Chapter V (1)

I _know_ there is a heaven which is peopled not with shades,
Where the buds and flowers ne'er wither, and the rainbow never fades:
Where the mourners cease from mourning, and in smiles of joy are drest,
Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest:
Oh! there is gladness in the thought; 'tis deep, deep joy to me
To feel that those I love so well I there again shall see;
To know that though around them now my very heart-strings twine,
They'll be forever with me there--forever more be mine!

SONNET: TO THE OLD YEAR.

Good-by, Old Year! we wait to greet the New,
And hope within its circling hours to see
More of content and less of misery.
Yet, haply, all life's toilsome journey through,
No happier scenes than thine will meet our view;
If so, we humbly bow to Heaven's decree,
With hearts, though wounded, still as firm and true
As when we first knelt to the DEITY.
Many will weep, Old Year! while thou dost lay
Thine aged head within the voiceless tomb.
_We_ weep, yet on the clouds of grief doth play
The bow of promise, lighting up their gloom.
Not so with many hearts that crushed and bleeding lie,
Whose only thought of gladness is like thee to die!

_Brooklyn, Dec., 1843._ HANS VON SPIEGEL.

THE MAIL ROBBER.

NUMBER SIX.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR FROM HIS ENGLISH CORRESPONDENT.

Sir: My friends abroad complain that my last letter reached them in small type, most pernicious to English eyes, and half hidden among the rubbish of your editorial remarks, literary notices, and chit-chat with your million butterfly correspondents. Unless I am better served in future, I shall be compelled to transfer my patronage to the post-office, dangerous as it is, and liable to the occasional interference of American citizens. I have conferred with an attorney, who tells me that there is just ground for an action for breach of trust, in the unfaithful performance of the duty you have undertaken. It remains with yourself to avert any such consequence, by attending more strictly in future to the proper conveyance of my correspondence.

During the last week I have received a note from the gentleman who stole the letters. This I enclose to you; and as I do not know where to address him, I will simply reply to him, through the Magazine, that although I have the highest respect for his talents, I would see him several miles on his way to the devil, before I would comply with his polite request.

Truly yours, etc.,
---- ----.

THE MAIL ROBBER'S NOTE.

My Dear Friend: You will be surprised that I have found out your address, and indeed it required some sagacity. But now that I have, you will pardon me for broaching a matter in which we are mutually concerned. You must be aware how horribly I have been used by the Editor of the KNICKERBOCKER, and all through the share I have unfortunately had in your troublesome correspondence. He still persists in refusing to pay me a proper remuneration for my services, for which hitherto, I am sorry to say, I have received only insult and vexation. I have been advised by my lawyer to institute a suit at law against the miscreant, and matters are now in progress toward that desirable result.

In the mean time I have thought proper to apply to your sense of justice for a partial compensation of the trouble you have caused me. My character has been assailed, my tranquillity disturbed, and my valuable time taken up, without a penny of remuneration. Now, Sir, if you think fit to transmit to the address of 'M. R.,' through the post-office, a hundred dollars ($100), I will overlook what is past, and resign solely to yourself what interest I possess in your epistolary intercourse through the pages of that infamous Magazine. With sentiments of esteem,

Yours, as before,
M. R.

'So shaken as we are, so wan with care,' we begin to wish that we had never undertaken the publication of these letters. Between two impending law-suits how shall we muster courage to keep on the even tenor of our way? Even our staunch friend, the anonymous Public, torments us with frequent accusatory epistles, charging us with dulness, impiety, and irreverence for American institutions. All these we must lay on the back of our Englishman, whose compatriots we confess are apt to assume a latitude of style hardly tolerated among us. In the mean time, gentle Public, respected Cockney, and worthy Mail-Robber, we cry you mercy all round!

ED. KNICKERBOCKER.

LETTER SIXTH.

TO CHARLES KEMBLE, ESQUIRE, LONDON.

Good Cassio, Charles, Mercutio, Benedick,
(Of all your names I scarce know which to pick,)
Colossal relic of the nobler time
When great JOHN PHILIP trod the scene sublime;
Ay, true Colossus, for like that which strode
From shore to shore, while seas beneath him flowed,
You seem to stand between two generations,
High o'er the tide of Time and its mutations;
Be not alarmed; this comes not from a dun,
Nor any scheming, transatlantic BUNN,
Tempting with golden hopes your waning years,
Like 'certain stars shot madly from their spheres,'
Like MATHEWS or old DOWTON, to expose
The shank all shrunken from its youthful hose;
So boldly read, howe'er it make you sigh,
Nor manager nor creditor am I;
Yet in some sort you are indeed my debtor,
And owe me for my pains at least a letter.

Not long ago, conversing at the Club
Which Londoners with 'GARRICK'S' title dub,
We both confessed, and each with equal grief,
That poor Melpomene was past relief;
So many symptoms of her dotage shows
This nineteenth century of steam and prose.
Nor in herself, said you, entirely lies
Th' incurable complaint whereof she dies;
'Tis not alone that play-wrights are too poor
For gods or men or columns to endure;[4]
Nor that all players in a mould are cast,
Every new Roscius aping still the last;
Nor yet that Taste's too delicate excess
Demands perfection and despises less;
But mere indifference, that worst disease,
From bard and actor take all power to please.
How strive to please? when all their friends that were,
To empty benches empty sounds prefer;
And seek, like bees attracted by a gong,
The fairy-land of tip-toe and of song;
Whether a voice of more than earthly strain
Be newly sent by Danube or the Seine,
Or some aërial, thistle-downy thing
Float from La Scala on a zephyr's wing.
Say, might a SIDDONS, conjured from the tomb,
Again the scene of her renown illume?
Could her high art, (ay, even at half price,)
The crowd from 'La Sonnambula' entice?
No; dance and song, the Drama's deadly plagues,
RUBINI'S notes, and ELLSLER'S heav'nly legs,
Would nightly still bring amateurs in flocks,
To watch the bravos of the royal box.

