LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. ©&s;i!Tt ..^sj$B# %.... Shelf ._.£.£. L2£l UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 1 n a^r-eC i/rx THE LIFE, TRAVELS, AND LITERARY CAREER OF BAYARD TAYLOR. Crown Love, crown Truth when first her brow appears, And crown the hero when his deeds are done : The Poet's leaves are gathered one by one, In the slow process of the doubtfr.l years. Who seeks too eagerly, he shall not find : Who seeking not pursues with single mind Art's lofty aim, to him will she accord, At her appointed time- the sure reward." BY EUSSELL H. CONWELL, •3 » BOSTON: ^ D. LOTHROP & COMPANY, FRANKLIN ST., CORNER OF HAWLEY. f 3 y x # x Copyright, jSSi, By D. Lothrop & Company. /z-3/s ?^ 5Ta THE MISTRESS OP MY HOME. "My tears were on the pages as I reart The touching close: 1 made the story mine, Within whose heart, long plighted to the dead, Love built his living shrine." *'For she is lost; but she, the later bride, Who came my ruined fortune to restore; Back from the desert wanders at my side, And leads me home once more." —Poet's Journal. PREFACE. It is a solemn yet pleasant duty to compile in comprehen- sive order the records of a life so eventful and influential as that of Bayard Taylor. Pleasant, because there is no task more satisfactory than that of recounting the deeds of a virtuous, industrious, heroic life. No text-book of morals, or of general history, is so effective in educating the young as the annals of well-spent years, gathered for that purpose. There is more or less influence in fables and mythological tales ; and there is considerable power in a well written, skilfully plotted work of fiction ; but the direct and unavoid- able appeal of a noble life, which closed with honor and deserved renown, is far more potent and permanent in the culture and reformation of the world, than all other forms of intellectual and moral quickening. No apology is needed for writing such a biography. It would be inexcusable to leave the world in need of it. While it may not serve as well as the author desires in preserving an interest in Mr. Taylor's writings, and in presenting to the American people his most encouraging example, it will at least be a sincere tribute to Mr. Taylor's memory from the writer, who in foreign and inhospitable lands recieved from him most gen- erous and patient assistance. 6 PREFACE. The author cannot do less than acknowledge, in this place, his great obligations to the father and mother of Mr. Taylor, to Mrs. Annie Carey, his sister, and to Dr. Franklin Taylor, his cousin, for their generous courtesy and most important assistance in gathering the facts for this volume. All the poetical quotations in this book are from Taylor's poetical works, CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Mr. Taylor's Career. — Difficulty and Importance of the Work.— The Romance of his Life. — Variable Experience. — His Snccesf as Novelist, Orator, Traveller, and Poet, . . . .13 CHAPTER II. German Ancestry. — English Ancestry. — The Pennsylvania Ger- mans. — The Quakers. — How his Forefathers came to America. — The Effect of Intermixture of Races. — The Hereditary Traits seen in his Books, 17 CHAPTER III. Birth at Kennett Square. — Old Homestead. — The Quaker Church. —The Village. — His Father's Store. — Life on the Farm. — Mis- chievous School-boy. — Inclination to write Poetry. — Practical Joker. — Studious Youth. — His Parents. — His Brothers and Sisters, 21 CHAPTER IV. Unfitness for Farming. — Love for Books. — Goes to the Academy. — Appearance as a Student. — Love for Geography and History. — Enters a Printing-office. — Genius for Sketching. — Corre- spondence with Literary Men. — Their Advice. — Hon. Charles Miner. — Putnam's Tourist Guide. — Determination to go to Europe. — Dismal Prospects, 29 CHAPTER V. Visited by his Cousin. — Decides to go to Europe with his Cousin. — Correspondence with Travellers. — Lack of Money. — Unshaken Confidence. — Publication of Ximena, 36 CHAPTER VI. The Contest with Enemies. — Departure from Philadelphia. — Friendship of N. P. Willis, — Discouraging Reception. — Inter- view with Horace Greeley. — Searching for a Vessel. — Steerage Passage for Liverpool. — Fellow Passengers. — The Voyage. — The Beauty of the Sea. — Landing at Liverpool, . . 42 CHAPTER VII. Departure from Liverpool. — Travels Second-Class. — Arrival at Port Rush. — The Giant's Causeway. — Lost and in Danger. — Dun- luce Castle. — Effect upon the Travellers. — Condition of the Irish. — Arrival at Dumbarton. — Scaling the Castle Walls. — Walk to Loch Lomond. — Ascent of Ben Lomond. — Loch Katrine. — Visit to Stirling, 50 8 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. Visit to the Home of Burns. — The Poet's Cottage. — The Cele- bration. — Walks and Rides in the Rain. — Edinburgh. — Its Associations. — The Teachings of History. — Home of Drum- mond. — Abbotsford. — Melrose. — Jedburgh Abbey. — New- castle-on-Tyne, 59 CHAPTER IX. V^sit in London. — Exhibition of Relics. — The Lessons of Travel. — Historical Association. — London to Ostend. — The Cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle. — The Great Cathedral at Cologne. — Voy- age up the Rhine. — Longfellow's " Hyperion." — Visit to Frankfort. — Kind Friends. — Reaches Heidelberg. — Climbing the Mountains, 67 CHAPTER X. Study in Frankfort. — Lack of Money. — Different Effect of Want on Travellers. — Bayard's Privations. — Again sets out on Foot. — Visit to the Hartz Mountains. — The Brocken. — Scenes in "Faust." — Locality in Literature. — The Battle-field at Leip- sic. — Auerbach's Cellar, 77 CHAPTER XL Pictures at Dresden. — Raphael's Madonna. — Bayard's Art Educa- tion. — His Exalted Ideas of Art. — His Enthusiasm. — Visits Bohemia. — Stay in Prague. — The Curiosities of Vienna. — Tomb of Beethoven. — Respect for Religion. — Listens to Strauss. — View of Lintz. — Munich and its Decorations. — The Home of Schiller. — Poetic Landscapes, and Charming People. — Statue by Thorwaldsen. — Walk to Heidelberg, . .85 CHAPTER XII. Starts for Switzerland and Italy. — First View of the Alps. — The Falls of the Rhine. — Zurich. — A Poet's Home. — Lake Lucerne. — Goethe's Cottage. — Scenes in the Life of William Tell. — Ascent of the Alps at St. Gothard. — Descent into Italy. — The Cathedral at Milan. — Bayard's Characteristics. — Tramp to Genoa. — Visits Leghorn and Pisa. — Lovely Florence. — De- lightful Visits. — The Home of Art, 95 CHAPTER XIII. Visit to Rome. — Attractions of its Ruins. — Bayard's Persistent Searches. — His Limited Means. — Sights and Experiences. — Journey to Marseilles. — Walks to Lyons. — Desperate Circum- stances. — Stay in Paris. — Employment of his Time. — De- parture for London. — Failure to obtain Money or Work. — Seeks a Friend. — Obtains Help from a Stranger. — Voyage to New York. — Arrival Home, 105 CHAPTER XIV. Edits a Country Newspaper. — The " Phoenixville Pioneer." — The Discouragements. — The Suspension. — Publishes " Views Afoot." — Introduction to Literary Men. — Contributes to the "Literary World." — Becomes an Editor of the New York " Tribune." — The Gold Excitement of 1849. — Resolves to visit the Eldorado. — Arrival in California, 115 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XV. Entrance to California. — The Camp at San Francisco in 1849. — Description of the People. — Gold-Hunters. — Speculations. — Prices of Merchandise. — Visit to the Diggings. — Adventures on the Route. — The First Election. — The Constitutional Con- vention. — San Francisco after Two Months' Absence. — Poetical Descriptions. — Departure for Mexico. — Arrival at Mazatlan. — Overland to the Capital. — Adventure with Robbers. — Re- turn to New York, 120 CHAPTER XVI. The Poet's First Love. — Playmates. — Miss Mary S. Agnew. — His Fidelity. — Poems Inspired by Affection. — Her Failing Health. — Consumption. — His Return to Her. — The Marriage at the Death-bed. — Her Death. — The Poet's Grief. — His Inner Life. — The Story in his own Rhyme, 133 CHAPTER XVII. Grief and Despair. — Describes his Feelings. — Failing Health. — Severe Mental Labor. — Decides to go to Africa. — Visits Vien- na. — Arrival at Alexandria. — Sails up the Nile. — Scenes in Cairo. — The Pyramids. — The Lovely Nile. — An Important and Pleasant Acquaintance. — A Lasting Friendship. — Learning the Language. — Assuming the Costume. — Sights by the Way, 151 CHAPTER XVIII. Moslem Worship. — Scenery of the Nile. — Fellowship with the People. — The Temple of Dendera. — Mr. Taylor's Enthusi- asm. — Luxor. — Karnak. — The Extent of Ancient Thebes. — The Tombs and Statues. — The Natives. — Arrives at Assouan. — Th« Island of Philae. — Separation of the Friends. — Starts for the White Nile. — Trip through the Desert. — Again on the Nile. — Reception by the People and Officials. — Visits Ancient Meroe, . 164 CHAPTER XIX. From Meroe to Khartoum. — Twenty-seventh Birth-day. — Desire to Explore Central Africa. — Ascent of the White Nile. — Ad- venture with the Savage Shillooks. — Visits the Natives. — Re- turn to Khartoum. — Crossing the Desert. — Parting with Friends. — Descent of the Nile. — Arrival at Cairo, . . 174 CHAPTER XX. Departure from Egypt. — A Poet in Palestine. — Difference in Trav- ellers. — Mr. Taylor's Appreciation. — First View of Tyre. — Route to Jerusalem. — The Holy City. — Bath in the Dead Sea. — Appearance of Jerusalem. — Samaria. — Looking down upon Damascus. — Life in the eldest City. — The Bath. — Dose of Hashish. — Being a Turk among Turks, .... 182 10 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXL Leaving Damascus. — Arrival at Beyrout. — Trip to Aleppo. — En- ters Asia Minor. — The Scenery and People. — The Hills of Leb- anon. — Beautiful Scenes about Brousa. — Enters Constantino- ple. — A Prophecy. — Return to Smyrna. — Again in Italy. — Visits his German Friend at Gotha. — The Home of his Second Love. — Goes to London. — Visits Gibraltar. — Cadiz. — Seville. — Spanish History, 194 CHAPTER XXII. Leaves Gibraltar for Alexandria. — Egypt and Old Friends. — The Town of Suez. — Embarks for Bombay. — Mocha and its Cof- fee. — Aden. — Arrival in Bombay. — Reception by the People. — Trip to Elephanta. — Ride into the Interior. — Difficulties of the Journey. — Views of Agra. — Scenes about Delhi. — Starts for the Himalaya Mountains, 206 CHAPTER XXIII. The Himalaya Mountains. — Returning Southward. — Lucknow and Calcutta. — Foretells the Great Rebellion. — Embarks for Chi- na. — Visit to the Mountains of Penang. — The Chinese at Sin- gapore. — Arrival at Hong-Kong. — Joins the Staff of the U. S. Commissionor. — Scenes about Shanghai. — The Nanking Rebellion. — Life in Shanghai. — Enlists in the Navy. — Com- modore Perry's Expedition, 221 CHAPTER XXIV. Elis Reception on the Man-of-war. — Commodore Perry's Tribute. — Mr. Taylor's Journals. — Visit to the Loo-Choo Islands. — Explo- rations. — Mr. Taylor becomes a Favorite. — His Description of the Country. — Cruise to Japan. — The Purpose of the Expedi- tion. — Mr. Taylor's Assistance. — Return to Hong-Kong. — Re- signs his Commission. — Visits Canton. — Sails for America. — St. Helena. — Arrival in New York, 230 CHAPTER XXV. Takes up the Editorial Pen. — Publication of His " Poems of the Orient." — His Books of Travel. — Lecturing before Lyceums. — Friendship of Richard H. Stoddard. — Private Correspondence. — Love of Fun. — Resolves to Build a Home at Kennett. — Charges of Intemperance. — Preparations for a Third Trip to Europe. — Acquaintance with Thackeray, .... 242 CHAPTER XXVI. Visit to Europe. — Reception in England. — Company in Charge. — Starts for Sweden. — Stockholm. — The Dangerous Ride. — The Severe Cold. — Arrival in Lapland. — First Experience with Canoes and Reindeers. — Becomes a Lapp. — The Extreme North. — The Days without a Sun. — " Yankee Doodle." — The Return. — Study in Stockholm. — Return to Germany and Lon- don. — Embarks for. Norway. — Meets his Friend at Christiania. — The Coast of Norway. — The Midnight Sun. — Trip across Norway and Sweden. — Return to Germany, . . . 252 CONTENTS. 11 CHAPTER XXVII. His Marriage. — German Relatives. — Intention of Visiting Siberia. — Goes to Greece instead. — Dalmatia. — Spoleto. — Arrival at Athens. — His lirst View of the Propylaea. — The Parthenon. — Excursion to Crete. — Earthquake at Corinth. — Mycense. — Sparta. — The Ruins of Olympia. — Visit to Thermopylae. — Aulis. — Return to Athens. — His Acquirements, . . 265 CHAPTER XXVIII. From Constantinople to Gotha. — Visit to Russia. — Moscow and St. Petersburg. — Return to Prussia. — Arrival in the United States. — Incessant Work. — Lecturing and Travels in Cali- fornia. — The Construction of Cedarcroft. — His Patriotic Ad- dresses and Poems. — Visits Germany in 1861. — Anxiety for the Fate of His Nation. — Life at Cedarcroft, . . . 276 CHAPTER XXIX. Appointed as Secretary of Legation. — Life in St. Petersburg. — Literary Labors. — His Home at Kennett. — Publication of his Poems. — Visits Iceland. — His Poem at the Millennial Celebra- tion. — Appointment as Minister to Berlin. — His Congratula- tions. — Reception at Berlin. — His Death, .... 287 CHAPTER XXX. His Friends. — The Multitude of Mourners. — His London Acquaint- ances. — Tennyson, Cornwall, Browning, Carlylo. -- German Popularity. — Auerbach. — Humboldt. — French Authors. — Early American Friends. — Stoddard, Willis, Kane, Bryant, Halleck, Powers, Greeley, Mrs. Kirkland, Whittier, Longfellow, Holmes, Emerson, Lowell, Dana, Alcott, Aldrich, Whipple, Curtis, Fields, Boker, Chandler. — Relatives, . . .296 CHAPTER XXXI. Translations of " Faust." — A Life-work. — Discouragements. — The Scenes in " Faust." — The Difficulties. — Magnitude of the Work. — Perseverance. — The Lives of Goethe and Schiller. — Years in the Work. — The Estimate by Scholars. — Dies with the Work Unfinished, 308 CHAPTER XXXII. Grief at his Death. — Homage of the Great Men of Germany. — Tribute from Auerbach. — Tributes from his Neighbors at Ken- nett Square. — Extracts from Addresses. — The Great Memorial Gathering at Boston. — The Great Assembly. — Speeches and Letters. — Address of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. — Henry \V. Longfellow's Poem. — Letters from John G. Whittier, George William Curtis, W. D. Howells, T. B. Aldrich, James T. Fields, Whitelaw Reid, E. P. Whipple. — Tributes from other friends. — Funeral Ceremonies. 317 12 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Bayard Taylor Frontispiece. Tower of London, Opposite page 68 The Danube at Lintz, "89 The Arena of the Coliseum, " 107 Place de la Concorde, "Ill Castle of Chapultepec, "131 Philje Colonnade, " "170 Scene in North Africa, " 178 Native Cottages in the Tropics, .... " " 224 Pagan Temple in Japan, . .... " " 236 Sledges, " " 255 Lazaretto Christiansand, " 257 Cedarcroft, Kennett Square, Pa., .... " ** 285 Nicholas Bridge, " " 287 THE LIFE, TRAVELS. AND LITERARY CAREER OF BAYARD TAYLOR. CHAPTER I. Mr. Taylor's Career. — Difficulty and Importance of the Work. — The Romance of his Life. — Variable Experience. — His Success as Novelist, Orator, Traveller, and Poet. The nearness and magnitude of Bayard Taylor's life make it one exceedingly difficult to comprehend and classify. His adventures were so many, his struggles so severe, his experience so varied, and his final suc- cess so remarkable, that the materials are too abun- dant, and often serve to clog and confuse the student of his career. An artist who views the mountain from its base, loses many of the finest effects and most charming outlines, because of his very close proximity to them. So, in looking upon the wonderful career of such a versatile and gifted man, at a time so near his death, we are less able to form a comprehen- sive idea of his life, as a symmetrical whole, than wo 14 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. shall be when the years have carried us farther away from him, and the outlines of his greatness are more distinct. Whether it were better to wait until a part of the life has been forgotten, and until the more harsh and angular features have been lost in the general out- line, or whether it were more desirable to describe the life in all its actual details, and in the natural rugged- ness which the close view reveals, is, however, a mere matter of taste. To those who love to read of a man in whose work there was no unevenness and in whose experience nothing unbroken is seen, the life of one so long dead that the writer is compelled to fill up the forgotten years with ideal events and motives may furnish the choicest theme. But to those students who love scientific scrutiny, who would estimate the life for what it is really worth as an example, the biog- raphy which is written amid all the facts, and by one who comes in actual contact with them, is perhaps esteemed the most valuable, although, as a whole, less symmetrical. Bayard Taylor's life was rugged and cragged with startling events, when viewed from the kindly poetical stand-point of his character. He felt all the extremes of joy and sorrow. He knew all the pains and honors of poverty and wealth. He was loved by many, he was betrayed by many. He lived in the most enlight- ened lands, he also sojourned among the most barbar- ous people. He saw man in peace and in war. He rode the ocean in calm and in storm. He was the LITERARY POSITION. 