Chapter XLVI: Front Matter (46)

Surely my heart must have been steeled, like Pharaoh's, for some divine purpose, or I never could have resisted the mute anguish of his glance, as he closed the door on this cold and unmerited taunt. What hours of wretchedness I passed in the solitude of my chamber. I magnified my sufferings into those of martyrdom, and accused Mr. L---- of not preparing me for the trials of my new situation. Yet, even while I reproached him in my heart, I was conscious of my injustice, and felt that I did not suffer alone. It was the first time any other than words of love and kindness had passed between us, and it seemed to me, that a barrier was beginning to rise, that would separate us forever. When we again met, I tried to retain the same cold manner and averted countenance, but he came unaccompanied by my tormenter, and looked so dejected and pale, my petulance and pride yielded to the reign of better feelings. I had even the grace to make concessions, which were received with such gratitude and feeling, I was melted into goodness, transient, but sincere. Had aunt Debby remained from us, all {362} might yet have been well; but after having visited awhile among the parish, she returned; and her presence choked the blossoms of my good resolutions. I thought she never forgave the offending epithet I had given her in the moment of passion. It is far from my intention, in delineating peculiarities like hers, to throw any opprobrium on that class of females, who from their isolated and often unprotected situation, are peculiarly susceptible to the shafts of unkindness or ridicule. I have known those, whose influence seemed as diffusive as the sunshine and gentle as the dew; at whose approach the ringlets of childhood would be tossed gaily back, and the wan cheek of the aged lighted up with joy; who had devoted the glow of their youth, and the strength of their prime, to acts of filial piety and love, watching the waning fires of life, as the vestal virgins the flame of the altar. Round such beings as these, the beatitudes cluster; and yet the ban of unfeeling levity is passed upon the maiden sisterhood. But I wander from my path. It is not _her_ history I am writing, so much as my own; which, however deficient in incident, is not without its moral power.

I experienced one source of mortification, which I have not yet mentioned; it may even seem too insignificant to be noticed, and yet it was terribly grating to my aristocratic feelings. Some of our good parishioners were in the habit of lavishing attentions, so repugnant to me, that I did not hesitate to refuse them; which I afterwards learned, gave great mortification and displeasure. I would willingly accept a basket of fragrant strawberries, or any of the elegant bounties of nature; but, when they offered such plebeian gifts as a shoulder of pork or mutton, a sack of grain or potatoes, _I_ invariably returned my cold thanks and declined the honor. Is it strange, that I should become to them an object of aversion, and that they should draw comparisons, humbling to me, between their idolized minister and his haughty bride?

My uncle and cousins made me a visit, not long after my rupture with aunt Debby, which only served to render me more unhappy. My uncle complained so much of my altered appearance, my faded bloom and languid spirits, I saw that it gave exquisite pain to Mr. L----, while my cousins, now in their day of power, amused themselves continually with the old fashioned walls of the house, the obsolete style of the furniture, and my humdrum mode of existence. Had I possessed one spark of heavenly fire, I should have resented all this as an insult to him whom I had solemnly vowed to love and honor. These old fashioned walls should have been sacred in my eyes. They were twice hallowed--hallowed by the recollections of departed excellence and the presence of living holiness. Every leaf of the magnificent elms that overshadowed them, should have been held sacred, for the breath of morning and evening prayer had been daily wafted over them, up to the mercy-seat of heaven.

I returned with my uncle to the metropolis. It is true, he protested that he would not, could not leave me behind--and that change of scene was absolutely necessary to the restoration of my bloom, and Mr. L---- gave his assent with apparent cheerfulness and composure. But I knew--I felt that his heart bled at my willingness, my wish to be absent from him, so soon after our marriage. He told me to consult my own happiness, in the length of my visit, and that he would endeavor to find a joy in solitude, in thinking of mine. 'Oh!' said one of my cousins, with a loud laugh, 'you can never feel solitary, when aunt Debby is'--

Behold me once more 'mid the scenes congenial to my soul--a gay flower, sporting over the waves of fashion, thoughtless of the caverns of death beneath. Again the voice of flattery fell meltingly on my ear; and while listening to the siren, I forgot those mild, admonishing accents, which were always breathing of heaven--or if I remembered them at all, they came to my memory like the grave rebuke of Milton's cherub--severe in their beauty. Yes, I did remember them when I was alone; and there are hours when the gayest will feel desolately alone. I thought of him in his neglected home; him, from whom I was gradually alienating myself for his very perfections, and accusing conscience avenged his rights. Oh! how miserable, how poor we are, when unsupported by our own esteem! when we fear to commune with our own hearts, and doubly tremble to bear them to the all-seeing eye of our Maker! My husband often wrote me most affectionately. He did not urge my return, but said, whenever I felt willing to exchange the pleasures of the metropolis for the seclusion of the hermitage, his arms and his heart were open to receive me. At length I received a letter, which touched those chords, that yet vibrated to the tones of nature and feeling. He seldom spoke of himself--but in this, he mentioned having been very ill, though then convalescent. 'Your presence, my Mary,' said he, 'would bring healing on its wings. I fear, greatly fear, I have doomed you to unhappiness, by rashly yielding to the influence of your beauty and winning manners, taking advantage of your simplicity and inexperience, without reflecting how unfitted you were, from natural disposition and early habits, to be a fellow-laborer in so humble a portion of our Master's vineyard. Think not, my beloved wife, I say this in reproach. No! 'tis in sorrow, in repentance, in humiliation of spirit. I have been too selfish. I have not shown sufficient sympathy for the trials and vexations to which, for me, you have been exposed. I have asked to receive too much. I have given back too little. Return then, my Mary; you were created for nobler purposes than the beings who surround you. Let us begin {363} life anew. Let us take each other by the hand as companions for time--but pilgrims for eternity. Be it mine to guard, guide, and sustain--yours, to console, to gild and comfort.' In a postscript, he added:

'I am better now--a journey will restore me. I will soon be with you, when I trust we will not again be parted.'

