Chapter I: Part 1

THE SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER:

DEVOTED TO EVERY DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE AND THE FINE ARTS.

Au gré de nos desirs bien plus qu'au gré des vents.
_Crebillon's Electre_.

As _we_ will, and not as the winds will.

RICHMOND: T. W. WHITE, PUBLISHER AND PROPRIETOR. 1835-6.

{69}

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.

VOL. II. RICHMOND, JANUARY, 1836. NO. II.

T. W. WHITE, PROPRIETOR. FIVE DOLLARS PER ANNUM.

SKETCHES OF THE HISTORY AND PRESENT CONDITION OF TRIPOLI, WITH SOME ACCOUNTS OF THE OTHER BARBARY STATES. NO. X.--(Continued.)

The writer of these Sketches endeavors to give _entire_ in each number, some distinct portion of the history of the Barbary States; this however is in some cases impracticable, either from want of time on his part, or from want of place in the sheets of the Messenger. The present number will contain merely the conclusion of the portion, commenced in the last, so that the next, may embrace the whole of the war between France and Algiers.

* * * * *

In a country where the establishment of innocence or guilt depends much less on the weight and character of evidence, than on the interests or influence of those possessing power, and where punishment is entirely disproportioned to offence, no unfavorable inference could be fairly drawn from the flight of the accused. The D'Ghies family had been uniformly the friends of the Americans, and Hassuna although suspected of too much devotion to the interests of France, upon the whole bore a fair character, and was on terms of social intimacy with the family of Mr. Coxe. The charge against him was of a strange nature, and one not likely to be substantiated; he protested that he was innocent of all improper conduct with regard to the unfortunate traveller, that the British Consul was anxious to procure his destruction from motives of personal enmity, and that his only desire was to go to England where he could easily clear himself from all imputations. Nor could any feelings of peculiar delicacy towards the British Consul be expected to influence Mr. Coxe on this occasion. The efforts made by Warrington in 1818 to rescue Morat Rais, after the attack on the American Consul, have been already noticed; he had also in 1828 endeavored, though ineffectually, to protect Dr. Sherry an Englishman who had circulated a story that the frigate Philadelphia was burnt by Maltese hired for the purpose by the Americans; and he had on various other occasions advanced pretensions to superiority over the Consul of the United States, which were unfounded and insulting.

Under these circumstances, Mr. Coxe resolved to protect the fugitive minister, and he therefore immediately wrote a letter to the Pasha, in which he requested a _Teskera_ or written assurance under the seal of the State, that no attempt would be made to molest Hassuna; stating at the same time, that he only required what was frequently granted to the other Consuls. No answer having been made to this request, it was repeated on the 7th of August. On the 9th the Pasha replied by letter that he could not grant the warrant for Hassuna's safety, as the affair was one of great importance between himself and the British Government, and in which the American Consul was in no wise concerned; he added that if Mr. Coxe could obtain Warrington's permission in writing to interfere in the case and deposite it with him, he would make no farther objection, and that the American Consul "might however keep Hassuna in his house until the affair should be decided."

Mr. Coxe was naturally indignant at the terms of this letter, by which his exercise of a right allowed to other Consuls, was made to depend upon the will of the representative of Great Britain; and the more so as he had reason to suspect, that it had been dictated by Warrington himself. To keep Hassuna in his house until the affair was decided, would be merely to act as his jailer until the hour of his execution; for the Pasha it was well known would not scruple to declare him guilty of theft or murder if the British Consul should require it, and it would be scarcely reconcileable either with principle or usage, to continue to protect a man, after his conviction of such crimes according to the forms of law of the country.

Fortunately at this moment the American sloop of war Fairfield had just entered the harbor of Tripoli, and her commander Captain Parker, after examining the circumstances of the case as far as known, agreed to receive Hassuna on board his ship, and to conduct him to some place from which he could with safety proceed to England. Being anxious however to secure themselves from charges of improper conduct on the part of the Government, the plan was privately intimated to Yusuf, and they were not disappointed in their expectations, that he would rejoice at being thus delivered from the difficulty. The guards were indeed doubled on that night, and they patroled the streets leading from the American Consulate to the harbor, but this was only intended to deceive Warrington; for Hassuna was safely conducted on board the Fairfield, in the dress of a Christian, without any interruption from the numerous parties of soldiers whom they met on the way.

When Hassuna's evasion was known in Tripoli, the utmost joy was manifested by the inhabitants, and he received on board the Fairfield the visits of Hadji Massen and of many other principal persons of the city, who congratulated him openly on his escape from the vengeance of the British Consul. The Fairfield remained in Tripoli until the 14th of August, during which period every attention was received by her officers from the Pasha and his Court; she then sailed for Tunis, and from that place to Port Mahon, where Hassuna left her; but instead of proceeding to England as he had declared to be his intention, he went by way of Spain to France in which country he has since resided.

