Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

To you I would commend him as an example. Read his letter to a young law-student. As you are so soon to enter the profession of law, such a model as Mr. Calhoun may be studied with advantage. While I would never wish any one to lose his own individuality, or to descend to imitation, I believe that one gifted mind leaves its impress on another; while I would not deify or canonize a mortal, I would render homage to one who united such moral attainments to so rare a combination of intellectual gifts; while it is degrading to ourselves and injurious to others to lavish unmerited and extravagant praise, it is a loss not to appreciate a character like his, for it ennobles our own nature to contemplate the true and the beautiful.

Although it is said that our country is in danger from its ideas of equality, and its want of reverence and esteem for age, and wisdom, and office, and talents, and attainments, and virtues--and this feature of the American character is so strongly impressed that Mar Yohannah, the Nestorian bishop, said in my presence, in his peculiar English, "Yes, I know this nation glory in its republicanism, but I am afraid it will become republican to God"--yet it is a cheering omen when a man like Mr. Calhoun is so beloved and reverenced. I think every one who was favored with a personal acquaintance with him will admit that I have not been guilty of exaggeration, and "will delight to do him honor."

The question naturally arises, to what are we to ascribe the formation of such a character? There must have been causes for such effects. Whence came his temperance, his self-denial, his incorruptible integrity, his fidelity in every duty, his love for mankind, his indefatigable efforts for the good of others, and his superiority to those things which the natural heart most craves? Mr. Calhoun's childhood was spent among the glorious works of nature, and was sheltered from the temptations which abound in promiscuous society. He was the son of pious parents, and by them he was taught the Bible, and from that source undoubtedly his native gifts were perfected. I have understood that from early life he was an advocate for the doctrines of the Bible, as understood by orthodox Christians. I have been told by relatives of his who were on the most intimate terms with him, that for some time before his death his mind had seemed to be much occupied with religious subjects, and that he too often expressed confidence in the providence of God to leave any doubt as to his trust in Him. An eminent clergyman, now deceased, said in conversation with another, that he had often conversed with Mr. Calhoun on the subject of religion, and had no doubt as to his piety. I have remarked his reverential air in church, and have known him apparently much disturbed by any inattention in others. He never united with any church, and it is my opinion, formed not without some reason, that he was prevented, not by disregard to any Christian ordinances, but from personal and conscientious scruples with respect to his qualifications. He was a man who weighed every thing with mathematical precision.

Although open as day on topics of general interest, he was reserved in respect to himself. I do not recollect ever to have heard him speak egotistically, for his mind seemed always engrossed by some great thought, and he appears, even at the close of life, to lose all personal solicitudes in his anxiety for his country. In one of his last letters he says, "But I must close. This may be my last communication to you. My end is probably near, perhaps very near. Before I reach it, I have but one serious wish to gratify--it is to see my country quieted under some arrangement (alas, I know not what!) that will be satisfactory to all and safe to the south." His country's peace, and quietness, and safety, he did not see; he perished in the storm; and there are many who knew and loved him who cherish the hope that he is removed to a higher sphere of action--that his noble spirit has meekly entered into the presence of its author, and that in the starry courts above he will receive an inheritance "incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away."

When I saw the elaborate preparations which were made here in Charleston for his funeral, knowing his simple tastes and habits, and his benevolence, I was at first pained, and I thought he would not have sanctioned so much display. I feared too that solemnity would be lost in pageantry. But it was not so. There was nothing to jar upon the feelings of the most sensitive. All was in perfect and mournful harmony. Silently and reverently his sorrowing countrymen bore his remains from the steamer where they had reposed, under a canopy wearing its thirty stars, and when the hearse, so funereal with mournful drapery and sable plumes, entered the grounds of the citadel, deep silence brooded over the vast multitude; noiselessly were heads uncovered, banners dropped--not a sound but that of the tramp of horses was heard; statue-like was that phalanx, with every eye uplifted, to the sacred sarcophagus. If there was too much of show, it was redeemed by the spirit that prompted it: the symbols, significant and expressive, as they were, faintly shadowed forth the deep and universal grief; the mournful pageantry, the tolling bell, the muffled drum, the closed and shrouded stores and houses, gave external signs of wo, but more impressive and affecting was the peaceful sadness which brooded over the metropolis while it awaited the relics of the patriot, and the deep silence which pervaded the vast procession that followed to the City Hall, the subdued bearing of the crowd who resorted thither, and the solemnity expressed on every face--for these told that the great heart of the city and commonwealth wept in hushed and sincere sorrow over "the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle."

One day and night the illustrious dead reposed in state in the draped and darkened Hall. An entrance was formed by the arching palmetto, that classic tree, under whose branches Dudon the crusader was placed, when slain in Palestine. On that tree--"altissima palma"--his comrades placed his trophies. With a spirit as sad as that of the crusaders when under the verdant foliage of the palm they mourned the noble Dudon, did those who loved our champion pass beneath that arch, dark with funereal gloom. The sarcophagus was within a magnificent catafalque; the canopy rested on Corinthian columns; the bier was apparently supported by six urns, while three pearl-colored eagles surmounted the canopy, holding in their beaks the swinging crape. Invisible lamps cast moonlight beams over the radiated upper surface of the canopy. Through the day numbers resorted to this hallowed spot, and at night vigils were held where the dead reposed. When morning came the chosen guards carried the remains of the great leader to the church. The funeral car was not allowed to bear these sacred remains to the tomb, but they were borne by sons of the state, with uncovered heads. Well might those who saw all these things feel that Carolina would never be wanting to herself. The body was placed upon the bier, surrounded by significant offerings, pure flowers and laurel-wreaths. A velvet pall, revealing in silver lines the arms of the state, the palmetto, covered the sarcophagus. Above it was a coronet woven of laurel-leaves, like that which crowned Tasso. Then, in that church, where columns, arches, and galleries were shrouded in the drapery of wo, the funeral rites were performed--the mighty dead was placed in his narrow tomb.

