Chapter LII (2)

At the gate of the winter palace, the aide-de-camp, the bearer of the news of the revolt, encountered another officer, who brought tidings from the barracks of the grenadier corps of equally alarming import. When that regiment were preparing to take the oath of fidelity to the Emperor Nicholas, the sub-lieutenant Kojenikoff threw himself before the advanced-guard, exclaiming, "It is not to the Grand-duke Nicholas we ought to make oath, but to the Emperor Constantine." He was told that the Czarowitz had abdicated in his next brother's favor. "It is false," was his reply; "totally false; he is on the march for St. Petersburg to reward the faithful and punish the guilty."

The regiment, notwithstanding these outcries, continued its march, took the oath of allegiance to the new sovereign, and returned into quarters, without showing any disposition resembling revolt. At dinner-time Lieutenant Suthoff, who had taken the pledge of obedience with the rest, entered at that moment, and addressed himself to his own company in a manner calculated to excite their attention: "My friends, we were wrong to obey the order; the other regiments are in open revolt; they have refused to take the oath, and are at this moment in the Place of the Senate;--put on your uniforms, arm, come on, and follow me; I have your pay in my pocket, which I am ready to distribute without waiting for the ceremony of an order."

"But is what you say quite true?" cried many voices.

"Stay, here is Lieutenant Panoff,--like myself, one of your best friends,--ask him."

"My friends," remarked Panoff, anticipating their question, "you all know that Constantine is your only lawful emperor, and that they wish to dethrone him."

"Live Constantine!" replied the soldiers.

"Live Nicholas!" exclaimed Colonel Sturler, the commander of the regiment, throwing himself courageously into the hall. "They are deceiving you, my friends; the Czarowitz has really abdicated, and you have now no other emperor than the Grand-duke Nicholas. Live Nicholas!"

"Live Constantine!" responded the soldiers.

"You are mistaken, soldiers; you are about to take a fatal step; you are deceived," again shouted the colonel.

"Comrades, do not abandon me; follow me," cried Panoff; "let those who are for Constantine, unite with me in the cry, 'Long live Constantine!'"

More than three parts of those present joined in the cry of "Long live Constantine!"

"To the Admiralty! to the Admiralty!" said Panoff, drawing his sword; "follow me, soldiers, follow me."

With a wild hurrah two hundred soldiers followed their leader to the place he indicated, whither, though by a different route, the insurgent portion of the Regiment of Moscow had already preceded them.

Milarodowich, the military governor of St. Petersburg, a cavalry general, whose splendid charges on the field had gained him the appellation of the Russian Murat, was by this time at the palace, to communicate to his new sovereign the dispositions he had made for the defence of his throne and the capital. He had directed the troops upon whose fidelity he thought he could rely, to march to the winter palace. The first battalion of the regiment Preobrajenski, three regiments of the guard Paulowski, and the battalion of the Sapper and Miners, were those he considered fit for this important service.

The emperor saw then that the mutiny was more general than he anticipated; he therefore sent by Major-general Meidhart, to carry orders to the Semenowski guard to repress the mutineers, and to the horse-guards, to hold themselves in readiness to mount. He went down himself to the corps of chief guards of the winter palace, where the regiment of Finland guards were at that time on duty, and ordered them to load their muskets and invest the principal avenues of the palace. At that very moment tumultuous sounds interrupted the voice of the sovereign, occasioned by the approach of the third and sixth companies of the Regiment of Moscow, headed by Prince Stah----, and the two B----, with the captured flag proudly displayed to the wind, and drums beating, to the ominous cry of "Long live Constantine! Down with Nicholas!" The rebel troops debouched on the Admiralty Square, but whether they thought themselves not sufficiently strong, or that they dreaded facing majesty with these treasonable demonstrations, they did not march upon the winter palace, but took up their position against the senate, where they were immediately joined by the grenadier corps, and sixty men in frocks with pistols in their hands, who mingled themselves among the rebel soldiers.

The emperor at this crisis appeared from under one of the arches of the palace, approached the grating, and threw a rapid glance on his revolted subjects. He was paler than usual, but was composed and calm. It was whispered that he had resolved to die as became a Christian emperor, and that he had confessed and received absolution of the Church, before he took leave of his family. Every eye was fixed upon him, when the hard gallop of a squadron of cuirassiers was heard on the side of the marble palace; it was the horse-guards, headed by Count Orloff, one of the bravest and most faithful friends of the emperor. Before him the gates expanded; he leaped from his charger, while the regiment ranged itself before the palace. The roll of the drums announced instantly the approach of the grenadiers of Preobrajenski, which arrived in battalions. They entered the court of the palace, where they found the emperor with the empress, and their eldest son, the little Grand-duke Alexander; behind them were ranged the Chevalier guard, who formed an angle with the cuirassiers, leaving between them an open space, which was quickly filled up by the artillery. The revolted regiments regarded these military dispositions with apparent carelessness, while their cries of "Long live Constantine!" "Down with Nicholas!" evidently proved that they expected, and waited there for reinforcements.