On the 10th of August Mr. Warrington addressed a most angry epistle to the American Consul, in which after asserting that D'Ghies had been "proved guilty of fraud and theft and suspected of murder," and taking it "for granted that the Commander of the Fairfield must be perfectly well acquainted with the delinquency of the fugitive," he requested that his letter should be shown to Captain Parker; declaring in conclusion that should the criminal escape from justice the whole responsibility would rest upon Mr. Coxe, and the case {70} be submitted to the American Government. Mr. Coxe replied on the 11th that he had yet to learn how and when the guilt of Hassuna had been established; and that although he deeply lamented the fate of Major Laing, yet his feelings should not prevent him from maintaining the honor of his flag, nor induce him to submit to any dictation. On receipt of this answer Col. Warrington entered a protest in the name of his Government against Mr. Coxe's interference in the affair; the Pasha also addressed a letter on the 12th to the American Consul, in which he declared that person answerable for all the consequences of Hassuna's departure, and expressed his resolution to complain to the Government of the United States on the subject. This letter although bearing the seal of the Pasha, was written in Italian in the hand of the Chancellor of the British Consulate, and delivered by Vanbreugel the Consul of the Netherlands who was known to be devoted to the service of Warrington. These circumstances rendered it extremely probable that the letter was drawn up by the British Consul and merely sealed by Yusuf as a peace offering, particularly as the British flag was again displayed on the following day in token of reconciliation. Under this impression Mr. Coxe replied on the 14th, that so far from fearing inquiries as to his conduct, he had already submitted the circumstances to the consideration of his Government, not doubting that it would approve a course by which the Pasha of Tripoli "had been indirectly saved from great trouble and uneasiness." Here the American Consul's agency in the affair terminated; a few days after Yusuf at a private audience, expressed the most friendly feelings to Mr. Coxe, and hinted his satisfaction at having been thus happily extricated from so disagreeable a situation.

Meanwhile Mohammed D'Ghies remained in the house of Baron Rousseau. On the 12th of August Colonel Warrington accompanied by some other Consuls, made a formal demand on the Baron for the delivery of Major Laing's papers, exhibiting the deposition of D'Ghies in support of his proceedings. Rousseau appeared to be highly indignant at this demand, and Mohammed on seeing the declaration which was said to have been made by him, denied all knowledge of it; having been assured however that no injury would be done to him, he left his asylum and in the presence of the Pasha and the greater part of the Consular corps, he repeated the assertion first made to the Bey, declaring at the same time that his subsequent denial had been extorted from him by the French Consul, who had threatened otherwise to expel him from his house. Baron Rousseau upon this struck his flag, and immediately embarked with his whole family for France, without deigning to make any reply to the accusations preferred against him; his departure while the affair was undetermined, and he had nothing to fear but exposure, was certainly not calculated to produce an impression in his favor.

Soon after the French Consul had quitted Tripoli, the persons whom the Pasha had summoned from the South arrived, and were examined in the presence of the British and other Consuls. It would be unfair to condemn any man on the testimony of Moors and Arabs, as those people appear to be morally incapable of giving a correct account; particularly too when as in this case the examination was exclusively conducted by those who were opposed to the accused. From the accounts of Col. Warrington, it appears to have been clearly established by their examinations, that the papers of Major Laing were received by Hassuna about the spring of 1828; of their having been delivered by him to the French Consul no direct evidence has been adduced besides the declaration of Mohammed D'Ghies. Many collateral circumstances however united to confirm this statement, and even Mr. Coxe notwithstanding all the prepossessions which he may be supposed to have entertained in favor of Hassuna and against Colonel Warrington, admitted to the latter on the 20th of November 1829, his conviction that the communications of the unfortunate traveller had been thus disposed of.

This affair excited much attention in Europe when the circumstances became known there. The British Ambassador at Paris was instructed by his Government, to demand from that of France, explanations with regard to the conduct of its Representative in Tripoli. A commission was accordingly instituted at Paris, which after interrogating Rousseau and examining the proofs presented, declared the charge against him to be wholly without foundation, and that against Hassuna D'Ghies to be unsupported by sufficient evidence. The Government of Great Britain appears to have been satisfied with this decision; the measures adopted by France in consequence of it will be hereafter related. The London Quarterly Review however, in which several articles relative to Laing had already appeared, protested against the report of the commission; the number of that periodical for March 1830, contains a statement of the circumstances which occurred in Tripoli so partial, so unjust, and accompanied with such illiberal remarks with regard to Mr. Coxe, that some notice of it seems here to be necessary.

From the minuteness with which many of the events are detailed in this Review, and the apparent precision as to dates, it is probable that the materials were furnished by Colonel Warrington himself: yet the statement is defective with regard to several important particulars; facts with which the British Consul was undoubtedly acquainted, and which might have given a different color to the case, are omitted; and there are errors calculated to lessen confidence in accounts not confirmed by other testimony than the assertion of the Reviewer. One of these errors is remarkable, and it is not easy to conceive that it arose from accident. In the Review it is said that the Pasha made his declaration respecting the receipt of the papers by Hassuna and their delivery to the French Consul, on the 5th of August; that in consequence of this, D'Ghies had taken refuge in the American Consulate on the 9th, and had been transferred on the same night to the Fairfield, which sailed the day after. Thus Mr. Coxe is represented as having acted with so much haste, that it was impossible for the Pasha or Colonel Warrington to explain the motives of their desire to arrest Hassuna, or to take any measures for proving his guilt until he was beyond their reach. Now from the official documents of the American Consulate, it appears that D'Ghies sought an asylum there on the 20th of July, that he was placed on board ship on the 9th of August, and that the Fairfield remained in the harbor until the 14th; he therefore passed nearly three weeks in the house of Mr. Coxe, during which the Pasha was twice requested {71} to give an assurance for his safety such as had been often granted in similar cases to Consuls of other Powers; he was not placed on board the Fairfield until an invasion of the Consular dwelling was reasonably apprehended, and he continued in the port five days afterwards on board that ship. These circumstances must have been known to the person who furnished the materials for the article, and should in honor have been stated correctly.