[4] By the word 'columnæ,' Horace (though BENTLEY knew it not)
evidently meant the columns of the Roman newspapers.

While thus, between our filberts and our wine,
We mourned with sighs your mistress's decline,
You half indulged the fond imagination,
That what seemed death was but her _emigration_.
Perhaps, quoth you, and 'twas a bold 'perhaps,'
Ere many years of exile shall elapse,
The wand'ring maid may find in foreign lands
More loving hearts and hospitable hands.
Perchance her feet, with furry buskins graced,
May shuddering walk the cold Canadian waste,
And rest contented with a bleak repose
In shrubless climes of never-thawing snows.
Yes, in those woods that gird the northern lakes,
Pathless as yet, and wild with shaggy brakes,
Or in the rank savannahs of the south,
Or sea-like prairies near Missouri's mouth,
Fate may conduct her to some sacred spot,
Where to resume her sceptre and to--squat.
Some happier settlement and simpler race,
Where, though her worship lack its ancient grace,
New days may dawn, like those of royal BESS,
And every stream a Stratford shall possess;
Where, though in marshes resonant with frogs,
And rudely housed in temples built of logs,
The nymph, regenerate in her classic robe,
May see revived the 'Fortune' and the 'Globe.'

Such was the dream your fancy dared to mould
Of what yourself had witnessed here of old;
When with your twins--your FANNY and your fame--
Among our cousins of the west you came;
But you mistook a momentary fashion
For a deep-seated and enduring passion:
Now to your own a friend's experience add,
And judge what grounds your glorious vision had.
Beyond that Cape which mortals christen Cod,
Where drifted sand-heaps choke the scanty sod,
Round the rough shore a crooked city clings,
Sworn foe to queens, it seems, as well as kings.
On three steep hills it soars, as Rome on seven,
To claim a near relationship with heaven.
Fit home for saints! the very name it bears
A kind of sacred origin declares;
Ta'en, as I find by hunting records o'er,
From one BOTOLFO, canonized of yore,[5]
Whom bards have left nor epitaph nor verse on,
Though in his day, sans doubt, a decent person:
This town, in olden times of stake and flame,
A famous nest of Puritans became;
Sad, rigid souls, who hated as they ought
The carnal arms wherewith the Devil fought;
Dancing and dicing, music, and whate'er
Spreads for humanity the hell-born snare.
Stage-plays especially their hearts abhorred,
Holding the Muses hateful to the Lord,
Save when old STERNHOLD and his brother bard
Oped their hoarse throats and strained an anthem hard.

[5] The name of Boston, in Lincolnshire, is said to be derived
from ST. BOTOLPH--quasi BOTOLPH'S town.

From that angelic race of perfect men,
(Sure seraphs never trod the world 'till then,)
Descends the race to whom the sway is given
Of the world's morals by confiding Heaven.
These of each virtue know the market price,
And shrewdly count the cost of every vice;
So, to their prudent adage faithful still,
Are honest more from policy than will.
As if with heaven a bargain they had made
To practise goodness and to be well paid.
They too, devoutly as their fathers did,
Sin, sack, and sugar equally forbid;
Holding each hour unpardonably spent
Which on the ledger leaves no monument;
While oft they read, with small but pious wit,
Th' inscription o'er the play-house portals writ,
In a bad sense--'_The entrance to the Pit._'

Among this godly tribe it was my fate
To view a triumph they enjoyed of late,
Which, lest the chroniclers who come hereafter
Omit, and cheat our children of their laughter,
I, a DAGUERRE-like sketcher of the time,
Will faintly shadow as I can in rhyme.

Once these Botolphians, when their boards you trod,
Received you almost as a demi-god;
Rushed to the teeming rows in frantic swarms,
And rained applauses not in showers but storms.
But should you now their fickle welcome ask,
Faint shouts would greet the veteran of the mask;
And ah! what anguish would it be to search
For your old play-house in a bastard church!
To find the dome wherein your hour you strutted,
Altered and maimed and circumcised and gutted;
Become in truth, all metaphor to drop,
A mongrel thing--half chapel and half shop.
Long had the augur and the priest foretold
The sad reverse they doomed it to behold;
Long had the school-boy, as he passed it by,
And maiden viewed it with presaging eye;
Oft had the wealthy deacon with a frown
Glared on the pile he longed to batter down,
And reckoned oft, with sanctimonious air,
What rents 'twould fetch if purified with prayer;[6]
While through the green-room whispered rumors went,
That heaven and earth were on its ruin bent.

[6] At the late opening of the 'Tremont Temple' in Boston, the
new proprietors chanted what they called a 'Purification
Hymn,' of which we give one stanza:

'Satan has here held empire long--
A blighting curse, a cruel reign;
By mimic scenes, and mirth and song
Alluring souls to endless pain!'

Too just a fear! The vision long foreseen
Has come at last; behold the fallen queen!
The queen of passion, stripped of all her pride,
Discrowned, indignant from her temple glide.
With draggling robe, slip-shod, her buskin loose,
She flies a barren people's cold abuse;
Summons her sister, who forbears to smile,
And leaves to rats the desecrated pile,
Which dogs and nags already had begun,
Unless by blows and hunger driv'n, to shun:
For well-bred curs and steeds genteel contemn
A stage which Taste had sunk too low for them;
Whereon the town had seen, without remorse,
A herd of bisons and a hairless horse!

