Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

The evident source of Mr. Stoddard's inspiration is a love for ideal beauty, in whatever form it may be manifested. Like all admirers of ideal beauty, he has a strong sensual element in his composition. He is not satisfied with the mere dreams of his imagination, but he must also attempt to realize them through the medium of imitative art. Among the various modes for expressing the same feelings and ideas, painting, poetry, sculpture and music, he has chosen poetry as the one best adapted to his purpose. We would not be understood to assert that an artist may, at will, express his emotions in any of the arts; for a man may be insensible to an idea expressed in sculpture or music, which is perfectly clear to him in poetry or painting; but we assert that all the arts are but different languages to convey the same ideas. True art addresses itself to the moral, the intellectual, or the sensual man; and by the predominance of one of these qualities in the artist, or by various combinations of the three, all the radical differences between men of genius can be accounted for, and all the seeming mysteries explained. This truth is the groundwork of genuine criticism; and the critic who busies himself about the accidental circumstances, which have influenced an artist, is only prying into his history, without sounding the depth of his nature. At least let criticism start here: it may afterward indulge in microscopic comparisons of style, and in worn-out accusations of imitation: but it is a sorry thing to see persons assuming the dignified office of the critic magnifying molehills into mountains, and similarities into thefts. All men are gifted with various faculties, but it is not in the superiority of any or all of them that we can account for the existence of the poet, who has something of the divine nature in him, having a creative energy that is not a result of the degree in which he possesses one or more of the ordinary faculties, but is a special distinction with which he is clothed by the deity.

We will proceed to examine our two poets by the principles before stated, not forgetting to compare or contrast them, as there may be opportunity. In Mr. Taylor there is a just equipoise of the moral and intellectual natures, while the sensual nature, if not so strong as the former two, is at least calmed and subdued by their united power. With fine animal spirits, he has but little taste for gross animal enjoyments; and the mischief which his unlicensed spirits might commit, is foreseen by a sensitive conscience, and checked by a mind that sees the end in the act, and provides to-day against the future. Mr. Taylor's inclinations are for scenes of grandeur. Sublime human actions, nature in her awful revolutionary states, the wild desolation of a mountain peak or a limitless desert, the storm, the earthquake, the cataract, the moaning forest--these are the chief inspirations of his powers. Whatever is suggestive of high emotions, that act upon his moral nature, and in turn are acted upon by it, forms an unconquerable incentive to his poetical exertions. Mere word-painting he has no affection for. A scene of nature, however beautiful, would be poetically valueless to him, unless it moved his feelings past the point of silent contemplation. The first poem in his volume affords a striking illustration of his apprehension of intellectual bravery. Through fasting that approaches starvation, unanswered prayers, and repeated discomfitures, the soul of the hero burns undimmed, and his eyes remain steadily fixed on his purpose. Physical suffering only strengthens his resolution, and defeat only nerves him to renewed efforts. Round these ideas the poet lingers with a triumphant emotion, that proves his sympathies to be centred less in the outward action of the poem, than in the power of human will--a power which he conceives to be capable of overcoming all things, even the gods themselves. We have before stated that nature, unless suggestive of some intellectual emotion, is nothing to Mr. Taylor. To arouse himself to song, he must vitalize the world, must make it live, breathe and feel, must find books in the running brooks, and sermons in stones, or brooks and stones are to him as if they had not been. In the "Metempsychosis of the Pine," this characteristic is finely displayed. The poet imagines himself to have been a pine, and retraces his experiences while in that state of being. The pine becomes a conscious creature, revelling in the joys of its own existence, feeling the sap stir in its veins, and pour through a heart as susceptible as man's. Many poets have recalled the memories which linger around a particular tree, or, apostrophising it, have bid it relate certain histories; but in Mr. Taylor's poem the tree speaks from within its own nature--not with the feelings of a man, not with what we might suppose would be the feelings of a common tree, but as a pine of many centuries--and no one can mistake its voice. A nobler use of the dramatic faculty, in lyrical poetry, is not within our recollection.

As may be supposed, Mr. Taylor's poetry is written under the excitement of passion, and does not proceed from that laborious process of constructing effects, to which a large number of poets owe their success. The consequence is that his language is vividly metaphorical, only dealing in similes when in a comparative repose, and never going out of the way to hunt up one of those eternal _likes_, which have emasculated our poetic style, and are fast becoming a leading characteristic in American verse, to the utter destruction of every thing like real passion. Mr. Taylor is an instructive study in this respect. He uses ten metaphors to one simile. His ideas come forth clothed in their figurative language, and do not bring it along neatly tied up in a separate bundle. From this cause there is a sturdy strength and genuine feeling about his poems, that more than compensate for the ingenious trinkets which he despises, and leaves for the adornment of those who need them. In him imagination predominates over fancy, and the latter is always sacrificed to the former. We do not intend to say that Mr. Taylor is without fancy. Far from it--he has fancy, but it never leads him to be fanciful. His versification is polished, correct and various, but more harmonious than melodious; that is to say, the whole rhythmical flow of his verse is more striking than the sweetness of particular lines. We have not mentioned all the phases of Mr. Taylor's genius. Some of the smaller poems in his volume border on the sensuous; and in "Hylas" he has paid a tribute to ancient fable worthy of its refined inventors; but scenes of moral and natural sublimity are those in which he succeeds best, and by them he should be characterized.