My heart was not of rock. It was moved--melted. I should have been less than human, to have been untouched by a letter like this. All my romantic love, but so recently chilled, returned; and I thought of his image as that of an angel's. Ever impulsive, ever actuated by the passion of the moment, I made the most fervent resolutions of amendment, and panted for the hour when we should start for, together, this immortal goal! Alas! how wavering were my purposes--how ineffective my holy resolutions.

* * * * *

There was a numerous congregation gathered on the Sabbath morn, not in the simple village church, but the vaulted walls of a city dome. A stranger ascended the pulpit. Every eye was turned on him and none wandered. He was pallid, as from recent indisposition; but there was a flitting glow on his cheek, the herald of coming inspiration. There was a divine simplicity, a sublime fervor, an abandonment of self, a lifting up of the soul to heaven, an indescribable and spiritual charm, pervading his manner, that was acknowledged by the breathless attention of a crowded audience, composed of the wealth and fashion of the metropolis. And I was there, the proudest, the happiest of the throng. That gifted being was my husband. I was indemnified for all past mortifications, and looked forward to bright years of felicity, not in the narrow path we had heretofore travelled, but a wider, more brilliant sphere. My imagination placed him at the head of that admiring congregation; and I saw the lowly flock he had been lately feeding, weeping, unpitied, between the porch and the altar.

Before we bade farewell to my uncle, I had abundant reason to believe my vision would soon be realized. The church was then without a pastor. No candidate had as yet appeared in whom their opinions or affections were united. They were enthusiastic in their admiration of Mr. L----, and protested against the obscurity of his location. With such hopes gilding the future, I left the metropolis with a cheerfulness and elasticity of spirits, which my husband hailed as a surety for long years of domestic felicity. I would gladly linger here awhile. I fear to go on. You have followed me so far with a kind of complaisant interest, as a poor, vain, weak young creature, whose native defects have been enhanced by education, and who has unfortunately been placed in a sphere she is incapable of adorning. The atmosphere is too pure, too rarified. Removed at once from the valley of sin to the mount of holiness, I breathe with difficulty the celestial air, and pant for more congenial regions. Must I proceed? Your compassion will turn to detestation: yet I cannot withdraw from the task I have imposed on myself. It is an expiatory one; and oh, may it be received as such!

It was scarcely more than a week after our return. All had been peace and sunshine: so resolved was I to be all that was lovely and amiable, I even listened with apparent patience to aunt Debby's interminable hymns, and heard some of her long stories, the seventy-seventh time, without any manifest symptom of vexation. It was about sunset. We sat together in the study, my husband and myself, watching the clouds as they softly rolled towards the sinking sun, to dip their edges in his golden beams. The boughs of the elms waved across the window, giving us glimpses of the beautiful vale beyond, bounded by the blue outline of the distant hills. Whether it was the warm light reflected on his face, or the glow of the heart suffusing it, I know not, but I never saw his usually pale features more radiantly lighted up than at that moment. A letter was brought to him. I leaned over his shoulder while he opened it. From the first line I understood its import: it was the realization of my hopes. The offer was there made--more splendid, more liberal than I had dared to anticipate. I did not speak: but with cheeks burning and hands trembling with eagerness and joy, I waited till he had perused it. He still continued silent. Almost indignant at his calmness, I ejaculated his name in an impatient tone; when he raised his eyes from the paper and fixed them on me. I read there the death-blow of my hopes. They emitted no glance of triumph: there was sorrow, regret, humility, and love--but I looked in vain for more. 'I am sorry for this,' said he, 'for your sake, my dear Mary. It may excite wishes, which can never be realized. No! let us be happy in the lowlier sphere, in which an All-wise Being has marked my course. I cannot deviate from it.' 'Cannot!' repeated I: 'say, rather, you will not.' I could not articulate more. The possibility of a refusal on his part had never occurred to me. I was thunderstruck. He saw my emotion--and, losing all his composure, rose and crushed the letter in his hand. 'I could not, if I would, accept this,' he cried; 'and, were my own wishes to be alone consulted, I would not, were I free to act. But it is not so. I am bound to this place, by a solemn promise, which cannot be broken. Here, in this very house it was made, by the dying bed of the righteous, who bequeathed the people he loved to _my_ charge--_me_, the orphan he had protected and reared. "Never leave them, my son," said the expiring saint--"never leave the lambs of my flock to be scattered on the mountains." {364} I pledged my word, surrounded by the solemnities of death: yea, even while his soul was taking its upward flight. It is recorded, and cannot be recalled.'