Behind the two chief mourners of the band
A sad procession followed, hand in hand;
Heroes un-heroed, most unknightly knights,
Wand-broken fairies, disenchanted sprites;
Dukes no more ducal, even on the bill,
Milk-livered murd'rers too ill-fed to kill;
Mild-looking demons that a babe might daunt,
Witches and ghosts most naturally gaunt;
Lovers made pale by keener pangs than love's,
Unspangled princesses with greasy gloves;
Wits very witless--grave comedians mute,
And silent sons of violin and flute.

After these down-look'd leaders of the show,
Who creep like Trajan's Dacians, wan and slow,
Comes a long train of underlings that bear
Imperial robes that kings no more may wear;
With truncheons, helmets, thunder-bolts and casks
Of snow and lightning--bucklers, foils and masks.
As tow'rd the steep of Capitolian Jove
When chiefs victorious through the rabble strove,
With all their conquests in their trophies told,
And every battle mark'd with plundered gold;
When the whole glory of the war rolled by,
And gaping Rome seemed all one mighty eye,
Behind the living captives came the dead,
Poor noseless gods, and some without a head,
With pictures, ivory images and plumes,
And priceless tapestry from palace-looms;
Ev'n such, although Night's alchymy no more
The crinkling tinsel turns to precious ore,
Appears the pomp of this discarded race,
As heaped with spoil they quit their ancient place,
Bearing their Lares with them as they go--
Two dusty statues and a bust or so;
With mail which once a Harry Fifth had on,
Triumphal cars with all the triumph gone;
Goblets of tin mixed up with Yorick's bones,
Bags made of togas--barrows formed of thrones,
Whereon the majesty of Denmark sat;
Fie! Juliet's petticoats in Wolsey's hat!
Swords hacked at Bosworth, fasces, guns and spears
Rusted with blood before, and now with tears.

Enough of this: kind prompter, touch the bell!
Children of mirth and midnight, fare ye well!
The vision melts away, the motley crowd
Is veiled by Prospero in a passing cloud;
Like his dissolving pageantry they fade,
The vap'ry stuff whereof our dreams are made;
No more malignant winter to beguile,
Nor start the virgin's tear, the judge's smile;
Save when some annalist, like me, recalls
The ancient fame of those degraded walls;
Or till an age less hateful to the Muse
To their old shape restore the anxious pews.

T. W. P.

LETTER FROM JAMES JESSAMINE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE KNICKERBOCKER.

SIR: It has not been until after much reflection on my own part, and I must say, very civil encouragement on that of my friend MR. JOHN WATERS, whose acquaintance I have chanced upon some months back, that I have determined to venture, either in the form of an advértisement extra, or possibly by your very polite admission of this self-introductory letter into your fashionable pages, to submit to the view of the more refined and intellectual part of the society of the Atlantic cities and particularly to that of New York, the peculiar claim that I conceive myself to possess upon their consideration and regard.

I have been hitherto deterred from taking this decisive step, as well by the very disturbed and almost turbulent state, which, since my arrival in this country, appears to have characterized its monetary concerns--alas! my dear Sir, those horrid yet necessary evils and grievances of life!--as by some expectations I had cause to entertain soon after I set foot upon your hospitable shores, of the immediate death of a maiden aunt in Cornwall, upon which incident, and her continued celibacy, depend very much all my present reversionary hopes.

The health of the old lady being however at my latest intelligence unexpectedly reinstated; the cotton crops coming forward as I understand to good markets, and the wonderful discovery having been made of converting western pork into sallad oil; the Tories being put down, and the banks having entered into what some time ago seemed the _paulo post futurum_ of specie payments; I desire to share in the general tide of prosperity; I launch myself upon it at its flood, discard all reserve, and shall descend at once without farther preface into the midst of what I have to say.

I came out then some time ago _ostensibly_ to kill a trout or two in some of your delicious streams; and indeed I may without presumption say en passant that few professors of the Rod excel me either in the niceties of my throw, the cool self-possession with which I take my fish, or the indomitable perseverance and perfect tact with which I drown and then land him with a single hair. I say _ostensibly_, for I have now no desire to conceal from you the ulterior objects that I had in view of either making a book to replenish my purse, or of establishing myself for life in this your rising land of freedom and big crops.

I have had 'good luck to your fishing' sung to me more than once by most sweet voices, and have realized it to my heart's content in the way of trout; but this is all. Since I arrived in America there have been no less than three travelling historians upon the ground, with whose energy of conception, art of fabrication, facility of combination, capacity of bitterness and established name, I could not enter the lists. And as for matrimonial projects, foreigners seem to me to have no longer any hope of success in consequence of the entire pre-occupation of this walk of life by a regularly drilled and educated corps of young Americans, bred up avowedly with no other pursuit; who talk, think, dream of nothing else than fortune by marriage; and with a shrewdness and intelligence of calculation that entirely distance the foreigner, (but which seem wonderfully after the nuptials to forsake them _in stocks of another description_,) know at a glance the value, expectations, hopes, and dependencies of each young marriageable lady even before she comes out; so that instead of being able to accomplish a purpose of this kind, I find it quite as much as I can do to avoid falling in love beyond repeal with the refinement, gentleness, grace, and untold sweetness that distinguish the portionless beauties of New-York.

Indeed this class to which I have adverted of licensed fortune-hunters is so numerous; the fortunes themselves except to the initiated are so uncertain; and the entire want of that most useful profession, _les courtiers de mariage_, is so grievous to all incidental visitors, that I have often thought how admirable the arrangement would be, if the young ladies were at once to adopt as a fashionable decoration some tasteful head ornament, on which should be inscribed, in distinct but graceful characters, some one of such legends as the following, which should indicate the incontestible possessions of the wearer:

$30,000 State of New-York Fives.

My face is my fortune.

$200,000 Indiana State Bonds.

2 lots on Broadway, 4 in the Bowery and 1 on Union-Square.

Nothing but truth, discretion, intelligence and grace.

$60,000 Alabama Sterling Bonds.

The Tongues, and what you see.