Mr. Stoddard is the precise opposite to his friend. In him the sensual vastly outranks the moral or the intellectual quality. Let it not be supposed that we wish to hold the two latter elements as superior to the former for poetical purposes; nor do we by asserting the greater preponderance of any one, deny the possession of the other two. To the sensuous in man we are indebted for the great body of Grecian poetry, and Keats wholly, and Tennyson in part, are modern instances of what may be achieved by imbibing the spirit of the ancient classics. Shallow critics have professed to discover a resemblance between these English poets and Mr. Stoddard, and Mr. Taylor has also fallen under the same accusation, for no better reason, that we can conceive, than that all four have drunk at the same fountain, and enjoyed its inspirations.

Mr. Stoddard's sympathies are almost entirely given up to ancient Grecian art. He can scarcely realize that the dream has passed forever. He sees something vital in its very ruins. For him the Phidian friezes yet crown the unplundered Parthenon; the gigantic Athena yet gleams through sacerdotal incense, in all her ivory whiteness, smiling upon reeking altars and sacrificing priests; Delphos has yet an oracular voice; Bacchus and Pan and his Satyrs yet lead their riotous train through a forest whose every tree is alive with its dryad, and whose every fountain is haunted by its potamid; there are yet patriot veins to glow at the Iliad; Æschylus can yet fill a theatre; Pericles yet thunders at Cimon from the Cema, or woos Aspasia, or tempers the headlong Alcibiades, or prepares his darling Athens for the Peloponnesian war. These things Mr. Stoddard feels while the locomotive shrieks in his ears, while the omnibus, speeding to the steamship, rattles the glass of his window, while the newsboy cries his monotonous advertisement, or his servant hands to him a telegraphic dispatch; and he is right. The body in which Grecian art existed, is indeed dead, but the spirit which animated it is indestructible. There will be poets to worship and reproduce it, there will be scholars to admire and preserve it, when every man's field is bounded by a railway, when every housetop is surmounted by a telegraph wire, and when the golden calf is again set up amid the people, to be worshipped as the living God.

From the force of his sympathies, Mr. Stoddard can lean but in that direction. Throughout his volume there is scarcely a poem which is not the offshoot of these feelings. Some of them are confessedly upon Grecian subjects, and all of them are animated by a corresponding spirit. Even his few domestic poems are not treated after that modern manner, which moralizes in the last stanza, simply to let the reader understand how well the poet knows his own meaning. Whatever is beautiful in Mr. Stoddard's themes is distinctly brought forward, while the darker side of his subject is scarcely touched upon. Take, for example, a poem of great simplicity and tenderness, filled with a sorrow so beautiful as almost to make one in love with grief, and contrast it with a poem, on a similar subject, by Bayard Taylor:

"Along the grassy slope I sit,
And dream of other years;
My heart is full of soft regrets,
My eyes of tender tears!

The wild bees hummed about the spot,
The sheep-bells tinkled far,
Last year when Alice sat with me
Beneath the evening star!

The same sweet star is o'er me now,
Around, the same soft hours,
But Alice moulders in the dust
With all the last year's flowers!

I sit alone, and only hear
The wild bees on the steep,
And distant bells that seem to float
From out the folds of sleep!"

_Stoddard_, _page_ 116.

This is very fine and delicate feeling, softened down to the mildest point of passion; but it does not at all resemble the frenzy of grief which follows:

"Moan, ye wild winds! around the pane,
And fall, thou drear December rain!
Fill with your gusts the sullen day,
Tear the last clinging leaves away!
Reckless as yonder naked tree,
No blast of yours can trouble me.

Give me your chill and wild embrace,
And pour your baptism on my face;
Sound in mine ears the airy moan
That sweeps in desperate monotone,
Where on the unsheltered hill-top beat
The marches of your homeless feet!

Moan on, ye winds! and pour, thou rain!
Your stormy sobs and tears are vain,
If shed for her whose fading eyes
Will open soon on Paradise;
The eye of Heaven shall blinded be,
Or ere ye cease, if shed for me."

_Taylor_, _page_ 92.

What a desolation of wo! how the whole man is carried away in one overwhelming passion! A contrast of the opening poems of these two volumes, would be a pleasant employment, but their length forbids it. Mr. Taylor's "Romance of the Maize" we have mentioned already; Mr. Stoddard's "Castle in the Air" is its complete antithesis. The latter poem is a magnificent day-dream, abounding in luscious imagery, and unrivalled for its minute descriptions of ideal scenery and its voluptuous music of versification, by any similar creation since Spenser's "Bower of Bliss."