Did I feel the sacredness of the obligation he revealed? Did I venerate the sanctity of his motives, and admit their authority? No! Totally unprepared for such a bitter disappointment, when I seemed touching the summit of all my wishes, I was maddened--reckless. I upbraided him for having more regard to a dead guardian, who could no longer be affected by his decision, than for a living wife. I threatened to leave him to the obscurity in which he was born, and return to the friends who loved me so much better than himself. Seeing him turn deadly pale at this, and suddenly put his hand on his heart, I thought I had discovered the spring to move his resolution, and determined that I would not let it go. I moved towards the door, thinking it best to leave him a short time to his own reflections, assured that love must be victorious over conscience. He made a motion as if to detain me, as I passed--then again pressed his hand on his heart. That silent motion--never, never, can I forget it! 'Are you resolved on this?' asked he, in a low, very hoarse tone of voice. 'Yes, if you persist in your refusal. I leave you to decide.' I went into the next room. I heard him walk a few moments, as if agitated and irresolute--then suddenly stop. I then heard a low, suppressed cough, but to this he was always subject, when excited, and it caused no emotion. Yet, after remaining alone for some time, I began to be alarmed at the perfect stillness. A strange feeling of horror came over me. I remembered the deadly paleness of his countenance, and the cold dew gathered fast and thick on my brow. I recollected, too, that he had told me of once having bled at the lungs, and of being admonished to shun every predisposing cause to such a malady. Strange, that after such an entire oblivion of every thing but self, these reflections should have pressed upon me, with such power, at that moment. I seemed suddenly gifted with second sight, and feared to move, lest I should see the vision of my conscience embodied. At length, aunt Debby opened the door, and for the first time, rejoicing in her sight, _I_ entreated her to go into the library, with an earnestness that appalled her. She did go--and her first sharp scream drew me to her side. There, reclined upon the sofa, motionless, lifeless--his face, white as a snow-drift, lay my husband; his neck-cloth and vest, saturated with the blood that still flowed from his lips. Yes, he lay there--lifeless, dead, dead! The wild shriek of agony and remorse pierced not his unconscious ear. He was dead, and _I_ was his murderer. The physician who was summoned, pronounced my doom. From violent agitation of mind, a blood vessel had been broken, and instant death had ensued. Weeks of frenzy, months of despair, succeeded--of black despair. Nothing but an almighty arm thrown around my naked soul, held me back from the brink of suicide. Could I have believed in annihilation--and I wrestled with the powers of reason to convince myself that in the grave, at least, I should find rest. I prayed but for rest--I prayed for oblivion. Night and day the image of that bleeding corse was before me. Night and day a voice was ringing in my ears, '_Thou hast murdered him!_' My sufferings were so fearful to witness, the at first compassionate neighbors deserted my pillow, justifying themselves by the conviction that I merited all that I endured.

My uncle and aunt came when they first heard the awful tidings, but unable to support my raving distress, left me--after providing every thing for my comfort--with the injunction that as soon as I should be able to be removed, to be carried to their household. And whose kind, unwearied hand smoothed my lonely pillow, and held my aching brow? Who, when wounded reason resumed her empire, applied the balm of Gilead and the oil of tenderness; led me to the feet of the divine Physician, prayed with me and for me, wept with me and over me, nor rested till she saw me clinging to the cross, in lowliness of spirit, with the seal of the children of God in my forehead, and the joy of salvation in my soul? It was aunt Debby. The harsh condemner of the fashions of this world, the stern reprover of vanity and pride, the uncompromising defender of godliness and truth; she who in my day of prosperity was the cloud, in the night of sorrow was my light and consolation. The rough bark was penetrated and the finer wood beneath gave forth its fragrance. Oh! how often, as I have heard her, seated by my bedside, explaining in a voice softened by kindness, the mysteries of holiness, and repeating the promises of mercy, have I wondered, that I, who had turned a deaf ear to the same truths, when urged upon me with all an angel's eloquence, should listen with reverence to accents from which I had heretofore turned in disgust. Yet, at times, there seemed a dignity in her tones; her harsh features would light up with an expression of devout ecstacy, and I marvelled at the transforming power of christianity. Well may I marvel! I would not now, for the diadem of the east, exchange this sequestered hermitage for the halls of fashion--these hallowed shades for the canopies of wealth--or the society of the once despised and hated aunt Debby, for the companionship of flatterers. I see nothing but thorns where once roses blushed. The voice of the charmer has lost its power, though 'it charm never so wisely.' My heart lies buried in the tomb on which the sunlight now solemnly glimmers--my hopes are fixed on those regions from whence those rays depart. {365} Had he only lived to forgive me--to know my penitence and agony--but the last words that ever fell on his ear from my lips, were those of passion and rebellion--the last glance I ever cast on him, was proud and upbraiding.

The sketch is finished--memory overpowers me.

C. L. H.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

THOUGHTS ON AFFECTATION.

_For the benefit of all whom they may concern_.