Peerless statesman, illustrious counsellor, devoted patriot, generous friend, indulgent husband and father, thy humble, noble heart is still in death; thy life was yielded up at the post of duty; thou hast perished like a sentinel on guard, a watchman in his tower. "Thou wast slain in thy high places." Clouds gathered thick and fast about thy country's horizon, and even thy eagle eye failed in its mournful gaze to penetrate the gloom which hides its future from mortal eye. Thy work is finished--peacefully rest with thine own! Thy memory is enshrined in the hearts of those for whom thy heart ceased its beating. Thy grave is with us--

"Yet spirit immortal, the tomb cannot bind thee,
For like thine own eagle that soared to the sun,
Thou springest from bondage, and leavest behind thee
A name which before thee few mortals have won."

In reviewing the character of Mr. Calhoun, we find a rare combination of mental and moral qualities--a union of contrasts. He had genius with common sense, the power of generalization with the habit of abstraction, rapidity of thought with application and industry. His mind was suggestive and logical, imaginative and practical. His noble ideal was embodied in his daily life. He was at once discursive and profound; he could soar like the eagle, or hover on unwearied wings around a minute circle. He meekly bore his lofty endowments; his childlike simplicity imparted a charm to his transcendent intellect; he united dignity with humility, sincerity with courtesy, decision with gentleness, stern inflexibility with winning urbanity, and keen sensibility with perfect self-command. He was indulgent to others, denying to himself; he was energetic in health, and patient in sickness; he combined strict temperance with social habits; he was reserved in communicating his personal feelings, but his heart was open on subjects of general interest; he prized the regard of his fellow-beings, but was superior to worldly pomps and flatteries; he honored his peers, but was not swayed by their opinions. Equal to the greatest, he did not despise the least of men. He did not neglect one duty to perform another. In the Senate he was altogether a senator, in private and domestic life he was as though he had never entered the halls of the nation, and had never borne an illustrious part in the councils of his country.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] _Vide_ Macaulay's article on Warren Hastings, in the Edinburgh Review.

STYLES OF PHILOSOPHIES.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY REV. J. R. MORELL,

Translator of Fourier "On the Passions," &c.

The history of literatures, like that of nations, has presented its varieties as well as its curiosities, and both alike furnish similar though not identical features.

1st. Families and clans are traceable equally in each development, and the movements both of literatures and races have displayed a corresponding monotony and eccentricity, convergence and divergence, in proportion as they have progressed along the beaten track of opinion or performed outpost duty as the corps of guides.

2d. Not only is this family likeness obvious in the general characteristics of ethnography and authorship, but the laws of lineage and the hereditary transmission of qualities are as strongly marked in one case as in the other. Letters as well as races have their hereditary sceptres and coronets; but whereas, in the latter case the fleshly heir of the great of other days may chance to be unworthy of his sires, the spiritual sonship of the patrician writer is stereotyped upon each line and lineament of his nature.

3d. Nor is the connection between words and peoples confined to a law of analogy running through them both, but they have reacted upon and moulded each other in a manner curious to relate, and races and letters have mutually made and unmade each other.

4th. The Indo-Germanic people have left monuments of their sinewy energy in the psycho-physical characteristics of affiliated races and tongues, and individual family likenesses may be readily traced between groups of thinkers and dreamers on the banks of the Ganges, in the Academy, and at Weimar. Again the mystical semitic world, groaning beneath the weight of an overwrought ideal, and lacking the ballast of science and patient thought, has ever and anon given birth to prodigies and monsters of cabalistic or Gnostic extravagance.

5th. To follow the currents of peoples and tongues, the great subdivisions of the Teutonic and Romance tribes and literatures, their virtues and vices have stamped its present physical and moral character on the face of modern Europe. The Teutonic, representing strength and depth in word and work, has been the stronghold of emancipation in life and thought, yet tinctured with the savageness and chaos of unpolished and disordered nature. The Romance, fettered by the rhythm of Latinity, has yet possessed that voluptuous wealth of the ideal and that graceful tracery of thought and wit which have been denied to the other. The antagonism of the Catholic and Protestant mind is the result of this contrast, which has, moreover, been pictured in the tertian fevers of French revolution and in the mystical skepticism of modern Germany.

As certain races, so also certain families of writers, have in thought transcended the bounds of the existing and actual, and thrown out from their brain an ideal past, present, or future, beyond the horizon, and free from the flaws of their experience. Thus, whilst the followers of Tao-tse were in China seeking for the drug of immortality, the Greek and Roman poets and historians were dreaming of a golden age that cast its radiance over the past, or of that fabled Atlantis and those sweet Islands of the Blest in the far west--dreams and fables that have been somewhat justified by modern discovery. Again sacred voices mingled with these aspirations, and the semitic bards and seers pronounced in their oracles an Eden for the past and a millenium for the future of man.