$27,000 on indefeasible Bond and Mortgage.

A House and Shop in _Maiden-Lane_ with fixtures, and a careful
tenant at 1400 a year on lease three years unexpired.

Musick--four pianos done up since this time last year.

30,000 Pine trees and three saw-mills in Saint Lawrence county:
N. B., well situated!

A large Manufacturing Establishment with unbounded
Water-privileges, in Ulster.

Life and Trust--40 shares daily recovering.

The young gentlemen might wear appended to the third button-hole of the left breast, epigrammatical notices of 'THE EXPECTATIONS' in which they so generally abound, as follows:

Uncle Asa has the phthisick, I am his heir.

As I STAND, less my tailor's bill of $1800.

Plenty of LOTS, covered partly with water, partly with
parchment.

In full and successful business, owing only four times our
capital, due us five times, chiefly in Mississippi. Expect to
retire in two years and enjoy life.

Two-and-six-pence in my pocket, with great but indefinable
hopes.

A _promising_ young member of the Bar. Three suits;--[Symbol:
pointing hand] one of them in court. Grant me my fourth!

A young lady, whose nice tact and discriminating judgment are only rivalled by her sweetness of disposition and exquisite personal attractions, has divided the world of beaux into three generick classes:

1. The Rich who are afraid of us;

2. The Poor whom we are afraid of;

3. The Detrimentalists.

The plan I propose would aid manifestly in the due classification of all assistants at a ball. It is not to be thought that the sex is governed by any mercenary motive; but in the present organization of society a certain degree of attention to the mode in which matrimonial establishments are to be sustained is absolutely imperative.

Conceive then Mr. Editor how this explicit course would remove the ordinary impediments on both sides. One single _tour de Valse_ and the whole affair might be adjusted! The gentleman forsakes the lady's eyes and fixes his own upon her tiara; she hers upon his eloquent button-hole. During the slow movement they have deciphered the mottoes, have ascertained, (no small desideratum in a crowded ball-room!) each the exact value of his or her partner; they have arrived in thought, as far as mere expediency goes, each at a decision; and are ready for question and answer at the close of the accelerated step.

By the way, as the waltz is now conducted, the employment of the eyes during the slow sentimental movement seems frequently to the lady a matter of some degree of embarrassment; and the method I propose would effectually remove any thing of the sort. There could be no want of an object on which to rest them; no looking with a fixed gaze over the partner's shoulder; no consulting of the cornice; no care-fraught expression; no reluctant or displeased look, as if the lady would have fain declined; no indeterminate thoughts, no indefinite sensations; no languishment; and above all never more the portentous, the ominous look which often in that entrancing dance exhibits to us the mysticism of the Sybil, without one ray of her inspiration.

No; then would the lady look, read, decide, and dance the while. 'This might do!'--then would she sparkle. 'Ah this would never do!'--then would she become placid, tranquil, and complete her tour with contentment; for as I think some one else has before me wisely observed, _the end of doubt is the beginning of repose_. Then would the faces of the ladies generally become vastly more attractive than at present during the enjoyment of the waltz; for singular as may seem the remark, although I have assisted at several New-York balls, I have met two countenances only throughout the whole galaxy of beauty that, in dancing the Waltz, have indicated either joy or undisturbed gratification: the one, is that of a little sylph-like beam of pleasure, who might well carry upon her beautiful hair, 'unincumbered lots,' as her wedding-portion; who gains our hearts while she laughs at us; and who, because I chance to be within half a score of her father's years, threatens to call me her _vieux chéri_--while the name of the other, if I dared write it, would recall the most tasteful and fashionable costumes of France, with the sweetest poetry of Scotland.

But alas my master! I have gone prattling on without saying a word of my own pretensions until my letter has gained such a length that I am forced to defer them to another number, while I subscribe myself, dear Mr. Editor of the KNICKERBOCKER,

Your most faithful servant,
JAMES JESSAMINE.

LOVE'S ELYSIUM.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF MATTHISSON BY WILLIAM PITT PALMER.

GROVE! embathed in peace celestial,
As in dew the rose's bowers,
Where Hesperia's golden fruitage
Ripens amid silver flowers;
Where a rosy-colored ether
Ever cloudless bends above,
Through whose calm abysses never
Breathed the sigh of slighted love.

PSYCHE, with a strange emotion,
Half enraptured, half dismayed,
Just escaped her earthly vesture,
Trembling greets thy glimmering shade:
Where, O joy! no misty mantle
Veils her primal purity;
And her immaterial pinions,
Like an angel's, wander free.

Ha! e'en now o'er paths of roses,
Glorious shape of light, she sweeps,
Tow'rd the shadow-peopled valley
Where the sacred Lethe sleeps;
Thither drawn by magic suasion,
As by gentle spirits led,
Fain she sees the silver billows,
And their flowery shores outspread.

Kneeling low with sweet foreboding
Griefs oblivious draught to taste,
Softly shines her trembling image
In that faithful mirror traced;
As from ocean's tranquil waters
Fair the cloudless moon outbeams,
Or from crystal stream reflected
Hesper's golden cresset gleams.

Not in vain she quaffs of Lethe;
For, anon, within the stream
Sinks the night-part of her being,
Like the phantom of a dream;
And from out the vale of shadows
Bright she soars on fearless wing,
To the hills whose golden blossoms
Smile in everlasting spring.

What an awe-inspiring silence!
Softer calm than zephyr breathes
Murmurs in the laurel foliage
And the amaranthine wreaths:
Thus in sacred stillness rested
Air and wave--in such repose
Slumbered nature, when from ocean
ANADYOMENE rose.

What an unaccustomed glory!
Earth! though fair Aurora be,
Never from her vernal features
Shone such magic light for thee:
Lo! the ivy's glossy tendrils
Bathed in purple lustre gleam,
And the flowers that crown each fountain
With a starry splendor beam!