15 welcomed guest in the lowliest huts, and in the most gorgeous palaces. He sweltered in the sands of trop- ical deserts, and he was benumbed by the fierce winds of the Northern ice-fields. He boldly entered the haunts of wild beasts, and loved the company of harmless and faithful domestics. He was a man of many virtues and some faults, each of which made his life more eventful and fascinating. The literary position which he held at the time of his death, and which was so romantically attained, was one of almost universal favor. He was respected by all and loved by many. As a writer of fiction he at- tained but little celebrity, and it appears that he had little expectation of achieving any high honors in that field. As a writer upon travels, and as a delineator of human character as found in strange places, and in but partially known countries, he was second to none. His books upon travel will be read for a century to come, whether thousands or few visit the localities and tribes he has described. As an orator, he never held a high rank. He was chaste, concise, and clear in his choice of words, and had an incisive, pungent way of statinsr his ideas. He could instruct the student and amuse the populace, but had not the power to agi- tate and carry away large bodies of men, and seems never to have been very ambitious to do so. As a trnnslator of German literature, he was fast becoming recognized in all English-speaking countries as an excellent authority, and it is deeply to be regretted 16 L7FE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. that he was called away with so many uncompleted translations, and unfinished plans for translations, from the standards of German literature. But it is as a poet that he receives the greatest homage. Yet how little he printed ! Unless there shall be found laid away many poems unpublished, he may be classed as one of the least prolific poets of his generation. His lines are so simple, so true to life, such incarnate sentences, so expressive, that, to one who has had a similar expe- rience with the poet, every stanza is a panorama, vivid and indelible. We shall see as we pursue the tale, how sensitive he was to everything poetical, and how deeply he was moved by all those finer and more subtle emo- tions, which only a poet can feel. His love was deep and abiding. His friendship, like the oaks of his Cedarcroft woodland. His old home was to him the sweetest place in all the beautiful lands he saw. His life was full of romantic incidents, and he recognized them and appreciated them, for the poetry they sug- gested. We venture to say that his poetry will live in every household, if all his other works should be forgotten. ANCESTRY. 17 CHAPTER n. German Ancestry. — English Ancestry. — The Pennsylvania Ger- mans. — The Quakers. — How his Forefathers came to America. — The Effect of Intermixture of Races. — The Hereditary Traits seen in his Books. The ancestry of Bayard Taylor were connected with some of the best blood of England and Germany. His grandmothers were both German, and his grand- fathers both English. The German line comes from that body of emigrants, consisting of large numbers from Weimar, Jena, Cassel, Gottingen, Hanover, and perhaps Gotha, who sailed from Bremen and Ham- burg between 1730 and 1745. The continued quar- rels among the dukes and princes of Germany, — the wars in progress and impending, wherein the peace of the people was incessantly disturbed, — caused a universal uneasiness among the people of those small nations. They never were quite sure of a clay's rest. If they sowed unmolested, there was a grave doubt whether some complication with France, England, or Poland might not bring foreign invaders or allies to destroy or devour the crops. The wars were so inces- sant, and the quarrels among the petty lords so fre- quent, that the people became disheartened. They 18 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. were weary of building for others to destroy, and of rearing sons to be sacrificed to some individual's ambition. All those German provinces, or duchies, had to accommodate themselves to the religion of their princes, and, at times, the winds that played about the hills of the Black Forest were far less uncertain. To the fathers of these emigrants, who sought America as a haven of religious and political rest, George Fox and his Quaker disciples had taught the doctrines of " The Holy Spirit," and, under various guises, the tenets of that belief still survived in the German heart. Those Germans who settled in the counties of Pennsylvania, lying to the south and south-west of Philadelphia, came to this country during the disturb- ances in the Fatherland, caused by Augustus, Maria Theresa, Frederick, and the scores of other princes who were in power, or seeking to secure it, in the numerous states and free cities of Germany. It is no light excuse, no desire for mere wealth, no hasty search for the fountains of youth, that causes the solid, earnest, patriotic people of Saxony, Baden, or Bavaria to leave forever the home of their nativity. It is a little curious to see how these races, which so cordially and hospitably received the Quaker mission- aries from England, should at last unite with them in the settlement of the New World, and, by their inter- marriage, produce such offshoots of the united stock as Bayard Taylor and his cotemporaries. The Quaker ancestry of the poet, — the Taylors ANCESTRY. 19 and the Ways, — run back through a long line of industrious men and women, more or less known in Central Pennsylvania, to the colony which William Penn sent over from England to cultivate the great land-grant, which King Charles II., of England, gave him, in consideration of his father's services as admiral in the British navy. They, too, were driven from their homes by the incessant turmoil either of wars or religious persecutions. Their preachers had again and again been imprisoned, while some had died the death of martyrs. Even Penn himself was often in chains and in prison, for being a peaceable believer in the truth of the Quaker doctrines ; but so blameless were the lives of these people, and so forgiving their Christian behavior, that the term "Quakers," which was at first applied to them in derision, became at last a title of respect and honor. " The foar of the Lord did make us quake," was a common expression with George Fox, the founder of the sect, and the name "Quakers" originated in sneers at that devout sentence. It is easy to trace in the history of the State of Pennsylvania, the influence of the Quaker spirit, and its impression upon the institutions of the American nation is also strikingly apparent. But when one takes up the life of one of their descendants, and studies his habits, his style of thought, and his ideas of social and political institutions, the hereditary Quaker element, in a modified form, is detected in 20 LITE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. every motion and expression. It would seem as if any reader, to whom the author is unknown, would detect at once, in any volume of Taylor's poetry or travels, the fact that he came from Quaker stock. As will be more clearly shown in a subsequent chapter, the teachings of the Quakers, and their manner of expression by gesture and phrase, have unconsciously and charmingly crept into the bosom of his best works. It is a great boon to be born of such a physi- cal and mental combination as that of the German soldiers, with all their coolness and bravery, and the even-tempered, God-fearing Quakers, with all their grace and wisdom. Such intermixture has given to our young nation much of its surprising enterprise and originality, and must, at last, when consolidated into a compact people, produce a nation and a race wholly unlike any other on the earth. It is not known that any of Bayard Taylor's ances- try were literary men, or that any of them were endowed with special genius, beyond that which was necessary to clear the forests, cultivate the soil, man- age manufacturing enterprises, and carry on small mercantile establishments. Solid people, with wide common-sense, industrious hands and generous hearts, they have modestly held their way, doing their simple duty, and, Quaker-like, making no display. BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 21 CHAPTER m. Birth at Kennett Square. — Old Homestead. — The Quaker Church. The Village. — His Father's Store. — Life on the Farm. — Mis- chievous School-boy. — Inclination to write Poetry. — Practical Joker. — Studious Youth. — His Parents. — His Brothers and Sisters. Bayard Taylor was born at Kennett Square, Penn., Jan. 11, 1825. His mother, whose maiden name was Rebecca Way, was then twenty-nine years of age, and his father was thirty-one. The house then occupied was a two-story stone-and-mortar structure, such as are yet very common in the farm- ing regions of central Pennsylvania. The house was long and narrow, having a porch that extended along the whole front. The rooms were small and low, but it was considered by the farmers of that time as a very comfortable and respectable home. It was located at the junction of two highways, and near the centre of the little hamlet called the "Square," and sometimes * the "Village." But few families resided there in 1825, and the people were all more or less engaged in the cultivation of the soil. The little rude Quaker meeting-house, so box-like and cold in its aspect, was doubtless the centre of attraction, and the desire to be near the house of God, led those devoted 22 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. Quakers to build their dwellings on that portion of their lands which lay nearest the church. The village has increased in growth, and now has a population of six or seven hundred, with several churches belonging to other denominations, and very flourishing schools. But the old homestead building, in which Bayard was born, was destroyed by fire in 1876. At the time of his birth, his father kept a miscel- laneous stock of merchandise in one room of his house, and supplied the necessities of the farmers, so far as the small capital of a country store could antici- pate their wants. Situated thirty-five miles from Phil- adelphia, to which place he was compelled to send the produce he received, and in which place he purchased his simple stock of goods, the merchant had a task on his hands which cannot be appreciated or understood in these days of railways, telegraphs, and commercial travellers. One of his neighbors, living in 1872, used to relate how Mr. Taylor, having had a call for two hay-rakes, which he could not supply, drove all the w T ay to West Chester, the distance of a dozen miles, to get those tools for his customer. At the time of Bayard's birth, his parents had been married seven years. Their life had already been subject to many trials, and was fated to meet many more. Of a family of ten children, only one-half the number survived to see mature years. The losses by mercantile ventures, by failing crops, by sickness BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 23 and accidents, often swept away the hard earnings of many a month. Yet they struggled on, industrious and cheerful, keeping themselves and their children ever busy. When Bayard was two or three years old, his father purchased a farm about a mile from the village, and giving up his mercantile avocations, turned his whole attention to farming. On that farm Bayard spent the opening years of his life, and on one section of it did he build his beautiful home of " Cedarcroft." " The beginning and the end is here — The days of youth ; the silvered years." How deeply he loved his home, how sincere his affec- tion for the rolling fields, the chestnut and the walnut woodland, the old stone farm-house, the clumsy barn, the old highway, the acres of corn and wheat, the dis- tant village and its quaint old church, can be seen in a thousand expressions finding place in his published works. His poetical nature opened to his view beau- tiful landscapes and charming associations which oth- ers would not detect. The birds sang in an intelligi- ble language ; the leaves on the corn entered into conversation ; the lowing of the cows could be inter- preted ; and the rocks were romantic story-tellers. He loved them all. That farm was his Mecca in all his travels. When he left, he says he promised bird, beast, trees, and knolls, that he would return to them. To the writer, who went to Cedarcroft after 24 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. the poet's death, and who has so long loved and admired his poetry, it seemed as if the trees patiently awaited his return. All things in nature must have loved and trusted him, or they would not have con- fided to him so many of their secrets. Of the pastoral life in Pennsylvania he speaks with pleasing directness in his volume entitled " Home Pastorals." In one place the aged farmer says : — " Well — well ! this is comfort now — the air is mild as May, And yet 'tis March the twentieth, or twenty-first, to-day ; And Reuben ploughs the hill for corn : I thought it would be tough ; But now I see the furrows turned, I guess it's dry enough. I'm glad I built this southern porch ; my chair seems easier here : I haven't seen as fine a spring this five and twenty year. And how the time goes round so quick : a week I would have sworn, Since they were husking on the flat, and now they plough for corn ! Across the level Brown's new place begins to make a show ; I thought he'd have to wait for trees, but, bless me, how they grow ! They say it's fine — two acres filled with evergreens and things ; But so much land ! it worries me, for not a cent it brings. He has the right, I don't deny, to please himself that way, But 'tis a bad example set, and leads young folks astray : Book-learning gets the upper hand, and work is slow and slack, And they that come long after us will find things gone to wrack. Well — I suppose I'm old, and yet it is not long ago When Reuben spread the swath to dry, and Jesse learned to mow, And William raked, and Israel hoed, and Joseph pitched with me, But such a man as I was then my boys will never be ! BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 25 I don't mind William's hankering for lectures and for books, He never bad a farming knack — you 'd see it in bis looks ; But handsome is that handsome does, and he is well to do : 'Twould ease my mind if I could say the same of Jesse, too. 'Tis like my time is nearly out ; of that I 'm not afraid ; I never cheated auy man, and all my debts are paid. They call it rest that we shall have, but work would do no harm ; There can't be rivers there, and fields, without some sort o ? farm." No description in prose can as well describe his occupation as a boy, as his own lines, in the poem of the "Holly Tree." " The corn was warm in the ground, the fences were mended and made, And the garden-beds, as smooth as a counterpane is laid, Were dotted and striped with green, where the peas and the rad- ishes grew, With elecampane at the foot, and comfrey, and sage, and rue. From the knoll where stood the house, the fair fields pleasantly rolled, To dells where the laurels hung, and meadows of buttercup gold." Such was the farm when he left it, in words of the poet's choosing, and what he found when, after a quarter of a century of wanderings, he can best de- scribe. " Here are the fields again, the soldierly maize in tassel Stands on review, and carries the scabbarded ears in its armpits. Rustling, I part the ranks, — the close, engulfing battalions Shaking their plumes overhead, — and, wholly bewildered and heated, Gain the top of the ridge, where stands, colossal, the pin-oak. Yonder, a mile away, I see the roofs of the village, — 26 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. See the crouching front of the meeting-house of the Quakers, Oddly conjoined with the whittled Preshyterian steeple. Right and left are the homes of the slow, conservative farmers, Loyal people and true ; but, now that the battles are over, Zealous for Temperance, Peace, and the Right of Suffrage for Women. Orderly, moral are they, — at least, in the sense of suppression ; Given to preaching of rules, inflexible outlines of duty : Seeing the sternness of life; but, alas! overlooking its graces. Let me be juster : the scattered seeds of the graces are planted Widely apart ; but the trumpet-vine on the porch is a token : Yea, and awake and alive are the forces of love and affection, Plastic forces that work from the tenderer models of beauty." There must be many things in the events of com- mon life which find no voice in poetry, as every life has its prose side. At all events, there were some duties connected with agricultural work which young Bayard never enjoyed. He never was ambitious to follow the plough, or do the miscellaneous odd jobs which perplex and weary a farmer's boy. Yet, like Burns, he worked cheerfully, and wrung more or less poetry out of every occupation. He was a spare, wiry, nervous boy, quick at work, study, or play, and consequently had many leisure moments, when other boys were drudging along with ceaseless toil. His schoolmates, and the only school-teacher now living (1879), who taught him in his boyhood, all agree that he was a mischievous boy. He loved prac- tical jokes, and, in fact, jokes of every kind. But he was ceaselessly framing verses. When his lesson was mastered, which was always in an incredibly BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 27 short space of time after he took up his book, he plunged recklessly into poetry. Verses about the teacher, about snowbanks, about buttercups, about pigs, about courting, funerals, church services, school- mates, and countless other themes filled his desk, pockets, and hat. Often he wrote love letters, couched in the most delicate phraseology, and signing the name of some classmate to them, would send them to astonished ploughboys and blushing maidens. One old gentle- man in West Chester, Perm., always claimed that a set of Bayard's burlesque verses, sent out in that way, induced him to court and marry a girl with whom he had no acquaintance, until the explanation of his tender epistle was demanded by her father. What volumes of poetry he must have written, which never saw the type, and how much more of that which he was in the habit of repeating to himself was left un- written ! The life he led, from his earliest school days, until he was fifteen years of age, was that of every farmer's boy in America, who is compelled to work hard through the spring, summer, and au- tumn, and attend the district school in the winter. The only remarkable difference between Bayard and many other boys, was found in his strong desire to read, and his genius for poetry. He gathered the greater part of his youthful education from books, which he read at home, and by himself. He had a noble father, and a lovely mother, God 28 LIFE OF BATAUD TAYXOR. bless them ! and they made it as easy for Bayard as they could in justice to the other children. They might not have fully understood the signs of genius which he displayed ; but they put no needless stum- bling-blocks in his way. No better proof of this is needed, than the excellent record of the other children, all of whom hold enviable positions in so- ciety. One brother, Dr. J. Howard Taylor, is a physican, and connected with the health department of the city of Philadelphia ; another, William W. Tay- lor, is a most skilful civil engineer; while a third, Col. Frederick Ta}dor, was killed at the battle of Gettysburg, when leading the celebrated Bucktail Regiment of Pennsylvania. Two sisters are living, — Mrs. Annie Carey, wife of a Swiss gentleman; and Mrs. Lamborn, wife of Col. Charles B. Lam- born, of Colorado. Growing up in such a family, as an elder brother, involved much patient toil, and great responsibility. The best tribute to him, in those days, was paid by an old lady, of Reading, Penn., who knew him in his youth, and who summed up her evidence to the writer in the words, " He did all he could." INTELLECTUAL INCLINATION. 