during the last century. The two races, unlike in national traditions and social characteristics, differing as to climatic influence and formation of country, with a blood-stained record since the days of Keneth Mac Alpine, were not naturally allied, or well prepared for immediate and lasting friendship. To borrow the language of surgery: It was not a national break to be easily “knitted,” but a sort of compound fracture.

For thirty generations English and Scot had literally “glowered” across the border. Constrained in the narrow island of Britain, they had struggled like Roman gladiators in a wave-washed Coliseum, from which there was no escape. In the world’s history there is no other record of two races, with so many divergent points, and so much ancestral hatred, solidifying into one harmonious nation; and it is to the glory of Scott to have contributed to so grand a consummation. “All war,” Bulwer says, “is a misunderstanding.” It seemed to be the mission of our novelist to introduce England and Scotland to each other, and to make future misunderstanding impossible. Some of the volumes and characters, which we are to consider in this and in the following paper, emphasize and illustrate this conclusion.

“The Pirate,” next in historic sequence, has little to do with the history of reigns and dynasties. With the exception of a single paragraph, which refers incidentally to the commotion between Highlanders and Lowlanders, between Williamites and Jacobites, one would not dream that there was such a thing as a government in the world. The reader, in spite of the warlike title, finds himself in a northern Arcadia. In the hospitable home of Magnus Troil we have a picture of a Norwegian Udaller—one of the last survivors, who kept alive the customs of Scandinavia in the Orkney and Zetland Islands. What Cedric, the Saxon, was to his people, as a prototype of antique manners in the reign of Richard, the Lion Hearted, Magnus Troil is to the few surviving Norwegians at the close of the last century in the stormy islands of the north. We sit at his board, and hear Sagas rehearsed by fishermen, who preserved among themselves the ancient Norse tongue. We listen to the dark romance of other days when the black raven banner ruled the seas. We are taken back in fancy to moonlit bays, where mermaids mingle their voices with the moaning waves. The monstrous leviathans of the deep again seem real, and the sea-snake, with towering head, girdles with its green folds the misty islands of Shetland. We find captains negotiating for favorable voyages with weird hags and insane witches—antique insurance brokers, who were willing to take payment without giving indemnity. We find in Norna—the wild prophetess—who half believed her own divinations, a legitimate descendant of the Voluspæ, or divining women, who, from Hebraic and Delphic times, have wielded power through centuries of superstition. We find Christian inhabitants of well governed and hospitable villages, who regard the spoils of the sea, and castaway wrecks, as kindly dispensations of Providence. We are introduced to a primitive people still clinging to the belief that a supernatural race, allied to the fairies, sometimes propitious to mortals, but more frequently capricious and malevolent, worked below the earth as artificers of iron and precious metals. We see lovers still pledging their troth and taking the Promise of Oden at the Standing Stones of Stennis, and note the patriotism and proud spirit of Minna Troil, as she responds to her lover’s description of other lands of palm and cocoa,

Fair realms of continual summer,
And fields ever fragrant with flowers.

“No,” she answers, “my own rude country has charms for me, even desolate as you think it, and depressed as it surely is, which no other land on earth can offer to me. I endeavor in vain to represent to myself those visions of trees and of groves, which my eye never saw; but my imagination can conceive no sight in nature more sublime than these waves, when agitated by a storm, or more beautiful, than when they come, as they now do, rolling in calm tranquility to the shore. Not the fairest scene in a foreign land—not the brightest sunbeam that ever shone upon the richest landscape, would win my thoughts for a moment from that lofty rock, misty hill and wide rolling ocean. Haitland is the land of my deceased ancestors, and of my living father, and in Haitland will I live and die.”

The Bride of Lammermoor reveals the iniquitous administration of law in Scotland during the closing years of King William’s reign. The Scottish vicegerents, raised to power by the strength of faction, had friends to reward and enemies to humble. The old adage was literally verified: “Show me the man, and I will show you the law.” It is said that officers in high stations affected little scruple concerning bribery. “Pieces of plate, and bags of money, were sent in presents to the King’s counsel, to influence their conduct, and poured forth,” says a contemporary writer, “like billets of wood upon the floors, without even the decency of concealment.” The story opens with a burial and its attendant ceremony; and this key-note of sadness gives the tone or concert pitch to the sorrowful drama. The ready wit and crafty subterfuges of the old butler, Caleb Balderstone, somewhat relieve and lighten up the somberness of the tragedy. But it is not our purpose to trace the plot, or to point the moral of the swift and awful punishment which follows pride and injustice.