Thus in silvan wilds the dawning,
When the modest Cynthia spied
From the skies her sleeping lover,
And descended to his side;
While the fields were bathed in brightness,
And in magic tones expressed,
Heavenly greetings murmured sweetly--
Hail, ENDYMION the blest!

GANGUERNET: OR, 'A CAPITAL JOKE.'

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY JOHN HUNTER.

Mine is called Ganguernet: I say mine, for you have all had yours; every one, at least once in his life-time, has met with one of those little fat, ruddy, burly men, with straight close-cropped hair, low forehead, grey eyes, broad nose, puffed-up cheeks, the neck between the shoulders, the shoulders in the stomach, the stomach upon the legs; a sort of a Punch figure, rolling, bawling, laughing, hallooing; one of those fellows who come stealthily behind you, clap their hands on your head, and cry out suddenly: 'Who's this?' Who pull away your chair at the moment you are going to sit down; who snatch from you your handkerchief just when you wish to use it; and who, on these occasions, when you look at them with an angry air, answer you with a broad grin, and a stare of imperturbable assurance: '_A capital joke!_'

You have had yours; and mine is named Ganguernet. My first acquaintance with him was at Rheims. He was a complete adept in his profession, and as a regular joke-player, master of all the tricks of his trade. Well skilled was he in the art of attaching a piece of meat to the bell-rope of a porter's lodge, so that all the wandering dogs about town would snap at the tempting bait, and awaken the mystified domestics ten times a night. Very expert was he also at cutting tradesmen's signs in two pieces, and substituting one for another. On one occasion he took the sign of a hair-dresser, cut it in two, and added the latter part to that of one of my neighbours; so that it read as follows: _Monsieur Roblot lets out carriages and false toupées, after the Paris fashion_.

But if M. Ganguernet was not the most agreeable companion in the city, still less so was he in the country, where indeed his presence, to me at least, was always a perfect nuisance. He knew how to scatter the hair, adroitly clipped from a brush, between the sheets of a friend, so that the victim, before he had been a quarter of an hour in bed, would become furious with the itching. He would pierce the partition between two sleeping apartments, so as to pass through it a piece of twine which he had cunningly fastened to your bed-clothes, and then, when he found that you were asleep, he would gently pull the string, until the covering was all drawn down to your feet. You awake half-frozen, for Ganguernet always chooses a cold damp night for this trick, draw up the covering, wrap yourself carefully up, and very innocently resume your slumbers; then Ganguernet, gently pulling his cord, again strips you naked; again you are benumbed with cold; and when you begin to utter imprecations in the dark, his detestable voice is heard bawling through the hole: 'What a capital joke!'

Did Ganguernet chance to fall in with one of those simple-minded individuals, whose countenances invite mystification, he would steal from him during his sleep his coat and pantaloons, whose dimensions with needle and thread he would contrive greatly to diminish. He would then awaken his victim, begging him to dress himself as soon as possible, and join a hunting-party. The unsuspecting subject of the joke, thus suddenly roused, would try to put on his pantaloons, but could not get into them. 'Good Heavens!' exclaims Ganguernet, with affected astonishment; 'why, what is the matter, my dear Sir?--you are terribly swollen!' 'Am I?' 'You are indeed, prodigiously!' 'Do you really mean it?' 'I may be mistaken, but come dress yourself, and let us go down, and see what the others say.'

'But I cannot get on my clothes.'

'Ah! that's it, you are so puffed up. It must be a thundering attack of the dropsy!'

And this would continue, the poor fellow, pale and trembling, in vain endeavoring to get on his clothes, until the tormentor, with a hideous chuckle, would come out with his famous sentence: 'Ha! ha! a capital joke!'

There was one of his tricks which appeared to me to be truly abominable. He played it upon a person reputed to be a brave man, but who was nevertheless horribly frightened. One night, after getting snugly into bed, this gentleman felt something cold and slimy along side of him, he touched it with his foot; it seemed a round elongated body; he placed his hand upon it; it was a serpent coiled upon itself! In an ecstacy of terror, he leaped from the bed with a cry of disgust and horror, when Ganguernet made his appearance, shaking his fat sides and roaring out: 'What a capital joke!' It was an eel-skin filled with water, that had caused the panic. The enraged gentleman would have broken the head of the joker, but Ganguernet throwing a pitcher of water over the sans-culotte sufferer, made his escape, yelling out at the top of his voice: 'A capital joke!--a capital joke!' The master of the house and his guests came running in at the outcry, and with much difficulty succeeded in pacifying the mystified individual; assuring him that Ganguernet, though fond of fun, was in the main a charming good fellow, a pleasant boon companion, and one without whom, especially in the country, it was impossible to drive away ennui.

Our readers may perhaps think with us, that, on the contrary, this man was one of those insufferable beings who are constantly intruding upon the pleasures and comforts of others; like a dog in a game of nine-pins, overturning with his paws all the arrangements of your joys and sorrows; more insupportable, and more difficult to get rid of than the dog, they lie in ambush to pounce upon you, and disconcert by a word or a trick the feelings you may enjoy, or the projects you intend.

Among characters of this description, there are some whom their common-place attempts at wit consign to contempt. These performers confine themselves to vulgar and stale jokes. To thrust the head through the paper window-pane of a cobbler, and ask him the address of a minister of finances, or an archbishop; to stretch a cord across a staircase, so as to cause those who descend to take, in the words of a punster, a _voyage sur la rein_, or 'a voyage upon the Rhine;' to wake up a notary in the middle of the night, and send him in great haste to draw up a will for a client, whom he finds in good health; these and a thousand other silly pranks of the same nature, are the stock in trade of a jester; and no one knew them better than did Ganguernet.