Nor were these views confined to the old world, for the followers of Columbus found, among the cannibals of the gulf, the traditions of a fountain of eternal youth, and later travellers were regaled with gorgeous stories of El Dorado and his empire--traditions and stories that seemed to point, however obscurely, to the Sitzbath and Californian riches.

There has likewise been a class of writers broad-cast through the nations who have sought to mend the present and make the future by holding the mirror to contemporaneous deformity, or painting the perspective of an earthly elysium with the rainbow tints of hope. Negatively or positively, directly or indirectly, these men had, in common, faith in the regeneration of humanity. Utopias are the familiar homes of such minds, either because they have a cast in their eyes, or because they are more clairvoyants than the vulgar herd. In the spring-time of our race, a Plato reflected on the poetical extravagancies of his day, and refracted the rays of golden fancy in the enchanted land of his Republic. The Hebrew seers in like manner, whilst they apply no measured castigations to the money-changers who converted the temple of God into a den of thieves, love to soar in sublimest rhapsody above the valley of dry bones and the shadow of death cast around them, and to indulge in visions of a vernal future, when earth should smile in the sunshine of infinite love, when the wolf should dwell with the lamb and the leopard lie down with the kid, and a little child should lead them. Affiliated members of this extensive and venerable company of cynics and seers have ever and anon in the current of ages lifted a frowning brow above the troubled waters round about them, and with the same breath that swept like a tempest over the wintry waste, their cradle and their home, have given utterance to strains of harmony that told of summer skies to come. Tracing the tides of the children of men in their eccentric ebbings and floodings, a little crew of rovers may be ever seen ploughing the world of waters, true to their principle of keeping aloof from the gulf-stream. Europe has been the chief nursery of these rovers, whose voices, though few and far between, have risen above the storms of evil passions howling about them, and have echoed through the ages. Thus a Rabelais could laugh the knell of monkery, and with his stentor voice, rich booming from the classic world of Nature, that had slept during the dark ages, could crack the babel of spiritual usurpation, and restore the balance of power between the seen and the unseen. A Cervantes in like manner could, in the fulness of time, inflict death-wounds with a stroke of his pen on a superannuated chivalry, and thus, by negatively giving a _coup de grace_ to the past, pave the way for an age of prose. Later in the day a Swift appears, in the heart of a rotten age, himself infected with the leprosy, yet he smites the idols of his time, of Stuart progeny, Lust and Lucre, and converts his fables into a house of correction for a nation's vices. The Tale of a Tub contains a stream of lustral water, and Gulliver is no mean adept at the photographic art. The Dean hath taught us how the "positive" fictions of a madman's brain may indirectly be a school to the nations at all times and in all seasons.

Poesy has mixed its plaintive strains in the lamentations and oracles of insane or inspired reformers, and the aberration or illumination of a kindred spirit breaks forth in the wizard words of a prophet or a bard. Some favored scions of the royal priesthood and chosen generation of whom we speak seem to mingle these various and heterogeneous ingredients, the cynic's lash with the seer's lamp, mathematical squares and compasses with the conjurations of the diviner. Their proportions, both harmonious and deformed, bespeak their consanguinity with an extensive family, whose branches are scattered through broad lands, and are not confined to a single variety of the human race, though the quality and quantity of their _esprit de corps_ may be especially predicated of the Caucasian race.

There are sovereign natures that bespeak the choice blood of rival and remote races mingling in their veins, and which may claim kinsmanship in opposite and conflicting clans of teachers. We have Indo-Germanic minds, whose massive substance is relieved by the arabesque of the Semitic style of thought, and which, though stamped with the characteristic mould of their parentage, fling aside much of its speciality, and stand forth as magnates in the universal aristocracy of humanity.

An example of a rich nature cast in this mould has been presented of late years in France, in the person of Charles Fourier. Though indelibly French, he is still more human, and though Teutonic elements enter largely as component parts of his frame, and the Romance genius has cast its sunshine tints over his canvas, yet has he bravely shaken off the chains of generic and specific modes of thought and sight, and the priestly hieroglyphs and geometry of Egypt are seen to blend with Persian dualism and the prophetic wand of Hebrew seers in his pages. Nay, the mantle of Mohammed might seem to have fallen on his capacious shoulders, to judge from the strangely glorious flights of his fancy, and the tangible solids of his elysium. Thus the nations would appear to have converged towards and centred in this brain, and to have dropped in their pearls or their paste, as the case might be. Exaggerating the mathematical precision of French thought, it is yet tempered in a manner somewhat uncommon, by the most wholesale picture-writing on which man ever yet ventured. The flaming double-edged critic's sword is sometimes changed in his hands, after a manner wonderful to relate, into an Esculapian staff, which farther suffers a frequent conversion into Mercurian caduceus and Bacchanile Thyrsus, and at another time assumes the proportions of Midas's wand. Never was such a many-faced Janus seen in the flesh as this man, who exceeds Proteus and Hindoo avatars in multiplicity combined with unity.

The bitter laugh still curls our lips, elicited by his merciless satire, when the tears of pity come coursing down our cheeks, as he touches with magic finger the most godlike fibres of the soul. Luxuriance, bordering on levity, follows fast a sense of justice and of truth, that might have put a Brutus and an Aristides to the blush. National contrasts, harmonies, and deformities, all seem reflected in this representative man.