While affairs were in this state at the palace, the Grand-duke Michael, at the barracks, was opposing his personal influence to the flood-tide of rebellion. Some happy results had followed these attempts, and the bold resolution taken by Count Lieven, captain of the sixth company of the Regiment of Moscow, who arrived in time to shut the gates against the battalion, then about to join their rebel comrades. Placing himself before the soldiers, he drew his sword, and swore on his honor to pass the weapon through the body of the first man who should make a seditious movement to re-open them. At this threat, a young sub-lieutenant advanced, pistol in hand, towards Count Lieven, with the evident intention of blowing out his brains. The count, with admirable presence of mind, struck the officer a blow with the pummel of his sword, which made the instrument leap from his hands; the lieutenant took up the pistol and once more took aim at the count. The young nobleman crossed his arms, and confronted the mutinous officer, while the regiment, mute and motionless, looked on like the seconds of this singular duel. The lieutenant drew back a few steps, followed by the heroic count, who offered him his unarmed breast as if in defiance of his attempt. The lieutenant fired, but the ball took no effect: that it did not strike that generous breast appeared miraculous. Some one knocked at the door.

"Who is there?" asked many voices.

"His Imperial Highness the Grand-duke Michael," replied those without.

Some instants of profound silence followed this announcement. Count Lieven availed himself of the general stupefaction to open the door, no person attempting to prevent that action.

The Grand-duke entered on horseback, followed by the officers of ordnance.

"What means this inaction at a moment of danger?" asked the Grand-duke. "Am I among traitors or loyal soldiers?"

"You are in the midst of the most faithful of your regiments," replied the Count, "of which your Imperial Highness shall have immediate proof." Then raising his drawn sword, he cried, "Long live the Emperor Nicholas!"

"Long live the Emperor Nicholas!" shouted the soldiers with one voice.

The young sub-lieutenant attempted to speak, but Count Lieven stopped him by touching his arm. "Silence, sir; I shall not mention what has passed; and you will ruin yourself by the utterance of a syllable."

His magnanimity awed and convinced the disloyal officer.

"Lieven, I confide to you the conduct of this regiment," remarked the Grand-duke emphatically.

"I will answer for its loyalty with my life, your Imperial Highness," replied the Count.

The Grand-duke departed, and on his rounds, if he received no enthusiastic greeting, at least found what he sought, obedience to the authority of the Emperor Nicholas.

Reinforcements came in on every side; the Sappers and Miners drew up in order of battle, before the palace of the Hermitage; the rest of the Regiment of Moscow, rescued from the stain of rebellion by the courage and address of Count Lieven, now proudly debouched by the Perspective of Niewski. The sight of these troops gave a delusive hope to the revolted, who, believing them to be on their side, greeted them with loud cheers; but they were instantly undeceived, for the new-comers ranged themselves along the Hotel of the Tribunals, facing the palace, and with the Cuirassiers, Artillery, and Chevalier guards, inclosed the revolted in a circle of steel.

A moment after, they heard the chant of the priests. It was the Patriarch, who came out of the church of Casan, followed by all his clergy, and preceded by the holy banners. He now commanded the revolted "in the name of heaven, to return to their duty." The soldiers, for the first time perhaps in their lives, regarded with contempt the pictures which they had been accustomed from infancy to regard with superstitious veneration, and they desired the Patriarch "to let them alone, since if heavenly things belonged to the priestly jurisdiction, they could take care of those of earth." The Patriarch continued his injunctions to obedience, notwithstanding this discouraging rebuff, but the Emperor ordered him to desist and retire. Nicholas himself was resolved to make one effort to bring back these rebels to their duty.

Those who surrounded the Emperor wished to prevent him from risking his person, but he boldly replied, "It is my game that is playing, and it is but fair play on my part to set my life on the stake."

He ordered the gate to be opened, but scarcely had he been obeyed, before the Grand-duke Michael approached him, and whispered in his ear that that part of the Regiment Preobrajenski by which he was then surrounded, had made common cause with the rebels, and that the Prince T., their commander, whose absence he had remarked with astonishment, was at the head of the conspiracy. Nicholas remembered that four-and-twenty years before the same regiment had kept guard before the red palace, while its Colonel, Prince Talitzen, strangled the Emperor Paul, his father.

His situation was terrible, but he did not even change countenance; he only showed that he had formed a desperate resolution. In an instant he turned and gave his orders to one of his generals, "Bring me hither the Grand-duke."

The general returned with the young prince: the Emperor raised the boy in his arms, and advancing to the grenadiers, said, "Soldiers, if I am killed, behold your sovereign. Open your ranks; I confide him to your loyalty."

A long, loud hurrah, a cry of enthusiasm that came from the very heart of these suspected soldiers, reëchoed to that of the Emperor, whose magnanimous confidence had won their admiration. The most guilty among them dropped their weapons and opened their arms to receive the heir of the Empire. The imperial pledge was placed with colors in the midst of the regiment, a guarded and sacred asylum for honor and innocence.

The Emperor mounted his horse and went out of the gate, where he was met by his generals, who implored him not to go any further, as the rebels openly avowed their intention of killing their sovereign, and their arms were loaded. The Emperor made a sign to them with his hand to leave him a free passage, and forbidding them to accompany him, spurred his horse and galloped forward till he arrived within pistol-shot. "Soldiers," cried he, "I am told that you wish to kill me. Is that true? If it is, here I am!"

There was a pause, while the Emperor sat on horseback, remaining like an equestrian statue between the two bodies of troops. Twice the word fire was heard among the rebel ranks, and twice some feeling of respect to the dauntless courage of the sovereign restrained the execution of the order; but at the third command some muskets loaded with ball were discharged, which whistled past the Emperor without striking him, but wounded, at a hundred paces behind him, Colonel Velho and many soldiers.