He had, moreover, invented some original tricks, which had given him a colossal reputation among the admirers of this branch of the fine arts. The only truly witty one I ever knew him to perpetrate, took place at a country-house where a large party of us were assembled. Among the guests, Ganguernet had singled out a lady of some thirty years, rather fantastic in her manners and appearance, who was doatingly fond of Parisian elegance, and who preferred the pale face of a well-looking youth of rather shallow intellect, to the coarse, purple visage of Ganguernet. Our humourist endeavored in vain to render this youth ridiculous in the eyes of the lady, who regarded his simplicity as a poetical absence of mind, and his credulity as an indication of sincerity and honest good faith. One evening, after a brisk defence of the pale-faced youth on the part of the lady, which was listened to by Ganguernet with a patience and a peculiar expression of the eye which boded no good, we had all retired to our apartments. In about half an hour, the house resounded with loud outcries of 'fire! fire!' which seemed to proceed from the hall upon the ground-floor. Every one hastened thither, men and women half-dressed, or half-undressed, which ever you please. They entered pell-mell, candlestick in hand, and there found Ganguernet stretched upon a sofa. To the reiterated questions that were put him as to the cause of the clamor, he answered not a word; but taking the pale-faced young man by the hand in a very solemn manner, and leading him up to the fine lady, gravely said to her: 'I have the honor, Madam, of presenting to you the most poetic genius of the company in a cotton night-cap.' We all burst into a shout of laughter, but the lady never forgave Ganguernet, nor the cotton night-cap.

All the jokes which Ganguernet played, however, were not prompted by vengeance; a spirit of fun merely being the grand principle of most of his tricks. Before we come to the occurrence which showed this man to me in his true colors, I must relate a few more of the humorous pranks in which he took the greatest pride. Opposite his residence at Rennes there dwelt a worthy pair of venerable citizens, who were the sole occupants of a small house, which was their only possession. Once a week this honest couple were in the habit of dining, and having a little game of piquet with a relation, who resided at some distance from their abode. On these occasions they were usually regaled with curds and whey, which they moistened with sparkling cider; and not unfrequently a bowl of punch concluded the repast; so that the worthy pair commonly returned home about eleven o'clock, singing and staggering along in a state of happy elevation.

On a certain fatal Sunday evening, these good folks returned to their abode, both of them pretty much, 'how came you so.' They arrived at the door of their next neighbour, which they recognized, and then proceeded on ten paces farther, which was just the distance to their own door. The husband, after fumbling in his pocket for the key of the street-door, pulled it out, and sought the key-hole; but no key-hole was to be found. 'What has become of the key-hole?' cried he. 'You have drank too much cider, Monsieur Larquet,' said his wife; 'you are looking for the key-hole, and we are still before the wall of neighbour Bompart.'

'That is true,' replied Monsieur Larquet; 'we must go a few paces farther.' They walked on; but this time they went too far, for as they had before recognized the door of their right-hand neighbor, they now found themselves in front of that of their neighbor on the left hand. Their own door ought to be between these two doors. They return, groping along the wall until they come to a door, which to their consternation they again find to be that of their right-hand neighbor! The honest couple become alarmed about the soundness of their wits, and begin to suspect that they must certainly both be tipsy. They recommence their inspections from the door of their neighbor on the right, and again come to the door of their neighbor on the left. They constantly find these two doors, but not a vestige of their own: their door has disappeared--vanished! Who could have taken away their door? Terror seizes them; they ask each other if they have become demented; and dreading the ridicule which would be cast upon honest citizens who could not find their own street-door, they grope about for more than an hour, feeling, poking, inspecting, measuring; but alas! there is no door; there is nothing but a wall, an unknown wall, an implacable wall, a desperate wall! At length, terror completely overpowers them; they utter loud cries, and call lustily for assistance. The neighbors are attracted by the noise, and after some time, it is ascertained that the door of the distracted couple has been carefully bricked up, and plastered over; and when all are trying to discover who could have played such a pitiful trick upon these honest people, Ganguernet, who from an opposite window, in company with some kindred spirits, had been enjoying the tribulation and despair of Monsieur and Madame Larquet, Ganguernet shouts out his everlasting refrain: 'A capital joke!' But, answered the neighbors, these poor folks will take their death of cold.

'Bah!' replies he; 'a capital joke!'

The incensed neighbors petitioned the king's attorney to moderate Monsieur Ganguernet's strong inclination to play his mischievous pranks; and the magistrate sent our hero to prison for some days, in spite of his skilful defence, which consisted in incessantly repeating: 'A capital joke!--what a capital joke, Mr. Magistrate!'

Notwithstanding his excessive vanity, Ganguernet did not, however, make boast of all his exploits; and there was one, the authorship of which he constantly denied, possibly in consequence of a threat that was held out of cutting off the author's ears, should he be detected. The trick in question was prompted by the contempt in which he was held in a certain aristocratic circle; and the subject was no less a personage than an ancient dame of high birth, and great pretensions, who mingled in the most fashionable society of Rennes.

Among other customs of the old school, which this lady retained, were the following: First, that of never mixing in the society of those of plebeian descent, such as Ganguernet: and secondly; that of always being carried in a sedan-chair by porters, when she went abroad. One evening she went to a ball, given by the first president of the court of assizes, a ball at which Ganguernet was also present. She left about midnight, carried as usual in her sedan-chair through a pelting shower of rain. At the moment she got under one of those loop-holes in the eaves-gutters, through which the rain pours down into the street in long dashing cascades, two or three shrill whistles were heard on the right and left hand. Immediately four men in masks made their appearance, at sight of whom the porters, abandoning their charge, took to their heels; but at the moment when the noble dame believed herself on the point of being assassinated, a terrible dash of cold water upon her head took away her breath, and almost deprived her of consciousness. The top of the chair had disappeared as if by magic, and the gutter poured its contents directly into the vehicle, the occupant of which in vain attempted to force open the door. She beat and thumped against it with fury, mounted the seat, and like an incarnate fiend, invoked the divine wrath upon the vile miscreants, who were giving her such a cruel shower-bath; and who only replied to her invectives by profound bows, and the most humble salutations. The worst part of this wicked trick was, that the lady wore hair-powder, and the mystifiers carried umbrellas.