Yet it would be a very partial view that represented Fourier as nothing better than an expletive particle added to the genealogical list of idea-mongers, or a mosaic of valuable relics in earth's cabinet of curiosities. Though his pen inflicts wounds both broad and deep, yet a balm is ever at hand. Not satisfied with performing amputations for the good of the body corporate, he is a professor of the healing art, and affects to have discovered an elixir that shall wipe away all tears, by causing pain and sorrow to flee away. I do not profess to judge of the merits of the case, but one feature distinguishes Fourier from critics, reformers, and prophets, who are gathered to their fathers. He is a _scientific_ explorer, and the plans that he has designed for the future structure of humanity, from the high order of architecture and mechanics which they exhibit, discriminate him from the vulgar herd as an originator, and place him in the category either of eminent scientific adventurers or inventors. Daring and caution shake hands at every page, and seem exhausted by his pen. The Archimedian lever found a resting-place in his brain, and sundry of his thoughts seem not inapt to upheave the world.

If Laplace deserves credit as the creator of a Mechanique Celeste, Fourier has equal claims to gratitude as the first and only propounder of a rigidly scientific system of mental mechanics. Though Pythagoras might smile complacently at his harmonies and sacred numbers, and Plato clap his hands on seeing so worthy a disciple of his Republic, yet the fiery Frenchman is but too apt to run counter to the past, and give a slap in the face to the wisdom of the fore-world. Though hope and faith ever brighten his pages, we could wish at times for a larger infusion of charity, to neutralize the gall in which his pen was dipped. Yet he nobly vindicates his claim as a reformer by the lash he applies with no measured hand to injustice, falseness, and hypocrisy, under whatever guise they may appear.

REMINISCENCES OF PARIS, FROM 1817 TO 1848.

On the original publication of this work, in German, at Berlin, we gave in the _International_ some account of it; and we avail ourselves of the notice in the _Athenaeum_ of an English translation of it which has just appeared in London, to give some of its best passages. In the capital of a nation which, above all others, has been wont to project its gravest interests into the circles of fashion and gayety, the period included between 1817 and 1848 must have been rich indeed in matter for observation of all kinds, by the foreigner admitted to its saloons. With Waterloo at one end of the line, and the overthrow of Louis Philippe at the other, what a world of change lies between!--what unexpected turns of fortune, each throwing some new tint on the chameleon-play of social existence! We may not expect a lady's eye to see more than its outward features. But these alone, in such a scene and period, are themselves enough to give some permanent historical value, as well as a present attraction to the survey, if only taken with common feminine intelligence.

It is true that the retrospect is not actually so rich as the above dates would imply.--Connected notices of what might be seen in Parisian circles do not extend beyond the first seven years of the period in question. Afterwards, there is nearly a total hiatus, except in the two departments of music and painting--anecdotes of which are continued almost to the close of the Orleans dynasty. Of the persons and events which otherwise filled the scene from 1828 downwards, the _Reminiscences_ are wholly silent, or only introduce one or two figures by anticipation while dwelling on the period of the Restoration. The volume ends, indeed, with a story, in which some of the very latest exhibitions of somnambulism serve to introduce a Spanish romance, founded, it may be, on a basis of fact, but evidently dressed up for effect by one not well enough acquainted with the Spain of this century to give to the composition a probable air. But here the display in the Parisian saloon is merely an occasional overture to the melo-drama that follows; and we learn next to nothing of the new faces and new fashions which the writer may have seen during the second half of the term included in her title. What is now published, therefore, can only be taken as a fragment--destined, perhaps, to be further completed at some future time.

The work appears anonymously; and it might be uncourteous to pry into the condition of the writer, beyond what it has pleased herself to reveal. This is to the effect that she came to Paris, unmarried, and hardly out of her teens, from some part of Germany, in the second year of the Restoration, and, at first, was chiefly conversant with the circles of the _haute finance_. We afterwards hear of her marriage, of journeyings and absences, and see her in contact with various circles, but, above all, with painters and musicians; intimate also with Henriette, the daughter of the celebrated Jewish philosopher, Mendelssohn. She left Paris, she further says, before the explosion of 1848. More of her personal history she does not tell--and we shall not take the liberty of guessing.

Her notes are penned without any attempt at order; and make no pretence to dive far beneath the surface of what she saw in the world. They contain such light, lady-like reflections as one may fancy taken down without effort from the kaleidoscope of Paris life, in its balls, _soirees_, and promenades; and such anecdotes of notable things and persons as were current in ordinary company--many of which are well known, having been already reported by others. Here and there a graphic trait, or a remark above the level of commonplace, gives token of more lively intelligence, but the general character of the reminiscence is merely gossipping--just on the ordinary level of such observations and ideas as prevail in the common talk of the saloons. It is only when she touches on the fine arts, especially on music, that the lady displays decidedly clever notions of her own. Gleanings of this easy kind, from any lesser field than Paris, might hardly have been worth preserving; here, the abundance of matter is so great, that even the most careless hand returns from that strange harvest with some gatherings of value.

Among these we shall dip here and there, without attempting more order in selection than the author herself has observed in arranging her notes. Each may be read by and for itself without any disadvantage whatever.