At that moment the Grand-duke Michael and Count Milarodowich galloped towards the Emperor, the regiment of cuirassiers and those of the Chevalier guards made a forward movement--the artillerymen were about to apply their matches to the cannon.

"Halt," cried the Emperor. All obeyed. "General," said he to Count Milarodowich, "go to these unfortunate men and endeavor to bring them to their allegiance."

The Count and the Grand-duke Michael rode forward, but the rebels received them with a shower of ball, accompanied by their war-cry, "Live Constantine!"

"Soldiers," cried the Count, who was conspicuous alike by his fine martial figure and splendid uniform covered with orders; "soldiers, behold this sabre," and he flourished above his head a magnificent Turkish one, the hilt of which was set with jewels, and advancing with it to the front ranks of the rebels, he continued, "This sabre was given me by his Imperial Highness the Czarowitz, and on my honor, I will make oath upon its blade, that you have been deceived, that the Czarowitz has abdicated the imperial crown, and that your real and legitimate sovereign is the Emperor Nicholas."

Cries of "Live Constantine!" and the report of a pistol were the replies given by the revolted to the address of the Count, whose action with the sword arm had left his side exposed to the enemy. He was seen to reel in the saddle. Another pistol was aimed at the Grand-duke Michael, but the soldiers of the Marine, though included in the revolt, seized the arm of the assassin.

Count Orloff and the cuirassiers faced the heavy fire of the musketry, and enveloped in their ranks the wounded Milarodowich, the Grand-duke Michael and the Emperor Nicholas, whom they carried off by force to the palace.

The Count, wounded to death, sat his horse with difficulty, and the moment he arrived at the palace, fell into the arms of those who surrounded him.

The Emperor, notwithstanding the late unfortunate attempt, still wished to make one last endeavor to bring back the revolted, but while he was issuing orders to that effect, the Grand-duke Michael seized the match: "Fire," cried he, "fire upon the assassins." At that moment four cannons opened upon the rebels, and paid with usury the deaths they had sent into the loyal ranks of the imperialists. Before the voice of the Emperor could stop the slaughter, a second discharge followed the first. The effect of these volleys within reach of pistol-shot was terrible. More than sixty men of the grenadier corps of the Regiment of Moscow and the Marine guards fell; the rebel troops fled, some by the street Galernain, some by the English quay or by the bridge Isaac, others across the frozen waters of the Neva, then a plain of ice, but all were hotly pursued by the Chevalier guards at full gallop.

That evening Count Milarodowich, who was struggling with the agonies of death, expressed a wish to see the bullet which had given him his mortal wound. The chirurgeon, who had successfully traced and extracted the ball, put it into his patient's hand. The expiring warrior carefully examined the missive, its weight, and form, and found it deficient in calibre. "I am satisfied," said he, "that ball was aimed by no soldier." Five minutes after these words, he breathed his last. He then paid the debt of nature, the only debt he ever paid in his life. Handsome, valiant, the finest horseman in the army, and the idol of his own soldiers, the Russian Murat lost his life by the hand of a Russian, but not of a Russian soldier. The rival of the _cidevant_ King of Naples loved display in every shape; but the field of battle, at the head of his cavalry, was the theatre on which he best loved to exhibit his martial form, splendid horsemanship, and daring courage. The gaming-table found him as reckless of his fortune as the field of his life, and the bravest cavalry general in the Russian service was a ruined gamester, loaded with debts which his death acquitted by leaving him insolvent. In paying the debt of nature Count Milarodowich surrendered his only personal possession.

The next day, at nine o'clock in the morning, while the population of his capital was yet uncertain whether the rebellion was effectually crushed, Nicholas, Emperor of Russia, gave his hand to the Empress to assist her into a droski which stood before the gates of the winter-palace, and drove through the streets of St. Petersburg. He stopped before the barracks as if to offer his bold bosom to the bullet or the steel of the assassin. The sight of his fine countenance, shadowed by the floating plumes of his military hat, far from exciting treasonable demonstrations, awakened lively expressions of loyalty and devotion to his person, and cries of "Long live Nicholas!" greeted his fortunate rashness. The Russian people knew and recognized in him a brave man and great sovereign.

The trial of the chief conspirators took place under the shadow of night and secrecy; they were brought from all parts of the empire to St. Petersburg. The sentence, but not the examination of the guilty, alone was made public; eighty persons were condemned to death, or life-long exile in Siberia. The most powerful, according to the custom of Russia, increased the population of Siberia; among these we find the name of Prince T.: his wife, with rare devotion, petitioned and obtained from the Emperor permission to accompany her husband to that dreary land of woe and crime. The decimation of the disloyal but seduced regiments was an act of severe military justice that astonished Europe, but secured the tranquillity of Russia. The son of the Emperor Paul, whose life and death had been the stake of the military contest of December, 1825, might be better excused than any other man for that tremendous sentence. He had been fired upon by his own soldiers while unarmed and confiding his person to their generosity; his brother, and his plenipotentiary, Count Milarodowich, had been aimed at by assassins, and the Count had died of his wound.