29 CHAPTER IV. Unfitness for Farming. — Love for Books. — Goes to the Academy. — Appearance as a Student. — Love for Geography and History. — Enters a Printing-office. — Genins for Sketching. — Corre- spondence with Literary Men. — Their Advice. — Hon. Charles Miner. — Putnam's Tourist Guide. — Determination to go to Europe. — Dismal Prospects. Joseph Taylor was too intelligent and observing not to notice bow unfit was bis son Bayard for tend- ing sbeep, boeing corn, and weeding beds of vege- tables. Tbe intellectual inclination exhibited by the boy in every undertaking, and bis frail form, led Mr. and Mrs. Taylor to look about for some occupation for tbeir son more fitting tban the bard drudgery of a farm. Tbe eagerness witb wbicb be devoted bimself to tbe study of such books as could then be secured ; his schemes for obtaining volumes considered by bis parents, until then, wholly beyond their reach ; his poems and essays, learned in the hay field, and written out after the day's work was done, all confirmed them in the feeling that it was their duty to give up his assistance on the homestead, and permit him to follow the leading of his genius. It was with no little anxiety that they sent him " away to school " ; for they felt then that they might not 30 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. have their son, as a companion, at home again. Mr. Gause then taught an excellent high school at West Chester, the county seat, and to that they sent him for a short time. One of his classmates at that school, now residing in Baltimore, says he remembers dis- tinctly how awkward and rustic Bayard appeared when he first entered the school, and how radical and rapid was the change from the ploughboy to the stu- dent. He became a universal favorite, and was so able to teach, and so ready to help, that he had a large number of scholars following him about half the time, for the purpose of getting assistance at their lessons. Yet he found much time to read other books than those containing his studies, and as in a village of the size of West Chester, there were some small libraries, his desire for reading could be gratified. Geography was his favorite study, and, in the pursuit of informa- tion, he sought out and read so many books relating to the places mentioned in the text-book, that his classmates used to say that " Bayard knows all about his geography without even reading his lessons over." He was soon well acquainted with the history of the world, and had the most interesting events con- nected with the wars of Europe fresh in his mind. He read about Edinburgh, London, Paris, Berlin, and Dresden ; of William the Conqueror, Peter the Great, Charlemagne, and Mahomet; of the adventures of the Crusaders, of the wars of the Roses, the Thirty Years' War, and Napoleon's campaigns ; and, with YOUTHFUL ENTERPRISES. 31 each volume, built higher those castles in the air, which many youths construct on the excitement of such themes. It seems astonishing how a boy of fourteen years could appreciate so much of the books he read, when we recall the dulness and dryness which characterized almost every history then extant, and the exceedingly difficult subjects of which they treated. He read, one day, for a few minutes, in Unionville, in 1839, from a book that lay on the mantel-shelf, and although the subject was that of art and the beauty of Raphael's Madonna and child, he understood it so well, and remembered it so clearly, that, in 1845, when at Dresden, where the picture was exhibited, he was able to recall the words of that description, and the name of the writer. The circumstances in which his parents were placed, made it impossible for them to support him long at school, neither was he inclined to be a charge upon them. He desired to be able to earn money for him- self, both to relieve his parents of the expense, and to furnish means for purchasing books. He was a bold youth. He seemed to fear nothing. He had a sublime faith in his own success, which was not ego- tism nor pride, but an inspiration. Very often, when he had read a book, he would sit down and write to the author ; which fact was not, in itself, so astonishing as the fact that he wrote letters so bright and sensible, that in nearly every case he obtained a courteous, and often a lengthy reply. In this way, he made the 32 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. acquaintance of many men well known in the literary circles of America, several of whom were of great assistance to him a few years after. When he was but ten years old, and still on the old farm, he read " Pencillings by the Way," which was a narrative of foreign travel, written by Nathaniel P. Willis, and published in the New York "Mirror," of which Mr. Willis was then an associate editor. Young Bayard soon after entered into a correspond- ence with Mr. Willis on literary matters, and contin- ued the interchange of letters until the death of Mr. Willis, in 1867. In the same manner young Bayard secured the attention, advice, and assistance of Rufus W. Griswold, who edited the "New World" and the "New Yorker," and who, in 1842 and 1843, edited "Graham's Magazine," in Philadelphia. Dr. Gris- wold was also a poet, and in fact had been in every branch of literary work, from writing items in Boston for a weekly paper, through type-setting, reporting, and compiling, to writing sermons as a Baptist minis- ter. He had led a wandering life, had seen much of the world, and was well acquainted, as an editor and reviewer, with all the best works of history, travel, and poetry. From him Bayard received much sensible advice and much encouragement. To him Bayard sent some of his earliest poems, and thus secured their publication. It is probable that Bayard became acquainted with Henry S. Evans, editor of the West Chester "Village PRINTING AND SKETCHING. 33 Record," through some of his poetical contributions to that paper. However that may be, he sought the office of that paper for an opportunity to learn the printer's trade, when it had been decided by his pa- rents to let him go. The « Village Record " had long been a respected and favorite journal for that county, and had, under the editorial management of Hon. Charles Miner, been the intellectual training-school of many influential and noted men. Mr. Evans was conducting the paper with much ability, and it was then usually considered a great opportunity for any young man' if an opening was found for him in the office of that periodical. Yet Bayard did not like the work of a printer, and especially despised the work which naturally fell to his lot as a new apprentice. He took to sketching ; and having added the instruction of a teacher, for a few weeks, to a natural tact for drawing, he " illus- trated" almost everything within reach which had a smooth surface. He caricatured the printers and edi- tors, and brought out the worst features of his asso- ciates in horrible cartoons. He sent to delinquent correspondents pictures of ink-bottles and long quills. He sketched hi nself in the mirror, and sent the copy to inquiring friends. Far too intent upon drawings, poetry, and travels to make much progress as a print- er, he became tired of the occupation and longed to be free. There came to his hands some time before 34 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. he entered the printing-office, a small book, intended partly for home reading and partly as a guide-book for European travellers, entitled " The Tourist in Europe." It was written by George P. Putnam, of New York, and told the routes, and described the wonders to be seen, in a very fascinating way to one like Bayard, whose imagination was already excited to the most enthusiastic pitch. The boy appears to have studied that book with the greatest and most perse- vering zeal. He used it for a plan of reading, and taking it by course ? borrowed books relating to the places mentioned by Mr. Putnam, until one by one he had learned the history, occupation, literary achievements, and habits of every city or town of note in the whole of Europe. He made up his mind that he was going to Europe. Just how or when was a mystery. But that he was going soon he had no doubt. He spoke of his trip to England and Ger- many with the confidence of one who has his ticket and letter of credit already in his pocket. Yet he w T as a penniless boy, who had scarcely seen a ship, and who knew but a few phrases outside of his native tongue. His friends laughed at him, and gravely told his relatives that if Bayard did not curb his rambling disposition he would become a beggar and a disgrace. Even that chosen schoolmate, whose dark eyes and tresses held more influence over his thoughts and movements than the w T orlcl knew, or he himself would publicly acknowledge, laughed incredulously as he PREPARATIONS FOR TRAVEL. 35 told her of his projected visits to the castles, towers, shrines, and battle-fields of Europe and Asia. The months rolled heavily away, and his fingers wearied with the type, and his heart became sad be- cause of the long delay. He began to be ashamed of his boasts, but patiently waited. For two years he studied, planned, prophesied, yearned for a trip to Europe ; having in the meantime made a short and hazardous tramp to the Catskills, with money saved from his clothing allowance as an apprentice. He ventured to write to some ship-owners in Phila- delphia, to ascertain if he could work his pas- sage. He often mentioned his proposed trip to his employer, and asked to be released from his engage- ment and agreement as an apprentice. Mr. Evans only smiled and said that Bayard need not trouble himself about that at present ; it would be all right when the time came for him to go. Thus, with a conviction that he should certainly go, and yet heart- sick at the delay, Bayard reached his nineteenth birthday. 36 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. CHAPTER V. Visited by his Cousin. — Decides to go to Europe with his Cousin. — Correspondence with Travellers. — Lack of Money. — Unshaken Confidence. — Publication of Ximena. Bayard had a cousin Frank, or Franklin, whom he held in great respect, and whose subsequent life, as will be seen hereafter, justified the high esteem in which Bayard held him. This young man, a few years older than Bayard, had, by much patience and perseverance, succeeded in obtaining sufficient money to support himself in an economical manner in Ger- many, and had made up his mind to attend the lectures at the university in Heidelberg. "Are you really going, Frank? " "Yes, Bayard, I am going sure." "Then I am going with you." "But, Bayard, how are you going to get the money to pay your expenses?" " I do not know where it is coming from, not even for my outfit, but I am going with you." Bayard had written to a great many people, of whom he had heard, asking them about the expense and outfit for a tour in Europe. Some of them had made the journey, and some had completed their prep- FIRST POEMS. 37 arations ; but they all placed the amount so high as to appear like a fabulous sum to the poor apprentice. None placed the fare at less than five hundred dollars, while some of the estimates were as high as eighteen hundred dollars. Of course this poor boy could not earn nor borrow either of these amounts. Yet he was confident that in some way he would be able to overcome the difficulty. Dr. Griswold, of whom mention was made in the last chapter, had suggested that it might be wise for Bayard to publish, in small book-form, his sonnets and other poems, and sell them to friends and admirers ; and when he found that Frank was going, he deter- mined to try that method of raising a little money. He went to some of his old friends and neighbors for assistance to print his little volume ; but so little was their faith in the boy they had known from his birth, that they told him they would not encourage him in a scheme so absurd and impracticable. But Bayard only became the more determined with each defeat. He renewed his application to friends more distant, and, as is usually the case, he found they had more confidence than those who looked upon him as the boy they knew on the farm. From those distant friends, living in Philadelphia and West Chester, he at last obtained such assistance as to be able to print a few copies of his poems. He christened his first volume "Ximena, and other Poems," and finding many kindly disposed persons who would like to help 38 LITE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. him to the small sum asked for the book, but who would have been ashamed to present him with so diminutive an amount, he was enabled to dispose of enough in a few days to pay his expenses and a profit of twenty dollars. Acting upon the advice of Nathaniel P. Willis, he applied to the editors of the various newspapers in Philadelphia for employment as a travelling correspondent ; but letters from Europe were becoming stale, and correspondence was over- done, so that he was met with discouraging refusals on every hand. Fortunately, some one suggested to him the names of the " Saturday Evening Post," and the "United States Gazette." He was, however, without hope of anything from them. He has since said to his friends, that he then thought as he could not fare any worse than he had done, it would do no harm to try again. His confidence in his final success was so great, that he had made a settlement with Mr. Evans, of the "Village Record," and had left the em- ployment of a printer before he had found or thought of a way to secure funds for his intended trip. He had no money, no outfit, no employment ; and yet he was sure he should go. In that condition, and in a state of mind bordering on wonder, because the way which was to open had so long remained shut, this thin, awkward youth walked confidently into the office of the "Saturday Evening Post." Mr. S. D. Patterson was then its editor, and, while he was disposed to assist the young man, he did not have much faith in RAISING FUNDS. 39 his success as a correspondent. Mr. Patterson, how- ever, gave Bayard some encouragement, and the youth, with lighter step, went to the office of the "United States Gazette." Not finding Mr. J. E. Chandler at his editorial room, Bayard went to the editor's residence. Mr. Chandler was sick in bed ; but he was able to converse with Bayard, and received him very pleasantly. The young man had never met Mr. Chandler before ; but he stated his cause with such frankness and clearness, and showed such confidence in his final triumph, that Mr. Chandler took out his pocket-book and gave Bayard fifty dollars, saying that if he sent any letters of sufficient interest they would be inserted in the columns of the "Gazette." Mr. Chandler did not, at the time, care for letters from Europe, and did not expect to publish any ; but, act- ing from the promptings of a generous heart, he freely gave the assistance desired. Of Mr. Chandler's honorable career, more will be said in another chap- ter. On returning to Mr. Patterson, Bayard found him willing to do as he had proposed, and the sum of fifty dollars was added to the gift of Mr. Chandler. Then, as if fortunes, like misfortunes, come not singly, he found a customer for some manuscript poems in a friend of Dr. Griswold, — George R. Graham. From him Bayard received twenty dollars, making the round sum of one hundred and forty dollars with which to begin his journey to the Old World. Bay- 40 LITE OF BAYAED TAYLOR.