In no respect, perhaps, does the Paris of to-day differ more from that of thirty years since than in the article of domestic comfort. After praising Madame Thuret, one of the financial _lionnes_ of the Restoration, for her attention to neatness, the lady adds:--

In Paris generally there was a marked contrast to this; as
well as to the Parisian cleanliness of present times. In
those days, even the dwellings of people of competent means,
there was not a trace of comfort. I have a lively
recollection of what happened when one of the younger
partners of M. Thuret gave a ball soon after his marriage.
Although the youth was rich, and had married a wealthy young
lady, the young couple, according to the Parisian custom of
the time, lived with their parents; who, rich as they were,
desiring to be richer still, had let out their splendid
hotel up to the fourth story. In this fourth story the whole
family lived together. After the Parisian finery, I was not
less struck with the Parisian filth of those days; and, in
truth, I should vainly try to paint my amazement on finding
myself compelled, while ascending the staircase, which was
actually plastered with dirt, to hold up my dress as high as
possible in order to appear tolerably clean in the
ball-room.

But if modern Paris has improved in this respect, it has, on the other hand, we are told, lost far more in the chapter of manners. The generation born during the first Revolution still preserved some of the older style of social bearing; but, in the present descendants, we may now vainly seek for any of the graces that once gave to France her European credit for politeness.

The French, after lording it over the capitals of Europe for so many years, were impatient to the last degree of the retribution which the allied armies brought to their own doors in 1816. Even a returning _emigre_ could not restrain his rage on finding that--

foreigners held the fortresses, and that he had to submit
his passport for a _vise_ to Prussian, Russian, or English
authorities; and he lost all command of himself at the idea
of the prostration of the _grande gloire Francaise_.... The
same wrath at the occupation of France by foreign troops--an
occupation which lasted for hardly three years--whereas the
French had ravaged Germany for full twenty, from the siege
of Mentz to the battle of Leipsic, was then felt in Paris by
all classes. Every little theatre on the Boulevards played
some piece referring to it in all the _refrains_ urging the
foreigners to be off at once; all the print-shops were full
of caricatures of the English and Russians. The German
soldiers, by-the-by, were, without exception, called
Prussians. At that time there was less hatred expressed
towards the Russians; in the theatres even the people would
point with curiosity to Lostopchin, the author of the
conflagration at Moscow. The hatred of the Russians grew
much more decided under Nicholas. Alexander, on the
contrary, was personally popular. Strictly speaking, the
Prussians were detested; while the English, on the contrary,
served as a perpetual butt for ridicule and wit. Their
language, gestures, dress, afforded a complete series of
dramas and caricatures.

This soreness of France under a very light application of her own Continental system, brings to mind an anecdote from the papers of the time, which is worth preserving:--

When the Prussian army entered Paris, one of its officers
made particular interest to be quartered in a certain hotel
in the Faubourg St Germain, the residence of a widow lady of
rank. On taking possession of his billet, the Colonel at
once haughtily refused the apartments offered him; and,
after a survey of the premises, insisted on having the best
suite on the first floor, then occupied by the lady of the
house herself. She protested and entreated in vain--the
Colonel was harsh and peremptory,--the lady had to abandon
her sitting-room, boudoir, and bed-room, and content herself
with the chambers intended for the officer. From these,
however, she was as rudely dislodged on the next day, the
Colonel demanding them for his orderly, and the lady had at
last to creep into a servant's garret. This was not all. On
first taking possession of his rooms the officer had
summoned the _maitre d'hotel_, and commanded a rich dinner
of twelve covers for the entertainment of a party of his
comrades. They came--the cellar had to yield its choicest
wines; the house was filled with bacchanalian uproar. The
orgy was repeated both on the next day and on the next
following. On the morning afterwards the officer presented
himself before the lady of the house. "You are perhaps
somewhat annoyed by my proceedings in your hotel?"
"Certainly," was the reply, "I think I have cause to
complain of the manner in which the law of the strongest has
been used here, in defiance of the commonest regard due to
my sex and age. I have been roughly expelled from every
habitable room in my own house, and thrust into a garret; my
servants have been maltreated; with my plate and provisions
and the best of my cellar, you have forced them to wait on
the riotous feasting of your comrades. I have appealed to
your generosity, to your courtesy, but in vain. I protest
against such conduct. It is unworthy of a soldier." "Madam,"
replied the Prussian, "what you say is perfectly true. Such
conduct is brutal and unbecoming. I have the honor to inform
you that what you have justly complained of for the last
three days is but a faint copy of the manner in which your
son daily behaved himself in my mother's house in Berlin
_for more than six months_ after the Battle of Jena. From me
you shall have no further annoyance. I shall now retire to
an inn. The hotel is entirely at your own disposal." The
lady blushed, and was silent.

We can hardly choose amiss among the portrait sketches. Here is the Princess of Chimay, once celebrated as the fair Spanish Cabarus--or Madame Tallien of the "18th Brumaire." After giving up a name which she had no legal right to bear, she married the Count Caraman before he succeeded to a princely title. In 1818, this heroine--

was some forty years old. Her age was partly open to
positive proof, as in '94 she was known to have just reached
her twentieth year--it was partly shown by a fulness of
person, rather tending to corpulence, which betrayed the
retreat of her younger bloom; but still you would rarely
find another beauty so well preserved, or a general
appearance equally imposing. Tall, full, gorgeous, she
reminded you of the historical beauties of antiquity. Such a
figure you might imagine as an Ariadne, Dido, or Cleopatra.
With a perfect bust, arms, and shoulders; white as an
animated statue, regular features, beaming eyes, pearly
teeth, hair raven black--hearing, speech, motion, still
ravishingly perfect. Her costume, too, had a certain Grecian
character.