A flash of magnanimity enlightened this cloud of severity. In the list of conspirators the Emperor remarked the name of Suwarrow, a name dear to Russia and associated with her victories. He chose to examine this young man, the grandson of the great field-marshal, himself. His countenance and manner, unusually gentle, seemed to inspire confidence. The questions he asked this lieutenant only required a simple affirmative or denial, and they were not of a nature to elicit a confession of guilt. "Gentlemen, you see and hear," remarked the Emperor to his council, "it is as I have told you, a Suwarrow cannot be a rebel," and he acquitted the prisoner, and gave him a captain's commission and sent him back to his regiment; but unfortunately for the conspirators, this lieutenant was the only person who bore that favored name. All were not Suwarrows.

It was remarked that those who were executed uttered these words as their last legacy to posterity, "Live Russia! Live Liberty! our avengers are at hand!" Their war-cry of "Live Constantine!" false to their hearts, was not repeated by lips which the presence of death had rendered then the echo of truth.

The funeral pomp of the widowed Empress Elizabeth, whose remains were brought for interment to St. Petersburg in this same month of December, turned the thoughts of its inhabitants from these scenes of civil strife and the executions that followed them, to a Princess, whom for twenty-four years they had regarded as a link between the human and angelic natures. The memory of these events seemed buried in that sepulchre, which the tears of a grateful people had consecrated to the remembrance of the consort of the deceased Emperor Alexander.

From Nimrod's Bacchanalia Memorabilia.

DRINKING EXPERIENCES.

The pleasure imparted by wine to me is great, but very short-lived: it appears to mount, as it were, to a crisis; after which it somewhat rapidly declines. In fact, it does not enliven me beyond a certain pitch. It then ceases its charms; doubtless, because my stomach, the centre of all sympathy, feels oppressed by it. I grow dull, my head aches, I am inclined for sleep, and wish for bed.--But it does not rob me of self-possession, nor incline me to wrangle or quarrel. On the contrary, it excites my love, not my hatred, and greatly expands my heart. I have granted many a favor, and promised many more, by the inspiration of the jolly god. I have shaken hands with, sworn eternal friendship for, many a man, and made love to many a woman, for whom, vulgarly speaking, I cared not a rush. In short, I have a hundred times made a fool of myself by talking, boasting--not lying, for I have ever held that low vice in abhorrence--and occasionally laid wagers, and matched horses, without a chance of winning. But, as I have already stated, I never was so overcome by wine as not to know where I was, and what I said. In fact, it never had the power to make me forget that I was born a gentleman; and I am happy in the reflection, that I have travelled thus far through life without having been once called upon to make an apology for an insult given, either when drunk or sober; nor to demand but two, and those were the result of excess in wine. One was tendered to me on the first dawn of returning reason; the other, I am sorry to say, at the pistol's mouth. But the events I am alluding to occurred many years back, when, as a well-known sporting old earl of the last century said of himself, "the devil was very strong in me."

I never was drunk, from drinking spirits, more than twice, which was with very strong brandy and water. Now he that praises drunkenness is a sot convicted on his own evidence; but were I to drink for what is called drinking's sake--that is, to acquire an artificial state of pleasurable excitement--brandy should be the liquor I should fly to to secure it. The "divine luxuries of opium" I never yet tasted; but the powers of wine upon me are, comparatively with brandy, truly insignificant. At the period I am alluding to, it not only appeared to afford me a sure panacea for all evils, past, present, and to come, but to open unlimited prospects of future bliss. I felt as if I were possessed of more than human powers, and that there was nothing I willed I could not do. In short, it eventually made me mad; and, on each occasion, I nearly lost my life, together with my senses. On the one, I attempted to go to sea, by moonlight, in a small open boat, without either rudder or sail, and in the current of a strong tide running out of a Welsh bay; on the other, although more than two hundred miles distant from it, I got upon a coachbox to go to London, in my evening dress; and did "go," till I tumbled off it into the road. To the latter excursion I was no doubt indebted to my early propensity to driving coaches; but having at no time of my life had a fancy for the sea, I owed my intended aquatic trip to a member of the yacht club, who was my partner in the debauch. Death, says Johnson, is more than usually unwelcome to a rich man; and as my friend is possessed of ten thousand a year, he was by no means a fit subject to be mangled by Welsh crabs. Had we, however, accomplished our purpose in unmooring the boat, we should never have been heard of in this world any more. The day would have come upon us both "unawares."

To return to wine. The effect of wine is generally supposed to invigorate the understanding, and to stimulate the mental powers--of poets, especially. Thus Horace asks Bacchus whither he is about to transport him? But by the words "_tui plenum_," I think he must have meant full, not of his wine, but of his divinity, without the aid of which he felt himself unequal to pen a panegyric upon Octavius. Now, were I to say that it is in the power of wine to sink me below mortality--in other words, to make a brute of me--I should certainly go beyond my tether; but I can safely assert that, if I were a poet, so far from realizing Horace's expectations of it, it would lead me _down_, not up, the hill. In fact, when under its immediate influence--I do not mean drunk, but "pretty considerably sprung," as the term is--I can scarcely indite a common letter. It appears to stultify my ordinary capacities. I must, however, admit that, on the first waking after a plentiful allowance of good wine, some bright thoughts have come across my mind, and, when not lost by an intervening nap, have been found worthy of being noted down, and now and then made serviceable. It would indeed be an act of ingratitude to the jolly god, were I to omit the fact, that I once did rise from my bed, at four o'clock in the morning, after having sacrificed largely the overnight, and wrote the best thing I ever did write; at least, so said a certain learned sergeant, who now wears a silk gown, and who told me he would have given five hundred pounds to have been the author of it. But it never saw the light. It was a satire; and "_Nulla venenato litera mixta joco est_," has ever been, and shall ever continue to be, my motto. I wish not to dip my pen in gall.