The motives assigned in the Review for Hassuna's intercepting the papers, are that he had arranged some plan either for destroying Major Laing, or for extorting money from his friends in order to insure his safe return; that this plan had been discovered by the traveller, and that D'Ghies, learning that his schemes had been thus penetrated by the person who was their principal object, had suppressed the communications in order to prevent the exposure of his villainy. This supposition appears to be founded chiefly, if not entirely, on a passage in one of the letters received from Laing, intimating the discovery of some treachery on the part of those about him; the charge that Hassuna had been accessory to the murder of the traveller, is to be attributed only to the enmity of Warrington, as nothing has been elicited in any way calculated to confirm it. With regard to the French Consul's share in the affair, the Reviewer after citing some plausible reasons for believing him to have been implicated, and many which are utterly futile, seems to consider that he may have been induced to such dishonorable conduct purely from desire to obtain distinction by appropriating to himself in some way, the results of Laing's expedition. The grounds for this opinion are that Rousseau had for some time previous, been engaged in researches concerning the interior of Africa, upon which subject he not only corresponded with scientific societies in France, but also conducted a journal in Tripoli.

The Reviewer however in all these accounts and conjectures, is careful to forget that Hassuna was the Prime Minister of Tripoli, that political reasons may have impelled him to prevent the delivery of the papers, and that he may have acted in the whole affair conformably with the usages not only of Tripoli, but of almost every Government in Europe. A British officer engaged in exploring the interior of Africa, may well have been the object of suspicion at Tripoli. Has scientific research been even ostensibly the only motive for such expeditions? Would Major Laing have been permitted to proceed under this pretext through certain parts of Russia? Would a French or Russian officer until lately have been allowed to visit British India? The Tripoline Government did not dare refuse a passage to the English traveller through its dominions; his actions were doubtless observed, and it was proper that they should have been; his letters may have been opened, may have been found to contain matter the communication of which would be dangerous to the state, may have been in consequence destroyed, may have been even delivered to a Consul of another Power. Such things are constantly done in St. Petersburg, in Vienna, in Paris, and in many other places, and although they cannot be defended, yet it is scarcely fair to brand the African Minister with infamy for that which is daily practised by Metternich, Nesselrode and Thiers.

A PÆAN.

How shall the burial rite be read?
The solemn song be sung?
The requiem for the loveliest dead,
That ever died so young?

Her friends are gazing on her,
And on her gaudy bier,
And weep!--oh! to dishonor
Her beauty with a tear!

They loved her for her wealth--
And they hated her for her pride--
But she grew in feeble health,
And they _love_ her--that she died.

They tell me (while they speak
Of her "costly broider'd pall")
That my voice is growing weak--
That I should not sing at all--

Or that my tone should be
Tun'd to such solemn song
So mournfully--so mournfully,
That the dead may feel no wrong.

But she is gone above,
With young Hope at her side,
And I am drunk with love
Of the dead, who is my bride.

Of the dead--dead--who lies
All motionless,
With the death upon her eyes,
And the life upon each tress.

In June she died--in June
Of life--beloved, and fair;
But she did not die too soon,
Nor with too calm an air.

From more than fiends on earth,
Helen, thy soul is riven,
To join the all-hallowed mirth
Of more than thrones in heaven--

Therefore, to thee this night
I will no requiem raise,
But waft thee on thy flight,
With a Pæan of old days.

E. A. P.

CHARLOT TAYON.

It is curious to speculate on the infinite variety of causes which have influence in the formation of character; on the numerous diversities which are found under different circumstances; and the multiplicity of qualities, which, in their various combinations, make up each whole. What any man might have become under different training, or with different fortunes, it is vain even to conjecture. Yet we cannot refrain from _speculating_ on the change which circumstances might have made in the characters and destinies of many, who "crawl from the cradle to the grave" unregarded and unknown.

Poor old Charlot Tayon! I have often puzzled myself to tell to what class of men he belonged by nature. Illiterate, uncultivated, ignorant, bred up on the outermost verge of civilized life, and spending all the prime of youth and manhood far beyond it, it was hard to tell {72} whether this rude training had encouraged or retarded the growth of those qualities which made him in my eyes a remarkable man.