Among the painters, Gerard was the lady's chosen intimate. When she first knew him, he had already been long famous and rich; but he seems to have taken pleasure in recalling the struggles of his early career. It was, in many respects, a strange one:--

His father was a Frenchman, who belonged to the domestic
establishment of the Cardinal de Bernis, then ambassador at
Rome. His mother, whose name was Tortoni, was the daughter
of a plain Roman citizen. In 1782, Gerard's parents, with
their three boys, of whom Francois, the eldest, was now
twelve, returned to France, where the father died in 1789. A
year afterwards the widow went back with her children to her
own country, but had to return to France once more, for the
preservation of a small income important in her narrow
circumstances. On this occasion, besides her sons, she came
back with her little brother Tortoni and his infant sister,
some years younger than her eldest son Francois. Thus there
was in the house an aunt younger than her nephew.

The family found it hard enough to live at all in Paris: and when Francois's great talent for drawing revealed itself, the household means were further pinched to provide him with paper and pencils. Under all obstacles, however, his powers soon grew evident: he got at last an introduction to David, and became his pupil:--

Gerard was created the perfect opposite, both physically and
morally, of David. David was tall, with distorted features,
rough, furious, cruel. Gerard was small, with a pleasing,
regular physiognomy, delicate, soft, generous.... He would
often tell how he was forced in those days (during the reign
of terror) to deceive his master David, in order to preserve
his own life. David, who in his zeal for reforming the world
had become one of the most active members of the Committee
of Safety, was incessantly busied in providing that bloody
tribunal with familiars. Every one belonging to him, who
desired his own preservation, was forced either to adopt
republicanism in David's sense, or to evade it by some kind
of deception. Gerard, although in perfect health, escaped
the honor designed him by feigning sickness; and went about
in public on crutches, which, however, he threw down the
instant he knew himself safe from observation. Gerard's
mother had died in 1792. Her brother, the painter's uncle,
now a grown youth, took up the queer fancy of showing the
Parisians the excellent manner in which the Romans are
skilled in making confectioner's ices. The success of the
_Cafe Tortoni_, on the _Boulevard des Italiens_, has now
been for some fifty years known to all Europe. One of the
children (Gerard) was dead, the youngest provided for
elsewhere; and thus, after his mother's death, the young
painter of two-and-twenty was left alone with his aunt,
Mlle. Tortoni, who was but two years his junior. She became
his wife. When relating the above, she would add, with
_naivete_, "At that time my nephew was in a manner forced to
marry me, unless he chose to turn me out into the street. We
were poor, but contented. Gerard's talent, as yet little
known, and destitute of suitable means for its exercise,
supported us, however, barely; and I continued to sew, darn,
cook, carry water, and cut wood for our little household, as
I had been wont to do before, when assisting his mother, my
sister. In those days there was no marrying in the church,
no priest, no banns. A few days after the death of my
sister, we appeared in our poor work-a-day clothes, before
the _maire_. He joined our hands, and then we became a
couple."

Some months were passed in this obscure poverty, until calmer times prevailed in Paris. Isabey had somehow become aware of the young painter's talent, and now urged him to exhibit a picture at the first Exhibition. Gerard produced the sketch of his _Belisaire_;[5] but declared he had no means to paint it on a grand scale. Isabey hereupon assisted him; and, after the picture was finished and exhibited with success, procured him a purchaser, at the price of 100 Louis d'or.

"On the receipt of this sum," Madame Gerard went on, "we
were nearly losing our wits for joy. We were ravished, like
mere children, by the glitter of the shining gold, which we
kept again and again rolling through our fingers. We, who
until now could not even afford to buy a common candlestick,
so that we had to cut a hole in our poor wooden table to
stick the rushlight in,--we now had a hundred louis!" By
degrees Gerard advanced to a high European name; but those
only who knew him personally could have any idea of his
amiable, refined nature, of his pleasant conversation, of
the various acquirements and highly intellectual
peculiarities of this eminent man, who took up with equal
clearness many of the most dissimilar sciences. You forgot
time with him, or gladly gave him up the whole night, as he
seldom made his appearance in company at his own house
before ten.

Before leaving the grim figure of the old Revolution for more modern sketches, we must correct the lady's statement of its victims, in which she quite exceeds the utmost latitude of feminine gossip. "_Two millions of heads_" she assigns as the food of the devouring guillotine--a number transcendent, even for lady rhetoric. It is some _five hundred_ times more than the largest estimate of those even who have done their best to aggravate the tale of its horrors. The Convention, when grown Anti-Jacobin, and anxious, of course, to justify its destruction of Robespierre and his fellows, it published lists of the sufferers, could not bring the number of the guillotined up to a full _two_ thousand. Montgaillard, who complains that the returns were incomplete, may be taken as the author of the most extreme calculation on this subject: he does not get beyond a total of _four_ thousand victims, including those who perished by _fusillades_ and _noyades_. Even an anonymous lady cannot be suffered to pass with such a terrific exaggeration unquestioned. In 1823, she was present at an opening of the Chambers by "Louis the Desired," now grown fatter, it seems, than was desirable for such an operation. Indeed--