As in “The Pirate,” we find but one paragraph relating to concurrent history, so in the “Bride of Lammermoor” we have but one historic glimpse of passing events, when the Tory party obtained, in the Scottish, as in the English councils of Queen Anne, a short lived ascendancy. There were at this time three parties in Scotland: the Unionists, who were destined providentially to triumph; the Jacobites, who desired the national independence of the kingdom; the third party, who were waiting to see the course of events. The reign of William, just completed, was not favorably regarded by the Scottish nation. His memory was justly honored in England, and revered by the Protestants of Ireland as a deliverer from civil and religious servitude. In Scotland he had likewise rendered great service to the right of worshiping God according to the dictates of one’s own conscience, but in civil matters he had infringed upon the prerogatives of the people—an infringement not speedily to be forgotten. Scott, in his “Tales of a Grandfather,” calls attention to this long cherished national resentment in the following paragraph: “On the fifth of November, 1788, when a full century had elapsed after the Revolution, some friends to constitutional liberty proposed that the return of the day should be solemnized by an agreement to erect a monument to the memory of King William, and the services which he had rendered to the British kingdoms. At this period an anonymous letter appeared in one of the Edinburgh newspapers, ironically applauding the undertaking, and proposing as two subjects of the entablature, for the base of the projected column, the massacre of Glencoe, and the distresses of the Scottish colonies at Darien. The proposal was abandoned as soon as the insinuation was made public.”

When Queen Anne came to the throne it was thought prudent to make some provision which would insure a Protestant government for all time to Britain. The English Parliament therefore passed an Act of Succession in June, 1700: “Settling the crown, on the failure of Queen Anne and her issue, upon the grand-daughter of King James the First, of England—Sophia, Electress Dowager of Hanover, and her descendants. Queen Anne, and her statesmanlike adviser, Godolphin, saw the necessity of uniting Scotland in this agreement; but the Scottish people complained that they were not only required to surrender their public rights, according to the terms proposed, but also to yield them up to the very nation who had been most malevolent to them in all respects; who had been their constant enemies during a thousand years of almost continual war; and who, even since they had been united under the same crown, had shown in the massacre of Glencoe, and the disasters of Darien, at what a slight price they held the lives and rights of their northern neighbors.”

“The Tale of the Black Dwarf” is related to the time of this fierce discussion in Scotland, as to the adoption or rejection of this proposed union; when mobs and rabbles crowded High Street; when the hall of meeting, contrary to the privileges of Edinburgh, was surrounded by guards and soldiery; when the debaters were often “in the form of a Polish Diet, with their swords in their hands, or at least their hands on their swords.” After a vain struggle the Scottish commissioners were compelled to submit to an incorporating union, and on the twenty-second of April the Parliament of Scotland adjourned forever. For the moment all parties were indignant. Papists, Prelatists, and Presbyterians were united in the common feeling that the country had been treated with injustice. Lord Belhaven, in a celebrated speech, which made the strongest impression on the people, declared that he saw, in prophetic vision, “The peers of Scotland, whose ancestors had raised tribute in England, now walking in the Courts of Requests, like so many English attorneys, laying aside their swords, lest self-defense should be called murder—he saw the Scottish barons with their lips padlocked to avoid the penalties of unknown laws—he saw the Scottish lawyers struck mute and confounded at being subjected to the intricacies and technical jargon of an unknown jurisprudence—he saw the merchants excluded from trade by the English monopolies—the artisans ruined for want of custom—the gentry reduced to indigence—the lower ranks to starvation and beggary. ‘But above all, my lord,’ he continued, ‘I think I see our ancient mother Caledonia, like Cæsar, sitting in the midst of our senate, ruefully looking around her, covering herself with her royal mantle, awaiting the fatal blow, and breathing out her last with the exclamation, “And thou too, my son.”’” These prophetic words made the deepest impression, until the effect was in some degree dispelled by Lord Marchmount, who rising to reply, said: “I have been much struck with the noble lord’s vision, but I conceive that the exposition of it might be given in a few words: I woke, and behold it was a dream.”

If in these critical times the King of France had kept his promise to the son of James the Second, or if his Scottish friends had been more united or possessed a leader of distinguished talent, the House of Stuart might have repossessed their ancient throne of Scotland. The French fleet indeed brought the Pretender with an army of five thousand men to the Frith of Forth, but, frightened by the English fleet, returned to France without landing. It was an enterprise entirely devoid of spirit, and the closing chapters of the “Black Dwarf” reveal a pitiful picture of the apathy of the movement, and the indecision and incapacity of the Pretender’s adherents.

“Rob Roy” introduces us to the wild fastnesses which lie between Loch Lomond and Loch Katrine. The state of the country is still unsettled. The Highlanders have been kept comparatively quiet since the days of King William by giving pensions to the leading chiefs, upon the principle of feeding the wilder and fiercer animals in order to keep them tractable; but, like a rock poised on a precipice, the clans seem ready at an instant to break loose and precipitate themselves upon the lowlands; the Jacobites still retain hope of restoring the Stuart line. The Whigs, continually on the alert, anticipate every movement; the slightest whisper in Paris is heard at the London Court; it also appeared that Louis the Fourteenth was nowise disposed to encourage any plot to disturb the reigning monarch of England; the Pretender hastened to Paris upon receiving tidings of the death of Queen Anne, but his reception was so unfavorable that he returned to Lorraine, “with the sad assurance that the monarch of France was determined to adhere to the treaty of Utrecht, by an important article of which he had recognized the succession of the House of Hanover to the Crown of Great Britain.”