Affectation, as defined by Johnson, is "an artificial show, an elaborate appearance, a false pretence,"--"affected, studied with overmuch care, or with hypocritical appearance." The terms of this definition are so revolting, that the justice of its ascription to any individual, however felt, can scarcely be expected to be acknowledged by such, because it too deeply wounds self-love, its natural parent. Studiously disguised from ourselves, it is vainly believed to be so from others. Let us compare the utmost advantages to be derived from its adoption, with its peril and its loss. Do we really hope to improve by it, those qualities, moral, intellectual or physical, with which the bounty of nature has distinctively gifted us? Or do we hope by "an artificial show, an elaborate appearance, a false pretence," to obtain credit with others for attributes which do not belong to us? and with the deceitful appearance of which, (_provided_ it deceive,) we shall be basely content; thus falsely laboring for the attainment of a vain shadow, when the same labor honestly bestowed, would give us the real substance of all we ought to desire, viz: that solid improvement of the heart and mind, around which ever play, as their natural consequences, the most captivating of all graces--_simplicity and truth_. Viewed simply as matter of taste, can any thing short of its vilest corruption, its lowest degradation, induce a preference for a clumsy counterfeit, a hand-maiden, who impudently usurping the place of her mistress, presumes to play high life below stairs, over her noble mistress, arrayed in her simple majesty? What monstrous perversion can prompt us to turn the latter out of doors, and hug to our bosoms so vile an intruder? With what bribes does she corrupt the loyalty of her fair advocates? With what store of "quips and quirks, and wreathed smiles?" with what rich caskets of bright gems, counterfeit or stolen; with what rare graces, unmatched by those even of her injured and abused mistress, which she boldly pronounces _fade and obsolete_? Alas! how often do such meretricious lures prove resistless to the infatuated fair one! Behold her arrayed in all the paraphernalia of the despicable traitress,--henceforth sole promptress of the drama in which she proposes to act a conspicuous part, and which she vainly flatters herself to act with that last degree of art which conceals it. Not reflecting that the whole history of dramatic art affords few such adepts, she aspires at her very first debut, to surpass even a Siddons. Discarding nature, and not sufficiently wedded to art,--what becomes of her witchery? Her smiles are grimaces--her laughter discord--her movements ridiculous antics. Her tones speak to any thing but the heart;--all is foreign to nature,--whose modesty she outrages and oversteps. She is mocked and hissed by all the world with whom she would cordially unite, were the actress other than her own _dear_ self, whom alone self-love has blinded to herself. Hers is the delusion of the silly ostrich, which in the concealment of his head, thinks to elude pursuit. But granting her the utmost success of long and carefully practised art--and that her airs and graces, her soft _languishments_, killing glances, heavenly smiles, and soul thrilling laughter, have all the witchery that such art can give, and have called forth the applause of the crowd of vulgar admirers,--will it compensate for the obvious disgust of those who have learned to detect and to despise their empty and heartless display? Will it compensate for the lowering of that proud self-esteem, which is the bright reward of truth, and the best security of virtue? Would she flourish in the empire of the heart, that bright dominion of her sex? Would she, by her look, manner and words, inspire respect, confidence and love? And shall each betray that they have been practised but to deceive? Shall she hope to speak to the heart in tones which come not from the heart? Shall she hope to engage interest for the subject of her conversation, when full not of it but of herself? For what is it that she would challenge the affections? For a being pure, single hearted, and identical,--or for one whose very identity is almost lost amidst the perpetually varying aspects and phases, under which, in her inflated vanity, she pleases to exhibit herself. How shall our love continue to pursue, and cling to that, of whose very form and essence we have no abiding assurance? In the disruption of feeling produced by such changes, we cannot but feel that we have almost lost the beloved object, and exclaim in bitterness,--alas! she is no longer what I have loved.

"Why _affectation_,--why this mock grimace?
Go silly thing, and hide that simp'ring face;
Thy lisping prattle, and thy mincing gait--
All thy false mimic fooleries I hate:
For thou art Folly's counterfeit--and she,
Altho' right foolish, hath the better plea;--
Nature's true idiot I prefer to thee.

"Why that soft languish,--why that drawling tone?
Art sick? art sleepy? Get thee hence; begone--
I laugh at all thy pretty baby tears,
Those flutterings, faintings, and unreal fears.

"Can they deceive us? Can such mum'ries move?
Touch us with pity, or inspire with love?
No! affectation--vain is all thy art;
Those eyes may wander over every part,
They'll never find their passage to the heart."

Of all the diseases of the mind or the heart, affectation is the fittest subject of ridicule,--since we are ridiculous not for what we are, but for what we pretend to be. One of the arguments of the apologists for this mean and pitiful vice is,--that the ordinary conventional forms of politeness necessarily involve its commission, and that all the tutored and refined graces of polished life, are but its varying forms. Of the former, benevolence should be, if it be not always, the genuine and captivating source; and if we have it not, the assumption of a virtue which inculcates a sacrifice to the feelings of others of our own, may find a sufficient apology, perhaps, for a semblance to which society has learned to affix its value. With regard to the latter, _la belle nature_ is loveliest when embellished, not prostituted, by art, in its most vulgar form, viz: _affectation_. {366} Neither wealth nor fashion can divest it of its character of vulgarity. One should, indeed, be too proud to be _vain_, when vanity leads to affectation,--which in its milder form, is the meanness of asking credit for what we do not possess--and in its deeper die, impels us to obtain it by dissimulation, hypocrisy and fraud. In its approaches, few vices are more insidious. Having its germ in the indiscriminate love of imitation natural to youth, vanity prompts an eager exchange of our native attributes, for what we deem attractive in others--and artifice is speedily resorted to, to give the acquisition the semblance of an original possession. One cherished appropriation is added to another, until the product becomes a complete bundle of fancied charms and perfections, entailing, however, all that anxiety of concealment, whose only tendency is to betray the theft. If the original effects of affectation have been correctly assigned, the mode and importance of prevention will sufficiently suggest themselves. Let parents beware how they suffer their children to be exposed to the contagion of this vile leprosy. Let them carefully remove from them, as from a pestilence, those infected subjects, whose resemblance they would shudder to see them. The garment of affectation once put on, like that of the fated Nessus, grows to the wearer. Should her complacency ever be so far alarmed as to make her attempt to doff it, may vainly fancy she has succeeded, by simply pulling it around, and exhibiting it under a different aspect. Should she be so fortunate as to have the most invaluable, because the rarest of friends,--one who will neither flatter, nor shrink from the task of the faithful anatomy of her heart, and the development of the fatal poison which lurks at its core, and be brought sincerely to desire its removal,--let her, while she earnestly applies to it her own rigid examinations, fervently invoke the aid of a mightier physician, who cleansing her heart, will restore her to a place a little less than the angels, of whom I am an