A native of upper Louisiana, he had entered, in early youth, into the service of the king of Spain as a private soldier. His corps was one of those whose duties condemned them to pass their days in the wild prairies, which, extending from the neighborhood of the Mississippi to the Rio del Norte, serve rather as the range than the habitation of small but numerous bands of Indians. Such a life is of course a life of toil, hardship, and danger. The qualities which fit a man to encounter these, are, under other circumstances, rewarded by fame. Even in scenes so remote, they do not always fail of a reward, which to him who receives it seems like fame. His few companions are his world, and their applause is to him the applause of the world. He perils every thing to win it, and, having fought his way to the head of a company of rangers, is as proud, and with good reason, as Wellington himself of all his honors, purchased at less expense of hardship or danger. It is thus that I account for the unequalled pride of this poor old man, associated as it was in his uncultivated mind with all that lofty courtesy which so surely accompanies a just sense of unquestioned and unquestionable merit.

I have said that he began life as a common soldier. A campaign of hard service was rewarded by the rank of fourth corporal. Another gave him the third place among these humble but important officers. In eight years he rose, step by step, and year by year, to the rank of first sergeant. Three more placed him, by the like regular gradations, at the head of his company.

As this was an independent corps, serving at a distance from the settlements, and only returning to them at long intervals, his station was one of great responsibility. This he assumed boldly, and exercised freely. Incapable of fear, he was not easily withheld from danger by a distant authority, and, relying on the brave man's maxim, "that success in war justifies a breach of orders," he made little scruple of disregarding his, whenever an opportunity of striking a blow presented itself. On some such occasion he incurred the displeasure of his immediate superior, the commandant at St. Charles. To this worthy, the success which exposed the impolicy of his own cautious prudence, was by no means a justification for disobedience. He accordingly recalled Tayon, imprisoned him, and sent him in chains to New Orleans.

Here the history of his imputed offence was so creditable to him, and the bearing of the rude soldier so forcibly struck the intendant, that his persecutor was deposed, and the prisoner returned in triumph, bearing with him a commission as commandant of the post.

This was, in his estimation, the acmé of greatness to a subject. Of the unapproachable majesty of the "King his master," as he delighted to call him, he might have formed some such conception as we have of angelic natures. But among mere men of common mould, he had seen nothing, until his forced journey to New Orleans, and had perhaps never imagined any thing above the dignity that encircled the commandant at St. Charles.

There is nothing strange in this. An officer at once judicial and executive, supreme in both capacities, always acting in person, and enforcing his authority by the summary processes of despotism, is an awful personage in his province. Though but a king of Liliput, he is a king to Liliputians, and especially to himself. Such was Charlot Tayon in his own estimation; he truly "bore him like a king," and when the throne of his power was removed from under him, he lost nothing of majesty in his fall. He was neither Dionysius at Corinth, nor Bonaparte at St. Helena. He was neither familiar, nor peevish, nor querulous, but sat himself down, in quiet poverty, in a cottage on the edge of the village over which he had reigned.

I saw him but seldom, but always delighted to converse with him. I found him uniformly affable, courteous and communicative. Though too self-respectful to talk gratuitously about himself, a little address alone was necessary to make him do so. He spoke not a word of English, but though illiterate, (for he could not read) his French was remarkably pure and euphonical. French has often seemed to me the appropriate language for monkeys. In his mouth it was the language of a man. Speaking slowly, deliberately, and calmly, in a strong, stern, sustained tone, with a countenance which bore no trace even of a by-gone smile, there was more to strike the ear, and awaken the imagination, in his manner, than in that of any man I ever saw. The _tout ensemble_ spoke an ever present, deep, but proud and uncomplaining sense of wrong unutterable and irreparable. His figure, except on horseback, was awkward and ungainly. He was very old, and moved with difficulty. His short legs and arms, his broad bony hands, and his huge Roman nose, reminded me always of the legs, claws, and beak of a paroquet. His features, however, were not bad, though harsh. A deep-set dark grey eye surmounted by a shaggy brow, and a mouth firmly compressed and flat, were in perfect keeping with the rest of his face, and in character with the man. His dress was uniformly a blue cotton hunting shirt and trowsers, with moccasins on his feet, and a blue cotton handkerchief tied on his head in what is called the French fashion, with the ends hanging far down his back. In this garb his centaur figure, mounted on the back of a wild horse, was certainly one of the most picturesque I ever saw.

I once drew from him a sort of sketch of his life. It was little more than a confirmation of what I had heard from others. This I have already mentioned. But his manner, and the ideas which escaped from him, gave me more insight into his character. His was the first example I had ever seen of loyalty, not originating in personal attachment, wholly uninfluenced by personal considerations, adopted as a principle, but cherished into a passion. I doubt if he knew whether the king he served was king of France or of Spain, and am very sure that he knew no difference between Charles 3d, Charles 4th, and Ferdinand. Whoever he was, he was "_Le Roi mon maitre_." As such he always spoke of him to the last, owning no other allegiance, acknowledging no other political obligation but the will and pleasure of the "king his master." Was he therefore malcontent?--just the reverse. "The king my master laid his commands upon me, to deliver up the post which he had done me the honor to place under my authority, to an officer appointed to receive it on behalf of the government of the United States; and I obeyed {73} him. He gave me to understand at the same time that it was his pleasure that I and my people should submit to the authority of the United States, and conform to their laws, and I have obeyed him. You see me quietly acquiescing in the new order of things, and endeavoring in all things to regulate myself by your laws; and I do so, because the king my master has commanded it."