I have found wine, taken to excess for only a few days, to depress the mind more than the body; that is to say, when, as a friend of mine expresses himself, "the _animus_ is flown;" and I once heard this natural effect of over-mental excitement admirably illustrated by a very illiterate coachman of the old school. "Was Jem drunk when he upset his coach the other night?" was a question I put to one of this fraternity some years back, when drinking to excess with them was the order of both day and night. "Why, sir," he replied, "he warn't drunk, nor he warn't sober; _the liquor was a-dying in him, and he was stupid_." Now, this strongly resembles my own case. Had I to write for a prize, and that prize were immortality, I would not depend much upon the assistance of Bacchus. I would rather rely on my own natural powers, gently stimulated by wine when they flagged.

In all ages of the world, however, clever men, and poets especially, have been more or less addicted to drinking to excess. The austere Cato, the voluptuous Cæsar, were each given to what Seneca calls the _intemperantia bibendi_--notwithstanding which, according to Seneca, the wisdom of the former received no blemish from this cause. His daughter, indeed, admitted that it softened the rigor of her father's virtues. Titus, the delight of human kind, sat late after his dinner: his brother, Domitian, the tyrant and fly-tormentor, never later than the setting sun. The influence of wine upon poets has long since been proverbial. Poetry, in fact, has been called the wine of the mind; and wine, like love, makes poets. The old Greeks drank and sang; and Anacreon would not have been Anacreon, but for the inspiring juice of the grape, as he himself tells us in his celebrated hymn to the full-blown rose--

"Crown me, and instant, god of wine,
Strains from my lyre shall reach thy shrine."

Indeed, the first prize contended for by poets was a cask of wine; and the Bacchic hymn was called "The Hymn of the Cask." Horace, in fact, pronounces a water-drinking poet to be little worth--even the springs of Castalia will not avail; but after his bottle of Falernian, he boldly asserts, in his ode to Bacchus, in which he wishes to soap Cæsar, that no daring was then too great for his muse.

Both Homer and Horace must have liked wine, and experience on occasions its good effects, or they would not have been the authors of such glowing panegyrics upon it. It is true the latter is moral in the midst of his gayety, uniting the wisdom of the philosopher with the playfulness of the poet; still, and notwithstanding he preaches up moderation in desires, as the chief source of human happiness, he must have been _secretly_ attached to the Epicurean school, in our acceptation of that term. We may, I think, glean this from various passages of his several works, and especially from the compliment he pays Tibullus on the knowledge he displays of the _savoir vivre_ at his own house and table. Again, although in his ode to Apollo he wished us to believe he did not like it, the one to his Cask is an incentive to _drinking_. In another to Telephus, he himself gets "as drunk as a lord;" and had a pretty good bousing match on his escape from the tree, as well as at his party on Cæsar's birth-day. Then how does he promise to welcome Macænas when he came to sup with him? _To take a hundred bumpers with him for friendship's sake!_ Neither is this all. Notwithstanding his telling his friend that his wine was not such as _he_ ought to drink, it is evident he did not "think small beer of it" himself. He notes its age, seals the casks with his own hands, and taps a fresh one on any very memorable occasion. In short, but for a bodily infirmity to which he was subject, there is little doubt but he would have been one of the jolly dogs of his own day. At all events, as has been elegantly said of him, "he tuned his harp to pleasure, and to easy temper of his own soul."

How happens it, it may be asked, that not a single Grecian has ascended Parnassus for so many ages back, and that the vocal hills of Arcadia no longer resound to the Doric reed? There are, we know, several reasons given for this, such as a despotic government, alteration in the language, &c., &c.; but the most powerful cause of the literary degeneracy of this once justly celebrated people is, doubtless, in the substitution of the enervating luxuries of coffee, tobacco, and opium, for the invigorating powers of good wine. It was not so in Anacreon's days.