ADORER.

Our readers are apprised that the poet Willis has for some time past, been employed in making the grand tour of Europe--a kind of literary reconnoissance, not only for his own benefit and gratification, but also for the purpose, we suppose, of enriching the columns of the New York Mirror (of which periodical he is one of the Editors,) with the various results of his observation. With many of his letters, or "first impressions" as they are called, we acknowledge ourselves to have been much delighted. His sketches of character and scenery are generally very impressive, and whilst on the one hand he avoids the too common fault of American writers,--a wearisome profusion of words--he does not, on the other, disdain the graces of ornament, or the beauties of amplification. It appears that he is at last peeping into the concerns of our venerable ancestor, John Bull. We hope that he will give a fair and candid account of the old gentleman's virtues, as well as his faults and peculiarities, "nothing extenuating, nor setting down aught in malice."--The following letter is very interesting.

WILLIS'S IMPRESSIONS OF LONDON.

From the top of Shooter's Hill we got our first view of London--an indistinct, architectural mass, extending all round to the horizon, and half enveloped in a dim and lurid smoke. "That is St. Paul's!--there is Westminster Abbey!--there is the Tower of London!" What directions were these to follow for the first time with the eye!

From Blackheath, (seven or eight miles from the centre of London,) the beautiful hedges disappeared, and it was one continued mass of buildings. The houses were amazingly small, a kind of thing that would do for an object in an imitation perspective park, but the soul of neatness pervaded them. Trellises were nailed between the little windows, roses quite overshadowed the low doors, a painted fence enclosed the hand's breadth of grass-plot, and very, oh, _very_ sweet faces bent over lapfuls of work beneath the snowy and looped-up curtains. It was all home-like and amiable. There was an _affectionateness_ in the mere outside of every one of them.

After crossing Waterloo bridge, it was busy work for the eyes. The brilliant shops, the dense crowds of people, the absorbed air of every passenger, the lovely women, the cries, the flying vehicles of every description, passing with the most dangerous speed--accustomed as I am to large cities, it quite made me giddy. We got into a "jarvey" at the coach-office, and in half an hour I was in comfortable quarters, with windows looking down St. James'-street, and the most interesting leaf of my life to turn over. "Great emotions interfere little with the mechanical operations of life," however, and I dressed and dined, though it was my first hour in London.

I was sitting in the little parlor alone, over a fried sole and a mutton cutlet, when the waiter came in, and pleading the crowded state of the hotel, asked my permission to spread the other side of the table for a clergyman. I have a kindly preference for the cloth, and made not the slightest objection. Enter a fat man, with top-boots and a hunting whip, rosy as Bacchus, and excessively out of breath with mounting one flight of stairs. Beefsteak and potatoes, a pot of porter and a bottle of sherry followed close on his heels. With a single apology for the intrusion, the reverend gentleman fell to, and we ate and drank for a while in true English silence.

"From Oxford, sir, I presume," he said at last, pushing back his plate, with an air of satisfaction.

"No, I had never the pleasure of seeing Oxford."

"R-e-ally! may I take a glass of wine with you, sir?"

We got on swimmingly. He would not believe I had never been in England till the day before, but his cordiality was no colder for that. We exchanged port and sherry, and a most amicable understanding found its way down with the wine. Our table was near the window, and a great crowd began to collect at the corner of St. James'-street. It was the king's birth-day, and the people were thronging to see the nobility come in state from the royal _levee_. The show was less splendid than the same thing in Rome or Vienna, but it excited far more of my admiration. Gaudiness and tinsel were exchanged for plain richness and perfect fitness in the carriages and harness, while the horses were incomparably finer. My friend pointed out to me the different liveries as they turned the corner into Piccadilly, the duke of Wellington's among others. I looked hard to see his grace; but the two pale and beautiful faces on the {367} back seat, carried nothing like the military nose on the handles of the umbrellas.

The annual procession of mail coaches followed, and it was hardly less brilliant. The drivers and guard in their bright red and gold uniforms, the admirable horses driven so beautifully, the neat harness, the exactness with which the room of each horse was calculated, and the small space in which he worked, and the compactness and contrivance of the coaches, formed altogether one of the most interesting spectacles I have ever seen. My friend, the clergyman, with whom I had walked out to see them pass, criticised the different teams _con amore_, but in language which I did not always understand. I asked him once for an explanation; but he looked rather grave, and said something about "gammon," evidently quite sure that my ignorance of London was a mere quiz.