^ ard now felt independent and happy. At least he could get across the Atlantic Ocean. He misrht have to work as a compositor, or as a common laborer, or even beg for his bread after he arrived on the other side; he did not know, and seemed to care but little. He had encountered a hard fortune here, and con- quered, and he felt sure that he could do as well there. Happy, proud day was it for him when he returned with the money to his home at Kennctt Square. Sad day for Mary Agnew. But as she and Bayard were only playmates and schoolmates, she must not appear to be especially grieved. The next thing to be done was to obtain a passport from the United States Government. It could only be obtained in Washington, and as they could not afford the expense of the stages, Frank and Bayard started for Washington on foot. It would seem as if such a journey of one hundred and twenty miles, — in which they walked thirty miles to Port Deposit, thence in a rickety tow-boat to Baltimore, and from that city to Washington, they tramped all night with- out food or drink, — would have discouraged any one from attempting to walk through the countries of Europe. For they must have returned from this first walk footsore and lame in every joint. Yet they came back as full of hope as when they started out, having seen Mr. Calhoun, then Secretary of Stale, and many other celebrities then inhabiting -the capital city, — June, 1844. PARTING WITH FRIENDS. 41 Oh ! those farewells ! To the parents who had watched over him so long, it seemed like losing him forever, so far away and mythical did Europe seem to be. Their lips consented, but their hearts kept rap- ping no, no, no, in rebellious throbs. The brothers and sisters wept with a grief never before so keen, and a dread never before so deep. But to the youth, before whom the great unexplored world lay in its beauty, and who could not then realize, as he did so keenly afterwards, that in all the world he would find no spot so sweet and interesting to him as would be the one he was leaving, it was a joy over which the sadness of parting for a time was but as the shadow of a cloud on the summer sea. High hopes, great aspirations, drove him along, while romantic castles and fortresses, brilliant rivers, heavenly gardens, majestic mountains, wise people, delightful music, gorgeous galleries of art, and indescribable lands- capes, beckoned him to come. Giddy with anticipa- tion, trembling with conflicting emotions, he stood in the shade of the oak and the hickory of the old home that morning, bidding his loved ones good-by. He was a hero. There was the sense of present loss, and of danger to come ; but it weighed not with him as against the £reat ambition of his life. Did he bid Mary Agnew farewell ? Perhaps ! The mature poet will tell us, in his own sweet way, by and by. 42 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. CHAPTER VI. Tlie Contest with Enemies. — Departure from Philadelphia. — Friendship of N. P.Willis. — Discouraging Reception. — Inter- view with Horace Greeley. — Searching for a Vessel. — Steerage Passage for Liverpool. — Fellow Passengers. — The Voyage. — The Beauty of the Sea. — Landing at Liverpool. " How rosed with morn, how angel innocent, Thus looking bach, I see my lightsome youth! Each thought a wondrous bounty Heaven had lent, And each illusion was a radiant truth ! Each sorrow dead bequeathed a young desire, Each hovering doubt, or cloud of discontent, So interfused with Faith's pervading fire, That to achieve seemed light as to aspire ! " — Taylor. Bayabd was not an exception to the universal rule, found true by nearly every scholar, and every success- ful statesman. He was ridiculed by a thoughtless throng. His success in the matters he undertook sub- jected him to the slights and backbiting of envious simpletons, and everywhere the looks and shrugs of his acquaintances told with what contempt they looked upon his endeavors to be a poet, and to see the world. It was the same old trial, and only those young men who, like Bayard, are able to stand firm against ridicule and envy, ever reach the acropolis of STARTING FOR EUROrE. 43 their ambition. No record has been found of the effect these things had upon Bayard, or upon the two noble young men who were his companions ; but we do know that they turned not from their purpose. Bayard's sensitive nature, his warm heart, his innocent ambition must have felt the stings, and, at times in after life, he spoke as one who had not forgotten. How grand and honorable the exceptional appearance of the few who were generous and faithful to the poor boy on the threshold of his life ! Taking with them only such baggage as they could carry in their hands, these three young men, — Bay- ard Taylor, Franklin Taylor, and Barclay Pennock. — started for New York the last week in June, 1844. There had been but little delay, notwithstanding the day for departure had been set before Bayard knew where the funds were to come from to defray his expenses. There was a strong hope in Bayard's mind that Mr. N. P. Willis, who had written him such encouraging letters, would be able to assist him in securing employment as a travelling correspondent of some of the New York daily papers. Mr. Willis was widely known, and greatly respected in New York, and, on the arrival of Bayard at his office, he entered heartily into the work of procuring such a situation for his young friend. But foreign correspondence had been as much overdone in New York as in Phil- adelphia. So many writers had tried to make a name 44 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. by imitating the first successful correspondents, that the people were weary with the monotonous story. It was as well known then as it is now, that copyists and imitators are not what a live, active, original news- paper requires. Correspondence from almost any- where could be made interesting and amusing, if the writer would only write naturally, and describe the things he saw in just the light they appeared to him. No one thought that this boy would do anything else but follow in the old track. Hence they wished for none of his writings. One gentleman told him that it was useless to make engagements, for a youth, going into a strange country in that hap-hazard way, would not live to write any letters. Mr. Willis' generous assistance availed Bayard nothing with a people who had so often been compelled to form their own opinion of the people they wished to employ, and who considered themselves the best judges. In the editorial room of the New York " Tribune " sat the editor, whose name is being written higher, on the list of America's great men, by every succeeding year. To his quick eye, there was promise of noble things in the countenance of the boy. He had himself been a venturesome, ambitious, penniless boy, and, like Bayard, he had boldly pushed his boat into the dangerous billows. He may have remembered Ben- jamin Franklin's hazardous trip, as a boy, to Phil- adelphia, for Bayard was mentioned by Mr. Willis as a young man from the Quaker city. Whatever may HORACE GREELEY. 45 have been his thoughts, he treated Bayard with his usual consideration, and informed the youth that he was ready to publish and pay for all letters that were worth inserting in the " Tribune. " But he solemnly warned Bayard against attempting to write anything until he knew enough about the country to write intelligently. Bayard told Mr. Greeley that he would try to get acquainted with the people of Germany and their institutions, and, as soon as he felt competent, would send a few letters for Mr. Greeley's criticism. The busy editor nodded as the boy thanked him, bade him good-day, and, doubtless, instantly forgot there had ever been such a visitor ; and left the fact in oblivion, until it was brought to mind some months afterwards by the arrival of a letter from Germany. Mr. Willis told Bayard, as he said afterwards, to keep up his courage, and go forward: "The way to Valhalla is broad and smooth to the hero, but narrow and dangerous to the coward." It appears by the brief account which is given in the introduction to his "Views Afoot," published by Putnam & Sons, New York, that the party had a difficult task to find a vessel in which the accommodations, rates of pas- sage, and port of destination were within their plan. They intended at first to take a vessel direct for the Continent ; but in such of them as were bound for continental ports, the fare was too high. They were, however, on the point of taking passage in a Dutch sailing vessel, the consignees of which were 46 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. acquaintances of Mr. Willis, and consequently made some reduction in the fares, when an opportunity offered itself for a steerage passage in a vessel bound for Liverpool. In that way, they would be conveyed to England for the sum of twenty-four dollars. But such a passage ! Think of it, ye disconsolate, fault- finding tourists, who lie in the soft beds of a steamer, with fresh air and plenty of light ! Think of it, ye sufferers that occupy the great forward hall of a steamship, and who curse your fate that you are compelled to take a steerage passage ! What would you do or say should you be crowded into a cabin of rough planks, eight feet long, and seven feet wide, with nine passengers and eight narrow berths, in a clumsy, dirty little sailing vessel ? Yet this was the young adventurer's choice, rather than expend the small sum of twenty-five dollars from his small store. These three boys were compelled, by the terms of passage, to furnish their own provisions and bedding, and the fact that the unexpected honesty and kindness of a warehouse clerk prevented their starting off with- out enough food to last through the voyage, is another proof that "fortune favors the brave." As there was one more adult passenger in the steerage than there were berths, Bayard and his cousin Frank good-naturedly agreed to occupy one together. To the writer, who has frequently crossed the treacher- ous Atlantic, there seems to be no experience so in- conceivably miserable and sickening as a steerage AT SEA. 47 passage in a sailing vessel must be to the landsman. But when to the usual discomforts of dampness, dark- ness, sea-sickness, and strange company, are added the cramps caused by being packed with another passenger like a sandwich into a narrow box, and the absence of fresh air, no tortures of the Inquisition would seem to equal it. Bayard often referred to his first discouraging sensation of sea-sickness. Coming, as it always does to the passenger, just as he is taking his last sad look at the fading shores of his native country it is always a disheartening experience. Bayard shed tears as he began to realize that he was actually afloat upon the wide ocean, and could not if he would return to the land. He has since well said, that had he known more of life, and the dangers of travel, his alarm and discouragement would have been much greater than they were, and of longer duration. Youth borrows no trouble ; hence it is happy and victorious. Of that voyage, and its sufferings, in the ship "Oxford," beginning on the first day of July, and ending at Liverpool on the twenty-ninth of the same month, he made but brief mention ; yet his experience in getting the ship's cook to boil their potatoes, in eating their meals of pilot-bread, and in the company of their English, Scotch, Irish, and German cabin-mates, was most charmingly told in his letters to the " Gazette" and to the " Post," as well as in " Views Afoot," to which reference has already been made. His Germin 48 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. companion was not only a social advantage, but fur- nished the adventurous youths with a pleasant oppor- tunity to get some of the German phrases, and to hear descriptions of the country they were to visit. They were also favored by the captain's permission to use books from the cabin library, which contained several entertaining books of travel and of fiction. The closing days of the voyage appear to have been pleasant in some respects, for the beauty of the sea made a lasting impression upon his mind, and might possibly have been still in his memory when he wrote the lines in his "Poems of Home and Travel," running thus : — " The sea is a jovial comrade, He laughs wherever he goes ; His merriment shines in the dimpling lines That wrinkle his hale repose ; He lays himself down at the feet of the Sun, And shakes all over with glee, And the broad-hacked billows fall faint on the shore In the mirth of the mighty Sea." It may be that the beauty and joy of the sea ap- peared more remarkable because of the great contrast between its free and wild life, and the crowded and stifled existence of the mortals who witnessed its gam- bols. At all events he was not so delighted with the sea that he could not shout with the others, when the dark outlines of Ireland's mountains appeared through the mist. The sleepless nights, the company of howl- ing Iowa Indians, the musty cabin, the terrible nausea — ARRIVAL AT LIVERPOOL. 49 all were forgotten in the sight of land, and as the goal grew nearer, the more like a dream became all the disagreeable experiences of the voyage, until when, after tacking from northern Ireland to Scotland, from Scotland to Ireland, and from Ireland to the Isle of Man, they sailed up the Mersey to Liverpool, the in- conveniences of the voyage had wholly faded out, and only the few agreeable incidents remained a reality. They passed the dreaded officials of the custom-house without difficulty, and by the advice of a w wild Eng- lishman," who was one of their travelling companions, they went to the Chorley Tavern, and there enjoyed a bountiful dinner, as only passengers by sea can enjoy them when first they step on shore. Bayard was im- pressed by the sombre appearance of the city, and amused by the use of the middle of the streets for side- walks, and by the pink each man carried in his button- hole. 50 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. CHAPTER Vn. Departure from Liverpool. — Travels Second-Class. — Arrival at Port Rush. — The Giant's Causeway. — Lost and in Danger. — Dun- luce Castle. — Effect upon the Travellers. — Condition of the Irish. — Arrival at Dumbarton. — Scaling the Castle Walls.— Walk to Loch Lomond. — Ascent of Ben Lomond. — Loch Katrine. — Visit to Stirling. Bayard and his companions, including the German student, with whom there had sprung up an intimate friendship, left Liverpool on the same day on which they arrived there, having found that they would reach Scotland via the Giant's Causeway, as soon as they could by waiting for the more direct line. With an exercise of common-sense, such as characterizes too few Americans in this day of fashionable travel, they took passage second-class, finding themselves in no way the worse for the temporary inconvenience, while their fare was but one-sixth the amount of a first-class passage. It was not a comfortable night's voyage on the way from Liverpool to Port Rush, in the north of Ireland, starting at ten o'clock in the evening, and arriving at eleven o'clock the next night. It may be that the cold and wet, the crowd of Irish passen- gers, the unvaried diet of bread and cheese, served the purpose of making the shores and bluffs more attractive, giant's causeway. 51 as the mind naturally seeks and usually obtains some comfort and recreation in the most doleful surround- ings. It is a glorious thing to look upon those basaltic hexagons of the Giant's Causeway, under any circum- stances. Those enormous natural columns, set side by side, so close as to make a floor along their tops, so strange, so unaccountably symmetrical, fill the soul with awe, and half persuade the least credulous beholder that there were giants in the days of yore, and that they really did build a thoroughfare of these huge prisms across to Scotland. Any traveller contem- plates those matchless piles with surprise, and every sojourner is delighted beyond estimation by the con- tour and echoes of the vast caverns, into which the ocean rolls with such enchanting combinations of sound and motion. But to young men who had seen but little of the world and its natural wonders, and who had suffered a kind of martyrdom for the sake of visit- ing them, those resounding caverns, and those mighty ruins of gigantic natural temples, must have been inspiring beyond measure. Every traveller recalls with the most clear and grateful remembrance, the first landscapes of Europe, on which rest his ocean- weary eyes. To these young men the landscapes were about their only joy, and they appreciated them accordingly. Bayard seems to have been very enthusiastic. He scrutinized everything and questioned everybody. He let nothing pass him unnoticed, although in his books he left much unmentioned. He clambered into the 52 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. lofty recesses of the Causeway, and let himself down into the strange niches. He halloed in the caves for the thundering echoes ; he drank three times at the magical Giant's Well. He strayed from the highway that led from Port Eush to the Causeway, to look into the weird nooks which the sea has carved in the mutable shore. Dunluce Castle, with its broken walls and ghastly towers — home of proud Lord Antrim — and home as well of that family's terrible banshee, was the first old ruin which Bayard visited. It stands on the verge of the cragged cliffs, with the sea beating about its base, and bellowing in the cavern under it. It is located near the highway which leads from Port Rush to the Causeway. Across the narrow footway, and into these ruins, Bayard rushed most eagerly. The same old man who now shows travellers the battle- ments, and tells to wondering hundreds the tales of tournament and banqueting-hall, was there then, and rehearsed the tale to him. The boy is gone. But the old man, whom Bayard mentions as an old man then, lives on in his dull routine, yet living less in a half century than Bayard lived in a single year. All this was fresh and glorious to the youth, and gave him a very pleasant foretaste of the rich experi- ences in store for him. But, as if the fates conspired to chill his intellectual joys with physical discomforts, a rain came pouring upon them as they returned, the wind blew in fierce gusts, darkness, deep and black, settled upon the land ; they lost their way, and noun- IRISH PEASANTRY. 