To sum up Mr. Stoddard's poetical character, he has more fancy than imagination, he is rather exquisitely sensitive than profoundly passionate, and oftener works up his feelings to the act of composition, than seeks it as an outlet for uncontrollable emotion. He thoroughly, and at every point, an artist. His genius is never allowed to run riot, but is always subjected to the laws of a delicate, but most severe taste. His poems are probably planned with views to their artistic effects, and are then constructed from his exhaustless wealth of poetical material, by a nice adaptation of each part to the perfect whole of his design. If he has less imagination than Mr. Taylor, he has a richer and more glowing fancy; if his figures are less apt and striking, they are more elegant and symmetrical; if the harmonious dignity of his versification is less, its melodious sweetness is more; if he has less passion, he has more sensibility; if moral and physical grandeur are not so attractive to him, ideal and natural beauty are the only elements in which his life is endurable. We might pursue these contrasts to the end of our magazine; but if we have called the reader's attention to them, we have done enough.

From "Love and Solitude," by Mr. Taylor, we extract the following picture, in order to contrast it with the handling of the same subject by Mr. Stoddard in "The South:"

"Some island, on the purple plain
Of Polynesian main,
Where never yet adventurer's prore
Lay rocking near its coral shore:
A tropic mystery, which the enamored deep
Folds, as a beauty in a charméd sleep.
There lofty palms, of some imperial line,
That never bled their nimble wine,
Crowd all the hills, and out the headlands go
To watch on distant reefs the lazy brine
Turning its fringe of snow.
There, when the sun stands high
Upon the burning summit of the sky,
All shadows wither: Light alone
Is in the world: and pregnant grown
With teeming life, the trembling island earth
And panting sea forebode sweet pains of birth
Which never come;--their love brings never forth
The human Soul they lack alone."

_Taylor_, _page_ 16.

Half-way between the frozen zones,
Where Winter reigns in sullen mirth,
The Summer binds a golden belt
About the middle of the Earth,
The sky is soft, and blue, and bright,
With purple dyes at morn and night:
And bright and blue the seas which lie
In perfect rest, and glass the sky;
And sunny bays with inland curves
Round all along the quiet shore;
And stately palms, in pillared ranks
Grow down the borders of the banks,
And juts of land where billows roar;
The spicy woods are full of birds,
And golden fruits, and crimson flowers;
With wreathéd vines on every bough,
That shed their grapes in purple showers;
The emerald meadows roll their waves,
And bask in soft and mellow light;
The vales are full of silver mist,
And all the folded hills are bright;
But far along the welkin's rim
The purple crags and peaks are dim;
And dim the gulfs, and gorges blue,
With all the wooded passes deep;
All steeped in haze, and washed in dew,
And bathed in atmospheres of Sleep!

_Stoddard_, _page_ 14.

Passages like these say more for their authors than could any commendation from the critic. Observe how soon mere description is abandoned by Mr. Taylor, and he begins to put life and feeling into his scene. The deep is "enamored," the island is "in a charméd sleep," the palms are "imperial," and "crowd the hills," and "out the headlands go to watch the lazy brine," &c. All nature is alive. On the other hand, Mr. Stoddard loves nature for its beauty alone, without desiring in it any imaginable animation. The man who can read Mr. Taylor's "Kubla," without feeling the blood dance in his veins, should never confess it, for he is hardening into something beyond the reach of sympathy. In "The Soldier and the Pard," a poem of curious originality, Mr. Taylor pushes his belief in the all-pervading existence of moral nature to its last extreme. It closes with the following emphatic lines:

"And if a man
Deny this truth she [_the Pard_] taught me, to his face
I say he lies: a beast may have a soul!"

Without drawing too much on the tables of contents, we could not enumerate the many note-worthy pieces in these volumes; and it would much exceed our limits to give them even a passing word of comment. Among Mr. Stoddard's unmentioned poems, the "Hymn to Flora," an "Ode" of delicious melancholy, full of exquisite taste and finely-wrought fancies, "Spring," "Autumn," a "Hymn to the Beautiful," "The Broken Goblet," and "Triumphant Music," give the reader a clear insight into his peculiar characteristics, and open a vision of ideal beauty that no poet has exhibited in such Grecian perfection since the death of Keats. A poem, on page 115, is one that awakens peculiar emotions; it describes a state of half consciousness, when the senses are morbidly alive, and the perceptive faculties are fettered with dreams, or inspired by a strange memory that bears within it things not of this world, and hints at a previous and different existence.

"The yellow moon looks slantly down,
Through seaward mists, upon the town;
And like a mist the moonshine falls
Between the dim and shadowy walls.

I see a crowd in every street,
But cannot hear their falling feet;
They float like clouds through shade and light,
And seem a portion of the night.

The ships have lain, for ages fled,
Along the waters, dark and dead;
The dying waters wash no more
The long black line of spectral shore.

There is no life on land or sea,
Save in the quiet moon and me;
Nor ours is true, but only seems,
Within some dead old world of dreams!"

_Stoddard_, _page_ 115.

With this shadowy poem we close, begging our readers not to be terrified at the boldness with which we claim so high a place for the subjects of our review. They have that within them which will prove our commendations just, and establish them in the rank assigned by us, with a firmness that will need no critic's aid, and can be shaken by no critic's assault. We but add, let them remember that the fear of the world is the beginning of mischief. GEORGE H. BOKER.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] _A Book of Romances, Lyrics and Songs._ By BAYARD TAYLOR. Boston, Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 16mo. _Poems._ By RICHARD HENRY STODDARD Same publishers. 16mo.