We walked down Piccadilly, and turned into, beyond all comparison, the most handsome street I ever saw. The Toledo of Naples, the Corso of Rome, the Kohlmarket of Vienna, the Rue de la Paix and Boulevards of Paris, have each impressed me strongly with their magnificence, but they are really nothing to Regent-street. I had merely time to get a glance at it before dark; but for breadth and convenience, for the elegance and variety of the buildings, though all of the same scale and material, and for the brilliancy and expensiveness of the shops, it seemed to me quite absurd to compare it with any thing between New York and Constantinople--Broadway and the Hippodrome included.

It is the custom for the king's tradesmen to illuminate their shops on his majesty's birth-night, and the principal streets on our return were in a blaze of light. The crowd was immense. None but the lower order seemed abroad, and I cannot describe to you the effect on my feelings on hearing my own language spoken by every man, woman and child about me. It seemed a completely foreign country in every other respect, different from what I had imagined, different from my own and all that I had seen, and coming to it last, it seemed to me the farthest off and strangest country of all--and yet the little sweep, who went laughing through the crowd, spoke a language that I had heard attempted in vain by thousands of educated people, and that I had grown to consider next to unattainable by others, and almost useless to myself. Still, it did not make me feel at home. Every thing else about me was too new. It was like some mysterious change in my own ears--a sudden power of comprehension, such as a man might feel who was cured suddenly of deafness. You can scarcely enter into my feelings till you have had the changes of French, Italian, German, Greek, Turkish, Illyrian, and the mixtures and dialects of each, rung upon your hearing almost exclusively, as I have for years. I wandered about as if I were exercising some supernatural faculty in a dream.

A friend in Italy had kindly given me a letter to lady Blessington, and with a strong curiosity to see this celebrated lady, I called on her the second day after my arrival in London. It was "deep i' the afternoon," but I had not yet learned the full meaning of "town hours."--"Her ladyship had not come down to breakfast." I gave the letter and my address to the powdered footman, and had scarce reached home when a note arrived inviting me to call the same evening at ten.

In a long library lined alternately with splendidly-bound books and mirrors, and with a deep window of the breadth of the room, opening upon Hyde Park, I found lady Blessington alone. The picture to my eye, as the door opened, was a very lovely one. A woman of remarkable beauty half buried in a fauteuil of yellow satin, reading by a magnificent lamp, suspended from the centre of the arched ceiling; sofas, couches, ottomans and busts arranged in rather a crowded sumptuousness through the room; enamel tables, covered with expensive and elegant trifles in every corner, and a delicate white hand relieved on the back of a book, to which the eye was attracted by the blaze of its diamond rings. As the servant mentioned my name, she rose and gave me her hand very cordially, and a gentleman entering immediately after, she presented me to her son-in-law, Count D'Orsay, the well-known Pelham of London, and certainly the most splendid specimen of a man and a well-dressed one that I had ever seen. Tea was brought in immediately, and conversation went swimmingly on.

Her ladyship's inquiries were principally about America, of which, from long absence, I knew very little.--She was extremely curious to know the degrees of reputation the present popular authors of England enjoy among us, particularly Bulwer, Galt, and D'Israeli, (the author of Vivian Grey.) "If you will come to-morrow night," she said, "you will see Bulwer. I am delighted that he is popular in America. He is envied and abused by all the literary men of London, for nothing, I believe, except that he gets five hundred pounds for his books and they fifty, and knowing this, he chooses to assume a pride, (some people call it puppyism,) which is only the armor of a sensitive mind, afraid of a wound. He is to his friends the most frank and gay creature in the world, and open to boyishness with those who he thinks understand and value him. He has a brother, Henry, who is as clever as himself in a different vein, and is just now publishing a book on the present state of France. Bulwer's wife, you know, is one of the most beautiful women in London, and his house is the resort of both fashion and talent. He is just now hard at work on a new book, the subject of which is the last days of Pompeii. The hero is a Roman dandy, who wastes himself in luxury, till this great catastrophe rouses him and developes a character of the noblest capabilities.--Is Galt much liked?"

I answered to the best of my knowledge that he was not. His life of Byron was a stab at the dead body of the noble poet, which, for one, I never could forgive, and his books were clever, but vulgar. He was evidently not a gentleman in his mind. This was the opinion I had formed in America, and I had never heard another.

"I am sorry for it," said Lady B., "for he is the dearest and best old man in the world. I know him well.--He is just on the verge of the grave, but comes to see me now and then, and if you had known how shockingly Byron treated him, you would only wonder at his sparing his memory so much."

"_Nil mortuis nisi bonum_," I thought, would have been a better course. If he had reason to dislike him, he had better not have written since he was dead.

"Perhaps--perhaps. But Galt has been all his life miserably poor, and lived by his books. That must be his apology. Do you know the D'Israeli in America?"

I assured her ladyship that the "Curiosities of {368} Literature," by the father, and "Vivian Grey and Contarini Fleming," by the son, were universally known.

"I am pleased at that, too, for I like them both. D'Israeli the elder came here with his son the other night.--It would have delighted you to see the old man's pride in him. He is very fond of him, and as he was going away, he patted him on the head, and said to me 'take care of him, lady Blessington, for my sake. He is a clever lad, but he wants ballast. I am glad he has the honor to know you, for you will check him sometimes when I am away!' D'Israeli, the elder, lives in the country about twenty miles from town, and seldom comes up to London. He is a very plain old man in his manners, as plain as his son is the reverse. D'Israeli, the younger, is quite his own character of Vivian Grey, crowded with talent, but very _soigne_ of his curls, and a bit of a coxcomb. There is no reserve about him, however, and he is the only _joyous_ dandy I ever saw."