There was nothing in his manner of saying this, betokening that restiveness with which men submit to what they cannot help. He seemed merely to find a satisfaction in rehearsing the principles by which he had always professed to be governed, and contemplating the conformity between these and his actions.

At the time of the cession of Louisiana to the United States, the old man was in comfortable circumstances. The best house in the village was his, and he had slaves and several arpens in the common field.[1] But he had now fallen on evil days. He scorned to acquire any knowledge of the language, laws, and customs of the new masters of the country, and desired only to live in retirement and obscurity. But he could not help having some dealings with the world, and the management of these he committed to an only son, who had acquired a considerable proficiency both in our language and laws.

[Footnote 1: An arpen is the French acre. In the sense in which the word is here used, it means an allotment of land, in the common field of a village, of an arpen in breadth, and usually forty arpens in length. Three or four of these contiguous to each other, enclosed by the common ring fence, and brought under the plough, were sufficient to supply as much of the necessaries and comforts of life as the simple peasantry of that country had any idea of.]

But if Master Louis excelled his father in these things, he was as much his inferior in every honorable and manly virtue. In short, a greater knave never breathed, as soon appeared by his so managing the old man's affairs as to reduce him to want. At the same time his craft, though sufficient to defraud his father, was no defence against the superior art of the adventurers who flocked to the country. He too was reduced to poverty, and spurned by his father, detested by his countrymen, and despised by the Anglo-Americans, his name was a by-word of scorn. But he still bustled about, trafficking in every thing he could lay his hands upon, negotiating bargains between new comers and the old inhabitants, and cheating both as often as he could. But the profits of his villainy were small, for he was too cautious to venture on any bold measure.

At length, however, the fiend he served seemed to have betrayed him into the hands of his enemies. At the opening of one of the terms of St. Charles' Court, I found his name on the criminal docket. I looked for the charge, and found it to be for stealing a slave. This was a capital offence, and I at once concluded that Louis' time was come. He had not a friend on earth. No witness could be expected to soften a word of testimony; no juror would do violence to his conscience for his sake, and he had therefore no hope but in innocence; and nothing could be more improbable than that.

The trial came on. In a corner of the room I observed a cluster of the poor peasantry of the village huddled together with looks of concern and awe, occasionally muttering in low and earnest tones. They are a good-natured people, and I was not surprised to see, as I supposed, some tokens of relenting toward poor Louis. But I was soon led to put a different construction on their manner, when I caught a glimpse of a figure sitting with the head bowed between the knees, which I at once recognized as that of the culprit's father.

As the cause proceeded, the excited interest of the old man came in aid of his pride, and he at length raised himself; made signs to those around him to stand aside, and thus sat full before me. He was pale and ghastly, and his eye was sunken, fixed, and rayless. With a countenance betokening stupor, like that of one just recovering from a stunning blow, he appeared to look on without seeing, and to listen without hearing.

It turned out that Louis' case was not so bad as I had apprehended. The prosecution was conceived in folly or malice, for the slave had been taken on a claim of property, by the advice of a lawyer. Of course I had but to say a few words to the jury, and he was acquitted.

This turn of the case was so sudden, that the poor Frenchmen, who understood only a word here and there, were unprepared for it, and began among themselves an eager jabbering, which at length awakened the faculties of the old man. He caught a few words, and then seemed, for the first time, to listen understandingly to what he heard. But whatever emotion he felt was either repressed by self-command, or buried in the depth of conscious abasement. He soon rose, and left the room, followed by the little party that had surrounded him.

The next morning I happened to be passing through the bar-room of the house I lodged in, and as I entered the door, I heard the bar-keeper say, "Here he is." I looked up. There was only one other person present, and his back was to me. Turning at the moment, I saw that it was old Charlot. I immediately approached him, accosting him with marked courtesy. He seemed not to hear me, but tottered toward me, looking up in my face with a dim lack-lustre eye, as if endeavoring to distinguish who I was. As I accosted him, extending my hand, he laid hold of it and drew himself forward, still gazing on me with the same fixed inquiring look. "_C'est Monsieur le Juge?_" asked he, in a subdued and tremulous voice. At the moment his eye found the answer to his question, and, before I could speak, he had fallen on his knees, and my hand was pressed to his lips, and bathed in tears which rained from his wintry eyes. I was inexpressibly shocked, and more humbled in his humiliation than at any other moment of my life.

I raised him with difficulty, and in a voice choked by tears, he tried to speak. I knew what he would say, and replied to his meaning. "You have no cause to thank me," said I. "Your son had done nothing for which he could lawfully be punished; his acquittal was inevitable, and he has merely received sheer justice at my hands." While I spoke, he recovered himself enough to speak. "Ah! Monsieur," said he, "that is true. But in the case of a poor wretch, hated and despised by all, who neither has, nor deserves to have a friend on earth, is not mere justice something to be thankful for? Bad as he is, he is my only son, and I must have leave to thank you."