My acquaintance with Ganguernet continued about ten years. In the low and vulgar circles of society which he was fond of frequenting, he was held up as the most jovial, the best-natured, and the most amusing fellow in the world; although there were some, whose sense of propriety and moral feelings were not entirely destroyed, who held him in merited contempt. For my own part, I always had a dread of the man. That odious smile, forever hanging on those large red lips, singularly annoyed me; that imperturbable gayety, exhibited on all occasions of life, troubled me like the constant presence of a hideous phantom; that phrase, which he appended like a moral to every thing he did, that detested phrase, 'A capital joke,' sounded in my ears as doleful and sombre as the Trappists' motto, '_Brother, we must die_!'

There was a fatality about the man; and it was destined that a life should be sacrificed to his mad propensity for mischief. A day came, on which his famous words, 'A capital joke!' was to be pronounced over a tomb.

On the eve of my departure from Rennes, some friends invited me to join a hunting-party, of which I learned that Ganguernet was to make one. This name took from me in advance half the pleasure I had anticipated. I however repaired early in the morning to the house of one of our friends, Ernest de B----. On my arrival I found Ganguernet there with some others of the party. Ernest had just finished a letter, which he sealed, directed, and placed upon the chimney-piece. Ganguernet, in his usual inquisitive and impertinent manner, took it up, and read the direction. 'Ah ha!' said he; 'so you correspond with your pretty cousin, do you?'

'Yes,' said Ernest, with an air of indifference; 'I have informed her that we intend visiting her chateau this evening, at about seven o'clock, to take dinner there. There are fifteen of us I think, and we shall run some risk of having but poor fare, if she does not get timely notice.'

Ernest rang for a servant, and gave him the letter, without any of us noticing that Ganguernet disappeared for a moment with him. We set off on our expedition. While engaged in the chase, it so happened that Ganguernet and myself took one side of the plain on which we were hunting, while the rest of the party pursued their sport on the other.

'We shall have some fun this evening,' said he to me.

'How so?' replied I.

'Would you believe it? I have given a louis to the servant that he should not carry the letter to its address.'

'And have you taken it?'

'No, pardieu! I told him we were going to have a little joke this evening, and that he must carry the letter to the lady's husband. He is sitting this moment as president of the court of assizes, and when he finds that he is going to have fifteen stout fellows, with keen appetites, at his house this evening, he will be in a devil of a rage. He is as miserly as Harpagon; and the idea of our laying his kitchen and wine-cellar under contribution will put him in such a humor, that he will have no scruple in condemning a dozen innocent men, so that he may reach his country-house in time to prevent the pillage.'

'If this is the case,' said I to Ganguernet, 'it seems to me to be a very malicious jest.'

'Bah! a capital joke! And the best of it will be when we all arrive at the chateau. The others, ravenous with hunger and thirst, will expect to find there an excellent supper. But there will be nothing--absolutely nothing!'

'And do you think, Sir,' replied I, 'that this will be any pleasanter to me than to the rest of the party? And you yourself, will you not be one of the principal dupes of your frolic?'

'Let me alone for that! Look you here; I've got a cold fowl and a bottle of Bordeaux in my game-bag, and you shall have half.'

'I thank you,' said I, 'but I had rather find Ernest, and notify him of your trick.'

'Ah! good heavens! my dear Sir,' said Ganguernet, 'you cannot take a joke.'

I left him, and apprising our friends of the affair, inquired where I could find Ernest. I was told that he had gone in the direction of the chateau of his cousin, toward which I proceeded, intending to give Madame de L---- notice of the trick of Ganguernet. At a turn of the road I perceived Ernest at a distance, going toward the chateau. I increased my speed in order to overtake him, and made so much haste that I arrived almost at the same moment with him, so that he had just passed the gate as I reached it. As I was about entering, the gate was violently pulled to, and immediately I heard the report of a pistol, and then a voice cried out: 'Villain! since I have missed you, defend yourself!'

I hastily sprang to a grating in the wall, about the height of my head, which opened into the court-yard, and there witnessed a frightful spectacle. The husband, sword in hand, was attacking Ernest with desperate fury. 'Ah! you love her and she loves you!' cried he, in a voice hoarse with passion; 'you love her, do you? and she loves you! Your turn first, and then hers!'

The letter from Ernest to his cousin, conveyed by the malicious interference of Ganguernet to her husband, had apprised him of a secret which had remained hidden for more than four years; and before redressing the wrongs of society as a magistrate, the president of the court had hastened to avenge his own as a husband.

In vain I cried, in vain I called by name the two cousins. Monsieur de L---- with blind fury drove Ernest from one corner of the court to another. Suddenly a window opened, and Madame de L----, pale, with dishevelled hair, and terror painted on her countenance, appeared.

'Leonie!' cried Ernest, 'withdraw!'

'No! let her remain!' exclaimed Monsieur de L----, 'she is a prisoner; you need not fear that she will come to separate us.' And he again rushed upon his cousin with such fury that the fire flew from their swords.

'It is I--it is _I_ who deserve death!' cried Madame de L----; 'kill _me_!'

I added my cries to theirs. I shouted, I shook the grating. I tried to scale the wall, when suddenly, urged on by despair, bewildered, distracted, Madame de L---- threw herself from the window and fell between her lover and her husband. The latter, completely beside himself with passion, directed his sword toward her. But Ernest turned it aside, and in his turn casting off all restraint, exclaimed with vehemence: 'Madman! would you kill her? Well, then--defend yourself!' And immediately he commenced a violent assault upon his antagonist.