Let us now turn to the eminently gifted men of later times. Sir Richard Steele spent half his hours in a tavern. In fact, he may be said to have measured time by the bottle; as on being sent for by his wife, he returned for answer that "he would be with her in half a bottle." The like may be said of Savage; and Addison was as dull as an alderman till he was three parts drunk. Neither would he stop at that point. It is on record of him that he once drank till he vomited in the company of Voltaire; which called forth the cutting remark, that the only good thing that came out of his mouth, in Voltaire's presence, was the wine that had gone into it. It is also recorded of Pitt, but I cannot vouch for the truth of it, that two bottles of port wine per diem was his usual allowance, and that it was to _potens Bacchus_ he was indebted for the almost superhuman labor he went through during his short, but actively employed life. His friend and colleague, Harry Dundas, a clever man also in his way, went the pace with him over the mahogany; and the joke about the Speaker in his chair, after they had dined together, cannot be forgotten. Pitt could see no Speaker; but his friend, like Horace with the candle, saw two. Sheridan, latterly, without wine, was a driveller. He sacrificed to it talents such as no man I ever heard or read of possessed, for no subject appeared to be beyond his reach. I knew him when I was a boy, and thought him then something more than human. The learned Porson would get drunk in a pothouse--so would Robert Burns, the poet; and Byron drank brandy and water by bucketsful. Fox was a thirsty soul, and drank far too much wine for either a politician or a play-man; yet, like Nestor over the bowl, he was always great. But a contemporary of his, likewise a great play-man and a clever fellow, out-heroded Herod. He estimated his losses in hogsheads of claret; and it was humorously said of John Taylor--for such was his name--that, after a certain hour of the night, "he could not be removed _without a permit_, as he had more than a dozen of claret on board." Two of the finest actors that ever graced the British stage could scarcely be kept sober enough to perform their parts: But enough of this. Wine taken in excess is the bane of talent. Like fire upon incense, it may cause rich fumes to escape; but the dregs and refuse, when the sacrifice is ended, are little worth. By a long continuance, indeed, in any vicious indulgence, the mind, like the body, is reduced to a state of atrophy; and knowledge, like food, passes through it without adding to its strength. But repeated vinous intoxication soonest unfits a man for either mental or bodily exertion. Equally with the effect of violent love, so powerfully set forth by the poet Lucretius, it creates an indolence and listlessness which damps all noble pursuits, as well as a neglect of all useful affairs--

"Labitur interea res et vadimonia fiunt;
Languent officia, atque ægrotat fama vacillans."

There are countries--half civilised ones, of course--in which intoxication is esteemed the greatest of human pleasures; and Lord Bacon thought it only second to love. Much of the folly of drunkenness, however, in the middle and upper orders of society, proceeds from a laudable desire to exercise in the extreme the rites of hospitality. To the "honest pride of hospitality," as Byron calls it, many a man who hates drinking, has given many a slice of his perhaps already shaken constitution. And here is really something like an excuse. Independently of the making welcome our friends, and seeing ourselves surrounded by them under our own roof, being one of the first among the ordinary comforts of life, hospitality has ever been considered a primary social duty. The best definition of real hospitality is given by Cicero, who admits that there is nothing that contributes more effectually to the happiness of human life than society,--distinguishing from the sensual gratification of the palate, the pleasing relaxation of the mind, which he says is best produced by the freedom of social converse, always most agreeable at the table. Neither does he appear to be an enemy to a cheerful glass; and we must admire the definition he gives of drinking parties. "The Greeks," says he, "call them by a word which signifies computations, whereas we more emphatically denominate them convivial meetings; intimating thereby, that it is in a communication of this nature that life is most truly enjoyed." That Cicero, however, was temperate, may be concluded by the fact of his having written when past his sixtieth year his celebrated Philippies, in which his powers of reasoning are more vigorous, and his language more touching, than in any of his former and younger orations. He used wine in moderation; and it is thus that it answers the ends of Providence. It then exhilarates and strengthens the mind, as well as the body, and, like the bloom on the female cheek, beautifies it, and shows health.

There are said to be three modes of bearing the ills of life, indifference, philosophy, and religion; and many add--the bottle. But the effect of wine on grief is of a doubtful nature. It may deaden the pang for a while, but it will return on the morrow with redoubled force, and with the powers of the sufferer less equal to contend with it. Nevertheless, the maxim of Anacreon, that "when Bacchus enters our cares sleep," is in part true; and a temporary oblivion of care and disappointment is generally produced by an agreeable party and good cheer. And thus is Shakespeare justified in calling wine the merry cheerer of the human heart, as well as others who have asserted that it not only creates pleasure, but mitigates pain. For the latter purpose, indeed, it was formerly given to condemned malefactors, previously to their suffering; "Give strong drink to him who is ready to perish," says the author of the book of Proverbs, "and wine unto them that be of heavy hearts. _Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more._"

If a tranquil mind and freedom from pain make up the sum of a happy life, how great is the value of this cordial drop, and how thankful should we be for it! How sacred and profane writers agree in the essential qualities of the pure juice, especially in the relief of wretchedness. "See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing," is no exaggeration of its power in lessening anguish from past misfortunes, or present ills; but in the following translation of a fragment of Bacchylides, we see what rays of brightness it can throw over our future prospects:

"Thirsty comrade! would'st thou know
All the raptures that do flow
From those sweet compulsive rules
Of our ancient drinking schools?
First, the precious draught shall raise
Amorous thoughts in giddy maze,
Mingling Bacchus' present treasure
With the hopes of higher pleasure.
Next, shall chase through empty air
All th' intolerant hosts of care;
Give thee conquest, riches, power;
Bid thee scale the guarded tower;
Bid thee reign o'er land and sea
With unquestioned sov'reignty.
Thou thy palace shall behold,
Bright with ivory and gold;
While each ship that ploughs the main,
Filled with Egypt's choicest grain,
Shall unload her ponderous store,
Thirsty comrade, at thy door."

Yet guided by my own experience, of the various effects of wine on the mind, I cannot go quite the length of some of its panegyrists. So far, indeed, from thinking with Ovid that it takes even the wrinkles out of the face, I am more inclined to believe that it adds to their number by the excitement that it creates; and although the festive pleasures of the table, in addition to the society of friends, may cheer the heart, and even irradiate gloom, the talisman is not there by which the cause may be reached, and the pain destroyed, beyond the hour.