THE UNDERGROUND TERRITORIES OF THE UNITED STATES.

The extraordinary caverns which underlie various parts of this country are of a description suitable in extent and magnificence to the general scale of nature here, in lakes, rivers, cataracts, valleys in which empires are cradled, prairies of scarcely conceivable vastness, and mountains whose bases are amid perpetual flowers and where frozen seas have never intermission of their crashing thunders. In Virginia, New-York, and other states, the caves of Weyer, Schoharie, and many that are less famous but not inferior in beauty or grandeur, are well known to travellers; but the MAMMOTH CAVE, under Kentucky, is world renowned, and such felon states as Naples might hide in it from the scorn of mankind. Considering the common curiosity respecting that strange subterranean country, and the fact of its being resorted to in winter by valetudinarians, on account of its admirable climate--so that our article is altogether seasonable--we give, chiefly from a letter by Mrs. Child, a very full description of this eighth wonder of the world--illustrated by engravings from recent drawings made under the direction of the Rev. Horace Martin, who proposes soon to furnish for tourists an ample volume on the subject.

The Mammoth Cave is in the southwest part of Kentucky, about a hundred miles from Louisville, and sixty from Harrodsburg Springs. The word _cave_ is ill calculated to impress the imagination with an idea of its surpassing grandeur. It is in fact a subterranean world; containing within itself territories extensive enough for half a score of German principalities. It should be named Titans' Palace, or Cyclops' Grotto. It lies among the Knobs, a range of hills, which border an extent of country, like highland prairies, called the Barrens. The surrounding scenery is lovely. Fine woods of oak, hickory, and chestnut, clear of underbrush, with smooth, verdant openings, like the parks of English noblemen.

The cave was purchased by Dr. John Croghan, for ten thousand dollars. To prevent a disputed title, in case any new and distant opening should be discovered, he has likewise bought a wide circuit of adjoining land. His enthusiasm concerning it is unbounded. It is in fact his world; and every newly-discovered chamber fills him with pride and joy, like that felt by Columbus, when he first kissed his hand to the fair Queen of the Antilles. He has built a commodious hotel[B] near the entrance, in a style well suited to the place. It is made of logs, filled in with lime; with a fine large porch, in front of which is a beautiful verdant lawn. Near by, is a funnel-shaped hollow of three hundred acres; probably a cave fallen in. It is called Deer Park, because when those animals run into it, they cannot escape. There are troops of wild deer in the immediate vicinity of the hotel; bear-hunts are frequent, and game of all kinds abounds.

Walking along the verge of this hollow, you come to a ravine, leading to Green River, whence you command a view of what is supposed to be the main entrance to the cave. It is a huge cavernous arch, filled in with immense stones, as if giants had piled them there, to imprison a conquered demon. No opening has ever been effected here, nor is it easy to imagine that it could be done by the strength of man. In rear of the hotel is a deep ravine densely wooded, and covered with a luxuriant vegetable growth. It leads to Green River, and was probably once a water course. A narrow ravine, diverging from this, leads, by a winding path, to the entrance of the cave. It is a high arch of rocks, rudely piled, and richly covered with ivy and tangled vines. At the top, is a perennial fountain of sweet and cool water, which trickles down continually from the centre of the arch, through the pendent foliage, and is caught in a vessel below. The entrance of this wide arch is somewhat obstructed by a large mound of saltpetre, thrown up by workmen engaged in its manufacture, during the last war. In the course of their excavations, they dug up the bones of a gigantic man; but, unfortunately, they buried them again, without any memorial to mark the spot. They have been sought for by the curious and scientific, but are not yet found.

As you come opposite the entrance of the cave, in summer, the temperature changes instantaneously, from about 85° to below 60°, and you feel chilled as if by the presence of an iceberg. In winter, the effect is reversed. The scientific have indulged in various speculations concerning the air of this cave. It is supposed to get completely filled with cold winds during the long blasts of winter, and as there is no outlet, they remain pent up till the atmosphere without becomes warmer than that within; when there is, of course, a continual effort toward equilibrium. Why the air within the cave should be so fresh, pure, and equable, all the year round, even in its deepest recesses, is not so easily explained. Some have suggested that it is continually modified by the presence of chemical agents. Whatever may be the cause, its agreeable salubrity is observed by every visitor, and it is said to have great healing power in diseases of the lungs. The amount of exertion which can be performed here without fatigue, is astonishing. The superabundance of oxygen in the atmosphere operates like moderate doses of exhilarating gas. The traveller feels a buoyant sensation, which tempts him to run and jump, and leap from crag to crag, and bound over the stones in his path. The mind, moreover, sustains the body, being kept in a state of delightful activity, by continual new discoveries and startling revelations.