I could do nothing to separate them; neither could Madame de L----. The unfortunate woman had broken a limb in the fall, and lay groaning upon the pavement. It was a dreadful combat. Nothing can express the violent terror which seized me. Already the blood of the two cousins began to flow, which only served to increase their rage. I had succeeded with some difficulty in climbing to the top of the wall, and was about to leap into the court, when I perceived some of our friends approaching. Ganguernet was at their head; he drew near, calling to me:

'Halloo! what's this? Why, you bawl like a man getting flayed; we heard you a quarter of a league off. What the devil is the matter?'

At the sight of this detested wretch, I rushed upon him, seized him by the throat, and forcing him violently against the grating, I cried to him in my turn: 'Look there, miserable jester!--'a capital joke!' is it not?--a 'capital joke!''

Monsieur de L----, pierced through the heart by a plunge of his antagonist's sword, was lying by the side of his wife.

Ernest has left France to die in a foreign land. Madame de L---- committed suicide the day after this horrible duel.

'A CAPITAL JOKE!'

APOSTROPHE TO AN OLD HAT.

BY JOHN G. SAXE.

COME forth, Old Hat! I'll pluck thee from the ditch,
Where thou hadst well nigh found a grave, 'unwept,
Unhonor'd and unsung.' I'll rescue thee
A moment longer from oblivion,
Albeit thou art old, bereaved of rim,
And like a prince dethroned, no more canst boast
A crown!
Would thou couldst talk! I'd e'en consent
That thou shouldst steal my prating grandame's tongue,
And so procure her silence and thy history.

Time-worn, adust, degraded as thou art,
Thine ancient quality doth still appear;
And this fine web, malgré thy present mien,
(A batter'd cylinder of dingy brown,)
Proclaims that once, some dozen years ago,
Thou wert a good and fashionable hat.

Perchance thou first wert perch'd right jauntily
A-top some dandy's poll; a most convenient block
To keep thee in good shape, and serve beside
One purpose more--to advertise thy brethren.

Mayhap a lawyer, in thy pristine years
And his, with thy possession much enhanced
His meagre sum of personal estate;
And, in phrase professional, call'd thee 'chattel'--
A vile distinction for a beaver hat!
A lawyer's hat!--alack! what teeming store-house oft
Of mischiefs dire; ill-boding parchment; 'writs,'
With hieroglyphics mystical inscribed;
Invention curious of graceless men,
And in sad mock'ry named 'the grace of God!'
What mighty 'suits at law,' begot and born
Within thy strait enclosure, yet survive
Thy tenth successor! And what mighty 'suits
In chancery,' (so named from CHANCE, who sits
Alternate there and in the legal courts,)
Still flourish, endless as the heap of words
Which mark the spot where Justice lies entomb'd!

Perhaps at first thou wert allow'd to crown
The 'honorable' head of some grave senator;
Or judge astute; or member of 'the other
House;' pregnant perforce with weighty matters;
'Petitions' humbly praying to abolish
Slavery and 'hard times.' 'Bills' to promote
The better culture of morality
And morus multicaulis! Mayhap a brief
And formal letter to a brother member,
In courteous phrase requesting leave to shoot him.
'Notes,' 'Resolutions,' 'Speeches' of vast length,
And just adapted to produce what thou
Hast wanted many a year--a decent _nap_.

Perchance an editor, by some mysterious accident
Made passing rich with five-and-forty shillings,
First bore thee off in triumph; 'tis pity then
Thou canst not speak; else should we hear
Of much before unpublished; of countless 'bills'
Unpaid; of libels prudently suppress'd;
Of 'Stanzas' much, of 'Lines' innumerable;
And love-sick 'Songs' to goddesses mundane,
All wickedly committed to the Persian's god!

Thou mayst have crown'd a parson, and couldst tell,
If thou hadst power of verbal utterance,
Of 'the divinity that stirred within thee'
In shape of sermons; faithful or smooth-tongued,
As he who wrote them chanced to covet most
The smile of God or man. A lover's hat
Thou surely wert, (since all men love,
Who have a head,) and oft no doubt hast given
To scented billet-doux and amorous rhymes
Thy friendly guardianship; secure from aught
Save lifting winds and porter's curious eye.

At second-hand 'tis ten to one thou wert
A Jew's possession, got in honest barter;
Next, John the ostler's; last of all, past doubt
A vagrant's hat; the equitable purchase
Of an ill-sung song. Till quite worn out
With rain, and wind, and sleet, and other 'ills
Thy race is heir to,' the beggar cast thee
From his plebeian pate--and here thou liest.

_St. Alban's, Vermont._

THE COUNTRY.

There is something very pleasant in the country, particularly about Thanksgiving-time, when families gather together from north, south, east and west, around the huge roast turkey, and many pairs of jaws masticate vigorously in gratitude for blessings received. At this season of the year the bird which was fortunate enough to excite the enthusiasm of Brillat-Savarin, and to be the theme of many chapters in his immortal 'Physiologie,' is the emblem of our republic. A bald eagle indeed! Who ever heard of a roast eagle? But a turkey:

'The state of a fat turkey, the decorum
He marches in with, all the train and circumstance!
'Tis such a matter, such a glorious matter!
And then his sauce with oranges and onions;
And he displayed in all parts! for such a dish now,
And at my need, I would betray my father.'

What native American does not respond _Amen!_ from the depths of his stomach to these appetizing verses of Beamount and Fletcher? But higher far rises the gastronomic phrenzy of the Travelled, who have known the bird, grand in his stuffing of chestnuts, sublime when swelling with the bliss-bringing truffle!