I led the poor old man to a seat, and tried as soon as possible to change the conversation, and lead his mind {74} to the topics on which I had before heard him dwell with pleasure. A question about his friend and comrade, the famous Philip Nolan, effected my object. His dim eye for a moment flashed up like the last flickering of an expiring lamp, and he became eloquent in praise of the companion of his youth, his fellow in arms, and partner in innumerable dangers. The excitement soon died away, but it subsided into calmness and self-possession. He rose, and took his leave with recovered dignity of manner. He tottered to the door, and to his horse, a half-broken colt, which he mounted with difficulty. As he touched the saddle, he became a new creature. His infirmities had disappeared, and he was now a part of the vigorous and fiery animal he bestrode. There he sat, swaying with every motion of the prancing horse, restraining his impatience with a skill and grace too habitual to forsake him, and with an air which betokened a momentary flush of pride. He was like Conrad restored to the deck of his own ship. I could not see his face, but I had pleasure in thinking that the excitation of the moment might operate as a cordial to his drooping spirit. I looked after him as he passed up the street in a curvetting gallop, with his head-gear streaming on the wind, and bethought me that I might never see him again.

I was not mistaken. The blow that brought him to his knees before any but his God, or "the king his master," had crushed his heart. He never held up his head again, and was soon at rest. The prevalence of the Catholic religion among the French has preserved one spot sacred to the men and customs of other days, and there he lies.

LINNÆUS AND WILSON.

Fisher Ames has remarked, that it is as difficult to compare great men, as great rivers. He might have found a happier illustration; but the meaning is obvious, that whilst distinguished men bear to each other some points of resemblance, they are remarkable for points of discrepancy. Johnson traced lines of analogy and contrast between Dryden and Pope, whilst Playfair did the same between Newton and Leibnitz. Plutarch led the way in this kind of writing, but his parallels were occasionally more fanciful than true.

In many things antiquity has excelled; but in natural science and in works of fiction, the palm is due to modern times. Cuvier and Pliny, could not be impartially measured, without giving to the former a decided advantage. The light which fell on the latter was dim, in comparison with that by which the philosopher of France was guided in his researches. Persian monarchs might formerly have been amused by the tales which adulation told in their presence; but Sir Walter Scott has redeemed fiction from many of the purposes to which it has been applied.

Among the scores of men who have devoted their talents to natural science, Linnæus and Wilson are not the least conspicuous, and they bore a likeness to each other in the obscurity of their origin. The first was the son of a Pastor, who lived in a village of Sweden, and partly sustained his family by cultivating a few beds of earth. The manse (to use a word familiar in Scotland,) has more than once been the birth place of genius, as Thomson, Armstrong, and the translator of the Lusiad could have testified. The latter was descended of a line of peasantry--but they both evinced that science has palms to bestow, on all by whom they shall be nobly attempted and fairly won, whilst she leaves it to kings to adorn the undeserving with hereditary titles.

They both appear to have lived for a time out of their element, for the one had well nigh been sent to the awl, whilst the other was a weaver in Paisley. But the taste of Linnæus was early formed, whilst that of the ornithologist was not developed, until comparatively late in life. The biography of the Swede is full of incidents to show that his passion for plants took its rise in infancy, and grew with his years. The circumstances of his father being unexpectedly improved, the new residence of the Pastor was embellished by a garden, and though gardening had been his business, it now became an amusement. When the parent was employed among his plants, the son was seen by his side, drawing from paternal instruction, the elements of that science in which he was destined to excel. But the Ornithologist betrayed no early predilection for the branch of knowledge to which he subsequently became devoted. It was not until he had expatriated himself, and killed for his own sustenance, one of our forest birds--that the high resolve was formed of consecrating himself to the investigation of the feathered tribes. There is something striking in this event. An exile from Scotland, driven by poverty to seek an asylum on our shores, not knowing to what destiny his steps were tending, is reminded by an incident of the claims of science on his personal services. He had seen the birds of his own country, which Grahame had celebrated in one of his poems; but it is probable that the dishevelled plumage of the one alluded to deeply affected his mind. To an accident we owe a series of galvanic experiments, and the discovery of the law of gravitation; and if this be so, it is not to be wondered at, that to an event seemingly unimportant we should owe the enlargement of Ornithology.

Linnæus and Wilson made but small attainments in any other branch than the department in which each of them became eminent. The first was conspicuous in his medical profession, but this was the result of adventitious circumstances. He gained some acquaintance with Mineralogy, and even explored the province of Dalecarlia as a kind of Peripatetic Lecturer--but this branch belongs to Natural Science. He was sent in youth to an academy, with a view to prepare for the sacred office; but his habits, though marked by innocence, unfitted him for its duties. He appears to have been deficient in what Phrenologists call the organ of language, and especially in the acquisition of the modern tongues; but whilst others were becoming familiar with words, he was ruminating by Lake Helga, and stripping Lake Wetter of its plants, that the tribes of the North might learn to speak in flowers, and thereby resemble in traits of sentiment and imagination the caravans of the East. The attainments of the Ornithologist were from his circumstances necessarily limited. Confusion is generally consequent on education which has not discipline for its basis. Before Wilson left Scotland he attempted poetry, and some of his productions were attributed to Burns; but this kind of mistake is frequently made by the partiality of friends. {75} The poetical productions of the Ornithologist are not entitled to much consideration; at least his temperament in this respect was more vividly displayed in action than in verbal expression. Both possessed remarkable powers of analysis, and in each the elements of taste were mingled in such a way as to turn the scale in favor of science rather than of imagination. The genius of both moved in a limited but perfect circle. That filled by the Botanist was stocked with herbs and the foliage of the Zones, surmounted by the golden flowers of the Line--and all held together by a diamond chain, whilst the choice assemblage was enlivened by the hum of the insect tribes. The other filled by the Ornithologist, was supplied from the air, and he crowded within its circumference birds of emerald and ruby grain, in the centre of which the Eagle was poised, whilst his ear was regaled by the song chanted at intervals from the curling vines of the Tropics, or the volume of melody from the woodlands of his adopted country. Each of them eventually insulated his mind to his vocation, and this is better than dispersing mental power over various pursuits. They thus reduced their genius to something of an integral kind, without the appendage of fractional parts.