The wide entrance to the cavern soon contracts, so that but two can pass abreast. At this place, called the Narrows, the air from dark depths beyond blows out fiercely, as if the spirits of the cave had mustered there, to drive intruders back to the realms of day. This path continues about fourteen or fifteen rods, and emerges into a wider avenue, floored with saltpetre earth, from which the stones have been removed. This leads directly into the Rotunda, a vast hall, comprising a surface of eight acres, arched with a dome a hundred feet high, without a single pillar to support it. It rests on irregular ribs of dark gray rock, in massive oval rings, smaller and smaller, one seen within another, till they terminate at the top. Perhaps this apartment impresses the traveller as much as any portion of the cave; because from it he receives his first idea of its gigantic proportions. The vastness, the gloom, the impossibility of taking in the boundaries by the light of lamps--all these produce a deep sensation of awe and wonder.

From the Rotunda, you pass into Audubon's Avenue, from eighty to a hundred feet high, with galleries of rock on each side, jutting out farther and father, till they nearly meet at top. This avenue branches out into a vast half-oval hall, called the Church. This contains several projecting galleries, one of them resembling a cathedral choir. There is a gap in the gallery, and at the point of interruption, immediately above, is a rostrum, or pulpit, the rocky canopy of which juts over. The guide leads up from the adjoining galleries, and places a lamp each side of the pulpit, on flat rocks, which seem made for the purpose. There has been preaching from this pulpit; but unless it was superior to most theological teaching, it must have been pitifully discordant with the sublimity of the place. Five thousand people could stand in this subterranean temple with ease.

So far, all is irregular, jagged rocks, thrown together in fantastic masses, without any particular style; but now begins a series of imitations, which grow more and more perfect, in gradual progression, till you arrive at the end. From the Church you pass into what is called the Gothic Gallery, from its obvious resemblance to that style of architecture. Here is Mummy Hall; so called because several mummies have been found seated in recesses of the rock. Without any process of embalming, they were in as perfect a state of preservation, as the mummies of Egypt; for the air of the cave is so dry and unchangeable, and so strongly impregnated with nitre, that decomposition cannot take place. A mummy found here in 1813, was the body of a woman five feet ten inches high, wrapped in half-dressed deer skins, on which were rudely drawn white veins and leaves. At the feet, lay a pair of moccasons, and a handsome knapsack, made of bark: containing strings of small shining seeds; necklaces of bears' teeth, eagles' claws, and fawns' red hoofs; whistles made of cane; two rattlesnakes' skins, one having on it fourteen rattles; coronets for the head, made of erect feathers of rooks and eagles; smooth needles of horn and bone, some of them crooked like sail-needles; deers' sinews, for sewing, and a parcel of three-corded thread, resembling twine. I believe one of these mummies is now in the British Museum. From Mummy Hall you pass into Gothic Avenue, where the resemblance to Gothic architecture very perceptibly increases. The wall juts out in pointed arches, and pillars, on the sides of which are various grotesque combinations of rock. One is an elephant's head. The tusks and sleepy eyes are quite perfect; the trunk, at first very distinct, gradually recedes, and is lost in the rock. On another pillar is a lion's head; on another, a human head with a wig, called Lord Lyndhurst, from its resemblance to that dignitary.

From this gallery you can step into a side cave, in which is an immense pit, called the Lover's Leap. A huge rock, fourteen or fifteen feet long, like an elongated sugar-loaf running to a sharp point, projects half way over this abyss. It makes one shudder to see the guide walk almost to the end of this projectile bridge, over such an awful chasm. As you pass along, the Gothic Avenue narrows, until you come to a porch composed of the first separate columns in the cave. The stalactite and stalagmite formations unite in these irregular masses of brownish yellow, which, when the light shines through them, look like transparent amber. They are sonorous as a clear-toned bell. A pendent mass, called the Bell, has been unfortunately broken, by being struck too powerfully.

The porch of columns leads to the Gothic Chapel, which has the circular form appropriate to a true church. A number of pure stalactite columns fill the nave with arches, which in many places form a perfect Gothic roof. The stalactites fall in rich festoons, strikingly similar to the highly ornamented chapel of Henry VII. Four columns in the centre form a separate arch by themselves, like trees twisted into a grotto, in all irregular and grotesque shapes. Under this arch stands Wilkins' arm-chair, a stalactite formation, well adapted to the human figure. The Chapel is the most beautiful specimen of the Gothic in the cave. Two or three of the columns have richly foliated capitals, like the Corinthian.