"Though gay companions o'er the bowl
Dispel awhile the sense of ill;
Though pleasure fires the madd'ning soul,
The heart--the heart is lonely still."

No--although I fear I am about to speak without experience now--it is my opinion, that neither the resources of the philosopher, nor the consolations of religion, nor conscious worth, unaccompanied by native fortitude and energy of mind, are of much avail against real grief. Why they should not be, is no business of mine to inquire; nor would it be becoming me to question the designs of Providence. But this much I may affirm without fear of offence,--Human life is prudently chequered with good and evil; and the most likely way to enjoy it, is to make the best of the one while the other is away.

The powerful influence of wine on society is estimated by Dr. Johnson, in the _Rambler_: "In the bottle," says he, "discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness for confidence." Nothing is more true than this; although it sometimes happens that the first is looked for in vain, the second proves false, and the latter exceeds its bounds. The union of sensual and intellectual enjoyment, however, is requisite to complete the happiness of "the double animal"--the perfect man; and as all mankind are not philosophers, much less abstract ones, after-dinner conversation would generally be flat without the genial influence of good wine. Indeed, the wit of the wittiest man, and the most agreeable companion I ever sat down with, appeared to rise in brilliancy with every glass he drank; and when, to use an expression of his own, he felt himself "vinously inclined,"--that is to say, when he had what Cicero calls the "_furor vinolentus_" upon him, there were no bounds to his humorous sallies.

Upon old men wine is generally well bestowed.

"----Give me a bowl of wine;
I have not that alacrity of spirit
Nor cheer of mind that I was wont to have,"

exclaims the bold King Richard; and I once heard a fine old sportsman, and very worthy man, declare, after a bottle of good port, that he would not exchange the present--his eightieth year--for the gayest he had ever spent.

Luckily for the credit of the human race--although Cleopatra hunted and _drank_ with Antony--there has been, in all ages of the world, a sense of shame attached to the vice of drunkenness in women, having any pretensions to character, as something contrary to their more refined nature. By the ancient Roman laws it was punishable even by death; and we find that even the abandoned women who celebrated the Bacchanalia were ashamed to do so, except under the disguise of masks.

To the credit of the present age, drunkenness in women is not a common failing; but when they once yield to the vice, they have less moderation in the indulgence of it than men have. That such was the case in other ages and countries, may be gleaned from a passage in a comic play-writer, contemporary with Plato, which has been thus accurately rendered:

"Remark how wisely ancient art provides,
The broad-brimmed cup, with flat expanded sides;
A cup contrived for _man's_ discreeter use,
And sober potions of the generous juice.
But _woman's_ more ambitious, thirsty soul
Soon long'd to revel in the plenteous bowl;
Deep and capacious as the swelling hold
Of some stout bark, she shaped the hollow mould;
Then, turning out a vessel like a tun,
Simpering, exclaimed--_Observe, I drink but one_."

To return to the effect of wine on the ruder sex. Next to a smoky house and a scolding wife, it is the greatest trial of the temper to which that of man is exposed. In fact, it is a test by which it may be proved; and the advice of Horace is excellent, _not to choose a friend till we have put him to this test_. Addison is likewise happy in his remark on this point. "Wine," says he, "is not to be drunk by all who can swallow;" and truer words were never written. It has an extraordinary effect upon low and uncultivated minds; as was exemplified in late times, when war prices and abundance of money placed it within the reach of the English commonalty. Rows and broils, with marked insolence towards superiors, were the concomitant results. Neither is the observation of Pliny a whit less just. He says truth is vulgarly and _properly_ attributed to wine; and I am decidedly of his opinion. In fact, our English term, "disguised in liquor," is improperly used; inasmuch as a blackguard when drunk is in his nature a blackguard when sober. The tongue, says the Bible, is at all times an unruly member; but when under the influence of wine, it is still more apt to run riot. Then, again, drunken men are given to "err in vision and stumble in judgment," and to put constructions upon words which they were not intended to convey. When we sacrifice to Bacchus, we are not favored by Mercury; and the well-known adage of "wine in, wit out," is but an abbreviation of the equally well proved axiom, that wine raises the imagination, but depresses the judgment.

Neither is the highly bred gentleman, if much addicted to intoxication, quite safe to be admitted into close friendship, inasmuch as he renders himself, by the practice, unworthy of confidence. Wine so unlocks the cabinet of the heart, that it is easily looked into when we are off our guard.

From an article in the "Home Book of the Picturesque,"
just published by G. P. Putnam.

AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN SCENERY COMPARED.

BY J. FENIMORE COOPER.

The great distinction between American and European scenery, as a whole, is to be found in the greater want of finish in the former than in the latter, and to the greater superfluity of works of art in the old world than in the new. Nature has certainly made some differences, though there are large portions of continental Europe that, without their artificial accessories, might well pass for districts in our own region; and which forcibly remind the traveller of his native home. As a whole, it must be admitted that Europe offers to the senses sublimer views and certainly grander, than are to be found within our own borders, unless we resort to the Rocky Mountains, and the ranges in California and New Mexico.

In musing on these subjects, the mind of the untravelled American naturally turns first towards England. He has pictured to himself landscapes and scenery on which are impressed the teeming history of the past. We shall endeavour to point out the leading distinctions between the scenery of England and that of America, therefore, as the course that will probably be most acceptable to the reader.