Linnæus was not without decided advantages in those opportunities which foster intellect, promote emulation, and give impulse to genius. Hannah More has remarked that the best kind of education is drawn from the conversation of well-informed parents. It has been stated that the Botanist enjoyed this privilege in an eminent degree. His father took unusual pains to mature his mind, and though subjected to occasional disappointments, he met with friends even in Professors, who had sagacity to discern the sphere which he was one day to occupy. He found his way to the University of Lund, and subsequently to the one at Upsal, where lectures were delivered on his favorite science, and botanical gardens were open to his inspection. We are at a loss to imagine in what circumstances more delightful a scholar could have been placed, than those in which Linnæus was placed when he took up his abode at Hartecamp, the villa of his friend Cliffort, near Haerlem. Here he found books of science, and works of taste, exotic shrubs mingled with indigenous plants, museums filled with gems from the mines of Golconda, and cabinets full of shells culled from the grottos of the sea, and from the beaches of distant oceans. But truth constrains us to place the Ornithologist in the back ground of this picture. We find him struggling with penury from the beginning, and even traversing the moors of Scotland in search of a precarious subsistence. No university opened to him its ancient gates and cloistered cells. No man of wealth placed aviaries under his superintendence, and decoyed for his use speckled birds into the captivity of some sylvan Paradise. After his removal to this country he met with friends, but like himself, they were for the most part penniless. Among them, Joseph Dennie is worthy of mention--a man prompt to encourage every good design. He was at that time editor of the Port Folio, and through the medium of that work he served the cause of Ornithology. Dennie was the pioneer of literature in this country, and he is to be measured by the quality rather than the quantity of his works. He wrote no brilliant poems or ingenious tales, no dissertations in which philosophy led the way, and no historical works in which imposing events were arranged for the eye of posterity; but his Lay Preacher will always bear witness to the graceful structure of his mind.

Linnæus and Wilson both encountered hardships in the attainment of their purpose. Scotland treated the one, and Sweden the other, with unfeeling neglect; but the Botanist seems to have suffered most from the jealousy of rival Professors. It is singular that envy should so often disturb the quiet of men devoted to liberal pursuits; but Newton permitted some of his works to lie by him unpublished for years, because he dreaded critical attacks; and the quarrels of Addison and Pope were the subject of merriment to the people of their day. The toils of the Botanist introduced him to the perils of the Lulean desart. This rugged district was faithfully explored by the Swede; and in performing this journey, he drew subsistence from the milk of the reindeer, reconnoitered the hills and dells of Lapland, adventurously gathered moss from the brow of the precipice, and filled his herbarium with plants that rose among the rocks of the waterfall. He descended dangerous rivers in his boat; but this was the only journey in which Linnæus appears to have suffered much personal inconvenience. His subsequent tours through France, Germany and England, were excursions of pleasure, on which he went to enjoy the triumphs awarded to genius. But rugged as was the Lapland desart, the Ornithologist traversed desarts more extensive. Though poverty forbade the attempt to explore our forests, he disregarded its monitions, and we find him passing through the vale of Wyoming, and encircling the Lakes that indent the interior of New York, and then standing by those inland seas that roll on our northern borders. He descended the Ohio in his lonely skiff--he searched the islands which picture its waves--he paused in sight of smoke curling from the wigwam--he drew the chain of science around the copse, and slept in the green saloons of our wilderness. He was a Stoic of the woods as to personal suffering, but a Platonist at the same time in the mellow sensibilities of his nature.

They were both instructors of youth, but under circumstances widely different. The one was a preceptor of youth in the sequestered nooks of Pennsylvania; the other became the dignified lecturer from beneath a canopy spread over him by regal munificence. The one taught the elements of Education--the other enlarged on the lore of Science. As an instructor, Linnæus was the more successful. He resembled in some measure the Greek philosophers who taught in the suburbs of Athens, and he made Hammarby a kind of Swedish Lyceum. He possessed a remarkable talent for waking into action the latent enthusiasm of his pupils. What custom could have been more inspiring than the one he introduced at Upsal, of dividing his pupils into bands, and enjoining it on the leader of each to sound a horn when a plant should be discovered, never before seen by the fervid eye of science. This enthusiasm accounts for the fact, that his pupils subsequently explored so many countries, and investigated their floral kingdoms, whilst one of them accompanied Sir Joseph Banks round the world, and sounded his bugle among the islands of the Pacific.