If you turn back to the main avenue, and strike off in another direction, you enter a vast room, with several projecting galleries, called the Ball Room. In close vicinity, as if arranged by the severer school of theologians, is a large amphitheatre, called Satan's Council Chamber. From the centre rises a mountain of big stones, rudely piled one above another, in a gradual slope, nearly one hundred feet high. On the top rests a huge rock, big as a house, called Satan's Throne. The vastness, the gloom, partially illuminated by the glare of lamps, forcibly remind one of Lucifer on his throne, as represented by Martin in his illustrations of Milton. It requires little imagination to transform the uncouth rocks all around the throne, into attendant demons. Indeed, throughout the cave, Martin's pictures are continually brought to mind, by the unearthly effect of intense gleams of light on black masses of shadow. In this Council Chamber, the rocks, with singular appropriateness, change from an imitation of Gothic architecture, to that of the Egyptian. The dark, massive walls resemble a series of Egyptian tombs, in dull and heavy outline. In this place is an angle, which forms the meeting point of several caves, and is therefore considered one of the finest points of view. Here parties usually stop and make arrangements to kindle the Bengal Lights, which travellers always carry with them. It has a strange and picturesque effect to see groups of people dotted about, at different points of view, their lamps hidden behind stones, and the light streaming into the thick darkness, through chinks in the rocks. When the lights begin to burn, their intense radiance casts a strong glare on Satan's Throne; the whole of the vast amphitheatre is revealed to view, and you can peer into the deep recesses of two other caves beyond. For a few moments, gigantic proportions and uncouth forms stand out in the clear, strong gush of brilliant light! and then--all is darkness. The effect is so like magic, that one almost expects to see towering genii striding down the deep declivities, or startled by the brilliant flare, shake off their long sleep among the dense black shadows.

If you enter one of the caves revealed in the distance, you find yourself in a deep ravine, with huge piles of gray rock jutting out more and more, till they nearly meet at top. Looking upward, through this narrow aperture, you see, high, high above you, a vaulted roof of _black_ rock, studded with brilliant spar, like constellations in the sky, seen at midnight, from the deep clefts of a mountain. This is called the Star Chamber. It makes one think of Schiller's grand description of William Tell sternly waiting for Gessler, among the shadows of the Alps, and of Wordsworth's picture of

"Yorkshire dales
Among the rocks and winding scars,
Where deep and low the hamlets lie,
Beneath their little patch of sky,
And little lot of stars."

In this neighborhood is a vast, dreary chamber, which Stephen, the guide, called Bandit's Hall, the first moment his eye rested on it; and the name is singularly expressive of its character. Its ragged roughness and sullen gloom are indescribable. The floor is a mountainous heap of loose stones, and not an inch of even surface could be found on roof or walls. Imagine two or three travellers, with their lamps, passing through this place of evil aspect. The deep, suspicions-looking recesses and frightful crags are but partially revealed in the feeble light. All at once, a Bengal Light blazes up, and every black rock and frowning cliff stands out in the brilliant glare. The contrast is sublime beyond imagination. It is as if a man had seen the hills and trees of this earth only in the dim outline of a moonless night, and they should, for the first time, be revealed to him in the gushing glory of the morning sun. But the greatest wonder in this region of the cave, is Mammoth Dome--a giant among giants. It is so immensely high and vast, that three of the most powerful Bengal Lights illuminate it very imperfectly. That portion of the ceiling which becomes visible, is three hundred feet above your head, and remarkably resembles the aisles of Westminster Abbey. It is supposed that the top of this dome is near the surface of the ground. Another route from the Devil's Council Chamber conducts you to a smooth, level path, called Pensacola Avenue. Here are numerous formations of crystallized gypsum, but not as beautiful or as various as are found farther on. From various slopes and openings, caves above and below are visible. The Mecca's shrine of this pilgrimage is Angelica's Grotto, completely lined and covered with the largest and richest dog's tooth spar. A person who visited the place, a few years since, laid his sacrilegious hands upon it, while the guide's back was turned towards whim. He coolly demolished a magnificent mass of spar, sparkling most conspicuously on the very centre of the arch, and wrote his own insignificant name in its place. This was _his_ fashion of securing immortality! It is well that fairies and giants are powerless in the nineteenth century, else had the indignant genii of the cave crushed his bones to impalpable powder.

If you pass behind Satan's Throne, by a narrow ascending path, you come into a vast hall where there is nothing but naked rock. This empty dreary place is appropriately called the Deserted Chamber. Walking along the verge, you arrive at another avenue, inclosing sulphur springs. Here the guide warns you of the vicinity of a pit, one hundred and twenty feet deep, in the shape of a saddle. Stooping over it, and looking upward, you see an abyss of precisely the same shape over head; a fact which indicates that it began in the upper region, and was merely interrupted by this chamber.

From this, you may enter a narrow and very tortuous path, called the Labyrinth, which leads to an immense split, or chasm, in the rocks. Here is placed a ladder, down which you descend twenty-five or thirty feet, and enter a narrow cave below, which brings you to a combination of rock called the Gothic Window. You stand in this recess, while the guided ascends huge cliffs overhead, and kindles Bengal Lights, by the help of which you see, two hundred feet above you, a Gothic dome of one solid rock, perfectly overawing in its vastness and height. Below, is an abyss of darkness, which no eye but the Eternal can fathom. If, instead of descending the ladder, you pass straight alongside the chasm, you arrive at the Bottomless Pit, beyond which no one ever ventured to proceed till 1838. To this fact we probably owe the meagre account given by Lieber, in the Encyclopædia Americana. He says, "This cave is more remarkable for extent, than the variety or beauty of its productions; having none of the beautiful stalactites found in many other caves." For a long period this pit was considered bottomless, because, when stones were thrown into it, they reverberated and reverberated along the sides, till lost to the ear, but seemed to find no resting place. It has since been sounded, and found to be one hundred and forty feet deep, with a soft muddy bottom, which returns no noise when a stone strikes upon it. In 1838, the adventurous Stephen threw a ladder across the chasm, and passed over. There is now a narrow bridge of two planks, with a little railing on each side; but as it is impossible to sustain it by piers, travellers must pass over in the centre, one by one, and not touch the railing, lest they disturb the balance, and overturn the bridge.