I asked if the account I had seen in some American paper of a literary celebration at Canandaigua, and the engraving of her ladyship's name with some others upon a rock, was not a quiz.

"Oh, by no means. I was equally flattered and amused by the whole affair. I have a great idea of taking a trip to America to see it. Then the letter, commencing 'Most charming countess--for charming you must be since you have written the conversations of Lord Byron'--oh, it was quite delightful. I have shown it to every body. By the way, I receive a great many letters from America, from people I never heard of, written in the most extraordinary style of compliment, apparently in perfectly good faith. I hardly know what to make of them."

I accounted for it by the perfect seclusion in which great numbers of cultivated people live in our country, who, having neither intrigue, nor fashion, nor twenty other things to occupy their minds as in England, depend entirely upon books, and consider an author who has given them pleasure as a friend. America, I said, has probably more literary enthusiasts than any country in the world; and there are thousands of romantic minds in the interior of New England, who know perfectly every writer this side the water, and hold them all in affectionate veneration, scarcely conceivable by a sophisticated European. If it were not for such readers, literature would be the most thankless of vocations. I, for one, would never write another line.

"And do you think these are the people who write to me? If I could think so, I should be exceedingly happy. People in England are refined down to such heartlessness--criticism, private and public, is so interested and so cold, that it is really delightful to know there is a more generous tribunal. Indeed I think all our authors now are beginning to write for America. We think already a great deal of your praise or censure."

I asked if her ladyship had known many Americans.

"Not in London, but a great many abroad. I was with Lord Blessington in his yacht at Naples, when the American fleet was lying there, eight or ten years ago, and we were constantly on board your ships. I knew Commodore Creighton and Captain Deacon extremely well, and liked them particularly. They were with us, either on board the yacht or the frigate every evening, and I remember very well the bands playing always 'God save the King,' as we went up the side. Count D'Orsay here, who spoke very little English at that time, had a great passion for Yankee Doodle, and it was always played at his request."

The count, who still speaks the language with a very slight accent, but with a choice of words that shows him to be a man of uncommon tact and elegance of mind, inquired after several of the officers, whom I have not the pleasure of knowing. He seemed to remember his visits to the frigate with great pleasure. The conversation, after running upon a variety of topics, which I could not with propriety put into a letter for the public eye, turned very naturally upon Byron. I had frequently seen the Countess Guiccioli on the continent, and I asked lady Blessington if she knew her.

"No. We were at Pisa when they were living together, but though Lord Blessington had the greatest curiosity to see her, Byron would never permit it. 'She has a red head of her own,' said he, 'and don't like to show it.' Byron treated the poor creature dreadfully ill. She feared more than she loved him."

She had told me the same thing herself in Italy.

It would be impossible, of course, to make a full and fair record of a conversation of some hours. I have only noted one or two topics which I thought most likely to interest an American reader. During all this long visit, however, my eyes were very busy in finishing for memory a portrait of the celebrated and beautiful woman before me.

The portrait of lady Blessington in the Book of Beauties is not unlike her, but it is still an unfavorable likeness. A picture by Sir Thomas Lawrence hung opposite me, taken, perhaps, at the age of eighteen, which is more like her, and as captivating a representation of a just matured woman, full of loveliness and love, the kind of creature with whose divine sweetness the gazer's heart aches, as ever was drawn in the painter's most inspired hour. The original is now (she confessed it very frankly) forty. She looks something on the sunny side of thirty. Her person is full, but preserves all the fineness of an admirable shape; her foot is not crowded in a satin slipper, for which a Cinderella might long be looked for in vain, and her complexion, (an unusually fair skin, with very dark hair and eyebrows,) is of even a girlish delicacy and freshness. Her dress of blue satin, (if I am describing her like a milliner, it is because I have here and there a reader of the mirror in my eye who will be amused by it,) was cut low and folded across her bosom, in a way to show to advantage the round and sculpture-like curve and whiteness of a pair of exquisite shoulders, while her hair dressed close to her head, and parted simply on her forehead with a rich _ferronier_ of turquoise, enveloped in clear outline a head with which it would be difficult to find a fault.--Her features are regular, and her mouth, the most expressive of them, has a ripe fulness and freedom of play, peculiar to the Irish physiognomy, and expressive of the most unsuspicious good humour. Add to all this a voice merry and sad by turns, but always musical, and manners of the most unpretending elegance, yet even more remarkable for their winning kindness, and you have the prominent traits of one of the most lovely and fascinating women I have ever seen. Remembering her talents and her rank, and the unenvying admiration she receives from the world of fashion and genius, it {369} would be difficult to reconcile her lot to the "doctrine of compensation."

There is one remark I may as well make here, with regard to the personal descriptions and anecdotes with which my letters from England will of course be filled. It is quite a different thing from publishing such letters in London. America is much farther off from England than England from America. You in New York read the periodicals of this country, and know every thing that is done or written here, as if you lived within the sound of Bow-bell. The English, however, just know of our existence, and if they get a general idea twice a year of our progress in politics, they are comparatively well informed. Our periodical literature is never even heard of. Of course, there can be no offence to the individuals themselves in any thing which a visiter could write, calculated to convey an idea of the person or manners of distinguished people to the American public. I mention it lest, at first thought, I might seem to have abused the hospitality or frankness of those on whom letters of introduction have given me claims for civility.