he could no longer walk; on this account the session was
held in the Louvre; and the manner in which he suddenly
pushed out on his low rolling chair, from beneath a curtain,
which was quickly drawn back, as it is done on the stage,
and as rapidly closed again, had an effect at once painful
and ludicrous. Both these feelings were increased by the
shrill piping treble which came squeaking forth from this
unlucky corpulent body.... His brother, the Comte d'Artois,
afterwards Charles the Tenth, was tall and thin, and had
retained to his advanced age that habit of shuffling about
with his legs, which teachers and governors had vainly tried
to cure him of while young. He could not keep his body still
for a single instant. His protruded head, his mouth always
open, would of themselves have seemed to indicate mere
stupidity rather than cunning, had not this impression been
contradicted, partly by the vivacity of his eyes, and partly
by his too notorious habit of intriguing. This idiotic air
of poking forward the head, with the mouth always open--but
aggravated by quite lifeless and almost totally closed
eyes--was apparent in a still higher degree in his eldest
son, the Duke of Angouleme. In the face of his wife there
were still visible some traces, if not of a former beauty,
at least of something characteristic and noble. In spite of
her withered, lean figure, her gait was firm and majestic;
but the terrorists of the Revolution had heaped misery of
every kind in double and three-fold measure on this unhappy
daughter of Louis the Sixteenth, and their cannibal severity
had broken her heart for ever.... The Duchess of Berri, a
Neapolitan princess, wife of the youngest son of the Count
d'Artois, was young, but had been ill-treated by nature in
her outward appearance. She was short, thin, with hair
blonde almost to whiteness, and a kind of reddish fairness
of complexion. In her irregular features, in her eyes which
all but squinted, no kind of expression could be
detected--not even that of frivolity, which she was accused
of.... To both these ladies the rigorously-prescribed
court-dress, as worn in open day, without candlelight, was
very unbecoming. It consisted of a short white satin dress,
called _jupe_, which means a dress without a train; the
front breadth richly embroidered with gold, with a cut-out
body, and short sleeves, leaving the neck and arms
bare,--the effect of which was absolutely pitiable on the
superannuated, yellow, and withered Duchess of Angouleme.
Around the waist a golden ceinture held up a colored velvet
skirt, with an enormous train, but no body. In front, this
kind of outer dress, called _manteau de cour_, was open, and
trimmed all round with broad lace. The head was decorated,
or rather disfigured, by a thick upright plume of tall white
ostrich feathers, to which were attached behind two long
ends of blonde lace, called _barbes_, which hung down the
back. On the forehead a closely-fitting jewelled diadem was
worn, and diamond ornaments on the neck and arms, according
to the usual fashion.

From such court scarecrows let us turn to keep a last corner for a figure of more modern and genial appearance--though this, too, was saddening, and is now, like the rest, grown a mere shadow. The lady saw much of the musician Chopin after 1832, and speaks of him with warm affection, and with a fine feeling of his genius:--

He was a delicate, graceful figure, in the highest degree
attractive--the whole man a mere breath--rather a spiritual
than a bodily substance,--all harmony, like his playing. His
way of speaking, too, was like the character of his
art--soft, fluctuating, murmuring. The son of a French
father and of a Polish mother, in him the Romance and
Sclavonic dialects were combined, as it were, in one perfect
harmony. He seemed, indeed, hardly to touch the piano; you
might have fancied he would do quite as well without as with
the instrument: you thought no more of the mechanism,--but
listened to flute-like murmurs, and dreamed of hearing
AEolian harps stirred by the ethereal breathings of the wind;
and with all this--in his whole wide sphere of talents given
to him alone--always obliging, modest, unexacting! He was no
pianoforte player of the modern sort: he had fashioned his
art quite alone in his own way, and it was something
indescribable. In private rooms as well as in concerts, he
would steal quietly, unaffectedly, to the piano; was content
with any kind of seat; showed at once, by his simple dress
and natural demeanor, that he abhorred every kind of grimace
and quackery; and began, without any prelude, his
performance. How feeling it was--how full of soul!... When I
first knew him, though far from strong, he still enjoyed
good health; he was very gay, even satirical, but always
with moderation and good taste. He possessed an
inconceivable comic gift of mimicry, and in private circles
of friends he diffused the utmost cheerfulness both by his
genius and his good spirits.... Halle has now the best
tradition of his manner.

We pause, not for want of matter, but for want of room. Besides its lively sketches, the book contains some materials of a tragic interest--to which we may return.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] It is now, or was not long since, at Munich, in the Leuchtenburg Gallery.

THE LAST JOSEPH IN EGYPT.

A writer in the July number of _Bentley's Miscellany_ describes some official experiences in Egypt during the reign of Mehemet Ali, and among various curious incidents has the following of Boghos Bey, the prime minister of the Pacha, who then played a no inconsiderable part on the stage of European diplomacy, more particularly as relating to the, at that period, all-engrossing "Eastern Question."