53 dcred about in muddy ravines, and barely escaped destruction as they trod the edges of the precipices above the wildest of seas. They became separated from each other, and the howling of winds and waves among the crags was so hideous that they could not for a long time hear each other's call, and the worst ot fears for each other were added to their own dismay. But they somehow blundered upon the path as it emerged from the wild rocks, and together walked the beach to their hotel, soaking and half frozen. But all those trying experiences fade when the skin is dry, and the sweet sleep of healthy youth comes with its comforting oblivion ; only the gorgeous landscapes, and the romantic places, like the memories of boyhood, remain to shape the dreams. Bayard was shocked by the miserable condition of the Irish peasantry, and his description of their huts, and their appearance, given in his letters, shows great sympathy for their distress, and great disgust at their degraded customs. On his way to Greenock from Port Rush, he fell in with a company of them, who chanced to take the same steamer, and he did not enjoy their drunken and beastly songs and riots. But on his trip from Greenock, up the Clyde to Dumbar- ton, he had more acceptable companionship, and in his book he refers, with a most touching simplicity, to the music of a strolling musician on board the boat, who played "Hail Columbia" and "Home, Sweet Home." 54 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOPw. Old Scotland ! Noble old hills ! Charming lakes, and enchanting valleys ! How like the awakened memories of loved faces, they come back to us when we hear the word "Dumbarton" ! What exciting tales of Baliol, of Wallace, of Bruce, of Queen Mary, of Cromwell, come again as we recall the sugar-loaf rock, on which the remnant of the old fortress stands ! Those bright youths must have feasted on the associa- tions connected with Dumbarton. As they peered from Wallace's tower, handled Wallace's sword, and gazed over the wide landscape, with the sites of battle-fields, castles, palaces, the home of Bruce, the cottage of Wallace, the beautiful valleys of the Clyde and Leven, the majestic Ben Lomond, and the crests of the Highlands, they grew in intellectual stature, and breathed a moral atmosphere as pure as the air that encircled the flagstaff at the summit. There is no education like the actual contact with the scenes connected with heroic self-sacrifice, to train young men for patriots and poets. No discipline is more necessary to the development of a broad and virtuous manhood among any class of young men, than studious travel in foreign countries. To young Bayard, lacking other culture than the few years at the district school, the few months at the academy, and the studious perusal of histories and poems, this experience was of vast importance. Its beneficial effects were seen throughout his life, and frequently show themselves in his editorials, poems, novels, and narratives. DUMBARTON. 55 At Dumbarton, Bayard had his first narrow escape, and he said that when he reached the ground, after dar- ing to scale, for flowers, the precipice up which Wallace climbed with his followers for glory and fatherland, he was in such a tremor of terror, in view of his having so narrowly escaped death, that he could scarcely speak. The unusual strength of a little tuft of wild grass, growing in a crevice of the cliff, had saved him from being dashed to pieces. It must have given him a very vivid impression of the daring feats of those old Scotch warriors, who not only faced these perpendicular walls, but fearlessly encountered the foes at the top. From Dumbarton, Bayard and his friends walked through the valley of the River Leven to Loch Lomond. All his letters and contributions to the newspapers speak of this walk as one of the most enjoyable of all his rambles. In his "Views Afoot," with which every reader is or should be familiar, he mentions it as a glorious walk. The pastoral beauty of the fields, the clearness of the stream, the ivy- grown towers, the dense forests, the early home of Smollett, whose dashing pen astonished the kingdom in 1748, the summer parks of Scottish noblemen, the mild, soothing August sunshine, were a combination rarely found, and when found as rarely appreciated. These young travellers had been diligent readers, and, when the steamer hurried them over the lake, the appearance of Ben Lomond and Ben Voirlich, of "Bull's Rock," and Rob Roy's Cave, of Inversnaid 56 LIFE OF BATAKD TAYLOR. and Glen Falloch, called up the shades of the Camp- bells, Macgregors, Malcolms, Rothesay s, Macfarlanes, Macphersons ; making each beach and rock along Loch Lomond a feature of romantic interest. With youthful enthusiasm, Bayard clambered to the rugged top of Ben Lomond, having waded through deep morass and thorny thicket, to reach it, and, from that lookout, gazed around on the peaks of lesser mountains, down upon the sweet Lomond lake, away to the oceans on either side of Scotland, discerning the smoke over Glasgow, the dark plains of Ayr, and, but for a mist, the embattled towers of Stirling and Edinburgh. After a short stop, he descended with his old companions, and a new one (he was con- stantly finding new friends), along the slippery, stony slopes ; and, after a dinner of oatmeal cakes and milk at a cottage near the base, trudged and waded on through that wild tract of woodland and swamp to Loch Katrine. There was the home of poetry. The great forests, through which the Clan-Alpine horns had echoed, the dense forest, through which the scarfs and bows did gleam in the old days of the Highland clans, had disappeared. The blossoming heather and bare rocks made a sorry substitute. But to Bayard, whose life was set to poetiy, who had so often studied and declaimed of Fitz- James and Roderick Dhu, and who had often dreamed of the Ellen's Isle, and the gathering clans, as Walter Scott described them, it must have been an enchanted spot. One may recite LOCH KATRINE. 57 and analyze for half a century that poem, and may natter himself that he has detected all its beauty, and under- stands all its historic references; but one hour on Loch Katrine is worth more than all that. There the reader lives the poem, and it is a part of his being ever more. Bayard felt compensated there for all the sufferings, by sea and by land, which he had experienced. He gazed fondly upon the glassy, land-locked water ; he studied closely the features, manners, and songs of the Highland boatmen, those descendants of the old clans; he sketched, with the keenest interest, Ben Ann, Ben Venue, the gate of the Trosachs, and the curved lines of the sandy shore, and he awoke the echoes at the Goblin's Cave and Beal-nam-bo. Rich experiences ! In such does the youth develop fast into a cultured manhood. From Loch Katrine, the party walked by way of Loch Vennachar, Coilantogle Ford, and Ben Ledi, to Doune, — the home of royalty daring the sixteenth century, and whose old castle is still a majestic ruin. Thence through the plains to Stirling Castle, crowned and battle-honored, and looking down on the valleys of the Forth and Allan Water, and out upon the bloody fields of Bannockburn and Sheriff-muir. Having inspected the dungeons and halls of the castle, looked with horror upon the spot where royalty murdered a friend, and threw the body to the dogs ; and after contemplating the grave of the girlish martyrs, they hastily took the shortest route to Glas- 58 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. gow, and thence to the home of Burns, where a great celebration, or memorial gathering, was to be held, to honor the memory of the " rustic bard," on the banks of his own " Bonnie Doon." VISIT TO AYR. 59 CHAPTER Vin. \ isit to the Home of Burns. — The Poet's Cottage. — The Cele- bration. — Walks and Rides in the Eain. — Edinburgh. — Its Associations. — The Teachings of History. — Home of Druni- mond. — Abbotsfopd. — Melrose. — Jedburgh Abbey. — New- castle-on-Tyne. Bayard's visit to Ayr was the first of a long series of like visitations to the homes of celebrated poets, and being then a novel experience was doubly enjoyed. It may be that the similar occupation, and like inspiration, which characterized both himself and Burns, made the spot more attractive. Had they not both followed the plough through the thick sward ? Had not both milked the cows ; drove the horses to the water ; planted the corn ; dug up the weeds ; cut the hay, and all the while sang and recited original verses ? Had he not been ridiculed by his playmates, and sneered at by his neighbors, in common with that great poet of Scotland ? To look over the farm on which Burns toiled ; to be shown the spot on which it is claimed Burns over- turned — " That wee bit heap o' leaves and stibble," the home of the "mousie," and to be shown the cottage he was born in, and the scenes which in- 60 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. spired his songs, interesting as they are to the writer of prose, must have been peculiarly satisfactory to him. He does not speak of it, however, with the enthusiasm one would expect, and it is quite prob- able that he was not yet wholly inured to the incon- veniences of a wet climate, and could not think or muse in a crowd as satisfactorily as when dry and alone. When he arrived in the town, the streets were filled by an immense throng, and there could have been little satisfaction in trying to fall into poetical dreams. It is a great satisfaction to those of Baj^ard's friends who have loved him, and put their faith in him, to know that he put himself on record in some of his early let- ters, in no light terms, as having an unutterable disgust for the drunken brawling which went on in the name of Burns that clay in Ayr. He felt, with great keenness, the disgrace which every American feels that it is to Scotland, that the old cottage, so sacred for its associations as the birth-place of Burns, should be occupied as a drinking-saloon, and be crowded with intoxicated vagabonds. It seemed like making a dog- kennel of a chapel in St. Paul's. Anything but genius, intellect, or wit characterizes the crowd that usually frequent Burns' Cottage on such days ; and it is said to have been, in 1844, the resort of a more beastly class than are those wretches who get intoxicated there now, and, naturally, on such a great day as that on which Bayard visited it, every Scotsman who indulged at all became furiously drunk. Besides that inconvenience, THE BURNS CELEBRATION. 61 the trustees of the monument, on the day when so many thousands came to see it and its treasures, voted to lock it up; and Bayard, with the others, was shut out from its interesting collection of relics and memen- toes. Still further, it was so arranged by the marshals of the occasion, that the grand stand, with its literary feast and the ceremonies appurtenant to the occasion, were shut out from the populace to whom the poet sang, and Bayard being only a strange boy, with no more of a title than Robert Burns had, was obliged to content himself with a seat on the ridge of the " brig o' Doon." He did see old Alio way kirk, and heard its bell. He saw within its ruined walls the rank weeds, and without, the graves of the poet's ancestry. He did have a cheerful pedestrian tour ; for the home of Burns, with Alloway kirk and the bonnie Doon, are three miles from the city of Ayr in open country. He saw the sister and sons of the poet. He heard the assembled thousands sing, "Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon." He saw a grandson of Tarn O'Shanter. He had to walk the three miles, returning through mud and rain, and he had to stand in an open car, exposed to a driving rain-storm, throughout the two hours' ride by railroad to Glasgow. How different his reception then, as a boy and unknown, from that which he received in his riper age, after his fame was secured, at the home of Germany's greatest poet. We follow Bayard in his first tour in Europe with greater detail than we shall do with other journeys, 62 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYXOR. because in this he developed so much of that character which made him famous. History being written, not for the dead, but for the instruction and encourage- ment of the living, should show clearly how a great life was attained, as a guide for similar genius in the days to come. In a volume of hasty sketches like this, we cannot hope to do the work as thoroughly as we should so much love to do it ; but as far as can be done at this early day, we give those events which had the greatest effect upon his life as a writer of prose and poetry. He must have feasted in Edinburgh. Richest store- house in Scotland, for all such as follow letters ! There was the monument to Scott, suggestive of the most beautiful in art, but so insignificant as a reminder of him, while the walls of Salisbury Crags, and the dome of Arthur's Seat, frown beyond and above it. There was Holy rood Palace, with its stains of blood, the couch of the beautiful queen, and the collections of historical relics. No place but the Tower of London has received such attention from gifted and famous lit- erary men. Historians, poets, philosophers, educators, preachers, and lawyers have written and discoursed upon it. There was Calton Hill, with its monuments to great men. There was the great University, and there was the old Castle, that sat like a crown on the head of the city. All had been described by the most facile pens. All were full of living interest, and when Bayard tried to describe them, he found himself EDINBURGH AND ABBOTSFORD. 63 attempting to compete with the greatest essayists of the English-speaking world. The Grass Market, where Porteous was executed ; Cowgate Street, with its aris- tocratic associations ; St. Giles' Church, with its mem- ories of John Knox and the Heart of Mid-Lothian, were described by him, about which it is a kind of literary sacrilege to speak in other than classic language. It was a school that included every other, and Bayard was an apt and diligent scholar. A short distance from Edinburgh, the pedestrians saw the birthplace and hermitage of Drummond. It is a delightful, sequestered chateau, called '" Haw- thornden," and in it the poet wrote nearly all his elegant sonnets, and it was there that old Ben Jon- son, after a walk from London, was entertained by Drummond, and Drummond was in turn entertained by Jonson. Going by the way of Galashiels and Selkirk, the party visited Abbotsford and its environs, where the immortal Scott lived and wrote. In the beautiful mansion which Scott built, and in which he wrote his most popular works,* they read his manu- scripts ; sat at his desk ; wandered in his gardens ; gazed intently over the wide lawn and the distant Tweed ; scrutinized the enormous variety of relics which had been collected by that antiquarian, to whom kings and queens were glad to become tributary. Thence they walked along the hard and smooth high- way to old Melrose. Ruins they would see in the near England, and on 64 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. the distant continent, which would enclose a dozen abbeys such as this ; Gothic arches they would enter which would make those of Melrose seem as a toy ; and ivy and carving and chancels would be noticed, so much more rich and beautiful, that these would suffer sadly if put in comparison. But nowhere else in all the wide world would they find a locality made more interesting than this. The associations are almost everything. And to the initiated, the great magician, Scott, still speaks in the groined arches, flowering pil- lars, old clock, and willow-like windows. Melrose Abbey is a marked illustration of the power of a master-mind to give influence, life, and interest to inanimate things. Bayard felt this truth and men- tioned it. He read " The Lay of the Last Minstrel" in the shadow of the arches, and imagined how the ruins glowed when the grave of the wizard opened and the book was revealed. Who knows but it was there, in the presence of those stirring associations, that he first con- ceived the plan which led him to make classic in poetry and fiction the fields, hills, and Quakers of his native county. Had he lived ten years longer than he did, his loved Kennett might have been as classic in song and story as Abbotsford itself. From Melrose the young pedestrians walked to Jed- burgh, omitting the delightful excursion to Diyburgh, but passing the home of Pringle, who had been the founder of " Blackwood's Magazine," and who had been also a poet and wanderer like Bayard. While CULTURED TRAVELLERS. 