N. P. W.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

TO MISS C----, ON HER COQUETRY.

"Go to," and quit thy idle ways
Thou winning little creature;
A mind of nobler import plays,
Around thy every feature.

Why waste those powers, by heav'n design'd
To win true hearts and wear them?
To wreck the peace of half mankind,
Who let thy arts ensnare them?

In thy pursuit 'tis all the same,
The simple, wise, or learned,
Alike are fuel for thy flame--
Are on thy altar burned.

Nay, say not "no!"--within that hall,
Hallowed by deeds of ages,
I've seen thy _look_ around thee call
Virginia's proudest sages.

I've seen thee, 'midst the festive scene,
With fools and fops in waiting,
Essay to conquer things too mean,
For pity, love, or hating.

Go, quit it all--'tis weak--'tis vain--
'Tis wicked--nay, 'tis _cruel_;
Thy native truth alone can gain
For thee, the brightest jewel.

B.

_Richmond, Feb. 1835_.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

WRITTEN FOR MISS M---- T----'S ALBUM.

Mary, thou wert a lovely child!
A sweeter cherub never smiled!
Tho' since we have not often met,
Those days I well remember yet;
When, in thy sportiveness and glee,
Thou wert a favorite with me;
And told me, in thy frolic mood,
The story of Red-riding-hood--
In words I ne'er could understand--
They seemed sweet sounds from fairy land.

Time's changes numberless had passed
O'er thee when I beheld thee last,
Yet still I thought that I could trace
The same expression in thy face;
Only that then it was refined
By the bright impress of the mind--
For years had failed to steal away
The artlessness of childhood's day.
In nature's richest tints arrayed,
Thy cheek the bloom of health displayed;
And in its varying flush, I read
All that thy lips had left unsaid.

Mary, I thought thee lovely then--
Oh! may'st thou long thy charms retain,
And ne'er thine eyes their witness bear
To any but compassion's tear!
May life's fast flowing stream, for thee
Roll smoothly bright, and buoyantly--
Bearing thee calmly on thy way,
To realms of ever-shining day;
To regions of eternal peace,
Where joys live on and sorrows cease.

E. A. S.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

LINES

Written on the Pillar erecting by Mrs. Barlow, to the memory of her husband, Minister of the United States at Paris.

Where o'er the Polish desarts trackless way,
Relentless Winter rules with savage sway,
Where the shrill polar storms, as wild they blow,
Seem to repeat some plaint of mortal woe;
Far o'er the cheerless space, the traveller's eye
Shall this recording pillar long descry,
And give the sod a tear where Barlow lies,
He who was simply great and nobly wise;
Here led by Patriot zeal, he met his doom,
And found amid the frozen wastes a tomb--
Far from his native soil the Poet fell,
Far from that Western World he sung so well.
Nor she, so long beloved, nor she was nigh,
To catch the dying look--the parting sigh!
She, who, the hopeless anguish to beguile,
In fond memorial rears the funeral pile;
Whose widowed bosom, on Columbia's shore,
Shall mourn the moments that return no more--
While bending o'er the broad Atlantic wave,
Sad fancy hovers on the distant grave.

H. M. WILLIAMS.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

TO ONE WHO WILL UNDERSTAND ME.

Memory! within thy deepest cell
A recollection glows;
A burning thought--whose magic spell
Can charm away my woes:
It gushes o'er my troubled soul
In lava streams of joy,
Its talismanic power can roll
The darkness from my sky; {370}
It thrills my heart with ecstacy,
That ever present thought!
And, oh! it were too sweet to die
With mind so richly fraught:
And who is she for whom my heart,
My feelings, harmonize?
And who is she that has the art
To chain my sympathies?

Thine is the brightness of the eye,
Which tide nor time can dim;
Thy voice is softer than the sigh
Of love, or angel's hymn;
The rose is thine--but not the hue
That fadeth with the morn--
_Thy_ color's deeper when the dew
Away from flower is gone--
When all beside is bleak and drear
Thy genial blushes rise,
Like flow'rets of the northern year,
That bloom amid the ice;
But more than all, thy beauty brings
In her imperial train;
And more than all, thy magic flings
To dim the dizzened brain.
Yes! more than these--than rosy cheek--
Is thy pure lofty mind;
Thy nature calm, and soft and meek,
With warmth of heart conjoined.
These are the charms that deck _thee_ most,
With radiance deep and pure,--
These are the flow'rs that thou may'st boast,
When beauty's hour is o'er:
Thy world may fade--its glory past,--
But in the sky afar,
Thy mind will shine undimmed at last,
A high and holy star!
Go to the East--it is thy home--
In nature like to thee;
And while o'er beds of flowers you roam,
No breeze, no bird so free--
And while you breathe the Attar-Gul
Of fragrant memory,
Your heart with thrilling joy so full,
It throbs like summer sea;
Oh! then should thought of times gone by,
With dew-drop dim thine ee,
May, mid the breeze that dances nigh,
A sigh be heard for me.

----.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

EXTRACT FROM AN UNFINISHED POEM.