The prevalent characteristic of the English landscape is its air of snugness and comfort. In these respects it differs entirely from its neighbor, France. The English, no doubt, have a great deal of poverty and squalid misery among them. But it is kept surprisingly out of the ordinary view. Most of it, indeed, is to be found in the towns, and even in them it is concealed in out of the way places and streets seldom entered by the stranger.

There are places in America, more especially in the vicinities of the large towns, that have a strong resemblance to the more crowded portions of England, though the hedge is usually wanting and the stone wall is more in favor among ourselves than it appears ever to have been among our ancestors. The great abundance of wood, in this country, too, gives us the rail and the board for our fences, objects which the lovers of the picturesque would gladly see supplanted by the brier and the thorn. All that part of Staten Island, which lies nearest to the quarantine ground, has a marked resemblance to what we should term suburban English landscape. The neighborhoods of most of the old towns in the northern States, have more or less of the same character; it being natural that the descendants of Englishmen should have preserved as many of the usages of their forefathers as were practicable. We know of no portion of this country that bears any marked resemblance to the prevalent characteristics of an ordinary French landscape. In France there are two great distinctive features that seem to divide the materials of the views between them. One is that of a bald nakedness of formal _grandes routes_, systematically lined with trees, a total absence of farm-houses, fences, hedges, and walls, little or no forest, except in particular places, scarcely any pieces of detached woods, and a husbandry that is remarkable for its stiffness and formality. The fields of a French acclivity, when the grain is ripe, or ripening, have a strong resemblance to an ordinary Manchester pattern-card, in which the different cloths, varying in color, are placed under the eye at one glance. The effect of this is not pleasing. The lines being straight and the fields exhibiting none of the freedom of nature. Stiffness and formality, indeed, impair the beauty of nine-tenths of the French landscapes; though as a whole the country is considered fine, and is certainly very productive. The other distinctive feature to which we allude is of a directly contrary character, being remarkable for the affluence of its objects. It often occurs in that country that the traveller finds himself on a height that commands a view of great extent, which is literally covered with _bourgs_ or small towns and villages. This occurs particularly in Normandy, in the vicinity of Paris and as one approaches the Loire. In such places it is no unusual thing for the eye to embrace, as it might be in a single view, some forty or fifty cold, grave-looking, chiselled _bourgs_ and villages, almost invariably erected in stone. The effect is not unpleasant, for the subdued color of the buildings has a tendency to soften the landscape and to render the whole solemn and imposing. We can recall many of these scenes that have left indelible impressions on the mind, and which, if not positively beautiful in a rural sense, are very remarkable. That from the heights of Montmorenci, near Paris, is one of them; and there is another, from the hill of St. Catharine, near Rouen, that is quite as extraordinary.

The greater natural freedom that exists in an ordinary American landscape, and the abundance of detached fragments of wood, often render the views of this country strikingly beautiful when they are of sufficient extent to conceal the want of finish in the details, which require time and long-continued labor to accomplish. In this particular we conceive that the older portions of the United States offer to the eye a general outline of view that may well claim to be even of a higher cast, than most of the scenery of the old world.

There is one great charm, however, that it must be confessed is nearly wanting among us. We allude to the coast. Our own is, with scarcely an exception, low, monotonous and tame. It wants Alpine rocks, bold promontories, visible heights inland, and all those other glorious accessories of the sort that render the coast of the Mediterranean the wonder of the world. It is usual for the American to dilate on the size of his bays and rivers, but objects like these require corresponding elevation in the land. Admirable as is the bay of New-York for the purposes of commerce, it holds but a very subordinate place as a landscape among the other havens of the world. The comparison with Naples that has so often been made, is singularly unjust, there not being two bays of any extent to be found, that are really less alike than these. It was never our good fortune to see Constantinople or Rio de Janeiro, the two noblest and most remarkable scenes of this kind, as we have understood, known to the traveller. But we much question if either will endure the test of rigid and severe examination better than the celebrated Gulf of Napoli. The color of the water, alone, is a peculiar beauty of all the Mediterranean bays: it is the blue of the deep sea, carried home to the very rocks of the coast. In this respect, the shores of America, also, have less claim to beauty than those of Europe, generally. The waters are green, the certain sign of their being shallow. Similar tints prevail in the narrow seas between Holland and England. The name of Holland recalls a land, however, that is even lower than any portion of our own with which we are acquainted. There are large districts in Holland that are actually below the level of the high tides of the sea. This country is a proof how much time, civilization, and persevering industry, may add even to the interest of a landscape. While the tameness of the American coast has so little to relieve it or to give it character, in Holland it becomes the source of wonder and admiration. The sight of vast meadows, villages, farm-houses, churches, and other works of art, actually lying below the level of the adjacent canals, and the neighboring seas, wakes in the mind a species of reverence for human industry. This feeling becomes blended with the views, and it is scarcely possible to gaze upon a Dutch landscape without seeing, at the same time, ample pages from the history of the country and the character of its people. On this side of the ocean, there are no such peculiarities. Time, numbers, and labor, are yet wanting to supply the defects of nature, and we must be content, for a while, with the less teeming pictures drawn in our youth and comparative simplicity.

On the American coast the prevailing character is less marked at the northward and eastward than at the southward. At some future day, the Everglades of Florida may have a certain resemblance to Holland. They are the lowest land, we believe, in any part of this country.