65 passing the Cheviot Hills, the party met an excursion- ist in a carriage, fast asleep, which appeared to amuse Bayard very much. Probably he afterwards saw more amusing scenes than that, wherein travellers did not appreciate their privileges. The writer, as late as the summer of 1878, saw an American who had worked most industriously to lay up the funds to visit Switzer- land, ride up the entire ascent of the glorious Alps at St. Gothard, on the top of a coach, fast asleep. Such marvels does the world of humanity contain. Bayard did not sleep when anything of interest called upon him for investigation, nor when the beauties of nature were to be enjoyed. They crossed the border between Scotland and England, over the battle-fields of the Percys, and by streams that were often, in days past, actually swollen with blood. There, " Marmion," with all its tales historical, and legends mythical, was quoted and lived as only the cultured traveller can live it. There was instruction in every scene, every stranger, and every inn. How well Bayard availed himself of their lessons, is illustrated in all his excellent letters on foreign travel, and in his books compiled from them. At Newcastle he noticed a group of miners begging in the streets, and when he heard how they had struck for higher wages, because they could not longer exist on the pittance allowed them, and how they and their families were turned out upon the streets to starve, his indignation was very great, and in his book he utters a prophecy that soon that murmur from the oppressed 66 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOK. people would increase to a roar, and be heard " by the dull ears of power." From Newcastle he went by boat to London, reaching that city in the early morning near the end of August. THE CITY OF LONDON. 67 CHAPTER IX. Visit in London. — Exhibition of Relics. — The Lessons of Travel. — Historical Association. — London to Ostend. — The Cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle. — The Great Cathedral at Cologne. — Voy- age up the Rhine. — Longfellow's " Hyperion." — Visit to Frankfort. — Kind Friends. — Reaches Heidelberg. — Climbing the Mountains. London is a world in itself, as has often been writ- ten, and, to such an impressible mind as that of Bayard, was a place replete with pleasure and instruc- tion. London instructs by two methods ; one by agreeable, and the other by disagreeable examples. Bayard was equally taught by both. There»was West- minster Abbey, with its numberless tombs of the tal- ented and noble ; and there was the Tower of London, with its dungeons and beheading blocks. There were the palatial residences of the West End, and there the hovels and holes of the Wych Street district. There were the great mercantile houses of Holborn and Ee- gent Street, and there were the gambling dens of Drury Lane. There were the magnilicent galleries of art, at the Museum, at the Palaces, at Westminster, and at Kensington ; and there were the dirty, slimy exhibitions of marred humanity along the wharves of the Thames. There were the zoological wonders of the parks, and 68 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. there were the dog-shows, and cock-pits of the St. Giles Rookery. There was the palace of the Queen, and there the Old Bailey. There was the office of the "Thunderer" (Daily Times), and there were the attics from whence flowed the vilest trash that man ever printed. There were Hyde Park, Regent's Park, St. James Park, and the broad squares ; and there were the filthy alleys and narrow lanes about London Bridge. There were the Rothschilds, and there the poor Micawbers and deserted Nicholas Mcklebys. The richest, the poorest, the best, the worst ; the most cultivated, and the most ignorant ; the most powerful monarch, and the most degraded fishmongers. Extremes ! Extremes that meet in everything there. They all instruct by teaching the beholder what he ought to be, and what he ought not to be. One sees much in London that ought not to have been ; and, strange to relate, many of the relics connected with such things, are exhibited with great pride. If there is any one thing above all others, for which the American should be thankful, it is for the fact that the dungeon, the rack, the wheel, the thumb- screw, the guillotine, the gibbet, the headsman's block, the deadly hates of royalty, the cruelty of kings, and the jealousy of queens, have no place in the history of the Republic of the West. Yet there, somehow, the officials and guides w T ho open to the public the records of the past and show visitors their institutions, give the most prominent places to deeds of horrid SCENES IN LONDON. 69 cruelty and shameless murders, as if they took pride in such fearful annals. It would seem as if, had our rulers butchered in cold blood their sons and dau^h- ters ; had they cruelly starved their friends and relatives, we in America would be ashamed of it. It would be regarded as very natural here, if an ancestor was hung and quartered and his head carried about on a pole, to speak of it as seldom as possible. It would appear consistent if, had our national government oppressed the weak, degraded the poor, killed inoffensive cap- tives, and, for selfish ambition, laid waste the cities and fields of an innocent people, we should attempt to bury the remembrance of those deeds so deep as to make a resurrection impossible. But there, in Europe, they appear to revel in the hideous doings of their ancestors, and will show you where human heads or hands were exhibited, and where noble men and women were persecuted to martyrdom, with the air of the circus manager who announces the clown. Who can hear the guide on London Bridge, "Here was posted the bleeding head of Sir William Wallace, the Scotch warrior and patriot, while the quarters of his body were at Stirling, Berwick, Perth, and New- castle," and not curse, with the deepest feeling, the people who murdered one of the greatest and best of men? It is clear that these things made a strong impression upon Bayard, for we find him more frequently and more decidedly praising his own land, as he saw more 70 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. and more of Europe. He saw, also, many of the advantages which European nations enjoy in art, literature, and commerce, and failed not to surest ' CO them to his readers. But, unlike those shallow tour- ists, who would ape European manners, and think all European institutions should be at once imported here, his patriotic regard for the institutions and peo- ple of his own land, increased with the desire to benefit them. How reverently he speaks of George Washington ; how touchingly does he speak with the European peasants who accost him, of the home of the free beyond the great ocean. A whole week those young men searched the great city for valuable information. They slept and ate in the rudest of taverns, and tramped the city with the workmen and the beggars, but they were gathering the forces for a useful life. Bayard was filled with the sublimity of the mighty human torrent that, like a tide, rolls into London in the morning, dashes about the highways during the day, and surges outward at night. He felt the grandeur of St. Paul's, the con- flicting and exciting associations of Westminster, the marvellous feat of tunnelling under the Thames, the enormous wealth of churches, monuments, halls, and galleries, and carried away with him to the Continent a very complete idea of the institutions and the queer customs of the great metropolis. From London, the party proceeded to Dover, and from thence to Ostend and Bruges. They travelled in AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. 71 the cheapest manner, walking wherever practicable, and going from Bruges to Ghent in a canal-boat, thence by railroad across the border to Aix-la-Chapelle. Here was another treat. The description which he gave in his letters of his visit to the old Cathedral, where rest the remains of Charlemagne, was one of the most vivid recitals to be found in the annals of travel. For some reason, he so abridged it in his book, as to take away the finest and most original delineations. Every reader of his first narration, who may never have visited Aix-la-Chapelle, can in imagination see the old Cathedral, with its shrines, its antique windows, and the shadows of saints on the floor, and hear the sweet undulations of the organ's solemn peal. While to the traveller who follows him through those aisles, and under those magnificent arches, his words give life and language to the pillars, altars, and luminous decora- tions. To the least poetic or sentimental of travellers, it is a solemn place ; and if so to them, how deep and impressive must it have been to a soul so full of emo- tion as that of Bayard ! There he wrote his well- known poem, "The Tomb of Charlemagne." This grand old pile was succeeded next day by the great Gothic Cathedral, at Cologne, which was not then finished, is not now completed, and will never see the end of the mason's labors, because the time taken in the construction is so long that the very stone decays, and must be replaced at the base by the time the deli- cate tracery of the towers is set on those skyward 72 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. heights. The structure must be constantly in process of reconstruction, from the bottom, upwards. When Bayard looked upon this wonderful building, which since 1248 had been in an uncompleted state, two hundred and fifty years having been spent in active labor, he said it impressed him most deeply, by way of comparison. Two hundred and forty years before America was discovered, the foundations of that church were, laid, and here they are working on it still ! By such lessons is an American made to know his place in the history of the world. Had the his- tory of these old lands been less barbarous and cruel, we should feel humble indeed. But in view of what the old folks have done, we may be thankful that we are young, and have our record yet to write. But the fact that we are not so old, so great, so artistic, or so cultured as we have flattered ourselves, is wholesome information, and as taught by these old Cathedrals of Europe, is very necessary to the success of our young men. How deeply these things moved Bayard, is seen by the very frequent mention we find in his writings, of aisle, or arch, or dome, or spire. But one of the most attractive spots to that young voyager, in all his wanderings in Europe, he saw while going up the Rhine, from Cologne to Mayence. He viewed with satisfaction the vineyards and villages along the banks ; he was charmed w T ith the crags and crumbling towers of the innumerable old castles which ornament the tops of all the most prominent hills and Longfellow's hyperion. 73 mountains. The walled cities, the legendary caves and grottos, the most exquisite fables that account for the miraculous construction of cliff, and convent, and crusaders' halls, all came upon him as he glided by them on the muddy river, as dreams come to the drinker of hashish. But beyond all these in interest to our young wanderer, was the little walled town of Boppart, whose feudal history is nearly lost, but whose romantic connection with Longfellow's " Hyperion," has given it a fresh lease of life. Bayard there recalled his life at home, and his days of anxious waiting; for, had not this same "Hyperion," with entrancing interest, spurred on his hope to one day travel along the Rhine? Had not this same "Hyperion" given the impulse that started his cousin on such a great journey to the university at Heidelberg? And were not those houses in the town of Boppart, and was not that cottage the very Inn of the " Star," and might not that woman, near the shore, be "Paul Flemming's" boat- woman ? Oh ! grand and revered Longfellow ! when we note how many a life, like these, has turned upon the reading of your inspired words, one feels as if to hare seen your face and heard your voice, and to have been beneath the same roof, was an honor greater than kings could bestow ! But Boppart, Lurlei Berg, Oberwisel, Bingen, and Geisenheim were soon left behind, and Mayence, with its Cathedral six centuries old, its walls and for- tresses, welcomed them to its monotonous shades. 74 LIFE OF BAYAKD TAYLOR. A beautiful trait of Bayard's character comes grace- fully into view as we read his grateful acknowledg- ments of the kindnesses he received. On his first walk in his apprentice days, in Pennsylvania, having determined to see some mountains, although he had to walk two hundred miles to view them, he was kindly served at a well, on the way, by a farmer's girl, who cheerfully drew the bucket from the well and ran for a glass, that he, a dusty, thirsty stranger, might drink without further fatigue ; and in his later years he records the fact in his book, with the sweetest expres- sions of thankfulness. So when he arrived at Frank- fort, and was kindly received and entertained by Mr. Richard S. Willis, the American consul, brother of Bayard's old friend, Nathaniel P. Willis, he sits down at once, and in his letters to his friends, and in his public correspondence, he speaks of the generosity and thoughtfulness of his old friend, and the hospitable and cultured characteristics of his new friend. They were noble friends, who made for him a home at their fireside in Frankfort, and deserve the thanks of every admirer of Bayard Taylor. His thanks they had throughout a long life, and not only thanks, but grateful deeds. It was Bayard's purpose to go to Heidelberg, with his cousin, and give himself to close study, at the University, or with private tutors ; but just how he was going to obtain the means to pay his expenses was something of an enigma. It may be that his good fortune in the outset made him too confident and AT HEIDELBERG. 75 careless in regard to other undertakings. At all events, his stay in Heidelberg was much shorter than he had at first intended that it should be, and his studies were much more broken and superficial than his letters show he thought they would be. He was not consti- tuted for close, hard, metaphysical study, and made but little attempts in that direction, after he arrived at Heidelberg. He loved the grand old Castle better than the whittled benches of the University. He en- joyed the Kaisersthul and the lesser mountains, far more than the monotonous recital of German theories. The river Neckar called him in its murmurs, the clouds beckoned to him as they flew over the Heligen Ber<>-, the wind called for him as it sighed around the vine- yards of Ziegelhausen, and all thoughts of private, quiet study fled at the summons. So he climbed the mountains. It was always a passion with him to gain an altitude as high as possible, and look out upon the world. He tells how, when a boy, he ventured out of a chamber window in the old farm-house at Kennett, and seeing a row of slats which the carpenters had used for steps in ascending the roof, he sallied forth, and there astride of the roof, gained his first view of a landscape. He said afterward, that the roof appeared to be so high and the view so extensive, that he im- agined he could see Niagara Falls. Whether this inclination to climb up came to him through the stories of his old Swiss nurse, whose bed-time stories were of the mighty Alps and their towering cones, or whether 76 LIFE OF BAYARD % TAYLOR. it was an hereditary trait in his nature, none may be able to decide. He was certainly prone to go upwards, and had a tendency for horizontal motion equally as strong. He would not remain stationary ; hence, at Heidelberg, he inspected every nook and crevice of the picturesque old Castle, crouched through its conduits, rapped its ponderous tun, scaled its roofless and crum- bling walls, rushed into the recesses of the adjacent thickets, and tested the celebrated beer at the students' resorts. He joined excursion parties which visited the neighboring mountains, and after he had been there a month, he knew the fields, rocks, trees, val- leys, dells, and peaks, as well as a native, and appears to have loved them with a patriotic regard almost equal to the eldest burgher. FROM HEIDELBERG TO FRANKFORT. 