This walk brings you into Pensico Avenue. Hitherto, the path has been rugged, wild, and rough, interrupted by steep acclivities, rocks, and big stones; but this avenue has a smooth and level floor, as if the sand had been spread out by gently flowing waters. Through this, descending more and more, you come to a deep arch, by which you enter the Winding Way; a strangely irregular and zig-zag path, so narrow that a very stout man could not squeeze through. In some places, the rocks at the sides are on a line with your shoulders, then piled high over your head; and then again you rise above, and overlook them all, and see them heaped behind you, like the mighty waves of the Red Sea, parted for the Israelites to pass through. This toilsome path was evidently made by a rushing, winding torrent. Toward the close, the water not having force enough to make a smooth bed, has bored a tunnel. This is so low and narrow, that the traveller is obliged to stoop and squeeze himself through. Suddenly he passes into a vast hall, called the Great Relief; and this leads into the River Hall, at the side of which you have a glimpse of a small cave, called the Smoke House, because it is hung with rocks perfectly in the shape of hams. The River Hall descends like the slope of a mountain. The ceiling stretches away--away--before you, vast and grand as the firmament at midnight. No one, who has never seen this cave, can imagine the excitement, and awe, with which the traveller keeps his eye fixed on the rocky ceiling, which, gradually revealed in the passing light, continually exhibits some new and unexpected feature of sublimity or beauty.

One of the most picturesque sights in the world, is to see a file of men and women passing along these wild and craggy paths--slowly, slowly--that their lamps may have time to illuminate the sky-like ceiling, and gigantic walls; disappearing behind the high cliffs, sinking into ravines, their lights shining upward through fissures in the rocks; then suddenly emerging from some abrupt angle, standing in the bright gleam of their lamps, relieved against the towering black masses around them. He who could paint the infinite variety of creation, can alone give an adequate description of this marvellous region. At one side of River Hall is a steep precipice, over which you can look down, by aid of blazing missiles, upon a broad, black sheet of water, eighty feet below, called the Dead Sea. This is an awfully impressive place, the sights and sounds of which do not easily pass from memory. He who has seen it will have it vividly brought before him by Alfieri's description of Filippo: "Only a transient word or act gives us a short and dubious glimmer, that reveals to us the abysses of his being; dark, lurid, and terrific, as the throat of the infernal pool." As you pass along, you hear the roar of invisible waterfalls, and at the foot of the slope, the River Styx lies before you, deep and black, overarched with rock. The first glimpse of it brings to mind the descent of Ulysses into hell.

"Where the dark rock o'erhangs the infernal lake,
And mingling screams eternal murmurs make."

Across these unearthly waters, the guide can convey but two passengers at once; and these sit motionless in the canoe, with feet turned apart, so as not to disturb the balance. Three lamps are fastened to the prow, the images of which are reflected in the dismal pool.

If you are impatient of delay, or eager for new adventures, you can leave your companions lingering about the shore, and cross the Styx by a dangerous bridge of precipices overhead. In order to do this, you must ascend a steep cliff and enter a cave above, from an egress of which you find yourself on the bank of the river, eighty feet above its surface, commanding a view of those passing in the boat, and those waiting on the shore. Seen from this height, the lamps in the canoe glare like fiery eyeballs; and the passengers sitting there, so hushed and motionless, look like shadows. The scene is so strangely funereal and spectral, that it seems as if the Greeks must have witnessed it, before they imagined Charon conveying ghosts to the dim regions of Pluto. Your companions, thus seen, do indeed--

"Skim along the dusky glades,
Thin airy shoals, and visionary shades."

If you turn your eye from the canoe, to the parties of men and women, whom you left waiting on the shore, you will see them, by the gleam of their lamps, scattered in picturesque groups, looming out in bold relief from the dense darkness around them.

When you have passed the Styx, you soon meet another stream, appropriately called Lethe. The echoes here are absolutely stunning. A single voice sounds like a powerful choir; and could an organ be played, it would deprive the hearer of his senses. When you have crossed, you enter a high level hall, named the Great Walk, half a mile of which brings you to another river, called the Jordan. In crossing this, the rocks, in one place, descend so low, as to leave only eighteen inches for the boat to pass through. Passengers are obliged to double up, and lie on each other's shoulders till this gap is passed. This uncomfortable position is, however, of short duration, and you suddenly emerge to where the vault of the cave is more than a hundred feet high. In the fall of the year, this river often rises, almost instantaneously, over fifty feet above low-water mark; a phenomenon supposed to be caused by heavy rains from the upper earth. On this account, autumn is an unfavorable season for those who wish to explore the cave throughout. If parties happen to be caught on the other side of Jordan, when the sudden rise takes place, a boat conveys them, on the swollen waters, to the level of an upper cave, so low that they are obliged to enter on hands and knees, and crawl through. This place is called Purgatory. People on the other side, aware of their danger, have a boat in readiness to receive them. The guide usually sings while crossing the Jordan, and his voice is reverberated by a choir of sweet echoes. The only animals ever found in the cave are fish, with which this stream abounds. They are perfectly white, and without eyes; at least, they have been subjected to a careful scientific examination, and no organ similar to an eye can be discovered. It would indeed be a useless appendage to creatures that dwell for ever in Cimmerian darkness. But, as usual, the acuteness of one sense is increased by the absence of another. These fish are undisturbed by the most powerful glare of light, but they are alarmed at the slightest agitation of the water; and it is therefore exceedingly difficult to catch them.