"By birth an Armenian, in early life Boghos Bey was dragoman or interpreter to Mr. Wherry, then English consul at Smyrna; but he gave up that appointment, to accompany, in a similar capacity, the Turkish army, which, during the occupation of Egypt by the French, was sent to co-operate at Alexandria with Sir Ralph Abercrombie's British force. At the close of the war, on the expulsion of the French, he remained in Egypt, where he attached himself to the rising fortunes of Mehemet Ali, with whom he successively occupied the post of interpreter, secretary, and finally that of prime minister, when his master--from the Albanian adventurer--became the self-elected successor of the Pharaohs and Ptolomies.

"On one occasion, Boghos having got into disgrace, Mehemet Ali ordered his prime minister to be placed in a sack and thrown into the Nile. It was supposed that this cruel sentence had been duly carried into effect. However, the British consul in Egypt at that time, managed to get something else smuggled into the sack, whilst he smuggled old Boghos into his own residence, where the latter long remained concealed, until, on one occasion, the financial accounts got so entangled, that Mehemet Ali expressed to the British consul his regret that Boghos Bey was no longer there to unravel the complicated web of difficulties in which he found himself entangled: whereupon old Boghos was produced, pardoned, reinstated in his office, acquired more influence than ever, and was, at the time referred to, the very 'Joseph' of the land."

THE ENGLISH IN AMERICA: BY THE AUTHOR OF "SAM SLICK."

Mr. Justice Haliburton obtained some notoriety and a certain degree of popularity by his broad caricatures of common life in New England. These books did not display very eminent ability even for the rather low and mean field in which the author found congenial occupation, but the old jokes transplanted into our republican soil had a seeming freshness in the eyes of buyers of cheap books, and they were profitable to paper-makers and printers, until the patience of the public could tolerate no more of their monotonous vulgarity. Judge Haliburton has since essayed a more serious vein, and being wholly without originality, has fallen into the old track of depreciation, sneering, and vituperation, in the expectation that any form of attack upon the people of the United States would sell, at least in England. The unfortunate gentleman was mistaken, as the following very kind reviewal of his book, which we transfer to _The International_ from _The Athenaeum_ of July 26, will show.

"THE ENGLISH IN AMERICA. _By the Author of 'Sam Slick,' &c._
This is a vulgar and violent political pamphlet, which will
fill no small part of the admirers of 'Sam Slick' with alarm
and astonishment. The 'English in America' are in these two
volumes set forth principally as a parcel of uncouth,
disingenuous, and repulsive Puritans, who emigrated to
America in the early part of the seventeenth century for the
sake of an easier indulgence in disloyalty and schism.
Confining himself almost wholly to the events which took
place in the colony of Massachusetts, Judge Haliburton has
thought it worth while to write a book, half declamation and
half treatise, against Democracy and Dissent,--which seem to
him to be the two giant evils that oppress mankind. It is no
part of our function to discuss the abstract merits of
either of these questions; but it is perfectly within our
province to point out the errors and faults of those writers
who imagine that they can serve a party purpose by making a
convenient and derogatory use of literature.

"In the first place, then, we say that the volumes before us
are essentially unfair. The 'English in America' have not
really and truly been _such_ English as are there
described,--nor has their career been such as is there
narrated,--nor generally are the actual facts of the case
logically and impartially stated in these volumes. Judge
Haliburton colors and distorts almost every event and
circumstance to which he refers; and there is a coarseness
and rancor in the manner in which he speaks of nearly all
persons and parties who differ from him in opinion, which
has surprised and shocked us. There was no occasion whatever
for all this vehemence. In the first place, the facts
connected with the early history of the British settlements
in America are too well known to permit any attempt at
systematic and unscrupulous disparagement of the early
Puritan colonists to be in any important degree successful.
In the next place, the questions which Judge Haliburton
professes to consider have been for all practical purposes
discussed and decided long ago. In the last place, we are
quite sure that no writer on questions of colonial policy
could more effectually cut himself off from all sympathy and
influence than by the adoption of an excited and menacing
tone.

"We find in the introductory chapter to these volumes a
statement to the effect that one of the chief objects in
writing them has been to inform Englishmen that Democracy
did not appear for the first time in America during the War
of Independence; and that the peculiar form of religion that
prevailed at an early period in the New England States
exerted a very powerful influence over their politics and
modes of government. Surely there is nothing new in all
this. There is no great discovery here which required for
its introduction the expenditure of so much labor and
vehemence. We had imagined that the great orations of Burke
on Conciliation with America had exhausted long ago not only
all the facts but most of the philosophy which is contained
in the general view now revived by the author of 'Sam
Slick.' There are a sentence or two in one of the most
famous passages of perhaps the greatest of these orations
which seem to anticipate the present volumes most
completely. 'All Protestantism,' said Burke more than
seventy years ago, 'even the most cold and passive, is a
sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our
northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of
resistance; it is the dissidence of dissent, and the
Protestantism of the Protestant religion. This religion,
under a variety of denominations, agreeing in nothing but in
the communication of the spirit of liberty, is predominant
in most of the northern provinces; where the Church of
England, notwithstanding its legal rights, is in reality no
more than a sort of private sect, not composing, most
probably, the tenth of the people. The colonists left
England when this spirit was high, and in the emigrants was
the highest of all; and even that stream of foreigners which
has been constantly flowing into these colonies has for the
greatest part been composed of dissenters from the
establishments of their several countries, and have brought
with them a temper and character far from alien to that of
the people with whom they mixed.' The speech of Burke in
which these sentences occur ought surely to have passed for
something in the estimation of Judge Haliburton before he
committed himself to the task of writing this book.