77 CHAPTER X. Study in Frankfort. — Lack of Money. — Different Effect of Want on Travellers. — Bayard's Privations. — Again sets out on Foot. — Visit to the Hartz Mountains. — The Brocken. — Scenes in "Faust." — Locality in Literature. — The Battle-field at Leip- sic. — Auerbach's Cellar. For the purposes of this work, an outline of Bayard's travels is all that can be attempted ; except where some remarkable incident occurred that had an unusual in- fluence on his subsequent life. Leaving Heidelberg in the latter part of October (1844), Bayard walked through the Odenwald to Frankfort, where he could pursue his study of the German language, and observe the customs and characteristics of the people to better advantage and at a less expense. In attempting to see Europe on such a limited allowance of money, he necessarily met with many inconveniences and priva- tions. His sufferings were at times most intense. He knew what it was to fast for whole days ; he felt the pains of blistered bare feet. He was exposed to the severest storms of summer and winter ; he was familiar with the homes of beggary and the hard, swarming beds of third-class taverns. He must have suffered beyond his own estimate, for, as he so well says, the pains of travel are soon forgotten and the pleasures 78 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. vividly remembered. There was a youthful abandon in his almost reckless adventures which startles the reader of his tours. But yet the pains he felt so keenly, the dangers he encountered so frequently, did not seem to abate his enthusiasm for the great works and beautiful scenes which Europe exhibits. To find ourselves in a strange city, where no one speaks our native language ; where it is not possible that any person can know us or any of our friends ; without money, or food, or work, is one of the most dis- heartening situations that can be imagined. Yet such an experience came often to Bayard. It would seem as if, on some occasions, he ran into such difficulties needlessly and for very wantonness. Yet, as was sometimes the experience of the writer, and from one of which dangerous situations Mr. Taylor generously rescued him, there somehow opens a way out from such ventures, which is found on the very verge of starvation and despair. But the trait of character, which in Bayard commanded such respect, was some- thing so unusual, that his daring example cannot be safely followed by the multitude. It is far better to have a supply of money for the necessary expenses of travel in Europe or Asia, than to run risks for the sake of the romance which Bayard found in such straits. To many tourists, even the parks of Homburg, the castle of Drachenfels, or the palace of the Vatican, would become insignificant baubles before the stronger de- mands of the body for food and raiment. But seldom LIFE IN FRANKFORT. 79 did any fatigue or annoyance or loss, abate his wonder- ful zeal in his search for the poetical, the strange, the historical, and the beautiful. Some of his most ex- quisite descriptions of art or nature, were written from notes made when his stomach was empty and his limbs chilled with wet and cold. Such young men are few ; and for one with less perseverance, endurance, or genius to attempt such things on such a scale, would be to meet with disheartening failure. Of his life in Frankfort, during the winter of 1845, he often speaks with great satisfaction. He made excellent progress in the language, and in that under- standing of the habits of the people which Mr. Greeley had so pointedly urged upon him as an ambitious aspirant for the favors of the " Tribune." He comes out of that study a matured thinker. His descriptions assume a more thoughtful tone. His sympathies are more often awakened for the people, and he sees as a man sees, and less juvenile are all his undertakings and communications. He there acquired a love of German poetry, and became acquainted with many of the noted men of Frankfort. He visited the aged Mendelssohn, and tells with charming simplicity how he was received by the composer of "St. Paul "and "Elijah." Thus introduced to German literature, art, and music, he entered again upon his travels at the opening of spring, with new and increasing appreciativeness. Again, on foot, he went into the untried way oi Europe. His first attraction was for the Hartz Moun- 80 LITE OF BAYAED TAYLOR. tains, so intimately connected with Goethe's "Faust," with which Bayard was already in love, and which he afterwards translated in a masterly manner. So he went through Friedberg and Giessen, into Hesse-Cassel, making the acquaintance of peasants and merchants on his way, and moralizing upon the curious circumstance that the descendants of the Hessians, who fought so doggedly at Brandy- wine, should receive so hospitably the descendant of those who filled the "plains of Trenton with the short Hessian graves." Thence by Miinden, Gottingen and Osterode, enduring sickening fatigues and dangerous exposure, he reached the Brocken mountain, w T here, through thickets, rocks, chasms, snow and cold, he at last rested in a cottage at its summit, amid the associa- tions awakened by the weird tales of witches and the superstitious explanations of that singular illusion, — the " Spectre of the Brocken." If he had any " wish " on that " Walpurgis night," which he passed on the high- est mountain of the Hartz range, it was probably to be relieved of the tortures which his weak frame endured, and from which the physician had failed to relieve him It would not be surprising if he recited from " Faust * the words of scene IV. : — "Through some familiar tone, retrieving My thoughts from torment, led me on, And sweet, clear echoes came, deceiving A faith bequeathed from childhood's dawn, Yet now I curse whate'er entices And snares the soul with visions vain ; THE BROCKEN OF FAUST. 81 With dazzling cheats and dear devices Confines it in this cave of pain ! Cursed be, at once, the high ambition Wherewith the mind itself deludes! Cursed be the glare of apparition, That on the finer sense intrudes." We cannot forbear to add another quotation from the same Act, so illustrative is it of Bayard's note- taking life : — " No need to tell me twice to do it ! I think, how useful 'tis to write ; For what one has in black and white, One carries home and then goes through it." His visit to the Brocken was one of the most fas- cinating trips of his whole pedestrian tour, notwith- standing his narrow escape from death in the snow, and from destruction by falling into the partially con- cealed caves that beset his way to the summit. He mentioned long afterward the view he had from the summit-house, through the rifts in the clouds, of the plains and cities of Germany. Thirty cities and sev- eral hundred villages lay within sight, and all of them more or less closely interwoven with the literature of Germany. The plains of Brunswick and Magdeburg stretch away for seventy miles, with all the various shadings of green intermingled with the sparkling sil- ver of stream and lake. It is a scene so grand that no pen could portray its sublimity and no tongue accu- rately convey an idea of its varied beauty. With that 82 LITE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. romantic persistency which no amount of fatigue over- came, Bayard descended the mountain by that rugged and nerve-shaking path up which Faust was said to have ascended with Mephistopheles ( scene XXI. of Taylor's translation ) who says : — " How sadly rises, incomplete and ruddy, The moon's lone disk, with its belated glow, And lights so dimly, that, as one advances, At every step one strikes a rock or tree ! Let us, then, use a Jack-o'-Lantern's glances : I see one yonder, burning merrily. Ho, there ! my friend ! I '11 levy thine attendance : Why waste so vainly thy resplendence ? Be kind enough to light us up the steep." After which Faust, in a musing mood, looks down from the Brocken heights and replies : — " How strange! -Hmmers through the hollows A dreary light, like that of dawn ! Its exhalation tracks and follows The deepest gorges, faint and wan. Here steam, there rolling vapor sweepeth ; Here burns the glow through film and haze : Now like a tender thread it creepeth, Now like a fountain leaps and plays. Here winds away, and in a hundred Divided veins the valley braids : There in a corner pressed and sundered, Itself detaches, spreads and fades. Here gush the sparkles incandescent Like scattered showers of golden sand ; — But, see ! in all their height at present, The rocky ramparts blazing stand. " LEIPSIC AND DEESDEN. 83 As Bayard leaped and stumbled down the rocky de- clivity into the narrow gorge that there divides the mountains to give an outlet for the river Bode, the very difficulties bound him closer to Goethe's writings. He felt again how important a thing it is in literature to connect it by patriotic links with some actual land- scape, and how much more vivid and permanent are the lessons an author would teach when the reader visits the mountains, plains, cities, buildings, and peo- ple mentioned in books of classic worth. Thus learn- ing and growing the young traveller plodded on from inn to inn and village to village. Leipsic, which he reached a day or two after leaving the Brocken, was a place of great interest to Bayard, as it is in fact to all travellers. But the interest in any city or country visited by a tourist depends so much upon his previous reading, andAe taste and opportu- nities for reading are so diverse, that it seldom happens that any two persons in the same party enjoy the same scene with equal satisfaction. Bayard had read of Leipsic and Dresden in his boyhood when other boys were catching rabbits or playing ball, and as when he sees the oreat citadel at Ma^debursr which once held Baron Trenck a prisoner, so when at Leipsic he looks over the field where Blucher and Schwartzenberg met Napoleon, he is startled with the vividness of the pic- tures in his imagination. Hundreds of thousands rush- ing to combat and scattering in retreat while smoke rolls 84 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. upward from hundreds of cannon and the streams are choked with piles of bloody dead ! There too was Auerbach's Cellar, in which Goethe's Faust and Mephistopheles are so humorously placed. There was the same drinking-saloon, there the descend- ant of the old bar-keeper, and there the same character- istic crowd of loafers, as when Faust and Mephistoph- eles drank there, and when amid songs and jokes, the latter drew all kinds of wine from the gimlet holes in the leaf of the old wooden table. Bayard's estimate of the people appears to have confirmed that of Mephis- topheles who says ( scene V. ) : — 11 Before all else I bring thee hither Where boon companions meet together, To let thee see how smooth life runs away. Here, for the folk, each day 's a holiday : With little wit, and ease to suit them, They whirl in narrow, circling trails, Like kittens playing with their tails : And if no headache persecute them, So long the host may credit give, They merrily and careless live." The peasantry still crowd the cellar, still sing the old lays, and each day tell over again the old legend of Mephistopheles' miraculous exit. " I saw him, with these eyes, upon a wine cask riding Out of the cellar door, just now. " 4T DRESDEN. 85 CHAPTER XI. Pictures at Dresden. — Raphael's Madonna. — Bayard's Art Educa- tion.— His Exalted Ideas of Art. — His Enthusiasm. — Visits Bohemia. — Stay in Prague. — The Curiosities of Vienna.— Tomb of Beethoven. — Respect for Religion. — Listens to Strauss. — View of Lintz. — Munich and its Decorations. — The Home of Schiller. — Poetic Landscapes, and Charming People. — Statue by Thorwaldsen. — Walk to Heidelberg. At Dresden, Bayard visited the picture-gallery, for the purpose of seeing Raphael's Madonna and Child, known as the Madonna di San Sisto. His description of that painting, so unfortunately abridged in his book, was one of the finest examples of art criticism to be found in print. His appreciation of painting and sculpt- ture was remarkable, indeed, for one who never made them a professional study, and whose rude sketches in pencil in his note books, contained nearly all of his undertakings as an amateur. His soul seemed cast in the proper mould for that kind of work, but his hand was never trained to materialize the pictures that filled the o-alleries of his imagination. He had all those finer sensibilities and acute instincts which fitted him for art in poetry or stone, and he saw in paintings and statuary, beauties or defects which thousands of colder but more studious critics failed to notice 8Q LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. He spoke of that Madonna at Dresden, as a painting that moved his whole nature in admiration. He enjoyed it. He feasted on it. He read it as one follows an exciting romance. He felt the power of the picture as Raphael felt it, and seemed to appreciate it even more keenly than the artist. How much satisfaction and delight he found in the enormous collections of art in the Old World, cannot be told or understood by any one whose natural genius leads them not in such a direction. His mental appetite for such things grew so keen, as he went on from city to city and gallery to gallery, that he much preferred to leave his meals un- tasted, than pass a great painting without study. Like the true artist, his mind took in the grand ideals, and his respect and admiration for the divine handiwork in producing man and beast, caused him often to wince under the suggestive and degrading obtrusiveness of fig-leaves and rude drapery in sculpture. The human form in all its heavenly beauty and godlike majesty, as reproduced in marble by the great artists, was too sacred and pure to him, to be marred by the sugges- tions of sin. No man or woman will ever become an artist, in its highest, noblest sense, until their love for beauty, simplicity, and purity, lifts them above the impressions that are born of ignorance, vulgarity, and sin. Bayard, in after years, thus beautifully wrote of sculpture : — "In clay the statue stood complete, As beautiful a form, and fair, POETRY OF ART. 87 As ever walked a Roman street Or breathed the blue Athenian air : The perfect limbs, divinely bare, Their old, heroic freedom kept, And in the features, fine and rare, A calm, immortal sweetness slept. O'er common men it towered, a god, And smote their meaner life with shame, For while its feet the highway trod, Its lifted brow was crowned with flame And purified from touch of blame : Yet wholly human was the face, And over them who saw it came The knowledge of their own disgrace. It stood, regardless of the crowd, And simply showed what men might be : Its solemn beauty disavowed The curse of lost humanity. Erect and proud, and pure and free, It overlooked each loathsome law Whereunto others bend the knee, And only what was noble saw." The blameless spirit of a lofty aim Sees not a line that asks to be concealed By dextrous evasion ; but, revealed As truth demands, doth Nature smite with shamo Them, who with artifice of ivy-leaf Unsex the splendid loins, or shrink the frame From life's pure honesty, as shrinks a thief, While stands a hero ignorant of blame ! u Each part expressed its nicely measured share, In the mysterious being of the whole : Not from the eye or lip looked forth the soul, But made her habitation everywhere Within the bounds of flesh ; and Art might steal, As once, of old, her purest triumphs there." 88 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. This appreciation of the inner feelings of the sculptor and painter, is the more astonishing, because of the unusual disadvantages under which he first studied the works of the ancient masters. Aching limbs, bruised feet, and an empty stomach are not usually aids to the critic in forming a judgment of the symmetry or grace of any work of art. But his enthusiastic recitals ot his visits to the celebrated paintings, show no less rapture when he saw them in fatigue and hunger, than when he looked upon them in rest and bodily satiety. Thus, most naturally, he became the companion and intimate friend of a large number of the European artists, and was sought and highly esteemed by all the American painters and sculptors whom he met in Europe. He understood them. He sympathized with their enthusiasm and sacrifices ; while a great, cold world went by them without a comforting word or a smile of recognition. Dresden was like a door to his higher art life, and its collection of paintings is worthy of such a place. There were, besides the Sistine Madonna, the "Ascen- sion," by Kaphael Mengs, the "Notte," by Correggio, and galleries of master-pieces by Titian, Da Vinci, Veronese, Del Sarto, Rubens, Vandyck, Lorraine and Teniers ; with sculpture in marble, ivory, bronze and jewels, from Michael Angelo and his cotempora- ries. Beinsr the widest and most diversified collection in Germany, it was eagerly sought by Bayard, and more reluctantly left behind. More grand than the VISIT TO PRAGUE. 89 battle of Napoleon before its gates, and more lasting in their effects, were the historic works of art which Dresden is so proud to possess. From Dresden, Bayard walked to Prague, leaving behind him, as he then thought forever, the cheerful, hospitable, kind-hearted people, with whose kin he afterwards became so intimately and advantageously connected. In Prague, he ascended the heights where the Bohemian kings and Amazon queens used to re- side, heard the solemn mass in one of Europe's most solemn Cathedrals, visited the bridge under which the Saint Johannes floated with tL i miraculous stars about his corpse, lost himself in the bedlam of Jewish cloth- ing-shops, and then, staff in hand, hastened on over the monotonous plains, and through the highways almost fenced with wretchedly painted shrines, to the Paris of the west, Vienna. There again were rare treasures of art on which he might study, and in study, increase in that dignity and expansion of soul which only such contemplation can give. He was delighted to hear the composer Strauss, and his orchestra, and amusingly describes the queer antics of that nervous little musician. He gazed with awe at the stained banners of the Crusaders, and, with uncovered head, listened to the grand chants in St. Stephen's Cathedral ; but his pathetic mention of his visit to the tomb of Beethoven is the most character- istic. There was a most lovable trait in Bayard's character, 90 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. which became even more prominent in his after years of travel, which deserves mention in this connection. He never railed upon the dead, nor ridiculed the re- ligious belief or acts of devotion of any people, how- ever ignorant or heathenish. He often mentioned, with emotion, the efforts of the darkened human mind to find its Creator and Ruler. He treated with sin- cerest respect every act of devotion performed in his presence, whether by Protestant, Catholic, or Mahom- edan. There was that in his nature, and his early Quaker education, that not only kept him in the paths of morality and on the side of virtue, but through all his writings there runs a thread of faith in God, which cannot be better expressed than by quoting one of his own sweet hymns. " In the peace of hearts at rest, In the child at mother's breast, In the lives that now surround ns, In the deaths that sorely wound us, Though we may not understand, Father, we behold Thy hand ! " After leaving Vienna, he went, by the way of Enns to Lintz, which is situated in one of the most pictur- esque landscapes of the Danube. The city is sur- rounded by towers unconnected by walls and has a very romantic history. Bayard in his letters speaks of the rural scenes about Lintz in terms of the highest admiration. It was in these Austrian landscapes that ARRIVAL AT MUNICH. 