The rivers of Mammoth Cave were never crossed till 1840. Great efforts have been made to discover whence they come, and whither they go. But though the courageous Stephen has floated for hours up to his chin, and forced his way through the narrowest apertures under the dark waves, so as to leave merely his head a breathing space, yet they still remain as much a mystery as ever--without beginning or end, like eternity. They disappear under arches, which, even at the lowest stage of the water, are under the surface of it. From an unknown cause, it sometimes happens in the neighborhood of these streams, that the figure of a distant companion will apparently loom up, to the height of ten or twelve feet, as he approaches you. This occasional phenomenon is somewhat frightful, even to the most rational observer, occurring as it does in a region so naturally associated with giants and genii.

From the Jordan, through Silliman's Avenue, you enter a high, narrow defile, or pass, in a portion of which, called the Hanging Rocks, huge masses of stone hang suspended over your head. At the side of this defile, is a recess, called the Devil's Blacksmith's Shop. It contains a rock shaped like an anvil, with a small inky current running near it, and quantities of coarse stalagmite scattered about, precisely like blacksmith's cinders, called slag. In another place, you pass a square rock, covered with beautiful dog's tooth spar, called the Mile Stone.

This pass brings you into Wellington's Gallery, which tapers off to a narrow point, apparently the end of the cave in this direction. But a ladder is placed on one side by which you ascend to a small cleft in the rock, through which you are at once ushered into a vast apartment, discovered about two years ago. This is the commencement of Cleveland's Avenue, the crowning wonder and glory of this subterranean world. At the head of the ladder, you find yourself surrounded by overhanging stalactites, in the form of rich clusters of grapes, transparent to the light, hard as marble, and round and polished, as if done by a sculptor's hand. This is called Mary's Vineyard; and from it, an entrance to the right brings you into a perfectly naked cave, whence you suddenly pass into a large hall, with magnificent columns, and rich festoons of stalactite, in various forms of beautiful combination. In the centre of this chamber, between columns of stalactite, stands a mass of stalagmite, shaped like a sarcophagus, in which is an opening like a grave. A Roman Catholic priest first discovered this, about a year ago, and with fervent enthusiasm exclaimed, "The Holy Sepulchre!" a name which it has since borne.

To the left of Mary's Vineyard, is an inclosure like an arbor, the ceiling and sides of which are studded with snow-white crystallized gypsum, in the form of all sorts of flowers. It is impossible to convey an idea of the exquisite beauty and infinite variety of these delicate formations. In some places, roses and lilies seem cut on the rock, in bas-relief; in others, a graceful bell rises on a long stalk, so slender that it bends at a breath. One is an admirable imitation of Indian corn in tassel, the silky fibres as fine and flexile as can be imagined; another is a group of ostrich plumes, so downy that a zephyr waves it. In some nooks were little parks of trees, in others, gracefully curled leaves like the Acanthus, rose from the very bosom of the rock. Near this room is the Snow Chamber, the roof and sides of which are covered with particles of brilliant white gypsum, as if snowballs had been dashed all over the walls. In another apartment the crystals are all in the form of rosettes. In another, called Rebecca's Garland, the flowers have all arranged themselves into wreaths. Each seems to have a style of formations peculiar to itself, though of infinite variety. Days might be spent in these superb grottoes, without becoming familiar with half their hidden glories. One could imagine that some antediluvian giant had here imprisoned some fair daughter of earth, and then in pity for her loneliness, had employed fairies to deck her bowers with all the splendor of earth and ocean. Like poor Amy Robsart, in the solitary halls of Cumnor. Bengal Lights, kindled in these beautiful retreats, produce an effect more gorgeous than any theatrical representation of fairyland; but they smoke the pure white incrustations, and the guide is therefore very properly reluctant to have them used. The reflection from the shining walls is so strong, that lamplight is quite sufficient. Moreover, these wonderful formations need to be examined slowly and in detail. The universal glitter of the Lights is worthless in comparison. From Rebecca's Garland you come into a vast hall, of great height, covered with shining drops of gypsum, like oozing water petrified. In the centre is a large rock, four feet high, and level at top, round which several hundred people can sit conveniently. This is called Cornelia's Table, and is frequently used for parties to dine upon. In this hall, and in Wellington's Gallery, are deposits of fibrous gypsum, snow-white, dry, and resembling asbestos. Geologists, who sometimes take up their abode in the cave for weeks, and other travellers who choose to remain over night, find this a very pleasant and comfortable bed.