George the First landed at Greenwich, September seventeenth, 1714, and quietly assumed the government; but the seething plot of Macbeth’s witches was not yet skimmed. The rebellion known as “The Affair of 1715” was organized and guided by the Earl of Mar. The clans were again in arms, and the Pretender again hailed as king. In the battle of Sheriffmuir, which followed soon afterward, an outlawed clan whose name for generations was only mentioned in whisper, “nameless by day” and fierce through oppression, remained inactive upon the field. They were ordered by the Earl of Mar to charge the enemy, but the bold chieftain answered with haughty indifference: “If you can not win without us you will not with us.” The speaker was Robert Mac Gregor, more generally known as Rob Roy. Like Robin Hood of England he is said to have been a kind and gentle robber, who harried the rich and relieved the poor. As Scott says in his introduction to the romance: “He maintained through good report and bad report a wonderful degree of importance in popular recollection. He owed his fame in a great measure to his residing on the very verge of the Highlands, and playing such pranks in the beginning of the eighteenth century as are usually ascribed to the freebooters of the middle ages—and that within forty miles of Glasgow, a great commercial city, the seat of a learned university. Thus a character like his, blending the wild virtues, the subtle policy, and unrestrained license of an American Indian, was flourishing in Scotland during the Augustan age of Queen Anne and George the First—the sept of Mac Gregor claimed a descent from Alpin, King of Scots, who ruled about 787. Hence their original patronymic is Mac Alpine. They occupied at one period very extensive possessions in Perthshire and Argyleshire, which they imprudently continued to hold by the right of the sword. Their neighbors, the Earls of Argyle and Breadalbane, managed to have this property engrossed in deeds and charters, which they easily obtained from the crown.” In plain English, they stole it, and obtained a commission by an Act of Privy Council in 1563 to pursue the claim with fire and sword. No wonder that the Mac Gregors came to have little regard for the law which had little regard for them. In sympathy for the oppressed outlaw, Wordsworth breaks out in enthusiastic tribute:

Say then that he was wise as brave,
As wise in thought as bold in deed;
For in the principles of things
He sought his moral creed.

Said generous Rob, “What need of books?
Burn all the statutes and their shelves!
They stir us up against our kind,
And worse, against ourselves.

The creatures see of flood and field,
And those that travel on the wind;
With them no strife can last; they live
In peace and peace of mind.

For why? because the good old rule
Sufficeth them; the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can.”

Blackstone would probably have regarded this as a feeble tenure of property, and Scott was too good a lawyer to excuse the robber and blackmailer on such primitive and poetic principles. He puts a more natural and sensible excuse in the mouth of the honest bailie, Nicol Jarvie: “Robin was anes a weel-doing, pains-taking drover, as ye wad see amang ten thousand. It was a pleasure to see him in his belted plaid and brogues, wi’ his target at his back, and claymore and dirk at his belt. And he was baith civil and just in his dealings; and if he thought his chapman had made a hard bargain, he would gie him back five shillings out o’ the pund sterling. But the times came hard, and Rob was venturesome, and the creditors, mair especially some grit neighbors o’ his, grippit to his living and land; and they say his wife was turned out o’ the house to the hillside, and sair misguided to the boot. Weel, Rob cam hame, and fand desolation, God pity us! where he left plenty; he looked east, west, south, north, and saw neither hauld nor hope—neither beild nor shelter, sae he e’en pu’d the bonnet ower his brow, belted the broadsword to his side, took to the brae-side, and became a broken man.”

He had indeed suffered, and the harsh treatment which his wife had received from the soldiery was enough to have roused a less ferocious man to revenge. Her spirit seems to have been cast in the same mould, and Scott presents her in heroic guise, assuming the command of the clan in her husband’s absence. “Stand,” she said, with a commanding tone to the English soldiers, “and tell me what ye seek in Mac Gregor’s country?” “She wore her plaid, not drawn around her head and shoulders, as is the fashion of the women in Scotland, but disposed around her body, as the Highland soldiers wear theirs. She had a man’s bonnet, with a feather in it, an unsheathed sword in her hand, and a pair of pistols at her girdle.”

“What seek ye here?” she asked again of Captain Thornton, who had himself advanced to reconnoiter. “We seek the outlaw, Rob Roy Mac Gregor Campbell,” answered the officer, “and make no war on women; therefore offer no vain opposition to the king’s troops, and assure yourself of civil treatment.”

“Ay,” retorted the Amazon, “I am no stranger to your tender mercies. You have left me neither name nor fame—my mother’s bones will shrink aside in their grave when mine are laid beside them—ye have left me neither house nor hold, blanket nor bedding, cattle to feed us, or flocks to clothe us—ye have taken from us all—all! The very names of our ancestors have ye taken away, and now ye come for our lives.”

There is another character which lives long and pleasantly in the reader’s memory—the warm hearted bumptious bailie, Nicol Jarvie, a Scotchman profoundly impressed with a sense of his own extraordinary ability, who never forgot to quote from his father, the deacon, and never lost his appreciation of the “siller.” Scott has drawn this character with marvelous art. It stands out like a living portrait, and the reader loves him because he is as brave as he is canny. The scene in the Highland inn, where he found his sword rusted fast in the scabbard, and seized the red hot poker for a weapon, is at once dramatic and humorous.