91 he composed that poem entitled "The Wayside Dream," and in which we find the following descriptive lines : 11 The deep and lordly Danube Goes winding far below ; I see the white-walled hamlets Amid his vineyards glow, And southward, through the ether, shine The Styrian hills of snow. " O'er many a league of landscape Sleeps the warm haze of noon ; The wooing winds come freighted With messages of June, And down among the corn and flowers I hear the water's tune. " The meadow-lark is singing, As if it still were morn ; Within the dark pine-forest The hunter winds his horn, And the cuckoo's shy, complaining note Mocks the maidens in the corn." From Lintz, over hills and by meadows, among the merry farmers and their light-hearted children, they walked on, through Salzburg and Hohenlinden, to Munich, where another magnificent display of paint- ings, sculpture, palaces, parks, and historic local- ities, rewarded him for his long walk and limited supply of food. He had so little money that he was compelled to live on twenty cents a day. There he found the great works of Thorwaldsen, Cornelius, 92 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. and Sch wan thaler, and copies in marble of almost every celebrated piece of antique sculpture. There were the gorgeous palaces of kings and dukes, the beautifully wrought halls and churches, with the spacious avenues and charming parks. . No city in the world contains such rich decorations, such unique and profuse ornamentation, or such harmony of design and arrangement, as is shown in the palace halls and public edifices of Munich. How a visit to them sweetens everything else in after life, and how the memory of them ever lightens the burden of care ! What Ameri- can could walk those pavements and floors and not yearn for the power to give to his own country some- thing to match those marvellous structures ! Bayard must have felt that impulse in common with others ; but, unlike many others, he kept his promise, which was to awaken a love in every American heart for art in its grand and stable forms ; and many are the promptings and rebukes which we, as a people, have received from his pen as writer, and from his lips as a lecturer. From Munich, the route chosen by Bayard lay through Augsburg, Ulm, and Wurtemberg, and when he entered the latter country, at Esslingen, he said the very atmosphere was permeated with poetry. He was delighted with the green vales, lofty hills, lovely vineyards, waving forests, and feudal ruins. He was grateful to the kind people, and was made happy by their universal cheerfulness and good-nature. It was WURTEMBERG AND SCHILLER. 93 the home of Schiller ! There the first nine years of the poet's life were spent, and scarce a nook is there about the interesting old cities which that boy did not explore. It was toward Wurtemberg, as his child- hood's home, Schiller exhibited the greatest regard ; alas, it was there, too, in Stuttgart, that the tyrannical Duke imprisoned him for publishing his first play. There, too, the patriotic Uhland sat in the halls of leg- islation, and wrote those poems which fired the hearts of his countrymen to a brave defence of fatherland. Bayard's happy stay in Esslingen, and his word-pic- tures of its attractions, show the progress which he had already made in his love for that German poetry, of which he was to become so popular an expounder. He praises the river Neckar and its flowery banks, he lauds the people, he portrays the landscapes in the brightest colors which poetry may lend to prose. Bright day ! one he never recalled without exclama- tions of pleasure ! After such interest as he exhibited in the country of Schiller, it is no surprise, the next day after leaving Esslingen, to find him in Stuttgart, looking up into the pensive face of Thorwaldsen's colossal statue of Schiller. So attracted and entranced was he by the interpretation of Schiller, made by the natives, the scenery, and the old home, that when beautiful Stutt- gart opens its avenues, parks, cathedrals, palaces, and galleries to him, he forsakes and neglects them all for this huge but faithfully wrought counterfeit in stone of 94 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. the persecuted singer. To his naturally sentimental and sensitive character, the German poet was revealed in ideals more fascinating than any realities. He studied the face of his brother poet, praised his beauty, repeated a broken stanza of " William Tell," and left the other attractions of Stuttgart unseen. Passing the castle of Ludwigsburg, and skirting the village of Marbach, the birth-place of Schiller, a village then about the size of Kennett now, but obliged to push on for fear of starvation, he walked to Betigheim, and thence the next day to his first German home, Heidelberg. VISIT TO SWITZERLAND. 95 CHAPTER XII. Starts for Switzerland and Italy. — First View of the Alps. — The Falls of the Rhine. — Zurich. — A Poet's Home. — Lake Lucerne. — Goethe's Cottage. — Scenes in the Life of William Tell. — Ascent of the Alps at St. Gothard. — Descent into Italy. — The Cathedral at Milan. — Bayard's Characteristics. — Tramp to Genoa. — Visits Leghorn and Pisa. — Lovely Florence. — De- lightful Visits. — The Home of Art. August 1, 1845, Bayard again started from Frank- fort on his pedestrian wanderings, having made up his mind to visit Switzerland, Florence, Venice, Eome, and perhaps Athens. On this trip his cousin Frank was again his companion. With their knapsacks on their shoulders and staffs in hand they began another pilgrimage, confident and strong. With but a small supply of money, and with but shadowy probabilities of more, they launched out into a world to them un- tried and unknown. With excited imaginations and the keenest anticipations they rose above every dif- ficulty and faced boldly the probabilities of fatigue and want. They made a short stay at Freiburg and entered the Black Forest, passing the Titi Lake and the Felcl- berg peak. Bayard's disposition for ascending moun- tains, which inclined him to see the top of everything, led him to go up the cragged side of the Feldberg, from 96 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. the summit of which he could just make out the white crests of the Alps. On the nearer approach to them, and when from the last ranges of the hills of the Black Forest, they beheld the white Alps in all their inde- scribable grandeur looming up at the other side of the vast plain, Bayard spoke of the patriotic feelings which such a sight must excite in the mind and heart of a Swiss returning after a long absence to his native land. He thought of his old nurse and her tales of the Alpine scenery, and of the knolls and vales of his own home. It is no wonder that the Swiss are free and brave and strong. The waterfalls, cliffs, and cloud-piercing mountains fill the soul with a sense of grandeur and glory which tends toward . great deeds and fervent patriotism. Who can recall the eternal snows, the towering shafts of rock, the roaring caverns, and sweetest of blue lakes, without the most thrilling emo- tions ! If there are any travellers upon whom the memory of Switzerland brings no such feelings, they are the exceptions. Bayard's nature was such as to enjoy to the full, and sometimes with an intensity that was almost pain, all those sublime exhibitions of the power and majesty of the great Creator. The fall of the Rhine near Schaffhausen hardly met the expectations of these travellers, who had heard their German friends speak in such strong terms of its greatness. It is a most beautiful waterfall, and when viewed from the platform at the base of the cliff beneath the castle, startles the spectatoi with its AT ZURICH. 97 thundering plunges and foaming whirlpools. To a native of the same land with Niagara, the Yosemite, and the Yellowstone, its size is insignificant. But its beauty as a picturesque scene, when the high banks, the long rapids, the surging pools beneath, and the jagged rocks that rise through and above the spray and rainbows, are included in the panorama, can be described onlv in the strongest lan^uaofe. From Schaffhausen they hurried on by the fields of the free and happy Swiss farmers, and along highways that reminded him of his Pennsylvania home, into the city of Zurich. There he carefully noted the charac- ter and customs of the people. He was cheered by their friendly greetings, he was surprised at their in- telligence, he was pleased by the happy faces of the children, and he Avas proud of the apparent influence of a republic over its people. He visited the cele- brated poet, Freiligrath, at his villa on the shores of the lake, where the young American poet and his elder German brother had a most social talk of Bryant, Longfellow, and Whittier. From Freiligrath's exile home, they walked by the "Devil's Bridge" to the Abbey of Einsiedeln, where the crowd of pilgrims and the sweetest of singers in the church choir made a pleasant and charming impression upon Bayard's mind. Thence by valleys, and mountains, so broken and grand, and by streams so delicately blue that descended to the placid Zug, they journeyed to Lake Lucerne. There, on the shore, in a charming grotto, upon which 1)8 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. the Bighi and Pilatus look down, while above and be- yond them the white peaks of the loftier Alps shim- mer in the sunshine above the clouds, William Tell, the father of Swiss liberty, had his home. There, in an embowered cottage, that peeped from the leaves like a maiden so coy, resided for a long time the poet Goethe ; and there, according to his own account, he studied the plot for a poem, but which was afterwards embodied by his friend Schiller in the drama of " Wil- liam Tell." There was the rock on which Tell leaped from Gessler's boat ; there grew the linden-tree where Tell shot the apple from the head of his son ; there the chapel of William Tell, and there the hundreds of in- teresting localities connected more or less closely with the early tyranny of Austria and the heroic resistance of the Swiss patriots. Bayard loved the works of Schiller, as, in fact, could hardly be avoided by any one who reads them in the original tongue and amid the scenes so strikingly described. From Burglen, where Tell was born and where he so heroically died while attempting to save a child from drowning, they marched upward along the banks of the Reuss to Amsteg, and thence along the precipices where the craggy mountains rose thousands of feet above them, and the wild stream surged and raged far, far below them. No scene more wild and overwhelm- ingly grand than that at the "Devil's Bridge," over which they crossed on their way to the summit of St. Gothard. Black chasms yawned at their feet ; enor- ST. GOTHARD. 99 mous shelving rocks hung threatening overhead. Clouds of spray, like steam from huge caldrons, arose from numberless pits, wherein the streams boiled and hissed in their crevice-like channels. The clear air was like wine. The peaks seemed to reach to heaven, and gleamed with celestial purity. The charm of the scenery lifted the mind and awakened the holiest emo- tions, while the balm of health permeated the body, and gave it a strength seemingly supernatural. What person is there who loves not the dear old peaks of Switzerland ! Who has passed the heights of St. Goth- ard and not awakened a glow in his body and an im- pulse in his soul that strengthen him ever after ! But it is not our purpose to portray to the reader the scenes, in the description of which Bayard so much excelled, and hence, making note only of such things as had a marked influence on his life and writ- ings, we hastily follow him in his pilgrimage through the vale of Ticino, over Lago Maggiore, to the gates of Milan, under the clear blue sky of lovely Italy. There the most magnificent marble Cathedral in all the world, when considered as a triumph of art in reproducing the Beautiful, lifted its spires and figures above the roofs of churches and palaces. A bewildering forest of peaks and towers confuse the student of its outline, and innumerable collections of exquisitely wrought groups and statues dishearten and confuse the student of art. Yet the unity of its proportions, and the symmetry of its arches and cornices, were recognized 100 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. by all. Bayard trod its artistic pavement with feel- ings of awe and admiration. He gazed long upon its aisles and pillars, and crept on tip-toe into the shad- ows of its great altar. It is one of the most solemn things in life to stand in such a temple of genius. The stained windows, with their sacred figures and symbols, the sweet reverberations of the sacred music, the low chant of the priests, the kneeling forms of penitent worshippers, the strength of the workman- ship and vastness of its sombre recesses, awaken sen- sations that sleep in the open air. The naturally vicious and cruel avoid those chancels, and the wise and good gain encouragement from the supreme calm that reigns therein. Bayard enjoyed his stay in Milan and his visits to the Cathedral most heartily, and it was an important experience in the development of his natural character. How his skill in observation, and his interest in everything had increased ! Bright and acute by nature, he saw and noted many things when he first landed, which others would have passed without observing ; but those months of discipline and anxious research had developed this characteristic, until, as he enters Italy, he notices every shrub, every animal, every building, every man, woman and child ; and at a glance passes them under such close scrutiny that he is able, months after, to describe them in all the details of form, color, nature, association, habits, and occupation. How boundless and fathomless is the un- observed about us ! How few notice the myriad of CLOSE OBSERVATION. 101 interesting and enlightening objects and incidents that come within the range of their vision ! The disposi- tion and aptitude for observation is as indispensable to the traveller, as it is convenient to one who plods the dull routine of home life. Bayard was naturally discerning and inclined to investigate. Such will be the deliberate conclusion of one who studies his life as a whole, although his enemies have sometimes taken advantage of his modest suppressions to accuse him of blindness. Bayard sees a child in the garments of priesthood, and pities him for his solitary life. He meets a poor woman and notices the texture of her dress, and the scar upon her cheek. He looks at a painting of the Cathedral, and observes that a spire is wanting. He looks at the towers, and compares those creations of art with the more rugged spires of Monte Rosa's ice-crags. He laments the ignorance of the people whose features advertised their needs. He studies and criticises the shape and position of the Arch of Peace, and the bronze groups that adorn its summit : shops, toy-stands, cabs, soldiers, flowers, priests, dukes, houses, fields, schools, coin, clothing, atmosphere, and food, — all are noticed and laid away for recollection, as without order they attracted his attention. He discovered more worth relating in Milan, than some travellers saw in the whole of Europe.* * As Bayard says of Oss6o in his poem of Mon-da-Miu: — " He could guess The knowledge other minds but slowly plucked From out the heart of things : to him, as well As to his Gods, all things were possible." 102 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. From Milan the party walked to Genoa, going through the battle-fields of Hannibal and the Csesars, along highways once the paved roads of the Roman Empire, and under the shadows of ancient castles whose walls once bristled with the shields of knights and spears of yeomen. It was a glorious, though tedious journey, and by thus travelling in the manner of pilgrims they met the inhabitants at their usual occu- pations, and learned much of the customs and feelings of the common people. Such information comes not through the windows of railroad carriages, nor enters by the portals of grand hotels. Having visited the ducal palaces, cathedrals, and parks of Genoa, he went by boat to Leghorn, and thence to Pisa. There he saw, in the Cathedral, the swin