{76} They both enlarged the limits of Science. Before the time of the Swedish philosopher, Botanists had arisen in different countries; and from the earliest periods, studies based on the objects of nature must have drawn attention both for ornament and use. Lord Bacon, from the elevation which he occupied above the rest of his species, looked far into the wonders of Natural History; but Linnæus took entire possession of the green and flowery land, and led in the tribes of men to enjoy its fragrance and pluck its fruit. The poetical affections have from the infancy of time been associated with vernal buds and flowers. Poetry, when it assumes the form of language, is the melody which the mind makes when the imagination is excited by objects in the frame-work of nature, or by events susceptible of picturesque representation. In the floral games men were acting from ideal impulses, and they were doing the same through the ages of chivalry. They thus furnished materials out of which Tasso reared his immortal work. But it is one thing to look at objects as they sparkle through the medium of the imagination, and another to open on the same objects the eye of science. Many have celebrated the loves of the Shells who have not understood Conchology, and Darwin understood Plants scientifically without comprehending them poetically. But Linnæus possessed astonishing invention, and he easily detected the errors of ancient systems, and convinced mankind of the superiority of that system which bore the seal of his own imperishable mind. In like manner the Ornithologist did not strike out into ways entirely novel, but he extended paths on which men had hitherto gone for the acquisition of knowledge. He has greatly enlarged our views of the history and habits of the feathered race. From the mountain's height, as well as in the deepest recesses of the wilderness, he stretched out his hand and clasped the blue and purple bird, that our intellectual pleasures might be augmented.

Of these distinguished men, the success of Linnæus in life was by far the more conspicuous. He eventually reached every desire which he could at any time have cherished. His Professorship at Upsal yielded him a revenue equivalent to his wants. He thrust forth from thence pupils in successive companies; but distance did not diminish the veneration in which they held his person. Foreign countries sent him the symbols of admiration--literary associations vied with each other in doing him honor--and kings bestowed on him the title of nobility. But it is probable that the rural life of Tully and Pliny strongly impressed his imagination, for his highest ambition was to possess a villa. He purchased Hammarby, which, under his direction, became stocked with the productions of every clime. Here he held a kind of rural court, and, to use his own language, was happier than any Eastern Sultan. Kings and nobles sent presents to his villa, whilst pilgrim students detached for his use twigs from the Sabine farm, and leaves from the tomb of Pausilippo. The Celtic flower and the Turkish vine met in his green-house, and the bird marked by the hues of the Tropics, found a home on his lawn. But there is a contrast to this in the circumstances of the Ornithologist too painful to be distinctly traced; and he was one of the few who have lived for that gratitude which reaches its object only in the grave.

In that piety due from a creature to his Maker, Linnæus appears to have surpassed the Ornithologist. The Swedish naturalist was remarkable for his gratitude, and he often mentioned in glowing words the way in which he had been led to results and discoveries so important. He felt his dependence when buried in the solitude of the desart--nor did he forget to rear an altar at Hammarby. But the Ornithologist probably excelled him in some moral qualities, and among them was disinterestedness. The love of money was a passion too strong with Linnæus, and too feeble for his own comfort with Wilson--and neither of them, in this particular, struck the _golden medium_. The sensibility of the Ornithologist was likewise more refined than that of the Botanist. Linnæus was buried in the Cathedral of Upsal, with a pomp which kings alone could bestow; but Wilson was not indifferent to the spot in which he should repose. In going into battle an Admiral once thought of a tomb in Westminster Abbey--and Napoleon wished to lie on the Seine, among the French people whom he had loved so well; but the Ornithologist desired to be buried where the birds could find access to his grave.

Each of these distinguished men created an æra in Natural History. Some philosophers have associated their names with the heavenly bodies, and we are reminded of them whenever we lift our thoughts to the milky way, or to the planets as they turn in on their bright pilgrimage to share the evening repose of our world. Of some we are reminded by the balmy air, or by the insects which make it vocal; and we call others to remembrance when we look on the Peruvian Lama, or the stately Lion: but so long as the earth shall evolve its Plants, the Swedish sage cannot be forgotten--and so long as the birds can chant a note, the Druid of Ornithology shall not want a requiem.

LOVE AND POETRY.

They bid me Poetry resign--the mandate I obey:
Farewell, forever then farewell, to the inspiring lay.
I go to other happiness--in a bright and sunny clime
I'll rove amid the orange groves, the olive, and the vine.

I'll sing and dance to merry strains of some Italian band--
I'll dream no more of Poetry, nor of "my native land;"
And as the gondolier doth guide me home from mirth and song,
My thoughts shall with the gondola glide undisturbed along.

I'll live for fêtes and operas--I'll haunt the masquerade,
And all sweet visions of the Lyre shall from my memory fade;
And Love--(for that were Poetry)--I must resign: apart
The Lyre and Love can ne'er exist within the human heart.

And now once more I bid adieu to all thy tender joys
Sweet Muse, and fly to festive scenes--to folly, mirth and noise;
But ne'er amid these labyrinths, do I expect to find
A solace for the loss of Love and Poetry combined.

{77}

A FAIRY TALE.